A Match for the El Maiens

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Anna! Anna!" a quick husky voice was saying in her ear.

"Mm-mm?" she murmured, turning her head in her pillows and opening one sleepy eye. "O-oh Tashka! What time is it? It is still dark."

Tashka's lean tanned face loomed out of the dimness at her, grinning. "Dawn will break soon," she replied. "Come riding with me."

"Wha'?" Arianna mumbled. "Now?"

"Yes now! Come on, come with me. No one will see us, you can ride in a proper saddle."

Arianna laughed drowsily, turning over in her pillows, stretching out her long creamy arms, her breasts rolling free. She sat up and stared in front of her with eyes still dazed by sleep. Suddenly she smiled and threw the sheet and quilt back, sliding out of bed and reaching to light the candles so she could find her riding habit and hard hat.

It was still quiet and dim when she got to the courtyard where Tashka, dressed in jodhpurs, a green jumper and a hard hat, was waiting with the horses. The sky was a dark blue brightening in the East. A light breeze brushed Arianna's cheek soft as the breath of a whispered promise. The few clouds were unmoving above, there were only a couple of liquid notes sounding from birds in the chill still air.

"Tashka!" Arianna scolded through a sleepy yawn. "I cannot ride in that saddle."

"What! Do you think we van Sietter Ladies are going in the bloody carriage?" Tashka answered with a toss of her head and a snigger. She held out the reins of Arianna's strawberry roan mare Sweetheart impatiently.

Arianna suddenly grinned, looking not in the least like the proud future sworn Lady of Sietter, more like the naughty girl running away from her embroidery. She took Sweetheart's reins and Tashka looped Jewel's reins round the pommel of her saddle then came and put cupped hands out for Arianna to step into. Arianna hitched up the skirt of her dark blue riding habit and Tashka threw her up, she swung up into the saddle, showing her whole leg off to the empty courtyard and soundly sleeping castle. Carelessly, she flicked the heavy cotton of her skirt about so that the guards on duty at the gates would not see more than her booted ankles. With a satisfied grin she clasped her knees on either side of her horse's shoulders, the leather saddle smooth and cool under the muscular strength of her thighs.

Tashka swung up onto Jewel and hissed to Imp to stop him getting too close under Jewel's hooves. Imp whined impatiently, his little tail wagging his whole bottom at the prospect of a run.

The horses' hooves clattered on the cobbles sounding loud in the silence of the dawn. They trotted quickly out through the gates, Tashka lifted a hand to her green hard hat in a quick Sietter salute to the guards, who pulled smart salutes in response.

Tashka and Arianna bent low in the saddle. Tashka had set their stirrups high, as was her habit. They grinned in the blue dawnlight at each other as they galloped through the meadows past the still silent camp of First H'las, up a hill to the line of trees silhouetted against the lightening sky above. When they reached the ridge at the top of the hill, Tashka produced rolls and clay bottles of hot chocolate that she had got the night cook to put together so they dismounted, tied the horses to a post conveniently placed there and sat down to break their fast.

Below them, smoke rose from one of the huge kitchen chimneys in a thin spiral. The castle walls were grey-blue in the dawning light, no one moved in the shadowed gardens. A dog barked in the distance. They saw the black dot that was Imp racing up the hill towards them. The air was chill on their faces and the grass was wet with dew, they had to squat on their heels. Arianna smiled, her bottle of hot chocolate warm in her hands.

"Imagine!" she said suddenly. "There are those who would miss a dawn ride to lie a-bed with a lover."

Tashka burst out laughing and said: "Ay! and I am one of them!"

Arianna blushed, lifting her chocolate for a sip to hide her confusion. She turned to Tashka and said: "Has't not had many, though?"

Tashka fell back to lie in the wet dewy grass, raising one dark eyebrow under her green hard hat. She looked like a slimmer Clair, lounging back so easy. "No, I am a sweetheart," she replied casually. "Well, truth of it is, my preference is for other officers and ordinarily I had rather put together a manoeuvre with a man than bounce on him for his pleasure," she grinned at Arianna's blushing fair face turned away from her. "Although I did go on leave without permission for a week once with a man. When I came back I had to pretend I had been too drunk to come back, all week! I had just killed someone in a duel so Pava let it pass. He guessed what it was I was about, that is why he did not beat me." She gave an affectionate smile.

"Have they beaten you?" Arianna asked, turning to look at Tashka with startled eyes. "Has Pava beaten you?"

"Only once," Tashka answered, smiling.

"Once he beat you, Pava did?"

Tashka laughed. "I cheeked him on formal parade," she said. "I was only a baby Lieutenant, I was bored that day and I thought I would make the others: Nain, Stariel and Vaie, laugh. They were giggling like doxies! but Pava was so angry, he took his baton to me there on parade. Nobody laughed then, I can tell it you. I cried for it all day in Clair's arms. Pava offered me everything under the sun to stop me crying. Commander-Sir Stariel said he would commend Pava for being the only officer who had been able to take a baton to me! I used to cry and they would let me off, you know. Even Clair never beat me, although he often gave me what-for and night sentry-duty and once he made Vaie and me wash up the troop's dishes for three whole days. Stariel made me polish all Pava's boots - all of them! Give me peace, Anna, we are in the army not a child's nursery. Discipline is necessary although beating is reserved for serious faults."

Arianna sat considering the new light this story shed on her witty warm-hearted lovely little cousin before asking: "Tell me ... wills't tell me? A whole week with a man? Was it ... so good? Why dids't not stay with him longer?"

Tashka laughed again, softly in her nose. "He was my first lover," she said. "A man well experienced in sex! If I wanted lessons on love-making I got the right one; if I were looking for my heart's companion, he would only have broken my heart. It was ... fun. Well, the first time I was drunk but he tried to make it up to me by teaching me some fun. Then one morning I woke up with his arms around me and ... I did not want him the more. He saw it, that it was finished. He was a man who knew about these things. I think ... perhaps he was hung on my heart, but he knew it was no good. He was a slut and I am a sweetheart. He sent me back to Pava with his earring in my ear and went back to the room with two bloody barmaids. I still have the earring although the next time I met him I gave him a thundering punch in the jaw!" She snorted with laughter to think of how she had dealt with lady-hunting el V'lair van Athagine, her brother's friend. "It must be different if you care for a man. Then I suppose you like to wake in the morning with him close to you."

"Has't never cared for a man?" Arianna asked.

"Not like that," Tashka flicked a buttercup with a tanned scarred finger. "Although I once had an one-day-one-night with a lovely of a Captain from Thiel. It was during the war, when they made Pava go home and the Vail Generals gave him his banner and Ninth Vail for us to play in so he would shut it about them taking him up to the strategic staff in Turaine. Angels only know why he thinks he wants to work with the Generals! the paperwork bores him senseless. Pava's sugarplum was giving him grief. I left him to it and went to a tavern for dinner alone. There was this man I could tell was an officer, he was giving me the eye and he was very handsome." Tashka's rose-petal mouth curved in a reminiscent smile, her slanted eyes creased with a sexy sparkle in them. "I thought he was a man-lover, but I was bored without Pava so I thought I would steal a kiss from another officer. We had a kiss in the yard against the stable doors, then he realised I am a woman. It turned out he was just a lover, it made no difference to him woman or man. He offered to take a room for me if I would be willing. I was well willing by then!" Tashka sniggered her filthy laugh in her nose.

She could see in her mind's eye the lifted brown eyes of a handsome fit young Captain in a tavern in Thiel, where she had persuaded Pava to take Ninth Vail and practise some summer manoeuvres. The way such a gorgeous man looked across the room on her, his eyes lingering too long before they went down again, had made her snigger surreptitiously. She walked across to the bar in a self-conscious awareness of her own long legs and lean muscular body, as if she were bathing in the pleasurable wash of the admiring officer's gaze running over her. She put one foot up on the bar rail and turned her head slowly towards the barman so that she could still see the Thiel officer out of the corner of her eye. He was still watching her through his lashes.

One of her brother officers, Dar Vaie, was a notorious slut and she knew how he went about pinning a favour if he saw a man he liked. She ordered a whisky, since she liked whisky she made it a good one. She shot it back then turned and gave the Captain the eye. He lifted his brown eyes to look straight back at her, she smiled and he smiled, she turned and walked to the door by the bar that she knew led into the stableyard. When she turned her head on reaching the door, the Captain had got up from the table and was saying something to his friends - probably pretending he needed a piss. How many times had she and her brother officers not laughed mockingly when Vaie said he needed a piss in a tavern with some lovely man casting him languishing glances from the bar! She turned out of the door with an excited grin.

The steps coming up behind her in the stableyard, the hand on her arm, her turning into the Captain's strong arms and his kiss wet on her mouth. He pushed her back against the stable doors. She was laughing to think how Vaie would giggle if she ever told him about this hot Captain she had pulled.

The kiss was so soft and warm, his tongue was unexpectedly gentle caressing her mouth. She had thought there would be more shoving and rough stuff but the Captain from Thiel was clearly like her - a bit of a sweetheart who had seen something too delicious to resist. His hands were gentle holding her arms. One hand went up, the rough weapon-hardened fingers were caressing the nape of her neck. Her head went back into his cupped hand, she started panting in his kiss, she lost the sharp awareness of the situation in which she had meant to pull away before he realised she was not the man she supposed he would prefer. He started pressing his body against hers, oh it was so pleasurable, and suddenly he was pulling away from her kiss and saying: "Holy Angels! you are a woman."

She heaved a sigh. At the least of it she had had a kiss and perhaps he might be cross enough to give her a glove. She would not say

No

to the dancing engagement of a duel although she would give this sweetheart Captain whom she had tricked out of a kiss every opportunity to cry on the Angel of Mercy.

Instead of giving her his glove he started pressing on her breasts in their hard bodice, feeling the inward curve of her waist. He said: "Angels, you must have a story to tell. You are an officer, are you not? Are you from Vail? Will you give me another kiss," by the time they parted panting from a pressed engagement of lips and limbs, his big thigh shoving between her parting legs and thrusting her into excitement, she would have gone with him against the stable door.

She stood by him while he asked for the room, leaning on his side with his arm about her shoulders. He was so sweet in comparison to el V'lair van Athagine. Just to stand in the curve of his arm and lean on his hard muscular body and giggle with him because he insisted to sign for the room awkwardly without taking his arm from around her was delicious.

She always carried one condom in her pocket in order to give the impression to the other officers that she had something to put it on but it was old. Luckily the Captain was more conscientious and the tavern was that kind of place where they put a basket of condoms by some lubricant in your room. Later they were able to put this abundance of protection to excellent good use, including one highly enjoyable fuck of a Captain as happy in the arms of a man as a woman when a condom came in handy to cover two of her fingers.

When they got in the room they started kissing as soon as the door was shut. He wanted her so much but she could tell that if she were hesitant he would back away and not even complain about the cost of the room. Young van Athagine had poured a lot of bloody brandy down her and taken her unconscious simply because he wanted to boast that he had had the favour of a Lieutenant of Fourth Sietter and daughter of the el Maiens. (He never did boast of it though. She used to pretend to herself it must be because he did not want her brother's glove but in her heart she knew he became fond of her and realised it would be a serious problem if too many people found out she was a woman in the troop.)

She had not wanted el V'lair and had put up with him out of curiosity. She did want this man, the handsome friendly officer from Thiel who was not troubled if she were a woman or a man, who just loved it that she was an officer regardless and was pressing one of her breasts in a gentle hand and moaning with pleasure just to touch her breast through a buttoned jacket and shirt and the hard shell of her bodice. She started ripping open the buttons of his breeches. He caught her hands, laughing huskily and saying, "hey, my sugar, we have the whole night. You are not on duty, out in civilian dress, and I am a Captain, the Lieutenants will not be giving me grief for it if I sneak back late the morrow. Give me a kiss and take me slow." It was exciting just to hear him address her so casually: a daughter of the el Maiens! to be called 'sugar' like some common wench by an affectionate soldier man.

The long wet thrilling caress of lips and tongues, the hands gripping on her buttocks and pulling her in against him, coming up to slide under her jacket and shirt onto her skin. She laughed in their kiss at his touch and began pulling at his clothes more slowly. She pulled away from him to grip his boots and tug them off. He laughed at her skill in doing it, saying, "are you still a Lieutenant? and you have to pull the boots from your Captain if he has drunk too deep the nights out with you? Heaven and Hell, you are a pretty one. I will wager the seniors have trouble keeping their eyes to themselves when you are on parade." He pulled her up and rolled her over in the bed to drag at her own boots and start pulling open her clothes to finally put his hands on her naked breasts - the thrill of it! those sword-hardened hands so gentle on her sensitive breasts, his fingers caressing her nipples until they were aching with pleasure. Her head went back and she lay writhing in his tender hands in a way she had never done for Tarra el V'lair, for all his skills and tricks and wanton naked lust for her favours.

Although to do el V'lair justice he taught her a thing or two she tried out with that sweetheart Captain from Thiel that were worth knowing about.

Caressing her body with his hands while he stripped her and himself, the Captain kept her senses dancing with the pressure of his fingers running about her breasts and her waist and her thighs and finally, oh at last, softly gently about the lips of her labia, her clitoris, dipping into her vulva. She was already so wet and soft for him that he gave a kind of moan and said, "I cannot wait." He put on a condom in fingers that she saw trembling in the candlelight, the fingers of one hand came back round to grasp her buttock, the other was lifting a cock hard and rigid and so big for her, pressing the tip to her soft flesh and with a delicious heave he was sliding into her.

He lay so muscular and strong in her muscular strong arms, the Captain who knew already the kind of person she was. They were just officers together, wrapping arms about each other's scarred torsos, pressing lips close, tongues wrapping and writhing, his body heaving into her, hers heaving up to meet his. She was too excited to use any of van Athagine's silly sophisticated means of increasing pleasure, or to wait for him. She came to orgasm in minutes with her head thrown back and a scream of pleasure. He pressed hard into her to help her maintain the moment, before thrusting to reach his own climax with a murmured apology. She only rose up again to meet him. She shuddered in a second thrilled orgasm as he thrust gently firmly down into her, uttering the hot panting guttural grunts of orgasm into her neck and clutching his fingers on her buttocks.

Tashka sniggered to remember that wild first favour she gave to a mere Captain from Thiel - and the rest of that lovely loving night. She turned her sparkling dark blue eyes back round to Arianna, who was looking at her with an affectionate and inquiring smile. Chaste Lady el Jien, who could not guess at half of what Lieutenant-Lord Tashka el Maien van Sietter did that night with a fellow officer to play with. Or a few months later with a Knight she picked out at the Vail flat races; but the Captain was the best.

"We had such fun," she said with a grin. "There was something, because he was an officer like me. What kisses he gave me as I left in the morning! He offered me his full designation and asked for mine so he could come to see me but I had to say

No

. Imagine it, what Clair would have done to him if he had found out!" Her smile became regretful. She had really liked him but there could be no question of a match with someone who was not of the high nobility. She knew she had been right to leave him after only the one night. Pava had been kind to her, moving the troop on as soon as he realised they were in the vicinity of someone who had touched her heart, managing to get hold of some privy army despatches about the Sietter-H'las war to distract her. They went to the Vail flat races and met up with his sister and had such a high time of it that Pava's mother was quite cross. She was regretful for a long time about having to give the go-by to the sweetheart Captain from Thiel but she also always thought of him with a husky affectionate snigger.

"But then what about Vadya el Gaiel?" Arianna was asking. "Loves't him, is it not. He is an officer like you. Would it not be as it was with your Captain from Thiel?"

Tashka frowned. "Vadya is my Commander, not another Captain," she said slowly. "Yes, of course I love him, I swore to be his life and days and fight and I would lay down my life for him. I love him much better than I would love some man I had a puppy passion for, like that boor Ta-, er, like any bitch in heat."

"Why, Tashka," Arianna reproved. "There is nothing greater than the physical love human beings have each for other, the philosopher Piria has said." Her blue eyes looked at her young sister by marriage more in question than in instruction.

Tashka shrugged, the joy and pleasure in memories of sexual fun had faded out of her face.

Imp came bounding up and flung himself at Tashka, panting and bright-eyed with exercise and excitement. Tashka sat up and wrestled with him, turning him over and tickling his tummy while he wriggled and yapped then she let him go and told him to lie still.