5 comments/ 8540 views/ 2 favorites The Low Lovers of Anastelle Yrai By: NaokoSmith Copyright 2012 Naoko Smith His fingers fumbled at the buttons of her shirt. She pressed her mouth to his. He was so excited that he could barely put his lips together for the kiss. His mouth was wet and loose to her pressing soft mouth, she moaned with the pleasure of his pleasure. He was trembling with anticipation. They had barely got in the door to his tiny room when his hands went to her clothes to tug them off. She had already been shrugging her fur-edged coat off onto the floor. In an hot-blooded passion for each other's bodies they were oblivious to the cold. Outside the snow lay thick all about P'shan Palace and the streets of Erjeine in the H'velst Mountains. The tiny room of the library clerk was so small there was no fireplace, he probably depended for warmth on the wall by his narrow single bed but as it was daytime and the servants who shared the larger room next door would be out and about, there would be no fire lit on the other side. She started to try to help him with her shirt buttons then she went to pull at the string in the band of his wide-hipped woollen trousers. They were so eager neither of them quite knew what their fingers were doing. He gave an involuntary shove at her with his hips and as she began pulling at the sleeves of his shirt and jacket, they fell onto the narrow bed and began kissing, kissing. His hands gripped on her hair, disarranging the long dark locks put tidily up, he pressed her head up into his wet eager kiss. She wrapped her arms around his half-stripped thin chest, holding him to her body with a moan before pushing to the kiss again. He managed to stand up and throw off his jacket and shirt, tug free of the wide-hipped trousers without undoing the string, they just slid down over his pale slender hips. She lay with her shirt half-unbuttoned, panting with excitement and grinning to see him naked by the bed. There was that typical soft luminescent sheen to his skin that came from lack of good food and exercise. He was slim and young, the line of his waist and hips flat. She cast a lingering lustful gaze slowly over the jutting curve of his small hip bone, the dark hair in his crotch and rising from it, his eager cock. The fragility of his pale skin, his dark hair and eyes and the reddish bud of the head of his cock, in his young lust for her he had the beauty of almond blossom emerging in Spring on the wet black branches in the nut orchards. He was panting with anticipation, looking lasciviously on her voluptuous plump young curves half-tumbling out of her clothes over his narrow little bed. She sat suddenly up and leaned to press a kiss to the soft hollow curving in from his hipbone then out to his small belly. Oh darling one! so pale and soft. His hands came pushing her head in mute appeal, with a sigh that was already nostalgic, storing the memory of the hollow in his hip, the blossoming skin luminescent with poverty, she moved over to take his cock in her mouth. She tilted her head up and saw his wet lips curve with the ecstatic laugh, his slanted dark eyes sparkle in his smooth pale young face. He grunted and grinned, his hands gentle in the grateful caress on her jawbone and entangling the long dark hair he had already disarranged. She sucked softly on his cock but not for long. He was too excited, when he started pushing harder and in quicker rhythm into her sucking soft mouth, she let his cock slip from her red lips, squeezing a small buttock in promise and standing up to pull the last few buttons from her shirt and grab his hand to press it on her breast in her bodice. His groan of frustration changed back to the grunt of desire, his soft pale fingers with the faint ink stains on them came eagerly to unhook the white bodice with the lacing of pink flowers over it. Only once his hand caressed the pretty bodice, his eyes flicked to enjoy the sight of it before he was pulling the hooks undone to free her round breasts. As she shrugged the bodice off, his hand was already on one breast, his mouth on the other. She pulled his head harder in to her breast, laughing at the joy of his tongue over her nipple, at the same time she was trying to reach the string of her own wide-hipped trousers -- she could not slide hers over her hips, hers were plump rounded womanly hips, the string of her warm felt trousers had been knotted round a little waist curving deliciously out. He was trying to help her while still sucking on one breast and fingering the other, their fingers were fumbling at each other's fingers instead of the string, they started snorting with laughter and fell into the bed again. The string was undone and they were shoving off her trousers and the knickers she no longer cared sufficiently about to regret that she had not worn the ones matching her pretty bodice. While he pressed his loose wet mouth to her neck, she managed to get into the pocket of her trousers, "I have one," he panted, pulling away from her neck to lean out of the bed and scrabble in his own pocket. He was sitting up to put the condom on. She lay smiling softly, charmed by his consideration. He was back now to lay his thin pale young body alongside her plump warm young curves. They stared into each other's slanted dark eyes, suddenly intent. She put her hand down to quickly feel her sex and ensure she was wet and soft. He came crawling to lie between the plump curving legs which she opened to his legs with a luxurious sigh, he lay down on her chest, his knees pushed her knees wider, he looked deep into her eyes and she felt his cock nudging at her cunt and with a thrust he was in. "Mmm!" Her hips came up to meet him as he thrust down, she felt the exciting pressure to her sex, to her clitoris, the satisfaction of his cock inside her. He moaned and took a grip of her hips, made a squirm of his own hips to get in deeper. She felt his cock touch her sweet spot and her eyes and her thighs went wide, it all began rippling out. She clutched her arms about his thin chest to hold him close. Her pelvis began tilting up to him, her muscles in motion, he was thrusting urgently into her cunt, grunting into her neck, the feelings rippling out and suddenly she went over, crying out to him, gripping his small buttocks to press them hard, to press him into her, in his excitement he began going over too. Afterwards they lay contentedly snugged in the sheets and blankets and quilt, the warmth each felt from the other's body heavily emphasised by the cold of the little room. He moved only to reach out of the bed for a wooden luncheon box which he brought up and opened to show her the two buns inside. She smiled into the slanted dark eyes which had become dreamy in post-coital happiness. One bun had some stewed meat and vegetables in it, the other was sweet. He shared them with her although it was not quite enough for two. Later he could get a good dinner in the servants' dining hall. It was one of the advantages of working in the Palace, that once a day he could feed himself completely full in the servants' dining hall, he had not quite got over how it felt to actually be full, even sometimes to have eaten too much. Anata passed a caressing hand over his head. In doing so her eyeline crossed his little window and she saw that the light coming through it was becoming hazy and soft. Regretfully she crawled out of his warm embrace to search out her scattered clothes and get dressed. He lay snugged up watching her with the smile starting to be wistful on his loose wet mouth. Once he sat up and pressed an hand onto the pretty bodice she was hooking back up around her beautiful round breasts and her curving plump ribcage, tracing his soft ink-stained fingers with a wondering pleasure about the pink lace flowers. He lay back into the warm nest in the bedclothes, saying: "Do you live here in Erjeine? Shall I walk you to your house?" She turned her head with the smile sweet on her soft red mouth at this kindness. Her dark slanted eyes sparkled warmly on him. "No my dear," she said in a lazy aristocratic tone that made him grin surreptitiously and a lustful flicker shiver down his loins. "It is a two-three hours cart ride I have ahead of me. You had better not come; unless you were wanting to be formally introduced to my brother." He laughed, embarrassed at the thought, pulling the quilt about his shoulders and watching her finish dressing. She went to a small mirror he had hanging on his wall and did her best with her hair although it remained appealingly untidy here and there. Her face was all soft and warm with the favour she had given him, she smiled to see her beauty flushed with splendour like the snowfields on the H'velst Mountains towering over P'shan Palace tipped golden and pink by the rays of the setting sun. Angels! she must get on or the sun would start to set and her brother would curse her and refuse to bring her with him next time he came into Erjeine. She turned to the young man and knelt by the bed to lean in and give him a final hug and kiss. Close she pressed her soft red mouth to his lovely loose wet mouth, he ran his tongue round the inside of her lip to make her smile, he pressed his tongue in her mouth, pulling her head to him and disarranging her hair again. Finally she parted from his kiss, picked up her fur-edged coat knitted into a bright picture of the sun rising over the mountains and shrugged her arms into the sleeves. She flung her delicate floating turquoise scarf about her head, grabbed her fur hat and in a flashing last smile on him, she was gone. --- She went quickly through the Palace. This part was unfamiliar to her and as she hurried down the narrow stairs and a bare corridor she thought she should at the least of it have asked him to take her to the entrance hall. Then she saw round a corner a big elaborately carved arch looking out onto the H'velst Mountains, she knew it must lead onto a wide veranda and felt relieved to be near the end of the servants' quarters. She trotted along with more confidence. She trotted round the corner, hoping to see a wide passage alongside the veranda and one of the huge marble staircases of the aristocratic quarters, and ran straight into a big velvet-clad body. "Oho!" said a familiar deep masculine voice. "Well met in the corridor, Dame Anastelle Yrai." She took a startled step backwards, lifting her head to look up into his dark eyes which were always sad in contradiction to the laughing rich red mouth. Commander-Lord Tarra el V'lair van Athagine: louche player in the pink-fingered set at court, his mouth pursed in delighted appreciation of this chance meeting and his sad dark eyes narrowed to see her flushed and soft of face, running down the corridors with untidy hair and her hat in her hand. He was the muscular powerful commanding officer of a field troop, heir to all the wine-growing lands of Athagine. Some years before he had been through a scandalous divorce because of the tyrannical ways of his family which he had insisted his Lady wife ought to submit to but she had refused. There was a knotted rough reddish scar on his chin which Anata knew he had picked up in revenge for an act so dishonourable that he was lucky not to have had his throat slashed for it. He had other scars of course, thin white honourable scars from the duel. His nose sprawled sideways from where someone had broken it for him in some other disgraceful brawl. She was so taken aback that she completely forgot her manners and just stammered out: "Wh-what are you doing here?" He laughed. "I might ask you the same thing," he said, turning his dark-haired head to look at her in amusement. "Dame Yrai. Coming along the corridors of P'shan Palace -- from the servants' quarters." His glinting eyes flicked back in the direction from which she had come. She made a quick sideways step to get round him but he was there before her: bloody expert in the duel, well he was such a dishonourable dog that he needed to be. "What do you know of the servants' quarters," she said with a scornful grin but he only laughed back at her at that, she blushed to think of the familiarity with which he probably sneaked in and out of the maidservants' rooms. "Why are you here in P'shan?" she said, successfully making her tone of voice careless instead of cross. "I have come for the sport," he said with his louche grin. "The winter sports," he elaborated, the grin broadening on his rich red mouth, full as a bowl of wine. "You like skating about, do you?" she said, casually tossing her scarf round her head and putting her fur hat on. She tilted her head up at him and realised that she had made another mistake. His eyes narrowed and the laugh fell from his mouth. She had forgotten that, framed in the turquoise gauze and with the halo of the fur hat around it, her face would have the alluring appeal of an Angel of Charity: creamy magnolia petal skin echoed by the pale fur of the hat, her cheeks flushed and soft with the favour she had just bestowed, her dark slanted eyes sparkling with the fun she had enjoyed, her mouth soft and red with kisses. "You like to play," he murmured. He was moving in to back her against the wall, she went slowly backwards, "but you will be hunted down and pinned one day." There was the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor and in the second he turned his head in distraction, she managed to slip under his arm and run off down the corridor. The servant she was running past tilted disapproving eyes towards her then she saw his eyes go to see el V'lair and become more sympathetic but she was beyond caring for propriety. She ran on down the wide stairs only slowing to a demure pace more proper to her status when she reached the enormous red-carpeted staircase going down to the huge echoing marble hallway of the Palace where many different kinds of people: servants in heavy woollen cloth, nobility in velvets, soldiers in their red and green felt uniforms, went to and fro about their business. --- Jamies was cross and refused to let her sit in the front of the cart with him, giving the seat to the twins instead. They laughed mockingly at her as they scrambled onto the bench beside him but Anata only pretended to be disappointed, settling herself into some straw in the back of the cart where she could chew over the odd appearance of el V'lair van Athagine in the palace of the el T'fels van P'shan: a family so high in their morals that it was said they had moved to the mountains to accommodate them. With a vague sense of dread, Anata acknowledged that the only reason he would have come would be in the hopes of a good sniff at her bottom while her friend Tashka el Maien van H'las was at war. el V'lair had flirted heavily with her when she met him at the el Maiens' hunting party a two-three months previous but he was not willing to risk Tashka's glove and had left it at that. He was so notorious that his own friend, Tashka's brother Lord Clair, had even apologised to her for introducing her to his attention and had said she could threaten el V'lair with his glove too if there was any unpleasantness. But the el Maiens were engaged in a bitter civil war, el V'lair had clearly decided that he had an open field and he had imposed his disgusting company on the el T'fels in order to fish for her favours. Anata gave an heavy sigh. The cart jolted down the snow-packed track across the slopes of the mountain behind the ponies in the softening light of the evening reflecting off the snowfields. Above her, the twins were chattering merrily either side of Jamies, she slid her eyes sideways at Jamies' stocky figure in his brightly coloured embroidered felt coat. Jamies had never said any thing but she had seen how disappointed he was whenever she turned her famously alluring eyes aside from yet another well-to-do merchant or pleasant aristocrat less stricken in poverty than themselves who came chatting in a besotted manner to her. Jamies had taken a farmer's daughter in marriage in the face of their father's complaints. He was not troubled about her low taste in men except for the money. Every time he saw her smile with flashing charm on some butcher's boy or junior clerk, his dark slanted eyes filled with gloom. His marriage had brought in an excellent manager of the household and she knew he had hoped hers would bring some material wealth but to what purpose? Their father remained a drunken sot who played away at cards whatever he could get into his hands. Since the death of their mother when the twins were born, Jamies and Anata between them had had to manage as best they could, sometimes stealing money from Captain-Sir Jamies Yrai's purse while he slept in order to get in food for the family. If he was in funds it was jewellery and rich garments for them all, he complained continually that they did not keep up an establishment he thought proper for an officer-aristocrat, but there were long periods of time when Jamies struggled alone to manage a living for them out of the steep hillsides on which their family fort was perched. The monies from Captain-Sir Yrai's pension and any thing else from the sworn Lords of course went in the card play and sometimes now, their father snuck into Jamies and Lallia's bedroom while they slept and stole money from Jamies' purse. She knew what her father would say but what would Jamies say if Commander-Lord Tarra el V'lair van Athagine of Tenth Athagine came prowling round in his velvets and furs, offering her jewels and monies and an apartment in the el V'lair family rooms at court, some bloody suite in amongst the chained Girls his father kept. Anata bit at her soft red lip, her slanted eyes creased in distaste. That louche strong-muscled knowledgeable commanding officer with the well experienced hands, an oldest son of the high nobility, aggressive in pursuit of his pleasure; he was a kind of man she least preferred. She liked soft tumbling puppies like the sweet young library clerk she had met that day on his day off. She had been poking about in the bookstores in hopes of some old novel being sold cheaply which she might read to Lallia. She pulled one from the shelf at the same time as he pulled a book from the shelf behind. Through this accidental hole in the shelves of dusty books, their startled dark slanted young eyes met. They both started helplessly sniggering and giggling and then she -- more confident -- put her hand through the hole: the little plump pale fingers waggling at him in inviting salute. And he kissed them. Her body, still soft and warm with the favour he had thrust up into her, gave a quiver and she smiled to remember the hollow in his hip. He was young, fumbling and eager; so grateful for her tossed favour; not expecting any thing more. She did not want more. She did not want to marry some pleasant Knight or complaisant merchant and manage his household and babies while sneaking out for a bit of pleasure with the butchers' boys, she did not even want to marry some sweet young library clerk -- not that he would have the funds to support her. She certainly did not want to be taken down South by some bloody member of the high nobility and kept on the side to be shown off on his arm at disgusting parties of the pink-fingered set. Softly she kissed the fingers the library clerk had kissed, hoping that the van P'shan family would realise what el V'lair's game was and find some way to put him off the scent of her favours. --- Anata! Anata!" As she slid down the steep path of trodden snow from the shepherds' huts, Anata lifted her head to the shrill boy's cry echoing up the hillside and down into the steep valley below like the call of a bird. It was one of the twins; it was Fiotr. She tried to hurry some more, lost her foothold and had to grab at a bush to keep upright. The wiry bare twigs cut into her hand; she gritted her teeth and wished she had worn her gloves. The Low Lovers of Anastelle Yrai "Yes! yes! I am coming! What is it?" she cried back anxiously. Was Lallia's baby coming early? She must send Fiotr back to the shepherds if so for the midwife. Fiotr's head of untidy dark curls appeared below her round a bend in the path, his wiry little figure was scrambling up the hillside to her, as agile as a goat. "A visitor for you!" he shouted. Anata paused on the snowy path then began coming down more slowly. "What kind of visitor?" but she knew that Fiotr would not have come eagerly seeking her if it had been one of hers and Lallia's girl friends: the merry merchants' daughters and wealthier peasant women with whom they enjoyed saucy stories and a basket of salted nuts -- after making sure the twins were well out of earshot. "Oooh! an officer-aristo!" Fiotr was near enough now that she could see the thrilled shine in his dark slanted eyes. "All scarred and whatever. Must have been in some dreadful battles. Prithou, Anata, prithou, will you get him to tell of them?" Bloody Hell! could not the van P'shan family have kept the whereabouts of her home privy from that disgusting scum? Anata had hoped for better protection from them, especially old Lady el Farin van P'shan, Lord van P'shan's second wife. They had greatly enjoyed each other's company on the journey back from the el Maiens' hunting party. Lady van P'shan loved to pretend to be scandalous and Anata was a saucy wench so they got on famously. Anata of course did not presume on their friendship by going and hanging about the sworn Lady of the region in her precarious situation of poverty although she went once or twice for tea and cakes and to a ball when sent a particular invitation. She had hoped Lady van P'shan would refuse to tell el V'lair where to find her home. Then she remembered that he could easily get any information he wished about her family from the palace servants. She sighed as she scrambled down the path towards the tumbledown old grey hill fort which her family held in fealty from the sworn Lords of P'shan. She came through the courtyard where she saw a magnificent chestnut stallion being led off into the stables by one of the farm hands. She went into the low old doorway of the fort, stamping the snow off her warm sheepskin boots before taking them off to put by the other boots and shoes. She crossed the dark stone-walled hall with the narrow windows high up and the huge fireplace cold and empty. She took off her thick sheepskin coat as she went and threw it into the dark wooden coat chest which stood with the other heavy old formal furniture in the reception hall that they never used. There was a magnificent riding coat draped over the back of one of the chairs, too good to be put with their coats in the chest, it was severely undecorated and cut in such a simple style that it was evident it had cost some huge amount of money. It was so damned cold and they were so wretched poor that even some over-privileged son of the high nobility coming to offer jewels and whatever for the privilege of sniffing the bottom of the daughter of the household must be entertained in the kitchen. Anata set her face into a forbidding sneer as she went through the doorway into the sudden warmth of the kitchen, crossly aware that this would not succeed in diminishing the allure of her beautiful features and plump curving body. Lallia was standing at the end of the table in front of the hot blue enamelled range, she had put her knitting aside and was smoothing down the jumper patterned in knitted flowers over her big belly, shy in the presence of an aristocrat. Jamies was sitting at the end of the table pouring the tea, his felt jacket with the pictures of deer embroidered over it still had straw stuck to it; he had evidently had to rush in direct from tending to the farm animals in order to show due courtesy to her noble guest. Their father was not there, of course. Even though she was keen for el V'lair to be repulsed, Anata felt relieved. Fiotr pushed past her and scurried over to sit with Petra by the side of her visitor. Her visitor was rising very politely from his chair at the table to offer her his greeting, tall and lean in a fine suit of dark grey felt as simple and elegant as his coat hanging on the chair in the reception hall. "Dame Anastelle Yrai," he held out his sword hand. His head: fair with round blue eyes like summer skies in a face dreadfully scarred by the war-dogs, turned towards her. His face was always inexpressive because it was so badly scarred but his mouth pouted softly as if in hopes of some inappropriate light kiss. "Lieutenant-Lord Hanya el Jien van Iarve, formerly of First Iarve!" She was delighted not to see the disgusting el V'lair van Athagine in her family home. Her face flushed up with pleasure, her dark slanted eyes sparkled merrily, her soft red mouth bowed out in response as if offering the light kiss he might have been seeking. She came tripping up to him in her warm knitted Northern peasant suit: close-fitting jacket and wide-hipped trousers all embroidered flowers and birds, her feet in colourful thick socks. She tilted her head about with the additional charm of a woman who knows she is extremely attractive and she likes you, the laugh was dancing on her mouth and in her eyes. "What a pleasure!" she said, laying her left hand delicately in his scarred right hand and tilting her head teasingly at him. Lallia looked quickly slantwise at Jamies, making a giggling pout at him. He narrowed his eyes sidelong back at her. Hanya el Jien tightened his long scarred fingers on Anata's plump soft little fingers, his face remained inexpressive. Anata sat down in the chair beside him, saying, "you have come for the winter sports?" she frowned as she said it, she was remembering that he limped very badly although he still rode well, he could hardly be keen to go skating and scrambling about the slopes of the H'velst Mountains with other fashionable (wealthy) aristos who came up here on holiday. "What news do you have?" she asked. "Any news of the war? How does it go, do Tashka and Clair and Vadya prevail or has that old snake van Sietter's army taken back the ground they gained?" "It is Winter now so they are at a standstill," Hanya answered. "Tashka's valour will prevail in the Spring, surely!" Anata said merrily then she added anxiously, "do you not think so?" Hanya turned his blue eyes to the pottery bowl of tea with the simple design of animals on it which Jamies was passing to him across the scrubbed pale wood of the thick pine kitchen table. He said with a sigh in the charming dialect of his home region of Iarve, "ar't a good friend to hope for it but van Sietter has great superiority because he commands much better supply of arms." Jamies lifted his head, making evident his surprise that a member of the high nobility would speak so much like a merchant but Anata had spent considerable time in Lieutenant-Lord Hanya el Jien's company at the el Maiens' hunting party; he had provided welcome cover from the irritating attentions of el V'lair and his own flirtatious cousin Pava el Jien van Vail because he was so much shyer than they were. Anata knew Hanya and his sister were heavily involved in mercantile networks and that their efforts to lend political support to these were the main cause of the civil war which had broken out between the neighbouring regions of Sietter and H'las. She said, "do you have no connection with the arms merchants yourself? You should make them help Tashka and Vadya and Clair instead of van Sietter." He raised his eyebrows at this, she saw his blue eyes in his inexpressive face become thoughtful on her. "If I could get an hold on some letters of credit," Hanya was just thinking aloud, she was not interested in the details of his vulgar trading machinations, she said, "it must have been a long journey for you to come here from Castle Sietter, since you could not take the route through court." "Um, quite long," he mumbled, suddenly ducking his head in an embarrassed fashion wholly inappropriate to a younger son of the high nobility. He said, "I have brought you a letter from my sister," fishing a packet out of the breast of his elegantly undecorated dark grey felt jacket and laying it on the table in front of her. Lallia looked slantwise at Jamies again with the giggle in her eyes as if to say, 'Oh yes, what a long journey just to deliver a letter!' Jamies frowned quickly at her as he sipped his tea. Anata took up the packet with the aristocratic seal on the back of it in considerable surprise. She had of course enjoyed meeting Lady Arianna el Jien van Sietter, the Lady wife of Clair el Maien, but she had never expected such a great Lady to correspond with a poverty-stricken Dame from the H'velst Mountains. When she opened the packet she was even more surprised to see that this was no casual note dashed off as a courtesy simply because her brother was going to the region where Dame Yrai happened to live. Lady el Jien wrote at length, not only such news of the war as she was privy to, but an intimate personal account of her own feelings about it and of herself and her two little boys, with whom Anata had enjoyed playing. Anata did not even have time to read the letter, she had to go rapidly on to the end where there was a whole paragraph begging Anata to be kind to her brother, whom Lady el Jien said did not often enjoy the company of people his own age and rank because his scars had made him shy. Anata looked sidelong at Hanya el Jien, who was politely responding to some talk of the best places for skating and sledging on Jamies' part. It was disingenuous of Lady el Jien to describe her as being of Hanya's rank. He was a younger child of the high nobility who would be expected to marry the sworn Lady of some other region and rule it by her side. But Lady el Jien wrote in a manner which delicately made it plain that she -- a Lady famous for her chaste honour -- would welcome some association between her brother and Anata. Anata had not thought of him as young like herself. She bit her soft lip as she looked at him through her lashes. His scars and gravity of demeanour, his expert knowledge of trade, had always caused her to dismiss him as much older but she remembered that he was Lady Arianna's younger brother, he must be about Lord Clair el Maien's age, only a few years older than Tashka -- and herself. Well on any road, she liked them a lot younger. He was some bloody member of the high nobility too: courteous and honourable and seriously involved in politics. He was no giggling puppy with whom to enjoy a tumble in the straw. She turned her alluring dark slanted eyes away from him, considering how best to manage him. He was far too honourable and courteous to need managing. After an highly proper and brief chat, barely long enough for the one bowl of tea, he rose from the table and said politely that he must not detain them from their business of the day. Lallia asked hesitantly if he would stay for lunch, in spite of Jamies kicking her; she looked at Anata with a sly smile as she said it. He hesitated, before saying that if perhaps they cared to invite him some other day, he would be so delighted. They were all relieved, not only because the stew Lallia had in the back of the range would shame them by its poor quality and the lack of nine other courses to accompany it but also because if he stayed to share it there would not be enough to go round and some of them would have to go hungry. "The el T'fels were hopeful of seeing you at a party they are having on Angel five-day," Hanya said to Anata, "but um ... Lady van P'shan remembered her that does't not care for dancing." Lallia was so astonished and so fearful of Anata losing the chance of some lovely party in P'shan Palace that she cried out: "What can she mean! You love to dance, Anata." Anata shot her a fierce glare, saying stiffly: "Yes, I am obliged not to care for dancing while my ankle is injured. I prithou do tell it to Lady van P'shan how grateful I am to her for her consideration." She felt quite prostrate with gratitude not to have to be dragged around the dance by el V'lair van Athagine. "P-perhaps I might offer you a bowl of tea, one day, in one of the cafés?" Hanya el Jien stammered as he asked it and his blue eyes dipped in his scarred face. "Will the company in the cafés be more to your liking than that at the van P'shan parties?" he said it with a tilt of his head and a laughing gleam in his shy blue eye that said he thought it was not him she was seeking to avoid, although his limp made him a bad dancer, but he was not quite sure. Unable to contain themselves longer, the twins burst out, "never mind stupid cafés! We will show you the best place for skating, with such a jolly tavern just by it." "Lord el Jien has no wish for your company," Jamies said fiercely to them but Hanya only crinkled his eyes up at the boys in what might possibly have been a smile, saying, "I am not much of an one for skating but I should like to try the sledging if you will show me some slopes." They walked out with him to the courtyard. He limped so badly that even the twins seemed to realise that most of the winter sports would be beyond him and they stopped chattering on about frozen lakes where they were sure he would enjoy to skate and trails along which they could take him hiking to see eagles fly. As he took up the reins of his magnificent stallion, he turned and said to Anata again: "M-may I offer you a bowl of tea one day?" The blush went up his scarred cheek and his blue eyes went down. She reflected that she owed his sister courtesy for the kindness with which Lady el Jien had extended her hospitality and he was so shy, as his sister had said. Perhaps she might introduce him to some other young people and make him more sociable. She said, "Surely, my dear," with a smile that she did not mean to dance quite so charmingly on her soft red mouth and in her eyes. "Write to tell it me what day best suits you." He opened his mouth as if to say he was on holiday, any day would suit, but then he tilted his eyes at her with the glinting laugh in them as if he suddenly understood the subterfuge which would give her a two-three days while he wrote to her and sent her the note and then she would think for a day or three and write back to him but only when someone was going into Erjeine. She suddenly sniggered and had to dip her head to hide it in the collar of her jacket but she did not hide the laughing eyes which flashed back to the glint of a laugh in his round blue eyes. --- It was a two-three days later that el V'lair came by. Jamies had gone with the men to cut wood and so Lallia and Anata had put some coarse meat and vegetables in a pot to the back of the banked down range and had gone back to bed, to save fuel. They climbed into Jamies and Lallia's big bed and curled up in the cushions and quilts embroidered with gold thread in peasant pictures. They were cutting down some of Jamies' old shirts for Fiotr and Petra. For a short while the twins came too but they would keep rolling about and fighting each other and pulling the covers off when they fell off the bed. Finally Anata kicked them in the backside and told them to go up to the shepherds' huts and help with the embroidery and knitting. Jamies always ensured the shepherds had enough fuel because he felt they were under his eye as the future Knight so it would be warm up there. When the twins had gone, she and Lallia began to feel sleepy with the cold and huddled down in the embroidered quilts. Anata lay on her side, reading an old favourite novel with the quilts pulled up round her ears. Lallia was too big with the baby to do other than lie on her back, Anata pressed her back to Lallia's side so they were both warm and they lay under the piled quilts reading and dozing and waiting for the men to come home. There was nobody to announce him so the bloody dog started coming up the stairs himself. They heard his heavy booted feet stamping on the steps -- he must have seen the row of boots and shoes in the hallway but he was so arrogant he just kept his boots on. His sword was jingling and he shouted out: "Halloo! Halloo! Is there no one about?" in an irritated voice as if it were a personal slight on him: the great el V'lair van bloody Athagine, that they could not afford six footmen to announce him. Lallia sat up in the bed in astonishment and alarm. Anata laid an hand on her arm and screwed her face up to say, 'Shut it!' She was hoping he would think there was no one there and leave but the rude swine, of course he started flinging open all their bedroom doors and he flung back Jamies and Lallia's and stared at them in the bed and burst out laughing. "What in Hell is this?" he demanded, looking offensively about at the cold room with its rough furnishings and peasant fabrics knitted and embroidered with pictures of animals and flowers and birds. "What in Hell are you about?" she responded angrily. "How dare you come up to my brother's bedroom to disturb my sister by marriage." She got out of the bed and shook out her clothes: her wide-hipped black felt trousers with the pictures sewn into them in gold thread and her yellow cotton shirt, turning to pick up the embroidered felt jacket she had left on the bed and say; "Sleep some more, my dear," gently to Lallia. "I will bring you up a bowl of chamomile tea." She added sharply to el V'lair: "get down the stairs!" She saw him pause and turn his head, thinking about it. His narrowed dark eyes slid from herself to Lallia in the big bed, her face soft and her hair so abundant with the pregnancy, but it was so cold and the room was clearly that of the married son of the household. He seemed to remember that the Yrais might be so poor that they could barely afford to scrape by but that they were still Knights under the eye of the autocratic and easily offended van P'shan, who lived by the cruelties of the Northern code of honour. He turned and went out of the room and down to the hallway. She came down the stairs after him and picked out of the chest her best coat to put on, the one with the lovely knitted woollen picture of the sun rising over the mountains, feeling angry that she only had some peasant garment to wear which would make her look as if she were of low degree and nobody would care about her honour. She waved her hand at one of the heavy dark wooden chairs in the hallway by the big empty flagstoned hearth. "Commander-Lord Tarra el V'lair van Athagine of Tenth Athagine," she said in formal greeting. "How kind of you to come and bring me news of my sworn Lords, the el T'fels. Will you take a bowl of wine?" "Will it come as frozen hard as your bloody heart?" he responded. "I never thought to see the day I would beg for a bowl of tea! Is there nowhere in the house with a fire?" "We Yrais hold a fort in fealty, not some mansion rich in unearned comforts," Anata replied, curling her lip at him. "We may sit in the kitchen if you so wish it." She made it sound as if it were beneath her to do so. "Excuse me while I manage your tea," she made that sound like some frivolous effeminate nonsense too. She went off to the kitchens and felt the kettle which was always on, poking the fire up in the range and resenting having to use precious fuel to get the water hot enough for the disgusting el V'lair van Athagine to have a bowl of tea. He was stamping up and down the flagstoned floor of the hallway in a fruitless effort to get warm and started grumbling of it as soon as she came back in with the bowls of tea. "So sorry not to be able to accommodate your Southern ways," she drawled. "You are welcome to consider the courtesy of your visit sufficient and return to P'shan Palace." The Low Lovers of Anastelle Yrai He was an Easterner of course, not a soft Southerner. Not like Hanya el Jien who came from the balmy fertile plains of Iarve where the soft-eyed cattle gave rich creamy milk and they grew the precious wheat traded all across the country and made smooth elegant silk not rough embroidered felt and knitted woollen cloth. He only laughed at her insulting remark. "You wolf maiden," he said mockingly. "Are you only happy in the freezing snow and ice in which you hope your suitors will be preserved until you are inclined to one and can pop him in your oven to do to your taste?" "I am happy wherever you are not," she answered. He grinned as he accepted the tea from her hands, wrapping his fingers around the bowl and holding it to his face to get some warmth from the steam. She took the other bowl upstairs for Lallia. "What do you want?" She demanded as she came back down the stairs, her feet still only clad in her colourful thick knitted socks. "I want you," he answered, lifting his head to look at her with the louche grin on his mouth. His eyes did not smile, though, they always had some inner gleam of sadness in them which many women found irresistibly appealing. But not Anata. She rolled her beautiful dark slanted eyes and said in a bored tone of voice: "Yes of course but unfortunately you are not my preference." "Oh I know," he answered carelessly. "It is why I want you so much." He lifted his sad dark eyes and grinned into her annoyed face. "You are pretty," he said softly, "but I can buy ten pretty birds of paradise to put on my arm if I wish for them. You are smart and funny and you are Tashka's friend. Those are all interesting to me. But most of all, you do not want me. I like to chase down your favours even though you do not want to give them to me." He turned his head and grinned on her. She only gave an annoyed sigh although she knew he liked it that she did not pretend to a chaste outrage at his speaking to her so crudely. "I do not like them to resist," he added. "I never like to force a favour," the careless manner in which he said it made it plain that he had once or twice done so. "I am not your preference," he said, "and you are an honourable slut. You only like to give a favour where your fancy chooses, not here and there wherever without caring for the consequence. But believe me," his voice became soft, like a tongue reaching down to caress her into her sex, "I will be able to please you, even against your preference. You will not resist," he said, "but you will never give me your favour willingly. I should think that would amuse me for quite six months before your spirit is broken and you start to cry when I please you." He added as if it were a nothing on the side of his offer to allow her to pleasure him against her preference: "I will of course pay you very handsomely for the privilege, my darling." "You are disgusting," she said, curling her lip at him. "Get out before my brother gets home." "Oh is your honour under your brother's eye?" he enquired with a soft low laugh, setting down the bowl of tea on the heavy old chair beside him. "Is it not your father who guards you close here to keep your honour bright? While he attends to his important business -- in his rather unusual offices in Erjeine." He looked around him at the neglected heavy old-fashioned furniture, the lack of ornaments about the place, the evident poverty. He ran his eyes over her in her knitted and felt peasant clothes. "You think it over," he said quietly. "You will not always be the plump pigeon that you are, my sweetie. Especially if there are no cakes for tea," he laughed the soft and low laugh as if he knew it well how happy she and Lallia were when there were enough extra almonds in the harvest and they could keep some and buy some sugar to make cakes for tea parties with their girl friends. He came up to her quickly before she had a chance to start back and seized her plump cheek in his finger and thumb, pinching it so hard that she made a little cry. "I will have your favour willing or no," he said, "but I prefer to take it willing, my darling. You think on it, while you play about with your preferences and your father plays off your heritage at cards. Would you not prefer to give me your favours willing for a pocket full of money rather than lose them for an handkerchief of tears." --- After supper that night, Jamies sat dozing in the armchair by the range but when Lallia tried to persuade him to bed, he laid his hand on her arm and said gently: "You go on up, my dear. Boys," he said in a firm tone, "go to bed." He got up and came over to the pine table and sat opposite Anata, who lifted her eyes from the baby's smock she was embroidering in an elaborate Southern pattern Lady el Jien had shown her, so delicate compared to the big pictures in gold thread with which the Northern peasants decorated garments. Jamies was looking tired after his long day's hard labour. His cheeks were lean and hollowed and his eyes had always a strained anxiety lurking in them. They had all eaten better since his marriage; Lallia's father would often come by with something from his farm, but Jamies' concern for keeping up what he felt were responsibilities due to the people under him in fealty in addition to the physical labour on the land took a toll on him. When the others had left, he asked her, "Will you be going to the café with el Jien van Iarve?" "Oh surely," she said in a careless tone of voice. "I will take the boys with me, they are so keen to hear him talk of matters of honour although in truth, he had those scars from an accident when he was only new commissioned, he has never been in a battle." "And what of this other, el V'lair van Athagine?" he asked. "I am sorry he disturbed Lallia, in her condition," Anata said penitently. "He is notorious." "Yes," her brother said. "He is notorious for his extravagance and his family are infamous for the manner in which they treat women. I think you should take el Jien." She sat in the light of the one candle on the table. Her head had gone down, he could only see the top of her head. "el Jien is honourable and will treat you with consideration," he urged. "I prithou, Anata," she was appalled to hear his voice tremble with emotion. "I was well sorry that you let el Maien slip through your fingers. Surely you will not give the go-by to both these chances of comfort and an easy life as well." "Tashka is not my preference!" she flung her head up with the tears sparkling in her dark slanted eyes. "Tashka is my friend," she said. "I am sorry, I know how hard it is for you to manage, and now you have a baby to come. I know how much you need me to bring some money in but must it be like this!" her face turned up to him was twisted with misery and shame like an Angel of the Sorrows. His face twisted with sorrow turned back to her. "No no, Anata, not for us!" he cried. "How can you think I would ask such a thing? For yourself. What is there for you here? You are so intelligent and funny and you love to play. Take this chance. Either one of them will like to make you happy, to take you to the parties at the Palace tricked out like a Princess, to take you to court for the concerts and exhibitions or to the Esten Lakes or the beach resorts in H'las where you may see Tashka el Maien when the war is over. You enjoyed el Maien's company so much and were so happy to go down to Sietter for that hunting party, you had such a merry time of it with people who were able to indulge your wit and humour. This is a chance for you to have that life. What does it matter if it is but a side slip affair? Either of them will give you sufficient to ensure you enjoy a good life ever after. You are sure to meet other ... friends to your heart. But not here in a ruined hill fort in the mountains. If the boys will only put their heads down to learn their letters we can get them commissions in the army. I will ask it of van P'shan and I think the el T'fels will do it for us, especially now that Lady van P'shan is known to have an interest in you, but what of you? I worry so for you, my dear, what kind of life is this? for you?" She was crying. Tears rolled from her dark slanted eyes down her soft creamy magnolia petal cheeks. She got up and came round the table, sniffing, to stand by him and press her hand on his shoulder. "This is my home," she sobbed. "You are my family. I am so sorry, Jamies. It has been so hard on us and especially you. Do not push me away." "It'll be a matter of a glove, with el V'lair," he said gloomily. "No no!" she said anxiously. Jamies had never had the opportunity to learn properly how to fight in the duel. Most days he did not even wear in his belt the set of weaponry which their father had passed over to him, it got in his way in the menial work he undertook on their lands. "He is a disgusting dog and they are saying his sole purpose in coming here is to pin you," he answered her. "If you are not willing to take him, he is sure to offer you some insult that requires a glove. I ought to do it now for the manner in which he behaved to Lallia, only she is but a farmer's daughter." "My honour is under dadi's eye, not yours," she suggested, wiping her hand over her eyes. "Lallia would not be grateful if you threw your life in the hazard for some notion of honour she would laugh to hear us pretend to on her account." He sighed and said, "well, there's the benefit to taking a farmer's daughter." "It is not the only benefit," she said, gripping her hand on his shoulder. He smiled softly and said, "No." --- The twins of course had already found their own means to get into Hanya el Jien's pocket. They were disappointed when they learned that his dreadful scars were not the outcome of some glorious action in battle and that el Jien limped too badly to have ever fought properly in the duel. However he was a man of honour, when they pressed him on the subject he became embarrassed in a way which made it evident that he had once or twice thrown the glove and he willingly taught them duelling steps and even wrestling holds, utilising the Yrais' barn for the purpose. He was happy to throw money away on hiring sledges and for buns and cakes even if Anata were not of the party. Anata was cross at first, thinking that he was using the twins to come close to her. She made him come to the fort to tell him he must not hope for her company if he sought theirs but she was inveigled instead into a sledging race. She took Petra and he took Fiotr. They shot down the slopes at the back of the shepherds' huts past the nut orchards, screaming and laughing. She won, of course, and then they exchanged twins to try again but she always won. They fell off in the snow and wrestled with the twins, then they went back to the fort for some hot chocolate and ginger cake which Lallia had mysteriously acquired. She saw Lieutenant-Lord Hanya el Jien's scarred face so bright with laughter that his enjoyment was evident even on his mauled features and she understood that he actually liked being with the boys. She liked it herself and wished heartily she could have got out with them more often. Hanya started coming back to the fort with the twins for meals, which became suspiciously tasty and began to stretch into three courses. Lallia only looked demure when pressed on the subject and said she was an excellent manager. She was a farmer's daughter and cared more for good food than for the family pride, besides she was carrying a baby and very willing to accept mysterious saddle-bags of food without question for the sake of a nourishing meal. Instead of getting to go across the frozen lakes in a sledge drawn by mountain ponies and tease the boys and Hanya afterwards over hot chocolate, Anata was obliged to be occupied with the disgusting attentions of el V'lair. She met him for lunch sometimes in Erjeine, since this kept him away from the fort, trying to find ways to lessen his admiration for her but the more she parried his advances, the more he admired her skill in doing so. It was very annoying. If she flirted with the waiters they were uneasy instead of excited and el V'lair only watched with a grin riding on his rich red mouth. When he said he would pay one of them to fuck her if she let him watch she gave it up. Then she did not even have the pleasure of their thin under-nourished bodies leaning close to her under pretence of shaking her napkin over her lap while she chatted irritably to the muscular powerful commanding officer sitting opposite her. Thankfully their father usually only managed to get himself home late at night from the card-playing hells where he squandered his army pension and any other monies he could lay his hands on. However his old army cronies inevitably teased him about the high ranking aristos who had suddenly claimed the hospitality of the el T'fels after meeting his daughter. Learning one day from the twins that Hanya was coming by, he made an unwelcome appearance at the lunch table. Hanya's face was always inexpressive but Anata thought hopefully that a sort of shiver of distaste went through him when he was obliged to offer his sword hand to Captain-Sir Jamies Yrai as his host at a meal he had supplied the ingredients for himself. The Captain retained little of the physical fitness with which he had once marched and ridden in the troop where he had been commissioned. Running to fat and with dissipated lines on a face where he had missed patches of hair when he shaved, he always smelt of cheap stale alcohol. There was something in his broken physique that suggested the stocky strong frame Jamies had and a flash in his sunken eyes that reminded you of Anata but on the whole when looking at him, you felt only surprise that his children had turned out so well. A little crude questioning told Captain-Sir Yrai that Hanya was not part of the pink-fingered set and had no interest in gambling. He fixed his sharp card-player's eyes on the scarred figure clad in an elegantly cut hacking jacket and warm breeches, sitting between his two youngest sons and patiently responding to their questions about some brigands he had once run across. His responses were disappointing to the boys since they focussed not on some romantic tale of kidnap and escape from hill caves stuffed with booty but on the problems caused to the free passage of trade by brigandage. Captain-Sir Yrai visibly curled his lip at this mercantile assessment and left them all to it straight after the meal. Anata was mindful of Lady el Jien's anxieties about Hanya and after some deliberation she picked out a suitable friend of her acquaintance to take to tea with him. Lisette was a tall slender young woman with a sophisticated mind who had enjoyed a two-three affairs of the heart and body in a discreet manner. She worked with her father trading jewels out of the mines and Anata thought she would be able to listen to Hanya's talk of trading networks with attention and intelligent interest. She came along to the café looking like an highly appropriate companion for a member of the high nobility in a beautiful velvet cloak with under it a simple velvet pinafore dress and her arms demure in the silk sleeves of a delicately embroidered undergarment. But it was Hanya who led Lisette on to talk and who listened with an intent gravity in his round blue eyes. He showed no interest in her elegance, even when she made a becoming dip of the eyes and sweet smile on being offered his sword hand in the courteous manner he always showed to women of whatever degree, but nor did he exhibit any shyness towards her. Later Lisette castigated Anata roundly, laughing as she said he had lured out of her all kinds of privy information about the arrangements between the el T'fel family and the merchants by which trade was managed in P'shan. Anata realised that Lady el Jien was wrong. He was not shy around young women. He was only gauche and shy around her. --- They were lying in some straw in the barn. She had been hunting through the bales for eggs and he had been teaching the boys wrestling moves. When the boys eventually ran off to try them out on the shepherd children, Hanya chucked himself, laughing, onto the straw. She had enough eggs to make some sweet spiced custard for a pudding after lunch (since they need not depend on the eggs for the main course) so she came and lay down on her side near him, looking at his long lean body in the warm plain jumper and woollen breeches and long riding boots, at his scarred face and his blue eyes twisting like swallows away from her with a soft blush. "Why do you like me, my dear?" she asked. "You are an highly honourable man. Why are you not asking your brother whom he might bestow you on to secure his ties with another region from where you might manage your work on trade as the sworn Lord." He flicked his eyes at her, they seemed to crease in his smile to see her leaning up on her elbow in the straw, in a red felt suit embroidered in gold with mountain hares, staring at him with dark slanted eyes which were serious for once. "My brother has tried to have my sister and I assassinated for our involvement in trade," he reminded her. "I own his regional debt," he added. "He will not bestow me anywhere I do not wish to go." He looked at her then added softly with the blush rising up his cheek: "My dear." "You own the regional debt for Iarve?" she repeated incredulously. "Among others," he answered casually. Then he looked at her and laughed suddenly. "Yes," he said in a drily amused voice. "I am very wealthy." He hesitated before going on, "I am ... I am the richest aristocrat in the country," so shyly that you might have thought he was making an idle boast, except that Anata knew he was the least likely person to do so. The blush went hot up his scarred and his unscarred cheek. He leaned suddenly up on his elbow to look intently into her eyes and said: "Does ... does that interest you at all?" anxiously. She laughed to realise that he was desperately, incompetently, trying to flirt with her. "No my dear," she said. She had intended her low tender tone as a response to his shyness although as she spoke she realised it had come out in a seductive sweet husky murmur. She made her voice firmer in rejection. "That is not my preference," she said. "What is your preference?" he asked. His face was inexpressive as ever but his tone remained anxious. "Oh darling," she said softly, looking into his eyes like summer skies. "I like them shy," he lifted his blue eyes to her hopefully. "I like them young," she said. He made an appealing shrug, "I mean younger than myself," she explained. "I like them low," she said. "Y'know: the butcher's boy or the groom or some clerk in a cloth store. I just like a quick favour and to go, not any steady affair." "Um, I am not offering an affair," his voice was husky with embarrassment, she lifted her beautiful dark slanted eyes to him in query. "I am offering you my ring," he said. They stared at each other. Then she said in a choked voice and as if he had proposed some quite dishonourable arrangement: "No!" He sat suddenly up and a businesslike look appeared on his face. This was what did not appeal to her, when it became apparent that he was used to move with confident ease among the rich and powerful, pulling them into networks to do as he wished them to do. "I cannot be going to be sworn Lord of any one region," he said. "That would compromise my ability to represent the merchants across the country as a whole. Nor can I take any merchant's daughter to be my wife and make it appear that I might favour one trade over another. Ar't an aristocrat but not of the high nobility so not expected to tie me into any region. Likest to make a pretty show at the parties and draws't people together to chat easily. That would be so useful to me." The Low Lovers of Anastelle Yrai She pulled a straw from the bale beside her and chewed on it, tilting her dark slanted eyes at him with a laugh in them at this. He lay down again in the straw and leaned on his elbow, blushing and his eyes dipping like the swallows over the irrigation channels in the plains of his home region. "I ... I am quite low," he suggested. "I am only a younger son and I muck about with the merchants y'know." She started laughing out loud, her eyes sparkled merrily so that he could not forbear the slight movement of his lips, the crinkling of his eyes that was his smile in reply. "You are of the high nobility," she said scornfully. "A man of honour who goes always with weapons in his belt. You are the richest aristo in the country." "I could give it away?" he suggested, his eyes tilted up at her with a sparkle in them back to her. She laughed again and said, "You would only make more. You are too well-connected and too clever: you and your sister. She is the clever one but you are the strategist who knows where to direct hers and your efforts." He raised his eyebrows in appreciation at this understanding, she said casually to him, "What is your preference?" He was confounded by this and lay back in the straw, staring up at the timbers in the roof, stricken wordless. Finally he shrugged. "I only like you," he said softly, lying there on his back looking up into the roof. "You never liked anyone before you liked me?" she asked teasingly. It was her turn to be confounded when he said, "No." "You have never even had a kiss?" she asked. He sighed then he said, "Has't met my sisters and knowest how beautiful they are. I was like them: handsome as the sun. Then ... this," he gestured with his scarred right hand at his scarred face. "For a long time I thought no woman would ever wish to kiss ... this. Then I realised that many did but in such a way ... not love, not even pity for me. They liked to recognise their beauty next to my ruined face. But ar't not like that," he leaned up on his elbow with a rustle of straw and looked over on her. "Ar't so beautiful," he said softly, "and knowest it. Does't not care. Does't not care if el V'lair van Athagine or my cousin who is el Jien van Vail, oldest sons of the high nobility, come dancing about your skirt. Does't not care if I am as handsome as the sun or ruined as I am. Were't willing to give me a little flirt and to dance with me even though I dance badly, only because I was shy and so were't kind to me. I liked it. I came to love you. I knew dids't not care for me, I thought it was my scars but my brother by marriage, Clair, said: 'She is poor. Go and offer her what you have, her family will push her to the match'. I have come but my wealth is only a bar in the way of you liking me because has't a preference for men who are of a low degree and do not make you feel your poverty and the shame your father has brought on your family." His voice was mocking of both himself and her, full of a quiet resignation. He lay back in the straw again. She stopped chewing on her straw to consider what he had said. "My sisters and I were brought up very close because of my mother who is an infamous slut," his voice was a soft and husky murmur coming to her out of the straw. She had to lean close to him to hear what he said. "Not a slut like you," he added hurriedly, tilting his head towards her with a blush. "She is not an honourable slut. I have seen her even chase my brother by marriage's tail at the parties at court. But she is very beautiful," his tone became soft and tender. "When I was little she was resident in Iarve for a few years. My father persuaded her to come back to the region and ... we three younger children were born. He was like me. He only loved one person, he only loved her, although in the end it was not sufficient for her. Sometimes at night she came to the nursery and gave us each a kiss, when she thought we were sleeping." He lay staring up into the roof above them and she lay on her side looking at his scarred face in which the eyes were soft and warm like the skies of his home on a Summer's evening. "Perhaps if I were to give you the one favour?" she suggested. "People are often content after they have had the one favour and slack off after others to please them. I do like you, my dear, and you are so sweet to the twins. You will be an excellent father yourself when you find an one you can give your ring to. I should not mind to give you the one favour if you will have it." He turned his head to her and said softly, "It is kind of you and I should like you to have my virgin favour but it is not the one favour I want of you. I want you always in my life, my heart's home. I want you to be my honourable wife, not my honourable slut on the side." "Mm," she said regretfully. "I am sorry for it. How about a kiss though? Will you take a kiss of me?" His head twisted with a rustle in the straw and his round blue eyes looked shyly sideways at her. She grinned at him, chucking aside the straw she had been meditatively chewing, and his eyes flashed in the glint of a laugh back to her. She put out her hand. He reached over with his unscarred left hand, she put her plump little fingers to his long pale fingers and slid them in between and down until his palm pressed to her palm. Hanya gave a long sigh like a movement in the straw as his long fingers sank into the spaces in between her plump little fingers. She wriggled over to reach out her head to his, still with her fingers clasping his in between hers. He lifted his mouth to her slowly. She put her soft red mouth to his and puckered the full lips against his lips, staring into his eyes. They were closing, the lids drifting shut over the eyes like summer skies, his mouth was puckering to hers. She pressed the tip of her tongue to his lips and they parted to let her push her tongue in his mouth, he made a moan as she did it, his head came up, he pulled on his hand in the clasp of her hand. Pushing her tongue into his mouth, she insisted to cling to his left hand, her fingers pressed hard between his. He rolled in the straw and flung his right arm around her to pull her rounded curves close to him, his hip came up and his leg in the long boot flung over her legs to clinch her in, she pressed in to his body, her tongue flicking around the open lips and in his mouth, flicking to his tongue which began to caress hers in return. He was pushing her back now in the straw, starting to pant and moan in the kiss. She drew her tongue back, let her lips part from his and lay back under the pressure of his body so he could come over to lie on her curving body. She was still clinging with her fingers between his fingers, she let him come over on top of her and press his head into her neck, he lay pressed hard into her. She could have chased it: his favour, but she lay still under him with her breast heaving up to him, letting him think it through, whether he could resist to give her his favour. There was a noise at the doors and he rolled hurriedly off to lie beside her again in the straw. She saw through the bales of straw the doors of the barn push open and a big figure shoulder its way in. She pushed Hanya's head down and scowled to make him shut it, lying still and quiet, hidden in the straw bales by his side. "Anastelle!" She always called him Commander-Lord el V'lair, trying to establish their relations as formal. He turned it into some disgusting sexy game, pretending he liked it, saying, 'Will you scream it in your pillow when I make you cum, sweetie?' At the least of it he did not call her Anata although she knew he used her full name because it reminded him of Tashka and that annoyed her so much she sometimes wanted to slap him, thinking about what he had done to Tashka. She turned her head sideways and caught Hanya's round blue eye. She saw his mouth in his scarred face twist and knew he was desperately trying not to giggle. That made her want to giggle too, she grimaced at him, biting her soft lip and giving him a push, he made a little gasp and bit his own lip. "I am not coming hunting you in the straw to pin your favour," el V'lair drawled. "You come on out and talk to me." Hanya's face ceased to twitch lightly with the giggles and his mouth seemed to thin out. The blue eyes which came round to Anata were suddenly keen and hard, she felt an odd flutter at her heart to see him so cross yet so clear-headed in his anger. She wondered if he looked like that when merchants crossed him in negotiations. She put out her hand and grasped the hand by hers: it was his unscarred left hand. She pressed it to make him lie still. "I had the great honour of meeting your father," el V'lair's voice became deeper with sarcasm, the powerful tones washed over the two of them lying in the straw. Anata's eyes flicked away from Hanya's face at this. "We had an hand or two of cards -- along with some of my brandy." She knew that el V'lair's own brandy from his family vineyard in Athagine would be some exceptionally special vintage which her father must have knocked back until he fell under the table. She felt like saying, 'that was a waste of a good brandy then'. "We played without limits, as is my habit," van Athagine purred. "Your father put your family's heritage on the table." Anata lay quite still. She heard the crackle of papers in his fingers. "Here you are, my sweetie," he said, his voice was thick with triumph. "Your father's notes of hand signing away the fort, the farm, the nut orchards and herds. Should you care to come out and talk to me about those? Is there any thing you might like to bestow on me in exchange for them?" She sat up in the straw with the angry tears flashing in her dark slanted eyes, her red mouth in a snarl. "You bloody dog!" she shouted. "Ah," he said softly. "I did warn you. I prithou pardon me, my darling, for taking you with an handkerchief of tears." Hanya el Jien sat suddenly up beside her and el V'lair sprang back with an exclamation, his hand going to the hilt of his sword in his belt. "No!" she cried, kneeling up between them. Hanya -- so mauled by the dogs, would never be able to meet el V'lair's skill in the duel. Hanya sat still in the straw behind her and el V'lair let his sword hilt go. "Oho," he said softly. "el Jien van Iarve. I never thought to find you pinning some vixen Dame's favour in the straw." "Shut it, el V'lair and give me the notes of hand," Hanya answered curtly. He stood up behind the kneeling Anata, brushing the straw off his jumper. He was lean and tall with a piercing intent look in his round blue eyes. "Or what?" el V'lair scoffed: the muscular commanding officer with sad eyes. "You'll take me in the duel? Her honour is not under your eye, even if you are pinning her favours on the side." His voice flicked at Hanya like a whip, trying to push Hanya to give him the glove so he could force Hanya aside to take Anata's favours. Hanya's face was always inexpressive but his voice had an heavy frown in it. "I have offered Dame Yrai my ring," he said coldly. el V'lair's eyebrows went up to hear that. "You will not do so," Hanya said. "Do you think I do not like her enough?" el V'lair said. Anata, who had been about to interject that she had refused Hanya's ring, looked at him in astonishment. "I think likes't her too much," Hanya answered. There was a cold mocking laugh in his voice. "Ar't awkwardly situated, el V'lair. Likes't women who are free of spirit and when meets't one, does't not care to think of her chained in Athagine so offers't her something on the side instead of your ring." el V'lair turned his head at this. His eyes seemed to become pools of sorrow but then they narrowed and hardened and he said, "Well even if Anastelle will be your married wife that is no reason why she may not redeem her family's lands from me in whatever way pleases her -- or me. You need not think you can shake them from me with idle threats of meeting me in the duel," he cast an offensive dismissive gaze at Hanya's legs in the long riding boots and grinned his louche smile so that they knew how much more it would add to his pleasure if he were taking Anata's favours through the hoop of Hanya's marriage ring. "I would not dream of meeting anyone so lacking in honour in the duel," Hanya riposted. "If does't not give me those notes of hand I will break your family as has't threatened to break Dame Yrai's." el V'lair looked scornfully incredulous, Hanya said: "Your father is greatly in debt." "Oh yes," el V'lair scoffed, "to the loan bankers. They are your friends, I suppose, and you will beg it as a favour off such low scum to call in my father's debts." His lip lifted in a snarling careless grin. "No no," Hanya said lightly. "Has't overestimated how low I am. Who does't think funds the loan bankers? They will beg it of me as a favour to ruin your father -- and yourself -- if I let it be known that such a thing would please my heart. But I would be sorry to lose the profits I make of you both. Now give me those notes of hand." "Do not do this for me!" Anata cried, rising up out of the straw to grasp his arm. He let her pull it about, standing firm and tall in the straw and only saying: "It is not for you. Has't refused my ring. I have a fancy to own a fort and a nut orchard in the H'velst Mountains. I like it here." "And you will only give these back to me if I marry you!" she cried indignantly. "No I will not give these back to you," he said in a casual tone of voice. "Ar't a terrible manager of money and of property, woulds't only give them back to your father and brother to fund your father's gambling. I tell it you, Anata, I mean Dame Yrai. I like it here. This is where I found my heart's home," his blue eyes sparkled teasingly at her. "I shall always keep these properties in my hand." She stared at him then she heard el V'lair start laughing behind her. She turned about and ran at him and started beating him about the head, shouting: "Get out, get out, you scum!" He dropped the green and red slips of paper he was holding and ducked his head about, laughing and trying to catch her hands and exclaiming in pain when she caught him a savage box on the ear then he backed off and made a quick mocking bow before leaving. Hanya had come forward and was sedately collecting the notes of hand from the straw-scattered floor of the barn. "Was that low enough for you, my dear?" he enquired, looking up from where he was stooped over to collect the last one. "Threatening an oldest son of the high nobility with my mercantile associates?" His blue eyes glinted with his teasing laughter. She was so angry that she spat at him before running away to the fort, where she rushed past Lallia and into her room and slammed the door behind her. --- Jamies Yrai sat at the kitchen table with his head of dark curls sunk in his hands. Hanya el Jien sat opposite, back in his chair with one ankle set on the other knee. The notes of hand lay on the table in front of him. Lallia sat by Jamies, wrapped in a big warm woollen shawl, but Anata had refused to come out of her room. "What will you?" Jamies asked in a muffled voice of tears. "Do you want us to leave the buildings now, this very day? Will you throw my pregnant wife into the snow?" Hanya's blue eyes narrowed in his inexpressive face. "Certainly not," he said in an annoyed voice. "You Northerners have a most peculiar notion of the manner in which the high nobility exploit their responsibilities." Jamies lifted his head at this. "The way in which the el T'fels have taken dealings with the region's merchants into their own hands has enriched both their family and the merchants," Hanya said, "but it has reduced you land-owning Knights and Dames and the peasantry to abject poverty. I do not care to manage my own investments in such a way. However nor do I care to have them poorly run in the interests of pouring funds into the card-playing hells. If you and your family are willing to come to an agreement between myself as the owner of these rights to hold the fort and farm and the el T'fels as your father's sworn Lords, I will want to be sure your father does not have access to the property the more." "Do you want me to put my own father out of his family door?" Jamies said intently. "We all have relatives we would prefer were a better kind of people," Hanya answered, "but whom we are obliged to love. Sometimes that love becomes indulgence." Jamies knew that Hanya's brother was being put through the King's councils for conspiring with van Sietter to assassinate Hanya and his sister and that his mother was so infamous a slut that the courtiers had a pet name for her mouth, they called it the Sugar Kiss. He was too polite to make any reference to this, he only said in a dull voice: "You think I have managed things poorly." "Oh my dear," Hanya's voice was suddenly so affectionate that it made Jamies wince. "I wish I had a brother like yourself. Has't tried so hard to make it good for them all. But it is impossible. Your father will not come home one day having forsworn the potato spirits and the cards. Anata clings to you instead of leaving for a better life. The twins plot raids on the merchant trains going South in their wish to bring some money to make your lives easier," Jamies lifted his head with an expression of hilarious horror to hear this. "This desperation has become a way of life for you all that you are terrified to walk away from in search of a better. You fear you will fall into an abyss if you try and that your family will be split asunder. But already it has begun. Shall't have a child musts't look to provide for. Anata has begun to look about her more seriously for an husband, she will leave the farm in despite of her wishing to stay. Change must come and it is possible it might lead to happiness and to new family ties and lives. But not if you all cling to the old ways which you learned as children in order to survive rather than live happily. "Your father cannot be a part of an happy family life. If wants't to be happy musts't let him take his pension and go to live in the card-playing hells separate. I will not tolerate him on the fort lands longer and after I have spoken with them, nor will the el T'fels." "You will allow us to stay here," Jamies said. His voice quivered. It was plain that he was trying to be grateful but his pride choked him. He stared into Hanya el Jien's face, for the first time Hanya saw how young he was. He was the same age as Hanya. "Oh, allow," Hanya repeated mockingly. "I cannot be running up here to the mountains to run a fort and farm, my dear. My sister and I have a serious project in hand, it is only this war which has prevented us going to court to take it forward and allowed me some time at my leisure to come on an holiday to play. At the winter sports," he said hurriedly, blushing to realise that he had implied his attentions to Anata were not serious. "I need you to continue working here, to consider the shepherds who are bound to you as you are to the sworn Lord and to figure what it will cost to refurbish the fortifications and whatever. I will give you some monies in hand to employ a two-three people about the farm and household then mays't have time to write the report to take to the el T'fels and show them what they ought to be doing for you in this matter. Cans't repay me the monies when they have done right by you. And we must look into taking the garments your shepherds make down South, they are lovely things and will make a sensation in the artistic circles." Jamies looked in bewilderment at the shawl Lallia was wrapped in with its knitted picture of apples hanging in the trees and at his own felt jacket with the embroidered pictures of deer. "But if we go to the el T'fels to ask that they continue to take the fealty of some drunkard who throws it all away at the cards, they will not take us serious." The Low Lovers of Anastelle Yrai They heard the outer door in the hallway crash open and an heavy series of noises echo about as if someone were staggering into the old wooden furniture and knocking it about. Jamies and Lallia had jumped to look round, they twisted their heads back to see the notes of hand had disappeared from the table. Hanya sat apparently at ease with his ankle on his knee. "Where 's he, where 's el V'lair!" Captain-Sir Jamies Yrai staggered into the kitchen, glowering round at them all. Considering he had only had the morning in which to recover from drinking himself insensible on el V'lair's brandy, Hanya was impressed that he had managed to get himself back so quickly although he reflected that the family probably relied on his horse rather than himself to make its way home. Hanya thought that Yrai was probably still drunk. He might even have had a quick bowl of something to keep him floating on the surface of the spectacular hangover which would eventually lay him low. Anata and the twins, attracted by the noise, appeared behind their unworthy sire and made faces at Jamies who rose and attempted to calm the Captain down and get him to go up the stairs to his bed but the Captain was having none of it and kept shouting for el V'lair. Hanya stood suddenly up, his height imposing itself over them all, and put on the table the green and red notes of hand he had forced out of el V'lair. "Commander-Lord el V'lair will not return to trouble your family," he said assertively. "I took these from him and they are mine now." "He got me drunk to take 'em!" Yrai howled in protest. "Dishonourable scum trick! They are not rightly his." "No they are mine," Hanya said in a crisp tone. "But I will give you the chance to play me for them again." The rest of the family gasped in horror. Yrai stared at him and then gave a cunning smile. "Do you think I am too drunk still to play?" he asked. "Ar't usually at the least of it this drunk, I should say," Hanya answered dispassionately. "Ar't willing to play?" "Yeah," he said, coming across the kitchen to sit at the table. "Dadi, stop! you have nothing to put on the table," Jamies' youth had never been so apparent as in the tearful plea that came out in his normally assertive man's voice. "Captain-Sir Yrai may play me the right to seek his daughter's hand," Hanya answered, sitting back down. Anata started forward at this. Jamies said furiously: "Do you think we are as low as el V'lair? that we put people on the table?" The twins suddenly burst into tears and ran to their father, shouting: "Dadi, dadi! do not play Anata away!" "Angels' sake!" Captain-Sir Yrai shouted, pushing the boys to the side. "The stupid wench has had them all jumping to her whistle, let her dance to someone-else's tune for once." "Shut it!" Hanya's voice cut through the hubbub. "I am only asking for the right to seek her hand," he said. "Unless it would make her consider me sufficiently low if I did actually ask for her to be put on the table," his blue eye came up with the glimmer of his laugh in it but she was so cross, she only glowered back at him. "You'll lose it all for a whim!" she said indignantly. "Just because you once beat Tashka in an hand, do you think you can take someone who plays all day all night? My father will take you!" "Oh well, it is done now," Hanya answered. His face was inexpressive but Anata read the glinting laugh in his blue eye. Captain-Sir Yrai had already taken a pack of cards from his pocket which he was offering to Hanya, anxiously saying he had not got a fresh pack sealed in paper. Hanya was not quite that much of a novice at cards. He said coolly that he would prefer the pack which the family played with out of the dresser and the twins ran to fetch this one and bring it round to him. As they brushed past Anata they whispered: "Oh do marry him! We will give you any thing." As they had very little other than the clothes they stood in, this was not quite such a generous offer as it sounded. The winter sunshine was glinting off the snow outside through the kitchen window by the old blue range. The family sat tensely at the further end of the table, Captain-Sir Yrai having said he was not going to be distracted by a lot of women and children. He pulled out a fresh note of hand and solemnly wrote that he was giving the right to ask for the hand of his daughter Anastelle Yrai as if this was a great privilege. Then Hanya said carelessly, "oh and throw in that you will be willing to go and live in the pensioners' barracks in Erjeine, not here in my fort." Captain-Sir Yrai paused with the quill pen poised over the ink well beside the green and red slip of paper. "Do not fret for it," Hanya said reassuringly. "If I ask it of them as a particular favour, the el T'fels will provide you with a bed there. They are the cousins of my great friend el Gaiel van H'las, I met young el T'fel, Captain-Lord el T'fel, at a party of Commander-Lord el Gaiel's only a few months back." "I can ask it myself!" Captain-Sir Yrai exclaimed indignantly. "Mentioned several times in the despatches. Sworn Lord will always say something of it when I go to give my vow," he grumbled on in this manner for a while. Hanya inclined his head, his scarred face inexpressive. "Forgive my presumption," he said politely. The coloured cards went to and fro across the scrubbed pine table and the sets built up in front of the two players. Castle and King, Pair of Hounds, Family, Royal Family. The Yrai children's faces were as inexpressive as Hanya's, to watch their father being tricked into moving out of the home in which he had robbed them and relied on them for years. If it were not Hanya who was being tricked into handing back the heritage which their father could fritter away while drunk. But in their hearts they knew it was all changed. The charming appeal, the beauty and wit of their sister as she grew into a young woman who had captured the interest even of the high nobility, had come like the spring thaw to change their lives and they would never look in the same way again at the father who had been putting their livelihood if not their persons on the tables for years. And Hanya was winning. The coloured cards built slowly up around his hand, there were fewer in front of their father, he was scowling and cursing. Finally he threw his cards on the table and made a discourteous snorting noise. Hanya got up and collected the notes of hand which he stowed in a pocket inside the breast of his jacket. He said politely, "I thank you." He limped round the table, buffeted Petra on the head and said to Anata: "May I entreat you for the privilege of a personal conversation? before I ride back to P'shan Palace." She went out into the sunny courtyard with him, frowning and chewing her lip. The sun came glancing brightly off the trampled snow, making them screw up their eyes against the glare. "So," she said slowly, "you are actually good at cards." "Oh no," he answered, turning out of the glare of the sun to look on her with a gentleness that made her turn her eyes shyly aside. "My brother by marriage had laid a bet on that time I beat Tashka at cards; he bet my cousin Pava that I could do it. But of course to enable me to do so he was obliged to teach me to cheat." "You ... cheated at cards in order to win the right to ask for my hand in marriage!" she cried, lifting furious dark slanted eyes to his round blue eyes. "Um, yes," he said. He tilted his head with the laugh glinting gently out of his eyes at her. "Is that sufficiently low for you to let pass my being such a wealthy member of the high nobility? We el Jiens usually give diamonds. Will that suit your heart?" "You are very confident that I will take your ring," she said, looking curiously at him. "Oh yes," he said. "I am not much good at cards but when ar't always in negotiations, musts't learn to be good at judging people. Ar't an honourable slut, my dear. Woulds't never offer a kiss or a favour if knewest it would break someone's heart. Knewest it that it would break my heart to have only the one favour of you so since offereds't it to me, I knew coulds't only be leading me down a road to take my ring." --- There were the usual arguments about petty details of the wedding. Anata wanted to be married in a modest fashion out of the Yrai family fort but Hanya said it would not be possible for him not to invite an huge set of family connections from the high nobility and that on any road the fort belonged to him. The el T'fels -- scenting the opportunity to entertain important political connections of Hanya's -- courteously put forward themselves as Anata's sworn Lords to host her wedding at their Palace and then were annoyed to discover that this meant playing host to a crowd of low merchants whom Hanya insisted to honour with pink gilt-edged invitations. Anata held out for some time in favour of the small wedding from the fort and a grand reception at the splendid palace Hanya had bought from his brother by marriage -- without even consulting her, although he promised he would buy some small house at court for her too (which turned out to be twice as expensive as the palace in Sietter). Their friends had of course been victorious in the war, partly owing to some unexpected problems with van Sietter's supplies of armaments. Hanya and his sister Arianna el Jien were able to take their representation on behalf of the merchants to court, leading to Hanya being made Minister for Trade and Employment, and he argued that this all deserved a splendid celebration. Finally Anata agreed that Lady van P'shan (who said that since she did not have a child and Anata did not have a mother, they should combine their forces to let her spoil Anata) and Tashka (who had been promoted in the war to General on double pay and was keen to find opportunities to waste this largesse) could buy her a splendid trousseau, the wedding could be in P'shan Palace and Hanya would take her on a modest honeymoon trip to the Esten Lakes to make it up to her. "Mays't flirt with the boatmen, my dear," Hanya said, the glint of his laugh in his eye. "They are exceptionally low." Captain-Sir Jamies Yrai insisted to walk Anata down the aisle and bestow her, to everyone's annoyance, but Hanya bribed his friends in the pensioners' barracks to make sure he turned up reasonably sober. He managed to say the words without forgetting any and without falling over in the middle. In some parade silks which his friends made sure were decent, he looked raffishly acceptable rather than a disgrace to the P'shan army, even by the side of Hanya's Guard of Honour, his suave and infamously elegant cousin Commander-Lord Pava el Jien van Vail. Pava el Jien and Clair el Maien ensured one of them was always flirting with Hanya's mother and as they had not invited el V'lair van Athagine, it all passed off with only the necessary minimum of inappropriate behaviour. --- Anata sat up in the big bed, resting her chin on her knees and waiting for her new married husband. By the sides of the bed two enormous gilded branches of candles cast golden light indicating the further expanse of the elegant suite which the el T'fels had put at hers and Hanya's disposal. Tashka and Lady van P'shan had of course insisted on an elegant pink silk and lace garment of alluring design for Anata to wear on her wedding night but she knew that if he came in to find her waiting in a chair draped in something which revealed more than it concealed, Hanya would lose his nerve and make a complete pig's bed of giving her his first favour. She got into the bed after the women had gone off sniggering and telling each other rude stories about their own wedding nights. She saw the door opening and was unable to resist lifting her head with a grin. Hanya came in in his blue velvet wedding suit edged with silver lace and flicked his eyes shyly at her before turning back and making a business out of shutting the door. Anata was still unable to repress the lustful grin on her mouth so she hid it by lying down. After a while he came and sat on the bed. She looked at him fidgeting with his lace cuffs and sat up to reach over to him. She put her hand on his shoulder, pulling him gently towards her. He had become reasonably confident giving her a kiss and he turned his mouth to hers with an expression of relief in his round blue eyes. She felt the pressure of his lips to hers and watched his eyes drift shut. He opened his mouth to her tongue and pressed closer to her, his own tongue seeking hers, pressing and caressing to her tongue and her lip. She parted from the kiss and put out her hand to the buttons of his doublet. He became nervous again then although it was in a voice husky with desire that he said: "D-do you prefer the candles alight?" She was disappointed not to get to see his body but she knew she would get the opportunity in time -- he was her married husband not an one-day-one-night to enjoy as fully as quickly as possible, storing the memory of little bits of body seen in hurried glances to roll pleasurably under her mind's eye. She knew too that however confident he was in his mind that she did not care about his scars, he was still too sad in his heart to be careless of showing her them. She licked her fingers to pinch out the candles on her side. Noticing him automatically reaching for some elegant sculpted gold snuffer to put out his candles, she reflected with a little snigger that it was she who ought to be nervous in such an aristocratic apartment, not him who was used to sleeping in rooms like this from childhood. In the darkness, she heard him moving about to take off his clothes. She lay still, wondering about his tall lean body which she was not to see that night. She felt the sheet and quilts pulling around her and knew with an excited leap of her heart that he was climbing naked into the bed. His hand came clumsily groping across to her face. She put her hand up and slid her fingers between his. It was his left hand. She could feel that the skin on the back of it was smooth. She brought it to her mouth and kissed his fingers. She was wanting to take one of them in her mouth and suck on it but -- over-eager out of anxiety, he was coming already to hunt for her kiss. She put her hand to the back of his head and drew him in to the kiss, lifting her soft mouth to him in the darkness, allowing him to press to her, holding her passion in to lie passive by his side and not startle him with her fierce desire for his body. He was pushing a knee hesitantly at her legs now, at the slippery silk still draped about her body. He was pressing his knee between the plump curving legs she willingly opened to his insistent anxious pressure. He lifted himself to lie between her legs, pressing that long lean body heavily over her body, his mouth slipping from the kiss. His hand came fumbling across the silken slope of her hip, he was trying to find the ribbon that knotted the robe and kept it (barely) on her body. She captured his hand in hers and brought it up to her mouth for a kiss then put it to her breasts and the knot of the ribbon which he started desperately tugging until she moved his hand to her breast and pulled the ribbon easily free herself. He lay still with a round breast soft in his hand. His fingers flexed hesitantly, she gave a pleasured sigh, pressing his hand encouragingly to her breast with the nipple hardening under the palm of his left hand. He was too innocent to know that fingering the nipple would get her on the go but he began to kiss her neck while flexing his hand on her breast and she caressed his hair and murmured softly to him in the warm happiness of his caress. Already he was moving to try to lift himself into her. She knew that she wanted him so much she would be wet and soft, ready for him without some play although she would have liked a little play. But if she suggested it, he would only become embarrassed and lose confidence, she did not want him to feel it, his ignorance and uncertainty. It was his virgin favour and his wedding night, and this was her preference: some fumbling young thing, as beautiful to her as he was fragile in confidence, shy as a woodland creature hesitating on the edge of a clearing of sweet grass. He might be all powerful in the negotiations with wealthy merchants and King's councillors but in his bed he was clumsy with nervousness and hesitant because he was both eager and anxious and she loved him like that. She would let pass his power and his wealth if he would come shy and gauche to her in their marriage bed. "My heart's heart," she said softly. "Have you a condom?" She felt sorry to have to remind him of it. She could almost feel him blush in the darkness. He started to lift himself away from her, although how he thought he was going to find a small paper packet in the darkness was a question. She put her arm around him to pull him back and took one out of the pocket of her bridal robe to press into his hand then she remembered that it was his virgin favour and said: "Will you allow me to put it on?" Gently feeling down his lean body in the dark. When her hand came caressing over the scars of his right hip and thigh, she felt him go tense. His poor penis had become discouraged and was only half-risen now, soft in her hand. She put her plump little fingers around it and eased them tenderly up and down. He moaned in the darkness and his head came bumping against her shoulder as he sought to press to her. When he was hard enough, she took the condom from the packet, pinched the tip and rolled it down the length of his cock. She put her arms quickly up about his chest, her hand went to his jaw, she pulled his head to her kiss and lay slowly back in the pillows, kissing his mouth insistently, bringing him to lie back down with her. He pulled at the silk and lace which was still layered about her body and came back to lie between her legs again. He was starting to grunt with lust and he pressed her legs apart with his, she felt his cock set against her cunt, a flicker went writhing up through her body, she gasped and laughed, he pressed and was in. The sweet satisfaction of it, to feel the shaft of his cock slide up inside her. She put her arms about him to hold him to her as he began heaving and grunting. She pressed her cheek to his although his head was now tossing away from her. She had always known that in giving her his first favour he would be unlikely to hit her sweet spot, that would come in time, for now she just loved it, to hold him, to feel him thrusting his shaft up inside her soft sex, going uncontrollably over in her arms. His hands were gripping on her shoulders, he was moaning her name, pressing hard up into her. There was the thrill to her clitoris and the excitement of his member sliding up into her and the happiness of having her lover in her arms uncontrollably pushing to her, pressing that first ecstatic favour up into her, his hips suddenly bucking into her wide legs and a teeth-gritted call to her. He went rigid and then finally relaxed to lie spent in her arms. She held him in the darkness, warm and soft for him, kissing his cheek, running her fingers through his hair, wishing she need not remind him to take himself from her before he did her the dishonour of spilling inside her. It was so sweet to feel him still there inside her. But finally she helped him hold the condom in place and lift himself out of her and when he had reached to discard the condom, she drew him back to her and began kissing him again in affection and pleasure. He lay in her arms, relaxed and happy and played out by the giving of that first favour, puckering his lips softly to her kiss if she pressed her mouth to his and with one arm about her silken clad plump curving body. The Low Lovers of Anastelle Yrai "Pardon me," he murmured eventually, "that I forgot about the condom." "Sssh," she whispered, running her fingers through his hair and around his ear to make him giggle. "You know I prefer a dishonourable low lover." -o-