April 29th, year of our lord 1594.

Your true and honest friend Wm… .’

Incident with a lemon bush. Kit set the letter down on a marble-topped table below the window, and smiled. Clever William. How I miss thee, and wrangling late into the night on scansion and wordplay and line. Lighting a taper at the hearth, Kit remembered Cairbre’s invitation. Poets are so often thought solitary. But we need the society of our fellows as much as any tradesman.

The taper lit a clever lamp, which burned a blue spirit flame, and this Kit bore to the table beside Will’s letter. It would cost him the seal, but that little mattered. What mattered were the pale words, written painstakingly in invisible lemon juice, that slowly caramelized into visibility as he toasted the letter a few inches above the flame, holding his breath lest it flicker and the edge of the paper catch light. When the words burned dark enough to read, Kit laid the letter in the light from the window and leaned forward to blow out the flame. He tucked a few strands of hair behind his ear and closed his eye for a moment, then reluctant, frowning bent forward. And read. And blasphemed. And read it once again.

Beatrice:

Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth

with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing

‘My beloved Adonis I read with disquiet your words & the implication that unsavory individuals have taken an interest in your activities. In pursuance, I would consider it a great kindness if you should contact Mary Poley in Winding lane. She is the abandoned wife of one Robert Poley, with whom you are acquainted, but more to the point she was the sister of the late Dr. Thomas Watson, the poet, who was long a friend to me & her husband is greatly unfelicitous to her, & to her son. You need have no fear that she will expose you to him, and she may be a great source of intelligence as to his actions.’

Will tilted the letter into the light of the candle which he had used to scorch the concealed words from between lines more innocuous and manifest. The heated lemon juice was only pale brown against the cream-colored paper, but Kit’s precise hand was easy to discern.

‘Poley will not see to their maintenance & so, in Tricky Tom’s memory & out of mine own friendship with the lady, I have been of what assistance I could to her in the past, & so I believe she should be grateful for a kind word or two, even from a stranger who mentioned my name as the name of a friend. She may be of assistance in warding yourself from that same Robert, her husband; Mistress Poley is a good woman, & much concerned with the future prospects of her son, a likely lad.

Will’s nose wrinkled in amusement. Her son. Kit. Are you insinuating the lad is your bastard? And then he frowned, and nibbled the edge of an ink-stained thumbnail, uncertain why the thought made him so uneasy.

My mistress has asked that I bid thee, my beloved friend & only begetter of whatever joy is afforded me, remember the pastoral fancies of thy callow years & find ways to set them into verse. I am minded of county ballads & old tales, I imagine you too are conversant with, of Nimue, & the Irish & Welsh stories & those of Yorkshire & Scotland: Finvarra & Oonagh & their kin.’

You want me to tell fairy tales to the Queen, sweet Kit? He sounds lonely. You should sound lonely, exiled from home and friendships, and worried about the ones you’ve left behind.

Will closed his eyes. When he opened them, he read more quickly, and without pause.

‘Have a care for Poley, Will. If he & his have realized that you are my replacement, you may find yourself with dangerous enemies: have a care not to be associated too plainly with Hunsdon, Burghley, Oxford & their friends. I will dare declare Robert Poley & Thomas Walsingham scions of the enemy, & ask you be wary of them. It is of import that you acquaint yourself with the politics, if you have not already done so: Essex’s group do support the Queen, although they are more interested in their own advancement than the stability of the crown. Raleigh is a little better: I can like the man for his ideals, at least, which are intellectual & inquisitive, but he is a popinjay. (Those are not sentiments to be repeated, sweet Will, lest you withal blacken my name further than mine enemies have already.) More dangerous are Poley & Baines (& I now think Thomas Walsingham), who have made themselves so seeming indispensable that their word be taken even over mine, & I have proven my worth to Gloriana in great extremis. I read with great delight the pages of yr. Merchant you included with the books, & have returned some suggestions along with mine own current project. Also, I am quite engaged with your character of Beatrice; she reflects your Annie, does she not? but feel Hero could be stronger or mayhap more delicate of constitution; her speeches now show nowt but woman scorned, & women (even scorned) are no force to be trifled with. You may wish if you can so contrive to seek Her Majesty’s approval. Gloriana fancies herself something of a poet, & was of infinite service making that infamous she-wolf Isabella more a breathing woman than the Dragon of legendry. Further…’

It went on for a page and a half, line-by-line comments on the play, ending wryly,

‘have enclosed some notes for the play or more like masque my mistress has commissioned of me, something of an orgy & something of a revel, & I am feared only half-suited to my poor talents. I wish you would examine them with some haste, & return post to me through the usual channels. I think on thee & London daily. With all love & affection, your dear friend leander.’

Will read the letter over again, permitting himself a few more smiles. Very well then, if Her Majesty will sully her hand with playmaking, I will offer her mine own poor words to dirty herself on. He stopped, and frowned, and looked up at the darkened window. And then he fetched quills the stained one for the iron gall, and the white one for the invisible ink and sat down at the table and composed himself to write.

Beloved companion of mine art

Will stopped, brushing the nub of vane that lingered on his quill against his upper lip. He glanced at the stack of pages beside his elbow, the ink on Kit’s manuscript so black it gleamed, and frowned.

‘ Have a care not to be associated too plainly with Hunsdon, Burghley, Oxford &’ Kit, how do I write to tell thee that lord Hunsdon has claimed Burbage, Kemp and I withal into a playing company, now that Strange is dead? That we are become the lord Chamberlain’s Men?

He ran a hand through his hair, streaking it for once with lemon juice instead of ink. And then he pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward himself, and wrote ‘Dearest Annie’ instead.

Three days later, Will and Burbage trudged through a cloying summer rain to the Spread Eagle, a tavern near the bear baiting pits that could be forgiven a certain lack of charm for the virtue of its pies, although for safety’s sake Will wouldn’t drink anything weaker than ale. A filthy floor and walls dark with smoke and grease did nothing to brighten its face, but Will had forgotten to eat through the afternoon, and his stomach grumbled painfully when the wench—another attraction of the Eagle—slid his supper under his nose. Burbage looked up at the sound and laughed, pushing bread through bloody juices, then stuffing the soaked sops into his mouth.

“You’ll waste away to a ghost,” he said. Will broke the pie open and scooped aromatic meat and onions to his mouth. Gravy trickled into his beard; he wiped it on the back of his hand.