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.
The bird pecked it up and looked for more, and Will laid the next crumb closer and stepped away from the window. Southampton had had a cat for company. I’m not certain a raven is much of a companion, but it’s either that or tap out messages to Sir Walter on the wall in code.
By the fourth bit of yolk, the raven was crouched on the lip of the window frame, its peaked head bobbing between heavy, crookedly spread wings. Will tossed the fifth bit on the floor and held his breath. The bird’s black cold‑chisel beak dipped once or twice as it examined the room, Will, and the bit of egg with suspicion. Will chirruped as he might to a chicken, feeling foolish. It crouched, about to hop down onto the floor–
–and vanished backward in a tempest of black feathers, shocked into flight by the clatter of the bar outside Will’s door being drawn from the braces and hurled unceremoniously to the floor. Will startled, turned too fast, and fell sprawling, forearm and hip slamming the floor near hard enough, he thought, to strike sparks between bone and stone. It hurt too much for him to manage a shout, or more than a rasping whimper. The door burst open, wide strap hinges creaking, and Will pushed himself to his knees with the arm that wasn’t numbed from fingertips to elbow.
And then he blinked, and sat back down among the rushes and herbs strewing the floor, because it was neither Salisbury nor Allan the guard who entered, but Ben Jonson, Tom Walsingham, and Murchaud, the Prince‑Consort of the Daoine Sidhe.
“Will! ” Ben was the first to start toward him as he sat foolishly blinking, cradling his injured arm in his left hand and hugging it close to his chest. “Thou’rt hurt. And it’s freezing in here, the barbarians – ”
“Nay,” Will said, shaking his head. “Just a fall. Just a tumble – ” He wiggled his fingers slightly, to show the arm unbroken, and panted in pain. “Robert Poley took my cane, damn him to Hell.”
Murchaud had turned with Tom to brace the doorway, both of them facing the hall, and the Elf‑knight’s blade was drawn. “Master Shakespeare,” he said; Will heard tautness of emotion in his voice. “Where is Sir Christopher?”
Will swallowed a whimper as Ben lifted him to his feet as easily as swinging a girl across a threshold. “I know not, Your Highness,” he answered. He leaned on Ben’s arm while testing his leg and decided it might almost hold his weight. “You could not find him in your Glass?”
“No,” Murchaud said without glancing over his shoulder. “Hast a looking glass?”
“I have a window.”
‘ ‘Twill serve. …” Murchaud stepped back, tapping Tom on the shoulder as he moved into the room. Tom followed without taking his eyes from the hall until Murchaud stepped in front of him and swung the heavy door shut. “Sir Thomas, if you would be so kind as to drag that table over?” A moment later, and they had it barred from inside, while Will clung to Ben’s arm.
“Damn,” Tom said, turning to face Will. “Damn. I’d hoped we’d find Kit if we found you–”
“How did you know I was missing?” Will’s eyes followed Murchaud as the Prince moved to the casement and dragged it shut. He sheathed his sword and tugged two‑handed to be sure the frame had latched.
“When”–Tom glanced over at the elf–“His Highness noticed Kit was missing, he sought you. Realizing your circumstances, he came to me. Ben was my idea.”
Ben grunted. “And still we have no Marlowe.”
“No,” Murchaud answered in a low and worried tone. “And he’ll be dead with Faerie‑sickness if we do not find him soon. Come along, mortals.”
“Wait,” Will said. “Sir Walter Raleigh is in the next chamber. Should we see to his liberty too?”
Rather than meeting Will’s eyes, Tom looked at Ben. “Sir Walter’s a legal prisoner of His Majesty’s,” he said. “And not a loyal subject held illegitimately. I cannot countenance it, I fear–and every minute we tarry here is a minute Kit is dying.”