Ink and Steel (41 page)

Kit changed the subject again, leaving Will to wonder at his discomfort. “Here's my door. There's half a chance hot water awaits thee, if I know the castle's staff. I'm off to fetch Morgan. I won't be above half an hour.”

“With blood all over thy breast?” Will asked gently.

Kit brushed at it with the backs of his fingers, scattering another pearl. “She's seen worse,” he said. “Your poems are on the bed. Drink
nothing
, not even the water.” He shut the door before Will could thank him, or make sense of the ragged darkness in Kit's expression.

Kit's chamber was big enough for a Prince, the floor covered in a stunning extravagance of Araby carpets, the curtained bed broad enough for five.
I wonder who he shares it with,
Will thought, and put the thought away. Tapestries and painted cloths muffled the walls; their subject was pastoral, and Will did not think Kit had chosen them.

The aftermath of combat made him dizzy. He washed, then sorted his poems from the other papers and rolled them tight, finding a bit of ribbon in his purse to tie them with. Will breathed easier once those too-revealing sonnets were tucked inside his doublet; less easily when the door opened and Kit led a woman of middle years and black Roman beauty in. A woman clad in a man's white cambric shirt, riding boots, and green breeches that were almost trunk hose, cut tight and close to her hips and thighs. “My lady,” Will said, making a somewhat unsteady leg, noticing Kit's discomfiture as an adjunct to his own.
It's a bit of a pleasure to see Marley flustered.

She snorted like a mare and scanned him lengthwise, shaking her head hard enough that the peridot clusters in her ears tangled in the escaping tendrils of her hair. “The legendary William Shakespeare,” she said, and turned to Kit. “A little unprepossessing, isn't he?” Her smile softened the comment into a flirtation; Will didn't understand why Kit blanched and leaned heavily on the edge of the clothespress.

“My lady,” Will said, feigning hurt, “I am accounted the most charming of playmakers—”

“Given thy competition, I do not wonder,” she said. Her hips moved marvelously under the tight dark brocade as she crossed the carpet. Will kept his eyes on her face, the green-black eyes she never lowered. “Wert injured?”

“No,” he said.

She reached up and tilted his face side to side, clucking her tongue. Despite himself, her fingers stroking his beard, the scent of her skin like mint and citrus, he couldn't help but smile. “What is't?”

“You sound exactly like my wife.”

“I hope that's a better compliment than if I said you sounded like my husband.”

“ 'Tis the greatest compliment I can offer,” Will said as she stepped away. “Do I pass inspection, madam?”

“You seem unhurt. We'll talk of the other things later—” Before he could do more than startle, she moved toward the door. “You washed your hair, at least. I'll see you clothed; we'll present you to the Mebd tonight, after supper—”

Kit cleared his throat. Morgan turned to him and smiled, and Will's breath swelled his throat for a moment as he tried to decide if the smile was a lover's, or that of an indulgent guardian. “My boon, my Queen,” he murmured.

Her chin lifted, and the smile grew amused. “Of course.” A little show of feeling in her pockets, until Kit touched his collar—Will realized that the other poet had changed clothes, or his shirt and doublet at least, and washed the rusty red spatters from his hands.
He keeps clothes in her rooms. That answers one question. Or does it?
Morgan laughed and unpinned something winking gold from the cambric of her shirt, coming back to Will. “Have you a place for an earring, Master Shakespeare?”

He lifted his hair, showing the bit of silk that kept the hole from closing. Kit nodded when Will caught his eye, and so Will ducked his head and let her untie the cord and slip it from his ear. A little gasp as she tugged the hole open and slipped something into it: a substantial ring, warm from the heat of her bosom. “There,” she said. “A favor from a lady. A favor that will permit thee, Master Shakespeare, to come and go from
this
land to
that
land as thou wilt, without years cut from thy life whilst thou in Faerie dwelleth.”

Kit came forward beside her, rubbing at his eyepatch as an exhausted man might rub his eye. As Morgan stepped back, Will touched the earring, feeling heavy gold swing. “A rich gift, Your Highness.”

“We have a special love of poets here,” she said. “Don't we, Sir Christofer?” She turned to kiss Kit on the cheek. Will saw his friend pale, but Kit did not step away, and in fact smiled as if at a favor.

The door shut behind her, concealing the sway of her hips, and Will touched the earring again. “Do you trust this?”

“Her word is good. When you can get her to give it.”

“An impressive woman.”

“If thou knowst what's wise,” Kit said, “that will be the last time thou thinkst so. Come, lay thee in my bed and rest. I'm too long slept, myself: I'll sit and read thy Jonson's plays while thou dost slumber, and wake thee when thy clothes arrive.”

Once Will fell into exhausted slumber, Kit dragged the fireplace armchair to the window for better light, muttering amiable profanity as ornately worked legs snagged on the carpets. Taking up the remaining papers, he settled down to study. Jonson's play he set aside, for perusal when his concentration improved, while he spread the sheets of Will's comedy across his knees and held them up, unfolded one by one, to read. Five or ten leaves in, he stifled laughter against his sleeve and read faster. At the end of the third act, he turned the already-read pages over and laid them on the floor, sitting back in the chair to regard their slumbering author.

He gazed for long minutes, blinking thoughtfully, and at last picked up the remaining sheets to read: more slowly now, and with attention. “Ganymede, eh?” But it was no more than a murmur, the shape of a name on his lips.

He read the play twice over before he set it aside, and then he stood and paced the width of the room once or twice, stealing glances at Will now and again, shaking his head each time. Will showed no signs of stirring, sleeping the sleep of utter weariness, and Kit at last stopped pacing and returned to the window and Jonson's play. The wit was sharp, the rhyme fitting, if the tone a little dismissive of both players and audience—but Kit could not concentrate long enough to read a page complete. He laid them aside and picked up Will's play again, thumbing through it to read a line here and there. Again shook his head, and again laid the papers aside. At last, in frustration, he stood and fetched a bundle, thread, and a needle-book from the clothespress: a task to busy his hands enough, he hoped, to silence the breathless longing that had sprung painfully to life in his breast.

Will found himself turning and turning again, trying not to stare at one improbable being after another as Kit led him through the soaring hall. It took concentration not to crowd Kit for the transitory feeling of safety the brush of his shoulder gave. Will stole another look at his friend's ragged cloak, almost a motley, a panoply of richest fabric stitched with a tight and tidy hand.
Court garb in Faerie.

Will looked longingly at the wine in his glass, but set it on the edge of the table.

“Go ahead and drink,” Kit said. “You've a Queen's surety you may return home without fear. The Fae keep their word. And now, come and meet my lover.”

“Another one? Haven't you enough problems?”

“Mix with the men of power and rise.” Kit shrugged. “They teach that at Cambridge, too.”

The banter, the sparkle. It was tinsel, Will thought, understanding.
There's a reason no one ever Let you on a stage, Marley.
But as Kit led him forward, he followed on.

Act III, scene ii

—CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE,
Faustus

The rill of Cairbre's harpstrings shivered through the air as Murchaud brushed a courtier aside and came across the floor— currently otherwise occupied by clusters of conversationalists—to Will and Kit. Kit bowed, found it useless as Murchaud closed the distance between them and took Kit's doublet in both hands, lifting him to his toes to claim a possessing kiss. Kit's ragged new cloak, only a single layer of a few dozen patches yet, dragged at his collar as Murchaud bent him backward. He pressed one hand to the Elf-knight's breast, feeling the racing beat of his heart under velvet and silk.

Murchaud released him and stepped back, left Kit wiping his mouth on his hand, stinging with the suddenness of the release. Kit turned to Will, still tasting the kiss, watching the blood rise in Will's ghost-pale cheeks. “Your Highness, Master William Shakespeare,” he said formally. “Will, Murchaud ap Launcelot, Prince of the Daoine Sidhe.”

“Fitz,” Murchaud corrected. “How did you know that?”

“Your mother hinted strongly,” Kit said, his eye on Will, who shifted a flustered gaze from one to the other of them as if uncertain where to rest it. “Welcome to Faerie, Will. Things are a bit different here.”

“Your Highness,” Will said, bending a knee. Kit thought he looked striking in a saffron-colored doublet pinked in peach and gold, the padding enough to make him seem a little less painfully thin. If nothing else, those cheekbones and the startling blue eyes would have made up for a multitude of sins—

“Call me Murchaud,” he answered, to Kit's surprised pleasure and then jealousy. “We needn't stand on ceremony. Come, let me introduce you to my wife—” He took Will's elbow and led him toward the dais, Kit trailing uncomfortably.

The Mebd was garbed in gold and white, the floor-length sleeves of her gown wrought with fantastical chains of green embroidery. The dress resembled an antique style called a bliaut, belted with golden chains encrusted with emeralds. She drifted down the steps with her arms spread wide, poised like a dove at the bottom of the dais, her train spread behind her glittering with crystal and silver thread.

“Kneel,” Murchaud instructed Will as they came before her. Kit stepped forward and dropped a knee: uneasiness still troubled his stomach as Will sank correctly beside him and Murchaud bowed low.

The Mebd looked from one face to another, and smiled. “My lord husband. Sir Kit. And Master William Shakespeare. Has ever a court been so graced with jewels of verse as ours?”

“Your Majesty,” Will answered, bowing his head. “You do me more credit than I deserve.”

“Nay,” she answered. “Sir Christofer, we see thou hast claimed thy rank as journeyman-bard. We are pleased.” A hesitation, and Kit felt her smile like a brand. “Poets, rise. You will grace us tonight?”
You, not thou. Both of us. She means to make a little rivalry between us. Faerie—

Will glanced sidelong at Kit, who nodded, barely. Will answered, “It shall be as you wish it, Your Majesty. We will be pleased to. If I may beg a boon . . . ?”

Kit nibbled the edge of his mustache, keeping his eyes on the floor.
CarefuL, Will.

And,
Ganymede.
Jove's fancy-boy, his pretty cup-bearer, and by extension, the painted boys who worked in London's alleys.
Do I want to know if it means what I think it means, that Will named so his woman-dressed-as-Lad?

Kit's stomach knotted again.

“Ask what thou wilt, Master Poet.”

“To stay in your court a little, that I may sing its praises the more extravagantly when I return to England.”

She made a show of considering, but Kit—risking a glance— perfectly understood the small smile playing at her lips. “Thou mayst stay,” she said. “A little. And”—before Kit could do more than nudge Will warningly with an elbow—“thou mayst leave when thou wisheth. For the rent of a song or seven, while thou art with us. Art agreed?”

“Aye, Your Majesty.”

“It will be as we have said.” She smiled, and graced Kit and then Will with a touch of her hand, and then took Murchaud's arm and permitted it to seem as if he led her away, although Kit could see the hesitance of the Prince's step.

“Are they all like her?” Will asked under his breath.

Kit shook his head. “She's the most—”

“Fey.”

“Yes. Foolish to ask, but dost feel—ensorceled?”

Will turned a stare on him, and then stopped, lips thinning as he considered. “How would I know if I were?”

“An excellent question,” Kit admitted. “Let me know if anyone pins a pansy to your bosom. Will you write to Burbage to see to your affairs?”

“I'll tell him I was called away, aye. We won't have a playhouse until after Christmas, as it is.”

Tear down the Theatre,
Kit thought, shaking his head at a bit of his world gone forever. Sharp as a stone in his shoe.
Murchaud did warn you—the world changes, and you will not.
“Ah, there's someone you should meet. The lady Amaranth.” Kit stole a sidelong glance at Will, whose jaw was literally hanging open. “Striking, is she not?”