Ink and Steel

“Her Majesty?” Ben tripped on a cobblestone and caught himself, checking his stride so he didn’t outpace Will.

“Well,” Will said. “Her Majesty’s servant. But so are we all, in the end.”

“I’m no Queen’s Man.”

“You will be.” Will grinned. I hear thou wentst Catholic in prison. That’s useful, if thou’rt loyal.”

“I heard a sermon or two,” Ben admitted. “But a conversion is news to me.”

“See, it’s familiar news.”

“Will,” Ben said, in the gentle tone he could take between tirades, “what’s the enmity between you and Robert Poley?”

“Who told thee about Poley?” Ben’s eyes were cleverer than they had any right to be under a glowering Cyclopean brow. “Richard Ede,” he said, lowering his voice further. “A keeper at the Marshalsea. Not a bad man, I think. They put Poley in with me, Will.”

“Poley’s no prisoner.”

“Aye, an informant. There to prove sedition or treason on me. Ede warned me. What are you playing at, Will?”

A sudden question. And an unnerving one, following on the heels of Poley.

“He was curious about you. Very much so.” Ben’s concern turned to a pleased sort of mockery as he began walking again. “Which I might have attributed toy our undeserved fame, you ill-educated lout, but then with Ede’s warning…”

“What toldst thou him of me?” Even over the sound of the rain, Will knew by the way his voice shivered at the end that he’d misread the line.

Ben almost reached out to lay a filthy hand on Will’s shoulder, but caught himself and withdrew it. I should be grateful for the rain, he said, wiping streaked dirt from his face on a grayed linen sleeve. [I told him naught, Will. Well,”

“What?”

“I had to tell him something, or he’d assume I had something to hide.”

“So?”

Ben’s eyes flickered sideways, and his heavy jowls twitched with humor. I told him the William the Conqueror story.”

“Christ on the cross,” Will swore. “And I was hoping that one would die a deserved death.”

“If you’d seen the disconsolate look on Burbage’s face when he wandered in to the Mermaid alone, you’d think it worth it.

“There are greater challenges than to out charm Richard,” Will said. “And the citizen in question a comely lass. But tis not the gentlemanly thing to spread tales.”

Ben choked. “Not gentlemanly at all,” he agreed. “And yet some spread them anyway ah, here we are.”

Will opted for the barbering after all, and saw Ben decently clothed and fed at a tavern by the time the rain began to taper. Ben ate with the appetite Will associated with stevedores, while Will picked through a mincemeat pastry, choking down what he could. Finally, Ben wiped his mouth on his new, clean kerchief and sat back with a sigh. “Unwell, William?”

“In pain,” Will answered, rinsing his mouth on the dregs of the wine. “I shall be fine in a bit.” He tucked his hand into his pocket and stood. “Art content?”

“Aye. Ben pushed his bench back. “Whence?”

“Upstairs,” Will said, turning away. “He’s waiting for us.”

“He?” Will nodded. “Sir Thomas Walsingham.” He turned his head and glanced over his shoulder. The well-worn shilling was between his fingers. On an impulse, he drew it forth and tumbled it through the air on a high, lamplit arc.

Ben was quicker than he looked. Blunt fingers plucked the shilling at the apex of its climb; he frowned. “What’s that?”

A grand gesture,Will thought, and smiled. “Come on, Queen’s Man. Thou hast a craft to learn.”

“Do I have an option?” But Jonson fell into step beside him, although Will took his elbow to lead him up the stairs.

”Not if you expect to write plays like that and live.”

Eleven months and two weeks later, Tom Walsingham leaned against the shutters in Ben’s lodging, which were closed against an unseasonable late-September chill, and tossed a gray kidskin pouch idly in his hand. Something jingled within it. By Tom’s smile, Will had a pretty clear idea what. He rose from his perch on a three-legged stool beside the hearth and crossed to where Ben crumpled his tallness over a trestle, papers unrolled and weighted at the corners with an ink horn, a candlestick, and a pot of sand. Will leaned over his shoulder.

“What’s Tom brought us, then?” Ben’s thick finger tapped the middle of the paper, shifting it under theweights. It was a plan of a house and garden, well drawn in black lines, with a steady hand Will envied. Ben raised his eyes to Tom, who was still fighting that inscrutable smile. Richard Baines house and garden, Ben guessed. “How did you come by these?”

“Bribery,” Tom said succinctly. “Catch.”

He tossed his bundle through theair; Will fumbled it, and it landed on the map with a clunking sound entirely unlike the fairy jingle of silver or the sharp clean sound of gold. Will struggled with the knot, the fingers of his right hand momentarily failing to answer, and got it untangled. He upended the pouch and dragged it, whistling as it spawned a river of coin. “There must be a hundred pound here.”