Perfect Shadows

chapter 14

I awoke lying on my back on a bare wooden bench or cot in the center of a small room, and when I tried to sit up I realized that I was fettered in such a way that movement was almost impossible. My arms were stretched at right angles to my body and chained securely to either wall, my feet caught at the foot of the cot, and a collar kept me from raising my head, which throbbed painfully. I turned my head to look at the shackles, and my stomach twisted. They were made of wood, reinforced with steel; someone knew entirely too much about me.

The room was bare except for the narrow cot on which I lay, and the pile in the corner that I recognized as my clothing and my weapons. I was left in my shirt, breeches, and stockings. A pad had been thoughtfully placed between my head and the bench beneath me, keeping contact with the wood from exacerbating the wound. The wall at my feet was almost entirely made of glass, and I supposed that the door was behind me. It was not long after I woke that I heard a key turn in a heavy lock and someone entered. I struggled to see who was behind me, but it was useless. The wood of my fetters galled me, blistering my undead flesh when I pulled against it, and preventing me from exercising my full strength. I stopped moving and waited. The man walked slowly around the bed, stepping carefully over the taut chain, and held the candle up that I might see him. My stomach knotted inside me as I recognized him: Northumberland, the so-called Wizard Earl. His clothing stank of smoke.

“I trust you are comfortable, Master Marlowe?” he asked tauntingly.

“Tolerably, given the situation, and my name is Kryštof. You may call me ‘your highness’, or ‘your grace’. If ransom is your purpose, I’m afraid you’ve chosen poorly. My brother is not very likely to spare much coin for me,” I told him, assuming a composure that I was far from feeling.

“You must be wondering why you have been brought here,” the earl continued, as if he hadn’t heard. “I have had some very interesting conversations with an old friend and patron of yours, that served to spur my own research,” he fell silent, but his cold eyes, the greasy grey-green of pond ice, continued to roam my captive body. It seemed hours, but can really only have been a few minutes before he recalled himself and turned to me. As he moved I smelled the smoke again, and it recalled memories of nights at Ralegh’s manor, Durham House, memories of the several futile attempts made to conjure demons. There had been only one success claimed, though I had not seen it myself, and that had been Northumberland’s endeavor. The earl moved to my side, and I, looking at the window, shuddered. When the morning came . . . I tried to jerk my head away as the earl leaned over me, but the collar bit into my throat, choking me.” If you were not who I believe you to be, the jewel would not have fetched you, and you would not have mistaken my groom for the one who sold it to me. But who you are is of no consequence; it is what you are that interests me, and that I know very well.” He stood smiling, gazing at the windows.

“Do you remember how you would mock me, kind Kit? I do,” he said softly, and turned his smile on me. My gut knotted at that smile, and I knew that he meant to kill me. After a time he continued. “I have spent weary years searching in vain for the philosopher’s stone, not for vain gold, but for immortality, and now you, a baseborn little cobbler’s son, you have the immortality I’ve squandered my life to gain. I mean to have it and you will give it to me.” I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. “No matter,” the earl laughed without humor. “I have the knowledge and the wherewithal to take it, Marlowe, Marley, Merlin.” He was prodding me as he ever had, upon my commoner’s name, and that I had, for time in the pride-filled way of youth, assumed the name of the great wizard. He left the room then, his laughter trailing behind him as dry and lifeless as November leaves.

The window faced north, and while the diffused daylight did me no direct damage, it broke my rest, tormenting me, causing me to toss and strain against the manacles that held me. Seven such days and nights passed without so much as footsteps on the other side of the door. I thought I should go mad from the pain of my cramping limbs, the shackle-galls, and my rising hunger, my thoughts forever whirling around Northumberland’s words. An old friend and patron, he had said, and that could only be Thomas Walsingham. Had Tommy bartered my life away once more? On the seventh night Northumberland returned, and such was my state that I was almost glad to see him. He viewed my tortured body with satisfaction, and motioned to those behind him into the room. A heavy-set serving man entered, dragging a frightened boy along. The hunger coiled in me, I could smell the blood I needed, smell it even over the reek of unwashed bodies, theirs and my own. The earl took the arm of the struggling child, holding it firmly against my mouth. The hunger wrenched and twisted inside me like a living thing as I turned my head, forcing my lips away from the terrified boy. After a few minutes the earl released his hold and left the room, followed swiftly by the servant and the boy. This was repeated on the following nights, until upon the third night the hunger overpowered me and I fed.

I was allowed no more than a mouthful before the boy was wrested from me and bundled out of the room. Another night passed before Northumberland returned with a man, dwarfish in stature and obviously foreign. The earl stood gloating, then knelt on a cushion that the little man had placed on the floor beside my cot. He smiled as his doublet sleeve was removed and shirtsleeve turned up above his elbow. “You are in no doubt, Doctor?” he asked absently, not taking his eyes off me.

“None whatsoever,” the dwarf replied. “It is no different than being bled, my lord.” The earl nodded and pressed the vein in his wrist against my lips. The hunger possessed me and I sunk my teeth into the vein, filling my mouth and letting my pleasure overflow into the man who fed me until the connection was forcibly broken by the dwarf. “That will do, my lord. That is enough.” The earl collapsed against the side of the cot, his eyes heavy with satisfaction.

“Oh no,” he said, “oh, not at all like being bled, and not nearly enough.”

They kept me hungry, and my need forced me to continue feeding from the earl. In the fourth week of my captivity, the pattern changed. After I had fed, the earl took a dagger and slit my shirtsleeves from wrist to shoulder, then motioned to the doctor, who advanced slowly, holding a cup in his left hand. Ashe approached; he drew his right hand from the folds of his gown. I struggled against my bonds, straining futilely to break them when I recognized the object the little man held: a fleam. The dwarf placed the point against the vein in my inner elbow and gave the bar a quick firm tap with the cup, lowering it quickly to catch the dark blood that flowed freely from the wound. The knife was not made of steel, but of some hardened wood, so that the wound would remain open in my undead flesh. When the cup was full he handed it to the earl and swiftly bandaged the cut to close it.

Northumberland, a self-satisfied smile on his face, raised the cup in a salute, and drained it. I felt tears of despair scald my cheek, and I turned my face away. The act of blood exchange was meant to be a gift, a loving act of sharing. This was a violation, a defilement, and it left me feeling broken, degraded.

Time passed, maybe a week, maybe more, every night bringing a repetition of the bloodletting, and some nights more than one. I had retreated into a silence, distancing myself from what was being done to me in an effort not to go mad; I fed mechanically and no longer fought the knife. One night, after handing the empty cup to the doctor, the earl spoke to me. “How many times must the exchange take place?” I looked beyond him, making no response, even when the earl ripped the rags of my shirt from my body and nodded to the little man at the brazier they had set burning in the corner. An instant later a scream tore from my throat as the earl pressed the glowing end of a burning oaken brand against the skin of my chest, then tossed it aside and repeated his question. When no answer came he reached for another brand.

“Three times, maybe four,” I whispered, staring at the end of the brand, glowing cherry-red and cunningly carved into a circled five pointed star.

“But I wonder if that’s true?” the earl murmured, a mad luster glazing his murky, opaque eyes. He applied the brand again, to the other side of my chest, crooning almost as a lover when my scream rent the air and sank into a whimper. After a few moments he shook himself and stood, smoothing the velvet of his gown. “Well, then, I suppose it must be. Did you hear, Doctor Montague? We shall proceed tomorrow night,” he said, and turned back to me, asking what he could expect, how he would rise from the grave, and if I hesitated to answer the earl dragged a rough nail across my burned and blistered skin. An eternity later he turned to go, stopping almost as if in afterthought. “There’s someone waiting to see you,” he said with spiteful good humor, and threw open the door. I recognized the scent, civet and ambergris, before I even saw him. It was Tom.

He gave a cry at the sight of me, taking in the torn and stinking clothing, my matted hair and wasted frame, the sores where the wooden shackles had galled my flesh. His eyes swept the inflamed wounds along the veins in my arms, and the blackened blisters on my chest. I turned my head, my blood-smeared lips forming themselves into a travesty of a smile.

“Well, Tommy, it seems that I should not have dismissed your competence at vengeance quite so casually. How now, do you mislike what you have made?” My voice was hoarse and almost inaudible. Tom took a step back.

“I—I never intended this—”

“Never mind, Tommy,” I interrupted him wearily. “I forgive you. Now run along.” Tom opened his mouth as if to speak again, then fled the room, leaving Northumberland snickering behind him.



The next night, after vague dreams of being manhandled, I woke in a different room. The rags of my clothing had been stripped from me, and I was bound spread-eagled on a cold wooden floor. The wooden shackles still encircled my wrists and ankles, the collar still in place around my neck, and I was pegged tightly to the floor beneath me. I could turn my head enough make out the broad lines of a pentacle chalked around me, but not enough to read its intent. My chest itched from the designs and symbols painted there with a stinking paste mixed from soot and shit. Presently the earl, robed in red, entered with his diminutive helper, robed in black. They set about their business, ignoring me as I waited helpless in the middle of the floor. Before long their preparations were completed and the invocation started, making it plain that they were about to conjure a demon into the circle with me.

I knew then that I would die this night, and desired only that whatever was conjured would make a quick end to me. The room filled with the smoke of the burning herbs, which did not rise from the braziers, but spilled out over the floor like a filthy ground fog. I had closed my eye against the acrid smoke, but opened it wide at the peak of the chant when a burst of power tore through the room, slamming the earl against a wall. It was as if a portal that should have opened only a crack had been thrust full wide to accommodate . . . what?

I realized that I was no longer alone inside the circle. A young man sat facing me, a beautiful young man, with hair of silver-gilt, and a naked form that set my heart racing. I stared at the high cheekbones, the long, slanting, lilac-colored and slit-pupiled eyes, at the mouth that cried out to be kissed. The demon raised a slender long-fingered hand to cradle my cheek, and I turned away, trying to hide my disfigured face. I well knew what Frizer’s dagger had done to my looks. An angry jagged scar puckered my eyelid and the lids were caught together with tiny stitches of silk, against the ruin behind them. I was aware of the sour smell of my soiled and defiled body, my filthy hair and unshaven beard. At least, being undead, I was spared the further humiliation of being louse-ridden. How could such beauty bear to look at my disfigurement?

“What, dost thou turn from me yet again, my Kit? Dost thou not know me?” The voice matched the form to perfection: low and musical, with a ringing purity of tone. “How then, wouldst thou also rather I take the form of an old friar? I did not think it of thee.” His last words took on a husky, insinuating tone.

“Mephistophilis,” I breathed, and turned back to look my fill at my own personal demon. He nodded, and trailed a talon-tipped finger down my chest, wrenching a shuddering sigh from me. The talons, iridescent as mother-of-pearl, only added to the perfection of those hands. “Why,” I started, but the demon silenced me with a kiss.

“Dids’t thou think that I would let another come for thee, my Kit? Or dost thou think mayhap that I would not be let to come to thee?

“Dost thou believe that there are no reprieves,

No solaces in Hell, my Kit? There are,

There are, to make our damnation sharper,”

Mephistophilis said, and laughed low in his throat at my startled reaction.

“Canst thou wonder at my speech when ’tis thou

That didst teach it me? Oh, most knowing pen,

Should I then speak thee less fair than Faustus?”

My voice was torn between fear and longing as I asked, “Am I damned, then? Art thou come for me?” but my demon shook his head.

“Thou hast chosen another way, my Kit: I might else have come for thee at Deptford. Now I but caught at an opening, and it will be many and many a long year ere I come to thee again.”

“Had I as many souls as there be stars,

I’d give them all for Mephistophilis,”

I whispered brokenly.

“It is, withal, the courtesy of Hell, to let Marlowe word his own damnation,” he agreed softly, then broke my fetters with a snap of his fingers. He helped me to sit up, and wiped the noisome glyphs from my chest with arose-scented handkerchief that appeared from nowhere and vanished accordingly. He leant to brush his exquisite lips against the burns on my chest, and I shuddered at the exquisite mingling of pain and pleasure. I raised a wondering hand to that flawless face, formed of my dreams and for my damnation, and Mephistophilis caught it in his own, holding it against his cheek and leaning over to kiss me deeply and searchingly.

“Ah, my Kit, my poor crippled creator, thou couldst not make me now! I must take my leave of thee forthwith; my task is accomplished, thou art safe and my time hath sped.” He vanished in a cloud of silvery-lilac rose petals that exactly matched his eyes.