Time, even when one has a surplus of it, is precious -- far more dear than gold. It cannot be mined, though it can be bought. A commodity as capricious as any on earth. For the foreseeable future, William realizes that his time will be compressed, as compressed as the foundations of the building he shall be working in and under.
     That is why this night, the night of your arrival, he has insisted on being out and about with you. To have wine, to walk the city you shall both call home for the next half year or more. To allow his fingers to brush your own, to grasp in the darkness when mortal eyes cannot see.
     The Canal is lit for the grateful arrival of spring. Colored lanterns of Murano glass light the fondamenta, coloring those who wander the street at night. Paper lanterns float there too, and even on the water, bobbing in the sometimes forceful wake of passing ships.
     Venice revels in spring time, and the tourists now fill the streets and the gondolas again, making taxis difficult to come by and prices to spike. What cost two euro yesterday, cost twelve today. Gondola rides will approach the cost of rent by June.
     But now, just now, the cool spring night is not so crowded. All of the bars and restaurants, however -- now that's a different story. But for the two that stroll the fondamenta, following the Canal's course toward San Marco, there is an unexpected privacy.
     William's fingers grasp in the darkness as he and his companion pass the Rialto bridge and enter Dorsoduro. He looks... very different from the William that has been in his suits. He is dressed in casual clothing, simple cream-colored trousers and a white shirt. His hair is different, too. There is no point in keeping it short and spending the blood and energy to avoid the haircuts -- it is now more as it was Before. Longer, where it had grown out over a year in crusades -- longer in the front than in the back due to the Norman haircut, strangely modern in its way. He has not compromised on shaving, though there will be nights soon when he shall not bother.
     Not even a full night in Italy, and it already looks like one of Them...

     You'd think it'd be different.
     And at the same time, it is different, laird.
     Ian walks along, slowly and slightly behind his partner. There is no rush, and his grey eyes look down at his dragging feet, though he remains aware of where he walks.
     I don't mind Venice so much. Not now. I think it was never the city. And in truth, never this particular city. Just...the place in general. Maybe. Now, ah, well, who cares...
     Funny, a laugh for no reason tickles the stones nearby. The blonde of the pair is suddenly amused, though nothing's said.
     But still. You'd think something would change....
     Something obvious.
     Oh well...
     Free hand slips into Ian's pocket, and he looks down the canal, as if peering to see something ahead.

     Something obvious? Perhaps. Obvious to some. Ahead, in the water, cradled in a crescent as of the moon, there is a shimmering reflection. A lamp. A stone - carved, mind. A youth...
     It has been several years, hasn't it? Time has made a few small changes, but not many. The fact is much the same, still ageless, still timeless. There is aquamarine for eyes, onyx for hair framing a tea-colored face and plum lips. The clothing is the same; the linen tunic, the tan breeches. An instrument is held, caressed, notes plucked from the strings without effort, without thought, when the mood strikes him. As it does now.
     There are words to the song, but they are not in English, nor in Italian, but in something ... Else.
     Lyrics, repeated, in that slightly husky, curiously pure voice, over and over in an easy rhythm. Up, up, down, down, up, down, down; one, one, two three, one, two three...
     "Solkio estouma
     solkio djabo si tou
     Kolio estou sve djabo
     solkio estou djabo si tou..."
     He is here. Why not? Is there a place more suited to the collecting of stories than here, a host of stories in place - where threads of Fate attach to every pillar and post in glistening, glittering abundance? Valmiki has no thought for the absent audience; it is a song, a story, a tale, a riddle. Does the audience's lack make the story meaningless?
     He, after all, is still there, here, to both tell it and to hear it...

     It was where You Were Not... and I Was. Poor nation, to have borne the brunt of our own separation. I was here too long. But now... now I am back with you. And not even you know that it may be the last time in a long while that you and I are here.
     (Not even Girault knows, nor the Toreador know. But I will lift up their building, and then... We will be even. And I will be free to do...whatever it is next that I feel like doing.)
     William glances to his partner at the sound of laughter. He smiles easily, a smile that in the fullness of his mouth becomes a quiet triumph. A shared joke, something understood? Perhaps. Fingers tangle in the cover of darkness and he is content to let it be an inside joke. Way inside.
     But somewhere he catches wind of a tune. Subconsciously, he begins to hum it in harmony. A much lower harmony. Quiet, his baritone voice echoes it, then his eyebrows draw together. Have I heard this song before? No, Plantagenet, you are hearing it now...
     "It is a little early for the gondoliers to be singing to the moon, isn't it?" William quietly wonders. He looks to Ian, dark eyes (in the darkness they are merely themselves dark; their indigo becoming indistinguishable against the backdrop of evening) focusing both on his companion and then... beyond him.
     Listening...
     William draws Ian toward the water's edge, peering outward, his hand still joined with Ian's own. Canal breeze move through his longer hair, twisting pieces of it this way and that as he looks outward, trying to find the exotic song's originator.

     The singing did not touch him. As with all things, it happened an instant before. A prescient instant before the world. Forever too early, forever ahead, forever so.
     "A little," Ian's voice lifts, now manifest in this place. He looks over to William, then to where his Gaze took him. For a second, there is a consideration, but it is a silence quickly followed by the lift of his brows and a pause in his step. William's hand is tugged.
     How strange. Almost weird.
     "The...wandering one." In the way of warning to his companion.

     A reflection below, made flesh above. A building's carved face has room aplenty for statuary; one such crook has found a raven to roost in its stone. Valmiki is older, visibly older - the hair a little coarser, the features, beginning to show the faintest of creases around the corners of the eyes, a slight roughening.
     Whether or not we wish it, all mortal things age, and fade...
     A parable of Venice itself.
     But the poet, the wanderer is unaware of scrutiny, unaware of being more than what he simply Is. The strings are plucked, the chorus repeated. There is no power behind the song - or, at least, no Power. There is the voice, there is the sounding of the strings.
     "Kolio estou sve djabo
     solkio estou djabo si tou..."
     Calloused fingers pause upon the strings, silencing their hum with a swiftness. What face does the wanderer where, when the wanderer is not upon a stage for the eyes of others? It is a calm expression. Introspective. Free of doubt, or fear, or worry - or of wonder, of joy, of sadness, of anything, merely meditative and with a Mediterranean gaze affixed upon a point as if to will some world into being...
     Or out of it.

     The wandering one? Who, Moses? William stills at the tug of his hand. He looks to Ian with a questioning gaze. In this time and in this silence, he listens to the song again. He listens and he focuses on what may be heard, what may be seen. A rush to the senses, to be sure -- for good or ill, his senses are suddenly assaulted.
     "The poet?" William murmurs in question. That is his voice, yes? The scent of Eastern spices, the language, the music. A black eyebrow lifts and amusement begins to filter through his expression.
     "Wherever we are, he is there too. I am beginning to get suspicious," comes the warm ease of his voice, vowels elongated, consonants wry. "Shall we find him... and ask him if he is following us?" His hand finally frees his partner's. But he does not go without touching him for long. Soon, his hand may be felt, just the skimming of his fingertips at the small of his lover's back.
     He will follow your lead and your desire, Dunross...

     He will find us, in a moment. But a moment.
     Ian steps forward with encouragement at his back, keeping on his walk. But both of his hands disappear into his slacks, his gait now but a saunter towards where he should be.
     "It has been a while," Ian says to the world, voice meant to carry. "We do believe you follow us," he adds, a slight humor in it, though it is meant as it sounds.

     A start from the figure seated almost unseats him. He slides, saving his instrument with one hand, a long-fingered cradle made around its neck, his other arm wrapped around an outcropping of stone even as his legs wrap as well. It slows his peril - well. His one peril. It is from an almost sideways perch that Valmiki peers at the address.
     "Good evening, noble sirs. I fear you have me at a disadvantage." Words to live by. Valmiki blinks a few times into the darkness - who? Ah, they. There is no particular surprise, only the flare of recognition. "It is pleasant to see you again, in such certain and narrow times as these."
     There is a strap to the instrument; he slides it on, now, and with a hand thus freed, uses both palms to push and to pull himself upright, so that he straddles the narrow jut of rock. One knee is drawn up underneath him, and Valmiki leans forward on his forearms to peer down. "Following you? No, not I, gentle lord; there are stories enough in the world without my seeking out any in specific. I go where I am bid; the firm pressure of the hand of God upon my spine is direction enough. Though if our paths cross, it is as meant as any other crossing of paths, is it not? The guiding hand," a fingertip is raised, as to test the wind, "need be none of ours."

     "You will have to admit," William says warmly, amused not only at the spectacle of Valmiki's near dipping into the Canal, but at the general circumstances, "...it is more than a little coincidental. Have you been in Venice since we last saw you here?"
     At the masque for Festivale...
     His hand remains on Ian's back. Hidden not only from Valmiki's view but to the general eyes of Venice, his hand takes the liberty of brushing up and down. An idle motion of a lover's stroll interrupted.

     Pale brows arch at the poetic rendering of either serendipity or karmic passing. Skepticism, and a healthy dose of the northern variety. So Ian waits upon a reply instead.

     "No - I returned some weeks ago. It is a convenient place, this." Valmiki eases back against the building again, the guitar being turned forward over his chest. One foot braced, the other may extend freely, without fear of surprise to send him plummeting into the canal. "I could speak, if you wished, of my travels - the stories I have collected."
     He smiles, but there is little of the former anticipation - it is a simple smile. It speaks for itself, and does not promise. "I am getting old," Valmiki adds, fingers touching to the strings. "And I am becoming full. Soon, it will be time for me to go home. When my pages are filled, my stories complete. Once a word is written, it cannot be erased. Thus the world was kicked."
     There is a stirring of notes, faint and musical, allowed to trickle away with the ripple upon the ink-black water below. He leans forward slightly, looking at the two men who look up at him. "I am never surprised by coincidences, good my lord. Things occur, time and time again, as they have since this age of philosophers and kings began. Things repeat themselves; and now, I begin to repeat myself. If I offend, I pray forgiveness, and give my solemn word that it is unlikely to occur again."

     You are aging. The city is aging. We are not. William shares a look with his companion. There is a soft look there, something that passes between them. Perhaps a recognition of the moment -- mortality and immortality sharing space.
     "I think I repeated myself several times before breakfast," comes the humored reply and a smile and a glance to Ian. "It happens to the best of us." William inclines his head, tilting it to look upon the face of the poet. "So...where have you been, wandering minstrel?"
     There is something about the poet, something odd that has allowed him entrance into the sitting room of William and Ian's existence. Few have passed through their joint life and left such a curious mark...

     "Indeed," Ian chimes up with a slight rock forward on his feet, his skepticism mellowing slightly. "Where have you been?" he wonders. "Hopefully wherever you have been, it's been kind to you. Time has," he acknowledges, knowing that may be a limiting factor. "Your talents remain," he offers, blonde-white hair shifting as his head leans upon his shoulder in curious consideration of the instruments.

     "Where I have been? Many places, my lords," the minstrel muses, tilting his face up to the unobserving sky. "I have wandered along rivers in China and sat in the clay and watched human offal float by with fresh spring flowers. I have shivered in an ashram in the mountains of my homeland, waiting to see if a miniature god would give to us his blessings for another century. I have felt burning sand upon the soles of my feet as I attempted to skirt a desert - the endless sea of sand, in search of a legendary treasure beneath it. And I have dined in a garden with the most beautiful that this world has to offer... and in the end, I find myself slowing."
     He smiles, giving his head a little shake. "It is not that my talents desert me, and I thank you for their mention," he nods to Ian, drawing one leg underneath himself. "I am tired, my lords. I feel the time slipping away from me. Soon, it will time for the wheel to turn. And if my contrition is earnest enough, genuine enough, this time, perhaps it may be sufficient. The first poem, you see, is still complete." One hand lifts, wavering from side to side, the opaque gaze as clear, as serene as ever. "And you? Have you finished ripening, my lords? Or do the trees still stand to do battle?"

     Perhaps a bit overripe...
     William looks to Ian for several moments. He smiles quietly in the darkness, his expression partially illuminated. "The trees still stand," William says, his gaze traveling from Ian to Valmiki. As his gaze moves away, his hand comes to take Ian's own to clasp fingers in secreted shadows.
     "I think we are in a time between battles. And I, for one, am enjoying it. Ripening..." William chuckles softly, "... is a word for it..." He grins to Ian, an eyebrow lifting. We have stopped the wheel...
     Stopped it? Chopped it into bits and burned it, amours...

     It is but a pause.
     Ian smiles when his hand is gathered again. He does not contradict his knight, but instead only adds, "Maybe we shall stand until such time we wither and die. Or..." he offers dryly, "...are summarily chopped down. Such is the way of the forest, hmm?" He should rather not think of either situations, and says, "All things must come to an end."
     "But us," Ian asserts, "...not yet." His chin lifts in the saying, his smile edged wickedly.
     "It does not cheer me to think that you feel tired," Ian does say, letting his pride slip in deference. "I would enjoy to hear more of your travels. I hope that you speak of crossing our paths in such glorious ways," he smirks. "And China? I have not been near there in some time..."

     "When the time has come for me to empty myself of all of my tales, I swear to you, good gentlemen, that your stories shall not remain untold." Valmiki speaks sweetly, with such conviction as might be seen in a holy man's eyes rather than a poet's. "I will empty my skin of all its tales as a bladder is emptied of its wine; and so in the retelling, the stars may change in the heavens, new pictures placed among the old as the eyes of men grow further in their sight than ever before."
     He slides the guitar from his shoulders, holding it reverently across both palms. "It is the way of my own story, as the collector of stories, learned sirs." Valmiki looks to the strings, a faint, curious smile upon his lips, then looks up again. "When I am done, they shall wring me out - and if the stories I have collected are enough, I shall be forgiven for my theft of the First Story. I shall be Adikavya and not Valmiki; I will chant 'Rama' and not 'Mara'. But it remains to be seen! As to the world? The world is as it was, as it will be. The stories of nations are not greater than those of individuals. The world is but an anthill, and we the ants are the constructors. We may tunnel or we may crawl - we, with our ant dreams. What story would you hear?"

     "I think, Valmiki, that you have just told us one. You are speaking your own story. The story of stories," William offers after a moment's consideration.
     His hand yet holding his Other's, his fingers move there in the darkness. A grasp, a clasp, and idle and not so idle motions. And how will ours seem in the retelling? He glances to Ian before looking once again to the poet.
     "I think there is a story about ants building great empires," William chuckles quietly. "Ants swarming over the land building their Parises and Romes..."

     "The first story," Ian murmurs, trying to recall it. "I think I'd like to hear that one," he notes, not really sure. "Well...borrowing of it." Oh, why not? "If you are permitted to tell such a reminiscence..."
     "How...did you come to the wandering you have done?" Though he may know of the greater tale, well, such intimate detail is another story. "How is it," Ian shifts weight onto a leg, "...that you have come to pass in it?"
     Ian looks at William as if to say: I have all night, you know.

     "The first story," Valmiki murmurs, "begins as all stories do; with someone doing evil, no matter what good may come of it, be behind it, or inside of it." The guitar is laid across his thighs, his fingers poised now on the strings as a tabard. He plucks a string, letting the note ring true. "In an age when men and women were not as they are now; in an age when the gods still wandered, some trapped as humans do, some unfettered. When Vishnu walked as a man, and his wife and sons were stolen from him by the king of the rakshasas, Ravana..."
     He laughs softly, letting the guitar slide from his thighs, held in one hand by its narrow neck. "I stole it. Not a-purpose," the poet explains, "but I was born a thief - a dacoit, and I sat in the darkness of the wood, and as travelers wandered by, I chased them down with my face black as soot, my teeth white and fierce. I demanded of them their all, and if they refused, their blood was my coin. This, I did until my Mara became my Rama. In that instant, I was freed from my first existence, and I entered my second cycle. No longer did I gain my sustenance from the pain and suffering of others - but I was set to wandering."
     Valmiki smiles sweetly, always sweetly, and he opens his hand to let the guitar fall away - down towards the water. "It was then that I was struck by the god's arrow, and I learned what it was to feel. Not merely to walk away from the paths of creation of illusion and bitter suffering - but to understand that all things are connected, all beings. The grass upon which I stand and I are one; no single ant moves but that the mound knows of it, even if we do our best to pretend otherwise. It is too painful for us to remain so interconnected; we forget each other's pain and become absorbed in our own, because to do otherwise is to burn brightly and then die, having experienced everything and nothing. Such souls are not meant to live; they are reborn in the sky, and the sky alone. And it was with this knowledge that I wrote my song - the First Poem. But it was not my song; it belonged to the gods. And so I was both blessed and cursed at once."
     He leans forward, pressing his palms to the stone and pushing himself up to his feet, balancing upon the thin beam. "Cursed for my hubris, of course," Valmiki says conversationally, "but blessed for my skill - for bringing something new into the world. I am not a god; nor will I become one. But having begun such stories, it has since been my task to collect them, to bring them all before the gods when my soul grows too heavy with them, and I can carry no more. When I have collected every story that there is, until there are no longer any left which are new, which are original - then I will have served my blessing and my curse and paid the price for my freedom. Until then, I go where I am moved to go; I live, I die, I come again. Until the last press upon my body squeezes the last true story from my lungs, with my last and final breath."

     An eyebrow drifts upward at that, a slow arch that is the raising of a flag. Surrender to such words. He is no match for this poet. Glancing to Ian, William begins to smile a little. A questioning look -- it is true that the story is a bit... over his head...
     Even as tall as he is...
     "I will have enough trouble atoning for this life, let alone any others. I think I've set myself back one or two cycles," he murmurs to Ian with a smirk. Turning once more to Valmiki, William inclines his head. "No wonder you are tired..."
     He looks to his companion again, his smile wandering to a slant. "God has a lot of arrows, I think," he murmurs. Now, that is a line if you have ever heard one...

     For his part, Ian stands a moment, suspended in time. A frozen statue, albeit blonde and grey. It is another passing moment before the statue lives again - relatively - and eyes blink a few times in rapid succession. Lips part, as if to speak, but then they close, and Ian licks his bottom lip before folding his hands across his chest.
     Another moment, and he'll say something.
     Right after this moment.
     A frown comes with the narrowing of Ian's smoky eyes. He cocks his head and looks at the poet, lips pursing.
     Blessed Lady, make sure I don't have to come back for all this...
     The exhale - through his nose, even - is all he has. Ian's lips open and close a few times, nothing issuing forth.
     Surprisingly, Ian Dunross, lately of Strathfayr, in a place now called Scotland, is speechless.

     "I am tired," Valmiki agrees, smile tinged with rue, something of regret. "Of this double life; of being one thing, in the body of another. The endless conflict this engenders is its own story." One hand comes up, scratching at his head, ruffling the dark locks. "As the gods laugh."
     He places his hands together, palms against one another, as if about to salaam. "God is a hunter," Valmiki says without irony. "Sooner or later, everyone is struck; but whether we learn from our pain or another's, well. Some people learn faster than others."

     William looks from Valmiki to Ian, and back. "God... has a sense of humor." He pauses and smiles a little. "At least, I hope so." I'm depending on it. Mercy and humor. It worries me suddenly that the Catholic God is not known for his laugh-track.
     Are you ready to return to Lido? The question is not vocalized but it is in his face as he turns his attention back to Ian. "I am tired, too. Tomorrow begins early for me. Poet," William exhales, pivoting back toward Valmiki and smiling, "... I have a request. Do you know a song of good luck? If so, please sing it for me tonight some time before you rest. Tomorrow, I will have a building on my shoulders... I will need God's sense of humor... and all the luck I can get."
     He is exaggerating, of course. He has matters well in hand. But...luck couldn't hurt...

     Still anxious, Ian simply says, "I shall give a wish for you, wandering poet." He nods his head, deciding to keep his words to himself. Suddenly he has but silence, after such curiosity. His companion is ready to depart, and in the absence of objection, seems he is too.
     Anxiety may have given way to concern. Here is the expression of it. Ian bobs his head, marking the end of the conversation. Hands lower from their crossed position, and he pivots to his companion, returning to Valmiki once he has retaken William's hand.

     "I will offer what I may up to the heavens, if you wish," Valmiki answers seriously, "but it is not always wise to court the attention of gods. But if it is within my power to grant, then I will grant you such good fortune as I may." He bows - salaams - and straightens. "Gods speed your feet along your path, noble lords."

     "And you, yours," William says. His hand back in Ian's, he turns to lead his lover onward. The Lido is still a good walk away. But they will take a water taxi from the Accademia. He has a sudden need to be alone, to be in bed, to be with this one whose hand he holds.
     To kiss away fears of hell and damnation, the long road of repetitive lives just to wipe away the sins of this one.
     I'm not really worried.
     The hand that held Ian's hand becomes an arm around his shoulder. He smiles as he heads down the fondamenta. "It is a good thing we have paused the wheel. Maybe... we should find a match." Grinning, William pulls Ian in for a walking hug. It is a reassuring hold.

     Ian walks forward with William, but looks over his shoulder to Valmiki, a lingering stare.
     Another time will come.
     "We'd likely only torch ourselves in the process," his voice says stiffly before his eyes return to his feet, and he walks on with his companion.

     The poet remains standing upon the rock, hands held together as if in prayer. There is silence save for the water that runs, endless and eternal, through the city. And, after a while, without guitar accompaniment, this time, his voice is lifted to the heavens, whether or not they choose to answer.
     "Solkio estouma
     solkio djabo si tou..."

Posted by rowan at February 25, 2006 12:07 PM