Gitana and Mehitabel returned soon, having left the feasting early. Mehitabel looked flushed and happy, owing no doubt to the contents of a silver decanter she pulled from beneath her skirts. In a tiny space made by stringing several sheets between gingko trees Miss Scarlet rested on a stack of heavy pillows, finally getting her nap. Her soft snores mingled with the creaks of crickets and the occasional whoop that echoed down from the Regent’s birthday dinner.
An hour or so later the Zoologists and their Paphian guests began to straggle down into the amphitheater. Impossible to recognize the Paphians behind their elaborate headdresses and glittering dominos, although they made mocking bows to us, gloved fingers raised to masked faces. One seemed particularly glad to see Mehitabel peeking coyly from behind a tree ablaze with white candles. The older Zoologist children pranced down the slope, carrying torches and globes of ignis flora for their elders, many of whom had by now succumbed to either lust or drink. They leaned heavily upon the arms of their Paphian escorts, or called boisterously to one another, mimicking the bleats and yelps of their animal charges and inspiring the Zoo’s unseen inhabitants to respond vigorously from their prisons in the surrounding trees. I spotted the young girl who had been chosen to present the ceremonial lynx to the Regent. Wearing a dove-gray robe and arching headdress of emerald plumage she chattered happily at Rufus Lynx’s side. It seemed the actual lynx would not be appearing tonight. The festivities would continue with our play.
Behind the curtains that designated “backstage” the Players gathered their props. Miss Scarlet rose from her nap. I assisted her into a gown, groomed her to assuage her stage fright, and shook out Miranda’s blond beribboned wig.
“But where is your Caliban costume, Wendy?” she asked. “You can’t double in that —”
She pointed at the white shift spangled with silver spiderwebs that I wore as Ariel.
I reached beneath an overturned basket and withdrew a torn crimson tunic, the one Fabian had been wearing when we had our cheerful backstage scuffle. I slipped it over Ariel’s costume and rubbed my face with dirt. I mussed my hair and stuck a few dead leaves behind my ears for good measure.
“There,” I announced, leering at Miss Scarlet and shambling to her side. “Caliban: the Gaping One himself.”
Miss Scarlet shook her head. She tapped her foot, bent to flick a twig from the sole of her high-buttoned boot, and looked up at me with clouded eyes.
She said, “Wendy, you can’t go on like that. There’s a houseful of Paphians out there: you’ll cause a riot. This is not a good idea.”
“Too late: it’s the only one I’ve got.” From the slopes of the amphitheater rang a chorus of bleary voices singing “The Saint-Alaban’s Song.” If we didn’t start soon the audience would be too unruly to play to. I shut my eyes, summoned the image of the Boy until His surge of imprisoned rage flooded me, helping me focus my impression of Caliban. That metallic tang in the back of my throat; a twinge of fire behind my eyes. Breathing deeply, I pushed back the shadowy figure groping through the darkness for me. I turned to bow to Miss Scarlet. Before she could warn me again I pulled aside the curtain and left her, scooping up my little pouch of cosmetics and taking my place behind the largest tree abutting the stage area.
In the middle of the grass stood Fabian. He cleared his throat and announced, “In honor of the Birthday of the Regent of Zoologists, Rufus Lynx, there will now be presented The Tempest, as adapted for this stage by Toby Rhymer and performed by this troupe.”
Catcalls from the inebriated Zoologists. On the bench fronting the stage Rufus Lynx beamed, flanked by several Illyrians holding feathered masks in their laps. At the end of the row sat Jane Alopex. She spied me and waved. I waggled a finger at her (very unprofessional) and stepped back into the shadows.
My first entrance as Ariel provoked cheers from the Paphians. But this was nothing compared to their excitement when I reappeared a moment later as Caliban, red tunic askew over Ariel’s gossamer. Leaves fell from my hair as I lumbered toward Toby, magnificent in his sorcerer’s robes and turban. I cursed Prospero boldly and turned to snarl at Miranda cowering behind her father.
“Greetings, cousin!” a woman yelled from the hillside. From the corner of my eye I saw a Paphian stagger to her feet, a coronet of macaw feathers dipping rakishly over her brow. She bowed and made the Paphian’s beck before the man beside her pulled her back down. But other Paphians took up her cry, saluting me as Aidan and Raphael and Baal-Phegor, the demon they called the Naked Lord. The Zoologists craned their heads and tried vainly to silence their guests.
Toby gave me a dangerous look, gazing fixedly at my costume as he finished the scene. I made a hasty exit to the wrong side to avoid confronting him. Fabian whistled softly as he slipped past me onstage, shaking his head. In the shadows behind one of the torchieres Justice waited, and pulled me to him in the darkness.
“Did you hear them?” I whispered gleefully. “ ‘Lord Death, Lord Baal!’”
From the other side of the stage came Toby’s voice reminding me of my cue. I motioned for Justice to wait, and began to sing offstage in Ariel’s voice:
“ ‘ … Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange …’”
As I sang I tore off the red tunic, spat into my hands, and tried to rub the dirt from my cheeks. I was so elated I was shaking, and reached for Justice’s shoulder to steady myself.
“Shh!” He glanced over his shoulder, then pointed to the side of the hill where trees were crowded near the last row of benches. “Wendy, there are lazars here—”
I stared at him in disbelief. I smoothed Ariel’s gossamer webs and tugged a leaf from my brow. “Where?”
“On the hillside there, among the trees.”
A bellow as Toby repeated a line. Justice grimaced and ran onstage for a brief scene. He returned minutes later to whisper, “Look to the left when you next go on: hiding in the bushes by that big oak. I counted five, and something else with them too—aardmen, I think.”
Beneath the flaking powder and rouge his face was ashen, and his voice shook as he said, “It’s like the Butterfly Ball, Wendy—they’ll take us—”
“No,” I whispered,- glaring at the dim silhouettes as though I might destroy them with my eyes. “No, they won’t. I won’t let them.”
“Wendy! How can you—”
But here was another cue. I squeezed his hand and darted on, gave Ariel’s speech and flitted offstage. I had several minutes before I would be on again as Caliban. Behind the stage was a small stand of birch trees. I grabbed my tunic and crept among them unnoticed. I hugged close to one of the bigger trees and scanned the hillside for lazars.
And found them. My heart tumbled to see how near they were. They ringed the top of the amphitheater, hidden for the most part behind tall grass and brush. But they must be growing bolder. Several no longer crouched but stood to watch the play unfold—with great interest, it seemed, since in the wan torchlight I saw them covering their mouths to stifle their laughter. A quick count gave me ten. Not all children, either. I saw four tall figures standing close together, long hair matted and their faces filthy. But even from that distance I could make out the dusky skin and round eyes that marked them of the House High Brazil. They watched hungrily, like the weary dead envying the living their share of a feast.
A few steps away from them another tall form stood aloof: wiry and with long tangled hair, a silhouette that was somehow familiar to me. I stared for a long minute, trying to place her: no doubt an admirer from an earlier masque. I finally turned my attention to the other, stranger creatures pacing restlessly among the Paphians. At first I thought that more of the Zoo animals had escaped. Large powerful beasts, stooped like the apes I had seen in the Primate House, with spines curved as though they were unaccustomed to standing upright. I glanced at the stage to make sure I had not missed my cue, then turned back to them, fascinated. They slunk back and forth among the lazars, short wiry tails whipping through the high grass. Every few minutes they would pause to press close to the tallest Paphians. Pointed ears raised as they listened to the voices rising from the amphitheater. But large intelligent eyes glinted beneath their heavy brows, and their powerful forelegs ended in huge gnarled hands. I sniffed, caught their rank smelclass="underline" canine servility and wolfish bloodlust just barely held in check by the presence of the human lazars.