“Glad that you were only surprised, Kit.” Poley walked into the room with a stealthy, feline confidence which suggested that he had spent too much time in dark alleys, too much time following traitors, real or counterfeit, with his cat step, the claws and fangs of his cruel intent. “Glad that you were only surprised.” Poley smiled, in good nature. “I wouldn’t want our friendship marred.”
Kit retrieved his dagger from the water and dried it carefully, glad of its weight in his hand.
He wouldn’t use it, nor would it be of much effect against Poley’s kind of stealthy menace, and yet Kit felt better for having a weapon in his hand, and an excuse to hold it so.
Poley’s gaze flickered to the dagger. He smiled. “Wouldn’t play with that too much, Kit. Lest someone use it on yourself. The strangest accidents happen . . . .” Poley turned, his gaze fell on Imp, and he smiled, putting his small hand, covered in pearly suede gloves, on the boy’s bright hair. “Such a beautiful child, is he not? Harry Mauder told me of him and how much he looks like his father.”
“You knew my father?” Imp asked.
“Exceedingly well, child. Exceedingly well,” Poley said and smiled, a smile full of paternal encouragement, avuncular tenderness.
“And had he a great big black beard?” Imp asked.
“No. More a small, reddish, well-trimmed one,” Poley said, and stared at Kit.
Though the laugh wrinkles remained, cozy and comforting like a nest around Poley’s bright blue, innocent-looking eyes, the glint in those eyes, the intenseness in that gaze, shone like a naked blade, like a drawn dagger.
Kit grasped his own dagger harder, and took a deep breath. “Go, Imp. Go to your mother, child.”
Imp blinked. “But he says—”
“Go, child. God’s death. Your mother will be wondering where you are. I don’t want her plaguing me. Go, child.”
Imp started and jumped. Never before had Kit raised his voice thus to him. Never before had Kit cursed at him.
“But—” he said.
“Go, damn it,” Kit yelled, fierce and dark and full of thunder. “Go. Plaguing me day and night. Impossible brat. What time have I for you? Do I look like the sort that consoles the orphan and talks to the widow? God’s death, if that were my vocation, I’d have taken orders. Go, curse you, and do not come back.”
Something like pain showed in the squint of the little boy’s almond-shaped eyes—a shine of tears, a startle at finding disapproval where he’d met only caresses and praise before.
He opened his mouth. He swallowed.
And Kit, longing to apologize, longing to take the small child in his arms and console him for that wounding so necessarily inflicted, maintained his face in a thunderous disapproval, as strong as Jove’s own before flinging the bolt.
Oh, only let Poley believe in this display. Oh, only let him believe in this and not in the fleeting resemblance, the tenderness of Kit’s gaze when it rested on Imp.
Imp stared and, finding no comfort, grabbed the empty water jar from beside the washstand and ran down the hallway, and down the stairs, the too-large empty jar of water clattering.
“He is his father’s glass, is he not?” Poley asked, turning to Kit with a smile of friendship, a seeming open smile of cajoling.
“I don’t know,” Kit said and felt dark red blood flower beneath his cheeks. “I didn’t know his father.”
“Ah.” Poley’s eyebrows rose. “I daresay you still don’t. And yet, what was that proverb that the Greeks had . . . . Know thyself?”
“Poley, be done with it,” Kit said sharply, his irritation having the best of his determination to remain impassive and civil. “You did not come to me to discuss the child, did you?”
Poley smiled. “I came to ask what story you spun to that fool, Henry Mauder, that he let you go so quietly yesterday.”
He opened his eyes, palm outward, spread wide.
“No story,” Kit said. “No story.” His heart had started, fast, fast, like a trapped bird flinging itself on the bars of a cage. “No story but the truth. I know of a conspiracy. I know, and I thought you’d like to know.”
Poley laughed, his big, hearty laugh. “A conspiracy. No. True? Kit, you amaze me. You—Kit Marlowe. A conspiracy. How would you come by it?”
“I heard it in my circles,” Kit said.
“In your circles?” Poley laughed. “The circles of penniless poets? Or the circle of foolish actors? Maybe perhaps the circle of those who seek illicit love in bawdy taverns?” He made a moue. “Oh, how the council should fear those . . .”
“You forget, milord,” Kit said, drawing himself up to his full height, re-gretting for the first time in his life that his gracile, agile body owed more to his mother’s side of the family than to his father’s thundering, majestic brutishness. “You forget that I live in other circles. I have a patron—Milord Thomas Walsingham. And before him I courted the favor of Milord Southampton.”
Poley chuckled. “Courted Southampton, more like. Not that, from what I heard, he’d have made himself a hard catch. And what manner of conspiracy do your circles cross that you could use it to gain your freedom and that child’s safety?”
Now the heart that had beaten madly in Kit’s chest felt as though it had won passage to his throat and beat there, suffocating him, making him dizzy. Through his heart he spoke, hearing nothing but the rush of blood in his own ears. “A plot against the Queen’s very life. A plot to put another upon her throne.”
“Another?” Poley’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead, in disbelief. “Who?”
Kit shook his head. “I don’t know that much yet. I’ve heard whispers, nothing clear yet. But I know there’s something there and I mean to find it.”
Poley narrowed his eyes at Kit. “If you’re lying, God’s death, Kit . . . .”
“Would I lie?” Kit asked.
“If you’re lying,” Poley repeated, ignoring him. “Remember that last year we plucked you entire from that counterfeiting charge, but you’ll wish we’d let them disembowel you then.
“If you’re lying, you’ll beg to die in that manner. You’ll beg to see your entrails burned before your eyes. But first you’ll see that child of yours maimed and his dam dead. Do you hear me?”
Kit, hands trembling, forced himself to sheathe his dagger, forced his voice through his constricting throat with what he hoped was a semblance of strength, a timbre of certainty. “I am not lying.”
Sweat dripped from his forehead. Fool that he was, fool. In this foolish life he led, always in danger of being arrested, always at risk from the secret service work that had fed him for so many years, always nourishing upon that which destroyed him, Kit had no business living near Imp, no cause to bring their relationship to the attention of these vultures that, in the dark, moved behind the Queen’s court, using the Queen’s age, the growing mistrust of an older woman.
Save he’d no more been able to stay away from Imp’s joyous innocence than a bee could stay away from nectar.
“If you’re not lying then, surely you can name us someone—someone whom we can question, who will reveal this grand conspiracy?”
Kit looked up, startled. “I don’t know the all of it yet,” he said. “I don’t know the all of it, and what I know is unprovable.”
Poley stepped closer. He was not much taller than Kit, just enough that he could look down upon the poet, sneer down his menace upon Kit’s upturned gaze. “Some of it has to be provable, Kit Marlowe. And someone there should be whom we can take and make sing. You’d be amazed how men sing on the rack.” He looked down at Kit as he walked round the poet.
Kit turned round and round, keeping his eye on Poley. Robin Poley was not one on whom you’d turn your back. Round and round they went, in a lethal dance. Poley circled and Kit turned, like inimical planets locked in opposing aspects.
“Give us a name, Kit Marlowe, so we know you truly do have something. Just one name. An earnest of your faith.”
Round and round, and
the sick, despairing feeling gnawed at Kit’s belly.
He had to turn someone in? He had to stain his hands yet again? An earnest of good faith for his bad faith?
Will Shakespeare? But no, unprepared and unconnected, Will would never pass for a conspirator, nor could they, no matter how they tortured him, exact anything incriminating from that man.
Either that or they’d extract too much.
No.
Will Shakespeare was the main actor in this tragedy that Kit was creating. He could not be sacrificed so early in the game and for so small profit.
Who then?
His mind ran over the ranks of his college friends, searching the vulnerable—just connected enough to be a credible conspirator, just unconnected enough to be harmless; just eccentric enough to have something incriminating to say; just normal enough to pass.
The mind alighted on John Penry—two classes above Kit and known for creating enemies with his fervent Puritanism, his inflexible certainty. Penry was well born enough to know the high-born and stubborn enough to stick out wheresoever he went.
“John Penry,” he pronounced, saying the name before he repented his treason. He pushed John Penry’s serious countenance out of his mind’s eye. “John Penry, I heard, was involved in this conspiracy. He is a Puritan and would rather have another such on the throne.”
Poley smiled. “Ah. John Penry, now that’s a name. And where does he reside?”
“Bishop’s Gate,” Kit said. “I heard he came recently from seeing the King of Scots.”
“Ah,” Poley said. “The King of Scots, now that’s interesting.” And with a smile that showed teeth but no warmth, he bowed and he said, “We’ll talk to Master Penry, then.”
He walked out, feline and soundless.
What had Kit done? What had he done?
He remembered Penry’s austere, faith-burned countenance.
Not a pleasant man, Master Penry, and often had he upbraided Kit for Kit’s late hours, his drunken bouts.
But how earnestly he’d discussed gospel and philosophy. And how quietly he had argued against Kit’s arguments, never once denouncing Kit for atheism, though he’d heard more than enough for that.
Kit closed his eyes.
His empty room seemed cold and stark.
It was the room of a plotter, one who would turn on anyone, and whom everyone should fear.
A wolf at bay, his fangs at every throat.
Kit’s bile rose at his throat, burning.
Yet he thought of Imp, and what could he do but save all the hope Kit had for the future, and what goodness Kit still believed in?
To save Imp, let all of Kit’s goodness burn away. But how many others must be killed in those flames?
Scene 14
Will’s room. Will, who lies on the bed, stirs, obviously waking up. Next to him, ensconced beneath his arm, lies the Lady Silver, fully dressed and asleep.
Will dreamed that Nan lay beside him; dreamed that he was back home, back in his room, safe in the attic of the Henley Street home, in Stratford-upon-Avon.
But as he stirred toward wakening, even before he opened his eyes, he knew it was not Nan’s hair that tickled his arm, knew it was not Nan’s soft, whispering breath that rose and fell beside his.
The smell of lilac, the smell of the fairykind, hung heavy on his nostrils.
He sat up, with a curse on his lips. With a curse on his lips he looked beside him, to see the still, resting form of the Lady Silver, her hair loose and tangled upon his pillow, her arm spread the width of his narrow bed, her face pale and tired-looking and, in sleep, appearing young and fragile.
“Wake, milady,” he said. “Wake.” What had he done that the elf would pursue him this way? What had he done that she would follow him, and come to him like this?
Ten years ago, in a night of impetuous insanity, he’d made love to her.
Ten years ago. Since then Will had been faithful to his Nan. And yet the elf followed him; the elf would come to his rooms and try to seduce him.
He groaned as he got up.
Having slept in his shirt, he searched around the room for his pants and doublet, and slipped them on.
He must go to the theater. He must present Henslowe with Marlowe’s note.
Well had Will seen how much Marlowe’s opinion was respected, how regarded. Surely Henslowe would give Will a part in his play just to please Marlowe.
Thinking this, Will tied his pants in place, and put his doublet on.
Dismal light shone through the dirty diamond-shaped panes of his window, and though it must still be early morning—certainly not afternoon—yet the air felt too hot and too humid.
Plague weather, Will thought, and shook his head, shaking the thought out of his mind. No. He would not think that. He’d not think of that man, so suddenly struck down with unnatural illness.
It was nothing Marlowe had said. Another illness that looked like the plague. There had been no rumor of the plague, no thought of the plague since early spring. Surely it would not come again now.
Fully dressed, Will went to the bed, bent over the Lady Silver, and shook her. “Wake, lady, you must be gone. This is senseless. This is foolish. I am not yours and you not mine.”
The thought that this fair lady was also the king of elves made Will angrier.
What was Quicksilver doing? What was Quicksilver playing at? If there was danger, why was Quicksilver here, leaving his hill unprotected? And if there was no danger, why was he here?
Oh, curse the creature, the mutable magical creature that no mortal could understand, no mortal hold.
Looking at her, Will could have wanted her, Will could have loved her. Again as in that night, so long ago, Will felt the enchantment of the creature, the magic of the woodland, the spell of the shaded glen that no man knew and no man could conquer.
His gaze traveled her soft skin and dwelt on the graceful form of her. Oh, to touch such treasure. To dwell in such palaces.
Nan had never been that perfect. Nan had never been that full of charm. Nor had any mortal woman. Ever. No queen’s majesty rivaled the pearly perfection of Silver’s skin, the unfathomable depth of her eyes.
And yet, looking on Silver, Will saw, as if with double vision, Quicksilver’s broad shoulders, his taller form, the waist that narrowed from the muscular chest, the arms accustomed to fighting, the hands large enough and strong enough to ply a sword as it should be plied.
Again Will reached, again his hand touched the bare shoulder above the ruffled dress. Again, he shook it.
“Wake up, lady, curse it all. Your seduction is not going to work. I have one wife only, and she’s alive.”
Her shoulder felt hot to the touch and silky smooth, and she looked, in her sleep, vulnerable and almost transparent, like a feverish child who struggles through the night from breath to breath, while his trembling parent stands vigil.
And this, Will knew, had to be glammour and disguise, for these creatures were neither soft nor vulnerable.
For a moment Will hesitated.
Silver looked so tired. As though she’d been doing battle. And she had said something about the Hunter and Sylvanus, the same things Will had heard in—and barely remembered from—his odd dream.
But it couldn’t be true. Furious at himself, Will poured water into his cracked ceramic basin where it sat, atop the trunk at the bottom of the bed. He washed hands and face with scrupulous care. He pulled his hair back and ran his fingers through it.
He cast another resentful look at Silver. She couldn’t have been telling the truth and well did Will know that the only reason this seductress would have come to London would be to lose Will to his marriage vows, to lose Will to his own conscience.
He knew that her still looking like Silver in her sleep was deliberate, malicious.
Will remembered well enough that this creature, when asleep, reverted to his primary form, his male form. But Quicksilver would not have moved Will thus.
Will pulled his glo
ves on, and stepped toward the bed.
Yet, after two steps, he stopped, and stared at her sleeping form. He felt as if his fingers still burned with the touch of her skin.
He did not trust himself to touch her again.
And she looked so tired, so forlorn. If he touched her again, he would long to console her.
If Will touched her, he would be her lover, enslaved by her, like people in the stories old men told taken forever into the bowels of Fairyland, into the heart of illusion and away from the sane world.
Away from the world where Will had three children and a wife he loved, and a job waiting for him at The Rose, if only he would take it.
He took a deep breath. Mentally, he said goodbye to Silver and her enchantment, and walked out the door and down his steep staircase and onto the road below, to meet his destiny in the theater.
But there, in the midmorning bustle of street vendors and apprentices hurrying away to dinner at the nearest tavern, and forges and small factories working in the tiny, ramshackle hovels and huts of Shoreditch, there, he found the broad gate to the enclosed precinct of The Rose closed, and nailed shut.
The paper glued to it was already curling in the hot sun, the sticky, humid air.
The writing on paper began with “By the order of the Bishop of Winchester,” and went on to say that the theater had been closed for fear of the “great and common plague” ravaging London anew.
Will’s fingers touched Marlowe’s note within his sleeve. Useless now. Will’s stomach hurt and growled with hunger.
Blinking back tears that sprang, unbidden, to his eyes, he turned around.
Another hour without food and he would lose consciousness. How long from there to death?
He’d never seen anyone die of hunger. No one had died of hunger in Stratford in living memory.
He was like the prodigal son who’d left his father’s plentiful table to pasture swine in a foreign land and crave in vain the husks which the swine did eat.
All Night Awake Page 12