“By the white hart, never!” Morgan laughed and shook her hair over her shoulder. “We’ll have enough of that from Spenser, I warrant. Although chance and legend alter us: I was as fair as Anne and Arthur, once upon a time.” She raised a fistful of hair black as sorcery and shook it in the light.
“Gloriana does like to play on the Faeries, and it strengthens us to be spoken of so I think it should please Master Shakespeare’s Queen and thine as well.”
“Madam. A little task. But something. Your wish is …”
“Oh,” she interrupted, giving him an airy wave at odds with her earthy grin. “And a play for Beltane, I think. Something we can see performed for Her Majesty the Mebd.”
Beltane. He tasted it. Short notice, but he’d had shorter. Ten weeks.“Have you a subject?”
“Intrigue.” She straightened the blossom on his breast. “And passion. Mayhap one of those great lost loves of which we spoke. Drystan and Yseult. Something ill-starred would suit us both, and Her Majesty. But mind that thou lookst wistful and sigh and fret while thou’rt composing, and see who chooses to speak with thee. And on what matters.”
“My lady. Drystan and Yseult. No, Orpheus, I think.” But he was smiling as she took his elbow and led him to her door, her stockinged feet whisking against the flagstones like a cat’s white paws. A stalking horse. I’ve played that role before.
‘Dearest & most-esteemed leander:
Your letter does indeed find me very well, if exceeding busy. I fear I have not had occasion to converse with my wife since our last encounter but I shall pass your felicitations when I may. The subject is complex, but suffice to say I have hopes for rapprochement. I am attending your request for books & broadsides: they will follow under separate cover. You will be amused to read that, following hard on the discovery of a poisoning plot against the Queen of which you will no doubt have heard, plays about Jews are once again popular in London, & we are becoming reacquainted with some names that languished in danger of loss. I hope these humble words find you well. In any case, thinking of you I am moved to remember Sir Francis & a certain incident with a lemon bush. I wonder if my predecessor had such a sour experience of his own.
April 29th, year of our lord 1594.
Your true and honest friend Wm… .’
Incident with a lemon bush. Kit set the letter down on a marble-topped table below the window, and smiled. Clever William. How I miss thee, and wrangling late into the night on scansion and wordplay and line. Lighting a taper at the hearth, Kit remembered Cairbre’s invitation. Poets are so often thought solitary. But we need the society of our fellows as much as any tradesman.
The taper lit a clever lamp, which burned a blue spirit flame, and this Kit bore to the table beside Will’s letter. It would cost him the seal, but that little mattered. What mattered were the pale words, written painstakingly in invisible lemon juice, that slowly caramelized into visibility as he toasted the letter a few inches above the flame, holding his breath lest it flicker and the edge of the paper catch light. When the words burned dark enough to read, Kit laid the letter in the light from the window and leaned forward to blow out the flame. He tucked a few strands of hair behind his ear and closed his eye for a moment, then reluctant, frowning bent forward. And read. And blasphemed. And read it once again.
Beatrice:
Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth
with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
‘My beloved Adonis I read with disquiet your words & the implication that unsavory individuals have taken an interest in your activities. In pursuance, I would consider it a great kindness if you should contact Mary Poley in Winding lane. She is the abandoned wife of one Robert Poley, with whom you are acquainted, but more to the point she was the sister of the late Dr. Thomas Watson, the poet, who was long a friend to me & her husband is greatly unfelicitous to her, & to her son. You need have no fear that she will expose you to him, and she may be a great source of intelligence as to his actions.’
Will tilted the letter into the light of the candle which he had used to scorch the concealed words from between lines more innocuous and manifest. The heated lemon juice was only pale brown against the cream-colored paper, but Kit’s precise hand was easy to discern.
‘Poley will not see to their maintenance & so, in Tricky Tom’s memory & out of mine own friendship with the lady, I have been of what assistance I could to her in the past, & so I believe she should be grateful for a kind word or two, even from a stranger who mentioned my name as the name of a friend. She may be of assistance in warding yourself from that same Robert, her husband; Mistress Poley is a good woman, & much concerned with the future prospects of her son, a likely lad.
Will’s nose wrinkled in amusement. Her son. Kit. Are you insinuating the lad is your bastard? And then he frowned, and nibbled the edge of an ink-stained thumbnail, uncertain why the thought made him so uneasy.
My mistress has asked that I bid thee, my beloved friend & only begetter of whatever joy is afforded me, remember the pastoral fancies of thy callow years & find ways to set them into verse. I am minded of county ballads & old tales, I imagine you too are conversant with, of Nimue, & the Irish & Welsh stories & those of Yorkshire & Scotland: Finvarra & Oonagh & their kin.’
You want me to tell fairy tales to the Queen, sweet Kit? He sounds lonely. You should sound lonely, exiled from home and friendships, and worried about the ones you’ve left behind.
Will closed his eyes. When he opened them, he read more quickly, and without pause.
‘Have a care for Poley, Will. If he & his have realized that you are my replacement, you may find yourself with dangerous enemies: have a care not to be associated too plainly with Hunsdon, Burghley, Oxford & their friends. I will dare declare Robert Poley & Thomas Walsingham scions of the enemy, & ask you be wary of them. It is of import that you acquaint yourself with the politics, if you have not already done so: Essex’s group do support the Queen, although they are more interested in their own advancement than the stability of the crown. Raleigh is a little better: I can like the man for his ideals, at least, which are intellectual & inquisitive, but he is a popinjay. (Those are not sentiments to be repeated, sweet Will, lest you withal blacken my name further than mine enemies have already.) More dangerous are Poley & Baines (& I now think Thomas Walsingham), who have made themselves so seeming indispensable that their word be taken even over mine, & I have proven my worth to Gloriana in great extremis. I read with great delight the pages of yr. Merchant you included with the books, & have returned some suggestions along with mine own current project. Also, I am quite engaged with your character of Beatrice; she reflects your Annie, does she not? but feel Hero could be stronger or mayhap more delicate of constitution; her speeches now show nowt but woman scorned, & women (even scorned) are no force to be trifled with. You may wish if you can so contrive to seek Her Majesty’s approval. Gloriana fancies herself something of a poet, & was of infinite service making that infamous she-wolf Isabella more a breathing woman than the Dragon of legendry. Further…’
It went on for a page and a half, line-by-line comments on the play, ending wryly,
‘have enclosed some notes for the play or more like masque my mistress has commissioned of me, something of an orgy & something of a revel, & I am feared only half-suited to my poor talents. I wish you would examine them with some haste, & return post to me through the usual channels. I think on thee & London daily. With all love & affection, your dear friend leander.’