On this trip, however, she would have settled for a simple ratatouille.
The beds were lumpy, yet mercifully free of lice or other visitors. Coletta made sure of that. It was her first task, as soon as the carriage stopped each evening. That she probably ensured her own bed was similarly maintained, Lela had no doubts. For the Messenger came down to breakfast each morning with a complacent smile on his face and, for him, remarkably quiet with his usual opinions on how ghastly inferior everything there was in the world compared to the splendor of Court. Lucky for Lela, the evening stop featured so many faces from the village that the Messenger felt free to mingle among them, sparing her his company.
As for the carriage, she had spent about one glass with him and Coletta in it, then asked John for a mount. And that arrangement had remained all the other days of this adventure.
And adventure it was turning out to be.
He gave a terse command, then darted a glance at her and the carriage in the fading light and – whatever he saw in her face – he gave up that idea and gave another command instead. The Guards fanned out in a circle wide enough to easily cover the carriage and her mount. Every third Guard had drawn a bow with notched arrow. The rest stood, rapiers in hand, as John was. Listening. Waiting.
Security had proven probably the most fascinating part of this trip for her. Perhaps it was the utter boredom of being a chateau lady. Perhaps it was days spent in the carriage with the Walrus on the way to Rennes and Nantes. Perhaps it was the way that neither the Walrus nor John – well, that would have been unthinkable back then, she allowed – had bothered to consult her needs, her wishes on those trips.
At the time, she remembered going into some sort of long, dreamy haze. Nodding every few intervals during the Walrus’ interminable monologue about Breton politics, his ongoing feud with the King, his sniping back and forth with neighboring nobles, their designs on Brionde, his designs on them, and a whole range of other topics so interminably dull that she would have beat her head out on the carriage wall...
Were it not for the occasional glimpse of a hard ass, or finely toned thighs riding back and forth. She made a game of it, counting, comparing. Dreaming. Fantasizing.
Her favorite, played out endlessly, had to do with John’s cock. She had many variations on the story. Her most extreme version – which was absolutely impossible in this world – went something like...
It was late one night. Not able to sleep, she had slipped out of bed, dropped her night gown and, throwing on only a robe, had walked the halls of the castle for several passing glasses. Eventually, driven by a need that was growing within her, step by step, she found herself on the stairs outside the castle, taking them, barefoot, her carefully manicured toes alighting on each step down. Down. Down. To the practice yard of the Guard. Crossing it, she walked up to the Master’s hut. His window was dark. Why not? It was so late. There was nary a sound through all the chateau. Nothing from the tavern. Nothing from the huts that flanked it on either side. Nothing from the Guards outside the Gate. The market stalls were all empty. There was not a soul stirring that night.
It was perfect.
She softly knocked on his door. It opened. He stood there, all his magnificent manliness lit softly by the moon over her shoulder, which meant that he could not see her features, her eyes. He could only feel because she certainly was not going to speak. Reaching up a small, delicate hand, she placed it square on the hard muscles of his chest, not willing to look in his eyes, afraid of the rejection she might find there. Instead, she simply felt the light tremble of his chest. A nervous quiver. Perfect. She watched it rise and fall, rise and fall, as his breaths grew deeper, lasting longer. She wanted him so.
She placed her other hand on his abs, tracing the ridges of his muscles. Running right across his belly. One, two, three, four, counting each slowly, deciding that each needed its own tonguing kiss. But not out here. No, not out here.
Bending forward, having to push from the hips he was so big, she pushed him with her two hands, wondering what he would do. Magically, he stepped back, reaching up to her shoulders, cupping them, so gently, so softly, so sweetly. As she knew he would be. They stepped back into his hut and she saw only the cot, the only thing that mattered, steering him toward it, kicking the door quietly shut behind her with a heel.
Reaching the cot, she turned him around and backed him one step more. Then, she reached up to her robe and unhooked its clasp. Letting it fall. To float slowly down to pool around her ankles. Not being able to see his eyes but able to hear his gasp at her beauty.
(In her fantasies about John, she was always the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He even said so. Sometimes.)
Shaking her head free of such irritating nonsense, she refocused on her story, her hands reaching out to the laces on his breeches, untying them. Slowly. Then, spotting the shadow of his cock, through some trick of the light, growing thick through his dark brown breeches, she reached out a palm to cup it. And hear his groan. She caressed its growing length through the cloth, untying the laces with her other hand. Pulling down the flaps, reaching in with her fingers, so small in comparison, feeling his hardness, knowing what he wanted.
She slowly sank to the edge of his cot, feeling his wool blanket piled under her, smelling the masculinity of his sweat in his bedclothes, as she took his manhood in her mouth.
Or so she told herself. After that, she had always sat up straight in the carriage, avoiding the Walrus’ eyes, annoyed that she had let it go that far.
In truth, she didn’t know what happened next. Katya had always talked of the Parisian Kiss as a series of slow, then fast, strokes the length of the cock, taking it all the way in the mouth, right to the back of the tongue. Without gagging. Which Lela found insensible every time she toyed with a carrot. But Katya swore by it. She also said that she tormented her lover with licks and nibbles on the head that would swell in size, in pace, in keeping with his growing need. She alternated back and forth – sucking the length and nibbling the head – sometimes tormenting him by nibbling until he began shouting for her to suck him again and then...
Katya would smile her mysterious smile and say, “I can’t tell you everything.”
Grrrrr! It used to drive her mad.
Fucking the Walrus was always a chore. A duty. Something to get through as quickly as she could. Thank Saint Genevieve that the Walrus only lasted a few moments. He had nothing of the reputed staying power of John. Supposedly lasting as long as half a glass. Exhausting the market girls so that, they claimed, they slept until late the next morning, too weary to do anything else.
It made her angry whenever she heard those stories. She refused to believe them, choosing instead to believe that the girls were trying to increase their stature in the chateau or village by claiming to have fucked him. She had once gone so far as to ask him whether the stories bothered him. The look he had given her was so uncomfortably inscrutable that she had hastily changed the subject.
Maybe, a tiny voice said, she just hated the thought of those silly market girls getting to enjoy the one thing that she wanted most and would never be able to have.
She heard another terse command. Two Guardsmen at the front moved, one each toward the edge of the road. As were two at the rear. Were they bait, she wondered?
In all, John had insisted on eighteen Guard to accompany her. When she had clucked at so many, he had grimaced. So, reveling in the chance to finally do this, as Countess, she had ordered him to explain why.
Characteristically, he had his answer as ready as his rapier...
du Guesclin’s band had been ordered to Paris. The Breton soldier of fortune who preyed on his neighbors just as much as he preyed on every other province held by – or in alliance with – the English, had been badly wounded, John related with a dry smile, in their attempted sack of Chateau Brionde. The King, hearing of the wound, had ordered his return. Indeed, the King might well have rewarded the bandit chief, decorating him with laurels when heari
ng of how one of du Guesclin’s men had killed m’Lord. The King might well have gotten whatever revenge he had been seeking. Why waste such a valuable property so needlessly, then? Therefore, John believed that the chateau would be sufficiently guarded with half the force. He had already prepared Louis, drilling the Guard on several scenarios, during all of which – John emphasized – Louis gave the orders with the Master absolutely silent.
Nevertheless, all that raiding might have benefited the Crown, but it was certainly hurting the people. The King’s Peace was not nearly as prolific nor potent as it had been. The King’s Roads, formerly deemed quite safe for travel were now a site for several armed bands hiding in the surrounding woods. The dukes, responsible for safety of the highways running through their duchies were no longer held accountable as they had been. The King dared not push the nobility too far. He needed every noble possible, since the English King Edward III, bent on taking the French throne for himself, was constantly conniving, seeking to turn any noble possible to his side.
All that said, a Summons was a Summons. She needed to obey or suffer another sack, this one far more devastating than one wrought by the paltry tools of a condottiere. The King would send siege engines of trebuchets and catapults, firing their flaming masses of tar to...
She had cut him off at that point, noting that she would obey the Summons.
So, he sighed, he would need to plan for several attacks along the way by armed bands hiding in the surrounding forest. Any one of those attacks would cost him one or two men – no more than that, he said with a wolfish grin, given their training. Either from wounds serious enough, forcing them to be left behind or facing outright death. All that understood, it was a numbers game. At twenty King’s Miles a day, a trip lasting eighteen days. How many skirmishes? Say, one each four or five days. Lose two Guardsmen in each skirmish, the numbers dropped. After four skirmishes...
She had cut him off again, not wanting to know more. She merely observed that she believed he would bring her and Coletta through to Paris safe.
And, up to this point, they had been spared any such attack. John was just saying this morning that he believed it was due to their large numbers and the discipline of the Guard.
Not this evening, however. That much was clear.
She regretted now letting Coletta play in the stream as long as she did, even allowing her lady-in-waiting to lure her in to play for who knew how long. Just that the Guard – and the Messenger to his fury – were ordered to turn out as the ladies played. Even the Guard that John had placed on the opposite side of the stream. That he was growing irritated with her delaying, she could see from the set of his shoulders and the way that he kept shifting his weight from one foot to another. They had gotten a late start as it was, she knew, because a horse had thrown a shoe and the laborer that passed for a blacksmith was slow at his work.
But she couldn’t help herself. Tired of doing the correct thing all the time. Tired of always following everyone else’s orders. Abruptly tired of knowing that she would never be able to be with John. If he were knighted someday, that would be one thing. Even then they could never marry. Common knights did not marry countesses. No, he would have to be ennobled somehow, and only the King had the power to bestow a title. So, hope for him to be knighted so she could take him as a lover? And endure the gossip? Without even having a serious discussion with herself, she knew that John would never allow her name to be so demeaned. Oh, he could fuck as many market girls and tavern wenches as he wanted, but have m’Lady’s reputation be stained...!?
So, she got her revenge. Katya-style, she decided to keep playing in the stream until he begged her to come out. She was being childish, she knew. But, she couldn’t help it. She was even a bit ashamed of herself. Kind of. Not really.
After all, who knew what the Summons meant. She hadn’t dared to ask herself, refusing to think about it. The idea that Chateau Brionde might well be given to some crony in return for some favor, that she might be given...
She cut off the thought and resumed waiting for John to break.
But it was the Messenger who broke first.
“m’Lady!” he cried in a peremptory tone.
She ignored him.
And the rasp of John’s drawing rapier. Apparently, the Messenger didn’t, however.
“Countess!”
She yet ignored him, turning full in the stream to look at John’s back. It was taut, tense. Break, damn you! But he didn’t.
She turned away and splashed Coletta who, daringly, whooped and jumped up enough to expose one large breast, its nipple perkily hard from the cold water.
“Countess!” the Messenger cried out, this time his voice sounded like he was turning.
“Eyes front!” the Master’s loud voice barked, easily over-riding him, no matter his Court pretensions.
She could hear the Messenger’s loud huff from here. She smiled a saucy grin at Coletta, who beamed right back. It was fun being naughty for once.
“My dear Countess,” the Messenger had lowered his voice, making it sweeter, softer. His courtier’s voice. Coletta raised an eyebrow at her.
“Yes,” she replied at last, keep just the slightest chill in her tone.
“We must go on. It will be dark soon, and your man--”
“My man?” she cut him off.
“Your...the Master is the first to insist on absolute security safeguarding your noble person.”
Funny how one marriage – to a Walrus no less – can make a commoner a noble, but the greatest warrior she had ever known would never be given a title. Would never be able to hold her at night... She re-focused her eyes on him. His back was as taut as ever. Even his butt cheeks were clenching from time to time, as he shifted weight. Now, that was a delicious sight. However, she suddenly noticed Coletta’s interest in where her m’Lady’s eyes had gone. Lela turned on her full of fury, just to watch Coletta stare straight down into the water. Her lady-in-waiting went absolutely still.
Suddenly tired of her game, she thought, dammit, John, break for once.
But he wouldn’t.
Still, Lela’s pride was affronted. She would never move on the word of a messenger, no matter how ridiculous his arrogance.
Waiting a moment, then loudly sighing for effect, she replied, “Let us see what the Master suggests.”
There was another long beat of silence.
Then, John’s shoulders did their own dance of struggle, she could see with amusement. Finally, they settled.
“m’Lady, it would be best to move on,” his terse reply had gruffly rung out.
She nodded at Coletta who swiftly moved to the bank and swept up her robe to dry her lady with. Lela had let her, then had slowly dressed, still annoyed that John wouldn’t break for her. Or maybe she was just annoyed with herself. Or maybe she was just mad at the world. Tired of it.
In any case, she regretted her earlier petulance now. The light was fading surprisingly fast. It suddenly dawned on her that John had always ensured they were in an inn’s common room, goblets in hand, when the sun had dipped below the horizon. Not this night. She had never seen the sun set on this trip, a tiny voice carped at her before she shushed it.
John was dismounting, passing the reins to her.
The Messenger’s voice rang out, breaking the Master’s order for silence, his head leaning out the carriage window. “Good god, man! Are we being attacked or not? If not--!”
She heard a soft pfffft! Then saw an arrow magically appear in the Messenger’s neck as he screamed. Coletta was also screaming she noted, turning in the saddle to see from where the shot had come when John’s head and shoulders reared up in front of her, knocking her back out of the saddle and off her mount. Angry at him, nonetheless, Katya’s training – drummed mercilessly into her head – took over and she straightened her back and raised her head while falling. Whoooof! All the breath was knocked out of her, but she could also, already, tell that her back, her neck was fine. She could move her toes, and d
id so, as she slowly let her head rest on the ground. John was already on his feet, turning to parry a sword thrust as he neatly stepped into a lunge, taking the bandit in the heart.
She blinked, struggling to breathe, at what she saw. The din of battle was in her ears, making her confused, but she could have sworn that she saw an arrow sticking out of John’s chest. How...?! The shouts were getting louder, drawing closer. All around her, she could hear the ring of metal on metal. John’s belief in the rapier was unique in the age of the broadsword, even controversial. Yet, the Guard’s rapiers when handled appropriately, were more than a match for any broadsword. She knew both because of the sack and because she had once asked Louis to explain why. He had been bed-ridden at the time, an anxious Phoebe at his side, bathing his temple as he healed from his duel with the same Sir Tristen that had killed the Walrus.
And, as the first sweet puffs of air filled her lungs at last, thank god, watching John fight off two broadswords above her at once, his muscular legs straddling her body, it seemed that his faith was being requited once again. She looked around her, dimly, blinking. She saw a Guard fall, his head being hacked on the ground by a sword, the blood fountaining upward in a ghastly mess. The bandit, however, paid for his victory as a rapier appeared in his throat, being thrust straight through from behind. He fell, the Guardsman already moving on to another fight.
Before she knew it, it was over. Silence reigned. Why should she be surprised, she thought, still dazed? She had once asked Louis what was most surprising about the sack, on one of her many visits to the boy who had defended her when no one else would – or could, given that John had been gone at the time. She had assumed that he would grouse about the Guard not taking orders from him. Instead, he had simply replied that he was surprised at how fast a swordfight really was. “The blink of an eye determines all, just as the Master said.”
Chateau of Longing Page 4
