“Ah – ” Will raised his eyes to the impassive, alabaster masks of two women who had never looked so much like sisters as they did at this moment, for all the Mebd rode sidesaddle, swathed in layers of color‑shifting silk, and Morgan wore those damned riding breeches that had once so discomfited Will.
“Master Shakespeare,” Morgan said musically, patting a stray strand of hair back into her pearl‑braided chignon. “It appears thou hast a thing which doth belong to me.” She raised a hand imperiously, fingers belled loosely into a fist, and her eyes were not on Will’s but on the raven’s black ones.
Will told himself that the raven could not smirk.“He doesn’t leave the Tower,” Will said. “His life is England’s, now.” The poet rubbed his beard. Ice crystals were forming between the spiral hairs; they dusted his breast when he lowered his hand.
Morgan left hers upraised, her head tilted as if she, herself, were some strange new sort of raptor. The Mebd, still silent, turned only her head to regard her sister, her pale lips twitching toward a smile. The long, woven braids of her hair slid like a fisherman’s weighted net around her shoulders.
Morgan did not return her sister’s glance. “What wouldst thou see done with him?”
“I’d see him ensconced with Sir Walter, I think. The brave captain can see to his safety, can any man–and is conveniently unable to leave the Tower.”
“I shall reclaim the bird sooner or later, sweet William.”
“Aye,” Will said. “But not until ravens flock these grounds again. Do we have an agreement, my lady?”
She bit her lip, ignoring the Mebd’s arch amusement. “He’s hidden from me for a thousand years, ” Morgan le Fey said at last, acquiescing. Her hand slid gracefully down to rest on her thigh, cupped inward, palm open. “A few more days mean nothing.”
Will looked at the raven. The raven looked at Will. Their silent regard was interrupted by the measured clop of hooves.
Kit’s horse wasn’t white at all, Will saw with relief, but a sorrel gelding so red he gleamed like wet blood even by the cold fey light that surrounded them. His saddle and bridle were leather, even redder, a saber sheathed on the harness by Kit’s left hand. A white blaze graced the animal’s nose, dripping so low he seemed to drink it, and Kit’s free hand rose again and again to stroke the coarse blond mane back from the crest.
The fond gentleness of Kit’s touch contrasted harshly with the expression he turned on Morgan. Murchaud took a half step forward. Will shot a hand sideways and gripped his sleeve, staggering with the force it took to stop the Prince’s movement.
“Will–” Tom said behind him, and Will shook his head just enough to make his hair brush against his collar.
“‘Tis his to play out, Tom,” Will said under his breath. Ben grunted on Murchaud’s far side, but stayed steady as if planted. “Stand fast, and be ready for whatever might befall.”
“My kingdom for a good iron blade, ” Tom answered. Will grinned at the sideways flattery despite the tension in the air.
“Don’t say that where the Fae can hear you,” Will answered. “They’ve been known to take men up on bargains like that.” He didn’t take his eyes off Kit and Morgan, listening to the long silence stretch between them, wondering when it would break. He smiled to himself, and thought, and now is the time to brace Salisbury, while he’s still considering blackmail and England.
Silently, controlling his limp as best he could, Will disengaged himself from Murchaud and went toward the thunder‑browed Secretary of State.
Fie on that love that hatcheth death and hate!
–Christopher Marlowe, Edward II,Act IV, scene v
Morgan met Kit’s gaze calmly, her eyes dark and mysterious as emeralds in the weird, cold light. Over her shoulder, the Queen of Faerie looked on. Beyond her, not even turning his head to the scene, Cairbre the Bard sat his saddle like a statue, a ruby gleaming in the tip of his pointed ear where it parted the black strands of his hair.
The sorrel’s hooves were steady on the rimed cobblestones; nearby, Will and Tom and Murchaud and that damned self‑satisfied Ben Jonson stood side by each, bloody and ragged and ready for more. Kit’s breast filled up with a warrior’s pity and indignation, that men so tired should be made to fight endlessly on–
Wrath held him silent long enough for the corner of Morgan’s mouth to twitch with discomfort. Kit cleared his throat. “You lied to me.”
“Sir Christofer?”
Such patent innocence, her hand raised to her throat. Kit turned his head and spat, the sorrel dancing a sidled step. A fragment of motion caught his eye: the flip of Puck’s ear, where Puck sat his pony. “Such pretty nonsense you all told me–and chief among the liars, you, Morgan. Poets and rades and battles of song and powers and portents–”
“Dost see a rade before thee?” Morgan’s gesture swept the gathered Fae, touched Murchaud and his mortal companions, swept up and dismissed Salisbury and his men.
Kit raised an eyebrow when he spotted Will, moving between the groups. The laugh he could not contain sliced like a fish bone at his throat. “Thou hadst no care for me, my Queen–”
“Not so‑”
“–I was only the vessel. The container. The prison for the being thou didst truly wish to touch, to win–”
“–not so,” she said again, even softer. The tone in her voice was too much.
He flinched, and stopped, the gelding shaking his mane as Kit’s grip tightened on the bloodred reins. His nervousness affected the horse; he could see white traces of foam against the crimson neck, where the reins rubbed the animal’s cold sweat into lather.
“We’re here for thee,” Morgan said, lifting her head on her long white neck. “We would not have permitted thee to be sacrificed–”
“No,” Kit continued, finding his voice again. He shivered no longer, Mehiel’s power warming his shoulders like a feathered cloak. “You did not come to fight a war, but to twist another sorcerer’s magic to your uses. Baines would not have completed his ritual, had thou thy choice of events. But thou wouldst have waited until he had the opportunity to fill me up with his power and his plans, as if I were no more than a talisman, a crystal to be cut into a lens–”
“We could have used the power, ” Cairbre said quietly.
“I imagine you could,” Kit answered.
“It does not mean that we have no fondness for you–”
“No, teacher.” Kit’s outrage and fury were failing him. The warm horse breathed between his legs, the ears swiveled one forward, one back, switching with every nervous ripple of the gelding’s tail. “No, I know the Fae and their fondnesses. Fondness would not stop you from spilling my blood.” He gave his attention back to Morgan. “What did they offer thee for thine assistance, my Queen?”
He didn’t need her answer. He saw her eyes flick to the raven, and to Will. Murchaud stepped forward, away from Ben and Tom. “Mother,” he said. “You should have trusted me.”
A ripple of power, the sound of wings inside his mind. Kit forced his hand open, forced himself to stroke the sorrel’s rough mane rather than knotting his fingers in it as he would have liked to as Murchaud walked calmly to his mother’s stirrup and drew her down by her sleeve to whisper in her ear. The gelding turned his head slightly, enough to roll his eye at Kit. Could you move this along, please? ‘Tis tiresome, Sir Poet, standing here in the cold on rough cobbles.
Kit bit his cheek on tired laughter, all his irritation draining away. Perhaps I’ve just been used too much to care any more,he thought. And also, I’m keeping this horse.