At Her Service (Swords of Passion) (9 page)

She oohed and ahed as he made soap suds, caressed her to make a lather and outlined her mound with his fingers. He could barely keep to his task, her cunny was so wet, so swollen and so red with want of him. But he held her down, kissed each bit of her lips he shaved then rinsed his hands to thrust his fingers inside her and give her some relief. She bucked high up from the bed and groaned loud enough to shake the rafters.

“Simon! Simon! Give me your rod!”

He looked at his throbbing shaft and bit his lip so hard he knew he drew blood. But he was determined to give her another new adventure that no other man ever would. “Patience my pretty.” He rose, hurried to his pouch, withdrew his pincers and emerald and another piece that he had bartered for, one night, years ago in
Acre
.

She watched him with half-lidded curiosity. “Hurry. How I need you.”

He bent to her and settled between her thighs. As before, he kissed her areolas, sucked them and licked them before he clamped the pincers to her rosy little buds. With a hand to her stomach, he gentled her, coating the emerald in her love juice. She squirmed and moaned and demanded he insert it in her ass. And he gave her what she needed. She gave a cry as he sat the green gem into her little hole and arched her hips up to him. “You make me mad. Kiss my cunny,” she demanded.

“I have something better, richer.”

“Agh,” she objected, wild with need, just the way wanted her for this next.

With an ease that astounded him, he sent the first stone of the long strand he held in his hand up into her succulent little cunt. “You are so wet, my sweet one. You take these like an eager lover.”

“I am,” she insisted. “Oh, Simon, what is this that fills me with smooth, round balls?”

He braced himself above her and took her lips in rich kiss. “Pearls. Each one perfection, as are you.” He seized her mouth again and pushed another small round stone up inside her greedy little body. And for each pearl, he gave her a kiss until at last the strand remained with half or more of the pearls outside her lovely cunt. The sight of her flesh adorned by pale white orbs enflamed him now, as he had known it would, lo those many years ago. He sucked in his breath and positioned his rod to possess her.

Beneath him, strengthened by raw need, she heaved like waves upon the shore. “Simon,” she whispered, “I am still empty without you inside me.”

And at her supplication, he grasped her thighs, parted her slick plump lips and carefully took hold of the loop of pearls.
 
Then he sank inside her to the hilt. The smooth, hot feel of her channel, studded with the pearls made them both groan in teeth-baring delight. At once, her walls pulsed around him in violent spasms and milked him mercilessly until, robbed of all control, he yelled again, a dying man in his own release. He had sworn only to take her, make her breed, make her safe. But in his claiming of her he had deceived himself. He had always loved her and so would he continue no matter time or cost or men who said him nay.

For with each mating, each loving moment, he had claimed her. Made her his more completely than ever he had fantasized. Removing his flesh from hers and the pearls as well, he sank to the bedding. Sighing, he released her tether, nestled her close and gave in to the euphoria and the restful assurance that now, every inch, every hair, every fold, every curve, every breath of hers inside and out belonged to him and him alone.

“Simon,” Elise pressed her mouth to his minutes, hours later, “Omar is at the door again.”

He raised his head and heard not only Omar’s knock but another at the inside door to the chamber where Katani kept watch over Alphonse.

He strode to the inner door first and gazed down at the little man. “What ails you, Katani?”

The mute dwarf motioned up the stairs to Alphonse’s chamber then plucked at Simon’s hand.

Naked, panicked, Simon took the winding stone stairs two at a time. Katani sped at his heels.

When he reached Alphonse’s bed, Simon halted. He had seen this look before on battlefields and in the filthy warrens of the Hospitalers inside the walls of
Jerusalem
, Rhodes and
Corfu
.

“Nay, nay!” Elise cried as she rushed around him towards her husband. She had thrown on her tunic, but her hair drifted about her face and form as she bent to the man who had been her master for twelve years. She rubbed his cheek and pressed her fingers to his nose. “How can this be? He was not so ill yet. Not on his death bed.” She sank to the bed, her tears coming silently.

And Simon knew she was right. When he had arrived here, when he had first seen Alphonse, he knew the man was ailing and had weeks at the least, months at most, to live.

Why would he die now? Sooner than he should?

Unless someone had hastened him along to meet his maker.

Chapter Seven

Simon strode forward. “Stand aside, Elise.”

When she blinked at him but complied, he tore the covers back from Alphonse’s body. The frail man wore his night linen, his thin legs spread askew on the bedding. Simon bent over him, cupped his head and turned him this way and that. No marks appeared on his face or throat. But Simon, knowing there were more ways to kill a man than to beat him, opened the poor man’s mouth wider and smelled his breath. No air came forth, but an acrid smell lingered.

Simon reared back and, with loathing for the deed so recently done, told Elise his finding. “Alphonse was poisoned.”

“Nay.” The shock sent her back a pace.

“I have no proof, save the fetid odour in his mouth. But he is gone by someone’s foul hand.” He spun to face Katani. “Did you see anyone come in here?”

The little man nodded. Then he made motions that two men had come, talked with Alphonse and bent over the bed.

“If ever I wished you had a voice,” Simon told him, “it should be now. What else?”

Katani scurried towards the door that led to the stairs and Simon’s chamber below. Then he made a few motions with his hands that had Simon scowling. “You saw this through the crack in this door.” He pointed towards the door to his own chamber, and Katani nodded.

And at that moment, a shouting match erupted in the hall.

When Simon opened the door, Omar barred the portal with arms spread wide, but there stood Phillip Crosby and behind him Cleve Faulk with two Atherton guards from the gatehouse. “What is amiss here?” Simon demanded.

“You!”
Crosby
pointed at him. “Tell your man to move from the door. I understand the Earl of Atherton is dead and by your hand.”

Simon lifted his chin to Omar to let
Crosby
pass the door. “How might you know that when we have only learnt it?”

“Cleve swears he saw you force the poison down the throat of the earl.”

Simon sneered at Cleve. “Do you now?”

Cleve gloated. “I do.” He gave a signal and the two guards seized Omar and Katani.

The serfs from the kitchen and the farmyard began to gather behind the Cleve.

Elise stepped to Simon’s side, having swept a mantel from her husband’s bed around her shoulders. “Cleve, unhand Lord de la Poer’s men.”

“Nay, my lady, I give the orders here.”

“You ungrateful dog,” she belittled him. “What gall to do this?” She spun towards the guards, noting their identities for the disposition of their miserable future. “Release those men, I command you!”

Simon stepped forward. “You act beyond your station, man.”

“My station has improved these many years. My Lord, the Earl ordered it.”

“He is no longer with us,” Simon shot back.

“I am the power here,” Elise strode towards Cleve.

He drew himself up in pride. “My lady, you went to the woods yesterday,” Cleve announced to all in a snake’s silken voice. “You visited Ulred, and we all know she makes poisons. Poisons,” he lifted a vial, “that she puts in little pots like these.”

The assembled servants gasped and nodded, eyeing Elise with suspicion.

Phillip Crosby stepped forward, and with a satisfaction in his countenance, he announced, “We have sent for the sheriff to tell him our tale. As the king’s justicar, he will see we have the evidence to make you both confess.”

Elise snorted. “You go too far, Phillip.”

From the corner of the hall, five
Crosby
men in mail came forward and took Simon by the arms. Phillip sneered. “Give him some clothes and throw him in the dungeon.”

Elise barked at him, “You dare to give such orders in my house.”

“I do, for your guards are tied up in their own house. All unable to help you escape.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “You would not have me when you could have saved yourself and your household.”

Cleve looked at one of the servant woman. “Take your lady to her bed and tie her to it.” He sent Elise a look of evil pleasure. “We will see how she likes it without a lover to warm her.” He glanced at
Crosby
. “Unless, of course, you would deign her fit to—“

Elise strained at the hands that held her now. “I would not permit either of you near me.”

Simon broke free of his captors and pushed her towards her backwards towards her alcove. But the guards snatched at him, pushing open the door he would have closed against them.

Crosby
yelled at his men, “For Christ sake, take him to the dungeon now! Get him from my sight.” He strolled closer to Elise and lifted her chin. “I will visit you soon, Elise. Once we have washed away all traces of de la Poer and confirmed there is no child of his in your belly, you may yet beg me to take you to my bed. But do know, you will now come not as my wife but as my whore.”

She spat in his face. “The king would never permit it. Nor would my father or my brother.”

He wiped away her insult with his open palm. “They are far away and can only learn weeks after I have plumbed your ripe cunt and made you moan for me alone.”

Simon struggled to remain in the hall as Crosby insulted Elise, but the numbers of
Crosby
’s guards waylaid him and he heard her reply, “I would rather die than let you lay a hand on me, you swine.”

The crack of
Crosby
’s hand against Elise’s delicate face had Simon’s tearing like an animal at his captors’ hands but to no avail. He trudged behind them to the guard house and the desperation of his and Elise’s loss.

* * * *

The endless days and nights in confinement in the bleak, stone-cold guardhouse were no torture compared to his worry over Elise’s fate. If she was with child and Crosby or Cleve hurt her, or if she was subjected to mating with
Crosby
, Simon agonised over what she might do to thwart them. For thwart them she would, he knew. She had been strong before he’d come to her, but since laying in his arms, she had blossomed into an Amazon queen. Now he grew crazed with hate that tore his heart to shreds.

One night in turmoil, Simon created such a ruckus that the guard on duty came to bid him be quiet. “Else
Crosby
’s men will come to beat me to submission, my lord.”

This was the first word anyone had dared speak to Simon, and so he tried for more. “Tell me, man,” Simon reached through the iron rungs of his wooden door, “what news of my two companions?”

“Gone, my lord. Escaped from Cleve and ran away like the wind.”

Simon grinned. Omar and Katani’s freedom gave him a spark of hope that some would survive this ordeal. Where they might have gone and how two oddities such as they might cope in this barren frozen land mystified him. But he had to ask, “And what of your lady Atherton?”

The guard glanced away in no hurry to reply. “
Ill
, my lord. Sick unto death. Bleeding, too.”

Simon stiffened, racked with agony. “Does
Crosby
beat her?”

“Nay, my lord. But I must not be caught talking to you, sir. I will get a lashing.”

Simon seized the man by his tunic. “I’ll tell no one of this, you can be sure. But what ails her? Why does she bleed?” he asked but feared he knew.

“They say she loses a babe, my lord.” The man gulped. “Yours.”

Simon released the guard and sank against the wall. “Christ. I’ve killed her.”

He roared in his grief and guilt. He had killed men, slaughtered them in the name of Christ to gain rocks of the
Holy Land
for his pontiff and his king. He had butchered men, women and children who stood in his path to gain a castle keep, a city wall or desert sands. Never had he wept for the blood he’d shed in those causes. But in the one true cause of claiming his beloved and freeing her from tyrants, he had gladly enlisted and fought. And now, he had failed.

At the thought of her death caused by the touch of his hand and the seed of his body, Simon recoiled and swore to the God whom he knew now had deserted him that he would find a way to destroy all who had abused Elise and used her to their own ends. Dedicated to finding the chance opening, the imprudent mistake, he sealed his mind from the agony of his loss and set his life in dedication to his survival and hot revenge.

The guards came with regularity to give him watery gruel. Why
Crosby
did not kill him Simon thought he knew. The fiend feared Elise’s father or brother might saddle their own retainers and beset the castle. But leagues away as the Cordeliers were, Simon surmised that Crosby feared more the sheriff, a friend of the one all feared if they were wise—John Plantagenet, King of England, Ireland and France.

Two weeks later, the sheriff arrived. Simon’s guard described him. Fat, short, bald, he had ridden in after the snow had melted and presented himself in the main hall to Crosby who now sat in the old earl’s chair. What was discussed there, Simon could not learn a word of it.

“You must ask the house. Your lady’s maid,” Simon suggested to the guard who by now was sympathetic to his cause and hated the cruelty of Crosby and Cleve to the serfs.

“She will not talk to me, my lord.”

“Why not?”

“She fears what Lord Crosby will do to her if your lady dies.”

“Oh, Christ,” Simon raked his hands through his hair and paced the earthen floor. He had to get out of here, see Elise, comfort her.

But how?

* * * *

The days crawled by. The sheriff did not come for him.

“He left this morning, my lord,” his guard informed him.

“And my fate?”

His guard pressed his fleshy lips together and shrugged. “I do not know, my lord.”

“You must help me escape,” Simon pleaded with the gaoler who had over time become his confidante. “I must go to the King who will reward you for this.”

“Oh, nay, my lord. Where e’er the king is, he cannot be here to protect me from the wrath of
Crosby
if I cross him.”

And so it went. Another snow came and left, then another. The skies cleared, brightened and the winds that wafted through the draughty stone walls turned to gentle, fragrant breezes of spring. ‘Twas on a day like that three horsemen arrived at the castle.

“Two wore the king’s livery,” Simon’s guard told him. “The third we do not know.”

“And what do the house serfs say these three came to do?” Simon asked because over time the household serfs had become loose-lipped about the comings and goings of their two oppressors, Crosby and Cleve.

“Come to parlay with the Countess of Atherton.”

“She met them?” Simon asked, his heart in his mouth that she was up and about for the first time since his capture and her illness.

“Aye, she did,” the guard beamed in pride. “She met them privately in her chamber. My girl says she wore a new tunic of red velvet adorned with a necklace of pearls and an emerald pendant.”

“She lives.” Simon pounded the wall in the joy of knowing she was well enough to greet guests—and that to do it she had worn his tokens of the love he bore her. That meant something, but only God knew what.

“The third man,” the guard told him the next day, “is her brother, the Earl of Cordelier.”

“And
Crosby
welcomed him?”

“As best we know.
Crosby
received him in private. No servants were permitted.”

“And Cleve?” Simon pressed the guard.

The guard smiled broadly as if he were a bear with fish in his mouth. “Taken away this morning in chains by one of the two men from the king!”

“By all the saints, that is the best news I have heard in months!” Simon grinned at the guard. Only later, when alone again, did Simon wonder why
Crosby
still reigned in the keep, and why he, himself, still rotted in the dungeon.

* * * *

Summer came with bright rays of sunshine that pierced the darkness of his cell. His eyes, unused to brilliance, shut against the glare when his friend, the guard, would enter with his daily ration of thin news and thinner gruel.

“What, ho, this is not oats, my man,” Simon objected one morning when he caught the aroma of roast pig and winter potatoes in his bowl.

The guard chuckled. “Eat up, my lord. You are to have more than that treat today.”

“Oh, what will you? Catch the new louse in my threadbare tunic?”

“Nay, my lord. You are to have a bath.” Two of his fellows struggled to bring in a copper hip bath.

Simon halted, one hand midway to his mouth. “My friend, last night I heard laughter amongst your friends. Did you drink too much beer?”

“Nay, sir. I have my orders to clean you up.”

“Why?” Simon did not believe in miracles. “I see no saints come to save me.”

“I do not know all, my lord. But late yesterday, one of the two retainers from the king returned here.”

“And?”

“He spoke with the Countess.”

“And
Crosby
? Where is he?”

“I have not been told that, my lord.” He lifted the wooden bars that had closed Simon in. “Come out, my lord, and step into this tub. I was given no time to get you ready.”