Recovery
Early afternoon brought the wagon party to a small river, swinging gently through a wide valley, free of the great forest and meadowed with wildflowers. Susan galloped her palfrey down the hill, off the path and through the long grasses to splash into the river. The gentle bank fell away to a deep run on the far side, mysterious in its depths with dark shadows from the overhanging bushes. Trout rose steadily at a fall of winged insects, spinning on the surface.
By the time Oengus pulled the carthorse to a standstill, her saddle stood high on the bank, decorated with the bridle and her clothes, while both she and the palfrey swam in the depths. Susan laughing at the horse as it tried to rescue her from drowning. She swung onto the mare’s back, whereupon she struck out for the shore and Susan called to Oengus.
“We’ll spend the night here. I know it is early, but it is too beautiful to leave alone. Unharness the carthorse, let him come in too.” Indeed, he was straining in his straps, puckering his lips at Susan. Which was a fairly good description of Oengus as well, unable to take his eyes from Susan’s nudity. Naomi left him to it, stripping off her clothes as she ran to the water, jumping in and squealing at the cold. Oengus found himself torn, not knowing where to look as he unharnessed the carthorse. His inattention nearly cost him as the carthorse trod on his boot, just missing the toes as he curled them up.
The picture of innocence, the carthorse pulled out of the last of the harness and lumbered into the water, splashing over to Susan demanding treats. She retreated to the far side of the stream, dog-paddling through the faster, deeper water to sit on a rock in the sunshine. Naomi swam with a strong breast stroke through the water to pull herself up beside her and the girls watched Oengus come down to the water, his erection surviving the cold water.
“Do you want me to take him for you, Mistress?” Naomi took Susan’s hand. “I don’t mind, but he needs sorting, he does, he can’t think of nothing else. Can’t do his work proper.”
“You mustn’t even think of it, Naomi, you are injured and torn.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Naomi shrugged. “You get used to it quick, like. The traders always bring girls with them, makes the Border Patrol happy. It’s fun too, the big Elves are hot. Don’t often get renegades, but you do, and they’re a bad lot for taking girls without asking nice. More upset about losing my Joe, to be honest.”
Oengus swam with sure, strong strokes across the current, splashing the girls as he arrived, holding Naomi’s leg to stop the current sweeping him away. Susan checked to see his erection had not survived the crossing, to her slight annoyance.
“Make room for a little one,” said Oengus in Elvish. He spoke no Harrhein, and Naomi spoke Elvish quite well as she now showed.
“Little one, hah! This is a girl’s rock, no room for ugly great louts like you.”
Oengus pulled her leg and she flopped into the water with a scream. He started to take her place, but Susan pushed him back and Naomi pulled, then they were all in the water while the girls did their best to push his head under and the horses neighed in excitement. The river pulled them downstream and slowed. Oengus stood in water too deep for the girls, resisting their attempts to move him and captured one in each arm, pulling them tight.
Exhausted and not a strong swimmer, Susan gave up, wrapping her legs around his waist and relaxing in his arm. Naomi followed suit, her legs going round both of them and Susan saw his hand held her breast. She raised an eyebrow, ready to comment, when she felt his other hand adjust and encompass hers.
“Sorry, Mistress, just getting my feet.” He grinned, his engagement infectious and she laughed, laying her head on his shoulder and enjoying the feel of his body. He might be young, but he was still an Elf and still gorgeous. Naomi also enjoyed his body, her hands caressing him, the water caressing them all.
A fish jumped in the tail of the pool.
“Trout,” said Susan, “I love trout. How do we catch one? Do we need a line and a gorger?”
“I could make one,” said Naomi, “if I can find some worms. But we will catch a lot of eels more than trout. Do you like eels?” Her hands continued to roam Oengus’ chest, tweaking his nipples.
“I will teach you how an Elf catches trout,” said Oengus, walking towards the tail of the pool and the fast, shallow water of the rapids. As he waded, the girls slipped down until he staggered and dropped them both, falling over in the process. He quelled the battle light in their eyes by catching their hands and pulling them up, calling to them to follow.
“You must understand animals,” he said. “The trout, he has no eyelids, so he doesn’t like the sun. He won’t lie in the sun but seek the darkest spots. The biggest and best fish lie where they can have their eyes in shadows but still see the food float down the river before coming out to catch it.”
“Food?” Susan’s eyes scanned the river, looking for bread and worms.
“Insects, they eat the insects, both those you can see at the top and the many down below. See, there is a nice one, he is scared of us above him.” Indeed, a dark shape arrowed away upstream to the deep dark water. “Where we can see them, they can see us. So we must seek places they cannot see us.” Dropping the girls’ hands, he waded out of the river and moved downstream to an overhang. Lying on the bank, he eased a hand into the water, before flipping a trout the length of his forearm onto the bank in a spray of water, the fish flapping madly as it tried to return. Both girls screamed and came rushing out of the water to pounce on the great trout, while the horses shied away and ran into the meadow.
Two fish later and he climbed back from the river bank smiling at their compliments, refusing to go back.
“Never take more than you need right now. The Mother provides to us, and we must not worry about tomorrow because she will replace these fish for the morning. But if we take them now, there will be none here tomorrow and in the night we will lose them to bears, or ants, or birds.”
Naomi dispatched the trout with a rock and they each carried one back to the wagon where Oengus taught Susan how to clean them. A stick threaded through the mouth and gills allowed the body to crisp over the embers and within the hour they feasted, along with some crisp roots Naomi pulled out of the slow water.
Replete, Susan lay back and watched Oengus finish his fish, strong white teeth delicately holding the bones while his tongue flicked tiny flakes from between them. Her mouth dried as she imagined teaching him where to do that on her body. She remembered her promise, knew she must fulfil it that night and anticipated the evening.
She stood, stretching and frowned when she saw Naomi lying back with her eyes closed, one hand resting on Oengus’ thigh. Susan had pulled on her shirt once she dried, mainly to encourage Naomi to do the same. She didn’t like the way Oengus looked at her bosom. Her machinations back fired when Naomi did not follow suit and her irritation increased when she saw Oengus contemplating the blasted bosoms again.
“Shall we wash and make our bed for the night?”
“Not here,” said Oengus wiping his fingers on his thighs and looking with regret at the empty platter. “This close to the river, it will become very cold in the night and there will be mosquitoes. We need to move back away from the river, at least two hundred paces, more is better. There is a little hollow back there, it should be warm and full of soft grasses.”
*
Susan slipped into the new bed, still with her shirt on, her emotions confusing her. On the one hand, her body cried out for Oengus, after four days of continual sex it objected strongly to abstinence. On the other, her mind kept giving her flashbacks to the rape of just a few nights previous. She couldn’t make up her mind on Caomh. Her captor, rapist and enslaver, yet he brought her body to rapture. She missed him dreadfully, distraught at his easy passage to death, indeed not sure when she had seen anyone die so close. Yet he forced her, forced her in many ways. Ways that increased her education, gave her Elvish and a wonderful root for learning.
Something tickled at her brain and she worried at it. Death, something to do with that. Bodies, dead bodies, dying, oh my grace! She sat bolt upright in the bed, throwing the blanket down, her eyes wide and staring. Beorsach. She had killed him. Her first kill and she hadn’t even registered it.
Abruptly, she heaved, and she shot out of the bed, running into the darkness before the retching overtook her and she fell to her knees, throwing up trout, leaves and dark bitter bile.
On all fours, dry heaves racking her body, and hands clasped her, comforting her, rubbing her shoulders and massaging her head. The heaves faded away, replaced by tears and Oengus lifted her as if she weighed nothing, carrying her back to camp.
Naomi lifted a cup to her mouth and she swilled her mouth clean before drinking. Seeing the question in their eyes, she answered.
“Beorsach. I killed him.”
“The big one? You certainly did, good job too. Smacked him in the balls first, where he needed it, right in the brains.”
“My first. First ever.”
For a moment, nobody understood, then Naomi leaned forward and hugged her hard. “You did a right good job, honey. Nasty piece of work, liked to hurt girls that one. The world is a better place now. Hush, now.” Susan sobbed into her shoulder and between them she and Oengus gentled her back into bed.
Naomi stayed with her while Oengus finished cleaning the camp and Susan slept fitfully. When he replaced Naomi so she could make her toilet, she rolled into his arms, coming awake and her need was fierce inside her, pushing all thoughts of decorum and propriety away.
*
They spent four days by the river, feasting on trout and summer berries already appearing on the banks. Four days in which Susan healed and taught Oengus how to please a woman. Naomi helped, refusing to be left on the side if unable to participate fully. She kept Susan laughing as she told Oengus off and explained what to do, what Susan wanted, particularly instructive as Susan hadn’t known what she wanted.
They slept at night in a big pile, and Susan woke on the fourth day, with Oengus entwined between her legs and Naomi hugging her spasmodically to her bosom as she slept. She smiled to herself, wondering when she had been so happy, hugging Naomi back. She knew she must end their sojourn and any moment a trade caravan could come through. She worried news of her whereabouts could come back to the king and in her heart she knew he would pursue her, through anger perhaps rather than love.
Her disguise was failing, as Naomi delighted in pointing out. Her hair sported a bright yellow stripe down the centre parting, while lying in a dull, grey, lank mass as constant swimming washed the dye out.
Sighing, Susan eased herself out to empty her bladder and start the fire for tea. She made three cups, flipping hot stones into the bowl and, using sticks, fishing out the cool ones till the water boiled before steeping the herbs. The others joined her quietly and they sipped while the dawn grew and the larks started their paean to the sky.
“It is time,” she said.
The others nodded, melancholy settling over them till Oengus stood to gather the horses. Both regarded him with baleful eyes, backing away tossing their heads. The palfrey turned and trotted away with the carthorse lumbering after her. Susan smiled, relieving her tension, as he stood in frustration.
“Leave them, Oengus, I’ll do the horses. Pack the wagon.”
Rummaging in her saddlebags, she found her store of treats intact and pulled out two dried apples. The ground thundered as she stood up, the horses racing each other to get to her first. The palfrey, a student of the behaviour of Susans, knew exactly her intentions, and won by a short head, but was caromed out of place by the carthorse who tried to steal both apples. The palfrey bit him and he kicked at her, while Susan smacked him on the nose. She took his long mane and led him to the wagon, backing him into position with no trouble at all.
She handed over the harnessing to Oengus, who watched her bottom revolve as she stalked the palfrey, instead on concentrating on his job. He yelled and the carthorse shook his mane in triumph as he trapped the boy’s foot under his huge front hoof.
Susan led off on the palfrey, cantering up the hill as the wagon laboured. She savoured the solitary moment, alone with her thoughts. These thoughts were not comfortable companions, for Susan’s mother raised her with a strict moral compass, one that did not include sleeping with men out of wedlock.
While Ricky was understandable, as he intended to marry her, and the king gave her no choice, although she expected him to marry her, the Elves had tripled her partners in as many days. Timmy she put to one side, unsure how to categorise that bargain. While three, no, all of the Elves were rapists, she still felt guilty about the whole affair, feeling in her gut she had somehow tempted them. She had carried on with first Caorm and now Oengus in a most unseemly manner which she could not excuse as rape.
The trouble was, the thing that really drove her guilt, was the knowledge that she did not just enjoy the sex, she absolutely loved it, revelling in it in a way not engendered by the king or even Ricky. Sitting on her horse high on the hill, looking down over the meadow to the river, a small stream from here, she could feel the warmth in her groin from just the breathing of the palfrey and the thought of Oengus in the wagon.
The Archbishop would show his disapproval with a gentle frown, she thought, picturing his concerned face, while the Venerable Reinand, well, he would be delighted. She smiled, the dirty old man. Probably he would want to try himself and, she realised, the new Susan, bad, naughty Susan, would let him, she would encourage the old man and probably give him heart failure.
“What have I become?” Her voice rang from the hills as she screamed her frustration and she set the palfrey running, galloping along the hillside, away from their path. She returned within the hour, the game little mare lathered with sweat and foam around her muzzle. Susan swung from the horse onto the wagon, letting the palfrey rest by walking alongside with no weight. She sat on the box beside Oengus, pushing him with her bottom to make room, and wrapped his arm round her while she snuggled into his side. Her eyes on the horizon, she spoke not a word.
“Pooh, you stink of horse,” said Oengus and Naomi murmured her agreement. But he kept his arm round her, tight as she wanted.
*
That night they pulled up at a campsite and Naomi sent Oengus off foraging but borrowed his knife. She turned to Susan and sat her on a log.
“Your hair looks like shit,” she said. “I’m gonna sort it, make you beautiful like you should be, like.”
Susan was dubious, but the disguise had run its time and she submitted to the hacking. Naomi took a long time, careful not to pull and cutting small amounts at a time. She completed the task as Oengus returned, a brace of fat rabbits in his belt.
The hair on Susan’s head was a uniform, finger span length all over, and stood straight out like a fuzz. Gold, it made Susan look as if she radiated light, and her big blue eyes transfixed Oengus as she looked at him for approval. He fell to his knees, gaping.
“Aine,” he said, his voice a whisper, breathed out so they could barely hear. “Your Majesty, forgive me, I did not know. I will recompense, I will run the Gauntlet, I will hunt the Wild Wolf in your name, Majesty, my life is yours.”
Puzzled, Susan leaned forward and shook his shoulder. “Oengus? Are you all right? What is the matter?”
He shrank back away from her, the blood rushing from his head leaving his skin alabaster white. “Aieee, Queen Aine, I could not know you with your disguise but I have failed you.”
Furious for no good reason, Susan jumped to her feet and kicked him over. “Oh get up, you great lump. I am not your blasted queen, I am the same Susan I was this morning, you were happy enough to fuck me then, not grovel at my feet.” She put her hand over her mouth, not believing she had actually used the f-word.
Her anger turned to confusion and she burst into tears, pain tearing in her womb and she went to the bushes, passing water by the stream and padding her trousers with moss as her monthly bleeding started. The cramps making her irritable, she came back to wagon where Naomi had her arm round Oengus.
“Seems you look just like some fairy queen,” she grinned. “You know these Elves believe in all sorts of rubbish.” She spoke in Harrhein as she rubbed Oengus’ back. “Here, you look rough, love. What’s up?”
“Just my monthlies have started. At least I am not going to blow up with a baby from those Elves.” She winced at another cramp, and a tear forced its way out as she thought of the despair she used to feel every time her bleeding started, meaning no Royal baby. Now it should be delight, no rapist’s bastard. Her thoughts were all over the place.
Naomi switched back to Elvish. “There you go, lad. When did a fairy queen have a monthly bleed, hey?”
Oengus looked blank. “Bleed? Monthly? She is unclean? She must stay here and we will camp on the other side of the stream.”
Naomi smacked him over the top of the head. “Unclean? I’ll give you unclean, you filthy bastard. Now come here, you’re to fuck her, right now by the stream.” She showed her pleasure at being released to use the f-word by Susan’s prior use.
Both Oengus and Susan looked at her in horror.
“Come on the both of you, get your clothes off and get down by those soft grasses, just there. You don’t want a blanket, mind, as you are going to make a bit of a mess.”
“But, she’s unclean…”
“I’m having my monthly, I can’t do that now…”
“Oh, you poor lamb, you don’t know? And you with your unclean nonsense can shut right up. There’s two of us girls, and we both bleed, and if you come out with any more of it, well, you can forget having sex for the rest of the month. We’ll trade you in for a dog.” She started to help Susan take her clothes off. “When the pain is bad, best thing for you is sex. Providing he takes his time. You want it long and strong, and come good and hard. Gets rid of the cramps, see. Try it, you’ll see I’m right.”
Susan cramped again, and decided she was willing to try anything that helped. She stripped, washed herself in the brook and laid herself down with some trepidation. Naomi had managed to get Oengus’ clothes off and led him to her.
“I’m taking away her pain? It is not forbidden? This is a good thing? It will help her? She really is Susan?”
“Yes, yes, yes to all of it. Go on, make her better, I’ll set up camp and make supper.”
*
Naomi smiled as the two came up from the stream, Oengus helping Susan with solicitude, and Susan with genuine happiness in her smile. She had peeled the skin off the rabbits, jointed them and placed them in a pot which she cooked on heated flat stones by the fire along with the flatbreads and some strawberries she collected on the way.
“There’s some mint down by the stream, so I made tea from it. That will help the cramps as well, dear, but not as much as Oengus.”
They made slow progress for the next two days before Susan’s flow dropped to a trace and the cramps subsided. She became bouncy and her emotions stabilised, while Oengus spent more time in contemplation. The palfrey became difficult in the afternoon, headstrong and obstinate. Susan brought her up to the wagon, berating the horse as she did so, and tied her to the back, while she climbed on the front.
“I didn’t realise you had a name for her,” said Naomi with interest. “What was that you were calling her?”
“Apart from bloody bitch, you mean? Oh, sometimes I call her Rin, not that she knows.”
“Why Rin? Odd name.”
“After a friend of mine, because she likes to be ridden. What do you call the carthorse?”
“Him? He hasn’t got a name, just ‘hey you’.” Naomi spoke thoughtfully. She knew there was a joke of some sort in Susan’s words but couldn’t work it out. “What’s wrong with your mare?”
“I’ve no idea, she’s being difficult. Normally she is very good, does what she is told, but the last few days she has a mind of her own and just seems to want to upset me.”
Oengus smiled. “She comes into season. She itches, and it is not you she wants on her back. Tomorrow, maybe we cannot move as she will be in full flower and this old horse will be after her and won’t want to pull the wagon.”
Indeed, the carthorse pulled the wagon in a far more active manner than previously, tossing his head and scenting the wind. Oengus needed to pay constant attention to stop him turning.
“More difficult with the mare behind,” he said.
They camped for the night in forest, with scant grazing and the mare stayed close, annoying Susan by following her and nudging her at any opportunity. Meanwhile, the carthorse followed the mare, sniffing under her tail and being kicked for his presumption. A prodigious appendage appeared underneath him and the sight of it alarmed Susan.
“Oh you poor thing, no wonder you don’t want him to put that in you. Oengus, we must do something to stop him, he will hurt her.”
He glanced at the horse, before returning to straightening an arrow. “She won’t have a problem with him.”
Susan did not feel reassured, and tried to tempt the horse with an apple. Neither of them wanted it.
“It’s not the mating you should worry about,” said Naomi with a grim look. “It’s the birthing. That carthorse was once a warhorse, a charger, with a heavy knight on his back. He’s a big fellow, and if his foal is big, it might hurt your mare.”
Susan took a few long minutes to work out the essential details and became concerned. She elected to picket both horses, keeping them well apart.
After an hour of the horses whinnying to each other, she acquiesced to her companions’ complaints and picked the horses close enough that their heads could touch. The huffing and puffing continued through the night and in the morning the carthorse had pulled up his pin and the two horses grazed the thin grass side by side.
Susan inspected her critically, and Rin happily lifted her tail to display her anatomy with pride. Susan palpitated the swelling and Rin seeped, causing Susan to squeal for help.
“It is normal,” said Oengus with a cursory glance.
Nevertheless, Susan’s concern meant she brought water and cloth to wash Rin, but the carthorse arrived first to lick her clean, much to Susan’s annoyance.
This brought the appendage back into play and, in front of Susan, the lumbering carthorse reared up and sank into the willing mare, snorting and bracing herself against his weight. Susan drew in a sharp breath, biting her tongue, and conceded defeat, retreating from the nuptials and making it plain to Oengus that she was not interested in a parallel bout despite the delay in departure.
A frisky Rin encouraged Susan to saddle up and they managed more than ten leagues that day, before the horses insisted on stopping for another tryst. Susan refused to explain to Naomi why she christened the carthorse Dicky, as she helped set up the camp for the night.
Naomi shrugged and changed the subject. “Oengus, I am all healed up now, so tonight you can go a bit further.” Susan wore a blank expression, as she tried to work out what Naomi meant, but Oengus understood straight away as he piled the blankets on the cut grass.
“Why wait, the bed is ready.” He pounced on her, pulling her onto the bed and removing her dress while she giggled. Susan gasped, began to protest before snapping her mouth shut and taking a basket to go foraging, her head full of images she did not want, showing Oengus’ palpable pleasure in Naomi’s ample bosom.
She returned with little but thistles, to find the pair asleep and she listened to their breathing while she peeled the thistle stems. A change alerted her to their wakening, but instead of coming to help her, Oengus returned to Naomi’s body. Susan’s knuckles whitened on her knife handle, and she wondered what happened to ‘I love you, mistress.’ She kept her eyes on the task of preparing supper, until Oengus gasped and after that she could not take her eyes off them. She remembered Naomi’s patient words, her instruction while Susan lay underneath. Now she could see Naomi enacting her own instructions and it was far beyond the restrictions of Susan’s natural shyness, as she utilised her body in ways Susan just had not grasped. And Oengus was loving it.
Her own inadequacy, brought home to her by watching Irina and the king but submerged by apparent Elvish desire for her, resurfaced larger than before, to grow through the night as she listened to the horses on one side and the couple on the other. Naomi did bring her into the embraces on several occasions, and a couple of times Oengus suckled at her breast, but her awkward stiffness meant they concentrated on each other, unaware of Susan’s increasing misery.
She was up early, saddling Rin and eating dry bread from the stores as she went ahead to scout the trail, leaving them to pack up camp and follow behind. Her thoughts a mess, she couldn’t concentrate on any aspects, but Caomh’s face and body kept reappearing. One moment she would daydream of his caresses, the next she would see the king taking Irina in the garden. She remembered the glorious feeling of Oengus groaning as he climaxed, before seeing the rapture on his face as Naomi gyrated beneath him.
Rage suffused her, as she pulled out her staff and practised using it from the saddle, every passing branch with Oengus’ face, till her hands were red and sore. The anger bled from her at the sight of two pigeons on branch. She stopped to watch them, the hen trying to feed on shoots while the male puffed up and pouted, getting in the way and following close behind when she flapped to the next branch. Memories of her lovers flooded up and she began to anticipate the night with Oengus, her body flushing with desire.
He wouldn’t want her, though, would he? Naomi was ready for him now, and she couldn’t take the rejection she knew would come. She rode back to the trail, mind made up with the need to tell him to make a choice; no she would finish it, tell him he could never have her again. But maybe once more, maybe he would call her Aine as he took her with a look of wonder in his eyes. He would want her tonight, she knew and she rose in the stirrups to see the carthorse coming up a slope, the wagon coming into view. Revealing Naomi sitting on Oengus’ lap, writhing, while the carthorse carried on phlegmatically.
Face flaming with another rejection, Susan swung Rin round and cantered down the trail, squeezing hard with her thighs to overcome the horse’s objections and stop the tears falling from her eyes.
Rounding a corner, Rin reared and whinnied as a man, an Elf, appeared from a bush to block the path. White clay daubed his face, overlaid with crimson and he brandished a fearsome spear while waving a stick with a mass of fur strips at one end. Susan’s horsemanship had improved during the last fortnight, but was insufficient to stay on board and she flew through the air to land on her bottom in the trail. Rin bolted and the figure loomed over her, his stick whipping across her face and buffeting her from both sides.
“Stop it!” She flared at the fearsome figure in Elvish, and he fell back, painted mouth open in astonishment. “You made my horse scared and now my bottom hurts, you, you, you horrid little man. Is this some sort of joke? Well it isn’t funny and you look silly. Now help me up.” She held out a hand and the man took it without thinking, pulling her to her feet. She dusted herself off, twisting her body and trying to see the state of dirt on her bottom, before turning to the man, standing crestfallen in front of her.
She could not work out his age, he felt ancient but the lines in his face were few, and his posture erect and strong, if a little emaciated and at present drooping. His hair hung long and black down his back to his waist, knotted in a complex pattern with various items woven into the design. Under the paint she could make out the fine lines of a handsome man with no idea what to do. Her burst of anger passed, taking with it her insecurities and melancholy and her normal sunny nature resurfaced.
“I’m sorry,” she said suppressing a giggle. “Was I supposed to be scared? Unfortunately, I have already met some really nasty people and there isn’t much scaredness left inside me.”
“My apologies,” said the man with consummate dignity. “I heard of your approach and purpose and wished to know what sort of person wanted my teaching. I am Maelbelenus. I am sorry to hear you met some unpleasant people; there are some nasty men ranging the Harrhein border. We do ask on occasion that your king clears the border.”
“These were Elves, and you could find a more appropriate way of testing your acolytes. I am not sure I still wish to study with you.” Susan regarded Maelbelenus with care, wondering that this was the man she had come so far to find. And dressed up as some sort of witch doctor? Was this really what she wanted? Where was the regal teacher, whose fame spread as far as Praesidium?
“Elves? Renegades? Here in the south? Disgraceful, this is what comes of lax spiritual leadership. I shall have words. Now come, we shall talk as we walk to my house, it is not far, barely an hour. What do you know of the influence of the moon on emotions, specifically those of women?”