caught up the weapons and clothing from the corner, and, still in silence, they made their way back to the others. Ralegh knelt inside the broken circle beside Kit, who still stared into his empty hands, oblivious of Jehan holding him tenderly as tears streamed down his face. Geoffrey dropped down by Jehan and took Marlowe from him. “Fetch the saddlebags,” he ordered.
As Geoffrey and Jehan dressed the unresisting body, Sir Walter and Nicolas poked about the rest of the house, which was almost completely empty, and returned to the study. Sir Walter nudged a pile of cloth, almost invisible in the shadows against a wall, and gave a short startled bark as he rolled the corpse out into the light. “Aestatis Montague,” he breathed, as he stooped to make out the little man’s grotesquely contorted features. The eyes had bulged nearly out of the sockets and the tongue protruded obscenely, already blackening.
“You knew the man?” Nicolas asked, tautly.
“Knew of him, rather. He is, was,” Ralegh corrected himself, “a defrocked priest, and made a great study of demons; he probably knew more than any other man about Lamia and other such spirits. He was said to have known, by some to have been the model for, the original Faustus, though they were mistaken in the latter case. He studied a great deal in the East. I had not known that he was in England, or that Harry knew him,” he replied, and jerked around as Geoffrey returned carrying a cask of oil which he dumped out over the floor.
“One moment, your grace,” Ralegh cried, crossing to the table at the far end of the room, scooping up the empty saddlebags as he went. He began hurriedly to sort the books there, a number of which he loaded into the bags, and included the sack holding the herbs for the braziers. He nodded to Geoffrey when he had done, and slung the heavy bags to his shoulder. Geoffrey returned the nod, waiting until Nicolas and Sir Walter had climbed back out of the window before kicking the contents of the smoldering brazier into the spreading slick of oil, igniting it.
Jehan stood by the horses, holding Marlowe against his body before him, his arms crossed over his chest and held tightly at the wrists. There was a wildness in the unseeing face that disturbed Nicolas, and Geoffrey, assessing the situation, swiftly mounted. He reached for the man, to set him on the saddlebow, but Marlowe twisted from the loosened grip and ran, stumbling and weak from his long imprisonment. Jehan was on him in an instant, knocking him heavily to the ground and pinning him there, then looking helplessly up at the others.
“We’ll have to bind him,” Geoffrey said, raising a hand to quell the protests. “Yes, I know, but we have no choice. The dawn will be upon us soon and we must be home safe before it. Sir Walter?” Ralegh nodded and snatched a hanging from the window even as the fire caught it, throwing it to the ground and stamping on it before hacking it into long strips with his dagger. Marlowe fought wildly, his empty expression less than sane, but Nicolas was relentless, and the younger man was soon trussed wrist, knee, and ankle. They set him sideways on the saddle bow before Geoffrey, who spoke him gentle, noting the tears that ran freely down the left cheek, and seeped slowly through the stitched lids of the ruined right eye. The other two mounted and Sir Walter started as Jehan transformed before his eyes in the flickering light of the blazing house, but said nothing as they galloped into the night.
Harry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, sat in the shadows of the wood, watching the house burn. What could he expect of his life from now on? He should have questioned Marlowe further while he had him, he could see that now. His tongue flicked nervously over his lips as he thought of the outcry his victim had made at the branding, and how swiftly he had broken. Percy unconsciously stroked the swelling at his crotch, thinking of other thing she might have done to the helpless man, and other things he might have learned. Too late, now, but there could be other times, would be other times. A sudden doubt assailed him as he recalled with sickening clarity what he had seen that night.
It had begun routinely enough; they had sweptback the rushes covering the floor and had