Miranda and Caliban

by Jacqueline Carey

  I eye him. “And is it my father’s business that you’re about today? Or is there some other reason that you come to plague me?”

  He blinks at me, blue-eyed and ingenuous. “Is it not conceivable that I merely desire the pleasure of thy company?”

  “It is unlikely.” Although I am eager to return to Papa’s sanctum and begin painting while the fluid lines of the snake’s coils are fresh in my mind, I find myself hesitating. If there is anyone who would know what troubles Caliban, it is Ariel; though it is equally true that that is because if there is anyone who is the cause of Caliban’s troubles, it is the vexsome spirit himself. “Gentle spirit, if I ask you a question, will you answer me honestly?”

  He purses his lips. “As to that, I cannot say without hearing the question, my lady. Thou knowest well that there are matters on which thy father has forbidden me to speak, and I am bound by mine oath.”

  “Will you answer honestly if you may?” I press him.

  “I will.”

  “For a month and more, Caliban has been angry at me,” I say. “Do you know why?”

  Ariel’s eyes darken. “He is not angry at thee, my lady.”

  To my chagrin, I feel the prick of tears in my own eyes. “Then why does he treat me so unkindly?”

  “O la!” The spirit’s expression changes to one of dismay. “Do not weep, my lady.” He sighs, the sound like a wind in the trees. “But as to thy question, it is one I may not answer.”

  I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my gown. “Did you do or say aught to set him against me?”

  “I?” Ariel touches his breast. “I tell thee again, Caliban is not set against thee. He is set against himself, and thou art the cause of it.”

  “How so?”

  The spirit shakes his head. “That, too, I may not answer.”

  I realize that Ariel has evaded my prior question. “Do you deny that you had aught to do with it?”

  He is silent a moment. “Thou thinkest that I have no fondness for Sycorax’s spawn, and I will not gainsay it. Her loathsome blood and the darkness that is attendant on it runs in his veins. And yet, the witch’s whelp has a tender heart and mine is not unmoved to pity. Am I cruel to him? Aye, betimes I have been; and betimes it has been for no greater cause than a whim born of tedium or lingering spite. But in this matter, there is kindness in my cruelty, Miranda, and cruelty in thy kindness.”

  I gaze at him. “I do not understand.”

  “Nor can I make thee,” Ariel says with unwonted gentleness. “But thou didst beseech me to speak honestly, and thus I shall say this: Leave him be, my lady. Allow him his brooding and sullen anger and do not seek to assuage it; for if thou dost not, both of thee will suffer for it.”

  “For kindness?” I say. “For love?”

  There is a terrible sympathy in Ariel’s gaze. “Thou art the shoals on which Caliban wilt dash his heart to pieces.”

  I shake my head in vehement denial. “No! Caliban is my only and dearest friend! I would never hurt him!”

  Ariel casts his sea-shifting gaze skyward as though to beseech the Lord God in His heaven for patience, then lowers it to meet mine. His trickster’s smile is tinged with regret and the shadow of knowledge unspoken. “I wish thee the courage of thy convictions, Miranda, but I grow weary of thine ignorance.”

  “’Tis not—” I begin indignantly.

  A breeze springs up, and he is gone in a swirl of mist.

  The sylphs that have accompanied me cavort without a care. Despite their presence, I feel so very alone.

  Even so, I have attained that which I sought, and it is a thought that cheers me. I turn back toward the palace and thrust the memory of Ariel’s unwanted intrusion and his harsh implications aside, concentrating my thoughts instead on the movement of the serpent’s coils and the intricate patterns of its smooth, overlapping scales, envisioning them writ large on the walls of Papa’s sanctum and adorned with clawed feet and mighty wings, curls of flame spewing from its gaping jaws.

  Bit by bit, the dragon takes shape in my mind and my hands itch to take up a brush and bring it to life.

  By the time I return to Papa’s sanctum, I have nearly managed to forget the entire encounter.

  THIRTY

  CALIBAN

  I do not mean to go back to the balcony outside Master’s sanctum, but after weeks pass … I do. At first I do because I am lonely and I miss Miranda, and even if it is dangerous to be there, I can watch her and she does not know. But then it is not only Miranda, but it is the pictures she makes.

  You have magic in your hands, Miranda.

  Those are the words I think to myself. I do not dare say them out loud and be found, no, but I think them to myself.

  Magic.

  And I think it is a finer magic than Master’s, for what is his magic good for? It is good for making servants and punishing them; yes, and for punishing his own daughter, too, punishing her almost to death. It is good for freeing Ariel, and that is good for no one but Ariel and Master, and Ariel is still angry at being a servant anyway. But Miranda’s magic, oh! Such colors! Such men! Such women! Such creatures!

  I did like it when Miranda did draw bugs and birds and flowers on her slate before, but those are things I have seen and know, and these pictures are so big and grand; and they are things I have never seen and I do not know how Miranda can see them in her head. What is the great coiled thing like a winged serpent beneath the bright-faced man’s feet? I do not know, and yet I know pieces of it: snake, bat, lizard. How does it become a whole?

  To watch her make a picture is like listening to a story, like the stories Miranda did tell me sometimes about the pictures that the stars in the sky make at night, stories that Master did tell her.

  They are beautiful.

  She is beautiful.

  I would watch her every moment of every day, but the longer I stay, the more it may be that Master will see me and punish me; and there are chores to be done, hey-ho, for Caliban is a servant, the poor dumb monster. So I fetch wood and figs and fish like a good servant, I gather acorns and honey and sour oranges, I obey and I am quiet and good, oh so good, that Master does not think about me.

  Miranda …

  Oh, oh, oh.

  It is hard, so hard, to be cold when I am not. The hurt on her face makes my heart hurt inside me.

  I do not like for her to look at me, not anymore; and it is not safe for me to look at her. Only when Miranda does not know I am there and looking, only when she is making magic pictures on the walls of Master’s sanctum and her face is pure and dreaming and holy, and I do not think about Miranda naked with her tender little breasts with their pink tips hanging down above the wash-basin.

  Oh, Setebos! I am bad.

  But I am not only the badness within me that yearns and thinks of rutting like a goat or a dog; no. I have made a promise to myself.

  When the moon goes all the way round then begins to go small, and Miranda’s blood begins to flow, Master sends her away and does not allow her into his sanctum. The first time that it happens, I keep watch over her from far away so that it is safe; yes, and the second and third time, too.

  As the days grow short and winter comes, I am thinking still, oh, I will protect you, Miranda. Yes, yes, I will protect you from the storm that is coming, this storm that will bring trouble to the isle as a storm once brought you and Master to these shores.

  But foolish Caliban, you do not know what this trouble is.

  Tricksy Ariel knows, but he is forbidden to say; and even he with his oh-so-sharp smiles and his sharp cutting words does not know what will happen when it comes.

  Thou hast wits and will not use them, Ariel did say to me. Methinks thou art a greater fool than I had reckoned.

  The spirit’s words are true. Since Ariel did show me to myself, I have been too angry and heart-aching to think. I have been what he did show me; only the poor dumb monster, not that Caliban that Miranda did call a friend, not that Caliban that did teach her words all over again
when she was hurt.

  So I think, thinkety-think-think, and what I think is: How does Ariel know that a troublesome storm is coming? Oh ho, indeed! How does Ariel know what Master plots and plans?

  It comes to me that there are three ways, and the first is that only Ariel is a clever spirit and knows many secret things; and if that is the way, then oh, it is too bad for poor Caliban, he cannot find a secret that is locked inside Ariel’s tricksy head.

  The second way is that Master did tell Ariel his plans, because he did need for the spirit to know them to help him; and if it is that way, then it is too bad again for poor Caliban, Master will not tell him, the savage brute. No, he will not, never ever.

  Oh, but the third way … the third way is that Ariel is guilty of many, many things that he says are true of me, of cruel and cutting words like skulking and lurking and spying, and it seems that these things are a bad thing when you are ugly Caliban hiding belly-down on a balcony or crouching hidden around a corner, but not when you are oh-so-pretty Ariel floating like a cloud or blowing like a whooshity breeze.

  Ha!

  And if it is that way, if Ariel did learn what he knows by spying, then it may be that I can learn it, too.

  (What do you do when you are alone in your sanctum, Master?)

  So I do not keep watch over Miranda on her blood-days, which is a thing that does not truly need doing; it is only a thing that made me feel as though I was caring for her from afar. Oh, I watch enough to be sure she is at her studies in the warm kitchen or at least nowhere where she might see me scaling the palace walls to lurk on the balcony outside Master’s sanctum. I do my chores, always, always, so that the woodpile is stacked high and embers glow on the hearth, and there are acorns gathered and blanched and ground into flour, and there are always fish or mussels in the larder ready for the cooking.

  And then I spy.

  It is not a nice thing to do, no; not with the chilly winds of winter blowing. With my bare belly pressed to the marble floor of the balcony, I shiver and watch while Master does his work.

  Sometimes it is only what I have seen before, Master looking at his charts and books, talking to himself and making notes. He talks louder to himself when he is alone than he does when Miranda is there, and when the wind is not whooshing so hard I cannot hear, I listen and try to make sense of it; but it is all words I do not know and nonsense to me.

  Oh, but other times, there are other things Master does. He takes the cloth from his mirror and says magic words, and then waah! There are faces that show in it! Not Master’s own face, no, but the faces of other men like him, old men with beards, and their lips move as though they are talking to each other. I stare and stare to be sure I am seeing true, and Master stares and stares as though their faces make him hungry, and his lips move too, as though he is whispering their words to himself.

  I wish I could creep closer to see and hear better, but I do not dare.

  And then there is the clay jar that Miranda leaves outside his door during her blood-days. I do not know what is in it, but then I see Master take a thing from it with long tongs, a thing like a little stuffed sack, only it is soaked with blood, and the first time I see it, I make a sound so loud that Master puts down his tongs and comes to the door of the balcony to look, and I almost do not get away in time, leaping for the wall and climbing so fast, fast, fast to hide under the balcony.

  There I crouch and cling to the stones of the wall, my arms and legs shaking, shakity-quakity, my heart going pound, pound, pound like a hare’s, my breath going in and out of my throat so loud, and I am scared because I think Master will hear; and I am scared because it is your blood that Master gathers, Miranda, the blood that comes from you after the moon is round since you are a woman.

  I am sure of it.

  “O la!” the wind whispers in my ear. “Careless, careless! Our master will catch thee a-spying!”

  Of course, that Ariel must come trouble me at the worst time. I want to shout at him to go away, but then Master will catch me. I clench my teeth together hard and say nothing, trying not to fall; and Ariel only laughs and goes on his whooshity way. And I think to myself, oh ho! I am right and Ariel spies, too—and he does not want Master to catch him, either.

  I am using my wits.

  Now I want to run away, but I do not. I climb back and watch, quiet as a mouse. Master puts the sack in a funny-shaped bottle with a bit of water until the water is red and bloody, then he takes the sack out with his tongs and puts it in a different jar. Then he puts the bottle on the metal thing that is like a little hearth, and the little salamander glows and glows, oh, so bright, and the bloody water boils and boils until it is gone, and then Master adds something like grains of sand to the bottle and there is a sharp smell that gets into my nose.

  When it is done, Master takes a long spoon and scrapes the bottom of the bottle and there is a dark red powder and this he puts in a little pot.

  Why, oh why?

  I cannot guess, but I do not like it.

  Master boils other bad-smelling things on his hearth, too; but it does not trouble me like Miranda’s blood.

  One month when Miranda’s blood-days come, it is very cold, more cold than I ever do remember, and I do not spy on Master. The wind is so cold on my bare skin, I am shaking like a leaf on a tree when I bring the wood that I have gathered for the hearth inside.

  Miranda sees this and sews a shirt for me out of the same coarse cloth as my breeches.

  She gives it to me in the kitchen the very next day. “I know you no longer reckon me a friend,” she says without looking at me. Her voice is soft, so very soft, and there is oh so much hurting in it. “But I hope you will accept this nonetheless. ’Tis uncommonly cold and I should hate for you to suffer a chill and fall ill for it.”

  My throat goes tight.

  I take the shirt. “You are my friend, Miranda,” I say to her. “You will always be my friend.”

  Miranda does look at me, then.

  Her eyes are wide and blue and shining with hope. “Can we not be as we were, Caliban?”

  I want to say yes, yes, oh, yes; I want to go back to the days of sharing lessons and chores, sitting side by side. Oh, but we are not children anymore, and there is no innocence in me, only wanting things that are forbidden. Miranda’s pink lips are parted; I would like to put mine on them.

  I would like to …

  Behind my eyes, I see Ariel’s mocking face; I hear his knife-sharp laughter ringing in my ears.

  My rod stiffens.

  Rut.

  “No.” I back away from Miranda. I pull the shirt over my head, my rough-skinned hands fumbling to find their way into the unaccustomed sleeves. “No, not that, Miranda. Not ever.”

  She takes a step toward me. “Caliban—”

  I run.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The shirt is stiff and it scratches, but I wear it all winter because Miranda made it for me, made it with her own hands.

  I do not spy on Miranda that month.

  But when her blood-days come next, I return to Master’s balcony; and when spring is coming at last I see a new thing.

  Oh ho!

  Master spies, too; spies in his mirror on the faraway strange men, and now he sees a thing that he likes, a thing that makes him laugh and shout, oh yes, and more. Master leaps and jumps around in his sanctum, kicking up his legs under his robes. All his magic charms go chinkety-chink-chink hanging from his throat and tangle in his beard. It is such a thing I never did think to see that from my hiding place on the balcony I am staring at him with my mouth open wide.

  “A most excellent decision, my liege!” Master says. “Oh yes, most wise!” He bows toward the mirror, a mocking bow like Ariel’s bows. “No doubt the wedding shall be a fine spectacle with your beloved son and all your most trusted courtiers in attendance.” Master rubs his hands together like there is a great feast before him and his voice goes low and cold and hard, only just loud enough for me to hear it still. “Oh, my liege! Oh,
my brother! You shall reap as you sowed, gentlemen, and after lo, these many long years, the day and hour of your harvest shall soon be upon you.”

  He summons a pair of the little gnomes and bids them to cover the walls with a fresh layer of limestone, to cover all of Miranda’s pictures. I think it will sadden her heart, for she has worked so very hard on making them just right, but I do not have time to worry because then Master covers his mirror and leaves his sanctum, leaves it empty in the very middle of the day.

  I think … do I dare?

  For Miranda, yes.

  And so I get off my belly and creep into Master’s big room. My skin is twitchety with knowing that Master might come back at any moment and punish me. I take the cloth from Master’s mirror and look into it.

  I see nothing but my own face, low-browed and thick-jawed, coarse hair hanging over my eyes.

  “Didst thou expect otherwise?” a light voice inquires. “Thou art no magus, witch’s whelp or not.”

  I turn to face Ariel. “What did Master see in the mirror?” I ask him. “You go everywhere, you see everything. What was it?”

  Ariel shrugs. “And I am oath-bound not to speak of it. Even were I not, why shouldst I tell thee?”

  “I do not know,” I say truthfully. “Spirit, I do not know why you do anything you do. And if you have told me true, neither do you.” Always I am running away from him, but today, no; today, I take a step closer. “Do you?”

  The line of Ariel’s mouth twists. It is not a true smile, for there are none of his knives in it; but I think it is a true face, for there is a deep and honest sadness in it. “No,” he whispers, then; “Yes.”

  I take another step. “Which is it?”

  Ariel laughs and his eyes blaze, blaze; as bright as the mica-flecked rocks I set in the empty hollows of Setebos’s eyes long ago blaze in the sunlight. “Both, thou fool!” He shakes his head, hair flying like foam around his head, his mouth twisting harder as though it fights to flee his face. “I am set against myself as surely as thou art. Aye, I chafe at the yoke of my captivity under our master Prospero, and it sits ill with me that a man should use his daughter thusly to gain his own ends, use the skill of her hands and aye, the very blood of her womb; and yet my goal is mine own freedom and I cannot attain it save that his plans come to fruition. Those are the horns of the dilemma on which I am hooked.” Now his mouth is hard and not smiling, not at all. “Mayhap I have learned not to hate thee, but thou shouldst not trust me, monster.”