The Crusader and the Slave Girl
by Christopher Leeson
The Crusader gritted his teeth as he dragged the girl through
the granite corridors. The Greek had always been a difficult
slave, especially during the first few months. But he had
thought that the strap had quelled her wild spirit. Now all
this shrieking and clawing! Well, let her fight; the young
knight wanted her body and he would have it!
The girl seized the door jamb of the master's chamber, like a
butterfly clings to a branch. The knight, growing ever more
angry, shoved her through by main force. She spun and struck
at his face with her hurting fingers. He was taken aback for
just an instant, then retaliated in kind, slapping her hard
and twisting her supple arms behind her back to force her
along.
The nobleman threw the girl across the silken sheets of his
Saracen bed. Let her rage, let her glare at him with hate.
He was master here, and the woman, whose beauty sent his
Latin blood racing, was only chattel. But such chattel!
Sleek like the panther she was, her buttocks full, hard, with
breasts large and round, their nipples proud and jutting.
Her legs were lithe, but her face -- aye! It was that face
which bewitched! She might have been one of the houris of
the heathen paradise that these Saracen poets praised so
fulsomely, or else some dark angel of temptation born of his
own Christian lore.
The Crusader saw that the girl had been well prepared by
Tanah, the keeper of the women's quarter. Her face was
painted, her flesh scented -- and her body glittering with
metal bangles, bracelets and strings of jewels. A loincloth
warded her modesty, but it only incited him to see her naked.
He swatted aside her resisting arms, tore away her beaded
girdle and, with it, the wispy garment that it held. Now the
slave's hidden curls were laid bare to his gaze and his lust
blazed as hotly as did the jagged spears of lightning which
crashed over the tower as if to mimic the girl's emotion.
"No -- master -- spare me!" Her tone was now almost abject.
The knight smiled. Her reduction to pleading told the lord
that the evening's struggle was almost won. And again the
thunder roared above the ramparts of Belvoir castle... .
#
A little less than a year earlier the Crusader Baron Simon Saint-Mihiel
had been climbing another tower, climbing so swiftly that he had left
his men-at- arms struggling to keep pace. But it had been a summer of
victory and he believed that his own crucifix-hilted sword was enough
to end the pestilential existence of Muawiya al-Tariq, the wizard.
Reaching the upper landing, the young knight found a door which he
kicked open with a heavily-shod foot, Balancing his shield, the Frank
stepped warily inside.
The room had two windows -- wrought-iron lattices which divided the
daylight into many stars and triangles. Though them the acrid smoke
from the burning out-buildings castle wafted strongly. The circular
chamber was only a prison cell, its air thick with the odor urine and
human waste. A length of chain rattled in the corner and the knight
turned en garde toward the sound.
He relaxed as he beheld naught but a girl with light olive skin
huddling upon the old litter, naked, her knees drawn up to her chin.
Her face might have been beautiful, except for the fear which showed in
it.
A link of chain was affixed to the iron collar locked about her slim
throat, Saint-Mihiel noticed, but his eyes slid beyond the prisoner, to
a second figure lying beside her face-down -- an old man in robes of
damask cloth.
Saint-Mihiel approached the figure warily. He jabbed his broadsword
into the prone man's back. The nobleman might as well have stuck his
blade into a joint of cooked beef for all the reaction that his wound
drew. The warrior nodded, satisfied, then clutched the corpse's hoary
shocks and raised its head. There was no doubt; it was indeed the
wizard whom he had earlier seen upon the ramparts. But now the man's
orbs were glazed and staring, his mouth slack. The conqueror frowned,
puzzling over the death of the enemy who had defied his siege lines for
so long. Then his glance fell onto the pearly hilt of a stiletto
dagger protruding from the old man's breast.
The Crusader, parting the corpse's robe, regarded the scar through
which the blade had been driven. Over the magician's heart was etched
the faded mark of a heathen glyph. As the Frank drew out the suicide
weapon, drops of thin blood ran to the point and dripped off. Clearly,
the master of Kala'at Sharwar was not long dead.
Just then Saint-Mihiel's men, puffing breathlessly, their armor
rattling, stumbled into the circular room. Saint-Mihiel rose, turning
away from his vanquished foe with a grimace of disdain. It was a
feeble end for the famous sorcerer. Wild talk had attributed many
unnatural lifetimes to his adversary. Even the native Christians of
the hill country had warned the Franks to shun the conjurer's domain.
They had said, too, that the sorcerer kept no faith with the God of the
Mohammedans even, but worshiped instead the pagan images of vanished
deities -- gods who had grown old long before Joshua had swept out of
the desert like a cleansing flame, to destroy the old races and smash
the idols of their worship.
Aye, Saint-Mihiel remembered well the stories told about the dreaded
wizard. It was said that even the might caliphs of old were fain to
leave him at peace in his own stronghold. But why did so many fear the
man so greatly? For all the rumor-mongering, the Crusader had found
Muawiya al-Tariq to be a commonplace foe. His men were slaughtered
despite their stubbornness, his castle had been breached in defiance of
its great strength. The sorcerer himself now lay in a wallow of filth,
displaying less dignity than might a living beggar.
Saint-Mihiel turned toward the chained girl, whose young body had
brought stupid leers to the bruised and smoke-stained faces of his
men-at-arms. The Crusader studied his fair catch with the eye of a
collector. Her thick raven hair fell in disarray, her features,
despite all, were handsome; she could have been little more than
nineteen. The baron had given orders to take no captives, to make a
clean sweep of the wizard's debased servitors, but before him crouched
a girl the likes of whom he had not often seen in his twenty-nine years
of life.
She was looking up at him in hope, but he felt no pity as he gripped
her hair and hoisted her to her feet. Now that the girl was standing,
Saint-Mihiel could see that her body was without scars or sores. A
fine catch, truly.
"Please, my lord," she said in the bastard mix of French, Arabic,
Greek, and Turkish that served in the Holy Land as a lingua franca.
"Why are you here, wench?" the knight 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!"
#
The rain lashed the stones of Castle Belvoir, and tears of anger
blurred the Greek girl's eyes as she fought to escape the Crusader's
bed. His hand darted out and dragged her back by the hair. Already
having shed his tunic, he held the girl pinned to the sheets in the
vise of his muscular thighs.
"No!" the slave protested as her sharp nails clawed for his eyes. But
she had only raked his cheek. Growing angrier, the Frank slapped her
again, harder this time. Her head fell back, her eyes closed tightly.
The Crusader shifted his position to seize both her hands. The girl
felt the bristly length of cord being looped around her wrists. "No!
Don't tie me!" she implored.
Unheeding, the Frank bound her skillfully, then knotted the rope to the
headboard. As the young woman struggled like a snarled fowl, the
knight pressed his mouth against hers. She tore her lips away and spat
in disgust but, taking hold of her throat to prison her face, he
persisted, kissing her like a thirsting man drinking from a fountain,
trying to force his tongue between her clenched teeth. She could smell
the strong ale upon his breath, could feel his calloused fingers
groping between her thighs, hurting her with their roughness... .
#
Rhea Artavasdos scanned Saint-Mihiel's grim face, as if desperate to
find just a hint of compassion there. At that moment, huffing from his
long climb, a small man in a tawdry cloak staggered wearily into the
cell room. Rhea looked anxiously his way. The heat of the Syrian
summer, the smoke and the long ascent, had his fat cheeks running with
dirty sweat. When the newcomer saw the girl, his sagging face cast off
its fatigue and he raised his hand as if to stay a fatal 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
of war -- but your men are putting everyone to death!"
"On my orders!" the nobleman growled. "This place is tainted and
unhallowed, Marco Sciarra. You have no reason to complain. You have
already grown rich devouring the leavings of my vanguard like a
jackal."
"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 storms, for a
charnel of rotting corpses? I will pay thirty bezants for this beauty
-- even blemished the way she is."
"Blemished?" muttered the Crusader, not understanding. He took a
second look and now saw that the slaver's keen glance had indeed spied
something about the girl that he had himself overlooked. There was a
patch of inflamed skin on her flank. He stepped closer to her to
examine it. Rhea shank back, but the Frank seized her willowy arm and
held her easily.
The mark on the Greek captive was identical to the scar on the wizard's
breast, but much fresher. It resembled a burn yet did not look like a
brand. It traced a character of some kind -- meaningless to the
warrior who could neither read nor write. "What is this mark, slave?"
he demanded.
"I am not a slave!" the girl declared stubbornly.
"You said you were sold as a slave and so a slave you are!" He raised
his gauntlet as if to strike. "Answer my question!"
The girl bent her head, resigned. "I don't know what it is, Lord.
Al-Tariq meant to sacrifice me to the strange gods he worshiped. He
put this mark upon my body to prepare me in some manner -- but, when
you breached the castle wall, he took his own life in fear of you." She
raised her gaze appealingly. "I implore you, Lordship. Have mercy on
a woman who has been wronged but has done no wrong. Free me and return
me to my family."
"I would be a fool. I have been offered thirty bezants!"
"No, my lord! I am a Christian!"
"You are a Greek, and so an heretic! If you are a true Christian, ask
God for mercy, not me!"
The Crusader was not thinking of the religion of priests just then, but
of the pleasure of men. Like many Latins in the East, the Crusader had
adapted to the luxurious ways of the Saracens. The Turks and Arabs
worshipped female flesh and traded in it like the Franks traded in hogs
and cattle. In Saint-Mihiel's own camp he had two Arabs and one
Turkish girl, as well as a Circassian of blond loveliness. He had
captured, bought, and sold many other women before them. But the best
of them had hardly been more beautiful than this Greek wench, with her
virgin breasts and sleek olive body.
"You are too beautiful to be anything but a slave," he told her.
The young woman buried her face in her hands. Saint-Mihiel glanced
back at one of his men-at-arms. "Break that chain, Lothair!" he
commanded.
The big soldier clumped forward, then thrust the thick handle of his
mace thorough the iron ring which fastened the girl's collar to the
limestone wall. Straining, the man threw all his strength against the
stubborn Saracen iron, until a loud snap crowned his mighty exertions
with success.
Saint-Mihiel picked up the fallen chain and handed it to another of his
men, his young squire. "Tell the smith to remove her collar," he said,
"and have my women prepare her for my bed."
"My lord!" protested the Italian merchant.
"I may yet take your thirty bezants, Sciarra. She may please me enough
to keep her -- but if she does not, you may have her with my
blessings."
That night Simon Saint-Mihiel celebrated his victory beyond the stench
of the slaughter by feasting with his officers. Afterwards, as the
smoke-soiled skies grew dark, he raped the Greek girl -- and well.
#
The thunder rolled. Her wrists bound to the bed, the girl
could do nothing as the Crusader pushed her thighs apart,
bruising her flesh as she resisted. He forced her limbs to
spread more and more, until her muscles stood out from the
straining. The nobleman now moved slightly, and she felt him
bring his hot masthead to the dark curls of her pelt.
"Aaghh!" she yelled, twisting her head from side to side,
trying to make her vaginal muscles too tight for him to
enter. All in vain, as the Crusader's lance easily forced
her womanly lips to part.
The girl's entire being was quivering with hate as the knight
watched her tender womanhood accepting his forced entry. He
could even see her shuddering clitoris standing defiantly
erect against the larger weapon which was carrying all before
it.
The Crusader plunging forward and down, caused his captive to
cry out in pain. His phallus, like a mighty battering ram,
swung back and forth into the breech which it had made. The
girl felt her thighs being forced ever father apart, and she
cried out to Heaven for mercy, for a little respite, but her
appeal seemed rejected as another roar of angry thunder
drowned out her mews.
The hard and repeated assault of the man's weapon caused her
buttocks to tense and her legs to begin kicking. Ignoring
this, the knight calmly advanced and retreated with all his
considerable strength, determinedly sawing away at her
burning flesh.
The slave girl opened her eyes as another deafening crash
sounded, as a dazzling flash lighted the intense face of her
violator. It cast it into terrible highlights and deep
shadows, like the visage of Satan poised above her... .
#
Simon Saint-Mihiel came out of a deep slumber, lifting a hand against
the light of the bright Syrian dawn. He sleepily thought on the
pleasures of the night and of the Greek girl's body. She had been
clumsy -- like the virgin that she had claimed to be -- but her beauty
and firmness of flesh had made up for her lack of skill. The Crusader
had decided that Sciarra's silver must be damned; he would keep the
female -- for many another night like the last one. But the Italian
was useful and should not be sent away empty-handed. He would sell him
another of his women. The nobleman had to, if he would make room for
the Greek. He did not intend to drag his army down with excessive camp
followers.
Suddenly a spark of annoyance banished the Crusader's euphoria. He
realized that he lay alone and should not! The foolish wench must have
slipped away while he had slumbered! Saint-Mihiel sat up and looked
around, over the clutter of loot which filled his tent. Well, she
would be brought back soon enough and learn the lesson of the strap!
His slave Ayida had been like her at the start -- like a wild mare
unused to the bit and the spur, until he had broken her. Now she was
as eager to please as the tame palfrey which --
Saint-Mihiel, in rising, felt a sway of unfamiliar weight upon his
chest and glanced down. "Mon Dieu!" he cried as his fingers fell upon
the mounds of flesh that now hung there. He touched them; they seemed
as large as the hills over Kala'at Sharwar and they were part of his
body! Breasts.
"For the love of sweet Jesus, what --?"
Then the Crusader beheld the hands that had touched the breasts. They
opened easily at his will, but he had never seen such hands before --
at least not at the ends of his own wrists. They were his own, but not
his own. They were small, their fingers long and tapered, their nails
filed sharp --
Now Saint-Mihiel's motions made him aware of a rawness between his
legs. He threw back the coverlets and cried out. He had been
unmanned!
The Crusader leaped from the bed and scrambled to the largest clutter
of gold, ivory, jewelry, and enameled glass. He threw open a strongbox
and, casting aside cups, ornate implements, basins, and candle stands,
seized upon a brightly polished sliver tray. This he lifted to his
face and opened his eyes to his own image.
The Frank threw the reflector aside like a thing accursed. He had not
seen the hard, mustachioed, and sun-burned face of Saint-Mihiel, but
the olive loveliness of Rhea Artavasdos!
All the horror of blood, slaughter, and torture that Saint-Mihiel had
known before paled against the terror that now clawed at him. Was he
insane, was he drunk and in delirium? He turned furiously. No! This
was magic! The woman whom he had foolishly spared had cast a delusion
upon him! He now swore to kill her! Kill a witch, they said, and all
her glamours must vanish into the darkness of Hell with the sorcerer's
black soul!
Saint-Mihiel raced on bare feet and ducked through the tent flap into
the oppressive glare of the mountain dawning. "Guards!" he shrilled,
his voice sounding high-pitched and strange. "It's witchcraft!
Sorcery!"
The dust-streaked, breakfasting footmen turned with surprise toward the
lord's pavilion. Many smiled admiringly at the nude girl standing
there in such excitement; laughter and nods passed amongst them.
Before Saint-Mihiel could say another word, a shadow loomed at his side
and he swung toward it in desperate appeal, but his thin voice died as
he recognized the giant's face.
The Frank retreated back into the tent and the other stooped to follow
him. Dumbly Saint-Mihiel stared at what seemed to be his own
large-than-life Doppelganger. The man entering the pavilion was the
same in face, the same in form, as Saint-Mihiel had been but the day
before. The giant, now fully inside, stood up to full height and
folded his mighty arms, staring down at Saint-Mihiel with a look which
evoked emotions that went beyond mere amusement, hatred, or contempt.
For some reason Saint-Mihiel became aware of a sore spot upon his flank
and, looking down, he saw the inflamed flesh and the scabbing that
etched a cursive mark. It was the mark he had seen in the flesh of
Rhea Artavasdos. The baron looked up, finally understanding. The
witch had possessed him and imprisoned his soul in her own cast-off
body! The mark was some sort of devil's sign used in the sealing of
the spell. For an instant the ensorcelled knight reeled, ready to
fall. Then the giant reached out a hand and the Crusader leaped back
with a string of invectives:
"Devil! Fiend! Demon from the Pit! Take away your spell!"
Instinctively, the girl dived for the weapon belt that hung upon the
central tent pole, tearing the familiar broadsword from its scabbard.
But as it rasped free, it fell to the floor, almost too heavy to lift.
Before the transformed lord could bring the unwieldy thing around, the
other Saint-Mihiel moved in swiftly, trapping the feeble hands that
held the blade.
The girl, firmly in his grip, cried out, "Monster! Free my soul!"
The giant squeezed her wrists, sending streaks of pain up her arms,
shaking the heavy weapon from her benumbed fingers. The enchanted
Frank kicked impotently with bare heels and rained punches that did no
harm. With the strength of a warhorse, the false baron threw her back
upon the bed.
"You are a tasty morsel," the pretended Saint- Mihiel mocked as his
victim lay distraught and dismayed. "Accustom yourself to a new life,
my maid."
As the girl watched, the giant stripped off his tunic and his boots.
His great organ was already swollen with his lust, she saw. But it was
not that which terrified Saint-Mihiel, for as yet she could not
comprehend what fate it presaged for her. What instead filled the girl
with a clawing horror was the sight of the raw and bleeding glyph
incised into the lower belly of the giant -- the same accursed mark
which was now burning her into her own flank, and which had been an old
scar upon the breast of the dead sorcerer Muawiya al-Tariq.
Stunned, the Greek barely defended herself as the giant gripped her and
crushed his bewiskered mouth against hers.
#
The rape was a hard one, but this time, to the Crusader's
surprise, the slave was responding.
The hard rain beat against the masonry, slopping over the
casement, pooling darkly upon the flagstones. The girl had
ceased to struggle thought the pummeling of her loins did not
slacken. She now, knew that screaming and fighting would do
no good. Nor, strangely, did she wish to scream or fight any
longer. As if by instinct, an instinct very new to her, she
now wanted to save her strength, her breath, for that which
was coming.
The Crusader pushed his throbbing cock home again and again.
Its great reach ever sought for the back of her vagina,
making her wince at what had become merely physical pain...
.
#
In a vast sea of blackness, Saint-Mihiel seemed to drift alone. There
was nothing, not even pain, shame, or fear; her mind wandered adrift,
as if lost in an empty dream. Suddenly she seemed to hear a man
whispering through folds of intense darkness:
"You have caused me great loss, Saint-Mihiel, but Muawiya al-Tariq will
have again that which you would have taken from him.
"How easy it would be to slay you, as you have slain my servants. But
I have lived a thousand years, Saint-Mihiel -- time enough to learn
that revenge is a more pleasing wine if drunken slowly. Instead of
your life I shall take from you all that you cherish. I will have your
name, your family, your titles, your wealth, your strength, your
virility, your freedom, and your pride. By my spell, you shall be
denied the power to voice to any other person who or what you once
were. I also shall place upon you this curse: When you are forced as
a woman for the hundredth time, the man you were shall be vanquished at
last, and your true punishment shall only then begin. Fear it,
Saint-Mihiel... .
#
Simon Saint-Mihiel woke. She thought that she had just torn free from
a nightmare, but then she touched herself and cried out. It had been
no dream!
The slave girl looked fearfully around. Her crotch was sore from the
brutal use she had been put to by the giant and there were bloodstains
on her inner thighs. She covered her face with the sheets, but shame
instantly gave way to desperation. She had to flee before the sorcerer
came back. She had to be free!
Suddenly the tent flaps parted. The woman gasped. The giant had
returned and, behind him, Marco Sciarra waddled, also grown to gigantic
stature. The bewitched Crusader tried to cry out to the Italian, to
warn him that an imposter walked amongst them, but she had no voice and
only her agitated panting reached the merchant's fat little ears.
Sciarra looked at the captive stretching out her arms in wild appeal.
He noticed the blood and smiled, supposing that the rude Frank had been
hard on her. Good! he thought. The Greek should now be all the
happier to go with him. "You shall have every bezant that I promised
you yesterday, Saint-Mihiel," he addressed the false baron. "I think I
said twenty, didn't I?"
The knight shrugged indifferently. "Twenty is fair. But I warn you,
she is proud and insolent. She fought and bit incessantly, until I
grew tired of her. She must be well-tamed before she will ever be fit
for the bed of a new master."
"If she needs strapping, she shall have it," promised the Italian.
Then he beckoned to the girl. "Come, wench. I am your master now."
Flabbergasted, the metamorphosed Frank tried to shout: "I am
Saint-Mihiel," but could not manage even the smallest whisper. Then
she tried to form other words and one of these finally came in a little
mewing voice:
"Mercy."
"Mercy?" replied the merchant with a shake of his head. "You shall
have mercy when you have earned it! Now, come!"
Sciarra strode toward the girl. She huddled against the pavilion
canvas. The slaver stepped over the bed clothes and locked his fingers
around her upper arm. "No more of this! Come or I will punish you!"
With a cry, Saint-Mihiel struck at the man's thighs and knees.
Annoyed, Sciarra lashed out with the back of his hand. The girl fell
under the blow, her eyes closed, the salty taste of blood on her broken
lip. She felt like a child in the merchant's grip as he jerked her to
her feet. Overcome with horror, Saint-Mihiel made no more attempt at
resistance.
As the merchant dragged her to the flaps, Saint- Mihiel threw a dazed
glance back toward the imposture. He was not looking after her --
indeed, he seemed to no longer care about her fate. He instead was
picking up the silver tray that she had earlier dropped, touching the
face reflected in it. Then the girl was pulled from the tent into the
painful light of day and Simon Saint-Mihiel saw the master of Kala'at
Sharwar no more.
#
The Crusader felt an ache building in his ballocks; he
gripped the girl's shifting hips with his crushing strength.
He could feel her shuddering, from her raven tresses to her
small bare feet. She felt different, as if her body no
longer screamed protest against her violation, but, instead,
savored the experience. Yet the man cared not what she felt.
His own need was being satisfied, and that was all that
mattered.
The slave felt her inner body tightening up, making it more
difficult for the man to move inside her, increasing the
already intense friction. The effect was astonishing. Had
her hands been free, she would have gripped his hips to
reinforced his thrusts with her own pulls. As it was, the
girl could only lift her pelvis upward in rhythm, to meet his
downward thrusts, hoping that she might increase the
penetration, if only a little. Increase? Was that what she
wanted now? Incredibly, in the midst of her rape, the act
had ceased to be rape.
But what had it become?
Whatever she might call the thing that she was experiencing,
her excitement was building very quickly, building into a
desperate pressure that needed release. She wanted that
release, sought to find it and surrender to it. To --
Suddenly, like an assassin striking from the shadows, it was
upon her, an orgasmic seizure that tore through her being
with the power of a trebuchet. The lightning from Heaven
pealed around them, this time with an explosive power that
made the strong castle tremble. The girl gave out with a
scream as her entire body spasmed.
And neither could the man hold himself back any longer. With
a moan in his throat, his rush came. He filled the slave
girl's womb with the wild flood of his essence.
Now, at last, both of them had reached the point of
exhaustion. The girl lay back quietly, spent. The nobleman
withdrew his softening cock and sank down upon the pillow.
The captive rolled her blood -shot eyes his way. Her lips
parted as if to speak, but she had no words.
The rain now fell softly outside, soothing the man and woman
within. A shower would water the fields, the man knew, and
awaken the seeds drowsing in their dark furrows, bringing new
life and plenty to his land.
The Crusader, Giles D'Avernec, felt pleased with himself. He
sensed that matters would be rather different between master
and slave from this night on. They had vied for more than
three seasons, and he had finally conquered.
Had that been what he had been seeking? Would a dull passive
woman, even a beautiful one, spreading her legs meekly to his
commands, bringing her tender mouth to his masthead at his
bidding please him more or less than had the spirited,
black-maned mare who had struggled so bravely against his
sharp spurs for these many months?
The Crusader wondered.
#
For long hours Simon Saint-Mihiel, who for almost a year had lived the
life and identity of the slave girl Rhea, lay restlessly in the women's
quarter of Belvoir Castle. The sweet, fresh drafts which followed the
rain storm breathed life into the curtains and fanned her nude,
sweat-dampened body. Shivering, she drew the sheet over herself.
Formless thoughts mocked at her and her emotions were hot implements of
torture. At last she choked back a sob.
Rhea had counted off her rapes as she had been subjected to them,
scoring each of them on her raw and bleeding soul like notches cut into
the hilt of a sword. The false Saint-Mihiel had ravished her, then it
had been the turn of the fat Marco Sciarra. And each time she failed
to please the slaver, which was every time that he had touched her, she
had been strapped.
For weeks the merchant had kept her as chattel, displaying her,
sometimes in finery, sometimes naked, to the wealthiest of the
Crusading gentry. Finally, the young Lord Giles D'Avernec had accepted
the Italian's high asking price. This new Crusader had taken Rhea to
his castle of Belvoir and raped her that same night.
In the early days, at least, the girl had fought back hard, despite
certain punishment. She had been a knight and though a harsh and
ruthless one, Simon Saint-Mihiel had always been full of stubborn
courage and pride of place.
But as Rhea she had found herself in a war that she could not win.
D'Avernec was a warrior, too, and doubtless enjoyed his inevitable
victory in each new test. The girl might have hated him more than she
did, except that she understood the feelings of such a man. She
understood because, once, those feelings had been very like her own.
Painful recollections swam in Rhea's mind like nimble minnows, too
agile to be caught and killed. Since he had owned her, D'Avernec had
frequently loaned her to his friends, his officers, his guests, and
sometimes even his favored servants. On some days she had been raped
more than once. As the terrible count mounted, the girl could not
forget what the sorcerer had threatened during that first night of her
womanhood. Finally, this night, in the arms of Lord D'Avernec, she had
been violated for the hundredth time.
Afraid of what Muawiya al-Tariq's curse might mean, she had fought
D'Avernec as she had not fought him in a long while. But like her
every fight before, this one, too, had been useless.
But now, if the sorcerer's curse was upon her, what would it mean?
Would her body, or her condition, change in some terrible new way?
Rhea felt her woman- flesh wonderingly. She found herself unable to
detect any change in either her mind or her person, or even her state.
The only thing that had been different through it all was --
The pleasure.
Rhea had been a woman for almost a year, but had never felt like a
woman before. She had never before known such a sharp, torturous
pleasure. It was as though her body had suddenly rebelled against her
mind, forcing it to bend to a new sway, own a new sovereign.
As she lay there thinking feverish thoughts, Rhea realized that she had
lost the sense of repulsion and shame that she had always felt when
contemplating the bed of D'Avernec or his fellows. She clutched at the
blankets around her dismally. But this dismay quickly passed.
Rhea sat up, a strange determination taking hold. She could not go on
the way she had. She could no longer fight to defend that which had
long since been taken from her. But if she was not what she had been,
what in fact was she?
On a sudden impulse, the girl rose from her couch and tip-toed through
near-darkness, through the gauzy curtains of the alcove where Tanah,
the keeper of his lordship's women, lay in heavy sleep. Rhea knelt
beside the woman, hesitating to wake her. She looked up at the moon
shining through the arabesque window grate and at its grim smile. The
moonlight was spilling in the form of precious silver coins over
Tanah's bed. As if living in a dream, Rhea reached out and touched one
of them.
Tanah awoke with a start. "Who? -- Rhea? What?"
These last months had not been easy ones in the women's quarter, not
for Rhea, not for those who shared it with her. "You have been kind to
me," she began haltingly, "but I have not been kind to you. I am
sorry, Tanah. You must hate me." Words deserted her and she bowed her
head penitently.
The elder woman sat up, sleepy and puzzled. "I do not hate you,
child," she said. "You are proud and brave, and this I respect. But
you have not been wise. I have hoped that you would one day soon
surrender to your handsome young master and let him be kind to you."
"I want to surrender, Mistress," the girl confessed without thinking.
Then, realizing what she had said, her face grew hot with a flush that
the darkness mercifully hid from the older woman.
"I don't understand, my sweet. What troubles you tonight?"
"I --" Unable to form words, she covered her face.
"Yes?" Tanah urged gently, drawing away the girl's hands away and
stroking her tear-slickened cheek.
"I was with the master tonight," Rhea began. "That you know. But you
do not know how much it pleased me when I was taken." She choked,
overcome with shame.
"Why do you carry on so? What you say pleases me."
Again the younger woman gathered her courage. "I -- I am too ignorant,
Mistress. I know not what to do. I have learned nothing during all
the time I have been with you. I am sorry."
The matron looked thoughtfully at her moonlit visitor. She then drew
the maid close, kissing her neck through her dense ebony hair. "I do
not know what has come upon you so suddenly, my lovely one, but I am
glad that it has finally come. I and the other women will gladly teach
you all that you must know -- to apply paint and the scents, to dance,
and to drive a man mad with passion, if that it is what you truly
want."
Excitement fluttered inside Rhea's breast like a songbird in a cage of
gold. She wrapped her arms around the older woman with a murmur of joy
and gratitude.
#
D'Avernec had feasted with his retainers and now lay drunk. He had
seemed pleased with Rhea's belly dance. The girl had hoped that her
young lord would summon her to him after the feast, but the knight had
drunk too much and had been carried to his chamber alone. Despite her
disappointment, Rhea could not help but smile. Men were like that.
She appreciated their ways and enjoyed their company. How could she
not? Had she not been one of them herself?
Rhea had returned to the women's quarter after the feast, a plan
forming in her mind. She had arrayed herself with a gossamer body
veil, had applied scent and facial paint as she had learned to do from
her sisters in bondage. Then the plotting slave had stolen to
D'Avernec's darkened chamber. Moved by desire, the girl now dropped to
her hands and knees and approached the bed slowly, like a cat stalking
its prey. At the side of the bed she reached out and groped for her
master. His strong, thick thigh was hairy and bare. She was pleased.
He had on no hose.
Rhea slid up next to Lord D'Avernec and gently took his limp cock into
her delicate hands. She knew he would not awaken easily after so much
wine. Satan! She wished that he would! But she was determined that
when he did awaken, it would be to the most sublime of pleasures. Her
nimble fingers began massaging his soft tool, rubbing it, wanting it to
become the mighty sausage that she loved to taste.
As her hand fondled his quickening phallus, the sound of his snores
changed a little, but he continued sleeping.
Her fingers surrounded the quiescent flesh as she leaned forward and
let her hot breath flow over its flaccid head. Her mouth opened wide
and began lapping the warm corona with her tongue. Though his
conscious mind was heavily besotted with wine, some part of Lord
D'Avernec must have remained sensible because Rhea's effort began
having its effect. The dome of his cock began to swell, becoming more
and more solid, hardening until it reached its full length, much longer
than the measure of the girl's hand from heel to fingertip.
Rhea's tongue licked her lord's scepter down to the testicles. These
she tickled with her tongue as he slept on, blissfully unaware of the
wonders taking place in his body. The cock had by now become a thick-
stemmed instrument of pleasure, and the girl gripped its base tightly
with her left hand, cupping his stones with her right. Slowly,
carefully, her lips slipped over the shuddering head of D'Avernec's
mighty weapon and she began teasing the vein-knotted underside with the
flat of her tongue as the knob slipped between her lips, raking her
bottom teeth. Her tongue gyred, rubbing against the ultra-sensitive
surface of his fleshy truncheon, nearly a third of the entire length of
his organ having slid past the carmine circle of her lips.
The longer she sucked him, the more astonished she became that he
seemed unable to wake up. Even so, her love-starved lips continued
their careful work. Now Rhea had more than half of the throbbing cock
engulfed. Saliva cascaded down its length, making room for more of the
flood welling warmly in her throat.
The slave girl strained, jamming the Crusader's meat deeper and deeper
into her mouth until her tongue was pressed flush to the bottom of her
oral cavity, until she could feel the other's flesh intruding into the
ring of her gullet. Her nostrils flared, as if more air was needed to
feed the blazing furnace of her lungs.
Feeling his arms move, Rhea thought that her lord must be waking. But
his was a purely reflexive motion as he continued to sleep. Her lips
pursed and she sucked more carefully, but more strongly.
The knight's body continued to react. Rhea began to grow encouraged;
her head bobbed up and down. She let her master's tool slide down into
her throat, like a sword-swallower engorging a blade. Finally, she had
the entire length of it between her lips, leaving no room for her
fingers. Her hands once again touched his testicles and squeezed them
like precious jewels. She let half of his length escape her and then,
bobbing her head up and down, exciting his flesh as her mouth continued
to savor the taste of him. Her long fingernails now dug into the hard
cheeks of his bums while her teeth bit into the base of his cock-stem,
thinking to stimulate her lord with just a little pain.
Mon Dieu! she thought, feeling the beginning of a throbbing between
her jaws. The knight was going to come very shortly if she kept up her
mischievous assault. Rhea could not wait for that. She needed his
manly tower to be hard enough to fill her, not limp from having
exhausting itself uselessly in her mouth. She ceased her phallic
worship and climbed up on the bed, straddling his hips with her knees.
In position, Rhea took D'Avernec's erection into both her hands while
continuing to tease it with her fingers. She moved it toward the
lubricated lips of her small cony and pushed the blood-swollen corona
through the soft labia. She savored the feel of its passage with a
deep sigh. Then, pressing her body toward his pelvis, she felt the
master of the herd smoothly sliding inside her, plunging into her
tightness like a rabbit into its burrow, driven by her gentle forward
surges until her outer labia kissed his hard groin and was forced to
stop. She imagined that she felt his organ pressing against the very
portal of her womb.
Rhea gritted her teeth and began ramming her hips back and forth with
more vigor. She imagined herself like the sacrificial lamb impaled by
a blade, struggling for life upon the altar of some ancient fertility
god, a god of the king that only one like Muawiya al-Tariq himself
might still yet worship. How deeply the knife had sunk into her being!
She moaned, feeling D'Avernec's heavy flesh flex thickly inside her,
stretching her tissues.
The slave felt a stirring amid the tautness of her interior and she
began rotating her pelvis, sighing and gasping as her vaginal walls
were stroked and rubbed by his velvet-headed polearm.
A moonbeam entering the chamber from a nearby window fell upon them
both and Rhea was able to see her herself in a mirror. She could
imagine that she was spying upon another master with another mistress.
She gazed at the wanton female in the mirror, beguiled by the beauty of
her breasts and limbs, her lascivious movements, feeling almost like a
man again.
Suddenly D'Avernec gasped under her; he clenched her waist in his
powerful grip in reflexive reply. She saw the whites of his astonished
eyes blinking in the moonlight. Hurrying now, Rhea excited him with
her brazen pelvic motions. Not fully awake, the knight could not
control his bodily reactions. She was rewarded when she felt his rush
come deep inside her, the hot liquid burst that she had so determinedly
sought to call forth. The chamber echoed with the moans of her
release, and of his. The pleasure of their mutual orgasm banished
Rhea's momentary illusion of being a man and amazed her with the
immediate reality of womanhood.
Rhea fell exhausted across her master's body. Only now, with her lust
tamed, did the slave pause to think of the strapping that her
presumption might have earned her. Well, if so, let it be, she
thought.
At that instant a voice inside Rhea's mind recalled Muawiya al-Tariq's
curse. But the fear of unknown things had fled away and a new insight
had replaced it. Was this, then, the greater punishment that the
sorcerer had decreed for his enemy? Was it no more than that she
should have a change of heart, become desirous of yielding and
pleasing, of loving and seeking for love? Was there no more terror in
the magician's mighty spell than this?
Was the wizard just a fool after all? Or did Muawiya al-Tariq, though
he had lived for centuries by stealing the lives of others, still
believe, as so many men believed, that a woman's surrender was her
greatest denigration? The sorcerer might have thought otherwise had he
spent more than just single a day in the body of a woman himself.
Rhea laughed softly at her final victory over her would-be tormentor.
It was a woman's laugh. The drink-dulled Frank beside her recognized
the sound and raised his head. "Rhea?" he muttered. Rhea smiled as
she felt her lord turn toward her. She reached out and touched his
muscular flesh.
"It is I, Master," the girl softly murmured.
The Crusader blinked, understanding Rhea's prank now, but he was not
yet capable of doing more than drawing the girl close. She nuzzled her
face in the hollow of his shoulder, giving out with a sigh of "Mmmmmm."
They slept afterwards, entwined and contented. But, hours later,
D'Avernec awoke, his mind having grown clearer. Rhea still slumbered
next to him, her cheek pillowed upon his firm pectoral, her breathing
coming in little sighs and mews.
How she had changed over these past few weeks! the Crusader thought.
Her strange metamorphosis had come with such dazzling swiftness he had
been left unprepared for it. Rhea had once been like the wild caracal,
the cat-beast whose woman-like screams rived the Saracen hills under
the blood-red glow of twilight. But now she seemed more like a tame
kitten napping upon a cushion, waiting to be awakened and played with.
The knight was coming to enjoy her company more and more. Here,
surely, was a woman fit for a man of action. So knowledgeable in the
erotic wisdom was she! She seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of a
male body and of what gave it pleasure. And the girl seemed wise in
other ways, too. She instinctively understood the travails of a man
who must bear arms, while expressing insights regarding military
affairs in terms so cunning that she had surprised him. He could not
take the advice of a woman, of course, but --
It occurred to the lord that Rhea was like the land. The land was a
fair one, but not easy to possess. He had had to fight hard to conquer
the land, and hard to conquer the girl, but now both she and it were
finally subdued. D'Avernec's baronial father had warned him just
before he had sailed for the Holy Land that a wise man does not fight
merely for the sake of fighting. There comes a time when the conqueror
must become the defender of what he has already won. The vine must be
planted, the herd husbanded. The field must be sewn, the corn
harvested. The warrior must cease to burn and begin to build, he must
not go forth in search of foes, but stay at home and protect the people
pledged to him. In peace there may not be glory, true, but in peace
alone was to be found joy.
To be thinking such mild thoughts after years of slaughter seemed
strange to D'Avernec. He was, after all, still a young man and proud
to be know from Constantinople to Cairo as a redoubtable warrior. Yet
how easily these peaceful musings came to him in the cool drafts of the
night as he lay awake, comforted by the nearness of the girl whose warm
exhales gently fanned his breast.
D'Avernec touched Rhea's face. Maybe it was time to think about the
future. A man without a family had no future. He should find himself
a wife. But what woman should he take? What woman should bear his
child? The nobleman bent his head and kissed Rhea upon the cheek. She
stirred but did not awaken.
Only a few weeks earlier, the Crusader remembered, he had wondered
whether he would lose interest in his fair prisoner once 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, feel contempt for a
mighty steed as it bore him in the charge? No, he treasured it all the
more. The knight had not thought about women in those terms often, but
Giles D'Avernec was young and still seeking his wisdom.
Now the man settled back, touching his nose to Rhea's hair, enjoying
the florid scent of it. His eyes closed, he lay quietly beside her,
his hardness pressed against her softness, his hand upon her waist,
until he joined his woman in the peaceful sleep that lovers share.
The End