The Slave of Lidir Read online

  "No, no!" Anya was horrified at such viciousness and calculating malice - and treason - at the suggestion that the Prince should somehow be set aside, or done away with. She raised her arm against the thought; it had made her very angry. "No! How could you dare to plot against his noble person?" Anya's heart was beating wildly; she was shaking - cold sweat beaded on her forehead - but somehow she had found that strength to speak out now for truth, and honesty of purpose. "How could you be so cruel?"

  "Cruel? Cruel?" The Taskmistress drew herself up until she seemed a tower of terror; her face was roaring thunder. She struck that slave down to the floor, for her honesty of purpose, and then she kicked her, for her forthright stance. Such candour was unwelcome, as far as Ildren was concerned.

  "You thankless bitch! You jumped-up little harlot! I'll show you cruelty, if that is what you wish to taste." And with that, Ildren stormed over to the door. "Let us see how your Prince protects you now," she said, and flung the door wide enough for it to crash against the wall. "Guard! Guard!" she cried. "This silly slut desires to entertain you in the guardroom." Anya began to wail. "You may do with her precisely as you wish."

  Then later, in the quiet calm, when Ildren tried to work out what had gone so wrong, she wondered whether things would have turned out differently if, after Ildren had untied the girl, she had taken that exquisitely - and yes, Ildren now quite genuinely admitted it - beautiful body, that sweetly sobbing tear-stained body, which was dripping with desire, and had moulded it to the Rod, before she had attempted to divulge her plan? What might have happened then? Ildren was unsure. As it was, she could only hope that the grey guards could, by way of contrast, perhaps underline the virtues of a woman's touch, and thereby help this silly little bitch to see the error of her ways.

  12

  The Hand of Correction

  "And so we meet again, my puffed up little pigeon," the voice echoed round the corridor. Anya was terror-stricken; it was the guard whom Cook had reprimanded in the kitchen. "You shall not need your airs and graces now. I fear that you must take us as you find us." He took hold of Anya's hair and forced her to her knees, down upon the coldness of the flagstones. Then he twisted her hair round till she screamed, and the tears ran down her cheeks. "Ha! Your tears shall not save you. Your tears are my delight. Your tears just make me want to kick you, you snivelling little thing." He twisted her hair more cruelly than before; she had to bite her lip until it bled, to stop herself from screaming.

  "Now, bow down to your lord and master, slave." He forced Anya to kiss his boots before he dragged her up. Grasping Anya's wrists behind her, he hauled them up her back so far that she had to double forwards from the pain, and then he marched her like that, so she was overbalancing, losing her footing, falling forwards all the time, along the maze of corridors and passageways, on and down the stairs, until at last they passed a pair of sentries who stood, unmoving and indifferent to Anya's plight, before a large oak door.

  "Get up!" he hissed, "and shut your mouth." Anya had tripped and cried out and lay heaped upon the floor. The sentries glanced uneasily in their direction. "Keep quiet." He placed his finger to his lips. "The Council is in session. You shall pay dearly if the Prince is disturbed by your miserable whining." Anya's heartbeat surged at this, for she knew the Prince would save her if he heard her. She cried out even louder than before.

  "Shut up!"

  "Let go of me. Do not be so cruel," she shouted back, and caught her breath in deep and powerful sobs. One of the sentries made a move towards them; Anya wailed more loudly, and then the door began to open. Anya caught a glimpse of a great table, with their lordships seated all around it, and she heard a voice - his voice, she was sure of it - addressing the assembly, before the guard struck her with a cruel blow, and clapped his hand around her mouth to stifle all her cries. He swore at her beneath his breath, and slapped her down again, for she tried to bite him; then he took hold of her around the waist and lifted her bodily. Her flailing form was finally dragged round the corner, just as an enquiring head was being poked round the door.

  The guard did not stop, and would not take his hand away from her mouth, until they had negotiated several corners, passed through a room piled to the ceiling with dust-laden boots and shoes, and then another full of old and faded cloaks, and had dropped down a flight of stairs. They had reached a quiet, musty passageway, with an alcove in the wall. He threw her to the floor. "Go ahead, my dear," he said with satisfaction, "you may shout as loudly as you like, for only guards and servants ever come this way. But your whining will not save you. It will only make things worse."

  She would have abased herself, pleaded for some respite, but she knew this would have been a pointless gesture against this hardened heart. She sobbed silent inner sobs, and dripped dry tears - she tried to stem her weakness in the presence of such cruelty. Why did he want to abuse her so, when she had done him no harm, when it was the cook who had upset him?

  He lifted Anya by her shoulders, then looked into her face, and Anya saw, with cold and creeping terror, the depravity in those eyes - the black desire that burned within the grey guard's soul. She shuddered, as she knelt before him, from the way he touched her, from the way he rolled his sleeve, and from the way his hand pushed down her front, so deliberately and so symbolically, between her belly and her chain, which bit into Anya's back and pulled her tightly up towards him. Her body shuddered as that hand crept downwards like a cold and giant spider. Those large black spider eyes looked down and fixed her, as those feelers parted Anya's curls and - she shuddered once again - those feelers touched her there - too gently, not roughly so that she could hate it. That touch was soft, prolonged, seductive stimulation; the shudder was delight. Those feelers pulled and palpitated Anya's sex; they made her want to spread, so those mandibles could close around and puncture Anya's nubbin, and squirt a fine cool stream of paralysing venom into Anya's body. She wanted that cold deliverance to quell her fear, to suffuse her body, and to liquify her core, and then those mandibles could suck, and in that sucking could draw her liquid self right out of Anya's nubbin, to leave her as a crispy husk which then could drift downwards, like falling dust, on the still and musty air.

  The guard made her stand and bow her legs whilst he fingered her; the only sounds that broke the stillness of the corridor were Anya's laboured breathing, the clink of Anya's chain, and the slow and gentle sucking sounds of Anya's liquid flesh. The sucking stopped; the hand pressed against her belly, pushing her backwards into the alcove, against the cold, damp wall, and then the sucking, working sounds began again. Anya's breasts started to shake under her nervously rapid gulps of breath, which now outpaced her heartbeat. She was made to spread her arms out and up, and to reach to grip the stonework, and then he forced her legs very wide apart, so Anya's body formed a living, softly frightened, palpitating cross.

  But now he pressed his body up against her and pinned her to the wall between the hard, unyielding stone and the rough cloth of his tunic, and he kissed her - if that is what it could be called. He forced his tongue into her mouth, and then he forced his calloused fingers up into her flesh, so far that she was lifted on his hand. She had to raise herself on tiptoes just to ease that force of penetration, whilst his tongue probed deeper and deeper into her mouth and tried to block her throat. Her nostrils flared; she could not draw breath fast enough to cool her burning lungs, and still the kiss continued. She was pinned and penetrated, suffocated by this hateful show of lust. How could this guard imagine that her body could ever welcome such coarseness, such base abuse as this? Anya tried to cry out against this gag of flesh and to tear her head away from him.

  The grey guard's hand closed round Anya's jawbone and dug into her cheeks. He held her head fixedly against the wall whilst he mocked her. "So, the attentions of an honest man are not welcome to one so proud - to one of noble blood. Ha! A wordly tongue is not to be allowed within that royal mouth." He spat upon the floor. Anya was terrified by such hatred, directed at hersel
f. "We shall see how this common tongue may yet be found acceptable - in a place where your flesh cannot lie. We shall see if it can melt your ice. Now, you shall spread those thighs until you split ..." He pinched his fingers round Anya's nostrils, so she had to gasp for breath. "There - so this regal nose shall not be burdened with the smell of earthy, melting flesh -" then he forced her head right back, until she was looking upwards at the ceiling of the alcove. "You shall keep it up - stuck up - in the manner to which it is accustomed." Anya's tears were overflowing at this gross and so unjustified abuse. She had done nothing whatsoever to deserve it. She had never put on airs or graces; it just was not in her nature. There was nothing she could do or say to help herself, to stop this cruel tirade. It seemed the guard had cast her in a mould of his own choosing, a mould from which she could not now escape. He was forcing her to fit this picture which his mind had conjured up; he was making her act this part, and it was so very hurtful to her spirit. "That's more like it - keep that nose up there where it belongs. Now, if this is not an imposition upon your royal self, would you kindly point your toes out to the side, and make your royal flesh expose itself more fully to this vulgar tongue which you abhor."

  Then Anya heard a gasp. "Black flesh ..." The guard had knelt in front of her. She began to shiver, in her shame, and fear at what this cruel creature might decide to do, now that her secret stood revealed. "It seems my lady stands tarnished with lack of polish, in her coldness. Now let us see how that blackened taint might yet burnish, and how that frost might thaw."

  She tried so hard to play that part of frigidity and indifference; she did not want her body to respond to this hateful assault. Such things should happen in loving co-operation - two minds linked as one, to a common, loving purpose, the pleasuring of the one bringing pleasure to the other, and then at last, that delicious warmth and deep contentment should seep into each lover's body. But this was nothing but a wicked travesty of pleasure which could only bring anguish to one heart and cruel satisfaction to the other, who despised her. She tried to force her body to shut off from this heartless delight, this one-sided, hate-inspired pleasuring. But that guard knew precisely how to elicit black desire from her person, and how to make her act against that part that he had chosen for her. That tongue, so clumsy in her mouth, was now feather-light, and so wickedly exciting to her ladyship, who had not known that being tasted by the tongue of a common ruffian such as this could be so delectable. Here, in the corridor, where anyone might chance to pass, Lady Anya allowed herself - nay, proffered herself - to be licked between the legs by a filthy, unwashed guard while she looked up at the ceiling - no, she closed her eyes, so that, if interrupted, she could pretend that she was innocent. She could declare it was not happening at all.

  The tongue licked the out-turned tender tops of Anya's thighs, alternately, in slow, wet circles of delight, until those wet patches, on so soft and ticklish a type of skin, seemed connected through the tops of Anya's legs and across her join of thighs. It felt as if a smooth silk scarf was drawing back and forth, inside her skin, and somehow up and through her sex, from one leg to the other. Those lips browsed in Anya's moistened female curls, dissolving them from Anya's leaves, slicking them back against the paleness of her flesh, so those dripping, copper-coloured curlicues formed a strand-line round the pouting of her leaves. Those lips were suckered up against that smooth pale band of nudity encircling Anya's blackness. That tongue pressed against those heavy, blood-filled leaves, to one side, then the other, and shook them - vibrated up against them - until Anya did not want this pleasuring to stop. The tongue then entered Anya's body; the lips sucked very fully round her leaves, until that sucking seemed to draw her nubbin downwards, as if the suction made it swell and force back her fleshy hood, and then that slippery warmth of tongue slid, in one smooth action, from his mouth, and in its arching, forced the liquid walls of Anya's sex apart and slipped into her person. Her sex was trapped between the curving horn of living flesh, and the suction drawing downwards. The sensation was so deep and so delicious that it made her push her head back, and back again, until she was looking at the wall. It made her arch her back and offer out her belly, and bear down so hard, there in her sex, that it almost made her want to grunt.

  The grey guard forced her next to use her sex to squeeze against his tongue, repeatedly, to squeeze it till it slipped out from her body, so that each time her sex relaxed again, his tongue would slip right in once more. And then at last he used it like a knife, to stab pleasure beneath her hood. He held his pointed knife of pleasure back, and made her snap her knees, to thrust herself up against it - she was forced to stab her nubbin firmly to that point of flesh, which was slowly edged away, until she had to curve her body out so far that she overbalanced. The guard caught her in his arms. When he stood up, the roughness of his uniform scraped against her belly and her breasts. He held her arms behind her back and, with her breasts to either side, he pushed her belly up against himself and forced her knees apart, so Anya's burning sex now rubbed against the coarse cloth of his thigh.

  "And is Milady icy yet, or shall Milady thaw?" He forced his lips to Anya's mouth. She tried to gasp for breath; it seemed that he would stop her breathing altogether.

  "Ugh ... No!" She could take no more, and wrenched away.

  "Still too good for a humble guardsman. Still colder than any stone," he said, with malice in his eyes. "If Milady found that pleasuring so distasteful, perhaps Milady would prefer to take her passion on a rougher edge ...?"

  "No!" Anya was petrified by the evil in that face, the hatred in that voice.

  "Perhaps her ladyship would prefer instead to bend across my knee ...?"

  "No, please ..." Chilling waves ran down Anya's back and forced contractions in her bottom.

  "Perhaps Milady would draw warmth and pleasure from chastisement in this way? Already, Milady's cheeks are flushing very warmly. Perhaps this style of pleasure tempts her noble self?"

  The grey guard performed that degradation then and there, in that corridor, without ceremony or preparation. He simply bent down on one knee and had Anya bend across the other. She tried to stop her eyelids squeezing out those tears of shame, but still she could not look upon that hard-hearted countenance; she kept her eyes averted as she was made to bend across his knee. But that only made him mock her, in his wickedness.

  "Is Milady now quite comfortable? Answer!" Anya's belly shuddered, as if an ice-cold hand had pushed up into her. "Answer now, or -"

  "Yes ..." Her voice was barely audible, yet it made that shudder come again. He steadied her between one hand, weighted upon her buttocks, and the other, pulling, squeezing, kneading at her breasts. Anya waited for that hand to strike her flat across the bottom. Her skin tingled, in that expectation; the roughness of his hand seemed magnified, so each movement seemed to tear at Anya's skin. His hand was lifted - her tiny bottom mouth pulsed - she could not bear the suspense; her body almost wanted that stinging blow to smack across her nervous, creeping goose-fleshed skin and deliver her to her shame.

  "Turn over." Anya wondered if she'd heard aright. "Milady shall take her chastisement in a more appropriate place." Anya felt a hand of fear closing round her belly. "That place which causes us offence, by its cold indifference to pleasure. That place of raw yet soot-black meat." The shiver ran out through the join of Anya's legs. "Let us hope the heat of this rebuke will cook her meat to toothsomeness."

  Anya was shaking as she was now made to lie on her back, across his knee. She found that pose to be even more degrading than lying on her front. Her body formed an arch across him, supported between her shoulders, pressed against the coldness of the floor, and his knee, which pushed into the small of her back. Her feet, reaching down, could scarcely touch the flagstones. He had her spread her thighs and push her palms beneath the chain about her waist, then spread them out across her belly; her fingers had to stretch towards her sex but were not allowed to touch it. She had instead to press, to make her arched-out belly even t
auter. "Now I shall smack that part, and smack until it melts into submission." A deep-drawing contraction came in Anya's womb, at the thought of what this man would do to her. That large, rough hand was raised - but then lowered gently, to pat, and then stroke downwards, in the open join of Anya's thighs. The hand was raised again, but this time to his mouth. He wet his thumb with spittle and, making Anya move her feet a little more apart, he fitted that thumb tip underneath, in the mouth of Anya's bottom, and very slowly, yet very fully, pushed it into her. And now, he moulded the rest of that very large palm to Anya's sex, so two fingers pressed to either side of Anya's fleshy leaves, and the palm itself was close against the mouth of Anya's heat. Her legs were spread so very wide, and yet still the space between her inner thighs seemed too narrow to accommodate a hand so large as this. Those outer fingers pressed so firmly into Anya's creases that she could not have closed her legs around that hand, even had she dared to want to. Those pressure lines were so very pleasant - they were wickedly delicious. They seemed to make a squeezing tickle along each line of crease; it made her feel so open and so unprotected, as if that pressure might suddenly increase to sever her flesh down to the bone, to make her open even wider.

  "Your ice cold flesh is warming. It is swelling in your heat." It was true, though she did not want it so; her body could not help it. Anya could feel the urgency focusing in that band of flesh compressed between his fingers; her leaves were slowly pumping up with blood, pulsing her strength of heartbeat up against his firm restraint. The hand was tightened round her; the thumb was pushed more definitely up into her bottom; his other hand was raised. She watched through half closed, heavy eyelids - her fear was there, but her fear was tempered now with wanting, not a wanting for pain, but a yearning want for deep and luscious pleasure. It was this painless, full and lustful pleasure which Anya's body now required. She would willingly give her body over to such pleasure, if only this cruel guard could see it. From the upheld hand, two fingers were stretched out, side by side. She had to bite her lip while she watched them quickly drop, and smack against her leaves. That shock of smacking made her cry out and jerk her hips, even though it was not truly painful, but it made the blood pump into her burning leaves of flesh with that much more insistence.