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care, do you understand? His line runs straight to the two horses gifted to Richard the Lionheart by Saladin. They saved Richard at Arsuf and stayed with him throughout the holy wars. It took four centuries of patience and husbandry to reincarnate them into the magnificent creature you see here. So, mark my words, master bard, and mark them well for one time in your life: You will return Aston to these stables alive and unharmed, and if you even think of taking a knife to him, I swear to every god and every faith that I will castrate you myself!”
    Bacon then shoved his leather book into Shakespeare’s chest with so much violence that it knocked the playwright back a step. “That codex contains all the necessary instructions—”
    â€œWait.… Instructions?”
    â€œYes, instructions to save his life! If Aston sustains any injuries on your mission, it will be your job to repair him.”
    â€œYou’re mad!” Shakespeare gasped. “I’m a playwright, not a … zoo doctor!”
    â€œAS. I. SAID! If Aston is injured, consult that codex! It cost nothing short of your previous horse’s life to fill its pages.”
    Dumbfounded, Shakespeare looked down at the leather tome in his arms and flipped it open … to a lifelike drawing of his beloved horse’s severed head. The codex was a handwritten, hand-illustrated atlas on equine anatomy: every bone, every muscle, every organ, and every vein that had made up the pained playwright’s former companion. “Bentley…”
    â€œThere’s more, master bard. We trained Aston to neither trust nor work with unfamiliar faces. It’s the reason he spurned you earlier; it’s a safeguard against theft. You have to establish a bond with Aston before he lets you ride him, so starting tonight, you will sleep with him in his stall for the next several months.”
    â€œWhat? Months? ”
    â€œAs long as I deem necessary,” Bacon pressed.
    â€œYou can’t do that! I … I have a home!”
    â€œWe all do, master bard. It’s called the Ordnance Office, so get used to spending more time than you’d like here.”
    â€œBut this is not what I came here for!”
    â€œYou read the letter, master bard. If you plan to take Aston, these are my terms.”
    â€œBut, I—”
    â€œMaster Bacon?”
    The scientist, the playwright, and even Aston turned their heads to a squire who unexpectedly entered the discussion. “Shakespeare can’t sleep with Aston tonight. I’m sleeping with him.”
    The bard grinned with triumph while the snubbed scientist turned his back on the squire. “Tomorrow, then,” Bacon sneered. “As for now, come with me. There’s one last thing we need to do before the dusk.”
    â€œWhat is it this time?” Shakespeare scoffed. “Do I have to clean the Augean stables?”
    â€œYou are welcome to clean Aston’s stall when you get there. Until then, you and I have business atop the White Tower.” Bacon turned his back on the bard and marched toward the castle while the puzzled playwright scratched his head. He looked once more to Aston, but then gazed skyward to the conspiracy of ravens circling the Tower of London.

 
    Chapter VII
    Joining the Conspiracy
    It had previously occurred to Shakespeare that London’s raven population had increased dramatically within recent years. The more superstitious part of the playwright took this as an ominous sign—another bout of plague, perhaps—but the truth was quite the opposite. These ravens did not arrive to curse Britain, but to save it.
    Bacon’s footfalls echoed up and down the White Tower’s spiral stairs while Shakespeare followed behind him carrying two wooden pails. The reeking buckets were overflowing with an odd assortment of animal parts: chicken livers, beef kidneys, sheep lungs, ox hearts, pig intestines, tongues, eyeballs,