“You should obey and fear your husband,” Otello the Moor said to Disdemona, standing up from the table near the window where he had been studying his maps. “I said you must let me be.”
“I would consider obeying my husband, but I’m unlikely to ever fear him,” she said, meeting his glare. “Yet I must ask, who is this angry tyrant I find seated at the table moping like a school child? He looks like my husband, it is true, but it can hardly be him.”
“Do not mock me,” Otello said, trying to hide the pleasure he derived from her strong will. “I deserve your respect.”
“You shall have it,” said Disdemona. “But come to bed and earn it.” She reached out for his hand. Otello took it and then pulled her to him and sat back down beside his maps, with her on his lap. She wore a silver silk nightdress that moved lightly against her skin as she sat there, and he felt the smoothness of her body beneath it.
“I am not in the mood to come to bed just now,” he told her.
“Not in the mood?” she asked with mock astonishment, leaning in closer to him. “Does my love have a fever?” She placed a hand upon his forehead. “No. Does he have some sickness in his stomach?” She poked a finger into his hard stomach muscles. “No. Perhaps he loves his maps more than he loves me?”
“Of course not,” he said. “It is just that I am heavy with troubles and they weigh upon me too much to let me come to bed.”
She pulled a face. The palazzo that the city had granted her husband was old and decrepit in places, but she had told him that when they were in bed together they were kings and queens. Then she said, “Ah, troubles.” And she laid her head on his large dark shoulder, her light hair seeming golden in contrast. Then she felt some of the anger flowing out of him. She could always find the truth of what was worrying him, even when he did not know it himself.
“Is it the Othmen?” she asked him.
“Yes, it is the Othmen,” he said. “And the Council of Ten. And the Seers. And the future of the Floating City itself. So many troubles circling around my head like angry bees.”
“Tell me,” she said.
“I am sworn to secrecy.”
“You are sworn to me,” she said. “My general.”
He sat silently for a moment until she reached a hand into his shirt and took hold of his large dark nipple and gave it a twist. He said nothing and so she twisted harder. “I surrender,” he said suddenly, grabbing her hand and pulling it out of his shirt. “You should come and work for me as a torturer.”
“I asked to come with you to the East.”
He shook his head. “No. It was far too dangerous. We barely escaped the Othmen with our lives. Those men of ours that they captured they sawed in half while they were still alive.”
She shuddered a little. “They are inhuman.”
“They are very human,” he said, “but they possess inhuman abilities.”
“What do they look like?” she asked. “They say the Othmen have horns on their heads and their bodies are covered in dark hair like a wolf.”
He laughed. “The horns are a single spike worn on their helmets and they favour sharp pointed beards.”
“They sound like men.”
“They look like men.”
“Then how did they slay the Autumn Seers?” she asked.
Otello stared at her. “How did you hear about that?”
“The whole city is talking about it,” she said. “Some Othmen beast rose out of the water and devoured them. Is it true?”
He nodded his head. Just a little.
“The whole city is in fear of them,” she said.
“So they should be,” he replied. “They have destroyed our eastern colonies and now send ships and spies and monsters to destroy us.”
“But they will not be able to defeat us here,” she said. “Surely.”
“If we can protect the other Seers,” he said. “If we can form a defensive strategy against their vessels. If we can root out their spies. If we can counter their enchantments. A hundred ifs.”
“And that’s what you have been charged with, by the Council of Ten,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
He nodded his head again.
“I think perhaps you have as much reason to be troubled then as the city has to be afraid.”
They sat there together in silence for some moments. “The Othmen are enigmatic. Cruel and yet brilliant. Their jewellery is exquisite. Their textiles divine.” He reached across to a small leather pouch on the far corner of the table and said, “I have something to show you. I was saving this up, but perhaps now is as good a time as any.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“The Othmen call it the skin of the virgin.”
“Is it skin?” she asked in horror.
“The Othmen love their metaphors.”
She watched him open the pouch and pull out a small parcel wrapped in light paper. He placed it in her hand.
“It feels empty,” she said, giving the parcel a small squeeze.
“Because what is inside it is as light as air,” he said.
She knitted her eyebrows in curiosity, her eyes shining with delight as she carefully unwrapped the parcel. Inside was a silk kerchief. Or perhaps it was not silk. It felt like nothing in her fingers, like it really had been woven from air. She opened it up, wondering at the detail on it. It was embroidered with small green leaves and bright red strawberries. Such detail in each that it looked as if she could pick them off and eat them.
“It is beautiful,” she said.
“As are you,” he replied. “So it is a fitting gift.”
She held it to her face to catch what felt like a tear of happiness forming there. Then she reached down and hugged him. Gave him a deep kiss. “Ah,” she said. “I think I have found my husband again. You pretend to be so angry and gruff, but it is all your armour. Inside you are loving and soft.”
“That is a greater secret than any other held within this city of secrets,” he told her. “And I fear if anybody else should learn of it.”
She kissed him again. “My lips are sealed. Tell me, what do the Othmen fear?”
He thought on that for a moment and then spun her on his lap to face him. “They fear me,” he said. “They tell stories that I am twice the height of a man and my skin is black like the coals of a fire and to touch me is to be burned by me. They say that I am able to bite a man’s head off in my mouth and that I can rip a man’s arms from his torso without effort.”
“And what else do they say?” she asked him, wrapping her arms about his neck.
“They say that I am afraid of nothing!”
“Then they don’t know how much you have to fear if you don’t come to bed now. And anyway, you’ll deal better with your troubles after a good night’s sleep.”
“Are you planning to let me sleep?” he asked.
“No. Not at once.”
“And you’ll be wanting me to obey you?”
“Of course.” Disdemona knew the bedchamber was the one place she was certain he would obey her. As she knew there was only one thing he truly feared. Failure in any challenge set him.