Perfect Shadows Part 8

I looked up at Tom, able to focus for the first time since I'd been pulled from the pentacle. A scalding shame washed over me, as if I were somehow to blame for my degradation and defilement, not the hapless victim.

"Tommy?" I asked hoa.r.s.ely, turning my face away. I well remembered how he had last seen me. "What are you doing here?"

"He rode to us full tilt, the night Northumberland displayed you to him," Nicolas answered. "He saved your life."

"No," I whispered. "No, it was another saved it," thinking of that beautiful voice, the caressing taloned hands, and fighting the sense of unspeakable loss that threatened once more to overwhelm me. "But it is Tom that brings me back to it." I reached a thin hand to Walsingham's cheek, to stroke the silky golden beard, and Tom caught my hand in his, bringing it to his lips. Nicolas, all but unnoticed, quietly left us alone.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Kit, and all I have ever done is hurt you terribly," Tom said softly, and leaned over to kiss my scarred and st.i.tched eyelid, but I moved and it was our lips that met. Sometime later Tom sat up and slipped his doublet off. He untied his collar and tossed it to the floor and began unlacing his shirt.

"Tommy," I responded weakly, "I do not think that-"

"Hush, my love. Let me."

Later as we lay entwined, sated and replete, I savored the lingering taste of my lover's blood, and the sight of Tom's sleeping form. I had thought that I would starve, that I would never be able to feed again without conjuring the h.e.l.l of my imprisonment, and the defilement Northumberland had inflicted upon me. But Tom had roused my desire, and I found that Harry Percy was the farthest thing from my mind as I drowned my hunger in Tom's sweet blood, even as I drowned my unexpected l.u.s.t in his body. I saw that Tom was awake and watching me. "I'm sorry, Tom. I did not mean to wake you. You're looking better, you know." And he did. He had lost the puffiness caused by too little exercise and too much wine, and no longer tried to outshine the court gallants, thereby trading the vague impression of a kittenish decaying belle for that of an interesting and polished middle-aged gentleman. He smiled at me, his sleepy eyes violet in the candlelight. "So do you," he murmured, then tensed, pushing my reaching hand away.

"How can you bear to touch me," he whispered brokenly. "I let them murder you. I could have stopped it, some way. Oh Kit, I thought that I would be relieved, that I'd be safe. The council, and most especially Cecil, wanted you dead. You had worked for my cousin, Sir Francis, but would not work for him," he answered my questioning expression. "Your views were becoming an embarra.s.sment to them, and you were reckless, willful and wanton. Those last few weeks you almost seemed frantic, and they were unable to predict what you would do next. It fell in very well with what I thought that I wanted, and I sent Frizer. Mayhap G.o.d will forgive me, Kit. I cannot ask that you do so.

"But when the word came that you were slain, and I knew that I would never hear your laugh again, never listen while you skewered some vaunting rhymester with a few acid syllables, never hold your sweet body against me again, I wanted to die too." I gently wiped the tears from Tom's cheeks with the corner of the sheet. "And then you came back, I knew that it was you. I could only think that you had come for vengeance. I lost my head, running to Northumberland like a demented hen. And he nearly killed you again. Killed you again?" his voice trailed off as he realized the impossible import of his words." Kit, how?" I brought my fingers to his lips.

"I will tell you," I said gently. And so Tom heard of my last living weeks, the ordeal that followed my death and renascence, and the nature of the life that was left to me.

"You . . . drink blood? My blood?" Tom's voice was as pale as his face, but he flushed with remorse. "Take it, take it all! It still will not repay you for what I did to you."

"Oh, Tom, it was not revenge that brought me to your bed that first night, but that I could not stay away, though I was let to know how inadvisable it was," I toyed with a lock of his hair. "But then I could not stop myself from tormenting you. Do you remember the stable cat at Nonsuch?" Tom nodded, shuddering. "You should have waited those few seconds longer, Tom, and you would have seen why I laughed. The cat tired of the diversion, simply lost interest and walked away from the mouse, which shortly recovered its wits and made good its escape. I knew at that moment that I would cease hurting you, even if I were not strong enough to leave off seeing you altogether. But then I was wounded-"

"I cried out to warn you, when I saw the bow," Tom interrupted, and I nodded.

"Yes, I thought, hoped, that that was your intent. But later, when Percy captured me, I believed that you had sold me to him, to rid yourself of me yet again." The utter desolation of those bitter hours overcame me, rendering me unable to speak for a time. I felt the scalding sensation in my right eye socket that meant it was filling with tears, and the acid trace on my left cheek where they fell freely, until Tom wiped at them with the sleeve of his shirt. I gave him a wry smile. "If you do not wish to remember what I have told you, I can take the memory from you," I said softly, and Tom looked pensive.

"I . . . am not a strong man, you know that. Perhaps it would be better that you should take that knowledge, than take the risk of having it forced from me." I considered this, then suggested that our story, if necessary, be that Tom had befriended the handsome foreign prince, whom he had, while in a fit of morbid fancy, nicknamed 'Kit'. I smiled ruefully at Tom.

"I find that, after all, I would rather that you know me, even if it occasions some danger, arrogant though that may be." Tom nodded, content, only to sit bolt upright a few minutes later, his hand clapped over his mouth.

"Kit! Who rests in your tomb at Scadbury? I had it all carved out of stone, and your body quietly removed to rest there, as a sort of amends. . . ."

"A princely grave, then, for a pauper's bones," I said with mock solemnity, and then joined in Tommy's laughter.

"It appears that for once my dear wife was correct in suggesting that I was squandering my means. You frighten her, you know," he added.

"Why?"

"She's ambitious. She's become a great favorite of the Queen, and fears that your friendship will do me no good, given your family's estrangement with Cecil."

Chapter 17.

Tom had sought his own bed in the early hours of the morning, and was wakened near noon by a servant bringing his breakfast ale. He had only just finished dressing when he became aware of a commotion downstairs, and swore as he looked out the window, before hurtling down the stairs two at a time. He arrived in the Hall with a breathless rush and bowed low. "Your Majesty," he said. It was true; the queen had come looking for her errant Shadow. Ralegh skidded into the room only seconds after Walsingham, and duplicated his bow.

"How now, Sir Walter? Consorting with foreign royalty behind my back? Even if Sybria agreed to finance your expeditions, you'd yet need my leave to go!"

Ralegh winced, not at her wit, but the reaction it provoked among the courtiers and hangers-on that filled the hall behind her. Elizabeth had tapped her fingers against her fan irritably, as he answered." Prince Krytof is still too weak from his long ordeal of illness to leave his bed or receive visitors, your Majesty. Prince Geofri, worn out with watching, has not yet left his own bed, or I am certain he would be most happy to welcome you to his house." She did not seem to be listening. Her shrewd glance had picked out Sylvie hovering near the kitchen door and with a brusque motion ordered the girl peremptorily to her side.

"You, girl, can you perform a small service for me?"

"Anything, your Majesty," Sylvie answered huskily. Elizabeth snapped her fingers and the lady-in-waiting behind her slipped a small embroidered purse into her hand. The Queen shook from it an earring, a blood-red ruby drop the size of a quail's egg, which she held up for a few seconds before returning it to the purse and pa.s.sing it to Sylvie.

"Take these tokens to Prince Krytof with my loving regard, child," Elizabeth had said, and taking Sylvie by each shoulder she leaned forward, pulling the girl down to kiss her full on the mouth, heedless of the shocked reactions of her court. The girl stumbled back into a curtsey when released. As she left the hall, her eyes still glowed with a light that Elizabeth seldom had seen from another woman: adoration. The queen turned abruptly to Sir Walter.

"Now I fear, we must take again to the road, my Ocean-water. Eltham is still some distance from here."

"Scadbury is not far, your Majesty, if you could find it in your heart to so honor me again," Tom interrupted smoothly. "You could not possibly reach Eltham before dark. Stay, and start afresh in the morning." He tarried only long enough to pen a hasty explanation of his absence, leaving it with Jehan, and hoping that Kit could find someone about to read it to him that evening.

Chapter 18.

I was not long from my bed, standing on shaky legs before the fire, lost in thought, waiting in the study for Geoffrey to return from Northumberland's. I didn't hear him come in, and only knew he was in the room when he caught my shoulder and spun me about. "You fool!" he snarled, and before I could back away he struck me hard across the mouth, knocking me to the floor. His eyes seemed to glow with his bloodl.u.s.t and wrath, and when I tried to regain my feet he knocked me down again, landing on top of me this time. He dragged me to my knees, twisting my arms up behind me with one hand and pulling my head back by my hair with the other. Struggling against him only caused my arms to be forced to the point of dislocation. Unable to move, I waited. I felt the movement of the air across my throat as his teeth found their mark, and tensed against the a.s.sault.

"Geoffrey!" Nicolas shouted, and Geoffrey turned his head to face him. "Let him go." Geoffrey tightened his grip and I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out at the pain in my shoulders. "I will take him into my custody," Nicolas added, and Geoffrey released me. He stood then, leaving me on the floor at his feet. I struggled to a sitting position, but felt too weak to rise from my place before the hearth. Geoffrey ignored me while he paced and told us the outcome of his meeting with Northumberland.

Percy had denied everything, and insinuated that unless the entire matter were dropped it could go very ill indeed for both Sir Walter and for us. We were far more vulnerable than he, and he would see that we were hunted down and killed should the matter be made public, and public it would be should any harm come to the earl.

"We will certainly kill him," Geoffrey snarled when he finished his account. He crossed the room to stand leaning on the mantelpiece and I scuttled away from him. He smiled cruelly at that, then continued, "The only questions are when and how. If he rises a vampire from this depraved deed, he must be killed, and at what cost then? I would kill him now in a manner that will preclude his rising at all." He turned his eyes, like burning steel, on me, and waited in silence.

"There is little chance that he will not rise, if his fear of dying could drive him into . . ." I found myself unable to continue.

"No, that is not so," Nicolas said thoughtfully. "Simple fear of death has never made a vampire in the history of the world, but only the will to live, to survive. They are not one and the same."

"There are other ways to preclude his rising," Geoffrey said, still eyeing me.

"This is neither the time nor the place, Geoffrey," Nicolas said.

"What does he mean?" I asked, suspecting that I would rather not know.

"That killing you before his death will undo the effect of the exchange, "Geoffrey said flatly. The room spun as I scrambled to my feet, and I caught at Nicolas's angry voice as if it were a lifeline.

"We do not know that! It is merest superst.i.tion! Are there so many of us that we should sacrifice Kit, only to find that we still have a rogue vampire on the loose, and one less of us to call on as ally? Is that not so?"

Geoffrey nodded curtly, and turned again to me. "Since it seems that you will be among us yet a while," he said coldly, "you may tell us why you allowed yourself to be taken so." I recoiled at the deadly tone of the rebuke. "You endangered not only yourself, but every one of us by your foolhardiness. You did not even tell Jehan, who might then at least have given us an idea of whereto begin a search." His burning eyes had turned to ice.

"I never thought-"

"No, you did not." Geoffrey's voice was a whiplash, but I found myself pushed too far, angry rather than cowed.

"I am not a child!" I said, through clenched teeth.

"That is precisely the thing that you are! Even were you whole, you are yet young in our ways, and your impairment makes you vulnerable where another would be strong. You agreed once to live under my rule, Christopher, and though I give you into Nicolas's care, this you must yet do. We will make it as agreeable as we may, but you will submit, by choice, or by force, if necessary." I knew what he meant, that if I did not comply either he or Nicolas, perhaps both, would feed on my blood, to enforce their domination. I nodded, unable to force words past the burning knot of anger, alarm, and shame that choked me. I rose then, and returned unsteadily to my room. Mephistophilis' words came back-crippled, he had called me. Crippled I was, and must learn to curb my defiance before I died of it.

A few days before All Hallows, I paced the South Gallery at Nonsuch, waiting. I had met Percy once or twice at court and the revulsion was almost overwhelming. Though the man had taken no overt notice of me, I could sense the intensity of his constant scrutiny and it had prompted me to ask for this present interview. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and continued my pacing. It had felt like hours, but the full moon shining on the frosted garden had moved no more than a finger's width across the sky when she joined me, announced by a tapping of jeweled slippers and the rustle of white and tawny silk. "How now, Shadow? Mumping?" The brittle teasing tone failed to hide the concern in the old woman's voice.

"Majesty, I-" I broke off as she frowned, then drew a breath and began again. "Majesty, I beg you, banish me from court. There is one here whom I cannot meet," I reached an imploring hand, which she caught in her own, drawing me from the shadows. She began to untie the small ruffs at my wrists, slapping my hand smartly as I tried to pull back. First one ruff then the other fell away. She pursed her lips at what she saw there, and searched my face for a moment before retying the ruffs as deftly as any tiring-maid. She turned to the window, watching the moon as she spoke tome. "My lord, I have spent some little of my time in the Tower, and while none dared to fetter me, I know the marks of shackles well enough." She wheeled to face me, eyes glittering in the candlelight. "Was it my lord of Ess.e.x?" she demanded sharply.

"Majesty! No! No, it was not," I gasped.

"And you will not tell me who did this to you, or for what purpose?" I shook my head dumbly, and she shrugged, setting her wide standing collar of lace moving gracefully. She slipped a ring from her thumb, and took my hand." When you have need to see me, for any reason, send this ring to me and I shall arrange to see you." I examined the ring and found that it was a simple medallion showing a maiden in a small boat on a stormy sea. Though made only of pewter, it was set in finest gold. "It was a token that-my mother-" I knew by her voice how difficult any mention of her mother was for her, "gave to my father, once upon a time, and he had it set in this ring. I found it not long ago, shoved into a dusty box of half-forgotten doc.u.ments. You have few enough friends, cousin, though enemies aplenty; send this to me when the jackals close in. Now, come along, my lord, and watch this aged dragon, that has swallowed my maiden youth, breath some fire-mind you do not get singed in the blast."

"This is not your barbarous Sybria, my lord clodpoll!" Elizabeth screeched, slapping my face noisily as we stepped into the brightly lit Hall, riveting the attention of the entire court. I stepped back, raising my hand to my flaming cheek. She had pivoted, hitting me on my blind side, and I had had no warning, just the stinging crack of her hand on my flesh. "Go, now! I am done with shadows at my court." Ess.e.x slid silkily to the old woman's side, his expression bordering on a smirk. I bowed low, kissing her offered hand, and leaned close to her to speak softly as I rose.

"I see the maiden, quite plainly," I whispered. She gave me a violent shove, and, with the eye away from Ess.e.x, winked. "Your Majesty," I said formally, "I leave you, then, to the sun. If you have want or need of me, you know where-"

"Shadows are found? Under rocks, I believe," drawled an insolent voice from somewhere behind Ess.e.x.

"Hal," Ess.e.x remonstrated, magnanimous in his perceived victory, and the Earl of Southampton stepped forward to view me, as if I were a freak at a fair. I returned the favor, causing the elegant man to drop his eyes, and shrug off the confrontation with a laugh.

"You have my leave, my lord," Elizabeth snapped, turning her back, and I marched from the Hall to a chorus of ill-concealed t.i.tters. I fled to the stables, barked an order to the stable-boy, and galloped off into the night, trembling and sick. Northumberland had been there, I could feel him watching. I hadn't seen him, but hadn't needed to. The crawling in my flesh had been quite sufficient.

Part Three:.

SHADOWS OF TREASON.

Chapter 1.

Mid-November, and the Accession Day festivities, found me living in my own house for the first time since my renascence. I had moved into the old manor at Chelsey, taking the loups-garous Jehan, Sylvie, and Sylvie's mother Sylvana to run the house, with Nicolas as my keeper.

I had approached Nicolas with the idea of my own premises soon after my violent encounter with Geoffrey, and had been both startled and pleased when he deeded the manor over to me, with the proviso that one or another of my elders would stay near me at all times. Some time before he had informed me, as soon as I had healed enough to comprehend it, that a sum of money had been settled on me, and we had agreed that he would continue to manage it. I learned that I had a considerable income.

I had never had more than a few pounds to my name before, and was quite happy with these arrangements. I enjoyed being a gentleman of affluent means, and not having to buckle under the vagaries of public taste just to scratch out a meager living with my pen. I might not remember very much about my previous life, but the degradation poverty wreaked on it echoed still.

I shook myself fully awake and began to dress in the soft twilight afternoon. I still prowled the dark London streets, often lingering in the inns and taverns I had frequented while alive, sitting in the shadows and listening to the habitual wrangling of the players, almost always with Jehan along as watchdog.

The familiar surroundings enticed more memories from my cloudy past, memories that led me to the conclusion that I had been more than a little cruel, most malicious, and quite reprehensible while alive, but I shrugged this judgment aside. It was very easy to p.r.o.nounce on someone, from the outside, but not at all easy to discern the truth within. The truth was that I would do whatever I had to now to stay alive just as I had done then. Only the means had changed.

Oh, I was no longer quite so brash and turbulent, that afternoon in Deptford had cured me of much of that, and the powers and abilities of my new estate far eclipsed the fleeting pleasures of defiant poses and furious disputes, even if I had had the wit remaining to so indulge myself. I was sitting in a dark corner of the Anchor musing upon this, when I was startled to hear my name spat out as if it were a swear word.

"Marlowe! That bombastic brabbler! What a pity he's not here to see what a true poet can do with the drama-" A general round of laughter drowned the snarling voice.

"How now, Jimmy, did Kind Kit lampoon one of your youthful efforts before he went and got himself spitted?" The one called Jimmy growled an unintelligible reply to the laughing question.

"Come now, friends, the man is dead. Let him rest, if he can," another suggested.

"You're a deal too kind, Will. He was no friend to you!"

"And a worse yet to himself," the one called Will retorted, brushing the hair back from his high forehead. "Yes, he had a viper's tongue, and vicious temperament, but who was left to pay the reckoning but himself? Henslowe rejected your new piece, did he, Jimmy? Come, let us look at it, and see what we may do," and resting his arm comfortingly across the angry man's shoulders he led him from the room.

I may well have parodied something that the fretful Jimmy had written. Anyone I could think of had fallen victim to my spleen those last few weeks of my life, but I doubted that many had taken it so to heart. A rueful smile curled my lips as I belatedly recognized the man, Will, who had scooped up my fallen crown, writing some of the most popular plays in London. I felt resentment flare at the thought, but suppressed it. What had happened to me had nothing to do with Warwickshire's Will, the sweetest-tempered of men, and deserving of patronage, not obloquy.

Jimmy Dighton, on the other hand, was a third-rate scribbler, presuming on his sister's lightskirted affaires d'amour to gain patronage. I wondered if Will stood in need of money; the devil knew that most poets and play-writers did. I'd have to look into it, another time.

A few nights later I was riding alone, for once, back from an evening's entertainment at Ralegh's Durham house. The horse reared suddenly as a slight young man, giggling drunk from the sound of him, stumbled and rolled directly beneath the horse's hooves. The big stallion crow-hopped backward a few feet and dropped again to all fours, sidling a bit as two more young men spilled from a tavern and stooped to pick up their friend. I controlled the horse, waiting until they had the drunken lad on his feet before speaking. Not that the purported rescuers were in any better shape, I noted.

"There are easier ways of killing yourself than being trampled to death," I observed dryly to the wobbling trio before me. "Or by drinking yourselves to death," I added as an afterthought. Two of them seemed to find this exceedingly funny, while the third, the one who had fallen in the street, took offense, drew his rapier and brandished it theatrically in my general direction. The battle-trained stallion, seeing the flash of steel before his nose, reared again, lashed out with one hoof and caught the would-be warrior neatly in the chest. I heard a bone snap; the youth dropped his sword into the half-frozen muck and stared at it stupidly for a few seconds before crumpling into an untidy heap beside it. Cursing, I vaulted from the horse's back, dropped the reins to the ground, and knelt next to the fallen bravo. The other two stood gaping stupidly for a time before one of them spoke.

"We were going to the stews," he said plaintively.

"Go then," was my terse answer. The speaker shook his head.

"Roger was going to pay," he said, mournfully indicating the figure at his feet. I snorted.

"Help me get him back inside, fetch a surgeon, and I'll pay," I said with distaste, and finally carried the young man back inside by myself, the other two being too drunk to help. When I stepped into the light the taller of the two gasped.

"It's him," he hissed to his companion. "Prince Krytof, that Her Majesty banished from Court the last time we were there!"

"When did she?" the other asked bewilderedly.

"While you were outside spewing your tripes up," he spat, then turned tome. "I am Sir Henry Warren, your grace, and this is Sir Edward Selby. That's the Earl of Almsbury," he added, indicating his unconscious companion. "We've been most anxious to meet you-" he withered under my baleful one-eyed glare, and the two beat a hasty retreat, returning shortly with a stooping gray-haired man, who wheezed and clucked, but seemed to set the collarbone competently enough. The young man regained consciousness at some point during the process, but fortunately seemed too drunk to feel it. As he turned his blond head to the light and opened his incredible violet-blue eyes I started: it was my young companion from the cemetery, Roger Randolph. I had seen Almsbury sw.a.n.king around the court, but had never really paid him enough attention to recognize him. The boy smiled at me then sank into a stupor again. I turned to the other two asking where they lodged, but couldn't get an intelligible answer. I flipped the two a gold n.o.ble and they departed, arguing over which brothel to patronize. I was between keepers at the moment, Nicolas having departed to spend a few months seeing to our business interests in Paris and Rozsa's arrival from there being delayed by storms in the Channel, and that aided my decision. I shrugged and made arrangements to take the wounded man with me to Chelsey.

The innkeeper, seeing gold spent so casually, was as helpful as could be, bundling the young man's dropped sword so it could be tied to the saddle, and a.s.signing his largest stableman to lift the cloak-wrapped casualty to my saddlebow after I had mounted. The round-faced little man had stepped forward to attend that office himself, but one look at the stallion's laid-back ears and rolling eye had been enough to convince him of his folly. I settled the lad against me then felt in my purse for coin. The innkeeper gasped as he deftly fielded the coin tossed to him, knowing it for gold by the weight, before he ever lifted it to the light. A silver piece followed, slipped to the stableman, but from the look on the master's face, the hostler wasn't going to see much of it. I frowned and asked the big man to check the girth, taking the opportunity to speak quietly to him.

"If you should find yourself wanting other employment, come to Lovell House, Chelsey. I wish to expand my stable, and can use a good hand with horses," I said impulsively. The man's glance flicked to the innkeeper and back to me, taking in the fine clothing and the well-fed and cared-for stallion.

"Aye, I might," he grunted, the corner of his mouth quirking in a good-humored smile, and I urged my horse forward and disappeared into the night.

Chapter 2.

Roger stretched slowly, his foggy mind dealing reluctantly with returning reality. There was a feather bed beneath him, so he concluded he was not at home as he'd had to p.a.w.n his featherbed several months ago. The bed-curtains reduced the glare in the room to a level that merely poached his eyeb.a.l.l.s, instead of the searing that opening his eyes in his own sunlit chambers would have produced, his bed-curtains having gone the way of the featherbed. So, he was not at home, and this was not any brothel he'd ever frequented before. Where in h.e.l.l was he, then? At least he was alone. He hated waking up in the morning, or more likely late afternoon, with someone he didn't remember bedding, and when sober, wouldn't have looked at twice. He sat up to find that his left arm was bound tightly to his chest and his whole left side ached, the throbbing pain matching exactly the one behind his eyes. And he needed to find the necessary; well, he could always p.i.s.s in the fireplace. If there was a fireplace. He cautiously drew the bed-curtains aside the merest inch and peered out into the surrounding room. His eyes met those of a large wolfish dog stretched out by the fire. The animal gazed at him for a few seconds then pushed itself to its feet and padded from the room, its claws soundless on the thick carpet that covered the floor.