“Lancelot?” A froggy croak, clogged as the troll’s.

“You re worth three of him,” she answered with a storied smile. “Except on the battlefield. Where he was unstoppable. But that’s the sort of swordsman I need least in this new world.”

“Why me?”

“Because the Mebd wanted you, and I could get you for her. And get you from her.” He tried to speak, coughed instead. She stepped back, blessedly, and he battled the words until they came.

“Geoffrey said the Faerie host cannot fight without a mortal man.”

“Tis true. We have no reality apart from thy folk. And thy folk have no magic apart from us.”

“And that’s what you need me for?”

“Yes. That and the pleasure of your company.” A wink turned his stomach and tightened his groin. “You re angry with me. You think what I’ve done to you is a sort of rape.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Rather,” she answered. “But, then, so little of a woman’s lot is what she wills, I cannot see it as much different from a husband’s treatment of a wife. That is not a responsibility I will bear, strictly by merit of my sex.”

The spikes that had worn at his tongue and palate had been barely knobs, really. They had wanted him able to talk, afterward: the sort of bridle used for unruly wives, and not the sort reserved for heretics and blasphemers. Which had been meant to be a humiliation, too.

“No, I don’t think you can be blamed for how men treat their wives and daughters. But.” A pause as she laid a hand on his shoulder. “You might consider how much greater a dignity I grant you than my lord granted me. You, my sweet Christofer, have always your lady’s leave to speak your mind. How many women have so much privilege?”

“You’ll assess me the acts of a man a thousand years dust?”

“If I bear Eve’s sins, you may as well have Lot’s. No matter. You’ll do as I bid, though I’d rather you do it willing.”

Willing.Cold terror, suddenly. Worse because he knew that when she touched him, if he whimpered it would not be with disgust, or fear, as long as her hands were on him. Her movements were like a dance: nearer, further. An increase and a decrease of pressure. Laughing behind the deadly earnest of her gaze.

“If you fight me, Kit, I’ll break you. I’ve seen your scars. I have some idea of what it would take.”

His gut ached at the memory of her touch, the vagueness and blind lust with which she had afflicted his thoughts. He fought his voice level.

“And if I offer you my service willing in your coming battle, does that earn me your favor enough to beg the answer to a question?”

A shake of her skirts unkilted them; her petticoat fell to brush the floor. She sighed. “You may always question me. I consider it a fair payment for your inability to refuse. And I prefer a spirited mount to a brokenhearted nag.”

“What if I wish…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

She knew. “The sovereignty of thy person? Tis more than a wife gets, but I have the bond I need of thee.” She winked. “Although I might miss awell-warmed bed now and again. I can drag that magic off thee.” She snapped her fingers. He felt as if something a snapping branch, cracking ice broke to make the sound.

“Lady.” He relaxed as much as he dared, feeling suddenly light. He straightened away from the wall. “Tell me of Bard’s cloaks.”

“Bard’s cloaks? The cloaks of bards? What of them?”

“Is there virtue in them?”

“Aye, yes,” she said. “The magic of goodwill, a protection woven of the pleasure they have given those they give pleasure to. Has someone offered to start you one?”

A troll,” he said, and shrugged when she glowered at him. “One more question an it please you?”

“Aye?” She shook her skirts again, unhappy with how they had settled, ducking her black head so the rivers of her hair washed over her. Kit watched her move, and breathed a sigh to see only a lovely, dark woman, somewhat older than himself.

“Who do we intend to do battle with?”

She looked up and smiled. “Elizabeth’s enemies are mine own. Although we fight them differently. The Prometheus Club.”

“Oh, bloody Hell. Morgan, you should have just said so.”

Would they make peace? terrible hell make war

Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The life and Death of Richard II

7th June anno Domini fifteen hundred & ninety five, Winding lane London.

My beloved friend In the fervent hope & intention that this small note may pass to thee directly I will speak plain, for I feel what I must impart is of too much moment to conceal under circumlocutions. We shall have to trust the privy ink in which these lines are written, between the stanzas of my latest manuscript. If I am too forward in thine estimation, then shalt thou burn this missive when thou hast read. I shall be as brief as I may: news in London is bad, & will unease thee. The Queen’s physician is finally dead, hanged at Tyburn last week. I was in attendance for thy FW, who miraculously still holds fast to life & breath although I know not how. A terrible thing, & I believe & FW & lord Burghley with me that it has much taken the heart from Her Majesty, for she was ever fond of Dr Lopez. In his last words, he swore his allegiance to HRM & to Christ, & died as thou mightst imagine, in exceeding pain. I will not say more; it is too close a memory for me of my mother’s cousins, who were hanged& drawn on suspicion of treason some years past. Thy letters tell me Poley watcheth me, & indeed I watch Poley, through the auspices of Poet Watson’s sister who is as good a woman as thou hast indicated & in much improved circumstance now, along with Robin her boy. Fret not, gentle Christofer: I am as cautious as ever thou couldst wish. But she, although Robert her husband will not see her, Robert’s friends will sometime pass her such nuggets & scrapings as they may says also that he & Dick Baines have been said to be much pleased by this torture & execution &they have made many midnight comings & goings. More, they receive succor in their treasonous efforts from overseas, a Spaniard she thinks & I think as well, keeps them supplied with coin. I have had this information to FW, but Oxford speaks well of Poley to the Queen, & so no action is taken. I suspect almost that Oxford has some secret hold on Her Majesty, for she is overkind to one who has not her best interests in heart. With what thou hast taught me I see how he doctors the plays that are meant to make Her Majesty strong, & his hand weakens every good line I put down, although I correct much of it more subtly than he knows. & still she loves him better than any but Burghley

Burghley, who is growing ill & aged, & his son takes more & more his place at the Queen’s right hand. Raleigh is out of favor again, & Essex has become openly hostile. He grows bold & conceals not his disdain for the Queen & the woman who loved him. It is his hand no doubt behind the conspiracy to convict & murder for I cannot call it a lawful execution Lopez, & his success & the Queen’s despair at it have made him drunk with power. & I have learned beyond a doubt that Poley is Essex’s man. Mary says Poley bragged in a tavern that he got money from Southampton. Which means Essex. Which means

I do not need to draw the obvious conclusions for thee, when Southampton, still in the guise of my patron & friend has asked for a play, a trifling thing. Thou wilt be unsurprised to learn that the topic of this play is Richard the second, & there is no way I can refuse without making it evident that I know more than I should. & that way lies a scuffle in a dark alley & a knife in the eye. More & more I feel I tread, forgive the casual blasphemy, like our lord Jesus Christ on tossing waves that might hurl me at my heavenly Father’s least whim to the snapping jaws of the deep. More, & worse. I told thee of gold from Spain: with that gold comes its bearer, a Spaniard or a Portuguese, not so dark as Lopez, hair almost auburn in the sun, as if he had some English, French, or Dutch blood. Perhaps a Jew as well? I did not hear his name, but he attended the execution with Baines, & was almost as tall, with a knife-blade nose & very thin lips behind a close-trimmed beard. Most strange of all, he wore rings on every finger, and from what I glimpsed of them I should say they were wrought of twisted iron. He is, I mean, Promethean. Mary has discovered his name: Xalbador de Parma, and heard as well in an unguarded moment one of Poley’s associates, a recusant named Catesby who I know, for he spends time at the Mermaid, call him Fray. & still worse & more interesting. Concealed in the crowd & my hood at the hanging, I made shift to follow those men back into the city. There is famine in London, Kit, & in the countryside as well. I saw the foreigner speak with Baines; he went into a tavern, & Baines like an errand-boy went off to do his bidding. What his bidding was I can guess, for there were vagabonds & chiefly apprentices rioting in London by noontide over the price of food, cheese & ale smeared on the streets, two suspected Jews & a Moor & some goodwives & tradesmen who might have looked too prosperous dragged through the street, pummeled or killed for the error of being abroad. Rumor has it culprits have been taken & are sure to be hanged at the Tower. Lads of 14, & I have no doubt that Baines who instigated shall not hang with them. I shall not attend. Lopez’s torture was all I could stomach, & I feel no need to watch the ravens feast. The riots mean the closing of the playhouses, & the Privy Council influenced by the Puritans who thou thinkst & I think influenced by the Enemy have ordered them torn down, although it has not happened yet. In some disgust, I contemplate spending the summer with Annie in Stratford, away from the stink & the plague that stalks London again. The drought is no better there, though, & the cattle sick with murrain. Bad omens, & the auguries poor as the Queen approaches her three score & three. It is almost as if the hand of God himself is bent against us, but I know it must only be such changes & expectations in the minds of men as thee & me, ourselves, do wreak with our plain poesy. At least lord Hunsdon is well, &he & the lord Chamberlain’s Men, we his players, remain in good odor with Gloriana. So I can shield her a little, & perhaps set a word or two against Essex’s murmurings & seditions, for plays go on at court even as the playhouses are shuttered. FW informs me that our next act must be to forge evidence against Baines and Poley, if we cannot come by it honestly and says to comfort me that there is no honor in it, but that we do it for the Queen. I know through FW what Essex does not: for all her refusal to name an heir, the Queen favors James of Scotland & she does court him with secret letters, privily instructing him in her arts of governance. Of course this cannot be made public, as Her Majesty’s position grows precarious & her wiles are not ah, thou hast me penning sedition again, what they once were. I fear some attack from our enemies. Something for which this abominable mess with poor Lopez is only the overture. Lest I trouble thee unrelievedly, let me say in closing that I am well, & writing strongly, as thou mayst see, & Anne has written to inform me that she will be buying me the biggest house in Warwickshire before I know I am agentleman. yr Wm Post script: I will set this by the mirror with a candle, as thou hast instructed, & write again when I have spoken with FW or Burghley. Post post script: please forgive the awkwardness of my hand. I hope that thou canst unriddle it, as I am prone of late to monk’s cramp, whose painful acquaintance I am sure thou, as a poet, hast made.