All Night Awake (28 page)

Tom Kyd questioned? Poor Tom Kyd, broken at the wheel. Not a genius, never a promising playwright, and yet what a friend he’d not been when they’d shared a room.

And yet, Kit himself had been ready to turn him in.

Guilty for a sin he’d never got to commit, afraid for what was to come, Kit muttered, “But, masters—”

A small creature burst into the room, a fury of whirling fists and kicking legs. “You’ll not take him, cowards. Not unless over me.”

“Imp,” Kit yelled. “Imp, to your mother.”

But he might as well have ordered the devil to absolution or the Protestant Queen to the Pope’s bosom.

Imp threw himself on Poley, biting and gouging, his small hands scratching at Poley’s fine clothes.

Ingram Frizer grabbed Imp by the back of the collar and lifted him from the ground, looking on him as though Imp were a noisome insect.

Imp wrinkled his face in rage, but his lips trembled on the verge of tears.

Kit, thinking only that the child was in danger once more, said very softly, “Go to your mother, Richard, for Jesu’ sake.”

And as though the unusual exhortation, the unusual name, had scared Imp more than screaming, more than the strange men in Kit’s room, Imp’s face melted like wax too near a flame.

The wrinkles of anger turned soft. Rage became grief, as tears overflowed the wide grey eyes. The child took a deep breath and sobbed. “They’ll take you,” he said.

“Aye,” Kit said. “And best for all.”

To Ingram, in a tired voice that yet betrayed the certainty of being obeyed, Kit said, “Put him down. He’s not worth your time. You may have me.”

Poley laughed. “Thus is the wiley playwright brought to bay. So easily does his run end. Good Kit, kind Kit will do what we wish for the sake of this cub. Should we take the cub then as surety?”

Kit swallowed. He shook his head. Oh, let Imp go free, and then Kit would do as Kit best pleased.

“No,” he said. “No. You need no surety. I’ll say what you want me to, or else die.”

Ingram put the child down.

Poley waved the child away, “Go,” he said. “We know where to find you, should Master Marlowe not behave.”

Imp hesitated on his normally fleet feet, turned and stared at Kit, and said, “They’re going to take you.”

Kit shrugged. He couldn’t answer. He felt tears prickle their way beneath his eyelids, felt them tighten a knot at his throat.

And then, as Imp walked slowly away, as Poley and Frizer stood there, he felt something else.

He heard an inner voice, clear, in his mind. “Let me,” it said. “This is ridiculous.”

And then a dark tide, a dark wave, engulfed Marlowe’s mind and took over his thought. From that dark wave, words ensued, spoken by Marlowe’s mouth but not, for that, his—or at least not his in any conscious sense.

What was this, then? What was this thing? It was as though another Marlowe lived within Marlowe, another creature within his deepest bosom, a smoother talker to his smooth-talking ways.

He could hear convincing arguments, rolling honeyed, word upon honeyed word from his tongue. They assured Poley and Frizer of Kit’s verity, of his certainty of a conspiracy.

Yet, the words in themselves would not be enough. The words would not suffice to turn the threat from Kit’s door.

But with the words he could feel magic flowing. Magic sparkling and tangy on the tongue and soft-stinging on the skin.

Whence came the magic? How had Kit got it? From his fabled ancestor, Merlin?

And how could he use it thus, so easily?

He told Frizer of the big conspiracy about to be uncovered, and suggested that Frizer, Poley, and a servant of Milord Essex should all meet at the home of Mistress Elinor Bull, in Deptford.

Kit had no idea why Deptford, nor what he intended to do at such a meeting that would keep the threat from his door, keep him out of jail, and keep Imp safe.

Like a lame beggar trailing after a good walker, his mind limped after his lips, unable to catch up to the wit of his speech.

The meaning of the words sank in slowly. Kit was not used to listening to himself speak, even less to having to think of what he meant. How smooth he sounded, he thought, how plausible.

How strange this.

Had Kit finally become two? Had his soul, ever divided between love and hate, violence and beauty, finally cracked?

He knew not what tale he spun, yet he saw Frizer and Poley exchanging looks, at least half convinced.

Inside his own mind, Kit Marlowe screamed in despair. His mouth was not his to control.

He would save his life, that was true. Maybe even Imp’s life in the bargain.

But what would become of Kit’s mind?

His reason followed his words, made sound of them. Links fell together in his mind and he second-guessed his own ideas. Elinor Bull, a distant cousin-by-marriage of Queen Elizabeth herself, was not at all wealthy. For adequate compensation, she’d long permitted her house to be used as a safe house by the secret service.

Kit could get all those men there, each of them a servant of a member of the Queen’s inner circle.

The Queen herself, who now resided at Greenwich Palace, near enough to Deptford, was known to have grown fearful and suspicious in her old age.

If word of the meeting got to her ears—and Kit had enough acquaintance at court to ensure it would, the Queen would perforce eavesdrop on it. She’d probably send her men to arrest the whole group and let it be sorted out later. In which case, Kit could convince the Queen herself that these men were involved in a plot.

Yes, he’d trust his silver tongue to let him walk out free.

Even better, the Queen, who was said to be suspicious enough to often check such meetings and conspiracies herself, might come by herself to Deptford. In which case, in the confusion, Kit might well walk away free without even the need for being interrogated.

Kit Marlowe’s headache was gone. Never had he felt so lucid. Never had he spoken with so facile a tongue.

It was, he thought, as though he’d become a whole new man, one with a magical capacity to manipulate others.

After Poley and Frizer had left, Kit finished washing and dressed himself.

He wrote letters to his acquaintances at court and sent them off by messenger. In each one he hinted at the events to take place in Deptford, and at a plot against the Queen, ensuring he said nothing too clearly.

If he succeeded, not only would the Queen’s suspicions be awakened, but other people’s, too. Aye, when he was done, Elinor Bull’s house would be creeping with so many spies that none would be safe. None save Kit Marlowe, himself.

He smiled and set about ensuring that Will Shakespeare would be in Deptford, too—one more lamb that must be led to the slaughter for Kit’s safety.

And yet Kit, a stranger to half of his own mind, wondered what he was saving and how long before the tear in his soul widened and he went quietly into that good night of oblivion, from which there would be no return.

Scene 27

Will’s room. He sits at his table, writing. His hands are covered in ink stains, as is the top of his tottering writing table. The papers in front of him are an unsteady tower, displaying scrawled writing and checks and crosses aplenty. He has pushed back the sleeves of his black doublet. His eyes are circled in dark, bruised rings, and sweat drips from his forehead.

W
ill paused in his writing and looked up at his reflection, dimly seen as a ghost upon the grimy surface of his window.

His eyes looked back at himself, full of fear.

Fear, he realized, had installed itself at the back of his mind when he wasn’t thinking, and from there mocked all his endeavors at poetry.

He surveyed his work, his crossed-out sentences, his poor constructions, his unreliable storytelling.

No, this would not do at all. Will couldn’t seem to work poetry and sense into a single piece.

And yet, Will had been given money for this piece in advance. What would happen if he displeased the nobleman who’d so financed him?

Nothing good. Worse yet, Will would see himself without disguise, and know that he truly was no poet, no smooth weaver of words.

And yet Kit Marlowe made it all look so simple.

Perhaps Will should ask Marlowe’s help. He’d been so kind so far. Yes, Will thought, he would ask Marlowe.

Will had no more than stood up and started toward his door when someone knocked on it.

With his hand on the latch, Will thought he smelled, through the door, a smell very like Silver’s. He hesitated.

The thought of Silver—of how forward, how brazen the elf lady had been—still made Will tighten his fists in anger.

That Silver thought he would be an easy mark. She dared . . . . She’d endangered Nan. Oh, the idea galled him.

The knock sounded again, impatient.

It could not be Silver, after all.

Silver would have come in by now, through her magic means.

He opened the door.

Marlowe stood on the precarious perch atop the steep staircase.

“Ah, the man himself,” Will said, and smiled at Marlowe’s slightly startled expression. “I would have gone see you.”

“You would?” Marlowe asked.

He sounded eager, anxious, perhaps a little too eager and anxious. Yet, he smiled smoothly and his grey eyes sparked with humor.

Will could swear that the heavy smell of lilac came from Kit. Was this the new fashion in London? Perfuming oneself like the fairykind?

No, normal people didn’t know of the fairykind. Will forced a smile, pushed thoughts of the supernatural world to the back of his mind, and told himself he wasn’t worried about Silver.

“Truth is,” Marlowe said and grinned, “I need your help, friend Will.”

Friend. The great Marlowe had called Will his friend.

On this word, Will forgot his misgivings at Kit’s strange smell.

Kit had called Will his friend, and on this friendship, Will dared fund his hopes. Certainly more than on any world of fairy.

“I will gladly help you with whatever you need,” he said, and smiled. “Provided you lend me
your
help.”

“Surely, you may have it. But I need your help, Will, with attending me to Deptford tomorrow, where I am to pay some creditors a debt I owe them. I would fain have a friend to witness my payment. Would you do it, Will?”

Will looked up. “Gladly,” he said, and smiled. As he said it, he thought of all the times he’d been cozened in London, of how easily he’d so often lost money and purse and all.

But surely, he had no reason to fear this from Marlowe. Marlowe had already proved himself Will’s friend so many different ways.

Will had been afraid that Kit wanted him to second Kit in a duel or to help him with a rhyme, or something else for which Will was wholly unqualified. But to witness something, Will would do well enough.

His eyes were as keen as the next man’s.

“And you wish my help with . . . ?” Kit prompted.

Will sighed. He explained his interview with the Earl of Southampton and how unwarrantedly the earl had thrown money at Will’s untested poetical skill.

“I’ve never tried anything this long before,” Will said. “All my poetry has been sonnets, and I find that when it comes to this, I am wholly unprepared.

“No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor can I woo fame in festival terms. As for the subject, well . . . Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, none of them will do for my verse.

“Marry, I cannot show wit in rhyme; I have tried: I can find out no rhyme to ‘lady’ but ‘baby,’ an innocent rhyme; for ‘scorn,’ ‘horn,’ a hard rhyme; for ‘school,’ ‘fool,’ a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings.”

Kit laughed.

He touched Will’s arm, and in that touching, Will saw the palm of Marlowe’s hand and upon his palm a mass of bubbling blisters and burst blisters that showed raw flesh.

He stared at Kit’s hand till Kit looked down at it. Will would swear Kit looked surprised.

But how could a man take such injury and not notice?

Kit grinned at Will, a forced grin that showed all his teeth and made him look, for a second, like a wolf, a carnivorous animal. “Aye, a burn, a burn, ’tis but a burn I got, upon my spit.” He grinned, but his grin seemed hollow. A baring of teeth against the world and little else besides.

After Kit had left, that grin haunted Will’s thoughts.

How strange it all seemed.

Will had wanted to come to London and be just like Marlowe, and now he wondered if Marlowe was as Marlowe wished to be.

Scene 28