“Why have we never had a trade agreement with Tunis before?” Marco asked his older brother, the morning Prince Yusuf sailed into Genoa.
“It wasn’t worth it, before,” his brother, the Count, said. They were both still finding their way since their father’s death the year prior. “They’ve only started to dominate the trade along the southern coast since – well, there was some business in Egypt, who knows what treachery goes on in heathen lands. Anyway, we burned their main port thirty years ago, and Father always said there wasn’t even anything worth taking there. But now they control the southern route to the Holy Land and they helped drive the Normans out of Sicily. We must be on their good side, and get access for our ships. We don’t have the numbers to do it the difficult way, by force.”
“What do they want?”
“Things we can give them, I hope.” The Count shrugged. It was hard for Marco to think of him that way, but he needed to. “Just, for the love of God, do not insult any of them.”
“Wait,” Marco said, remembering. “Didn’t Father sell Nicolò somewhere south…?”
“I don’t remember.” He shrugged again. “He was thrown in as a last-minute sweetener to that bargain; Father didn’t have any use for him here, and he was always too pious and proper, and keen on books. Being sold out of Christendom must have given him a shock or two. But if we were going to hear from him again, I’m sure we would have by now.”
“That’s probably true,” Marco agreed. Most of what he remembered of the occasion was the way their mother had wept, and the way Nicolò had refused to. Their mother had retired to a nunnery shortly after. She was still there. Marco wondered if it pleased her to have outlived her husband. “And he was tiresomely pious, as you say.”
Marco had been not much more than a boy the last time there had been a party from across the Mediterranean Sea in Genoa. He didn’t remember much about them, and didn’t know what to expect of Prince Yusuf; different lands preferred different things in their princes. Prince Yusuf turned out to be a tall man with the broad shoulders and tell-tale wiry forearms of a man who knew how to wield a blade. He also had a curly black beard and an open smile, almost guileless. Marco could feel his brother’s satisfaction. This did not look like a man who would strike a good bargain.
He was richly dressed after the fashion of his people, in a turban and long layers of robes. So were the rest of his party. Marco could also feel his brother salivating at the sight of such fine clothing and the wealth and access to trade that it implied. If they could make a good bargain with Tunis, they would steal a march on Pisa, and perhaps even Venice. Perhaps – one could dream – even Byzantium. But then, it looked as if Tunis might already have contact with the Greeks; of course, there had been Roman settlements there long ago, or so the few travellers’ reports they had said. Prince Yusuf’s party was mixed in appearance, even though their garb was all the same in style. There were some as dark-skinned as Ethiopians, two women – which was most unexpected, given what one heard – and one man who, despite the effect of the sun on his skin, looked like he could have been born in Genoa, or even further north among the Germans. He had pale eyes that surveyed the Genoese party coldly and critically. Marco almost felt he had seen him before. A translator, perhaps.
Or – no, as it turned out; one of the darkest-skinned men, bearded like his prince, did the translating. It was all formalities at this first meeting, anyhow. Marco more or less didn’t hear any of it. He was a simple man, and his greatest enjoyment was when his brother needed him to lead men into battle. These kinds of trade talks might be necessary to Genoa’s success, and their eventual destiny of controlling the Western Mediterranean, but by God, they were dull.
There were introductions, and wishes for everybody’s good health and the success of the discussions. Marco had never seen his brother so eager to please a foreign party; there were not even any veiled insults. They did need this agreement very badly, then. Then the embassy from Tunis were taken to their quarters. There would be a banquet this evening, to welcome them.
Marco thought absently as he left the audience chamber that the cold-eyed man who might not have been born in Tunis had not been introduced, but he lost the thought again almost immediately, instead contemplating the curved swords of the embassy’s guards, and how they might fare in battle, depending on the armour of their opponents.
*
The banquet went as banquets usually went, although half again as long, because Marco’s brother meant to impress, so there were additional courses and some truly incredible works of the sweet-maker’s art, a swan made in marzipan that looked so real you could see every feather. Prince Yusuf complimented it highly; apparently he had an eye for art. His brother caught him as the embassy began to leave the banquet. “Go and see what they are saying in private. Use the old passage, you know the one. We cannot leave anything to chance.”
“I don’t speak their language,” Marco protested.
His brother’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe that they have no Latin. The Prince was a little too quick to respond to some of the things I said. And that man beside him – you cannot tell me he was born in Tunis.”
“That does not mean he speaks Latin,” Marco pointed out. “He could have been sold as a slave, when he was very young.”
“Obviously he is not a slave,” said his brother. “He would not have been seated beside the Prince, if that was so. Now go. You are the only one I can trust with this.”
Marco sighed, and went. He was really too tall for the secret passage which went through the wall behind the quarters assigned to the embassy, and too broad across the shoulders as well; but it was a family secret, which Marco had only had revealed to him by his father once he was an adult and sworn as his brother’s right-hand-man. There weren’t many other people, if any, who could be trusted with it.
He made his way to the spyhole that looked through a tapestry and into the room the Prince was sleeping in; the beauty of it was that the light-colored tapestry and the darkness of the secret corridor made it easy to see into the room, if candles were lit, as well as hear. But it couldn’t be seen from the other side, unless you were searching the room very thoroughly.
The Prince wasn’t revealing any useful information, worse luck, in any language at all. Instead he was sitting on his bed, unclothed, getting his cock sucked, which was a pleasant way to pass an evening, Marco supposed. He craned himself awkwardly and saw that the person doing the cocksucking was the cold-eyed man. He was as pale as Marco without his clothes on, at least on the parts of him that evidently never saw the sun, and he was performing his task with enthusiasm. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been named, maybe he was just the Prince’s catamite. Rude to bring him to a serious negotiation, but men thought with their cocks like that all the time. Judging by the smile on the Prince’s face, he certainly thought it was worth it.
Marco sighed, and turned to lean with his back to the wall – at least that way his shoulders were not cramped as well – and waited for the noises to stop. The Prince was murmuring something, but it was certainly not in Latin, let alone Ligurian, and too low to hear. Eventually the murmuring got louder, and Marco bent to the spyhole again, but it was still no good; now the Prince was on his back on the bed, and – Marco squinted – yes, the other man was sodomising him. Marco had always thought of that act as something that benefited the giver far more than the recipient, not that he had indulged himself, but the Prince was still evidently enjoying it, tipping his head back, mouth open in unashamed pleasure. The other man paused to lean down and kiss him, a sweet small smile on his lips, not cold at all. Marco was abruptly annoyed at them for such careless public indulgence of their venial sins, and then remembered that they were behind closed doors and he was spying on them; but still. He turned around again. They were making a lot more noise now, both of them, but still nothing useful; not even a name for the other man. Marco wished his own marriage bed heard that many noises of pleasure. It wasn’t that it never had, but his wife was seven months with child, so it certainly had not of late.
Finally, finally, they were done. Marco hoped for some bed talk then, though he was past expecting it to be useful. But instead they washed themselves, an act of fastidiousness that seemed out of keeping with what they had been doing, before lying down next to each other. Then, just as Marco’s knees were really starting to cramp, they began to speak, but it was still in their own tongue. Marco was just about to leave when one of them said, in Latin, “I think she might be dead.”
“He certainly is,” said the Prince, so it was the other man who had spoken first. “Are we sticking to the plan?”
“They can have their chance.” The other man wound a hand into the Prince’s hair – without his turban, Marco could see that it was as curled as his beard. The Prince kissed him fiercely, and then it was back to Arabic, and more murmuring that sounded like love-words. Marco gave it up, and made his way painfully back down the passage. If the worst came to the worst, they could possibly embarrass the Prince; but he did not look like a man worried about being embarrassed by his bedroom affairs. Marco would leave it to his brother to decide.
*
Marco was not present for most of the negotiations, trade talks not being his skill, but according to his brother they were going with much more difficulty than had been expected. They seemed to have little to offer that Tunis particularly wanted. The cold-eyed man, Marco observed on the occasions he was present, was some sort of close advisor to the Prince, as well as his bed partner; he murmured in his ear, often at moments when it seemed like things might be going well, or there might be some advantage of knowledge they had that the Prince did not. Certainly it was obvious he needed no translator to understand the Genoese, although the Prince kept up the pretense. They had that knowledge to help them, and never said anything in the Prince’s hearing that they did not want him to know.
“Today his husband was asking about the rights of Jews in Genoa,” Marco’s brother said with disgust, on the fifth day. “What do they care about that?”
“His husband?” Marco said.
“Yes,” said his brother. “The beardless one, who sits next to him – so there is no question of embarrassing either of them with what you saw. They do that there. I asked, and the Prince spoke very openly of his affection, and what a trusted right hand he was.” He scowled. “My wife wanted to know why I never praise her so openly.”
Marco laughed. “It is true, brother, that those sort of words don’t come easily to you.”
“I have every respect for her,” his brother protested. “I don’t need to speak like a poet to prove it.”
“Apparently she wants you to.”
“And when is the last time you recited poetry about your wife?”
“My wife isn’t the one complaining,” said Marco, but that night his wife did tell him how she had heard such things about the Prince of Tunis and his poetry, and it was not that she did not appreciate her husband, but would it not be nice, to have someone speak of her so?
“Find yourself some unwed knight who wishes to carry your favour, if you want poetry,” Marco said. “Some of them enjoy that sort of romantic nonsense.”
His wife was very displeased by this, but she was very close to her birthing bed, and never in good sorts at that stage; he put it down to that.
*
On the tenth day, as a break, they had a small sort of tourney, as a friendly display of skill and goodwill. The knights of Tunis – not that they were knights, precisely – did not joust or uses lances as the Genoese did, but some of them were incredibly skilled on horseback, including the Prince, and one of the women, who carried an axe.
Marco’s brother offered to face the Prince in a bout with swords – of wood, of course. The Prince graciously declined, but offered up his husband as his second, to face Marco. Marco’s brother accepted for him, so Marco went to prepare; as they were not fighting with steel they would not use full armour, but gambesons and helmets would make the bruises less painful, and lessen the chance of someone taking a blow to the head they might not recover from. Not that Marco was anticipating many bruises. He was very good with a sword. That thought lasted for the first few moments of the fight, as the Prince’s husband circled him, with the patient gaze of a falcon waiting to swoop. When he did, he proved to be lightning-fast, even in his long robes, wielding the wooden blade one-handed with slashing motions, never trying to block Marco’s blade but simply moving out of the way. Marco was first frustrated, and then annoyed, and then flat on the ground, the other man’s blade at his throat.
“Our custom is to go to three,” Marco spat in Ligurian, and the other man nodded; yes, he understood. He beat Marco almost as easily, twice more. Marco managed to land a blow or two, but they were only glancing. It was the most embarrassing thing that had happened to him since he was a boy.
“My husband is very skilled with a blade,” the Prince said, proudly. His husband beamed at him, the intense expression he had worn in the bout melting away. Marco was tired of both of them.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
FILL: Joe/Nicky, Arranged Marriage AU, Returning Home, Revenge (1/2)
Date: 2020-10-08 04:18 am (UTC)Prompt: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/2726.html?thread=578982&posted=1#cmt978854
“Why have we never had a trade agreement with Tunis before?” Marco asked his older brother, the morning Prince Yusuf sailed into Genoa.
“It wasn’t worth it, before,” his brother, the Count, said. They were both still finding their way since their father’s death the year prior. “They’ve only started to dominate the trade along the southern coast since – well, there was some business in Egypt, who knows what treachery goes on in heathen lands. Anyway, we burned their main port thirty years ago, and Father always said there wasn’t even anything worth taking there. But now they control the southern route to the Holy Land and they helped drive the Normans out of Sicily. We must be on their good side, and get access for our ships. We don’t have the numbers to do it the difficult way, by force.”
“What do they want?”
“Things we can give them, I hope.” The Count shrugged. It was hard for Marco to think of him that way, but he needed to. “Just, for the love of God, do not insult any of them.”
“Wait,” Marco said, remembering. “Didn’t Father sell Nicolò somewhere south…?”
“I don’t remember.” He shrugged again. “He was thrown in as a last-minute sweetener to that bargain; Father didn’t have any use for him here, and he was always too pious and proper, and keen on books. Being sold out of Christendom must have given him a shock or two. But if we were going to hear from him again, I’m sure we would have by now.”
“That’s probably true,” Marco agreed. Most of what he remembered of the occasion was the way their mother had wept, and the way Nicolò had refused to. Their mother had retired to a nunnery shortly after. She was still there. Marco wondered if it pleased her to have outlived her husband. “And he was tiresomely pious, as you say.”
Marco had been not much more than a boy the last time there had been a party from across the Mediterranean Sea in Genoa. He didn’t remember much about them, and didn’t know what to expect of Prince Yusuf; different lands preferred different things in their princes. Prince Yusuf turned out to be a tall man with the broad shoulders and tell-tale wiry forearms of a man who knew how to wield a blade. He also had a curly black beard and an open smile, almost guileless. Marco could feel his brother’s satisfaction. This did not look like a man who would strike a good bargain.
He was richly dressed after the fashion of his people, in a turban and long layers of robes. So were the rest of his party. Marco could also feel his brother salivating at the sight of such fine clothing and the wealth and access to trade that it implied. If they could make a good bargain with Tunis, they would steal a march on Pisa, and perhaps even Venice. Perhaps – one could dream – even Byzantium. But then, it looked as if Tunis might already have contact with the Greeks; of course, there had been Roman settlements there long ago, or so the few travellers’ reports they had said. Prince Yusuf’s party was mixed in appearance, even though their garb was all the same in style. There were some as dark-skinned as Ethiopians, two women – which was most unexpected, given what one heard – and one man who, despite the effect of the sun on his skin, looked like he could have been born in Genoa, or even further north among the Germans. He had pale eyes that surveyed the Genoese party coldly and critically. Marco almost felt he had seen him before. A translator, perhaps.
Or – no, as it turned out; one of the darkest-skinned men, bearded like his prince, did the translating. It was all formalities at this first meeting, anyhow. Marco more or less didn’t hear any of it. He was a simple man, and his greatest enjoyment was when his brother needed him to lead men into battle. These kinds of trade talks might be necessary to Genoa’s success, and their eventual destiny of controlling the Western Mediterranean, but by God, they were dull.
There were introductions, and wishes for everybody’s good health and the success of the discussions. Marco had never seen his brother so eager to please a foreign party; there were not even any veiled insults. They did need this agreement very badly, then. Then the embassy from Tunis were taken to their quarters. There would be a banquet this evening, to welcome them.
Marco thought absently as he left the audience chamber that the cold-eyed man who might not have been born in Tunis had not been introduced, but he lost the thought again almost immediately, instead contemplating the curved swords of the embassy’s guards, and how they might fare in battle, depending on the armour of their opponents.
*
The banquet went as banquets usually went, although half again as long, because Marco’s brother meant to impress, so there were additional courses and some truly incredible works of the sweet-maker’s art, a swan made in marzipan that looked so real you could see every feather. Prince Yusuf complimented it highly; apparently he had an eye for art.
His brother caught him as the embassy began to leave the banquet. “Go and see what they are saying in private. Use the old passage, you know the one. We cannot leave anything to chance.”
“I don’t speak their language,” Marco protested.
His brother’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe that they have no Latin. The Prince was a little too quick to respond to some of the things I said. And that man beside him – you cannot tell me he was born in Tunis.”
“That does not mean he speaks Latin,” Marco pointed out. “He could have been sold as a slave, when he was very young.”
“Obviously he is not a slave,” said his brother. “He would not have been seated beside the Prince, if that was so. Now go. You are the only one I can trust with this.”
Marco sighed, and went. He was really too tall for the secret passage which went through the wall behind the quarters assigned to the embassy, and too broad across the shoulders as well; but it was a family secret, which Marco had only had revealed to him by his father once he was an adult and sworn as his brother’s right-hand-man. There weren’t many other people, if any, who could be trusted with it.
He made his way to the spyhole that looked through a tapestry and into the room the Prince was sleeping in; the beauty of it was that the light-colored tapestry and the darkness of the secret corridor made it easy to see into the room, if candles were lit, as well as hear. But it couldn’t be seen from the other side, unless you were searching the room very thoroughly.
The Prince wasn’t revealing any useful information, worse luck, in any language at all. Instead he was sitting on his bed, unclothed, getting his cock sucked, which was a pleasant way to pass an evening, Marco supposed. He craned himself awkwardly and saw that the person doing the cocksucking was the cold-eyed man. He was as pale as Marco without his clothes on, at least on the parts of him that evidently never saw the sun, and he was performing his task with enthusiasm. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been named, maybe he was just the Prince’s catamite. Rude to bring him to a serious negotiation, but men thought with their cocks like that all the time. Judging by the smile on the Prince’s face, he certainly thought it was worth it.
Marco sighed, and turned to lean with his back to the wall – at least that way his shoulders were not cramped as well – and waited for the noises to stop. The Prince was murmuring something, but it was certainly not in Latin, let alone Ligurian, and too low to hear. Eventually the murmuring got louder, and Marco bent to the spyhole again, but it was still no good; now the Prince was on his back on the bed, and – Marco squinted – yes, the other man was sodomising him. Marco had always thought of that act as something that benefited the giver far more than the recipient, not that he had indulged himself, but the Prince was still evidently enjoying it, tipping his head back, mouth open in unashamed pleasure. The other man paused to lean down and kiss him, a sweet small smile on his lips, not cold at all. Marco was abruptly annoyed at them for such careless public indulgence of their venial sins, and then remembered that they were behind closed doors and he was spying on them; but still. He turned around again. They were making a lot more noise now, both of them, but still nothing useful; not even a name for the other man. Marco wished his own marriage bed heard that many noises of pleasure. It wasn’t that it never had, but his wife was seven months with child, so it certainly had not of late.
Finally, finally, they were done. Marco hoped for some bed talk then, though he was past expecting it to be useful. But instead they washed themselves, an act of fastidiousness that seemed out of keeping with what they had been doing, before lying down next to each other. Then, just as Marco’s knees were really starting to cramp, they began to speak, but it was still in their own tongue. Marco was just about to leave when one of them said, in Latin, “I think she might be dead.”
“He certainly is,” said the Prince, so it was the other man who had spoken first. “Are we sticking to the plan?”
“They can have their chance.” The other man wound a hand into the Prince’s hair – without his turban, Marco could see that it was as curled as his beard. The Prince kissed him fiercely, and then it was back to Arabic, and more murmuring that sounded like love-words.
Marco gave it up, and made his way painfully back down the passage. If the worst came to the worst, they could possibly embarrass the Prince; but he did not look like a man worried about being embarrassed by his bedroom affairs. Marco would leave it to his brother to decide.
*
Marco was not present for most of the negotiations, trade talks not being his skill, but according to his brother they were going with much more difficulty than had been expected. They seemed to have little to offer that Tunis particularly wanted. The cold-eyed man, Marco observed on the occasions he was present, was some sort of close advisor to the Prince, as well as his bed partner; he murmured in his ear, often at moments when it seemed like things might be going well, or there might be some advantage of knowledge they had that the Prince did not. Certainly it was obvious he needed no translator to understand the Genoese, although the Prince kept up the pretense. They had that knowledge to help them, and never said anything in the Prince’s hearing that they did not want him to know.
“Today his husband was asking about the rights of Jews in Genoa,” Marco’s brother said with disgust, on the fifth day. “What do they care about that?”
“His husband?” Marco said.
“Yes,” said his brother. “The beardless one, who sits next to him – so there is no question of embarrassing either of them with what you saw. They do that there. I asked, and the Prince spoke very openly of his affection, and what a trusted right hand he was.”
He scowled. “My wife wanted to know why I never praise her so openly.”
Marco laughed. “It is true, brother, that those sort of words don’t come easily to you.”
“I have every respect for her,” his brother protested. “I don’t need to speak like a poet to prove it.”
“Apparently she wants you to.”
“And when is the last time you recited poetry about your wife?”
“My wife isn’t the one complaining,” said Marco, but that night his wife did tell him how she had heard such things about the Prince of Tunis and his poetry, and it was not that she did not appreciate her husband, but would it not be nice, to have someone speak of her so?
“Find yourself some unwed knight who wishes to carry your favour, if you want poetry,” Marco said. “Some of them enjoy that sort of romantic nonsense.”
His wife was very displeased by this, but she was very close to her birthing bed, and never in good sorts at that stage; he put it down to that.
*
On the tenth day, as a break, they had a small sort of tourney, as a friendly display of skill and goodwill. The knights of Tunis – not that they were knights, precisely – did not joust or uses lances as the Genoese did, but some of them were incredibly skilled on horseback, including the Prince, and one of the women, who carried an axe.
Marco’s brother offered to face the Prince in a bout with swords – of wood, of course. The Prince graciously declined, but offered up his husband as his second, to face Marco. Marco’s brother accepted for him, so Marco went to prepare; as they were not fighting with steel they would not use full armour, but gambesons and helmets would make the bruises less painful, and lessen the chance of someone taking a blow to the head they might not recover from. Not that Marco was anticipating many bruises. He was very good with a sword.
That thought lasted for the first few moments of the fight, as the Prince’s husband circled him, with the patient gaze of a falcon waiting to swoop. When he did, he proved to be lightning-fast, even in his long robes, wielding the wooden blade one-handed with slashing motions, never trying to block Marco’s blade but simply moving out of the way. Marco was first frustrated, and then annoyed, and then flat on the ground, the other man’s blade at his throat.
“Our custom is to go to three,” Marco spat in Ligurian, and the other man nodded; yes, he understood. He beat Marco almost as easily, twice more. Marco managed to land a blow or two, but they were only glancing. It was the most embarrassing thing that had happened to him since he was a boy.
“My husband is very skilled with a blade,” the Prince said, proudly. His husband beamed at him, the intense expression he had worn in the bout melting away. Marco was tired of both of them.