Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  And get this: she plans to kill him with an incendiary spell that she’s trying to embed in Macbeth.

  So tl;dr: I’m pretty sure she got the spell embedded because of the five things that burst into flame in different productions of Macbeth last week. In retrospect, it’s clear that the triplets in my production really are descended from a witch and are likely witches themselves, and so they literally cast a spell, without intending to, and that’s why the chair burst into flames. And I bet the reason that something happened in those four other productions is because a witch in those productions is, in fact, a witch (meaning had a witch ancestress and happened to inherit the powers, however that works). And nothing happened in the other 197 productions because the actors playing those witches are not, in fact, witches.

  So I am even more aware than these guys that, uh, yes, this is some seriously dangerous freakiness we’re dealing with here.

  OK, back on point about Tristan: I don’t know the details, because Mel doesn’t know the details. All we know is this: there is reason to believe that when Tristan went back to London last time, Gráinne put a spell on him at the first performance of Macbeth, using her version of the witches’ spells from Macbeth (which ended up in my Macbeth four hundred years later . . . or something like that).

  SO:

  My DTAP: 1606 London. April 10.

  My DEDE(s): First, to save Tristan! I have to go back to a time before him (late April) so that I can prevent him from going to the theatre, or at least prevent Gráinne from doing her magic on him at the theatre.

  Second, I have to convince Edmund Tilney to approve the non-magical version of the witches’ spells in Macbeth. (That’s another reason to go back earlier than Tristan’s arrival—Tilney approves scripts two to three weeks before they’re staged.) At the moment, in this Strand of reality, the script Tilney has approved, and which is being rehearsed by the King’s Men at the Globe, contains actual witch spells, which Gráinne convinced Tilney to put into the script. Erzsébet claims they are wickedly wicked, and since I saw what happens when they’re recited at a time when magic isn’t even supposed to work, I’m gonna have to agree with her on that one.

  I’m supposed to prevent this from happening by ingratiating myself to Tilney.

  But I get to Tilney via Shakespeare. THE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE is going to be my handler in 1606 London!

  Mortimer is listening to the noises I didn’t realize I was making while typing this and is warning me I need to contain myself a little. No fangirling over the Bard.

  To stay on point . . . in order for me to go back there, I first have to be inoculated against smallpox (they’re not worried about the bubonic plague, because I can just come home and get antibiotics—um, thanks, guys). The downstairs bathroom here at East House Trust is a maker space for vaccines. Rebecca just stabbed me in the arm with the goo from her cowpox blister. It’ll take a few days for me to get over cowpox and then . . . I’ll go back in time. Like you do.

  Meanwhile, Mortimer is going to teach me to fight like a boy. Turns out, all I know how to do is pretend fight like a man. Also, chopping off the ponytail. I haven’t cut my hair since I was twelve, beyond trimming split ends. I wanted to donate it to a cancer charity for wigs, but I’m not allowed to because it requires showing my identity (I have no idea why they need to do this, but they do) and I can’t create any kind of digital footprint. I was sort of hoping my hair itself would on some DNA level reveal my whereabouts to the bad guys, but no, turns out it’s all about bureaucracy. How banal.

  Okay, and like I said, for my own gratification, I am going to try to summarize the Tristan-level quantum physics shit:

  We start with the multiverse: all possible iterations of the universe existing all at once, as coexisting “Strands” of reality that branch off into infinite differences. At any given moment in time, literally anything could happen next, it’s just that the one thing that does happen next, on our particular Strand of the multiverse, is our experience of reality. It isn’t definitive, it’s just what we happen to end up with. On another Strand, that same moment could play out very differently, and then the future would continue to evolve in a different direction, but only on that Strand.

  Magic works because the multiverse exists—a witch can sort of reach into a different Strand and transfer the reality of that other Strand into this reality. At least, that’s how Erzsébet described her experience of doing it—that she’s literally Summoning it from another Strand—but she reports that Tristan said that was wrong from a physicist’s perspective. (So then she said she wasn’t a physicist and didn’t see why she should have to talk like one, and that if Tristan felt this was a failing on her part, he was free to take over her job of performing magic, and she would take over his job of being the boss of everyone. She’s got sass.)

  Technology and magic do not comfortably coexist. This seems to be chiefly because technology led to the development of photography, and photography is the antithesis of magic, because photography collapses the wave function of light and “sets” the reality of a moment in an absolute sense. Magic, in contrast, requires that reality retains a little wiggle room, to allow for things to be Summoned from other Strands. So as photography developed over the first half of the nineteenth century, magic weakened considerably.

  Three more points and we’re outta here.

  Magic ended in the summer of 1851 when a dude named Berkowski in Prussia photographed a total solar eclipse. This is because sooo many people were looking at the eclipse the moment the photo was snapped—i.e., the moment the waveform was collapsed. Perception (not just human, any sentient being’s perception) plays into this, but that’s a little involved for this cheat sheet.

  Today, magic can only be performed in an ODEC, which stands for Ontic Decoherence Cavity. This is a tiny chamber designed by Frank Oda, just big enough for two people to fit in together, within which photography—or any kind of recording—is not possible, for reasons that honestly go right over my head. DODO has a bunch of ODECs. We have only one, rather makeshift, in the basement here. For Erzsébet and other witches to do any magic, they must be in the ODEC while it is powered up. It’s the only place DOers can be Sent from, or Homed back to, in the present day.

  When witches do magic, and especially time travel, they have to calculate the likelihood of things working out. To determine, for instance, how many times you have to go back to Crimea in 1699 and snuff out a candle in somebody’s house, so that three hundred years later, the Crimean border is five hundred feet farther west than it would have previously been—that’s the kind of thing DODO is all about. The witch calculator is called different things in different languages. Erzsébet calls hers a számológép; Gráinne’s is an áireamhán; the generic term for them is quipu, based on the ancient Incan accounting system. DODO (with Frank and Mortimer’s help) created something called the Chronotron, which cross-references a collection of outrageously powerful quipu with an outrageous amount of historical data, resulting in a nearly omniscient gizmo that can tell them (for instance) how many times they will need to go back to 1699 Crimea and snuff out that candle, before our Strand of reality starts to reflect the butterfly effect of the candle-snuffing. We don’t have access to the Chronotron here. We do have Erzsébet’s számológép, and Mortimer has been helping Frank rebuild some sort of iPad-based quipu, but we’re cut off from the historical-factoid mother lode archived in the Chronotron.

  I think that covers it. I’m going to hand this over to Mortimer now so that I can hear all about how I’m not getting it right.

  Do I even need to mention how freaked out Tristan would be if he knew I was doing this? No, I don’t. Anyone who would ever read this knows him at least a little, and so you can already guess. And boy, is Mel being his proxy freak-out. I told her: I’ve played every pants role in the canon, so color me Ganymede, I got this. She still seems nervous. I even explained to her that I was just in a production of Macbeth last week, so I know it literally by heart; that didn
’t help much either.

  OK, so assuming you don’t need me to express I’m OBE, Mortimer, then I think we’re set, right? Let’s go do some knife work, because that is way more fun.

  EXCERPT OF FREYA’S TRANSCRIPT OF

  CONVERSATION AT EAST HOUSE

  DAY 1992 (11 JANUARY, YEAR 6)

  MEL: I’m not sold, Robin. None of us know you. I have no way to judge your fitness for this. Also, even if you’re successful, Tristan will never speak to me again.

  ROBIN: I totally have this. I was born for this. Tristan would back me up if he were here. C’mon, I’m gonna go rescue my big bro! You think I’d be haphazard about that? The dude’s my god.

  MEL: I’m attached to him myself, but, Robin, listen to your speech patterns. You need to blend in. Robin. Please stop with the origami frogs.

  ROBIN: Check out my eye contact! I am not even looking at my hands, you have my full attention.

  MEL: Thanks. Okay, I understand you can sound perfectly Shakespearean when you recite scripted words for a couple of hours—I mean, I realize you’ve studied all that, but your casual day-to-day body language, your use of language—

  ROBIN: I’m not going to use words like dude when I’m there. Duh.

  MEL: Robin, duh is just as bad as dude. You’re going to land somewhere naked and disoriented and you must be able to pass instantly. All day long, no matter where you are. As you’re falling asleep, as you’re waking up. When you’re drunk.

  ROBIN: I don’t get drunk. That was only senior year. What did Tristan say—

  MEL: And you also have to pass as a boy, so that means a double layer of assumed identity, all the time. I know from experience how hard it is to keep up the charade—and I’ve never had to pass as male. If you break character, you are endangering Tristan’s life.

  ROBIN: It’s already endangered—it’s worse than endangered!

  MEL: I think I should be the one to—

  ROBIN: Zounds, I tell thee, I am alert to the perils o’the time. ’Tis a most cautious and cunning lad I’ll be. There shall be none but believes I am from the very heart o’the city. I’ll have a swashing and a martial outside, as many other mannish cowards have that do outface it with their semblances. What says my lady? Melisande? Hello? Mel, work with me here.

  MEL: Well. Okay. But you can’t cross your legs like that. You’ll be wearing a codpiece.

  ROBIN: My bad.

  Post by Mortimer Shore on “Chira” GRIMNIR channel

  DAY 1992 (11 JANUARY, YEAR 6)

  Hey, gang, Chira just called in again and this is a long one, and I think time sensitive. Here’s Freya’s transcript.

  CHIRA: . . . Aliye did some background snooping for me at her school library, so that DODO would not detect that I was doing unauthorized research. But I do not know if it is helpful. Also, I have the report from the Forerunner. The DTAP is 1397 outside Florence, on the fourth of March, which is during Carnevale, just before Lent. I’ve briefly researched events that might be of interest to DODO, but I can’t guess which, if any, this DEDE is connected to. Especially as I do not know if this is coming from Blevins or from Gráinne. How do you want me to give you this material?

  MORTIMER: Just talk and Freya will record it. Then like before—take the battery out of the phone and chuck the phone. Chuck it someplace different from where you chucked the last one.

  CHIRA: Okay. Here are a couple of things Aliye found about 1397 Florence. First, the Medici bank will be founded in October. This seems likely to be of interest if Blevins or that Constantine Rudge is actually ordering it, or if the Fuggers are involved somehow.

  MORTIMER: Agreed. But I don’t think the Fuggers like to be involved, I think they just want to control how involved everybody else is.

  CHIRA: Okay. Next, the second of three wars between Milan and Florence will begin next month with the Milanese attacking Florence. But at this moment, there is a truce, and trading takes place cautiously on well-established routes.

  MORTIMER: Check.

  CHIRA: Third, Paolo Uccello will be born near here this year. He is an artist and mathematician who was fascinated with geometry.

  MORTIMER: So maybe a Leonardo da Vinci influencer?

  CHIRA: Yes, maybe, but Tristan said Gráinne doesn’t mind Leonardo-levels of technology.

  MORTIMER: Right, so not fruitful. What’s your exact DEDE again?

  CHIRA: I’m to find a certain estate near the hamlet of Ascella, near Florence, and free a Tartar slave woman named Dana. I must smuggle her out of the estate to a wagon waiting to take her to Milan.

  MORTIMER: Got it. What other background info—about her or the estate—whatcha got?

  CHIRA: Only the notes from the Forerunner. DODO is giving me very little prep.

  MORTIMER: Who’s your Forerunner? Tony Bianco breaks trail for a lot of Mediterranean DEDEs, doesn’t he?

  CHIRA: This is another strange thing about this assignment: they won’t tell me who the Forerunner is. I only know the name he goes by in the DTAP, Angelo. I’m not allowed to know his actual identity, there’s no way for me to communicate with him to ask him anything or tell him I am batting cleanup—did I use that phrase correctly?

  MORTIMER: No, but I get your point.

  CHIRA: Tony Bianco specializes in the early-modern Italian peninsula DTAPs, so I agree that it’s probably him, but officially we cannot have any conversation directly with each other about this mission, even if he is just as confused by its irregularities as I am.

  MORTIMER: It’s definitely Gráinne-adjacent.

  CHIRA: Should I query him anyhow? I will do what Tristan directs.

  MORTIMER: Yeah, so, Tristan’s not available right now, but I think he would urge caution, since we can’t anticipate Bianco’s response. So fill me in on the notes. Mel or Rebecca can do a deep dive.

  CHIRA: I wasn’t given much, but of course I’ve memorized it all. The estate is owned by a wealthy wool merchant named Matteo del Dolce and his wife, Agnola. Dana, the Tartar, is their only slave, and she has just been purchased—Forerunner Angelo witnessed the sale. The couple have three children and Agnola needs domestic help—that is the official reason for the slave—but the Forerunner included the note that slavery is not very common here at this time.

  MORTIMER: So do we know why they opted for a slave?

  CHIRA: He thinks it was just a wealth display. Because there was no longer a dedicated slave trade, slaves were conspicuous luxury items. Most of them were young women from Tartar or other points east. This female slave, Dana, has arrived from the auction in the Black Sea, because her impoverished family from some small village near Batumi sold her to the slave trader.

  MORTIMER: That. Is. Harsh.

  CHIRA: Yes, but apparently not unusual. So here is what I learned from the notes of the Forerunner.

  MORTIMER: Go for it.

  CHIRA: Dana was purchased at the dock along with salt, fish, and furs that arrived in the same ship. She would be delivered inland via wagon. He, meaning DOer Angelo, arrived at the port just as Matteo, the merchant, was haggling with port officials over customs. DOer Angelo struck up a conversation with the waiting wagoner, Giovanni somebody. Angelo’s cover story is that he is a Greek pottery wholesaler trying to popularize terra-cotta, so he needed transport to Florence. He earned Giovanni’s trust and rode with him (and the slave) to Ascella. The owner, Matteo, being unburdened and on horseback, rode ahead. DOer Angelo noticed that Giovanni behaved very kindly toward the girl. She spoke no Italian, but they communicated basic needs with sign language. She was terrified and filthy. And at the oldest she was fourteen. That is my sister’s age when we got asylum in the U.S.

  MORTIMER: Oh. Ugh.

  CHIRA: Yes. By the second day of the trip, DOer Angelo and Giovanni had conversed on many topics and seemed philosophically cut from the same cloth, because Angelo made it his business to create that impression. Angelo guessed Giovanni to be Dulcinite, which is the radical heretical sect of Christians inspired by Franciscan ideals. The D
ulcinites oppose slavery. In fact, they oppose all entrenched hierarchical power structures. So it went against the principles of Giovanni to deliver Dana to slave owners, and he had not known his cargo included the slave. Now he was contracted and had no choice, but he was upset about it. Angelo confessed to being newly converted to the Dulcinian sect and they spoke at length for the rest of the drive, Angelo listening more than speaking. Giovanni was very solicitous of Dana’s well-being, although he was obligated to keep her tied to the wagon. Angelo was struck by Giovanni’s compassion and says that Dana responded to it and calmed during the trip, and by the end of the trip they could have passed as extended family.

  They reached the villa-estate at nightfall of the third day. As they pulled up into the courtyard, the owners came out and spoke to Giovanni in such a way that, without understanding a word of the language, Dana realized he was about to hand her over to them. She burst into hysterics and tried to punch Giovanni, who looked wretched. Agnola slapped Dana hard, but Giovanni begged for gentleness, that she had had a hard journey, and Matteo interrupted to say she had to get used to hardship, they didn’t buy a slave for coddling. DOer Angelo reports that Giovanni barely kept his composure during this period, especially when the girl was dragged to the stable.

  Since the gates of Florence would be closed, Giovanni was invited to stay overnight. The invitation was also extended to Angelo. They both accepted, and Angelo expressed such admiration for the property and spoke of the many kinds of terra-cotta statuary he felt they should consider buying, in order to be the trendsetters of the region. Matteo liked that idea and was happy to give him a tour of the property, to contemplate all the places to put statues. This allowed Angelo to provide DODO the detailed map of the structures, including where Dana was being kept. Agnola’s cousin Piero was also visiting with them. DOer Angelo noted that Piero’s affect suggests a potential for violence.

  In the morning, DOer Angelo asked Giovanni if he might ride with him to the city gates. En route, Giovanni began to weep about Dana. Angelo said in a comforting voice that he knew of a way to make the situation better and began to speak again of Dulcinian principles, and within one quarter hour he had convinced Giovanni to assist in the plan to free Dana from slavery. There was a small Franciscan sisterhood into which she could be safely delivered, north of Florence, just off the trade route the wagoner was following.