“Bloody buggered Christ,” Kit answered, sitting up so Will could see the long curve of his back. “I imagine he’ll find us before the evening’s out. It’s all for naught. The war’s over for England and James anyway: the portents have spoken, and the Tower’s bastions are breached with the deaths of the ravens – ”
The heavy beat of wings interrupted Kit. He looked up as the crippled raven rowed heavily through the air and landed on Will’s automatically upraised fist.
Kit blinked. “A raven. Unwounded and alive.”
Will smiled, and Tom Walsingham coughed into his hand. “Just one. But one’s enough, isn’t it? All stories are true stories, or so Will tells me.”
“All stories – ” Will and Kit shared a glance, and it was Will who looked up first. “Kit, should we be asking ourselves what Lucifer wants?”
Kit shook his head. “I wonder if we should be asking ourselves what ‘tis he wants to become.He’s Prometheus, thou knowest. And the serpent Amaranth too.”
“‘Twas Amaranth told me where to find thee, Kit,” Will said. He held out his hand to help the other poet to his feet. “I don’t understand–”
“Surely you don’t think the Father of Lies is limited to one shape only,” Kit said dryly, once his feet were under him. “You know how you said of Salisbury, he plays his game as if there is no other player, only pieces that sometimes move themselves?” His voice was quiet, his gaze hooded, as if he directed his commentary not to Will and Tom and Ben, but someone closer still. “Aye… .” Will glanced at Ben for assistance. Ben looked up from binding his leg.
“Sir Christopher, ” Ben said softly, “are you suggesting that Lucifer is playing both sides of the board?”
“I’m saying that his opponent is refusing to move, and he’s attempting to provoke–something. A commitment. Possibly just a response. We’ve walked into a lovers’ quarrel, gentlemen.”
“Walked, or been dragged?” Will shook his head.
Act V, scene xviii
We are no traitors, therefore threaten not.
–Christopher Marlowe, Edward II,Act I, scene :
It might lack of warmth, comfort, and sartorial splendor, but Kit was happy simply to be clothed. He’d resumed the white breeches–grimy enough now that they would be slightly better suited to skulking in the darkness–and pulled his shirt back on over the bloody sigils that patterned his flesh. He scrubbed the cloth against his skin to smear the marks, and looked up to see Will watching with an inscrutable expression twisting his mouth.
“What happens next? ” Will asked, when Kit would not look down. Will’s fingers idly stroked the rainbow‑dark plumage of the raven that perched on his wrist, and Kit’s fingers itched with the memory of feathers. If he closed his eyes, he was sure he would feel those enormous wings again, lifting him, bearing him up–
He was glad Mehiel hadn’t struck down Lucifer. Glad, and furious. Conflict is the essence of drama.He shrugged and turned to seek Murchaud, but the elf‑Prince was in conversation with Tom. “I’ll find a pair of boots,” Kit answered, and went to pull Poley’s off his dead feet.
They were too soaked with blood to wear, which was a pity, because they would have fit, unlike the too‑large ones Kit liberated from the corpse of the man Ben had killed, which rubbed his feet to blisters as the five of them wound back through the tunnels to the surface, a straggling line lit by two lanterns.
Ben took the lead on the argument that Baines was still ahead of them somewhere, and neither Kit nor Will in any condition to fight. Kit, leaning on a captured poker as he walked, raised an eyebrow at that, but the big man shrugged. “It looked from my vantage as if Lucifer made a point in failing to injure you, Master Marlin.”
“Aye,” Kit said. “I’m untouchable. Pity your charge is not, Will.” He gestured to the raven, who seemed quite content to nestle against the curve of Will’s neck. “I think I recognize that bird.”
“He’s prone to keeping company with the prisoners in the Salt Tower,” Will said, craning his head with amusement to see the witchlights that flitted from Kit’s hands, and Murchaud’s. “We made an acquaintance while I was there.”
“That is no natural raven,” Murchaud said from the rear of the group.
“Aye,” Will answered. “I had come to suspect as much. Some form of Faerie creature?”
“Some such thing, Master Shakespeare.”
Will staggered in exhaustion. Tom put a hand on his shoulder at the same instant that Kit caught his arm. The raven beat its wings heavily, but seemed loath to abandon its perch; Will yelped as its talons pinched. “And the sole thing betwixt England and destruction, if the legends of ravens and the Tower are true. We cannot even bring him away for the danger: he must stay in the Tower precincts.”
“That bird on your shoulder is the reason behind the legends,” Murchaud said.
Kit glanced over his shoulder at the elf‑Prince. Murchaud moved wearily, as if his bones ached, frowning as Kit met his gaze. “Too much iron?” Kit asked.
Murchaud nodded. “London is full of it.”
“The reason behind the legends?” Will’s voice, considering. He leaned heavily on Tom’s arm now, to Kit’s concealed annoyance. “That seems to me a statement that begs an explanation, Your Highness.”
Kit coughed, every breath still carrying the metallic reek of the ravens’ blood crackling and itching on his skin. He stopped with his hand across his mouth, his feet suddenly too heavy to lift, and turned to Murchaud in speechless amazement. His mouth worked once or twice. “But he lies in Faerie,” Kit said. “Thou didst show me his bier.”
“Beg pardon,” said Ben, at the front with the lantern. “But all this talking will make it certain that if Baines isahead of us, he’ll hear us coming.”
“Wait, Ben,” Tom answered. “I have a feeling we’d do well to hear this out. Kit, of whom dost speak?”
Kit didn’t look, didn’t lower his eyes from Murchaud’s. The Elf‑knight shrugged. “Aye. He sleeps in Faerie as well, but–”
“All stories are true,” Kit finished, and craned his neck for a better look at the raven. The bird cocked its head at him, a sideways twist like a girl tossing her hair, and Kit laughed low in his throat. “I’ll be buggered,” he said, and angled his gaze to meet Will’s eyes.
Will shook his head. “Thou’rt insane.”
“Arthur Pendragon,” Kit said, and so saying made his nagging suspicion crystallize with a sound like cracking ice. He turned to face Murchaud, and bit his lip on the smile he wanted to taste. “Turned into a raven when he died. Murchaud–”
“Aye?” The Prince did smile. “It changes nothing. We protect the bird, and we climb.”
“Oh,” Will said, craning his neck to examine the profile of the black bird on his shoulder. “And when we get to the surface?”
“We deal with my mother and my wife,” Murchaud answered. “We save the life of a mortal King. We do not let England or Faerie fall.”
“That’s something I’m not sure I understand,” Will said, still idly caressing the raven’s head. “What is it that they hope to accomplish here tonight, Prince Murchaud? Why are the Fae in London at all?”
Murchaud shrugged; Kit felt the heavy lift and drop of the Prince’s shoulders, the swing of his cloak, and spared a moment wishing for his own patchwork cloak. Baines probably burned it.The imagined loss stung. “It’s an auspicious night for the overthrow of regimes. Baines’ plans are not the only ones coming to fruition on November fifth.”
“No,” Kit said. “Lucifer’s as well – ” He was struck by a sudden, vivid memory of the Mebd’s golden hair spread between his fingers, the cool, smooth surface of a tortoise‑shell comb, and he stopped and lowered his voice so that only the Elf‑knight would hear. “Morgan’s. What’s Morgan after, Murchaud? I remember when first I came to Faerie, it was her ear thou didst whisper into, and not the Mebd’s.”
Murchaud rested a hand on his elbow, almost lifting him up the ragged stairs. Only pride kept Kit from leani
ng hard on Murchaud’s arm. “Thinkst thou so little of me, Sir Poet, that I must serve the agenda of my mother or my Queen, and have no passions of mine own?” The hand squeezed, pulling the sting from the words.
Kit shot Murchaud a sideways glance, and realized it was true. Exactly and precisely: he had indeed assumed that Murchaud served Morgan’s whims, and to a lesser extent those of the Mebd. “Very well,” he said. “What is it that thou dost seek?”
Freedom,” Murchaud answered succinctly. “We all have our own purposes in seducing thee, Sir Poet. Thee, and that which thou dost harbor.”
“Seducing me.” He laughed. “In Morgan’s case, breaking me into a shape of which she approved. She told me she thought I was the one who could reconcile Faerie and Hell, England’s crown and the Prometheans.”
“Aye. And the Mebd thinks that thou – and Mehiel – are the ones who can burst Faerie’s bond with Hell, can destroy the Prometheans so that we no longer need Lucifer’s protection from the avenging spirit the Prometheans would set as the Divine.”
“Lucifer is Prometheus,” Kit said. “I do not understand why he takes payment to protect us from himself.”
Murchaud laughed softly. “An old acquaintance of Robert Poley’s, and thou dost not understand how extortion works? Besides” – a modest pause – “Lucifer no doubt has plans of his own. Which he has not seen fit to share.”
“He maneuvers all the pieces,” Kit answered, climbing. Will slipped on the stairs. Kit reached up to steady him, and Murchaud steadied Kit. Above them, Ben kept climbing, inexorable as a Jewish golem,and at the rear, Tom followed. No one spoke, and Kit realized they were all listening as intently to his quiet conversation with Murchaud as if they leaned close over a candle‑lit table in some tavern, whispering conspiracies. “I believe I know what he wants, Murchaud.”
Murchaud turned his head. “Aye?”
“The love of God,” Kit said plainly, and winced at his own forgetfulness when Murchaud flinched and stumbled.
“Thy pardon, Kit – ”
“Nay,” Kit said. “Thy pardon, I cry. But that does not answer the question that holds me most.”
“Aye?”
“What is it that thouseekest, Elf‑knight? Thou hast not made that plain to me, but thou must have some use for me, or thou wouldst not have been so kind, so long.”
“I–” The Elf‑knight hesitated. “I am Fae.”
It was not an excuse, but simply a statement, and Kit nodded agreement. “‘Tis so. So tell me now.”
A low, solemn laugh. “Thou didst never ask before.”
“I make no argument. And I am asking now.”
“Faerie,” Murchaud said. “Sovereign.” He looked pointedly at the raven huddled on Will’s shoulder. “I would like to see the ghosts and legends settled. I’d like, perhaps, to know for a day what story I might walk through–”
“You want what Baines wants,” Kit said coolly. “You want to choose the nature of the Divine.”
“‘Tis futile,” Murchaud answered. “Say rather I’d prefer that some stories were just stories. That a legend could change without changing the world. Call it the inverse of the Prometheans’ goal–if they wish to shape the stories, I wish to not be shaped by them.”
Kit considered that in silence for a moment or two, and found himself in sympathy. Mehiel?
«Ask me not about morality,» the angel said unhappily. «when I, an Angel of the Lord, find myself in love with Lucifer Morningstar.»
Kit blinked at the words. In love.
«Hast another name for it?»
Slowly, thoughtfully, Kit shook his head. If I found a way to free thee, Mehiel–
«Thou must not,» the angel said. «Thou must not give thy life up needlessly. We will endure.»
–regardless. If thou wert freed, what wouldst thou do?
A hesitation as the angel pondered his question. Fleetingly, Kit wondered if an angel could lie.
«Go home.» Mehiel answered, after a little while.
Return to God’s embrace. Go back to Heaven, and out of Hell. Despite thy love for the Morningstar.
«Wouldst not thou? Wouldst choose love over Heaven?»
Kit chuckled softly. Mehiel.He laid a hand on Murchaud’s arm, and Murchaud gave him the edge of a worried smile in the inadequate, flickering light. I have.
Another pause for thought. «Wouldst choose love over duty, then? Over remaining true to thyself?»
And Kit thought of Edward de Vere, and shook his head. Thou art right. But what wilt thou take home to the Lord thy God that thou hadst not when thou wert taken? Thou, Mehiel. Thou who art a piece of God?
«Thee,» the angel answered without hesitation. «Man, mortal and fragile. I know thee now, and thou art more worthy of brotherhood than I had realized. And I will take in that brotherhood all thou art, and thy true‑love’s grief and pity over his son, over thy pain. I will take the Fae in all their sorrow and bitterness and their solemn pact with Hell.»
And the Love thou hast for another–
Silence. And then the angel, wondering, the flex of black‑barred yellow wings. «Love. For the Morningstar. Yes, I will bear that home as well.»
Aye.Climbing still.
«Sympathy.»
“Simple,” Kit said dryly. “Or sympathetic magic, rather.”
“I beg thy pardon, Kit?”
“Nothing, Will. I don’t think we need to worry about the Morningstar further, fellows. Lucifer has what he came for.” All my life is stairs, Mehiel.
«Better stairs than falling,» the angel answered, but he did not sound convinced.
There were no torches lit in the Tower’s great courtyard when the ragged, soaking little party emerged from the bowels of the earth. No mortal lights illuminated the scene: not even a few candles flickering dimly in the windows of the White Tower. There was only the ethereal moonlit glow surrounding the court of the Daoine Sidhe, who waited on their Fae steeds like so many ghostly riders on a procession out of Hell.
The Mebd sat her black horse sidesaddle in the center of the procession, and on her right side, on a milky gray the shaded color of alabaster, Kit was surprised to meet the eyes of Morgan le Fey. Cairbre the bard rode beside them, and a half‑dozen other Fae Kit knew more or less well –
–and, on a shaggy, floppy‑eared pony no taller than Kit’s breastbone, the gawky figure of Robin Goodfellow, elbows akimbo and knees disarrayed.
Kit felt Murchaud drawing himself up tall, and laid a hand on the Prince’s elbow. “Puck?” A stage whisper, and Murchaud looked at him and shrugged.
“She knows thou dost care for him,” Murchaud said. “Perhaps his freedom is a gift to thee, to reassure thee of her good will. They’re waiting for us, Kit–”
“No,” Will said, even more softly, raising one knotted, trembling hand to point to a figure clad in raven‑black, a gold chain glinting at his shoulders as he entered the spill of Faerie light. “They’re waiting for the Earl of Salisbury.”
Act V, scene xix
March all one way, and be no more oppos’d
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill‑sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master.
–William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part I,Act I, scene i
“Jesus wept,” Kit said, and started forward. Will held on to his sleeve and followed; Ben, Tom, and Murchaud paced them a little behind. Given pride of place by a Prince and a Knight,Will thought, amused despite the worry seething in the pit or his belly. Or perhaps they’re simply willing to let us be the ones to beard the lions. And the lionesses.
Salisbury turned as they came up on him, a double‑dozen guards and yeomen ranged at his back. He considered and dismissed first Kit and then the rest of the party–their bruises and scrapes, their mud‑spattered rags. “Gentlemen,” he said, in a tone that didn’t mean gentle.His black robes rustled as he turned, and Will fought the ridiculous desire to step behind Kit like a child twisting himse
lf in his mother’s skirts.
Kit, whose battered dignity as he limped forward to face Salisbury lifted Will’s heart into his throat and brought tears to his eyes. Will blinked against sharpness, glanced over Salisbury’s shoulder, and caught the considering gaze of the Queen of Faerie on her horse that might have been carved from jet. The Mebd blinked once, long violet eyes closing like a cat’s, and Will dropped his gaze to the silent consideration between Kit and Salisbury.
Kit’s mouth was half opened to speak.
Even now, Will realized, he could sense Kit’s movements with a lover’s awareness. He wasn’t sure if that comforted or troubled him, but he stepped closer because he could, and raised one hand to touch the hackled raven crouched on his shoulder. A cold breeze coiled around his ankles with a physical weight, heavy with moisture from the wet paving stones. “My lord Earl,” he said, in his most carefully measured tone. “Your timing is impeccable.”
“Master Shakespeare?” Salisbury’s eyebrow rose at Will’s impertinence.
Oh, I’m making no friends tonight,Will thought, and didn’t care.
“What is that on your shoulder?”
“The salvation of the realm,” Will answered. He squeezed Kit’s elbow and felt Kit lean against him –not so much relaxing as seeking comfort and perhaps warmth, despite the way he almost flinched away from Will’s steadying touch. The air above ground was colder than in the tunnels, and Kit shivered violently. Will remembered the blood on his foot.
“Please,” Kit said wearily through the chatter of his teeth. Let us pass, my lord.”
Salisbury glanced from Kit to Will and back again, sparing his final glance for Murchaud. Tom and Ben were silent, tall pillars on either side of the poets and the Prince.
“If we’re all nominally on the side that does not look forward to a Promethean conquest of England and the Church,” Will said, lifting his chin, “I must agree with Sir Christopher. You misjudged Baines and Poley, my lord, and it is only through the bravery of these men behind me that the King and the crown were saved tonight.”
“Misjudged?”
Will smiled. He imagined it wasn’t a pleasant one, and thought the glance Kit angled him was proud and amused. “This raven on my shoulder is the last raven at the Tower, my lord. All the rest are dead.”
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