..........The girl clung to the varnished door-post like a butterfly to a twig. The knight, growing ever more angry, began shoving his chattel forward. With a cry of fury that took him aback, she spun suddenly and raked his cheek with her nails. Cursing himself for carelessness, the Frank grabbed her arms, twisted one of them behind her back, and then dragged, half-carried, the struggling female across the flagstone floor.
Having thrown the wench across the silk sheets of his bed, the noble stood back to catch his breath. Let the slave rage, he thought, let her glare at him with hate. He savored the sight of her indignation, for it told him that he was master here.
But the Frank didn't want to give her too much respite. He moved abruptly, snatching at the girl's beaded girdle and pulling on it sharply. Its tiny hooks burst and he was able to strip away her diaphanous harem skirt with little more effort.
"You pig!" cursed the brunette, springing up to strike at him yet again, but this time she missed.
The knight smiled as he once more threw her down upon the sheets, liking the way she swore and fought back, never giving in to tears no matter how he manhandled or punished her. Still grinning, he reached out and seized her wrists. While the mismatched pair struggled for supremacy, thunder crashed above the towers of Belvoir Castle, and a rare, cold rain slashed at its flanks like a camel whip. . . .
..........A little less than a year earlier, the Crusader Baron Simon Saint-Mihiel had been climbing another tower, leaving his weary men-at-arms well behind and struggling to keep pace with their energetic young master.
Gaining the upper landing, the Frank stepped warily through an open door and into a circular chamber. This, the Crusader was now able to confirm, turned out to be only a prison cell, its air thick with the odors of human captivity, and with the acrid smoke from the fires which burned thickly around the courtyard. Chains rattled and the knight turned en garde toward the sound.
He relaxed as he beheld naught behind him but a nude, manacled girl in an alcove. Also, he noted with equal interest, a second figure was lying face-down in front of him -- a white-haired male in rich robes of damask cloth.
Saint-Mihiel moved next to the prone figure and jabbed it's ribs with his broadsword, satisfying himself that the old man was indeed dead. He turned the corpse over with his boot and his glance fixed upon the pearly hilt of a stiletto which protruded from its breast.
But that was not all he saw. The Crusader bent closer, to make out a peculiar scar over his enemy's heart. It had the shape of a heathen glyph and the sorcerer must have worn it for many years. Pfahhh! Pagan witchery! The knight crossed himself to ward off its baleful magic, then scooped up the dagger as a trophy. When he drew it from the corpse he noted the drops of thin blood running to its point. Clearly, the master of Kala'at Sharwar was not long dead.
Standing, Saint-Mihiel sheathed his sword and reflected that this was a feeble end for the notorious Muawiya al-Tariq, a wizard whose mountain castle had defied his siege lines for so long. The man had been detested even by his own Moslem neighbors. He had kept no faith with their God, they said, but instead worshipped the ancient images of vanished deities -- demons grown old long before Joshua had destroyed Canaan and smashed the blasphemies of their worship.
Just then Saint-Mihiel's men, puffing breathlessly, stumbled into the chamber. The baron ignored them and he turned back toward the chained girl. Her rich brown curls fell in disarray, but when she shook them away from her face he took note that her features were uncommonly handsome. This maid, whoever she was, could hardly have been more than eighteen or nineteen.
The girl was collared as a slave and chained by each wrist. Though not tall, she was full-breasted and sensuously-endowed. The baron had given orders to take no captives from this accursed castle, but he found himself tempted to make an exception of this wench -- the likes of whom he had not often seen in his twenty-nine years of life.
The beleaguered brunette, for her part, was staring back at him with eager hope. Her lips pursed grimly when she realized that there was no pity to be seen in Saint-Mihiel's hard eyes.
"Please, my lord," she whispered in the bastard mix of French, Arabic, Greek, and Turkish that served in the Holy Land as a lingua franca. Though not friendly to foreign ways, the Frank had himself learned to speak it.
"Why are you here, wench?" Saint-Mihiel demanded, clutching a handful of her hair in his mailed fist.
"I am Rhea Artavasdos," she stammered; "My father is a gentleman of Thessalonica. Pirates sold me into slavery. I am a Christian like yourself -- free me!"
..........Tears of rage smeared the face of the resisting girl. Already having shed his tunic, the Crusader held the girl pinned between the vise of his muscular thighs.
"I'll kill you!" Rhea yelled as she tried to drive her thumbs into his mocking eyes. Growing irritated, the Frank slapped her hard and her head fell back against the pillow. He then reached for a supple cord which lay coiled upon the nearby stand. "No! Don't!" the girl protested.
Unheeding, the Frank bound her skillfully, as he had done many times before. He knotted the rope to the headboard and, as the young woman struggled wildly, the knight pressed his ale-scented mouth against hers. She snatched her lips away and spat in disgust but he persisted, trying to force his tongue betwixt her clenched teeth. Simultaneously, his eager hands dug between her thighs, and she winced at the rough probing of his calloused fingers. . . .
"Saint-Mihiel! For the love of God, let this one live! I will pay good gold! Remember, Lord, you promised me first pick of your captives here -- but your men are putting everyone to the sword!"
"On my orders!" the nobleman growled, disliking the importuning little merchant. "This place reeks of deviltry! Its every seed must be burned to ash. And you have no reason to complain, Marco Sciarra. You have made yourself rich on the plunder of my victories, at least up to now."
"I pay good money for slaves, my baron! Do you think that I have come so far, endured the lice and the flies, the heat and the dust storms, for no more than a charnel of rotting corpses? I will pay thirty bezants for this beauty -- even blemished the way she is."
"Blemished?" Not understanding, the Crusader took a second look at the bound prisoner. He now realized that the slaver's professional glance had easily discerned something that he himself had overlooked. There was a patch of inflamed skin on the girl's flank, identical to the scar on the wizard's breast, but much fresher. Saint-Mihiel bent closer. The mark resembled a burn yet did not look like a brand. It appeared to be a character of some kind -- meaningless to the warrior who could not even read his own dialect of Gascon French. "What is this mark, slave?" he demanded.
"I am not a slave!" the girl contradicted stubbornly.
The knight raised his gauntlet as if to strike. "Answer my question!"
The captive bent her head resignedly. "I do not know what it is, Lord. Al-Tariq meant to sacrifice me to the strange gods he worshiped. He put this mark on me with a burning salve -- but when you breached the castle wall, he took his own life in fear of you."
Now, again, she raised her desperate eyes. "I implore you, Lordship. Have mercy on a woman who has been wronged. Free me and return me to my family."
"I would be a fool," the warrior answered unkindly. "I have been offered thirty bezants!"
"No, my lord! I am a Christian!"
"You are a Greek, and so a heretic. Heresy always worse than heathenism! Besides, you are too beautiful to be anything except a slave."
The young woman turned her face away, despairing. Saint-Mihiel glanced back at one of his men-at-arms. "Break those manacles!" he commanded.
A big soldier lumbered forward and thrust the thick handle of his mace thorough the iron ring which fixed one of the girl's bonds to the limestone wall. Straining hard, the man threw all his strength against the stubborn Saracen iron, until a loud snap crowned his exertions with success. Then he set to work on the fastenings of the other cuff.
Saint-Mihiel regarded a young squire who stood at his side. "Tell the smith to remove her manacles, but leave the collar around her neck," he instructed the boy. "When the smith is done, have my women prepare her for me."
"My lord!" protested the Italian merchant.
"I may take your thirty bezants yet, Sciarra. If the wench does not please me tonight, she is yours."
That night, Simon Saint-Mihiel celebrated his victory with his officers. Afterwards, as the soot-soiled skies grew nearly as dark as the soul of The Tempter, he raped the Greek girl in his pavilion, until he was at last overcome by an exhausted sleep.
..........The thunder rolled. The Greek girl yelled in rage, twisting her head from side to side. She strained to make her vaginal muscles tight enough to deny him entry, but all in vain. She called out to Heaven for respite, but her appeal was drowned out by another jagged strike of lightning. The dazzling flare of it illuminated the sweating face of her violator, casting the Crusader's hard-chiseled visage into terrible highlights and deep shadows. He resembled a carved gargoyle poised grimly above her. . . .
..........Simon Saint-Mihiel lifted a hand against the glare of the Syrian dawn, still sleepily recalling the pleasures of the night. The Greek girl had been clumsy -- like the virgin she claimed to be -- but the satisfaction of the experience had made up for her lack of skill.
The Crusader reflected idly that Sciarra's silver must be damned; he would keep the female for many another night like the last one. But then he reminded himself that the Italian was useful and should not be sent away angry and empty-handed. Instead of handing over Rhea, the Frank decided that he would sell another of the women he already owned. He should reduce their number anyway; a wise commander did not drag his army down with excessive camp followers, thereby making himself a bad example to his men.
Suddenly a spark of annoyance banished the Crusader's euphoria. He was alone! The foolish wench must have slipped away while he had slumbered! But despite his anger, the act of sitting up alerted Saint-Mihiel to the sway of what was an unfamiliar weight upon his chest. "Mon Dieu!" he cried as his fingers touched upon that which turned out to be tender mounds of flesh. Still sleep-groggy, he did not understand. Then, dimly, he realized that these alien extensions were part of his own body!
His right hand went reflexively to his throat, and again he discovered something that should not be there -- a leather collar. "For the love of sweet Jesus, what --?"
Now Saint-Mihiel's motions made him aware of a rawness between his legs. He threw back the coverlets and cried out a garbled ejaculation of horror.
He had been unmanned!
The Crusader scrambled to the largest clutter of gold, ivory, jewelry, and enameled glass. He threw open a strongbox and, casting aside cups, ornate implements, craters, and candle stands, seized upon a brightly-polished sliver tray. This he lifted to his face with shaking hands.
With a cry of dismay, the Frank threw the reflector away from him like a thing accursed. He had not seen the hard, mustachioed, and sun-burned face of Saint-Mihiel at all.
The silvery sheet had reflected, instead, the olive-tanned features of Rhea Artavasdos!
All Saint-Mihiel's memories of terror, slaughter, and torture paled now against the present delirium clawing at his mind. Was he insane or drunk? He racked his brain furiously to decide which. No! This was magic! The woman whom he had foolishly spared had cast a delusion upon him!
Saint-Mihiel leaped over the little of plunder and ducked through the tent flap, thrusting himself into the intense light of the mountain dawning. "Guards!" he shrilled, his voice high-pitched and strange. "It's witchcraft! Sorcery!"
The begrimed, dust-powdered footmen turned toward the shouting -- and many an eye brightened at the sight of the nude, collared slave girl, standing there yelling and waving her arms in such excitement. Ribald laughter and appreciative nods passed amongst the breakfasting soldiers. The lord was a lucky man!
Before Saint-Mihiel could say another word, a shadow loomed from behind; he pivoted with a desperate appeal on his lips, but his address, whatever it was intended to be, died instantly amid the shock of recognition.
The thunderstruck Frank retreated back into the tent; the other casually stooped to follow him. The man who pursued the Crusader was the same in face, the same in form, as Saint-Mihiel -- or at least as Saint-Mihiel had known himself to be but the day before. The giant stood up to his full height once he was inside the pavilion and stared down at the baffled knight with an expression whose cruel intensity went beyond mere amusement, hatred, or even contempt.
Saint-Mihiel backed into his mound of loot and winced with pain where something scraped his flank. Instinctively looking down at the sore spot, he saw the scabbing of a cursive burn on his flank. The baron quickly looked up at the man in shock, finally understanding. The witch had possessed him and imprisoned his soul in her own cast-off body!
The Crusader burst out with a string of invectives: "Devil! Fiend! Demon from the Pit! Take away your spell!"
In rage, Saint-Mihiel dived for the cingulum that hung from the central tent pole, tearing his familiar falchion from its scabbard. But as it rasped free, its vastly-increased weight dragged its point to he floor. Before the transformed lord could bring the unwieldy thing up again, the other Saint-Mihiel had seized him.
"Monster! Free my soul!" the girl cried out as she struggled against his overwhelming strength.
Calmly, as if to make a point, the giant squeezed her wrists, the pressure sending shots of pain up Saint-Mihiel's thin arms. As the heavy weapon fell from her benumbed fingers, the enchanted Frank fought back impotently with barefooted kicks and sinewless punches that did no harm to the cuirassed male. With the power of a warhorse, the false baron proceeded to throw her back upon the bedroll, knocking the wind out of her.
"You are a tasty morsel," the pretended Saint-Mihiel mocked. "We must waste no time in accustoming you to your new life."
As the girl watched, the giant commenced stripping off his tunic, kicking off his boots. When the giant with Saint-Mihiel's face had rendered himself nude, it was not his lust-swollen tool that shocked his prisoner. All she could see was the raw glyph incised into the man's lower belly -- a fresh eschar which resembling the burn-mark on her own flank -- and also the scar which lay upon the breast of the dead sorcerer Muawiya al-Tariq.
Stunned, the Greek barely defended herself as the giant crushed her against his chest and covered her gasping mouth with violent kisses.
..........The hard rain beat against the masonry, slopping over the window casement, pooling darkly upon the flagstones. To the Crusader's surprise, the Greek this time was responding differently to rape. She was making mewing sounds and was moving oddly, as if she was attempting to accommodate, even to welcome, the motions of his assault.
It was undeniable; for some reason the girl had ceased to struggle. At some level this annoyed him and he tried to reawaken her defiance. Accordingly, the Frank pushed himself home again and again, with unusually brutal and rude directness. His great reach was achieving her innermost depths, but, even so, the Frank exacted from her only a prolonged moan -- which could have as easily been of pleasure as of injury. . . .
..........Saint-Mihiel seemed to drift alone in a vast sea of darkness. There was nothing, not even pain, shame, or fear remaining; her mind wandered aimlessly, as if lost in an empty dream. Suddenly a man whispered, as if his voice came from behind the many folds of a black curtain:
"You have caused me great loss, Saint-Mihiel, but Muawiya al-Tariq will have again all that you might have taken from him."
Her dreaming self sought right and left for the speaker, but Saint-Mihiel saw nothing.
"How easy it would be to slay you," the speaker continued, "even as you have slain my servants. But it shall please me more to take from you name, family, titles, wealth -- even all that you possess, and yet take measures that you should live on, knowing all I have done and all you have lost.
"Yours shall be a life without joy and without hope, Saint- Mihiel. By my spell, you shall be denied the power to give voice to the secret of who you are, or of what you have been. And in the course of months, when you have been forced in the arms of a man for the hundredth time, your true punishment shall only then begin. Fear it, Saint-Mihiel. . . .
..........Saint-Mihiel woke, blearily relieved that the horrors which she had undergone had been only a nightmare, but she quickly realized that her crotch was sore and, as she looked down at herself, saw the aching bruises upon her limbs.
She leaped up and looked wildly about. If it were all true, she had to escape! Only if she were free could she seek out the means to break the spell which misplaced her soul and by that throw sorcerer's vengeance back into his own teeth!
Suddenly, to the young woman's dismay, the tent flaps parted. The giant had already returned -- and this time had brought Marco Sciarra waddling in train. She called out to the little Italian in desperation, but she lacked a voice; only her agitated panting reached the merchant's ears.
Sciarra surveyed the tell-tale bruises on the girl's body and smiled. Cruel treatment at the hands of the Frank should make his new purchase all the more eager to go with him.
"You shall have every bezant that I promised you yesterday, Saint-Mihiel," he assured the false baron. "I think I said twenty, didn't I?"
The knight shrugged indifferently. "Twenty is fair. But I warn you, Sciarra, the wench is proud and insolent. She fought and bit me incessantly. It's only her intractableness that makes me want to sell her. One like her must be well-tamed before she is fit to serve a new master."
"If she needs strapping, she shall have it," promised the Italian jovially. Then the little man's face assumed a stern professional frown and he beckoned to the girl. "Come, pretty one. I am your master now."
Flabbergasted, the metamorphosed Frank tried to shout: "I am Saint-Mihiel," but could not utter even the smallest whisper. Only now did she remembered the words of her dream, that she would have no power to speak of her own identity. Urgently the captive tried to form other words which might help her, and one of these finally came forth in a plaintive plea:
"Mercy."
"Mercy?" echoed the impatient slaver with a shake of his head. "You shall have mercy when you have earned it! Now, get up!"
When she did not immediately obey him, Sciarra strode toward the girl and stepped over the bed clothes to lock his fingers around her upper arm. "No more of this! Come or I will punish you!"
With a cry of dismay, Saint-Mihiel struck out in frustration, beating at the man's thighs and knees. Used to this behavior from new slaves, Sciarra struck her face smartly. The girl fell back stunned, tasting blood on her broken lip. As she lay staring up at the man, her mind racing, she realized that to fight was useless, even a mistake. If she went with the merchant he would at least lead her away from the sorcerer. Maybe then she could find some means to tell him the truth, or, if not, he might grow careless and she could escape. . . .
As the merchant dragged his prize toward the flaps, Saint-Mihiel threw a dazed glance back toward the impostor. Surprisingly, the tall man was displaying no interest in her fate. He was merely staring into the silver tray, touching the face reflected in it, turning it this way and that, as if seeing it for the first time.
At that instant the girl was hauled from the tent and Simon Saint-Mihiel saw the master of Kala'at Sharwar no more.
..........The slave felt her inner body tightening, increasing the friction of the copulation. Had her hands remained free, she would have been holding the Crusader's waist, reinforcing his lunges with her own pulls. As it was, the girl could only lunge her hips upward in rhythm to the man's feverish down-thrusting, increasing the depth of his penetration, if only by a little. When she realized what she was doing, the girl let out a little gasp of astonishment. In the midst of rape, the act had, in some mad way, become something other.
But if it were rape no longer, what exactly had it become?
Whatever the captive girl might call the thing that she was experiencing, her excitement was building to a feverish level. All of a sudden, she gave out with an involuntary scream and her body went into throes. The man felt her wild response and could not hold himself back any longer. His rush came, filling his captive's womb with the generous flood of his essence.
Now, at last, the nobleman withdrew and rolled onto his back. The girl sank down quietly, as spent as he. She shifted her burning eyes his way, her lips parted slightly, but she could fix upon no words that she wished to utter.
The thunder had quelled and the rainfall had grown gently, its light, drumming sound soothing the tired pair. The Crusader, Giles D'Avernec, felt pleased with himself this night. For months his favorite slave had acted like some wild creature of Nature, defiant, untamable. For the sheer sport of it he had tested her resolve to its limit. Now he knew that he had finally overcome her will to resist. He sensed that from this moment on matters might proceed rather differently between the two of them.
He stared up at the beams. It was victory of a kind, but was it what he had wanted? Would a dully obedient, cowed woman, even one of Rhea's beauty, please him more than had the spirited roan mare who had resisted his sharp spurs and harsh training bit so determinedly over these last several months?
The Crusader considered the matter bemusedly as he drifted off to sleep. It was the end of something, surely. But was it only an ending?
..........For long hours Simon Saint-Mihiel, known to others as the slave girl Rhea, lay restlessly on her pallet in the women's quarter of Belvoir Castle. The fresh drafts which had followed the rain fluttered the curtains and fanned her sweat-dampened body. As her passion subsided, she began to shiver and, accordingly, drew a warm sheet over her nudity.
Rhea remembered the last terrible year vividly, counting off her rapes one by one, each of them like a notch cut into her raw and bleeding soul. It had been the false Saint-Mihiel who had first ravished her, and then it had been the turn of that fat swine Marco Sciarra. Each time that she failed to please the slaver, every time his pudgy hand had touched her in fact, she had been strapped like a dog.
For weeks she had been dragged from marketplace to marketplace, where he displayed her, sometimes in finery, sometimes naked, before the wealthiest of the Crusading gentry. Finally, the young Lord Giles D'Avernec had accepted the Italian's high asking price; this new Crusader had taken Rhea home to his castle of Belvoir -- and raped her furiously the first night of their arrival.
In the early days, at least, the girl had fought back. Could she do ought but resist? She had been a knight and, though a harsh and ruthless fighter, an ungenerous conqueror sometimes, Simon Saint-Mihiel's heart had always brimmed with stubborn courage and the pride of place.
But, as Rhea, Saint-Mihiel had found herself outmatched in a contest unwinnable. D'Avernec was a fighting man, as she had been, and doubtlessly he enjoyed claiming victory over her in each new test of will. The girl would have hated her captor much more than she did, except that she understood the feelings of such a man all too well. How could she not?
D'Avernec had frequently loaned her to his friends, his officers, his guests, and sometimes even to his favored servants. It was a calculated part of a pitiless program for her taming. Rape had followed rape, and on some terrible days it had come more than once. As the loathsome count mounted, the girl had not been able to forget the sorcerer's threat -- that her true punishment would begin only with her hundredth violation. Finally, this night, in the arms of Lord D'Avernec, that which she had most feared had finally come to pass -- she had been outraged for the hundredth time.
Afraid of what Muawiya al-Tariq's curse might mean, Rhea had fought D'Avernec as she had not fought against a man in a long while. But her last fight, like every fight before it, had been useless.
Was she bewitched anew? If the sorcerer's full curse was upon her, what was the meaning of it? Would her body, or her condition, change in some repellant new way? Rhea touched her breasts, slid her fingers to her loins. She detected no alteration in either her mind or her person. Nothing had been different about the way D'Avernec had taken her tonight, except for --
The pleasure.
Until tonight, lying with a man had never been anything less than repugnant. However, something had changed. It had been as though her body had finally asserted itself to claim something which her faculties had tried to deny it.
As she lay back on her cot, thinking feverishly, Rhea realized that she had lost the sense of odium that had always been part and parcel of submitting to a male's embrace. Where had it gone, and if it were gone forever, what had replaced it?
Rhea sat up, her fists clenched. She could not go on this way! But what other way was there? Impulsively, the girl swung up from her pallet and tip-toed through the perfumed darkness. At first she did not know what it was that she sought. But then, finding herself next to the door of the room where the keeper of his lordship's women, slept, she heard the matron moan in heavy sleep.
Moved by impulse, not thought, Rhea stepped through the door and the curtains beyond it, her face and arms brushed by their gossamer. She saw the vague outline of the slumbering woman. Unsure about why she wanted to disturb Tanah, the girl hesitated. Some part of her had an urgent message to impart, but the rest of her only wanted to retreat unseen. Instead she took a step forward and knelt beside the bed, as if to pray --
Rhea's eyes wandered bemusedly to the full moon which was beaming brightly through an arabesque grate. It seemed as though the fragmented lunar light was spilling precious silver coins across Tanah's bedclothes. The quiet beauty of it all fascinated the girl and, as if moved by enchantment, Rhea reached out to touch one of them.
Tanah awoke with a start. "Who? -- Rhea? What?"
The younger woman startled. What could she reply? What reception could she expect? These last months had not been easy ones in the women's quarter, neither for Rhea nor for those who had shared it with her.
"You have been patient with me, Tanah," Rhea whispered hoarsely from a dry throat, "but I have not been patient with you. I am sorry, Lady Tanah. You must hate me." Heavy of heart, she bowed her head penitently.
The elder woman sat up puzzled. "I do not hate you, child!" she exclaimed. "You are proud and brave, and this I respect. But you have not been wise. Your lot would have been much less bitter had you only surrendered to your handsome young master long ago and permitted him to be kind to you. He is not a cruel man, sweet Rhea, but you have challenged him, and he must win every challenge. It is his way"
"I want to surrender, Mistress!" the girl asserted without thinking. But then, having realized the awful thing which she had admitted, Rhea's face grew hot. Fortunately, the darkness hid her flush from the harem-keeper's discerning stare.
"I don't understand, my darling. What troubles you tonight?"
"I --" Unable to form words, Rhea covered her face. She was ashamed of the tears which flowed of their own volition. She had often shed tears of hate, of rage, but she was not now possessed by such emotions. What were these new tears for?
"Yes?" Tanah urged gently, drawing the girl's hands away from her eyes and stroking her wet cheek.
"I was with -- the master -- earlier tonight," Rhea began haltingly. "That you know. But -- but this time -- it --"
"It what, child?"
"It pleased me!" She choked on her words and pressed her face into the sheets.
"Why do you carry on so, child? What you say fills my heart with gladness."
Encouraged, Rhea slowly looked up. "I -- I am ignorant, Mistress. I know not what to do, how I should act with a man. I have learned nothing. I would not permit you to teach me. I am sorry -- now that it is too late."
The matron regarded her charge with amazement, saw the teardrops glittering in the moonlight. Then, like a doting nurse, she drew the girl close, kissing her neck through that lovely brown hair. "It is not too late, my precious! I do not know what has come upon you so suddenly, but I am glad that it has finally come. I and the other women will gladly teach you all that you must know -- how to adorn yourself, to dance, and to drive a man mad with passion -- if that is what you truly desire."
Rhea stiffened. Was that what she desired? She was still infinitely confused, yet that part of her in rebellion must have wanted exactly what Tanah promised, for the twenty-year-old slave girl suddenly threw her arms around the older woman's neck and hugged her close, like the grateful, needful daughter of a generous dame.
..........D'Avernec had feasted with his retainers and now lay in his chamber drunk. This frustrated Rhea. The young lord had seemed pleased with her belly dance that night and she had hoped to be summoned by him after the guests retired. But, instead, the knight had been carried from the table even before the festivities had wound down. Despite her disappointment, Rhea could not help but smile. Men were like that and she didn't fault her master for celebrating some good news from Jerusalem too robustly. She appreciated men's ways and enjoyed men's society. How could she not? Her memory of living a warrior's life was an essential part of her.
Rhea had returned to the women's quarters when her part in the festivities was done, a daring strategy forming in her mind. She had arrayed herself in a gossamer body veil, had carefully applied scent and paint. Then, at last, she had stolen into D'Avernec's darkened chamber.
Breathless as she entered it, the girl shed her light wrapping, dropped to her hands and knees, and slowly approached the bed, like a cat intent upon trapping a mouse. Having touched the bed-frame, she groped through the darkness for her sleeping master. She discovered his bare thigh, his valets having removed his hose. She smiled, pleased.
Slipping into the bed, the harem girl gently felt her way up along his leg until she captured his limp cock in her hand. She was acting with alacrity, since D'Avernec would not awaken easily after so much wine. And certainly Rhea didn't want him to awaken, not unless it was the experience of the most sublime of pleasures at her command. Her eager fingers began massaging his soft tool, rubbing it lightly, trying to excite it. As her hands worked dexterously, the sound of the knight's light snoring changed a little, but he continued sleeping.
Rhea leaned forward, letting her hot breath stimulate the man-meat's flaccid head. Her teeth now parted and she began lapping the warm corona with her tongue. Though heavily besotted, some part of Lord D'Avernec's faculties remained alert because the girl's efforts were beginning to have their intended effect. The dome of his cock began to swell, harden.
Rhea slowly, deliberately, closed her lips closed over the orb of his scepter and began to tease its underside with the flat of her tongue. The longer she played with it, the more it astonished the slave that her master seemed unable to wake up. But she, like D'Avernec himself, was up to any challenge, and so her mouth continued its diligent work. Soon the girl had more than half of the man's lance engorged and her rich saliva was cascading down its length. Her nostrils were widely aflare as they fed air into the blazing furnace of her lungs.
Feeling D'Avernec's arms move, Rhea thought that her lord must be waking at last. But this was a reflexive motion only and he continued to sleep. Determined, the girl's lips pursed and she sucked even more strongly.
The knight's body continued its torpid pace of reaction and Rhea gradually grew encouraged, her head bobbing up and down with waxing excitement. Like a sword-swallower admitting a blade, she finally conquered the entire length of her captive prize, leaving no room on the stalk even for her fingers to hold onto. Only one other harem girl in the castle -- she who had taught Rhea the most about love-making -- possessed the innate skill to do what her pupil had just accomplished.
Rhea's long fingernails now dug into the hard cheeks of D'Avernec's bums while her teeth nibbled the base of his cock-stem, hoping to stimulate her lord with just a little pain. The ploy seemed to work just as anticipated; she felt a quickening throb between her jaws.
Mon Dieu! she thought. The knight would surely come in his sleep if she kept up her mischievous assault this way. Rhea only wanted to build D'Avernec's tower to its maximum size and hardness, not cause it to exhaust itself uselessly inside her mouth. So she at once ceased her phallic worship and changed position, climbing astride the supine knight, sitting upon his thighs.
In this commanding posture, Rhea took D'Avernec's erection into both her hands and carefully guided it toward the desire-lubricated lips of her small cony. As she pushed its blood-swollen corona between the soft, yielding labia, she savored the feel of its initial penetration. Then, skillfully directing her body up, forward, and down, she felt the lord and master of the herd sliding snugly inside her. Once her pelvic bones kissed his hard groin she knew that her master had given all that he had to give.
Rhea savored her situation for an instant, then with gritted teeth, began sliding backward and forward. Her mind swam with vivid fantasies as passion possessed her. She imagined herself a sacrificial lamb impaled by a blade, struggling for life upon the altar of some ancient fertility god -- a god of the fierce and imperious kind like Muawiya al-Tariq might still yet worship. She imagined herself a harlot of Babylon, in exacting service to Darius of Persia. The excited girl moaned out loud, her skin prickling with the delicious friction of D'Avernec's presence inside her.
A moonbeam passing twixt parted clouds entered the chamber and fell upon them both. Rhea was suddenly able to see her herself in a mirror and she gazed at the reflection with fascination. The beauty displayed in that other woman's breasts and limbs, her seductive movements, the lascivious act in which she was engaging, all combined to beguile the watcher. Her voyeuristic excitement made it possible for Rhea to imagine herself a man again.
Suddenly D'Avernec gasped and Rhea saw the whites of his eyes blinking in the moonlight. Hurrying now, Rhea assailed his buried phallus with her brazen thrusts. Not yet fully awake, the knight could not control his bodily reactions in time, and Rhea was rewarded by a hot rush deep inside her. The chamber echoed with the moans of her release, and of his. The pleasure banished Rhea's momentary illusion of being a man and overwhelmed her with the reality of being something very different indeed.
The slave girl now fell exhausted across her master's body. For the first time, Rhea had the presence of mind to think of the strapping she might receive for invading her master's privacy, for assaulting him while he slept. Well, if it was his will to punish her, let him, she thought. D'Avernec's strength, dwarfing that of her own slim arms, was had become an intoxicant for her, even when it was plying the leather belt with a disciplinarian's vigor.
As the maid lay panting, she recalled Muawiya al-Tariq's warning. Where was his mighty curse? Was it nothing more than a spell cast over her heart to make her desirous of loving and seeking for love? Was there no more terror in the magician's mighty vengeance than this -- this pleasure that she hoped might never end?
Was the wizard just a fool after all? Or did Muawiya al-Tariq, a man who had lived for centuries by stealing the lives of others, believe that a woman's surrender to a lover was her greatest denigration? The sorcerer might have believed otherwise if he had himself spent more than just single a day in the body of a female. Rhea laughed. It was a woman's laugh. It was the laugh of one who has realized a kind of victory over the most terrible of foes.
The drink-dulled Frank was by now awake enough to recognize the ringing peal. He raised his head and muttered, "Rhea?" She who had been Simon Saint-Mihiel smiled threw the darkness and reached out to touch her master's breast.
"It is I, my lord," the girl murmured.
The Crusader finally understood Rhea's prank. He puzzled what to do, but finally did nothing except to draw the girl close up to him. She nuzzled the hollow of his shoulder and gave out with a sigh of "Mmmmmm." He pressed his lips into her scented hair. After that he simply held her, until both fell asleep.
Hours later, D'Avernec awoke again. By now his mind had grown clearer. He turned again toward Rhea, whose youthful outline he could barely make out in the feeble starlight.
How his slave had changed over these past months! The suddenness of her metamorphosis had left him unprepared for it. Rhea had once been like the wild caracal, the desert-cat whose woman-like screams rived the Saracen hills at midnight. But now the beautiful Greek seemed more like a tame kitten napping upon a cushion, waiting to be tickled and played with.
Here, surely, was a woman fit for a man! he thought. Rhea had amply demonstrated that she understood the male body and what gave it pleasure. And the girl seemed wise in other ways, too. She almost made D'Avernec believe that she understood the travails of a man who must bear arms. Also, he was often surprised by the insights she expressed regarding military affairs. Sometimes the girl's knowledge made him forget that he was talking to a simple harem wench. He could not act upon the advice of a woman, of course, but --
It occurred to Lord D'Avernec that Rhea was like this Syrian land -- precious, sultry, not easy to possess. He had had to fight hard to conquer his fiefdom, and he had had to fight just as fiercely to conquer this girl. But yet both she and the land were now undeniably his.
D'Avernec's remembered the day that he had left for the Holy Land. His baronial father had warned him that a wise man does not fight merely for the sake of fighting. There comes a time, the elder D'Avernec had advised, when the conqueror must cease to make war and become the defender of that which he has already won. Time is short, he had cautioned, the vine must be planted, the herd husbanded, the field sewn, the corn harvested. The warrior must cease to burn and commence to build. In peace there may not be great glory, but glory bears no fruit. In peace alone was to be found increase and joy.
To think such mild thoughts after years of slaughter still seemed strange to D'Avernec. He was, after all, under thirty and proud to be known from Constantinople to Cairo as a redoubtable warrior. Yet how easily these pacific musings came to him when fanned by the cool drafts of the desert night and comforted by the nearness of the girl who -- What? What did she mean to him?
D'Avernec touched Rhea's sleeping face. Had not the time arrived that he must start thinking ahead? It was said that man without a family had no future. Death might come suddenly in this violent land, he knew. He ought to find himself a wife before his God-granted time ran out. But what wife? What woman might give him comfort, delight in his hours of rest? What woman could discuss with him those weighty things which brooded upon his soul? What woman could be a friend to a man isolated by rank? What woman should give him an heir?
The nobleman bent his head and kissed Rhea upon the cheek. She stirred like an infant in its crib but did not awaken.
Had he once really supposed that he would lose interest in his lovely prisoner after he had secured her surrender? He smiled at his own foolishness. Did the knight scorn his charger once he had broken it to the saddle, or feel contempt for it as it bore him undaunted into the press? No, he treasured it all the more.
The girl's cheek was pillowed upon his firm pectoral; her breathing, coming in little mews, tickled his moist flesh more lightly than a feather. He again pressed his nose into her hair, inhaling the florid scent of it. Life is so brief, he realized; it must be clutched to the heart while one has it. Finally, the knight nestled himself close beside his companion, his hand at rest upon her hip. He then lay back, his eyes closed, thinking of what they had shared, of what they still might share, until he joined her in the blissful sleep that lovers share.