The Armor of Light

by Melissa Scott

  Inclement weather did not stop the royal departure, though once a heavy downpour drove him and his party back to cover before the day’s end. Waking to thick fog and a stinging chill in the air, Sidney did not even bother to hope James would choose not to ride. Frances stirred beside him, murmuring a hopeful and incoherent question, but Sidney shook his head, drawing the heavy coverlet back up over her shoulders.

  “No hope of it, I fear,” he said softly, so as not to wake her fully if he could help it. “We’ll ride, I make no doubt.”

  He dressed without haste, pulling on thick woolen stockings and heavily padded hose and buttoning his heaviest doublet over a stout shirt. It was no day for a ruff; the damp air would have spoiled the starch within minutes of his setting foot outside. Instead he fastened the ties of his falling collar, and chose the warmest of his long cloaks from the assortment Barton presented for his inspection.

  “A raw day, Sir Philip,” the valet ventured, and there was a knock at the door.

  Sidney sighed. “But not too raw for his majesty,” he answered, and nodded to Nate. “Very well, see to that.”

  The boy scurried away, to return a moment later with Greville and a page in royal livery.

  “So-ho, Philip,” Greville said, before he could be announced. “We ride in spite of all.”

  Sidney cast him a reproving glance, and said, “Did you expect anything else?” He nodded to the Scottish page. “You may tell his majesty we would be happy to accompany him.”

  “Thank you, Sir Philip. His majesty wishes to leave within the hour,” the boy answered.

  “We’ll be there,” Greville said, grimly, and Sidney nodded.

  “You may go.”

  The page bowed, and vanished. The two Englishmen exchanged glances, and then Greville said, “Courage, Philip. Who knows, we may find game, today.” Sidney gave him a sour look and did not answer.

  The horses were saddled and waiting by the time they reached the courtyard, and most of James’s favored courtiers were assembled. Even the elderly treasurer was mounted, very brave in a long-skirted, murrey-colored jerkin over heavily padded slops. Perhaps, Marlowe thought, watching from an upper window, the man hoped to persuade James to attend to some of his neglected business, in between jumps. The Master of Ruthven was there, too, very noticeable in a black suit whose unadorned sobriety was not at all relieved by white lawn collar and cuffs. He still seemed somewhat chastened, hanging back as inconspicuously as possible among the junior members of the court, but James looked for him, and waved him forward to the royal side. Marlowe leaned forward, then, but could not make out Sidney’s expression, hidden beneath his wide-brimmed hat.

  There was even less pretense of a hunt than usual: the master of hounds was not even present, and no one among the royal party carried more than his sword. Marlowe shook his head, watching the group—two dozen men in all, perhaps, counting the stolid grooms—spur from the courtyard, then made his way down the narrow stairway to the stables. The king of Scots and his hunt could go hang; he had business of his own to manage. His hand closed convulsively around his purse, feeling the outline of Mephistophilis’s gift through the soft leather. I cannot go on like this, he thought. I must see him, reject him or—He slew the thought half-formed. I must see him and reject him: there’s no more than that.

  It didn’t take long to persuade one of the grooms to loan him a suitable hack; Sidney’s instructions on that score had been explicit. Sighing, the poet swung himself up into the saddle, settled his pistols into their case at the saddlebow, then gathered the reins. The hack, chosen for its steady temper and easy gait, twitched its ears backward at him, and condescended to obey his urging heel.

  The fog thickened as he rode away from Holyrood, pooling thigh-deep in the dank valleys, swirling up after him to catch at the horse’s fetlocks as they ascended the next rise. Marlowe reined in, absently patting the horse’s neck, and glanced unhappily over his shoulder. Holyrood’s towers had vanished in the fog; the road before him led down another easy slope and into deeper fog. He hesitated then, wondering if he shouldn’t turn back, and heard faint laughter.

  Oh, come, my Christopher. Surely a little weather doesn’t daunt you.

  There was a challenge in that mocking voice that Marlowe could not let lie. If he could see no path before him—well, he possessed that which would lead him to his goal. Setting his teeth, he unknotted the strings of his purse, and pulled out the gleaming brooch. Even in the milky fog-light the gold was bright, unnaturally so. “Showy,” he said, and heard his voice flattened by the heavy air. “If you wish me to find you, you will have to show the way.”

  Look again, my Christopher, the voice whispered. The hack laid its ears flat against its head, took two shuddering steps backward. Marlowe controlled it with an effort, and looked down at the pin. The dark stone was glowing, a point of red like a rat’s eye or a drop of blood shining behind the carved satyr. He held it out at arm’s length ahead of him, and the light remained unchanged. He swung his arm to the side, and the light faded.

  “Very simple,” he said aloud. “I—felicitate you.”

  As well you should, the voice answered. I will be waiting. The presence faded then, and Marlowe sat for a moment, shivering. A wise man would turn back now, he knew, not venture any further into weather as unnatural—as demonic? he wondered suddenly—as his only guide.

  “So I’m a fool,” he said aloud, and urged the hack forward again. It shied and sidled, but he persuaded it at last. Slowly it picked its way unwillingly down the fog-slick hillside, following the red guide in the poet’s hand.

  The fog swirled thick around the royal party, too, tangling the riders until the once-compact company had broken into several groups and a handful of solitary stragglers. Sidney pulled up inside a particularly foggy copse, and lifted his hand for silence. The other riders obliged, but there was nothing to be heard but the soft noises of their own horses.

  “Damn the man,” a Scots voice muttered, unidentifiable in the thick air, and no one disagreed.

  Sidney sighed. “Did anyone see which way his majesty went?”

  “I thought, this way,” the Earl of Cassilis said, in a discouraged voice. “Sir Philip, I am sorry—”

  “So did we all think, this way,” the treasurer interrupted, not unkindly. “Sir Philip, do you think this is wise?”

  “I do not,” Sidney answered frankly, “though I understand what drives his majesty. We’ve been cooped up long enough—but let’s find him first, and then we can suggest he return to the palace.” He glanced around the knot of men, wondering who had been left with the king. Greville was here, of course, and the treasurer, and perhaps half a dozen others, including van der Droeghe, returned to his duties as head groom. Ruthven is with the king, then, he thought, in sudden panic, and tried to thrust the fear aside. There was no need for it: the boy had been remarkably humbled by his experience at the tourney—as well he should be, a part of Sidney’s mind said tartly—and in any case, there was no reason to think that the Master of Ruthven had not gotten himself separated from the others as well. He was riding well back in the crowd, the last time I saw him... The thought brought no comfort.

  “We have to find the king,” he said aloud, and there was a new note of urgency in his voice that brought the others up short.

  “Sir Philip?” Montrose said.

  Sidney shook his head, angry at his own whims, and frightened by them. “A feeling, nothing more, a—” He broke off, glancing around at the trees and rocks. They were familiar—familiar from the Ride. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know,” Montrose began, with an apologetic shake of his head, and Sidney beckoned to the nearest groom.

  “Do you know, Andrew?”

  “Not for certain, Sir Philip.” The groom spoke English well enough, but the thick accent distorted his words. “Near the bounds, I think.”

  “Your Majesty!” Sidney shouted, and gestured at the others. “Call, all of you, now.”

&nb
sp; They shouted obediently, though some of the younger riders looked completely bemused by the order. Cassilis, at least, would have questioned him, but Sidney held up his hand for silence. The echo of their call was smothered by the fog; he waited, stretching every sense, for a dozen heartbeats. Nothing stirred beyond the muffling blanket.

  “What is it?” Cassilis demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re close to the boundaries here,” Sidney answered. “In this fog—” He bit back the words as ill-omened, but Greville finished the thought for him.

  “You think the king may have strayed across.”

  “Pray he hasn’t,” Sidney said, grimly, and set spurs to his horse. “Keep calling, all of you.”

  Marlowe paused at the top of a low ridge, staring at the strengthening light at the heart of the brooch, so bright now that it almost obscured the dancing satyr. The hack sidled and fought the bit, struggling to turn back toward Holyrood and safety. It took all the poet’s horsemanship to control it, and he dismounted, looping the hack’s reins around the nearest sturdy tree. Mephistophilis could not be far away now—the sense of his presence hung in the fog, teasingly faint, like a hint of musk or damask. Better to walk, than to risk losing the horse. After a moment’s thought, he pulled one of the pistols from its case and slipped it through the belt of his jerkin. It would do no good against demons, of course; but, as he had once told Sidney, such creatures often had human agents.

  The light in the brooch stayed steady as he picked his way down the low side of the ridge, clutching at the brush to keep his footing on the fog-slicked ground. The damp air worked its way through the judas-color wool of his doublet, and the rough bark stung his numbed fingers. He paused perhaps halfway down the hill—it was impossible to judge distances in the uncertain swirls of mist—to rub his hands together, blowing on the chilled fingers in a vain attempt to stop their aching. As he stood there, shivering, a wind rose from nowhere, wrapping the fog more thickly around him for a moment. Then the milky curtain was shredded away, and he saw a slim figure, all in black, walking away across the hollow. A horse whinnied softly at its approach, and then the wind shifted, driving the fog back between them. Ruthven, the poet thought, I’d know that mincing walk anywhere—

  “Well, my Christopher. We meet at last.”

  Marlowe turned slowly, the brooch hot in his hand. Mephistophilis stood leaning against a scrub pine, his pose a parody of every courtly lover’s portrait. He smiled, and Marlowe felt his heart turn over in his breast. Oh, God, that he, a creature of such power, should want me… Against his better judgment he smiled back, and saw the slanted eyes flicker slightly.

  “The time’s come for you to choose,” Mephistophilis said, still smiling. “You know what I have to offer you, all the kingdoms of the world I can give you, and what can he offer in return? Nothing, for who is he?”

  Sir Philip Sidney, Marlowe thought, and spoke the name aloud. The words conjured a brief image, a human image, a slender man of medium stature, with a twisted leg and spreading lines at the corners of his eyes, a man equally capable of gentle humor and blinding rage.

  Mephistophilis’s eyebrow arched. “You grow as besotted as the rest.”

  The hinted sneer banished the brief vision. Marlowe’s head lifted. “No. But I’m no more besotted with you.”

  The demon laughed, a soft, intimate sound that offered more than words. “I don’t want that. I want your considered love, your free-will gift—and one small thing to prove it.”

  “And what is that?” Marlowe asked warily. Mephistophilis smiled again.

  “To go from here, and meet Sir Philip Sidney, and lead him, not to the place where he will wish to go, but somewhere else.”

  “I won’t be party to his death,” Marlowe said.

  “Did I ask that?” Mephistophilis shook his head. “My Christopher, he’s not worthy of you. He will come to no harm, I swear to you by Lucifer himself. I merely wish to be certain he does not—interfere.”

  “With what?” Marlowe asked.

  “With my plan,” Mephistophilis answered. “You know well what it is I seek—what I am bound to do.”

  Ruthven, Marlowe thought. Ruthven was here, and—presumably, but I think it’s a safe presumption—spoke with Mephistophilis—was given orders by him? “You intend to kill the king,” he said aloud.

  “Do you care?” the demon answered. “I want your answer, Kit. And now.”

  “You want me to delay Sir Philip,” Marlowe said, “keep him out of the way while you—or Bothwell’s other minions—kill the king.”

  “I want your answer.”

  Marlowe looked away, into the curtaining fog. To give up Mephistophilis, and not merely the proffered gifts but the magnificent damnation himself, an angel, fallen, but still angelic—and for Sidney? What could the man, what could any mere man offer, to equal Mephistophilis? Sidney saved my life, he thought, slowly, and only because he disliked the waste—there’s a gesture to match anything any demon can offer. And if I damn myself, if I have already damned myself, let it be for other sins, knowledge in all its senses, but not by this betrayal. “I cannot,” he said aloud, and, as the demon’s eyebrows rose in open skepticism, added hastily, “I pay my debts—”

  “You’ve never paid anything you owe,” Mephistophilis said, with slow contempt. “Not you. But rest assured, you will pay your debt to me in full. I will be waiting for you, Christopher, behind each door and in each alley, at the head of every stair; I will be with you at night, and you will get no pleasure in my company. And when you die, I will be waiting then, and you will spend eternity in hell, my least of slaves, you who could have been my boon companion. That, my Christopher, is knowledge, and damnation.”

  He lifted his hand, and Marlowe felt the brooch writhe suddenly in his hand, as though he’d unwarily clutched a spider. He cried out, flung it away from himself, but the pin clung wriggling until he shook it free. The fog boiled up around him, hiding Mephistophilis’s fading figure; the poet turned in panic, struggling back up the hill toward his horse. The hack was gone, the broken leathers dangling from the tree. From the fog behind him came laughter, and a harsh animal snuffling. Marlowe’s nerve broke completely, and he ran, beating the branches aside as he fled.

  Sidney reined in for the dozenth time, lifting his hand for silence. After a moment, Greville shook his head, and shouted hoarsely, “Your Majesty! Seton!”

  This time, there was a faint response. Someone—one of the grooms, Sidney thought—gave a choked cry of relief, and Cassilis called, “Who’s there?”

  “Seton. Is that you, Patrick?”

  “Ay.”

  The fog thinned suddenly, capriciously as it had moved all day, and Sidney spurred forward to meet the newcomers. Seton rode alone save for his grooms, and the feeling of relief vanished.

  “Sir Philip, thank God I’ve found you.”

  “Where’s the king?” Sidney demanded and Seton shook his head.

  “At Gowrie House by now, I fear me.”

  “Gowrie House?” Greville snapped.

  “Yes,” Seton said. “Sir Philip, I couldn’t stop him—how could I, he’s the king?”

  “Stop now,” Sidney said, controlling his temper with an effort. “Stop, and tell us from the beginning. What has happened?”

  Seton swallowed hard, visibly ordering himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, after a heartbeat’s pause. “When the fog came up so thick, and we were separated—well, first we lost your party, Sir Philip, and then some others. The king said then we should try to make our way back to the palace, but no one, not even the grooms, could find the way. Then we heard someone calling, and Ruthven rode up, and said we’d strayed out of the park, toward his brother’s house, and would we go there, to keep the king safe. Sir Philip, I didn’t like it, and said so, and so did others, but the king was hesitating between the one and the other. And in the end he said, we couldn’t be sure to find our way back to that protection, so we’d best take what stone and steel could off
er. But he sent me back to look for you, and bade me ask you to follow as quickly as you might.”

  “Damn the man for a fool,” Sidney exploded, then bit down hard on his lower lip until the pain had sobered him. It was not so bad a plan—if only the Master of Ruthven could be trusted. “Quickly, indeed, my lord,” he said aloud. “Where is this—Gowrie House?”

  Seton’s eyes dropped. “Back—there, Sir Philip. I lost my path in the fog.”

  Sidney bit back another oath. “Then we will have to find it for you, my lord. Which way did you come?”

  “Through the brake, Sir Philip,” Seton answered, numbly, and pointed. “The path’s just beyond, I think.”

  Sidney did not bother to answer, but spurred forward, the others at his heels. Seton fell in behind them, urging his tired mount to match the pace set by the Englishman.

  Marlowe braced his back against a sturdy tree, his breath coming in harsh gasps. He had outrun his pursuit, if ever there had been any; the fog was silent around him, empty even of the small usual life of the parkland. He shivered, feeling the damp in his very bones. He had torn his hands and sleeves in his headlong rush, and one bootstrap had broken, the soft boot sagging below his knee. The stocking on that leg was torn, too, his thigh bleeding from some fall or a slapping branch he did not remember. He pulled the torn cloth together mechanically, listening again, terrified that Mephistophilis’s curse was already acting, that the demon was indeed waiting, somewhere in the soft and shadowless mist. For a long moment he heard nothing, and then, faintly at first, then strengthening, he heard the sound of horses moving on a hard-trodden path. He hesitated only for an instant before calling to them: any human company was better than the demon’s.

  “Hello, who’s there?”

  Sidney reined in, recognizing the voice. “Marlowe? Over here.”

  Marlowe floundered through a last stand of frost-killed brush as stiff as wires, and stumbled abruptly onto a broad path. At least I’ve found my road, he thought, inanely, and stared up at Sidney in unspeakable relief. “Thank God it’s you,” he said aloud. “There’s a plot, Ruthven and Bothwell together—”