Miranda and Caliban(5)

He kneels once more, swinging the thurible around himself in a circle, then rises and repeats the invocation.

My feet grow sore from standing on the flagstones. I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

I do not believe that it required so great a working of Papa’s art to summon Oriana the first time, but then she is a mere beast, no matter how willful. A man is a reflection of God Himself, and that is another matter.

I think the wild boy is a man, or at least a boy. I cannot be wholly sure, for I have never seen him clearly. When he spies upon me from the garden wall outside my bed-chamber, he is clever about lurking in the dappled shadows. Still, I feel almost certain that he means me no harm. I cannot say that is always true of Oriana, who butts me with her bony head and the hard nubbins of her horns when she is in a foul mood.

The sun climbs overhead and the morning grows hot. I feel prickly with sweat and hollow with hunger.

Papa finishes a third recitation of his invocation, stands, and sets aside the thurible. Now he holds forth a new amulet strung around his neck on a chain. It is in the form of a silver cage wrought in a sphere, and there are strands of coarse black hair wrapped around the silver wires.

“By the strength of mine art and the very hairs of thine head, I summon thee!” Papa says in a commanding voice, thumping the metal-shod heel of his staff on the flagstones. “Come forth!”

We wait.

I had not reckoned on waiting so long; but of course, that is foolish, too. The wild boy might be near or far. He is free to roam the whole of the isle, and it is almost half a league from the palace to the seashore alone.

Papa stands tall and motionless, as though an eternity might pass without his noticing, his gaze fixed on the east. His hair, which is long and iron grey, spills over his shoulders. The faint breeze stirs his hair and his beard, which is also iron grey marked with two streaks that yet remain black.

I am thirsty, too.

Our shadows grow smaller as the sun climbs. The spirit trapped in the great pine lets out a wail, unexpected and plaintive. I jump at the sound of it, but Papa only glances at the tree. “Be at peace, gentle spirit,” he murmurs. “It is my hope that this endeavor will one day bear fruit that may aid thee.”

I am not sure what he means by it, but the spirit falls silent.

And still we wait, until it seems to me that I have never done aught else save stand in this courtyard beneath the hot sun, footsore and hungry and parched. I grow so terribly weary that even a glimpse of the still body of my poor sweet Bianca no longer moves me to tears. It is merely another object with no more or less value than any other object. Only a strong desire to make Papa proud keeps me from begging to be excused. I fear that were I to do so, it would be a year or more before he would trust me to attend him in the practice of his art.

At last, there is motion in the distance; a hunched figure approaches on the horizon.

The wild boy is coming.





THREE

All at once, my weariness vanishes in a rush of excitement; and a little bit of fear, too.

“Come forth!” Papa says again, and there is a note of triumph in his voice.

The wild boy draws nearer. His gait is slow and halting. He does not walk upright, striding firmly on two feet, but advances in a crouch, steadying himself against the earth with the knuckles of first one hand and then the other.

Step by creeping step, he comes. It is hard, still, to make out his face, which is hidden by a ragged shock of coarse black hair that falls across his features. I catch a glimmer of dark eyes peering beneath the curtain of hair, wide and shining and moon-mazed.

“Hold, and come no further,” Papa says, extending one hand palm outward. The wild boy halts warily. I cannot tell if he understands or if it is simply that his very flesh is obedient to Papa’s spell. His skin is dark with grime and the nails of his fingers and toes are ragged and black. Even standing several paces away, I can smell the rank odor of him.

His face, though; his face is human. I can see enough of it now to be sure. His features are broader than Papa’s and mine and the thrust of his jaw is stronger, but he is a boy, not a beast.

“Avert your gaze, Miranda,” Papa says quietly. “It is unseemly that you should look upon his nakedness.”

I do not want to look away, but I do.

Mostly.

“Good lad,” Papa says to the wild boy. “Bravely done.” The wild boy says nothing. “Do you understand?” Papa asks him. “Do you speak?” The wild boy cocks his head and sits on his haunches, knuckles brushing the flagstones.

My wise and learned Papa repeats the question in the different scholarly tongues he speaks, but the wild boy gives no answer. I watch him from the corner of my eye and see his dark, shining gaze flick sidelong behind his thick hanks of hair, stealing glances back at me.

It feels as though the wild boy and I are exchanging secrets, which is a dangerous and thrilling thought.

I wonder if he is mute, though.

I do not wonder it for long. When the spirit in the pine lets out another unexpected groan, the wild boy leaps sideways and gives an angry bark. His tongue and the inside of his mouth are surprisingly red.

“So you can speak,” Papa muses. “But it is language you lack. Well, we shall see about teaching you.” The wild boy looks uncertainly at him, nostrils flaring. Papa lays one hand on his filthy head. “Peace,” he says firmly. “Come with us. Shelter and food and drink shall be yours.”