Ink and Steel

“You wish a purpose, Sir Kit? Poetry and pleasing your lady suffice not?”

“A man gets used to living by his wits. I was never merely a poet, madam.” She pinched another pansy a just-opening bud, this time and brushed it against his cheek. “There are roles for you to play,” she said, tucking the stem into a pink on the breast of the doublet. “But best perhaps if you play them innocent, Queen’s Man. I have your love?”

“Oh, a little,” he lied. “Love is ever increasing or ever decreasing, they say. So better a little love grow great than a great love grow little.”

“Or be lost.” He startled at the softness in her voice as she knotted her hands in her skirts and lifted them to step back. “For what mortal flesh can bear the true heat of an immortal love?”

There’s pain there.With the thought came the urge to go to her. He pressed his palms against his thighs instead. “You expect me to be courted by your enemies.”

“Ah,” she said. “The boy is clever. And that green looks well on thee: we’ll make an Elf-knight of thee yet.”

“When mine ears come to a point, or horns sprout on my forehead. Then, perhaps.”

“Horns, sweet Kit? Or antlers?” But she smiled and blew a kiss. “A task. Very well. When thou dost write thy William in return, see thou if canst encourage him to weave a few tales of his country youth into his plays.”

“Arthur and Guenevere?” Kit asked, letting a little of the irony filling his mouth soak the words.

“By the white hart, never!” Morgan laughed and shook her hair over her shoulder. “We’ll have enough of that from Spenser, I warrant. Although chance and legend alter us: I was as fair as Anne and Arthur, once upon a time.” She raised a fistful of hair black as sorcery and shook it in the light.

“Gloriana does like to play on the Faeries, and it strengthens us to be spoken of so I think it should please Master Shakespeare’s Queen and thine as well.”

“Madam. A little task. But something. Your wish is …”

“Oh,” she interrupted, giving him an airy wave at odds with her earthy grin. “And a play for Beltane, I think. Something we can see performed for Her Majesty the Mebd.”

Beltane. He tasted it. Short notice, but he’d had shorter. Ten weeks.“Have you a subject?”

“Intrigue.” She straightened the blossom on his breast. “And passion. Mayhap one of those great lost loves of which we spoke. Drystan and Yseult. Something ill-starred would suit us both, and Her Majesty. But mind that thou lookst wistful and sigh and fret while thou’rt composing, and see who chooses to speak with thee. And on what matters.”

“My lady. Drystan and Yseult. No, Orpheus, I think.” But he was smiling as she took his elbow and led him to her door, her stockinged feet whisking against the flagstones like a cat’s white paws. A stalking horse. I’ve played that role before.

‘Dearest & most-esteemed leander:

Your letter does indeed find me very well, if exceeding busy. I fear I have not had occasion to converse with my wife since our last encounter but I shall pass your felicitations when I may. The subject is complex, but suffice to say I have hopes for rapprochement. I am attending your request for books & broadsides: they will follow under separate cover. You will be amused to read that, following hard on the discovery of a poisoning plot against the Queen of which you will no doubt have heard, plays about Jews are once again popular in London, & we are becoming reacquainted with some names that languished in danger of loss. I hope these humble words find you well. In any case, thinking of you I am moved to remember Sir Francis & a certain incident with a lemon bush. I wonder if my predecessor had such a sour experience of his own.

April 29th, year of our lord 1594.

Your true and honest friend Wm… .’

Incident with a lemon bush. Kit set the letter down on a marble-topped table below the window, and smiled. Clever William. How I miss thee, and wrangling late into the night on scansion and wordplay and line. Lighting a taper at the hearth, Kit remembered Cairbre’s invitation. Poets are so often thought solitary. But we need the society of our fellows as much as any tradesman.

The taper lit a clever lamp, which burned a blue spirit flame, and this Kit bore to the table beside Will’s letter. It would cost him the seal, but that little mattered. What mattered were the pale words, written painstakingly in invisible lemon juice, that slowly caramelized into visibility as he toasted the letter a few inches above the flame, holding his breath lest it flicker and the edge of the paper catch light. When the words burned dark enough to read, Kit laid the letter in the light from the window and leaned forward to blow out the flame. He tucked a few strands of hair behind his ear and closed his eye for a moment, then reluctant, frowning bent forward. And read. And blasphemed. And read it once again.

   Act II, scene iv

Beatrice: