Silk and Silver

*****

Silk and Silver

After being told of his impending marriage to a foreign princess he's never met, a secondborn prince decides to write a diary to sort out his thoughts. In the weeks that follow, he writes of enduring an aggravating elder brother, questioning both his own traditions and the traditions of his bride-to-be, debating how he ought to lose his virginity, and traversing the tumultuous journey of going from boy to man.

Author's note: Months ago I made the decision to pull this story from Literotica, but I'm reversing that decision now, and it will not be made again. It's here to stay.

Tags: fantasy, low fantasy, teenagers, romance, virgin, virginity, coming of age, diary, oral, vaginal, mf

*****

41^st of Summer, Year of the Gods 1322.

The nobility have been swept by an epidemic. Not an epidemic of plague or consumption, but the epidemic of the diary. I would indeed describe it as feverish. And Aunt Lisbet is not immune. She says she's kept a diary for two years now. It seems queer, the thought of writing as though you were penning a letter to a person when in fact you are not, but they say it's good for your health to put your thoughts to paper, to reflect on events and emotions. They say it sharpens the mind and clears the head. Gods know I need that tonight more than ever.

So here I lie in bed in my chambers, my shaggy, freshly cut but quickly growing hair still wet from the bath, clutching a leather-bound book filled with two hundred wordless pages -- make that a hundred and ninety-nine wordless pages -- and I hold in my hands not a quill pen but a silver-forged "dip pen," a recent curiosity from Persevia. I was told it writes much better than the quill, and as I put the ink to the paper, I can feel that it's the truth. Perchance this diary-keeping won't be quite as bothersome as I'd first thought.

There's a good deal of irony in having already mentioned Persevia, considering what I'd been told this morning. Father and Mother told me at breakfast that I was to be, at last and alas, wedded. I protested, of course, and said that I found my bachelorhood quite suitable.

"You're a man of eighteen," Father told me tiredly, as though I'd somehow become touched in the head and forgotten that. "It's time to take a wife and do your duty," he said.

How incredibly romantic. I can only wonder what my bride-to-be would think should she know that she was nothing more than my "duty." I can't imagine she'd be too pleased.

Again I protested, but Mother said I needn't waste my breath, that the agreement had been made. "The wax is sealed," she said. When I asked who my bride is, she told me her name is Sarisanya Fayarus, spoken like sair-ee-sahn-yah. A foreign girl same age as I. The firstborn daughter of the Sultan of Persevia.

Persevia. A peculiar land of people with silver hair and violet eyes. A land known no less for its obscene wealth and shipments of silk than it is for its slave trade, the latter of which Father tolerates only for the sake of the coffers of Persevian gold that our Kingdom frequently taps.

I didn't bother asking why I, the younger son, am to be wedded sooner than Norman. I already knew the answer. Norman is bound for greatness. He'll be King one day and he's deserving of only the most worthwhile wife of the most influential family. But not I. I'll always be just as I was born. So they'll saddle me with a foreign bride who speaks a different tongue, a marriage Norman would never be subjected to.

Norman of course managed to find my nuptials so very hilarious. "I'm sure it'll be lovely, having a wife with hair like a woman of age," he quipped, laughing. "Will you let me know if her cunt hairs are silver too? I'm curious."

That made Father red in the face, and when Norman added in a few other unseemly things I won't dignify by writing here, Father roared at him and demanded he be silent, lest he flay him then and there.

Oh how I pity the people of the Kingdom, what with the heir to rule them being such an insufferable twit.

After Father had finished barking at Norman, Mother told me that I ought to be thrilled. She assured me that, by all accounts, Sarisanya is a beautiful, well-shapen girl who is sweet and demure. "The girl will make for a wonderful wife," she said.

And perchance she's right. Perchance I shouldn't be as griping and grumpy as I am. I'm not a child anymore, and it was a given that I'd be assigned a wife before long.

48^th of Summer, Year of the Gods 1322

You'd think Norman would walk with an air of gratitude, what with being the heir to everything he lays his eyes on, far and wide, sea to sea. But of course not. He's an arrogant, petulant cunt.

To the untrained eye I imagine Norman looks to be quite the future King. He has Father's black hair, his brown eyes, and his same great height. Father looks kingly, and Norman looks like Father. I don't. My hair is not black like theirs, but brown and tawny like Mother's. My eyes too are not brown like theirs, but blue, again like Mother's. Norman's better with a sword than I am, as well. And as much as I despise admitting it, he's also better spoken than I am. He's an arse, but he's an arse with a sharp wit.

With times good like they are, with great wealth and little fever being spread, there's one singular thing the nobility want from their future King, and that's simply "more of the same." And when the nobility see Norman stand beside Father, looking as a spitting image of him, handling a sword as he does, speaking with his silver tongue as he does, that's exactly what they think Norman to be. More of the same. One day they'll learn the hard way that Norman is not Father, that he shares little of Father's stoicism and calmness. I would say that I don't look forward to that day, but I see no reason in fretting over what disasters Norman will have wrought by his reign's end. It's not my business. I'm not a diplomat, nor any kind of man of politick. I'll be lucky to be endowed as Lord of a city.

Norman's the Crown Prince. I'm just the Prince.

Would I change that if I could? Would I take Norman's place as the elder brother, as the heir? I'm not sure. No, I don't think so. I've never had much of a lust for power. Much less a power of that magnitude.

If Norman were just a tiny bit less of a cunt, I'd have little to complain of. But I don't foresee that ever happening.

57^th of Summer, Year of the Gods 1322

Norman grabbed me after breakfast and told me he had a gift for me, something to celebrate my last days as a bachelor. I should have known then what he'd meant.

He dragged me to the House of Jewels, a lavish brothel reserved for only the wealthiest of men. I told Norman repeatedly I had no interest in this as he ushered me through the brothel's doors, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. "Consider this," he said to me, holding his arm around my shoulders. "You're about to swear an oath to taste only one wine for the rest of your life. So, knowing that, what do you think you ought to do beforehand?"

"I don't know," I said. I didn't bother to put any effort in discovering the answer. The moaning and grunting of brothelgoers behind closed doors was filling my ears, and a feeling of unease had sprouted within me. Unlike Norman, I'd never partaken in the pleasures of a whore.

"You'd spend a night tasting every fucking wine under the sun, that's what," he told me as he swatted the bare arse of a giggling whore who passed us by. The brothel's madam, an elderly woman, came to us and showed Norman and I to a room at the far end of the hall. Norman ushered me inside, where the scents of fruits and perfumes wafted over me. Lying on the vast, red bed in the center of the room was a pair of girls, both fully in the nude.

Sapphire was pale with hair of golden blonde and eyes of icy blue. Jade was cocoa-skinned with black, frizzy hair and brightly green eyes. Both were stunning beyond belief, beautiful in face and body, with full lips and thick, black lashes over their eyes, as well as wide hips, plump rumps, and perky, pendulous breasts. I've no doubt those two were the best the brothel had to offer. Norman must've paid a great deal of coin for them.

"Give him something to remember, girls," Norman told them as he pushed me into their arms. "I'll see you at supper, Brother," he said. He was grinning from ear to ear when he swung the door shut behind him.

Supper was nine hours from then.

The girls were on me like wolves, giggling as they tore away my clothes and pushed me down onto the bed, onto my back. I was nervous, and the girls must have sensed it. They calmed me masterfully, cooing to me with sweet voices and caressing me with soft touches. They put their hands to my member and marveled over my "princely" cock, kissing it from every which way, making me turgid in an instant. They huddled around me in what looked like an endless mass of curvaceous flesh, of full, bouncing breasts and thick, swaying arses.

Sapphire climbed onto me and pushed her heavy breasts into my face, burying me in her flesh. She pressed her nipple into my mouth and I had little choice but to take it between my lips. Below Sapphire, at my crotch, though I could not see her, I could feel Jade's hot breath washing over my prick, and I gasped when she sank her plump, sucking lips down my crown. She bobbed her head down the length of my cock, keeping my shaft pressed against the hot flat of her tongue. She suckled me tightly, putting extra pressure on my swollen crown when her lips passed over it. She took my length to the back of her throat without a single gag or cough, sucking me from root to head wetly and noisily.

Sapphire took her breast from my lips and spun around and wiggled her fat arse as a treat for my eyes. She grabbed my hands and brought them down hard on her buttocks in a swift, sharp spank, and her arse swayed and jiggled from the force of it.

Jade worshipped my cock, hollowing her cheeks to suck me tighter, licking my head to double my pleasure, and my end was upon me in moments. The tingling in my loins turned to a burning heat, and I felt my cock twitch on Jade's tongue as I shot the first of my seed. She kept her head bobbing and her lips sealed tight around me as my cock jumped and spurted.

Sapphire rolled off of me when she heard my groans. My eyes fell to Jade at my crotch, and when she saw my gaze, she popped her lips from my cock and opened her mouth wide, showing me the cloudy mess of white seed I'd made her tongue. She then turned and put her arms around Sapphire and took her into a wet kiss, tonguing my seed into her mouth, before Sapphire then took her turn showing me the white on her tongue. They laughed at my wide-eyed expression.

With my lust spent, the girls relaxed in bed with me, filling goblets of wine on a bedside table and pouring it down my throat, but with their warm, bare flesh pressed against mine, it wasn't long before my manhood hardened again, and the girls noticed immediately. They giggled and brought me up onto my knees. Sapphire lay on her back, opened her legs, and spread her gold-haired cunt with two fingers. Jade grabbed my cock from behind with one hand and pushed me down onto Sapphire with the other, guiding my manhood to its destination, when a strong sense of panic suddenly crashed over me. My heart raced in my chest and my nerves jumped beneath my flesh. I slipped out from between the whores and threw on my clothes. They asked me what was wrong but I did not answer them. I simply gave them a fistful of coin and kindly requested that they tell my brother that I'd bedded each of them, should he ask.

Maybe what I did was foolish. Maybe I should've had my way with each of those whores and then asked for seconds. I'm well aware that men have no maidenheads to give, no purity to present to their wives, but if Sarisanya will be able to say that she's only ever been bedded by me, then I want it to be the same for I and her. I imagine it'll be a satisfying thought.

60^th of Summer, Year of the Gods 1322.

I can no longer fathom a night where some significant happening occurs and I don't later lie in my bed inscribing my thoughts into this diary, into you, friend. The epidemic has caught me. It's funny. I once thought of you as an encumbrance, an inconvenience to me when I wanted nothing more than to sleep. Not anymore. Now I look forward to having you in my hands at night. You don't criticize me, you don't scold me, you just listen and understand.

But it's time for me to write of the matter at hand. The Significant Happening.

Sarisanya arrived this afternoon. My family hailed and welcomed her father and their entourage in the Great Hall. They bent the knee to Father, and as they knelt, I approached the girl beside the Sultan, the girl with a head of long, silver hair bowed a bit lower than any of the others. Sarisanya. I knew it was her. I leaned down and took hold of her hand and ushered her up to her feet. She looked to me with a gaze of violet eyes flush with a timid meekness. The rest of her entourage rose to their feet, and when Father nodded to me, I took Sarisanya's arm in mine and walked with her down the west hall, towards the gardens.

I'd like to be able to say that what I did was spontaneous, that it was some sudden romantic gesture, but it wasn't. Father had planned it, and he'd made sure I'd rehearsed it to perfection: "They'll kneel. Sarisanya will be beside her father, the Sultan. Find her, take her hand, and walk her to the gardens. Make her feel at home." Father must've told me those words a dozen times. He made it sound as though it were the vital stratagem of some great battle that would decide the fate of the Kingdom. If only my life were truly that exciting. I suppose marrying a foreign, violet-eyed, silver-haired wife will have to suffice.

I snuck more than a few covert glances Sarisanya's way as we strode through the halls. She wore a sheer, white silk gown with pink fringes, which I was told was what all Persevian girls wore when they first met their betrothed. It was not modest. The skirt of her dress ended above her knees, and I could see that she stands on long, slender legs. She is not an inch shorter than me. The low cut of her top bore her pert cleavage to the air. Her gown accentuated her body's features to better appeal to the eyes, my eyes, specifically. I don't know how she wore that thing without feeling as though she were half-nude. It was more of a chemise or nightrobe than any gown a woman would dare wear in the public eye, but she wore it seemingly without shame. With nervousness, maybe, but not with shame.

Mother had certainly spoken the truth. Sarisanya is indeed well-shapen. Stunningly so. Her hips are wide and womanly, and there's a certain feminine sway to them as she walks. Her arse, though not abundant, has a nice callipygian curve to it, and her breasts, though not bountiful, are certainly shapely and perky. Sarisanya's allure is more elegant than carnal. Hers is not a whore's beauty, but a Lady's.

And, of course, Norman was wrong. Sarisanya's hair, which falls past her shoulders, is nothing like the hair of a person of age. It's less of a gray and more of a whitish silver. Her eyebrows are silver as well, and her sunkissed flesh brilliantly contrasts her long, white mane. She's a far cry from all the pale and dark-haired Ladies I've ever seen. Others would think Sarisanya's looks are off-putting or strange, friend, but I certainly don't.

"Do you speak the western tongue at all?" I asked her, half-expecting her to make no response.

"Yes," she said with a nod, which pleasantly surprised me. "But ... I listen better than I speak."

She spoke her short I's as though they were long E's, and she was strong on her S's. When she'd said, "I listen," it sounded more of "I leessen." But it's not as though I had a hard time understanding her. It's not like that. She spoke rather well, all things considered. And when I'd heard her speak that first time, I knew then that the nasty rumors of Persevian women having voices like men clearly were not true. Sarisanya's voice was high and gentle and floated light on the air. It was pretty.

We strode through the arched doorway into the garden, where we found a pair of servants tending to the daisies and dahlias. I shooed them away with a snap of my fingers and sat with Sarisanya on a stone bench. I imagine that a more romantic man would've used that moment to pick a bouquet of flowers for his bride, but I didn't know where to start. Which flowers should I have picked? Which ones smell the best? Do we have roses in the gardens? Do Persevians even care for flowers?

"Can I call you Sari?" I asked her. I knew then would be the best time for the question. The earlier the better. Thinking of it now, as I write this, I'm even more grateful that I'd asked. Writing five less letters every time I mention her name is a much appreciated rest for my hand.

"Yes," she quickly answered, nodding and smiling.

We fell silent again and sat there in the peace and quiet for some time, for how long exactly I'm not quite sure. It was a long while. I half expected the sun to fall and the moon to rise before either of us made a sound.

"Do I please you?" Sari asked me, and it was then that I realized I'd been awkwardly staring at her.

"What?" I uttered dumbly.

She began to wring her hands. "Am I pleasing?" she asked again. She looked terrified of disappointing me.

"Yes, absolutely," I assured her as sweetly and as gently as I could. "You're beautiful. Very beautiful."

Yes, "very beautiful," those were my words, and their half-witted simplicity is not lost on me. I had three weeks of preparing for Sari's arrival. Three long weeks, and yet somehow I still found myself struggling to use more than any few different words at a time.

"Thank you," she said softly, looking relieved. Her gaze swept over the flowers around us and she said, "Your garden is beautiful." I noticed that she took care to pronounce "beautiful" exactly as I did.

"Oh, it's, no, it's not mine," I stammered. "I don't tend to it."

Gods, I should have just agreed. I should have just accepted the compliment, as she had done. Anything but be bloody pedantic. Of course she knew I don't tend to the damned garden. I sincerely hope Sari was not expecting her betrothed to be dashing and silver-tongued. If she did, she was very quickly disappointed.

We didn't speak much more before Mother came and fetched us for supper, and I was grateful when she did. Not because Sari's presence offended or annoyed me, not at all. I enjoyed her company. I had simply grown quite tired of making a fool of myself.

62^nd of Summer, Year of the Gods 1322.

Father and the Sultan spent the past few days talking of diplomatic matters before the wedding, settling various disputes and what not. They thought it a good chance to have Sari and I spend time together, and I should think myself fortunate. Very few betrothed highborn get even a single day to grow accustomed to their future spouse, the person they'll be spending the rest of their days with. And thankfully, I've managed to embarrass myself much less around Sari in this time. A good sign.

I showed Sari around the Capital and had her sample life here in the West. I had her taste our foods, drink our wine, listen to our music, but she did a bit more than "taste" the food. She devoured plate after plate with a voraciousness I'd never before seen in a girl so thin. She didn't lack table manners, but any amount of food placed before her would disappear very quickly. How she keeps that figure of hers I'll never know, friend. She's blessed in more ways than one.

Sari has sharpened her western tongue, as well. By her own request, I take the time to correct her whenever she uses the wrong word or the wrong tense. I've had to correct her less and less as those few days passed. Her accent has faded. She speaks her short I's as long E's only half as often as she did before. She's a swift learner.