Ink and Steel

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.

“You have the look of a man who will be hard to buy, Master Shakespeare”

“Buy, and not break?”

“And yet you have an imagination. That is well. I invite you to contemplate that we will be together for eternity. Will you serve willing?”

“I came willing, Will answered.”

“No one comes willing” Lucifer said. “They come because they have no other choice. Or because they will accept no other choice presented them. Or rarely, as thy lover Marley learned, because they have come to understand that Hell is all around them, and that they have never been out of it once”

Will blinked. The sway of the white mare under him was growing comfortable. He forgot himself enough to turn in the saddle and look up at Lucifer’s face. The rebel angel smiled down slantwise.

“This is Hell? I had expected”

“Torment.”

“Aye”

Lucifer hesitated. Will realized that his black steed wore no reins.

“What torment, Master Shakespeare, could I heap upon thee worse than that which thou hast chosen for thyself?”

“Your … Highness?”

Really, Master Shakespeare. How dost thou think thou can serve us, poet, when thou canst not keep even thy troth to thy wife, or thy Ganymede, or thy mistress? All three at once thou hast betrayed.”

Stung, Will reined his mount further from the Devil’s side. She protested when he tried to bring her too far, and afraid of being thrown, he desisted.

“Kit lied.”

“Nay” Lucifer’s sky-blue regard spurned him. “He told thee whatever truth thou wouldst hear. How darest thou press thy lovers, thy wife to meet a standard thou canst not uphold?”

Will raised his right hand to his mouth, feeling the moment of realization like a dagger in the breast. This is what Annie felt,he realized. Felt and forgave. And as I cannot love less neither then can she.

“I have,” he said, the reins tumbling from his fingers. The white mare sidled next to Lucifer’s black stud, rubbing her shoulder against his, brushing Will’s knee against the Devil’s with a tingle Will would have preferred to deny. “I have made mine own Hell. I deserve it.”

“Every creature does.” the Devil answered, and they rode on in silence for one hour or a thousand, until they passed the low-arched gates of Hell.