Part 3 (1/2)
”Tricksy wind! Leave Mistress sleeping,” Caliban roared from the bushes beyond the lawn.
28 -=> <fiza&etfi 'wittey=”” ”ho,=”” wouldst=”” thou=”” teach=”” me=”” my=”” errand?”=”” ariel=”” jeered,=”” and=”” he=”” rattled=”” down=”” leaves=”” on=”” caliban.=”” ”mind=”” thy=”” netherworld=”” affairs,=”” and=”” i=”” shall=”” not=”” hinder=””></fiza&etfi>< p=””>
”Master set me here,” Caliban retorted, ”Master bade me wait for Mistress.”
”For Mistress, for the Lady! Small wonder then she dreams yet, that must see thy ugly face when she wakes. Thou hideous man-mock, thou crude sculpture!”
”Wicked wind-thing, nothing! Lady talks to me of flowers.”
”She will not look on thee, travesty! For thou art foul to look on, deck thee with flowers as thou wouldst.”
”Ladies like flowers!”
”What, dost liken thyself to a flower, thou lichen-crusted relic of failed Art?”
”Master made me!” bellowed Caliban. ”Master made me, this form is his making!” He swatted futilely at Ariel, and Ariel hissed mockingly though the fronds and leaves and sped away, uncatchable. Caliban subsided, grumbling, sinking halfway into the earth in the darkest shade he could find; the daylight pained him, but Prospero had commanded him to bide here on Freia's waking, and Caliban must obey.
Within the cave, the wind's stirring breath on Freia's face had stirred her sleep. She sighed, murmured wordless sounds, and opened her eyes a crack. The creamy background of her screen was bright; thus it was day, and she might rise without fear of interrupting Prospero at his night-work. She pushed the bedclothes down and rubbed her eyes and head; groggy, foggy, her thoughts were jumbled. Such dreams she'd had-she might tell Prospero, for they'd been vivid and strange.
Freia stood, stretched, peered around the painted screen and saw no Prospero. She padded out, barefoot beneath her drifting smock, yesterday's gown unbound, to wet a cloth and splash and wipe her face and eyes, waking. Her father's bed was empty. Prospero walked the isle, no doubt, or groomed the horses or did any of the thousand things to do .# Sorcerer and a (jentkman <^- 29=”” outside=”” the=”” dim=”” cool=”” cave=”” on=”” such=”” a=”” s.h.i.+ning=”” day,=”” and=”” she=”” had=”” slept=”” longer=”” than=”” ever=”” was=”” her=”” wont=”” in=””>
Freia went out and stopped, her ear struck by the sound beneath the birdsongs. There were not as many birdsongs as there ought to be-why, but a single one, a dull-chiming bell-bird, rhythmically stuttering its tedious note.
”Good-morrow, Mistress-”
”Quiet, Caliban. I'm listening.” Frowning, she tilted her head and strained for the sounds: murmuring like water, odd barkings now and again-something like wind and water and rustling leaves all together, a new sound under the sun. The sun pierced her thin smock and glowed on her skin; there was no wind. She opened her eyes and looked down on Caliban, perplexity on her face. ”Where is Prospero? And whatever are you doing here?” Caliban shunned daylight, shunned visibility; he was Prospero's diligent laborer at some task Freia knew nothing of, deep beneath the earth, and he never left it save at Prospero's command.
”Mistress, Master bade me wait here for you and tell you he wishes you to wait here for him. Could you tell me again of the flowers, Mistress, the mountain-flowers-”
”Why should I wait here?” Freia asked the world generally. ”This is not a day for staying within. I'm going hunting,” she said firmly.
”O, Mistress, do not go!” Caliban protested, but she had returned to the cave, and he might not enter there.
Sandals, tunic, leggings-she would go bare-legged for now, but in the undergrowth she'd need cover. Freia dressed and braided up her hair, packed a leathern bag with leggings, salt, dried apples, and bread, put her knife at her belt, and took her bow and arrows from their pegs behind the door. Prospero had not come, and she would linger no longer here.
Caliban called to her as she left the cave again. ”O, Mistress, Mistress, bide the Master, bide, he commands it,” he said in his gravelly voice.
”Caliban, I will not. I said I would hunt today, and I shall hunt, and you may remind Papa of that when he seeks to 3(7.
'Etiza&etfi Sorcerer and a Qentkman 31.scold you for my leaving. He was supposed to hunt with me. Go back to your own tasks that he set you and he won't be angry.”
The noise was still there, the birds still quiet. Caliban grumbled unhappily behind her as she set off along the path that would take her to the upstream end of the island. From there she would paddle the tippy little coracle to the mainland.
The strange sound grew louder to her ear as she went. Suspicion stirred in Freia's thoughts; Prospero had said he would change things, and she feared he had done that, had worked some sorcery to alter the island. He'd made her sleep before when he had great sorceries afoot, things he did not wish her to witness (not trusting obedience to conquer curiosity). There had been a midwinter night she'd slept three days, waking famine-hungry to find Prospero irritable and short-tempered; he'd never told her what he'd done then, but thereafter she had encountered queer hooved and horned little people, shy and difficult to approach, in the surrounding forest, and other, stranger things of blended natures. This overlong night's sleep smacked of such sorceries, and Caliban's relayed command to her to wait at the cave for Prospero was novel. Ever before she had had liberty to go where she liked.
Prospero, then, had done something, Freia decided, trotting along the footworn path. But what might it be?
She pulled up short as the path came out into a bit of meadow where they pastured the horses from time to time, seeing before her the unbelievable answer to her question.
The crowd of people standing and sitting and lying in the long gra.s.s, playing with flowers and laughing and talking and becoming acquainted with themselves and one another, the crowd of strange voices and odd faces and nude bodies pale and dark, the crowd fell silent and stared back at Freia.
A breeze gusted past her and rippled the gra.s.s that the people had not matted down, pa.s.sing up the hillside in the hard, hot sun.
Freia, tense and wary, continued along the path slowly, her gait stiff, looking with distrustful dismay at the faces and bodies of the intruders.
They surged, following her, whispers swirling through them. A hand reached for her. Freia flinched from the alien touch; the hand dropped away. They crowded around her but let her pa.s.s, slowly, moving nearer and farther, all of them jostling to look at her.
Freia began hurrying. They parted, still following her, too close, too many; the heat and sweaty smell of their bodies was overwhelming, the sight of their hands and hair and torsos and faces a dizzying mosaic. A hand brushed her arm; another touched her braided hair, and then there were many touches, light inquisitive fingers feeling her leather tunic, her bow, her body. They whispered, said with strange words things she understood: ”Soft. . . hard . . . tail . . . mane . . . claws . . . breast . . . hide . . . smooth . . . soft. ..” in a torrent of puzzled collective exploration. They were too big, too many, too intent on her; Freia panicked, pushed, bolted.
They s.h.i.+ed, running away in a ma.s.s-or some tried to. The meadow became a churning disturbance, and there were cries of pain and fear as others were jostled roughly. Freia shoved and shouldered her way through them, touching bodies, bodies, bodies, hair and skin and limbs and softness and hardness, and she shut her eyes and put her fist forward-clutching her bow and quiver to her with the other-and bulled blindly ahead. They shouted, words she didn't listen to, jumbled noise among the jumbled bodies.
She struck something coa.r.s.e and hard, not skin; it grabbed her and she screamed and twisted away.
”Freia!” Prospero shouted, seizing her wrists, dragging her to him. ”Stop this! Thou'lt frighten the folk.”
”Let go!” Freia screamed.
He shook her quickly; she was panicked, though, and Prospero must drag her out of the press of bodies, shouting over her head at them until they parted meekly and left s.p.a.ce for him to lead his struggling daughter to the trees' shade. Prospero hugged her, wrapping his cloak around her 32.'Efizabetfi.
despite the heat, hampering her movements as he would net a bird to confine it.
”Freia. Freia! Hold, hold-I did bid thee abide my return, girl, and thou'rt paid for impatience. Freia! Look on me.”
She did, wild-eyed.
Prospero nodded and gazed into her eyes. ”Now calm thyself,” he said. ”There's none here will harm thee. Thou hast given them worser fright than they have given thee.”
”What are they?” Freia whispered, looking from Prospero to them. They stood, watching, their faces serene and interested.
”They are people, my people,” Prospero said proudly.
”I don't want people here! Why did you bring them?”
”These folk have been here all their days,” Prospero replied, ”and they've as firm a right as thou to live here, for I have made them of the native creatures of the place. I shall not brook thee quarrelling with them, Freia: they, like thee, are made to dwell here, and-”
”There's no room for them!”
”Pah, they'll build houses for themselves, and a better for thee and me as weil, a dwelling fit for men.”
”Then there's no room for me,” Freia declared. ”Let me go!”
Prospero released her wrists, though he still held her arm loosely. Frowning, he said, ”It is my will that they be here, and my will shalt thou not shake! Whither goest thou so furnished?”
”Hunting! You said you'd hunt with me today,” Freia reminded him.
”I've much to do amongst the folk,” Prospero said, ”and I gave no promise to course the wood with thee-”
”Then I'll go alone,” Freia said, and she slipped from his hand and darted from him, from the people, into the trees.
The Emperor, oddly, did not seem to blame Josquin particularly for the theft-at least, not to Josquin's face. He bid him a fair journey in the morning without visible rancor. ”He must be angry,” muttered Josquin to the Empress.