George & the Virgin

by Lisa Cach

  She had wanted George to sleep through the night, and had been overgenerous in her dosing of him to ensure it. She had not meant him harm. She had never meant this.

  She hoped Reyne was right, that he would wake thinking this night had been but a bad dream—and not only so she and the virgins could maintain their secrecy. If he knew she had drugged him and caused this misery, he would hate her. He would think her a fiendish witch. He would like her even less than he did already.

  He would never understand that her intentions had been for the best for all concerned. Just as he would never understand that what she had in mind for the days to follow was for the best, as well.

  She shouldn’t care what he thought of her, but she found it impossible not to. Even though everything depended upon her lying to him about who she was, a part of her wanted him to see the truth. Part of her wanted him to push back her hood, to see her as she truly was.

  Deep inside, part of Alizon wanted this man who pretended at being a knight to break down her lonely fortress walls and carry her away from it forever.

  She approached his bed, picking up the sheet that was pooled on the floor. George was shivering, the sheen of sweat on his hairless skin telling her his shaking was more from sickness than from cold.

  “George,” she said softly. “George. It’s all right.”

  When he did not respond she reached out, tentatively, and touched his arm where it was wrapped tightly over his head. “I am here, it is all right,” she whispered. They were words she had used to soothe girls woken by their own terrors, or when the bellows of Belch drifted through the windows on the night breeze, causing tears of fright.

  His muscles clenched at her touch and then relaxed, his arm coming down and the last of his whimpers stopping. His green eyes were glazed, focused more on internal horrors than on her. “Mistress?”

  She shook out the sheet and pulled it over him, glancing despite herself at the dark growth of hair at his groin and his flaccid manhood, which lay there, then just as quickly averted her gaze, ashamed to gawk at his body while he suffered. “I am here.”

  He grasped her hand, his huge palms damp and hot, engulfing her own. “I saw them. Dozens of them.”

  “You have taken ill. You saw no one.”

  “The virgins. The dead virgins.”

  “Shhh …You were dreaming.”

  His pressure on her hand increased, pulling her toward him. The bed frame hit the side of her knee and forced her to sit, her hip pressed up against his thighs.

  “They were here!” he insisted.

  With her free hand she brushed his wet hair back from his forehead, unsticking it from his skin. “Hush. Hush, now.”

  Even lying down and half huddled in on himself he was huge, but for the first time his size did not unnerve her. This man was too helpless to do her harm, but more than that, Alizon realized he had nothing of violence within him. Twice now she had seen him terrified, and neither time had he reacted with anger or by striking out, as other men might have done. She remembered that much, at least, of how the rougher sex behaved.

  Why in God’s name did this man expect he could kill Belch? A dozen girls set him weeping in terror and Milo could best him in a fight. He stood no chance against a dragon.

  The thought should have made her happy, but instead she felt a twinge of concern. George did not seem to be a bad fellow, and she had no wish to watch such an innocent get eaten. She would have to be careful and clever to be sure he did not, and trust that he had at least some ability to look out for himself.

  She stroked her fingers through his hair, gently shushing him until the glazed look faded from his eyes and they began to close. He released her other hand, his own relaxing across her thigh, and his breathing smoothed out. He was falling asleep.

  His hand slipped lower on her leg, his fingertips accidentally finding their way through the opening of her robe. Alizon caught her breath, feeling the light touch against the inside of her thigh. She was suddenly aware of her nakedness beneath the brown wool, and the short distance from his hand to her sex.

  A God-fearing woman would remove his hand.

  Yet Alizon had lost her belief in God long ago. She moved her other leg, enough that a space opened between her thighs.

  George shifted, sighing, and his hand slid deeper between her legs, grasping briefly at the soft flesh of her thigh and then releasing it.

  She sucked in a breath and flicked her gaze to his face. His eyes were closed, the muscles of his mouth relaxed and peaceful. He was unaware of what he did, and he would have nothing to remember of this in the morning.

  If he had been awake she would never have allowed this, but he slept, knowing nothing, and Alizon could not make herself pull away from his touch. Warmth was spreading from his motionless hand up her thighs, her sex tingling with arousal. This was so close to what she’d dreamed of! Her body was waking to him, every inch of skin from her neck to her knees aching to be stroked, burning with sensation.

  She waited for the next movement, the next dragging of that palm across her skin. When it did not come, she shifted her leg herself.

  The movement seemed to disturb him, and his hand slid out of its warm harbor between her thighs and pulled the edge of her robe with it, leaving the white of her leg exposed. After a pause, his hand moved again, sliding down the outside of her thigh, pulling the brown wool away from her body.

  She felt the rough fabric begin to drag across her nipple as the front of the robe opened, the cool air touching first her belly and then the inside slope of her breast. She raised one hand as if to halt the unveiling, her fingertips hovering inches above the slowly moving material.

  Then she let the robe pull away.

  Alizon exhaled a deep, uneven breath, her body tense, her eyes closing as she let herself remain exposed in his presence, his hand lying against the outside of her thigh, his fingertips caught between her robe and her skin.

  She opened her eyelids halfway and raised her eyes to his face.

  He was watching her, his gaze upon her bare breast!

  She could not move, horrified he was awake, and at the same moment aware that she wanted him to see her like this. Wanted him to touch her like this.

  His expression gave away nothing of his thoughts, his eyes focused but with the internal distance of a fevered mind. He slowly raised his hand toward her breast, with its nipple hardened by the cold, her flesh tight and dimpled. She could feel the heat of his palm through the narrow space of air, soft as a blanket, and then in the moment before he touched her, her courage evaporated.

  Pulling her robe back over flesh that ached with desire and fear, Alizon jerked away and fled into the shadows.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Joye, what will happen if the people of Markesew know that we are here?” Alizon asked, standing behind the girl who sat at the kitchen table, her bowl of porridge growing cold before her. The other virgins sat lined on either side of the long table, hands in their laps as they stared down at their breakfasts, unwilling to draw Alizon’s attention.

  “They will come throw us all to Belch.”

  “Ysmay, how do we know this?”

  The dark girl’s lips tightened and tears of either distress or rebellion glimmered in her eyes. “Because of what they did to Reyne when she tried to leave.”

  “How else do we know this?” Alizon asked, coming to stand behind Reyne and laying her hand on the young woman’s quivering shoulder.

  “Because they fed us to the dragon once before,” Reyne answered, her voice hollow. “Because they care nothing for us. Because their sheep matter more to them than our lives.”

  Alizon remembered the rare sound of Reyne’s laughter last night, as they had been climbing the stairs. A stab of regret went through her at having drained the joy once again from the girl.

  Then she remembered her own misdeeds, her own succumbing to the temptation that George’s presence presented, and her resolve hardened. She must be harsh, for the good
of them all.

  “Mistress?” little Flur asked.

  Alizon looked over at the child, her fair, baby-fine hair making her look even younger than her twelve years. “Yes?”

  “Will Saint George kill the dragon?”

  Alizon felt all eyes turn to her, bodies shifting in the eager wait for an answer.

  “I could go home to Mama if he did,” Flur said quietly.

  “And where would the rest of us go, Flur?” she said, forcing herself to be heartless. “How many of us have families waiting to take us in?”

  Flur’s mouth turned down, and she ducked her head.

  “We could work as we do now,” Joye said. “We need not depend upon families.”

  “Where would we live? Where would we get our wool?” She looked around at each face. “And what do you think the good landsfolk would do, if they knew we had been living off their livestock all these years?”

  “They would demand payment,” Braya said, her heavy jaw setting in anger.

  “Would any truly be happy to see us, we whom they had thrown away?”

  “No,” a few muttered.

  “We were worthless to them and would only remind them of their guilt and selfishness. Were they glad to send us here the first time, and wouldn’t they be glad to send us again?”

  “Yes,” several more said.

  “Did they play music and put flowers in our hair, and tell us to be joyful as we went to our deaths?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is that fair?”

  “No!”

  “Do they deserve to keep their sheep?”

  “No!”

  “Do they deserve to live free from the fear of Belch?”

  “No!”

  She softened her voice. “And is our life better here than it ever would have been in Markesew? Do we have a finer home, finer clothes, finer food, and easier work?”

  “Yes!”

  “Do we have a strong family among each other? Are we sisters?”

  “Yes!”

  “Will we let anyone destroy what we have built?”

  “No!”

  “Will we?”

  “NO!”

  She let their answer echo up the walls of the kitchen, fading out the windows high above, then she picked up her brown robe and pulled it on, fastening the clasp at its neck. “I will deal with the stranger, who is not Saint George,” she finished, looking at Flur. “He is an inept fool on a hopeless quest, and within the week he will be gone from Devil’s Mount.”

  “Are you going to let Belch eat him?” Pippa asked, her black starburst of hair making her look the imp that she was.

  “We are not Markesew’s villagers, Pippa. We do not send innocent people to their deaths. He will leave the mount unharmed in all but pride.” She addressed them all. “You had your fun with him last night, and by the grace of good fortune were not discovered for what you are. He thinks you are the ghosts of dead virgins.”

  A snicker went around the table.

  “I do not think we will fool him a second time. Let there not be one.”

  They nodded, unity apparently restored.

  She should have been reassured. She should have felt back in control, confident of their obedience as she sought to keep them safe. If they were anything like her, though, their curiosity was more roused than satisfied about George, and anything might happen if her control faltered.

  Nothing was as settled as she wanted.

  “There is porridge in the pot,” Alizon said as she dumped innards into a sheep stomach. Blood caked under her nails and stuck between her fingers, and threatened the rolled sleeves of her robe. She blew at the wool “hair” hanging against her face, the strands tangling in her eyelashes and catching between her lips.

  “Is there? Hmm. Er,” George said from somewhere behind her.

  She was afraid to look at him, afraid that she might see in his eyes some memory of last night.

  She rubbed her face against her shoulder, trying to dislodge a stubborn fuzz of hair. “I would serve you, but my hands are dirty.”

  He came up beside her, her body sensing his approach in the movement of air. A tingling rush ran down her back.

  “That’s not dinner, is it?”

  Surprise made her turn to look at him, her vision obstructed by the hood. He was asking about the stomach she was stuffing. “No. Whyever would you think so?”

  “Oh. Sorry!”

  “Do you have a complaint about my cookery?” Annoyance was more comfortable than vulnerability.

  “No, no! Not at all!” He paused. “It’s, ah … just a bit different from what I am used to. And I feel guilty having you wait on me when you plainly have so many other responsibilities around the castle. Tell you what,” he said, then stopped.

  She waited. “Yes?”

  “If it’s all right with you, I’ll cook my own meals. And clean up after myself, of course. What do you think?”

  She pursed her lips, trying to decide if he suspected her of poisoning him, or of just being a bad cook. Either way, if he did the cooking it would make it more difficult to drug him nightly—using less powder, of course—and he might start poking into places he had no business being. “I would feel a poor hostess if you were to do that.”

  “You would be making me feel more comfortable if I knew I weren’t such a burden. Tell you what,” he said again. Then he paused.

  It was a peculiar speech mannerism. She waited, allowing her annoyance to grow, but curiosity eventually won out. “Yes?”

  “I’ll cook for you, too.”

  A chill went through her. Did he have plans to drug her in return? “No, I could not let you do that.”

  “Certainly you can. Why not? It won’t kill you to give my cooking a try, will it?”

  She gripped the bloody stomach in her hands more tightly. A bit of intestine bulged out of the top.

  “Say yes,” he urged. “It’s the least I can do.”

  “Cook for yourself, but not for me. I am content with my own fare.” She stuffed the errant intestine back in, then took a handful of blue-dyed flour from a bowl and dumped it into the stomach.

  She felt more than saw him shrug. “Please yourself.” Then he added, “What is that that you’re making?”

  “A treat for Belch.” She pointed to the harmless dyed flour with one bloody finger. “With enough of that in here, he should be sound asleep when you go down to cut off his head.”

  “Stab him through the heart, maybe. I don’t know that cutting off his head will be necessary.”

  She used her forearm to shove back her hood just enough that she could see his face. His nose was wrinkled, and his lips curled back in disgust as he stared at the pouch she held.

  Looking back down, she pulled open the mouth of the sheep stomach and swirled her finger inside, mixing the blue flour with the blood and fluids there. “This is a bit of lung, right here,” she remarked, lifting the sack so he could get a good view. “Plenty of gut, of course, and then, here—” She dug around, organs sliding against each other. “I know there’s an eyeball in here somewhere… .”

  He stumbled back.

  “I have sweetbreads left over, if you would like them for your breakfast. You can cook them yourself.” She smiled, forgetting he could not see it. “Lung fried in butter, kidneys in gravy, a bit of brain on bread. I know I’ll be eating well these next few days.”

  “Thank you, no, I had something else in mind. If you could point me in the direction of your pantry?”

  She propped the stomach in a wooden bowl and rinsed her hands. “Tell me what you need and I will fetch it for you.” She could not let him see the quantities of supplies they had; he would realize they were not all for her and Milo.

  “I’m not sure you’ll have everything.”

  She gestured with her hand for him to go ahead and give her the list.

  “Bread?” he asked. “Stale is fine.”

  She nodded.

  “Eggs, butter, sugar, cinnamon
?”

  Jesu, but the man had expensive taste. “No sugar or cinnamon.” Or at least, none that she would give away so freely.

  “Honey, then?”

  She nodded reluctantly, noticing again how big he was and wondering how much of such dear foods he would put down. She should have insisted he eat the porridge.

  Lighting a lamp, she went to the cellar, leaving George to examine the cookware, scraping with his fingernail at spots and frowning as if she and the virgins did not know how to keep a proper kitchen.

  Everything about George this morning rubbed her wrong. And it only made it worse, knowing that the reason was her own attraction to him and her shameless display last night. He threatened everything that she was, and she reminded herself she wanted him frightened away so that he could do her no more harm.

  Belch would take care of that.

  Alizon descended the stairs to the cool cellar hewn from the rock of the mount. Pots of butter, honey, cones of sugar, and other goods lined the shelves, while barrels of rough-milled flour and grains sat about on the floor. There were casks of wine and beer, sacks of nuts, and jars packed with dried fruits. She searched out the items of George’s request, pausing to nibble a date.

  At the beginning, when she had first come here to Devil’s Mount, Belch had been a demon, a creature not of this earth, something thrown up from the bowels of Hell. He had been the incarnation of evil.

  Then, slowly, as she took over the role of his keeper, he had become an animal. She had started to see him as a beast with an earthly need for food and warmth and sleep. His evil was simply the evil of a creature without conscience or thought, though unquestionally one with the power to kill whatever crossed its path.

  Over the years he had become her ally. It was because of Belch that she could demand an ever-increasing number of sheep from Markesew and have the villagers obey, sacrificing to her that which they valued more than their young women. She knew that even old sheep had their worth, and were not given up without regret, and so she delighted in taking them from the people of her old home. She and the others had earned them.

  It was because she alone had the courage to face the dragon that she was the mistress of Devil’s Mount. And it was Belch who had, ironically, given her the chance to save eleven girls not only from death, but from lives of poverty and misery, of toiling in fields and from dying young in childbirth.