WARNING:
Hard R-rating here,
NSFW.
FIFTEEN
… Then, Hard
12 April 1032 – 20 January 1033
Eustach kept reading by candlelight, leafing through the
Canons of the early Slavic church. Assigned reading from his loving wife. Dolz, having seen and sympathised with Eustach’s heart-burnings over the burning of the church in Chust, had recommended he read the Church laws and resolutions as a means of both reassuring himself of God’s grace upon sinners, and also broadening his knowledge of the teachings of the True Faith.
‘Do you enjoy them,
meon amor?’ came a voice out of the dark.
‘I do.’
‘These are good for you, my husband, if you wish to improve your mind as well as your soul,’ Dolz told him. And then, with a shrewder edge: ‘And I trust that you will find, that it is best to listen to Xylaloes when it comes to deciding your penance, rather than doing so yourself?’
‘What would I do without you?’ asked Eustach.
‘Do not say that,’ Dolz had assured him modestly. ‘My Eustach would be a God-fearing, gallant and bold leader of men, with me or without me.’
‘Well, I’m glad I’m with you, all the same,’ Eustach had told her. ‘It’s a good thing I have time to read nowadays. Usually I’m so busy.’
‘
Oué,’ Dolz agreed. ‘It seems Nitrabor has already balanced the books and overseen the new charters that you needed to sign. But, were you not about to ask Dosie to do that?’
‘I was,’ Eustach told her, surprising himself. ‘I’d wanted her to take on more duties since her majority, though everything I want to assign to her seems to get done before I have a chance to ask. You…
don’t suppose that she…’
Dolz shook her head. ‘I cannot see how.
Trés estrange! Nitrabor is not usually this obliging.’
True. But—though Eustach would never have said so aloud—perhaps Nitrabor simply hadn’t wanted to be upstaged. Despite the deeply-lamented incident with the church in Chust, Eustach himself had gained a firm reputation for being a careful keeper of books, reclaimer of lands, digger of trenches and repairer of walls, with a knack in particular for scouting out the fairest price and engaging the guild-masters with a keen eye for thrift. Such pursuits were not thought to be as worthy in a king as prowess in battle or steadfastness in prayers, but as Eustach already had both of these, his pecuniary talents were regarded not so much with suspicion, as with being a divine gift superadded to his natural qualities.
‘Forgive me, husband,’ Dolz lay a hand on his shoulder and kissed him on the head. ‘I am distracting you. Please, attend to the words of the
Canons, rather than to mine.’
‘I shall,’ Eustach told her.
There was also the question of what to do with Dosie’s fellow teenager, his newly-captured hostage and newly-sworn
hraběnka Čestislava.
The relationship between the Pavelkovci and the Bijelahrvatskići was an interesting one. Both stemmed from the same ancient root within the White Croat folk. But whereas the Bijelahrvatskići had maintained their White Croat speech and dress and manners, and ultimately sided with the Orthodox Moravians, the Pavelkovci had largely adopted the speech and dress and style of the Russians, and even
called themselves ‘
Rusi’ or ‘
Uhro-Rusi’, all while swearing their allegiance to the Catholic kings of Hungary. The two families had long been rivals, with the Pavelkovci seated in the eastern Maramoroš and the Bijelahrvatskići in the western Užhorod.
Perhaps that would now change.
Eustach drew in a long breath, and strode up to the door under heavy guard, behind which was housed the
Ruska lady in question. Being admitted by his guard, he swung the door open and turned to face the bed. The yellow-haired Čestislava was seated upon it, eyeing Eustach with naked hostility. Her face had a sunken look to it, as though her captivity had not suited her.
‘What do
you want?’ she demanded of her liege-gaoler sullenly.
‘I’d hoped to find out what
you want,’ Eustach replied calmly. ‘Do you want your freedom?’
‘I will
not take any favours from the likes of
you,’ Čestislava spat, ‘whether you are my new lord or not.’
Eustach mouthed an ‘ah’. ‘Well, that
is a pity. I just hate to see a forthright, fine young lady like you cooped up in here. Shall we… not make it a favour, then? If you were to part with, say, half a pound of gold in exchange for your freedom, would that be more acceptable to you?’
Čestislava considered. And she took a long time about it. At length, she nodded. Forthright and fine she might be, Eustach noted grimly, but she wasn’t the most intelligent of young ladies. However much she hated him now, she would be easy enough to control.
And somehow, controlling this young
Ruska into doing what he wanted, caused the hot blood to surge in Eustach’s veins. He was suddenly aware that he could
exercise power over her—with the proper application of enticements and flattery—and she would be grateful to him for the favour. Eustach knew the blood was rushing to his face now, his breath quickening. He found he couldn’t entirely resist the temptation to manipulate her.
He sighed to himself, as though thinking aloud. ‘I think about all of those poor people every day. I had no idea that Ladomír would do something so foolish, so wicked. And I
did give all of the plunder my men took from there, back to the people of Chust. I suppose there’s no undoing it, though. I guess I deserve to be hated.’
Čestislava’s face began to soften. She was angry, of course, but hate didn’t run deep in her simple soul. Spite did not come naturally to her. In this, Eustach had already taken her measure. He went on:
‘There’s no point in ruling a people who hate me, and with good reason,’ Eustach confided. ‘Do you not think it would make them happy, for them to have their own God-anointed mistress at their head, walking free among them again?’
‘It would,’ Čestislava nodded. ‘It would indeed.’
‘I would even be willing…’ Eustach told her, ‘to restore to you all of the honours you enjoyed under Ladislav, as
kňažná. But, of course, I don’t want you owing me any favours either.’
Čestislava saw in front of her now, not the wicked and blasphemous monster who had destroyed the church in Chust, but instead a humble and contrite man upon whose brow the crown sat far too heavily. Of course she was driven to pity—what girl wouldn’t be? She dangled her feet over the edge of her bed and clasped her hands in front of her.
‘Then let’s not call it a “favour”,’ she echoed his own words with a shake of her head. ‘If you will return me to my people, and return to me my honours, I will serve you as loyally as I did Ladislav. There is no shame in that for either of us, is there?’
Eustach only played at reticence. ‘Are you sure? I do not wish to cause you any further pain.’
Čestislava, now fully won over in sympathy to Eustach, shook her head again, more firmly this time. ‘My liege, it is no pain at all! I shall accept from you whatever you wish to grant me, and I
will be grateful to you and serve you willingly for the rest of my days.’
Of course she was making this offer as a vassal, and nothing else. Her simplicity was such that she didn’t even blush at making this offer; her mind did not reach to the double meaning. All the same, Eustach tried to ignore the throbbing and the straining of his limb against his breeches. It didn’t seem the girl had yet taken note of his physical response to her now-willing subordination. He would get money for her freedom, and now he had her willing loyalty in exchange for a title which came with no land but was purely ceremonial. She didn’t know it, but he had wholly gotten the upper hand over her in the bargain.
‘Very well, Čestislava,’ he told her. ‘If you will take the oath publicly before me in the hall, I will happily release you back to your lands. You have my full trust, Pavelková.’
‘I won’t abuse it! I won’t!’
Dolz went into the side-room she used for dressing, and bolted the latch behind her. Her head was swimming with confusion and distress. She knew what she had seen, and she couldn’t now un-see it.
Eustach. Naked. Alone. With whip in hand.
Doing things with it that a pious man had no business doing.
Dolz took several more deep breaths—in through her nose, blowing out through her mouth. She tried to calm herself down, but couldn’t. She was disoriented. She had seen a side of Eustach she had never seen before, and probably was never meant to see. That hurt her. She had thought he was completely open to her, and now to discover that he was
this perverse—!
And Dolz discovered to her own mortification that her heartbeat refused to settle.
Her breaths kept coming hot and quick and ragged, and she began to itch between her legs. The image of her husband—naked, aroused and wantonly pleasuring himself with a whip—danced around in her head. She couldn’t rid herself of it. Involuntarily Dolz’s hand inched closer to the fork of her legs.
‘… My love? Are you well?’ came Eustach’s voice from the other side of the door.
Non. She
wasn’t well.
She was disturbed. She was muddled. She was agitated and embarrassed in the dark of the closet. But she was
turned on as she had seldom ever been, even in the later and more satisfying days of their marriage. She was not in control of her heartbeat or her breath. And she
knew she was damp and sweaty. What
was the matter with her? Had she always been this way, and never known it?
She was already unlacing herself, and stripping down to her shift. But even this seemed too confining to her. The hem of it was up, her hand now sinfully between her legs, and she was bent over nearly double, leaning against the door in a haze of lust and confusion.
‘Dolz?’ Eustach called softly to her.
She had to make a response, but… How
dared he use that gentle tone with her? Dolz suddenly thought. After what she’d just seen? After what he’d awakened in her? She stopped, straightened herself up and composed herself as best she could. What would she say? How could she say it? Would Eustach still respect her, if she came out and
asked for what she wanted from him? Would there be any going back?
After one more long, shuddering breath, Dolz made up her mind.
She tugged the shift up and off her, throwing it to the side. She straightened out her shoulders. And she swung open the door to the closet, fully nude.
Eustach was there. Now it was his turn to look shocked.
Dolz fought to keep her voice level, as she demanded:
‘
Se-il vos plaist…
batez-moé avoec celà. Soiiez dur avoec moé.’
Half an hour later, Dolz was groaning pleasurably as Eustach was spreading a healthy portion of her supply of Anatolian aloe over the naked skin of her back. The cool gel under her husband’s nourishing fingers soothed the raised, red stinging welts that he had inflicted on her. And after that… after that…
oh là, after that…
Dolz felt spent after the intense, wracking spasms of pure physical bliss that had ravished her body from head to foot, and which still sent quivering aftershocks like echoes of thunder up her spine. She had
never felt like this before. She would never have guessed—even after having begged for it—that being made to kneel down and then being struck repeatedly on the back with such vicious blows of the whip would get her most of the way there. Restraint. Physical mortification. Abject submission. And then, after such hard use… Such light kisses! Such feathery caresses! Such tender and gallant touches upon her nethermost flower! Before now Dolz would not have known that such alternations between harsh and gentle, between bitter and sweet, between torture and titillation, between pain and pleasure, could be so thoroughly intoxicating.
Dolz pondered as Eustach kept spreading the soothing balm across her back. She decided that perhaps the physical pain was only secondary. What had turned her on the most was the
surrender. Giving up her will completely. Letting herself go limp…
that was what had truly sent her mind into a pleasant fog. To have all her worries removed from her and give herself over completely into Eustach’s power…
Celà, en effet, cil est l’amor!
‘I am so silly…’ she breathed happily into the sheets.
‘
Por quoi?’ asked Eustach.
‘All these years together… and we have
never made it like this,’ Dolz turned a glowing, sleepy gaze back upon her husband. ‘I want it more,
chieri.’
‘I worry I might’ve been too rough on you,’ Eustach told her.
‘
Soz,’ Dolz chuckled. ‘I shall make a signal for you to know. If you become too rough on me, I will give you that signal. Also…’
‘Also?’
Dolz reached behind her and worked her hand up Eustach’s belly to his chest. ‘Also, I shall keep your secret, if you will keep mine.
Ta seit de povoir,
et meon souzmission… Only I shall know it of you, and only you shall know it of me. Our…
fierce cavorts must stay here, between us only.’
‘Agreed,’ Eustach kissed her again, gently, upon the small of her back.