by Kevin Thorne
“My Abby, my love,” he moaned into her mouth.
And reached his fingers up beneath her skirts, to find her slick cleft, and the swollen nub in front of it.
“Let me please you,” he said in a low growl, as his fingers delicately stroked the tiny hillock, to her gasps and moans. “Let me adore you.”
She was panting hard now, her eyes closed. She was beyond forming words.
She was ready.
He pushed closer to her, lined himself up with her wet entrance, rubbed on a little of her slickness so he would slide in easily.
Thus positioned, he reached with his free hand for her bodice, tugged it down, pulled free one small breast, and set his mouth against the nipple.
She cried out as he suckled at her. He ran his tongue across her nipple again.
And pushed in, carefully, only halfway at first. God, she was tight.
Her eyes flew open in alarm. He kissed her mouth to forestall any protests. Pulling back, he slid in again, this time all the way, feeling her gasp into his mouth. He groaned as the fire grew in him, as his cock moved and twitched on its own, slamming hard inside that tight tunnel. He lifted a hand to her exposed breast, teasing the nipple, feeling her squirm, trying to keep her off-balance enough that she accepted what was happening, so she would not struggle or scream. He hated when they did that; it was an insult to his prowess.
“You are mine,” he murmured, thrusting again and again. He would not last long. “Now and forever, you are mine. My dearest Abigail, my little dove.”
And finally, her arms crept around his neck, her legs around his waist. It was too late to stop what was happening; she might as well embrace it, let it carry her along to what she hoped would be a picture-perfect ending.
Emboldened, he settled his hands underneath her rump and started lifting and dropping her rhythmically.
Until a cold voice broke his rhythm.
“Well, well,” said Stroud. “This doesn’t bode well for you, my lad.”
Abigail gasped, and ducked to hide her face as Stroud strolled closer. Looming behind him were the two butchers’ boys, Wylie and Barden, who resembled the hefty boars they dismembered.
“Go away,” John said, cradling Abigail protectively against him. She was shaking. “We’re busy.”
“If there’s one thing you should not be after attending to one of the Ladies, it’s… ‘busy.’”
Strong hands took hold of John’s arms and yanked him backward; he fell out of Abigail, his cock twitching in frustrated protest. He noticed a smear of red on its shaft, and glanced at Abigail in surprise. Could he have been her first?
Abigail grabbed her underthings off the floor and fled down the hallway, pulling her bodice back up over her bared breast, her blonde hair obscuring her face. Stroud watched her leave without comment, disdain clear in his expression. He turned his attention back to John.
“Not a mark on you,” Stroud observed, sauntering in a circle around John, who struggled against the butcher’s boys, his cock flapping loose, his trousers in a pile at his feet. Wylie twisted John’s arm behind his back, bending him forward.
Stroud pulled open the collar of John’s shirt, making a show of inspecting his skin. “I knew it,” he said, triumph cold and sour in his voice. “Look at you, rutting like a dog, when you should be drained nearly insensible. The flush of your skin betrays you. You displeased Lady Helène. I knew your day would come, boy. You know the risk you bring to all of us when you bring wrath to the Ladies. Or have you forgotten Annalisa?”
John had been new then, and luckily it hadn’t been he who disappointed Lady Agathe. But another attendant had, and in her rage, Agathe had sent a young chambermaid spinning down the hallway, cracking her arm on the wall and her head on the cold flagstones. It was months before Annalisa could walk without dizzy spells.
“Lady Helène was not displeased with me,” John said, his voice tight as he tried to free himself from Wylie and Barden. But their time slinging hogs around had brought them as much muscle as his had in the smithy.
“Of course she was,” Stroud said, scorn salting his voice. “Do you suppose anyone believes she summoned you for your witty conversation? No. You have one purpose here, one function. You clearly have failed to achieve it, which puts all of us in danger. And for that,” he said, his tone warming with satisfaction, “there must be consequences.”
~
Despite John’s struggles, he found himself naked and bound with heavy rope to a hook hanging from the ceiling in the butcher’s room. The thick smell of curdled blood nauseated him.
Stroud strolled in front of him. “Failure is not to be tolerated,” he said, holding up a riding crop so John could see the iron stud sewn into the end. “It’s time you learned your place, boy.”
“I don’t answer to you,” John spat.
“Down here, everyone answers to me. Our Ladies don’t care what happens amongst their servants.” Stroud sauntered behind him. “If you’re wise, you’ll remember that in the future.”
John took a deep breath and stilled his mind, consciously distancing it from his body. Some of the lessons the Ladies teach come in unexpectedly handy, he thought grimly. He stood straight and squared his shoulders. Stroud wanted to see him cower and beg. John wouldn’t even give him the satisfaction of crying out.
He stood strong as the crop fell three times across his back, silent, barely wincing, even as warm drips of blood oozed down his skin.
Stroud said, “You’re fortunate that the punishment for a first offense is only three stripes. You’d best pray you never find out the punishment for a second.”
He nodded at Barden, who lowered the meat hook from the ceiling enough to slip John’s ropes from it. John’s shaking legs betrayed him; he fell to his knees, burning with anger that Stroud should have even that much satisfaction.
“Come along,” Stroud said to the butcher’s boys, who followed him out, leaving John to work loose the knotted ropes, pull on his trousers, gingerly drape his shirt across his flaming back, and hobble out alone.
~
It was Maida who came to John in his room the next evening, to tell him of Lady Helène’s summons. He hadn’t left it all day; his back was bruised and, thanks to Maida’s investigating why he hadn’t come to the kitchen for breakfast, bandaged. Every breath pulled at the torn flesh, making him wince.
Maida carried a steaming jug, a porcelain basin, and a few thick towels. “I’ve told Abigail to bring you a nice cut of beef and gravy when I’m done in here. It’ll keep your strength up and help you heal.”
Abigail, he thought. Some unfinished business there.
“Now of course, you won’t be coming to the bathing room,” Maida said. “But I’ll clean you up here. Can’t have you going around smelling like a butcher’s block. Come now, lean back and I’ll undress you.”
John managed a smile. “My favorite words, coming from you, dear Maida.”
She gave him a look that he couldn’t decipher. Had Abigail told her of their tryst? Was Maida jealous?
In a low voice, Maida said, “That Stroud is a bully. Wylie and Barden, they aren’t so bad, but they like a leader, and Stroud is happy to oblige. But he’s gone too far this time. That nasty old man will get what’s coming to him, you mark my words. I don’t see the Ladies being pleased with what he’s done to you.”
John snorted. “Each will probably think the other did it.”
“Shh,” Maida said, glancing back over her shoulder, even though his door was closed. “Trouble with the Ladies is the last thing you need right now.”
John lifted a hand to Maida’s face, traced her jawline with a fingertip. “You’re too good for me, Maida.”
“And don’t I know it,” she said briskly, wringing out a steaming washcloth and setting to work.
~
John limped his way through the castle toward the Sapphire Suite, cursing soundlessly at every jarring step. Perhaps Lady Helène wanted only another massage—he was just abou
t sure he could manage that without screaming. Any more, and he didn’t know what he’d do.
Inside the suite, Helène sat on a bench in front of a fire, holding her hands out, staring at her flushed fingers. “It’s interesting,” she said, turning her hands over. “It’s like the fire calls to the blood, bringing it to the skin, just as the beach calls to the tide. I wonder why that is.”
John focused on keeping his voice pleasant and even. “I couldn’t say, milady. How may I serve you this evening?”
She turned to smile at him. Her dark hair—dry tonight—hung in short waves down her neck. On seeing him, she blinked in what looked like surprise. “Your attentions last night did me a world of good, John. I haven’t slept that well in ages. Another massage like that would be most welcome.” But as she spoke, her eyes bored into him.
“Of course, milady,” he said, and headed stiffly toward the bed.
“Wait.”
He stopped, trying to suppress his alarm.
“You move as if you’re injured, John. Why is that?”
“It’s nothing, milady.” He turned and offered her a pained smile.
“Remove your shirt.” Though the voice was calm, there was steel in it.
He swallowed. So tonight was not to be as easy as last night. He might have known. “As you wish, milady.”
Gingerly, he set down the sheets and the bottle of oil, and reached to pull the shirt over his head. The pain that lanced through him made him stumble, and he couldn’t quite seem to lift his arms high enough.
And then, somehow, the shirt was off, and tossed onto the bed.
Helène walked around him, surveying him critically. A single delicate eyebrow rose at his heavily bandaged back.
“What have we here?” she said. “I don’t expect either of my sisters did that—they were both far too excited about leaving you to me last night.”
John said, “Really, it’s unimportant, I can still—”
She shook her head with a flash of annoyance that sent an arrow of dread into his stomach. “Hold still,” she said, reaching for the knotted linen strips at his chest that held the bandages in place.
Agathe would have ripped the bandages from the clotting wounds and laughed in delight as new blood seeped out. But Helène—she unfolded the cloth layer by layer, leaving the bottommost layers, the ones stuck to his skin, undisturbed.
“This won’t heal right,” she said. “Stay here.” She padded off into a side room, came back with an armful of jars.
Bringing over a small, claw-footed wooden chair painted blue, she said, “I can’t fix it without pulling off the bandages. Sit down. This will take a little time.”
She uncapped a large jar; a vaguely alcoholic smell drifted from it, mixed with herbs. She dipped her fingers in. They came out dripping with a heavy, greenish-white paste. “This will hurt a bit,” she said.
He braced himself for the bandages to be torn off, but to his surprise, she applied the paste over them, the pressure sending fire through his back—but a sensation cool as mint followed, soothing the fire, until, for the first time since last night, the pain in his back was gone entirely.
There was a slight tugging at his back. “Is that all right?” she said.
“What?”
Instead of answering, she reached behind him and tore the bandages off with a single smooth movement.
He flinched, then realized that it hadn’t hurt. His back was entirely numb.
“Hm,” she said, inspecting the bloodied bandages, sniffing at them. She moved behind him. “I want you to tell me how this happened.”
John hesitated. One of the cardinal rules attendants followed was solidarity amongst the staff. It did not do to trouble the Ladies with the petty problems of their servants.
“Just a—disagreement,” he managed, carefully.
“You argued with rusty iron, and lost? Three times? And not just iron.” He felt a distant pressure, like someone was prodding him through layers of cotton fluff. “An iron stud on the end of a leather crop.”
She came around in front of him again and lifted up one of his abraded wrists with surprising strength. “You were bound and whipped.” Her eyes fixed on his. “Why?”
“I—it isn’t—” he stammered.
“Was it one of my sisters? Or a guest of theirs?”
He shook his head.
“So one of your own kind, then.”
His head flared hot at the suggestion that Stroud was anything like him, but he didn’t contradict her.
“This is the first time your skin has been marked like this,” she said. “So it’s something new. And as I’m the only new thing that happened last night, it stands to reason that somehow, this had to do with me. Is that right?”
He stared at her, startled, but said nothing.
“Yes,” she said. “But what? I doubt one of your fellows could have been jealous of my attentions. No, I see from your face that that’s not it. Last night, you expected—certain things to happen, and to take all night. I sent you away early. Is that part of it?”
Desperately, he said, “It’s really not—”
“Shh,” she said. “But why would anyone care that I didn’t—” She stopped, and he had the eerie feeling she could peer straight into his thoughts. “Ah. I see it now. Fear. Fear of disappointing the Ladies.”
He stared at her, forgetting himself.
Speaking slowly, watching him carefully, she said, “One of your fellows—chastised you, based on the assumption that I was displeased with you.”
“How—” he began, then stopped.
“I see the truth of it in your face,” she said. Her gray eyes looked hard as stone, and angry.
He half-rose from the chair, but with a single hand, she pushed him back down into it.
“Stay there,” she said. “I’ll tell you when I’m done.”
And then the sounds of jars being unscrewed, medicinal and strangely cloying smells as she busied herself doing something to his numbed back—and, finally, a fresh set of bandages, torn carelessly from the clean linen sheets he’d brought with him, tied with thin strips.
She settled his shirt over his head, tugged it down into place. By now her face was cold as a winter storm. “Go back to your room,” she said in a flat voice.
“But I—your massage—”
She opened the door to her suite and ushered him out. “Go back to your room,” she said again, closing the door behind him.
~
“Where is he?” came the sharp question.
All chatter in the kitchen stopped as Lady Helène, clad in hunting gear, stalked in. Shocked faces looked at her—the Ladies were never seen in here.
Helène rested her hands on her hips. “Someone here dared to speak for me,” she said, her voice flat with fury. “Where is he?”
John was sitting with Maida at the small table in the pantry, but he could see Helène through the open doorway. Her face looked more angular now than before, her jaw heavier, more wolfish.
“You all know who I mean,” Helène said. “I see it in your faces.”
Those in the kitchen exchanged quick, worried glances.
Helène smiled a cold smile. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “We have not yet been formally introduced. I am Lady Helène, also called Belle Helène the Conqueror, the Cold, the Terrible. You may have heard of my adventures during the war, and let me assure you that they only scratch the surface of the horrors I wrought. Only those exploits with survivors ended up in the handed-down tales. And I left survivors only when I chose.”
She strolled up to Enna, a shaking young scullery maid, and ran a clawed finger down her cheek, leaving a thin pink line. “I’ve torn infants from their mothers’ breasts, I’ve torn heads from bodies. And now, unless I hear the answer I seek, I shall start tearing out tongues. Who’s to be first?” She took hold of Enna’s chin. “You?” She raised her eyes to the rest of the people, who stood as still as horrified statues. “Where can I find Stroud?”
Her fingers had grown long and twiglike, her nails pointed.
“He—” came Enna’s trembling voice, barely audible. “He’s in the silver room, milady. Polishing.” She raised a shaking hand. “It’s over—”
“I know where it is,” Helène snapped. “Don’t you know that this is my castle?”
Without another word, she swept out toward the corridor that led to the silver room.
In an inexorable tide, everyone in the room followed, at a respectful distance.
Maida said, in a low, stinging voice, “And you said she wasn’t so bad.”
John could only shake his head in bewilderment.
He followed too, wincing—the numbing salve on his back had worn off—but he knew that Stroud must have heard Helène’s piercing voice. She wouldn’t find him there.
And indeed, when he peered past the onlookers into the silver room, Lady Helène prowled through it alone, though an open tin of silver polish and cutlery laid out neatly on a folded cloth testified to someone’s recent presence. Helène drifted down a row of cupboards, fingers idly brushing their fine carved mahogany.
She stopped at a large, closed sideboard.
Pushed the sliding door back.
Pulled Stroud out, with no apparent effort.
“Do you call this obedience?” she murmured to him. “Your Lady says she is looking for you, and you hide?”
“Please, milady,” Stroud said, his face shining with sweat, “I haven’t done anything!”
“You spoke for me,” she said, her voice dreamy and sad, her clawed hand holding a twist of his shirt. “Worse yet, you acted on my behalf, without my knowledge or consent.”
“But he’s only—”
“He? There is no ‘he’ here. There is me, and there is the fool who had the audacity to think he could purloin my authority. Do you know what happened to the last man who did that?” With a single taloned finger, she started tearing his coat and shirt from him like they were made of paper. “Have you heard the Ballad of Rowan’s Landing? The story of the despised villain Calder, who betrayed his people to the other side—my side—during the war? Who then set up his own little fiefdom, dispensing justice that rightfully belonged to me? Who instilled fear into those beneath him by claiming to speak on my behalf?”