The Norseman Ch 08

The festival of Hökunótt began with the arrival of many guests on the very next night. Cwen and Gellir appeared, at least to their visitors, as a united couple welcoming family, neighbours and friends with open arms. Huge platters of food were presented and wine and ale flowed readily.

Almost nobody could have seen beyond the façade presented by their genial hosts. Gellir kept an anxious watch on the door, knowing that Emma would be his guest again, in such different circumstances, and Cwen kept a watchful eye on her husband, horribly aware of his eager anticipation. When they spoke to one another it was with a cool civility – polite and smiling, but with deeper feelings of fury and jealousy hidden behind their eyes.

When Emma and Stefan joined the throng of guests the festivities were well underway. Emma looked fit and strong, well fed and rested and was dressed in a fine new gown, the colour of ox's blood. Stefan entered with a possessively placed arm around her shoulders, proud to show her off to the local men, yet wanting to make certain they knew and understood her ownership.

Gellir saw her as if at a distance, yet there were only a few feet between them, he felt as though the rest of the room had fallen to a hush, as his attention was so completely focussed upon her. He feasted his eyes upon her, on the soft skin of her face, her full lips, slightly parted, her large eyes the colour of bronze – the sight of her stopped his heart.

He recalled how he had dreamt of his mother after her death – dreamt they had been reunited with a longing and love like he felt at this moment. When he had awoken he had been bereft, an aching agony in his chest as the reality of his loss has washed over him. He feared that tonight, seeing this lovely woman before him, if he were to blink or to look away he might lose her forever, with the same force of agony that he had felt at the loss of his mother.

Emma was trying hard not to look for Gellir, she was keeping her eyes trained on her Master, laughing and animated; but in her heart she longed to look around, to catch sight of him once more.

Cwen approached first, speaking only to Stefan, ignoring Emma very deliberately. "Stefan, my dear brother, I welcome you"

"We thank you for your hospitality." Stefan smiled broadly, his eyes knowing "I trust you had a safe journey home yesterday. It was a wild night indeed."

Cwen blushed in spite of herself. "Please, make yourselves at ease and enjoy the festivities." She moved away quickly, her face prickling with shame, and she fancied she could feel the candle wedged deep inside her and the snow beneath her knees. Had Stefan seen her? Had he watched her debase herself?

Having seen Cwen, Emma was unable to hide her curiosity any further, and she glanced quickly about her, to see Gellir standing close by, still as a statue, mouth slightly parted and his eyes fixed upon her. She ignored the hot rush of pleasure at the sight of him, and gave him a quick hard smile, before stepping away, still arm in arm with Stefan.

If the man was happy to discard her then she would never let him see the reality of her feelings. Her heart hammered in her chest and she could feel the warm reminiscences of their time together put a tingle between her legs almost immediately.

She had forgotten how beautiful he was, how handsome his broad face was – his sleek, sandy hair, his large long-lashed eyes the colour of a winter sea. If she could obey her heart she would step up to him and touch his skin, feel the warmth of his skin against her finger tips and the rasp of his stubble against her palm.

Her heart quickened pace when she thought of his long shaft buried deep within her, opening her up and transporting her, body and mind. She couldn't deny that she wanted him still, that the very sight of him had made her ache for him. Stefan, she realised, was simply a temporary distraction, a dalliance to occupy her until she could be with her true mate again.

As the feast continued and the wine flowed she kept finding her eyes searching the room for him, keeping watch on his every move, and it seemed that every time she glanced in his direction he would be looking at her with an intense gaze. Around them the room became noisier, as the wine and ale fuelled the guests with a raucous energy.

Cwen could feel a sickening nausea rise in her gut, as every time she looked at her husband she could see his eyes trained on Emma with longing. She knew she had been right to try and rid them of this girl, and that she had no option but to execute the plan she had made on the long ride home the previous night.

Looking around the room she could see Stefan, blind drunk, laughing heartily with some of the men, a proprietorial hand clasped tightly around Emma's arm. He looked as though another glass of wine would have him asleep or ailing. Her husband however, looked sober and alert – engaged as he was in watching his whore. Cwen breathed deeply, trying hard to settle her rage, and she crossed to where he stood in reverie.

"Husband?" she gave a broad, flashing smile, that didn't quite meet her eyes. "You are quiet tonight – please, let me get you some wine." He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, and seeming to notice her for the first time he agreed.

Nobody paid her any attention as she collected wine from a vast flagon, hence nobody noticed her make an addition to the goblet –the contents of a small glass vial which was hidden within her gown. The liquid was invisible in the ruby red wine, and almost flavourless, and as she returned the goblet to Gellir she watched with mounting exhilaration as he drank the wine distractedly.

It took barely a few minutes for the brew to take effect – astounding in such a big man – but soon he found it hard to focus his vision, and seemed a little unsteady on his feet. He swayed a little where he stood.

"Cwen, I feel...I feel unwell." He blinked rapidly and put his hands heavily on her shoulders to steady himself.

"Darling, come and find a place to sit." She ushered him from the great hall, slipping past the revelling guests without drawing any attention, and took him to their bed chamber.

By the time they reached the bed he looked ready to fall, and she steered him to lie down. Asleep almost instantaneously, she kneeled down and straddling him on the bed.

"Oh, Gellir! You should have trusted me – she isn't the one for you. I can't let her come between us, and you can't want a woman who lets herself be used so wickedly." She remembered the sight she had seen in Stefan's bed the night before and found herself pushing her aroused pussy down against Gellir whilst he slept. "By the time tonight is over, you won't want her – she won't be fit for anything." She shuddered with anticipation and left her husband to sleep his drugged sleep, so that her plan could come to fruition.

Back in the Great Hall the tamer guests were leaving. Cwen said her farewells, struggling with her desire to push them from the door and get on with the plan – she was breathing heavily and has a sheen of sweat on her brow, such was her feverish excitement.

With about a dozen guests remaining, she glanced around the room. The din in the hall was growing as the raucous, ale fuelled voices raised ever louder, and in the fire and candle light the shapes of the guests took on an animal quality – feasting, drinking and laughing loudly. Emma was at the centre, attracting attention from most eyes in the room as one of the few women remaining, and Cwen felt heartened at the sight of Stefan slumped in a seat, oblivious with drink.

Cwen stood to the centre of the room, and heart in her throat she called to the servants. At her instruction they brought forward a huge travelling trunk made of fine leather and metal work. The guests began to give Cwen their attention, wondering what treat she might reveal from the trunk. In one smooth motion she covered the trunk in a thick soft blanket from her own bed, momentarily noting the scent of Gellir that lingered upon it.

Cwen spoke loud and clear for the whole room to hear, and immediately they fell silent. She spoke in the language of her audience, rather than the woman she addressed – for this was for their benefit, not Emma's. "Emma my dear, will you join me?" She smiled widely, a gesture that didn't reach her eyes, and looked, to those who knew her, like the smile of a snake. "I want to welcome you formally to our home, as our guest rather than our bounty. I too, Sister, came from the same land as you, and know the perils of your journey." With a nod to her men she continued. "I wish you to feel at home here, to feel you can act as your self and be..." a theatrical pause "...satisfied by our humble company."

Behind Emma the servants had moved into position, and held her fast by her upper arms. She struggled and tried to protest, but her language was unfamiliar to them, and they feared Cwen too much to release her. The pulled her across to the trunk and laid her back against it. She felt the hard wood beneath her back and struggled fiercely against their hold.

She was quickly tethered to the ironwork on the great casket, her wrists bound with soft cloth, but held so tight that she could barely move them at all. Her legs were tied more loosely, in a longer tether which allowed her to move a little way, and find her feet against the floor, but with her back against the trunk and her wrists bound she was unable to right herself.

Cwen bent over her, face flushed and eyes alight with malice. "You can indeed be yourself tonight! You can be the whore you have been playing since you set your feet on Norse soil." She brought her face very close to Emma's and hissed "By the time we are finished here tonight Gellir will have no use for you – you'll be as ruined and slack as a street girl!"

She turned to her guests with a flourish. "Gentlemen! Let me offer you a unique opportunity – a fine young thing with holes to be filled – she exists tonight for your pleasure and entertainment." Taking a short knife from within her gown she began to loosen the bodice of Emma's dress.

Around her the rowdy guests had fallen into a hushed disbelief, all eyes on their hostess and the foreign girl. With each tug of the knife Emma's dress began to fall further open, exposing her breasts to the eyes of all onlookers. In spite of the warmth of the room her fear made her nipples hard and they pointed from small dark areola atop the white flesh of her heavy, youthful breasts.

As more and more flesh was exposed the guests gazed hungrily upon her flat belly and then, as the layers of her new gown and undergarments were cut away, the dark swathe of soft hair nestling between her legs.

Cwen tugged at the gown, pulling it away from her body and exposing her to all around her in her full nakedness. She checked her bindings, pulling the ankle ties further apart so that the others could, for the first time, see the flash of pink that lay within the hairs between her legs.

She stepped back; her eyes alight with furious triumph and satisfaction. She breathed hard and felt delicious anticipation light the flame between her own thighs. "Guests! Who will be first to taste her? The first to make her writhe and squeal gets to keep her!"

There was a rustle, and murmur as the men gauged the acceptability of what they were about to do, they struggled for only a short time with the conflict of their desire and their sense of right. The vision of the pretty young thing, tethered and exposed, her pretty slit calling them, had many on their feet within a minute. As they moved forward, crowding to get a better sight of her one man stepped forward and the others parted quickly in deference to his status.

The man was outside of Emma's range of vision, tied as she was against the curve of the trunk, but he was older, with grey hair and beard and his robes were the finest in the room. He stood briefly before her and looked down with hunger in his eyes. He spoke softly. "Forgive me, sons."

As he knelt before her, between her dainty, tethered ankles Gellir and Stefan's father was acutely aware of treading painfully on the toes of one, if not both of his sons – having witnessed their devotion to this woman earlier – but he could no more stop himself than he could stop the seasons.

He could not recall the last time he had touched young flesh like this, and he thought only momentarily of his wife, mother to his sons, who was as cold as the Norse winter and as stout as the trunk Emma laid upon.

He stroked the bare skin of her ankles, his cold fingers skimming her soft thighs and tentatively reaching the soft warmth of her centre. She was dry, and flinched to his touch, so as he released himself from his trousers he spat on his fingers and smeared it against the aching purple head of his shaft.

He murmured softly to her, words he knew she would not understand, in an attempt to quieten her fears and he brought his tip to her pink opening. Feasting his eyes on her soft, creamy skin and stroking his fingers across her nipples with the lightest touch he began to nudge at her, gently opening her to him and urging his way in with all the restraint he could muster.

He could hear others talking, urging him crudely, and he wanted desperately to quieten them and focus himself on the gentle drag of her lips against his shaft. He felt the heat of her when she had only accepted such a tiny part of him, and he wanted to blot out the desperate need to thrust, regardless of her reluctance.

As he worked himself in slowly he could feel the hot, tight walls of her channel tight around him, and unable to bear the building tension he cupped hold of her breasts in his large hands and made one final thrust.

Emma, face turned away from him, eyes tight closed felt his orgasm come mercifully quick, she felt him push deeper and the now familiar thump, thump, thump of him coming hard against the neck of her womb. She felt her hot, dry centre flood with warm fluid and she grimaced in horror at the sensation.

As the man's flaccid shaft slipped from inside her he sat, panting, head hung low and the crowd of onlookers cheered. In part it was the sight of the woman taken, in part seeing this grand man on his knees, acting on the same base needs as his minions.

He stood slowly, and left without meeting the gaze of the other parties, and as he moved away Emma could sense movement out of sight and knew that that could not be the last time she would be taken tonight.

The next man slipped in easily where she was now slick with seed. It was like a terrible parody of the wondrous feelings she had had with lovers taken my choice. She could feel the sensation, the movement within her, the thrusting and hear the passion in the breathing and grunting, but she felt little in herself.

A young lad brought himself to her head and with her eyes closed she could feel him close by. She could smell a male scent and opened her eyes to see his small, pink cock almost at her lips, and though she tried to turn her head away he held her and rubbed the head of his shaft against her lips. She tasted the familiar saltiness, and felt the smear of his early dew on her face, and, reluctantly, she opened her mouth to accept him.

Almost at once, with him in her mouth, she felt the man inside her shaft come heartily and be replaced in seconds by another. She could feel hot, sticky liquid against her thighs and with the urgency of the young man in her mouth she could begin to feel the shameful beginnings of arousal.

She would look up the boy, see his face contorted in ecstasy, mouth open and eyes shut, and she thought of her mouth around Gellir, or Stefan, the feeling of power their gratitude gave her, the sense of taking them anywhere, everywhere within her, and she felt herself stir.

Her change was noted by the others, they could see her alter the angle of her hips to encourage them deeper, hear the soft sounds in her throat and the see the tension mounting in her limbs.

Cwen, watching her, had revelled in her discomfort, and positively crowed when her fine father-in-law had done his business in her like a cheap whore. She liked it far less now. She could see admiration and lust in every eye before her and she, too, could see the subtle changes that heralded Emma's pleasure. She had wanted her humiliated, dirtied beyond recognition, not adored and enjoying it!

"Come on!" She ordered. "She has more holes than that – fuck her, men! She is ripe to be used."

To her side a man spoke. "Cwen, my dear host, we are waiting our turn. How much quicker it should be if there were two whores."

"Why Sir, that is true – but she is whore enough for everyone here!" she smiled, suddenly anxious.

"Let me see." He moved closer to her and Cwen stepped back. He raked her with his eyes and spoke to another close by. "The new one has the fine bosom, but I hear Cwen has a sweet cunt."

"I have heard this too, brother."

Cwen knew in an instant that she was soon to become victim of her own plot, so she spoke sternly and with confidence she did not feel. "Gentlemen, my husband is here, only in another room, he would be mighty angered to hear you speak in this way."

"I do not see your husband, lady, and if he isn't here to protect her," he cast a glance towards the tethered beauty behind him, "when she is his pearl, then I doubt he would make a move to save you."

She balked in horror at both the truth in his words and the reality of what was coming. In a moment the two men has wrestled her onto her back and lifted her skirts, they called to the whole room, and those who were not at work with Emma came to gaze upon the telltale wetness between Cwen's legs.

"She likes to watch it, but it would be a shame not to join in!" and she howled in shame as the first entered her roughly.

Emma heard her cry and looked over, past the hip of the young man to see the fine mistress with her legs held spread and a man pistoning back and forth between her thighs. The sight was almost too much for her, and it seemed, altogether too much for the young lad who suddenly withdrew from her mouth and in a swift shuddering motion emptied his cream across her lips.

Emma was astounded when her next sensation was a kiss from the soft, fragrant lips of one of the women in the company. She had kissed Emma soundly on the lips and her tongue was capturing the gleaming trail of white that was across her chin. The woman was knelt beside her, her hand beneath her gown and a look of longing and desperation about her face.

Now the room was filled with the soft sounds of moving bodies, the panted breaths and throaty sounds of sex. Cwen was on her back, red faced with indignation, yet the telltale thrust of her hips showed her need to be fulfilled.

For Emma, as the young man moved back, and yet another filled her soft, slick hole with his seed, the crowd separated to allow more forward. She lifted her head and shuddered at the thought of how many more would use her.

Someone called out "Din! Come forward man, if anyone can fill her it is you!" The guests cheered and a huge rock of a man walked forward, slightly unsteady on his feet, worse for drink she supposed.

Din was easily the biggest man in the room, and she would have supposed Gellir to be dwarfed by him. He had huge, hulking shoulders, fists like hams and a broad face nestled in a wiry, unkempt beard. He laughed and it sounded like rolling thunder, and when he spoke his voice boomed from deep in his chest like the toll of a great bell.

"I was only letting the rest of you break her in! Didn't want the fair little thing to be hurt!" He smiled down at her with sea green eyes and spoke to her with unfamiliar words. "Don't worry, I'll not break you – but if Cwen keeps her promise I'll be taking you back with me!" The others laughed heartily, seeming to agree, slapping his back, urging him on.