“Morgan,” he said, understanding. He took her immaculate hand and cupped itin his own. “I know what thou art.”
She blinked. The tone in his voice held her; the revelation un-scrolled. “Thou art that which nourishes and destroys: the deadly mother, the lover who is death. Because that is what we have made thee, with our tales of thy wit and sorcery. Thou art too much for mortal men to bear.”
She sighed and sat back, but did not draw her hand away. “Wouldst see him die?”
Kit stuffed another piece of bread into his mouth with his left hand, refusing the bait. “Morgan. You re a story.”
“Aye, Master Marley. Poet, Queen’s Man, cobbler’s boy,” she said. “I’m a story. And now, so art thou.”
He sat back. He would have let her fingers slide out of his own, but she held him fast and looked him hard in the eye. “A story who’ll live to see his mortal lover grow old and gray, totter and break. Canst bear it, Kit? Canst thou bear to see that light extinguished in a few short years?”
He shook his head. “No. I cannot bear it. But I rather imagine Will couldn’t bear to bury his son, either. And Morgan, I will not see him owned. Mortal men are not meant to live in your world; we cannot bear that either.” Heads were turning around the hall at the intensity of the whispered conversation, the white-knuckled grip across the table. Kit breathed deep.
“Morgan. Tis true what I say.”
“Aye.” And it was a curse when she said it, and her eyes were blacker than he had ever seen them. “I was a goddess, Kit.”
“Madam,” he said with dignity. “You still are.”
Rosalind:
Oh how full of briers is this working-day world.
Celia:
They are but burrs, Cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery, if we walk not in the trodden paths our very petticoats will catch them.
Rosalind:
I could shake them off my coat, these burrs are in my heart.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You like It
Will’s days seemed longer than the span of their hours, a languorous blur of lovemaking, companionship, and poetry that expanded to include time for every eventuality and sunsets too. The nights he spent with Kit or Morgan by turns, the days in rehearsal for Chiron planned for the Hallowmas entertainment or with his lovers. He hadn’t felt anything like it since the first flush of his affair with Annie. It cannot last. No, only through the autumn, and when winter came to England Will must be homeward bound. Still the days were endless, the weeks longer than months, the perfection of his happiness such that he almost did not move himself to ask how time passed in the mortal world. “Worry not,” Kit assured him as they sat on rocks over the ocean, watching sunset stain the white manes of the waves, listening to their whickering. “Hallowmas will be Hallowmas, here as there, and then…”
“We’ll have the bloody slaughter of the noblest of centaurs under our belts, and I will bid thee adieu.” Will pulled a stalk of salt grass and slipped the tender inwards from its overcoat to chew. He gave the dry brown husk to the air; the sea wind blew it back over his shoulder. “Kit, what will we do?” Kit tugged his slowly growing cloak around his shoulders and bumped Will’s shoulder with his own. “Ford it when we come to it,” he said. We should.”
“Aye. We should. It will only grow harder.” The wind stirred Will’s hair. The locks had outstripped the length they should have in the time he’d been in Faerie. “I can picture myself pining by my window for my Faerie lover, growing gray and sere. A legend will grow up.”
“Will!” Kit grabbed his wrist, and jerked it. Will turned, startled; Kit’s expression was wild. “Don’t joke about such things. Never joke about such things; you’re on the edge of legend here, and names have power, and things listen.” His plain fear brought an answering tingle to Will’s spine, to his fingertips.
“Morgan wants me to stay.” The chewed stem grew bitter. Will tossed it away.
“I want thee to stay,” Kit said, still staring. “And Morgan wishes me to plead with thee as well. But I will not permit it.” Kit’s pulse flickered in the hollow of his throat.
Will wrenched his eyes away. “Art my sovereign, Marley?” Soft as the ocean’s breath playing over them both.
“Aye.” The fingers on Will’s wrist tightened. “Aye, in this thing, I am. What would thy girls do, without thee?”
“What they do now, I expect. I’ve hardly been an exemplary father and husband.” Will kissed Kit’s brow, by way of example.
Kit released him to pluck a smooth, moon-white stone from a crevice in their sand-worn perch. He tossed it thrice before it slipped between his fingers, rattling on the rocks below. “Blast. Thou hast the chance to be better at both, at least.” His gaze lifted to the darkening horizon.
Abruptly, Will understood. “Kit, forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I’d live to bury any wife or child I’d left behind; aye, and their grandchildren, too. If I’m fortunate enough that no one puts a knife in the other eye.” The wind freshened. The day’s warmth soaked the stone they sat upon; Will pressed his back against it. “After Chiron,” he said, dropping his arm around Kit’s shoulders, “I suppose I shall go home.”
“I suppose that’s best,” Kit said, and leaned closer as the light drained the sky, replaced by the slow unveiling of the stars. “Hast heard there’s an astrologer in Denmark claims the stars are not settled in crystal vaults? That they float unsupported, and other stars comets and stella novae move through them?”
“I imagine the Pope hates him.”
“Not as much as he hates Copernicus, I imagine.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars
Kit laughed. “I should write you a poem. Something better than that.”
“Better than Faustus?”
“Christ wept, I hope I’ve improved.” Will earthed himself under the warm edge of Kit’s cloak, kissed him where his throat blended into his jaw, the sticky musk of the ocean rich on moist, salty skin.
“Thou’rt all the poetry I need.”
“Sweet liar.”
“Sweeter when you know it cannot last.” Will’s voice shivered with his whisper.
Kit’s answer was slow. “Christ. Damn me to Hell. Yes, Will. Tis sweet.” The old moon rose in the new moon’s arms. The rocks grew cool around them. Kit’s cloak concealed a multitude of sins. And over the water, something listened and understood.
And here upon my knees, striking the earth,
I ban their souls to everlasting pains
And extreme tortures of the fiery deep,
That thus have dealt with me in my distress.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, The Jew of Malta
Kit rubbed a corner of his eye in the dimming room and thought of candles. He stretched against the back of his chair, his spine crackling, and stood a moment before a hesitant knock rattled the door. “Come!” He crossed to the fire to light a rush. The door swung open, revealing Murchaud leaning against its frame in a pose at once consciously arrogant and restlessly self-aware.
“Christofer.” The prince flipped a stray curl behind his ear, an un-characteristically tentative gesture. “Art thou … ? Alone?”
“Aye.” Kit touched his spill among the embers, then stood to apply the resultant flame to a lamp wick. “Come in.”
Murchaud stepped onto the jewel-patterned carpet, cautious as a stag. Kit blew out the rushlight, adjusted the lamp, and fitted its chimney, carrying it to his table as a scent of char filled the room. It spilled golden light across his poems and paper, and Kit slid them aside until he found pipe and tobacco pouch among the clutter.