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It is midday and Yusuf is lazing about half-asleep in their bed when Nicolò comes hurtling through the door and tumbling onto the mattress, words pouring out of his mouth so fast Yusuf has to brace a hand on the headboard. He hasn’t seen Nicolò so energetic in at least a decade. His love has not fared well in these last few years—they’ve been in Vienna at the court of the emperor, Ferdinand, taking a diplomatic approach to his handling of the Protestants and Czech Hussites. It’s not going very well; their beak-nosed emperor brutally crushed a Protestant revolt a number of years prior in 1547 and has been making a stink about installing Jesuits in every crack and crevice in Bohemia. That one in particular upset Nicolò—he dislikes proselytizers, especially the militant ones. The king simply refuses to absorb any of their therapeutic discourse (‘pandering baby talk’ as Andromache jokingly calls it). As a consequence, poor, compassionate Nicolò has grown listless and reserved. He is tired of Christian infighting. Because before Protestants and Catholics, it was Dominicans and Franciscans, and heretics and the Pope; and Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Yusuf would like nothing more than to give everyone in Europe a kick in the pants, because Nicolò keeps coming to bed at night with sad, glazed eyes and it’s tearing him up inside.
But, it appears he won’t have to agonize anymore: this fruitless decade is over.
“—and the Pasha in Buda, he—”
“Just hold on, my love.” Yusuf waves his hands. “Start over, slower this time. I am not fully awake, and I would like to give you my full attention.”
Nicolò gently wipes the crust out of the corners of Yusuf’s eyes while he explains, again. One of Ferdinand’s courtesans, a Flemish scholar by the name of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, a friend of Nicolò’s, has been appointed ambassador to the Turks. The poor sod only just returned from England, where Ferdinand dispatched him to attend the wedding of Mary Tudor and Phillip something-or-other, and now he’s being prodded out the gates once more like a stubborn mule because Ferdinand wants him to talk fucking Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent into giving back Transylvania. Ghiselin is a smart cookie, Yusuf won’t deny him that, but he’s delicate and bookish. Why Ferdinand thinks he is the appropriate man to traipse through the lawless fringes of the Ottoman Empire and bully the Turks into giving up land for no strategic reason whatsoever…. Nevertheless, he’s going, and he’s invited Nicolò, Yusuf, Andromache, and Quynh to join his merry band of misfits. For identity protection purposes, Ghiselin doesn’t know that the four of them have already spent many years in Anatolia and are fluent in Turkish. He’s just lucky like that.
Ferdinand wants Ghiselin in Buda in no less than twelve days. And so, just like that, a sleepy decade ends in a frantic, sweaty scramble to pack up their things and get the hell out of the city. Yusuf, after smacking his own face a few times to wake himself up the rest of the way, runs down the hall to the room where Andromache and Quynh are staying. He informs them of Ghiselin’s mission and invitation, and immediately they’re on their feet. Like Nicolò, they’ve both struggled with idleness. He knows they miss the outdoors. Adventure. As they pack up their things, Yusuf rushes back to his own room, where Nicolò is already throwing stuff into bags.
“You have the, the—?”
“Your paper is bound and tucked into the front pouch, and the leads are wrapped in linen beside them.” Nicolò answers his question before he even asks it. “Will you—?”
“Way ahead of you, my sweetheart.” Yusuf is already rummaging around in the back of their wardrobe. Fur coats will be a necessity, hurtling towards December as they are. Turkish caravanserai are wonderful for many reasons, but comfort is not one of them, most certainly not in winter; personal experience has taught them to always bring plush coats to dull the contact between joints and hard, cushionless floorboards.
“Ogier told me he’s bringing his own mattress.” Nicolò says with a chuckle.
“That’s exactly the kind of absurdity I’d expect from a bookworm such as him.”
“ You are a bookworm, Yusuf. I know very well you’d take our mattress along just the same if you didn’t dread Andromache’s ridicule.”
Yusuf can’t help but laugh.
They have their final dinner in the castle together on the floor of the girls’ room, because no one in rural Anatolia uses tables and all four of them have already left Bohemia behind in their minds.
“I can’t wait for kokoreç.” Quynh sighs, smacking the hunk of bread in her hand against her plate. “Enough of all this unimaginative and flavorless meat.”
“Well, hold on—” Yusuf begins to say.
“Yes, yes, our darling Nicolò’s cooking is an exception. That was just implicit.”
“We nearly forgot about it. He hasn’t cooked for us in so long.” Andromache adds, quite accusingly. She punches his shoulder.
“If the cook cannot muster any passion, he ought not be cooking at all.” is Nicolò’s sheepish apology.
Yusuf’s eyebrows draw together and he rubs Nicolò’s back. He’s so fucking glad they’re leaving this accursed place.
“Isn’t that a failure on Yusuf’s part?” Quynh asks.
“Isn’t what a failure on my part?”
“A lack of passion .” She says it with a smirk. “It’s your duty to stoke those flames, no?”
“I stoke his flames just fine, thank you.”
But Quynh and Andromache are already exchanging looks, working things out in their heads.
“How long has it been since Nicolò last cooked for us? Exactly how long…?”
“It was Christmas dinner of last year, wasn’t it?”
“Nearly a whole year. A whole year !”
“Yusuf, don’t tell me—”
Yusuf glowers, and Nicolò laughs and hides his face in his hands.
“You two haven’t—in a year?!” Quynh smacks the table in her outrage.
“I’ve been quite sad.” Nicolò says.
“And I’ve been sad because he’s been sad.” Yusuf adds.
“Well, you’d better make good use of tonight, then, assuming you’re done being a depressed old married couple. I doubt we’ll have much privacy for the next few months.” Andromache says, taking another bite out of the flavorless cut of meat Quynh was just insulting.
“Just to sleep beside him is a night well spent, in my opinion.” Yusuf takes Nicolò’s hand and rubs his thumb over the back of it. Nicolò smiles warmly at him, and the look in his eyes is, Yusuf might dare say, adoring. Out of the corner of his eye, Yusuf sees Quynh perform a theatrical gag.
In fact, they do not make use of that night in a way Andromache would deem “good,” though Nicolò’s mood has improved considerably. Even the excitement of a new adventure is not enough to counteract the cock-shrinking sleepy gloom of this castle, of Bohemia in general. How Ferdinand managed to father fifteen children in this place is beyond Yusuf’s understanding. Instead, he rubs Nicolò’s feet and Nicolò talks leisurely about how much he’s looking forward to having baklava in Constantinople. And afterwards, they blow out the candles and go to sleep in each other’s arms with all of their clothes on. Andromache doesn’t need to know.
The following evening, they dress themselves up in the Turkish clothes that have lain forgotten at the back of their wardrobes for a decade.
And then, after Ferdinand’s men have unbolted the gates of Vienna, the four of them take off into the encroaching night on horseback. The impressment of time forces them to ride at a brisk canter behind Ghiselin’s carriage. Poor bastard—he’s probably in there sweating bullets and cursing the king and bemoaning the fact that they had to miss dinner in order to get out the door on time.
“Kokoreç, kokoreç, I am coming for you!” Quynh sings into the crisp darkness. “Long have I waited!”
It evokes a warm laugh from Nicolò’s chest, and the sound strikes Yusuf like a spear to the heart. He hasn’t heard laughter grace his darling’s lips in a very long time. But he is transformed now—his Nicolò already looks so refreshed, full of all that passion Quynh was talking about the previous day. He has an extra bit of bounce as he rides, a red flush in his cheeks. And Yusuf is already beginning to regret the chastity of the previous night, because an invigorated Nicolò such as this is like the Mediterranean on a stormy January day, when the water is teal and churning with white foam, and Yusuf is a suicidal sailor who is desperate to be swept away. He should have let Nicolò drown him when they had the luxury of a room to themselves.
Nicolò must know what Yusuf is thinking because he raises an eyebrow at him with a playful little smile. Just that alone makes Yusuf want to drag him off his horse and into the bushes. With a heavy sigh, Yusuf retrains his eyes on the beaten track in front of them. As always, Andromache was right.
Buda
Within a few days, after a brief delay in Komorn, they arrive in Buda. Turkish canvasses greet them on the outskirts of the city and lead them to the house of some Hungarian nobleman, probably an acquaintance of Ghiselin’s. Yusuf wasn’t listening. Ghiselin and his physician are given their own private rooms in the house, and the rest of the entourage has the great fortune to sleep in the stables with the horses.
“They’ve handled my luggage with more care than my own person!” Ghiselin complains to Nicolò. “You should have seen them carrying my cases—two Turks to one, like it was a porcelain tea tray for the Pope himself! And to me, not so much as a get your ass in the door .”
“One of the servants was whispering endearments to my horse and stroking its nose on the way to the stable.” Nicolò says with a grin.
“You see! I am lesser than an animal!”
The Pasha of Buda sends a frantic and apologetic messenger that day to inform them that he is very ill and to please excuse him from giving Ghiselin audience for a few days until his health recovers. The news quickly spreads among Ghiselin’s hired Turkish guides, who immediately begin chuckling and whispering. Apparently, the Pasha very recently had a large hoard of riches stolen from him, and popular consensus is that he’s fallen ill out of pure chagrin. Regardless, it means they have at least a week to be merry in Buda.
And Yusuf would be merry, except that he hasn’t made love with Nicolò in a year , and now that he really wants to, everyone in the entirety of the Ottoman Empire is suddenly hell-bent on never giving him a moment of privacy, as if some sadistic interloper has paid them all to torment him at every moment of every day. There are at least thirty in total sleeping in the stables every night, not including himself, Nicolò, and the girls. It is a circular construction, wherein everyone clusters in the middle with the horses’ stalls forming a ring on the outside. There are no corners to sequester in, no walls behind which to hide. Even the horse stalls are not private, as they open into the central roundabout—even if he was shameless enough to crawl in there with some poor, unsuspecting equine, there would be no point.
Daytime offers even fewer opportunities for stolen romantic moments alone—the Pasha keeps a contingent of Janissaries in the citadel of Buda at all times, and a great mass of them have flocked to the Hungarian mansion after hearing of the great stores of wine Ghiselin keeps with him. They are always oozing from every corner, forcing hyacinth flowers on anyone who looks weak-willed, and demanding money in return. Anytime Yusuf so much as thinks about romancing Nicolò, at least two of them appear with their shiny little pointed caps, shoving flowers in his face with their eyes glued on the ground.
“This is a well that will soon dry up, you know.” he grumbles to one of them after the third time he’s accosted in such a fashion. “I’ll be bankrupt in a week at this rate.”
Nevertheless, he fishes around in his pockets and tosses the Janissary a few aspres .
“Thank you, sir. You are very kind, sir. May Allah bless you, sir.”
Allah is most definitely not favoring Yusuf these days, but the sentiment is nice.
One morning, he thinks he might have a shot at a kiss. It is after breakfast, and he and Nicolò are down by the river washing some of their clothes. When they began, there were a handful of other servants doing the same alongside them, but they’ve gradually trickled away, leaving Yusuf and Nicolò gloriously alone. The sun is shining, it’s cool but not cold, and there are little spotted fish darting about underneath the crystal blue surface of the water. In other words, the atmosphere is perfect. Nicolò must think so too, because he playfully splashes Yusuf with a handful of water.
“A man comes down to the river to do his laundry in peace, and this is the treatment he receives….” Yusuf shakes his head, tsk-ing.
Nicolò gives a huff of laughter, and their eyes meet. Yusuf suddenly cannot breathe, because Nicolò looks so happy , so content , beaming as if Yusuf is the funniest and most delightful little clown he’s ever laid eyes on.
Yusuf, the proud clown, brushes his knuckles over Nicolò’s elegant cheekbone, because he is also a seductive clown. Nicolò melts, tilts towards Yusuf, and their lips are just breaths apart, when—
“Sir! Sir, I’ve brought another flower for you!”
The accursed hyacinth-loving Janissary appears at the top of the hill behind them and comes prancing down it, brandishing his offering.
“ Wallah, have I wronged you in some way, you persistent fool?” Yusuf shouts. “Did I insult your mother or something? Why must you plague me so?”
Nicolò snorts, and then gathers up his clothes and retreats back up the hill with a grin over his shoulder, abandoning Yusuf to the Janissary. Yusuf could scream.
In general, Nicolò gets on with the Janissaries much better than surly Yusuf. They never accost him with unwanted flowers; in fact, they all seem to like him very much. Yusuf is more than capable of making friends too, but he’s not always in the mood. Nicolò, on the other hand, loves nothing more than to craft meaningful human connections with everyone and anyone he sees, and can easily have even the most standoffish prudes weeping with their heads in his lap in no time at all. He doesn’t bring the Janissaries to tears, but he does start some lighthearted arms practice with them in the sprawling yard of the mansion, eager to gauge their skill after hearing gossip for ten years about their military prowess.
“Would you like to join us?” Nicolò asks as he idly swings his longsword and saunters towards his current opponent, a tall and broad Janissary by the name of Mehmet.
“No, no. I’m afraid I’ll get over there and he’ll start hounding me for money. You have fun.” Yusuf waves him away. He’s perfectly content to watch. He takes a seat in the grass and does just that.
Because Nicolò is so happy . In general, he is happy more often than people think; his stony face betrays nothing of his inner world, and only Yusuf knows the truth of it most of the time. But now, perhaps because he has finally been freed from Ferdinand’s court, or perhaps because it is sunny today, or perhaps for no reason at all, he laughs openly and exuberantly every time Mehmet gets the better of him. His hair flies as he leaps and blocks and swings, sword glimmering in the midday sun. He is manly Apollo, golden and radiant.
“You are very good!” he praises breathlessly in beautiful Turkish.
Yusuf wants to weep for love of him.
Later, at dusk, when they are fluffing the straw of their makeshift beds, Yusuf catches Nicolò’s wrist and rubs his thumb over his lively pulse point.
“The sight of you makes me want to climb to the top of the mountain at Delphi and fall to my knees in worship.”
Nicolò blinks in surprise, and then grins. “Yusuf, what would the mullahs say? You idolator.”
Jokes from the lips of Nicolò di Genova are like pearls in the mouths of oysters. Yusuf falls on him without a second thought, tumbling him onto his back and hugging him tight. Nicolò giggles, delighted, and some of the men around them whistle and shout indecent things. The reminder of their presence sours Yusuf’s mood instantly.
“Maybe if I told everyone that I’d hidden gold coins in the woods, they’d finally leave us alone.” he grumbles.
Yusuf’s irritation amuses Nicolò—he throws his head back and laughs loudly, eyes scrunched up. The sound annoys a nearby horse, which snorts and stomps its hooves just a little too close to Nicolò’s head for comfort. They sit up and resume their modesty, and Yusuf goes back to fluffing straw. Nicolò, though, does not. When Yusuf glances at him, he’s studying him with great intent. Yusuf can practically hear the cogs turning in his head.
“You are sexually frustrated.” Nicolò says with a smirk in Tamazight, the straightforward bastard.
Yusuf just raises his eyebrows and nods. Anyone would be in these circumstances, with a lover as divine as Nicolò. He thinks Nicolò is going to commiserate with him, but he just keeps scrutinizing with that mischievous smile painted on his lips, as if he’s coming up with some devious plan in his mind.
“I don’t like that look.” Yusuf points a finger in his face.
Nicolò playfully makes a lunge to bite the finger, which Yusuf yanks back just in time. He stares in wide-eyed wonder at this imp who has clearly possessed the body of his stoic, priestly beloved. The severity of the possession might even call for an exorcism; the Nicolò he knows would never do such a thing in public, where any old stranger might see. But here he is, grinning. Whatever it is that he’s thinking, though, remains a mystery—with a fleeting touch of his forehead to Yusuf’s, he’s on his feet and gone from the stables.
The following day, Yusuf wanders off to a nearby cluster of trees to toss away some table scraps which even the animals turned their noses up at, and has only just made it into the treeline when suddenly someone, who he didn’t even hear coming, jumps onto his back and winds their arms around his shoulders. He knows who it is just by smell, and grins.
“Oh, did you want me to save these? I knew you had an adventurous palate, but peach pits?” he teases.
Nicolò doesn’t even bother responding, just sinks his teeth into Yusuf’s throat, right under his ear. Yusuf lets out a pleased little ooh , and promptly shakes him off so that he can whirl around and press him against a nearby tree. He knows when it’s time for talking and when it’s not. Nicolò crushes their mouths together with a firm grip on the back of Yusuf’s neck and throws a thigh up around his hip, which Yusuf seizes. He is promptly subjected to an onslaught of tonguing the likes of which might almost convince him that he was kissing an enthusiastic camel, and he is so aroused . Oh, Nicolò’s passion is so delicious, so dearly missed, oh yes, they’re alone, and he wants sex —
And then, Nicolò pushes him away with two firm hands planted on his chest. The breeze immediately cools the saliva smeared over Yusuf’s mouth, and also his heart. Does Nicolò not want to—? Has he done something wrong?
But Nicolò is grinning. The angle of his smile, the flash of his canines. He’s toying with Yusuf.
“I just came to tell you that the Pasha has finally recovered and he’s meeting Ghiselin soon. We’re expected to be there for moral support. Andromache and Quynh are waiting for us up at the house.” he says in a perfectly innocent voice. And then he slides out of Yusuf’s arms and makes for the treeline with his hands clasped primly behind his back. Before vanishing from sight, he glances over his shoulder at his poor, flummoxed lover and smirks. And then he’s gone.
Yusuf rests his forehead against the tree for a few minutes, just to gather himself. He can’t help but grin.
Niš
The Pasha tells Ghiselin, in polite and buttery words, to fuck off. He assures Ghiselin that even if he did promise Ferdinand that he would return Transylvania, he can’t possibly follow through, because his job as Pasha is to expand Suleiman’s empire, not diminish it, and if Ghiselin had an ounce more sense than a rock, he’d know that. To finish it off, he scolds Ghiselin for bothering a sick and feeble man with such trifles, and tells him to try Suleiman himself instead.
And so, as Ghiselin licks the wounds inflicted on his pride, they begin the journey towards Constantinople and dispatch a courier to Suleiman to request an audience. Yusuf is thrilled, because that’s exactly what he wanted—more time on the road with this band of clods who don’t know the meaning of privacy. It’s all the better for the fact that even Ghiselin has joined in the fun of getting in the way of two lovers yearning to be together. He seeks out Nicolò’s company often, at Yusuf’s expense, and Nicolò indulges him because he’s in a sadistic mood these days.
“How’s your Latin?” Ghiselin asks Nicolò one evening as they squint at an inscription on an old Roman pillar which is in the process of crumbling to pieces on the bank of the Nissus river.
“I was once a priest.” Nicolò chuckles. “This is too mutilated to be deciphered, though, so I don’t think it matters either way.”
“A marker with the name of the river, perhaps?”
“Maybe a memorial of a battle?”
“A dedication to a lover?”
Nicolò glances at Yusuf and the corners of his mouth turn up.
In the evenings, they never have tents or rooms to themselves, of course, but there’s at least theoretical opportunities for them to steal away from the rest of the crew for an hour or two. But no, Nicolò is suddenly a passionate archaeologist—as soon as they stop for the day, he’s at Ghiselin’s side with their hordes of accumulated ancient Greek and Roman coins, rinsing them off, making tracings, comparing weights. Every once in a while, Nicolò will catch Yusuf’s eye wherever he is (always nearby, because Nicolò is his Polaris), and smirk at him with a raised eyebrow. He knows exactly how much Yusuf is pining for him, and basks in it. Refuses to be in Yusuf’s presence unless there are at least a few other people milling around, preventing them from touching each other, keeping them chaste. Yusuf pouts at him for it, of course. But, really, he’s not upset—it’s rare indeed to see Nicolò in a mood such as this, and so he savors it. And anyways, he’s a bit of a masochist, at least for Nicolò.
The oogling of Roman ruins continues unabated all the way to Niš, where there awaits a new contingent of people just itching for their turn to get in Yusuf’s way—a troop of sipahi cavalrymen is camping on the fringes of the town, sent out by the Sultan to do god knows what. Whatever it is, the sight of them gets Andromache, Quynh, and Nicolò very excited.
“Ooh, I love their helmets.” Quynh enthuses. “It’s like they’ve glued a broom upside-down on the front of them.”
“I wish I’d brought my bow.” Andromache says. “I’d like to see if they could out-shoot me on horseback.”
“Ah, Yusuf—they’re carrying scimitars.” Nicolò nudges him.
Predictably, they spend the rest of the day with the sipahis. The girls cause quite a stir with their expert riding skills, and more than a few of the cavalrymen are quite clearly besotted. Quynh uses her charms to entice one of them to let her try on his helmet, and she proudly trots up and down the field in it. Andromache convinces another to give her his bow and arrows. The two of them together could probably rob the entire contingent of everything but the shirts on their backs if they really wanted to. Nicolò endears himself to the sipahis too, of course, because who could meet Nicolò and not love him? As with the Janissaries, he gauges their skills—mock combat with swords on horseback, dressage, racing. For his part, Yusuf mostly observes from the sidelines, because he has always been a little distrustful of horses (camels are the superior beast, in his opinion). That, and he would rather gaze longingly at Nicolò than do anything else.
Nicolò was trained in horseback riding by Circassian dzhigits. Andromache too, though she had less to learn. But it was a testament to their unrivaled skill that they had anything to teach her at all, she who spent six thousand straight years riding horses on the central Asian steppes. Nicolò can now ride a horse while standing on his head on its back. Or, if he pleases, while hanging off the side of it and running his palm along the ground. The horses never throw him, never get testy. Yusuf is adamant that it is because they can feel the warmth from Nicolò’s kind heart. Nicolò insists that he’s just lucky. Regardless, he outmatches all of the sipahis.
They’re playing some kind of game involving a red ribbon. One of the sipahis snatched it from where it was tied around the standard of another, which started a wild chase that everyone else was quick to join. They gallop after each other, steal it back and forth, and eventually, someone drops it. That’s when Nicolò swoops in, dips down so that he is perpendicular to his horse and parallel to the ground, with his strong legs holding him fast to the saddle, and swipes the ribbon out of the grass with both hands. The sipahis, amazed, begin to shout and cheer, and soon everyone is chasing after Nicolò. He evades them effortlessly, pirouetting, laughing breathlessly, long hair flying in the wind, red ribbon whipping in his fist.
“Give me your standard!” Nicolò eventually calls to the owner of the ribbon, a younger man with soft brown eyes. He obediently trots over, inclines the standard, and Nicolò re-ties the ribbon to the end of it. As a finishing touch, he claps the sipahi on the back, a hard, brotherly clap, and rides off again. The gesture is so unlike him that it does funny things to Yusuf’s pining heart.
They spend that night at a caravanserai. It is the classic form of the establishment—an enclosed courtyard of sorts with a cistern of water in the center for the animals, surrounded by a low platform running the length of all four sides and ceilinged by towering archways.
A few of the archways have been claimed by merchants, and Yusuf can see cheeses wrapped in linen, dried prunes, peaches, pears, quinces, figs, and raisins on display for sale. It’s been a long time since he was a merchant himself, but the sense of camaraderie has never left him. He gives one of the men thirty aspres just for some bread and figs, a sum which could purchase a full-grown sheep. The man goes all googly-eyed and thanks him with clasped hands, which Yusuf waves off with a wink.
Nicolò, Andromache, and Quynh have already claimed a space on a ledge under one of the arches and tethered their horses to it by the time Yusuf finds them again.
“Has anyone else joined us yet?” Yusuf asks, climbing up onto the ledge and handing half of the bread and fruit to Nicolò.
“No, but I am sure we won’t be alone for long.”
Sure enough, some other travellers, not belonging to Ghiselin’s crew, soon approach and ask if the rest of the space on the ledge has been set aside for anyone. Nicolò gives them leave to take it, though Yusuf almost wishes he wouldn’t. He’s hospitable, but he’s also frustrated. Four people under the arch is already too close for comfort, especially when he would eagerly and valiantly give his left testicle for a night alone with one of them in particular. But, fortune is not in his favor. The other travellers bed down alongside them, albeit at a distance. They crowd themselves into the opposite corner, giving the four of them as much room as possible. Yusuf appreciates their consideration, but when he and Nicolò roll out their rug, the fringes of it nearly brush the fringes of their neighbors’. He heaves a long-suffering sigh.
Rabble-rousing goes on late into the night at the caravanserai, to no one’s great surprise. Tired, wilderness-roughed men from all over the empire gathering in one place under moonlight is most certainly not a recipe for calm or for going to bed at a respectable hour. Furthermore, Andromache and Quynh, as the only female faces in the crowd, have attracted a gang of suitors who have practically prostrated themselves at the bottom of their ledge and won’t go away.
“My lady, I have never seen a face as beautiful as yours!”
“The night grows cold, come lay with me and I will warm you!”
“If you become my wife, I will give you my best horse!”
Yusuf and Nicolò, who are sitting side-by-side against the back wall, try to block out the noise.
“You know, I’m glad we’re finally abstaining from all this reprehensible premarital sex we’ve been having all these years.” Yusuf murmurs to him in Tamazight. “I feel as pure as an angel’s wing.”
It’s meant to be a joke, obviously, but Nicolò shivers. At first, Yusuf assumes the chilly night air is the culprit, but there’s a little hitch to Nicolò’s breath, a little flush in his cheeks. And Yusuf smirks. Tamazight, Yusuf’s mother tongue, is their most private language, the one they use when the subject of their conversation is for them and them alone, for deep and emotional matters. It is also the language of their lovemaking, the words they whisper and moan to each other under blankets with arms and legs tangled and sweaty. And even Nicolò cannot simply shrug off four centuries of conditioning. Yusuf is about to lean closer, keep whispering to him in seductive tones, to see if he’ll finally come undone, but then—
One of the men at the ledge dares to reach up to grab Quynh’s ankle and tug her towards him. Before even Andromache can react, Nicolò is on his feet and at her side. He kicks the man squarely in the face, sending him tumbling backwards with a pained cry. The crowd immediately falls silent, parting way for the man, who lays on the ground with his nose gushing blood, all eyes trained on Nicolò. Nicolò glares back at them down his imperial nose, not cowed in the slightest, and places a demonstrative, protective hand on the back of Quynh’s head where she sits at his feet. The men all disperse in a flurry of quiet whispers, and finally there is peace.
The three of them stare in awe at Nicolò as he retakes his seat beside Yusuf. Andromache looks honest-to-God proud . He just raises his eyebrows at them.
“Shall we go to sleep, then?” he asks innocently.
Frigid early dawn air bites at Yusuf’s face, and he can feel one of Quynh’s elbows jabbing into his back. With a frown, he scoots forward and nuzzles as far into the back of Nicolò’s neck as he can, hides his nose in his long tresses. They’re not much warmer than the air itself.
Under the piles of blankets, though, it is toasty. Nicolò runs hot (which is probably how he withstands the winter so much more gracefully than Yusuf), and he alone has generated enough heat in their cocoon to hard-boil an egg. It’s doing Yusuf many favors, but it’s also not—he’s painfully hard because it’s nowhere near cold enough under there to freeze his lust away. The warmth, the way Nicolò is pressed against him from shoulderblades to ankles, is making him unbelievably horny. Lava pools between his legs and wetness drips from the tip of him, where he’s pressed up against Nicolò’s rear. It’s soaking through his şalvar, and because these are his only pair, he really has no choice but to pull them down. After a moment of consideration, he pulls Nicolò’s down too, because he also has no spare pair, and Yusuf is a considerate deviant.
Yusuf does remember where they are, unfortunately, but for a delicious minute or two, he pretends he doesn’t. Thanks to the little hiccup in Nicolò’s facade last evening, he’s now confident enough to play his hand. He winds his arms tight around Nicolò and grinds his cock into the crease of his bare ass a few times, far enough that it slides between his closed thighs on each pass. And suddenly, there is a frenzied grip on Yusuf’s forearms and Nicolò comes alive .
“Ah, fuck yes, oh Yusuf, oh please, yes!” He manages to restrain his voice to a whisper, but only barely. He squeezes his thighs tighter around him. “Please!”
The satisfaction at so easily uncovering Nicolò’s passion promptly departs along with Yusuf’s sanity. He changes the angle of his hips so that he is rubbing the head of his cock against Nicolò’s entrance, smearing precome all over it in his excitement. He’s leaking everywhere, so much that they wouldn’t even need oil. He could just push right in. Slide inside Nicolò, inside his tight and warm body, take him hard, make him scream, bite the back of his neck while he spills his seed inside. Maybe just the tip….
He presses forward a little bit harder. The ring of muscle gives in a bit.
“Oh!” Nicolò gasps. “Yusuf, please ! Amore mio, I will do anything, I am begging you. Put it in me. Just for a minute. We will stop, just for a minute… It is still dark, no one will see….”
Yusuf is about to abandon all shame and decency and give him what they both so desperately want, but at that very fucking moment, one of Ghiselin’s hired Turks rushes into the caravanserai and starts clapping his hands obnoxiously as he prowls along the length of the wall-ledge.
“Time to go, it is time to go…!” he announces in an aggressive whisper which has everyone waking up, even the guests who have nothing to do whatsoever with Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. With a frustrated growl, Yusuf drops his forehead against the top of Nicolò’s spine as he gathers his bearings and wills himself not to get up and strangle the bastard. Nicolò is still and silent, wrestling his heavy breathing into something approaching normal. With a shared look of disappointment, they disentangle and begin packing up their things.
As they dress for the day, you would never know Nicolò had just been drowning in the throes of lust. He ties his sash and laces his boots with ease, as if he is completely at peace with the world. He once again dons the cloak of sexual aloofness, as if it wasn’t him who was just begging to be violated; the game is not over yet. It all makes Yusuf want to defile him even more, muss him up and make him flustered again. He’s about to be a shameless bastard and do just that, stick his hands in all sorts of indecent places on Nicolò’s body, but luckily, an interloper appears at their ledge and prevents him. The stranger, who Yusuf recognizes as one of the suitors from the previous night, nods at the four of them and then addresses Quynh.
“Your eunuch is very brave. Brave and loyal.” the man praises.
“Thank you.” says Nicolò, who is very much not a eunuch.
Andromache snorts quite loudly and turns away to muffle her laughter.
As they are leaving, Nicolò dawdles for a long moment near the merchants, eyeing the peaches.
“Come on, eunuch, let’s go!” Andromache and Quynh call to him.
“At your service, my ladies!”
Amasya
They arrive in Constantinople, but Ghiselin is immediately summoned to Amasya, a city to the east in the ancestral core of the empire, where Suleiman has been wintering. And so, they ride east, Ghiselin raving excitedly about how he must certainly be the first European to ever traverse as far into Turkish lands as this. Yusuf shares an amused look with Nicolò when they hear him. They visited Amasya on their way from Persia to Ferdinand’s court, not more than ten years ago. But, it excites men to believe themselves the harbingers of history, so they say nothing.
It is a journey worthy to be called profound. They pass through sprawling purple fields of lavender and watch haughty little tortoises swimming around in creeks and ponds. Ghiselin whispers to Nicolò that he should like to catch one and eat it, but he doesn’t wish to offend the Turkish crewmen, who would begin frantically washing themselves over and over and muttering about unclean animals. Yusuf just raises an eyebrow at the man. Onwards they pass through Cartali, Gebise, Nicomedia. And then they come to Nicaea.
Their Turkish guides introduce the city as “İsnik,” but Yusuf knows what it once was. He recalls, in the first few years of their acquaintance, Nicolò explaining in excessive detail an important church council which was held here over one thousand years ago. He also knows that the Franks besieged this place in 1097 on their way to Jerusalem, and that Nicolò was with them. Nicolò has told him in detail about that, too, although with a much greater deal of shame and reluctance, and he has never spoken of it to anyone else for as long as Yusuf has known him. Yusuf has never seen the city himself until now, but the walls and defense towers look sturdy and well-kept, especially considering their great age. Nothing looks glaringly new, so it seems safe to assume that it all looks just as it did 450 years ago. With that thought, Yusuf glances at Nicolò beside him. Sure enough, Nicolò is staring with consternation at the gate they’re approaching. Someone who didn’t know him intimately might be fooled into thinking he was unruffled, but Yusuf is a master at reading the minutiae of his microexpressions. He’s distressed.
But there’s no immediate opportunity for Yusuf to provide comfort. Their entourage streams in through the gate, and then under another inner archway, into the core of Nicaea. They ride into the central market square and start making inquiries about lodging, receiving unabashed stares from all of the locals passing by. Yusuf couldn’t so much as take Nicolò’s hand in his without being spied upon by all and sundry.
They end up procuring an abandoned building near the harbor for a night, much to Ghiselin’s annoyance. The man enjoys luxury, as has been made abundantly clear over the course of the entire expedition, and he only likes crumbling, ancient things when he doesn’t have to sleep under them. Still, he manages to find a (deluded) silver lining:
“I daresay this is the same building which the First Nicene Council was held in.” he murmurs excitedly to Nicolò.
“Mm.” Nicolò doesn’t really answer him, which speaks to the seriousness of his emotional distress. The Nicolò who Yusuf knows would jump at the chance to speculate where such a monumental building might be, if it could possibly be this very one.
When Yusuf turns his back for a moment to roll out their rug on the communal floor, Nicolò suddenly appears at his side and seizes his bicep.
“Come walk with me for a while, please?” he whispers.
It’s midday, and every single person in the city seems to be outdoors enjoying the sunshine, running errands, or prowling around in the alleys, but Nicolò is clearly trying to find somewhere, anywhere, with a shred of privacy. He leads them in silence up and down winding side-streets, little avenues running along the inside of the city walls. Everywhere they go, there is always someone . It’s beginning to frustrate them both.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Yusuf asks, genuinely curious. His Nicolò does have an excellent memory.
“Good lord, no. Back then….” He clears his throat. “We spent the entirety of the siege outside the walls. I only saw the inside at the very end, and only for a few hours.”
And then, at the optimal moment, they turn a corner and find themselves in a deserted dead-end alley. Even better, there are no windows overlooking the alley in the buildings on either side of it. They are alone.
They slow to a stop and Nicolò suddenly whirls around and hugs Yusuf tight. Immediately, Yusuf winds his arms around him in return and squeezes. Their little game is completely forgotten, and it doesn’t even matter to him that they finally have privacy. He knows exactly what’s going on in Nicolò’s head—old, slumbering guilt bubbling to the surface, self-loathing.
“I love you.” Yusuf says, just to remind him.
There’s a tightening of Nicolò’s arms, and then a loosening as he leans back a little. He lifts one hand to gently caress Yusuf’s cheek with the utmost adoration, apology in his eyes. Yusuf doesn’t want any of that pointless guilt, guilt that should have been discarded centuries ago—so he grips Nicolò’s chin and kisses him forcefully, tells him without words that he is forgiven a million times over, that it doesn’t matter anymore. Nicolò moans quietly into his mouth, fists his hands in Yusuf’s hair. They grip at each other’s clothes, clinging, as if somehow they could manage to get closer. There are no thoughts about who is giving in to who, which of them is winning at a sordid game of abstinence; in cathartic moments like these, they always make love. To reaffirm, to combust emotion into flames and then settle into a tranquil cloud. Yusuf reaching down to untie the fastenings at the front of Nicolò’s shirt is pure habit.
But then, before he can even get the first one undone, they are startled apart by the sound of familiar laughter. He whirls around and sees, of course, Andromache and Quynh standing a few meters away.
“What the hell are you two doing here?” Yusuf snaps.
“The two of you were whispering in the most suspicious way, and then you snuck out! We were just making sure you weren’t getting into trouble!” Quynh exclaims with lofty airs. Yusuf knows very well she just felt like being a voyeur.
“Seems like we were right.” Andromache smirks.
“Nothing more romantic than a decrepit old city.” Quynh adds.
Yusuf glares, and is about to tell them off properly, because he has not finished with his monumental duty of assuaging Nicolò’s distress, but Nicolò surprises him by laughing and sauntering out of his embrace.
“You know I am a lover of history.” he says quite playfully as he approaches them.
Yusuf stands still for a moment in time, amazed at Nicolò’s fortitude. He watches as Quynh starts talking excitedly about something to him, probably what they’re having for dinner, and as he grins at her. As they turn to begin walking back, and as he places an affectionate hand on her back to guide her. As he casts aside yesterday’s bondage as easily as breathing and proclaims himself a lover of history, when it is history that causes him so much pain. He is so strong, so beautiful.
“Coming?” Andromache calls with a grin.
With a sigh, he reluctantly skulks after her.
The journey drags on for a few more weeks in such a fashion, until they find themselves in Bağlıca, only a few miles from Amasya. They arrive in the late evening when the sun is setting, and hardly have time to throw together a haphazard supper before the last scraps of daylight disappear on them. And then, as always, it is off to bed in one homogenous mass on the ground. Ghiselin always has his own tent when proper lodging cannot be procured, but the rest of them do not have that luxury. Thankfully, it is now springtime, and the weather no longer oppressively cold. Yusuf rolls out their rug and curls up on it with Nicolò, an arm around his waist because the curious stares of their fellow crewmates have long since abated. Just as he’s closing his eyes, Andromache appears standing over them. She eyes them both for a long and heavy moment, and Yusuf groans and buries his face in Nicolò’s hair.
“Woman, when did you become so fascinated by us? Must you spy at every opportunity?”
But she just chuckles and retreats to Quynh, who has already laid out their rug. Of course, it is right alongside Yusuf and Nicolò’s. Yusuf heaves a sigh and attempts to become unconscious because that is the preferable state to be in these days.
At some point in the early hours of the morning, Yusuf wakes. He’s not sure why; he’s usually a very heavy sleeper (Nicolò never lets him forget the time he slept through the burning down of their cottage in Sicily in the early 1200s). Yusuf’s first instinct upon waking is always to locate Nicolò, and so, still half-asleep, he reaches out towards the space beside him. When his hand meets only cool bedding, his eyes pop open and he sits up. His heart accelerates in fear until he spots Nicolò a few meters away, seated in the grass with Andromache. They’re talking in low tones, just a soft murmur to him, gazing up at the stars. Just the sight of their backs, these two people who he respects above all others in the world, draw him out of bed, though normally he’d prefer to go back to sleep.
“Did we wake you?” Nicolò asks apologetically as he gingerly sits down beside him.
“Yes, my ears were burning from all the secrets you two are keeping.” Yusuf answers.
Andromache chuckles. A long silence follows, which Yusuf hopes hasn’t been brought about by his intrusion, but then she speaks again, in a strange tone, that raw and gravelly voice that people always use when sharing intimacies with others in the silence of night.
“Everything is so perfect. Here, now. I already dread what the let-down might be after this.”
“Let-down?” Yusuf asks.
“In order for life to be beautiful, it must also be sad.” she murmurs. “I couldn’t be happier than I am in this moment. I am free, I have my horse, fresh Anatolian air and earth beneath my feet. The three of you. This joy is profound enough that it soon will demand a payment with sorrow.”
Yusuf has long observed such ebbs and flows in his own life, in all human life. The transience of everything means that all pain eventually falls away, but so too does all happiness. For all the years he and Nicolò spend on Cretan and Maltese beaches in the sun eating olives, they spend just as many staining swords with blood in a bumbling pursuit of some kind of morality, watching each other die over and over again, never knowing if this time will be the last. But to hear fearless Andromache talk about such things as if she is afraid is disquieting.
About then, Quynh appears with sleepy eyes and tangled hair. Wordlessly, she sits down beside Andromache, so that the four of them make a neat little row. She puts her head on Andromache’s muscular shoulder.
“If it was supposed to be easy, we wouldn’t be here at all.” Nicolò eventually says.
Yusuf muses over that vague ‘it’ for a while, knowing his meaning and wondering if Andromache does too.
“Well. The three of you make it a little bit easier, at least.” she whispers.
“Come on, boss. Don’t go soft on us.” Yusuf says, only half-kidding.
“Shh.” Quynh hisses. “Don’t ruin it. She might even tell me she loves me if this goes on.”
“I do.” Andromache says honestly.
Quynh giggles, pleased.
A warm silence ensues, the four of them melted into contemplation by Andromache’s uncharacteristic words. Yusuf surprises himself with the realization that, for all the time he’s spent lately wishing to be alone with Nicolò, wishing for everyone else to be raptured out of existence, he doesn’t want this moment to end. It’s the way of families to forget to appreciate one another; he fiercely regrets snapping at her in Nicaea, and earlier today. If he is his sister’s joy, he will sit here in this grass with her under the stars until the end of time.
The four of them fall asleep side-by-side in that grass, arms and legs pressed together, elbows jabbing into each other, and it’s not the least bit annoying.
The next afternoon, they ride into Amasya. It’s a beautiful town sprawling out in the tight basin between two lush green mountains, split in half by a winding river. Little white clay houses speckle the slopes of the mountains, so that the whole thing looks quite like a Greek amphitheater. Everyone lounges on the roofs of these houses, in such abundant numbers that Yusuf wonders why they even bothered putting doors on them at all if no one ever goes inside. It makes him think of those monks of antiquity who lived atop pillars in the desert, the ones who vowed to come down only once they were dead, the ones who Nicolò admires so greatly.
Canvasses greet them near the palace and lead them inside the gates to their allotted rooms. Yusuf is jaded and resigned at this point; he’s fully prepared to be taken to a communal barn of some kind and told to sleep shoulder to toe with the rest of the crew amongst the horse shit. So, when a palace eunuch (a real one) takes him down a hallway in the guest wing of the palace to a set of double doors and announces that the room is all his own, he nearly faints.
“Praise Sultan Suleiman, may Allah grant him and his children and his grandchildren a long and prosperous life!” he whispers, palms pressed to his temples in astonishment. He’s suddenly a huge partisan of this sultan, thinks him exceedingly wise and noble and all sorts of other flattering things.
There’s no time to enjoy the privacy, not yet, because the sultan is waiting for them, but he does take a quick turn around the place. There’s an antechamber with a low table and cushions, a cushioned sofa, and some cooking utensils near a fireplace. Beyond it is the bedroom, furnished with a gorgeous wooden bed with railings and posts and a lush canopy. He can only imagine the obscene luxury Ghiselin must be enjoying, if they were willing to waste this glorious room on Yusuf.
The main doors click open and Nicolò enters. He throws his pack at the sofa. He was given his own room, too, but sleeping apart is too horrific to even contemplate. If his abandonment of his room comes across as ungrateful to their hosts, well…. The shocking sight of the two of them in bed together will provide a sufficient distraction. Their eyes meet, and the air suddenly feels humid and heavy. The game ends tonight, they both know it.
“Shall we?” Nicolò eventually asks, a little breathless.
“Mm.”
And out the door they go.
Royal chamberlains conduct them and Ghiselin into the reception hall after grasping their arms to ascertain that none of them carry weaponry. Sultan Suleiman is seated at the head of the hall on a low ottoman, surrounded by embroidered cushions and his bow and arrows. He’s an older man, but age hardly shows on him; there’s a tinge of gray in his beard, but otherwise, he is robust and sturdy. The sight of him is, admittedly, anticlimactic. They’ve travelled for months for the sake of this singular moment, and Suleiman looks like any soft-eyed grandfather one might see on the street. It’s the beauty of Turkish custom, Yusuf supposes—in these lands, men prefer to let their deeds crown them in glory rather than their clothing or accoutrements. They all must individually kiss his hand to show obeisance, and Yusuf does so with some genuine feeling, remembering his fantastic new room. And then they all shuffle backwards, careful never to turn their backs on him, and Ghiselin begins blabbering.
Yusuf feels that if circumstances were different, wildly different, he and Sultan Suleiman would be excellent friends. The sultan listens to Ghiselin earnestly, but there is a distinctly world-weary look in his eye, as if he would prefer to never again be tormented by nasally little ambassadors and their silly demands. It is a well-established fact that Suleiman is an accomplished poet, a man of art and learning, and Yusuf knows exactly how he must feel, existing always in the brutal sphere of statecraft when his heart longs instead for beauty and peace. Yusuf attempts to recall the famous poem he composed for his concubine-turned-wife Hürrem, whose company he is probably dearly missing as Ghiselin snarks at him on his ottoman.
Throne of my lonely niche, my wealth, my love, my moonlight.
My most sincere friend, my confidant, my very existence, my Sultan, my one and only love.
The most beautiful among the beautiful…
My springtime, my merry faced love, my daytime, my sweetheart, laughing leaf…
My plants, my sweet, my rose, the only one who does not distress me in this world…
My Constantinople, my Caraman, the earth of my Anatolia
My Badakhshan, my Baghdad and Khorasan
My woman of the beautiful hair, my love of the slanted brow, my love of eyes full of mischief…
I’ll sing your praises always
I, lover of the tormented heart, Muhibbi of the eyes full of tears, I am happy.
Yusuf glances at Nicolò beside him, abruptly emotional. Nicolò can sense his gaze, always, and he meets Yusuf’s eyes a moment later. He lingers, still and warm. And then he returns his eyes respectfully to the floor.
The only answer Suleiman gives Ghiselin is a grumble of “well, well.” And then they are dismissed.
Yusuf isn’t paying attention anyways. He is still burning from Nicolò’s gaze.
The doors to their chambers haven’t even finished closing when they pounce on each other, hands grabbing at tunics and hair, mouths crushing together. Nicolò slams him back into the wall, sending bits of plaster raining down from the ceiling, and shoves one of his legs between Yusuf’s. Yusuf grabs his ass and lifts him onto his right thigh, and Nicolò gets it, gets it right away, and humps him like a dog in heat, whimpering and gasping, breath humid against Yusuf’s cheek.
“Augh.” Yusuf groans, incomprehensible. It’s so painfully arousing when Nicolò is like this, uninhibited, downright feral. He finds himself hooking an elbow under Nicolò’s right knee, lifting his leg up high for no good reason other than that he wants to see him spread open. They stumble gracelessly towards the bed like that, Nicolò hopping on the one leg that’s still on the ground. He doesn’t even try to wrestle back the other one, and the thought of that, that he lets Yusuf keep hold of it, that he would rather stumble than close his thighs and deny Yusuf access, sets Yusuf on fire. He throws Nicolò onto the mattress like a barbarian, and when Nicolò, his prim and proper Nicolò, hits the bedding, he seizes his own shirt in his two pale fists and rips it open straight down the middle with a spectacular moan. And that is the end of Yusuf’s sanity.
Nicolò shrieks and grips the sheets when Yusuf shoves inside him. The texture of his inner walls, the sight of wiry curls and the grip of his rosy asshole around Yusuf—it suddenly hits him just how long it’s been since they last did this. Nicolò’s frantic gasps suggest he’s having a similar epiphany. Thrusting is sweet torture; pleasure rips up Yusuf’s spine, making his jaw drop. He pumps his hips hard, unable to restrain himself, and Nicolò groans like gravel being crushed under the wheels of a cart and digs his nails into Yusuf’s back. He’s clenched up so tight, so tight, all his muscles tense, teeth gritted, quivering for release—
“Breathe, Nicolò, breathe!” Yusuf pants, shaking him a little.
Nicolò heaves a massive gasp, the force of which implies he had been ready to faint dead away for lack of air and pure desperation to orgasm. Yusuf can hardly blame him. It feels so good. He moans against Nicolò’s mouth, quite loudly, over and over with every thrust, which fans Nicolò’s flames, and they quickly devolve into a lewd call-and-response, gasping and groaning back and forth, telling each other without words on repeat of their mutual ecstasy.
They don’t go silent until orgasm starts to hit them. Yusuf thinks he hears a choked little whisper of Madre di Dio , but he’s not really listening because he’s hypnotized by how Nicolò just keeps coming. And coming. And coming. It spurts over his fist, running in rivers onto his belly; it rivals the flood Yusuf is filling him with that is not stopping anytime soon. Nicolò is biting his lip so hard he might be drawing blood.
Yusuf is still coming when Nicolò surges up and kisses him passionately, rolls them over and starts bouncing up and down in his lap. Evidently, Nicolò is of the opinion that they have a lot of time to make up for. Yusuf squeezes the supple flesh on his hips and shows him just how much he agrees. All night long.
Yusuf wakes the next morning to an empty bed and the smell of steaming coconut milk and cloves. He grins, stretches languidly, toes curling. The flower of Nicolò’s passion has finally blossomed.
When he dresses and tiptoes into the antechamber, he sees the stew and its sister pan of fried almonds over the fire, and recognizes the Cypriot recipe. Already his mouth is watering. He saunters up behind Nicolò and runs his hands along his lower stomach, just under his shirt.
“Need any more inspiration?” Yusuf murmurs, nipping at the skin of his shoulder.
Nicolò chuckles. “Thank you, no.”
“Do you mind if I loiter here?”
“Of course not, so long as you behave.” Nicolò presses a hot and lingering kiss to Yusuf’s cheek, and then turns back to his work. Still with his hands halfway down Nicolò’s pants, Yusuf watches him stir the stew, and nearly drools. Chicken and rice simmered in coconut milk, spiced with whole cloves and mace, because Nicolò prefers it to nutmeg (“mace is a sword, nutmeg is a wooden club”). When Yusuf reaches for one of the fried almonds waiting to decorate the top, Nicolò smacks his hand away. He gives him an admonishing look, the sort which Yusuf’s mother used to dole out when she scolded him for acting like a spoiled prince. Needless to say, it is a familiar one. With a grin, he hides his face in Nicolò’s hair. He truly does feel like a spoiled prince when, a minute later, Nicolò gives in and feeds him an almond over his shoulder.
By the time the stew is ready, both Andromache and Quynh have joined them. The three of them stand around, feigning nonchalance like three dogs begging for scraps at a table, as if Nicolò isn’t killing them slowly with every minute longer they must wait. When they finally do all sit down to eat, no one speaks a single word, so single-minded they are on devouring it. Nicolò looks inordinately pleased. Even Andromache has her eyes closed, eyebrows knitted together as she savors. Sometimes Yusuf wonders if Nicolò’s cooking is the only thing that’s kept her alive the last four hundred years.
After, Nicolò makes them all some tea and sits them on the cushioned sofa in the front chamber. They talk of this and that, and Quynh has a strangely melancholy look on her face now that the ecstasy of the stew has abated.
“I had a very strange dream last night.” she says, frowning at the ground and clutching her cup of tea with white-knuckled hands. “I was at the bottom of the sea, staring up at the distant light shining on the water’s surface. I wanted to go to it, but I couldn’t move. Something held me back, and all I could do was stare and drown.”
They all frown in concern at her, knowing very well how terrified she is of water, but Nicolò is the first to scoot closer and put a comforting arm around her shoulder. Quynh, who usually despises being babied, squeezes his hand in gratitude.
“Perhaps it’s only a metaphor.” Yusuf suggests.
Quynh shrugs. “I certainly hope so.” Her tone tells them that she’s not convinced.
“Fate is not sealed, nor is it inscribed in any stone. You shape your own destiny with the choices you make. So don’t be afraid, because even if you make the wrong ones, we will always be here to help you back onto your feet.” Nicolò says tenderly.
Finally, Quynh smiles.
“I’ll hold you to that.”