Toolatetoolatetoolate.
Words sound in my head with every footstep, thumpity-thump. Too late, Caliban; poor dumb monster.
Bad.
Badbadbad.
You did choose to do a bad thing; you did choose the wrong men to do it. You did everything wrong.
The men are angry there are no fountains of sweet red claret. They hear voices somewhere in the palace, other men’s voices, and they are angry.
You did say there was no one here but the magus and his daughter, they say to me. You lied to us, monster.
I say I did not know.
The men follow the voices; now I follow the men. Now it is my footsteps that drag through the halls of the palace. The voices are not angry and shouting; the voices are saying please and thank you to God. It seems that Master’s vengeance is not the thing I thought it would be.
Run.
Runrunrun!
The men go into the garden and I do not follow them. Thump; I hear a rock fall to the ground; thump, I hear a stick fall.
Oh, oh, my liege, the men say; oh, oh, my prince! Alive, all alive! Praise be to God! Forgive us, good duke! The monster did lie to us!
RUN.
I turn to run and there is Ariel, his eyes shining and terrible. “Fool!” he says to me. “I did warn thee.”
FIFTY-THREE
MIRANDA
On the heels of the king’s warm words, two of his courtiers stumble into the garden with crude weapons in their hands and a wild tale of deception on their lips, one that I pray is untrue.
Caliban. Oh, Caliban!
Papa’s face is grim. “Ariel, my brave spirit!” he calls, his hand closing around Caliban’s amulet. “Fetch forth the villain.”
There is a great clap of thunder in the offing and a wind springs up along the colonnade that encloses the garden. It swirls down the hall and spills through the arched doorway, a maelstrom of wind and fog from which Caliban tumbles, landing sprawling on the paving stones. Ariel’s figure resolves itself from the maelstrom, though it is Ariel as I have never seen him, taller and more fearsome. His white sleeves flutter behind him and now it seems to me that they are not sleeves at all, but wings; and I wonder if I have ever beheld the mercurial spirit’s true form.
As for Caliban, he collects himself to sit crouched on his haunches, the knuckles of one hand braced on the ground, his head hanging low.
“What manner of strange brute is this?” the prince whispers to me, and for a moment, I cannot help but see Caliban through his eyes; a crouching, bestial thing smeared with filth and gore, half naked in ragged trousers, coarse and rough and repugnant in every aspect.
Monstrous.
I never believed I would see him thusly and I do not answer the prince, for I am ashamed.
Then Caliban lifts his head and gazes at me, and there is such love and misery and heartbreak in his dark eyes, I feel as though my own heart is shattering into pieces within me. My hand is yet clasped in Prince Ferdinand’s. I withdraw it quietly, but Caliban has already seen.
He looks away, his shoulders hunching as though to absorb a blow.
“So, villain,” Papa says to him in a voice as hard as stone. “Though I have shown you every kindness, taken you under my roof, fed and clothed you and seen that you were taught language when you had none, you stand accused by these good men of plotting my murder. Will you confess it?”
Caliban utters a harsh bark of laughter and stares at Papa. “Every kindness? I was free and you did make a servant of me!”
“I sought to civilize you!” Papa shouts at him. “An ill-advised effort, and one which you’ve sought to repay with murder! Have you aught to say for yourself?”
I wish that Caliban would deny it; I wish it were untrue. I wish … ah, dear Lord God, I do not know what I wish. When in my life have my wishes ever mattered?
“Yes,” Caliban says in a low, savage voice, so low that all must strain to hear his words. “I only wish I did succeed, Prospero.”
Papa’s hand tightens on the amulet. Caliban flinches in anticipation of the agony to follow, and I flinch in involuntary sympathy. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the prince give me a bemused glance.
He does not know what Papa is capable of.
None of them do.
Nor will they learn it today, for Papa stays his hand and does not inflict a punishment upon Caliban for them to behold. I do not think it is mercy that dissuades him, but rather the presence of an audience before whom he wishes to preserve the semblance of magnanimity.
“I’ll decide your fate on the morrow,” he says instead. “Gentle Ariel! Take the ungrateful wretch to his chamber. Lock the door and bring me the key, and bid the little gnomes seal him within it as they did long ago.”
Ariel bows. “It shall be done, Master.”
Caliban accompanies him without protest, nor does he glance in my direction as he goes.
I am trembling.