The Black Throne

The motley costume concealed the inhumanly thick musculature of his arms and shoulders, and he displayed a talent I would never have expected for clowning. It was only a matter of days before he had become the prince's favorite jester.

Soon we were into March, and it became increasingly apparent—at least to me, in my garish garb, as I put Emerson through his paces—that Trippetta regarded Peters only as another of the freaks who appeared among the entertainers: amusing, but not to be taken seriously.

I'd even done a foolish and avuncular thing one day. Catching her aside following a performance, I did not exactly ask Trippetta her intentions toward Peters in so many words; but I had wanted to find where he stood in her regard, for having him smitten and mooning about as he was might well interfere with his ability to act and react quickly and with a clear head should the necessity arise.

She gave me her pert smile and curtsied.

"Yes, Sir Giant?" she responded to my salutation. "How may I serve?"

"Just a point of information, lovely miss," I said. "You must be aware of my friend Peters' attentions—"

"The jester? 'Twould be difficult not to, Sir Giant, for he is always there, whenever I turn—gri

"He is very fond of you, Miss Trippetta. While your affairs are none of my affair, so to speak, friendship bids me exceed common civility and inquire as to your feelings on his regard. That is to say—"

"Do I feel that the fool is making a fool of himself?" she finished. "Fairly put, and the answer is yes, Sir Giant. I do not wish to hurt a countryman of his stature, but Prince Prospero himself has smiled upon me twice now and complimented my beauty. I have considerably higher hopes than an alliance with one who represents everything which caused me to flee the American Wilderness. I am, Sir Giant, a lady; and I feel my position in life may soon be elevated to reflect my tastes and talents."

"Thank you, Miss Trippetta," I acknowledged. "It is a refreshing thing to encounter in the midst of courtly circumlocution."

"You are welcome, Sir Giant," she said, granting me another curtsy. "And you might tell your friend that, having seen many, I deem him an extraordinary fool."

"I shall convey the compliment." I turned on my heel then and departed.

Later, when I summarized our conversation for Peters, removing my premeditation to make it seem more spontaneous, he only gri

I realized then—perhaps had known all along—that talking was of no use, that he would break his heart over her one way or the other no matter what I said or how I said it.

I wished for Ligeia's counsel, or Valdemar's. But that would have to wait.

It was more than the place by which she walked to sing. Tonight she came to be alone, as more and more she did these troubled days. Barefoot, on the broad, brown expanse, she paced; and the sea boomed beside her and ebbed, the sky grown coppery mountains where cloud had been, echoes of that wave-clap out, out, out, returning sound for sea. Her contralto played against its lowering note as she turned and trod the emptied path of the whales, out through limp, damp weed, glass-slick stones of many colors, shells, skeletons, shipwrecks. It was among the bones of the sea, in a coral grove, that she found him—orange, red, green, and yellow still clinging to the dampness, like the distillation of all the rainbows arching centuries above. He looked away and dried his eyes when he felt that she was near.

Turning again, he regarded her.

"Lady," he said, "I am sorry."

"And I," she replied, "for I meant this as a place of joy."

"You are—"

"A

"But you're all grown!"

"So I am. Come here."

He did, and she held him.

"You'll be my mother, then?" he asked.

"Of course," she told him. "Anyone, Eddie. Anyone you need."

Abruptly, he wept again.

"I'd a dream," he said, "that I was grown, too. It hurt so... ."

"I know."

"I think that I will not go back. I believe that I shall dwell here forever."

"If you wish. It is always your home, wherever you may be."

After an hour or a year he drew away from her and turned.

"Do you hear it?" he asked.

The echo of the retreating sea still hung in the air about them, and she only nodded in reply.

"It calls to me."

"I know."

"I should go to it."

"No. You need not."

"Then I wish to. The rest is pain."

She caught up his hand.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I never meant the world should use you as it has. I had a dream. For us. It has been broken. You were caught, in a place of pain. I love you, Eddie. You are too pure a spirit for what the world has offered you."

"It has given me vision, A

She looked away.

"Was it worth the price?" she asked.

He bowed and kissed her hand.

"Of course," he replied.

They listened to the echo of the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar. Then, "I must go now," he said.

"Bide a while."

"Then sing to me."

She sang, and singing made; the sea became the self that was her song. The tiger-shadows fell like bars about them.

"Thank you," he said, at length. "I love you, too, A

"No. You don't."

"Yes. I do. I know you can hold me, for this is your kingdom." His gaze fell upon their hands. "Please don't."

She studied the gray-eyed child's face, the light of forty years upon it, as if looking up from a coffin.

Then she opened her hand.

"Bon voyage, Eddie."

"Au revoir," he said; and, turning, he headed into the east, where the sea had gone and its voice thudded, warbled, then rose in pitch.

She turned the other way and walked back to the shore. The copper mountains turned to coal. The sky filled up and the lights came on. She sat on a cliff beneath their blaze and listened as the blood-warm tide came in.

IX

"Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?" Death was the obvious reply. "And when," I said, "is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?"... the answer, here also, is obvious—"When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world—and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover."

The Philosophy of Composition, Edgar A. Poe

It was into April's days, warm sunlight in that patch of blue we comics call the sky. The nights came balmy—guitar-noted, flamenco-stamped, fire-flocked, with constant sounds of revelry to the north.

More sedate the pleasures of the courtyard. Honest fatigue had come to rule here. Prince Prospero had grown heavier and more florid of face, and he had developed a slight limp. It has been suggested that he now numbered oriental drugs among his pleasures—smoking the opium of Bengal which leads to horrid nightmares, I am told.

I was not present when it happened. I had been taking one of my nightly walks with A

A servant to one of the minister's wives rushed up to A