Kit turned to him and blinked, candlelight cupping his cheek like a hand. “By God,” he said. “Thou’rt right. Thou must be.” And then he stopped and crossed his arms before his breast, and visibly swallowed. “How does a man fight something like that?”

Will just shook his head. “I do not know.”

Act V, scene v

But while I have a sword, a hand, a heart

I will not yield to any such upstart.

– Christopher Marlowe, Edward II,Act I, scene i

She’s asking for you,” Murchaud said from the doorway, and Kit laid down the book, open to a page he’d read three times over and never seen.

He stood and twisted his rapier back into place in its carrier. “The Mebd’s awake?”

Murchaud didn’t answer, only beckoned. Kit came to him and they passed through the corridors side by side, not speaking until they reached the threshold of the Mebd’s privy chamber. He paused, his hand on the doorknob, and glanced over his shoulder at the Prince. “Thou’rt not coming in?”

“No,” Murchaud said. “My royal wife said Kit, and Kit alone. So alone thou goest.”

“What does she want of me?”

“Thy company, I presume.” He smiled a worried smile, one that made the corners of his pale, soft eyes turn down.

“It’s the teind year. Sixteen naught Five, and less than a month to choose the sacrifice – ”

“No.” Murchaud’s headshake was slow. “Thy William went willing, Kit. Even though thou didst retrieve him – mad poets, the both of you–the debt is paid for seven times seven years. Go on, my love.”

Kit shivered at the endearment, set his jaw, and opened the door.

A cool breeze ruffled silk curtains, admitting sunlight on dancing rays. The chamber smelled of lavender and peppermint, and thick rush mats muffled Kit’s footsteps.

The Mebd lay on a daybed by the window’, embroidered pillows behind her shoulders and her thin violet gown draped over one bent knee, a bare graceful foot showing beneath the hem. Her head was turned, her gaze trained out the window, her hair down on her shoulders in a thousand braids as fine as golden wire.

Kit bowed, then straightened when she summoned him with an airy wave.

“Sir Kit.”

“Your Highness.”

She smiled as he came closer, her eyes as violet now as twilight, matching the shadows that surrounded them and lay under her cheekbones. The lines of her collarbones glinted like knives, and he could see the rings of her larynx through the translucent skin of her throat. He thought the bones of her fingers might crumble if he simply reached out and took her hand; even her amazing hair was lusterless and dry in its floor‑long braids. “Sit,” she said. “I’m healing at last. England’s King is secure upon his throne. Faerie will endure.”

“Was it wise of you to risk Faerie so far?” Kit asked, because he felt secure enough in his Bard’s patched cloak to do it. He reached out softly, and took a few of her long yellow plaits in his hand. “There are many lives braided here, my Queen. Lives that would be lost if you were.”

“The war’s not over,” she said. “I understand thou hast been speaking with Morgan, yet.”

“Aye.”

“Her politics?”

“What are her politics, you mean, Your Highness?” When she nodded impatiently, he continued. “She says she wants peace.”

“She does,” the Mebd said. “But she’s never understood that compromises can be required to assure it, and sometimes the Devil you know is to be preferred to the Devil you don’t.” She smiled into his eyes as he leaned forward, and turned her gaze out to the garden again. “I have a task for thee, one that shall burden thee a while, and one which I cannot ask my bounden subjects. And one which thou wilt never speak of, Sir Kit. I charge thee.”

“And what task is that, Your Highness?”

And she smiled again, never looking back, and handed him a comb.

Act V, scene vi

These late eclipses in the sun and moon portendno good to us: though the wisdom of nature canreason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itselfscourged by the sequent effects: love cools,friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities,mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces,treason; and the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father.

–William Shakespeare, King Lear,Act I, scene ii

Just before dawn on September 17, 1605, Will was dragged from a companionable reverie in the garden of the Silver Street house by an urgent hand on his sleeve, reaching awkwardly backward. “Will,” Kit said. “Look at the moon.

They were huddled under blankets, back to back on the bench. The wine was finished; the night’s conversation drifted into sitting and dozing, watching the night. Will turned over his shoulder and gasped; the full pewter disk was eaten away on one edge, as if someone had taken a bite from the disk, and a dim red glow shone through it. “An eclipse.”

“Not a full one, I think,” Kit answered. “Remember old Doctor Dee, Gloriana’s astrologer?”

“I remember his beard,” Will said, picturing its white luxuriance. “The Queen used to ride out to his house on horseback and scandalize the court. He’s still alive, you know, though James won’t have aught to do with him.”

“Is the old bastard?” Kit’s smile shone through his voice. “I always liked him better than Northumberland. And he was right more often, too. Thou knowest his horoscopes for Elizabeth were sealed as state secrets?”

“Out of favor now, though.”

“We could ride out and see him, as Elizabeth would have – ” Kit’s voice swelled, a momentary flight of fancy on what a pageant that would be. And then he stopped himself, and shivered. “Nay. Unwise at the extreme.”

“So what would he say about that?” The moon continued to darken, even as the eastern sky grew pale. A third of the disc had vanished into shadow, and Will caught his breath at the beauty of it, and the danger. “That’s a portent, Kit.”

“The sky is full of portents.” Kit stood, and walked from one wall of the garden to the other, studying the sky. “But that’s an especially bad one. The moon is devoured in the dragon’s tail, or so the expression goes–the moon, astrologically speaking, equates the psyche.”

“What does it mean?” Will’s voice, still and small. He moved to stand beside Kit, as if the warmth of another body in the chill fall air would make a difference to his pounding heart.

“It means,” Kit said, “that the Mebd is right. And the war is nearly on us. And everything we have believed in, fought for – Gloriana, England, Faerie–is coming to an end.” He dropped his eyes from the sky; Will could see the yellow witchlight gleaming behind his right eye when he turned. “Will, just remind me. What day did Elizabeth die?”

“March twenty‑fourth,” Will said. “Very early. Or perhaps late the night before.”

“The last day of the year,” Kit said softly. “The sun would have been at fifteen Aries when she died if she had held on one day longer. The brave old bitch almost made it.” Tears clotted whatever he would have said next.

“Kit?”

Nodding, a sniffle in the darkness as the moonlight reddened and dimmed.

“I don’t know what that means,” Will said at last, plaintively, and was relieved when Kit laughed and threw an arm around his shoulders, as if they both needed the support.

“Fifteen Aries is when you sacrifice a King,” Kit answered. Whispered, really, though it had almost the quality of a pronouncement to it. “So that his blood may replenish the land, and make it strong. ”

“Oh,” Will said, only half understanding the shiver that rocked Kit’s body. “You’re saying she died for England.”

“I’m saying she tried her best.” Kit folded like a dropped marionette and sat down on the ground, his knees drawn up and his arms “wrapped around them to pull them close. “I’m saying we’relosing, and there’s our proof. That” – a shaky hand waved at the setting, half‑eaten moon – “means the end of an old way, and violence, and upheaval.