Kip Manley's Blog, page 2

Maiestie (Closing)

“My people!” cries the King, as he mounts the stage there in the middle, by Jo. “All of you that call this city home.” Spreading his arms as applause begins to spatter below, redouble, grow. “Here we are!” he cries, into the mounting approbation. “Your Court, of Roses!” Stepping to one side, throwing out a hand toward the short man in tweed, the meshback cap on his head, “The Soames!” cries the King. “For the North!” and the Soames lifts his hands clasped over his head to the cheers and whoops. Stepping to the other, leaning, a gesture toward the woman down there in her silvery gown, “The Helm,” cries the King, “for the Northeast Marches!” and she inclines her head. “The Handle!” cries the King, as the man in the pale blue suit steps forward, and the applause swells even more, deepening, thundering. “For Southwest!” And then, taking Jo’s hand in his, “For Southeast!” His voice booming. “Our Huntsman!” Down there, at the end of the stage, the Queen in her white coat’s climbed the steps, she’s making her way to the center, past the Soames, in her long white coat, her shorn head crowned with a white slouch hat, her hand outstretched to reach for the King’s other, outstretched hand. “And,” he cries, “I give you,” taking her hand in his own, “my sister,” and the applause, the cheers are deafening now, “your Queen!”

And when he can make himself heard again, “All of you,” he says, “all of you who washed up on this shore so long ago, in the light of a dawn that had never before been seen.” Jo looks down at her hand in his, at his hand about hers, firm, familiar, and the red mark there, on the heel of it, an old cut long since healed. “Who gave voice to a word that had never before been said, and sent it ringing out into the day. Tonight!” And the light that’s filling that little round is growing, warmer, brighter, shining up from them all, banishing the sky above, “Here!” cries the King, “And now!” And Jo looks over, past him, to the Queen, to Ysabel, holding his other hand. “My people!” cries the King. “Lift up your hands, your voices, with mine!”

Maiestie (Act IV)

Jo crumpled to white tile dusted over all about with gold, hand pressed to her breast clenching, relaxing, lifting, as she opens her eyes, “Ow,” she says. Reaching for the rim of the tub, and the skin between her breasts left clean, pale, dust falling as she pulls herself up, dust crunching under her fingers, squeaking under her thigh, her knee as she shifts, crusts of it clinging, wetly, dropping in darker clumps. The tub filled with dust, wet, a shoreline rippled, trembling, crumbling up as fingers wriggle free, “Ysabel,” says Jo, a croak, grabbing the hand, pulling, a chin appearing, lips spitting, working, eyes blinking, arm pulled free, shoulder, chest and throat a spilling hiss of dust that slithers under around behind her as she sits up shaking, sobbing, laughing soundlessly. Jo’s brushing dust from those eyes, those cheeks, the glinting stubble of that hair, that mouth, and Ysabel presses a kiss, triumphant, to the tips of her fingers.

Unsteadily Jo makes her way through buttery summer light to the robe that’s hung from a hook on the wall, the wall of white tile splattered, spangled in a great jagged bloom of gold all about the tub. Gold, shaken from plaid folds as she digs into a pocket of the robe, pulling out a crumpled orange pack of cigarettes, a book of matches.

Pop and spark Jo lights a cigarette, sits on the rim of the tub. Shakes out the match. Offers another to Ysabel straining against that softly golden weight to take it in her lips. Jo holds out her own, touching the bright coal of it to Ysabel’s, and Ysabel puffs until with a crackle hers is lit. Tips back her head, both hands resting limply on all that gold.

Maiestie (Act III)

“I will,” says Ysabel, sitting back, water sloshing milkily about her, “in a minute, I’m going to.” She sighs. “Go. Under. Until it’s done. The owr.” Reaching up out of the water she takes Jo’s hand in her own, slickly shining. “It might take some little while.”

“Define while,” says Jo.

“Minutes?” says Ysabel. “A few minutes. Nothing more. You mustn’t worry.”

“Underwater,” says Jo.

“Just don’t let go,” says Ysabel. The water trembles about her, the surface of it wrinkling, and already in the thick white clouds below sparks flare. “Ysabel,” says Jo, shifting her grip from Ysabel’s hand to her wrist, and “I’ll be fine,” says Ysabel, “Jo,” she says, “Jo, trust me,” and “I do,” says Jo. “In this,” says Ysabel, “trust me.”

“I do,” says Jo.

“Do you,” says Ysabel. “Do you,” but she bites off the next word, turns away, and her other hand breaks the water’s skin a billow of steam lifting to wipe at eyes and cheeks sheened with water, sweat, with tears, “it’s never, I always, I always knew, before,” she’s saying. Looking up, those green eyes immense, the black fuzz of her shorn hair.

“Ysabel,” says Jo.

“Now, I don’t,” says Ysabel.

“Yes,” says Jo.

“Do you,” says Ysabel, water lapping her chin, and “Yes,” says Jo again, as Ysabel says, “love me?”

Gallowglas (Opening)

A screaming cuts the silence of the car, right through the engine’s rumble, the hum of tires, the tocking turn signal. She’s kicking digging her feet into the backs of the seat ahead fighting to free her arms from the men on either side the car lurches, a grind, a thunk and to her right Leo winces, sparing a glace at the front seat, “Don’t do that,” he says. Streetlight flickering, flashes lighting his camel-colored coat, lost again in the gloom.

“Out of practice,” says Luys, up behind the wheel.

“Jo,” says Marfisa, leaning over the back of the front seat.

“Take me back,” says Jo, her quickly heaving breath.

“Jo,” says Marfisa again, reaching back and down for her hand, her knee, and “Look,” says Leo, and “Take me back,” says Jo, “right the hell now,” and Orlando’s hand snaps up to backhand her, she growls, kicks again, wrenching her arm from Orlando’s grasp, Leo’s holding grimly on, buffeted by blows as the car wobbles, wavers, Orlando’s hand coming up a fist and Marfisa lunging to grab at it, “Don’t!” cries Luys, gripping the wheel, ducking a flap of her sheepskin coat, and Jo’s screaming again. “Why,” bellows Leo, and the car is quiet, again. Engine-rumble, tire-hiss. Jo’s panting breath, too quick. Orlando’s hands, in his lap. “Why,” says Leo, “must we,” looking at her, past her, to Orlando, “what in blazes,” he says, and then, “what happened.”

“I was not told what happened;” says Orlando, and Jo’s saying, a burr in her breath, “You, you know,” as Orlando says, “merely where to find her.”

“And why were you asking where to find her,” says Leo, as Jo’s saying, “You know, she, she was,” and Orlando snorts. “Again, this,” he says.

“Let her speak,” says Leo.

Sun (Closing)

Laughter, a whoop of delight as they come across the darkly silent intersection, black parka, big green coat, hoodie over a nightgown leaping boots to clomp the last bit of snow in the gutter. On the wedge of sidewalk there across from the pizza place a mound of bicycles, tires fat and white, and skinny buff, ape-hanger bars over a comically tiny front wheel, banana seats glittering silver and gold, stumpy kid’s bikes in medicinal pinks and blues. Wound about and through a thick chain and also lengths of yellow plastic tape printed with bold black letters, CRIME SCENE– DO NOT CROSS. Hung on the front of the pile by chain and tape a door ripped from a car, white with letters that say ND POLICE and a rose stenciled near the bottom. The woman in the nightgown bangs a tattoo on the door, whooping again, as the man in the parka finds a padlock on the chain and fits a key to it. The man in the green coat leans over to catch a loosening hank of chain. The woman in the nightgown takes the weight of the car door, helping it down the pile clatter and scrape.

Backing out of the cabinet under the sink he’s hunched over rubbing the small of his back, grumble and whoof, settling on his knees on the lemon-yellow floor. He pulls from the cabinet a yellow tin that says Clabber Girl, and a white tin that says Guardsman Professional Strength, and a handful of rags. Reaching deep inside, thump and rattle, he pulls out a little red handheld vacuum cleaner, and then pulls himself to his feet, yawning, scratching himself under his loose blue shirt.

Sun (Act IV)

Sky Bridge, Theatre, Accessible Route, white letters on a blue sign hung in a counterbalanced assemblage of white poles leaning away from each other on the brick-paved corner. He’s wearing a trench coat over a black suit, bow tie crooked beneath his chin, dark curls shellacked, he’s looking along Second and then up and down Salmon, then at the watch on his wrist, heavy and gold. Behind him a couple of escalators rise to the glass-walled lobby that ceils this little plaza, this bit of garden, and over there on a plinth a great homolosine map of the world unfolded, stylized continents shaped in chrome, and the letters beneath it say World Trade Center. Enormous snowflakes of yellow-white lights dangle among the white poles and columns that brace and frame the glass above. He steps away down the sidewalk, past signs in dark windows that say Washington Federal, Invested Here, Right-size your Loan, and a green sigil of a long-tressed woman, crowned with a single star. A block away across the street a couple of figures, pale coat, green jacket and a flash of silver. He lifts a hand to beckon, once. Absently shaking his head.

Jo leads the way as they come over, in one hand her sword in its scabbard, in the other the mask, the mane undulating gently behind her. Roland’s gloved hands are empty, his head bare, his blue and white headphones down about his neck. “You’re cutting it close,” says Kerr, shooting his cuff to show his watch. “Less than an hour left. There’s already some caterers or something setting up.”

“Okay,” says Jo, looking past him along Second, the other corner there, the snowflake lights, then over down Taylor. Her breath a ragged banner. “Where do we go? Where they coming in?”

Sun Act (III)

A suit of worsted wool, grey sheened through with threads of black, and a crisp white shirt, there by the front door. He’s looking at the watch on his wrist, a heavy silver nest of gears and dials, the numbers and hashes picked out in something that gleams like mother-of-pearl. His sun-browned head’s quite bald, his cheeks dusted with white stubble. Out in the middle of the big front room a sword upright, the hilt of it wrapped in leather yellowed with long handling, and the floor where it’s been thrust is singed in a neat black circle. The window’s empty, the fireplace dark and cold, swept clean. From somewhere further, deeper in the house, a tumble of plucks and picks, flurried strums, mandolin, banjo, a guitar or two. He’s looking at his watch again.

A door swings open over across the room, a glimpse of kitchen beyond as Lymond steps through, wide eyes and maybe a grin, plain white T-shirt and bone-colored chinos and his shock of pinkish orange hair, wiping his hands on a floury towel. “Good afternoon, my lord,” says the man in the suit, but Lymond says sharply, “Welund,” and his maybe grin is gone. “We must find a way to live together, or we won’t.”

The man in the suit purses his lips. “If it regards your mother’s house,” he says, “once the question of succession’s settled, we might discuss what must–”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” says Lymond.

Sun (Act II)

Sunlight bright and clear pours through snow-dusted branches, through leaded glass, through venetian blinds lowered but louvered open, striking sharply from the silvery coffee pot, the spoons, the fork laid on a pristine white plate, the untouched glass of tomato juice, the upright console of the telephone, silver and black. Black cords plugged here and there wound together into a single hank that dangles over to the bulky headset clamped about his ears, over the unruly dreadlocks, a dully fuzzed white touched with gold. “I’ve no doubt of it, Welund,” he says. Somewhere in the room a toy piano’s tinkling a line of a fugue beneath a sticky chorus of saxophones. “But do recall,” he says, “this career as coinsmith and debt-minter’s but a hobby? You serve the court as lawright, first and foremost. Forge me a thing of clauses and parentheticals that I might use to cut away this ludicrous guarantee.” His crisp shirt salmon-colored, with collar and cuffs of smooth pale blue. His fitted boxers blue printed with a pattern of little dogs and fishes. “Nevertheless,” he says. Sipping black coffee from a thin bone china cup, careful of the microphone. His other hand he’s pointing to the map pinned up over the sideboard, touching an intersection in Northeast, sliding west and north, up and along the horn of the city above the river, stopping just short of St. Johns. “I understand that,” he says, “I do.” The slender man standing next to him wears a blue suit tight over broad shoulders, and his pink tie’s so pale it’s almost white, and he reaches past Agravante, over the river, to tap another intersection, in Northwest, near a little blob of color that says Civic Stadium, not more than a block from the long clear line of Burnside.

Sun (Act I)

The blade swung slowly parries up, to the left, low, to the right, and then a long low lunge, a stately thrust, a gleam slipping down the edge of it to splinter in the glittering guard about the hilt. Her free hand dropped back in a fist pulling herself back up, and tucks up close against her chest again.

“No,” he says.

Jo all in black shakes out her arms, works her head back and forth. Takes up her stance again, blade upright before her again, and again the parries, the lunge, the thrust.

“I can hear you thinking,” he says.

“I’m not,” she says, pulling back, “trying,” and the parries to all four quarters again, “for fast–”

“I don’t mean speed,” Roland says, “it’s,” his hands in fingerless bicycle gloves reach up, grasping, closing into fists about nothing. He claps them together, pushes himself up from the base of the engine hulking quietly idle, the housing of it painted an industrial pea-soup green, the great nest of gears racked vertically behind, waist-high and higher, glistening with grease. “The flow,” he says. The sword he’s holding is long, and straight, with a heavy golden pommel bright in the shadows. He plants himself before her in the narrow aisle, right foot forward, off-hand loosely curled against the small of his back, and he’s already moving, swipe and step and cut and back and down into a lunge, his off-hand swinging down and back, extending, pulling him up again, the sword returning, “Just so,” he says. “Again?” Falling forward into a lunge, pulling back, the sword licking at this parry, that. “You see?”

Sun (Opening)

There’s a tree now, towering above the snow-swept plaza, the green of it overwhelmed by lights hung all upon it, by blues almost white, reds almost pink and orange, by greens almost yellow and blue, a rift of light opened in the unearthly blue climbing all the way up to a pale slice of moon, and if that spread of sky above is all of it brighter than the tree, soaking up the coming day in pearly yellows and whites shining even now behind the unlit bulk of the courthouse, it’s still dark on the plaza, the snow blued by the shadows of the buildings all about, the darkened signs of banks and restaurants and jewelers, and the lights of that tree are enough to tamp down those shadows beneath it, and play fitfully over the man stood there, tall and broad in a shortwaisted jacket, his hair a dark black cap, looking over the base of the tree, wrapped in a hinged red box, printed with snowflakes. Welcome to Portland’s Living Room, it says. Be Merry. “Mason!” cries someone, somewhere up behind him, and he turns.

She’s coming down the great sweep of steps that walls that end of the plaza, careful of the drifts and pockets of snow, wrapped in a sheepskin jacket, and a knapsack on her back, her hair loose and wild about her head a creamy glow against the darkness behind her. “I had not thought to meet you here, again,” she says. In one hand a baseball bat.

“I hadn’t thought to see you again at all,” he says.