Fic: "Twilight for Anonymous..." Part I...

[reg...@aol.com]

“Twilight for Anonymous…”
Disclaimer: Not mine but thine...O, Joss!

Archived at the Cicelyverse page of the Buffy Rebecca verse,
http://www.buffyrebecca.com/Cicelypg.html or direct to story at
http://www.buffyrebecca.com/tfa.html...

General audience level...

Summary: In a past life of Buffy and William, a certain story- and
scene-stealing vampire gets his much-deserved desserts…

You might care to read the prequel to this bit of fun "Original
Sin"...www.buffyrebecca.com/Cicelypg.html/os.html

***

London… 1599…

“Now…” shrewd look…From a dark-haired man who, leaning back on his
stool, eyes his visitor…A large, rather buxom, ravens’-haired beauty…A
beauty not only well-known to him, but desperately desired…

To the point of both the most fiendish evil and the most bitter
jealousy…

“…I don’t say I know who might be layin’ claim to Will’s work, lass…
But…”

“Ben…You’ll be tellin’ me or you’ll be pickin’ splinters from that cup
out of yer teeth…” the addressed woman notes, coldly…Advancing…

Hmmn…The man eyes his approaching foe…Brown eyes with that odd hint of
green, flashing…Short, sharp hewn to a fine point, stake clenched in
capable right hand…

And knowing as I do just how capable she might well be of doing that…

“Well…For the sake of me two dearest friends in this world of
England…” Ben begins…

“Jonson…Cut to the quick of it…Or I’ll be breakin’ that money-makin’
hand of yours faster than my Will could say ‘Romeo, oh wherefore…’”

Ouch…Witch…She would rub it in about “her” Will’s latest blockbuster…

Well, a silly romance always gets the groundlings blubbering…And throw
in a couple of foolishly open-hearted, teenaged lovers…

“Now dearest Annie…” he eyes his dearly desired, the spouse of his
great foe…

“…As your Will’s closet friend…And an artist of the first rank…”

“’Oh…’” she begins, seizing his hand… “… ‘Romeo’…”

Arggh… “DeVere…Edward DeVere…Anne, I and the world need that hand,
girl…”

She releases, arch look…Followed by puzzled one…

“Oxford?...That twit?...The toff would-be poet who hired Will to write
a sonnet for him?...”

“So they say…But hey, last week ‘they’ were saying it was Marlowe
doing all of Will’s writing…” Jonson notes…

“Ay…They did…” So thank God for the English Secret Service, its
efficiently brutal chief, Walsingham, and our ruthless Queen for
eliminating one threat to the family firm...

No offense, Chris, but tis’ a tough business…

“But…DeVere…?” she frowns… “I thought, perhaps Essex…Or one of the
others in his circle…Everyone knows this fellow’s a silly...”

“Not since he read that sonnet at Court…And I gather your Will kept
his word not to say a word…”

“One…And one decidedly second-rate poem among his catalog of hits…Let
out to that young dolt and some are ready to believe…”

“Eh…Last month, I told some fool in a tavern, as a joke whilst I was…A
bit incapacitated, that it was the Queen herself writing my
plays...And for the rest of that month…”

“I remember…Well, what you deserved then, knowin’ they’d said the same
last year about Will…”

“So, where is the lad?...Not willin’ to stand for his work, he sends
you here to take up for him?…”

“We discussed it…”

Cut to shot of William Shakespeare, bound and gagged in his London
rooms…

“…But no way I’m lettin’ him put himself at risk, confrontin’ this
sort of thing…He’s the source of the family wealth, Ben…Can’t have him
in prison or worse for upsettin’ some courtier with friends who might
not even be the right man…”

Besides…A bound and trussed Will Shakespeare is a faithful Will
Shakespeare…For a day or two at least…

Hmmn…

“Anne…” Hopeful tone… “If that truly be the only reason…”

“Pish off, you…” frown… “Ben Jonson…You know I love Will alone…”

“Annie…After all we’ve meant to each other?...”

“I’ll be breakin’ that hand now…”

“Anne…Fine, fine…” Jonson glares but pulls back hand…

Perhaps after she met that popinjay when she did tell me to never
darken her doorframe again there was a hidden meaning there after all…

Well…Ben Jonson shall yet have his vengeance…Even if tis to be served
both cold and rather late…300 years or so from now, in fact, if that
damned pretty piece of a “justice demon”, that sweet, if rather
deadly, Anya comes through true…What was it now…He’s to be reborn as
the world’s worst poet…And dear Anne cursed to doom him to unendin’
suffering…

Nice…He smiled inwardly…

“What?...” Anne eyed his beaming, contented face…

Oops…That was meant to stay inwardly…

“Uh…Just thinking on how best to punish that worthless snot of an
aristocrat…For my good friend’s sake…” Ben, innocently…

Right…I believe that…Anne frowned…

After all, someone had to have smuggled Oxford a copy of Will’s other
works for him to be claiming authorship so boldly…

***
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, stepson of Her Royal Majesty’s
beloved Robert Dudley, royal (currently ex-) favorite, pacing room…
Pausing to eye his majestic self in a long mirror, feeling moustache
acquired during his recent campaign…The only badge of honor in the
sorry affair…Carefully and proudly…Pulling at stuck fold of sleeve,
then smoothing…

My God, I’m beautiful…He turns and frowns at his guest, reclining on a
long chair…

“Edward?...Are you sure this work will do the job?...”

Languid stare, shrug, off-hand wave of languid hand emerging from
ruffled sleeve…

“My dear Robert…” Edward DeVere, taken by all to be the current heir
to the Earldom of Oxford, rather than the sole and immortal holder of
said title that he was in truth…Smiles gently…

Poor spoiled baby…Unable to see the wolves at your heels and the fiend
traitor in your bosom…

“…Our friend Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II’ will do for the occasion…An
anointed king, foolish and rather disliked but hardly a brute tyrant,
overthrown and deposed…It’s just what we want to convince our people
the old Queen can be shaken…”

“Yes…” Essex paces further… “Yes…But of course, shaken…I want her just
shaken, you know…Forced to see that I am her only true protector and
worthy advisor…”

“Of course…” Edward nods…

“Even if my very life weighs in the balance I should never violate my
oath…”

Uh-huh…Somehow I wouldn’t place great bets on ole Eliza’s life if we
should succeed…

But, she’ll probably offer him some equally worthless promises of
safely and forgiveness, if it comes to that…

Either blood will follow…To my benefit, both practically and of the
spirit…

Ah, politics…I love it so…

“But when does the fellow come to receive our charge?...And the
alterations we considered to add to the topicality of the play?”

“Shortly, Robert…Shortly…After all, the man is a hit playwrite…His
time is valuable and his schedule, generally impossible…But for those
good friends of ample coin and influence in the realm…”

“Are we, Essex and Oxford, two peerless high nobles of this isle, to
await the pleasure of some nobody playwrite?...” Essex fumes…

“The crowds we hold to influence to our side wouldn’t say so…” DeVere
notes…

“Bah…You place too much faith in the crowd, Edward…It is a fickle
mistress and will bite…Hard…When annoyed or perceiving itself
spurned…”

Someone will, in any case…Oxford inwardly smiles…Brushing a loose hair
down…
***