Perfect Shadows

Part Two:

SHADOWS RELICT

Chapter 1

I struggled for a time against the bindings that held me fast, then gave up in exhaustion. I was in total darkness, half sitting in what seemed to be a bed. My arms were stretched out to either side and securely tied. A wide band crossed my midsection, and my feet were caught together and knotted firmly to the bed’s foot. Pillows cushioned my contact with the headboard behind me, which also seemed to be swathed in many layers of soft cloth. My bonds, so my questing fingers told me, were wrappings of the finest silk. I tried to remember what may have brought me to my present pass, but other than a few random images, I could remember nothing—nothing at all, not even my name.

Fear coiled in me, leaving me shaking and sick. I wrenched again at the bonds, frantically, when I heard a door open and saw the glow of a candle. “Where am I?” I whispered, but the serving wench who carried the candle only squeaked at my faint words and ran from the room. I tried to call out after her but again only produced a whisper. The light, however brief, had given me further food for thought: the room looked curiously flat and I seemed to be blind in my right eye.

The door opened again and a heavyset, jovial man of middle-age bounced through it. He set his candle upon a table and turned to the bed, his broad and placid face beaming.

“Kit, lad! So happy to see that you are—awake. How are you feeling? Confused, I warrant and rightly so. Hungry too, I doubt not. Anneke!” he bellowed the last, causing me to flinch back into my pillows. The sharp eyes in that round face missed nothing and the shout was not repeated. “I shall just see to it, shall I?” and he whisked from the room with an agility that belied his bulk, to return a few moments later with a bowl and spoon. He sat on the edge of the bed and began to feed me. The bowl held not the broth that I had expected, but something dark and only lukewarm, with an unusual salty-sweet flavor, rich and delicious. I delayed my questions until we had finished, then asked, “Why am I bound?” in a hoarse voice, faint still, but better than a whisper.

“You’ve been ill, Kit, very ill, for a very long time, and at times quite violent. This is for your own sake. We feared you would do yourself some further injury.”

“Will you free me now?”

“No, not yet, but soon Kit, that I promise. Now, do you remember aught of what has happened to you? Aught at all?”

“Not even being Kit,” I said and found myself grinning weakly, possibly with relief at finding my captor so friendly. “Am I Kit? And who might he be?” My voice was stronger now, a husky, light baritone.

“It will be better if you can remember on your own. Shall I read to you? No? Well, rest you then and I’ll look in on you anon.”

“An it please you, leave the candle.” The heavy man nodded and shut the door gently behind him.

I studied my surroundings. The chamber appeared to be windowless, as the fine hangings on the walls did not so much as sway, though I could hear the wind outside whistling around the corners of the house. The candle flame burned steady and tall, and the candle was expensive hard wax, not cheap tallow. The bed where I lay was adorned with the richest of hangings and the floor was covered over in peerless Turkey carpets which at home would be carefully kept on tables and chests, the floors making do with rushes or straw. I drew a sharp breath. Home! The memory was but a glimpse and try though I might, nothing more would come of it, so I returned to my contemplation of my prison. I could hear, faint and far away, voices and music, and beyond that the forlorn howls of wolves. Though I had not meant to sleep, I soon found a dulling lethargy stealing over me, drowning my will.

When I awoke I was in darkness once more. The candle had guttered out and the smell of the smoking wick brought a burdensome memory: the cavernous great cathedral, the scent of wax candles and incense, a show of outward piety rotted from within by secret vice. I could feel the alderman’s sweaty hands roaming my recoiling body, feel his hot, panting breath as he pawed the child that I had been—I stifled a cry at the memory and the sound of my own voice calmed me. Whatever it was, whenever it may have happened, it was not now. And then the memories were gone, vanished into shadow like the light of a blown-out candle. I knew that I had remembered something, but not what. I threw myself against the restraints as if I could physically grasp the memories, catch them and hold them if only I were free! In a frighteningly short time, I was too exhausted to move, and slumped in my bonds. A sheen of sweat covered me, chilling my flesh, so that my skin glistened in the sudden light of the candle the heavy-set man carried as he entered.

“Nicolas!” I called out and laughed. “Nicolas.”

“My dear young friend! You remember me! What—”

“No. No, I do but remember that that name goes with that face: I know you not.”

“But it is a beginning. And what have you been doing to so exercise yourself?” he asked, pulling a large handkerchief from the sleeve of his doublet and mopping at my brow.

“Remembering,” I said, wryly. He smiled at that and turned back to the door. When he returned to the bed he proceeded to feed me as before. As we finished a serving man entered bearing a tray laden with shaving apparatus. The servant shaved me and combed out the dark curls that lay over my shoulders, then retired.

“I am half blind—why?” I asked softly.

“You lost the eye when you were injured,” Nicolas said gently and tied a black silk patch to cover the empty socket. He held a mirror that I might study the effect. I looked into the face of a stranger, not unhandsome, and the eye-patch gave my countenance a sinister air of which I thoroughly approved.

“And now, my friend, do you feel up to meeting our host?” Nicolas beamed at me.

“Then you are not—yes, I feel quite well. May I not be freed first?”

He shook his head gravely. “No, that is for him to say. He has much experience with injuries and illnesses such as yours and will know best. Now rest yourself and I shall bring him.” It was only a few minutes later that Nicolas returned with a man of overwhelming presence. He was tall and well built with the lithe grace of a professional duelist, and like a duelist, he radiated a sense of inherent danger. His clothing, somewhat conservative, was of impeccable cut and somber in color. His full-cut trousers met high boots of supple leather; his black satin doublet was richly embroidered with gold thread. His shirt was of black silk, and even his falling band of cobweb-lawn had been dyed sable. It set off perfectly the pallor of his complexion and the tawny gold of his hair, tied into lovelocks with silk ribbons and flowing over his right shoulder in rippling waves to his waist. In his left earlobe he wore a cabochon ruby the color of blood, and a gold ring on the little finger of his right hand.

His penetrating glance looked out from under finely arched brows, his slate-grey eyes were shadowed by his long lashes and wide-set under a high forehead with a pronounced widow’s peak. When I realized that I was gaping like a bumpkin I flushed and looked away for a second, but my gaze was drawn irresistibly back to this man, my host. Beside him, Nicolas looked like a squat bundle of laundry and I guessed that I myself would appear but a callow stripling. I certainly felt like one.

The man crossed the room to sit familiarly on the side of my bed and smiled. His mouth sensitive, and his voice, when he spoke, was resonant and deep, his English perfect, though with an odd intonation. “I am Geoffrey of Brittany. Welcome to my house, Christopher Marlowe.”

Marlowe . . . Marlowe . . . the name echoed in my mind. Yes, I was Marlowe, the darling of the playhouses. Images flashed before me: a playhouse stage before a shouting crowd; a beautiful young man with eyes of harebell-blue reaching up a slender hand to sweep his golden hair from his sulky mouth; an older man’s sullen, envious face; a woman dark as the boy had been fair, radiating a refined sensuality that could rouse a man three days dead; then the memories slipped away again, taunting me. I shook my head to clear it and smiled weakly back at my host. “Might I be loosed now, my lord?”

“Please, call me Geoffrey. Yes, I think that you may, upon your word not to leave your bed without either Nicolas or myself beside you, until I say you may. Do you so promise?”

“Yes,” I said, eagerly. Within a few minutes I was free of the restraints that had held me so long; I brought my hands together, rubbing them slowly, although there was little of the numbness I had expected. I puzzled a bit over the ring I found upon my right little finger, an amethyst intaglio, the head of a handsome man in the classical style, set in gold. It was a fellow to the one that Geoffrey, and, as I now noted, Nicolas also wore.

“Now, we shall see if you are up to taking a few steps, yes? Good.” I swung my feet over the side of the bed and stood in one motion. A wave of dizziness swept over me. I swayed and might have crashed to the floor if Geoffrey had not caught me and set me gently back upon the bed.

“Not so fast, my young friend! You have been long abed, and must expect to take some time to find your feet again,” Nicolas exclaimed. I nodded, laughing ruefully, and took the proffered arm, managing only a few wobbly steps before Geoffrey peremptorily ordered me back to bed. Again I felt the lethargy stealing over me, and as I drifted into a heavy sleep I heard him murmur to Nicolas “He does well. Another day of rest and he will be strong enough to. .. .” and then sleep claimed me.