Yet should there hover in their restless heads,

One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,

Which into words no virtue can digest…

–Christopher Marlowe,

Tamburlaine the Great,Part I, Act V, scene i

The troll’s company kept him sane, and the earring–Will’s earring, Kit got the troll to admit in its usual circuitous manner–kept the agony at bay. The news of Will’s escape was enough to grant Kit new strength of intent. He’ll come for me. He won’t leave me here.He knew it, with the same calm certainty with which he’d known that he could not leave Will to take his own place in Hell.

Somehow, whenever they heard the sounds of the bolts being shot above, the troll always managed to squeeze its enormous bulk into the handspan‑wide clay drain before Baines could lift the lid and see it. Kit wondered, and chalked it up to magic, and didn’t try to touch the troll after the time his iron bonds raised blisters on its slick, shiny hide.

On All Saints’ Day–the troll said–Baines came back with more food and water. “Only a few more days until we’re needed.”

“Fifteen Sagittarius,” Kit murmured, taking no comfort in having been right. He gritted his teeth, knowing that he had to get out of the Pit if Will was to have a chance of finding him. “I’m ready to bargain, Baines.”

A chuckle. “Not faking your death of chills and ague any more, I see. What do you have to bargain with, then, Kitten?”

Edward de Vere’s old nickname for him. Kit clenched his aching hands against his thighs. “Myself,” he said. “You said you wouldn’t kill me. After.”

No, Baines answered, leaning down with his hands on his knees, like a man bending to converse with a very small boy. “In truth, puss, I’d hurt you as little as I know how. I’m not without pity or heart.”

Does it mean the irons again?” Strange, how he could think of that so calmly, when his mind skittered away from the rest.

Not as bad–Kit, give me thy parole that thou wilt not fight nor try to flee, and I’ll bring thee up so we can discuss this like civilized men.”

«Kit, what art thou about?»

He tasted the angel’s fear. Stalling.“Come and get me.”

Baines let a long ladder of rope and dowels unwind down the side of the oubliette and stood back from the edge. He must have had it ready there by the rim, just in case Kit broke. It galled Kit to know how predictable he had been. “I can’t climb with these hands, Dick.” They were better than they had been, but still swollen and infected around the bands.

“Thou’rt scared of a little pain, puss?” A pause. “Aye, and tie the bridle to the bottom of the ladder before thou dost ascend. I should not like to have to climb down after it.”

Wishing the troll still stood beside him, Kit did as he was bid, and then made his laborious way up the height of the ladder, his fingers leaving streaks of bloody lymph on the rungs while he prayed thanks to the troll for its company, and to Mehiel for his strength.

“See?” Baines grasped Kit’s wrist in a hand like a manacle and almost lifted him over the edge of the pit. He tugged the ladder up behind, and tipped the lid shut with a booted toe. Kit stood, examining his hands in the light, and did not realize that he might perhaps have tackled Baines and plowed him into the oubliette until Baines turned back to him. “Let me have a look at those hands, puss.”

Mutely, Kit held them out. Baines clucked. “They need cleaning, aye. But I think thou wilt not die of poisoned blood, for all it hurts thee. Still, thou art brave, puss. Art not?”

Despair crushed the breath out of Kit. «This is what moves mortals to suicide, Kit. Is it not?»

Kit nodded mutely, an answer to Mehiel more than it was to Baines. “What will you have of us?” And then realized too late what he’d said, when Baines quirked a little smile and examined him from filthy toes to matted hair.

“Nothing until you’re bathed,” he said. “Then you may rest until Tuesday.”

“And what happens on Tuesday? ” 15 Sagittarius.

“Parliament meets,” Baines answers. “The old King dies, and his sons and his peerage with him, and we take Princess Elizabeth and make her Queen.”

“Elizabeth’s a girl in short skirts.”

“The better to raise her as she should be raised, ” Baines answered. “Mr. Secretary–the Earl of Salisbury–will be Lord Protector. And I can control Salisbury.”

And I’m sure Salisbury thinks he can control Baines.“Salisbury knows of this? You would murder a Kingand shed that sacred blood on England’s stones?”

“As Edward the Second was murdered?” Baines smiled. “Sacrifice, puss. A murder serves no purpose. The sacrifice of the head of God’s Church in England, along with his Archbishop, timed to coincide with the subjugation of an angel–”

«Kit!»

Not now, Mehiel.

“I see,” Kit said. “How can you be so sure of Mehiel’s subjugation, Dick?” His arms itched, but he would not scratch the filth on his skin before Baines.

Baines smiled. “Walk with me. I think I know just the room to keep thee in. It will be barred, I fear.”

“It would not be like you to be negligent with trust.”

“No. ‘Twould not. This is where the choices enter into it. Thy choices as well, puss. Oh”–interrupting himself–“I’ll have someone fetch thee a salve for those hands. Poor puss. As I was saying–as Mehiel does, so must do God. Especially once we have weakened the influence of the Church of England so, and here on British soil, where the Catholic dogma has already been broken.”

“I know,” Kit answered. He let Baines open the thick ironbound door and hold it for him. Together they paced the corridors, Kit so weak with exhaustion that it was all he could do not to stagger. He knew better than to humiliate himself by trying to escape.

“The angel can be influenced by thee. By what thou dost. Willing or unwilling.”

“Willing is better.”

“Of course.”

“And that’s all you want of us? And then we’re free?”

“Us, is it now?” Baines sounded pleased, and Kit shuddered.

“As you wish,” he answered, biting his tongue on everything sharp he wanted to say. Stay alive,he reminded himself. Justice later.He studied his feet, the skin red and irritated under a layer of dirt.

“Not free, perhaps. Not at first. But eventually, it could be aspired to. Thy very existence, Kit, and that angel in thy bosom, binds God to earthly will as he has not been bound since the Archangel impregnated Mary. We’ve counterfeited a prophet.”

Lucifer,Kit thought, in pain. Oh, Morningstar. Thou art as clever as thou art beautiful my love.He swallowed. “The Christ preached tolerance.”

“Aye, and the God we’d give the world is much the same. A God for the common man, rather than a God for Popes and Kings. Is that so wrong?” Baines’ voice almost took on a pleading note. “It’s peace we offer the world: an end to the black sorceries that foul men’s minds, an end to the power of Faeries who steal babes from cradles and poets from graves. A Senate like Rome, perhaps, or a democracy like Athens. Peace. An end to tyranny.”

A Senate whose power is founded in blood.Kit closed his eyes. As the power of the Tudors and Stewarts is not?Baines fell silent, and they walked together–slowly, in deference to Kit’s weakened state–until they came to a barred oaken door. Can there be an end to Kings?

“Your quarters, ” Baines said, lifting the bar.

Kit paused in the opening. Morgan wants peace. The Mebd wants peace. Baines wants–ha!– peace. The King’s peace? Or the peace of Rome?

Who would have thought three separate peaces so irreconcilable?“I’ve thought on what you said.”

“Aye?”

He nodded. The words that he forced out were the most difficult he’d ever spoken.

“I’ll cooperate.