“Oxford’s help isn’t help,” he said in a low voice. “If I suspected he were competent, I’d believe he meant to impede rather than assist. At least Jew and Merchant are showing a success, for all I’m hard-put to believe we staged them so swiftly as we did.”

“Has there been word of Lopez?”

Burbage, chewing thoughtfully, only turned his head from side to side. “He’ll hang, for all Burghley can do. We may be lucky enough that our work will fend off riots and worse, however. And the hunt is on for Papists. I marked adozen recusants in stocks today. Tis a time to keep your hand in your sleeve, methinks.”

“Mayhap.” Will busied himself with pie and ale, unwilling to meet Burbage seye.

Rain still rattled the shutters, and all London smelled of damp. All summer, the rain had barely lifted long enough for a man to wring the water from his cloak before descending again.

“I’ve a play in mind that might catch Her Majesty’s fancy. A tale of two warring houses. Another tragedy.”

“We could use a comedy for the Theatre. Now that the plague has lifted, that we’ve lifted the plague, aye, well, yes. People want happy things. Can you write me a comedy by All Saint’s Day, Will?”

“I wot.”

A shadow fell across the table as a stocky figure, cloak dripping rain, passed between Will and Burbage and the light.

“William Shakespeare.” A sonorous voice spoke in educated tones. “You re going bald on top, Will.”

“The heat of a well-used brain,” Will replied. “I see you have experienced the like.”

“Not I, Burbage interjected. I keep mine too well greased with ale to rub and burn. Sit down, George. Since you’ve invited.”

The poet George Chapman unwound his cloak from under his beard. Will shuffled the bench away from the trestle, and Chapman sat heavily.

“I’ve a letter from Spenser.” Chapman slapped the table to draw the wench’s attention. “He’s back in County Cork, would you believe it? Master of the Queen’s Justice, in Ireland. Sad days when the greatest poet in a generation must politic for his bread.”

Will choked on piecrust and reached for his ale, spilling half of it acros shis lap when Chapman thumped him between the shoulders. Burbage glared, lips compressed, though Will thought he had recovered nicely. He pulled a kerchief from his sleeve and dabbed at his breeches.

“He’s completed his Faerie Queene?”

“A canto or two.”

The girl came over; Chapman refused ale or wine and ordered instead small beer and stew. Will wondered if his famous temperance was distaste for drunkenness, some Puritan bent, or merely the caution of a man with no head for liquor.

“Will you grace us with another play this summer, Will?”

“One or two.” Will wrung his sopping kerchief onto the boards and spread it across the trestle to dry. “A tragedy first, and Dick Burbage wants a comedy to warm a heart or two. I may write him half a dozen this year, if he stays unwary. I’ve been reading the Italians, and my lord Southampton wishes me to come spend some weeks in residence with him before the summer’s out, and write him poetry”

“May God ha mercy on this house,” Chapman said. “A plague upon you, then,” Will answered with rare good humor, considering his breeches were sticking to his hose. “And yourself, George? What have you been working at?”

“Master Marley’s Hero and leander,” Chapman replied. “I still mean to finish it. Don’t flinch like a girl, Master Burbage. For all his excesses and a tawdry end, our Kit deserves to be remembered for his gifts as well. And with his Jew in production again, I can see no better time to press the issue. Kit would have wanted to be recollected.”

Will shrugged. “Isn’t that what poets crave?”

Chapman’s stew arrived. He busied himself for a moment buttering bread with absolute attention, and then looked up first at Burbage, and then turning his broad contemplative face to study Will.

“No, William.” He set the bread down on the boards beside his dinner. “I think you’ve something more to prove than skill, to select an example. I think you are a man who is afraid to be alone. After your death, if the ages forget your name, so be it … so long as we know you today, and tomorrow, and touch on your wit.”

Will swallowed ale to wet his throat. “That may be, George. At least I’ve a wit to touch on, yes?”

“At least,” Chapman answered, and turned his concentration on his board, bench creaking. “I’ll show you what I’ve got of Hero if you’d like it.”

“Exceedingly.”

“Done, then,” Burbage said, suddenly rising. “Will, if you would walk with me? You had wished to speak to my father about buying shares in the Chamberlain’s Men.”

Will stood, leaving the crumbs of his dinner on the trestle. “Richard, I have intentions to visit a woman tonight. Perhaps tomorrow?”

Burbage nodded, and Will continued, “George, I shall see you at church.”

“Indeed you will. Or Friday at the Hogshead. Or are we meeting at the Mermaid, on Bread Street?”

“On Bread Street. That’s where all the rogues and scoundrels have gone.”

“In your company I’ll find them.”

Will paused, hearing the smile in the older poet’s voice. He scooped the ale-soaked rag from the end of the table and without turning threw it over his shoulder. He didn’t wait to find out if it wrapped itself around Chapman’s head as satisfactorily as the wet thwack of cloth hitting flesh suggested; instead he broke for the door, trusting Chapman’s dignity to be too great for a really rollicking pursuit.

Will’s first impression of Mary Poley was of a bright, sudden eye, half occluded by a tangled spiral of brown-black hair, gleaming through the crack in a door she gripped so tightly her knuckles went white along the edge.

“Who is it?” Her sodden skirts shifted: she leaned a knee with her weight behind it on the door, in case he tried to push through.

“William Shakespeare,” he said. “The playmaker. Are you Mistress Poley?”

“I am.” She didn’t relax her grip on the door, and that jet-shiny eye ran up him from boot to beard and back down without meeting his gaze. “Are ye looking for a washing woman?” Her tones were educated, not surprising, given her family.

Will lowered his voice. He’d expected more genteel poverty, somehow. “I’m looking for Master Kit Marley’s friend.”

That hand flew to her mouth and she stepped back involuntarily. Will didn’t waste a gesture; he pressed the flat of his hand against the timbers and shoved the door open, careful not to strike Mistress Poley in the face. He slipped through sideways and pushed it shut behind, standing back against the wall as she cringed away.

“Mistress Poley,”

“Shh!” A jerk of a gesture over her shoulder. “My boy’s asleep. Finally. He has terrors. Poor lad.”

Will lowered his voice. “Mistress.”

“What’d ye know of Kit Marley? And why’d ye trouble my house?” House, she said, drawing all fourteen hands of herself up like a stretched-taut string, as if the rotten, spotless little chamber with its two sad pallets on the floor and its peeling plaster were a manse.

“Kit Marley was …” Will stopped, and frowned at the little woman trembling with rage, a banty hen defending the nest. She’d be perfect for Burbage, he thought. No wonder Kit liked her. And then she shoved a hand through her unkempt hair, tilted her head back to glare at him, and sniffed. Will sat down on the floor, his back against the door. “—my friend. And he cared for you, so I know he would have wished mine assistance to you, if you will so kindly accept it.” He reached into his pocket and tossed a little felt bag clinking on the bare boards between her feet. She glanced down, but didn’t step back or stoop to pick up the coin. Will drew a long breath through his nose, closed his eyes, and finished, still mindfully soft.

“And your husband had a hand in killing him, and I’m interested in learning why.” She glanced over her shoulder: the small form curled on one of the pallets still lay unmoving, and she turned her wary, wild-animal expression back on Will. She probed the bag with her toe barefoot, Will saw and seemed to consider for a second before she stooped down like some wise little monkey and made the coins vanish beneath her apron into the stained folds of her skirt.