The Watchtower

could be out there as a warning to a love-crazed interloper such as himself. Even the ability to reduce himself to atoms would not suffice to slip past this puffed-up warlord. Will reached in his pocket for the note he had brought for such an eventuality, and as he did so, the sentry extended a note to him as well. Will ignored it.
    “Would you be Mr. Will Hughes, sir ?” There was no mistaking the dismissive tone of his sir. He moved the note closer to Will’s chin.
    “ Lord Hughes,” Will said, his heart sinking at this confirmation that the sentry posting was for him. Marguerite must have told the poet everything for this footman to be there. Reflecting on that horrible fact, he took the note. It could be the only communication he’d ever receive from the poet or Marguerite again.
    “Thank you for this kindness,” Will said, referring to the note, though he doubted its contents were kind. He went two steps up and said, “Now I must formally request admission to call on the most gracious Lady Marguerite.” He bowed, alertly, keeping in mind the possibility of being shoved down the stairs.
    The footman laughed. “Is milady expecting you?”
    “Not precisely. But there is an urgency.”
    “Well, be off with you then! I’ve not heard good things about you.” The Moor cocked his fist and circled it in a vague way not far from Will’s jaw.
    Swordsman that he was—though without sword—Will could scarcely suppress challenging this overmetaled oaf to a duel. But he did not know what Marguerite’s relationship with the creature was, and clearly the man was following someone’s orders.
    Just as clearly, he might well have miscalculated Marguerite’s reaction to meeting him. Will needed to retreat and reflect. Marguerite had certainly shown loyalty to the poet over him, a display that cut him like a scythe. Better now to just hand over his own note, be gone, and hope for the best in the end.
    The footman took his proffered note with a grimace, ripped it into several pieces, and then, by some sleight of hand that Will was not able to follow, lit the pieces on fire! His note fragments blazed bright in the morning air—as bright as his hopes had been mere moments ago—and then were extinguished in a rain of ash.
    At least he’d memorized the love sonnet included in the note, Will thought with remarkable patience. This was severe provocation, but the need for restraint still applied. He went back down the steps, turned, and said, “You’ve elicited extraordinary self-control from me, man. That’s your great fortune. It’s my duty as the noble person you’re not and never will be to warn you that my pacifism is not infinite.” Will cocked the feather of his hat at him, as if mockingly suggesting a duel, then went on his way. He heard the footman laughing softly at him as he walked on.
    A couple of blocks away, where the footman could not have seen him any longer, Will opened the note he’d been given. The envelope was white, but the parchment inside was black, written on in a hand Will recognized as the poet’s in an ink of bright red. Eight lines of iambic pentameter:
    For Will
    “Betrayer” is too kind a word for you:
    I treated you just like a son and now
    you try to steal my love! The night sky’s blue
    and dung bright gold when I ever allow
    you near my love or me, ever again.
    You blacken words like “mentor,” “ally,” “friend.”
    Go slither off, foul snake, your hole awaits,
    midhell, red hot. Beware my love that hates.
    Will walked for a while with the rapidity of a madman, as if physical exertion might sweat the now even-further-sharpened pain out of him. He zigged and zagged the teeming streets, walking a rough rectangle among Fylpot Lane, Thames Street, Petit Walas, and Tower Street, finally beginning a roundabout semicircle back toward Harp Lane and Mrs. Garvey’s. The day was as hot as his early sense of it had predicted, as if Hades were paying a visit by air as well as incident. By the time Will had caught his first glimpse of the sun-splashed Thames, the river filled with a variety of vessels flying multicolored nautical and national flags with an array of symbols on them, his gaudy attire was soaked through with sweat to a near uniform gray.
    The hope that kept him half sane while on this most despondent walk was that the front-step encounter had been the poet’s doing alone, as the note seemed to be. Though Marguerite must have been trusting enough of—and