Will hid his laughter behind his sleeve as Chapman turned to face the outlandish figure of Kit Marlowe–who had just materialized before the big window in his gaudy cloak – and dropped his half‑empty goblet on the floor. Tom didn’t even try to conceal his mirth as straw‑colored wine spilled over the rushes and Chapman’s jaw fell open, a red cavern within the bramble of his beard. He never even glanced down at the wine soaking his shoes, but when Kit smiled kindly at him and said, “Oh. Hullo, George. I hear you’ve been expurgating my poetry,” his eyes rolled up and only Tom Walsingham’s swift intercession kept him from dashing his brains out on the sideboard.

Kit considered the tableau for a moment, and then glanced over his shoulder and raised both eyebrows at Will. “He’s a prankster, our Will.”

Said direct to Will’s face and not in Tom’s direction at all, but it was Tom–tipping Chapman into a chair–who answered. “He is at that. Happy birthday, Kit.”

“Is it?” Kit glanced out the window, as if expecting rain and buttercups, and blinked at the cold gray slates and February darkness.

“February sixth, sixteen hundred.”

“It is,” Kit said wonderingly, putting his hand on the glass. He pressed the other against the center of his breast in a gesture that was becoming a habit, and one that quietly troubled Will. “Is’t afternoon or morning?”

“Before sunrise,” Will said. “We’ve been waiting up for thee–”

“And didst not tell poor George I was coming. Shame, William.”

Will grinned. “Congratulations, Kit. You’re thirty‑seven.”

“Strange, he doesn’t look a day over twenty‑nine.” Tom finished settling Chapman into the chair and pushed one long hand through hair that was streaked with gray now, like a careless daub of whitewash at the temples. Will’s attention was more on Kit, though, and he saw Kit flinch when Tom continued, “Worry not, Kit. Forty’s not the end of the world, for all they say it’s middle age and death on the horizon.”

“Aye, Sir Thomas,” Kit said, and crossed the room to crouch by Chapman’s chair. “Thou’rt forty now? It cannot be. ‘Twas only yesterday thou wert outriding and outshooting me day in and day out, and soon Thou’lt be as toothless as old Chapman, here” – he chafed Chapman’s wrists –“George, wake up. That was a cruel trick Will played thee–water, Will. If thou hast stopped the old man’s heart I shan’t forgive thee.”

“Old Chapman,” Tom scoffed, standing back. “Aye, he’s two entire winters on me.”

Will had left his cane by the door, and managed with some pride to fetch cold water and a cloth for Kit without stumbling. “As the youngest and baldest of the lot of you,” Will said, “I feel I should contribute, but–alas–I find myself at a loss to compete with elder wits.”

Kit snorted and ignored him, applying the cold soaked cloth to Chapman’s neck until the woolly poet opened his eyes and groaned. “Kit. A ghost? It can’t be Kit, so unchanged after a decade.”

“Not a decade, George,” Kit said, rising to his feet. “Eight years, a little less–”

Near enough a decade,” George answered, struggling upright, and Will saw Kit flinch again. “And not a wrinkle on thee–”

“Death is kinder than aging in that way,” Kit said, and walked to the sideboard to pour himself wine and sugar it lightly. “I hear a rumor thou’rt holding Ben’s pen for us now that the bricklayer has gone on to greener pastures.”

Chapman blinked, and cast about himself for the cup that he’d let fall. Will took pity and retrieved and refilled it, to Chapman’s effusive thanks. “Shall we begin?”

Kit sipped and laid his cup aside, turning to retrieve the precious Bible from its shelf while Will dragged a low table with ink and paper between himself and Chapman. But Tom raised his hand and cleared his throat, and Kit paused before he was properly begun. “What is it, Sir Thomas?”

Tom smiled at Will. “You didn’t tell Kit about his birthday gift, Master Shakespeare…”

A blush turned Will’s face hot.

Kit looked up, frowning. “Will… ?”

Wary as a stag at bay, and Will couldn’t blame him. “Supper at the Mermaid,” he said. “Everyone will be there. Tom Nashe, Mary Poley, and the lot–” ALL that are Left Living. And let him Look on young Robin with his own eyes, and make his own decisions, then.

Kit’s eyes grew wide. “Her Majesty would never permit it,” he said, when he finally found something to say at all. “Christofer Marley must stay dead, Will–”

Will grinned. “Aye, but Thomas Marlowe of Canterbury, a young man of, oh, perhaps twenty‑five, might just be of the age to have finished his prenticeship and come to London to meet the men his brother knew. What better excuse wilt thou ever have, my Christofer?”

Kit blinked and swallowed. Will saw his eyes too bright and his throat swelling above his collar, and hoisted himself out of his chair again. He crossed the floor and draped his arm over Kit’s patchworked shoulders, damning the trembling in his limbs for an inconvenience and a bother. He was as proud of Kit for not pulling away as he had ever been of anything, and prouder still when his friend leaned into the embrace.

“How didst thou know I had a brother?”

Will grinned to stop the sharpness that would have filled up his own eyes, and found himself supporting Kit as much as clasping him. “I wrote thy mother, fool, to tell her the rumors attending the ignominy of thy death were false, and that she could be proud of her eldest son. We’ve had quite the correspondence, since.”

Then Kit did pull away, and set the Bible down, and hid his face against the window glass. No one spoke for long moments, until he straightened his shoulders and forced his voice steady. “What time is supper, then?”

Will had to encircle Kit’s shoulders with his arm again to chivvy him through the Mermaid’s door: the fair‑haired poet froze with one hand on the door pull as if it were he and not Will who were halt. “Come on, Tom,” Will said, tapping the side of Kit’s shoe with his toe. “Your brother’s friends are waiting to meet you.”

“Tom,” Kit said softly, and shook his head. “I always was beset by them. A veritable thicket of Toms–Will, I cannot go in there and pretend to be mine own brother.”

“Hush. No one questions a truly outrageous lie. ‘Tis the niggling inconsistencies ‘twill trip thee.” Will shifted his clasp to Kit’s elbow, fumbling the cane in his other hand to free fingers for gripping. He grinned, and reached past Kit to open the door, pausing for one last inspection of his victim.

Kit wore the ill‑fitting brown doublet that Tom had loaned him as if it pained him, constantly tugging at the too‑long hem. His child‑fine hair was twisted into a club and greased so not a trace of curl remained, and Will had brushed blackener through both it and Kit’s fair reddish beard. The effect was to make Kit’s dark eyes unremarkable rather than startling, and a subtle blur of kohl underneath had made them seem deep‑set and a little sullen. He was thinner and fitter than he’d ever been in London, every inch the hard‑muscled tradesman.

He looked at Will pleadingly, and Will shook his head.

“Come, love. Put on a demure demeanor and keep the pipe‑weed in thy pocket, and no one will know thee for a Marlowe at all.”

“That’s half what I’m afeared of,” Kit answered, but he let Will bring him through the door.

A cheer went up as they entered. Will supposed God would forgive him for concealing from Kit the sheer number of well‑wishers, nostalgic friends, and curious bystanders who might be expected to populate the gathering, but his friend’s white pallor under wine‑red cheeks made him wonder if Kitwould do likewise. “See, Tom?” Under his breath, leaning close to Kit’s ear as Kit tugged back, edging for the doorway. “Your brother did have friends.”

Will thought he might need to interpose himself physically between Kit and the door, but then Tom Nashe extricated himself from the gawking crowd and hurried over. As one fish slipping through a weir is followed by a school, suddenly every body in the room moved toward them, and the erstwhile Tom Marlowe was surrounded and embraced and drawn into the center of the crowd so thoroughly that Will wondered if he would ever escape.