Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove

reason.” The servant, still in his nightshirt, muttered something pungent under his breath. As anyone with a servant needed to do, Lope had learned when not to hear. This seemed one of those times.
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    W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE CAME out of a poulterer’s on Grass Street with a couple of fine new goose quills to shape into pens. “Come again, sir, any time,” the poulterer called after him. “As often as not, the feathers go to waste, and I’m glad to make a couple of pennies for ’em. ’Tis not as it was in my great-grandsire’s day, when the fletchers bought ’em for arrows by the bale.”
    â€œThe pen’s mightier than the sword, ’tis said,” Shakespeare answered, “but I know not whether that be true for the arrow as well. Certes, the pen hath lasted longer.”
    Pleased with himself, he started back towards his Bishopsgate lodgings. He’d just turned a corner when a man coming his way stopped in the middle of the narrow, muddy street, pointed at him, and said, “Your pardon, sir, but are you not Master Shakespeare, the player and poet?”
    He did get recognized away from the Theatre every so often. Usually, that pleased him. Today . . . Today, he wished he were wearing a rapier as Peter Foster had suggested, even if it were one made for the stage, without proper edge or temper. Instead of nodding, he asked, “Who seeks him?” as if he might be someone else.
    â€œI’m Nicholas Skeres, sir.” The other man made a leg. He lived upto—or down to—Widow Kendall’s unflattering description of him, but spoke politely enough. And his next words riveted Shakespeare’s attention to him: “Master Phelippes hath sent me forth for to find you.”
    â€œIndeed?” Shakespeare said. Skeres nodded. Shakespeare asked, “And what would you? What would he?”
    â€œWhy, only that you come to a certain house with me, and meet a certain man,” Nick Skeres replied. “What could be easier? What could be safer?” His smile showed crooked teeth, one of them black. By the glint in his eye, he’d sold a lot of worthless horses for high prices in his day.
    â€œShow me some token of Master Phelippes, that I may know you speak sooth,” Shakespeare said.
    â€œI’ll not only show it, I’ll give it you.” Skeres took something from a pouch at his belt and handed it to Shakespeare. “Keep it, sir, in the hope that its like, new minted, may again be seen in the land.”
    It was a broad copper penny, with Elizabeth looking up from it at Shakespeare. Plenty of the old coins still circulated, so it was no sure token, but Skeres had also said the right things, and so. . . . Abruptly, Shakespeare nodded. “Lead on, sir. I’ll follow.”
    â€œI am your servant,” Skeres said, which Shakespeare doubted with all his heart: he seemed a man out for himself first, last, and always. He hurried away at a brisk pace, Shakespeare a step behind.
    He’d expected to go up into the tenements north of the wall, or perhaps to Southwark on the far bank of the Thames: to some mean house, surely, there to meet a cozener or a ruffian, a man who dared not show his face in polite company. And Nicholas Skeres did lead him out of London, but to the west, all the way to Westminster. At the Somerset House and the church of St.-Mary-le-Strand, Skeres turned north, up into Drury Lane.
    Grandees dwelt in these great homes, half of brick, half of timber. One of them could have housed a couple of tenements’ worth of poor folk. Shakespeare felt certain Skeres would go on to, and past, St. Giles in the Field, which lay ahead. But he stopped and walked up to one of the houses. Nor did he go round to the servants’ entrance, but boldly knocked at the front door.
    â€œLives your man here? ” Shakespeare said in something close to disbelief.
    Skeres shook his head.