Hell and Earth pa-4

by Elizabeth Bear

  “I can think of more pleasant places for an assignation,” Kit admitted, drawing his white wool cloak tight in the raw underworld cold. Dripping water freckled his shoulders and tapped against his hair. He pushed damp strands off his forehead, wiping water from his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “But few with older power,” Baines answered. “And none of those in London. Come on, puss. We’ll need a canopy to keep the brazier dry. Come and help me set it up. Pity it’s my lord and master who will have the shaping of thy power tonight: I would have liked it for myself, thou knowest.”

  Baines moved toward the wall. Kit followed carefully as Poley and the other robed men scattered around the chapel. Nothing Like Last time,Kit told himself. For one thing, all of those men are dead. Either hanged as Catholic traitors, or on the end of my knife.The memory of de Parma’s sticky lifeblood spilling over his hand warmed him; his rings clinked as he rubbed his palms together.

  Something rustled in the darkness, disturbed by the torchlight. Bats,Kit worried, and then he saw a row of wire cages tucked behind a pillar and a slumping arch, and a dark lantern with the aperture turned toward the wall. The gleam of a too‑blond head, and capable shoulders straightening.

  “Good evening, Robin,” Baines said over the hollow plink of falling water. “Is everything in readiness?”

  “Every raven in the Tower,” Catesby said, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword. “I’m just about to leave for Westminster: one last meeting with Guido and a check of the powder barrels. I don’t Likethis, Dick.”

  “None of us Likesit,” Baines said softly, as Kit came up beside him like a dog at heel. “But we do what we must, for God. Innocents will die–”

  “Aye. And you’ll avail yourself of black arts for power.” Catesby cast a pitying glance at Kit. “Is this our poet, then?”

  “I am,” Kit answered, before Baines could do it for him, and extended his right hand.

  “Christopher Marlin, Robert Catesby,” Baines said, stepping back to keep the hissing torch clear of a stream of water. Catesby slid Baines a sidelong glance and opened his mouth.

  Kit cut him off. “You were about to say that I am a bit unprepossessing, Master Catesby?”

  A startled glance back. The torchlight made Catesby’s nose look long and beaked. “How did you know that, Master Poet?”

  Kit smiled. “Words are what I do, ” he answered. He stepped past Catesby, stubbing his toe among the jumbled stones but doing himself no serious harm. A row of unhappy black birds huddled on a long iron bar within, crouched shoulder to shoulder with their feathers ruffled against the cold. Despite himself, Kit looked for one with a twisted wing, but couldn’t see it. “What are the birds for, Dick?”

  The torch bobbed and guttered as Baines coughed into his hand. “The sacrifice,” he answered.

  What is your substance, whereof are you made

  That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

  Since every one hath, every one, one shade,

  And you, but one, can every shadow lend.

  –William Shakespeare, Sonnet 53

  Will paused in Murchaud’s shadow, half wishing he had a weapon in his hand and half glad he did not. “Downward?

  “Ever downward,” the Elf‑knight answered, glancing over his shoulder for Tom and Ben before he started moving.

  “There’ll be an echo,” Ben murmured. “Keep your voices soft. And we shall have need of a light.”

  Murchaud blinked. “Of course you will,” he said. “How foolish.” Of himself or of them he did not say, Will noticed, but he waved his left hand in an airy arc, swarming green motes flickering into existence in the path of his moving fingers. They scattered, swinging low to the ground in twining pursuit, and illuminated the ground by Will’s feet, and Ben’s, and Tom’s. “Master Shakespeare,” he said, “can you manage the steps?”

  “I’ll manage what I have to,” Will answered. “Could we make more expedience? Every moment we hesitate is a moment that Kit is in danger. ”

  “By all means,” Tom said, setting his boot down carefully among a school of witchlights that danced about his feet like minnows in shallow water. “Let us make our way underground.”

  So, so; was never devil thus blest before.

  – Christopher Marlowe, Faustus,Act III, scene ii

  He was thankful for so many things.

  That it wasn’t Baines who undressed him, but two of the other men, and that they did it with impersonal disinterest. They stripped him only to the waist, and left his feet free when they bound him standing between two pillars, and not helplessly prone on some clammy altar. That there was wet stone giving steady purchase under his bare feet instead of the greasy mud, and that the lengths of white silk binding his arms wide as wings were soft around his wrists, and tied so he could clench his hands tight about them, his fingers leaving rusty stains of blood where they had cracked around the iron rings.

  Poley’s men had set up a rough pavilion not too far away, and the warmth of the braziers protected by its span just reached Kit. A warmth that he was also thankful for, because the water that dripped slowly onto his hair and shoulders, leaving delicate branching trails of silt down his skin and slowly soaking the waist of his breeches, was so cold it burned. A cut he hadn’t noticed stung on the bottom of his right foot, and he could feel the warm stickiness of a trace of blood.

  He tossed his head to flick his dripping hair from his eyes, and then wished he hadn’t, because Baines climbed up the three swaybacked steps to the dais and smoothed the muddy locks back with thick, gentle fingers. Kit flinched from the touch as if it burned him, and in his heart he heard an angel whimper. “You could have lent me a hat.”

  “Sorry about that, puss,” he said. “The roof leaks a little. You’re all over gooseflesh. Shall I fetch your cloak for now, until we’re ready to begin?”

  “It’s past midnight and gone,” Kit answered, gritting his teeth so that they would not chatter. “What are we waiting for?”

  “The man of the hour,” Baines answered, and brought the white wool cloak to drape over Kit’s shoulders. He drew the hood up to shelter his head and settled it carefully. “‘Twill soon be over, and then we can all get good and thoroughly drunk.”

  Poley emerged from the shadows on the far wall, carrying an end of one of the long iron cages Catesby had been tending. Kit watched, idly twisting at the lengths of cloth restraining his wrists. He should thank Baines for that, he supposed. The bindings were calculated to do him very little harm, no matter how he struggled.

  Baines turned and walked down the steps to Poley, and Kit tried to relax into a state of waiting readiness, calling poetry to mind. What a pity thou has’t ne’er written a comedy. If ever, now would be the time for a happy ending–

  He smiled to himself, and quickly dropped his head to hide that smile behind his hood and the fall of his hair. If his own work wouldn’t do to hold him together through this, he knew the play that would. Even if I “like this” not at all. Thank thee, Will. In mine extremity, I knew I could trust in thee.He drew a long, slow breath, tasting mold and wet upon it, and shaped the well‑loved words. as I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jacques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept.

  He closed his eyes and leaned into the poetry as he leaned into the cloths that bound him, and his lips moved silently. I can bear this. With Will’s help.

  I can do this.

  I can–

  «Kit.» A low urgency like panic in the angel’s voice that wasn’t quite a voice, and Kit looked up, his mute recitation stumbling when he saw who had entered the crumbling chapel, his brow ringed in shadows and his wingless body wreathed in light. Lucifer Morningstar had eyes only for Baines, sparing Kit not s
o much as a glance.

  “Prometheus,” Kit whispered, leaning forward to see the red slick stain wetting the left side of the devil’s silken shirt.

  “As I am summoned,” the fallen angel said formally, tilting his head so that the torchlight and the brazier light and the light of his own pale halo reflected on his hair in red and golden bands, “so have I come.”

  His voice was a bare whisper, resonant of violoncello and the wind through midnight trees. It pressed Kit’s heart to thunder in his chest; all pretense of ignorance forgotten, Kit hurled himself backward against his restraints.

  “I told thee no!” he shouted, fabric burning his skin. His feet went out from under him with the force of his struggle, but the cloths held him upright. He sagged against them– Like Christ from the cross–his arms lifted and spread wide, his shoulders bent open by the weight of his body, the bad one wrenched to pain. The cloak dropped to tangle about his ankles, leaving his bare back cold, the ghost of warmth fled. His hair hung in his eyes. He sobbed in pain and got his feet under him.

  Lucifer did not turn his head, but Baines did, and smiled. “Hush, puss,” Baines said, a low tone that nevertheless carried. “Or I’ll yet see thee in that bridle thou dost so hate.”

  Kit permitted his head to tip back onto his shoulders, and let his lashes shield his eyes from the dripping water, and the cloth hold his body up. He was too tired to fight further.

  Outmaneuvered,he thought, listening to footsteps approach. Lucifer stood beside him, then, and Kit could imagine the rustle of wind from his wings. He pictured the slightly crooked, narrow‑bridged nose, the golden skin and hair, the strong line of Lucifer’s jaw. «Thou didst give thy consent, Sir Poet.»

  “Because I thought it would thwart thee,” Kit answered aloud, refusing to look into those still, blue eyes. He didn’t want to encourage the false intimacy of Lucifer reading his thoughts. There would be enough false intimacy soon.

  «I am rarely thwarted long. Dost thou never lose thy power to intrigue?»

  “Get it over with,” Kit said. Not an answer but a command.

  «Master Baines,» Lucifer continued, as if Kit’s answer meant nothing to him. «Do see about removing those rings.»

  “The rings keep his power in check, my lord Prometheus.”

  «His power is mine.» Lucifer answered, and that was all. Baines obeyed, the rings that Kit could not budge sliding smoothly into his captor’s hands. Kit kept his eyes tight shut, unsurprised when they cut his remaining clothes away. He could smell the coke, the tang of the hot irons, and knew he would soon smell his own cooking flesh.

  The thought troubled him surprisingly little.

  Not nearly as much as the soft touches of a paint‑brush on his skin, marking his body with intricate warm symbols. He did glance down then, and saw Baines crouched beside his feet, delineating sigils in a medium Kit knew by its sharp coppery smell was blood. The blood, he realized, of the first of the three dozen birds that fluttered in Poley’s long cage. The brush Baines used was a carefully pared raven’s quill.

  “You’re killing the Tower ravens,” Kit said foolishly.

  Baines glanced up at him and smiled. “Very clever, puss. Would you care to tell me why?”

  “England will fall.”

  “Leaving one less faith in Europe,” he said, dipping his brush. The blood had clotted, and he set the basin aside as Poley brought him the death of another sacred bird in a little white stoneware cup, a fresh trimmed quill balanced across the top. “Before you know it, everyone shall believe as Prometheus’ children will them to.”

  You were halfway kind to me,Kit thought, with a sidelong glance at Lucifer. “Was my consent so important to you?”

  «No man can be damned without consent.» the Prince of Lies answered. «Nor saved neither.»

  That will teach me to say yes to anything.

  “That doesn’t explain your kindness. Or that you promised me the power to deal with mine enemies.”

  «All stories are true.» If Lucifer had been wearing his wings, they would have flicked tight shut just then. Kit found the fallen angel somehow–diminished–without them. Iron jingled in his hand. «Where are thy rings now? Where is thy cloak? Where are thy boots and thy blade? Where is thy name?»

  You have them,Kit answered.

  Lucifer laughed, and let the rings fall like drops of frozen blood, to ring on wet stone. «No power left but thine own, and that of my beautiful brother. All thy hoardings and borrowings stripped away. And yet though thy power will not be enough for thy purposes, it will suffice for mine.»

  “How can you be so certain you can use my strength?” If I cannot outwill Baines, can I be certain I can outwill Lucifer?Somehow, the dripping water did not carve runnels in the patterns Baines painted over every inch of his body. Kit mourned the ravens, surprising himself, gritting his teeth as Poley brought Baines a third bowl of blood.

  “Because my story is truer than thine,” Lucifer answered, “and because thou didst give thy consent.” Kit hissed in shock; the voice shook his body like a hard‑carilloned bell. Then he hissed again when Lucifer bent down and kissed his open mouth, and Kit felt the rustle of wings within.

  Kit was bloody to the hollow under his chin. Cold water dripped from his hair, beads trickling between the bumps of gooseflesh.

  He watched the conspirators move about the chapel, seeing plainly in the darkness again now that the barbed rings were off his hands. The cessation of that pain alone was such a relief that he could not stop flexing his fingers against the silk, leaving smears of color upon it. He didn’t look at Baines, even as Baines leaned close enough to him that Kit felt his breath hot on his skin.

  Instead, Kit looked out into the darkness, wincing as Poley drew the very last raven from the cage, mastering its struggles as easily as Baines – time and again –had mastered Kit’s. He wrung the black bird’s neck and it fell limp in his hands, relaxed. Kit winced in grief.

  Last one,” Poley said, after he had drained the blood from the bird and brought the vessel up to Baines. “He looks – interesting. ”

  Kit turned his eyes away as Baines patted him on a red‑daubed shoulder. He watched Lucifer poke idly at a coal‑filled brazier, the rod stock in his hand brilliant red at the tip.

  I’ve played into his hands. Again.

  Gold and black. «I told thee so.»

  Kit didn’t think the angel really deserved an answer.

  Duke: There rest. Your partner, as I hear, must die to‑morrow,

  And I am going with instruction to him.

  God’s grace go with you! Benedicite! [Exit.]

  Juliet: Must die to‑morrow! O injurious love,

  That respites me a life, whose very comfort

  Is still a dying horror!

  –William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure,Act II, scene iii

  “There must be something,” Will said tiredly, leaning back against the dank stone wall. His shaking hands ached with the cold; his feet were numb things at the bottoms of his legs.

  “Nothing,” Murchaud answered, both hands raised over his head as he pressed the blank stones of the wall near a trio of identical arches. His sword, still clenched in his fist, caught the light of Tom’s lantern and reflected it back through cold drips of water.

  Will tugged the hood of his cloak up and stepped away, back to the edge of the inadequate puddle of light.

  “There is a taste of sorcery,” Murchaud said. “But it’s shielded and dark. I don’t know which of these paths to take.”

  “I thought you knew where the chapel was. Your Highness.”

  “Have you ever stopped to consider what a ridiculous honorific that is, Master Poet?” Murchaud moved slowly along the wall, trailing his hands over the stones nearest the dripping ceiling as if they might whisper something in his ear if properly coaxed. “Your Highness.Higher than what? At least Majestyor Graceare admirable traits to wish on a ruler.” His voice, softly cultured as ever, showed little sign of emotional strain
until he dropped his hands to his side and swore. He turned his back to the abutment between two of the archways and leaned back on the dank stones, careless of his silk and velvet, his rapier angled across the front of his legs. “I can’t smell anything but mold and what magic they used to hide their trail.”

  “Let me have the lantern, Sir Thomas.” Ben came forward, a hand on Will’s shoulder, and lifted it out of Tom’s hand. He crouched so the light was concentrated on the threshold of the first door. At the second he paused, running a finger over the stones, and at the third he bent very close for long seconds and then shook his head, finding nothing. “There’s a trace of blood through that second doorway, and what looks like a bare footprint on the stone–”

  But?” said Tom, coming to retrieve the lantern.

  “–but I think ‘tis not the way they walked.”

  “Why not?” asked Will quietly, fiddling with the iron nail in his pocket to stop his hands trembling. He hated his hesitant steps for slowing them, hated the querulous nodding of his chin that he could not seem to stop.

  Ben looked up, shook his head. “That, I know not.” Broad hands spread wide. “‘Tis but an intuition.”

  “We should follow the blood,” Tom said, and Murchaud nodded. “Or we could split into pairs–”

  “Aye, and be murdered all the more easily for our troubles,” Ben scoffed, standing.

  It was Will, standing a little back from the other three and their conversation, who heard the rustle. “Gentlemen,” he murmured, amused when they all three fell silent. “Tom, a little light over here, an you please.”

  Tom turned with the lantern just as Will turned, and a dark shape bigger than a terrier hopped awkwardly across the time‑heaved floor toward Will. He crouched, drawing his cloak tight so it would not flap and frighten the raven, and held out his hand. “How strange,” he said.

  It fluttered into the air and landed on his fist, dry feet pinching and the impact as if somebody had smacked his hand with an overhand blow. He cushioned it, bending the elbow to take the weight, then standing with the assistance of his cane.