the Leathermines

Back to Chapter 24  Confused about what is going on?  Step back to the first chapter of The Slave Warrior.

 

There had been a fairly full harvest so far.  Being forced to go afield to find replacements for that which had been destroyed made the household more aware of the land and what it produced.  It was not going to be a meagre winter, but it was going to be a slightly lopsided one.

The amount of drying herbs overflowed the usual places and staves with bundles of herbs drying on them were placed anywhere there was good airflow.  The laundry, which smelt of lemon balm.  The stairway in the tower which smelt of savory and rosemary.  And the Great Hall, which had heather and sweet grass drying for the fall bedding changeover.

The leaves had not started changing colors, but everyone knew that it was coming.  The nobles took charge one morning at meeting by announcing that the bird sounds in the night meant that the ducks and geese were starting to migrate.  That meant a hunt.  The best archers came forward, the nets used for fishing were brought out for repair and the energy of the nobles doubled at the prospect.  Orgia looked forward to something new for the season, and the feathers would be useful in many ways in the household.

Edgar and Fount paired up for the hunt and scouted out to a marshy area towards the old volcano. Yes, the nobles had heard right, the waterfowl had started to gather in the reeds, resting as they went south in front of the cold.

It seemed as though there was a gender split for the hunt.  Most of the women who were not active other places had declined the offer to assist and were sitting under trees, mending linens and clothes for the household.  A table and a few benches had been carried out for the project, easier than sitting on the ground.  The very domestic scene had the women chattering about many things to pass the time as the needles pulled thread through the cloth.

They talked about the weather starting to change.  They wondered what the winter would bring, the signs being both for a mild and for a harsh winter.  And, as it always did, the conversation turned to the other sex.

It was odd for the men and women not to be intermingled by that point.  Being able to talk fairly openly of crushes and wants and little glances that may or may not mean anything brought out confessions of things some did not expect.  The pairings that were talked about, some of the moment, some looked to be longer lasting, were more than Laun had ever heard.  Laun listened with wonder as she sewed on a buckle to a protector’s cape.

Orgia was exclaiming about how Geralk may look like a pompous ass, and was on occasion, but that all that counting, “...made his fingers very nimble.”  Only a slight blush went over her cheeks, bringing a youthful flush she had not seen for decades.

There were only a few of the women who tried to feign shock, most laughed at the bawdy talk.  Laun had heard talk like this before, had laughed along with, but had been protected by Lady Hellon’s wishes from most of it.  And the press from the men that the others around her seemed to have had for years.

Laun, getting up the courage to say what was on her mind, flushed a deep color as she looked at the sewing laying in her hands.  One of the women saw their Lady so quiet and said, “I hope we have not offended your sensibilities, Lady.”

Laun shook her head.  She glanced up and then back to the idle sewing.  “Am I so ugly that no one...”

The silence was almost as loud as the chatter had been.  The disbelieving voice of Nan was the one that cut through the thickness that had come over them by saying, “Do you not see what they do to protect you?”

“They?  The household protects-”  

Nan interrupted with an odd combination of anger and sadness in her voice.  “We have all been there to see it.  Don’t you see when they turn...”  The woman had been several people away from Laun as her embarrassment and feeling of treason had kept her from being directly near Laun for quite a while.  She looked at Laun and Nan had a crack in her voice as she said, “Your favorites.  The men who are at your back whenever I see you.”

“Perhaps this is not the best time for this...”  Orgia was trying to stop it, salvage the moment, but Nan had to say what was in her, had been weighing her down for close to a month.

“Lady.  You need to choose one of them.  I don’t know if Fount has the passion, but Edgar-” Her eyes flashed and she flushed in remembering.  “I offered myself to him one morning after you left the chamber.  We were alone and he embraced me.”

Laun felt a rush of something she did not know the name of.  It was not the jealousy that she had found going through her for other things.  It was a warm feeling, pleasant.  She looked at Nan and just nodded as the woman continued.

Now that she had started, all of it had to come out.  The women around her could not focus on the sewing at hand as Nan tried to describe what had happened.

“His kisses were deep and I felt as though his voice it’s self was going through me as he talked into my neck.  His arms were so strong...  And his hands-”  Nan looked over at Orgia.  “Geralk may have competition.”

Several giggles started in the group.  “No man had ever handled me that way before.  He moved me around, had his hands all over me.  His mouth was everywhere.  And then he was between my legs and...”  Nan looked own and her voice was quiet.  “I have never felt that way before.  He was good.  I have not been with many, but he took his time and made me feel more in myself than I thought was there.”

Laun asked, in her own blunt way, something that made all the women laugh.  “Did he have fun?”

Nan smiled.  She waited for the laughter to calm before continuing.  “That’s the thing.  He never took off his breeches.  He did not enter me.  He seemed to take pleasure in what he was doing.  He certainly had more skills than the others I have had.”  Nan blushed deeper.

Kelli was not the only one confused.  “Wait.  He didn’t use you?  Put his seed in you?”

Nan shook her head.  “He left me wet enough he could have, but no.  He didn’t even say anything.  He just helped me gather up the bedding afterwards and we went to the Great Hall.”

“He’s waiting for you to decide.”

Laun took a little too long to say something and the next comment from one of the women had them rolling in laughter.  “If you don’t want him, I’ll take him off your hands!”

Laun felt the warm feeling grow.  Her sewing was forgotten in her lap as she thought back to the first night in the bower.  The voices in the night and then Edgar and Fount on either side of her.  They had not asked, they did not take.  They had just been there.  And since then, among the bodies that had slept around her, they had been there.  When at meals, they had been there.  The feelings she had for both of them were different, but both strong.  Knowing that Edgar at least could give such pleasure to others and stay his own somehow made Laun feel good, too.

But there was the question raised, and she had to find out.  “What do I have to choose?”

“Not what, Lady, who.”

Laun shook her head, the feelings inside of her becoming more complicated and confused.  “No.  I don’t know how to say it.  You call them my favorites, and perhaps they are.  But they are no more or less important than any of you to me.”

The giggling stopped and the women tried to understand what their Lady was saying.  “You need a Lord beside you.  One that can give you children.”

“I think Marie has seen to that.”  A few laughs from the women came out.  “But I have had other men sleeping in the bed with us - why are they not considered favorites?  And why hasn’t anyone, umm, been active on the mat?”

“The men you have had with you are all sworn to you, and there is a pact between them-”  Orgia was the one who had heard several of the men discussing the rules.  They had to be simple and straightforward.  She went on to list what she had heard, and what she supposed.

“Have you seen the men naked, or more to the point, felt them naked in your sleeping chamber?”  Laun shook her head and so did several others.  “No one around you, even if they are in need of it, lets their lust take them as they lay with you.  There are other places for that... As I have discovered on more than one occasion.”  One of the women suddenly had to start embroidering on the linen right then, avoiding the chatelaine’s eyes.

Several shoulder shoves between the women showed they knew who had taken liberties.

“And!” Orgia continued, “as far as I know, many of the men are waiting to know your preference.  Not just Edgar and Fount.”  There were nods around the loose circle.

Laun started to work on the buckle again.  “Well, you may want to pass the word that I may not want to be so...protected...in my own sleeping chamber.”

There were smiles.  They all went back to their respective projects in comparative silence until Kelli leaned over to Nan and asked, “Do you think Edgar would give lessons?”  If any of them had decided to be a little more reserved after that, it was blown away and the bawdy talk was back up in full.

 

Chapter 26, where things start to get... complicated. The hunting party comes back, Laun tells of her feelings