MAS-Zine
#4
Pirates!
Autumn
2003
|
MAS-Zine
#4 |
|
|
|
|
Teaser
for MEMORY MADE FLESH MEMORY MADE FLESH Shanghai'd He must have drifted off to sleep again, because he woke to sounds around him in the darkness, the sounds of footsteps and voices above his head, the now-familiar creaking and clanging of a sailing vessel. Still, he lay in darkness, but he sensed that it must be daylight above. His head felt clearer now, but it still hurt, and his mouth was so dry that his lips felt painfully cracked. Even his eyes were so dry that he could barely open the lids. The pain in his wrists was just as intense, although his fingers seemed to have gone slightly numb. Severin tried to move his wrists, stretching them to the short length of the chains, but he was bound as tightly as before. He thought that he remembered now what had happened to him, but he'd been drunk then and had not really comprehended what was occurring. Somewhere, an alarm bell had sounded, and the women passengers onboard The Ouroboros had been screaming. Severin remembered struggling up from his bunk, stumbling to the door, but when he'd opened the door, something had struck him hard on the back of the head. He'd woken in this alien place. He wanted water. At that moment, he thought, he would have done just about anything for water. And food, also, would have been welcomed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. The rum had sustained him, blocking out hunger, and the food on the ship had been anything but appetizing. He wasn't used to this torment, wasn't used to this hardship; he'd always had everything he could have wanted. Longingly, he remembered the dinners at home, the roast chicken and new potatoes and onions, the green-beans cooked with a slab of bacon, Sally's delicious biscuits and breads and pies. He'd liked best those frequent informal dinners they had had, himself and his father sitting at the rough wooden table in the kitchen, and Isaiah there with them, sharing a meal together. His father's friends had been scandalized by it, that they would eat with a Negro as their equal, but to him it had seemed the most normal thing in the world. He had been thinking of home when he woke before, he remembered. If only he had a drink, a mug brimful with rum or beer, he would not have to think of such things, drowning his sorrows in that sweet oblivion. But now, sober and aching and lying helpless in the darkness, he could not keep the thoughts from his mind. If his eyes were not so dry, he felt sure that he would have wept. A sudden noise to the right of him made him jump. The turning of a door-latch, the scraping of a wooden door and the squeak of rusted hinges. Severin saw a thin band of pale light, and then the door opened and a man stood in the doorway, one hand holding a candle in a brass holder. Severin lowered his eye-lids, fearing to move and hoping that he would look as though he still slept, but through the veil of his long black lashes he watched the man who stood before him. He seemed tall, an imposing figure, tall and slender and well-built. The man's hair was dark, and it looked short. His clean-shaven, tanned face was the face of a European, although Severin could not tell if he were an Englishman or a foreigner. When he moved, his motions were fluid and graceful, poised and deliberate, his back straight without being rigid, his head held high. Something in his bearing made Severin feel desperately frightened, and he noticed with distress that he had begun to tremble. Perhaps it was merely that he was bound and naked and vulnerable in the presence of a stranger, that he had no idea where he was, that he knew that there was nothing he could do to protect himself. No one had ever made him feel threatened like this before, not at home where he'd been loved and sheltered by his father and Isaiah; the feeling of menace paralyzed him, making him weak, confusing him. The man gazed across at him for a moment and then moved to a desk that stood at the opposite side of the room. Severin could see the place more clearly now, and he realized that it must be a cabin beneath the deck of the ship. He was lying on a fairly large bed, a blanket over him, and on the walls of the cabin were a few paintings, two pastoral landscapes and a portrait of a young woman, a shelf of books, a desk with a chair before it. In one corner were two large trunks, locked with padlocks. When the man turned to face the desk, Severin could see that his hair, which he had thought was short, was long and dark and bound at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon. He wore a loose white shirt, dark britches, and high silver-clasped boots. As he turned to face the bed, Severin could see that he held a metal cup. He closed his eyes, not wanting the man to notice the fluttering of his eyelids, but he could not manage to keep himself from trembling humiliatingly with apprehension. "Are you awake?" The voice was surprisingly refined, and Englishman's voice, and the voice of an Englishman of his own class, gentle and well-modulated, not too deep. It was, thought Severin incongruously, a pleasant voice. He did not answer. He lay, shaking so hard that his teeth were nearly chattering, his eyes screwed shut, his teeth biting into the inside of his lower lip. What right did this man have to keep him here, chained and helpless and tormented by fear? He was Severin Sherbourne, Thomas Sherbourne's son, wealthy and pampered and always treated with kindness... Cool fingertips touched his cheek then, and he flinched involuntarily, his eyes flying open, wide with fear. The man was standing above him, touching his face with one lean, strong hand, the cup held in the other. He had put the candle down on the desk, and the soft light of it illuminated the room. Severin looked away. He did not want to look up at the man, to see the face that was, unquestionably, handsome and refined. One glimpse had been enough for him; he hated the sight of the man, hated more the fact that he would find him good to look at. "Why are you trembling?" the man asked casually. "Are you cold, or are you afraid?" Severin looked at the wall, his eyes blinking too fast, betraying his fear. He wished that he could stop shaking. Then he felt the man's hand touching the manacles that bound him, turning his own hands, his touch surprisingly gentle and light. "You must be very thirsty," the voice said. "I have water for you, if you want it." Good God, he wanted that water. His eyes darted momentarily in the direction of the man's face, and then he looked away, gazing intently at the mug he held, wishing that he could reach up and take it. The man was looking down at him still, and he had seen briefly the expression on his handsome face, a look of almost tender condescension that made him feel even more fearful, even more helpless. He wanted to speak, to ask for the water, but something held him back. He could not force the words to come. Surely, it was not pride? Yes, perhaps it was pride, but more than that he feared what the man might do to him if he spoke, feared saying the wrong thing, feared provoking his anger. "You don't want water, then?" the voice asked. "You need only to ask for it." There was something menacing in the words, Severin thought, a hint of threat. He remained silent. Read
more in MAS-Zine issue #4 |