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street who seemed so happy when he was at his wit’s end.
    He’d show Elizabeth Tudor a thing or two about replacing him as Lord of Misrule, and with her fair-haired boy Leicester, no less! He’d get back at her in spades for this last-minute trickery, after how well he served her. Now he was caught in the box of having to ask his old companions to play at court but admitting he was no longer the favored Lord of Misrule, and he had no idea how to save face by playacting any different.
    And now, a pox on it all, he’d just learned his uncle and his troupe of players had left the Rose and Crown for a better situation at the Lamb and Cross, an old pilgrims’ inn hard by St. Paul’s, and that was a good walk in this cutting river wind when he’d told the queen he wouldn’t be gone long. Hell’s teeth, what did it matter now, since on a woman’s whim she’d put the preening Earl of Leicester in his place to make all the final Yuletide decisions?
    Ned tied his cloak tighter around his neck and heaved the last of the capon drumsticks he’d filched from the palace kitchen into the middle of the street, where two dogs leaped on it, growling at each other. Ned wiped his hands on his handkerchief and hurried on.
    Meg Milligrew had vexed him today, too, he admitted, kicking at a pile of refuse, then cursing when it dirtied his boots. Well might she resemble the queen, because she was acting as haughty, and without the excuse of being royal.
    “Out of my way there!” he commanded a group of unruly urchins in his best stage voice. Why should they be allowed to bat their bladder ball in front of busy citizens as they passed through narrow Ludgate? Where were their elders? Did no one teach the youth of England to be responsible anymore? He used to have to toe his father’s and his uncle’s lines when he was a lad.
    Ned could see the new roofs of St. Paul’s in the distance. After a fire three years ago started by a lightning strike, the grand city cathedral had had its huge roof newly rebuilt. The Catholics, Protestants, and Puritans had all claimed it was God’s warning to at least one of the other groups. The queen wanted “freedom of conscience” for her people, but she also wanted public loyalty to the Church of England. At least she didn’t imprison folks and burn martyrs at the stake as her demented half-sister had. Women!
    Still seething, he located the Lamb and Cross and entered the warm, crowded common room. As his eyes sought a familiar face, the mingled scents of food and fireplace assailed him. Why weren’t people at home on this Christmas Eve day? Then, above the noise of talk and laughter, he overheard a snatch of conversation: “… and good speeches in tha’ Cloth of Gold play today, eh?”
    “Excuse me, my man,” Ned interrupted the stranger, “but can you tell me where to find the actors of that play? Are they still hereabouts?”
    “Being feted by the host, ri’ o’er there,” the man told him with a nod, sending a blast of garlic breath his way.
    Despite his foul mood, Ned’s heart beat harder as he made his way over to the table in the corner. Yes, his uncle, Wat Thompson, was there, and Grand Rand, as he used to call the pompous jackanapes Randall Greene, to whom his uncle inexplicably gave all the good parts—inexplicably until Ned discovered they were lovers. That was something no one could know, lest they be arrested and worse as sodomites. How Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, got away with his male lovers at court was beyond him. The queen knew of it but for some reason looked the other way when ordinarily nothing escaped her notice.
    “Ned!” his uncle cried, rising, when he saw him coming. “Well, I’ll be hanged! My boy, it’s been far too long!”
    Ned felt his throat tighten. He’d come far from his rambling actor’s days, but those times had not been all bad. He hugged his uncle and even shook hands with Rand Greene.
    “I hear you did Cloth of Gold today,” Ned told them