Songs of Love & Death

A clown in red pants brought out a bear, which turned in circles, smirking. Girls wearing almost nothing commanded monkeys in little red hats to ride dogs, and the dogs to run in circles, and then stand on their hind legs and yap, the monkeys clinging tight.

Three men rushed out bearing on their arms a host of brilliant birds that shrieked and flapped their wings, deafening. She put her hands over her ears at their screams, and beside her the wizard-king gave her a sharp look and waved his hand and said something, and abruptly they were ponies.

A little group of musicmen sat down below the dais, tuned their lutes and patted their drums, and the court began to dance. The wizard turned to her. “Dance, my dear one,” he said to her. “Let me see you merry.”

“With you?” she asked, shy; he seemed so solemn, too majestic to dance, and in spite of her gratitude, she did not really want to touch him.

“No, no,” he said, with a smile. “I will watch.” He gestured her toward the round dance forming on the floor. “Show me your grace and beauty, my queen.”

She stood, delighting in her nimble legs. She ran out neat-footed as a goat to the spreading circle of girls in the center of the hall. Without thinking, she knew every step perfectly, and she whirled and dipped so elegantly everybody else stopped and gathered to see it. The music was beautiful. The dance was a song her newly perfect body sang. But when, out of breath, she went back to the edge of the floor, to let someone else have a place, she heard the wall behind her murmur.

She turned her head, looking out of the side of her eye. The wall was of pale stone, the surface carved intricately into vines and leaves. At first she saw nothing, but then, in the spaces between the leaves, eyes appeared.

Desperate, gleaming with tears, they turned on her, and through a crevice between the stone vines a hand reached out.

She jerked herself forward again, her heart pounding, and stepped out a little into the middle of the floor. Out of reach. She would not see this misery. She was too happy. She could dance, and she had never eaten so well, and she was beautiful. That was what mattered. She made her way back to her place by the wizard-king.

But now she saw bits of people everywhere, eyes in the columns, too, hands, and feet, and the tables, she saw, had human legs, and the braziers were the bottom halves of people, with their open bellies full of fire. The lamps were long thin girls, all gilded, their hair aflame. When she looked down, she thought she saw the floor was made of twisted bodies jammed together. Yet it was smooth and hard as stone. She lifted her gaze to the happy whirling courtiers around her, and her heart froze.

She stood beside him, and said, too loudly, “I loved the dancing.”

The wizard said, “You were the most beautiful dancer there, my Queen Maeve.”

Then from the crowd suddenly a woman strode forward who was not joyous and not laughing. Her eyes flashed with anger. She cried, “No! I won’t have this—I was there, yesterday—”

Fioretta stiffened, her mouth falling open. She turned toward the wizard, and he gripped her arm, leaning toward her. His gaze turned on the angry woman. “Be warned,” he said, in a deep, harsh voice. “Remember what you were before.”

The woman flung her arms out to him. She was beautiful, tall and shapely, with long black hair and red lips. Her clothes were magnificent, sheets of silk and silver cascading from the glowing purple calyx of her bodice. Her hands reached toward him, pleading. “Please, my lord—I did everything you wanted, I—”

“Rosa,” the wizard said, and made a gesture.

Fioretta gasped. Before them the woman writhed a moment, shrinking. Her clothes shed from her like the petals of a blown flower, to leave behind a withered crone, her hair stringy and white, her arms with the skin hanging like bags off the bones. From the court looking on there went up a cry of disgust and contempt. Fioretta’s arm was still tight in the wizard’s grasp. The hag in the middle of the floor sank to her knees, sobbing, and then from all sides the others pelted her with food and hats and shoes.

Fioretta spun toward him. “No,” she said. “Don’t punish her so. I beg of you.”

The wizard smiled at her. His hand on her arm did not ease its grip. He said, “Sit down, my fairy queen, my Gloriana. Remember, I am master here.” His voice turned smooth. “Are you not happy here? What else can I bestow upon you? Only let me make you happy. That is all I wish.”

Fioretta stood rigid under his eyes; she tore her gaze from his. Down there they were dragging off the beaten woman Rosa. Another flower. His hand on her arm tugged commandingly. Then, where all the others were moving, her gaze caught on one who did not go with the others, who stood where he was, staring at her.