Loss for the Prince, page 5
Sasuke, after taking a moment to consider, a moment lasting an eternity for Souley, clicked his tongue—it meant he disapproved, but then he smiled, and Souley’s knees softened.
“You’ve done well,” said Sasuke, and when he got up from behind the table Souley saw he was wearing Drake’s daggers around his waist, and not his own wakizashi. Souley would have considered this further had Sasuke’s raspy but softspoken voice not washed over him—a bed of silk cradling his soul. “It’s all right, Souley.” Sasuke reached out his hand. “Come to me.”
The beast knelt to be face to face with Sasuke; his knees had been buckling anyway. Sasuke stroked his crown, then glided his hand down to the nape of his neck, reminding Souley of the very first time he held Sasuke’s hand.
‘Give me your hand as a man,’ he’d said, and when Souley reached with a hand and not a paw, Sasuke held it. His hand had been warm, and his grip enclosed around Souley’s hand despite being much smaller in size.
I’ve finally done well, thought Souley, and having found Sasuke’s approval for the very first time in his life, Souley gathered his courage to speak the truth he’d hidden for five centuries—
“Pain.”
Healer of Tanzania
Chapter six
Memory Lane
Dalila lived in Zanzibar. Separated from the mainland by a narrow channel, on the blue water and white sand coast of Unguja Island, nested Zanzibar, one of the great Swahili city-states, a commerce center of the Indian Ocean. Trading textile and perfume with the Arabs and Persians, Dalila made a handsome sum and collected fine things in her coral stone home. A Ming porcelain bowl with a red dragon was her favorite.
Swahili being an offspring language from the relations of the Bantu dialects, Arabic and Farsi, Dalila spoke the mother tongues and all their variation as well. She’d lived like so for centuries and done well for herself, but the recent arrival of the Portuguese had devastated well-established trading routes between Africa, Arabia, and India. Market prices shifted and it was eating into her business, so she was learning Portuguese.
Much of her culture was oral, but Europeans wrote theirs down in books—which Dalila had been acquiring, trying to learn these new men. The latest book she acquired was Paradife Loft a Poem Written in Ten Books, by John Milton. ‘Paradise Lost’, it was in English—another language Dalila had been learning. The English and the French were all over the west coast, Dalila heard, it was well worth knowing who they were.
After having read about angels and demons, enough of that, Dalila thought and placed her new book along with the others on her bookshelf carved into the coral limestone wall. She’d kept her home in the natural color of the stone, grey, so the brightness of the items she’d acquired would pop in comparison.
Dalila sighed, recalling the home she used to love, for this would be the last time she’d ever see her living room, books, or porcelain cup—the next morning she’d go to the pier and meet Constantine.
Shen’s request for a letter of intention begot a long journey down memory lane because to write why she rode against Constantine was to remember who he was.
The next morning, she’d see a frigate in the channel, larger than others with the three tall masts strapped with cables as numerous as a modern draw bridge. Although she saw a Christian cross flapping on a white flag above the furled sails, Dalila would take a canoe and row to it to see if they’d buy textiles, and to see if they had Shakespeare. The English playwright had been dead for almost a century, but her collection was incomplete, missing Hamlet.
The ship at anchor gently swayed, held in the blue palm of the warm ocean as she boarded it—it’d looked calm. On the elmwood deck, amongst the seamen, she’d see Constantine. Eyes as blue as the ocean, and hair as bright as the sun, but his aura—dark as the night. She’d dismiss him because those who traded in human lives, slavery, rarely had a vibrant soul.
Then she’d get distracted gawking at the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. Her skin, sun-kissed sepia brown against the soft white cotton of the wrap-around dress, and the goddess turned her head to Dalila, her neck a bronze swan with a golden choker.
“Hello,” she said in Farsi. “I’m Nailah.”
“I’m—” was as far as Dalila would get before she’d be whacked in the head from behind and wake up in chains in the cargo of the ship.
At first, she’d assumed she’d been kidnapped by slave traders and sneered, thinking they’d made a mistake bringing a predator on board, but quickly she’d learnt there was no mistake. With her throat at the sharp end of Constantine’s blade, she’d been interrogated about her ability—she’d disappointed the priest because he already possessed another who could read and evoke emotions: Nailah.
Constantine had been studying immortals and their abilities, and seeing Dalila couldn’t offer anything new, he’d tried to throw her overboard, in the middle of the ocean, at least two days sail away from Zanzibar—which hadn’t been the trouble. He’d chained her to an anchor, so she’d drown over and over whilst waking over and over with her healing light—that was the trouble.
“No, Constantine!” Nailah, whose beauty wasn’t lost even on the mad, begged, grabbing Constantine’s elbow clad in chainmail, then throwing herself at his feet. “She can be of use to us! She speaks all the languages.”
All had been a gross exaggeration, of course, but Dalila, who didn’t want to drown, nodded profusely. So began her journey aboard the Redeemer—the name of Constantine’s frigate.
Constantine, the tallest man Dalila had ever seen, always carried his long sword and wore chainmail armor, even amongst his own men on board his own ship—he was paranoid. Every seventh day, he slipped on a black robe with a white collar over his chainmail and spoke about his Christian god. When he gave his sermons, his men sat on the deck to hear him; attendance was mandatory, and Dalila heard enough of this Christianity.
Called disciples, he had twelve men whom he trusted the most, and among them was a Persian albino whose name was Darius. In a completely black robe, embellished with bone fragments that Dalila thought were human, Darius walked the deck in a permanent good mood, greeting everyone—a jarring attitude contrasting his attire of choice.
Although Dalila couldn’t peg Constantine’s origin beyond European, some of his disciples she could place easily. Along with Darius, Nailah and Ferah were also Persian, and perhaps to accommodate them, Constantine’s choice of language was Farsi. Cedar, a jester of the group, was blatantly Portuguese, the accent of his native tongue prominent in every language he spoke, and Theo was English—or his native tongue was English. Dalila wasn’t proficient enough in the language to place region to his accent.
Dalila’s approximation: the frigate sailed with about four hundred souls on board, but the number fluctuated. A hundred and fifty or so were human, the sailors, but their auras were void of any emotion. There was something wrong with them—the Suns saw that, but what exactly, she didn’t know. The humans didn’t speak, didn’t laugh, they performed their tasks, ate, and slept—that was all.
Another hundred and fifty were Constantine’s soldiers, her kind; Constantine called them Elders, a fitting name for her kind who didn’t age and were older than all men. Another hundred were also Elders, but in the cargo bay there were prisoners.
Above deck, life was jolly; the Elders laughed, and blood was of plenty. But below deck, in the belly of the ship, Elders were starving as Constantine tortured them daily. The priest was studying Elder abilities and had a book where he wrote down his experiments on the prisoners—the bookshelf in his cabin was full of such notes. When he found a particular Elder no longer useful, he made use of them by testing the limits of the healing ability. Elders were being killed in a horrible way so he could write in his book the limits of what he called God’s Grace.
Dalila, frantic to keep herself off the ‘useless’ list, scrubbed the deck, washed Constantine’s clothes, cleaned the waste buckets, and spent her days and nights performing all the minuscule work on the ship that the sailors neglected.
Sometimes Nailah spoke to her as Dalila cleaned her quarters, which were also Constantine’s quarters.
“He didn’t used to be like this,” said Nailah pulling her feet up so Dalila could wipe underneath the chair. “He’s received a prophecy of death, you see, and much weighs on his mind since. He’s worried that he won’t be able to complete his mission. Otherwise, he’s not so…”
Insane. Dalila thought Constantine was insane, but she kept her head down and voice low, waiting for the ship to dock somewhere, so she could escape. They’d been at sea for months, and even with two-thirds of the inhabitants not requiring food, they’d have to dock and resupply at some point.
“I see,” Dalila said. “Do you need anything else?”
“Ah, yes,”— Nailah pointed— “there are some buckets in the closet, can you clean them?”
What she meant was a wooden cabinet and Dalila said, “Of course,” thinking there were waste buckets, but when she opened the doors of the lower section there were tin buckets full of organs: human entrails.
“Be careful, dear,” she heard Nailah say behind her. “There are silver knives in there as well. Don’t prick yourself with them, dear, they’re toxic to us.”
Dalila tried to behave as if keeping buckets of human organs in a cabinet was a normal thing, but Nailah being a reader of emotions as well probably saw her distress, because as Dalila turned with the buckets, Nailah smiled sweetly and said, “They’re not mine, of course. Constantine was trying to see if Obedients felt pain. I believe he’s done with them.”
“I see.”
Madness. Dalila had to get herself off this floating madness! She thought to dump herself overboard along with the buckets and try swimming to shore, however far that may be.
“Dalila dear,” Nailah’s voice sounded gentle as the healer was escaping with the organs. “He can track and find anyone once he knows their name and face. So, perhaps don’t upset him by trying to leave. Once he’s in a better mood, I’ll speak with him about letting you go. He only needs you to interpret for him in China. After that, he has no use for you.”
“I see.”
No one had told Dalila where they were docked, but she knew it was China because of the porcelain—and panicked. She didn’t speak Mandarin.
Horror-stricken, Dalila couldn’t enjoy an otherwise beautiful, strange land, and chewing her nails like a child, she only worried during the days spent in a wood carriage traveling into the heart of the dynasty.
Because they were strangers on the land, Constantine had traveled covert, bringing only Nailah and Dalila along. Dalila who spoke all languages was the designated interpreter, and she died inside when the carriage stopped.
After she was shoved out of the carriage, Dalila along with Nailah and Constantine, walked through a garden of flowering trees. Dalila’s legs had become stone stilts and she struggled with each step, then the desire to run off and bet her chances on a dice that Nailah lied when she said Constantine could track people became overwhelming as she saw a young woman in local attire—white tang suit and light cotton trousers—raking leaves.
The white flower trees were in full bloom—spring, and it would have been a sight to behold had Dalila’s fear not been frying her nerves frizzy like her hair. Her heart pulsed straight into her ears, louder than the crashing of the symbols in the streets for the Chinese New Year. Paper dragons danced, people cheered, and Dalila waited to die as soon as Constantine opened his mouth, and she couldn’t interpret into Mandarin.
“I’m looking for the keeper of time, scribe of history, Shen Zhao,” said Constantine in Farsi.
Now it was Dalila’s turn to speak in Mandarin. She opened her mouth, perhaps to make gibberish sounds mimicking how Mandarin sounded, but the young woman spoke first.
“Who’s asking?” Not a woman, his voice was that of a man and his Farsi was fine. He continued to rake as if death didn’t stand at his door as a tall stranger.
Dalila assumed Constantine was going to whack the scribe with the rake, capture, enslave and torture him as he had the others, but the priest bowed in courtesy and spoke as a civilized man, and it occurred to Dalila for the first time: he’s not mad.
China boasting a prominent international port bringing shiploads of foreigners, and it being the Lunar New Year, a celebration that drew tourists, Shen cared for neither Constantine’s whiteness nor for Dalila’s blackness, or Nailah’s brownness, but the prophecy intrigued him.
Constantine stayed in Shen’s home as the scribe mulled for the words, pacing in his garden. It’d taken him a couple of days, time Dalila spent—even with death looming over her—admiring porcelain cups, jade jewelry, carved mahogany furnishings, and folding paper dividers painted with what she assumed were local lore.
As the evening sun cast through the tall windows, glimmering through the intricately carved frames with false serenity, Dalila watched Shen and Constantine converse as if the priest was a man—Nailah had left to watch the Lunar New Year parade, but Dalila remained, not allowed to leave.
Observing Constantine behave so courteously to his host, Dalila understood that he wasn’t mad, but evil.
They were too deep into the Chinese heartland; it’d take Constantine a week, at least, to return to his ship, and he hadn’t wanted local trouble. Appearing as an odd pack of tourists was one thing but killing a well-known government official in a populated city, then trying to escape as the same odd group would be immediately spotted. There were imperial soldiers everywhere, and it was more trouble than it was worth, not a hill the not-so-mad priest wanted to die on. So he’d leave his sword outside, graciously take the offered tea, and keep his voice down when speaking to Shen.
Not mad, his cruelty was intentional: he was evil.
“Man possessing both the moon and the sun shall hold a silver star in his right hand. The Wrath of God lies beneath his feet, seeking mercy where there is none,”— that had been the prophecy, and Constantine who’d pegged himself as the ‘Wrath of God,’ wanted to know what man possessed both the moon and the sun. What man held a silver star in his right hand?
“The word shall implies that part of the prophecy is yet to come to fruition,” said Shen, changing the cross of his legs on a mahogany wood chair. “The man may not hold a silver star yet, and the fulfillment of the prophecy is conditional upon that phrase. I suppose that is good news for you, for such a man may never hold a star.”
“Do you know of such a man?” asked Constantine, the question he came seeking the answer to.
“Such a thing I cannot say with certainty, but I can speculate if you wish.” He wished. “A certain man comes to mind. A Japanese warlord with a crescent moon insignia; he died taking the Fortress of the Sun. However,” Shen paused, sipping from his jade cup while Constantine patiently waited, “he’s an immortal now, one of us. Should you choose to pursue him, I’d caution you that he’s a mind reader. As of right now, he lives on a small island of fishermen, but if he hears you coming, he may leave.
“The isolationist policy of Sakoku makes Japan a closed country to foreigners, and if you lose him into the main islands, you’ll have the entirety of the militarist government at war with you for simply setting a foot on the soil. Awful people, hostile little islands, a thorn at the side of the Emperor,” Shen hissed.
“Thank you for your gracious council. I shall heed your warning,” said Constantine.
“Another word of advice, lose the cross.” Shen gestured at the rosary hanging from Constantine’s neck. “Since the Shimabara Rebellion, an uprising in Japan some decades ago, Christians are hunted down and killed. Also, fly a Dutch flag, they’re the only ones still allowed to trade, and Japan being a group of islands, it naturally has a menacing navy, a bane of the Emperor’s existence.
“Their waters are watched, and they’ll blow you up to your high heavens for simply sailing close to the islands.”
“Thank you, Keeper of Time. I’m forever in your debt.”
“Ayasu Sasuke is his name, and if you do kill him, before you do so, tell him Shen Zhao, once an envoy of the crowned prince, sends his greetings.”
Chapter seven
Sakura Bloom
What they didn’t know, because Shen hadn’t known it, was why Sasuke lived on an isolated little island—because of his foreign wife. Had they asked, “Where lives the vagabond with a gaijin wife?” anyone in the village could have pointed them his way; they’d all known him, and he’d known them—faces and names.
Another language Dalila didn’t speak: Japanese, but it hadn’t mattered because Constantine didn’t mean to ask anyone anything.
In the season magnolia bloomed, so did Sakura. A warm evening breeze carried delicate petals, drizzling like a lazy summer shower. A row of wooden homes stacked like boxes had traced the shoreline they’d approached from. Curious children had run toward them.
The reason why Dalila didn’t like Sasuke’s Cellar was that the cherry tree always blossomed there, and her memory of Sakura’s bloom was forever haunted.
Man crucified his parents. A mother nailed her children to a tree. Everyone, everyone—died. But before they did, the children who couldn’t be Whispered to, cried out to silent gods. It would be the first time Dalila witnessed the horror of the Whisperer’s Talent, and the tint of crazed men—the aura of Obedients was ingrained into her memory, into her soul, as familiar as the reflection of her own face.
