“Good afternoon, my lady,” Will said. A silvery tone came to him on the same cold breeze that snapped the brave green and violet banners on the Mebd’s shining turrets: the cry of a fey trumpet, climbing the rise.
“Hello, William, “she said. The trumpet sounded again, burying her words under a landslide of music. “The Prince is going to be late for the rade if he lingers here.”
“Rade?”
“The Faeries ride on London,” she said. “Time’s slipped past thee while thou wert in the wood, I fear.”
“What day is it?” Thickening worry, as his hand rose to his naked ear. I could have lost a lifetime in the time it took to walk back from the troll’s bridge. And think you not that the Prometheans will kill Kit out of hand, should they find the Faerie court tromping through London?
In the mortal realm?” She dusted ice from her hands. It fell like snow through still air, sparkling on her scales where it landed. Looking up, Will could see that she’d cleaned half the boughs already. “It is Hallow’s Eve.”
Damme,” he said. Almost a month gone.The knowledge made him reconsider his fear for Kit, as well. And if Kit be not dead already, so long out of Faerie, it is only that so the thing is protecting him.Will would have swallowed, but his throat was too tight. . He would not bury Kit before he saw the body. Not a second time. “Thy help, Amaranth–”
“All thou needest ever do is ask,” she answered, lowering her human torso so that he looked her directly in the eyes. Something flickered across their opaque surfaces, a blue so bright he thought first it was the reflection of the unreal sky of Faerie. “Although”–a tongue‑flicker of a pause–“I will not vouch that the answer will be always yes.”
He laughed despite the worry gnawing in the pit of his belly. “Why art thou so willing to help a poor poet?”
Dead grass hissed against her scales as she shifted, swaying. “A snake never shares what she knows unless it serves her own purposes. Thou shouldst comprehend such things by now.
“Aye,” he said. “I should. And she never shares her reasons, either.”
“Perhaps because we have friends in common, thee and me.
“… perhaps. How is thine eye for a riddle, Amaranth?”
“If ‘tis a riddle with an answer–”
Will sighed. “I asked a troll where to find Kit, who is held captive by the Prometheans. Wilt help me for his sake?”
“Aye,” she said, “and thine own sake as well. Tell me thy riddle.”
Will closed his eyes, blessing a memory drilled into sharpness by grammar school and years of playing thirty scripts in repertory. “Look down wells and look in the dark wet places, he repeated. “Look in forgetful places, and for forgotten things‑Ask those that know the secrets whispered under earth and between stones.” And then he peeked through half‑closed lashes, hoping to see some sign of enlightenment cross her face, and half afraid that he would not.
“A snake should know such things,” she said, and seemed to consider. “An oubliette,” she said at last. “Forgetful places and forgotten things. An oubliette that used to be a well, perhaps? Is there such a thing in London?”
Will’s held breath rushed out of him with the words. “There is indeed, and a famous one,” he gasped. “Lady, if it would not kill me, I should kiss thee.”
“If it should not kill you,” Amaranth replied, “I would like that. And now?”
“And now,” Will said, “I must discern how I may invade the Tower of London, from which I have myself only recently escaped. And I must convince Murchaud to stay his mother’s ride until we have safely recovered Sir Christopher.”
Act V, scene xv
What is beauty, saith my sufferings then?
If all the pens that ever poets held,
Had fed the feeling of their masters’ thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspir’d their hearts,
Their minds, and muses on admired themes;
If all the heavenly Quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of Poesy,
Wherein as in a mirror we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one Poem’s period
And all combin’d in Beauty’s worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads,
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest…
–Christopher Marlowe,
Tamburlaine the Great,Part I, Act V, scene i
The troll’s company kept him sane, and the earring–Will’s earring, Kit got the troll to admit in its usual circuitous manner–kept the agony at bay. The news of Will’s escape was enough to grant Kit new strength of intent. He’ll come for me. He won’t leave me here.He knew it, with the same calm certainty with which he’d known that he could not leave Will to take his own place in Hell.
Somehow, whenever they heard the sounds of the bolts being shot above, the troll always managed to squeeze its enormous bulk into the handspan‑wide clay drain before Baines could lift the lid and see it. Kit wondered, and chalked it up to magic, and didn’t try to touch the troll after the time his iron bonds raised blisters on its slick, shiny hide.
On All Saints’ Day–the troll said–Baines came back with more food and water. “Only a few more days until we’re needed.”
“Fifteen Sagittarius,” Kit murmured, taking no comfort in having been right. He gritted his teeth, knowing that he had to get out of the Pit if Will was to have a chance of finding him. “I’m ready to bargain, Baines.”
A chuckle. “Not faking your death of chills and ague any more, I see. What do you have to bargain with, then, Kitten?”
Edward de Vere’s old nickname for him. Kit clenched his aching hands against his thighs. “Myself,” he said. “You said you wouldn’t kill me. After.”
No, Baines answered, leaning down with his hands on his knees, like a man bending to converse with a very small boy. “In truth, puss, I’d hurt you as little as I know how. I’m not without pity or heart.”
Does it mean the irons again?” Strange, how he could think of that so calmly, when his mind skittered away from the rest.
Not as bad–Kit, give me thy parole that thou wilt not fight nor try to flee, and I’ll bring thee up so we can discuss this like civilized men.”
«Kit, what art thou about?»
He tasted the angel’s fear. Stalling.“Come and get me.”
Baines let a long ladder of rope and dowels unwind down the side of the oubliette and stood back from the edge. He must have had it ready there by the rim, just in case Kit broke. It galled Kit to know how predictable he had been. “I can’t climb with these hands, Dick.” They were better than they had been, but still swollen and infected around the bands.
“Thou’rt scared of a little pain, puss?” A pause. “Aye, and tie the bridle to the bottom of the ladder before thou dost ascend. I should not like to have to climb down after it.”
Wishing the troll still stood beside him, Kit did as he was bid, and then made his laborious way up the height of the ladder, his fingers leaving streaks of bloody lymph on the rungs while he prayed thanks to the troll for its company, and to Mehiel for his strength.
“See?” Baines grasped Kit’s wrist in a hand like a manacle and almost lifted him over the edge of the pit. He tugged the ladder up behind, and tipped the lid shut with a booted toe. Kit stood, examining his hands in the light, and did not realize that he might perhaps have tackled Baines and plowed him into the oubliette until Baines turned back to him. “Let me have a look at those hands, puss.”