Will took one step back, then another, setting his back to the hard door. There he stood against those supernatural dreads, as the hope of Troy against the Greeks that would have entered it. Thus he barred their entrance into this most sacred precinct of his heart.
His heart beat near his throat and his blood roared in his ears, deafening him.
The shapes in the sky resolved themselves and became one, tumbling from its sphere to the world of men.
Will wouldn’t run. Once before had he seen this shape, while elves were embroiled in battle all around him.
Once before and then, like now, he had trembled at the sight of it. And yet, the horror had passed him by. The Hunter had wanted no more than to take Sylvanus, the elven king, who’d tainted his own soul with treason and parricide and who had deservedly been transformed into one of the Hunter’s own dogs.
Who had the Hunter come for now?
Only Will was here.
Will stared at the gigantic Hunter in mute horror. Had it come for Will? Had Will tinged his soul with the black of his greed, the red of his desire for fame? Had the Hunter come to punish Will’s pride and would Will go through eternity like a dog of the Hunter -- with slavering jaws and dark, hisurt body?
Swallowing hard, on fear and almost forgotten memories of supernatural dread, Will reached his hand out blindly and ran it along the side of the door, till he found the handle of a hoe, resting against the wall, no doubt forgotten from Nan’s planting labors, as it usually was.
The baying rose, unbearable, as the dogs drew near. Didn’t Will’s children hear it, where they slept, comfortable and covered in their beds? Were his children well? Surely the Hunter came not for children?
Will refused to allow fear in through that chink of sudden alarm in his mind. Sweat ran prickly-cold down his back. He adjusted his hold on the hoe to a fighting stance. The handle of the hoe was oak and should endure many an attack by the cursed dogs. And the hoe, itself, at least the end of it was iron -- good, honest forged iron such as hobgoblins should fear.
Though fear trembled steadily along Will’s limbs, and his heart fluttered near his dry throat, and though his mind -- what sanity remained in it -- told him that good wood and iron were no defense against such an enemy as the Hunter, yet Will held onto the handle, held it tight till his knuckles shone white through the stretched skin. Whispering an Our Father and swallowing at the bile of fear in his throat, Will thought if the Hunter had come for him, yet would Will fight as best he could.
Will would storm faerieland again, if it would keep his home safe.
Holding the ice-cold handle of the hoe with his ice-cold hands one at each end, Will advanced a foot, and flexed his knees for balance and waited, his back to his closed kitchen door.
Nearer and nearer the horse galloped and the dogs growled, in black mass. So near that Will swore he could see the grin on the Hunter’s face, though such a thing as the Hunter clearly could not grin.
They could have him, and good riddance to Will’s ill-starred existence. But here he’d stay and here he’d fall, and like a soldier defending a sacred trust, he would die before the shadow of evil touched Susannah’s blue eyes, Judith’s golden hair, Hamnet’s innocence.
Drawing closer, the dark mass in the sky resolved itself.
Will blinked, as, suddenly, with a shock, he saw that the Hunter’s dogs ran ahead of him and snarled and romped, closing in on prey.
Not Will. The dogs' prey was one of their number.
Will blinked again, unable to believe it. Yet, it was true. The prey that the dogs chased closer and closer to Will, looked like any and all of them: a dog, or rather a wolf, the supernatural creature's shape and nature clearly dating from a time when dogs had been perforce wolves, or perhaps a creature older than both wolves and dogs, with massive head, heavy jaws, short legs and squat, powerful grey body.
The hunted dog bled from many wounds, and it cowered and whined, pressed close and nipped by its fellows. Only now and then it turned and growled, snapping in turn at its tormentors, and by such means remained just ahead of the pack that would have torn it apart.
Nearer and nearer, the creature looked at Will with sly, yellow eyes. Mingling with the howling and the screaming, Will heard the thing’s voice and dazed Will wasn’t even shocked that it was a voice he remembered -- the commanding, velvet-soft voice of the once-sovereign of elven land.
Despair tainted it and a sort of cringing beggary. “You -- you, Will Shakespeare,” the voice said. “You who’ve been loved of elf, and know the power and the glory of my people. Only give me asylum in your home, and abode in your heart.”
The creature dove down, closer and closer, as though descending a stairway formed of floating clouds.
With the pack on its heels, nipping and barking and growling, it descended, swifter than the wind, darker than the nightmare, and suddenly, suddenly, it was there, at Will’s feet, barking and growling, then cringing and cowering like a tame house cat.
Yet, through the canine noises it made, its voice rang in Will’s mind. “You want power and riches and fame. You do, Will, you know it. Listen to me, Will. The London stage will be yours for your strutting and your words will be such as generations yet unborn will flock to see your plays and applaud the workings of your mind. You will be a god for all the centuries and as such worshiped. Only give me shelter, Will Shakespeare.”
While the creature cringed at Will’s feet, the pack caught up. Without thinking, Will raised his hoe. However, they stayed just out of range of that striking hoe, snarling and slavering. Their fangs glimmered though there was no moonlight to paint them silver bright.
Behind them came the dark figure mounted on his dark horse, the silver horn in his hand. A sound like a rumble of laughter came from him. “What, now, good man, will you protect that wretch, who would unseat me from my horse and rule the underworld in my stead?” The Hunter’s voice was dark softness, a splattering of ice upon the back of the neck, a clutch at the chest. “Will you protect him for the sake of his treacherous promises?”
Will took a deep breath. He remembered treacherous promises enough, from elven kind.
“You stole my wife once,” Will told the dog.
The laughter bark echoed again, tainting the quiet spring night with a note of madness. “Aye, and she preferred you, the better of two men.” This was said with bitterness, but the voice in Will’s mind soon picked up a light, bantering tone, “What have you to fear from me, Will, when even your Nan prefers your joys to my immortal arms? Only let me in and give me asylum, and I’ll be your servant and crown you the greatest playwright the world has ever seen, your talent at long last recognized.”
Talent recognized? Yes, Will had long thought that his words were better than Marlowe’s. And yet, Lord Strange had not thought so. He’d told Will to write a play first, and prove his mettle. And when Will had, the theater goers had refused to be dazzled by his words, to fawn over his poetry as they did over Marlowe’s.
And yet, were Will’s words good, or did he dote on them, as a blind father upon shrewish daughters? Something in Will knew that, as with the glover’s craft, he must learn this writing craft day by day, become familiar with the story teller’s tools and acquaint himself with the paring knife of the public taste.
And then maybe he’d be admired, but admired for his own mind and hand. What could this creature give him that he could not give himself? If this creature gave him words for the page, would they be Will’s?
And if not, if the creature simply made people worship Will beyond his deserts, would that not be a hollow triumph, empty and sad like a shell sucked clean of life?
And what would giving the creature shelter mean? What to Susannah and Judith and Hamnet? Could they share a home with such a creature and not feel it?
Will looked at the wolf thing, foul and rank at his feet. Would it not taint their childhood with darkness?
The creature at his feet drew closer, the tips of its icy fur brushing ag
ainst Will’s stockings and, even through them, robbing Will of strength and warmth.
Sylvanus unfolded and stood, the King Sylvanus in his dark handsomeness, with his almond shaped eyes, his dark curls, his beard, his very pale, oval-shaped face. “Ah, Will, you and I will rule the underworld and the upper world too,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me. My brother, Quicksilver, he chooses his friends well. All the better for me to make them his enemies.”
The voice was soft, caressing, yet Sylvanus’ breath felt icy and smelled rank with the pollution of the graveyard.
Will shuddered. In his mind, as through an open window, he saw this creature consorting with his children, mingling with them, hypnotizing Judith, tainting sweet Susannah and bright, bright Hamnet.
He saw his children growing up in a world where this creature ruled, with his bared fangs, his icy grip.
He swung his hoe in a wide arc and jumped back, and brought the iron down upon the shape of the deposed king of elfland. “Foul fiend,” he said. “Foul devil, for God's sake hence, and trouble us not, for you have made the happy earth thy hell, filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims. Rank, gross creature. To the realms whence you came, go. Leave a good Christian soul to rest alone.”
Like that, the spell was broken.
The Hunter’s horn sounded. The Hunter’s laughter echoed.
The creature turned and growled, in front of the cottage door was once more a dog-wolf, a barely tamed menace, bristling with dull grey fur, its heavy jaw open, slavering glowing green saliva onto the path. The dogs closed around it, a dark, roiling pack, growling, fighting, snarling.
The Hunter made a sound that might have been a chuckle, or a rumble of thunder in the distance and lifted a hand as though in salute to Will. “By the pact with Eve I couldn’t intervene,” he said. “I can’t catch a traitor protected by the blood of Adam. But now he’s ours. Now we’ll have him. Lest he find another human touched by faerieland who will shelter him.”
But on the heels of his triumphant gloating, the pack of dogs howled as one. They retreated. Their circle scattered, threatening, growling, to reveal Sylvanus wolf-form still intact, still living, still rounding and snarling amid them. And through Sylvanus’ growls, curses at Will poured out, curses at Will’s Nan and at the fruits of their union.
“I’ll come for them all,” Sylvanus growled and muttered, and snarled, saying nothing, yet threatening all. “One by one, I’ll devour you all. But first to deal with you, you fool. With you, who will never subdue me.”
And even as Will grabbed his hoe again, thinking his last breath arrived, Sylvanus jumped, not towards him, but towards the Hunter.
The Hunter struck out with the silver horn, that -- Will realized for the first time -- was the Hunter’s only real weapon. The horn missed the square head, as the wolf launched through the air, towards the Hunter, and fastened heavy fangs onto the Hunter’s arm, drawing bright, glowing red blood from the dark shape.
A scream like a thousand tortured voices tore the air.
The Hunter swung again, and this time the horn caught the beast, sent it hurtling through the darkness, to land, awkwardly, a ways from the Hunter, crushing Nan’s rose bushes.
The Hunter took the horn to his lips and blew on it, once, a clear note in which there was, nonetheless, the hint of shaking of a wounded creature making a brave effort.
The other dogs rallied. They gathered in a pack, snarling, baring their fangs, at the traitor in their midst.
For a moment it hung in the balance. Sylvanus the wolf faced his congeners with lowered head and snapping jaws. In his eyes, behind the brown, canine pupils, red fire of eternal coals blazed.
Then the Hunter blew his horn again, this time more forcefully. His shadow still showed the crimson marks of spilled immortal blood, but this time the horn sounded clear and sure and strong.
The dogs leaped and jumped, and snarled, and ran. And Sylvanus turned and ran, ahead of them, climbing the invisible staircase up to the dark sky, just ahead of the pack. Always ahead of the pack.
* * *
Will awoke, his heart pounding; his mouth dry and foul-tasting; his hands clenched hard on the sheet, as they’d tightened in dream upon the hoe-handle.
He swallowed and swallowed again, as his eyes took in the narrowness of his room, his single bed, the clothing trunk hard by, the table by the window with paper and inkpot and inkstone standing nocturnal sentinel to his interrupted work.
Through the window came the light of a waxing moon, its pale hand touching all with tips of silver.
On the wall, Will’s russet suit hung. In bed he wore nothing but his much worn shirt. He smelled his own sweat, rank with fear and effort, and felt as if the foul being still touched his stockings, chilling his legs.
Had there ever been a dream like this? What could it signify?
Was this a vision?
Was this a dream?
Did he sleep? Or was something else there? Had he in sleep visited some other realm, like that realm of faerie into which he’d once trespassed?
The moonlight from the window looked real enough. And the sounds coming through the window, too, the all-too-earthly sounds of Southwark at night: bawds calling customers, and drunkards singing, and -- from somewhere -- a riotous argument.
Will dragged himself up on trembling legs and, still shaken from his sleep-granted vision, ambled to the window and looked out at the street.
Down below, a crier called people into the Blind Bear tavern, whose great, painted sign swung in the wind showing a bruin with immense claws.
A cockfight was about to begin within, and the kind masters walking by -- some of them dressed indeed as great Lords, all silk and velvets -- were enjoined to come in and place their bets.
The kind masters went in, and the mean ones too, dressed in rags and crawling into the dark, open door to the tavern.
Southwark was at the edge of London and as such unregulated by the mayor of the great city. Here could everything flourish that good religious people disapproved of, from cutpurses to playwrights.
And here had Shakespeare come to rest, having moved here from more expensive lodgings: here, in this cheap outgrowth of London he made home after three years of vain striving in the city.
But none of this compared to the quiet of Stratford, just now so real in his mind. He thought of the Hunter and shivered. He must go home. He must go to Nan. Nan and the children needed his protection, and anyway, what could he do in London, with the theaters closed because of the plague?
He thought of the neighbors' jests, the pointing fingers that would greet Will’s return, and how the small community would laugh at Will’s pretensions that had come to naught.
He sighed.
Should he return and bid adieu to his dream of being a poet or should he stay and risk this nightmare befalling his family?
And did the nightmare mean anything but the vague uncertain substance that dreams were ever made of?
Scene Two
In an immense stone chamber, a slightly-built young man, with delicate features and henna-dyed hair, stands facing three men seated at a table. This table, massive and of dark carved wood, is the only furniture in the otherwise bare room, whose tall walls made of golden stones curve into archways far above the occupants’ heads. Those three old men dress in black, and look impressively magisterial. They question the other man who obviously prides himself on his sense of fashion and who wears a dark velvet suit slashed through to show a flame-colored satin lining, and who, despite all this, manages to look small and inconsequential in this vast salon.
“You know nothing, then, about this foul libel affixed to the wall of the church where the Dutch worship?” asked the man who sat between two others, behind the heavy oaken table, with a pile of papers in front of him, and an inkstand before him. He was a bewhiskered man, with a pale, scraggly beard like uncertain growth upon poisoned land. He peered at Kit Marlowe with uncertain, near-sighted eyes.
Beyond
the table and his questioners, Kit thought he could glimpse the white cloth and red thread of a tall embroidered screen. No doubt the true instigators of his questioning sat there behind the screen. Some member of the Privy Council or other, no doubt.
“No,” Kit Marlowe said.
He didn’t know how long he’d stood in this resounding, gloomy room, facing the three men who sat at the broad table and asked the same questions, over and over. His interrogators had questioned him about his religion, his political opinions, the rumors of his homosexuality.
His legs hurt.
His questioners had gone the round twice already, all about some libel affixed to the wall of the Dutch church and signed Tamburlaine. Every time Kit had denied knowledge of it.
At twenty nine, Kit was not unacquainted with questioning. For many years, besides writing plays, he’d worked for the secret service and often been arrested on real charges proceeding from this work, and every time he’d been sprung from trouble by his superiors.
He saw no reason this time should be different. He was a slim man, of average height, who wore uncommonly well cut clothes accented his small, delicate features with a carefully shaped beard and gave his hair a reddish cast by virtue of henna dye.
He’d been born the son of a cobbler in Canterbury, and attended Cambridge on a scholarship. Though he had, for many years now, made his living from the not-so-well-regarded profession of writing for the stage, no one who saw him for the first time could fail to think him every inch a gentleman.
He gave the cool, appraising eye to his interrogators. All three were old, all three bearded, all three white-haired, and all spoke with that asthmatic wheeze that betrayed tiredness of breath and life. The table was the only piece of furniture in the room, or at least the only piece clearly visible.
“You’re sure you know nothing of it, though it was signed Tamburlaine?”
“Nothing, your Honor,” Kit said. He shifted his position, and adjusted his slashed velvet sleeves with absent care. “Anyone can sign that to anything.”
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