I admit I was afraid. I had heard of the special skills of the Widow’s private guards. Who hasn’t?
“I cannot give a different answer,” I said. “I am the Widow’s Man.”
No one had stopped the assassins. I had done my job well.
They slipped silently into our queen’s bedchamber using my well-oiled key at a moment when both she and I were supremely occupied. Drawing her eyebrows together to help her focus, the queen wrapped herself around my penis, which stood alert again. She gave satisfied little sighs that made her magnificent breasts sway. I reached up and stroked the pink areolas around her nipples. When she shuddered and told me, “Yes,” I pulled the royal nipples down and gave them a fierce twist for every time she fucked my cock. Then, with a sudden thrust, I threw her over to land on her back amidst the pretty cushions. She slapped my backside with a hard thud and I came a second time inside her, this time without waiting for permission. And this time, she was not the only one who felt a little dizzy.
Like gentlemen, the assassins waited a moment for us to compose ourselves.
I recognized one of them immediately. He was the same gentleman who organized the invitations to the carnival long ago that impressed my friends so much. So much so that they, in turn, opened many doors for me, doors that led me eventually to the bed of our queen, now struggling to sit up, trying to grasp what was happening to her.
It was also that very same carnival when I met you for the first time, my Lady Widow. A day of fate, but of course I now realize that my fate was constructed for me. By others.
I didn’t bother with hauling up sheets, covering myself, making excuses, comforting the queen, engaging in small talk with the assassins and so forth. I had nothing to hide, not anymore. I calmly released our queen from my arms, moved aside to give the assassins some space and got out of bed.
I stood there naked. Completely comfortable.
The queen had seen me naked many times, and the assassins surely had seen it all.
“Your unrightful rule is over,” said the gentleman I knew.
The other assassin was not a man of words. Instead, he took out a thin leather strip. I was right, they were going to keep it clean in here. That leather strip around her neck would strangle the life out of our queen.
Not that they weren’t prepared to adapt the plan if necessary. They made no attempt to hide the knives they carried just underneath their cloaks, long, dark and well used.
Our queen was still sitting up in bed, still half tangled in her ridiculous flower dress, and trying to hold on to the sheets. She had not quite caught up with the end of her world.
“What is this?” she said, to me.
“My queen,” I said, “these are your assassins.”
I admit I did enjoy the situation, somewhat. For such a long time I had had to do the farm wife’s bidding, and I didn’t even love her.
Her hand went to her belly and then to her face.
The assassin with the leather garrote moved closer to the bed.
“But,” she said, still looking at me, “who are you?”
“I am the Widow’s Man.”
“The Widow…” she said.
“…is taking back her rightful place and power,” said the gentleman assassin.
I suddenly realized that he had never liked me. This man who smoothed my path to power at every turn, who arranged so many amorous meetings with you, my Lady Widow, at great personal danger to himself, and who protected me wherever I went in our illustrious city as long as I went where you sent me, felt nothing but hatred for me. And now…
He turned and looked at me. I could see that I had reached the end of my usefulness, if not for you, my Lady Widow, as I still hope, then certainly for him. He had come here to kill not just the queen but also me.
Maybe he should have communicated that intention to his fellow assassin who clearly knew nothing about it. Maybe then their mission would have been successful. Maybe.
Because in that short moment of his distraction our queen showed what she was made of.
She rolled her sturdy body over the bed sheets and jumped at the gentleman assassin, ripping her flowery dress apart, startling him out of his fixation on me. With the same strong, workmanlike hands that she had used to pull me inside her she grabbed the long knife from under his cloak, raised it up in the air and, using her elevated position on the bed, stabbed him in the back with all her considerable might.
Who would have thought that a gentleman could scream like that? Like a frightened child?
He collapsed into the ruin of the ridiculous flowers, spreading his blood everywhere. So much for keeping it clean. The second assassin, although revealing himself quite obviously as an ardent admirer of her voluptuous shape, did his best to race after our queen who had managed to jump off the bed and to head for the back door.
I stood in her way. Yes, that is right. I stood in her way. I could have held her, I could have fought her down, I could have slowed her for just long enough so that the man with the garrote could do his job. Your job.
But I did nothing. I did not help her, but I also did not stop her. She pushed me aside with her strong hands, she ran past me and then she was out the door.
I don’t know why. Hadn’t I left her bed, just a few minutes before, to give the assassins space to do their deadly work? But something happened to me when I recognized the gentleman’s true feelings toward me. I believe my world was shattered then, too.
Besides, I caught the wild after-sex scent of our queen as she slipped past me, her splendid naked buttocks brushing against my thigh, and perhaps it crossed the more primitive recesses of my mind that she might be carrying my child.
Still, my inaction would not have made any difference to the outcome of this assassination if the rest of the Widow’s Men, what looked like a whole company of them, had not chosen that very moment to enter the bedchamber.
The blood on the bed and the gentleman’s messy business of dying confused them.
“Is this not the wrong body?” they asked.
The second assassin tried to follow our queen and his mission, but he was held back with, I am sure, the best of intentions. But with unfortunate results.
I still stood there, naked, surveying the scene with something like faint amusement.
Our queen can no longer harm you, my Lady Widow, or interfere with your rightful rule. She and her deplorable father were upstarts from the provinces, and not related at all to your illustrious ancestor, the First King. Or at least not more than we all are, linked through centuries of intricate entanglement.
I had not expected to receive you naked, and in a bed saturated with the gentleman assassin’s blood. But I expected you anytime now.
Instead, there was a heated conversation at the back door and then your men arrested me “for treason.” For helping the queen escape. For not being what I am and always will be, through and through, the Widow’s Man.
In the palace, in the quiet light of afternoon, you leaned across the desk, resting your chin in your hands, and gave me that long clear look that you had given me the morning you first showed me your face, hidden in the attic of some deserted storage building near the docks that smelled of wine and spices. Then, kneeling between your thighs, I felt that my body and soul were being weighted and that my life hung in the balance of your judgment.
Then, as now, I could not look away.
Then, as now, something happened in the silence, out of my power, just out there beyond my horizon, that determined my fate.
You said nothing. Gave me not even a nod.
Then, slowly, you waved your guards back. You got up and walked toward me. Your dress shimmered in many shades of darkness. You hesitated for a moment, supporting yourself on my side of the desk. That hesitation told me everything.
I tried to speak, to explain myself again. Maybe I could find the one thing to say that would change the world back to the way it was before, but no words came to me.
And then it
was too late. You walked up close to the chair. I smelled the perfume you favor. I saw the soft swelling of your breasts under the cleavage of your rose-rimmed corset. I imagined the dark brown nipples underneath, straining against the material. I wanted to touch them so much, my arms made an involuntary movement toward you. My wrists reminded me with a sharp pain of where I was and who I was, now, to you.
You raised your hand. Over the last few days I have learned to fear a raised hand, but you just lightly touched my forehead and I felt your thin fingers run like a shadow over my hair. I was glad I had been allowed to wash it, even if it was only with a rough prison soap that many had used before.
Then you gripped the back of my neck, hard, and leaned in to kiss me.
I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the times you kissed me before.
The time you told me, in the damp passage under the canal bridge, your great plans for this city and your return to power. The time I became, on your instructions, with the expert assistance of your gentleman assassin and, I admit, not without a certain amount of satisfaction, the lover of our farm-wife queen. The time when you sent me off to the culmination of my mission in the royal bedroom, to betray her.
And now.
Although I have tasted them rarely, I instantly recognized the exquisite flavor of your lips. I opened my mouth a little to accommodate you. I closed my eyes and shut out the world.
You pushed your tongue inside, fast and hard. I took it in.
Sensations exploded. Some people can pass out from such sensations. Maybe I hoped I would, too. But I stayed alert. Alert and alive. Then I felt your other hand inside my shirt, your thighs underneath the midnight silk pressing on mine.
I wanted to feel your full weight on my body but you only gave me a little bit. You gripped my neck more fiercely. You forced your tongue in deeper. I caressed it with my own, always careful to follow your lead, until I ran out of breath. Politely, you pulled out. I would have preferred to lose consciousness. Then I felt your lips brushing mine again.
Your scent was everywhere.
I don’t know how long your kisses lasted, but by the time I opened my eyes again, the room seemed much darker.
My body responded in other ways, too. You looked down briefly and, equally briefly, ran your hand across my pants. I looked into your eyes as you tested my reaction. My cock rose to meet you. Your fingers rubbed along its length. You rolled your thumb roughly around the rim. The blood rose hot under my skin. Still looking into my eyes, you slowly stroked the head of my penis through the coarse fabric of my prison pants. It started to throb in tribute to your power. I returned your gaze.
“As always,” you said, “you have perfect control.”
“Control is the servant of surrender,” I said. I often wanted to say that to you, because I am not sure, even now, that you understand it, but I had never been so bold. Now, I could say whatever I liked.
You kissed me one more time, sweetly and gently. And then you drew back. You leaned against the old king’s desk.
“Is there a request you would like to make?” you said, and I could hear a certain sadness in your voice.
“May I ask for a piece of your clothing?” I said.
That surprised you. Maybe you thought I would ask for a girl to be sent to my cell (and from the brief test you performed on my body I would have put her to good use, that is true), or maybe you thought there was someone I wanted to send a message to. Maybe you thought I would ask for a dark drink to ease the passing.
But you quickly overcame your surprise.
With a fast, decisive movement, you tore a long strip off your sleeve. Your skin shimmered pale and delicate underneath. Then you bent over me and slowly laid the fabric around my shoulders.
The scent of your favorite perfume rose from it.
You looked down at me, hands suspended, fabric suspended. Silk would be perfect for the purpose. It is soft but it does not yield.
I looked up.
“Please,” I said.
You hesitated.
I didn’t close my eyes. Did I want you to do this for me?
Well, one part of me did, and another part was still not ready.
You saw that, and you pulled away.
The silk strip dropped onto my chest.
Your hands ran all the way down to my thighs.
You touched my crotch again, but nothing more.
Then you turned and walked away through the private door without so much as a backward glance.
I saw the long fingers of your hand slide it shut behind you.
The carnival, colorful costumes and intricate masks, ladies of the court and gentlemen of the bedchamber, took over the entire outer palace, and admission was very exclusive. Of course, everyone wanted to be there. This was during the time of our queen’s deplorable father, whose proximity was to be avoided if one valued one’s life, or at least that’s what our teachers told us. But we were young, and we did not believe in personal death.
I, of all people, was the one who got invitations. They came to me through what I thought then was a fortuitous, perhaps an accidental path. Now I know that it was the long hand of history that selected me. To go to the carnival, where I first felt your breath on my neck and your silent touch from behind, and where I lost contact with my friends by falling helplessly and gloriously in love with you. To return to this prison cell, and wait for your assassin.
I don’t know how it will be done. They were trying to keep it clean in the royal bedroom (and look how that turned out…) but does it matter here?
This is not an honorable death. This is not a public execution, where the condemned man gets to make a last speech and take a last stand, with all the good citizens as witness. This is the dirty little assassination of a dirty little traitor, who betrayed both the queen who loved him and you, my Lady Widow, who owns his immortal soul.
Is it right that I should die tonight?
My Lady Widow, everything you do is right by me.
All those years of life in the shadows, when I prepared myself every day to catch a glimpse of your face in the crowd or the faintest scent of your perfume in an empty room, and when many, so many days passed giving me nothing but longing, I never once wavered in my love.
With you, I have lived a life in memories, stolen moments of ecstasy, intense desire and pain. And the many joyful celebrations I experienced, first with the girls in the street, and then with the girls at court, and lastly, in your service, with our queen in her royal bed, are nothing compared to the marriage of my soul with your passing shadow.
The Reign of the Widow—how will it pan out? Will you rule us from our rightful throne? Will you be deposed again? Perhaps by your own people? Will you, too, at some point feel the kiss of the assassin on your neck, or will you leave this life as you lived it, all on your own terms? A new day is dawning over our realm, that is for sure. I would have dearly liked to see it.
Is that the assassin’s soft footfall I hear outside my cell? Or is it just my own fearful heartbeat? It won’t be long now.
When the assassin comes, I will take his touch as if it was yours, my Lady Widow. I wear the thin strip of silk around my neck, hoping he will favor me by using it. It will be your last embrace, the consummation that I have desired ever since that first night at the carnival. I can move my cheek just enough to feel the fabric you tore from your sleeve.
I am glad that your scent on it will not fade before I die.
JERICHO
Megan Arkenberg
He sits in a corner of the room, far away from the others. It is better this way. He can watch them flutter through the house like birds in a dark cage, swathed in damask and velvet and brocade, glittering and twirling to the music. They wear silver rings in their ears, their eyes are shadowed with kohl and masks, their lips glisten with wine like dark jewels. The men’s bare necks, the women’s arms and breasts and shoulders shimmer like damp silk. A bitter-smooth scent is in the air, brandy and musk and sweat.
They are his guests in this rented house and he, their charming host, despises them. He sits on the edge of a velvet chair the color of a drunken woman’s mouth and watches the dancers with steepled fingers pressed against his lips. The rest of his face is hidden by a gray mask. His clothes are dark and plain. He wears a scarlet cord around his neck, and from that cord hangs an iron key.
His name is Rahab, and the key opens the gates of the city.
He thinks of the people camped outside the city walls.
In his head, he calls them the Golden People. That is how they seem—hot, metallic, too bright to look at. Nothing at all like the silver-twilight people dancing in the rented ballroom, begging to be stared at, to be desired. In his heart, Rahab knows he is one of these twilight people, and worse; he is a whore, and a whore in Jericho is like a city without walls.
There are walls inside the Golden People, holding them inside themselves, holding strangers out. Even the beautiful ones are hard to look at. They hide their secrets so well, it is easy to forget they are hiding anything.
Like a cheap harlot, Jericho cannot keep a secret.
The first Golden People came to his house two months ago. It was strange for foreigners to venture so far across the city, where the streets became mazes and bridges ran between houses overhead, and young women would stand in the bridges’ windows with one shoulder bared and masks over their eyes. Rahab’s house, a dark sinuous thing with many windows, leaned against the city wall like a girl drowned in absinthe. It smelled like absinthe, the sweet anise scent of brothels.
The Golden People smelled like sunlight, sweat and molten metal. The man had been distant, dispassionate, watching everything with a smile that did not reach his eyes. But the woman’s hair was soft between Rahab’s fingers, and her hands when they touched his face were as hot as gold worn against skin.
Thrones of Desire Page 18
