Anthony Burgess said that the virtue of historical fiction is its vice Ð the flatfooted affirmation of possibility as fact. It is possible that Shakespeare met Marlowe, as he does in Sure Uncertainty. It is possible that MarloweÕs untimely death caused some of his unpublished plays to end up in the hands of Shakespeare. And it is true, strangely, that William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were born on exactly the same date. Is this a coincidence, or the reason why Will Shakespeare wants to avenge the murder of Kit and prevent Marlowe's godson from becoming involved in Catesby's plot to blow up Parliament? And yet, if the brutal killing of Marlowe was twelve years before the Gunpowder Plot, how else are these two incidents linked?