Текст книги "Hell and Earth"
Автор книги: Elizabeth Bear
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
Will turned to the faint glimmer of sound, if turning it could be called. Heat cupped his body, pressed his skin. He writhed away from it, sure that there were flames and that the flames had seared his eyes from his head, because surely there could be no such agony in darkness.
The pain left him amazed.
“Which shall above the idle rank remain, beyond all doubt ev’n to eternity–”
Iambs.
Not blank verse though, and blank verse was important. Blank verse, the enjambed line, the rhythm of natural speech carrying an incantation’s power.
“Or at the least so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.”
A sonnet.
It’s a sonnet.
A sonnet he knew, although he could not remember from where. He swam through blackness, pushed and pulled, following the thread of that voice –a voice that cracked with weariness or emotion, and in cracking broke Will’s heart and made him strive the harder, because he knew, somehow, that the pain he heard could somehow be healed if he –
“That poor retention could not so much hold,”
– could only –
“Nor need I tallies thy dear… dammit. Thy dear love to,
to score,”
–pierce –
“Therefore to give them from me was I bold,”
–that –
“To trust those tables that receive thee more.”
–blackness.
The heat was more. The pain, the burning. Will pressed at it, and it was not like walking through flames, because flames cannot push back. His body trembled, and he understood that it was his body, suddenly, soaked in sweat, cloyed under blankets in a room where the fire roared beyond all sense and the bed was pulled so close beside it that the bedclothes smelled scorched where they weren’t soaked in sour sweat and stinking fluids. And he was cold, shivering cold, and Kit was bent over a book beside the bed. Kit was wiping away the sweat that must be stinging his sleepless eyes, then angling a tablet in dim light to read the poem in a voice that creaked with overuse.
Will’s hand darted out like a snake, all his reserves gone in one flash of motion, and he caught Kit’s wrist, and Kit’s eyes came up, widening.
“To keep an adjunct to remember thee,” Will finished, or tried to finish, because coughing racked him into an agonized crescent. Kit steadied his head, pressed a handkerchief to his mouth, which filled with ropes and clots of something that had the taste of iron and the texture of boiled brains. Will choked, coughing until he would have vomited if there were anything in his belly but bitter yellow froth, until he sobbed, half wishing for death.
He would have curled up again in misery, but Kit held his shoulders until he finished, and wiped his mouth again, and touched his forehead, which was slick and wet.
And then Kit smiled, and said, “Were to import forgetfulness to me, ” which Will understood was the end of the invocation, the end of the poem. And then Kit finished, “Thy fever’s broken. Praise God,” and hugged him hard enough to make his bones creak.
“I’m hot,”Will said petulantly, and Kit burst out laughing with relief and got up to knock the fire apart until it died down a little, all the while shouting for Morgan.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckled of the purest gold.
–Christopher Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
After the fateful ride, the Oueen’s men escorted Essex, a wounded and dignified Catesby, a profusely apologetic Monteagle, the estimable Francis Tresham, and a few dozen others to their temporary quarters in the Tower of London, from whence they would be tried. The revolution ended, most said, more or less as ineffectually as it began. And it was Richard Burbage who brought the news to Tom Walsingham’s house, where he had come in search of Will.
“It’s good that thou’lt live,” Burbage said, perched on the stool at Will’s bedside as Audrey Walsingham spooned broth into the sick man, out of mercy for his shaking hands. The bed had been pulled back from the fire and Kit’s cloak aired and returned to him. Will himself was sitting up against pillows, the crusted lesions at the corners of his mouth almost healed and his eyes their normal calm blue, not dull with fever.
Kit leaned back on a settee against the wall and cupped between his palms the mulled wine that Morgan had given him. His voice at last had failed him utterly, and he drooped, inches from sleep, in a warmly contented state of exhaustion that was too pleasant to abandon for bed. Beside that,he thought, I’d rather sit in a corner and watch that man make faces over unsalted bouillon than ever sleep again. Even if the whole room draped in red cloths to combat fever does make of thy place a scene out of Dante.
Morgan and Tom and Ben Jonson had crowded into the tiny sickroom now, Tom by his wife’s shoulder, Morgan not far from Kit, and Jonson as geographically distant from the slumping Marley as the closet’s confines would allow.
Will, concentrating on swallowing the soup without choking, did not answer.
“‘Tis good thou hast survived,” Burbage repeated, “because Her Majesty would be most wroth with me if thou hadst not.”
“Her Majesty?” Will’s voice was weak but clear. He laid a hand on Audrey’s wrist to restrain her when she would have poured more sustenance into him, and turned to Burbage. “Richard, what meanest thou?”
Burbage sighed. “She requests the Lord Chamberlain’s Men perform for her on the twenty‑fourth of the month. Shrove Tuesday. That’s thirteen days hence; thou hast lain fevered for three. And the play she wants is Richard the Second,and she very especially mentioned your name among the company of players she wishes to see perform it. I was half afeared” – Burbage’s hand on Will’s thin shoulder belied the brusqueness of his tone – “I would have to send word you were detained in a churchyard.”
“Not dead yet,” Will answered before taking more soup. “Thirteen days. Richard the Second.I may be able to do it.”
“I won’t have you killing yourself over a play, Will.” Jonson, forgetting himself, moved from his nervous post by the door and then stopped. He cast a wary glance at Kit, who knew his chin had started sagging to match his eyelids, and Kit struggled with a half‑formed understanding.
Christ. Ben Jonson is scared of me. Scared I’ll deduce him? Or scared I’ll overpower him and have my way with him?
Now therewas an image incongruous enough to send an exhausted poet giggling, and giggling touched Kit’s ravaged throat and turned to a hacking cough, which drew the worried glances of everyone in the room.
“Kit, thou’rt sickening–” Will, ignoring Jonson’s command.
Kit saw another measure of hurt cross the ugly young man’s face, and the half‑formed understanding crystallized into pity. Oh. Ben–
But there was nothing to be done for it, was there?
“No,” Kit managed, a stage whisper that almost started him coughing again. “Just talked raw. Will, Ben is right.” Morgan brought Kit more wine, and he drank it, enjoying Ben’s surprise at his intercession.
Will shook his head, looked up at Burbage. “Richard, why the twenty‑fourth, precisely? ”
The room got very quiet. Kit glanced from face to face, and realized everyone assembled knew the answer but for him. Like Will, he waited, calm enough in the knowledge that they would live. It was satisfying enough that he and Morgan and Tom–and Audrey and Jonson and Burbage and most of all, Will–had beatenBaines’ worst. No answer could trouble him.
It was Tom who cleared his throat, and answered, “Because Essex is to be executed on the twenty‑fifth, and Her Majesty wishes to see the play before she has her old friend drawn and quartered.”
Silence, as Kit struggled upright against the sugared grip of gravity, and his gaze met Will’s across the room. “Oh,” Will said. “Oh, poor Elizabeth.”
Act IV, scene xxii
The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
–William Shakespeare, Hamlet,Act II, scene ii
The Queen in her goodness commuted Essex’s sentence from hanging and torture to a simple beheading; it was rumored that he had been reproved to choose his wardrobe the night before, and Will imagined he might be about his task even as Richard the Secondwound to its close. Will’s hands shook as he sponged the makeup from his face.
The dates of the other executions had not yet been set, and Will wondered if they would be, when news from across the Irish sea had Spanish Catholic troops again landing in alliance to the Catholics of that emerald isle.
A genteel cough at Will’s shoulder alerted him to the presence of a page. Will turned. “Yes?”
“Her Majesty wishes to see you, Master Shakespeare. In the red withdrawing room. Her Majesty said you would know it.”
“Aye, ” Will said, wiping his hands again to be sure he was free of paint, and reaching for his cane. He should have felt apprehension, he knew. But when he reached for emotion, there was nothing there at all. “Please tell Her Majesty I’ll be along presently. My balance is not what it was.”
Which was the curse of this disease; his strength didn’t leave him, or his intellect. Just his ability to make his body obey his lawful commands.
When the page opened the door and gave him admittance, Will was startled to realize that the Queen was alone. The page slipped out behind him and the door latched shut. Will suffered a second realization that hewas alone with the Queen.
Elizabeth stood by the far archway, a single candle warming her ice‑white ceruse. “Master Shakespeare,” she said, as he began to bow awkwardly. “Rise. ‘Twill be enough of that. And find a chair, young man: I can see thy legs are about to desert thee and I have no mind to pluck thee off my carpeting.”
“Your Highness,” Will said, and sat awkwardly although the Queen did not. I, she said, and not we. How interesting.“I am honored to be in your presence.”
Her lips assayed a smile and almost managed it. “I’ll kill a man tomorrow.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Trying to keep his Christian pity for Elizabeth from his face, and, he suspected, failing.
“I waged rather a grand battle to save him, Master Shakespeare, and failed. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Why you did try to save him, Your Highness? Or why you did fail?” Greatly daring, he thought, but she seemed to invite it. Indeed, she inclined her head under its great jeweled tire and made a come‑along gesture with one gloved hand. Will watched her face, trying to judge how bold he might be, but her ceruse made a mask. “I think you did try to save him for you loved him. And he failed to be saved because he loved himself.”
“Ah,” she said. “Thou art a poet indeed. When I am gone, wilt make a play of me as thou didst my royal father?”
“No mere play could capture Your Highness, and no boy could play you. As well set a pussycat to play a princely lion.”
“Flattery.” But she smiled, a real smile this time. Her voice was low and very sweet. “So in honesty, as a poet, and with no ears to hear but mine–what think you of this latest string of murders upon which I will filthy my hands?”
Will examined her face, and knew by the way she stood that she meant to seem only a woman. He could not trust that, however. Kit would be proud.“Monteagle’s just a foolish young gallant, Your Highness. Southampton–” Will shrugged. “Led astray, perhaps. Perhaps leading. I don’t know that they deserve to swing. Unlike Essex.”
“Who won’t. Swing, that is. He’ll get a clean death. My last gift. Perhaps I’ll spare the other two, if it pleases thee.” She cast about herself for a chair; Will hastened to rise and fetch her one, and she pinned him down with a look. “Obey thy sovereign.”
“I was there when they hanged Lopez,” Will said, once she had settled herself. “I was there when Sir Francis died.”
“Meaning?” Perhaps dangerous, those folded hands, that softly arched brow.
And what will she do? Cast thee in the Tower?“It seems, if it please Your Highness, that your enemies sometimes get the gentler side of your hand than your loyal friends. My Queen.”
“It does not please me,” she said. They faced one another across the dark red pattern on the carpet, faces dim in shifting candlelight. Will forced his hands to stay smooth on his thighs and swallowed against his worry that he had overstepped. “But it is true. And thou art correct in other things as well. I am sick of politics, Master Shakespeare. I am deathly tired.”
It was an understatement. He saw it in her face, heard it in the timbre of her voice. An old woman, Queen before Will was born and–he realized with a shock–not likely to be Queen much longer. Elizabeth had been eternal. Elizabeth was England.
Elizabeth was deathly tired. Perhaps this was Baines’ goal all along,Will realized. To force her hand to kill Essex, whom she loved for all his faults. It’s broken her at last.
“Your Majesty–”
“Aye?”
“Did anyone among your servants ever love you as much as you loved him? Or did they all betray you?” Will almost clapped a hand over his mouth when the words came out, but it was too late and they were flown. He watched them hang there in the candlelight, wishing them recalled, and did not look at the stunned placidity of Elizabeth’s face.
Until she laughed. She threw back her head and roared like a sailor, one hand clutched to her breast, her eyes squinted tight and tears of mirth smearing her kohl into her ceruse. Her mouth fell so far open in her laughter that Will saw the wads or batting that padded out her cheeks where her teeth were gone. “Oh, William,” she said. “Oh, you ask the finest questions. I should have made thee my fool–”
“Your Highness, I am sorry–”
“Apologize not.” Suddenly serious, as she dabbed the corners of her eyes. She sat and thought a little while, and smiled. “I think I have been loved,” she said at last. “Aye, my Spirit loved me –Lord Burghley, to thee. And Sir Francis, for all I was very wroth with him. And my good Sir Walter; caught up in his games, but I do think his love is true. It’s these others I cannot seem to choose with any–” Her voice cracked, and she waved her hand as if to show that the word eluded her, but Will thought it wasn’t tears of laughter that showed now in her eyes. “I am Great Harry’s daughter, Master Shakespeare. Great Harry, I am not,” she said simply. “I am not my sister. I am what I am.”
“You’re England, Gloriana,” he said, and rose–against her command–and with his cane as a welcome prop he kneeled down at her feet.
Act IV, scene xxiii
Strike off their heads, and Let them preach on poles.
No doubt, such lessons they will teach the rest,
As by their preachments they will profit much
And learn obedience to their lawful king.
–Christopher Marlowe, Edward II,Act III, scene ii
Thomas Nashe was buried on the last day of July 1601, some five months after the execution of the Earl of Essex. They had been quiet months, and Kit Marlowe (or Marlin, or Merlin) had a sense that both sides were holding their breath, ·waiting for the next sally to follow the removal of Essex.
There was no question anymore that Baines would sacrifice anyone without a thought, and no supposition that he had any allies among his pawns.
Kit Marlowe (or Marlin, or Merlin) attended Nashe’s funeral in a plain brown cloak and a workman’s tunic. He stood well toward the back, his hood raised in a manner inappropriate to the heat, supplementing the illusions with which he had veiled himself. He left before the body was lowered into the grave.
He felt Will’s eyes upon him as he left the church, but Will didn’t turn to follow, and Kit thought they’d meet later in Will’s rooms, anyway. Maybe. Kit wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about Tom, thought maybe he wasn’t ready to talk about Tom. Tom who had been acerbic, witty, abrasive–and Kit’s oldest friend.
Tom, who alone among his friends Kit had managed to keep clear of the damned war with the Prometheans and its black world of espionage and sorcery and murder. Tom who should have grown old and fat and retired none the wiser, and raised up babies and perhaps named one Christofer.
Tom, who had not even died for a cause–of poison, of sorcery, of a knife in the eye–but who had died simply because he’d tripped on a paving stone and been crushed to death under the wheels of a carter’s haulage.
Kit wandered London like a homeless man, a sturdy vagrant or a tradesman out of doors. He startled a feral hound or two and smiled at a feral child, who was equally startled. Slow clouds came over one by one, but none of them promised any rain, and his cloak was stifling. His feet baked inside their boots. St. Paul’s,he thought, the churchyard where the stationers had their booths. But something drew him west instead, beyond the old cathedral, until he stood in the shadow of Newgate and then passed through. Prisoners were being loaded into a cart outside the walls of London; Kit spared them a sideways glance and barely prevented himself from stopping in his tracks.
One of the men on the cart, his hands bound with rope and his face pinched with privation, was Nicholas Skeres.
The cart lurched as one of the oxen shifted. Skeres fetched up against the rail and yet did not look up, and the milling guards largely ignored him. Kit tapped one on the arm.
“What?”
Kit showed the man a pair of silver shillings, cupped in his palm. “Those prisoners there. Where are they bound?”
The guardsman grunted and glanced over his shoulder to see if they were observed. He held out his palm, and silver jingled into it. “Bridewell,” he said. “Questioning and execution. Counterfeiters and a cutthroat or two, not that you asked.”
“No,” Kit said. “I didn’t. Thank you.” Questioning and execution.Torture and execution, more like. Kit stepped away from the guardsman and kept walking, putting a few hundred yards between himself and Newgate before an ox lowed and the rattle of the cart alerted him that the prisoners were moving. He stepped to the verge and waited.
Nick Skeres, the Little bastard. And Baines and Poley throw him to the wolves as well, and the rescue Will and I expected unforthcoming. I wonder how he outlived his usefulness.And then a softer thought, hesitant. I could do somewhat. I could find a way to rescue him. Sorcery is good for something….
Who was Christofer Marley, is that a glimpse of forgiveness I see in thee?
Kit poked it, considering, and shook his head within the mantle of his hood. No,he decided, and slid his hood down before the cart reached him, stepping forward to draw Skeres eye. The little man looked, and startled, and looked again. Kit left his hands folded tidily under the cloak and lifted his chin, meeting Skeres’ eyes, watching the condemned men pass.
There,he thought, when the press of bodies kept Skeres from turning to watch him out of sight. There was a touch of fate in that one.
Something witnessed.
Later that evening, he leaned forward on the floor before Will’s chair and gritted his teeth. He bundled his shirt in his arms and held it to his chest, covering the scar there, as Will ran cool hands that almost didn’t tremble down the length of his back. The touch itched; Kit forced himself to think of it in the same terms as that long‑ago evening, when Morgan had painstakingly stitched the wound over his eye.
“Kit, does it hurt thee?”
‘It makes me want to crawl over broken glass to escape, but no, it does not hurt me. And it may, perhaps, be better than last time.” A little,he amended, forcing himself not to cringe as Will laid his palms flat on the tops of Kit’s shoulders. A simple touch that should have been warming, and it was all he could do to permit it.
“If it doesn’t help,” Will said, “we won’t do this.”
“I don’t know yet if it helps,” Kit said. “Distract me. What shall we talk of? Not poor foolish Tom–”
“No, not Tom. Essex? I didn’t attend the execution.” Nor I. But our Sir Francis and poor Lopez are avenged.”
“Some vengeance,” Will answered, pressing harder. The firmer touch was easier to bear. “Elizabeth didn’t commute Lopez’ssentence from hideous torture to clean beheading.”
“There’s a moral there, my William.” Kit flinched away finally, the need to withdraw too great to bear. He hugged his shirt tighter and bent forward, fighting useless tears. Will poured him wine, and he dropped the shirt in his lap to take it. They had swept the rushes aside, and a splinter on the floorboards snagged Kit’s breeches.
“What’s that?”
“‘Tis better to be pretty than to be skilled.”
Intra‑act: Chorus
In the forty‑fifth year of Elizabeth’s reign, twenty‑five months to the day after the Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed Richard IIbefore her on that Shrove Tuesday in 1601, Will leaned over the garden gate of the house on Silver Street. Snowdrops bloomed in profusion about his boots, but Will was insensible to them. Hands folded, head cocked, he listened to the amazing present weight of something he had never heard before and would never hear again.
Silence in the streets of London Town.
The church bells hung voiceless. The criers and costermongers and hustling shoppers had deserted the streets. The playhouses stood empty, the markets deserted, the doors of every church open to the cold and any in need of refuge, or of comfort, or of prayer.
Elizabeth of England was dead.
Act V, scene i
But Faustus’ offence can ne’er be pardoned: the serpent
that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus.
– Christopher Marlowe, Faustus,Act V,scene ii
My dearest Kit:
I hope this finds thee well, & her Majesty the Mebd recovered from her weary illness when Gloriana passed. I have thought of her often, although I have refrained from offering prayers on her behalf, as she will no doubt understand.
As for myself? I am thick with news, & will make haste to lay it before thee. James of Scotland & England is King, & all is not well, my love.
Ev’ry bell in London tolled his welcome.
The King landed at the Tower of London on eleventh May, having taken some care to ensure hid progress from the north would be suitably stately that his arrival would not encroach on Elizabeth’s state funeral. Ben designed the triumphal arch through which he entered the city, and Ned Alleyn, a bit coldly clad, delivered a speech penned by Tom Dekker. The poets will have their day– and Ben got a charm into his working, which may help or it may not. Sir Robert Cecil came with him, having ridden north to York to greet our new Monarch. I did hear later that the ravens at the Tower flew up to greet the King’s barge, & that the small zoo of lions within that ancient stronghold’s precincts roared him welcome from their cages.
Gossip had been running through the streets on a river of wine & ale, &– between performances– I soak it in from my accustomed chair at the Mermaid. I am become quite the fixture there; thou wilt be pleased to know I have made a fine recovery of my fever, & in fact feel stronger now than I did before it.
Sadly, the same cannot be said for London. James had been crowned in a time of plague such as London has not suffered since thy murder, dear friend. Almost a decade since, & again crosses mark doorboards & whole families sicken. ‘Tis not, methinks, auspicious.
One of the dead is Ben’s son. Still when they cannot have us, they strike at our children.
Ah, but on to those gossips. They say, dear friend, that the new King is as great a hunter & lover of sport as the old Queen. They say ‘tis time England had a man’s hand on the tiller again. They say James dances at court & tumbles with his children: he has three, & another in his fair Queen’s belly. They say that that Queen loves dancing as well, & plays– which bodes well– & the masques of Ben Jonson.
Moreover. They day she is Catholic, & her husband the King Protestant. & I am not the only one who has breathed a low sigh of relief & permitted himself a giddy measure of hope at that small truth.
We players wore scarlet for the coronation: we are the King’s– rather than the Lord Chamberlain’s– Men now, & Grooms of the Bedchamber. Which one would suppose might give me some greater power to tug the King’s earlobe & press the suit of our Bible, but alas, ‘tis the Great Chamber only, and not the Privy– ‘tis but a ceremonial toy, as someone I know was wont to day. And James has adopted Cecil, & raised him to the peerage no less, & Cecil will not see it done.
I’ve managed to remind Monteagle of my assistance in seeing him & Southampton released from the Tower, & that may serve us well. Elizabeth’s good Sir Walter, I fear, has taken their place in duress, for James does not trust him. Many changes are afoot, & I for one shall tread most carefully.
Still, Annie is well, the girls tall as trees. Tom sends his affection, & Ben has rejoined our fold along with Chapman. All of us would like to see thee come again to our evening’s entertainments, if I may call them that. Well, all but Ben perhaps, & he will endure. I cannot say age has settled him, precisely, except it has. After a fashion. Or it may simply be that his wife is in London now, and it may be that they will reconcile. And if she will not content him, he has the wives of other men to hawk after–
Have a care. The Prometheans are very quiet. The plague notwithstanding. Young master Benjamin Jonson buried at seven years notwithstanding, as well. Though, if anything, that has made our Ben more determined. He speaks not of it, but he’s cold with purpose now.
We have that in common.
Oh, Kit, shouldst see what I am writing. Our adventures in Lucifer’s demesne–I know so neither of us talk of them o’ermuch, but the plays I am making now, daresay, are not like anything thou hast seen before–nay, I shall not tease thee.
But come, love.
I have things to show thee.
thy Will
The door of the library swung open, and Kit looked up from quiet conversation with Amaranth to see Murchaud framed against its dark red wood. “Kit,” the Prince said, smiling, “a moment of your time?”
“Your Highness,” Kit answered, not unironically. He made a bow over Amaranth’s hand and turned to follow Murchaud. They went in silence up the stairs; Murchaud led Kit to his rooms and unlocked the door with quiet concentration.
Kit followed calmly. Oh, won’t this inspire gossip in the court.“Murchaud?” he asked, when the door was latched again.
The Elf‑knight’s shoulders drooped like wings as soon as their privacy was assured. “She’s no better,” he said shortly, and went to pour wine for them both.
Kit followed at his heels, trying not to think that he must have looked like a faithful cur at his master’s boot. “Is she worse?”
“No. I’ve never heard of anything like. ‘Tis possible the Faerie Queen grew so linked with Gloriana in the minds of England’s folk that Gloriana’s passing could take the Mebd with it. And if the Mebd dies without loosing her bonds, all those Fae who are knotted in her hair die with her.”
“Would she do that? Take you all to the grave?” Kit was unprepared for the barb of panic that stabbed his breast; he took the wine–littered with bits of peppery nasturtium flowers like confetti–and covered his face with the rim.
“Come, sit.” Murchaud gestured him to one of two chairs on either side of the low table near the window. There was a chessboard set up, and beside it lay a book marked with a ribbon that Kit had been reading–before Will came to Faerie. And Murchaud has not seen fit to return it to the Library.Kit planted himself in the chair and set his glass down. Murchaud settled opposite. “She might,” the Elf‑knight said, nodding judiciously “Wilt fight for her, Christofer?”
“Poetry?”
“Aye.” Murchaud swirled his wine as much as drank it, seeming to savor the aroma.
“I will, ” Kit answered. A familial silence fell between them, and at last Kit succumbed to the siren song of the book on the table. He picked it up and thumbed through, trying to see if he remembered what led up to the place where the ribbon lay.
Murchaud let the quiet linger long enough that his voice startled Kit when he spoke again. “Dost trust me, my Christofer?”
Kit raised his eyes over the top of his book and met Murchaud’s gaze. “Thy Christofer? Surely not–”
Murchaud braced his boot on the low table between them, turning a black chess knight between his fingers. “Then whose else art thou?”
Which gave Kit pause. “The Devil’s. I suppose.”
“And not thine own?” Murchaud stood, a movement too fluid to seem as abrupt as it was, and began to pace, revealing to Kit that this was not an idle conversation.
“Had I everthat luxury?”
Which made Murchaud turn his head and blink softly. “Does any man?
“Or any elf? No.” Kit sighed. “Aye, my Prince. I trust thee as much as I might trust any Elf‑knight.”
“Which is to say not at all.”
Kit shrugged and set his book aside, then reached for the wineglass on the table. He raised it in salute, watching Murchaud roll the chess knight across the back of his fingers, as Will was wont to do with coins. “Why all this sudden concern with trust?”
“There is a wound festers in thee.”
“Who, me?” Kit sipped his wine and managed an airy dismissal with the back of his left hand. “I assure thee, I am festerment‑free.”
“Not that Idistrust thee…” Murchaud smiled and closed the distance between them. He dropped the chessman into Kit’s wineglass, where it vanished with a plop and a clink, and crouched beside Kit’s chair. When Kit turned to him, startled, Murchaud knotted Kit’s hair tight in both hands and kissed him fiercely, with a seeking tongue.
Kit bore it as long as he could, but couldn’t stop the sudden backward jerk of his head – a painful yank against Murchaud’s grip on his hair–or the sharp, humiliating whimper.
“Aye,” Murchaud said, breath hot on Kit’s ear before he sat back on his heels. “Thou’rt perfectly fine. Stubborn fool.”
“Murchaud–”
“Silence. I can heal thee, Kit.”
“Heal?” His heart accelerated; he drew back the hand he had braced on Murchaud’s chest and brought his wine to his mouth. The chessman bumped his lips as he swallowed.
“Heal thee or break thee.”
“That is curiously like what Lucifer said.” The wine was gone, except for a little pool under the ebony horse’s head at the bottom of the glass and bits of orange petals adhered to the rim. Kit set the goblet on the table. “What dost thou propose?”
