pallet near the kitchen fire, and seeing my burden rose swiftly to her feet.
“He’s drunk, Sylvana.” I dropped the wasted body into the bed and pulled the covers up, then stood for a few moments staring at my snoring friend. “He recognized me, or seemed to. I will see him tomorrow night, and try to keep him sober until I do.” Sylvana made a wordless sound of assent, and I turned to look at her. She hadn’t caught up a blanket or robe, and the dim firelight from the next room played up and down her body as she walked back to her pallet, sinking gracefully into the warm hollows in the blankets. In the stronger light I could see the bruising on her throat, made by Richard’s clumsy feeding. I followed and knelt to touch her throat lightly, and she shivered. I pulled her coverlet up around her then settled cross-legged to speak with her.
“The boy hurts you,” I said softly, and she shook her head. “He is awkward, my lord, as any young thing might be, but not cruel. He will learn his skills, and that swiftly, I think. Sylvie is much taken with him, and Eden is jealous.” Sylvana yawned and stretched, snuggling down into her bed, and I dropped a quick kiss onto her forehead before rising to my feet. I went up to Richard’s room, to check on him before I left, and found him quiet, his hair across the pillow like a raven’s wing on snow. His change was minimal physically. He appeared no more than sixteen, and his features had refined to a shattering beauty, regaining some of the androgyny he had lost in his adolescence. I involuntarily stroked my jaw, reflecting on the changes wrought in my own appearance. I had not minded gaining the two or three inches in height, but the face was still somewhat of a shock in the mirror, like and yet so unlike my own, at least as I remembered it. Richard stirred a little in his sleep, turning onto his side, his face away from me, and muttered a little before sinking back into his dream. I went then, to roam the London streets until the dawn forced me home.
The next evening a message awaited me, asking me to meet with Geoffrey at Rózsa’s lodging in the city. I stepped into Nashe’s little room before I left, and the man turned his wandering gaze towards me, but did not seem to remember his speech of the night before.
“My lord?” he whispered, trying to rise. I stopped him with a wave, leaning over the narrow cot. “No, rest easy, Master Nashe. I must go out, but before I left I wanted you to know that all your books were not burned. Many were hidden away in libraries both here and abroad. You will not be forgotten, or remembered only as a passing reference to works unknown. Rest now, and get well.” I passed my hand over the high forehead, rumpling the stubbly hair. He smiled and sank into an easy sleep, as I slipped from the closet, shaking my head. Nashe, it seemed, recognized me as his old friend only while in his cups. I left to keep my appointment, and when I arrived Geoffrey was waiting for me with news of Hal’s trial. With his four hundred years, Geoffrey was old enough that the soft winter sunlight did not trouble him unduly, and had attended the trial to report the proceedings first hand. It had not gone well. As Rózsa’s handsome serving-man, Emile, served the wine, Geoffrey told the ugly story.
Francis Bacon, a long-time friend of the Earl of Essex, as well as a long-time beneficiary of the earl’s patronage, ruthlessly led the prosecution, to distance himself from the taint, no doubt. Essex was shaken and furious at Bacon’s defection, and the arguments and obfuscation he clumsily presented in his defense were brutally knocked down. When the two earls had returned to the court to hear the results of the jury’s deliberation, the peers had stood, one by one, and pronounced Essex a foul traitor, then had repeated the entire procedure with Southampton. The death sentence had been read out in ruthless detail, and Hal had blanched and placed himself under Her Majesty’s mercy, confessing his fault and entreating her leniency with simple dignity. Robin had merely asked that his favored divine be allowed to attend upon him in the Tower. They were marched back to