Ink and Steel

The white-footed gelding stamped as his mate jostled him, tugging the rein as the coachman drew them in. Kit heard the creak of leather, the rattle of iron-shod rims on stone. Someone hallooed Chapman; a lantern flickered. Kit laid one hand on the wall and watched from the shadows, as if turned to stone.

Or salt,he thought, as the coach door opened. I could wish that. A pillar of salt, to melt in the endless London rain and flow down the Thames to the ocean. Like a river of tears. Oh, stop it, Marley. That’s not even an original image.And still he could have wept at the contrast between what he felt, now, suddenly, that had been so long stepped upon and the desperate, thoughtless, compliant passion that had marked his loves in Faerie. Loves? How couldst even thou have mistaken that for love, Kit Marley?More to be ashamed, for he knew what love was. It was the thing that held him now, a breathless kind of clarity that kept him in the shadows, waiting for one last glimpse of the man whose life and home he had shared before.

The footman moved to assist a tall, ginger-haired woman in a flat-fronted French gown down the iron step. Kit’s breath lay like pooled lead in his chest as she lifted her skirts and set her pattened feet upon the cobbles with a clack. Audrey Walsingham. She stepped away, gliding toward Chapman, who leaned on his cudgel as if it were a cane and swept a thoroughly creditable bow. The carriage door stayed open, the footman at attention. Kit heard Chapman’s murmur, Mistress Walsingham’s tinkling laugh as he steadied her toward the palace.

Leave, Kit thought, and came a half step closer to the carriage lights. Long legs in silk hose, a well-turned calf strong from time spent on horseback. The hair was dark by lamplight as he grasped the rail and stood, settling his doublet with a shrug of muscled shoulders, but Kit knew it would gleam with copper highlights in the sun. The footman stood aside as Thomas Walsingham descended, swinging the door shut with a casual gesture that brought Kit’s heart into his throat. He stepped forward again, and halted his motion in midair. What art thou imagining thou mightst do here, Marley? Apologize for thinking Tom conspired with thy killers? Explain that Frazier and Poley lied, and thou thyself never practiced against the Queen? Throw thyself at his feet and kiss the stones between his shoes? Beg him to take thee home to Chislehurst and swive until thou bleedst, stay from Faerie and die in his arms like a selkie kept from the sea, while the lovely Audrey cossets and possets thee?

It had a certain appeal, like Dido leaping into the flames, like Cleopatra up to her elbows in a basket writhing with asps. Kit set his foot in the print he had lifted it from, and stayed in the shadows, his right hand closing on the collar of his doublet as to tug it open and cool his throat. Such a small motion to so betray him.

Tom must have caught the gesture from the corner of his eye. He turned like a splendid stallion, nostrils flaring, six inches of steel flashing in the carriage light as his right hand gripped and half drew his sword. Who goes? A low voice, not loud enough to turn the heads of Chapman and Audrey, but enough to bring the footman around to flank his master. Kit smiled in recognition of the caution. Yes, Tom. Get the lady in the gates along with her escort. You stay and handle the trouble, and she none the wiser. Besides, the palace is close enough to rouse to a cry of murder in the street. But that could be embarrassing if it were a false alarm, couldn’t it?