Any Man So Daring Read Online Free

giving the impression of cringing away, as if afraid of giving offense or causing harm. “What is wrong?”
    Will shook his head and shrugged.
    “Oh, it scares me. Much does it scare me,” Ned said, and his hand, again, went to his throat, as though feeling the constriction of a noose. “Your face just now, your expression. Oh, it misgave me and made my heart turn on itself, for it was Marlowe’s expression that last month before he was killed — it was the look of a man with a devil at his heels and burning fire before him. Are you in trouble, Will? Trouble like Marlowe’s?”
    Now the frighted rabbit that Ned normally personated became something other, something different — an eagle, impassive of eye, undeniable of voice — his gaze narrowing upon Will like the gaze of an angel seeking out sin, his voice the voice of an avenging preacher demanding confession.
    Will drew back. Did Ned have to mention Marlowe? Did he have to pronounce Marlowe’s name? Did he have to compare Will’s expression to Marlowe’s?
    “If you mean I’ve gone all fond of boys and tobacco, as Marlowe claimed to be, then no. I suffer from no such ill.” But as he said it, it seemed to Will he heard Marlowe’s light laughter, Marlowe’s careless voice declaiming, All that don’t like boys and tobacco are fools.
    And Will knew, knew with a deep certainty as never before that Marlowe’s outrageous statement was foolishness, designed to get attention and little else. Designed to put a soothing balm in Marlowe’s aching soul, Marlowe’s aching heart by shocking other people.
    Because Marlowe had loved neither boys nor tobacco. Marlowe had loved the king of fairyland. Or at least the king of fairyland in his female aspect as Lady Silver. Will had never wished to know how Marlowe felt about Silver’s male aspect, the king proper, King Quicksilver of the Realms Above the Air and Beneath The Hills Of Avalon.
    Just thinking on Silver it seemed to Will that he saw her white skin, her jet-black hair, felt her silk-soft skin upon his weathered cheek, the petal-tender touch of her lips on his lips.
    He jumped, startled.
    Oh, he hated fairyland and all that went with it.  
    Marlowe had died because of his love for the cursed elf. But Will had other loves — his wife, his daughters, his only son — he would not be caught unawares. He would not die for such a foolish thing as a bit of magic, a twist of glamour, the illusory love of elves, those creatures colder than moonlight, eternal as time, and more insensitive to human suffering than impenetrable granite.
    Did Marlowe follow him, did Marlowe’s words echo through him because Will alone knew that Marlowe had died as a hero, not as debauch?
    Will touched the tips of his fingers to his lips, where he’d felt as if the shadow of the elf’s touch, and looked guiltily at Ned Alleyn.
    “And there you go,” Ned Alleyn said. “There you go, jumping at shadows and blushing at nothing. Thus did Marlowe act too, and then, the next thing we heard, he had died of the plague, and then this was not true, and he’d died in a duel in a bawdy house. And then again, there are rumors, rumors that go afoot in the night and hide themselves in daytime — rumors that Marlowe worked for the privy council and it was by them that he was killed.” Ned, this new Ned that was more father than cowering entrepreneur, fixed Will with a cold eye, and put his hands on his hips and asked. “Are you involved in secret work, Will? Do you plot?”
    At this Will laughed. He laughed before he could contain himself. Did he plot?
    Oh, what were plots? He’d been involved in plots and counterplots, in the warp and weft of fairyland politics and murderous intrigues.
    Fourteen years ago — was it that long? — when his Susannah was a new born babe and Nan but a new bride, they’d both been stolen by the then king of fairyland.
    To reclaim them, Will had waded into fairyland politics and drunk deep the fountain of