“What art thou seeking?”
“The way the moon moves,” Kit said, taking the book from Tom’s hands when Walsingham returned with it. He angled the pages to catch what light he could, but read with ease words that Will would have found incomprehensible in the unnatural twilight. He watched as Kit riffled pages, seeming to know what he was searching for even if he did not know quite where to find it.
“Sidereal,” Kit murmured, and some other words that meant nothing to Will. Tom watched with interest, hands on his hips, head cocked to one side and the wind ruffling his silver‑streaked auburn hair. The strands too made pinholes as they rose and fell; as the eclipse ground toward totality, Will watched the tiny crescents scattering Tom’s face first fade to nothingness and then reemerge as twisting rings of light.
Will risked a glance upward and caught his breath at the image of the sun occluded, a jet‑black round crowned in twisting fire that reminded Will of Lucifer’s writhing, shadowy tiara in reverse. “Sweet Christ,” he swore, but it was more of a prayer, really.
“Ah,” Kit said, and clapped the book shut like a pair of hands. “No,” he said. “Not good at all.”
“It’s an omen, then?”
“Yes, and as ill as you’d like to make it. ‘Tis, again, a marker of the end of things, and an overthrow of balance and harmony. If Elizabeth and her famous temporizing were a force to keep England in symmetry, and in accord with God and nature–”
“Aye?” Will’s feet would not quite hold him steady.
Kit shrugged, and handed the book back to Tom. “You are witnessing the end of her power, gentlemen. And the death of whatever peace our sufferings, and those of the poets and intelligencers who came before us, and the Queen’s cool brilliance at the chess of politics, bought for Mother England.” Kit swallowed and looked down. “The sun will be in Sagittarius at the end of this month and the beginning of the next.”
“And?” Tom and Will, as one voice.
“And,” he said. “The best date for a sacrifice would be November fifth, I think. Fifteen Sagittarius.”
“That’s when Parliament is to meet,” Will said, as the sun began to emerge from its enshadowment. “They were–”
“That late in the year? That’s–”
It was Tom who finished, both hands raised and bound tight in his hair. “They were prorogued,” he said. “The session bound over. On account of plague.”
“Plague,” Kit said, looking at Will for confirmation.
“Aye,” Will said, abruptly sick with exhaustion. “I heard the King discuss it with Robert Cecil, not two months since.”
It was a week later, only, that a sturdy tapping at his door drew Will’s attention and he rose. “Who’s there?”
“Echo the Nymph,” Ben answered deadpan. Will lifted the latch and stood aside to let the big man into the room.
“Thou lookst more like a Narcissus to me,” Will said. “What brings thee to my humble doorway, Ben?”
“Thou’rt invited to a gathering,” Ben answered, shaking rain from his cloak. “A party of sorts.”
“Tonight?” Will gestured to the leaves of paper spread over his table, where they would catch the watery light from the window. “I’ve too much work.”
“Thou’rt only the most‑sought playmaker in London,” Ben answered, careful not to drip on the papers as he bent to inspect them, his massive hands laced behind his back. “Surely thou canst pass a night with friends.”
“I owe Richard a fair copy by Monday.”
“Five days,” Ben said. “Thou dost work too much, Will. And how canst thou refuse an invitation from Robert Catesby, to dine with him and his recusant friends on a cold Wednesday night?”
Will set the latch with a click. “I beg thy pardon?”
Ben turned, his homely face unimproved by his grin. “Call it luck or call it happenstance. I’ve been working on Catesby and Tresham six months now, Will. And been overheard to mention once or twice that thou–and thy brother Edmund – had once or twice missed out loud the more permissive “ways of Warwickshire, with regard to the old religion. If thou takest my meaning. And they did.”
Will pinched his lower lip between his teeth and ran his tongue across it, forcing himself to stop when he remembered it would chap. “Catesby is one of Baines’. He’d never believe I’d welcome any Promethean plot. Not after twelve years fighting them, and all the advances I’ve spurned.”
“Not to hear him talk about it.” Ben shrugged. “Not Promethean, anyway. Catesby’s aims are strictly political, and he’d love the great William Shakespeare to come in under his banner of revolution. I suspect if he knew the sort of black sorcery his friends get up to he “would be even more appalled by them than he is – for all he’s willing to compromise and let politics make what bedfellows they will, he’s a good Catholic, and wouldn’t be damned for sorcery. I think they mean to use him as they used Essex before him, as a sort of stalking horse. Come, get thy cloak.”
“Thinkst thou to educate him, then?”
“I’ll tell thee more on the way to the tavern,” Ben said, and handed Will his shoes. “No, I don’t think so at all. Not that he’s uneducable. If anything, he’s a good man, strong in his faith, willing to die for it. A fighter for freedom, and his two chief lieutenants are also quick and true.”
“And they’re plotting against the Kang.” Will latched the door behind them when they went. “What way are we going, Ben?”
“To the Irish Boy. Age before beauty, gentle Will. Lead on.”
“Then we shall have to wait for a handsome passerby, or we shall never get anywhere,” Will noted, but he did not tarry. The afternoon was cold, the rain something more than a drizzle. “Ben, it pains me to ask this of thee–”
“Aye, Will?” The banter fell from Ben’s tone like the stagecraft it was; Will could feel the weight of his expectancy.
“It wasn’t thee told Salisbury about our Bible‑crafting, was it? When thou wert so unhappy with me?”
“Nay, I’d never do such a thing. Slather thy name in mockery and eat it with relish, aye–”
“It was mustard, not mockery,” Will said. “And the coat of arms was my father’s conceit, in any case.”
Ben laughed. “But something that could bring thee real harm? Never, my friend.”
“That’s bad,” Will answered. “Because if it was not thee, then Chapman has spoken more than he should, and where the wrong ears could hear it.”
Ben grunted, tugging his hood up higher. “I would not be startled to discover it. In any case, I think thou shouldst consider what the Catholics offer,” he said with a wink. “Thy family will thank thee for supporting the old faith. And with such men as Catesby and Tresham, and Guido Fawkes–who thou wilt meet tonight. He was a soldier in the Low Countries when I was, that last.”
“Fighting for the Queen?” Will asked, and Ben shook his head.
“Fighting for the Spaniards. A man of strong convictions. They call him the soldier‑monk, of all things.”
There was a throb of admiration in Ben’s voice; Will sighed to hear it. Nothing worse for an intelligencer than to come to admire the men he will betray.
Aye, and nothing more vital for his credibility with those men.“I’ll make thee proud enough, for a soldier‑bricklayer,” Will said, and Ben laughed at the subtleties behind that statement as they passed under the sign of the Irish Boy.
The tavern’s common was bigger than the Mermaid’s, but not over crowded. Will counted eleven men drinking by the fire, a hum of cheerful conversation flagging only a little when he and Ben entered. Catesby stood, his golden‑blond locks glowing like the sun, and came across the rush‑strewn planks to greet them. Another man rose as well, a walrus‑mustachioed redhead Will had seen somewhere before, not quite so handsome as Catesby but broad‑shouldered and nearly as big as Ben, though not so portly.