Текст книги "Hell and Earth"
Автор книги: Elizabeth Bear
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«They are.» Lucifer answered calmly. «The God they intend to create. And what is bound in thee is part of that creation, a chink in the armor of the Divine. As thy cloak offers thee a symbol of the scrap of protection and grace offered thee by each one who contributes to it–so what is done to thee is done to Mehiel, and that which is done unto Mehiel is done unto God.»
The spaces underfoot and overhead made him dizzy. This is Hell too,he thought. For it is not Heaven.“If this works,” Kit asked, a spark of doubt flaring in his soul as he thought of Will and Ben hard at work over verses and translation, “‑why have you not taken it on yourself to make a God of your own?”
«Sweet Poet.» Mockery, and a warm wing across his shoulders. «Have I not? Why didst think I chose thee, my love? What dost thou think thy Faustuswill create, given history and the acclaim it deserves?»
“I have an angel burned on my skin,” Kit said, wondering. “What happens if I set him free?”
«If thou canst discover how. I do not know that he can be freed without the destruction of the prison that contains him.»
“Me.” Kit sagged, and turned his face to the silk of Satan’s shirt when the angel embraced him once more. The tears were dry on his face, if they had been water and not flames, and he leaned into the embrace and the scent of smoke and forgetfulness that surrounded Lucifer, and the warmth of those wings, and the cold starlight gleaming between his boots and on his hair. God sent an angel to bear my pain. And I have hated God all these years for failing to answer my prayers.
As they said in Faerie, all stories were true. But some stories were more true than others.
‘Did you tike it, puss?’
«Well?» Lucifer asked, some eternity later. «Was Morgan correct, again? Has’t broken thee, this knowing?»
“Yes,” Kit said, and somewhere found a last black scrap of humor, and managed not to shiver as he spoke. “At least for today.”
«Brave Poet.» the Devil said, and held him among the darkness and the stars for a little while longer, until Kit raised his face from the soft white curve of Satan’s wing.
“There’s a shining sort of irony in Lucifer giving God back to a man God doesn’t want.”
«Poetry grows through the broken places, brother.» The wings opened around him; Kit stood under their arch, but they no longer restrained or warmed him.
Within and yet without, and boldly he laid his hand on the feathers again and ruffled them up, stroked them smooth. Whatever moved in Kit was vast and slow, a symphony of emotion that swelled from discord into something complex and bittersweet and whole. “Brother … an we are friends, then. And thou dost value my friendship – ” It wouldn’t come into words, exactly, but he knew perfectly well that Lucifer could read his tangle of emotions and half‑formed thoughts as plainly as a poem. The Devil might claim he could not see in human hearts. But Lucifer was, after all, the Prince of Lies.
And when those lies went cloaked in truth, so much the better.
Lucifer tilted his head, considering, watching Kit’s hand linger among his feathers. «The pain and sickness thou feelst at thy lovers’ touch. And yet not at mine.»
“If we are to be friends–”
«Sir Poet.» When Satan ducked his head and smiled crookedly at Kit, it folded sharp creases from the corners of his long, slightly crooked nose to the corners of his mouth. The blue eyes crinkled in an interested sort of mockery, and Kit felt suddenly as if some bright fluid buoyed him. «‘Tis thine own soul’s wreaking, and a sensible one; ‘tis but that the wall Mehiel and thyself didst build about thy garden of suffering–and his–after Rheims has fallen.»
“… fallen?”
«The angel Mehiel has seen the truth, that hiding thy pain from thee has not made thee strong, but concealed the flaw within. He hath lifted his wings, and thou must needs now tend the blasted heath within. Friend Poet, heal thyself, and thou wilt be whole.»
“The blasted heath? Or the blastedheart?” Kit asked wryly, but he found himself stepping back from the angel and the devastating truth in his words. Something within Kit’s breast stirred with a pain like trapped and beating wings. “How many men does the Devil call friend?”
The broad wings folded with a breeze that savored of lavender. Lucifer too stepped back. “As many as offer him understanding.”
Barely on a breath, a murmur, a whisper–and the sound of Lucifer’s spoken voicestaggered Kit nonetheless. It resonated through the crystal under Kit’s feet, through the chamber of his lungs and heart, striking sparks from his hair and his fingertips. That tolling bell, that falcon’s cry, that shriek of joy and agony that Kit recognized from his dreams hung inside his mind, and he knew it now for the voice of the angel within.
“Oh, my,” Kit whispered, as the Devil reached out and took his forearms in white fingers, and smiled again, and met his gaze. Lucifer’s eyes shone transparent, blue as the sunlit vault of Heaven, and Kit held his breath. Thou art–
«I always suspected that thou didst thy Mephostophilis love, a little.»
Kit laughed and would have broken the eye contact, but the Devil’s smile held him. He shivered and swallowed, and with an act of raw will managed to look down. “Rather I fancied myself a sort of Mephostophilis – ”
«And not Faustus?»
“Who would wish to be Faustus?” Kit said, and stepped forward, and boldly, chastely, kissed Lucifer on the mouth. The Devil permitted the caress, returned it–a gentle, considering tasting as unlike the blinding passion of another time as kiss from kiss could be. Kit did not step back after, but spoke against Lucifer’s smooth‑skinned jaw, feeling the prickles of his beard rasp the angel’s cheek. “Poor damned fool, reaching beyond any sane measure of wisdom for something he could see, but scarcely understand. I would not wish to be him, but aye–I understood and pitied him.”
«And hast thou who wert Christofer Marley not reached all thy life for that which eluded thy grasp?»
“Thou must find somewhat less unwieldy by which to address me,” Kit said, but the Devil would not be diverted.
«If thou art Mephostophilis»–Lucifer spread wide his bright, beckoning wings – зthen I am Faustus. Come and teach me thy pity again.»
Act IV, scene xi
Antonio: A witchcraft drew me hither:
That most ingrateful boy there by your side,
From the rude sea’s enraged and foamy mouth
Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was:
His life I gave him and did thereto add
My love, without retention or restraint,
–William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night,Act V, scene i
Curfew and the failing light forced Will home before sunset that night; he walked through London’s crowded streets, his breath streaming before him like a cart horse’s in the cold. He turned his ankle on an icy stone, but a passerby caught his elbow and saved him from a nasty fall, and he made it to the double‑gabled house on Silver Street intact. And wasn’t sure if he was startled or passionately unsurprised to find Kit waiting for him, curled on the narrow bed with his back to the corner, his cloak pulled up to his chin like a child’s favorite blanket. Will saw with gratitude that Kit had built the fire up and set wine to warm beside it.
“Back from Hell in one piece, love?” Will tossed his gloves on the table and crouched at the hearth, pressing his palms to rough, ashy stone for the warmth.
“Never out of it,” Kit replied. “It turns out Mephostophilis was right. Who would have imagined it?”
“Thee.”
“Aye – ” He sighed, and didn’t stand. “If thou’rt pouring the wine, bring me some.”
“Of course.” Will did, and stood, and leaned on the edge of the bed facing Kit. “Ben rather didn’t handle thy vanishment well. But thank thee for coming to prove thy health to me – ”
“I imagined he might not.” Kit sipped the wine Will pressed into his hands, and made a face. “I let it sit too long.”
“‘Tis better than a chill in the belly ” Will answered complacently. “No, Ben’s troubled on many fronts. He’s started a little war of wits with the redheads, and Chapman has it he’s angry with me because Her Majesty–much improved in health, I mention in passing – ” Kit grinned, showing wine‑stained teeth, ” – has commissioned a play for Twelfth Night. Another comedy.”
“I saw the pages on the table.”
“Thou’rt incorrigible.”
“I am. I liked the tragedy you’ve half done better, and the history was quite good.”
“Kit, how long have you been here?”
“An hour or six.” Kit hid his face behind his wine. “Her Majesty was never much for blood when she could be made to laugh. Pray, continue.”
“A masque of Ben’s was passed over.” Will shrugged and drank his wine, redolent of the spices Kit had stewed in it. “He’s fussing.”
“Over a masque?”
“Times have changed,” Will said, and set his cup aside. “Masques and satires are all the rage. I have to finish the Henry quickly: there’s a rumor that history plays will be forbidden. Books have burned, and not just Catholic treatises – ” He stopped himself. Kit raised his chin and blinked long, dark gold lashes.
“Books?”
“Nashe,” Will said unwillingly. “Harvey too. And new printings forbidden. I think our enemies have some hold over the Archbishop now. Whitgift. Or perhaps he simply fears the Puritans and their rising strength. And Elizabeth doth love him.”
“Oh, poor Tom.” Kit fell silent for a long moment, and leaned back against the wall. “Masques and satires the fashion. And comedies.”
“Aye, and comedies – ”
Kit smiled. “But the great William Shakespeare is immune to fashion. I’ll wager what you like that your Hamletwill out‑draw whatever Ben puts on.”
“Kit – ” Ah, what do you say, and how do you say it?“Oxford and Southampton have been making… grappling runs. They want me to poison the queen.”
“With arsenic? A pretty trick, when she will not dine in company.”
Will shook his head, and said, “With poetry.” And then he turned and twisted his hand around his wrist, and said, ” ‘Twere treason even to hear them, Kit.”
Kit licked his lips. “Wilt testify to what they asked?”
Will snorted. “Would Elizabeth hear me?”
Something in what he said had started Kit thinking. His fingers moved idly on the base of his cup; a line drew itself between his brows. “Mayhap,” he said, and then finished his wine at a draught and gave the cup over to Will for disposal. He hitched himself forward and let the cloak fall open over his habitual black doublet, this one sewn with garnets and tourmalines.
“You’re a sumptuary fine waiting for a magistrate,” Will said cheerfully, abandoning other concerns.
Kit laughed. “They may leave the writ with my landlord. Will–” He reached out, and to Will’s startled pleasure, laid hands on his shoulders where the neck ran into them, pressing slightly. “I’ve looked into Hamnet’s death.” Murder.Kit didn’t say the word, but it shone in his eyes.
“And?”
He sighed, squeezed once more, and drew back. “I’m – investigating.”
“You know something.”
Kit’s supple lips pressed thin, twisting at the corner. “I know who gave the order and why.”
“Kit.” A forlorn pain he’d almost managed to forget drained the blood and breath and warmth from Will’s body, left his fingers wringing white and shaking. Kit laid a hand over Will’s, and almost managed to make it look as if the gesture did not pain him.
“Will – ” Kit sighed. “It’s a fey thing. I don’t know if human justice … Dammit. Yes. I could kill someone. And I know whom to kill. And I could bring thee his head on a pole, and call it thy son’s murderer brought to justice, love.”
“But…?”
Kit waved his other hand hopelessly in the direction of the table and its neat stacks of foul copy. “I would do it for thee. Will do it an thou but ask. And it will turn into Titus.”
“A revenge tragedy. Oh.” Will squeezed Kit’s hand tight enough that the palsy deserted him. Kit flinched; Will saw it in the tightness at the corners of his eyes, and let the contact ease. Slowly he drew his hands back and folded them on his knee. He swallowed painfully and met Kit’s eyes very carefully as he changed the subject. “Nick Skeres hasn’t been executed yet. Or even convicted.” “Strange – ”
“Aye, it puts me in mind of some other irregularities.”
“Like a man on capital charges before the Privy Council, and free to ride where he list?” Kit looked up at Will, a sparkle of dark eyes through lowered lashes, and Will’s breath hurt in his chest. “Dost thou ever wonder why it is we so pour our souls out, Will, for churls and Queens and Earls with nothing better to do than seek power?”
Will laughed. “It’s not for them. It’s for the groundlings. Ben will never understand that, either.”
“For the groundlings?”
“A man must see that a man has a voice, and passion, and a right to them and to his loves. And to his choices. For all he has to pay for what he chooses, in the end.”
“Ah.” Kit’s smile was something out of a fairy tale, Will thought. If a smile could truly light a space like a candleflame– “Lucifer put me in mind of that this very day.”
“Lucifer?”
“Aye – ‘Poetry grows through the broken placed,’ he said, as if it were speedwell forced up between cobblestones.”
“Isn’t it?” It was like the old days, he thought, wine and a fire and an argument.
“Aye,” Kit said. “It is.” And leaned forward suddenly, caught Will’s face between his palms, and kissed him on the mouth, shivering like a fawn. Will caught Kit’s wrists and held him as long as Kit would permit it, and then couldn’t quite frame the question he knew Kit must be reading in his eyes.
“Lucifer said I was doing it to myself,” Kit said, and fidgeted his hands out of Will’s careful grip and drew his knees up tight to his chest under his cloak. “Damn him. He’s right.”
“He’s always right,” Will answered. “Kit. I promised Annie – I can’t… .” I can’t be forsworn to her again.
“We have what we have,” Kit answered. “I’m not–prepared for anything else, to tell thee true. So it will serve. And thou deservest not that woman, Will.”
“I never have. More wine?”
“Oh, aye.”
Act IV, scene xii
… The guider of all crowns,
Grant that our deeds may well deserve your loves:
–Christopher Marlowe, The Massacre at Paris,scene xii
‘Twere a far easier thing to obtain an audience with the Queen in Faerie than with the Queen in London, and Kit was grateful for it. At the appointed hour, he presented himself–not in her presence chamber, but in the red study she used for privy conversation. Kit had never seen her private chamber, and expected he never would.
Robin Goodfellow showed him within and drew shut the door, and Kit stood blinking in the dimness, bowing before a shadow he thought might be the queen.
“Stand up,” the shadow said, a rustle of stiff embroidery punctuating her words. “Come, Sir Christopher. Kindle a light; there are candles all abound.”
“I have no flame, nor spill,” he answered.
“Need you such?” And oh, the stark mockery in her voice. She knew he did not.
Silent, he touched every wick in the room into dazzling light.
“How prettily you answer,” she said, while he frowned to see her. The Mebd looked gray and drawn, her golden hair dry in its braids and rough as hay. She curled in a great chair, knees drawn up under her robes so the skirts draped empty down the front.
“Your Majesty,” he said, stepping forward. “You seem – ”
She smiled, and the smile silenced him. “Your audience, Poet,” she said. “Use it fitly.”
He swallowed, and nodded. “Your Majesty. I have evidence of a plot against your sister Queen, and thus by extension, against your own person. And I have witnesses willing to give that information.”
“And you come to me, Sir Christopher, and not your Elizabeth?”
He closed his eyes, and hoped she would not see it for the depth of his genuflection. “You are my Queen,” he said. “And Elizabeth may hear you, my lady, where she will not hear another.”
Act IV, scene xiii
Words before blows: if it so, countrymen?
–William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar,Act V,scene i
The winter saw their translation of the New Testament creeping forward between other commitments, and the Christmas season passed without incident. On January sixth Will found himself again in Greenwich, helping Burbage with his paint and wondering at the boys who, only a handspan of years before, had shivered in their boots at the thought of a court performance. The play was Twelfth Night,which Will thought was a bad title, but it suited the day. “Thou drinkst too much, Richard,” he said, smearing the broken veins on Burbage’s nose with ceruse. “‘Twill be thy death–”
“–if playing isn’t,” Burbage said, indifferent. “Thy lips are pale.”
“We’ve fucus and vermilion enough to paint a court.” Will suited action to words, dabbing a brush into a pot, and then bending over Burbage’s face. The hand that bore the pot trembled. The one holding the brush did not.
“We should drop that vile old history of John from the repertory.”
“Vile?” Will jabbed Burbage lightly on the lip. “What wouldst replace it with?”
Burbage leaned back to give Will more light and a better angle. He arched a calculated brow. “Thou’lt write me somewhat. And if not thee, Dekker– ”
“Dekker will pen thee somewhat that will stand ten playings, half to half a house. Hardly worth the learning of the lines.” Will grinned wickedly. “Mayhap I’ll to Henslowe–”
“You wouldn’t.”
Will shrugged, and Burbage laughed. “Aye, he’ll pay thee eight pound for five acts, and get Tom to mend it bloodier.”
Will set down his brush, a warmth like a good hearth lightening his limbs. “Here, look thou in the mirror–” Will glanced up, feeling someone’s regard on his neck. He turned, caught a glimpse of patchworked cloak in the sunlight through the windows, and patted Richard on the shoulder. “Remember thy kohl.”
“Will‑“
“I must see a man,” Will said, and retrieved his cane from where it leaned against the makeup table. He trailed the swing of the patchwork cloak into the shadows, caught a glimpse of dark hair and the heavy sway of layers upon layers of cloth, and knew it was not Kit he followed.
Cairbre waited for Will in a niche between a massive pillar and the painted, embossed leather upon the walls. Light reflected from the spotty snow beyond the window and brightened the little space; the Faerie Oueen’s bard turned and laid a gloved hand against the glass. “So cold,” he said.
“Faerie had no cold like England; rather it had the dream of cold, and the memory of frost.”
“Master Tattercoats.”
“Master Poet.” Cairbre turned and smiled. “You must visit us again. Your plays are missed, and you keep our own Sir Kit so busy on your errands he scarce has time to sing for us.”
Will blinked – my errands? I do not think so –and remembered to smile before he gave the Fae anything for free. He came to stand beside Cairbre, who stepped aside to offer him half the view. The Thames stretched long and ice‑rimed between her banks, the tide brimming. The snowbanks along the palace’s walkways slumped. No new snow had fallen to make them fresh and crisp again. “You’ve come on Twelfth Night to castigate me for o’erborrowing your poet?” he asked, dryly ironical.
Cairbre glanced over, warmth rounding his cheeks. “No, I’ve come to tell you that the Queen of the Daoine Sidhe will be in your audience tonight, by special invitation of the Queen of England. Under glamourie of course – ”
“Morgan?” Will coughed, put his player’s game face on and corrected the stammer. “I mean, will Morgan le Fey be here as well?”
Cairbre chuckled, raising his eyes to the horizon. “That, he said, shrugging his cloak off one shoulder, “is for Fata Morgana to decide. If anyone has informed her of the expedition. Or if she has discovered it through means of her own.” He glanced sidelong at Will and winked. “She’s not invited, if that’s what you mean.”
Will sighed and nodded, unsure if the lightness in his belly was relief or disappointment. “If I am invited, Master Bard, I would love to return to Faerie some day.”
A long gloved hand touched Will’s earring, and the black‑haired bard smiled. “You would be welcome,” he said, white teeth flashing behind his beard. “And now you must see to your painting, player. Your audience awaits.”
The play was plainly unopposed, although Oxford and Southampton lingered uncomfortably close throughout. Will attributed that as much to Essex’s absence as the power of his own words. Sir Walter Raleigh was in attendance, his star evidently on the ascendant given his post close beside the Queen – as Oxford’s seemed to be waning. Raleigh’s black doublet glistened with pearls, reminding Will painfully of Kit whenever he turned his eyes to the audience. Raleigh was masked as a fox, and Will thought it went very well with his expression; Sir Robert Cecil was a natural as a wolf on the Oueen’s other hand.
Elizabeth herself wore a red little smile, painted lips twitching with restrained mirth above the fabulous abundance of her red‑and‑white feathered fan, her face unmasked but her hair twined with pearls and swan’s feathers, and her gown all white and worked to look like snowy plumage. More interesting to Will was the chair of estate set close beside Elizabeth’s and only a little lower, against whose cushioned surface reclined a lady whose pale golden hair was dressed in a jeweled tire tall enough for a Queen. Her face was concealed behind a black velvet mask strewn with diamonds, and diamonds gleamed in the candlelight among the gauzy black silk of her veils. The Queen of Air and Darkness,Will thought, meeting the eyes of the black‑clad and velvet‑masked man who was the smallest of three identically clad standing at her left shoulder.
Kit blew Will a kiss across the gathered courtiers as Will made his final exit, and Will tripped on the smooth boards of the stage. Burbage caught his elbow, and–with playerly flamboyance–made it look like a bit of business as they exited left. Not what Kemp would have managed before he left them, but the Queen threw back her head to laugh.
“Hast heard who the mysterious beauty by the Queen might be, Richard?” Will wondered what the court gossip said. He knew very well who the lady was, with Prince Murchaud of the Daoine Sidhe, Cairbre the bard, and Sir Christopher Marlowe standing like a bishop, a rook, and a knight at her back.
Burbage glanced over his shoulder as they stepped off the boards. “There’s a rumor ‘tis Anne of Denmark.”
“Anne of Scotland, thou meanst? James’ Queen?” It wasa delicious rumor. Will resolved to spread it at every opportunity.
“One and the same,” Burbage allowed, shrugging his doublet off. “By any name a Queen.”
It had been Will’s last exit; he helped Burbage hastily with the change. “Why should such a woman come to England?”
Will buttoned from the bottom; Burbage buttoned from the top. “‘Tis said Gloriana favors Scottish James. ‘Tis not impossible she would send for his Queen, to be taught the ways of the court.”
“Essex favored James–”
“Aye, and Essex is out of favor, with Oxford. I wonder that Gloriana has not noticed how her health improves when they are sent from her side. But see how close Cecil stays by his Queen? Like a hound on a lead.”
“What of it?”
“Cecil favors the Archduchess Isabella, they say.”
“A Spanish Queen,” Will said. “After all his father’s wars on the Catholics?” Only a player’s practice kept the bitterness out of his voice. These wars are meaningless–
– aye, Will, and thou art a soldier in them nonetheless.
“Anne’s Catholic too.” Burbage finished his buttons and lifted his chin for Will to pin his ruff. “I hear it put about that Arabella Stewart has a stronger claim than either.”
“Shall England be ruled by Queens forevermore?” But Will glanced around the screen at the slender, gracious blonde upon the dais, her fair head turned in appreciation of one of the many misguided seductions in his play. Disloyalty stabbed him as he regarded the fair head and the auburn one, one face masked in velvet and the other in swan‑white ceruse. And would Queens do a worse job of it than kings?
The Mebd was never Anne of Denmark. And the earring in Will’s ear weighed heavily as he opened his mouth to amend his speech – and Will Sly bumped him from behind. Will swore, and Sly flinched and steadied him with a hasty grip. “Zounds, Will, I’m not made of glass.”
Sly looked him hard in the eye and frowned. “Nay, Will. Nor so steady on thy feet as thou might be. Forgive it for a courtesy.”
“Nay, Will. ‘Tis an apology I owe thee. I am tired and in pain… . Dicky‑bird, thou’rt done.”
“Dicky,” Burbage snorted, and flashed Will his legended grin before he stepped away, in place for his entrance. Will’s eye followed him as Sly followed. He made sure neither man saw him cling to the edge of the tiring table.
The Mebd would have liked it if Orsinio got the rack. Elizabeth preferred the conventional ending. Alas.But both Queens praised the performance, and Will smiled in a childlike delight in being the only player there who knew how rare a thing that was. He didn’t smile at all when Sir Walter–with his fox‑mask pushed up over his carefully coifed hair and his beard dyed an unnatural, foxy red–cut him out of the crowd of players and drew him into the shadow of an arras. “The Queen should like to see thee in private, Master Playmaker.”
Will looked in Raleigh’s glittering eyes. His mouth was dry; he licked his lips before he answered. “What do you know about poets and poetry, Sir Walter?”
“Enough to pay Edmund Spenser a pension,” Raleigh answered. “And I did my bit to keep Kit Marlowe overdressed as well. Oh, you didn’t know that? No, I see you didn’t. I know it was foolishness what Jonson put out about Spenser’s death.” He grinned, showing blackened teeth. “And I parroted it to all those that liked Essex least. Pity about poor Ned, however.”
Will laughed. “Essex’s enemy is any poet’s friend?”
“When that poet is for England and her Queen, aye. Be careful tonight, Master Shakespeare. We can ill afford to lose you, too.” Raleigh laid a gloved hand on Will’s doublet sleeve just below the lacings and turned him away from the bustle of the room. “Come, I’ll show you where.”
Both Queens were in the retiring room when Raleigh ushered Will inside. He crossed–not rushes, but a thick carpet he almost recognized, doubtless a gift to Elizabeth from the Faerie Queen –and knelt before the gilded chairs in which the two monarchs sat, giggling behind their fans like girls. The image was shattered when he saw their faces, though: Elizabeth was no girl, and the Mebd seemed thin behind her mask.
The Mebd’s three knights flanked her chair; Will caught a glimpse of Kit’s pouting lower lip below the black velvet of his mask and bit his own lip hard at an utterly inappropriate flaring of desire. Behind Elizabeth’s chair stood Sir Robert Cecil and George Carey, the Secretary of State and the Lord Chamberlain. Carey carried the conceit of the fox and the wolf to completion: he was masked as a hunting mastiff, his ruff arranged in fantastic spikes like a bear‑baiting collar. His long jowls under the mask completed the picture. Sir Walter Raleigh went to join them. The Queen’s fox, her wolf, her hound.In contrast, the Mebd’s men wore black simply, and their masks were soft black velvet sculpted into stern vacancy.
Will, watching through his lashes, might have smiled at the perfect staging of it: a woman in sable scattered with diamonds, and a woman in white wrought with pearls, and behind each one three masked gentlemen all richly garbed in black.
And before them, slightly off center so his burgundy slashed doublet and round hose would be displayed at advantage against the fiery white of the Swan‑Queen’s gown, one supplicant poet with his hat upside down in his hand.
“Master Shakespeare,” said Queen Elizabeth, after a suitable time had elapsed. Her fan moved gracefully. “We wish to thank you for all that you have done for us. Please rise.”
“Your Highness’ thanks are unnecessary,” Will said, when he had collected himself and pushed himself up with his cane. “But welcome. Although a humble player might wonder what monarchs would make of him.”
Elizabeth glanced at her sister queen and smiled. Clever boy.Aye, and they both loved cleverness. Kit winked at Will over his Queen’s diamond‑studded shoulder, and Will’s knees half melted before he quite forced his gaze back to Elizabeth. Damn honor,he thought. And damn vows.
Which was why Will had told Kit what he had, about Annie and his promise to remain faithful. Because he understood by now that Kit wouldn’t offer where he wasn’t certain of his welcome, and that as long as Kit didn’t offer, Will could pretend he would refuse.
The world was full of other temptations too–pretty, willing goodwives and tiresses and innkeepers–Mistress Poley, who would gladly have him in Kit’s stead, he thought, and Jenet at the inn he often overnighted in along the way to Stratford. But surely he could manage a little continence after fifty years in Hell.
The Queen looked back. “Your heart is divided, Master Shakespeare.”
“As whose is not, Your Highness?” He’d scored. He saw it in the constriction of her mouth, and then the gracious tilt of her head, acknowledging the point. Somehow, the softness in her deep gray eyes was worse than censure or a Oueen’s cold wrath. “And yet I serve my Queen and Her England in all things, ” he concluded, making as pretty a bow as he could with his cane and his hat to contend with.
“In all things?”
“Over love or gold, ” Will said, and understood why he was being made to do this before Kit, and the Mebd. So show the whole world where thy loyalty lies. And I am sorry.It was true, what he said, as far as it went. Over love. Over gold. But not over the destiny of all Christendom.
And he could see from the smile in Elizabeth’s eyes, the rapid flicker of her fan, that she understood. Understood, and approved? Will swallowed despite the lump that now always blocked his throat, and with a flash of the insight that had given him Hamlet,William understoodhis Queen in return. Not the ragged, painted, old woman before him, but the girl who had led a man like Francis Walsingham to beggar himself in her service, when with his dying breath he had known she could never show him gratitude. A woman who had given Kit Marley to the Faeries, when it would have been easier and safer to end his life and let him tumble into an unmarked grave. It doesn’t matter if Essex betrays her. It doesn’t matter what Scottish Mary did or did not know when she was Led to the block. Elizabeth understands that every drop of that blood stains her own hands. She knows. She knows she goes to judgement to face each life she’s wasted. And she’s always known.
