A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 21

"St-stay with me," he muttered, his eyes filling with tears.

Tashka laid her head on her arm and looked at him. She felt full of pity for him. He had married his Captain, had sacrificed so much for her when he could have taken another simpler woman to wife. He was crying, the tears rolling down his brown cheeks. He looked at her and asked her to stay, when he was her Commander and now he was also her future sworn Lord because she was van H'las. He could order her to do whatever he would, she would be obliged to do it.

She walked to him and sat beside him. She wrapped one arm around his neck, he leaned to rest his head on her shoulder, his tears ran over her shoulder.

"I prithou ... stay," he sobbed.

She made no reply.

After a while his tears dried, he got up from her embrace and walked away across the room. She sat with one arm hanging idly over the back of her chair, fingering the wooden bars of the chair. He wandered about the room with his back visible through the great rent in his shirt. He came to the bedside and stopped. She stiffened in her seat. He unhooked from around the bedpost her sword-belt with hanging off it the elaborate ceremonial sword, the jewel-encrusted gift that Clair had sent to be presented to her when she was finally made a Captain in Sixth H'las. Vadya slid the sword halfway out of the scabbard, turned its shining oiled beauty about in his hands. Then he caught some hint of her anxiety and turned his head to look at her.

She was leaning forward in her chair, her head turned sideways to him, her slanted eyes narrowed. She rested her hands lightly on her knees, the fingers were half-curled, ready to spring into action. She had married him, silently allowing her brother to bestow her heart, body and mind; her honour, her soul, on him, but she could not trust anyone with her sword.

He slid the blade back into the decorated scabbard and carried the whole belt with sword and dagger to her. She waited on the edge of her chair, forcing herself to trust him.

"You are my care, my honour and my victory," he said solemnly to her. He slipped the gold-tooled leather belt about her naked waist and buckled it, took her face between his hands and brushed her cheeks lightly with his cheeks, as is done when an officer is promoted and presented with the badge of his office: a sword for a Captain, a banner for a Commander, a ring for a General.

"Vadya!" her voice shook, she reached up to hold onto his shoulders.

"Oh my love," he said softly. "I will not deny you. You are my love because you are the fine soldier and merry Captain as well as the woman of my heart. I will not gainsay my love for you, although the world and its ways pull me so hard to do so. Had you been the woman that you might have been, you would have wept to watch me ride away to war and I would have been impatient if you had pleaded with me to stay. Shall I now play a role I would despise in that woman? My heart, you'll take my troop to war and I will play the braver part, staying behind to face my fears for your safety."

She stood suddenly up in his arms, pressed her body - naked apart from the belt of weapons around it, to his. He grasped her close and their mouths met in a savage soldier's kiss - lips pressing hard, tongues aggressively pushing to the other's mouth. Vadya gripped his teeth on Tashka's upper lip almost hard enough to break the skin. She reached a scarred hand up to wipe the tears from his face, still pressing into his kiss. He seized her by the belt and pulled her harder in to him so that the buckle pressed into his belly through the heavy silk of his shirt and she sniggered suddenly in their kiss and broke from it. He was still holding her hard to him, too moved to speak but she pulled away and took his hand, tugging him towards the bed. He followed her although he was not sure he could manage yet another erection but perhaps she would be content if he gave her a finger - or two, he glanced uncertainly at the soft cock she had said was bigger than other men's.

When they got to the bed Tashka unbuckled her weapons and slung them around the bedpost with his again. She started pulling the buttons undone on the shirt and stripping it from him, saying huskily: "Clair has bestowed my body on you, you have bestowed on me the region in return but I want your body too now." That made him giggle through his tears. This was not how a younger child ought to speak, it was sexy to be bossed about when he was an oldest son of the el Gaiels van H'las. Then she added, "my Commander," turning her head with an extraordinarily filthy grin; a flashing sparkle in her exquisite blue eye.

Vadya gasped and felt a kind of quiver go through him. He had of course sometimes had to inspect smutty pictures of senior and junior soldiers which he disciplined the troopers for keeping in obscure hiding places. He had never quite understood the appeal of this forbidden material. He knew that soon she would be beyond addressing him as a senior officer - and here she was doing it on their wedding bed! It made his heart beat faster, the blood go rushing around his body with a sense of the forbidden and improper. There was good reason why relations were forbidden across the vows in the army, yet he could not but acknowledge a thrill to crossing the boundaries of the code of honour in order to engage in sexual play in her body.

She was not really speaking to him like a junior to a senior of course. The way she spoke reminded him of her tone when she chatted with her former brother officer Caja Nain in the tavern in Paviat about misdemeanours she had lured Nain and their fellow Lieutenants into. When he had heard that low husky evil snigger in her voice he had felt sincerely grateful she had never turned so seductive a tone on to his other Captains in Sixth H'las and lured them into the kind of tricks with which she had no doubt made her old Commander from Fourth Sietter dance about like a ferret after rabbits.

"Wh-what do you mean to do? with my body," his own voice was still husky with tears and now he was embarrassed to hear a nervous squeak in it.

"Say it," she insisted, giving his shoulder a push, "my Captain."

"You are joking!" he cried in horror but she grabbed his arm and forced it round and he said, "ow! ow! alright, my Captain!"

"Shut it and lie on the bed," she said softly, pushing him down on his front. He lay there giggling and watching her sideways as she rooted in the basket of condoms. His cock was only softly happy rather than hard and big for her and he wondered lazily what-all she was going to do about that. Then she came and lay over his back, pressing her breasts into his back and kissing the nape of his neck. This was so pleasant that he half-closed his eyes and lay panting into the quilts, relaxed in her arms while she started kissing down his spine. He was tired with all the physical exertions they had enjoyed and the emotion of admitting how he felt about her riding back to war without him. He felt it would be pleasant to just have this soft puckering of the infamous rose-petal lips on the sensitive skin of his back - even if he had to address her as his Captain and order her to carry on doing it but she had reached his buttocks. Her hand had started flexing on his buttock and her fingers pulling his crack open. She was kissing his arse and he tensed suddenly up as he felt a soft firm tongue poke at the rim of his arsehole. He gave a moan, reaching round but Tashka pushed his hands away, saying in that soft husky inappropriately assertive tone, "my Commander, lie still or I will make you!"

"Stop it, Tashka!" he sniggered, wriggling with embarrassment and the pleasure of her tongue on the rim of his hole, part of him felt mortified with shame that she was doing such a thing to him but part of him really liked it and was thinking, Do not give her the No for it, Angels' sake! so he just wriggled in her strong thin hands, not sufficiently to prevent her continuing, instead of dragging his arse away from the strong firm muscle of her tongue.

"Call me your Captain," she said. "Or I will stop."

"No, no ... this is too much," he moaned then he suddenly said: "Oh my Captain! I will obey you in every thing. Take my body. You saved my life so my body is yours. I will bestow it on you if you bestow on me your favours in return."

He heard the husky evil snigger of the junior officer he had loved for so long and felt her tongue press down again to his hole. Now a finger had come caressing the rim of his hole. She had put a condom on it and was pressing a bit of lubricant around his arsehole, he had never had to use any for her but sometimes his former lover Lallia had asked for a little extra lubrication and he thought as he felt Tashka smearing it around him that if he had realised how pleasurable it was when the finger gently poked it around he would have done a lot more of it. He gave a series of little moans, he was starting to suspect where this was going and he felt a great trepidation about it but he trusted Tashka, his beloved Captain, so completely that he let himself go in the capable manipulation of her scarred fingers.

Her finger was dipping into his hole, pressing in deeper, pushing gently down and stretching the rim of his hole, there was a pause and then two fingers came gently pushing down into him. He quivered with the excitement of the feelings this raised in him. She was pushing deeper, probing about then suddenly he felt her press and his whole body shook, a ripple ran right through him. She was pressing there again. He started grunting and spreading his legs to her, his backside felt as if it were begging, he wanted it so much: the rhythmic pressure to that sweet spot deep up inside him. He was curving back up to her fingers, grunting and moaning. He had been wrong, his cock was rising and filling, hardening up, he could not believe it. He was spreading his legs and pushing and heaving to her pressure in him, the pleasure was rippling out from her thrusting fingers, he was in her hands to do with as she would, his cock was like a rock, his balls were so full they were hurting, he would have thought he wanted to sink it all inside her but all he wanted was for her to continue as she was doing, thrusting those scarred fingers down into his arse, fingering the sweet spot she had found there, oh! oh! the pleasure in the rim of his arsehole and the tense rising pleasure deep inside him. He started screaming with excitement and suddenly he was cumming in spurts in the sheets with the husky evil snigger of Captain-Lord Tashka el Maien van H'las in his ear. He went rigid with a final exhilarating orgasmic shudder and completely relaxed under her. She laid her body down on his back, her fingers still pressed deep into his arse, sniggering that evil laugh in his ear.

~#~*~#~

Clair had fallen asleep in his armchair, exhausted after the long day's hard concentrated effort organising everything he had had to put in place. The firelight and candlelight flickered over him as he lay with his long lean limbs in his breeches and cardigan sprawled out. In Arianna's chair opposite him, Pava sat with his legs in green woollen hose elegantly crossed, looking through a book about hawking.

Arianna and Hanya sat at the table, going through a list of surgeons from the town which Arianna had drawn up. At the end of the table, Tarra sat turning over a hand of patience in the light of a branch of candles, his ear and his fingers bare of any ring and his saturnine face glum.

"So," Pava said, lifting his head from his book with a laugh in his green eyes. "el Gaiel and my sweet junior officer have not troubled to get up at all the day!"

"el Gaiel may be up," Tarra said with a filthy leer. Arianna sniggered then tried to give Pava and Tarra a reproving look. Hanya gave her a surprised and disapproving stare, Pava laughed and Tarra grinned.

The sitting-room door opened and one of the footmen looked in, negotiating his wheelchair carefully round the door jamb. Arianna got up and crossed the sitting-room with a swish of grey woollen skirts. It was Fiotr, the footman who had broken his back in action with Clair at Shier Bridge. Petra, the other footman who used a wheelchair, had lost the use of his legs in an accident in an overturned wagon. Fiotr said: "M'Lady, the Guard have sent to say they are ready for the Commander's inspection."

She looked sideways at Clair, deep asleep, his head turned into the wing of his armchair, his long lashes kissing his tanned cheek, his thin mouth just a little open, the incongruously elaborate gold earring dangling down his lean neck. She sighed, he had been so busy since so early. She was tempted to tell Fiotr that the Guard must stand down or stand to or whatever they did, or to ask Pava to take the inspection for Clair but she knew it was crucial that they be fully prepared when battle commenced. "I will tell the Commander," she said and Fiotr wheeled nimbly backwards out of the room.

She went over to Clair, Pava looked up from his book and said: "Wake him carefully, do not do it gentle."

"I know," Arianna said. She stood at the side of Clair's chair and gave his shoulder a firm brisk shake.

Clair started up in his chair, those heartbreakingly lovely slanted grey eyes flying open. He looked blankly at her, his mouth moving. He passed one hand over his tired eyes and smiled dreamily on her.

"My Lord, Fiotr has come to let you know the Guard are ready for inspection," Arianna said to him. Clair sighed and passed his hand over his eyes again. Then he stood up and snapped into attention, his tired eyes focussed, his lean body tensed for what must be done next. He turned to her.

"My thanks, m'dear," he said, his husky warm voice blurred with sleep. He put his hand up to the earring, it had irritated him where it had lain against his neck in his sleep, he took it out and turned to put it on the mantelpiece. He turned back and caught her arm and spent a silly wasted minute taking out the simple gold stud she was wearing and hooking the heavy earring in her ear. She giggled. Tarra watched them glumly, Pava looked fixedly at his book on hawking with a smile on his wide red mouth, Hanya looked politely away out of the window.

"My thanks," Arianna echoed teasingly, as she put her hand up to the dangling masculine earring - too big and elaborate for a woman, "my d-dear." She blushed as she stammered on the unfamiliar endearment.

"My Lady wife," he murmured with a grin. "I do like you to be well dressed." He pinched her cheek and laughed when she bridled and giggled like a schoolgirl then he went stumbling tiredly off through the castle corridors and the hallway stacked with stores to inspect the Guard.

~#~*~#~

Vadya and Tashka had squashed themselves together into an armchair with the remains of the box of chocolates and were driving away thoughts of war by talking about their childhoods. Vadya laughed to hear how Tashka and Clair had run away from court when they were ten and fifteen and how Tashka had moaned all the way back to the castle for cakes. Tashka's eyes danced to hear Vadya talk of sailing races in Port H'las harbour, dodging in and out the galleons. They lay in the warmth of the fire and the armchair and each other's arms, their minds drifting at ease, their bodies relaxed over each other's, occasionally putting a chocolate in their own or each other's mouths.

Then Vadya got up, tipping Tashka out of the chair onto her feet, chucked the chocolate box on the table and gave Tashka his hand. His face became intent with desire. She clasped her hand on his and followed him to the bed.

He sat down on the rumpled bedclothes, drawing her forward to stand between his legs and pressed his face between her breasts, his gentle strong hands massaging her buttocks and lower back. He kissed the softness of her small breasts, opened his mouth around one, flicking the nipple with his tongue. She laughed back in her throat, her fingers tangling in the big soft curls of his hair and caressing the nape of his neck.

Vadya pressed his face lower into her belly and lower still, parting her legs and kissing the inside of her thigh, licking at her. His fingers slid between her labia, stroked the curl of flesh, her clitoris, and she gasped, her knees buckled under her. Vadya swung her round and pushed her back onto the bed. He began caressing her vulva and her clitoris with his gentle fingers, with his tongue. The big soft muscle of the tongue came flicking at her clitoris, making the feelings start buzzing out in her loins, her juices start flowing. He pressed his tongue to her vulva, pushed in, pressed his tongue into her cunt. She started laughing, helplessly beginning the long slow thrusting movements of love-making up to his tongue caressing inside her. When at last he lifted himself away to put on a condom, she moaned and clung to him, making it difficult for him yet at the same time exciting him so that his cock became even harder. His fingers shook with passion as he fitted the condom on.

He turned in her clinging arms, taking his rigid hard cock and pressing it quickly into her eager yearning cunt, deep down into her. She gave a cry of passion, thrusting up to meet him, he held her close in his arms as he moved with her. Her blue eyes were lost in passion, staring at him empty of thought. She was crooning gentle noises in time with their movements. She was not even aware that she did so. The sounds she made kept him just on the edge of consciousness until orgasm began to build in them, he began to call out to her himself. A huge force flooded through him, all his muscles tingled with intense nervous sensation. He was aware of nothing but their two selves, rocking together; of the feel of her body against his skin, of the strong clasp of her arms around him, his around her; of his cock pressing into her warm wet cunt, her head lifting so that he suddenly pressed his big generous mouth to cover her rose-petal mouth, grunting with orgasm into her mouth; the sudden rush of blood and cum and semen and thrilling waves of passion that carried them away and then fell back, leaving them stranded in each other's arms as if they had been washed into a new world.

~#~*~#~

Vadya stepped out of the doorway into the pale morning light, the chilly autumn air. He paused, wriggling his shoulders sleepily and comfortably in his favourite old buckskin jacket. He moved slowly forward, still dreamy with sleep and sex and the warm bath Batren had brought to them. As he walked down the stairs from the veranda, he became aware of Pava's laughing face in the courtyard below. He stared coolly back into Pava's mocking green eyes.

Behind him, Tashka came whistling down the stairs, still adjusting a red silk cravat she had made Batren pinch from Vadya's wardrobe for her at the throat of her cream jumper. Batren had already moved in on her clothes, he was thrilled to have someone to care for who liked to dress well. They had spent quite five minutes that morning discussing whether she should wear her blue woollen suit or black breeches and a cream jumper so Vadya had managed to get away with his soft old buckskin which he loved so much.

Tashka paused on the step behind Vadya and raised a dark eyebrow at Pava. She was the same perfect young officer as before, a step behind her Commander: poised, elegant, cool-headed, warm-hearted. Pava looked at her tall lean figure and frowned curiously through his laughter, remembering what a heartbreaking beauty she had been at her wedding.

Vadya reached behind him and hauled her roughly to his side. He stepped out across the courtyard with her, giving Pava a casual: "Halloo," and leaning across Tashka's shoulder to whisper a rude story in her ear. She sniggered filthily as they strolled into the sitting-room, that same laugh that he had heard in his ear while she fucked him in the arse with two fingers. It made his cock swell to hear it even after the night and day and night of sex they had enjoyed. And her mounting him that morning before Batren brought the coffee and bath.