It was rehearsal time at the Sign of the Oars. Bickering amongst themselves, (Will and Ryder had irreconcilable plans for the entertainment ahead, and the company were taking sides), nobody noticed the child and his nurse hovering at the edge of the courtyard. Not even the innkeeper's son, leaning on the stable door and staring at the players, noticed them.

The unbreeched little lad, round face under a linen coif, sad blue eyes, stood staring at Jake's kingfisher silk dress. "That was my lady mother's." The child was richly clad himself.

"Master Scout," Jake greeted him uncomfortably. (Lady Bella had coined this name for him when he followed her too closely, as younger siblings will.) He defended his costume. "We have spoke of this afore. Your lady mother would want it so, that her pretties be kept in use and admiration."

The child nodded and swallowed a sob.

That established, Jake had no idea what to say to a child. His own infancy was long past. When the silence lengthened to uncomfortable, he caught Ham's eye. Ham probably liked children. For all Jake knew, he proposed to sire a dozen brats and rear them on porridge and thistles. Jake gave Hamish a pre-emptive glare.

Hamish went and seated himself on a low wall in the weak March sunshine, mending a horse's harness. Jake flashed him a smile but busied himself at rehearsing.

At the forefront of the stage, Finn postured his way through a great piece of iambic pentameters, to the effect that his character (Altonus) thought he had encouragement to woo the beauteous Bellaimee. Jake (the beauteous Bellaimee) was standing right behind him, but this was a soliloquy, and Jake was elaborately not hearing. Ham's attention was repeatedly drawn away from Finn to Jake and Ryder. This, because they were miming flirtation - in broad strokes. Jake bridled his neck and rested his forehead against Ryder's. Ham ought to have been still more impressed by the eye contact of burning intensity; but he had no idea how thoroughly Jake was acting. Jake detested Ryder.

"Stop!" roared Will. "Stop, stop." He jumped up onto the stage and glowered at his short, crossdressing mime artist. "What are you at?"

"I am acting. You have given me no lines to say." Jake spoke with the air of a martyr.

"This-" Will stabbed a forefinger at Finn "-is his big scene."

Jake huffed. "I could play Altonus."

"But, in no way, could I play Bella," Finn pointed out reasonably. He patted his codpiece fondly.

"Bellaimee."

"Bellamiee, quite so." This reminded Finn. "Will, have you considered, for the masque heroine, a name a little more... Graceful?"

Will hunched his shoulders and looked moody.

"More, ah Gracious in style," Finn persevered.

Scenting another rewrite, Jake edged away to join Hamish at the stable door. Ham smiled shyly when they greeted one another. "So, this is a masque."

Jake shook his head. "This is not a masque. Iambic is all wrong for the form; this is what we will perform the week after... we have little time left to decide on what to play at the wedding. It's rhyming couplets we need from Will now. Most of the virtue of a masque lies in costuming and stage business. It is more action, adventure, than a play."

Ham had caught the eagerness in Jake's voice. "Do you enjoy them more?"

Plays could be damnably static, when costs of production led to all the characters telling each other the action offstage. Jake shrugged and scratched under his wig. "Ryder has designed a set of rowboat costumes and we will feign a regatta as we enter. For the rest, a cancelled play of Will's has been adapted. Three lads at the forefront of the players will greet each other warily and formal, dancing a pavane as they do. But, in a moment, they will be swept up by a hurly burly throng of the company entire - a lavolta!" At the blank look, he explained, "(it is a dance with jumping, Ham), and general dancing will break out, in which the wedding guests will take their part. (The standard of verse at a masque is so poor that it is not good to give the audience leisure to critique.)" Jake frowned. At this point, Will had written for the lads to lose their doublets and go half clad. Finn's belief was that of all the ways to capture the wavering interest of the groundlings, costumes were expensive, fine words were cheap, but nakedness was blessedly free. Jake dabbed at a jewel on his sleeve, shaking the pendant crystal so that it sparkled. A scrawny whelp like him looked his best, he felt, with all the glories of velvet and silk that he could contrive. He would remind Will and Finn about the prudishness of the Master of the Revels. "And then," he resumed explaining to Hamish, "two of the three lads (from before) will be ravished away by the mob (to separate them from any wedding guests still dancing), and set down "against their will" in a space representing a marketsquare, where the company shall come, as townsfolk, to point and mock at them." Truly, Jake did not covet these roles. Ryder, for one, could be relied upon to be inspired by ad-lib mocking opportunities.

Ham listened carefully. "But why?"

What was he whying about? Jake looked at him enquiringly.

"Why any of it? Why the kidnap of the naked boys? Why does one boy vanish?" Ham even looked pretty when he was bewildered.

"Reason has no place in a masque," Jake told him patiently. "It is all patterns of movement, colour, and fine music. Will can baste some rhymed couplets onto the case which will give cause for anything he chooses, trust me."

Hamish gestured to the stage. "And Altonus?"

Jake, resigned, said, "Altonus will be our show next week after Lady Grace has passed from bride to matron."

Mistress Lena finally arrived for her nursling. "Who was the child?"

"Lord Calhoun's son," Jake explained to Hamish. "And godson to Sir Walter Raleigh himself."

"The pirate?"

"Hush, say "seaman" only. He's high in favour. We see much of the child, for his nursemaid is mad for the stage."

"Mad for the players, methinks."

Jake grinned, amused. "Good Master Puritan, I pray you -"

"I am no puritan."

Well, that was good tidings. Jake caught Ham's eye, and caught his breath. "Ah. Well." A little intensity there. He swallowed. "I promise I will ever treat Mistress Lena with respectful reserve."

"I will hold you to that vow." Ham sounded close. Very close.

I may have overestimated his innocence. Jake considered stealing a kiss; it would be a terrible betrayal of the profession of vagabonds to miss an opportunity.

Two afternoons later, Jake was sitting in a pub in Deptford, slyly watching a thug out of the corner of his eye. The last thing he wanted was to hear a snarl of "Wot choo looking at?" It would probably be the last thing he heard in life. The stranger's head disappeared into his shoulders without an intervening neck, like a snowman.

He was not, at all, the kind of person Jake would have expected to see talking so long to Will. A pity, that Will assumed Jake did not know who his employer was. He had taken longer than expected to meet with this contact. Trying to put me off the scent, I suppose.

This was one of Walsingham's less couth henchmen, barred from most of the decent taverns. Jake assumed that he did not serve as a decrypter of foreign codes, or as an assayor of rumours from abroad. His prominent muscles probably featured in his work, wringing information from terrified men. Will was arrogant, to think he could toy with this and remain in control of his life.

Jake had followed the brute away from Will and across London town, using all the stealth and tricks he possessed so that he was undetected. It had been a long afternoon, and not an amusing one. Ah, to think of all the better places that Jake could have passed these hours, at court, paying attentions to his betters, or back at the inn, paying court to the best looking lad he'd seen outside a theatre. Jake had a notion to bring Hamish with him, were he to obliged to shadow Will's furtive connections again. He could while away these refreshment breaks with flirting.

After all, he had promised to show the breadth of London to the boy. (But showing him the brew of this tavern offered would only give him a poor opinion of English cats.)

Jake challenged Will. "I know you have hired yourself and the company out to Sir Francis Walsingham. I oversaw your private meeting with his man. I wish you good luck in your wages. Tis said Sir Francis makes a penny do the work of a shilling."

"I made no promises for the company, but what if I had? He is a powerful man, with a sharp mind."

The company was safe, so. Jake was glad of that, but what of Will? "He is sickly, and not young." If Will thought Walsingham near his end, he might withdraw. "Is he not calling on his physician daily? I hear, last week they strapped two live doves to his breast to carry infection away."

Will was unimpressed. He knew as well as Jake did that Walsingham was a roaring hypochondriac, first to take to his bed in times of plague, last to emerge in the sunlight. He feared his own mortality. You would suppose a puritan would be more tranquil about his day of reckoning. "He'll outlast us all."

"Very like he'll outlast you. He has a way of involving his henchmen in lawless games, and standing back when the courts catch and condemn them. He'll weep (briefly) at your execution." Here, Jake was on stronger ground. "He is ruthless, Will."

"All powerful men are ruthless," said Will out of the accumulated experience of fifteen years. "Gentle and civil have not been enough for us. We must hazard a little if we are to gain."

So much for Lord Calhoun. Jake looked pointedly at the new ring on Will's hand, a bulky cameo. "Your first payment?" he asked.

Will showed it to him. "Italian and ancient." He was all storyteller now, excited by romance. "Caesar himself may have worn this."

"Or else Brutus," Jake suggested courteously, "who murdered and meddled in politics to such effect that he died shortly after." He drew in a long breath. The ring smelt faintly, pleasantly, of almonds. "I fear for you," he said in simple honesty.

"I know what I am about."