Thirteenth Night by Alan Gordon Page A

the air. He kept flipping over, which did nothing to assuage his fear.
    â€œNo, no, no,” scolded an imperious man who seemed to be in charge. “That won’t do. The Angel of the Lord must be upright when flying. What can we do?”
    â€œHow about we weight his feet?” suggested the man at the windlass.
    â€œExcellent,” cried the man directing, and a pair of large stones were lashed to the unfortunate child’s shoes. He turned upright, the rope now digging painfully into his armpits. He looked unhappily at the man in charge and took a deep breath.
    â€œAll harken to me now,” he whined, barely audible.
    â€œNo, no, no,” shouted the man. “You are supposed to be an Angel of the Lord, coming from up high to deliver a message of hope. Don’t whimper, proclaim it, boy.”
    â€œBut it hurts,” whined the boy.
    â€œYou’ll stay up there until I decide to let you down, and that will be when you give the speech to my satisfaction.”
    I recognized him now. His name was Fabian, and he had been one of the Countess Olivia’s men when I was last in Orsino. He had played a small part in the events leading to Malvolio’s disgrace. I hoped it was small enough to escape notice. He was an impudent rascal when I first knew him, and now the rascal had metamorphosed into a tyrant.
    The boy struggled through his speech, scrunching up his face as if he thought it might be written on the insides of his eyelids. He did it a few more times in the same faint monotone, but the last rendition either satisfied Fabian or forced him to concede defeat, for he turned to a young deacon who was standing nearby.
    â€œThe cue is, ‘As I shall now tell to thee,’” he instructed him. The deacon nodded at a shivering group of onlookers who proved to be the choir, for they launched immediately into a shaky rendition of “Advenisti desirabilis.” Fabian immediately cut them off. “Not that one, that’s for later. That ‘welcome to hell’ one, that’s the one I mean. Good, that’s it. Jesus, that’s your cue to enter. Jesus?”
    â€œHere, damn you,” muttered Sebastian, huddled inside his cloak. He walked to his position in a most ungodly fashion. “Christ, why did they have to put Christmas in the winter?”
    â€œNow, now, Count. That’s hardly the spirit we want. Your first speech, if you please.”
    â€œHard ways have I gone,” began Sebastian, scarcely more audible than the angel who preceded him. There were a number of spectators openly smirking at his appearance.
    â€œAnd how do you like our little production so far, pilgrim?” came a voice at my elbow. I turned and marked the Bishop, his miter replaced by a simple cap, his eminence swathed in an elaborately trimmed fur coat.
    â€œI find it somewhat appalling,” I replied. “Surely the Church does not endorse these sorry proceedings. How can you let these holy days be profaned by theatricals?”
    â€œNonsense. Just what we need. It brings them in, and if a little moral instruction slips in amidst the entertainment, so much the better. It’s not as if they were doing The Interlude of the Shepherdess.”
    â€œIt smacks of bread and circuses.”
    â€œOf wafers and masses, more likely. Look you, see the high and the low mingle in common purpose. Think how grateful the lowly peasants are to be freezing their balls off in the same cold wind as a count or a duke, and to realize how little they suffer in comparison with the agonies of Our Savior on the Cross, which they see reenacted right in front of them. And then to assemble afterwards in a nice warm cathedral and give thanks that their lives are only slightly miserable and that Heaven awaits them.”
    â€œWhere’s Adam and Eve?” yelled Fabian. “We need to measure Paradise.”
    A young couple, giggling, ascended the steps and stood between the two poles.