the Leathermines

Back to Chapter 41

 

 

She was tired.  She was hungry.  She felt as though her mind had been passed through a fishing net, all the sanity clinging to the string, leaving her with the chaos and darkness.

There were still the people who wished to talk with her as she went back to her room.  She despised them.

The blue and grey servants were clustered in the hallway, trying to look indifferent to the world.  She saw right through them.

Laun went to the bedroom, leaving all doors she passed through open.  She went to the two level bed and looked at it.  It had not been made that day, the household servants staying outside, and the people inside the rooms having been distracted.  She cared, and yet she did not.  The skirt was off, the tunic was off.  She left the halter on and crawled into the bed, going to one side of the top level.

The men came in, many of them shucking off their boots and belts before crawling up into the bed around Laun.  She held her eyes closed, her hand over her face, as she lay under the thin blanket.

A body was behind her, his clothing still on but under the blanket with her.  His arm went around her waist and she could feel his fingers dig into the bedding below them.  Hands were on her, touching her, through the blanket, a few still and a few stroking her.  It felt nice and she wanted the attention.  She did not deserve the attention.

Edgar started to talk into her ear, to use the rumble that cut through her, making her tremble at it’s sound.  There was no way to ignore him as she could feel the rumble in her back, his chest only a tunic away from her skin.  “My Love, we are all worried.  Please tell us what will make it better.  Help us understand why you are upset.”

Laun tried to not sob.  She tried to not be effected by his rumble.  She tried to keep her eyes tightly closed.

“You are being unreasonable, Love.  Withdrawing from us will not make what you are feeling go away.  You need to talk about it, share it to make it die in the light.”  Edgar was getting frustrated again with how she lay limply under him.  “And what was that with Falmir?  What price do you take from him?”  His mind saw a possibility and he did not like it.

Laun’s eyes were open under her hand.  She heard where his mind had led him.  She had regrets, and letting herself be drawn along by her groin, that was her biggest one.

Edgar’s rumble had an edge to it.  “You slept with Falmir.  I don’t believe you would do such a thing!  Here in the Palace?  Or in our bed at home-”

Laun twitched.  “Our bed?”  She cut herself off from saying that it was her bed, that she had allowed him to be in it and that he had defiled it by having other people in it while she had not been there.  It wasn’t even her bed.  It should have been her Lady’s bed for many more years.  She was a poser, a charlatan.  None of it was hers.

Edgar did not hear her doubts.  He heard the challenge.  “Our bed.  If you and I are together, it is our bed.  You are my Lady, my Princess.  You are my Love and lover.  Our bed.”

She heard a whisper and Fount squeezed his hand on her shoulder.  “It is Our bed, too.”

Laun thought of the men together.  Had seen them, touching, loving.  She knew that Fount meant Laun and he, but that was not what came to mind.  She saw the people in her mind that she had bedded.  Unless she was very sick or very pregnant, she had ever had people in the bed with her.  For a year, she had been hardly alone.  Edgar and Fount and Disa and Ali and Silar...

Her mind drifted.  “Home-”

Edgar heard it as an admission.  “You had your own Father in the Keep?”

Laun lowered her hand and Edgar saw a flush across her face.  “No.  I did not have Falmir at Salam-Dir.  Any more than I had Dougal there.  And he was there far longer.”  Laun pushed slightly but could not roll over.  “When the hell did I have time to have Falmir?  You were with me.”

Edgar bit his tongue as he thought back.  She was pregnant, she still had her appetite, but she was right.  While the royal was there, there was no time.  “I’m sorry.  I thought... With the way you...”  He quieted and put his face in her hair.

Laun did not say anything else.  If she did, they may think of the first night they were in the Palace.  But they would also remember the anger she had at Dougal from the Inn.  The situation was not safe from their minds, but unlikely to be brought up again.

Silar was by her feet and stroked her ankle.  “Laun, Mistress.  Is there anything we can do for you?”

She sighed.  “If I knew.  There is this anger that washed through me and I tried to contain it, to keep it from getting out.  The only way I knew to do that was to keep it inside.  To go to the place I made...”  He knew that place, and when she had made it.  Laun closed her eyes again and wished she could just turn her mind off.  To be able to not think anything.

“Love, we had talked and I was to try to get you to protect yourself more.  There are so many people here to do things, the resources are here to get them done.  We didn’t-I didn’t want you to put yourself into more harm by chasing phasmas in search of Lady Engrid.”  He kissed her ear and said, “Without you, there isn’t a household.”

Laun shook her head, rubbing her cheek against the linen pillow cover.  “It never should have been mine in the first place.”

“It is yours.  As am I.”  He kissed behind her ear and he felt her breathing change under his arm.  Edgar pushed slightly and kept kissing her, raising himself up slightly and moving himself and her until he had her face in his hand and Laun was looking up at Edgar.

There was so much she wanted to say.  Tell him how frightened she was about loosing him as she thought she had lost everything before. Tell him how much she loved him.  Tell him how sorry she was about putting him through all this.  Nothing would come out except tears.

Edgar kissed her eyes, wiped her tears away.  “You are so infuriating.  But I want you in my life.  I need you.”

Laun felt several of the hands tighten on her and she heard different whispers and mumbles.  “I... I need you too.”  She blinked her eyes and saw Edgar as if a veil had been pulled back.  He had not slept well.  He was worried.  He was concerned.  She saw redness in his eyes and wetness that could turn into a tear.

“I shall ever be with you until you do not need me.  As you will, I do.”  His lips were on hers and he felt her take, accept and give back.

Laun’s hand was on his face as they kissed.  She went down his shoulder and back and reached out.  She felt Fount’s hand and then another one over his.  The hands on her reassured, not held down.

She cried.  It was not from the frustration or unhappiness.  It was from the stress leaving, the darkness flowing back to it’s corner.  They were not bitter tears.

There was another hand on her.  “Cousin?”

She reached with the hand already grasped.  His hand went to her arm, almost a warriors grip.

“You left before Gilda was threatened with you again.  We have a way in to Engrid.”

Laun looked up into Edgar’s eyes.  “Tell me how it ends.”

Falmir’s voice cut through as he said, “We need you to do the mission.”

Laun closed her eyes and a tear of frustration came out.  Many of the men turned and looked at the King, trying to figure out if he was seriously going to drag her out of the safety of the room.  “Sire, you did not need me to be at council.  You don’t need me to get Lady Engrid.”

Edgar moved and Laun was able to see Falmir as the others around her moved out of his way.  “Sweeting, you were the push.  What she had told us was useful, but after you left, she broke down and begged for her life.  She knows how to get Engrid out of the Myrned Embassy, and you are going to take the petition to them to do it.”

She shook her head.  “I am unwell and confused, sire.  Please, don’t ask me to do anything more.”

Falmir sat where Fount had been on the lower level of the bed and held her arm in a warriors grip.  “We have to set things up.  It will be a few days.  You can rest and get your head together.”  He glanced to Edgar and back to her.  “I don’t know what you are going through.  You weren’t this moody even when I am certain you were plotting to kill me.”

“I just...  Don’t want to loose everything again.”

Falmir looked confused, his lips curling up as though he were sucking on a bad lemon.  “Fuck me, Thorn.  You have everything.”

Laun tightened her part of the grip on his elbow.  “I don’t deserve it.”

Falmir pulled Laun up and into his arms.  “Stop trying to prove yourself.”  He kissed her on the forehead.  “A few days to relax will help.  And that dinner.  You and yours in the grand Gallery in an hour.”

“Yes, sire.”  She put her head to his shoulder and smelled him.  It was a good smell, but it was not the musk that she knew, the scent that could push her lust.  He smelled of soap, and of his nerves.

“And dress.  I know my Princess is still in there.”

Laun nodded into his shoulder.  “Yes, sire.”

Falmir kissed the top of her head and excused himself.

Laun stayed sitting up.  She looked at the people around her.  “I am so embarrassed.  Forgive me for being an idiot.”

There were mumbles and nods from most.  “Highness, you are too hard on yourself.”  Erin stepped closer and she saw a small smile.  “Let us be hard on you.”

Laun dipped her head and shook it, but there was a small smile.  “Is that all you men think about?”

Fount nodded.  “That and horses.”

Laun laughed and the room followed.

 

Chapter 43 - A formal dinner and an intimate gathering