by Jo Walton
Viola rolls her eyes, and Drusilla laughs. The cat, shaken, stands up and turns around twice reproachfully before resettling itself again, facing in the opposite direction.
“So we trust her provisionally,” Sebastian sums up.
Viola nods. “As always. Then if she’s right about the gods freeing Caliban and about the value of our defences, what does that mean?”
“Well, if Caliban can’t get through but isn’t recaptured, then it’s a stalemate,” Sebastian says.
Orsino shakes his head. “They paint a horrible picture of him deliberately warring on the city with the intention of killing people, while we sit in safety in here.”
“How many people could we protect in here?” Drusilla asks.
“Good thought, but not enough, not even half the city even if we crammed everyone in tight,” Orsino says.
“And we’d run out of food quite fast,” Viola says. “But surely Caliban’s not that bad! He wouldn’t do that.”
“Why do you say that? Did you ever meet him?” Olivia asks.
“No, I wasn’t born when he was captured and I didn’t come to Thalia until years later. I just never heard anything about him, or the Anteans generally, that indicated he’d be capable of that particularly unpleasant kind of malice.”
“Miranda seems to think him capable of it, and Miranda was married to him so she should know,” Sebastian says.
“Caliban has a legitimate grudge against us, and against Miranda and Orsino in particular, but not against the people of Thalia. Attacking innocent people is just evil. I don’t think we should just assume he’d do it without any evidence of him having done anything like that,” Viola says, looking determined.
“Geryon killed my brother,” Olivia says again, looking out of the window where the sun is heading westward. “Just because my brother wouldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“That’s terrible,” Viola agrees. “But that was Geryon, not Caliban. I might believe it of him. But did Caliban ever kill anyone?”
“Before Pico’s Triumph he accidentally killed quite a few people, and deliberately killed a few more,” Orsino says. “But you’re right, we shouldn’t assume the worst case. But we can’t afford to ignore it either.”
“What are our sensible options for action?” Sebastian asks.
“Ficino’s suggestion was that I should change places with Geryon, on a voluntary agreement that I would be bound for the next three hundred years, and then we would change places again.”
Olivia and Sebastian both laugh, Viola and Drusilla both gasp in horror. “I think we can dismiss that suggestion,” Sebastian says. “What, were you seriously considering it?”
Orsino is tired and doesn’t know what he really wants. “I need your advice,” he says. “It’s an option. Another option would be killing Geryon right now, just walking up there and cutting his throat. He couldn’t stop me.”
“But you wouldn’t do that, because that would be wrong,” Drusilla says confidently.
“Precisely,” Orsino says, and smiles at her. “Though sometimes dukes do have to do things that are wrong.”
“Like imprisoning Geryon in the first place,” Drusilla agrees.
There is a small silence, in which none of her parents contradict her. Viola almost speaks, but stops herself.
“We need a plan to neutralise Caliban, either capturing him again or killing him. The death of Giulia is sufficient cause, as Geryon’s murder of Olivia’s brother, Claudio, was,” Sebastian says.
“It’s next to impossible to kill Anteans when they’re touching the ground, and he’ll be very cautious of roses now, and of all of us,” Orsino says. “So it’s hard to picture how a trap would work.”
“Could there be something where the earth gives way and instead of dropping him in a hole swings him up in the air?” Drusilla asks.
Sebastian looks very thoughtful. He pulls out a wax tablet and begins to scratch a diagram.
“Can you protect the whole city the way you have protected this palace?” Olivia asks.
Everyone looks at Viola. “Yes, but not fast,” she says. “Though maybe we could if Miranda would help. Or maybe Ficino, hmmm. It’s a pity it’s October, not a good time for getting roses to grow.”
“So, let’s consider that as an option,” Orsino says. “You work on that, Viola, and talk to Miranda and Ficino about it when they come back tomorrow. And you work on the hoist idea, Sebastian, but not right now. What else?”
“Negotiation?” Sebastian suggests, folding his tablet and putting it into a pouch at his waist. “I suppose we could think about agreeing to let Geryon go, if he swore to give up his claim to the dukedom.”
“Who knows what Geryon would do if he were free!” Olivia says.
“He’d go to Elam and weave carpets,” Drusilla answers unexpectedly.
“What?” Orsino turns to her in consternation.
“Drusilla, I’ve told you and told you and told you to stop going up there and talking to Geryon!” Viola says.
“I know, but he’s lonely, and he can’t hurt me, and he’s my uncle,” Drusilla objects.
All of these things are true, but Orsino goes cold to hear her say them. Orsino visits his brother once a year, on his birthday. Geryon roars and raves at him. He dreads going, and forces himself to do it and not forget his brother entirely. He can’t imagine what appeal such visits can have for the child.
“Elam? Carpets?” Sebastian says, his face a study in bemusement.
“Yes.” Drusilla turns to him eagerly. “He says they don’t make any pictures of people or animals in Elam, because if they do, then the creatures they make will come to them on Judgement Day and ask for a soul. So they make patterns only, very, very complex patterns, with colours. I’ve seen the carpets. He’s right. And every one has a tiny flaw in the pattern somewhere, that only the maker knows, because the only perfect thing is God. And the carpets take a hundred years to make, or even longer, and only one person works on each carpet.”
“I think we’ve all seen the carpets, Dru, but what do they have to do with Geryon?” Viola asks.
“He wants to go and make them. He wants to spend as long making a carpet as he has making designs for them in his head,” the child says.
“Well, I’d never have imagined that,” Olivia says.
“He could be lying,” Sebastian suggests, dubiously.
“To what purpose?” Orsino asks. “He could have had no notion this was coming. Any conversation he had with Drusilla could have been intended to deceive us, but it seems very unlikely.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t lying,” Drusilla says, earnestly.
“He’d need to be able to see to make carpets,” Sebastian points out.
“Ficino says he can restore his eyes,” Orsino says. “And if not, I expect there are doctors in Syracuse who could, for enough gold.”
“Um,” Drusilla says, twisting her hands together and looking down at the sleeping cat on her lap. “Actually his eyes have sort of grown back a bit. Anteans can do that, even so far off the ground, he says. It’s one of the ways they’re not like us, the way they heal. He’s been able to see light for a hundred years, and colour is starting to come back, he says.”
“Blinding him was a terrible thing to do,” Orsino says, stricken by this guileless account. Nobody contradicts him. It had seemed, long ago, like a good idea, to establish his own power fast and vividly with an act of such ruthlessness. Now he cringes at his own naïvety and cruelty.
“Did he ask you to free him, Dru?” Olivia asks.
“No. Well, he did say that maybe when I’m Duke I would. Or maybe I said that, you know? And he said that by then his eyes would have grown back entirely, and he could go to Elam, and he’d make me a carpet of the pale, pale colours he can see now, in the pattern he made up in the dark, and then he’d make me a carpet of all the colours of flame, and then one in the colours of living life in the same pattern, and each carpet would take a hundred years to make.”
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“So it could be a plan for escape,” Sebastian says.
“A very long-term plan!” Viola objects.
“I know. It might be hundreds of years before I’m Duke, or it might be never because my brother Tybalt might come home. Or maybe Orsino won’t ever want to retire and will stay Duke forever. Or maybe I will find something to do that’s more fun than being Duke of Thalia. Uncle Geryon knows that too.”
“Drusilla, your counsel has been of immense value,” Orsino says, formally. He pulls off the arm ring he put on for the funeral, an elaborate pale gold band with an incised unicorn’s head. He bows and hands it to his daughter as he would to one of his courtiers who had given good advice.
Drusilla’s eyes widen, and she takes arm ring and pushes it up her arm. It is much too big for her, of course, even over the embroidered sleeve of her court dress. The cat wakes up and tugs at the fabric of her sleeve where it now hangs down.
“I think I should talk to Geryon,” Orsino says.
“Should we all come?” Sebastian asks.
“Have you ever been up?”
“Only once,” Sebastian says.
“Me too, just the once,” Olivia says.
“I go up now and then, to make sure he’s being treated all right,” Viola says. “It’s probably my fault Dru got the idea.”
“How long have you been sneaking up there, Dru?” Orsino asks.
Drusilla looks up from the arm ring, which she is turning on her wrist. “Nearly a year,” she admits.
“Well, maybe you and I should go and talk to your uncle.” Drusilla carefully lifts the black-and-white cat and puts him down on Olivia’s burgundy bedspread, where he yawns delicately down at the snarling tiger rug.
“You’re really considering letting him go?” Sebastian’s eyebrows have risen.
“If he’ll agree to go to Elam and utterly renounce his claim to be Duke of Illyria,” Orsino says.
“But like Caliban, once he’s loose, how can you ever get him under control again?” Olivia asks.
“He’s sure to want revenge, whatever he says,” Sebastian says. “He’d say anything to be free, to get down from there.”
“Maybe,” Orsino says. “You get on with researching ways of killing or capturing Anteans on the ground. I’m going to talk to him and find out. Come on, Drusilla.”
21
IF ALL THE SKIES WERE PAPER
When they come back with the ram, Ficino is sitting on a bench in the courtyard reading The Life and Letters of Silenus. He gives a snort as they come into the courtyard, and puts the book down carefully when he sees the ram. “This is what freed Caliban, and he came trotting right up to Dolly,” Miranda says.
“Interesting,” Ficino says. He examines the ram carefully, while the ram struggles. “Nothing unusual, except how big he is. Well well. Why would Hermes want Caliban freed? Not just for mischief, I don’t think.”
“Caliban destroyed my house, either before or after coming here,” Miranda says. “It’s in ruins.”
“You must stay here, of course,” Ficino says, placidly. “It’s not surprising that he’s very angry. You kept him imprisoned for a long time.”
He lets the ram go. It trots meekly back to Dolly. “I don’t want you,” Dolly says.
“It seems you have a new pet,” Tish teases. The ram bleats, a low, hoarse sound.
“I think we should have a feast and invite the gods,” Ficino says.
“Not sacrificing the ram!” Tish says, horrified.
Ficino laughs. “No, and besides, it would take too long to cook. I think fruit, and if I could prevail upon you to make another cake, Miranda? And how about you two? Do you know how to make anything?”
Dolly shakes his head.
“I can make omelettes,” Tish offers. The cook at Blackstone taught her.
“Wonderful. Then you can decorate the table, Dolly.” Both Dolly and Tish think that this task would be better suited to Tish, but they say nothing.
It turns out that there is a banqueting hall up the first flight of stairs from the courtyard and to the right, filling the whole side of the house. The windows face onto the courtyard, and they are filled with the late afternoon autumnal light that makes everything look as if it is underwater. Tish and Miranda go to the kitchen, which astonishes Tish by being up at the top of the house, to the side of the tower. “Fire burns up,” Miranda says, as if that explains everything.
“Will you be able to rebuild your house?” Tish asks shyly.
“Oh yes. It will take some work, but it’s only an inconvenience really.”
Dolly ties up the ram in the courtyard and gives him a pile of hard root vegetables to eat. Then he goes back up to the banqueting room and investigates the huge carved wooden credenzas. They are full of cloths and bowls. He chooses a big white linen cloth, and sets a thin vermilion cloth over it down the centre of the table. He finds silver plates and puts matching vermilion napkins on them. It reminds him of dressing a set for a play. He gets enthusiastic when he finds silver goblets set with lumps of lapis lazuli, and wonders if he should start again with the blue-and-white cloth embroidered with birds that he had earlier rejected. But Ficino comes in as he is wondering, carrying a huge silver platter of peaches, which he sets down on the table.
“Very nice,” he says, looking at the table. “Some candlesticks would be good.” He leaves again.
The room has a fireplace at either end, and candlesticks sit on the mantelpieces there. There are several stone crests carved into each of the mantelpieces, and Dolly is surprised to recognise one of them as the famous Medici balls. When Ficino comes back with an immense bowl of cherries, he asks about it.
“Cosimo de’ Medici was my first patron,” Ficino says. “I don’t forget.”
“So you put the crest there to remind you of the Medici in my world, though there were no Medici here?” Dolly says.
Ficino nods. “Meaningless, really, I suppose, except to me. This room is about hospitality and connections.” He goes out again as Dolly starts arranging the candlesticks. He is having fun now, and is pleased with the effect.
“Lay an extra place—no, better make it two,” Ficino says, coming back with a bowl of golden apricots and dark red plums. “I don’t really expect the gods to join us yet, but it would be good to be welcoming in case they do.”
“Just two gods, not all twelve?” Dolly asks.
“There are more than twelve,” is all Ficino says as he goes out. When he comes back he has a gigantic platter of black-and-green-striped figs.
“Where are you getting all these?” Dolly asks. “Or are you conjuring them up?”
“There are places where these fruits are ripe,” Ficino says, setting the plate down. “Places where it is still summer. I bring the fruit from there, and in return I give a blessing. The people who grew and picked this fruit and those they love will be healed in mind and body. But I’m about to bring in some apples, and those I picked myself. If you’re done with the table could you lay some fires?” There is plenty of dry fragrant wood stacked beside the fireplaces, and Dolly arranges it carefully in the fireplaces.
As he finishes, Miranda comes in, carrying a steaming flat pie-dish of cake. She places it carefully on the table. Then Tish comes in with a bowl of beaten eggs, a pan, and a thin round-bladed knife, like a painter’s palette knife. Miranda takes a silver ring and taps it, so that it floats in the air next to the table. Then she snaps her fingers, and a flame springs up in the ring, and at the same moment all the candles and fires light themselves. The wood Dolly just arranged in the fireplaces begins to crackle.
Ficino comes in dressed in a toga with a circle of laurel leaves on his head, and carrying a lyre. He should look ridiculous, but instead he looks touching, like a child very solemnly dressing up. He sings an invocation to Hermes and to Hekate, in Greek, using a very strange scale. Then they all sit down. Tish begins making omelettes, taking the magical fire almost for granted, but being very careful pouring the egg mixtur
e and flipping each one. When they each have an omelette on their plates, Miranda taps the silver ring and the flame in it vanishes. Ficino fills everyone’s goblet with wine, and toasts the gods, all of them, in Latin, beginning with the One, the Great Creator.
The candlelight looks dim after the bright glow of the lily lamps, but it gives everything a warmer glow. They drink wine and eat the omelettes, which are slightly leathery. Then they gorge themselves on fruit, all of which is delicious, and finish off with cake. No gods show themselves and the extra two places Dolly set remain empty.
“I have no idea why the gods sent me here,” Dolly volunteers.
“Nor I,” Tish chips in.
“And I don’t know what it means that the sheep likes me,” Dolly goes on.
“Well, the ram was also sent by a god, and if he likes you, it might mean that the same god favours you. Or it might be that you are an aspect of a god, without knowing it. Or it could just be the ram’s own personality, it’s impossible to tell.” Ficino smiles. “By the covenant we made at Pico’s sacrifice, the gods are held outside the world and cannot enter in without an invitation. This is an invitation: be welcome gods, reveal your will to us!”
22
MODERN TIMES
The way she was living in Firenze, we’d go out in the morning to look at things, then come back and work on the Illyria story in the afternoon, eat dinner at home, work some more, then go out for a walk and a last gelato in Perché No!… before bed. Occasionally we’d vary this plan—we’d write in the morning and go out to look at things in the afternoon. But more things are open in the morning than in the afternoons even now—lots of the smaller museums are only open until 2:00 P.M. Sometimes, a couple of times a week, we’d have lunch in Teatro del Sale, and then we wouldn’t need dinner. Everything was going smoothly except the plumbing, which despite the enthusiastic efforts and long explanations of the plumbers, continued to be utterly useless. In addition to refusing to run hot water, Sylvia had found that if you leaned on the sink in the bathroom it wobbled, which was alarming, especially while brushing your teeth. So at the end of the month, Sylvia decided to move instead of renewing the lease—not to leave Firenze in the middle of the book, definitely not, she wasn’t going to leave Firenze until she flew to San Jose for Worldcon, but to change apartments. The old apartment was in the maze of streets east of the Duomo, close to Teatro del Sale and the Sant Ambrogio Market. The new one was on the river, just past the Ponte alle Grazie, with a view of the water and the gazebo, the red-and-white Palazzo Serristori, and the San Niccoló tower. The plumbing was impeccable, hot, cold, warm, completely adjustable, whatever you wanted. It felt quite miraculous after all those weeks with only cold water and needing to boil a kettle every time she wanted to wash dishes. Sylvia checked the plumbing, the view, and the Wi-Fi, but didn’t think about the chairs.
