pecially after the Grand Duke
in answer to my importunity assured me that you left the Villa Medici
months since and that he was ignorant of your whereabouts. I had
quarrelled with the Queen when that news arrived, and she had ordered me
to the Azores. I asked for an audience, but she would not receive me,
and I left England determined to push on to Italy without her knowledge
and rescue you _vi et armis_."

"You should not have done that, my good friend. Elizabeth has beheaded
men for slighter disregard of her authority."

"I outran not my orders, Will, for I had scarcely left England when a
swift sailing packet overtook me with letters from the Queen, one for
the Grand Duke desiring your immediate return, the other my instructions
to use all despatch in securing your person."

"But if you received no letter from me and had no speech with the Queen,
I do not understand how her Majesty learned of my predicament."

"Through your wife, Will. When I returned to England from my expedition
to Cadiz she sought me out, and demanded why I had not brought you.
Then, as the time passed by at which I had told her she might expect
you, it seems she grew wild with anxiety, and, journeying to London,
laid the matter before the Queen, who admires your talent as a
playwright and has herself some ambition in that direction. Anne, the
artful wench, very tactfully persuaded her Majesty that, with you for a
collaborator, she might write a comedy which would redound to her
eternal fame. Therefore, our royal mistress bids you think of some plot
which shall bring again upon the boards that arch-rogue, John Falstaff.
I am to bring you to Windsor Castle, where you are to prepare this
masterpiece, at the Queen's dictation (Heaven save the mark!), in time
for its presentation before the Court during the Twelfth Night
festivities."

"And Anne, whom I thought so indifferent to my career, to my very
existence, did this for me?"

"Yes, Will, 't is a good girl and a handsome, and one you have not
treated overly well, as it seems to me; but you will make it all up over
your Christmas pudding."

As he spoke the great clock of the palace slowly clanged midnight, and
Brandilancia turned white and caught Essex's arm for support. "Would to
God that I might go with you," he groaned; "would that I had never come
to Italy upon your cursed business. I stand here a doubly perjured man.
How, I scarcely know (for I swear I set not about it cold-bloodedly),