Shadowbridge (12 page)

The suitor stepped back. He touched the princess’s shoulder and swept her clothing away. The diaphanous purple gown caught on the puppet’s sharp fingertip, lifting off the tiny pin that had held it in place on her figure. It dropped from the screen onto the small shelf below.

Leodora thought she heard Soter stifle a gasp, even though he knew that Bardsham’s princess was designed for this shocking moment. The stripping and the presentation of the rape of the princess were Bardsham’s embellishments. No one else had ever performed it this way. No one else had ever constructed a puppet whose clothing could be torn away.

She stood revealed in all her translucent nakedness. The sharp nipples of her breasts, even the dark thatch in the meeting of her thighs, were plainly visible. In a full rendition of the story, the audience had heard her speak by now and had come to know her with affection, and often a cry of alarm accompanied the moment, protests of outrage ringing out as though a real girl had been stripped bare by the fiend.

The suitor glided up against her and pushed her roughly down. She vanished below the screen. The suitor lay on top of her. The top of him became the bottom line of the screen. Slowly his body began to move back and forth, telling the story in agonizing silence. The figures sank from sight while the red of the lantern passed harsh judgment upon the scene.

“What has happened to the poor thief meanwhile? Sent out by the wizard, he has lost his left arm and very nearly his life to the dragon’s venom. More than this, he has lost his hope. What princess will have a poor man consigned now to a life of begging?—for no other fate can await him. The egg is just an egg. He can find no power there. The thief’s quest is ended. He has no power to win the affections of so beautiful a creature as the princess; the kindly doctor who sent him will dismiss the trophy, claim that he took it from some huge bird, a roc perhaps, but not from the deadly serpents. He sees now that his dream has been pure folly. He would only want her if she wanted him; and what ever made him believe she would?

“He will, he decides, complete his task and afterward climb all the way to the top of the highest minaret and throw himself to his death.

“Outside the palace, he stood for a long time beneath the window of his beloved. He set his resolve to see her one last time, that her image might be with him when he died.”

The thief began his climb. But the same vines that had carried him before were not so navigable with only one arm. He lumbered clumsily up to the balcony of his beloved, but saw nothing from the ledge. She was not there. The puppet hung his head.

“Fate was cruel today, he thought.”

He continued with less enthusiasm on toward the higher apartment of the doctor, to bid him farewell. Whatever else, he was honorable, and he would leave the egg there as he’d promised.

As she moved the puppet’s limbs with one hand, Leodora steadily lowered the vertical cutout of the vines beside him to create the illusion that he was climbing ever higher. The cutout folded in places so that it stacked neatly on the shelf as she drew it down.

“He hadn’t climbed far when his hand slipped for a moment and he twisted and grabbed a branch to save himself; but the violent movement caused the magic egg to fall from his pouch. Certain it would shatter, he dove to catch it before it struck the tiles on the princess’s balcony below. If he’d had both hands, he might have reached it, but with only the one he couldn’t. His fingers just brushed their target, and the egg hit the floor. The thief tucked his head and rolled as best he could to protect himself. It was not a long fall, but without his other arm to absorb the blow he struck the floor hard, bounced, and then lay there dazed.

“He sat up, horrified to be on this of all balconies. But it seemed that no one had heard him fall. The curtains remained drawn.

“He turned to snatch the egg and found it beside him, split in two. A fiery glow emerged from within each half.”

Leodora nimbly separated the two rods controlling the prop egg she had.

“The glow poured over him and through him. He felt as though he were the sun, burning.”

She took hold of the lanyard that secured the lantern and lowered it until its red lens was aimed straight through the translucent puppet. The skeletal structure etched lightly into the taut skins caught the light, gaining emphasis. His body seemed to have become glass. She pulled on the lanyard, raising the lantern again. The thief stood up. And now—for all eyes would follow the light as it moved—he had two arms again. The new one she had hooked into place as she pulled the rope past the screen and secured it below. The thief stood and marveled at his two hands, then danced a little jig of joy.

“He looked to the skies and thanked the gods for his good fortune. No one had seen him yet, so he fitted the two halves of the egg back together and prepared to leave. But at that moment he heard a noise, a terrible moan, emerge from beyond the curtains that closed off the balcony. His curiosity and his desire held him there. He crept across and ever so carefully parted the curtains.

“He beheld a horrible sight. His princess, the jewel of his life, lay naked and ravished. A handsome figure climbing off her turned to close its robes, faced him, and started as their eyes met. That moment seemed to last an eternity.”

The handsome suitor edged back from the princess. Her figure lay just visible, propped in place at the bottom of the screen by its rods, secured in the groove of the shelf below. The suitor suddenly sprang off screen.

“‘Guards! Guards!’ the magician cried. ‘Come quickly—a thief has broken in and attacked the princess!’ Never for a second did he imagine that the thief had succeeded in carrying out his mission. No one had ever met the twin dragons and lived. The wizard assumed that the thief had never really gone at all or had given up, as anyone else would have done. As he would have done. The plan fixed itself even as he cried out. The unconscious chaperone behind the curtain—the thief had struck her and hidden himself there. As for the girl, the wizard would magnanimously offer to marry her, thus securing her father’s eternal debt. The rape would remain a secret between them. The thief would be executed before day’s end, the shamed girl reduced to his docile slave. It was all too perfect, even better than his original plan.”

Leodora had no guards to bring onto the scene. But she did have their pikes among the weapons Soter had given her. The suitor’s figure she locked in place for a moment by setting its control rods in the grooved shelf. Then she picked up two pikes and leaned them in from the side, one above the other.

“The guards entered. The suitor thrust a finger at the thief. ‘There he is. Look at what he’s done!’”

She drew the suitor’s figure back slightly from the screen so that his shadow swelled in size while the thief leapt into motion.

“‘No!’ cried the young thief. ‘I didn’t do this
—he
did. I was climbing up the vines outside to fulfill my pact with the good physician who dwells higher up, but I fell onto the balcony trying to catch this!’”

He lifted into view the golden Druid’s Egg. Leodora swung down the lantern again and spun it red at the same moment that, with her pinkie, she coaxed apart the rods of the egg, splitting it open.

“‘Aiiieeee, I’m undone!’ cried the suitor. He tried to grab the egg, but the thief hopped back. The wizard stood trapped between the thief and the guards he had called. He quailed at the power of the egg. Its power would defeat any enemy—and most certainly he was the enemy of this thief. Even if the thief didn’t realize it, the egg knew.”

She gave the lantern a spin so that light became stars became red became darkness; and in that precise instant of darkness, she switched the suitor with the sharp-featured wizard.

“Helpless, the wizard watched himself transform, and in terror he ran to escape the deadly influence of the egg, ran blindly for the door—his only thought to get away from that hellish glow. But the guards reacted as guards should and lowered their pikes. They impaled the evil man.”

The pikes slid behind the wizard’s torso. She brought her middle finger to her thumb, and the figure doubled over. The pikes lifted him into the air.

“The thief knelt beside his beloved. The Druid’s Egg shone upon her. She stirred, awakened, to find herself clothed in light. A total stranger was at her side, and her wicked seducer was dead upon the pikes of her guards.”

The princess got to her feet, her body trembling. The young thief rose also.

“‘Who are you?’ she asked.”

The thief lowered his head.

“‘I’m no one. Just a common thief.’

“‘How can you say that when you have saved me?’ she replied.

“‘I saved one for whom I would willingly perish.’

“‘Don’t say such things. How could you feel that way for me when we have never met?’

“‘I could. I do. I can’t help it. But I must go now before your father finds me here. I don’t belong here.’

“‘Then take me with you.’

“‘How can I?’

“‘If you go, then I no longer belong here, either.’

“‘Oh,’ said he. ‘In that case, how can I not?’”

The princess reached to him, and he took her hand. The two shadow figures embraced in a long, lingering kiss. The egg slipped from the thief’s other hand and cracked open at his feet. The screen turned red with its light, and then, as Leodora unlooped and let slide the lanyard, the red light sank like an evening sun, taking all shadows with it. When it was below the silk screen, she blew out the light.

Outside the booth the room might have been empty, it was so quiet. She set down the figures, stood and stretched, then stepped through the curtain.

Soter seemed to gape at her, as if she were something he had never seen before. She swelled with triumph before he regained himself: His look clouded, became critical, and he said, “That’s not the way the tale ends. The emperor arrives, discovers what has happened, and gives the boy everything—the keys to his kingdom, his daughter, wealth.”

Leodora smarted at the criticism. She would not be robbed of her glory. “
Improvise,
someone said to me. Tales get rewritten—who told me that not an hour past? Who stole the figure of the king?”

Soter waved his hand, dismissing each point, but finding no way to contradict her. He gave a nervous laugh and tried to shift the discussion away from her objections. “Now, no matter, you did a truly fine job. A most worthy attempt in fact—”

“Attempt! Confess it, I took your breath away!”

“No, no, I’m sorry, never happened. You’re certainly getting there, but you are still a little clumsy with one thing or another—not very much, you understand, but there is always room for improvement. Those vines, not smooth enough. You are…coming along quite nicely, Leodora.”

“I’m ready,” she said with iron.

“Well, my girl, of course you
want
to be ready. You entertain me well enough, and the native islanders. But who are they? A far distant and less discerning cousin to the audiences on the spans. You cannot trust their simple approbation. No, no. Not reliable.”

She glared at him.

“Oh, I think, another year, perhaps. Possibly two?” He smiled like an uncle full of deep concern for her well-being—it was exactly the smile her own uncle had been giving her the past few days. It was not a look she trusted. It masked something else, something that did not have her well-being at heart.

Enraged by his false kindness, she kicked aside a stool and stormed across the hut.

“Now, Leodora,” Soter called. The voice of appeasement, another mask. She would have exited without a word if he hadn’t spoken.

She whirled about. “You pull off the role of the forgetful fool much better when you’re in your cups, old man. In fact, if you’re so stupid as to say,
Oh, just two more years, my girl,
you’d best be drunk. At least you’ll have an excuse for lying. Go ahead, pretend you can’t see! But I know. Understand?
I
know. I’m better than you say. I’m better than you can do yourself. I’m better than Bardsham!”

She flung his door out of her way.

 . . . . . 

Soter sagged in the chair where he had watched her performance. He sighed once, long and deep, as if he might expel all the air in his lungs. He hunched forward and picked up the puppet king. After staring it in the face for a long still moment, he began to roll the main rod loosely between his thumb and fingers. The puppet gyred to and fro, unable to settle on a direction. Its clattering arms swung loosely, embracing nothing.

“Back then she was only a child,” he said, as if responding to someone else in the empty room. “Of course I didn’t worry where it would lead. Why should I? Who knew what skills she had—or that she would even
care.
” He glanced up with a sickly grin, eyes focused on a point in front of him. “That’s right. Berate me for it now. You didn’t step in then, did you? You could have manifested, objected.
Don’t set her on this path, Soter,
you could have said. Did you? No.”

He dropped the puppet and picked up a clay jug from the floor beside the overturned stool. He took a long anxious drink, but even before he’d finished, his worried eyes opened, focused again upon something before him, and began tracking it. Whatever he followed, it was invisible to Leodora from her position outside his window. She’d come back with the intention of apologizing, provided that she could make him confess the truth about her abilities. She’d only meant to watch for the most propitious moment to make an entrance, and instead here he was engaged in a conversation.

Except no one else was there.

Soter’s hands trembled as he put down the jug. “Look,” he said, wiping his palm across his mouth, “I saved the child, didn’t I? Brought her back here. That ought to have been enough for you. After all, you owned my life, didn’t you? Had me in thrall, didn’t you? Used me any way that suited the moment. You think just because I was in the thick of it that I didn’t know the situation? Think I would have left her to the mercies of the spans if I’d known? You don’t understand devotion and never did—and you all moon-eyed and weepy with it yourself. For all that you could bedazzle your innumerable lovers, you never expected that hollow heart of yours might fill up, did you?”