Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

that.”
    Shakespeare was. In a cutthroat business, Marlowe owned sharper knives than most. Unlike some, he seldom bothered pretending otherwise. After a moment’s thought, Shakespeare said, “God be praised, I am not so hungry I needs must take bread from another man’s mouth.”
    â€œAh, dear Will. An there be a God, He might do worse than hearpraises from such as you. You’re a blockhead, but an honest blockhead.” Marlowe stood up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. “I’ll bring the fellow to your ordinary at eventide tomorrow—I know the place you favor. Till then.” He hurried toward Bishopsgate. This time, the set of his shoulders said Shakespeare would have been unwelcome had he tried to stay up with him.
    With a sigh, Shakespeare trudged down Shoreditch High Street after him. Just when a man looked like understanding Marlowe, he would do something like that. He could not praise without putting a poison sting in amongst the honey, but the kiss had been, or at least had seemed, real.
    â€œHurry up, hurry up,” guards at the gate called. “Get on in, the lot of you.” They were a mixed lot, Englishmen and rawboned Irish mercenaries. The Irish soldiers looked achingly eager to kill someone, anyone. Rumor said they ate human flesh. Shakespeare didn’t care to find out if rumor were true. Not meeting their fierce, falconlike gazes, he scuttled into the city.
    His lodgings were in Bishopsgate Ward, not far from the wall, in a house owned by a widow who made her living by letting out most of the space. He had his own bed, but two others crowded the room where he slept. One of the men who shared the chamber, a glazier named Jack Street, had a snore that sounded like a lion’s roar. The other, a lively little fellow called Peter Foster, called himself a tinker. Shakespeare suspected he was a sneakthief. He didn’t foul his own nest, though; nothing had ever gone missing at the lodging house.
    â€œYou’re late today, Master William,” said Jane Kendall, Shakespeare’s landlady. “By Our Lady, I hope all went well at the Theatre.” She made the sign of the cross. From things she’d said over the couple of years he’d lived there, she’d been a Catholic even before the Armada restored England’s allegiance to Rome.
    â€œWell enough, I thank you,” he replied. “Sometimes, when talking amongst ourselves after the play, we do lose track of time.” With so many people living so close together, secrets were hard to keep. Telling a piece of the truth often proved the best way to keep all of it from coming out.
    â€œAnd the house was full?” Widow Kendall persisted.
    â€œNear enough.” Shakespeare smiled and made a leg at her, as if she were a pretty young noblewoman, not a frowzy, gray-haired tallowchandler’s widow. “Never fear. I’ll have no trouble with the month’s rent.”
    She giggled and simpered like a young girl, too. But when she said,“That I’m glad to hear,” her voice held nothing but truth. A lodger without his rent became in short order a former lodger out on the street. Still, he’d pleased her, for she went on, “There’s new-brewed ale in the kitchen. Take a mug, if you care to.”
    â€œThat I will, and right gladly.” Shakespeare fitted action to word. The widow made good ale. Hopped beer, these days, was commoner than the older drink, for it soured much more slowly. He savored the mug, and, when his landlady continued to look benign, took another. Nicely warmed, he said, “Now I’m to the ordinary for supper.”
    She nodded. “Don’t forget the hour and keep scribbling till past curfew,” she warned.
    â€œI shan’t.” I hope I shan’t , Shakespeare thought. Or do I? The eatery made a better place to work than the lodging house. On nights when ideas seemed to flow straight from his mind onto the