“I have often thought,” Will said carefully, for this was a heresy too, “—that a man given half a chance might act morally. Because he knows what morality is.”

“Not Robert Poley.”

“No. But another man.”

“What man?”

“Myself. You. Her Majesty. You don’t believe in God. And yet you were never but kind to me.”

“Oh,” Kit said. “I believe in God well enough. It’s the Church I take issue with. But who would believe Kit Marley, monarchist?”

“A King we must have.”

“A man might prefer a strong woman who temporizes to a weak man who beheads.” Kit looked at his nails.

Will cleared his throat after a time. “And … you say Titus is formal.”

“And finish it formal. You’ve an ear for a scansion and a fair eye for an image, and there’s this in you: thou fearest not to own the myth. But now you must put the fire in it, and not shy away, and bring them under the spell of your words. You’ve played my Jew.”

“I have.” Will smiled. “Tis strong. But the third act I know.” It wasn’t all the play he would have had it be.

“Write thy plays about people. You’ve a way of spinning height and depth I envy. All I’m fit for is making light in darkness, and spreading blood and bitter farce acros sthe planks.”

“Foolishness, Kit. I’ve read your leander.”

“Pretty, isn’t it? I’m partial to Tamburlaine myself: still my best work, I think.”

Will choked, and laughed, and turned back on himself nimble as a ferret. “Where’s this danger?”

“ The danger’s in the men who don’t want the plays written. Men like Baines, and Sir Walter’s rival, the Earl of Essex.”

“Raleigh is an ally?”

“Raleigh is someone I cultivated a bit, but he is not one of ours. Robert Devereaux, though Essex is one of theirs. Though both sides still use the same name, and trade alliances like chessmen.”

“What do they want?”

Kit marshaled half-drunken thoughts. “As I think it? Elizabeth off the throne, for one thing. A ruler in her place without such personality. Gloriana is the Faerie Queene. The other Prometheans, their goal is the elevation of man. Admirable. They want safety and an end to poetry, Will. An end to greatness of spirit, and all men made equal. They want to own God, and use him to make all men subject. I should liefer lose my life than my liberty of thought.”

“And our half? Our half, is it still?”

“Elizabeth and England, we stand for. Tis rough work. Even for a rogue like myself, whose works drip with gore, unacquainted with gentle thoughts.”

“Can the man who wrote Hero and leander claim to be unacquainted with gentle thoughts?

“Acquainted and yet unacquainted.” Kit shifted before the iron could scorch his leg. The tip was not yet glowing. “Tis a quaint small thing, a poem about passion Kit, it’s a poem about leander’s arse.” The iron slipped: Kit caught it right-handed and hissed, juggling a twist of sleeve around the metal to shield his hand.

How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly,

And whose immortal fingers did imprint,

That heavenly path, with many a curious dint,

That runs along his back, but my rude pen

Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men.

Will’s long nose dented sideways with the twisting mouth. “I faith, I think betimes you purpose to shock. You underestimate the wit in your pen, rude as it may be, or so I’ve heard tell. From those with more interest in the loves of men than I.”

“Rude enough for most purposes.” It was his last chance to impress upon the man the severity of his choices. Is this pen enough to write with? He lifted the poker until the smoking end hovered a finger’s width from Shakespeare’s eye. “Will. Move not.”

“Kit, what are you about?”

There was a little squeal in Will’s voice, good. And a tremor under it as Will pressed his head back hard against the wall. Ah, there was a red glow at the tip after all, like a pen dipped in blood. Excellent.

“Look on it well,” he said, watching Will’s shoulders rise as if that could protect his face from the cherry-hot iron. Kit swallowed bitterness when it rose up his throat one more time, but couldn’t quite get the taste down. A thunder in his chest like beating wings prevented it. Will’s eye was gray-blue and looked very soft; he didn’t blink, and the dark pupil swelled as if it would encompass the whole of the iris in velvet black. Will’s eyelashes curled from the iron’s heat; Kit drew it back a little. “That could be thy final vision. Imagine it. Can you imagine? Image yourself unhanded like Stubbs, or racked like Kyd, or branded and blinded like me. Damn you, William Shakespeare. See it.”

The apple in Will’s throat bobbled. He dared not nod.

“Tell me once more you mean to do this, and I’ll let it lie.”

Will’s mouth worked. “I mean to do this thing.”

“Bloody hell.” But Kit said it tiredly, and turned and strode to the table, and drew back his arm. The poker was heavier than a rapier, but he managed well enough to be pleased: the strength wasn’t out of his shoulder. A thump first, and close on its heel a sizzle. Kit thrust the fireplace poker through the body of the unfortunate hen off-center, his aim untrue with his missing eye and into the mortar of the wall. It didn’t hold: he stepped back from the clatter as it fell. “Damn you to hell, William Shakespeare.”

“Oh.” Will stood. “I can probably manage that for myself.” He came and threw an arm over Kit’s shoulder, and Kit dropped an arm around his waist. “I knew you wouldn’t put my eye out.”

Kit heard an edge of hysteria in his own laugh, and wished he could afford to get drunker. Clearheadedness was the last thing he wanted. “I wouldn’t rely on that knowing too much, my friend.”

Hark, countrymen! either renew the fight,

Or tear the lions out of England’s coat …

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, First Part of King Henry the Sixth

 Will itched with the sensation of words filling his brain, like a pressure behind his eyes. Kit saw it: Will could tell from the sly way the other poet abandoned him in the drawing room amid cider and staling crumpets, beside a leather-surfaced secretary fitted with every tool for writing a man could want. Will fetched another cup of cider and settled himself with his back to a window so light could fall over his shoulder. He proceeded to deface first one and then another sheet with his cramped looping hand. Fewer mark-outs this time, fewer words scratched through. It was well that Kit walked into the edge of the door frame on his way back into the room, or Will might have upset the ink pot in startlement. Will glanced up. The light had changed and he’d turned in his chair to follow it without noticing, and he’d covered half a score of folded leaves with notes and lines of dialogue, scanned lines sketched here and there with a double-underlined blank, waiting for the perfect word.

Christus lacrimavit, Kit growled, rubbing his shoulder. He’d changed to a shirt of cobweb lawn, this one without scorches on the sleeve; a doublet of black silk taffeta, slashed crimson, was slung unbuttoned around his shoulders.

“Walsingham is resting. How comes it?”

“It comes.” Will pushed the pages across the desk, waving Kit an invitation. “I don’t remember you so clumsy, even drunk.”

“If I were still drunken, I’d have something to answer for. Tis noon. Didst not hear the bell?” Kit riffled pages until he found the first. “I’ve been tripping on nothings since …” He tapped a knuckle on the eyepatch without looking up.

“Not yet accustomed?”

“It seems only an hour gone by when I had two good eyes to see with. Will, that any mortal man can write such verse so quickly is an affront to angels. This exchange betwixt Marcus and Titus with Titus unhanded, and his sons beheaded, and his daughter dismembered …. Why dost thou laugh? it fits not with this hour.”