Why is a hawk more noble than a toad?
I am a monster, Caliban said to me, and though it be a sinful act I would undo if I could, there is a secret part of me that is glad I showed him he could never be monstrous in my eyes.
I wish Papa could see Caliban as I do; see the goodness and kindness in him, but I fear that is a thing that will never come to pass.
I clean my brush with sharp-smelling turpentine, then shake out my arms which are numb and aching from having been raised for so long, opening and closing my hands until my blood is flowing freely in my veins once more. I dip my brush into the pot of green pigment. The malachite from which it is ground corresponds with Venus. I do not use the pigment straight from the pot, but mix it on a piece of slate with other colors, brown umber and yellow ochre, until I have attained a more subtle leaflike hue.
I wish that I had been able to paint the image of the Lady Venus. I’ve learned ever so much more than when I first began. I would have made her dress the pale green hue of the sea below the white curl of a breaking wave when the sun shines on it. I would have made the golden locks of her hair graceful and flowing. Oh, I would have made her face so beautiful and kind.
But mayhap love is not always kind.
Ariel said as much to me once; and as much as the spirit meddles, I do not believe he lies.
There is kindness in my cruelty, he said, and cruelty in thy kindness.
Is it an unkindness I dealt Caliban after all? And yet I do love him dearly. And yet, and yet …
Oh, Lord God, I wish I could undo what I did.
I climb onto the stepping stool and begin painting fig leaves.
FORTY
CALIBAN
Miranda paints and paints.
I know it is true because she is gone to Master’s sanctum every day, and at night there are colors on the skin of her hands and fingers, but I do not spy because it is a promise I did make to her.
It is hard, oh, so very hard, not to look at her!
I want to look.
I want to speak.
I want to touch.
But I do not; only the littlest little bit when Master—Prospero—is not looking. We look, then; only look. Quick looks, as quick as little fishes in the stream.
It is like it was in the beginning.
Oh, I did love you from the beginning, Miranda.
In the beginning when I had no words, even before Master did summon me, I remember I did try to speak to you with my eyes and my hands; my eyes that did watch you from the walls of your garden, my hands that did bring you gifts.
Now there are only looks like whispers.
Are you?
Yes.
Do you?
Yes.
I love you, I say with my eyes.
I love you, I say with my rough hands that do gather wood, gather greens and tubers in the garden, gather eggs from the hens, gather milk from the goat’s teats, gather fishes from the stream and mussels from the rocks. I love you, I love you.
I gather flowers from the gardens and the fields, and put them on Miranda’s window-ledge when she is not there.
I love you, the flowers say.
Ariel, that Ariel, does frown at the flowers, but Master has said nothing to him of flowers.
So I leave flowers; spring flowers, then summer flowers. I gather the red and orange and yellow trumpet flowers, for a trumpet is a thing that makes a loud noise like a shout, and I tie their vines together and leave them to shout I love you in a row from Miranda’s window-ledge.
Soon, I think.
Soon.
FORTY-ONE
MIRANDA
Papa is consumed by his labors.
He pores over his charts, then paces his sanctum, muttering to himself. He concocts incenses and vanishes to perform private suffumigations upon himself, returning with his robes smelling of resins and herbs and acrid things. Betimes he banishes me from his sanctum that he might invoke the mirror’s magic and gaze into it. He eats little and sleeps less, up at all hours of the night.
He grows thin, the bones of his face becoming prominent and angular as his flesh dwindles, the joints of his hands and wrists emerging like knobs beneath his skin. The last of the grey vanishes from his hair and beard, leaving it as white as Ariel’s.
I paint at his bidding and obey him in every particular, because I am afraid to do otherwise.
The salamander in its brazier remains silent, watching me with its glittering ruby eyes.
The moon waxes and wanes; my woman’s courses come and go.