It began with a series of kisses, mouth on mouth, mouth on neck, mouth on chest and stomach, Andrew showing a gentle dexterity in his lovemaking that I’d never known before, as if all the practice he’d had with handling delicate artefacts was being applied in this bed. Compared to him, all my encounters had been the fumbling of schoolboys. There was no roughness, no force, just art and experience.
I achieved as rapturous a climax as I could have hoped for, given the circumstances of heat and injury and our lack of familiarity with each other’s likes and dislikes. If this was just the start of our lovemaking together, then the next few months were going to be exciting.
Andrew kept his hand in place while the last ripples coursed through my flesh, then kissed me on the shoulder. “Welcome to Damahlia, Mr. Cusiter.”
“Thank you, Dr. Parks. Now it’s not just the desert which has my heart.” My energy levels surprised me. Maybe there was the chance of an encore rather than just the anticipated drift into sleep. I wanted Andrew mounting me, to be pinned down by strong arms and legs even if I wasn’t up to penetration just yet. I tugged at him, trying to manoeuvre him into place. “Come on, get on top of me. We can pretend we’ve just done it, get used to the feeling…”
“I’m not going to object.” Andrew inched himself onto me, pressing and rubbing en route, till he was sitting astride me.
“No, lie on top of me, please,” I pulled Andrew’s head towards me, pushing my chest up so our bodies met. “That’s so good, I—bloody hell.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Andrew rolled off, carefully moving his leg from where he’d accidentally pressed on my wound.
“Not your fault,” the sharp pain shortened my breath. “Mine entirely, for being over ambitious. Come here. Please.” I gingerly drew Andrew closer again, so we lay together in a sticky sweaty heap, both unsure of what to say. Both of us probably afraid we’d ruined things.
Aware of the tension in Andrew’s shoulders, I broke the silence. “Despite the fact my leg feels like someone’s branded it, it’s a long time since I’ve been so happy.” I twisted my fingers in his hair. His silky, sweaty, beautiful hair. “It’s been very nice. And what is so funny?”
Andrew suppressed his laughter. “I was thinking of all those wonderful lines people have used to address their lovers. If I could write the beauty of your eyes. Live with me and be my love and we will all the pleasures prove. Stuff like that. Me the ‘sheik’ and you the writer and all we can manage is It’s been very nice. We’re a disgrace to the traditions of romance.” He moved his hand up to stroke my cheek.
“Stuff and nonsense. Just because we don’t talk like Romeo and Juliet doesn’t mean we don’t feel the way they do. I feel star-crossed at the moment.” I closed my eyes and let a huge, joyful sigh engulf me. “Exhausted but star-crossed.”
“Do you really mean that, too? I think you might be getting mixed up there. Starry eyed, perhaps?” Andrew—carefully—wiggled up the bed until we were cheek to cheek, his hot breath caressing my face. “It’s as well this isn’t a tent—a sheik would be a lot more accomplished and debonair and wouldn’t have whacked your leg. I’m afraid sex with me will always border on the clumsy. I’m not as deft with lovers as with artefacts.”
“It’ll border on the garrulous, as well. You’re almost as bad as Bernard.” I turned and kissed him. “I’m so very glad you’re here with me. It’s a long time since I felt like this and the object of that affection was drowned while bathing off Naxos. I believed I might never love again, but I’m pleased to be proved wrong.”
“Drowned? I’m so sorry to hear that.” Andrew stroked my cheek. “Not just for a life cut short, but for the fact it made you sad. I can’t bear to think of you bereaved and unhappy.” He kissed me once more, then sat up. “I’ll have to get the pair of us clean before we use up all our ration of luck and get caught.”
“Good thinking. What’s so funny now?” I asked, as Andrew started chuckling.
“I was just thinking I should find that minx who led Bernard astray and buy her a fur coat. She did us both a huge favour.” He rolled off the bed, to replenish the water in the bowl; the bowl which had seen the start of all the mischief. “You needn’t leave Damahlia permanently when your friend does, Charles. See Bernard safely home then return, if you want. You could write your book here and we could call you my protégé. For decorum’s sake.”
“Would that work?” My mind raced at the possibilities that arrangement could contain.
“From your writing point of view, certainly. We send artefacts all over the place under secure shipment, so a manuscript or two shouldn’t be too hard to add to the load. And we won’t be staying here forever—I want to get as much stuff excavated as I can, before…”
“Before what?”
“Before the scorpion turns and stings us all. This country has my heart, but she’s a hard mistress. She’ll turn faithless soon, I fear.” Andrew shrugged, then made himself decent again before refilling the bowl and returning. “Do you want me to clean you?”
“No thank you, you’ll be looking for sand again and I’m not sure I have the energy left for such frivolity.” I took the flannel, moistening it carefully and gathering my thoughts. I should have guessed Dahmalia couldn’t last forever, but we’d enjoy it while we could. “I could give it a try, returning here while we’re still made welcome. Although if you grew tired of me, you promise you would say so? I’d never wish to be a burden.”
“You’ll never be a burden, Charles, of that I’m certain. Now, please let me help you, you look all in.” Andrew grinned, administering the bed bath quickly and efficiently, more nurse than lover. “Sleep and get well for me. You’re going to be no use unless you get your energy back.”
I lay back and closed my eyes, aware of Andrew hovering over me, watchful. I smoothed down the sheets and found scattered grains, the gritty sensation between my fingers making me smile. “Bloody sand—gets everywhere…”
Winter
What You Will
(a Shakespeare and Steampunk fusion)
Prologue
They say there’s no fool like an old fool. Now, I don’t yet count myself as old, and back when this tale is set, forty was still a pinprick on the far side of the clouds for me, approaching but not yet too close. But I was a fool all right, more fool than any man ought to be who’s flown around the world and back again so often he might as well have just been going from Deptford to Dartford. There was a lad involved. There’s always a lad in the tale, isn’t there, for such as me?
And was there a happy ending? Now that depends on whether you believe what a certain playwright wrote, or whether you want the real story.
Act one, Scene one
“We’ll be passing Illyria in thirty minutes, Captain Antonio.”
“Thank you, Soames.” Illyria already? At that rate, come the week’s end, the silk we carried wouldn’t just be in the markets of London, it would already be girding the backside of some rich man’s mistress. Hell, this steamship set a cracking pace. I watched out my observation window as thin streams of clouds parted to show a turbulent sea, and the calmer, green and gold haze of the coastal strip. Just a sprinkling of snow on the hills, but at least today was clear.
How on earth had people managed in the days when the only route back to England from the Indies was by water? Over the Indian Ocean, beating round the Cape and back home only as fast as the wind would let you—it seemed another world, now.
I’d flown these routes before, back in the days when I was still a poacher. Plenty of rich pickings to be found.
What was the name of that trader my speedy little privateer took, these five years past? Phoenix; that was it. Phoenix, full of a treasure trove of jewels the size of quails’ eggs and spices so fresh you’d have sworn they were new picked. By God, we’d filled our purses that day.
Now that I’d in effect turned gamekeeper, I had legitimate cause to be flying over here but Illyria was still a name to bring out sweat
on the back of my neck. I’d not dared to land there again, no matter how lucrative a trade contract I’d been offered.
The story’s a common one, me not knowing when to give up. I should have stopped flying when my pockets were full of Phoenix’s profits. I could have given my Letter of Marque back to Her Majesty’s men, then gone home and settled down, but the smell of the chase was always calling me and there was always another ship to hunt down.
Tiger, my last prize was called. We fell on her out of the sun; might have got away with it if she’d hauled her colours and just let us strip her of her cargo, but it came to a fight. Nasty, brutal fight, and all—Count Orsino’s nephew lost his leg and I was left a marked man. Set foot in Illyria and I was dead, the Count would see to that.
Still, I’d made a success of myself since those privateering days, making plenty of money to see me through a comfortable old age, once I’d had enough of flying, or it had had enough of me. All I lacked was someone to spend that time with.
I never was one for spending ages staring into my glass, although if I caught my reflection in the helm’s polished brass I saw a presentable enough face looking back, and I knew I’d still be counted handsome, despite the scar across my chin. The looks I got from the women of London, painted whores up to finest ladies, reassured me the wound didn’t make a scrap of difference. Not that any amount of looking or sighing from them was going to make a scrap of difference to me as far as my affections were concerned.
Oh, I’d had my moments with men, but none of them had lasted long and I was still foolhardy enough to think that one day he’d come along, my soul mate, and I’d be made up. A man can dream.
“Sir!” Soames voice broke in on my thoughts again. He was a good first officer but it seemed he never let a man have time to think. “Starboard side. Looks like some poor soul’s copped it.”
The wreckage stood out like a great wen on the coastline, half in the sea and half on the strand, but this was no seagoing vessel.
“Bloody pleasure flyers,” I said, and Soames nodded in reply.
I’d seen the like before: small, swift aircraft, rich men’s playthings, damned capricious unless you had the touch with flying them. This one had clearly proved too much for her crew to handle and maybe the snow storm we’d had in the night had done for her. Still, it pulled at my heartstrings to see such a neat little machine ditched and smouldering.
“Looks like there’s at least one survivor, sir.” A small spot, crawling around the wreck, proved that Soames’ eyesight was keen as ever. “Poor soul, he’ll be frozen to death before anyone finds him. There can’t be a village for miles.”
“We’ll land,” I said. Funny, that. There was no debate, no indecision on my part. I suddenly knew, for whatever reason God alone could tell me, that we had to go down and help. Illyria and my status there notwithstanding.
“Won’t that delay us, sir?”
“Aye, but we’ve made good enough time to allow some leeway. Make it so.”
Perhaps I was moved by memories of stories I’d heard as a child, how old Cloudesley Shovell had misread his bearings, got wrecked off the Scillies and been dispatched—or so my granny said—by an old woman who’d been more interested in scavenging than acts of mercy. I knew I couldn’t leave anyone, assuming they survived the cold, to the mercy of the Illyrians; I wasn’t sure they had any mercy to give. At least Soames didn’t dare argue with me. The captain had spoken, and my word was law.
***
That tiny little speck could have been anything or anyone, you can’t tell a lot from the height we’d been cruising, but it turned out to be a boy. No, he was much older than a boy; it was his state of shock making him look so young, so fragile. My heart near leapt through my waistcoat at the sight of him, honest to God.
I’ve never been taken that way before, not what the old maids call “love at first meeting”, but even an old dog like me can learn new tricks. The young man could walk, miracle of miracles, apparently unhurt from the impact. Seemed he’d been damn lucky, picked up out of the wreckage unconscious by a local fisherman and cared for by his family, who’d dried him and warmed him and saved his life. Maybe I’d misjudged the Illyrians, or at least some of them. He’d gone back to the craft, which had got into technical difficulties before it crashed, or so he said. She’d come down lightly but then—he didn’t know how—she was all aflame.
“Maybe the fuel leaked and there was a spark?” He looked from me to Soames and back again, like a wild hunted thing.
Soames had shrugged at this, saying it might well have been. I’d still been too moonstruck to do much more than make sure the lad—Roderigo he said his name was—didn’t die of shock, despite the warm coat we’d swaddled him in. Any other time I’d have given anyone who’d have listened the benefit of my opinion on small airships and why they crashed when in unskilled hands, but suddenly I’d lost all interest. All that mattered was that Roderigo had survived.
What makes a man—a sensible, steady man like me who’s seen a bit of life both sides of the law and come out the other side—turn into nothing more than a sentimental girl? You tell me, because I don’t know the answer.
Roderigo started rambling then, asking about his sister. He’d come back to the wreck to look for her, so where was she and why were we keeping her from him? It took an age to get him to understand we hadn’t found any other survivors. It broke my heart to hear him calling for her.
“Viola! Viola! What have you done with her?”
In the end we gave him a dose of laudanum to calm him down and I said I’d get him to the nearest town, to see if we could find his sister there. I wasn’t hopeful: truth be known I thought we had no bloody chance of finding her alive, but going along meant I could spend more time with him. Share a room while we stayed to search. Share a bed, maybe. Airmen often did, nothing meant by it.
Soames was lost for words at my decision but, as I said, my word’s law. I told him his duty was to the cargo, not to me, and that he could pick me up next outward trip. I’d be at the refuelling point. I’m not sure he believed me, but I’d gone past caring. Wherever this lad went, I knew I had to be at his side, even if it meant heading further into Illyria and signing my own death warrant.
Act one, scene two
Now, regarding that death warrant, I had Count Orsino in mind. Specifically, him stringing me up from some tree in revenge for crippling his kin. I didn’t realise I’d nearly die of a broken heart before he could get his hands on me. But that’s getting ahead of myself in this story, skipping too many pages of the log in my haste to get the story out.
Back to when we found the crashed airship. Roderigo and I watched the crew take my ship up again, and no sooner had she entered the clouds than I got the impression the lad wouldn’t mind giving me the push. Ignoring that, I took him to a nearby village, found a nice inn and got him fed, warmed and settled for the night. We shared a room and it took all my self-control not to try my luck with him there and then, but that would have been my lust taking advantage of his melancholy and grief for his sister. I saw the signs, though; a practiced eye can always tell who has got at least half an inclination towards his fellow man, and who hasn’t.
Anyway, next day Roderigo was all contrition at having dragged me away from my duty. We were on the road again by then, heading north. It was the one direction I didn’t want to go—too close to where Orsino lurked—but I had little choice. If Roderigo’s sister had somehow survived, that’s where she’d have gone. I thought it possible she’d parachuted out with one of the ship’s officers to protect her, and I’d been idiot enough to tell Roderigo so. If there was any chance she was alive, he had to pursue it and I, smitten worse than an old maid, had to pursue him.
Suddenly my handsome lad piped up, as if he’d been thinking long, and come to a difficult decision. “You’ve done more than I could ask any man to do, and I don’t wish to seem ungrateful, but I’m not welcome here and I mean to bear my evils alone.”
“J
ust tell me where you’re from, lad. And why you’re not welcome and talk of bearing evils.” It was all the reply I could manage. I felt like he’d slapped my face, this trying to shake me off like a stray dog.
“How can I repay your love by laying any of this on you?” He touched my arm, leaving it there just a fraction too long for simple friendship, too short for my satisfaction.
And he’d used the word “love”. Surely that wasn’t my ears hearing what they wanted to hear, although I still gave myself a stern talking to about getting my hopes up. Perhaps he didn’t mean anything by it, being obviously—from his manners and the tone of his voice—used to the ways of the gentry. That sort of person always speaks in a funny way. Flowery.
He went quiet for a while, thinking something through until he came to some momentous decision. “My name isn’t Roderigo—I’m called Sebastian, as was my father before me.”
“Sebastian of Messalina?” I knew all about him, all right. No wonder this lad wanted to keep his name secret on these shores. In the same boat, weren’t we, both hiding from our enemies? Things always got complicated around the Med, and old rivalries never seemed to be laid to rest. Nonetheless, I was glad I’d warranted being taken into his confidence.
“That’s the man.” Words tumbled out from Sebastian now that the dam of secrecy had been breached. I heard all his tale. His birth, as one of twins. His father’s death. His love for his sister, Viola, who could have been his double, he said, except that she was accounted beautiful.
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