Colsterworde, The Cony, May 29th. Our journey yesterday took us through the centre of the great town of Newark, where King John had died of the bloody flux just seven score years afore. His death, though still spoken of in lore as a warning, was little lamented as he was a cruel tyrant and his hand on his subjects was heavy and unfair.
We did not tarry long in Newark. We were afeard to announce our presence because we had heard tales of bands of robbers falling upon the few defenceless travellers on the road. So after buying a few items from the paltry stalls in the market place we continued on south. In older and happier times, even as far north as a York the great market in Newark had been famed for the wonders on sale there.
As we crested a small hill a thousand paces or so from the town centre we could see the great cathedral of Lincoln shining like a beacon in the distance, though it offered little hope in these hellish times.
Another mile brought us to the village of Benningtun where we hoped to rest our bones for the night. But when we came to the inn — the White Cock from the board swinging in the breeze above its door — there was no welcoming sign of smoke rising from its chimneys. The door was open and on entering we were greeted by the stench of death. On the floor were the rotting and partially devoured bodies of half a dozen people, lying in dried up pools of piss and blood. After crossing ourselves out of custom rather than belief, we hurried on into the falling dusk.
We were glad of the company of our man of arms, for passing through a place where the trees pressed close on the road we were set upon by brigands. With two strokes of his sword our new friend dispatched two of them to meet their maker, leaving their bodies bleeding in the dust of the road as a warning. The rest fled for their lives into the forest and I was sure that we wouldn't be troubled again that night. In God's truth I felt sorry for them, driven as they were desperation rather than malice. Such is the state into which we are descended.
It was long dark when we arrived here and we were in no mind for stories. So after a meal of broth and bread washed down by a flagon of weak ale, we made our way to our beds exhausted and footsore.
Today after a long sleep we tarried here and after a fine supper of mutton we cast around for who would regale us with a saucy tale to wile away the hours to bed. In truth Dame Elizabeth's story had rather depressed our spirits because of the sadness we all felt at the loss of her child. The soldier then spoke up and offered a tale of his own from out the store of memories of his long life.
ooOoo
The Soldier's Tale
I am now a very old man and most of my old comrades in arms have either died in battle or those few who were lucky in the arms of some whore. As I have survived both war and pestilence I surmise that God, or more likely the Devil, is not yet ready to accept my soul. As a youth I was well built for my age and eager to see the world so when I was just sixteen I became a mercenary in the army of Henry II of Cyprus. I journeyed to the Levant to join the garrison in Acre and only just escaped the massacre of the remaining Christians there in the year 1291. During the few months I was there I was curious to learn the secrets of the East and spent my free hours in the inns along the waterfront.
One day I met an elderly Frenchman who had taken up with a Muslim woman, and had eventually converted to that religion so as to marry her. He told me the tale of a mysterious Italian who had passed that way many years before with the intent of taking the spice road to India to learn the language and customs of that fabled land. Intrigued, I made further enquiries and this is the tale that I eventually pieced together with suitable embellishments of my own for your entertainment.
ooOoo
Bathed in the golden light of the early evening sunlight she sat gazing out of the open window onto the street below. The feet of tired workers hurrying to their homes from their daily toil in the fields stirred up the dust to settle on the brightly coloured saris of the women making their last minute purchases of vegetables from one of the many stalls by the roadside and the white dhotis of the men buying their leaf wrapped packets of paan. The happy chatter of voices was punctuated every few seconds by the shouts of the young men driving their herds of buffaloes to the river, but lost in her reverie, she was barely aware of the world around her.
In another hour the sun would sink below the horizon and the silence of the night would descend on the street, the darkness lit only by the fires of the braziers around which men would sit to tell their stories or chew in silent contemplation. Surely he would come soon she thought; he had been gone for over a week but he had promised he would return soon to spend a few nights of bliss with her — her tall handsome foreigner with his gentle ways and tender words of love.
As she sat there, she idly stroked her breasts through the silk of her blouse, remembering with pleasure the young man who had left her not an hour since after an afternoon of sexual passion. Poor Mukesh, he was so painfully shy and inexperienced. His concerned parents had brought him to her house, worried that he would never find a bride. But Mukesh seemed to show no interest in any of the eligible girls they introduced him to. He would hardly utter a word and when he did speak it was so quietly that one could barely pick out one word in ten. It was no use his mother pointing out his many admirable qualities and wonderful prospects as the only son of a successful trader in the spices so much in demand by Arab traders arriving in the nearby city.
So they brought him to her, Alekhya, a courtesan, to see if she could bring him out of his shell and instruct him in the arts of love. After his parents had left and they were alone, she sat beside him on the divan, leaning against him gently so that he could feel her soft breasts pressing against his arm, and whilst they shared a glass of aam panna asked him in a low voice to tell her about himself. It took a long time to get him to relax, but eventually he started to talk more fluently and easily. This was after all, one of the skills of the courtesan — to put men at ease before she seduced them and took them to a place of ecstasy and delight in her arms.
When she thought that the time was ripe she took his hand and pressed it to her breast, encouraging him to slip it inside her blouse to find the soft flesh within. It must be said that he was rather clumsy, but she knew that after a few more afternoons of subtle instruction she would turn him into a skilled lover, and then her job would be done. Turning to face him, she took his face between her hands and began to kiss him on his cheeks and nose and chin, and then finally his lips, tender little kisses like the brush of a butterfly's wings. As he responded to the soft pressure of her lips on his, she sought his tongue with hers, and soon she was kissing him passionately as their tongues entwined in a delicious dance of desire and growing excitement.
After a few minutes she could tell by his breathing that he was becoming aroused, so she stood and looking him in the eyes slipped off her blouse and sari to stand before him in all her voluptuous nakedness. She knelt and undid the wrapping of his dhoti so that she could suck his nipples and kiss her way down his chest and stomach to his tumescent lingam. She took the head in her mouth and slid her lips down his shaft with practiced art, while she fondled his heavy balls with one hand. She slipped the other behind his bottom to caress his anus, before sliding a finger inside to stroke his prostate which years of experience had shown her, increased a man's excitement to fever pitch.
She knew that this first time with a woman he would not last long, and she wanted him to experience the pleasure of coming inside the velvety warmth of her vagina. On later occasions she would teach him the arts of delighting a woman with his lips and tongue, but this afternoon was all about his pleasure. She got up from the floor and straddled him, and taking the head of his shaft between her fingers, she stroked it between her full lips to make it wet with her secretions. Then placing it at the entrance to her punani, she slid down its length until it was fully engulfed in her hot depths.
Alekhya was very skilled in the arts of giving men extreme pleasure, and many hours of practice with a polished wooden dildo inherited from her mother had trained her vaginal muscles to milk a man of his seed. As she rode Mukesh rod, she used all her skills and within very few minutes his cock began to throb and pulse, and he groaned and cried out as he jerked and spurted copious quantities of hot cum deep into her heat. Alekhya murmured words of love and encouragement as he subsided from his first orgasm with a lover, and told him how wonderful he was, even though she had only had a very small orgasm herself.
After she had washed him with a hot towel and they were dressed, she kissed him tenderly and told him how much she was looking forward to the next time. The she went to sit in the window to wait for the man who she knew would take her to heights of rapture time and again over the few days they would have together.
ooOoo
Just as the sun was falling below the edge of the trees he came in sight of her window after the short walk from the edge of the town. She was sitting there in the window, as she must have sat for so many nights awaiting his return, lit only by the light of a small oil lamp. Entering the door he dropped his leather satchel on the floor, and walked up the stairs to where his Alekhya was waiting.
This next few days would be for her; a special time when he would devote himself to her pleasure. However he knew that he would have to share his news with her before too long, and was neither sure how she would take it nor what the eventual outcome would be. It was nearly two years since he had said farewell to his lover Lisabeta before leaving Italy to travel to the mythical land of spices in the East. They had parted two years before after a memorable night of love and passion, as well as tears and regrets.
A few months before he had received a small package via Arab traders from a friend back in Venice to whom he had written just after his arrival eighteen months previously. Among the various letters from his parents and friends was one from Lisabeta, which he opened with trembling fingers. She wrote that after he had left she had taken a nobleman's younger brother as a lover, but that the affair had ended when he was contracted in an advantageous marriage to a girl from another high class family. She said that she had missed him more and more as time passed, and had come to a decision to follow in his footsteps in the guise of a man.
