Aye,” Kit said, lowering the viola a moment, and holding the red light no other’s eyes would see steady about himself. “Witchery. And I command you in the names of my dread master Lucifer and of the Queen of the Daoine Sidhe to answer my questions, and answer them true.”
Like a saw on bone. Terrible, those voices. Thy master. Witch. Thy queen.
Not ours.
Not ours.
Not ouurzzz.
The black hands grasped as the first golden fingers of dawn filtered through branches. Kit stood fast, telling himself his shiver was cold and the morning mists, nothing else. The black hands touched his cloak and pressed it against his body, but could not push past. “Be that as it may. I am here, and I command you.”
A rattle of branch on branch, a stag knocking velvet from new tines. No. Witch. Witch. Not ours.
A white pain flared over his breastbone, and he flinched. Hell.No, not Hell; what burned was the mark over his heart, the final brand left on his skin when Richard Baines and his Prometheans had raped and tortured him in Rheims, when he had been a mortal man and innocent. Then, like a lightning caress down Kit’s belly and thighs, wherever the irons had touched, the same pain, brighter, so sharp it was almost sweet. He tasted blood but did not scream.
Kit spoke through grinding teeth, forcing his spine straight. I’ve felt worse.“Who ordered the death of Hamnet Shakespeare?”
Not ours.
Witchery.
He touched the red ribbon on the red viola with the tip of his bow. “Who ordered the death of Hamnet Shakespeare?”
No answer this time, just the clawing and sawing of the branches, the leaning threat of the sapling trees bent over him, their limbs poised like daggers. Smoky fingers coiled and drifted, wavering thick as banners now, redolent of hate. Somewhere, not too distant, a dead branch crashed to earth. A sort of croaking moan followed, the splintering resonance of splitting wood. Kit turned, following the path of the smoke of power against the wind, and yelped. He dove aside, a deadfall landing close enough to heave snow and splinters on him. He kept his grip on the viola, clutched it close when he rolled, guarded it with his body when he rose with a swordsman’s grace.
“Dammit,” he swore, and took a deep breath. Snowmelt trickled from his hair, down his neck. “Third time I command you then –as I am a man and the master and shepherd of trees since the wild God of the World gave Adam their naming – answer me not, and I shall return with fire.”
Silence, shivering silence. Kit spoke into it, each word measured and plain. “Who ordered the death of Hamnet Shakespeare?”
A breath held. A silence like the silence of any mortal wood in the golden sunrise, in the January snow. The smell of rotten wood, of loam under snow. No whispers. No mutters. No ghosts.
But a name.
Robin Goodfellow,the wood said.
Puck.
Act IV, scene v
Salisbury: God’s arm strike with us! ‘tis a fearful odds.
God be wi’ you, princes all; I’ll to my charge:
If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,…
–William Shakespeare, Henry V,Act IV, scene iii
Will glanced around the candlelit confines of a smoky little room in the chapel of Westminster Palace–almost more of a hallway with a narrow table and six tall chairs in the center–and sat himself down with a sigh. At the head of the table, near the flickering candelabra. He plucked a beeswax taper from one arm of the fixture and toyed with it while he waited, letting the wax drip along its sides in layered arabesques, making the shadows dance.
No matter how he tilted the taper between his fingers, the flame rose upright through the biting chill, shivering slightly in response to his palsy. He shook free beads of liquid wax and rising bubbles of smoke, amused by their transformation from transparency to a milky crystallized splash when they struck the cold wood of the table.
Beyond the windowless walls, a clock struck seven. And Sir Robert did not come. Am I forgotten? Or is this meant to teach me humility?He tilted the taper further, and this time the wax that fell dripped down the wick and flamed as it scattered through the air. A good effect,Will thought. ‘Tis pity there’s not a safe way to adapt it for the stage. ‘Twould be too fine a detail to read well, anyway.
The door opened, admitting the spare black‑robed shape of Robert Cecil; Will twisted the candle upright and stood, hot wax splattering his fingers as his trembling knocked it loose. He bowed, careful not to set himself on fire, and tucked the candle back into the candelabra. “Mr. Secretary.”
“Master Shakespeare, ” Sir Robert said, and shut the door firmly. “Sir Thomas passed along your note regarding the disposition of your … investigation … of Masters Baines and Poley. I would have preferred a personal report.”
“I am afraid that was impossible,” Will said, coming forward. “If I had been in London, I believe I would be dead.”
Cecil limped to the end of the table. “We’ve had the house under observation.” He pulled a chair out but did not sit. “The Inquisitor’s body has not turned up.”
“Then it’s still in the house, ” Will said, as if the situation could not be more plain. He picked wax from the crease of his thumb with his left hand, steadying his right when it would have trembled. It didn’t help, and he dug in his purse for a shilling, hoping the gesture looked absent. “He’s most certainly dead, Mr. Secretary.”
“I did notreceive a satisfactory explanation from Sir Thomas of how you yourself managed to escape, although I’ll not complain of any man who brings me the demise of a Papist pawn.
Will looked down, watching the silver coin cartwheel across his knuckles in the candlelight. “You’ve not had Baines arrested yet?”
Threadlike lips writhed as Sir Robert tried and failed to repress a smile. “We are arranging a suitable frame for your painting of Baines as counterfeiter. And an excuse to search the house. If he’s buried a body in his cellar, so much the better; at the very least, we can force Essex to act to protect him, and perhaps the Earl will show a soft underbelly.” Cecil sighed. “You know he supports James as the heir.”
“I know the Queen thinks it treason to speak of it, Sir Robert,” Will said.
Cecil coughed into his hand. “And yet speak of it we must.”
“Nay, Mr. Secretary.” Will shook his head. “Baines, Oxford, and Essex, and their Prometheans, are my concern, and the safety of the Queen we have. When that changes, I’ll address it, but I leave finer matters of politics to those who are equipped to understand the implications.”
Cecil watched Will silently, running his hands over the back of the chair, his brow furrowed as if he added sums in his head. “Marlowe would have argued the succession for an hour.”
“Marlowe cared about such things,” Will answered, feeling disloyal. Well. He does.
“And what do you care for, Master Shakespeare?”