The Greatest Lover in All England Read online

  “He fears pain. So he’s a coward. Yet he dared to return to London after Essex had marked him for death, for love of Your Majesty and the peace of her kingdom. He came like a tiger and you imprisoned him like a kitten. And why? Because Essex wanted you to. Because you wanted to try to appease that pretty spoiled boy with his honeyed tongue.”

  She boxed Tony’s ears again. “You could take lessons from him.”

  “In betraying my queen? I think not.”

  She boxed his ears again. And again. He flinched beneath the assault, for she had a strong arm and a wicked temper, but he wouldn’t lift his hand to his queen, as Essex had tried to do when she treated him with similar disrespect. Tony hoped she remembered and made the comparison. He hoped she would follow the instinct that had protected her kingdom for the forty-two years of her sovereignty.

  If she did, he didn’t see it.

  “Get out!” she shouted. “Get out of my sight, and don’t come back.”

  He bowed. “Sir Danny Plympton will die happy if he can help the captain of this ship we call England steer a safe course through these shoals. He is your most faithful admirer.”

  Picking up a gold enamel pot, she shouted, “Go!”

  He bowed again and backed toward the door. “Call him before you. Hear what he has to say. I beg of you, madam. Listen to his words.”

  She let fly with the pot as he shut the door, and it smashed at the place where his head had been. “Insolent baggage,” she raged. “How dare he speak to me in such a manner?”

  Bobbing and weaving like a Christian facing an enraged lioness, Sir Robert Cecil declared, “Sir Anthony Rycliffe is an insolent fool.”

  “Fool? Fool?” Queen Elizabeth snatched up a vase and threw it at Cecil’s head. Cecil didn’t dodge as well as Tony and took the blow in the chest. “Sir Anthony Rycliffe is no fool.”

  “Nay, madam, he’s a rogue.”

  Her rage temporarily expunged, she sank onto a pile of cushions arranged for her comfort. “Aye, he’s a rogue.”

  “A knave,” Cecil suggested.

  “Not a knave.” Exhausted by her tantrum, she closed her eyes.

  “Madam, shall can I call your ladies-in-waiting?”

  “Nay.” She flapped a limp hand. “Call the tooth drawer.”

  Cecil bowed, although she couldn’t see him, and hastened to the door. As he opened it, she said, “And Cecil?”

  “Aye, Your Majesty?”

  “Bring me Sir Danny Plympton. Immediately. I wish to question him.”

  The Chamberlain’s Men and the members of Sir Danny’s troupe laughed and quarreled as they drank the evening away at Cross Keys Inn in Gracechurch Street. This was their place; it had always been their place, just as the Queen’s Men gathered at the Bull in Bishopgate Street and the Earl of Worcester’s Men gathered at the Boar’s Head in Whitechapel. When the winter grew too bitter to perform their plays in the open-roofed Globe Theater, they came and performed in the inn. The innkeeper found it a draw for customers, and for the most part the actors behaved in a seemly manner.

  But now he kept a weather eye on them as they debated the most outrageous event in the history of theater.

  Lady Rosalyn Bellot wanted to perform with the Chamberlain’s Men, and before the queen, no less.

  Richard Burbage, leading player for the Chamberlain’s Men, peered gloomily into his tankard of beer. “Rosencrantz is a woman now, they say.”

  “Aye, she’s a woman now.” Cedric Lambeth, fool for Sir Danny’s troupe, pulled his fife from a flap inside his doublet and played a tune, one that ranged from deep and masculine to high and feminine, with a confusion of notes in the middle. “We saw her, me and Sir Danny’s boys, and she’s a woman. Sir Anthony Rycliffe knew she was a woman from the moment he laid eyes on her, I trow, but then he’s the greatest lover in all England.”

  Dickie Justin McBride, the handsome actor who had been Rosie’s childhood torment, stopped drinking in mid-swig. “Who says?”

  Cedric wrinkled his brow. “Think ’twas him that told me.”

  A blast of laughter from the men on the benches tossed him in a somersault, and he came up grinning.

  Richard Burbage shouted, “Sir Anthony sounds like a man with his mind in his codpiece—just where it belongs.”

  Finishing his drink, Dickie thumped his tankard hard on the table. “Sir Anthony Rycliffe may be a boasting bastard, but he’s master of the Queen’s Guard. What’s he going to say if we let his woman play the part of Ophelia? Not just play the part, but do it before Her Majesty.”

  The merriment faded; then a voice from the back, timid and unsure, called, “It’s not as if she hasn’t played the part before.”

  “Aye, but we didn’t know before.” John Barnstaple of Sir Danny’s troupe excused their previous actions.

  “Do you think our ignorance would matter to the Puritan bullyboys if they ever found out?” Dickie leaped onto the plank table and stomped from end to end, shaking the tankards. The men snatched up their drinks as he passed and brayed for him to jump down. Instead, he swirled his short cape and projected his voice. “’Tis the infraction they’ve been waiting for. They’ve been saying the theater is the storehouse of sin for all England. If they found out a woman performed the women’s roles, they’d point and say that it proved our wickedness.” He glared into each man’s eyes as he circled the table. “Verily, ’twould be the truth.”

  The speaker in the back sounded curious. “What’s so dreadful about a woman playing women’s roles?”

  Richard Burbage stared into the shadows and said dolefully, “Don’t be daft, man. ’Tisn’t done.”

  “She’s made fools of us for years.” Alleyn Brewer, Rosie’s principal rival for the lady’s roles, stood on a bucket before the fire and waved a tankard of ale. “Why should we help her make a fool of the queen?”

  “She made a fool of us?” Cedric stood on a bucket behind Alleyn, doing an imitation of the effeminate young man. “She made no fool of me. I made a fool of myself, and I’m sure every man here will second that boastfully.” Alleyn spun around on his bucket and glared, and Cedric said soothingly, “Except you, of course, Alleyn.”

  The actors who perched on the tables in the taproom made little attempt to muffle their merriment as Alleyn spoke. “If the queen should discover that Ophelia’s role is played by a woman, we’ll lose everything. Our patron, our playhouse, and our livelihood.”

  “If Rosie doesn’t play Ophelia, we’ll lose the man who guided our faltering feet along the path of performing.” Cedric hopped off the bucket and scampered along, mimicking an actor’s difficult voyage.

  Dickie snorted. “But what can Rosie do for Sir Danny?”

  “She’ll play Ophelia, and Queen Elizabeth will be so moved she’ll grant her a boon.” The soft voice spoke from the shadows at the back. “Rosie will ask for the life of Sir Danny, and he’ll be saved.”

  Voices hummed as everyone nodded, satisfied with this prediction of the future. Everyone but Dickie.

  “Rosie’s going to do this? Rosie? The same Rosie who can’t act her way out of a sheep’s bladder?” Dickie held his ribs. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  The room fell silent. Gazes slid from one side to the other, touching, sidling away. No one wanted to admit the truth of it, but Cedric took the temperature of the room.

  “So for fear of the stocks, we should slink away like rat-eating weasels and let Sir Danny die?” He spit in the fire, and it sizzled with a yellow flare. “You’re a babe, mewling and puking in craven dismay at the first hint of danger.”

  Dickie knocked over a tankard, splattering his shoes. “I’m a wise man. I know when we go to Newgate and pay for Sir Danny to be fed and given blankets, and the jailers—as greedy a bunch of bastards who ever drew breath—refuse to even accept the money, I know that Sir Danny has been nipped by a great lord, and we’re marking ourselves by trying to help him. ’Tis you who is a babe, reaching for the sharp edge of the executioner’s blade and pulling away bloody
fingers.”

  In the battle of eloquent phrases, Dickie had won, and that counted for much with the actors. But Cedric expressed his own conviction in an equally eloquent gastric event. He bowed amid cheers and applause.

  In desperation, Alleyn said, “Let someone else do it.”

  Cedric closed one eye and pressed his finger to his nose. “What?”

  “Aye. Let anyone else do it,” Dickie said. “Let anyone else play Ophelia. If we let Rosie do it, we’re condemning Sir Danny.”

  “We could do that,” Cedric agreed. “’Twould be safer.”

  A draft whistled through the room, and William Shakespeare stood in the doorway, his cape wrapped close around his ears. He asked, “But when have we ever done what is safe?”

  “Rosie’s got to have her chance,” that shy one called from the back.

  Will Shakespeare whipped his head around and stared into the shadows. Did he recognize that voice?

  “’Tis fitting that she should be the one to rescue Sir Danny.” John Barnstaple sounded thoughtful.

  Trying to lure further comments from the back, Will said, “I came to tell you. The date is affixed.” Actually, two dates were affixed, but he hesitated to tell them he planned to refuse moneys for a performance of his most notorious, most treacherous play. “The Chamberlain’s Men will perform Hamlet for Her Majesty on the evening of February eighth, three days hence. We must decide who will play the part of Ophelia for Queen Elizabeth’s pleasure, and decide it now.”

  “I say Alleyn should play Ophelia.” Dickie waved at Alleyn, posed on the overturned bucket and still as a stone effigy.

  “I say Rosie should play Ophelia,” Cedric declared.

  “Rosie’s not here to present her own case. In sooth, Rosie seems to be nowhere and everywhere, all at the same time.” Shakespeare glanced around intently. “Has anyone here actually seen Rosie?”

  One by one the men shook their heads.

  “I thought I saw her on London Bridge,” one said. “But she disappeared before I could catch her.”

  “I saw something more real than Rosie,” John Barnstaple said. “I saw Ludovic.”

  “Ludovic?” Alleyn paled. “That foreign ape is present in London?”

  “He is,” John Barnstaple confirmed.

  “You aren’t afraid of Ludovic, are you, Alleyn?” The voice at the back strengthened and taunted.

  “He has a dagger,” Alleyn said, as if that explained everything.

  “And a rapier, too.” John Barnstaple spoke in a cajoling tone. “So does everyone else in this city. So what?”

  “He’ll skin me alive if I take that part from Rosie,” Alleyn said.

  “What are you saying?” Will asked. “That you don’t want to play the part of Ophelia for the queen?”

  Dickie strode to Alleyn and shook him so hard he fell off the stool and landed on his bum. In disgust, Dickie kicked at the shivering bundle. “Get up and declare your desire to act the part.”

  “Let Rosie have it,” Alleyn declared, clinging to the leg of a bench. “I would not play it if Queen Elizabeth herself begged me.”

  Will swept the room with an all-encompassing stare. In the manner of a judge passing a sentence, he declared, “If Rosie’s in London, I say she must present herself to me before tomorrow at noon, or Alleyn will play Ophelia.”

  Alleyn moaned.

  Everyone started talking at once, and William Shakespeare listened until he heard the door open and close, and knew the bait had been taken. Then he stepped outside into the dark courtyard where thin snakes of fog had begun to slither. The half-moon provided a bit of light, and he’d taken only a few steps when two figures, one slight and one tall, stepped out from beneath the eaves and confronted him.

  The large man’s very stance bespoke challenge, but William Shakespeare concentrated on the shorter one. A voluminous cape and a large floppy cap made identification difficult. Then she spoke in the diffident tones of the player in the back of the taproom, and her words made him laugh in exultation.

  “Uncle Will, I’ve come to tell you I’m going to act the part of Ophelia.”

  The sodden atmosphere clung to Tony, but he pulled his hat over his ears and strode along the street. He didn’t fear the darkness, so thick he had to rely on senses other than sight. This was what he’d wished for—the opportunity to seek the queen’s enemies in the stews and palaces of Londontown. His return had relieved his captain, for although Wart-Nose Harry could handle trouble among the citizens, trouble from the gentry required discretion. Tony protested that his own discretion consisted of a sharp edge on his blade, but Wart-Nose claimed it was a discreet sword point. Now he trotted up Gracechurch Street with Tony, giving his report in troubled tones. “I tell ye, Master, th’ lord o’ Essex has run wild, an’ all th’ discontents o’ London have run wi’ him.”

  “That’s no news.” Tony sniffed the air, which lightened a little as they moved farther away from the Thames. He should have been perfectly happy. Perfectly happy, except Queen Elizabeth had banished him, prison had swallowed Sir Danny, and London had swallowed Rosie. On the few times he’d been out, he’d questioned some of Sir Danny’s troupe about Rosie’s whereabouts, but they all claimed ignorance. He didn’t believe them. They seemed to be telling the truth, but they were actors, after all. He’d set spies on them, but he’d had no results as yet, so Tony resolved to check at Cross Keys Inn for his lady. She had to be there. She had to be somewhere.

  Unless her throat had been slit on her trip to London, or some dockfront madam had captured her and placed her in stock.

  Tony shuddered and realized Wart-Nose was talking. “I have a man in Essex House.”

  “In Essex House?” Amazed anew at Wart-Nose’s ingenuity, Tony asked, “How did you do that?”

  “’Twas not hard. Every malcontent in London resides there. Lord Essex, with Lord Southampton, Sir Christopher Blount, and Sir Charles Davers, have determined to surprise the court and the queen’s person.”

  “Surprise them?” It was no more than Tony expected. “To what purpose?”

  “To rescue the queen from evil advisers.”

  A glint of white light shimmered across Wart-Nose’s grim features, and Tony glanced up. The patchy fog stuck fast across the sky in some places, while in others it drifted, playing dodge with the half-moon. “A traditional formula for English rebels.”

  “Essex, with all duty, will tell the queen she must dismiss his enemies.”

  “Sir Robert Cecil first, I trow.”

  Patient with Tony’s interruptions, Wart-Nose agreed. “No doubt. After they are dismissed, and Queen Elizabeth has appointed Essex Lord Protector, Essex will put his enemies on trial for their lives and afterward summon a Parliament and alter the government.”

  “Damn.” The incoming fog gathered on Tony’s lashes and brows and trickled down his face. “Is that all?”

  “If need be, they will shed Queen Elizabeth’s blood.”

  The words and the flat tone in which he spoke them froze Tony’s feet to the ground. “May they burn in hell, and may I be the one to send them there.” He contemplated the gratifying picture of Essex doused in eternity’s fire, then sighed. He feared, even now, that Essex would somehow escape the torment due him. It was true, London adored Essex, but it venerated Queen Elizabeth and had from the day of her ascension to the throne. Might not good sense—not Essex’s, Tony never apprehended that—but the good sense of one of his advisers dissuade Essex from open revolt at the last moment? Until Elizabeth’s trust in Essex had been completely destroyed, her sovereignty would never be completely sturdy. “Is that all?” Tony asked, half-wistful, half-joking.

  “I thought ’twere plenty, Master.”

  Wart-Nose sounded stricken, and Tony sighed. He had forgotten the soldier had no sense of humor. “That’s more than enough. You’ve done well, my friend.” Clapping his hand on Wart-Nose’s shoulder, Tony continued, “I’ll have to find a way to send Queen Elizabeth a message from someone sh
e could not fail to trust.”

  A man swirled out of the mist. Tony grabbed his shoulder and slammed him against a wall. Slivers of light slipped through the shutters, revealing Hal, haggard and hollow-eyed. “God’s blood, Hal, what are you doing here?” He clutched Hal tighter. “Is something wrong at the manor?”

  “Master, please Master.” Hal struggled against Tony’s grip. “Ye’re hurtin’ me.”

  Reluctantly, Tony loosened his fingers.

  “All is well at Sadler House, but—”

  “Odyssey Manor,” Tony corrected.

  “Aye, Master.” Hal bobbed up and down. “But I accompanied Lady Honora an’ yer sisters.”

  “Lady Honora?” Tony remembered the cut and swollen face he’d last seen at Odyssey Manor. Regardless of good sense, he felt responsible for her wounds, and with sincere concern, he asked, “How is that dear lady? Has she recovered from her injuries?”

  Hal wiped a drop of moisture off the end of his pointed nose and smeared it on his doublet. “Lady Honora seems t’ have returned t’ her former self.”

  “Ah.” Tony grinned. “Excellent. In sooth, I expected her to rush to Sir Danny’s rescue sooner.”

  “She got a fever,” Hal reported.

  “Poor lady. Have there been any other incidents at Odyssey Manor? Has anyone else been injured?”

  “Nay, Master.” Hal sniffled. “Must be ye who causes them. Do ye think ye’ll be giving it up?”

  “Giving what up? Odyssey Manor?” Tony was shocked. “Never. ’Tis mine until I die. But why are you here? Tonight? In this night of chill and unsavory vapor?”

  “The ladies sent me out t’ tell ye they’d arrived, an’ th’ men in th’ guardhouse suggested ye’d be here.” Hal’s flaming gaze seemed to pierce the mist and see the environs of Gracechurch Street. “Int’ this cesspool o’ sin.” He tucked his chin down onto his chest and closed his eyes. “I had hoped never t’ see it again.”