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fellowshippers2007-07-05 04:22 pm
v-angelique.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2007-07-05 04:22 pm
Entry tags:
- au,
- orlando/viggo,
- r
Fic: Angles Known Only to Lovers
Title: Angles Known Only to Lovers
Author: Viktoria Angelique (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
v_angelique)
Beta:rainbowcobweb
Pairing: VM/OB
Rating: R
Disclaimer: This is not at all true, which should be obvious given the genre, but hey—I'm a law student. I know how to cover my arse.
Summary: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
early_theory challenge. The prompt was for action, for either cowboys, firemen, or something involving boats, and for the words New Zealand, home, children, Idaho, and desire. It was hard to work all of that in with my writing style, so I went for a historical fiction set in Central Asia. Viggo's basically a cowboy, he's from what would come to be Idaho, everyone's searching for home, and there's some action, desire, and a child or two thrown in. I hope this is "close enough." Couldn't fit New Zealand in, but four of five's not bad, right?
A/N: This story makes mention of many places and people about which little is known, or at least recorded in the typical Western research sources. Though I have a history background, there simply wasn't the time to do the extensive research necessary to make this entirely accurate in terms of the traditions, languages, foods, etc of the people involved. If you spot an error, however, please let me know, and I'll do my best to remedy it.
Oregon Country. 1790.
In the land that would later be called Idaho—more of a joke than anything, a name for a territory pulled from the head of an Englishman who claimed its American Indian roots, showing a surprising amount about the American national consciousness without intending it—the son of a Danish merchant tried to find his calling.
What he found instead was the warm, supple place between the thighs of a stranger, the spot he could lave with his tongue to make a grown man cry, and a way to arch his back and bend underneath a British soldier that would trigger a feeling unlike any other.
The day after these revelations, it became apparent that Viggo had been found out, and he went from wandering nationless cattle herder-cum-explorer to a prisoner of the British Empire, caught in territory that was disputed a de facto part of imperial rule.
Within the month, he was living under the decks of a small ship, captive of the rolling sea, en route to destinations unknown.
Canterbury. 1800.
"There is a world of opportunity in India," Orlando's father insisted.
The thirteen year old boy with an unruly mane of curls, nature achieving what the wigmakers in town only dreamed of, stomped his foot and looked very cross. "But papa…"
"I don't want to hear the word 'but,' Orlando. You will make a name for yourself. There is nothing here for a second son. In India you have a chance to expand, to grow beyond the borders of one island and see the possibilities of the world. You are my son, Orlando. You will achieve great things."
And Orlando's father was right. Orlando would achieve greatness. He would grow, expand, and find the possibilities of the world. They were simply not the same possibilities of which his father was thinking that afternoon.
Yangon (Rangoon). 1802.
"Nei kaung la, U Viggo."
"Nei kaung la," Viggo replied, bowing his head slightly to the Burmese merchant, Khin, for whom he had worked over the past ten years. To Khin, a Buddhist who spoke a little English but was reserved in demeanour and essentially non-violent, Viggo was invaluable. For a modest salary and the use of a good horse, he provided a sort of security service for Khin's employees, travelling to and from Mandalay on the trade route to China. From his childhood and adolescence on the American frontier, Viggo knew how to handle a gun, and from his own criminal past, he knew how not to ask questions about he pistol with which he was provided—no doubt pilfered from a British soldier in India or one of the surrounding regions.
Aside from the pistol, Viggo carried a knife, "borrowed" from the soldier he'd killed during his extremely lucky escape from the prison ship headed to the Andaman Islands. Had he made it in one piece to the penal colony, he surely wouldn't have lasted out the year, due to rampant disease at the British fort, but as luck would have it, he made it off the ship with the knife and a few guineas, and was lucky enough to be picked up by a fisherman who travelled in a small boat and was sympathetic to the prisoner who spoke no Burmese but clearly was not very friendly with the British. From there, Viggo had made it to Yangon, and after a little over a year learning the language and local customs, managed to find a job with Khin.
"Where will you go now, U Viggo?" Khin asked, blowing on the bowl of hot mohinga in front of him. "Back to America?"
Viggo laughed and shook his head. "I would like to go to China."
Khin gave him a blank look. "China? Why would a Westerner want to go to China? Opium?"
"No, Khin. Away from British India."
"Ah." Khin nodded. The people of Myanmar understood this sentiment all too well. "Will you use the trade route?"
"Not the one you use. I plan to ride north, and cross the Himalayas at the Karakoram Valley via the old Silk Road."
"You are crazy," Khin replied simply, the statement surprisingly blunt for his usual cool-under-pressure demeanour. Viggo smiled, not surprised. He had been told the same many times, most frequently by those who had shown him the maps of the region to which he was travelling, a Muslim stronghold to which no Westerners travelled.
"It is the best way to avoid the British," Viggo pointed out with a shrug, and Khin nodded.
"I will give you another horse."
Viggo tried to protest, but Khin cut him off immediately. "You will need much more than a horse where you are going, U Viggo, but take a horse, and keep your gun. There are Buddhists in the mountains of Nepal—avoid Kathmandu; it is all Hindu, but go to Nepal and find the Sherpa regions. These are good men, you understand? They will help you. Beyond Nepal, it is a mystery to me."
Viggo nodded and clasped Khin's hands. "Thank you, friend."
The horse was ready at sunrise, and Viggo said goodbye to Yangon for the last time.
Kathmandu. 1803.
Orlando was exhausted. The past few months had been all hurry-up-and-wait—first the daring escape from his post with the East India Company, then the long and arduously slow journey north, away from civilisation and therefore from his countrymen, and finally across the border into Nepal, where he bided his time now in the city of Kathmandu.
He didn't have a natural inclination for languages; his learning was slow and unwieldy, but the brown-eyed adolescent had a knack for capturing the hearts of kindly old women and slowly he progressed through basic Hindi, and then Nepal Bhasa, with the help of a Newari woman whose village in Nepal he was trying to reach to make his escape. From there he could regroup and choose a direction—he didn't know where he wanted to be, only that it wasn't with the Company.
However Orlando was in Kathmandu now, without money or a way to get to the woman's village to the west and without the knowledge to earn even a temporary wage. Though the Nepal Bhasa language was useful, many of the people spoke a Pahari dialect of the Himalayan region, and Orlando didn't know even a few words to communicate with the Pahari people. Furthermore, out of the Kathmandu Valley the rural areas on the way to the next Newar enclave were all Pahari, and Orlando was afraid of leaving the safety of at least marginal linguistic knowledge.
If he had been more at ease, Orlando might have enjoyed Kathmandu—the intersection of Buddhist and Hindu cultures, the flavours of ginger and cumin in the aromatic local cuisine, the impressive backdrop of towering mountains in the distance—but as it was all he felt was homesick for an indistinct place, a comfort he had never really known, but which nevertheless he craved.
Orlando walked the streets, past the busy markets and surges of people, his clothes dirty and in need of mending, until he came to a huge carved statue, a likeness of the Buddha. He stood looking at the pleasant-looking figure, a rotund benevolent patriarch who to Orlando seemed like the ideal grandfather, wondering what to do next.
And then, the earth began to move.
The rumbling underfoot started as a gentle tremor, but soon the ground and everything connected to it was moving, the very valley seeming to shake and convulse with the power of an angry God. Orlando was struck with horror, and he fell to his knees, grasping his own head, trying to protect himself.
And yet, the people on the street around him seemed unconcerned, in fact eyeing the trembling white man with some curiosity. As they secured their possessions, waiting for the earthquake to pass, Orlando felt foolish, but he could not wipe the tears from his eyes. Above him the Buddha smiled down, and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue. Somewhere here, there was an answer.
Rajshahi District. The same day.
Viggo was feeling especially nervous as he sat on the banks of the Jamuna River, eating mango and trying not to react to the slight tremor of the ground underneath his feet. He knew a little Bangla, but not enough to enjoy conducting business with this man who pandered instantly to the sound of a cultivated European accent, to a white man who might possibly be carrying money to spare. His hand rested on his pistol, out of sight under the table, and its presence offered some comfort.
Near the table at which Viggo took tea with his host, a man called Bimal, stood a beautiful black Marwari horse, a rare beast indeed in this region so far east of its native Rajasthan province in India. Bimal lectured Viggo on the horse's size, strength, and speed, and the strange thing was that Viggo didn't think he was lying. He could see that the horse, tacked and ready to go, was a superior beast. But the funny feeling didn't go away.
"About the price…"
Bimal smiled and pressed his fingertips together, his hands forming a triangle just under his chin. "Ah yes, sir, the price. You will leave your injured horse here."
Viggo nodded; this wasn't a problem. Khin's horse had carried him this far, but he needed a superior beast for the treacherous mountain passes he would be navigating. "And the price?'
Here, the man smiled—a slow, toothy, sinister grin that made Viggo's blood run cold. "Your freedom, sir, will be worth plenty."
Viggo's brows furrowed in confusion, but he realised in a flash of pieces coming together, like the puzzles his father used to assemble for him as a child on the American frontier, what this meant—why Bimal spoke such exceptional English, why he was so tolerant of the Westerner travelling through his lands, why he sat and offered Viggo food and drink and did not challenge him. Bimal knew that Viggo was trying to escape the British, and his worth would be almost that of the horse—which Bimal, no doubt, was planning on using for his own escape.
Shit.
But Bimal, the Bengali entrepreneur who worked for the British and made a living looking for deserters from the army and runaway criminals, didn't know one thing. Viggo had been raised in a land where natives ruled the day, and on the American frontier, the one imperative for a white man was the ability to handle a gun. Bimal made to draw his gun, to disable the man before him, but Viggo was much faster. The blood splattered back at him, staining his clothes. Bimal's heavy body slumped in its well-wrought chair, his hands falling useless at his side.
The horse was ready to go, and the British would be coming soon. Viggo made for the hills.
Kathmandu. An hour later.
Orlando tried to stop crying—he was sixteen years old, he had run away from obligation and was striking out on his own, and he was undoubtedly his own man now. But in many ways, Orlando was still a boy, and so the tears fell unheeded by the passers-by in the market, wetting his reddened cheeks as he stared up at the likeness of a man with kind eyes and a large belly. Not a God, he remembered from what little explanations he'd heard of Buddhism in largely Hindu areas, but just a man. He smiled, the thought bringing him some small comfort.
"You look at the Buddha as if you see him first time."
Orlando started and turned, his eyes still full of tears, to see a man, barely taller standing erect than Orlando was kneeling, clad in a simple robe and without hair on his head. He might have been fifty, but it was hard to tell. Orlando stared at him for a moment, surprised by the English words, and then nodded.
"I am not familiar with the Buddha's teachings," he admitted.
The man smiled. "Would you like learn?"
Orlando frowned. "I'm a bit… lost," he admitted, gesturing hopelessly around him. "I ran away, but… I don't know where to go."
Again the man smiled, and he looked up at the Buddha before looking back down at Orlando. "Buddha finds many lost children," he said.
"I was supposed to go to a Newar village," Orlando explained. "To the west of here."
The man nodded, his expression serene. "But you cannot."
"I can't?"
The man smiled again, this time as if privy to an inside joke, and nodded sagely. "The road is cut off to the west, by the earthquake. The tradesmen are upset. Very bad. Worst in long while."
Orlando frowned. "Oh."
"You come with me, to north. I show you village. You find new way. Not many riches, but we have our own treasures."
Orlando frowned. "What does your religion teach?" he asked, thinking back to the cathedral at Canterbury and his stern father.
"How to attain nirvana."
"What is that?"
"Freedom from attachments," the man said. "Freedom from suffering of this world."
Orlando looked at him for a long time, and then he nodded. "Lead the way."
Okhaldhunga. 1808.
In the mountains of northeastern Nepal, Viggo had found a simple life, blessed with a stability he'd never had in North America or during his journey since imprisonment in the Oregon Country. But still, Viggo was restless, and the Rai men and women with whom he lived, worked, and prayed understood this.
With the Rai, Viggo farmed and did repairs on the houses and temples in the region. There was no cash economy to speak of, but he was able to regroup and live in relative safety, due to the remoteness of the region and the generosity of its people. Once they ascertained Viggo's status as a peaceful wanderer, not a British soldier, they welcomed him into the community with open arms and taught him their ways, from the syncretic religion they practiced to the language they spoke. When he had entered Nepal five years ago, Viggo had learned from a merchant on the route that the way west was blocked by a large earthquake and resulting rock slides, and that it would be difficult or impossible to navigate for quite a time, without at least briefly crossing into British-dominated India.
For Viggo, encountering British troops was not a viable option, and so he stayed in this safe haven, letting Aahlaad—the Nepalese name he had chosen for his horse, meaning "delight"—graze on the high plains and contributing to his adopted community until he could move on again.
"Where will you go when you leave us, Viggo?"
Viggo looked up from his bowl of rice and lentils in surprise. On his right hand side at the communal meal sat Kanti, a girl of twelve years who had proven surprisingly hearty for her gender and the region in which she lived. Sometimes Kanti even went on hunting expeditions with the men to act as a nurse and an extra pair of hands to carry the meat, while during the planting and harvest seasons she worked harder than anyone in the fields. Kanti was also not stupid, and Viggo had no reason to lie to her.
"North and west," she replied in her dialect. "To the borders of Nepal and then on to East India."
"Are the British not there?" she asked, furrowing her thin brows.
"They are," he agreed. "But Aahlaad is a good horse and I know how to use a gun," he reasoned with a sideways smile, rewarded by her giggle.
"You will shoot the white men if you meet them?"
"I will only shoot if my own life is in danger," he corrected her. "It is the only way to live with a free conscience."
Kanti nodded and thoughtfully nibbled on her piece of flatbread. "Father teaches that the man who does badly in this life will be punished in the next."
"Karma," Viggo agreed with a nod.
"I think that in the next life you will be a king, Viggo. Of whatever kingdom it is you come from."
Viggo smiled. "It is called America."
"America, then. Is it a lovely place, America? Are all the people there like you?"
Viggo laughed and shook his head. "Not many, no. I'm a bit strange, where I come from."
"Oh." She frowned. "Then perhaps you are better off here."
"Perhaps I am," he agreed, finishing off his rice and watching her features dance with joy in the firelight.
Nagathali. August 1815.
Orlando would never admit it to his elders, but he was lonely and homesick. Here, high in the Nepalese mountains where it was easy to believe that God really lived among the strange and mystical shapes, he found himself missing green pastures and the cathedral at Canterbury. His attempt to free himself from attachments seemed to be going well, but the more he gave up the more he missed. Though the sherpas and monks had accepted him into their community, he felt his difference acutely. And perhaps this was why, at the age of twenty-eight, Orlando latched on so hard to the first white man he saw.
The man came an hour after sunrise, and he was moving slowly. His eyes were wary, and his hand clasped the barrel of a gun, but Orlando was not afraid of this stranger. He looked too ragged to be a British soldier, and no one would come hunting Orlando down after this long.
"Peace, friend," he called out, and his voice creaked a bit from misuse. The stranger stared at him for a moment before speaking.
"What is this place?"
"You are lost?"
"I'm afraid so," he agreed, his eyes taking in the sparse landscape and the few huts that peppered it.
"You are high in the mountains to be lost."
The man nodded and put his hands out, palms up, in a gesture of indifference. "I left my horse with a trusted family in the valley. I came here to scout out another route; the one through Kathmandu was blocked years ago by the earthquake and now it is repaired, but the British are in that valley fighting," he explained. "A friend told me a long time ago that the sherpas in these villages could be trusted and are friendly, so I thought I might find a route."
"You are out of favour with the British?"
The man frowned, surely recognising Orlando's own accent, and Orlando smiled and held out a hand in reassurance.
"You need not fear me. I escaped my own countrymen a very long time ago, sir."
Viggo smiled and shrugged. "I was a prisoner."
"You survived?" Orlando raised an eyebrow. He hadn't heard of an escaped prisoner surviving the grasp British authorities, at least outside of stories.
"I had a lucky break. A very lucky break," the stranger conceded with a smile. "But I fear my luck has run out."
"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Orlando shrugged. "Will you stay a while? We can offer you what protection these mountains provide, but there is no route ahead. You will have to wait out the storm in the valley and then go back for your horse."
The man sighed and nodded. "I figured as much. My name is Viggo," he offered, holding out a hand.
"Orlando. Welcome."
"What is the name of this village?"
"Nagathali."
"And how did you find yourself here?"
"A lucky break, perhaps." Orlando smiled, and Viggo, after a moment, returned the gesture.
An hour later.
"He cannot bring these weapons into our village."
The village elders were resolute. Orlando translated from the language he had learned, slowly, over the past few years.
"I'm sorry," he offered, and Viggo smiled.
"It's all right. I'll dispose of them. Then I can stay?"
Orlando translated, and the head of the village nodded. Viggo bowed his head in gratitude, and Orlando watched closely as he left the hut. The edge of the world seemed less empty, somehow.
After several days.
"Where did you live, back in England?"
"Canterbury."
"Is it nice there?"
Orlando shrugged. "Nice enough."
"Obviously not," Viggo countered with a smile, "if you left."
"My father forced me to leave," Orlando corrected. "To India. I was thirteen."
"And how did you end up here, practicing Buddhism?"
"I escaped, and someone found me. A man from this village."
"That's a romantic notion."
Orlando shrugged again and picked at the edge of his robe. "It isn't always perfect."
"I wouldn't imagine so."
"So what are you, then? Some sort of a cowboy?"
Viggo laughed. "What makes you say that?"
"You come here with your horse and your guns, like something from a dream. I don't know what to make of you."
"Like something from one of your dreams?" Viggo raised an eyebrow, and Orlando blushed.
"I don't…I'm not sure."
Viggo laid a gentle hand on Orlando's knee. Touching between men was common in this region, but still Orlando's cheeks flared anew with colour. "I don't mean offence."
"I feel so young, sometimes," Orlando admitted, his eyes on some distant point on the horizon, beyond the jagged peaks and the harsh rays of sunlight that broke the field of blue.
"You are young. You have your life ahead of you."
"Doing what?" Orlando asked, somewhat bitterly. "Praying, alone?"
Viggo frowned. "The Eightfold Path has not been kind to you?"
"It has too few answers," Orlando admitted quietly, as if whispering so that the Buddha himself would not hear.
"Many religions offer answers," Viggo offered. "To have faith, we must go beyond that."
"Beyond answers?"
"Beyond searching for the right ones."
Orlando nodded and covered Viggo's hand with his own. He squeezed, and pale overlaid copper in the dying light.
October.
"You've never told me how you came to be a prisoner," Orlando commented as he sat with Viggo on a ridge, watching the noon sun traverse the sky on one of autumn's last warm days. The two had developed a strange sort of friendship, often going long periods in companionable silence, and the elders had for the most part left the two of them alone, as Viggo wasn't interrupting Orlando's study and was even learning to meditate with him.
"It is a story that is likely to offend you," Viggo warned, and Orlando turned, meeting his eyes with an almost harsh gaze.
"Let me determine what offends me."
"Very well." Viggo held Orlando's gaze for a moment, and then turned back to the mountains in the distance, collecting his words. "There was a man, back in America. A soldier, about your age in fact, maybe a little younger, but I was young then too. He was English, part of the force that policed the frontier in whatever limited way they could. The United States claimed the land as well, but it was far from everything else and quite remote for a young country with limited resources to properly keep watch over. As you well know, the British are excellent at keeping watch," he explained with a little wry smiled before continuing.
"Anyone worth his salt in the Oregon Country knew that you stayed out of the hair of the soldiers, especially the officers, and they stayed out of yours. No sense harassing a man with a gun and a flag over his shoulder, and as long as you didn't have anything they wanted, they'd leave you alone."
"Did you have something they wanted?" Orlando asked.
"I had something Patrick wanted," Viggo replied with a little smile to himself.
"Who was he? The young man?"
"Yes. We came upon each other by chance, at a creek that was good for washing. I hadn't known the company of men often since I'd reached the age of my majority and left my father's house, but I was good at taking care of myself, and myself only. Patrick found me interesting, I suppose, and pleasing to look at."
Viggo turned then, to see if the import of his words was reaching Orlando. The young man's brow was furrowed, but it was difficult to determine his impression of the information.
"So what happened between you?"
"He offered to show me a knoll he had found a few days before. It was lovely and private, and when we got there he kissed me."
"On the mouth?"
Viggo turned and gave Orlando a look of surprise, not expecting that particular question, but Orlando looked perfectly serious.
"Yes," he replied after a moment. "On the mouth."
"Did you like it?"
Viggo nodded. "It was a good thing, but I hadn't known the company of women often, living so far out on the frontier. Still, he… well this was better than what I had attempted with girls. Fuller. I was terribly naïve, though."
"He turned you in?" Orlando asked.
"No, but we were found out. He was whipped, I believe, and I was taken prisoner of the regiment, shipped off to the Andaman Islands."
"Do you regret it?"
Orlando looked extremely curious, and Viggo cocked his head to the side, wondering.
"Orlando, have you...um..." For once, Viggo was at a loss for words, and Orlando smiled, looking strangely wise.
"Known the company of women?"
Viggo nodded.
"No. I was only sixteen when I came here, and before then I was on the run. I hardly had time to contemplate relations with women."
"Nor with men?" Viggo asked, gently.
Orlando blushed. "I… you…" He sighed and clasped his hands together, a serene expression coming over his face as he looked out over the valley. "No. Not before."
Viggo paused before nodding again, and at a loss for what else to do, going back to Orlando's question. "I don't regret it. I wish I hadn't been caught, but the things I've seen since I've been on this side of the world… in a strange way, it's a blessing. I've always been an adventurer, a wanderer. I'm good with a horse and with a gun, I get into trouble occasionally, I like new places and new things. There's no reason I shouldn't be here, and no, I wouldn't give up that afternoon if you gave me the option."
Orlando nodded. "Would you kiss me?"
Viggo frowned. "Now?"
"Yes."
"I haven't thought… it's been a long time, Orlando."
"But you are still a man," Orlando pointed out, turning to Viggo with a small smile. "You cannot tell me that you have not put your own hand between your thighs at night in the past twenty-five years of life. If you did, I would call you a liar."
Viggo blushed and lowered his eyes. "I have never met a religious man so blunt."
"It isn't a question of religious, or not religious. You have faith, Viggo. Anyone can see that. Tell me. What do you believe in?"
"I believe in the inconstancy of the world," Viggo replied with a shrug. "And the predictability of men."
"Those ideas seem rather mutually exclusive."
"No," Viggo disagreed. "Men will act predictably, but the world will always throw you for a loop."
"The elders would say that being too attached to the material things of the world has made you subject to its whims."
"And what would you say?" Viggo asked with a smile.
"That you've been scarred by your experiences."
"Aren't we all?"
"Hurts can be healed over time."
"But scars don't fade."
"Maybe not, but we come to accept them and grow beyond their limitations," Orlando posited, reaching up and touching Viggo's cheek.
"You're very good at rhetoric for someone educated in meditation and silence."
Orlando laughed and leaned forward, boldly nuzzling Viggo's neck now with his own cheek. "I've always preferred talking to silence... action, as well."
"I can see that."
"Now will you kiss me?"
"I'm not sure it would be the right thing to do."
Orlando sighed and let his hand shift, brushing over Viggo's ear and coming to rest in his hair. "Then I must do the deed myself if I wish to convince you otherwise." Leaning in, Orlando moved slowly enough to let the sharp features of Viggo's face blend and blur with the blue sky and the white mountains behind him, his stoic expression shadowless in the noon sun. He pressed his lips softly to Viggo's, thin and chapped by the wind, and then let his tongue dart out to taste.
"I think I like kissing men," Orlando whispered, his lips tickling Viggo's as his hand unconsciously tightened in Viggo's hair.
"Have you kissed any others?" Viggo asked with a smile threatening to escape.
Orlando beamed back, pressing his forehead to Viggo's and lightly scratching his scalp. "You knew with just one."
A week later.
"I thought your goal was to rid yourself of worldly attachments," Viggo murmured with a knowing smile, his finger trailing through the streaks of come on Orlando's breastbone before lifting it to his mouth.
"My goal was to achieve nirvana. I think I'm there," Orlando whispered, not bothering to open his eyes as he lay on the floor of his small hut, a fire roaring nearby.
Viggo laughed and brushed his hand over the curve of Orlando's bare scalp.
"I used to have beautiful curls," Orlando murmured, tears gathering unsummoned in his lashes. He took a deep breath and paused a beat before speaking again. "I would like to have them again."
Viggo watched the rise and fall of Orlando's chest, the way the firelight illuminated the sharp angles of his body and sun-browned skin. He thought in passing, as he lay his head on Orlando's shoulder, that he had never seen sin so beautiful.
"I will leave when it is warm again, in the spring. I will go down country and retrieve my horse."
Orlando's body tensed, but Viggo touched a hand gently to his flank, calming him as if he were a startled beast.
"I would like you to come with me."
Orlando's eyes shot open, questioning, and Viggo nodded, forcing his eyes to focus on Orlando's face despite the strain at such close range.
Orlando pressed his lips messily to Viggo's, and their bare knees brushed at angles known only to lovers.
December.
The messenger was not expected by anyone, not after the first snowfalls coated the valley and made survival itself the only concern of the community. He came with bare feet and breath rattling in his lungs, and it was clear that he was not to survive long past the delivery of his message.
The durbar in Kathmandu had failed to ratify the peace agreement with the British. Ochterlony was gathering his troops, Lord Moira was looking smug, and the invasion force was planning to push all the way to these mountains.
Viggo, feeling more and more concerned when he realised the import of the news, itched for a trigger to depress. Orlando calmed him with soothing words and soothing hands, and kissed his tears away when the messenger, a Buddhist boy who had managed to reach seventeen villages in the mountains before this one, died twelve days later.
Nepal was going to battle, and it was too late to run.
March.
While the blasts of guns echoed through the valley, winter in the mountains passed as it always did. There was no more news from below, and no British troops dared come into these high passes. When the spring thaw began, Viggo started preparing to walk down to the village where his horse was being cared for. Orlando didn't particularly want him to leave, but he knew Viggo had to get his horse, and that it was only with a horse that they would make it out of the region and on to the Karokaram.
When Viggo had been gone for four days, however, Orlando saw the first soldier gaining the mountain, heading up on old goat paths. Soon there were more, and they didn't look very happy. The elders refused to act, insisting to the young Orlando that battles had come and gone in these mountains for thousands of years and the land continued to stand as it always had, but Orlando wasn't convinced.
When the group of seven soldiers entered the village, they saw only straw huts, open fires, and the shaven heads of Buddhist monks and laypeople, living peacefully off the land. They asked for food, and it was given to them, but soon the British soldiers became greedy. They wanted more food, and they wanted to know where the women were. When the men insisted there were no women here in this remote region, that it was a land of religious men and of abstinence, they grew impatient and began to use violence. Soon, they found the eldest man of the group, the most revered, and they took him to the edge of the village to make an example of him. And in fact, it would have worked, the other men looking on in fear as the leader of the white men held a knife to the eldest's throat, had they not picked the absolute worst location for their little display.
For a few metres away from the centre of the village, surrounded by thick undergrowth, Orlando had finally finished digging, and found what he was looking for. A gun, dirty but in working order, loaded with several rounds of ammunition. Though he didn't know exactly what he was doing, Orlando took careful aim, held his finger over the trigger, and fired. The man dropped like a shot.
"There! In the bushes!"
Orlando quickly took aim again, wounding one man in the knee and another in the side, but they were running towards him, returning fire, and he had to retreat. Heading for the main road, he scampered over the bushes and down a hill, breathing heavily as he hoped his youth would do him enough good here to ensure survival.
Taking cover behind a rock, Orlando managed to catch the closest soldier in the shoulder, but there were still three unwounded, and he had to keep running, the men following in close pursuit.
Before too long, it became clear that it was a lost cause. The men were gaining on him, and Orlando was running out of breath. That realisation in mind, he found another boulder, just off the road, and hid behind it. Two rounds left. Turning, he took aim quickly and fired, wounding one of the three. His last shot fell wide, and he curled up into the foetal position, waiting for death.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Orlando frowned.
Why wasn't he dead yet?
There was a commotion from a few metres away, and Orlando dared to peak up over his hiding place. One of the two soldiers was lying flat on the ground, and the other was looking completely confused. And then he saw the horse—a beautiful, strong horse—galloping away from the man and towards his rock.
"Get on!"
Orlando's eyes went wide as the horse skidded to a halt, and he hurriedly threw his leg over, gripping Viggo's waist and awkwardly hoisting himself up even as the animal continued to move.
"Give me the gun," Viggo ordered as he steered the horse in a zig zag pattern, wary of the stationary man who was shooting again. Orlando did as he was told, and squeaked under his breath when Viggo handed him the reigns, taking them uncertainly with his arms around Viggo's waist.
But the horse was a good one, and seemed to know what the plan was, so Orlando had relatively little to do as the man who had been raised on the American frontier loaded his weapon, took aim, and shot the last soldier where he stood.
It was only when they were far from the village, hurrying away from the British strongholds and the Gorkha Empire, now a protectorate of the British East India Company, that Orlando thought to ask.
"Where did you get the ammunition?"
"From the village. Someone there had seen soldiers heading up the mountain when he went to get water from the river. I knew you might be in danger. How did you find my gun?"
"I watched you. When the elders told you to get rid of it, I didn't think you'd really just throw it away. So I followed and saw where you buried it. I was curious about you."
Viggo smiled and shook his head. "Your curiosity just saved our lives."
Orlando laughed and shrugged. "Only mine."
"No," Viggo disagreed, reaching back and squeezing Orlando's thigh with the hand not holding the reigns. "I would've thrown myself off the cliff if I'd returned to find you dead."
"But… you survived losing the first man you loved."
"I didn't love him," Viggo corrected. "I wanted to love him, but he didn't let me. You've always let me love you."
"Oh," Orlando whispered, lowering his forehead to the space between Viggo's shoulder blades. "So what do we do now?"
"Now?" Viggo smiled and slowed the horse, turning to kiss Orlando's mouth. "Now we ride north. And one day, I'll run my fingers through your curls."
Orlando smiled and nuzzled Viggo's neck. "I would like that."
"Then you will have it."
And that was how, in the year of our Lord 1816, Viggo came to be free, and a boy named Orlando learned how to dream. What happened to the lovers after that, our story does not say, but it is a safe assumption that, whether in China or somewhere on the way, despite narrow escapes from the law and many a harsh Himalayan winter, they finally lived happily ever after.
Author: Viktoria Angelique (
v_angelique)Beta:
rainbowcobwebPairing: VM/OB
Rating: R
Disclaimer: This is not at all true, which should be obvious given the genre, but hey—I'm a law student. I know how to cover my arse.
Summary: Written for
early_theory challenge. The prompt was for action, for either cowboys, firemen, or something involving boats, and for the words New Zealand, home, children, Idaho, and desire. It was hard to work all of that in with my writing style, so I went for a historical fiction set in Central Asia. Viggo's basically a cowboy, he's from what would come to be Idaho, everyone's searching for home, and there's some action, desire, and a child or two thrown in. I hope this is "close enough." Couldn't fit New Zealand in, but four of five's not bad, right?A/N: This story makes mention of many places and people about which little is known, or at least recorded in the typical Western research sources. Though I have a history background, there simply wasn't the time to do the extensive research necessary to make this entirely accurate in terms of the traditions, languages, foods, etc of the people involved. If you spot an error, however, please let me know, and I'll do my best to remedy it.
Oregon Country. 1790.
In the land that would later be called Idaho—more of a joke than anything, a name for a territory pulled from the head of an Englishman who claimed its American Indian roots, showing a surprising amount about the American national consciousness without intending it—the son of a Danish merchant tried to find his calling.
What he found instead was the warm, supple place between the thighs of a stranger, the spot he could lave with his tongue to make a grown man cry, and a way to arch his back and bend underneath a British soldier that would trigger a feeling unlike any other.
The day after these revelations, it became apparent that Viggo had been found out, and he went from wandering nationless cattle herder-cum-explorer to a prisoner of the British Empire, caught in territory that was disputed a de facto part of imperial rule.
Within the month, he was living under the decks of a small ship, captive of the rolling sea, en route to destinations unknown.
Canterbury. 1800.
"There is a world of opportunity in India," Orlando's father insisted.
The thirteen year old boy with an unruly mane of curls, nature achieving what the wigmakers in town only dreamed of, stomped his foot and looked very cross. "But papa…"
"I don't want to hear the word 'but,' Orlando. You will make a name for yourself. There is nothing here for a second son. In India you have a chance to expand, to grow beyond the borders of one island and see the possibilities of the world. You are my son, Orlando. You will achieve great things."
And Orlando's father was right. Orlando would achieve greatness. He would grow, expand, and find the possibilities of the world. They were simply not the same possibilities of which his father was thinking that afternoon.
Yangon (Rangoon). 1802.
"Nei kaung la, U Viggo."
"Nei kaung la," Viggo replied, bowing his head slightly to the Burmese merchant, Khin, for whom he had worked over the past ten years. To Khin, a Buddhist who spoke a little English but was reserved in demeanour and essentially non-violent, Viggo was invaluable. For a modest salary and the use of a good horse, he provided a sort of security service for Khin's employees, travelling to and from Mandalay on the trade route to China. From his childhood and adolescence on the American frontier, Viggo knew how to handle a gun, and from his own criminal past, he knew how not to ask questions about he pistol with which he was provided—no doubt pilfered from a British soldier in India or one of the surrounding regions.
Aside from the pistol, Viggo carried a knife, "borrowed" from the soldier he'd killed during his extremely lucky escape from the prison ship headed to the Andaman Islands. Had he made it in one piece to the penal colony, he surely wouldn't have lasted out the year, due to rampant disease at the British fort, but as luck would have it, he made it off the ship with the knife and a few guineas, and was lucky enough to be picked up by a fisherman who travelled in a small boat and was sympathetic to the prisoner who spoke no Burmese but clearly was not very friendly with the British. From there, Viggo had made it to Yangon, and after a little over a year learning the language and local customs, managed to find a job with Khin.
"Where will you go now, U Viggo?" Khin asked, blowing on the bowl of hot mohinga in front of him. "Back to America?"
Viggo laughed and shook his head. "I would like to go to China."
Khin gave him a blank look. "China? Why would a Westerner want to go to China? Opium?"
"No, Khin. Away from British India."
"Ah." Khin nodded. The people of Myanmar understood this sentiment all too well. "Will you use the trade route?"
"Not the one you use. I plan to ride north, and cross the Himalayas at the Karakoram Valley via the old Silk Road."
"You are crazy," Khin replied simply, the statement surprisingly blunt for his usual cool-under-pressure demeanour. Viggo smiled, not surprised. He had been told the same many times, most frequently by those who had shown him the maps of the region to which he was travelling, a Muslim stronghold to which no Westerners travelled.
"It is the best way to avoid the British," Viggo pointed out with a shrug, and Khin nodded.
"I will give you another horse."
Viggo tried to protest, but Khin cut him off immediately. "You will need much more than a horse where you are going, U Viggo, but take a horse, and keep your gun. There are Buddhists in the mountains of Nepal—avoid Kathmandu; it is all Hindu, but go to Nepal and find the Sherpa regions. These are good men, you understand? They will help you. Beyond Nepal, it is a mystery to me."
Viggo nodded and clasped Khin's hands. "Thank you, friend."
The horse was ready at sunrise, and Viggo said goodbye to Yangon for the last time.
Kathmandu. 1803.
Orlando was exhausted. The past few months had been all hurry-up-and-wait—first the daring escape from his post with the East India Company, then the long and arduously slow journey north, away from civilisation and therefore from his countrymen, and finally across the border into Nepal, where he bided his time now in the city of Kathmandu.
He didn't have a natural inclination for languages; his learning was slow and unwieldy, but the brown-eyed adolescent had a knack for capturing the hearts of kindly old women and slowly he progressed through basic Hindi, and then Nepal Bhasa, with the help of a Newari woman whose village in Nepal he was trying to reach to make his escape. From there he could regroup and choose a direction—he didn't know where he wanted to be, only that it wasn't with the Company.
However Orlando was in Kathmandu now, without money or a way to get to the woman's village to the west and without the knowledge to earn even a temporary wage. Though the Nepal Bhasa language was useful, many of the people spoke a Pahari dialect of the Himalayan region, and Orlando didn't know even a few words to communicate with the Pahari people. Furthermore, out of the Kathmandu Valley the rural areas on the way to the next Newar enclave were all Pahari, and Orlando was afraid of leaving the safety of at least marginal linguistic knowledge.
If he had been more at ease, Orlando might have enjoyed Kathmandu—the intersection of Buddhist and Hindu cultures, the flavours of ginger and cumin in the aromatic local cuisine, the impressive backdrop of towering mountains in the distance—but as it was all he felt was homesick for an indistinct place, a comfort he had never really known, but which nevertheless he craved.
Orlando walked the streets, past the busy markets and surges of people, his clothes dirty and in need of mending, until he came to a huge carved statue, a likeness of the Buddha. He stood looking at the pleasant-looking figure, a rotund benevolent patriarch who to Orlando seemed like the ideal grandfather, wondering what to do next.
And then, the earth began to move.
The rumbling underfoot started as a gentle tremor, but soon the ground and everything connected to it was moving, the very valley seeming to shake and convulse with the power of an angry God. Orlando was struck with horror, and he fell to his knees, grasping his own head, trying to protect himself.
And yet, the people on the street around him seemed unconcerned, in fact eyeing the trembling white man with some curiosity. As they secured their possessions, waiting for the earthquake to pass, Orlando felt foolish, but he could not wipe the tears from his eyes. Above him the Buddha smiled down, and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue. Somewhere here, there was an answer.
Rajshahi District. The same day.
Viggo was feeling especially nervous as he sat on the banks of the Jamuna River, eating mango and trying not to react to the slight tremor of the ground underneath his feet. He knew a little Bangla, but not enough to enjoy conducting business with this man who pandered instantly to the sound of a cultivated European accent, to a white man who might possibly be carrying money to spare. His hand rested on his pistol, out of sight under the table, and its presence offered some comfort.
Near the table at which Viggo took tea with his host, a man called Bimal, stood a beautiful black Marwari horse, a rare beast indeed in this region so far east of its native Rajasthan province in India. Bimal lectured Viggo on the horse's size, strength, and speed, and the strange thing was that Viggo didn't think he was lying. He could see that the horse, tacked and ready to go, was a superior beast. But the funny feeling didn't go away.
"About the price…"
Bimal smiled and pressed his fingertips together, his hands forming a triangle just under his chin. "Ah yes, sir, the price. You will leave your injured horse here."
Viggo nodded; this wasn't a problem. Khin's horse had carried him this far, but he needed a superior beast for the treacherous mountain passes he would be navigating. "And the price?'
Here, the man smiled—a slow, toothy, sinister grin that made Viggo's blood run cold. "Your freedom, sir, will be worth plenty."
Viggo's brows furrowed in confusion, but he realised in a flash of pieces coming together, like the puzzles his father used to assemble for him as a child on the American frontier, what this meant—why Bimal spoke such exceptional English, why he was so tolerant of the Westerner travelling through his lands, why he sat and offered Viggo food and drink and did not challenge him. Bimal knew that Viggo was trying to escape the British, and his worth would be almost that of the horse—which Bimal, no doubt, was planning on using for his own escape.
Shit.
But Bimal, the Bengali entrepreneur who worked for the British and made a living looking for deserters from the army and runaway criminals, didn't know one thing. Viggo had been raised in a land where natives ruled the day, and on the American frontier, the one imperative for a white man was the ability to handle a gun. Bimal made to draw his gun, to disable the man before him, but Viggo was much faster. The blood splattered back at him, staining his clothes. Bimal's heavy body slumped in its well-wrought chair, his hands falling useless at his side.
The horse was ready to go, and the British would be coming soon. Viggo made for the hills.
Kathmandu. An hour later.
Orlando tried to stop crying—he was sixteen years old, he had run away from obligation and was striking out on his own, and he was undoubtedly his own man now. But in many ways, Orlando was still a boy, and so the tears fell unheeded by the passers-by in the market, wetting his reddened cheeks as he stared up at the likeness of a man with kind eyes and a large belly. Not a God, he remembered from what little explanations he'd heard of Buddhism in largely Hindu areas, but just a man. He smiled, the thought bringing him some small comfort.
"You look at the Buddha as if you see him first time."
Orlando started and turned, his eyes still full of tears, to see a man, barely taller standing erect than Orlando was kneeling, clad in a simple robe and without hair on his head. He might have been fifty, but it was hard to tell. Orlando stared at him for a moment, surprised by the English words, and then nodded.
"I am not familiar with the Buddha's teachings," he admitted.
The man smiled. "Would you like learn?"
Orlando frowned. "I'm a bit… lost," he admitted, gesturing hopelessly around him. "I ran away, but… I don't know where to go."
Again the man smiled, and he looked up at the Buddha before looking back down at Orlando. "Buddha finds many lost children," he said.
"I was supposed to go to a Newar village," Orlando explained. "To the west of here."
The man nodded, his expression serene. "But you cannot."
"I can't?"
The man smiled again, this time as if privy to an inside joke, and nodded sagely. "The road is cut off to the west, by the earthquake. The tradesmen are upset. Very bad. Worst in long while."
Orlando frowned. "Oh."
"You come with me, to north. I show you village. You find new way. Not many riches, but we have our own treasures."
Orlando frowned. "What does your religion teach?" he asked, thinking back to the cathedral at Canterbury and his stern father.
"How to attain nirvana."
"What is that?"
"Freedom from attachments," the man said. "Freedom from suffering of this world."
Orlando looked at him for a long time, and then he nodded. "Lead the way."
Okhaldhunga. 1808.
In the mountains of northeastern Nepal, Viggo had found a simple life, blessed with a stability he'd never had in North America or during his journey since imprisonment in the Oregon Country. But still, Viggo was restless, and the Rai men and women with whom he lived, worked, and prayed understood this.
With the Rai, Viggo farmed and did repairs on the houses and temples in the region. There was no cash economy to speak of, but he was able to regroup and live in relative safety, due to the remoteness of the region and the generosity of its people. Once they ascertained Viggo's status as a peaceful wanderer, not a British soldier, they welcomed him into the community with open arms and taught him their ways, from the syncretic religion they practiced to the language they spoke. When he had entered Nepal five years ago, Viggo had learned from a merchant on the route that the way west was blocked by a large earthquake and resulting rock slides, and that it would be difficult or impossible to navigate for quite a time, without at least briefly crossing into British-dominated India.
For Viggo, encountering British troops was not a viable option, and so he stayed in this safe haven, letting Aahlaad—the Nepalese name he had chosen for his horse, meaning "delight"—graze on the high plains and contributing to his adopted community until he could move on again.
"Where will you go when you leave us, Viggo?"
Viggo looked up from his bowl of rice and lentils in surprise. On his right hand side at the communal meal sat Kanti, a girl of twelve years who had proven surprisingly hearty for her gender and the region in which she lived. Sometimes Kanti even went on hunting expeditions with the men to act as a nurse and an extra pair of hands to carry the meat, while during the planting and harvest seasons she worked harder than anyone in the fields. Kanti was also not stupid, and Viggo had no reason to lie to her.
"North and west," she replied in her dialect. "To the borders of Nepal and then on to East India."
"Are the British not there?" she asked, furrowing her thin brows.
"They are," he agreed. "But Aahlaad is a good horse and I know how to use a gun," he reasoned with a sideways smile, rewarded by her giggle.
"You will shoot the white men if you meet them?"
"I will only shoot if my own life is in danger," he corrected her. "It is the only way to live with a free conscience."
Kanti nodded and thoughtfully nibbled on her piece of flatbread. "Father teaches that the man who does badly in this life will be punished in the next."
"Karma," Viggo agreed with a nod.
"I think that in the next life you will be a king, Viggo. Of whatever kingdom it is you come from."
Viggo smiled. "It is called America."
"America, then. Is it a lovely place, America? Are all the people there like you?"
Viggo laughed and shook his head. "Not many, no. I'm a bit strange, where I come from."
"Oh." She frowned. "Then perhaps you are better off here."
"Perhaps I am," he agreed, finishing off his rice and watching her features dance with joy in the firelight.
Nagathali. August 1815.
Orlando would never admit it to his elders, but he was lonely and homesick. Here, high in the Nepalese mountains where it was easy to believe that God really lived among the strange and mystical shapes, he found himself missing green pastures and the cathedral at Canterbury. His attempt to free himself from attachments seemed to be going well, but the more he gave up the more he missed. Though the sherpas and monks had accepted him into their community, he felt his difference acutely. And perhaps this was why, at the age of twenty-eight, Orlando latched on so hard to the first white man he saw.
The man came an hour after sunrise, and he was moving slowly. His eyes were wary, and his hand clasped the barrel of a gun, but Orlando was not afraid of this stranger. He looked too ragged to be a British soldier, and no one would come hunting Orlando down after this long.
"Peace, friend," he called out, and his voice creaked a bit from misuse. The stranger stared at him for a moment before speaking.
"What is this place?"
"You are lost?"
"I'm afraid so," he agreed, his eyes taking in the sparse landscape and the few huts that peppered it.
"You are high in the mountains to be lost."
The man nodded and put his hands out, palms up, in a gesture of indifference. "I left my horse with a trusted family in the valley. I came here to scout out another route; the one through Kathmandu was blocked years ago by the earthquake and now it is repaired, but the British are in that valley fighting," he explained. "A friend told me a long time ago that the sherpas in these villages could be trusted and are friendly, so I thought I might find a route."
"You are out of favour with the British?"
The man frowned, surely recognising Orlando's own accent, and Orlando smiled and held out a hand in reassurance.
"You need not fear me. I escaped my own countrymen a very long time ago, sir."
Viggo smiled and shrugged. "I was a prisoner."
"You survived?" Orlando raised an eyebrow. He hadn't heard of an escaped prisoner surviving the grasp British authorities, at least outside of stories.
"I had a lucky break. A very lucky break," the stranger conceded with a smile. "But I fear my luck has run out."
"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Orlando shrugged. "Will you stay a while? We can offer you what protection these mountains provide, but there is no route ahead. You will have to wait out the storm in the valley and then go back for your horse."
The man sighed and nodded. "I figured as much. My name is Viggo," he offered, holding out a hand.
"Orlando. Welcome."
"What is the name of this village?"
"Nagathali."
"And how did you find yourself here?"
"A lucky break, perhaps." Orlando smiled, and Viggo, after a moment, returned the gesture.
An hour later.
"He cannot bring these weapons into our village."
The village elders were resolute. Orlando translated from the language he had learned, slowly, over the past few years.
"I'm sorry," he offered, and Viggo smiled.
"It's all right. I'll dispose of them. Then I can stay?"
Orlando translated, and the head of the village nodded. Viggo bowed his head in gratitude, and Orlando watched closely as he left the hut. The edge of the world seemed less empty, somehow.
After several days.
"Where did you live, back in England?"
"Canterbury."
"Is it nice there?"
Orlando shrugged. "Nice enough."
"Obviously not," Viggo countered with a smile, "if you left."
"My father forced me to leave," Orlando corrected. "To India. I was thirteen."
"And how did you end up here, practicing Buddhism?"
"I escaped, and someone found me. A man from this village."
"That's a romantic notion."
Orlando shrugged again and picked at the edge of his robe. "It isn't always perfect."
"I wouldn't imagine so."
"So what are you, then? Some sort of a cowboy?"
Viggo laughed. "What makes you say that?"
"You come here with your horse and your guns, like something from a dream. I don't know what to make of you."
"Like something from one of your dreams?" Viggo raised an eyebrow, and Orlando blushed.
"I don't…I'm not sure."
Viggo laid a gentle hand on Orlando's knee. Touching between men was common in this region, but still Orlando's cheeks flared anew with colour. "I don't mean offence."
"I feel so young, sometimes," Orlando admitted, his eyes on some distant point on the horizon, beyond the jagged peaks and the harsh rays of sunlight that broke the field of blue.
"You are young. You have your life ahead of you."
"Doing what?" Orlando asked, somewhat bitterly. "Praying, alone?"
Viggo frowned. "The Eightfold Path has not been kind to you?"
"It has too few answers," Orlando admitted quietly, as if whispering so that the Buddha himself would not hear.
"Many religions offer answers," Viggo offered. "To have faith, we must go beyond that."
"Beyond answers?"
"Beyond searching for the right ones."
Orlando nodded and covered Viggo's hand with his own. He squeezed, and pale overlaid copper in the dying light.
October.
"You've never told me how you came to be a prisoner," Orlando commented as he sat with Viggo on a ridge, watching the noon sun traverse the sky on one of autumn's last warm days. The two had developed a strange sort of friendship, often going long periods in companionable silence, and the elders had for the most part left the two of them alone, as Viggo wasn't interrupting Orlando's study and was even learning to meditate with him.
"It is a story that is likely to offend you," Viggo warned, and Orlando turned, meeting his eyes with an almost harsh gaze.
"Let me determine what offends me."
"Very well." Viggo held Orlando's gaze for a moment, and then turned back to the mountains in the distance, collecting his words. "There was a man, back in America. A soldier, about your age in fact, maybe a little younger, but I was young then too. He was English, part of the force that policed the frontier in whatever limited way they could. The United States claimed the land as well, but it was far from everything else and quite remote for a young country with limited resources to properly keep watch over. As you well know, the British are excellent at keeping watch," he explained with a little wry smiled before continuing.
"Anyone worth his salt in the Oregon Country knew that you stayed out of the hair of the soldiers, especially the officers, and they stayed out of yours. No sense harassing a man with a gun and a flag over his shoulder, and as long as you didn't have anything they wanted, they'd leave you alone."
"Did you have something they wanted?" Orlando asked.
"I had something Patrick wanted," Viggo replied with a little smile to himself.
"Who was he? The young man?"
"Yes. We came upon each other by chance, at a creek that was good for washing. I hadn't known the company of men often since I'd reached the age of my majority and left my father's house, but I was good at taking care of myself, and myself only. Patrick found me interesting, I suppose, and pleasing to look at."
Viggo turned then, to see if the import of his words was reaching Orlando. The young man's brow was furrowed, but it was difficult to determine his impression of the information.
"So what happened between you?"
"He offered to show me a knoll he had found a few days before. It was lovely and private, and when we got there he kissed me."
"On the mouth?"
Viggo turned and gave Orlando a look of surprise, not expecting that particular question, but Orlando looked perfectly serious.
"Yes," he replied after a moment. "On the mouth."
"Did you like it?"
Viggo nodded. "It was a good thing, but I hadn't known the company of women often, living so far out on the frontier. Still, he… well this was better than what I had attempted with girls. Fuller. I was terribly naïve, though."
"He turned you in?" Orlando asked.
"No, but we were found out. He was whipped, I believe, and I was taken prisoner of the regiment, shipped off to the Andaman Islands."
"Do you regret it?"
Orlando looked extremely curious, and Viggo cocked his head to the side, wondering.
"Orlando, have you...um..." For once, Viggo was at a loss for words, and Orlando smiled, looking strangely wise.
"Known the company of women?"
Viggo nodded.
"No. I was only sixteen when I came here, and before then I was on the run. I hardly had time to contemplate relations with women."
"Nor with men?" Viggo asked, gently.
Orlando blushed. "I… you…" He sighed and clasped his hands together, a serene expression coming over his face as he looked out over the valley. "No. Not before."
Viggo paused before nodding again, and at a loss for what else to do, going back to Orlando's question. "I don't regret it. I wish I hadn't been caught, but the things I've seen since I've been on this side of the world… in a strange way, it's a blessing. I've always been an adventurer, a wanderer. I'm good with a horse and with a gun, I get into trouble occasionally, I like new places and new things. There's no reason I shouldn't be here, and no, I wouldn't give up that afternoon if you gave me the option."
Orlando nodded. "Would you kiss me?"
Viggo frowned. "Now?"
"Yes."
"I haven't thought… it's been a long time, Orlando."
"But you are still a man," Orlando pointed out, turning to Viggo with a small smile. "You cannot tell me that you have not put your own hand between your thighs at night in the past twenty-five years of life. If you did, I would call you a liar."
Viggo blushed and lowered his eyes. "I have never met a religious man so blunt."
"It isn't a question of religious, or not religious. You have faith, Viggo. Anyone can see that. Tell me. What do you believe in?"
"I believe in the inconstancy of the world," Viggo replied with a shrug. "And the predictability of men."
"Those ideas seem rather mutually exclusive."
"No," Viggo disagreed. "Men will act predictably, but the world will always throw you for a loop."
"The elders would say that being too attached to the material things of the world has made you subject to its whims."
"And what would you say?" Viggo asked with a smile.
"That you've been scarred by your experiences."
"Aren't we all?"
"Hurts can be healed over time."
"But scars don't fade."
"Maybe not, but we come to accept them and grow beyond their limitations," Orlando posited, reaching up and touching Viggo's cheek.
"You're very good at rhetoric for someone educated in meditation and silence."
Orlando laughed and leaned forward, boldly nuzzling Viggo's neck now with his own cheek. "I've always preferred talking to silence... action, as well."
"I can see that."
"Now will you kiss me?"
"I'm not sure it would be the right thing to do."
Orlando sighed and let his hand shift, brushing over Viggo's ear and coming to rest in his hair. "Then I must do the deed myself if I wish to convince you otherwise." Leaning in, Orlando moved slowly enough to let the sharp features of Viggo's face blend and blur with the blue sky and the white mountains behind him, his stoic expression shadowless in the noon sun. He pressed his lips softly to Viggo's, thin and chapped by the wind, and then let his tongue dart out to taste.
"I think I like kissing men," Orlando whispered, his lips tickling Viggo's as his hand unconsciously tightened in Viggo's hair.
"Have you kissed any others?" Viggo asked with a smile threatening to escape.
Orlando beamed back, pressing his forehead to Viggo's and lightly scratching his scalp. "You knew with just one."
A week later.
"I thought your goal was to rid yourself of worldly attachments," Viggo murmured with a knowing smile, his finger trailing through the streaks of come on Orlando's breastbone before lifting it to his mouth.
"My goal was to achieve nirvana. I think I'm there," Orlando whispered, not bothering to open his eyes as he lay on the floor of his small hut, a fire roaring nearby.
Viggo laughed and brushed his hand over the curve of Orlando's bare scalp.
"I used to have beautiful curls," Orlando murmured, tears gathering unsummoned in his lashes. He took a deep breath and paused a beat before speaking again. "I would like to have them again."
Viggo watched the rise and fall of Orlando's chest, the way the firelight illuminated the sharp angles of his body and sun-browned skin. He thought in passing, as he lay his head on Orlando's shoulder, that he had never seen sin so beautiful.
"I will leave when it is warm again, in the spring. I will go down country and retrieve my horse."
Orlando's body tensed, but Viggo touched a hand gently to his flank, calming him as if he were a startled beast.
"I would like you to come with me."
Orlando's eyes shot open, questioning, and Viggo nodded, forcing his eyes to focus on Orlando's face despite the strain at such close range.
Orlando pressed his lips messily to Viggo's, and their bare knees brushed at angles known only to lovers.
December.
The messenger was not expected by anyone, not after the first snowfalls coated the valley and made survival itself the only concern of the community. He came with bare feet and breath rattling in his lungs, and it was clear that he was not to survive long past the delivery of his message.
The durbar in Kathmandu had failed to ratify the peace agreement with the British. Ochterlony was gathering his troops, Lord Moira was looking smug, and the invasion force was planning to push all the way to these mountains.
Viggo, feeling more and more concerned when he realised the import of the news, itched for a trigger to depress. Orlando calmed him with soothing words and soothing hands, and kissed his tears away when the messenger, a Buddhist boy who had managed to reach seventeen villages in the mountains before this one, died twelve days later.
Nepal was going to battle, and it was too late to run.
March.
While the blasts of guns echoed through the valley, winter in the mountains passed as it always did. There was no more news from below, and no British troops dared come into these high passes. When the spring thaw began, Viggo started preparing to walk down to the village where his horse was being cared for. Orlando didn't particularly want him to leave, but he knew Viggo had to get his horse, and that it was only with a horse that they would make it out of the region and on to the Karokaram.
When Viggo had been gone for four days, however, Orlando saw the first soldier gaining the mountain, heading up on old goat paths. Soon there were more, and they didn't look very happy. The elders refused to act, insisting to the young Orlando that battles had come and gone in these mountains for thousands of years and the land continued to stand as it always had, but Orlando wasn't convinced.
When the group of seven soldiers entered the village, they saw only straw huts, open fires, and the shaven heads of Buddhist monks and laypeople, living peacefully off the land. They asked for food, and it was given to them, but soon the British soldiers became greedy. They wanted more food, and they wanted to know where the women were. When the men insisted there were no women here in this remote region, that it was a land of religious men and of abstinence, they grew impatient and began to use violence. Soon, they found the eldest man of the group, the most revered, and they took him to the edge of the village to make an example of him. And in fact, it would have worked, the other men looking on in fear as the leader of the white men held a knife to the eldest's throat, had they not picked the absolute worst location for their little display.
For a few metres away from the centre of the village, surrounded by thick undergrowth, Orlando had finally finished digging, and found what he was looking for. A gun, dirty but in working order, loaded with several rounds of ammunition. Though he didn't know exactly what he was doing, Orlando took careful aim, held his finger over the trigger, and fired. The man dropped like a shot.
"There! In the bushes!"
Orlando quickly took aim again, wounding one man in the knee and another in the side, but they were running towards him, returning fire, and he had to retreat. Heading for the main road, he scampered over the bushes and down a hill, breathing heavily as he hoped his youth would do him enough good here to ensure survival.
Taking cover behind a rock, Orlando managed to catch the closest soldier in the shoulder, but there were still three unwounded, and he had to keep running, the men following in close pursuit.
Before too long, it became clear that it was a lost cause. The men were gaining on him, and Orlando was running out of breath. That realisation in mind, he found another boulder, just off the road, and hid behind it. Two rounds left. Turning, he took aim quickly and fired, wounding one of the three. His last shot fell wide, and he curled up into the foetal position, waiting for death.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Orlando frowned.
Why wasn't he dead yet?
There was a commotion from a few metres away, and Orlando dared to peak up over his hiding place. One of the two soldiers was lying flat on the ground, and the other was looking completely confused. And then he saw the horse—a beautiful, strong horse—galloping away from the man and towards his rock.
"Get on!"
Orlando's eyes went wide as the horse skidded to a halt, and he hurriedly threw his leg over, gripping Viggo's waist and awkwardly hoisting himself up even as the animal continued to move.
"Give me the gun," Viggo ordered as he steered the horse in a zig zag pattern, wary of the stationary man who was shooting again. Orlando did as he was told, and squeaked under his breath when Viggo handed him the reigns, taking them uncertainly with his arms around Viggo's waist.
But the horse was a good one, and seemed to know what the plan was, so Orlando had relatively little to do as the man who had been raised on the American frontier loaded his weapon, took aim, and shot the last soldier where he stood.
It was only when they were far from the village, hurrying away from the British strongholds and the Gorkha Empire, now a protectorate of the British East India Company, that Orlando thought to ask.
"Where did you get the ammunition?"
"From the village. Someone there had seen soldiers heading up the mountain when he went to get water from the river. I knew you might be in danger. How did you find my gun?"
"I watched you. When the elders told you to get rid of it, I didn't think you'd really just throw it away. So I followed and saw where you buried it. I was curious about you."
Viggo smiled and shook his head. "Your curiosity just saved our lives."
Orlando laughed and shrugged. "Only mine."
"No," Viggo disagreed, reaching back and squeezing Orlando's thigh with the hand not holding the reigns. "I would've thrown myself off the cliff if I'd returned to find you dead."
"But… you survived losing the first man you loved."
"I didn't love him," Viggo corrected. "I wanted to love him, but he didn't let me. You've always let me love you."
"Oh," Orlando whispered, lowering his forehead to the space between Viggo's shoulder blades. "So what do we do now?"
"Now?" Viggo smiled and slowed the horse, turning to kiss Orlando's mouth. "Now we ride north. And one day, I'll run my fingers through your curls."
Orlando smiled and nuzzled Viggo's neck. "I would like that."
"Then you will have it."
And that was how, in the year of our Lord 1816, Viggo came to be free, and a boy named Orlando learned how to dream. What happened to the lovers after that, our story does not say, but it is a safe assumption that, whether in China or somewhere on the way, despite narrow escapes from the law and many a harsh Himalayan winter, they finally lived happily ever after.
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