3

I woke to blurred faces and muffled voices - gentle, kind voices. Then fell in and out of sleep again, losing myself in crazy dreams about kings and queens and underwater cities and guards with knives strapped to their boots and young women dressed as maids with handkerchiefs tied around their heads like the old grandmothers do back at home in my village.

He’d brought me somewhere. Frano was true to his word. But was I simply in a large house? An old medieval castle? A film set perhaps. Surely not an underwater city. Dare I believe in such a thing?

I shook my dizzy head as I stared up at the high stone ceilings above me, through strips of woven silk.

‘You’re awake,’ came a woman’s voice. ‘Greta, go now, quickly, and send for Frano.’

‘Shall I go to him myself?’ came a meek, very young voice.

‘Of course not. Don’t be stupid. Send one of the guards.’

Footsteps hurried away, out of the room.

A middle-aged woman stared down into my face and the feint whiff of lavender clouded my already drowsy mind. Her peppered brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun.

‘Do you speak English?’ she asked.

I nodded, suddenly full of questions, but when I tried to speak my throat was so dry I only coughed.

The woman thrust a glass of water in my hands and I greedily gulped at it. The cool water like a balm to my raw throat.

‘Good girl. Frano will be here soon.’ She smiled and sighed. ‘What a wonderful, wonderful thing, Frano bringing a bride home.’ A chuckle escaped her throat. ‘Some of the local women are jealous, angry that he chose an outsider. But seeing as we’ve only been underwater for a year it’s hardly fair to call you an outsider.’

A bride?

I tried to sit up and was relieved to find that the head spinning stopped and I was able to drink in my surroundings.

‘Where am I?’ I looked the woman in the eye. ‘Who are you?’

The woman chucked again.

‘You are now in the city of Marin, at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. My name is Milenka.’

‘Don’t lie to me please, Milenka,’ I said, trembling all over. ‘Am I truly in an underwater city? Such a city exists?’

She smiled and nodded softly. ‘Yes, my dear, I’m telling the truth.’ She patted the back of my hand with her own. ‘Welcome to Marin, our domed underwater city.’

I sighed and let the woman’s words sink in. An underwater city. A domed underwater city. It was too wonderful to be true.

‘Who is Frano? I mean... is he...’ My voice trailed away. How could I have agreed to take a pill from the hands of a stranger without getting to know him? I could have at least asked him about his family and his heritage. His likes and dislikes.

Milenka was staring at me, as though unsure if I was joking or not.

‘I’m not joking. What is he like? I don’t... I don’t really know him. Could you tell me anything about him? What he’s like to the people of Marin?’

Though I felt stupid for not knowing anything about Frano, there was no time like the present to start gathering information.

Milenka sighed through her nose and stared somewhere over my head in thought.

‘He is a good man. But even good men have their faults. That is all you need to know.’

Faults. For some reason, a cold chill slid down my back. I got the feeling that by ‘faults’ she didn’t mean a habit of leaving dirty socks on the floor. For the first time in years I felt a strong need to have my mother by my side. Would she have joined me in Marin had Frano offered? And more importantly, would I ever get to see her again?

‘Can I go home whenever I like? Is it a long way?’

The woman’s smiling face turned serious and she got to her feet.

‘No more talking. Frano will be here soon. If you wish to know anything about him, or Marin, ask him yourself.’

I shivered and sank beneath the warm cover of my bed. A large bed. King sized. Big enough for two.

My heart raced at the idea of sharing a bed with Frano. The kiss on the beach back home had been exciting and romantic, but now, in this strange bed and in this stone walled room, the idea of being intimate with Frano terrified me.

The woman must have sensed my alarm and the reason behind it, for she nodded and her cheeks flushed pink.

‘Yes. This is your future husband’s bedroom.’

The room was large, had its own bathroom, dining table and piano.

‘Has he been sleeping beside me?’

‘No. He has been sleeping in the adjoining room.’ She indicated a door to the left of the bed. ‘That door connects you to his temporary sleeping quarters. He has been a good boy.’ The woman sighed, a gentle smile on her lips. ‘Frano would never take his bride before taking vows.’ She chuckled to herself as she left the room. ‘The entire city’s been waiting for this wedding and I’m sure he wants to do things the right way.’

As I watched the woman leave, panic rose from the base of my belly and coiled its way up to my heart. A wedding would mean people and crowds. Expectations. Foolishly, my visions of life in an underwater city had been of Frano and I doing as we please, exploring the sea and never having to answer to anybody.

‘Nada.’

My breath caught as Frano swept his way into the room and sat down on the edge of my bed. His cool hands wrapped around my warm ones and he raised them both to his lips. He was just as handsome and romantic as I’d remembered.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

‘My darling, how do you feel?’

The concern in his eyes, perhaps too the way his voice had softened, immediately brought the sting of tears to my eyes, though I did not shed them.

I pulled my hands free and tucked them beneath the blankets.

‘I believe my mother has been right all along,’ I said, staring down at the bed sheets. ‘After hearing from Milenka all about the big wedding plans, I feel I have been ignoring the fact that you are a king and are obviously needed by your people. And...’ I shrugged. ‘I feel foolish for imagining that we would spend our time together exploring the seas and enjoying our freedom...’ I sighed. ‘I don’t even know how I feel about anything right now. I want to cry one minute and then I want to jump for joy and see this underwater city with my own eyes.’

Frano found my hands again and gave them a squeeze.

‘That is perfectly understandable. The drug I gave you, it takes several days to wear off. You have been sleeping on and off for three days. I myself don’t require it anymore, as I have used the travel chutes several times and my body is used to it.’ His blue eyes darkened with concern. ‘You will feel emotional for another day or two and then you will suddenly feel yourself again.’ He smiled. ‘Trust me. You will fall in love with Marin and forget that your other life ever existed.’

I shivered at his last sentence.

‘But if I wish to return home, will you take me back?’

Frano sighed heavily and nodded his handsome head.

‘Yes. Of course. You are welcome to return home at any time, though I hope and pray that you do not.’ He smiled then. ‘But let us give this... us... a chance first.’ His eyes brightened again. ‘Let’s say you stay here for... six weeks, just over a month. If you still wish to leave after this time, then you will be free to do so and I shall deliver you to your beloved bay myself.’

I thought this over and decided that it was a fair deal. I had, after all, agreed to come.

The day I met Frano now seemed like a distant dream. Not real. For surely the real me would never leave behind my beautiful bay. My father’s memory and no doubt spirit would linger there forever. I could not believe that I had agreed to leave.

I stared at Frano’s beautiful face, looking deep into his sparkling blue eyes. It was easy to see why I had agreed. He had bewitched me with his beauty. No man had ever lit the flame in my belly like Frano had.

But was it enough? This burning attraction?

Weren’t all good marriages built on love, trust and friendship first?

‘What’s troubling you, Nada?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s probably the drug talking, but I’m worried that we don’t know each other enough to... be married... if we decide to marry.’

Frano nodded and gripped my hand a little tighter.

‘But we have physical attraction covered at least, and isn’t that important? Imagine being forced to live with somebody that you physically abhor? My great aunt was arranged to marry a boy from her village and he was the one boy from the village she hated with a passion.’

‘How awful!’

‘Yes. He used to leave disgusting things in her wooden school desk for years, spiders and bugs. Soon it got so that the very sight of him turned her stomach.’

Frano chuckled as his thumb caressed my palm. Shaking his head, he added. ‘She told me all of this at her bedside before she died. We had always shared a close bond. I was closer to her than my mother.’ He blinked and then looked at me and smiled. ‘Fancy finding out the person you most despised was the person you would have to marry?’

I grinned. ‘I feel a little better already.’

Frano’s shoulders relaxed and he laughed.

‘Take a peek in your bedside drawer. I have something for you.’

I glanced at the little wooden drawer. ‘Not something disgusting, is it? Did you tell me that story to prepare me for a frog?’

Frano laughed harder, sending tickly vibrations up my legs where his thighs brushed against me on the bed.

‘Please, open it.’

I leant over and grasped the brass handle and pulled the drawer open.

Inside sat a small velvet box.

Frano sat on the edge of the bed, practically bursting with excitement. He may have even been holding his breath.

I raised the lid and gasped at the ring inside.

It was unlike anything I had ever seen.

The magnificent jewel caught the light from the crystal lamp on my bedside drawer. It sparkled unlike anything I’d ever seen.

‘Here, allow me,’ said Frano, reaching to take the box from my hands and plucking the ring from the tiny satin pillow on which it sat.

‘It’s shaped like–’

‘Yes. Like the sun. It is a light crystal. The sun has been carved entirely out of a piece of light crystal. This is your engagement ring.’

Words escaped me. And not because the ring was the most beautiful piece of jewellery that I’d ever seen, but because this very beautiful thing was a threat to my future. A future of freedom – something I’d been working so hard at back home in the bay.

Then I remembered Frano’s words. Six weeks. We’d give it a try for six weeks. If I wished to return home after this time, then I was free to do so. I was safe. It was going to be okay. I still had a choice. I still had my freedom.

‘Will you marry me, Nada, and share with me this beautiful domed, underwater city?’

‘I haven’t even seen this city yet.’

Frano shook his head and smiled. ‘But of course. There are clothes in the closet. Get dressed and I’ll be back in half an hour. If you’re going to get a proposal it should be before the most beautiful glittering underwater city that you have ever laid eyes on, not sitting in bed in your pyjamas.’

I smiled while my stomach swirled with excitement. I was going to see this underwater city for myself. Finally.

Ever since I was a young girl my father told me I had instincts, instincts for the ocean that were better than my instincts for land.

Perhaps my innate connection to the ocean had told me in unspoken words that Frano was telling the truth. Maybe my destiny was at the heart of the ocean.

Frano threw me a big goofy smile and promptly left the room.

As I sifted through the variety of pretty clothes hanging in the wardrobe, I thought about what I would have been doing right now had I stayed home and refused Frano’s offer.

Mother would have been trying to convince me to go out with Jani, perhaps there would have been a proposal to follow our forced dinner date. Strange that a proposal was perhaps in my destiny either way.

As I undressed to slip the dress on, I shivered. The dress fit well, slightly tight around the waist but not uncomfortable. I stood facing the mirror attached to the back of the wooden closet door and appraised myself.

My face appeared rather pale, despite my olive complexion and time spent in the sun. My long dark hair hung limp and oily over my shoulders. It needed a good thorough wash but Frano had said half an hour so I did not have enough time for that.

In the ensuite bathroom I used the marble handled brush and brushed my long hair back, braiding it neatly. I splashed cool water on my face, pinched my cheeks as my mother had taught me to when I was a little girl, and then returned to sit on a chair at the dining room table.

A pile of notebooks sat at the centre of the table and as the minutes ticked by, I became bored and peeked inside the first one, to see what it was that Frano wrote in there and gasped when I saw sketch upon sketch of beautiful mermaids.

As I flicked through them I smiled to myself. An artist.

Footsteps approached the conjoined room door and I hastily closed the notebook and sat back down.

Frano breezed in looking radiant and handsome dressed in head to toe black.

He offered me his elbow and I got to my feet and threaded my arm through his and allowed him to lead me out of the room and along a series of corridors I had no chance in remembering.

‘What are those lights?’ I asked, staring at what appeared to be little brightly lit crystals studding the walls.

‘Light crystals. The very same crystal that encases the city and keeps the Pacific Ocean from drowning our city. The same crystal your sun ring is carved out of.’

My stomach fluttered as we continued walking. I was nervous to face the truth, to see if we were in an underwater city or if I had indeed followed a madman into his crazy imaginings.

We arrived at a set of double doors and two large men, dressed in black with knives strapped to their boots, opened the doors to allow us through.

‘Thank you,’ I said, smiling at the men who kept their expressions neutral.

Frano took my hand in his and I gasped as a gentle breeze blew through the doors and tickled my hair.

‘You are lovely, Nada, just lovely.’

‘Now close your eyes.’

Frano came behind me and placed his hands over my eyes.

‘Don’t you trust me?’ I asked, giggling nervously.

‘Of course. But now you need to trust me.’