Season Content Notes: Revenge plot, violence, boundary violations

Countess Olivia led Cesario into a walled garden, and the door was shut behind them, leaving the two alone. Nervously pushing his hair out of his face, Cesario wondered what a — another man, one without Cesario’s history, might have thought.

Cesario also thought the countess was not being at all subtle — and that was a problem.

He was right.

Stepping even closer, the countess batted her eyes at Cesario and said, “Give me your hand, sir.”

Trapped by the rules of manners, Cesario did offer his hand but stepped back to make a leg — that is, an elaborate bow where the right leg slides back and bends while the left leg extends toward the person being bowed to. It’s never seen now, and rarely then, having fallen out of fashion. But the leg required room that gave Cesario an excuse to step away without being rude, which was all he cared about. “My duty, madam, and most humble service.”

The countess recognized the retreat and did not attempt to move close again, but she did hold tight to Cesario’s hand. “What is your name?”

“Cesario is your servant’s name, fair princess,” the worthy replied.

“My servant, sir!” Countess Olivia raised her eyebrows and looked from Cesario to the space he had put between them. “‘Twas never merry world since lowly feigning was call’d compliment.” Cesario acknowledged this with a shrug but did not come closer. With a sigh, the countess released his hand. “You’re servant to the Count Orsino, youth.”

“And he is yours,” Cesario replied. Countess Olivia tried to wave his words away but he insisted, “and his must needs be yours: your servant’s servant is your servant, madam.”

“For him, I think not on him!” the countess said.

Cesario did not reply, only watched her silently.

“Oh, for his thoughts, would they were blanks, rather than fill’d with me!”

“Madam.” He started to reach for her hand and stopped. Often in the past, Viola and her friends had giggled over the men who flirted with them. Then, urging each other to consider this or that man one did not find appealing had been a game, harmless. This… this did not feel harmless. No, urging on her a man she spurned did not feel harmless at all. And he was not one who the countess would take a bosom companion. So he only said softly, “I come to whet your gentle thoughts on his behalf.”

“O, by your leave, I pray you, I bade you never speak again of him,” Olivia turned away and paced the garden in agitation. She had no idea that Cesario’s thoughts — in that at least — aligned much with hers.

“But,” she stopped when her path took her back to Cesario and spoke entreatingly, “But, would you undertake another suit.” She hesitated, looking down as a blush stained her cheeks, “I had rather hear you to solicit that than music from the spheres.”

But Cesario shook his head, stepping away, “Dear lady,–“

Before he could make clear his rejection, the countess cut him off, “Give me leave, beseech you.” When he said nothing further, she continued, “I did send, after the last enchantment you did here, a ring in chase of you: so did I abuse myself, my servant and, I fear me, you.”

To this Cesario shook his head — he would rather not have spea of the ring she sent. He kept the ring in an inner pocket, knowing any who saw it would misunderstand but unable to part with it. For though it was poorly done of her, it was her sending that ring, and the new view it gave him of himself, that let him accept the truth of his own manhood.

He was grateful to her, but that gratitude was one he could never express.

But she kept speaking, unaware of his thoughts. “Under your hard construction must I sit, to force that on you, in a shameful cunning, which you knew none of yours: what might you think? Have you not set mine honour at the stake and baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts that tyrannous heart can think? So, let me hear you speak.”

Not knowing what else to say, Cesario spoke the truth. “I pity you.”

To Cesario’s dismay, the countess seized on that simple statement, “That’s a degree to love.”

“No, not a bit; for ’tis a vulgar proof, that very oft we pity enemies.” Though he did not mean to, Cesario leaned into that last word, enemies. Intentional or not, Countess Olivia wisely took counsel of that word and backed away, pasting a smile across her face they both knew to be false.

In the background, a clock tolled the hour.

“Why,” she said, “the clock upbraids me with the waste of time. Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you,” and the countess could not miss Cesario’s relief as she capitulated. “And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest, your wife is alike to reap a proper man.” She opened the door of the garden, waving him through. “There lies your way, due west.”

“Then,” he said with a soft smile, “westward-ho! Grace and good disposition attend your ladyship!” He stepped through the door, and was stopped by duty, “You’ll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?”

She shook her head, and he nodded in understanding. Perhaps he could finally convince the duke to give over this chase, which brought joy to no one.

But as he turned again to go, the countess grabbed his arm, “Stay! I prythee, tell me what thou thinkest of me.”

Shrugging her off in frustration, Cesario exclaimed, “That you do think you are not what you are.”

“If I think so, I think the same of you.”

They were close now, speaking right into each other’s faces. “Then think you right: I am not what I am!” Cesario barely restrained himself from pushing her away.

“I would you were as I would have you be!”

“Would it be better, madam, than I am?” Cesario spat. “I wish it might, for now, I am your fool.”

“O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful in the contempt and anger of his lip!” She spoke more to herself now than him, reaching out to trace his jaw. He jerked away. “A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon than love that would seem hid: love’s night is noon.”

Done with the whole matter, Cesario turned away again and started walking away. She called after him. “Cesario, by the roses of the spring, my maidhood, honour, truth, and everything, I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride, nor wit nor reason can my passion hide. Do not extort thy reasons from this clause, for that I woo, thou, therefore, hast no cause, but rather reason thus with reason fetter, Love sought is good, but given unsought better.”

And why, Cesario wondered, did she not apply that sentiment to the unsought love Orsino had for her? Did she not realize she was doing to him the very thing she hated from the duke?

Without turning to face her, Cesario spoke a truth that had been growing in his bosom for some time. “By innocence, I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth. And that no woman has; nor never none shall mistress be of it.”

He rolled his shoulders once as the truth settled on him. He was a man, but a man who still loved other men. And he was done enabling this game between Duke Orsino, who he loved, and the countess. “Adieu, good madam: never more will I my master’s tears to you deplore.”

As he started down the road to home, her voice called after him. “Yet come again!

“For thou perhaps mayst move that heart, which now abhors, to like his love.”

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