All Night Awake

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  The lady trembled. From the melting eyes, two tears dropped, rolling down her curved cheek like twin crystalline globules, upon which Will saw all his future.

  He’d die in London, a lonely, desperate man. He’d never again see a glimmer of magical beauty. Never again would he touch something like the silk of Silver’s skin. Never.

  “Humans and elvenkind, in this conjoined,” she said. “Will meet twin dooms if you help me not.”

  This was fantastical and unbelievable. “Lady, you have to go.”

  Silver looked down at him, her eyes like a wet day, all rainy where it was wont to be bright. “I have nowhere else to go,” she said. “I cannot—

  “I cannot go,” she screamed. She covered her face with her pale hands and the whole of her slim body trembled.

  She reached for his arm, and encircled his wrist with her small hand. The touch of her hand, soft upon his skin, made her seem human, frail, in need of protection. It made her seem like the Silver he remembered.

  “To whom will I go if you don’t let me abide?” Tears chased each other down her face. “I’ve had to come to London.” She stomped her foot and bit her lip, but resolution crumpled upon her face and her eyes filled with tears. “In London I have to remain till I find my brother Sylvanus.”

  “Your brother?” Mention of the deposed King of Fairyland, the same mention that the three creatures had made upon his dream, riveted Will’s attention. He remembered Sylvanus as even more scheming than the run of elves. Sylvanus had tried to steal Nan before the Hunter took Sylvanus. Sylvanus would have had Will killed to leave Sylvanus’s path free to wooing Nan.

  “Your brother? Is your brother in London? Why would he be?” Creatures of glade and dale, elves both good and bad, did not belong in London’s reek, in London’s crowded, teeming streets, with their tall houses that obscured the daylight.

  “My brother . . .” Silver sighed and cried, tears chasing each other down her little rounded cheeks to drip upon her bosom, where they ran down in rivulets between the twin globules of her breasts like a mountain stream disappearing into a deep crevice. “My brother has . . . . He attacked the Hunter. He . . .”

  “But your brother is in thrall of the Hunter,” Will said. His astonishment made him forget his hunger, his fear of Silver, his desperate straits. “The Hunter’s slave. The Hunter’s dog. Can a slave thus attack his master?”

  He tried to keep his eyes away from the destination of those drops of water that left her eyes only to travel to more intimate locations, and yet his eyes traced their path down her cheeks, to her velvety bosom, and imagined the course beyond, beneath her perfumed garments.

  He forced his gaze up as one who forces an errant child back to his books. He made himself meet her gaze. “When last we met, you told me that the Hunter was stronger even than elf and that no elf could escape his thralldom. Now you tell me Sylvanus has escaped?”

  Silver trembled, and could do no more than multiply the soft progression of her tears.

  She nodded, though, and sighed, her sighs like a gentle spring breeze.

  This close to her, with her body touching him, Will didn’t smell the rot and garbage of London’s least fashionable district, but the warm scent of lilac from Silver’s skin.

  It reminded Will of spring in Stratford, that hometown he despaired of ever seeing again.

  He marshaled all his power to resist her, but all his power broke like a dam, carried away by her flood of tears. How could he be her enemy when she was thus, soft and broken and defenseless? How could he call on the iron of his will against an enemy whose weapons were gentle words and desperate pleas? How could he turn harsh and savage when she cried and begged his help?

  Yet she was no more, no less than the other aspect of the king of elves and that Quicksilver was neither soft nor defenseless. But knowing this didn’t help. What Will saw overwhelmed what he knew, his eyes reaching for his heart and past his mind.

  It didn’t matter what Will’s reason said, when argued against the persuasive argument of his vision.

  What mattered it if Quicksilver’s muscles lay hidden beneath this silky skin, these tender charms? It was the Lady Silver whom Will beheld. It was she who cried.

  He found his arm, as though of its own accord, encircling those shoulders that felt so frail.

  And all the while—while Will’s mind censured him his easy giving in and what would be yet another betrayal of Nan—Silver’s hair tickled his cheek, her perfume filled his nostrils and her beauty dazzled his mind.

  He felt giddy. Giddier than hunger alone could make him.

  This wasn’t love. Oh, Will knew that.

  He knew what love was—Nan’s companionship, her loyalty, her sleeping form warming him through the night.

  That was love. That, and the respect that came from knowing and believing in another’s mind and reason as in his own—that alliance of two beings against the madding world.

  But this quickening of the blood, the sudden pulses that thrilled upon his veins like perdition; this whispering of a reason older than man that spoke not to the brain but to the eyes—this was much like being drunk, like being crazed, like being a babe, innocent, and led here and there in the arms of a loved nurse.

  It was like iron pulled by a magnet, like rain falling helplessly to earth, like a boat drifting on a current, like praying and trusting a higher power.

  Will let his body act and let it go, arm over Silver’s up the rickety steps to the door to his room.

  Standing on the tiny platform, outside his door, his arm around Silver to balance her, Will slipped the key in the lock and opened it.

  And all the while his hands trembled, and it was like an ague, like a fever—like anything which mere man can’t help.

  He knew what he wanted, what he craved, the longing for her that drove all his senses. But even to himself he could not confess it, lest removing his denial would render him her too easy prey.

  In his room, he wrapped his arms around the immortal creature that trembled and sobbed within his embrace.

  His sagging, small bed, with its worn blankets, the lopsided old table that served him as a desk, even his better suit which he threw down as he came in, all looked shabbier, older in her presence.

  His room smelled of old meals, of dirty clothes, of dust.

  The taper he lit smelled of burnt bacon and smoked, casting only a timid and dismal light.

  Her perfume filled his nostrils, and his mouth ached to feel the soft caress of her skin, to taste the exquisite wine of her tongue.

  He closed his eyes and pulled her tight. He lowered his mouth to hers.

  Her mouth tasted like wine, her skin felt like madness, his heart beat like the rhythm of a youthful dance.

  The knock upon the door startled them both. They sprang apart. She laughed, a high silvery laugh.

  But the knocking had awakened Will’s reason.

  With no money, he couldn’t even afford to pay his back rent, much less the standard fine for adultery, which would be levied should his pious landlord denounce him to the Church.

  And Will’s landlord, who was bound to be at the door, having been awakened by their movement, their talk, would want the back rent and, finding this dazzling lady here, in Will’s quarters unchaperoned, would denounce Will for adultery.

  Trembling with fear now, all lust dispersed, Will shoved Silver into a corner of the room, where she couldn’t be seen from the door. He whispered fiercely, “Hush, milady. Don’t move and not a sound, if you ever prized my friendship.”

  On such flimsy warranty, and fearing very much what she might not do, Will ran his hand back through his hair, smoothing the imagined mark of her hand.

  And he opened his door.

  Scene 8

  The tall, closed carriage trundles by, not far from Will’s lodgings. Inside it, Kit Marlowe looks rumpled, sweaty, and very scared. He stares from Henry Mauder to the other man, his eyes twin mirrors of despair.

  Kit Marlowe was
scared.

  From outside the carriage, the softer fall of the horses’ hooves told him that they’d left behind the paved area of town and moved now at the outskirts of London.

  Were they headed to the tower?

  Kit almost smiled at the thought.

  Kit was but the son of a Canterbury cobbler, with neither title, nor connections, nor fortune. How could he be taken to the tower like a nobleman? It would almost be an honor in itself, were it true.

  Yet the death that would find him in the tower’s stony rooms would be as silent, as worm-eaten, as perpetual, as a humble death in a cottage.

  The smile faded from Kit’s lips.

  Dark prospects loomed before him as he stared at Henry Mauder’s yellow teeth, Mauder’s disdainful smile. He could see himself dead, and worse, he could see Imp dead beside him.

  From the racing river of his fear, words issued, spoken in a cringing, lost voice that reminded Kit of his own father talking to an important customer.

  “Your honors, I am a playwright. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, evolutions.”

  As always with Kit, panic betrayed itself in a running of the mouth in incessant, high-sounding, little-meaning words. He tried to check the words but he couldn’t, they would go on flowing from his mouth—a river of incontinent explanation.

  “These are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.” By an effort of will, he managed to arrest the flow, his words checking upon a deep breath, something like a ghostly sigh.

  Mauder and the other man look puzzled.

  Kit bit his lip, and found his Cambridge diction once more. “That’s all I am, all. Just a playwright and a poet. Nothing more. Too much for me these intrigues, too high for me these philosophical opinions. How can you accuse me of being an atheist? Atheist, I? I studied divinity, your honors. Would an atheist undertake such study?”

  “You studied divinity before someone corrupted you. It is the name of the corrupter we want, and you may go, if you promise to reform,” Mauder said with the careful certainty of the self-righteous.

  If only it were that simple. If only, indeed, Kit told all and were allowed to go. Even turning in kindly, learned Sir Walter might be worth it, to keep Imp safe.

  But it wouldn’t be so. Kit would not be allowed to go that easily. Imp would be in danger, either way. For like a wolf, ravenous and confined, these intriguers, once fed the morsel they craved, would demand more and more until they’d devoured Kit and Imp also.

  Yet even through Kit’s despair, a plan formed in his mind. Or if not a plan, a shadow of it, the bare bones and architrave of a plan as like onto a plan as the painted scenery on stage was like the place the playwright hoped to evoke.

  He was a playwright, a maker of illusions.

  If he couldn’t turn in Sir Walter Raleigh, then Marlowe must be able to turn in someone else and, with that someone else, buy time, until Raleigh turned the plot away from himself, or until Marlowe could find something else with which to hold doom at bay.

  “I do know something,” he said, his voice low and hesitant and fraught with thought, as though he couldn’t quite bring himself to speak.

  “Ah,” Mauder said, and sat back. “I knew you would be reasonable, Master Marlowe.”

  “Yes. I meant to be, but . . .” He shook his head. “What I know is more complicated than what you meant. After all, what would it be to you, if I said that this person or that taught me heresy and atheism?” He waved his hand in the air. “It can no more than give the Queen momentary displeasure, but she will not be likely to take action against one highly placed for such a simple offense, will she now?” He flicked the fingers of his naked hand dismissively. His gloved hand still gripped the other glove tightly. “She cares not a fig for religion, does she, sires, when the heretic can defend her realm or . . .” He forced a smile. “Or bring home ships overflowing with gold.”

  In his mind he cast about for a likely victim, around whom to weave his web of deception.

  Outside, the horses raced, their hoof-falls muffled against soft ground.

  Will Shakespeare. Was that not the name of the would-be poet at Paul’s? He’d seemed unprotected, unconnected. A country boy just come to London, full of fire and ambition and little else.

  Will. Yes, he might do very well.

  “But there is a conspiracy I know. Indeed, I’ve been following it for weeks. It touches the highest heads of the kingdom.” Kit wove his intrigue with facile speech. “I need but a few more days to be sure,” he spoke on, improvising, like an actor upon the stage, spinning seeming truth from his lying words.

  From the quickening of Mauder’s eye, the sharp look of Mauder’s silent friend, Kit could tell indeed that the trout came to the tickling hand. He spoke fast and persuasively, as if this were a speech declaimed on the stage.

  As it happened, they were so enthralled that they didn’t stop Kit when he twitched the curtain aside and saw that they trundled along a narrow street. From the signs on the shops, Kit recognized Hog’s Lane in Shoreditch. Did Shakespeare not live here?

  “Would you let me out, gentlemen?” he asked. “I’ll look for you anon with more information.”

  And unbelievably, Mauder gave his signal and the carriage stopped. The door opened, and on trembling legs, Kit stepped onto a muddy street in Shoreditch.

  The carriage splattered Kit with mud and filth as it started up again.

  He didn’t mind. It took him two breaths of the dank air, tainted with smoke and cooking smells, to realize he was still alive. Surely, no after-death smell could be that bad.

  He was alive, but at what cost?

  Could he run now? But run where? If it were only himself, he would escape this instant, board a ship to France or Spain, and there live by his wits and his work. But he could not leave Imp behind, to suffer the revenge of Kit’s enemies.

  Nor could Kit take Imp with him without being sure they’d have lodging and food and ready friends on the other side.

  Kit looked at the retreating carriage and thought he would have to concoct a plan now, a plot as elaborate as any ever discovered, a plot that would implicate Essex and thus let Raleigh, and Kit, and Imp go free.

  He walked down an alley, and up another, to where his memory told him a hatter’s should be.

  Across the street from him stood a tall, narrow, dark building with a hatter’s sign. Two people climbed a precarious staircase to the fifth floor, over the shop.

  The man was Will Shakespeare. The woman, dark-haired, beautiful, wore cloth of silver and was . . .

  Kit stopped. It couldn’t be the Lady Silver.

  What would an elf do in London?

  Kit stared as the couple disappeared through a door into the fifth floor the shabby building.

  What could Will be doing with such a woman? Would this be Will’s wife?

  Kit smiled at the thought. How could Will, with his much-mended wool suit, his receding hairline, his meek look, procure a wife like that exquisite creature?

  How lovely she’d looked, even from the back, with her dark silky hair, her gown of silver cloth, her steps like a soft, hypnotic dance.

  She reminded Kit of his first love, that elf lady that he’d loved perhaps not wisely, but too well.

  Again, the thought of someone like Will winning the hand of one such as she made Kit smile.

  But why would a woman have Will for a lover, who wouldn’t have him for a husband? And if not his lover, why would she go into his room alone with him?

  Or was there some conspiracy already here?

  Did this woman—by her looks, a great noble lady, or a great whore—seek Will for something other than his looks and his homely charms?

  More likely she sought him for secret messages, secret plotting, secret maneuveri
ng. London was as rotten with plots as a stray dog with fleas.

  Relief washed over Kit like a breath of fresh air. The conscience he’d not been aware of disturbing ceased troubling him.

  Maybe he was not concocting a plot unaided. Perhaps Will was not the sweet innocent he appeared to be.

  Perhaps Kit would find true guilt where he’d thought to find gullible innocence.

  Maybe Will’s involvement with this court lady spelled doom for Essex—deserved doom—relieving Kit of the dread guilt of entrapping someone as innocent and unsullied as Imp himself.

  Kit climbed the rickety wooden stairs with a light step. Every step creaked beneath his boots and the banister shook like an unsound tooth.

  Kit would find out what the good burgher was up to.

  Knocking on the door, Kit waited. He could hear rustling on the other side of the door, then an urgent whisper.

  He’d just raised his hand to knock again when the door opened.

  A flushed Will stood in the doorway, raking his scant hair back from his domed forehead with the gloved fingers of one hand, and wiping his mouth on the back of his other glove.

  Shakespeare looked as embarrassed and surprised as a cat caught at the cream.

  Kit smiled at him, his slow, practiced smile. “Good eve, good Shakestaff.”

  Kit couldn’t, of course, just ask Shakespeare who the woman was that Will had hidden in his room.

  Shakespeare would lie or, worse, not answer, not even giving Kit the benefit of guessing the truth behind a lie.

  No. Kit would use other bait to work his way into the house, to work his way into Will’s confidence, to find out all there was to know about this man that he might more easily entrap him.

  The man was desperate for a job, any job. Kit remembered seeing Will in St. Paul’s standing in front of the Si Quis door. A job in the theater would seem to him his heart’s desire, a very dream come true.

  “I thought on your plight,” Kit said, and smiled at Shakespeare, who looked more than a little bewildered. “I thought on your plight, good Wigglestick, friendless and jobless in London, and I thought on your poem and your excellent taste in playwrights.