by Davyne DeSye
“There. Now we are sharing our meal,” she called over her shoulder. Petter put the two loaf halves into his own sack and moved to his table. They spoke as they worked, of the plans upon which they were laboring, or of his work at the exhibition. Petter ate as he worked.
“I like your bread better,” he said at last, realizing that he had nearly finished her half loaf.
“As do I,” she said. She flashed him a smile – in the dimness of the room between them he could not tell if she was teasing him, or apologizing for her slight of his purchase. He put his own bread and the remaining cheese away, thinking to save it for morning.
As soon as he stopped eating, his eyes grew dim again. However, he was determined to finish the explanatory notations on the current page before he retired for the evening.
“Petter?” Phoebe’s voice and a hand on his shoulder woke him some time later. He raised his head and examined his page to assure himself that he had not ruined it. He had not.
“You should get more rest,” she said.
“Indeed,” he answered, leaning back on his stool and stretching in an undignified manner. As he put on his coat, the weight in one pocket reminded him of his gift to Constance, the gift he had wanted to show Phoebe.
“I made something. I want to show you.” He avoided mentioning Constance – she was the one topic that he now felt uncomfortable discussing with Phoebe. Not that Phoebe was at all cold toward the topic, but even so, he felt an inexplicable unease when discussing the one woman with the other. He pulled the long box from his pocket and placed into Phoebe’s open hands. She opened the lid.
“Oh…” The utterance was more a sigh or an exhalation than a word. She placed the box onto the surface of the table, eyes riveted to the white marble rose that lie within, a barely opened bud on a long, leaved stem. Her eyes moved from stem to leaves to flower. Her hands hovered above it.
“May I?” she asked, her eyes still looking at the delicate carving.
“Of course,” he said. He flushed with pride as he imagined presenting the gift to Constance and her similarly admiring response.
Phoebe lifted the flower from the cushioned box, and held it, turning it as she did. “Petter. My Heavens, it’s… perfect. I can see the veins in the leaves, the texture in the petals…” Her eyes lifted to meet his. He was surprised to see tears glistening in her eyes, making them even more luminous than usual. His smile faded.
“Ah, well. I’m glad you like it, Phoebe,” he said. His discomfort grew as she looked back at the rose, smiling through her tears. “Ah… Um…,” he stammered, unsure how to explain – without causing Phoebe hurt or himself humiliation – that the gift was not for Phoebe but for Constance. “I, ah, made it for Constance,” he blurted. He put his hands in his pockets and ducked his head. When Phoebe did not respond for a time, he raised his head again. The rose lay in the cushioned box again, and Phoebe’s shining face floated before him, still smiling, eyes still tear-filled. He huffed a quick breath of relief and embarrassment.
“Petter, I wasn’t thinking of who will own it,” she said with reverence. “I was marveling over its existence.” She looked back at the rose a last time, and then reached out and closed the lid. She lifted the box to him, and said, “Thank you for showing it to me. Constance will be very pleased.”
“Thank you,” he responded, taking the box, unsure why he was thanking Phoebe. For her awe, for her understanding, for her friendship – for all of those. He returned the box to his coat pocket.
“Do you intend to keep working?” he asked. He yawned behind his hand, and said, “As you know, I need to sleep. May I escort you home?”
“Yes, thank you, Petter,” she said, her smile as she met his eyes so genuine that it erased all vestiges of his discomfiture.
***
Petter waited in Constance’s now familiar sitting room, pacing, feeling every minute pass as an hour. As he paced, he moved from statuary to vase to painting, looking again at the beauty with which Constance surrounded herself, vowing anew – as he did each time he visited – that he would win her, and be able to keep her surrounded with objects just as beautiful as she.
“Petter, how nice,” she said, as she swept into the room. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.” He pulled his eyes from her smiling face, and bent over her hand.
“All time is waiting between those moments when I can see you again,” he said, raising his head to her face again. Constance blushed prettily, and turned away from him, walking toward the window seat.
“No flowers today?” she asked turning back to face him, and then she laughed. “You always bring flowers. Does your affection wane?”
“No!” Petter said, mortified at her suggestion, taking a step toward her, a pleading hand held out to her. “Certainly not.” He regained his composure, and pulling himself straighter, he said, “As a matter of fact, I brought you a very special flower. A flower that will never die – like my affection for you.” With a flourish, he produced the lidded box, and held it out to her.
“Never die? Oh my,” she said, and she granted him a curious smile as she took the box from him. She lifted the lid, and said, “Oh, isn’t that pretty!” Her hand rose to the flower as if to snatch it from the box.
“Carefully,” he said, his own hand rising with hers. “It’s very fragile.”
“Oh,” she said again, then raised the flower from its cushioned bed.
“I carved it for you,” he said as she brought it to her nose.
Her eyes flashed up to him and back down to the rose at her nose. She giggled. “It doesn’t have any aroma,” she said.
“No,” he answered, laughing.
“But I suppose it will last forever,” she said, and with a nod toward a vase of flowers near the window, “unlike the flowers I receive from other suitors.”
Petter’s face darkened as his eyes moved to the vase and the large bouquet rising above it.
“Your gift makes any others unworthy,” she said, and she twirled the carven rose between two fingers. “Those will wither and die, and yours won’t. Oh, Petter, thank you. I will treasure it.” She smiled at him and shaded her eyes with pale golden eyelashes, before returning her eyes to his. He bowed to her, too dazzled to say anything in response.
She returned the rose to the box and closed the lid. She pressed the box to her chest and smiled again before placing it on the side table beneath the large bouquet.
“I shall find a special place for my special flower,” she said, turning away to take a seat in the window box. Gazing at the closed gift box sitting under the large spray of fragrant flowers, inexplicable disappointment dimmed his pulse, but he shook himself and joined her at her gesture.
“So tell me, Petter. Have you finished your plans for Father? He tells me he was very impressed with your presentation,” she said, taking his hand in hers. Petter warmed at her touch, and looked down to commit to memory the sight of her hand grasping his.
“Nearly,” he said.
“And is the building a grand one? Will the commission fetch a very grand price?” she asked.
“Your father has made no promise of a commission,” he said. Smiling at her girlish and hopeful questions, he said, “and yes, it is a very grand building.”
“Oh, but he shall!” she answered. “And one grand commission will follow another, until you are the most famous architect in London!” Her face glowed. With her genuine and selfless eagerness for his own achievement and advancement, he felt she had made a declaration of love.
Without thinking, with eyes focused on the full softness of her mouth, he leaned toward her, closer, closer, until his lips met hers in a chaste first kiss. The surprise he felt at his own action so overcame him that he could not cherish the kiss as he had always thought he might – in truth it was over in the same instant it was begun. The surprise in Constance’s widened eyes froze him in mortification, but before he could pull away from her, or voice any apology, a small smile spread over her lips. Her eyes
lowered, and then rose to his again. He thought he must be dreaming as she leaned toward him again, but he would not rebuff her by rejecting the opportunity she was presenting to him.
He placed his hands on her arms, and pulled her nearer, watching her eyes close as she presented her rosebud lips to him again. This time, a spreading warmth suffused his body as their lips met, and then a shock that traveled from his mouth to his loins as her lips parted, and her warm, moist tongue entered his mouth. She moved her mouth against his, and he attempted to move to match her. His nose bumped hers and, awkwardly, he turned his head again. His eyes were still closed, his lips still reaching for the missing warmth of hers, when she laughed. He opened his eyes, and her hand rose to her delectable laughing lips to stifle the end of her laughter.
“That was rather clumsy,” she said from behind her hand, and covered another small laugh. Petter fell from the heights of his euphoria into a seething black swamp of humiliation. Apparently seeing the devastated look that he could not keep from crossing his face, she said, “You were very sweet, though.” She lowered her hand into his, and leaning toward him again, said in a whispered intimacy, “I shall have to let you kiss me again tomorrow.” She rested her head against his shoulder, before straightening again. As quickly as he had fallen, he was lifted again to ecstatic happiness, ready to pull her to him and kiss her again, but controlling himself.
Tomorrow, he repeated the word to himself. I would not be a gentleman if I pressed my advantage upon this beautiful, darling girl. Even admonishing himself to courtliness, he did not know how he would live through the interminable eternity until the next day. Perhaps before tomorrow, I will solve the dilemma of how to avoid bumping noses. He smiled at Constance, and squeezed her hand, having no ability to speak in his untethered state of happiness and hunger.
Constance rose and walked to the side table where his gift lay. She raised it to her chest, clutched in both hands, and said, “Thank you again for your gift, Petter.”
He stood, and with a small bow of his head, said, “I am happy it pleased you, for I hope only to please you, now and always.”
In his inner vision he saw Phoebe’s tear-filled eyes as she gazed at the carven flower. He raised his bowed head, his eyes searching Constance’s own, hoping to see appreciative tears there as well. But the box remained closed, and she turned to replace it on the side table.
Constance smiled into the awkward silence that descended between them, and stepped toward him, extending her hand to him.
“Thank you for coming, Petter,” she said.
Startled by the realization that his visit was at an end, Petter hesitated before bending over her hand. “Until tomorrow, then,” he said, hearing the promise in his voice, seeing the promise in her sudden, shy smile.
He thought of nothing as he walked the streets, nothing as he ate a dinner he did not taste, except Constance and the kiss. The perfect kiss.
No, not perfect, he reminded himself. A small frown creased his brow as he made his way to his flat thinking of his parents, kissing. With Father’s nearly non-existent nose, he and Mother never have the problem of bumping noses when they kiss. Petter mused if being nose-less wouldn’t be more convenient.
Thinking again of kissing Constance, of tomorrow and the promise of more, he laughed, the sound ringing through the street. He wrapped his arms about himself in an embrace and turned full circle. He ignored the few looks the passersby threw his way, and laughed again.
CHAPTER 11
ERIK WAKES
Erik awoke with a crowning ache in his skull as his body jolted from the moving surface upon which he lay. Through the pounding of his pulse in his head, like a painful, palpable siren, Erik tried to assess his location and condition, despite the fact that he could not see. Location came – in a general sense – as he recognized the motion of a moving cart or carriage, and heard the squeak of leather harnesses and the pounding of hooves over packed dirt. The rhythmic jolting of the surface on which he lay did not seem to translate to great speed, which meant the journey was not a short one. He had no notion of how long he had lain trussed as he was within the cart, nor how much time had passed between when he had lost consciousness and the moment they had begun this journey. The hunger that gnawed at his innards did not help his assessment, as he had not eaten since his meal with Mattis, and had been hungry when he met the Sultana.
The Sultana.
He had little doubt the Sultana was responsible for his capture – trying to speed him to Mazenderan for his task – but he determined to wait for confirmation through the unfolding of events.
He moved where he lay, bundled on his side like a game carcass, trying to determine the extent of his injuries beyond the obvious blow to his head. With slow and careful movements and stretches, he discovered a wrenched shoulder, and various minor bruises, and a burning area on one shin that might be a gash. Besides the thrumming pain behind his eyes and at the back of his head, he was not in altogether terrible condition. His eyes were blindfolded, and his mouth tied with a bulky gag. His hands were tied behind him with a rough length of rope, and although he could not be certain, he thought his knees and ankles were similarly tied only with rope. He hoped this was the case, because it would be far more difficult to rid himself of chains. He raised his ankles and dropped them again, the movement timed to coincide with another jolting of the cart, and listened through pounding head for the sound of metal against the surface on which he lay – a sound he did not hear. He became even more certain that it was rope that bound him.
For some minutes, he lay still as stone and tried to listen for the sound of breathing in the space surrounding him – to determine if any one shared this space with him. He could hear nothing of breathing over the pounding of hooves, and the jolting of the cart and the squeaking, clanking sound of the harness, but with the clarity of those sounds, he determined that he likely rested in the bottom of an open cart, and not an enclosed carriage. There would be at least one driver in plain view, and quite likely another man charged with watching Erik.
Still needing to determine if any guards shared the cart with him, Erik stretched his legs and lengthened his body until his shod feet came into contact with the edge of the cart. Again, moving slowly so as not to alert any watcher to his wakefulness, he moved his legs and feet to front and back along the walls of the cart, trying to determine if any other person or object shared the space with him. Satisfied that no one occupied the portion of the cart below his waist, he could think of no easy or unobtrusive way of determining whether or not anyone sat near his head or to either side of his upper body. The knowledge that he was not guarded head and foot – but only possibly at his head – gave him some small measure of comfort.
Erik gleaned another helpful bit of information through the movement of his legs: he was covered by a cloth or horse blanket of some kind. The coarse cloth had moved across his face and pulled against his clothing as he moved. This helped his chances of escape, as his movements until the instant when he revealed himself would be hidden from view.
Moving as little as possible, he began working at the knots that held his wrists. They were well tied, and high on his wrists, making it impossible for his fingers to do more than touch or scratch at the rope, especially given that his hands were tied palms together, leaving his fingers the least amount of flexible motion. He flexed and twisted his wrists in an attempt to loosen his bonds, ignoring the pain as the rope cut into his skin. Even after many minutes of his silent struggle, the ropes were no looser, and Erik was no closer to freedom.
He sighed as he realized that he would have to raise his arms over his head. If he was being watched, this movement would alert the guard both to his wakefulness, and to his attempted escape. Also, the wrench in his shoulder would not make the difficult task any easier, and depending on the level of damage to his muscles and tendons there, may make it impossible. Unwilling to accept the alternative of remaining captive, Erik slowed his breathing and began the self-hypno
tic meditation that would allow him greater muscle control and flexibility. The pounding in his head lessened as his heartbeat slowed, and the deep breathing seemed to alleviate some of the more immediate pain in his skull and limbs.
Reaching the appropriate level of relaxed control, he rolled his upper body onto his face, removing the pressure from the shoulder on which he rested. Rolling his shoulders and raising his arms behind him, he rotated his arms until first one, and then the other, lifted over his head. The ropes tore into his wrists, and his injured shoulder felt as if it would dislocate, but he would accept even that to escape. He could not rescue and free Christine if he was a captive himself!
He rolled onto his side again as he brought his still bound hands down in front of him. Only with great effort did he manage to maintain his relaxation and deep breathing, while remaining alert to a shout or a blow that would indicate he had been discovered.
After another several minutes in which he rolled his wrenched shoulder to relieve the stabbing pain there, he raised his hands to his mouth and pulled off his gag. With the rough rope tearing at his lips and gums, he began with his teeth to loosen the knot that bound his wrists.
His hands free, he pulled his blindfold over the top of his head. The blackness around him did not lessen with the gift of eyesight, and this confused him until he lifted the blanket covering him, to find that this did not relieve the darkness either.
It is still night! Relief flooded him with the realization that even if he was being watched, his movements would also be veiled in darkness.
Erik lowered the blanket to his head again, determined to loose his remaining bonds before making any attempt to further explore his surroundings. Still moving slowly to preserve whatever safety the night provided, he pulled his knees toward him and curled forward. With a patience borne of his determination, he labored for what seemed an hour against the impossible knots at his knees and ankles, until the ropes fell away. He gathered the three lengths of rope to his chest, and with long practice, twisted each into a Punjab lasso.
