Ink and Steel

“I want thee to stay,” Kit said, still staring. “And Morgan wishes me to plead with thee as well. But I will not permit it.” Kit’s pulse flickered in the hollow of his throat.

Will wrenched his eyes away. “Art my sovereign, Marley?” Soft as the ocean’s breath playing over them both.

“Aye.” The fingers on Will’s wrist tightened. “Aye, in this thing, I am. What would thy girls do, without thee?”

“What they do now, I expect. I’ve hardly been an exemplary father and husband.” Will kissed Kit’s brow, by way of example.

Kit released him to pluck a smooth, moon-white stone from a crevice in their sand-worn perch. He tossed it thrice before it slipped between his fingers, rattling on the rocks below. “Blast. Thou hast the chance to be better at both, at least.” His gaze lifted to the darkening horizon.

Abruptly, Will understood. “Kit, forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I’d live to bury any wife or child I’d left behind; aye, and their grandchildren, too. If I’m fortunate enough that no one puts a knife in the other eye.” The wind freshened. The day’s warmth soaked the stone they sat upon; Will pressed his back against it. “After Chiron,” he said, dropping his arm around Kit’s shoulders, “I suppose I shall go home.”

“I suppose that’s best,” Kit said, and leaned closer as the light drained the sky, replaced by the slow unveiling of the stars. “Hast heard there’s an astrologer in Denmark claims the stars are not settled in crystal vaults? That they float unsupported, and other stars comets and stella novae move through them?”

“I imagine the Pope hates him.”

“Not as much as he hates Copernicus, I imagine.

O, thou art fairer than the evening air

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars

Kit laughed. “I should write you a poem. Something better than that.”

“Better than Faustus?”

“Christ wept, I hope I’ve improved.” Will earthed himself under the warm edge of Kit’s cloak, kissed him where his throat blended into his jaw, the sticky musk of the ocean rich on moist, salty skin.

“Thou’rt all the poetry I need.”

“Sweet liar.”

“Sweeter when you know it cannot last.” Will’s voice shivered with his whisper.

Kit’s answer was slow. “Christ. Damn me to Hell. Yes, Will. Tis sweet.” The old moon rose in the new moon’s arms. The rocks grew cool around them. Kit’s cloak concealed a multitude of sins. And over the water, something listened and understood.

   Act III, scene xiv

And here upon my knees, striking the earth,

I ban their souls to everlasting pains

And extreme tortures of the fiery deep,

That thus have dealt with me in my distress.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, The Jew of Malta

Kit rubbed a corner of his eye in the dimming room and thought of candles. He stretched against the back of his chair, his spine crackling, and stood a moment before a hesitant knock rattled the door. “Come!” He crossed to the fire to light a rush. The door swung open, revealing Murchaud leaning against its frame in a pose at once consciously arrogant and restlessly self-aware.

“Christofer.” The prince flipped a stray curl behind his ear, an un-characteristically tentative gesture. “Art thou … ? Alone?”

“Aye.” Kit touched his spill among the embers, then stood to apply the resultant flame to a lamp wick. “Come in.”

Murchaud stepped onto the jewel-patterned carpet, cautious as a stag. Kit blew out the rushlight, adjusted the lamp, and fitted its chimney, carrying it to his table as a scent of char filled the room. It spilled golden light across his poems and paper, and Kit slid them aside until he found pipe and tobacco pouch among the clutter.

“Filthy habit,” the Elf-knight said, latching the door. “I’d thought thee quit of it.”

Kit turned to face Murchaud, tamping the pipe with his thumb. “I was.” He didn’t know how to explain that he woke from his dreams of late with the smell of tobacco and whiskey clinging to his skin, full of strange cravings nothing would assuage. He dipped a second spill down the chimney of the lamp and lit his pipe from it. Settling down on his stool again, he let the first breath of smoke drip down his chin.

Murchaud leaned against the locked door and crossed his arms. “I came to wish thee well tomorrow.”

“The Chiron? Thank you. Will needs your luck more than I do; my part is finished. He’ll be on the stage.”

“Will,” Murchaud grimaced is with my mother tonight.”

“In rehearsal first.”

“I know. And so I came to thee. I expect thou planst to be with him after the play.”

“So I had anticipated,” Kit answered slowly, cupping the warm bowl of his pipe in his hand. The embers had gone out from inattention: he reached for a rush. “He returns to London on All Saints Day.”

Murchaud straightened away from the door. “And will your cruelty to me end when he is gone, my love?”

Kit froze with the pipe between his teeth, the relit spill pressed to the weed within it. The poet forgot to draw; the flame flickered out and he laid pipe and burnt rush on a shallow pottery tray. “Cruel? To thee? As if I had the power.”