Salisbury pushed the heavy door a little more open and came forward, the sleeves of his black robe rippling in the cold breeze from the window. “This will never serve,” he said, casting a disdainful eye over the cell. “I will not have your health at risk.”
“My lord‑“
“Peace, Will.” The Earl drew himself up to his full, slight height as if the gesture pained him. “Thou’rt here for thine own protection.”
Will swallowed, knowing how hoarse he must sound. “You’ll risk Ben Jonson on a fool’s errand–”
“Master Shakespeare,” Salisbury said. “Thou needst ale before thou dost speak again, to judge by that throat. Come, let me see thee breakfasted.” He stood aside, gesturing to the door through which he’d passed.
Will hesitated, and then stooped painfully to pick up his boots. He hadn’t time to work his feet into them, and his previous night’s captors had taken his cane, but he hobbled along as best he could.
“Master Jonson’s more Walsingham’s than mine,” Cecil said while they walked, as if speaking to an old companion. “Although I will admit I haven’t my father’s sense of which of you intelligencers and agents is playing what end against which. No, Jonson’s not reliable enough to suit. But which of you sturdy scoundrels can choose a side and stand with it? My men, Baines’ men, Walsingham’s men, Poley’s men. Who can tell one from the other?”
“And what side do you support, my lord?” Will pitched his voice low, a servant’s deference, and hoped Salisbury’s expansive mode continued, although he dreaded to learn the source of it.
“Mine own, of course. Which is to say, England and her crown, and the best way to assure a strong England is to assure a decisive King. Thy Walsingham doth consider these Catholics and Puritans and Prometheans are the threat… the PrometheusClub? As ridiculous as Raleigh and his School or Night. Like boys playing at capture the fort, and they have no concept of what’s truly at stake.”
Will did not pause his stride. He noticed with amusement that his limp and Salisbury’s matched admirably. Will trailed a hand along the wall as a substitute for his cane, in case his balance should desert him. “And what’s that, my lord Earl?”
Salisbury brushed Will with a sidelong glance as if to see if he made mock. “Sovereignty,” he said. “Do not think that England’s is by any means assured.”
“My lord?” Will almost skidded to a stop in his stockinged feet as Salisbury turned on him. Something filled the Earl’s eyes – not fury, precisely, or desperation, but whatever it was the player’s part of Will’s mind saw it and recognized it as motivation.
And saw in that silence the thing that Salisbury wouldn’t say. James is a terrible King.
“Let us merely say,” Salisbury continued, in the teeth of that long hesitation, “that the Scottish influence among the courtiers does not serve to unify us, and leave it at that. In any case, Master Shakespeare, I would see thee safe–”
“I will be missed.”
“Thine absence will be explained. ‘Tis not as if thou wert not noted for the occasional abrupt disappearance.”
“And Kit Marlowe?” Will interrupted, and then held his breath. “The Prometheans who worry you so little, my lord, have taken him hostage as well.” Not on my orders.”
“No,” Will said, remembering the sound of a blow, a skull thumped hollow as a melon struck with a knife.
The Earl pressed his lips together and considered long enough that faintness made Will light‑headed. And his words sent Will’s stomach plunging hopelessly. “Regrettable,” Salisbury said. “Truly regrettable. But I need them more than I need Marlowe, Master Shakespeare, for the next month or so. Conspiracies are useful–a force that may be directed to profitable service, like a waterfall through a millwheel, but I learned well from my father that they must not be plucked before they are ripe. I mean to use these conspiracies as he would, to secure the future of the realm.”
Will closed his eyes and dropped his chin, hearing finality in the tone. “My lord.”
“I’m sorry,” Salisbury answered, and Will almost thought he meant it. “Come. Thou knowest Sir Walter Raleigh, dost not? He’s a guest here as well–in a pleasanter section, although his teeth are quite pulled these days. I have no doubt he would welcome a little company. Shall we call on him?”
Will nodded, smoothing his face so his panic would not show before this man. I’m safe. One problem attended to.
But Kit and Ben are not, and neither is Tom.
Act V, scene ix
Can there be such deceit in Christians,
Or treason in the fleshly heart of man,
Whose shape is figure of the highest God?
Then if there be a Christ, as Christians say,
But in their deeds deny him for their Christ,
If he be son to everliving Jove,
And hath the power of his outstretched arm,
If he be jealous of his name and honor
As is our holy prophet Mahomet,
Take here these papers as our sacrifice
And witness of thy servant’s perjury.
–Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great,Part II, Act II, scene ii
Kit sat in that darkness too deep for his witch’s sight to pierce, even had he the use of it, and ran his fingers over the rugged surface of the scold’s bridle Baines had left to keep him company. He’d thought at first he might force it to pieces and use the cast‑iron straps to dig, but the welds proved strong. He knew every inch of the thing’s surface by now, had bloodied his fingertips with worrying at it, with picking at the spikes on the mouthpiece and exploring the curve of the cheeks. It weighed as much as a small child in his arms, resting against his knees, and holding it close to his breast was the only thing that silenced the savage pain in his brands any more.
The wrenching in his belly, the agony that told him he must return to Faerie sooner rather than later, or die in pain he wouldn’t have to find unimaginable–
–there was no help at all for that.
Kit sighed, and curled his fingertips into the earth, pressing his matted hair back against the stone. A lump like a church door had risen and fallen on the side of his head, and Baines had not returned.
Another spasm dragged at his belly; he wondered if it was what a hooked fish felt, or a man who suffered with the stone. “Christ,“he prayed wetly. The agony pressing his brands out–until he would have sworn they bulged redoubled–arced, flared, and settled.
Kit caught his breath and took another slight sip of beer, before resuming his interrupted monologue. “Well, Edward? You know, Your Majesty, I have to imagine it can’t have hurt that much. I mean, at first, certainly. But not like slow impalement, or breaking on the wheel. Hell, probably not so much as–”
Oh, shall we not think about that?He wondered if Mehiel’s thrashings were like a breeding woman’s experience of carrying a baby under her heart. Pregnant by God. But ‘twas not God that knew me–mayhap when ‘tis born, ‘twill be an Antichrist.
Pity thou’rt not Catholic, Kit: couldst ask the Virgin Mary.
Pussycat, thou’rt raving.
Why, so I am. And knowest thou reason why I should not rave?
Aye.The small, still voice inside of him. The one he’d known with such certainty once. Thou’rt scaring the baby, puss.
Meaning Mehiel. Meaning the thrashing thing within him, terrified– terrified?
Angel?
Mehiel?
And somehow, as if in response to the suddenly gentle tone of his questions, the tearing sensation faded. And Kit clenched both hands on the straps of the scold’s bridle and cursed himself for a fool who would whip a failing horse until it fell over dead in the traces. Aye, and he’d torn from God’s mercy and rammed up the arse of a sodomite, tortured and raped, and what do you get him?
He couldn’t quite hold back the giggle as he laid his forehead against the straps of the bridle and clutched it tight against his breast. Why, fucked by Lucifer. Of course.
«And angels of the Lord are thee?»
A voice for a moment he mistook for his own defiant tones, the spiked irony he saved for moments of abject vulnerability. This one is– oh. Mehiel?
A flicker, a suggestion of bright yellow wings barred in black. A voice that was not the voice of his conscience or the voice of his faith, but was very much his ownvoice after all. A sense of a head upraised, and hesitance. Kit thought if the angel stood before him, it would have cringed, and then forced itself upright. «Greetings, who was Christofer Marley.»
“Thou knowest I can’t stand to be called that,” Kit said, but he said it wryly. “Why speak to me now, angel of the Lord?”
A soft silence, with a small voice following. «Thou didst never listen before.»
Which wasn’t something he could answer, exactly. And no excuse he could make.
«And now,» Mehiel barely whispered, «thou must listen all the closer, or we will be lost eternally, and hope lost with us»
“Can I be more damned than I am now?”
«Always.» the angel answered, and Kit sighed and set the bridle aside.
“All right,” he said, before another blade of agony curled him to his side, gasping until the spasm had passed. There was no hope in his breast, but he grimaced in determination and cracked his bleeding fingers one by one. Despair was a sin, after all. “Never say die. What happens if we climb? There’s always a way out if you look hard enough. Canst fly?”
«My wings are bound in thee–» the angel began, but the rest of his comment was lost.
«Ah, Sir Poet,» A voice like brushed silk, and there would have been no mistaking this one for his own, or for that of Mehiel. «Is alwaysa way. Come to me, my love; I am the way.»
There was light, suddenly. Light cast from over his shoulder, and as he found himself standing he turned to it, turned into it. The scent of pipe tobacco surrounded him, a comforting memory of Sir Walter Raleigh’s chill parlor and many late nights.
“Mehiel?”
«Do as you must.» the angel whispered in his ear, and folded himself taut within a flurry of remembered golden feathers.
Kit took a deep breath, and walked into the light.
Act V, scene x
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night,
Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black‑brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
–William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,Act III, scene ii
The crippled raven found Will in his new room and seemed well pleased with the wider window, for all it must rattle the glass for attention. Will didn’t think this typical behavior in a raven, but perhaps the pampered birds at the Tower had been hand‑fed into audacity. He opened the casement, despite a cold, sharp wind that whittled past the edges of the palm‑sized panes: the bird hopped into the air as the frame swept the window ledge and then settled again in its own footsteps. It cocked its head at him, wise‑eyed and glossy, and fluffed its lacquered feathers. “Is a predilection for charity branded on my thumb?” Will asked mildly, and flicked the raven a bit of boiled egg, trying not to think how it resembled a plucked‑out eye. The ravens had their reasons for staying close by the Tower.
The bird pecked it up and looked for more, and Will laid the next crumb closer and stepped away from the window. Southampton had had a cat for company. I’m not certain a raven is much of a companion, but it’s either that or tap out messages to Sir Walter on the wall in code.
By the fourth bit of yolk, the raven was crouched on the lip of the window frame, its peaked head bobbing between heavy, crookedly spread wings. Will tossed the fifth bit on the floor and held his breath. The bird’s black cold‑chisel beak dipped once or twice as it examined the room, Will, and the bit of egg with suspicion. Will chirruped as he might to a chicken, feeling foolish. It crouched, about to hop down onto the floor–
–and vanished backward in a tempest of black feathers, shocked into flight by the clatter of the bar outside Will’s door being drawn from the braces and hurled unceremoniously to the floor. Will startled, turned too fast, and fell sprawling, forearm and hip slamming the floor near hard enough, he thought, to strike sparks between bone and stone. It hurt too much for him to manage a shout, or more than a rasping whimper. The door burst open, wide strap hinges creaking, and Will pushed himself to his knees with the arm that wasn’t numbed from fingertips to elbow.
And then he blinked, and sat back down among the rushes and herbs strewing the floor, because it was neither Salisbury nor Allan the guard who entered, but Ben Jonson, Tom Walsingham, and Murchaud, the Prince‑Consort of the Daoine Sidhe.
“Will! ” Ben was the first to start toward him as he sat foolishly blinking, cradling his injured arm in his left hand and hugging it close to his chest. “Thou’rt hurt. And it’s freezing in here, the barbarians – ”
“Nay,” Will said, shaking his head. “Just a fall. Just a tumble – ” He wiggled his fingers slightly, to show the arm unbroken, and panted in pain. “Robert Poley took my cane, damn him to Hell.”
Murchaud had turned with Tom to brace the doorway, both of them facing the hall, and the Elf‑knight’s blade was drawn. “Master Shakespeare,” he said; Will heard tautness of emotion in his voice. “Where is Sir Christopher?”
Will swallowed a whimper as Ben lifted him to his feet as easily as swinging a girl across a threshold. “I know not, Your Highness,” he answered. He leaned on Ben’s arm while testing his leg and decided it might almost hold his weight. “You could not find him in your Glass?”
“No,” Murchaud said without glancing over his shoulder. “Hast a looking glass?”
“I have a window.”
‘ ‘Twill serve. …” Murchaud stepped back, tapping Tom on the shoulder as he moved into the room. Tom followed without taking his eyes from the hall until Murchaud stepped in front of him and swung the heavy door shut. “Sir Thomas, if you would be so kind as to drag that table over?” A moment later, and they had it barred from inside, while Will clung to Ben’s arm.
“Damn,” Tom said, turning to face Will. “Damn. I’d hoped we’d find Kit if we found you–”
“How did you know I was missing?” Will’s eyes followed Murchaud as the Prince moved to the casement and dragged it shut. He sheathed his sword and tugged two‑handed to be sure the frame had latched.
“When”–Tom glanced over at the elf–“His Highness noticed Kit was missing, he sought you. Realizing your circumstances, he came to me. Ben was my idea.”
Ben grunted. “And still we have no Marlowe.”
“No,” Murchaud answered in a low and worried tone. “And he’ll be dead with Faerie‑sickness if we do not find him soon. Come along, mortals.”
“Wait,” Will said. “Sir Walter Raleigh is in the next chamber. Should we see to his liberty too?”
Rather than meeting Will’s eyes, Tom looked at Ben. “Sir Walter’s a legal prisoner of His Majesty’s,” he said. “And not a loyal subject held illegitimately. I cannot countenance it, I fear–and every minute we tarry here is a minute Kit is dying.”
Regrettable,Will heard Salisbury say again, and nodded while Tom lugged a footstool toward the window. “Right. ‘Tis the side we’re on.”
Murchaud held a hand out, ready to pass him through the glass, and Will limped away from Ben’s steadying hand and went.
Act V, scene xi
Of, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele:
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
>
In wanton Arethusa’s azured arms:
And none but thou shalt be my paramour.
–Christopher Marlowe, Faustus,Act V, scene i
Kit stepped through the light again, but this time there was nothing beyond to support his bare, bruised feet.
He fell.
Into infinite cold and blackness, tumbling hopelessly, arms windmilling, the scream in his throat vanishing into silence as it passed his lips, his fingers freezing so they might shatter and–
Lucifer caught him by the wrist, pulled him close, cradled him in the warm snowfall of wings. Breath hissed into Kit’s lungs, the frozen tears melting on his cheeks. “Christ!” he wheezed. “Christos!”
«Kepler,» Satan answered, and flung his wings wide. He held Kit’s hand in his strong, perfect fingers, though, so that Kit scrolled out alongside him like a ribbon let flap in the wind – but Kit could feel no wind pressing at him as they fell. They tumbled in preternatural calm, or perhaps Kit’s initial impression had been wrong, and they merely floated like puffs of thistledown in the air.
Except that what surrounded them was blackness, velvet and complete between the pricked‑out diamonds of a thousand million stars, and they swam among those stars like dolphins sounding the deeps. “Strange fish,” Kit said, and shook his head. “Kepler. The German astronomer.”
«Aye,» Lucifer answered, and Kit could hear the pleasure in his “voice.” I’ve passed a test?«This is his universe, my love, as before I showed thee Ptolemy’s. Is’t not lovely?» His hand tightened on Kit’s, squeezing the iron rings around Kit’s fingers.
The poet winced in pain, but Lucifer took no notice. Rather, he lifted his right hand to point. «See Mars?»
A racing red pinpoint, a droplet, a globe. Kit focused on it and grinned in dumb wonder as his eyes seemed to adapt, his focus grow closer. He saw veils of mist and shining white glaciers on the surface of the round ochre world, and two moons no bigger than afterthoughts tumbling like puppies through the red planet’s sky. “Oh, Lucifer,” he said. “Which is the truth, then, my lord? This, or what thou didst show me before?”
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