He frowns at me. “Child, you know full well that it was imperative that the working be untainted—”
“If knowledge be a taint, the working was tainted!” I shout at him. Papa falls silent in astonishment at my interruption, looking at me with lips parted. I press the heels of my hands against my stinging eyes, then lower them. “I know you seek vengeance against your brother and the king, Papa,” I say wearily. “I know you seek to ensnare the king’s son with a love potion.”
Papa takes a deep breath, the spyglass in his hand trembling. “How did you come by this knowledge?”
I rock my head back and forth against the hard stone. “Oh, Papa! It matters naught. What matters is the truth, and the truth is that the working didn’t require perfect ignorance on my part.”
I should like him to acknowledge the truth of my words; I should like him to apologize.
He does neither.
Papa, I think, does not like to be wrong. I do not think he understands how a world can exist in which he is wrong and I am right.
At least he does not punish me for my disrespect. I suspect he is too exhausted to do so.
I am tired, too.
I do not want to quarrel.
Neither, it seems, does Papa. He slumps to sit heavily on the ledge of the window across from me, bracing himself with his staff. “Do you remember a time before the isle, Miranda?”
“I think so.” I keep my voice low. “I remember a house with pictures—paintings, they were paintings—on the walls. Betimes it seems as though I must have dreamed it. And yet I remember women with soft hands and gentle voices, who combed my hair and put ribbons in it, who sang me to sleep at night.”
Papa nods. “’Tis true. There were several women who attended you. Do you remember how we came to the isle?”
I hesitate, then shake my head. Although I know what Caliban has told me, I have no memory of it. “No, Papa.”
He gazes out the window opposite him. “Would you hear a piece of irony, child? It is in this very hour, with the greatest part of my working done, that I meant to divulge the truth of our origins to you.”
I do not know whether to believe him.
His gaze returns to me. “Twelve years gone by, I held the title of Duke of Milan, ruler of a great city and a mighty duchy, and you, my only child, were not yet three years of age. But I cared naught for the trappings of power, only for my studies. I entrusted the affairs of state to my brother Antonio, your uncle.” He grimaces. “I should have seen the ambition growing in him like a canker. But being absorbed with celestial matters, I paid too little heed to worldly ones. He suborned the loyalty of my courtiers with bribes, favors, and promotions; and at last, he struck a vile bargain with the king of Naples, offering him fealty and tribute in exchange for the title of Duke of Milan.”
Papa’s voice cracks at the telling of this, and despite everything I am ashamed of my disloyalty. “A vile betrayal indeed,” I murmur.
“Under cover of night, my brother opened the gates of Milan to the king’s troops,” he continues. “We were abducted, child; abducted and set adrift at sea on the rotten carcass of a ship lacking sails or rigging.”
I cannot help but shudder, thinking of the storm I just witnessed. “Why did he not kill us outright?”
“He dared not,” Papa says simply. “Although Antonio had turned the court against me, the commonfolk yet revered me for my hard-won reputation for fairness and wisdom. And then there was you, Miranda, innocent as the dawn. My brother and the king dared not besmirch their hands with our blood, but trusted the sea to do it for them.”
“How did we survive?” I whisper. “By your arts?”
“By my arts, by God’s grace, and by the kindness of one of the noblemen entrusted to carry out the deed,” Papa says in a grim tone. “Lacking the heart to condemn us outright, he saw to it that the ship was outfitted with a measure of food and water, clothing and linens, many of my books and instruments, and my staff. Without those things, we surely would have perished.”
So there it is, the truth at last.
I am the daughter of a duke, although I do not fully fathom what that means. My memories are true.
I take a slow, shaking breath. “What do you mean—”
A gusting breeze announces Ariel’s presence, swirling through the westernmost window of the tower.
“Greetings, Master!” The mercurial spirit manifests with a bow. “I come to report that I have carried out thy will to the letter. I put such a terror in them, all save the sailors did jump into the sea.”
Papa stands, fresh vigor infusing his features. “All are safe?”
“Aye, Master. Two made landfall on their own; the others, I have deposited about the isle as thou bade me.” Ariel gives a little shiver of distaste and holds out his hand. “Here are hairs plucked from the very heads of thy brother and liege and their courtiers.”
I remember solving the riddle of Caliban’s hair trapped in honey. How very long ago that seems to me.