The Devil of Nettlewood (The Anarchy Tales) Page 5

  His cock jutting uncomfortably within its metal armor, which placed him in the foulest of moods, Spur pulled on the leather strap encircling his prisoner’s throat. The yank brought her up short.

  The trees had thinned here, and she turned to him, blinking at the sudden shift in light from shadowed to bright.

  “Aye, my lord?” she said and swiftly cupped a hand to her eyes.

  Raising an arm so quickly as she had sent her small breasts to jiggling. One nipple of those jiggling breasts showed the swelling of his punitive handling.

  Her wincing told him she could not see him, but he had seen enough.

  “Face forward,” he muttered, scowling.

  “Aye, my lord,” she said again.

  Jesus, but her sweet voice irritated him. So much so, he removed his helm and flung it up ahead. The metal headgear clattered against a rock several feet away. “Return that to me.”

  “Why toss the helm if you required its return?”

  “To show you how expansive is my authority over you.”

  “A fruitless endeavor. I already recognize your authority. I am wearing a prisoner’s restraint, after all. The real question here is—do you recognize your vulnerability to ambush?”

  He raised a disbelieving brow. “You worry over my safety?”

  “I most certainly do, for how will you defend me without full armor? If you die, I die.”

  Selfish minx!

  But there was truth in her selfishness. He wanted something from her, and she wanted something from him the same, two coconspirators in the subversive act of staying alive. She needed his sword and his steed to get away from here. He needed the name of her mercenary lover and the royal who paid him so he could safeguard his territory from future attack.

  Half vexation, half admiration, he swatted the round curve of her bottom, done with the flat of his sword this time. “Fetch the helm.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  Going forward a few steps, she began to modestly squat.

  “Knees straight,” he barked.

  He knew the exact moment she realized the crudeness of his directive, for she visibly cringed, every muscle in her reed-slender body gone tense.

  A traitor and a whore could not afford such transparency, nor should a woman leading such a life as hers exhibit a tendency to cringe. Yet, she did. Proving what?

  That she knew how to play a part. That he could believe neither her words nor her actions. That she lacked any reliable credibility. And that he dared not trust her.

  Whilst he observed her every move, she carried out the instruction. Dropping downward from her trim waist, she rounded—knees unbent. He could almost see everything.

  “Legs well parted,” he instructed so that almost became in truth.

  “Of course.” Thighs spread, she reached for the metal helm.

  “Hold,” he called.

  In absolute obedience, she steadied in her bent pose.

  He gazed between her thighs, taking in her everything.

  Projecting from between the folds of her genitalia was her rosebud. Never had he seen a nubbin so large. And plump. Amazingly beguiling. In back—located deep within the seam between her buttocks—was the forbidden egress. The puckered ring looked lamentably tight. And dainty. Frustratingly unapproachable. Though where there was a will, there was always a way. Every fortress had its protective walls and its assailable vulnerabilities. Some bastions simply took longer to seize.

  After drooling awhilst, he sauntered forward.

  He had never bedded such a compliant female, never bedded a female under his lordly jurisdiction. All his previous lovers, royal ladies to a one and primarily widows older than himself, were a willful, demanding lot, who saw to their own pleasures first, last, and always. True, this female’s submissiveness was involuntary—she was a whore, a peasant, and his prisoner, so what choice did she have but to do as he told her? Still, her unquestioning obedience excited him.

  How would her meekness carry over to the furs?

  Whilst wondering, he peered over her shoulder, noting again her tender young breasts, one tip bruised, one tip not, both uptilted despite her rounded pose.

  He kicked the helm slightly beyond her present reach.

  “The task was far too easy,” he explained.

  Her downcast gaze prevented her from seeing his face, but he could see hers. Color rushed to her cheeks, and not from her down-turned position. Clearly she was fuming. To infuriate her even more, he patted her head, then swaggered to his former position behind her.

  Christ’s stones, but his were heavy!

  “Now you may retrieve the helm,” he mumbled. “But without taking another step.”

  To do so would required a goodly stretch of her nubile young body—and a further invasion of her most intimate privacy—over which his vantage point would award him a unique visual perspective. Alas, the agony of his heavy testicles was bound to interfere with his enjoyment.

  Damn her seductiveness, anyway! And damn himself too, for thinking to make her squirm by tossing out some poisoned bait. ’Twas a poorly thought-out maneuver from the very beginning. He was the one who squirmed—in male discomfort—not she.

  Not that she noticed. After doing his bidding, she inched her way back up, taking the helm with her, her wiggling bottom waving in the air.

  In an agony of arousal, he coughed. Coughed again. Tried to get himself under control.

  Unfortunately his usual self-restraint failed him.

  That left him but one option: To disguise his humiliating weakness, he said, before she could turn, “Carry the helm to my destrier,” thus keeping his bulging erection his big, inconvenient, secret.

  The strategy worked.

  “As you will, my lord,” she sang out cheerily.

  Bah! Why had he ever begun this exercise?

  ’Twas apparent the self-serving wench had made herself his willing slave before ever he placed the collar about her neck.

  Past disappointed with himself, he whipped the leather strap in his hand. A ripple raced down its length to her collar. “Walk.”

  She did, his helm cradled under an arm, her gait as naturally sensual as a warm summer breeze, whilst he trudged disagreeably along behind her, his erect cock pointing the way to rack and ruin. Henceforth he would need to steel himself from her inherent sexuality, an effortless physical attraction that stirred him too easily.

  His loins hurting, he stumbled after her, his hot gaze on the undulation of her swaying hips. And not just her hips swayed, provocative enough alone, but all of her swayed.

  He groaned. Aloud. Further evidence of his male weakness.

  As he braced himself for an extended bout of torture at her hands, a scuttling off to one side drew his attention. At first he put the sound off to scavenging animals on the hunt. ’Twas a common occurrence to hear dry wood splinter as beasts roamed the territory for prey.

  A fine conjecture ’twas too…until a heavily armed band jumped out from the overgrowth of bush and surrounded them.

  No ragtag paid soldier’s unit was this, no mercenary contingent looking to rejoin their main troop. An unkempt appearance and lack of military bearing and armor told Spur these men were outlaws.

  Holding his helm before her like a shield, his naked prisoner backed up.

  “Not so fast, dearie,” a red-bearded misfit said, and approached.

  Pointing his broadsword at the outlaw, Spur pulled his prisoner clear of his advance. “One more step and the lice will flee those red whiskers of yours before I cut your throat.”

  Up went Red Beard’s arms, hiked in the air. “M’lord, no argument do we have with ye. Kindly leave us to our jollies and we will release ye unharmed to go on about yer business. A decent exchange, methinks, yer valuable life for her worthless quim.” He clutched his crotch and shook the contents within. “Pardon our dropping in on ye, but we be a tad hungry for a female. Been a whilst since me mates and me had us a tumble.”

  “In that case…” Sp
ur sheathed his sword and then loosed his hold on his prisoner’s leather strap. “I quite understand, my good man. I thought to do the same with the whore. She has rather nice bubbies.” He winked lasciviously. “Well, have to, my friends, and best of wishes.” He stepped back and away from his naked prisoner.

  “My lord! I pray you, do not leave me to them,” she cried out as the outlaw leader pawed her, his filthy hands kneading her breasts as spittle bubbled from his fleshy lips.

  For daring to touch his property, Red Beard would be the first to die, Spur decided on the spot.

  “Sweet Mary, nay,” the wench shouted and boxed the groping thief’s ear.

  “You heard the whore,” Spur said drily. “Apparently she is declining your courtship.”

  “Not just declining his courtship,” she said. “Insulted by it.” Showing her disdain, she swung the helm, beating her would-be suitor about the head and face until blood gushed forth from his unprotected nose.

  The very diversion Spur needed.

  As the outlaw tried to staunch the crimson flow, Spur made his move.

  Red Beard went down first—a quick stab to the heart done with the dagger secreted in Spur’s left boot, followed by a similar dispensing of another maggot, the kills done in quick succession of one another.

  As he was about to run a third man through with his sword, Spur was rudely interrupted.

  A jump from an overhanging tree branch landed the ambushing outlaw atop Spur’s back. Fortunately the sneak attack fell a smidgen short, and his cunning prisoner had the presence of mind to use the botched attempt on his life to repeat her prior tactic.

  Clunk. She let the ambusher have it with the helm.

  As this newest arrival sagged to the ground, Spur finished off two more of their attackers. Seeing no further comers, Spur sheathed his weapons, toed the crumpled corpses aside, and reclaimed his hold on his prisoner.

  Only she, evidently, failed to view herself as such. Slight of build but long of leg, she stood tall and proud before him as if she were his equal.

  He would forget for a moment that the wench was a whore. But as a peasant and a woman, and particularly as his prisoner, she was no equal of his. He was a nobleman by birth, a warrior by endeavor, and her warden on the trip to his keep—details she best not forget or by Christ’s testicles, he would…

  What?

  What would he do?

  Cut out her tongue, perchance?

  He would get no information out of her that way.

  Time to face the truth: she had him over a proverbial barrel.

  For now.

  “Here,” she said daintily and passed him his helm.

  Lest she use it against him too, he took it in both hands. “This served you well in the fight. But think of how a real weapon might have done you.”

  “Done me in, more like.” She dropped her chin. “I-I helped you kill a man.”

  “Actually, not to be picky, but ’twas two.”

  She looked up at him woefully, her expression distraught. “Two men. I helped you kill two men?”

  “A bloody mess you made of it too,” he muttered, examining his brain-splattered helm, loathe to put the armor back on his head.

  She swiped her hands over her red-stained breasts and loins, smearing the proof of her success all over her hillocks and hollows.

  “Bathe,” she moaned to herself. “I must cleanse their blood away!” With a jerk that broke his hold on the leash, she took off at a gallop down the trail for the river, in clear view.

  Understanding rose up within him. He recalled all too well the first death brought about by his doing. Like her, he had not actually done the kill but had instead instigated the circumstance. ’Twas on a battlefield. A few years shy of her age at the time, he too had been horror-struck afterward. ’Twas not easy to hold life and death in the palm of one’s hand, to be the deciding factor in who took their next breath and who would wheeze out their last.

  He held that same awe-inspiring decision over her now.

  As Stephen’s man, ’twas his duty to see his prisoner prosecuted for her role in treason against the Crown. A death sentence. But the situation had changed. He now knew she was innocent of murdering all those villagers. Her reaction to the dead outlaws convinced Spur his prisoner did not hold any direct culpability—she had not the belly for murder.

  A soft belly for bloodletting did not make her blameless. She had consorted with a traitor to the crown, and that particular whoring would still earn her the noose. Or the chopping block.

  But not straightaway.

  Ah, the king. A bit of a procrastinator, that one. To all their detriments, there was no rushing him to judgment. Before he deemed to hear her crime, the wishy-washy monarch would cast her into the dungeon, a mortal blow unto itself. Most inmates expired before sentencing, usually during their first year of imprisonment. Mayhap there was a method to this kingly madness. Mayhap delay saved His Royal Highness on chopping blocks, axes, hanging ropes, and crowd control. Whole families turned out for these rousing events, and they expected a stately spectacle. Pomp and circumstance. Oceans of blood. A severed head plopped into a catch basin. Entertainment on such a savage scale was an expensive proposition.

  But whatever the monarch’s rationale, be it negligence or parsimony, living in the abject squalor of vermin-infested straw, with little by way of food and drink, and subject to nightly attacks by fellow inmates—especially the kind visited upon female inmates—soon took its toll on a prisoner. The whore would probably expire before her case was ever heard.

  Spur let his prisoner run, giving her a brief spate of freedom for what portended to be the very last time.

  Unless he took her punishment into his own hands.

  After revealing to him everything she knew, of course. Once she came clean, he would mete out a suitable penalty. A public whipping sprang to mind. The little tart would most likely enjoy something of that ilk. She had certainly enjoyed his prior corporal punishment of her. As a bonus, the entertainment would amuse him. Plus, there was naught quite like making an example of someone. And so too, sound public thrashings kept unruly peasants in line. His duty to the Crown thus observed, he would release his prisoner to whore another day.

  Why see her executed merely for spreading her knees?

  As far as he could see, the only difference between her and the ladies at court was a royal pedigree. And the exchange of coin. And even that was a gray area—titled sluts accepted gifts from their admirers all the time, some of those gifts monetary. At least this whore worked for a living, which was more than he could say for female nobility who fell into their wealth through family connection. The wench was a loose woman, not a murderess.

  No need to decide anything yet. Up ahead—and without asking his leave—his prisoner raced into the water, her leather tether floating behind her. From a near distance, he watched her splash, then scrub her bloodied flesh clean with sand scooped from the river bottom. When her pale flesh took on a rosy glow, she dunked her head, and her long brown hair fanned across the water’s surface. He could not seem to pull his gaze away from the sight. For some strange reason, she intrigued him.

  He sighed, enraptured. Here was a wench who understood men, who knew their base desires, their wants, their fantasies. Here was a wench willing to oblige those wishes only given name to in the dark of night.

  Here was a wench he must keep at a distance.

  The sun would soon go down. Then, darkness would cloak the woodlands in mourning. Owing to the bandits who obviously made this forest their home, Spur gave up on the notion of a hot meal at the campfire lest the light cast by the flame invite attack. Another raid like the last would send the wench into apoplexy.

  He would see her spared that. And why? Because she was only a mercenary’s silly cunt, not a cold-blooded murderess.

  A good night’s sleep would restore her former tranquility. With that in mind, he gestured for her to leave the river.

  A summons she ignored in h
er frenzy to cleanse away the blood of her first kills.

  He understood her plight, but going easy on her would not help her inner turmoil.

  When she continued to disregard his motions, he called, “Return to me or pay the penalty for your willful disobedience.”

  He might never have issued the order for all the attention she paid it.

  The same dazed state that had held her in sway at Lord Harold’s courtyard gripped her again now. Her gaze was unfocused, her every move fraught with tension. The same as then, he doubted she was even aware of his presence. Without looking back at him on the mossy bank, she waded deeper into the stream, a waterway, he belatedly realized, deeper than it had first appeared.

  Jesu Christi! How could he have been so blind? The foolish whore was about to take her own life.

  Spur flung off his armor and sturdy boots, dropped his garb to the ground with the exception of his soldier’s loincloth—from force of habit, he left the linen in place—and plunged into the river after her.

  Tall for a female, she was still only neck-deep in the water when he reached her. But even with that, she was already floundering, sputtering too. Obviously she sought to drown herself.

  “Foolish slut,” he shouted and took her firmly by the elbow. After a quick sluice of his own grit-stained body, he dragged her to safety.

  Back on the riverbank, he flung her to the dirt.

  Chapter Five

  Drips puddled beneath her as Mitri rolled up in a ball on her side, her knees drawn up to her bare chest.

  The warrior she had coerced into taking her away from Lord Harold’s destroyed village stood over her. Ushering her small store of courage, she glanced up slowly into his face. “Wh-why did you do that?”

  “Because you tried to bring harm to yourself. And what was worse, you did so over a pair of worthless outlaws.”

  Save for a strip of wet cloth girding the tremendous ridging of his loins, her warden was naked. Huge in stature and big everywhere else, he should have frightened her. Yet she feared him not. Her bestirred animal spirits ignored trivialities like fear.