Oxford paused, his hat in his hand – a dramatic gesture ruined by the revolted wrinkle of his narrow nose. “Master Shakespeare,” he said. “I had thought you might prove more amenable to a personal visitation, as you have returned my notes unopened. You” –careful choice of the formal pronoun, and a careful stress against it, to be certain Will noticed the respect – “have done me good service in the past, and I am inclined today to remember it. You are too fair a poet to fall with Cecil and Raleigh and Walsingham. And fall they will, make no mistake.”

Will blinked. Oxford stepped closer and let his voice drop. “Essex’s star is rising, Will, and it’s said Scottish James is fonder of masques and entertainments even than the Queen.” He coughed. “There’s no guarantee the Lord Chamberlain your patron will remain in favor after the succession. It would be a pity to see the Globe go empty, her players all jailed as sturdy vagrants and masterless men.”

“If I wrote masques I should be more interested.” Wondering where he got the courage to brush past a peer on the street, he nodded curtly to Oxford and turned his back on the man.

“Master Shakespeare. Halt your step.”

“My step is halt enough,” Will said, but he paused, although he did not turn. What could be dire enough that the Earl of Oxford would call after a common playmaker on a busy street?“As you have no doubt observed, my lord.”

Oxford laughed and strode up beside Will, seating his towering cap once more on his head. His ruff was starched fashionably pale pink, maiden’s blush, stiff enough that it rustled against his beard. Will smiled, glad of his own plain murrey doublet. Puritan,he thought, and then pushed the memory of Kit’s teasing away. “There’s more,” Oxford said. “What you offered Her Majesty at Spenser’s funeral did not go unremarked by all, Master Shakespeare. Nor did the disgrace with which she refused your gift. I have friends – ”

“More than one?” Oh, Will. You shouldn’t have said that.No, but he couldn’t close his ear to de Vere’s simpering tone, and hearing it he recalled some measure of Kit Marlowe’s close and thready rage. And wonder of wonders, de Vere laughed and forced a smile, although he dragged his fine kid gloves between his hands hard enough to stretch the cheveril.

“If it’s a Bible you want to write, Master Shakespeare. There’s those would pay you to get it. Our side” – he cleared his throat, as if it were distasteful to him – “has an interest in the nature of god as well.”

Will swallowed. Politics. And yet– He turned slowly, feet shuffling, cursing the slow, nodding oscillation of his chin, and looked Oxford in the eye. And yet he’s a bad enough poet I rewrote mine own plays under his eye, and he never saw the power I put in them. I could manage. Work fortheir Prometheans and undermine their very agenda from within. Ben and Kit and I could manage very well–

“What would you wish of me, my lord? In return for such patronage?” Although he already knew what Oxford would demand.

The Earl smiled, reaching up to tilt his hat at the proper angle as he stepped back into the hurly‑burly of Silver Street. “Don’t answer today,” he said. “But the Lord Chamberlain’s Men perform before Her Majesty on the Feast of the Assumption.”

“We do,” Will said, struggling with feet that wanted to step back into the shadows, get his back to the Avail of the tack shop he stood before.

Consider,” Oxford said, smiling, “whether your play will be a success, and the Oueen’s reign will be sustained. That is all. Consider it. And consider whether your Bible means more to you, William Shakespeare. These friends of mine. Friends of ours, I should say. Mutual friends. They’re impressed with your work. They could give you everything you need. And you know” –a lowered tone –“her Majesty isunwell. And what’s one old woman, past her three score already, in the face of the future of all Christianity? ”

Will fixed a smile on his lips, thin as stage paint. His throat tightened. Just the palsy, doubtless. Everything you need. Freedom to work. Yes, and all it cost is a brave old woman’s life.

He hesitated, watching Oxford grin ironically, touch his hat –as if to an equal, or a rival –nod, and turn away. One old woman’s life.

That’s all.

Sweet Christ. This could be trouble for the whole company. I need to talk to Dick Burbage about this right away.

Act IV, scene viii

What virtue id it that id born with ad?

Much less can honour be ascribed thereto;

Honour id purchased by the deeds we do.

–Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander

Kit’s heart weighed like a dreadful lodestone inside the linen that still bound his aching chest, but he pressed fingertips to the carved frame of the Darkling Glass and bent his will on Robin Goodfellow. He grasped the Puck’s image without difficulty, surprised at his own confidence, and brought it close. The bandy little elf sat cross‑legged in the embrace of a shaggy great willow, a triple pipe held in his hands and his head bowed over it. He blew breath through the reeds, but his fingers poised unmoving and the sound that whispered forth was more the wind through withies than any tune that Kit could call.

Kit clapped a hand on the pommel of his sword to steady it and grasped the rim of the mirror more firmly, pulling himself up as he stepped over the frame–the threshold –and through.

And down into crunching twigs and crisp leaves under a crown of swaying yellow boughs like enchanted snakes. Kit landed lightly, with flexed knee, sudden movement still sharp as a dagger in his breast. The silver sword flickered out like a tasting tongue as he advanced. He didn’t level it – quite–but he let it sway lightly in his hand. “Robin – ”

The Puck looked up, ears rising to attention, but the flute didn’t drift an inch lower. “Sir Poet. So fierce.”

So many words, and so few of them useful. Kit made himself steel and closed his heart to remembered kindnesses, pushing on. ” – tell me thou had naught to do with the murder of Will Shakespeare’s little child?”

Puck drew his knees up and draped gawky arms about them, letting his pipes dangle from his fingertips. “Interesting you should phrase the question thus‑and‑such, Sir Poet.”

“Intentional. But should you lie to me, Robin, I’d know.”

The Puck stood, somehow graceless and fluid all at once, gangling as a colt. He hung the pipes on his belt and stretched up along a bough. “Poets are too precious to sacrifice carelessly,” he said, his long mouth downturned at the corners. “It had to be something other than Shakespeare himself.”

The blade of Kit’s sword grew heavy, as if a hand pressed down the flat. He let it sag until it touched the gnarled root of the enormous tree, and came a step forward. “Robin.” Whatever the next word might have been, it hung unvoiced on the air between them, leaden with betrayal. Kit shook his head, slowly, and forced his heavy arm to raise his sword as he tried again. “Will Shakespeare was my friend. Even when thou didst this thing, he was my friend– as thou knewest then. And I thought I was thine.”

Which was the heart of it, Kit knew. Of all the folk he’d met in Faerie, there were only three he might have called that, friend.And Puck foremost among them.

Robin shrugged and leapt down from the tree branch, passing over Kit’s sword like a tumbler. He leaned back against the trunk in a deceptively insouciant slouch. “There were reasons,” he said.

“Reasons.”Kit’s hand shook on his blade. The wire grip cut his palm, and every breath hurt him. “What reasoncould possibly suffice for the murder of a boy barely old enough to prentice?”