Ink and Steel

The angel’s wings, white and strong as a swan’s, filled the room from floor to ceiling, even folded tight. Tom’s shove turned into a clutch; Will looked up at a serene, unsmiling alabaster face, blue eyes dark as the ocean stern under a mannered wheat-gold mane. Those candent wings rose not from robes, but a black silk-velvet doublet gleaming with ruby buttons, slashed in flame-colored taffeta and showing a gentleman’s cobweb lawn collar at the neck: nothing so lordlike unwieldy as a ruff. The rapier at his hip wore a matching ruby in its pommel pigeon’s-blood, and big as a pigeon’s egg. The angel’s neck was long and fine, his elegant chin unshadowed by beard. His curls hung in oiled array behind his shoulders, one snagged disobedient on his collar. His lips were palest pink as dog rose, matching the blush in his cheeks. A heavy chain of office lay across his shoulders, a golden circlet crossed his noble brow, but his head was crowned in twining, writhing shadows like silhouettes tormented by flames, and so Will realized he wasn’t exactly an angel.

“Be not afraid,” the Devil said in the voice of a harpsichord, and reached down to stroke Sir Francis matted iron-color curls. Then he raised those indigo eyes. They examined Tom’s face for a moment, then flicked to the side and studied Will more carefully.

“Master Shakespeare the playmaker.”

Will nodded. Tom gripped his arm tightly enough to leave a perfect handprint through the cloth of Will’s padded murrey doublet. “I am.”

“Will?” Burbage stepped forward. From the corner of his eye, Will glimpsed Frances a half step behind him. Both stared at him and Tom as if they had grown donkey’s heads. “Who are you talking to?”

The Prince of Darkness took no notice of the player, except to wait with elegant, amused politeness until Burbage had finished speaking. “I have enjoyed your Titus Andronicus. And your A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

“I haven’t written a play by that name.” Your Highness? Grace? That can’t be right. Get thee behind me, Satan God help me, if you hear me. Who would have thought the Devil so polite?

“You shall. As good a play as Master Marley’s Faustus, which I saw in Exeter. I understand I gave poor Master Alleyn quite a fright.”

He smiled, showing even white teeth. “No matter. We will meet again.”

Tom’s death grip, impossibly, tightened. Will clamped his lips shut on a squeak. Burbage froze, hands outstretched as if he confronted a madman; Will wondered what Burbage saw. The Devil looked down at Sir Francis breathless corpse and dipped his hands into the dead man softly as if tickling trout from a stream. He raised his eyes to the ceiling, with an expression of pure concentration, and a moment later he smiled.

“Master Shakespeare. Master Walsingham. Good day.” A bit of a bow as he withdrew something small and fragile, gleaming likeopal, from Sir Francis breast. The Devil caught Will’s eye one last time, winked, and turned away.

Frances washed her father’s body with sponges and warm water, the valet and the gardener assisting. White linen lay at her feet, neatly folded, for the winding sheets. Will sat forward on a bench in the corner, his elbows on his knees, and rested his face in his hands.

“Richard. Thou sawst nothing?”

Burbage sighed, back on his heels. He held in his hands the cup that Will hadrefused to take. “I saw you talk at nothing and then nearly faint into frothing fit upon the floor, Will. I’m taking you to a doctor on the morrow, Simon Forman, if he’ll see us and you’ll not be playing for Gloriana today.”

Will shook his head. “Sir Francis dead, on Her Majesty’s critical birthday.” Will felt the power stirring in London’s bones as he had not since that long-ago Twelfth Night. “I’m in that play. I must be in that play, Richard. Can’t you feel it?”

He must be there, to bring his strength to bear directly on the enemy. No intermediaries this time. His urgency must have informed his voice. Burbage gave him a curious glance, and nodded slowly. “It’s like that?”

“It is.”

“What play?” Tom asked in what could have been innocent curiosity, but Will rather thought was shock.

“Richard III.”

“Wilt thou be seeing visions on the stage before Her Majesty?”

“Tom.” Will turned to Walsingham.

Tom scratched behind his ear, dark hair sliding across his high forehead.

“I saw it. Him. As well. The Devil was in this room, Richard. And he spoke to Will and I, passing polite, and pinched my cousin’s soul out between his fingers like a ring.”

Will and Burbage exchanged a long stare. Will nodded. Burbage swallowed once, his Adam’s apple bobbing under his pointed blond beard.

“He spoke to thee?”

“He said he’d seen Faustus in Exeter.”

“God have mercy. We need a priest,” Burbage said, but Will shook his head, glancing to Tomfor permission. Tom nodded.