Free Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove Page B

dice with him, I’d not throw any he brought forth.”
    Shakespeare frowned and scratched his head. “Meseems that is no man I ken,” he said slowly. “Gave he a name to stand beside this his ill-favored visage?”
    Before his landlady could answer, Peter Foster laughed raucously. “Was’t the name of his wife or his sweetheart or his daughter?”
    â€œGo to!” Shakespeare said, his ears heating. He didn’t live a monk’s life in London, but he hadn’t, or didn’t think he had, given anyone cause to come after him for that kind of reason. Lieutenant de Vega boasted about the horns he put on husbands. Shakespeare, by contrast, reckoned discretion the better part of pleasure.
    Again, Widow Kendall shook her head. “He said naught of any such thing. And he did leave a name, could I but recall it. . . . I’m more forgetful with each passing year, I am. It quite scares me.” But then she suddenly grinned and snapped her fingers. “Skeres!” she exclaimed in delight.
    â€œYour pardon?” Shakespeare said, thinking she’d repeated herself and wondering why.
    â€œSkeres,” she said once more. “Nick Skeres, he called himself.”
    â€œOh.” The poet smiled at having his confusion cleared away. Even so . . . “He may know me, or know of me, but I ken him not. Said he when he might again come hither?”
    â€œNot a word of’t,” the widow replied. “I told him, seek Master Will at the Theatre of days, I said. He’s surely a ninny, and a fond ninny at that, to know where you lodge but not where you earn your bread.”
    â€œMy thanks for speaking so.” Shakespeare wasn’t at all sure he should thank her. He would have wondered at any time why a strangerwas sniffing around him. Now . . . He exhaled through his nose, a silent sigh. No help for it.
    Peter Foster sounded sly and clever and most experienced, saying, “Have a care, Master Will, do. This rogue could be a catchpole, come for to carry you off to the Clink or some other gaol.”
    â€œI’ve done naught contrarious to law,” Shakespeare said. Yet .
    Foster’s smile pitied a man capable of such naïveté. “If so be he’s paid, he’ll care not a fig for that. A few shillings weigh more than a man’s good name.” Again, his tone was that of one who knew whereof he spoke. His eyes flicked to Shakespeare’s belt. “You haven’t even a sword.”
    â€œÂ â€™Twould do me but little good,” Shakespeare said sadly. “Even for a player, a man of make-believe, I’m a cream-faced loon with blade in hand, and I give proof thereof whenever we practice our parts for a show with swordplay.”
    â€œYou know that, and now I know that, but will this Nick What’s-his-name know’t? Give me leave to doubt.” Foster winked. “An he see you with rapier on hip, what will he think? Belike, Here’s a hulking brute, could run me through , or summat o’ the sort. The porpentine need not cast his quills to make the other beasts afeard; he need only have ’em.”
    Again, the tinker—if that was what he was—made good sense. Shakespeare bowed. “Gramercy, Master Foster. I’ll take your advice, methinks.”
    He got his writing tools from his trunk and went off to the ordinary to eat and work. The threepenny supper, the serving woman said, was, “A fine mess of eels, all stewed with leeks. Master Humphrey went down to Fish Wharf and fetched back a whole great tun of ’em.”
    â€œEels?” Spit flooded into Shakespeare’s mouth. “Bring ’em on, Kate, and a cup of sack to go with ’em.”
    â€œBeer comes with the threepenny supper—the wine’s a ha’penny extra,” Kate warned. Shakespeare nodded; he wanted it anyhow.
    When the eels arrived, he dug in with gusto, savoring