“That’s all?”
“That’s all I know,” the troll said. “Don’t drink the water, mortal man. Go home now.”
Will refused Morgan’s tisane, over her smile, when they had returned to her cottage. She said nothing about the troll’s pronouncement, but Murchaud grumbled. “He told us nothing but riddles.” He rubbed his hands as if they still ached.
Will shook his head. “Nay. He told us everything he needed to. Ask those that know the secrets– ” He stood. “He’s a Faerie. Do youexpect him to play straightforward?”
Murchaud looked up. “Where are you going now?” Will smiled. “To strike a bargain with a snake.”
Act V, scene xiii
Faustus: When I behold the heavens then I repent And curse thee wicked Mephostophilis, Because thou hast depriv’d me of those joys.
Mephostophilis: ‘Twas thine own seeking Faustus, thank thy self. But thinkst thou heaven is such a glorious thing? I tell thee Faustus it is not half so faire As thou, or any man that breathe on earth.
– Christopher Marlowe, Faustus,Act II, scene ii
When the rasp of the hinges heralded Baines’ return, Kit was again huddled around the rough, round shape of the scold’s bridle. He’d lost track of the comings and goings, the feedings and tauntings, and could now think only, of the ever‑rising pain, and wonder when it might release him. Curled tight as a caterpillar, his fingers laced through the bridle as if the touch of iron could ease his agony, he still flinched when the light struck his face. “Puss,” Baines said. “I’ve bread and cheese and a little ale for thee.”
Kit whimpered. The thought of food made burning bile rise in his throat.
“None of that, puss.” A gentle voice, as something struck the floor far enough away to pose him no threat. “Mehiel won’t let thee perish. And thou’lt need thy strength for our little ritual, wilt thou not?”
He did not want to cringe in front of Baines, skin welting and hair matted with filth. He got a fist against the earth and shoved himself to his knees, raising a face that Baines grimaced to see. “And I see thou’lt need cleansing beforehand.”
“It’s a hazard,” Kit mocked, finding the ghost of his voice, “of residence in a filthy dungeon. What day is it?” Then – “Oh–!” a cramp like an uppercut to the belly doubled him over. He bit down on a whimper and a flinch.
“Near on Hallow’s Eve,” Baines said. “Only another week or so of our hospitality to look forward to.”
“And then what happens?”
“Nothing thou hast not already proved thou canst withstand, brave puss,” Baines said. “I imagine it might even be less unpleasant than Rheims, if thou dost cooperate a little.”
“And then the sacrifice.” Every word like speaking broken glass. Kit shivered and dropped his gaze to the floor, wondering if they’d let him die cleanly, at knifepoint, or if it would be something drawn out and ugly.
“Peace, pussycat.” There was– Christ–pride in Baines’ voice; the tone was enough to make Kit wish he had something in his gut to vomit. “I’d rather burn a cathedral than see thee come to any lasting harm. What a waste of eighteen years’ work thatwould be.”
Kit bit down on his lip to stop the whimper, and managed only to convert it to a whine. Mehiel,he thought, like a prayer. Mehiel, Mehiel, Mehiel–
“Rest well,” Baines said. “You’ll need your strength.” And gently closed him in.
The darkness was complete. Kit bit his fist against a rising wave of pain and nausea, his teeth gritting on the iron bands. He tasted his own clotted blood, the rank sickliness of the infected, swollen flesh on either side of the immovable rings. It hurt to bend his fingers; he wondered how long he had before gangrene started to claim them, one by one.
Mehiel
«Sir Poet.» A stirring, as of distant attention drawn close.
Is’t true what Baines said, just now?Kit reached out in the darkness and found the scold’s bridle, lifting it with battered hands. The touch of that iron soothed his pain, just a little. Enough to almost concentrate, even in the unhelpful dark and quiet of the pit. The effect of iron on Faerie magic, perhaps. Art keeping me among the living, angel?
The angel hesitated. «I bear a little of thy hurt,» Mehiel replied. «As much as I am able.»
Ah.Kit stroked the scold’s bridle with the flats of his palms. He wondered if it was the same one, if his own blood seasoned that rusty metal. He did not stop to think what his suffering might have been without the angel’s intervention. Morgan’s words were truth, all those years ago. I would not survive this separation from Faerie.
“And Deptford? Didst aid me there, as well?”
«Did what I might.» Shyly, as if his questions embarrassed the angel. «Not what I might have managed once, by the grace of God.»
Kit’s hands bled again, but at least it smelled of copper and not pus. They knotted tight on the bridle; it fell open on his lap. “Baines will– Baines will hurt us again.”
Silence, long and bleak. «Aye.»
“The Morningstar said it was our own fear that crippled us.”
«The Morningstar,» Mehiel said wryly «wounds with truth.»
And tempts with the thing you long for most.There was regret in that thought. Like not living alone, Kit?
Aye. And isn’t that the thing that frightens thee most, as well?
Kit weighed the instrument of torture in his hands. “How brave are we, Mehiel?”
«We are a very small angel, Sir Christofer.»
He breathed through clenched teeth. “It’s all right, Mehiel. We’re a very small poet, too. And call me Kit, an you will.”
It was dark enough that Kit didn’t bother to close his eyes before he lifted the scold’s bridle and – hands moving as jerkily as if an inexpert puppeteer were at his strings–fitted it to his face. He had to wet his tongue on the flat, warm ale that Baines had left, and began to work the bit into his mouth. Dull blades pressed his tongue and palate, not quite sharp enough to prick blood to the surface if he didn’t fight the thing.
His hands shaking, the hinges rustling rather than creaking, he closed it around his face and sat there in the darkness, holding the edges together for a full ten counted seconds before he permitted himself to fling it away. It rang from stones on the far side of his narrow prison.
He wasn’t sure if the salt and iron he tasted was blood and the bridle, or Mehiel’s tears.
Or his own.
But the pain wassmaller.
* * *
Kit crouched in darkness, stronger for the bread and ale he’d forced over his iron‑numbed tongue, his trembling hands pressed to the iron bands across his cheeks, below his eyes. I can do this.
We can do this.
Mehiel, coiled in a tight, black‑barred ball of misery, shivered and did not answer.
We can endure this. We endure. We live. We cooperate if we must. And then we find our vengeance.
«Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.»
As thou wishest it. We willlive, Mehiel.
“Froggy frogs,” someone whispered. Kit startled, felt about him. He tore the bridle from his head again; it rolled and rattled in darkness, a heavy iron jangle, but his hands brushed nothing that felt like flesh, slick or otherwise. Losing my mind. And who could wonder?
“Master Troll?”
“Froggy frogs. Froggy frogs. Froggy frogs – ” Faint as an echo up a drain pipe.
“Master Troll ! There’s a way out, sir?”
“Hurm.And harm.”Something that luminesced faintly squeezeditself from a narrow space in the floor, expanding like a rose from a stem, and loomed over Kit.
“Sir Poet,” the troll said, a green‑mottled pattern of dim light against the darkness of the cell. “There’s no way out but through,” he answered, and reached a long hand through the darkness. Spatulate fingers rasped against Kit’s filthy hair, found his earlobe, and tugged.
“What? Ow!”A wincing pain to add to all the greater pains, and suddenly the sensa
tion of a small thing burrowing out of Kit’s intestines ceased.
“A gift,” the troll said, sounding inordinately pleased with himself, and sat down beside Kit with his back to the wall, still glowing faintly.
“And now we escape?” Kit said hopefully, raising his fingers to touch the heavy warm circle throbbing in the lobe of his left ear.
“And now we wait,” the troll answered complacently. “Tell me a story, frog‑and‑prince.”
Act V, scene xiv
I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
Lay down my soul at stake: if you think other,
Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.
If any wretch have put this in your head,
Let heaven requite it with the serpent’s curse!
–William Shakespeare, Othello,Act IV, scene ii
Amaranth was easy to find. Her long green‑and‑silver body lay like a jeweled ribbon dropped on the dust‑colored winter grass near that strange white tree; her woman’s torso rose among the ice‑covered branches, her hands upraised like a supplicating sinner’s.
Will glanced over his shoulder at Murchaud as they came up the hill. “Shall we interrupt?”
“Go thou on,” Murchaud answered. “She likes thee better. I’ll stay for thee here.”
Will dug his toes in to climb the slick bank, leaning on a birch limb he’d liberated from the wood –a temporary walking stick – as he climbed. Amaranth heard him coming, of course, or perhaps felt the vibration of his footsteps through the ground. She turned from the waist, the flakes of ice she had been brushing from the tree’s pale branches dusting her arms and shoulders and the complaining mass of her hair. Thread‑fine snakes coiled tight against the warmth of her skull in the Novembery chill.
“Good afternoon, my lady,” Will said. A silvery tone came to him on the same cold breeze that snapped the brave green and violet banners on the Mebd’s shining turrets: the cry of a fey trumpet, climbing the rise.
“Hello, William, “she said. The trumpet sounded again, burying her words under a landslide of music. “The Prince is going to be late for the rade if he lingers here.”
“Rade?”
“The Faeries ride on London,” she said. “Time’s slipped past thee while thou wert in the wood, I fear.”
“What day is it?” Thickening worry, as his hand rose to his naked ear. I could have lost a lifetime in the time it took to walk back from the troll’s bridge. And think you not that the Prometheans will kill Kit out of hand, should they find the Faerie court tromping through London?
In the mortal realm?” She dusted ice from her hands. It fell like snow through still air, sparkling on her scales where it landed. Looking up, Will could see that she’d cleaned half the boughs already. “It is Hallow’s Eve.”
Damme,” he said. Almost a month gone.The knowledge made him reconsider his fear for Kit, as well. And if Kit be not dead already, so long out of Faerie, it is only that so the thing is protecting him.Will would have swallowed, but his throat was too tight. . He would not bury Kit before he saw the body. Not a second time. “Thy help, Amaranth–”
“All thou needest ever do is ask,” she answered, lowering her human torso so that he looked her directly in the eyes. Something flickered across their opaque surfaces, a blue so bright he thought first it was the reflection of the unreal sky of Faerie. “Although”–a tongue‑flicker of a pause–“I will not vouch that the answer will be always yes.”
He laughed despite the worry gnawing in the pit of his belly. “Why art thou so willing to help a poor poet?”
Dead grass hissed against her scales as she shifted, swaying. “A snake never shares what she knows unless it serves her own purposes. Thou shouldst comprehend such things by now.
“Aye,” he said. “I should. And she never shares her reasons, either.”
“Perhaps because we have friends in common, thee and me.
“… perhaps. How is thine eye for a riddle, Amaranth?”
“If ‘tis a riddle with an answer–”
Will sighed. “I asked a troll where to find Kit, who is held captive by the Prometheans. Wilt help me for his sake?”
“Aye,” she said, “and thine own sake as well. Tell me thy riddle.”
Will closed his eyes, blessing a memory drilled into sharpness by grammar school and years of playing thirty scripts in repertory. “Look down wells and look in the dark wet places, he repeated. “Look in forgetful places, and for forgotten things‑Ask those that know the secrets whispered under earth and between stones.” And then he peeked through half‑closed lashes, hoping to see some sign of enlightenment cross her face, and half afraid that he would not.
“A snake should know such things,” she said, and seemed to consider. “An oubliette,” she said at last. “Forgetful places and forgotten things. An oubliette that used to be a well, perhaps? Is there such a thing in London?”
Will’s held breath rushed out of him with the words. “There is indeed, and a famous one,” he gasped. “Lady, if it would not kill me, I should kiss thee.”
“If it should not kill you,” Amaranth replied, “I would like that. And now?”
“And now,” Will said, “I must discern how I may invade the Tower of London, from which I have myself only recently escaped. And I must convince Murchaud to stay his mother’s ride until we have safely recovered Sir Christopher.”
Act V, scene xv
What is beauty, saith my sufferings then?
If all the pens that ever poets held,
Had fed the feeling of their masters’ thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspir’d their hearts,
Their minds, and muses on admired themes;
If all the heavenly Quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of Poesy,
Wherein as in a mirror we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one Poem’s period
And all combin’d in Beauty’s worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads,
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest…
–Christopher Marlowe,
Tamburlaine the Great,Part I, Act V, scene i
The troll’s company kept him sane, and the earring–Will’s earring, Kit got the troll to admit in its usual circuitous manner–kept the agony at bay. The news of Will’s escape was enough to grant Kit new strength of intent. He’ll come for me. He won’t leave me here.He knew it, with the same calm certainty with which he’d known that he could not leave Will to take his own place in Hell.
Somehow, whenever they heard the sounds of the bolts being shot above, the troll always managed to squeeze its enormous bulk into the handspan‑wide clay drain before Baines could lift the lid and see it. Kit wondered, and chalked it up to magic, and didn’t try to touch the troll after the time his iron bonds raised blisters on its slick, shiny hide.
On All Saints’ Day–the troll said–Baines came back with more food and water. “Only a few more days until we’re needed.”
“Fifteen Sagittarius,” Kit murmured, taking no comfort in having been right. He gritted his teeth, knowing that he had to get out of the Pit if Will was to have a chance of finding him. “I’m ready to bargain, Baines.”
A chuckle. “Not faking your death of chills and ague any more, I see. What do you have to bargain with, then, Kitten?”
Edward de Vere’s old nickname for him. Kit clenched his aching hands against his thighs. “Myself,” he said. “You said you wouldn’t kill me. After.”
No, Baines answered, leaning down with his hands on his knees, like a man bending to converse with a very small boy. “In truth, puss, I’d hurt you as little as I know how. I’m not without pity or heart.”
Does it mean the irons again?” Strange, how he could think of that so calmly, when his mind skittered away from the rest.
Not as bad–Kit, give m
e thy parole that thou wilt not fight nor try to flee, and I’ll bring thee up so we can discuss this like civilized men.”
«Kit, what art thou about?»
He tasted the angel’s fear. Stalling.“Come and get me.”
Baines let a long ladder of rope and dowels unwind down the side of the oubliette and stood back from the edge. He must have had it ready there by the rim, just in case Kit broke. It galled Kit to know how predictable he had been. “I can’t climb with these hands, Dick.” They were better than they had been, but still swollen and infected around the bands.
“Thou’rt scared of a little pain, puss?” A pause. “Aye, and tie the bridle to the bottom of the ladder before thou dost ascend. I should not like to have to climb down after it.”
Wishing the troll still stood beside him, Kit did as he was bid, and then made his laborious way up the height of the ladder, his fingers leaving streaks of bloody lymph on the rungs while he prayed thanks to the troll for its company, and to Mehiel for his strength.
“See?” Baines grasped Kit’s wrist in a hand like a manacle and almost lifted him over the edge of the pit. He tugged the ladder up behind, and tipped the lid shut with a booted toe. Kit stood, examining his hands in the light, and did not realize that he might perhaps have tackled Baines and plowed him into the oubliette until Baines turned back to him. “Let me have a look at those hands, puss.”
Mutely, Kit held them out. Baines clucked. “They need cleaning, aye. But I think thou wilt not die of poisoned blood, for all it hurts thee. Still, thou art brave, puss. Art not?”
Despair crushed the breath out of Kit. «This is what moves mortals to suicide, Kit. Is it not?»
Kit nodded mutely, an answer to Mehiel more than it was to Baines. “What will you have of us?” And then realized too late what he’d said, when Baines quirked a little smile and examined him from filthy toes to matted hair.
“Nothing until you’re bathed,” he said. “Then you may rest until Tuesday.”
“And what happens on Tuesday? ” 15 Sagittarius.
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