MF, historical

			  DROIT DU SIGNEUR   (parts 1 - 8)


    Kirsten grunted and gave a last mighty shove.  The heavy wooden
yoke fell into place on the rack, and wobbled a few moments as she and
Leni collapsed onto the stable's dirt floor in near exhaustion.  She
never wanted to plow another furrow in her life.  All the men and most
of the women were needed to get the last of the harvest in before
winter came -- old Mother Maude said this one would be the worst in
many years.  But the strips still had to be plowed so they would be
ready come spring, so she and Leni and the other young women had had
to do it.  Usually, one man could handle the team of oxen, but Kirsten
was small and unskilled.  She was more suited to baking and spinning
than plowing.  Even with Leni, or perhaps because of her, the plowing
still took all day, but they had gotten it done.

    She looked down at her hands.  There were blisters on her thin,
nimble fingers, where she had handled the plow.  They felt fat and
useless, like they were someone else's.

    "You'll have to have lotion for those hands," Leni said, watching
Kirsten flex her fingers.  "Tomas'll not want to wake up thinking it's
Ralf that's caressing him."  Leni giggled at her own boldness.

    Kirsten blushed, herself.  She was not as experienced as other
girls about what went on between a man and a woman.  Some of her
friends had talked about seeing their parents "doing it" like the
sheep or dogs, but Kirsten refused to believe Leni's mother and father
-- her own adopted parents -- behaved like that.  Indeed, since Leni's
father was the blacksnith and therefore a well-off man, she and Leni
had their own room and had never seen Gustav and Gretchen do more than
kiss and caress,

    "Don't worry.  When I kiss him, he'll know I'm not Ralf."  She
clicked her teeth at Leni and smiled to cover her nervousness, but her
face was still rosy pink, up to her pale blonde hair.

    She was excited, of course, but she was even more nervous.
Tomorrow she would be married, and it was about time.  After all, she
was almost sixteen, as well as she could reckon.  But Tomas had waited
until his grandfather died to post banns in the chapel.  The old goat
was a right bastard, Tomas said, but he needed those fertile strips of
land if he was going to feed himself and a family.  It was that or
depend on his father.  The fine linen dress her mother and
grandmother, and probably her grandmother's grandmother, had been
married in was all mended with the best thread she could afford and
drying on the fence outside Gustav's smithy.  The dress and a few
pennies were all that were in the small cedar chest that had saved
Kirsten from the fire that had taken her parents.  Tomorrow night she
would wear it for the first and last time, she thought.  Thoughts of
tomorrow night also reminded her why she was nervous.

    Tomorrow night, her wedding night, she would spend in the castle.
She looked through the door up onto the low hill where the stone
fortress sat, casting its shadow on the field where the sheep grazed.
She shivered in silent dread.  Droit du signeur, they called it.
Filthy and barbaric, she thought it was.  It was a right not much
practiced by the nobles in these parts, but one that could not be
denied.

    Weddings were held in the castle's chapel, and the festival
afterwards took place in the bailey, or in the great hall if it was
winter or raining.  And then, after nightfall, the bride was taken up
to the bedchamber of the lord of the estate, and deflowered by the
lord.

    That was what awaited Kirsten tomorrow night.  It almost brought
her to tears.  How could she sacrifice her virginity to someone other
than her husband?  It didn't seem a very Christian thing to do.  But
Kirsten well knew her place.  It was her lord's right to be the first
to take her, and she was not someone to go against the rights of those
God had placed above her.  She would just throw back her shoulders
and...  No, that wouldn't do, she thought as she glanced down at her
firm bosom.  Oh, what was she to do?

    As though she knew what Kirsten was thinking, Leni put an arm
across her shoulders and kissed her cheek.  "Don't worry on it, dear
heart.  It'll be over in a night, and you'll be with Tomas the rest of
your life."  She sounded so motherly, Kirsten had to laugh, despite
her mood.  A girl smaller and younger than she, trying to comfort her
like a grandmother to a toddler.  She laughed at least until she saw
Count Heinrich riding up to the castle gate, with a brace of bloody
rabbits hanging from his saddle.


    In one of the outer fields, Tomas leaned on his scythe and mopped
his brow with his patched and rough sleeve.  He too could see Heinrich
on his bay stallion.  "It ent right, that.  No man's got a right to
another man's bride."

    Ralf planted his own scythe and looked for a moment at the young
man.  "No, it ent right for a common man to take another's woman.  But
the Count up there, he ent no commoner like us.  Things is different
for folks like him.  Always was, always will be.  But I reckon I
understand how you feel.  After all, a year agone it wouldna mattered.
The old count woulda just put her in a soft bed and himself in
another.  What with his 'war wound' and all."  His weathered face
cracked in a wide grin, showing his crooked yellow teeth.  It was well
known that the "war wound" old count Heinrich had suffered from was
the shrewish wife given to him by his duke for bravery on the field.
But Heinrich the younger had no such impediment.  His lady seemed to
care little about the count's activities, so far as the peasants could
tell.

    "If he lays a hand on Kirsten, then, count or no, I'll wring his
bloody neck.  On my gran's head, I will."

    "Aye, likely it will be your gran's head, and the rest of your
family's as well.  But you wouldn't get off so easy as that, boy."

    "Listen to him, Tomas," said Otto, who had just walked up.  "My
own Hilde was born nine months after my wedding night, to the day.
She favored her mother more than anyone else, so no one knew if she
were mine or Sir Albert's.  But I'll tell you this, boy, we had a good
thatched roof, and a bit of meat in the pot come midwinter, when most
everyone else did without.  And when the sickness took her and my
Ruth, Sir Albert made sure they both had good wooden coffins and deep
graves, frozen ground or no."  He walked back off to his own row,
sniffling and muttering.

    Tomas just took up his scythe and went at the barley with a
vengeance.


    The fires at either end of the great hall were slowly dying down,
but Kirsten was still flushed.  She had danced with every man at the
feast, save for the minstrel and Count Heinrich; but most of all, she
had danced with Tomas.  Tomorrow, she would finally share his bed, but
tonight....  She would just treasure this last hour before she had to
go up to the count's chamber.

    Tomas sat beside her, his hand in hers, staring at his feet and
trying to moisten dry lips.  Suddenly, he turned to her and pulled her
face near his.  "Kirsten, love, let's run away.  Let's go to King's
Ford, or even to Bromburg.  Let's get away from this place, from this
man."  He shot a dark look at Heinrich, who stared back with calm dark
eyes and whispered something to his lady.

    Gustav had suggested they do that, and even offered her the small
amount of gold he had saved up, as long as they took Leni with them,
for she would be married within a year, he was certain.  Leni and her
mother had managed to get the blacksmith drunk and home before he made
a scene and got himself in trouble with the count.

    Gustav and Tomas were much alike.  Like most men, they could not
accept the world for what it was.  Kirsten was a woman grown, now, she
had to have the strength of a woman.  She gripped her groom's hand
more firmly.  "Tomas, what would you do in Bromburg; what trade do you
know besides farming?  And where could you find land besides here?
We've both of us got family here, and if we run away, we'll never see
them again."

    "But I just cannot bear the thought of you with him.  You are MY
wife now, and no man worth the name would let another--"

    She put two fingers to his lips, then kissed them.  "We can't do
anything about that, Tomas, so try not to dwell on it.  Just remember
that you are the one I love, that I have always loved."  She kissed
him again, tenderly, then deeply.  "That I always will love," she
whispered.


    "They seem to love each other, don't they?" Heinrich murmured to
his wife.

    The dark-haired, dark-skinned woman with the regal features
glanced from the minstrel over to the newly-wedded couple. "Yes, they
do."  She noticed the cold eyes of Tomas over the rim of her goblet.
"You'll watch that young man, if you are wise, love.  He looks like
one to try something foolish."

    "No need to worry," he whispered back as he took her smaller hands
in his calloused ones.  "I've dealt with worse than a foolish boy."

    Esmerelda grinned back and made to refill his goblet, but he
stopped her pouring.  "Not too much.  It's a long night I have ahead
of me."


    It seemed like the festivities had only begun when Count Heinrich
placed his hard hands on Kirsten's shoulders.  She noticed the white
scars that stood out even on his pale flesh, the marks of a man who
lived with a sword in his hands.  "Well, my dear, it seems most of our
guests have departed."  A drunken snore from some old peasant
punctuated the lord's statement.  "In one way or another."  Bright
teeth broke through his thick dark beard as he grinned, in
friendliness it seemed to her. "Say goodnight to your husband, my
dear," he added, firmly.

    "Goodnight, Tomas."  You won't do anything foolish?  Tomas just
grunted and swallowed another half-mug of ale, refusing to look at
her.

    Kirsten took Heinrich's proffered hand and let him lead her out of
the great hall.

    "Don't be overly concerned about the young man -- Tomas, isn't
it?" Heinrich said as they ascended the narrow stairway.  "Just let
him get himself good and drunk and tomorrow he'll be as docile as a
sheep."  He stopped suddenly and pulled her up onto the stair he was
standing on.  "But if he is angry with you for some reason tomorrow --
and some men can be -- know that you may seek refuge here, until he is
reasonable again."  She could not meet his eyes, so she stared at the
bright silver medallion on his chest, a giant cat of some kind, in
mid-leap.  When he saw she was not going to respond, Heinrich
continued leading her up the winding stairs.

    The door to his bedchamber was open and they walked in.  The walls
were covered in tapestries of forest scenes and fanciful creatures.  A
maid was just turning down the blankets on the great bed, which looked
to be very, very soft.  Kirsten followed Heinrich across the room.
She gazed intently at a tapestry of the Ascension, which seemed to
glitter in the flickering candlelight.  Golden threads!  That single
wall hanging contained more gold than she had ever seen in her life.
She suddenly tripped on something on the floor.  Looking down for the
first time, she saw that a tapestry even lay on the floor, instead of
the rushes she was expecting.  She jumped back, afraid to walk on
something so beautiful.  "One of the treasures I acquired on Crusade,"
Heinrich commented, noticing her expression.  "Pretty, isn't it?"  He
held out his hand again.  "But not as nearly as lovely as you,
Kirsten."  Kirsten blushed and a small smile tugged at her lips.  She
took his hand again and followed him to his bed.

    It was indeed as soft as it looked, but she sat only on its edge.
He asked if she cared for more wine, and she shook her head.  He
dismissed the maid, but in a language Kirsten had never heard.  She
bowed and left, closing the door behind her.

    "Now my dear, I know you do not relish my touch on this night, but
believe me when I say that I mean you no harm, and only want to make
this night as pleasurable as possible for both of us."

    Kirsten refused to look at him.

    "Tell me, Kirsten, are you a virgin?"

    "Yes, my lord," Kirsten replied indignantly.  Did he take her for
some harlot?

    "And do you believe your Tomas has never been with a woman?"

    "Never.  We have been betrothed since we were little.  We have
always known we were for each other and no one else..."  She jerked
her hand to her mouth, too late to stop the offending words.

    Heinrich merely grinned indulgently.  "My dear, a young woman's
first man - or a youth's first woman, for that matter -- should be
someone experienced in the ways of love.  It is a time that makes one
much too nervous to give much pleasure to the other.  To get the full
pleasure of the experience, you must have a teacher as well as a
partner."

    "Yes, my lord."  But it was obvious she was unconvinced.

    "My dear Kirsten, I..."  The door burst open and the maid
interrupted him, babbling something incomprehensible.  But Heinrich
was on his feet and had pulled a sword from somewhere, placing himself
between Kirsten and the open door.

    Immediately, Tomas rushed into the room.  The servant threw
herself between him and her master.  With a strength born of rage,
Tomas threw her aside.  Brandishing only a cudgel and his knife, he
lunged at Heinrich, who had the scars of a man who lived with a sword
in his hands.

    "Tomas... NO!!" she screamed.  But too late, he was down.

    She ran to his limp form and cradled his head in her arms.  She
felt along his body for the wound, hoping against hope to save him.

    "Don't worry, I hit him with the flat of the blade.  He'll have a
headache and a bump, but nothing more serious."

    Kirsten didn't believe him at first, but there was no blood, no
visible wound anywhere she could see.

    The maid was already coming to.  Heinrich went over to check on
her; half her face would be an ugly bruise for a few days, but she
seemed to be otherwise unhurt.  Guards came running up the stairs and
into the room, looking ashamed, and hungry to punish whoever had made
them look so foolish.  "Take this man to the dungeons," Heinrich
commanded.  "Tell my wife I am unhurt.  You two help Rosa to her
chambers, gently now."  He turned to Kirsten and looked at her darkly.
"Do not leave this room, I'll be back shortly."

    He turned to go, but she grabbed his arm.  "Please don't hurt him,
anymore.  You won't... do anything to him, will you, my lord?"

    He pulled his arm away firmly.  "I haven't decided yet."  He left
her alone.

    She threw herself on to the bed and screamed into a pillow.
Tomas, you idiot, if you've gone and gotten yourself killed, I'll
strangle you.  The logic of her thought struck her and she began to
laugh, quietly but hysterically.  A widow on her wedding night.  She
would be laying him in the ground before she ever took him into her
bed.  Gradually, the laughter turned to sobs, then gentle tears.  Oh
Tomas, Tomas.  Don't leave me.

    It seemed like days before Heinrich came back to the bedroom, but
she saw the candles had only half melted.  "Is Tomas alright?"

    He looked down on her.  He pulled a cloth from his tunic and gave
it to her.  "Dry your eyes, Kirsten, he is well.  Whether he remains
so depends upon you."

    He's still alive, thank God, still alive.  Depends on me?  "H-how,
my lord?"

    "Your young husband has committed a serious crime, Kirsten.
Attempting to murder his lord, in his own bedchamber."

    "But -- but he was only trying to protect me."

    "Protect you?  From what?  I certainly had no intention of hurting
you, and this is the safest place for you to be, short of the castle
of the Emperor himself."  He sat on the bed beside her.  "Be that as
it may, I am willing to put the blame on too much drink and the
excitement of the day.  But only if you give yourself to me,
willingly, and do whatever I tell you without hesitation."

    "My lord?"  This is what she was expected to do in any case.

    "Oh, of course I will do nothing to harm you, and I promise you
that I will try to make the experience as pleasurable as possible.  Do
you agree?"

    Tomas will not be hurt?  I will not be hurt?  "I agree, my lord."

    "Excellent, excellent.  Well, I know it has been a hectic night
for you.  I'll leave you do get some sleep.  We will talk again in the
morning."

    "Tomorrow, my lord?  But aren't you going to... Aren't you going
to... take me... tonight?"

    "No, no.  We have a two whole weeks to take care of things like
that."

    "Two weeks, my lord?  But I thought... You said that...."

    The count smacked himself in the head.  "Ah, where is my head!  I
must be more tired than I thought.  Of course I can forgive your young
man for assaulting me, but he also struck two of my servants and a
guard.  The guard is expected to take blows for his lord, but I owe my
servants protection, so he must be punished for that.  Two weeks of
confinement.  Any other man would get a month turning the millstone
for each assault.

    "Just be thankful I am a forgiving man, Kirsten.  The penalty for
assaulting one's lord is death."  He closed the door, and locked it
from the outside.

    Kirsten tried to stay awake and worry about her fate and Tomas's,
but the excitement of the day, and especially of the night, had
exhausted her.  She fell asleep on the softest bed she had ever felt
and dreamed of nothing.



Part Two


    Kirsten awoke to Tomas's soft kisses on her lips.  But how had his
scraggly beard grown so thick?  Her eyes popped open in surprise and
remembrance.  Count Heinrich and her wedding night.  Tomas facing
Heinrich's sword.  Tomas in the dungeons!

    "Good morning, lovely Kirsten," Heinrich grinned.  "Are you ready
for breakfast?"  He held forth a tray overladen with food while she
sat up in bed.  There were eggs and ham, a bowl of porridge smothered
in honey, chilled milk and watered wine, and half a loaf of bread and
soft cheese and creamy butter.  Some winters, she had less to eat in a
whole day.  Such a large meal before any work had been done -- it was
positively, delightfully sinful.

    She began to pick at the meal, but the previous night had tired
her more than she thought.  Soon she was eating as though it were the
first meal after Lent.  Heinrich nibbled on some of the bread and
cheese, and watched her eat.  She realized how she must look, stuffing
herself as though she hadn't eaten in days.  She grinned in
embarassment, her cheeks stuffed with bread and ham.  "Please, eat,
Kirsten," Heinrich told her.  "After all, it's well past noon."

     "Mmph.  Noon?"

     "Well, you did have a long and eventful night."

     She chose not to comment on the previous night.  She went back to
eating.  She had no idea why she should be so hungry, but she could
not deny her appetite.  Heinrich sat on his bed (she briefly wondered
where he and the Countess Esmerelda had spent the night) and watched
her in silence.  "After you've finished eating, I'll send someone up
to help you bathe and dress.  You look of a size with Esmerelda; you
can wear some of her older clothing."

     "Please my lord, this is all so much, too much."

    "Nonsense, Kirsten.  You are a guest in my home.  I'll wager
besides your wedding gown, you only have one other garment not covered
in patches or stains.  Esmerelda refuses to wear something once it has
gone out of fashion.  In fact, next year or the year after, we have to
go to Florence to see what everyone is wearing these days."  He let
out such a put-upon sigh that Kirsten couldn't help giggling, at which
Heinrich broke into a wide grin.  "Much better.  I'll see you in a
couple of hours."  He went to kiss her again, but she turned her head.
He settled for a peck on her cheek and left.

    A few minutes later, a head with raven hair, black eyes and full
lips poked through the door.  Seeing that she was awake, the head was
followed into the room by a thin, graceful body in a plain black
dress.  "Senorita?  I Beatriz.  Bath time, yes?"  Her accent was very
thick, but pleasant, almost as musical as her native language.  When
Heinrich had taken over the castle from his father, he had brought
almost the entire household with him.  No one in the village knew for
certain where they were from, but Heinrich had been on the Crusade
when old Heinrich had died.  Kirsten supposed they were converted
Saracens.

    "I'm coming."  She climbed out from beneath the heavy covers and
glanced down at her gown, to see how wrinkled it had gotten.  But she
wasn't wearing it.  Her wedding gown had been taken off at some point,
but she had not noticed until now.  She was not even wearing her own
shift of wool, but one of fine linen.  She ran her hands down her
body, feeling the soft material.  "Beatriz, how did I get into this?"

    "Wedding dress not for sleep.  I get that for you.  You like?
Senor say it yours if you want."

    Kirsten started to protest that it was too fine for her, but then
realized the futility of it all.  "Thank you, Beatriz."

    "De nada.  Welcome."  She made a brisk beckoning motion with a
thin strong hand.  "Follow, please."

    Their destination was a small room downstairs just off the
kitchen.  "Clothes off, please.  In tub."  The tub was much bigger
than the one she and her family used.  Both her brothers would fit
comfortably in it, and they were unusually large.  It was made of
bronze and had inlays of silver and gold.  The decorations reminded
her of the rug in Heinrich's bedroom.  Complex designs, weaving in and
out of each other in wonderfully strange and beautiful patterns.  It
was impossible to follow a thread of the design without getting lost
in the pattern.  It was meant to be appreciated as a whole.

    She was more than a little embarrassed because this woman was a
virtual stranger, but she refused to let it show as she let the shift
fall to the floor.  She saw that a block of stone was meant to be
stood upon.  Inside the tub was a molded step, obviously with the same
function.  The water was pleasantly warm, and reached to her waist
when she sat down.  Beatriz tapped on another door opposite the
entrance and immediately two large women walked in with large buckets
of steaming water.  Slowly they filled the tub to her breasts.  The
water was much hotter than what had already been in the tub, but she
quickly grew acclimated.  As she sank further into the water, Beatriz
poured some scented oils into the tub, followed by a powder that made
wonderful bubbles when stirred.  Kirsten felt like a princess.

    She scrubbed herself clean with scented soap and a soft cloth,
then allowed Beatriz to clean her back.  She soaped her hair
thoroughly, and Beatriz told her to stand.  She took a bucket of warm
water and poured it over Kirsten, rinsing off the soap.  Then she
rolled up her sleeve to the shoulder, reached into the water and
pulled a cork plug out of the bottom of the tub.  The water ran out of
the tub into a shallow trench in the floor, to be carried out a small
hole in the wall, which had been closed by another plug.  Beatriz
patted her dry with a towel of some kind of cloth as soft as a cloud.
When Kirsten asked what kind of cloth it was, Beatriz told her it was
"cotton, from Egypt."  Egypt of all places.  What a wonderful place
Egypt must be, even if it was crawling with heathens, that they had
such cloth!

    Beatriz sat her on a stool to dry her hair and disappeared into
the other room, only to return an instant later with another towel
and... a knife!

    Kirsten threw her towel at Beatriz and dashed for the door, but
Beatriz had blocked her, holding out her hands, saying, "No, please.
No, please."  She didn't move toward Kirsten, so she forced herself to
calm down.  Beatriz had draped the towel over the rim of the tub and
was displaying the knife in a decidedly non- threatening manner.
"See?  No knife, is razor.  To shave, yes?  Watch."  She gently took
Kirsten's arm and scraped at the fine hairs, then held the limb up for
inspection.  Kirsten caressed the bare spot and found it to be smooth,
smoother even than her father's chin after he shaved ("Better to get a
burn on the chin than have a beard go up in flames," he would say when
asked why he went to the trouble of keeping his face bare.)  And
Gustav made the finest knives for miles around.

    "No, it's no knife.  So why do you need it?"

    "Senor say.  He say you to shave like Senora Esmerelda."

    Puzzled, but not wanting to upset Count Heinrich while Tomas was
in his power, Kirsten nodded.  Beatriz exhaled in relief and picked up
the towel.  "Arm up, please."  Kirsten raised her arms and Beatriz
placed the hot towel against the fine layer of hair under her left
arm.  "Hold there, please."  Kirsten held the towel, while Beatriz
left.  No sooner had the door shut than she had returned with an
earthenware mug.  She was vigorously stirring something inside it.
She knelt beside Kirsten and applied some kind of lather to the hair
under her arm with a stiff brush, then, with feather strokes of the
razor, she removed every hair.  When one side was bare, they began the
process on the other side.  Beatriz ran the razor over her own arm
again and gave a satisfied grunt.  "Good steel," she said to Kirsten,
as though explaining something.  "From Toledo."  When her underarms
were completely bare, Beatriz began on her legs.  The razor was indeed
good; she was only nicked once, on the rough part of her knee, but the
wound was tiny, and the blood soon stopped.

    When she was smooth all over, Beatriz placed the still warm towel
against her privates.  Shocked, Kirsten pushed Beatriz away.  "What
are you DOING?!?" she screamed.

    "Like Senora Esmerelda!  Como la senora!" Beatriz pleaded from the
floor, where she had fallen in surprise.

    Heinrich burst into the room, a knife -- a real one -- in his
hand.  Kirsten screamed even louder.  "What is happening in here?" he
demanded, sheathing the knife and brushing his beard.  Kirsten noticed
he had cheese crumbs in his beard and remembered that the kitchens
were next door.  The embarrassment she felt for that second scream
served to calm her enough to try to explain.

    Kirsten tried to cover herself with the towel as she pointed a
stiff arm at Beatriz.  "She tried to...  She said that..."  At the
same time, Beatriz kept saying,  "Like la senora!  You say like la
senora!" and pointing at Kirsten's midriff.

    "I see, I see," Heinrich said, holding up both hands for silence.
When both women were quiet, the count turned to Kirsten.  "Do you
remember our agreement, Kirsten?  In exchange for your husband's life
and freedom, you will do whatever I ask."

    "Yes, but..."

    "It is a custom among some Moors," Heinrich continued over
Kirsten's protests.  "It is a style I grew fond of during my courtship
of Esmerelda.  The hair will grow back, if you desire.  Is it really
so much to ask?"

    "No, my lord, I suppose it is not."

    "Good.  Please continue, Beatriz."

    Kirsten was going to complain about Heinrich remaining in the
room, but thought better of it.  She would only have to give in in the
end.  She would rather say nothing than lose an argument.

    Beatriz went and got another hot towel, which she used to massage
Kirsten's sex.  She had to admit the heat felt good.  She squirmed on
the stool, as her pussy moistened, from the excitement and from the
towel.  She glanced over at Heinrich, relaxing in a chair, watching
her through hooded eyes, and the tingling sensations increased.  He
was handsome, certainly, but she wondered if she would feel so excited
if he were not there.

    Slowly, ever so slowly, Beatriz brushed the lather into Kirsten's
pubic hair, completely covering the area.  Once, the stiff hairs of
the brush gently rubbed her clitoris and Kirsten practically leapt off
the stool.  She had to restrain herself from reaching down and rubbing
it herself.  She refused to openly acknowledge any pleasure while in
the presence of the man who held her husband hostage.

    With soft, short strokes of the razor, Beatriz slowly removed the
fine hairs that made up her thin bush.  She spread Kirsten's legs and
carefully shaved the area surrounding her labia.  Kirsten was
momentarily embarrassed by the moisture her slit had produced, but
rationalized that Beatriz probably had not noticed because of the damp
towel.

    She was wrong.  Beatriz grinned slyly up at her.  Under the
pretense of stretching the flesh to make a tight surface, Beatriz
began to lightly rub Kirsten's clitoris.  Kirsten bit her upper lip,
trying to ignore the feelings the kneeling woman was producing inside
her.  She simply could not contain them.  Between the cooling of the
lather on her thighs, the intent gaze of Count Heinrich, tingling
scrape of steel, and -- above all -- the dancing fingers of Beatriz,
Kirsten had to give in to her body or explode.  The flutter in the pit
of her stomach expanded until her belly visibly trembled.  Her breath
came in gasps until she could inhale no more.  She let out her breath
in a long, shuddering exhalation and slumped against the cool stone at
her back.

    She opened her eyes when she felt hands between her thighs again.
She grasped the hand, it belonged to Beatriz, and said, "Please, no
more.  I'm too sensitive down there."

    Beatriz smiled and said, "Finished anyway."  Then she did the
strangest thing.  She took Kirsten's hand and lightly kissed the
inside of her wrist.  She stood and, with a shallow curtsy to
Heinrich, left.

    "Lovely, simply lovely," Heinrich mused, staring at Kirsten's
now-hairless pussy.  Abashedly, she closed her legs and blushed, and
tried to cover her breasts with her crossed arms.  The count stood and
handed her shift to her.   "Come, Kirsten.  It's time for your lessons
to finally begin."

     Kirsten allowed herself to be led back to Heinrich's chambers.
He told the guard at the foot of the stairs that the only person who
would be allowed to interrupt him for the next few hours (Hours!)
would be Beatriz or the Countess, and only for matters of the utmost
importance.  The guard leered at Kirsten, but was careful to do so
only after the count's back was turned.  She cast her eyes downward
and followed Heinrich up the stairs.

     The bed had been made and refreshments had been placed on a table
by the bed.  Heinrich motioned her to the bed and took off his belt
and knife, putting them on the floor near his sword, which was propped
against one side of the bed.  He poured two goblets of watered wine
and offered her one, which she accepted.

     They sat on the edge of the bed in silence for a few moments,
sipping their wine.  It was sweet, but not too much so.  Given what
was going to happen in a few moments, Kirsten wished that it were
stronger wine, or even mead.  She tried to relax.  Her mother had told
her it would only hurt more if she was tense.  But she could not.  Her
first man was going to be this brutal man who slept with a sword by
his bed and went armed even in his own home.  She wished she had let
Tomas pressure her into sleeping with him before the wedding.  She had
just never truly believed that this would be happening.  She kept
thinking that the count would not really deflower her, or that maybe
she could talk him out of it.

     But Tomas was in the dungeon, and his life was dependent upon
this man's mood.  And his mood was dependent upon her.

     "My lord?  Are we going to... make love, now?"

     "Eager now, aren't we?"  She tried to appear so, but he saw
through the pretense.  "I am not a boy any longer, Kirsten, eager to
get inside a woman as soon as I have her in my arms.  I know you feel
no passion for me.  You want to get this over with, but you want to
put it off, yes?"

     "No, my lord.  I mean, yes.  That is..." she tapered off.

     "It is the moment before something momentous happens," he
continued, "that our emotions are strongest, don't you believe?"  He
drained the goblet and put it down.  "I enjoy letting myself
anticipate."

     He took her goblet from her and set it aside, then pulled her
shift down, baring her shoulders.  "But now the anticipation is
finished.  Desires brought to their peak must be satisfied."

     He held her face in his hands and kissed her lips, gently at
first, then insistently, breaching her lips with his tongue.  She
responded because she knew the better the experience was for Heinrich,
the better for Tomas.  Think of Tomas alone in that dark cell, she
told herself as the count's hands wandered down to her breasts.  He
massaged them through the fabric of her shift, rubbing the nipples
with his thumbs.

     Think of Tomas, she told herself again.  Ignore the hardening
nipples.  Stop breathing so heavily.  Stop that; get your tongue out
of his mouth.

     Her pussy began to tingle and itch, and she squirmed on the bed,
trying to relieve it, but her motions only served to increase her own
passion, and Heinrich's.  Perhaps that was what she wanted.  She would
never know for sure.  All she knew was that her body was no longer in
her control.  It had needs that would be fulfilled despite her own
will.

     Now his hands were pulling her shift down further.  And to her
amazement, she was helping him.  She told herself that she was helping
only for Tomas' sake, but she knew, deep in her soul, that she wanted
to feel his sword-calloused hands on her naked breasts.  She wanted
his mouth on them, devouring them, devouring her.

     When the garment was down to her waist, Heinrich cupped her
breasts in his hands.  "You are beautiful, Kirsten, do you know that?
Beautiful.  The most beautiful woman in the whole Empire."  He kissed
her breasts.  "If you had been with me in Cordoba, the poets would
have composed an epic around your beauty.  More beautiful than Helen,
they would say."  She wasn't sure what he was talking about, but she
liked it.  And she liked what he was doing -- very much.

     He gently pushed her back onto the bed.  He kissed and sucked on
her breasts.  He nibbled on her nipples, alternating between them.  He
went back to her face and kissed all over it.  He sucked on the hollow
of her throat and where her neck and chest met.  He was everywhere at
once, it seemed to her.  Teasing awake the areas of pleasure of her
body, then moving on to another before it was satisfied.  He went back
to her breasts, wet with his saliva.  He nipped the skin all over with
his teeth, raising goosebumps and making her nipples impossibly hard.
He kissewd and licked his way down her stomach.  He gently licked her
belly button and moved down further.  He took her shift and began
pulling it down her hips.  "Had you been held in Granada, the knights
of all Christendom would have taken Spain to rescue you."  Slowly he
pulled the shift off her hips and down her thighs.  Now she was
completely naked before his gaze, even more than when Beatriz had
shaved her, for he could see her naked emotions play across her face.

     He kissed his way down her thighs, her calves.  He tickled the
backs of her knees and massaged her feet.  He nibbled on her toes, and
kissed his way back up her legs.  He was almost worshipping her body,
she thought.  He kissed his way back up her thighs, on the outside and
inside.  She knew what he was doing, and she wanted it.  God help her,
she wanted it; she wanted him.  She opened her legs to him, inviting
him to kiss her bare virgin sex.  She played with her breasts with one
hand and tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him up with the
other.  There was nothing between him and his goal -- no clothing, no
hair, no resistance.

     His lips finally touched her and she pulled his face tighter
against her in her convulsion.  His pleasantly bristly beard against
her shaved flesh increased the pleasure radiating from her pussy, as
his mobile lips and tongue sought out her most sensitive points.

     "My lord, this is, this is wonderful."  He only grunted his
response, not wanting to miss a single drop of her by speaking.  "Kiss
me, lick me."  She ground her crotch against his face.  He nibbled on
her lips.  He sucked and fingered her clitoris.  He thrust his tongue
inside her to get all her sweet juice.  Always he went back to his
clitoris with mouth and fingers, keeping her on the edge of climax,
but always holding her back.  She pulled on his head with both hands,
trying to get him to bring her over.  He fought her, taking his time.
She reached down to masturbate herself, but he caught her hands.
Holding her wrists with his one strong hand, he wrapped his lips
around her engorged clitoris.  He sucked until the bud protruded as
far as it could, then took it softly between his teeth.  When he had a
firm hold on it, he flicked it with the tip of his tongue, rapidly.

     "Yes, mmh, ahh, yesss.  OH, AH, AH, OOO, AAAAAHHhhhhhhh."  A
single long shudder and her body went limp, her climax seemingly
draining all the energy from her.

     Heinrich licked up the remaining juice, where it had poured from
her as her climax had approached, where his soaked beard had spread it
along her thighs.  He crawled up her body, supporting himself on his
hands and knees.  Her eyes were closed and a satisfied smile curled
her lips.  He kissed them and she responded by opening her mouth to
him.  Her eyes opened wide in surprise when she tasted herself on his
lips and in his beard.

     Heinrich's hands roamed over her body again, keeping her aroused.
In response, her hands darted along his body to his groin.  Her hands
fumbled at his crotch, trying to unbelt and untie his trousers.  She
wanted him inside her.  She felt like she had never felt before: empty
inside, needing a man to fill her.  The twitchings she felt when
kissing Tomas were nothing compared to the raging fire inside her now.
Heinrich was helping her now, and soon his manhood was free.  She
grasped his cock in her hand, marvelling at the heat it generated.
She explored it with her hands, feeling the hardness of the flesh and
the softness of the skin, the pulsing ridges and the warm furry balls
hanging from its base.  It felt huge; she was not sure she could take
it all, but she needed something inside her now.

     "Do it, my lord.  I need it.  Please.  Please."

     She guided him to her entrance.  Heinrich moved forward, easing
the head between her sobbing pussy lips.  He moved forward slowly,
exploring her, searching for her hymen.  The head of his cock nudged
against it, and he stopped.  "Brace yourself, Kirsten.  This will
likely hurt, but the pain will quickly pass."

     He took a deep breath and counted three, then plunged forward.

     "AAIIIEEEE!!"  Kirsten screamed as her maidenhead was ripped
apart, not entirely because of the pain.  She was finally full.  She
wrapped her arms and legs around the count, pulling as much of him
against and inside her as she could.  She panted in his ear, from the
pain and emotion, "Wait, wait.  Let me get used to it."

     "Lovely Kirsten, I hope you never get used to it."  But he held
himself as still as he could for a few moments.

     When Kirsten released her grip on him somewhat, he began to move
back and forth, easing his cock out, then sliding it back in, smoothly
and slowly.  Each motion drove some of the pain away, until she felt
nothing but pleasure.  Soon, Kirsten was again using her arms and legs
to pull him back inside her.  He kissed her full young breasts as he
thrust into her, and lifted her buttocks with his hands so he could
penetrate her even more deeply.

     Kirsten clawed at his tunic with her strong hands, and bit at his
bearded cheeks.  She kicked his buttocks with her feet, urging him to
fuck her faster, and he complied, riding her to one orgasm on top of
another, pushing her to a new peak before she could come down from the
previous one.

     Soon, sooner than either of them wanted, he erupted within her.
He pounded her on the last few strokes as he emptied himself deep
within her, grunting and moaning her name over and over, punctuated by
her cries of ecstasy and whimpers of "my lord," whether to him or to
God he didn't know or care.

     He remained hard inside her pussy, and as he began to breathe
normally, he began thrusting again, languorously, enjoying the
sensation of her walls squeezing his cock.  Kirsten herself was
exhausted.  She fell asleep with him inside her, and wasn't aware when
he came again, though her body shuddered involuntarily in tiny
ecstasy.


Part Three


      Tomas opened his eyes.  At least, he thought he had opened his
eyes.  He could see nothing before him.  He remembered charging Count
Heinrich, and a massive steel blade being swung at him.

      I'm either dead or in the dungeon.

      Thoughts of rats and insects and God knew what else that
inhabited the cells made him wonder which would be worse.  He sat up
and immediately realized he was still alive.  A dead man's head
couldn't possibly hurt this much.

      Gentle hands, a woman's hands, forced him back down.  "No, don't
try to get up.  You've a bump on your head the size of my fist."  The
voice was very soothing, with an accent unlike anything Tomas had ever
heard.  The words caressed his ears like her hands caressed his
shoulders, spreading warmth through his aching head and body.  "Rest
now.  Here's another cool cloth for your head."  Light peeked at him
as the cloth covering his eyes was removed.  Another cool damp cloth
replaced it, but allowed him to see his surroundings.

      Far from being in a dungeon, he was in a soft bed in a well-lit,
well-furnished room.  Cool air wafted through the open shutters.  A
canopy above the bed fluttered in the breeze, and real wax candles
flickered.  A face appeared before his eyes, looking into them with
concern.  It was an exquisitely beautiful face.  Sharply chiseled
cheekbones and a small, full-lipped mouth.  Bronze skin and black --
deep, soulful, impossibly black -- eyes.  It was the Countess
Esmerelda, the mysterious bride Heinrich had brought back from the
Crusades.  Heinrich!  The bastard who was probably even now....

      Tomas tried to rise again, and again was forced down.  The woman
didn't look particularly strong, but then Tomas didn't feel
particularly robust himself.  "Lie back down, young man.  You've taken
a serious blow to the head.  Your brains have been shaken very badly,
and if you stand, they'll probably fall out.

      "Not that you'd notice.  What made you do such a stupid thing
anyway?"

      "He was going to...  Him and Kirsten were...  She's MY wife,
damn it!"

      "She was very nearly a widow, idiot.  You had no right to go
about beating on my servants and frightening your bride the way you
did."

      She spoke to him like his mother did, even though she surely had
not long ago turned twenty.  He was practically dumbfounded.  All he
could say was: "Where are you from?"

      She was surprised by the non sequitur, and could only answer
truthfully.  "I am from Cordoba.  In Spain."

      "You are a Moor?"

      "I am, though I have converted to Christianity."

      "How come you speak such good German?"

      The young countess rolled her eyes at his rapid questions.
"Because I spent a good deal of time with Heinrich and his soldiers.
But that is neither here nor there.  You have to lie down and rest.
It has been a very trying time for almost all the castle.

      "My husband has decreed that even though you attacked him within
his own home, in his own bedroom" -- She shook her head as though to
say, 'men, fools' "your life is not to be forfeit.  However, for your
attacks against our servants, you have been sentenced to two weeks of
confinement.  Not in the dungeon, you can thank your stars."

      "But Kirsten..."

      "Is intelligent enough, I'm sure, to know that nothing can
change her situation except you, and you can only make it worse."

      Tomas shut his mouth, having no response.  The pounding in his
head seemed to tell him, "You...  Knew...  That...  You...  Knew...
That..."  He realized he had known this all along.  Male pride and
drink had carried him up to the master bedroom.  Kirsten was in no
real danger, and Tomas had come damn close to spitting himself on that
sword.  He let himself collapse on the soft bed, in self-pity rather
than in resignation.

      "He wouldn't harm her, would he?"

      "Of course not," she scoffed.  "Heinrich is the most gentle man
I know in the Christian lands."

      "I suppose I should be grateful for that much, at least."

      "You should.  Many a man is brutal toward women, considering
them only so much property.  Kept if pleasing, discarded if not."

      "You say that as though you experienced something like that,
ma'am."

      Her hands tightened on his shoulders and she withdrew them.
"Perhaps I'll tell you the story sometime of how I met Heinrich.  In
the meantime though, you must rest and recover.  A day or so in bed
and you'll be as good as new."

      She blew out most of the candles and left, locking the door from
the outside.  He could smell roses in the room, but roses were not in
season yet.  It must be her.  He inhaled deeply.  Not roses exactly,
but pleasant, very pleasant.

      Tomas was still uncomfortable about the whole thing, but he was
also still exhausted from the knock on his head.  He fell asleep after
only a little tossing and turning.

      He dreamed of Kirsten, of course.  Lately, all his dreams had
been about Kirsten.  They were almost all the same, and this one was
no exception.  He held her in his arms.  They were both naked.  He
knew well what Kirsten's body looked like unclothed.  It shamed him to
think of it, but he had seen her once, when she and Leni had gone
bathing in the small lake a mile from the village.  He had only done
it the once, because of his shame, but the image stayed with him.  Her
pure blonde hair and creamy white skin.  Her pale pink nipples atop
the full breasts of a grown woman.  And the patch of blonde hair in
the middle of her trim hips, so pale it was almost invisible.  She was
like a spirit, fragile- looking put powerful and beautiful.

      In his dream they kissed each other's face all over,
frantically; in these dreams, everything was frantic.  Her flesh
smelled of meadow flowers and her lips tasted of honey.  She kissed
his neck and his bare chest.  He tried to bring her up so he could
kiss her lips again, but she resisted.  She took his manhood in her
cool hands. She did not do that often.  Sometimes she helped him enter
her, but usually, he found her opening himself and entered her,
savoring her enveloping warmth, and he would orgasm almost
immediately.

      She stroked him.  He never imagined his Kirsten doing that.
When he was alone and thought about her, he would stroke it himself,
though he knew it was a sin.  No girl like Kirsten would do that.
Only Marian had ever done it to him, the day he was burning inside
after seeing Kirsten's beautiful body.  He had orgasmed almost
immediately, and Marian had laughed at him.  His faced still burned
anytime a girl laughed within earshot.

      The ghostly Kirsten now took him inside her mouth, swallowing
him, her tongue darting along the underside of his cock.  It was a
horrible thing to do, something only a slut like Marian would do.  But
he liked it.  He liked it a lot, despite himself.  Even in his dreams,
he wanted to tell her to stop, that she shouldn't.  But he could not
break through the wall of pleasure to speak.  She moved faster and
faster on him, swallowing him whole on each stroke.  He could not
contain himself, soon he would... he would... would....

      Do nothing.  For Kirsten had grabbed his cock by the root,
preventing his eruption.  He wanted to cry.  He could not even have
the satisfaction of a spirit Kirsten.  But she had not abandoned him.
She stroked his wet cock, and began kissing his thighs and his balls.
She licked the sac and nibbled lightly on the juncture of his thighs
and groin.  And she continued to stroke him.  When the hardness had
completely, painfully returned, she took him again inside her
wonderful mouth.  This time, he did not even try to stop her.  He
needed release too badly.  He just allowed himself to enjoy the
sensations.  It was a dream, and he knew that dreams could do no harm.
Otherwise Marian would have long been dead of a horrible wasting
disease.

      Thankfully, this time the phantasm Kirsten showed no sign of
stopping.  This time he would finally...

      WAKE UP.

      Her teeth had scraped his flesh a little too roughly, and the
surprise more than the pain brought him out of the dream world.
Except that it was no dream.  Kirsten truly was sucking his cock.  No,
it wasn't Kirsten.  Instead of a head of spun gold, he saw loose ebony
tresses spread across his naked hips.  The face tilted up at him to
reveal deep, soulful, impossibly black eyes.  "Countess!  What are you
doing!?"

      She took her mouth off him, but continued to stroke him in her
dainty hand.  "I'm sorry, Tomas.  I came to check on you and saw the
blanket sticking up."  She quickly licked him.  "I meant to do it
quickly so you wouldn't notice.  But you tasted so good, I couldn't
stop myself from prolonging the experience."  She winked at him.
"Shall I continue?"  She engulfed him.

      "Yesss," Tomas moaned as he fell back onto the soft mattress.
She wasn't Kirsten, but she would do.  A beautiful lady.  A countess.
The bastard Heinrich's own wife.  Heinrich's wife!

      SHIT!  If he catches me, he'll have me castrated, then beheaded!

      He pulled himself out of Esmerelda's mouth, again scraping
against her teeth, and dragged her bodily to the door.  He was so
terrified, he couldn't even hear, much less answer her indignant
questions.  He had to get her out before the count came to see about
his prisoner.  He quickly checked the hallway, saw that it was empty,
then practically threw out the most breathtaking woman he had ever
met.

      His fear had caused his head to start throbbing again, at the
same rhythm as his racing heart.  He wasn't sure if his head would
explode before his heart collapsed, but he just knew one would happen. 

      Calm down, Tomas.  You weren't caught.  Everything's fine.  Just
serve your two weeks and you'll have Kirsten, and you can finally
start your life with her.  Heinrich'll never find out, and what can
the countess do, have you killed?  He stopped his pacing.  She might.
She could convince him to change his mind.  No, no.  A count can't
just change his mind about a death sentence.  He'd soon have a revolt
on his hands.

      He dragged a heavy chest over to block the door, though, just in
case.

      He poured cool water from the pitcher into the washbasin, then
held his face in it for a count of twenty.  By the time he came up for
air, he had convinced himself that everything was going to be fine.
He just had to keep out of Countess Esmerelda's way for the next
fortnight.

      As he pulled the blanket over his body, he noticed that despite
his panic, or maybe because of it, he still had a full erection.  He
glanced at the door.  No one tried to open it.  He pushed the blanket
back down and pulled up his nightshirt.  The cool air felt good on his
exposed flesh.  He began to stroke himself.  He thought about Kirsten
in the lake, water beading on her flesh and dripping from her breasts
and from between her thighs.  He thought of his dreams of Kirsten,
when he would take her for the first time.  He imagined the passion
between them.  Then, his mind drifted to the last dream he had of
Kirsten, when she sucked his cock.  He wondered if he could ever get
the real Kirsten to do that.  And then, so gradually that he never
noticed it, the image in his mind changed to thick dark hair spread
across his thighs as Kirsten became Esmerelda, and she sucked
vigorously on his prick.  Faster and faster, those wavy tresses flowed
as her head moved on him, and then he erupted.

      He fell asleep like that, exposed and wet.  But he didn't dream
of a patch of pale hair between white thighs, but of dark hair between
brown thighs.  And deep, soulful, impossibly black eyes, looking up at
him in passion.


Part Four


     Kirsten gently placed the silver tray, heavy with their
breakfast, on the table beside Heinrich as he lay sleeping.  His deep
breathing was hypnotic, and she stood for a moment listening to it and
looking at his face.  In sleep, his face looked very different than it
did when he was awake.  It was certainly as handsome, but in a
different way.  She peered closely and all at once recognized what the
difference was.  He was relaxed now.  Even at the wedding feast, she
now recalled, he was somewhat tense.  His thick beard hid it, but he
wore a perpetual frown.  It was slight, so slight, she would never
have noticed it had she not seen him like this, drained of all cares.

     She reached down and brushed his hair back from his forehead.
She noticed the scar, just at his hairline.  It was an old scar, to
judge by the whiteness of it, but it must have been a very bad wound.
As near as she could tell without waking him, it went around the
entire right side of his head.  What could have caused a wound like
that? she wondered.

     On impulse, she pulled the blanket off his chest, watching his
face for any sign that she was disturbing him.  She looked down at his
bare chest and gasped in horror.  Heinrich woke, reaching for his
sword.  He saw her beside the bed and pulled the blanket back up to
cover his chest.  Only an instant passed, but it was enough for
Kirsten to see something she would carry to her grave.

     His chest had been covered, literally covered, with scars.  There
were two or three puckered circles where arrows had penetrated flesh.
There were white slashes crisscrossing his chest where blades had cut
him, some deeply.  But they were not the worst.

     As the adopted daughter of a blacksmith, Kirsten knew what
red-hot metal could do to human flesh.  Her father's arms had a couple
of scars where he had been careless around the forge.  But those scars
were nothing compared to the ones Heinrich bore.  They were ugly and
still pink.  They were too bad and were too patterned to have been
accidental.  They seemed to cover his entire chest.  Someone had done
this on purpose.  Someone had mercilessly tortured her lord and her
lover.

     She did not like to think of the extortion that had brought her
to Heinrich's bed, but she had at least enjoyed herself once she was
there.  But for someone to torture any man in that way was inhuman.

     Gently, but insistently, Kirsten pulled the covers completely off
of Heinrich.  He did not resist.  There were several swordcuts on his
arms, and another arrow wound on his right thigh that didn't look too
bad.  But his thighs and calves were covered in more burn scars.
There were even places where it looked as though the skin had been
torn away in strips and grown back.

     Tears began to form in her eyes.  The world was harsh, she had
long known, but she had never imagined it could be so cruel as well.
She looked back at that handsome face.  The subtle look of worry was
back, and there was also a look of shame.  She knew that she was the
cause of that shame, because she had seen what he thought of as a
weakness.  He had once had a strong and beautiful body, she could
tell.  It may be strong until the day he dies, she thought, but it can
never again be considered beautiful.  War and another's cruelty had
taken care of that.

     She knew she shouldn't, but she could not help herself.  "My
lord," she asked, "who would do a thing such as this?"

     His jaw firmed even more and his eyes changed, becoming
murderously hot for just a moment before they were veiled in cool
dispassion.  "A dead man," he said simply.

     She knew that was all the answer she would get for now, so she
pulled the blanket back over the old painful wounds.


     They ate a hearty breakfast that Kirsten would have considered
divine were it not for the silence that hung between them.

     When they had finished, she set the tray outside the door, and
Heinrich got out of bed and went behind a curtain to use the chamber
pot.  Kirsten saw that the backs of his legs and his buttocks were
scarred the same way his chest was, but his back only had the ordinary
war wounds (would she have considered them ordinary half an hour ago?)
of an experienced warrior.  A single arrow wound and two blade scores.

     But there were also four parallel scars making a diagonal band
from right shoulder to left hip.  They had healed badly and were still
raised from the skin.  The two outside scars were more than two
handwidths apart, and the symmetry of them was somehow beautiful,
despite the violence of their nature.

     Heinrich returned and placed the chamberpot outside the door with
the leavings from their breakfast.  He then went to the washbasin,
filled it, and began washing himself with a dampened cloth.

     Staring at the relatively unscarred back, she began to imagine
what his body had looked like before he went off to war.  Muscles
rippled smoothly under his skin as he washed himself.  She enjoyed
watching the strength that was in them, held at bay, but eager to be
unleashed.  She remembered feeling those muscles ripple against her
flesh the night before.  She wanted to feel them again.

     It was a realization that had come in the night and had been
strengthened by the scars' testimony of Heinrich's humanity.  Desires
she had kept dormant had blossomed yesterday.  She remembered
awakening during the night, finding Heinrich watching her, just
sitting crosslegged in bed, watching her sleep.  The memory still
produced a warmth in her.  They had made love slowly, because she was
still sore.  But it had lasted hours.  Made love and paused, kissed
and caressed, made love again, changed positions, building slowly,
almost reluctantly, to a final climax.  This man before her had
awakened that need for a masculine touch, and right now only this man
could fill it.

     She also felt another need, now, a need to comfort him, to ease
the pain she knew she had caused by bringing up the memories of
whatever it was he had gone through.  "My lord?" She saw his shoulders
tense.  He's been waiting for me to ask about the scars again.  "My
lord, could we make love again?"

     He turned to see her pulling the shift from her body.  She
noticed that his groin was completely unblemished, and that his member
was hardening, even though some pain could still be seen around his
eyes.

     He walked up to her and lifted her chin.  "Whatever you wish,
lovely Kirsten."

     She guided him to the bed and began to kiss him and caress his
body, so that he could see she wanted all of him, even his wounds.
She kissed the scar on his forehead.  She kissed his nose, which she
had just noticed had been broken.  She kissed his throat and his
quivering Adam's apple.  She kissed his chest, on each scar -- the war
wounds, not the burns, for she wanted him to know that she thought of
him as a proud if bloodied hero, not as a powerless victim.

     When she reached his unblemished groin she could go no farther,
so she lingered.  Last night, he had pleased her with his mouth, so
this morning she would return the favor.  She nuzzled his penis,
inhaling the clean scent of him.  Her tongue darted from between her
lips to tease it.  It jerked at her touch, becoming more rigid.  Clear
fluid leaked from the head, and she licked up a drop.  It tasted salty
and strange, but not unpleasant.  She kissed the head and down the
underside.  She licked the hollow of his sack where it joined his
cock.  She took each testicle in her mouth and lightly sucked it.  She
wasn't sure what she was doing.  She was only exploring, testing his
reactions to see what pleased him most.  She took the crown in her
mouth and sucked on, drawing more fluid from it.  She brought up a
hand and stroked the shaft.  The heat of it amazed her.

     She played her tongue around the head as she sucked on it, and
Heinrich seemed to react to that.  He grasped her head and tried to
push her down farther on his shaft.  She complied, and took more of
his cock into her mouth.  She began to bob her head in counter-time to
the stroking of her hand.  With her other hand, she caressed his
balls.  Deeper and deeper she took him.  In no time at all, without
ever noticing, her lips were touching his pubic hair.  She surprised
herself, so much so that she began to gag.  Quickly, she pulled back,
letting him out of her mouth.

     Still stroking him, she kissed his lips again, forcing them apart
with her tongue.  Without breaking contact with him, she swung a leg
over him, straddling his crotch.  She placed his cock at her entrance,
and he thrust himself upward, burying his cock to the hilt inside her
wet pussy.  She used her own hips to force him back down, then began
to raise and lower her hips.  Slowly, she rose and fell on him, moving
so that each stroke of her constricting walls caressed the most
sensitive parts of both their sexes.

     Only her buttocks moved on him, as they held each other tightly.
Heinrich stroked her sides and her breasts, but let her control the
tempo of their lovemaking.  She held him fiercely around his neck as
she kissed him passionately, fervently.  She made to pull him up, and
he followed her, until he was half sitting and she was rocking back
and forth on his lap.  He took one of her pointed nipples between his
lips and the other between his fingertips.  She kissed the top of his
head as he began to nurse on his breasts.

     Soon, Kirsten could feel the climax building within her.  Her
movements grew more rapid, more ragged.  Her vision blurred as her
eyes lost focus.  She began to moan in earnest as she neared her peak.
Heinrich began to thrust against her, as deeply as his position would
allow him.  "Ah yes.  Yes, my darling, my love," she gasped as the
pressure inside her mounted.  "Yes, ah, yes.  Yes, yes.  Ahhh."  Her
eyes rolled back in her head as she fell backward, off of Heinrich's
cock.  He got on top of her and began to thrust himself inside her,
desperate to come as well, now.  His mouth and tongue were all over
her breasts now, and his hands explored every inch of her.  He came
inside her, so powerfully she could feel it.

     He was not through with her, though.  His touches and kisses
continued, not as demanding, but just as persistent.  He nibbled on
her breasts at the same time that he tickled her ribs.  She giggled,
and said, "Do what you will with me, my lord."

     "Open your eyes Kirsten."

     She did, and was greeted by the sight of Heinrich sitting on the
edge of the bed, and his wife, the Countess Esmerelda, nibbling on her
nipple and fingering her slit.  The woman was as naked as Kirsten
herself.

     Heinrich placed a hand over her mouth before she could protest.
"Remember," he murmured.  "Anything I want.  I want this."  He removed
his hand, and it was replaced by his wife's mouth.  Her lips were
soft, and her tongue, strong.  It forced itself between her lips and
explored her mouth.  Heinrich was back, tonguing her clitoris and
fondling her breast.  A hard, calloused hand on one breast and a soft,
delicate hand on the other.  Eager lips and tongue on her pussy,
patient ones on her mouth.  And naked flesh everywhere on her.  The
sensations overwhelmed Kirsten, and she responded to them.

     Her tongue sought Esmerelda's, met it, danced and dueled with it.
It breached the countess' lips and explored her mouth.  Her hands went
to the lady's breasts of their own accord.  She grasped them and
enjoyed the warm sigh that washed over her face.

     Heinrich left her pussy; Esmerelda left her mouth.  Heinrich
knelt over her, his cock looming above her face.  She took him into
her mouth as Esmerelda buried her face between her thighs.  It felt
odd to have a smooth face nestled against her smooth skin, instead of
Heinrich's luxuriant beard.  Her lips and tongue felt different, too.
It was a softer touch than her husband's, more sure about the most
sensitive places.  She fluttered from place to place on her flesh, her
touch as light as a butterfly or as strong as an eagle from moment to
moment.

     Heinrich thrust shallowly in her mouth, to remind her that he was
there.  She sucked on him, savoring the flavor of his flesh and her
own juices.  She had completely swallowed him before, without
realizing it.  She now was determined to do it on purpose.  She placed
her hands on his buttocks and pulled him closer to her.  The head of
his cock bumped against the back of her mouth.  She felt like she
wanted to throw up, but she knew she could do it.  She experimented
with the muscles at the top of her throat, and her throat suddenly
opened, allowing him in.

     Esmerelda was sucking and slurping on her.  Her tongue thrust
inside her just like Heinrich's cock.  She nibbled on Kirsten's
clitoris, and Kirsten nibbled on Heinrich's shaft.  Kirsten hunched
against Esmerelda's face, and Heinrich pushed deeper into her throat.
She came, her legs spasming around Esmerelda.  Heinrich came, and she
pulled back, not to escape the flood, but so it would land on her
tongue and she could taste it.  It was hot, and thick as honey, but
pleasantly salty.  She swallowed eagerly.  Even as Heinrich shrank
within her mouth, she sucked on him, trying to get the dregs of his
ejaculate.

     Heinrich sat heavily on the bed.  Kirsten sat up and leaned
against his chest.  Esmerelda sat across from them, her back against
the headboard.  The lower half of her face glistened with Kirsten's
juices.  Her face reminded Kirsten of a cat, but not as soft.  A
hungry cat.  Her body was lean, her breasts, small with dark hard
nipples.  Her waist was trim and her hips were narrow, gradually
forming strong but thin thighs.  She was opposite in almost every way
from Kirsten.  Kirsten was much rounder in breasts and hips.  Her
blonde hair was fine and straight instead of thick and wavy.

     They were physically alike in only one respect, Kirsten noticed
as her gaze travelled down the countess' body.  She was shaved just as
bare as Kirsten was.  As she stared at the area where a dark triangle
should be, she felt a new hunger.  "I want to do you, now," she said,
lust in her eyes.

     Esmerelda opened her arms and thighs to her.  Kirsten wanted to
waste no time; she wanted to taste this dark lady.  She crawled
between her thighs, never taking her eyes off the moist opening before
her.  She smelled the musky scent of arousal.  She stuck out her
tongue and daintily tasted it.  Nectar, ambrosia.  When the minstrel
had used those words on her wedding night, she had not known what they
meant. Now she did.  She burrowed into the soft flesh, doing all the
things with her mouth that Esmerelda had done to her.  She traced the
lips with her tongue, she rubbed the exposed pleasure bud with her
thumb.  She pushed her fingers inside and sucked up the fluid that
poured out.

     She felt Heinrich's hands on her upraised buttocks.  He spread
her thighs apart and walked up behind her on his knees.  She felt him
spread her pussy open and place the head of his cock against it.  She
forced her hips back against him, engulfing him.  She concentrated on
the weeping pussy against her face, letting Heinrich do what he
wanted. Every thrust drove her more firmly against Esmerelda.  She
savored Esmerelda.  She rubbed her face against her pussy, trying to
get as much of the smell of her as possible.

     Heinrich drove harder and faster into her.  He pulled her hips
against him, and she had to wrap her arms around the countess' waist
to keep in contact with her pussy.  Heinrich's thrusts came faster and
faster.  The lips of Esmerelda's pussy quivered against her face.
Heinrich erupted inside her pussy and the same time that Esmerelda
flooded her mouth.

     They all collapsed in a pile on the bed, exhausted.  Slowly they
rolled apart and simply lay there.  Kirsten sat up between the nobles,
and looked down at their relaxing forms.  She found herself drawn to
those horrific scars again.

     "My lord?"

     He opened one eye to look at her.  "Hmmm?"

     "Have I pleased you?"

     "Yes, of course you have.  Both of us."

     She traced a finger along one of the long burn scars.  She
inhaled deeply.  "Then would you tell me how this happened?"

     He looked over at his wife.  Kirsten followed his gaze.
Esmerelda did nothing for several long moments.  Then she nodded her
head, without opening her eyes.  "Go ahead."


Heinrich's Tale:

    I was knighted at a very young age and was very proud of myself.
I had even managed to beat my closest friend, Lothair, by a week.
However, it was a time of peace, and there are few ways a young knight
can prove himself, save on the battlefield.  There was not even a
renegade robber knight.  Naturally I was very disappointed, and
despaired of ever matching lance and steel against an opponent who
wanted my blood.

    Until, that is, the pope called on all Christian nobles to go to
Palestine and liberate the Holy Lands from the heathen Saracens, as he
called them.  Every young knight tearing at the bit to be in battle
scrambled to raise enough gold to outfit himself properly and be off
to retake the land where Christ was born and lived.  Fortunately for
me, my father's lands were prosperous enough for him to afford armor
and steed and provisions for me, as well as provide a loan for
Lothair, and his brother, Rolfe.

    We three set out for Venice, where the Crusade was gathering.  We
were eager to see fabled Byzantium and then to kill every Saracen who
was defiling Palestine.

    The overland trip was uneventful (who would try to rob three young
men with blood in their eyes, after all?) and the voyage to Byzantium
even less so.  If only I could show you Byzantium, my loves.  You
would have thought God had placed some of his mansions on Earth, and
put them all in one city.  No Florentine merchant in his wildest
fantasies could imagine building the least of the Byzantine palaces.

    We lingered in the city until spring, and then we set off through
the land of the Turk, down the coast, capturing strategic cities here
and there to use as bases.  I saw many men die, mostly Saracens, on
that journey, and I relished every drop of blood spilled before me.
More's the pity for my soul.

    By the time we reached the border of the Holy Lands, autumn was
upon us.  Most of the nobles wanted to halt the advance and settle in
for winter, when the rains would make the roads impassable.  My
patron, Lord Lothair (no relation to my friend) was eager to be back
on the offensive while we still had momentum and before the enemy
could consolidate his forces.  Myself, I was in no hurry.  Although I
was not tired of the blood -- not at all -- there was still whoring
and drinking and gambling.  The soldier's life certainly agreed with
me, I thought.

    It turned out that Lord Lothair was probably right.  When we set
out again the following spring, we met fierce resistance, and every
foot of ground took as much time to seize as a league had taken the
previous year.  I was bloodied for the first time during that
campaign, and I lost many friends.  But I was foolish enough to still
love the life Providence had given me.

    Jerusalem was our goal, but we were not going to reach it, we
knew.  Lord Lothair suggested a bold plan.  Instead of following the
coast as the enemy expected, we would go east through the mountains,
flanking the enemy and severing his supply lines.  Of course, our own
position would be even more tenuous, but morale was low.  We needed a
bold victory desperately.

    There was an old Roman fortress up in the mountains.  That would
be the anchor for our lines.  Lord Lothair detailed a small army of
five hundred men, myself, Lothair and Rolfe among them.  Our commander
would be Count Helmut, a mediocre warrior at best, but one of the
largest contributors to the Crusade.  Lord Lothair was counting on the
fort being lightly defended, and considered five hundred men to be an
acceptable loss if it wasn't.

    We set out in great spirits for our objective, knowing that the
fortress would fall to us like an overripe apple.  We were entirely
successful in sneaking up on the fortress.  The area was lightly
patrolled and we managed to ambush the ones we came across.  The
Saracens had no idea we were coming.

    They didn't need to.  There were only about a hundred men in the
fortress, as Lothair and I saw from a ridge overlooking the structure.
It had sheer cliffs on either side and a clear view of the north and
south approaches.  The walls were easily ten feet thick and made of
stone.  Wide trenches were cut on the open sides and ran from cliff to
cliff.  The only way past the fortress was through the fortress.  A
hundred men could hold that place forever, or at least until their
supplies ran out.  It was impossible, and we all knew it.

    What could not be taken by force, however, might be taken by
guile.  Lothair and I had spotted a narrow cut in the cliff that
looked like it might lead down to the fortress.  It was a treacherous
climb down, but we saw that, yes, there was a small door in the wall
not twenty yards from the cliff face.  I had no idea why someone would
have cut their way through that cliff (for there were definite
toolmarks in the stone), but Lothair surmised that the Romans had done
it, possibly as a way to get messages past the enemy.

    Whatever the reason for its existence, that cut would be our
passkey into the enemy hold.  Lothair's plan was brilliant.  Our
physician and priest, Father Marco, was an Italian, and looked much
like a Saracen, and his Arabic was very good.  We outfitted him in
turban and robes and told him to run up to the northern wall,
screaming that a mighty Christian army was close behind him.  A
hundred knights riding as hard as they could and dragging bushes would
give proof to Marco's claims.  While all the Saracens would naturally
be gathered at the northern wall, the rest of us knights and common
soldiers would storm the small door Lothair and I had found, taking
the enemy by surprise and putting him in complete disarray.

    Lothair's plan worked perfectly.  Only a few Saracens managed to
free their blades before we were upon them.  Some managed to unbar the
gate and escape us, only to be run down and spitted on the lances of
our horsed contingent.  We gloried in the bloody victory.

    Not one Saracen escaped.  All were swiftly buried in the sandy
ground and the cross was soon flying over the mighty fortress.
Perhaps it would have been better to let some of the enemy escape,
because then perhaps they could have warned their brothers to find
another way through the mountains.

    As it was, a few days after the capture, an army of Saracens was
at the gate.  They looked battle-weary and bedraggled.  Obviously,
they were on their way home after a long season of campaigning.  And
now we were in their way.  Both sides set in for a long siege, but we
were confident.  After all, we had this strong fortress and we knew
that we were soon to be reinforced.  And while we had taken the
stronghold easily, we would not fall for the same deception.  All we
had to do was hold our place until relief came.

    We did not count on the deadly archery of the Saracens.  They went
up to the high cliffs and rained arrows down upon us.  Every archer of
ours had to have another man with him to hold a shield above their
heads.  We managed to get a few, but only by chance.  Our bows were
just not strong enough.  I have heard that the English free farmers
have bows that can kill a man at a thousand yards.  How I wish we had
had a troop of them with us.

    It was the arrows that proved to be the death of us, the arrows
and cursed bad luck.  Flame arrows managed to set the casks of
fortified wine afire, burning much of our supplies.  Count Helmut was
foolish enough to want to parade the walls in front of the Saracen
host.  A lucky arrow shot took him through the top of the skull.  It
was the only wound he ever received in battle.  That was how I became
commander.  We were a young bunch, and only Lothair and I had been
knights for any length of time.

    Not many of us went unwounded.  After the arrows had softened us
up, the assaults on the walls began.  I had never seen so many
swordsmen.  They rushed upon us so fast.  It seemed like they ignored
the causeway altogether and simply ran across the air of the trenches.
Ladders sprang up along the wall like bees out of a hive.  We pushed
one down and two more arose.  The top of the wall, and then the
courtyard was full of Saracens screaming for our blood.  I took two
cuts, but I don't remember them.  My own sword was bloody from point
to guard, but I don't remember using it.  To that point, I knew
exactly how many men I had killed.  I have no idea how many lives I
took that first day.

    The assaults continued every day, sometimes two or three times a
day, for weeks.  I'll never figure out where they got the wood for all
the ladders they set against that bloody north wall.  They always took
more casualties than we did.  But then, they were desperate.  They
knew that another army was coming to relieve us, and they were trapped
against our walls.  I knew relief was coming, and I was eager for it.
If I could have left my sword sheathed forever, I would have given up
my soul.  All of us who survived, and there seemed to be damned few of
us, felt the same way.  We had come to Palestine full of bloodlust,
but we spent it all within those walls.

    As I said, many of our supplies had been burned, but we lost more
men every day.  The only thing we had plenty of was water.  Water, ha!
The most precious commodity in the desert, and we were practically
drowning in it, thanks to those seemingly bottomless Roman cisterns.
I would have traded all of it for a single day of rest.

    How many times did I come close to losing my life?  I don't know.
A score of men must have taken arrows while standing right next to me.
A Saracen sword nearly took off the top of my head, if not for someone
cleaving off his arm.  I don't know who that man was, or whether he
was noble or common, and he probably didn't know who I was, either.
All we ever knew was that someone in a turban and desert robes was
trying to kill someone, and that someone was probably a friend.  A
Saracen trying to kill Satan himself would have been in danger from
Christian steel.

    I'm not sure how long it was before we were down to only two
hundred walking wounded.  There were none among us who were not
wounded.  Any day now, I kept telling myself, Lord Lothair would come
down that valley and roll our tormentors up before him.  But he did
not show, and still he did not show.

    Father Marco and I were talking about the men too weak from their
wounds to hold a sword.  There were twenty now, and Marco was
exhausted from caring for them in addition to keeping enough men well
enough to hold the walls.  Lothair came running into the sickroom, his
armor clanking; we all slept in our armor, and it was heavier every
day.  "Heinrich," he said.  "A messenger got through.  His back was
full of arrows, but he managed to give us his message before he died."

    I could see his face, but I asked anyway.  "Good news, I hope?"

    Lothair shook his head.  "Lord Lothair was ambushed.  He had to
retreat back to Sidon.  We'll have no relief until spring."

    "Spring?" I repeated, unbelieving.  "We'll never hold out until
spring."

    Lothair only nodded.  He knew that as well as I.

    I tried to put on a brave face.  I told Lothair and Marco to meet
me in my quarters after I had made my inspection rounds.  "Between the
three of us, we'll think of something."  They didn't believe me, and
neither did I, but they agreed not to call my bluff.  The men had
heard about the ambush.  Bad news travels faster than fever in an army
camp.  I kept my face jovial and told them we'd get out of this
scrape.  They didn't believe me either.

    A knight went over to one of the cisterns for water.  Halfway
there, he fell, an arrow in his side.  I rushed over to him, calling
for Marco.  We reached the fallen man at the same time.  He convulsed
a few seconds, then stopped.  He was dead, from a relatively minor
wound.  Marco jerked the arrow free.  He examined the gory head
closely, then sniffed at it.  He spat in disgust and threw it away.
"Poison!"

    Poison!  Now, of all things, I had to deal with poisoned arrows.

    "You and Lothair and Rolfe to my quarters, now.  We're getting out
of here."

    Marco showed obvious relief.  I could understand it.  He had been
responsible for the lives, for the souls, of five hundred men.  Now
almost three hundred of them were dead.  With this new evil, he knew
as well as I that the other two hundred would soon join them if we
remained in that accursed hold.

    "We cannot stand here any longer."  Lothair made a good show of
staying to the end as his duty demanded, but underneath, he was as
eager as Marco to be rid of that place.  Rolfe was even more obvious.
I ordered Lothair to gather as many men as he thought capable for a
charge out of the gate and through the enemy ranks.  That charge would
be a distraction for Rolfe to lead the more badly wounded up through
our secret path.  They were to load the packhorses with a week's
rations and as much water as they could carry.  Then they were to
empty the middens into the cisterns.  I would not leave the enemy as
strong a fortress as we had taken from him.

    "What about me, Heinrich?" Marco asked.  "Am I to go with Rolfe,
or can I stay here to care for those too weak to move."

    I covered my face with my hands, gathering strength.  "Father
Marco," I said, with none of my emotion rising from my heart to my
mouth.  "Father Marco, you will give those men as much poppy juice as
it takes to put them to sleep.  Then you will perform last rites for
them.  Then I will send them into the next world as painlessly as I
can.  Then I hope you will absolve me.  I will not leave those men to
the mercy of heathens who have found the water here undrinkable."

    Lothair and Rolfe were soldiers, like myself.  They knew how
things stood.  Marco was a priest, for all that he had spent life and
death with men of war.  But even he nodded his understanding.

    By nightfall, all was ready.  In the meantime, we had lost ten
more men to those arrows.  Rolfe set off first, led by a handful of
scouts.  The rest were with Lothair.  I wished them luck at the gate.
They gave a mighty cry and charged out into the night.  I heard the
screams of men and horses as I helped Marco shut and bar the cedar
gates.  Since then I have always thought of horses' screams when I
smell cedar.  They make a haunting sound when they are in pain, you
know.  It is even sadder to hear a horse die in pain than it is a man.
Man has bred the rebellion out of horses, so they go through life
completely trusting us.  I think the screams are cries of betrayal
more than anything else.

    Well, I am just putting off the inevitable.  It happened years
ago, so I should have put it behind me.  But sometimes I wake up at
night, my palms sweating, and I swear it feels like blood soaking my
hands.  Marco had given them all heavy doses of poppy, and as he
walked down the line of beds, performing last rites, I followed close
behind.  I grasped their wrists in one hand and slit their throats
with the other.  Marco never looked at me; he just moved along -- one
man after the other.  It was so... efficient, the killing.  It is
something that no German, no man, should ever have to do.

    When the bloodletting was done, I stripped off my tunic, threw it
into one of the cisterns.  The sounds of battle were receding.  I
knelt at Marco's feet and took his hands in my bloody ones.  "Bless
me, Father for I have sinned.  It has been an hour since my last
confession.  Since that time I have killed twenty men."  I listened to
the battle outside the walls.  "That I know of.  Will you absolve me?"

    "My son," he said with a quivering voice.  "His Holiness absolved
you of any sin you may have need to commit on this Crusade.  But I do
not think even he could absolve you of this, no matter how grave the
need.  No, I cannot absolve you, but I do give you penance.  It is
this: that you live, that you live a long life, and that every day you
remember those twenty men.  Now let me go.  I must wash my hands."

    He went to a cistern to clean the blood from his hands, just as
the gate broke apart.  The Saracens cut him down between one step and
the next.  I don't think he ever saw them.  Twenty-one.

    I turned and ran for the side door and the secret pass, soon to be
a secret no longer.  I ran up the steep incline, to find my horse
tethered at the top.  I quickly blessed Rolfe as I mounted and sped
away.  I could see down into the valley.  A track of white robes lay
still in the moonlight.  The moon also glinted off many armored
bodies.  How many deaths was I responsible for this night?

    I didn't see the patrol.  They must have been going to their posts
to fire down on the now-Saracen fort.  All I knew was that my shoulder
and thigh suddenly went numb just before a pair of screams were cut
off by my gelding's hooves.

    By the time I reached the rendezvous, my shoulder and thigh were
on fire.  Lothair and Rolfe were clasping one another, so I assumed
they had just joined up and were glad to see each other alive.  I,
too, was happy to see my old friends.  But my joy was tempered by the
sight that greeted me.  About a hundred men remained alive, and more
were slumped in their saddles than sat straight.  To be honest, more
had survived than I expected.  The Saracens were more interested in
the fort than they were in us.  But when I thought of how many had
died... it withered my heart.

    Of course, I smiled at Lothair and Rolfe when they ran up to me.
They were concerned about my wounds, but the arrows were not deeply
embedded.  I told them I would be able to sit my horse fine once they
were removed.  This was done in short and painful order.  We set off
west, toward the sea.  We had deserted our post.  We could not return
to Sidon.  I hoped to hire a vessel to Egypt and then back to Germany.
We had no hope of travelling overland very far.

    We were almost out of the mountains when the next calamity struck
(curse the day I ever set foot in Palestine!).  Lothair and I were
walking our horses.  Actually, I was riding Lothair's horse, and he
was leading mine.  He had caught a stone in his hoof and was limping
badly.  I heard a horrible roar and was thrown to the ground as my
mount reared.  A terrible searing pain ran down my back.  The breath
was knocked out of me as I hit the ground, hard.  I think I must have
blacked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, a huge lion
was standing over my body.  I should have been dead, but God must have
blessed me.  Or, considering the penance Marco had given, cursed me.

    My gelding lay nearby, dead, blood trickling from his opened
throat.  Black and white and brown fur hovered above me.  The ribs
were plainly showing through taut muscles.  The hunting must have been
poor; I hoped we -- the men had enough food.  I turned my head and saw
a wall of men with drawn bows.  "Put those away," I said in what I
hoped was a quiet but commanding voice.  They hesitated, but finally
obeyed.  "Lothair, help me up."  My friend and his brother crawled
toward me and took my outstretched hands.  They pulled me from beneath
the unmoving cat.  When we were clear, I ordered the men to leave the
canyon.  We all backed out, I last of all.

    The lion tore into the flesh of my horse and was quickly joined by
a female and three cubs, all as thin as he was.  Lothair stepped up
behind me and told me I had been injured again.  My tunic was slashed
by four long scratches down and across my back.  The blood was flowing
more heavily than I liked, but I shrugged him off as I watched another
faithful companion disappear by the mouthful.

    "Heinrich," Lothair said, gently.  "We have to go through this
pass."

    "No." I turned to the men standing and sitting astride their
steeds, all watching me, their commander.  "No.  That lion is only
doing what we ourselves have done, defending his hold until he can
defend it no more.  He is my brother, as much as the rest of you.  And
I am tired of seeing my brothers die.  We'll find another way through
these mountains.  Somebody unload one of the packhorses and saddle it
for me."

    Two days later, we had reached the sea after dodging many Saracen
patrols and a Christian one.  Fortune finally smiled upon us.  Moored
offshore were two small ships... and they were riding high in the
water, empty.  Two small boats were pulled up on the beach, guarded by
two men.  They were as black as night, the first black men I had ever
seen (though they were fairly common in Cordoba).  We walked down to
them, swords sheathed and bows cased to show our friendliness.

    Their hands went to their swords, but the blades stayed in their
belts.  I hailed them in Arabic.  One stepped forward.  He crossed his
arms across his bare muscular chest.  "What do you want?  You've
destroyed the trade up and down the coast; you'll get nothing more
from us, for we have nothing more."

    "All we want from you is passage.  And we will pay."

    He opened his arms and his mouth opened in a wide grin.  "Ah, yes.
I should have known Allah would not make our water go bad without a
reason!  Know that I am Abdul Mohammed al Saff, captain and owner of
the Ivory Dolphin and owner of the Nile Emerald.  And I am at your
service -- for a very reasonable price, of course."

    I was tired, we were all tired, but this Abdul's levity was
infectious.  Despite myself, I smiled for the first time in ages; it
felt good.  "I need passage for a hundred men as to as near the Holy
Roman Empire as you can take us."

    "Germans, eh?  Well, I suppose I can take you as far as the
Caliphate of Cordoba.  You can make it overland from there."

    "Fine.  What is your price?"

    He considered for a moment, looking over us, as though counting
the coins in our purses.  "Your horses," he said at last and with
finality.

    Now, a knight without a horse is not a knight, any more than a
king with no crown is still a king.  But when I looked at his face, I
knew he would take no other price.

    "Look, my friend.  I cannot carry those horses, and none of you
looks like you can ride all the way back to Germany.  Keep your coin
and let me sell the horses."

    I went back to my men and told them Mohammed's price.  As I
expected, all the knights, who now made up most of our band thanks to
their superior armor, were against the notion, and they were vocal in
their protests.  I held up my hand to cut them off.  "I like it no
more than any of you.  But we have no choice.  Some of us will die if
we try to go overland.  The wounded must have a chance to rest without
having to worry about accidents or Saracens or lions."  A few men
laughed at that.

    "I promise you this.  We will all be going home.  I will not rest
until that promise is fulfilled, but I need your help.  Take an oath
with me.  An oath that, like that lion, we will persevere together.
That we will support one another, to the death.  We must rely on each
other, my friends, my brothers, for there is no one else."

    My companions all formed a tight circle around me.  As one, we
raised our left arms to the sun and held our right hands clasped to
our hearts.  I said the words which honor demands I never say again,
and a hundred throats repeated them.  We were bound together more
closely than before.  I thanked them all and kissed a few.  Then, with
tears streaking the dirt on my face, I, told them to unsaddle their
mounts and tie them in a picket line.

    While my brothers did as I bade, I went back to the captain.
"They're yours."  I held my hand out to him to seal the bargain and
gave my name only as Sir Heinrich.

    Abdul Mohammed leaned forward slightly.  "You have no other name?"
he asked.

    "Were I in a position to give you my full name, I wouldn't have to
give over those horses."

    The black man moved in even closer, conspiratorially.  "Deserters,
eh?"

    "Some might say," I replied, coldly.  I would not let a mere
trader know my shame.  "Others would say we were the ones who had been
deserted."

    The other waved a hand.  "No matter.  The gold from your horses
would be no better were you true sons of the Prophet.  As soon as my
men sell your horses in Jerusalem, we can depart."

    I had not considered that our mounts would soon see battle again,
but against fellow Christians.  But what was done was done.  "Captain,
I'm afraid many of my men are badly wounded.  I would like to leave as
soon as possible, for their sake."

    Abdul pulled on his lip in thought.  "Very well.  The more
grievous wounded can board the Emerald and we will sail immediately.
The rest can wait a few days, I suppose?"

    "Yes, thank you, Captain."

    "Fine.  Divide your men while I go to explain things to the
Emerald's captain.  But first, here comes my water party."

    Finally, thank God, we had left Palestine.  I would like to say
that the voyage to Iberia was uneventful, but it was not.  Lothair and
I travelled with the first group, so as to arrange for care of the
wounded once we made land, and to find employment for the rest of us.
Not long after we sailed, the wound in my shoulder began to fester.
Every treatment we tried did no good.  The wound got worse and worse.
It swelled to the size of a man's head and was so tender the slightest
touch sent me into convulsions of pain.

    Thankfully, I succumbed to the fever and fell into a delirium, so
I remember little of most of the voyage.  Lothair later told me I
issued orders to ghosts as though I were still fighting the Saracens.
The best physicians in Venice looked at me, to the detriment of our
purse.  All they could say was that it was a poison, but what kind,
they had no idea.  They provided potions that would keep me alive
until we reached Cordoba.  Since it was a Saracen poison, they were
confident that the Moorish physicians would be able to cure me.  When
I later recovered, I thanked God we had escaped when we did, otherwise
my men would have all died slow painful deaths.  But for me, my wound
was fortunate, for I met my love as a result.



Esmerelda's Tale:

    I was twelve when I was forced to marry Assan.  Assan only wanted
me because my father was a political rival of his.  Not even a
powerful rival, just an annoying one.  There were fourteen of us in
all, because the only thing that exceeded Assan's lust for power was
his pride.  Having fourteen wives was a symbol not only of his wealth,
but of his virility.  Assan had little taste for women otherwise,
considering us to be unclean creatures, fit only for domestic work and
childbirth.  He preferred young men and boys for his lovers.

    He would not even condescend to treat us like women in bed.  I was
a virgin on my wedding night, and at fifteen, I was still a virgin.
After his sons were born (by his first and third wives), Assan took
his wives like he took his boy lovers.  My mouth and bottom were
well-used, but my maidenhead remained untouched, except on occasion to
ensure that it was still there.  I knew the law as well as any man,
for there was little I was allowed to do except spend hours in
Cordoba's gardens and libraries.  Until the marriage was consummated,
I was not actually Hassan's wife.  But he was more powerful even than
the Caliph, and if I tried to escape my marriage that way, I or my
father would have been forced to pay a heavy price.

    At times, I plotted ways to be free of Assan, especially following
those nights when he was particularly brutal.  But Assan was simply
too powerful for me to exact my vengeance without certain retribution.
And the constant watch on me and his other wives prevented me from
conspiring with one or another of his enemies.

    Then, one sunny winter day, Assan himself brought to me my
salvation.


    At the time, I did not recognize my gift as such, however.  Assan
had hired a troop of mercenaries in Cadiz.  They were Christian
warriors fresh from the invasion of Palestine who had no way to get
home.  Assan had even managed to hire them at bargain rates because
many of themn were injured, their commander worst of all.  Assan's
physicians had managed to purge most of the poison from his body, but
he had been sorely ravaged by it for over two months.  By the time he
arrived in Cordoba, he was more skeleton than man.  He did not look
like a savior.

    I was given charge of his care by Assan.  "I promised those
barbarians I would give their leader the best care I could.  I give
him over to you, for I cannot yet risk offending them with kitchen
drudges.  Just keep that smelly, uncivilized brute alive while I break
up his men and bring them into my guard."  Assan was forever playing
people against one another.  He did not even trust his own bodyguard
and would set these Christians against them.  But I was just a pawn,
with not even the power that steel gave his lowest soldier.  I was a
"filthy, unclean woman" of no account to my husband at all.

    For a few days, Heinrich remained in a delirium.  I cleaned and
dressed his wound, and fed him broths, for he could keep nothing else
down, he was so weak.  I would read to him -- in Arabic, of course,
since I knew no German.  And I talked to him about pleasant nothings.
And silently I cursed him for binding me down, keeping me away from
the few things in my life that were enjoyable.

    The guards outside his door never gave me more notice than to leer
at me, except for their lieutenant, Lothair.  He came by several times
every day to check on his commander, and we got to know each other a
little.  He told me about the siege at the fortress and their escape.
The way he described Heinrich as a man of honor and worthy of loyalty
-- made me see this infirm infidel in a new light.  I began to believe
that perhaps this man was the answer to my prayers for deliverance.

    Finally, one day Heinrich awoke.  He came to his senses
immediately.  One moment, he was sleeping peacefully, the next, he was
staring up at me with clear blue eyes.  But his eyes were the eyes of
a man hunted and running, running from something inside himself.

    Then, like a curtain falling, his eyes became calm again.  He
asked a question in German, then repeated it in Arabic.  "Where am I?"
he asked.  "Iberia?"

    I nodded, smiling.  "In the city of Cordoba."

    We introduced ourselves, as though we had met in a doorway on a
rainy day.  He was concerned about his men, of course.  I explained
the circumstances as far as I could.  I did not think it wise to
detail Assan's machinations.  His health had to be his first priority,
and my own.

    The following weeks Heinrich spent slowly regaining strength.  We
taught each other our respective languages.  I had a great deal of
trouble with the gutteral sounds of German, and all he knew of Arabic
were a few phrases to deal with surrendering soldiers and whores.  I
never told him about Assan.  He never told me about the siege.  We
spoke of little pleasantries and his health.

    When he could move about, we went into the gardens.  We were
watched, I know.  When in his room, Heinrich was guarded by his own
men.  Lothair was no fool; he knew that Assan was trying to bribe some
of his soldiers away from the troop, and that for Heinrich to succumb
to his illness would facilitate its dissolution.  Heinrich was in no
danger in the gardens, but there were eyes everywhere, so I dared not
broach the subject of escaping Assan's power.  I did not worry about
Assan punishing me for spending so much time with Heinrich.  As long
as I was waiting for him on the nights it was "my turn," he could not
care less how I conducted myself.  I was no threat to him, I was mere
property.  More valuable than other properties, perhaps, but with no
more volition.

    Weeks I spent vacillating.  Can I ask his help, dare I ask his
help?  No, I cannot.  But I must.  I could not -- even when Assan
bruised my back because he was too drunk for his manhood to function.
Once I took that step, begging for Sir Heinrich's help, there would be
no turning back.  It would be success or death, no half measures, no
backing out.  I was too weak: As horrid as my life was, I feared
losing it.  The very thought of it paralyzed me.

    But when I was with Heinrich, the fear fell away from me.  For a
few hours, I could love life as life was meant to be loved.  I could
look into his eyes and see the hardness there.  I knew what he had
gone through, the summits of living and the depths of dying, and I
could live vicariously by staring into those eyes over a chessboard or
a volume of poetry.

    When Heinrich could hold his great sword for ten minutes without
trembling, he began training, retraining weakened muscles and a
ravaged body.  His body was beautiful as it moved through the forms,
striking out at invisible opponents, defending against phantom swords.
As weak as his body was, it seemed to move effortlessly, for a few
minutes at least.  He dueled shadows until he literally staggered and
sweat dripped from him like rain.  His was a singularity of purpose I
did not have, but longed to.

    One day I mentioned to him that I had heard his nightmares.  How
could he bring himself to brandish his sword again, I asked.

    He stopped his swings and parries and turned to me.  He held the
sword perfectly parallel to the floor, as he considered his answer.
"Were it my choice," he said at last, "I would let it rust away to
nothing."  He held it before his face and stared at the edge.  "I
loathe it. But I swore an oath to my men.  They depend on me.  I would
do anything for them."  Then he turned his back to me to fight his
unseen enemies.

    I think that was when I began to fall in love with him.  I had
seen strength and determination in him.  I had seen tenderness and
humor.  Now I had seen sacrifice.  True nobility.

    Over the next days, our conversations became more personal -- or
at least I thought they were.  Heinrich's eyes seemed to linger on me
when we talked or played chess, and he chose more love poems for me to
read during his Arabic lessons.  Was it my imagination?  I was not
sure, but I could not afford to be unsure.  If he was not in love with
me, I could not stand being rejected.

    One night, I found out for certain.

    I was enjoying the moonlight and the scent of the orange blossoms
in one of the gardens.  The man in the moon reminded me of Heinrich,
but lately everything had reminded me of Heinrich.

    I could hear him on the other side of the garden wall, in a small
courtyard, striking at a wooden post with a double-weight practice
sword.  We were the only people out and about.  A head appeared over
the wall that separated Assan's house from the countryside.  Assassin!
Assan had many enemies, none of whom could afford to strike out
openly.  Assassins were a constant threat.  The shortest route to
Assan's quarters would have been through the courtyard that held
Heinrich.  Hoping to avoid one witness, the assassin had stumbled into
another.

    The assassin hesitated for a brief moment.  I could read his
thoughts: abandon the mission and lose the opportunity for months, or
kill this girl?   He made his decision, and leapt the rest of the way
over the wall.  I wanted to tell him to go ahead and kill Assan, but I
couldn't speak.  Not a whisper.  He came at me with a long dagger and
murder in his eyes.  I ran around the other side of a fountain, and he
pursued me.  I have never been so incredibly terrified in my life.

    Finally, I was able to scream.  Actually, it was more like a
squeak.  No one could have heard me.  I managed to increase the
distance between myself and my pursuer, only to find myself trapped in
a corner of the garden.  The assassin's teeth gleamed as he advanced
upon me, dagger held for a killing stroke.  And still I could not
scream.

     Then the assassin grunted and fell to the ground.  Before me
stood Heinrich, wearing only a loincloth and holding his practice
sword, a wooden staff with a lead core.  He glanced at me, to be
certain I was unharmed, then turned to his opponent, who had rolled to
his feet.  They circled each other warily, each testing the other with
a lunge here and a swipe there.  Heinrich attempted an overhead
stroke, an attempt to crush the assassin's skull.  But the killer
crouched down and swept his blade upward.  He severed Heinrich's
loincloth and sliced open his side.

     Heinrich, in obvious pain, dropped his sword.  It fell on the
assassin's foot and tangled his legs.  Again the assassin went down.
Heinrich leapt upon him and took his head in his hands.  Over and over
he lifted the man's head and slammed it back down on the stone
walkway.  I heard a sickening crunch, and Heinrich slumped over the
assassin's corpse, exhausted.

     He stood and examined his side. He shrugged to himself, as though
it were spilled wine running down his side rather than his own blood.
"Are you all right, Esmerelda?" he asked.  "Are you hurt?"

     "No, I mean yes.  I'm fine."  I stared at his body.  He had an
enormous erection.  I could actually see it throbbing in the
moonlight, jerking rhythmically.

     Heinrich looked down and saw that he was naked.  He blushed, but
his erection did not shrink.  He picked up the tatters of his
loincloth and covered himself as best he could.  "I'm sorry,
Esmerelda.  I hate it, but the excitement just takes over me."

     I ran to him and wrapped my arms around him, as though seeking
comfort.  That was true, but I did have an ulterior motive.  I pushed
my arms between his arms and his torso.  As he put his arms about me,
he was forced to uncover himself completely.  I felt his beautiful
manhood poking into my stomach.  I buried my head in his chest and
sobbed out the fear that was pent up inside me.  He caressed my back,
comfortingly, but I felt him get even harder.  His blood was hot on my
arm, and his skin warm under my hands.  To me, his sweat was sweeter
than any perfume, more luxurious than any oil.  I reached up and
pulled his face down to mine.

     "Oh, Esmerelda," he whispered as our faces neared each other.  "I
love you, have loved you since first I saw you." Our lips met and we
devoured each other.  I ran my fingers through his matted hair,
pulling him tighter against me.  I felt his hot breath against my
cheek as he panted from his pain and passion.  Then, sweet Allah, I
felt his hands fumbling at the hooks of my gown.  His hands were
trembling too much and anyway were too callused to make much progress.
He took the fabric in his fists and ripped it away and the thin shift
beneath it.

     I stood against him, bared to the waist.  For the first time in
my life, I was naked before a man who really appreciated a woman.  I
reached behind me to untie the belt that kept my gown at my waist.  It
fell to my feet.  I stepped out of the dress and slipped off my
slippers.  The stones were cold against my soles.  The body of the
assassin lay a few feet away, but it might have not existed so far as
I was concerned.  I took Heinrich's hand and pulled him into the
shrubbery, off the walkway and onto the soft grass.

     Heinrich stared at my body, taking in the sight of me, the parts
and the whole, as though he would never see me again.  "Come to me," I
whispered.  "Take me."

     He put his hands to my flesh once more.  They were so hard but
tender, so unlike Assan's, which were soft and cruel.  I stood there,
beneath the pale moon, surrounded by greenery and budding blossoms, as
those hands, which had minutes ago taken a man's life, brought me back
to life after three years of dormancy.

     His hands roamed over my body, exploring me.  He seemed
fascinated by my smooth skin.  "So soft," he murmured as he stroked
and caressed my arms and shoulders, my neck and breasts.  Oh, my
breasts. As he at last touched them, I gasped for breath, like I was
stepping into an icy lake.  Every nerve seemed to be sensitized.  When
I threw my head back, I could feel each strand of hair flick across my
buttocks.  I could feel every stray breeze across my flesh, each ridge
of Heinrich's fingertips on my nipples.  I swear I actually felt the
moonlight on my body.

     Lower, lower, Heinrich's hands moved.  Along the undersides of my
breast, across my taut stomach and down to my pelvis.  "Why don't you
have any hair?" he asked, puzzled.

     I wasn't sure I heard him correctly.  "What?"

     "You have no hair on your..."  He knew no Arabic term, and I did
not know the German.  "You have no hair down there."

     "No woman of status in the Caliphate does.  I have a cream that
keeps my body hair from growing.  Don't German noblewomen do the
same?"

     "No, never."  He ran his fingers across the area where hair
should have been, utterly fascinated.  How could German women stand
it?  Had they no concept of hygiene?  And the itching under their
arms.  I shuddered inwardly at the thought.

     By now, I was frantic.  I had to have him inside me. I pulled him
to the ground and laid him on his back.  His rod stood stiffly above
his hips.  I took it into my mouth and ran my tongue all around it.
My mouth had been watering at the thought of tasting him, and in no
time he was almost as wet as I was.  I wet my fingers in my dripping
slit and thrust them into my back opening.  Remember, Assan had me
checked on occasion to be certain I had no lovers and was still a
virgin.  My bottom was the only place I could risk having Heinrich
enter.  And while my skin crawled at the thought of Assan back there,
it tingled when I imagined Heinrich plunging into me.

     I straddled him and carefully placed the head of his prick
against my anus.  Gently, I pushed down on it.  He was much bigger
than I was used to, but I persevered.  I made myself bounce slowly up
and down.  Gradually, I felt the head enter me.  I pushed harder and
harder still.  Then, suddenly, my sphincter muscles were clamped
around the neck of his prick.  I let gravity take over and sank slowly
down until I felt his testicles nestled between my buttocks.

     "Ahhh," we both said.

     For a few moments, I just sat there astride his hips, letting my
passage grow accustomed to his girth.  I clamped my muscles against
him and felt him flex inside me in response.  I smiled down at him and
raised my hips an inch or two, then dropped back down.  His face went
into contortions of pleasure such as I had never seen.  I supposed it
was his first time buggering a girl.

     I took his beard between my fingers and pulled his upper body up
to me.  Heinrich leaned back on stiffened arms, but was sitting up
enough for me to be able to lean down and kiss him and still be fully
penetrated.  He tried to thrust up into me awkwardly.  Concerned about
his wound, and worried that he might hurt me in his inexperience, I
pushed down on his hips.  "Let me do all the work," I told him.  He
nodded, jaw clenched and eyes squeezed shut.

     I leaned in and kissed him.  I nibbled his cheek and tugged on
his beard with my teeth.  I kissed him.  We held our lips pressed
together as I rode him, tongues dancing in each other's mouth.  We
broke away, panting.  I was nearing orgasm.  My strokes on Heinrich's
staff were become longer and faster.  I bit my lip to keep from
screaming in passion, as I knew I surely must.  Heinrich's eyes rolled
back in his head and he groaned, softly and deep in his chest.  I felt
a new warmth flood my bowels as he emptied himself in me.  It drove me
over the edge.  I bit his neck where it met his shoulder and screamed
into his flesh.

     I fell back along his legs in a daze.  Heinrich remained hard
inside me.  He eased his prick out and slid out from underneath me.  I
just wanted to lie beside him for the rest of the night.  I felt
completely drained.  After all, this was the first time I had ever
made *love* to a man, and my emotions had overwhelmed me.  But
Heinrich was insistent.  He crawled between my spread thighs.  In one
smooth motion, he placed the tip of his prick against the mouth of my
slit and slid inside.  I imagine he didn't even feel my maidenhead, so
great was his need.  All I felt was sick with fear.  When Assan
learned I was no longer virgin, there was no predicting what he would
do, or how cruel he would be.

     But after a few strokes, I no longer cared.  All that mattered
was that Heinrich lay on top of me, taking what was rightfully his as
the only man I had ever loved.  Now I was glad that Assan had always
had me like a boy, because now a real man was making me a real woman.

     I wrapped my legs around his waist, wanting him inside me
forever.  I felt him stretching me, invading unexplored territory.  I
was in pain and the pain was sweet.  Let the future happen, the
present was everything.  Heinrich assumed that, since I was married, I
was used to this kind of love.  He moved inside me with certainty,
unaware of my pain because he wanted to give me pleasure.  The pain
wore away quickly though, and I learned just what pleasure Heinrich
could give me.  Pleasure radiated from my womb, making my fingers and
toes and scalp tingle.  It built up inside me, demanding release.  I
let go and it flowed through my body like a torrent.  I was lost in
pleasure, in love for Heinrich.  The two were intertwined, I thought,
for there could not be one without the other.

     My orgasm rushed upon me quickly.  It was of an intensity I had
never felt, and I am sorry to say I remember little of what happened
after it began.

     Heinrich awoke me from a light doze.  "Wake up, my love.  Wake
up.  You have to go back to your rooms, and I have to hide the body.
It's cold now and people would otherwise wonder why I didn't report
it."

     I came to my senses.  In more ways than one.  I was discovered.
It was only a matter of time before Assan would learn that my
maidenhood was no more.

     Heinrich was still talking.  He was leaving tomorrow.  The entire
troop would be gone, making the rounds of Assan's properties,
collecting rents and ensuring that none of his administrators were
taking bribes to under count the crops.  He would think of me every
day, and when he returned, it would be like he had never left.

     But all I could think of was my lost virginity and Assan's anger.
You have killed me, my love.





     Kirsten sat up suddenly and looked to her right, where Heinrich
lay between herself and Lady Esmerelda.  "What happened?  I mean, I
know it obviously turned out all right, because you're both here.  But
did Assan find out?  How did you get back home?"

     Tears pooled in Heinrich's eyes as he stared at the ceiling.
Esmerelda's eyes were closed, but tears flowed freely down the side of
her head, wetting her black hair. "Yes, Assan found out."  Her voice
was husky, her throat sounded full of fluid.  "He did not examine my
maidenhead for months.  I managed to keep the morning sickness hidden,
as well as the other symptoms.  Beatriz, my maid and dear friend, wore
some of my undergarments during her cycles, for mine had stopped, of
course."

     "But you began to show."

     Esmerelda nodded, and Kirsten saw Heinrich grip his wife's hand
tightly.  "Assan did not believe me when I told him it was just too
much rich food.  He..."

     Her voice broke.  She let out a tiny sob.  Her shoulders began to
shake, and with a gesture of her hands, signaled she could not
continue.

     Heinrich broke in, and his voice betrayed his efforts to control
his emotion.  "He called in an abortionist.  We don't know if he
botched the job on purpose or not.  Now, Esmerelda cannot... can never
have children."

     Esmerelda let out another small cry.  Kirsten rushed around the
great bed and knelt on the floor by her side.  "I'm sorry,"  she said,
over and over again.  Sorry for what you have lost, for what you can
never have, for asking you to relive it all.  She wiped the tears from
Esmerelda's face and lightly kissed her cheek.  She hugged Esmerelda's
shoulders and held the woman's face against her.  She could say
nothing but "I'm sorry" so she whispered it differently each time,
venting all her emotions, sympathy and sorrow and anger and pity and a
hundred others, and hoped Esmerelda could hear them all.

     After a time, Esmerelda was able to compose herself.  The wound
was still tender, but time had distanced her enough that she was able
to cope with the pain.  She washed her face in the basin under the
window.  Then she put on her gown and headed for the door.

     "Are you sure you're all right, my lady?" Kirsten asked.

     She stopped and smiled a sad smile at Kirsten.  "Yes, Kirsten.
But I know what comes next in the story, and I am afraid it is too
horrible for me to bear, even now."  Then she went out the door and
closed it silently behind her.

Heinrich's Tale:

     I did not know it, but I was the only real suspect in Esmerelda's
pregnancy.  I rode in at the head of my men, glad in my heart for the
first time in months, for I would once again set eyes and hands and
lips on my love.  We had collected the legal amount of tax from
Assan's lands, and forced out as many of his underlings as we could
determine to be dishonest.  We had even confiscated enough silver from
one of the more unscrupulous administrators to cast a silver medallion
for each of my men, a leaping cat to remind us of our bond, each to
the others.

     Assan himself greeted me in the courtyard of his townhouse.  His
smile was wide, as wide as a snake's, I should have realized.  He
flung open his arms as I walked up to give him my final report and
collect our bonus (another reason for my light heart: we were that
much closer to home).

     "Welcome, welcome, Sir Heinrich.  It is a glorious day.  Doubly,
no, trebly glorious!"

     "How so, sir?"

     He placed an arm around my shoulders and led me across the
courtyard.  I heard Lothair's boots stepping lightly up the short
stairway from the stables.  "First of all, my dear Heinrich, you have
returned with more of what is due me than any other tax collectors I
have ever sent out.  You are to be congratulated."

     "Thank you, sir.  We did our best."

     "And your best was marvelous!"  His manner was more cloying than
was his habit, and I should have been suspicious, but I was too eager
to see Esmerelda alone, to touch her again.  But Assan went on.
"Secondly, I have the greatest pleasure to tell you that one of my
wives -- your own nurse, Esmerelda -- has conceived a child."

     I stopped dead in my tracks.  Probably the child was Assan's, I
thought, but the possibility was there that it was mine.  "Th-that is
good news indeed, sir.  You have my congratulations."

     His teeth gleamed inside his dark face.  "Thank you, Sir
Heinrich.  But I have yet to tell you the best news of all."

     "Sir?"

     He put both hands on my shoulders and pulled his face close to
mine.  "The child is WHITE!"  His hands gripped my throat for a split
second, his soft hands crushing in his rage.  He thrust me away from
himself, and immediately dozens of his household guards appeared from
nowhere, nocked arrows pointed directly at me.

     "HEINRICH!"  I turned in the direction of the shout.  Lothair!
No, Lothair!  He was running toward Assan and me, sword drawn,
ignoring the bowmen surrounding us.  I ran toward him, to knock him to
the ground, or to place myself between my friend and the inevitable.

     But the inevitable must happen, I have learned.  Before he was
halfway to us, a dozen arrows sprouted from Lothair's back and chest.
He twisted on one leg, which collapsed beneath him.  He fell.  He
never let go of his sword.

     I slid on my knees to him and lifted his head to my lap.  His
eyes stared lifeless at me.  His face was smooth and relaxed.  He had
been my dearest friend, willing to face death, and the consequences of
living, with me.  And we did not even have the chance to say goodbye.

     "A pity," Assan said above me.  "You were the only one I wanted,
you know.  I would happily keep your men on as a personal bodyguard."
He tsked a few times.  "A good man, I understand.  Dead, as we all
will be.  As you will wish to be, long before you are."

     I was dragged away from Lothair's body, too stunned to offer any
resistance.  Assan walked behind me, and all the way to the dungeons I
could do nothing but look at the red hatred in his eyes.

     The next days -- or possibly even weeks, I have no way of knowing
precisely how long -- were spent in darkness, eating wormy bread and
drinking washwater.  Then, one day, more guards dragged me back into
the blinding light.  I was dropped on the floor before Assan's chair.
He looked down at me for the longest time.  My eyes were still unused
to the light, so I was forced to bow my head.

     "We seem to have a problem, German.  Esmerelda claims you were
not the father of her bastard daughter.  She claims, rather, that your
lieutenant was the father.  Rather convenient for the two of you,
isn't it, that he is dead and can say nothing to clear the matter?"

     I had a daughter.  Would have had a daughter.  Should have had a
daughter.  I did not answer the murderer.  Had I been able to, I would
have spit in his satisfied grin, or at least on his silk slippers.

     "Let me explain my problem to you.  Everyone in Cordoba knows how
your whore has betrayed me.  Everyone knows you and she were lovers.
But there is no proof."  I heard fruit juice being poured, it sounded
pulpy and thick, sweet.  Assan paused for a moment to swallow a long
draught, then let out a sigh of contentment.

     "I need proof," he went on, "if I am to hold a public execution,
which would be much more satisfying than strangling the two of you in
the night."  He drained the rest of his juice.  "It's the bitch I
want, because I can understand you, as much as I can understand any of
your race.  I understand the desires of a man.  If you are willing to
admit that the child was yours, I promise you that you will die
painlessly immediately upon your confession.  No pain, no interminable
waiting.  What do you say, hmm?"

     What do you say, will you buy the horse or not?  Will you betray
your love or not, hmm?

     I said nothing.  I looked in his eyes.  He saw my answer, and was
not impressed.

     He looked almost sad as he sent me away to his questioners.  "But
leave his manhood intact," he called after me.  "I want that for
myself."

     I was stretched, I was cut.  I was burned in a hundred places and
had strips of flesh cut from my body.  The poisoned arrow I had taken
in Palestine was as nothing compared to the ministrations of Assan's
toturers.  But I never gave in.  I never told them the truth.  Even in
death, Lothair was a friend to me.  I told them over and over again
that he was Esmerelda's lover.  In my less lucid moments, I almost
believed it, and was jealous, but I forgave them both, because I loved
them both.  But the pain always brought me back.

     I was brought again before Assan and made to stand on bleeding
feet, with tatters of my own flesh rubbing against my burns.  I had no
more tears, no more voice after the weeping and screaming of the past
days.

     Assan sat in his chair again.  "You still claim Lothair is the
father of your child."

     I nodded, swaying.

     "Esmerelda maintains the same thing."

     I found a remnant of my voice.  "I'll kill you if you've hurt
her."

     I don't think he heard me, weak as my voice was, but he knew what
I said.  "I have done nothing beyond confining her to a small room and
giving her a diet somewhat less appetizing than your own.  She is
still my wife, after all, and her father, while not powerful enough to
personally threaten me, could gather allies for the proper motive."

     That was something at least.  I would be dead long before he
began to torture Esmerelda.  It was one pain I would not have to bear.

     Assan came to a decision.  "Bind his hands behind him and leave
us."  My dislocated shoulders were jerked behind me and chains placed
around my raw wrists.

     "You have no one, you know."  He said to me.  "Esmerelda will
soon be dead, one way or another.  I have paid off your men and they
are on their way home."  He moved closer to me.  "I am the only one
who can release you from your pain.  There is only me."

     Just as I had somehow found a voice, I now found tears.  They
streamed down my face and fell upon the festering wounds on my chest,
adding another small measure of pain.

     "I can give you oblivion.  Why fight it?"

     Yes, why?  I was all but broken.  I just wanted it all to end.
My fire was gone.

     Assan went to his chair.  Beside it, on the floor, was a
cylindrical object covered by a heavy cloth.

     "Just admit.  Just admit you are the father of this!"  And he
pulled the cloth off.  Through blurred eyes and the brine in the glass
jar, I could make out a small arm, floating separate from a tiny body.
Blind eyes in an unformed head seemed to stare back at me through the
cloudy water.

     My fire was back.  I stood a little straighter despite my
agonies.  Assan saw this and realized he had gone too far by trying to
shock me into submission, or perhaps had just moved too soon.  Another
day, and I might have signed my soul to the Evil One.  I don't know.

     Simultaneous to this, something else happened to bolster my
strength.  Swords clashing in the courtyard.  Shouts of anger, in
German and French.  Calls of "Heinrich!"  My men!  They had come back,
or had never gone.

     Probably for the first time in his life, Assan knew fear.  I
could see it in his whole body.  Taste it, I thought.  Savor it, for
it will be the last thing you know.

     My strength must have come from God, for it was not in me or any
other earthly source.  I released my rage, and it swallowed me.  I
shouldered Assan to the floor and fell upon him, kicking him and
butting him with my head.  I had no weapon with which to kill him
except one.  Laughing, I used it.

     I did not worry about Assan's friends -- no, he had no friends --
his allies, rather, taking vengeance upon me.  Even kings fear a man
who will rip out his enemy's throat with his teeth.  With Assan's
blood and flesh in my mouth, I let the darkness take me.


     Kirsten had moved back from Heinrich during his story.  She
stared at his mouth, as though blood still dripped from his lips.
Heinrich was staring at nothing as he talked.

     "Esmerelda nursed me back to health again, physically and
spiritually.  Most of my men remained by my side, preventing anyone
from storming Assan's villa.  Rolfe had taken his brother's death even
harder than I, and had left for the Empire even before my torture
began, taking a handful of men with him.  Assan's other wives divided
his holdings among themselves and left Cordoba as wealthy women.  Only
Esmerelda's personal servants remained behind.

     "I could not comfort her, try as I did.  After I was healed,
there was nothing to occupy her and distract her from her own
emotions.  She was worse off than I was, for she had not had pain to
focus upon.  She had to live, conscious, through the memories of her
horror.  She turned to Beatriz for comfort, and eventually to other
men.  I'm not sure why.  But she returned to my side, sane, and loving
me.  That was all that mattered, all that matters still.  A few years
in the Caliphate, and then back here.  The end."


     Kirsten spoke up, tentatively.  "My lord?  Why did you choose me?
Really.  You obviously love your wife, and she loves you."

     Heinrich thought for a moment, considering his answer.  "Would
you believe me if I said it was for your own good?"

     "I'm sorry, my lord.  I don't understand."

     "A nobleman must have an heir, Kirsten, even if the child is
bastard.  Otherwise, when I die, the Duke will just pick someone to
whom he owes a favor.  Or the Prince will, or the Emperor.  Probably
this man would not care what happens to you or your family, or to any
of the other families on my lands.  Either that or a dozen second sons
will duel over the right to my holdings.  Nor would they care for the
villagers.  I have always known my duty, Kirsten, but now I know my
responsibility.  Duty ends with my death, but my responsibility goes
on."

     Kirsten took a few seconds to digest this.  "You want me to bear
your son, my lord?"

     "Honestly?  You or someone else.  All Esmerelda asked was that
she be light of hair and skin."

     Kirsten nodded her understanding.  Then, taking a deep breath,
she nodded her acceptance.  She knew her duty as well as her lord did.
She moved closer to Heinrich.  She kissed him, and he kissed her back,
but without passion.  "Tomorrow, love.  I am so tired."  Then he
turned over and went to sleep.

     Kirsten gazed at his bare, scarred back.  She kissed a wound,
covered him up, closed her eyes and slept.  If she dreamed, she did
not remember it.





    Tomas sat on the floor, his back against the bed and his chin on
his chest.  He'd tried to see Kirsten today, to find out how she was
holding up, but a guard had prevented him from looking for her.  When
he asked the man to pass a message along to her, asking about her
comfort, the guard had leeringly answered, "Don't you worry boy.  The
count's got her well in hand."  That's when it had hit him, like a
mule's kick in the gut.  Heinrich was strictly entitled only to the
first night with his bride, but naturally he would force himself on
her for the entire two weeks of Tomas's imprisonment.  That rash
attack on the count had resulted in punishment for both of them.

    "Damn me for a fool," Tomas muttered to himself.  Then he repeated
it, again and again, adding a different, more colorful adjective each
time.  On top of all his troubles -- imprisonment, his wife in the
hands of a violent lecher, worries about losing his head because of
Countess Esmerelda's games -- on top of all that was his guilt.  Why
hadn't he tried to see Kirsten the day after the wedding?  He would
have known earlier that he wouldn't be allowed to see her.  Why did he
wait?  He knew why, and the reason was called Esmerelda.  When he was
asleep he dreamed about her half the time.  When he was awake, half
his thoughts were wishes that she would come to his room, and the
other half were fears that his wishes would be fulfilled.  It was the
guilt that had made him seek out his wife, and now the knowledge of
what she must be going through was piling even more guilt on top of
that.

    "You deserve it," he said to himself, getting up off the floor at
last.  "You deserve it but she doesn't."  Not only was Heinrich an
uncaring lord who felt he could take a man's wife like a common tavern
wench, he was probably a murderer.  He had the look about him, Tomas
thought.  He'd never seen a murderer before, but he was willing to
wager that they all had eyes like the count's.

    He kicked at the wall in his fury at Heinrich and himself, but
pulled back before his foot reached the stone.  He wouldn't put
himself in the hands of Heinrich's physicians.  Instead he picked up
the emptied clay water pitcher and hurled it with all his fury at the
wall.  He stared, openmouthed, as it sailed cleanly through the narrow
window.  He shook his head, amazed at his poor luck.  Lately he'd been
able to do nothing right.  He got drunk at his wedding and attacked
his lord, attracted the attentions of that frightening man's wife,
found himself in love or at least in lust with her, and now he
couldn't even break a damned dish against a huge wall.  He was
pathetic.

    "Well," he said to the air, "I should at least go see if anyone
was hurt."  He went to the window and stuck his head out.  It barely
fit through.  His ears scraped the stone as he leaned outward.  He
looked down -- he wouldn't have been able to see anything if not for
the outward bevel around the opening -- and saw a small knot of people
surrounding the shards of the pitcher.  All were staring up at him,
but the only one he noticed was Esmerelda.  She was obviously furious;
he imagined he could actually see red in her eyes, even from a height.
She pointed a finger up at him in a gesture he took to mean "stay
right there" then headed for the entryway.

    Well, it didn't matter what she wanted him to do; he was leaving.
She wouldn't believe it was an accident.  She would think that he had
thrown the vessel out there on purpose -- probably at her.  He pulled
his head back and out of the window.  At least he tried to.  His ears
wouldn't bend out the way.  A tight fit in one direction had become a
trap in the other.  "This is enough to make me cry," he muttered in
disgust at himself.  As though he'd uttered a magic phrase, he started
to do just that.  A couple of tears leaked from his eyes, enough to
make them burn but not enough to cleanse them or himself.

    Just then his door opened and he heard Esmerelda's voice behind
him.  "Why did you feel it necessary to throw a perfectly good pitcher
at me?  Was one of us not to your liking?"

    "It was an accident," Tomas answered.  "Leave me alone."

    "Look at me when I'm talking to you, young man."  Anger replaced
the sarcasm now.

    "I'm almost as old as you are.  Leave me alone."

    "You are my husband's subject and I will not speak to your behind
when you have a perfectly good face.  Even if there isn't much behind
it."

    "I'm stuck.  Leave.  Me.  Alone."

    Tomas heard the door close and let his body relax, thinking she
had gone at last.  Then he heard her voice again, but with a different
tone.  "Let me help."  He thought he heard her mutter something about
"idiot men" under her breath but he wasn't sure.

    He felt a cloth drop around his head, falling in front of his
eyes.  "What are you doing?" he sputtered.

    "I can't see your ears from here, so you'll have to tell me when
they're covered.  Then I can tighten the cloth and pin your ears to
your head and you should be able to back out that way."

    "Oh.  Thank you.  The left one's covered.  Now both."  He felt a
tug on the cloth and let it pull him back.  The fit was snug, but he
managed it and his head popped free.  He surreptitiously used the
cloth to dry his eyes before handing it back to Esmerelda.  As he did,
he saw that it was a complex weave of dyed linen, with small tears
where the rough stone had abraded it.  "I'm sorry about your...
scarf?"

    "Don't mention it.  Believe it or not, you're not the first to get
your head stuck in one of those windows.  All the others have been
men, as well.  I don't know what that says about your sex.  Empty
heads, I imagine."

    "Or maybe just wider heads than women."  He saw her scowl at him,
and for a moment he remembered who she was.  She could get him in a
lot of trouble because of her station and because of who her husband
was.  But he was tired of being called stupid.  He was just having a
bad couple of days.  And that reminded him once again of Kirsten, who
was likely with this woman's husband as they stood there chatting as
though all was normal with the world.  "Why don't you just leave me
alone?"

    "Have you forgotten what happened just now?  If I had left you
alone, you'd still be standing at that window with your rear end
sticking out.  Not that it isn't a lovely rear end, but it must have
been uncomfortable."

    "Why do you do that?" he asked impatiently.

    "Do what?"  Her voice implied innocence, but he suspected he knew
exactly what he was talking about.

    "Make comments like that.  And come into a stranger's room like
you did the other night.  You're a married woman!"

    "And you're a married man.  That's what makes it so perfect."

    "Yes, I'm married.  And right now my wife is in the clutches of
your husband.  Don't you care that he's got his damned hands on her?
Touching her the way only *I'm* supposed to be touching her.  The way
he's supposed to be touching *you*!"

    She reached up and patted his cheek almost fondly. "Oh, Tomas.  In
a little over a week, you'll be touching Kirsten like that.  And
you'll continue touching her like that for the rest of your life.
What's two small weeks compared to that?"

    "And don't you care that he's sleeping with another woman?"

    "Not really.  I shall have plenty of time in his bed after this is
over.  In fact, I shall have him tonight, with Kirsten."

    He was shocked by her attitude.  She professed to be a Christian,
but she was talking like she was still a heathen.  "Don't you have any
sense of decency?"

    "Don't you have any sense of fun?  Don't you want to have fun with
me?"

    He forced himself to calm down.  A few seconds later he said
through clenched teeth, "Please leave."

    "I don't think so.  I think I like playing with you, even if you
won't play with me."

    "Fine.  Then I'll leave."  He spun on his heel and made for the
door.  Esmerelda's voice stopped him again.

    "You should try to be more like your wife, you know."

    He turned back and cocked his head suspiciously at her. "What do
you mean by that?"

    "Merely that Kirsten has a much better attitude about this
situation than you do.  She's rather getting into the spirit of
things."

    Tomas's stomach began to turn cold.  He could feel the blood
pounding in his ears.  She surely couldn't mean what he thought she
meant.

    Esmerelda saw the look on his face and smiled a truly unpleasant
smile at him.  "My husband the count is a wonderful lover, as Kirsten
has learned.  He is a good teacher and she a very eager student; I
believe that you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the things she
does to you at the end of the fortnight."

    His gut was ice now.  He brought up his fist but turned it into an
accusing finger.  "You take that back!  My wife would not be enjoying
this any more than I am."

    Esmerelda merely took two steps forward, ducking her shoulder
under his hand.  "If she's not enjoying herself, she is a remarkable
actress.  But as my father always said, happy students are good
students.  She's very good with her mouth, you know.  I can't say how
she is with a man, but she is very good at pleasing a woman."

    Tomas backed away from her until he was against the wall.  "Shut
up!  You're lying to me.  That's not Kirsten.  Kirsten wouldn't-"

    Esmerelda waved away his objections as she moved closer once more.
"Nonsense.  She loves it.  When you two resume your state of marital
bliss, you're going to have to go down on her quite often.  I'm afraid
I've spoiled her.  I can offer you lessons if you like.  You can
practice on the same sex that Kirsten likes so much."  Her palm ran
languidly down her thigh.

    It was the wedding night all over again.  Everything was out of
his control.  He would not believe it of Kirsten, but Esmerelda seemed
so positive.  She seemed to be telling nothing but the truth.  And
even though part of him was repulsed by her, more of him still wanted
to possess her.  He half-believed she was a witch.  His fears came
crashing down on him.  Heinrich had not only taken Kirsten, he had
seduced her.  And this woman in from of him had helped him do it.
Then she had the gall to try and seduce him.  They were trying to
debauch him and his bride.

    They may have corrupted Kirsten (Please, God, not irretrievably
so!) but they would not do the same to him.  He would resist.  He
would forgive Kirsten and love her, but he would not sink to her
level.

    Except he found himself staring down into those dark eyes.  They
seemed so full of understanding now where they had been mocking
before.  He could spend hours just looking down into those eyes.  He
could never resist this woman before him for so long.  It was
hopeless.  He should have understood it long before this moment.
Everything was out of his control.  His life was in another man's
hands as surely as his wife's body was.  But he did not have to let
despair leave him curled in a ball waiting for the inevitable to
happen to him.

    Tomas realized he was frozen, his arm still extended in
accusation, resting ever so lightly on Esmerelda's shoulder.  He
brought his arm down fully on her shoulder and took her hair softly in
his hand.  "You say you're entitled to a little fun, too?"

    Esmerelda leaned her head back into his caressing hand. "Mm-hm."
Her smile was lazy and bewitching.  Her eyes were hooded in pleasure,
or anticipation?

    "I suppose you're right, my lady.  I should have some fun too,
don't you think?  Count Heinrich sees fit to have his way with my wife
and the least I can do is return the favor."

    Esmerelda began to mutter some kind of agreement when Tomas mashed
his lips against hers in a bruising kiss.  He knew it must be hurting
Esmerelda because it was slightly painful to him, almost as though his
front teeth were bending inward.  Yes, she was trying to pull away
from him, if not to break away completely, then at least to lessen the
contact.  He let her move away from his lips; but because of her
position, that meant moving downwards.  She lost her balance and he
eased her to the floor.  He fell atop her and resumed the kiss he had
allowed to be interrupted.

    The stone floor felt rough against his knuckles, but Esmerelda's
hair was still soft.  He pulled until it was stretched tightly.
Esmerelda seemed to realize that more was going on than she expected.
She tore her lips from his.  "What are you doing, Tomas?"

    "Having fun like you said I should, Esmerelda."  He wondered if
his voice sounded as cold to her as it did to him.  He kissed her
again, this time biting her lower lip.  Hard.

    "You're hurting me, Tomas!  Let me up, please."

    "Don't you want to have fun with me anymore, Esmerelda?"  He ran
his hand up her side to grasp her breast.  It was soft and yielding,
much like he imagined Kirsten's would feel.  Except this woman's
husband was feeling them, probably at that very moment.  He returned
his lips to Esmerelda's once more and this time tasted blood.  That
made him pause for a moment, but only for a moment.  Kirsten was
supposedly willing, but if she had fought, wouldn't Heinrich have
forced her anyway?

    He sat up on his knees, straddling Esmerelda's thighs, looking
down at her.  She lay on the floor, arms outstretched and limp,
panting slightly.  She didn't beat at him with her fists as he
expected.  She didn't kick and twist beneath him.  Was she resigned,
or did she merely think he hadn't the will to continue?  He was
surprised to find it didn't matter to him.

    The barest hint of cleavage showed above the bust line of her
gown, exposed during the brief struggle.  He placed two fingers of
each hand inside the indentation and pulled.  The cloth held for a
moment, then ripped in a jagged diagonal tear down the front.  Her
breasts were beautiful, near the opposite of Kirsten's except in size.
They were rounded instead of pointed; tan with nipples a deep, rich
brown, instead of pink on alabaster.  She made a move to cover
herself, but he held her arms down, grinding them into the stone of
the floor.  No, that wouldn't do.

    "Get on the bed," he commanded as he stood, but kept his tight
grip on her arms.  "Heinrich wouldn't mark Kirsten and I won't mark
you.  If I don't have to."

    She stared up at him with hot fury.  "My husband will have you
killed for this."

    "I attacked him, remember?  And I've a pretty wife he lusts after.
With me imprisoned he has her for a few days.  With me dead, he has
her for as long as he wants.  I've been a dead man for the past three
days.  I just happen to be walking and breathing."

    Her eyes widened in disbelief.  She was a good actress, he'd grant
her that.  "My Heinrich would never do that!"

    He threw her on the bed, grabbing the torn edge of her gown and
giving her a twist so tore even more.  "He's a knight.  Knights kill
people."

    "Not Heinrich, not anymore.  Please let me go and I'll never speak
of this again."  She twisted her hands in his unyielding grasp.  Her
fear felt good.  He'd been running for the past two days.  It felt
good to be the one in control.

    He should let her go.  But he'd gone too far.  And he could still
hear her taunts with every pulse of blood in his ears.  He moved
toward her.

    "Wait, Tomas!  If... If Heinrich killed you, then Kirsten would no
longer be willing to... willing."

    "I'm sorry, Kirsten," Tomas said in what he thought was a cultured
tone.  "He attacked some of my guards.  I gave orders not to hurt him,
but they had to defend themselves.  He went crazy, like the night he
attacked me."  He continued in his own voice, except his own voice had
never sounded so cold.  "I'll not die a virgin, Esmerelda."

    He could see that she believed him at last.  "I'll scream."

    "If you were going to scream, you would've screamed long before
this.  Maybe you thought you could control me.  Maybe you think you
still can.  You're wrong."  She opened her mouth and took a deep
breath.  He placed his palm over her mouth.  "Don't.  If you do, I
will kill you."  Would he?  Could he?  "I know Heinrich will kill me.
But he's going to do that anyway, and it wouldn't bring his ladywife
back."

    Her eyes took on a look that alarmed him.  It wasn't fear, and it
wasn't quite anger or hatred.  He'd never seen its like before.
One-handed, he tore away the rest of her dress so that she was more or
less naked.  If she wanted to keep the garment, she would have to
convert it into a summer cloak.  He unlaced his breeches.  Why wasn't
he hard?  Wasn't she beautiful?  Didn't she and Heinrich deserve this
and much worse?  Didn't he want her?  He closed his eyes so he
wouldn't have to look down into hers.  He called forth the image of
Kirsten wading naked into the lake.  That brought on the memory of
Esmerelda waking him in the middle of the night with her mouth on his
member, sucking it and licking it.

    At last he began to harden.  He grabbed his cock and placed the
head at her entrance.  He opened his eyes again and thrust inside her.
Her eyes half-closed and her nostrils flared.  He could feel her
trying to suck in air through the hand covering her mouth.

    Christ, it felt so warm and moist inside her.  All those nights he
thought he'd been enjoying himself with his hand, but it could never
have been this good.  If only he could have experienced it with
Kirsten instead of Esmerelda.  At the thought of Kirsten he felt
himself growing soft again.  No!  It was Heinrich who was keeping
Kirsten from him.  And this woman he was on top of had helped.  It was
their fault this was happening.  They were doing this to him.  He
could feel Esmerelda biting into his hand, at the base of his thumb.
The anger flared again inside him and his erection raged once more.
He thrust into her faster and faster, and ever harder.  He heard her
grunting beneath him with every stroke.  He dared to take his hand
away from her mouth so he could get better leverage, and she did not
scream out in fear or pain.

    He picked her up and moved her more firmly onto the bed.  She lay
in the position he'd thrown her, arms outspread.  Only her head moving
from side to side and the sounds emanating from her throat said she
was alive and awake.  And the things her sex was doing around his
cock!  He felt himself being gripped along his entire length.  The
heat of her surrounding him!  His hips moved faster and faster against
her.  Her little moans and grunts made him feel powerful.  He let
himself drop on top of her body, crushing her breasts with his chest
and her lips with his as his pelvis moved on its own for a half dozen
strokes before he froze on top of her and emptied himself deep inside
of her.

    He lay on top of her for several long moments, listening to her
panting, feeling her breath in his ear.  It tickled and was slightly
annoying, but at the moment he didn't have the energy to move his head
out of the way.  As his heart began to slow, the pounding blood in his
ears began to ebb for the first time in what seemed like hours.  His
organ became flaccid enough to flop out of her.  He heard Esmerelda
inhale a final large breath.  She was going to scream now, he knew.
The soldiers would come and see them like this.  They'd drag him away
to be hanged or beheaded.  Or maybe they'd just lift his body up and
run him through right here.  At least it would be over.  For a few
moments, he had been the one with the power.

    Instead of the scream, though, he heard Esmerelda's voice say,
quite conversationally, "Well, now that that's over, maybe you'll last
a little longer next time."