Ink and Steel

It could have been an hour later or a dozen, although sunlight still streamed between the bed curtains to stain Murchaud’s pale skin tawny. Kit pillowed his head on the man’s ridged belly and sighed, idly picking at the clean wrap of linen covering the scratch on his arm. Murchaud wound a few of the long fair strands of Kit’s hair around his fingers like a girl playing with her ribbons. That was better. Wryness twisted Kit’s mouth into something only a fool would call a smile.

“What?””

“The fencing, or the fencing?”

“Thy swordsmanship is improving,” Murchaud continued blithely. “And the strength of thine arm.”

“Exercise is the best remedy for a weak arm, I’m told.” Kit still tasted that public, thrilling kiss. Still heard the roar of approving laughter that had followed.

Now, Murchaud’s laughter trailed into thoughtfulness. “We’ll make a warrior of thee yet, Sir Christofer. How long hast been among us?”

“Four days? Five? Time passes quickly with thee by my side.” He’d expected from his previous visit that by the time a month passed in Faerie, the world of London would be thirty years gone. Not so: perhaps the difference changed with the whim of the Mebd, but the once or twice Kit had found an unattended moment in which to prowl through the palace’s golden corridors and peer into the Darkling Glass, it seemed only a few hours had passed for Will and Sir Francis. He had sought the Prometheans behind his murder, as well, but the glass shied from them, as if he would pick up ice with an oiled hand. Kit didn’t feel himself guarded, precisely. Or watched. But he was seldom left alone, waking or sleeping. Of course Morgan can watch me if she wishes. And no doubt the Mebd can, as well.

Murchaud continued, “Thou wilt need learn something of the factions, if thou art to be ours. I’ll presume a certain comfort on thy part with politics, given thy career fair enough.” Murchaud’s fingers tugged Kit’s hair as Kit turned his head to kiss the Elf-knight’s belly.

“There is thee and thy mother,” Kit continued. “By whom I read I have been claimed. But I know not yet what task you mean to set me to.”

“We’ve uses for poets. Not unlike the uses to which thou hast set thyself, in thine old Queen’s court.”

“Commission thy poem,” Kit answered. “I could pen a sonnet on the arch of ev’ry rib, passage of verse on thine eyes, and lay a very pastoral over field and fallow of thy flank and loin. I’ll hang a golden tongue about thy throat.”

Murchaud’s sweat was bitter and sweet; a droplet of Kit’s own blood had dried on his breast, and Kit kissed it away. Murchaud pressed fingertips to the hollow of Kit’s throat. “It should have sealed by now.”

“Like any corpse, I bleed at the touch of my murderer.”

“There is Faerie and there is Hell,” Murchaud interrupted, with the air of one reciting a catechism. “They are allied under a contract drawn up long ago, when the Christian, now Romish, church first came into its glory. Portions of that Romish church are under the sway of those who oppose science, poetry, freedom of thought, and liberty of speech. Those same men have their fingers in the puppet Puritans too.”

“I know this,” Kit answered. “The secret underbelly of the Prometheus Club. The claims and counterclaims as to who has honest right to the name are too complex for me to follow, but as I understand it, once …”

“Hush,” Murchaud interrupted. “Faerie pays a tithe to Hell for Hell swardenship. My mother, Morgan, wishes to see the tithe ended, and Faerie to stand on its own.” The Elf-knight’s calloused fingertips traced the curve of Kit’s ear. They played languidly on, even as Murchaud’s next words froze Kit’s breath into stone. “What didst thou intend, when I overheard thee to tell Shakespeare that thou wert no Gaveston?”

Kit sat back out of the bedclothes, tugging his hair out of Murchaud’s grasp and squinting against the sunlight to meet his eyes. “You watched me. In the Glass.”

“Aye: we stayed to ward you, should someone take your reappearance amiss.”

Kit swallowed the self-loathing that filled his mouth. You’ve gotten careless, Marley. Careless and unbalanced, and it will have you dead twice over if you don’t find your feet among these stones.

“Sir Piers Gaveston, Kit said calmly, was the leman of Edward the Second. For whom Edward abandoned a loyal wife and peers who would have supported him, neglected his Kingdom, and paid with his freedom and eventually his life and Gaveston’s life, now that I think on it. For all Edward was a selfish spoiled boy more than he was a King, he died quite terribly for his sins. There’s a story about an impalement.”

“I know it,” Murchaud answered. “But that does not play fair with my question, sweet Kit.”