love is a death sentence

by narawangsa

Seventh time's the charm.

notes. for all the kids in the spabel chat, u guys made me do this. historical accuracy is spotty at best, but you know that's never stopped me.
ratings/warnings. het!pairing, obvs. and since we're dabbling in could-have-beens, character death is bound to get involved. also spotty historical accuracy, have i mentioned that?

love is a death sentence.

(now be kind, and aim for my heart.)

. . .

i. gallia belgica.

Summer weather was rarely this harsh this side of the river Somme.

The years before had been milder, yes, but this year's breezes seemed sporadic at best, when previously it used to come as if with every flap of a sparrow's wings. Daybreak seemed to be getting earlier and earlier. But the little family farm was in good condition: the harvest was looking to be well this year, and the livestock hale; so really, Brihtwyn thought, she couldn't complain.

What she could complain of was her little brother Leif, and his hankering for produce that were not only out of season, but expensive. Eadwulf, when he heard of this, would undoubtedly have a fit, and she would eventually have to whittle him down – ned, please, i baked you the loaves you liked! Or he would brood silently in a corner like a hen, displeasure at his younger siblings radiating out of him as if from a furnace.

Brihtwyn let out a long-suffering sigh as the heat bore down on her as she rushed through the marketplace. Really, what was Leif thinking? Grapes and olive-bread were hard enough to come by even when the coasts did bring a relative abundance of Massilian merchants and inland-sailors. And now the pounding heat of summer, coupled with the capricious whims of the stationed Roman foot-soldiers – well, it now took more for traders to decide whether hawking their wares at a little port town in Gallia Belgica was worth it. Even more so when bustling Aldenburgensis with her fortresses and watchtowers were only another day's walk.

Not only were her brothers stupid, Brihtwyn decided, they were also cruel. To make a mule out of their only sister! She ought to run away with one of the foot-soldiers these days, that would show them. And then perhaps they would finally pull their noses out of their bookkeeping work that she suspected left their minds crumbling like honeycakes, and allow Brihtwyn her fancies every now and then.

Her thoughts halted as she barreled straight into a solid pillar of flesh and tumbled to the ground. Her fall, strangely, felt cushioned, and Brihtwyn opened her eyes to look straight into another's, irises hazel and brilliant, like a thousand miles of meadow lit from sunrise.

His palms on her skin were tar-rough, black beneath the nails and salt at the knuckles. He sat up, a hand cradling the back of his head, mouth curling into a pained grimace. He was as fine and dark as a Roman stallion. Brihtwyn froze. Such coloring was not particularly common in a little port town so far north.

"Woah, mind yourself," he admonished lightly, grimace morphing into a good-natured grin. He spoke the common Latin tongue with a Hispanic lilt. "Wouldn't want you hurt."

Heat rushing to her face, Brihtwyn attempted to return the smile. She dusted herself off and offered a hand to help him up. The effort of pulling him made her curls sway, gold as the sun shining across Nehalennia's temple. She gathered herself and her purchases, offered an apology for not looking, and was about to go on her way.

"Have we met before?" he asked, stopping her. He sounded so sincere that Brihtwyn tipped her head back to take another look at him.

"I don't think so."

He was looking for something in her face, but Brihtwyn was not a liar – she did not know this man. When he pressed his lips together in reply, she fought away shivers that had no place in such a hot day.

"Oi, Antonius! The old captain's hollering for your help again down at the dock, so if you want your payment you better haul your ass over and see to it before I send you to the realms of Orcus myself! Quickly, lest the farting geezer dies of old age!"

"That's your grandfather you're referring to, Lavinius! And I'm coming, so save your threats for when we are out at sea!"

"Antonius?" Brihtwyn repeated, incredulous. Even this far in the hinterlands the family name was well-known, if not outright legendary. "You're kin to the dead general?"

He laughed. "Perhaps, though I myself am but a mere sailor. Sorry to disappoint."

"No," she said, but the sun had lowered enough already and she would not let her mindless dawdling allow Ned to find out about Leif's costly request. She gasped and turned to sprint back home, a breathlessness that she knew was not because of her running, or the heat. Over her shoulder, she offered, "I'm known as Brihtwyn."

"'The bright one'," Antonius called after her. "May the heavens allow me the chance to once again bask in your glow."

She giggled and smiled all the way home, ignoring the dumbstruck look on Leif's face when he greeted her at the door.

Days passed and it held true that it took more for traders to decide to stop at a little port town in Gallia Belgica. When news came two weeks later of a storm out at sea that had taken the souls of sailors out on the water, she knew, without needing to be told, that Antonius and all of his fellow shipmates had drowned.

Something inside of her locked shut, and waited for another lifetime.

. . .

ii. merovingian flanders.

It was just a shame that the Duke Charles wasn't a kinder man. Behind closed doors there were rumors that this Prince of the Franks had watered-down blue blood coursing through his veins, but this was royalty, and she knew how rumors spread. Her Frisian half-brother called the Frankish ruler a hell-damned brute only when his back was turned. She understood – Nothelm had not served thrice in Charles Martel's war-council and had himself held as hostage by his own countrymen without cultivating some resentment at the Palace Mayor's never-ending campaigns.

In times of war, even ladies-in-waiting were charged with the task of protecting, if not their mistresses, then at least themselves. The safety of the Charles Martel's wife was of the utmost importance. Possessing Burgundian blood already made one suspect, despite the loyalty shown by one's brothers. There was no need for any more slander marring one's family name. No, if Queen Swanahild were to die tonight, all their work – hers, Nothelm's, even Leofric, the youngest of them – all of it would be for naught.

Biltrude steeled herself and opened the eye-holes of the door, halting the rapid banging upon it. She imagined the abbey she was now in as a citadel, stoic and somber in the moonlight.

"Open the door in the name of Allah," a voice called, rough and hoarse, and Biltrude almost dropped her dagger. Its hilt was hidden under the folds of her clothes, incongruous against the fabric. By now, the Queen must have been spirited out the back by the rest of the ladies, all under the guise of nuns, including herself. Biltrude swallowed. How long would she be able to give them to run? Would they even get away at all?

She forced her hands to stop trembling, to open the doors and let the man in. When he took a step forward, she would gut him. Her brothers were good soldiers, and tonight she must be one too.

"Please," the voice said, sudden and desperate. "Please, I only need water. Is this not a house of God? Please, show mercy."

The man sounded as if he had been choked with dirt, and his words were laced with distress. Biltrude heaved the door open with loose limbs and a tense heart. When she caught sight of him, she went very still.

He was the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes on, hair dark even under the moon, and eyes green like a torchlight just doused with oil. There was a strange cast to them, she felt, and something tightened in her chest.

"'Knock and it shall be opened unto you,'" she quoted, slow and deliberate, the very picture of the gentle abbess she was trying to pass herself of as. The air felt heady; if only by her repeated mantra of the Queen must live, Nothelm must live, Leofric must live. My brothers must, must, must. "We don't have much, but we have enough to feed a hungry stranger, as tasked to us by Christ."

He stared at her for a very long time.

"May Allah bless you a thousand-fold for your kindness," he finally said.

His name was Adnan-Isa ibn Farhan and he was an army scout of the Imārah Qurṭuba, the Córdoban emirate. A motherless son of war-torn Andalus, the military had been his only hope of a future until he got separated from his brothers-in-arms, and now could either be killed by Charles Martel's men as an enemy soldier or by the Emir's as a deserter. Biltrude listened to him and tried to ignore the strange flush creeping up her neck as he gave her a self-pitying smile. She did not see the little vial of sleeping powder he had in his hands, or the way his gaze turned hard where she looked away.

Later, when she had fallen prey to a deep sleep induced by the drug, Adnan searched the abbey for his mark, the Frankish Queen. Unsurprisingly, her Majesty was nowhere to be found. His jaw clenched erratically as he returned to the sleeping girl dressed deceptively as a nun – she must be one of the ladies-in-waiting, no doubt; one of the Queen's disposable protectors. His hand reached for the dagger peeking out of her sleeves, and with it he slit her throat.

As blood pooled on the floor, Adnan felt his heart harden just a little bit more.

. . .

iii. the burgundian netherlands.

The clouds that crossed the sun hung in a bright sky, on the afternoon that Joanna of Castile and Philip of Burgundy were wed.

Beatrijs of Brabant had worn her dress proudly; a gilded, lovely thing cut from red velvet and golden lace. She was just as surprised as any to see her young Archduke demand a marital blessing as soon as the princess had finished reading her Most Catholic parents' letter aloud, her Castilian tongue giving the words a lilting, pretty timbre. Then, the courtiers-turned-guests of the makeshift-wedding had knelt, the pattern of a cross was waved vaguely in the air, and when they rose Philip and Joanna were now man and wife.

At her side, her younger brother Louis had nudged her.

"I hope your marriage won't be this impromptu, sis," he whispered with a smile. "I hope we at least get a proper feast."

"You must take that up with our brother," she had said, attempting a smile back even as her throat had closed at the mention of the marriage. They snuck a peek to the back of the room to catch sight of him. Nicolaes Vinckboons of Limburg and Brabant had his shoulders squared, looking ever-sober even when caught by surprise. "He's handling the finances of the affair, after all. Don't you remember?"

"Well, yes," Louis had blinked. "But you are the one getting married, sis."

i am getting married, the thought swirled. Her betrothed was a good man, an acquaintance of her family; even though at thirty he was nearly twice her age. He had lost his first wife in childbirth, and then mere hours later the baby had followed. This deep loss had made him a very sad man; it had been rumored, but he was still rich enough, well-bred enough. A marriage to the sister of the Vinckboons was sure to bring happiness to both families. It was ridiculous, Beatrijs knew, for her to think of it as a burden: i am getting married. Even now, as her leg hooked at a bare, suntanned waist, and her breath came in hot stutters, the thought remained, insistent. i am getting married.

And the hand sliding up her thigh did not belong to her future husband.

Antonio Fernández of Alcalá had been part of the entourage accompanying the princess Joanna on her journey from Castile to Flanders. He brought with himself the learned mind of a Salamancan student and the stories of an esteemed explorer's only living son, quickly cementing his position as a court favorite. At the feast following his princess-turned-Archduchess Joanna's proper wedding ceremony, he had met Beatrijs's eye behind a goblet of wine and smiled. She had been enchanted at once.

Now her palms found his chest and she pushed against him, his mouth parting from her neck with a wet smack. "What's the matter, my love?" he asked, voice low.

She swallowed.

No, Antonio of Alcalá was first rumored to possess a libido that rivaled the Burgundian Archduke himself. But Beatrijs of Brabant was a Vinckboons and thus inherited all of the Vinckboons boldness – if not the lands; and hence, she thought bitterly, the need for her betrothal – and she had refused to be another notch on his bedpost. Antonio upped his ante, and she upped hers, and soon the game of chase between them had developed into something deeper.

He had never called her his love aloud, before this.

"Nothing," she breathed. She saw his Adam's apple bob up and down and knew what was on her mind was on his, too.

i am getting married, but not to you.

Beatrijs shut her eyes, and leaned in. Her wedding was tomorrow and this kiss would likely be their last.

. . .

iv. novum belgium.

This was a prosperous age; those who could write would scratch their ink upon their books. The slave trade was thriving, and there were entire acres ripe for the picking in this land called New Netherlands, New Holland, New Amsterdam; ports named after Saints Dominic and Martin and the belligerent Spanish king Philip. They were all called the Americas, if only because proud European tongues twisted painfully when attempting to call it otherwise, and so in here the Americas there was much to be had.

Nathaniel and Luykas van der Meer were sons of clever Dutch settlers who ran a modest business. Five generations back, perhaps, their blood would be called solidly burgher; but now they were merely two self-made men, working together like the brothers they were. No one said anything about how the town governor had entered their abode with a chin held high and came out looking like he had seen death. Or about how the Director-General bowed his head a tad too low in their presence, or how deputies never failed to come pay their respects every other day. No, the brothers van der Meer hung muskets on their walls and had honest guldens in their saddles and all anyone ever said was that the two were as canny businessmen as their forefathers.

Except one.

There had been a man, back when the town was but a speck of land past the edge of the map. If the sun had been high and the wind had been graceless one could look at him and mistake something in his face for goodness.

Folks had called the thing on his face – in his eyes – as goodness; but that was because the true name for it hurt. Greed and resentment had a lot of faces but the most dangerous was the one coated in anger.

Folks had called the man Antonino, and Antonino was born without a family name, excepting – gossip had said – the ruddy blood of moriscos. His ancestors had been Spanish Jews escaping persecution and for years had whelped their sons on natives and slaves. No, others had said, Antonino himself was a runaway slave from the Spanish-controlled south. No, he was a marooned sailor from a pirate ship. He was an illegitimate son of a missionary who could not keep his vows. It was as if the man had as many pasts as there were days in the year. But did it matter? After all, at least one of their many guesses, folks said, was bound to be true.

Well, if any had been untrue Antonino didn't deny them. What he did deny was corruption; what he craved was justice, what he wanted was righteousness but he defined them all himself. The folks of the town might have been devout men, but Antonino had been his own God, his own priest. His own judge and jury and hangman and most of all (though he never noticed) his own devil.

Antonino had wanted the world. Antonino had wanted a girl. He had struck a match against its box and thought; he wanted both of them in his own image.

The brothers van der Meer used to have another house, it was said, but it had been burnt. The brothers van der Meer used to have a sister, it was said, but she had been burnt, too.

. . .

v. new york city.

Antonio was twenty-two when the family finally hit it big. The last old man had died and Lovino's grandfather took over, immediately summoning his grandsons from a New England boarding school. Lovino and Feliciano were both fifteen years old and fresh-faced; still prickling with youth, minds not yet sly.

But Antonio was nothing of the sort, so of course he would be the one charged to protect them. He knew enough to not ask why me when he was assigned, although he'd be lying if he said he didn't want to.

"Y'know, because Gramps loves us, right, but Gramps also loves broads and Gramps also broke a lot of people's knees," Lovino slurred, shrugging. Antonio thought that his cousin was way too young to be talking like this, drinking like this; but then again, what did he know? He had started young too, didn't he?

"Hey, watch your drunk-ass mouth, huh?" he chided, though to Lovino's credit he admittedly was taking the whole thing well. Better than his twin, anyway – Feliciano had taken Antonio aside as men with cigars filed into his grandfather's office, and blurted: i heard there were three bodies found in the harbor today, and they say that gramps is – they say that he – they say –

"Yeah, yeah. 'Shuddup and just watch the show,' got it," Lovino grumbled. "Let's hope we get our fuckin' money's worth, at least."

Antonio snorted. "You do know that your Gramps has this place in his back pocket, right? Any profit it makes practically goes straight to his bank account. Or accounts, I should say."

"Jeez, now who's not watching their drunk-ass mouth?" Lovino said. Antonio smiled innocently, downed his gin, and Lovino waved a hand signaling the bartender for another.

Up on the stage there stood this broad with short curls and slim hips, and he thought – hadn't he seen her a lot? Boy, this sorry excuse of a speakeasy definitely deserved to be in shambles if they had only one good act. And damn if 'Gramps' didn't have a good eye for scouting out places like this. Antonio wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and thought: yeah, there was no doubting it – when the girl up there wasn't playing the saxophone with the band, she was crooning into the microphone while draped atop a piano.

And she was talented, for sure; she had a voice that would probably sound amazing panting his name at the back of a room, but this was New York and Antonio was certain he could find a dozen other girls just as talented, if not more. Good pipes and a pretty face just didn't fly these days. People were exhausted after the war and they wanted something more. He'd seen her enough to hazard that she looked German or Belgian, or something; but was probably born in Wisconsin or Philadelphia, or something. jesus christ, he mused as he peered into his glass. How strong was this stuff, again? Even his thoughts sounded slurred.

Well, she got the yellow hair, though. In the light of the back room, it looked ethereal, maybe like the glint of sunlight on fresh snow. Maybe not.

They stared at her, Lovino and him, these two young men like ghosts with their cigarettes dangling loose in their fingers like thin, thin bones. Transfixed, their eyes glinting blank in the dim light. People like them ain't got no blood, Antonio breathed as he took another swig of booze. People like him, like Lovino, like his Gramps – what flowed through their veins was as lawless as the moonshine they drank and bought and peddled; just as pale, just as ice-cold.

And he wasn't wrong, exactly. In fact, he was right – too right. What he didn't count on was that it would only take four years for fifteen-year-old Lovino to turn nineteen, and it took even less for nineteen-year-old Lovino to decide to kill a man for his grandfather's business. Antonio would think that his cousin was still way too young to be dressing like this, acting like this; but then again, what did he know? At nineteen he had wanted to fit in too, didn't he?

At nineteen Lovino would want to grow into his family, his legacy. It would be evident in his hair, his walk, his bones, the way he dipped his fedora low over one eye. It would be evident in the way he took his gun from his coat, the way he aimed straight at Antonio's head, and said, coolly: thank you for your service, cuz.

The next day's papers would read: man found dead at harbor, connection to mob unknown, and somewhere in a cramped New York apartment a yellow-haired jazz singer – maybe Belgian, maybe Philly – would take a long, long drag from her cigarette, her lips red and eyes lined.

"What's got you down, sis?" her brother would ask, a mug of coffee he had bought from the café opposite the station nestled in his hands.

"Nothing," she'd say, and it would feel like a lie. "Nothing. Just another day in the city."

. . .

vi. operation isabella.

Franco was a pragmatist.

A man like him didn't get to where he was right now without knowing what he was doing. And Franco damn well knew. He played the Axis and he played the Allies, all while keeping an iron grip on Spain.

Franco was a pragmatist, the Nazis didn't like it, and an operation was planned to flush him out, to finally see where his allegiances lie.

And it was her job, now, to make this operation fail.

"You think you're fooling me?" he said. He was no Franco – God, even she was deemed as too much of a rookie to even consider taking him down, and she was practically one of the Allies' best. No, people were dying, and there simply wasn't the kind of food the country needed even without a German invasion. Spain would pull through with Franco in control. Spain would pull through even despite this man, and other men like him, lying weakly at her feet.

He was an officer: high-up enough to have the clearance she wanted, but low-profile enough to not care about being seen with a beautiful, airheaded dame dangling on his arm. Sergeant Fernández, A. Carriedo, serving under the colonel that the British wanted dead. And if she had to gun through other men in order to make that one fall, well, what then?

The comely sergeant fell for her hook, line and sinker. Took her out, fucked her, called her baby; and, in the rare instances that he was tender and he allowed himself to speak in his mother tongue, he called her mi bella. She thought it was fitting, if she didn't think about the irony. After all, she'd had many names before him, before this mission. Each time she had tossed them away after they served their purpose. Bella was no more her name than any of the others were.

The pistol in her hand pulsed, like the slow grind of time, a clock digging its way deeper and deeper into flesh. That was when he arched up, leaned in; she met him halfway and allowed him to kiss her, allowed him to press his lips full against the length of her own and press down. Allowed his shaking fingers to splay against her knee, the individual digits skirting her hosiery. She allowed it and she was still as a statue, unmoving. She made a skilled gasp when his teeth met the outside of her mouth, the kind she had practiced with all men who have touched her before him, and then he broke into a frustrated sigh when he recognized the trick in hindsight, leaving her to hide her hollow victory.

When he spoke he sounded bitter, now. And something else. Resigned, maybe. "Oh, you do, don't you?" he laughed. "You think I don't know who you are."

"Well." she said, the word woolly and lonely at the back of her throat.

She said nothing else after that, and after a single gunshot neither did he.

Despair was a homeland ravaged by war, a brother ten miles behind enemy lines, and the other eager to enlist, eager to die so young. Despair was mascara-streaked cheeks, a silent sense of professionalism, a young woman standing over a young man's broken body despite still feeling his handprints on her hips. Despair was not an Allied field-agent staring down a casualty, a Spanish sergeant too wet behind the ears to not fall for her looks, her tricks. To not fall for her.

There was great beauty in despair, if one knew where to look.

His last words played over and over like a broken record. you think i don't know who you are. well.

Well, truth be told, Bella didn't quite know who she was now, either.

. . .

vii. tampa bay.

Bel walked down the park, swaddled in a thin pastel scarf with her bag clutched in one hand and a nice, freshly-bought sub in the other. Autumn in Florida never felt like autumn, more like a prolonged period of the summer's cooler days, with the occasional chilly-ish breeze and rain for variety. It was something to be grateful for, she thought. She couldn't imagine going back to school during an autumn anywhere else. The start of a new semester shouldn't be heralded by the start of bad weather. That would just be depressing.

...Like that guy over there, sitting cross-legged on her usual bench, head tilted to the sky and hands empty in his lap. His face was scrunched up in a way Lucas's did when he found – or couldn't find, rather – what was wrong with his coding, before he finally gave up and went on a break to watch old Puff the Magic Dragon videos on YouTube.

The guy on the bench looked vaguely familiar, Bel thought. And she was never one to shy away from greeting a vaguely-familiar face, anyway.

"Hey, hi. Are you okay?" she asked. He probably looked familiar because they had shared some classes together, or something. Hell, he might be one of the guys that Niels liked to hang out with over at the student center, or one of his intern friends. Not that he had a lot of those, that hermit.

"Jesus, yeah, I'm just having a hell of a day, someone stole my guitar – wait, do I know you?"

Bel's lips quirked into a smile. "Actually, I think so, yeah. Or at least, you might know my brother, Niels Johanssen? He's interning for the mayor's office, so you've probably seen him around." not likely, her mind added. not unless you work at starbucks and accidentally got one of his orders mixed up.

He palmed his forehead with such exaggeration it seemed like he was a cartoon character. She wondered if it would leave a mark. "Shit, I – Niels? I know that guy," he laughed. "He once almost got me fired for sending him the wrong ink samples he needed for the mayor's campaign pamphlets."

Close enough. "Sorry," she offered on her brother's behalf. With siblings like these she should really get used to feeling second-hand embarrassment by now.

"No big," he said. "In fact, hey, don't be sorry. Make it up to me. You look like you could use a coffee, and I was just about to grab one myself."

She laughed, part delighted and part incredulous. "How does that count as making it up to you?"

"I'm buying," he said.

"That makes even less sense," she said. "What did you say your name was, again?"

"I didn't," he pressed his lips together in an attempt to smother his grin. Then he said, "Kidding. I'm Antonio."

"You can call me Bel," she replied, even as the knowledge of him slipped down her spine like a drop of dew – i know you, i know you, i know you.

When he gave her a smile she wondered, dimly, if he felt it, too.

. . .