Текст книги "Hell and Earth"
Автор книги: Elizabeth Bear
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This is not a Prince who Loves to kill.
His heart filled up with something vast and terrible at the realization, a shadowy whirl of wings and storm and light, and he knew why men died for Elizabeth. He would have died for Elizabeth himself. And he understood as well that there were things bigger than Elizabeth, bigger than England, for all they were things for which he did not have a name. Faith. God. Liberty.None of it was enough.
Worse things had been done in those names, than in Elizabeth’s.
And yet –
“And what if thou didst think thou hadst choose between the Queen and thy England–no, do not answer, Master Poet. We would liefer know not. Little elf,” Elizabeth said, turning to regard Sir Robert. “Thou hadst a question with regard to Master Shakespeare. Good poet” –she turned back to Will, and now her eyes sparkled – “you may speak now as if privily before ourselves.”
Cecil smiled. He’s going to ask about the Bible,Will thought at first, and then realized – worse, he’s going to ask about the plays. All the plays produced under Oxford’s supervision, and subverting Oxford’s control– Will steeled himself not to dissemble or lie –
The high double doors behind him swung open, and a determined step hushed itself upon the carpet. Raleigh, Murchaud, and Kit moved as one man, coming around the Queens, rapiers hissing into a fence of steel between the women and the door. Will blinked even as he turned, realizing all three men had been armed in the Presence.
“Your Highness, ” the Earl of Oxford said, genuflecting as the door thumped back against its frame, “I must speak to you at once. This player” – a twitch of the head at Will – “is a traitor, and Your Highness is in very grave danger – ”
Will glanced at Oxford and blinked as he understood a number of things. Including the cost of refusing to dance to Oxford’s tune, and that someoneconsidered Will troublesome enough to be cheerfully rid of him. And that it had not been happenstance that Raleigh himself had come so publicly to fetch Will from the press. And what rumors and half‑truths have the Queen and her elves been circulating?
Enough to provoke de Vere into hasty action, for certain–
“Brave gentlemen,” Elizabeth said. “We can be in no danger from so loyal a servant as our noble Oxford.” She accepted Sir Walter’s hand as he stepped back to her side and sheathed his blade. She stood gracefully, making her knight’s gesture look like a courtesy, but Will saw him take the strain of her weight. And saw also the way her ungloved hand tightened on Raleigh’s, until the pallor of her fingers matched the white lead on her brow. Saw the way Kit’s rapier dropped until its point rested on the floor, though neither he nor Murchaud sheathed their swords or retreated behind their Queen. From his angle a little to the side of where Oxford stood, Will saw Cairbre slip a silver flute into his hand, and– good Christ–George Carey, Lord Hunsdon, draw a long‑barreled pistol and conceal it behind Elizabeth’s gilded chair.
I am on the wrong side of that dais.But Kit looked calm, and so did Carey. Sir Robert was actually smiling, one hand resting on the ornate back of Elizabeth’s chair now that she had risen. He leaned forward to speak in her ear, and she smiled. “As you say, little elf.” She gave Will a level, steadying glance before she turned her attention to Oxford. “What is it, sweet boy?”
Oxford looked from Elizabeth to the Mebd, still seated and anonymous behind her rich black veils and the bodies of her servants. “My Queen, I am not certain this is meet to discuss before strangers.”
“Ah,” she said, descending the steps coolly, her hand upraised in Raleigh’s like a courting swan’s neck. “But these are not strangers, my dear Oxford.”
Will watched her come, amazed, as the Earl of Oxford chose his words, seeming to understand that he had made some sort of an error and seeking to understand how grave it was. Close on, Will witnessed the frailty of Elizabeth’s neck, the hollows under her cheekbones, the lines of old pain set deep between her eyes. The scent of rosewater and marjoram surrounded her; he was reminded uncomfortably of Morgan and her eternal scent of rosemary. Elizabeth had nearly died–two years before Will was born – of the smallpox that had also disfigured her dear friend Mary Dudley, the mother of the poet Sir Philip Sidney. The candlelight outlined the scars on Elizabeth’s cheeks through her paint, and still she presented – almost–the illusion of vigor.
“That will suffice, dear Water.” She tugged her hand from Raleigh’s grasp, and she passed before Will and came and laid that same white, white hand on Oxford’s cheek. He smiled at the touch, and the Queen smiled back. “What is it, Edward? ”
“I am here to name this playmaker a traitor to Your Highness,” Oxford said, on a breath that didn’t quite manage the sneer he endeavored for. “I have evidence to present–”
Christ,Will thought, but Raleigh came to stand beside him as if about to take his elbow and block his route to the door, using the movement to cover a casual nudge.
“How convenient,” Elizabeth said, turning her back on Oxford while Will marveled at her seamless courage and dignity. “When here we have a tribunal of sorts.”
“A tribunal, Your Highness?”
“Of sorts,” she repeated, withdrawing up the shallow steps. She paused before her chair, made a sweeping turn to accommodate her train, and did not take a seat. “We are here to consider the crimes of Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. Would he care to make a defense?”
Kit shifted at the left hand of the Mebd, although his face seemed impassive behind the mask. Will saw her lay one black‑gloved hand on the poet’s wrist. Kit glanced down and gave her a smile as edgy as the rapier in his hand. Will stepped away from Oxford, giving Raleigh the room to step between them if he needed, conscious of his blocking as if he moved away from the principals in a scene onstage.
“My Queen.” Oxford swept a low bow and stayed there, his hat in his hand as Will’s had been. “May I hear these – charges?” He glanced sidelong at Will, already arranging his face into a mask of dismissive scorn. “What has this player told you?”
“That playerhas told us nothing,” she said. Her hands looked terribly small against the massive white wall of her skirts; she folded them before the point of her flat‑fronted stomacher and twined the fingers together. “For we have not yet taken his evidence.” Disappointment edged her soft, sweet voice. “Edward. It has reached our ears that thou dost conspire with Catholic spies and agents, along with some others who are not presently welcome in our court – ” She sighed. “Honesty may redeem thee, Edward. How dost thou answer? ”
The look Oxford shot Will this time was nothing short of venomous, and Will had the distinct and elevated pleasure of smiling once and shaking his head with slow finality. Nay. Not me, my dear Earl. I wonder if it was Essex or Southampton threw him to the wolves?
One or the other. Elizabeth would not listen to many men over– Kit’s eye caught Will’s again, and Will nodded so slightly he thought only Kit and perhaps Cairbre might catch it– her own son.
“Your Highness.” Oxford had not yet risen. Will rather enjoyed seeing the back of his neck. “May I know by whose hand these charges have been leveled, then?”
“Mine,” said Kit, and stepped forward with a naked rapier still in his right hand, and it struck Will abruptly that better than half the men in the room had drawn weapons in the presence of not one Queen, but two–and no one seemed to think much of it. Meanwhile, Kit’s gloved left hand rose to strip the sculpted velvet mask from his face; he let it drop from his fingers to the floor behind, and smiled. “Hello, love. Art surprised to find me quick?”
Leaning on his cane, Will hitched himself back from the confrontation evolving in the center of the room.
Elizabeth’s smile was a mask as unyielding of true expression as the one Kit had left lying at her feet, and Oxford’s stiff‑backed bow didn’t survive the revelation. He straightened, reaching for the rapier he wasn’t wearing, and took a slow step away from Kit and from the Queen as Raleigh edged between him and the door.
Oxford hesitated a moment when his hand brushed the richly figured cloth at his hip. Will saw his moment of decision, the squaring of his shoulders and the little grimace as he moved forward, past Kit as if Kit were insignificant, an inconvenience to be shrugged aside. “Your Highness,” Oxford said, pausing at the foot of the steps and addressing himself directly to his Queen. “Surely you will not take the word of this” –his lip twisted, as if on words he would not say in the presence of a woman – “apostate, this perversion–”
Kit came the few steps back up beside Oxford on the left, and Will saw that his motion served to distract Oxford from Raleigh, who flanked the Earl on the right and just out of the periphery of his vision. Kit’s voice stayed level, amused, but there was a honeyed rasp in it that Will knew for sheerest hatred. “Baines told thee not that I was living, Edward? I wonder what else he’s kept from thee. Perhaps he reports directly to Southampton now.”
“Thou shalt not theeme, sirrah.”
Kit stopped close enough for Oxford to feel the heat of his breath, Will imagined, the naked blade angled between them as if laid down the center of a bed. “Or Essex; perhaps ‘tis why Essex saw fit to set thee adrift–”
Oxford looked up at the Queen. “Your Highness would take the word of this common playmaker and, and–”
“–or perhaps ‘tis Essex who wears Baines’ rein. What thinkst thou? Thou hast been cut from their string, hast not?”
The Oueen’s smile was strained white under the carmine of fucus. She held her silence. The Mebd and the four black‑clad men beside her might have been statues.
“–heretic, traitor. Catamite–” Oxford would not turn. Would not look at Kit, as Kit leaned closer. Will’s stomach clenched in sympathy at the tightness that edged Kit’s face, and never was heard in his voice.
“Ah.”
“Your Highness?”
“Ah,” Kit said a second time, and slapped Edward de Vere with the back of his gloved left hand.
It was a blow hard enough to turn the man’s head and leave a welt burning red across the pallor of his skin, and Will flinched at the report. Oxford fell silent, didn’t so much as raise a hand to cover the mark. Will imagined de Vere tasting blood, and the imagining troubled him not at all.
Kit tilted his head to one side like a crow thinking which eye to pluck from a dead man’s skull. He spoke clearly into the silence, and the knot in Will’s stomach wrenched into a wild, braying kind of love. “I cannot fault thine own experienced testament, my lord–”
“Master Marlowe, I am certain–”
“Sir Christopher, ” Elizabeth said.
“Your Highness?”
“Sir Christopher,” she said, as if reminding an idiot child. “Not Master. Sir.”
Oxford’s face went white before it went red. “Sir Christopher. I am certain I do not understand your implication–”
“Implication? My lord Oxford, I will testify.”The poet stripped his gloves off with an elegantly negligent gesture and smiled up at the Queens. Will wondered if anyone else could see what Kit’s smile cost him.
Oxford looked appealingly at his Queen, who ignored him in favor of gracefully resuming her seat, her skirts hissing about her like the foam on a moonlit sea. Oxford must have heard the rumors that the veiled blond beauty was the legendary Anne of Denmark, Queen of Scotland. Will could almost see the false assumptions heaping high in Oxford’s thoughts.
“Sir Christofer,” the Mebd asked in measured and musical tones, “are you suggesting that this my royal sister’s subject has made improper use of thee?”
Elizabeth glanced up from fussing her skirts, but it was Kit she looked to. “Sir Christopher?”
Kit smiled green poison, not at the Queens but at Oxford. “Oh, he made rather a proper job of it, I’d say. May it please Your Majesties.”
“Thou’lt burn with me.” Hissed, and Will rather thought it was meant for Kit’s ears alone, but in the still room it carried. Oxford flinched.
“I’m subject to another Kingdom now,” Kit answered, and gently reached up and kissed Edward de Vere on the cheek still reddened with that blow. Will bit his lip on a cheer, turned aside before it could bubble out of him, and met Raleigh’s amused and savage grin. He approved of our Kit too,Will thought, and gave the Oueen’s “Sir Water” back a flash of a smile as Kit stepped back. Will wonders never cease?
“And more,” Will said, understanding what he was here for, and where Cecil’s questions would have taken him. “From his own lips, I heard the Earl suggest that Your Majesty’s continued good health” –a bow to Elizabeth– “might be an impediment to the successful future of England.”
Kit stepped back and turned his sword so that the blade cast reflected light in a moving bar across Oxford’s breast and throat, all his polite attention to Will. The band of Kit’s mask had disarrayed his hair into fine tangled elflocks, and Will folded his arms to keep from brushing them straight.
“Have you proof, Master Shakespeare?” Raleigh’s voice. Oxford jumped at its closeness.
Will shook his head, pressing his arms against his chest, his cane dangling from his fingertips. “Only mine own sworn testimony, Sir Walter. Which will I give.”
Kit cleared his throat and addressed himself to Oxford, not Raleigh. “I also have heard with mine own ears that thou didst plot my murder, and treason against your anointed Queen. And I also will swear to it and give particulars. My lord.”
Raleigh looked across Oxford as if he were not there, catching Kit’s eyes. “Good to see you well, Kit – ” He cleared his throat and grinned. “Sir Christopher. I suppose that’s not for bandying about?”
“Good to see you at all, Walter.” Oxford moved, as if to shift from between them, and Kit halted him with a negligent tap of his blade. “Tut. None of that. And no, officially I’m quite dead and likely to remain so.”
Raleigh stepped closer. Kit moved back toward the dais, sheathing his blade as if Oxford were beneath concern. Oxford’s expression of thwarted wrath lightened Will’s heart, but the Mebd’s voice broke through his delight; soft and amused as Kit came back to her side, stooping only to retrieve his discarded mask. “Dost regret now how fine a gift thou hast given us, sweet sister?”
“Oh, sister,” Elizabeth answered, her voice rich and low over the colors of a grief Will imagined was almost like an old, familiar friend, “I’ve always been weak in the face of these rash, these beautiful boys.” Kit hid a laugh to hear himself so described, but Elizabeth’s eyes were on Raleigh and her face offered Oxford no sign of her pain. She’ll weep later,Will thought. She wept for Mary, they day, even as she signed the death warrant– “My sweet Sir Water. Sir Robert, my elf. See that our darling Edward tells us what he knows. Everything.”
Raleigh took Oxford by the elbow; the Earl gave him a glance that might have melted glass. “Unhand me, popinjay.” He pushed Raleigh back with the flat of his hands; Raleigh bore it like a standing stone, though pearls rained from his doublet like hail.
“As my Queen commands,” Raleigh answered, one hand upon his sword. “Your Highness, when he has told us what he will?”
Elizabeth’s fan moved idly, crimson and alabaster feathers trembling above a grip made of gold set with mother‑of‑pearl. “I do not wish to set eyes on him again.”
Act IV, scene xiv
Since thou hast alt the Cards within thy hands
To shuffle or cut, take this as surest thing:
That right or wrong, thou deal thyself a King.
– Christopher Marlowe, The Massacre at Paris,Act I, scene ii
The two Queens removed themselves before Sir Walter or Sir Robert returned, and Lord Hunsdon and Cairbre went with them. Kit breathed a sigh of relief to be alone with Will and Murchaud in the mirrorless, close‑tapestried retiring room. “I don’t suppose there’s a bottle of wine on a sideboard somewhere?”
“I’ll find a servant,” Murchaud answered, stripping his mask off and tossing it on the red velvet cushion of the Mebd’s gilded chair. “Thou wert brave, Kit – ”
Kit shrugged. “One down,” he said, crossing glances with Will.
Will dragged a stool away from the wall and sat himself on it, balancing his cane carefully against his knee.
A liveried servant arrived with the wine; Kit intercepted the tray before Will could try to rise and serve his betters. The tightness in Will’s narrow shoulders pained him; the hesitant, calculated step and the nearness at hand of that cane broke his heart. He poured wine into a softly swirled blue glass and pressed it into Will’s hand, then did the same for Murchaud.
“And thou wert very brave indeed,” Will finished, tasting the wine. “It cannot have been easy, what thou didst – ”
“What, admitting my poor taste in lovers before every person who’s ever treated me with a scrap of dignity?” It had been humorous in his head; on his lips it tasted of bitterness.
“Not everybody,” Will said, while Murchaud bumped Kit companionably with a shoulder. “Tom wasn’t here – ”
“Oh, and I thank thee for that comfort… .” But Kit smiled, despite himself, and felt some of the painful unease in his belly loosen.
The door opened again and he looked up, expecting another servant, perhaps, or a summons. It was Sir Robert Cecil, his canine mask pushed up over his hair and his limp pronounced with tiredness. “Master Shakespeare – ”
“Sir.” Will stood, bracing himself with the cane. Kit stepped forward and relieved Will of his wine cup as the playmaker went to greet the Secretary of State.
Will didn’t lean on the cane heavily so much as balance with it, but his step was halt and his right hand trembled. Christ, how does he write?
Kit felt his face pinch, his eyes begin to burn. He looked away and caught Murchaud’s sideways glance. And knew that, too, for what it was, and shook his head slowly in the realization.
Slowly, aye. But Will was dying.
Sir Robert came forward and fell into step by Will, two men limping in unison. On stage, it might have been funny. “Master Shakespeare, I’ll need you to write out and sign a deposition.”
“Regarding the Earl of Oxford? I’ll do it gladly, Mr. Secretary. Will he… ?”
“–go to the Tower?”
A pleasant euphemism,Kit thought.
Sir Robert shook his head. “No, but I doubt you’ll see him in London again. Master Shakespeare, if you will?”
Will nodded in amusement at the pun, glancing over his shoulder to Kit. Kit waved him away with a pang, conscious of a breathless, drowning sort of agony filling his throat. Eight years and I’ve managed the downfall of Edward de Vere. And now–
Christ. I can’t stand watching this. What will it take? Half a decade? Two? I should have stayed in Faerie. I should have –
– let Baines have his way with Will?
Murchaud’s hand pressed the small of Kit’s back as Sir Robert steered Will out of the retiring room. Kit didn’t move away from the touch, for all it felt like sandpaper through his doublet and his shirt. The door closed behind Will and Sir Robert. Kit turned and looked up at the Prince, who pulled him into a stiffly awkward sort of one‑armed hug. “It gets easier eventually.”
“When they’re all dead?”
It was an idle, bitter comment. Kit was not prepared for the placid irony with which the Prince said, softly, “Yes.”
“Murchaud, why art thou kind? What dost thou wish of me?” It wasn’t quite what Kit had intended to ask, and he stiffened, but he still didn’t step out of the embrace, for all it was like standing among nettles. Murchaud turned his face into Kit’s hair, and Kit was suddenly giddy with sorrow and frustration and something that hurt sharply, a pressure under his breastbone he didn’t have a name for.
“Idiot. For I love thee,” the Prince said, and kissed the top of Kit’s head before he let him go. “What word hast thee of conspiracy, Kitling?”
For I love thee.Kit stared after the Prince, wondering if those words were true or calculated, or whether they could be both. “That depends of which conspiracy thou speakst, my Prince. This one or that one? I think we pulled a tooth of the dragon in London today – ”
Murchaud shrugged, pouring more wine. “Something was accomplished, in any case. And Oxford’s face when thou didst draw off thy mask was a worthy sight. With Oxford and Essex both out of court, that’s a little breathing room for Gloriana.”
“Will thinks the Puritans have gotten to Archbishop Whitgift.”
“The Puritans, or the Prometheans?”
“Is there a difference?” Kit leaned against a leather‑topped desk and watched Murchaud pace. “Essex’s Prometheans have their fingers deep in every pie. They play politics layered on politics, and their goals are opaque to me.”
“Their goals are very simple,” Murchaud replied, turning as if startled. “Power, earthly and divine. Revolution, and the overthrow of the old ways.”
“And our ways are better than theirs?” Kit breathed a little easier, the knot under his breastbone easing at having successfully diverted Murchaud. Robin, I do not know how long I can protect you. I do not even understand why it is that I choose to do so.Except Kit had seen men drawn and quartered for the sin of appearing on a list of names that he, Kit, drew up and provided. He thought of Will’s new play and grinned. To choose not is a choice.
“Our ways are what we have,” Murchaud said, reminding Kit of his own words to Will, so many years ago. “I wonder, sometimes, if a compromise could be reached–”
“Like the compromise with Hell?” Kit refreshed his own cup and Murchaud’s as well. He leaned back against the desk, turning the glass between his hands. The pale blue spirals running up the sides caught the light; the room seemed very rich and lush in half darkness.
“I should hope not,” Murchaud answered. He paced the edge of the room, letting his fingers wander over surfaces. “If the Archbishop of Canterbury is weakening, can the Church of England be far behind?”
“Murchaud”–a swallow of wine to loosen Kit’s tongue – “why has the Mebd come here? Not for a play. And not merely for my little masque and unmasking.”
“Oh, aye, for a play. And to discuss Elizabeth’s succession with her. And Elizabeth’s legend – ”
“Ah.” Kit set the glass down on the leather‑topped desk and stretched his fingers, working the ache out of them. “Edward has a jaw like an anvil.”
“‘Tis well thou didst not punch him, then. Is’t broken?”
“Only strained. Bruised a little.”
“Would kiss it well – ”
“Would that thou couldst.” Kit sighed. “What next?”
Murchaud shuddered. “We try to keep Gloriana alive as long as possible. We rid ourselves of as many of the false Promethean agents as we can find. Oxford is an excellent start. Skeres, not the victory I would have chosen, but something nonetheless.”
“We discover–” Kit coughed and lowered his voice. “We discover why Sir Robert is protecting Poley and Baines.”
“Is he?”
“There’s no other explanation.” Kit nodded with conviction. It came more plain to him even as he sought to explain it. “He sends Tom and Will to frame Baines, but it’s not Baines who takes the fall. He allows Will and I to remove Oxford, but only once Essex has discarded him. He opposes Will’s plan for a new Bible, and I would not be surprised if there’s more we don’t know. Yes, I think Robert Cecil is playing a very deep game indeed. And I think I need to talk to Sir Walter about it –
“Sir Robert,” Murchaud said, still pacing. “Believes in what he can grasp and hold. Sir Robert may already have plans for Elizabeth’s successor. Sir Robert may see a weakening of Faerie as bending to his advantage.”
“I can’t imagine that he doesn’t. I’m not sure that he understands that the Prometheans are something other than another chess piece.”
“He doesn’t see them as players?”
“Does he see anyone else as a player? I think he imagines that some tokens merely move themselves about the board when his hand is not on them.” Kit’s own hand was swelling still. He frowned at it. “I did hit Oxford harder than I intended. At least the fingers work.”
“Thou shouldst get Morgan to see to it–”
“Will Morgan see me?”
Murchaud’s lips twitched. “Aye, I imagine she would. There’s more we need to finish before Elizabeth passes.”
“Besides the Prometheans?”
“I set thee to find those who would conspire against my wife. I need names, Kit.”
Kit closed his eyes. “I suppose thou wouldst not believe me an I lied to thee?”
“Your heart is divided,” Murchaud quoted, and came to him. “Thou dost know something, and thou art loath to tell.”
“I know many things I am loath to tell, lover….”
Murchaud smiled at the endearment, but Kit could tell it would not encourage him to relent. He set his wineglass down. “Kit. It is my safety that thou dost put at stake. Mine, and Cairbre’s, as well as the Mebd’s. Thy friends and protectors. Hast thou no loyalty?”
“I have no wish to witness any more hangings in my lifetime, Murchaud.”
“Hah!” Murchaud stepped back, and as he stepped back he reached out with both hands and cupped Kit’s cheeks ever so gently. Kit steeled himself and bore the touch, and managed even not to flinch. “Kitling, we do not hang Faeries.”
“… we don’t?”
“We haven’t enough Faeries to hang, my love. No, the punishment will not be fatal. Or even, perhaps, painful, although the miscreants might find themselves sporting a pig’s head or a cow’s filthy tail. The Mebd has her own ways of enforcing obedience.”
Or ass’s ears,Kit realized, and then put his hand to his mouth as he realized also that he’d said it aloud. His expression must have offered whatever confirmation Murchaud needed, because the Prince nodded once, judiciously, and leaned close to kiss him on the forehead.
“Who else?”
“Geoffrey,” Kit answered, his voice helpless in his own hearing. “Geoffrey and Puck, and the Faerie oaks. That’s all I know.”
“It’s enough,” Murchaud said. “They can be made to tell.”
Act IV, scene xv
0 sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good mannerd: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If.
I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If as, ‘If you said do, then I said so;’ and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If.
–William Shakespeare, As You Like It,Act V, scene iii
Spring came late in 1600; Will spent Lent in Stratford and returned in late March to his haunts in London. One cold rainy afternoon shortly after Easter, he leaned back on his bench at the Mermaid and rattled the dice across the planks to Thomas Nashe, who was leaned forward inspecting the backgammon board set between them. “I should have made you play chess.”
You win at chess,” Will answered complacently, reaching for his wine.
“Then perhaps we should alternate. I shouldn’t play at dice with you, Will. No one should. You’ve the Devil’s own luck–”
“If I have it, then he doesn’t. When you meet him, be sure to challenge him at dice.”
Nashe laughed, delighted. “I can count on you, Will. Have you seen Ben lately? ”
“He’s still not speaking to me over the poet’s argument,” Will answered unhappily. He steepled his fingers in front of his nose. “Burbage has hired Dekker to take a few cuts back at Ben. It’s all childishness; I have plays to write. And you – I hear you’ve given up playmaking and pamphleteering entirely, Tom.”
“Poetry for private patrons pays better,” Nashe said without rancor, rattling the dice on the tabletop. He swore softly and moved his chips with a hasty hand. “And poetry seems less likely to find me in jail again. Or my work burned in the market square.”
“At least you brought Harvey down with you.”
“A minor victory. It’s not hard to be funnier than Gabriel Harvey. Hullo, George.”
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Chapman patted Will on the shoulder and settled his bulk onto the plank bench beside Nashe. And then looked up, exasperated, and started to heave his stout graybearded self up again. “Damme, I forgot I wanted sack.”
“I’ll get it,” Nashe said, pushing himself to his feet with a hand on either side of the board. “I wanted another ale. Mind you keep Will from ‘repairing’ the board while I’m up – oh, look. The Catholics are here again.”
He jerked his chin, and Will followed the motion. Robert Catesby caught Will’s eye and smiled; Will didn’t know the big, well‑favored redhead beside him, but the ridges of muscle on his arms and the scars on his hands said soldier,and he carried himself in the same manner that Ben did.
“At least we’re unlikely to see Puritans in a poet’s bar,” Chapman answered, stretching his feet toward the fire. “And Catesby’s a good sort.”
Nashe snorted and went to find the landlord. Chapman turned and offered Will a considering look. “Does your offer still stand, Master Shakespeare?”
Will blinked, trying to remember what offer he might have made, and shrugged. He pulled a tiny bottle from his purse and shook Morgan’s poisoned medicine into his wine cup, counting the droplets that fell from the splinter imbedded in the cork. “Which offer is that?”
Chapman glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve thought better of your idea. The Bible.”
Will swirled the wine to mix in the bitter herbs, aware of Chapman’s interest. “It’s a tincture for my palsy, George.”
“Oh.” Silence, as Will drank and felt the tightness in his muscles easing. “The Bible,” he reminded.
“Ben’s not speaking to me,”
“Ben thinks highly of himself,” Chapman commented dryly. We were young once too. It passes.”
Will laughed, tidying counters on the board. “I’m uncertain I was ever so young as that. The Bible’s been slow going. What changed your mind?”
Chapman shrugged as Nashe came back, juggling two wine cups and a mug of ale. He placed the cups before Will and Chapman, and settled in again, leaning forward to look at the board. “I bid you not to let him move my counters, George – ”
