Rough Magic (10 page)

She shook her head. “It is the way of the world, Grandfather. Don't be so frightened for me. I am stronger than you know. And you mustn't panic about the work. Rushing won't help. Let's be calm and go over the notes again. Perhaps today is the day when we'll make the discovery. Perhaps by tonight you'll be drinking the elixir of life.” She smiled at him, and soon he smiled back. An alchemist lived by hope. They bent over the spidery handwriting, their brows identically furrowed, searching for the recipe for freedom.

III.iii.

Caliban lay on the cold stone floor of the tower gazing at the night sky through the window. He liked this narrow view of his heavenly brothers' dance. They moved across the window and away, in predictable fashion, night after night, shifting slowly with the seasons. Right now he was waiting for Orion. Joining the dingy walls and the ceiling was a tapestry of spider webs, and each night he had to brush away the mouse droppings before lying down. None of that mattered to him. This forgotten room had been a sanctuary for so long it seemed the most comfortable place in the world to him.

His ears caught the slight, muffled patter of footsteps on the stairs. He turned his face to the old oak door. It swung open silently. He always kept the hinges well oiled. The sound of creaking metal unsettled him.

“Just where I knew I'd find you,” she said. He thought he could hear her smiling. “You should get a new robe, Caliban. That one is all tatters. Was it originally brown, or has it just become so over the years?”

“It suits me,” he said. She lay down next to him, wrapping her skirts around her legs the way he'd shown her, long ago. It was important to stay warm.

“Tell me, Caliban,” she asked, “why do you always smell like rosemary and cloves? Somehow, no matter what foul substance Grandfather has you working with, those are the only smells that stick to you.”

He could feel her homesickness growing. He squeezed her hand and said nothing.

“Isn't he here yet?” she asked at last. Her voice was steady, now. She was determined to be brave.

“Not yet,” he replied. “You should know that it's still too early.”

“I always forget when Orion appears.”

“You never bother to remember, you mean.”

They both smiled. It was an old argument.

Caliban was her astronomy tutor. It had been her mother's idea, a way to appease the king over all the time they spent together. But Chiara waved off all his attempts to teach her the patterns of the heavens. It didn't bother him. She preferred to hear the stories of the stars, and he liked to tell them.

“Tell me about the dogstar,” she said.

“Tell me about Milan,” he replied.

She shifted her weight beside him, a small fidget of impatience. “There's nothing to tell,” she said shortly. “Father met with several old men, they talked in circles and peered at me over the supper table. Then I became engaged to a prince in a faraway land. It's the stuff of stories, I suppose, only much more dull.”

“It will not happen.” He turned to look at her. She continued to stare out the window.

“It will not happen,” he said again. “I would have seen it in the stars.”

She laughed, short and sharp. “The stars,” she said, “are notorious liars.”

He chuckled. “Not to me, mousling. You know that.”

The old nickname, born in her childhood, seemed to soften her. Chiara turned to him, her hazel eyes gazing into his.

“Do you truly believe so?” she asked.

“Truly.”

She stared a moment longer, then turned her gaze back to the window. Her expression was troubled. “Father will be upset.”

Caliban snorted. Father. The man barely spoke to his daughter now except on state occasions. Chiara had confided that she thought the king hated her for being ugly. She was undoubtedly right. He had been hated for the same reason all his life.

“That won't bother you, I know,” she said wryly.

“Your life is not a state decision.”

“It is. I don't like it either, but it is. And I'm too old now to dream about running off with gypsies or pirates.”

He laughed at that. “Too old. Fifteen years this June and you're already decrepit. What is your father thinking, sending a child into marriage?”

“Child.” She sniffed. “Mother was married at my age.”

He said nothing.

“You're right though. It's stupid.” She flipped over on her stomach and began to trace a crack in the stone floor with her finger tip. She did the same thing every night she came here. Caliban was certain that she'd worn it smooth at the edges.

“I don't suppose,” she said, after a few moments, “that the stars have bothered to tell you what will stop the marriage?”

“Not precisely, of course.”

“Of course.” She grinned at him, lopsided mouth, lopsided humor.

“They tell of an adventure, and challenge.”

“Pirates and gypsies after all, then?”

She laughed. It annoyed him. He was no crank palmist. Divination was his art and gift.

She must have seen his expression harden and realized that she had pushed too far. She sighed. “I think the idea that my small life is mapped out by the heavens is ridiculous, Caliban. The heavens are useful to sailors and storytellers. I don't want to go to Spain, but to avoid it I need a plan, not a vague promise.”

“When do you sail?” he asked at last. There was no time for sulking.

“The twelfth, with the tide. Mother is rushing every seamstress in Naples to make me clothes fit for the Spanish court. Apparently that means a great deal of heavy velvet fabrics, no matter the climate.” Her face twisted in a grimace. Caliban knew how much she hated any extremes in temperature. “Everyone tells me that Spain is a hot, dusty land, full of flies.”

“You will sail.” He frowned, puzzled by the riddle he was reading in the sky. He needed to see more of the heavens than his window allowed. “There is danger. I will need to look longer. When I have observed some more I will know better.”

“And I will practice my Spanish and hope for divine intervention.” She stood up, shaking her plain dress into order. She always wore green and ignored the fashions of the day, dressing in simple, straight gowns with no adornments. It added to her odd appearance, and Caliban knew it made her mother despair. “I must get back. They're watching me closely these days to make sure I don't run away.” Her expression was lost in the shadow of her hair.

He said nothing as she left, but turned back to the window. “Talk to me, brothers,” he whispered. “Show me the way.”

He stilled himself until his heart beat with the same pulse as the star that burned in the center of his view. “Speak to me of Chiara's fate,” his mind whispered.

Light swept through him, a flood that crossed the heavenly seas and caught him in its tide.

—She will be tested
.

Gooseflesh rose on Caliban's arms. There was something ominous here. It took all his concentration not to tremble, because that would break the link. “Will she live?” he asked. He hoped his question was absurd, wildly dramatic.

The light wavered, the color changed to gold.

—
Uncertain. There are many paths that branch for her, many possible outcomes
.

The star shone blue again and left him to join the dance once more.

He rose from the floor, slowly, his joints stiff and creaking. “Something must be done,” he muttered. He drew his hood up over his head and walking swiftly and silently left the tower.

III.iv.

When Caliban returned to their shared chambers, he found the old wizard sitting in his chair by the fire, twisting a green silk handkerchief in his hands and muttering at the grate. He looked up. He did not even nod a greeting. “You shall sail with her,” he said.

Caliban held himself in check, forcing his muscles to become stone even while his blood raced and cheered.

“The king will never allow it,” he said tonelessly. “You know his opinion of me.”

“The king will do as I say,” the old man snapped. “He cannot refuse my dying wish.”

Time stopped. Caliban felt himself growing small and speechless. “You are not dying,” he whispered.

Prospero stared him. Finally he spoke, his voice flat but not ungentle. “I have never loved you, Caliban. I find it impossible even now, after all our years together. But Chiara does. She loves you, Caliban, and I know that you love her. You will protect her.

“As for dying,” he added, his voice still steady, “I am. You know that I am, even though you deny it. The work has not saved me. I leave it to you, and to her, to find the transforming agent. If the two of you cannot do it together then it cannot be done at all.”

Caliban took his turn at staring into the cold ashes. “I doubt that her royal Spanish husband will welcome either me as her servant or her preoccupation with alchemy.” His kept his own voice level, calm. It seemed to come from someone else. This was a foolish hope. It was cruel for the old man to dangle this dream before him.

“Her royal husband be damned,” the wizard barked. “That fool's fate is not for her. I will not see Chiara used as a royal bargaining chip.” He broke off and stared at the knotted handkerchief in his hands. It seemed that he could not look up to say what needed to be said.

“Your life with me has not been easy, Caliban. There's been many a time that I thought it would have been kinder to leave you on your island. To leave you free and.… Well, no matter. We both made choices, and life's been lived. I was given a second chance. It seems only right that you should be given one too.”

Caliban stood like a stump, his hands dangling uselessly at his sides. They had never been frank with one another. They had always communicated sideways, catching meaning from gestures and expressions. He did not know how to talk to this half-father in any other way.

Prospero lifted the handkerchief to his mouth and blew a word into it, then knotted it one last time. “It is done,” he said, triumphantly. Or he would have said it, if he had any breath left with which to speak. He had none. He had simply mouthed the words. He grew pale and fell back into the chair. His hand holding out the handkerchief shook so badly that Caliban had to grasp the old man's wrist to hold it still before he could pry it from Prospero's fingers.

With the last of his strength Prospero pointed at the table. “Letter,” he mouthed again, now with foam flecking his lips. His body spasmed and a rattle sounded in his throat. His eyes slid from Caliban's to the ceiling, then they emptied.

Caliban knelt beside the chair. He looked down at the handkerchief, clutched now in both his hands. It had been a wind spell, created with a life's breath. He had freed Chiara with a word.

He had freed them both. Because Caliban knew, even without reading the letter he saw lying on the worktable, that the spell would take them to the island.

He was going home. He sat for a while, staring at the form that had once been his master. He tried to feel something, but he could not. He had no emotions left. He felt as though he were a stranger to himself, as though he weren't actually living in his own body.

Finally he rose and collected the letter. He put it into his pocket, unread, and went to find the queen. He hoped that she would allow him to tell Chiara about her grandfather's last wish.

III.v.

The room still smelled like sulfur. The afternoon sun poured in its usual way across the tiled floor, splashing up the legs of the worktable and washing over its surface. There were glass vials filled with different fluids resting there that shattered the light into rainbow splinters on the walls. Chiara sat down in her usual chair, pretending that all was well, that her grandfather would appear from his sleeping chamber at any moment, muttering and cracking his knuckles over some particularly vexing thought. The silence deepened, grew longer. Chiara felt her mind letting go of its fantasy, felt the sorrow swell and take its place. Finally, her grief overwhelmed her. She turned her head into the cushioned back of the chair and sobbed.

She grew quiet and laid her face against the soft fabric of the chair. She neither lifted her head nor turned to look when she heard the door open and shut. It could only be Caliban.

There was a long pause, then her mother said, “Chiara.”

Chiara startled, sitting upright and rubbing a quick hand across her face. Her eyes were swollen and a crease had been stamped across her right cheek where it had pressed against the chair. There were wild wisps of hair sticking out all over her head, while others were pasted to her forehead by its dampness. She jumped to her feet, smoothing out the skirt of her black dress. It was one of the new ones her mother had ordered to be made for Spain. She curtsied awkwardly. “Hello, mother,” she said.

Queen Miranda was still beautiful. Her fair hair had darkened to the shade of late summer honey. Her skin was smooth and without blemish. A few faint lines around and between her eyes betrayed her age, but they were only visible in bright light. Her eyes themselves were blue and kind, though often troubled. “Sit down, Chiara,” she said. She herself sat in her father's old chair. Chiara stared at her mother. She had stared at her mother all her life, amazed that she was the daughter of this perfect woman. There was such a wide chasm between them that it took all their love to bridge it.

“It is a sad time, Chiara,” her mother said at last.

“Yes,” answered Chiara.

“But it is also a time of celebration,” her mother added. She spoke stiffly. It sounded like she had trained herself to speak whatever she had come to say.

Chiara swallowed. “I had thought—” she began.

“I know what you thought,” the queen interrupted. She stopped, perhaps surprised at the harshness of her own voice. She began again, her tone softer, but just as definite. “You think that your mourning will postpone your wedding. And so it should, all things being right and natural. But your father needs haste in securing this alliance. You must put your grief aside, Chiara, at least in the company of your new husband. I know it is a terrible thing that we are asking of you. I know how dearly you loved your grandfather. But you are a king's daughter, and your duty to your father and your country demands this price right now.”