Can there be such deceit in Christians,
Or treason in the fleshly heart of man,
Whose shape is figure of the highest God?
Then if there be a Christ, as Christians say,
But in their deeds deny him for their Christ,
If he be son to everliving Jove,
And hath the power of his outstretched arm,
If he be jealous of his name and honor
As is our holy prophet Mahomet,
Take here these papers as our sacrifice
And witness of thy servant’s perjury.
–Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great,Part II, Act II, scene ii
Kit sat in that darkness too deep for his witch’s sight to pierce, even had he the use of it, and ran his fingers over the rugged surface of the scold’s bridle Baines had left to keep him company. He’d thought at first he might force it to pieces and use the cast‑iron straps to dig, but the welds proved strong. He knew every inch of the thing’s surface by now, had bloodied his fingertips with worrying at it, with picking at the spikes on the mouthpiece and exploring the curve of the cheeks. It weighed as much as a small child in his arms, resting against his knees, and holding it close to his breast was the only thing that silenced the savage pain in his brands any more.
The wrenching in his belly, the agony that told him he must return to Faerie sooner rather than later, or die in pain he wouldn’t have to find unimaginable–
–there was no help at all for that.
Kit sighed, and curled his fingertips into the earth, pressing his matted hair back against the stone. A lump like a church door had risen and fallen on the side of his head, and Baines had not returned.
Another spasm dragged at his belly; he wondered if it was what a hooked fish felt, or a man who suffered with the stone. “Christ,“he prayed wetly. The agony pressing his brands out–until he would have sworn they bulged redoubled–arced, flared, and settled.
Kit caught his breath and took another slight sip of beer, before resuming his interrupted monologue. “Well, Edward? You know, Your Majesty, I have to imagine it can’t have hurt that much. I mean, at first, certainly. But not like slow impalement, or breaking on the wheel. Hell, probably not so much as–”
Oh, shall we not think about that?He wondered if Mehiel’s thrashings were like a breeding woman’s experience of carrying a baby under her heart. Pregnant by God. But ‘twas not God that knew me–mayhap when ‘tis born, ‘twill be an Antichrist.
Pity thou’rt not Catholic, Kit: couldst ask the Virgin Mary.
Pussycat, thou’rt raving.
Why, so I am. And knowest thou reason why I should not rave?
Aye.The small, still voice inside of him. The one he’d known with such certainty once. Thou’rt scaring the baby, puss.
Meaning Mehiel. Meaning the thrashing thing within him, terrified– terrified?
Angel?
Mehiel?
And somehow, as if in response to the suddenly gentle tone of his questions, the tearing sensation faded. And Kit clenched both hands on the straps of the scold’s bridle and cursed himself for a fool who would whip a failing horse until it fell over dead in the traces. Aye, and he’d torn from God’s mercy and rammed up the arse of a sodomite, tortured and raped, and what do you get him?
He couldn’t quite hold back the giggle as he laid his forehead against the straps of the bridle and clutched it tight against his breast. Why, fucked by Lucifer. Of course.
“Mehiel.” A tentative whisper. “Angel, dost hear me?”
«And angels of the Lord are thee?»
A voice for a moment he mistook for his own defiant tones, the spiked irony he saved for moments of abject vulnerability. This one is– oh. Mehiel?
A flicker, a suggestion of bright yellow wings barred in black. A voice that was not the voice of his conscience or the voice of his faith, but was very much his ownvoice after all. A sense of a head upraised, and hesitance. Kit thought if the angel stood before him, it would have cringed, and then forced itself upright. «Greetings, who was Christofer Marley.»
“Thou knowest I can’t stand to be called that,” Kit said, but he said it wryly. “Why speak to me now, angel of the Lord?”
A soft silence, with a small voice following. «Thou didst never listen before.»
Which wasn’t something he could answer, exactly. And no excuse he could make.
«And now,» Mehiel barely whispered, «thou must listen all the closer, or we will be lost eternally, and hope lost with us»
“Can I be more damned than I am now?”
«Always.» the angel answered, and Kit sighed and set the bridle aside.
“All right,” he said, before another blade of agony curled him to his side, gasping until the spasm had passed. There was no hope in his breast, but he grimaced in determination and cracked his bleeding fingers one by one. Despair was a sin, after all. “Never say die. What happens if we climb? There’s always a way out if you look hard enough. Canst fly?”
«My wings are bound in thee–» the angel began, but the rest of his comment was lost.
«Ah, Sir Poet,» A voice like brushed silk, and there would have been no mistaking this one for his own, or for that of Mehiel. «Is alwaysa way. Come to me, my love; I am the way.»
There was light, suddenly. Light cast from over his shoulder, and as he found himself standing he turned to it, turned into it. The scent of pipe tobacco surrounded him, a comforting memory of Sir Walter Raleigh’s chill parlor and many late nights.
“Mehiel?”
«Do as you must.» the angel whispered in his ear, and folded himself taut within a flurry of remembered golden feathers.
Kit took a deep breath, and walked into the light.
Act V, scene x
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night,
Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black‑brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
–William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,Act III, scene ii
The crippled raven found Will in his new room and seemed well pleased with the wider window, for all it must rattle the glass for attention. Will didn’t think this typical behavior in a raven, but perhaps the pampered birds at the Tower had been hand‑fed into audacity. He opened the casement, despite a cold, sharp wind that whittled past the edges of the palm‑sized panes: the bird hopped into the air as the frame swept the window ledge and then settled again in its own footsteps. It cocked its head at him, wise‑eyed and glossy, and fluffed its lacquered feathers. “Is a predilection for charity branded on my thumb?” Will asked mildly, and flicked the raven a bit of boiled egg, trying not to think how it resembled a plucked‑out eye. The ravens had their reasons for staying close by the Tower.