“What about him?” A dry kiss on Kit’s forehead. Lights and candles, the dimming of the room. The pressure of a body in bed beside him, and then an arm across his waist. Over the covers. Almost tolerable so, and Kit hadn’t the strength to roll away.
Puck is the villain,Kit meant to say. But then he remembered, he owed Puck a chance to answer the charges to his own face. Before he, Kit, named another friend for treason. As he had named so many before.
He’d seen too many friends hang.
“Nothing,” he said, but he wasn’t sure the word took breath before the darkness folded him deep.
Act IV, scene vii
Thou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full
Of the wars’ surfeits to go rove with one
That’s yet unbruised: bring me but out at gate.
–William Shakespeare, Coriolanus,Act IV, scene i
Will crouched in the chair by Tom Walsingham’s fire, his damp boots draining onto a rush mat, turning Kit’s glorious old Greek Bible in his hands. Will’s Greek had never been good, worse even than his grammar‑school Latin, but he could tell from the handscript, the margins, and the way the sections abutted in the glove‑soft, gold‑embossed red leather of the binding that he held three or four books stitched together. Their pages had been carefully trimmed to match in size; now scallop‑shell flakes roughened the fragile gold edge. He held the book close to his face, open, cupped in the palm of his hands, inhaling the oak‑leaf scent of the pages. “George, have you ever seenanything like this?”
Chapman set his wineglass on the mantel before he came closer, crouching before Will to get a better look at the text. “Seen? Aye. Never with such a freedom to read as I pleased, however …” Chapman reached forward, hands like wings on either side of Will’s, but didn’t touch.
Teasing, Will pulled the book closer to his chest and hunched over it like a mantling hawk. “Ah – ”
“Can you read it, Will?” Ben, who leaned against the window frame, his dark eyes hooded as if with weariness.
“A word here and there, ” Will said. He looked up as Tom returned to the study, two bottles of wine in his hands. “It’s missing some rather large bits, Kit says. We’ll have to resort to Tom’s Erasmus, too. Tom – ”
The bottles clattered on the sideboard as Tom dug in his purse for a penknife to draw the corks. Ben cleared his throat and tossed one, pearl‑handled, which glittered in the afternoon sunlight as it tumbled across the room. Tom’s hand came up; he plucked it from flight. “Thank thee, Ben – ”
“Not at all, Sir Thomas.”
“Will? Thou wert about to speak?”
Will looked from Tom to Chapman, to the book in his own hands, and shrugged. Ben concealed a smirk behind his sleeve, his regard steady on Will. Chapman stood, puzzled, looking from one man to the other, until Tom smiled. “Why not?”
“Gentlemen?”
“We’ve a plan to translate the Bible into English,” Will said. Wouldst care to engage in it?”
Chapman looked down at the book open on Will’s palms again. “From the Greek, Will? May I‑“
“Aye.” Will held the book up.
Chapman lifted it reverently, in broad fingers knobbed from hours of holding the pen. “There are translations – ”
“None like ours shall be,” Ben put in from his place by the window. He set his cup down and went to relieve Tom of the wine bottles. Ben poured first for their host, who watched, amused, and then filled a cup for Will now that the precious book was out of his hands.
“Will.” Chapman’s voice was barely a breath. He looked up, across the pages, awe on his broad‑cheeked, broken‑nosed face. “Wheredidst come by this book?”
“Kit gave it me – ” Will said distractedly. He covered his slip with a coughing fit and rinsing his mouth with wine, but Chapman paused, bald forehead wrinkling over bushy brows.
Tom stepped in. “It was Marlowe’s. It went to Will after his death.”
“He thought highly of thee.” Chapman touched the book the way a man might stroke flower petals. “How he ever afforded such a thing – ”
“It must have been a gift,” Will said.
Chapman shook his head sadly. “Rare skill, had he. And a foolish manner of spending them–you’ve heard his Ovid’sto be burned?”
“Burned?” Tom,unbuttoning the neck of his doublet, looked up.
“Aye.” Chapman shrugged sadly and set the precious Bible down on a high table, away from the fire, the wine, and the window. “The Archbishop of Canterbury’s men seized copies from St. Paul’s on Monday. Along with everything of Nashe’s, and Gabriel Harvey’s. If you’ve your own copies, you’ll want to keep them quiet. Perhaps even out of the city–
“Burned?” Will heard his own voice as the echo of Tom’s, and thought a chorus. Yes.“Well, Harvey’s no loss to posterity. But Nashe?”
“It’s the Isle of Dogsback to haunt him,” Ben said. “That and his wrangling with Harvey: the Puritans are growing stronger, Will, and it’s foolish to deny it. There’s something to be said for masques.”
“Aye, nobody ever finds a bit of meaning in one, to want to burn it. Gods, poor Tom. I suppose that means they’ll be burning Dido,too, with Kit’s and with Tom’s hand all over it. How can there be any sedition in a translation of Ovid,of all things, to draw Archbishop Whitgift’s ire? It’s Love poems–”
“It’s the Puritans,” Ben said, pouring himself another cup of wine. The big man moved like a cat, for all his weight bent the floorboards under their rush mats. “It’s the Puritans, as I said. They think the translation lewd, and Whitgift bends his neck to the bastards. An Archbishop.” Ben looked as if he wished to spit.
Baines,Will thought. And Essex behind him. Another attack on the poets–
“The Queen’s ministers grant them more power, aye. I suppose they think, better Puritans than Catholics.” Chapman leaned against the mantel, but he didn’t lift his cup again. Instead, he edged closer to the popping grate, as if the fire could warm him. “I wonder who would give Kit a book like that,” he mused.
Will saw Tom’s glance, and didn’t need it. “I’m sure I don’t know. So what think you, George, of our Bible in poetry? ”
Chapman shrugged. “It could never be published. And a man must eat– ”
“Drudge,” Ben said. “Toiling only for coin – ”
Tom laughed with him, and Chapman dismissed both with an airy wave of his hand. Will might have joined them, but the cough that followed bent him over with his hands on his knees, and only Ben thumping his shoulders gently with those massive bricklayer’s hands put an end to it before he choked.
Only two days later, Will scratched another line out and crumpled the scribbled palimpsest that had been meant to become act II, scene I of a tragedy into a fist‑sized ball, which he pitched into the grate. He glanced up again at the steel mirror over the mantel and the single candle burning before it–despite the daylight through the open shutters–‑with a sealed letter propped against it, and swore under his breath. “Dammit, Kit. A week is too long to make a man wait for news.” He could have returned to Faerie, and an hour or less gone by in his world. Thou wouldst have heard something if aught had gone wrong.
And if thou hadst not, Tom Walsingham would have.That Tom also said that Richard Baines was, to all reports, alive and well and fulfilling his obligations told Will only that Kit might be biding his time. Kit was certainly crafty enough – crafty as Tom himself, or Sir Robert.
I am not like these men,Will thought, not for the first time. I cannot see as they see, in shades of advantage and degrees of subtlety.He sighed, and glanced at the light on the wall: the noon bell would toll any moment. He couldn’t leave the candle burning in an empty room, and he couldn’t put off meeting the rest of the Globe’s shareholders for another instant. He pushed his stool back from the table and stood, scuffing the rushes aside as he limped to the hearth. Dick’s had me playing old men for ten years now. A shuffle and a quaver in my v
oice won’t limit my roles.
Perhaps there is prophecy in the stage after all.
Will blew out the candle, banked the fire back, and picked up his jerkin and cloak, fumbling the door latch a moment before managing to twist it open. He chose to walk through the garden rather than the house, using the side gate onto Silver Street as the bells finally tolled.
London bustled on a sunny Tuesday in February. Kit’s birthday,Will realized, and cursed himself for thinking about Kit. He’d hard to kill.
He’d also terrified to the soled of his shoes when it comes to Baines,he thought, turning sideways to edge between a goodwife arguing with a carter and the wall. At least the overhang kept the heavily laden carts and the tall draught horses to the middle of the road, although it seemed the crush of hireling carriages grew thicker each year. And frightened men make mistakes–
“Master Shakespeare ! ”
The hailing voice of Edward de Vere broke Will’s musings open like an egg on cobblestones. He turned and strove to hide his limp. His hand found a coin in his pocket and he tugged it back again, resisting the temptation to fuss it forth and spin it across his knuckles, over and over again.
‘My lord,” Will said, bowing as best he could. Oxford swept his tall hat off as he ducked the overhang and came up before Will. “I am surprised to see you afoot, my lord, and so far from your usual – lairs.”
Oxford paused, his hat in his hand – a dramatic gesture ruined by the revolted wrinkle of his narrow nose. “Master Shakespeare,” he said. “I had thought you might prove more amenable to a personal visitation, as you have returned my notes unopened. You” –careful choice of the formal pronoun, and a careful stress against it, to be certain Will noticed the respect – “have done me good service in the past, and I am inclined today to remember it. You are too fair a poet to fall with Cecil and Raleigh and Walsingham. And fall they will, make no mistake.”
Will blinked. Oxford stepped closer and let his voice drop. “Essex’s star is rising, Will, and it’s said Scottish James is fonder of masques and entertainments even than the Queen.” He coughed. “There’s no guarantee the Lord Chamberlain your patron will remain in favor after the succession. It would be a pity to see the Globe go empty, her players all jailed as sturdy vagrants and masterless men.”
“If I wrote masques I should be more interested.” Wondering where he got the courage to brush past a peer on the street, he nodded curtly to Oxford and turned his back on the man.
“Master Shakespeare. Halt your step.”
“My step is halt enough,” Will said, but he paused, although he did not turn. What could be dire enough that the Earl of Oxford would call after a common playmaker on a busy street?“As you have no doubt observed, my lord.”
Oxford laughed and strode up beside Will, seating his towering cap once more on his head. His ruff was starched fashionably pale pink, maiden’s blush, stiff enough that it rustled against his beard. Will smiled, glad of his own plain murrey doublet. Puritan,he thought, and then pushed the memory of Kit’s teasing away. “There’s more,” Oxford said. “What you offered Her Majesty at Spenser’s funeral did not go unremarked by all, Master Shakespeare. Nor did the disgrace with which she refused your gift. I have friends – ”
“More than one?” Oh, Will. You shouldn’t have said that.No, but he couldn’t close his ear to de Vere’s simpering tone, and hearing it he recalled some measure of Kit Marlowe’s close and thready rage. And wonder of wonders, de Vere laughed and forced a smile, although he dragged his fine kid gloves between his hands hard enough to stretch the cheveril.
“If it’s a Bible you want to write, Master Shakespeare. There’s those would pay you to get it. Our side” – he cleared his throat, as if it were distasteful to him – “has an interest in the nature of god as well.”
Will swallowed. Politics. And yet– He turned slowly, feet shuffling, cursing the slow, nodding oscillation of his chin, and looked Oxford in the eye. And yet he’s a bad enough poet I rewrote mine own plays under his eye, and he never saw the power I put in them. I could manage. Work fortheir Prometheans and undermine their very agenda from within. Ben and Kit and I could manage very well–
“What would you wish of me, my lord? In return for such patronage?” Although he already knew what Oxford would demand.
The Earl smiled, reaching up to tilt his hat at the proper angle as he stepped back into the hurly‑burly of Silver Street. “Don’t answer today,” he said. “But the Lord Chamberlain’s Men perform before Her Majesty on the Feast of the Assumption.”
“We do,” Will said, struggling with feet that wanted to step back into the shadows, get his back to the Avail of the tack shop he stood before.
Consider,” Oxford said, smiling, “whether your play will be a success, and the Oueen’s reign will be sustained. That is all. Consider it. And consider whether your Bible means more to you, William Shakespeare. These friends of mine. Friends of ours, I should say. Mutual friends. They’re impressed with your work. They could give you everything you need. And you know” –a lowered tone –“her Majesty isunwell. And what’s one old woman, past her three score already, in the face of the future of all Christianity? ”
Will fixed a smile on his lips, thin as stage paint. His throat tightened. Just the palsy, doubtless. Everything you need. Freedom to work. Yes, and all it cost is a brave old woman’s life.
He hesitated, watching Oxford grin ironically, touch his hat –as if to an equal, or a rival –nod, and turn away. One old woman’s life.
That’s all.
Sweet Christ. This could be trouble for the whole company. I need to talk to Dick Burbage about this right away.
Act IV, scene viii
What virtue id it that id born with ad?
Much less can honour be ascribed thereto;
Honour id purchased by the deeds we do.
–Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander
Kit’s heart weighed like a dreadful lodestone inside the linen that still bound his aching chest, but he pressed fingertips to the carved frame of the Darkling Glass and bent his will on Robin Goodfellow. He grasped the Puck’s image without difficulty, surprised at his own confidence, and brought it close. The bandy little elf sat cross‑legged in the embrace of a shaggy great willow, a triple pipe held in his hands and his head bowed over it. He blew breath through the reeds, but his fingers poised unmoving and the sound that whispered forth was more the wind through withies than any tune that Kit could call.
Kit clapped a hand on the pommel of his sword to steady it and grasped the rim of the mirror more firmly, pulling himself up as he stepped over the frame–the threshold –and through.
And down into crunching twigs and crisp leaves under a crown of swaying yellow boughs like enchanted snakes. Kit landed lightly, with flexed knee, sudden movement still sharp as a dagger in his breast. The silver sword flickered out like a tasting tongue as he advanced. He didn’t level it – quite–but he let it sway lightly in his hand. “Robin – ”
The Puck looked up, ears rising to attention, but the flute didn’t drift an inch lower. “Sir Poet. So fierce.”
So many words, and so few of them useful. Kit made himself steel and closed his heart to remembered kindnesses, pushing on. ” – tell me thou had naught to do with the murder of Will Shakespeare’s little child?”
Puck drew his knees up and draped gawky arms about them, letting his pipes dangle from his fingertips. “Interesting you should phrase the question thus‑and‑such, Sir Poet.”
“Intentional. But should you lie to me, Robin, I’d know.”
The Puck stood, somehow graceless and fluid all at once, gangling as a colt. He hung the pipes on his belt and stretched up along a bough. “Poets are too precious to sacrifice carelessly,” he said, his long mouth downturned at the corners. “It had to be something other than Shakespeare himself.”
The blade of Kit’s sword grew heavy, as if a hand pressed down the flat. He let it sag until it touched the gnar
led root of the enormous tree, and came a step forward. “Robin.” Whatever the next word might have been, it hung unvoiced on the air between them, leaden with betrayal. Kit shook his head, slowly, and forced his heavy arm to raise his sword as he tried again. “Will Shakespeare was my friend. Even when thou didst this thing, he was my friend– as thou knewest then. And I thought I was thine.”
Which was the heart of it, Kit knew. Of all the folk he’d met in Faerie, there were only three he might have called that, friend.And Puck foremost among them.
Robin shrugged and leapt down from the tree branch, passing over Kit’s sword like a tumbler. He leaned back against the trunk in a deceptively insouciant slouch. “There were reasons,” he said.
“Reasons.”Kit’s hand shook on his blade. The wire grip cut his palm, and every breath hurt him. “What reasoncould possibly suffice for the murder of a boy barely old enough to prentice?”
“What’s one mortal boy, more or less? They die soon enough, and one can always get another. Breed like rabbits, mortals do. And I needed thee, Kit, and needed thee fighting and thinking, not drowning in the dark. I thought if thy Shakespeare stepped back from his Queen, and thou didst go to comfort him, that there was a chance thou wouldst see the Mebd and dark Morgan for what they were, and win thy soul free. And it worked, it worked. How canst condemn me for that, when I had thee at heart, my dear?”
Oh, it was no use. He couldn’t hold the sword up, and he couldn’t have run little Robin through like a game hen on a spit even if he managed to lift the point. “It worked,” Kit said. “Aye. And so Morgan sent me to Hell.”
And thy Shakespeare won thee back, and thou him free. And the tithe paid, and thou what thou art.” Robin grinned. See me? How clever?
“Familiar demon,” Kit said, unbearably weary. He dropped the sword on the leaves and stones, and sat down beside it on a willow root. Puck came closer, sat down beside him, companionate but not touching. “Robin, what hast thou done? Mortal boys are not for slaughtering like cattle. And why dost thou undertake that which harms thy mistress?”
Hell and Earth pa-4 Page 7