Onceuponatimelonglongago. . . he was sitting in the saddle on the edge of a cliff face when he heard those prolonged screams. The listlessness left him as he followed the sound to observe a dark brown—no—a reddish smudge soaring high into the air above a rough sea, hundreds of feet below him in the midst of a self absorbed, but conspicuous aerial display.
For once he was aware of the activity around him and certain of the exhilaration at the loud cries of the raptor spinning overhead. Sensations flowing around the Count's head often led to very disparate ends, but at that moment he was focused on the creamy coloured chest of the swooping hawk.
He had seen the bird before from closer up. There were many unrewarding destinations that he really did not want to arrive at and he had lingered there on the edges of the cultivated lands. Listening out for the raucous downward slurring 'keee-arrrrrrr,' he watched for the uniformly reddish coloured tail, with the narrow dark band and the light hued tip.
This raptor seemed as well-traveled as himself. He had spotted it in open country, woodlands, prairie groves. It had flown above him in the mountains, across the plains into the farmlands, and even along the roadside leading into the seaport. The beady eye that observed him seemed to recall the mischief that he still wrought in the outlying places of his little realm.
He never quite enumerated his sundry wickedness' around the lonely farmsteads. Certainly, butter wasn't the only thing that churned in the outlying parlours. Country lasses offered their Lord his due and oscillated keenly around his fornicating vigour.
They sought to churn precious Lordling seed from his concupiscent loins. He was well accustomed to slipping back into his breeches before the spillage though. He controlled his libertinage as he controlled the bow of his rakish fiddle and move on then.
Now, dressed in the trappings of local power, he could slip back effortlessly to his stronghold, deep in the mist enshrouded forests. And again and again, he observed the hawk, this avian emblem of his lubricious adventures, flying along with him into the dusk, before it wheeled away to plunder the cliff tops for small animals.
The seaport also paid its tribute to his venal appetites in more than wine, desiring his viscous fluid to fortify the blood stock. He held back with some fortitude. Always. Carnal encounters may be generally pleasant, frequently enjoyable and, occasionally, delightful. No matter how debauched they were though, such lubricity could never be unprecedented. His heir deserved more than an anonymous womb or the obscurity such bastardy would condemn them to.
In the seaport inn, he had enjoyed the nether charms of many a merchant's daughter, flinging her portals open as he would throw the windows open after having satiated his rampant need. He rutted ceaselessly on that metal bedstead until it became a home from home. A fortress of restrained lusts.
On sultry evenings, long summers before, he used to leave the window open to allow the sighs and their gathering perspiration to dissipate in the warm evening air. A voyeuristic crowd of ne'er-do-wells sometimes gathered below to shout up encouragement.
Not always though. On one occasion he looked up from the creamy nether cheeks that he was belabouring and ceased his energetic wenching. There was a clammy silence for the town square was devoid of raucous listeners for once. A new ship had berthed from the seven isles and his erstwhile audience were bending their backs to earn a foaming yard of ale.
It was not the unaccustomed tranquillity that stilled him. It was the fact that, perched on the metal balcony above them, was that elusive red tailed hawk. It looked down at them lugubriously and persistently, before turning its rusty coloured body away from him, emulating his partner's position, displaying its own finery. He observed the dark and obvious belly band.
This hawk's most notable feature would one day be its tail. This feature was far less striking then than the fully grown adult that the Count would come to observe keenly in time. The white base, the brownish colour, and the fine bars, marked it out as a juvenile, just like the colours of a well whipped young partner, writhing in frantic copulation against his thrusting manhood.
He was not put off his priapic stroke for long by the feathered beauty before him. The evanescent hawk faded from his memory as it flew away to another observation post and meatier prey. It had distracted him briefly from the nagging worries about the limitations such ribald paths offered.
It challenged him, pressing him towards the realisation that there were greater demands than this tame debauchery in the outlying inns, farmsteads and seaport stews. The relentless cry of the raptor called him back to the harsh cliffs and the dark forests. He would leave the daughters of farmers, innkeepers and proud bourgeois merchants trembling in vexation with a shrug at the denial of his bloodline: until he was next tempted.
Hidden like snagging branches that catch the traveller at each turn along forest paths, he would soon find confusion. There was no dissonance and no countervailing force away from the seat of power, no matter how shameless his penetrations of these subservient hinterlands. He had thought that paths that lead westwards were ripe with possibilities, but the routes were impassable so late in the year.
He had no power of flight across rough seas. A traveler through his lands might find lodgings in the seaport before taking a berth in a ship to the Seven Isles. There were always lodgings in one of the farmsteads frequented by MiLord on the rare mail wagon that crossed the dangerous mountain passes into the neighbouring duchy.
The pursuit of MiLord, as he trailed back towards the forests and overtaking him in the landscapes of his restless mind, might be an even more rewarding adventure. Would the Count deign to notice the keening stranger echoing the tired walk of his black mount?
It seemed to our Lordling that his latest vigorous survey of his fiefdom was nearly over; even though we know that MiLord's red-haired and red tailed confusion has barely begun. Such are the nascent contradictions that gainsay indecision in the heart—or do they, in fact, reinforce it?
So many disparate questions whirl round the mind like the haze in the autumn air, when one encounters lascivious beauty by a quiet stream under the gathering shadows of a sylvan dusk. Such questions may be answered within the flinty stone of the stronghold that towers above the swirling mists. These beguiling mists should divert the jolting of external dissonance from his homeland. Yet, he is so perversely fond of controversy that he will make a decision to bring at least one more element with him on this as on every previous occasion.
Confusion, on this occasion, perches like a nestling in the saddle in a woodland grove in the mist. Confusion is the unchaste beauty who has overtaken the Lordling on his slow trek home. Confusion has the appearance of a red headed woman on a chestnut mare. She has taken the opportunity to bend forward like a graceful sapling to brush against a leather jerkin. Beguiling him with aplomb, she has wrapped an arm around a dark muscular shoulder, as he assisted her to mount.
The dark shoulder, of course, belongs to our smouldering and self-indulgent wanderer on the black stallion. She has encountered our thoughtful, self ennobled ante-hero. How apposite. On the winding route home, she has sequestered his company and the dubious shelter of his sylvan fortress abode.
However primitive, the undoubted warmth of his chambers will be an improvement on the bed of damp moss and dewy bracken that she has been contemplating. She realizes that, beneath the arrogance and the assertiveness, there lies a certain bluff and bravado to conceal the lack of certainty. There is a hint and, therefore, a possibility that the pensive nature belies his rutting machismo.
Nevertheless, he is so focused on the ideas that swirl within his head that he looks away from her with clear deliberation when she opens her mouth to speak to him. He would not have her break his reverie. She drops a kerchief in startled surprise at this apparent snub. So pensive. So reflective. So rude.
It drifts to the ground, joining red-brown curling leaves from the trees. Like the past, it is forgotten in the fading light: clutched in the fist of the falling evening. Quiet beside him, she stares out, watching to see the next possibility and all the openings laid out before her. Her perception is clearer while she stays silent in anticipation of all that is intended for her. Let the feeling take hold. Let the need for it engender a nervous movement of hands offsetting the retentiveness apparent in her poise. She might glance up once and then return her gaze to the forest floor.
Confusion whispers, like the downy feathers of a hawk's wing rustling in the stillness. MiLord stands up in his stirrups, throwing back his cloak and tossing his fine hair. The waxing moonlight gives it a distinguished silver sheen. Has he earnt such acclaim? They have certainly earned their rest, having, finally, ascended the winding path to the dark gate house and its grotesque decorations.
The rough hewn stone would have had enough magic without these hideous gargoyles, but they give one something to stare at as you wait. Your mount stands as still as an owl on the hunt, listening for the scampering of minions, champing at the bit to bring forth the little rodents from within those forbidding walls.
