Conquests and Crowns

by S E Meliers

  ‘Thank you,’ Charity looked at the clothes in his hands as if uncertain what they were. ‘But I cannot linger. I must return to my keep. You may not know, but we are under attack-’

  ‘The battle is long lost, my lord, if battle it may be called,’ the Prophet said gently. ‘Returning would not only be fruitless, it would place your life in great danger. Your army is defeated, your castle occupied, your family hostage.’

  ‘By the Goddess,’ Charity’s shock was evident. ‘My wife! My children! I must return.’

  ‘No, my lord,’ she shook her wizened mane. ‘There is only one way forward in which you may once again be with your wife – and that is by following my instructions now. Please get changed: we have not a great deal of time.’

  ‘Why should I trust you?’ he cried. ‘You claim to be a Prophet – surely you should have foreseen this attack and have warned us!’

  She sighed. ‘The paths of time are tangled my lord. If you tweak the wrong line, you detrimentally affect the future. Some things are simply meant to happen. I am sorry for your loss, but there are those occurrences that are not for mortal beings to change. As for trusting me,’ she gestured to the little campsite. ‘I could have left you to drown, or asked Cedar to meet you with the sharp point of blade and let the ocean take back the evidence of our foul deed; I did not. You will just have to have faith, my lord, that I intend you, and yours, no ill.’

  He looked at her for a long moment, searching her eyes for an answer to a question only he knew. Finally, he sighed, his handsome face sunken and aged with exhaustion and woe. ‘I have little choice but to believe you,’ he said, ‘I will be guided by you in this.’

  She nodded. ‘Good. Now change, eat and drink. You must be off towards the west, towards where your great king resides, and before the sun rises if you are not to be thwarted in your journey. There are those that hunt, and their intentions are murky, to say the least.’

  Cedar watched the lord consume the soup, his manner oddly courtly for the setting. ‘I wonder what Lark would say if she knew her soup fed the Lord Charity of Amori this morn,’ he commented wryly. The Prophet smiled.

  ‘Pray, pass her my humble compliments,’ the great Lord Charity set the pot side. ‘It was just the thing to chase near drowning from a man’s bones.’

  ‘We appreciate the courtesy,’ the Prophet replied. ‘But your name will be death to those who speak it in coming days, my Lord; therefore it is best we savour the compliment ourselves. Cedar,’ she passed the pot across the fire. ‘Can you please scrub out the pot and return it full of seawater.’

  She fixed the lord with a gimlet eye. ‘We must disguise your hair, my lord. The golden locks of Lord Charity of Amori are famed far and wide. A brew of black sabboah tea will tarnish the colour enough to cloud the eye to your identity, I believe.’

  The seawater in the cleaned pot was placed over the fire coals to heat and she drew a pouch of precious black tea from her belt and added it to create a murky brew. ‘You will need to travel discretely, my lord. With your homespun garb and darkened hair, you should pass casual glance, but you must mend your manner and still your tongue, less your knightly posture and court-bred speech give your identity away. This,’ she passed him a little purse, ‘contains a little coin. Buy boots, and a hat. There is not enough for a horse, if you also wish to eat. Make your choice, wisely. Lord Charity may be well received in keep and croft alike between Amori and Garvia, but the peasant you must be to survive this journey? Never forget and let habit expose you.’

  Lord Charity ran a hang through hair still the colour of the sun. ‘I am grateful,’ he said. ‘I am not so distanced from my people that I am unaware that the coins are a small fortune to most – but to travel between Amori and Garvia by foot will take weeks, if it is even possible.’

  ‘It is possible,’ Cedar assured him. ‘I have done so, on foot, several times.’

  The Prophet produced the small dagger and its sheath. ‘You will need this also – no man, no matter how common, would travel without one.’

  ‘I thank you,’ Charity met her gaze. ‘I will repay your generosity when my situation is amended.’

  She laid a hand on his cheek. ‘You are a good man, Charity of Amori. I wish your journey had a smoother road. Now, let Cedar wash your hair in the brew, and you had best be off. Dawn is not far.’

  As dawn broke over the ocean, Cedar stood with the Prophet on the crest of a sand dune and watched the distant figure of the Lord of Amori stride away. The Prophet sighed. ‘He will, of course,’ she said, ‘head straight to Amori and his family. He is too noble a man to abandon them to their plight. So, my friend, I must ask more of you. Please, follow him, walk his road with him, until we meet again.’

  ‘We will meet again?’ Cedar asked with only a slight hesitation in which he considered her request.

  She smiled, and squeezed his hand. ‘My journey would not be complete without you, my friend. Our paths will cross again, and again, and again.’

  He kissed her cheek - cinnamon and lavender - before striding after the displaced Lord of Amori.

  Rogue

  It was a risk she could ill afford to take, but one that drew her back time and time again; her own personal addiction, her weakness, her taint.

  The soft gold candlelight caught on skin dewed with sweat, the shift of muscle and a web of tangled hair. She revelled in the rare sensation of pleasure; gave herself permission to indulge but also castigated herself for the need to do so. Weak, she thought, weak after all, and of all the times to find this flaw, this potentially fatal flaw, she would find it now, when all the world was primed to explode into war and blood and death and glory; when she needed to be unbreakable, the adamantine fulcrum of events to come.

  Beyond window shutters left open to capture the cool breath of night, carriage wheels ground to a halt, spilling a party of weary travellers out onto the stoop, their voices a cacophony of the tangled vowels of Guarn. A stable boy cursed at a stubborn horse, and a drunkard vomited noisily onto the road.

  Somewhere far else, in a labyrinth of city streets, a whore screamed, her voice reedy and thin and cutting off abruptly into silence; an insignificant death, amongst many that would take place as the seductive cloak of night released the debauchery of sinners, but one that registered briefly in her catalogue of depravity. Lyendar and Necromancer caught in her mind and were swiftly lost to the slide of tongue against skin.

  The revelry in the inn below spilled through walls and floor too thin to mute voices raucous with inebriation. A minstrel strummed an ill-tuned lute and dancing feet kept time poorly. There was a momentary upset over a woman, settled swiftly by a fist.

  Within the chamber, a single candle flickered, hissing on an imperfection in the wax and sending light and shadow dancing across the bed. Rogue’s hand slid over warm silken flesh and corded muscle; over shoulders wide and defined, and down the length of back. His mouth found that point where neck joined shoulder above collarbone and sent sparks to her breasts and groin before nibbling his way up to her jaw, near her ear. Hair, his or hers she wasn’t sure, trailed across her chest as he caught her lips with his and devoured. She traced her way down his linear alba; trailed fingertips across sculpted abdominal muscles; followed the pathway created by the prominent v oblique to hip.

  A second strong male body cupped her from knee to shoulders in the decadent warmth of skin and muscle, and traced a callous roughened palm up her outer thigh and across her hip, combing fingers through her pubic hair before stroking lightly over her clitoris. ‘Ah, damn, yes,’ she arched her back encouraging his fingers, turning her head. White blond Ash leaned over her shoulder and claimed her mouth, whilst Coal, his hair as dark as his name implied, caught her left nipple between his teeth, stroking it with his tongue. ‘Damn,’ she rolled onto her back and encouraged Coal’s mouth lower with one hand; pulling Ash’s mouth back to her lips with her other.

  Coal taunted her by trailing his lips down her inner thighs. She arched her hi
ps and spread her knees pointedly. He bit her outer labia before using his clever tongue to draw a line through her sensitive flesh to her clitoris, a line which he punctuated by capturing the sensitive nerve bundle between his teeth and grinding gently. ‘Damn,’ she exclaimed with a shock of pleasure, tearing her mouth away from Ash’s. ‘Do not stop.’ She could feel an orgasm hovering, tantalising, just out of reach.

  Ash’s hand swept up her ribcage, cupped her breast, thumb stroking over her nipple, and Coal’s tongue danced circles over her clit before he began to suck: ‘Argh. More… more,’ she demanded, inarticulate with lust, before growing impatient and pulling Coal up her body by his strong upper arms. She tasted herself on his tongue as he slid into her emptiness, driving deep to her core.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist, using his body to lever her own up, meeting his thrusts with savage rhythm, skin slapping skin, a film of sweat building between them. His fingers dug into the flesh of her buttock as he pulled her hips higher, the other hand braced near her head. His dark hair cloaked them both, tangling and merging with hers, his heavy brows furrowed over passion clouded blue eyes. Sweat ran down his strong straight nose, gathered across sharp cheekbones and the stubble above his thin upper lip. ‘By the Monad, you are beautiful,’ she told him in a rare moment of generosity. He laughed, before groaning and losing his seed into her. ‘Damn!’ she swore, annoyed that her own pinnacle was unmet, and pushed him off, rolling to straddle Ash.

  She braced herself, digging fingers into strong pectorals, gliding down his length, and grinding her clitoris against his pubic bone. ‘Curses!’ he gasped out, partially in surprise at her sudden attack but mostly at the sensation, before seizing the back of her head and pulling her in to claim her mouth. She fought against him, focussed on her orgasm and not on the niceties of sex, but he conquered, plundering her mouth and holding her stationary until she moaned acknowledgment of his temporary mastery. He bit her bottom lip between his teeth before releasing her and she snarled, arching back before lifting to his tip and slamming herself back down his length. He grunted with the impact, wryly amused, before grasping her hips with strong fingers and helping her to lift, making the motion effortless for her.

  ‘So close,’ she moaned changing rhythm and motion, closer and faster, rocking hard against him. He lifted his hips and moved a hand between them to press against her clitoris. He said something, but it was lost to her as her orgasm finally hit. ‘Damn!’ she screamed as her body exploded. She did not know if he came or not; did not care as she fell, bone-less with repletion, across him, panting her satisfaction into his spider-web fine blond locks.

  Coal caught her in his arms and pulled her to the mattress between them, nuzzling into her hair. She slept like the dead, framed by sinfully perfect twinned male-flesh. Dream eventually woke her to sunlight, beaming through the open shutters and catching stray airborne dust in sparkling display. ‘Fvccant,’ she sat up sharply, throwing back the covers that one of the twins must have dragged up over them. Ash murmured: ‘Later,’ before rolling back into his pillow.

  Coal opened one eye as she pulled out from between them, crawling with what he found to be an intriguing display of arse to the foot of the bed, before stepping down to the rough wooden floor. She began to fish through discarded clothing irritably, tossing aside what was not hers with self-centric intent. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked, sitting up and watching her pull on her trousers. He enjoyed the thought of her wearing the scent of hedonistic sex throughout the day like some debauched and wanton perfume.

  ‘Away,’ she laced her bodice and slung her cloak, a flurry of black feathers and ivory bone on midnight cloth, over her shoulders. She thrust her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame it, but gave up when they simply caught and tangled further, pulling the hood up to disguise it, and casting her face into obscurity.

  ‘When will we see you again?’ he asked as she thrust feet into boots.

  She looked up, a glimpse of green through shadow. ‘I will find you,’ she said, and closed the door behind her.

  Patience

  ‘I did not know this place existed,’ Rue murmured against her ear as the night cold eased with the rising sun. Their voluminous skirts had provided some padding and warmth through the night, but the cold had pricked and prodded them into an undignified embrace, the children caught against and between them. The only source of light was weak and grey and filtered through a grill in a wall high above their heads, but it cheered her to see it spearing through what had become and endless, endless night. The grill brought them fresh air, without it, the mildewed dankness would be overpowering.

  ‘It is so unlike Charity,’ Rue continued, her voice falsely urbane as she rallied with the dawn. ‘I am astonished, really.’

  In her arms, Patience felt her baby daughter, Joy, nuzzle, mouth moving against the silk of her gown in dreams of milk. She could barely make out the sweet curve of cheek in the dim light. ‘I suppose all castles have dark, dank places,’ she replied, without heat, in defence of her husband. ‘I imagine Charity never bothered with a place so infrequently used.’

  ‘Do you think he used this place at all?’ Rue stood with effort, her corseted silhouette made monstrous by some trick of shadows due to the four year old toddler who wrapped arms and legs around her. Charm, Patience and Charity’s eldest, and heir to the castle in which cells they currently abode, snuffled wetly and sucked his thumb. His cheeks in the grey light were trailed with tears, but he had given up on verbalising his complaints some time before. ‘It is strange to think; an entire facet of the court of which I was unaware. Did they march villains and rogues through the courtyards in the small hours of the day when we were all in bed, to imprison them here in dankness until they could interrogate them further – like from a romantic ballad? I am sure he never imagined we would be in them. Phew! You are getting so big, Charm, too big to carry,’ she sat again, her side rested against Patience, sharing warmth, and moved the little boy onto her lap. ‘I dread to think what this floor is doing to my silk,’ she added petulantly.

  ‘I am hungry,’ Charm was woebegone, his little voice bewildered by his sudden change of fortune; wrenched away from his luxurious nursery and indulgent nursemaids in a bafflement of screams and shouts - the castle swarmed with armoured invaders so unexpectedly that the castle gates had not time to touch ground - to this cold, damp, dirty place and a night spent in discomfort never before experienced.

  Rhyndel was a peaceful country. There had been no wars for longer than the oldest great grandfather’s memory. The city of Amori perched on the far edge of Rhyndel, and acted as sentry to the one pass through the EAeryian Mountains to the barbarian lands of Shoethal beyond. The barbarians of Shoethal had long been peaceful towards the urbanites of Rhyndel, more concerned with their internal power struggles, thus enabling Amori to focus on its own concerns. Amori’s great wealth came from trade – with control of the mountain pass they also controlled trade with the Shoethal and the EAeryians, and with the ocean at its feet, operated a thriving port. As a result, Amori was a jewel of civilisation, a mecca of education, art and higher aspiration.

  Amori had become complacent, and in its complacency had fallen with devastating swiftness to the Shoethalian invaders.

  ‘Hush, hush little one,’ Rue rocked and stroked his corn silk hair. ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘I am hungry,’ he insisted.

  Patience’s heart hurt for him, fear so strong she felt ill with it. She closed her eyes against a future of horrors beyond her imagining. She wondered if it was cowardice or a mother’s love that brought the thought of smothering her children to sleep in her arms rather than risk them enduring torture and torment from the barbarian invaders. She shook the thought away; either option was an unbearable thing to contemplate. Still, it clung, that maybe she would regret not taking action now, later.

  ‘Here,’ Rue stood Charm on his feet, and reached out for Joy. ‘I will take the babe. Suckle Charm.’

 
‘He is too big for breast milk,’ Patience was surprised at the suggestion, especially on the heel of her morbid ruminations, and passed the baby to her sister automatically, responding to the request rather than the reason. Charm came willingly to Patience’s arms and snuggled in, seeking comfort from his mother’s warmth and familiar smell.

  Rue shrugged an elegant shoulder. ‘It is all you have to offer, and it is more than I have.’

  Patience tried, but the little boy had long forgotten how to latch on and no real interest or understanding of what she sought to achieve, just becoming frustrated by her attempts. When his tears and wailing settled into sleep, Patience found that her cheeks were also wet, although she had not realised that she cried. She kissed his little blonde head, breathed in the scent of his flushed skin, and feared with a bowel clenching terror.

  ‘When this is over, we really must have Charity do something about this place,’ Rue continued as if the conversation had not been broken. ‘It is just not acceptable, at all.’

  Patience knew Rue spoke only to fill the silence, to hold back the terror that pressed in on them as the darkness retreated exposing more of the realities of their situation. Patience wondered if Rue was braver than she or just cared less, not having children to worry for. ‘I am afraid, Rue,’ she whispered, her fear becoming an unbearable burden to carry unspoken. ‘Where is Charity? What will they do to us? To the children? You know who they are; you have heard the stories…’