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.