Ink and Steel

“Fear not. Morgan’s helping me. And I’ve decades left,” Will answered, and let his shoulders rise and fall in a shrug as he stood. “More, if like my father. Well, tis not a bad death. The trembling grows, and the body perishes in the end for want of breath. Sir Francis died far worse. And I might still, on the path I walk. If Oxford has his way.”

Decades.

That time of year you mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold

“Your poems don’t speak of decades, love. If I have mine,” Kit replied, and lifted a candlestick to weight the poems. “Gloriana will protect you. But come. This is not an hour for such thoughts.”

“No, Will said thoughtfully. It’s an hour for breakfast, I think. And perhaps I owe Morgan a little groveling.”

“Does she expect your attendance every night?” Kit regretted the words as soon as they left his lips, and fetched Will’s boots to cover his discomfort.

Will laughed, paying with a kiss as he took them from Kit’s hand. “No. But I rather suggested I would meet her for supper. And she no doubt thought to find me this morning.”

There had been a tapping at the door a little after sunrise, which had not awakened Will and which Kit, roused by dreams, had ignored as unworthy of the price of lifting his head from its throne on Will’s shoulder.

“Well, we can’t hide here forever, living on love.” Kit sighed and shrugged, his doublet settling onto his back like duty. “I suppose tis brave the day and regroup when the enemy gives up an advantage.”

“I’ll see you at dinner,” Will said. “And then this afternoon, more centaurs.”

Kit opened the door, turned back, and smiled. “And satyrs?”

“Christ,” Will grumbled, following. “A little pity on an old man.”

Kit laughed as he left, bracing himself for the knowing smiles that certainly would greet his and Will’s simultaneous reappearance after eighteen hours of silence and a locked door. Things were different in Faerie, aye; for one thing, the gossip galloped three times faster. He picked his way down the stairs, one hand on the railing, as Will went up, and tried not to frown. Trouble thyself not with that thou canst not command. Thou lovest, and art loved. Twill serve.

Breakfast had no more formality in the Mebd’s palace than it had at Cambridge or in a shoemaker’s house in Canterbury, but Kit had paid in two missed meals for the pleasure of an uninterrupted afternoon and evening, and he made haste to the hall in the hope that there would be bread and butter and small beer left. The tables had not been cleared for dinner, but there wasn’t much left to choose between. He piled curds and jam on thick slices of wheat bread with gloriously messy abandon, balancing two in his left hand and the third atop his tankard until he found a place at a crumb-scattered trestle and fell to with a passion. He was halfway through the second slice, leaning forward over the board to save his doublet the spatters, when a shadow fell across the table. He looked up, chewing, into Morgan’s eyes and swallowed hastily.

“Your Highness.” Her smile had a flinty glitter as she hiked up her skirt and stepped over the bench opposite. “Sir Christofer. I see you’re in good appetite.”

“I missed my supper. Will was looking for you just now.”

“I shall seek him. I trust you had a productive evening…”

“Most.” Oh, that smile. Deadly. She helped herself to his tankard, sipped, and frowned over the beer before pushing it back at him. Kit never dropped his gaze as he drank.

“One can send down to the kitchens for a tray, if one is indisposed. If one wishes the distraction.”

“Poetry waits for no man.”

Now she gave him a better smile. “And was it poetry?”

“Of the sheerest sort.”

“I expect you shan’t be calling upon me this morning, in that case.”

“Now that thou hast had thine use of me.” The wrong tack; Kit tore bread with his teeth and swallowed more beer, giddiness in his newfound power. “Consider all debts paid for the use you had of me. Touch.You won’t take him from me, you know.”

A possessiveness he wondered if she’d ever shown over him flickered across her face. The jealousy he’d thought well-sated flared, and he chased it down with beer.

Must she own everything she touches?

The question was the answer. “Madam, he is a married man, with a home and children. I won’t see him bound to you.”

“No? How will you stop me? If I offered him surcease from pain and a place in Faerie at my side? At your side too, Kit. Help me. He’d half like to stay here. He wouldn’t deny us both.”

Will. Here. Alive, not ill any longer.

“He’d have to become like me. A changeling.”

“An Elf-knight, Sir Kit. Where’s your blade, I wonder?”

“In my room. An Elf-knight? And yet you wear your rapier wit.”

She shook her head. “What else did you think you were become? Help me, Kit. Help me save your true love’s life.”