Athelnia

Three months has now passed since that fateful day when I first stared down into the throng of people amassed for the auction of captured prisoners in the town square. That town lies half a days travel from the castle that is now effectively my home. I recalled seeing the beautiful face of Lady Athelnia Schranzenberg among that assembled crowd and the holiday atmosphere as the victory over my province was celebrated by the entire population. It had come as something of a shock as she raised her hand repeatedly to bid for me. Our eyes locked as the final bid of one thousand and fifty Reals brought the auctioneer's gavel down. Two emerald pools set within a pretty face, framed with long chestnut tresses that fell almost to her waist. I thought that she was perhaps the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen.

Since that day she has had her hair cut into a much shorter bob style that, if anything, serves to accentuate her beauty still further. Her skin is alabaster white, pale and totally unblemished. Her long legged figure carries not an ounce of spare fat. Breasts that are accentuated by the tightly laced leather bodices that she wears, when released, prove to be little more than the modest hillocks, generally sported by girls half her age. I have come to favour this slight figure over the heavy breasted women that tend to be more the norm in my own province. My guess is that is partly due to the fact that my mistress has not produced issue, something that also explains her slim, svelte waist. Widowhood came early to her, and from our conversations I gather that with it came a sadness not unalloyed by the freedom that it brought.

Over the past few weeks she has taken to walking around either partly or completely naked when I am in her company. This has quite an effect on me but, as long as that silver key hangs from the chain that she wears around my neck it is of absolutely no consequence. My manhood expands as any red blooded male would when she walks past in this condition. She has also taken to allowing me to assist when she bathes. A click of her fingers signals, somewhat imperiously, that she requires her bath towel, which in these colder days I will have warmed thoroughly in front of the open fire before holding out for her gorgeous petite body to be wrapped snugly inside. In this manner I am aware that I am undergoing training that will eventually result in my knowing, without bidding, the requirements and desires of my mistress.

Since the week of celebrations commemorating the founding of her province early in October when my mistress had seen fit to use me to draw her carriage through the streets of the city, cruelly driven by the whip of her lifelong friend Lady Sabine, our relations have become exceedingly cordial. I saw fit after that event to confess to the fact that I had found this act especially erotic. I was rewarded at this time as she took the silver key and unlocked me from the purgatory of confinement before ordering me to my knees before her to release the pent up seed that had built up inside me. As on the previous occasion that this was permitted I was instructed to lick the resulting mess from the stone floor. Although I found this quite unpleasant I nevertheless acknowledged her right to take this course of action and the relief within me at the release of all the seed was huge.

Twice in the last month she has concluded her toilet by spreading herself out naked on her back, pushing herself down into the heavy fur bedcover, legs wide apart to reveal that pretty pink gash between. The tiny nub of flesh that likes to hide itself snugly beneath those lips is exposed just sufficiently to enable me to locate it. I begin in the manner in which she desires, placing light kisses around the hinterland of desire. It has been explained to me that her pleasure is not something that needs to be attained quickly, but rather is better in quality when allowed time to mature. Consequently my kisses persist, gradually building as her sighs and gasps guide me unerringly towards the point where she no longer desires further delay. It is now that I locate the delicate little nub that seems to be epicentre of her pleasure.

Her firm little body writhes gently up and down with the pleasure that my ministrations release within her as I feel the tiny piece of flesh, no bigger than the very tip of her little finger beneath my lips. Gently pushing it back and forth with my tongue her sighs gain volume to become cries as she begins the journey that will ultimately lead her on to complete satisfaction. Her cries increase yet again in volume as my teeth gently tease the little nub into tumescence. My little bites become more insistent as I repay her in some small part for the whippings inflicted on my body. I nip the little bud and she cries out again, but once more the pain is quickly masked by the torrent that now rages inside her as the height of her ecstasy is reached. The growl that rises from deep within her transmutes into a full blooded scream that rings around the bedchamber, every bit as loud as those she draws from me when I am in her dungeon and she employs the fiendish whip carved from the hide of some strange jungle dwelling animal.

Then suddenly all is still. Her writhing ceases and she folds her naked body beneath the fur bedcover, a hand extended from beneath it signaling me to withdraw to the adjacent room. Her eyes are closed and I know that, whatever the time of day, sleep will come to her within minutes. I look upon her face and feel the love within me for this woman. Despite my previous life as a soldier I am not an unsensitive man, sufficiently perceptive to realise that the changes that have occurred between us over the past weeks are, at least in part, to a growing regard that she has for me also. I do not expect, or even desire, the kind of relationship that I have had in my life before. But I am not blind to the fact that a chemistry exists between us based upon the suffering that she likes to inflict upon me, and I in turn willingly accept.

Lady Athelnia has informed me of her intention of using the little trotting cart once more. Word has filtered back from her informers within the city, people who inhabit the inns and the gambling dens that the sight of their leader being drawn by a man known to be a prisoner of war from the enemy province has set the people talking. Images are already appearing and one, skilfully executed by an artist of some renown within the province has been presented to my mistress. It has been hung in the great hall where it is the subject of much admiration and discussion by everyone who passes through. Lady A has been portrayed as a warrior. She stands upon the footboard of the cart, booted feet set apart in her leather outfit, a long singletail whip in her gloved hand. It is a heroic pose, head held high, her natural beauty highlighted by what appears to be the sun as she proceeds triumphantly. Nobody has any doubt that the harnessed and hooded man drawing her to victory is me. It is known throughout the castle. What they cannot know, indeed must not know, is what passes between us when I serve in her bedchamber.

The second week of the last month of the year brings a change in the weather. The benign winds that have blown from the south bringing us warmth seem to have deserted us, the mellow days of autumn are at an end. Now the wind whistles in from the north, through the mountains that separate us from the province of Lady Sabine, a colder country with a different culture, where the people habitually wear furs and drink stronger liquors to stave off the chill. Lady Athelnia takes to wearing fur over her black leather outfit. A pale grey jacket, belted at the waist, masks the petite nature of her frame, a thick, luxuriant collar contrasting pleasantly with the auburn of her hair. If such a thing is possible it makes her appear yet more attractive, adding a hint of the wild to her urbane character.

The day that she chooses to tour the city is especially bitter. Snow flurries ride the strong wind that snakes through the mountain passes of the virtually uninhabited borderlands to the north. Only a few hardy hamlets live there, their subsistence supported by growing whatever can survive the colder climate and hunting. When my mistress informs me of her plan it surprises me that she has chosen such a day. Thick grey clouds scuttle across the sky, dark with their cargoes of snow. That I am to be bare bodied apart from the brief hunting shorts comes as something of a shock. Lady Athelnia assures me that the cold won't be a problem. "You certainly won't be standing around." she says with a smirk as she checks the harnessing that secures me to her little trotting cart. Straps are adjusted and tightened and finally the metal bit placed between my teeth. She makes herself comfortable in the seat immediately behind me as she prepares for her tour of the city.

I realise why she has chosen today, it is market day and the streets of the city are busy as the people go about their business. The first stroke of her whip falls on the incline leading up to the place where stocks and pillories stand awaiting their victims. Petty thieves, drunkards and vagabonds are often to be seen, their limbs locked into the timber frames as passers by hurl abuse and ridicule. Today they are empty, yet to receive their first occupants which market day inevitably brings as some citizens become worse for drink.

People stop and stare as their leader rides by, the wheels of the cart clattering on the path, the occasional crack of her whip carries above the sounds of the city as she encourages me to maintain the pace. I don't really need such encouragement in the cold. The faster we go the sooner we will be back in the relative warmth of the castle with its many open fires. As we reach the more populated parts of the city more people stop to take in the spectacle of Lady Athelnia driving her captured slave. And then the cheering begins. I understand completely her motivation for today's ride. Times can become hard in the winter and many people struggle to get enough food. My mistress receives intelligence from all across the province and, on occasions, hears of cases of unease. Mutterings as to how their leader lives in great comfort whilst they go short of even basic foodstuffs. Today I perceive is more about that. People cheering her progress is music to her ears. It tells of their satisfaction with the system. That man, strapped to the cart, almost naked as he pulls his owner through the snow flurries, is much worse of than they are. So they cheer to see it. they know so little of my existence, that I am well fed and kept in comfort almost like a pet, the beatings that I receive I am totally complicit in.

The whip cracks once more. From the feel of its impact it will have put a vivid stripe from shoulder to waist. A cheer rises once more and a second stroke increases the volume. Lady Athelnia and myself are nothing but co-conspirators, creating a fiction for our doting audience. While they watch their leader torturing their enemy they are not concerned a jot about the empty bellies of either themselves or their children. It is a conspiracy that I am more than happy to be a part of, but one that must never be breathed a word of, its discovery would portend disaster for us both.

Back at the castle Lady Athelnia has given instructions that her bath should be prepared for our return. The timber tub is wreathed in clouds of steam, its water deep and hot, charged with the finest oils that come like so many of her luxuries from the orient, gifted to her by the captain who lusts after her but can never understand how she resists his blandishments, unaware that her desires follow a completely different path from those of ever other floosie that he has bedded in his favoured oriental bawdy houses. In this respect he is every bit as duped as the rest of the population of this province.

When Lady Athelnia steps from her bath into the warmed towel that I fold around her naked body she turns to me and places a gentle kiss on my cheek. "It is still hot, you may warm yourself in it for a while, then come to me in my bedchamber."

As I lay in the water, feeling its warmth restore the heat to my freezing cold body my thoughts turn to her with a feeling of keen anticipation. Once warmed through I dry myself with the cloth that lies beside the bath for her to step on and make my way through to her bedchamber. I expect her to be spread out awaiting the ministrations of my tongue but she is not. Instead she stands with the silver key in her hand. She unlocks me from my confinement and motions for me to lie on the bed. Once I have done her bidding she sits astride me and takes the rampant purple veined shaft of my engorged cock in her hand. She holds it for a few seconds before lifting herself and placing it between those gorgeous pink lips beneath her flat belly. She lowers herself onto me, driving me deep inside her. I feel her feminine tightness surround me as the ecstasy of it builds still further. Then she gives what is possibly the hardest command she has ever uttered.

"You are not to allow the explosion. If you do it will be the last time ever. It will be locked away and the key destroyed."

to be continued.