to admit several large footmen. One helped Frizer to his feet, while two more flanked me, each taking an arm.
“You call yourself a gentleman, a scholar! You’re nothing without patronage, nothing without me! I’ve done everything for you, and you refuse me even one small favor in return! Jumped up little cobbler’s son!” Tom screamed, his face purpling with rage. I jerked free of the serving men, turned on my heel, and headed for the door.
“I did not give you leave to go!” Tom bellowed. I ignored him.
“Let him go,” Frizer growled. “He’s naught but a poet and a filthy playwright. Let him go!”
“Marlowe! Oy, Tamburlaine, over here!” It was Nashe’s voice. Peering into the tavern’s smoky gloom, I spotted his manic, gap-toothed grin behind a wildly waving tankard, and crossed the crowded room to join him. “I thought you were at Scadbury for the week.”
“I decided not to stay,” I said briefly, shedding my threadbare cloak and shaking the sleet from it. Patrons at the surrounding tables cursed or laughed as the icy spray caught or missed them, but none seemed inclined to fight, alas.
“Frizer, eh?” returned the quick-witted Nashe. “I tell you what, Kit, lets us catch him out some night, strip him mother-naked, then bind him fast to Paul’s Cross for the watch to find!” His insolence restored my humor, and I grinned, agreeing that the knave, with his pious parson’s face and pimp’s soul, deserved nothing less. “Well, never mind,” he said consolingly. “I got paid today—help me celebrate!”
We had spent an hour or so indulging in scathing observations upon our mutual acquaintances and squandering his shillings, when I spotted a new face just entering. Two new faces, a beautiful young man, and a somewhat stout, but still vigorous, older man. They exchanged a few quiet words, and the younger man’s eyes swept the common-room and stopped at me. I straightened incredulously and returned the gaze, resisting the urge to look behind me.
My preference in lovers was well enough known, but few had ever sought me out and never before a jewel such as this. The young man was gentry, from the look of the rich crimson velvet that clothed him. Wildly, I wondered if this was Tom’s cony, but no, he’d said that lad was fair and this youth was olive-skinned, with smoky, restive eyes and inky hair. He and his companion nodded to each other and he headed straight towards me. My satisfaction was a little soured by suspicion as he slid into a seat next tome, so close that our thighs pressed together. It was getting damnably hot in the room, for all it was January, and the sudden pressure in my groin was promising to become painful. I gulped at my wine and edged away from the lad, who let me go and then laughed, a throaty chuckle that set my head spinning.
“Is it fear, or desire, that so disturbs you?” he whispered, sliding a narrow hand onto my knee. His voice, husky and low, seemed almost to purr, and was graced with a faint foreign accent. I glanced around but his companion had vanished. Nashe gave me a wry and only slightly disapproving grimace and took himself off to a dice game in the far corner.
“Have I reason to fear you?” I asked, as sweat tickled my body.
He brushed my question aside with a laugh and leaned closer. “Desire, then. ‘He is a fool who loves not tobacco and boys.’, so you’ve said oft enough, or so it is told me. Do you desire me?” I nodded, unable to speak past the sudden lump in my throat. “Then meet me tomorrow evening for the Lord Mayor’s Twelfth Night masque at Crosby Place. You know where that is?” His careful manner of speech, and the odd lilt of his accent had beguiled me, but that drew me up short.
“I cannot go there!” I knew full well the sort of reception I, or any of my ilk would receive at the hands of the Lord Mayor’s grooms, but my companion brushed my objections aside.
“Then I do dare you come; have I not said it is a masque? Disguise yourself! If you have the valor there to meet me, then you have won me, but if you are a craven, then I would as lief you stay away.” He considered for a moment and then gave me a wicked, fetching smile.” Fail me not, my Leander, and look not to drown your fires in