“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 – ”