Ink and Steel pa-3

by Elizabeth Bear

  Will blinked, demanding that his ears report some other phrase. “Kit,” he repeated, stupidly. Robin laid a twiggy hand on William’s arm.

  “I don’t think he can bear it.” Somehow, Will found his feet. “I know he can’t. Robin.” Enormous brown eyes turned upward, seeking Will’s expression. Will schooled it to impassivity.

  “Master Shakespeare?”

  All a player’s urgency and power of command imbued his tone when he found his words again. “Robin, what must I do?”

  Faustus:

  How comes it, then that thou art out of hell?

  Mephostophilis:

  Why this is hell, nor am I out of it:

  Think’st thou that I that saw the face of God,

  And tasted the eternal Joys of heaven

  Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,

  In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Faustus

  There in the shadows of the embrasure, behind the bowering curtains, Morgan put her arms around Kit and kissed him lingeringly. Blood rose in his face, ran singing through his veins. A storm-prickling wind swirled around them, rustling his cloak, lifting his hair like a lover’s fingers. He pressed his body to hers, drunk on the heady beauty of the words that flowed from the incomparable players at the far end of the hall. A measured cadence of church bells pealed close enough to reverberate in hishead; Morgan’s lips firmed and yielded by turns.

  “A bone healed twisted must be broken again,” she murmured without pulling back. “What I do I do out of necessity, and I hope you find the courage to forgive me, someday. You have your boots and sword, your cloak and your wits. And now a lady’s kiss. It will suffice.]

  Murchaud, he thought, panicky. “Morgan,” He pushed her back a moment before she would have stepped away on her own. “Your own son?”

  She shook her head. “It is done.” The bells were hoofbeats, he realized; the tolling of silver horseshoes on the flags. He turned and looked up, stepping past the curtain, out of the recessed gap before the window, and into the suddenly silent hall. A milk-white mare, caparisoned all in silver and blue, bowed her snow-soft nose before Kit and blinked amber eyes through the froth of her mane.

  “Oh,” Kit said, as Morgan moved away from him. “Of course. It’s not Murchaud; it’s me.” And laid his hand quite calmly on the pommel, fumbling for the stirrup with his left foot.

  Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:

  He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, from Sonnet 134

  The white mare’s hooves rang on the cobbles; she shifted restlessly as Kit swung into her saddle. Will limped up with dreamer’s footsteps too slow, too slow and came forward as Kit settled himself, feeling under her pale mane for the reins. She was white, stark white to the tip of her nose not a pale gray at all, but some Faerie breed and she gazed at Will with a knowing eye as he came up to her. Kit’s dark suit outlined him like a pen slash on the paper-white of her hide, his jewel-colored cloak spreading over her rump. The Fae parted before him, opened like the Red Sea before Moses, and Will stumbled forward and grabbed Kit’s boot at the ankle.

  “No.”

  Kit looked down; looked Will in the eye, the strap of his eyepatch starkagainst the pallor of his brow. That grimace must be meant to be a smile.

  “Gentle William,” he said, transferring the reins to his right hand andlaying the left on Will’s shoulder for a moment. “I must. I have no choice.”

  “No,” Will said, a second time. “And No.” A third, and he reached up and yanked the reins from Kit’s hand as Kit was shifting them again. A sacrifice gone willing,he thought, a sacrifice gone willing to Hell buys not seven, but seven times seven years.

  “Dammit, Will.” Kit knotted his right hand in the white mare’s mane, reached down to pluck the reins back. Will shivered as the mare sidled and shied, jerking against his inexpert touch. Kit slid and bit back a curse, struggling to regain his stirrups.

  “It’s my place.”

  Will tilted his head back to look Kit in the face. He’s immortal. I’m dying. Why should I not do this thing? Annie would be better off a widow, given the husband I have been. Although I wanted to see Hamnet again.And didn’t admit even to himself he thought, And let it punish him for loving Morgan more than me.

  “I understand.”

  Will laid his hand on Kit’s knee and offered up the reins, straight over his head. Kit leaned out to reach them; just as he overbalanced, Will let them fall. Will’s right hand darted to Kit sswordbelt. Will’s left closed on the cuff of his boot. “I understand tis not your place at all.” The mare shied in earnest as Will leaned backward and yanked, Kit’s face blank with sudden panic. Leather creaked in Will’s hands, velvet soft against his knuckles. The white mare sidestepped, and Kit tumbled all elbows and flailing into Will’s waiting arms. Will rolled with it, prepared, a stage fall that nonetheless knocked the wind out of him though he made sure Kit landed on the bottom. They fell face-to-face for a moment, and Will pressed breathless Kit hard against the harder floor.

  “Mine,” Will said, and kissed Kit roughly, briefly on the mouth. He pushed himself back with both hands on Kit’s collar, a knee still on the smaller man’s belly, shoving him down, looking up into Murchaud’s eyes and the amused, changing eyes of his wife. Puck stood between them, tugging them forward by their sleeves. Kit reached with both hands to clutch Will’s wrists, opening his mouth, unwilling to strike Will hard enough to hurt him. Will doubled his fists and lifted, and banged Kit once against the floor.

  “Your Majesty,” Will said, with what dignity he could muster over Kit’s betrayed shout. “I claim the right to go as your teind to Hell.” The Mebd’s lips pursed. She stepped away from Murchaud and from her Puck, while Kit raised his voice in a string of incoherent objections. She crouched before Will, her skirts a pool of green water tumbling around her, and silenced Kit with a brush of her fingers across his angry lips. He must have longed to shout, to rage.

  Will felt Kit’s voice fluttering in his throat. But her magic held him silent, and seething he fell impotently still under Will’s hands. And then Kit’s trembling started in earnest, both hands pressed against his mouth, and Will thought, Oh, Jesus. Rheims.

  “William Shakespeare,” she murmured. Dost know what thou offerest?”

  “Nay,” he said, sick in the bottom of his belly and determined nonetheless. Kit surged against his grip, and Will kneeled down. “But I am willing. Only tell me, Your Majesty, that you will spare my love.”

  Kit was weeping. His hands dropped from his mouth and circled Will’s wrists, jerking, chafing, but he fought no more. The Mebd smiled, and nodded, and closed her eyes; Will thought they shone more than they should have. Kit pulled Will’s hand to his mouth and kissed the fingers, a pleading gesture, even his hot gasping breath coming silent through the potency of the Mebd’s negligent spell. Will tugged his hand free, the image of those lips kissing Morgan hot behind his eyes.

  “You do us honor,” the Mebd said softly; Will did not miss that she addressed him as an equal in that moment, before she rose and swept away.

  Kit slumped as Will pushed himself to his feet; Kit pressed his fist against his mouth and curled on his side, dragging his face down to his knees. “Jesu,” Kit gasped, and Faeries ducked away, wincing; one sprite covered her ears and dropped to the floor. A circle had grown around them. Will stood at its center, turning slowly, and none of the Fae would look down from his regard, and none would quite meet his eyes.

  Except Puck, and the Prince. Robin Goodfellow stepped forward, and Murchaud followed him a half step behind. Murchaud bit his lip and nodded to Will. His lips parted as if he would speak, and Will, trembling now, stepped back from Kit’s huddled form. Murchaud knelt, gathering him close, and Will turned away. Puck laid a hand on his wrist, fingers dry as kindling and as knobby a sknotted rope.

  “Master Shakespeare.” He drew Will’s attention to the wild-eyed mare.
You need to go now. Will bit his lip, trembling harder under the mare’s amber regard. She prodded him with her nose; he fell back. “Robin.” His voice broke; he pretended he didn’t see Kit’s shuddering flinch at the sound. “I am at a loss. I do not ride.”

  “Fear not,” Puck answered, taking his elbow. “Thy steed knows the way.”

  Act III, scene xvi

  I am a lord, for so my deeds shall prove;

  And yet a shepherd by my Parentage …

  HRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Tamburlaine the Great, Part I

  Murchaud knotted his fingers in Kit’s hair and dragged Kit’s face against his shoulder, whispering something that might have been intended as comfort. Kit couldn’t understand over the tolling of somber bells, the jingle of the white mare’s harness or, more precisely, he didn’t care to try. He stayed frozen, curled so tight in pain that his chest and shoulders ached. No. Whatever Murchaud said, it vanished in the vanishing hoofbeats, and when Kit raised his head, avoiding the prince’s face, both Will and his white steed were gone. Murchaud clung to him, trying to draw him close. No. Kit pressed his knuckles against the floor and got one foot under himself, and tore free of Murchaud’s embrace. He turned to survey the room; every Fae watching ducked his eyes and withdrew.

  “Where is Morgan?” No one answered. Kit reached across the ache filling his belly and grasped the hilt of his sword. “Where is the Queen?” She’d silenced him, a finger to his lips and his voice had swelled in his throat and choked him. He tasted blood.

  “Gone with Will,” Puck said quietly, when no one else would meet Kit’s gaze.”

  Two Queens to guide him to Hell. Christ on the Cross!Satisfaction heated the emptiness within him as every Fae in the room cringed as if he’d kicked them.

  “Damn every one of you,” Kit said, enunciating, the sweat-ridges on his swordhilt cutting hot welts his palm. “Damn you each and every one to Hell.” He looked at Murchaud as he spoke, and the taste of smoke and whiskey filled his mouth. Murchaud only blinked without dropping his gaze.

  “No doubt,” he said, “it will be as you prophesy.”

  The silence lingered until Kit turned. “I’m going after them.” He dropped his hand from the blade and shrugged his cloak back from his shoulders, sustaining rage lost. “It’s in the songs, after all.”

  “Oh, yes, Orfeo.” Not Murchaud’s voice but Cairbre’s, mocking. “Go win thou thy love back from Hell. It should be just a little task for a journeyman.”

  Kit didn’t even trouble himself to turn. He kept his eyes trained on Murchaud, and smiled. “Someone has to.”

  “I forbid thee to leave this place,” Murchaud said slowly, power and the right of command imbuing his words.

  The geas struck Kit like a backhanded blow; he rocked with it, felt it break on the protection of his iron-nailed boots and his patchwork cloak. Thank thee, Morgan. And how did she know?

  Kit lifted his chin, hooked his fingers through his belt to keep them off the rapier’s hilt. “Try again?” His throat ached with something—pride, anguish, as Murchaud stepped so carefully between him and the door.

  “If thou wilt walk through me,” Murchaud said, “wilt need thy blade.”

  “Good, my lords.” Kit looked down reluctantly. He owed Robin the favor of his attention even now. “Puck.”

  “Your Highness,” the Puck said, bowing, ignoring Kit with pricked ears and a stiffly erect spine. “Prince Murchaud, an it please you, Sir Christofer must do this thing.”

  “There’s no covenant to protect him if he goes.”

  “No,” Puck said, shuffling a half step away from Kit. “But we need Shakespeare in the world more than we need Marley in Faerie. And furthermore, you cannot gainsay him.”

  “Thou darest tell me what I can do, and cannot, fool?”

  Robin waggled donkey’s ears. Soft bells jingled, like the bells on the white mare’s harness. He realized that every other Fae had withdrawn; only Puck, Murchaud, and Cairbre remained. Puck abased himself. “It is in all the songs.”

  “BLast!” Kit jumped at the outburst before he realized it was his own. “Am I to make my destiny as dead singers direct?”

  “Exactly.”

  Kit glanced over his shoulder at Cairbre, finally, and was surprised to seethe master bard grin. “The Puck’s right, Your Highness. Kit has to follow his love to Hell.”

  Kit leaned his forehead against the gelding’s sweet-smelling sorrel neck, coarse straw rustling about his ankles, and steeled himself to swing into the saddle.

  “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

  “Nay. You can save him,” Robin said from his perch on the stall’s half-door. The sorrel snorted, shaking his head as if in annoyed agreement. ‘Pray stop teasing me with the prospect of an outing, Master Marley, and lead me from this stall,’ Kit extemporized. He chuckled bitterly under his breath, and then caught a glimpse of the gelding’s expression. Damme if he isn’t thinking just that.

  “I can’t even save myself, Master Goodfellow.”

  “Who among us can?” The Puck slid down from the door and came forward to tug the reins from Kit’s hand. Kit gave them up, and the little Fae led both horse and man out of the stable and into the courtyard. Silver shoes and iron bootnails rang on the pale cobblestones. The courtyard was empty in the moonlight except for the two of them and the gelding; Kit refused on his pride to crane his neck to the windows to see if Murchaud might be peering out.

  “Bargain well,” Puck said, and held the stirrup.

  Grief and gratitude welled into Kit’s eye. He blinked them back and took the reins when Robin held them up.

  “I know not how to thank you.” The Fae skipped away from the gelding’s hooves.

  “Come home safe, Christofer Marley.” He stepped into a shadow and was gone. Kit tucked his cloak about him to keep it from flapping, turned his mount with his knees, and urged the sorrel toward the palace gate.

  What, do you tremble? are you all afraid?

  Alas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,

  And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard III

  The road stretched broad and easy before Will and his docile, mannerly, ghost-colored mare. Her shoes chimed carillon on the smooth cobblestones. She arched her neck as if proud of her burden, for all he slumped on her back like a bag of fresh-killed game. The stirrups cut through the arches of his court slippers; he did not even attempt to ride over the beat of her stride, as the women riding astride did.

  The Mebd rode on Will’s left side and Morgan on his right; as they had passed under the archway of the palace gate, Morgan caught his sleeve. When he had turned to her, unwilling to meet her eyes, the Mebd had reined her ink-black gelding shoulder to shoulder with the milk-white mare and reached over Will’s bowed head and hunched shoulders to press something onto his brow. A circlet, a band of resilient gold; he saw its reflection in Morgan’s eyes.

  “You knew,” he said to the woman he had loved.

  She nodded and swept a hand through the wire-curled tumult of her hair. “I chose,” she said simply, turning away again. Her bay horse dipped a white-blazed face as if to crop the grass at the roadside; Morgan twitchedthe reins and the mare snorted, soft purls steaming from her nostrils.

  “I thought it would help him, in the end. We need your Christofer whole, sweet William.”

  “Do not…” The mare tossed her head as his hands tightened on the reins. He forced himself drape them loose against her neck. She settled into her easy pace again. The horse knows her own way home.

  “Don’t … what, my love?”

  The Mebd rode close, within hearing of the softest murmur. Shadows seemed to grasp around the edge of things. Clutching branches and rustling limbs. Willow be walk, if yew travels late.

  “Don’t call me pet names,” he said, hoping his voice sounded disinterested. “I saw.”

  She smiled. White teeth winked in the corner of his eye. “Kit and me?”

  “Aye
.” The heat of his furious blush. And what did it matter now, lust or love, fornication or sacrament? He was damned.

  The clawing shadows crowded closer to the road; Will, with ease, could imagine them, pitchfork-wielding demons.

  “Ah,” she said. Yes. “Lovely boy. Very sweet in bed. Far too easy to manipulate. Twas one of the flaws I had hoped Lucifer could correct in him.”

  “As if Hell were a schoolboy caning.”

  “But Master Shakespeare,” honest startlement, her gray eyes wide in the moonlight, “it is.”

  Whatever he might have found to say in response was ended by the flicker of a lantern a few hundred yards ahead, emerging through gaudy, rustling October leaves. The low yellow flame rested at ground level, silhouetting a square, glass-sided frame, the interleaved cobbles of a crossroads, and the shining dark hooves of a massive steed. It limned the figure on the stallion’s back from beneath the soft black velvet of his doublet, the sovereign shine of his hair. The kind alabaster arch of his enormous wings cast their own pale glow, feather edges stained gold over silver by the candlelight.

  For Kit,Will thought, as Lucifer Morningstar lifted his chin and regarded the approaching trio. His wings fanned softly; he leaned back in his saddle in feigned surprise. “Why, tis not the soul I was bid expect. Good even, Master Shakespeare. How pleasant to make thine acquaintance again”

  Morgan placed a warm hand on the small of Will’s back. He rode forward as much to elude the touch as because that was where his white mare took him. From the corner of his eye, Will thought perhaps he saw Morgan’s cheeks shining. Ridiculous that Morgan le Fay should weep for me.And then he smiled. As ridiculous as that she should moan for me.He turned back over his shoulder. Distantly, he thought for a moment he heard the echo of galloping hooves. Morgan wept indeed: Will forced himself to meet her eyes and speak coolly. Love her all you will, foolish heart. She’ll have no more kindness from thee.

  “Tell Kit,” he said, his voice cracking. “Tell Kit I bid him care for my Annie and my girls.”

  Whatever she might have said in return died on her lips, or under the peals of the white mare’s hooves as she bore Will forward beneath the mighty wings of the Prince of Hell. Lucifer turned his horse and, leaving the lantern where it lay, led Will and his strange knowing mount into darkness and down.