Miranda and Caliban

by Jacqueline Carey

  “You have not,” Papa says.

  “Thou didst promise me my freedom,” Ariel says, and although his voice is soft and low, there is the promise of thunder in it.

  Papa hesitates. I am quite certain that he should like to refuse Ariel. I wonder if he will dare to do so, and I wonder what Ariel will do if Papa does so. But again, there is an audience present; an audience of men before whom Papa does not wish to appear aught less than a man of his word.

  “So I did.” Papa clambers to his feet, leaning on his staff. “So I did.” He sways a little, makes a magnanimous gesture with his other hand. “Your oath is fulfilled to the letter, gentle spirit,” he pronounces. “In the name of the good Lord God, go, and be free of it!”

  There is no great thunderclap this time, no great rush of wind; only a sound like a sigh, and then Ariel is gone.

  I cannot decipher the expression on Papa’s face.

  “Truly the Lord’s blessing is on this day,” he says. “But the spirit speaks the truth, for it draws to a close, and thus do I declare this night’s revel to be finished. Sleep, gentlefolk, and awaken to a new dawn.”

  There is no bedding to spare, but the king and his men are content to stretch their length on the floor of the hall.

  It is a relief beyond telling to be dismissed to the privacy of my chamber, though the prospect of sleep eludes me. I cannot help but picture Caliban; Caliban hanging from a gallows, his eyes bulging in the throes of death; Caliban in chains, his shoulders hunched, enduring the jeers and taunts of a hateful, mocking crowd.

  I cannot bear it.

  And so in the deep stillness of the night, I rise from my pallet and begin knotting my bed-linens together.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  CALIBAN

  I tear and bloody the nails of my fingers and toes trying to climb the walls of my chamber to reach the high windows, but it is no good. There are no gaps between the tiles like on the stone walls outside.

  I pull and pull on the handle of the door, but the lock holds.

  Then I do push against the stone blocks that those little gnomes did pile in my door until the skin is scraped from my hands and arms and shoulders and my legs are shaking and sore, but that is no good, either.

  Caliban is a prisoner, the poor dumb monster. Just like in the beginning, only everything is different.

  Oh, Miranda!

  I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry so very sorry so very sorry, oh Setebos, I think you must hate me.

  If only I could see you.

  If only I could tell you with the words that you did teach me that I am sorry, so sorry, that I could not help that hatred for Master did grow in my heart until it was red and hot and sick.

  It is still sick.

  I am sick.

  He held his hand in yours and you did let him.

  I am sick.

  Outside the high windows I cannot reach, the sun sets and the light goes away. For a time it is dark, and then the moon rises and there is a little silvery light that comes through the high windows.

  In the morning the sun will rise.

  I wonder what Master will do. Prospero; oh, I did call him Prospero to his face, and I am not sorry for it. No, not for that. Only for the other thing I said, and only because you did hear it, Miranda.

  But I think he will kill me for what I did try to do. He did want to kill me before. Yes, I think I will die in the morning. It is a strange thing to think of not being, but I sit in the moonlight and think it to myself.

  I am Caliban.

  Caliban is; but tomorrow, Caliban will not be.

  How can I not be?

  This thought is like a heavy stone falling and falling through my thoughts and I follow it down but it only keeps falling and falling like it is falling in a well that has no bottom and the more I think it the more heavy it is until my head is heavy with it, and my head falls forward to touch my knees, and it is heavy so heavy—

  “Caliban.”

  Thunk.

  I think it is the stone hitting the bottom at last, but no, there is no stone and no well, only my head coming up hard.

  I was asleep; I did dream.

  “Caliban!”

  Then oh, oh, oh! I am awake and it is Miranda’s voice I hear, Miranda’s voice that calls in a soft, scared whisper from the gallery above my cell where she did watch me when we were little. Quick, so quick, I am on my feet. I lift my face to find her. She is there, the moonlight a shimmer on her hair. My heart sings inside me like a bird. If I had wings, I would fly to her.

  There is a slithering sound and something long and white comes out of the darkness. It is a rope that Miranda has made from her bed-linens. One end hangs in front of my face. I take it in my hand and tug. It does not move. The other end is knotted around the railing of the balcony.

  “Can you climb it?” Miranda whispers to me.

  Laughter rises in me like a bubble from the deep sea. “Yes,” I whisper to her. “Oh, yes!”

  The cloth of the bed-linens is soft under my rough hurting hands and it smells of Miranda’s own self. I pull myself up. The cloth is worn thin and frayed with age, but Miranda did tie strong knots in it. I climb them quick-quick, scrambling up the rope like I have wings on my hands and feet.

  I climb over the balcony.

  My heart is beating in my chest like a bird, like a bird’s wings fluttering.

  Can it be?

  Can it be that Miranda loves me yet?

  I hold out one hand to her; it is trembling. “Oh, Miranda!”

  Her face is pale against the darkness, oh, so very pale. And she is trembling, too. “No.” Miranda takes a step backward, a step away from me, her eyes shadow-holes in her pale face. “No.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  MIRANDA

  I watch the rising tide of hope ebb from Caliban’s face, confusion and bewilderment replacing it.

  “What—” he begins, then halts, his gaze searching mine. “Miranda, why—”

  I wrap my arms around myself, trying to stop myself from shivering. “Caliban, you must go. Leave me!”

  He shakes his stubborn head. “No. No!”

  Ah, dear God! I do love him, I cannot help it. Not enough to forgive him the attempt on Papa’s life, but far too much to see him hanged, far too much to see him suffer in captivity.

  “You must,” I say, low and fierce. “At worst, Papa and the king’s men mean to see you hanged to your death; at best, they will see you clapped in chains and made a thing of coarse mockery for all the days of your life, and that I cannot bear, Caliban.”

  Caliban gives one short bark of despair. “Where could I go on the isle that Ariel cannot find me, Miranda?”

  “Papa has freed Ariel from his service,” I say.

  The news startles him. “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  His expression changes. “Prospero means to take you away,” he says in a dark tone. “And you mean to go; to go with him, to go with that prince who did hold your hand and whisper in your ear.”

  “What else would you have me do, Caliban?” I ask him wearily. “The thing is done. I daresay my fate was sealed from the beginning, and you set the seal on your own when you sought my father’s life.”

  “Oh, Miranda!” A note of anguish enters Caliban’s voice. “I am sorry, I am so very sorry! I will do anything, I will be your father’s servant for always and ever and never complain, only do not send me away from you!”

  My eyes burn with tears. “Don’t you understand? It’s too late!”

  “No.” He shakes his head again. “Anyway, Prospero does not need Ariel! If I go, he will only summon me.”

  “I won’t let him,” I say.

  Caliban stares at me. “How?”

  I swallow hard. “I shall bargain with him,” I say. “Papa has sworn to renounce his magic if this working succeeds. I shall offer my willing consent to his plans in exchange for your freedom.”

  “No.” Caliban sets his jaw. “Do you not understand, Miranda? I would rather
die than leave you.”

  Dear Lord God, why must he be so stubborn? “Then I should have your death on my conscience.” My voice is shaking, and I rub my burning eyes with the heel of one hand. “Would you be that cruel to me, Caliban?”

  He hesitates.

  A wild notion seizes me. “I will send for you,” I say recklessly to him. “The prince…” I swallow again. “’Tis a love spell that compels him, Caliban; a potion wrought from the blood of my woman’s courses. Papa said himself that the prince will indulge my every foible. One day … one day when Papa is no longer there to forbid it, I will explain to the prince that you are my dearest friend, that I could not have endured on the isle without you. I will tell him how tenderly and patiently you cared for me when I was afflicted, how you nursed me back to strength and health. I will tell him that you are owed mercy for seeking to commit the self-same crime his own father committed in veritable truth. And I will beg him to send for you, beg him until he accedes.”

  The yearning in Caliban’s gaze is terrible to behold. “Do you promise it?”

  “I do,” I whisper.

  “Then I will go,” he says simply.

  Dizzy with relief, I coil my makeshift rope and lead Caliban down the stairs, through the darkened halls of the palace. The king and his men are snoring in the great dining hall, but they have drunk deep of the king’s wine and do not awaken; nor does Papa in his chamber.

  It is late; soon the sky will begin to turn grey in the east.

  In the garden outside the kitchen where we spent so many hours together, Caliban touches my face with his rough fingertips; oh, ever so gently. “Miranda,” he murmurs. “I do love you, and I will wait for you always.”

  I lay my hand over his. “I know.”

  And then there is nothing left to say. I lift my hand; Caliban takes his away. We gaze at each other in the fading moonlight. Caliban opens his mouth to speak; I shake my head at him.

  No, there is nothing left to say.

  He nods in understanding and goes, vanishing into the darkness.

  I watch him go and return to my chamber, where I painstakingly untie the knots in my bed-linens, doing my best to smooth out the creases until the linens lie flat on my pallet where I lie sleepless and await the dawn, wondering what I have done.

  FIFTY-SIX

  “Miranda!”

  It seems I slept after all, for I awaken to the thunder of Papa’s voice in full fury and find him looming over my pallet.

  “What,” he says in a precise tone, “have you done?”

  “Of what am I accused?” I ask.

  He grimaces. “Caliban is missing.”

  I blink at him. “Oh?”

  Papa reaches for the amulets that hang about his neck. “Do not play the innocent with me, child! He couldn’t have escaped his cell without assistance, and no one but you would have aided him. Your wild lad sought to incite my murder. Do you imagine I’ll not summon him back to stand the punishment for his crime?”

  I push myself upright. “I do.”

  “How so?” Papa asks in a deep, deceptively gentle voice.

  I should be afraid of him, and yet, I am not. I have gone somewhere beyond fear. In the secret place inside me, my heart is as cold and hard as steel.

  “I will tell you exactly how, Papa,” I say to him. “Would you have me play the doting bride? I will do so. Would you have me say naught of your great working, of the cause of the storm from which the king and his men are so grateful to be saved? I will say naught. Would you have me keep my silence in the matter of a certain homunculus that lies buried in one of the gardens? Of the punishment you inflicted upon me for discovering it? I will keep it, Papa. All that you ask of me, I will do. I ask only one thing in return.”

  “Caliban,” he says with distaste.

  “Caliban,” I agree. “You did promise to relinquish your magic, Papa. Will you be forsworn?”

  Papa lets go of his amulets and raises one hand as though to strike me, his fist trembling in midair. Never, ever has he struck me thusly.

  I brace myself for the blow.

  It does not fall.

  “Our guests are hungry,” he says, lowering his fist to his side. “Empty the larder and feed them as best you might, then attend to me in my sanctum.”

  I lower my gaze so that no hint of triumph shows in my eyes. “Yes, Papa.”

  There is not much in the larder—a few journey-cakes, a pot of soft cheese, and some early figs—but I set it on the long table in the great hall. Prince Ferdinand pronounces me a very angel of goodness. By their conversation, it seems that the king and his men have no idea yet that Caliban has fled.

  I wonder what the prince would think of me if he knew what I have done.

  In his sanctum, Papa is dismantling his instruments and packing them into trunks that have stood empty for years. The diligent little gnomes aid him in the task. Many of the shelves have already been stripped of their books and oddments, but the book Picatrix is open on its stand, and I remember that Papa said there would be one last image for me to render. Was that only yesterday? It seems as though an eternity has passed in the course of a single day.

  “What would you have me paint, Papa?” I inquire, careful to keep my tone respectful.

  “The third face of Capricorn.” He comes over to point at an illustration depicting a man holding an open book in one hand, and in the other, a fish by its tail. “’Tis an image to erase the influence of all images that preceded it.”

  I peer at it. “Will it not undo your working, Papa?”

  “No, child.” He shakes his head. “What is done is done; there is no more need for such influences. I do but fulfill my pledge to the Lord God in His heaven as you reminded me. With this final rendering, I surrender my arts and such influence as they have afforded me.”

  I pray that it is true, though I am not entirely sure that I believe Papa.

  “Work swiftly,” he adds. “The image must be finished in a matter of hours, for we set sail this very day.”

  My belly clenches at the thought, but I say nothing. I have won a great victory this morning; I dare not press him further.

  A man, a book, a fish. It is a simple enough image, and I am familiar with all the components of it. The man I paint has Papa’s likeness; Papa as I wish to see him, wise and noble and grave.

  Papa, I think, is flattered by the likeness.

  I paint the Picatrix laying open in the palm of his hand, and if I had more time, I should like to have painted an image in miniature on its pages of the very illustration I am rendering. Across the chamber, the salamander watches me from the glowing brazier, its bejeweled eyes reminding me of the promise I made it in exchange for a secret I learned to no avail.

  Oh, dear Lord God, I do not want to think about promises.

  I paint the fish that dangles from the man’s other hand, using subtle curves to suggest that the fish is yet alive and wriggling in his grasp. I take more time than I ought rendering its fins and gills and scales in exacting detail, for I do not want this moment to end.

  When it does, my life as I have known it will be over.

  “Miranda.” Papa’s voice summons me from my trance. “’Tis done, and done well. Your work is finished.”

  I step down from my stool, set down my brush and pigments. Flexing my cramped fingers, I begin cleaning my brushes.

  “There is no need for that, child,” Papa says.

  “Oh, but—”

  “Leave them,” he says. “You’ll have finer in Naples.”

  Save for the pantheon of figures gazing down from the walls and the laden trunks, Papa’s sanctum is empty. Even the Picatrix has been packed away while I finished painting the fish. The little gnomes grin silently and await Papa’s orders. The brazier glows, flames hissing softly. At their heart, the salamander regards me.

  I take a deep breath. “Will you give the elementals their freedom as you did Ariel, Papa?”

  He smiles and pats one of the gnomes on its stony
head. “To be sure, once they’ve carried our belongings to the ship.”

  “What of the salamander?” I ask.

  “Ah.” Papa glances at it. “For the fire spirit, I have one final task.” With ceremony, he removes the amulets from around his neck one chain at a time, untangling each carefully. Cunningly wrought charms of silver and gold entwined with hair glint in the light of the brazier; my hair, Caliban’s hair, the nameless nanny-goat’s hair, the hair of the king and his men.

  I hold my breath.

  One by one, Papa consigns them to the fire. The flames burn brighter and there is a smell of burnt hair and hot metal. Gold and silver melt, puddling beneath the salamander’s delicate claws and its pulsing belly. One, two, three … All of them? I am not sure, not entirely sure. It seems to me I caught a glimpse of something shining vanishing up Papa’s sleeve.

  I do not trust my father.

  And yet … do I trust the king, this Alonso who sought our lives? Do I trust my treacherous uncle the usurper? Do I trust their squabbling courtiers? Do I trust this kind prince with the tender mouth whose affection for me is compelled solely by the artifice of Papa’s magic?

  No.

  There is only one person on the isle whom I trust, and I sent him away.

  I wish Caliban were here.

  And yet I am grateful he is not; grateful that I succeeded in bargaining for his freedom.

  Papa dusts his hands together. “It is done.”

  “And the salamander?” I say.

  He spares it another careless glance and a gesture, speaks a word in an unfamiliar tongue.

  Fire roars through the grate of the brazier, roars up to scorch the walls of Papa’s sanctum. Papa flings a protective arm around me, bearing us both to the floor. A circle of flame races around the chamber, and the figures I have rendered with such care are darkened to soot. Flames stream through the window of the balcony, dispersing and vanishing beneath the sky. The finality of the destruction is sudden and shocking, and yet it seems fitting, too. It is as though God in His heaven has spoken through the salamander, unleashing a purging fire.

  For the first time, I find myself well and truly understanding that this is happening, that I can no more stop it than I can hold back the tide. My life already has changed forever.