A Match for the El Maiens

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*****

"Disobeyed expressed orders as to number of drinks ... insulted an officer in uniform and on duty ... damage to the tavern ..."

Tashka sat on one side of the dining room table, leaning her chin in her hand, one elbow on the table beside several huge piles of paper, staring expressionless at three men in front of her. A trooper with a poorly faked expression of penitence, his Captain and the officer of the night watch who had caught him out on a spree, stood before her. Beside her sat two Lieutenants acting as clerks and an intensely bored Pava el Jien, whose fidgeting and yawning fully justified the frequently expressed opinion of the Vail Generals' strategic staff that he was too fluff-brained to be allowed to take up a position with them.

"I have heard," Tashka said quietly as the officer of the watch came to the end of his peroration.

The trooper's Captain had just started an eloquent defence of his man when the doors of the dining room opened and the two guards at the door stamped in.

"The officers of the Generals' strategic staff!" one of them shouted in a voice that was too loud for the dining room. He blushed.

Clair, Vadya, Lord Esha and some other strategic staff officers came loping into the room. Tashka got quickly to her feet, staring at them. Pava started up with an expression of great relief shining in his laughing green eyes.

Lord Esha came striding ahead of the others round the table, Tashka came towards him, saying: "I ... I should perhaps have waited for your order, sir. I took a risk ...," she was starting to go on her knee, reaching for his hand, he grasped her by the arms and pressed her tall thin body close in to his barrel of a chest, kissing each of her cheeks and saying: "My General, we owe everything to you!"

It was too much for her, she burst suddenly into tears. He looked into her thin worn face. His face contracted with pity as her head swung aside, hanging loose on her thin neck, her shoulders convulsing with sobs and the tears falling from her slanted blue eyes.

Clair was suddenly there, she was in his arms. He folded her black-clad frame in the warm embrace of his red Sietter tunic, letting her press her head to his shoulder and sob. He was holding her close to him, her brother, the only other man who could make her cry - bar one.

"Well, I think we can call that excused on all counts," Pava said hurriedly, to the great glee of the trooper and his Captain and the indignation of the officer of the watch. "To quarter, gentle men. I thank you for your sweet time. Vadya, how lovely to see you. It has just struck me what a pretty tunic the H'las uniform is; double-breasted, mm, I must look into it for the Vail army." He hurried forwards with a merry smile on his mouth and his sword arm held out. The H'las strategic staff officers looked aghast but Vadya came to him with a warm grin and folded him in his arms, considerately turning his eyes from his Captain, his fellow Commander, now his General and Lady wife. She was still sobbing in the arms of her brother. The Lord General her father by marriage was anxiously patting her shoulders.

She suddenly lifted her head, the blue eyes flashing with tears. She shoved Clair aside and came walking round the table to him. He let Pava go, watching her come, not moving to meet her. He did not know if she still needed the rigid discipline of the army to bear her up. He held everything in check while he waited for her to show him what she wanted.

She walked towards him with her quick light limp, the black felt tunic loose on her tall thin frame. He was glad to see the sexy roll was starting to come back into her stride although she would always limp a little. She was glaring at him with an intent stare, her cheeks still wet with tears. She was standing in front of him. She glared into his brown face, the tears wet on her thin pale face, her blue eyes sparkling, her rose-petal mouth bunched up. She turned her head and looked around the room. She was the most senior officer in there now, aside from Lord Esha himself. They were all waiting on her although they pretended to be talking to each other. Clair watched her with a warm encouraging smile on his thin mouth.

Vadya looked round the room too and smiled at her, a smile to say:

No matter, we will be together all our lives now, whether as General and junior officer or as wife and husband.

"My heart," she said in a husky trembling voice. Her mouth went suddenly soft.

He looked into the blue eyes flashing with tears that he could deny nothing to, even when she was not crying. He took her by the arms and pulled her close to him. Tashka wrapped her arms about his neck and put her mouth to his, he took her by the back of the head and pressed her into his kiss. His tongue pressed on her rose-petal mouth, forcing her lips open, he nudged her head against his shoulder, his other arm scooped her hard in on him with a pull around her waist. Her head went back, she let herself go limp and hung completely relaxed and heavy in his arms and his kiss.

She parted from his kiss with a sigh, stood for a minute in his embrace: her knees still weak and her weight hanging from his arms, her body held hard in to his big strong muscular chest. Then she straightened up and put him gently from her.

"I have this case to hear out," she said, looked round and saw that the trooper had gone (at great speed). "Oh, did we make a decision? I have a few more cases to hear just now. Come, come sit with me," she grasped his hand and pulled at it, like a child asking another child to join its game. He smiled and followed her, ignoring the open mouths of the strategic staff officers and the Lieutenants who were clerking, their embarrassed stares at Lord Esha, his father looking out of the window and humming loudly, Clair and Pava laughing at the two of them.

"What?" Tashka said crossly to Pava. "You are excused. Conduct the Lord General and the other strategic staff officers to their rooms so they can take a bath. The Commander will take your place. He will be willing to wait for 's bath."

"Too kind, my sweet General!" Pava murmured (but softly so only Clair would hear). He gave her a reasonably smart salute.

As she sat down, Tashka looked up and said: "Clair ... Lord van Sietter." He swung round, startled, and looked back at her. "You will be thinking of stripping and restructuring the Sietter army," she said, looking with a concentrated expression of intelligence into his slanted grey eyes, "but at this time you are vulnerable. The Lord General and I will meet with you this afternoon to discuss the matter."

Clair gave a hesitant smile, looking uncertainly at Lord Esha, who could be said to currently hold all of his lands in victorious conquest. Lord Esha looked shrewdly at Tashka. She stared intently into his brown eyes, he laughed and gave a nod.

"After the victory you have brought to me, I will deny you nothing," he said. "My daughter and my General."

~#~*~#~

She sat with General-Lord van H'las and Commander-Lord van Sietter in the study. She was behind the desk, they sat in the red leather chairs in front of it. There was still a dreadful stain in the carpet to their side. As she had walked past it, limping assertively round to sit at the desk, she had said casually to Clair: "You will have to refurbish the room." He looked in puzzlement at the brown marks and then went pale and averted his eyes.

Tashka had changed from her H'las uniform into a dove-grey velvet suit. She wore a shirt with a lot of lace falling over her collar and cuffs, some additional rings on her fingers and a sparkling pearl and diamond earring, as if to console herself for what she had been through with as much frippery and finery as she could put on. Clair sat before her in his red felt single-breasted tunic with the stiff gold-embroidered collar and cuffs, Lord Esha wore his black felt double-breasted tunic with the blue details. Tashka sat lazily tilting the chair behind the desk back onto its two back legs, her slanted blue eyes surveying the two men in front of her.

"What will you do?" Lord Esha was asking Clair, "with only two loyal troops. Do you think you can trust the allegiance of the other Sietter officers, currently held in their barracks? What of those who took weapons up against Lord Pava? He was their sworn Lord. You cannot trust them near you now, even if it was in your name they did it. If they will do it across their vow to the Lord of their region, there could be a cause one day why they might do it to you."

Clair's face twisted with sorrow to think of his former brother officers who had known they would lose their commissions, also their lands if he or Lord Esha were disposed to be vengeful. They might even be hung for doing something they had finally come to believe was the only right thing even though it was dishonourable. "I ... I cannot keep the borders safe with only two troops," he pointed out.

"I will put my troops to protect your borders," Lord Esha offered.

"It will be regarded as an occupation," Tashka said. The two men turned to look at her. She tilted her chair back on its legs casually but her blue eyes were sharply focussed, looking into their eyes.

She said to Clair: "Commander-Sir Darien says he will not swear to your fingers."

"It needed not a genius to tell me that," he said crossly.

"He says he will swear to Anna," Tashka said. Clair looked at her with one eyebrow raised in question.

Tashka said: "You would always have had to restructure the command some day. You can do one of two things.

"If you intend to keep any kind of army, you cannot strip the command now, immediately after so many losses in a civil war which your army has lost. The structure of the command in Sietter is focussed on victory; they have suffered defeat. It would take twenty years to embed a new structure in such a situation. You must take what you have, van Sietter.

"The officers who have fought against you have remained true to their vow; they are honourable. The ones who have taken arms against Lord Pava ... well, if you ever give them cause to take arms against you I will join them myself, my brother officers, to bring you down. (Bear it in mind now that I will hold the Maier Pass as my marriage settlement for the whole of my life.) As for the Generals, you will have to send them home but be merciful, do not strip them of their lands and give them cause to foment rebellion against you.

"Darien is the only Commander who will not swear to your fingers. Take their vows in person, do not allow them to swear through the hoop of the Generals' rings. You should keep no one in the strategic staff above the rank of Captain. The Commanders you will demote to the field again but make it clear they may rise again if they prove themselves. You will not wish to be Lord General yourself so Vaie will of course be your Major General, Stariel has the lesser strategic mind. Vaie and I have discussed the structure of the command in Sietter often enough, he knows what needs doing. You should bring Nain and four others up from the ranks which fought against you into the strategic staff, only retaining their banners, not being promoted as yet.

"I have been to visit Nain in the hospital. It is as we thought, his heart was always true to his vow to you but he had also made a vow to his own father, General Nain, and the General pressured him to consider his men. If Nain had deserted, van Sietter would have hung the General, who would never have come with him, in the name of wiping out the stain on the family's honour. Nain will attempt to resign but you must go in person and make him the offer of the strategic staff post, Pava will persuade him for you."

She tilted her chair back and forward on its legs, giving Clair and then Lord Esha a lazy sparkling grin. "Your alternative," she said with a snigger, as if what she were about to say were very funny. "You can completely strip the command and have Vaie as your one General to rebuild with but the two troops at his back. Then you may keep Darien and any others Anna chooses from whoever else in the troops which took arms against you. You may have yourself a peace corps to guard the borders and maintain order while refusing to take up arms in aggression."

Lord Esha burst out into loud laughter at this suggestion. Clair grinned too. "Yes, I am sure Anna would like that," he said. "And so would all the other regions! So I may do one of two things. I may rely on H'las troops to defend our borders," he tipped his head in a graceful courteous gesture of gratitude to Lord Esha, "or Tashka, you do think I could manage to restock the structure as it stands with only Vaie and Stariel as my Generals?" She nodded her head, still grinning about her idea of the peace corps.

"We will be at your back to support you, my brother," she said, letting her chair fall forward so it rested solidly on its four legs. "I will be at Major General-Sir Vaie's disposal, to support him from Port H'las."

Lord Esha leant over and clasped Clair's red felt clad shoulder, telling him: "You know you may rely on my General. She has said it, you may hold her to her word."

~#~*~#~

Vadya shared a final sniggering story with Fiotr and Basra in the corridor, grinned happily at them and followed Tashka into their room.

She was already undressed, her suit was neatly hung up on the back of a chair to the other side of the big bed in the room. He came round the bedside in the flickering firelight, pulling the double row of buttons of his tunic undone, and found her lying naked on her stomach over the bed.

His heart jumped and began beating soft and light with desire for her. She was thinner than when he had last made love with her but the firm muscular swell of her buttocks and her long pale scarred back were dearly familiar to him.

He walked quickly to the bed, sat down beside her and reached gentle hands out to rub her shoulders. He ran one hand lovingly down her back and then again more slowly, touching each of the old white scars that criss-crossed her spine. He spread his fingers over the firm flesh of her buttock and squeezed it affectionately. Gently he laid his hand on the barely healed purple hole in her thigh where she had been hit by an arrow. With his left hand he continued to stroke her back: long firm confident movements, rubbing down her spine and her sides.

Puzzled by the lack of response, he took his hands from her and bent anxiously down to peer into her face. Her blue eyes were half-hooded over and soft. She was not in the hard military frame of mind that prevented her acknowledging the sweetness of their affection. She just looked very tired.

"I like that," she murmured. He put his hand out to massage the nape of her neck and the corners of her mouth lifted sleepily in a smile.

"My sweetheart," he said softly to her.

"I like it," she said, "but I am so tired."

"We could lie together in the morning?" he suggested.

"I have to ride round the encampments at dawn," she said gloomily.

"Well then, the morrow night. Angels! we have waited eight months, we could wait one more day, is it not?"

"Oh no!" she mourned, "I have changed my mind." She surged suddenly up in his arms and turned. She put her hands to the collar of his black shirt and gripped it, her pale knuckles pressed against his lean brown neck, she stared into his eyes with glinting blue eyes. "Fuck me, el Gaiel," she said in a hoarse husky voice.

He stared back at her, suddenly uncertain. He did not want to give her the kind of fuck you bought off someone in a bar after the battle when you could not face the soft familiar caress of your lover. On the other hand he did not want her to go off buying a fuck off some stranger in a bar if that was what she needed.

Her face suddenly softened, she tilted it down and looked through her long lashes at him. His heart started bumping in his chest and the blood surging to his loins, to his cock at this. "All I want is to feel you inside me," she murmured. She put her head to his shoulder and snugged it into his neck. "We could manage that, is it not? I have been denied you so long, do not deny me longer."

He put his arms about her and kissed her softly, several times, under her ear where he had once sucked so hard in passion that he left a tell-tale mark.

"I can deny you nothing," he said. "You lie still then, darling lazy pig, and I will fuck you." She giggled sleepily, lying down on her front on the bed again.

He got up to pull off his boots, take off his weapons, hang them on the end of the bed with hers and strip off his clothes which he chucked on the floor. He sat down by her and began caressing and rubbing her shoulders and kissing down the line of her spine (the bones stuck up so hard out of her back). He gripped a hand on her buttock, she gave a snigger.

"Yum," he murmured in her ear, "fresh young officer's buttock!" She sniggered again at that. Then he sat up away from her with a laugh.

"What is it?" she asked, lifting her head and looking back round her bony shoulder at him.

"It is the first time I have lain with a General!" he said.

Her eyes sparkled in amusement. "Damn," she cursed. "We never got to lie together as equals."

He remembered going out to see her on his assessment tour of the troops. A shiver went over him, he put his arms around her hips, gathering them close to his breast. He kissed her scarred back in the dim flickering firelight. "Oh my own heart," he murmured.

She lay completely relaxed in his arms. When he looked up, her eyes were drifting shut. He lay still, watching her drift to sleep.

After a moment, she opened her eyes, snorted herself awake and said: "Come on!"

"You are so tired," he said gently.

"el Gaiel, of your courtesy!" she pleaded. "Just to lie in me a little short while, is it so much to ask?"

"My darling, surely it would be better to wait till the morrow."

"Sweet Hell!" she moaned. "I have said it! I want you now! You can be quick, you need not lie there all night, we can do that the morrow. Hear me - you can take me from behind."

"Um oh alright!" he said. This was a fuck she was asking for then, the first time he would enter her in months and to do it with her face turned from his loving gaze but the cheeky dog, she knew this would be irresistible to him. His cock was already swollen and the blood had started pumping into his loins in excitement.

There were a number of reasons why he found it so exhilarating to go into her from behind. In his ignorance he had always imagined this was how man-lovers did it so it was how he thought fellow officers did it - until he was enlightened by a sniggering conversation Tashka was having with some of the others round the fire on night-sentry duty. It still felt like some naughty forbidden activity, as if he were illicitly fucking his junior officer. (He remembered with a shy grin that he was fucking his senior officer now!) The angle at which he went in meant that he got pressure on the tip of his cock, sending his senses reeling, and hit on Tashka's sweet spot in a manner that made her scream so excitedly that Dar had forbidden them to do it again in his encampment. Tashka rarely let him do it unless he had managed to bring her to orgasm two or three times first without coming himself, which was never, because it meant she had to be submissive and he loved that too. It was difficult to beat her at wrestling so it was lovely fun to pin her down with your cock sunk deep into her in the bed.

Tashka was still lying unusually passive over the bed, her long thin body completely relaxed in exhaustion. "Come on then," she said impatiently. "Get on with it, do I have to give you an order expressed in writing?" Her blue eyes sparkled round her shoulder at him.