Ruled Britannia Read Free

the sanbenito forever as a mark of their crimes. “More ignoble and more humiliating than death itself,” a fat man near Shakespeare said. Two familiars of the Inquisition accompanied each of them.
    And after them tramped the dozen or so who had been condemned to the flames. They wore not only sanbenitos but also pasteboard caps, all of which were painted with flames and devils. Along with the familiars of the Inquisition, four or five monks accompanied them to prepare their souls for death.
    One prisoner, a big, burly man, shook off all attempts at consolation. “I go gladly to my death,” he declared, “knowing I shall soon see God face to face and rejoice in His glory for ever and ever.”
    â€œYou are wrong, Philip Stubbes,” a monk said urgently. “If you confess your sins, you may yet win free of hell to Purgatory.”
    â€œPurgatory’s a dream, a lie, one of the myriad lies the Pope farts forth from his mouth,” the Puritan said.
    The monk crossed himself. “You will also win an easier death for yourself, for the executioner will throttle you ere the flames bite.”
    Stubbes shook his head. “Elizabeth cut off my brother’s hand for speaking the truth. Torment me as you will, as the Romans tormented the martyrs of old. The flames will have me for but a little while, but you and all your villainous kind for an eternity.”
    Another man, a red-bearded fellow with a clever, frightened face and cropped ears, spoke urgently to a somber monk: “I’ll say anything you want. I’ll do anything you want. Only spare me from the fire.”
    A vagrant drop of rain landed on the monk’s tonsured pate. He wiped it away with his hand before answering, “Kelley, your confessions, your renunciations, are worthless, as you have proved time and again. You will return to your alchemy, as a dog returneth to its vomit. Did not the heretic Queen’s men petition you for gold wherewith to oppose the cleansing Armada?”
    â€œI gave them none,” Kelley said quickly.
    â€œAnd did you not die for this,” the monk went on, inexorable as an avalanche, “you surely would for coining counterfeit money in base metal.”
    â€œI did no such thing,” Kelley insisted.
    â€œEach lie you tell but makes the flames of hell hotter. Compose your spirit now, and pray for mercy from a just God Whose judgments are true and righteous altogether.”
    And then, to Shakespeare’s horror, Kelley’s eyes—green as a cat’s, and showing white all around the iris—found his in the crowd and locked on them. “Will! Will! For the love of God, Will, tell ’em I’m true and trusty!”
    Shakespeare wondered if he turned white or red. He felt dipped in ice and dire, both together. He’d met Edward Kelley perhaps half a dozen times over as many years, enough to know he’d lost his ears for making and passing false coins. The alchemist moved in some of the same circles as Christopher Marlowe, and some of Marlowe’s circles were also Shakespeare’s. Wheels within wheels, as in the epicycles of Master Ptolemy . But for Kelley to point him out to the Inquisition . . .
    Before he could speak, either to curse Kelley—which was what hewanted to do—or to praise him, the monk said, “Where your own words will not save you, why think you any other man’s might? Go on, wretch, and die as well as you may.”
    But he looked in the same direction the alchemist had. And his eyes, too, met Shakespeare’s. He nodded thoughtfully to himself. He knows my face , Shakespeare thought with something not far from despair. Other people saw as much, too, and moved away from him, so that he stood on a little island of open space in the ocean of the crowd. He’d come down with a disease as deadly as smallpox or the black plague: suspicion. Devils roast you black, Kelley, and use your guts for garters