Hell and Earth

“I know what thy parole is worth.” Baines’ smirk gave the words layers Kit did not care to think about. Baines jerked his hands as if tugging reins; the web of light around Will tightened. Will staggered woodenly, like a jangled marionette.

“I did everything I swore I would,” Kit answered, refusing to flinch or look away.

Baines smiled, voice like a velvet glove across the back of Kit’s neck. “Pussycat. Isn’t it time thou didst admit where thou dost belong?”

“I’ll do what you wish, Dick,” Kit said, the words like grit on his tongue. He hated that he did not have to pretend to the fear and diffidence in his tone. “But let Will go, or you’ll get nothing from me.”

Kit closed his eyes, feeling Baines’ consideration. Mehiel stirred restlessly under his skin. The man pushed the angel down, and waited. Morgan touched Kit’s boot again, and this time Gin did not shy. Kit leaned down to her, never taking his eyes off Baines, and she hoisted herself on the edge of his saddle until she could speak into his ear.

“Is this the side thou’rt choosing, then, sweet poet? After all the kindness of the Fae to thee?”

“Kindness?” Kit snorted, not caring that Baines could see his lips. “Is that what thou callest it, my Queen?” He hoped she could hear the irony in his tone. He drew his hand from his pocket and let his fingers brush her hair behind her ear. Trust me.“Do not vent thy wrath on Will, when I am gone,” he murmured, taking a chance and dropping his eyes for a moment to catch hers. “And trust us. I think, my Queen, at last we understand our destiny.”

She chuckled. He straightened in the saddle, raised his head, and nudged Gin forward, aware that Ben had joined the Queens in flanking him. Kit warned the big man away with a glance, and turned his attention back to Baines and the tangle of light in his hands like so much knotted yarn.

“Well?” Kit said.

“I have your word, puss?”

“I have been many things,” Kit answered, “but I have never been forsworn. I swear to thee that Christofer Marley will do your bidding, Master Baines, and do unto thee no harm.”

“And your friends.”

Kit pi

Baines laughed low in his throat and opened his hands. “So mote it be.” And boldly, calmly he collected his reins and turned the bay gelding with his knees. “Thou’lt forgive me if I lay a compulsion and a binding upon thee, this time–”

“I’ll forgive anything,” Kit answered, and reined Gin up alongside the bay, leaving the Mebd and Morgan and Ben staring after him, and Murchaud’s long fingers digging into Will’s shoulder to hold the poet back. He clenched his hand tight on the nail in his pocket and listened while Baines whispered the words, made slow passes in the air. The two steeds maintained a stately pace, down the bank toward a river that might almost have been the Thames, or might have been the Stour of Kit’s childhood memories: it twisted back and forth in his vision, from a broad tidal thing, green and brown with eddies, subtle enough to drown a man no matter how strong a swimmer he might be to a brook a man might ford on horseback and barely wet his boots.

Kit felt the magic clutch at his mind and heart and liver, a mindless obedience that would have sucked the wit and love and courage from him. He bit his lip, and let the ensorcelled iron pierce his palm until his own blood wet his hand and his hip through the fabric of his doublet. He heard himself whimper, and felt his own power flare and then slither back, pressed aside by the practiced might of Baines’ sorcery. He quailed like a man slipping on ice toward a cliff face, clutching at slick grasses, and his fey horse shuddered beneath him. Mehiel–

«Hold fast,» the angel answered, and quoted poetry. «Angels and ministers of grace defend us.»

The pain of the nail in Kit’s palm was just enough to keep the laugh from bubbling from his lips. Baines’ spell clutched his throat; he could not breathe; he dropped the reins and clutched his collar, tearing it open, sagging forward over Gin’s blond mane. The pressure crushed him, swept him aside, rolled him under. Shoved.

And eased.

Baines’ hand was on his sleeve, tugging him upright. “Sit straight, Puss,” Baines said, and Kit obeyed without thought. “Come along.”

Kit opened his hand, the nail driven through his palm grating between the bones. He gasped and sat back in the saddle, feeling the eyes on his back. The eyes of his friends. Trust me.

Baines could destroy him in any fight. Sorcerous or physical, it mattered not. Kit had no hope of meeting him in open war.

Which left just treachery.

Kit gave Gin a little leg on the off side, sending him shoulder to shoulder with Baines’ bay. Kit’s knee banged Baines’ calf; Baines cursed good‑naturedly, raising his right hand to Kit’s shoulder to ward man and horse away.

As he turned, Kit ski

He leaned across his saddle and twistedthe weapon in Baines’ guts, and the nail thrust through the back of his own hand.

Gin shrieked and planted both forehooves at the cataract of blood that drenched them both, and Baines’ bay horse too. The bay reared; Kit yelped as the saber was dragged from his grip, Baines somehow staying in the saddle as his horse curvetted.

Staying in the saddle, Kit estimated, but not for long, with both hands folded across his belly like that, holding his guts inside like an overfull armload of mold‑slicked gray rope. Gin’s eyes were white‑edged, his ears laid back hard as he backed away, one step and then another, his head down to protect his throat as if he faced a slavering dog.

“Puss – ” Baines managed, more a bubble of blood on his lips than a word. He blinked, his expression the strangest blend of grief and hurt betrayal; Kit saw it with a clarity that made a mockery of the ten feet between them. “Forsworn?” And then his grip failed, and his guts slid out over his thighs and the saddle, and his body tumbled backward as his bay horse said enoughand put its hooves hard to the ground.

Kit gentled Gin with a hand that left bloody streaks on the sorrel’s blond mane, remembered a moment later the nail sunk into his palm. He picked it free while his gelding’s quivering slowed, and bound the wound with a scrap torn from his filthy white doublet. He trembled like shaken paper, and it took all his concentration to wind the cloth around his hand. By the time he had the bleeding stopped, the Fae had joined him, and the mortal riders too.

Morgan got to him first, Will seated pillion behind her. She reined her mare in close enough that Gin could lean a shoulder on her to be comforted, and slid her own arm around Kit’s waist, seeming not to notice that it took all of hisflickering strength of heart not to shy and buck. “Clever,” she said, and left it at that, leaning away.

He sighed, stealing another glance at the ruin of his worst nightmare sprawled messily on the bank. He couldn’t quite look at Baines; nor could he–quite–look away.

“Kit.” Will’s voice, and Will’s gentle hand on his arm.

Kit flinched, held himself steady as Gin tossed his head in protest of the blood and his rider’s plain fear. “Aye, love?”

“You forswore yourself for me?”

Kit laughed, and looked up, feeling suddenly lightened. “No,” he said, and shook his head, feeling how his hair gritted against his neck. “I told Dick that Christofer Marley would do as he bid.”