Ink and Steel

“Have you ever had your fortune told, Master Shakespeare?”

He bit his lip and shook his head. The dancing lights grew brighter, flitting like the fire-bugs that were supposed to inhabit the darkness of a New World country called Virginia. Her thumb traced the lines of his hand, and as she bent to study them her hair cascaded across his wrist. “The old women of the gipsy caravaneers practice an art handed down from ancient times, they say. They claim a man’s destiny is written in his hand, a predetermined fate.”

“The Puritans agree,” Will said with a smile that hurt the corners of his mouth. “And the Greeks.”

“And the Prometheans,” Morgan continued, without raising her eyes. “Their ideas are not so revolutionary as they believe. My history gives us prophecies of a different order: geas and fulfillment. You won’t have heard of them.

“No, madam.” He watched, fascinated, as she stroked a deep crease beside the heel of his hand.

“This is called Apollo’s. Tis said to indicate creativity and potential for greatness. Combined with the shape of your thumb, a fortune-teller would say that you are intuitive, passionate, intellectual. Quick of wit and great of talent.”

“A fortune-teller would say so? Aye, she said,” with a caressing touch that made him shiver. “I am not a fortune-teller, Master Shakespeare.” Her gaze rose again, her eyes blacker than ever. His shiver redoubled. “I am a witch.”

Strangely, his face tingled as if she stroked his cheek rather than his hand. He looked away, down, anywhere but into her laughing eyes.

“Great of talent, you say.” A chuckle. “Aye. Great enough for most purposes. And here: this line belongs to Saturn. It shows a destiny, as well… ”. Her voice trailed away.

He focused on amusement, on keeping his breaths even and slow when they wanted to flutter in his throat. “What destiny is that, Your Highness?”

“I cannot say, she answered. But if I were a fortune-teller, I would say that you would find it within twenty years, and no longer.”

“Anything could happen in two decades. That’s a fair spread.”

“Not so long as it now seems,” she answered. “Here is the fold that dictates your romantic nature. See how it curves up, and extends long?” She bent closer. “Ah, and it is braided.”

“Braided?”

“Aye. You’ve not one great love in store, Master Shakespeare, but three.”

He laughed. “Surely one great love is enough for any man.”

Her fingers moved again, and he thanked the opaque surface of the table between them for preserving his dignity.

“And this is your life line.”

“And what does that tell you, Morgan le Fey?” The challenge in his own voice surprised him. Her fingers followed the tracery down and under his thumb, stroking the soft flesh at the inside of his wrist. He caught his breath in shock at the delicacy of that touch.

“You will live to go home again, William Shakespeare,” she said.

“Do you say any of this will come true, Your Highness?”

“Tis the rankest charlatanry,” she answered. Bending her head further, she placed a moth’s-wing kiss in the center of his palm. He gasped again and almost pulled his hand away; she held the wrist and transferred her attentions there.

“Your Highness.”

“Hush,” she said, glancing up at him through the pall of her hair. “Say nothing, Poet, save yes or no.”

Will closed his eyes, aching. Annie, he thought hopelessly, and then almost laughed aloud at the next thing he thought: That was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead. Oh, Kit, trust you to make a hellish sort of sense of this.“Yes,” he said, and waited endless instants while Morgan sent her pixy-lights to bar and watch the door.

   Act III, scene viii

Rejoice, ye sons of wickedness; mourn, unoffending one,

with hair in disorder over your pitiable neck.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, On the Death of Sir Roger Manwood (translated from the Latin by Arthur F. Stocker)

Kit rolled over and lifted his head from the pillow as the bedroom door opened and Will slipped inside, half invisible in the starlit darkness. “You were gone a while,” he said softly, smiling when Will startled and jumped. I went to the library after all.

Will’s doublet was unbuttoned, his hair disheveled. Kit’s smile broadened. “Didst find what thou sought?”

“Nay.” Will started, pulling off his clothes. And then he stopped and moved toward the cupboard, a paler shape in the darkness. “Well, perhaps. After a fashion. So many books, Kit!”