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Scene 14




Will’s room. Will, who lies on the bed, stirs, obviously waking up. Next to him, ensconced beneath his arm, lies the Lady Silver, fully dressed and asleep.


Will dreamed that Nan lay beside him; dreamed that he was back home, back in his room, safe in the attic of the Henley Street home, in Stratford-upon-Avon.

But as he stirred toward wakening, even before he opened his eyes, he knew it was not Nan’s hair that tickled his arm, knew it was not Nan’s soft, whispering breath that rose and fell beside his.

The smell of lilac, the smell of the fairykind, hung heavy on his nostrils.

He sat up, with a curse on his lips. With a curse on his lips he looked beside him, to see the still, resting form of the Lady Silver, her hair loose and tangled upon his pillow, her arm spread the width of his narrow bed, her face pale and tired-looking and, in sleep, appearing young and fragile.

“Wake, milady,” he said. “Wake.” What had he done that the elf would pursue him this way? What had he done that she would follow him, and come to him like this?

Ten years ago, in a night of impetuous insanity, he’d made love to her.

Ten years ago. Since then Will had been faithful to his Nan. And yet the elf followed him; the elf would come to his rooms and try to seduce him.

He groaned as he got up.

Having slept in his shirt, he searched around the room for his pants and doublet, and slipped them on.

He must go to the theater. He must present Henslowe with Marlowe’s note.

Well had Will seen how much Marlowe’s opinion was respected, how regarded. Surely Henslowe would give Will a part in his play just to please Marlowe.

Thinking this, Will tied his pants in place, and put his doublet on.

Dismal light shone through the dirty diamond-shaped panes of his window, and though it must still be early morning—certainly not afternoon—yet the air felt too hot and too humid.

Plague weather, Will thought, and shook his head, shaking the thought out of his mind. No. He would not think that. He’d not think of that man, so suddenly struck down with unnatural illness.

It was nothing Marlowe had said. Another illness that looked like the plague. There had been no rumor of the plague, no thought of the plague since early spring. Surely it would not come again now.

Fully dressed, Will went to the bed, bent over the Lady Silver, and shook her. “Wake, lady, you must be gone. This is senseless. This is foolish. I am not yours and you not mine.”

The thought that this fair lady was also the king of elves made Will angrier.

What was Quicksilver doing? What was Quicksilver playing at? If there was danger, why was Quicksilver here, leaving his hill unprotected? And if there was no danger, why was he here?

Oh, curse the creature, the mutable magical creature that no mortal could understand, no mortal hold.

Looking at her, Will could have wanted her, Will could have loved her. Again as in that night, so long ago, Will felt the enchantment of the creature, the magic of the woodland, the spell of the shaded glen that no man knew and no man could conquer.

His gaze traveled her soft skin and dwelt on the graceful form of her. Oh, to touch such treasure. To dwell in such palaces.

Nan had never been that perfect. Nan had never been that full of charm. Nor had any mortal woman. Ever. No queen’s majesty rivaled the pearly perfection of Silver’s skin, the unfathomable depth of her eyes.

And yet, looking on Silver, Will saw, as if with double vision, Quicksilver’s broad shoulders, his taller form, the waist that narrowed from the muscular chest, the arms accustomed to fighting, the hands large enough and strong enough to ply a sword as it should be plied.

Again Will reached, again his hand touched the bare shoulder above the ruffled dress. Again, he shook it.

“Wake up, lady, curse it all. Your seduction is not going to work. I have one wife only, and she’s alive.”

Her shoulder felt hot to the touch and silky smooth, and she looked, in her sleep, vulnerable and almost transparent, like a feverish child who struggles through the night from breath to breath, while his trembling parent stands vigil.

And this, Will knew, had to be glammour and disguise, for these creatures were neither soft nor vulnerable.

For a moment Will hesitated.

Silver looked so tired. As though she’d been doing battle. And she had said something about the Hunter and Sylvanus, the same things Will had heard in—and barely remembered from—his odd dream.

But it couldn’t be true. Furious at himself, Will poured water into his cracked ceramic basin where it sat, atop the trunk at the bottom of the bed. He washed hands and face with scrupulous care. He pulled his hair back and ran his fingers through it.

He cast another resentful look at Silver. She couldn’t have been telling the truth and well did Will know that the only reason this seductress would have come to London would be to lose Will to his marriage vows, to lose Will to his own conscience.

He knew that her still looking like Silver in her sleep was deliberate, malicious.

Will remembered well enough that this creature, when asleep, reverted to his primary form, his male form. But Quicksilver would not have moved Will thus.

Will pulled his gloves on, and stepped toward the bed.

Yet, after two steps, he stopped, and stared at her sleeping form. He felt as if his fingers still burned with the touch of her skin.

He did not trust himself to touch her again.

And she looked so tired, so forlorn. If he touched her again, he would long to console her.

If Will touched her, he would be her lover, enslaved by her, like people in the stories old men told taken forever into the bowels of Fairyland, into the heart of illusion and away from the sane world.

Away from the world where Will had three children and a wife he loved, and a job waiting for him at The Rose, if only he would take it.

He took a deep breath. Mentally, he said goodbye to Silver and her enchantment, and walked out the door and down his steep staircase and onto the road below, to meet his destiny in the theater.

But there, in the midmorning bustle of street vendors and apprentices hurrying away to dinner at the nearest tavern, and forges and small factories working in the tiny, ramshackle hovels and huts of Shoreditch, there, he found the broad gate to the enclosed precinct of The Rose closed, and nailed shut.

The paper glued to it was already curling in the hot sun, the sticky, humid air.

The writing on paper began with “By the order of the Bishop of Winchester,” and went on to say that the theater had been closed for fear of the “great and common plague” ravaging London anew.

Will’s fingers touched Marlowe’s note within his sleeve. Useless now. Will’s stomach hurt and growled with hunger.

Blinking back tears that sprang, unbidden, to his eyes, he turned around.

Another hour without food and he would lose consciousness. How long from there to death?

He’d never seen anyone die of hunger. No one had died of hunger in Stratford in living memory.

He was like the prodigal son who’d left his father’s plentiful table to pasture swine in a foreign land and crave in vain the husks which the swine did eat.

Who had told him he could be a poet? Who had told him to come to London?

On that thought, he heard a cheerful voice, with a cultivated Cambridge accent. “Holla, Will. Will Shakeshaft.”

He turned.

A smiling Kit Marlowe walked toward Will, cutting through the dusty, dark-dressed crowds of Southwark like a ray of sunshine through grimy glass.

Marlowe wore a bright sky-blue doublet, figure-molding blue stockings, fine velvet breeches, and his beautiful gloves and boots.

And he grinned like a man who has eaten enough and has money in his pocket.

He clapped Will on the back familiarly, and cast a casual, uninterested glance at the door of the theater. “Closed. Oh, the luck. Never mind. We’ll find you something else. Let me buy you dinner.”

Will would have followed Marlowe into the very mouth of hell on that promise.

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Framed