Kit obeyed her, listening to the rustle of her scales over stone and carpet as she searched the shelves. “And so you will teach me more magic, Lady Amaranth? To what end?”
The room smelled of serpent’s musk and dried autumn leaves. Kit breathed deeply. Her voice drifted back, muffled as if the paper and leather absorbed its tones. “Fondness for thee and thy mortal poet are not answer enough?”
“And I should trust a Fae’s fondness?” He lay back on the weighty table and looked up at the gilt plaster relief netting the ceiling, letting his feet dangle over the edge.
“I’m not a Faerie,” Amaranth reminded him, over the sound of sliding books and rustling pages. “And just as happy not to be. William told me before he left that he thought the Fae might be responsible for the murder of his son.”
“More than thought. Had on good authority–”
“Aye.” The lamia sneezed, a sharp and diminishing hiss. “Did he tell you the culprits, then?”
Kit shook his head. “He did not say he knew them. I had assumed whomever it is who supports Baines and Essex’s faction of Prometheus, if they are still allies.”
“You know,” she said, emerging from behind a monumental book‑case with a black, leathery tome resting on the flat palms of her hands, “the spell I shall teach you can also be used to talk to trees. If the trees are forthcoming.”
“And if they’re not?”
“Many a wood hates man for wrongs wronged in centuries past.” Noncommittally. “Men generally win, when they go forearmed to deal with trees. Will you talk to Geoffrey, then?”
Why should I care to talk to trees?“I had meant to ask you if you knew where he was to be found,” Kit said, sitting up. “Why this sudden interest in politics, Lady?”
“Oh,” she answered, tipping the dust‑stippled Bible into his hands with an amused hiss. Her hair darted forward, every black eye bright with curiosity. “I care not for politics.”
“Then what is your interest?”
She shrugged. “Snakes are always interested in mysteries,” she said. “And Mehiel is well‑enough known. You can no doubt find him easily when you do return to London to speak with your friends. Now –about that spell – ”
Forty‑five minutes later, Kit was halfway up the stairs, holding the fragile old Greek Bible reverently in both hands, when he realized that wherever Amaranth had gotten the name Mehiel,it wasn’t from Kit’s lips at all.
Act IV, scene iii
If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for
thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
thou shalt not escape calumny.
–William Shakespeare, Hamlet,Act III, scene i
In January of 1599, Edmund Spenser was buried under the towering pale vaults of Westminster Abbey alongside England’s greatest poets – save Marley,Will thought uncharitably, blowing on his reddened fingers. As if stung by the whispers of his criminal neglect of Spenser in the hour of his need, the Earl of Essex paid for an elaborate funeral, which the Queen herself attended. And eight of the poet’s most renowned fellows carried the body down the memorial‑cluttered aisle and laid it into a cold hole in the stones beside the grave of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Elizabeth slumped heavily in a cushioned chair as if she could not stand through the burial, and her courtiers clustered about her. She turned as the prayers ended and the mourners moved forward, a still‑regal gesture, and caught the eye of Shakespeare upon her. And Will, standing a little apart from Chapman, Jonson, Fletcher, and the rest of the small band of poets and playmakers hurling flowers and pens into Spenser’s open grave– and how our number is lessened from what it was ten years ago … and why did I never stop to wonder at that before?–saw her lift one elegiac hand and beckon him.
He came forward, stepping past the crowded graveside, and shakily genuflected before the Queen. Long‑faced Essex stood behind her, all in white with his wooly beard oiled into ringlets, and the ascetic Sir Robert Cecil stood at her right hand. The Queen acknowledged Will and gestured him to rise; Sir Robert’s eyes asked a question over her shoulder, and Will met them, inclining his chin in a nod. We’ll speak later, my lord.
Before his sojourn in Faerie, and then Hell, Will and Thomas Walsingham had arranged to plant counterfeit coins in the home of Richard Baines, Promethean and mortal enemy of Will’s faction. Will wondered what Tom had told Sir Robert about their ill‑fated attempt at reverse burglary. Add Tom to the list of people I must make time to speak with, and sooner than tomorrow.“Highness,” Will said, and inclined his head again.
“Master Shakespeare.” Elizabeth, swaddled in furs against the cold, leaned back in her chair rather than sitting stiffly upright under the weight of her massive tire. Her cheeks were hollow under the fine high line of her bones, and her wrists seemed fragile as twigs and wire below the heavy jeweled points of her sleeves. She tilted her head to Sir Robert and then to Essex; both men moved back, withdrawing without seeming to. “We missed your presence in our revels this winter.”
“I missed as well the privilege of performing for Your Highness,” he said. “I was – ”
A small pursing of her painted lips might have been a smile. “In attendance upon our sister Queen. Aye, and we know it. We trust we may rely upon your presence in our court for Lady’s Day – ”
“The New Year? Madam, I would be honored beyond words.”
“Wilt have a new play for us, then?” Her eyes flickered past Will’s shoulder, and her mouth twisted to one side. It could have been distaste or amusement for whatever she saw; her eyes would not give him enough to say and he could not in politeness turn to see what she had deigned to acknowledge.
“It will be as Your Highness wishes.” He looked into her sharp, averted eyes, and pushed back a memory of Morgan. Nipping kisses and temerity, and he was shocked to suddenly see Elizabeth – Gloriana– as a woman, a lover, and haunted by love. Has she ever been kissed like that?And then another thought, of Edward de Vere and his trust in his immunity.
She probably beheaded de Vere’s father,Will realized, half his mind on history. Had she ever loved where she has not had to kill?“A comedy or a tragedy? Or a history, my Queen?”
Her eyes came to his face again, and she opened her fan with a rustle of lace, but did not stir the air with it. “We are weary of history, poet. Give us a comedy.”
As you like it,he thought, and inclined his head with its treacherous tendency to nod, and folded his shaking hands. “Your Highness, I would beg a favor of you –”
His voice trailed off at her expression. She chuckled, and it sounded as if it hurt her. “A favor, Master Shakespeare?”
“Aye – ” He swallowed, bowed again. “I have it in my heart to make a poetical translation, a new edition of the Bible, with great and glorious words to uphold the great and glorious Church of England– ”
“And there is something amiss with the Bible as we use it?” She turned her head and caught Sir Robert’s eye; he limped closer. Will caught the sparkle of her humor in the gesture, and decided to risk a joke. “It could be better poetry.”
He caught his breath when she looked back at him, gray eyes hard over the narrow, imperious arch of her nose. And then the corners of those eyes crinkled under her white‑lead mask, and she looked up at Sir Robert. “Robin, my Elf, how are we predisposed to new translations of the Bible?”