“Master Shakespeare,” Salisbury said. “Thou needst ale before thou dost speak again, to judge by that throat. Come, let me see thee breakfasted.” He stood aside, gesturing to the door through which he’d passed.
Will hesitated, and then stooped painfully to pick up his boots. He hadn’t time to work his feet into them, and his previous night’s captors had taken his cane, but he hobbled along as best he could.
“Master Jonson’s more Walsingham’s than mine,” Cecil said while they walked, as if speaking to an old companion. “Although I will admit I haven’t my father’s sense of which of you intelligencers and agents is playing what end against which. No, Jonson’s not reliable enough to suit. But which of you sturdy scoundrels can choose a side and stand with it? My men, Baines’ men, Walsingham’s men, Poley’s men. Who can tell one from the other?”
“And what side do you support, my lord?” Will pitched his voice low, a servant’s deference, and hoped Salisbury’s expansive mode continued, although he dreaded to learn the source of it.
“Mine own, of course. Which is to say, England and her crown, and the best way to assure a strong England is to assure a decisive King. Thy Walsingham doth consider these Catholics and Puritans and Prometheans are the threat… the PrometheusClub? As ridiculous as Raleigh and his School or Night. Like boys playing at capture the fort, and they have no concept of what’s truly at stake.”
Will did not pause his stride. He noticed with amusement that his limp and Salisbury’s matched admirably. Will trailed a hand along the wall as a substitute for his cane, in case his balance should desert him. “And what’s that, my lord Earl?”
Salisbury brushed Will with a sidelong glance as if to see if he made mock. “Sovereignty,” he said. “Do not think that England’s is by any means assured.”
“My lord?” Will almost skidded to a stop in his stockinged feet as Salisbury turned on him. Something filled the Earl’s eyes – not fury, precisely, or desperation, but whatever it was the player’s part of Will’s mind saw it and recognized it as motivation.
And saw in that silence the thing that Salisbury wouldn’t say. James is a terrible King.
“Let us merely say,” Salisbury continued, in the teeth of that long hesitation, “that the Scottish influence among the courtiers does not serve to unify us, and leave it at that. In any case, Master Shakespeare, I would see thee safe–”
“I will be missed.”
“Thine absence will be explained. ‘Tis not as if thou wert not noted for the occasional abrupt disappearance.”
“And Kit Marlowe?” Will interrupted, and then held his breath. “The Prometheans who worry you so little, my lord, have taken him hostage as well.” Not on my orders.”
“No,” Will said, remembering the sound of a blow, a skull thumped hollow as a melon struck with a knife.
The Earl pressed his lips together and considered long enough that faintness made Will light‑headed. And his words sent Will’s stomach plunging hopelessly. “Regrettable,” Salisbury said. “Truly regrettable. But I need them more than I need Marlowe, Master Shakespeare, for the next month or so. Conspiracies are useful–a force that may be directed to profitable service, like a waterfall through a millwheel, but I learned well from my father that they must not be plucked before they are ripe. I mean to use these conspiracies as he would, to secure the future of the realm.”
Will closed his eyes and dropped his chin, hearing finality in the tone. “My lord.”
“I’m sorry,” Salisbury answered, and Will almost thought he meant it. “Come. Thou knowest Sir Walter Raleigh, dost not? He’s a guest here as well–in a pleasanter section, although his teeth are quite pulled these days. I have no doubt he would welcome a little company. Shall we call on him?”
Will nodded, smoothing his face so his panic would not show before this man. I’m safe. One problem attended to.
But Kit and Ben are not, and neither is Tom.
Act V, scene ix
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?