1632

Still frowning, Balthazar took the book and opened its cover. When he saw the frontispiece, and then the table of contents, he almost choked.

"Shakespeare didn't write these plays!" he exclaimed. Shaking his head: "Well, some of them, I suppose. In some small part. The ones that read as if written by committee. The little farces like Love's Labour's Lost. But the great plays? Hamlet? Othello? King Lear?"

Seeing the look on his companions' faces, he burst into laughter. "My good people! Everyone knows that the plays were really written by-" He took a deep breath, preparing for recitation: "My Lord Edward, Earl of Oxford, Seventh of that Name, and Seventh in degree from the English Crown."

Balthazar snorted. "Some people, mind you, will insist that Sir Francis Bacon is the real author, but that was a mere ruse to throw off the hounds. The theater is much too disreputable for the earl of Oxford to be associated with it. Hence the use of Shakespeare's name."

He looked down at the book. "Apparently, the fiction has become historical fact. So much for vanity and worldly fame!"

There was now a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. "But perhaps it's simply justice. Edward was in some ways not the best of men. I know-I was his physician."

The stares were back. "Justice, I say. The earl owed me money, and refused to pay his bill."

Dr. Abrabanel stroked The Collected Works of William Shakespeare, like a man might fondle treasure. "This is so much more satisfying a revenge, don't you think, than a paltry pound of flesh?"

Part Two

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

Chapter 15

Hans Richter was awakened by a boot planted on his rump. The boot was abrupt, curt, and just barely short of brutal.

"Get up, boy," he heard Ludwig commanding. "Now. There's work to be done." The laugh that followed was more in the nature of a jeer. "You'll get your first taste of real fighting today, chicklet."

Dimly, Hans heard Ludwig clumping away. As always, the big man's footsteps were heavy and leaden. He sounded like a troll, moving about a cave.

Groaning, Hans rolled over on the dirt floor. His head was splitting with pain. For a minute or so, his eyes tightly closed, he fought down the urge to vomit. The struggle was fierce, not because he cared about the contents in his stomach, but simply because he didn't want to endure Ludwig's ridicule. Had Hans been alone, he would have gladly heaved up the remnants of his meal, even though it had been the first food he'd eaten in two days.

Most of that meal had been wine, in any event. Cheap, bad wine-the kind to be found in a peasant's farmhouse. The other mercenaries, led by Ludwig, had insisted that he drink his share.

More than my share, came the thought. I drank more than my share, on purpose. It made them laugh, how quickly I got drunk. But that's what I wanted. It gave me an excuse.

Memory of the night before came crashing in. Hans opened his eyes. He found himself staring at a corpse, not three feet away. The farmer, that was. The man was staring up at the ceiling of the farmhouse with sightless eyes. The rough clothing was caked with blood all through his midsection. Flies swarmed on the corpse.

Again, Hans felt the urge to vomit. And, again, fought it down desperately. His enrollment in the mercenary company was still very recent, and hung by a thread. If the soldiers decided he was unfit for their trade, they would cast him back into the pool of camp followers. Unarmed. Again.

Better anything than that. He still had what was left of his family to shelter. Ludwig protected his older sister Gretchen from the other soldiers, since he had taken her as his concubine. But Annalise, just turned fourteen, was already drawing their eyes. As a mercenary's sister, she would have some status. So would his grandmother. If Hans lost his place in the company, Annalise would be a tent whore before she saw another birthday. His grandmother would die in a field somewhere, abandoned and alone.

Hans decided he had mastered his stomach. He rose, and staggered toward the doorway. His eyes avoided the two corpses piled in a corner of the house. Those had been the old folk. The farmer's mother and his aunt, probably. Crones, of no interest to the soldiers. Hans remembered how casually Ludwig and another mercenary had murdered them, as if they were a pair of chickens.

He also kept his eyes away from the only bed in the house. That bed had been put to use by his companions, the night before. Hans had guzzled the wine as fast as he could force it down his stomach, in order to avoid the activity taking place there. Ludwig and his cohorts would have insisted that he participate. Drunkenness was the only acceptable excuse.