‘But she can’t dance for you anymore!’ Caputo pointed out desperately.
Guilfo shrugged.
‘True; but, you know the dance I would must like to see? Forisimo’s dance on the end of his rope.’
*
Chapter 18
Only the prison officials had witnessed Forisimo’s execution.
At last, one of the painters and craftsmen working on the theatre’s scenery had plucked up the courage to let Cauda know.
On hearing this, all strength vanished from Cauda legs.
They buckled beneath her, such that the painter had to support her as he helped her towards a chair seat aside for one of the scene changes.
Her chest felt ridiculously tight, constricting her breathing, even, it seemed, the furious beating of her heart.
She couldn’t dance any more; she realised that.
The last remnants of the deep love she had once held for dance had finally flowed from her.
She couldn’t stay here, close to Guilfo, the man responsible for all her deeply felt unhappiness.
There was no point in staying here any longer.
She still had the mask she had found in Guilfo’s quarters.
It would help her slip unrecognised past his men.
Why hadn’t she thought of this earlier, when she still had the chance to visit Forisimo?
It was odd wearing the mask.
Like she was no longer herself.
Like she was nothing more than the empty shell she felt she had become.
*
‘The Spirit of Dance!’
The posters Guilfo had had printed (ironically on yet one more of Forisimo’s remarkable machines) proclaimed a whole new experience for those visiting his theatre.
This would be the ‘very essence’, the ‘archetypal beginnings’, of dance performance.
Everyone was aware that Cauda had vanished. But they were also all aware, of course, that her talents had abandoned her.
And yet the posters portrayed her dancing, flowing through the most famous of her complicated moves.
‘The New Cauda!’
But how could there possibly be a new Cauda?
The city’s populace was intrigued.
They flocked to the first night.
*
Chapter 19
The scenery was the very same as that used in the opening sequences of Cauda’s performances.
The orchestra, too, followed the same musical introductions as the crowds settled into their boxes, their seats, their places down where it was standing room only. Here a middle section of the floor had been cordoned off, leaving a narrow passageway running between the crowds and connecting the stage with a small area towards the centre where ropes dangled from the darkness of the ceiling.
It was only when the music began to fade a little at a point where it usually began to rise that the audience’s excited, intrigued murmuring changed slightly, immediately aware of the difference, curious as to what it might mean.
A few of the murmurs became groans of disappointment when it was not the new Cauda who leapt out onto the stage but a languidly walking Guilfo.
Caputo frowned, wondering like so many other people amongst the crowd if he had been fooled into paying for a ticket to a show that would prove to be a massive disappointment.
He had heard, of course, that Cauda had left Guilfo and his theatre.
Unlike a great many in the audience, however, he didn’t feel somehow personally betrayed by the fading of her talents; for yes, many felt such a deep loss in their sensibilities, in their appreciation of the power of emotions, that they bizarrely held her responsible, as if she had willingly withheld her talents from them – as if she no loner cared, either for her dance, or for them.
Naturally, Caputo was all too aware of the nonsense of such a foolish belief.
He was the one responsible for Cauda’s withdrawal from their lives.
Maybe, now she was free of Guilfo’s influence, she might also be freed of the influences of his own potion.
If so, she might well return to being the Cauda she had been, the Cauda she still was, but for the malign effects of his damned poison!
Unless, as he suspected, as he had advised Guilfo to actually do, she had been fooled into accepting the poison as a calming medicine.
He should warn her, of course; he could tell her that it wasn’t a medicine at all, but the actual cause of all her troubles.
Because he knew where she had fled to.
He had seen the dull glimmers of candlelight in the supposedly abandoned workshops of Forisimo.
Forisimo’s workshop was an obvious place for her to retire to, of course.
No doubt Guilfo had worked that one out too; yet if he had, he didn’t seem to care enough to bring her back.
Caputo had seen Cauda shuffling from the building in the darkness, when she thought she would be able to pass along the gloomy lane undetected.
She was a distraught figure, one whom nobody but him might possible recognise.
She was no longer the Cauda he had fallen in love with.
And yet, naturally, he still loved her; for he knew that the Cauda he loved still existed, only now she was hidden deeply within this husk she had become.
He knew, too, that this ‘new’ Cauda was his creation.
So, all he had to do was to tell her to stop taking the potion.
To tell her that he knew it was dangerous for her, the very thing bringing her so low.
And how did he know all this?
Why, because he was the potion’s creator, of course!
How could he say all this to her without bringing all her hate – hate he himself had helped bring into being – down upon him?
And so he watched her each day as she stumbled wearily along the dark lane, his heart torn by indecision: realising that, if her deterioration continued, if she still continued to take his potion, he would have to risk telling her that the medicine Guilfo had given her was responsible.
Guilfo was talking to the audience, promising them a dance experience like no other they had seen before.
He calmed the hecklers, explaining that he, too, missed Cauda; even if, as it must be said, her talents had been deserting her of late.
‘But now I have something that not only comes close to her perfection; no, it actually betters it!’
The audience responded as much with grumbles of disbelief as with gasps of excitement. Many in the crowd peered expectantly towards the sides of the stage, wondering when this new dancer would at last make her entrance.
Caputo stared off there expectantly too, wondering whom this replacement could possibly be.
Wondering, hoping, against all reason, that somehow Cauda had returned, recovered and fully become herself once more.
From his box, he had a privileged view of the stage, of its exits and entrances hidden behind its layers of curtains.
There was no one there.
There was no ‘new’ Cauda.
*
Guilfo stepped down from the stage, using a small staircase that led him down towards the narrow walkway running between the crowd.
As he descended he produced a flint from his pocket, deftly using this to light a small wick that had been placed on a slender and graceful pedestal of almost human height.
‘Have you ever seen the dance of a flame?’ he asked loudly, smiling and ignoring the growing murmurs of discontent.
He took the wick from its pedestal, bringing with it a closely affixed crystal. Confidently striding up the narrow passageway, Guilfo stopped to invite those closest to him to stare more intently into the flame.
‘Who can honestly say they have never seen the Spirit of Dance within a flame?’
Those staring into Guilfo’s flame breathed out in disbelief, in amazement.
He was right; within the midst of the flame, a woman danced – perfectly, elegantly.
‘What is it? What can you see?’ other people in the audi
ence demanded in frustration.
‘Something remarkable you will soon all be able to see!’ Guilfo reassured them.
Guilfo stepped towards where the ropes dangled loosely from the theatre’s ceiling. These ropes instantly tautened, and in a moment Guilfo was rising above the crowd, hoisted upwards on a small platform.
As he disappeared into the darkness lying just below the ceiling, he reached out with his flaming wick towards Forisimo’s machine, expertly slipping it into place.
‘Behold ladies and gentlemen,’ Guilfo cried out excitedly. ‘The Spirit of Dance!’
And the entire audience gasped as Cauda leapt gracefully across the stage.
*
Chapter 20
Cauda wasn’t quite sure what had drawn her towards Forisimo’s workshops.
It was the scene of a murder, after all. Even if it was a murder Forisimo was perfectly innocent of.
Moreover, wouldn’t it be locked?
Still, she could think of nowhere else to go. And when she had arrived in the Lane Without Name, she had felt its name quite aptly summed up her own feelings about herself: wasn’t she now a girl without name, without purpose?
The door hadn’t been locked. In fact there were signs of it being broken into, the lock damaged.
She had hesitated, fearing that those who had done this might still be inside.
No; don’t be ridiculous, she’d told herself.
All this damage was down to those representing the authorities when they had caught Forisimo in the ‘act’ of killing his servant.
But would anyone else take advantage of the shop’s broken door?
No.
She had heard enough of the Lane Without Name to know even the city’s criminals gave it a wide berth.
The shopkeepers here had influential and yet indebted customers, along with powers than many thought verged on the magical.
In which case: why was she here?
She was already broken: no one could bring her lower than she already was.
In the corner of the dark workshop she’d made her home, she had a simple light, a small oil lantern she’d found in here when she had first nervously explored the building. Fortunately, she’d brought a flint with her when she’d fled the theatre; you will always need a flint, she had soon discovered when she had first arrived in the city, moving from one dark, abandoned building to the next. You need it for light, for warmth, for cooking food.
As she’d fumbled for her flint in her bag, she’d also mistakenly dragged out the medicine one of the kitchen maids had given her, promising her it would cure her anxieties. The bottle had dropped from the bag, her reflexes no longer quick enough for her to be capable of catching it before it smashed upon the floor.
She had seen the blood in the hall, naturally. And in the room Forisimo appeared to have made his quarters.
In his workshops there were a variety of contraptions, many incomplete; as they must now remain forever.
She didn't move around much in the building, for she had no wish to draw attention to other inhabitants in the lane that Forisimo’s workshops were occupied once more. Now and again she had to leave, seeking out food, but she kept all this to a minimum, not least because she knew she would have to carefully eke out the money she had brought with her.
She lit the workshop’s fire only late on a night, when the smoke curling up from the chimney would be invisible in the darkness.
Fortunately, it was as she prepared to light it once more that she heard someone moving along the dark corridor outside her door.
She rushed silently towards the lantern, extinguishing it with a sharp blow of breath. Then she ducked breath the table, surprised that enough of her grace seemed to have returned to her to allow her to do all this swiftly and quietly.
The door opened, the dim light of a glimmering lamp faintly illuminating the intruder.
‘You!’ Cauda cried out bitterly, furiously launching herself at him.
*
Chapter 21
Caputo gasped.
Magic!
It had to be magic!
Cauda was there, on stage! Dancing as sublimely as she had ever danced!
The crowd was ecstatic. Everyone had risen to their feet, eyes wide with amazement, with elation and new found love.
It…just…wasn’t…possible!
And yet he could see her for himself!
The deep love she felt for her dance had returned. It emanated from her in every twist, every leap, she made.
She flowed across the stage, moved through one scene to another, as fluid and bright as sunlit ripples within a stream; ripples that spread out from her, bathing her audience of newly faithful worshippers in her love for them.
Love, love, love.
Yes, it was love!
The Spirit of Dance was the very essence of love!
*
This new Cauda was so less troublesome than the old one!
All those interminable problems she had created for him: the chaotic scenes after every show, when all her admirers congregated around her dressing room door; all those flowers, keeping his people busy with unnecessary tasks like accepting delivery for them, or producing vases of water; the guards he had to deploy, simply to ensure she didn’t cause him any more trouble.
The new Cauda had absolutely no faults.
Her dancing, of course, was flawless. She never tired, either. One show could quickly follow another, the only people complaining being his theatre hands, who could always be placated with threats to their livelihood.
Cauda would dance ceaselessly for him if he so wished.
Indeed, Guilfo admitted with a knowing grin, he could even have fallen in love with her if there really had been anything there to love!
Admittedly, too, he’d never won the love of the real Cauda.
But what is love other than requiring something from another, something you can share with them?
Their company.
Their laughter.
Their gift for dance.
Their beauty.
And didn’t he, now, have all those things?
The things he cared for most about her were now his for the taking; his for the replaying whenever he wished.
Her very essence, her spirit, was his. And his alone: for wasn’t the real Cauda now only a poor, pathetic whisper of what she had once been?
He, on the other hand, would soon be richer, more famous, than ever.
Forisimo’s contraption still required copying, of course, to fulfil his dream of having Cauda perform for him in a number of theatres all at the very same time. But his craftsmen were all ready working on that, copying for the moment the details of the machine.
He’d had a special platform, along with access stairs, constructed alongside the machine, allowing them to study it with the minimum of disturbance to the shows. At some point, probably, they would need to take the vast contraption apart – but he had warned them that they had better make sure, before they move even one bolt, that they knew how to piece it all together again!
He didn’t want any disruption to the now incredibly smooth running of his shows.
He didn’t want to cancel any performance.
He was worried that, if he did, he would lose momentum in his promotion of this entirely new form of theatrical event.
Already, there had been a steady falling away in the numbers making up his audiences.
He couldn't understand why.
What was wrong with the people in this city?
*
Caputo still visited the theatre to see Cauda dance.
See her as she used to dance.
He missed, though, the way that she would personally address the audience towards the end of her performance.
The way, too, that the dance wasn’t always quite so flawless, so mechanical – so predictable.
Sometimes, he realised now, there had indeed been the odd fault in her dancing; and yet part of her remarkable skill
was being to address that brief slip and transform it into some new, entirely unexpected move that left everyone gasping with admiration.
She’d had a relationship with her admirers that the new Cauda could never hope to capture.
Her presence was based upon her vulnerability as much as her perfection.
The way she gasped, breathless with elation rather than exhaustion, as she spoke to the crowds, thanking them for coming to see her.
The way she quick-wittedly responded to the odd jape delivered by some young rascal in the audience.
The way she blushed, briefly disconcerted, at the cheekiness of such comments.
Where was all that in Guilfo’s ‘new’ Cauda?
He still caught the odd sighting of her in his lane.
She was improving, he was sure of it.
She walked once again with a lighter tripping of her feet.
She threw her head back, to catch the odd ray of sun streaming down into the bleakness running between the high buildings.
Her eyes sparkled once more whenever she did this.
She was even smiling once more. More impossibly still, he even believed he had heard her laughing, a musical giggling coming from Forisimo’s otherwise abandoned workshops.
The potion; she must have stopped taking the potion!
She was beautiful once more, a gorgeousness that lit up the darkness of the lane whenever he saw her.
Why did he need to go anymore to see Guilfo’s imposter when he had the real thing here to admire?
Even the way she walked was a dance to him once more, in its breeziness, its elegance and sparseness of unnecessary movement.
She no longer tried to hide herself away as she made her way down the lane.
She was gradually beginning to suffuse herself with love.
To emanate love.
Yes: Caputo felt that overflowing of love even as he watched her from his highest window.
She had let the door to the workshops close behind her, yet now it opened slightly once more.
A shadowy form appeared in the doorway.
It was a man wearing a mask, he saw.
For Caputo knew enough of those masks to know it wasn’t a perfectly fitting mask; it wasn’t one that had been specifically crafted for its wearer.