Текст книги "Ink and Steel"
Автор книги: Elizabeth Bear
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
These things, with many other shall by good & honest witness be approved to be his opinions and Common Speeches, and that this Marlow doth not only holdthem himself, but almost into every Company he Cometh he persuades men to Atheism willing them not to be afeared of bugbears and hobgoblins, and utterly scorning both god and his ministers as I Richard Baines will Justify & approve both by mine oath and the testimony of many honest men, and almost all men with whom he hath Conversed any time will testify the same, and as I think all men in Christianity ought to endeavor that the mouth of so dangerous a member may be stopped.
RICHARD BAINES, A note Containing the opinion of one Christopher Marly Concerning his Damnable Judgment of Religion, and scorn of gods word, recorded May of 1593
Baines lunged, shouldering Marley’s slender blade aside. A half second toolate; the edge of Marley’s doublet brushed his fingers, and Kit and the crippled playmaker hit the glass with no sound of splintering. They vanished as if they’d tumbled into peat-blackened water. Baines caught himself hard against the windowsill before he could follow, headfirst through shattered glass and the shutters knocked wide, into the garden below. Something in his elbow popped, and he grunted as he pushed back. Fray Xalbador’s blood slipped and stuck under the soles of his boots. “Damme.” Quiet and wry, an edge of admiration in it Baines would not have permitted Marley to hear.
“Christofer Marley,” Poley said, not releasing his dagger. “Jesus fucked Mary and Joseph. Nick wasn’t drunk after all.”
Baines pressed his palm against cool glass, tentatively. The sensation was mundane, diamond-shaped panes and strips of lead between. He strode acros sblood and stopped not far from Poley. “You sound like our pussycat, Robert. Such blasphemy.”
Poley looked up at him, blowing the hair out of his eyes. “I buried that man, Dick.”
“Aye, and he’s come back from the grave?” Baines rolled his shirt-sleeves up. “Put the damned dagger away, as it did you so much benefit last time. Are you sure you killed the right poet?”
Poley turned his head and spat. “I checked his brands before we buried him.”
“But that was no ghost managed the friar so neatly. And you saw the eyepatch: Ingrim struck him fairly and laid him down.”
The slender blond agent nudged de Parma’s flaccid corpse with his toe. “We’ll have to dispose of this.”
“We’ll wall him in the cellar,” Baines answered, already calculating the losses and advantages of the Inquisitor’s bloody death. “Damme, we’re short a sorcerer.”
“Aye. And moreover, it seems our Kit’s exhumed himself with a touch of the glamourie.” Poley raised a hand and rapped lightly on the window glass, tilting his head as if to assess the rattle of the sash against the frame. “The old bitch must have had him off overseas, or he’s been laying low. Still. As long as he’s living…”
Baines lifted his chin in comprehension. “We won’t have to enchant another, when the time comes. How did he survive a stabbing and a burial, then?”
Poley wiped his blade, unnecessarily, on his breeches and slipped the dagger into its sheath. “Sorcery? If he were a sorcerer, I would know it. A poet, yes, and a good one, but the real use of him was…”
Baines saw Poley’s eyes widen as he, Baines, hesitated. If the light were better, he imagined he would have seen Poley blanch. “You think Mehiel had something to do with it.”
“I think,” Baines answered, considering, “we may find Master Marley difficult to keep dead, if that is indeed what happened to him. An unexpected incidental result.” He shrugged. “But I mastered him once. Can do it again.”
“He slipped your lead once,” Poley reminded.
“Only because de Vere gave him too much rope.”
“Come, Dick. Help me wrap the friar so he doesn’t drip down the hall.” Baines crouched, dragging a woolen blanket from the bed. He lifted de Parma sbody by the sticky dark auburn hair, and heaved in unison with Poley. The little man was strong for his size.
“If our pussycat’s returned to my safekeeping, I can promise you that won’t happen again.”
Orlando:
Then in mine own person I die.
Rosalind:
No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is
almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
there was not any man died in his own person,
videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains
dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
could to die before, and he is one of the patterns
of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair
year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been
for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went
but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being
taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish
coroners of that age found it was ‘Hero of Sestos.’
But these are all lies: men have died from time to
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You like It
Kit grunted as Will fell atop him. The hard landing broke Will’s startled shout, for all Kit cushioned them both as best he could without losing his grip either on Will or his rapier. Threads on Kit’s doublet snapped, pearls splashing, powdering between bodies and stones.
Will rolled, scrambling to his feet with the dagger at the ready, bad leg dragging. He turned, trying to cover Kit and still stay out of his way, and then hesitated, amazed. “Kit.”
Kit pushed himself to a crouch, wheezing. “Damme, but that was closer than I like them.”
“Where are we?”
“William, my love.” Will dismissed it with a half-formed judgment on Kit’s habitual extravagance.
“Faerie.” Kit dragged himself up the wall as if his ribs pained him.
Will winced.
“Drink nothing while thou here lingerest. Neither shalt thou dine, lest like Proserpine thou dost find thyself obligated to the underworld.”
“Faerie.” Will shook himself, a chill only half excitement crawling the length of his spine. “Why this course? With the Inquisitor dead, I don’t see why you left Baines and Poley.”
Kit straightened, consternation a furrow across his forehead. “I should have had Poley,” he admitted. “I couldn’t see Baines well enough to know if he was armed, and I didn’t dare risk keeping my back to him if he was. It was a mistake.”
“Why did we come here instead of going after Baines, then? And why was he talking to you like that?” The bitter taste of something half understood, which he understood no better when Kit glanced at the floor and turned away.
“Come along, Will. We’ll get you cleaned up a little, and I’ll see if you can be presented to the Queen. Or I suppose I could send you back through the Glass now, safe and sound in your lodging.”
“I’m in Faerie, and all you can think of is sending me home?” Will struggled to keep up; still shedding pearls like snowflakes from his shoulders, Kit caught Will’s blood-covered sleeve and helped. “Before I’ve seen the place?”
“You could lose your life in a night. Or be trapped here.”
“I’ll risk it. Just this once. For an hour. Why did you pass your chance at Baines?”
“Because I wasn’t sure I could kill him.”
“He wasn’t armed.”
“Christ wept!” Kit turned on Will with enough force that Will staggered a step. “I wasn’t sure I could kill him, Will. Why are you after me? I came to help, didn’t I?”
Perversity flared in Will. “Came to help. Aye. And where were you all the long last year, and the one before that, and the one before that? How did you know about Baines?”
“I read thy letter. You read my … oh. How did you… And this is the night he chooses to take it? Did you read any of the papers with it? Ben’s play?”
Kit shook his head. “I read the letter only, and panicked. And a good thing: you would not have wished to make an intimate acquaintance of Master Richard Baines.”
“I’m glad you have the poems.” Will hoped his voice hid his desperation. They moved through narrow corridors; with a little amusement, he realized, despite rich hangings and the smooth golden stone underfoot, that Kit shepherded him through the castle on the servants trails. Just as well. Will’s blood-soaked shoes left brush marks on the flags. The walls were almost translucent, glowing mellow amber. Will laid a hand on one, surprised to find it cool. “Do you suppose I could reclaim those? Ben has my other copy, and I don’t expect him back from Stratford for a month.”
“It may be a month gone by when you return home,” Kit said, and Will couldn’t miss the relief in his voice at Baines as a dropped subject. “But, aye, of course. May I keep the plays?”
“In addition to Ben’s,” Will answered. He ducked so Kit wouldn’t see his blush. “There’s two comedies of mine.”
“Oh?”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Which Satan said he rather liked. Rather in advance. And As You like It,” Will said. “If thou couldst see the boys we have now, thou wouldst strangle me in my sleep for a chance to write for them.”
Kit changed the subject again, leaving Will to wonder at his discomfort. “Here’s my door. There’s half a chance hot water awaits thee, if I know the castle’s staff. I’m off to fetch Morgan. I won’t be above half an hour.”
“With blood all over thy breast?” Will asked gently.
Kit brushed at it with the backs of his fingers, scattering another pearl. “She’s seen worse,” he said. “Your poems are on the bed. Drink nothing, not even the water.” He shut the door before Will could thank him, or make sense of the ragged darkness in Kit’s expression.
Kit’s chamber was big enough for a Prince, the floor covered in a stunning extravagance of Araby carpets, the curtained bed broad enough for five.
I wonder who he shares it with,Will thought, and put the thought away. Tapestries and painted cloths muffled the walls; their subject was pastoral, and Will did not think Kit had chosen them. The aftermath of combat made him dizzy. He washed, then sorted his poems from the other papers and rolled them tight, finding a bit of ribbon in his purse to tie them with. Will breathed easier once those too-revealing sonnets were tucked inside his doublet; less easily when the door opened and Kit led a woman of middle years and black Roman beauty in.
A woman clad in a man’s white cambric shirt, riding boots, and green breeches that were almost trunk hose, cut tight and close to her hips and thighs.
“My lady,” Will said, making a somewhat unsteady leg, noticing Kit’s discomfiture as an adjunct to his own.
“It’s a bit of a pleasure to see Marley flustered.” She snorted like a mare and scanned him lengthwise, shaking her head hard enough that the peridot clusters in her ears tangled in the escaping tendrils of her hair. “The legendary William Shakespeare,” she said, and turned to Kit. “A little unprepossessing, isn’t he?” Her smile softened the comment into a flirtation; Will didn’t understand why Kit blanched and leaned heavily on the edge of the clothespress.
“My lady,” Will said, feigning hurt, “I am accounted the most charming of playmakers.”
“Given thy competition,” I do not wonder, she said. Her hips moved marvelously under the tight dark brocade as she crossed the carpet. Will kept his eyes on her face, the green-black eyes she never lowered.
“Wert injured?”
“No,” he said. She reached up and tilted his face side to side, clucking her tongue. Despite himself, her fingers stroking his beard, the scent of her skin like mint and citrus, he couldn’t help but smile. “What is t? You sound exactly like my wife.”
“I hope that’s a better compliment than if I said you sounded like my husband.”
“Tis the greatest compliment I can offer,” Will said as she stepped away. “Do I pass inspection, madam?”
“You seem unhurt. We’ll talk of the other things later.” Before he could do more than startle, she moved toward the door. “You washed your hair, at least. I’ll see you clothed; we’ll present you to the Mebd tonight, after supper.”
Kit cleared his throat. Morgan turned to him and smiled, and Will’s breath swelled his throat for a moment as he tried to decide if the smile was a lover’s, or that of an indulgent guardian.
“My boon, my Queen,” he murmured. Her chin lifted, and the smile grew amused. Of course. A little show of feeling in her pockets, until Kit touched his collar.
Will realized that the other poet had changed clothes, or his shirt and doublet at least, and washed the rusty red spatters from his hands. He keeps clothes in her rooms. That answers one question. Or does it?
Morgan laughed and unpinned something winking gold from the cambric of her shirt, coming back to Will. “Have you a place for an earring, Master Shakespeare?” He lifted his hair, showing the bit of silk that kept the hole from closing. Kit nodded when Will caught his eye, and so Will ducked his head and let her untie the cord and slip it from his ear. A little gasp as she tugged the hole open and slipped something into it: a substantial ring, warm from the heat of her bosom. “There,” she said. “A favor from a lady. A favor that will permit thee, Master Shakespeare, to come and go from this land to that land as thou wilt, without years cut from thy life whilst thou in Faerie dwelleth.” Kit came forward beside her, rubbing at his eyepatch as an exhausted man might rub his eye. As Morgan stepped back, Will touched the earring, feeling heavy gold swing. “A rich gift, Your Highness.”
“We have a special love of poets here,” she said. “Don’t we, Sir Christofer?” She turned to kiss Kit on the cheek. Will saw his friend pale, but Kit did not step away, and in fact smiled as if at a favor. The door shut behind her, concealing the sway of her hips, and Will touched the earring again. “Do you trust this?”
“Her word is good. When you can get her to give it.”
“An impressive woman.”
“If thou knowst what’s wise,” Kit said, “that will be the last time thou thinkst so. Come, lay thee in my bed and rest. I’m too long slept, myself: I’ll sit and read thy Jonson’s plays while thou dost slumber, and wake thee when thy clothes arrive.”
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Hero and leander
Once Will fell into exhausted slumber, Kit dragged the fireplace armchair to the window for better light, muttering amiable profanity as ornately worked legs snagged on the carpets. Taking up the remaining papers, he settled down to study. Jonson’s play he set aside, for perusal when his concentration improved, while he spread the sheets of Will’s comedy across his knees and held them up, unfolded one by one, to read.
Five or ten leaves in, he stifled laughter against his sleeve and read faster. At the end of the third act, he turned the already-read pages over and laid them on the floor, sitting back in the chair to regard their slumbering author. He gazed for long minutes, blinking thoughtfully, and at last picked up the remaining sheets to read: more slowly now, and with attention.
“Ganymede, eh?” But it was no more than a murmur, the shape of a name on his lips. He read the play twice over before he set it aside, and then he stood and paced the width of the room once or twice, stealing glances at Will now and again, shaking his head each time. Will showed no signs of stirring, sleeping the sleep of utter weariness, and Kit at last stopped pacing and returned to the window and Jonson’s play. The wit was sharp, the rhyme fitting, if the tone a little dismissive of both players and audience but Kit could not concentrate long enough to read a page complete. He laid them aside and picked up Will’s play again, thumbing through it to read a line here and there. Again shook his head, and again laid the papers aside. At last, in frustration, he stood and fetched a bundle, thread, and a needle-book from the clothespress: a task to busy his hands enough, he hoped, to silence the breathless longing that had sprung painfully to life in his breast.
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You like It
Will found himself turning and turning again, trying not to stare at on eimprobable being after another as Kit led him through the soaring hall. It took concentration not to crowd Kit for the transitory feeling of safety the brush of his shoulder gave. Will stole another look at his friend’s ragged cloak, almost a motley, a panoply of richest fabric stitched with a tight and tidy hand. Court garb in Faerie. Will looked longingly at the wine in his glass, but set it on the edge of the table.
“Go ahead and drink,” Kit said. You’ve a Queen’s surety you may return home without fear. The Fae keep their word. And now, come and meet my lover.”
“Another one? Haven’t you enough problems?”
“Mix with the men of power and rise.” Kit shrugged. “They teach that at Cambridge, too.”
The banter, the sparkle. It was tinsel, Will thought, understanding. There’s a reason no one ever let you on a stage, Marley.But as Kit led him forward, he followed on.
Faustus:
Was not that Lucifer an Angel once?
Mephostophilis:
Yes Faustus, and most dearly loved of God.
Faustus:
How comes it then that he is Prince of Devils?
Mephostophilis:
O by aspiring pride and insolence,
For which God threw him from the face of heaven.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Faustus
The rill of Cairbre’s harpstrings shivered through the air as Murchaud brushed a courtier aside and came across the floor currently otherwise occupied by clusters of conversationalists to Will and Kit. Kit bowed, found it useless as Murchaud closed the distance between them and took Kit’s doublet in both hands, lifting him to his toes to claim a possessing kiss. Kit’s ragged new cloak, only a single layer of a few dozen patches yet, dragged at his collar as Murchaud bent him backward. He pressed one hand tothe Elf-knight’s breast, feeling the racing beat of his heart under velvet and silk. Murchaud released him and stepped back, left Kit wiping his mouth on hishand, stinging with the suddenness of the release.
Kit turned to Will, still tasting the kiss, watching the blood rise in Will’s ghost-pale cheeks. “Your Highness, Master William Shakespeare,” he said formally. Will, Murchaud ap Launcelot, Prince of the Daoine Sidhe.
“Fitz,” Murchaud corrected. “How did you know that?”
“Your mother hinted strongly, Kit said, his eye on Will,” who shifted a flustered gaze from one to the other of them as if uncertain where to rest it.
“Welcome to Faerie, Will. Things are a bit different here.”
“Your Highness,” Will said, bending a knee. Kit thought he looked striking in a saffron-colored doublet pinked in peach and gold, the padding enough to make him seem a little less painfully thin. If nothing else, those cheekbones and the startling blue eyes would have made up for a multitude of sins
Kit. Stop.
“Call me Murchaud,” he answered, to Kit’s surprised pleasure and then jealousy. “We needn’t stand on ceremony. Come, let me introduce you to my wife.”
He took Will’s elbow and led him toward the dais, Kit trailing uncomfortably. The Mebd was garbed in gold and white, the floor-length sleeves of her gown wrought with fantastical chains of green embroidery. The dress resembled an antique style called a bliaut, belted with golden chains encrusted with emeralds. She drifted down the steps with her arms spread wide, poised like a dove at the bottom of the dais, her train spread behind her glittering with crystal and silver thread.
“Kneel,” Murchaud instructed Will as they came before her. Kit stepped forward and dropped a knee: uneasiness still troubled his stomach as Will sank correctly beside him and Murchaud bowed low. The Mebd looked from one face to another, and smiled. “My lord husband. Sir Kit. And Master William Shakespeare. Has ever a court been so graced with jewels of verse as ours?”
“Your Majesty,” Will answered, bowing his head. “You do me more credit than I deserve.”
“Nay,” she answered. “Sir Christofer, we see thou hast claimed thy rank as journeyman-bard. We are pleased.”
A hesitation, and Kit felt her smile like a brand. “Poets, rise. You will grace us tonight? You, not thou. Both of us. She means to make a little rivalry between us. Faerieand their games.
Will glanced sidelong at Kit, who nodded, barely. Will answered, It shall be as you wish it, Your Majesty. We will be pleased to. If I may beg a boon… ?” Kit nibbled the edge of his mustache, keeping his eyes on the floor. Careful, Will.
And, Ganymede. Jove’s fancy-boy, his pretty cup-bearer, and by extension, thepainted boys who worked in London’s alleys. Do I want to know if it means what I think it means, that Will named so his woman-dressed-as-Lad?Kit’s stomach knotted again.
“Ask what thou wilt, Master Poet.”
“To stay in your court a little, that I may sing its praises the more extravagantly when I return to England.”
She made a show of considering, but Kit risking a glance perfectly understood the small smile playing at her lips.
“Thou mayst stay, she said. A little.” And before Kit could do more than nudge Will warningly with an elbow, “—thou mayst leave when thou wisheth. For the rent of a song or seven, while thou art with us. Art agreed?”
“Aye, Your Majesty.”
“It will be as we have said.” She smiled, and graced Kit and then Will with a touch of her hand, and then took Murchaud’s arm and permitted it to seem as if he led her away, although Kit could see the hesitance of the Prince’s step.
“Are they all like her?” Will asked under his breath.
Kit shook his head. “She’s the most Fey. Yes. Foolish to ask, but dost feel ensorceled?”
Will turned a stare on him, and then stopped, lips thinning as he considered. “How would I know if I were?”
“An excellent question,” Kit admitted. “Let me know if anyone pins a pansy to your bosom. Will you write to Burbage to see to your affairs?”
“I’ll tell him I was called away, aye. We won’t have a playhouse until after Christmas, as it is.”
Tear down the Theatre,Kit thought, shaking his head at a bit of his world gone forever. Sharp as a stone in his shoe. Murchaud did warn you the world changes, and you will not.
“Ah, there’s someone you should meet. The lady Amaranth.” Kit stole a sidelong glance at Will, whose jaw was literally hanging open. “Striking, is she not?”
“Astoundingly. Is she venomous?”
“She assures me she is. I have never sought an opportunity to discover it first hand.”
“Methinks tis probably as well.”
“Aye,” Kit said, taking Will by the elbow. “I do agree. I’ve spoken with Morgan. Thou wilt share my quarters, an it please thee. The bed’s big enough for four, and to be frank I find it strange having so large a room to myself. And it will present a barrier to keep thee from Morgan’s clutches. And perhaps buy me some peace as well.” The thought of returning to Murchaud’s bed made him sick. Rosalind. Dressed as Ganymede. Oh, Will. Oh, God in Hell.
“Amaranth,” Kit said as they came up to her. “Meet my friend William Shakespeare.”
“Will, lady Amaranth. Charmed,” Will said, and to his credit bent over her cold, scaled hand and brushed it with his lips. Amaranth’s snakes swelled, pleased, about her elfin face as she mocked a smile.
“Master Shakespeare,” she hissed. “Your reputation precedes you.”
Will glanced at Kit. Kit shrugged. “We stay current,” he said. What poem do you plan to recite?”
Will closed his eyes, as if considering. “Something you haven’t read, I think. Are you reciting Hero?”
“They’ve heard it,” Kit said, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. The ragged hem of his cloak swayed against his calves. “The Mebd hinted she wanted me to play Bard, so I thought I would sing something not of mine own composing.”
“When do we …”
Kit pointed with his chin to the dais. “Go and tell Cairbre there you’re sent to claim the stage. He’ll advise you when.”
“Come with me?”
Kit smiled. “Aye, I will. Amaranth, will you accompany?”
She tilted her head in gracious refusal as she flicked herself into a tidy tower of coils. “I must seek Master Goodfellow, she said. Anon, gentle Poets.”
“Anon, my lady,” Will said.
Kit bowed slightly, but did not speak as she glided away. “She likes thee.”
“How knowst thou?”
Kit flinched as they turned toward the small stage. Cairbre had been joined by Morgan le Fey, who gathered her gown thank God she’s decently dressedin both fists as she seated herself before the virginals.
“I can tell.”
“Your Morgan plays?” Will asked in his ear, a tender thrill in his voice that drew another shiver from Kit. “Very well,” Kit answered, and walked forward.
Kit leaned against the pillar between two silk-shrouded windows, arms folded over his breast, and unsuccessfully fought a smile. Will was correct: he didn’t know this poem, and its simple style masked Will’s eternal cleverness very well. Half Kit’s mind was elsewhere, hastily revising the words of a whimsically chosen song to remove references to the Divine. But with his remaining attention, he watched Will put on a player’s confidence and take the stage like a master, broad gestures and subtle expressions as he declaimed.
… Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
Applause, and Will soaked it in for a moment before doffing his borrowed hat and taking a long, savoring bow. Kit watched, his stomach still twisting. No Ned, nor will he ever be, but the man has grown. Even if he is losing his hair. Congratulations, my love: an ovation in Faerie, such as most poets only dream.
Will’s smile, when he stood, cast his face in the architecture of delight. He turned to Kit, summoning him on an airy gesture. Sweet Christ harrowing Hell, how am I supposed to sleep in a bed with that man all night after reading that play?
Kit mounted the steps, acknowledged to a ripple of applause, and leaned down and whispered in Cairbre’s ear, enjoying the expression on the Bard’s face when he said, “That Tudor song I taught you, Sir”
“Bold, Cairbre said,” and laced his fingers over the strings of his harp.
“This is not mine,” Kit said, turning to the Fae, “but is said to have been written by a King himself not known for his faith to his ladies.” He drew breath, and found Murchaud in the crowd as Cairbre and Morgan gave him the first plaintive notes.
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously.
For I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company.
Your vows you’ve broken, like my heart,
Oh, why did you so enrapture me?
Now I remain in a world apart
But my heart remains in captivity.
The Prince’s eyes widened in shock at the boldness of the gesture. And after that kiss, he shouldn’t be surprised.
Kit looked away, to find the rest of his audience, aware that his voice hadn’t the richness of Cairbre’s deep baritone, but finding its notes with confidence. Kit sang a line for Amaranth, and one for Geoffrey, and discovered other eyes in the crowd as well. A sly glance at Morgan, giving her a phrase or two as she ran her fingers over the keys, and she smiled back as if enjoying his bravura. Goodfellow’s glance, there, and a tight little smile as the Puck tugged at his own short motley cape. Kit smiled back, and gave him a verse, for the only friendship Kit had known in Faerie. And then he turned his head and gave Will a verse, one of the changed ones, his throat tight enough that he prayed not to squeak like a mouse. To Murchaud, the last verse, and to the Mebd’s cruel, amused, approving smile and her whisper in her husband’s ear, “See, love? Your pet has teeth,” and then he closed his eyes and back to the beginning again, for the final hanging, dying line.
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously.
For I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company.
Shock, not applause, and Kit let the old armored smile slide over his face like a visor at the paleness in Murchaud’s cheeks and Kit’s own unexpected success. I’ve found a way to scandalize Faerie at last, he thought, and took himself down from the stage.
