Miranda and Caliban(87)

Oh, Miranda!

I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry so very sorry so very sorry, oh Setebos, I think you must hate me.

If only I could see you.

If only I could tell you with the words that you did teach me that I am sorry, so sorry, that I could not help that hatred for Master did grow in my heart until it was red and hot and sick.

It is still sick.

I am sick.

He held his hand in yours and you did let him.

I am sick.

Outside the high windows I cannot reach, the sun sets and the light goes away. For a time it is dark, and then the moon rises and there is a little silvery light that comes through the high windows.

In the morning the sun will rise.

I wonder what Master will do. Prospero; oh, I did call him Prospero to his face, and I am not sorry for it. No, not for that. Only for the other thing I said, and only because you did hear it, Miranda.

But I think he will kill me for what I did try to do. He did want to kill me before. Yes, I think I will die in the morning. It is a strange thing to think of not being, but I sit in the moonlight and think it to myself.

I am Caliban.

Caliban is; but tomorrow, Caliban will not be.

How can I not be?

This thought is like a heavy stone falling and falling through my thoughts and I follow it down but it only keeps falling and falling like it is falling in a well that has no bottom and the more I think it the more heavy it is until my head is heavy with it, and my head falls forward to touch my knees, and it is heavy so heavy— “Caliban.”

Thunk.

I think it is the stone hitting the bottom at last, but no, there is no stone and no well, only my head coming up hard.

I was asleep; I did dream.

“Caliban!”

Then oh, oh, oh! I am awake and it is Miranda’s voice I hear, Miranda’s voice that calls in a soft, scared whisper from the gallery above my cell where she did watch me when we were little. Quick, so quick, I am on my feet. I lift my face to find her. She is there, the moonlight a shimmer on her hair. My heart sings inside me like a bird. If I had wings, I would fly to her.

There is a slithering sound and something long and white comes out of the darkness. It is a rope that Miranda has made from her bed-linens. One end hangs in front of my face. I take it in my hand and tug. It does not move. The other end is knotted around the railing of the balcony.

“Can you climb it?” Miranda whispers to me.

Laughter rises in me like a bubble from the deep sea. “Yes,” I whisper to her. “Oh, yes!”

The cloth of the bed-linens is soft under my rough hurting hands and it smells of Miranda’s own self. I pull myself up. The cloth is worn thin and frayed with age, but Miranda did tie strong knots in it. I climb them quick-quick, scrambling up the rope like I have wings on my hands and feet.

I climb over the balcony.

My heart is beating in my chest like a bird, like a bird’s wings fluttering.

Can it be?

Can it be that Miranda loves me yet?

I hold out one hand to her; it is trembling. “Oh, Miranda!”

Her face is pale against the darkness, oh, so very pale. And she is trembling, too. “No.” Miranda takes a step backward, a step away from me, her eyes shadow-holes in her pale face. “No.”





FIFTY-FIVE





MIRANDA


I watch the rising tide of hope ebb from Caliban’s face, confusion and bewilderment replacing it.

“What—” he begins, then halts, his gaze searching mine. “Miranda, why—”

I wrap my arms around myself, trying to stop myself from shivering. “Caliban, you must go. Leave me!”

He shakes his stubborn head. “No. No!”

Ah, dear God! I do love him, I cannot help it. Not enough to forgive him the attempt on Papa’s life, but far too much to see him hanged, far too much to see him suffer in captivity.

“You must,” I say, low and fierce. “At worst, Papa and the king’s men mean to see you hanged to your death; at best, they will see you clapped in chains and made a thing of coarse mockery for all the days of your life, and that I cannot bear, Caliban.”

Caliban gives one short bark of despair. “Where could I go on the isle that Ariel cannot find me, Miranda?”

“Papa has freed Ariel from his service,” I say.

The news startles him. “Truly?”

“Truly.”

His expression changes. “Prospero means to take you away,” he says in a dark tone. “And you mean to go; to go with him, to go with that prince who did hold your hand and whisper in your ear.”

“What else would you have me do, Caliban?” I ask him wearily. “The thing is done. I daresay my fate was sealed from the beginning, and you set the seal on your own when you sought my father’s life.”

“Oh, Miranda!” A note of anguish enters Caliban’s voice. “I am sorry, I am so very sorry! I will do anything, I will be your father’s servant for always and ever and never complain, only do not send me away from you!”

My eyes burn with tears. “Don’t you understand? It’s too late!”

“No.” He shakes his head again. “Anyway, Prospero does not need Ariel! If I go, he will only summon me.”

“I won’t let him,” I say.