Pirates, Princes, and Stars

chapter seven

They were married the next day.

Twenty advisors had banded together to decide that it would be a very romantic event, and indeed raise the nation's spirits. They would do everything in their power to publicise this very touching story. Portraits were painted of the newlyweds. A local Count's daughter had been selected to sit for Anahita, and the painter captured her yellow hair and pink skin fantastically.

Similarly, her gown had been fashioned in a day. They opted for grey, as was traditional. What was not traditional, however, were the opaque veil and gloves she was given.

"You must never take these off outside the walls of the palace," she was repeatedly told.

Once she was all bundled into the huge dress, veil, and gloves, a group of seamstresses and advisors observed her.

"Shall we have a little curl golden of wig-hair poking out from behind the veil?" suggested one, whose voice sounded elderly.

"Fantastic idea," gushed another. Then he said to Anahita, "Remember not to speak."

She threw up her hands half-heartedly.

"Yes!" he said. "That's the spirit!"

Anahita could not see through the thickness of the veil. She did not mind so much being dragged here and there and instructed to eat cake. At some point, she had to listen to a priest speaking, and she did not enjoy this very much, but the rest was more or less bearable.

In the Grey Sea, they did not have the custom of marriage. Two people would decide to be together, until they decided otherwise. It was rather simple. There was no ceremony, no dress, no string to tie together. She endured it with moderate patience. She knew a few things about the human custom of marriage from her days eavesdropping sailors. It was, to her understanding, a ritual that one must endure in order to get a man into the bedroom. She had always heard of the private activities of humans as told through sea shanties. They made it sound so exciting. As a physician, and therefore a woman of science, Anahita was fond of broadening her knowledge and putting new practices to trial. Also Chamber was very handsome.

She grit her teeth and did her best to balance as the ceremony continued.

Soon the light that shone through the fibres of her veil diminished, and she was ushered onto a carriage.

Anahita tore off her veil. The bedroom was not as she had expected.

Elm pillars knotted together above her head, holding a ceiling painted like the night sky. The room was dark. A single tallow candle flickered beside a bed carved from black wood. The shadows of the bedposts and curtains wavered across the walls, and across Chamber.

"So," she sighed, a little out of breath from hours spent breathing through felt. Her hair was tangled. "How does this work."

Chamber looked up at her. "Hm?" he said, in an attempt at nonchalance. He was gripping the sheets of the bed tight.

"Well," she began, trying her best to be discrete. "What do you...have?"

He shifted. "Have?"

"Yes," she said. "Humans, I believe, operate differently to merfolk. I do not fully understand with what you are operating?"

He frowned. "Am I operating?"

She recoiled a little. "I had not even considered that."

"Anahita," he said, exhausted. "What in the world are you talking about?"

Equally frustrated, she said, "Well...I was enquiring after the manner of your..." She made a brief hand gesture that meant genitals.

Chamber's eyes widened and did not meet hers. "Do I understand you correctly when you say –" he copied the gesture. He shook his hand as if to cleanse it.