The old woman nodded, touched her billowing skirt and said, “I have the blade.”
Regan could only nod as the old woman ran a wooden comb through her long dark hair, parted it in the center and let it fall in waves down her back. This wasn’t her hair anymore; this wasn’t her body.
Regan wasn’t her name.
Her name was Judith.
The old woman helped her into a loose silk gown of red, a harlot’s color. This was a harlot’s task, but General Holofernes had taken no interest in the harlots of the city. Only she, Judith, had caught his eye. For days, she’d put him off, playing the grieving widow and so far it had worked. But now she had to go to him. The word had come that day that the general’s army had their orders to sack her city tomorrow. If she wanted to save herself and her people, she must go to him.
“There, that’s done,” the old woman said. “No man would turn you away from his tent.”
Regan hoped it was true. Regan? No. These were Judith’s thoughts. The how and the why could wait, because it was time for her to see the general.
They walked along the city streets under the light of a full white moon. At the gates, the keeper took one look at her and spat at her feet, thinking she’d gone to sell herself to the enemy.
“We have to take care of ourselves,” she said, playing her role in case any of the enemy Assyrian soldiers were watching the gates.
Once out of the city, she and the old woman headed deep into the center of the army camp, past a hundred tents filled with soldiers. She felt as if she were walking through a den of sleeping vipers and with one wrong step, one sound, she would wake them all and they would swarm…
And there ahead was the tent of the king of those vipers.
Holofernes.
The man she’d come to kill.
A young soldier stood watch outside his general’s tent. He held up his hand to stop her.
“Don’t bother,” the soldier said. “There’s no mercy to be had.”
“Tell him Judith is here,” Regan said. “And tell him I’m not here for mercy.”
The soldier seemingly knew her name, because recognition flashed in his eyes. The general must have mentioned her. He slipped into the tent. Muffled male voices spoke. The soldier reemerged, coming through the flap like a baby being born, headfirst.
“Wait here,” he said.
They waited. There came the sound of male laughter, deep and cruel from inside the tent. Another soldier, older, grey-haired, emerged from the tent and gave Judith a look. He liked what he saw, but it was not for him. He walked off.
The young soldier nodded. “You may go in now,” he said. “Only you.”
The old woman did not complain. She dropped down at the side of the tent, at the very edge of it, making exaggerated sounds of pain as she planted herself on the hard ground.
Judith gave the old woman one last look. The old woman nodded, and then Judith went inside.
General Holofernes lay draped over a thick pile of silk cushions, a cup of red wine in his hand. His eyes gleamed and his cheeks were flushed. He’d been drinking deep. Good.
He lifted his cup to her. “Judith. Finally. You came to your senses.”
“I’ve come to claim your protection, if you will have me.”
He stared at her and she dropped her eyes demurely. It was said, far and wide, that General Holofernes prized nothing so much as meekness and submission. And if a woman or a city were not meek and submissive when he came to them, they would be ever after.
The general was an enormous man—tall, broad-chested, arms and legs thick and corded with muscle. He wore a beard and his brown hair was short. If he hadn’t been her enemy, the man who would burn her city down in the morning, she might have found him handsome.
He gave her a leering smile. “I will have you.”
The tent was large and lit by three oil lamps hanging from the beams. A large tent, almost grand with comforts. Fine wool blankets, thick cushions for sleeping and more. A table laden with bread and oil and wine. He hefted the wine skin and filled a wooden cup for her. She cradled the large wine cup in her two hands, lifted it to her lips, and feigned drinking from it. Even though the table sat between them, she could smell his body–the sweat and heat and musky maleness of it.
He drank deep from his cup before setting it down, empty. If his fighting prowess were anything like his drinking prowess, her city would be ashes by this time tomorrow.
“More wine, sir?” she asked, her voice low and respectful.
“You first. Wine after.” He waved his hand lazily, beckoning her to him. She prayed her God would forgive her when she sinned this night. She sinned to save her people. She offered another prayer that she would live long enough to repent.
She rose from the floor and went to him, head down. If she’d thought he was deep enough in his cups to be weak and yielding, she was sorely mistaken. When she neared him, he grabbed for her, his Goliath hands circling her waist almost entirely. He pulled her down to him and thrust his hand into her hair, holding her head and assaulting her mouth with rough, wine-sweetened kisses. He pushed his tongue between her lips, and she allowed herself a soft moan.
She’d been a widow too long, she thought, which is why she didn’t recoil as she should. But perhaps if she could feign pleasure well enough it would fool him into letting down his guard.
His hand moved from her back to her belly, then to the bodice of her gown. He yanked on the fabric, baring her breast. The kiss ceased but only so he could gaze on her body.
As if she weighed no more than a child, he hefted her in his massive arms and brought her breast to his mouth. He latched onto her nipple and sucked it hungrily, greedily, and to her horror it hardened in the hot cavern. He let it go but only to kiss her mouth again, as hungrily as he’d sucked her. He held her breast in his hand and kneaded it, hard, but not too hard. His large palm cupped it and his thumb rolled the nipple, which sent waves of pleasure—unwanted and unwelcome—rolling through her belly.
“Better than dying at dawn, isn’t it?” he taunted as he pulled her red gown up to her hips, exposing her to his eyes under the soft flickering light of the oil lamps. He wedged his hand between her quivering thighs and forced them apart. He cupped her between the legs, his hand buried in her soft curls.
“Burning hot,” he said. “I hope you burn my fingers off.”
Roughly he rubbed her, pushing through the folds of swollen flesh until he found her wetness. And she was wet and it did shame her. Worse, when he stroked her along the slit of her body, she released another moan, shameless this time. He pushed a thick and calloused finger into her sex, then a second. She cried out softly at the invasion, even as her body contracted around his fingers. He spread them apart inside her, opening her almost painfully wide. Her hips moved into his hand. He held her cupped in his palm and he was so strong he lifted her lower body by the fingers inside her, lifted and moved her so that he could cover her with his own body.
He tore his tunic off. When he was naked, he hovered over her on his knees, letting her see his organ, dripping from the tip, big as another man’s forearm and purple-red in its eagerness to have her.
He grabbed her by the hips again and yanked her to him, settling her in place so that she lay splayed open before him, thighs wide, gown bunched at her waist and her breast bare. He tore at the shoulder of her gown to bare her other breast. He gripped it, squeezed it, all the while watching her face contort with pleasure and fear.
In the back of her brain, Regan knew this was a dream—she wasn’t Judith, and Judith wasn’t her. Still, she quivered with true fear. She could smell his sweat and the olive oil burning in the bowl of the lamp. This was no ordinary dream. She was damp with sweat and wet inside. Her skin prickled on the rough fabric beneath her. And she desired this man who she knew she should hate, and so hated herself.
He brought his massive organ to the entrance of her body and pushed it to her opening. His arm wound round her back and lifted
her. When her hips rose off the cushion, he impaled her.
Judith cried out in ecstasy, which she would later tell her servant was feigned. It was their signal after all, that cry of pleasure. A small sword would soon be slipping under the edge of the tent, even as the general loomed over her, spearing her again and again…
He pounded at her womb, driving into her with brutal thrusts. His body was heavy on top of hers and his male organ split her, taking the breath from her body. Her female juices poured out of her, bathing his rod and wetting the cushion under her so that she felt it on her back as he ground down into her.
His face flushed red, his breathing loud and fast. Every few thrusts he’d release a loud lusty grunt of pleasure. He rutted on her, driving into the core of her. She had been holding tight to his shoulders, clinging to him, but now she lay back in total surrender as he rode her. She slipped her hand under a cushion and felt the cold iron blade against her fingers. Relief. She only touched it and let it go. It would be there when the time came.
He took her by the hips with a brutal grip. Her breasts bounced on her chest, and he laughed at the sight of her body so helpless under his.
It wouldn’t work. He was too strong and had the leverage on top of her. She had to get him on his back.
“Please,” she said, her breathing labored. “Let me take you. It’ll be a release like you’ve never known.”
“Then go on and take me,” he said, a sneer on his mouth.
He held her by the waist and rolled them, putting her on top of him. Light-headed from panting and shocked by her body’s reaction to this giant wicked man, she put her hands on his broad chest to steady herself. Then she began to move her hips. This pleased him, she could tell. He groaned again as the thick organ inside of her worked its way in deeper and deeper into the hot, tight cleft.
Judith’s husband, long dead, had been a skilled and tender lover who had taught her all the ways a man could please a woman and all the ways a woman could please a man. She remembered one such way. Closing her eyes, she concentrated, and clenched her inner passage hard around the general’s rod, squeezing it tight.
He gasped and looked at her wide-eyed with wonder. “Again,” he said, and she did it again, clenching hard around him as he writhed underneath her.
His thick fingers held her in an iron grasp. She would have bruises on her hips tomorrow and on her nipples and inside her womb. But even as she tried to unman him, she was undone herself. She moved faster on him, snapping her hips against his until she came with a powerful release.
“You whore,” he said. “No virtuous widow are you.” Then he laughed, his head falling back, and she laughed too, laughed as she bent to kiss him, laughed as she grasped the slim short sword under the cushion, laughed as she slid the sharp blade out…
Her old maidservant had been waiting outside for her to take the blade’s handle, and she lifted the edge of the tent and slipped under. As Judith raised the sword, her maidservant grabbed the general’s hair and pulled his head back, baring his throat.
Holofernes, lost in his own pleasure, began to release inside Judith, spurting scalding hot seed against her womb.
The sword gleamed red in the lamplight. She had to act fast, before the last shudders of his orgasm passed and he regained his senses—
Too late. He snapped free from the maidservant’s grasp, his head bolting upright…and she saw it wasn’t Holofernes.
It was Arthur. Her beautiful Brat, his eyes wide with terror.
“I’m not your enemy,” he said as she brought the blade down on his neck…
Regan woke up screaming, her lover’s last words ringing in her ears.
I’m not your enemy.
A night and a day passed and by Sunday afternoon, Regan was calm again. Not calm, no, but empty, which was better in her books. Calm meant that peace and contentment were present. Emptiness meant that everything, including loneliness, regret, and pain were absent.
It had only been a dream, of course. A particularly vivid dream, true, but Regan was well-versed with the popular art subject Judith Slaying Holofernes. She’d studied various incarnations of the story during her first and only year in art school. Her first oil painting she’d ever attempted had been a modern version of that theme, with her playing Judith and playing Holofernes was a man who vaguely resembled Lord Arthur Godwick—not her Arthur, of course, but his grandfather, the man who’d killed her mother.
Of course talking about her mother with her Brat would bring that memory back to her, conjuring up a dream of the original “sleeping with the enemy” myth. That’s all it had been.
Same with the dream where Lord Malcolm had stood at her side, tender toward her as if she were his own child, and shown her the empty frame and promised that someday a portrait of hers would hang in it.
Mad, stupid dreams. Not worth the sand the Sandman scattered on her pillow.
And yet, for the first time in a decade, she’d taken out her old sketchbook and begun to sketch Judith slaying Holofernes. Without lust this time and without mercy.
She sat on the garden terrace in the last of the golden rays of the late afternoon sun as she sketched, hating how horribly amateur her drawing looked and hating even more how happy it made her to be sketching again. As absorbed as she was in her work, she didn’t hear the doors to the terrace open.
“Boss?”
Startled, Regan looked up.
“Cold out, Boss,” Zoot said. “You want to freeze?”
“I have my coat on,” she said. “But I’ll be in soon. This is good light for sketching.”
“Didn’t know you sketched. When did you start doing that?”
“Years ago,” she said. “I just haven’t done it in a long time.”
Zoot craned her neck, shamelessly peeking.
“A nice murder you done there,” she said, approving of the drawing of a blade going through a man’s throat. “Who we murdering?”
“General Holofernes. Biblical story. Can’t compete with Artemisia Gentileschi though. She did the definitive portrait.” Regan closed the sketchbook and rested it on her lap. She stared out at the waning sunlight, gathering clouds turning it silver. “Artemisia was raped in her art studio by one of her father’s art students.”
Zoot’s eyes widened. “Hope she murdered him, too.”
“No, but they took him to court and won.” Regan looked at Zoot. “Do you know what she did after that?”
“Murdered him, then.”
Regan smiled. “She went back into the studio and painted.”
Hard to believe, a teenage girl in the seventeenth century, raped by her father’s student who swore after the attack he’d marry her to take the stigma away from her…then he reneged on his promise and during his trial for breach of promise, she was literally tortured with the thumbscrews to verify her testimony. Eighteen years old. Raped and tortured.
And when it was all over…she went back into her studio and painted incredible scenes of women murdering men. Judith and Holofernes. Salome and John the Baptist. Jael and Sisera. One of Regan’s favorite paintings, a young woman pounding a tent peg into the skull of a sleeping enemy soldier. She was one of Regan’s very few heroes.
“I like her,” Zoot said, nodding. “My sort of girl. She’s got balls.”
Regan laughed. It felt good to laugh at someone or something other than her own sorry self.
“All it took to get me to stop painting was one black look from my husband. Meanwhile, Artemisia…”
Not only had she continued to paint after the rape and trial, she’d become a famous painter, belle of the Baroque, painter to dukes and duchesses, kings and queens.
Regan continued, “What would Artemisia think of me, letting Sir Jack completely destroy my love of painting.”
“Doubt that highly,” Zoot said. “Sir Jack was a wrinkled old bellend. Only person I know tough enough to put a dent in you is you.” She laughed, because it was a joke but it sounded painfully close to Arthur’s accu
sation that it was Regan who chose to make herself miserable. Well, he didn’t know a thing about her and her misery. Not a bloody thing.
Zoot shrugged. “If you want to paint again, Boss, I’ll let you paint me. Always fancied having my picture done. Maybe on the back of a horse? Suit of armor, Joan of Arc-style? Loads of dead Tommies all around me on the ground? Buckets of blood? You see it?”
Zoot feigned raising a sword above her head, composed her face into a mask of determination and godly rage. It was a surprisingly impressive sight. Regan almost did want to paint that scene.
“A little beyond my skillset at the moment, but I’ll keep that image in mind,” Regan said. “Did you need something?”
“Message for you,” she said, lowering her imaginary sword and sheathing it. “He said he would’ve hand-delivered it to you personally, but he said you banished him from The Pearl.”
Regan sighed. “I told him never to come back,” she said. “I suppose I should have told him never to contact me either.”
“What he do? Piss in your umbrella?”
Regan glared at Zoot. “He was rude.”
“Were you rude first? Never mind. Already know the answer.”
“Do you remember who you work for?”
“Yes, and she’s a proper harpy sometimes though that’s part of her charm.”
“You don’t even like Arthur. You think he’s a brat, too.”
“A rich titled brat, face of a god, body of a soldier, cock of a horse, who eats your cunt on command. You think those grow on trees? I wouldn’t be working for you if they did, believe me. I’d be a bloody forest ranger.”
Regan really was going to have to get a new assistant soon, someone who knew how to take orders and keep her opinions to herself.
Zoot kept on, “I know you’re miffed at him, Boss—Christ knows why, still think it’s your fault—but you’ve actually been something almost like happy the last two weeks, and it’s not because you’re one of those daft American bints who gets wet when the leaves change colors and Starbucks brings the pumpkin spice latte back.”
The Pearl (The Godwicks) Page 14
