Re-buttoning my gown, I hurried out the back door of the inn, nearly running into the startled innkeeper. I hustled away down the alley. I felt flushed, and freshly fucked, and when I was far enough into the dark night, I let myself smile. The deception had been perfect, and the sex too.
I periodically felt a tickle of heat. Even though it was the middle of the night, it felt like my skin was being dappled with sunlight. The sensation was reassuring, because it meant I was being protected, magically, from the sperm now swimming in my vagina. The protective spell was tattooed into my lower back. I couldn't help but pity ordinary women. They could conceive without intending to, and they wouldn't even feel it happening.
My bodyguard Lars was waiting around the corner where we had agreed to, leaning against the wall.
In our native language, he asked, "Is that you, my princess?"
The glamour potion still had me looking like a buxom redhead, but that would wear off soon, revealing my olive skin, and my straight black hair.
"I need to get out of costume before the glamour wears off," I said, walking on.
"You can change in the carriage. Was it a success?" he asked.
"Yes, by morning the duke will be begging the colonel for his daughter's hand in marriage, to avoid the scandal of producing a bastard."
"What if the colonel's daughter denies that it happened?" Lars asked.
"You certainly do ask a lot of questions for a bodyguard," I commented. "In this culture, she would be expected to deny the tryst, whether it happened or not. So if she denies it, no will believe her."
"And this duke, did he make you cum?"
I laughed. "Only once. No need to be jealous, Lars."
We reached the carriage and hopped in. Once it rolled into motion, I drew the curtains, and slipped out of that redhead's ugly gown.
"I've always wanted to fuck a redhead," Lars said as I climbed into his lap.
I let Lars pleasure me to the rhythm of the carriage wheels bouncing along the cobblestones.
After a long day's travel, we reached my palace the following evening, just after sunset. I was glad to finally have an opportunity to bathe. Still the young duke's seed assailed me, now with some of Lars' competing with them. I slipped into a hot bath, where the pings of heat from my protective spell felt natural.
When I was dressed again, my sister Margaret came to my rooms. As the eldest, she was queen. And right now she was heavy with child. It would her fifth, and likely not her last. We were similar enough in appearance that anyone could tell we're related. But Margaret had grown to look every bit the mother of five she now was. Her hips and buttocks had filled out, and her breasts had grown full and round. I meanwhile had stopped developing when I got the spell tattooed into my back as a young woman. That left me leaner, flatter in the chest, and overall younger-looking than my sister, by more than the few years that separated us. My physique had its advantages; older men would see me as a childhood fling they'd never had, back when pleasures of the body were novel and unencumbered. And for men that preferred women of other types, I could use a glamour spell to change my appearance for a short time.
Margaret's extraordinary fertility was normal for our family. Without the protective spell, I'd have as many offspring as her already, maybe more, given what I do. This fertility was one thing that kept our dynasty intact for so long.
The other factor keeping us in power was what I had become. Making the younger sibling permanently barren prevented rivalries for the throne. And young women like me could be strategically used to political ends. Where a lesser kingdom might send an assassin, my kingdom would send me, to defang a threat more amicably.
"My eldest daughter looks up to you," Margaret said. "She asked if she could start the training. Perhaps you had better have a word with her."
"How much does she know about what I do?" I asked.
The queen sighed. "I think she knows some. That you're free of the risk of pregnancy, that you get to travel for the good of the kingdom...I doubt she's put it all together yet."
"She might become less interested in being me, if she knew that it meant having sex with men for the good of the throne," I said bluntly. "I wonder if she would admire me less then too."
Margaret didn't say anything to that. Our roles had been determined by tradition, neither of us had any choice in it.
"What about Emily?" I asked. Her second-oldest daughter was the who would eventually take my place.
"She's still at the age where boys are gross," Margaret said.
"She's not wrong," I joked. "It'll be at least a few years before she's old enough to begin training anyhow."
"You weren't much older than her when you started."
"Let her discover her own body before she's supposed to use it on others," I said.
Margaret nodded. "And I suspect that Nathaniel will be paying you a nocturnal visit. He's been eyeing my pregnant belly all day. I know it turns him on, knowing that it's his child growing in me. But as far along as I am, I had to turn him down."
Nathaniel was my sister's husband, the King Consort. He didn't mind that being king didn't mean ruling the realm, that his duties were mainly siring and raising the children. He excelled in those roles. Sometimes he wanted to do more siring than his duty required.
Having a younger version of his wife under the same palace roof, and knowing that I couldn't get pregnant by him, proved too strong a temptation. I didn't quite understand him. Getting his wife pregnant turned him on, and yet fucking her younger, barren sister also turned him on.
"You should tell him that you know about us," I said. It was her right to tell him, not mine. If it were up to me, he'd know already. There wasn't any good reason the of us couldn't all be open about loving each other.
"I think he enjoys the secrecy of it. Why ruin his fun?" Margaret asked.
"Because sometimes men do dangerous things to protect their secrets," I said. And I of all people should know.
The smalltalk finished, my sister finally got around to the purpose of her visit to my room.
"Our neighbors to the west, their fleet has been crossing over into our waters, testing the border, scaring the fishermen. They're led by a second son of the royal line, who apparently isn't content with the treaties between our kingdom and theirs. I need you to pay him a visit, and find out what it will take to convince him to stop."
"Who should I go as?" I asked.
"No need for a disguise, unless you find that it would help," she said. Sometimes, like deceiving a young duke, I had to disguise myself. And for other missions, the role of a princess was called for. "And do be careful."
"You know I'm protected from conception and malady," I said.
"I didn't just mean during sex. There are other dangers out there."
"I haven't forgotten my training," I assured her. In addition to seduction and sexuality, I had learned armed and unarmed self defense.
"No need to leave until morning," Margaret added as she left. "If you leave before Nathaniel gets an opportunity to visit you, he'll be insufferable while you're gone."
In my bedroom, I changed into a silk gown, and tried to sleep, confident that my sleep would be interrupted. Talking about Margaret's daughters, and my training years ago, I remembered the pain of getting the spell of infertility tattooed into my back, and then the ceremony to test it.
To be confident that the spell worked, there had to be a demonstration. This meant that the magician who had inscribed it, the old man who had been training me for my role, had to prove its efficacy. And the demonstration had to be witnessed by the king and queen. At the time, that meant my parents.
