Frankengeld Pt 20

Previously in Frankengeld. Damion and Helena have prepared for the expedition to the crime scene and Helena has made an unseemly outburst, declaring her love for Damion. We learned more about her history, which might explain it. The Mystery Club members have travelled to the Crime Scene and found clues. These have led them to a neglected Hunting Tower deep in the forest. As Damion studied the heraldic decorations of the tower, and learned something awful, the statue of a two-headed dog has revealed itself to be... a two headed dog.

Now read on...

15th June in the year 1784.

The creature looked at me with both heads and my blood turned to ice. Pale amber eyes, filled with hatred, fixed on me. I could see the muscles around its head and shoulders tense and then it was loping over the courtyard, gaining speed by the second. I was clearly the target.

I levelled the crossbow, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger. The bolt sped from the weapon, and missed. I tried to turn away from the beast but with an impact that felt like I'd been hit by a horse it struck! As an aside I was hit by a trotting horse when I was young so I do know the feeling. It slammed into me, emptying my lungs of air, and knocking me prone. Suddenly I was flat on my back, gasping, and looking up at the sky, my crossbow useless on the ground, several feet from my hand.

The beast turned and, with a dreadful look of triumph in its eyes, gave a wiggle of its hips as it prepared to jump and tear my throat out. My life flashed before my eyes. I had heard this happens but what I didn't know was that your mind is looking for the moment when you made the fatal decision which has now resulted in your death. A moment of choice that, if you could just identify it, might mean you could change fate. A thought born of magical thinking, there is no way to turn back the clock.

As the creature leaped at me I saw Philip out of the corner of my eye. He was also leaping, but to my defence. He dropped to the ground near me and, touching down with his shoulder, rolled his body over in a move that seemed to me to be pure bravado. I should have felt grateful for his heroic actions but instead I was annoyed that he was saving me. Embarrassing me in front of my friends by showing his swashbuckling confidence.

As he rolled he deftly snatched up my crossbow with his left hand, and with his court sword in his right, attacked the beast as it passed over his prone form. The bolt went into one head's throat, and his blade slashed across the beast's other neck, cutting the carotid artery - or whatever artery it had in that vicinity. I'm no veterinary surgeon so I cannot be exact. The beast's legs crumpled under it as it hit down, then it slumped and slid along the ground to strike me in the side. Luckily it was just dead weight. The beast was slain.

Philip stood and looked down at the thing, wiping his sword with his kerchief. "Silver blade," he explained with a satisfied air. "A sod to clean but damned effective against fell creatures."

I struggled to my feet and was almost knocked over again by Helena hugging me tight to her.

"What was it?" Philip continued, as bright and breezy as if he were asking the name of a flower, or the recipe for one of his English puddings.

I extracted myself from Helena's grasp, "I'm fine, really I'm fine. Er... it appears to be related to Cerberus, the three headed dog that guards the Greek underworld."

I was trying to restore some dignity by showing my knowledge. Myths and legends were something I had read when a child. In this I could excell even if I was rubbish at being a warrior.

"Oh," replied Philip. "I thought it was just an aberration. You know, the sort of thing that was taken in early times as a portent. 'On Christmas day this year was born a dog with two heads.' You know the sort of thing."

I stared at the door to the lodge expecting at any moment to see dozens of women, or perhaps wolves, emerge to tear us apart. But none came. "Thank you Philip," I said. "I think you just saved my life."

"You're very welcome old boy," he grinned. "Now let us enter this place, for if we needed evidence that it has become 'an abode of evil', as Poppy would say, we have just been given it."

"Before we enter I wish to show you my escutcheon," I said, looking around to draw everyone into the secret. I knew I had to tell them what I had seen, before Freida spotted it, told everybody, and it looked as if I was holding back in this enterprise.

"Ooo Damion, in public," joked Helena. "Are you sure that's proper?"

I held out my hand with my family signet ring, the one the highwayman had tried to steal. Then pointed above the lodge's entrance. The designs were the same. On an overly elaborate shield, of a fussy shape that I am sure nobody ever took to war, were carved three thin lines, with ragged edges. [For those who need the entire heraldic description then here it is: Argent, three Bendlets Sinister, Engrailed, Rouge.]

The painted version showed these as three red, rough edged, thin lines on a white background. If you were carrying the shield they would start top left, and end bottom right. The explanation for the design, given me by my Father, was that my distant ancestor, the illegitimate son of a Duke, gained the honour of a heraldic crest when he protected his father from the attack of an enormous Moravian battle hound. The three red slashes are said to represent the wound over my ancestor's heart he took when he put himself between the beast and his Duke. He survived, barely, and a lordship was his reward.

Under the carved escutcheon on the lodge was a stone scroll with faded letters. I couldn't see any detail from this distance but I thought I knew what it said. The same as the inscription on the inside of my ring. I removed it and showed the ladies the text.

Freida read it out loud, "Malum Sanguine, Bonum Semen."

Which Philip translated, "Bad blood, good seed."

"Then this building belongs to your family," said Freida.

"Yes, belongs, or once belonged," I agreed. "Though I have never heard of it before."

"I fear to say it," said Poppy, but she did anyway. "Another connection to your father."

We approached the front door but all was quiet and nobody challenged us. It looked like nobody had been here for a very long time. I glanced up at the scroll, much of it was obscured by ivy but what I could see confirmed my worst fears. The text was identical. Everyone stood back to let me open the door, as if it was impolite to trespass before someone who might be legitimately be allowed to enter, did so. The door was not locked or bolted. I turned the handle and it opened with a gentle creak of hinges that had been denied oil for many a year. Pushing it back I stepped in.

The stench instantly brought back a memory of an animal house I visited when I was ten. It was near to the palace in Vienna and mother had taken us away from father for the day. We were in Vienna for one of father's mysterious trips, but this time we were allowed to go along. But, just when we thought we might learn something about what our father did that made him so rich, mother took us away to the zoo. A baroque pavilion lay at the heart of this complex and, in small enclosures, we saw bears from Bohemia, lions from Africa, and an armoured beast with a long horn on its nose that I was told was a rhinoceros.

The smell of that place has stuck in my memory since then and was resurrected by the odour which flowed over me now.

"It smells like my brother's bedroom," said Poppy. "Do we have to go in?"

I stepped over the threshold and swept my gaze over the chamber. It filled the whole of the tower at this level and was clearly a banqueting hall, a place for feasting and the telling of tall tales of the hunt on an evening. In the corner was the entrance to the spiral staircase, leading up and down the tower, and on one wall was a great fireplace. My companions followed me in and spread out looking for clues. Poppy's hound looked reluctant, but entered when she did.

"A fire burned here," said Freida. "Though not in recent days. All is cold, but not yet covered with cobwebs."

"The same message here," added Philip, looking at the long table down the centre of the chamber. "Many ate at this table, and scraps remain, though rotted. Perhaps a week to ten days old."

"The smell hasn't gone though," Poppy screwed up her face. "Are we safe?"

"I don't know," I replied, taking Helena's hand. "I think we should check every chamber. There may be more clues, Poppy, and we have not yet discovered what happened to the doctor."

Helena's hand flew to her mouth in horror, "The scraps of food. They're not the doctor!"

"No Helena," Philip hastened to reply as we all looked aghast. "Venison, I would guess, from the look of it."

We set off up the spiral staircase to the next level. Here the smell was worse. We found a dormitory where the beds had been pulled together to make one large platform. The beds were not that old, and the coverlets were grubby, damp, but not decayed.

"Someone has been here, putting in new beds whilst keeping the tower looking abandoned from the outside," said Freida. "But, strangely, the beds have all been pulled together."

This would have been the communal sleeping quarters for the servants and followers of the Lord with a dozen or more simple beds. Now a raised platform, made of many beds pushed together, filled the middle of the room, covered with sheepskins. We studied it and the ladies approached this gigantic bed.

The communal nature of the sleeping arrangements was pretty usual for a hunting lodge. Privacy was rare on a hunting trip, everyone was expected to share the facilities and work together, whatever their status. Sleeping in a single hall was common for our ancestors and a hunting trip was the opportunity to reconnect with those simpler, more visceral, times of manliness and killing innocent creatures for sport.

The companions to the Lord would sleep here, happy to show their credentials as 'real men'. I believe in England they call them the 'hunting, shooting, fishing brigade'. The Lord himself was, of course, excused these primitive arrangements. The floor above us probably had his chambers. Where he could return to a more civilized age with soft bedding, hot water, and a goblet of fine wine.

Another advantage to communal sleeping arrangements was that they facilitated erotic entertainment. Not all hunting trips involved killing wild animals. On some trips the young aristocrats hunted peasant women, the younger the better, who would be brought back to the lodge to 'entertain' their betters. And such entertainment tended to be a public event, or at least an event where every member of the hunting party would be present. The girl would be encouraged to undress for them, or have her clothes dragged from her if she was unwilling. The Lord would then take his pleasure of the woman first, with his followers praising his efforts.

After a suitable time to show his prowess, tupping the girl repeatedly until he became exhausted, he would retire to bed. Leaving her to be ploughed, repeatedly, by his companions, and - when they had finally grown bored of the fun - by all the servants. It should be noted that female servants were never brought along on a hunting trip of this type, though I had heard stories of mistresses accompanying their Lord and outlasting the peasant girl in the debauchery of the evenings. In the way that Claudius' wife, Messalina, outlasted a prostitute, or so it is told.

The smell here was even more intense than in the dining hall. Looking at the state of the sheepskins, which were fairly new, this room must have been occupied recently. The stench was again like the zoo I visited, but with strange undertones and over-notes that I could not identify. But it was clearly having an effect on the ladies. Philip and I stood and watched as first Freida, and then Helena, clambered onto the communal bed. Poppy hesitated only for a moment before joining them.

"Er... ladies," I called out, but they took no notice.

Freida suddenly kissed Helena and my assistant seemed to be passionate in her response. I tried to stop proceedings. We should maintain our vigilance and not get carried away by the rumours of the nights of pleasure that sometimes happened in a hunting lodge.

"Ladies," I said, firmly but quietly. "We should continue our quest. Nice as it is to be friends..."

Helena started to take her clothes off and Poppy was doing the same. It was a messy process because Freida would not stop kissing Helena, and Poppy was pressing one hand hard against Freida's chest whilst pulling at her own clothes with the other.

"Ladies," I said again, though they were beginning to be most unladylike. "Stop!"

"Let them be," said Philip, with a strange tone in his voice. "It's a while since I've seen womanly love, and a really good poem could come from this."

What else could I expect from a rake like Philip. Good in a tight corner, but prone to letting his carnal side rule. I stepped forward to intervene directly in the ladies rapidly escalating orgy but then hesitated and stepped back. The undertone, a powerful oily smell, was stronger by the platform. My mind and body reacted to it without consulting me. I had a powerful urge to back off, that this was not my territory, and that the women here were not mine to take. I, of course, had no intention of taking any of them I told myself, but I lied. I had a strong desire to jump on that platform of furs and pleasure them all, one after another until I had impregnated them all.

A shuffling noise next to me caused me to turn around, reluctant as I was to stop watching. It was Philip. With his trousers around his ankles, and his hand on his phallus, he was moving forward. Then he too hit the odour. He looked very confused. He was an English aristocrat, his mind could conceive of no force of nature that would prevent him from approaching his lady love. Unless it was her husband. But here his own body was telling him to back away, just as mine had. He groaned in frustration and started to self pleasure.

"Ladies," I tried one last time. "We should be moving on. We have not yet found what we are searching for. Freida, no doubt there are more clues to be found. Poppy, attractive as you look without your clothes, this is not the time. Helena, my assistant, stop pulling Freida's clothes off and please listen to me."

They paid me no attention and when I turned to try to get Philip to support me I found him vigorously massaging his member. It was standing tall from his ginger coloured pubic hair, and was exuding its own musky odour. A little drop of the natural male lubricant discharge glistened on the tip. My head was swimming and the temptation to bend down and kiss it was strangely strong. I quickly turned back to look at the ladies before I started to indulge in sex with a man, something that was still illegal in our country.

They were rolling around in a sea of sheepskins and abandoned clothes. Three women were trying to kiss each other at the same time, a mathematical impossibility. Helena and Freida were most passionate in their endeavours, each grasping the others face in their hands. This left Poppy out in the cold, so to speak, so she sought solace elsewhere. Freida's breasts were exposed and they became the target. And, when Freida groaned with pleasure and arched her back, Poppy moved lower to place her mouth over her friend's sex.

Freida's moans became louder and she lifted her hips, pushing up against Poppy who wrapped her arms around her friends buttocks to get, presumably, better contact. I watched, aghast, as Freida pushed her hand between Helena's legs and started to insert fingers into my assistants vagina. She did this quite expertly - I judged - for at the same time she used her thumb to stimulate Helena's secret nub. Now it was my assistant who was arching her back. She broke from the kiss with a gasp of intense pleasure and moved her head to suckle on Freida's breasts.

I heard the crinkle sound of paper and turned to see that Philip had abandoned his self-pleasuring in favour of poetry. He was clutching a few scraps of stiff paper and writing as fast as he could with a silver mechanical pencil. It was a fascinating device and, for a moment, I was distracted by thoughts of perhaps owning one myself. It would certainly make it easier to take notes when visiting a patient. Philip was swiftly recording his observations of the girls. His handwriting was appalling and, given he was writing in English, I struggled to decipher the words. His phallus was still massively erect and I thought his dedication to poetry must be quite strong for him to abandon it. Again a thought slipped unbidden into my mind, I should help him by grasping his phallus and use my mouth to bring him to orgasm.

On the bed it was getting hard to work out who was who in the tangle of limbs. Poppy was still applying her lips to Freida's sex, but Freida had moved to kiss and suck at my medical assistant's labial lips. And Helena in turn was doing the same to Poppy. They made a triangle on the bed, three women, connected mouth to quim. With their mouths very actively involved their moans had become muffled, but no less arousing for all that. I tried to step forwards again but the subtle odour undertone again turned me away, and I found myself looking at Philip again.

I knew that, unless I did something now, I would soon be sucking Philip's member and encouraging him to do the same to me. I realised that I had almost thought about it as a cock, and if I had gone down that route then buggering, as the lower orders call it, would have been the inevitable outcome. If a trap had been set to catch unwary adventurers it could not have been more effective than this. All five of the Mystery Club members in this room would be lost in pleasuring and oblivious to any danger creeping up on them.

I stepped back until I came to the spiral stair from which we had entered this den of sex and thought hard. There had been buckets on the floor below, the dining area, that might mean water as well. With one last, regretful, backward look at Philip's magnificent, attractive, desirable phallus I descended the stair.

There were buckets and I saw, to my delight there was a tap as well. Hunting lodges of this type often had a water tank in the area under the roof. A cunningly shaped roof collected rainwater and channelled it into the tank, and pipes carried it down to where it was needed. I put a bucket under the tap and turned it, hoping the system was still working. To my delight it was, and the bucket slowly filled.

Poppy's hound, Cosybo, was here. He was padding up and down the tables eating the scraps of venison that had been left. Clearly he wasn't a fussy eater and from time to time he stopped and looked at me. I think he hoped I had something more appetising in a coat pocket. The bucket had filled now and I looked at the amount of water in it and decided to fill a second, smaller, bucket. It was only a matter of a minute or two before I was back at the spiral stair and working my way upwards. The dog, of course, was no help. He just went to the pools of water I had left under the tap and lapped away whilst making the occasional 'wroolf' noises.

I don't know if my readers have ever climbed a narrow spiral stair in a castle. It isn't easy. In fact it's quite hard, especially with a bucket in each hand that I had to hold high up so that they wouldn't bang against the steps and spill their load. I staggered up, at one point almost losing my balance and falling backwards. I stood, swaying, and stabilised myself. Then pushed on. I knew when I reached the sleeping room I would have to act quickly if I were not to fall under the influence of the olfactory over-notes, or undertones, whichever it was that was stopping me in my tracks.