Lightspeed Magazine Issue 37

by L. Timmel Duchamp

  And then the “younger brother” said, “Orsino, Orsino. ’Tis all thou canst talk of! Then go, then go, if thou thinkest there’s aught to be won by ’t. Thou hearest no objection from Olivia. And I stand not in thy way. So to what point, then, tend all these speeches thou must needs to burden us with?”

  “Viola!” the lady said. “Will thou not hold thy tongue when speaking to thy brother? It aids naught, but only makes his temper the hotter.”

  The Fool writes, “And indeed, the gentleman hath gone quite red in the face, rage blooming in ’t like unto that of the brightest of poppies, his shoulders grown suddenly wider, his stature taller, ’til his manly physique nearly fills every spare bit of the air in the whole chamber.” “Hoyden! Wanton! Shrew!” he said, “flinging the words from his mouth like the bitterest and foamiest of vile spittle.”

  And then the Fool suddenly announces: “But lo, this be Sebastian! I look from him to the lad who is his sister, and back to him, and wonder. Indeed, though their features share a sameness, his are all hardness grim and stony, bristled by beard and ruddy from sun and drink, while hers though stubborn are soft and pliant and cream with a faint blush of rose, and he of greater girth and stature than she. She looks indifferent to his railing, but only throws back her head—in such wise discovering to us a smooth, shapely neck—and stares up at him, her gaze hard, blue—and unmoved.”

  Viola spoke softly when Sebastian ceased “making his imprecations.” “I have said. You all agreed to ’t. I would put off my male attire when my own clothes were brought to me. Do you remember my very words? If nothing lets to make us happy both but this my masculine usurped attire, do not embrace me till each circumstance of place, time, fortune, do cohere and sump that I am Viola—which to confirm, I’ll bring you to a captain in this town, where lie my maiden weeds. That the captain lost them when the duke’s men put him in durance—it is the duke’s task to remedy. Let Orsino have my maiden weeds found, and then I shall be his bride. ’Tis the task I require of him, if he would take me as his lady. Or he may have me back as his boy—by thy leave, of course, my brother. Else, I’ll continue me as before.” She rose and bowed to Olivia. “As my lady’s sister and guest.”

  “Sister!” Sebastian said “as though he would choke on the word.” “In faith, soon thou shalt be no sister to me, an thou denies all meet duty and loyalty to the one thou callest brother!”

  Sebastian strode to the open windows. The Fool writes that she noticed then that the Queen and all her ladies were standing out in the garden, looking on. “The feeling sweeps o’er me, that I am dreaming, dreaming one of those day-time dreams that come when one is drowsing in church, poorly attending a sermon, when one’s thoughts enter another realm, with the preacher’s words droning like flies buzzing, whilst images of another place and time slip into that innermost eye, dreaming yet not asleep, awake but elsewhere … ”

  [On the English stage] ‘Woman’ is, precisely, a set of learned social codes and mannerisms, executed by a boy.

  —Lisa Jardine, Reading Shakespeare Historically

  The text breaks off midsentence, but resumes with Sebastian’s leaving the room. The Fool writes that Oliva then said, “I’ll not believe thou would give thyself to him as his boy, e’en if he would have thee. Thou art bold, thou art audacious, the which are the reasons I so love thee. But both Orsino and Sebastian, like all men, take the sight of a woman in man’s clothes to be a clear sign and warrant of her whoredom. The least word will tip their faith out of balance, so that they will see not thy virginity. E’en if Orsino would have thou as his whore, the which would thereby make grave offense to Sebastian, and thereto cause some great, mortal mischief, I’ll not believe thou would so put thyself in his power. For if thou wouldst be in his power, thou would straightaway take up women’s attire and make thyself his bride.”

  Viola flung herself onto the floor, propped her head up with a cushion, crossed her knees in the air, “as though she hath come by her doublet and hose naturally,” and said, “The power of one o’er another is all that fixes thy mind, Olivia. ’Tis something I will not busy my thoughts with, else to see myself deep into my grave. Thou refused Orsino for ’t, and now cannot love Sebastian, either. Love rules me, and not the fist. ’Tis all I care for, and the reason I put Orsino to the test, and would indeed live with him again as his boy, howe’er far that would undo me. A strong heart is all that a woman wants. The rest is of no account.”

  Olivia rose to her feet and paced as Sebastian had done when he was in the room. “Love! Love Sebastian!” The Fool writes that the lady was “vehement, passionate, afire. ’Tis said the Queen has oftimes been so, though I have ne’er seen it. I glance across the room to see her wraith staring raptly at the lady. Doth she see herself? Or ’tis interest in the scene she watches that so fixes her attention?” Pacing, Olivia said, “Never have I loved thy brother! I married him only because I lovest thee! Thou knows where my heart lies! In hands that treat it indifferently, a mere bauble they would rather be rid of!” Olivia halted near Viola and stared down at her for a long moment, and then sank to her knees “in a great pool of peach silk and creamy lace that flows o’er Viola’s arm and breast like the tide of foam up onto a beach.” The Fool continues, “The silence is so sudden and entire that methinks I hear the distant sound of surf, of waves beating against the pebbles and rocks of a harsh, stony shore. So sure I am of that sound that it seems I smell the salt and wrack of the sea subtly scenting the air, a perfume more real than the scarcely visible flesh of my own hand.”

  Wanting to see the expressions on their faces, the Fool moved closer—“as ’twould ne’er be polite or possible to do if this were a stage on which actors played. It is the Lady Olivia’s face that most astonishes me. ’Tis wet with tears, yet glowing with a passion and tenderness the sight of which clutches at my heart. Her lips are quivering.” Olivia spoke softly, and “strangely slowly”—“My dear one”—and then took Viola’s hand and lifted it gently to her lips, “to there caress it, and then press it to her breast, as a lover presses his own hand to his breast when declaring his love.” “Dear one, now sister,” she said. “Thou see’st how I, as doth any sensible woman, accept what I must, when by doing so I may have at least some part of what I require. This has e’er been how women live. I accept sisterhood, and make the best of it, since I must live deprived of my true heart’s desire.”

  Viola sighed and turned her head away. “A woman I am, aye, but not just any. I care naught that I be called whore, if only he would not mind it.”

  Olivia shook her head and both laughed a little and cried. “I know Orsino, sister. Yea, I know him. The first breath of suggestion that cometh to his ear will fell you fore’er in his grace. A woman’s reputation is the most delicate thing, stained by anyone with an ill will to her. ’Tis all the cause she needs the protection of a man’s honor, and the only cause.”

  Viola pulled her hand from Olivia’s and sat up. “My brother and I have shared honor and love since birth. The protection of his and my father’s name and honor is all that I need!”

  “And I, too, shared honor and love with my brother,” said Olivia. “Mind that a brother’s protection doth not always suffice.”

  “The which,” the Fool writes, “makes me think of the Queen, whose own brother had lately come to visit, to assuage her griefs and melancholy, the which had so swiftly returned after his departure. For which I glance now at that royal lady, and see her struck with an emotion too strong to be concealed.”

  Another woman then entered—“who, when she speaks, seems so much like the Countess of Bedford that I look over to the Queen’s party to ascertain that she still stands there, beside the Queen.” “My lady,” the woman said. “I bring you good warning. From a pane in the tower, my eye took clear sight of the duke’s approach. ’Twill not be long before he nears the gate and asks admittance.”

  Olivia said, “Devil take him!”

  Viola sprang to her feet, “her face a shining glass o
f eagerness.” “Mayhap he cometh to see me, at last! With my maiden’s weeds—or else simply for love, that hath worn down his obstinance!”

  At which, the Fool writes, “I, too, am filled with an eagerness to set my eyes on him, or rather a curiosity. For if Maria is the image of the Countess, and Olivia of the Queen, will the Duke be that of the King, and Malvolio that of Sir George Carew?”

  “He’s come to see Sebastian,” Olivia said, “I make no doubt, before he departs with Antonio. Maria!”

  The Fool writes, “I feast my eyes on her, assured manyfold times that the lady lately entered, being the redoubtable waiting woman who showed herself more clever than every bodie else in the play, might be taken for the Countess’s twin.” She notes that Maria then went to Olivia and offered her an arm as she rose to her feet.

  “My very heart doth feel how seemly this display of affection,” the Fool writes, “as it echoes that true affection of the Countess for the Queen the which makes the Countess worthy of her Majesty’s answering trust and love.” Olivia, she writes, glanced briefly at Viola, then said, “Go to my husband and tell him Orsino is soon arrived.”

  Maria exited. And then Viola was the one pacing. “I’m nothing short of patient, Olivia,” said she. “Indeed, ’tis my best—nay, my only—virtue. He wants me, I felt it all the time I played the boy in his menage. It cannot be true that he cares less for a gown than for the heart, body, and soul he would have wear it!”

  Olivia seated herself on the bench in weary resignation, “her face of a sadness near to bringing tears to my own eyes.” She said, “As much as it cannot be true that thou doth value your doublet and breeches less than thou doth value his love.”

  Viola whirled, all flashing temper, and jutted her chin at the lady. “Nay! ’Tis not about the doublet and breeches, but what he loves in me, for that I fear lest he’d miss it an I were wearing a gown!”

  Olivia’s face grew even sadder. She said, “Any man hearing thou speak so would say thou art mad. I know thou art not, but I tell thee that if thou dost not accept a woman’s lot, thou wilt come only to grief, and thy love for the man who will not have thee mad or whorish will be but like a dream, that only thou canst know in the privy place of thine own mind and heart.”

  The Fool writes, “Little Pierrette moves before me, startling me, and points. Behold, I see that the Queen and the others in her party have gone from the windows. Pierrette gestures, making me know his wish to follow. Without me, they will wander as shades in this foreign place, unable to find the way back to the world. Though Pierrette knoweth that not, he beseemeth full anxious to rejoin the ladies, lest he be lost in this strange world without them.

  “Swiftly we fly out into the garden. Before long we find the party, the Queen’s Majesty in the lead, royal hand to throat, weeping sorely. Since we cannot hear one another speak, ’tis impossible to know the cause for the Queen’s great emotion. Worse, the Queen doth not know the way, though ’tis she who is leading the company. And so, from strict necessity, in the blink of an eye (whether amber or green) I conjure, not far in advance of the Queen, a gossamer ball as glittering as a diamond, as clear as the finest crystal, veined lightly with gold, to guide the Queen’s progress. For so ’tis, when she sees it, she stretches forth her hand, as if to catch it to her. But lo, it is my will that moves it, so that it always keeps just beyond her reach, and so by little and little guides her to the exit, where her faithful dwarf greyhounds await her, and all the heavy shawls all the ladies had put off under the gentle heat of Illyria’s sun.”

  [E]xplanations are clear but since no one to whom a thing is explained can connect the explanations with what is really clear, therefore clear explanations are not clear.

  —Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography

  And so soon they were back as they had been, seated at their needlework, “no door to be found any longer behind the tapestry,” with Pierrette sent off to fetch wine for the company.

  “Such tales you do tell, Cristiana!” the Countess of Bedford said, taking the Fool “by the greatest of surprise.”

  The others all looked dazed and amazed—until they realized, individually, “the Countess’s wise intent” in suggesting that the Fool had been telling them a tale, rather than that they had impossibly visited a world known as imaginary.

  The Queen sighed and sighed. “Cristiana, Cristiana, ’tis almost as if I had been to Illyria myself, so wondrous vivid your narration,” she said. “And so she doth hold a frippery of lace to her eyes,” the Fool writes, “to dab gently there at a few tears yet lingering. Her mouth trembles with an endeavor of a smile.”

  “Would that you had found a happy ending to the playwright’s tale,” the Queen said, “rather than such sadness.”

  The Countess went to the Queen and knelt beside her. “Dearest Rina!” said she, showing a gentleness she reserved for the Queen alone. “The playwright’s stories must needs have unhappy endings for ladies, whate’er another teller might make of them. ’Tis in their very nature to do so, for unlike our brave Amazon masques, this Author’s tales follow life too closely. For the which, the Lady Olivia spoke truly.”

  The Fool writes, “But we did not stay to see the end of ‘my’ tale, and so do not know ’twas so unhappy as the Queen bethinks. (Nor did we see whether Orsino looked to be the King’s twin.)”

  And she ends the text: “You, my lady, did ask that I write this account so that memories of the beautiful marvellous might be refreshed in your imagination as oft as you so desire, by the mere reading of my words. ’Twas indeed that our very visit to Illyria was marvellous and beautiful, howe’er poignantly sad its unfolding. Pleasure and sorrow are no enemies, as people are wont to conceive them. Else we women would have only the latter, and ne’er the former, as sorrow doth always accompany a woman through life as a shadow doth any body. And so ’tis, we take our pleasure where’er we can find it, to rejoice when we can, and weep when we must.”

  If the author of this tale did invent this magical adventure, one must wonder at its open ending. To please the lady for whom it was written—to “never say die”? Or to leave an opening for another “visit” to Illyria? Or was it, indeed, as the Fool (or whoever the narrator is) claims, that “the playwright’s stories must needs have unhappy endings for ladies, whate’er another teller might make of them,” because “this Author’s tales follow life too closely”? I’ll leave that kind of speculation to the literary historians. Personally, I prefer to believe that the adventure happened as she claimed, and that such magic was the Fool’s to command and her pleasure to offer. And that maybe, maybe, she returned to Illyria another time—leaving its traces on a second, as yet undiscovered, manuscript.

  © 2002 by L. Timmel Duchamp.

  Originally published in Leviathan Three, edited by Jeff VanderMeer & Forrest Aguirre.

  Reprinted by permission of the author.

  L. Timmel Duchamp is the author of the five-novel Marq’ssan Cycle, Love’s Body, Dancing in Time and Never at Home, as well as the short novel The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding) and dozens of short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies like Asimov’s SF and the Full Spectrum and Leviathan series. Her fiction has been a finalist for the Nebula and Sturgeon Awards and shortlisted numerous times for the James Tiptree Jr. Award. Her essays and reviews have been published in numerous venues, including The American Book Review, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons. She is also the publisher of Aqueduct Press and the editor of Narrative Power: Encounters, Celebrations, Struggles; Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries Lost, Suppressed, or Misplaced in Time; Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies; and The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 1, and co-editor, with Eileen Gunn, of The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 2.

  Footnote

  1Elizabeth’s erudite daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia, was an important correspondent of Descartes. One wonders what James’s reaction would have been had he realized that the intellect of a female descendan
t would someday be judged vastly superior to his own.

  2Marie de’ Medici (queen of France from 1600, and Queen Regent 1610-1617) employed a “fool” who happened to be a woman. Known as “Mad Mathurine,” she apparently wielded a scathingly feminist pen against certain misogynist writers of her day. A sample of her prose style is the curse she deployed against the author of the scurrilous Le Caquet de l’accouchée, whom she characterized as a sex-starved, rapacious bird, rejected by every woman he pursued, except by a hideous old whore who gave him a veneral disease that turned him into an eviscerated falcon: “Would to Saint Fiacre [the patron saint of gardens and venereal diseases] that his arse be full of boiling water … Let every woman smear his face with cow dung! Let every girl soil his mustache with spit, and let all women together heap so many curses upon him he can only shit after a good thrashing, and prowl about like a werewolf all the rest of his days!” Xaveria Cristiana Morley’s style is not so flamboyant. But her perspective is indubitably as critical.

  3I take this quote directly from the piece of text Julia Guthke labels Fragment A. I’m grateful to her, and to her graduate student Blaine Bowen, for their transcription (using modern spelling and orthography), and to the ms’s owner, Harold Sutton, for permission not only to paraphrase the text, but to quote it directly at liberty.

  4Masques were highly politicized court spectacles, 17th-century versions of Busby Berkeley production numbers that served as vehicles for flaunting the crown’s wealth and for promoting a royal iconography.

  5An estate, I might add, he forced one of his subjects to swap for another, simply because he liked it.

  6The Fool’s manner of speaking about the Scots was not exactly what we’d call politically correct. Most English people of her time despised the Scots, and the favoritism James showed to those who followed him to England intensified that loathing. The numerous instances of rape by some of these same men, and of James forcing the daughters of his English subjects into disadventagous marriages with many of them, didn’t help.