Wisdom's Kiss (64 page)

ROGER
[aside]
: Would that I could speak such poetry ... That acrobat is braver than I'd ever hope to be.

BENEVOLENCE:
Is it safe to crack my eyes? I'm yet nigh dead from fright!

WISDOM:
You handsome and most gifted man, I am flattered more than e'er I've been. Escort me to him, I beg you, that I may thank him instantly. Take my hand; it does not bite.

TIPS:
Such poise, such grace, such courage ... Your wish commands me. Hold me here.

Wisdom and the Master of Air float on a wire across the stage.

WISDOM:
I fly again! Dear sir, I am forever grateful. Always I could sail with you and know your arms ... your face ... your eyes...
[Aside]
Goodness, I am smitten!

TIPS:
Though I long to drink your eyes, lend me your ear, fair princess. I whisper this: Join me and I shall crown you queen of all the heavens.

WISDOM:
Never have I lived until this moment...

They land before Rüdiger.

TIPS:
Your Majesty.

WISDOM:
Your Majesty ... the rose ... I thank you...

WILHELMINA
[aside]
: There are not words enough in any tongue to detail such unseemliness.

ROGER
[
aside
]: How brave she is! I hope she'll shape me so!

RÜDIGER:
What a show! An apogee for my beloved Circus Primus! I applaud—you must repeat it! Tomorrow night—I demand it!

WISDOM:
I cannot deny such a request...
[Aside to Tips]
Nor the other ... My heart beats fast.

WILHELMINA:
Such contumely! We depart.

BENEVOLENCE:
And we as well. My child, come!

WISDOM:
I shan't! Don't I belong here?

RÜDIGER:
Tomorrow night we meet again! Good evening, all! Farewell for now!

WISDOM:
In all my life, never will I forget this night...

BENEVOLENCE:
Nor I, I fear...
[Aside]
So hours come and hours go as we await the next day's dusk. Commoners jest merrily on the undiscovered talents of an unknown princess, but aristocrats hiss she knows not her place. The Spindle Kaiser has defamed our noble rank, and through his greed for circus defames Montagne. Selfish man! Pleasure is fleeting, memory long. The tender lass you would hang on a wire must soon rule this rabble. Yet I cannot force reason through either skull. Both emperor and princess starve logic for whimsy, sacrificing their futures for the glitter of glee. Their futures, aye, and mine as well, and others'. Many lives indeed shall be suspended from that circus thread...

***

Wisdom is posed asleep on the circus stage, guarded by a demon. Enter Rüdiger IV, Benevolence and Fortitude, and Wilhelmina and Roger with retinue.

BENEVOLENCE [to
Fortitude]:
Observe the princess immobile. Let us pray she remains so.

FORTITUDE
[aside]
: How can Princess Wisdom be so lovely and yet so foreboding?

WILHELMINA
[to
Rüdiger]:
You will not forget our pact, Your Majesty.

RÜDIGER
[to
Wilhelmina]:
I could not, Your Most Noble Grace ... Let the performance begin!

Tips battles Felis onstage and midair.

ROGER:
O! Wisdom! I would defend you if I could!

RÜDIGER:
The demon is vanquished! A brilliant performance; I am so proud ... And yet with a touch they leave the script. I am not so pleased with that part.

Wisdom and Tips dance together onstage and midair.

BENEVOLENCE
[aside]
: Caution, Granddaughter, caution! The passion you display may yet destroy you.

WILHELMINA
[to
Roger]:
With her every touch, the princess cuckolds you. This is not performance but burlesque, and a mockery of this duchy and your rule.

Wisdom and Tips land, then bow to Rüdiger.

WILHELMINA
[to
Roger]:
We strike while the iron is hot ere the iron flees us. Observe my handiwork, Son.

RÜDIGER:
As emperor of this great land, I have many duties, none of which pleases me so much—excepting of course this marvelous circus!—as officiating at the union of man and wife. Therefore, without further ado, I announce that Duke Roger and Princess Wisdom will wed tomorrow.

WISDOM
[aside]
: So soon! Horrors! My heart shall break!

FORTITUDE:
O! Angel! I know your face!

WISDOM:
Speak not with such familiarity to my true love—my angel, Tips!

TIPS:
Is it—my eyes deceive me—it is my first and oldest friend. Trudy!

FORTITUDE:
Tips, I have found you at last—in the arms of another!

Fortitude faints. Wisdom faints.

ROGER:
My darling princess! Now I may race to your rescue!

TIPS:
My first love, and my true love, both fallen ... What awful grief have I brought upon us all? O woe!

WILHELMINA
[to
Rüdiger]:
You bind that harlot to my son by dusk tomorrow, or all of hell will suffer for it.

***

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?

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?

Benevolence paces. Wisdom writes at her desk. A knock at the window.

BENEVOLENCE:
A ghost, atop our other woes!

WISDOM:
It is my love come to me at last!

Enter Tips.

TIPS:
I mean no fright, Your Majesty, for I am no ghost, only a humble performer. I beg you: I must have a word with Lady Fortitude.

WISDOM:
What? Not me?

TIPS:
I must explain myself to her—perhaps my words will offer comfort.

BENEVOLENCE:
She has fled, I fear.

TIPS:
To Bacio? 'Twill be my undoing!

BENEVOLENCE:
I know not her location, or intent ... But tell us, fair lad, why tread our windowsill? We have a door quite serviceable; indeed, several.

TIPS:
The duchess, I suspect, has little stomach for my presence—

WISDOM:
So? Let all the world behold our love!

TIPS:
Moreover, I know this building's casing well, having many times traversed its facade in service to the emperor.

BENEVOLENCE:
As spy?

TIPS:
I must confess it. Love demands naught but truth.

WISDOM:
O my darling, you are too brilliant! How could I ever love another?

BENEVOLENCE:
A spy ... avocation of which we now have desperate need.

WISDOM:
O darling, you must spy for us!

TIPS:
I am not sure of this...

Escoffier stretches.

BENEVOLENCE:
I am certain the duchess schemes even now ... Know you her location?

TIPS:
Without fail ... Yet no human could enter that room unnoticed.

BENEVOLENCE:
Nor shall any human do so.

WISDOM:
O Nonna Ben! You would not!

BENEVOLENCE:
Spelling lost me my daughter, but perhaps it will preserve hers.

Exit Benevolence holding Escoffier. Wisdom and Tips embrace.

WISDOM:
A moment of bliss! I cannot deny myself!

TIPS:
Nor I ... Yet I confess I do not follow Her Majesty's thinking. How does spelling lend assistance—have you no dictionaries?

WISDOM:
Think not upon it. Simply deliver Escoffier to the duchess's chamber; he shall see to the rest.

Enter Escoffier, who leaps onto Tips's shoulders.

TIPS:
Gadzooks! He is like no creature I have ever known! Does this cat possess intelligence?

WISDOM:
Far more than that; he doth provide it. Fly, my love! Be safe! Be true!

Exit Tips and Escoffier through window.

WISDOM:
I shall keep the casement open in expectancy of their return ... My grandmother slumbers behind closed door, preserved in a veil of enchantment ... We have profaned our vow! Yes, yes, I am a sorceress—I do confess it—but one imperiled by misery eternal. O how I pray these Dark Arts illuminate my gloomy plight and light a path to resolution...

***

Wisdom enters.

WISDOM:
I should rest within, awaiting the return of angel and cat ... But I cannot. While my grandmother slumbers, I wander the halls; in pacing I ease this choking dread while awaiting the truth that caused it. Hark, who treads before me?

Enter Fortitude, weeping.

WISDOM:
Lady Fortitude. We two in misery are one.

FORTITUDE:
And misery awaits us both ... I must return to Bacio.

WISDOM:
What's this you say? What know you of my future misery?

FORTITUDE:
In Bacio I may weep alone, with scoundrels I know by face, not deed.

WISDOM:
I beg you reveal this misery of which you speak—my life hangs on your words!

FORTITUDE:
The words I heard made little sense, for I have no ear for jargon. Know you this term "abdication"?

WISDOM:
Abdication? Horrors! Is my sister to be forced from her throne?

FORTITUDE:
It must be so, though I am too drowned in pain to feel another's. I heard as well, I think—please touch me not; I can speak without being shaken, even to one as cruel as you—I heard it said that the crown of Montagne belonged to a man as crowns ought to ... I leave you now, forever! The suffering you face is but what you deserve, and more so.