The Slave of Lidir Read online

  Marella reached out to take her hand as Anya, pushing herself up, leaned back against the door. And at that moment, with Anya's weight against it, the great door suddenly moved, and she felt her fingers slipping through Marella's, as she overbalanced backwards. She saw the look of horror on the woman's face as Anya's other arm swung up and back to save herself, only to smack that innocently emerging servant very squarely under the chin and send his tray of plates and chicken bones flying through the air. And she heard the terrible crash, the groan, the exclamations of surprise, and then the silence as the music stopped - all of this she took in, even as she toppled backwards and broke her fall against the soft and tender cushion of the servant's sprawled out body. Marella, standing above her, looked distraught.

  Anya wanted to crawl away, out through the circle of noble faces that was gathering around.

  "Bring her here," a voice boomed down the hall. "The prince would look upon this woman that breaks down doors to gain entry to his banquet - and floors his servants in the process." The laughter echoed round the hall. Anya's cheeks were burning. Marella merely stood there, biting at her fingernails, as Anya was lifted to her feet. The circle opened and she was led through the line of grinning faces until she faced the Prince across the centre table. She kept her head down, from embarrassment at being made the object of everyone's attention, feeling isolated now that Marella was no longer by her side. She knew that if she were subjected to any further ridicule, she would never be able to control her tears.

  "Lift her head." The voice was very brusque. Anya's chin was forced up. The speaker, dressed in emerald green, sat to the Prince's right. His eyes looked hard and calculating and filled Anya with dread; she did not want to be made to look at him. "Now, slave - explain. Why have you taken it upon yourself to disrupt the entertainment?"

  Anya tried to summon up the courage to speak. She was very close to tears, and she hardly knew how to reply to so sarcastic a question.

  "I ... it was an accident," she answered very meekly.

  "Carelessness, more likely." He was very stern. She did not know how to take him. "And do you know how a careless slave is dealt with?" Anya could well imagine. "Answer!" But she could not reply. The tears slowly welled to overflowing. "Stop whining. Speak!"

  "Wait, my lord." A gentle hand had passed before this lord to stem his cruel attack. The voice was very soft, yet very determined. "Do not upset her."

  For the first time, Anya turned to look fully on that face, at that man who had spoken on her behalf - who had intervened to save her - and it seemed that, in that spellbound instant, something inside her melted, and she could see nothing but those eyes, those very soft and gentle, melting, deep green eyes, which widened until they almost seemed to look inside her soul. And in that moment, those delicious, beautiful eyes seemed to kiss her. Before the assembled host of the banquet, the Prince had kissed her with his eyes, and she had kissed him back, and no one else had noticed.

  Anya was uplifted by that thought, and now she was not afraid.

  "Anya, Sire," she whispered, in a soft and sultry voice, for the Prince had asked her name.

  "Then go about your duties, Anya, for this transgression," and he glanced at the lord in green, "be it deliberate or accidental, is forgiven." He raised his voice, so all could hear. "It is forgotten." And then he said more softly, "but you are not ..." Again, he kissed her with his eyes.

  As Marella led her out, Anya felt drugged by the Prince's words; she tried to form a picture of him in her mind, but all she could see were those soft, sweet eyes, and all she could hear was that gentle voice and - there was something else - she was sure there was something out of place, something odd about his ear ...

  And Marella looked upon that lovestruck slave, and shook her head again, and put it down to lack of proper food, for she knew the girl was starving.

  4

  The Taskmistress of Lidir

  Ildren's apartments were situated high up in the east wing of the castle, well away from the Bondslaves' House, which was located beyond the Great Hall, the kitchens and the servants quarters, in the vast and sprawling west wing. The Taskmistress, had she so desired, could certainly have resided much closer to her slaves, but she preferred things this way. Why? It was no accident that Ildren's rooms lay directly above the Council Chamber, the political heart of the castle, so that, although she was not a formal member of the Council of Lidir, Ildren was still readily to hand, to advise, or perhaps to lobby their lordships, or on rare occasions - although this was Ildren's secret - to overhear the confidences of the Council through a gap in Ildren's floorboards, which Ildren had by accident enlarged - for use strictly in cases which Ildren judged it to be of dire necessity or national need. And yet, even if political expedience had not dictated Ildren's choice, she would still have selected these rooms, for their early-morning quality, whereby Ildren's bedroom would fill with that special luminosity of fresh daydawn, and the beautiful creature within her bed would stir and gently waken to pleasures undreamt of by the slave, games devised by Ildren in those early hours before the dawn, as Ildren planned and rummaged through her storeroom of delights.

  For Ildren loved to play with her slaves - and they were her slaves, whatever anybody said. After all, it was she who chose them, then examined them and set them to their duties. And was it not she who saw to their training, encouraging them and certainly - when necessary - disciplining them, and bringing out the very best in them? Did not their lordships rely on her to take these raw untutored souls and mould them to the intricacies of love, to match them to each lordship's whispered need, each secret vice, each nuance of delight? And Ildren oftentimes would devote long hours, or if needs be, days and nights, or sometimes even weeks, to the tutoring of a single slave to some particular end for which there existed a requirement.

  Frequently, the Prince would chide her, saying: "Taskmistress - why do you waste so much time and precious effort on so difficult a slave?"

  And Ildren would reply: "Sire - I see a slave with promise, that is why."

  The Prince would merely shake his head, yet time would prove her right. For Ildren knew, although she would never say it to the Prince's face, that in truth, there was no such creature as a difficult slave; there were only difficult requirements which, however rigorous they might seem could, with patience, certainly be met. To Ildren, no challenge was impossible, no nervous and half-expressed request which their lordships might hesitatingly and apologetically proffer for consideration was too extreme, and Ildren would take time to reassure their lordships in their illicit cravings:

  "Mm ... interesting ..." she would say, for where slaves were concerned, she took pleasure in making even the impossible come true, in bending those exquisite creatures - very gently - to her will. For she loved them.

  But most of all she loved to play with them. Not to toy with their emotions necessarily, though sometimes this might prove to be a crucial facet of their learning, but to toy with their bodies - physically to touch them, especially the girls. Those other calls, the direction and chastisement and supervision, were part of Ildren's duties, and she enjoyed them, that was definitely true, but her greatest pleasure was rooted deeper, in those quiet tender loving searching moments - or on occasion, hours - which she would spend with a girl, particularly a new girl, touching her.

  She liked first to let a girl acclimatise to her nudity, and to the constant presence of her chains, so that when at last she had the girl secure within the confines of her apartments, Ildren could instruct her thus:

  "Remove your chains - drop them to the floor. I want you totally nude," then watch with carefully suppressed delight as the trembling girl - who had come to feel the chains to be, if not exactly clothing, at least a symbol of protection from her nudity - would achieve that higher plane of nakedness and utter vulnerability which Ildren now intended.

  And Ildren would previously have instructed that a good strong fire should fill the grate, and her couch be drawn up close, so tha
t the girl would be kept warm and comfortable in her nudity, for like as not the evening would be long as pleasures swelled then ebbed again under Ildren's close direction. Besides which, she loved to watch the play of firelight across a nubile body.

  She liked to have the slave on her lap, so she could cradle her very lovingly, and normally Ildren would wear her velvet robe, because she knew that this would serve a double purpose - it would maintain the girl's awareness of her own nudity, by way of its contrast with her state, and at the same time, would bring her pleasure, by brushing delicately against the girl's skin in a thousand places, with every little movement covering her with soft velvet kisses which would then be counterpointed by Ildren's own more intimate and precise caresses. She loved to stroke the woman's body with her eyes before she even touched her, to absorb each smoothly swollen curve, each flutter of an eyelid, the soft inviting bush of hair between her thighs or underneath an armpit. She would have the woman raise an arm to place it behind her head, so she could watch the way in which her bosom moved, and exactly how the nipple lifted. Sometimes, at this early stage, Ildren would turn the bond-girl on her side, to test the way her breasts would fill in weighted, soft resilience. At this point, a little shiver might run up through Ildren, for she would be imagining the girl lain like this, on her side upon the couch, with Ildren on the floor, her lips pressing by turn around each fully swollen nipple. But she would deny herself this tactile pleasure for the present, preferring simply that the anticipation sharpen up the pangs of her desire and thereby render the realisation, when it came, sweeter yet by virtue of her wanting.

  Then, having made the slave turn back again, she would stare into her eyes until the girl's pupils dilated blackly in reflection of Ildren's loving look, and the Taskmistress would then say:

  "Spread your thighs, my dark-eyed beauty; open yourself to me ..." And every time, without exception, the slave would glance downwards and away, in sweetness and in innocence, sending another shiver through the Taskmistress, this time to her core. It would make her want to take that beautiful face in her palms and cover it with kisses, to press her lips softly upon those eyelids which were closed in gentle bashfulness and were weighted with desire. And always, the girl at last would look again at Ildren, with eyes more liquid than before, and then she would comply with the Taskmistress's very clear directive.

  Ildren's head would swim in waves of pure intoxication each time a girl would spread herself this way, and do it of her own accord, without ropes or chains or even other hands to bend and mould her form to such a luscious purpose. And, she found, the girls never would refuse - or rather, would do so only very rarely, and even an unlikely eventuality such as that, she knew, could have its compensations - albeit of a rather different kind.

  When a girl was spread before her - opened across her lap - then Ildren would suffer a nervous moment of indecisiveness, so totally out of character, but delicious yet for that, in which she could not make up her mind exactly where to touch her first. The slave would wait, and frequently her eyes would close, and Ildren would watch that bosom quickly rise and fall in short and frightened breaths of taut anticipation, and she would hold back until her own excitement welled so strong that Ildren's breathing now outpaced the girl's. And then she would say, provided she could haul those heavy-weighted sentiments of lust successfully from so deep within her breast:

  "Open your eyes, my darling ... Look lovingly on your Taskmistress while she plays with you."

  And if Ildren managed to deliver that, her vision of desire, without a single catch of breath or falter, then it was a very rare happenstance indeed. And if, upon the opening of her eyes, the girl's pupils did not expand to utter blackness - well, such intransigence was totally unknown.

  Ildren might now insist that the girl spread wider, and for two very significant reasons. The girl, whilst looking fixedly into Ildren's limpid eyes, would by this action make a gesture of submission so profound that Ildren would go queasy in her belly and below, as if a large strong hand had slowly closed around her sex and squeezed it. The second reason, whilst certainly more practical, was no less stirring where Ildren's belly was concerned. It was this: the tender skin which stretched across the crease where thigh joined body in the girl was now so taut that it was ripe for tickling with Ildren's little finger - for her finger to touch, very, very lightly and move down the crease as slowly as she could. And when at last the girl's leg would lift, in involuntary reaction, as Ildren was well aware it would do, then Ildren would smile and remind the girl:

  "Do not lift your knee, my sweet - you must keep very open to my caresses. Now this time, open your mouth, and push out your tongue, but very slowly, while your Taskmistress continues to brush you in your crease." For Ildren had discovered long, long ago, that this simple sign of rudeness would help the girl in her abandon, which would in due course constitute a very necessary adjunct to desire.

  The Taskmistress preferred that a girl have very prominent lips, as part and parcel of her sex, and she would justify this on the simple grounds that there was thereby more for her to play with. The slave-girls varied in their make-up and each was structured differently; their individual strengths and weaknesses made each of them unique and Ildren loved them in their diversity - she took great pleasure in seeking out and coming to know their secret features, both physical and emotional. And she would never - or would hardly ever - abuse a slave or cut one with her tongue on account of some particular desired characteristic in which that slave was wanting; that is, unless she lost her temper, which was very rare indeed. No, either the deficiency was one of emotion or natural inclination, in which case, with Ildren's careful training, success was sure; alternatively, if the physical make-up was flawed, then nothing could, or need be done - unless success was possible with some very minor bodily readjustment. So Ildren would always try to help the slaves to make the very most of their existing physical assets; and yet, secretly, she could not escape the fact that she loved those prominent lips.

  If, therefore, a girl was in her lap and was appropriately endowed, the Taskmistress would be in seventh heaven at this particular juncture. She would temporarily permit the girl to retract her tongue, while Ildren spent some time developing her:

  "I want to play with your lips - to make them very full and swollen," she would say. "Now - ask me to do it to you." She loved to play this little game, to show her domination.

  "Pl ... Please, ma'am," the girl would at length request, though in a very nervous voice.

  The Taskmistress would sigh, in pride and pleasure at that sweet entreaty, and a shiver would run through her. "Yes, my dear? What is that you want?" And Ildren's eyes would widen and she'd pout her lip.

  "Please ... dd ... do it to me," the slave would then add very meekly.

  "Do what, my dear?" Ildren's voice would now sound very husky.

  "Please ... please pl ... play with me," the girl would manage to say. Then she would avert her eyes, and Ildren's heart would leap. But she would want to press things further:

  "Tell me what I should play with, darling; do not be ashamed."

  "My ... my ..." The Taskmistress would be delighted that the girl was too embarrassed to say it:

  "Mmm? Your what? Do not be afraid to tell."

  "My ... my love lips, ma'am." Ildren would be elated if the girl should remember to match the term correctly to the occasion, which currently was, of course, a loving one.

  "And for how long should your Taskmistress play with your sweet and succulent love lips, my precious?"

  "For ... for as long as it should please you, ma'am."

  And playing with a woman's lips of love usually would please the Taskmistress for a very long time indeed, particularly when those lips with which she dealt were, by their nature, already very well developed.

  As a rule, she would begin with a very gentle touch designed to test the lips' resilience. Three fingertips of one hand would be placed to one side of the lips and then would nuzzle very softly up
against them. This action might elicit from the girl a slight catch of breath, as the cool smoothness of Ildren's fingers was laid against her heat. Ildren would wait - perhaps the girl's flesh would involuntarily wrinkle against her fingertips, although sometimes it would expand. Ildren had found, by experience, that she never could be sure exactly how a pair of flesh lips would react; it didn't depend necessarily on the girl's physical constitution. More probably it related to her mood. It was this kind of thing that made these explorations so fascinating to Ildren - not knowing precisely what might happen, or quite how a girl would take to being fondled in this way. Sometimes, the excitement might be so intense that Ildren would feel her heart was in her throat, especially when she closed her thumb across those lips to trap them while she pulled them, very slowly, then relaxed her hold and watched the lips retract again, under their natural elasticity.

  She would, in due course, test that elasticity, if not quite to its limit, then certainly very thoroughly, but by that time the girl might find such intensive treatment really quite acceptable, assuming that by then she even cared at all. Ildren liked to steer a woman's lips through two states, the first of which was rigid. By this she meant that the lips should stand hard and proud, and rather like a cockscomb. In fact she would often use this very term to a girl whose state particularly pleased her, saying, "My dear, your mound has such a pretty cockscomb," which might make the girl flush crimson in her shame. If this should happen, then she would have the girl hold a looking-glass between her legs and watch herself in reflection, as Ildren's fingers flicked her cockscomb from side to side to demonstrate her point.