The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [89]
It was also possible, Shakespeare considered, that he had eaten of the insane root that took the reason prisoner. Such plants were known of, and Shakespeare had eaten hurriedly of some strangely flavoured vegetables since arriving in Venice. Did they not say that men caught in the thrall of such food would find fragments of nightmare scattered through their waking lives like plums in a plum duff?
Looking upward to the beach, which was now fifty feet or more above the churning waves, Shakespeare could make out a mass of people, fifty or more, all standing together. The last few swimmers swarmed up the metal surface to join them. They waited, silent and still, all gazing inward to the towers and halls of Braxiatel's palace. Shakespeare wasn't sure, but he thought that they were holding hands. Somewhere beyond them was the blue of the sky, and Shakespeare thought for a fleeting moment that he saw something drop from the sky towards the island - a flattened disc with lights set equally around its circumference.
There was a fourth possibility, of course. It could all be true. Men from another star islands that could rise from the water: people with rocks in their heads that gave them the plague. Yes, it could all be true. And Shakespeare himself might be King Sigismund of Denmark.
Shakespeare sighed. At the end of the day, did it matter whether he was bewitched, mad, dreaming or sane? Would it affect what he did? What he said? What he had to do?
"I don't understand," the Doctor was saying to Braxiatel. "They are all together now. If my theory that they are all part of one huge explosive device is correct then I am at a loss to know why they haven't exploded."
"Don't sound so disappointed," Braxiatel replied. "Perhaps they're not all there. That was the point of raising the island - to leave a lot of them bobbing on the ocean, too late for the party."
"I think you were too late for that, my boy." The Doctor nodded sagely. "If I am not mistaken, everybody from the boats is now standing on that cliff. And they're not waiting for Christmas, hmm?"
Braxiatel shrugged. "Then perhaps there's something missing - a fuse of some kind that they require, an arming mechanism.
Something that is supposed to turn up at the last minute to ensure that they don't go off when they pass each other in the street."
"Perhaps." The Doctor sounded unconvinced. "But if so, where is it, hmm? Where is it?"
The late afternoon sun shining through the stained glass windows of the Church of St Trovaso cast a jigsaw-puzzle of coloured light across Christopher Marlowe's face. Steven had turned the hologuise off to see how badly Marlowe was injured. The rest of the church was in shadow, and in the darkness Steven could hear Tomasso Nicolotti's triumphant laughter as he and his cronies left.
Within a few moments, they were alone.
Marlowe's head was cradled in Steven's lap. If Steven hadn't known that the playwright and spy had been wearing a white shirt, he would have sworn that it was made of scarlet cloth. Whenever Marlowe shifted, the blood from the exit wound in his back sucked glutinously against the cold flagstones.
"While I had expected that you and I would end up in this position,"
Marlowe gasped, "I had not anticipated that it would be for this reason. So does life imitate bad art. Too many times have I written duels not to be struck with the irony of dying in one."
"You're not going to die," Steven said tightly. "I'm going to get you through this."
"You should never lie to a professional liar, Steven." Marlowe smiled, then winced as a pang of pain shot through him. A stain of bright arterial blood bloomed against the cloth of his shirt.
"Marlowe, the scourge of God, must die, but did it have to be in His house?" He leaned back, his eyelids fluttering and his breath coming in short gasps.
Out in the shadows of the church a door opened, spilling glowing light across the flagstones. A priest entered, his face floating above his black