«Not I» Lucifer regarded him, smiling, a vision in black breeches and a billowing shirt of ivory silk, which seemed dark against the milk and roses of his skin. He cupped a wing forward, extended a hand: fingers and feathers swept down Kit’s arm as one. :Those scars and what they contain came into thee before I did:
“Why did you not heal them when you did mine eye?”
«They suit me»
“Can the enemy find me through them?”
«Perhaps. But what touched thee just now was the reaction of that which lies within thee to the Word» Again the caress, a drawing close, the encirclement of those sheltering angel wings.
Ah.Kit pulled back. “I do not wish your touch, Father of Lies.”
«Who knows a lie when he hears one. What other touch dost crave, who was Christofer Marley?»
There was no answer, and Lucifer knew it. Kit turned to track a blazing comet tumbling across the heavens. “What do my scars contain?”
Silence. He turned and looked Lucifer in the eyes. The Devil’s soft smile never altered.
“Will said, Morgan said something similar–” Something shifted in Kit’s breast, an emotion seemingly just beyond the brush of his fingers. “I do not understand what you wish of me, Morningstar, or why you have come to me now.”
«I came for that within thee calleth me in his suffering, at his grief to hear the Word»
“That within me?”
Silence, and a smile.
Kit shook his head like a horse reined too tight. “Surely you have poets aplenty, and one more damned soul cannot mean much to such as you.”
«How many damned souls» the Devil said, his words no more than the susurrus of wings, «dost suppose have ever gazed on me with pity?»
“Oh.” Damn me,Kit thought. And here I thought Edward was my masterpiece.“A companion heart.”
«Neither am I permitted such» Even in darkness, Lucifer’s wings shed light – a deep and subtle glow like moonbeams, that seemed to turn every detail of Kit’s clothing and form into a thin sketch in charcoal, echoing his heart. «And only the damned believe in me»
“Is that what you need them for? The damned? To believe?”
«Canst feel God here?»
“No.”
«Nor can I.» Lucifer’s eyes were dark, and bright. «Ask again what thou containest, and I will tell thee.»
“Morgan said to Will that I could not bear to know it.”
«Neither canst bear what thou hast locked in thy breast, my love.»
“Lucifer. ”Kit put his hand to his mouth, shocked at the name that escaped his lips, the exasperation in it.
«Thou hast not said that name in my hearing before.»
“I wrote it .”
«Aye. His waxen wings did mount above his reach / And melting, heavens conspir’d his overthrow–I have paid thee for the poetry, in mine own coin, and thou hast bought what else thou hadst from me. Wilt treat with me now as a friend?»
“If such as I could be friend to such as … thee.”
«We are alike – damned and not‑damned, abjured by God for that which he created us. An he be all he claims, who was Christofer Marley, has he not failed in creating us irredeemable?»
“The Catholics would redeem us,” Kit said, crouching to warm his hands before a star that grew and flowered close beside his feet. They stood on one of the crystal vaults of heaven: far below, he could discern the shifting blue‑white orb of the Earth. “If we forswore all for the love of God.” He paused, pressing his fingers to the crystal, so pure it was invisible. “An we were closer, I might amend some maps.”
A laugh, and the brush of feathers along his spine, affectionately disarraying his hair. «I keep the damned because the damned believe in me, my love, and belief is my power. Ask me thy question again, an thou wouldst hear mine answer»
“Lucifer.” Fear darted on bright wings in his breast as he stood. He’s right. I do not wish to know the answer. And yet I must –“What sorcery did Richard Baines work upon and through me?”
«A binding and a sealing within. A rape to abrogate the barriers of thyself, and a star burned into thy flesh to lock within that which thy prayers lured into thee, when thou didst raise thy voice to God for aid, and aid was sent»
Kit turned to look the Devil in the eye. “Thou”–an effort to say it, and Satan’s amusement made it worse–“sayest I have a cage for an angelburned on my skin?”
«Aye»
“Why?” Kit staggered. His scars flared so hot he thought they might burn through his doublet, and he drew his cloak tight as Lucifer cupped his shoulders with one bright wing. Kit hunched into the Devil’s arms. “And moreover, how?”
«Tell me who the angel Mehiel is.»
Kit closed his eyes, thinking. Mehiel.Amaranth had been right: he’d found the name easily in London. “Protector of poets, authors, and lecturers. He’s also the angel under whose wardenship my birthday falls, if thou dost believe such things. But those are papist superstitions – ”
«Are they?» The golden brows rose, rumpling the ivory forehead. «Tell me, then, which of my brothers would come to thee in thy hour of need, Sir Poet?»
Oh, God.
«Nay. But a bit of His creation, more kindly disposed to thee than most, to help thee bear thy pain. And now he hears the name of God and seeks to burst his prison, but his prison is thy mortal flesh:
“No,” Kit said. He pressed his fist against his chest, heart thundering against the backs of his fingers. “No. It is not so.”
«If devils may be bound» Lucifer murmured, pitiless, «why, so may God’s angels, for we are brothers, all»
“But why?”Such a small voice, Kit could hardly believe it came from his own throat. He would have fallen if Lucifer’s white wings and arms hadn’t borne him up; the pain in his breast was incapacitating, his eyes burning so hot he could not think anything but fire flowed down his cheeks.
Lucifer lifted the folds of Kit’s patchwork cloak with a wing tip, violent colors draped over the whiteness of his feathers, and held it before Kit’s eyes. It caught the light of all the vaults of heaven, the planets spinning below and the stationary stars all around. «The magic of sympathy,» he said. «To bind the angel within thee, and then to bind thine own magic and thy voice, and then to take thee in servitude, and cripple thy power with fear and loathing and the hatred of thine own weakness they put in thee. ‘Tis half the reason their opposition of thy plays, and Shakespeare’s, has been so successful. That thou hadst any success at all is a testament to the power of thy will–and thy Will, also.»
God,Kit thought, understanding finally why it was that Richard Baines had let him live, until he’d proven once and for all that he would notlet them control him. Why everyone–Prometheans, Faerie, Hell–seemed bent on owning him, no matter the cost. “But why would God send an angel to–me?Why would He care?”
«God will not save thee.» A knowing voice, and one burning with pain like embers banked and buried in the ash. «But He will of a time give thee the strength to endure what horrors His servants do visit upon thee.»
Kit swallowed, hearing the voice, feeling that filthy caress on his filthy hair – ‘If we have a chance to complete the wreaking in London, it would help to use the same vessel. Even more if he were willing, of course. Although mayhap our little catamite liked it, considering his tastes.’
‘Did you like it, puss?’
They raped an angel. Through me. They raped an angel in my body. My angel.It wasn’t rage he felt, but a great disbelief and weariness; the rousing of an exhausted, possessive jealousy.
Condummatum est.Lucifer’s gentleness made Kit want to retch. “He wasn’t only talking to me, was he?” ‘Bid you like it, puss?’“It was a promise to–what they put in me. Something to think about.”
«Aye»
“I thought the dark Prometheans thought they were – God’s chosen.”
«They are.» Lucifer answered calmly. «The God they intend to create. And what is boun
d in thee is part of that creation, a chink in the armor of the Divine. As thy cloak offers thee a symbol of the scrap of protection and grace offered thee by each one who contributes to it–so what is done to thee is done to Mehiel, and that which is done unto Mehiel is done unto God.»
The spaces underfoot and overhead made him dizzy. This is Hell too,he thought. For it is not Heaven.“If this works,” Kit asked, a spark of doubt flaring in his soul as he thought of Will and Ben hard at work over verses and translation, “‑why have you not taken it on yourself to make a God of your own?”
«Sweet Poet.» Mockery, and a warm wing across his shoulders. «Have I not? Why didst think I chose thee, my love? What dost thou think thy Faustuswill create, given history and the acclaim it deserves?»
“I have an angel burned on my skin,” Kit said, wondering. “What happens if I set him free?”
«If thou canst discover how. I do not know that he can be freed without the destruction of the prison that contains him.»
“Me.” Kit sagged, and turned his face to the silk of Satan’s shirt when the angel embraced him once more. The tears were dry on his face, if they had been water and not flames, and he leaned into the embrace and the scent of smoke and forgetfulness that surrounded Lucifer, and the warmth of those wings, and the cold starlight gleaming between his boots and on his hair. God sent an angel to bear my pain. And I have hated God all these years for failing to answer my prayers.
As they said in Faerie, all stories were true. But some stories were more true than others.
‘Did you tike it, puss?’
«Well?» Lucifer asked, some eternity later. «Was Morgan correct, again? Has’t broken thee, this knowing?»
“Yes,” Kit said, and somewhere found a last black scrap of humor, and managed not to shiver as he spoke. “At least for today.”
«Brave Poet.» the Devil said, and held him among the darkness and the stars for a little while longer, until Kit raised his face from the soft white curve of Satan’s wing.
“There’s a shining sort of irony in Lucifer giving God back to a man God doesn’t want.”
«Poetry grows through the broken places, brother.» The wings opened around him; Kit stood under their arch, but they no longer restrained or warmed him.
Within and yet without, and boldly he laid his hand on the feathers again and ruffled them up, stroked them smooth. Whatever moved in Kit was vast and slow, a symphony of emotion that swelled from discord into something complex and bittersweet and whole. “Brother … an we are friends, then. And thou dost value my friendship – ” It wouldn’t come into words, exactly, but he knew perfectly well that Lucifer could read his tangle of emotions and half‑formed thoughts as plainly as a poem. The Devil might claim he could not see in human hearts. But Lucifer was, after all, the Prince of Lies.
And when those lies went cloaked in truth, so much the better.
Lucifer tilted his head, considering, watching Kit’s hand linger among his feathers. «The pain and sickness thou feelst at thy lovers’ touch. And yet not at mine.»
“If we are to be friends–”
«Sir Poet.» When Satan ducked his head and smiled crookedly at Kit, it folded sharp creases from the corners of his long, slightly crooked nose to the corners of his mouth. The blue eyes crinkled in an interested sort of mockery, and Kit felt suddenly as if some bright fluid buoyed him. «‘Tis thine own soul’s wreaking, and a sensible one; ‘tis but that the wall Mehiel and thyself didst build about thy garden of suffering–and his–after Rheims has fallen.»
“… fallen?”
«The angel Mehiel has seen the truth, that hiding thy pain from thee has not made thee strong, but concealed the flaw within. He hath lifted his wings, and thou must needs now tend the blasted heath within. Friend Poet, heal thyself, and thou wilt be whole.»
“The blasted heath? Or the blastedheart?” Kit asked wryly, but he found himself stepping back from the angel and the devastating truth in his words. Something within Kit’s breast stirred with a pain like trapped and beating wings. “How many men does the Devil call friend?”
The broad wings folded with a breeze that savored of lavender. Lucifer too stepped back. “As many as offer him understanding.”
Barely on a breath, a murmur, a whisper–and the sound of Lucifer’s spoken voicestaggered Kit nonetheless. It resonated through the crystal under Kit’s feet, through the chamber of his lungs and heart, striking sparks from his hair and his fingertips. That tolling bell, that falcon’s cry, that shriek of joy and agony that Kit recognized from his dreams hung inside his mind, and he knew it now for the voice of the angel within.
“Oh, my,” Kit whispered, as the Devil reached out and took his forearms in white fingers, and smiled again, and met his gaze. Lucifer’s eyes shone transparent, blue as the sunlit vault of Heaven, and Kit held his breath. Thou art–
«I always suspected that thou didst thy Mephostophilis love, a little.»
Kit laughed and would have broken the eye contact, but the Devil’s smile held him. He shivered and swallowed, and with an act of raw will managed to look down. “Rather I fancied myself a sort of Mephostophilis – ”
«And not Faustus?»
“Who would wish to be Faustus?” Kit said, and stepped forward, and boldly, chastely, kissed Lucifer on the mouth. The Devil permitted the caress, returned it–a gentle, considering tasting as unlike the blinding passion of another time as kiss from kiss could be. Kit did not step back after, but spoke against Lucifer’s smooth‑skinned jaw, feeling the prickles of his beard rasp the angel’s cheek. “Poor damned fool, reaching beyond any sane measure of wisdom for something he could see, but scarcely understand. I would not wish to be him, but aye–I understood and pitied him.”
«And hast thou who wert Christofer Marley not reached all thy life for that which eluded thy grasp?»
“Thou must find somewhat less unwieldy by which to address me,” Kit said, but the Devil would not be diverted.
«If thou art Mephostophilis»–Lucifer spread wide his bright, beckoning wings – зthen I am Faustus. Come and teach me thy pity again.»
Act IV, scene xi
Antonio: A witchcraft drew me hither:
That most ingrateful boy there by your side,
From the rude sea’s enraged and foamy mouth
Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was:
His life I gave him and did thereto add
My love, without retention or restraint,
–William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night,Act V, scene i
Curfew and the failing light forced Will home before sunset that night; he walked through London’s crowded streets, his breath streaming before him like a cart horse’s in the cold. He turned his ankle on an icy stone, but a passerby caught his elbow and saved him from a nasty fall, and he made it to the double‑gabled house on Silver Street intact. And wasn’t sure if he was startled or passionately unsurprised to find Kit waiting for him, curled on the narrow bed with his back to the corner, his cloak pulled up to his chin like a child’s favorite blanket. Will saw with gratitude that Kit had built the fire up and set wine to warm beside it.
“Back from Hell in one piece, love?” Will tossed his gloves on the table and crouched at the hearth, pressing his palms to rough, ashy stone for the warmth.
“Never out of it,” Kit replied. “It turns out Mephostophilis was right. Who would have imagined it?”
“Thee.”
“Aye – ” He sighed, and didn’t stand. “If thou’rt pouring the wine, bring me some.”
“Of course.” Will did, and stood, and leaned on the edge of the bed facing Kit. “Ben rather didn’t handle thy vanishment well. But thank thee for coming to prove thy health to me – ”
“I imagined he might not.” Kit sipped the wine Will pressed into his hands, and made a face. “I let it sit too long.”
“‘Tis better than a chill in the belly ” Will answered complacently. “No, Ben’s troubled on many fronts. He’s started a little war of
wits with the redheads, and Chapman has it he’s angry with me because Her Majesty–much improved in health, I mention in passing – ” Kit grinned, showing wine‑stained teeth, ” – has commissioned a play for Twelfth Night. Another comedy.”
“I saw the pages on the table.”
“Thou’rt incorrigible.”
“I am. I liked the tragedy you’ve half done better, and the history was quite good.”
“Kit, how long have you been here?”
“An hour or six.” Kit hid his face behind his wine. “Her Majesty was never much for blood when she could be made to laugh. Pray, continue.”
“A masque of Ben’s was passed over.” Will shrugged and drank his wine, redolent of the spices Kit had stewed in it. “He’s fussing.”
“Over a masque?”
“Times have changed,” Will said, and set his cup aside. “Masques and satires are all the rage. I have to finish the Henry quickly: there’s a rumor that history plays will be forbidden. Books have burned, and not just Catholic treatises – ” He stopped himself. Kit raised his chin and blinked long, dark gold lashes.
“Books?”
“Nashe,” Will said unwillingly. “Harvey too. And new printings forbidden. I think our enemies have some hold over the Archbishop now. Whitgift. Or perhaps he simply fears the Puritans and their rising strength. And Elizabeth doth love him.”
“Oh, poor Tom.” Kit fell silent for a long moment, and leaned back against the wall. “Masques and satires the fashion. And comedies.”
“Aye, and comedies – ”
Kit smiled. “But the great William Shakespeare is immune to fashion. I’ll wager what you like that your Hamletwill out‑draw whatever Ben puts on.”
“Kit – ” Ah, what do you say, and how do you say it?“Oxford and Southampton have been making… grappling runs. They want me to poison the queen.”
“With arsenic? A pretty trick, when she will not dine in company.”
Will shook his head, and said, “With poetry.” And then he turned and twisted his hand around his wrist, and said, ” ‘Twere treason even to hear them, Kit.”
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