Prologue:
From 'A History of House Greyleon' written by Scribe Baxtus in year 1213 of the Age of Truth:
King Potent of House Greyleon, 19th king of the Rivenlands, was sealed to his name, as was traditional, by the sacrifice of a white bull. The beast in question was, according not only to the more biased Palace Records, but also to the scribes of the Drover's Guild, of unusual size strength and size, particularly about its prodigious loins, which one scribe blasphemously compared in length and breadth to Orobu, the World Serpent. In any event, the ritual was to prove very efficacious, for never was a scion of Greyleon more truly named than this King Potent.
The king was wed at twenty years, only a fortnight after completing the Vigil of Manhood. His wife was the Lady Callipygia of House Shoareave, at the time a most prominent family for the controlled not only the rich fishing grounds of Bellegost Bay, but also the mines of the Diamond Isle. The lady was fully two years Potent's junior, and by all accounts was a lovely creature, blue of eye and raven-haired. She conceived within a month (Cottonhead, the royal fool, claimed with a minute) of the marriage ceremony and miraculously bore the king not one but five healthy sons. The wonder did not cease there however; the next year the young queen produced five newborn princesses, and five more the year after that. Things continued in this wise until the queen's seventieth year, at which point time at last stopped up the flow of her moon's blood.
The king's desire for her was unabated however and the two spent their remaining years in relatively seclusion, seldom leaving their private chambers and spending long stretches at their private estate of Windlewoods. The governance of the kingdom during these years fell largely upon the shoulders of Lord Condign of House Inhren, Potent's boyhood friend and the Warden of the Rivenlands. Knaves referred to the incorruptible Condign as Old Ironneck but few questioned the wisdom of his decisions. Condign's greatest challenge was doubtless the political miasma created by the surfeit of royal heirs, though he was known to say, when pressed, that of Potent's two hundred and sixty offspring, perhaps six were truly dangerous. When pressed further, he would nevertheless refuse to say whom those six might be.
Chapter One: Satin
Satin moved through chilly halls of Castle Grey with a silence and poise that would have startled his combat instructors, who thought the prince as clumsy with his limbs and he seemed to be graceful with his tongue. He paused a few yards before his passageway joined with another one, checking for the telltale change in light quality that indicated that the ensconced torches were being disturbed by the slight breeze of another human's passage. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he proceeded.
Silently, he counted off the ironbound doors that ran along the right hand side of the corridor. Even for someone born and raised there, Castle Grey could be a warren. Which, given a certain rabbit-like tendency on the part of its owners, struck Satin as thoroughly appropriate.
He paused at the ninth door and, after once again assuring himself of his privacy, bent his eye to its keyhole. The torches in the room beyond were extinguished, but the banked fire upon the hearth bathed the scene in a rosy glow. A young woman sat in a padded rocking chair, her eyes closed but her hands folded so neatly across her belly that one could hardly have supposedly she truly slept. Beside her stood a cradle of the same honey-colored wood as the clothes press and the changing table, decorated with inlays of mother-of-pearl. The rug on the floor was downy sheepskin, good for when the infant would begin to crawl.
The babe in question was, Satin knew, the very youngest of his brothers, Prince Ultimate, whose name had been bound to him only that afternoon with the usual sacrifice of a white bull. It occurred to Satin to wonder if his parents had ushered in a new age of prosperity for the drovers, by so increasing the demand for their choicest animals. Now bull, roasted and spiced, was being served to those assembled in the great hall along with for of its fellows, a great feast in honor of the youngest litter of Greyleon princes. Prince Satin had, uncharacteristically, attended only briefly before slipping away. He had more succulent meats in mind.
Now Ultimate began to whimper, a surprisingly low and urgent complaint. The woman in the rocking chair stirred at once, confirming Satin's suspicion that she had been less than fully adoze. She crossed to the cradle, her bare feet sinking into the down of the rug, and bent over it. Her pale blond hair fell down to form a shining curtain. The firelight caused it to glow the color of a fine white wine. She plucked the princeling from his blankets and settled back onto her rocking chair, speaking to the child in soft, crooning voice.
"Hush now little love, hush now. You're safe and sound in a nice big palace. Nothing's going to hurt you."
Satin had to strain his ears to catch her words, but even so he thought he could detect a hint of melancholy. When the babe did not quiet, the woman sighed, and fumbled one-handed at the sash that held her heavy woolen robe in place. A thrill of anticipation shot through Satin's body. At last the sash parted, and the woman pulled the top of her robe open.
Now, it was true enough that House Greyleon had a long tradition of hiring well-endowed wet-nurses, but this young woman—Mona Ferrier she was called—had something beyond the ordinary. Her long, thick nipples were the same rose petal pink as her sensuously full lips, an already beads of creamy milk were begin to spill from them, as if in eager anticipation. With a happy grunt, young Ultimate fastened onto one of these nipples and began greedily to suckle. His head was comically dwarfed by the bulk of the breast her fed from, as indeed would have been the head of a full-grown man. Or a full-grown cave bear. Each breast was a vast mountain of pillowy flesh, porcelain white and trembling.
Mona let her doe-like brown eyes roll closed and leaned back in her chair, savoring the feeling of release as the tiny princeling relieved her breasts of some of their heavy burden of milk. The sight was driving Satin practically wild. He could feel his cock straining at the fabric of his loincloth. As silently as he knew how, Satin eased the ironbound door open with hands that trembled slightly. By rights, it should have been locked, but then again, by rights it should have had guards posted outside of it. Satin had long ago realized the usefulness of bribery.
The sheepskin made Satin's careful footsteps all but noiseless as he entered the nursery, but as he drew close to Mona, she stirred, alerted by some subtler sense to the fact that was being watched. Those liquid brown eyes flew open and widened in alarm as she caught sight of the prince.
"Your highness!" she gasped, striving to cover her chest with robe but finding that she was hampered by little Ultimate, who clung to her enormous breast like a particularly determined lamprey.
"Miss Ferrier," said Satin, smoothly. "What a pleasure it is to see you."
Mona succeeding in extracting her nipple from Ultimate gums with an audible popping noise, which sent tremors through the whole mountain of her breast. She blushed a deep red, the warm flow slow spreading from her round cheeks down her neck and across her glorious bosom. Satin tried his best not to drool.
Face still burning, Mona stood, edged her way around Satin without looking at him and deposited Ultimate back in his crib. The child gurgled once and then closed his eyes in preparation for further sleep. Her back still towards Satin, Mona began to pull her robe back on.
"Please," said Satin, "Don't dress on my account. I'm really a quite informal person."
Mona froze in place, half in half out of the garment. The blood rushing through her ears sounded unnaturally loud. She heard a rustle of silks as Prince Satin stepped closer, and smelled the scent he wore, sandalwood and balsam, with a hint of something like lilies. It was altogether different from the rough smells of the men she was used to. Her father had smelled of sweat and cattle, her husband of coal and of horses, and both men had often reeked of drink.
A soft, hand with long, deft fingers was laid upon her bare right shoulder, causing her to break out all over in gooseflesh. The hand slid slowly up the white curve of neck, running those long fingers through her corn silk hair, and then down the other side until it encountered the fold of thick wool where the neck of her robe met its left sleeve, through which her arm was till thrust. The hand brushed the bunched cloth from her as one might brush bust off a polished statue and the robe slithered at last to the floor.
Satin surveyed Mona's rear aspect, his heart beginning to pound insistently against his ribs. He could smell her now, the soft scents of milk and lavender that clung to her skin and her white-gold hair. The swell of round buttocks was as nothing to her colossal chest, but even so the mere sight of it caused Satin's already rock-hard cock to jut forward by almost another inch. The only detail that jarred was the scars.
