Ink and Steel

Morgan showed him a white-painted wooden tub behind a screen, with flannels and cakes of scented soap attending steaming water. The screen was a delicate lacework of pale stone. “Soapstone,” she said when she saw him running curious fingers over it. “From the Orient. You have clever hands, Sir Christofer.” She caught one and studied it, then lifted direct gray eyes.

“How many have you killed with them?”

Despite the silver in her hair, her face was no older than his; her thumb traced circles on his palm. Every sentence from her lips was a fresh assault on his practiced masks, and he swayed between stepping forward and stepping back.

“More than I wanted.” His plain tone was its own surprise. “Fewer than I should. I must get a message to Walsingham.”

She touched his face lightly before letting her hand trail across his collarbone and the bruise her dagger had left.

“Your murderers know not that the corpse they planted was but glamourie, and gone by sunrise of the day following and in a year, who could find the grave? They buried you in a winding sheet, without a marking stone. They said you died blaspheming. Not the first knight to fall so.”

“I did? I remember Ingrim, the great oaf, slinging me about by a hand in my hair, and with a dagger in his other. And Poley and Skeres held me down.” There were other memories in that, old ones Kit wanted not, though they came up anyway on a spasm like bating wings. Then pain, and great blackness.

“Blaspheming? No truth in the accusation, but vilest contumely! I do attract it: my wit and good looks.” He touched his ruined face lightly, came away with gummy blood on his fingertips.

“Can you get a message to Walsingham?”

“Twas Walsingham’s men did this to you.”

Kit shook his head and regretted it.

“Sir Francis, not that book-chewing rat of a Thomas, who had the gall to call himself a friend to me.”

He wondered if she could hear the grief in his tone. From the way her head cocked, birdlike, she did.

“I must advise Sir Francis that I live.”

Sensation was returning to the right side of his face. It would have hurt less if it had been carved clean away.

“He’s dead himself, Kit. Hast the blow to thy head addled thee? Gone from thy Queen’s service these five years, and gone to his reward these three. However Queen’s spymasters are rewarded. Unjustly, if earth models heaven.”

She stepped away, leaving his flesh burning where her hand had pressed it.

So she doesn’t know all my secrets. Lacrima Christi. He let his breath trickle out, relieved and enflamed. The Privy Council, the Queen must have interceded, to bring me here and under care. At least I’ve the proof I give good service.

Morgan’s black braid flagged against her shoulder like a banner.

“You’ll want to scrub that wound with soap once you’re in the water.”

“Is that wise?”

Her hem whispered over stone as she vanished around the screen. “It’s all that could save you. If the wound goes bad so close to the brain, well, it’s not as if we can amputate. Soap will cleanse the wound. And hurt. Not so much as when I sew and poultice it. As I’ll have to if you want a neat, straight scar and not a mess of proud flesh.”

He winced at the thought, then unlaced his breeches and tested the water on his wrist.

“Do you care for a man in an eye patch, my lady?” No answer, but he thought he heard a chuckle. The water came to his chin and was hot enough to make his heart pound once he settled in. A deep ache spread across his back, thighs, and shoulders as tight muscles considered relaxation. He leaned against the carved headboard and stretched his toes to meet the foot.

“Scrub,” she reminded. He sighed and picked up the soap.

When he was half dressed again, she washed the cut with liquor until white, clean pain streamed tears down his face. But it throbbed less after, and his head felt cooler. The stitching was worse, for all she fed him brandy before. The needle scraped bone as she tugged his scalp together and sewed it tight; he whined like a kicked pup before she finished.

“Brave Sir Kit,” she whispered when she’d tied the final knot.

He leaned spent against a bedpost.

“Braver than lance was over his wounds, when I dressed them. He spat and swatted like a cat.” She gave him more brandy and bound a poultice across the right side of his face. When he set the cup aside she leaned down and licked the last sweet drop from the corner of his mouth. He startled, gasping, but regretted it when she leaned back, eyes narrowed at the corners with her smile.

“My lady, I am not at my best.” And then he worried at the knot in his gut, the fascination with which he followed her.

‘This is not like me. Anything to think of, but Tom.’

“Welcome to Hy Brásil, poet.” She balled up the cream silk hanging on the pale oaken bedpost and threw it against his chest. “Put your shirt and doublet on. It pleases the Queen to greet you.”