11
Of Tall Dark Men
“So, do you think this Ferdinand chap will show?” Mab looked at his watch.
“With any luck, no,” I replied.
We stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, gazing back toward Capitol Hill along the green avenue known as the Mall. The serpentine length of the Vietnam Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the rectangular reflecting pool, the towering white obelisk of the Washington Monument, and the handsome buildings of the Smithsonian museums lay between us and the dome of the Capitol. It was an impressive sight, as grand as the cathedrals of Europe.
The wind was bitingly cold. Few tourists were about. A young couple in matching plum parkas sat within the memorial eating their lunch, and a small tour group of elderly citizens stood together in a tight cluster, reading the inscriptions on the inside walls of the memorial itself. These made up the entirety of those present, except for the three Italian stonemasons who were doing some repair work on the farthest of the enormous columns that lined the front of the monument.
I would have preferred to spend the morning flying down to the Caribbean, but since we could not depart from Washington, DC, until after our meeting with Ferdinand, we had spent it shopping instead, with periodic interruptions as I fielded calls from Prospero, Inc. It was a novelty to me, who normally divided all my time between Prospero’s Mansion and various branch offices, to spend a day as a tourist, visiting shopping malls and seeing sights. I found it surprisingly pleasant.
All three of us bought new outfits. Instead of my tattered white trench coat, I wore a heavy cape of creamy cashmere lined with scarlet satin, a knitted hat and matching muff trimmed with faux ermine. Mephisto had a new navy parka, black trousers, black boots, and, after some searching, a new lute. The bottom ten inches of his royal blue surcoat stuck out from underneath his new coat.
Mab had at first refused to replace his old gray trench coat, despite the terrible rents it now bore. But when the clerk showed him how the new coat would have twice the pocket room of the old one, Mab was sold. Those new pockets were now bulging with all manner of arcane items: chalk, salt, rosemary, garlic, and dried rose petals, as well as his notebook and a selection of stubby pencils, all blue.
Thus attired, we set out for the Mall to search for the offices of Smithsonian magazine, wishing to inquire about their most recent address for my brother Erasmus, who occasionally wrote articles for them. Upon arriving, we learned that Smithsonian magazine was not published at the museum. Mab made a note of the proper address, and we spent the rest of our time wandering though the museums, gazing at all manner of wonders.
The Air and Space Museum was the most delightful, for everything there was new and amazing to us. The history of man’s desire to fly was laid out in loving detail. Just seeing the kites, balloons, and early planes brought a sense of exhilaration. Walking its halls, I could almost imagine there were other mortals who loved flight as much as I.
Among the photos on display near the Apollo moon-shot equipment, we found a picture of NASA administrative officers that included, toward the back, a man who was the spitting image of my brother Ulysses. The photograph was over twenty-five years old—not much of a trail there.
As the sun approached its zenith, Mab and I had walked slowly up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was just before noon, but neither of us felt inclined to hurry. Mephisto had abandoned us to sit on the first tier of the monument’s steps and tune his new lute. As he tuned the instrument, he spoke to it, telling it how, in the past, he had played for Bess of England, for King James I, for Louis XIV, and how once—on an occasion I myself well remembered—for the Queen of Elfland.
Mab halted partway up the steps. “Look, Miss Miranda, there’s something strange going on. I’ve done my share of supernatural investigations, and I can tell you something all the manifestations I have tracked down in the past had in common: They didn’t happen in plain view. And they most certainly did not happen at shopping malls, or in front of gas station attendants, or turn up in hotel lobbies!”
“What are you getting at, Mab?”
“That’s just it, ma’am, I don’t know. The powers of Hell always prefer subtlety. No sane man makes a pact with the Devil with his eyes open. Demons have to hide their true nature if they wish to woo mankind into their fiery pits. So much overt action on their part is damned peculiar.”
“It’s not so different from past situations. What about the demon manifestations of the seventeenth century, the ones that resulted in so many innocent women being burned as witches? Or the incubi plague in Milan, about the time of Gregor’s and Logistilla’s birth, that Theo put an end to? Remember, no one but us saw the barghests last night. No adults, anyway, though a few customers will remember seeing a big dog. The shapechanger, I grant you, was unusual. But from what Theo says, he sounds like a special case.”
“The point is, ma’am, you’ve got to be prepared to find this beau of yours caught thick in the middle of this.”
“He’s not my beau,” I objected.
Mab ignored my protestations. “His turning up now after a five-hundred-year absence is mighty peculiar.”
“Which is why I agreed to meet with him,” I agreed.
“Heck, he might even be the cause of our troubles,” said Mab. “How did he get along with Mr. Prospero?”
I thought back through the haze of years, but it was difficult to recall my youth. Or, rather, it was difficult to distinguish between Shakespeare’s version of events and the real events. I could recall the face of the young boy who played me the first time The Tempest was performed, and that of the buxom redhead who, many years later, had been the first woman to perform the role. I could even recall, in crisp detail, down to the smell of the greasepaint, a performance in Paris where I myself performed the role of Miranda. Not surprisingly, however, my memories of the real events, upon which the play had been based, were sketchy. The real events had happened only once.
Of us, only Cornelius had made a serious study of the Ancient Art of Memory—possibly because if he forgets the location of an object, he barks his shins. Erasmus originally learned this art from Giordano Bruno, back in the late sixteenth century, about the same time Father was winning the good graces of Queen Elizabeth by summoning a tempest to destroy the Spanish Armada. It was not until Cornelius lost his sight, however, that any of us took this art seriously.
Cornelius always believed Mephisto’s madness had its roots in faulty memory. Cornelius theorized Mephisto’s mind had become so overburdened by memories that it affected his sanity—though why this would be true of him and not the rest of us, Cornelius had no idea. At Father’s urging, he spent the better part of the 1740s trying to teach Mephisto the Ancient Art of Memory. At first, Mephisto improved under his tutelage, but as with all attempts to cure Mephisto, the progress proved temporary. Cornelius eventually became irate and refused to waste more time on the project. To this day, he insists that Mephisto deliberately resisted his assistance.
To Mab, I said slowly, “Father was uncharacteristically cruel to Ferdinand when they first met on the island and then later claimed this behavior had been part of his plan.” I frowned and rubbed my temples. “At least, that’s what I think happened. Certainly, that’s the way Shakespeare tells it, and he heard it from Father. Ferdinand might feel he had cause to dislike Father, I suppose. But why now? Unless, he had to wait all this time to catch Father at a moment of weakness.”
“But Ferdinand doesn’t want Father.” Mephisto had come up behind us, lute in hand. “He wants Miranda!”
“You know, the harebrain may be right.” Mab squinted thoughtfully. “Maybe he showed up now because he knows Prospero’s not around to protect you.” Mab glanced around, eyeing the columns and the expanse of lawn and monuments beyond. “Perhaps we’d better fortify our position.”
I held up my flute. Its polished wood gleamed in the subdued light of the overcast sky. “On a windy day like this? Outside, in the open? This is all the fortification we’ll need.”
We reached the top step and stood before the temple to the youngest of the four American Gods of Liberty. Their goddess, a giantess, guards the New York City harbor. Passing between the enormous columns, the massive statue of the god himself gazed at us with sunken, piercing eyes. He sat enthroned, surrounded by marble walls bearing his immortal words and murals portraying his freeing of the slaves. Mab took off his hat and reverently recited the Gettysburg Address. The elderly tourists stared at him. Then, a few of the men took off their own hats.
As I waited for him, I wondered why I had agreed to subject myself to the humiliation of this impending meeting. Why was I not doing something productive, such as warning my sister or researching the question of whether my brother Mephisto was possessed by a demon.
Last night, once we had settled at the hotel, Mab and I questioned Mephisto at length about his disturbing transformation, but he claimed to remember nothing. When we pressured him, insisting he tell us something, he became frantic and frightened and began crying. Either he was a better liar than I remembered, or he did not know why he had turned into a demon.
Returning to my side, Mab scowled at my flute. “You should have left that thing in the car. You’ll desecrate the temple.” He glanced back up at the statue. “Wish I’d known about him back when he was alive. Could have asked him to free us Aerie Spirits while he was at it. Those blue Yanks of his would have put a quick end to that accursed instrument.”
Back outside, we waited at the top of the marble staircase. After gazing out along the mall for a time, Mab glanced sidelong at the Italian masonry workers near the far column and whispered under his breath, “Psst, ma’am. Those guys look a bit like you and Mr. Mephisto.”
I examined them more thoroughly. “They’re probably Milanese, Mab. That one in the black T-shirt looks cold, poor fellow.” I paused. “Must be a Jewish Italian.”
The man in question, a dark-haired and wiry fellow with a black mustache and wearing a black T-shirt despite the cold, had a tattoo of the Star of David on his left arm. The other two, a youth and an older man, also wore the Star of David as a pin or on a chain.
“Odder than that! Notice his ring, and the patch on the jacket of the guy next to him. If I’m not mistaken, that is the compass and ‘G’ of the Freemasons.” Mab noted.
“Well, they are masons,” I said. “Or, at least, they are repairing the masonry, and this is DC. Do you know that the Freemasons have a huge temple near here, in Alexandria? Dramatic-looking building, too!” I laughed, “And to think that the Freemasons used to be a secret society. How times changed.”
“All the same, it’s mighty odd,” Mab said.
“How so?” I asked.
Mab shrugged. “From all I’ve heard, the Freemasons are a Christian organization. Whoever heard of an Italian, Jewish Freemason?”
“Only in America!” I replied gaily.
How much the world had changed in a few short years, since America had risen to prominence. The young woman in the plum coat wore blue denim jeans instead of a skirt. The appearance of these modern women struck me as boyish and unnatural. But, oh, the things they did achieve!
As I looked at the young woman, her pretty face framed by her plum parka as she smiled up at her balding beau, I felt a moment of such sympathy that, for an instant, I felt as if I were her, a young wife gazing admiringly at my protective husband. I drew back, alarmed.
What was happening to me? First the elderly lady on the overpass, then Mephisto in Vermont, and now this. I could not recall ever before having seen myself as someone else. Could I be under some kind of attack?
I glanced rapidly about, but saw no sign of an enemy. Beside me, Mab snapped open his notebook. “What’s this guy going to be like?”
“Arrogant and proud,” I replied. “Didn’t you see how cocky he looked leaning against the hotel counter? I’m sure he will breeze off his minuscule five-hundred-year absence with a few smooth words. After that? Who knows? Probably hit us up for money or something.”
Mab closed his notebook and returned it to his pocket. I saw his arm tighten as his fingers curled about his lead pipe.
“I’d like to put a few obstacles in the path of his smooth words!”
“We should go.” I glanced at my watch. “Father is in trouble and we have siblings to find! We’ve lost enough time as it is, trying to chase down Mephisto’s staff.”
Below us, footsteps rang out on the steps. The young woman in the plum coat turned to see who was approaching. Immediately, her expression became soft and dreamy, and her hand came up to smooth her hair.
“Ah,” I said, “he’s here.”
I turned, and the shock of recognition hit me. Any doubt as to his identity dropped away, along with the pit of my stomach. My mouth opened, but my voice would not speak.
A tall youth came running up the steps. He wore a London Fog overcoat and a pair of fashionable black gloves. His head was bare, save for his thick wavy black hair. As he topped the steps and came before us, Mab held on to his pipe. Mephisto hefted his lute experimentally. Ferdinand did not even notice them. Falling to his knees, he took my hands in his and began kissing my fingers.
A strange dizzying sensation buzzed where the pit of my stomach had once been. I wanted to pull my hands away and slap him.
I did nothing.
“Miranda! La mia ’nnamorata bella!” He spoke with a charming Italian accent. “You did not have to wait!”
Mab looked at his watch. “No trouble, you’re only ten minutes late.”
“No, no!” Ferdinand’s smile was brilliantly white. “Not wait today. Wait for me.” He gazed up at me with liquid brown eyes. “Cara, no one would have thought less of you had you broken your vow.”
I tried to answer, but still no voice came.
“Vow?” Mab asked. “What vow was that?”
Ferdinand stood. My hands were still in his. He met Mab’s gaze.
“The vow she made when first we met.” He squeezed my fingers and gazed into my eyes again. “That we would wed, or she would die a maid.”
Had I actually made such a vow? I could have sworn that had been Shakespeare’s invention. Yet, as my cheeks grew warm under his lingering gaze, I had to admit I could well imagine my naïve and youthful self uttering some such foolishness.
“Miranda, bella. Every day, while I dwelt in Limbo, I dreamed of your fair form. Yet, never did I dream that you, at liberty in the world of men, dreamed of me as well. How lonely you must have been throughout the ages! Had you forgotten me and wed another, I would have thought no less of you.”
Nothing was happening as I had expected. This youth who gazed at me so adoringly was nothing like the cad I had painted him to be after he jilted me. Instead, he acted like the very same princely young man I had first fallen in love with back on Prospero’s Isle. Did he really believe I had never married because I had been waiting for him?
“Ferdinand,” I said, forcing words through my numbed lips. “Where have you been?”
“As I just said, bella mia, I have been in Limbo.” When I did not respond, he offered, “Limbo, by the gates of Hell?”
“You mean you were dead?” My heart ached, as if an old wound, long scarred over, had suddenly ripped open.
“No, my darling. As Odysseus, Aeneas, and Dante before me, I walked as a living man in the land of the dead. Only, it took me a little longer than they to return.”
“How did you get out?” Mab asked.
“Who is this man?” Ferdinand looked from Mab to me.
“This is Mab. He works for me,” I said. “And this is my brother Mephisto.”
Ferdinand acknowledged each man politely, then answered Mab’s question.
“About three months ago, the Gates of Hell were suddenly wrenched from their hinges,” he said. “While the demons rushed to repair the damage, I escaped. It was . . . as if all my dreams had suddenly come true. I had never thought to see the sun again. . . . ”
Mab and I exchanged glances. Three months ago would have been mid-September, the very time when Father disappeared.
I have unwittingly unleashed powers best kept bound, Father had written, before warning me of the Three Shadowed Ones. And then he had vanished, a prisoner in Hell, if the dark angel were to be believed. Could this wrenching of the Gates of Hell that freed Ferdinand be the same event to which Father referred? How could one unwittingly wrench open the Gates of Hell?
“The world is much changed.” Ferdinand glanced down the steps toward where a car rumbled along the nearby road. “But it is still beautiful. Though not as lovely as you, my darling.” Then, he frowned. Letting go of me with one hand, he reached up to touch my hair. “What happened to your tresses, Miranda? I had recalled them black as obsidian.”
Ignoring his question, I said, “Ferdinand, how did you come to be a living man in Hell?”
“You did not know?” Ferdinand asked, shaken. “Oh, darling, how you must have railed at me for deserting you! I thought . . . I was certain he would tell you once time had passed.”
“Who would tell me? Tell me what?”
Ferdinand frowned, looking down. “I am not certain now, after all this time, that I should speak of it. It will only bring you pain.”
“Ferdinand. I am not the naïve girl you once knew. I’ve seen many painful things. Please tell me!”
Despite my calm words, my heart was pounding in my ears. I felt stifled and frightened.
“You bet he’s going to tell us,” Mab growled fiercely, slapping his lead pipe against his palm, “or we’ll send him back where he came from, in the usual fashion.”
“Do you recall the day before we were to marry, I changed our plans? Instead of spending the night in your father’s castello, we would go directly to Naples?”
I nodded, vaguely recalling something about how Father had wanted to delay the wedding a few weeks, and Ferdinand had refused.
Ferdinand continued, “He came to me to tell me we must spend our wedding night in Milan. When I would not agree, he told me you were the priestess of an ancient goddess, who, like chaste Diana, would desert you if you wed.”
“Eurynome is not a goddess,” I interjected. “She is a divine emanation, similar to angels, but of a higher order.”
Ferdinand nodded politely. “He said he needed her continued blessing. As we spoke, I realized he had meant for us to wed, so you would be confirmed as heir apparent to the throne of Naples, and then to slay me before we consummated our love. That was why he made such a fuss about our waiting for our marriage bed, back on the isle. I tried to escape, but he called upon unseen powers. The earth gaped below me, and I fell living into Hell.”
“He?” I asked in a small voice.
“Your father, dolce mia. The dread and dire magician, Prospero.”
“You lie!” I slapped him across the face.
The noise resounded down the staircase. The workmen and the couple in plum turned toward us. I pulled the hood of my cape up over my knitted hat and turned my back toward them, heat burning in my cheeks. Ferdinand came around in front of me.
“I wish my words were false, bella mia,” he said sorrowfully. “For I recall how well you loved your father. But, alas, I cannot change what is.”
“Let me get this straight,” Mab interrupted. “You are claiming Prospero sent you living into Hell and left you there, never breathing a word to Miss Miranda? That doesn’t sound like the Mr. Prospero I know.”
“I do not believe you! Why would Father play such a cruel trick on me? It makes no sense. If he did not want me to wed you, why did he not just forbid me? Or, if he knew what you say he knew, why not tell me you had died? Why continue to let me believe you had wronged me?”
“He wished to rule Naples though our marriage, but not to let you lose your maidenhead. By allowing you to believe I had wronged you, did he not close your heart against other men?” Ferdinand asked.
Now, I felt as if I had been slapped. I drew back, but said nothing.
Ferdinand frowned sorrowfully. “Miranda, my darling, had I known my words would bring you such pain, I would have torn out my own tongue before I allowed it to speak them.”
“Yeah, yeah, all very melodramatic,” Mab grunted. “Ma’am, there’s a lot about this jilted-at-the-altar stuff I still don’t get. How come you didn’t just think he was dead?”
“I did at first and wept for days,” I spoke flatly, recalling. “Then, a few months later, I met a Milanese sailor—one from that original ship that had foundered on Father’s isle. He told a tale of having seen Ferdinand in a port in Spain. That was when I knew he had followed the longing for adventure he so often spoke of . . . or thought I knew.”
“That man lied. Never would I have willingly deserted you so. Surely you know that in your heart.”
I said nothing.
“Dolce mia, you are shaken,” said Ferdinand. “Do not lose heart. Maybe there is an explanation. A demon in your father’s form, perhaps? I have beheld demons in fiery Hell who know the subtle art of stealing another’s shape. When I broke free, dread Prospero had not appeared among the souls in Hell. Does he still live? Let us confront him and ask him.”
“Mr. Prospero is conveniently missing,” Mab said sourly. “We were hoping you could tell us something about it.”
Ferdinand shook his head. “I regret that I know nothing that could help you.”
The wind whistled sharply. Its gusts were icy cold. The Italian workers had ceased their labor. Their eyes focused on us.
“Perhaps, we should go somewhere else,” I said.
“Let us find a café and dine while we speak,” Ferdinand suggested.
As the four of us walked down the steps, I murmured to Mab that Ferdinand had found a nice excuse to hit us up for a free meal.
“You say you escaped from Hell three months ago, Mr. Di Napoli.” Mab pulled out his notebook and stubby pencil. “What have you been doing since?”
We were sitting in a pretty Italian café a few blocks from the Mall. I sat next to Mab, across the table from Ferdinand, who was next to Mephisto. I had thought this choice of seating wise but was beginning to regret it. It allowed Ferdinand to gaze directly into my eyes, which I found disconcerting. I could not tear my gaze away.
“When first I regained Earth’s face, I found the sunlit world so bright I could not see,” Ferdinand replied. “I stumbled blindly, my hands before my eyes. Kind women came—social workers—and led me to food and shelter. They insisted I speak to doctors dressed in robes of purest white, who told me my wits had fled. In my youth, I would have slain a man for such slander. But years of taunts from demons and the damned had caused calluses to grow against such abuse. The utterances of these doctors disturbed me not.
“Instead, I treated them with greatest politeness. They announced my madness—which they called amnesia—was not harmful to my fellow men and let me be. The kind women found a place for me at a hall of learning, where I could study the things the doctors claimed I had forgotten. So, now, I attend the University of Chicago, and, to repay the kindnesses shown me, I make use of my meager skills to impart to my fellow students’ knowledge of swordplay, history, and the languages of the classics.”
“How did you learn English?” Mab asked. “You speak it awfully well for one who has been in America only three months.”
“In Hell, there is naught for a living man to do but talk with the dead. And so, I have talked. At first, my Latin sufficed to allow me to converse with many learned men. To speak with men of slanted eye or dark skin, however, I needed to learn new tongues. After a time, the tongue of scholars turned to Spanish, then French. Later again, English became the language the learned spoke. Of late, even the learned among the Orientals and the Africans have spoken at least a smattering of this tongue.”
“And how did you just happen to come by Miss Miranda’s hotel in Chicago?” Mab glared at him accusingly.
Ferdinand threw up his hands as if to demonstrate his innocence. “I inquired at the dread wizard’s office. I explained I was an old friend of the owner. The young person with whom I spoke had overheard the name of the hotel where Miranda planned to stay, and she passed it on to me.”
My gaze remained fixed upon Ferdinand as he spoke. His face reminded me of the statues of the gods of old and left me with the same dreaded longing to possess such beauty. I could well imagine my well-trained receptionist forgetting her security protocol and blurting out secrets to this man. He answered Mab’s question with calm assurance and measured words. Yet, all the while he spoke, his gaze drank in my face as a man newly emerged from the desert might sip from a cool mountain stream. I could not recall, within my long memory, anyone ever having looked at me that way, not even back when he and I were to be wed.
“What’s Hell like?” Mephisto rested his elbows on the table and laid his cheek upon his hand, smiling at Ferdinand.
Ferdinand frowned. “I am not certain cara mia would care to hear the horrors. . . . ”
“Just leave out the torture and dismemberment parts and tell us about how the place is set up,” Mab suggested.
Ferdinand frowned, then shrugged. “Much is as Dante described it. Only the virtuous pagans of whom he spoke were nowhere to be found. Apparently, Christ took them with him when he broke out, much to my sorrow. I would have given all that was mine for a chance to converse with them.”
“So there are nine circles, each with a guardian, and all that?” Mab asked, taking notes as he spoke. “And you lived in the First Circle, the one called Limbo?”
As Ferdinand nodded, the waitress came with our food. Ferdinand smiled at her and thanked her kindly. The young woman blushed, flustered. She remained, hovering at Ferdinand’s elbow until Mab gave her a sharp look. Mephisto pouted. Waitresses usually fussed over him.
“Limbo is not properly part of the Devil’s kingdom,” Ferdinand said, wrapping his spaghetti skillfully about his fork. “It is instead the realm of the god of the dead. The shades there are not tortured. They are merely forlorn.
“Of the rest of Hell . . . myself, I have traveled only as far as the Sixth Circle. Having read Dante in my youth, I knew that if I could make my way to the bottom of the Ninth Circle, I could pass through the gate there and reach Purgatory, beyond. So, I tried to descend, but the Hellwind always caught me and returned me to Limbo before I could venture half so far.
“Twice in my journeys, I reached the red-hot iron walls of the City of Dis, on the Sixth Circle, only to be turned to stone by the Gorgon that the Furies have set to guard that wall. Once, I remained stone for over sixty years—counting by the dates uttered by the shades of the newly dead—before some fiend conducting an inventory of souls dragged me back to my proper place and restored me. Only once did I actually pass Dis’s gates, and even then, I hardly got beyond the first row of flaming sepulchers before one of the fallen angels who patrol that foul city threw me out again.”
“How did you get past the Furies?” Mab asked. To me he said, “You never know what might turn out to be important one day.”
“I accompanied the angels of High Heaven during one of their raids. Every century or so, they swoop down from on high, burning with Heaven-fire, their pinions too bright for any of us—of those below—to see. They draw up with them the souls of those who have truly repented of their former sins. I begged them to take me as well, but they said that I, being flesh, could not dwell where they were going.”
“Why didn’t you just kill yourself and go along?” Mab asked.
“The angels explained to me that were I to deliberately shed my mortal clay, I would find myself a tree in the Wood of the Suicides.”
“Isn’t the Wood of the Suicides in the Seventh Circle?” Mab wiped tomato sauce from his chin with the back of his hand. “Wouldn’t you have been closer to the bottom, where you wanted to go?”
“True, but I would have been stationary.” Ferdinand smiled into my eyes. I dropped my gaze, studying my calzone.
“So?” Mephisto broke in. “When are you two lovebirds going to get married?”
I glared indignantly at Mephisto, trying to douse the fire that had ignited my cheeks by an effort of will. Meanwhile, Ferdinand’s gaze rested earnestly on my face, as if life and death itself depended upon my answer.
When I said nothing, he spoke. “Bella mia, if you wish time before you answer the question your brother has so artlessly yet aptly asked, I will not begrudge it to you. Yet, I would still take you, if you will have me.”
“I have no interest in marrying.” I spoke coldly in my effort to force my voice to remain calm. “You or anyone.”
Ferdinand put his fork down slowly. “I understand, my darling,” he said softly. “You are still the servant of the Diana goddess, are you not?” When I nodded, he asked. “Might you ever change your mind?”
“It is unlikely.”
“I would it does not come to this.” Ferdinand held himself proudly, but it was clear it took an effort to force the words from his lips. “But if it does, I would agree to wed you for a day, in name alone, in the courts of these American peoples, so the vow you swore to me would be satisfied. So long as we never came together as man and wife, you could send an emissary to the Pope in Rome and request the union be annulled. Then, you would be free to wed elsewhere, should you ever desire to do so.”
“I will remember that.” I dropped my eyes, for the look in his was too revealing. I decided this was not the time to explain that ending a marriage no longer required intervention from the Pope.
The waitress brought us our check. I began to pull out my wallet, but Ferdinand refused to allow me to pay.
“I will not take money from the woman who will someday be my wife,” he said fiercely.
The waitress gave me a cold look. Recalling my quip about Ferdinand and the free meal, I felt ashamed. I suddenly wanted to do something to help him, but knew just as strongly that anything I offered would be turned down.
The four of us left the restaurant and stood together on the street.
“We must go,” I said to Ferdinand. “We are about some business for my father. If you tell me where you are staying, I will contact you when we return. You already know how to contact me through Prospero, Inc.”
Ferdinand nodded and gave us his address. Mab wrote it down. Ferdinand turned up the collar of his overcoat and stood gazing at me uncertainly. He glanced meaningfully at Mab and Mephisto. To my surprise, they both stepped away.
“Miranda.” He drew closer until he stood too close. His hand came up and touched my cheek. Then, tilting my chin up until I could no longer avoid looking him in the eye, he said, “I cherish a hope that, given time, you will recall your love for me. For it would be a sin, indeed, if torn from each other by such unkind fates, we did not make use of this, our second chance.”
He leaned toward me, and I knew he meant to kiss me. I stiffened and drew back. He hesitated, and then drew away slowly. Lowering his head, so his lips were near my ear, he whispered, “No. I see the time is not yet right.”
He touched my lips lightly with one finger. Then, bowing, he turned and walked off into the windswept afternoon.