Another quickie! There is a longer tale in the works, I promise, but these little ones keep seizing control of my imagination. This one is a traditional tale of fantasy, and contains elements of incest, magic, gently dominant moms, kings, queens, witchcraft, and probably the oldest trope in English literature. If these are not your cup of tea, please do not complain to me that you are drinking somebody else's tea: just give me back my dang tea.
--for my muse--
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King Eadweard studied the chessboard while the wind howled outside his chambers. The white bishop stood before his king's knight, and he obliged by moving the red lacquered horse in line with his own bishop.
"It's your turn," he said, reluctantly taking his hand off the piece.
"Oh?" By the fire, a female figure was bent low over the roaring fire, stirring a simmering pot. Curling steam arose from the lip of the three-footed pot, then sloshed down towards the floor before dissipating. As she stirred, an unfamiliar scent flooded the room -- spicy and warm and summery. She gathered the hem of blue dress in one hand to keep the gold brocade out of the ashes, pulling it tight across the broad, womanly curve of her buttocks. She dipped a tin ladle into the bubbling liquid and poured it up into a matching set of goblets.
"Did you take anything of mine?" Bryda, the Queen Mother of the Middle Kingdom asked as she placed one of the cups before her son and seated herself. A long black curly tendril of hair had escaped the tight white wimple that framed her face, and a frustrated smile split her plush mouth and spread to her kelly-green eyes as she tucked it back inside.
"No, not as yet." He lifted the vessel in both hands, relishing the heat in his fingers, and watched as she pushed her king's pawn forward a space.
"This smells oddly," Eadweard breathed deeply of the wine in his cup. "Have you done something with it?" The wind reached a high pitch outside, then his mother laughed, a short sharp dismissive bark.
"Did you think your father's people were the first to mull wine?" Bryda laughed again. "It is a recipe of my house. A messenger arrived this morning with a package from my own estates; my dear sister was thoughtful enough to include a purse of spices. Your father's kingdom is fertile and vast, but some things I can only find at home."
"I imagine, yes." His queen's bishop slid next to the white one. "A great many things must grow in the fens that cannot take root in good farmland." It was gratifying to see the color rise in her cheeks as she bristled at his words. If he could unsettle her, he might win this time.
"Is that so, sweetling?" Bryda bared her teeth at him, barely concealing the venom in her voice. "Which fens do you speak of? The fens that are home of my father where we took refuge and hid while your father's blood ran fire through his body, or the fens that swallowed an army of Northmen alive when they came looking for him?" She shifted another pawn. "Speaking of our kinsmen from across the Narrow Sea, where is your lady wife this evening?"
"The Queen is resting in her chambers this evening." Eadweard moved his other knight. "The mead gave her a queer turn, she said."
"A cold way to pass this bitter winter's eve," Bryda observed, pretending to scan the game board. "Why, when I was your age, your father and I scarce passed an evening outside of these chamber walls. That is how you-"
"-ended up with two brothers and seven sisters, I know." He watched her long, elegant fingers pass over her chessmen. How she kept them so clean was a mystery to all.
"Your wine is cooling, Eadweard." She hovered over a rook. "It may be the only thing to keep you warm tonight if Hild won't come to your bed."
"She does come to my bed, Mother," the young king drank from his cup. The spicy mix was wildly different from the castle cook's, and left his lips and fingertips a-tingle. "Just- just not tonight."
"I see, I see." Bryda tapped her lower lip, lush and pink, as though thinking. "All these visits to your chambers must be why she has not produced an heir these last three years. Why, the girl is simply too busy fucking to get pregnant!"
"Mother!" The wine sloshed over the lip of his cup as he slapped it back down on the table. "I am king here, and you will show the proper respec-"
"Yes, and a fine, young, handsome king you are at that." She castled her own king, swapping it around with the rook. "You should be bedding women and making babies; a fine crop of bastards would be better heirs than no child of your body at all. I'm sure half the maids in the castle go to their beds dreaming of having their king's mighty sceptre between their legs. You would scarcely be the first lord to-"
"I will not." Eadweard copied her move and took a deep draught of the wine. "Wedding vows may hold little sway over other men, but I swore fidelity before half the kingdom to keep the peace with her father and I mean to hold to my word, Mother. Hild will bear me a goodly son and heir no matter how long it takes."
Bryda held up her hands in mock surrender.
"Very well, very well." She chuckled. "I raised you too well, perhaps. If my son is a better man than most I suppose I should be proud. More wine?"
"Please," he said. His mother took the cup and refilled it.
"But she gets her blood? Every month?" That black curl reappeared at the crest of her smooth, pale forehead, a stray comma on a blank page.
"I- I imagine so." The furred cloak around his shoulders felt too heavy, too warm. "It may beggar belief but II do not inspect my wife as though she were a brood mare."
"She's so small," the Queen Mother went on. "Like a stripling boy. No hips or breasts to speak of, like she's never eaten a healthy meal. They say that starving maids may lose their moon tides altogether, and become as barren as a stony field." She moved her knight to shield the white queen. Bryda, herself, looked as though she'd had many a good meal; the blue dress she wore did little to hide a figure that seemed to be almost entirely curves, from hips to bust to lips to behind, womanly and screaming with the fertility that she'd proved over a lifetime of childbearing. Ten babes she'd birthed Eadweard's father, and though scarcely four had survived to adulthood, Bryda looked as though she were ready for more, if her husband hadn't been dead.
"Must we have this conversation every evening?" He pushed up one of his pawns, and without a moment's hesitation, she took it with her knight.
"Until there is a screaming baby boy in that...wo- no, girl's arms, I don't see why not." Bryda waved the chessman at her son.
The young king's nostrils flared; draining his cup, he stood, drawing himself up to his full height to look down upon his mother. Like his father, he was tall and broad and possessed of a hard stare, though he had the dark coloring and sensual mouth of his mother's people.
"I wish to retire." Eadweard slammed the goblet back down on the table. "We can continue this game in the morning, but not this conversation." The Queen Mother of the Middle Kingdom, heir to the Estates of Deepland Marshes, pushed her chair back and bowed low before her son.
"Yes of course," she said, that one strand of hair escaping her wimple as she bent nearly double. "As my liege wishes, I shall take my leave and see him in the morning." He couldn't see her smirk, but he could hear it.
"Thank you." The king breathed a sigh of relief. "And mother?"
"Yes oh my son, great king of kings?" She wasn't even trying to hide the sardonic grin now.
"Leave the wine. It will be cold in here tonight."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Bryda gathered up her skirts, and crossed the room to the door. "Have a very pleasant evening."
"And you," he refilled his goblet.
"Oh I'm certain I shall." Heavy iron hinges squealed as his mother pulled his chamber door open; it fell shut again with a room-shaking clang when she departed. Shaking his head, Eadweard shifted a chair and sat before the fire, thinking.
The king was well into his third? Fourth? Cup when he noticed the sweat standing out on his brow. The once-high flame had long since ebbed to mostly embers; he mopped his brow and banked these into a heap, then unclasped the brooch holding his heavy cloak in place. When that did little to cool him, he began stripping off articles of clothing to alleviate the heat.
Outside the wind whipped around the thick stones of the castle keep. A thick lip of snow was forming on the sill of the nearest window.
"It cannot be so hot in here," Eadweard said, suddenly struck by fear. His father had been carried off by fever: did a similar fate await him? He flexed his hands, watching his fingers. He did not feel sick. There was no ache in his joints, no dizziness, no trouble in his guts. Indeed, he could feel a pleasant tingle in his extremities, the effect of his mother's concoction.
Ah, well. She did say it would keep him warm, but he did not expect the effect to be so profound. His hands and feet felt were practically hot, and there was no denying a very pleasant warmth between his legs.
There was a knock at his door, light and tentative, almost inaudible over the storm raging outside.
"Who comes?" Eadweard called, wondering how many steps it would take for him to seize his sword, hung by the wall.
