by Celia Kyle
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Author Bio
Eventide
Darragha Foster
Published: 2011
ISBN: SHPFREE24
Published by Summerhouse Publishing. Copyright, Darragha Foster. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Summerhouse Publishing
http://summerhousepublishing.com
Email
[email protected]
Cover Artist
Celia Kyle
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Eventide…a gratis lectori salutem (free to the readers) e-tale by Darragha Foster about that magic time between the end of day and the beginning of night. Beware the mist, the call of the geese and horny wood-wives.
Chapter One
“I must have him first.” Ama spoke softly through cracked lips after spying on the prince through the trees for some time. She lifted a gnarled hand and wiped away a string of spittle from her chin. “He is a lovely, meaty little beastie and I want to taste the flesh of his royal buttock.”
Her sister, Angr, muscled her way to the front of the hiding place. “You took the last one first and there was little left for me. I found this one. I get him first.”
“But I am the fairest,” Ama replied.
“Fairest, indeed, my wart-ridden behind, sister! You are dark like a long winter without benefit of a fire’s glow. You are dark like the dung of an animal. He will not want you. He will shun you.”
“My dear sister, Angr, you are pale as death and your flesh is as cold as a butchered carcass bled completely out and left to rot for seven days. Flies parade across your bosom as if on a Whitsunday stroll. He will not find arousal while in your bed even with the aid of illusion, nor will you find warmth from his lifeless corpse when he dies of mortification!”
“Come eventide, he’ll not care if I am crawling with maggots when my mouth is around his member. He is a lovely man and his man’s body will respond to my illusion,” Angr replied.
Ama nodded. “Come eventide, he will know the fullness of my bosom against his chest as I ride him to glory!”
“But who shall have him first, sister?”
“True, we must use caution. The last time we shared a human male he was dead before I achieved satisfaction. Without satisfaction there can be no quickening and dead meat turns sour quickly. We must persuade him more gently than the last,” Ama replied.
“We can draw lots once we have him to our cave, sister. Send in the fog. Look, he is nearly finished field-dressing that fine young buck he killed with his arrow. I dare say, that if he survives our love, he will make a fine warrior someday,” Angr said.
Ama nodded. “I shall have the goose sing down the fog.”
*
Prince Hlini had been trained to show no fear.
Though separated from his hunting party, he had taken the time to clean his kill and string it up on his saddle for the long journey home. If he could discern where he was in the vast, dense forest. Come first light, he would scale a tree to get his bearings.
His horse’s hooves were stone-bruised and the bay mare needed to rest. He had ridden her hard over craggy woodland trails, and his poor horse was too old for such treatment. Dusk had arrived and it was fast growing dark. The forest at night was no place to wander about.
Whatever direction he decided to take would have to wait until morning.
Lin, which was his mother’s pet-name for him, knew he should make a fire to illuminate the growing darkness with its warmth.
He carried flint and steel and had both a skin of water and wine with him. For what was hunting without benefit of a tipple of the grape? He had a dry cloak and a small bag of grain for his horse.
Should he survive the night, he would emerge from the forest victorious with the choice cuts of a young buck and three pheasants at his saddle. That would certainly impress the king and his council. The sodomite braggarts that they were.
He knew he should remain calm and collected in the woods, no matter what manner of creature approached him. Forest spirits prey on the weak and challenge the brave to mock combat. Combat of mind, not weapon. He’d always been better with the sword than with his wit, so it was this conflict he feared the most.
Will o’ wisps were the worst of the forest spirit lot. Their trickery could lead a man to his death. Rule number one for traveling the forest at night. Only trust the light of your own fire.
The little stream he’d followed after being separated from the soldiers of his court had led to a pond deep in the heart of the wood backed by a lovely waterfall. Alas, the stream ended at the pond and if it continued, it must have done so underground, for there was no further trail for him to follow. He’d been taught that all streams flow into rivers which then flow to the sea. His manor overlooked a vast coastal expanse, the forest and the fields of his subjects flanking the rear of his keep.
He enjoyed the view from his home. Not the sunrise, though it was beautiful. Not the picturesque women with their babies strapped to their backs as they tended their pigs, nor the hard, lean bodies of the fishermen putting out their nets.
He looked forward to the visage of the pearl divers which he could watch from his bed. Seven nubile, pure, golden-skinned young men and women—any one of whom he could take to him with a single command. For he was the prince.
But taking any one or two of them to him would not be as enjoyable as the voyeuristic pleasures he received as he watched them frolic, their round bosoms, thick uncut members and fleshy posteriors flashing like dolphins at play as they dove into the oyster beds.
His hand moving against his shaft, he reveled in their dance at the end of their dive. Sisters, drying each other’s hair, brothers drying sisters’ hair, brothers drying their own long, brown limbs, dancing on the bluff in the afternoon sun. More than once he’d spilled his royal seed at the sight.
Lin sighed as he reclined against a moss-covered rock, warming his hands before his low-banked fire. He’d miss the pearl divers and their dance the next morning. They were his breakfast—just as the washer women were his lunch and the postulants in their garden, his tea.
Each late night feast brought a bevy of courtesans and wenches to his father’s table. Any one of them would be overjoyed to have her belly filled with a future king.
Lovely to look at; oft-times, delightful to touch, he was careful not to take his flirtations too far lest he sire bastard children upon these eager women. Bastard childre
n who might someday over power him and seize his throne. It had been done before—and in his own lineage. Children poisoning their father and king to usurp the throne. That would never happen to him.
Thereby, though surrounded by willing women eager to share his bed, the prince remained untried. A virgin—unknown by women.
His whipping boy had leaned over a settee for him a time or thrice—so he knew what pleasures awaited him between the thighs of a woman—but the fear instilled in him by his father of usurpers and warmongers hell-bent on taking over the kingdom had kept him from enjoying the company of fairer sex.
The odd poke at the stable hand or other willing youth brought only physical satisfaction, not true happiness. Even when he closed his eyes and pulled on the long hair of his page as the young man knelt before him and pleasured him orally, he could not envision the soft lips of a woman around his member. The soft lips of one woman in particular. She was his dessert and aperitif and midnight snack all rolled into one shapely, sumptuous meal. Yet, he had never spoken more than a few words in passing to her.
There was no sweeter treat for Prince Lin than watching the backside of the comely garden-corner wench digging in the soil, a bright sun behind her, making her thin linen dress appear more paper lantern than cloth. She was truly blessed with all the womanly bounty God, in His infinite wisdom had seen to bestow upon the fairer sex.
Skin like mahogany; hair as a black as the ravens of the old god, Odin. Eyes a piercing green that smiled like a proud house cat whenever she came by with her beetroots and turnips. And her voice! The magical song of her voice as it called, “two a penny” was more enthralling to him than all the sonnets composed by royal musicians at his birth.
The garden corner wench had parents of low caste. The man of the house created the compost for all the gardens in the realm. A very special humus—the dark matter necessary for the fertility of the earth. A fertilizer made from the faithful dead. He collected the corpses of man and beast, incinerated them, then mixed the ashes into his horse manure and chicken droppings. It is no wonder he grew the best vegetables in the kingdom. Twice weekly he collected the corpses by horse-drawn cart. Grandfathers, old dogs, sick livestock. It mattered not. All returned to the earth by way of his furnace.
And the mother—the garden-corner wench’s mother—was from the land where the sun rises. Her magics were well known and even the Queen had called upon her to see what visions lay in the bottom of her tea cup.
Using his spyglass, Lin watched the garden-corner wench, envisioning that someday, he would lift her skirt and take her from behind, atop that rich soil, amongst the turnips and carrots. He would add his sacred seed to that of her garden and see the fruits of his labor blossom under him night after night.
Market day saw the girl at her family’s stall, selling vegetables, fruits, spells and potions.
The prince always bought an apple from the girl. She was just as sweet and her lips even more red and delicious looking. Like most commoners, she averted her eyes and bowed her head whenever his party approached. Only when she was alone in her garden and he traveling the road past her cottage, did she look into his eyes and offer the slightest of smile.
The prince was smitten.
*
Lin pulled the feathers from the smallest of the pheasants and skewered it over his fire. The fatty meat of the bird sizzled and spit and the glow of his fire became enveloped in the odor of roasting fowl. He uncorked his wine and drank.
Aged, deep red and pungent, it warmed his throat and hit his empty belly with force, causing his head to reel and forehead to perspire. He took a second swallow and sank back against the stone, pulling his cloak closer about his shoulders.
The song of the sizzling bird and the pull of the wine put him off guard—just a bit. Thinking of his garden wench, Sigyn, by her given name, relishing the curve of her bosom as she stooped to pull a weed or offer him a tasty apple, he felt his manhood harden.
He licked his lips, tasting the fermented grape clinging to his beard. Oh, but if the soft hairs of his own face was the soft fur of his sweet Sigyn’s nether regions! There is a feast hidden between her thighs and someday, I am going to have my fill of her.
Lin unlaced his hunting braes. His erection jutted up from his groin as straight and true as a tree trunk in the surrounding wood. He licked his palm to moisten his way, and encircled his strong right hand around the shaft.
He closed his eyes as he stroked his hand, putting thoughts of night spirits and hunger from his mind as he made love to the garden-corner wench, turning her on his member like he turned the pheasant on the spit before him. He would pump into her and fill her over and over and allow her to bear his children. He would even wed her. And if not, he would keep her as his mistress. No woman could ask for more than that.
So entranced with his masturbatory fantasy, Prince Lin failed to notice the mist rolling in from the darkest parts of the forest or the oddly out of place honk of a goose so far from the river. He shivered, for it had a biting chill, but still he stroked his hand until his seed welled, brimmed and spilled.
He then noticed the call of the geese—it was the same sound he’d heard when a thick fog had first befallen his party.
As he returned to earth from his euphoric climax, he noticed a new scent on the breeze. The mist had carried with it an odor of foulness and misfortune. He carefully tucked away his prized kingly penis and slowly opened his eyes. The forest spirits were afoot—likely trying to steal his supper or worse, seduce him into becoming further lost and more imperiled.
He knew better than to wander into the mist a second time. He was embarrassed to admit it, though he knew it was a kingly attribute to face his own mistakes and learn from them. He had lost sight of his hunting companions when a dark fog overtook them in the forest.
And now the fog had returned. To claim him.
He stood, his hand going to the hilt of the blade tucked at his waist. He could feel tendrils of soullessness caressing his cheeks and throat. His hands grew clammy and he felt his knees quiver.
Lin made the sign of the cross and withdrew his bejeweled crucifix from his tunic. “In the name of the Lord, Host of Heaven, I command all beings with mal-intent to leave me in peace.”
The prickling against his face grew more intense. A great fatigue overcame him and though he fought the urge to curl up by the fire and sleep, he found his body unable to remain upright. His legs could not support him. His eye lids snapped shut and his breathing became slow and even.
Chapter Two
Sigyn, daughter of the undertaker and gardener extraordinaire, was far too clever to fall into the bed of a prince--though he obviously fancied her. She sensed his anxious discomfort when he took his daily apple from her hand.
Many men fancied her; courted her in their own crude ways. She wanted more than a stove to cook on and a belly full of children. Was there no man to offer her more in all the land? Even the prince could, or would, not. She would never be satisfied simply to be wife of the prince and someday queen consort. That held no more attraction for her than marrying the pig farmer or fish monger.
She wanted more, and would take no man between her legs until her dreams were offered to her on a silver platter. There was more pleasure to be had with her own skillful hands and a slender zucchini sliding in and out of her. When a man could touch her as well as she knew how to touch herself, well, then she’d listen to his proposal.
She listened with great interest to the news spreading through the village regarding that tosser son of the king. Seems he was missing!
The royal hunting party returned to the castle without him, claiming they’d returned only after making an exhausted search for the prince. The captain of the guard took it upon himself to inform the king that his son had gone missing.
The king did not take the news well, as evidenced by the head of the captain of the guard displayed from the tower window but an hour later.
Sigyn sighed. The captain had been a
good customer. Wonder if father knows there was a body to collect in the armory.
The king sent for his scribes and made a proclamation. He bade the scribes post copies where learned men could read it and instructed the town criers to spread the word.
One half of his kingdom would go to the person who returned his son to him alive. “I’ll give my throne, the castle surrounding it for the return of my son!” he proclaimed.
The next morning at market, Sigyn read the proclamation with great interest. “Say there, sir,” she called to the king’s squire milling about the market with hammer and tacks to post the hand-written parchments. “Which half of his kingdom does His Majesty offer in trade for the life of his son?”
“That is a question you must take up with the king, himself. But I heard tell that he would give up his very throne and the castle around it to have his son returned to him.”
Sigyn reflected thoughtfully on the subject. “Well, that would certainly be more convenient than having to build one’s own castle. Why would a person accept a reward consisting of swamp land and rocky bottom land when the other half of the kingdom is as lovely as,” she waved her arms gracefully, obviously meaning to encompass the entire region, “All of this? A ready-made fief! I love it.” Sigyn patted the squire on the shoulder. “I accept the challenge!”
“It’s been nice knowing you, miss. I do hope your affairs are in order before you set off into the forest to find the young prince who has undoubtedly been kidnapped by thugs or worse—evil spirits,” the squire replied.
“What know you of these things?” Sigyn asked.
“The courtiers said a strange fog befell them at eventide and the prince became separated from the party. It was an omen of malice and ill-intent. The geese sounded and the fog came. Everyone knows this is a sign that ogres are afoot.”
Sigyn laughed. “Of course there are ogres afoot, sir. It is the forest, after all!”
*
She knew the forest better than any man for her mother had schooled her in the habits of the trees and the disposition of herbs growing therein. Sigyn knew it would take more than a barefoot girl in a simple dress to rescue the prince if he were held captive by enemies of the king, or ogres, or if he were at the bottom of a crevasse with broken legs.