The Slave of Lidir Page 23

  The Captain rested with his head at Anya's breast, sucking at her nipples, sucking underneath them, each of them in turn, so they felt alternately very warm and wet and soft, then cool and tight again, as he blew against them till the spittle had evaporated. And when this sucking had progressed sufficiently, his fingertips dipped into the pool of milt upon her belly, and he had her bend her knees - suspend them in the air - and place her hands about his head and cradle him, running her fingers through his hair - whilst he dripped the milt into the join of Anya's leaves, and worked it round her nubbin, easing only when her breathing turned to heartfelt little gasps, then dipping once again and working - lightly touching, or very gently pulling - till the gasping rose again, then opened her out, spreading her with his fingers, and keeping her stretched like that, with the walls of her sex apart, yet very still in tension, not allowing her to move against him, not letting her contract, until her breathing softened, whereupon the dripping and the lightly pressured squeezing of her nubbin would progress, with her held very definitely open during this very prolonged and cruel pleasuring, until the milt was all used up. Then he laid her on her side, with her knees tucked up quite tightly and her arms folded across her breasts, and covered her with straw and bade her rest.

  The Captain dressed, buckled on his wristband, now scented with her heat, and looked with a kind of love upon that slave - that sweet complexion, with those heavy lidded eyes, that gentle softened breathing, and those full and luscious lips, which he was tempted now to kiss, yet he refused himself that pleasure. And then he unbolted the door, and stepping through the doorway, announced in a voice of crystal clarity: "Men - the wench is ready for you now. Regrettably, I cannot stay. I entrust her to your care."

  Anya heard the animal cries, the yelping of that stampeding pack, and then the scuffles, grunts and shouted curses as they tumbled through the doorway. They tripped and clawed each other as they fell upon the bed, in the fight to be the first to get to her. She was almost suffocated in the heap of bodies.

  "Wait, lads. Wait! Don't let's fall out over the wench."

  "And let us get a look-in, too!" someone shouted from the doorway.

  Anya's body was being mauled by fingers pinching at her breasts and bottom, and trying to force themselves between her tight-shut thighs. She was so afraid, but could not even raise her arms against them without leaving herself even less protected against the vicious probing. The voice of reason then continued:

  "Let's get her where there's room to move - let's get her on the table."

  "Aye," a voice behind her said. "Then all shall have a piece." This raised a lively cheer; it made Anya feel sick to her stomach.

  "I know which piece I want," a fourth voice croaked. "We all know that, you dirty bugger!" The assembly broke into howls of laughter. "But you'll have to wait till last. I'm not going anywhere that you've been first."

  "Oh no?" the croak rejoined. "But I've noticed you're not averse to licking up the Captain's spurtles and his droolings."

  "Lads, just calm down," said the restraining hand. "Look - them as wants can have her; them as don't can keep their peace. Right?" Another cheer went up.

  Anya's feet were gripped by rough and eager hands, and she was pulled to the floor.

  "Stop! Leave me alone!" she cried, as the fear now threatened to overwhelm her. She tried bravado. "You are less than human - you are beasts!" she screamed at them, which only served to make their laughter louder and more hearty.

  "You're right, my dear, in one respect, as you shall shortly see ..."

  Anya was dragged through the straw and up the step, and out into the guardroom. Then she was lifted by her hands and feet and swung up, until she landed with a crash upon the table. Strong hands held her arms, and others spread her legs. She shut her eyes and cried, "No! You shall not touch me!" then found the strength to open her eyes again to glare at those evil, filthy creatures.

  "Pigs!" she spat at them.

  "Ha! Pigs, she calls us. Look at the state of her!" The speaker grabbed her by the hair. "Mistress Tangleweed regards us all as swine." The derisive laughter made her grit her teeth against the taunts, and worse, against the redness which was filling out her cheeks, for she knew just how bedraggled she must seem. "Mistress Mophead, covered in beer and bits of straw and," he squashed a pie between his palms and smeared it across her belly, "pigswill from our table -" The room was now in uproar. "Not to mention our Captain's fevered dribblings! This wench with private parts so black, she must frig herself with charcoal sticks - she tells us we are pigs!"

  Now Anya was fighting back the tears; she would not allow her spirit to be broken by these vile, despicable worms. The speaker held her by her hair, and underneath the chin, so she could not move whilst he glared down into her face and lashed her with his tongue.

  "So - may we take it that so perfect a person as yourself will not refuse a wash?" Anya tried to struggle, but she could not move. He turned to the man beside him. "Get the bucket."

  They doused her down with water, amid all her screams and kicks, and scrubbed her from head to foot with a vicious bristle brush, until the tender skin of her breasts, her belly and in between her thighs, was raw and scratched. And then they turned her over, scrubbing her shoulders and down her back. They parted Anya's buttocks and used the brush very roughly up and down her groove until she cried out loud, but they would not stop until she was red raw, right down to her toes. She was turned on her back again. "And now perhaps Mistress Perfect is clean enough to have her black pot filled to bursting by a pig-sized cockstem?" The guard approached, and began to kneel upon the table, between her thighs. Anya's leg was free. She did not hesitate. She bent her knee, and with all the strength that she could muster, she kicked out - and caught him very low down, in the ballocks of the swine. The grey guard groaned, then toppled backwards and landed with a crash upon the floor.

  "Devil take her! She's made him wet himself." The murmurs sounded awed. "I'll swear she's kicked the ballocks off him altogether!"

  "Who's next?" Anya shouted, for now she did not care. She was really very angry and, if they had dared to step within her range, she would have bestowed that corrective treatment on each and every one of them, with equal satisfaction. Yet odds of seven to one - even when the one was spitting fire and brimstone in the faces of those obnoxious, spineless fools - were in truth quite overwhelming, and Anya knew this well, though this would never stop her when she had the bit between her teeth.

  "Defenders of Lidir?" she mocked them. "Ha! You are nought but worthless, spineless scum!" She added, "Come near me and I'll have your pig-like ballocks for mincemeat, and feed them to the ducks," - a turn of phrase she owed largely to Marella.

  Their expressions suggested that it was doubtful that the guards had been addressed with such forthright vehemence - ever - by a slave. For a second, no one spoke, nor even moved a muscle. If Anya had been fast enough, in that stunned, immobile silence, she might even have escaped, except that, even if she had managed to do so, there was nowhere she could run to, and nowhere she could hope to hide.

  "Right lads!" They pinned her by her arms and legs, then gagged her, so she could not bite them, or humiliate them with the truth. "This foul-mouthed hussy can cool off on the battlements. We'll see if that tempers her fiery edge to the warmth that we require."

  Anya was half dragged, half carried up the winding staircase and out into the sunlight of that thin cold afternoon. They dragged her through the snow. Its freezing coldness cut her bare flesh; it made her cry into her gag and try to gasp for breath against the shock of tightness in her chest. "Take these ropes and tie one round each ankle. We'll dangle her over the side."

  Anya's blood turned to ice; her backbone turned to water. "Half an hour, head down, like that, should be enough to bring her to her senses." There was nothing she could do to save herself, and gagged, she could not even plead. She tried to kick out, but they held her down while they looped the ropes around each ankle and quickly knotted them. Then Anya nearly passed out with the shocking coldness of the snow against her belly and her breasts, as they calmly turned her on her front while her hands were tied behind her back. "She shall hang with her legs kept wide apart; let the chill wind drain that heat." Already numb with the coldness seeping through her body, and now paralysed with fear, she was made to stand, with feet apart, and her calves against a gap in the parapet which did not even reach her knees, whilst the coils of rope were anchored firmly to iron staples in the stonework, several feet apart. Anya felt dizzy; her body was unsupported against that wall of nothingness, that vast and empty space which hung out there behind her back - those open arms of endless falling, just waiting there to greet her. The wind sucked at her in icy gusts, first pushing against her, then suddenly drawing back again, threatening to pull her backwards over the wall. Her calf muscles ached from the constant strain of trying to keep her balance. The loops of rope felt slack against her ankles. She was terrified that her muscles would become too tired, and she would sway too far, and then, with her hands tied, unable to save herself, and the guards in front pushing her feet back to the wall in sudden jerks, she would topple over backwards. And there would be nothing to stop her falling whilst the ropes uncoiled, and falling still, when perhaps they broke or came undone or slipped off her feet completely, until she plunged head-first to the rocks a hundred feet below.

  Waves of giddy sickness overturned her belly; she could not breathe; the gag, wet with condensation, had blocked her mouth completely. Her fear was trying to block her throat. She was suffocating slowly. Her field of vision was shrinking, then expanding, as the waves of terror struck, and the numbness gave way to a prickly feeling down her spine and up her thighs and out across the surface of her belly. Strong, insistent hands were gripped around her shoulders, pressing, forcing her backwards, though she was resisting, though she would not bend her knees; they forced her back and back until those strong hands took her weight, so she was helpless, and she was looking upwards at the sky; the guard began to lower her; she closed her eyes and heard, against the singing in her ears, a soft and distant murmur, like the bubblings of a mountain stream, and a faint cry - the cry of anguish that she could not utter. And then the cry was louder and more urgent, and suddenly her heart leapt, for she knew that cry was real, and that voice was unmistakable.

  "The Prince!" the shout went up.

  Now there was consternation all around.

  The guard who held her turned and, in that moment, eased his grip. Too late, he grabbed for her again and missed, and Anya slowly slipped away from him, unable to save herself, and then she felt that she was falling, slowly, endlessly sliding backwards into that pit of terror, down that vertical wall.

  Then with a sudden jerk, she stopped - and she could see the Prince above her, leaning over, reaching down impossibly far, his face a mirror of her terror, for his fingers stretched in vain to reach her - and then she felt the loop of rope round her left foot move - it slipped against her, over her anklebone; the knot was creeping down her heel. She twisted her foot to try to stop it, but her skin, through cold, was smooth as glass. The loop had passed the point of no return. She screamed into her gag. The Prince cried out: "No!" She swung sideways, like a pendulum, dangling by her right foot, hit the wall and bounced, out across the precipice, and then swayed back again. A wave of nausea hit her, for she was looking straight down at the slowly twisting rockscape far below. Her foot was aching from the strain of keeping it crooked about the rope, the rope that was looped too loosely round her foot; her muscles were crying out to stretch to ease the searing pain, but she knew that if she did, the rope would surely slip and she would plummet to her death upon the rocks.

  And now it was the Prince's turn to overbalance, almost, and Anya wanted to cry out "No! You must not!" as he hung so precariously over the parapet, as he edged his fingers further down the wall. But still he could not reach her; the despair was in his eyes.

  "Brace yourself. Keep your foot bent tight," he shouted. "You must not let it slip."

  The Prince took the strain of the rope and pulled, and prayed the knot would hold, and that he could keep the pulling very smooth and even.

  The wind was rising, cold and cutting, turning Anya very numb, so the burning ache in her calf and foot was dulled, but now her muscles would not respond, did not belong to her, and she felt so very, very tired. The Prince was straining every muscle, shaking, pulling, inching the dead weight of her body slowly, painfully up the wall, until at last her foot was but an inch or two away from him. And then his heart sank.

  Her heel had jammed against a tiny overhang in the stonework, so that now, each time he pulled, she did not move; instead her foot began to straighten, and the rope began to slip, and Anya's eyes grew wider in her terror. So he had to lower her carefully, and leaning out, to try to edge her body away from the wall while he lifted, but now he did not have the strength to do it. He fought against the rising fear, the tears of black futility, but it was no good; he could not do it; he had to admit defeat and ease her all the way down again, knowing all too surely that time was running out for Anya. The rope kept sliding slowly up her foot, edging over that smooth and delicate heel and she was powerless to prevent it. Her wrists were bound, her fingers scrabbled at the wall, but she was slipping - she knew it - and now her fear was quelled, almost, by the inevitability of her fate, and the sureness of that love - that soft cocoon of love - which swathed itself around her even in that blighting of her hope.

  "No!" he cried. But Anya's heavy eyelids wanted so much to close. "You must not give in! I shall not let it happen!" And suddenly she was struck with an even greater panic - at what he meant to do - for he was lowering himself too far now, lunging wildly so that he would surely overbalance altogether. They would plummet together down into that chasm. She screamed inside. This was not what she wanted; she wanted him to live - for the two of them - not to give himself unto death because he could not save her.

  And then her heart stopped as the Prince seemed to fall; her eyes were wide with terror; yet even as he fell, his arms were reaching - not towards her, but outwards to the side. And then she saw it - that rope which had already failed her still dangled next to her almost to the level of her feet. His hands flew out and, scraping down the stonework, snatched and knocked the rope away at first then somehow wrapped around and caught it, and he swung round, through the air, then, as the rope took up the strain and bit into his forearm, his body jerked and he landed with his feet against the wall. Suddenly, impossibly, the Prince was there beside her, the rope wound tight about one arm, and his body angled outwards, so he stood against the great stone wall. Now Anya felt her weight being taken. A powerful arm closed about her waist and in that instant, she was suddenly transformed, secure. It did not matter that she still dangled, upside down, a hundred feet above the ground, for she knew, that whatever happened now, that arm would never, ever let her go.

  "Don't stand there gawking, pull us up!" she heard him cry. She closed her eyes and felt all the pain and fear and tension seep right out of her. And now she was standing upright on the battlements, her body was not spattered on the rocks, and she was looking up into the very eyes that she had thought were lost to her forever. Those eyes were not gentle now, but burned like fiery coals.

  He cut her bonds and pulled away the gag and kissed her with that melting heat of love which can never be contained by chains of slavery, or chains of caste, or chains of creed or station - that overpowering love which overturns all ills and salves all wounds and bathes away all tears.

  "You have saved me," she whispered very softly. "I knew it. In my heart I knew that you would not forsake me." He did not speak; his eyes were filled with tears. He kissed her very fully once again before he picked her up and held her, cradled effortlessly on one arm - that arm that had swung around to save her - with her face buried against that warm strong neck, and that golden earring dangling down against her cheek, whilst he unsheathed his sword against those guards.

  "That my own men should do this thing, and to a treasure without price!" His anger knew no bounds. "Protectors of Lidir?" he cried. "You disgrace that name. You are worse than creatures in the gutter. You are lower than slime. Get out of my sight, you despicable crew." And as they hung their heads, the Prince ploughed through them, beating them with the flat edge of his sword, and as she passed, the slave upon his arm was pleased to kick those cowering guttersnipes to speed them on their way.

  14

  The Legend

  Anya mused upon the Prince's words. She repeated them under her breath, time upon time, as she dwelt upon the story of her rescue. A treasure without price, he had said. My heart bows down before your beauty. His words had been so beautifully romantic; they had made her melt.

  He had looked upon her tear-stained, shivering, scratched and battered, yet still bedraggled as it was, so delicious body, and he had kissed warmth into those ice-cold, purple lips, again and again. His eyes had been still, dark bottomless pools of yearning. She knew he really cared. He had set her down and wrapped his cloak of red and blue about her, and had kissed her yet again, then carried her from that place and down across the courtyard, through the snow, up the great staircase - without any effort, as if her body and limbs were feather-light - past the Great Hall, past all the servants and the guards, who stood aghast to see their Prince, the Prince of all Lidir, a beast of burden to a slave - a slave adorned with the prince's cloak - and on and through the Bondslave's House, with all the shouting, as word of their arrival sped before them, through the lounge, past the females' quarters and the bathhouse, through the giggling throng of delighted faces that by now had lined their route, and then at last, between the stone-faced sentries, and into the Prince's suite.

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