A Hell of time.
He dusted his hands again; black dirt made moons under his nail-beds. A bit of grease daubed the left one’s back. He thought of turnips and swore. If I called on Lucifer, would he come to me? Aye, and bid me write, and chide me for childishness.
It had happened before. Will blasphemed a little. It did nothing to ease the bitterness in his throat, the emptiness in his bowels. He picked up his greasy oak stick and his broom and crouched before the fireplace, upsetting the stewpot intentionally, spilling gravy and vegetables on the hearthstone and away from the fire. He burrowed in the embers like a badger, raked them from the fireplace, scorching his shoe, burning his hands. The broom smoked as he swept the heaps of coals against the cottage walls;with the ash shovel he carried a smoking log outside and heaved it up onto the thatch. He caught his cloak from the peg by the door frame and settled under a pine tree, where he remained late into the warm autumn evening, watching the snug little cottage burn. He slept smiling, rough on sponge-soft needles, savoring the pain of his blistered palms when he woke in the darkness before morning. When the sun rose in tawny and auburn, Will crunched across soft-rotted pine boughs and mounds of needles to wash soot from his face and bathe his hands in the well. The cottage sat where it had always been, a thin ribbon of smoke and the smell of cooking bannock rising from the chimney. The door was propped open and had been repainted red; Will could see the unmarked, silvery doorpost from where he stood just under the roof-edge of the pines.
But that your trespass now becomes a fee; / Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
He sighed, and went inside, and somehow, again, managed not to pick up the pen. Will knelt in the sunlight over a bowl full of water, shaving himself as best he could. He kept his hair haggled to the shoulders with his dagger; the palsy made keeping his beard trimmed hard, but he was damned if he’d let himself turn into a wild man. Truth to tell, he was damned even if he wasn’t pretty. He laid the blade aside and dipped hands in the water, washing the trimmed hairs from his face. He sat back on his heels and blinked; a shadow fell over him and he startled, overbalanced, and fell on his ass as he began to rise.
“Master Shakespeare.” Lucifer bent and extended a hand; Will took it reflexively, surprised that it felt … so much like a hand. “Still thou hast written not a word. Stubborn man.”
“I am what I am.”
“Stubborn enough.” Lucifer said. “Come. Thou art released. Thou art no longer welcomed in Hell.”
Will blinked, tilted his head to the side. “Released?”
“Aye.” Lucifer chivvied him along with a guiding wing. Will might have glanced back at the little cottage, the glade in the pines. But Lucifer’s wing blocked his vision, and he was half certain that if he turned the house would not be there.
“Your Highness, I do not understand.”
“Thy lover has purchased thy freedom.” The Devil smiled, his blue eyesglittering.
“And lucky thou art to command such loyalty. And such a ferocious soul.”
My lover? I haven’t one,Will thought. But I did. Once.“Morgan? What would Morgan want with me again?”
“No,” Lucifer said. “Not Morgan, gentle William. Ah, look. Already, here is the door.”
Act III, scene xxi
His waxen wings did mount above his reach
And melting, heavens conspired his overthrow.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Faustus
Will, thin and shivering in the red light of Hell, leaned against the yawning, gateless mouth of a dark stone stair. Eye bright as if with fever and clutching his doublet tight around him as if Hell had left not heat but deep cold in his marrow, he reminded Kit of a bony old cat. He would not look up, would not look Kit in the face. He didn’t seem to notice the lack of scars or the missing eyepatch, but the light, in truth, was poor, and Kit could see Will shivering. Kit thought to lay a hand on Will’s sleeve. He was as helpless to bridge the gap between them as to thrust a hand through a brick wall.
Will touched him though, and Kit’s mouth filled with the taste of whiskey, his nostrils with the scent of smoke. He stepped away more rudely than he could have. Will. Don’t
“Kit. Sweet Christofer.”
Oh, strange, to hear the name said in a lover’s voice and feel no shiver of recognition in its cadences. Tis no longer thy name, who was Christofer Marley.
“You came for me.”
“I chose a side, Will. The side that would have me as God made me.” The tone that should have been light and playful fell on his own ears like pebbles in a pool. Plop, plop, plop. Kit wondered if the ripples of what Lucifer had done would ever stop shaking the stillness of his soul.
“You came for me.” Will said it again, and this time Kit heard the disbelief clearly.”
“I love thee.”
He led Will to the stair.
“You love Morgan.”
“Oh. No.”
“Dammit, Kit, I saw the two of you together. Robin said…” Will swallowed, audibly. “And all the years I’ve been gone, have you not spent at her side? And now she needs me for something. Else why would it have taken you so long to come.”
“Puck. Damn you, too. Ah, wait. I already did that.” Kit bit his lip on a hysterical laugh. “Years, Will?”
“How much time has passed in the mortal realm?” Will asked wearily. “Who is King?”
“It’s still Hallow’s eve or was when I rode out of Faerie. And Elizabeth reigns yet. Hours, not years.” Kit knew he needed to turn and put his hand on Will’s sleeve, to knot his fingers in Will’s hair and hold him close. He knew it from Will’s sidelong glances, and the careful, conscious way Will kept his hands at his sides. But all he could sense was the touch of Lucifer’s hands on his body, those bright wings fanning over him, the taste of the angel’s skin. “Damn. Faerie time. Time in Hell. How long was it, Will?”
Will would not return Kit’s steady regard. “I lost my calendar.”
“God. Will I’m sorry.” Inadequate, and untrue. Kit shuddered. He wasn’t sorry. He was angry. “God in Hell, Will, if you knew what you cost me.” Pish. Kit. And if thou hadst gone to the teind as Morgan willed, wouldst havechosen differently what thou didst to Satan sell?“Thou’rt safe now. My love.”
Will flinched. “Mine other love sold thee to Hell. Whom thou didst love also.”
“Tis not love, Kit said. Morgan’s Fae. Betrayal, tis … part of whatshe is. As for me I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Will.” And he was. And angry, still.
Will did not try to touch him again, but walked very near, without speaking, on Kit’s left hand. Kit let the silence hold them, and hoped there was forgiveness in it. It was good for thinking, that silence, and he bent his mind to Lucifer, and Christ, and God, and Will.
Will, who turned and looked at him straight, finally, and let his eyebrows rise. “There’s a revelation on your face.”
Kit smiled. “More a bemusement. My plays, your plays they can change the world. Hell, William. Here I am living the Orpheus I wrote, for Christ’s sake. And Morgan told me she has changed and changed again, reflecting what the poets sing. So if Christ came to preach God’s love and tolerance a thousand and a half years gone, and half the world is Christian, why is it that God himself has not become what Christ the Redeemer would have made him? The Morningstar told me…” Kit stopped, pierced by a vivid recollection of the circumstances of that conversation.
“You believe what the Devil says?”
“Thou needs must have spoken with him, in thy time in Hell. Did he ever lie to thee?” Will flinched; Kit leveled his voice. “Satan says that God loves not, nor forgives, as the New Testament would have it. God judges, Will. As fathers do.”
“You believe what the Devil says?”
“No lie could have cut me so.”
“Kit Marley.” Climbing, Will favored him with a glance. “I’ve heard you dismiss Moses as a, what was the word?”
“Juggler.”
“Juggler, aye. And Christ as a so
domite and fornicator.”
“Is fornication such a sin? Can not a man’s words be holy though a man be but earth?” Their footsteps up the stair carried them from Stygian gloom to something like pale earthly moonlight. Kit ran fingers along the rough stone of the wall and did not look back. Never look back. Never step off the path. Never trust the guardian. Oh, indeed.
“And now thou tellst me thou art shattered because the Devil says God does not love thee.” Will turned dark blue eyes on him in a glare, and blinked.
“Your face.”
“Satan,” Kit said dryly, “healed me. When he agreed to release thee.”
“What didst thou…”
“Don’t,” Kit said, shaking his head, feeling the movement of scrubbed curls against his neck, knowing no soap or simple could make him clean again.
“Don’t ever ask me. Just accept that what I did, I did in love for thee.”
“Oh, Kit.” But Will fell silent, and it was enough, and they ascended side by side for a time until Kit found his courage again.
“Tis the Church,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“The reason God can’t love us. The Church. All churches.” He paused, hearing his own radical words. True heresy, this. “They speak to power and to money, and they teach a jealous and a wrathful God. Christ’s God was not that. Christ’s God is a God who can forgive. Who can love his creations. Mayhap there are two Gods, I don’t know or three. The Catholic God, the Protestant God, and the Promethean God. Three that are one. And the Puritan God.”
“Ah. Kit? How long do you suppose it takes to climb outof Hell?”
“Three days, Kit guessed, and smiled to himself when Will’s laugh forgot to be broken-edged. Kit stole a look: Will leaned on the wall, lifting each foot with painful concentration, but he kept up. I’ll carry him on my back if I have to.
A calm voice, then, and one with a purpose in it. “Your Latin. I suppose you’ve forgotten it all. And your Greek.”
“No, I’ve kept it,” Kit answered. “And learned some of the Hebrew, some Arabic and some Russian, too.”
“Hebrew,” Will said. “That will be useful.”
“Useful to what purpose?”
“Well,” he answered, as they came around a corner in the stair and the source of the pale reflected light revealed itself a shaft in the ceiling, unguessably high, with a patch of blue at the top of it that Kit could have covered complete with his pinky nail, for perspective. “If I’m going to write a Bible, I need someone to translate it for me. And someone to push the pen. My hands are not what they were.”
“You re serious.”
Will sighed, filling his lungs with the sweeter air that fell down the shaft. He squared his shoulders and recommenced to climb. “I’ve had time to think on it. If you can suggest a simpler and preferably shorter plan for convincing people God loves them and forgives them, I would be overjoyed to hear it. I’m going back to England. Let’s do something useful with Prometheus, shall we? It’s there; it’s got to be for something better than shoring up Princes and clothing upstart Earls in glory.”
“If that’s your plan,” Kit answered, “it will have to be something on the order of a liberal translation. The world is not kindly to those who seek wisdom, Will. Look at the example of one Jesus of Nazareth.”
“You’re the one who believes our circumstances would be improved if God took a personal interest,” Will answered, and Kit was certain this time that he did not imagine the bitterness. “Personally, I think we’d be better off if we accepted some responsibility for our choices. But you’re our translator. You’ll be responsible for that.”
“An atheistical warlock and a humanist conspiring on a Bible to free good Englishmen from the suzerainty of the Church.”
“A warlock, eh?”
“So they assure me.” Kit opened his palm at face level as they climbed. His right eye showed a spiral of possibilities hovering over it. He focused on them, and called forth light. A thin blue flicker of Saint Elmo’s Fire curled about his fingers. “Call me Faustus and I’ll hit you. Although there’s a degree of dramatic irony in this.”
“Well,” Will answered, toiling upward. We’re both somewhat prone to irony. I suppose it’s appropriate. Ironic, but appropriate. Although I can’t answer for mine actions should you summon up the shade of Helen.”
“The furthest thing from my mind,” Kit assured him, permitting the light to fail.
Act III, scene xxii
In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 152
Will was never sure how they came to return to the Mebd’s palace. One moment climbing tiredly, Kit’s hand awkward and quickly withdrawn on the small of his back; the next the dry crunch of beech twigs under his feet, the scuff of grass. Will staggered as they came out of the trees. He turned to speak to Kit; Kit had fallen behind. Will stopped and retraced his steps.
Will found Kit leaning against a beech trunk, bent over as if he’d been punched. Head bowed, Kit stared at the backs of his hands, which were spaced widely on his half-flexed knees. He looked up as Will approached, the sunlight falling across his unblemished face. Wordlessly, Will studied Kit, realizing that he had almost forgotten what Kit had looked like before he was scarred.
Will held out a hand; Kit nodded it away, sliding his back up the smooth bole of the tree. A red bird such as Will had never seen sang in the branches overhead, a high chirruping whistle. Delicate bell-shaped flowers that almost seemed cast in wax poked through the leaf mold around Kit’s unshod feet.
“Thou’rt not well,” Will said.
“Overcome for a moment, is all.” Kit’s right eye caught the green sunlight through the trees and blazed for a moment, yellow as citrine before it faded to match the other.
“Kit.” Will took Kit by the forearms and held him tight. Kit would not meet his eyes. Will couldn’t find the words for the question he needed to ask and so he asked instead, “What hath become of thy shoes?”
“I sold them to a ferryman” Kit tugged ineffectually. “And my cloak to an ifrit, and my sword to a demon. I think they were all Lucifer.”
Will released Kit’s right hand; Kit braced it against Will’s chest and pushed, but Will held him fast and caught his chin. They stood just within the embrace of the woods; the trees were half bare. Within the castle, observers could see them wrangle so. Kit, what have I done to earn thine anger? Kit laughed, but there was no humor in it. Will held him fast when he leaned back, still tugging his wrist away like a restless horse fretting at its tie: absently, almost without intent. My touch hurts him,Will realized, and the thought might as well have been a dagger letting his bowels out a slit in his belly. He held fast nonetheless.
“Thou hast done nothing.” Sweat beading on Kit’s face. “And I everything to earn thine. I don’t deserve thy forgiveness.”
“I forgive thee anyway.”
“I went to Morgan because…”
“Because thou didst wish me hurt for leaving thee, and thyself hurt for not being what I wanted most.” Will delivered the words coldly, a judgment pronounced. “And she took thee because it would influence me, and me because it should influence thee. Christofer. Christofer, look at me Christofer, long I’ve had to consider this, and if thou needst forgiveness I forgive thee, although if anything tis I should beg thy dispensation. I cry thee mercy, my love.”
He expected Kit to quit his fighting; indeed, he looked Will square in the eye now, but his wrist still twitched in Will’s grip. “I knew what would have driven me to it,” Will said, softly, and made as if to kiss. Kit stiffened in his hands, flexed like an eel, and shoved himself backward, out of Will’s embrace. Kit fell gracelessly, sprawled in leaf litter, a rustling and crunching of twigs, a startled shout.
“Will,” Kit said, clambering to his feet. “Will, tis not thee.”
“What happened down there?”
>
Kit checked. He lowered his hands and scrubbed them on his thighs. “I asked thee practice reticence.”
“Aye,” Will said. “And I did not vow it. Kit, thy feet are bleeding.” Spots of red showed on raveled silk stockings. Will knelt down among the twigs. “Thou hast walked thyself bloody. Come, let me help thee to the palace.”
Kit shied a step back, and Will desisted. “Tis not far, he said. Methinks I can stagger a quarter mile downhill.”
“On your head be it.” They went on. Kit climbed the spiral stair like a clockwork, hauling himself up each step by clutching the rail, never looking at the Fae that flocked around, chattering questions. There were those that might have stopped them, and those that might have helped them, too. Will waved them all aside, servants and nobles, blocking them with his body when his voice wouldn’t suffice. They crowded, touching, prodding; Kit jerked away, keeping his eyes downcast, and Will interposed himself. Fingers tugged his doublet and hands outreached to touch his face.
“You came back. He brought you back. How did you come back?”
Hope, Will realized, and wonder. He found himself stronger than he expected, and the Fae fell back from his glance and his hand upraised after he shouldered a few aside quite physically. He chivvied Kit to the top of the stairs and toward their door, closing his eyes in a moment’s relief at Robin Goodfellow barring the doorway, hands on his minuscule hips and his fool’s bauble dangling from his fingers. The Puck scattered the Fae with a gesture. When they were inside, he barred the door and jammed a chair under the handle, exchanging a look with Will. Kit turned and sat heavily on the bed. “How long have we been gone?”
“It’s All Saints Day,” Puck said, and gestured out the window to the robust evening light. “Your horse came home with an empty saddle.”
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