The Egg for savageseraph

[vbmods.livejournal.com]

Title: The Egg
Author: alex_quine
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Request: Genres - angst, AU; prompt(s) or general mood(s) - mystery/mysterious
Disclaimer: The originals of these characters belong to their copyright holders; I borrow them for entertainment, not profit
Summary: St. Petersburg; Winter 1889, and the goldsmith may just have sold his soul.
Author's Note: Prophecy/Percy Jackson/Anna Karenina crossover AU. The Imperial Easter Eggs were crafted using techniques that have been lost to us, enamelled in jewel colours we can no longer make.



When the Danish Princess Dagmar travelled to Russia to marry, to become Empress Maria Fyodorovna, she had brought with her a modest retinue, but around it a tail of Danish merchants and craftsmen had made St. Petersburg their home. The official language of the Court was French and if they spoke French they could make a good living, providing luxuries for the Russians and a taste of home for their compatriots.

The goldsmith, stood looking out over his busy workshop, piously thanked God for the Danish. Maria Fyodorovna had known the egg belonging to the Danish Royal Family since childhood. It was an old bauble but a pretty thing, an ivory egg with a golden yolk and miniature jewelled toys inside that. The Tsarina had been charmed by his first re-creation of it in gold and enamel. He had placed a tiny copy of the Russian Imperial Crown at its centre and now his fortune was like to be made with the order for new eggs for each year, but he must make each one more wonderful than the one before, the design more original, the craftsmanship more extra-ordinary in order to keep the patronage. And each must have a 'surprise' at its centre, he must retain the sense of fun, said the Tsar, as though injecting laughter and wonderment into metal and gem was the easiest thing in the world. So the goldsmith and his workers sought to push at the edges of what was possible, to imagine fantasy and make it real.

The single-minded desire to go further had brought the priest to his door. At least he thought he was a holy man, a monk perhaps. The goldsmith was a good Lutheran, but as a foreigner resident in the city he kept his faith a private thing amidst the maelstrom of Orthodox incense and chanting, the glitter of vestments more gorgeous than anything he would ever make.

In some respects it was the priest's plain garb, the black robe, his long hair swept severely back off his forehead, which had made him think for a time that this was a man he knew from somewhere. When the monk had told him that he was on a mission of charity, exchanging his labour for fuel for the fight, the goldsmith had been politely interested. When the man told him that he could show him how to work in enamels in ways no one had ever seen before, the goldsmith had felt a shiver run up his spine and had grasped the man by the hand to welcome him. The flesh was surprisingly cold and soft and the monk's long nails scratched, but he could overlook the priest's eccentricities if the work was good.

They had set him a test, to enamel over a square of gold, quite plain, so that any bubbles or flaws in the finished surface would show and when the allotted time was up the goldsmith and his master craftsman had entered the workroom expecting to see...whatever they had expected had been obliterated by the furnace heat that had enveloped them. The room was stifling, the goldsmith imagined he could actually see the paint on the woodwork beginning to blister, and the eyes of the young apprentice who'd been tasked to fetch and carry for the priest, were red-rimmed and wild.

It seemed that the lad would have spoken, but the figure hunched over the fire simply waved them away and they retreated without a word. Twice more they'd returned yet each time been sent away empty-handed. The apprentice had stumbled out of the workroom once to fetch water and gasped that the priest was adding the colour in thin layers, firing each as he went, but he could say no more. When at last the door had been flung back and the priest emerged, he had dropped into the goldsmith's palm a young leaf and the goldsmith had all but dropped to his knees, shaking, staring open-mouthed at the pure, green, translucent enamel that covered the gold. He had never seen such a colour before; it lived in his hand...and he coveted it...so the priest, Luce, became a presence in the workrooms whenever a fresh colour was asked for.

Just now they were stood around the worktable with the plans of the new Imperial Egg spread out on the table before them. The plain white surface of the first egg was left behind and this year the outer panels would be covered in a sumptuous peach-pink. The goldsmith was sure that no-one would have seen its like. The surprise hidden within was to be a miniature hinged screen with paintings of the Tsarina's favourite palaces from her homeland and the Court Painters had sent them a young Danish artist who would paint two of the panels and see to the setting of all of them in their gold frames.

The young man's hands as they swept across the drawings were strong, assured, but there was still a certain softness of youth about the face, high cut cheekbones and wide blue-grey eyes that looked guilelessly on the world, a generous mouth that smiled perhaps a little sadly. Stood back from the group, leaning at his ease against the table, Luce quietly licked his lips.

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When he walked away from the goldsmith's workshop through a crisp St. Petersburg morning, sunlight was glinting off the snow that crunched beneath his feet. Viggo stopped for a moment to gaze at the shadows dancing on the opposite bank as a group of skaters passed by on the frozen canal. They were army recruits from the look of them, lithe figures in trim, blue uniforms who swooped and spun. Their laughter and joking carried through the still air towards him. For a moment Viggo imagined that Sasha's voice called him to join them, but Sasha was gone from him forever. He had been lured away by a richer man, their shared dreams and plans cast aside so easily, and although Viggo's heart told him that he was worth more, his head that he should bend his whole energies to his art and work through the loss, his lonely soul found it too hard to let go.

The sound of the skaters' laughter was fading into the distance and the sunlight seemed to have faded with them, the sky beginning to cloud over to a leaden grey. The commission for the Danish Palaces had come as a welcome distraction to Viggo, yet he still carried with him the half-finished miniature of his faithless lover. Its slim wooden casing pressed against his breast now. He had begun it in anger, portraying Sasha as another Ganymede being snatched away by the eagle that was Zeus in disguise, but had gone no further than the head of the young man gazing at the eagle with awe, before abandoning it. He might have crushed the fragile thing in an instant and saved himself much pain, but as yet he could not do it and so the painter trudged through gently falling snow, and thought his heart as cold and dead as the world about him.

Ganymede, the fairest of youths, cup-bearer and lover; aeons of the Gods, and worlds of men, had passed since Zeus had set him in the stars as the water-carrier, but the lord of Olympus remembered fondly the tilt of his head, the half-smile that played across that beautiful mouth in his ecstasy and so he kept an eye over the years on the efforts of men to portray his boy. He had seen sculptors, painters, workers in print and metal, offer up marvels of their craft, seen himself portrayed most often as the eagle who carried Ganymede away from Troy, but not for centuries had an image caught at him as this half-finished sketch in the pocket of a figure almost lost in the snow.

In St. Petersburg's streets there was a storm rising, a wind whipped the flakes up to sting faces and chill hands and yet the lonely figure did not seek shelter. As Zeus looked down he could see the young painter staggering onwards, buffeted by the wind. A crust of white had formed on his back and was beginning to cover his hair. Once the man glanced upwards and Zeus believed he saw salt tears all but frozen on the youth's cheek.

In an instant Zeus knew hunger; felt his blood stir at the sight of his Ganymede reborn and more, he spied a dark presence begin to trail the young man through the empty streets, lurking in alleyways as he passed. It made Zeus uneasy; there was something abroad that fed on despair and suddenly he knew that this time he must seek the youth out in human form. The blizzard was growing wild, but as Viggo paused to catch his breath, clinging to a railing to stand upright, the dark shadow began to seep from a nearby gutter, spreading like a stain towards his feet, and at that moment Zeus saw a tall figure, muffled in a long cloak, appear from out the swirling snows and he swooped.

Viggo ducked his head against the driving wind, but it sucked the breath from him and he swayed, light-headed. It would be so easy to let go now, to sink down and let sleep take him and perhaps he would dream of Sasha. A sudden jolt and then strong hands gripping his sides almost to pain made him glance upwards and into green eyes that held a question, but before he could say aught, he'd been enfolded in a cloak and a low, warm voice was murmuring in his ear that they must get out of this hell. He staggered, going willingly where he was guided, a few steps and into a doorway. He heard a porter exclaim at his master's arrival from out such an unnatural storm, and then was half carried across a hall and into a room where his frozen coat was stripped from him and he was pressed down into a chair.

Viggo slumped against its high back, gasping for air. His head was spinning and for some moments he could think of nothing except how close he had come to surrendering to the storm. Was he so weak that he could not live without his betrayer. Did family or his painting mean so little. Now shame began to envelop him; that he should have been rescued by a stranger and he could not raise his eyes from the floor, where the crust of snow about his feet was beginning to melt. A puddle was forming on the marble. He could see the corner of the tiled stove that was thawing his boots and hear the chink of glassware behind him. A hand pressed a tumbler of spirits into his frozen grasp and he was urged to take a few sips only. The liquid stung, but it sent a fire down into his throat and at last, some words of gratitude on his lips, Viggo looked clearly at his saviour.

He was stood at the other side of the stove, a glass in his hand, regarding Viggo with calm amusement, a man in his prime, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, blond hair swept back from a lean and handsome face and those green eyes with their unspoken question.

"I thank you, sir," he began and went to rise, but the man moved with languid grace to block the move, standing over him so that Viggo had to sit back to look up at him.

"No need, it is a filthy storm."

Now that he had shrugged off the heavy cloak, Viggo could see the elegant lines of the tailoring beneath and smell the unmistakable scent of lime cologne. The man was come from the bath-house. He would have been stripped and washed, thought Viggo, his every need attended to before he sweated. The hand that gripped the crystal tumbler before Viggo's face was strong, with long, graceful fingers. Sasha had loved the bath-houses if only because there you could get your nails expertly polished. Viggo had never managed to quite remove every trace of pigment from beneath his fingernails and now he turned his glass away to hide them.

"I am Vig..."

"Vig," the man's unblinking gaze was beginning to make Viggo's breath come short in his throat. His saviour gestured with his glass.

"No more, Vig, I am Alexei and we were travellers in a storm."

For a moment, the man laid a hand gently on Viggo's shoulder, as he leant across him to reach a bell-pull beside the stove.

"Are you hungry, Vig. Will you join me for lunch?"

Viggo heard his stomach give a rumble in answer, could not help but laugh softly at himself and was rewarded when Alexei smiled in reply with a flash of white teeth and a raised eyebrow.

They discussed many things over the next hour. Although Viggo could never quite remember what it was that Alexei had revealed of himself, he knew that he had talked with an ease he had not known for many months. Vig could see that he was a cultured man and they had spoken much of art. The young painter had few friends with whom he could discuss such things and he wondered in passing why Alexei indulged one so clearly far beneath him socially. Viggo was not so naive as to dismiss the idea that this aristocrat thought him a habitué of the bath-houses too, but there was nothing of the seducer in his speech or manner. The maid in peasant garb who served them a light luncheon before the stove, as the blizzard raged outside, called him Count, yet Vig could see no trace of hauteur in his dealings with his impromptu guest or his household - all were treated the same. This was a man he could admire, Vig thought.

Just now Alexei's hand was hovering over a dish of candied fruit and Vig found himself watching the slip of pink tongue that passed between lips flushed with wine. The hand stilled, before swooping to select a morsel of orange peel. Alexei's eyes suddenly met his and Vig found his gaze caught; unable to look away he felt his cheeks burn.

The Count looked at him quizzically, said, "Open up," firmly and Vig found himself opening his lips to take the orange peel from his fingers. The sweet, dark, sticky stuff was soft in his mouth and a memory of home, his mother making orange preserves.

"Have you seen the Imperial Collection?" Alexei asked.

Over the next few weeks, Vig divided his time between the goldsmith's workshops and the house by the canal. True to his word, Alexei had obtained permission for his young protégée to visit the galleries of the principal palaces. Knowledgeable guides had been provided, but Vig reluctantly admitted to himself that he would have preferred Alexei's company.

Invitations to dine alone, to accompany him to the theatre were accepted cautiously at first, for Vig was wary of seeming to intrude on another world, but the Count displayed a subtle, skilful, understanding of the young man's feelings; the dinner was a simple one and at the theatre, they had not sat in Alexei's usual box, where they would have been on display to the world, but in an upper tier amongst humbler folk, where they were unremarked and enjoyed the liveliest discussions of the play with their neighbours.

And they retained that small ritual, by unspoken agreement, that if they were alone, Alexei would offer titbits to Vig, who would take them with a smile.

Then one day, the Count had suggested a visit to a bath-house, to banish the winter chill from their bones, and whatever faint suspicions Vig might have retained vanished in the steam rooms and plunge pools where Alexei treated him as a friend, an equal, and made no demands on him. He saw scars on the other man's body, enquired and was told simply of service to his country and one or two youthful indiscretions, and he had dared to ask the Count if he might paint his portrait. He had suggested riding dress as a suitable garb, but in truth he would have preferred to capture Alexei as he was then, naked but for a towel laid across his loins, glistening with sweat on golden skin.

At supper that evening, he had spoken of Sasha for the first time and been heard with sympathy and tact and at the finish, emboldened, he had selected a sweetmeat from the dish before them and held it out to the Count, who'd slowly leant forward and taken it, his lips brushing Vig's fingers in the passing.

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The construction of the egg continued apace. As the priest, Luce, experimented with colours, those engaged on lesser pieces one by one downed tools, until the workshop was silent but for the hissing of the gas mantles, the dull roar of the small furnace and the strange sing-song dirge that the priest was making under his breath.

Finally, he announced that they would try and locked himself away with the apprentice, who was become jittery and hollow-eyed so that the goldsmith warned him not to breath in the fumes from the furnace, no knowing what mixtures Luce used. Some days later, Luce finally emerged from a cloud of crimson vapours to place the first panel in the goldsmith's hands. The colour was lush, almost indecent; it spoke of hidden flesh, gorged with blood. The goldsmith had been scandalised when his foreman used a coarse expression to describe the colour, but the priest had simply curled his lip on a mirthless smirk that showed gapped teeth.

The young Dane also haunted the place with as ready a smile on his face as any could remember. He talked occasionally of a friend with whom he was exploring St. Petersburg as he should have done long since and seemed light-hearted, but no-one had laid eyes on this 'friend' and some doubted he existed. As to the palaces, he brought first one and then a group of the miniatures done by the official Court Painter. Setting them in their frames would be an easy enough task; it was his own painting that seemed the sticking point.

He had not exchanged three words with the priest until one day, restless, he had shifted from foot to foot as they watched the goldsmith slide the first miniature into its golden frame. In an expansive moment, Viggo confessed to Luce that he was finding the technique, of water-colours on mother-of-pearl, difficult to master and Luce had looked on him with kindly eyes and told him that his was the luck because he, Luce, knew something of the craft. And Luce was glad; the painter had come to him at last, as he had always known he would.

Thus it was that the pair had stayed behind one evening, after the workers had left. Vig was hunched over in concentration. There were oil lamps placed to throw light onto the tabletop. A magnifying glass on a stand allowed him to see the detail of a small square of mother-of-pearl set on a slanting board before him. He had sepia photographs of the palaces, a water-colour palette besides that and the finest of brushes, tiny wisps of sable hair. And yet the priest at his shoulder, murmuring encouragement, thought his tools too clumsy for the work. Vig had looked on with something like horror as Luce had plucked a hair from his own head, snipped it short with his nails and then, somehow, affixed it to a brush handle. He had held the brush out to Vig, who took it clumsily, fingers stiff, and all but dropped it when first he dipped it into the colour. Yet once he looked through the glass, it was as though the brush grew to fit his hand and his strokes became gradually more self-assured, the smallest of movements smooth and accurate.

As the shadows lengthened around them and evening turned to the dead of night, Vig worked on feverishly, feeling that if once he stopped he would never be able to begin again. Outlines became shapes, became walls with mass and form, windows and doorways, washes of colour became beds of flowers, fluffy clouds in tiny detail. All the while, Luce was at his elbow, whispering, instructing him how to create a myriad of effects with this single hair.

Sometimes it seemed to Viggo that the man was mad when encouragement turned to accusation, obscenities flowed from his lips to scorch Vig's ears and then as quick he was as mild as a lamb, gently chiding, calming, applauding a fine stroke. And somewhere, as Vig began to come towards the end, the miniatures all but done, Luce had begun to talk of Sasha. The young painter did not understand how the priest might have known about Sasha and for some seconds his hand shook but then he realised, almost in surprise, that Sasha no longer had the power to hurt him. Alexei's friendship had banished the demons and so he let Luce's insinuations flow over him, concentrated on finishing the last few details of the pictures, wielding the wonderful brush with a true artist's assurance, until at last he cast it down and sat upright, stretching his back out, before he turned to Luce with a smile.

"Done! And thanks to you, good brother," he said.

Luce stared at him, silent, and for a moment Vig did not understand, the contentment at his core shielding him from Luce's power, but as the silence lengthened a sliver of doubt, that somehow he had still fallen short, crept in to his mind. Then he saw Luce begin to smile and relief flooded Viggo, but the grin grew wider and wider and now the mouth was gaping, stretching far beyond anything human...suddenly fear unlike any he had ever known gripped him and he was being pulled into that mouth!

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Zeus paced the corridors of the house unseen by his servants. This host, the man Alexei, had never gone to the goldsmith's workrooms, although he knew the shop well, and Zeus had followed suit, but now the unease was returned, tenfold, and regardless of the consequences he was bound to seek Vig out there. It was time, Zeus had decided, that he took possession of the young man, removed him from this place. The Count would forget him in time and in any case, he thought, pulling on his gloves, he was better gone from this cold world.

The workroom was a-bustle when Count Alexei arrived. He was unannounced he knew, Alexei murmured in the goldsmith's ear, but he had a mind to commission something special and he knew of no-one else whose taste was so unerring. The goldsmith was both flattered and also a mite flustered. The first to arrive that morning had found the place in turmoil, with a strong smell of sulphur that had necessitated opening all the windows to dispel it, but amidst the overturned furniture, one bench remained upright and on it they had found the final two completed miniatures. They were marvellous indeed and the goldsmith would have praised the young painter to the skies and to his face, but he was no-where to be found. Neither had anyone seen the priest. The next group of panels awaited his hand with the enamelling and in the meantime, they had gone ahead and set the last of the miniatures into the tiny folding screen. The 'surprise' was ready before its egg and the goldsmith's rule was that none should see the completed egg before the Tsar, but he knew the Count well, knew his reputation as a discrete and an honourable man, as well as an excellent customer. There could be no objection, the goldsmith thought, to letting Count Alexei see the finished 'surprise'.

It was as he ushered Alexei towards the workbench that Luce slipped in through the door, stopping abruptly, at the sight of the aristocrat.

Zeus had felt the hair stand up at the back of his neck and turned to face the presence. This was the thing that had stalked Vig, he could feel the malevolence emanating from it in waves - something from the underworld, but none of his brother's get. Zeus let the demon glimpse his power and saw its pleasure, felt its amazement as he turned his back on it again to give his attention to the goldsmith.

This would surely be a most welcome surprise for the Tsarina, he was saying, a reminder of home and well-loved places. The foreman had unfolded the little screen, so that the noble guest could see all of the miniatures. Zeus glanced at them in turn, tiny glimpses of far off places and then he came to two more wonderful than the others and recognised Vig's eye for detail in their composition. Behind him the demon was come closer now. Zeus could smell foul breath that reeked of rotting flesh and despair and he would have sent the creature forth, but his eye was caught by the final miniature and a display he knew was meant for him alone - the Eremitage Palace stood on its grassy knoll, wooden shutters closed against the heat of a Summer's day, but one small shutter high up was cracked open and behind it he could see Vig screaming soundlessly. Luce giggled softly at his shoulder.

Anger surged through the god and he whirled about, leaving the Count to sway on his feet, so that the goldsmith and his staff exclaimed and brought a chair, a glass of tea, to refresh their guest, as unseen Zeus faced the demon revealed, who taunted him. The creature had a chain about its scaly neck from which dangled trophies - those innocent blue eyes on bloody threads - and now the creature's face was melting into Vig's smiling at him.

The windows in the workroom suddenly blew inwards, rushing wind scattering men and furniture. Cries of alarm filled the air, fuelling his intent, as Luce bent his will to break the thing before him. It was so rarely that he encountered such resistance that it was a thrill almost to pleasure to wrestle with it.

For Zeus to wield the scope of his power in this place would be to reduce all, stone, wood, flesh, metal to bloody splinters and ash, but he could not suffer this creature to hold his boy a moment longer.

Luce came ever closer, lapping greedily at the edge of his anger with forked red tongue and now Zeus knew how to best him, throwing out his hand to send a ball of lightening careering around the room, raining sparks as it passed until it returned to explode about them in a firestorm of white light and a crack like the tearing apart of the earth itself.

A blink of dazzled eyes to men, but at the centre of the lightening storm time had no meaning as Zeus fought Luce with the weapon he dared not take up. Naked, stripped to one another's gaze Luce had pounced upon the figure, licked at him, his tongue leaving bloody tracks over golden skin, clawed his way into his body, whispered "Open up" in Vig's tones into his ear as he breached him and pounded away. The creature weighed no more than a feather to the demon, so Luce sprang up, impaling the 'man' further on his thick cock. He grasped handfuls of the muscled flesh and the man's legs wrapped around him as he began to pump harder, faster, until they were a blur, a shimmer in the air, and he could feel blood begin to trickle down his haunches. He wanted to hear agony, shame, anything he could feed on, but Zeus was silent and with a shock Luce began to feel himself being taken in ever deeper, sucked inexorably into heat that was turning his cock to a softer, molten rod. Luce threw them both down and redoubled his efforts, but the friction was lessening, his pleasure beginning to fade before a climax. The creature beneath him was submitting, but not in fear or awe... Luce snarled with rage, biting at the neck of his captive. A creeping paralysis was beginning to envelop them as he struggled to find his completion and it was soaking him in love and acceptance and hope. They stung at his flesh, burnt like acid and finally he could suffer it no longer, screaming as he thrashed around trying to withdraw, trapped by Zeus who was still pulling the demon inwards towards annihilation. One last bellow of rage and Luce was gone.

In the goldsmith's workroom there was an eerie silence; men were crouched under tables, shielding their eyes from the storm. Finally, there was a scrape of wood, as a stool was pushed back and individuals began to emerge from their hiding places, dazed and quiet, comparing cuts and scrapes, although miraculously it seemed that no-one had been badly hurt. The figure of the priest was slumped in a corner, muttering to himself. Then there came a pitiful cry and men who'd been dusting themselves down crowded around the workbench, where the foreman held the screen of miniatures in shaking hands. The two most wonderful paintings, the work of the young Dane, were cracked through, ruined.

Perhaps they could be re-painted, ventured the apprentice, but immediately the goldsmith shook his head. He could not say why the sight of those broken pieces chilled him, but there would be no more - they would commission paintings of the royal yachts instead, floating palaces. It was as he was finishing this pronouncement that Viggo appeared in the doorway, pale and dishevelled. The goldsmith began to try to explain, but the young painter simply bowed his head to signify his agreement and walked towards the figure of the Count, still sat in his chair, the glass of tea on the floor at his feet smashed to a thousand pieces that crunched under Vig's tread.

Count Alexei's head was buried in his hands, but when Vig touched his shoulder gently, he looked up, seemingly dazed until his eyes met Vig's and his world, turned inside out, started to right itself.

Basking in a shaft of sunlight that had ventured through the broken windows, Zeus regarded the men indulgently. They had played bravely enough the hands dealt them in their brush with gods and demons. He would not take the young painter after all; he had the sketch of his own love, filched from Viggo's pocket as he passed. His pleasure would be to watch over them as they came together in healing and then friendship, love, and passion that would melt the snows. He, Zeus, prophesied it...in fact, he guaranteed it.

Comments

[stormatdusk.livejournal.com]

he kept his faith a private thing

he should bend his whole energies to his art and work through the loss

The colour was lush, almost indecent; it spoke of hidden flesh, gorged with blood

this is mesmerizing and oh, such atmosphere in those details. i thoroughly enjoyed.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

It's a pleasure and I'm really glad you liked it. Doing the research I have to admit I became intrigued by discovering that we really can't make those colours anymore, the original recipes for the enamels were buried deliberately by the maker and given the upheavals Russia has been through since are unlikely ever to be found again.