All Night Awake (56 page)

“I’m Master William Shakespeare,” Will said, feeling his voice break and crack, and feeling heartily ashamed of himself. If he could not face the footman, how could he face the lord? “Master Richard Field, the printer, has recommended me to your master and he -- ”

“Ah, one of the players,” The footman said, disdain dripping from every syllable. “You may go.”

As Shakespeare went he saw, drawn up on either side of the long walk, carriages ready and equipped with horses, to welcome other guests more refined and less likely to be sent wandering down this dusty drive.

Thinking this, Will wished to laugh at himself, at his pretensions. Would he be received by nobility as if of equal birth?

Ah, fool Will, the grammar school graduate, the country boy of Stratford, the foolish poet.

Was Will even a poet? Or just a fool who thought that he could rhyme?

He thought of Marlowe, and Marlowe’s easy jest on the subject of dreams. Oh, to have a way with words, to use language like that. Oh, it would almost be worth one’s mortal soul.

Walking the dusty drive, beneath the whispering trees, he heard dogs bark in the distance and stayed, for a moment, every sense alert, every gesture stopped, listening with straying ear and fearful sense for the sound of a hunting horn. But the horn didn’t sound and Will laughed an uneasy laugh that echoed hollowly back to him in the still air.

The bark came from many dogs, each with a different sound but none had the primal, blood-chilling bark of the Hunter’s dogs. This was a noble house, after all, and the dogs would be the lord’s kennels.

He wondered what this Southampton would be like. Richard Field had said he inclined to the theater. Will remembered hearing Lord Strange say that Henry Wriothsley, Earl of Southampton was both very rich and very young and no more foolish than those two circumstances warrant, whatever that meant in Lord Strange’s sometimes cryptic parlance.

Will looked at those lit squares in the night, those lights shining where the house windows were and tried to imagine going into that house. He’d go into that house, and be snubbed by countless footmen, and perhaps handed on and on to see the lord.

And then, what would he say to this young, rich and only vaguely foolish gentleman?

Will remembered his audience with Lord Strange, much too well.

How Marlowe had laughed at Will’s laboriously worked poem. Will’s face warmed up at the memory.

Since then Will had written his three plays that no one, save him remembered.
Henry VI
,
Richard III
, and the blood-soaked
Titus Andronicus
, his attempt at stealing the spotlight from Marlowe’s
Tamburlaine
.

But the truth was, the truth was, the theater company had only wanted Will’s plays when there was no new one of Marlowe’s.

Will trudged along the walk, in the dark, his feet weighing much too much, his mind heavy with self-doubt.

The sound of hooves behind him made him turn, in time to behold a carriage heading towards him. He jumped, deeper into the shade of the giant oaks on either side of the walk. Just in time to avoid the wheels of the carriage, that nonetheless splattered him with dirt clods. Sighing, Will dusted his good velvet suit, as he walked forward.

Why didn’t he turn and go back now? Why didn’t he leave?

Will knew his poetry to be bad, or, if not bad, so lackluster that no nobleman would want to give him money to pursue it.

What was the use and why not return to Stratford, to the glover trade, to Nan’s arms?

Something in him rebelled and stood up and said that only had he Marlowe’s mastery of the language and of the forms and fashions of the ancients as understood by today’s scholars, Will would fare better than even Marlowe himself. Had Will not more of an understanding of the human heart?

He thought of Marlowe’s smirk and sighed, impatient. Well, Will had, at least, a human heart, while Marlowe was nothing more than words, words fashioned into man, expensively suited, walking abroad in the light of the day. He was one such, nothing more.

If you boiled Marlowe down to his words, what would you find behind, but more words?

And if Will could indeed boil Marlowe down, and reduce him to words, perhaps that potion would give Will the nimble-footed meter he needed to woo Lords and impress them with his agile tongue.

He was thinking so, resentment towards Marlowe flaring, when -- ahead -- a form appeared, made of air and woven of moonlight, a form clear and yet ethereal, immaterial and yet dark like lost dreams. Sylvanus. Once the king of faerie land.

“One more chance, Will, one more chance,” the voice that was no voice spoke in Will’s mind. “One more chance to grasp at your desire. But take me to your heart, good Will, and I will give you those winged words you long for.”

The smell and taste of graveyard clay came with the voice, and the rank odor of this, the worm’s final banquet, penetrated Will’s skin and mouth, stopped his nostrils, put a dampening effect on the other sounds his ears perceived: the rustling of the trees overhead, the clinking of glasses and soft laughter from within the house.

Will took a deep, shuddering breath.

He’d been wrong, after all, and how many times need he prove himself wrong? He’d not give all for a gift of words. Even he didn’t crave poetry all that much. No. Will would succeed himself, of himself, or not at all.

“No,” he spoke, sure that what he saw was no more than hallucination. “No. Not were you as fair as the angels and as good. I’ll do it on my own or not at all.”

“Oh, but it would be on your own. You and I would be one, linked forever. A touch of magic, a wish of faerieland upon your mortal bones, making you more than you will ever be,” the shape spoke out of a darker shadow within woods.

But the odor and feel of the thing were rank and gross and the thought of being one with this corruption brought bitter bile to Will’s throat. He shook his head, and in shaking it he ran, down the drive, all the way to where the carriage was letting out a passel of guests. Forgetting himself, Will ran past the guests, and all the way up the staircase, only to meet with a handsome valet in blue livery, who bowed slightly to him and said, “Sir?”

“I am no Sir,” he said, out of breath. “I am no Sir. Just Will. Will Shakespeare. A player. I would wish to be a play maker, and my friend Richard Fielding has spoken for me to his Lordship the earl and -- ”

“Ah, Shakespeare,” a voice spoke from the dazzle of light that was the interior of the vast salon into which the door opened. A figure walked from that dazzle of light that so confused Will’s dark-adapted eyes that he could not tell details nor size of the salon, nor even how many people attended -- nothing, really, save that it was brightly lit.

For a moment, still half-blinded, Will thought it was Quicksilver.

As his eyes adjusted, he realized that what he saw was actually a human, younger and, perforce, less perfect than the lord of faerieland. And yet, in his features, and in the blond hair carefully combed over his left shoulder, he resembled Quicksilver entire.

It was this resemblance, disquieting but familiar and soothing at once, that reminded Will he had, once before, faced royalty without trembling.

That certainty steadied his voice when, moments later, the earl said, “Recite us some of your poetry, good Shakespeare.”

Unable to think of anything, unable to remember any of his carefully polished poems he had labored over and crafted for months on end, Will was for a moment mute.

Then he thought of what Marlowe had said about a tragic fate and mythical lovers, and thought of people loved by the gods. Out of all this, lines appeared, plucked entire from his frantic, panicked mind.

He heard himself say with unwonted assurance, “I have but a few lines of a poem I’ve been working on, your Lordship.... Thinking of making it a gift to you, if you should like it.” He cleared his throat and his voice swelled and for a moment he wondered if the words he used were truly his or if somehow he had accepted the foul bargain of the creature outside, without meaning to. It was so strange for him to speak like this, poetry pouring from his lips, unthought. “Even as the sun, with purple-colored face, had taken his last leave of the weeping morn, rose cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase; Hunting he loved but love he laughed to scorn; Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him, and like a bold-faced suitor ‘gins to woo him.”

Then the words swept even him along, and he could do no more than follow with his mind, as his lips spoke on, and the entire audience listened in silence that, for once, betrayed no amusement and no scorn, “Stain to all the nymphs, more lovely than a man; more white and red than doves or roses are....”

Nothing mattered, except the words.

Scene Thirteen

The throne room, in the faerie palace. Ariel sits on the throne. With the other, vacant throne by her side, she looks scared and small, like a child wearing adult clothes, or sitting in furniture too large for her frame. She faces the centaurs. On either side of the throne, the fine Lords, the delicate ladies of faerieland stand, dressed in their finery.

T
here was something rotten in faerieland.

Ariel could feel it, palpable, harsh, within the throne room. A tension of expectancy or dread knit the elven gentlemen in groups and made the fans of the elven ladies move as fast as dragon fly wings, while the ladies’ mouths, no doubt, moved the same way behind those agitated plumes and painted cloth.

Yet, Ariel had no idea what was causing the tension, and felt her back stiffen against the unknown. Her shoulders ached, as if her fine mantle and her crown weighed of a sudden much more than they’d ever done.

She glanced at the empty throne beside her. Odd how she missed Quicksilver; his presence, his support.

She’d always thought she could take on his job, unaided. But now she missed having him to lean upon. And, thinking that, she almost smiled, for who was Quicksilver that she should lean upon him? She might as well lean upon flowing water, rest her hope on the inconstant stream.

Hylas, the head of the centaur delegation, advanced to the center of the room, and stood on the red carpet that led to the throne, awaiting Ariel’s notice.

Today he displayed hammered gold bracelets and a heavy sort of pectoral. As always, Malachite stood beside the centaur, his hand upon his sword handle, as if fearing the centaur would try to overpower Malachite’s sovereign.

Ariel wanted to give her attention to what the centaur said, but she felt her head swim.

Even from here, she could swear she smelled Hylas’ heavy, animal stench.

For a moment her sight dimmed and she glimpsed the dark wolf creature darting amid the silk skirts of the elven ladies and the well-trimmed velvet breeches of the elven lords.

“Milady, are you well?” Malachite, stepped up the throne steps, extending a hand towards Ariel’s harm. “Lady?”

Ariel nodded, though even Malachite swam on and off focus, and her vision dimmed and put spots where it shouldn’t. For the barest of moments Malachite seemed to have a wolf’s head, like that Egyptian god it was, long ago, who’d devoured the souls of the unrighteous dead.

“I am well,” she said. “Passing well. My majesty would hear the delegate Hylas again.”

“What I said is simple,” said the centaur. “And what I told your husband I will say to you.” He smiled at her, an animal smile, all glimmering teeth and harsh stare. “It is simple as a simple, which, as you know is the name for a remedy brewed of herbs and such, which can cure illness. To cure the illness of the land, milady, you must give Centuria to the centaurs.”

“But the land you speak of is not Centuria,” Ariel said, expounding in the same way she wished her husband had, the night before. But where Quicksilver could make anything sound plausible, Ariel’s voice came out small, tiny, appearing to turn on and off, like her sight. “Before ever the centaurs came there, there were the pixies, and the dwarves, and others who lived on that land.”

The centaur grinned. “Why should your strong majesty care for such weak races?” His smile tried to draw a parallel between himself and Ariel -- both strong, capable beings.

It made Ariel’s nausea worse to think about it. Had she, then, been such an arrogant creature that this thing should think them alike?

Hylas went on, mercilessly. “Those races were nothing and they’ve folded before our onslaught like grass bending before a strong wind.”

Her strong majesty. Ariel clasped both hands on the harms of her throne. She’d thought herself strong, and Quicksilver a weak and foolish man, but sitting in her throne, next to his empty one, the power and decision resting with her, she wasn’t so sure.

Her impulse was to stop Hylas’ insolence, to send him flying hence, to send the faerie armies after the centaurs.

But would the faerie armies go if she sent them?

She looked at Malachite out of the corner of her eye. She could now see his face clearly, but she couldn’t see any warlike intent in his features, except sort of a peaked excitement, a narrow-eyed intentness.

Did Quicksilver do this? Did he thus observe Malachite and thus weigh, the eagerness of his commander for the battle field? Did Quicksilver likewise decide even Malachite, for all his words, wasn’t eager enough? And if the commander wasn’t eager, then who would be?