by Aran Ashe
Four of the most lovely creatures Anya had ever beheld - the Prince's slaves-in-waiting - welcomed them. The slaves were adorned with jewelled chains and necklaces, and gold rings in both ears; flecks of gold were brushed onto their cheeks and breasts, and dusted in their hair. One of them, appearing slightly older than the others, had earrings set into her nipples. The thought of having that tender part pierced right through by a needle made Anya's flesh creep. The slaves bowed down before the Prince, then smiled at Anya, and kissed her on each cheek, as if she were a sister. She was placed at the Prince's table, on a large chair, almost like a throne, upholstered in velvet of the deepest purple, while the slaves-in-waiting served her with a delicious repast - rich and savoury meat, peas and parsnips brushed with butter, and that warm and crusty, soft and very yeasty bread which Anya so enjoyed. They placed before her a large clear goblet, which bore the image of an eagle carved into the glass, and filled it with a sweet, sharp frothy drink; whose taste reminded her of nuts and honey. Then they brought a golden platter, laden with small, delicious, perfumed fruit in a pale red crispy husk.
And when the meal was finished, the Prince removed her chains. Anya was not frightened - she wanted him to do it.
"Anya," he said (he even used her name), "you shall not need this symbol of your bondage. This night, we two shall meet as equals." A shiver of delight rippled through her, for she had already worked out, in detail, the manner of their meeting, which was not as slave and master, neither yet as simple peers, but rather, as a man giving himself, in love, to a woman consumed by a very special fire - that burning heat of passionate need which will not be denied.
The Prince now directed his slaves-in-waiting. "Bathe this woman," he said. "Salve her wounds, and dress her in nothing but the sweetest aromatic oils, then bring her to me."
The Prince's bathhouse filled Anya with awe. Though smaller than the one located in the Bondslave's House, it was much more lavish in its decoration. The walls were pure white alabaster, its vaulted ceiling was tiled in turquoise blue, the cornices were picked out in gold leaf, and upon three of the walls were mosaics, in clear, bright colours - a red dragon, a large green tree bedecked with cream-white doves, and a great jewelled sword which sparked blue fire. The fourth wall was blank, but the fifth carried a stained glass window, figuring the banner of Lidir - the castle, the hills and forests, the ciphers, and the woman dressed in white. Anya looked upon that image with wonder once again. It seemed to glow, as the evening sunlight billowed through the windows, to turn that alabaster white to soft warm pink.
"Come, now." The slave with chestnut hair, and gold rings through her teats, led Anya down the marble steps. The two of them sent ripples out across the stillness of the water, and dancing yellow bands across the ceiling of the room. The water felt warm, not cold, as Anya had expected. She did not understand how this could be. It gently lapped against the tops of her thighs. The other slaves, bearing pots and bottles, and a thick, soft yellow wadding, full of tiny holes, then joined them in the pool, and bathed her from head to toe, immersing her fully beneath the water, time and time again - on her back, then on her front, sitting, kneeling, then on her side, and after each immersion, anointing her with creams and oils, until it was clear to Anya that this washing was some ritual whose significance remained unexplained.
At last they supported her on her back again, to spread her thighs, and open out her sex. The leading slave - the one who was older than the rest - oiled her fingers in a pot of faintly almond-smelling cream, then slipped them up inside Anya. Anya could feel the fingers smear the ointment carefully round within her sex. She could not prevent her body from reacting to this gentle yet insistent provocation. The woman opened her more fully, to allow the water to swirl around inside her, then anointed her again, very slowly and deliberately reaching up inside her, and working her fingertips round the mouth of Anya's womb. Once more, she opened her, to let the water fill her, then made Anya contract, to squeeze it out. Then she spread out Anya's leaves, which felt thicker now, and also very warm, for they were filling up with blood. She smiled, as Anya's bud was revealed, pushing out and upwards, very hard. She touched it with the tip of her finger, lightly stroking upwards, underneath it, till it pushed out rather further. This woman seemed to know exactly how to touch her. Then the woman closed the leaves of Anya's sex round that swollen bud, and worked them, sliding them from side to side, so the bud was rolled between them, until Anya had to clench her teeth against the surge of pleasure which now threatened to engulf her. Her bud was so distended that it could not be retracted; it remained, peeping out prominently from beneath her fleshy hood.
The woman smiled again and had Anya turn over, onto her front. Those oily aromatic fingers opened out her cheeks, then gently probed and searched within the groove until they found that knot of flesh, then very smoothly slid inside her - two fingers, working systematically round inside her bottom, making her want to tighten up against them, making those sweet, forbidden feelings surge to take her breath away, making Anya's nubbin swell into a bursting button between her pushed-out leaves. She wanted the woman, with those fingers still reaching up into her as deeply as they could, to slip a hand between her thighs, and underneath and round, and to spread her leaves and nip that nubbin very sharply, whilst Anya closed her thighs against that wrist and squeezed against those fingers, till that shock of pleasure spasmed in her belly and burst between her legs. The fingers opened her bottom; the water spiralled up inside her. Her bottom tightened, but the fingers held her open; then the oiling and the rinsing was repeated.
At last, Anya was led from the bath and dried; she was laid down upon a low, upholstered deep blue table, with a silken cushion beneath her head, whilst her body was searched minutely. No bruise or scratch was left untreated, no matter how small; each was carefully dabbed with a tiny pad of soft cloth moistened with a sweetly smelling salve, which did not sting at all but seemed to evaporate on contact with her skin, leaving it cool, refreshed and perfumed with the scent of honeysuckle. And then the younger slaves-in-waiting wanted once again to examine Anya's markings. Her leaves were turned to one side, then the other; her bright red curls were combed back to expose the whiteness of her mound, and to reveal the way the brown-black tincture of her skin was shaded across her leaves to perfect blackness at each edge, and then to pink within. They raised her hips and bent her knees; they spread her so they could study the swath of colour bridging across to merge into the pool of velvet blackness around the mouth of Anya's bottom. And they discussed amongst themselves what manner of body paints or dyes they might apply to simulate these unique colour brands upon their individual persons, thereby to enrich their lovemaking by bringing surprise and delight upon their lords and masters. Anya felt so happy and so proud that these markings she had thought her bane were looked upon with so much admiration by these very beautiful women, who must surely be the pick of all the slaves within Lidir. She also felt very much aroused, with all the fingertip touching and the brushing, and the opening and closing of her leaves, with that constant gentle stimulation in and around her nubbin.
Anya was made to stand up whilst the leading slave checked her, back and front, brushed her hair and then bade her lift her arms above her head. The slave then brushed the hairs beneath Anya's arms, fluffing them up and saying, "Now your perfume will caress the air," which made Anya's cheeks begin to colour. Then she had her spread her legs whilst her coppered bush was teased out in a similar fashion. "There," the slave announced, and gently pinched that pushed-out, moistened nubbin, "your musk would force a cockstand in a dead man." Anya's cheeks were crimson.
Then finally, she was declared fit and ready to grace the Prince's bedchamber.
She stood at the foot of the large oak bed, with its intricately carved panels adorned with eagles, a dragon, the sun and stars, and images of very many female nudes, their bodies disported in a great variety of lascivious poses. The Prince reclined upon the bed and looked at her. He too was nude, apar
t from that single ring through his left ear. The slaves-in-waiting had taken up their stations at his head and at his feet, upon the bed, or kneeling down beside it, touching him, stroking at his thighs, across his belly, in the curls and up across his chest. The leading slave - the one with rings set through her nipples - lay closely up against the Prince. Her thighs were spread, like the women's on the carvings. The Prince's hand lay between her thighs. His fingers were idly toying in her bush, toying with the leaves about her sex. The woman was spreading herself to allow he Prince's fingers up inside her. The Prince's cock was stirring, and the slave lay back, smiling.
Anya did not like this setting - not one bit. It was not as she'd intended, not at all as she had planned this meeting in her mind. Her heart was beating very fast indeed, for they were four and she was one, but still, she felt she must assert herself and instruct them very clearly.
"Thank you," she told the slaves in very certain terms. "You shall not be needed. You may leave us now."
No one spoke. The stroking stopped. The young slaves glanced nervously at the leading slave, whose mouth had fallen open. The Prince regarded Anya with a fixed stare, as if he were afraid to blink. Anya steeled herself.
"Your services shall not be required," she repeated.
The Prince withdrew his hand from between the thighs of the leading slave. She turned to him for support, but she did not get it. The Prince merely raised his eyebrows, and then he nodded almost imperceptibly. The slaves-in-waiting stood up, bowed to the Prince and then to Anya, and left without a word.
Anya was alone with the Prince and now she was in charge; her plan was firmly back on course.
But first of all, she lay down on the bed beside him, with her head upon his chest. She took his arm and curled it round her and asked him to tell again, with all the details, exactly how the Prince had come to save her from the guards. And while this fairy tale unfolded so deliciously to her ears, her fingertips tickled very lightly in amongst the curls upon his chest, and softly down his belly, and at times, she would raise her head to question him, or merely to stroke her fingertip round behind that earlobe with the ring, or to kiss him gently on the chin, or more warmly, softly - moistly - fully on the lips.
"I could not get you out of my mind," he began. Anya's eyes opened very wide. "From that first moment, at the banquet, you filled my thoughts." She smiled, recalling how their eyes had kissed. "Last night, you even filled my dreams." She brushed her lips very slowly up his chest and closed them briefly round his nipple, then rested her ear upon him whilst she listened to his heartbeat. "Even in the Taskmistress's rooms, even when you ..." he could not bring himself to say it. "It hurt me - to see your precious beauty subjected to such degradation." Anya closed her eyes at the memory of that pain. But even then, my heart knew, although my mind still would not admit it ..." He closed his hand round her breast, and Anya placed her hand on his. "I think I was afraid." She lifted up and looked into his eyes.
"Afraid?" she asked.
"I could not understand those feelings." The Prince seemed lost for words. "Your beauty, when first we met; that look ..." He sighed. "Those eyes had overpowered me. No other woman has ever made me feel that way. And when we met that second time, in the passageway, it was almost like a physical blow." Anya remembered then that he had seemed almost too afraid to touch her.
But those eyes which had smitten him now caressed his face and kissed his eyes, and drank in his desire.
At length, Anya spoke. "Tell to me the part about the Council," she said, for she liked this part the best.
"When I left the Taskmistress's apartments, I was already late. The Council was in session. Naturally, I was required to take the chair, although I did not wish to do so." Anya snuggled up to him and hung on every word. "However, I very soon became enmeshed in the debate, which was both prolonged and acrimonious, concerning the levels of tribute to be exacted from each province of Lidir - a difficult problem, with few easy answers, since each province varies in size and wealth and population - broken down by class and of course, acreage of tilth, and then ..."
"Yes," Anya steered him in the right direction. "And then what about the vision?"
The Prince coughed, and took up the tale at a more appropriate point. "Then suddenly, the hubbub died. To me, the room seemed to go very quiet, yet the assembly was still in the midst of a very fierce discussion - I could clearly see their lordships' mouths moving in speech, and several of their lordships banging on the table - but it was as if I had been struck deaf. I could not hear a word. And then the assembled persons almost seemed to glow; the colours of their robes seemed so strong and vibrant ... and it was then that I heard the voice."
"Where did it come from?" Anya could not contain herself. The Prince looked through her; his eyes seemed glazed.
"It seemed to come from ... not from anywhere. And yet it seemed to surround me. It was the only thing I could hear." He looked troubled. He sounded as if he himself still could not believe it.
"And the door of the Council Chamber?" she prompted. "Was it open when you heard this cry?" She knew that this wonder must have happened as the grey guard dragged her past.
"No. I don't know - it could have been." He looked straight at her. "But it was not a cry." Her eyes were very wide indeed. "The voice was soft - very soft - yet somehow all around me."
"You did not recognise that voice?"
"No ..." He looked very distant. "But it was such a beautiful voice, very soft ... yet very sure."
And Anya felt quite certain about that voice - she could picture the owner very clearly - and she knew that it was magic.
"And that voice - that beautiful, magic voice - what did it say to you?" asked Anya, with rapture in her face, which made the Prince smile, for she already knew quite well what the voice had said, from the previous telling of the story. And yet she had to hear him say it once again.
"It said: Be true unto your heart."
Anya's eyes were filled with tears; she could not speak.
She fell upon him, kissing him very softly and repeatedly, till those living tears dripped from her trembling upper lip to splash her sweetness down upon his cheeks, across his lips and into his open mouth - and he tasted those warm and softly falling tears of Anya's joy.
This time, she did not force him to complete that tale - of how he had rushed out of the Chamber, to the consternation of all around, then tried, and failed, to find the Taskmistress, and then had embarked on a single-handed, headlong chase through the castle, through the Bondslave's House, the kitchens, the stables and the dungeons, looking for her, and finally had, by chance, stumbled upon a young slave, just returned from guardroom duty, who had remembered seeing a slave answering to Anya's description being brought in by the Captain - since all of that must now await another telling. For now, Anya wanted to give her Prince that special kind of love, that strong, insistent, very physical love. She wanted to render him a slave of love - her love - and to brand him with the white-hot iron of Anya's own desire.
She knelt astride the Prince's belly, facing him, so she could watch in his expression the burgeoning of his pleasure. Her hair hung down across her shoulders; her back was arched, which pushed her breasts out strongly, as she wanted them to be, and made her nipples point upwards. The Prince raised his hand to touch those inviting, precariously balanced, black-brown berries, but Anya very gently pushed him down again. She pressed her palms to either side of his face and held him like that, for a second or so, to indicate to him that he should keep very still, and then she placed her finger across his lips to seal them. She wanted no distractions. Finally, she closed his eyelids, which flickered open after a moment, then closed again obediently under the weight of Anya's frown. She was really quite insistent that these requirements be upheld.
Anya used her palms to trace the form of the Prince's chest, in such a way that, simultaneously, they moved up and outwards, a fraction of an inch above the surface, so her fingertips just brushed the hairs and s
ensitized the skin. That feather-light touching progressed upwards, across his shoulders, down his upper arms and back again, then very tenderly round his neck and up behind his ears. Her little finger very lightly, very nervously, tapped upon that earlobe, the one that bore the ring. She bent forward until her face was poised above him, and her breathing whispered out across his cheeks. His eyelids flickered, but they did not open. Anya smiled. Her breasts hung down and, with her breathing, swayed above his chest and dabbed those soft brown fleshy buttons against his skin until his chest curls tickled those pliant knots of flesh to tightness. Anya's fingertips worked upwards from the Prince's ears, softly up into the roots of his hair, lifting, teasing, sending crawling tickles up across his scalp, almost making him want to move his head away. And then he felt the soft, precise, wet tip of Anya's tongue stroking over his eyelid, then pressing in the corner, tracing a fine line of liquid down one side of his nose, across his upper lip, then back across the lower, then very slowly, very finely round the opening of his nostrils - making him want to jerk away - first one, and then the other, then moving upwards to the other side of his nose, dabbing moistly in the corner of his eye and out across the eyelid, causing him to see dancing, coloured stars of light.