The Watchtower

under way, making him difficult to recognize when he went outside, but leaving enough light to get about in.
    Cornish twilight had a rustic beauty to it, the moon silvering shallow waves of the Irish Sea, while sea winds softly rustled tall grasses bordering a sandy beach. Will didn’t stroll the beach itself, but he’d walk along paths cut through dense underbrush inland, enchanted by the sound of waves and the sight of gulls gliding downward in final dives as the world blackened around them. On a few occasions, as the sky came within an inch of darkness and he knew he had to turn back, Will froze in his stride, beset by a sort of premonition. He’d feel for an instant as if he’d materially blended into the night, become a part of it, and that this was in some way going to be his future, no longer a part of the everyday world of flesh and light. Will shook off these unsettling sensations, for they had no rational basis. But he was disturbed enough by them each time to consider whether it might be more prudent to return to his father. The answer to that question, however, optimistic lad of nineteen that he was, was always a resounding “No!”
    After a week he’d had enough of these moments of being a shadow among greater shadows, alongside the dreary dankness of the Fawkes cellar. He purchased a two-year-old silver horse, Owlsword, from Stephen Fawkes and rode to London, three nights galloping and three days restlessly sleeping in the most secluded woods he could find. In a brief meeting before their mutual departure from Somerset, the poet had given him a note to obtain lodgings under the name Sam Andrews at the Hungry Steer, a tavern with rooms above at 10 Harp Lane. The location was in a fast-growing slum to the west of the Tower. The proprietress of the Steer was Ophelia Garvey, a woman of rough demeanor and advanced years whose response to most attempts at conversation was a glare. She was, however, helpful enough to direct him to a nearby inexpensive stable to board Owlsword, Will having gotten attached to the frisky but amiable young horse during their ride to London.
    His first few days in London were barely an improvement on his time in Cornwall. There was some obscurity in the crowds that bustled about, but not enough to let him comfortably linger in public, or dine out, or look for the poet at the Globe Theatre or at the building owned by the King’s Players nearby. And he had no idea where the poet’s lodgings were. Nor could he try to rekindle the handful of other acquaintanceships he had in the city. There had been no public disclosure or legal restraint by his father in regard to his flight, but that could just be his cagey stealth at work. Clarification—some communication if not a definite truce (reconciliation seemed out of the question)—was required before Will could feel safe in public. He would simply have to wait to be contacted by the poet.
    He spent his days in his room reading poetry by Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, and Christopher Marlowe, or in random walks, the collar of his doublet pushed up and pinned together to hide his face as much as fashion allowed. His signet ring he took off and looped onto a chain he wore around his neck and under his shirt, lest someone see it and recognize the family crest. Nights he dined mostly on bread and beer in his tiny, barely furnished room, waiting, wondering if the poet’s possible abandonment of him might not be worse than his father’s scorn.
    Six days after his arrival, Mrs. Garvey knocked on Will’s door just at sunset in an unusually talkative mood and gave him a gilt-edged envelope.
    “Ay, some fancy-pants rode up just now with three black feathers in his cap, on a horse what looked like it had been polished like a statue. For Samuel Andrews, Esquire.” Mrs. Garvey paused to look quizically at Will, not for the first time, as if he might be Samuel Andrews and he might not be. No doubt many years of being a landlady for the transient had nourished some instincts in this area. “And look at the gold on it,” she went on. “Had I known you keep this kind of company, I’d be charging you twice as much. Three times.”
    Will laughed to humor her. “I am grateful for the consideration you have shown with your modest charge,” he said somewhat formally, wondering how best to flatter her. It wouldn’t have mattered, as Mrs. Garvey shut the door to his room before his sentence was fully out of his mouth and stormed away. Perhaps