“I cannot change the laws that govern the planets and their correspondences, Miranda,” he says. “And I should hope that your devotion to your father casts a longer shadow than your fondness for a mere hen.”
Fresh tears prick my eyes at the thought that Papa should think such a thing. “Of course!”
Papa nods. “Very well then.”
I spend hours in the kitchen garden and make much of Bianca that afternoon, holding her in my lap and petting her soft white feathers. She is content to nestle against me in the hot sun. Claudio struts nearby, pecks at the dirt, and looks askance at us.
I wish that Papa’s spell called for a rooster, but that is a piece of foolishness. Were it not for Claudio, there would be no chicks in the offing. Such is the way of the world.
In the small hours of the night, a storm breaks over the island. Gales of wind howl through the palace; outside its walls, jagged spears of lightning pierce the heavens as the rains lash down. The distant sea must be wave-tossed and raging, a thought that fills me with unspeakable terror.
I cower beneath my bed-linens and think about the wild boy, wondering where he takes shelter from the storm.
I wonder if he is as frightened as I am.
Outside the palace wall in the front courtyard, the spirit trapped in the pine tree begins to wail, awakened by the storm. It is a terrible sound, keening and filled with fury and anguish. Papa should like to free the spirit, for he believes it is far more powerful than any of the simple elementals, but thus far he has been unable to find the key to the curse that binds it, and I am secretly grateful for it. I huddle on my pallet, pull the linens over my head, and wait for the storm to pass.
In time it does. The wind ceases to roar and the dinning rains lessen to a patter. The spirit in the pine falls silent, and I sleep.
I awaken to Papa giving me a gentle shake in the grey darkness before the dawn. “Miranda,” he says. “It is time.”
The air smells of wet stone and dust. I suppose dust is no longer dust when it is wet, but it has the same smell, which is different from the smell of soil or mud. Papa is clad in white robes trimmed with pale blue and silver embroidery. I cannot see the color in the dim light, but the silver thread glints and I know the other is pale blue. There are pouches strung from his belt and the hilt of a dagger protrudes from it. He carries his wooden staff as well as a little silver bowl that hangs from a chain. The latter sways as he walks, smoke trickling from holes that pierce the lid so that I know the bowl contains embers.
In the garden outside the kitchen, the patchy grass is wet beneath my bare feet. When Papa bids me retrieve Bianca, I weep silently, but I do not disobey. Bianca clucks in sleepy protest, but she suffers me to wrap her in the folds of my makeshift gown and bind her wings at her sides.
Holding her fast, I follow Papa through the palace gate and into the front courtyard where the great pine stands.
Another time, it would gladden my heart to be allowed to attend Papa in the practice of his art, but I cannot be glad today. Not with Bianca cradled trusting in my arms and the memory of the storm’s fury and the pine spirit’s cries ringing in my ears. At least the spirit remains quiet as Papa turns to face the eastern sky behind the palace and chants the music of the spheres.
Papa’s deep voice makes the air tremble, and it trembles twice over as the planets in their distant spheres pour down their emanations in response and the rising sun turns the sky to gold. It is impossible to remain unmoved at the beauty of it; but when it is over he turns to me.
“Now you must give me the hen and tend to the thurible,” he says to me, tucking his staff in the crook of his arm and putting out one hand.
I pass Bianca carefully to Papa. He tucks her against his side and gives me the hanging bowl’s chain to hold. Thurible. So that is its name. I clutch the chain tightly and look away as Bianca begins to struggle. At least her end is a swift one. Out of the corner of one eye, I see Papa drop to one knee and the silver flash of his dagger as he beheads her. He keeps her body pinned to the flagstones while it twitches in its final throes.
My breath catches in my throat and one small sob escapes me. I fight to swallow the others.
Still kneeling, Papa lifts the lid of the thurible. Reaching into the various pouches hanging from his belt, he retrieves handfuls of aromatic herbs and casts them onto the coals. Fragrant smoke arises. Replacing the lid, he rises and takes the thurible from me, swinging it gracefully on its chain. With his other hand, he holds his staff aloft. Sunlight sparks from the crystal atop it.
“May God bless you, O Moon, you who are the blessed lady, fortunate, cold and moist, equitable and lovely,” Papa intones. “You are the chief and the key of all the other planets, swift in your motion, having light that shines, lady of happiness and joy, of good words, good reputation, and fortunate realms.”
I wait quietly as he continues the invocation, my hands clasped before me. I am grateful that Papa has not dismissed me. Overhead the sky lightens to blue, the pale blue of the embroidery hemming his robe. The day will be clear after the night’s storm. Strange to see, the moon is visible in the morning sky, a ghostly white orb.
It is not quite full. I imagine that the Lady Moon turns her face away out of modesty, yet listens attentively to Papa’s prayer.
I try to keep my gaze trained upon her. I pretend to myself that this is because it is the polite thing to do, but also it is because I do not want to look down. When I blink, at the bottom edge of my gaze I see whiteness below me; white feathers stirring in the light breeze. There will be red blood splattering the rain-washed paving stones, too.
“Camar, Luna, Mehe, Zamahyl, Cerim, Celez!” Papa calls to the moon. “By all thy names I invoke thee that you hear my petition!”
He kneels once more, swinging the thurible around himself in a circle, then rises and repeats the invocation.
My feet grow sore from standing on the flagstones. I shift my weight from one foot to the other.
I do not believe that it required so great a working of Papa’s art to summon Oriana the first time, but then she is a mere beast, no matter how willful. A man is a reflection of God Himself, and that is another matter.
I think the wild boy is a man, or at least a boy. I cannot be wholly sure, for I have never seen him clearly. When he spies upon me from the garden wall outside my bed-chamber, he is clever about lurking in the dappled shadows. Still, I feel almost certain that he means me no harm. I cannot say that is always true of Oriana, who butts me with her bony head and the hard nubbins of her horns when she is in a foul mood.
The sun climbs overhead and the morning grows hot. I feel prickly with sweat and hollow with hunger.
Papa finishes a third recitation of his invocation, stands, and sets aside the thurible. Now he holds forth a new amulet strung around his neck on a chain. It is in the form of a silver cage wrought in a sphere, and there are strands of coarse black hair wrapped around the silver wires.
“By the strength of mine art and the very hairs of thine head, I summon thee!” Papa says in a commanding voice, thumping the metal-shod heel of his staff on the flagstones. “Come forth!”
We wait.
I had not reckoned on waiting so long; but of course, that is foolish, too. The wild boy might be near or far. He is free to roam the whole of the isle, and it is almost half a league from the palace to the seashore alone.
Papa stands tall and motionless, as though an eternity might pass without his noticing, his gaze fixed on the east. His hair, which is long and iron grey, spills over his shoulders. The faint breeze stirs his hair and his beard, which is also iron grey marked with two streaks that yet remain black.
I am thirsty, too.
Our shadows grow smaller as the sun climbs. The spirit trapped in the great pine lets out a wail, unexpected and plaintive. I jump at the sound of it, but Papa only glances at the tree. “Be at peace, gentle spirit,” he murmurs. “It is my hope that this endeavor will one day bear fruit that may aid thee.”
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I am not sure what he means by it, but the spirit falls silent.
And still we wait, until it seems to me that I have never done aught else save stand in this courtyard beneath the hot sun, footsore and hungry and parched. I grow so terribly weary that even a glimpse of the still body of my poor sweet Bianca no longer moves me to tears. It is merely another object with no more or less value than any other object. Only a strong desire to make Papa proud keeps me from begging to be excused. I fear that were I to do so, it would be a year or more before he would trust me to attend him in the practice of his art.
At last, there is motion in the distance; a hunched figure approaches on the horizon.
The wild boy is coming.
THREE
All at once, my weariness vanishes in a rush of excitement; and a little bit of fear, too.
“Come forth!” Papa says again, and there is a note of triumph in his voice.
The wild boy draws nearer. His gait is slow and halting. He does not walk upright, striding firmly on two feet, but advances in a crouch, steadying himself against the earth with the knuckles of first one hand and then the other.
Step by creeping step, he comes. It is hard, still, to make out his face, which is hidden by a ragged shock of coarse black hair that falls across his features. I catch a glimmer of dark eyes peering beneath the curtain of hair, wide and shining and moon-mazed.
“Hold, and come no further,” Papa says, extending one hand palm outward. The wild boy halts warily. I cannot tell if he understands or if it is simply that his very flesh is obedient to Papa’s spell. His skin is dark with grime and the nails of his fingers and toes are ragged and black. Even standing several paces away, I can smell the rank odor of him.
His face, though; his face is human. I can see enough of it now to be sure. His features are broader than Papa’s and mine and the thrust of his jaw is stronger, but he is a boy, not a beast.
“Avert your gaze, Miranda,” Papa says quietly. “It is unseemly that you should look upon his nakedness.”
I do not want to look away, but I do.
Mostly.
“Good lad,” Papa says to the wild boy. “Bravely done.” The wild boy says nothing. “Do you understand?” Papa asks him. “Do you speak?” The wild boy cocks his head and sits on his haunches, knuckles brushing the flagstones.
My wise and learned Papa repeats the question in the different scholarly tongues he speaks, but the wild boy gives no answer. I watch him from the corner of my eye and see his dark, shining gaze flick sidelong behind his thick hanks of hair, stealing glances back at me.
It feels as though the wild boy and I are exchanging secrets, which is a dangerous and thrilling thought.
I wonder if he is mute, though.
I do not wonder it for long. When the spirit in the pine lets out another unexpected groan, the wild boy leaps sideways and gives an angry bark. His tongue and the inside of his mouth are surprisingly red.
“So you can speak,” Papa muses. “But it is language you lack. Well, we shall see about teaching you.” The wild boy looks uncertainly at him, nostrils flaring. Papa lays one hand on his filthy head. “Peace,” he says firmly. “Come with us. Shelter and food and drink shall be yours.”
Closing his eyes, the wild boy leans his head against Papa’s hand like Oriana when she wants the hair at the base of her horns scratched.
“Come,” Papa says again, taking his hand away. Turning, he walks toward the palace gate. The wild boy follows him obediently. “Miranda, retrieve the hen and place her in the larder.”
It seems cruel that I must be the one to gather up poor Bianca’s body now that the spirits have no more use for her, but I do it, making a pouch of my robes. Her body is slack and heavy in death and her head, her dear little head … I do not want to think about it. Her blood stains my robes.
My terrible chore done, I hurry through the empty halls of the palace.
Papa has prepared a chamber for the wild boy, placing a pallet, a tray of food, a great basin of water, and a chamber-pot in it. He chose the chamber specially because it is one of very few that has a stout door with a working lock and key; also, there is a gallery on the upper level that looks down into the chamber. Papa says it was made thusly so that the Moorish sultan could keep his favorite wives safely hidden away, yet gaze down upon them at his leisure. The chamber possesses a courtyard with a garden, but Papa tasked the earth elementals with sealing the entrance with great stone blocks gathered from the eastern end of the palace, which is in the greatest disrepair. Only the tall windows on the upper story admit light.
So it is a cell from which the wild boy cannot escape, which is another thing that seems cruel to me. Papa says I misunderstand the nature of kindness, which sometimes requires a firm heart and a firm hand, and that it will be a kindness to provide the wild boy with a safe place in which he may become accustomed to his surroundings.
I climb the stairs to the upper story of the palace and make my way to the gallery where I might observe.
I imagine that the wild boy will be staring about in amazement at the ornate tiled walls and the honeycombed ceiling, but he is curiously unmoved by them. His attention is fixed on Papa, although when I enter the gallery and sit perched with my legs dangling between the posts of the balustrade, his dark gaze flicks my way once more, quick as a bird’s.
From above, I can see that a ridge of bristling hair runs partway down the length of his spine. I should like to know what it feels like to stroke it.
Papa gestures around. “Here is your new home,” he says. “Here you may eat and drink, sleep deeply and be refreshed. Here we shall begin the great work of civilization.” The wild boy gazes at him uncomprehending, and Papa smiles in response. “I pray that understanding may be granted to you in time. Soon you shall sleep, and when you wake, your will shall be your own; save in one matter.” He grasps the new amulet with one hand and raises his staff with the other. His voice takes on the stern tone of command. “By the grace and favor of the blessed Moon, by the strength of mine art and the very hairs of thine head, I bind thee! Never shalt thou do aught to harm me or mine daughter Miranda, lest thee suffer torments untold.”
The power in Papa’s voice makes the very walls of the palace tremble. The wild boy lets out a fearful whine and sinks deeper into his crouch, wrapping his skinny arms around his head as though to ward off a blow.
“Peace.” Papa’s voice has turned soothing again; and again, he lays a hand on the wild boy. “Sleep now.”
I know well the manner of sleep that Papa’s art induces: deep and sudden. The wild boy topples over onto the tiles as though struck a heavy blow. In sleep, his face softens and his cramped limbs loosen.
“Pfaugh!” Papa sniffs. “The lad reeks to the heavens.” He leans his staff against the wall and wipes his hands on the white fabric of his robe with disdain. One of the talismans strung around his neck, a pendant set with a clear blue-green gem, lets out a spark as he summons water elementals from the basin. “Bathe him as best you may.”
The undines swarm the wild boy’s form like a shallow stream spilling over rocks, twisting and twining. He stirs in his sleep, but does not awaken. A tide of dirty water creeps across the tiled floor. The wild boy’s skin begins to turn a lighter shade of brown, speckled with a scattering of darker moles.
“Miranda!” Papa cautions me for looking.
I look away.
The sound of splashing water continues, then abates. There is a scuffling sound and the sound of Papa’s breath huffing slightly.
“The lad is made decent, child,” he announces. “You may observe and learn.”
I look back. The undines have returned to their element. The tiled floor and the wild boy’s skin glisten with wetness. His chest remains bare, but there is a length of cloth knotted around his waist.
“Now let us see what we have here,” Papa muses, and I see that there is a coffer containing implements from his sanctum in the cell. He arranges the wild boy on his
back, straightening his limbs. “Ah. We behold there is no actual deformity to the spine, which suggests his bestial crouch is born of habit, not necessity.” He examines the wild boy’s hands. “The layers of calloused flesh on his knuckles and palms suggest it is a habit of long standing. Why, one wonders?” He is talking mostly to himself. “There are no apes or monkeys on this isle where he might have learned such a habit.”
I think of the rocks on the distant shore over which I have seen the wild boy clambering, of the crumbling walls of the palace he has scaled. I would use my hands and feet, too.
Using a pair of calipers, Papa measures the wild boy’s height, the length of his limbs, and the breadth of his skull and jaw. He notes these measurements in a diary with a quill and ink, by which I know he is gravely serious about this endeavor. Paper is in scant supply and precious to Papa.
I am a little envious of the wild boy. I do not think Papa would waste paper on my measurements. But mayhap I am being ungracious because I have not yet broken my fast today.
“By the height of the lad and allowing for the effect of deprivation on the natural process of maturation, I should gauge his age within the range of nine to twelve years.” Papa measures the wild boy’s arms and shoulders, his calves and thighs. “Although by the breadth of his skull, it may be that he suffers from a form of dwarfism, and we might reckon him older.” He sets aside his calipers and rubs his bearded chin thoughtfully. “As for that, time will out. Eh, lass?”
“Forgive me, Papa.” Dizzy with hunger and thirst, I have lost the thread of his musing. “What is it?”
Papa’s brow darkens, then clears. When he is deep in his studies, he sometimes forgets the need for food or drink, subsisting on nothing but air. I see him remember I do not have his endurance. He slides his arms beneath the wild boy and lifts him. The wild boy’s head and arms and legs dangle. He looks small in Papa’s arms. Papa shifts him onto the pallet and straightens, retrieving his staff. “Come,” he says kindly to me. “Let us take sustenance, you and I. Whatever secrets the lad holds will wait.”