Miranda and Caliban

by Jacqueline Carey

  A chill trickles down my back like rainwater and although I do not wish to grieve Papa, I cannot let the matter pass unremarked. Never had I imagined that there was aught unwholesome in the images that Papa bade me render.

  But then there was the pale thing, floating in its jar …

  “Oppression and evils?” I whisper without looking up from the illustration. “I do not understand.”

  Papa is silent long enough that I peek to see if he is angry. He is frowning, but it is in thought, not anger. “There is no evil in this image, nor in any such image,” he says at last. “That I promise you. ’Tis true that they may be used for evil by an unscrupulous magus; and ’tis true, also, that a careless magus may wreak great harm using these images if, let us suppose, he does not take care that the planet which is lord of that astrological house is not conjunct with either of the infortune planets, or cadent at the time of the working, or that the working itself is compromised by an eclipse of the sun or moon.” He raises one finger. “That is why I bid you render no image save at my command.”

  “What of those I have sketched up on my slate?” I ask in alarm. “I’ve drawn many that you described to me, Papa, and not always at your bidding!”

  He smiles into his beard. “There is no harm in such impermanent scribbles. Outside the walls of my sanctum, you are free to practice at will and continue to hone your skills. It is only here in this place of power, wherein enduring images are wrought with purpose on a mighty scale, that there is danger.”

  I dare to look up at him. “And yet I know naught of our purpose, Papa.”

  “Nor need you,” he says sternly. “Not yet. This is a delicate business we are about, and any intention you bring to it might taint the working. Your innocence of the nature of our working is required to ensure it will be a pure expression of my intention. You need only to trust me. Do you?”

  I nod.

  I am not sure if it is true, but I am sure it is the only answer that I am unafraid to give him.

  “That is well,” Papa says. “Know that there is no evil in our purpose, Miranda. If I bid you render an image of one of the faces of a sign, or an aspect of one of the seven governors, that rules over cruelty or injustice or misery, it is not because drawing down such unsavory elements is our purpose.” He pauses, lost in thought again for a moment and gazing into the distance. “It is because those elements bear influence on our purpose, and I seek the favor of the stars and planets to influence them in turn. Does that suffice to ease your fears?”

  I nod again. “Yes, Papa.”

  It is a lie.

  It suffices to fan the spark of resentment and rebellion that yet lingers in me, and for the first time in many years, I should like to shout and rage to the heavens, to ask Papa what and how and why?

  But I do not.

  I have grown circumspect. Quietly, I excuse myself to venture afield where I might seek to study the visage of a hawk.

  It is the sort of quest in which Caliban would have delighted to accompany me not so very long ago, but when I attempt to entice him into joining me, he declines in an ungracious manner. Since I began assisting Papa with his work, Caliban’s sullenness toward me has continued unabated, and I am none the wiser as to the cause of it.

  “Why are you being so churlish?” I cry. “Have I not apologized many times over for my bad behavior?”

  Caliban hunches his shoulders, looks away, and mutters, “It is no fault of yours, Miranda.”

  “Then why?” I grasp his arm and tug it, trying to make him turn to face me. “Tell me! Will you not even look at me?”

  He shakes off my grip with unexpected force, then doubles over in pain as Papa’s binding takes effect.

  Filled with remorse, I crouch beside him. “Oh, Caliban! I’m sorry.”

  Caliban staggers away from me with a grunt of pain, bracing his hands on his bent knees. “It is no fault of yours, Miranda!” he says again, and then he straightens and lopes for the doorway, one arm pressed against his belly. I watch him go, tears of frustration stinging my eyes.

  When I am not immersed in the wonder of painting, this divide between us troubles me more than I can say.

  We had grown so very close, Caliban and I. During the seemingly endless months when I was recovering from my affliction, he showed me such tenderness and patience. As I healed and we grew and learned together in those months, and indeed the years that followed, it seemed almost that we were two parts of a whole, each of us reflecting the other’s strengths and weaknesses. We were two souls who found each other in our times of need, providing companionship and solace. So long as the distance between us persists, there is an emptiness inside me.

  For the first time in long years, I remember what it is to be lonely.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  CALIBAN

  Oh, Miranda!

  I do not wish to be unkind to you; never. Never in the everest ever!

  But it is best that I am, because you are good and innocent and everything that I am not.

  One day you will understand.

  One day you will hate me for what I am, as I have learned to hate myself for it.

  TWENTY-NINE

  MIRANDA

  To my dismay, I am unable to finish the image of the second face of Gemini before Luna, the Lady Moon herself, waxes full and bright in the night sky, and I feel the heaviness and the dull ache that I now know portend the start of my woman’s courses. Papa is pleased that my flow arrives in a timely manner, but of course I am banished from his sanctum until it ends.

  The anniversary of my birth arrives and Papa entrusts me with his Bible that I might read it for myself now that I am fourteen years of age and a woman grown, which is a mercy; still, it is a hardship to be forbidden the labor I have come to love, and all the more so for Caliban’s strange and enduring coldness toward me.

  “Is it because I have been spending so many hours aiding Papa in his sanctum?” I ask him, still seeking to make sense of his behavior. “So many hours painting? Are you angry at me for it?”

  “No.”

  I press him. “Are you quite certain?”

  Caliban gives a sharp bark of laughter in response. He glances at me, a quick, furtive, and darting glance, and there is a misery I do not understand in his dark eyes. “Yes, Miranda.”

  He leaves.

  He has grown skilled at leaving, grown skilled at ensuring that our paths cross as little as possible.

  I only would that I knew why.

  I think of the monstrous thing he showed me with such pride so long ago, the great bony brown rock of a skull that perches atop the high crag with its maw agape as if to devour the sky, that thing that he called Setebos. Since first Caliban showed it to me, I have never returned, but I suspect he takes refuge there often. It has been the only point of contention between us in the years since my affliction, for I have no love for the gruesome thing, and yet Caliban clings stubbornly to a belief that it is a manifestation of the foul spirit his mother worshipped; and moreover, that it is his prayers to Setebos that restored me to wakefulness.

  I have said naught of this to Papa, for he is quick to anger where Caliban is concerned and I have no wish to rouse his wrath, but when I think on it, worry gnaws at me like a maggot in an acorn. I have long excused this fancy of Caliban’s, supposing it is a mere holdover from his savage, abandoned childhood that causes him to hold fast to this belief and take comfort in the monstrous figure he imagines to be Setebos.

  What if I am wrong? Caliban said more than once that his cruelty was no fault of mine. What if there is power in the hideous formation, and it exerts a subtle, malign influence over Caliban, rendering his once tender and gentle heart dark and hateful toward me?

  Such are the matters that occupy my mind as I go about the lonely business of tending to my courses. I am grateful to have Papa’s Bible to distract me, though I will own that there are many passages in it I do not understand, and others that stir a queer yearning inside me.

  The
re is one such that is called the Song of Solomon, which I read over and over. Though it makes me feel unsettled and strange to myself, for it is about the love between a man and a woman, I cannot help but return to it.

  It is a glad day when my menstruum ceases to flow and I am able to rejoin Papa in his sanctum. Although I was unsuccessful in catching a glimpse of a hawk at close range, I saw a number of them from afar—and too, I spent a good deal of time in the garden sketching our chickens—and I am eager to resume work on the second face of Gemini, but Papa informs me the time is no longer opportune. He laughs to see me disappointed anew, though not unkindly.

  “There will be time aplenty to complete it when the stars realign,” he says to me. “’Tis a far grander image I bid you render now.”

  Papa speaks more truly than I reckoned for it is an image of the Sun—Sol, the Lord Sun himself—that he wishes me to create.

  It will be the first time I have painted one of the seven governors, and I am apprehensive about undertaking such an important task. The illustration in Papa’s book depicts a man with a noble face and a fiery crown upon his head. His right hand is raised as though in greeting, and in his left he holds a round mirror. Beneath his feet is a curious creature bescaled like a serpent with twisting coils and veined wings, which Papa tells me is called a dragon. Its jaws are open wide and curling flames of crimson and gold come forth from its throat.

  “As you may recall, there are those sages who hold that the image is that of a man in a chariot drawn by four horses,” Papa says. “But this is the one that speaks the loudest to me.” He strokes the edge of the page with one finger, grazing it with a touch as light and fleeting as a butterfly’s wing. “Now that you behold it, does it speak to you, Miranda?”

  I glance involuntarily at the salamander, curled sleeping in its glowing brazier. “Yes, Papa. It does.”

  He smiles. “I am pleased to hear it.”

  I ready my paints and stare at the blank wall. The image of the Sun is to take pride of place upon it.

  The wall taunts me with its empty whiteness.

  I do not know how to begin.

  I think of Papa chanting the music of the spheres each and every morning, calling down their influence. I should like to do the same, but it is not a part of his art that he has taught me, saying only that my girlish voice lacks the proper resonance for it.

  Still …

  I recall the night long ago I slipped from my chamber to beseech Caliban to obey Papa and betray the name of Setebos; how I lost my way in the maze of hedges and prayed to the Lady Moon to guide my steps; how she answered my prayers and helped calm my spirits that I might find my way free of the maze. And it seems to me now that I must ask the Lord Sun for his blessing in this undertaking. Papa thinks it is a fine idea and gives me leave to go.

  At first I think it is a thing that should be best done outdoors beneath the open skies, in the courtyard where Papa performs his chants; and yet once I am there, with the ominous shadow of the riven pine that once held Ariel captive stretching over the flagstones, I do not feel the rightness of it. No, it is height that I crave; closeness to the sky, as close as I can come to the Sun. And so it is the winding stair of the watchtower that I climb, all the way to its high chamber with windows open to the four quarters of the winds.

  It is a clear morning and the Sun shines merrily in the east, rising above the horizon degree by degree with the steady turning of its sphere.

  I kneel before the eastern window and clasp my hands in prayer, closing my eyes. The Sun’s light is warm upon my face and I see red and gold as vivid as dragon’s fire behind my eyelids.

  “May God bless you, O blessed Lord Sun,” I murmur. “Lord Sun, whose eye illumes all the sky, all-seeing, fiery and hot and dry, bearer of fruit and seed, almighty Lord of brightness and all that is good and holy, I beg you to guide my hand that I might render your image most truly.”

  The crimson brightness behind my eyes blooms and the Sun’s warmth on my face feels like a blessing given. My heart expands within my breast as though the very Sun has ignited a divine spark within it.

  Opening my eyes, I rise.

  I am ready—oh, so ready!—to begin, and yet I find my feet hesitating and my gaze turning westward. Once upon a time, I sought to catch glimpses of Caliban from this very vantage.

  I find myself seeking him now.

  I do not spot him, but I see the parted jaws of Setebos arching toward the sky atop his crag, rendered small by the distance. I had seen them from this very tower as a child many times, taking them for naught more than spires of rock. Now I know better and a shiver runs over my skin as though a shadow has passed above me, dispelling some of the Sun’s warmth. Holding fast to the memory of brightness, I return to Papa’s sanctum and commence.

  For many hours, I lose myself in the work of outlining the figure on a vast expanse of blank wall, concentrating on imbuing it with the Sun’s bright majesty. It is only when I reach the complicated form of the dragon that my hand falters and I realize the extent of my weariness.

  With Papa’s permission, I approach the salamander in its brazier and study it closely. It shares a correspondence with a dragon, for I believe that they are reptiles in kind with an affinity for fire. But the salamander, which wakes to gaze at me with unblinking eyes, is not much bigger than the length of my hand, and it lacks the dragon’s twisting coils and bat-veined wings. And although it is a creature of fire, flames do not issue forth from its mouth. Indeed, its mouth remains closed, a delicate curve at the hinge of its jaw suggesting a smile in the flickering firelight.

  “Are you kin to a dragon, I wonder?” I murmur to it. “Why do you not speak?”

  Across the chamber, Papa raises his head from a chart he is studying. “What’s that, child?”

  I do not like to remind him of my trespass. “I was just wondering, Papa, if the salamander is kin to a dragon.”

  “Yes, indeed,” he says. “Though on a small and insignificant scale.” He frowns a little. “Surely you’re not thinking to use it as a model? A dragon is a far grander thing, Miranda.”

  “Yes, but I have no dragon—” I pause, thinking once again of Setebos’s gaping maw. Mayhap there is a reason I glimpsed it from afar this morning, for it is not at all unlike the jaws of the dragon in the illustration. “Papa? Could a dragon be turned to stone?”

  His frown deepens. “How so?”

  I hesitate. “There is a thing that Caliban showed me once. He…” I swallow against the lump of betrayal in my throat, and whisper my next words. “He believes it to be Setebos incarnate.”

  Now I have Papa’s full attention. “Tell me.”

  I do.

  It is at once a relief and an agony. Had Caliban not been so strange toward me in the past weeks, I do not think I would have revealed his secret; and yet there is a great release in divulging it and confessing my fears regarding it.

  Papa’s face is stern as he listens. “You should have told me this long ago, Miranda.”

  I look down. “I know.”

  “This thing you describe … I am quite certain it is naught but the bones of a great whale caught in an event of volcanic upheaval some centuries past, preserved in basalt at the moment of its demise,” Papa says, and his tone is dismissive. “’Twould be of considerable interest to study were I not caught up in more pressing matters, but I assure you, ’tis neither a dragon nor a demonic spirit made manifest. It is only Caliban’s fancy that accords it agency.” He shakes his head with rue and regret. “I fear that for all the civilizing influence that we have afforded him, your wild lad retains a savage’s love of superstition.”

  I sigh.

  Bones; only bones.

  Of course, ’twas folly to imagine it was aught otherwise, and I feel foolish for having let Caliban’s ill-founded belief color my thinking. But Papa does not mock me for it, only assures me that if the whale’s jaws will serve as a model for the dragon’s, I should use them. This I do, although I pay no second vis
it to the great skull, but render its terrifying jaws from memory abetted by the distant glimpse of the watchtower.

  Mayhap I cannot help but retain a touch of Caliban’s superstition.

  I do study the mummified corpse of a bat which is among the many curious objects that adorn the shelves of the cabinets in Papa’s sanctum. With Papa’s bemused but approving indulgence, I gently stretch out one brittle, leathery wing that I might observe the fine veins, the armature of its bones, and the manner in which its joints are articulated.

  Accompanied by a trio of drifting sylphs, I spend a sunlit morning hunting along the banks of a stream where Caliban and I have in the past encountered harmless grass snakes that lurk in the reeds and prey on small frogs and lizards there. When I find one, I follow its winding progress, marveling at the way it propels itself effortlessly through water and over land alike with the sinuous motion of its endlessly coiling and uncoiling length. It moves far too swiftly for me to capture its undulating lines in chalk, but I commit them to memory.

  It is a thing I have seen before, of course, but now I see it through new and different eyes, and I am filled with wonder at the richness and complexity of the vast whole of the Lord God’s creation.

  To paint, I think, is to give praise to the Creator.

  “Shouldst thou not have a care, daughter of Eve?” a breezy voice says behind me. “Thou art a member of the fairer sex, and thus heir to a troubled history with serpents, my lady.”

  Ariel.

  The snake vanishes among the reeds, its lashing body following the probing wedge of its head.

  I turn to face the mercurial spirit. “Yes, and the Lord God did curse the serpent to crawl upon its belly for its sins,” I say in a grim tone. “Mayhap this isle is no Eden, but here as there, when temptation approached me, it walked upright like a man, and I have paid the price for heeding it.”

  Ariel raises his hands in a peaceable gesture, the insubstantial sleeves of his garment fluttering around his slender white arms. “I mean no harm. Thou art about thy father’s business, Miranda, and the sooner it is brought to a head, the sooner I am freed from servitude.”