“Ride,” she said. “See to your Romish conspirators. You may find them more challenging to catch than anticipated.”
“And your royal selves?”
She smiled, sunlight through the first pale leaves of spring. “We shall see to Richard Baines.”
Act V, scene xx
Stand up, ye base, unworthy soldiers!
Know ye not yet the argument of arms?
–Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great,Part II, Act IV, scene i
Sir Walter welcomed the raven’s company enough that Kit rather suspected he would have been happy to stage a small escape and come with them. Unfortunately, Salisbury had been reluctant to let the poets go up to see him alone, and so they had climbed the stair–each limping, leaning on one another despite the way Will’s touch still made Kit’s skin crawl–in the company of four of Salisbury’s guard, Kit’s lacerated and blistered foot as painful as if he had roasted it carefully over one of the braziers below. They climbed down again poorer by one mythic raven, who seemed remarkably sanguine about being left behind with Sir Walter.
When they returned, they found Salisbury no longer in evidence and his men more or less dispersed. Murchaud, Ben, and Tom had all been given Faerie mounts; Kit wondered if they were real fey animals, or if they would disappear into dried leaves and twists of straw with the dawn’s advent. He checked the horizon, catching Will’s bemused expression from the corner of his eye, and the rosy glow over the Tower wall told him if that were the case, they had best ride fast.
Puck came forward, leading Gin and a soft‑eyed gray mare, but Will looked at the horse askance. “I’d rather ride pillion behind Tom or Ben,” he said, hesitantly stroking her nose.
“Ride pillion behind me,” Kit offered. Will glanced sideways and grinned, surprised. Kit hid his flinch as Will’s gloved fingers tightened on his own. “I don’t suppose you know where in Hell we’re going?”
“Not Hell,” Puck said. “Well, perhaps Hell, but I think it unlikely.” He handed Kit the sorrel’s reins, and Kit tugged his hand from Will’s and leaned on the saddle instead.
“Where then?”
“We go a‑hunting Richard Baines,” the Mebd said, riding toward them, her horse’s hooves making not a sound. Kit swore he saw her ears prick and swivel. “Welcome, poets. Welcome, bards. Master Shakespeare, I have a task for thee–”
Kit tightened his grip on the warm, smooth leather, fumbling for the stirrup as the gelding snorted impatiently but stood steady as a menhir. Up, clumsy mortal! Up!
“How does Your Majesty intend to find him?” Kit asked, pitching his voice in the courtly range. “He’s warded against the power in the Darkling Glass.”
He stilled his hand with an effort when he found his thumbnail picking flaked blood from his opposite wrist. Instead, he patted the comforting weight of the saber still slung from Gin’s saddle. Will crossed to lay a hand on his boot; Kit reached down to help swing him into the saddle, and paused when the Mebd cleared her throat.
The Mebd glanced over at her sister Morgan, and the two women shared an enigmatic smile. “Hounds,” the Queen said, and reached out with one pale lily of a hand to touch Murchaud on the thigh. He startled, his clubbed hair bobbing as his head snapped up, his horse fussing at the sudden uncontrolled jerk on her reins. The Mebd let her hand slide down his thigh, turned, transferred the reins as smoothly as a trick rider and leaned perilously far from her sidesaddle to trail the other hand down Morgan’s white‑sleeved arm. “Hounds,” she repeated, and–in a transformation that was over in an eyeblink – a red dog and a black‑brindle crouched in the saddles where Morgan and her son had been.
Kit reached blindly for Murchaud, stunned, his hand trembling. The black dog showed teeth and laid his ears flat on his head, and Kit let his fingers flex softly and his hand fall to his side. He heard Will’s startled gasp, the long slow rattle of his breath permitted to slide back out. “Your Highness.” Kit raised his eyes to the Mebd’s. “Change them back.”
Her long nails scrabbling for purchase on the sloped leather of the saddle, the red hound hopped to the ground and wove between the horse’s legs, sniffing intently. And the Mebd smiled. “We shall,” the Mebd answered. “After we have your nemesis in hand, Sir Christofer. Surely thou hast ridden to the hunt before?”
“Nay, “he said. “Surely you have other hounds, my lady… . The black dog joined the red, sniffing, circling, wiry coat undulating in the cold gray predawn. Kit blinked, realizing how bright it had grown. He reached down right‑handed to grab Will’s fingers, still resting on his ill‑fitting boot.
“No hounds such as these, ” she said. “Master Shakespeare, come forward.”
Kit clutched Will’s cold gloved fingers, but Will tugged them loose and moved three steps away. Gin shied and sidestepped away from the pressure of Kit’s knee when he would have gone after, and he could only watch skinny, shiny‑headed Will limp up to clasp the stirrup of the Queen. “Will – ”
“Your Highness,” Will said, quite ignoring Kit. The Mebd nodded to him silently and lifted her chin to stare Kit down.
He lasted perhaps a minute and a half. “Why these hounds?”
“They are hounds that have a certain link to thee which will help them find the sorcerer who used thee so badly, Sir Kit,” she said, and smiled. Kit heard Tom’s sudden indrawn breath, the creak of leather as he swung from the saddle of his own Faerie mount. Kit turned to fix him with a withering stare, but it was as if Kit had grown as invisible as Mehiel. The red hound craned her neck up to nose Kit’s stirrup once.
“Your Highness,” Tom said, raking both hands through his graying auburn hair. “If I understand you correctly, I would serve in this capacity as well.” He looked at Will, as if for permission. Will tilted his head, smiling, and shrugged, and finally both men turned to look at Kit. Who looked down promptly, away from Ben Jonson’s startled cough.
Kit turned to fix Ben with a glare, but the wry bemusement on the young poet’s face turned a searing glance into a sideways shrug. One that made Ben cough again, and then burst out laughing, both hands over his face.
The Mebd laid her hands on Will’s head, and Tom’s, and flinched. “You have iron on ye,” she said, leaning back in the saddle. The spare Faerie horses withdrew as she spoke, milling in back of the rest, docile as if led.
Kit watched as Tom divested himself of various things – boots and dagger and what else came to hand that might have so much as a flake of iron in it. Will did the same, but when he searched his pockets he paused and turned back to Kit. “Hold this for me,” he said. “Safekeeping.” And pressed a silk pouch containing a bit of iron into Kit’s palm.
“Oh, Will,” Kit said, words forced past a wall of emotion.
Will just shook his head. And a moment later a tall, wire‑coated gray hound and a blue‑brindled one stood beside the red one and the black.
“Christ,” Kit said, not caring that the Queen made a moue of distaste and the Puck clapped his hands over his lolling ears. “What sort of hounds are those?”
“Faerie hounds, Sir Poet,” Puck answered, patting Kit’s boot as he hung the little silk pouch around his neck. “With yawning mouths, sharp teeth, and wet lolling tongues. Fleet of limb, compact of foot, and tireless in the hunt.”
The dogs circled, casting for a scent. Kit watched, slowly shaking his head, and bit his lip when the red bitch belled in a voice he would have known anywhere. A moment later and all four hounds gave throat, and Cairbre and the Mebd wheeled their steeds around.
“Come on,” Puck cried to Kit and Ben, giving his heels to his shaggy pony. “Come on! We hunt!”
If the trail took them through London, Kit never knew it. He crouched low over the gelding’s blond mane and watched the running hounds–their half‑pricked ears, their wiry coats, their long muzzles and longer legs stretched out in flight. The gray limped, he thought, but it still outran the blue‑brindle. Kit could not force himself to give them names. Will. Tom.