Sunblade Ch. 02

"Put that thing near my mouth and I will chew through it like the gristle on belly pork, if it means your death, white boy,"

Amaju shifted against the wall. It was clear he was becoming uncomfortable, although it was unclear if it was the broken leg or Ronco's taunts that was causing him the most discomfort.

"Anyway, fuck this game," Ronco said, seemingly ignoring the threat of having his cock chewed off, "enjoy the rest of your evening, cripple."

With that comment, he returned to his feet, almost in perfect choreography with the arrival of an approaching farm hand, who looked like a malnourished version of Ronco but with ginger hair. Amaju assumed that they were brothers, but had never cared to investigate further. They shook hands and then the ginger man handed Ronco a hand-rolled cigarette. Ronco thanked the man with a series of grunts, before he lit it off the ginger man's own rollie, which was already smouldering. Ronco took a few drags before looking at Amaju one more time.

"Come on, Ben, let's go get something to eat," Ronco said, exhaling a large puff of light smoke.

The two men quickly left the converted brewery barn, much to Amaju's relief. He did not expect them to attack, but having them around when he could not properly defend himself made him very uneasy. He shifted again, moving his back around against the wall, which was far more annoying and uncomfortable that the leg which lay out straight before him. The leg itself seemed to have gone numb, or his brain had adjusted to the pain. This did not remain the case however, if he attempted to move it; sharp stabs of agony would course up through his bones like electrical current.

It was at this thankful moment that Mrs. Flitt appeared before him, puffing as she arrived, and looking up into the other corner of the room, Amaju could see that most of the crowd that had assembled around Timmiffy Twelve-Teeth was now scattered to the wind, or to the four corners of the estate, at least.

"My lady, I seek not to offend..." he began.

"Offend me you shan't, Mr. Nangwaya, for I have seen many more moons in my lifetime than you could even imagine, my dear," Mrs. Flitt interrupted, "and I have dealt with generations of Bumese immigrants on this farm, and surprisingly, you are neither the toughest nor the rudest for the bunch, m'dear."

The ageing lady cracked a wicked smile, which Amaju had to admit was quite warming. He went to speak, but again he was interrupted.

"Where is that Ronco swine? Fat lot of good he's done to the swelling on this leg. I'll skin the boy, just give me half a chance! Anyway, I suppose this is the part where you are going to tell me that you will refuse the magic I am about to weave?"

Amaju's mouth opened and closed comically, like a fish.

"With generations of immigrant workers comes generations of immigrant superstitions, my dear," Mrs. Flitt explained, carefully getting to her knees, "but, I will tell you what I have told them all; magic, like the souls of men such as yourself, my dear, has many, many sides. It might not be as, how can I say, as black and white as good and bad, Mr. Nangwaya, but like the souls of men, where there are those who are pure of heart, with a bright, clean energy, and there are those who are dark of heart, with corruption in their veins, and there are also those, who make up the majority of men, who have some sort of jumble of the two. The grey, Mr. Nangwaya."

Two figures appeared to the side of the kneeling woman. As he digested Mrs. Flitt's words, it took Amaju a few moments to look up and see who else had approached him. A feeling that he had not felt for a while struck him instantly; the particular feeling that seemed to be a mix between a spring in his step and a punch in the stomach. This feeling had hit him tenfold, but not because Abdu Abayomi was staring down at him, clutching a half full wine glass packed with melting ice - but because by his side stood the lady of the house herself, the gloriously beautiful Ashlyn Armonde.

"My...My lady..." he spluttered, feeling pathetic.

"It's okay, stay where you are," she said softly, looking concerned, "Delorys will have your leg mended in no time."

She fell to her knees beside Mrs. Flitt. Amaju gulped nervously and tried to force his mind away from the memory of the last time her saw her on her knees.

"My lady, I must protest," Mrs. Flitt said to her employer, through Abdu's legs, "the barn floor is no place for the lady of the house."

"Please, Delorys," Ashlyn responded, "I am not afraid to lean in the dirt, especially when it an injured man is lying in it. This is my estate, and I am responsible for the health of these people. I shall lean with you, and we shall fix this man's leg."

Delorys Flitt chose to make no comment, instead she reached for the ice that Abdu was holding. She took it from him and placed it before her.

"This ice would have come in handy when I was putting Timmiffy's jaw back together," she said passively, digging into her pockets and again producing the small jar of purple powder.

"Lady Ashlyn," Amaju said, "I request that I am allowed to heal naturally, and not by means of the unnatural."

Mrs. Flitt sighed, undoing the lid of the jar.

"I've tried to tell him, m'lady, that I'll do him no harm."

She poured some of the purple contents into the glass of ice, and began swirling it around.

"Delorys is quite right, Amaju," Ashlyn said, reaching out as if to lay a hand on his leg, but then deciding against it, "her magics have assisted us for many years, I can assure you that there is no reason for you to fear them. Besides, I can't imagine Phillip will allow beds to be taken by injured men when so many want work. He would not be happy if you refused Delorys' healing."

Amaju could think of other things that Phillip Armonde would not be happy about, but he took a deep breath and let the bitterness slide away. He noticed that the cup of ice was now either steaming or smoking, and had mixed entirely with the powder placed within it, turning the whole concoction a bright pink.

"You need to drink this, m'dear," Mrs. Flitt explained, brandishing the smoking glass at him.

He looked to the elderly woman, then across to Ashlyn, seeing that her beautiful eyes were judging him, no doubt unable to understand his misgivings when it came to the use of magic. She had not seen what he had seen, with his own eyes. He looked up to Abdu, the tower of flesh that had also come from the Bumi islands.

"Just drink the fuckin' potion, man, and be done with it, eh?" he snarled, smiley sarcastically.

Mrs. Flitt sighed deeply.

"You are not in a game-house, Mr. Abayomi, nor are you in a tavern, although with the abomination that you have built inside this barn, one would be hard pressed to tell otherwise. The lady of the house is present, and I must insist that you watch your tongue."

"It is quite alright Delorys, as a girl I may have been thrown into silk sheets but I was not born behind them," Ashlyn replied, reaching out and taking the pink mixture from her servant. The ice had mostly melted away into liquid.

Taking a deep breath, she too brandished the drink at Amaju, as Mrs. Flitt had just done.

"Amaju," she breathed, batting her eyelids knowingly, "as your employer, it is my command that you do as your colleague Abdu suggested; please just drink the fucking potion."

Mrs. Flitt looked at Lady Armonde in disbelief. Adbu cracked up into laughter, slapping his thigh with a heavy hand.

Amaju looked at Ashlyn, who was smiling sweetly at him. He took the glass from her.

"Thank you," she said quietly, getting to her feet and taking a few steps back.

Mrs. Flitt cut her a strange glance before shimmying over towards Amaju's injured leg.

"So that I can prepare, magic-woman, how much is this going to hurt?" Amaju asked, considering the contents of the glass.

"Not so much as a prick of the finger, if you shut up and drink that potion!" She snapped, raising her hands out above his leg.

Amaju sighed heavily and raised the bulbous glass to his lips. Ashlyn and Abdu watched eagerly as he took his first sip. Much to his surprise, the liquid in the glass was hot, yet the glass felt cold in his hand. He felt nothing as it slid down his throat, yet it tasted like a bizarre mixture of roses and cream. On the second sip, he took much more.

"Keep drinking that, and don't stop until I say, you hear?" Mrs. Flitt barked.

He nodded, taking a third mouthful. Without warning, Mrs. Flitt plunged both hands down onto his leg, and he closed his eyes in an automatic reaction, expecting a torrent of pain to come shooting through his body, but it did not come. Opening his eyes, he could see that Delorys Flitt was gripping his leg both sides of the break, but he felt nothing except a growing warming sensation, both in his belly and in his leg. He could see that the mysterious Mrs. Flitt appeared to be muttering under her breath, no doubt incanting the words needed to complete whatever magic the potion had began.

There was an awful crack, but Amaju felt no pain. In fact, there was a body-wide tingling sensation that started in his toes and seemed to course through his entire being in waves. He also noticed that feeling was quickly returning, and that he could waggle the toes on his broken leg with no issue, and with absolutely no pain. The last dregs of the pink potion slid down his throat, and as if she had eyes in the back of her head, Mrs. Flitt also stopped her incantation.

"That should do it," she said, simply.

Ashlyn did a little clap.

"Now, you're leg might be healed, my dear, but you still need to rest up," Mrs. Flitt said to him, struggling to get to her feet. Adbu rushed forward immediately and helped the woman.

"Yes, yes, I'm alright, thank you," she responded, batting the man away in a fluster, "I'm not dead yet, thank you very much! If you can however, Mr. Abayomi, help Mr. Nangwaya to his feet, I would be quite grateful."

Turning to Ashlyn, she continued: "The day on the morrow is the day of Friday. Mr. Nangwaya should return to his work on the following Monday, purely as a precaution. I have said the same for old Timmiffy; even though his injuries were of a facial nature and not impacting his mobility, the bone-mold will only work with living bone in a home of flesh and blood, my dear, so I must try and re-attach some of his teeth to his mended jaw tomorrow morning, although I am unsure what the outcome of that will be."

Ashlyn curtseyed.

"Dolorys, I don't know where we would be without you," she responded politely, feeling bad for her earlier rebuff in the kitchens, "you are truly an asset to this estate."

"Yes, yes," she said again, seemingly unable to digest the compliment, "it is quite alright; just doing my job, m'lady."

With that, she was gone, wobbling out of the barn door in a flurry of skirts.

Ashlyn turned and looked at Amaju, who shook his head.

"What a day, this has been," Abdu sighed, laughing, "anyway, let's get you up big man; we'll get some beer in you and figure out how to throw you up onto that bunk of yours."

"Oh no you don't," Ashlyn interrupted.

Both men glared at her. Amaju was still on the floor, and Adbu had bent down to help him to his feet; his head twisted back comically as he looked up at the lady of the house.

"Amaju needs to rest properly, he will take the guest room tonight over in the house," Ashlyn said proudly, "Timmiffy too, can take one of the guest quarters on the admin block."

"Respectfully, my lady," Adbu began, slinging Amaju's arm over his shoulder and hurling him to his feet in one impressive motion, "but old Timmiffy Twelve-Teeth will be passed out on the bunkhouse floor within the hour. I'd imagine that the moment his jaw snapped back together, someone handed him a cup of beer."

She patted at her blouse awkwardly.

"Oh, well, okay," she began, "but that does not excuse you, Amaju. There'll be no bunkhouse for you this evening. Take him to the guest room please, Abdu. You can get there through the kitchens, there is a passage up into my quarters, and you can get to the guest room from there, they are on the same floor."

"M'lady, I cannot enter your-"

"It is okay, Mr. Abdu," she said clumsily, "the man of the house is not here. I trust you not to touch or steal anything - I will not entertain those thoughts. It is the quickest way to the guest quarters and we need to keep him off his feet as much as possible. Just try not to track any mud onto the carpets, please."

The two Bumese men looked at each other in bemusement.

"Go on," Ashlyn hurried them, "it is getting late!"

*

Mrs. Flitt lived near the gatehouse to the estate, but not in it. The gatehouse itself housed the bunks for the guards, as well as a lookout post that opened up over the main gate, which was manned twenty four hours a day. There were eight guards on the estate, who worked in shifts of four, either patrolling the perimeter or standing sentry on the lookout post.

Directly behind this structure lay a smaller, more homely building. This was the caretaker's cottage, and had been home to Delorys Flitt and her husband Jeremy for many, many years. Despite the cottage remaining the property of Phillip Armonde, they had very much made the house their own, and the interior, whilst modest, was warm, cozy and humble. There was a wooden porch deck that Phillip had allowed Jeremy to construct more than twenty years ago, where the couple had spent many long nights in the summer. In the winter, the stone fireplace created ample heating for the whole cottage.

Approaching the cottage now, Delorys could see that smoke was billowing out of the wide chimney, and she smiled to herself knowing that Jeremy would have the house looking pristine for her return. She imagined that he had not caught any word of what had happened at the barn, and would probably be wondering where she had been all of this time.

Due to the ruckus with the collapsing expansion tank, the usual dinner time had been pushed far back. Delorys had left the two kitchen hands to serve up the meals cold and deliver them to the men. She hoped that they would not receive too much grief for serving cold suppers, and she also hoped that after all the excitement today that the men kept their hands to themselves. The last thing Mrs. Flitt needed was more pregnant maids.

She hoisted her skirts as she clopped up the wooden steps of the deck, and then reached for the handle on the heavy oak door to her cottage. Twisting the handle, she pushed inwards, revealing the inviting interior of her own home. Jeremy and Delorys had employed a humble motif of carpet on stone; the bare stone of the walls and floors gave a traditional aesthetic, where the many carpets, rugs and blankets which lay over pretty much every surface added much needed warmth and comfort.

"Oh, hello dear, I was wondering where you had gotten to," the doddery tones of Mr. Flitt sounded from the furthest corner of the room.

Her husband was bend double over the fireplace, poking at logs with an iron rod.

"You won't believe the mess in that bloody brewery, Jeremy," Mrs. Flitt replied sighing, turning to close the heavy door behind her, "one of the struts collapsed and the tank came crashing down onto two of the lads. Luckily only some broken bones and missing teeth, for the most part."

Jeremy righted himself and turned to face his spouse.

"You put them boys right, hmm?" He murmured, walking slowly towards her. "You always do."

Mrs. Flitt allowed herself a small laugh.

"Boys?" She smiled. "One of them was Timmiffy Dalton, my love. They can't call him Twelve-Teeth anymore, either. I'm going to try and figure out how to put his teeth back in tomorrow, but right now all I want is a warm bath and a glass of wine."

Jeremy, a balding chap with wisps of grey hair still attached to the sides of his head, rounded on his spouse and embraced her in a brief hug. He was a thin man, but Delorys found his presence as warming as ever.

"By God, Timmiffy Twelve-Teeth has lost more of his teeth, eh?" he coughed. "I'm only surprised it has taken this long for the rest of them to fall out!"

He harrumphed noisily.

Next to the hearth in the main room lay a copper bathtub. It was steaming lightly, indicating that its contents were inviting and ready. Delorys quickly lost sight of the happenings of the day; that relaxing bath was the only thing that occupied her mind.

"Jeremy, be a darling," she asked, touching her man on his right shoulder, "can you run upstairs and get me a towel?"

He nodded in reply, and tottered off towards the oak stairs. The bedroom was the only other room in their cottage. They did not have a kitchen, on account that they mostly ate at the mansion throughout the day, so they slept in the bedroom, and everything else they did in the living room.

Delorys stepped up to the bath and undid her apron. She unwrapped it from her person and popped in on a hook above the hearth. Remembering her pot of fulax crystal, she quickly dipped into the hanging apron and produced the small jar of purple dust, placing it on the small table to her left. Next, she kicked off her shoes and bent to remove her socks. She reached behind her neck and undid the clasp of her blouse, pulling it up over her head and tossing it to the floor. She slid her petticoats down her frame and then kicked them to one side. Her bustier hit the floor next, allowing her massive breasts to hang free. Age had taken them south somewhat, but they were still full and voluptuous. Finally, she stepped out of her undergarments.

By the time Jeremy had come back downstairs, Delorys was sitting in the bath, fully immersed in the waters, which stopped just above her nipples. Jeremy sauntered into the living room and tossed a folded, clean towel onto the floor by the side of the bath. He continued on to the dresser, which was to the right of the fire. Delorys could hear him taking out a glass and then struggling to uncork a fresh bottle of red as the hot water took away the stresses of the day. Her head fell back and rested on the brim of the bathtub.

She closed her eyes and focussed on her breathing, feeling her breasts heave up and down with each cycle; the water level dropping and rising over her nipples as she did so. This action caused her to tingle, and set in motion feelings within her that she did not expect to feel at this present moment. The fires of lust crept into her neck, and down into her core.

She heard the clack of glass being placed on the stone floor, and knew that Jeremy had placed a glass of red by the side of the bath for her. And then, almost as if he was reading her mind, two soft, warm hands gripped her shoulders on each side of her neck; her husband began gently massaging her shoulders, working his way through her stress. She so much as melted in his hands.

"Jeremy, darling, you angel..." she more or less purred.

He worked his fingers into the tense flesh of her shoulders, delighting as she groaned softly under his spell. Jeremy was a thin, ageing man, but decades upon decades of manual work had left him with sinewed arms that were drawing from a deceptive core strength.

He stopped his work after a few minutes and submerged his hands in the bathwater, scooping up the hot liquid and drizzling it over his wife's shoulders, before returning to his task at hand. He had initially feared that his calloused, hardened hands may not be the hands that Delorys wanted on her back after her own hard day, but despite their interesting relationship, Mrs. Flitt had put this to bed some time long ago, explaining without an ounce of subtlety that she "liked it hard". Jeremy lost himself in the memories of the intense lovemaking that followed that particular evening, and he felt himself engorging slowly within the confines of his undergarments. He smiled to himself, kneading deeper into his wife's shoulder muscles.