He could have glanced over his shoulder, but he knew what he would see: three big men standing shoulder to shoulder, Murchaud with his blade catching lanternlight, the others half crouched and ardent for whatever might come. Tom cleared his throat but held his tongue, granting Will precedence this once.
“Then have your men run me through, Mr. Secretary,” Will replied. He drew himself up, balancing against the wall so he could lift his cane off of the step, and looked down at Salisbury from his greater height and the advantage of the stairs. “Because if I am alive, I am going down these stairs, and I am going in the service of England.”
The man Elizabeth had called her Elf never glanced down. His eyes sparkled in the lanternlight as he rubbed a gloved forefinger against his thumb, and visibly came to a decision. “The treason is safely under control,” Salisbury argued, his soldiers shifting impatiently behind him. “Fawkes will be arrested tomorrow, Catesby as soon as suits us. They’ll give evidence that I can use to bring Baines under control once and for all, and their networks with them. The Baron Monteagle has been most forthcoming–”
Will almost dropped his cane. “That’s what this has been about,” he said, and shook his head. “You still think you can rule the Prometheans. Rulethem?”
“Every man can be ruled,” Salisbury said, provoking a dry laugh from Ben. One of the men‑at‑arms started forward; Salisbury halted him with a flick of fingers so slight that only Will’s training as a player let him see it. “Baines is too useful to waste.”
Will swallowed dryness. The trick with the pewter coins. Of course. Blackmail, plain and simple: Salisbury never intended to see Baines hang.
Merely to let him know that he could see him hang, if he so chose.“If every one could be ruled,” Will said softly, “Lucifer the Prince of God’s angels need never have fallen into darkness, my lord Salisbury.”
“We have the conspiracy dead to rights.” Such hubris, such arrogant certainty. “The realm’s ire will rise against the Catholics and in defense of the King. James will move from upstart crow to beloved monarch, and the royal family will regain public sympathy. Baines will perform his Black Mass in front of my witness, and I shall own him. And England will be strong and united again in the mind of her people.”
“In front of your witness?” Not Kit, surely. He would not permit himself to be so used–
“Robert Poley, ” Salisbury said with a satisfied smile, “works for me.”
Will set his cane back down on the step and leaned on it, dumbstruck. His mouth opened, and closed again; he felt as breathless in air as the fish he was certain he resembled.
Tom caught Will’s elbow in passing, and shouldered Salisbury aside. Murchaud and Ben fell in behind, and Will was never certain whether it was something in their eyes or Salisbury’s stunned failure to issue a command that kept them all alive.
“Sir Thomas!”
Tom’s auburn head swiveled on his long neck, fixing Salisbury with a glare. “Perhaps you should look to your own nest, cousin. That seems to me a cuckoo’s egg you are roosting there,” he commented. A pause, a dismissive, calculating glance. “Sir Francis thought the same thing, once.”
The Earl just stood with his arms akimbo like wings, watching them squeeze past. Will patted Salisbury’s black‑robed shoulder as he went by. “The Faerie will be here at dawn,” he said helpfully. “Expecting a skirmish with the Prometheans. Perhaps it would be well for you to decide which side you wish to be on when they come, my lord. Incidentally–”
“Master Shakespeare!”
Will narrowed his eyes and offered Salisbury his coldest, most stageworthy stare. “–I will not fail to see that the King learns of your hesitance to interfere with this autumn’s treason at your earliest convenience, despite having all the knowledge in your hands. If you should choose a side other than the one I find myself allied upon.”
See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul–half a drop! ah, my Christ!–
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!
Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!–
Where is it now? ‘Tis gone; and see where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!–
Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!
–Christopher Marlowe, Faustus,Act V,scene ii
Kit hesitated in the half‑crumbled archway, the torches failing to illuminate the darkness beyond. “There’s a step down,” Baines said behind him. “Have a care among the rubble.”
“Perhaps if I had a light – ”
“Perhaps if you had a weapon, puss?” Baines came up beside him, a hulking form, breathing softly. He smelled of soap and wine and rosewater and lightly of fresh sweat. “You wouldn’t club me with a torch and make your escape, would you?”
Barefooted over broken stones?Kit didn’t dignify the comment with an answer. “Cleaned up for the ceremony, Richard?”
A companionable hand on his shoulder made him shiver. “I thought thou wouldst prefer it.” Baines brushed past Kit, ducking to pass through the arch, and stepped down. He paused, holding his torch high, and surveyed the chamber beyond.
Kit caught the glitter of firelight on marble, heard the slow drip of water spattering against stone. He grasped the wall with his left hand and stepped carefully onto damp, slick stones outlined with jagged shadows, expecting at any moment to slice his bare sole open. Richard Baines turned back at the sound of stones shifting lightly and held up one meaty hand to help him over the rocks, handing him down like a lady out of a carriage.
Kit gritted his teeth and accepted the assistance.
The chamber didn’t quite look Roman, he thought. Admittedly, the once‑frescoed ceiling was matted with mold and dangling roots, and the flickering torchlight showed mineral streaks and water damage on walls that might once have been painted plaster. The floor was slimy with ash‑fine mud; it sucked between Kit’s toes, and under the surface he could feel a hard, pebbly surface that must be tile. He wondered what design the mosaic would have shown if black silt had not occluded it.
“I can think of more pleasant places for an assignation,” Kit admitted, drawing his white wool cloak tight in the raw underworld cold. Dripping water freckled his shoulders and tapped against his hair. He pushed damp strands off his forehead, wiping water from his eyes with the back of his hand.
“But few with older power,” Baines answered. “And none of those in London. Come on, puss. We’ll need a canopy to keep the brazier dry. Come and help me set it up. Pity it’s my lord and master who will have the shaping of thy power tonight: I would have liked it for myself, thou knowest.”
Baines moved toward the wall. Kit followed carefully as Poley and the other robed men scattered around the chapel. Nothing Like Last time,Kit told himself. For one thing, all of those men are dead. Either hanged as Catholic traitors, or on the end of my knife.The memory of de Parma’s sticky lifeblood spilling over his hand warmed him; his rings clinked as he rubbed his palms together.
Something rustled in the darkness, disturbed by the torchlight. Bats,Kit worried, and then he saw a row of wire cages tucked behind a pillar and a slumping arch, and a dark lantern with the aperture turned toward the wall. The gleam of a too‑blond head, and capable shoulders straightening.
“Good evening, Robin,” Baines said over the hollow plink of falling water. “Is everything in readiness?”
“Every raven in the Tower,” Catesby said, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword. “I’m just about to leave for Westminster: one last meeting with Guido and a check of the powder barrels. I don’t Likethis, Dick.”