Ruled Britannia Read Online Free Page A

and of what quality. After a moment, he shook his head. Another time , he thought.
    A few blocks farther west—he thought it was west, anyhow—he heard noise he couldn’t ignore. Half a dozen men, maybe more, came toward him without bothering in the least about stealth. He shrank back into a doorway. Maybe that was a patrol. On the other hand, maybe the men were English bandits, numerous and bold enough to take on a patrol if they ran into one.
    They turned a corner. The fog couldn’t hide their torches, though it tried. Lope tensed as those pale beams cast a shadow across his boot. Then he recognized the sweet, lisping sounds of Castilian.
    â€œ ¡Gracias a Dios! ” he exclaimed, and stepped out into the roadway.
    The soldiers had had no notion he was there. They jerked in surprise and alarm. One of them swung an arquebus his way; another pointed a pistol at him. “Who are you, and what are you doing out after curfew?” their leader growled. “Advance and be recognized—slowly, if you know what’s good for you.”
    Before advancing, before becoming plainly visible, de Vega slid the rapier back into its sheath. He didn’t want anyone to start shooting or do anything else he might regret out of surprise or fear. When he drew near, he bowed low, as if the sergeant leading the patrol were a duke rather than—probably—a pigkeeper’s son. “Good evening,” he said. “I have the honor to be Senior Lieutenant Lope Félix de Vega Carpio.”
    â€œChrist on His cross,” one of the troopers muttered. “Another stinking officer who thinks the rules don’t matter for him.”
    Lope pretended not to hear that. He couldn’t ignore the reproach in the sergeant’s voice: “Sir, we might have taken you for an Englishman and blown your head off.”
    â€œI’m very glad you didn’t,” Lope de Vega replied.
    â€œYes, sir,” the sergeant said. “You still haven’t said, sir, what you’re doing out so long after curfew. We have the authority to arrest officers, sir.” He might have had it, but he didn’t sound delighted at the prospect of using it. An officer with connections and a bad temper could make him sorry he’d been born, no matter how right he was. Lope didn’t have such connections, but how could the sergeant know that?
    â€œWhat was I doing out so late?” he echoed. “Well, she had red hair and blue eyes and—” His hands described what else Maude had. He went on, “While I was with her, I didn’t care what time it was.”
    â€œYou should have spent the night, sir,” the sergeant said.
    â€œI would have liked that. She would have liked that, too. Her husband . . . alas, no.” Lope shook his head.
    â€œHer husband, eh?” The sergeant’s laugh showed a missing tooth. A couple of his men let out loud, bawdy guffaws. “An Englishman?” he asked, and answered his own question: “Yes, of course, a heretic dog of an Englishman. Well, good for you, by God.”
    â€œAnd so she was,” de Vega said, which got him another laugh or two. With the easy charm that made women open their hearts—and their legs—to him, he went on, “And now, my friends, if you would be so kind as to point me back to the barracks, I would count myself forever in your debt.”
    â€œCertainly, sir.” The sergeant gestured with his torch. “That way, not too far.”
    â€œ That way?” Lope said in surprise. “I thought that way led south, down toward the Thames.” The soldiers shook their heads as one man. He’d seen it done worse on stage. He gave them a melodramatic sigh. “Plainly, I am mistaken. I’m glad I ran into you men, then. I got lost in this fog.”
    â€œThe Devil take English weather,” the sergeant said, and his men nodded with as much unity as they’d shown