Close to Selamu Alu

173rd Summer – The First Year of the Regency (Earth Date 21st January 2017)

Not a breath of wind stirred the early morning mist giving the River an ethereal, otherworldly quality as the Raptor, running purely on its electric motors, glided silently downstream. On either side of the River, trees and the occasional tall building became visible as we passed.

“Beautiful, isn’t it,” Blackthorne rumbled softly, joining me on the viewing platform that ran around the bridge and handed me a cup of coffee. I took a sip, it was made from locally grown beans and the taste brought back bittersweet memories of when I’d last drunk this particular brew.

“It feels like we’re flying,” I replied, glancing up at the hard-as-nails former Iron Brotherhood pirate who nodded in agreement. The long voyage had agreed with him, his near fatal wounds sustained in the now legendary fight with Xavier no longer slowed him down, although he did still walk with a stick.

“How close do you think we are to Selamu Alu?” I asked.

“A day perhaps. With any luck we’ll hit the outlying islands by nightfall. Once the mist clears, I’ll order the generators fired up and I’ll get some decent speed out of the old girl.” He slapped the rail of the Raptor with affection.

“Sound’s good, we’ll arrive in style. Just don’t hit anyone.” I grinned at the Captain who gave me a look of mock horror.

“Brand, you wound me, I’ve been sailing since I was knee high to a rowlock. Not there’s much to hit out here at the moment, everyone must be staying in bed till the wind gets up.”

“Someone’s up. There’s a boat up ahead, to starboard.” I pointed, pleased that I’d seen the vessel before Blackthorne.

“Nicely spotted, we’ll be in hailing distance in a couple of minutes. How have your language lessons been going?”

“I’ll tell you in three minutes.” I replied, watching as we slowly gained on the large rowing boat that had been decorated with flowers. It was being rowed by ten people in spotless white shirts, in the stern a man and a woman sat on some sort of dais. A wedding party I guessed. The rowers paused as we approached, and the bride and groom turned.

“Ahoy,” I called out.

“Ahoy, what ship is that?” one of the rowers, an older man called back in accented English.

“The Raptor, out of Trafalgar, via Bergraz.” I replied in the same language. This got the occupants of the boat talking.

“How far Selamu Alu?” I asked in my best Selmuain, which according to Xavier was very similar to Earth Arabic. One of my crew had hailed from around here and I’d spent quite a bit of time supplementing my half-remembered lessons in the Citadel and was pretty much word perfect if all I wanted to do was swear.

“Two days for us. One for you. She is a beautiful ship, so quiet,” the rower replied.

“Thank you.” I turned my attention to the bride and groom, “You… err… marry today?” I asked, hoping that my tutor had not mixed up getting married with a different type of more temporary, commercial relationship.

“Yes, in the temple,” the man replied, he was also dressed in an immaculate white shirt but was wearing a jacket embroidered with dragons that must have taken weeks to make, the woman, who was wearing an equally intricate embroidered dress pointed towards a small island just visible in the mist where I could just make out the dome of a temple.

I rummaged in my pocket for money, it apparently being the tradition for travellers coming upon a wedding to give the bride and groom a gift. My fingers found a heavy coin and I brought it out, it was a gold Dragon, several weeks wages for a Journeyman back in Midriver. I threw it carefully to the couple, the woman deftly caught it, doing a double take at the weight.

“May you live long and happy,” I called, not quite getting the words of the blessing right as the boat dropped behind us.

“Thank you, my Lord. Who may I thank for this generous gift?” the woman called, half standing up.

“Sir Brand, the Duke of Orston.” I called back. Some of the rowers turned, others missed a stroke and the boat turned broadside onto the current.

“The Dragonslayer?” someone asked. Obviously, tales of at least one of my many exploits had preceded me.

“Yes,” I replied, saluting them.

“I take it we’re not here incognito,” Blackthorne laughed quietly, watching the occupants of the boat sort themselves out.

“In the Raptor?”

“True, she is a bit conspicuous.” The Raptor was by no means the biggest vessel on the River, although she was by no means small. It was her appearance. Every other vessel on the planet was built of timber, almost every vessel was carved in a whole host of intricate patterns and painted to indicate which guild, which Lord, or even which religious sect the occupants looked to, the Raptor in contrast had a steel hull painted a glossy dark blue, the sleek superstructure a light grey and at each corner sat an evil looking Earth-made heavy machine gun capable of giving even the most powerful of warships a really bad time.

I also had a chest hidden in our cabin that Xavier had given me, crammed full of state-of-the-art Earth military hardware that he’d made me promise not to use unless it was a dire emergency and even then, he’d said I’d have to pay for what I used. I suspected he hadn’t been joking either.

The differences on the Raptor went more than skin deep. On the bridge we had radar, sonar, and night vision, below, there were proper Earth style bathrooms with flushing toilets, comfortable cabins with screens and there was even a laundry room with machines that got clothes cleaner than all but the best riverside laundries.

From one of the portholes came a thud, a scream of hurt and undirected fury. I sighed; the morning peace had been nice while it lasted.

“It looks like it’s your time to shine lad,” Blackthorne said, grinning.

“Lad?” I asked an offended voice as I threw my leg over the bridge rail.

“Aye, you’re ten years old, give it another ten years and you might know something worth knowing.”

I jumped down to the main deck and made a rude gesture to the Captain as another wail of distress rent the morning air. I opened the hatch to the companionway, slid down the steep ladder and opened the nearest cabin door.

My son lay on the floor of his cabin. He’d managed to throw, not only his bed covers, but also his mattress out of his cot, then climbed out himself and completely missed the carefully piled up bedding. I ran and picked up the crying toddler.

“Da. Bed go bump.” The toddler tearfully explained, pointing to the bedding as if it had jumped out the bed all by itself.

“You shouldn’t get out of bed by yourself. I told you you’d hurt yourself” I told him, like I’d told him every day for the last couple of weeks. Gord started crying again and burrowed into my chest. This time he was faking.

“Shall we put this all back before Nanny sees?” I asked, gesturing to his bedding.

“Yes,” Gord replied, immediately stopping crying and wiggled to get down. I put him down and helped him put the mattress back in his bed. It was Earth made and light enough to be shifted by a determined toddler. We were just putting the blankets back when Merewyn, Gord’s nanny burst in, looking half asleep and doing the last couple of buttons up on her dress, her normally straight, black hair sticking out in all directions.

“Oh, you naughty boy, you got out again, didn’t you?” Merewyn asked in a resigned voice, giving me a little curtsy. Gord gave a giggle and dodged away from her outstretched arms. There followed a brief chase before my son was recaptured and was swept up into Merewyn’s ample bosom.

“Milk,” my son said, trying to pull his nanny’s top down.

“Patience little one,” she said to Gord. “One of these days you’re going to get an eyeful if he keeps doing that.” she said to me.

“If that ever happens I shall regard it as the pinnacle of my life to date,” I replied, making an elaborate bow.

“Flatterer,” she replied, smiling, and starting to undo the buttons she’d just done up, “but you can still bugger off and let me give His Highness his breakfast.”

I left them to it and checked the time. It was just after three. Blodwyn wouldn’t be stirring for at least another hour so I went and did the Morning Exercises. As I whirled my swords in the elaborate movements I’d been doing since I’d joined the Knights, my thoughts were taken up by the extremely unknightly subject of my wife, Her Highness Princess Blodwyn.

We’d now been married nearly a season, most of our married life spent aboard the Raptor. As much as I loved Blodwyn, she had not been the easiest person to live with on the voyage. Before we’d left on our epic, continent spanning quest she never left Bergraz Palace. Admittedly it was the largest building in the world, but travelling downriver, even on the luxurious Raptor, had come as a bit of a culture shock to her.

It hadn’t helped that she was still mourning the death of her twin brother. Come to that I was still mourning Marcus. Most of the Empire was still mourning Marcus, and I knew putting my father on the throne was going to be extremely unpopular in certain quarters but there was no way I was going to let any of my new family be saddled with the throne of Midriver.

The usual routines didn’t calm me as they usually did. I cut them short and snuck back to our cabin for a quick shower. Blodwyn was lightly snoring, immobile lump in our bed. I sighed, at least we were still sleeping together, even if that was all we did as I was a morning person, and she… wasn’t. Princesses, even princesses with toddlers didn’t have to be morning people.

I dried myself off in the tiny dressing room crammed full of Blodwyn’s dresses, of which she perhaps wore three on a regular basis, pulled on a bathrobe and went back into our cabin. It was the largest cabin on the Raptor and the only one on the main deck.

The white walls and portholes on both sides made it feel larger than it was and there was comfortably room for our bed, a couple of sofas and a desk. It was a lot more luxurious than I was used to but Blodwyn was used to rooms large enough to accommodate a dragon with only minimal structural damage and a view over Bergraz.

I checked my wife was still fast asleep and went over to the desk, opened the secret drawer, and brought out a battered leather-bound book with a combination lock on it. I glanced over at the bed again, then unlocked it.

I thought, as I did every time I opened the book that I should destroyed it, and this would be the last time I used it, but writing poetry relaxed me like nothing else, even if I was so bad at it the old Composition Master at the Citadel had forbidden me to ever put pen to paper in an attempt to make words rhyme.

I started a new page and the words oozed out of my brain to pollute the pure sheet of paper. I forgot the world for a while, until two warm, brown hands caressed my neck then moved down my chest as long, straight, black hair covered my face.

I like it when you’re here when I wake up.” Blodwyn murmured into my ear, then gently kissed me on my head. I turned my head and kissed her back, she responded hungrily as I shut the book with one hand, then spun the office chair to face her. She promptly threw her naked self into my arms, she smelt wonderfully of warm bed and mornings.

We kissed until the office chair started to lean alarmingly to one side. I stood up, Blodwyn still in my arms and threw her on to the bed, she gave an anticipatory squeak as she landed on the bed, then an outraged squawk as she bounced off the other side. I ran to rescue her only to find she was laughing. I picked her up again and placed her onto the bed, pinning her under me so she couldn’t escape. She gave a throaty giggle.

“Ohhh, Brand, are you just going to ravish me without even checking to see if I’m hurt?” She asked, teasingly, her dark eyes looking up at me.

“Yes.” I replied and nibbled one of her breasts lightly. She gave a little gasp and wriggled voluptuously as I moved one of my hands downwards until it came to rest between her legs. Without warning she shifted her weight, and we crashed to the floor. After a brief struggle Blodwyn managed to get astride me and pin my arms to the floor. Her long hair fell about my face.

“Now I’ve got you where I want you, I’m going to ravish you,” she purred, letting go of one of my arms to grab my cock and guiding it into her.

Afterwards, we lay in bed cuddling like we had in the old days when I’d been an unimportant squire and she’d been a spare Princess no one had known what to do with.

“We should do this more. You used to risk your life climbing up the side of the palace to make love to me, now I wake up alone in our bed, my lady bits all a quiver, ready for a good seeing to...”

“Back then you made sure you were all alone and unattended. Catching you alone and unattended these days is not easy.” I pointed out.

“Polly won’t mind,” Boldwyn said, which was probably true, her maid had been with her for years and acted more like a friend or big sister rather than a servant.

“Yes, but I would. She’d be asking you what dress you wanted to wear, or she’d be giving me advice...”

“...Or she might just decide to join in.” Blodwyn giggled. “You should write more poetry. I like waking up when you're here and Polly won’t disturb us while you’re writing.”

“How do you know I write poetry?” I asked.

“I read it. That’s what poetry is for isn’t it? Why are you so upset?”

“The book was locked.”

“The code is my birthday. I thought you’d written it for me.”

“But it’s terrible, I shouldn’t even be writing it.”

“Why does it matter? You don’t have to be good at poetry. It’s art. It’s how it makes you feel. It’s not as if poetry’s life and death.”

“The Composition Master at the Citadel thought it was far more important than that.” I replied. He’d actually told me there were qualities to my writing that would give him nightmares till the end of his days, then threw me out of his study and told me never to darken his door again. Blodwyn looked at me sympathetically.

“Did he start teaching you right after you arrived at the Citadel?”

“Yes, a few days after. Not for long though.”

“So, you were five years old, you’d fought your way out of Bergraz in the middle of the Civil War, lost your parents, stowed away with the notorious Captain Sorgi who sailed right into the middle of the Scourging and made you make a List of all the crimes that had taken place.”

“Err… yes.”

“And then you were told to write poetry?”

“Oh. Yes…” I paused, suddenly remembering the Composition Master had killed himself shortly after Mauvis had taken over the Knights and acquired the List. No wonder my poetry had given him nightmares, they’d been nightmares caused by a guilty conscience, rather than my lack of talent.

“So, he’s probably not an impartial critic?” My wife said, I shook my head. surprised by her insight. I suppose I shouldn’t have been. Before I’d turned up in her chamber, she’d been determined to join the Church..

“The poems are probably still terrible though.”

“I like them, probably because they’re mostly about me and people I know.”

“You even like the rudes ones?” I asked, Blodwyn gave a throaty chuckle.

“I especially like the rude ones, although I wasn’t too keen on the one about the rainbow haired temptress.” I went cold and felt the blood drain from my face. Blodwyn giggled at my expression.

“You fancy Ka-te, you want you want to fuck her,” she teased me in a sing song voice and then giggled again. “She got you got dru-nk, she got you maroon-ed.” She continued mercilessly.

“Okay, okay, I fancied Kate, but she’s with Oz now and it was Natalie’s grandmother who got us drunk. We never actually did anything” I said, trying not to think of the one brief but passionate kiss we’d shared and wished I’d never written that poem.

“I believe you, Brand,” Blodwyn said blandly and kissed me on the lips, happy to have shaken my composure.

“And you never had a crush on anyone while we were apart?” I asked, deciding it was time to turn the tables. Blodwyn immediately hid her head under the covers.

“I waited for you like a good girl. While you were off gallivanting around Midriver with Kate and Anna and Natalie,” came a muffled voice.

“I saved the Empire at least three times while I was gallivanting. So, who is it, who’s your secret crush?” There was a long pause.

“While I was pregnant, and all alone, I snuck out with Polly to the pit fights. I saw Lord Jake fight, you know, Natalie’s brother... He was very… impressive,” Blodwyn confessed in a little voice from inside the bed covers. I laughed.

“You better not tell Anna that.” I told her. Blodwyn’s head popped out the covers.

“Anna… and Jake? They’re at it?”

“I don’t think they’re actually ‘at it’ yet.”

“Yeah, Anna flirts, but she never actually does anything. If they actually get together though, wow, that’s going to put the unicorn in the pottery.” I was just going to ask why, when Polly burst into our cabin without knocking. I quickly threw the bedcover over my nakedness.

“Your Highness, my Lord, you need to come up on deck,” she said, grinning at my reaction to her sudden appearance.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“It’s Selamu Alu.” She replied holding out a robe for Blodwyn who slid out of bed and slipped into it, they disappeared into the dressing room. I pulled on my clothes, ignoring the giggling coming from behind the closed door, and went up to the bridge.

The mist had cleared and all the way across the horizon in front of us was a dark cloud.

“What’s that?” I asked Blackthorne.

“That, Brand, is Selamu Alu.”

“Is it on fire?” I asked, staring at the pall of smoke that looked like some vengeful God had inflicted some terrible punishment on the city.

“Nah, It’s always like that, that’s just the smoke from the cooking fires.”