All Night Awake (71 page)

Fool that he was, and a traitor, his hands already tainted with the blood of those who had trusted him, he would not, he could not go on taking innocent life -- this time the life of strangers, of children, of women, of defenseless elders and young lovers.

Yet he knew his bravado would be short-lasting, his resistance a perilous, hard-won momentary triumph -- like unto that of a child wrestling with a giant.

The wolf, dormant within him, stirred more and more with each inch that the sun sank deep into the horizon. The night was coming, and Kit Marlowe, poor Kit Marlowe, as he’d taken to thinking of himself, would soon be nothing but the mindless vehicle to another’s crimes.

With the sinking rays of the red sun, Kit could sense the strength of the wolf increasing, and he remembered the dark blanket that had covered Kit, taken him, possessed him, body and mind, aye, and soul, if Kit had one. Kit’s rotted-through soul.

Drunken with his own misery, he looked out at the floating corpses and wished he could catch the plague from walking here, catch it from the stench and nearness of those rotting bodies.

Was Kit, himself, not unlike a plague, walking the world withering life? Let one plague, then, battle out the other and thus cancel the evil loosened on the world.

“Kit.”

He turned, half expecting to see Skeres or another emissary of the grey eminence, Cecil.

Instead, he saw a face he’d never thought to see again. Not in this world. It took him a long time of looking at that perfect face, that pale blond hair, the moss-green eyes, before he formed the name with his lips. “Quicksilver.”

There was no sound.

Kit didn’t have the strength for so much, nor would his parched throat allow sound through.

Kit felt the wolf squirm within his mind and seek a hold within him. He felt the flood of hate emanating from the wolf. Hate for Quicksilver. Hate, horrible and black and flowing, stronger even than the craving for life. Hate for those sweet features of that beloved creature, for whom Kit would have died... died a thousand deaths.

Quicksilver looked at Kit with a timid apology that Kit had never expected to see. His cheeks tinted with a faint pink. “Kit, forgive me. I was hasty, maybe cruel. I need your help.” And foolish Quicksilver approached, laying his hand upon Kit’s arm.

Kit recoiled and attempted, from the mad river of his mind, to fish the words to warn his one true love of the danger incurred in thus accosting the ally of the deadly wolf.

He formed a prayer in his mind, to a God in which he no longer believed. Oh, take all the world and Kit with it, all, take every loveliness, and all joy and grace from the sorry Earth and bury it all in a common grave. But leave this elf untouched, his bright mind uncorrupted, his magical body whole. Protect every golden hair of Quicksilver’s head; every black silk strand of Lady Silvers. And let Kit be damned then.

Let Kit spend eternity in his own damnation, with no hope of redemption, no appeal. But save Quicksilver.

No words came to Kit’s mouth.

He could do nothing but look on Quicksilver with mute, moist eyes, filled with dread and love and hate in equal parts, and open his mouth and wait for words that did not come.

“Forgive me, Kit,” Quicksilver said. He squeezed Kit’s arm, hard. “What I told you is true. I’m married. Married these ten years, and to my lady did I vow true love and faithfulness. In neither have I been perhaps perfect, and in both yet, must I strive.”

Strive
, sneered the wolf.
Strive. He who always followed his pleasure like the child follows the sweetmeat, like the gaudy bird follows the shining bauble.

Kit shook his head.

“You’ll not forgive me?” Quicksilver’s smile faded, pale and sickened, like a lost child’s. “Come, Kit. You are my only hope, as so far I’ve found hate, where I hoped to find love. Since then, have I searched for you, who always loved me so well. In this battle for the heart of men, I’m losing the fights, one by one, and my brother.... I suppose I should tell you.” Standing there, Quicksilver, grave and solemn, like a child saying his lessons to a stern master, told Kit of his brother, his older brother, Sylvanus, eldest son of the Queen Titania, the king Oberon who, disinherited by Quicksilver’s birth -- since the youngest inherited in faerieland -- had sought power from the dark Hunter, and with his help killed the king and queen and usurped the throne while Quicksilver was yet underage. And how Quicksilver had got his throne and Sylvanus had been collected by the dark Hunter to be one of his dogs through eternity.

“But my brother, with great cunning and power, has broken the bonds of his state,” Quicksilver said. “And, if he does find a foolish human who’ll take him in -- he can gain power by killing humans and absorbing their suffering and life, until Sylvanus is more powerful than the Hunter himself, more powerful than any bonds upon him. Then will he destroy me and faerieland, and aye, both the worlds of elf and of mortal.” Quicksilver sighed. “So you see, I need help. Help to find my brother. Help to find who might be harboring him. Oh, look not at me that way. I only thought to keep you out of this, Kit. I only thought to protect you.”

Kit dug his nails into his own palms, willing the pain to distract the wolf, and, with desperate tenderness, managed to speak. “Run from me,” Kit said. “Do not come near me.” Overpowering the wolf’s hate with all the force of his love, he pulled his arm away from Quicksilver’s grasping hand, from the warm of that elven life, that much warmer, that much more fragrant than pale mortal life.

Kit went two steps, no more. The wolf grabbed him. With a shudder that ran down Kit’s whole body, the wolf turned him about face, made him take two steps back to where he’d been and turned his eyes, his battle-broken eyes upon Quicksilver.

“Idiot,” Quicksilver said and smiled. “Idiot. Come with me. “I’ll buy you a drink at a tavern, and we’ll decide how to go on from here.”

The sun had all but sunk beneath the horizon.

The stench coming off the river was the smell of death and the graveyard.

Kit had no more control over his aching, tired body, than he had over his beating heart, over his fearful love.

Quicksilver put his hand around Kit’s arm and pulled him, and Kit followed, while within Kit the wolf laughed at easy victory.

Scene Twenty Seven

Will’s room. Ariel sits on the bed, and Will stands by the window.

“M
aster Shakespeare, we’d better go about it,” Ariel said.

Will turned towards her, and started. In front of him stood a young fair haired boy, attired in a sky blue doublet, fashionable breeches, impeccable white stockings and dark shoes. “How now...?” Will started. He’d thought Quicksilver was unique in his ability to change. Was this a common thing with all elves, and had he been so deceived?

But Ariel laughed, easy musical laughter. “No, Master Shakespeare, I did not change my aspect, only my clothes.” And, removing the hat from her head, she showed her hair coiled beneath it, in braids and loops, fantastically arranged as some rich boys coiffed their long hair.

Will bowed to her. For some reason she looked all the more charming now, in this boyish aspect, her blandness masked by masculine decision, her small face revealed by her hair being pulled back. He realized he was looking into her eyes, when she blinked, and looked away, blushing.

She blushed a becoming shade of apricot. Her grey-blue eyes looked very blue. A calm sea.

I thought it would be better this way,” she said, very low. “I thought I would attract less attention as a boy.”

Her voice was ever soft. An excellent thing in a woman, or so Will thought, who’d never known that kind of woman. “You’ll attract attention whichever way you’re attired, milady.”

For a moment he put a hand out to her, but then pulled it a way. He hadn’t been alone with a woman, who was not Nan, in too long. It seemed to him that this whole situation was improper.

She nodded, her blush intensifying.

He turned away, looked out his window. “One thing I don’t understand, milady? How mean you to find the wolf out there? Your husband couldn’t. Does he not have more power than you? All the power of faerieland? I thought that was how it worked.”

He heard Ariel sigh behind him, and looked over his shoulder at her.

“I can see it,” she said. “I can see the trail of the dark power of the wolf. I can even see the traces of my lord’s bright power. Which is how I followed him here.

“You can see it? Can Quicksilver? Can the other elves?”

Ariel shook her head. She didn’t look at him, but she spied on him, just out of the corner of her eye, like a shy maiden. But she wasn’t a maiden, was she now? A grown elf, probably many years older than Will. And Quicksilver’s wife.

Again, Will felt the slipperiness of faerieland, how things were never what they seemed. Ariel seemed young and innocent, and harmless enough.

He turned away towards the window. Anything, anything, to break the eye contact, and the thoughts forming in his mind. Ariel was maybe all the more dangerous for not seeming as glamourous as Silver. Yet, Will knew that she must have her share of tawdry elf glamoury, that she must be manipulating him even now. And yet it didn’t feel tawdry. Not on Ariel. Quicksilver and Silver, oh, surely -- tawdry as yellow metal, cloying like cheap perfume.

But Ariel was something altogether different. She looked young and soft, and in need of protection and tugged at the same place in Will’s heart that harbored tender, protective feelings for injured animals, for whipped dogs, for small children.

He could resist seduction well enough. He was old enough to know what he wanted and that was Nan. But this soft appeal for protection, what man with a kind heart could resist it?

“I can see it,” Ariel said. “Not every elf can, though. Quicksilver can’t. Which is why.... Which is why it was passing foolish for my husband to come to London without me. I am the seer of faerieland and my eyes penetrate distances no other elf can see.”

“Like being a Sunday child,” Will said, thinking of his own capacity to see things of magic, all because he’d been born on a Sunday. Looking out the window, he could see apprentices leaving work, and the taverns starting to open. Over it all, a steady drizzle fell. An ordinary late afternoon in Southwark. Ordinary. And he was here, in his room, with the faerie queen. How odd, how odd that of all people
Will
knew about faerieland. All because he’d been born on a Sunday.

“Exactly like that,” Ariel said. “I was born on Summer solstice. Only a rare thing because there are so few elven births.”

He heard her get up, heard her soft steps approaching him, felt her hand on his arm and, looking down, saw the long, thin fingers clasped around his sleeve, shining almost ivory white against the dark russet fabric. A hand as small and delicate as his children’s hands.

He heard his voice, softer than usual, “Then why would your husband come to London without you? He is neither crazy nor a fool, Quicksilver.”

Ariel let go of Will’s sleeve, her lips trembled, her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know...,” she said. “I don’t know. Only your good lady....” she stopped.

His good lady? “Nan? You saw Nan?” Suddenly, Ariel didn’t matter, but Nan mattered. “You saw my Nan. And what says my Nan?”

Ariel took in a deep sobbing breath. “She says by asking Quicksilver to be Quicksilver only, by denying Silver, I killed Quicksilver’s love for me. She says.... your Lady says I never could have loved him or I’d not have done that.”

Fat tears ran down the little oval face and the delicate pink lips trembled. “And maybe she’s right, Master Shakespeare. Maybe she’s right, and maybe there won’t be another chance.”

Will smiled, because he could see Nan counseling the faerie queen as though she were a young housewife from Stratford. It was so like his Nan, this utter disregard of rank and even of species, that he couldn’t help but smiling, as his mind filled with Nan’s dear image.

Seen through this light, Ariel no longer felt like an irresistible creature of glamoury, no longer supernatural, no longer dangerous. She was a young woman, pale and distressed. A woman to whom Nan had extended a hand. A newlywed in trouble. And Will would do no more than carry out what Nan would wish and protect this young lady and see her safely to her lord’s arms and the firm compass of her marriage.

“My Nan is probably right,” Will said. “She has an uncomfortable habit of being so. But she’d not give you that advice if it were hopeless.” He fished within his sleeve for his handkerchief -- good, sturdy cotton, monogrammed with W.S. by Nan in her huge, clumsy stitches.

Ariel wiped her eyes on it.

“Let’s go milady,” Will said. “We’ll use your good talent to search out your errant lord and the dark creature. We’ll find them both, I daresay, and you’ll be restored to your lord, who can’t but forgive you. He makes his mistakes too.” Will thought that Silver had tried to seduce him. He knew enough to know that had been no delusion. And if that wasn’t a mistake, what was it, when such a thing would visibly have broken the heart of Quicksilver’s queen?

Gently, he walked Ariel down the steps.