“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.”
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Hero and leander
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.
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You like It
Will found himself turning and turning again, trying not to stare at on eimprobable 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
Faustus:
Was not that Lucifer an Angel once?
Mephostophilis:
Yes Faustus, and most dearly loved of God.
Faustus:
How comes it then that he is Prince of Devils?
Mephostophilis:
O by aspiring pride and insolence,
For which God threw him from the face of heaven.
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 tothe 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 hishand, 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
Kit. Stop.
“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. Faerieand their games.
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, thepainted 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?”
“Astoundingly. Is she venomous?”
“She assures me she is. I have never sought an opportunity to discover it first hand.”
“Methinks tis probably as well.”
“Aye,” Kit said, taking Will by the elbow. “I do agree. I’ve spoken with Morgan. Thou wilt share my quarters, an it please thee. The bed’s big enough for four, and to be frank I find it strange having so large a room to myself. And it will present a barrier to keep thee from Morgan’s clutches. And perhaps buy me some peace as well.” The thought of returning to Murchaud’s bed made him sick. Rosalind. Dressed as Ganymede. Oh, Will. Oh, God in Hell.
“Amaranth,” Kit said as they came up to her. “Meet my friend William Shakespeare.”
“Will, lady Amaranth. Charmed,” Will said, and to his credit bent over her cold, scaled hand and brushed it with his lips. Amaranth’s snakes swelled, pleased, about her elfin face as she mocked a smile.
“Master Shakespeare,” she hissed. “Your reputation precedes you.”
Will glanced at Kit. Kit shrugged. “We stay current,” he said. What poem do you plan to recite?”
Will closed his eyes, as if considering. “Something you haven’t read, I think. Are you reciting Hero?”
“They’ve heard it,” Kit said, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. The ragged hem of his cloak swayed against his calves. “The Mebd hinted she wanted me to play Bard, so I thought I would sing something not of mine own composing.”
“When do we …”
Kit pointed with his chin to the dais. “Go and tell Cairbre there you’re sent to claim the stage. He’ll advise you when.”
“Come with me?”
Kit smiled. “Aye, I will. Amaranth, will you accompany?”
She tilted her head in gracious refusal as she flicked herself into a tidy tower of coils. “I must seek Master Goodfellow, she said. Anon, gentle Poets.”
“Anon, my lady,” Will said.
Kit bowed slightly, but did not speak as she glided away. “She likes thee.”
“How knowst thou?”
Kit flinched as they turned toward the small stage. Cairbre had been joined by Morgan le Fey, who gathered her gown thank God she’s decently dressedin both fists as she seated herself before the virginals.
“I can tell.”
“Your Morgan plays?” Will asked in his ear, a tender thrill in his voice that drew another shiver from Kit. “Very well,” Kit answered, and walked forward.
Kit leaned against the pillar between two silk-shrouded windows, arms folded over his breast, and unsuccessfully fought a smile. Will was correct: he didn’t know this poem, and its simple style masked Will’s eternal cleverness very well. Half Kit’s mind was elsewhere, hastily revising the words of a whimsically chosen song to remove references to the Divine. But with his remaining attention, he watched Will put on a player’s confidence and take the stage like a master, broad gestures and subtle expressions as he declaimed.
… Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
Applause, and Will soaked it in for a moment before doffing his borrowed hat and taking a long, savoring bow. Kit watched, his stomach still twisting. No Ned, nor will he ever be, but the man has grown. Even if he is losing his hair. Congratulations, my love: an ovation in Faerie, such as most poets only dream.
Will’s smile, when he stood, cast his face in the architecture of delight. He turned to Kit, summoning him on an airy gesture. Sweet Christ harrowing Hell, how am I supposed to sleep in a bed with that man all night after reading that play?
Kit mounted the steps, acknowledged to a ripple of applause, and leaned down and whispered in Cairbre’s ear, enjoying the expression on the Bard’s face when he said, “That Tudor song I taught you, Sir”
“Bold, Cairbre said,” and laced his fingers over the strings of his harp.
“This is not mine,” Kit said, turning to the Fae, “but is said to have been written by a King himself not known for his faith to his ladies.” He drew breath, and found Murchaud in the crowd as Cairbre and Morgan gave him the first plaintive notes.
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously.
For I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company.
Your vows you’ve broken, like my heart,
Oh, why did you so enrapture me?
Now I remain in a world apart
But my heart remains in captivity.
The Prince’s eyes widened in shock at the boldness of the gesture. And after that kiss, he shouldn’t be surprised.
Kit looked away, to find the rest of his audience, aware that his voice hadn’t the richness of Cairbre’s deep baritone, but finding its notes with confidence. Kit sang a line for Amaranth, and one for Geoffrey, and discovered other eyes in the crowd as well. A sly glance at Morgan, giving her a phrase or two as she ran her fingers over the keys, and she smiled back as if enjoying his bravura. Goodfellow’s glance, there, and a tight little smile as the Puck tugged at his own short motley cape. Kit smiled back, and gave him a verse, for the only friendship Kit had known in Faerie. And then he turned his head and gave Will a verse, one of the changed ones, his throat tight enough that he prayed not to squeak like a mouse. To Murchaud, the last verse, and to the Mebd’s cruel, amused, approving smile and her whisper in her husband’s ear, “See, love? Your pet has teeth,” and then he closed his eyes and back to the beginning again, for the final hanging, dying line.
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously.
For I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company.
Shock, not applause, and Kit let the old armored smile slide over his face like a visor at the paleness in Murchaud’s cheeks and Kit’s own unexpected success. I’ve found a way to scandalize Faerie at last, he thought, and took himself down from the stage.
Act III, scene iii
Mercutio:
Without his roe, like a dried herring: O flesh, flesh,
how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a
kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to
be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; This be a gray
eye or so, but not to the purpose.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
Will knew something had happened, that Kit’s rendition of “Greensleeves” had somehow been a challenge, the smack of a gauntlet against an unprepared face. Knew it more when the music that resumed after Kit left the small stage was wordless, and Morgan excused herself, smiling, and went to climb the dais beside the Queen and the Prince. Who shortly thereafter removed themselves from the hall. Will, rested from the afternoon’s nap, mingled joyously with musicians and poets, with the Faerie players that Kit had recruited for his masques and plays, until at last Kit found him and tugged his sleeve toward the stair.
“It looks desperate to be the last one at the party,” Kit said. “Unless you were planning on leaving with the brunette.”
Will glanced
back at her. She smiled coquettishly behind a fan of painted mauve silk, and he waved and turned away. “The fangs are a bit disconcerting.”
“She’s Leannan Sidhe. You’d never be the same.” Kit lit a candle at the base of the spiral stair, and Will climbed in silence beside him.
“Leannan Sidhe?” He tried to mimic Kit’s pronunciation.
Kit hesitated, his hand still warm on Will’s arm as they made their way upthe stairs. “Blood drinkers. A man can’t be too careful, in Faerie.” Will watched Kit open the door. “Black Annie,” he said. “Only men, not children. She’s got a special affection for poets.”
Kit ushered Will inside, latched the door, and found cups and a bottle in the cupboard, upon which he left the candle. “Tis said her love gives inspiration.”
“And have you availed yourself of this inspiration?”
Will took the cup Kit offered him and held it under his nose. The scent made his eyes tear. “Brandywine?”
“Better. Tis called uisge. Be careful.”
As Will sipped, and coughed, and Kit laughed at him. “No, dying young once was enough. But I wanted to talk to you about your play.”
The fire of the liquor sliding down Will’s throat did nothing to calm the tension in his shoulders. He told himself, any ripples shivering across the tawny fluid in his cup were just the effects of his palsy, and set it down before he could spill it. “You disliked it.”
“I could not adore it more,” Kit said, refilling his cup. He leaned against the great carved post of the bed, curtains rumpling against his cloak. As if irritated, he unfastened the clasp and leaned forward enough to free himself of the tattered finery, tossing it to the bed. The single candle cast gentle shadows across his face; he drank and continued talking into Will’s silence.
“You’ve cast me again, haven’t you? As you like your Rosalind. Your Ganymede.” Will laughed. “You caught me out. The first to notice it enough to warrant a mention.”
“How could they miss? Ganymede, Leander, dead shepherds. A crack about a great reckoning in a little room and another about incompetent historians? You should not take such risks.”
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