by Louisa Trent
At the landing, the vassals set her loose. After days of total darkness, she squinted against the blinding light of the courtyard. Disoriented and dizzy, her legs gave way.
A pair of muscled arms caught her before she fell.
“Nice deep breaths now,” the warlord said, as she sagged naked against him. “You have only a few more steps to go, warrior woman. Remain strong."
“I shall not faint,” she said, knees locked against the vertigo. A faint would destroy her last remaining shreds of dignity. “May I have a cover?"
“I'm sorry. ‘Tis not allowed."
One arm around her waist, he supported her weight as she made her way through a handful of hecklers in the courtyard.
“Apart from dizziness, how are you?” he asked quietly.
“I live. Does Peter?” she asked looking up into her captor's haggard face. It gave her no pleasure to acknowledge that he had suffered too.
“The shepherd will survive."
“I heard there was rioting..."
“The soldiers were on a rampage to see justice done. They sought a bloodletting."
“And so you gave them Peter's blood."
“And so I gave them Peter's blood."
She blinked rapidly to keep back the tears. “Peter is no spy. I tell you, he thought to trap wolves..."
“I know,” he said tiredly. “I found the traps only a short time ago. They were baited with the same scraps of deer meat he carried in his bag."
“He designed the traps himself."
“I saw the designs. The damned stubborn Scots had the sketches hidden in the hut. He never said a word about them, not even for the sake of his own defense. He really is clever, and a most inventive artist. I have posted the pictures in the courtyard for all to see. They will allay fears that Peter is a spy."
“Will it work?"
“ ‘Twill work. Many of his accusers have already placed orders for the traps.” The warlord gave a dry laugh. “Not only will the shepherd be well occupied when he recovers from his lashing, but his pockets will be laden with coin. Life is full of such irony. And now that Peter is known as a skilled trap maker, not a spy, order has once again been restored amongst my troops, and you are free to go."
“Free?” Her lips trembled. “Free to go where? Do you cast me out?"
“You are still my bait, Aeschine,” he said softy. “You will return to the solar under a guard's protection."
“And Peter will live?"
“Your lover will not only live, the industrious trap maker will live prosperously."
“Peter is not my lover,” she said weakly.
Sage lifted her into his arms and carried her up the second flight of stairs to the tower solar.
“I must disgust you,” she said turning her face away in shame. “I am ripe."
He turned her chin back to him and smiled for the first time, a slight lifting at the corners of his mouth. “Ripe, but well, non?"
She nodded. “I am well."
“And you were not molested?"
“Those two guards kept the mob away."
“They will be rewarded for their loyalty to me."
Tired and hungry and filthy, strength depleted, she turned tearful eyes to him. “Why do you hate me so?"
“I do not hate you."
“You think the worst of me at every turn. You accuse me of taking lovers."
“You were no virgin when I had you. There was LaTourne before me and who knows how many others. ‘Tis not an accusation to acknowledge the truth."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“More ale here, Maid Morgwynna,” the swarthy young squire called.
A buxom maid with freckles on her nose and lazy rolling hips delivered the tankard with a wide smile and a wink. “There you go, sir."
“Nay! Here you go."
The plump servant was snatched about the waist and passed around the table. Along the way, she was given a wet buss on the mouth and a tweak on the bum. For her enthusiastic cooperation in the merriment, she received a trinket. That the gift was delivered down the loosely laced front of her bodice only led to further hilarity amongst the revelers.
After the hunt that day, the young bucks decided by mutual agreement to spend the night as guests of Kendle. As Sage played host to the spoiled pup, he could hardly refuse the keep's hospitality to his hunting friends. And so, a group of ten and five males now gathered at dusk for a banquet in the great hall to celebrate the kill.
Eating and drinking and wenching surrounded Sage. While he listened with only half an ear to the self-important storytelling and loud boasts that inevitably follow a day at the hunt, he sourly enumerated all the pressing matters in need of attending to and which he was not attending to because he played chaperone to a hall of lusty young swains. His first responsibility was to keep both eyes open for the welfare of the serving maids, of which Aeschine was one.
So far, Aeschine had managed to duck the kisses and pawing and fondling, though it meant a loss of good coin. With a queenly dignity, she shunned every advance...
Save Kendle's. His advance, she welcomed.
First Peter. Now Kendle. How many others would his leman cuckold him with?
The familiar black melancholy settled over Sage.
By midnight, the drunken songs and jests and insults tossed back and forth between Kendle and his hunting friends had long since ceased to amuse him. Oh, to retreat someplace quiet! Sage thought wearily, rubbing his throbbing temples. Regrettably, an early leave-taking was impossible, as the charge to make sure debauchery did not escalate to mayhem fell to him.
With a low groan, Sage slumped in his chair. The prostitutes had just filed in. The evening's entertainment moved to the front of the hall and displayed their naked wares. When Sage waved aside his right as overlord to first choice, a heated argument ensued over the pick.
“Why is Aeschine not up there with the rest of the sluts?” d'Aubrienne leaned over the corner of the table to ask. “Is she not a prostitute?"
Sage's gaze fell on Aeschine, as it had been doing off and on all night.
His leman took no stock of the happenings at the front of the hall. Minding her own business, she went quietly about the task of cleaning up after the meal. Yet, Kendle's question rankled.
Aeschine had lain with LaTourne and others. Sage had come upon her kissing Peter. Tonight, she had not rebuffed Kendle's advances. Still, he could not bring himself to name her as a prostitute.
The warlord said naught in reply.
“Forgive me, milord.” Kendle fell back in his chair. “I had no idea you held the whore in affection—"
Where had the young pup come by that mistaken idea? He did not hold Aeschine in affection! Lust was not affection.
Sage downed the mead in his goblet in one long swallow, and then turning to Kendle, repeated what Aeschine had told him: “The lady is not for my exclusive use. If you wish to rut her, Kendle, you must ask her. If she agrees, she is yours for the eve."
“Very well. I go now to ask her,” Kendle replied. Rising from the table, he swaggered over to Aeschine and bent his mouth to her ear.
Dazed blue eyes looked up and sought his.
He gave the final nod.
It was naught to him if she chose to go off with Kendle.
Sage sat rigidly in his chair, fists clenched, staring straight ahead as Aeschine left with her new customer. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that his leman's russet gown sagged off one shoulder where Kendle pawed at her. Whatever happened to the pretty silks he had bought her? He wondered. Aeschine had made a loan of one gown to Yseult, but what of the rest? Where had those fancy gone?
As Sage sat there, he recalled how Aeschine had begged not to be shared. How frightened she had seemed at the prospect of being given away to another man.
He had made her no promises, Sage thought, acquitting himself of blame. He had not told her that she would not be given to another. He told her specifically that he would make her no guarantees about the f
uture. After all, it was the height of rudeness not to extend the keep's hospitality to guests. That hospitality included the use of castle whores. Kendle was a guest and Aeschine had most certainly proved herself to be a castle whore...
But he remembered her voice in the cave when she had begged him not to give her away to another man, not to take her freedom of choice away.
Aeschine was a proud warrior-woman. She adhered to a strict code of silence, practiced honor and stoicism in the face of pain. Yet she had begged him for mercy in this one thing...
Dear Christ! What had he done?
Jumping up from the trestle table, Sage raced to find Aeschine.
* * * *
Aeschine cringed away from Kendle, as his cruel fingers squeezed her bare teat. How would she survive what was to come? And how was it that she had misjudged the man she loved?
How could the overlord have given her away to another man?
She had fought Kendle at the portal to the solar. In the struggle, her dagger had dropped from her thigh. Defenseless, he had dragged her inside, stripped, pawed, and spread-eagled her on the bed. Red velvet cords tied her wrists and ankles to the massive oak posts. In the isolated tower, no one heard her screams.
“Go to hell, gutter rat!” She spat in defiance at Kendle. Her spittle landed on his handsome cheek, hanging there before dribbling down to his chin.
“You will pay for that, bitch,” he raged, wiping his face..
It was only her body, Aeschine told herself. No matter what was done to her, she would distance herself from it. Sage had said survival was a human's strongest instinct and so she would survive this...
She had only just closed her eyes—to remove herself from what was about to happen to her—when the door crashed in and Sage was hauling Kendle off of her. The warlord heaved her intended rapist across the width of the chamber.
“You are to get your baggage together, and that includes your sister, and leave this keep tonight,” the warlord seethed.
“Sage, you misunderstand,” Kendle whined from the rushes. “The slut begged for it. She insisted I tie her to the bed. And she stole from me..."
“Enough!” Sage arched his jaw to the entrance. “Guard!"
A vassal appeared at the portal. “Milord?"
“You are to escort this poor excuse of manhood to Lady Yseult's chamber and stand watch until both d'Aubriennes are outside the gate.” The directive given, the portal was slammed and barred.
Turning on his heel, Sage stalked back to her on the bed. “Are you well?"
“Why do you care?"
He asked heatedly, “Did you steal from him?"
“I did not,” she said, tight-voiced. The question angered her, but the rising lust in her captor's black eyes also excited her.
“But you are guilty of the rest of his charges?"
She said naught.
“You begged to be tied to the bed? You like it? Is this what you did with LaTourne?"
She kept her silence, refusing to honor such nonsense with a denial. Sage threw her love for him back in her face when he asked a question like that. He thought her a liar. A thief. A whore. And why? Because it was easier for him to believe those falsehoods about her than to accept the truth that she loved him. His need for revenge colored all he saw. Damn him!
Well, let him work his revenge out on her tonight, and have done with it once and for all!
She looked up at him brazenly. “You desire me."
His black eyes went to half-mast as they examined her nude body on the bed, taking in the red velvet cords, lingering on her teats, searing her between the legs. “Nay..."
“Oh, but you do, Captor. And just this way, tethered to a bed, completely submissive.” She smiled. “This is my last bargain with you. Take me tonight, do what you will with me, but on the morrow, I am a free woman."
He shrugged out of his outer tunic. “I cannot allow you leave the keep. You forget—you are the bait needed to bring LaTourne out of hiding."
“I will go only as far as the shepherd's hut. And I will return each night. You have my word on it. All I ask is to come and go without a guard watching."
He considered her terms. “Very well. Agreed."
He approached the bed. “You will freely do anything I ask?"
She asked stiffly, “Will your request include sharing me with other men?"
He blanched, his flesh taking on ashen death tones. “I give you my word on this: No man save me will come into you this night."
“My thanks. And I freely agree to do anything you require."
“Very well. The terms are set. After tonight, you are free. To come and go to the hut. To rut with any man you choose. Even so, I promise you will always have my protection."
“That is most generous."
“Out of curiosity—I know the shepherd is a prisoner now, but later, when his sentence is finished, do you intend to wed him?"
“Nay. I never plan to wed,” she replied, her eyes stinging with unshed tears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Still breathing hard from his last splendid orgasm, Sage reached a hand to Aeschine's jaw and thumbed away a tear. “I took great care not to hurt you. I thought I had not. I thought that you liked it. Was I mistaken?"
“You are not mistaken. I did like it,” she said softly. “And you did not hurt me. I cry, because after tonight, I shall never know such boundless joy again."
Women! Where was their logic?
“This is your bargain, not mine,” he reminded her. “You would have your freedom."
“Nay, I would have your love, but you are too comfortable in your dark despair to risk the light of my love.” She sniffed. “Are you done with me?"
He had only just withdrawn, but his cock was rapidly engorging all over again. Such was the way whenever he was with Aeschine. The tearful lady, however, needed time to recover.
“I am done with you. For now,” he stipulated, and rolled off her to stand on the floor. He began to undo the red velvet ties.
Unbound, she raised her tear-streaked face to his. “May I rise? I-I need to wash."
He helped her up from the bed, his palm at the level of courtesy on her back. He did not kiss her, though he dearly wanted to. Somehow, signs of affectionate appreciation seemed inappropriate, even disingenuous, considering the mercenary nature of the bargain they had struck.
He watched Aeschine cross the rushes to the water warming hearthside in a bucket. As she washed his seed away, he sighed at her romanticism. Might they not simply enjoy the animal lust they felt for one another? Must she always drag love into this, even now when their liaison was ending and he was granting her the freedom she requested?
“After you finish bathing, do not dry yourself.” He liked how her moist flesh felt against him when she wiggled. Aeschine was such a wild creature. Nothing was held back in her passion.
She nodded. “Very well."
“We have until dawn. You may sleep a while, if you would like,” he offered, though he wanted her again right now. Immediately!
“I sleep later."
Facing him, she cleansed the semen from between her breasts and then moved the cloth down to her belly where he had left the greater abundance of seed. Done there, and grimacing a little, she wiped the linen carefully over the swollen folds of her vulva. Dipping the cloth again, she washed away the pearled semen that raced down the interior of her thighs.
He'd had four times already, each time harder and faster than the time before. Tied, she hadn't been able to move, to shift her body to accommodate the driving force of the intercourse. She had to be sore from the violence of the congress and galled from her forced submission.
“It gives me no pleasure to pain you, Aeschine."
She stopped washing, placed the square of linen aside. “I know that, Captor. And I have already told you—I am not pained. I like very much what you do to me."
Unable to stay away, he walked up behind her. Backing her up against him, he took her breas
ts in hand, thumbing both centers until they peaked and jutted and she moaned in acquiescence. Though the intemperate fucking had left her nipples bruised, he could not cease! He had to keep touching her. This was their last night together. After this, he was letting her go.
Slipping his free hand down low over her flat belly, he spanned her mons; two fingers dipped into her already swollen slit.
Her head fell against his chest. She opened her legs wider, letting him do what he wished to do. No complaint. Full compliance. In tune as he was with her body, he did not miss her involuntary wincing; he missed nothing, spared himself nothing. Under his marauding fingertips, her delicate tissues felt dry. The extended congress had squeezed the last drop of honey from her passage.
And still he persisted, moving first two, then three fingers inside the swollen canal. When she began to writhe, her bottom pushing against his hardness, squirming to get closer, her hard-tipped breasts thrusting outwards, he placed his mouth against her ear. “Now? Or later? I will wait if you would prefer."
Aeschine's throat spasmed. “'Tis entirely up to you."
Now! That was his preference.
He reached into the finely tooled box he had purposefully left on the hearth. Taking the leather phallus in hand, he oiled it with the small tincture of perfumed unguent also stored in the box.
He would not wait any longer. He would have this. She had given it to LaTourne, and she would give it to him too.
“Raise your foot onto the hearth. Take care not to stub your toe,” he advised. She had such pretty feet.
Docile as a lamb, she raised her heel onto the slab of stone, making no other movement save to turn her face into his chest.
The hard oiled length of leather went into her woman's notch fairly easily, her acceptance of the foreign object slow but sure. He wished it could have been his cock going in, but alas he could not be in two places at the same time.
“There's a good lass,” he whispered, encouragingly, as the last measure hit the barrier of her womb. “Just a little more now. All of it inside, puss."
