The Worldsmith [Chapter Four] [Axis Powers Hetalia, England, America, others]
So yeah. Delays again. *facepalm* I blame moving to a new city?
On the plus side, this chapter has Bess.
Also, this chapter made me cry. Stupid England.
Title: The Worldsmith [Chapter Four: Making New When Old Are Gone]
Author: puella_nerdii
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Characters: England, America; William Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, Robert Devereaux, and assorted other actors, playmakers, peers, gentry, scoundrels, spies, and thieves. (This chapter is also heavy on the England/Elizabeth.)
Rating: This chapter is PG-13. Others will be higher.
Summary: Sent back in time to deal with a mysterious threat to England's nationhood, England and America contend with witchcraft, the undead, the power of language, and their own clashing personalities.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four: In which America makes his debut on the Elizabethan stage, and England and Elizabeth reunite.
Notes: This is also known as the "time travel and Shakespeare and zombies" fic. You'll see why.
The week passes, if not uneventfully, then at least without incursion from the undead. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men put America through his paces, and England catches him muttering Bottom’s lines under his bed at breakfast, humming snatches of that song on the stairs, going over the chancier blocking when they venture onto the streets.
“So if that cart’s the stage left boundary, and the man with the cane is stage right-crap, no, he just moved, he can’t be stage right.”
“Might I suggest you rehearse somewhere with fixed dimensions? Somewhere with a fireplace, perhaps?” England asks through chattering teeth as Fulke Greville’s servant informs them that her master is dining with Sir Christopher Blount (and of course she knows nothing of her master’s correspondence, what sort of girl does England take her for?).
“Just keeping myself busy. How about you?”
“I’m trying to,” England says, “but it feels an awful lot like busywork. None of Spenser’s other contacts seem to have any idea what befell him after he left Ireland, and they all claim they never received any letters. Even if they’re lying, they might not be lying for any reason helpful to us. Dee’s still the best lead we have, and Cecil says he won’t return to Richmond until the Lord Chamberlain’s Men’s performance.”
“Right,” America says, “so we’re killing time until then. Well, you are.” He glances down at his shoes and walks forward at the strangest angle.
“America, are you trying to tap-dance?”
“Oh! Uh. No. No, it’s this-I’m trying to do the shoe-flappy-thing.”
“The shoe-flappy-thing,” England says, perfectly straightfaced.
“Uh-huh. The shoe-flappy-thing. It’s supposed to sound really good onstage.”
“America, you’re performing in a hall. The floor isn’t hollow. It won’t resound the same way.”
“-hey, maybe it’ll sound good there, too. Resound. Whatever.”
Well, if it keeps him warm, England supposes.
He’s somewhat less sanguine about America barging into the room they share at the Bird-in-Hand and bellowing, “Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, now am I fled!” While England is trying to scry, no less. The bowl nearly upends itself.
“America,” England says for what must be the tenth time this evening, “I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Sorry,” America says, holds up his hands. “I’ll let you get back to-uh. Staring into your bowl.”
“It’s called scrying.”
“Say what?”
“It’s a kind of magic.” America opens his mouth, some quip no doubt at the ready, but England barrels on. “You asked what it was, I’m explaining, and as you’ve yet to form a reasonable hypothesis-”
“Aliens,” America says, his expression so perfectly straight that England can’t tell whether or not he’s joking. “An advanced alien simulation. Kind of like the Matrix, but without the part about machines using us as giant batteries. Maybe it’s a test.”
England doesn’t dispute the last. “A more scientific version of ‘this is all a dream’. I see.”
“More like a waking fully-sensory hallucination.”
“Quite different.”
“Exactly,” America says, then frowns. “Hey.”
England glances into the bowl again, now that the water’s stilled. The light ripples over the surface; he strains to see a recognisable silhouette in any of the dancing patterns, but none appears.
“Anyway. Scrying.”
“It’s a type of divination,” he explains. “You bespell some clear substance-glass, crystal, I prefer water-and wait for images to take shape in it.”
“So like crystal balls?” America raises his eyebrow and perches on the bed, his legs swinging. “Telling the future.”
England laughs sourly. “Seeing the future is next to impossible. As none of it’s happened yet, you see all that could happen. All. Though some images pop up more frequently than others-the more probable futures, generally. Still there are enough of those that I don’t recommend it.” The corner of his mouth twitches, as do the ribbons of light streaking the water. “It requires a good deal of patience, for one.”
“Right, that,” America says almost airily, and flops backwards onto the bed. “So Miss Cleo’s not gonna have any competition for a while, huh?”
England refrains from telling America precisely what he thinks of the incoherent muddle of misunderstood philosophy and sanitized ritual characteristic of America’s so-called psychics. Instead, he snorts. “As she hasn’t yet been born, no. And no, I haven’t scried anything of use. I’ve barely glimpsed anything at all.”
America forgets to be properly skeptical and asks, “Nothing? Really?”
“Nothing.” England pushes the bowl aside, massages his temples for all the good it does. “I suppose it hangs on Richmond, now.”
***
His queen didn’t always favour Richmond. Mary imprisoned her there in the early years of her reign, but once Bess was on the throne she reconciled with the palace and even warmed to it as the years wore on. England is glad she did; her warm winter box is a sight to behold now, and as he glimpses the onion-capped towers rise behind the gatehouse, his heart leaps into his throat. Yes, this, this is as he remembers it: the strange almost-harmony of the gold-and-azure weathervanes, the grand sprawl of the outer courtyard, the fair gardens of the inner where he and Bess rested after a stag hunt, or stole a moment away from her throngs of courtiers, or kissed behind the blossoming hedges. He drums his fingers on his thigh, and only the cold outside the carriage keeps him from yanking the reins from the driver and whipping the horses towards the Great Hall.
“Are we there yet?” America asks for the tenth or eleventh time. England shushes him.
He ought to wish the players luck-or ill, rather-before he leaves, but when the door to the carriage opens he tears out of it without a word. The doors to the great hall seem to open of their own accord, welcoming him in once more. Truly, this sight is as welcome as the last. His great kings survey the space, robed in gold, and though they’re only images they have a steadier grip on their swords than most of the nobles milling about. He doesn’t see Bess in their number, and he’s certain he would were she about. She doesn’t like him to miss her, for one.
“Whoa,” America says from behind him, softer than what England’s used to. “Wow.”
“It’s a lovely palace,” England says, can’t help but smirk. “And one of her smaller ones, at that. You ought to see Nonsuch.”
“It’s pretty. Am I going to have to perform with all those kings glaring at me, though?” America wanders over to Henry V and grins, eyes the image up and down. “Not the happiest guys around, huh? I see where you perfected the stiff upper lip.”
“They’re readying themselves for war, they aren’t supposed to look happy. You, on the other hand, ought to be readying yourself to perform.”
He shrugs, rolls his shoulders back, that insolent grin unwavering. “Hey, it’s not like I find myself in an actual palace all the time, you know? Just taking in the sights.”
“I wouldn’t’ve thought you’d care for palaces.” England’s smirk softens; he scans the crowd briefly, but sees no sign of his queen. “No gods, no kings, as I recall.”
“She’s not my queen, she’s yours,” America begins, but Will approaches him from behind and coughs, cutting him off.
“Thou’rt requested by the rest of thy troop, Master Jones,” he says, “and hast thou seen Heminges’s beard?”
“Uh, nay,” America says, scratches his chin. “Did he check with the rest of the props?”
“It ought to be stored with the costumes.” Will frowns. “Ah, well. ‘Tis of little enough consequence; they will know him for who he is by what he does, not by the beard he wears.”
“At least he gets a beard,” America grumbles. “I wanted a beard.”
Will laughs, his hand resting at the small of America’s back as though to steer him. “Thou hast an ass’s head-a more marvelous sight by far, truly.”
“What, no joke?” America asks, grinning at England.
“Too easy. It isn’t sporting.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hey.” America’s grin wavers. “Keep an eye out for me, okay?”
“I doubt I’ll miss you,” England says, but adds, as is the tradition, “Break a leg.”
“Aw, you do care.”
“I care about you maintaining the integrity of my stage.”
“I thought it was a hall.”
Will laughs. England shoots him a glare. Whose side is he on? “Well, he’s as insufferable as any clown I’ve ever met.”
“Then thou must not have known Kemp well,” Will says, almost with a twinkle in his eye. “Come, Master Jones, we shall see thee outfitted.”
***
England is seated before Bess arrives. “Her Majesty!” the man next to him says, and the audience rises at one, only to bow again as Bess takes her gilded chair at the center of the audience, several rows left and back from where England sits. Even twisting his neck around he can’t see her properly, as the rather full ruff of the man behind him blocks his view. He should run to her now-no, Will’s onstage to deliver the prologue, and England oughtn’t detract from the performance, Will doesn’t deserve that.
Well, he’ll have time after the play to see Bess. He hasn’t seen her for four centuries, surely a few hours is nothing. Surely he has some reserves of patience left. He’s not America, for Christ’s sake.
He can’t recall much of the first scene at all. America’s debut on the Elizabethan stage comes in the next scene, and the thought’s somewhat distracting. Fuck, does he know what half of those words mean? Presumably he had the sense to ask Will, and presumably Will told him. After all, what better authority on Shakespeare than Shakespeare?
England also prays America said nothing of Freud. Or Harold Bloom.
The rude mechanicals enter, and he only half-hears Quince say, “Is all our company here?” He expects he’s anticipating the next line at least as much as America is.
America taps Quince on the shoulder. “You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.”
England releases the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He supposes he needn’t doubt America’s ability to play director, or to interfere with someone else’s production. Hell, he barely lets any of the other rude mechanicals get out their lines before he cuts in, bursting with suggestions. But the play’s written that way, England reminds himself, and the audience seems to respond well to the pace he’s setting.
“Let me play the lion, too!” America calls, bounces up and down on the tips of his toes and waves his hand in the air like a schoolboy. “I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.”
It reminds England so much of America at world meetings, squirming in his seat and straining to catch Germany’s attention so he can unveil his latest plan, that England can’t help but laugh. The rest of the audience joins him in chuckling, but they do so fondly, as though they’re delighting in something their own child did.
No. Not a child. America might be clean-shaven and beaming-fresh-faced, even-and he might look absurdly pleased with himself, but he doesn’t carry himself like a child. His chest is open and proud, and there’s an easy swagger in his step when he strides over to Quince and declares, “I will undertake it,” but he doesn’t swell on the line the way a child would-or the way Kemp would, for that matter. It’s-
He coughs. It’s insufferable, that’s what it is. Insufferable, and he certainly shouldn’t think on it any further, even if the audience cheers wildly at the close of the scene. England half-expects America to wink at the audience as he leaves, but he refrains. Well. Perhaps he’s learnt some restraint after all.
“They do not keep their clown onstage ‘twixt the scenes?” the man to England’s left asks.
“Nay. Perhaps it is some German innovation,” a lady suggests.
“I never knew the Germans to have clowns,” someone behind him says. “This fellow, what do they call him?”
“A Master Jones,” says the lady.
“Well,” says the first gentleman, “perhaps this Master Jones has some delights yet unseen in store.”
That’s one way of putting it, England thinks.
Two scenes from now until America’s next appearance, and England drums his fingers on his thigh as the lovers chase each other about the forest and Oberon and Titania quarrel. England rather likes the boy-apprentices they’ve brought in to replace Condell and Heminges; they aren’t so insipid as some of the other boys who play the women’s parts. Daft, still, the lot of them, wandering in circles ‘round nonexistent trees and making sheep’s eyes at each other. For all the talk about the flush and vigour of love, England rather suspects being in love catches people at their worst.
That, or the players are playing the idea of being in love rather than the thing itself. He says as much to the gentleman on his left, which proves to be a mistake, as the fellow nods solemnly and replies with a few verses of some of the most godawful poetry England’s had the displeasure of hearing. No surprise to hear the man wrote it himself.
One more speech until America appears again. England does wish they’d clear the playing area faster-ah, there he is, and about to transform into an ass.
He also makes a truly awful Pyramus, but that’s the point. “Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,” he booms, and tries to make the points of his shoes flap against the ground in that distinctive stage-walk. He stumbles, falls, and England jumps in his seat-fuck, at that angle he’ll break his nose unless he’s planned out this fall in advance but England honestly can’t tell-
Thankfully, America recovers, and England sinks back into his chair. The rest of the audience seems to be settling back into their seats, which makes England wonder if it wasn’t a pratfall after all. God knows the court’s seen enough of those onstage, and wouldn’t rouse to this one.
Then again, it’s the stage. What’s real, whatever that means, is secondary to what’s believed.
Of course. Of course. England could slap himself for having missed it. That little upstart, he’s introducing representational theatre a few centuries early, isn’t he. It’s all your fault, England informs the fae, and wishes he could keep a straight face while doing so. You brought him along. Next thing you know we’ll have cinematic realism and you’ll all long for the days when actors didn’t mumble their lines.
America runs back onstage, ass’s head in place. The other players shout and run circles around him, occasionally knocking into each other in the process. America blunders after them, shouting, “I see their knavery! This is to make an ass of me,” and at the note of profound indignation in his voice England has to laugh.
“But I will not stir from this place, do what I can,” America says, pulls himself up from his deflated posture and squares his shoulders again. “I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.”
Or rap, as the case may be, if England recalls what Will told him. Oh, fuck. England covers his eyes, half-waits for America to begin beatboxing.
He doesn’t.
America’s voice is-well, England hasn’t had occasion to hear it that often, come to think of it. He hums and whistles, and England’s heard him teach snippets of off-colour ballads to his troops before, but he doesn’t often try to sing in England’s presence. And he’s trying now, in a strong clear baritone. “The ousel cock so black of hue, with orange-tawny bill…”
It isn’t a beautiful voice, precisely, but he’s playing Bottom, it oughtn’t be one. Besides, the ass’s head muffles enough of the sound. England shakes his head. It’s America; England would expect him to go for the joke with his usual degree of subtlety, but he lets the image do most of the work.
America, of all Nations, is letting Will’s words speak for themselves. Of all things. England covers his mouth, leans forward.
“Whose note full many a man doth mark, and dares not answer nay-”
The last note hangs almost sweetly in the air, and a lady behind England sighs.
***
The epilogue concludes, the audience applauds, and England can finally look for Bess again. Bess’s courtiers have the same idea, though, and surround her at all sides. England attempts to dive into the crowd, but the bodies are too thickly packed for him to force his way through, and by the time they all clear, Bess is gone.
Will, however, remains, and the crowd advances on him and the other emerging players next. England beats the rush this time.
“Well, Master Shakespeare?” he asks, low enough that the throngs advancing on the players don’t overhear. “Art satisfied with thy Bottom?”
“Ay,” Will says; he doesn’t beam as America does, but his smile’s no less radiant for it. “I do think he made them believe.”
“He does that,” England says, even more quietly.
“I do what?”
-sweet buggering Christ, America has to stop giving him turns like this. “There is no end to what you do, Am-Master Jones.”
“So I did good, huh?” he asks, fumbling with the seams of his pants as though he’s looking for pockets there to shove his hands into.
“You did well,” England can’t help but correct. “Anachronistically well, I might admit, I don’t know what the rest of the audience-”
“Ah, our German clown!”
“Who, me?” America says, but doesn’t have time for much else before a knot of admirers descends on him, too, peppering him with questions about his hometown and his accent and-England didn’t catch that last, but he’s fairly sure it’s inappropriate.
“I’ll leave you to your admirers,” he says, claps America on the arm. “I must to my queen.”
“We’ll be outside the gatehouse, there’s a kind of inn there,” America says, “and-whoa, hey, carefuleth with that, fair ladies-”
***
Shadows wreath the hall to Bess’s chambers, shadows England cannot banish with his candle alone. Easy in this shifting light to imagine some of them whispering to him, passing on palace gossip and state secrets. In trying to make some sense of the whispers and give them substance, though, he chases them away.
He rubs his forehead. There are times, even in this age, when it really is just the wind.
“-will not stand for it!”
That, however, most certainly wasn’t.
“Do you presume, sir, to command me?”
And that was Bess. England jogs to her door as quietly as he can, taking care not to spill the candle, and presses his ear to it.
“I do not command-” The other voice is male and young. Most human voices sound young to England these days, granted, but this voice in particular smacks of it no matter how deep the man’s voice gets.
“Yet you persist in defying me. Are you more fit to command than I, then?”
“What, would you lead our troops to tame the wilds of Eire? Nay, you shall stay here-stay, and surround yourself with capering fools and a goatish dissembling pygmy while you cast those who would see England prosper from your graces!”
Essex, England realises. Of course she’s arguing with Essex. She always argues with Essex. This one’s heating quicker than most of the ones he recalls, though, and he wonders if Essex is about to find himself banished again.
“England would prosper more readily,” Bess says dryly, “if you would repay the ten thousand pounds you owe him.”
A pause, then: “That, I owe to you, and not to my Nation.”
“Do you suggest I am not wedded to my country’s interest?”
Wedded to more than that, England thinks, but dares not speak. He daren’t do much in the way of breathing, either, come to think of it.
After an even lengthier silence, the man says, “I suggest it is in your interest, and your Nation’s, to recall what is owed me if this venture is to succeed: an army that can rout the Irish rabble and force their lords to heel.”
“And have I not sent out the muster?”
A snort. “Ay, for men too poor to bribe the officers, or to pay another in their stead. If we but had a true army-”
“One I should entrust to you, aye, to do as you will?”
“If you shall not provide one, Majesty,” Essex nearly snarls, “I shall find one-ay, and one more suited to the occasion than the ragged band of greybeards your muster yields.”
The door slams open, and Essex storms out. England pulls his cloak over his head before Essex can glimpse his face; Essex seems not to note him at all, and nearly knocks England into the wall in his haste to leave, his boots rapping smartly against the floor.
England’s candle gutters and dies. He sets it down and steps inside.
It’s profoundly disingenuous to say Bess looks as he remembers her. He remembers her in so many ways, after all. As a girl, her hair unbound and tangled; as a young woman, her face painted porcelain-white; after the smallpox struck, when she hid the marks under more layers of makeup. But she was Bess through it all and she’s Bess now, and the sight of her before him is more perfect than any portrait could be.
Even if her hands cover her face, her fingers trembling on her temples.
England says nothing.
She lowers them, finally, and smiles at him. “My Nation,” she says, and her voice, at least, holds steady.
His doesn’t. “My wife.” He kneels before her, takes her hand in his-god, it has been centuries since he touched her last, and he fights not to seize her by the wrist and kiss every inch of her hand, settles instead for touching his lips to her knuckles.
“Thou’rt gallant as ever,” she says, but doesn’t withdraw her hand, and England is grateful for it.
“I do not often hear myself called such,” he murmurs into her fingers.
“Few others see thee as I do.”
“Ay, and I could say the same.” He presses the back of her hand to his cheek; her skin’s worn so thin now, like faded parchment.
“Thou couldst,” she agrees, spares a glance at the door. “Thou seest me in a light most becoming; my courtiers would cast me in twilight, which flatters me not. Tell me, husband, whose sight am I to trust, when I receive such different reports?”
“Thy nation’s, good wife, for when thy statesmen behold thee in twilight, they miss much which the day makes clear.”
“And yet it is night now,” she says, her smile stretched, “and thou seest me true, or such is thy claim. Dost recall the lines from our entertainment earlier? Love sees not with the eyes-”
“-but with the mind,” he finishes. “I am no Cupid, wife.”
Her lips twitch, though England isn’t privy to the joke. “Thou knowst the play well.”
“The argument is old.”
“And we who are old know it.” She cups his cheek before he can protest, her thumb soft over his lips. England closes his eyes, perhaps to test that earlier hypothesis. He can fashion an image of her well enough in his mind, the red of her hair and the white of everything else, cuffs and ruff and skin, but surely his eyes do him better service than his imagination now that she’s before him again, before him and real and-well, thinner than he’d like. “Ay,” she says, and when England opens his eyes her smile cracks, “I will say old here.”
And hang any man for slander who says as much, he thinks, but she knows it as well as he, and there’s a difference between honesty and cruelty. “Do the bard’s words still trouble thee?”
“That? Ay, I suppose. It was deftly done. Ah, the things that man fashions from words: rebuilds old Athens for our pleasure, conjures spirits to inhabit it, puts himself in the mouths of God and kings alike.” England again tilts his head towards her face as though to bathe in what it reflects, and she snorts. “Men have been hanged for less.”
The pit of England’s stomach stirs. “Sorcery, lady, or treason?”
“Why, they are the same. Thy playmakers proved it, or ‘twas proved against them.”
Despite the restless motion, his stomach chills with sickening speed. “My queen, we have spoke oft of this-”
“Ay, and perhaps they have ensorcelled you,” she says. Age has not weathered her edge; England ought to have remembered that. “Thou’rt fond of the man William Shakespeare, art thou not?”
Good god, what did Essex say to her? “Ay, my wife,” he says, wary, but there’s little use in denying as much.
“Does he speak for thee now?”
“No!” bursts out before he can think otherwise, but now he must amend it: “Not quite-in part. It’s damnably complex.”
Bess’s lips are nearly as white as the rest of her face.
“My wife,” he says, “why do we argue?”
“I know not,” she says. “Only that I saw thee enter my chambers, and as thou knelt before me I trembled, because I knew thee not.”
“Oh,” England says. His throat tightens too much for anything else.
“I am jealous, husband, I admit, when I think of another knowing thee so well, and I-” She sighs, releases his face, lets her hands fall to her lap. Bess would never slump on a bed; queenly carriage is, if not in her blood, in her bones by now, but her shoulders slip down all the same. “And I at such a remove from thee, that I no longer know thy heart.”
“My heart is thine,” England says, moves to sit on the bed beside her and clutches her hand, presses it to his chest. “As much thine as ever it has been.”
“Then thou’rt the country I wed?”
He hesitates. “I have striven to be so.”
“Striven,” she echoes, her fingers tracing the slit in his shirt. They brush his collarbone, tug the cloth back, and she thumbs the thick white scar there. “Yet this is unfamiliar to me.”
“Shrapnel,” he says, tries not to flinch, and at her questioning look: “It’s a type of explosive-it was a long time ago.” Or well into the future, rather, as the trenches of the Somme are still some three centuries distant. God, there’s a thought.
Bess says nothing, but her fingers tighten.
“My aspect is changed,” he says slowly, works it out for himself as much as for her. He’s half-tempted to call for Will; Will would know the words for this better than he, if there are words for this at all. “And I have seen-I have gained much, my wife, and lost more. But always, always I have tried to be-” Fuck, he’s getting this all muddled, and the burn spreading from his throat to his chest isn’t helping matters. “I have tried to be-”
Still, she says nothing.
“I have tried to be a Nation you would be proud of,” he says at last. “And that is why I say my heart is thine.”
At last, she nods. “How many years gone?” she asks, and England doesn’t need her to clarify.
“Four hundred, almost to the day,” he says.
“Then that I still know thee for what thou art means thou hast not changed overmuch.”
It isn’t quite a smile. “Thou hast no idea what that means to me. The years have not been as kind to me as to thee.”
Hers, however, is. “Flattery, still?”
“Have I changed so much that now I practise it with ease?”
In answer, she trails her fingers up the side of his neck, strokes his jaw, rests her hand at the back of his head. “Nay,” she says. “Thou canst not look upon me and lie.”
“My wife, I never could.”
“But others can, and do as easily as they draw breath.” She sighs. “All the men I trusted are dead, husband.”
“I am not.”
“Thou’rt no man.”
“True enough,” he says, inclining his head.”Regarding thy trust-”
“Thou wilt have heard my dispute with Essex.” Her mouth thins. “Nay, do not tell me how it ends, or where; I will not have my future told to me like a credulous girl giving coin to a gypsy.”
“Thou wert never a credulous girl,” England says. “And I fear I could not, even were I to wish it so. These are strange times we are in.”
“Ay, most strange.” Bess pauses a moment, strokes the coverlet almost absently. “Too strange for we who have lived so long, and seen so many strangenesses become familiar.”
“And wondered when we became so well-acquainted with them.” England smiles.
For a woman of sixty-five, Bess can still manage astonishing coyness when she so chooses: an arch of her brow, a twist of her mouth. “Thou wert strange to me once.”
“Ay, so I was,” he admits.
“And thou became familiar.”
He’d laugh, but the tightness in his chest prevents it. “So I did.”
She brushes her lips to his forehead, dry and soft and feather-light, and it isn’t right that such a little touch should-well. Should make everything inside him shatter all at once. It’s a miracle he doesn’t collapse boneless to the bed, but Bess’s hand is still on the back of his head, steadying him.
“I thank thee,” she says, “for keeping an old woman company, and release thee to thy revels.”
“My wife, I would not leave you.”
“Thou wouldst not,” she agrees. “But I have left thee already.”
---
--
Dialect notes REDUX!
Obviously, I’m not writing this thing in full-out Elizabethan, because I’m not that footnote-crazy, and quite frankly I don’t trust myself to. I’ve tried to keep in a few elements of Elizabethan speech for flavor, though, and I’ll explain those here.
First, the pronouns! Elizabethan pronouns are pretty similar to ours, except they had an informal “you” pronoun, thou. (It’s like the tu/Usted distinction in Spanish.) You use “thou” for inferiors and people you’re close to in informal contexts, and it’s a bit rude to thou people you aren’t familiar with-so when the guards switch over to using thou with America, they’re trying to put him in his place. Thou is declined like so:
Subject: thou. (Thou liest, shag-eared villain!)
Direct/indirect object: thee. (I give thee thanks, or Let me clutch thee.)
Possessive: thy (thy face), or thine before a vowel. (thine eye).
They also had ye for the second-person plural, though there’s increasing usage of “you” for both singular AND plural second-person.
Verb endings are mostly the same, except for second- and third-person singular. Let’s look at the verb to have:
I have
Thou hast/You have
He hath
We had
You/Ye had
They had
I’m mostly omitting the -eth/th ending on the third person singular in this fic, because it reads weird to modern eyes, but it might crop up with a few words.
As I mentioned in the notes to last chapter, the LCM actually performed Midsummer at Richmond on February 20th, not in January, but this entire fic is under the effects of TIME KOMPRESSION anyway.
Also, oh god Ireland. Wiki has more about the Nine Years' War, but basically: Hugh Ó Neill has falling-out with Elizabeth, spearheads Irish rebellion against English rule, the depths of which England completely fails to comprehend, Ó Neill and allies ambush English troops on the way to Armagh and score a big ol' victory, which fucks over Elizabeth and gets the rebellion even more Irish support. The Earl of Essex is sent over in 1599 to un-fuck things up. This does not go so well historically. In this version -- well, you'll see.
Where England got the scar. (Also where he boned France for the first time in 400 years! OMGPARALLELS. Sort of.)
I hate Harold Bloom. Feel free to ask me why! (Warning: response will be LONG.)
.
On the plus side, this chapter has Bess.
Also, this chapter made me cry. Stupid England.
Title: The Worldsmith [Chapter Four: Making New When Old Are Gone]
Author: puella_nerdii
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Characters: England, America; William Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, Robert Devereaux, and assorted other actors, playmakers, peers, gentry, scoundrels, spies, and thieves. (This chapter is also heavy on the England/Elizabeth.)
Rating: This chapter is PG-13. Others will be higher.
Summary: Sent back in time to deal with a mysterious threat to England's nationhood, England and America contend with witchcraft, the undead, the power of language, and their own clashing personalities.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four: In which America makes his debut on the Elizabethan stage, and England and Elizabeth reunite.
Notes: This is also known as the "time travel and Shakespeare and zombies" fic. You'll see why.
The week passes, if not uneventfully, then at least without incursion from the undead. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men put America through his paces, and England catches him muttering Bottom’s lines under his bed at breakfast, humming snatches of that song on the stairs, going over the chancier blocking when they venture onto the streets.
“So if that cart’s the stage left boundary, and the man with the cane is stage right-crap, no, he just moved, he can’t be stage right.”
“Might I suggest you rehearse somewhere with fixed dimensions? Somewhere with a fireplace, perhaps?” England asks through chattering teeth as Fulke Greville’s servant informs them that her master is dining with Sir Christopher Blount (and of course she knows nothing of her master’s correspondence, what sort of girl does England take her for?).
“Just keeping myself busy. How about you?”
“I’m trying to,” England says, “but it feels an awful lot like busywork. None of Spenser’s other contacts seem to have any idea what befell him after he left Ireland, and they all claim they never received any letters. Even if they’re lying, they might not be lying for any reason helpful to us. Dee’s still the best lead we have, and Cecil says he won’t return to Richmond until the Lord Chamberlain’s Men’s performance.”
“Right,” America says, “so we’re killing time until then. Well, you are.” He glances down at his shoes and walks forward at the strangest angle.
“America, are you trying to tap-dance?”
“Oh! Uh. No. No, it’s this-I’m trying to do the shoe-flappy-thing.”
“The shoe-flappy-thing,” England says, perfectly straightfaced.
“Uh-huh. The shoe-flappy-thing. It’s supposed to sound really good onstage.”
“America, you’re performing in a hall. The floor isn’t hollow. It won’t resound the same way.”
“-hey, maybe it’ll sound good there, too. Resound. Whatever.”
Well, if it keeps him warm, England supposes.
He’s somewhat less sanguine about America barging into the room they share at the Bird-in-Hand and bellowing, “Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, now am I fled!” While England is trying to scry, no less. The bowl nearly upends itself.
“America,” England says for what must be the tenth time this evening, “I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Sorry,” America says, holds up his hands. “I’ll let you get back to-uh. Staring into your bowl.”
“It’s called scrying.”
“Say what?”
“It’s a kind of magic.” America opens his mouth, some quip no doubt at the ready, but England barrels on. “You asked what it was, I’m explaining, and as you’ve yet to form a reasonable hypothesis-”
“Aliens,” America says, his expression so perfectly straight that England can’t tell whether or not he’s joking. “An advanced alien simulation. Kind of like the Matrix, but without the part about machines using us as giant batteries. Maybe it’s a test.”
England doesn’t dispute the last. “A more scientific version of ‘this is all a dream’. I see.”
“More like a waking fully-sensory hallucination.”
“Quite different.”
“Exactly,” America says, then frowns. “Hey.”
England glances into the bowl again, now that the water’s stilled. The light ripples over the surface; he strains to see a recognisable silhouette in any of the dancing patterns, but none appears.
“Anyway. Scrying.”
“It’s a type of divination,” he explains. “You bespell some clear substance-glass, crystal, I prefer water-and wait for images to take shape in it.”
“So like crystal balls?” America raises his eyebrow and perches on the bed, his legs swinging. “Telling the future.”
England laughs sourly. “Seeing the future is next to impossible. As none of it’s happened yet, you see all that could happen. All. Though some images pop up more frequently than others-the more probable futures, generally. Still there are enough of those that I don’t recommend it.” The corner of his mouth twitches, as do the ribbons of light streaking the water. “It requires a good deal of patience, for one.”
“Right, that,” America says almost airily, and flops backwards onto the bed. “So Miss Cleo’s not gonna have any competition for a while, huh?”
England refrains from telling America precisely what he thinks of the incoherent muddle of misunderstood philosophy and sanitized ritual characteristic of America’s so-called psychics. Instead, he snorts. “As she hasn’t yet been born, no. And no, I haven’t scried anything of use. I’ve barely glimpsed anything at all.”
America forgets to be properly skeptical and asks, “Nothing? Really?”
“Nothing.” England pushes the bowl aside, massages his temples for all the good it does. “I suppose it hangs on Richmond, now.”
***
His queen didn’t always favour Richmond. Mary imprisoned her there in the early years of her reign, but once Bess was on the throne she reconciled with the palace and even warmed to it as the years wore on. England is glad she did; her warm winter box is a sight to behold now, and as he glimpses the onion-capped towers rise behind the gatehouse, his heart leaps into his throat. Yes, this, this is as he remembers it: the strange almost-harmony of the gold-and-azure weathervanes, the grand sprawl of the outer courtyard, the fair gardens of the inner where he and Bess rested after a stag hunt, or stole a moment away from her throngs of courtiers, or kissed behind the blossoming hedges. He drums his fingers on his thigh, and only the cold outside the carriage keeps him from yanking the reins from the driver and whipping the horses towards the Great Hall.
“Are we there yet?” America asks for the tenth or eleventh time. England shushes him.
He ought to wish the players luck-or ill, rather-before he leaves, but when the door to the carriage opens he tears out of it without a word. The doors to the great hall seem to open of their own accord, welcoming him in once more. Truly, this sight is as welcome as the last. His great kings survey the space, robed in gold, and though they’re only images they have a steadier grip on their swords than most of the nobles milling about. He doesn’t see Bess in their number, and he’s certain he would were she about. She doesn’t like him to miss her, for one.
“Whoa,” America says from behind him, softer than what England’s used to. “Wow.”
“It’s a lovely palace,” England says, can’t help but smirk. “And one of her smaller ones, at that. You ought to see Nonsuch.”
“It’s pretty. Am I going to have to perform with all those kings glaring at me, though?” America wanders over to Henry V and grins, eyes the image up and down. “Not the happiest guys around, huh? I see where you perfected the stiff upper lip.”
“They’re readying themselves for war, they aren’t supposed to look happy. You, on the other hand, ought to be readying yourself to perform.”
He shrugs, rolls his shoulders back, that insolent grin unwavering. “Hey, it’s not like I find myself in an actual palace all the time, you know? Just taking in the sights.”
“I wouldn’t’ve thought you’d care for palaces.” England’s smirk softens; he scans the crowd briefly, but sees no sign of his queen. “No gods, no kings, as I recall.”
“She’s not my queen, she’s yours,” America begins, but Will approaches him from behind and coughs, cutting him off.
“Thou’rt requested by the rest of thy troop, Master Jones,” he says, “and hast thou seen Heminges’s beard?”
“Uh, nay,” America says, scratches his chin. “Did he check with the rest of the props?”
“It ought to be stored with the costumes.” Will frowns. “Ah, well. ‘Tis of little enough consequence; they will know him for who he is by what he does, not by the beard he wears.”
“At least he gets a beard,” America grumbles. “I wanted a beard.”
Will laughs, his hand resting at the small of America’s back as though to steer him. “Thou hast an ass’s head-a more marvelous sight by far, truly.”
“What, no joke?” America asks, grinning at England.
“Too easy. It isn’t sporting.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hey.” America’s grin wavers. “Keep an eye out for me, okay?”
“I doubt I’ll miss you,” England says, but adds, as is the tradition, “Break a leg.”
“Aw, you do care.”
“I care about you maintaining the integrity of my stage.”
“I thought it was a hall.”
Will laughs. England shoots him a glare. Whose side is he on? “Well, he’s as insufferable as any clown I’ve ever met.”
“Then thou must not have known Kemp well,” Will says, almost with a twinkle in his eye. “Come, Master Jones, we shall see thee outfitted.”
***
England is seated before Bess arrives. “Her Majesty!” the man next to him says, and the audience rises at one, only to bow again as Bess takes her gilded chair at the center of the audience, several rows left and back from where England sits. Even twisting his neck around he can’t see her properly, as the rather full ruff of the man behind him blocks his view. He should run to her now-no, Will’s onstage to deliver the prologue, and England oughtn’t detract from the performance, Will doesn’t deserve that.
Well, he’ll have time after the play to see Bess. He hasn’t seen her for four centuries, surely a few hours is nothing. Surely he has some reserves of patience left. He’s not America, for Christ’s sake.
He can’t recall much of the first scene at all. America’s debut on the Elizabethan stage comes in the next scene, and the thought’s somewhat distracting. Fuck, does he know what half of those words mean? Presumably he had the sense to ask Will, and presumably Will told him. After all, what better authority on Shakespeare than Shakespeare?
England also prays America said nothing of Freud. Or Harold Bloom.
The rude mechanicals enter, and he only half-hears Quince say, “Is all our company here?” He expects he’s anticipating the next line at least as much as America is.
America taps Quince on the shoulder. “You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.”
England releases the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He supposes he needn’t doubt America’s ability to play director, or to interfere with someone else’s production. Hell, he barely lets any of the other rude mechanicals get out their lines before he cuts in, bursting with suggestions. But the play’s written that way, England reminds himself, and the audience seems to respond well to the pace he’s setting.
“Let me play the lion, too!” America calls, bounces up and down on the tips of his toes and waves his hand in the air like a schoolboy. “I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.”
It reminds England so much of America at world meetings, squirming in his seat and straining to catch Germany’s attention so he can unveil his latest plan, that England can’t help but laugh. The rest of the audience joins him in chuckling, but they do so fondly, as though they’re delighting in something their own child did.
No. Not a child. America might be clean-shaven and beaming-fresh-faced, even-and he might look absurdly pleased with himself, but he doesn’t carry himself like a child. His chest is open and proud, and there’s an easy swagger in his step when he strides over to Quince and declares, “I will undertake it,” but he doesn’t swell on the line the way a child would-or the way Kemp would, for that matter. It’s-
He coughs. It’s insufferable, that’s what it is. Insufferable, and he certainly shouldn’t think on it any further, even if the audience cheers wildly at the close of the scene. England half-expects America to wink at the audience as he leaves, but he refrains. Well. Perhaps he’s learnt some restraint after all.
“They do not keep their clown onstage ‘twixt the scenes?” the man to England’s left asks.
“Nay. Perhaps it is some German innovation,” a lady suggests.
“I never knew the Germans to have clowns,” someone behind him says. “This fellow, what do they call him?”
“A Master Jones,” says the lady.
“Well,” says the first gentleman, “perhaps this Master Jones has some delights yet unseen in store.”
That’s one way of putting it, England thinks.
Two scenes from now until America’s next appearance, and England drums his fingers on his thigh as the lovers chase each other about the forest and Oberon and Titania quarrel. England rather likes the boy-apprentices they’ve brought in to replace Condell and Heminges; they aren’t so insipid as some of the other boys who play the women’s parts. Daft, still, the lot of them, wandering in circles ‘round nonexistent trees and making sheep’s eyes at each other. For all the talk about the flush and vigour of love, England rather suspects being in love catches people at their worst.
That, or the players are playing the idea of being in love rather than the thing itself. He says as much to the gentleman on his left, which proves to be a mistake, as the fellow nods solemnly and replies with a few verses of some of the most godawful poetry England’s had the displeasure of hearing. No surprise to hear the man wrote it himself.
One more speech until America appears again. England does wish they’d clear the playing area faster-ah, there he is, and about to transform into an ass.
He also makes a truly awful Pyramus, but that’s the point. “Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,” he booms, and tries to make the points of his shoes flap against the ground in that distinctive stage-walk. He stumbles, falls, and England jumps in his seat-fuck, at that angle he’ll break his nose unless he’s planned out this fall in advance but England honestly can’t tell-
Thankfully, America recovers, and England sinks back into his chair. The rest of the audience seems to be settling back into their seats, which makes England wonder if it wasn’t a pratfall after all. God knows the court’s seen enough of those onstage, and wouldn’t rouse to this one.
Then again, it’s the stage. What’s real, whatever that means, is secondary to what’s believed.
Of course. Of course. England could slap himself for having missed it. That little upstart, he’s introducing representational theatre a few centuries early, isn’t he. It’s all your fault, England informs the fae, and wishes he could keep a straight face while doing so. You brought him along. Next thing you know we’ll have cinematic realism and you’ll all long for the days when actors didn’t mumble their lines.
America runs back onstage, ass’s head in place. The other players shout and run circles around him, occasionally knocking into each other in the process. America blunders after them, shouting, “I see their knavery! This is to make an ass of me,” and at the note of profound indignation in his voice England has to laugh.
“But I will not stir from this place, do what I can,” America says, pulls himself up from his deflated posture and squares his shoulders again. “I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.”
Or rap, as the case may be, if England recalls what Will told him. Oh, fuck. England covers his eyes, half-waits for America to begin beatboxing.
He doesn’t.
America’s voice is-well, England hasn’t had occasion to hear it that often, come to think of it. He hums and whistles, and England’s heard him teach snippets of off-colour ballads to his troops before, but he doesn’t often try to sing in England’s presence. And he’s trying now, in a strong clear baritone. “The ousel cock so black of hue, with orange-tawny bill…”
It isn’t a beautiful voice, precisely, but he’s playing Bottom, it oughtn’t be one. Besides, the ass’s head muffles enough of the sound. England shakes his head. It’s America; England would expect him to go for the joke with his usual degree of subtlety, but he lets the image do most of the work.
America, of all Nations, is letting Will’s words speak for themselves. Of all things. England covers his mouth, leans forward.
“Whose note full many a man doth mark, and dares not answer nay-”
The last note hangs almost sweetly in the air, and a lady behind England sighs.
***
The epilogue concludes, the audience applauds, and England can finally look for Bess again. Bess’s courtiers have the same idea, though, and surround her at all sides. England attempts to dive into the crowd, but the bodies are too thickly packed for him to force his way through, and by the time they all clear, Bess is gone.
Will, however, remains, and the crowd advances on him and the other emerging players next. England beats the rush this time.
“Well, Master Shakespeare?” he asks, low enough that the throngs advancing on the players don’t overhear. “Art satisfied with thy Bottom?”
“Ay,” Will says; he doesn’t beam as America does, but his smile’s no less radiant for it. “I do think he made them believe.”
“He does that,” England says, even more quietly.
“I do what?”
-sweet buggering Christ, America has to stop giving him turns like this. “There is no end to what you do, Am-Master Jones.”
“So I did good, huh?” he asks, fumbling with the seams of his pants as though he’s looking for pockets there to shove his hands into.
“You did well,” England can’t help but correct. “Anachronistically well, I might admit, I don’t know what the rest of the audience-”
“Ah, our German clown!”
“Who, me?” America says, but doesn’t have time for much else before a knot of admirers descends on him, too, peppering him with questions about his hometown and his accent and-England didn’t catch that last, but he’s fairly sure it’s inappropriate.
“I’ll leave you to your admirers,” he says, claps America on the arm. “I must to my queen.”
“We’ll be outside the gatehouse, there’s a kind of inn there,” America says, “and-whoa, hey, carefuleth with that, fair ladies-”
***
Shadows wreath the hall to Bess’s chambers, shadows England cannot banish with his candle alone. Easy in this shifting light to imagine some of them whispering to him, passing on palace gossip and state secrets. In trying to make some sense of the whispers and give them substance, though, he chases them away.
He rubs his forehead. There are times, even in this age, when it really is just the wind.
“-will not stand for it!”
That, however, most certainly wasn’t.
“Do you presume, sir, to command me?”
And that was Bess. England jogs to her door as quietly as he can, taking care not to spill the candle, and presses his ear to it.
“I do not command-” The other voice is male and young. Most human voices sound young to England these days, granted, but this voice in particular smacks of it no matter how deep the man’s voice gets.
“Yet you persist in defying me. Are you more fit to command than I, then?”
“What, would you lead our troops to tame the wilds of Eire? Nay, you shall stay here-stay, and surround yourself with capering fools and a goatish dissembling pygmy while you cast those who would see England prosper from your graces!”
Essex, England realises. Of course she’s arguing with Essex. She always argues with Essex. This one’s heating quicker than most of the ones he recalls, though, and he wonders if Essex is about to find himself banished again.
“England would prosper more readily,” Bess says dryly, “if you would repay the ten thousand pounds you owe him.”
A pause, then: “That, I owe to you, and not to my Nation.”
“Do you suggest I am not wedded to my country’s interest?”
Wedded to more than that, England thinks, but dares not speak. He daren’t do much in the way of breathing, either, come to think of it.
After an even lengthier silence, the man says, “I suggest it is in your interest, and your Nation’s, to recall what is owed me if this venture is to succeed: an army that can rout the Irish rabble and force their lords to heel.”
“And have I not sent out the muster?”
A snort. “Ay, for men too poor to bribe the officers, or to pay another in their stead. If we but had a true army-”
“One I should entrust to you, aye, to do as you will?”
“If you shall not provide one, Majesty,” Essex nearly snarls, “I shall find one-ay, and one more suited to the occasion than the ragged band of greybeards your muster yields.”
The door slams open, and Essex storms out. England pulls his cloak over his head before Essex can glimpse his face; Essex seems not to note him at all, and nearly knocks England into the wall in his haste to leave, his boots rapping smartly against the floor.
England’s candle gutters and dies. He sets it down and steps inside.
It’s profoundly disingenuous to say Bess looks as he remembers her. He remembers her in so many ways, after all. As a girl, her hair unbound and tangled; as a young woman, her face painted porcelain-white; after the smallpox struck, when she hid the marks under more layers of makeup. But she was Bess through it all and she’s Bess now, and the sight of her before him is more perfect than any portrait could be.
Even if her hands cover her face, her fingers trembling on her temples.
England says nothing.
She lowers them, finally, and smiles at him. “My Nation,” she says, and her voice, at least, holds steady.
His doesn’t. “My wife.” He kneels before her, takes her hand in his-god, it has been centuries since he touched her last, and he fights not to seize her by the wrist and kiss every inch of her hand, settles instead for touching his lips to her knuckles.
“Thou’rt gallant as ever,” she says, but doesn’t withdraw her hand, and England is grateful for it.
“I do not often hear myself called such,” he murmurs into her fingers.
“Few others see thee as I do.”
“Ay, and I could say the same.” He presses the back of her hand to his cheek; her skin’s worn so thin now, like faded parchment.
“Thou couldst,” she agrees, spares a glance at the door. “Thou seest me in a light most becoming; my courtiers would cast me in twilight, which flatters me not. Tell me, husband, whose sight am I to trust, when I receive such different reports?”
“Thy nation’s, good wife, for when thy statesmen behold thee in twilight, they miss much which the day makes clear.”
“And yet it is night now,” she says, her smile stretched, “and thou seest me true, or such is thy claim. Dost recall the lines from our entertainment earlier? Love sees not with the eyes-”
“-but with the mind,” he finishes. “I am no Cupid, wife.”
Her lips twitch, though England isn’t privy to the joke. “Thou knowst the play well.”
“The argument is old.”
“And we who are old know it.” She cups his cheek before he can protest, her thumb soft over his lips. England closes his eyes, perhaps to test that earlier hypothesis. He can fashion an image of her well enough in his mind, the red of her hair and the white of everything else, cuffs and ruff and skin, but surely his eyes do him better service than his imagination now that she’s before him again, before him and real and-well, thinner than he’d like. “Ay,” she says, and when England opens his eyes her smile cracks, “I will say old here.”
And hang any man for slander who says as much, he thinks, but she knows it as well as he, and there’s a difference between honesty and cruelty. “Do the bard’s words still trouble thee?”
“That? Ay, I suppose. It was deftly done. Ah, the things that man fashions from words: rebuilds old Athens for our pleasure, conjures spirits to inhabit it, puts himself in the mouths of God and kings alike.” England again tilts his head towards her face as though to bathe in what it reflects, and she snorts. “Men have been hanged for less.”
The pit of England’s stomach stirs. “Sorcery, lady, or treason?”
“Why, they are the same. Thy playmakers proved it, or ‘twas proved against them.”
Despite the restless motion, his stomach chills with sickening speed. “My queen, we have spoke oft of this-”
“Ay, and perhaps they have ensorcelled you,” she says. Age has not weathered her edge; England ought to have remembered that. “Thou’rt fond of the man William Shakespeare, art thou not?”
Good god, what did Essex say to her? “Ay, my wife,” he says, wary, but there’s little use in denying as much.
“Does he speak for thee now?”
“No!” bursts out before he can think otherwise, but now he must amend it: “Not quite-in part. It’s damnably complex.”
Bess’s lips are nearly as white as the rest of her face.
“My wife,” he says, “why do we argue?”
“I know not,” she says. “Only that I saw thee enter my chambers, and as thou knelt before me I trembled, because I knew thee not.”
“Oh,” England says. His throat tightens too much for anything else.
“I am jealous, husband, I admit, when I think of another knowing thee so well, and I-” She sighs, releases his face, lets her hands fall to her lap. Bess would never slump on a bed; queenly carriage is, if not in her blood, in her bones by now, but her shoulders slip down all the same. “And I at such a remove from thee, that I no longer know thy heart.”
“My heart is thine,” England says, moves to sit on the bed beside her and clutches her hand, presses it to his chest. “As much thine as ever it has been.”
“Then thou’rt the country I wed?”
He hesitates. “I have striven to be so.”
“Striven,” she echoes, her fingers tracing the slit in his shirt. They brush his collarbone, tug the cloth back, and she thumbs the thick white scar there. “Yet this is unfamiliar to me.”
“Shrapnel,” he says, tries not to flinch, and at her questioning look: “It’s a type of explosive-it was a long time ago.” Or well into the future, rather, as the trenches of the Somme are still some three centuries distant. God, there’s a thought.
Bess says nothing, but her fingers tighten.
“My aspect is changed,” he says slowly, works it out for himself as much as for her. He’s half-tempted to call for Will; Will would know the words for this better than he, if there are words for this at all. “And I have seen-I have gained much, my wife, and lost more. But always, always I have tried to be-” Fuck, he’s getting this all muddled, and the burn spreading from his throat to his chest isn’t helping matters. “I have tried to be-”
Still, she says nothing.
“I have tried to be a Nation you would be proud of,” he says at last. “And that is why I say my heart is thine.”
At last, she nods. “How many years gone?” she asks, and England doesn’t need her to clarify.
“Four hundred, almost to the day,” he says.
“Then that I still know thee for what thou art means thou hast not changed overmuch.”
It isn’t quite a smile. “Thou hast no idea what that means to me. The years have not been as kind to me as to thee.”
Hers, however, is. “Flattery, still?”
“Have I changed so much that now I practise it with ease?”
In answer, she trails her fingers up the side of his neck, strokes his jaw, rests her hand at the back of his head. “Nay,” she says. “Thou canst not look upon me and lie.”
“My wife, I never could.”
“But others can, and do as easily as they draw breath.” She sighs. “All the men I trusted are dead, husband.”
“I am not.”
“Thou’rt no man.”
“True enough,” he says, inclining his head.”Regarding thy trust-”
“Thou wilt have heard my dispute with Essex.” Her mouth thins. “Nay, do not tell me how it ends, or where; I will not have my future told to me like a credulous girl giving coin to a gypsy.”
“Thou wert never a credulous girl,” England says. “And I fear I could not, even were I to wish it so. These are strange times we are in.”
“Ay, most strange.” Bess pauses a moment, strokes the coverlet almost absently. “Too strange for we who have lived so long, and seen so many strangenesses become familiar.”
“And wondered when we became so well-acquainted with them.” England smiles.
For a woman of sixty-five, Bess can still manage astonishing coyness when she so chooses: an arch of her brow, a twist of her mouth. “Thou wert strange to me once.”
“Ay, so I was,” he admits.
“And thou became familiar.”
He’d laugh, but the tightness in his chest prevents it. “So I did.”
She brushes her lips to his forehead, dry and soft and feather-light, and it isn’t right that such a little touch should-well. Should make everything inside him shatter all at once. It’s a miracle he doesn’t collapse boneless to the bed, but Bess’s hand is still on the back of his head, steadying him.
“I thank thee,” she says, “for keeping an old woman company, and release thee to thy revels.”
“My wife, I would not leave you.”
“Thou wouldst not,” she agrees. “But I have left thee already.”
---
--
Dialect notes REDUX!
Obviously, I’m not writing this thing in full-out Elizabethan, because I’m not that footnote-crazy, and quite frankly I don’t trust myself to. I’ve tried to keep in a few elements of Elizabethan speech for flavor, though, and I’ll explain those here.
First, the pronouns! Elizabethan pronouns are pretty similar to ours, except they had an informal “you” pronoun, thou. (It’s like the tu/Usted distinction in Spanish.) You use “thou” for inferiors and people you’re close to in informal contexts, and it’s a bit rude to thou people you aren’t familiar with-so when the guards switch over to using thou with America, they’re trying to put him in his place. Thou is declined like so:
Subject: thou. (Thou liest, shag-eared villain!)
Direct/indirect object: thee. (I give thee thanks, or Let me clutch thee.)
Possessive: thy (thy face), or thine before a vowel. (thine eye).
They also had ye for the second-person plural, though there’s increasing usage of “you” for both singular AND plural second-person.
Verb endings are mostly the same, except for second- and third-person singular. Let’s look at the verb to have:
I have
Thou hast/You have
He hath
We had
You/Ye had
They had
I’m mostly omitting the -eth/th ending on the third person singular in this fic, because it reads weird to modern eyes, but it might crop up with a few words.
As I mentioned in the notes to last chapter, the LCM actually performed Midsummer at Richmond on February 20th, not in January, but this entire fic is under the effects of TIME KOMPRESSION anyway.
Also, oh god Ireland. Wiki has more about the Nine Years' War, but basically: Hugh Ó Neill has falling-out with Elizabeth, spearheads Irish rebellion against English rule, the depths of which England completely fails to comprehend, Ó Neill and allies ambush English troops on the way to Armagh and score a big ol' victory, which fucks over Elizabeth and gets the rebellion even more Irish support. The Earl of Essex is sent over in 1599 to un-fuck things up. This does not go so well historically. In this version -- well, you'll see.
Where England got the scar. (Also where he boned France for the first time in 400 years! OMGPARALLELS. Sort of.)
I hate Harold Bloom. Feel free to ask me why! (Warning: response will be LONG.)
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