Act V, scene xvii

What, Mortimer, can ragged stony walls

Immure thy virtue that aspires to Heaven?

–Christopher Marlowe, Edward the Second,Act III, scene iv

On his second night in his room in the Salt Tower, Kit had tried to make his escape through the reflections in the narrow windows; he’d been unable to touch the power or the Darkling Glass at all, and he had wondered at how easily the iron rings on his fingers quelled all the strength he knew he had in him.

He had no clock. Nor was he vouchsafed candle or paper or anything to read. And so he paced, from the bedstead to the window and the window to the bed, pausing occasionally to pick a splinter of the rush matting from the tender sole of his foot or to trace the old markings scraped into the wall–a pierced hand, a pierced heart. Symbols of the passion of the Christ, etched there by Jesuit prisoners who had inhabited his cell before him. At least Kit was fed–what he could force himself to eat of it–and twice a day had a moment’s glimpse of another human face when Baines–or Poley, in his Yeoman’s livery–came to see him cared for.

Two nights later, Kit was simply bored,and sick unto madness with waiting.

“And yet like Faustus in his final hour I count the seconds,” he muttered. He leaned against the embrasure, supported on his forearms, and pressed his forehead against the glass. Baines would come for him before midnight, and then the ritual–he couldn’t bring himself to think of it in more concrete terms–would begin.

«And thou’rt willing to submit to this for a little less pain, a scrap more of dignity?»

When rape is inevitable–Kit answered, and told himself he didn’t remember the exact timbre of Baines’ voice, asking didst thou like it, puss?

I’m willing to submit if it means I’ll get a better chance at Baines,he answered. It’s not as if I could avoid–

«There’s always a way.»

And then Kit realized the angel was looking at the window.

“If we lived, we would be crippled.”

The angel bowed his head. «Kit, we would not live.»

And damn myself for a suicide? Or wouldst thou keep me from dying again, Mehiel? ‘Tis not so far to fall, methinks–«‘Tis some twenty‑five feet from thy window, onto cobblestones. It should suffice. Thou wouldst die with thy brands intact–»

Die, damned a suicide.

«Thou who so boldly defied Lucifer, and told him thou wouldst not repent thy sins, for they were sins of love?»

Kit paused. Slowly, he raised his hand and opened the window latch, then pushed the glass wide and laid his hand on the rough mortared stones of the wall. He leaned out into the icy night air. The windows were small, but a small man might slide through them. Far below he could see lights scattered around the Tower precincts like flower petals on the sheets on a marriage bed. “Die with my brands intact,” he “whispered, as a clock struck half eleven. “Then thou wouldst – ”

«It is suicide for me as well.» Mehiel said calmly. «I will cease to exist. And thou wilt be damned. But Lucifer and the Prometheans both will be thwarted.»

The cold wind tugged Kit’s hair, a sensation like the caress of Lucifer’s feathers. The crippled raven who always came to visit at suppertime landed on the window ledge, strangely awake in that midnight hour, and on an impulse Kit reached out tentatively and touched its black jet wing. He felt the slick surface of feathers, the deeper warmth of the flesh, and wondered if he’d been a fool to send Lucifer–and Lucifer’s promises of love–from him. The raven endured his caress, and Kit stifled an impulse to gather it up in his arms and cradle it close like one of his small sisters with a poppet.

“Mehiel,” he said, softly. “Art become so tainted by mortality, after twelve years my companion, that thou shouldst preach suicide?”

«An it save God, I am prepared to make the sacrifice.»

“Despair is a sin, angel,” Kit said, and closed the casement frame.

*  *  *

Baines came for them as the clock struck eleven.

Look, here’s the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:

‘Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to‑morrow

Thou must be made immortal.

–William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure,Act IV, scene ii

A heavy bell tolled midnight, and Will laid his cards faceup on Sir Walter’s ornately carved black wooden desk and raised his eyes.

It’s time,” Murchaud said from his place against the wall. Light‑colored stone with the look of hasty mortaring and great age caught the candlelight, outlining his dark‑clad frame.

Will nodded and stood, resting one hand on smooth waxed wood. “You know where the magic will be worked, Your Highness?”

“There’s a temple under the Tower,” Murchaud said, straightening away from the wall. Unlike Will, Ben, and Tom, he had arrived by unusual means, and still wore his rapier at his hip. “More a chapel, really. Twill be not a comfortable place for me, but I am content to suffer it.”

Sir Walter,” Tom said, rising and bowing. “I am afraid we must then bid you adieu–”

Go,” Raleigh said graciously, rose, and tapped on the door, summoning the guard to inform him that the guests “were ready to be excused and that he himself was ready to go up to bed with his wife, Elizabeth.

If those guests managed to vanish into the shadows between the Garden Tower and the gate, how was he ever to know?

Accurs’d be he that first invented war!

They knew not, ah, they knew not, simple men,

How those were hit by pelting canon‑shot

Stand staggering like a quivering aspen‑leaf

–Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great,Part I, Act II scene iv

This isn’t so different from climbing down to Hell,Kit thought, balancing himself with a hand on one wall of the ragged stone stairwell. His shadow writhed before him, cast by the torches Baines, Poley, and the four others walking behind carried.

All in all, he would have preferred the demon with the glowing maw.

He was exquisitely careful how he placed his bare feet on the ragged stone, annoyed all over again that Baines hadn’t given him back his boots. He had to give the bastard credit: on a floor like this one, it was an effective means of keeping him from running.

At least his skin and hair and clothes were clean, and the puffy flesh around his rings was peeling with eczema now rather than infection. Which was an improvement of sorts, and so was the cloak warming his shoulders. Not his own fey cloak–this one was as white as the woolen doublet and breeches that would have made it all that much harder for him to run. If he had planned to. And where would I run?Or perhaps all that white served to mark him a virgin sacrifice, which was a thought worth a slightly hysterical giggle.

“How far down are we going, Richard?”

“All the way,” Baines answered.

The wall grew moist under Kit’s fingertips, wet, sandy earth gritting between his skin and the mortared stone. “It’s a wonder the river hasn’t washed these tunnels away,” he commented. “How old are they?”

“Since Arthur’s day.”

Which was a strange choice of words. Kit almost wished they’d bound his hands, but then he probably would have fallen down the stairs. Essex refused the blindfold,he thought. Can Marley do less?“These must be Roman ruins?”

“Puss, must you chatter so?”

Kit shivered at the fond correction. “I am understandably somewhat nervous, Dick.” The quaver in his voice was less showmanship than he would have wanted it to be.

«Be bold,» Mehiel chanted in his ear. «If thou hadst listened to me, thou wouldst be beyond this fear and pain.»