“It is our joy and duty, and we are already well compensated, Master Walsingham.”

The galliard ended; the dancers made courtesy to the musicians and called for drink. Will joined the polite applause.

“So I understand.” Walsingham smiled; it rounded the angle of his cheek and turned him from handsome courtier into dashing rogue. Even forewarned, Will felt himself charmed. “But a man should be of a mind to make friends where he may, and players are fair friends to have. Sometimes. And summer is coming, and my house at Chislehurst is not too far from London for a play.”

“Ah,” Will said. “Yes,” he said. “Carefully made friends are a good thing to have, if they return the care.”

Walsingham’s eyes darkened. “An excellent play. May you write many more, and be as careful in your friends. Sometimes their care can have an unexpected source. Do contact me. Oh, here is Doctor Lopez. Do wish to counsel this fine playmaker on his health, good Doctor?”

“A moment of his time, if you can spare it,” Lopez said in his accented voice. Walsingham, nodding, withdrew.

“Master Shakespeare, I wish to congratulate you on the success of your work tonight.”

He did not mean the play. As Will turned to him, he was as certain of that as he was of the mockery behind Lopez’s arch expression.

“The Ambassador honors my poor efforts,” he said. Lopez rubbed the tip of his nose.

“Honor puts no beef on the table,” he said, and dropped a clinking purse in the rushes at Will’s feet, where Will would need to stoop to retrieve it. “I’ve a word from Burghley. The word is well done.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Will said. Lopez patted him on the arm, a ruby ring worn over his glove glittering with the motion.

“You’re more biddable than the last one,” he said, as he turned away. “That can only bode well.”

Will’s shoulders tightened; his arms hung numb. Five heartbeats later he took a breath, and ducked down to retrieve the purse. However callously offered, a shilling was a shilling, and the purse had clinked like a great many of them. It had the aspect of a dance, he thought, as he stood and found himself facing Essex. “My lord,” he said, and bowed low.

“Take your ease,” Essex answered. He was alone, for a wonder, with neither courtiers nor the simpering Southampton in attendance.

Will relaxed incrementally. “What is my lord’s pleasure?”

“A word of warning,” Essex said. “Have a care in handling the coin of a poisoner, Master Shakespeare. You know that damned Portugall was Sir Francis Walsingham’s doctor when Sir Francis breathed his last, in agony.”

“I have heard it so bandied, my lord,” Will agreed.

“Hmph.” Essex regarded Will down the length of his nose, expectantly, and Will cringed like a bumpkin. There was something to be said for having the face for comic parts. “Moreover,” said Essex, “it’s well-known that Sir Francis papers vanished from his chamber at his death, and Lopez was among the few with access to the same.”

And you so upset by it, my lord, for you would have wrested control of his agents after his death?“I shall be entirely cautious, my lord.”

“See you are.” And now Essex in turn was withdrawing, after a short glance over Will’s shoulder. “Lopez is a traitor, and I do not doubt he’ll hang. It would be a shame to hang a poet with him. Good day, sirrah.”

“Good day, my lord.” Will counted three, and turned from Essex’s receding back and into the orbit of Her Majesty, the Queen. Her gown was figured silk, white on white, her mantle thick with ermine against the January cold that even the press of bodies couldn’t drive from the hall. Sir Walter Raleigh in his black hung at her shoulder, a raven to Elizabeth’s gerfalcon, all devilish beard and tilted cap, eyes sharp as a mink’s over his impressive nose, an air of pipe-tobacco and dissolution on his shoulders in place of a cloak. Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex, God is merciful, was now nowhere in evidence.

“You, Your Majesty.” Will dropped a hasty bow, wondering if his face would tumble to the floor and shatter like a mask if all the blood really did drain from it. “At your ease, Master Shakespeare,” she said. Raleigh stayed a step behind and to her left. He caught Will’s eye as Will stood, sure he was about to faint, and he winked. Her Majesty never saw it, but the slight gesture calmed Will enough to get a breath, and as the air filled him, the panic retreated. “Your Majesty is very kind”

“Rarely.” Her gray eyes crinkled at the corners, irises dark in the alabaster of her paint; it was the only trace of her smile. By her breath, her teeth were rotten, and Will pitied her that. “And only when it suits me. Do you serve England, Will?”

“With a will, where I may,” he said daringly, remembering that she had laughed at his dirtiest jokes. Raleigh’s nose twitched. “An it please Your Majesty.”

“Clever lad,” she said. “You’ll do well, if you play the games of court as well as you played your art tonight. Of which art speaking, I understand we have common friends.”

“Surely, I could not claim equal to the title of friend to any who Your Majesty might grace with that station.”

She turned to Raleigh, amused. “He’s got a courtly tongue in him, at least. Sir Walter.”

“Your gracious Majesty.” The pearls on his doublet glimmered like moonlight as he bowed under her attention.

“What think you of this one, stepping into the place he must fill?

“Walsingham likes him. That’s never a good sign.” But it was said wryly, one black eyebrow arched, and Raleigh’s eyes held Will’s as he spoke.

“So long as Robin of Essex doesn’t like him as well. Tell me, young William, what factions do you favor in our petty dickering?” A direct, bright question, her voice mild and interested, the turn of her neck like one of her swans within the elaborate serpentine of her ruff.

“Oh, that is one question that is many questions, Madam. The Earl of Southampton is my patron, Your Majesty, and lord Strange the patron of my company. But my loyalty is given to my Prince, and she alone may command my heart.”

She seemed to wait expectantly, and he permitted himself a bold bit of a grin. “That portion my good wife permits me the use of, in any case.”

Gloriana laughed, showing the powdered curve of her throat, and stopped as abruptly. “Don’t teach this one to smoke, Sir Walter. Tis a filthy habit. Master Shakespeare, good evening.”

“Your Majesty. Sir Walter.” Will bowed, watching jeweled skirts soar away. A firm hand clapped him on the shoulder and he glanced up, into Raleigh’s glittering presence.

“Sir Walter.”

“Good to show her spunk, William.” That wink again, before he too took his leave. “We’ll see you at court again, I expect.”

Will stood shivering as they left him, and almost jumped out of his clicking court shoes when Burbage appeared beside him, holding a cup of wine.

“I see I danced away just in time. How was your pas de deux with Her Majesty?”

“More a pas de trois, I think. A game was just played over me, Richard, and I do not know the name of it.”

“As long as you didn’t lose,” Burbage said, and thrust the cup into his hand. Will took it, fingers half insensate. “Tom Walsingham likes me? I thought he just made a threat on my life.”

Two weeks later, the playhouses opened as scheduled, and a letter arrived at Will’s lodging house, forwarded without comment by Annie from Stratford.

Mr. Will. Shakspere Stratford-upon-Avon

My dearest countryman & fellow:

Please that this find you well, I have prevailed upon one Robin of my present company to deliver unto you this letter & my fondest remembrances, that all passeth well with you & the fair Anne your wife & that you me recollect fondly as you serve our fair Prince. It is to me as my days creep by that, gone as I am from England, England is almost near enough to touch: a great frustration to an exile. But even as my spirit sometimes flags, I find I am come home, & am given to hope perhaps my necessary & permanent absence will not prove so onerous as fear’d. I have an eye for you, my dear Will, & will be of assistance as I may find opportunity. I beg you trust me safe, if in politics, & well-occupied with many pleasures and problems. A letter may reach me through unusual channels, although perhaps not privily: FW knows the path. I hope you will forward your Adonis, & whatever other works you think may interest me. I would send gold to afford the purchase of books but it would not outlast the sunset as other than dross, & having been taken once for coining I’ll not will that adventure on you. So if you seek to do me this kindness I fear you shall have no recompense but mine unending affection. I am closer than you imagine. This 14th day of January 1593 (as I think it) I remain yrs affectionately & in good hope of our eventual re-acquaintance your most distant friend.