Hoodsman: Courtesans and Exiles

by Smith, Skye

  She came to him and she touched him gently. He felt his heart pulse, and a flush begin, and he struggled with himself to move slowly and to be gentle with her. She became impatient, but he slowed her as well. For the next hour they delighted each other almost to the point of no return, and then would stop and relax and then start again, ever so gently. Eventually he had to warn her to be quieter, and she was, but then minutes later she had to warn him of the same. This went on all night.

  Early in the morning, as he lay pleasantly exhausted on top of his bed, with the slim young Gesa curled into his chest, he realized yet again that he still had much to learn about women.

  Bea had been right about this woman. Before they had ever coupled, he could think of nothing else he wanted more. And it was not just the coupling. He wanted to make her smile at him, to be kind to him, to want to be with him. He had known healers whose touch had a power that you could feel. This young woman had such a healer's touch, but she did not use it for healing. She used it for pleasuring.

  He was thinking long and hard about this, lying still in the early light and still feeling delicious, when he felt the air change in the room and looked up to see the door swing open just a few inches and a face look at him. She knew he had seen her, and Bea slammed the door back closed with enough force to wake the house. Yes, he still had much to learn about women.

  After the slamming of the door, Gesa rolled over so he slipped out of the embrace and pulled his long silk shirt over his nakedness. Swiftly he moved to follow the glimmer of Bea's candle lantern ahead. With a quickened step, he reached her door and pushed it open before she could bolt it. She stared at him through tears.

  "I'm sorry, love," he whispered. She pulled him into the room and closed the door, and then buried her face into the silk and sobbed.

  "Were you coming to my bed?" he asked softly.

  She wailed at the question and put a hand to her mouth to smother the cry, and then pushed him away and tried to dry her tears on her own collar. "I just went to see if she was in your bed."

  He almost blurted out a jest about losing the mark of silver, but stopped himself just in time. He pulled her to him and said, "It's all my fault," and then led her towards her bed.

  "You would dare come to my bed with her smell on you?" she sputtered, pullling out of his grasp.

  "I was just going to tuck you in and ..."

  "And then go back to her," her voice cracked, "because she is younger and prettier and doesn't have a swelling belly."

  "Enough of this," he whispered. "Get into bed. I will sleep on the floor."

  "No," she said stretching out on the bed, "come and hold me. Comfort me. Just lie and be still beside me."

  They had lain together for mere moments, before both of them were pulling off their clothing. They lay silent in the flicker of the candle lamp and lightly rubbed against each other, full length. They almost kissed but then both pulled back, and they simply looked at each other and smiled. Eventually she turned her back to him and he nestled up to her and they spooned, and snoozed.

  As is natural when men spoon women, his cock began to twitch to life, and she arched her back slightly so that it found her and grew inside her, and so they spent a peaceful hour connected. Whenever he softened they would rock gently to make him hard again so that they could feel the delicious connection for a while longer.

  By ignoring the sounds of the waking household, they were able to savour their divine time comforting each other. Eventually she had to pee, what with him big inside her, and the little one inside her, and both pressing against her bladder. She rose, and he stayed, and afterwards she came back and snuggled into his spoon again, and she arched her back, and he pushed inside her. They both sighed and felt the deliciousness of their skins touching their full length.

  There was no knock when Gesa came in with a tray of mint infusion and honey cakes. She mumbled a good morning to them, spitting honey cake crumbs to do it, "No, no, stay connected. I will serve you." She put the tray down on the small table next to the bed and then kneeled on the rush mat so her head was at the same level as theirs and facing them. She handed each a cup of hot mint, and they sipped at the freshness.

  Gesa reached out with her hand and touched Beatrice on the neck and then the forehead, and then pulled away the linen exposing her down to her belly. She laid her hand long on the small swelling where the baby was. "Ahh, you had a soft night with him then," she said, "that is better."

  He peered over Bea's shoulder at the teen who was ignoring him despite the rollicking sex they had shared but a few hours ago. He watched her touch Bea so softly, and he asked her, "Gesa, your mother Inka was both a seer and a healer. Are you also?" Inka had been one of the Frisian ealder women who King William's priests had burned at the stake during the siege of Ely.

  There was silence from Gesa, and eventually Beatrice whispered, "Klaes brought her here after her mother..., Klaes brought her here to live with me."

  "And you know that she has the healer's touch?"

  "So what?" pouted Gesa. "So do you." He was silent, but Beatrice was staring at her in shock, and her face lightened at Gesa's next words. "Why do you think all the women want to sleep with him? The touch is rare in women, but unheard of in men. You did not know? Raynar, you did not tell her? Did my mother never tell you?" Gesa reached forward and kissed Beatrice on her forehead. "You must have known. Can't you feel it every time he is near you?"

  Beatrice shook her head slowly and her eyes stared emptily as she was lost in thoughts and memories, trying to remember.

  "Raynar." Gesa kneeled higher and brought her face closer to his, almost close enough to kiss him, too. "The healing touch is a gift from Freyja to all of her folk to help them to nurture. In some it is very strong, like it was in Inka. In my village we welcome it, encourage it, savour it, and help it to grow stronger.

  Inka told me that Freyja gives the touch to both girl and boy babies but with the boys it almost never comes to anything. Boys do not touch to give, they touch to take. Men do not nurture the weak, they nurture the strong. The touch dies quickly in males. You must be part woman, for the touch to still be with you."

  He let go of Beatrice's breast and pulled his arm out from under her so he could raise his shoulders off the bed. "I spent my childhood in a spa, no, a hospice, caring for sick and dying lead miners. I know sicknesses and cures and herbs from working with the Welsh healers in the valleys of the Peaks."

  "And when you were a child there," asked Gesa slowly, "did you ever fuc..., make love, with a healer."

  "Yes, of course, my childhood friend was a healer and the daughter of a healer. Both of them Welsh women. Both of them skilled with herbs."

  "And where is she now, this childhood friend?" Gesa asked softly.

  "She is the seer and healer for one of the Princes of Wales."

  She responded with a knowing moan. "And did you never wonder why a seer, who refuses sex with all and any because of the risk of losing her visions, would bed you? And a royal seer at that? You are a fool, Raynar Porter. If ordinary women enjoy being close to you, can you imagine what you feel like to a woman who also has the touch?"

  He could not break her stare. Thoughts raced through his mind. Where was the young tart that had romped all over him in bed last night? Who was this ealder's mind in a teen's body? Finally she looked away, and he felt a rush of relief not to be in her stare. "Klaes did not bring you here so that Beatrice could care for you, did he?"

  "Of course not. He brought me here to care for her, and her babe."

  "And last night? With me?" he asked.

  "Everyone in this house knew you two would end up in bed together. Do you think I would allow a seaman fresh from the ports of Flanders to share her bed before I had checked on his health and sapped some of his lust?"

  "But when Klaes brought you, he said..." started Beatrice.

  "Klaes is the warlord of our village, and the captain of our ships, but he does not run the village. I was sent by th
e council of ealder women. I was sent to restore the balance in this house for I am Inka's child by Klaes," before they could interrupt she added, "from before her time as our seer. After she became our seer she took only one man to her bed," she pointed with her finger, "him."

  "That is not true." He came out of his stupor. "In Ely she was with John, and often."

  "John." Beatrice kept drifting away into memories. "You mean Big John? The smith?"

  "The smith. " Gesa gave her a sweet smile as if she were an infant. "The smith! John is a wizard, a wizard of iron and steel. If he lived in Frisia he would be the keeper of Thor's temples. Besides, that was in Ely. She was no longer the seer of our village. Bedding John weakened her visions, which cost her her life."

  "What?" he interrupted, "what was that you said?"

  "If she had not been bedding John, she would not have been wandering unawares gathering water meadow herbs so close to the Norman scouts."

  He grabbed at her hand urgently. "You must never let John know that. He would take the blame to heart."

  Silence, one of those silences where for some reason the whole world seems to be still. He relaxed back against the pillows and Beatrice relaxed back against him and he felt her using her inner muscles to squeeze him back to hard.

  "Why?" asked Beatrice.

  "Why what?" replied both of the others.

  "Why does rain fall? What do you think? Why would a seer bed him just because he has the touch?"

  Gesa had been about to take their empty cups from them but now she stopped in midmotion to collect her thoughts. "A healer has a healing awareness inside of her which she can share, and share most strongly when hovering her hand close to the skin of another. It is this sharing of the inner awareness that promotes the healing.

  A person in need of healing, a child, a man, all take it from her, suck it from her. Sometimes the suck is slow and gentle, sometimes fast and strong. A trained healer has more control, more focus of what is passed through the hovering. A seer even more so, but a seer can share so much and so quickly that afterwards she needs time to recover." She hovered her hand just above Bea's belly again and smiled and there was warmth and goodness in the smile.

  "That is why a seer will use her healing touch only if there is no other healer to do so, or if much healing is needed. When she couples with a man, her inner awareness flows out of her so quickly and so completely that it may take her a week to recover."

  She lowered her hand to hover over Bea's sex, and lowered her voice. "When she couples with a male healer, however, the awareness flows in and out of both. They join, they replenish each other, and they strengthen each other." Beatrice was no longer listening. She was moaning and spasming around his sex.

  Gesa pulled her hovering hand a little further away, so that it would not touch Bea as the woman bucked in ecstasy. Bea had her eyes closed, so she looked over her at Raynar. "My mother told me all this, but I did not understand it until a few hours ago." He wasn't paying much attention any more either. Now he began to moan and buck.

  Afterwards, after the moaning and bucking slowed and then stopped, and after Raynar fell out of Beatrice and rolled onto his back, he whispered, "Now my last time with the Welsh seer makes sense. She had been trying to heal a horrible wound in a friend. She failed despite her best efforts, and on the night that he died she took me, despite sex being forbidden her. The very next evening she had a vision so strong that it caused bedlam at the Prince's court and destroyed a treaty with the Earls of the Marches."

  Beatrice opened her eyes, and reached out to touch the teen girl. "You do look radiant this morning, Gesa. How do I look?"

  "You look rested, Bea. You have lost the worry shadows from around your eyes." She pulled Bea's hand to her lips and kissed it. "As soon as you told me he was coming to stay, I wanted to bed him. All of us in the kitchen wanted to, but then you knew that, didn't you?

  But I had seen his effect on my mother. Male healers are so rare. He was Inka's first and only. I wanted to know the feeling. No, my craft demanded I know the feeling. The touch from his hands was like Inka's touch but not so strong. But he has another touch that a woman does not have, and that touch goes deep inside where women have so many problems." At this, both of the women began to giggle naughtily to each other, and then laugh.

  Raynar was quietly listening to the women talk about him, and he felt his face flush hot with embarrassment.

  Gesa reached out and took Bea's hand and squeezed it. "It is wonderful having him inside, having the healing force so close inside, but he is so typically male. Just when you feel it mending you, he jerks and spurts and the feeling is gone as quickly as the light from a snuffed candle," she made a tinkling and happy laugh. "You may want to thank me for sucking him dry before sending him to you."

  "Mmmm," Bea moaned and rocked luxuriously against him. "Thank you," she said to both of them.

  "Take care Bea," Gesa warned. "This glow you feel is from the nurturing, the healing. It may feel like love and perhaps there is no telling the two apart. Do not throw yourself at this man. You are Thorold's completion. When you are together, you and your husband make a complete whole."

  Beatrice was feeling the glow, and lowered her head to her pillow and kept moaning softly. Raynar now had an unobstructed view of the teen. He asked her, "I am mid-twenties, almost middle-aged, why am I only finding this out now?"

  "Fool," replied this teen, and her smile hardened. "A male healer is an abomination to women healers. None of them would want you to know what power you had over them. None of them would train you properly, despite all of them wanting to use you."

  "But surely one woman would tell me, or at least hint at it."

  "One woman just did," Gesa whispered. "The healers would tell each other. How do you think I found out?"

  "I do not believe you," he said haltingly.

  "Remember when you first came to my village, when the women were moving to the island to defend themselves from the new sheriff in Peterburgh? Of course you remember. You were the one who hunted the sheriff down. Gerke's woman Roas asked the council's permission to seduce you in order to sire her first child, for she and Gerke were too close in blood to make babies."

  He remembered. He remembered it well. Gerke was one of his closest friends, and a brother in arms, and once a brother-in-law. He captained one of Klaes's village cogs. He and Roas's son and the ship and the crew were lost to the Sea.

  The teen saw his nod and she continued. "Roas's sister Anske then seduced you to make a child, but was murdered before his birth. With Gerke dead, Roas by our laws, became your second wife. Even if Anske still lived, Roas by law would be your second wife. And now I hear that Roas has taken Hereward as her husband, though she carries your child. Both sisters were healers. The Seers ordered them to bear your children because you have the touch."

  Beatrice was barely hearing the voices but she heard enough to say, "I was the matchmaker for both Anske and Roas. There was no plotting, no seduction."

  "If you really think that, then you are a fool. The sisters bedded him to bear a wonder child for the Seers" Gesa spoke to Bea as if she were a young girl instead of a middle-aged countess. "Oh I admit, they loved him well. You, you just provided the introductions."

  Beatrice was trying to speak, trying to think of a response. "Bea," Gesa interrupted her thoughts, "my island is a village of women, run by women, for women. You run a manor house on behalf of your husband. We help each other. We use each other."

  Beatrice was suddenly wishing that this willful teen would be quiet and leave so that she could enjoy more moments connected to Raynar.

  "Come now," Gesa softened her tone. "You know that Frisian Seers are responsible for keeping cousins from breeding. There are few marriages in our village because almost all property is held in common, but there are many children. Gerke and Roas were first cousins and were forbidden to breed, as are Hereward and Roas. Who better to sire for them than a fair-haired healer from a place so far from our v
illage?"

  He gulped back his question a few times, because he feared the answer, but then he knew he had to know. "So who was I siring Anske for? I took her as my wife. I loved her so deeply. She was an angel."

  There was a long silence, and Beatrice held her breath fearing the answer. Raynar had almost lost his mind when Anske had been murdered, and for months afterwards he had reaped a terrible vengeance on every Norman that he and his wolfpacks hunted.

  "Oh Raynar," replied Gesa, ever so softly. "Anske was so in love with you that she could not eat when you would leave her to go adventuring. Ask Bea. They lived together through those times."

  Beatrice was so relieved by the answer that she felt like cheering. She felt his relief as his warm glow filled her inside. "She speaks true, Raynar, Anske was moody and bitchy whenever you were away. "

  He felt Bea relaxing against him, and heard her breath deepen. He looked at Gesa and she leaned forwards so that he could see down the front of her shift to her tiny teenie titties. Bea moved slightly to make room for him to grow again inside of her. They were both feeling waves of deliciousness from the connection.

  He caught Gesa's eye and whispered so softly that the words came out like breaths. "This effect that I have on women, on healers. Can I be trained in its use? I know herbs and the care of wounds and coughs. I have used crystal pendants before, and have divvied sickness using my healer's touch."

  "Shhh," Gesa whispered back, "we will talk of it again soon." She took their cups, and stood and crept away from them and headed back to the kitchen shed.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith

  Chapter 8 - With the courtesan in Favreshant in January 1102

  "Aye, Favreshant will serve the purpose nicely," Henryk explained to Eustace. "Our ships will leave Boulogne and put in here. From here to London to drop and pick up cargo, and back here. And then back to Boulogne." He walked along a bridal path pointing out where he would build what.