FIC: The Desert Prince 12
Apr. 16th, 2004 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Title: The Desert Prince: A Fable
Part: 12 (Back to Part 11.)
Author: Lobelia; lobelia40@yahoo.com
Other info, cast list and previous parts: DP Contents.
Finally! We get to meet the Desert Prince! :-)
Fascicle the Twelfth
Bound, gagged and blindfolded, I was carried through the streets. My captors marched in circles and whorls, along quiet alleys, no sound of voices, up and down stairs, round corners. Still, my senses were strangely alert, and I am certain that had they permitted me to run free, I could have found my way back, without haste nor hesitation, to the door at the back of the women's quarters.
They never spoke, and I wondered whether these were the mute eunuchs that the damsels had told me about, and at the memory of the ladies and at the kind things they had done to me, and at the memory of Billy the librarian and at the gentle smiles he had bestowed on me -- at the memory of all these things, my mouth filled with bile and my belly with anger. But I felt fear, too: terrible, heart-numbing fear. And the pulse of my blood seemed to whisper 'Sean, Sean, Sean', and I wanted to weep but I did not.
The henchmen thrust me finally up a flight of stairs and across a long, smooth floor, and threw me down on some sort of soft surface. Then they pulled off my blindfold.
I opened my eyes and looked about me in surprise and amazement. I had expected to find myself in a dungeon. Instead, I was lying on satin cushions in a resplendent pavilion. A fountain plashed on a terrace, just visible through large latticed doors. There was music playing in the background, and before me, on a low table, were set out dishes of fruit and sweetmeats. The air was perfumed with the scent of lime trees and magnolia.
I had thought our lodgings in the citadel's merchant quarters were gorgeous, and I had thought the halls of the Duke's harem were splendid, but all these were nothing compared to the magnificence of this chamber.
I lay as one stunned, and my eyes were dazzled by the light of forty times forty candles burning in forty times forty sconces and reflected from the polished marble floors and the gleaming tiled walls. The pavilion was circular in shape and lofty in height. The table before me was of mahogany inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and its feet were carved in the forms of intricate birds and beasts. When I turned, I beheld a dais raised in a niche of the room upon which sat a trio of musicians, one playing a dulcimer, one playing a reed pipe, and the third playing an instrument I had never seen nor head, but it sounded more sweetly than the nightingale at the break of dusk.
Besides the musicians, there were only two other men in the room: two guards standing to either side of the inner door. I saw the swords by their side; I saw the lances in their hands; I saw the coldness in their eyes.
But nobody spoke. Nobody took notice of me. The room was beautiful and calm. The music was a long, slow and complicated. A breeze wafted in through the open doors. Still, my heart beat hard and fast, and my thoughts would not be quiet. But it was a curious thing: only a part of me was frightened, the rest of me felt strangely excited, much as the hunter feels excited as he crouches above his trap and waits to pounce on his prey.
Only here it was I who was trapped and it was I who was the prey.
After a while, I became aware that I was still holding the small copper disc that had been given me by Billy and the ladies of the harem. I was clutching it in my fist, and its points had dug grooves into the skin. A flash of fear gripped me and I wondered feverishly where I might hide this ward of death. I glanced at the musicians and at the guards; they did not glance back but I feared their notice. Finally, I made as if to adjust my robes and my undergarments, and I thrust the talisman into the folds of my loincloth. I cannot now believe that my captors did not see me do this, and that they knew what I was hiding all along, and that they did not say so for reasons of their own.
The moon rode the sky's arc. The tuneful composition soothed and abstracted. I sat rigid as a heron.
Then there were steps outside on the stair. The music stopped. The guards sprang forward and opened the door. A draught made the sconces smoke and the curtain billow, and in strode the Desert Prince.
He was resplendent in robes of white and a sash of red. Something gold shone in his hair, something silver gleamed by his side -- but that was all my eyes took in, for as soon as he had entered the pavilion, I fell to the ground and pressed my lips to the marble floor.
I stayed thus for what seemed a long time. Nothing happened; I was not heeded. Orders were given, there was movement, there were steps, the music started up again -- while I lay on the floor, my chest tight and my face hot. The Prince spoke to his minions but I could barely take in the words through the roaring in my ears.
Then, suddenly and without warning, I felt two men kneeling by my side; they pulled off my turban and parted the hair at my nape, and my blood froze within my veins for I was certain that they were baring my neck and that I was to be beheaded at once.
But it was not a blade that descended upon my trembling neck but a foot, and I soon realised that it was the Desert Prince's foot. It was the Desert Prince's leather slipper that was pressed against my neck until my Adam's apple was ground into the floor and my breath stopped short within my lungs, and it was the Desert Prince's voice that spoke into my ear. And what a soft voice it was, rich and soft, deep like the bronze gongs in the hidden caves of the Taurus mountains, sharp like a cameldriver's whip, and deadlier than the whisper of the scorpion's sting.
"So this is the viper that gnaws at the roots of my father's house," said the Prince. "This is the spy that dares to defy my father's authority. This is the impostor that crawls upon the streets of my father's citadel like a louse in the lion's mane."
He bent low over me, low enough that his hot breath burned my face. "Orlando ben Bloom," he hissed, "if that be your true name."
Every word the Prince spoke dripped with venom, and every syllable of my name as he uttered it was tipped with contempt. Yet, to hear my name in his mouth thrilled my blood most strangely, and I forgot to wonder how he had found it out.
"Orlando ben Bloom," the Prince repeated, and his voice was menacing but soft as the adder's tongue. "Do not think that I do not know who and what you are. Do not imagine that I am ignorant of the little game you play. Yes, I know you call yourself a cloth merchant. But you are no merchant. You are a maggot left at my father's doorstep."
Then there was the whistle of a blade being drawn from its scabbard. The weight on my neck shifted, and I felt the cold sharp edge of a dagger pressed against the side of my neck.
"And do not flatter yourself," the Prince continued, ever softly. "This is not a game you will win. I could kill you here and now. I could drive this dagger through your neck until you screamed your life and your guts onto these marble slabs, and nobody would care, nobody would come to your aid, and by morning the vultures and dogs of the desert would pick at your bones and slurp the jelly from your eyeballs."
I felt sick. Fear and confusion clouded my senses. The blade cut into my skin. It was so sharp that it left no trace of pain at first but hot blood trickled down the side of my neck and down past the neckline into my gown. I would have cried out but my throat was pushed so hard against the floor that no sound could pass through, and for a moment I thought I might gag or pass out.
But then I felt warm breath upon my cheek, scented with musk and the oil used to comb men's beards, and my senses returned to the chamber.
"But I will not kill you," whispered the Prince into my ear. "At least not yet."
The Prince breathed on me for a second longer, no longer than the lizard blinks before it spears the beetle with its tongue. But it was long enough for his breath to flow into the very air that flowed into my own lungs. I realised I would survive, and that the blood was not the harbinger of death but the elixir of life.
At least for now.
The Prince's foot withdrew along with his blade. An order was given. Servants' hands pulled my head up roughly by the hair.
"Get up and kneel," said the Prince in a voice still quiet but as resonant as thunder and as scornful as the rainclouds that mock on the horizon but never come. And had my blood pounded less loudly in my ears, I might have heard another note underneath the thunder and the clouds, a note that I later came to recognise and fear, a note that must have been there at that hour and in that place: a note of keen hunger and ruthless need, and it was more than the need of lust. But all I heard were the Prince's words, and my limbs struggled to obey their command.
"Kneel and look your Prince in the face. Get up, for I wish to look upon these fabled eyes that can resist my father's might."
The servants tugged and pulled me until I knelt upon my shins and knees, as one who is about to be beheaded. I coughed and touched my neck but the two lackeys pinned my hands behind my back, grabbed my locks again and forced my head up.
And there, before me, less than two ells from my sight, was the Prince.
He was as majestic as he had looked standing on the palace platform at noon that day. He was as grand and remote as he had appeared when presiding at the daily rites of obeisance. He was a man, with a man's bearded chin and a man's stern jaws, but now, seeing him so close, I also saw that he was a young man yet, with the bloom of youth upon his cheeks and the impatience of boyhood flaring his nostrils.
And when I looked into the Prince's eyes, a wind swept through my soul, hot and wild like the storms of summer that whirl across the deserts of the north.
And within that instant I knew who I was, and what I was, and my body trembled like a feather under the gaze of the Desert Prince, and my face went hot with the blush of a maiden freshly unveiled.
The Prince's eyes were proud, and the Prince's eyes were inscrutable. They were rimmed in kohl, and their deep and golden depths kindled a fire deep within the depths of my own self. For there was something in the Prince's eyes that I recognised, and there was something that recognised me, and the power that had stirred within me ever since we had entered this citadel, the secret that had lain dormant ever since I could remember, it rose up and greeted its kin with a yearning such as I had never known.
"Verily," said the Prince, and his voice was now neither thunder nor cloud, neither whip nor weapon but hoarse and mellow like the reed pipe, played for the first time by an inexpert mouth and stuttering as it hits the first notes of an unfamiliar tune. "You are not what I expected."
His lip curled in disdain but there was hesitation in his speech and a dark question in his eyes. I saw these things for only a moment; they fleeted across his face and were gone, and when next he spoke, his voice was once more unyielding.
"Look to the side," he commanded.
I obeyed.
"Look to the other side."
Again, I obeyed.
"Look up."
He bade me roll my eyes in all directions, close them, open them again, and finally, he had his servants tug me to a standing position before him.
"Interesting," the Prince said in a tone that was half sneer, half drawl. "Your eyes look no different from any mortal's. They are pretty, to be sure." And at these words, a wolfish smile played across his features. "But so are many boys' eyes, and still they fall before my father's gaze." He lost his smile and his voice became hard. "You are clearly no merchant. No merchant boy looks like this. Merchant boys are rough, they have rough hands and blunt fingertips, they have large ears and vulture's noses and hungry bellies and sharp, shrewd eyes. But you... you have the blood of noblemen coursing through your veins."
I opened my mouth to say 'nay' but before words could form on my tongue, the Prince's hand had closed around my throat, and I was choked into silence. The Prince's thumb pressed firmly against my gullet, and the Prince's forefinger traced the cut his blade had made at the side of my neck, and then he recited the following verse:
Unblemished is the face of perfection,
And the sun and moon hide their radiance from beauty's mould.
We must mar flawless loveliness,
For how can we live in eternal shadow?
For a moment, I expected that the Prince would draw his dagger and cut me anew, perhaps on my face -- but he did not. Instead, he held up his finger, red with my blood, and he pressed his finger against my lips; so I opened my mouth and I licked his finger clean, and the iron taste of my own blood spread across my tongue, that and the taste of the Prince's skin.
And I saw that his breast was heaving with the effort of drawing air, and I saw that his eyes were clouded with desire, and my own desire welled to the surface in answer to the call of his, and the longer he gazed at me and the longer he kept his finger within my mouth, the louder the song in my blood sang, and the fire in my heart burned true and strong, and I felt the power within me, the power that women have always held over the men who seek to master them, and it was my power, too.
My power and my downfall, both.
"Very well," the Prince finally said, in a voice of resolution, and also in a voice thick with lust but at the core of his desire was something else, at the kernel of his want was a steel nut of calculation. He withdrew his finger, wet with my spit, and wiped it quickly on my robe. "Cloth merchant. We will see what you are made of and how closely you have spun your tale." Then I was startled because he made a bow to me and continued in a lemon-sweet voice: "It is most dreadful but I seem to have forgotten a host's first duty to his guest. I must not let you stand here, in your dusty robes that are sullied with blood. Here." He clapped his hands once, and two servant boys jumped out from behind him.
Indeed, the room was now filled with servants. I had not noticed them before but upon entering, the Prince must have brought in a whole entourage. Guards lined the walls, servants stood to attention, waiters held covered platters, and behind the table, two boys were positioned with large fans made of ostrich feathers.
"Dress him," said the Prince, "in something more suitable for my pearl pavilion."
And then, for the second time that day, I was stripped of my garments. I was stripped down to my shirt, and then down to my underdrawers and loincloth, but they spared my nakedness, and I was saved from the discovery of the talisman. The Desert Prince had settled himself upon a leather cushion on the carpet, his legs crossed at the ankles, his fingers idly playing with his rings, and all the while, his regard was fixed upon me. And I felt it. I felt his gaze, and it made me stand tall and straight at the same time as it made my skin burn crimson, and even though I was not entirely nude, I still covered myself like a virgin. And I felt glad that the ladies of the harem had bathed me and that my hair was scented with musk.
The boys then brought out a chest of sandalwood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and thence they drew forth magnificent robes and adornments, and they dressed me in clothes of silk and taffeta. About my wrists, they clasped bracelets of gold, studded with amethyst and green beryl, about my waist they drew a sash of the finest watered silk, and on my feet they placed slippers of the most supple goat's kid hide.
After I had been dressed and adorned and given water in a bowl to wash my face, the Desert Prince bade me sit opposite him at the table, and after gazing upon me for a time, he recited the following verse:
His ringlets dance like steam curling off a hot spring in the frosty morns of winter.
His waist is a sapling; his flanks are as tender as the hips of a newborn foal.
The moon herself blushes to see him walk into her shadow.
His eyelids are as delicate as twice-shriven parchment; his belly is as creamy as cat's milk.
His eyes are like the soot of an oil lamp and bewitch all who pass through their lambent spell.
And as he declaimed these lines, the Prince's voice flowed like the sand over the dunes, and I remembered what Billy had told me, that the Prince was a man of learning and culture, and I could not believe in my heart that one who recited such poetry would wish to kill.
Thus was my innocence beguiled, on that first night in the Prince's pavilion.
I also remembered what Uncle John had told me, that the Prince had strange preferences, and I hardly knew where to look when his recitation was finished and the arrows of his gaze pierced my skin.
"Now, cloth merchant," said the Prince. "Show me the mettle of your trade."
He gestured to the attendant boys, and they brought another chest, larger than the first. The Prince opened its clasp and withdrew a length of folded cloth. He shook it out and then threw it across the table into my lap.
"Let me hear you speak," he said, "and let me hear you explain what manner of cloth this is."
I understood that it was a test, and I knew that I must pass this test. I bowed my head, and although my lips were dry and my throat was tight, I managed to speak in clear words, with only a small quiver in my voice:
"To hear is to obey," I said.
I looked at the cloth, a tumble of hardy stuff, about the weight of a quarter-fardel, and I felt it quickly with my fingers.
"This is worsted wool," I said, "sprang upon a fixed frame for durability."
I do not know how the Prince reacted to my words for I did not lift my eyes and he did not reply. Instead, another pile of cloth landed in my lap. I licked my lips but my tongue was no wetter than they. I studied the fabric in my lap: it was a blue-and-red ceremonial scarf, square in shape and hemmed with a broad strip of contrasting colour. I passed it between my thumb and forefinger, I blew upon its surface, then I let it ripple across my palm to catch the sideways light from the candles.
"My lord," I said, without looking up, "this is finest silk, spun from the worms of the mulberry plains of Bursa and blessed with a talismanic charm sewn into the hem to bestow good fortune upon its wearer. It is mordant-dyed with pigment extracted from the indigo plants of India but the hem is crimson with the juice of the kermes insect that lives in the oaks of Eastern Lebanon."
The Prince was silent.
Finally, I heard him reply. "Very good. Now let me see how you perform with no eyes to aid your judgement."
There sounded a clap, and an attendant appeared by my side to wind another blindfold around my face. My vision was blacker than a moonless night; the music seemed to sound louder in my ears, as did the beating of my heart.
"What is this, cloth merchant?" A heavy bundle fell onto my lap.
I passed my hands across the cloth, lifted a corner to my nose and stroked it along my cheek.
"This is an elaborate fabric," I said. "It is tabby on a silk damask ground, patterned and textiled and dyed first in shellfish purple, then dipped in safflower so that it may only be admired by candlelight for it will fade to yellow when seen in the light of the day's sun."
There was silence. My world was dark but my ears heard the plashing of the fountain and the breathing of the servants' noses.
"Merchant," said the Prince at last. "How do you know the colour of the fabric if you cannot see it?"
"My lord, oh Prince," I replied, "I know the colour because this is cloth I bought myself in the silk market of Damascus, and I sold it to your palace envoys only this morning."
For a long time I heard nothing besides the fountain, the breathing, and the beating of my own heart. Then there was the sound of the rustling of robes, of shod feet upon marble, and all of a sudden, the voice of the Prince quite close to my ears.
"Very good," said the Prince, not half a yard away from me. "Now tell me, what is this?"
My hands were grasped, and I was sure they were grasped by the Prince's very own hands, and my hands were placed upon somebody's chest, and I was sure it was the Prince's very own chest, moving with his breath and hard under the softness of his gown.
"What is the cloth upon my person?" asked the Prince.
For several moments, I could not speak. I had caught glimpses of his robes earlier but I had paid no attention to their weave at all. I dared not move my hands to test the fabric; only my fingers wandered back and forth across its warp and weft, and softly pinched the material. The cloth was thick and rich yet still I felt the heat of the Prince's flesh through its threads, and I felt the beat of the Prince's heart under my right-hand palm.
His heart beat hard and fast, oh it did; my Prince's heart beat hard and fast.
And so did mine, and I thought then that his heart beat for me and that he would never kill me.
I spoke, and my voice shivered like the flurry of moths' wings or like the trembling of a lake before the early evening breeze.
"My Prince," I said, "this is rare cloth indeed. It is finest silk, made of reeled yarn and sold by grade of purity, not weight. It is embroidered in a most intricate design, and the only silk that I know which is so embroidered is imported from Nanjing where it is worked in complicated invisible patterns of white-upon-white. The only way to see the beauty of the figures is to shine a light onto the material from the side; then the designs shimmer and shift. Their meaning is best captured between the fingertips and felt with the skin, rather than seen with the eyes. It is a good choice for testing blind."
"So, merchant" said the Prince in an uneven voice. "Tell me what the pattern is."
I bowed my head. "To hear is to obey," I whispered, and then I ran my fingers down the Prince's chest and along the sleeves of the garment but my hands were shaking so hard that it took me a long time to discern the pattern of the embroidery. Yet the Prince never moved during that whole time, and his heart continued to race within his chest.
"My lord," I finally said. "This robe is bedecked with dragons and dragonflies, with butterflies and praying mantises, and with the long curving lines of Chinese clouds. The design is known as Sinuous Meanderings of the Happy Mind, and it is the most intricate and expensive of all the patterns of Nanjing."
The Prince's lungs continued to lift and fall with his breath, and the Prince's heart continued to beat hard and fast, and I did not take my hands away from his chest.
Then the Prince spoke. "I paid a great sum of money for this robe," he said, " and I am pleased to learn that I was not cheated."
"No, my Prince," I said, "you were not."
"You say you are a cloth merchant," the Prince said slowly, " and verily, it appears that you are, or at least, that you have learned your trade well enough to pass for one. But..." And then his voice changed to that of a fox circling a pheasant's nest. "... you are too young to be a master tradesman, and I believe you are the apprentice of another. Is this not so?"
I dropped my hands. My skin went stiff with fear. I answered as calmly as I could:
"No, my lord. You are mistaken. I am alone."
At that, he struck me in the face. I was startled within the darkness of my blindfold, and I fell sideways and hit my head against the edge of the table.
"Alone, are you? Alone? So you have never heard of the cloth merchant, the master Sean ben Bean?"
A darkness threatened to engulf my eyes, darker than the black light of the blindfold.
"No," I said, "I have not."
He struck me again, and I toppled backwards and hit my head on the marble floor.
"Very good," he said, and I could hear him standing up. "That is well for he also claims not to know you: never to have heard of an apprentice merchant named Orlando ben Bloom. And as this is so, and as you do not know each other, grant me the honour of an introduction." His voice changed as he addressed the servants: "Remove the blindfold. Fetch the other traveller." Then me: "And you, stand up as befits the manners of a guest."
The blindfold was taken off. I swayed as I got to my feet; my face felt bruised.
The Prince clapped his hands. The doors opened.
"Meet a man you have never heard of before," the Prince announced in a voice liquid with sinister courtesy. "Meet master Sean ben Bean."
~~~~~
tbc
Part: 12 (Back to Part 11.)
Author: Lobelia; lobelia40@yahoo.com
Other info, cast list and previous parts: DP Contents.
Finally! We get to meet the Desert Prince! :-)
Fascicle the Twelfth
Bound, gagged and blindfolded, I was carried through the streets. My captors marched in circles and whorls, along quiet alleys, no sound of voices, up and down stairs, round corners. Still, my senses were strangely alert, and I am certain that had they permitted me to run free, I could have found my way back, without haste nor hesitation, to the door at the back of the women's quarters.
They never spoke, and I wondered whether these were the mute eunuchs that the damsels had told me about, and at the memory of the ladies and at the kind things they had done to me, and at the memory of Billy the librarian and at the gentle smiles he had bestowed on me -- at the memory of all these things, my mouth filled with bile and my belly with anger. But I felt fear, too: terrible, heart-numbing fear. And the pulse of my blood seemed to whisper 'Sean, Sean, Sean', and I wanted to weep but I did not.
The henchmen thrust me finally up a flight of stairs and across a long, smooth floor, and threw me down on some sort of soft surface. Then they pulled off my blindfold.
I opened my eyes and looked about me in surprise and amazement. I had expected to find myself in a dungeon. Instead, I was lying on satin cushions in a resplendent pavilion. A fountain plashed on a terrace, just visible through large latticed doors. There was music playing in the background, and before me, on a low table, were set out dishes of fruit and sweetmeats. The air was perfumed with the scent of lime trees and magnolia.
I had thought our lodgings in the citadel's merchant quarters were gorgeous, and I had thought the halls of the Duke's harem were splendid, but all these were nothing compared to the magnificence of this chamber.
I lay as one stunned, and my eyes were dazzled by the light of forty times forty candles burning in forty times forty sconces and reflected from the polished marble floors and the gleaming tiled walls. The pavilion was circular in shape and lofty in height. The table before me was of mahogany inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and its feet were carved in the forms of intricate birds and beasts. When I turned, I beheld a dais raised in a niche of the room upon which sat a trio of musicians, one playing a dulcimer, one playing a reed pipe, and the third playing an instrument I had never seen nor head, but it sounded more sweetly than the nightingale at the break of dusk.
Besides the musicians, there were only two other men in the room: two guards standing to either side of the inner door. I saw the swords by their side; I saw the lances in their hands; I saw the coldness in their eyes.
But nobody spoke. Nobody took notice of me. The room was beautiful and calm. The music was a long, slow and complicated. A breeze wafted in through the open doors. Still, my heart beat hard and fast, and my thoughts would not be quiet. But it was a curious thing: only a part of me was frightened, the rest of me felt strangely excited, much as the hunter feels excited as he crouches above his trap and waits to pounce on his prey.
Only here it was I who was trapped and it was I who was the prey.
After a while, I became aware that I was still holding the small copper disc that had been given me by Billy and the ladies of the harem. I was clutching it in my fist, and its points had dug grooves into the skin. A flash of fear gripped me and I wondered feverishly where I might hide this ward of death. I glanced at the musicians and at the guards; they did not glance back but I feared their notice. Finally, I made as if to adjust my robes and my undergarments, and I thrust the talisman into the folds of my loincloth. I cannot now believe that my captors did not see me do this, and that they knew what I was hiding all along, and that they did not say so for reasons of their own.
The moon rode the sky's arc. The tuneful composition soothed and abstracted. I sat rigid as a heron.
Then there were steps outside on the stair. The music stopped. The guards sprang forward and opened the door. A draught made the sconces smoke and the curtain billow, and in strode the Desert Prince.
He was resplendent in robes of white and a sash of red. Something gold shone in his hair, something silver gleamed by his side -- but that was all my eyes took in, for as soon as he had entered the pavilion, I fell to the ground and pressed my lips to the marble floor.
I stayed thus for what seemed a long time. Nothing happened; I was not heeded. Orders were given, there was movement, there were steps, the music started up again -- while I lay on the floor, my chest tight and my face hot. The Prince spoke to his minions but I could barely take in the words through the roaring in my ears.
Then, suddenly and without warning, I felt two men kneeling by my side; they pulled off my turban and parted the hair at my nape, and my blood froze within my veins for I was certain that they were baring my neck and that I was to be beheaded at once.
But it was not a blade that descended upon my trembling neck but a foot, and I soon realised that it was the Desert Prince's foot. It was the Desert Prince's leather slipper that was pressed against my neck until my Adam's apple was ground into the floor and my breath stopped short within my lungs, and it was the Desert Prince's voice that spoke into my ear. And what a soft voice it was, rich and soft, deep like the bronze gongs in the hidden caves of the Taurus mountains, sharp like a cameldriver's whip, and deadlier than the whisper of the scorpion's sting.
"So this is the viper that gnaws at the roots of my father's house," said the Prince. "This is the spy that dares to defy my father's authority. This is the impostor that crawls upon the streets of my father's citadel like a louse in the lion's mane."
He bent low over me, low enough that his hot breath burned my face. "Orlando ben Bloom," he hissed, "if that be your true name."
Every word the Prince spoke dripped with venom, and every syllable of my name as he uttered it was tipped with contempt. Yet, to hear my name in his mouth thrilled my blood most strangely, and I forgot to wonder how he had found it out.
"Orlando ben Bloom," the Prince repeated, and his voice was menacing but soft as the adder's tongue. "Do not think that I do not know who and what you are. Do not imagine that I am ignorant of the little game you play. Yes, I know you call yourself a cloth merchant. But you are no merchant. You are a maggot left at my father's doorstep."
Then there was the whistle of a blade being drawn from its scabbard. The weight on my neck shifted, and I felt the cold sharp edge of a dagger pressed against the side of my neck.
"And do not flatter yourself," the Prince continued, ever softly. "This is not a game you will win. I could kill you here and now. I could drive this dagger through your neck until you screamed your life and your guts onto these marble slabs, and nobody would care, nobody would come to your aid, and by morning the vultures and dogs of the desert would pick at your bones and slurp the jelly from your eyeballs."
I felt sick. Fear and confusion clouded my senses. The blade cut into my skin. It was so sharp that it left no trace of pain at first but hot blood trickled down the side of my neck and down past the neckline into my gown. I would have cried out but my throat was pushed so hard against the floor that no sound could pass through, and for a moment I thought I might gag or pass out.
But then I felt warm breath upon my cheek, scented with musk and the oil used to comb men's beards, and my senses returned to the chamber.
"But I will not kill you," whispered the Prince into my ear. "At least not yet."
The Prince breathed on me for a second longer, no longer than the lizard blinks before it spears the beetle with its tongue. But it was long enough for his breath to flow into the very air that flowed into my own lungs. I realised I would survive, and that the blood was not the harbinger of death but the elixir of life.
At least for now.
The Prince's foot withdrew along with his blade. An order was given. Servants' hands pulled my head up roughly by the hair.
"Get up and kneel," said the Prince in a voice still quiet but as resonant as thunder and as scornful as the rainclouds that mock on the horizon but never come. And had my blood pounded less loudly in my ears, I might have heard another note underneath the thunder and the clouds, a note that I later came to recognise and fear, a note that must have been there at that hour and in that place: a note of keen hunger and ruthless need, and it was more than the need of lust. But all I heard were the Prince's words, and my limbs struggled to obey their command.
"Kneel and look your Prince in the face. Get up, for I wish to look upon these fabled eyes that can resist my father's might."
The servants tugged and pulled me until I knelt upon my shins and knees, as one who is about to be beheaded. I coughed and touched my neck but the two lackeys pinned my hands behind my back, grabbed my locks again and forced my head up.
And there, before me, less than two ells from my sight, was the Prince.
He was as majestic as he had looked standing on the palace platform at noon that day. He was as grand and remote as he had appeared when presiding at the daily rites of obeisance. He was a man, with a man's bearded chin and a man's stern jaws, but now, seeing him so close, I also saw that he was a young man yet, with the bloom of youth upon his cheeks and the impatience of boyhood flaring his nostrils.
And when I looked into the Prince's eyes, a wind swept through my soul, hot and wild like the storms of summer that whirl across the deserts of the north.
And within that instant I knew who I was, and what I was, and my body trembled like a feather under the gaze of the Desert Prince, and my face went hot with the blush of a maiden freshly unveiled.
The Prince's eyes were proud, and the Prince's eyes were inscrutable. They were rimmed in kohl, and their deep and golden depths kindled a fire deep within the depths of my own self. For there was something in the Prince's eyes that I recognised, and there was something that recognised me, and the power that had stirred within me ever since we had entered this citadel, the secret that had lain dormant ever since I could remember, it rose up and greeted its kin with a yearning such as I had never known.
"Verily," said the Prince, and his voice was now neither thunder nor cloud, neither whip nor weapon but hoarse and mellow like the reed pipe, played for the first time by an inexpert mouth and stuttering as it hits the first notes of an unfamiliar tune. "You are not what I expected."
His lip curled in disdain but there was hesitation in his speech and a dark question in his eyes. I saw these things for only a moment; they fleeted across his face and were gone, and when next he spoke, his voice was once more unyielding.
"Look to the side," he commanded.
I obeyed.
"Look to the other side."
Again, I obeyed.
"Look up."
He bade me roll my eyes in all directions, close them, open them again, and finally, he had his servants tug me to a standing position before him.
"Interesting," the Prince said in a tone that was half sneer, half drawl. "Your eyes look no different from any mortal's. They are pretty, to be sure." And at these words, a wolfish smile played across his features. "But so are many boys' eyes, and still they fall before my father's gaze." He lost his smile and his voice became hard. "You are clearly no merchant. No merchant boy looks like this. Merchant boys are rough, they have rough hands and blunt fingertips, they have large ears and vulture's noses and hungry bellies and sharp, shrewd eyes. But you... you have the blood of noblemen coursing through your veins."
I opened my mouth to say 'nay' but before words could form on my tongue, the Prince's hand had closed around my throat, and I was choked into silence. The Prince's thumb pressed firmly against my gullet, and the Prince's forefinger traced the cut his blade had made at the side of my neck, and then he recited the following verse:
Unblemished is the face of perfection,
And the sun and moon hide their radiance from beauty's mould.
We must mar flawless loveliness,
For how can we live in eternal shadow?
For a moment, I expected that the Prince would draw his dagger and cut me anew, perhaps on my face -- but he did not. Instead, he held up his finger, red with my blood, and he pressed his finger against my lips; so I opened my mouth and I licked his finger clean, and the iron taste of my own blood spread across my tongue, that and the taste of the Prince's skin.
And I saw that his breast was heaving with the effort of drawing air, and I saw that his eyes were clouded with desire, and my own desire welled to the surface in answer to the call of his, and the longer he gazed at me and the longer he kept his finger within my mouth, the louder the song in my blood sang, and the fire in my heart burned true and strong, and I felt the power within me, the power that women have always held over the men who seek to master them, and it was my power, too.
My power and my downfall, both.
"Very well," the Prince finally said, in a voice of resolution, and also in a voice thick with lust but at the core of his desire was something else, at the kernel of his want was a steel nut of calculation. He withdrew his finger, wet with my spit, and wiped it quickly on my robe. "Cloth merchant. We will see what you are made of and how closely you have spun your tale." Then I was startled because he made a bow to me and continued in a lemon-sweet voice: "It is most dreadful but I seem to have forgotten a host's first duty to his guest. I must not let you stand here, in your dusty robes that are sullied with blood. Here." He clapped his hands once, and two servant boys jumped out from behind him.
Indeed, the room was now filled with servants. I had not noticed them before but upon entering, the Prince must have brought in a whole entourage. Guards lined the walls, servants stood to attention, waiters held covered platters, and behind the table, two boys were positioned with large fans made of ostrich feathers.
"Dress him," said the Prince, "in something more suitable for my pearl pavilion."
And then, for the second time that day, I was stripped of my garments. I was stripped down to my shirt, and then down to my underdrawers and loincloth, but they spared my nakedness, and I was saved from the discovery of the talisman. The Desert Prince had settled himself upon a leather cushion on the carpet, his legs crossed at the ankles, his fingers idly playing with his rings, and all the while, his regard was fixed upon me. And I felt it. I felt his gaze, and it made me stand tall and straight at the same time as it made my skin burn crimson, and even though I was not entirely nude, I still covered myself like a virgin. And I felt glad that the ladies of the harem had bathed me and that my hair was scented with musk.
The boys then brought out a chest of sandalwood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and thence they drew forth magnificent robes and adornments, and they dressed me in clothes of silk and taffeta. About my wrists, they clasped bracelets of gold, studded with amethyst and green beryl, about my waist they drew a sash of the finest watered silk, and on my feet they placed slippers of the most supple goat's kid hide.
After I had been dressed and adorned and given water in a bowl to wash my face, the Desert Prince bade me sit opposite him at the table, and after gazing upon me for a time, he recited the following verse:
His ringlets dance like steam curling off a hot spring in the frosty morns of winter.
His waist is a sapling; his flanks are as tender as the hips of a newborn foal.
The moon herself blushes to see him walk into her shadow.
His eyelids are as delicate as twice-shriven parchment; his belly is as creamy as cat's milk.
His eyes are like the soot of an oil lamp and bewitch all who pass through their lambent spell.
And as he declaimed these lines, the Prince's voice flowed like the sand over the dunes, and I remembered what Billy had told me, that the Prince was a man of learning and culture, and I could not believe in my heart that one who recited such poetry would wish to kill.
Thus was my innocence beguiled, on that first night in the Prince's pavilion.
I also remembered what Uncle John had told me, that the Prince had strange preferences, and I hardly knew where to look when his recitation was finished and the arrows of his gaze pierced my skin.
"Now, cloth merchant," said the Prince. "Show me the mettle of your trade."
He gestured to the attendant boys, and they brought another chest, larger than the first. The Prince opened its clasp and withdrew a length of folded cloth. He shook it out and then threw it across the table into my lap.
"Let me hear you speak," he said, "and let me hear you explain what manner of cloth this is."
I understood that it was a test, and I knew that I must pass this test. I bowed my head, and although my lips were dry and my throat was tight, I managed to speak in clear words, with only a small quiver in my voice:
"To hear is to obey," I said.
I looked at the cloth, a tumble of hardy stuff, about the weight of a quarter-fardel, and I felt it quickly with my fingers.
"This is worsted wool," I said, "sprang upon a fixed frame for durability."
I do not know how the Prince reacted to my words for I did not lift my eyes and he did not reply. Instead, another pile of cloth landed in my lap. I licked my lips but my tongue was no wetter than they. I studied the fabric in my lap: it was a blue-and-red ceremonial scarf, square in shape and hemmed with a broad strip of contrasting colour. I passed it between my thumb and forefinger, I blew upon its surface, then I let it ripple across my palm to catch the sideways light from the candles.
"My lord," I said, without looking up, "this is finest silk, spun from the worms of the mulberry plains of Bursa and blessed with a talismanic charm sewn into the hem to bestow good fortune upon its wearer. It is mordant-dyed with pigment extracted from the indigo plants of India but the hem is crimson with the juice of the kermes insect that lives in the oaks of Eastern Lebanon."
The Prince was silent.
Finally, I heard him reply. "Very good. Now let me see how you perform with no eyes to aid your judgement."
There sounded a clap, and an attendant appeared by my side to wind another blindfold around my face. My vision was blacker than a moonless night; the music seemed to sound louder in my ears, as did the beating of my heart.
"What is this, cloth merchant?" A heavy bundle fell onto my lap.
I passed my hands across the cloth, lifted a corner to my nose and stroked it along my cheek.
"This is an elaborate fabric," I said. "It is tabby on a silk damask ground, patterned and textiled and dyed first in shellfish purple, then dipped in safflower so that it may only be admired by candlelight for it will fade to yellow when seen in the light of the day's sun."
There was silence. My world was dark but my ears heard the plashing of the fountain and the breathing of the servants' noses.
"Merchant," said the Prince at last. "How do you know the colour of the fabric if you cannot see it?"
"My lord, oh Prince," I replied, "I know the colour because this is cloth I bought myself in the silk market of Damascus, and I sold it to your palace envoys only this morning."
For a long time I heard nothing besides the fountain, the breathing, and the beating of my own heart. Then there was the sound of the rustling of robes, of shod feet upon marble, and all of a sudden, the voice of the Prince quite close to my ears.
"Very good," said the Prince, not half a yard away from me. "Now tell me, what is this?"
My hands were grasped, and I was sure they were grasped by the Prince's very own hands, and my hands were placed upon somebody's chest, and I was sure it was the Prince's very own chest, moving with his breath and hard under the softness of his gown.
"What is the cloth upon my person?" asked the Prince.
For several moments, I could not speak. I had caught glimpses of his robes earlier but I had paid no attention to their weave at all. I dared not move my hands to test the fabric; only my fingers wandered back and forth across its warp and weft, and softly pinched the material. The cloth was thick and rich yet still I felt the heat of the Prince's flesh through its threads, and I felt the beat of the Prince's heart under my right-hand palm.
His heart beat hard and fast, oh it did; my Prince's heart beat hard and fast.
And so did mine, and I thought then that his heart beat for me and that he would never kill me.
I spoke, and my voice shivered like the flurry of moths' wings or like the trembling of a lake before the early evening breeze.
"My Prince," I said, "this is rare cloth indeed. It is finest silk, made of reeled yarn and sold by grade of purity, not weight. It is embroidered in a most intricate design, and the only silk that I know which is so embroidered is imported from Nanjing where it is worked in complicated invisible patterns of white-upon-white. The only way to see the beauty of the figures is to shine a light onto the material from the side; then the designs shimmer and shift. Their meaning is best captured between the fingertips and felt with the skin, rather than seen with the eyes. It is a good choice for testing blind."
"So, merchant" said the Prince in an uneven voice. "Tell me what the pattern is."
I bowed my head. "To hear is to obey," I whispered, and then I ran my fingers down the Prince's chest and along the sleeves of the garment but my hands were shaking so hard that it took me a long time to discern the pattern of the embroidery. Yet the Prince never moved during that whole time, and his heart continued to race within his chest.
"My lord," I finally said. "This robe is bedecked with dragons and dragonflies, with butterflies and praying mantises, and with the long curving lines of Chinese clouds. The design is known as Sinuous Meanderings of the Happy Mind, and it is the most intricate and expensive of all the patterns of Nanjing."
The Prince's lungs continued to lift and fall with his breath, and the Prince's heart continued to beat hard and fast, and I did not take my hands away from his chest.
Then the Prince spoke. "I paid a great sum of money for this robe," he said, " and I am pleased to learn that I was not cheated."
"No, my Prince," I said, "you were not."
"You say you are a cloth merchant," the Prince said slowly, " and verily, it appears that you are, or at least, that you have learned your trade well enough to pass for one. But..." And then his voice changed to that of a fox circling a pheasant's nest. "... you are too young to be a master tradesman, and I believe you are the apprentice of another. Is this not so?"
I dropped my hands. My skin went stiff with fear. I answered as calmly as I could:
"No, my lord. You are mistaken. I am alone."
At that, he struck me in the face. I was startled within the darkness of my blindfold, and I fell sideways and hit my head against the edge of the table.
"Alone, are you? Alone? So you have never heard of the cloth merchant, the master Sean ben Bean?"
A darkness threatened to engulf my eyes, darker than the black light of the blindfold.
"No," I said, "I have not."
He struck me again, and I toppled backwards and hit my head on the marble floor.
"Very good," he said, and I could hear him standing up. "That is well for he also claims not to know you: never to have heard of an apprentice merchant named Orlando ben Bloom. And as this is so, and as you do not know each other, grant me the honour of an introduction." His voice changed as he addressed the servants: "Remove the blindfold. Fetch the other traveller." Then me: "And you, stand up as befits the manners of a guest."
The blindfold was taken off. I swayed as I got to my feet; my face felt bruised.
The Prince clapped his hands. The doors opened.
"Meet a man you have never heard of before," the Prince announced in a voice liquid with sinister courtesy. "Meet master Sean ben Bean."
~~~~~
tbc
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 04:22 pm (UTC)&%$#@!#$
:)
I think that this is by far one of my favorite chapters. I love your descriptions, especially of the silk, and you give such a luscious quality to your words. It's really remarkable.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 05:56 pm (UTC)And cliffhanger, yes! How else will I know when it's time to end a fascicle?? *looks innocent*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 07:10 pm (UTC)*sighs* Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 07:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 11:53 pm (UTC)Well, on the one hand, you don't have to worry about wandering into another character's head by mistake. But on the other, you can't tell us what those other characters are thinking. It's a good thing Orlando is so in tune with the Desert Prince's body language! "You may be a most powerful and scary prince, but you want me; oh yes you do!"
*melts*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-17 09:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 08:20 pm (UTC)Apart from that, I love this story, love the sheer lusciousness of it, the attention to detail. Btw, where do the verses come from?
Now finally, finally, the Desert Prince *fans herself* - I think this first encounter was extremely erotic (blindfolded Orlando - awwwwwwww), very much enjoyed the description of the fabrics. Sinous Meanderings of a Happy Mind - that's fantastic, does such a design actually exist? That'd be a gorgeous LJ title!
Am so looking forward *bites fingers in anticipation* to the next confrontation.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 10:39 pm (UTC)The verses come out of my convoluted head, having read *Arabian Nights* (where they're always bursting into verse) and Persian poetry. (This is truly a research-inspiring fic!)
And the Sinuous Meanderings just popped onto the keyboard in last-minute revision. Heh. I did a course in Chinese painting at uni ages ago, and I seem to remember flowery names like that. And the design I made up, based on my essay in said Chinese class and on pure wordrhymes (dragons and dragonflies).
Thanks so much for this fb! I'm so glad you liked it and that you found the encounter *erotic*! That was so important in their first meeting, and after having built it up so absurdly, I was starting to feel apprehensive about being able to carry it off.
*btw: giggles at your icon*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-18 04:15 pm (UTC)Loved the fabric! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-19 09:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-27 10:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-28 08:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-28 10:04 pm (UTC)Tis all very well you having a dream - but it's left me wholly unsatisfied!
hehehehe
I suppose I'd best go and see what else you've written - though Draco Dudley doesn't sound too delightful!!! Perhaps the content outweighs the title though, eh? ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-29 03:34 pm (UTC)Well, no Dudley/Draco has been posted because I'm still writing it and that one I'm not posting until finished. A lot of people seem to like the Billy/Dom/Orli saga (http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/fics.html; scroll down to the end) and Boyfriends is short and sweet and lovely in an Orli-DP-kind of way, I guess. I haven't really written anything like DP, though. Sorry!!!! :-(