The Cages of Mercia

The war ended in seventeen days.

King Aric’s army marched under the blood-red moon. Ten thousand spears. No mercy. Mercia’s capital fell. The false “bandits” — the twenty knights who had violated Ricelda — were dragged from their beds, their castles, their hiding places. Every man who had taken part in the ambush. Every lord who had given the order. Every commander who had laughed as they filled her womb.

They took them alive.

All of them.

In the great square of Mercia’s capital, before the shattered throne and the kneeling nobility, the king erected twenty iron cages. Black steel bars. Open to the sky. Five paces wide. Three high. Enough room to stand. To kneel. To lie down. No privacy. No escape. The floor sloped to a central drain for the fluids that would come.

Above each cage hung a bronze plaque. Engraved with the knight’s name. Title. Crime.

“Sir Kael – Violator of Princess Ricelda – Sentenced to breed his own blood until conception is confirmed.”

Inside each cage stood one of their adult daughters or sisters. Eighteen to twenty-five years old. Stripped naked. Wrists chained above their heads. Legs forced apart by iron spreader bars. Ankles chained to short posts. Cunt exposed. Oiled. Ready.

The king stood on the dais. Ricelda at his side. Her belly rounded with their first child. Breasts heavy. Milk already darkening the silk of her gown. She watched with calm eyes.