The Great Stone Gate loomed over them, cutting a dark silhouette across a sky, pink and gray with twilight. The last light of a rare clear sunset stained the Gate and all its grisly trophies crimson, and dyed too the elegant wings of wheeling kites and the black pinions of the Tower ravens.
“If Kit hadn’t been murdered in an ale house,” he said low, steps slowing, “his head could be up there among the traitors.”
“What heard you about the Privy Council proceedings?”
“I heard that Kyd and that other fellow Richard Baines named him as the author of heretical documents. That he stood accused of atheism, sodomy, and worse.”
“Kyd under torture, Burbage amended,” tugging Will’s arm. “Baines—someday I’ll tell you about Baines.”
Will had almost to be dragged several shuffling steps before he was walking on his own.
“I’ve writ not a good word since.”
It was Burbage’s turn to stumble. “Will.”
Will rested a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “What?”
“You know what Kit was charged with. Sayst thou you know something of the truth of those allegations?”
Will knew his eyes must be big as the paving stones underfoot, his face red as the sunset painting the Gate.
“Regarding Kit’s alleged sins, I’ll not doubt it. But no, I’m not likely to be charged the same. We shared the room for prudence’s sake.”
“Then what?”
A shrug and a sigh. “We were friends. His hand was on my Henry VI, thou knowest, and mine in his Edward III. If he can come to such an end, whose Muse dripped inspiration upon his brow as the jewels of a crown drip light what does that bode for poorer talents?”
Poorer talents?”
They were swept up in the tide of pedestrians before they had gone three steps, in the stench of the Thames, in the rattle ofcoach-wheels and the blurred notes of poorly fingered music: the sprawl and brawl of London.
“Not so, Will. You’ve an ear on you for cleverness and character better than Kit s. And you re funnier.”
“I can’t match his technique. Or his passion.”
“No. But technique can be learned, and you won’t, perchance, end your life drunken and leaking out your brains on some table in a supperhouse. If Kit had the patience and sense of a Will…”. He raised his hand to forestall Will’s retort.
Will’s shoulders fell as the air seeped from his lungs.
“I listen, Master Burbage.”
They came out of the shadow of the Gate and its burden.
“The Privy Council would have cleared him, Master Shakespeare. As it’s done every time before: with a wave of the hand, words behind closed doors, and a writ signed by five or seven of the Queen’s best men, Kit Marley goes free where another man would go to Tyburn. How many men charged with heresy and sedition are free to rent a mare and ride to Deptford, and not on a rack in the Tower? And you’ll be afforded the same protection.”
“And the same enemies.”
But it wasn’t just the danger of his own position, or the unwritten things twisting in his brain. He plainly missed Kit.
“You’ll make enemies any way you slice it, with your talent. Ah, here we are.” Burbage pointed to the scarred sign hanging over a green-painted door, and then led Will down a dim, stinking alley toward the back, where a wobbling wooden stair brought them to the second story. Will clutched the whitewashed railing convulsively, despite the prodding splinters. Although, if the whole precarious construction tumbled down, a death grip on the banister couldn’t save him. A door at the top of the stair stood open to catch what breeze there was. Burbage paused at the landing and softly hailed Oxford within, while Will stood two steps below.
“Enter, Master Players.” Edward de Vere did not stand to meet them, but he did gesture them to sit. Stools and benches ranged about the blemished table, and the small room was dark and confining despite the open door: it did not seem the sort of chamber an Earl would frequent. Incense-strong tobacco hung on the air in ribbons, the sharp, musty tang pleasing after the stench of thestreets.
“Lord Oxford, as you’ve summoned us,” Burbage said, taking a stool. Will doffed his hat, reseated it, and sank onto a bench and stretched his legs.
Oxford nodded to the player, but turned his bright eyes to Will.
“How comes the play, gentle William?” The question he’d been dreading, and Will twisted his hands inside the cuffs of his doublet, folding his arms. He almost laughed as he recognized Kit’s habitual pose, defensive and smiling, but kept his demeanor serious for the Earl. An Earl who studied him also seriously, frowning, until Will opened his hands and shrugged.
“Not well, my lord. The story’s all in my head, but Times being as they are…”.
“Yes. I understand thou hast tried thy hand at some poetry. A manuscript called Venus and Adonis has been commended to me. Compared to our Marley’s,” Oxford’s nostrils flared momentarily, as if he fought some emotion unfinished work. “I’d see it read.”
Heat rose in Will’s cheeks as he glanced down at his shoes.
“You’d see my poor scribblings gone to press, my lord?”
“I would. And command some sonnets. Canst write sonnets?”
Oh, that stiffened his spine and brought his hands down to tighten on his knees. Burbage shifted beside him, and Will took the warning.
“I’ve been known to turn a rhyme,” Will answered, when he thought he had his tongue under control.
“I need a son-in-law wooed,” Oxford said. He stood and poured wine into three unmatched cups. Will raised an eyebrow when the Earl set the cups before Burbage and himself. More than mere politeness, that.
“Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton: I’d see him married to my daughter Elizabeth, where I can perhaps keep him from trouble. He’s close to Essex and to Raleigh, no mean trick. Kit’d befriended Sir Walter’s lot, their School of Night, so-called and learned a few tricks by me of the philosopher Dee. It’s trouble waiting to happen: too many of the Queen’s favorites in one place and rivalries will brew.”
Will’s eyebrow went even higher at the familiar form of Marley’s name.
“And you wish me to Dedicate thy book of poems to Southampton.”
“As if thou didst seek his patronage. Afflict him with sonnets bidding him marry. Raleigh is an enigma: there’s no witting which way he might turn in the end. Essex is trouble, though.”
“Though the Queen love him?” Burbage said, when Will could not find his tongue. Robert Devereaux, the second Earl of Essex, was thought by many a dashing young man, one of Elizabeth’s rival favorites and a rising star of the court. But her affections were divided, the third part each given to the explorers Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake. And there was something disingenuous in the look Oxford drew across them both, just then; Will was player enough to recognize bad playing.
“Sonnets. Sonnets, and I couldn’t write a good word to spare myself the chopping block.”
“Gloriana,” Oxford said, toying with his wine, “is a shrewd and coy Queen, equal to the title King of England which she has once or twice claimed. Despite her sex. Ah, would that she had been a man.”
That tripped Will’s tongue. “Do you suppose she mouths those same words, when she feels herself alone?”
Oxford tilted his head as if he had not considered it. “Master Shakespeare, I would not disbelieve should I hear her Maid of Honor mutter such gossip to the bees.” He stared past his guests to the smoky vista beyond the open door.
“So. Thou wilt write me these poems? Or write Southampton these poems? And bring me the manuscript for Venus and Adonis, that the ages might know it?”
“Will you see Hero and leander published as well?” Will hesitated at the cloud that passed Oxford’s face. He liked Kit as well. And then Will smiled. Kit had had that about him, the ability to inspire black rage or blind joy.
“It’s fine work, isn’t it?” Oxford didn’t wait for Will’s nod. He knocked the dottle from his pipe and began to pack the bowl again. “Chapman, another of Raleigh’s group proposes to complete it and see it registered. In Kit’s name, not his own. Decent.”
Burbage rocked back in his stool, rattling the legs on the floor. “My lord, you’ll put Will in a place where, if Southampton is flattered, they may become friends. Even if the courtship fails, we’ll have an eye in Southampton’s camp.”