The Velvet

Brian White

F-Block

Mr. Moran

Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets put out the kitchen fire.

Preface:  Snow fell on the cold, hard ground.  The cries of revolutionaries could be heard in the distance.  A hackney carriage sped through the night along the forest road, pursued by loud whoops and hollers.  Two men jumped out of the darkness with torches and knives.  The horse was cut loose, and, overwhelmed, galloped away.  Female cries of “Deus misereatur!”* issued from the interior of the overturned wagon.  A man clambered out through the roof, brandishing a sword. 

“Dmitri, he is dead!” exclaimed one of the robbers, following the fight.  “Yes, Klepto, he is dead,” Dmitri replied.  “But his mother and the babe got away.”  Klepto did not appear concerned by this fact, and with greed in his burning blue eyes, proceeded to strip the Eastern royal of his fineries.  Within the carriage, Dmitri found a white velvet embroidered in gold, which would make a good sum in the marketplace.

* *  *   *   *  * *

It couldn’t be helped.

Ouranos had already asked Neptune her hand, and there would no doubt be a glorious wedding.  Neptune’s mother was in a fit of excitement, whisking the bride-to-be and her sister from pastry-shops to fittings and various other appointments.  There couldn’t have been a better time to tie the knot.  Neptune was a sliced apple the most opulent before browning.  Her skin was the color of a pale rose, her eyes bore the coruscation of a gemstone, and her hair swam and bubbled like a kelp forest. Her beauty made no hint to her humble beginnings, much less to a man for whom she had been destined at birth.

All the while, Ouranos had been planning a feast, and finally decided to regale extravagantly at the summer mansion.  The chef was given an interminable list of dishes to prepare, and an ample sum for the exotic ingredients.  Alina, as she was called, had come to live by the sea a long time ago. She had tended the kitchen fire for decades, knocking at the family door when Ouranos’ mother had been suckling her child. Alina was no doubt accustomed to the prodigal propensities of the household, and went, disapproving nonetheless, on her way.

At a small boutique across the river, the women found the crowning robe.  White as milk, the cloth was as striking as it was supple.  Golden threads weaved a living tapestry into the crushed velvet bodice.  The brocade curiously and most intricately depicted the fall of man.  Stitched into the left hip, Adam and his wife fled from the angel with the flaming sword situated under the right breast.  When Neptune touched their leafy garments, she was surely mistaken to have felt a waxy surface beneath her fingers.  The human likeness was as incredible.  Adam’s skin held the smooth satin of true flesh, with Eve’s tangled locks imitated in silk threads.  Neptune’s mother was partial to the bone tiers of silk gauze cascading to the floor. When Neptune put it on, the gown seemed to increase her natural beauty without bound.  She thanked her mother for the dress, and hurried home.

Riennade had every reason to be happy for her sister.  And for every one, she was as justifiably so enraged.  She, being the younger daughter of a wanting family, was left with the crumbs of Neptune’s burgeoning prosperity.  At birth, she had been blessed with good fortune, a betrothal to the Eastern Potentate.  Neptune later secured a bond to the mere fishnetter’s son Helbrun.  That all changed when Ouranos, the charming youth from the South presented Neptune with unimaginable riches and asked for her hand.  To stay true to Helbrun’s father, Riennade’s family had promised her to him, and all her dreams had drowned. 

Ouranos was waiting for Neptune when she arrived.  He laughed to see her struggling with the package she was holding, and sweeped it out of her grasp before she crashed into him.  “It’s perfect Rani,” she exclaimed, her cheeks flushed. 

After seeing Neptune rush off with the parceled dress in her arms, Riennade ambled over the bridge, past the palace, through the cobbled streets until she reached a dirt path.  Here she turned her head back to the crowded streets, before continuing on her way.  As she neared a small hut on the cliffs, a young man came out to greet her.  His long dark hair was damp, as always, from the sea spray.  He came to her, and clasped her hand.  Riennade resisted the temptation to plug her nose from his fish smell.  “It is done?” he asked.  “Yes,” she replied, her snake eyes narrowing to slits.  “Why must you smell so disgusting?” she hissed.  “You will not set foot in the mansion if you stink like that.”

Neptune came out into the courtyard, glowing like an angel.  She scanned the stone garden, glancing past the marble statues of swans gushing water into a fountain.  Ouranos beckoned to her, beaming, from the boughs of a cherry tree.  “The last time my stomach dropped so was when I jumped from this branch,” he jumped from the tree, “into my grandmother’s arms.”  His scarlet lips were frozen in a glorious smile.  He took her and they kissed under pink clouds.

Riennade’s mother owed the Fishnetter a great debt.  Her husband, betrayed by his best friend, had been mortally wounded for his money earned off a velvet tunic.  It was Helbrun’s father who had nursed her husband until his death. Thus she held no pity for Riennade, only grim fulfillment.  She had found the cook in town, and together they finished her errands.  When they returned, Riennade had already removed the fish stench from her body, rubbing her wrists vigorously with rose water.  Seeing the cook, she snatched her into a dark corner.  “I have found the coffer,” she breathed.  “We set fire at midnight. By dawn, all is lost.”  The cook’s eyes blazed in the shadow.  “Deus misereatur.  I will do anything for my son.”

It was a glorious wedding, until the fire, at least.  Ouranos had received a rock crystal vase as a gift, which he proudly placed in the foyer on top of the marble staircase.  Wishing to relieve herself, Neptune had rustled her way into the large washroom down the hall, hardly noticing the fold in the rug, concealing a trap door where inside the empty casket lay, the lock broken.  She was met by a powerful brightness, which she strove to put out by beating it with her velvet bodice, which she had ripped from her back.  She could have saved herself at an earlier time, but was lost to smoke inhalation.  Her lifeless body was left untouched by the flames, which formed a strange halo around her without touching her dress.

Ouranos smashed the crystal against the glass.  The windowpane shattered, spitting shards of glass that stung his face and neck.  With the flames licking at his heels, he hoisted himself up on the sill, and slid down onto the stone ledge.  There he stood, balanced 170 feet above ground, his skin speckled with tiny cuts.  He gripped the wall with raw hands.  It grew slippery with blood, and he feared of falling.  Below him lay a flat stretch of stone ground, the courtyard with the bubbling swan fountain.  Here he had said his vows to Neptune.  Here he had seen his grandmother smile up at him, her arms outstretched so as to catch him when he fell from his perch in the cherry tree.  Here he had lied in the hypnotic blaze of the summertime.  Here, not there, for he had fallen, and here he lay now, staring up at the gray smoke billowing from his burning house.

Only ashes remained in the morning.  The building had remained mysteriously intact around Nepune’s lifeless, bare-breasted form.  The velvet bodice was nowhere to be found.  At noontime, Klepto’s son lay still, his dead eyes gasping beryl into the heart of the sun.

*”Lord have mercy” in Latin.