Chateau of Passion

by Monica Bentley

  In the end, song had proven the lure. By cooing to them in nonsensical sounds, yet lyrical notes of varying keys strung together, she had been able to get them to lie quietly, to wriggle, to writhe. Even to tie themselves in knots. Where she was going with this, she had no idea. But, as she had learned long ago from Enchanteur, the greatest mysteries of life revealed themselves in time. Not the other way around.

  For now, she found her pussy twitching in rhythm to her cooing, which was exasperating her further.

  As were Aluin’s sobs.

  She swore and without thinking flung one of the snakes across the room to smash against the wall, a larger gooey splat echoing inside the work room. Looking over with a deep sigh, she saw its black and coral bands of skin hanging there on the stone, fixed to it by sheer force, blood dribbling down the wall with shards of meat tumbling to the earth.

  A flash image of Tristen’s startled hazel eyes came to her. Calming her with their changing splotches of green and brown, depending on his mood. Calming her. This would not do.

  Yet, hearing another round of renewed sobs, she snarled that the boy’s constant whining would not do, either.

  Hearing his startled wail of horror, she picked him up and carried him in the air down through the floorway to land with a crumbling thunk at her feet. His eyes were stretched wide with fear, his chin trembling. She could see the light hairs on his cheeks just catching the light. At least he was clean.

  No paragon of beauty herself these days – not after Tristen had left her – Tempeste had, nonetheless, grown positively disgusted with Aluin’s stench. So, taking a leaf out of one of Enchanteur’s books, she had instituted the same daily cleaning regimen that her master had taught her, complete with punishments should the boy fail to comply. She even gave him the Hummingbird Room for his bedchamber, the same one Enchanteur had given her. She reserved Tristen’s room at the top of the Tower – the only one without a floorway connecting it to the rest of the structure – to herself where she could sleep in his bed, attempting to catch the faintest of his scent in sheets now long grown disgustingly moldy.

  In time, with the lye soap she taught him to make, Aluin’s farmyard stench had faded in the face of daily washings of his body, particularly of his ass, and of the smocks he wore. Indeed, looking at him now, she saw with surprise that he was even cleaner than she. Maybe.

  Yet, those trembling hairs on his cheeks and chin turned her on. She felt a warm tug in her pussy lips, a sensation she had not felt in months. Not since Tristen had fled the Tower.

  Seized with inspiration, she sang to the snakes littering the floor, ignoring the boy’s shrieks of horror as they quickly slithered up his body and out onto his arms, knotting themselves into a handy rope. All the work of mere heartbeats. They reached out to the shelving behind him, binding him to it, hand and foot.

  He was panting so hard from fright, she thought he might faint. She chuckled. A throaty one, one she had not heard from herself in a very long time. Not since the days when she would lure all those hapless knights in, one by one, so sure of themselves, so certain of their vigor, their health, their youth, their bulging muscularity. Until she had reduced each one to an utter scarecrow through sheer domination. Sheer will.

  She reached out with her mind and stroked the boy’s puny cock. He gasped, looking down, his breath noisily rattling in his throat. She kept stroking the cock, the teeny little penis, feeling its first faltering efforts at erection make a pathetic stump under the smock.

  She chuckled again. Aluin’s eyes were shut now. He was groaning with fear. His cheeks were turning wet with dripping tears from the corners of his eyes.

  It made her all the more excited. It made her damp.

  His stump was growing larger now. She ripped his smock in two with her mind revealing his small cock pointing down out of a thatch of dark hair. Just below it dangled his balls. Dangling? His balls had dropped? She had to wonder about that as she took the tip of his cock in her mouth. Maybe Aluin was older than he appeared?

  But the old rhythms were asserting themselves as she found her lips opening wider, the back of her mouth softening for the tell-tale nudge of the cockhead hitting the base of her throat. A sensation that she adored.

  Not this time. His cock was too short. Too small. Swearing with exasperation she closed her lips tightly around the shaft and murmuring the shape-shifting command PiatsoNe in her mind, she pulled.

  He screamed, a wild shrieking horror-filled roar of pain and suffering, his puny body spasming outward, wrenching against the snakes that bound him tightly to the shelving and the wall behind it. On and on she pulled, murmuring the command, his shrieks filling her ears, until finally he went silent. She looked up at the drops of his spittle raining down on her hair, falling from his lank lips, stretched back still in a grimace of ghastly horror.

  She grinned.

  She kept pulling, then shaping the flesh of his cock as if it were clay. Finally, she had it to be about the size, the thickness of Tristen’s. Almost perfectly, in fact. When limp.

  While the boy was still passed out, she began slowly working it with her lips, to see how her handiwork would fare when erect. She mouthed slowly, gently all along one side, then another, a technique she had taught herself with Tristen, adoring the way it had made him almost insane with pleasure. Slowly, teasingly, never allowing herself too much into the mouth at once, forcing herself to hold back. Licking her lips again and again, she mouthed the length of the shaft, both sides, continuously, content to wait to see the results. Growing pleased as the shaft started to fill with blood that she could feel pulsating through the skin, beating against her lips. Growing delighted as the long cock, drooping a quarter of the length down his thighs now began to rise of its own strength, its own accord. Starting to form a harder, firmer shape. That of a crossbow-bolt.

  Thick. Hard. Ready to be sucked.

  Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she took the engorged head in her mouth. Still too small!

  She sat back a moment and considered it. It was out of proportion, looking a bit silly, as if half-finished. For a long moment she considered Thomas Aquinas’ thoughts on the divine beauty to be found in the equality of shapes, the extraordinary loveliness in the supple muscularity of a lion, complete with its royal mane. (Not that she had ever seen one in real life. Enchanteur had shown her several diagrams from the Rochester Bestiary that was inspired by the classical Naturalis Historia by Pliny – a tome she had hated studying.)

  Well, she knew she was no sculptor. But she could at least try to make a head more in proportion of what she now, had to admit, was a truly beautiful cock. Maybe even more impressive than Tristen’s. She went to work. All the time Aluin was out. She worked it with her lips, her tongue. Constantly murmuring the shape-shifting spell when she found his flesh growing less pliable. Renewing her mouthing of the shaft whenever it began to lose its erectness. Swallowing the slightly salty drops of his cum that tasted, as she expected, something like Brie cheese, whenever they appeared.

  Eventually – who knew how many glasses could have turned – she realized that she had finished. The head wasn’t pretty. Indeed, it was a bit monstrous. But, it would do. Growing excited now, feeling her pussy growing damp again she sucked the head watching his eyes with anticipation. They began to flutter. Then, they opened. In shock. At first. Then in wonder. As he looked down at her. As he felt wave after wave of pleasure hitting him. (Which stood to reason, she knew. As expected. She had learned long ago that where there is more cock to suck on, there is more pleasure for the lover. Lots more pleasure.)

  His eyes were closing again. Then opening. His mouth was moving. His lips struggling to say something. She waited, her lips popping off the head to see what his first words would be.

  He moaned.

  Yesssss!

  So eager, she was trembling now. She released him with a jerk, the snakes falling to the floor in a series of thuds, and pulled him down. He didn’t bother resisting. Just fell right
into her hands. She laid him down, gently now, as it suddenly dawned on her what she had put him through. But not too gently. For she needed to mount him.

  To fuck him.

  Again and again and again.

  * 4 *

  The Duchess moaned. The blonde white hairs adorning her pussy lips were coarser than Phoebe’s Tristen noticed, then chided himself and went back to his patient licking. Alternating slower, then faster, then inserting the tip of his tongue to her eager gasps.

  The witch had taught him tonguework. All those weeks trapped in the top of her tower. He hated that damn place. It still gave him nightmares. And endless questions. Such as those sobbing episodes at night, practically begging him to take her in his arms. His captor, begging him! With her pathetic mewling. He did. He hadn’t known what else to do.

  And once again, he thought, here he was fucking someone else – someone who was supposed to remind him of his childhood friend at Chateau Brionde – only to wind up fucking Tempeste in his mind instead.

  A rough banging on the door distracted him. The Duchess sat up with a startled, “Mon Dieu! Who is...?!”

  But Tristen was already leaping out of bed at the sight of the opening door, grabbing up his broadsword and flipping it up one-handed to slice wide the throat of...

  The Commander!

  du Guesclin’s wide grin popped out just as his chin shot straight up to avoid getting sliced. Still looking up at the ceiling, he growled. “You only have time for once slice, lad.”

  Tristen grinned back, dropping the point of his sword into a flourishing salute. “My Lord.”

  This was their private joke. Shortly after arriving a few days ago, Charles the Wise had made du Guesclin Lord Constable of Francia, the top warrior of the land. It was a ceremony florid with rich fabrics, extravagantly beautiful ladies, bright clarion calls of horns, sprightly tales sung by lute-strumming minstrels, savory sides of venison, beef and whole suckling pigs, tangy and nutty cheeses and many, many, many flagons of the best wine Francia could supply.

  Too many flatulent speeches, too, Tristen remembered with a grimace. That is where he had first noticed the Duchess de Berry. Platinum blonde hair, whiter than Phoebe’s, a teasing smile and luscious breasts, held within too tightly confining a velvet dress. What color it had been, he had barely noticed. It had taken two days of soft, gentle approaches to yield...this.

  What was this, he wondered as he pulled on his leathers. It certainly wasn’t what he had expected. Seducing her was supposed to have been a way of putting behind... Well, he wasn’t sure what. In any case, the Commander was musing.

  “Do you really have to waste your time shagging a palace skank?” he grumbled before ducking back outside the chamber.

  The Duchess inhaled, those sweet lips now curled back into an angry snarl. Tristen grabbed his boots and sword and fled. He slammed the door shut just as something hit it on the inside. He could hear her angry curses following them down the hallway.

  du Guesclin was speaking again, his long strides carrying them quickly down a series of stone arches. “Kind of reminded me of Duke de Berry’s wife with all that hair and her teats.”

  Tristen smiled to himself, saying nothing.

  The Commander, as usual, was wearing his thigh boots and leathers, as if he were expecting to be called to the saddle at any moment. Wags at the palace whispered that the new Lord Constable didn’t own a single velvet gown.

  “Charles the Bad is making trouble again down in our old stomping grounds.” Charles the Bad was Charles II, King of Navarre. A perennial thorn in the side of the Kings of Francia, he freely made alliances with any who opposed them. These days, that meant the English King Edward III.

  Tristen sighed, then readied himself for battle, his hardened mind already casting aside all thoughts of soft sheets and softer curves warming them to embrace instead cold rains by smoky campfires and the threat of immediate death.

  “Your orders, sir?”

  “I’m sending a favorite, Sebastien of Burgundy, down there to lead the attack against the Navarrese.”

  “Who?” Tristen’s heart was already sinking at the thought of being led into battle by some court twit.

  du Guesclin growled, turning down into some stairs. “I’ll ignore that. For whatever reason he’s melting on the Dauphine’s tongue like that new peaches and cream dish everyone is raving about. So be it.” He abruptly stopped on a step, glaring that fierce old war eye on Tristen who looked down, noticing the way the Commander’s boot, unfashionably scuffed, rested on the curve worn into the palace steps from hundreds of years of use. They were, after all, housed at du Guesclin’s request in the oldest, crudest part of the castle complex.

  “Go over his plan. Make certain the whelp doesn’t needlessly sacrifice the lads.”

  Tristen blinked, not sure that he had heard right. As the moments passed and the Commander waited for him to obey, he realized he had.

  He looked up at the grizzled, round face, into the Commander’s small eyes.

  Who laughed.

  And pounded him on the shoulder. “Tristen, you are the best fighter I have – on the battlefield. Time for you to learn how to fight a different kind of war. I’m keeping you here.”

  Turning back down the stairs du Guesclin threw out over his shoulder. “And stop fucking skanks. There are more than enough ladies-in-waiting bored to tears in this godforsaken place. They’ll polish off some of your rougher edges.”

  *****

  Sebastien of Burgundy was just what Tristen had expected: a vain peacock, eagerly and arrogantly trumpeting aloud his military prowess to any who would listen. And many did. His airy tales of derring-do on the fields of Burgundy against the dreaded Magyars of Hungary who had showed up again, like a rash, drew many an appreciative audience. Complete with applause at the end, particularly from admiring ladies whose breasts would blush as the Burgundian’s long golden curls would pass close enough to brush them.

  The twit grew strangely quiet when Tristen asked him a practical question about how Sebastien’s troops had handled the Magyars’ default tactic of the feigned retreat. In the previous centuries, the Magyars had destroyed many an army with that one, simple tactic. But Sebastien waved it away with the solemn assertion that “superior training is the key to victory.”

  Whatever.

  In any case, when they were alone, Tristen bore down on him, demanding to see the plans. Sebastien grew truculent. He protested that he had the Dauphine’s favor, his “royal trust” to “secure His Highness’ daring dreams in the South.”

  “But not to waste the Lord Constable’s men by going in without a solid battle plan,” Tristen snapped right back.

  Sebastien glared at him in silence. His golden locks curled gently on the leaf green velvet gown of his shoulders. For a moment Tristen was startled to realize that the Burgundian’s hair was precisely the same shade as Phoebe’s. Then, he heard the witch’s chuckle and shook his head with irritation.

  He looked up to see Sebastien’s eyes narrow in calculation. “Perhaps you question my honor, sir Tristen?”

  Tristen snorted. He began to rise, thinking that it looked like he was getting back into the saddle after all.

  Sebastien rose with him. “Do you?” His brown eyes were wider now, but not stretching as widely as his smile which was quickly taking on a mocking slant.

  Tristen shrugged, annoyed more than anything else. He threw out a dismissive “Do you have any honor to question?” and brushed past the twit.

  Who hissed. “I demand my satisfaction!”

  What?!

  Tristen turned at the archway and looked at him. The Burgundian’s features were flushed. He was angry and...nervous, Tristen guessed. Wondering. In fact, Tristen was suddenly reminded of a time when Gaspard had noisily threatened to rape a toothless campfire wench so vociferously that he was honestly stunned at the realization that he would have to go through with it when her stained hands eagerly reached for the laces on his breeches. He had l
ooked helplessly over at Tristen for assistance who had merely lifted his hands in perplexity, fiercely holding back a beaming smile. “You brought it on yourself, mon ami.” The surrounding band had hidden behind a hedge, struggling to hold back their chortles as his friend had thrust into her from behind again and again and again, trying in vain to get it over with as quickly as possible.

  Tristen shrugged. Why not? It might be diverting.

  “Rapiers. The Grand’Salle at dawn.” He turned and left, just catching the enticing sight of the Burgundian’s eyes stretch wide, this time with horror.

  *****

  The next morning he was surprised to see quite a crowd gathered in the hall. The Grand’Salle had been built a couple of centuries previously by Louis the Fat and his famed architect Abbot Suger. Since then it had been used for state visits, royal receptions, the odd Passion Play performance as well as housing the rowdy and bawdy King’s Guard garrison in rooms constructed below. Passing the first statues of kings that ringed the pillars holding up the two arched roofs, he spotted several leading ladies-in-waiting and lords standing, in their finery, in the forefront of the city folk gathered behind. A veritable sea of browns, grays and blacks, fronted by emeralds, rubies, sapphires, ambers and other brilliant tones. They made way for him, like a sea parting for Moses and he strove not to let a note of jauntiness creep into his stride for he did not trust such distractions in battle. Far ahead, at the famed Black Table at the center of the hall, host to royal banquets immemorial, stood a small knot of soldiers apart from the others. At the center, he easily picked out the bandy-legged stance of the Commander. Next to him was the far more slender form of Sebastien, attired in what appeared to be leathers and boots. Apparently he owned fighting gear after all, Tristen smiled inwardly, then shushed the thought at the sight of du Guesclin’s glower, clear for all to see even from here.