Ink and Steel

Act II, scene xx

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;

While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth

September, 1598

Thou wouldst have hated Ben Jonson, Kit .& as I write that line, & read it over, it strikes me; I write as if to a dead man truly, & now I wonder if I have in some madness invented thy survival. Ben is brilliant. I mocked him for writing in humors, & he presented a comedy Every Man, tis called that I cannot overly fault. To prove me wrong as much as himself right. Brilliant, & of much use to Tom & I. Tom asks after you. He’s been knighted. Audrey is pregnant again. Mary’s son Robin is apprenticed a chandler. Her Majesty has survived another anniversary of her birth, by the grace of God, & Richard has procured a property in Southwark not far from the beargarden & the Rose, where he will raise our new playhouse, which we have decided will be called the Globe. If we can free our materials from the odious Master Allen, our old landlord, we’ll have it up by Spring. & no near neighbors to answer to, by God, for all we’ll have to build it on timbers over a sewer ditch. Like an ark when God sends His rains to cleanse the unfaithful, we vile players can clamber into our sinful playhouse & raft to safety on the swollen Thames. So we will have only the lord Mayor to contend with. The flag is already painted, & the motto chosen. Totus mundus agithistrionem which thou wilt be able to translate as well as ever I could. Ben, whom I did mention previous, has found himself new trouble. His tempermight o’ershadow even thine: I oft imagine if thou wert still with us, thee & he would likely have come to blows. You would have loathed him with a passion I’m sorry I shall not witness. Let me set the stage: Master Jonson is near sixteen stone of man, trained as a soldier & he wears a sword daily. His wits are quicker on paper than in a tavern, for all he is an excellent poet, & he’s as quick to take offense as any man. Thus it is not too much questioned that he killed the rattish Gabriel Spencer in a duel. It wasn’t a duel, but out of unpleasant necessity, for Spencer became too well acquainted with our plans, & our Ben only avoided the Tyburn tree through claiming benefit of clergy for he reads latin & forfeiting his chattels. Also he was branded on the hand, & cannot write until it heals. I’ve sent him to Stratford to stay with Annie for a week or two, which is not so unwise as it seems: better than to keep him in the city; lest another quarrel be provoked, or he insist even now in taking part in the merriment Tom and I have planned. The foolishness of this is that it forces advancement of mine own plans. Lord Burghley too has left us; the Queen’s guiding Spirit died, they say, in Her Majesty’s arms last month, after even her cosseting could not save him. The mood is somber. His son, Sir Robert, has become secretary of state. Which leads me to my current problems. I’ve been charged by that selfsame Robert Cecil with the eradication of Master Poley & Master Baines. & the additional complication that Ben writes to say he’s seen thine old acquaintance Nick Skeres in Stratford. I have a sense of things moving under the surface, Kit, & I wish I could gaff them & lift them into the light. Still, Tom & Ben & I have hit upon a plan for dealing with Baines & Poley. ALL it needs is a little expedition to plant some false coin kindly provided by Sir Robert in their chambers, & a search. Thou wilt appreciate the irony of this. Ben was to make the entrance, but his circumstances now forbid it. If I could be assured that this letter would reach thee, I should beg thine assistance, for thy habit of walking through walls would be most salutary in this cause. I’ve thought long on this, & in addition to my ms. of the Dream, I’ve included a fair copy an act or two of Ben’s. & some poems. Which will discuss later, as I do not believe I would have the courage to include them if I thought thou wouldst ever collect this thy letter. Be glad thou canst not see what poor George has wrought on thy leander. To be fair, tisn’t bad. But it is not Kit.

A fool and more than a fool, Will cursed himself under his breath, stepping into the stirrup Tom Walsingham made of his hands. He bent his head close to Tom’s ear.

“Why am I shinnying in the window? Could you pick me up?”

There was that. He put a hand on Tom’s shoulder and gripped his dagger in his teeth, steadying himself against the wall. Tom’s strength surprised him. He’s three years older than I am, damn it.

Tom’s shoulders moved under Will’s soft-soled shoes, his hands bracing Will’s thighs, and Will was glad of the growing darkness in the garden, as his face heated at a sudden image of Tom, and Kit. Will spat the dagger into his hand and slipped its narrow blade between the shutters. On the second try, he caught the bar. On the third try, he lifted it successfully, and held his breath as it clunked rather than clattered to the window ledge between the shutters and the glass. The sash shifted easily, and the space was sufficient for a skinny man to slip through.

What lights still burned in the house were under the gables, and Will and Tom had been lurking in an upstairs room of an inn down the street long enough to see Baines set off, alone, a little before dusk. Curfew was nine o clock, if he bothered to come home before it; they should have an hour at least, and Will expected the sojourn into the house to take less than five minutes. He looked down, and spoke softly. “Tom, as soon as I’m inside, you leave.”

“Will No.”

“If … If. You’ve Ben. You keep working.” He felt Tom’s rebellion, knew he had no right or precedence with which to command the other man. And then felt Tom’s resignation at the logic of it. This is what a Queen’s Man does.

“All right, Will. Hurry I’ll meet you at the Mermaid.”

False coins shifted against his breast in their soft leather bag. Tom got a hand on each ankle and lifted as Will pulled, and a moment later Will was inside the window and standing in absolute blackness. And how did you intend to find a place to hide a sack full of counterfeit coins in pitch blackness, Master Shakespeare? Purity of spirit, sir.

He crouched, realizing he was silhouetted against the window, and then thought to swing the shutters and the glass closed so a draft wouldn’t bring some servant looking for the source. He traced the baseboard with hesitant fingers, following it into the corner of the room. This was supposed to be a bedroom ah. And so it is.

His fingers found the featherbed, straw ticking, the twine binding the edge. He bit through a knot with his teeth and tugged edges open, heartbeat pulsing in his throat as he shoved the bag arm-deep in rustling straw and tugged themattress edges together, knotting the cord as best he could in the dark. And very nearly wet himself when the door swung open, and a darkly clad figure held a single flickering candle high in his left hand. You must be Shakespeare, he said, and set the candle on a table by the door. The brass and wood fittings of a pistol gleamed in his other hand; Will recognized the black-red color of his hair, the thin, aristocratic line of his nose.

“Fray Xalbador de Parma. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir.” Amazed at how steady his voice stayed, although his eyes betrayed him with a flicker at the window. Will started to stand.

De Parma cleared his throat and gestured slightly with the pistol. Will sat back against the bed. De Parma crossed the room, staying enough away that Will wouldn’t risk a grab for the snaphaunce flintlock in his hand. That’s right, Tom. Just head on home. I’ll be along shortly. Oh. Rather a bad miscalculation, this.

A miscalculation compounded as another figure stepped into the room: slender, blond, with a mischievous twist to his lips. “Fray Xalbador,” Robert Poley said, slouching on his left shoulder against the door frame. I thought I’d heard a mouse scratching up here.

“Poley.”

The blond man clucked and shook his head. “After all that fuss killing Spencer,” he said, “you should have known we’d be expecting your visit.”

“Yes,” Will answered. “I should have known.”

Barabas: Your extreme right does me exceeding wrong.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, The Jew of Malta

Kit pressed fingertips to the cold, black glass and hesitated, his right hand going to the hilt of his sword. The other Prometheans were warded from the gaze of the glass. But Will was not, and so Kit saw Poley turn, saw clearly the half-inch bore of the weapon pointed unwaveringly at Will’s midsection. Saw, as if he floated overhead like a one-eyed angel, Tom’s occasional guilty glances over his shoulder as against his better judgment he followed Will’s instructions and paused by the warmth of the well-lit tavern. Until he cursed, stopped, and turned to retrace his steps.

Just what I need. Bad enough to have to rescue one of them.

“Tom, don’t.” Kit didn’t expect Tom to hear him. Most of Kit’s attention remained on Will, anyway, and the two images layered each other like an oil painting held up against the back of a stained-glass saint. Until Tom stopped, and glanced over his shoulder, as if he’d imagined he’d heard someone call his name. Kit cleared his throat, forgetful in his fear. “Tom, love.” Wide eyes, a whisper barely shaped. “Kit?”

“I’ll take care of him,” he said, and then let the scrying end before he said anything else, turning his attention entirely to Will.

Will, who had drawn his knees up and kept his back to the bed as if it could afford him some protection. Poley moved about the bedroom, lighting candles, and Kit nibbled his lip at Robert’s expression. If only I had been a half step quicker. Or a half a year. No time for recriminations, sir.

The pistol was his worst worry. It wouldn’t take more than a glancing shot to shatter bone, tear flesh, crush limbs, assuming the thing didn’t misfire. Oh, I wish I had Morgan’s magic now. But if I step into the room behind de Parma, Poley only has a dagger. I just have to make enough noise that the Inquisitorwi’ll turn instead of making sure of Will. Good Will. Stay there on the floor, roll under the bed when the fighting starts Thank God Baines is nowhere in sight.

Kit drew his rapier and his main gauche, pulled a single shallow breath through his nose to still the trembling in his hands, and stepped through the Darkling Glass.

O conspiracy,

Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,

When evils are most free?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar

Will could never quite describe what he saw: whether the shuttered window seemed to fall open on a starry night, or whether the shadows of the flickering candles twisted together in some glimmering reminder of the span of black wings. But he gasped, and when he did, Poley turned to follow the line of his vision.

De Parma brought the pistol up and danced a half step back, angling his left foot with perfect balance, a sidestep that would have brought him around, his back to the wall beside the shuttered window if several narrow, blooded inches of Kit Marley’s main gauche hadn’t emerged from his chest as he moved, his own momentum carrying the blade through his body and dragging it out of Kit’s hand. De Parma completed his turn before he realized he was dead, the pistol still rising, finger tightening on the trigger as he staggered back against the wall beside the window.

The scrape and then the roar of the flintlock was so enormous that Will imagined for an instant that he hadn’t actually heard anything, just tasted all the brimstone of Hell in a concussion as if God Himself had boxed Will’s ears. De Parma fell against the wall, the narrow blade leaping a few more inches from his chest, and slid down like a pile of discarded clothing.

Kit was already sidestepping to face Poley.

“Will,” he shouted, loud enough for Will to hear it through ears that would never stop ringing. “Run!”

Will forced himself to his feet, de Parma’s blood already soaking through hisshoes. It shone on the floorboards, glossy, and Will tore his eyes away with a grunt. Kit extended like a dancer, infinitely more graceful than Ben, the totality of his body and his will focused, it seemed, on the firelit silver of his swordpoint. Running wasn’t possible. Will staggered toward the door.

“Marley. God. You re dead, you son of a whore.”

“Oh,” Kit said cheerfully. “God has very little to do with it, and my mother’s virtuous to a fault, I fear. What shall it be, Master Poley? Thy heart?”

But a bulky shadow filled the doorway, and Will skidded to a stop fast enough that he went to one knee in the rushes and the blood.

“How about an eye, and into thy brain, dying instantly? Too good for thee, but time is short and we must make…”

“Kit. do.”

“Good evening, puss,” said Richard Baines, as Kit turned to face him. “I should have known my kitten would never be so uncouth as to die without bidding me one last farewell.”

I am Envy.…… I cannot read and therefore wish all books were burned.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Faustus

The tip of the blade shimmered, so close, so close. Kit settled himself for the lunge, the perfect motion of body and sword and strength that would carry his blade into Poley’s left eye and carry with it a perfect, a holy revenge.

And then Will’s panicked squeak, and the voice… God. The silken, caressing voice of Richard Baines.

Bile and blood cloyed Kit’s tongue. He stepped back from Poley, unable to turn his blind side on Baines for the second it would take to make sure.

“Dick,” he said, and extended the rapier over Will’s shoulder. He let the tip sway on a gentle arc between Poley and Baines, a motion including both ofthem. Kit feigned deafness to the shiver in his own voice, swallowed a mouthful of saliva and put his back to the window as he croaked, “Will, comeback here, please.”

Will didn’t stand, just skittered backward in a crouch that looked like it hurt him. De Parma’s blood reddened the palms of his hands, the knees of his hose.

Across the line of Kit’s rapier, Baines smiled and came a half step closer, a half step beyond the reach of Kit’s lunge. “Thou hast aged not a day. And the eyepatch suits thee. Did it hurt very much?”

“No,” Kit answered. “No. It didn’t hurt. Much.”

Baines nodded. “Not compared to some things, aye? Sweet puss. There’s nowhere to run, thou knowest. Back to the wall, and I can wait here all night, and thou hast nowhere to go.”

There’s a knife in my boot, Will. Kit felt fingers fumble it as much as he felt anything but the ice snarling his limbs.

“Kit,” Will hissed, grasping the window ledge to stand a little behind him, where he could not foul Kit’s arm, “he’s unarmed. Kill him.”

And it was true. Baines stood just inside the doorway, limned by candlelight, those big hands hanging open at his sides. Kit could imagine he saw the outline of his own teeth, sunk in the heel of the left one. He shuddered, and brought his gaze back up to Baines eyes. Better the eyes than those gentle, terrible hands. “He never needed weapons before.”

“Kit, shut up.”

Poley had a dagger, no good for throwing or he would have thrown it. Kit barely spared him a glance. He caught the light winking off the blade in Will’s hand as Will skinned it.

“What are we doing?” Will spoke in an undertone that Kit matched with a murmur, aware of Baines watching his lips for a hint of what he said.

“Get ready, William, my love. If this doesn’t work, I’m sorry.”

“Put down the little knife, puss, and I’ll be gentle” Baines stepped forward.

Kit flinched, and Baines smiled.

“What are we doing, Kit?”

Kit never dropped his eyes. He felt with his left hand, slipped it around Will’s waist, shifted his weight in a way he hoped Will would understand. Will switched the dagger to his left hand and gripped Kit’s belt with his right. He moved with Kit, in unison, and Kit nodded. No hesitation.

“Running away,” Kit answered, and let his knees go as weak as they wanted to, dragging Will backward through the window and the glass.