legs. He was not afraid of the sea urchins or scorpion fish. He shuffled through the dark pools of sea water, his shadow always behind him. As Wilmore waded farther away from the bank he disturbed the flights of laffes, cormorants and corbijous. Richard watched him while standing with bare feet in the cold water. Richard had asked to go with him, but Wilmore always said no, “Your grace is too fragile,” he would say. “You are too small…and your soul is in my care!” Wilmore often stated that Richard’s father, the Duke had entrusted Ricard and Eleanor’s well-being and education to him. Richard knew this wasn’t true since his father was deceased. But Richard liked the way he said it... with such sincerity and good will. “Your soul is in my hand!” And, Richard knew he and Eleanor were the only people Wilmore permitted to go with him to the riverbank. Richard’s own cousin, Loche wasn’t even permitted to go along, even though he was older than Richard, and Eleanor wasn’t either, in the beginning… because she was a girl!
But Wilmore relented when Eleanor nearly outran him through the crops. Wilmore laughingly stated, ‘the woman is half Cheetah’. And Richard remembered her saying in return…”do not forget who does the hunting, it isn’t the male lion who lies licking his nuts, but the females in the pride.”
Richard liked Wilmore a lot; he was a friend. His cousin Loche had said he could not be a friend with a black man but Richard cared less about the color of his skin. He thought his cousin had made the comment because he was jealous, he wished he could walk through the fields with him on the way to the sea and share his wisdom, gained from doing and being a part of nature.
When the tide was very low, as it was early in the morning, the black rocks became visible. There were great dark pools, too, and others so clear you could almost believe that light came from them…it was an oxymoron. At the bottom the sea urchins were violet spheres, anemones opened their blood-red corollas, and jelly-fish slowly waved their long, hairy arms at Wilmore, as to say…’beware’. Richard stared into the depths of the pools while in the distance Wilmore prodded near the rocks for octopus with the point of his stick.
Here, the sound of the sea was like beautiful music. Waves blown up by the wind, broke on the coral reefs far away; Richard could feel the vibration in the rocks and the current which flows up to the sky. It was as if there were a wall on the horizon which the sea was trying to break down. Sometimes a burst of spray rose up, only to fall back onto the reefs in the next instant. The tide had started to come in and this was the moment when Wilmore could spear the octopuses, for they felt the renewal of the water from the open sea in their tentacles and came out of their hiding places. The pools were flooded one-by-one and the Jelly-fish waved their arms in the current, clouds of small fish rose to the surface in the swells, and Richard saw a coffer fish swim past, looking hurried and scared. Richard had been coming here for a long time, since he was adopted (informally) by the Duke. He knew every pool, every rock, every nook; he crawled, and where the eels and octopuses hid. He would stand very still and silent, so the fish would forget he was there. How calm and beautiful the sea was at that moment. When the sun was high above the water became light, pale blue, the color of the sky. The waves thundered onto the reefs with all their might. Dazzled by the light, Richard squinted to try to see Wilmore. The sea had come through the inlet and was driving slow waves across the rocks.
When Richard got to the shore, to the estuary of the two rivers, he saw Wilmore sitting high up onto the beach, in the shade of a tree. Ten or more octopuses hung like scalps at the end of his long pole. Wilmore waited there for Richard without moving, he was tired and glad for the moment to lurk between contentment and sleep. The penetrating sun burned Richard’s skin and hair. He quickly stripped off his clothes and dived naked into the water, at the point where two rivers met the sea which Richard had been told by Wilmore that two rivers meeting is one thing but when those bodies of water display distinguishing colors from one without mixing, the color swatch can be amazing, like a painter’s palette…rich in the mixture.
Richard felt relief from the heat as he swam against the current of the soft water until he could feel the sharp little pebbles on his stomach and knees. When he was totally immersed in the river he grabbed hold of a large stone and let the fresh water run over him to wash away the sting of the sun and the salty sea. That was all there was…only what he felt and saw; the very blue sky, the noise of the sea breaking on the reefs, the cold water running over his skin, and the undertow playing with his balls, causing his member to salute.
He got out of the water shivering despite the heat, going from blistering to shivering. He dressed without drying. The sand gritted in his shirt and trousers and it scratched his feet in the bottom of his shoes. His long curly hair was still sticky with salt and it frizzed like the Wild Man in him. Wilmore had been watching Richard without moving, his smooth dark face indecipherable. Seated in the shade of the tree he remained immobile, both hands resting on the pole from which the octopuses hung like tatters.
Wilmore never swam in the sea, Richard had wondered if Wilmore could even swim? Wilmore was the product of a loving grandfather who taught him to bathe as the last act of the day and to do so far from his home where he was taught to wash with certain plants in the gorge. His grandfather had taught him to do so that he would grow strong and the plants juices would help him have a man’s penis… thick and long. Richard thought this was interesting but an old wives tale since it had not helped him.
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Richard liked and admired Wilmore because Wilmore took the time to explain nature and the manner in which it reacts to the needs of the body like the functioning of the eye with all its tiny veins sending orders to the gut for nutrient channeling…like a message to send zinc to the prostate. He knew so many things about trees, water and the sea and the role man played in this laboratory from which he sprung. Wilmore strongly believed man came from the sea over millions of years as a single cell washing into a warm pool and over a million years losing his long tail but gaining a hunters instinct for food beyond vegetation… becoming an expert at killing to survive. Wilmore learned everything he knew from his grandfather, and also from his grandmother, and old black woman who was native to Cases Noyales. Wilmore knew the names of all the fish and insects and all edible plants in the forest, all the wild fruits, and he could tell the trees apart by nothing more than their smell, or just by chewing a bit of the bark.
Wilmore knew so many things that you could never be bored in his company. Eleanor also liked Wilmore and asked him many questions, and he often brought her small gifts; a fruit from the forest, or maybe a flower, a shell, a piece of white flint or an obsidian, which is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock. Obsidian is produced when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth.
Certain individuals have been endowed with a blessing, or in some cases a curse when they are able to design a dream which they are able to “call-up”, such was the case with Richard and in this magical state he was able to possess the child of his dreams, the girl of his life, the woman he would marry. Because they were raised as brother and sister, there was a sibling bond as definitive as earth to water but as they grew from children to the teen period the love they felt as siblings melted into a fanatically enhanced romantic attraction which they recognized and discussed openly between each other.
Wilmore was the only person with whom they had shared this oxymoronic relationship which posed sensitive and life changing prospects for both of them, as well as for Wilmore. As much as the Duke had come to love Richard, as an adoptive parent, his love for Eleanor was without bounds; was without explanation, and it was obvious the Duke had a vision for her to inherit his kingdom and to rule it wisely in his stead into the future. That future did not envision Eleanor mating with Richard, or marrying her. The Duke saw Richard as Eleanor’s finger…there to scratch an itch; there to know and love her in a protectorate capacity as a big brother…not, in any way as a lover!
Eleanor’s father, William X was not a man to ire, he took no prisoners and he was quite direct, often counseling Richard on trips to hunt and fish.
