Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.

By the time they had sailed half way around the Mediterranean and seen the sinks and stews of every state along the way, Miranda had to admit that mankind no longer looked quite so beauteous. The hideous mass of humanity, the sheer surfeit of novelties, had overwhelmed all of her ability to appreciate them and was creating an unfamiliar and growing dislike of it. By the time they had arrived at Naples, via Milan, she no longer batted an eyelid to see the strange faces and great splendours of her new home.

She looked out of the carriage that took them from the harbour to the palace, further and further from the sea. Beyond the crowds that lined their way and showered them with cheers, good wishes and posies, her eye couldn’t help but catch other people; the crones bent double with piles on their backs, the men dragging carts, their faces smeared with sweat and mire, and her stomach fluttered with an unpleasant memory. They all looked so sad.

‘Is Naples such a dangerous place?’

‘What do you mean, my love?’

‘All these people around us, toiling in the mud. Surely they do so because they have done wrong?’

‘Ah. You’re thinking of that wretch, Caliban?’

She nodded, staring at her hands rather than the view outside or her smirking husband.

‘My dear, that is not how the world works. People do not work like that because they have committed a crime or,’ he continued, pausing to clasp her hand, ‘because they are winning a peerless prize such as yourself. Most people just… live like that.’

‘But why? They don’t look very happy.’ Miranda replied. Ferdinand shifted in his seat, dropping her hands to wring his own.

‘I am sure they are, dearest, in their own way. Let’s have no more of this, on such a happy day.’

She smiled and looked out of the window again silently until they were through the palace gates.

The audience chamber their journey finally ended at was undeniably magnificent, managing to elicit a small gasp of wonder from her. A huge vaulted space filled with panes of glass and rich panels of oak, with a soft floor only slightly less yielding than the sand of her old home. A crowd of courtiers awaited the returning party and its unexpected additions, a braying, applauding throng, their clothes rich but gaudy compared to the magnificence of the spirits she was used to.

‘I must stop comparing.’ She told herself crossly, smiling at all of them, and noting the odd pinched face in the crowd.

Alonso shook hands firmly with a man who, by the resemblance, she took to be a kinsman.

‘Cousin! I cannot tell you how relieved we were to have your letter, and so soon after the other from the rest of the fleet with such terrible news!’

‘Well, we’ll say no more about that.’

‘Indeed. And who is this fair treasure?’ He said, looking at Miranda. She opened her mouth to reply.

‘This is Miranda, my wife.’ Ferdinand said proudly.

The cousin clapped him indulgently on the shoulder and turned back to the king.

‘I’m sure she’ll go some way towards soothing the grief of losing Claribel.’

‘I’m sure she will.’ Alonso replied with a cold edge.

‘Not, of course, that anyone could compare to that jewel of womanhood.’ The man added hastily, as the king granted him a magnanimous smile.  Miranda fought to keep her own pleasant expression, as Ferdinand chucked nervously, looking at her as if he half-expected her to make a scene in the middle of the court. Not for the first time she was struck by the realisation of how little they knew one another.

‘No matter, all the more for us both to find out in due time.’ She thought to herself as Ferdinand steered her around the room as she exchanged smiles and flatteries as best she could.

‘My love, you’re addressing people incorrectly. That last one was a baroness so it’s lady, the one before that was a dame so it’s, well, dame.’ He whispered into her ear in a quiet moment. She nodded, fully aware of her shortcomings from the odd laugh a couple of her exchanges had elicited.

‘I’ll learn, Ferdinand, I promise.’ She whispered back. He nodded approvingly and steered her towards another woman, his grip on her becomingly oddly vice-like

‘My dear, this is Catherine, the daughter of the Duke of Florence.’

‘Lady Catherine.’ Miranda said, curtseying, almost feeling the relief radiating from her husband that she had finally remembered an address correctly.

‘Your Highness.’ The other replied, sharply bobbing the required distance before examining Miranda closely. She shuddered slightly under the icy weight of her stare.

‘It is a pleasure to meet you.’ She said with countering warmth, ‘I hope we shall be friends.’

‘I find that most unlikely.’ She said, pausing and allowing Miranda to fluster for a moment. ‘Unfortunately, I will not be in Naples for much longer.’

‘Oh, that is such a shame! What was the reason for your visit here?’ The words were hardly out of her mouth before her sense caught up with her and she felt Ferdinand tense up beside her even more. The grey eyes blazed at her but, finding no wiles whatsoever in Miranda, were joined by a cruel smile.

‘I had heard much of the wonders of Naples and had thought to see them for myself. But I have not found it to live up to its reputation. The streets are too hot and dusty, the sea smells rancid, and the people are dirty. They run around like urchins and bellow like cattle at one another.’ She said, almost accusingly.

‘I- I have only just arrived. I have not seen much of the city.’ Was all Miranda could think to say.

‘I would have thought it seemed like home to you. Coming from another place as warm and coastal as this.’

‘There are some differences.’ Ferdinand said with a forced laugh.

‘So I have heard. I think I may go to Aosta next, my father received an invitation quite recently on my behalf. Hopefully they will be there to welcome me.’

Miranda had not yet heard of Aosta, but she was willing to bet her eye teeth that whoever ruled there, or his son, was as yet unmarried.

‘Lady Catherine.’ She said, curtseying a farewell.

‘Your Highnesses.’

As Ferdinand’s hand steered her shoulder she caught a depressing panorama of judgement, amusement, anger (from a group she took to be the wronged lady’s retinue) and suspicion from all corners of the room. He tensed up again as they approached an elderly, sharp-faced woman dripping in jewels and distain, accompanied by a sullen looking girl of distinctly marriageable age. Both smiled thinly at her as she approached. She took a deep breath to ready herself.

‘I am the daughter of the Duke of Milan. I can do this.’ She whispered to herself under her breath as they curtseyed.

2.

‘I am the Duke of Milan, I can do this.’ He muttered into the sleeve of his fur, sitting through yet another petition about god knows what from god knows who, fingers tapping nervously and eyes fixed on the darkening sky of the evening.

It was odd, he thought to himself, that in all his years of exile, it seemed not to have occurred to him that the reason he had lost the dukedom so easily to his brother was that he utterly hated being a duke. This had not changed in the five years he had been back in that position. He hated the stifling court with its desperate climbers and thousand important questions that only he could answer and now, unlike before, a gnawing, constant worry that someone, anyone, might try to depose him again. He had dared not leave the capital even to go so far as Naples, and Miranda’s increasingly short and infrequent letters had in no way made up for such a long absence. But he was caught in a cage with the sword of Damocles above, grasping hands below, and petitions hemming him on all sides. He thought of Antonio pacing the corridors of his sumptuous (and heavily guarded) palace in the countryside and felt frankly jealous. He thought constantly too of the island and the life he’d been so eager to leave, free from these troubles, surrounded by beauty and peace, give or take the odd mutinous witch-spawn. But the dukedom was his by right, and, happy or no, he was determined to hold onto it. This last thought, along with innate stubbornness, was all that was currently maintaining his sanity.

Or so he thought, until the wind spoke to him one night.

‘Prospero.’ It whispered, and stood the hairs on the back of his neck.

The duke yelped and tumbled out of the chair he’d fallen asleep in, knocking over the candlestick.

‘Wake up Prospero.’ It repeated, sending a shudder down his spine, as well as a flicker of recognition.

‘Ariel?’ He said, groping about the darkened room. A small, unearthly ball of light began to hover around him, bathing the room, himself, and the sprite, who stood right by him, in warm light.

‘Your hair is losing its colour.’

‘It has been five years, and not an easy five years at that.’ Prospero replied, crossing his arms defensively and trying to regain some semblance of composure. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘I have slept in bluebells and raced bees. I have bathed in clouds and run across the ocean.’ He replied dreamily.

‘Yes well…good.’ Prospero said, supposing that these were pleasant things for sprites to do.

‘I travelled further north than I ever did before. But I did not enjoy that. There are too many pine trees.’ He added with a shudder.

‘Were you on your way back to the island?’

The sprite didn’t answer at first, fiddling with the various things on the desk as if they were fascinating and unfamiliar, though Prospero knew it was hardly different to the set up in his cell on the island.

‘I spent too long around humans not to get to know the darker corners of their hearts. More and more the thought worried me that your brother Antonio would try again to supplant you, but would be more final in his actions this time, after his plot against the King of Naples.’

He paused but did not seem to have finished, and Prospero said nothing.

‘But even fearing this,’ Ariel continued, ‘I reminded myself that having been freed from slavery, your fate was not my concern.’

He looked straight at Prospero finally, and in his eyes the Duke saw anger whose rightness he had no argument against.

‘In the years since I… left,’ Prospero began, nearly saying ‘freed you’ and thinking better of it, ‘I have thought constantly of it. Even my best courtiers and kinsmen serve me only half as well as you did, but though I honour them and shower them with gifts, I called you slave and toyed with your very life.’

Ariel’s stance softened slightly as the Duke continued. ‘It was wrong of me to act towards you as I did, and to act as tyrant over that island. I even regret some of my treatment of Caliban.’

The sprite laughed unnervingly at that.

‘I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?’

‘Could you doubt that I, who urged you to forgive Antonio, would not extend forgiveness to you?’

Prospero was relieved, if not entirely flattered by the comparison.

‘As ever, I should not have doubted you.’

Ariel made a noise of assent.

‘So did you feel you had to come check that I was still alive, because you forgave me?’

‘No. Having given you forgiveness, would I owe you anything other than no longer wishing ill on you?’

‘I suppose not.’ Said Prospero, colouring at this unflattering reflection of himself, but curious.

‘I did so because I wanted to. After all, having seen that you are alive, and your brother is very strongly, if charmingly, imprisoned, I did not have to make my presence known.’

‘That is true. And after what you’ve said about my wrongdoing, I still don’t understand why you’re here now.’

‘I have seen many hearts. Yours is foolish and arrogant, but not evil, like your brother’s.’

‘So kind of you to say.’

Ariel nodded, sarcasm lost, as ever, on him.

‘As I said, I had spent too long among human company to not feel the lack of it. I think you have forever altered my nature, and the other sprites will not let me forget it. They mock my new interests and opinions. I suppose this is loneliness.’

‘That’s my fault.’ Prospero said quietly, remembering the pains he had taken to mould Ariel’s character more towards the human, just as he had educated Caliban. What right had he had to do either of these things? What improvement had it made in either of their lives?’

‘It is because of you. I don’t see where the fault is. Despite their claims otherwise, I see nothing wrong with my character.’

‘I’m glad to hear that, at least.’ He replied with a mirthless laugh. ‘Although what I did was still wrong. I see that now.’

Ariel didn’t reply for a short while, cocking his head and examining the Duke in bird-like fashion.

‘You are very troubled.’

‘I am always troubled now that I’m back in Milan.’ Prospero said, laughing wearily.  

‘But I thought this was what you desired, and worked for, during all the years of your banishment.’

‘It was.’

The words hung uncomfortably in the air. The sprite did not reply.

‘Ariel.’ He continued, somewhat desperately, ‘Please stay here, at least for a time. I hate it here. Everyone demands things of the Duke of Milan, they curry his favour, they plot against him, but no one here knows Prospero. I feel like I’m caught in a maze of swords and daggers with no way out, and I can’t do this alone. I don’t demand your service this time, I beg your friendship. Please.’

By the last word his tears had begun to flow and he had slid to the floor, clutching the sprite’s knee like a suppliant. Still, Ariel said nothing.

3.

It had taken a very short count of years for Miranda to grow very tired of Naples, and of her husband. Both her father and herself had once taken pride in her willingness to obedience, that prized feminine quality. Virtually the only lapse had been her response to his wildly unreasonable behaviour towards Ferdinand. In Naples, she came to realise that her filial obedience had been far too easy to be so boastful of. After all, didn’t Prospero have many years’ superiority in experience and knowledge over her? Had he not raised her and kept her safe, taught her everything she knew down to her very words? He had, and respect and reliance were the natural result. But had Ferdinand done any of these things? Of course, he had not. Nor, however, did she think he could have done. She tried to imagine her husband cast adrift on a stormy with an infant in his arms, and could only see him accidentally pitching the poor creature over the side.

He was almost useless, and obviously so in everyone’s eyes but his father’s. He was more foolish than the youngest page boys, seemed to know less of the goings on of the world than the charwomen, and yet he was curiously stubborn on whatever matters his ignorance was greatest. For this and many other reasons the obedience expected of her, and evidently so much less difficult for the other women in the court, was terrible and stifling. There were so many seemingly pointless duties, social norms and demands that were at first merely alien but became, over time, oppressive.

Though it pained her to reproach her father, she couldn’t help but feel that his education, while expansive, had perhaps been slightly selective when it came to society. She had been made aware, of course, of the idea of rank but it had always been grounded in fairness and innate superiority in the examples her father had given her, with indulgent and kind lords overseeing inferior but eager households and kingdoms with a gentle, guiding hand. Practice and principle here did not match particularly well. More and more it bothered her that the best and kindest people she met were those cleaning her rooms or preparing her meals, while those high up in the court would be flattered to be called snakes. It bothered her that there were so many wrongdoers, who put her wicked uncle to shame, but were not punished for it. It bothered her that Ferdinand’s steward groped the maids, that the stable boy was beaten by the grooms habitually, that everyone, villain and victim, seemed to think this was entirely normal and ought not to be changed.

Her attempts to raise these concerns with her husband led at first to indulgent laughter and gentle requests to keep herself away from such matters, then to finally to attempts to educate by pushing his copy of Dudley’s The Tree of Commonwealth into her hands. It had only resulted in her attempts to argue against its logic and morality.

‘I do not care,’ He had hissed at her, slamming a fur-trimmed fist on the table, ‘about the sufferings, as you call them, of these nobodies! They have their lot as we have ours.’

‘You were kind and sweet-natured on the island.’ She had replied, eyeing him reproachfully.

‘And you were a delightful maid, shrew. Stop meddling in affairs above your estate, you are a weak-minded woman and nothing more, and I have indulged you enough.’

Grinding boredom and dissatisfaction had killed her naivety and with it, it seemed, all her charms, as within weeks he had taken a mistress and was complaining openly of having been enchanted into taking a feral, and apparently barren, child into his household. According to her maid, the one confidante she had in this awful place, it was only that she was the feral child of the Duke of Milan in particular that had saved her from a charge of witchcraft.

Staring out at the choppy autumn sea a plan began to take root.

4.

During the many days and nights on the sea, she never doubted for even a moment that she would reach her destination. Sure enough, though objectively, she realised, it seemed miraculous, she eventually found herself in the familiar harbour of the island. It was only when she saw the hunched figure of Caliban further down the beach that her blood ran cold at the sight and her resolve wavered even a little. But surely the figure was too small, the hair too fine, it almost looked like-

‘Father?’ She said, jumping out and rushing over to the figure. ‘Tell me this is not some apparition? Some mirage sent to trick me?’

‘My dearest Miranda!’ He shrieked, tears appearing in his eyes. ‘But wait, how did you come here? Surely you were brought here unwillingly by some demon or wrecked on your way somewhere, surely you haven’t abandoned your husband?’ His hand clapped over his mouth in horror.

‘I did leave of my own free will, but what force has dragged you from duty in Milan?’ She replied innocently.

He said nothing, drawing lines in the wet sand with his finger as his ears turned red.

‘Your hair has gone grey.’

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘How did you get here? I saw no other boat when I landed.’

‘Ariel brought me here, on a breath of air.’

‘Well that must have been quicker, I envy you.’

‘I wouldn’t if I were you; it was very cold.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘A fortnight or so.’

‘Then you must just have missed the news of my disappearance.’ She said, laughing. ‘Between the two of us we’ll create quite the scandal, and the odd ghost story I’m sure.’

‘I’m sure you didn’t do that lightly.’ He said, not laughing with her.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘I didn’t know you were so unhappy. I have to ask your forgiveness.’ He said, so hunched with misery she felt guilt twist through her, however undeserved she knew it to be.

‘You ask mine? As Ferdinand never tired of reminding me, that is not the way around it should be.’

‘It is also not how it should be, for a father to arrange a marriage to a boy he’s never even seen in his life. I pushed you into marrying that pup for my own ends.’

She sighed. ‘I suppose you did.’

‘Was he really that terrible?’

‘He wasn’t so terrible. Just foolish. And a child, despite his age. He hated me by the time I left, but didn’t come after me, though he must have guessed where I was going. Then again, he will probably have realised what I did too. This way he can have me declared tragically dead and much lamented, and then marry someone more suitable.’

‘All’s well that ends well I suppose, Miranda.’

‘I’m determined it shall end well for me.’

‘What are you going to do here? Resume our lives as if these five years hadn’t happened?’

She shook her head ruefully. ‘I’m sorry father but I wasn’t planning to stay here, though you seem settled in. Have you made yourself master here once more?’

‘No.’ He replied sharply. ‘Not that. I merely live here, as it should have been the first time. Caliban and I have made a peace of sorts.’

‘How?’

‘I showed him how to make wine. He has been reeling about in his cell for days now, calling himself Lord Mooncalf.’

Miranda felt a stab of pity and revulsion.

‘He seems quite content.’ He added softly, seeing her expression.

‘All the better for me to avoid him.’

‘What drove you here in particular, knowing that he was here?’

‘I came seeking your books, and your staff. As I said, I don’t mean to stay here; I want adventure and magic… what’s wrong, father?’ She said, stopping as he let out a groan.

‘I drowned my books and broke my staff. Another staff can be made, but the books? Your journey has been in vain, I’m so sorry Miranda.’

‘Drowned, but now dredged.’ Ariel said, appearing from nowhere, sopping wet, with a bundle of dripping paper in his arms.

Prospero gasped as the sprite laid them out, blowing gently on the pages but managing to restore them instantly to their former pristine condition. Miranda threw grateful arms around both their necks, before hastily gathering up the books and reading avidly.

‘Dear, kind Ariel, what would we do without you.’ Prospero said. The sprite smiled with immense self-satisfaction.

‘Well Miranda, what will you do now you have your quarry?’

‘I should stay here a while learning. Although I need to go back to Naples. I left a friend there who would be only too happy to get away. Perhaps, Ariel, you could help me with that? I’d be eternally grateful, and I could show you the sea caves at Capri while we were there. I’m sure you would not find them disappointing to look at.’

The sprite nodded his consent.

‘What are you doing here, father, without your magic to study?’

‘I have decided to take up astronomy. Ariel assures me that there are many other worlds-‘

‘-what, up there?’

‘I hear strange whispers on the air when the stars are bright and the moon is waning.’ The sprite said by way of explanation.

‘Yes, and perhaps if I study them, I will work out how to get there. Or the moon, if it’s easier. But what about you, once you’ve learned everything these books and I can teach you?’

‘I want to see the world. I want to meet people who aren’t from Naples. I want to find a place I could live. Perhaps I’ll start with the New World.’

‘Don’t forget to stop here and visit sometimes on your travels, I’m not a young man.’

‘You’ve been saying that for years now.’ She said firmly. ‘But there’s no harm in being prepared. Perhaps I will go to China, I heard marvellous stories at the court about deathless monks, or look for the Fountain of Youth.’

They both fell to laughing, Ariel silently noting to point her in the right direction for the fountain, as they revelled in the sheer potentiality, the golden opportunity, that came with freedom.