Act V
The cells below the garrison.
The rooms were made for rowdy sailors or merchants who defaulted on their taxes, not for princes. Looking into them from the outside, they are small, formed from one large cellar partitioned up by bars.
One now has a little furnishing: a rug to soften the floor, a chair, a desk, some light; paper and ink. Since Orsino came, the comfort of Don Pedro has at least been looked at.
In the cell beside him, denied his rug and chair but permitted, by the space between the bars, to share his light, is Jacques, holding forth.
Enter DON JOHN.
WHEN JOHN CREPT down to the cells, the old fool was in full flow. Jacques sat on the hard stone flags with all appearance of comfort. After all, he had lived out in the forest of Arden for years; despite his years, he was plainly not a man who relished civilised comforts.
“The fifth degree of magic is but thus,” he was intoning. “To conjure forth the spirits of the air and have them work great wonders through their gratitude. Whilst wicked conjurers might trick and catch and leave these hapless sprites in durance vile, a righteous sorcerer may set them free and thus command their service for a time. So Prospero or yet the Orient youth who freed the spirit from its prison lamp. And so, within our world, are men whose power derives from robbing others of their own, and other men with popular acclaim who free their fellows from the like oppression.”
“Yet Machiavelli says within his tract,” came Don Pedro’s voice, “that fear’s a mightier goad than love.”
Don John rolled his eyes. Can you not suffer even a little before the Scot makes an end to you? But no, it appeared his brother was more than content to be lectured by this pedant.
“Alas, a base misreading of his text,” Jacques droned on, and Don John decided to leave them to it. He had hoped, perhaps, to gloat a little before his brother, but now he was here he sensed too much risk and, besides, no doubt Pedro would find some new way to turn it all to his advantage.
“Let the Scot take him,” he murmured. With his hand on the dagger’s hilt he skulked off, heading upstairs towards the quarters given over to Orsino.
Bearing the Scottish Blade was a strange thing. The shadows rose to enfold him everywhere he went. He could step softly past guards and servants, seen by none, and doors seemed to open for him wherever he went. And when he took the hilt... Don John had never been a killer—he preferred the sort of plots a Machiavel might favour. When there was violence to be done, he had found men of violence to enact it. The idea of plunging a blade into Orsino was distasteful to him, not for the sin, but for the crudeness and the mess. He would rather tear holes in a man’s reputation than his skin.
But when he held the dagger, his doubts faded. It was a tool of murder, given by Hecate to drive the Scot to regicide. When John held the weapon he was bloody, bold and resolute indeed.
And upstairs was Orsino, patiently labouring over the missive he would send with Pedro back to Aragon. A missive that would restore the prince to his country, rob John of his inheritance, rob the Scot of Illyria’s part in the slaughter. However many strategems his mind revised, all narrowed to one when he gripped the dagger’s hilt.
He paused at Orsino’s door, seeing servants inside refilling their lord’s glass. Drink deep, Duke of Illyria. Blunt the pain before it comes to you. John had already obtained Pedro’s signet ring, that had been taken by his jailers back when he was being poorly hosted by Sir Toby. He would leave that beside the body and the Scot would ensure the convenience of the gesture was overlooked in the general outrage.
The servant went by about her work and Don John tensed, knowing his moment had come. His hand had left the knife for a moment and, as he stepped into the room unseen, he felt a cobweb touch of conscience. With Orsino’s death he would have crossed a bloody Rubicon, wading in so far that it were easier to continue than turn back. He would not become some dread lord of myth like the Scot—as the warlord had said, that age was past—but this modern era’s shadow of it, ruling by fear and suspicion, and destined for Hell.
And yet I would at least have ruled before I die. And that seemed to be enough, so he took the dagger out and drank deep of its well.
And then a riot broke out below. At first John thought it was just Toby Belch in a choleric moment, but then he heard voices raised in argument, and then at last just one dominating—a voice he felt he should know, waxing strong in strident account...
The idiot soldier... Parolles?
Orsino was on his feet, his poet’s muse completely spoiled. With a frown he swept past Don John, unseeing, and was heading down the stairs to see what all the noise was, no doubt with every other occupant of the garrison who possessed ears.
Don John found himself trembling, now fate had prevented the fatal stroke. Carefully he slid the dagger back into his belt and padded back down the stairs. I will have another chance. But even his desire for power was giving ground to curiosity. Just what is happening down there?
He arrived back in the hall to see Parolles in the midst of some bizarre martial account. Skulking over to Sir Toby he murmured, “What is this?”
“This remarkable fellow,” Toby told him, “has been a soldier of the enemy, now come to throw himself on Illyria’s noted mercy like yourself. He has come hotfoot from Lepanto, where, he says, the Turkish fleet braved the sails of Venice.”
Duke Orsino was plainly fascinated by the man’s tale. He walked in circles about Parolles, questioning every bizarre particular, each question leading to some yet more unlikely exposition. All around them, the hall was steadily filling up as guards, courtiers and servants came to hear this prodigal story.
“Good sirs,” Parolles insisted, “I was standing at the very left hand of Venice’s great general, the Moor himself. Mighty wroth he was and, when he had disposed his foot and horse along the shore, he leapt into a barque no greater than a fisherman’s scow, and me along with him. He bad me raise the sail and, even as the Venetian galleys were getting underway, he made of himself the vanguard, driving towards the warships of the Turk!”
“Where were the Turkish guns in this?” Orsino demanded. “Every soldier knows for range and aim they exceed all of our shipborne pieces.”
“Why they made a very fearsome response!” Parolles swore. “Lead fell on us like the summer rains and full seven galleys sank in a single breath with all hands. But neither the Moor nor I were dismayed, and when a ball came square for us, red hot and hissing, bold Othello bad me slacken the sail so that its smooth front bellied out like the front of yon stout fellow’s doublet.”
Sir Toby bellowed his displeasure at that, but it was drowned out in the general laughter.
“Then!” Parolles raised his voice above it. “Then I twitched the rudder and the ball touched on our sails and rolled about the inside of their curve, so that it followed out and spat itself upon the Turk, and holed the very vessel that had sent it to us!”
Cheering at that. Even Orsino had apparently forgotten that the Turk was notionally an ally in the war.
“But what of the Turkish fire?” some academically-minded fellow called out. “It is well know the Turkish ships can breathe an inferno that even the sea cannot douse!”
“Indeed, and as we neared, so it came to us, a fire upon the waters so great...” And on went Parolles, seeming almost desperate in the ferocity of his confabulation, full of sound and fury and, no doubt, signifying nothing. And yet for the moments of the tale’s telling, Don John found himself strangely captivated by it. Almost reluctantly he turfed a minor functionary out of the seat next to Sir Toby and sat down.
A bare stage.
Neutral lighting; no properties; no backdrop.
At the edge of hearing, a distant susurrus as of a multitude of players rehearsing their lines to themselves.
Enter HELENA, leading BENEDICK and GANYMEDE.
“WHAT IS THIS place?” Benedick demands. “I have seen desert shores and the barren places of the world, but a place like this, and but a step from that street in Apollonia...”
Helena sounds strained, holding the flask tight in her grip. “We are between the pages of the world’s book. Each scene and moment of our lives is pieced together in this space before it’s served to us. We are where none of us was meant to be.”
“Then why bring us here?” Ganymede hisses, clutching his bow to him.
“Because this is not just one step from where we left, it is one step from everywhere—all the cities, all the forest glades, the blasted heaths, the desert islands and the wrecking shores.” She shakes the flask and listened intently to whatever was inside. “If we were but to find the right exit, I could take you to Egypt to trouble Cleopatra, or to the forum to witness Caesar’s death. I could bring you to Venice or Verona, London’s fatal tower or Elsinore, if we but knew which path to go...”
“It seems to me just like a mummer’s stage,” the youth observes, sounding vaguely let down.
“Aye, and all the stage is yet a world,” Helena declares. “And what most concerns us now is entrances and exits.”
“Can this lead us to Milan?” Benedick puts in.
Helena laughs at him. “I tell you we can go to antique Rome, and you ask if I can take us to Milan? Yes, yes to Milan, and yet, and yet...” She stares into the wings and her face adopts a pensive look. “And yet I see the scenery of a different play laid out. A tower room laid for the death of Prospero.”
“Old Prospero’s been dying for a generation,” Benedick scoffs, but Helena’s raised hand silences him.
“And yet he has travelled to that undiscovered country swifter than we could come to Milan,” she whispers.
“But then—!” the Aragonese nobleman makes a frustrated clutching gesture. “If you can step to Ancient Rome then why not yesterday’s Milan?”
“For yesterday’s Milan belongs to Hecate, and there I will not meddle. Milan tomorrow is the only Milan that we shall see, and that without a Prospero.”
“What then, what then for all of us?” Benedick demands.
“Hst,” she tells him. “Later turn our thoughts onto Milan; for now, just let us take a smaller step. Let us walk inside the garrison and save your prince.”
Benedick nods emphatically. “So, which path?”
Helena joggles the flask once more, concentrating. “Let me work, for whilst it would be a fine thing to hear Mark Anthony sway the crowd, old Rome would be a poor place to visit by mistake. And there are other paths, that lead to nowhere in the world.”
“What places?” Ganymede looks around himself, wonder overcoming fear.
Helena looks at you, out from the stage, out from the page. “Stranger places yet.” She catches your eye and weighs your worth, the sum total of your words and deeds. “Perhaps I’ll visit, when this business is done. I’ve always felt the walls of the world press on me. Am I not due a wider stage to play my part on, after all?”
Benedick coughs diplomatically. “Madam doctor, the garrison?”
She smiles at him, enough to make him take a step back, but then she says, “Of course,” and chooses her exit, leading the others offstage. Perhaps she casts a final glance back at you before she goes.
The cells below the garrison.
From up above the murmur of the crowd as Parolles plies his lying trade.
Don Pedro is scratching away with the pen and ink the Illyrians gave him. In the adjourning cell, Jacques stands, one hand on the bars, pensive.
Enter MACBETH.
“MY LORD,” JACQUES said, “we have a visitor.”
Not his tone but his brevity brought Pedro’s head up. In a moment he was standing, stepping back for space, his hand moving to a swordless belt.
The Scot advanced until he was at the bars. “Do you know me, Don Pedro of Aragon?”
“I know you for my enemy, and the enemy of all the world,” the prince confirmed. “It is for your sake that we ventured to Milan, to find a counter for your diabolic influence.”
The warlord raised a mailed hand airily. “Ah, how many well-made plans have foundered when they went to sea? After all, there are no greater raisers of the tempest than my witches.”
“Save for Prospero,” Pedro said stubbornly.
The Scot chuckled, a deep, metallic sound. “Why, did you not hear? The wizard of Milan is dead, these two weeks, murdered in his own tower.”
Pedro slumped, groaning. “No.”
Macbeth’s armoured shoulders shifted in a shrug. “It matters little either way. Your days end here, for I have come to take you off to execution. Your brother and I have already come to an agreement: he shall carry news of your demise back to your people, who shall fight the war all the fiercer for your death. And die on every field in Europe, with the rest.”
His gauntlet closed upon the lock and clenched, crushing and twisting the metal until the cell door sprang open. In one smooth motion, he drew his rusted blade.
“Fight me, then,” Pedro challenged. “But bring me a sword and I will face you like a soldier.”
“I could bring you swords, knives, muskets, hatchets, cannon even,” the Scot informed him. “They would not aid you. I am proof against any effort of yours. But you mistake me. Have you not heard my tale? Did your nurse not scare you with it when you were a child? What is left of he that was Macbeth in this shallow age? That he was a great murderer. And so I murder, and move on. The blood of one more man will barely shift the scales, should I ever come to judgment.”
“But that is not what I have heard,” Jacques broke in. “For well I know your story.”
“You know nothing,” the Scot growled.
“If only that were true, but I am yet on the cusp of man’s last age, and my mind is sharp,” the philosopher told him. “Do you truly think that history has picked the bones of you, until all that’s left is ‘murderer’? Then listen as I tell you of a man ambitious, of a warrior who fought his nation’s foes. Another tale I have is of a man misled, who gave his trust to prophecies and powers and was sore betrayed. But yet of all the Scots that I heard of, the one that touched me most was of the husband, and the man who loved his wife.”
“My wife...?” The Scot seemed frozen at the thought.
“How long is it, I wonder, since you last thought of her? And yet the stories tell of how in all the world you valued her, and how she was a strong, fierce woman worthy of you. And how she died.”
“She died,” the warlord echoed. “Yes, she died.”
“There are a hundred men contained in you, and each one has a different tale to tell,” Jacques told him softly. “You do not have to be the murderer.”
The Scot paused in the doorway of the cell. It was impossible to know whether he was staring at Pedro, or at the sword between them. For a long, long time many things hung in the balance.
Then that helmed head shook and the warlord said, “No. I serve a harsh mistress. What am I, if I do not do her bidding?” And he stepped forwards, a hand reaching out to seize his prey.
With a sound like birds taking flight or ruffled pages, Helena, Benedick and Ganymede burst out of nowhere at all, stumbling over each other to land in a heap behind the Scot.
The warlord whirled, and Benedick saw and understood precisely what had been going on. He shouted a challenge and had his rapier from its scabbard just in time to turn aside the downstroke. With a flourish of his wrist he had his slender blade past the Scot’s guard and drove it through the rings of his enemy’s armour.
The Scot laughed. One mailed hand closed on Benedick’s quillons and ripped the weapon from his hand. With the rapier still hanging from him he chopped at the Aragonese, but Pedro leapt on him from behind and spoiled his blow. Growling, the warlord threw the prince off him and shook himself.
“So, die elsewhere or die here, I shall have the blood of you all!”
Helena had a stone and was trying to scratch a circle into the stone of the floor, with little success. Ganymede stood away from her, bowstring drawn back and his sole arrow nocked.
“Hold off, monster,” he warned. “Sheath your sword, or we’ll see if my shaft fares better than his blade.”
The Scot laughed him to scorn. “I laugh to scorn the power of man,” he reminded the youth. “For—”
“None of woman born, yes,” Ganymede agreed. “But it’s ambiguous, is it not, your prophecy?”
“It has been plain enough to see me through five centuries and more,” the Scot declared.
“‘Laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born may harm Macbeth,’” quoted the archer. “Does that mean none at all, or none of those who wield the power of man?”
“What difference does it make, stripling?” And the Scot took a menacing step towards the youth.
“Only that I have never owned to the power of man,” explained Ganymede. “My name is Rosalind, in truth. I am a maid.”
Macbeth paused, silent for a moment.
“Truly?” asked Benedick, and then he was stepping back with Helena as more company came down the stairs: the two Illyrians who had fooled them in the tavern.
Ganymede—or she who bore the name—kept her attention on the Scot. “I am Rosalind du Bois, though not a one of my shipmates bar this old man knew it,” she announced. “And I read your prophecy thus: that you are safe only from the power of men. If you dispute my interpretation then take one step more, and my arrow shall be the arbiter.”
“And my blade also,” and the younger guard had pushed forward to draw sword and stand by Rosalind. “For I am Viola, Duchess of Illyria, and I know full well my husband has spared these prisoners.”
Three times the Scot tensed, ready to try the truth of his charmed life. Three times his mettle failed. Perhaps a man who had lived five centuries fearing nothing had never had to test his courage; and now he at last had cause to use it, the Scot found it rusted and brittle.
“And know this,” Rosalind told him as he hesitated. “From this day forth each battlefield that falls beneath your shadow shall hold a maiden with a musket hunting for you. Your bloody reign I here consign to history!”
With a roar of thwarted rage the ancient warlord flung up his arms and gathered all the shadows in the room to him in a whirl of darkness. Ganymede’s arrow zipped through the murky air where he had stood, but only shattered against the far wall. The Scot was gone.
In his absence, there was a moment of relief from all concerned, but then Benedick broke in, “There goes my sword. Madam Doctor, are you able to whisk us away as swiftly as yon Scot just left?”
“Not without some time for calculation,” Helena informed him tightly.
Viola returned her blade to the scabbard and glanced across at Feste.
“It took a fool to see that clown above was naught but a distraction,” her sergeant remarked. “But even this old fool did not think it was diversion for so many. Whose is he?”
“Mine,” Helena confirmed. “So, may we ask, what is Illyria’s pleasure now?” Her eyes were fixed on Viola.
The garrison hall.
The air riotous with laughter, shouts and cheers as all lean in to hear Parolles strut and fret his hour upon the stage. Sir Toby drools ale and spittle into his beard. Orsino is scratching at a scrap of parchment, trying to record the prodigy for posterity. Don John critiques.
Enter a company: VIOLA and FESTE, ROSALIND and JACQUES, BENEDICK and DON PEDRO, HELENA.
PAROLLES WAS STILL at his fictional Battle of Lepanto. Already he had travelled on a cannonball and hauled himself out of the water by his own hair. Each listener had tried to challenge the lie—Orsino, Don John and Sir Toby amongst them—and each challenge he slew, and then piled up the bodies to reach even greater heights of the absurd. Where his words might have taken him, when the newcomers broke in, was past all guessing. Some men, when given rope, refuse to hang themselves but instead weave a ladder to the moon.
He faltered only when he saw his comrades, and silence reigned as every ear there hung on the words he had not said.
Into that quiet Viola barked out, “Guards, arrest the Aragonese villain, Don John!”
The guards were slow to react, but John started at his name and turned. He saw his brother, free and with a knowledge in his eye that did not bode well. Perhaps, if he put on a bold front and denied all culpability, he might ooze his way into Don Pedro’s good graces one again, but his nerve failed him. In a single motion he was over the table, kicking Sir Toby’s cup to spatter Orsino with the dregs. In a flash he was down the other side and running for the door.
Parolles, finding at last an opponent who required no great courage to best, tripped him, sending Aragon’s second son sprawling across the floor. As Don John spat and cursed, his assailant bent down and neatly relieved him of his purse and, to cover the larceny before so many eyes, of his knife. Thus drunken prophecy was proved true: the treasure that could shake the world had come into the hands of the world’s most ardent liar.
By then, Illyria’s soldiers were stirring, and enough of them piled on Don John to end his escape bid.
Orsino was staring at the young officer who had given the command. “What treason’s this? Who has released my prisoners and who assaults my guests?”
“One whom you swore would ever rule you,” Viola told him, stepping forward, and he went to greet her with a smile.
It was the matter of an hour before Orsino had listened to all that had happened—tales overlapping and sometimes contradictory, told by his wife, his fool and various of his prisoners. After that he sat in thought, banishing all save Viola, even the protesting Sir Toby, from the hall.
“HERE IS THE judgment of Illyria,” Orsino proclaimed, when at last he had reassembled the unlikely company. He sat, stern as a judge, with Sir Toby slouched half-conscious at his left hand, and Viola on his right. She was attired as befitted a duchess now, her splendour and her beauty drawing all eyes. Only Rosalind looked on her and thought, She is counting the minutes before she can throw all that off, and play the breeches part again. She herself had resisted any suggestion that she should lace herself back into a dress. If she was offending the dignity of the family du Bois then, of all men, her husband would understand.
Parolles was merry—he had spent the hour in finishing his tale for Sir Toby and the wine-sops of the garrison, and had profited from it in gold and in ale. Benedick was glad he had his prince back, and Pedro plainly optimistic to be freed. Don John, under guard, stood hunched at the back, practising his black looks. Rosalind had heard something of his history from Benedick, and no doubt the elder brother would pardon the younger yet again. But then, as wife to a second son herself, she could hardly complain of it.
Jacques was pensive and self-involved. Had he been telling everyone exactly what degrees of cogitation afflicted him—in iambs and at length—she would have said he was his old self. It seemed he was thinking on the melancholy story of the Scot—not often a philosopher came face to face with such a shard of history. No doubt he would regale them with his thoughts upon the matter in due course, but for now he was sensibly silent.
And Helena, of course: but Rosalind could not categorise or anatomise her. Magician, physician, walker of worlds, she stood still and regal behind them as though she were king and queen both, and the rest of their party no more than pawns. Yes, she had got them where they needed to be, but she was a fearsome creature, a power in the ascendant. Did we even need Prospero?
“I free you all,” Orsino pronounced, “but on condition that you, sir”—to Don Pedro—“go not about your task, but instead take ship for Aragon and there command the release of Sebastian, my wife’s brother. For this, I give your own brother into your care. I do not judge him, for the chiefest witness of what he might or might not have done is fled to darker places.”
“Though I had hoped to harbour in Milan,” Don Pedro agreed, “it seems that errand was lost before e’er it was begun. I accept your terms with all thanks.” He clapped Benedick on the shoulder. “So, you shall see your wife all the sooner. I hope you have replenished your store of wit.”
“And take this message back to Aragon,” Orsino added, gesturing for a scroll to be taken over to Don Pedro. “Illyria is tired of war and offers terms for our withdrawal. Let the Tuscan throne be a Tuscan matter. Bring this to Aragon’s alliance, and perhaps they will not fret that you never made Milan.”
IN THE GENERAL celebration that followed that pronunciation, Parolles relaxed. Wintering in the sunny climes of Aragon was surely better than a stay in the shadow of a sorcerer’s tower. The stories that came out of Milan turned the rumour-mills of all Europe: statues that spoke and moved, gusts of air with human faces; a city full of bodiless voices, lights and terrible wonders.
But, even as Pedro and Benedick drew apart to discuss their return home, Helena glided to his elbow, drawing Ganymede—no, Rosalind—and Jacques close.
“Let the Spanish run home to bicker about prisoners and war,” she murmured. “Milan awaits us.”
“You’ll find no barque so bound out of this port,” Jacques cautioned her. “Though all the winds—” And then he stopped at Helena’s upraised hand.
“We need no ship, nor winds, to reach Milan.”
“But what can we hope to achieve?” Rosalind ventured. “Prospero’s dead, and far beyond joining the league.”
“And would our journey ever have borne fruit?” Helena shrugged. “Old Prospero scorned the dealings of nations for many years; I do not think we could have moved him to meddle now. But there are surely books and things of magic still in his lonely tower; perhaps a student with power and knowledge will find much to reward her. Will you go with me?”
“To see the secret city of the magus,” Jacques said swiftly, “of course!”
Rosalind was slower, but she nodded still. “The children and accounts can be my lord’s burden for another season,” she decided. “I have not had my fill of voyaging.”
And then, of course, Helena turned that cool, clear gaze on Parolles. He remembered his moment of self-knowledge outside the garrison—a flash of a time long gone, for he had never been very innocent, and what she now was, he had no name for.
Yet at the same time, she was the closest thing he had to an old friend.
“My stock back in Rousillon was low, my debts high,” he said, with unusual frankness. “And there are those in Milan who know neither my stories nor my vices. But may you bring me back to Illyria, after?”
“If your desire to travel is so meagre, than I shall,” she confirmed. “I myself shall have grander ambitions by then, I have no doubt. Perhaps I shall go places even Prospero but dreamt of.” And then she held a hand out to him—not to take his own, but to receive something. “If you would, keep Don John’s purse, but I must have the knife.”
“The knife?” Parolles frowned at her, then sudden revelation struck him. “The knife? This knife?” He had the thing in his hand, staring at its dull blade. “This is... the knife?” For a moment he felt a darkness coursing through him: a blade in his hand, and so many people within arm’s length. But for all his many, many vices, that was one he never owned. He gave the thing to Helena, and—treasure or not—counted himself glad to be rid of it.
Helena regarded it in her hand. “I saw this, when we stepped between worlds. Do you know the source of its power? It is not from here. A poet—a mummer—sent it, bloodstained, from his world to this by means of his words. Drove it here out of mourning for a friend.” She tucked it out of sight.
“Now stand close,” she instructed them, and fished the silver flask from within her robe. “Today, Milan in our world,” she tells you. “Tomorrow, perhaps, in yours.”