Chapter 2: With hard-favor'd rage

With the gray of early morning, Sir Edward de Valence awoke, his muscles as stiff as bark. In the half-shadow of the baggage wagon, he could just make out the pale shape of his captive still sleeping curled up in the bindings he had put her in last evening. Her long, black hair obscured her delicate face and gagged mouth. Her breasts were the size of ripe apples, her nipples as dark as dates, her slight waist long, as well as her bound legs. Hidden was her dark nest of curls and quim from which Edward had raped his pleasure.

Now, in the half-light of the morning, he had regrets about that moment's pleasure. When Edward raped Catherine, he had done so out of an uncontrolled rage against her father and the death of Edward's son. His rage was spent inside Catherine and now there was room for the feelings that might change his destiny.

Edward eased over to her sleeping form and brushed her hair away from her face, causing her to stir. Catherine's eyes opened wide, unsure about her surroundings. Then remembering the nightmare of last evening, she struggled violently against her bonds. Edward let her until she began to cry into her sopping gag and her struggles became retches of sorrow.

"I do not wish harm to you," Edward told her in her native French.

Catherine took no solace in his words. In fact, they were upon deaf ears. The horrors of the night were a blur and now it seemed they came back to an all too real life. God was punishing her now for her wantonness. This English devyl was chosen to be her tormentor.

"... Catherine..."

Hearing her name was like a slap to her face, waking her up to the words that this English spoke.

"... promise not to cause a stir, I will unbind you and find you some decent clothes. Do you understand?"

Catherine nodded her head, not understanding all what the English had said, but knowing that the evil bindings would be taken off and she could try to cover what this foul man had already ravaged from her.

Edward reached over and undid the knots of the soaked gag. He unwound the cloth from around her head until she spat the last out of it out of her mouth. Her jaws ached and her tongue seemed numb. As she wiggled a bit to allow this English to unbind her, she found her hands and wrists were also numb.

However, instead of unbinding her, de Valence moved back and began to search through a chest.

"I thought, m'lord was going to release me!" Catherine wormed around, still trying to undo her hog-tie.

Edward brought a bottle out of the chest and sat down across from his dark-haired ransom, "And I will, as soon as I can trust you enough to leave you without harness."

"I am NOT your ride, m'lord, and when my father finds out what acts you have done to me..."

"He will come and pierce my back with steel," Edward interrupted, "or some such a thing."

"He will tear off those jewels of yours, m'lord, and feed them to sows! Unbind me now!"

Edward took a long draw from his bottle. The warmth of the mead soothed his throat and tongue. After a long swallow, he set the bottle down before Catherine. Her eyes never left it.

She squirmed a bit more, her movements and grunts of frustration warming the fires in Edward's loins.

"Dog! Loose me!" she spat, almost exhausted from her efforts.

Her words only fuelled Edward's growing excitement. He found it curious that he would want to tame this shrew of a girl. A coney and a wolf, but the coney would fall prey.

"Do you want this again?" Edward asked as he held up the dank rag that had gagged her all night.

"You would not dare." Catherine said levelly.

Edward moved toward her, holding the gag before him. This caused her to wriggle back, her dark eyes like a doe about to be felled.

"No, m'lord, no!" she pleaded with the dark Edward.

"Then you will blunt your sharp tongue?"

She just looked at him as if he were made of maggot-ridden dung.

He began to move.

"Yes, m'lord!" she spit.

"Yes, m'lord... ?" Edward prodded.

Catherine looked at him blankly.

"Pray, continue Catherine. Tell me what you will not do."

Catherine held her tongue from saying something that would endanger her plight even more, "I will not, m'lord, call you those things that the devyl knows are true of you."

Edward smiled and sat back again, nabbing the bottle of mead and drinking another long swallow. Catherine licked her sore lips but was determined not to ask for even a drop. To keep her mind from torturing itself, she mentally assessed her captor.

The English was taller than most, with wide shoulders and a rippled stomach that bore a large scar across it in testament to the man's station. His face was square with dark hair cut like the king he followed here to France. His eyes were a dark hazel in color and his mustache and beard were trimmed close and neat. His hands were large and as rough as bark from scars. His shanks were long and burled with muscle and his cock was as big as Catherine had ever seen, nested now in his dark fur that seemed to cover his chest and loin thickly.