Hell and Earth pa-4

by Elizabeth Bear

“So I’ve heard,” Will answered, making as much of a bow as he felt capable of just then. “What do you know about Robert Catesby and Westminster, Cousin?”

  Monteagle blanched. “Are you here as a King’s Man?” he asked carefully. “Or on behalf of the Earl of Salisbury ?”

  “I’m here as a loyal subject of the crown,” Will answered. “You do know something, then.”

  “I’ve told Salisbury everything I know,” Monteagle answered. “I should not tell you this, Will, but I trust your motives–Francis Tresham is Salisbury’s man too. The King’s advisors are well aware of the plot. I take it they have not yet spoken to the King?”

  “I do not know the answer to that for certain,” Will said, but he thought perhaps he did. “Will you do me a favor, Cousin?”

  “Anything.” Monteagle’s voice was serious, his face calm. A steadier man, Will thought, than the foolish boy who had ridden with Essex only four and a half short years before.

  “Let Salisbury know that if he does not approach the King by the end of the day–”

  “Someone else will?” The Baron nodded. “Aye.” And sighed. “I like it not, Will. We’re hanging men we grew up beside. It does not seem–meet–to choose sides against them.”

  Will shook his head. “It is neither meet nor fair,” he answered. “But it is politics. What’s the nature of the treason? Do you know?”

  “Aye,” Monteagle answered. “There’s thirty‑six barrels of gunpowder concealed in the cellar under the House of Lords. Catesby and his friends planned to blow the whole damned Parliament to Glory.”

  Act V, scene xvii

  What, Mortimer, can ragged stony walls

  Immure thy virtue that aspires to Heaven?

  –Christopher Marlowe, Edward the Second,Act III, scene iv

  On his second night in his room in the Salt Tower, Kit had tried to make his escape through the reflections in the narrow windows; he’d been unable to touch the power or the Darkling Glass at all, and he had wondered at how easily the iron rings on his fingers quelled all the strength he knew he had in him.

  He had no clock. Nor was he vouchsafed candle or paper or anything to read. And so he paced, from the bedstead to the window and the window to the bed, pausing occasionally to pick a splinter of the rush matting from the tender sole of his foot or to trace the old markings scraped into the wall–a pierced hand, a pierced heart. Symbols of the passion of the Christ, etched there by Jesuit prisoners who had inhabited his cell before him. At least Kit was fed–what he could force himself to eat of it–and twice a day had a moment’s glimpse of another human face when Baines–or Poley, in his Yeoman’s livery–came to see him cared for.

  Two nights later, Kit was simply bored,and sick unto madness with waiting.

  “And yet like Faustus in his final hour I count the seconds,” he muttered. He leaned against the embrasure, supported on his forearms, and pressed his forehead against the glass. Baines would come for him before midnight, and then the ritual–he couldn’t bring himself to think of it in more concrete terms–would begin.

  «And thou’rt willing to submit to this for a little less pain, a scrap more of dignity?»

  When rape is inevitable–Kit answered, and told himself he didn’t remember the exact timbre of Baines’ voice, asking didst thou like it, puss?

  I’m willing to submit if it means I’ll get a better chance at Baines,he answered. It’s not as if I could avoid–

  «There’s always a way.»

  And then Kit realized the angel was looking at the window.

  “If we lived, we would be crippled.”

  The angel bowed his head. «Kit, we would not live.»

  And damn myself for a suicide? Or wouldst thou keep me from dying again, Mehiel? ‘Tis not so far to fall, methinks–«‘Tis some twenty‑five feet from thy window, onto cobblestones. It should suffice. Thou wouldst die with thy brands intact–»

  Die, damned a suicide.

  «Thou who so boldly defied Lucifer, and told him thou wouldst not repent thy sins, for they were sins of love?»

  Kit paused. Slowly, he raised his hand and opened the window latch, then pushed the glass wide and laid his hand on the rough mortared stones of the wall. He leaned out into the icy night air. The windows were small, but a small man might slide through them. Far below he could see lights scattered around the Tower precincts like flower petals on the sheets on a marriage bed. “Die with my brands intact,” he “whispered, as a clock struck half eleven. “Then thou wouldst – ”

  «It is suicide for me as well.» Mehiel said calmly. «I will cease to exist. And thou wilt be damned. But Lucifer and the Prometheans both will be thwarted.»

  The cold wind tugged Kit’s hair, a sensation like the caress of Lucifer’s feathers. The crippled raven who always came to visit at suppertime landed on the window ledge, strangely awake in that midnight hour, and on an impulse Kit reached out tentatively and touched its black jet wing. He felt the slick surface of feathers, the deeper warmth of the flesh, and wondered if he’d been a fool to send Lucifer–and Lucifer’s promises of love–from him. The raven endured his caress, and Kit stifled an impulse to gather it up in his arms and cradle it close like one of his small sisters with a poppet.

  “Mehiel,” he said, softly. “Art become so tainted by mortality, after twelve years my companion, that thou shouldst preach suicide?”

  «An it save God, I am prepared to make the sacrifice.»

  “Despair is a sin, angel,” Kit said, and closed the casement frame.

  * * *

  Baines came for them as the clock struck eleven.

  Look, here’s the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:

  ‘Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to‑morrow

  Thou must be made immortal.

  –William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure,Act IV, scene ii

  A heavy bell tolled midnight, and Will laid his cards faceup on Sir Walter’s ornately carved black wooden desk and raised his eyes.

  It’s time,” Murchaud said from his place against the wall. Light‑colored stone with the look of hasty mortaring and great age caught the candlelight, outlining his dark‑clad frame.

  Will nodded and stood, resting one hand on smooth waxed wood. “You know where the magic will be worked, Your Highness?”

  “There’s a temple under the Tower,” Murchaud said, straightening away from the wall. Unlike Will, Ben, and Tom, he had arrived by unusual means, and still wore his rapier at his hip. “More a chapel, really. Twill be not a comfortable place for me, but I am content to suffer it.”

  Sir Walter,” Tom said, rising and bowing. “I am afraid we must then bid you adieu–”

  Go,” Raleigh said graciously, rose, and tapped on the door, summoning the guard to inform him that the guests “were ready to be excused and that he himself was ready to go up to bed with his wife, Elizabeth.

  If those guests managed to vanish into the shadows between the Garden Tower and the gate, how was he ever to know?

  Accurs’d be he that first invented war!

  They knew not, ah, they knew not, simple men,

  How those were hit by pelting canon‑shot

  Stand staggering like a quivering aspen‑leaf

  –Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great,Part I, Act II scene iv

  This isn’t so different from climbing down to Hell,Kit thought, balancing himself with a hand on one wall of the ragged stone stairwell. His shadow writhed before him, cast by the torches Baines, Poley, and the four others walking behind carried.

  All in all, he would have preferred the demon with the glowing maw.

  He was exquisitely careful how he placed his bare feet on the ragged stone, annoyed all over again that Baines hadn’t given him back his boots. He had to give the bastard credit: on a floor like this one, it was an effective means of keeping him from running.

  At least his skin and hair and clothes were clean, and the puffy flesh around his rings was peeling with eczema now rather than infection
. Which was an improvement of sorts, and so was the cloak warming his shoulders. Not his own fey cloak–this one was as white as the woolen doublet and breeches that would have made it all that much harder for him to run. If he had planned to. And where would I run?Or perhaps all that white served to mark him a virgin sacrifice, which was a thought worth a slightly hysterical giggle.

  “How far down are we going, Richard?”

  “All the way,” Baines answered.

  The wall grew moist under Kit’s fingertips, wet, sandy earth gritting between his skin and the mortared stone. “It’s a wonder the river hasn’t washed these tunnels away,” he commented. “How old are they?”

  “Since Arthur’s day.”

  Which was a strange choice of words. Kit almost wished they’d bound his hands, but then he probably would have fallen down the stairs. Essex refused the blindfold,he thought. Can Marley do less?“These must be Roman ruins?”

  “Puss, must you chatter so?”

  Kit shivered at the fond correction. “I am understandably somewhat nervous, Dick.” The quaver in his voice was less showmanship than he would have wanted it to be.

  «Be bold,» Mehiel chanted in his ear. «If thou hadst listened to me, thou wouldst be beyond this fear and pain.»

  Aye, and on to others.

  «I still fail to comprehend thy plan.»

  That’s because I do not have one, other than that I will not die tonight, but live, and thwart Richard Balneo another day.

  зAnd if he has remade our God into the image he pleases–»

  Mehiel,Kit reminded, my power may be chained and my magic shorn from me, but I am a bard, a poet, and a warlock too. And there’d a half‑completed Bible in Tom Walsingham’s study that says that my God has as much claim on the world as the God of Richard Balneo and… Lucifer.

  «Prometheus, thou meanest.»

  Aye.Kit steadied himself against the wall and stretched over a step too crumbled to be safe. “Watch your step, Richard.”

  «Hast thou the power to do this thing?» Wonder on the angel’s voice, those golden eyes shuttered by dark lashes.

  You never know until you try.Kit swallowed dryness, and tried to hush his thoughts so the angel would not overhear his fear. The force of will to defy Richard Baines, and wrest his own greatest sorcery away from him? I can’t even best the man in a verbal jousting match. What think I that I can take control of a sorcery in which I am only the catalyst, the sacrifice?

  «Sir Poet,» the angel reminded gently, «thou art the man did tell the Prince of Darkness where to take his blandishments.»

  From the way his shadow stretched before him in the fluttering light, Kit could see that they were coming to the bottom of the stair. A low tunnel vaulted with Roman arches stretched away before them.

  Aye,Kit answered. But Lucifer Morningstar doesn’t frighten me like Richard Baines.

  Now entertain conjecture of a time

  When creeping murmur and the poring dark

  Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

  From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,

  The hum of either army stilly sounds,

  That the fix ‘d sentinels almost receive

  The secret whispers of each other’s watch:…

  –William Shakespeare, Henry V,Act IV, chorus

  The Earl of Salisbury limped up the stairs with a half‑dozen men‑at‑arms at his back. “Your Highness, ” he said, raising his chin to look over Will’s shoulder. “Master Shakespeare–”

  “Stand aside, my lord,” was Will’s answer as he continued his descent. His cane clacked staccato on the steps as he stumped downward.

  Salisbury did not move. “I will not have thee risk thyself in this, ” he said. “Thy King needs thee to shape what will follow, Will. There’s nothing thou canst do to help Marlowe now. They will have already begun.”

  Will stopped, one step above Salisbury and leaning forward. He wanted to close his eyes at the declaration, remembering the heat of a crimson iron close enough to curl his lashes. The hand that did not hold his cane tightened on a bit of silk in his pocket, and something pricked him. The enchanted nail Kit had given him, and Will drew strength from it.

  He could have glanced over his shoulder, but he knew what he would see: three big men standing shoulder to shoulder, Murchaud with his blade catching lanternlight, the others half crouched and ardent for whatever might come. Tom cleared his throat but held his tongue, granting Will precedence this once.

  “Then have your men run me through, Mr. Secretary,” Will replied. He drew himself up, balancing against the wall so he could lift his cane off of the step, and looked down at Salisbury from his greater height and the advantage of the stairs. “Because if I am alive, I am going down these stairs, and I am going in the service of England.”

  The man Elizabeth had called her Elf never glanced down. His eyes sparkled in the lanternlight as he rubbed a gloved forefinger against his thumb, and visibly came to a decision. “The treason is safely under control,” Salisbury argued, his soldiers shifting impatiently behind him. “Fawkes will be arrested tomorrow, Catesby as soon as suits us. They’ll give evidence that I can use to bring Baines under control once and for all, and their networks with them. The Baron Monteagle has been most forthcoming–”

  Will almost dropped his cane. “That’s what this has been about,” he said, and shook his head. “You still think you can rule the Prometheans. Rulethem?”

  “Every man can be ruled,” Salisbury said, provoking a dry laugh from Ben. One of the men‑at‑arms started forward; Salisbury halted him with a flick of fingers so slight that only Will’s training as a player let him see it. “Baines is too useful to waste.”

  Will swallowed dryness. The trick with the pewter coins. Of course. Blackmail, plain and simple: Salisbury never intended to see Baines hang.

  Merely to let him know that he could see him hang, if he so chose.“If every one could be ruled,” Will said softly, “Lucifer the Prince of God’s angels need never have fallen into darkness, my lord Salisbury.”

  “We have the conspiracy dead to rights.” Such hubris, such arrogant certainty. “The realm’s ire will rise against the Catholics and in defense of the King. James will move from upstart crow to beloved monarch, and the royal family will regain public sympathy. Baines will perform his Black Mass in front of my witness, and I shall own him. And England will be strong and united again in the mind of her people.”

  “In front of your witness?” Not Kit, surely. He would not permit himself to be so used–

  “Robert Poley, ” Salisbury said with a satisfied smile, “works for me.”

  Will set his cane back down on the step and leaned on it, dumbstruck. His mouth opened, and closed again; he felt as breathless in air as the fish he was certain he resembled.

  Tom caught Will’s elbow in passing, and shouldered Salisbury aside. Murchaud and Ben fell in behind, and Will was never certain whether it was something in their eyes or Salisbury’s stunned failure to issue a command that kept them all alive.

  “Sir Thomas!”

  Tom’s auburn head swiveled on his long neck, fixing Salisbury with a glare. “Perhaps you should look to your own nest, cousin. That seems to me a cuckoo’s egg you are roosting there,” he commented. A pause, a dismissive, calculating glance. “Sir Francis thought the same thing, once.”

  The Earl just stood with his arms akimbo like wings, watching them squeeze past. Will patted Salisbury’s black‑robed shoulder as he went by. “The Faerie will be here at dawn,” he said helpfully. “Expecting a skirmish with the Prometheans. Perhaps it would be well for you to decide which side you wish to be on when they come, my lord. Incidentally–”

  “Master Shakespeare!”

  Will narrowed his eyes and offered Salisbury his coldest, most stageworthy stare. “–I will not fail to see that the King learns of your hesitance to interfere with this autumn’s treason at your earliest convenience, despite having all the knowledge in your hand
s. If you should choose a side other than the one I find myself allied upon.”

  See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!

  One drop would save my soul–half a drop! ah, my Christ!–

  Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!

  Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!–

  Where is it now? ‘Tis gone; and see where God

  Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!–

  Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,

  And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!

  –Christopher Marlowe, Faustus,Act V,scene ii

  Kit hesitated in the half‑crumbled archway, the torches failing to illuminate the darkness beyond. “There’s a step down,” Baines said behind him. “Have a care among the rubble.”

  “Perhaps if I had a light – ”

  “Perhaps if you had a weapon, puss?” Baines came up beside him, a hulking form, breathing softly. He smelled of soap and wine and rosewater and lightly of fresh sweat. “You wouldn’t club me with a torch and make your escape, would you?”

  Barefooted over broken stones?Kit didn’t dignify the comment with an answer. “Cleaned up for the ceremony, Richard?”

  A companionable hand on his shoulder made him shiver. “I thought thou wouldst prefer it.” Baines brushed past Kit, ducking to pass through the arch, and stepped down. He paused, holding his torch high, and surveyed the chamber beyond.

  Kit caught the glitter of firelight on marble, heard the slow drip of water spattering against stone. He grasped the wall with his left hand and stepped carefully onto damp, slick stones outlined with jagged shadows, expecting at any moment to slice his bare sole open. Richard Baines turned back at the sound of stones shifting lightly and held up one meaty hand to help him over the rocks, handing him down like a lady out of a carriage.

  Kit gritted his teeth and accepted the assistance.

  The chamber didn’t quite look Roman, he thought. Admittedly, the once‑frescoed ceiling was matted with mold and dangling roots, and the flickering torchlight showed mineral streaks and water damage on walls that might once have been painted plaster. The floor was slimy with ash‑fine mud; it sucked between Kit’s toes, and under the surface he could feel a hard, pebbly surface that must be tile. He wondered what design the mosaic would have shown if black silt had not occluded it.