Ink and Steel

Act III, scene xiii

Rosalind:

Oh how full of briers is this working-day world.

Celia:

They are but burrs, Cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery, if we walk not in the trodden paths our very petticoats will catch them.

Rosalind:

I could shake them off my coat, these burrs are in my heart.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You like It

Will’s days seemed longer than the span of their hours, a languorous blur of lovemaking, companionship, and poetry that expanded to include time for every eventuality and sunsets too. The nights he spent with Kit or Morgan by turns, the days in rehearsal for Chiron planned for the Hallowmas entertainment or with his lovers. He hadn’t felt anything like it since the first flush of his affair with Annie. It cannot last. No, only through the autumn, and when winter came to England Will must be homeward bound. Still the days were endless, the weeks longer than months, the perfection of his happiness such that he almost did not move himself to ask how time passed in the mortal world. “Worry not,” Kit assured him as they sat on rocks over the ocean, watching sunset stain the white manes of the waves, listening to their whickering. “Hallowmas will be Hallowmas, here as there, and then…”

“We’ll have the bloody slaughter of the noblest of centaurs under our belts, and I will bid thee adieu.” Will pulled a stalk of salt grass and slipped the tender inwards from its overcoat to chew. He gave the dry brown husk to the air; the sea wind blew it back over his shoulder. “Kit, what will we do?” Kit tugged his slowly growing cloak around his shoulders and bumped Will’s shoulder with his own. “Ford it when we come to it,” he said. We should.”

“Aye. We should. It will only grow harder.” The wind stirred Will’s hair. The locks had outstripped the length they should have in the time he’d been in Faerie. “I can picture myself pining by my window for my Faerie lover, growing gray and sere. A legend will grow up.”

“Will!” Kit grabbed his wrist, and jerked it. Will turned, startled; Kit’s expression was wild. “Don’t joke about such things. Never joke about such things; you’re on the edge of legend here, and names have power, and things listen.” His plain fear brought an answering tingle to Will’s spine, to his fingertips.

“Morgan wants me to stay.” The chewed stem grew bitter. Will tossed it away.

“I want thee to stay,” Kit said, still staring. “And Morgan wishes me to plead with thee as well. But I will not permit it.” Kit’s pulse flickered in the hollow of his throat.

Will wrenched his eyes away. “Art my sovereign, Marley?” Soft as the ocean’s breath playing over them both.

“Aye.” The fingers on Will’s wrist tightened. “Aye, in this thing, I am. What would thy girls do, without thee?”

“What they do now, I expect. I’ve hardly been an exemplary father and husband.” Will kissed Kit’s brow, by way of example.

Kit released him to pluck a smooth, moon-white stone from a crevice in their sand-worn perch. He tossed it thrice before it slipped between his fingers, rattling on the rocks below. “Blast. Thou hast the chance to be better at both, at least.” His gaze lifted to the darkening horizon.

Abruptly, Will understood. “Kit, forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I’d live to bury any wife or child I’d left behind; aye, and their grandchildren, too. If I’m fortunate enough that no one puts a knife in the other eye.” The wind freshened. The day’s warmth soaked the stone they sat upon; Will pressed his back against it. “After Chiron,” he said, dropping his arm around Kit’s shoulders, “I suppose I shall go home.”

“I suppose that’s best,” Kit said, and leaned closer as the light drained the sky, replaced by the slow unveiling of the stars. “Hast heard there’s an astrologer in Denmark claims the stars are not settled in crystal vaults? That they float unsupported, and other stars comets and stella novae move through them?”

“I imagine the Pope hates him.”

“Not as much as he hates Copernicus, I imagine.

O, thou art fairer than the evening air

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars

Kit laughed. “I should write you a poem. Something better than that.”

“Better than Faustus?”

“Christ wept, I hope I’ve improved.” Will earthed himself under the warm edge of Kit’s cloak, kissed him where his throat blended into his jaw, the sticky musk of the ocean rich on moist, salty skin.

“Thou’rt all the poetry I need.”

“Sweet liar.”

“Sweeter when you know it cannot last.” Will’s voice shivered with his whisper.

Kit’s answer was slow. “Christ. Damn me to Hell. Yes, Will. Tis sweet.” The old moon rose in the new moon’s arms. The rocks grew cool around them. Kit’s cloak concealed a multitude of sins. And over the water, something listened and understood.