Текст книги "Hell and Earth"
Автор книги: Elizabeth Bear
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
Carefully, wary of his head and his dizziness, Kit stood in the darkness and extended his arms. His palms lay flat against the walls on either side – masoned stone, he thought–and whatever rings encircled his fingers clanked on the blocks. A harsh, heavy clank, and not the ring of silver or the clink of gold.
He lowered his hands, feeling the moist earth under his feet – heels, ball, toes–and drew another deep breath. The stench of a place men have died in, aye.
And something else.
Thick and raw, the stench of the Thames.
“The Pit, ” he said, and sat down on the floor again, shaking his head. “I dreamed this.”
He knew where he was now, and he knew who had him. He was in the oubliette at the Tower of London, and he was in the power of Robert Poley. And by extension, of Richard Baines.
In absolute blackness, Kit paced the cramped circle afforded him. His right hand trailed on the damp stones of the wall. He had no fear of tripping; his feet knew the path, and the dank earth was where he slept when he grew too tired to walk. Wasting energy,he thought, but he could not sit still. “The sink wherein the filth of all the castle falls,” he mumbled, but it wasn’t, quite. More an old, almost‑dry well, lidded in iron as much to keep light out as the prisoner in, for the sides were twenty foot and steeply angled.
He had paced forever.
He would be pacing forevermore.
The iron rings–or so he thought them, groping in the darkness –on his hands wouldn’t come off. He’d tried, and all he’d gotten for his trouble was a clicking pain as if he were trying to yank each finger individually from its socket. Upon pulling harder, there had been the stretch of tearing flesh and a slow, hot trickle of blood, but the rings had not shifted.
A strange sort of irritation, first an itching and then a raw, hot pain, grew in patches on his torso and his thighs. To pass the time and to stave off whatever sorcery Baines might be working, so far out of reach above, he told himself stories. Bits of verse –Nashe’s plays, half memorized, Kyd’s Tragedy,Will’s Titus,and Kit’s own words. The Greeks and the Romans and the Celts. The Bible.
Anything to keep from thinking of his own predicament, and worse. To keep from remembering how he had failed Will. Because when the throbbing in his head had subsided, he’d remembered how he’d been surprised.
Coming to Will’s rescue.
Just as Baines would have known that he would, having seen it before. Stupid, Kit, to leave anyone alive who know what William means to thee–
He’d stepped from the Darkling Glass, his sword in his hand and witchcraft on his lips –and straight into a sorcerer’s trap.
He slept twice more. His belly cramped with fear more than hunger, and his dry throat turned his recitations into a mumble. He dragged his ringed fingers along the stone, and thought to dig through the floor with his fingers, but all he did was tear his nails and score his fingertips on buried rocks. He came to know his domain intimately, an oval four feet by five feet, with a slimy, echoing drain that stank even worse than the earth but at least ensured he wasn’t sleeping in his own piss.
The cramping belly reminded him of something, and he smiled. If Baines plans to use me for whatever blackness he had planned on the fifth–
–won’t he be surprised when Faerie kills me for my absence in a couple of days?
Kit closed both eyes. It made no difference: he walked, and turned, and walked, and turned in a blackness as deep as if his eyes had frozen into ice. He hadn’t seen real darkness since Hell; he barely remembered it, but whatever bound his magic bound his otherwisesight as well.
Mehiel’s brands burned on his chest and sides. “All very well,” Kit said to the angel, a whisper like a rasp dragged over his throat. “Couldst speak to me, thou knowest. Would help to pass the hours. And ‘tis not as if we’re unacquainted.” A cracked‑lip grin, blood paying for a pun. And not a good one at that.
The chafe of unoiled hinges served his warning of the shaft of light that seemed to boil his eyes from his head. Kit covered his face in his hands, swearing, and hated it that he knew who saw him cringe.
“Art yet hungry, puss?”
Sweet God in his heaven.Kit could never speak loud enough to be heard from the depths of the oubliette, with the fire in his throat. And damned if he would plead and whisper. He stood, looking up, and shaded his left eye with his hand. Nay,he thought, wishing he had the wherewithal to speak. But could use a drop of wine, hast it to spare–
Things dropped. A cloth wrapped bundle, a wineskin– praise Christ–something round and heavy that Kit’s blurry eyes could not quite make sense of. The objects variously thumped and clanked; Kit blinked back tears. “Good puss,” Baines said. “Make it last a day or two. I’ll be back for thee when I can.”
Dignity, Kit.It was what he could do to walk to the edge of the pit rather than scramble. He reached for the wineskin and paused, fingers trembling like Will’s.
The scold’s bridle lay beside the skin, tilted on its side, a maniacally grinning iron skull face that gaped open, unlocked.
Ignoring it, Kit reached for the skin. It sloshed, and he hoped it was water or ale, and nothing stronger. Still, he wouldn’t drink in front of Baines. A few more minutes.His hands ached with desire.
“Puss, be brave.”
Oh, that turned his stomach enough to give him strength. He looked up again. Baines–resolving now as Kit’s eyes adjusted to the light–leaned down, his hand on the enormous lid of the oubliette. “Hast made the acquaintance of thy friend Edward the Second’s ghost yet, pussycat? They tell me he still screams.”
Stupid bastard. Edward died at Berkeley.
Kit made a rude gesture and swore without breath. Baines grinned–a white flash of teeth–and lowered the lid silently, without even the catharsis of a ringing slam. The silence lingered. Kit lowered his head in the darkness. His laugh came forth a voiceless sob.
He sat on the floor and drank half the lukewarm small beer, rationing it, then laid his face down on his arms and cried.
I have to get out of here. The bastards have Will.
Act V, scene viii
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, inform and moving how express and admirable, in action how Like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.
–William Shakespeare, Hamlet,Act II, scene ii
It was Robert Poley who unhooded Will, much later, in a candlelit room with an arrow slit that showed only blackness but admitted the stink of the Thames. There was a narrow pallet on the floor, a straw tick and some blankets, and a single sweet‑smelling beeswax pillar flickering in the embrasure.
Will didn’t speak at first. Poley stepped back, a rough dark brown woolen sack dangling from his fingers, and gestured with his other hand to the oversized roaring boy holding Will’s elbow. Thick fingers released the knotted ropes at Will’s wrists; he gasped at sudden prickles, white‑hot pins and needles jabbing his fingertips and palms. “I beg your pardon, Master Shakespeare, for the undignified circumstances of your appointment here, ” Poley said.
“Appointment?” Will pressed his useless hands together, trying to squeeze blood back into the veins. “In absolute precision of language, Robert, thou must admit this is an abduction, and not a social call.”
Poley smiled when Will thee’d him. “As it may be.
Will swallowed and let his aching hands fall to his side. He wobbled, and the big man grabbed his elbow again to steady him. “Where’s Kit? What dost thou plan to make of me, thou cur?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Poley answered. “You will be quite well and safe, Master Shakespeare. My lord Salisbury would never permit you to come to harm; you are one of England’s treasures in your very own person. But simply too much trouble to be left lying about until things are more certain.”
Will turned his head and spat, though it took him a moment to work enough saliva into his dust‑dry mouth to manage. “Cecil. I should have known–”
“You’d be surprised how little you know.” Poley rested his knuckles on his hips, the image of a fighting cock. “Then again, perhaps you wouldn’t. In any case, you’ll be safe and sound here until it’s possible to set you at liberty. You might try to get some sleep, and I beg your pardon for the rudeness of the accommodation. There are better rooms available, but I am not prepared to explain your presence there.”
Kit … ?” Will asked, and Poley shook his head even as he moved toward the door.
“There are things we’re not prepared to discuss,” he said. “That’s one. A pleasant night, Master Shakespeare. Anything you have need of, simply ask my friend Allan here. I’m sure you will have company from time to time.
Will looked up at the big, balding blond, who offered him an amiable and gap‑toothed smile. Allan, now named, turned to follow Poley from the room, leaving the candle behind.
The heavy door shut behind them, and Will turned to examine his cell. The room was cold through the unglazed window. He was glad of his winter cloak and doublet; some thoughtful person had tucked his gloves into his cloak pocket, and he drew them on. There were blankets enough on the bed, he thought, although he had not been laid a fire and the room, in fact, was hearthless. Perhaps they’ll permit me a brazier when it grows colder.
A thought which almost paralyzed him, when he realized he’d accepted that he might be trapped here for some time to come. No resignation,Will told himself, kicking his boots off and sliding chilled feet under the rough but warm woolen blankets. The straw tick smelled clean, at least; he hoped that meant it wouldn’t be crawling with lice and bedbugs.
He pinched out the candle and composed himself for sleep.
Morning came slowly, after long hours of tossing and worry. He sat up and shuffled to the embrasure in stocking feet, unmindful of the chill. His bones ached of a morning, winter and summer, these days; it was only a matter of degree. “God protect the halt and the lame,” he muttered. “Also the purblind fools. And one Kit Marlowe, wherever he may be.”
The slit would have been just wide enough to get his head into. A black bird the size of a small dog perched inside the opening, eyes gleaming like jet beads pressed into the black cloisonnй of its plumage. “Good morning, Master Raven.”
It cocked its head at him as if it understood, and fluffed its wings. The right one hung at an angle, broken once and healed askew. Beyond it, Will could see sunlight on gray‑white walls, and beyond them the rippled expanse of the Thames.
“I seem to have a problem,” he remarked, and tightened his grip on the ledge. “I don’t suppose youhave any bright ideas?”
The raven tilted its head the other way, and then departed in a flurry of feathers and cawing when the door clattered and swung open behind Will. Its flight wasn’t quite level either, and Will frowned as he turned to face whatever the morning might bring.
While Thou art looking out for the halt and the stupid, Lord, let me put in a word for a crippled bird, as well.
And as the Earl of Salisbury limped into the doorway, Will laughed and amended his prayer. All right, Lord. Mayhap not all the lame.
“My lord,” Will said, more aware than he liked of his uncombed hair and stocking feet. He stopped himself from pushing a hand through his curls to settle them, and fumbled in his pocket for a coin to fuss instead. Not long now, and that trick won’t steady thy hand any longer.He could tell from the trembling in his fingers even as he rolled the shilling across their backs. “What is the purpose of this outrage?”
Salisbury pushed the heavy door a little more open and came forward, the sleeves of his black robe rippling in the cold breeze from the window. “This will never serve,” he said, casting a disdainful eye over the cell. “I will not have your health at risk.”
“My lord‑“
“Peace, Will.” The Earl drew himself up to his full, slight height as if the gesture pained him. “Thou’rt here for thine own protection.”
Will swallowed, knowing how hoarse he must sound. “You’ll risk Ben Jonson on a fool’s errand–”
“Master Shakespeare,” Salisbury said. “Thou needst ale before thou dost speak again, to judge by that throat. Come, let me see thee breakfasted.” He stood aside, gesturing to the door through which he’d passed.
Will hesitated, and then stooped painfully to pick up his boots. He hadn’t time to work his feet into them, and his previous night’s captors had taken his cane, but he hobbled along as best he could.
“Master Jonson’s more Walsingham’s than mine,” Cecil said while they walked, as if speaking to an old companion. “Although I will admit I haven’t my father’s sense of which of you intelligencers and agents is playing what end against which. No, Jonson’s not reliable enough to suit. But which of you sturdy scoundrels can choose a side and stand with it? My men, Baines’ men, Walsingham’s men, Poley’s men. Who can tell one from the other?”
“And what side do you support, my lord?” Will pitched his voice low, a servant’s deference, and hoped Salisbury’s expansive mode continued, although he dreaded to learn the source of it.
“Mine own, of course. Which is to say, England and her crown, and the best way to assure a strong England is to assure a decisive King. Thy Walsingham doth consider these Catholics and Puritans and Prometheans are the threat… the PrometheusClub? As ridiculous as Raleigh and his School or Night. Like boys playing at capture the fort, and they have no concept of what’s truly at stake.”
Will did not pause his stride. He noticed with amusement that his limp and Salisbury’s matched admirably. Will trailed a hand along the wall as a substitute for his cane, in case his balance should desert him. “And what’s that, my lord Earl?”
Salisbury brushed Will with a sidelong glance as if to see if he made mock. “Sovereignty,” he said. “Do not think that England’s is by any means assured.”
“My lord?” Will almost skidded to a stop in his stockinged feet as Salisbury turned on him. Something filled the Earl’s eyes – not fury, precisely, or desperation, but whatever it was the player’s part of Will’s mind saw it and recognized it as motivation.
And saw in that silence the thing that Salisbury wouldn’t say. James is a terrible King.
“Let us merely say,” Salisbury continued, in the teeth of that long hesitation, “that the Scottish influence among the courtiers does not serve to unify us, and leave it at that. In any case, Master Shakespeare, I would see thee safe–”
“I will be missed.”
“Thine absence will be explained. ‘Tis not as if thou wert not noted for the occasional abrupt disappearance.”
“And Kit Marlowe?” Will interrupted, and then held his breath. “The Prometheans who worry you so little, my lord, have taken him hostage as well.” Not on my orders.”
“No,” Will said, remembering the sound of a blow, a skull thumped hollow as a melon struck with a knife.
The Earl pressed his lips together and considered long enough that faintness made Will light‑headed. And his words sent Will’s stomach plunging hopelessly. “Regrettable,” Salisbury said. “Truly regrettable. But I need them more than I need Marlowe, Master Shakespeare, for the next month or so. Conspiracies are useful–a force that may be directed to profitable service, like a waterfall through a millwheel, but I learned well from my father that they must not be plucked before they are ripe. I mean to use these conspiracies as he would, to secure the future of the realm.”
Will closed his eyes and dropped his chin, hearing finality in the tone. “My lord.”
“I’m sorry,” Salisbury answered, and Will almost thought he meant it. “Come. Thou knowest Sir Walter Raleigh, dost not? He’s a guest here as well–in a pleasanter section, although his teeth are quite pulled these days. I have no doubt he would welcome a little company. Shall we call on him?”
Will nodded, smoothing his face so his panic would not show before this man. I’m safe. One problem attended to.
But Kit and Ben are not, and neither is Tom.
Act V, scene ix
Can there be such deceit in Christians,
Or treason in the fleshly heart of man,
Whose shape is figure of the highest God?
Then if there be a Christ, as Christians say,
But in their deeds deny him for their Christ,
If he be son to everliving Jove,
And hath the power of his outstretched arm,
If he be jealous of his name and honor
As is our holy prophet Mahomet,
Take here these papers as our sacrifice
And witness of thy servant’s perjury.
–Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great,Part II, Act II, scene ii
Kit sat in that darkness too deep for his witch’s sight to pierce, even had he the use of it, and ran his fingers over the rugged surface of the scold’s bridle Baines had left to keep him company. He’d thought at first he might force it to pieces and use the cast‑iron straps to dig, but the welds proved strong. He knew every inch of the thing’s surface by now, had bloodied his fingertips with worrying at it, with picking at the spikes on the mouthpiece and exploring the curve of the cheeks. It weighed as much as a small child in his arms, resting against his knees, and holding it close to his breast was the only thing that silenced the savage pain in his brands any more.
The wrenching in his belly, the agony that told him he must return to Faerie sooner rather than later, or die in pain he wouldn’t have to find unimaginable–
–there was no help at all for that.
Kit sighed, and curled his fingertips into the earth, pressing his matted hair back against the stone. A lump like a church door had risen and fallen on the side of his head, and Baines had not returned.
Another spasm dragged at his belly; he wondered if it was what a hooked fish felt, or a man who suffered with the stone. “Christ,“he prayed wetly. The agony pressing his brands out–until he would have sworn they bulged redoubled–arced, flared, and settled.
Kit caught his breath and took another slight sip of beer, before resuming his interrupted monologue. “Well, Edward? You know, Your Majesty, I have to imagine it can’t have hurt that much. I mean, at first, certainly. But not like slow impalement, or breaking on the wheel. Hell, probably not so much as–”
Oh, shall we not think about that?He wondered if Mehiel’s thrashings were like a breeding woman’s experience of carrying a baby under her heart. Pregnant by God. But ‘twas not God that knew me–mayhap when ‘tis born, ‘twill be an Antichrist.
Pity thou’rt not Catholic, Kit: couldst ask the Virgin Mary.
Pussycat, thou’rt raving.
Why, so I am. And knowest thou reason why I should not rave?
Aye.The small, still voice inside of him. The one he’d known with such certainty once. Thou’rt scaring the baby, puss.
Meaning Mehiel. Meaning the thrashing thing within him, terrified– terrified?
Angel?
Mehiel?
And somehow, as if in response to the suddenly gentle tone of his questions, the tearing sensation faded. And Kit clenched both hands on the straps of the scold’s bridle and cursed himself for a fool who would whip a failing horse until it fell over dead in the traces. Aye, and he’d torn from God’s mercy and rammed up the arse of a sodomite, tortured and raped, and what do you get him?
He couldn’t quite hold back the giggle as he laid his forehead against the straps of the bridle and clutched it tight against his breast. Why, fucked by Lucifer. Of course.
“Mehiel.” A tentative whisper. “Angel, dost hear me?”
«And angels of the Lord are thee?»
A voice for a moment he mistook for his own defiant tones, the spiked irony he saved for moments of abject vulnerability. This one is– oh. Mehiel?
A flicker, a suggestion of bright yellow wings barred in black. A voice that was not the voice of his conscience or the voice of his faith, but was very much his ownvoice after all. A sense of a head upraised, and hesitance. Kit thought if the angel stood before him, it would have cringed, and then forced itself upright. «Greetings, who was Christofer Marley.»
“Thou knowest I can’t stand to be called that,” Kit said, but he said it wryly. “Why speak to me now, angel of the Lord?”
A soft silence, with a small voice following. «Thou didst never listen before.»
Which wasn’t something he could answer, exactly. And no excuse he could make.
«And now,» Mehiel barely whispered, «thou must listen all the closer, or we will be lost eternally, and hope lost with us»
“Can I be more damned than I am now?”
«Always.» the angel answered, and Kit sighed and set the bridle aside.
“All right,” he said, before another blade of agony curled him to his side, gasping until the spasm had passed. There was no hope in his breast, but he grimaced in determination and cracked his bleeding fingers one by one. Despair was a sin, after all. “Never say die. What happens if we climb? There’s always a way out if you look hard enough. Canst fly?”
«My wings are bound in thee–» the angel began, but the rest of his comment was lost.
«Ah, Sir Poet,» A voice like brushed silk, and there would have been no mistaking this one for his own, or for that of Mehiel. «Is alwaysa way. Come to me, my love; I am the way.»
There was light, suddenly. Light cast from over his shoulder, and as he found himself standing he turned to it, turned into it. The scent of pipe tobacco surrounded him, a comforting memory of Sir Walter Raleigh’s chill parlor and many late nights.
“Mehiel?”
«Do as you must.» the angel whispered in his ear, and folded himself taut within a flurry of remembered golden feathers.
Kit took a deep breath, and walked into the light.
Act V, scene x
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night,
Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black‑brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
–William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,Act III, scene ii
The crippled raven found Will in his new room and seemed well pleased with the wider window, for all it must rattle the glass for attention. Will didn’t think this typical behavior in a raven, but perhaps the pampered birds at the Tower had been hand‑fed into audacity. He opened the casement, despite a cold, sharp wind that whittled past the edges of the palm‑sized panes: the bird hopped into the air as the frame swept the window ledge and then settled again in its own footsteps. It cocked its head at him, wise‑eyed and glossy, and fluffed its lacquered feathers. “Is a predilection for charity branded on my thumb?” Will asked mildly, and flicked the raven a bit of boiled egg, trying not to think how it resembled a plucked‑out eye. The ravens had their reasons for staying close by the Tower.
The bird pecked it up and looked for more, and Will laid the next crumb closer and stepped away from the window. Southampton had had a cat for company. I’m not certain a raven is much of a companion, but it’s either that or tap out messages to Sir Walter on the wall in code.
By the fourth bit of yolk, the raven was crouched on the lip of the window frame, its peaked head bobbing between heavy, crookedly spread wings. Will tossed the fifth bit on the floor and held his breath. The bird’s black cold‑chisel beak dipped once or twice as it examined the room, Will, and the bit of egg with suspicion. Will chirruped as he might to a chicken, feeling foolish. It crouched, about to hop down onto the floor–
–and vanished backward in a tempest of black feathers, shocked into flight by the clatter of the bar outside Will’s door being drawn from the braces and hurled unceremoniously to the floor. Will startled, turned too fast, and fell sprawling, forearm and hip slamming the floor near hard enough, he thought, to strike sparks between bone and stone. It hurt too much for him to manage a shout, or more than a rasping whimper. The door burst open, wide strap hinges creaking, and Will pushed himself to his knees with the arm that wasn’t numbed from fingertips to elbow.
And then he blinked, and sat back down among the rushes and herbs strewing the floor, because it was neither Salisbury nor Allan the guard who entered, but Ben Jonson, Tom Walsingham, and Murchaud, the Prince‑Consort of the Daoine Sidhe.
“Will! ” Ben was the first to start toward him as he sat foolishly blinking, cradling his injured arm in his left hand and hugging it close to his chest. “Thou’rt hurt. And it’s freezing in here, the barbarians – ”
“Nay,” Will said, shaking his head. “Just a fall. Just a tumble – ” He wiggled his fingers slightly, to show the arm unbroken, and panted in pain. “Robert Poley took my cane, damn him to Hell.”
Murchaud had turned with Tom to brace the doorway, both of them facing the hall, and the Elf‑knight’s blade was drawn. “Master Shakespeare,” he said; Will heard tautness of emotion in his voice. “Where is Sir Christopher?”
Will swallowed a whimper as Ben lifted him to his feet as easily as swinging a girl across a threshold. “I know not, Your Highness,” he answered. He leaned on Ben’s arm while testing his leg and decided it might almost hold his weight. “You could not find him in your Glass?”
“No,” Murchaud said without glancing over his shoulder. “Hast a looking glass?”
“I have a window.”
‘ ‘Twill serve. …” Murchaud stepped back, tapping Tom on the shoulder as he moved into the room. Tom followed without taking his eyes from the hall until Murchaud stepped in front of him and swung the heavy door shut. “Sir Thomas, if you would be so kind as to drag that table over?” A moment later, and they had it barred from inside, while Will clung to Ben’s arm.
“Damn,” Tom said, turning to face Will. “Damn. I’d hoped we’d find Kit if we found you–”
“How did you know I was missing?” Will’s eyes followed Murchaud as the Prince moved to the casement and dragged it shut. He sheathed his sword and tugged two‑handed to be sure the frame had latched.
“When”–Tom glanced over at the elf–“His Highness noticed Kit was missing, he sought you. Realizing your circumstances, he came to me. Ben was my idea.”
Ben grunted. “And still we have no Marlowe.”
“No,” Murchaud answered in a low and worried tone. “And he’ll be dead with Faerie‑sickness if we do not find him soon. Come along, mortals.”
“Wait,” Will said. “Sir Walter Raleigh is in the next chamber. Should we see to his liberty too?”
Rather than meeting Will’s eyes, Tom looked at Ben. “Sir Walter’s a legal prisoner of His Majesty’s,” he said. “And not a loyal subject held illegitimately. I cannot countenance it, I fear–and every minute we tarry here is a minute Kit is dying.”
Regrettable,Will heard Salisbury say again, and nodded while Tom lugged a footstool toward the window. “Right. ‘Tis the side we’re on.”
Murchaud held a hand out, ready to pass him through the glass, and Will limped away from Ben’s steadying hand and went.
Act V, scene xi
Of, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele:
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa’s azured arms:
And none but thou shalt be my paramour.
–Christopher Marlowe, Faustus,Act V, scene i
Kit stepped through the light again, but this time there was nothing beyond to support his bare, bruised feet.
He fell.
Into infinite cold and blackness, tumbling hopelessly, arms windmilling, the scream in his throat vanishing into silence as it passed his lips, his fingers freezing so they might shatter and–
Lucifer caught him by the wrist, pulled him close, cradled him in the warm snowfall of wings. Breath hissed into Kit’s lungs, the frozen tears melting on his cheeks. “Christ!” he wheezed. “Christos!”
«Kepler,» Satan answered, and flung his wings wide. He held Kit’s hand in his strong, perfect fingers, though, so that Kit scrolled out alongside him like a ribbon let flap in the wind – but Kit could feel no wind pressing at him as they fell. They tumbled in preternatural calm, or perhaps Kit’s initial impression had been wrong, and they merely floated like puffs of thistledown in the air.
Except that what surrounded them was blackness, velvet and complete between the pricked‑out diamonds of a thousand million stars, and they swam among those stars like dolphins sounding the deeps. “Strange fish,” Kit said, and shook his head. “Kepler. The German astronomer.”
«Aye,» Lucifer answered, and Kit could hear the pleasure in his “voice.” I’ve passed a test?«This is his universe, my love, as before I showed thee Ptolemy’s. Is’t not lovely?» His hand tightened on Kit’s, squeezing the iron rings around Kit’s fingers.
The poet winced in pain, but Lucifer took no notice. Rather, he lifted his right hand to point. «See Mars?»
A racing red pinpoint, a droplet, a globe. Kit focused on it and grinned in dumb wonder as his eyes seemed to adapt, his focus grow closer. He saw veils of mist and shining white glaciers on the surface of the round ochre world, and two moons no bigger than afterthoughts tumbling like puppies through the red planet’s sky. “Oh, Lucifer,” he said. “Which is the truth, then, my lord? This, or what thou didst show me before?”
«They are both true,» the Devil answered. «A11 stories are true. But this story is becoming more true than the other. Look thee; there is thine earth.»
Kit blinked through watering eyes. The soft blue‑and‑white sphere spun like a top far beneath them. He could see the hurtling globe of the moon arcing about it, and a smaller body sharing Earth’s path that seemed to play a flirtatious dance, approaching and retreating. “What is that?”
«Ah,» Lucifer answered. «She’ll not be discovered for four hundred years. They shall name her Cruithne when they do. A moonlet, a captured wanderer fallen into the orbit of some greater, brighter thing.»
“Strange,” said Kit, “that such a thing should have a name, when I myself do not.”
«Dost mourn thy namelessness, who was Christofer Marley?»
And Kit blinked, hanging there among the stars, watching the world spin like a top with his fantastically powerful vision. And thought of Will saying that he had never had time to tell Amaranth about the oaks.
