“I promised, ere I soared into the air, no other lips than hers would tell thee this.” Ariel gave Rupert a long and thoughtful regard before he added: “A very unpretending kind of kiss.” Comet-like, he rushed high and ahead, pointing. “Steer yonderwards!” he cried.
“This time thou shalt not miss!”
A bay faced west to where the sea burned and shimmered with eventide. It was as if the forest behind the beach drank down those level beams and gave them back in a glow of its own. The heights further on were tinged lilac. Woodbine fragrances passed through salt freshness. Little save drowsy bird-voices broke the quiet. High overhead went a flight of wild swans.
Rupert’s boat could not be drawn ashore as readily as Jennifer’s. He cast anchor in the shallows, leaped overside and waded to her. Save for the mangled hair, she had cast off the marks of her journey. The boy’s garb was scrubbed clean, its darkness relieved by a wreath of marigold. Her hands were crossed before her and silent tears ran down her face.
Neither of them heeded hovering Ariel or squatting Caliban. Rupert strode to tower above her and whisper in his helplessness: “Why dost thou weep, most dear?”
“For pain of joy,” she said as softly and unevenly. “Too much of joy is riving me apart and kindling every fragment that it strews, to make me into stars and crown thy brow.”
“Nay, thou’rt my queen, and I a beggar come to ask thy healing touch, here where I kneel”—he sank before her—“in tatters of buffoonery and pride. If thou wilt cure me of my faithlessness, and then bestow the customary coin—thou canst well spare it, for thy treasury strikes endless burnished ones like it each day, and’Honor’ is the stamp—why, I will then begin to understand what’s royalty.”
“O Rupert, raise thy heart!” She stroked his bent head, over and over.”’Tis no more right that thou be humbled than the sun. Arise.”
“That burnt-out ring upon thy finger there burns me into the brain,” he mumbled.
“Pray, pray do not make me rip loose and cast away thy sign! The hand itself would come off easier.” She tried hard to laugh. “Though if thou must in truth reclaim this ring, why, take the hand therewith—and all things else.”
Then he summoned courage to stand and offer her his embrace.
Caliban growled. “Go easy,” Ariel warned. “She’s not for the likes of thee.”
The monster slumped. “I know.” Shyly: “She touched mine arm this afternoon. Right here it was. I’d brought her oranges. She smiled and thanked me, and she touched me here. I went away and bellowed for an hour. Yet… nay. I’m old and ugly and foul-humored. That is the strangest thing, this being trapped—not in this body or the rot o’ years—that doesn’t matter much; but in my soul.”
Will’s disembarkation took his mind elsewhere.
“Ha, ha, I’m not the only freak around!” he hooted. “Who’rt thou that walkest thin as sparrowgrass behind yon red cucumber of a nose?”
“Well, not a mildew-spotted calabash,” drawled the Englishman. “I think I know thee from my measter’s taele. Now come an’ sniff mine own.”
Caliban edged toward him, stiff-legged and bristling. “Be careful, cur. I’ll haul thy bowels forth to make thy leash.”
“What kiand o’ hospitality be this?” Will complained to Ariel. “I need zome help in shiftin’ stuff ashoare”—he winked—“liake, zay, a brandy cask we got along.”
“What? Brandy?” Caliban stopped and gaped. “Uh… a fiery juice like sack? I do recall—Stephano—Trinculo—My welcome, welcome friend, of course I’ll help!” Hugging Wilclass="underline" “My tongue is rough, till brandy wash the sand off. Forgive my jest about thy splendid nose.’Tis lovely, like a mountain peak, a sunset!”
Ariel sighed. “Well, do your singing here upon the beach,” he ordered, “that only whales and screech owls need to flee.” He cast a glance at Rupert and Jennifer, who were starting hand in hand on the upward trail.
“I wonder if those two would ever notice.”
Clay lamps in fanciful shapes stood on shelves to illuminate rough-hewn, crystal-sparkling walls behind them, floor strewn with rushes, a few plain wooden utensils and articles of furniture, a pair of beds made from juniper branches and hay. A bast curtain hung in the entrance conserved warmth. Rupert’s voice drifted through: “Aye, we have well-nigh talked the night away. King Charles’s Wain goes wheeling tow’rd the morn.”
“I hope that is a sign,” Jennifer answered. “Although the chill—”
“Both come about this hour. Let’s back inside. The time is overpast for thee to sleep.”
“Oh, I’ve been whirling in ecstatic dreams. Must I already waken into slumber?”
They passed by the curtain, which rustled. Rupert had to stoop beneath the ceiling. Jennifer led him to a spot where more green branches had been stacked for a backrest. They sat down, she leaning against him.
He laid an arm around her, but instead of sharing her smile, he stared somberly before him.
“Unknowing hast thou flicked a whip of truth,” he said. “What holds thee is mere sin-corrupted flesh.
Dream-Rupert rises from thyself alone like dawn-mists off an alpine lake.”
She caressed him. “Do hush! How often must I say that Ariel has found a magic potion worked on thee?”
“But there were hankerings that worked with it.”
“And what of that? Thou’rt no mere piece of sculpture. A statue does not fall, but never strides, nor yearns, nor plucks a springtime bunch of may to give a girl that it may care about.” Hastily: “Wound me no longer with this wound of thine. If thou hast any debt at all to me, repay it now by speaking of tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow—well—” He squared his shoulders and forced crispness into his tone. “Thou’st shown the broken staff of Prospero, which Caliban dug up, at Ariel’s direction and thy wish, from the deep grave where he had rooted it. Know’st thou how it may be made whole again?”
He did not see how she must swallow disappointment before replying: “The trick of that may lie within his book, says Ariel, who’s told me where it rests. When faring as a lantern-gaudy fish, he’s seen it open on the offshore sand, and cold green currents idly turn the leaves that the incurious octopus might read. It is too heavy for his strength to raise, the grains beneath too diamond-cutting sharp for him to burrow through and pass a rope, the depth too thick for Caliban to dive.”
Rupert nodded.”’And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book,’ the wizard vowed, and did. I’ve memorized most of that chronicle. And pondering, I may have hit on means whereby we can recover the lost word.”
“Thou’rt thinking solely of thy duty now?” Jennifer’s tone was wistful. “Teach me to love it as I love thyself.”
“As I love thee—” His attention plunged back to her. “Dear Jennifer, I do.”
“God, God, I dared not hope!” she whispered, fists crammed against breast as if to keep the heart from breaking out. “When thou didst say thou… hast regard for me… and called me darling—the whole world turned to waves and roared around.
And yet I thought,’Belike he’s being kind. He’s friendly to me, brotherly, no more.’ ”
“I did not really know it till today,” his words plodded; “or else I did, but shrank from owning to it because my spirit is less brave than thine.” He held her close. “If thou wilt wed me—morganatic, maybe—” Flinging his head up: “Nay, before heaven! Thou shalt mother kings!”
“What matter, if the children just be ours?” she answered through tears.
The kiss went on. Lamp-flames guttered, dusks drew close, a breeze twittered in the doorway.