Chapter 3

Robert, meanwhile went looking for likely spars in the trees around. He axed small trees, cut branches, and used them to strengthen the timbers still in place. Then he made an effort to replace as many tiles as possible. At the end of the day, they had a small patch that would keep the rain out, the work would continue tomorrow.

“Oh! I am so filthy!” They all were. There was an odd satisfaction too, though. Of the women, only Alcuida was used to hard work, the others found that achieving something by hard work offered some degree of surprising pleasure. Still, they were all filthy.

“We could wash in the pool? The water is not fit to drink, but it would be warm to wash in.” Harriet then explained that that was exactly what the Romans used to do. “Then they would use the cold water to stimulate their bodies. They were keen on cleanliness.”

The four women looked at the water. It was inviting. But Robert was there, they weren’t even sure about showing their underclothes. He was a common soldier, he wasn’t even aware of such sensitivities; he was already half undressed. Harriet dashed past all of them and jumped in. “Oooohhh, it’s lovely! Like a huge bath!” She was fourteen, she had not much to show beyond small breasts, her pubic hair was just starting to sprout (which she was thinking of removing, it was all so gross!), her genitals were not prominent. In another year or two she would know not to disport herself to men (or women), but she was on the cusp of womanhood; sometimes she was still a girl, other times she was a shy, careful woman. This time she was a girl.

Robert jumped in creating a massive splash and the two played at splashing each other. The two ladies in waiting sighed, they could not leave their charge in the water alone with a man. They stripped and walked down the steps and bobbed below the water up to their necks. The water got deeper neared the inlet pipe, so they made their way towards that so they could stand without showing themselves. Alcuida realised that she desperately wanted to take off her heavy nun’s clothing. She shrugged and undressed in the little room and then walked rapidly to the water too.

“So they would then get out and stand under that cold waterfall?” Robert asked

“Yes, I think so. Or jump into the cold pool. Then they might do it all again. Shall I?” Harriet was delighted to have knowledge that others didn’t have. Like any child, she enjoyed feeling she knew things that others didn’t. She climbed out of the warm pool, up a steep set of steps from the deep end. Near the showering cold water, she stopped. The splashes of cold water were a shock. More of a shock to Sarah and Arabella was that this girl was showing her naked body with a man there; they wanted to say something, but what should they say to the woman/girl that they were meant to serve as ladies in waiting? Harriet was known to become quite imperious if she wanted to be.

Robert climbed out, grabbed the girl round her midriff, lifted her bodily from behind and then rushed into the cold water falling down. He gasped at the cold. She let out a squeal that was partly girlish glee at such a trick played on her and partly the same shock that Robert was feeling. The warm water had opened all their pores, relaxed their skin, gently revived them; the water that was plashing down was from a stream from high up on the tops. It had been redirected all those hundreds of years ago and now was settled comfortably into this route. It was sourced from places where patches snow still lingered. It was very cold.

“Eeeee! Ahh! You Plager!” A plager was a rude word that conjured up ‘bastard’, ‘fucker’, ‘mother of a pig’, but not quite ‘mother fucker’. It was not a word well-bred ladies often used. She was laughing with delight. This adventure may end badly, but at the moment it was a freedom from her old life.

Harriet was not so young and innocent that she did not notice the hard rod that was pushing insistently between her buttocks. She did notice, also, that the cold water caused it to shrink away to nothing. Was it her or her companions that had caused such a manly response? It was the three other females, with their well developed bodies that he had seen as they rushed in, with the knowledge that they were naked, nubile females in the same warm water as him; if asked, he would have shown a gentlemanly nature that he did not know he had and would have said it was the girl he had his arms round. A girl likes to feel she is attractive even if she does not intend to attract at that moment.

They turned and ran back hand in hand to the warm pool and jumped in with a delighted splash. The jump did nothing to hide his tackle from waving between his legs, nor to hide the delicate slit between hers.

The evening was rapidly coming in, there was still work to be done: lighting a fire, preparing some kind of meal, working out where to sleep. It was time to leave the warm water; but that posed more issues of decorum. Robert solved that by walking out first, entirely aware that even though the fully grown young ladies might not wish to be observed by him, they would be watching his retreating body with a critical and interested eye. He thought of simply getting one of his own blankets and drying himself, leaving them to come to get their own; but he wasn’t that kind of person. He unrolled each woman’s pack that had been attached to the horses behind the saddle, and carried a blanket from each to the pool. He held up one for the youngest, she was quite happy to mount the broad steps and be wrapped in the woolly, rough cloth. He even rubbed down her body through the cloth to dry her; it was obvious to both of them that his hands rose and fell over her small breasts, she said she would dry between her legs herself, thank you.

He lit a small fire and made some unleavened bread cakes. The pack horses had some preserved food which would keep them going for a couple of weeks, he hoped to supplement that with fresh caught food – birds and small mammals, perhaps deer if they were lucky. “Are you allowed to hunt here?” asked Lady Harriet, back to being the third daughter of the duke.

“Well, Milady,” he emphasised the word, “this is your father’s land, so I suppose you can give me permission?” He bowed low, sarcastically.

“Oh, yes, I suppose so.” she didn’t even notice the sarcasm in his actions. He was going to hunt whatever she said. If they were hungry, they would eat.

Dinner was a poor mixture of poorly cooked bread, poorly boiled beans, and poorly rehydrated dried meat; no-one complained.

At his suggestion, they had laid their clothes out to air for a while. Their outer clothes were dirty, their underclothes were rank with sweat. They were all wrapped in blankets. As if in togas, Harriet said, though none of the others understood the allusion to Romans. The clothes would need some cleaning if they wished to stay civilised. But then the sleeping arrangements were considered.

Only a third of the roof could lay claim to be water tight, but then it did not look like rain. They each made up a separate bed, too close for normal polite behaviour, but they were willing to tolerate that. The cold kept them away, and the rustling noise caused the four women to move closer and closer to their protector. “It’s probably just a hedgeywig, nothing to worry about. Could be a rat, but it won’t come close.”

“A rat! Oh, oh!” Now a hedgehog carried as many fleas, lice, and other bloodsuckers as any rat, but the thought of rat was somehow worse. The cold helped bring them together for warmth. Their blankets were rearranged over the two, three, four, and then five of them. “Don’t get ideas, sir.”

“I can’t stop getting ideas when I am sharing with four women, pretty and naked, begging your pardon Sister. But that is all they will be, ideas.”

Closest to one side was Harriet, and she could confirm that his ideas made him erect. To his other side, Alcuida found his erect member turned towards her in his sleep. She felt him spoon around her back, and felt his solid member against her back. She lay with ideas of her own, wondering what it would be like, and praying for the strength to resist finding out.

They would need to finish the roof. They were awake early. More flat bread for breakfast. Sarah and Alcuida were dispatched to get wood. They would need quite a lot, and it had to be dry. But first, they all had to find bushes out of sight of each other. This had been something they had already encountered on the journey; the ladies had never been out of reach of privacy for their bodily functions, they had found themselves desperate before they were willing to admit to needing to stop. That was another reason for underwear being a little fetid.