Chapter 10

“You want me to what?” Robert asked.

“No, I don’t ‘WANT’ you to marry Harriet. I’m telling you that you will HAVE to marry her. After what you told Madeline, whatever it was, she assures me that nobody will want her. I -”

“I will not tell a soul, sir. I swear.”

“ONE – DO NOT FUCKING WELL INTERRUPT ME! Or your marriage will be very short. Two, you have told someone, you told my wife and daughter. Three -”

“You told me to tell them sir.”

“Interrupt me once more, just once more. Three. Even if you tell nobody, my wife or daughter or Harriet will tell someone eventually. Probably. They are women, there are two things a woman cannot keep shut, legs and mouth. Rumours will get out anyway. You and she were alone.” He meant that his daughter was not chaperoned by the family.

“If I may. We were not alone.”

“I’m aware of that my friend, the other three are not examples of virgin births are they? My God! You fucked all three! At least if you’re that fucking fertile you should give one of my children some heirs. I despair of Sarah, she has rejected and been rejected by so many suitors. I think she’ll stay unwed. My son is one armed. And Yes! I know what you said. I AM proud of him. But will we get a good match for him? A one armed warrior? I-”

“A one armed warrior with a massive inheritance.”

“Chr-! You try the patience of a saint! Would you interrupt the king?”

Robert laughed and said “Only once, I suspect.”

“Hahah! True, he makes me seem positively patient in comparison. Yes he has a good inheritance, but I don’t think he will make a father, even if he marries. He doesn’t swing that way. FUCK! I’m not meant to tell anyone that! You HAVE to marry Harriet, or...” He patted his dagger.

Robert shrugged, “My lord, I would be honoured. May I at least ask her?”

“Of course, go down on one knee, beg her to make you happiest man alive. Then you can come and ask me and I’ll say yes and everybody is happy. I’ll have a word with her mother.”

So Madeline told Harriet that she would say yes, and Harriet nodded dutifully. Robert called on Harriet (which was tantamount to an acceptance there and then since soldiers don’t usually get welcomed into a duke’s daughter’s chambers) and they walked into the grounds and he did indeed kneel to her. She said yes, and then he went to the duke. The duke just nodded, of course.

Robert couldn’t get over his luck. He was to marry a duke’s daughter. He would have to be made a sir or something. It was all a risk. If he annoyed the duke, or if some enemy thought getting to Robert could help. But life was a risk, and he’d nearly died of fever as a common man; he might as well try life in the better classes.

It was agreed that they would marry on her fifteenth birthday “At least you’ll remember my birthday, or the wedding. Hopefully you won’t forget both.” Lady Harriet observed. Fifteen seemed a better age that fourteen. Plenty of girls married at fourteen, often because there was a certain urgency after roll in the hay went wrong; but fifteen seemed more the age when a lady might marry for good political reasons. It was put about that Robert and Harriet were a love match, that they had fallen for each other whilst hiding, that the duke had reluctantly agreed that his daughter and the hero of the hour should unite. No comment was observed, at least in official circles, about the Ladies Sarah, Isabella and Alcuida also hiding with Robert and Harriet and them all growing bigger by the day. Alcuida had been welcomed to the duke’s court and made a semi-official ‘lady’ for simplicity. Her abbess was being difficult about accepting the renouncement of the nun’s vows, so she could not have married in a church if she had wanted to. Making her a lady bypassed some of the unpleasantness, telling the three that they would reside with Robert and Harriet avoided the rest.

It was easy to agree their future home. Towards the hills near the edge of the duke’s domain was a patch of woodland with some good land beyond. That was where their fortified mansion would be built. Nobody understood why the woodland could not be cut for construction, but they obeyed what they were told. It was quickly rumoured to be a fairy wood where the five had been hidden by woodland folk. It was as good a story as any.

The odd bathhouse was another source of discussion. The hot spring source was re-excavated. New clay pipes were laid. In the new bath house, cold water was piped into a cold bath, hot to the hot bath, and a large pool was arranged for the overflow from each. It was a tepid pool where people could actually swim. Robert was planning to teach his children to swim there.

All the rebuilding and building would take time, so they would stay in the castle, in the West Wing, which was made over to Robert and his retinue. So it was there that Harriet discovered the wonders, and pains, of sex.

The marriage was complete, Harriet was taken to the chamber to be prepared. She sat in the bed in a linen embroidered night dress. It had been her mother’s, and her mother’s before that. She contemplated that she was to be fucked in the nightdress that her own mother had been fucked in. It seemed a little gross; but that was the tradition in her mother’s family.

The tradition amongst dukes and earls and other nobility was that, following the great Sarci Scandal, Harriet’s mother would be present to confirm the deflowering of her daughter’s maidenhood. Her mother had watched when the duke had mounted her, all those years ago.

Seraphina Sarco was the daughter of the great Prince-Bishop Sarco. He held the eastern marches in France in a fist of iron. He was respected and feared (or feared and respected, it depended upon whether you were friend or foe. Either way, all feared him for his power, and all respected him for his abilities). She was betrothed to Andrea Bociccelli; the first son of the only family that could rival the Sarci. The day before the wedding, it transpired that Andrea was incapable. He had never had a serving wench, never knowingly had an erection. It wasn’t that he preferred boys – that could have been coped with; he had no desire at all. Prince-Bishop Sarco could not know, neither could Lord Bocicceli. On the wedding night, Luca Sarco, Seraphina’s brother, entered the chamber and did the deed (by some accounts, he did the deed several times, and Andrea read Dante’s Divine Comedy). But the secret was discovered, Seraphina was executed, Luca and Andrea were excommunicated., the two families lost most of their lands and titles and were ridiculed. Much of Europe introduced the verification of the first sex – the doctrine of Cognoscere Concubitus – in different ways. In some German states, the whole of the court watched the unfortunate couple. In England only the mother watched.

Robert was escorted to the chamber, where his new mother-in-law sat on a chair knitting a small shawl for her first grand-child. “No pressure there, then.” Robert laughed.

“After what I’ve heard, I don’t think it will be long.”

He was dressed in a long white shift. Really he would have preferred to take it off, but have Lady Madeline there discombobulated him. His new bride looked at him, smiling, saying nothing. He was told to act like the duchess wasn’t there; which was great in theory. He walked to the bed, kissed his bride long and hard. He inserted his tongue. In theory, the observer was meant to answer only one question: did the couple have sex. Whether the bride was willing or not, enjoyed or not, whether the man just fucked the mother’s daughter like she was a piece of meat, or made tender love long into the night. None of it mattered. All that mattered was if the husband had fucked the bride properly. There was one other requirement.

Harriet lifted the blankets and he slid in, and immediately struggled out of the long night dress thing. He never wore anything in bed, and decided he wasn’t going to start now, whoever was watching. “Now you.” he said to his new wife. She looked across at her mother, then started to remove her nightdress under the bedclothes. She got tangled. She started to panic, this was not how it was meant to go. He started to laugh, and then so did she. They lay in the bed laughing while the duchess continued knitting and remembering her own first night. The duke had not been a considerate lover, there had been no laughter there. That, at least, was a good sign.

Robert helped her untangle herself and then remove the nightdress. “Lovely nightdress, duchess.”

“Yes, mummy was fucked in this, and so was grandmummy.”

“Harriet! Language! My dear wife, have some respect.”

“Thank you, Robert.” said Madeline quietly. She was not supposed to speak. She knew that if Harriet hadn’t just been passed to another man, she would be arranging for her daughter to be severely spoken to by her husband with a cane. But this man Robert at least knew what was what.

In the bed, Robert was taking in the body of his young bride. She was fifteen today, smooth skinned, almost glowing with health. Her face was a mixture of expectation and concern; now it came to it, she was worried. When they had been alone, and he was fucking every other vagina in sight and doing things to her that she wished no-one else knew (but she would do again, and again, willingly), she would have opened her legs in any position he asked. Now she wasn’t so sure. It was all so ... official. So important.

“You are beautiful.” she could tell he meant it. He was taking in her firm, small breasts, her flat stomach, her lovely sculpted arms, her nearly hairless armpits. He wasn’t even looking at her groin. He was looking at the rest of her young body. He wanted every part, not just the tight, wee cunt. She understood that now; and, across the room, her mother could too and was grateful. He was no diplomatic match to seal a deal (like she had been); he was in the right place at the wrong time and it worked out. She was pleased for Harriet. He was twice her age, but he’d look after her.

A hump moved down the bed under the clothes, and her daughter gave a little jump as a pair of fingers opened her and a tongue slid a little way in. She had assumed that she would just be fucked hard by a randy new husband. That was what some young wives had told her to expect. Men might be considerate when they were wooing, she was told, but once they have got possession of you they want nothing more than to rip open that delicate membrane of virginity. What she had been told was partially right, Robert wanted her soft and slippery, but he was also really keen to get inside; she didn’t realise it, but she had limited time to enjoy his attentions before he would push open her small cunt with his ramrod straight prick. Still, that was in the near future; for now she was enjoying a warm wet tongue gently circling her clitoris. It would not need to grow as she matured, she already exceeded her mother and her sister in size, if she did but know it. It was still sensitive, and she was soon making low noises of appreciation.