Copyright 1996
Revised 11/99
THE CRUSADER AND THE SLAVE GIRL
by Christopher Leeson
The girl clung stubbornly to the varnished doorpost and the knight,
growing exasperated, shoved her hard. She staggered into the room, then
suddenly spun and clawed his cheek. Cursing, the Frank twisted one of her
arms behind her back and half-carried her toward his bed.
The concubine struck the bedclothes face-first and furiously tore at
them, doing to them what she would have like to do to the man. The noble
then stood back a pace to catch his breath while the slave raged. "Let her
gnash her teeth with hate," he thought with amusement. Anger was the first
resort of the weak; each time a slave gave vent to it, it told him he was
the master. If she carried insoence too far, there was always the strap.
Nonetheless, the Frank didn't want to give his chattel too much
respite, and so he moved abruptly, catching the girl's beaded girdle and
pulling it sharply. Its tiny hooks burst, allowing him to strip away her
diaphanous harem skirt with careless ease.
"You pig!" cursed the brunette, striking at him yet again, but this
time he side-stepped and she missed.
The knight then seized her and threw her down. What sport a sport he
found it! Grinning, he seized her wrists and while the mismatched pair
struggled, thunder crashed above the towers of Belvoir Castle, and a rare,
cold desert rain slashed at its stony flanks like a camel whip. . . .
#
A little less than a year earlier, the Crusader Baron Simon
Saint-Mihiel had been climbing another tower, leaving his weary men-at-arms
struggling to keep pace with their energetic young master.
Gaining the upper landing, the Frank stepped warily into a circular
chamber which, the Crusader was now able to confirm, turned out to be only
a prison cell, its air thick with the odors of human captivity, and with
the acrid effluent from the fires now burning thickly around the courtyard.
Chains rattled and the knight turned en garde toward the sound.
He relaxed; naught but a nude, manacled girl in an alcove confronted
him. Also, he noted with equal interest, a second figure lay face-down in
the straw -- a white-haired male in robes of damask cloth.
Saint-Mihiel put his boot upon the back of the prone figure and jabbed
its ribs with his broadsword; the lack of response satisfied him that the
old man was indeed dead. He turned the corpse over with his toes and
observed the pearly hilt of a stiletto protruding from its breast.
But that was not all. Bending closer, the Crusader made out a
peculiar scar over his enemy's heart. It had the shape of a heathen glyph
and its fading announced that the sorcerer must have worn it for many
years.
Pagan witchery! The knight crossed himself to ward off baleful
magic and then scooped up the dagger as a trophy. Upon drawing it from the
corpse he noted the drops of blood running to its point. Clearly, the
master of Kala'at Sharwar was not long dead.
Standing, Saint-Mihiel sheathed his sword and reflected that this was
a feeble end for the notorious Muawiya al-Tariq, a wizard whose mountain
castle had defied his siege lines for so many weeks. The man had been
detested even by his own Moslem neighbors; he had kept no faith with their
God, they said, but instead worshiped the ancient images of vanished
deities -- demons already old before Joshua had destroyed Canaan and
smashed the blasphemies of its peoples' worship.
Just then Saint-Mihiel's men stumbled into the chamber; the baron
ignored them and turned back toward the chained girl. Though not tall, she
was full-breasted and sensuously-endowed. Her rich brown curls tumbled
over her shoulders in disarray, but when she shook her tresses away he saw
that her features were uncommonly handsome. This maid, he judged, could
hardly have been more than eighteen or nineteen.
Ill luck for one so young; the girl was collared as a slave and
chained by each wrist. The baron had given orders to take no captives, but
he found himself tempted to make an exception of this wench -- the likes of
whom he had not often seen in his twenty-nine years.
The beleaguered brunette returned his stare with eager hope. Her lips
pursed grimly when she realized that there was no pity in Saint-Mihiel's
hard eyes.
"Please, my lord," she whispered in the bastard mix of French, Arabic,
Greek, and Turkish that served the Holy Land as a lingua franca. Though
not friendly to foreign ways, the Frank had himself learned to speak it.
"Why are you here, wench?" Saint-Mihiel demanded.
"I am Rhea Artavasdos," she stammered; "My father is a gentleman of
Thessalonica. Pirates sold me into slavery. I am a Christian like
yourself -- free me!"
#
Tears of rage smeared the girl's face. Already having shed his tunic,
the Crusader held the girl pinned between the vise of his muscular thighs.
"I'll kill you!" Rhea yelled as she tried to drive her thumbs into his
mocking eyes. Growing irritated, the Frank slapped her and her head
lurched back against the pillow. He then reached for a supple cord which
lay coiled upon the nearby stand. "No! Don't!" the girl protested.
Unheeding, the Frank knotted the rope to the headboard and bound her
wrists; then, as the young woman struggled wildly, the knight pressed his
ale-scented mouth against hers. Disengaging, she spat in disgust, but her
captor persisted and tried to force his tongue betwixt her clenched teeth.
Simultaneously, the man's eager hands dug between her thighs; she winced at
the rough probing of his callused fingers. . . .
#
While Saint-Mihiel stood there admiring the captive, a small, bald,
fair-bearded European in a piebald cloak staggered into the cell. The heat
of the Syrian summer, the smoke, and the long ascent, had the man's cheeks
running with begrimed sweat. When the newcomer noticed the girl, he cast
off his woebegone look and raised his hands as if to stay a blow.
"Saint-Mihiel! For the love of God, let this one live! I will pay
good gold! Remember, Lord, you promised me first pick of your captives
here -- but your men are putting everyone to the sword!"
The nobleman growled, disliking the importuning little merchant.
"This place reeks of deviltry! Its every seed must be burned to ash. --
And you have no reason to complain, Marco Sciarra. You have made yourself
rich on the plunder of my victories, at least up to now."
"I pay good money for slaves, my baron! Do you think that I have come
so far, endured the lice and the flies, the heat and the dust storms, for
no more than a charnel of rotting corpses? I will pay thirty bezants for
this beauty -- even blemished the way she is."
"Blemished?" Not understanding, the Crusader took a second look and
realized that the slaver's professional glance had discerned something that
he had overlooked; there was a patch of inflamed skin on the girl's flank,
identical to the scar on the wizard's breast but much fresher.
Saint-Mihiel bent closer to trace its angles. The mark resembled a burn
yet did not resemble a brand. In fact, it appeared to be a character of
some kind -- meaningless to the warrior who could not even read his own
dialect of Gascon French. "What is this mark, slave?" he demanded.
"I am not a slave!" the girl contradicted him stubbornly.
The knight raised his gauntlet as if to strike. "Answer my question!"
The captive bent her head resignedly. "I do not know what it is,
Lord. Al-Tariq meant to sacrifice me to the strange gods he worshiped. He
put this mark on me with a burning salve -- but when you breached the
castle wall he took his own life in fear of you."
Now, again, the knight was met by eyes of desperate appeal. "I
implore you, Lordship, have mercy on a woman who has been wronged. Free me
and return me to my family."
"I would be a fool," the warrior answered unkindly. "I have been
offered thirty bezants!"
"No, my lord! I am a Christian!"
"You are a Greek, and so a heretic, and heresy is always worse than
heathenism! -- Besides, you are too beautiful to be anything except a
slave."
The young woman turned away and Saint-Mihiel glanced back at one of
his men-at-arms, ordering, "Break those manacles!"
A big soldier lumbered forward and detached the mace from his belt.
He thrust its thick handle through the iron ring which fixed one of the
girl's bonds to the limestone wall. Straining hard, the man threw all his
strength against the stubborn Saracen iron until a loud snap crowned his
efforts with success. Then he set to work on the moorings of the other
cuff.
Saint-Mihiel regarded the young squire at his side. "Tell the smith
to remove her manacles, but let her keep the collar," he instructed the
boy. "When the smith is finished, have my women prepare her."
"My lord!" protested the Italian merchant.
"I may take your thirty bezants yet, Sciarra; if the wench does not
please me tonight, she is yours."
That night, Simon Saint-Mihiel celebrated his victory with his
officers and afterwards, as the soot-soiled skies grew nearly as dark as
the soul of the Tempter, he raped the Greek girl until he was at last
overcome by an exhausted sleep.
#
The thunder rolled. The slave girl yelled in rage, twisting her head
from side to side and straining to tighten her vaginal muscles enough to
deny him entry, but all in vain. She called out to Heaven for respite, for
justice, but her appeal was drowned out by another jagged strike of
lightning, a dazzling flare which illuminated the sweating face of her
violator and cast his hard-chiseled features into stark highlights and deep
shadows, making him resemble in that instant a carved gargoyle poised
grimly above. . . .
#
Simon Saint-Mihiel lifted a hand against the glaring Syrian dawn,
still sleepily recalling the pleasures of the night; the Greek girl had
been clumsy -- like the virgin she claimed to be -- but the satisfaction of
having violated innocence had largely made up for her lack of skill.
The Crusader decided that he would keep his new concubine for many a
night like the last one. On the other hand, the Italian slaver was useful
should not be sent away angry and empty-handed. Instead of handing over
Rhea, the Frank would sell him another of the women he already owned.
Reducing their number would serve a positive good anyway; a wise commander
did not burden his army with excessive camp followers, thereby making
himself a bad example to his men.
Suddenly, annoyance banished the Crusader's euphoria; he was alone!
The foolish wench must have decamped while he slumbered! But despite his
anger, the act of sitting up alerted Saint-Mihiel to an unfamiliar weight
upon his chest. "Mon Dieu!" he cried as he touched what turned out to be
tender mounds of flesh. Still sleep-groggy, he did not understand, though,
dimly, he recognized these alien extensions for part of his own body!
His right hand flashed to his throat and again he alighted upon
something that should not be there -- a leather collar. "For the love of
sweet Jesus, what --?"
Now Saint-Mihiel became aware of a rawness between his legs and, when
he threw back the coverlets to examine himself, cried a garbled ejaculation
of horror.
He had been unmanned!
The Crusader scrambled to his clutter of looted gold, ivory, jewelry,
and enameled glass. He threw open a strongbox and, casting aside cups,
ornate implements, craters, and candle stands, seized upon a
brightly-polished sliver tray. This he lifted with shaking hands.
The Frank threw the reflector away with a shout of dismay; he had not
seen the mustachioed, sunburned face of Saint-Mihiel -- but, instead, the
olive-tanned features of Rhea Artavasdos!
All Saint-Mihiel's memories of terror, slaughter, and torture paled
before his present shock. Was he insane or drunk? He racked his brain
furiously to decide which. No, he was not! This was magic! The woman
whom he had foolishly spared had cast a delusion upon him!
Saint-Mihiel leaped over the litter of plunder and made for the tent
flap, by way of which he thrust himself outside into the intense light of
the mountain dawning. "Guards!" he shrilled, his voice high-pitched and
strange. "It's witchcraft! Sorcery!"
The begrimed, dust-powdered footmen turned cattle-like toward the
shouting -- and many a dust-burned eye brightened at the sight of the nude,
collared girl, standing by her master's tent yelling and waving with such
excitement. Ribald laughter and appreciative nods passed amongst the
breakfasting soldiers, all of them deeming that the lord was a lucky man!
Before Saint-Mihiel could say another word, a shadow fell darkly over
his olive beauty; he pivoted with a desperate appeal ready on his lips, but
it died instantly with the shock of recognition.
The thunderstruck Frank retreated back into the tent and the other
casually stooped to follow him. The man who pursued the Crusader had the
same face, the form, as Saint-Mihiel -- the Saint-Mihiel he had known
himself to be but the day before. The giant stood up to his full height
once inside the pavilion and stared down at the baffled knight with an
expression so cruelly intense that it went beyond mere mockery, contempt,
or even hatred.
Saint-Mihiel stumbled backwards over his mound of loot, wincing with
pain when something scraped his thigh. Looking down at the sore spot, he
saw the scabbing of a cursive burn on his hip. The baron finally
understood: The witch had possessed him and imprisoned his soul in her own
cast-off body!
The Crusader turned on the imposter and burst out with a string of
invectives: "Devil! Fiend! Demon from the Pit! Take away your spell!"
Then Saint-Mihiel dived for the cingulum on the central tent pole and
tore his well-blooded falchion from its scabbard. -- but as it rasped free,
its weight dragged its point to the earthen floor. Before the transformed
lord could bring the unwieldy thing up in his enfeebled hands, the other
Saint-Mihiel had seized him.
"Monster! Release my soul!" the girl shrilled as she struggled
against his overwhelming strength.
Calmly, to make a point, the giant squeezed her wrists with enough
force to send shots of burning pain up Saint-Mihiel's thin arms. Though
the heavy weapon fell from her benumbed fingers, the enchanted Frank struck
back with barefooted kicks and sinewless punches. Unharmed and
contemptuous, the false baron threw her down upon the bedroll.
"You are a tasty morsel," the pretended Saint-Mihiel mocked. "We must
waste no time in accustoming you to your new life."
As the girl watched, the giant commenced stripping off his tunic,
kicking away his boots. When the giant with Saint-Mihiel's face had
rendered himself nude, it was not his lust-swollen tool that shocked his
prisoner most; she beheld with terror the raw glyph incised into the man's
lower belly -- a fresh eschar which resembled the burn-mark on her own
flank -- and resembled also the faded scar upon the breast of the dead
sorcerer Muawiya al-Tariq.
Stunned, the Greek barely defended herself as the giant crushed her
against his chest and covered her face with violent kisses.
#
The rain beat hard against the master keep, slopping over the
window casements, pooling darkly upon the flagstones. To the Crusader's
surprise, the Greek in his arms was this time responding differently to the
gusto of his rape, making mewing sounds and moving as if to accommodate,
even to encourage, the rough back-and-forth motion of his assault.
After another minute it became undeniable; the girl had ceased to
struggle. At some level this annoyed the knight and he moved provocatively
to reawaken her outrage and defiance, pushing himself home again and again
with rude directness. He plumbed her innermost depths, but exacted only
her prolonged moan -- one which could have as easily been born of pleasure
as of injury. . . .
#
There was nothing, not even pain, shame, or fear remaining; Saint
Mihiel's mind wandered aimlessly, as if lost in an empty dream. Suddenly a
man whispered as if behind many folds of black curtain:
"You have caused me great loss, Saint-Mihiel, but Muawiya al-Tariq
will have again all that you might have taken from him."
Her dreaming self sought for the speaker, but Saint-Mihiel saw
nothing.
"How easy it would be to slay you," the dream-voice continued, "even
as you have slain my servants –- but it shall please me more to take
from you name, family, titles, wealth -- even all that you possess, -- and
let you live on knowing all you have lost.
"Yours shall be a life without joy and without hope, Saint-Mihiel.
You shall not give voice to the secret that you have ever been other than
what you seem to be. And in the course of months, when you have been
forced in the arms of a man for the hundredth time, your true punishment
shall only then begin. Fear it, Saint-Mihiel. . . .
#
Saint-Mihiel woke, blearily relieved that the horrors which she had
undergone had been only a nightmare, but she quickly realized that her
crotch was sore and, as she looked down at herself, saw the aching bruises
upon her limbs.
Now full awake, she looked wildly about. If all she had dreamed
were true, she had to escape and seek means to break the spell!
Suddenly, to the young woman's dismay, the tent flaps parted and
the giant reentered -- this time with Marco Sciarra waddling in train. She
called desperately to the little Italian, but lacked a voice -- only her
agitated panting reached the merchant's ears.
Sciarra surveyed the tell-tale bruising on the girl's body and smiled;
cruel treatment at the hands of the Frank should make her all the more
eager to go with him – and a willing slave is the best kind of slave.
"You shall have every bezant that I promised you yesterday,
Saint-Mihiel," he assured the false baron. "I think I said twenty, didn't
I?"
The knight shrugged indifferently. "Twenty is fair. But I warn you,
Sciarra, the wench is proud and insolent; she fought and bit incessantly.
It's only her intractableness that incites me to sell her. Tame her well
before you inflict such a hell-cat on a new master."
"If she needs strapping, she shall have it," promised the Italian
jovially, and then the little man's face assumed a stern professional frown
as he beckoned to the girl. "Come, pretty one. I am your master now."
Flabbergasted, the metamorphosed Frank tried to shout: "I am
Saint-Mihiel," but could not utter even the smallest whisper. Only now did
she remember the words of her dream, that she would have no power to reveal
her own identity. Urgently the captive tried to form other words which
might be of help, and one of these finally came forth:
"Mercy."
"Mercy?" echoed the impatient slaver. "You shall have mercy when you
have earned it! Now, get up!"
When the Greek beauty did not immediately obey him, Sciarra stepped
over the scattered bedclothes to lock his fingers around her upper arm.
"No more of this! Come or I will punish you!"
With a cry of dismay Saint-Mihiel struck, beating at the man's thighs
and knees. Used to such behavior from new slaves, Sciarra slapped her face
smartly and the girl fell back tasting blood on her broken lip. As she lay
there, her mind racing, she realized that further fight was useless, even a
mistake; if she went with the merchant she would escape the sorcerer, who
was much more dangerous. Maybe later she could find some means to tell
Sciarra the truth, or, if not, he might grow careless and she could
escape. . . .
As the merchant dragged his black-tressed prize toward the flaps,
Saint-Mihiel threw an anxious glance back toward the impostor.
Surprisingly, the tall man was displaying no interest in her fate; he was
merely staring into the silver tray, turning it this way and that, as if
seeing it for the first time.
The girl saw the master of Kala'at Sharwar no more.
#
The slave felt her inner body tightening, the carnal friction
increasing. Except that her hands were tied, she would have been holding
the Crusader's waist to reinforce his lunges with her own pulls. As it
was, the girl could only thrust her hips upward in harmony to the man's
rhythm. When she realized what she was doing, the Greek let out a gasp of
astonishment. In the midst of rape, the act had, in some mad way, become
something very much other.
But if it were rape no longer, what exactly had it become?
All of a sudden, the captive girl gave out with a scream and her body
went into throes; confronted by her wild response, the man could no longer
hold back -- his rushing essence came as a generous flood.
When the nobleman had rolled onto his back, the girl sank quietly into
herself, as spent as he. Dazzled, she lay, her lips parting slightly as if
to speak, but her intended words flitted away like wraiths in air.
The thunder had finally quelled and the rainfall had grown gentle, its
light drumming soothed the tired pair. The Crusader, Giles D'Avernec, had
reason to be pleased with himself; for months his favorite slave had
carried on like some wild creature of Nature -- defiant, untamable. For
sport the knight had tested her resolve to its limit and now knew that he
had finally overcome her will to resist.
He stared up at the beams, wondering at his sense of disappointment.
It was victory of a kind, but was it what he had wanted? Would an
obedient, cowed woman, even one of Rhea's beauty, please him better than
the spirited roan mare who had resisted his sharp spurs and harsh training
bit so determinedly? This e'en had been the end of something, surely --
but must it be only an ending?
#
For long hours Simon Saint-Mihiel, known to all but herself as the
slave girl Rhea, lay restlessly on a pallet in the women's quarter of
Belvoir Castle. The night breeze which had followed the rain fluttered the
curtains and fanned her sweat-dampened body as her heated passion subsided;
now she began to shiver in the draft and so drew a warm sheet over her
nudity.
Rhea was remembering the last terrible year, counting off her many
rapes one by one, each of them cut like a notch into her raw and bleeding
soul. It had been the false Saint-Mihiel who had first debased her, and
then it had been the turn of that fat swine Marco Sciarra. Each time she
failed to please the slaver, every time his pudgy hand had touched her, in
fact, she had been strapped like a dog.
For weeks she had been dragged from marketplace to marketplace,
displayed in finery, or, sometimes naked, before the wealthiest of the
Crusading gentry. Finally, the young Lord Giles D'Avernec had accepted the
Italian's high asking price and this new Crusader had taken Rhea home to
Belvoir -- and there raped her furiously the first night of their arrival.
In the early days, at least, the girl had fought back. Could she do
ought but resist? She had been a warrior-knight and though a harsh and
ruthless fighter, even an ungenerous conqueror, Simon Saint-Mihiel's heart
had always brimmed with stubborn courage and the pride of place.
But, as Rhea, Saint-Mihiel had found herself outmatched in a contest
unwinnable. D'Avernec was a fighting man as she had been, and doubtlessly
he enjoyed claiming victory in each new test of will. The girl would have
hated her captor even more, except that she understood the feelings of such
a man all too well. How could she not?
D'Avernec had frequently loaned her to his friends, his officers, his
guests, and sometimes even to his favored servants in a calculated program
for her taming. Rape had followed rape and, on some terrible days, it had
come more than once. As the loathsome count mounted, the girl had not been
able to forget the sorcerer's threat -- that her true punishment would
begin only with her hundredth violation.
Finally, this night, in the implacable embrace of Lord D'Avernec,
that which she had most feared had finally come to pass -- her hundredth
outrage.
Afraid of what Muawiya al-Tariq's curse might mean, Rhea had fought
D'Avernec as she had not fought back in a long while; but her last fight,
like every fight before it, had only served to excite and amuse him.
Now it had happened and she sensed that something profound had
happened even as he was in the act of taking her. Was she bewitched anew?
If now the sorcerer's full curse had claimed her, what did it mean? Would
her body, or her condition, change in some repellant new way?
Rhea touched her breasts apprehensively; sliding her fingers to her
loins she detected no alteration either in her manner of thinking or in her
person. Nothing had been different except --
The pleasure.
Until tonight, lying with a man had never been anything less than
repugnant, but when D'Avernec held her it had been as though her emotions
had finally gone into open revolt to claim something which her faculties
had tried to deny.
But what?
Thinking feverishly, Rhea realized that she had lost the sense of
odium that had always been part and parcel of submission. Where had it
gone, and if it were gone forever, what remained?
Rhea sat up, her fists clenched; she could not go on this way, but
what other way was there? Restless, the girl swung up from her pallet and
tiptoed through the perfumed darkness, at first not knowing what she
sought. But a moment later, finding herself outside the room where the
keeper of his lordship's women slept, she heard the matron moaning in heavy
sleep.
Moved by impulse, not thought, Rhea stepped through the curtains
and saw a vague outline of the slumbering woman. Unsure why she wanted to
disturb Tanah, the girl hesitated, some part of her desiring to deliver an
urgent message, but the rest of her being only wanting to retreat unseen.
Her heart won over her head and she took a faltering step forward to kneel
beside the slumberer's bed, as if to pray --
Rhea's eyes wandered in fascination to the orb of the full moon
which was beaming brightly through an arabesque grate. The lunar light was
fragmented into precious silver coins spilling across Tanah's bedclothes.
The quiet beauty of the moonlit chamber fascinated the girl and, as if
beguiled by enchantment, Rhea reached out to touch one of the moon-coins.
Tanah awoke with a start. "Who? -- Rhea? What?"
The younger woman startled; what could she reply? What reception
could she expect? These last months had not been easy ones in the women's
quarter, neither for Rhea nor for those who had shared it with her.
"You have been patient with me, Tanah," Rhea whispered hoarsely, "but
I have not been patient with you. I am sorry, Lady Tanah. You must hate
me." Heavy of heart, she bowed her head.
The elder woman sat up, puzzled. "I do not hate you, child!" she
exclaimed. "You are proud and brave, and this I respect -- but you have
not been wise. Your lot would have been much less bitter had you only
surrendered to your handsome young master long ago and permitted him to be
kind to you." She stroked Rhea's dark locks. "He is not a cruel man,
sweet child, but you have challenged him and such a one must win every
challenge. It is his way"
"I want to surrender, Mistress!" the girl asserted spilling out the
secret of her soul without thinking, but then, realizing the awful thing
which she had admitted to, Rhea's face grew hot. Fortunately, the darkness
hid her mortified flush from the harem-keeper's discerning stare.
"I don't understand, my darling. What troubles you tonight?"
"I --" Unable to form words, Rhea covered her face, ashamed of the
tears rolling from them. She had often shed tears of hate, of rage, but
tonight she was not possessed by such dark emotions. Why did these new
tears flow?
"Yes?" Tanah urged gently, drawing the girl's hands away from her
eyes.
"I was with -- the master -- earlier tonight," Rhea began haltingly.
"That you know, but -- but this time -- it --"
"It what, child?"
"It pleased me!" She choked on her shameful words and pressed her
face into the sheets.
"Why do you carry on so, fair one? What you say fills my heart with
gladness."
Encouraged, Rhea dared to raise her glance. "I -- I am unschooled,
Mistress. I know not what to do -- how to act with a man. I have learned
nothing because I would not permit you to teach me. I am sorry -- now that
it is too late."
The matron regarded her charge with amazement, then, like a doting
nurse, drew the girl close, kissing her lovely brown hair. "It is not too
late, my precious! I do not know what has come upon you, but I rejoice
that it has finally come. I and the other women will swiftly teach you all
that you must know -- how to adorn yourself, to dance, and to drive a man
mad with passion -- if that is what you truly desire."
Rhea stiffened. Was that indeed what she desired? Still infinitely
confused, that part of her in rebellion must nevertheless have wanted
exactly what Tanah promised. For what other reason would a slave girl
suddenly throw her arms around the older woman's neck and hugged her like
the grateful, needful daughter of a generous dame.
#
D'Avernec had feasted with his retainers that night weeks later,
celebrating good news from Jerusalem, and afterwards lay in his chamber
inebriated -- to Rhea's profound frustration. The young lord had applauded
her belly dance loudly that night and so she had expected to be summoned to
his quarters after the guests retired. -- But instead the passed-out
knight had to be carried from the table even before the festivities had
entirely wound down. Despite her disappointment, the dancer could not help
but smile; men ever behaved so and she didn't fault her master for it.
What other woman could appreciate men's ways and enjoy men's society
better? Her memory of a warrior's life was an essential part of her.
Rhea had returned to the women's quarters, a daring strategy forming
in her mind. To act it out, she had arrayed herself in a gossamer body
veil and carefully applied scent and paint. Then, at last, she had stolen
into D'Avernec's darkened chamber.
Breathless, the willful slave shed her light wrapping, and dropped to
her hands and knees to approach the bed like a cat intent upon trapping a
mouse. Drawing close, she groped for her sleeping master and touched upon
his bare thigh, his valets having removed his hose; she smiled, pleased
that they had served their lord so well.
The harem girl gently felt her way along his leg until she captured his
limp cock in her hand, then positioned herself next to him on the bed. She
was acting with alacrity in the full knowledge that D'Avernec would not
awaken easily after so much wine. -- And certainly Rhea didn't want him to
awaken, -- not yet.
Her eager fingers began massaging his soft tool, rubbing it
lightly, exercising her lately-learned arts to excite it. As her hands
worked dexterously, the sound of the knight's light snoring changed a
little, but he continued sleeping.
Rhea leaned forward, letting her hot breath stimulate the man-meat's
flaccid head, then began lapping the warm corona with her agile tongue.
Though heavily besotted, some part of Lord D'Avernec's faculties remained
alert and the girl's efforts began to have their intended effect -- the
dome of his cock beginning to swell, harden.
Rhea now commenced to tease its underside with the flat of her tongue
and the longer she played with it, the more it amazed her that her master
remained asleep. But she was up to her challenges as a concubine no less
than in deeds of war when she was a redoubtable knight, and so Rhea
continued her lascivious work. Before long, the girl had engorged more
than half of the man's lance and her saliva flow was cascading down its
length, while her nostrils flared widely, starved for air.
When D'Avernec's arms moved, Rhea supposed that her lord must be
waking at last. But he had made a reflexive motion only and continued to
sleep. Determined, the girl sucked even more strongly.
Her head bobbing up and down, Rhea's excitement waxed. Like a
sword-swallower admitting a blade, she finally conquered the entire length
of her prize, leaving no room for her fingers to hold onto. Only one other
harem girl in the castle -- she who had been most diligent in teaching Rhea
the art of love -- possessed the skill to do what her pupil had just
accomplished, and the Greek felt as much pride as when Saint-Mihiel had
unhorsed his first knight-opponent in tourney.
Rhea's long fingernails were digging into D'Avernec's hard bum while
her teeth nibbled the base of his cock-stem, hoping to stimulate her lord
with a little pain. Of a sudden, she felt a quickening between her jaws.
Mon Dieu! she thought. The knight would surely come before awakening
if she kept up her mischievous assault this way. Rhea had only wanted to
build D'Avernec's tower to overweening size and hardness, not cause it to
exhaust itself uselessly inside her mouth before he even knew who was
giving him pleasure. So she at once ceased her phallic worship and climbed
astride the supine knight, coming to rest upon his thighs.
In this commanding posture, Rhea took D'Avernec's erection into both
her hands and carefully guided it toward the desire-lubricated lips of her
restrictive cony. As she pushed its hugeness betwixt the soft, yielding
labia, the girl savored the initial penetration, and then skillfully
positioned her body -- up, forward, and down -- fitting the lord and master
of the herd snugly within her well-lubricated sheath. Once Rhea's pelvic
bones kissed his she knew that her master had given all that he had to
give.
The Greek enjoyed her situation for an instant and then with gritted
teeth began sliding back and forth, her mind swimming with vivid fantasies
of passion. She imagined herself a sacrificial lamb impaled by a priestly
blade, struggling for life upon the altar of some ancient fertility god --
a god like Muawiya al-Tariq might still yet worship. She imagined herself
a harlot of Babylon, in exacting service to Darius of Persia, facing the
bladed whip if she should fail to please in the slightest degree. The
exhilarated girl moaned and her skin prickled with the friction of
D'Avernec's inner presence.
A moonbeam won through the clouds and fell upon them both, allowing
Rhea to see her own reflection and be aroused with voyeuristic excitement.
Suddenly D'Avernec gasped and Rhea caught a flash of his eye in the
moonlight. Hurrying now, Rhea assailed him with brazen thrusts and the
knight, not yet fully awake, could not control his reactions in time. Rhea
was rewarded by a hot founting deep inside her.
The chamber echoed with her moans, and the slave now fell exhausted
across her master's body and for the first time Rhea had the presence of
mind to anticipate the strapping she might receive for assaulting her
master while he slept.
Well, if it was the knight's will to punish her, let him, she
thought. For Rhea, D'Avernec's displays of strength and virility had
become an intoxicant -- even when he was disciplining her with a leather
belt.
The maid recalled Muawiya al-Tariq's warning, but where was his mighty
curse? Was it nothing more than a spell cast over her heart to make her
desirous to give herself in love and seek for love in return? Was there no
more terror in the magician's mighty vengeance than this -- this exquisite
pleasure that she hoped might never end?
Was the wizard just a fool after all? Or did Muawiya al-Tariq, a man
who had lived for centuries by stealing the lives of others, believe that a
woman's surrender to a lover was her greatest denigration? The sorcerer
might have believed otherwise if he had spent more than just single a day
in the body of a female. Rhea laughed. It was a woman's laugh -- the
laugh of one who has realized a kind of victory over the most terrible of
trials.
The drink-dulled Frank was by now awakened enough to recognize her
ringing peal; he raised his head and muttered, "Rhea?" She who had been
Simon Saint-Mihiel smiled and reached out of the darkness to touch her
master's breast.
"It is I, my lord," the girl murmured.
The Crusader finally comprehended Rhea's prank; he puzzled about what
to do, but finally did nothing, except to draw the girl closer. She
nuzzled the hollow of his shoulder and gave out with a sigh of "Mmmmmm."
Pleased, the man pressed his lips into her scented hair and breathed
deeply. After that he simply held her -- until both of them fell asleep.
Hours later, but still in the dark, D'Avernec again awoke. By now his
mind had grown clearer and he turned toward Rhea, whose youthful outline he
could barely make out in the feeble starlight.
He marveled how his slave had changed over the past few months; the
suddenness of her metamorphosis had left him unprepared. Rhea had once
been the wild caracal, the desert-cat whose woman-like screams rived the
Saracen hills at midnight, but now the Greek beauty seemed more like a tame
kitten napping upon a soft cushion.
Here, surely, was a woman fit for a man! he thought. Rhea had already
demonstrated her ability to give a man pleasure. -- And the girl seemed
wise in other ways, too; she almost made D'Avernec believe that she
understood the travails of a man who must bear arms and he was often
surprised by her insights regarding military affairs. Sometimes the girl
made him image that he was talking not to a simple harem wench but to an
Amazon princess. He could not act upon the advice of a woman, of course,
but --
It occurred to Lord D'Avernec that Rhea was like this Syrian land --
sultry, precious, not easy to possess. He had had to fight hard to conquer
his fiefdom, and he had had to fight just as fiercely to conquer this Greek
beauty. But now the wars were over and both she and the land were
undeniably his.
D'Avernec remembered the day that he had left for the Holy Land. His
baronial father had warned him that a wise man does not fight merely for
the sake of fighting. There comes a time, the elder D'Avernec had advised,
when the conqueror must cease to make war and become the defender of that
which he has already won. Time is short, he had cautioned -- the vine must
be planted, the herd husbanded, the field sewn, the corn harvested. The
warrior must cease to burn and commence to build. In peace there may not
be great glory, but glory bears no fruit; in peace alone is there increase
and joy.
To think such mild thoughts after years of slaughter still seemed
strange to D'Avernec. He was, after all, under thirty and proud to be
known from Constantinople to Cairo as a redoubtable warrior. Yet how
easily these pacific musings came to mind when fanned by the cool drafts of
the desert night and comforted by the nearness of the girl who -- what?
What did she mean to him?
D'Avernec touched Rhea's cheek. Had not the time arrived that he must
start thinking ahead? It was said that a man without a family had no
future; death might come suddenly in this violent land, he knew. He ought
to find himself a wife before his God-granted time ran out. But what wife?
What woman might give him delight in his hours of rest? What woman could
discuss with him those weighty matters which brooded upon his soul? What
woman could be a friend to a man isolated by rank? What woman should give
him an heir?
The nobleman bent his head and kissed Rhea upon the temple; she
stirred like an infant in its crib but did not awaken.
Had the Crusader once supposed that he would lose interest in his
lovely prisoner after he had secured her surrender? He smiled at his own
foolishness; did the knight scorn his charger once he had broken it to the
saddle, or feel contempt for the steed as it bore him undaunted into the
press? No, he treasured it all the more.
The girl stirred and pillowed her cheek upon his firm pectoral; her
breathing, coming in little mews, tickled his flesh more lightly than a
feather. He again pressed his nose into her hair, inhaling its florid
scent. Life is so brief, he knew; it must be clutched to the heart while
one still has it.
Finally, the knight nestled down closer to his companion, his hand
placed at rest upon her hip. He then lay back, his eyes closed, thinking
warmly of what they had shared, of what they still might share -- until he
joined her in the blissful slumber that lovers share.
THE END