Her eyes are wide and blue and shining with hope. “Can we not be as we were, Caliban?”
I want to say yes, yes, oh, yes; I want to go back to the days of sharing lessons and chores, sitting side by side. Oh, but we are not children anymore, and there is no innocence in me, only wanting things that are forbidden. Miranda’s pink lips are parted; I would like to put mine on them.
I would like to …
Behind my eyes, I see Ariel’s mocking face; I hear his knife-sharp laughter ringing in my ears.
My rod stiffens.
Rut.
“No.” I back away from Miranda. I pull the shirt over my head, my rough-skinned hands fumbling to find their way into the unaccustomed sleeves. “No, not that, Miranda. Not ever.”
She takes a step toward me. “Caliban—”
I run.
THIRTY-ONE
The shirt is stiff and it scratches, but I wear it all winter because Miranda made it for me, made it with her own hands.
I do not spy on Miranda that month.
But when her blood-days come next, I return to Master’s balcony; and when spring is coming at last I see a new thing.
Oh ho!
Master spies, too; spies in his mirror on the faraway strange men, and now he sees a thing that he likes, a thing that makes him laugh and shout, oh yes, and more. Master leaps and jumps around in his sanctum, kicking up his legs under his robes. All his magic charms go chinkety-chink-chink hanging from his throat and tangle in his beard. It is such a thing I never did think to see that from my hiding place on the balcony I am staring at him with my mouth open wide.
“A most excellent decision, my liege!” Master says. “Oh yes, most wise!” He bows toward the mirror, a mocking bow like Ariel’s bows. “No doubt the wedding shall be a fine spectacle with your beloved son and all your most trusted courtiers in attendance.” Master rubs his hands together like there is a great feast before him and his voice goes low and cold and hard, only just loud enough for me to hear it still. “Oh, my liege! Oh, my brother! You shall reap as you sowed, gentlemen, and after lo, these many long years, the day and hour of your harvest shall soon be upon you.”
He summons a pair of the little gnomes and bids them to cover the walls with a fresh layer of limestone, to cover all of Miranda’s pictures. I think it will sadden her heart, for she has worked so very hard on making them just right, but I do not have time to worry because then Master covers his mirror and leaves his sanctum, leaves it empty in the very middle of the day.
I think … do I dare?
For Miranda, yes.
And so I get off my belly and creep into Master’s big room. My skin is twitchety with knowing that Master might come back at any moment and punish me. I take the cloth from Master’s mirror and look into it.
I see nothing but my own face, low-browed and thick-jawed, coarse hair hanging over my eyes.
“Didst thou expect otherwise?” a light voice inquires. “Thou art no magus, witch’s whelp or not.”
I turn to face Ariel. “What did Master see in the mirror?” I ask him. “You go everywhere, you see everything. What was it?”
Ariel shrugs. “And I am oath-bound not to speak of it. Even were I not, why shouldst I tell thee?”
“I do not know,” I say truthfully. “Spirit, I do not know why you do anything you do. And if you have told me true, neither do you.” Always I am running away from him, but today, no; today, I take a step closer. “Do you?”
The line of Ariel’s mouth twists. It is not a true smile, for there are none of his knives in it; but I think it is a true face, for there is a deep and honest sadness in it. “No,” he whispers, then; “Yes.”
I take another step. “Which is it?”
Ariel laughs and his eyes blaze, blaze; as bright as the mica-flecked rocks I set in the empty hollows of Setebos’s eyes long ago blaze in the sunlight. “Both, thou fool!” He shakes his head, hair flying like foam around his head, his mouth twisting harder as though it fights to flee his face. “I am set against myself as surely as thou art. Aye, I chafe at the yoke of my captivity under our master Prospero, and it sits ill with me that a man should use his daughter thusly to gain his own ends, use the skill of her hands and aye, the very blood of her womb; and yet my goal is mine own freedom and I cannot attain it save that his plans come to fruition. Those are the horns of the dilemma on which I am hooked.” Now his mouth is hard and not smiling, not at all. “Mayhap I have learned not to hate thee, but thou shouldst not trust me, monster.”
“I do not,” I assure him. “Prospero?”
Oh, but the handle of the door is turning, and like that, whoosh, Ariel is gone and I am alone.
Spying.
I throw the cloth over the mirror, run for the balcony, and dive over it, clinging to the walls of the palace like a lizard and scrambling downward.
That evening Master orders me to kill a hen, and I do it. That evening we have a feast, for Master is gladsome and merry and bids me to join them in the kitchen and make merry, too.
That evening I speak to Miranda.
THIRTY-TWO
MIRANDA