She’d barely sleep before he’d wake her and fuck her all over again. On the fourth day, she pushed him away telling him she needed sleep more than his cock.
Eldron had laughed, thrown back the covers, lifted her legs and ate her for breakfast until she was screaming his name. If she didn’t want his cock, she’d have his tongue, he’d told her.
She came hard and had to push him away when his tongue became too much.
“Eldron, I love you but I mean it. Take your cock and mouth to your own room!” She’d bellowed falling back on the sheets, covering herself up trying to look like the sleep she needed.
“I need rest and food and drink,” she mumbled grumpily.
“You love me?” She pulled the covers off her face staring at him. He could see she was unsure of her exposure.
He hopped off the bed naked and stretched, she rolled her eyes.
Bloody man was too delicious….
“My wife loves me!” he shouted pulling on a gown puffing up. Eleanor sniggered.
“Staff!” he shouted out.
He looked too good in that as well…. Her mouth watered as the door opened.
“Bring in the big tub and hot water, food and drink and clean the room.”
Eleanor groaned. “Are you deaf!” she asked him.
She wanted sleep more than anything else. She tried to ignore him while people came in and water filled the tub.
She complained as she felt the covers being pulled off her and being picked up. He ignored his arm and she shook her head noticing Eldron was naked again.
She sighed as he walked over and put them both in the tub.
Bloody man…..
He’d stripped them both with her help. Her head lay on his shoulder as he washed her hair, using the lavender and honey scented soap they now had because of her. Needing her scalp and shoulders, he washed her long tresses, loving the feel of them through his fingers. Eleanor sighed as he gave the maid permission to wash the soap with fresh water from her hair. The fresh lavender oil and soap revitalising her.
Food and drink arrived, and he fed her until she took her own. Maids came and went, stripped and remade the bed, smiling covertly at them both at their bath. But they only had eyes for each other.
Chamber pots were taken away and new ones provided, the room cleaned, and more heated water provided, wine and mead.
Eldorn washed himself using his good arm, keeping the bad out and then rubbed at her hands and arms while as she ate submerged. Unable to not keep touching her.
Another knock and Makas came in, “I see you are alive then.”
Elenore smirked as he took a seat by the fire, pouring some wine. She thought he looked better. “Your injury?” she asked
“Well my Lady.”
“Report?” Eldron asked. He was here for a reason not just to ogle Eleanor in her bath.
“We have another sighting. I’ve sent word to Lord Aimar.”
Eleanor stilled. Eldron caressed her breast under the water, playing with her nipples. She continued to eat her apple.
“Not unexpected,” he told him.
“No.” Makas sounded resigned. “The men have recovered well. Thanks to our Lady’s good planning. A couple more weeks and we will be back to full strength.”
He lifted his goblet towards them. “My compliments My Lady, the defences are spectacular. I have to say I was most surprised to find my man servants along with other household staff in an arrows defensive group led by Kate our housekeeper that first morning.”
She grinned while Eldron’s hand stilled in surprise. “They’re good aren’t they.” She told him smiling.
Makas nodded. Then got sombre. “I still do not think that was a scouting party we came across. Too many men, too well trained. The leader exceptional in skill. It took us weeks to chase them all.” He rubbed his chin then took another drink. “If the main attack were further East and we’d not interceded them, it would have made a good trap.”
Eldron moved Eleanor to one side and got out, reaching for a blanket to dry him and another to wrap around him. Taking another, he held it out to Eleanor screening her from Makas. She wrung out her hair holding it high and rose.
He lifted and wrapped her in it, then another around her long hair and took her to the chair by the fire. He sat between them while Eleanor dried out her hair and called for servants to clean up.
“And our….. guest?” Eldron asked.
Makas snorted. “Just as deadly. If anyone gets near, a blade comes out and strikes. I’ve no idea where she is keeping them.”
Eleanor stilled. They had a female captive.
Eldron laughed. “You like her.”
“The men are not used to female prisoners. Particularly one that deadly. They were stupid and learnt quickly. She was screaming blue murder earlier and I was called for.”
Eldron chuckled. “Did you get a warm welcome?” Eleanor looked at Makas. He looked…. interested.
Makas refilled his goblet and stared at the fire.
“I told her I’d fuck her into silence if she didn’t shut up and then fuck her so well, she’d willingly spill all she knew like a pig and give me everything I wanted.”
“Did that work?” Eldron asked taking his own wine.
Makas took a long drink.
“No. The bitch slowly stripped, her eyes never leaving mine, told one of her men to get his cock out and lay on the bed and she mounted him, holding a blade to his face telling him not to come in her and rode him, until he begged to be released so he could come.” He looked incredulous.
“She rode him, pleasuring herself, her eyes on mine the whole time. Then stood there, while the male scrambled to release himself in the corner and stated calmly; “Did I squawk like a pig?”
Eleanor looked at both men and sniggered. They were in shock. This female wasn’t scared to play them at their own game. For such sexual beings these men hadn’t anticipated that. Eleanor couldn’t help but laugh. They looked to her and it broke the tension.
“I like her,” she told them.
Eldron tipped his goblet towards Makas.
“So does he. That it?”
Makas wiped a hand down his face. “I wish it were. No. She came towards the bars naked and pressed her body to them. Her breasts between the bars within reach, she lifted her leg, her foot coming towards me and ran it up and down my cock. The guards stepped forward and I held them off. I wanted to see what she would do. Her eyes seemed to sparkle. Having explored, she dropped her foot and stepped back from the bars.”
“And?” Eldron knew by how Makas was holding himself back there was more.
“She said…. ‘Small’ with some distain then turned, dressed herself and sat back down.”
Elenore chuckled she knew how wrong that was intimately.
Eldron roared with laughter slapping his thigh. “I think you have found your match Makas. Marry her and spend your life fighting for who has the upper hand.”
Makas stood proudly. “That was just the first round.” A small smile on his face surfaced and he left. The door shutting behind.
Eldron shook his head knowing Makas would be sending warnings to Aimar and the other Lords regarding the sightings. Reaching out he touched Eleanor’s thigh.
“Ready for bed my love?” She nodded.
He rose and grabbed the nightgown holding it out for her to slip into. Then lifted her with his good arm and carried her to bed, she winced and reached for the balm.
Eldron stopped her. “Sore?” She nodded.
“It has been a while my Lord.” Taking the balm he lifted her nightgown and smeared the balm across her pleasure zone and around the entrance that belonged to him. He slipped a finger in slightly that was coated then withdrew it.
“You should have said you were this sore.”
He covered her up and wrapped her in the blankets. She smiled at him snuggling down.
“Go and be useful elsewhere for a couple of days and then…..” She slowly blinked at him as
sleep called to her. He leaned forward, brushing the hair from her face, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek.
“Sleep little temptress.”
Five
Eleanor slept on and off for a couple of days, eating and drinking, cleaning up, Eldron would make an appearance shortly after asking for food, he’d join her and talk about the day, apply some more balm then snuggle with her until she fell asleep once more. Finally waking refreshed and glad to see sunlight streaming in.
She knew it was from the stress, her body not sleeping as well as it should for all those months and the long days of love making finally having Eldron back. Her body had been simply worn out.
She used the chamber pot and washed up applying more balm to her nether regions the soreness nearly gone. Brushing her hair out, she remembered the female captive. Eleanor didn’t like it. A female should not be in the cells with men. A maid arrived with breakfast.
“Thank you Agnes.” She bobbed and put the tray down by the fire making it up. “I will be going out after breakfast, I will need my training clothes and swords.”
She breakfasted and felt ready to face the world. Striding out into the hall she told her guards she wanted the cells. To Agnes, she’d told her to make up the old masters room that Makas was using and the connecting guest room with fresh linens and to air and clean them both and to have a tub brought into the guest room filled with hot water, herbs, healing balm and soap for a bath and supply several outfits for a woman.
The guards led her through the centre courtyard, through the middle into the outer wall courtyard. The Keeps main house, which was really a grand castle, stood in the centre courtyard. It was ringed by the middle and the outer one providing a good defensive layout. An attack had to get through two heavily defended ringed sections before you’d reach the main castle.
Each an encompassing circle of the next. Each as defensible as the other. She now knew them intimately. But this was new to her. She’d never been down to the cells. They walked around the outa wall over to the guard block, then on to a gate built out from their side of the middle courtyard wall. Several guards stood at the entrance. Iron bars across it.
“This takes us down to the cells?” she asked. They gave her a short nod.
“Lead on,” she told them. They hesitated.
“This is no place for a Lady.”
Eleanor turned to him. “Is that so? I hear there’s a lady down there anyway. I’m sure she’d like some female company. Let’s go.”
They didn’t move for a moment and she shooed them.
“Open it, or you won’t like the consequences if you don’t.” She stared at him hard.
Reluctantly, he opened the gate. They walked through the doorway and down a set of cut out steps and she followed. The smell hit her first as lanterns lit the stone stairway. It smelt of human waste, dirt, damp, bodies and blood. Eleanor held back her gag reflex. How anyone lived in these conditions she did not know.
By the time they reached the bottom and the room widened out into a huge underground space she was fuming.
The jailer came towards her. Bald and heavy set with a bad limp. An old warrior then. He stood and bowed then straightened.
“My Lady, this is not the place for you,” he told her kindly.
“By the smell of it, it’s not the place for anyone!” She snapped. He blinked at her in surprise, it tempered her anger. This was not his fault. She nodded understanding.
“When was the last time this place was cleaned out?” She looked around angrily. “The cells washed down, the mould scrapped away, chamber pots provided and removed, clean rushes put down?”
He didn’t answer her. She looked up into his bewildered face. Never obviously. As far as he knew clearly. Eleanor blew out a breath and turned to her guard.
“Do you have any idea what illnesses can breed here because it’s left like this?” No one answered.
Idiots!
She tempered her words recalling you got more with honey than anger.
“I want every soldier up there standing around, shitting the breeze, down here to clean this place out. Cell by cell.” She looked at the central brazier. Ignoring the torture tools. The place was freezing.
“Get that fire providing heat not pain, I want fresh bedding and rushes and get a tub down here. I want them all washed, clean clothes provided and get the Priest down here seeing to their injuries.”
They gapped at her. “NOW.”
They scuttled off. All but the jailer and her person guard. Eleanor looked at the jailer. “Take me to the female prisoner.”
He walked around the room and stopped on the other side. The jail room was circular. A rim of iron bared cells around it. The brazier in the middle. Every cell had a clear view of everyone else and what torture was happening. Most cells were occupied but not all. The jailer pointed to the cell in front of him. Eleanor stepped forward, her guards with her. Four people were in it. They all looked and were dressed the same and no one moved although they would have heard what she’d said.
She turned to the jailer. “You put a woman in a cell with three men? Who ordered that? Answer me!”
“Lord Makas my Lady.”
Eleanor was fuming. He put that lady’s life at risk of those men!
It was unacceptable. Was he mad?
Eleanor gripped her fists. “Did he now. Well, he’ll be lucky to still have balls by the time I’m finished with him.” She told him angrily.
One was separate from the others. The female. She addressed her.
“My sincere apologises my Lady,” she bowed a little, very sure the female saw everything. “I only recently found out that you were here. I have rooms made available to you if you would come with me.”
The female looked up and flicked the hood down on her hood. Eleanor thought she was striking and beautiful even with all the filth.
“You wish to trick me.”
Eleanor laughed. “No trick. Just honest accord from one female to another.”
“Your Lord is in agreement?” Her eyes flicked to the swords at Eleanor’s back.
“Lord Makas?” Eleanor saw the female’s eyes flash at here the name.
Interesting….
“is not the senior Lord here and he does not rule me. Come or not, I have no wish to harm you. If you choose not to talk or not that is your choice. No harm will come to you unless, you harm us.”
“My men?”
“Will be treated better than they were but I cannot guarantee that they will not be….. persuaded to talk.” Eleanor looked at the men in her cell.
“Your female will not be harmed you have my oath, if they suggest otherwise to make you talk, they are lying. No one will dare to go against me.”
There were several intakes of breath from both her guard and jailer and the female prisoner.
“I will not lie to them.” She told her calmly.
“You give away your advantage?” the female told her.
Eleanor shook her head looking back to the female.
“You’d have talked by now if you were going to. Do you wish to stay?”
“No.” The female stood.
“Good. Do I have your oath that you will not harm me or my people unless you are attacked and need to defend yourself?”
The female stared at her making up her mind.
“You would take my word. I could use you as a hostage?”
Eleanor nodded. “One woman to another I would.”
The female looked at her for a moment weighing her up. “I give it. But I will try to escape.”
Eleanor smiled. “Fair enough. Then keep your blades to yourself and I will do the same.” The female gave a slight smile back. “Open the door.”
“My Lady I must object.” The jailer told her coming forward.
“Your name?”
“Balwin my Lady.”
“Balwin, you have done a good job in difficult circumstances. It will be better from this point forward. Now open the door.” He moved forw
ard and opened it.
The female came out and stood next to her. Eleanor held out her hand.
“I am Eleanor.”
The female took it then let it go. “Harlewin, they call me Harle.”
“I am very glad to meet you.” Eleanor turned for the stairs walking back the way they came already seeing men, buckets and rushes being piled up around and empty cells being cleaned out. “It will be nice to have another woman around to talk to.”
“Are you mistress here?”
They took the stairs up. “I am, Lord Eldron is my husband.”
“You and that big fucker?” She asked shocked. Eleanor laughed lightly at her surprise and nodded. “He is a fine fighter,” she told her as they walked up the stairs. “Took a nasty axe to that arm of his, I think it was broken but he fought on and killed many of my men.”
“He is that.” Eleanor told her. “I not surprised and far from happy that he did not come home when he broke it.” She let a little of her anger show through.
They came to the top and the light seemed too bright. Eleanor stopped for a moment to get her bearings and adjust to the light.
“Can you use those?” Harle asked pointing to her swords.
Eleanor stepped up into the light. A smile creasing her face. “Yes.”
They both moved forward into the fresh air and walked on. “That is surprising, I was told females do not fight in this land.”
Eleanor saw Makas stop running towards them, his men behind him. She inclined her head towards him and directed her voice at him but didn’t stop.
The Barbarian Page 13
