And while she’d been in there, hope that she would be eventually reunited with him had returned.
What had passed between them to restore that hope?
Who knows for sure?
But he could guess.
Cauda, bless her, would have been relieved that Forisimo still loved her; that he hadn’t, as she must have feared, found someone else and abandoned her.
A man in prison can still love you. And even a man awaiting execution – particularity an innocent man – can still live (at least for a while) in hope that new evidence might soon set him free.
Guilfo did it!
He chuckled richly as he imagined their angry, conspiratorial whispers.
I know he did!
Oh, how he’d wished he’d been there to hear it.
Or, even better, to have captured it all on Forisimo’s marvellous machine!
How sweet would that be?
As it was, of course, he needed that wonderful device to record Cauda’s wonderful return to perfection.
He would capture her every performance from now on, from a variety of angles, moving the machine around the theatre’s overarching framework until he had a whole volume of stolen images.
In the meantime, he could begin administering Master Caputo’s own marvellous creation.
He might even up the dosage a little; he didn’t want to risk Cauda’s performance being affected when Forisimo was finally executed, after all.
*
How hard would it be to find evidence that Guilfo was responsible for the death of Forisimo’s servant?
He wouldn’t be expecting Cauda to be searching for it, after all.
It was this thought that kept Cauda hopeful that she could save Forisimo’s life.
It was this deep sense of hope that now unintentionally came through in her dance. It gave here an energy she had lacked while she had feared what had happened to him, living in dread that he no longer loved her.
Whenever her dance was over, even while she was preparing for the next performance, she was listening closely to the conversations going on about her, reasoning that someone must know what had really happened.
She also made excuses to visit Guilfo’s quarters and offices whenever she knew he was out – a forgotten purse, an important item required for a performance – and was quite surprised and overjoyed at how trusting the men were in allowing her access.
When she came across a drawer containing a multitude of masks, she prayed she would find one of Forisimo: but on this occasion, she hadn’t had an opportunity to make a complete search of Guilfo’s collection, being interrupted by a smiling guard who innocently asked if she’d like him to help her search for her missing ring.
She’d almost got caught red handed; and as it was, she’d had to crumple up the mask she was holding in her hand (thankfully it was gossamer thin, scrunching up into something easily veiled in her closed fist) rather than returning it to the drawer, hoping that Guilfo wouldn’t miss one mask from amongst so many.
If Guilfo’s men were helpful and complacent about her every move while she was within the theatre, this wasn’t the case whenever she left her own well-appointed quarters to tour the city. She had hoped to give them the slip once more, so that she could visit Forisimo, but the men following her seemed strangely prescient when it came to predicting her every attempt to shake them off.
She would have liked to see him, or at least to have heard from him, if only to ask him how much longer she had to find evidence clearing him of his crime. It couldn’t be much longer, she realised.
When they had met in the cell, she had avoided asking him when his execution had been set for.
Knowing the answer would have seemed too final, destroying any hope she had that he could be saved.
She just knew she had to work with the utmost urgency.
But now, of course, now that she had searched continuously and diligently for proof of his innocence and found none, she dearly wished that she did have some idea of what time constraints she was working under.
She had received no message form Forisimo, as if – just as she was being denied access to see him – any contact he was trying to establish was being intercepted.
She didn't even have any way of knowing if he had already been executed or not, unless she heard about it from the people around her.
When she dared, she quietly asked some of them, the ones she believed she could trust to keep a secret, if they had heard anything of Forisimo.
They would shake their heads, smiling grimly, perhaps pityingly, at her; but their eyes seemed wide with fear, a sign, she believed, that they were worried for their jobs, their livelihoods, living under threats made by Guilfo that Forisimo mustn’t be discussed under any circumstances.
Gradually, she began to loathe these people for their weakness, their betrayal of both her and Forisimo.
At this very moment, Forisimo could already be dead. But she wouldn’t know about it until someone had the courage to tell her.
Even old, trusted stagehands like Delfaris had begun to stare at her anxiously, to avoid her whenever they presumed she was about to approach them, as if they feared being drawn into her conspiracies, lest it angered Guilfo.
They were all part of her imprisonment here, weren’t they?
The gilding on her cage.
For they all, in their way, participated in Guilfo’s entrapment of her within his theatre.
The love she had had for them all was crumbling daily.
It was being replaced by hate.
*
Chapter 16
Being one of the more demanding sequences, amongst what were already so many difficult moves, the leaping pirouette was always eagerly awaited by the crowd.
To make it work, Cauda had to complete the exact number of twirls: or, rather, to ensure she flowed effortlessly into the next moves, she had to half complete the last spin.
After leaping so high, as if using some invisible springboard, a poor landing could easily result in a badly sprained or even broken ankle or leg. And yet the area she had chosen to land upon was no larger than a dinner plate, and rose two feet above the stage, a platform taking the shape of a stump of a slender tree.
The leap and the twirls, as expected, were perfectly flawless. But the foot came down a little flat as opposed to being upright, and balanced precariously upon the point of toe. Such a landing failed to give her the graceful spring into the next leap, the move – for Cauda at least – appearing ungainly and forced.
The crowd gasped in dismay.
In one of the better boxes, a richly overfeed man sighed with even greater dismay than anyone else in the theatre, his distress made all the more painful by pangs of guilt.
Although this particular fault of Cauda’s had been the most potentially dangerous so far, any number of her earlier mistakes could have resulted in an agonising fall or even a shattered leg. Fortunately, each time she had recovered, that natural grace of Cauda briefly sparkling into life once more and preventing the mistake from turning into something worse.
There were gaps in tonight’s crowd, something Caputo had never seen before in all the times he had attended Cauda’s performances.
Gradually, people were beginning to realise their goddess of dance was not infallible after all. They were becoming less forgiving of her mistakes.
Caputo came to watch her every evening, his bill with Seneore now quite serious, for he had no wish to give Guilfo the pleasure of seeing that he had become every bit as enamoured with Cauda as the impresario was.
Naturally, he repeated a number of his disguises, yet never so much that it would draw attention to the high number of attendances he was making, bringing him to Guilfo’s attention.
In his guise as a wealthy, unfit man, he felt suitably attired to slump miserably in his chair.
That bright, exhilarating effusion of love that he had so admired in Cauda’s performances was no longer present. Like so many in her usually vas
t audiences of worshippers, he had felt that he was bathing in that glorious outpouring of emotion, sharing in her understanding and expression of such complex feelings: how could anyone not fall in love with such a remarkable woman?
Now she went through her moves as if it were simply a matter of progressing from one well-practised sequence to another – and if the passages and their interchanges had been of a simpler nature, she might have managed it too. But her dances were renowned for their detailing, their marvellous intricacy, their intimacy: and these expressive manoeuvres just couldn't be achieved by anyone who didn’t feel the emotion they were hoping to convey.
And Cauda, Caputo had to sadly admit, now lacked that love she had thrown into her dancing, transforming the unseeable, the abstract, into something physically beautiful and moving: such that that very emotion spun uncontrollably, deliciously, through you, a wave of purest pleasure setting everything tingling in delight and amazement.
Only those moments where her dance reflected sadness or hate now retained those qualities, saturating you in a coldness that would no longer be immediately redeemed by the sheer illumination and heat of ecstasy, of love’s vibrancy.
It was agonising to watch, especially for someone like Caputo, who had taken her overflowing of love as an invitation to fall in love with her.
It was first a suffusion, and then an absorption of her love.
And then that love insisted on being reflected back.
It was inevitable, wasn’t it, that such a connection flowing between them must eventually be acted upon?
Yes, he had been fortunate enough to be aware that the real focus of her love was for another.
That caused him agonies, not pleasure.
But for how long would that be the case?
Guilfo was gradually nourishing her on his potion, his Love Poison Number 13.
It would slowly extinguish her love for Forisimo.
And that had to be; it was for the best.
For just as Guilfo had feared, news of her lover’s execution would destroy her talent for expressing love through her dance.
Yes, yes: it was a love that had to be destroyed, for her own good.
For the good of her skills, of her performance.
That was something that she herself wouldn't like to see destroyed.
And, freed of her hopeless love for a dead man, she would be free to love again.
Free to love him, Caputo.
Yes, all this is what he had firmly believed, what he had willingly embraced to grant him slivers of hope as he admitted he was hopelessly falling in love with Cauda.
But now?
He realised something was going badly wrong.
His poison hadn’t been tested, after all.
He’d unfortunately had to merely assume that his potion would be adequate to its appointed tasks.
And, indeed, it was poisoning her love.
Poisoning, though – as he had feared, as he had warned Guilfo – her love for her dance.
Surely Guilfo must be recognising this too?
How could he remain in love with someone who is no longer the person he had fallen in love with?
Surely he must soon cut down on the dosages of potion, if not cease nursing her on it all together?
*
She was passed her best: there was now no doubt about that.
He wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, that she had gone beyond any hope of recovering her talents.
Thankfully, he had her captured at her very best.
Forisimo’s truly remarkable machine had captured the very spirit of her dance!
When the theatre’s stage had been completely deserted – and posting his men at all the entrances so he wouldn’t be disturbed – Guilfo had played back some of the images he had captured of Cauda’s dancing.
It could have been her up there on the stage; there was no doubt about it.
It was her very essence rushing across the stage, leaping into the air, landing silently upon barely creaking floorboards.
Because, yes: Forisimo’s ingenious machine also caught the sounds – even the emotions – of her dance!
These emotions emanated from her presence, as if she were the real, truly wonderful thing!
She wasn’t there flat, unmoving, as a person was captured in a painting: no, she was there as if she were right there before you, moving around you, allowing you to move around her!
As you saw here there, you felt sure you could reach out and touch – even embrace her!
But here was both the only failing and yet also the greatest feat of the machine and the images it played out before you.
For despite the apparent solidity of the Cauda flowing about you, your hand passed through her, as if she were merely ghostlike. And yet when she flowed through you; then you experienced the most intense burst of emotions, of fear, of elation – of love!
He would briefly feel as if he himself could break into dance, he was so full of joy!
How wonderful was this whole new Cauda?
How faultless was she?
For, of course, unlike the real Cauda, she would never age.
She would never lose her beauty.
Never forfeit her beauty of movement – for every dancer eventually succumbs to the punishment they have inflicted on their bodies, their bones, their muscles.
Every dancer will ultimately suffer the indignity of becoming more cramped and ungainly in their actions than anyone who, at one time, benefited from nothing but the merest sliver of their immense talent, their god-like grace and elegance.
But this Cauda; she would live for ever!
*
Chapter 17
Forisimo was glad that his execution wasn’t going to take place in public.
Obviously, neither he nor his supposed crime were seen as important enough to be worthy of a celebrated event.
This more private, more personal death suited him far better.
He wouldn’t have wanted Cauda to witness this.
Still less would he have liked to see her suffer as he was jeered by the crowds who gathered on such occasions, regarding the demise of any criminal as free entertainment, an opportunity to sell their wares, meet new girls or boys, get drunk and partake in merrymaking.
He laughed.
It was such a simple contraption when all was said and done, this final setter of scenes, with its single rope, its trio of upright and horizontal timbers.
He could, given the time, had he been appointed to the task, have made numerous improvements in its efficiency.
It was such a small stage for such an unrepeatable, final act.
The invisible curtain being drawn on a life.
*
Naturally, Guilfo didn’t recognise the man who had insisted that he be seen, ‘…or the number thirteen may well be an unlucky number for your master!’
He looked like so many admirers of Cauda who had recently forced their way past Guilfo’s men, demanding to know what mistreatments their angel must be suffering to be brought so low.
Wealthy. Overweight. Out of condition.
‘You must cut down the dosage!’ the man hissed. ‘Or better still, cut it out all together!’
‘Caputo?’ Guilfo said only a little unsurely. ‘It is you, I presume, Master Caputo?’
He didn’t stand up to greet Caputo. But he did, with a lazy wave of a hand, invite his visitor to take a seat alongside him.
With another airy wave, he dismissed his men.
Caputo refused to take up the offer of the seat. He was raging.
‘How much are you giving her?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, if it worries you so much, Caputo,’ Guilfo replied nonchalantly, ‘then I’ll bring all the dosages to an end. I mean, obviously you’re worried that there is something dangerously amiss with the potion you’ve miss-sold me!’
‘Miss-sold you?’ Caputo fumed. ‘I warned you it hadn’t been tested!’
‘Hrm, not so much a warning as a sim
ple statement, I believe…’ Guilfo coolly replied.
‘You’re destroy the love she feels for everything! Is that what you really want? What use is she to you if she can no longer dance?’
‘Oh, perhaps you’re flattering yourself too much to claim this is all down to your poisons, Caputo: I do believe she’s letting this perfectly wild idea fester within her that I had something to do with Forisimo’s murder of his poor servant!’
He feigned a surprised, innocent face.
‘But if you love her, surely you must realise–’
‘Love her? No, no; it was simply an infatuation – I realise that now. Yes, yes; despite all the problems arising from your ridiculous concoction, Caputo, I suppose I must at least thank you for opening my eyes to my foolishness – without her talent for dance, she’s just one more rather pretty girl, that’s all.’
‘She no longer has the love within her that she brings to her dance! We have destroyed it – destroyed the thing we loved!’
‘Loved?’
Guilfo eyed Caputo curiously. He chuckled richly, enjoying this moment.
‘So: it seems she has captured your heart, too, Caputo! It is an astounding talent, don’t you think?’
‘A talent we’ve destroyed!’ Caputo hissed angrily, obviously wise enough to avoid making any pointlessly foolishness attempts to deny his love.
‘It would have inevitably come to an end at some point,’ Guilfo declared airily. ‘I’ve seen it happen so many times, to so many wonderful dancers; sad, yes – but nothing that I can accept any blame for.’
‘Why are you doing this to her?’ Caputo was quite obviously astounded by Guilfo’s acceptance that his prize star’s skills were so rapidly deserting her. ‘Forisimo is due to be executed soon – indeed, he might already have been executed! The whole point of my potion was to harden her heart to his death, so that it wouldn’t affect her dance! Yet you have made sure our cure has been a far worse disease than her love for him!’
Guilfo smiled brightly.
‘And so fortunately, I think, Cauda has had the good sense to harden her heart to Forisimo and his predicament; sometimes, we are left with no choice but to do this, if we ourselves are to survive. How much lower would she be brought, do you think, if she wasted her time mourning this murderous man?’