Will had opened a gash like a gaping mouth in Robin Poley’s inner thigh. Poley twitched and kicked on the stones, groaning as if he’d been kicked in the gut, red blood spurting between his clutching fingers and his other hand raised in a futile attempt to keep the croaking, stabbing raven from his eyes.
Will scrambled to his feet, spitting blood, wiping blood from his face with blood‑soaked hands, and turned to go to Kit‑
–just as Lucifer saluted with his star‑black blade, chuckled, and vanished like a cloud blown to tatters across the moon. Kit, committing to a lunge behind his poker as if behind a rapier thrust, measured his length on the silted tiles.
Poley fell slack, bubbling. The raven raised its head, jet eyes gleaming in the darkness, blood and vitreous fluid dripping from its beak, and regarded Will with feral intensity. Will looked away with an effort, eyes seeking Ben, or Tom.
Or Kit, who pushed himself up onto his hands and knees – naked again, no longer clothed in light, the bloody patterns marked on his skin blurred with effort –and swore most vilely. He turned over his shoulder, and met Will’s eyes. “I swear to God he planned that,” Kit said, and flopped over like a fish thrashing on a deck.
“Does that mean you know what he’s playing at?”
Kit shook his head, modesty abandoned. “Unless he was trying to awaken Mehiel,” Kit said, holding up a hand that briefly flickered gold. “In which case, he’s succeeded admirably. I don’t honestly believe he wants the Prometheans in power, though. Otherwise he wouldn’t keep interfering with their plans for him.”
Will saw movement alongside the shadows near the far wall. A lean figure in dark clothing, forcing himself to his feet. “Your Prince is still bleeding, Kit – ”
“Murchaud!” Blinking, startled, as if he had utterly forgotten the Elf‑knight’s existence, Kit turned away from the mortal men and hurried to Murchaud’s side. Kit pulled Murchaud upright, checking his injuries with a fussiness that left Will tasting bile and jealousy. “Art well?” Kit answered, and even by torchlight Will didn’t miss his hopeful smile.
“I’ll live,” the elf answered, straightening. “There is no iron in Lucifer’s blade, and naught else can harm me for long.” He glanced about the room, squeezing Kit’s hand before he let it fall. “It will bleed, but that is all. In any case, the Faeries will be here shortly, and even if Baines’ plans for Kit have been altered, there’s a scene or two yet to play.”
Will dragged himself up and staggered away from Poley’s corpse, threw his own blood‑slaked cloak over Kit’s bloody and goosefleshed body. Then he sank down on the wet tiles beside Kit and Murchaud, crossed his legs, leaned his elbows on his knees, and pressed his forehead into his hands. “This is all too complicated for me.”
Kit dropped down beside Will and lay back on the floor as if he reclined in a featherbed, drawing the cloak around him. Tom and Ben staggered over to them. “A timely rescue, gentlemen. Now find me a pair of trousers, and we’ll see if we can manage a timelier one.”
Ben limped heavily, blood staining the outside of his breeches. “Can’t find Baines,” he said, bending down to brace his hands on his knees, breathing like a runner.
“Bloody buggered Christ,” Kit answered, sitting up so Will could see the long curve of his back. “I imagine he’ll find us before the evening’s out. It’s all for naught. The war’s over for England and James anyway: the portents have spoken, and the Tower’s bastions are breached with the deaths of the ravens – ”
The heavy beat of wings interrupted Kit. He looked up as the crippled raven rowed heavily through the air and landed on Will’s automatically upraised fist.
Kit blinked. “A raven. Unwounded and alive.”
Will smiled, and Tom Walsingham coughed into his hand. “Just one. But one’s enough, isn’t it? All stories are true stories, or so Will tells me.”
“All stories – ” Will and Kit shared a glance, and it was Will who looked up first. “Kit, should we be asking ourselves what Lucifer wants?”
Kit shook his head. “I wonder if we should be asking ourselves what ‘tis he wants to become.He’s Prometheus, thou knowest. And the serpent Amaranth too.”
“‘Twas Amaranth told me where to find thee, Kit,” Will said. He held out his hand to help the other poet to his feet. “I don’t understand–”
“Surely you don’t think the Father of Lies is limited to one shape only,” Kit said dryly, once his feet were under him. “You know how you said of Salisbury, he plays his game as if there is no other player, only pieces that sometimes move themselves?” His voice was quiet, his gaze hooded, as if he directed his commentary not to Will and Tom and Ben, but someone closer still. “Aye… .” Will glanced at Ben for assistance. Ben looked up from binding his leg.
“Sir Christopher, ” Ben said softly, “are you suggesting that Lucifer is playing both sides of the board?”
“I’m saying that his opponent is refusing to move, and he’s attempting to provoke–something. A commitment. Possibly just a response. We’ve walked into a lovers’ quarrel, gentlemen.”
“Walked, or been dragged?” Will shook his head.
Act V, scene xviii
We are no traitors, therefore threaten not.
–Christopher Marlowe, Edward II,Act I, scene :
It might lack of warmth, comfort, and sartorial splendor, but Kit was happy simply to be clothed. He’d resumed the white breeches–grimy enough now that they would be slightly better suited to skulking in the darkness–and pulled his shirt back on over the bloody sigils that patterned his flesh. He scrubbed the cloth against his skin to smear the marks, and looked up to see Will watching with an inscrutable expression twisting his mouth.
“What happens next? ” Will asked, when Kit would not look down. Will’s fingers idly stroked the rainbow‑dark plumage of the raven that perched on his wrist, and Kit’s fingers itched with the memory of feathers. If he closed his eyes, he was sure he would feel those enormous wings again, lifting him, bearing him up–
He was glad Mehiel hadn’t struck down Lucifer. Glad, and furious. Conflict is the essence of drama.He shrugged and turned to seek Murchaud, but the elf‑Prince was in conversation with Tom. “I’ll find a pair of boots,” Kit answered, and went to pull Poley’s off his dead feet.
They were too soaked with blood to wear, which was a pity, because they would have fit, unlike the too‑large ones Kit liberated from the corpse of the man Ben had killed, which rubbed his feet to blisters as the five of them wound back through the tunnels to the surface, a straggling line lit by two lanterns.
Ben took the lead on the argument that Baines was still ahead of them somewhere, and neither Kit nor Will in any condition to fight. Kit, leaning on a captured poker as he walked, raised an eyebrow at that, but the big man shrugged. “It looked from my vantage as if Lucifer made a point in failing to injure you, Master Marlin.”
“Aye,” Kit said. “I’m untouchable. Pity your charge is not, Will.” He gestured to the raven, who seemed quite content to nestle against the curve of Will’s neck. “I think I recognize that bird.”
“He’s prone to keeping company with the prisoners in the Salt Tower,” Will said, craning his head with amusement to see the witchlights that flitted from Kit’s hands, and Murchaud’s. “We made an acquaintance while I was there.”
“That is no natural raven,” Murchaud said from the rear of the group.
“Aye,” Will answered. “I had come to suspect as much. Some form of Faerie creature?”
“Some such thing, Master Shakespeare.”
Will staggered in exhaustion. Tom put a hand on his shoulder at the same instant that Kit caught his arm. The raven beat its wings heavily, but seemed loath to abandon its perch; Will yelped as its talons pinched. “And the sole thing betwixt England and destruction, if the legends of ravens and the Tower are true. We cannot even bring him away for the danger: he must stay in the Tower precincts.”