Damon Knight - Orbit 19

From shell, into the light where I may crush him.”

Sanguinetto reappeared, holding at arm’s length a tall glass box, like a candle-lantern. Within it a thick-bodied, long-legged spider—a cane spider, I guessed—scrabbled up the walls and slid down again. Pinon leaped up, knocking his chair over. Sanguinetto pointed at the spider and leered proudly.

“This spider’s of a kind known but in Sicily.

Tis said they come out of the sides

Of fiery Aetna, as if escaped from hell.

They live i’ the fumes, feed on the fruit that’s killed

By ash, and are most poisonous.”

“Tell me,” Pinon said, his voice rising uncontrollably up to Velasquo’s high tenor,

“...might I buy that beauty

From thee? I have a murder would be done

Most fitting thus, most artful...”

Sanguinetto considered it, cocking his head drunkenly to one side.

“I’ve more of these, they breed by hundreds—aye.

Done, if you pay me well enough.”

Pinon: ”I’ll pay you.”

They made the exchange, Sanguinetto accepting a small pouch. He looked in it and grinned. Pinon was staring with an intense frown at the spider within the glass. Sanguinetto returned to the table and sat down, his back to Velasquo.

Sanguin: “We’ll celebrate this sale with more revelry.”

Pinon: “Indeed it is a glad occasion.”

Sanguin: “I give you my assurance, the man

You set that tiny demon on will die

Most painful—”

Pinon: ”You’d know best, I’m certain . . .”

Now Pinon was standing right behind Sanguinetto, caped arms high so that he appeared a huge shadow, holding the glass box directly over the seated man’s head. (Caropia’s fingers were digging into my arm.) The spider’s legs struck at the glass soundlessly. Sanguinetto reached forward and grabbed the foam-streaked bottle, raised it to his lips, tilted his head back; they froze:

Pinon pulled the floor of the box away and the spider dropped onto Sanguinetto’s face. He struck at it with his free hand and it jumped to the table. As it skittered across, he smashed the bottle on it, scattering green glass everywhere. He staggered to his feet and arched back; his scream and Velasquo’s high staccato laugh began simultaneously. The laughter continued longer.

On the table three or four spindly legs flailed at the air, their fine articulation destroyed. With stiff, awkward movements, Sanguinetto pulled his dagger from his belt and stabbed at the legs of the beast until they were still. He left the dagger in the table and collapsed over his chair. His voice, guttural as a rasp over metal, rose from near the floor.

“Stranger, I would thy heart were that black corse

Upon the table: surely it resembles nothing closer.

You had no cause to murder me...”

Velasquo pushed the hood from his head, and his face, gleaming with sweat, suffused with exhilaration, shifted as he looked about the room. He circled the table, leaning over Sanguinetto to shout at him, interspersing his lines with bursts of strained laughter:

“I did have cause; I am Velasquo, see you?

My father’s murder made me seek revenge!

You murdered him, ‘gainst you I had revenge!

Now all that’s sweet is nothing to revenge!”

“Wrong,” croaked Sanguinetto.

“. . . As well might I commend myself

For vengeance ‘gainst you, having killed that spider,

As you to gloat o’er me, who was no more

Than insect used to slay your father—”

Vel: ”What’s this?”

Sanguin: “I was hired, hired by Pallio-here’s my commission—”

He pulled the note from his doublet and tossed it on the floor, then twisted as spasms racked him.

“A cauldron churns and bubbles within my skull—

I see hell waiting; Death will have its fill—”

After a while he moved no more.

Velasquo kneeled at the sheet of vellum, smoothed it on his leg, read. I could feel my heart knocking at the back of my throat—

His head snapped up, his eyes, ablaze with a vicious, yellow intensity, searched from exit to exit, looking at actors: his expression was absolutely murderous. I wanted to flatten myself against the wall, to hide; it was difficult indeed to stand beside Caropia and feign unconcerned interest. For his was no acting, he had understood, he was the Hieronomo! I felt a surge of relief at the certainty of it, replaced by fear when I recalled what I was certain of. I was in mortal danger. But I knew.

Finally he broke the silence, in a voice that filled the room like cold air.

“Pallio. Pallio, the simpleton, the fool.

That mask conceal’d a parricide most cruel.

Though first deceiv’d by his quick cloak of lies—”

He paused then, so that the next line would contain his private reference, unaware how accurate it already was:

“I’ll use his blood to wash away his guise.”

The blackout allowed me to flee to my cubicle.

Act four began, and with it the gradual acceleration and disintegration typical of revenge tragedy. Plots skipped and jumped and ran afoul of each other, twisting without evident logic to their conclusion; characters died. . . . From my cubicle I listened to the first scenes emerging tinnily from a speaker placed in the partition. Leontia, the Cardinal’s wife, whom I hadn’t seen since before the play began, was being strangled by the Cardinal’s men. The Cardinal entreated Caropia to leave Naples, and, perfectly aware of the danger at the court, she agreed. I felt pained at that; foolishly, I had hoped we would remain lovers until the end. Caropia was then confronted by Carmen, her maid, who had been eavesdropping. Carmen demanded payment to keep her from informing me of the Cardinal’s plan—I laughed at that—it was a strange world we existed in, where some plotted against others, who listened as they did it. Caropia agreed, and then promptly poisoned her. The maid’s screams brought guards, and the doctor Elazar, who declared it a natural death. He too had blackmail in mind, and after the guards left, Caropia was forced to stab him and hide his body under the bed.

I stopped listening, and attempted to decide what I should do next. Nothing occurred to me. Nothing , I thought, remembering with disgust the century or two of experience I had to draw on: I recalled canoeing down the Amazon, fighting in the streets of New York, a thousand other like events . . .

But what I actually had done was difficult to distinguish from all the things I remembered doing. All I was sure of was that I had spent a lot of time in a chair, living in words; and on stages. It was as if I were driving a vehicle, and the rear-view mirror had expanded to fill the windshield. Or as if I were the Angel of Time, flying backward into the future! Metaphors came up to me like bowling balls out of an automatic return; but no plans, nothing like a decision. Who was I to decide? Who was I?

“Pallio,” said the speaker loudly. It was a prompter, calling for me. I returned to the prop room, reluctant to take to the stage again. I could no longer remember what attraction I had ever had to it.

Bloomsman herself waved at me: I was on. I stepped out upon a dark stage. There was just enough grainy, purple light leaking down to enable me to perceive the silhouettes of three men, pulling something from beneath the bed. Something about the scene—the lithe, long-limbed black figures, crouching—lacked all familiarity— jamais vu swept over me like nausea. I no longer understood what I saw. The dark room was a dimensionless field, and the black figures were nameless objects, ominous because they moved. Meaningless sounds rang in my ears.

I came to and found myself confronted by Ferrando and Ursini, on a brightly lit apron. Their blades were out and pointed at my throat. My first thought was that I’d left my epée in my costume bag, and was defenseless; then synapses fired, for what reason I knew not, and my lines came to me. I was safe from them.