Ink and Steel (52 page)

“You feel betrayed? Then why not sing it?”

“Because,” Will said around the taste of ashes that the wine could not rinse from his tongue, “ 'tis neither Kit nor Morgan who broke a bed-vow to a wedded wife, is it?”

“You know he went back to her bed almost as soon as she took you into it.”

Dear God in Hell.
But Will kept enough control of his tongue not to say it.
Then what did either one of them have to do with me for?

But Robin was still talking. “—and that's not what I'm sorry for.”

Hopelessness, and the void in his belly sharp-edged as a fresh-dug hole. His eyes burned. His knees would not support him when he tried to rise. Somewhere, Will thought he heard a bell pealing; Chiron— resurrected—bowed for the end of the play. And the cold voice Will recognized as his own aggrieved conscience:
Say you deserved it not. Say Annie's courage in the face of your misbehavior was nothing.
“Then what?”

Robin sucked his wide lips into his mouth so that every rosy trace of color vanished from them. “Will,” he said. “Murchaud isn't the teind. Sir Christofer is.”

Will blinked, demanding that his ears report some other phrase. “Kit,” he repeated, stupidly.

Robin laid a twiggy hand on William's arm. “I don't think he can bear it—”

Somehow, Will found his feet. “I
know
he can't. Robin—”

Enormous brown eyes turned upward, seeking Will's expression. Will schooled it to impassivity.

“Master Shakespeare?”

All a player's urgency and power of command imbued his tone when he found his words again. “Robin, what must I do?”

There in the shadows of the embrasure, behind the bowering curtains, Morgan put her arms around Kit and kissed him lingeringly. Blood rose in his face, ran singing through his veins. A storm-prickling wind swirled around them, rustling his cloak, lifting his hair like a lover's fingers. He pressed his body to hers, drunk on the heady beauty of the words that flowed from the incomparable players at the far end of the hall.

A measured cadence of church bells pealed close enough to reverberate in his head; Morgan's lips firmed and yielded by turns. “A bone healed twisted must be broken again,” she murmured without pulling back. “What I do I do out of necessity, and I hope you find the courage to forgive me, someday. You have your boots and sword, your cloak and your wits. And now a lady's kiss. It will suffice.”

Murchaud,
he thought, panicky. “Morgan—” He pushed her back a moment before she would have stepped away on her own. “Your own son?”

She shook her head. “It is done.”

The bells were hoofbeats, he realized; the tolling of silver horseshoes on the flags. He turned and looked up, stepping past the curtain, out of the recessed gap before the window, and into the suddenly silent hall.

A milk-white mare, caparisoned all in silver and blue, bowed her snow-soft nose before Kit and blinked amber eyes through the froth of her mane.

“Oh,” Kit said, as Morgan moved away from him. “Of course. It's not Murchaud; it's me.” And laid his hand quite calmly on the pommel, fumbling for the stirrup with his left foot.

The white mare's hooves rang on the cobbles; she shifted restlessly as Kit swung into her saddle. Will limped up with dreamer's footsteps—
too slow, too slow
—and came forward as Kit settled himself, feeling under her pale mane for the reins.

She was white, stark white to the tip of her nose—not a pale gray at all, but some Faerie breed—and she gazed at Will with a knowing eye as he came up to her. Kit's dark suit outlined him like a pen slash on the paper-white of her hide, his jewel-colored cloak spreading over her rump. The Fae parted before him, opened like the Red Sea before Moses, and Will stumbled forward and grabbed Kit's boot at the ankle. “No.”

Kit looked down; looked Will in the eye, the strap of his eyepatch stark against the pallor of his brow. That grimace must be meant to be a smile. “Gentle William,” he said, transferring the reins to his right hand and laying the left on Will's shoulder for a moment. “I must. I have no choice.”

“No,” Will said, a second time. And
“No.”
A third, and he reached up and yanked the reins from Kit's hand as Kit was shifting them again.
A sacrifice gone willing,
he thought,
a sacrifice gone willing to Hell buys not seven, but seven times seven years.

“Dammit, Will.” Kit knotted his right hand in the white mare's mane, reached down to pluck the reins back. Will shivered as the mare sidled and shied, jerking against his inexpert touch. Kit slid and bit back a curse, struggling to regain his stirrups. “It's my place.”

Will tilted his head back to look Kit in the face.
He's immortal. I'm dying. Why should I not do this thing? Annie would be better off a widow, given the husband I have been.

And didn't admit even to himself he thought,
And Let it punish him for Loving Morgan more than me—

“I understand.” Will laid his hand on Kit's knee and offered up the reins, straight over his head. Kit leaned out to reach them; just as he overbalanced, Will let them fall. Will's right hand darted to Kit's swordbelt. Will's left closed on the cuff of his boot. “I understand 'tis not your place at all.”

The mare shied in earnest as Will leaned backward and yanked, Kit's face blank with sudden panic. Leather creaked in Will's hands, velvet soft against his knuckles. The white mare sidestepped, and Kit tumbled all elbows and flailing into Will's waiting arms.

Will rolled with it, prepared, a stage fall that nonetheless knocked the wind out of him—though he made sure Kit landed on the bottom. They fell face-to-face for a moment, and Will pressed breathless Kit hard against the harder floor. “Mine,” Will said, and kissed Kit roughly, briefly on the mouth.

He pushed himself back with both hands on Kit's collar, a knee still on the smaller man's belly, shoving him down, looking up into Murchaud's eyes and the amused, changing eyes of his wife. Puck stood between them, tugging them forward by their sleeves. Kit reached with both hands to clutch Will's wrists, opening his mouth, unwilling to strike Will hard enough to hurt him. Will doubled his fists and lifted, and banged Kit once against the floor.

“Your Majesty,” Will said, with what dignity he could muster over Kit's betrayed shout. “I claim the right to go as your teind to Hell.”

The Mebd's lips pursed. She stepped away from Murchaud and from her Puck, while Kit raised his voice in a string of incoherent objections. She crouched before Will, her skirts a pool of green water tumbling around her, and silenced Kit with a brush of her fingers across his angry lips.

He must have longed to shout, to rage. Will felt Kit's voice fluttering in his throat. But her magic held him silent, and—seething—he fell impotently still under Will's hands. And then Kit's trembling started in earnest, both hands pressed against his mouth, and Will thought,
Oh, Jesus. Rheims.

“William Shakespeare,” she murmured. “Dost know what thou offerest?”

“Nay,” he said, sick in the bottom of his belly and determined nonetheless. Kit surged against his grip, and Will kneeled down. “But I am willing. Only tell me, Your Majesty, that you will spare my love.”

Kit was weeping. His hands dropped from his mouth and circled Will's wrists, jerking, chafing, but he fought no more. The Mebd smiled, and nodded, and closed her eyes; Will thought they shone more than they should have. Kit pulled Will's hand to his mouth and kissed the fingers, a pleading gesture, even his hot gasping breath coming silent through the potency of the Mebd's negligent spell. Will tugged his hand free, the image of those lips kissing Morgan hot behind his eyes.

“You do us honor,” the Mebd said softly; Will did not miss that she addressed him as an equal in that moment, before she rose and swept away.

Kit slumped as Will pushed himself to his feet; Kit pressed his fist against his mouth and curled on his side, dragging his face down to his knees.
“Jesu,”
Kit gasped, and Faeries ducked away, wincing; one sprite covered her ears and dropped to the floor. A circle had grown around them. Will stood at its center, turning slowly, and none of the Fae would look down from his regard, and none would quite meet his eyes.

Except Puck, and the Prince.

Robin Goodfellow stepped forward, and Murchaud followed him a half step behind. Murchaud bit his lip and nodded to Will. His lips parted as if he would speak, and Will, trembling now, stepped back from Kit's huddled form. Murchaud knelt, gathering him close, and Will turned away.

Puck laid a hand on his wrist, fingers dry as kindling and as knobby as knotted rope. “Master Shakespeare.” He drew Will's attention to the wild-eyed mare. “You need to go now.”

Will bit his lip, trembling harder under the mare's amber regard. She prodded him with her nose; he fell back. “Robin.” His voice broke; he pretended he didn't see Kit's shuddering flinch at the sound. “I am at a loss. I do not ride—”

“Fear not,” Puck answered, taking his elbow. “Thy steed knows the way.”

Act III, scene xvi

—CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE,
Tamburlaine the Great, Part I

Murchaud knotted his fingers in Kit's hair and dragged Kit's face against his shoulder, whispering something that might have been intended as comfort. Kit couldn't understand over the tolling of somber bells, the jingle of the white mare's harness—or, more precisely, he didn't care to try. He stayed frozen, curled so tight in pain that his chest and shoulders ached.
No.

Whatever Murchaud said, it vanished in the vanishing hoofbeats, and when Kit raised his head, avoiding the prince's face, both Will and his white steed were gone. Murchaud clung to him, trying to draw him close.
No.
Kit pressed his knuckles against the floor and got one foot under himself, and tore free of Murchaud's embrace. He turned to survey the room; every Fae watching ducked his eyes and withdrew. “Where is Morgan?”

No one answered. Kit reached across the ache filling his belly and grasped the hilt of his sword. “Where is the Queen?” She'd silenced him, a finger to his lips and his voice had swelled in his throat and choked him. He tasted blood.

“Gone with Will,” Puck said quietly, when no one else would meet Kit's gaze. “Two Queens to guide him—”

“—to Hell. Christ on the Cross!” Satisfaction heated the emptiness within him as every Fae in the room cringed as if he'd kicked them. “Damn every one of you,” Kit said, enunciating, the sweat-ridges on his swordhilt cutting hot welts his palm. “Damn you each and every one to Hell.” He looked at Murchaud as he spoke, and the taste of smoke and whiskey filled his mouth.

Murchaud only blinked without dropping his gaze. “No doubt,” he said, “it will be as you prophesy.”

The silence lingered until Kit turned. “I'm going after them.” He dropped his hand from the blade and shrugged his cloak back from his shoulders, sustaining rage lost. “It's in the songs, after all.”

“Oh, yes, Orfeo.” Not Murchaud's voice but Cairbre's, mocking. “Go win thou thy love back from Hell. It should be just a little task for a journeyman.”

Kit didn't even trouble himself to turn. He kept his eyes trained on Murchaud, and smiled. “Someone has to.”

“I forbid thee to leave this place,” Murchaud said slowly, power and the right of command imbuing his words. The geas struck Kit like a backhanded blow; he rocked with it, felt it break on the protection of his iron-nailed boots and his patchwork cloak.
Thank thee, Morgan.
And
how did she know?

Kit lifted his chin, hooked his fingers through his belt to keep them off the rapier's hilt. “Try again?”

His throat ached with something—pride, anguish—as Murchaud stepped so carefully between him and the door. “If thou wilt walk through me,” Murchaud said, “wilt need thy blade.”

“Good my lords.”

Kit looked down reluctantly. He owed Robin the favor of his attention even now. “Puck—”

“Your Highness,” the Puck said, bowing, ignoring Kit with pricked ears and a stiffly erect spine. “Prince Murchaud, an it please you—Sir Christofer must do this thing.”

“There's no covenant to protect him if he goes.”

“No,” Puck said, shuffling a half step away from Kit. “But we need Shakespeare in the world more than we need Marley in Faerie. And furthermore, you cannot gainsay him.”

“Thou darest tell me what I can do, and cannot, fool?”

Robin waggled donkey's ears. Soft bells jingled, like the bells on the white mare's harness. He realized that every other Fae had withdrawn; only Puck, Murchaud, and Cairbre remained.