The Duke In His Castle

  The Duke responds by lifting up the lower folds of the nightgown that covers Nairis and pulling it up slowly and soft as a feather over his creature’s thighs. Nairis makes a small noise but does not wake up; she too is under the thrall of his sorcerous invisibility and non-presence.

  Her thighs are smooth and warm—ah, they are scalding-hot with the sleep fires. He separates them wider, taking care to move ever-so-lightly, then places one palm against the inside of her thigh-flesh. Somewhere higher up, that deep cleft of her female privates remains concealed by the coverlet and the gown which is bunched up just over that place.

  He pauses, then with trembling fingers works the stays of his trousers in the front, the pouch that holds his genitals. Long seconds stream by and pull into infinite strings while his fingers catch on fabric, on loops, on idiot ties. Then, he is free. . . .

  The trunk of his penis has grown thick and hot. He hears, feels, smells himself—the pungent vigorous meat is pulsing with his own heart’s clockwork, only now there is no illusion of ever-slowing machinery but instead a speeding up, a fierce, violent quickening.

  Only a few steps away the younger maid moans in her chair, a high-pitched girlish timbre, followed by a light sigh.

  The Duke feels the intruding sigh resound in his genitals with a wash of sensual urgency; the echo slides over him, it seems—if sound has a tangible physical mass, then this one is a caress of buttery smoothness, so that he feels a corresponding moan building in the back of his throat. He needs to release it, needs to make the sound himself, thick and low, a grunt. Instead, he parts his lips into a silent O.

  And then he takes hold of himself down there, hand rubbing the nether side of his sack, then advancing onto the trunk with its subdermal prominent vein, the grotesque limb of ugly-beautiful, a tree-root, a gnarled thing that drives him to fierceness.

  Nairis lies before him, heated with sleep, her white thighs displayed, while he abstains from touching her and instead closes his hand around his thick circumference—it is so thick, his fingers barely meet—and starts the violent pulling movement back and forth along the penis. Within moments, drops of an unfamiliar liquid begin to gather at the blunt tip.

  Previously he does this only in dreams. His control for the greater part of his life is impeccable, and this is the first time he allows himself to be consumed by the choral rhythm of other living beings around him—consumed by the polyphony that is life.

  He watches his female creature as he pants in a silent orgy of self-consumption, exhaling more harshly, louder, with each hand-stroke, while he nears something of which he is unsure but which he somehow knows profoundly from the pleasure-haze of his erotic dreams.

  The buxom maid gives a loud rasping snore, a coarse shocking scrape of sound which acts upon him in an unexpected way to elicit a response. And in that moment he groans and lets go, blanks out, while his penis becomes a shooting cannon beyond his control.

  Buttermilk—or a liquid that he initially perceives as buttermilk, although he knows it is his semen—blasts out of him in white and thick pressure-bursts, and it strikes the bedding and the coverlet, and splatters upon the white thighs of Nairis.

  His living canvas is stained, despoiled (with something else of his that is vigorous and alive, the irony is undeniable), while he makes one long final groan of release, and sinks onto his knees on the edge of the bed. He is broken, a marionette with strings that have lost all tension, sprawling in a tangled pile of wood pieces. The illusion of living movement is gone. And he is shuddering with a chill after-effect of an irrevocable fracture of control.

  The sleepers remain miraculously unaware and nothing has changed, it seems. Only the candle takes that moment to sputter in the last of its tallow, and the golden light goes out. The chamber is consumed with darkness and suddenly the world is very cold.

  V: Following A Nondescript Sunrise

  Dawn is here, chill and crisp, and clouds coalesce in grey streaks of varying degrees of pallor over the castle. In the faint blooming of light the castle is but an arbitrary rock formation standing in silhouette against the transforming sky that holds in it a suggestion, a foreshadowing of the sun, while the cloud cover veils it, extending its cool respite in twilight.

  Grey and silver is the light of intimacy. Such is the inviting sensation achieved at the rare moments when the world appears to have no color. There is something placid in the surface of a grey sea or the overhang of silver sky. When rain comes thick as a curtain, again, color is diffused and dissipated, and all that remains is the same as what’s on the inside of one’s eyelids.

  This particular dawn is quite the epitome; its intimate huelessness calls all unto itself, into its pallid grey places, to come and be soothed in the infancy of light. . . .

  Duke Rossian of Violet sleeps right through it. Unlike his usual self he sleeps past the faint earliest glimmer in the east as can be seen from the windows of the easternmost tower where he frequently stands waiting for the spectacle. He sleeps through the luminous ghost-sky and the deepening of incandescence as it takes the edges of heaven along the horizon, and night begins to melt away.

  The Duke comes awake eventually and it is now a sun-lit morning. For a moment he is an innocent, his mind emerged from the elsewhere of sleep equal to the consciousness of a newborn.

  And then he remembers. Remembers another such child mind. And the memory and all else that goes with it wrenches him with a pang of terror followed by a wave of sickness. He tries to think what is the meaning of abomination. And somehow, there is no longer an answer. Edges are blurred and old familiar definitions do not seem to fit but overlap, while descriptions collapse into senselessness of random detail.

  The mind itself is out of focus. Kaleidoscopic patterns are now random shattered glass; ideas fall together in sham bits of sparkle treasure from a magpie’s nest.

  The Duke rises from his bed and examines his body. As he stands to void himself, holding the chamberpot in one hand and himself in the other, he watches the arc of his urine and thinks of what else comes out with a more rhythmic violence. His body is unblemished and healthy, and he is bursting with the life force.

  Does he not prove it sufficiently, last night? If not, then what exactly does he prove? What has been done?

  Mind continues to spin, a child’s top that is incapable of stopping.

  In addition to all the other clamor in his mind he also knows that now he will be expected to test the boundary of his castle. And imagining the ordeal ahead of him, he tarries, while a gnawing sickly fear commences working at his insides.

  Whatever has been done, the world is changed in a plurality—his world. For when change comes, it comes on its own terms, and with a retinue.

  At some point Harmion knocks politely on the bedchamber door, reminding His Grace not only of a cold breakfast, but of a certain annoyance called the Duchess of White waiting for him. No mention is made of Nairis, and indeed at the thought of her whatever is burrowing in his gut takes a deeper wrenching bite.

  The Duke of Violet mutters as he quickly dresses himself without assistance, his actions punctuated by stabbing thoughts. She is, she lives, I gave her life. . . .

  And then, What will happen now? She is. She lives. At which point does she become mine or cease being mine?

  Every motion he makes, it seems she hovers nearby, Nairis.

  Down a flight of narrow stairs he descends from his personal sleeping quarters, and Janerizel, the eccentric Duchess of White, stands waiting outside his study. She is dressed exactly as the previous day, in her self-mocking outfit.

  He stops in sudden consternation, while color surges in his cheeks and as quickly recedes. For, now he is fading, and his cheeks are fading, and his breath has become faint as he watches her. There is no reason this should be happening, the Duke thinks. And yet, it does.

  The Duchess looks at him with her great weird eyes. She is waiting for something. He hardly notices that her right hand carelessly twirls a rose blossom on a long
stem, a cut procured from his castle’s gardens. Instead, he is looking at her rosebud mouth.

  She steps forward, cheerful in tone, but her expression remains strange. As a proper lady would, out of blue-blood habit, she offers her hand. “Good morning, my Lord Rossian.”

  He is not sure why, but his first reaction is to jerk away from her. Fortunately, his control (shattered so badly the night before, three o’clock past midnight) is now again at his disposal, and he is able to remain impassive and endure the proximity.

  Why endure? What in the world makes me think this way, instead of—

  In order to see what he is capable of in the here and now, the Duke touches her hand in elegant politeness, and doing so he cringes inside. Continuing to cringe, he takes her hand and holds it. Then, as deep-inbred etiquette demands, he raises it to his lips. The hallway seems to press down on him, stifling with permanent dusk, here where there are no windows to reveal the daylight. The outside of her hand is a cool shock against his lips.

  “And to you, Lady. Good morning. My apologies for my tardiness out of bed this morning.”

  His words are smooth and faultless as ever they can be, and yet in a new peculiar way they are kind toward the Duchess, as though he has decided to forgo his rude sarcasm that he saves for his unwanted guests. Indeed, words seem overly easy, and he considers them as they issue forth. He listens to himself, listens for any indication of change.

  She too appears to be remarkably understanding. “No apologies necessary. You were exhausted by yesterday’s extraordinary efforts. It’s well known that the arcane acts drain the spirit and the flesh immensely. In fact, you must partake of food as soon as possible to restore yourself for what lies ahead. Oh . . . and how is she, Nairis?”

  The Duke is suddenly bloodless, cold, and can hardly feel his face. He is glad for the dusk of the hallway, and almost indifferent to the muted paucity of air, for it seems he no longer requires it—no longer requires to breathe.

  “I expect she is unchanged since last night. She has been accommodated in quarters similar to yours, and cared for—more than adequately—by several of my servants. Indeed, there’s no need to be concerned on her behalf anymore, for she may take a long time if ever to regain her memory and her former ancient self. . . .”

  Words come out of him in a measured, punctuated stream, and he speaks so calmly that he is beatific, until the language peters out. Then, nothing remains but silence.

  “Oh . . .” the Duchess says. “But—but I assumed that she—I mean, I expected that she might come along with us, with me, that is. . . . After all, one might say she’s been placed into my care by the circumstances—”

  “Or, one might say, the circumstances of her restoration, the miracle of life returned to her through my efforts, indicate that she has been placed under my care.”

  All veneer of politeness is effaced. The Duchess glares at him, and she is once again a banshee. “What, my Lord? Your care? After the sorry muddle you’ve made of her resurrection? Admit it, she has the wits of a sheep and less than the awareness of a suckling infant!”

  The Duke is suddenly burning. Cold fury fills him so that he cannot breathe yet again, only now for another reason.

  “You dare to belittle my effort?” he exclaims. “What have you done for her but carry her bones around my castle? And my Lady, you must indeed think me a simpleton, for you have told me a blatant lie about this creature that we both seem to claim. . . .”

  He continues, “You are unaware that last night after I took my leave, I spent several long hours perusing the records of the royal houses of the realm, all genealogical lines of succession, going as far back as there is recorded history. And nowhere is there a mention of a Duchess or even a remote blue blood by the name of Nairis the Fabled One, or even just Nairis. She does not exist! I’ve found one mention of a Nairis who served as a companion to the third Duchess of Blue, but that ancient and long-dead female was no more than a servant of the chamber, and she died a crone in her ripe old age!”

  The Duke pauses, and the expression of his eyes is feverish. “And so, you lie, my dear. Your motives are unclear, and all I can now surmise is that this deceased young woman whom I resurrected last night is someone who matters to you in particular, and maybe there is even more to this convoluted story. Would you, at last, care to elaborate? I must have the truth!”

  The Duchess parts her rosebud mouth, her lips delicate and succulent, as she is about to rant or spin tales or further deceive. And then she shuts them and takes a deep breath.

  “First, Your Grace’s breakfast . . .” And with a slight inclination of her head and a mockery of a curtsy she motions the Duke into his study.

  The next hour is a haze of necessity. The Duke breaks his fast quickly by gulping down something he cannot remember to taste from a warmed tray brought up to him by Harmion (at the same time taking odd care to abstain from meat, for suddenly he is incapable of eating dead flesh, which might be another after-effect of his act of power), while Izelle chatters flippantly about the weather and the weave of the tapestries and the tomes scattered over his work table and all about the room.

  He knows he must eat, so he ignores everything until nourishment is consumed and piles warmly inside him. He is amused at her insistence that he eat and at how she is unaware that in fact he does so the for the second time since their dinner last night—that at four past midnight he consumes food in the darkness after leaving a certain chamber in the Mad Queens Tower.

  When the spirit and the flesh are drained, sustenance must be sought. Oh, how well he knows it.

  He finishes breakfast and puts down the bone porcelain cup with the last of its contents in dregs on the bottom. It clinks delicately against the bowl, and sunlight swirls along its gilded rim.

  Izelle chooses the moment to settle in a great chair across from him. Sunlight glares into the chamber from his favorite window and illuminates her grotesque cap and half of her face, emphasizing the doll-like prettiness, the rounded apples of her cheeks.

  “I will no longer do you the dishonor of duplicity,” the Duchess says.

  “I am glad.”

  “Truth is a bit more complicated than I am prepared to divulge. Not because I am unwilling, but because I am unsure where to begin. . . .”

  For the first time the Duke gives her an effortless smile. “Begin,” he says, “with yourself.”

  Izelle sighs. “Very well. Know then, that I am not the Duchess of White—Nairis is.”

  He stares, unblinking.

  Izelle removes her cap and drops it on top of an open volume. Underneath, her dark hair is ruffled and wild, and she is so much a doll whose wig has been pulled by some unruly little girl for all of her childhood.

  “Nairis—well, she is not, I mean, it’s not her true name—but she is my sister. And that vendor was in her service, of course—I had him carry her box into your castle. Nairis . . . For years we used to play at Princesses of the ancient land called Aegypt, and eventually we were both Queens, naturally. She was Nairis the Fabled One, and I was Volatris the Graceful One. Not that I’ve ever been graceful, on the contrary. Nairis—I mean, Izelle—she was the graceful one. She was also beautiful, wise, intelligent, kind, perfect as a crystal vase. Still is, as you know. And she was gloriously slender and tall, even when she was seven or eight, a year older than me. And I was just this short and fat and idiot child who laughed like a crow and ate too many pastries.”

  “What is your true name, then?” the Duke says softly.

  “Cora,” she replies. “No, wait, I am sorry . . . I did tell you, no more deceit. I always wished they’d called me Cora. Or even Clara. Or better yet, Clarissa, which sounds light as a feather. Instead they shackled me with Molly. Which is short for Mollyanne or maybe Meredith, or even Mary, or Marie. Only, in truth, I am unsure. Mother and father both died before I could ask, and the birth name is recorded in our chapel as Molly.”

  “Molly,” he says, testing the sound.

  “
Yes, what a nasty name, isn’t it?” she says. “Vulgar as myself.”

  “Not particularly original, but neither is it all that unsavory,” he replies, watching her squirm. “So, you took your sister’s name. How did that come about? Should I ask how she died? I do have some idea, so you needn’t be afraid to speak freely.”

  Molly gets up from her chair, and he notices she is still holding the rose in one hand, while her cap lying on the table is forgotten. The blossom is a tea rose, deep bloody crimson, so dark that it is rich as velvet, and the perfume that comes from it is potent musk. The stem is thick and pale green and the thorns are sparse. She twirls it between her fingers.

  “I’ll tell you, yes. But if I may ask, my Lord, would you come downstairs with me, out into the open? The sun is bright there, and I must—I have something to show you.”

  He complies silently, this time without any protest. After winding down several flights of stairs, they come out into the courtyard.

  The scorching sun shines down this great stone “well,” while the gates of iron stand open.

  The gates. . . . These are the gates to the world outside the castle.

  There, the whole universe continues, outside and beyond. A sand road rolls in a carpet of yellow gold, and all about, a green brilliant countryside.

  How many times, countless times, he stands here thus, feeling the breeze wash over his face, seeing that familiar nearest birch tree out next to the road, knowing that he would never feel its living white bark with his hands. . . .

  Rossian squints in the sun, white-skinned and deathly, and unused to such exposure. Whatever virile color he possesses is suddenly rendered inadequate by the reality of daylight.