by Tony Roberts
Aveline went to push back her sheets, then realized she was wearing nothing. “Oh! My clothes….. who put me to bed?”
Casca turned and grinned. “I sent everyone away and did it myself. Your clothes were soaked and you needed a dry place. Better me than anyone else, mm?”
“But-you’ve seen me naked!”
“And very nice it was too.” Casca smirked and looked out of the shutter. Aveline made an outraged gasping noise behind him. Casca had admired the young, firm body the previous night. It had been a difficult one trying to sleep after that. He’d commandeered one of the chairs and blankets and slept by the door. He’d mostly sat awake, thinking of Aveline’s body.
“How can you stand there and smile?”
Casca turned back and sat on the bed. “Quite easily, believe me. I’ve left firm instructions to the men not to disturb you today. You’ve had a terrible ordeal and you need to feel safe and comfortable here before you get bothered by people. They do want to see you, everyone’s talking about you.”
Aveline looked embarrassed. Whether it was the thought of having to meet people curious about her or the fact Casca had stripped her and seen her naked body, or maybe both, Casca wasn’t sure. He stroked her face gently. “I’ll be by your side, so you have no worries there.”
“I know,” Aveline smiled, leaning into his hand. “But I’m still upset at you seeing me without any clothes on. And what am I going to wear when I do get up?”
“I have a couple of the maids drying them. Do you have any other clothes back in London? I could ask your father to bring them. You’d want to see him again, yes?”
“I-I don’t know.” She lay back and wondered about her father, Roland. She’d been terribly upset about his callous attitude at giving her to a man he knew to be uncouth and brutal. He’d changed; for so long, he’d worked hard at earning money and seeing that she had the proper upbringing. A feeling of her father abandoning her to the brutal care of Lesalles had been growing in her mind the past few days; she knew she would have to marry a rich and titled man one day, but surely her father would have made sure her husband would have been better than him! It was a case of her being abandoned by him in order for her father to climb up the social ladder. She felt used. She reached out and took Casca’s hand again. “I don’t know if I want to see him again. Isn’t that terrible?”
“Not really. He treated you like an object, a trade agreement. But I won’t come between you if you do want to see him. Trouble is, he may well still be in the pocket of Lesalles.” Casca thought about the man. Time was coming where he would have to draw him back to Stokeham and deal with him. He wondered what Giffard and the King had done to get Roland away from that bastard. Lesalles would be as mad as hell when he found out, and probably come down to Stokeham with a crash, bang and wallop. Best the castle was completed as quickly as possible.
She gripped his hand tighter. “I don’t want to see him again. My place is here with you.”
Casca nodded. “I wanted you the moment I saw you in that tanner’s shop back in Caen. You looked down at me like I was shit on your shoe.”
Aveline smiled. “You know why? I felt an attraction to you, even then. One look and I thought you were the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. But you were a peasant, and father had always told me I was to marry into nobility.”
“So you did that to hide your feelings. I always wondered.” Casca laughed. “That explains why you were quick to defend me when Lesalles wanted to get even for me beating up and killing those men in Caen after you’d bought that material.”
“Oh, God, yes. I wanted you to be close to me even then.”
Casca leaned forward, his lips inches from hers. “Well, Aveline of Stokeham, I’m very close to you now.”
She giggled, then allowed him to kiss her. She responded, her arms coming up to encircle his neck, and she pulled him close to her. Casca pressed against her, then slowly slid the blanket down. Aveline suddenly realized her breasts were showing. “Oh!” she tried to cover them up but Casca held the blanket.
“I’ve already seen you naked, my love.” He leaned down and took one nipple into his mouth. Aveline gasped, then went to push his head away, but the tingling feeling grew and instead she began to press against the back of his head, pushing it harder into her chest. “Oh, God!”
Casca had a thousand years of knowing women, and knew just how to turn her on. He used not only his mouth, but his fingers, stroking and playing with her skin. Aveline moaned and shut her eyes. If this was how life with Casca was going to be, then please God let it last for ever!
When he took off his clothes she didn’t know, but suddenly he was under the blankets with her and naked. His muscled, hard body felt odd against hers, but it felt, well, right. And she knew what was down below, thanks to that beast Saxon in the camp, but this time there was no disgust, just fascination. Her hand took hold of it and began pulling it back and forth. Casca gasped. “Wow, woman, you’re in a hurry?”
Aveline giggled again. “It’s so hard!”
“That it is, girl. Let me show you what it can do.”
Aveline let go and felt her legs being gently pushed apart. She lay there, her heart pounding. She had absolutely no idea what was going to happen, and then she felt his hand stroking her in a very private place, and the feeling it sent out throughout her body was the most fantastic feeling ever! “Oh my God…. Oh Casca!”
There was this growing wave of ecstasy building, sending out a boiling wave of warmth and her eyes saw stars. Then she cried out and it engulfed her. She shook and arched herself into him, then there was a vague feeling of sharp pain, but it was gone as soon as she was aware of it and the feeling of his hardness inside her. She felt him pull her legs around his back.
“Now, my sweet Aveline,” Casca said huskily, “this is what it’s for.” He began to ride, slowly. Aveline groaned. She was finished, she knew it. She was a lost woman. Her hands bent into claws and began tearing down his back.
Casca made a mental note to get her to wash her hands, then began thrusting harder. The woman was thrashing beneath him, squealing and mewling. She’d never been with a man before. Casca had deflowered virgins before, and knew how gentle to be. Then the time for being gentle had passed and now he began pounding into her.
“Harder!” she screamed. Casca grinned. Every man’s dream. He obliged. The bed showed it was well built as Casca went faster and faster, building up how own climax, and he spilled himself into her with a long drawn out groan.
Afterwards they lay there together in each other’s arms. “I think I’m going to enjoy being Lady Stokeham,” Aveline said softly.
“I hope so. It’s only the beginning, and we have to work hard to build it into a place to be proud of. We can do it.” Casca felt a deep glow of satisfaction. But as always, it was tempered with the knowledge that in a few years, maybe ten, maybe fifteen, that he would have to go and leave this beautiful woman. He hated his Curse. Hated it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lesalles couldn’t believe his ears. The King’s representative sat there in one of his chairs and blandly told him that the trade deal with Roland and the wool was cancelled. The merchant was also sitting there, smugly. That greedy bastard had double-crossed him. Lesalles’ anger was rising fast.
“With the merchant’s daughter no longer certain to marry you,” the King’s representative was saying, “the conditions of the trade deal with him have therefore not been met. The King regrets that as a result you are to release the merchant Roland here to the King who will now negotiate with him directly.”
“You bastard,” Lesalles breathed, his fists clenching. He glared at Roland. “You planned this!”
“I certainly did not!” Roland was indignant. “I was approached by Vaux here himself! The offer from the King was an opportunity too much to turn down. And, as Vaux himself has pointed out, you have lost my daughter and you have no idea where she is. I doubt she’ll want to marry you anyway. I hereby revoke our
agreement and will advise my daughter – if I ever see her again – not to do so.”
“You weasel! You snake! You made a bargain with me!” Lesalles was on his feet, his face burning with rage. “And you,” he pointed a long finger at Vaux, “you can inform the King that he owes me as much in return for the money I paid out to buy his ships for him!”
“He rewarded you with the title of earl,” Vaux pointed out. “He feels that there is nothing more to be ‘owed’ to you. Be careful,” Vaux warned, his deep set eyes glaring, “not to overstep your mark. The King made you an earl; he can unmake you just as easily.”
“Fuck you,” Lesalles spat, saliva splattering onto his desk. “Get out of my house you vermin before I have you shoved onto a spear and mounted over my gates!”
Vaux stood up, his face like stone. “I shall pass on your feelings to the King,” he warned. “No doubt he shall respond accordingly. Don’t get too comfortable here; I have a feeling you may not be staying very long.”
Lesalles screamed in rage. “You come here again I’ll kill you! Get back to your kennel, you dog! And you can stay away from me, too,” he snarled at Roland who was backing away, his face white. The two armed guards who were in the room hurried to usher the two guests out before things got too out of hand. They’d seen Lesalles in one of his rages all too often. And one of the King’s personal representatives was too important to risk getting hurt at the whim of their furious master.
Lesalles sat behind his desk, head in his hands. Where had it all gone wrong? He’d made sure of the deal with the shipbuilder, and funded the biggest portion of the fleet himself. Getting the money wasn’t hard; extorting more rent out of those hapless tenants on his land had been easy.
Things had gotten even better when Roland saw an opportunity to get in thick with the new nobility, offering his daughter as a bribe. Lesalles had jumped at the chance. Not because he wanted her, but she would be useful to his plans for a dynasty and of course, the income from the wool trade would bolster his wealth.
Then it had all started to unravel. That scarred soldier, Casca, had got in the way. He’d lost Aveline, evaded his plans to kill him, and then gotten ennobled on the battlefield! That had lured that silly bitch away and now it seems, the merchant had lost his enthusiasm for teaming up with Lesalles and defected to the King.
Lesalles looked up. Footsteps sounded down the passage and into the chamber came his major-domo. A thin, humorless nobody, but at least he kept the place running smoothly. “Yes?” Lesalles snapped.
“A priest and a woman, sire. They wish to speak to you.”
“What? A priest? Do I want mass? And what the devil does a woman want from me?”
“They say – at least the priest does, the woman speaks no French or Latin – that they know the whereabouts of the Lady Aveline.”
“What!” Lesalles was on his feet. “Well show them in, dolt!” He went round to the front of his desk. This was good news indeed! Maybe he could yet entice that fool Roland back if he had the daughter, and maybe blackmail him? Threaten to kill her unless he returned? He pondered on that. He would see after speaking to the two who were now entering the chamber, a filthy priest in homespun brown cloth, the woman in close-fitting leather and linen, showing a trim, athletic figure. She looked dangerous.
“She been checked for weapons?” Lesalles pointed at the woman.
The major-domo nodded. “She had a dagger and sword. They are with the guards.”
“Good. Have two of them come here. You may go.”
The major-domo bowed and left. Two guards came in a few moments later. Lesalles eyed the visitors and assessed them. The woman was a Saxon, probably an enemy of the new regime. She looked like a fighter. The priest, well, he was nothing. “Well?” Lesalles demanded, glaring at the priest.
“Your Excellency,” the priest bowed low. The woman continued to look at Lesalles in contempt. Lesalles decided to let it pass for the moment. “The woman here, Goda, says your woman Aveline is being held by one of your countrymen at a place not too far from here.”
Lesalles nodded. He suspected as such. “Who, and where?”
The priest told him. Lesalles smacked a fist into his palm. “All the time, that bastard had her all this time! I’ll get her and burn that turd and his damned village to the ground!”
The priest translated to Goda. Goda barked back at him in Anglo-Saxon. Lesalles frowned. “What did that bitch say?”
“Your Excellency, she said she wants a reward for bringing you this news. She has lost many of her friends to Baron Casca and wants to get some recompense.”
Lesalles sneered. “She’s a Saxon whore. She’s lucky to keep her head on her shoulders. Tell her that.”
Goda fumed when she heard. “I expected no less from a Norman. Rapists and murderers all. They’ll screw up this kingdom in no time.”
“Lesalles laughed unpleasantly. “Rapists, she says? I’ll show her rape. That’s going to be her reward. I need a woman right now.”
Goda hissed. The priest blanched and stepped away. Lesalles advanced on Goda. “Whore!”
“Swine!” she countered, guessing what had been said was an insult, moving towards the door. Two swords rattled out of their scabbards and blocked the path.
Lesalles roared in triumph and grabbed her. He got a stinging backhander across the face. Cursing, Lesalles threw her across the floor. Goda stumbled, then bound to her feet and tried to get to the other side of the desk, but Lesalles had got to her fast and pulled her up and slammed her down onto the oaken desk, pinning her there on her back. Goda gritted her teeth and flailed at him, her fists striking two blows on his chest and jaw. Lesalles grunted and slapped her across the face, then tugged her tunic apart.
“Bitch, I’m gonna screw you well and good.”
Goda screamed and kicked out madly, Lesalles standing in between her legs. He pressed against her, his arousal all too clear. Now her breasts were free and the Norman admired their pertness and firmness. He’d not seen such cuties since he’d taken that fourteen year old as part payment for her parents not being able to afford the increased rents last year. He’d done her in front of her sobbing mother and helpless father. That had been good.
“Tell this Saxon bitch she’s got cute titties. Is there a Saxon word for that?” Lesalles roared in mirth. The two guards chuckled.
The priest covered his eyes in shame. Lesalles snapped the order again.
Goda heard the priest and spat in Lesalles’ face. “Pig! Dog! Beast!”
“Well, which?” Lesalles demanded after the translation. “I’ll rut her like a hog, in that case. Squeal for dada!” he shouted, unfastening his breeches. The two guards hollered in amusement.
Goda beat Lesalles around the shoulders, but one hand pinned her hard against the desk and the other was tugging off her pants. Her struggles only delayed the inevitable. Now her boots were forced off, the long pants with them. Lesalles pressed himself against her, his rigid manhood hot and throbbing.
Goda knew she was going to be hurt badly. There was only one thing to do, and her survival instincts kicked in. She wrapped her legs round him and snarled at the priest: “tell him I bet he can’t get me to orgasm!”
The priest opened his mouth and shook his head, shocked. “Tell him, you useless piece of shit!” Goda screamed.
Lesalles cocked an eyebrow when the priest stammered the translation. Was this bitch actually submitting to him? She was gyrating her hips against him, rubbing his manhood in a seductive manner. She was glaring at him, in defiance, in a challenging way. Then she threw her head back and laughed. “Not got the balls for the job?”
Lesalles growled. “I’ve got them all right.”
Goda slapped him round the face. “Then prove it, you Norman bastard!”
Lesalles fingered his jaw thoughtfully. “You know, I could get to like this slut.” He thrust into her hard, right to the hilt in one movement. Goda gasped, her eyes wide. It hurt, but not as bad as she had feared. Gritting
her teeth, she clung onto him. She began to move back and forth before he did, surprising him.
Then he joined in and the two went at it like love-starved animals, shaking the room with their efforts. The two guards stared at the scene, envying their master, while the priest knelt by them, with head bowed, not looking, fingering his rosary and praying to God for forgiveness.
Later, Lesalles dressed himself and called his guard captain to him. Goda was sat on the desk, dressed, looking fairly relaxed. She’d saved her life, probably, and even got to enjoy it. Lesalles may be a Norman pig, but he was rough, uncouth and utterly thoughtless. Just the type to turn her on.
“Sire?” the captain presented himself. The room smelt of sex. He looked at Goda, thinking she was probably used to being spreadeagled.
“Captain. Get ready twelve horses and ten of your best guards. We’re going hunting. The prey is one bastard I’ve been after for weeks. There’ll be no prisoners, except one. And she’s mine.”
“Sire!” the captain acknowledged and tramped off, glad to be on a mission at last. It had been getting boring recently.
“What about me?” Goda asked.
The priest, wearily, translated. He hated the pair of them and fervently prayed to God to strike them both down with some incurable but slow acting ailment.
“Stay here and wait my return. I’ll be needing your body again. Keep yourself available, you slut.”
Goda laughed nastily. “What am I, your personal strumpet?” She thought that although he’d been good, she didn’t like taking the subservient role. She’d escape while he was gone. She’d kill the priest too; he was a pain in the ass. She hated relying on such a nobody. The sooner she was away from this stinking Norman household the better.
Lesalles took her by the jaw, roughly, and kissed her, his tongue thrusting into her mouth. She returned it, then bit him. Lesalles yelped and slapped her. Probing his tongue, he spat blood at her. She wiped it and then put the spittle and blood in her mouth slowly, showing her tongue as she licked.
