“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.