Kit checked his step as they continued around the building to where, he knew, a ramshackle stairway led to a warm and comfortably appointed room. He stepped under an overhang and leaned into the corner by the garden wall, gasping like a hooked fish. His stomach clenched on emptiness, but he forced himself to straighten and walk silently through the rain.
His hand itched on his sword hilt. Not his left hand, to keep the blade tuckedunder his cloak, but his right, ready to draw the blade whickering into the air and cast that cloak aside, to run Baines and Poley down, shouting. To run them through before they could climb those stairs.
Where’s Nick Skeres?he thought, picking his way over litter and startling a feral pig nosing through garbage. It fled in a clatter of trotters, and Kit held his breath lest the sound should bring investigators. But the rain probably covered it. Where’s Frazier?The name brought a twist of coldness into his belly, and kept him from thinking about who might be already waiting in that room.
He released the rapier’s hilt and thrust the lank strands of hair out of his eye. They stuck to his cheeks and forehead; he stifled a sneeze and swore. Morgan will put me in a hot bath again.It was her cure for everything, insane as it sounded, but it hadn’t killed him yet.
Baines and Poley had just reached the landing as Kit glided around the corner and slipped beneath the whitewashed frame of the stair. They did not shut the door. Kit looked up at the timbers and sighed, knowing from experience that the landing and much of the stair were visible through that entryway.
Perhaps I can’t make the climb in a cloak. The sword would be enough trouble, but he wasn’t leaving that behind. He circled through puddles, using a few wan flickers of lightning to get an idea of the strength of the crossbracing holding the stairs, wishing he had a bit of leather to bind his hair. It drifted again into his eye and mouth as he lifted his face. He drank in the unclean savor of London rain, blinked a particle of soot away. A pang of hunger left him dizzy for a moment; he sighed and took hold of the thickest timber. Quickly, Kit, or you’ll miss what you’ve come to hear. You don’t know who’s in that room. ALL you have is a very nasty suspicion indeed.
And one that could mean a great deal of danger to Will, especially if his friend’s secret plan to undermine the ill-feeling between Protestants and Papists came to light.
Kit dropped his cloak in the driest corner and ran each hand up opposite sides of the rough-hewn timber, glad the edges had not been planed to corners and the bark was only haphazardly smoothed away. He grabbed as high as he could, locked fist around wrist, and half hopped, half pulled himself into the air. He wrapped his legs around the pillar, the rough surface burning skin through clothes so much for these hose and breathed. One. He reached as high as he could, coiled his arms around the pillar, and dragged himself a few inches, cursing rain and splinters.
Something stabbed his thigh, working deeper as he shimmied up. He kept his grip and pressed the scarred side of his face against the timber. Another flicker, and a halfhearted growl of thunder. Kit struck his head on a crossbrace and flinched, but held on. The stars he saw were brighter than the lightning. A slow hot trickle winding through his hair was soon lost in all the swift, cold trickles; he hoped the thump would be as lost in the sound of the storm.
The voices he strained to hear almost vanished under the pattering of droplets; Kit chased them, hoisting himself onto that crossbrace and straddling it. His arms and legs trembled. The crossbrace dug into his back, and the splinter burned in his thigh. Good work, Marley. And how get you down?He wiped his hair out of his face again and saw dilute blood on his fingers, though the bump on his head seemed superficial. He closed his eye and listened through the rain: first to the commonplaces of intelligencers in the tones of Baines and of Poley, reports of Catholics and Puritans Kit dismissed as no longer relevant to his service.
Until … “no, I haven’t seen Nick today, but he intended to attend. He must have been delayed at some trouble, my lord. I can tell you until he gets here that your Shakespeare’s been well behaved,” Poley said in his sharp, sardonic tones. “He spent the night in his room with his wife. Had supper sent up, and the candle went out shortly after. Not a peep: he seems apt to take the Queen’s penny and write his plays as he’s told.”
And then the third voice. Precise, a little pinched. As pompous as his peascod doublets: the voice of Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Kit covered his face with his forearm, blocking the incessant drip. “Have your men see he stays under control, Master Poley. I’d not waste another playmaker. Though so long as he seems biddable, there should be no danger; lord Burghley relies on me to guide his production, and there have been no incidents such as those that provoked us to deal so harshly with Master Marley.” Kit almost lost his grip on the beam.
“Have you aught else to report? Anything of Thomas Walsingham?” Baines voice, the first part lost under the rumble of the thunder and the vsudden agony of Kit’s throat constricting. You broke it off, Kit. You were young. You learned. You never meant a thing to him. Edward.
“… Thomas Walsingham’s trust is secure. I’ve made evidence that Marley was involved with enemies of the Queen, and Thomas has accepted Master Poley’s judgement. With some tearing of the hair. I gather they were bosom friends.”
Kit straightened his arms against the beam overhead. Cold water dripped onto his forehead and ran down his arms as he let his head loll back. It mingled with slow heat leaking down his cheek, dripped burning against the back of his throat. He tasted salt and didn’t lower a hand to wipe it dry. ‘Edward,’ he mouthed. Oh, unhappy Marley. He’d blamed poor Thomas for his murder all unfairly, and it was fickle Edward all along.
Baines said, “Walsingham suspects nothing, my lord.”
“Excellent. What news from the Continent?”
A band of heavier rain swept the alley, and Kit couldn’t bear in any case to listen longer. The pang that wracked his belly was the final consideration: he couldn’t be sure if it was hunger, or the doom that would drive him back to Faerie, but he didn’t dare stay wedged under the stair. He slung a leg over the crossbrace and locked his ankles around the timber again, thinking, At least going down will be easier than coming up.
Except his hand slipped on slimy wood as he shifted his hip off the crossbrace, and he grabbed wildly for the timber and got a slick handful of rain-soaked bark that peeled free. He wasn’t sure how he remembered not to shout as he skidded two feet, asmear with whitewash and crumbs of wood, that splinter lodged so deeply now he thought he’d die of it, his eyepatch tearing loose a knot of hair as it went into the gulf underneath. His sword stayed blessedly fast in its scabbard, though, and for a long moment Kit hugged the timber and just breathed long, slow rattling breaths that hurt more coming out than going in.
Somehow he made it to the ground and stood against the timber, shaking more with his realization about Oxford than with the terror of the climb. He knew the length of such reports to the minute, and Poley and Baines would be emerging soon. What’s another betrayal? I already knew what he was. At least I’ve confirmation. Edward II stung him. Although perhaps more than I intended.And then a bright flare of hope, quickly doused. It wasn’t Tom. And so what if it wasn’t? The thought that must concern me is whether Edward is our only traitor.
Kit pulled himself away from the timber and bent to retrieve his cloak. He couldn’t find his eyepatch; the rainwater felt odd trickling over the drooping eyelid and the scar on his blind side. But at least with the cloak too sodden to wear, it was unlikely anyone would look past the whitewash daubing his form, the blood and mess and the long-healed wound to recognize a dead man’s profile. He needed Morgan. He needed to get another message to Francis, that his cousin was innocent and Oxford the man not to be trusted. We, We. Kit, there is no we any more. You serve a different Queen.He would have laughed if he’d dared: first the sinking horror of betrayal and then relief that left him giddy. Edward, not Thomas. Why is it so much better to be betrayed by one former lover tha
n another? Because it is better to have a vile impression of someone once cared for reinforced, than to have one’s heart shown irreparably flawed.
He picked his way out into the steadier traffic of the street, too weary and pained to keep to the shadows though passersby were offering his bloody, whitewashed, rain-streaked visage curious stares and wide berths. There was a rain barrel up on bricks a half block further on, and he thought he might wash his face. Kit kept his eye on his shoes, cautious of the slick cobbles. He wouldn’t have looked up at all if a hurrying figure hadn’t drawn back a startled step and gasped.
“M Marley? God’s blood.”
Kit looked into the eyes of a narrow little man with a narrow little face. He was well dressed and well wrapped against the rain, and he skittered back three steps and bared his teeth like a trapped rat as Kit advanced, reaching across his body for the rapier.
“Nicholas Skeres,” Kit muttered between the draggled locks of his hair. He tasted lime and blood and soot, and spit them out upon the road. “Thou murdering bastard. I’ll see thee hang.”
Skeres eyes widened so the white showed in a ring. He gave a scream like a startled girl and shuffled backward, tripped on a stone, and sat down hard in the slops.
“Kit, stay thy hand.””
“As thou didst stay Ingrim s?” Another step forward, the naked blade in Kit’s hand pointed at Skeres left eye, only a few short steps distant. The damage is done. You’re recognized. You may as well get the pleasure of his blood
Passersby were halting, drawing back, staring and muttering.
“Tis Master Marley’s ghost.” A woman’s shocked voice: one he knew not, but he’d been well enough known. The murdered playmaker. From some window open to the rain, a drift of music followed. Kit turned his head to regard the semicircle ranged on his blind side.
A half-dozen men and women huddled in the rain, frozen with fear or fascination. He ran a cold eye over them and they drew back. He was all over whitewash and blood, and he knew what they must see: a tattered figure smeared with the lime of the grave, the blood of his fatal wound rolling from the socket of his missing eye, leveling a naked blade at a sobbing killer.
It was too much for a player’s imagination. And a few reports of a dramatic revenant wouldn’t risk the sort of intelligent questions that a dead man returning from the grave to slaughter his own murderer might. Skeres claiming a visit from Kit’s ghost could be drunken fancy. Or Hell a ghost, for all that. Kit had been careless and greedy, and he wouldn’t have Will or Francis or a true innocent like Burghley’s changeling cousin Bull caught in the net of that carelessness. Kit smiled through the blood and tilted his head to look his prey in the eye.
You’ll die screaming, Nick Skeres, he whispered. The man flinched down into the gutter, a fresh reek of urine hanging on the rain-wet air, and Kit whirled on the ball of his foot. Silent in his nail-less boots, carrying his naked blade, he ran into the storm and made himself gone.
Act II, scene vi
Pedro:
I shall see thee ere I die, look pale with love.
Benedick:
With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord,
not with love: prove that ever ILoose more blood
with love then I will get again with drinking, pick
out mineeyes with a Ballad-maker’s pen, and hang me
up at the door of a brothel housefor the sign of
blind Cupid.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing”
“Thou didst send for me, and I am here.”
Annie lay on his bed, her shoes lined side by side beneath it, her hair unpinned and spread like a river on his pillow, spilling over the hand and arm she propped her head upon. “I stink with travel, Will. Wouldst call up water?”
Will, fussing with the lamp, smiled. Her terseness had the welcome sound of home.
“I’m glad thou didst come.” He stepped out the door and down the stairs, found the landlord’s ten-year-old boy, Jack, dozing in the common room.
“Warm water for my wife.” Will dropped half a silver penny on Jack’s lap. “And see if there’s any of the pig left.” He’s only a little older than Hamnet.
Jack vanished into the kitchen so fast he blurred. Will clumped back up the stairs, dizzy with the effects of a long day’s work in the heat. “Water is imminent. And thy supper, too, if thou likst. How are Hamnet and the girls?”
“Growing. Susanna’s tall as a willow. They’re with thy sister Joan. Come home, Will.”
He left the door unlatched and plumped down on the boards beside the bed in the flickering lamplight, the window thrown open despite the stench and sound of the streets. “Thou knowst I can’t.” He reached up without looking, caught her skirts, and tugged until her legs slid over the edge of the bed and her feet dropped into his lap. “I’m good at this, Annie. And …” The door swung open at John’s tap. Will moved Anne’s legs aside and rose to relieve the boy of his bucket and the cold pork and bread. Will latched the door and set the food on the table, shoulders aching as he hefted the bucket.
Anne peeled her stocking down, her leg raised in the air, her skirts in disarray and a wanton gleam in her eye. “Wash my feet for me, Will.” Her bare foot ran up his calf, tickling the back of his knee.
“Annie.” He set the bucket down and sat on the bed beside her, a careful six inches away. “Dost want thy supper?”
“Tis not supper I’m hungry for.” She curled against his back, pressing her soft bosom against his shoulder, her hair across his shoulder like a veil. She smelled of dust and travel, of sweat and great distances, and of sachet lavender.
“I won’t risk thy life for another babe, Annie.”
“Tis not a babe I crave, sweet William. I’m too old to catch.”
“Oh, Annie.” He turned and put his hands through her hair, and closed her eyes with a kiss. “Not so old as that, I warrant. They say a love match never comes out well, but after all I went to winning thee, Wife, would I risk thee? Another birth like the twins would finish thee, and thou wert younger then.”
“It wasn’t so bad.”
“There was blood through the ticking, Anne.”
“There’s someone else.” Flatly, a dead inflection that squeezed his heart like a fist.
“A player’s dalliances. No one who matters. A husband’s prerogative, in the absence of his wife.”
She tugged her skirts out from under his leg and squatted beside the bucket, unlacing her bodice and pushing aside her smock as if the bitterness in her voice were the tones of idle conversation. He watched her wash her arms and neck, the shadows under the well-nursed softness of her breasts. The lamplight streaked her hair with an unfair quantity of gray.
“I’m well provided for. Where does the money come from, Will?”
“I’m in favor at the court. And living over a tavern.” He looked around the Spartan room, seeing it through her eyes. “I’m not here often,” he said at last. “I should see to better lodging.”
“Thou canst write plays in Stratford. Thou canst see thy children grow. I’ll content myself with stable-hands.
He turned to her, startled, and saw her rock back on her heels and smile. “If a husband may seek comfort elsewhere, Husband Mouse.”
“Thou wouldst not.” She sighed and stood, her hands linked palm to palm before her thighs. “If thou’lt not risk me, should I risk myself? I die of idleness, Will.”
“Three children and a cottage are not enough housewifery for thee?”
She kilted her skirts up, standing first on one leg and then the other to wash the grime from her feet. Will watched her toes flex, the arch of each foot grip the floor. “I’ll clean my hair tomorrow,” she decided, and stepped around the bucket, leaving footprints like jewels on the boards. Her hands on her hips again, challenging, and the curve of her clever neck. Not so different than she’d been when they’d conspired to marry over family objections, all those years ago.
He coughed into his hand
. “If thou wilt not tumble me,” she said as she came to him, “wilt at least come to thy bed and comfort me with thine arms?” He blew out the lamp and did as she asked, and pretended not to hear her weep.
Until the small hours, when the noise from the street below grew slighter and she moved against him, mumbling into the dark. “I want a business, Will. If thou hast playmaking, then give me something other than stitchery and child-chasing to fill the hours.”
“What wouldst thou?” He felt her smile against his shoulder, and knew he was lost.
My lord husband. I could make thee a wealthy man. A long pause, and shimmering wryness. I want to buy land.
Which she could do only in his name and person.
“With the income I send?”
“And mine own portion.” Her held breath stilled against his cheek, he considered.
“Annie,” he said, and still heard no hiss of breath through her lips. “Send me what needst my mark,” he said.
“Mean old biddy. Stripling,” she answered, and kissed his cheek above the beard, and he was sorry that was all.
Act II, scene vii
Can kingly lions fawn on creeping Ants?
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Edward II
“Sweet Kit.” Murchaud shook his head, black curls uncoiling across the silver-shot gray silk taffeta of his doublet. He reclined beside the fire, an octavo volume propped on his knee. Kit looked up from the papers spread on his worktable and smiled through the candlelight, wary at Murchaud’s tone.
“You must not weary yourself on the affairs of mortals, my love. It will bring sorrow.”
Kit blotted his quill and laid it across the pen rest. Methodically, he sanded black words, setting the letter aside unfolded when he stood. “A command, Your Highness?”
Murchaud set his book aside and stretched on the divan, gesturing Kit closer, but Kit stood his ground.
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