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apolloanddaphnis · 11 months

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The Poet's Rusalka

Synopsis: Marina Czerwonka is a young Romani woman from a little village in Poland, after her mother dies her path changes drastically , dreams of ink stained fingers and green eyes, friends with beguiling strangers and an altercation that cements her course at a London tavern. She meets a rogueish lord and eventually wins the heart of not only the rake but a British monarch.

This is a Hal story, some things have been changed and its nothing like The King. This takes place during the restoration era of England in the 17th century, instead of Charles II being king its Hal, but he's Henry X not the V. Historical characters like the rebel poet John Wilmot, Nell Gwynn, and etc. Play huge parts in this story and I don't own them.

Big disclaimer, this is a very mature story and could be offensive.

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Chapter I: A Fish out of Water

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Most Men are Cowards, all Men should be Knaves.

The Difference lies, as far as I can see,

Not in the thing it self, but the Degree.

-John Wilmot

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It's been one year since I left Karpacz, one year since I buried my mother, and one year since my life changed forever.

I arrived in England only knowing Polish and Russian. I hardly had anything with me, and I took what I could of what was important.

Traveling in November through Eastern Europe to western is no easy feat.

I traveled through horses and carriages, it wasn't easy dodging shifty characters, but I've managed. My shawl and jewelry easily allowed everyone to know I am Romani, naturally I've been treated like a common whore, a thief, or both. A witch too, constantly but that's been my whole life.

When I made it to Paris, I was lucky enough to run into fellow Romani, Django Delort. He was handsome, tall and lanky and dark with laughing brown eyes, a thin mustache, and long, satin auburn curls he always had tied back with a purple ribbon. I stayed with him and his sister, Penelope, and her kindly husband Antoine. They were newly weds and pregnant with their first child. The family is very kind and didn't mind sharing their caravan with me and their food, so I made sure to be plenty of help. They taught me French, luckily Django and Penelope are fluent in Russian due to a maternal lineage.

Django was always full of laughter and jokes. He's an actor for the stage and inspired my interest in the theater, seeing such emotion and becoming somebody else was inspiring.

He wanted to marry me though, despite the constant attention he gains from the female population of Paris, and I couldn't have that. One, Django falls in love at least once a week, and I do not love him, and I won't marry for less.

"I don't want you to feel used, Django, you're my dearest friend in the world, a difficult feat in this world. Our bond is strong but unromantic, I am undeserving of your affections." I spoke to him in French as he helped me board the boat to London.

He stroked my cheek with such benign affection, his reddish brown ringlets blowing ardently in the May winds of Northern France. I gazed upon his cognac colored eyes that usually held so much joy and laughter, but now bathed in longing and despair. And I was the cause of that.

"You are more deserving than any prisoner of this realm, mon cherie, I am not good enough for you and that is why Cupid decided not to relinquish your heart to me. I understand this now, although it leaves me bitter. Do you have to leave for dreary old England? With people colder than your Polish winters?" He returned, in his native tongue.

I blinked away tears saltier than the sea, and stroked my friend's Motley colored scarf. "I know it's silly, but I've been dreaming visions of it. As a fellow Romani, you'd understand that can't you?"

"Ah yes, your dreams of long ink stained fingers and hooded green eyes in the shadows…our mother's would rise from the grave if we ignored such dreams." He brushed his fingers through my loose hair.

"Mon ami, this isn't forever this isn't goodbye, I love Paris. I will return to Paris, I will return to you and Penelope, and Antoine, and their child and children yet to come. "

He shoved me away but it was gentle and he took a large intake of breath, as if he found even something as natural as breathing unbearably difficult to pursue. "I want this to be as undemanding as possible, ma belle. Just go before I demand more than you can give." His voice was heavy with tears and I nodded mutely before boarding.

He didn't leave once I was on, but he didn't look my way either. He just gave me his back to gaze upon as I sailed off and away to the unknown, saying goodbye to the only friend I've ever known.

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Current Day, The Three Crowns, London, 1674

Jane was the first to be kind to me.

She found me struggling to speak English. I had only known hello and thank you, she could tell I was in search of a position. Although she knew not Polish, Russian, or French, she had pulled me by my arm to a slender, beautiful young man who was sitting on the lap of an intoxicated and pawing excuse of a man. She said something in English and he immediately spoke French to me. A heavy weight was lifted off of my chest, and the fair young man had introduced himself as Jem. We spoke in French and he had explained to me his father was an English navy man who knocked up a French lady of the night, his mother. He had informed me that she died of syphilis when he was only ten. I offered most empathetic condolences, and both of us bonded over the loss of our mother and growing up in the world as bastards.

Growing up as Roma, you learn that you do not have the privilege to judge others, I didn't turn my nose up at prostitutes, it's not always easy finding work. Jem and Jane had spoken to the owner of The Three Crowns on my behalf, and Thom Pugh the owner took one look at me, desperate to make me one of his working girls. Jem had told me my exotic gypsy features and amethyst eyes made the man eager to make a bit of coin off of me. But Jem had assured me Jane persuaded Mr. Pugh to take me on as just a serving wench as well as a laundress for his rooms. I was safe due to the generosity of my newfound friends…for now.

Jem was teaching me English and he and Jane loved when I would read their palms and show them how to tell people's fortunes. It was all about trusting instinct and getting to know the person. I read people well, which is why I know Mr. Pugh isn't a man of his word and I made sure to stay out of sight as often as I could.

It was hard keeping the customers hands and eagerness away but I managed, I wasn't going to be a shaking little doe, like animals, people smell fear.

I helped Jem and Jane how to keep up with their hygiene as well, with that you could really see how beautiful the two are. Jane stands at a petite stature with curves of a noble lady, wide hips and a full bust she always has falling out of her bodice. Her coloring is pretty in a wild exotic way, sun-kissed like my people. Her eyes remind me of a sly cat, and they're a pretty blue-green, her full lips are always painted with Rouge like her cheeks and her jawline is squared off like a member of the gentry, whoever Jane's real parents were, they did her terribly wrong leaving her in the gutter. Her hair is like dark gold and bounces down her back in coils, she's the most sought after girl here for a reason, and not just on beauty alone. She's never in a foul mood, always laughing and bringing sunlight in wherever she goes, jesting and pulling pranks along with Jem. When I felt homesick and longed for my mother who now lived buried deep in the Earth and my father who was a slave to the seas, she made me forget with her warmth and her smiles.

Jem too is so very beautiful for this Saxon underworld, tall and lean like an interpretation of David. Porcelain like the statue too, with freckles beaming like stars across his upturned nose, eyes so blue you swore he was part sea-folk, lips so full and red and pretty for a man, and his hair fell in youthful and boyish raven waves. He has the most enchanting smile, and tempted those who thought their desires relied solely on the softer sex.

He always made sure I ate, and asked me everyday if anyone bothered me, the answer was always no.

In half a year I was speaking English comfortably, although my accent didn't hide that I'm a foreigner and had people assuming that I'm empty-headed, but I minded not.

"Jem, you speak English so well, proper. Better than everyone else here, why is that?"

He was drawing black kohl around his eyes, he reminded me of my people when he did that. I smiled and took the kohl from him to help. "Oh you mean why don't I sound like a common whore?" He asked with humor in his voice.

"I would never say it like that."

"No of course not, you're too sweet. The only one in this rotten little world God has dealt us with to not look upon my kind with revulsion." He handed me the rouge so I could paint his lips and high cheeks.

"We Romani are treated like mud beneath the wheels of a carriage, and my father is a pirate, I am not wealthy enough to judge."

He smiled. "There's a kindly gentleman, I'm to his liking. He brings me poems and oranges and lessons. I can read now too.''

There was something akin to love in his powder blue eyes, my friend is in love. I opened my mouth to speak on it but Jane burst in, in just a yellow corset with half her laces undone, a hiked up green skirt, exposing her red hosiery. "Jem, we've got someone for yeh." She smiled "oh look at that, pretty as a lady yeh are. Marina yeh so good at making us look more than we're worth somethin'." She took Jem's hand, dragging him out.

I cleaned up behind Jem and washed my hands in the wash bowl, humming an old song my mother would sing to me as a child.

The door creaked open, it was probably one of the girls asking for something. I have a basket full of nicely folded laundry.

"I'll be right there." I called as I bent over to pick up the basket. But forceful hands prevented me from doing so.

My heart clenched, my blood froze. I couldn't even breathe, foul breath perfumed my senses. I felt dizzy with illness. Something hard pressed into my backside. "Not a sound you Slavic whore!"

He started ripping at my bodice with a knife and I swallowed back tears, oh God this was really happening. There was nothing I could do about it and no one would care. I attempted still, to wriggle myself free as he pushed up my skirt and he slapped me in the face so hard I tasted blood as he tugged on my hair. "Oi! Stop that–Aye!"

His assault had come to stop when he was torn away from me, I gathered myself trying to hold together my torn bodice and sleeve and my hair that was now loose at my hips.

"My-my lord-"

At that I sharply turned around to face my rescuer. Jane stood beside a tall, slender nobleman. I noticed his handsome beauty as he had an opulent cane raised above my assailant who was now cowering on the floor. With his rags it made my rescuer look all the more every bit of title and income I am positive he has. His jawline is sharper than a knife, his chin and nose proud and his pretty, far set, gray eyes even wore a nasty haughty lidding. But there was disgust that colored his eyes. He wore a long, curly brown wig with the hats of style upon his head, adorn with ostrich feathers. "Are you so pathetic and hideous as well as oafish, so utterly incapable of being loved and I dare say–tolerated, that you feel like your only choice is to force yourself upon this tiny creature?" He laughed and didn't allow my attacker to speak, he waved his cane in the air and hit the drunkard in the nose. There was a sickening Crack and crimson poured like paint from his nose. "I assume you're from a beginning akin to fenced pigs, I assume it is common practice to take someone from behind and force miserable tiny cocks like yours there into any hole. Even if it's a hole in the fence, I daresay you don't care if it splinters your smelly foreskin as long as it's a hole any hole will do, I imagine that's how you got here. Your mother methinks was just any hole, a sweaty unappealing sow being forced into the mud by pungent boars. How many were there during your conception?" The lord sneered.

My mouth fell open in shock, my insides tickled in amusement, and I took dark delight in how thorough and detailed he insulted this man. Jane was having the time of her life laughing at the lord's cruel and entertaining words.

The lesser man had the audacity to look insulted and opened his mouth to answer, but the cruel and handsome lord didn't allow it. He took his cane and bashed the head into the rotten teeth of the pub crawler. His mouth overflowed with blood. The lord looked positively perturbed at the gory stain on his cane and with an irritated sigh, took out a pale green handkerchief to wipe it off. "I should cut your little porky cock off right now, it's far too small to be rendered useful. And even if your size was comparable to an adequate blade of pleasure and breeding, it'd still be without purpose for you haven't the slightest inkling how to use it." He grinned cruelly as his richly heel pressed down on the rapist's groin. The man wailed so boisterous in bloodcurdling pain that all who were present at the tavern had gathered around to watch the scene displayed.

It was perverse how people gawked and took great pleasure in watching violence. "It's quite pathetic with how incredibly old you are that you still can't use this little cheese knife correctly. If your ignorant inbred brain understood the meaning of consent, that'd be a start." He removed his plum velvet heel from the abused crotch.

It was finally the moment when my eyes met the stormy gray pair of my hero. Although taking in his slightly intoxicated eyes, his cruel tongue and where he was, I wondered if hero was the right word.

Mr. Pugh was outraged but at me, yelling at me about causing such trouble. He was ranting about how the only way to possibly recover from causing his establishment such reputation, which caused me to snort since its glorified brothel with a menu. The only way I could make up for it was to become a working girl. I opened my mouth to defend myself but my dark antihero had taken up for me once again.

"Mr. Pugh, you're so adamant about this woman using her beauty for a bit of coin one might easily imply that you yourself had arranged this…well whatever this was." The lord smirked but it lacked humor.

I had such delicious joy watching my employer fumble with his words as if English wasn't his first language. But I felt sick knowing the attempted thievery of my virtue was a plot, a means to an end. "Mm, well Miss…" His eyes focused on me, he almost looked curious.

He was asking me my name, I was flustered as I was in delay in answering. "Czerwonka, Marina Czerwonka. "

His perfectly arched brow rose. "Czerwonka, is that Polish?"

I nodded attempting to pull my tattered bodice back together.

To my surprise, the dark lord took off his velvet cape to wrap around me. "If you would prefer the employment of the spider who trapped you like a fly in his web, over being under my employment with very little play but a warm bed in the country. Then by all means stay behind." With that he turned to the door and kissed Jane's hand. "Another time Jane. "

She winked. "A pleasure as always Johnny. "

The lord she was so informal with left the room, I sputtered. "J-Jane, who was that?"

She grinned. "That's right, you're still so new…that was the infamous Lord John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester."

I had no idea what these English titles meant. "What is he infamous for?"

She grinned and bumped my hip with hers. "The worst things."

"Could you help me pack before his carriage leaves?"

"Thatta girl." Jane guided me to my room, and I couldn't stop thinking about Lord Rochesters ink stained fingers…

@sufferingstarlight @meetmyothersouls

#timothee chamalet #timothée chalamet #timothée chalamet x oc #king hal #king henry v #hal x oc #henry v x reader #the king #john wilmot #jamie campbell imagine #jamie campbell bower

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