King of the Castle

"They were easily led," I said.

"Easily? Yes. They are naive village girls compared with the revolution's scheming leaders. They thought that capturing the castle and forcing your father to hand it over would make a real difference to the revolution. I had told them before they started work here that the castle was owned by the community. They didn't listen. They thought because your father was so respected in the village he must be the landlord. Your father is respected in the village because he ISN'T the landlord but the person who gave the village an asset. And now you, Stephen, are even more respected than your father. He gave them the castle. You saved the country."

"No. I didn't. Ruritania's politicians saved the country. All I did was point out the obvious."

"Sorry, Stephen. That won't do. We know and our political leaders know that it was you. They might not want to admit it in public but they owe you more than they can repay. So do we. You're now King Stephen and you'll have to live with that role."

I turned the crown around in my hands. It was a simple brass circle with cut and embossed decoration. I could imagine it as a King's day to day wear. It was light, simple, but obvious. Why was it in a sealed cupboard? I suppose I'll never know. I put it back on my head.

"OK, Sarah, if to you and the locals I am King Stephen, then King Stephen I'll have to be. But only when I'm here. I'm King of this castle, that's all, and you run this castle, not me."

Sarah hugged me before kissing me on both cheeks.

"You're still my Stephen, except when you're Madeleine's. We ought to join them downstairs, perhaps without the crown."

I took the crown off and handed it to Sarah before we went down to the basement.

+++

Pleasing The Bride

Petra met me downstairs. I could hear sounds of aroused and excited women behind curtained areas. Petra held a curtain aside. Madeleine was dressed in a bridal gown with a very wide skirt. The long integral train was part of the skirt. Katya was just tying the laces at the back of Madeleine's bodice. Beyond them was a small stage about table height with steps leading up to it. Madeleine was holding white fur-lined cuffs. She turned me around to cuff my wrists behind my back.

"You have to please Madeleine," Petra said, "and you can't use your hands. Stand there while we get Madeleine ready for you."

Petra and Katya helped Madeleine to climb the stairs to the stage. Madeleine stood at the back which pushed the front of her skirt forwards beyond the stage's front edge. The two women arranged the train to one side before lifting the front of Madeleine's skirt.

"Under you go, Stephen," Madeleine said, "and show me what you can do."

As I moved forward the skirt was lifted further to show that Madeleine's cleft was bare. I kissed it. As I did, the skirt was dropped behind me. Madeleine's hands outside the skirt pressed my face closer and directed me where to lick and where to tongue.

I had kissed Madeleine there before but I had never had such access under a dress. I used all my accumulated skill to arouse Madeleine. Soon she was panting and whimpering. Her hands were pressing harder against the back of my head.

I felt hands at my cuffs. They were removed and I could grab Madeleine's legs to give me leverage. Her hands lifted away. She didn't need to direct me now. Suddenly she arched in ecstasy with her first orgasm. I had to hold on as she writhed above me. She was squealing loudly as I brought her to peak after peak.

Eventually she slumped against me. As she did I felt movement around the waist of her dress. Suddenly a hooped petticoat that had been bunched up above my head slipped downwards. It was helped by Petra and Katya. Unlike the wider hoop that had been holding the bridal skirt as a wide cone it was almost straight. My head and body were clamped against Madeleine's pussy and legs.

Madeleine sat down. I had to comply with her movements and kneel. That slim petticoat was pulled further. The women slid the train of Madeleine's skirt under me and beyond my feet before folding it inwards from the sides and upwards from beyond my feet. I was wholly bagged inside Madeleine's skirt.

"Now the bride has you exactly where she wants you," Petra said, "and you are her prisoner."

Inside a heavy skirt and layers of petticoat I was running out of air. I felt Madeleine scrabble at her skirt to pull it up and off me. I was still held inside the slim hooped petticoat but I could breathe through that. Petra and Katya slid it up and I could stand up. Madeleine was looking at me as her petticoat and skirt were rearranged. I held out a hand to her as she dropped her feet to the floor. She looked wonderful as a bride and that gave me an idea.

I knelt down in front of Madeleine and took her hand.

"Madeleine? Will you marry me?"

Madeleine looked stunned. She lifted our joined hands and pointed to her engagement ring.

"I have already said I will, Stephen. We're engaged, or have you forgotten?"

I smiled at her.

"I know we are engaged. I am honoured and delighted that you said yes, Madeleine. What I meant was..."

I paused. Madeleine still looked puzzled.

"Will you marry me, here, in this castle, now?"

"Here? Now?" Madeleine queried.

"Yes, Madeleine my fiancée. Here and if not now as soon as we can get our parents here. My intended Best Man is already here. Your two bridesmaids are here. This castle does weddings. Why not have our wedding here?"

Madeleine sat down on the edge of the stage still holding my hand. I shuffled forwards so my head was against her skirt.

"Is it possible?" She asked.

Petra replied before I could.

"Yes, Madeleine, it is possible. The castle has a chapel and we are licensed for weddings. The priest can be here within an hour. For the civil part of the ceremony we need a village elder. Sarah can be that. She's done weddings before. After that? All that you would need is to send copies of the paperwork to the British Embassy in the capital. That would make your marriage legal in the United Kingdom too."

As Petra was speaking Madeleine's free hand was gently stroking my head.

"You really mean it, don't you, Stephen?"

"Yes, Madeleine. You're already dressed as a bride. If we wanted, you could be a bride for real in an hour from now. But I think we should have our parents here as well. They could be here in a couple of days."

Madeleine was still thinking. Katya added:

"Madeleine, if you are married here, you might need to think about something else."

"What, Katya?" Madeleine asked.

"If you are married in this castle, you will be marrying our King. You won't just become Stephen's wife. You'll be our Queen."

"Queen?"

"Yes, Madeleine," Petra said. "You will become Queen Madeleine. I'm sure we can find you a crown to wear even if we have to make you one."

"So, Madeleine," I said, "will you marry me here and be Queen of the Castle?"

Madeleine lent forward to kiss my head.

"Yes, King Stephen. I will -- if we can get our parents here."

"I'll send them an email. Friday OK?"

"Friday? Yes, Stephen, why not?"

"Once you've sent those emails you need to change," Petra said. "You have some folk dancing lessons in an hour."

+++

An hour later I had sent the emails and the six of us were in the Great Hall. The men were wearing lederhosen -- leather shorts with fancy braces. The women were wearing long circular skirts with an apron and embroidered peasant blouses. All of us were wearing boots. Six local women, including Petra and Katya, were dressed like the other women. Sarah was sitting down with a piano accordion.

The six local women demonstrated the male and female parts of a folk dance. As the 'men' in the centre jumped about with their hands in the air and sometimes slapping their thighs -- which wasn't very effective as the women slapped their skirts -- the women spun around splaying their skirts horizontally, showing long legged panties underneath.

The women circled three times before joining the men for a waltz in a circle. There were various figures as the men and women intertwined and then the first part was repeated with the women spinning around.

We were asked to try the dance. We three men didn't do too badly but the women couldn't get their skirts to splay correctly. After a quarter of an hour we were all laughing at their failed attempts.

Helen snapped at her husband James.

"You should try it," Helen objected, "it's not as easy as it looks."

"Why not?" Petra said. "We can find some skirts for the men to show you women how it should be done."

A few minutes later we were wearing skirts and aprons over our lederhosen. We failed to spin correctly and were even worse than the three women. James fell over, tripped up by his skirt. Helen thought that was a fair revenge. Petra whispered in Helen's ear. Helen nodded.

"Try it without the apron, James," Helen suggested. She untied the apron around his waist. He spun frantically but failed. As he stopped turning his skirt lashed around him and he staggered with dizziness. Helen grabbed his skirt, hauled it up over his head, twisted the hem and tied the apron around his head. He was trapped inside an inverted skirt.

I started to laugh at him but my laughter was cut short and Gary and I were similarly bagged in the skirts. Angela and Madeleine had been helped by the six local women. I flinched as Madeleine's hand cradled my erection through my tight leather shorts.

We were released a minute or so later and kissed.

"I think we'll assume you can't do the local dances," Petra said. "You can watch this afternoon, or dance at the edges. We locals are likely to be very enthusiastic so you could be safer well away from the groups."

That's what we did. At the afternoon party I wore my crown and sat behind a table on the dais at the end of the Great Hall. Madeleine was beside me and the other two couples were also sitting on the dais. We had jugs of wine and food on the table. At the beginning and end of each set of dancing the dancers bowed and curtseyed to me as their King. It was obvious that some of the couples were renewing relationships fractured by the women's former support of the revolution. Couples would drop out the dance sets and retreat to a dark corner for some kissing and cuddling.

Towards the end of the party I checked on my laptop to see whether I had any response from my email. I hadn't. I did have several emails from Ruritanian politicians thanking me for what I had done. I acknowledged them.

Sarah brought me a list of names.

"These people have just become engaged, or renewed a recently broken engagement," she said. "It would be good if you could congratulate them at the next break."

"Of course, Sarah." I replied.

The musicians stopped for a break and some wine. I stood up, clapped my hands and called for silence. The dancers gathered in front of the dais. In the local language I congratulated each engaged couple, calling them forward pair by pair. Two more couples asked to be added, so I congratulated them too. Gary told me in a stage whisper that he and Angela were engaged too. I announced that in the local language and in English. I was about to sit down when Madeleine tugged at my sleeve.

"You've had replies from our parents," she said quietly. "They're coming on Friday."

I turned back to the crowd.

"This Friday," I said, "Madeleine and I are getting married. Here. In this castle. You are all invited to our wedding."

There was a cheer. Sarah came forward.

"Congratulations to King Stephen," Sarah said, "and to Madeleine who will be Queen Madeleine on Friday."

That caused another cheer. Sarah picked up her piano accordion and started to play the Ruritanian national anthem. We all stood and except for my friends who don't know the local words, we sung loudly and fervently. As King, should I have sung? I think so. I am King of this Castle, not King of Ruritania which remains a democratic republic.

+++

We left them to continue celebrating. I was expecting the evening's Halloween Party to be an anticlimax. The men had been away and the women had been expecting to be involved with the revolution with us as prisoners.

We went for a walk outside the castle and particularly visited the gorge and its waterfall. Those who hadn't been to the castle before could see that there were many places we could visit within a few miles of the castle. The village and the outer bailey might be back to normal tomorrow except for a few hangovers.

Parade of the Ghosts

For the party I was dressed as the King and the others as Lords and Ladies. I underestimated the organisational skills of Sarah and the others. They had arranged many parties before. We would have a Halloween themed banquet with horrible-looking but tasty food, plenty of alcohol and the entertainment would include the castle's ghosts.

We sat on the dais facing the main area of the Great Hall. The ghosts would appear and disappear through the entrances to the kitchens. Their appearance would be aided by some projected computer graphics. The musicians who had played for the afternoon's party would be to one side of the hall. Although there was a minstrels' gallery above the screen it didn't have great acoustics for amplified music. There was a significant echo to any music played from the gallery. There might not have been when the Great Hall's walls were covered in floor to ceiling tapestries, but those tapestries had been long gone.

The ghosts covered the history of the castle and its region from prehistory to the middle ages. Many of them spoke rehearsed speeches, translated for us by Petra and Katya. After twenty minutes we could see that some of them were the same people playing different roles. There was a break in the performance and the participants came up on to the stage to meet us. The male ghosts kissed the women on the dais; the female ghosts kissed the men AND the women. After one lingering kiss Angela queried me.

"Stephen? I thought you said we could look but not touch? I'm not complaining. Gary might if he wasn't enjoying himself so much..."

A formerly headless nun was passionately kissing Gary.

"I said WE should look and not touch. It's up to them whether they touch us."

"Touch, he calls it," Helen objected as she ended yet another embrace. "They're doing more than touching."

"But I'm enjoying it," Madeleine said.

"So am I," Angela said. Helen might have agreed but she was grappling with a large nobleman who had an arrow apparently through his head.

Katya clapped her hands. The performers reluctantly left the dais. They seemed to have been enjoying themselves as much as we had. They went to stand in front of the screen below the Minstrels' Gallery.

"The next item is about our last King and should be of interest to our new King Stephen," Katya said.

A man entered dressed in half-armour. He was wearing a crude cardboard replica of the crown I was wearing. He was followed by four men dressed as knights. He walked forward halfway between his entrance and the dais.

"I represent King Oskar, last King of this realm," he said nervously.

"No you don't, young man!" A deep voice boomed and echoed from the Minstrels' Gallery.

A figure came forward wearing my crown. I stood up and bowed to him. The others on the dais took the hint. They bowed and curtsied to the man on the gallery. He bowed back.

"Thank you, King Stephen," he said, "I don't represent King Oskar. I AM King Oskar even though I'm long dead."

Petra and Katya were too stunned to continue the translation. They hadn't expected a real King Oskar. I whispered a translation to my friends as King Oskar spoke slowly and clearly.

"I was the King, the last King. Why was I the last? This realm was coveted by our neighbours. For generations my predecessors had played one neighbour off against another and fought invasions. But two of our Southern neighbours signed an alliance after a dynastic marriage. Those two became Ruritania. Two of our Northern neighbours were planning an invasion that we would lose. I consulted my council of nobles and we decided it would be better for our people if we joined Ruritania. Three countries allied together and becoming one country would stop the invasion. But Ruritania could only have one King, and that couldn't be me, as King of the smallest of the three."

King Oskar pointedly took off his crown. He put it down on the balustrade at the front of the Minstrels' Gallery.

"I became a Duke, a Duke of Ruritania, the highest rank of nobility below a King. I was known informally as the King Duke Oskar. In my part of Ruritania I was still their King. In the rest of Ruritania I was a Duke. My Coronation crown was placed with Ruritania's other disused crown jewels where they remained until they were looted in the early 19th Century by Napoleon Bonaparte. But..."

King Oskar grinned at us.

"...since I am a ghost, I can have a ghostly crown that no longer exists."

He lifted his hands to his head and placed on it a large ornate golden crown sparkling with jewels.

"This was the Coronation crown. As part of our traditions the King crowns himself. It is a relic of the conquest of this region by my ancestors. They established this Kingdom from a group of formerly antagonistic tribes. The first King crowned himself to show that he alone had made himself King. That you should do, King Stephen."

I was still frantically translating. King Oskar waited until I had finished.

"Please take off my crown for daily wear, King Stephen."

I took it off and put it on the table in front of me. King Oskar lifted the Coronation crown from his head.

"Catch!"

He threw it towards me. I caught it. How he threw something so heavy that distance I don't know but I had a massive crown in my hands. It was a crown that doesn't exist but I was holding it in my hands.

"Now, King Stephen, please repeat after me. I, King Stephen..."

"I, King Stephen..."

"By right of the will of the people..."

"By right of the will of the people..."

"Crown myself as your King."

"Crown myself as your King."

I put the heavy crown on my head.

"Musicians! The anthem." King Oskar ordered.

The musicians were startled. Their first few bars were ragged. Their conductor started them again. Everyone bowed or curtsied to me. At the end I bowed to them and to King Oskar.

"Thank you, King Oskar," I said, bowing again to him. The crown wobbled on my head.

"Throw it back," King Oskar ordered. "You can't keep a ghostly crown that doesn't exist. It was only used for coronations. You can put my daily crown back on."

I lifted the coronation crown off my head and threw it as hard as I could towards King Oskar. It couldn't possibly go that far. It did and King Oskar caught it. He put it down behind the balustrade, picked up the daily crown and we synchronised putting the crowns on our heads.

"I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of your evening," King Oskar said. "I'll return if you or my countrymen need me. You shouldn't. In King Stephen I have a worthy successor."

King Oskar stepped backwards into the gloom at the back of the Minstrels' Gallery. I bowed to him again as he vanished.

I sat down suddenly. What had happened? Did I imagine it? Apparently not. All those around me were as stunned as I was. I grabbed a glass of wine and sank it. Madeleine promptly refilled it. I stood up and raised my glass. The hall fell silent.

"To King Duke Oskar of Ruritania!" I shouted.

Everyone raised their drinks and drank when I did, saying "To King Duke Oskar of Ruritania".

I sat down again amid a buzz of conversation as everyone tried to work out what King Oskar's appearance meant. Everyone started drinking more. The appearance of a real ghost was unexpected and had effectively ended the party.