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Scene Forty Four



The small room in Deptford. Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley stand by the door, looking as if they would block Shakespeare’s escape, but they dart confused glances at Marlowe, whose behavior visibly worries them. Ingram Frizer is still at the table, watching all with his slow, puzzled glance. Will looks at Marlowe, then the other men, then just at Marlowe.


  

Will waited for Marlowe’s answer, feeling more foolish each moment.

His heart beat erratically. His throat hurt with his effort to avoid screaming.

Marlowe stared at him with such an odd expression. No, a warring of expressions: now the wolf’s sharp gaze, now Marlowe’s puzzled little-boy-lost look, pouting lip drawn in as though in pain, grey eyes a-swim in indecision.

Will marked Marlowe’s hand reaching for the dagger; he watched the two men who, by the door, seemed to bar any attempt Will might make at escaping.

Should Will try to escape?

He didn’t want to. He’d come so far to save Marlowe.

A cold sweat sprang from his pores, chilling him.

What was here? What had he got himself into? Would he die at the wolf’s mercy? Or would his end come at Marlowe’s own hand?

Which was his friend, and which his sworn foe, of these two souls trapped within a body?

Marlowe’s lip curled upward, even as his whole face seemingly lengthened in a wolf-look. “Kill the fool,” Sylvanus’s voice snarled. “Kill the fool and be done. Kill the fool and drink his life.”

Before Will could do more than take a step towards the door, before Skeres and Poley could do more than take steps forward, to prevent his escape, Marlowe’s face smoothed and rounded, looking like Marlowe’s once more, but a Marlowe on the verge of despair. His grey eyes filled with water. Tears flowed unbidden down his cheeks. His pulpy lips trembled. “No,” he said. “No. He called me friend. I’ve never had friends. Not friends I don’t turn in.”

“You were right, Poley,” Skeres said. “He’s right bedlam. And he almost fooled me into believing that story about ruling the world.”

Marlowe trembled, his eyes immense and round, and he looked at Poley and Skeres with sudden fright. “But he meant it,” he said. “I mean, I did. Ruling the world, I mean. If you spare me. Only please don’t kill me.” Before he finished speaking, the wolf laughter echoed, followed by Sylvanus’s sneering words. “That’s a good Kit. Now kill the fool, and let’s be done with this.”

And Kit took a step towards Will.

But at that moment, a frightful knocking echoed from the hallway outside, a knocking as if horses had come within and galloped, pitilessly, through the house.

A woman screamed. Eleanor Bull?

Then the door was thrown open, and a centaur strode in.

The centaur had not been one of those that Will had seen the night before, but a larger, more powerful creature, with black hair and a grey and white body.

For a moment, upon seeing it stride into the room, Will thought that it had a double body, but as soon as it stopped in the middle of the room, making it even more crowded than it already was, an elf dismounted from its back.

Will recognized the elf that Ariel had told him was the leader of the rebellion, and took a step towards the door.

Unfortunately, another centaur had started to come in and, unable to push himself into the already packed room, stood half in, half out the door, blocking Will’s path.

At least Marlowe was not attempting to kill Will.

Marlowe’s face sharpened, his eyes wholly wolfish, and he stared at the elf.

“Malachite?” he asked, disdain dripping from his voice. “How come so far from your hill, little elf?”

“Our deal,” the elf said, drawing himself up tautly. He didn’t look as perfect as the other elves Will had seen and, when he drew himself up like that, fear was visible in every line of his long face. “Our deal was that you should hand me the faerie Queen so that through her I might rule the hill. But the centaurs say you took her for yourself.”

Sylvanus laughed, a silky, chilly laugh. “Yes, but that was if I needed you. I thought that my brother would stay in the hill and that you must sever him from it, before I could capture it. But the fool came to London, as did the Queen. So I captured them both without your help. I owe you nothing. I’ll rule both worlds. I’m quite able.”

Malachite turned pale. He stared at Sylvanus. “But...” he said. “But... you promised.”

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Framed