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Jan. 1st, 2016 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewidewideworldAt court they called him Jīnsè de yǐngzi - the ambassador’s Golden Shadow. For once Sinric had recovered from his ordeal, he and Yan were rarely seen one without the other.
The Chamberlain had taken a dislike to Sinric even before he was well enough to be presented to court. He saw Sinric as a threat: a runaway bedslave not worth the trouble his discovery might cause with the new Byzantine emperor.
Sinric, on the other hand, was quick to argue his status as a free man, Leo’s lack of legal claim and his usefulness as a translator and adviser to the ambassador. All in flawless court Mandarin.
The austere visage of the Emperor might have flickered with a smile as the youth, many months in resting and still visibly weak, talked circles around the increasingly flustered Chamberlain.
A wave of the emperor’s finger was all it took for Sinric to go from runaway slave to protected citizen of the Sino Empire in the eyes of the court.
It took longer than that to sway Yan’s household. Or, more importantly, his wife.
Yan had been married a year when news of Constantine’s death reached Chang'an. As the by-blow of a lesser imperial line, his union had been arranged from childhood. So far, his marriage to Lu Zhi had been cordial, fruitful and utterly loveless.
Zhi, heavy with their second child, had considerable objections to Yan bringing a sickly but beautiful Byzantine eunuch into their household. Although she suffered Yan’s company with the withering staunchness of duty, she suffered Yan spending time with Sinric even less.
By the second month of Sinric’s convalescence, she had it in her head that Sinric was in fact a woman, smuggled into the house to be her husband’s mistress.
While Yan was at court one day, she had her servants drag Sinric from his bed and strip him so she might prove her point and challenge her husband with the proof.
The sight of Sinric’s pale, thin form; the striped scars of whip marks across his back, the healing spots where too long untended sores had blistered his skin did nothing to endear Sinric to her but it did cool her rage.
What finally warmed her to him was his voice.
After more than a year without strength or will to do much else, Sinric found sleep hard to reach in his recovery. Many nights he would read, write, watch the stars or walk the house rather than keep to his bed. Soft on padded slippers, he moved like a cat, disturbing none. Yan’s infant son Qian however was colicky baby whose seemly constant cries kept the whole household awake.
In the dark watches of the night, when everyone else had been driven to their beds in despair of the crying child, Sinric would sometimes sit with Qian. Rocking the boy in his little crib, he would sing softly. Songs of Persia, songs of Frankia, songs of Arabia. His voice alone seemed to calm the infant down.
To the great relief of his mother.
After that, Zhi never protested her husband’s strange guest and Sinric grew more and more to be a member of the household.
And for a time, was at peace.
***
Sinric felt more than heard the ladder at his back shift and reached out the steady it, assuming it was the precocious Qian following him to the roof again. Now three, the boy was every inch his father’s match in curiosity and his mother’s in determination, and Sinric had long since given up trying to dissuade the boy from anything he wanted to do.
But instead of the bright eyed toddler calling Shū fù Yúnquè- Uncle Lark to help him up, it was Yan’s head that peeked over the parapet.
Without a word, Yan climbed up and settled behind Sinric, thighs braced around Sinric’s hips and long arms resting loosely around his waist. Their relationship had always been physically affectionate but had never moved into anything sexual. Their embrace was as comfortable as brothers, and just as fond.
Yan rested his pointed chin on Sinric’s shoulder, watching the hues of the sunset shift and fade. “There was a time you faced the other way, my friend.” They spoke in Greek when alone, as much for privacy as for practice.
“There was.” Sinric leant into him, feeling the brush of Yan’s silken hair against his cheek.
“Pining for home?”
Sinric shook his head minutely, relishing the warmth of Yan’s solid body at his hand. “It isn’t my home anymore.” Nowhere is. But he didn’t add that aloud. For all he had become part of Yan’s family more than his household, Sinric still felt apart, different. A twittering lark in a field of graceful herons. “What made it my home is gone.”
“Not while you remember him.” Yan turned to kiss Sinric’s temple, tightening his embrace.
“How was court?” Sinric asked, shifting the conversation away from himself.
“You’d know if you came with me.” Yan teased, nudging Sinric with his shoulder.
Sinric shoved back playfully. “If I’d come with you, the Chamberlain would have wasted the yet another session looking for new ways to insult me. My formal mandarin isn’t that bad that I don’t know he was called me a whore last week. Even if he has to make up words to do it.”
In truth, news from Byzantium of Leo’s new taxes on trade and the brutality with which he was enforcing them had triggered such a bad panic attack; Sinric couldn’t bear to set foot in the court just yet.
Yan shook his head and squeezed Sinric gently, knowing well what was on his beloved friend’s mind. “You know it’s only because the Chamberlain wants you. My spies tell me he visits the Nightless Palace for a Danish girl who looks like you.”
Sinric elbowed Yan hard and twisted to tickle him ruthlessly. “You have heard no such thing!” It was an old joke between them but one that never ceased to end in them tumbling across the flat roof.
Their play-fighting ran its course as the lanterns were being lit, the gong calling them down to the evening meal.
Yan smiled and shook his head, pulling Sinric’s messy hair back into the high Sino knot he more often wore these days. “But there is news. I’m sent to Mongolia. A deputation to the Uyghur Khans. I leave at dawn, you’re coming with me.”
“An order, ambassador?” Sinric asked teasingly, knowing full well they had both been hoping for this mission for months. All the travel they had done together and they had yet to have seen the lands of the Khans.
Yan gave him a playful shove towards the ladder. “Only if you can pack in time.”
The Chamberlain had taken a dislike to Sinric even before he was well enough to be presented to court. He saw Sinric as a threat: a runaway bedslave not worth the trouble his discovery might cause with the new Byzantine emperor.
Sinric, on the other hand, was quick to argue his status as a free man, Leo’s lack of legal claim and his usefulness as a translator and adviser to the ambassador. All in flawless court Mandarin.
The austere visage of the Emperor might have flickered with a smile as the youth, many months in resting and still visibly weak, talked circles around the increasingly flustered Chamberlain.
A wave of the emperor’s finger was all it took for Sinric to go from runaway slave to protected citizen of the Sino Empire in the eyes of the court.
It took longer than that to sway Yan’s household. Or, more importantly, his wife.
Yan had been married a year when news of Constantine’s death reached Chang'an. As the by-blow of a lesser imperial line, his union had been arranged from childhood. So far, his marriage to Lu Zhi had been cordial, fruitful and utterly loveless.
Zhi, heavy with their second child, had considerable objections to Yan bringing a sickly but beautiful Byzantine eunuch into their household. Although she suffered Yan’s company with the withering staunchness of duty, she suffered Yan spending time with Sinric even less.
By the second month of Sinric’s convalescence, she had it in her head that Sinric was in fact a woman, smuggled into the house to be her husband’s mistress.
While Yan was at court one day, she had her servants drag Sinric from his bed and strip him so she might prove her point and challenge her husband with the proof.
The sight of Sinric’s pale, thin form; the striped scars of whip marks across his back, the healing spots where too long untended sores had blistered his skin did nothing to endear Sinric to her but it did cool her rage.
What finally warmed her to him was his voice.
After more than a year without strength or will to do much else, Sinric found sleep hard to reach in his recovery. Many nights he would read, write, watch the stars or walk the house rather than keep to his bed. Soft on padded slippers, he moved like a cat, disturbing none. Yan’s infant son Qian however was colicky baby whose seemly constant cries kept the whole household awake.
In the dark watches of the night, when everyone else had been driven to their beds in despair of the crying child, Sinric would sometimes sit with Qian. Rocking the boy in his little crib, he would sing softly. Songs of Persia, songs of Frankia, songs of Arabia. His voice alone seemed to calm the infant down.
To the great relief of his mother.
After that, Zhi never protested her husband’s strange guest and Sinric grew more and more to be a member of the household.
And for a time, was at peace.
***
Sinric felt more than heard the ladder at his back shift and reached out the steady it, assuming it was the precocious Qian following him to the roof again. Now three, the boy was every inch his father’s match in curiosity and his mother’s in determination, and Sinric had long since given up trying to dissuade the boy from anything he wanted to do.
But instead of the bright eyed toddler calling Shū fù Yúnquè- Uncle Lark to help him up, it was Yan’s head that peeked over the parapet.
Without a word, Yan climbed up and settled behind Sinric, thighs braced around Sinric’s hips and long arms resting loosely around his waist. Their relationship had always been physically affectionate but had never moved into anything sexual. Their embrace was as comfortable as brothers, and just as fond.
Yan rested his pointed chin on Sinric’s shoulder, watching the hues of the sunset shift and fade. “There was a time you faced the other way, my friend.” They spoke in Greek when alone, as much for privacy as for practice.
“There was.” Sinric leant into him, feeling the brush of Yan’s silken hair against his cheek.
“Pining for home?”
Sinric shook his head minutely, relishing the warmth of Yan’s solid body at his hand. “It isn’t my home anymore.” Nowhere is. But he didn’t add that aloud. For all he had become part of Yan’s family more than his household, Sinric still felt apart, different. A twittering lark in a field of graceful herons. “What made it my home is gone.”
“Not while you remember him.” Yan turned to kiss Sinric’s temple, tightening his embrace.
“How was court?” Sinric asked, shifting the conversation away from himself.
“You’d know if you came with me.” Yan teased, nudging Sinric with his shoulder.
Sinric shoved back playfully. “If I’d come with you, the Chamberlain would have wasted the yet another session looking for new ways to insult me. My formal mandarin isn’t that bad that I don’t know he was called me a whore last week. Even if he has to make up words to do it.”
In truth, news from Byzantium of Leo’s new taxes on trade and the brutality with which he was enforcing them had triggered such a bad panic attack; Sinric couldn’t bear to set foot in the court just yet.
Yan shook his head and squeezed Sinric gently, knowing well what was on his beloved friend’s mind. “You know it’s only because the Chamberlain wants you. My spies tell me he visits the Nightless Palace for a Danish girl who looks like you.”
Sinric elbowed Yan hard and twisted to tickle him ruthlessly. “You have heard no such thing!” It was an old joke between them but one that never ceased to end in them tumbling across the flat roof.
Their play-fighting ran its course as the lanterns were being lit, the gong calling them down to the evening meal.
Yan smiled and shook his head, pulling Sinric’s messy hair back into the high Sino knot he more often wore these days. “But there is news. I’m sent to Mongolia. A deputation to the Uyghur Khans. I leave at dawn, you’re coming with me.”
“An order, ambassador?” Sinric asked teasingly, knowing full well they had both been hoping for this mission for months. All the travel they had done together and they had yet to have seen the lands of the Khans.
Yan gave him a playful shove towards the ladder. “Only if you can pack in time.”
