Deeds of Men by Marie Brennan

Deeds of Men
    O, act, most worthy hell, and lasting night,
    To hide it from the world!
    —V.viii.389-90
    Red Cross Alley, London: 2 June, 1625
    They found him in a narrow alley, within smelling distance of the riverside wharves and the pestilential tenements that crowded them, with his throat slit from ear to ear.
    Sir Michael Deven knelt in the muck, not caring that he ruined the knee of his breeches, and bit down hard on a knuckle to hold back tears.
    The long, gangly limbs sprawled without grace, like a child’s doll thrown aside. Even in the poor light, occluded by the overhanging jetties of the buildings on either side, the rich green taffeta of his doublet gleamed incongruously bright, a spot of elegance and wealth in a place that knew neither. Deven noted these details with fierce determination, trying not to acknowledge the bloodless face, the staring eyes, out of which the dreams had gone forever.
    For the first time in over six decades of life, he felt old. Because this is what age is. Not the weakening of the body, nor the dimming of the mind, but your hopes lying shattered at your feet.
    He forced down the hard knot in his throat and took the knuckle from between his teeth. Truncated strings dangled from the belt, where a purse should have hung. “Murdered, by a common thief.”
    “Beggin’ yer pardon, milord, but I don’t think so.”
    The diffident voice was not one he wanted to hear, not when its owner had come to tell him a young man lay dead in a Coldharbour alley. But he made himself look as Mungle sidled forward. The fellow appeared to be a dockside labourer, one of the rough cobs who unloaded goods from ships into London’s voracious maw. A mask, of course, but he wore it well.
    Mungle went toward the body, with hesitant steps that gave Deven time to call him back. Grimacing, he bent and rolled the head the other way, so the clouded eyes no longer stared in accusation. Mud caked the left ear, but something still hung from its lobe. “Earring’s here,” Mungle said. “And shoes. And that belt. Worth more than a ha’penny, those would be; any slower getting here, and you’d find them gone. A thief worth his cut would take them.”
    “Perhaps the thief was interrupted.”
    “In Coldharbour?” Mungle laughed, then swallowed it guiltily. “Who’d bother? I’d guess they took the purse to make it seem ordinary. But they was no thieves. And look—” Mungle lifted one pallid, unresisting hand, stained with blood from a small wound. “Rapier, I’d say. Nicked him on the sword hand. He was fighting somebody—a gentleman.”
    Deven stood, moving carefully against the growing sickness in his gut. Mungle was right. This wasn’t simply an unfortunate encounter with a cutpurse. The murderer had a reason beyond gold, and Deven knew of only one great enough to suffice.
    Henry Ware’s death was a consequence of the world Deven had brought him into.
    Which was, in a way, good news. Because whichever faerie had murdered him, Deven could and would see the creature responsible hanged.

    To shine
    Bright, as the Moone, among the lesser lights,
    And share the sov’raigntie of all the world.
    —II.i.35-7
    The Onyx Hall, London: 21 January, 1621
    Bright laughter danced among the leaves and flowers of the night garden, blooming in a perpetual spring beneath a sky of stone. The buried waters of the Walbrook sang counterpoint as the elegant lords and ladies of the Onyx Court ran down the paths, playing some game whose rules Deven could not discern. But the faeries paused in their flight, bowing or curtsying out of his path with a friendly murmur of “my lord,” before resuming their pursuit.
    Lune was not among them. He found her seated in a quiet corner, beneath the satin-soft petals of an apple tree, attended only by Amadea, the elf-lady appointed chamberlain of the court. Upon seeing Deven, Lune smiled and gestured the lady away, making room for him on the cushion at her side. “Welcome home, my