saffron from the fringe of the earth,
wild saffron that has bent
over the sharp edge of earth,
all the flowers that cut through the earth,
all, all the flowers are lost;
I am broken at last,
I who had lived unconscious
– excerpt from eurydice, by h.d.
Upon gentle nightfall, which gave rise to the moon’s luminance, the Prince lingered at the garden’s edge to covet one further admiration. There, against lunar surface, which he envisioned traced soft as sand, loomed shadows of falsities dancing across its expanse. Waning gibbous hinted at darkness to come, but it was not looming, nor foreboding, to the undaunted heart of a man with conscience clear and thoughts light.
Feather-weighted feelings titled eyes upward, as though in pursuit of flight, for the earth beneath appeared too dense now. The darkness had already come and taken its filling in weeks past, and the time for possibilities was before him - endless, or seemingly so, with direction for setting course. And surely, beneath an array of stars winking so wantonly - reckless, always reckless - he had lousied himself late with gratitude.
The swell of harp and vielle - whose melody distilled romance into abstraction - guided him toward her. She, just beginning to dispel herself from a state of unknowing, glowed radiant beneath candlelight, as though dew had kissed her where he longed to. And at her feet, beneath adoration’s gaze, he flushed, bowing low in reverent delight.
“Your highness,” pulse strummed, in harmony to the song that surrounded. “I beg your forgiveness upon my delay, and pray I may make good upon my word, to covet your company above all others’, and to hope the courtiers whisper of our indulgence with envy.” Between them, he clutched a nosegay of rosa alba and chamomile, eyes rising with offering extended. “You are a vision divine adorned in England’s colors, but I thought it incomplete.” Timid fingers plucked one flower from the bunch, lifting it to be admired. “The white rose of York, of my family. Let none tonight wonder who is held in my affections, though – I am yet to know if I am absolved and held similarly in hers.”
So lost in her thoughts, Mihrimah feared that she was lost to fantasy and wishful thinking. Her fingers linked; joined — latched — against her abdomen she almost feared that he were a figment of what she so craved. But he stood before her in bone and skin — presented as a golden Prince sent from Allah’s benevolent hands, melded by Gods, she felt her knees weaken at the mere sight of him. Later in life she would blame her solitude from within the Harem for her vulnerability for handsome men; how one smile crafted by angels was enough for the Sultana to feel lightness.
The music remained around them, the string of the harp bringing the Sultana back amongst skin and flesh as her cheeks rose to the softened hue of pink. Her hands loosening for him to take and guide; her knees all the more depleted by his surprise gift. The prepared white rose became the audience to a very real and innocent gasp, her mouth parting to reveal innards only hidden by the sheer quality of her crimson veil. “Hay Allah,” she whispered, fingers brushing his own — skin against skin — as she took the stem of the York rose into her debilitated grasp.
With everyone else in the room busy with joy, all eyes upon the couples who danced with such vigour — lovers making music, laughter bellowing around the reprisal of the room — Mihrimah dared to shift her veil. With the elegant manoeuvre of her hand, she swept the sheer material aside to allow him a slight glance upon her features. Olive skin, the soft curve of her nose, the full plumpness of her lips and the thickened curl of her eyelashes. Lifting the rose to her nose, Mirhimah inhaled — her eyes low and heavy with both nerves and excitement as he allowed his gaze to remain upon her true beauty for the first time — without lingering eyes, without the veil to distract and by chance perhaps for his desire only.
With the swell of the harp, the change of tune, Mihrimah released her veil to fall upon her grace — to disguise her again to his full and enveloping gaze; to simmer — to allow the Sultana to think and wonder if his word were true. With the white rose held before her, as if she were ready for a portrait, Mihrimah felt her lids waver — seemingly all the heavier, her knees wavering as she reached forth to take his arm; a needy, shaken grasp before Mihrimah released in almost the same instance.
“I think.... Will you take me to the balcony for some fresh air?” Mihrimah asked in her English tongue, the rose held prominent before her — for everyone to see, to wonder and gasp at. She would make weavings of it, of the delicate centre and its surrounding petals. She would have a portrait made of her and the flower; if the Sultan would allow it. If he wished for her affection then he would have it, and she would offer it only to him. With the translator lingering behind, acting as both chaperone and a decipherer of languages to the young Sultana who brought the Prince out to the cooling whip of a Winter’s breeze. Silence remained, but it was Mihrimah who suddenly broke it, once given the privacy they both seemingly required.
“Am I alone in your thoughts?” She asked, the rose delicate leant upon the soft curve of her chest — her veil straying by the wind alone as Mihrimah pursed her lips and looked up to Thomas of England; gazing upon him as if he was made of celestial matter than realistic flesh and cloth. “Do you think only of I, Thomas? If this is the case, then I would admit that I do not think of anyone else. Only you linger, as this rose of York rests upon me.”
