Ink and Steel

Act III, scene xxii

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,

But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 152

Will was never sure how they came to return to the Mebd’s palace. One moment climbing tiredly, Kit’s hand awkward and quickly withdrawn on the small of his back; the next the dry crunch of beech twigs under his feet, the scuff of grass. Will staggered as they came out of the trees. He turned to speak to Kit; Kit had fallen behind. Will stopped and retraced his steps.

Will found Kit leaning against a beech trunk, bent over as if he’d been punched. Head bowed, Kit stared at the backs of his hands, which were spaced widely on his half-flexed knees. He looked up as Will approached, the sunlight falling across his unblemished face. Wordlessly, Will studied Kit, realizing that he had almost forgotten what Kit had looked like before he was scarred.

Will held out a hand; Kit nodded it away, sliding his back up the smooth bole of the tree. A red bird such as Will had never seen sang in the branches overhead, a high chirruping whistle. Delicate bell-shaped flowers that almost seemed cast in wax poked through the leaf mold around Kit’s unshod feet.

“Thou’rt not well,” Will said.

“Overcome for a moment, is all.” Kit’s right eye caught the green sunlight through the trees and blazed for a moment, yellow as citrine before it faded to match the other.

“Kit.” Will took Kit by the forearms and held him tight. Kit would not meet his eyes. Will couldn’t find the words for the question he needed to ask and so he asked instead, “What hath become of thy shoes?”

“I sold them to a ferryman” Kit tugged ineffectually. “And my cloak to an ifrit, and my sword to a demon. I think they were all Lucifer.”

Will released Kit’s right hand; Kit braced it against Will’s chest and pushed, but Will held him fast and caught his chin. They stood just within the embrace of the woods; the trees were half bare. Within the castle, observers could see them wrangle so. Kit, what have I done to earn thine anger? Kit laughed, but there was no humor in it. Will held him fast when he leaned back, still tugging his wrist away like a restless horse fretting at its tie: absently, almost without intent. My touch hurts him,Will realized, and the thought might as well have been a dagger letting his bowels out a slit in his belly. He held fast nonetheless.

“Thou hast done nothing.” Sweat beading on Kit’s face. “And I everything to earn thine. I don’t deserve thy forgiveness.”

“I forgive thee anyway.”

“I went to Morgan because…”

“Because thou didst wish me hurt for leaving thee, and thyself hurt for not being what I wanted most.” Will delivered the words coldly, a judgment pronounced. “And she took thee because it would influence me, and me because it should influence thee. Christofer. Christofer, look at me Christofer, long I’ve had to consider this, and if thou needst forgiveness I forgive thee, although if anything tis I should beg thy dispensation. I cry thee mercy, my love.”

He expected Kit to quit his fighting; indeed, he looked Will square in the eye now, but his wrist still twitched in Will’s grip. “I knew what would have driven me to it,” Will said, softly, and made as if to kiss. Kit stiffened in his hands, flexed like an eel, and shoved himself backward, out of Will’s embrace. Kit fell gracelessly, sprawled in leaf litter, a rustling and crunching of twigs, a startled shout.

“Will,” Kit said, clambering to his feet. “Will, tis not thee.”

“What happened down there?”

Kit checked. He lowered his hands and scrubbed them on his thighs. “I asked thee practice reticence.”

“Aye,” Will said. “And I did not vow it. Kit, thy feet are bleeding.” Spots of red showed on raveled silk stockings. Will knelt down among the twigs. “Thou hast walked thyself bloody. Come, let me help thee to the palace.”

Kit shied a step back, and Will desisted. “Tis not far, he said. Methinks I can stagger a quarter mile downhill.”

“On your head be it.” They went on. Kit climbed the spiral stair like a clockwork, hauling himself up each step by clutching the rail, never looking at the Fae that flocked around, chattering questions. There were those that might have stopped them, and those that might have helped them, too. Will waved them all aside, servants and nobles, blocking them with his body when his voice wouldn’t suffice. They crowded, touching, prodding; Kit jerked away, keeping his eyes downcast, and Will interposed himself. Fingers tugged his doublet and hands outreached to touch his face.

“You came back. He brought you back. How did you come back?”

Hope, Will realized, and wonder. He found himself stronger than he expected, and the Fae fell back from his glance and his hand upraised after he shouldered a few aside quite physically. He chivvied Kit to the top of the stairs and toward their door, closing his eyes in a moment’s relief at Robin Goodfellow barring the doorway, hands on his minuscule hips and his fool’s bauble dangling from his fingers. The Puck scattered the Fae with a gesture. When they were inside, he barred the door and jammed a chair under the handle, exchanging a look with Will. Kit turned and sat heavily on the bed. “How long have we been gone?”

“It’s All Saints Day,” Puck said, and gestured out the window to the robust evening light. “Your horse came home with an empty saddle.”

“I sent him,” Kit said, and lay back on the coverlet. Will got up to check the fire and light a candle against the dimness that soon would fill the room. “Don’t trouble yourself”, Kit said. Every wick in the room stirred to flame. “In a moment,” he said, “I am going to get extremely drunk. You are both more than welcome to join me.”

The Puck’s voice was clipped. “Sir Christofer.” He perched on the edge of the chair he’d wedged the door with, hooked his heels on the top rail, and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Was that what it took to buy William free?”

Will stood stupefied with exhaustion between them, wondering what Robin knew that he did not. Kit laid the back of his wrist across his eyes. “No. Worry, now,” and Puck’s ears dipping and bobbing like buoys on a net. “Sir Christofer.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Call you what?” Puck sucked his mobile lip. Will watched, blinking, shifting his gaze from poet to Faerie and back, struggling through the fatigue to understand.

“Sir Christofer. It signifies nothing,” Kit replied. “It grates mine ears to hear such empty sound.”

“As you wish it,” Puck said, and leaned back. “The court has been in uproar.”

“I noticed.”

Will felt pleasure at his self-possessed tone, but from the looks Kit and Robin shot him, it read not so much level as emotionless. Forcing his tingling feet to move, he crossed to the washstand and lifted the ewer and bowl in hands that shook enough to scatter droplets on the carpet. All his gardening had given him strength, at least; despite the palsy, he balanced the weight easily.

“Come, Kit.” He brought the water and knelt beside the bed. “Peel off thy stockings; let me work my will on thee.”

Kit would not meet Will’s smile. Instead, he sat stiffly as an old man, tucking his feet aside as Will reached for them. “I can pick the gravel from mine own wounds, Will.”

Will grunted and heaved himself to his feet, sharing a sidelong glance with Robin as Kit peeled his shredded stockings from the lacerations on his feet. Puck watched with unsettling intensity.

“When commenced you to study witchcraft, Sir or rather, Kit?”

Kit tossed the garters on the bed. The stockings were rags. He hunched between his knees, using those rags to scrub the blood from his feet. The water in the basin grew pink, and so did the knot of knitted silk. “Since last night, Master Goodfellow.”

“You’ve mastered a great deal.”

“I had instruction.”

Will’s imagination, or did Kit’s voice break on that word? Puck stood abruptly, sweeping the chair aside with a clatter.

“I’ve just recalled, Master Marley. I’ve a package in my room tis thine: twas delivered this afternoon. Master Shakespeare?”

Will breathed again, in relief. “Can I be of service, Robin?” Ask of me an errand, good Puck. Anything. Get me out of this room before I strike the man.

“It is too heavy for me to carry.”

“Will?” Kit looked up, voice suddenly plaintive. “Robin, what sort of a package? Wilt be gone long?”

“Cloth, methinks.” The Puck shrugged. “I opened it not.”

“I’ll return in a moment,” Will said, and tugged open the door. “Robin’s rooms are not far. Good Master Goodfellow, wilt ask for us that food be sent, and Morgan and the Queen apprised of our return?” Will felt as much as heard Kit cease breathing.

“The Mebd knows,” Robin said. “Twas she that sent me. And Morgan.”

“Morgan?” Kit, not Will, although he did not rise.

“Morgan is not currently welcomed at court,” Puck said, and stepped through the door. He turned back over his shoulder. “Her Majesty was not pleased with the machinations that led to your brief absences from our company.”

Brief, Will thought, as Kit made no protest and Puck closed the door. He laughed. “A hundred years if it were a day,” he said, and Puck nodded.

“Tis as I expected. Was it very bad?”

Puck set a good pace. Will fell in beside him. “Bad enough. Robin.”

“Aye?”

“What’s wrong with Kit?”

Silence, and one Will didn’t like at all. They were nearly to Robin’s door when the gnarled little man spoke again. “Do you know how witches get their powers, Will?”

Will chewed his nail and considered while Puck opened the door and slipped inside. A moment later, and Puck returned, lugging a linen-wrapped burden that completely filled his arms. Will took it and tucked it under his elbow, where it compressed softly. “Kit’s thanks, I’m sure.” He had to force his smile.

“Twas nothing.”

There was a click as Robin shut the door. Will stood in the corridor for long moments, considering. Another price I am not worthy of,he thought, and shifted the bundle in his grip.

But how unseemly is it for my Sex,

My discipline of arms and chivalry,

My nature and the terror of my name,

To harbor thoughts effeminate and faint!

Save only that in beauty’s just applause,

With whose instinct the soul of man is touch’d,

And every warrior that is rapt with love

Of fame, of valor, and of victory,

Must needs have beauty beat on his conceits.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Tamburlaine the Great

Kit limped to the window on linen-wrapped feet and shouldered the casement open, careful of the bowl of bloody water in his hands. He poured it down onto the garden at the base of the wall and set the bowl aside. Leaning over the window ledge, watching the stars shiver out in the crystalline blue-gray of the heavens, he swore. If you cannot bear it, there’s always the knife. Suicide, and back into Satan’s hands.

He wished he didn’t know the shiver that crept up his neck was desire, and not terror. Back into his hands whenever he wants you. And you cannot pretend you did it for Will.

No. The first thing he had done for Will. His name. His identity. His legacy. Little enough for his love’s freedom and a chance at redemption. The second thing he had done was for power. Like Faustus. And, like Faustus, he would make good his revenge ere the devil claimed him. See if I don’t.

They called it soldier’s heart. This weariness, this unsounded sorrow. Kit had felt it before, when he’d seen men who had called him friend hanged for treason. He’d felt it after Rheims: a mad, manic hollowness no prayer or drink or lover could fulfil.

The door opened behind him. He turned, sighed in half relief and half panic when he saw who stood framed in the opening.

“Will. Distract me from my study; I am all black thoughts and foul humors tonight.”

Will shut the door and shot the bolt. He held something white as angel wings wrapped in his arms; it gleamed while he leaned against the door, hugging it as a child hugs a doll.

“Will, what hast thee?” Kit tugged the window shut and limped toward Will, stopping a few feet away. Will shrugged and dropped it on the chair that had settled kitty-corner, where Puck had left it. He stepped away, but not before Kit saw the shininess in the corners of his eyes. Will walked toward the sideboard where Kit kept wine and overturned cups. Kit came to the chair, picked at the wax and twine sealing the bundle; it fell open at his touch.

Oh. A waterfall of rainbow colors spilled across Kit’s hands, silks and satins and velvet and taffeta and lace. His cloak, in all its dozens of patches. And something more; someone’s hands had sewn a collar on it, an upright blunt-cornered affair of soft black velvet that was the second-richest thing that Kit had ever touched. The stitches were as neat and tight as Kit’s own hand, I imagine Will sews a tight stitch too, growing up in a glover’s house,and he knew before he pressed it to his face that it would smell of smoke and strong liquor. He bundled it in his arms, walked across the carpet, and leaned against the bed. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, feeling the tears prick under his eyelids and hating himself for weakness as he did.

“He sent my cloak back.”

Will came back to him, carrying a cup. Kit slung the cloak across the coverlet, as if he meant to sleep beneath it. Accepted the wine. “I have a gift for thee as well,” he said. “I meant to give it upon thy leaving.”

“Kit, what could you…”

“Hush,” he said, and turned to root in the box on the bedside stand. The ring was gold, cool and heavy in his hand, the flat face marked with Will’s initials, which were both surmounted and linked by true-love’s knots a pair of them. “You’ll need a signet, if you’re to be a gentleman.”

Will took it from his hand and stared down at it, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

“We should sleep early. As early as we can.”

Tomorrow Will dragged a stool over, crouched on it, and began to work on his boots. “I have to go home to Annie, Kit.”

“Aye.” Kit tossed back the wine, set his cup aside, and methodically began stripping his buttons from their holes. “I’ve decided not to get drunk after all.”

“Wilt stay by me tonight? Wilt flinch when I touch you?

Kit couldn’t look at Will, but he could imagine the expression on his face.

“And what will I do for peace now, now that this is lost to me too?”

It seemed an ungrateful question, given what he had traded that chance of peace for. Power. The ability to protect Will. And his children. The strength to do something about Richard Baines.

He tossed his doublet aside and stripped his shirt off over his head. And heard Will’s sucked-in breath and remembered his own dramatic gesture with the candles and the brilliance of the lighting a moment too late. Kit, you’ve a bruise… . Kit reached up and over, felt down the sprung plane of his shoulder blade. His left arm with its old injury wouldn’t flex so far; he reached with the right. Blood-gorged flesh heated his fingertips. He could feel, almost, the outline of each perfect tooth, the roughness of a seeking tongue. Right where someone might bite a lover taken from behind Right where a wing would take root, if he had wings. His burn scars pained him suddenly, a low, sweet ache like the ache inside him. A longing that almost made him reach for the wine bottle again.

“It’s a witch’s mark,” Kit said without turning, and pulled on his nightshirt with a grimace. “Lucifer’s unclean brand. Come, Will. Get ready for bed.”

“Kit.”

“Will, no.”

“Kit. What was it that thou didst in Hell?” Kit read the play of emotions across Will’s face: fear, grief, concern.

I don’t want him to know. I want anything but for him to know. And if I pretend I do not understand what he’s asking, I’ve lost not only a lover, but the trust of a friend.

Kit swallowed. He doused the candles with a snap of his fingers, feeling the power move to his whim as if he tugged a dozen tiny threads. The room fell into near darkness; starlit from the window, a glow like the blue light of Hell except where it cast shadows. He reached up over his head and knotted his fingers in his hair, pulling; the pain felt good. Clean. Will’s words, again: for them both, it always came back to the blasted words. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil by telling truth: tell truth and shame the devil

He smiled at Will, a smile no more thick than gilt on a page, and said, “I whored myself out to the Devil.” And was surprised when it felt good to say it, another good pain like ripping a scab back from the wound. “I let, God. Don’t touch me. Please. I can’t.”

Will drew back the hand he had been about to lay on Kit’s shoulder. “For me,” he said softly, and jerked back in surprise when Kit shook his head.

“Nothing so noble,” Kit answered. “I had thee back already by then.” He turned and looked Will in the eyes. “I love him still, for all I can’t so much as lay my damned hand on his arm. Aye. Damned indeed.”

“Then what?”

Kit shrugged. “Baines. Poley.”

“You could just out wait them. Outlive them.”

Placating. A pleading voice, and he hated to see Will beg.

“Elizabeth is over, Will. Walsingham and Burghley are gone. Whatever happens next is ours. Ours, or De Vere’s and Essex’s. Would you see that come to pass?” Kit smiled.

Will drew back from something: the fervor in his eyes, the glitter of his teeth.

“And now I can melt their Godsrotted eyes in their heads, if I’m lucky. Besides, it’s too late now to give the gift back. I took the shilling, so to speak. Up the arse. Christ, Will.”

“No,” Will said, quietly. His blue eyes were black in the darkened room. “Do you know what Lucifer told me?”

Kit shook his head; whatever he felt was too complex to speak through. “Nor do I want to know.”

“He told me who killed Hamnet. And showed me how to use my poetry to get vengeance on them.”

“Oh.”

“As long as I gave him mine allegiance.”

“Will, I…”

“I didn’t write a word,” Will said. “Fifty years and more I spent in his damned birdcage. Alone. Without books, without conversation. I didn’t write a word for all that time. And then something changed.”

Kit nodded. Will wouldn’t look away, for all Kit must have been barely a shadow in the starlight. Kit could see Will perfectly well, out of his righ teye at least. Could see in the dark like a demon. “What happened, then?”

Will smiled, and clapped Kit on the shoulder too quickly for Kit to flinch away, stinging his flesh beneath the thin lawn of his shirt. “My faith was rewarded, he said softly. My savior came. Come to bed, Kit; you don’t have to armor yourself in nightshirts and dressing gowns like a maiden.” Will turned away, moving through the darkness to their bed, peeling the covers back, leaving a trail of clothes like breadcrumbs behind him on the floor. “Don’t give up hope. I know for a fact that someday your savior will come as well.”

“How do you know it?” Kit ran a comb through his hair in the darkness, scattering crushed beech leaves on the floor. He peeled the nightshirt off again and slid into bed beside Will, tugging the cloak up close to his chin and inhaling the complex scent saturating the petal-soft velvet collar.

“Because,” Will said quietly, stretching against the far edge of the bed.

“That’s how all the best stories end.”

Not Romeo and Juliet,Kit thought. But he couldn’t bring himself to break the warm darkness to say so.