What lights still burned in the house were under the gables, and Will and Tom had been lurking in an upstairs room of an inn down the street long enough to see Baines set off, alone, a little before dusk. Curfew was nine o clock, if he bothered to come home before it; they should have an hour at least, and Will expected the sojourn into the house to take less than five minutes. He looked down, and spoke softly. “Tom, as soon as I’m inside, you leave.”
“Will No.”
“If … If. You’ve Ben. You keep working.” He felt Tom’s rebellion, knew he had no right or precedence with which to command the other man. And then felt Tom’s resignation at the logic of it. This is what a Queen’s Man does.
“All right, Will. Hurry I’ll meet you at the Mermaid.”
False coins shifted against his breast in their soft leather bag. Tom got a hand on each ankle and lifted as Will pulled, and a moment later Will was inside the window and standing in absolute blackness. And how did you intend to find a place to hide a sack full of counterfeit coins in pitch blackness, Master Shakespeare? Purity of spirit, sir.
He crouched, realizing he was silhouetted against the window, and then thought to swing the shutters and the glass closed so a draft wouldn’t bring some servant looking for the source. He traced the baseboard with hesitant fingers, following it into the corner of the room. This was supposed to be a bedroom ah. And so it is.
His fingers found the featherbed, straw ticking, the twine binding the edge. He bit through a knot with his teeth and tugged edges open, heartbeat pulsing in his throat as he shoved the bag arm-deep in rustling straw and tugged themattress edges together, knotting the cord as best he could in the dark. And very nearly wet himself when the door swung open, and a darkly clad figure held a single flickering candle high in his left hand. You must be Shakespeare, he said, and set the candle on a table by the door. The brass and wood fittings of a pistol gleamed in his other hand; Will recognized the black-red color of his hair, the thin, aristocratic line of his nose.
“Fray Xalbador de Parma. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir.” Amazed at how steady his voice stayed, although his eyes betrayed him with a flicker at the window. Will started to stand.
De Parma cleared his throat and gestured slightly with the pistol. Will sat back against the bed. De Parma crossed the room, staying enough away that Will wouldn’t risk a grab for the snaphaunce flintlock in his hand. That’s right, Tom. Just head on home. I’ll be along shortly. Oh. Rather a bad miscalculation, this.
A miscalculation compounded as another figure stepped into the room: slender, blond, with a mischievous twist to his lips. “Fray Xalbador,” Robert Poley said, slouching on his left shoulder against the door frame. I thought I’d heard a mouse scratching up here.
“Poley.”
The blond man clucked and shook his head. “After all that fuss killing Spencer,” he said, “you should have known we’d be expecting your visit.”
“Yes,” Will answered. “I should have known.”
Barabas: Your extreme right does me exceeding wrong.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, The Jew of Malta
Kit pressed fingertips to the cold, black glass and hesitated, his right hand going to the hilt of his sword. The other Prometheans were warded from the gaze of the glass. But Will was not, and so Kit saw Poley turn, saw clearly the half-inch bore of the weapon pointed unwaveringly at Will’s midsection. Saw, as if he floated overhead like a one-eyed angel, Tom’s occasional guilty glances over his shoulder as against his better judgment he followed Will’s instructions and paused by the warmth of the well-lit tavern. Until he cursed, stopped, and turned to retrace his steps.
Just what I need. Bad enough to have to rescue one of them.
“Tom, don’t.” Kit didn’t expect Tom to hear him. Most of Kit’s attention remained on Will, anyway, and the two images layered each other like an oil painting held up against the back of a stained-glass saint. Until Tom stopped, and glanced over his shoulder, as if he’d imagined he’d heard someone call his name. Kit cleared his throat, forgetful in his fear. “Tom, love.” Wide eyes, a whisper barely shaped. “Kit?”
“I’ll take care of him,” he said, and then let the scrying end before he said anything else, turning his attention entirely to Will.
Will, who had drawn his knees up and kept his back to the bed as if it could afford him some protection. Poley moved about the bedroom, lighting candles, and Kit nibbled his lip at Robert’s expression. If only I had been a half step quicker. Or a half a year. No time for recriminations, sir.
The pistol was his worst worry. It wouldn’t take more than a glancing shot to shatter bone, tear flesh, crush limbs, assuming the thing didn’t misfire. Oh, I wish I had Morgan’s magic now. But if I step into the room behind de Parma, Poley only has a dagger. I just have to make enough noise that the Inquisitorwi’ll turn instead of making sure of Will. Good Will. Stay there on the floor, roll under the bed when the fighting starts Thank God Baines is nowhere in sight.
Kit drew his rapier and his main gauche, pulled a single shallow breath through his nose to still the trembling in his hands, and stepped through the Darkling Glass.
O conspiracy,
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
Will could never quite describe what he saw: whether the shuttered window seemed to fall open on a starry night, or whether the shadows of the flickering candles twisted together in some glimmering reminder of the span of black wings. But he gasped, and when he did, Poley turned to follow the line of his vision.
De Parma brought the pistol up and danced a half step back, angling his left foot with perfect balance, a sidestep that would have brought him around, his back to the wall beside the shuttered window if several narrow, blooded inches of Kit Marley’s main gauche hadn’t emerged from his chest as he moved, his own momentum carrying the blade through his body and dragging it out of Kit’s hand. De Parma completed his turn before he realized he was dead, the pistol still rising, finger tightening on the trigger as he staggered back against the wall beside the window.
The scrape and then the roar of the flintlock was so enormous that Will imagined for an instant that he hadn’t actually heard anything, just tasted all the brimstone of Hell in a concussion as if God Himself had boxed Will’s ears. De Parma fell against the wall, the narrow blade leaping a few more inches from his chest, and slid down like a pile of discarded clothing.
Kit was already sidestepping to face Poley.
“Will,” he shouted, loud enough for Will to hear it through ears that would never stop ringing. “Run!”
Will forced himself to his feet, de Parma’s blood already soaking through hisshoes. It shone on the floorboards, glossy, and Will tore his eyes away with a grunt. Kit extended like a dancer, infinitely more graceful than Ben, the totality of his body and his will focused, it seemed, on the firelit silver of his swordpoint. Running wasn’t possible. Will staggered toward the door.
“Marley. God. You re dead, you son of a whore.”
“Oh,” Kit said cheerfully. “God has very little to do with it, and my mother’s virtuous to a fault, I fear. What shall it be, Master Poley? Thy heart?”
But a bulky shadow filled the doorway, and Will skidded to a stop fast enough that he went to one knee in the rushes and the blood.
“How about an eye, and into thy brain, dying instantly? Too good for thee, but time is short and we must make…”
“Kit. do.”
“Good evening, puss,” said Richard Baines, as Kit turned to face him. “I should have known my kitten would never be so uncouth as to die without bidding me one last farewell.”