by Siri Paulson
Read previous installments: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
By the time Niko’s airship approached its next port, Marius knew he could delay no longer. They had been skirting the Continent and were to come in for refuelling and reprovisioning at Porto, since Olissipona, the other major city in West Iberia, was occupied with rebuilding.
Niko hid it well, but by the increasing frequency he was stopping by to ask about his coat, Marius knew he was uncomfortable without it. Whatever business he had in port, he wanted to wear the justacorps. To make himself recognizable? To project an air of authority? Some other reason Marius could not guess? Regardless, the coat was ready, and Marius was only fooling himself by continuing to work on it.
He was a little anxious about how his amendments would be received. More, he could not shake the fear that once he handed it over, Niko would have no further use for him. The moments they had shared made him reasonably certain that this fear had little basis in fact, yet it proved remarkably stubborn. Gloriana’s earlier warnings about Niko would not leave his ears. He did not even know what language they spoke in Porto.
Still, he could not bear to keep Niko any longer from the coat that clearly meant so much to him.
So, early in the morning before he could lose his nerve anew, Marius took up the justacorps for the last time and brought it to Niko’s cabin door.
He breathed out and raised his fist to knock, and the door opened.
Niko stood there in a splendid banyan robe of the finest silk, a deep blue that set off his ochre skin to best effect, with an Eastern-style dragon print that had been matched beautifully across the two fronts of the robe. It was unbuttoned, carelessly tied with a cord and open enough to show that he wore no shirt beneath. Marius had a wild moment of wondering what else he wasn’t wearing, before Niko cleared his throat and Marius glanced up to see his quirked eyebrow.
Marius felt himself redden. “My apologies, Captain, for intruding upon your morning routine. I’ll return later on.” He started to turn.
Niko’s voice halted him as surely as a hand on his shoulder would have. “I assume you are standing outside my door with my coat for a reason. Come in.”
Marius, helpless to resist, followed the pirate captain inside.
Niko shut the door behind him and turned, the robe sliding alarmingly across his bare chest. He caught and held Marius’s gaze, his eyes gleaming with mischief, while adjusting it. “Well?”
Marius cleared his throat. “It is finished. To the best of my abilities, that is. Unless you wish some further adjustment.”
“Let me see.”
Marius glanced around for a place to lay out the coat. The small built-in table was occupied with the remains of breakfast and a half-full cup of tea. The bunk was not yet made up, the glorious spider-silk coverlet rumpled. He glanced away quickly and held the coat up instead, angling it towards the dawn light.
Niko drew a long breath. His gaze travelled every uncia of the justacorps, pausing at each of the new details that Marius knew so well. He reached out, clearly seeking the spot where the original slash had gone through the coat front – and his skin – and found it at last. Marius felt a surge of satisfaction at having hidden it so well.
“Master tailor,” Niko said at last, quietly, “this artistry was worth waiting for. You have done me an honour.”
Marius felt his mouth sag open. No-one had ever said such a thing to him, and he did not know how to answer, yet he felt his soul responding as if he had been given a drink of cool water when parched.
Niko gently took the coat. He held it to him for just a moment before turning to set it over his chair. Then he turned back.
Marius closed the distance that separated them. He reached up, and the pirate captain bent his head. Marius still had no words, so he poured everything into the kiss.
This time, Niko did not stop him.
When they came up for air, Marius slid his hands under the banyan robe and slipped it off Niko’s shoulders, then slowly trailed his fingers down the skin thus exposed, letting his mouth follow. Niko made no sound, but his hand twined in Marius’s hair and tugged, betraying his need. Marius gasped against Niko’s chest as his blood quickened in response, and let himself surrender.
#
Later, lying beside Niko under the spider-silk coverlet, Marius was as content as he had ever been in his life. Emotion welled up in him then, and with it, tears sprang to his eyes and his breath caught.
“Marius,” Niko said quietly. “Have I hurt you?”
“Certainly not!” Marius managed, horrified. Niko had been very gentle, more so than Marius’s own urgency. He fumbled for words as his eyes continued to well. “Only…this is all I’ve ever wanted.” To be accepted and, more, praised for who he was. All of who he was. He’d never dared to hope…had never thought he could earn it like this.
Niko propped himself up on one elbow, sympathy in his eyes. “Tell me.”
It occurred to Marius then that he was placing a burden on Niko, one that Niko might not want. But the fear that Niko might ruthlessly discard him had lifted. If this was not to last, they would at least part on good terms, and with truth laid open between them.
Marius drew a shaky breath. “My father, rest his soul, died when I was a young boy, so my mother had to send me out for ‘prenticing. My old master was kind enough and generous with his knowledge, and I loved the work, but once I was old enough, he required me to share his bed.” Niko nodded; this was common enough. “When he died without family, his shop passed to me. I…I almost lost it before I won back some of his clients by promising quicker work than anyone else. So my rivals came to despise me, my clients knew they could ask anything of me, I had no leisure to seek out other men beyond a quick roll here and there, and I never again had the chance to do the fine work I loved best. Until yours.” He choked up again.
“They may have despised you, but be assured that your skills were known,” Niko said softly, brushing Marius’s hair off his forehead. “I visited several other tailors. They were all afraid to take on the coat, but when I asked, they pointed me to you.”
Marius hesitated. “That was…not necessarily a compliment.” Yet, he remembered, Niko’s first words to him had been I’m told you have the finest eye in town.
“Oh yes. Your eye for detail and willingness to take on any task were mentioned. Your courage, and your skill in mending injuries, were not.”
Marius traced the healing scar on Niko’s abdomen, noting the satisfying contrast in tones between Niko’s skin and his own long pale fingers. “You never told me how that happened,” he said, to cover his surging embarrassment.
“I, too, have rivals and enemies. Normally I prefer to fight in shirtsleeves. I was fortunate that when I was accosted in full dress, it happened at the docks, within reach of Tailors’ Row.” Niko hesitated. “You have paid your debt to me, and more. At any point, if you wish to return to your shop in order to keep your hard-won clients, I will pay your passage on another ship, no matter how far.”
The last little bit of fear in Marius made him ask, “Do you wish me to go?”
“Not in the least.” Niko’s voice cracked, betraying him. “Only I wish for you never to feel trapped again.”
Marius closed his eyes against a flood of deep emotion.
Niko stroked his hair again and kept talking. “I remember well how it felt to be beholden to others not of my choosing. The coat was my vow to myself, once I had gained my own ship, that I would be my own master, and captain of a crew won through loyalty and respect.”
“They are very protective of you,” Marius said dryly, thinking of his first introduction to Gloriana at the wrong end of a clockwork pistol.
“And I of them. I am swift to drop those who decline to show the same respect to all – even if they have shared my bunk.”
Gloriana again, warning him of Niko’s past dalliances.
“But you, master tailor, have earned your place on board for as long as you will.”
Marius smiled, his eyes still closed. “I have no intention of being idle, pirate captain. Hamida has been grateful for my help in the galley, and there are sewing projects for others that I am eager to take on, now that I am at liberty to do so.” A dress for Gloriana first, he thought, and then a pair of shirts for Isidro. He might take on Isidro as an apprentice, if Niko could spare him, to help with mending for the rest of the crew he had yet to befriend. And then, perhaps, a fine justacorps for himself…
“Perhaps we will even coax you to climb the rigging one day.”
“Never,” Marius said, heartfelt, and felt the rumble in Niko’s chest as he laughed.
THE END…FOR NOW.