FIFTY
CALIBAN
The palace is in sight.
One two three four five six seven eight, I count my steps. Miranda did teach me to count, oh, so long ago.
The men’s steps stumble and drag. They are tired, so tired! Still, one clutches his rock; the other his heavy stick.
The sun is hot.
My skin itches, blood and rain and mud salt-spray dried on it. I scratch at it with my ragged nails.
The men complain; the men wish they had a flask of the sweet red claret to carry with them.
I lie.
I tell them there are fountains of sweet red claret playing in every courtyard of the palace. I promise them everything that they do want; everything, everything.
They are cheered and pick up their feet a little faster.
There are footprints in the packed sand and scattered little pebbles of the path; footprints of men wearing boots. Other men have come this way. I hope that they are Master’s enemies.
I do not hear Ariel’s voice singing anymore.
Bees are buzz-buzzing in the wild lavender. I could follow them, I think; leave these men and follow the bees to find where their honey is hid, gather it and fetch it for Miranda.
I wish it were yesterday.
I wish it were a thousand yesterdays ago, long before I ever did see Miranda naked at her wash-basin.
But it is not; and there is hatred in my heart. I will not follow the buzzing bees. Even if it is too late, I will not turn back.
No, I will do whatever I can.
I count my steps and think of you.
Miranda.
FIFTY-ONE
MIRANDA
The goat is roasting in the hearth, and the rack is filled with firewood. The gnomes turn the spit, and fat and juices drip down to sizzle in the embers.
I fetch my wooden comb and little pot of soap from my chamber and draw water from the well so that the prince may wash away the gore and grime of his labors. He scrubs his hands and his arms to the elbow, splashes his face with cool, clean water, rakes the sea-tangles from his hair with my comb. I reckon that’s as presentable as I can make him without fresh attire, and that I do not have.
Shadows creep across the dusty ground.
At last Ariel comes to summon us; and the spirit’s presence is a new marvel over which the prince must exclaim, for he caught no glimpse of his ethereal rescuer amidst the storm’s fury.
I am weary of marvels. “What transpires in the courtyard?” I ask Ariel. He hesitates, and I beg him in despair. “Spirit, have pity on me.”
Ariel beckons me some distance away from the prince. “This hour past, the king and his retinue have stood amazed in a spell of thy father’s devising, my lady,” he murmurs. “They behold a vision of their past sins from which there is no escape, and they shed endless tears of remorse at it; all save one who is that noble lord that did aid thy father and thee, and has no cause to repent of it.”
“Does it move my father’s heart to mercy?” I ask.
“It would move mine were I mortal,” Ariel says soberly. “I should think thy father’s heart made of stone if it is unmoved. But come, quickly.”
He leads us through the fretted, crumbling halls of the palace to one of the enclosed gardens where myrtle grows in profusion, jasmine perfumes the air, and undines cavort in the splashing fountain.
The garden contains a latticed arbor covered in vines. The arbor has always been empty, but today there is a table and a pair of chairs, and atop the table sits the game-board from the pirates’ treasure, the cunning figures of silver and gold arrayed in lines on either side of it.
“Sit and pass the while,” Ariel bids us.
So we are to wait again. “How long?” I ask bitterly.
The spirit’s eyes darken at my tone. “Until thy father decides whether to administer mercy or justice.”
Prince Ferdinand gazes after Ariel as the spirit takes his leave, a slight frown creasing his brow. “What grave matter is it that your father does adjudicate this day?” he asks me.
How am I to answer?
Your father lives, I might say to him, though I fear mine might yet dispatch him for his sins.
What would he do?
What would I do?
I sit and bow my head, letting my hair curtain my face while my thoughts chase themselves fruitlessly. I touch one of the smallest figures on the game-board. Above the arbor, swallows dart and twitter on the wing.
“Forgive me, but I am not privy to my father’s business.” I glance up at the prince. “Do you know how to play this game, my lord?”
“Ferdinand.” He smiles at me. “Call me by my name, for I think it should never sound so sweet as it might upon your lips, my lady. Have you never played chess?”
I shake my head. “No, never.”
He sits opposite me. “Here, Miranda. Allow me the privilege of being your tutor.”
I watch the prince touch each figure on the board and name them, committing each to memory. I have an excellent memory, for the studies to which Papa set me demanded nothing less. The prince’s hands are strong, fair, and shapely. I listen to him describe the manner in which each piece is permitted to move, each player moving a piece in turns in accordance with his strategy. His voice is warm and pleasing.
You shall learn, in time, to love the prince.
Papa, I think, sees the entire world as a game-board; and all of us lesser beings merely pieces upon it.
Oh, how I wish Caliban were here.
But Caliban is elsewhere; and so I suffer the prince to teach me the rules of the game of chess, our heads bowed over the checkered board beneath the green shadows of the arbor.
I do not think about what is happening in the innermost courtyard.
I do not think about Caliban.
Only this moment; piece by piece, square by square. It is an orderly world, the world of this game-board. One might spend a lifetime mastering its intricacy, I think, but it holds no hidden secrets. I immerse myself in it, listening to the prince’s murmuring voice, the twittering swallows, the splashing fountain. I ignore the faint sound of footsteps on the paving stones.
“Behold,” Papa’s voice says softly, and I ignore it, too.
“Oh, my son!” another man’s voice cries, cracking under the weight of a hope too great to endure. “Ferdinand! Pray, tell me you’re flesh and blood, and not a vision!”
“Father?” The prince rises, his eyes bright and incredulous. “Can it be true? Oh, the good Lord God be praised!”
So Papa has chosen mercy, and I can no longer abide in the pleasant fiction that none of this is happening. The prince and his father the king embrace, both of them laughing and weeping in their joy.
I try to imagine Papa weeping for joy on my behalf, and cannot. He wears a look of solemn pride, as though he were not the very cause of so much grief allayed. There are three other men; one is weeping, too, and I think he must be that noble lord to whom Papa and I owe our survival.
So many strange men! I feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of them, and I should like to flee.
But now the king’s gaze falls upon me. “Who is this fair maiden?” he asks his son.
The prince comes and takes my hand, and I do not resist as he leads me to meet his father. “She is the good duke’s daughter, sir,” he says, “and by the grace of God, my own betrothed.”
I curtsy to the king. “I am Miranda, my lord.”
The king smiles at me through his tears. “Why then, I have gained a daughter as well as my son this day!”
FIFTY-TWO
CALIBAN
Toolatetoolatetoolate.
Words sound in my head with every footstep, thumpity-thump. Too late, Caliban; poor dumb monster.
Bad.
Badbadbad.
You did choose to do a bad thing; you did choose the wrong men to do it. You did everything wrong.
The men are angry there are no fountains of sweet red claret. They hear voices somew
here in the palace, other men’s voices, and they are angry.
You did say there was no one here but the magus and his daughter, they say to me. You lied to us, monster.
I say I did not know.
The men follow the voices; now I follow the men. Now it is my footsteps that drag through the halls of the palace. The voices are not angry and shouting; the voices are saying please and thank you to God. It seems that Master’s vengeance is not the thing I thought it would be.
Run.
Runrunrun!
The men go into the garden and I do not follow them. Thump; I hear a rock fall to the ground; thump, I hear a stick fall.
Oh, oh, my liege, the men say; oh, oh, my prince! Alive, all alive! Praise be to God! Forgive us, good duke! The monster did lie to us!
RUN.
I turn to run and there is Ariel, his eyes shining and terrible. “Fool!” he says to me. “I did warn thee.”
FIFTY-THREE
MIRANDA
On the heels of the king’s warm words, two of his courtiers stumble into the garden with crude weapons in their hands and a wild tale of deception on their lips, one that I pray is untrue.
Caliban. Oh, Caliban!
Papa’s face is grim. “Ariel, my brave spirit!” he calls, his hand closing around Caliban’s amulet. “Fetch forth the villain.”
There is a great clap of thunder in the offing and a wind springs up along the colonnade that encloses the garden. It swirls down the hall and spills through the arched doorway, a maelstrom of wind and fog from which Caliban tumbles, landing sprawling on the paving stones. Ariel’s figure resolves itself from the maelstrom, though it is Ariel as I have never seen him, taller and more fearsome. His white sleeves flutter behind him and now it seems to me that they are not sleeves at all, but wings; and I wonder if I have ever beheld the mercurial spirit’s true form.
As for Caliban, he collects himself to sit crouched on his haunches, the knuckles of one hand braced on the ground, his head hanging low.
“What manner of strange brute is this?” the prince whispers to me, and for a moment, I cannot help but see Caliban through his eyes; a crouching, bestial thing smeared with filth and gore, half naked in ragged trousers, coarse and rough and repugnant in every aspect.
Monstrous.
I never believed I would see him thusly and I do not answer the prince, for I am ashamed.
Then Caliban lifts his head and gazes at me, and there is such love and misery and heartbreak in his dark eyes, I feel as though my own heart is shattering into pieces within me. My hand is yet clasped in Prince Ferdinand’s. I withdraw it quietly, but Caliban has already seen.
He looks away, his shoulders hunching as though to absorb a blow.
“So, villain,” Papa says to him in a voice as hard as stone. “Though I have shown you every kindness, taken you under my roof, fed and clothed you and seen that you were taught language when you had none, you stand accused by these good men of plotting my murder. Will you confess it?”
Caliban utters a harsh bark of laughter and stares at Papa. “Every kindness? I was free and you did make a servant of me!”
“I sought to civilize you!” Papa shouts at him. “An ill-advised effort, and one which you’ve sought to repay with murder! Have you aught to say for yourself?”
I wish that Caliban would deny it; I wish it were untrue. I wish … ah, dear Lord God, I do not know what I wish. When in my life have my wishes ever mattered?
“Yes,” Caliban says in a low, savage voice, so low that all must strain to hear his words. “I only wish I did succeed, Prospero.”
Papa’s hand tightens on the amulet. Caliban flinches in anticipation of the agony to follow, and I flinch in involuntary sympathy. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the prince give me a bemused glance.
He does not know what Papa is capable of.
None of them do.
Nor will they learn it today, for Papa stays his hand and does not inflict a punishment upon Caliban for them to behold. I do not think it is mercy that dissuades him, but rather the presence of an audience before whom he wishes to preserve the semblance of magnanimity.
“I’ll decide your fate on the morrow,” he says instead. “Gentle Ariel! Take the ungrateful wretch to his chamber. Lock the door and bring me the key, and bid the little gnomes seal him within it as they did long ago.”
Ariel bows. “It shall be done, Master.”
Caliban accompanies him without protest, nor does he glance in my direction as he goes.
I am trembling.
“Are you frightened?” the prince asks me gently, touching my arm. “Do not be afraid, my lady. I promise you, whatever the sullen brute has done, he cannot harm you.”
I think of the trumpet flowers withering on my window-ledge and very nearly burst into hysterical laughter.
Caliban.
Oh, Caliban!
Why, I should like to scream at him, why?
But in the secret place inside me where I once contemplated the possibility of Papa’s demise, I know why.
There is a feast that evening. It takes place in the great dining hall that Papa and I never use, for it is far too vast a space for our modest stores of oil-lamps and beeswax candles to light.
But tonight, Papa is profligate; profligate with our stores, profligate with his magic, profligate with his magnanimity. Air elementals have driven the dust from the tiled floor, water elementals have washed it clean. The earth elementals have scoured the fixtures, and never-before-used sconces gleam beneath candlelight; the platters and chalices of the pirates’ treasure gleam atop the long, moldering trestle table that stretches the length of the hall.
Papa has dispatched Ariel to bear the good tidings of the survival of the king and his retinue to the sailors in the pirates’ cove; and to return with a barrel of wine from the ship’s stores that all might celebrate on this joyous occasion of reunion, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
The barrel is tapped, wine is poured.
“To the betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda!” the king proclaims, hoisting his chalice.
Everyone follows suit and drinks.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
I try not to choke.
Papa’s cold gaze rests on me. I sip my wine, smile and blush, and hold my tongue lest I say aught to spoil the moment.
Ferdinand raises my hand to his lips and kisses it chastely, regarding me over the rim of his chalice with his besotted gaze.
There are things, so many things, I should like to say.
Do you not think it passing strange that you should love me so, when you scarce know me?
My liege, do you not think it strange?
My lords, do you not think it strange? This storm that sprang out of nowhere, do you not think it passing strange?
But I say nothing. There are too many men; their presence stifles me, their voices crash over me like the waves of the ocean. Dear God, how shall I endure on a ship filled with dozens of such men in close quarters? How shall I endure in a city filled with hundreds or even thousands? I fear I shall go mad.
The goat is carved; our platters are heaped high with slabs of roasted meat. I poke listlessly at mine.
The men eat their fill, belch into their beards, stretch their booted legs out beneath the long table, and compare tales of the storm.
I learn that the purpose of their journey was to see the king of Naples’s daughter wed to the king of Tunis, and that this was accomplished ere the storm separated them from the royal fleet and drove them hence.
I understand that these are the specific set of circumstances Papa has sought to influence with my aid, the work of long years of intrigue and negotiations.
I learn that the king—Alonso is his name—and Papa’s brother, who is called Antonio, repented of their wickedness and wept in the innermost courtyard; the former promising to restore Papa’s title as Duke of Milan, the latter vowing to relinquish all claim to it. br />
I do not care.
Do I?
“Surely God is good to bring us together, Miranda!” the prince says fervently to me, squeezing my hand.
His heart, I think, is kind.
I am not sure mine is.
The men speak of Caliban and his wickedness. It is a wickedness, it seems, distinct from their own sins. It is a wickedness owing to savagery and ingratitude; a wickedness beyond redemption. The men speak at first of hanging Caliban for the crime to which he has confessed, and then of clapping him in chains and putting him on display when we return to the mainland so that all the world might mock him and jeer at him.
I am heartsick at the prospects, and yet how can I plead for clemency? Caliban is guilty, and he has shown himself lacking in all remorse. I should have known; I should have guessed what darkness was in his heart and dissuaded him from attempting such a mad, wicked thing.
But how was I to do so when Papa forbade all communication between us?
Oh, dear Lord God, if only I had not sought out Caliban at the stream that day, if only I had not insisted on following him, if only I had not lost my footing and fallen … if only so many things had gone differently.
If only Papa had fed Caliban a few more miserly crumbs of kindness; if only I had heeded Ariel’s advice and understood that there was a measure of cruelty in my own kindness to him.
Ariel.
The night is late and the candles are burning low when the spirit enters the hall unbidden, the deceptively gentle breeze that accompanies him causing the guttering candles to flicker.
The men fall silent upon his entrance.
Ariel bows. “Master.”
At the head of the table, Papa fixes him with a lopsided squint. “What are you about, sprite?”
“The moon rises high in the sky and the hours of the day are all but counted, Master,” Ariel says. “Have I failed thee in any particular?”