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The words felt clogged in my throat, and I feared saying them would unleash things I didn’t want to say. But I had no choice. I straightened my shoulders and kept my voice even. “It’s … well … I’ve decided to move to another company. That’s all. I’ll need to be allowed out of my contract a few days early, because the new company needs me for practice and … well … you’ve broken it a hundred times over in a way, so I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong.”

“I don’t care about any contract. This makes no sense whatsoever.” He began to pace as he ticked off each point, counting off the accomplishments with his fingers for emphasis. “We’re England’s most successful acting company. We’re being asked to perform at court regularly now. We might have our own playhouse within the next two years. Why would you leave when you’re on the brink of becoming a paid company member?” He stopped and looked me squarely in the face. “Why would you do it, Hughes, when you know how much I value our friendship?” His eyes turned to wet glass. “Am I nothing to you?”

“That’s not it, it’s just …” I tightened my face and chest, not wanting to fall for his masterful persuasion again, though I felt weaker than I expected.

He looked at my packing, then around the room, and, I saw a new understanding of the situation fill his eyes.

“It’s Marlowe, isn’t it?” he said bitingly. “Burbage told me he saw him in the audience several times, and that one time out back. What did he say he’ll pay you? I’ll pay you more.”

“It’s not about pay. It’s about.…” I stopped myself yet again from saying all. “It’s … he wrote a new part for me …”

“One part?” He scoffed. “I’ve already written four parts for you and have a dozen more I want to write.”

I sighed with exasperation. “God’s teeth! It’s not about the plays, Will.”

“Then what is it about?” He drew both fists to his own head, as if he would strike himself. “I don’t understand. Are we not being kind to you here? Do you think he’s a better writer than me, is that it?”

I scoffed but held back what I truly wanted to say.

His voice grew soft and his lip quivered. He took my hands into his. “I need you, Hughes, so desperately.”

I looked into his wounded eyes, once again I saw the man I had met that first day, unsure of himself. Vulnerable. A moment later, he pulled me to him and embraced me tightly, as if he were a frightened child. “Please don’t leave me, Hughes,” he begged. “I don’t know what I would do without you.” I pulled my head from his shoulder and saw a look in his eyes that made me think our hearts were at last matched. I lifted my face to his.

But as he had done before, he pushed me away … not violently, but away nonetheless. “No. I can’t,” he said. “I know it must be impossible to comprehend, but it’s …” He paused, hunting for what he thought might be the right words. “You see, I’m simply inspired by wanting you. Can you understand? I want you so deeply. I do. But to actualize a love with a muse ruins everything. I need the wanting—the yearning—to last as long as possible. It’s how I’m able to create those characters I write for you—”

“It’s how you’re able to create the characters, eh?” I repeated numbly.

“Yes. The way I love you as my muse is deeper, more profound, and more lasting than the love for a woman …”

“So, you admit, you love me like you loved your wife—like you loved Rose? You wish to bed me?”

He looked uncomfortable by my directness. “No. It’s different than that … it’s—”

I returned to my packing. “Just go.”

“Please don’t do that,” he begged. “I am writing a role now that will make your star shine bright throughout all of England. All shall hail you the greatest player—even above Burbage. How can you betray the children we’ve made together?”

“Children?” My blood was ice. “Fie on thee, villain! Why call them that? Plays aren’t children, Will. They’re plays. Your children are up in Stratford without a father these many years. As for me, your words make a poor blanket on a cold winter’s night. Your plays won’t love me back the way I love …” I stopped myself, knowing I was making a pointless argument. “It doesn’t matter. You, at last, have been clear. And so, I am leaving. No doubt, you’ll find another muse.”

“Please, Hughes, please, you don’t understand what this will do to me. First Rose, and now you. And it’s not just about that. You’ll not be safe with Marlowe. He has many deceitful and unsavory associates. He’s also an inebriate and foolish. Please, lad, please stay with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.”

I had reached a certainty. The Poet was not made like me. There was relief in that—in finally knowing to your core the one you have always wanted is not the person made for your love.

“I wish you well, Will. You gave me everything of your art, but I gave you far more. This is gravely unfair. Goodbye. And here …” I picked up his rolled-up sonnets which I had planned to take with me and handed them back to him. “Have these. I don’t want them anymore.”

Thirty-OneA Letter

A brief message from Mistress Rose Williams to her dearest friend Mister Christopher Marlowe.

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art.

—from Sonnet 131

Dearest Kit:

Through our mutual friend Mister R. B. I have heard the news that the Poet’s beloved has left the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and will be acting in your newest play. As a Florentine might say—bravissimo, Maestro! I wish you well in your new collaboration with young Hughes—both artistic and amorous. He will not be easy. But you are worse, so the arrangement may succeed.

By the Breath of Our Lord, I vow to never so much as sup with another actor as long as I live. Nor any poets. You are all mad and utterly capricious with your affections. You did warn me. As for my own future plans, I’ve decided to see what it feels like to embrace my role as a dull, dreary housewife for a while—or at least my approximation of one. Of course, the thought sends a sickness swirling inside me. I don’t suspect it will last. But my heart and body need a rest, and so I will stay true to my husband for at least a fortnight. Until the next time we meet—which may not be until after you are finished with that beautifully troublesome young man.