Wisdom's Kiss (14 page)

Would that I had energy to comfort Trudy, but I am far too caught up in this pending debacle of a wedding. While I grasp Wilhelmina's desire for haste, I have no understanding of the motives behind it.
Why is it so imperative that Dizzy wed Farina?
I cannot see through Wilhelmina's plot, and this unnerves me profoundly. Were Dizzy queen, I could comprehend the duchess's greed ... But the throne is occupied by you—a most healthy specimen! I far preferred the Duchy of Farina when it was ambitious and
stupid!

I apologize for unburdening myself so, but I have no one else to whom to turn. If only the oysters had spared more of our entourage—even Lady Patience would be a boon, as she can at least manage a cool cloth for my brow ... Your mother and father were both so enviably levelheaded—how I wish they were present now! In my desperation I have even consulted Escoffier, but he only assures me that a good ear cleaning will cure all my worries. How marvelous 'twould be if life were so easy!

I pray that by the time you receive this missive, both explanation of and solution to this crisis will have been obtained and you will have the luxury of laughing at my panic. Your next letter, I must not doubt, races toward Froglock even as I write. Would that it could fly, for I cannot wait to hear more of your romance, your suitor, your success at governance, and all the other happiness that one may find—far from the bounds of Farina!

Your distraught grandmother,
Ben

Any Soul Who Contemplates Even Glancing
at the Pages of this Volume Will
Be Transformed into a Toad
Suffer a Most Excruciating Punishment.
On This You Have My Word.

Friday—v. late—

I am lost! The emperor—the emperor himself!—announced I am to wed tomorrow!!! Hearing those words I nigh perished on the stage! I am quite sure I did faint—regardless of Nonna's sniffing over my behavior—she sounded as stuffy as Teddy—& Roger truly was dashing as he bore me away—in its own way as exciting as the performance—the applause so real...

But why bother writing of applause when I have such pain! I cannot marry Roger no matter how solicitous he may be—how handsome—how rich—because my heart belongs utterly & forever to Tomas. My true love. My one & only Tips. The words he whispered last night as we sailed through the air—his arms holding me tight—

Join me & I shall crown you queen of all the heavens

—never in my life have I felt so alive—so full of love!—& he as well! This afternoon while practicing—that officious little el Gato may be vain as a cat always twirling his mustache but he certainly knows how to fashion a spectacle!—every moment with Tips felt—perfect. Every touch—every word—perfect.

He has no fear—no pretension—no preening! He has traveled the world—has met the breadth of humanity from pauper to sultan—he knows the emperor & tolerates with absolute equanimity el Gato's boasting & bossing—& throughout all this his soul—so clearly!—remains unpolluted.

He is modest AND confident—has any man ever managed this duo? Certainly none I have ever met!

He never once mentioned my beauty or my face or my title—he saw only me.

He wants me.

Were it possible I should flee these chains of state & spend my life in his arms. We need only the air—the wire—& I am complete—I would rather perish with Tips than live with Roger—I cannot marry the duke!!

Yet the emperor's word is law! What am I to do? To think that all my life I have craved excitement—but this is not exciting—this is misery.

Misery pure & absolute.

THE BOOTED MAESTRO

Dear Trudy,

Youre a lady-in-waiting—I didnt even know! When I saw your face this evening all I could think was how beautiful
you are
that lady is—+ then I realized it was
Trudy
you
! I know Ive been lying not telling you everything for
six years
a long while—every time I wrote about being a
soldier
or a
guard
I was fibbing
it cut me so much inside—its such a relief to say the truth at last! But I had to lie—dont you see?—its the only way I could remain in Circus Primus. Hans + Jens would never release me to a
circus
—theyd say I was only a
clown,
that a circus is a
waste of time + money,
that its full of
boasting men
+
women no better than they should be
—you know theyd speak so. I love this life so much—I am
good ackomplished
good
at this! You saw me, didnt you? I was made for
performing
this, not for grinding flour + counting coins. But I was afraid if I said the truth,
you would
it would somehow get to them—I know you can keep secrets but still, one slip + my life is over. I would rather die than return to Bacio!

There is something else too—I know my
words explanation excuses
words here will not do, I wish I could talk to you—there
is another
girl
.
I swear—on our mothers graves!—that Ive never loved anyone else—the words I wrote you were
always
true—until last night. Now my heart is split in twain—half to you, half to
Princess
Wisdom. She is like no
girl woman
one I have ever known! To see her is to know life as it should be—+ yet I
love like
care for you as well. Youve always been the center of my world.

Im lost—Im wretched—I dont know what to do. Trudy, I beg you—please understand I never set out to hurt you—now I fear Ive hurt you most of all!

With care—+ love—

—Tips

A P
LAY IN
T
HREE
A
CTS

PENNED BY ANONYMOUS

Act I, Scene ix.
Wisdom's suite in Phraugheloch Palace.

A knock. Fortitude, weeping, opens the door.

FOOTMAN
: A letter for Lady Fortitude.

FORTITUDE
: I thank you ... O Tips!...It is as I feared—you love another! O my love, you have broken my heart!

Fortitude exits the suite, weeping.
Enter Wisdom, weeping, and Benevolence.

WISDOM
: How shall I survive this? I know I must marry, but tomorrow...'Tis too soon!

BENEVOLENCE
: What scheming do these nuptials hide? I smell strategy behind the haste—strategy most diabolic.

A knock. Benevolence opens the door to Roger.

ROGER
: Good evening, Your Majesty. Have you no maid or footman to perform this labor? ace.

BENEVOLENCE
: Honest work should never trouble honest people ... Good evening to you, Your Grace. How fare you this night?

ROGER
: I came to inquire as to the well-being of my betrothed. If there be any succor to offer, please do not delay in communicating how best I should convey it.

BENEVOLENCE
: His Majesty's announcement has quite overwhelmed my granddaughter, who fears too little time to prepare her wardrobe.

WISDOM
: Yes! I have not yet a gown suitable to wed a duke.

ROGER
: Our love needs no cloth to secure it! I have burned six months to be your groom; 'tis a light in my heart that I shall be yours tomorrow.

WISDOM
[
aside
]: But do I wish to be yours in return?

BENEVOLENCE
: If six months you have tarried, why dash now? I must confess I find baffling this need for dispatch.

ROGER
: We would the emperor's blessing...

BENEVOLENCE
: Yet Rüdiger lingers in Froglock, as well he should for such enthusiastic crowds. Many details yet require resolution—the terms of your style, for example. Does not Her Most Noble Grace take issue with "Duke and Princess"?

ROGER
: 'Tis of no account! My sweet mother thinks only of what is best for our family, as do I.

BENEVOLENCE
: In wedding Wisdom you will have a new family to defend.

ROGER
: I prefer to think of Wisdom joining our greater whole...

BENEVOLENCE
: As a drop of rain is absorbed into a broad ocean?

ROGER
: Precisely!

WISDOM
[aside]:
Heavens preserve me! I shall be drowned!

BENEVOLENCE
: I had anticipated a more compassionate response to my metaphor ... I must ask outright: what schemes do you hatch for this beloved girl?

ROGER
: Schemes? I take offense! It will be only glory for us both—glory that we but deserve!

WISDOM
[
aside
]: We, we, always it is two! Where am I to be found in this equation?

BENEVOLENCE
: 'Tis my experience that a ruler's call for glory leads to many men's pain.

ROGER
: You wish Farina to remain a duchy, undistinguished? Easy words for a queen of a kingdom!

BENEVOLENCE
: My granddaughter shall not wed a man more zealot than peer.

ROGER
: It is the emperor's decree—you will defy that? I thought not. Fear not, Your Majesty, for the princess's royal status is most valued by my mother and myself. I depart, my betrothed; tomorrow, my wife.

Exit Roger.

WISDOM
: I do not like that man!

BENEVOLENCE
: Nor I ... Yet what other resolution can prevail?

Enter Escoffier the cat.

WISDOM
: We are not entirely without power ... You have capacities, handsome Escoffier, do you not?

BENEVOLENCE
: No! We made a solemn vow—upon the death of another!—that we would abstain forever from magic.

WISDOM
: Yet this union shall cause the death of me!

BENEVOLENCE
: Surely we may yet devise a natural solution. O dear cat, what are we to do?

FELIS EL GATO

Impresario Extraordinaire ♦ Soldier of Fortune
Mercenary of Stage & Empire

LORD OF THE LEGENDARY
FIST OF GOD
Famed Throughout the Courts and Countries of the World
&
The Great Sultanate
*
THE BOOTED MAESTRO
*

W
RITTEN IN
H
IS
O
WN
H
AND
~A
LL
T
RUTHS
V
ERIFIED
~
A
LL
B
OASTS
R
EAL

A Most Marvelous Entertainment. Not to Be Missed!

***

SADLY, the audience's most fitting veneration of "The Demon Vanquished" was cut short by the emperor, who—to my pique, I cannot deny it—interrupted the thundering adulation to proclaim that the princess would wed Duke Roger the very next day! This unexpected news sent the princess into a swoon—performed quite artfully, if I may say. Duchess Wilhelmina appeared thoroughly satisfied with the emperor's words; clearly the woman deduced what so many astute observers, myself most of all, had already observed: her son's betrothed now preferred a well-trained circus acrobat. Sensing that the spotlight had faded from our act, with a flourish of my red demon cape I withdrew from the stage with my apprentice. The uproar from the emperor's announcement affected the show for some time, and I fear the tigers, with that innate animal ability to sense unease, were too unsettled to perform. Nor did Tomas appear for his usual act upon the Globe d'Or despite the three runners I sent to seek him out, and so I was forced to stage the Jug Juggler in his stead, and a poor substitute he proved.

Experienced as I am in the torment which love wreaks, I sought Tomas out upon the show's conclusion, and, as I had expected, found the young man in the throes of romantic agony. While he recognized too well that Wisdom, royal born and promised to another, could never be his, he had yet dreamt of enjoying his sliver of paradise a few brief days more. Exacerbating this tragedy—as I learned in sobs and fragments while he raged about his chamber—his childhood sweetheart, that tavern wench to whom he remained so interminably loyal, was in Froglock this very minute, employed as none other than lady-in-waiting to the princess! And she, in witnessing the fervor of Tomas and Wisdom, underwent her own most brutal humiliation—made all the worse by her having up to that moment believed her love to be a
soldier!

I could only marvel at the extraordinary drama of this romance, and my mind straightaway commenced concocting how best to put it to the stage. My theatrical instincts, however, did not prevent me from simultaneously endeavoring to set Tomas's heart at ease. He, I deduced, had already sent Trudy (a name I recalled all too well from countless previous conversations) a missive explaining his predicament and apologizing for the suffering he had inflicted, and while his promptness in this regard should be commended, the gist of his correspondence as he summarized it for me was not close to the more lyrical words of which an experienced beau would doubtless have been capable.