The Slave of Lidir

  A NEXUS CLASSIC

  THE SLAVE OF

  LIDIR

  Aran Ashe

  This book is a work of fiction.

  In real life, make sure you practise safe sex.

  First published in 1991 by

  Nexus

  Thames Wharf Studios

  Rainville Road

  London W6 9HA

  Reprinted 1994

  This Nexus Classic edition 2000 Copyright © Aran Ashe 1991

  The right of Aran Ashe to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him inaccordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

  Printed and bound by

  Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks

  ISBN 0 352 33504 1

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  THE SLAVE OF LIDIR

  1

  The Eye of the Jackdaw

  Picture this: a castle, set in dream-time, the Castle of Lidir. A jackdaw, balanced on a turret, his feathers cut and ruffled by a fitful, skittish wind, cocks his head in rapt attention at two faint yet clearly moving dots, two shadow-figures in the bleak November landscape and the darkly failing light. He watches as the figures slow, then fuse together, then stretch apart again; as if connected invisibly and elastically, the two progress, the resolve of the one drawing the other onward, for the other is reluctant. And the ultimate quest, the greater tide in which these humble creatures drift, directs them ever eastwards, against the buckling wind, to the great gate of the castle.

  The jackdaw topples, and spirals downwards in a vortex, then beating back, he claws a purchase on a ledge above the gateway where the leading figure stands now, forearm raised as if in threat against the massive slabs of timberwork. The arm falls three times; three deadened blows are swallowed by the wind. The leader looks to his companion, whose hooded form remains detached and downcast, set back from the door, yet seems somehow even more remote from him. He turns to raise his arm once more, whereupon an inset door swings magically open, and torchlight spills out to freeze him and to illuminate the hooded but now lifted face in its warm and flickering glow.

  The bird watches, mesmerised, as a single snowflake, drifting downwards, is netted on her eyelash. She does not move to brush it off, perhaps she does not notice, for the perfect oval of her face, her eyes of limpid blackness, are fixed intently on the doorway. Another flake now slides across the freckles on her cheeks, then catches, and cascading down her copper coloured ringlets, it alights at last upon her softly swollen lower lip and hesitates, then melts. The pilgrims are admitted; the arm that raised itself to strike the door now sweeps around behind her, not daring to touch, yet a symbolic fence that bars escape, a token of enclosure, reinforced now by the profound finality as the door at their backs booms shut. The jackdaw drops and hops and chases random snowflakes as they prance upon the ground, then baffled, he wipes away the fluff of ice now glued around his beak and battles back up to his turret.

  2

  A Purse of Gold

  Anya had watched the bedraggled, quirky bird while she waited at the gateway. She wondered what he was about, strutting up and down the ledge and eyeing them, when all the other birds had long since disappeared to their roosts, and indeed, no other living creature was to be seen in this desolate winter landscape. And now the first snow was falling, large soft downy flakes which caught in her eyelashes and tumbled down her hair and kissed her on the lips. She liked the snow; she liked its gentleness when, as now, in the shelter of the massive castle wall, it floated down and tickled her skin like the tender kisses of a secret lover. She looked across to where her husband was being challenged by the sentry. She was indifferent to the outcome - either they would be admitted and her fate would be sealed, or they would be turned away and she would have to face once more the bitter windswept coldness and the night. Her choice, had she been offered it, would indeed have been a grim one, but of course the offer was not available. She glanced once more up at the jackdaw and secretly wished him luck in his quest, whatsoever it might be, then stepped through the portal and into the castle, and the door was bolted shut behind her.

  "You are expected. Follow me." The speaker, a hefty woman in a large leather apron, had appeared from the shadows to address the husband, and for one brief moment Anya had allowed herself the fancy that it might be him and not her who would be the object of the evening's barter. A wistful smile half-formed upon her lips and then faded as the sound of merriment drifted down, caught on the wind, from the Great Hall across the courtyard. She was weary - tired to the bone from the journey, a journey of despair. And as she crossed the yard and turned to the right to mount the cold stone steps, her body wedged between the wheezing woman in front and her stone cold husband behind her, she felt her throat tighten and her cheeks puff up and the tears began to well.

  "Shh ... Hush, my dear," the woman said and threw an arm heavily around her shoulders. "There's really nothing to be afraid of. Come now, dry your eyes." And she produced a large clean rag and began dabbing Anya round the eyes as softly as she could. They were standing on the threshold of a largely empty, oak panelled room in which a fire was burning brightly. The wooden floor was bare; in the corner were a table and chair. "Stand over here, by the fire, and let me look at you." Her face was kindly, Anya decided, and her manner seemed protective. "... There, you see, the tears are gone." And turning to the husband, the woman asked:

  "I take it she has been your wife?"

  He nodded. "No, I am his wife!" Anya wanted to shout, but she knew that would be pointless.

  "For how long was that?" the woman asked, looking at Anya but speaking still to the man.

  "Three months, almost four ..."

  "Three months!" she cried. "Why, you must scarcely have known each other ..."

  The man hung his head. That much was true, thought Anya.

  Then the woman stroked Anya's cheek softly, with the backs of her pudgy fingers. "Never mind my dear, for Marella will take care of you," she said and she drew her to her breast. Though her ears were rubbed against the roughness of Marella's apron, still Anya felt secure like that.

  The husband's head hung lower, in his shame.

  Marella patted Anya's head and kissed her gently on the forehead, then took her face tenderly in the large warm cushions of her hands and looked into her eyes:

  "What is your name, my child?"

  "Anya." Someone had spoken to her at last, asked her a direct question, and now she was elated.

  "You are very beautiful," Marella said simply, then watched as Anya's pupils expanded, their olive base consumed in liquid blackness. "How old are you, Anya?"

  Anya did not know. This question always made her so ashamed, no matter how often she'd told herself there was no reason for it to do so, that no guilt could possibly attach itself to her. But now her eyes were downcast; she could not look Marella in the face.

  The husband interrupted. "We do not know her age. She ..."

  But Marella cut him short, and turned again to Anya. "So then, tell me, when do you celebrate your birthday, Anya?" Anya frowned so deeply that her eyebrows met, which made Marella smile, and yet her smile was tinged with sadness. "I see," she said, then took Anya by the waist. Shaking her, like she might have shaken a baby to make it giggle, she
said: "Well, we'll make you ..." and she pretended to scrutinise her intently. "We'll make you twenty-one. Yes, twenty-one years of age! And today shall be your coming of age, Anya; today shall be your birthday!" She laughed. "So remember that, this twelfth day of November ... from this day forth you shall always know your age, and you shall always have a birthday!"

  Anya was smiling now, and her eyes were shining in a film of tears. But Marella hadn't finished. She winked.

  "On your birthday, you must have a gift," and she extracted, though not without some difficulty, a ring so tight it barely reached the second joint of her little finger. Then she held it to the light. Anya had never seen anything so beautiful before: it was gold, inlaid with plates of turquoise and tiny rubies which caught the torchlight. Marella slipped it on Anya's middle finger, and pressed the hand to Anya's cheek. "There! It fits!" she declared, and then more softly, "Blue for your mood, and red to match your hair - and your fire ..." and she pinched her playfully on the cheek, and Anya smiled, enough to show her teeth at last.

  "But now, my dear," the woman said, and pressed her palms together. "To business. I have to prepare you ..." Then she spread her hands in a half apologetic gesture, and raised her eyebrows. "I'm afraid you must disrobe."

  Anya felt hunted now; she didn't know which way to turn. Although she'd expected something, at some stage, the thought of what might actually befall her, here at the castle, had remained as a formless spectre at the back of her mind. She'd deliberately pushed it aside rather than dwell upon it, because she'd hoped against despair that she would never be brought here, that something would happen to save her so that the spectre need never take definite shape. She knew now of course that it wasn't going to happen - nobody would rescue her, least of all him. This mellow thick-bodied woman had shown her more affection and consideration, even in this short time, than he had shown since the day they met - their wedding day. Perhaps Marella would turn out at last to be the one to save her, or at least to protect her. Perhaps she could learn something from the strength and softness of this portly matron, and who knows, even learn to trust her.

  "But ...?" Anya threw a meaningful glance in the direction of her husband, and then looked back at Marella. She did not want to have to undress in this man's presence.

  Marella was patient. "Anya, my sweet cherry," she began, and then appeared almost to recite: "In the Castle of Lidir, there will be much in store for you that you will find strange and difficult to bear, things which, if laid out now with you as witness, would make you shrink away in your innocence. Yes, there will be many greater trials than this, for this is but the beginning." And she stroked Anya's cheek, very tenderly, like a mother caressing a child who is about to depart on a long yet very necessary journey, fraught with dangers unseen by the child, yet well known to the mother, a journey from which the child will not return until she is a woman.

  "Be not afraid for now, my honeycomb, for Marella has attended many, many such disrobings - men as well as women, I might add," and she threw a sidelong look at the husband, who flinched visibly then stared down at his nervously shuffling feet, before she added softly, "but none, and this I'll warrant, none so beautiful as you ..." Anya lowered her eyes in bashfulness, but secretly she was pleased, and grateful for the unfamiliar compliment. "And besides, you must surely have often done this, before your husband ...?"

  Now Anya's lips were set, as the memories flashed back, acute visions of events so joyless and distressful, which she didn't want recalled.

  "Come now, do it for me ...?"

  Very slowly, Anya raised her eyes and examined once more that rotund face, searching for reassurance in the puffy pink complexion, with its cheek pouches, and those long red floppy earlobes, and the tiny, bright expectant eyes, and she thought: This is the one friend I have in the world. And she complied.

  Marella stood beside her, watching but not saying anything, just accepting the garments one by one as they were offered, and placing them over the solid thickness of her forearm. First she took the great hooded hessian rough coat, so large and heavy it had almost buried Anya; it now lay supported effortlessly across Marella's arm, as if it were nothing but the lightest and flimsiest gauze, while Anya's curls had meanwhile tumbled out across her shoulders, in broad swaths of gold and red and copper against the tight, creamy ringlets of her sheepskin jacket. Marella waited patiently as Anya carefully unlaced it; her fingers were long and smooth, not cracked and dry as might have been expected. They worked deftly, but Marella noticed, with some pleasure, that they would stop at intervals and spread or turn and that Anya would regard the ring lovingly, from a variety of angles. It was evident that she'd never worn anything like it before, Marella realised, and this puzzled her a little, for surely it was the custom in these parts for women, regardless of their station, to delight in the wearing of trinkets such as this? And it was certain that a married woman always wore a ring. Perhaps Anya had never had one, she speculated, or worse still, perhaps her husband had taken it back, forcing her to give it up. Whatever the truth might have been, she did not propose to question Anya about it, for some hurts, she knew, were best left undisturbed, to rest and heal and mayhaps fade away completely.

  The sheepskin, once removed, revealed a thick linen undergarment with sleeves, and a heavy moleskin skirt, fastened with a leather belt and extending down over Anya's boots and almost to her ankles. Anya undid the belt and then unwrapped the skirt, which was a single piece turned twice around her middle; the undercoat went right down to her calves - she had to bunch it round her waist to be able to pull it over her head. Then even Marella gasped at what she saw before her, and she nearly dropped the clothes down on the floor.

  In all her time, she had never seen a girl or woman more beautiful than this. Anya wore nothing but a sleeveless deerskin top, shaped and laced up tightly to the curve of her bosom, and a pair of knee-length canvas boots with thick woollen stockings reaching up tier thighs. The deerskin stopped just above the navel - its small deep well looked black against the smoothness of her belly; the curls below bushed bright, like whirling filaments of fire. That narrow waist - its gentle downswell to the fullness of her hips - it made Marella want to touch her, to smooth her hands across, to trace that perfect curve down her back to where it joined invisibly with her thighs. And now Marella would have liked it to have been her fingers that hesitatingly unlaced the top which, with each freed-off loop, continued to swell out against the constriction of the deerskin, until at last the lace was left dangling down below the final eyelet and the leaves of softened leather hung pendant, supported by those breasts. Then Anya paused, and looked directly at Marella. Her heart was racing, and with each breath she took, the lace was lifting, gently swinging, brushing to and fro across her belly. Her fingers hesitated, then lowered, and she spoke:

  "You ..." she faltered, "you do it, Marella." Marella's heart leapt, and much as she tried to hide her feelings, she could feel her face flushing red.

  Anya did not know what had made her say this - something in Marella's face, perhaps - but at that moment, it was what she wanted. She wanted this women to open out the deerskin and, not just to look at her, but to take her breasts and mould them in each of her soft, warm hands and caress them tenderly. It was what she wanted more than anything. But Marella did not understand, or perhaps she was just too afraid. This enormous woman was rooted to the spot, but she was also shaking. Her lips had opened to say something, but then closed again.

  So Anya had to do it herself - to spread apart and then carefully remove the deerskin. Instead of handing it to the woman, she merely dropped it on the floor, which seemed at least to wake Marella from her reverie. Anya pressed her shoulders back. The freckles dappled downwards ever lighter from her neck, to fade at last to the pale smoothness of her bosom. Her shoulders seemed so slight to support such breasts, which projected outwards, full and heavy, almost as if Anya might be with child. Her nipples looked swollen, the shape and size of acorns, but deeper coloured. They were a v
ery dark velvet brown, set starkly against the paleness of her breasts and, with no surrounding circle to shade them in, they looked almost as if they had been painted to blacken them.

  Marella wanted to touch those teats, to wet them and rub them to see if the colour would come out and infuse into her fingertips, but something prevented her. Though Anya had closed her eyes, and her arms were hanging submissively by her sides, just waiting for the touch, still Marella could not bring herself to do it. She bent and picked the deerskin halter up and she waited for the boots and stockings; then, brushing Anya very gently on her pouted lips, she turned and deposited her clothing neatly on the table in the corner. She brought back a blanket to place around Anya's shoulders, and to wrap around her waist.

  Anya closed her eyes again, imagining that tender touch, the touch that had not come, her bosom lifted up in those strong soft hands and her nipples stroked upwards very softly with the thumbpads, then pulled, oh so gently, with a large plush finger curlicued around them, squeezing them compassionately, subduing her with their sigh-soft sucking traction. She wanted to give herself like this - completely - to someone who would drown in her eyes, to someone who would love her.