Perfect Shadows (22 page)

“Were you ever raped, Sir Walter? No, I thought not, but that is
what was done to Kryštof. No, I do not believe that the earl violated the man
carnally, but what he did do was a rape of the very soul. I do intend to kill
him,” Geoffrey finished flatly.

“And I have come, then, to plead for his life, albeit against my
own preference. I cannot but agree that he deserves to die for what he has
done, but at this time that could well see us all undone, myself not the
least.” Ralegh shifted in his chair.

“Harry has changed, the thirst he had for knowledge has become
twisted. He has had to live down his family’s reputation for treachery,
confined to London as if the Queen and her ministers do not trust him out of
their sight—as indeed they dare not. He has supported many scholars and poets,
even Marlowe, in his time, giving to intellectual pursuits that energy that in
others of his family has turned to pride and to treason. Let me speak to him,”
Ralegh finished, seeing that Geoffrey was unmoved. After considering for a time
longer his host nodded.

“I also desire to speak with him, and will accompany you.” It
was not a request, Ralegh noted. “Nicolas will speak with Kryštof, when he is
willing or able to speak again. Nicolas?” The second man shrugged his consent,
and rose from his seat.

“He should not be left alone, and his servants have been with
him all the day. I’ll bide with him a time,” he said and strode from the room,
colliding with his houseguest, Walsingham, at the door. They exchanged a few
quiet words and withdrew from the room.

“—he was always given to dark moods and sudden violence,” Sir
Thomas said to Nicolas as they entered the room where Marlowe lay unseeing and
uncaring on the rumpled bed. “Perhaps I can—oh Kit!” A cry was wrung from him
at the sight that met his eyes. He slung himself onto the bed, gathering the
abused man into his arms, ignoring Sylvie and Jehan, who slid from the bed and
left the room.

I looked up at Tom, able to focus for the first time since I’d been
pulled from the pentacle. A scalding shame washed over me, as if I were somehow
to blame for my degradation and defilement, not the hapless victim.

“Tommy?” I asked hoarsely, turning my face away. I well
remembered how he had last seen me. “What are you doing here?”

“He rode to us full tilt, the night Northumberland displayed you
to him,” Nicolas answered. “He saved your life.”

“No,” I whispered. “No, it was another saved it,” thinking of
that beautiful voice, the caressing taloned hands, and fighting the sense of
unspeakable loss that threatened once more to overwhelm me. “But it is Tom that
brings me back to it.” I reached a thin hand to Walsingham’s cheek, to stroke
the silky golden beard, and Tom caught my hand in his, bringing it to his lips.
Nicolas, all but unnoticed, quietly left us alone.

“I never wanted to hurt you, Kit, and all I have ever done is
hurt you terribly,” Tom said softly, and leaned over to kiss my scarred and
stitched eyelid, but I moved and it was our lips that met. Sometime later Tom
sat up and slipped his doublet off. He untied his collar and tossed it to the
floor and began unlacing his shirt.

“Tommy,” I responded weakly, “I do not think that—”

“Hush, my love. Let me.”

Later as we lay entwined, sated and replete, I savored the lingering
taste of my lover’s blood, and the sight of Tom’s sleeping form. I had thought
that I would starve, that I would never be able to feed again without conjuring
the hell of my imprisonment, and the defilement Northumberland had inflicted
upon me. But Tom had roused my desire, and I found that Harry Percy was the
farthest thing from my mind as I drowned my hunger in Tom’s sweet blood, even
as I drowned my unexpected lust in his body. I saw that Tom was awake and
watching me. “I’m sorry, Tom. I did not mean to wake you. You’re looking
better, you know.” And he did. He had lost the puffiness caused by too little
exercise and too much wine, and no longer tried to outshine the court gallants,
thereby trading the vague impression of a kittenish decaying belle for that of
an interesting and polished middle-aged gentleman. He smiled at me, his sleepy
eyes violet in the candlelight. “So do you,” he murmured, then tensed, pushing
my reaching hand away.

“How can you bear to touch me,” he whispered brokenly. “I let
them murder you. I could have stopped it, some way. Oh Kit, I thought that I
would be relieved, that I’d be safe. The council, and most especially Cecil,
wanted you dead. You had worked for my cousin, Sir Francis, but would not work
for him,” he answered my questioning expression. “Your views were becoming an
embarrassment to them, and you were reckless, willful and wanton. Those last
few weeks you almost seemed frantic, and they were unable to predict what you
would do next. It fell in very well with what I thought that I wanted, and I
sent Frizer. Mayhap God will forgive me, Kit. I cannot ask that you do so.

“But when the word came that you were slain, and I knew that I
would never hear your laugh again, never listen while you skewered some
vaunting rhymester with a few acid syllables, never hold your sweet body
against me again, I wanted to die too.” I gently wiped the tears from Tom’s
cheeks with the corner of the sheet. “And then you came back, I
knew
that it was you. I could only think that you had come for vengeance. I lost my
head, running to Northumberland like a demented hen. And he nearly killed you
again. Killed you again?” his voice trailed off as he realized the impossible
import of his words.” Kit, how?” I brought my fingers to his lips.

“I will tell you,” I said gently. And so Tom heard of my last
living weeks, the ordeal that followed my death and renascence, and the nature
of the life that was left to me.

“You . . . drink blood? My blood?” Tom’s voice was as pale as
his face, but he flushed with remorse. “Take it, take it all! It still will not
repay you for what I did to you.”

“Oh, Tom, it was not revenge that brought me to your bed that
first night, but that I could not stay away, though I was let to know how
inadvisable it was,” I toyed with a lock of his hair. “But then I could not
stop myself from tormenting you. Do you remember the stable cat at Nonsuch?”
Tom nodded, shuddering. “You should have waited those few seconds longer, Tom,
and you would have seen why I laughed. The cat tired of the diversion, simply
lost interest and walked away from the mouse, which shortly recovered its wits
and made good its escape. I knew at that moment that I would cease hurting you,
even if I were not strong enough to leave off seeing you altogether. But then I
was wounded—”

“I cried out to warn you, when I saw the bow,” Tom interrupted,
and I nodded.

“Yes, I thought, hoped, that that was your intent. But later,
when Percy captured me, I believed that you had sold me to him, to rid yourself
of me yet again.” The utter desolation of those bitter hours overcame me,
rendering me unable to speak for a time. I felt the scalding sensation in my
right eye socket that meant it was filling with tears, and the acid trace on my
left cheek where they fell freely, until Tom wiped at them with the sleeve of
his shirt. I gave him a wry smile. “If you do not wish to remember what I have
told you, I can take the memory from you,” I said softly, and Tom looked pensive.

“I . . . am not a strong man, you know that. Perhaps it would be
better that you should take that knowledge, than take the risk of having it
forced from me.” I considered this, then suggested that our story, if
necessary, be that Tom had befriended the handsome foreign prince, whom he had,
while in a fit of morbid fancy, nicknamed ‘Kit’. I smiled ruefully at Tom.

“I find that, after all, I would rather that you know me, even
if it occasions some danger, arrogant though that may be.” Tom nodded, content,
only to sit bolt upright a few minutes later, his hand clapped over his mouth.

“Kit! Who rests in your tomb at Scadbury? I had it all carved
out of stone, and your body quietly removed to rest there, as a sort of amends.
. . .”

“A princely grave, then, for a pauper’s bones,” I said with mock
solemnity, and then joined in Tommy’s laughter.

“It appears that for once my dear wife was correct in suggesting
that I was squandering my means. You frighten her, you know,” he added.

“Why?”

“She’s ambitious. She’s become a great favorite of the Queen,
and fears that your friendship will do me no good, given your family’s
estrangement with Cecil.”

Tom had sought his own bed in the early hours of the morning,
and was wakened near noon by a servant bringing his breakfast ale. He had only
just finished dressing when he became aware of a commotion downstairs, and
swore as he looked out the window, before hurtling down the stairs two at a
time. He arrived in the Hall with a breathless rush and bowed low. “Your Majesty,”
he said. It was true; the queen had come looking for her errant Shadow. Ralegh
skidded into the room only seconds after Walsingham, and duplicated his bow.

“How now, Sir Walter? Consorting with foreign royalty behind my
back? Even if Sybria agreed to finance your expeditions, you’d yet need my
leave to go!”

Ralegh winced, not at her wit, but the reaction it provoked
among the courtiers and hangers-on that filled the hall behind her. Elizabeth
had tapped her fingers against her fan irritably, as he answered.” Prince
Kryštof is still too weak from his long ordeal of illness to leave his bed or
receive visitors, your Majesty. Prince Geofri, worn out with watching, has not
yet left his own bed, or I am certain he would be most happy to welcome you to
his house.” She did not seem to be listening. Her shrewd glance had picked out
Sylvie hovering near the kitchen door and with a brusque motion ordered the
girl peremptorily to her side.

“You, girl, can you perform a small service for me?”

“Anything, your Majesty,” Sylvie answered huskily. Elizabeth
snapped her fingers and the lady-in-waiting behind her slipped a small
embroidered purse into her hand. The Queen shook from it an earring, a
blood-red ruby drop the size of a quail’s egg, which she held up for a few
seconds before returning it to the purse and passing it to Sylvie.

“Take these tokens to Prince Kryštof with my loving regard,
child,” Elizabeth had said, and taking Sylvie by each shoulder she leaned
forward, pulling the girl down to kiss her full on the mouth, heedless of the
shocked reactions of her court. The girl stumbled back into a curtsey when
released. As she left the hall, her eyes still glowed with a light that
Elizabeth seldom had seen from another woman: adoration. The queen turned
abruptly to Sir Walter.

“Now I fear, we must take again to the road, my Ocean-water.
Eltham is still some distance from here.”

“Scadbury is not far, your Majesty, if you could find it in your
heart to so honor me again,” Tom interrupted smoothly. “You could not possibly
reach Eltham before dark. Stay, and start afresh in the morning.” He tarried
only long enough to pen a hasty explanation of his absence, leaving it with
Jehan, and hoping that Kit could find someone about to read it to him that
evening.

I was not long from my bed, standing on shaky legs before the
fire, lost in thought, waiting in the study for Geoffrey to return from
Northumberland’s. I didn’t hear him come in, and only knew he was in the room
when he caught my shoulder and spun me about. “You fool!” he snarled, and
before I could back away he struck me hard across the mouth, knocking me to the
floor. His eyes seemed to glow with his bloodlust and wrath, and when I tried
to regain my feet he knocked me down again, landing on top of me this time. He
dragged me to my knees, twisting my arms up behind me with one hand and pulling
my head back by my hair with the other. Struggling against him only caused my
arms to be forced to the point of dislocation. Unable to move, I waited. I felt
the movement of the air across my throat as his teeth found their mark, and
tensed against the assault.

“Geoffrey!” Nicolas shouted, and Geoffrey turned his head to
face him. “Let him go.” Geoffrey tightened his grip and I clenched my teeth to
keep from crying out at the pain in my shoulders. “I will take him into my
custody,” Nicolas added, and Geoffrey released me. He stood then, leaving me on
the floor at his feet.  I struggled to a sitting position, but felt too
weak to rise from my place before the hearth. Geoffrey ignored me while he
paced and told us the outcome of his meeting with Northumberland.

Percy had denied everything, and insinuated that unless the
entire matter were dropped it could go very ill indeed for both Sir Walter and
for us. We were far more vulnerable than he, and he would see that we were
hunted down and killed should the matter be made public, and public it would be
should any harm come to the earl.

 “We will certainly kill him,” Geoffrey snarled when he
finished his account. He crossed the room to stand leaning on the mantelpiece
and I scuttled away from him. He smiled cruelly at that, then continued, “The
only questions are when and how. If he rises a vampire from this depraved deed,
he must be killed, and at what cost then? I would kill him now in a manner that
will preclude his rising at all.” He turned his eyes, like burning steel, on
me, and waited in silence.