Ink and Steel pa-3

by Elizabeth Bear

  That stress again, and Will puzzled it as he poured left-handed, despite his bandages. He got the harsh Rhennish white strained into the cups without spilling it and found bread and an end of cheese, which he set on the table beside the upright knife. “I’ve sugar for the wine.”

  “I’ve gotten out of the habit,” Kit answered, tasting. “And this is sweet enough without assistance.”

  “You know the name of the Spaniard.”

  “We were acquainted. He pretends to many things but I had asked about Mary.” Kit twisted the knife free of the boards and cut cheese dyed with carrot juice, broke bread, handed the first bit to Will. “More on the Spaniard when the wine is drunk.”

  “Everything she told me was in the letter. She’ll come again when she can.” The bread was hard to swallow. Will dipped it in his wine to soften it, much to Kit’s amusement.

  “I see. And little Robin?”

  “Sleeping better.” Kit rubbed bread between his fingertips. He rolled the crumbs against the tabletop. Will picked the shilling off the boards and turned it in his right hand. “Art jealous? Or is it that I’m jealous, and I pass it on to thee?”

  “Jealous?” Kit looked up. He pushed the crust of bread away, and cupped both hands loosely around his wine, leaning back on his stool as if the scent of London, the reek of the gutters twining the perfume from the gardens pleased him.

  “Of Mary Why should I be jealous?”

  “Robin’s your son, isn’t he?”

  Kit’s eye went wide, his face seeming to elongate as eyebrows rose and his jaw sank. “What gave you that idea?”

  “Tis as good a reason as any for Poley to hate you. Beyond the political motives, which seem inadequate.”

  “Adequate for murder. Inadequate for loathing.”

  “I won’t think less of you… .”

  “Nor should you,” Kit answered, reaching for his cup. “Given the somewhat hasty circumstances of your own marriage.”

  Will laughed, knowing he’d touched a nerve to draw that response.

  “Touch . Is he yours?”

  “Why does it matter? I would not impugn the lady’s honor. A man can have care for a dead friend’s sister,”

  “It matters,” Will said, “because a man can also have a care for the children of a dead friend.”

  Kit balanced the knife across the palm of his hand. “Damn, Will. I don’t know.”

  “What does that mean, you don’t know?”

  Kit reversed the knife in his hand like a juggler; Will jumped as he drove the blade neatly into the same gouge Will had left earlier, and a full inch deeper.

  “By Christ’s sore buggered arse, Will. It means the possibility does exist. I shouldn’t think I’d need to draw you a plan. Given yours come in litters.” The glare as Kit shoved himself to his feet left Will speechless and stung. He stood more slowly, holding out his bandaged hand, the right one tightened on the coin.

  “Kit,” Will swallowed, a task that was growing uncomfortable. “I apologize.”

  “Damn you.” But the edge dropped from Kit’s tone, and he settled onto his stool again, resting his forehead on the back of his hand. “Thy pardon, Will. I am overwrought.”

  Will nodded, and sat as well, reaching out right-handed to grab Kit’s wrist, hoping his hand would not shake.

  “The boy will want apprenticing soon. Had you a desire to see him in some trade or another?”

  “God.” Kit’s voice was shaky. He clapped his left hand over Will’s right and squeezed. “Anything but a player, a moneylender, or an intelligencer.”

  “Not to follow in his father’s footsteps, then? Whatever those footsteps be.”

  The silence grew taut between them. Will drew his hand back and dropped it into his lap.

  “Right. Cobblery it is.” When he finished laughing, Kit emptied his cup and pushed it aside.

  “Xalbador de Parma. Fray Xalbador de Parma. A Promethean.”

  “I had discerned that.”

  “More than that.” His voice seemed to dry in his throat. Will pushed his own barely touched cup of hock across the table, and Kit took it with a grateful nod.

  “A Mage, they call him, plural Magi. As if he had anything in common with great spirits such as Dee or Bruno. Fray Xalbador is also an Inquisitor, one of their infiltrators in the Catholic church.”

  Will wished suddenly he had not given his wine away, remembering Kit’s voice on another occasion, in the dark kitchen of Francis Langley’s house.

  “Still, an Inquisitor. I’m tempted to count it some species of honor.”

  “Oh. It bodes not well.” Kit shoved the cup back at Will with still some wine in it. “You must see to it that Francis gives Thomas Walsingham the name. Or better, see to it yourself. I’m sure your status is enough, these days, that he would grant you an interview if you sent him a note.”

  “You sense a move against the Queen?”

  “I can see no reason otherwise de Parma would be in England. You’ll want to pour wine, if you’ve finished that.”

  “More wine?” But Will stood, and collected Kit’s cup as well, and again filtered the dregs through cheesecloth to produce something potable.

  “Here.”

  “Sit,” and Will sat. “What is it?”

  “The reason Elizabeth protects Oxford. And what will make your task all the harder, though Essex has o’erplayed his hand.”

  Will studied Kit’s face, its deadly earnest placidity except for a sort of valley worn between the eyes. “I listen.”

  “You know Edward de Vere was raised as William Cecil, Baron Burghley’s ward after the sixteenth Earl of Oxford died. At the Queen’s request.”

  “I do.”

  “This does not leave this room.”

  “I understand.” Kit drank off his wine at a draft, and plucked the dagger from the tabletop to clean his nails.

  “Oxford is Elizabeth’s bastard son.”

  Act II, scene xi

  Mortimer:

  Madam, whither walks your majesty so fast?

  Isabella:

  Unto the forest, gentle Mortimer,

  To live in grief and baleful discontent;

  For now my lord the King regards me not,

  But dotes upon the love of Gaveston.

  He clapshis cheeks and hangs about his neck,

  Smiles in his face, and whispers in hisears;

  And, when I come, he frowns, as who should say,

  “go whither thou wilt, seeing I have Gaveston.”

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Edward II

  Kit tugged his hood higher. “Latch the door after I leave.”

  Will folded his arms. “I fail to see what errand could be of so much import that you must risk yourself in the street.”

  “Some things,” Kit said, “a man must simply do. I’ll return by dawn. I swear it.”

  “I’ll be at the Mermaid if you want me, then,” Will said, shaking his head in stagy frustration.

  Kit walked through London with a feeling in his breast like freedom, his left hand easy on the hilt of a silver rapier forged as hard and resilient as steel. Carts clattered in the twilight, whorish girls and boys called from doorways, and men and women hustled home from market or out to taverns for their dinners. A commonplace scene, London in the sunset, and one at odds with the determination that coiled in Kit. He kept his eyes downcast and let his hair fall in front of his face, concealing as best he could his eyepatch.

  A sunny day for staging a vengeance tragedy, Marley. Tis not vengeance,he told himself. Tis preclusion.

  Two hours walking and half the Faerie gold in his purse bought him the location of Richard Baines home: a house rather than a lodging, on Addle Street. He’d done well for himself. Kit skulked through an alley almost too narrow for his shoulders to pass without scraping the wall on either side. The house had a little garden: he hoisted himself to peer over the wall, but every window was darkened. Damn. At the Sergeant, do you suppose?A bell tolled nine of the clock, and he let
himself drop on the outside of the wall.

  Wherever Baines is, Fray Xalbador will not be far behind.

  Kit stroked the hilt of his sword again, thinking perhaps he should try his hand at finding Oxford, instead. A dead man may accomplish many things a live one might balk at. But he wanted Baines blood, that was the truth, and wanted the false Inquisitor’s more. He could scale the wall and lie in wait, since it seemed not even a servant was at home. Or he could go in search, aimlessly pacing. His feet decided for him. He walked through the much-thinned crowds, amused at how little apprehension he felt at strolling London’s streets in the darkness. Dead men lay their burdens down. But it was a lie, and he knew it. With an intelligencer’s assessment of risk and reward, Kit knew that Fray Xalbador was worth Kit’s own lifeblood to put an end to. More than worth. Might as well trade Faerie gold for a good English sovereign. But as much as Kit would have liked to hunt Robert Poley to his death at the Groaning Sergeant, Kit knew his life wasn’t worth Poley’s. His secret wasn’t even worth Poley’s life. Surprised at a familiar voice, Kit stopped, looked up, stepped away from the square of light cast by an open door. A slow baritone, with something of the luff and fill of thoughtful sails behind it.

  “Chapman,” he murmured. And indeed, his wandering footsteps, no doubt primed by Will’s words on where to find him, had led him into Cheapside and onto Bread Street. As he looked up he saw George Chapman’s portly girth silhouetted against the open door of the Mermaid. Laughter followed Chapman’s unheard bon mot. Kit drew into the shadows, hoping Chapman didn’t think him a cutpurse or lurcher lying in wait. He need not have feared: Chapman never saw him, but set out whistling down the street, swinging a stout stick and holding a half-shuttered lantern.

  Kit glanced longingly at the sharp-cut panel of lamplight on the cobbles, and swore. He could hear Will’s laughter now, too, and someone else, Tom Nashe? a voice cut clean by the closing door. He turned on his heel and followed Chapman. At least I can see him safe home. Arrant fool, walking through London alone after curfew.

  But Chapman moved east, and Kit followed at a little more distance, now curious more than worried as his old friend let that stick tap lightly on the cut stone kerb.

  Dark houses loomed: a crack of stars were visible only directly overhead, and only a few lights gleamed through the slits in shutters, stars of a different sort. The rats grew bolder after dark, and twice Kit heard the squealing of their private wars.

  Chapman was walking to Westminster Palace, a goodly night’s jaunt. The lantern was a godsend: its light both steered Kit and blinded Chapman, so Kit need fear neither recognition nor the loss of his quarry in the dark. He fell back a little as they passed Blackfriars: there were carriages in thestreets, parties of walkers, and groups of armed men to keep the Queen speace. King’s Street was quieter, once they passed through the gates, and there was little traffic beyond Charing Cross.

  Kit turned once at a footstep behind him, wary of a sense of being watched, but he saw only a few figures. Another lantern-decked carriage rattled over the cobbles, forcing one pedestrian against the wall. Probably just Morgan watching me through her damned Glass. Matched bays drew the coach a two-in-hand and the gelding on the near side had one white sock on a hind foot, which flashed in the lantern light along with the footman’s livery.

  Oh, that’s just too much of a coincidence.Kit stepped up his pace, eyes trained forward. But of course it wasn’t a coincidence at all. He had been following Chapman. And Chapman had been en route from supper and conversation with his friends and fellow playmakers to meet his patron. His patron, who had been Kit’s patron as well. And friend. And more. Thomas Walsingham.

  The June night was warm, the air humid enough that it felt as if Kit walked through veils of silk that clung and slipped. He followed the slowing carriage as he had followed Morgan, one footstep and then another. But this was thoughtful rather than blind obedience. The meaning comes in the silences. Momentum comes from the instant before the foot leaves the ground.

  The white-footed gelding stamped as his mate jostled him, tugging the rein as the coachman drew them in. Kit heard the creak of leather, the rattle of iron-shod rims on stone. Someone hallooed Chapman; a lantern flickered. Kit laid one hand on the wall and watched from the shadows, as if turned to stone.

  Or salt,he thought, as the coach door opened. I could wish that. A pillar of salt, to melt in the endless London rain and flow down the Thames to the ocean. Like a river of tears. Oh, stop it, Marley. That’s not even an original image.And still he could have wept at the contrast between what he felt, now, suddenly, that had been so long stepped upon and the desperate, thoughtless, compliant passion that had marked his loves in Faerie. Loves? How couldst even thou have mistaken that for love, Kit Marley?More to be ashamed, for he knew what love was. It was the thing that held him now, a breathless kind of clarity that kept him in the shadows, waiting for one last glimpse of the man whose life and home he had shared before.

  The footman moved to assist a tall, ginger-haired woman in a flat-fronted French gown down the iron step. Kit’s breath lay like pooled lead in his chest as she lifted her skirts and set her pattened feet upon the cobbles with a clack. Audrey Walsingham. She stepped away, gliding toward Chapman, who leaned on his cudgel as if it were a cane and swept a thoroughly creditable bow. The carriage door stayed open, the footman at attention. Kit heard Chapman’s murmur, Mistress Walsingham’s tinkling laugh as he steadied her toward the palace.

  Leave, Kit thought, and came a half step closer to the carriage lights. Long legs in silk hose, a well-turned calf strong from time spent on horseback. The hair was dark by lamplight as he grasped the rail and stood, settling his doublet with a shrug of muscled shoulders, but Kit knew it would gleam with copper highlights in the sun. The footman stood aside as Thomas Walsingham descended, swinging the door shut with a casual gesture that brought Kit’s heart into his throat. He stepped forward again, and halted his motion in midair. What art thou imagining thou mightst do here, Marley? Apologize for thinking Tom conspired with thy killers? Explain that Frazier and Poley lied, and thou thyself never practiced against the Queen? Throw thyself at his feet and kiss the stones between his shoes? Beg him to take thee home to Chislehurst and swive until thou bleedst, stay from Faerie and die in his arms like a selkie kept from the sea, while the lovely Audrey cossets and possets thee?

  It had a certain appeal, like Dido leaping into the flames, like Cleopatra up to her elbows in a basket writhing with asps. Kit set his foot in the print he had lifted it from, and stayed in the shadows, his right hand closing on the collar of his doublet as to tug it open and cool his throat. Such a small motion to so betray him.

  Tom must have caught the gesture from the corner of his eye. He turned like a splendid stallion, nostrils flaring, six inches of steel flashing in the carriage light as his right hand gripped and half drew his sword. Who goes? A low voice, not loud enough to turn the heads of Chapman and Audrey, but enough to bring the footman around to flank his master. Kit smiled in recognition of the caution. Yes, Tom. Get the lady in the gates along with her escort. You stay and handle the trouble, and she none the wiser. Besides, the palace is close enough to rouse to a cry of murder in the street. But that could be embarrassing if it were a false alarm, couldn’t it?

  He glanced over his shoulder as Tom and his man came a few steps closer. The coachman kept a tight rein on the stamping bays, but he turned to look, and Kit knew there was a loaded pistol in a box behind his seat. The way was deserted on either side, except for the figure who had dodged the carriage some distance away and hurrying forward with running footsteps and Chapman and Audrey, who would be out of casual earshot by now. A cross street lay a few steps away: Kit could turn, fly, and be gone before Tom glimpsed his face

  An excellent plan.

  “What is thy name, villain?”

  If I had ever been able to walk from that voice.

  “Not a villain.” Kit took two short steps forward, to the edge o
f the lanternlight, and tugged his hood back with his thumbs. The gesture revealed his sword, and showed his hands well away from it, and Tom’s grip on his own hilt slackened. And then Walsingham’s jaw dropped, and the knuckles grew white again.

  “Rather a gentleman, Tom.” By his expression, the footman didn’t know Kit. One small mercy. Tom’s jaw worked, but no sound emerged. Kit couldn’t spare a glance for the figure now running toward them. “Tom, you must know. Frazier lied to you. I never did what he said.”

  “How do you know what he said?” Kit jerked his chin at the candlelit windows of the palace. Tom’s face grew so pale Kit could see by lantern light. And Will Shakespeare drew up ten feet away, wobbling with the force of his stop, his arms widespread for balance as if he had suddenly realized he was about to run between two armed men.

  “Master Walsingham,” he said softly. Tom shot him a level, almost mocking look. Kit knew it, and breathed a little easier. “The playmaker Shakespeare. I take it you knew about this?”

  “Will nodded.” Tom took his hand off his sword and turned to the footman. “Jenkins, see that Master Chapman and my wife understand that I will be delayed. Perhaps as much as an hour.”

  “Sir.”

  Audible relief filled the man’s voice as he took himself away from matters he did not understand and vanished in pursuit of his mistress.

  “Now,” Tom said. “Into the carriage, for lack of a tavern. Pity, for I am very much in need of a drink, but I can’t stand talking in the street with a player and a dead man.”

  Kit tried not to notice how Tom’s eyes lingered on his face. He turned his head to hide the scarred side, but could not stop a shiver when Tom took his elbow and almost lifted him into the coach. Will slipped on the step, but Tom steadied him too, and Will shrugged and smiled his apology. Kit flinched at the misstep. He prodded the ache in his chest, and knew.

  Murchaud was right. I can’t stay here.They took their seats and Tom rapped on the coach roof. Wheels rattled on the cobblestones, the carriage swaying on its straps.

  “Where are we going?” Will asked. “There and back again,” Tom answered. “Twice, if we need more time.”