The Armor of Light

by Melissa Scott

  “Does he wish to seem the villain of the piece?”

  Marlowe shook his head. “It’s a piece of his peacockery,” he said, lip curling. “I’ve never seen him in anything but black.” Still he leaned forward slightly keeping his eyes on Ruthven as the knights presented themselves to James and tendered him their honor. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the boy—in fact, he seemed more demure than usual, more aware of his humble station. And that, Marlowe thought, makes me exceedingly wary. Still, there was nothing out of the ordinary as the parties split again, and rode to opposite ends of the lists.

  By the luck of the draw, Mar and Cassilis rode first. It was a nicely managed bout, Cassilis acquitting himself well despite his inexperience, but most of the spectators cheered only listlessly, their eyes on the campaign tent that served as Sidney’s pavilion. They wanted to see the Englishman joust. Don’t disappoint them, man, Marlowe thought. Your audience is primed and ready; all you have to do is take it.

  There was a cheer from the far end of the field then, and an instant later Sidney rode onto the field. He was alone, without the pageant that would normally accompany him to the lists. Marlowe’s eyes narrowed. There was something odd about the armor. He had dismissed it as dull and necessary when Sidney first appeared, but now… There was something different. The steel was still daringly plain, but somehow it had changed. Another back-and-breast, and a quick change while the others jousted? Such a deception did not seem to be part of Sidney’s nature. Then Marlowe smiled slowly. It was the same armor, of that there could no longer be any doubt, but no wash of gold or silver could lend base steel such brilliance. It should be painful to look upon, he thought, it’s too bright, but then he realized that the brilliance, too, was an illusion. The light he perceived came from within, from some virtue in the steel—or with which Sidney had imbued the material. At his side, Lowin pounded the rail with his fists and cheered with the rest of the crowd. Philips stared open-mouthed, and then swore.

  “I don’t understand. What has he done to it?” the boy Nicholas, who had somehow edged himself into the front row with his betters, demanded.

  Burbage was shaking his head. “It’s beautiful, the man should have worked for the theaters.”

  “But what—” The apprentice broke off as Burbage’s heavy hand descended on his shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” the player said. “What is it, Kit?”

  “I’m not sure,” Marlowe said. “He’s played up some quality of the steel itself, I think. It takes in light and only seems to give it off.” It’s—beautiful, he added silently, words failing, struggling to discover an image to preserve what he was seeing, the glossy grey suddenly more overpowering yet kinder than the veiled sun. No pageant armor, tinted and figured, could compete with that brilliance; it cast Ruthven’s black glamour into its own shade.

  James stared at Sidney with something perilously close to adoration. “What am I seeing?” he murmured. Anne shook her head, wondering, and did not answer. Frances said nothing, her eyes, fixed almost greedily on her husband, filling with tears. She shook them away almost angrily and settled herself to watch. Philip had never looked grander, a thought to inspire her with pride—but then, the Accession Days had never been like this. She shivered then, and breathed a silent prayer. From all evil and mischief, from sin; from the crafts and assaults of the devil, good Lord, deliver him.

  Again by the vagaries of the draw, Mar would be Sidney’s first opponent. The Englishman guided his horse into the end of the lists and settled his lance under his arm. The trumpet sounded, and he drove hard at Mar, seeing in the same instant Mar’s lance-point drop and his spurs go home. Sidney lowered his own lance, crouching in the saddle. The lance’s rebated end caught the Scot firmly in the shoulder; Mar’s blow struck, then glanced up and off. Sidney’s lance shattered, and Mar rocked backward, his own unbroken weapon swaying wildly out of control. He kept his seat, however, and the two parted to the cheers of the crowd.

  “Mar didn’t win much by that encounter,” Nick announced. “Points only, and broken lances count for a lot more.”

  Burbage cuffed him for being self-important, but not too hard: one did not see Sir Philip Sidney joust every day. Marlowe allowed himself a sigh of relief. At least Mar had not been unseated; there was no need to antagonize Cecil’s henchman any further.

  Raleigh rode next, against Lord Linton, but the crowd’s attention was not with them. Sidney would have the next course, against Rollo of Duncruib, and then he would face Lord Graham, the acknowledged Scottish master. Sidney grinned behind his helmet, well aware of their interest. He met Rollo’s blow squarely, rode it and delivered a blow of his own that cleanly unseated the stocky man. Rollo picked himself up, shaking his head, but was generous enough to lift a hand in grudging salute before limping off the field. Sidney accepted a fresh lance from van der Droeghe, and turned to face his next opponent. John Graham was taller and stronger than he, but, for all he was accounted the best in Scotland, lacked experience. Sidney smiled again behind the helmet, automatically judging the weight of the twelve-foot lance. Let me show you how it’s done, he thought, and was no longer aware of his own arrogance.

  The trumpets sounded. Sidney spurred forward, his attention focusing on the steel-clad figure that rushed to meet him. His point shocked home; in the same instant, he felt Graham’s point strike and slide and shatter. No clean hit, my lord, he exulted, and saw the younger man fall. The crowd roared. Graham might be acknowledged their best, but he was not universally loved—and Sidney’s had been a master-stroke. It was easy to forget he was a foreigner, and a wizard, when he could handle horse and lance like that. So there was more to this than pleasing the king and his own private passion for the tilts, Marlowe thought. A calculated risk to win some support among James’s people—and I think I like him the better for it.

  Ruthven was Sidney’s final opponent. His black armor was dusty now—he had been unhorsed thrice so far, and done no better than to break his lances—and there were a few catcalls from the crowd. Most of them had eyes only for Sidney, however, drunk on the romance of the occasion. Marlowe shivered, remembering his vision of the night before, but could not restrain a feeling of confident anticipation. It was like being on the rack—he was just frightened enough to fear courting disaster by envisioning it too clearly, yet he did not dare be part of a murderous conspiracy of complacency. Careful, careful, he thought, as much to himself as to Sidney. Ruthven was no soldier, and no jouster either, but he was feral, dangerous. Marlowe had done what little he could by devising the amulet Sidney bore beneath his armor; all he could do now was wait and watch.

  The heralds cried the names and titles then—Sir Philip Sidney, knight; Alexander Master of Ruthven—and Sidney rode out into the tiltyard. He reined in slightly before he reached the end of the lists, and paused with one hand on the lifted visor, smiling beneath the steel. Ruthven made a fine show, horse and man tossing identical black plumes, but no armor, no finery, could hide the boy’s lack of skill. I’ll grant you bravery, Sidney thought, facing me today, but I’ll not hold my hand. His left hand tightened in the manifer, and there was within him a feeling of savage joy as would normally have frightened him into moderation—but not today. Ruthven challenged him on ground on which he was undisputed master. He cherished these exercises and what they represented, the chivalry that still lived, and honor still existent in men. Here was the game in its older form, more immediate, death or dishonor still real possibilities—far more so than in pageant-bound Whitehall—and the recognition of this touched him like a sensual pleasure. Not since Holland, this strange joy.

  He edged his horse into the lane and accepted his lance. At the other end, Ruthven’s actions mirrored his own. The crowd grew very still, all eyes intent on this, the unacknowledged climax of the day. Ruthven’s grip on his lance was tight, but not entirely certain, Sidney saw, and smiled again behind his beaver. The trumpet sounded, and both men spurred forward. And then there was an unholy ra
diance about Ruthven, surrounding him and his armor, the air wavering around him. Marlowe bit back a curse, seeing his vision sprung to nightmare life: a knight of air, and there was power in that casque of air, power to kill where it touched. The rest of the crowd saw it, too, and cried out in protest. In the royal box, James was on his feet, shout-lug to the heralds, crying for them to stop the match, but it was too late. Too late for both of you, Marlowe thought, greyly. Fool boy, what did Bothwell offer you, to be his pawn? You’re as doomed as he, Icarus flying into the lightning, or Semele in truth, consumed by a power that had always before protected and caressed… Oh, God, Sir Philip, don’t you see?

  In her place beside the queen, Frances Sidney sat rigidly still, only her eyes moving, too frightened now even to pray. There was only a vague blasphemy in her mind: whatever happened now was in Philip’s hands, not God’s; God watched as intently as the rest of them, and could do nothing else. Raleigh burst half unarmed from his pavilion at the crowd’s first cry, to stand in horrified understanding at the edge of the yard. Dear God, was anything ever written to divert this, in any almagest? he wondered, and wiped the thought away in prayer. Greville saw the change in Ruthven’s armor, saw, too, the fractional shift of Sidney’s hand, and read both danger and response from the tiny movement. The neatest blow of all, lance-tip against lance-tip, coronel to coronel—the most difficult in the canon, and the one that showed most clearly contempt for one’s opponent… But is that wise, here, and now, with a third man in the lists? Greville wondered blindly, almost afraid to see. Sweet Jesus, he rides in Your cause, protect him now.

  Sidney saw the first flicker of the spell, and smiled again, recognizing in a heartbeat the nature of that uncanny armor. It seethed like compact fire, awaiting only their clash to be released, to consume them both. Sidney was to be both fuse and trigger. Or so you think, Sidney whispered fiercely, silently, and shifted his grip on the lance. Bothwell had made certain assumptions, both as to Sidney’s pride and his power, and Sidney laughed behind his visor. He’d not taken into account just how great Sidney’s pride could be.

  The two horses bore down on each other, Ruthven’s black mare sweating, shying at the demonic forces surrounding it, Sidney’s piebald responding willingly to its master’s demands. Sidney adjusted his lance again, settling his target. No time, now, for everything he had spent his youth learning; it was only the base for what he had built since. There were times a man had to act, and quickly, or lose all, and this was the greatest of those. And he could, only because of what he had taught himself. For a brief instant, he felt an obscure pity for Ruthven, less than a pawn, a mere tool, a mechanism through which Bothwell worked, but then that was drowned in a new sense of triumph. He took a breath and drew on the power that shone from his own armor, wrapped his thoughts and will around that power. There was Marlowe’s sigil, too; he seized on it as well, and drew it into his new-made spell.

  The lances met, tip to tip as Sidney had intended, with a crack like lightning striking. The twinned spells dissipated in the same instant, Bothwell’s attack turned aside by Sidney’s countermagiccounter magic. Ruthven lurched backward in his saddle, only the high back keeping him in place, his shattered lance smoking in his hand. Sidney did not turn, but drove the stub of his own lance into the soft ground beside the lists. The crowd shouted, in relief, in fear, even in utter denial of what they had just seen, and the other knights and heralds came running into the yard. Sidney pulled his piebald to a stop—the gelding was sweating now, ears laid back in fear—and lifted his visor, grinning now at the men who rushed to surround him.

  At the far end of the lists, the Master of Ruthven wrestled his horse around, sawing ruthlessly at its mouth until he had the animal firmly under control again, and threw away the broken lance. The Englishman was a witch indeed—nothing should have withstood that attack, or so he had been promised... Damn all witches, he thought, and drew the sword he should not have been wearing. With a harsh cry, he set spurs to his horse, and charged down the tilt again.

  “Philip!” That was Raleigh, first to see the movement, and others took up the disordered cry. Sidney wheeled, the gelding dancing under him, and saw Ruthven bearing down on him. Someone thrust a sword to him; he snatched at it even as the others scattered before the Scot’s mad assault. There was no time for subtlety, or even technique. Sidney took Ruthven’s blow on his heavy shoulder piece, the horses jostling against each other, and smashed the borrowed sword hilt-first into the plates protecting the back of Ruthven’s neck. The armor kept him from doing any serious damage, but Ruthven sagged in his saddle, briefly stunned, and Cassilis, leaping forward, pulled him down. One of the other Scots caught the black mare.

  Sidney gentled his own horse, whispering meaningless words in its laid-back ears. His shoulder ached where Ruthven had hit him, but he put that pain aside. The master lay where he had fallen, held as much by the grim stares of his fellows as by the weight of his armor. One mystery solved, Sidney thought grimly, and glanced in spite of himself toward the stands. But I can’t think it will be a welcome solution.

  He dismounted slowly, van der Droeghe pushing through the crowd to take the horse’s bridle. Sidney lifted off his helmet, and saw with some surprise that his hands were trembling. Frances was suddenly at his side, the bows that held her overskirt open across the brocade petticoat torn loose and dangling.

  “Philip—?”

  Sidney forced a smile. “I’m all right, love,” he said, and wondered afterward where he had found that word. His eyes strayed then to Ruthven, who had pushed himself to his knees and was slowly unlacing his own helmet. The Scots who had been of Sidney’s party were watching him closely, and Cassilis had gone so far as to draw the thin dagger he had carried—also against custom—at his waist. Behind him, Raleigh sneered openly at the favorite’s discomfiture, but he leaned on drawn sword nonetheless. Sidney’s smile soured. “Fulke,” he said, and instantly Greville was at his side. “See to Frances, please.”

  “Of course,” Greville answered, and took the woman’s shoulders, edging her gently away from the downed man. For a moment she resisted, but then allowed him to draw her a little aside.

  “Well, my lord,” Sidney began, still staring down at Ruthven, and heard a terrible weariness in his own voice.

  “Well, indeed.” That was the king, the crowd parting before him. “Or very ill.” He stood straddle-legged, hands on hips, glaring at his erstwhile favorite, his face white with fury. Ruthven looked up at him, great eyes pleading, then bowed his head. “You’ve broken faith with your fellows, with your king, and with God, by this day’s work. How dare you, whom I so favored, so betray my trust, ally with my enemies, attack my greatest friend? By God, I wish I’d never seen you—and I intend to see you have no chance to harm any other ever again.” He lifted his hand, beckoning to the soldiers who’d followed him from the stands. “Take him to the Tollbooth—and I don’t care where you lodge him.”

  “She!” Ruthven cried, and Sidney bit back sudden anger. Dear Lord, could James do nothing moderately?

  “Your Majesty,” he said, “a moment—a favor, please, if you’d grant it for me.”

  James turned instantly to him. “For you, Sir Philip, anything—but nothing for this traitor.”

  “There are some questions I would like to hear him answer,” Sidney said. “With your Majesty’s permission, of course.”

  “He will answer anything you ask,” James answered. “And if not now, there are those will make him speak.”

  “I trust that won’t be necessary, your Majesty, Sidney said. He looked down at Ruthven again. “My lord—”

  “Sire, Sir Philip, I beg you, mercy.” There were tears in Ruthven’s eyes, and his voice and body shook as though with a palsy. His face seemed somehow to have softened, like bruised fruit, and for an instant Sidney thought he glimpsed something beneath the pallor, something so homely and plain that a part of him wanted to weep. Then the vision was gone, and Ruthven spoke again, weeping openly. �
��I confess my treason, sire, I was mad to do it. But it was love of you that prompted me—”

  “I’ll hear no more,” James growled, but did not turn away.

  “Sire, I beg you,” Ruthven cried, frantically. “I feared I’d lose you, had already lost you, Sire, and then the demon came to me. He said it was his doing—” He jerked his head at Sidney, who listened silently, his face impassive. “—that if I could be rid of him, I would have your love again. He said I need but wear his token, speak one word, and he would do the rest. And, God forgive me, I believed him.” He lowered his head again, and groped for something beneath his shirt. After a moment, he drew out a leaden seal that dangled from a black ribbon. Sidney held out his hand, and the young man gave it to him.

  “And now I’ve failed him, too. God, God, he’ll kill me now.”

  “If I don’t do it first,” James snapped.

  Sidney ignored them both, studying the medal. It seemed deceptively simple, to provide so marvelous an effect, but it had probably served primarily to call and then to channel the demonic forces. He recognized some of the signs—the sign of the prince of the powers of the air, and the symbol called the mark of Cain—and guessed that Marlowe would know more. Thomas Watson’s tutelage was likely to be more thorough in such matters than was Dee’s, he thought, and glanced around. The poet was nowhere in sight.