18
PRINCE MANOR
Remedios
Vinci, Louisiana
The Sirenʼs Moat
October 31st, 2014
Time: 4:00 AM
____________________________
Against the cold, his fingers were harsh and coarse.
The velvety keys of the piano were frosty as ice, but like clockwork, he played; ticking and tockʼing until a chord he struck chimed. Music was a fickle mistress, one with needs and wants he couldnʼt really comprehend, and when Fioriʼs sheet music seared through his brain, the familiarity of those needs and wants reminded him of his daughter, Eleana. The dysfunction heʼd brought in the world he created for her and her fifteen siblings; the cruelty inside him that knew no bounds. The dissonant simplicity, the Latin vigorousness, the haunting echoes of its grace and innocence that matched his daughterʼs – it just wasnʼt there. No matter how hard he tried to fight it. But even then, some symmetry oozed out of the piano keys – youthful and brazen like she was. And when the feeling of midnight ghosted around them, Remedios looked up instinctively to meet Robinʼs gaze.
"You know," he murmured, looking at the sheet more fiercely. "I was never a fan of Fiori. Music, for me, is only good for two things, hermanita: f*cking and fighting. I pray Eleana has better luck with this."
"Mmm," Robin hummed in reply, pouring another healthy glass of wine before toasting to him. "Cheers to that."
Her hands shook, that was the first thing he noticed. Like drifting wood on water, they shook. Her sips were gulps, her words wind, and as the pianoʼs final keys echoed through the sleepy corridor, Remediosʼ boredom dulled in that moment.
"Is that Lolitaʼs poetry?"
Robin leaned against an ochre dresser, hand cupping her throat when she nestled the wine on a thick stack of golden papers. She avidly read a sheet, eyes numbed from red-hot pain that burned like tears. She bit back angry laughter.
"Copies of La Profezia della Regina," she murmured in her best Italian accent, hollow. "From The Scottish Play. In the flesh."
Remedios stole her wine pitcher and poured himself a glass of the Grecian vintage, squeezing her shoulder as he drank. Robin accepted Remediosʼ warmth, focused on the harsh cursive.
"I was the only one who had it memorized when I left Havana. And since it isnʼt humanely possible for anyone else to have memorized this section, I guess it is Lolitaʼs poetry."
She motioned to the scripture.
"Itʼs in her hand-writing," she said simply.
Remedios drank slowly.
"Do you think she was one of Shakespeareʼs prophets?"
"Maybe. Lolita had a lot of secrets before she died. Maybe being from a family of narcissistic writers was one of them."
Remedios cocked an eyebrow.
"You think she died?"
"It would be in her best interest if she did. No one survives that, and if you do, you wish you didnʼt. You wish you canʼt feel again."
"Do you wish that, hermanita?"
"Yes," she said simply. "I do."
Robin tossed the sheets one-by-one into the obsidian fireplace. The fireplace was a tiny Cuban sun during the harshness of the winter storm, with hungry flames curling and coiling as the papers turned to blackened char. The warmth of the flames heated their bodies, more so than the wine did, and as they watched the papers turn to ash and dust with hypnotic hollowness, Remedios stared Robin with a newfound gentleness.
"They canʼt be that bad," he teased in a hushed voice.
Robin grabbed a miscellaneous copy of the Prophecy, soaking in the language.
"No, theyʼre good."
And so, she recited the cursed words:
When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,
When beggars die and the comets burn with fire,
When lifeʼs womb grows fertile with death,
The Scotsman will return to sacred land.
Gold shall be his shroud,
As gold will be your crown,
Bloodied shrouds for bloodied crowns.
Steepʼd in the faultless innocence of v*rgins,
Of childrenʼs bones and broken backs.
Poor painted queen, with vain flourishes of fortune.
God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.
And when Vengeance and her disciplines come with dark fervor,
The heavens will blaze forth with the death of princes,
Two faces a grave tomb.
But she will reign with teeth of an otherworldly kind,
With galled eyes of weeping souls,
With worried lambs that lap their blood,
With prey of a childʼs body and a carnal cur,
That burns in water.
And so, from siege to storm, the world shall fall,
Darkness, her sweet name, shall make the call;
A loverʼs curse, scorned with the seed of treachery.
Murder, she wrote.
A costly price.
Until the marriage of Heaven and Hell corrupts,
until your tears have drowned you and worms have your maidenhead,
Remember,
When deathʼs breath ghosts over your pale corpse,
And the Mother wraps her hands around your little neck,
Remember,
La Reina was a prophetess.
Robin chucked the last of the copies of the Prophecy into the fire, smoldering under the heated touch of the smoke.
"Iʼll have another one of Desdemonaʼs harpies to take Lolitaʼs place. Erase any trace of her existence."
"The price we pay, a costly price," Remedios echoed, voice barely above a whisper. "For fear of breaking the cycle."
Remedios watched Robin aimlessly twirl the wine in her glass, itching for another sip, eyes closed.
"Now we focus on what you brought me here for: the Night Wolf and the bounty for Reina Santiagoʼs head and how Peter Tudor comes to play."
"Yes," Robin murmured. The silhouettes of Aquinasʼ shadows still licked their faces as Robin leaned into Remedios, her lips grazing his cheek and her fingers squeezing his shoulder.
"Good night, Remedios."
A beat.
"Was it worth it?"
The darkness caught Robinʼs eye for a second. Just for a second, like a moon eclipsing other planets with an alluring luminescence. And Remedios stared at the raw anguish that casted a shadow in her eyes.
"Was what worth it, Remedios?"
"Staging her downfall at the hands of your worst memories, Lyman and Jorge? Sabotaging the Orderʼs plan to steal the Book back? Revealing a bit of the truth? Take your pick, mija."
Another beat.
"Has the darkness finally been lifted, Robin?"
The darkness caught Robinʼs eyes, but this time, there wasnʼt a raw anguish – there was grief. Burning as a single tear rolled down her cheek. With a pained smile, Robin finished her wine and stared at Remedios, fully mourning her loverʼs death; the cuts on her body vulnerable with pain, emotion flocking to her face in abusive, bruising waves.
The night called to her, and as it did, Robin descended into dark sleep for the night, numb to it all.
One last beat.
"Ask me again tomorrow," she said simply.
YOU ARE READING
Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)
FantasyTHE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO LOUISIANA - And there will be killing until the score is settled. Tortured and exiled, Robin DeMarcus came back to the United States unscathed: a ruthless heiress to an antebellum empire with a hunger for revenge to carry on...
