Chapter 6: How Ingeburg Stirs Oatmeal and Pelle Clears the Table

As Pelle had promised, the Saturday was spent doing work around the cabin. He helped Ingeburg fire the baking oven and the young woman spent time kneading some dough of wheat flour, sweetened with dried berries and honey, to bake biscuits. This was something she knew well and she worked hard at it. The dough had to rest for some time before she could form biscuits, and she used that to clean the cooking area and the copper pots and pans.

Pelle was busy splitting firewood for their use, and when he was done he greased the axle of his donkey cart. Later, when the delicious smell of fresh biscuits already flooded the air around the cabin, he checked on the wooden shingles of the roof and used clay to repair cracks in the seams of the walls.

In the distance they heard the bell of the new church ring the noon hour and Ingeburg called Pelle in for their noon meal. Oatmeal sweetened with fruits was a filling meal. Afterwards Ingeburg offered a few of her biscuits and mint tea.

“These are good!” Pelle exclaimed. “If nothing else, you are a great baker.”

Ingeburg blushed a little. “I always liked to eat them, so I begged my aunt to show me how to bake them.”

“I like them too. Let us get what you need for baking the next time we go to Birkenhain.”

They spent the afternoon with more chores, such as laundry and sweeping the cabin, but they were done before sunset. Before that, Pelle had kindled the fire and heated water in two large kettles. He also brought more water from the creek to fill the wooden tub. Mashed soap root and pine needles were added to the water and a pleasant smell filled the cabin.

At last, Pelle called it a day. Looking over the cabin he thought they had accomplished a lot, from baking, to repairs, and to cleaning the place. The copper pots were shiny again as they should be and the ashes had been cleared from the fireplace.

“Now for the best part of a Saturday,” he announced.

“H-how do we do this?” Ingeburg asked doubtfully. “Do you want to go first?”

“My mother and Enewalt bathed together. They helped each other, washing their hair and backs. I thought...”

“Oh!” Ingeburg gasped and swallowed. “I guess we can. I’m your wife, after all.”

“Let us get ready then!” Pelle exclaimed, sensing that any delay would increase the awkwardness of the moment.

He emptied both steaming kettles into the tub and then ran to refill them in the creek. When he returned and put the filled kettles over the fire again, he noticed that Ingeburg was in the tub. She had used his absence to undress and climb in. He gave her a playful grin.

“What is this, Wife? Are you denying your charms to your wedded husband?”

Ingeburg blushed deeply. She answered with her head held low.

“My wedded husband has not shown much interest in my charms,” she said almost inaudibly.

Suddenly, she found her chin in his huge hand forcing her to look up.

“That may change, Ingeburg. We are learning more about each other with each day that passes. I liked what I saw of you this week.” When he continued, his voice was husky. “And I like what I see of you right now.”

Ingeburg felt gooseflesh and the nipples on her boobs contracted. She stared into his eyes unwaveringly.

“I am yours to claim, Pelle.”

“Aye, and that I shall before long!” Pelle exhaled.

With quick movements, he pulled the wool tunic over his head and dropped his pants. Ingeburg gasped again when she saw his erect member stand out from his hairy groin. The water splashed when Pelle climbed in and sat opposite Ingeburg. Out of necessity his legs and her legs touched under the water and Ingeburg’s breathing became short.

Reaching out with his long arm Pelle retrieved a bar of crude soap and a wash rag and proceeded to soap and scrub his upper torso, his neck and face. That done, he dunked his head under the water, wetting his shoulder length hair.

“Will you wash it for me?” he asked Ingeburg.

Ingeburg hesitated. Both her hands and arms were occupied covering her breasts. Pelle made it easier for her, turning around and sitting with his back towards her. Ingeburg grabbed the soap bar and worked up a lather in his hair. He groaned his approval when she worked her fingers over his scalp, whilst he kept his eyes covered with the wash rag, to protect his eyes against the sting of the soap.

“I’m finished,” Ingeburg finally announced. “Should I rinse it, too?”

“Please, yes,” Pelle answered.

Ingeburg used her hands to ladle water over his head, rinsing out the soap. Once she was finished, she took a comb to straighten the hair and removed all tangles. Again, Pelle moaned with satisfaction as she dragged the teeth of the comb over his scalp.

“Thank you,” he finally exhaled. “That was nice. Now, it’s your turn.”

He turned around and made a twirling motion with his hand meaning for Ingeburg to turn her back to him. Shrugging inwardly Ingeburg obeyed. She meant to keep her arms crossed over her breasts, but Pelle gave her the wash rag to cover her eyes. She knew she had to do it, and when Pelle started rinsing and lathering her hair she tried to keep one hand with the rag over her eyes and the other arm covering her breasts.

Gradually she relaxed under his gentle ministrations. His hands massaging her scalp felt just too good and she leant back into him inadvertently. When he scooped the tepid water over her head to rinse the soap from her hair, Ingeburg had to use both hands to cover her eyes, but she tried to keep her chest covered using her elbows. Pelle chuckled softly behind her.

“I’m done. You want me to comb it?”

Ingeburg nodded and took the wash rag off her eyes. Pelle used his strong hands to squeeze as much water as possible from her hair. Then he used the comb to untangle her long tresses. He was both thorough and gentle, Ingeburg found. She used the time whilst he was busy with her hair to wash her torso. She was self-conscious washing her breasts or lifting her arms to clean her arm pits, but it had to be done.

When Pelle announced that he was done with her hair, Ingeburg rose from her squatting position to her knees and quickly washed her crotch. Pelle did the same, and they were both done at the same time.

“Do you want to soak some more?” he asked. “There is more hot water in the kettles.”

“I’d like that,” Ingeburg replied shyly. “My hair won’t dry though if I don’t get out.”

“Stand then. I’ll pour some warm water over you, to rinse off the soap.”

Pelle left the tub and brought a kettle from the fireplace. He poured water over Ingeburg’s front. Then he made her turn and hold up her hair whilst he rinsed away the soap from her backside. Stepping into the tub again, he handed the much lighter kettle to Ingeburg who did the same service for him. Thus clean and rinsed they wrapped old, thin blankets around their bodies to dry off.

A rich soup of split peas and grain had been simmering in the back of the fireplace, and they ate soup and fresh bread for a delicious and filling supper. After supper and cleaning up they laid out their Sunday best clothes for attending Holy Mass on the next morning. Using the tepid bath water, Ingeburg washed out the clothes they had worn over the week, and Pelle wrung the water from the wet cloth before they hung the pieces out to dry. Pelle then pulled a cork stop, and the water from the tub ran out, along a drain and through the wall to the outside.

It had been a busy day, and Ingeburg felt tired enough to drop onto her cot. However, when she started for the ladder to the loft, Pelle stayed her with a motion of his hand. He pushed aside the empty bath tub and lifted a floor board with the tip of his knife. She saw him nestle with some cloth package. Then he replaced the floor board and pushed the tub back in place.

She looked at him expectantly when he joined her at the table, holding something wrapped in clean linen.

“You are now my wife, Ingeburg. Before we go to Mass tomorrow, I want you to have this. My mother wore it, my father’s mother, and my grandfather’s mother before her. I hope that if we’ll have a son, his wife will wear it too. Take good care of this. My mother would have rather sold her body than part with this.”

Ingeburg opened the proffered bundle gingerly. She gasped in surprise. There was a heavy gold cross with a chain to wear around the neck. She lifted it up carefully, immediately aware of its great value. It weighed six or seven ounces easily. She looked it over. There were letters all over it, finely carved into the smooth, polished surface.

“What do those letters say?” she asked looking up.

“They say, ‘Meo vasallus fidelissimus, Hubertus.’ It’s Latin. A priest tranlated it for my father. It means, ‘For my most faithful vassal, Hubertus.’ It seems that my great-grandfather held a position of great trust for the Baron’s ancestors.”

“You want me to wear this?”

Pelle nodded and Ingeburg swallowed hard to overcome her emotions. Her eyes were moist when she finally spoke again.

“I shall guard this with my life and I thank you for your trust. I’ll never disappoint you, I swear!”

“I trust you shan’t, Ingeburg. If we ever want to be man and wife we have to trust either the other.”

Heavy tears rolled down over Ingeburg’s cheeks. “You are too good to me,” she declared with a wavering voice. “I have naught to offer in return, save for my body. Will you make me yours tonight? I want to be your wife, now and forever. Please?”

Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. “I want to, believe me, but isn’t it too early?”

“Pelle, please take me. I don’t want to wait. I want us to be husband and wife. Now.”

He took a deep breath. “Stand up, Ingeburg,” he spoke in a voice cracking with suppressed desire.

She complied, and he fastened the chain with the golden cross around her neck. Ingeburg looked up into his eyes.

“You’re no poor man, are you?”

“I never said I was,” he answered, a trace of gruff back in his voice.

“I know. It’s only that everybody thinks you’re a dirt poor, uncouth forest dweller.”

“Again, not my fault. People don’t speak to me, so they can’t find out.”

“I know,” she sighed. “Will you tell me more about you? On the drive to Mass? I must learn more about my husband so that I shan’t ever hurt his feelings again.”

“We can do that, Ingeburg. I like to know more of you, too. Now let us go to bed.”

Taking her hand he led her up the steep ladder to the loft. In the dancing light of the oil lamp Ingeburg’s hair looked like spun gold pouring over her shoulders and back. Looking at Pelle intently she let the blanket glide off her shoulders and stood naked in front of him.

Whatever restraint Pelle might have possessed evaporated in a heartbeat at the sight of Ingeburg standing in front of the bed in all her naked glory. With one long step he was close enough to wrap her into his arms. She turned up her sweet face and with a hungry mouth Pelle began to kiss her full lips, their bodies mashing against the other. The blanket Pelle had wrapped around his hips succumbed to the grinding of their bodies and dropped to the floor boards.

Ingeburg gasped when his erection sprang up between them and slapped up between her legs. With her long legs her crotch was almost as high up as Pelle’s member, and the hot rod of flesh was right where it belonged, rubbing the swollen lips of her sex. Raising on her toes she was able to trap it in its entirety, and her hips started to undulate. She sighed with the feel of her man’s member rubbing all along her opening.

With a deep growl, Pelle lifted her body and laid her back on the bed. A heartbeat later he hovered over her supine form and his lips sought and found Ingeburg’s proud breasts. She squealed when his mouth closed over one puffy nipple, sucking and licking. He let his mouth trail down along her body, his tongue exploring her belly button, causing Ingeburg to squirm under him. She was ticklish and dissolved in helpless giggles under his probing tongue. Those giggles turned into a piercing scream when he blew a resounding raspberry on her taut tummy. With flailing arms and legs she tried to push his mouth from her sensitive skin.

He let her push him down, down where he wanted to end up anyway. Ingeburg’s scream ended as if a door had been slammed shut when she sensed his mouth touch her most private place, and she became stiff drawing rapid, shallow breaths. At first he planted innumerable small kisses on her downy haired mons veneris and on the inside of her thighs. Slowly her breathing became deeper again and she lifted her upper body up on her elbows to look down on him.

“Whatever are you doing?” she whispered reverently. “This feels so gooOOOD!”

She wailed when his tongue swiped all along her opening, from bottom to top. Those unspeakable sensations flooded over her, assaulting her senses with jolts of pleasure. She felt herself lifted, almost floating above the bed, and every fibre of her body focussed on Pelle’s tongue as it touched and penetrated her nether lips, lashing the little nubbin, that secret centre of her lust.

Suddenly the tongue was gone and Ingeburg felt an aching emptiness in her core, but not for long. Pelle’s face was up over hers and she felt and tasted his lips on her own. He tasted different she noted dimly, but before she could process that thought she felt something that made her dizzy. Something hot pressed against her inflamed opening, down between her legs, spreading those lips impossibly wide. Her eyes flew wide open at the realisation that this was the moment, the moment that would irrevocably make her a woman, Pelle’s wife.

She felt a stinging pain and Pelle’s progress into her opening was encountering her barrier, stretching that ring of skin at her entrance. She felt him withdraw by a finger’s width, and she knew what came next. She held her breath and braced herself. Here it came! Driven by Pelle’s strong loins that fleshy battering ram tore through the feeble barrier of virginal skin and she yelped with the stinging pain.

He held still immediately after gaining entrance and Ingeburg had a chance to take stock of the sensations. She felt stretched like never before and the torn maidenhood hurt fiercely. There was another feeling, though, a friction inside her that sent delicious ripples through her lower body. When Pelle’s hips began a minuscule movement that feeling of friction intensified, taking away from the stinging pain she felt.

“The pain will be over soon, Ingeburg.”

Pelle’s lips were at her left ear as he whispered soothingly. She felt a delicious shiver run down her spine. He pressed on. Ingeburg felt even more stretched and the nice feelings came from deeper within her. He withdrew slightly and pushed back in. She felt that he had gained another finger’s width of penetration. The stinging pain was now almost gone, but the delicious friction became stronger with each finger width Pelle gained. His manhood felt impossibly deep inside her, stretching her wide and giving her a new feeling of fullness.

The wiry hair around the base of his manhood tickled her nubbin once he was completely seated in her, further adding delicious tingles to the sensation of fullness she felt. Her breathing was laboured now and her hips met his thrusts on their own volition.

“You ... are ... tight! So tight!” she heard Pelle groan.

The urgency in his voice translated into more forceful thrusts, thrusts she received with abandon, spreading wide her thighs to take as much of him as possible. She greeted each penetration with a moan of her own, and when he increased the speed of his hips, when he began to pound her forcefully, her voice rose into a crescendo of cries and moans until Pelle finally shouted out his lust.

“Here! Here it comes!”

The meat rod inside her started to pulse, and a wave of warmth spread from her fanny and over her stomach and chest. It reached her face and then the seat of her mind was rushed by the blinding heat. She heard herself cry from afar, she heard Pelle’s shouts as his pelvis mashed into her, but somehow she felt detached from her body for a spell.

When she finally regained her wits, Pelle was still slumped over her, but his manhood inside her did not stretch her anymore. Pelle’s eyes opened and focussed on her. He took a deep breath.

“How do you feel, Ingeburg?” he asked her with concern in his voice.

“The pain is gone and I’m sort of numb in places. But I feel, I don’t know how to say it, fulfilled?”

“I suppose I fully filled you,” Pelle chuckled.

Ingeburg’s eyes widened. “I may be with your child,” she said with awe in her voice.

“Maybe not yet, but we can try again and again until you are.”

“Was I good?” she asked shyly.

His answer was a long, soft kiss. He lifted himself off her body and lay down at her side, pulling her against himself. He kissed her some more and she responded eagerly.

“Ingeburg,” he started hesitantly. “A few days ago I could not fathom lying next to you like this. I ... I guess you could say that I hated you, or I hated who I thought you were. I was afraid of you too. Now, I hold you in my arms and I never want to let you go.”

Ingeburg pressed her forehead into his neck. With her face against his chest, she almost whispered.

“When the Baron made me marry you, I didn’t say ‘aye’. I wanted to say ‘I won’t’, but the drunk fool of a priest didn’t let me finish. When you brought me here I was terribly afraid. Of you, of the forest, of the life out here. I feared you would mount me roughly, beat me, and mayhap kill me out of spite. I know now that you are a good man, strong but gentle and caring. I know that you work hard for an honest living. I find this cabin, this clearing in the forest far less frightening. I find the prospect of spending my life with you not frightening at all. You just broke my maidenhood, yet I cannot wait for you to mount me again. This is how I feel right now. More may come when we know each other better, but today I care for you and long for your gentle touches.”

“I thank you for being so honest. I was afraid too. I feared your tongue, your haranguing, every day for the rest of my life. I know now that you are not the terrible shrew I took you for. I care for you, Ingeburg. Mayhap, the Baron in his zest to spite your mother did something good for me.”

“For us. How come you think and speak so well, Pelle?” Ingeburg asked.

“Oh, my father was the caretaker for the lands of Tosdalen Abbey. Many evenings, the learned monks would come visit. I picked up their ways of speaking. Later, with Enewalt, I still had my mother who saw to it that I spoke properly. These days I hold intercourse with the Jewish traders of whom many are learned men.”