Perfect Shadows Read Free Page A

been
bled. Rózsa, having already donned her gown, awaited me by the door.
    Only a few gamblers were still at the tables, their sodden heads
upon their arms Frizer among them. Seething with sudden uncontrolled rage and
humiliation at the memory of his words to Tom upon our parting, I drew my
dagger and stepped towards the drunken man. I did not truly know if I intended
to follow my impulse and cut the villain’s throat or to settle for merely
frightening him into soiling himself. A light touch on my arm swung me face to
face with Rózsa and all thought of vengeance fled. “Do not spill blood in this
house,” she said quietly and drew me out the door.
    Dusk that evening found me, for once, sitting at home. I had
slept heavily until late afternoon, then dressed to go out, but had turned
instead to moping about my chamber thinking of Rózsa. I had never before been
attracted to any woman, never so much as found even one of them in the least
interesting. Why had she such an unaccountable effect upon me?
    My friend and fellow playwright, Watson, had once taxed me with
being a sodomite for spite, saying that if it were made the common practice and
marriage forbidden, then Marlowe would surely wed a woman within a fortnight.
Had he after all been correct? Was it more a matter of perversity than
perversion? I did not like to think so, but then, Rózsa. Oh, Rózsa.
    The winter daylight, limp and dingy as old linen, brightened
neither my chamber nor my mood. Twice I sat down to work, but found myself
merely thumbing through my pages with growing dissatisfaction. I was thinking
I’d not go out at all, but send out for a meal, when there was a light tap on
the door. I answered it and saw my pretty boy of two nights before, in doublet
and trunkhose of crimson velvet, shirt and hose of white silk, and a falling
band of fine Italian lace. He wore riding boots and had his heavy cloak thrown
over his arm, his hair braided into the elaborate lovelocks some of the more
fashionable courtiers were beginning to wear.
    “Come in! What are you doing here and why do you dress so?” I
questioned Rózsa, laughing as I pulled her into a room made suddenly bright.
    “I came to invite you to dine with us tonight and I dress so
because it is both safer and more desirable in this world to be a man, or even
a boy, than a woman,” she grinned at me and I felt a tingle in the pit of my
stomach. I held her against the door, crushing my body’s length against hers,
turning her face up to kiss. She held back for a second, then her body flowed
against me, one hand tangling in my hair, the other dropping to stroke my
rising desire. I broke off with a gasp and she pushed me firmly away. “Anon,
anon! We must go now. Do you put on your boots and bring your cloak. I have
brought a horse for you; no, ’tis no great distance,” she forestalled my
protest,” but the streets are mired knee-deep from today’s thaw.” Numbly I
followed her. What was this woman, that she had such an effect on me, could
order me about, and have me obey like the veriest slave? As we passed a
common-room downstairs voices floated out.
    “Oh, tell me another! What use would that stinkin’ sodomite
Marlowe behavin’ for a wench?” I felt my blood turn to ice then rush burning
hot to my face as I recognized the voice—Nicholas Skeres, a crony of my great
enemy, Frizer. He was lurking here for no other reason than to taunt and
torment me, I was certain. A red haze clouded my sight as I shook off Rózsa’s
restraining hand and slipped into the room. “He’s far more interested in a
boy’s backside,” the coarse voice continued over a chorus of guffaws.
    “Or either side of pretty Thomas Walsingham, eh Skeres?” another
voice gibed.
    “Oh, aye, I’d bet he bends over right enough for our Tommy!” I
was standing behind the drunken Skeres; close enough to watch the progress of a
louse through his thinning, filthy hair. As he reached his right hand up to
scratch, I grasped