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CHAPTER 16—THE SEED OF HOPE
The women represented the seven major clans west of Big River, each a branch of the royal bloodline. As such emissaries to this enclave, it was their duty to discover if there was a threat to the Queen. At this point, they had not enough information to confirm or deny if there even was a threat, much less if it was something that should concern the palace.
However, it was also their place to formulate a plan if such a threat were to materialize. Whether the threat was of force of arms, or a blood claim, or something they could not foresee, as ranking royalty they needed to come up with contingency plans for dealing with all possible problems.
The seven talked until afternoon turned to evening, but came nowhere near finishing the plans. There was just too much to consider, because the threat was too vague.
As the sun began to sink toward the horizon, and the heat of midday began to fade, they broke sup. Lady Lena had once again provided an exquisite spread, into which they delved greedily. Afterwards they formed the circle and prayed, then separated. The seven would meet again in the morning and continue the discussion.
Lady Koho-Sen returned to her room and found her wardrobe had been brought from her carriage. The wrinkles had been pressed from her clothing, which was hung and folded in her spacious closet.
After a long, hot bath, the handmaiden helped her change into a casual cut charcoal grey robe, and took her formal robes to be cleaned and pressed by morning. Then, alone, the Lady made her way down to the ground floor and looked for a door outside.
Lady Lena's main building was heavily populated by statua, which she was known to favor. Most were bent double and served as candleholders in small alcoves, or were used as furniture, although many were mounted on walls or hung from the ceiling in unique and interesting ways. Most were ripening adult, and those shapely, smart, and obedient enough would be trained as handmaidens after a year or two.
She finally located a doorway bordered by armored guards who nodded at her as she passed. She found herself on a grey gravel footpath, bordered in trimmed grass, on the back side of the main house. The large rock and flower gardens were before her, bordered by immaculate green lawns. Past that was the oval track where Lady Lena sometimes held pony races.
The stable was cool inside, and a hive of activity as the StableMistress and her assistants fed and washed the ponies after their late day exercise. Daka was there in the midst of all, soaping up an ebony beauty.
“Lady Koho! You honor us with your presence,” Uma said when she saw their visitor. She waved at hand at her helpers and they turned and bowed. One was a blonde boy with a stupid face, another was an unbound pony wearing just her hoofboots and a bit. She was very pregnant, due any day by the size of her belly. Her breasts had swollen and her nipples darkened, and the weight of her belly had made her sex a bulging, sagging purse that kept getting squeezed between her muscular thighs. All of them were dripping with water and bubbles, but Daka still wore his robe, wet up to his knees.
“Were you ringed, as I instructed?” she asked him.
“Yes, M'Lady,” Daka said, head bowed.
“Show me.”
He pulled up the front of his robe, displaying the curving arc of his shaft. He lifted up his parts as she instructed, and she examined the interlocking, seamless rings. The shot had worn off some hours before, and Daka was now in some pain, but he gave no sign of it.
“That's enough,” she said. “Has he been of any help?” she said to Uma.
“Yes, m'lady, and I'm glad to have him. He does indeed know his way around the ponies, and with this crowd I surely do need the help.”
“Good,” she said. “He'll be sleeping in the main house tonight, I'll send for him later.”
“Yes M'lady.”
“Please continue your chores, you look like you've got your hands full. You too, boy.”
“Yes M'lady.”
Lady Koho left the stable and walked aimlessly for a while. The gravel paths were many, crisscrossing the lawns and garden inside the protective U of the buildings. As she walked around a knob of small black boulders, their cracks brimming with wildflowers, she came across Lady Roba on a walk of her own.
“Lady Roba! Well met.”
“Lady Koho. Would you like to join us? I'm in no hurry and have no destination.”
“Just where I was heading.”
Lady Roba was accompanied by two dogs that, among their other skills, acted as her guards. They were both black as night, with fine glossy short hair that accentuated their muscular builds. The dogs were massive, with deep chests and narrow waists, and long whipcord tails. At the shoulder they stood over three feet, and reached to Lady Roba's waist.
The dogs had been on either side of their Mistress; when Lady Koho joined her the dog that would have been between them moved so the women were guarded from both sides. As the women walked, the dogs stayed right with then, never needing a command.
The two women had nearly traveled halfway around the grounds before a word was spoken.
“Your news of the Lost Prince fills me with hope,” Lady Roba said, looking forward. “But I sense danger ahead.”
“Of all the sisters of the circle, you are the only one I fully trust,” Koho told her. “Your whole life you have made it plain to all who have eyes that you have no use for the throne, or the palace, or the royal court, or its etiquette.” Lady Koho suppressed a smile. “Especially its etiquette.”
Lady Roba shot her a wry grin.
“Therefore you are the only one I can fully trust. That Berserker did not find me by chance.”
“But surely not one of the sisters? You yourself said it could have been a careless word in front of an aide or a pet.”
“I said that only to soothe the rising tempers,” Lady Koho told her. “I do not believe it.”
“But who? Who would have anything to gain?”
“All I have now are suspicions,” Lady Koho told her. “And because that is all they are, I will not repeat them. I will needlessly besmirch no clan's good name. As to what would be gained, that is not as simple a question as it first appears. It requires much thought, and some research, I fear.”
“Why fear?”
“Any moves will just draw attention to ourselves, even before we've discovered anything. I must be careful.”
They rounded a tiny copse of maples and found a group of naked children running in circles on the lawn. The two women stopped and watched the dozen or so girls as they energetically jumped and ran about. Their minder kept them in line with an occasional sharp word and a long switch.
“I will do what I can,” Lady Roba told her sister. “Many say things to me and mine that they shouldn't. They believe it will not be passed on because we are in disfavor at the court. They forget that I am still of the bloodline, Lady of a Clan numbering many, even though we are shunned.”
Several of the girls saw the dogs and ran over before their minder noticed. They stopped a few feet away and looked with huge eyes at the giant animals, which weighed three times what they did and could look the girls straight in the face.
“Ai! Ai! Away from the Ladies.” The minder finally noticed the diversion.
The girls wore training bits to shape their jaws, and had the unnaturally thick legs of bred ponies. In ten years or so they'd be full grown and pulling carriages.
The group of girls giggled and a few tentatively held out their hands. One of the dogs lowered his big head to their wiggling fingers, then dropped his nose lower to sniff between their legs. His tongue darted out once. The girls thought this was hilarious but their laughter turned to yelps as the minder waded in with the switch.
“My apologies, M'Ladies.” The minder bowed and then herded the children across the lawn away from the two women. Red stripes spotted their naked flesh here and there, marking the slow and unwary.
The dog that had moved forward to sniff the girls looked up to see his Mistress scowling at him, and hung his head in shame.
“Niku, you know better,” she murmured, flicking his head with a fingertip. “It must've been those cute little bits,” she said to Lady Koho as they continued on. “I've been letting them entertain my ponies on trips, and they forget themselves sometimes.”
“Have you brought others?”
“No, just these two, and two ponies. Time was a factor, and traveling light was more important than my getting bored. I see you felt the same. Two ponies, was it, and the boy?” She peered sideways at her sister.
“Yes.”
“An accomplished stablehand, or so I've heard. He must be, to have accompanied you all the way from your lands.”
Lady Koho just grunted. They walked in silence for another minute, neither looking at the other.
“You need to find out if he's the One,” Lady Roba said finally, in a low voice. “Soon. You are far from home, and your story will have already reached many unfriendly ears.”
Lady Koho didn't speak for a dozen slow steps. “I know,” she said ultimately. “If he is the Prince, and the Proof is shown here, he will be discovered. But if I wait until I return to my lands, that is many days journey, and much can happen meantimes.”
“Could the Berserker have been after him?”
“No.”
“If you travel with the boy now, with no protection, after you have told your story, the next Berserker-Shrike will not be after you . And I do not think you will be so lucky next time.”
“You word is true. But the way is hard to see. I must think on it tonight.”
“Will he be sleeping in the stables?”
“No, with me in my room. I'm not that foolhardy. He is desert-raised, and is unfamiliar with many things we find common. A mistake is all too likely.”
“And he has the mark? I hope he has remained clothed.”
“That is my biggest worry.”
“Would you like the use of one of my pets tonight? As a guard, I mean.”
Lady Koho smiled. “Within these walls I will be safe for a time. Do not worry. It is when I leave that the danger begins.”
They had completed their circle and were back at the main house's rear entrance. There they parted ways, with the Lady Roba ascending to her quarters with her pets while the Lady Koho wandered the halls for a bit before heading to her rooms.
After sitting quietly on a footstool for a time, brow furrowed in thought, she sent her handmaiden out, bidding her return with Daka and then to return with one of Lady Lena's famed assaya.
She returned with Daka, and when Lady Koho saw his condition she told the handmaiden to draw a bath and forget about the assaya for now. After a day working in the stables, Daka was as grimy and sweatsmeared as any pony she'd ever seen. The handmaiden was prepared to scrub and rinse him, but Lady Koho sent her away and bade Daka do it himself.
The tub was round and as wide as a man was tall. The handmaiden filled it with water almost too hot to touch, laid a small brush and bar of soap on the edge, and departed with a bow. Daka stripped and carefully eased himself into the scalding water. As he sat on the bottom of the black tub the water reached to his throat. He dunked his head under and began scrubbing his grimy flesh with soap and brush. His mistress sat just a few feet away, staring at him with a strange expression on her face.
This whole house is strange , he thought. At first he'd thought the nude and nearly so figures dotting the hallways, aglow in flickering candle light, were just the work of some odd sculptor. But then he'd seen the flat stomach of one of the statues bent double moving, and realized they were real people, standing unnaturally still, most with candles, or candleholders, deeply rooted in one or more body cavities.
It was definitely the most magnificent place he'd ever seen. Not that he'd been to much else than Jo-Town, but even the people were different. Cleaner, fresher than the types he saw in the Wash, in clothes so fine he could hardly imagine how much they'd cost. The main house alone held practically as many people as Jo-Town, if he counted the statue people.
The fluffy cloth he had to dry off with was of a better make and material than his robe, which had disappeared. When he'd stepped out of the tub and finished toweling off, his Mistress found a burgundy robe made of silk and bid him put it on. It felt strange against his skin, cool and smooth.
She followed him out of the bath room and waved at the waiting handmaiden, who departed. Lady Koho reclined on a low futon and kept staring at him. It made him feel nervous.
“M'Lady?” he asked, not sure what was required of him. The opulent surroundings, the silk robe, the throbbing ache between his legs from the new ring, all served to keep him on edge. He felt out of sorts, and was tired from working all day in the stables. He'd never had to deal with so many ponies at once, all needing to be fed, or watered, or hooked to the weight cart and run around the yard. His wrist and forearm ached mightily from massaging four or five of the ponies' sweet spots. He'd lost count, and had been only too glad to leave with the handmaiden.
With a quick knock the door slid open and the handmaiden appeared.
“M'Lady,” she said, and slid the door open further to reveal she wasn't alone.
Lady Koho beckoned the assaya in. “Leave us,” she directed the handmaiden, who bowed and slid the door shut.
Daka turned to watch this new figure. She was several inches shorter than he, with ebony waves of glossy hair piled upon her head. Her skin was creamy white and without freckle or blemish. She had brilliant blue eyes and her full, pouting lips had been painted a shiny, deep crimson.
She moved slowly into the center of the room, and dropped her robe to the floor before bowing reverentially. Under the patterned robe she wore naught but a sleeveless green silk dress. It clung alluringly to her body, and was cut daringly low in front and slit high up on her hip.
“What are you called?” Lady Koho asked.
“Gugina, M'lady.”
Daka tried not to stare at her, but he'd never before seen such a lush body. Her full breasts strained against the silk, bulging over it slightly, her large, puffy areola clearly visible through the fabric. Her hips were wide and shapely, her buttocks full and round. Her hips and thighs, in fact, were nearly as wide as a pony's, but where theirs were all blocky muscle she was soft skin and gentle curves. She moved like a snake, smooth and sensuous, with just a whisper of silk to mark her passing.
“The boy was ringed in place today,” Daka's Mistress told the courtesan. “I want to assure myself it was done correctly, and will hold, and also reward him for his work in your Mistress' stables. Use just your hands, and he will clean up after himself. Leave his robe on.”
Gugina smiled sexily and dipped her head. “M'Lady.” She slowly turned and regarded Daka with those piercing blue eyes. He was very nervous, and wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen, or what he should do. He was glad to hear his Mistress wasn't displeased with him, although he still couldn't guess why he'd been ringed.
The assaya sidled up to him, uncomfortably close, and stared in his eyes. The tip of her tongue appeared between her full ruby lips as her eyes dropped to his body. She moved around him, always close enough that he could hear her soft breath, and feel the brush of her breasts against his back or arm. Her eyes roamed up and down his body.
When she'd completed a circuit around him she bent forward. Her lips brushed the fuzz on his ear, and her warm breath tickled his cheek.
“Kneel down,” she whispered. Her voice was throaty and soft and smelled of raspberries.
Daka swallowed and knelt on the polished wood floor, his robe pooling around him. The assaya knelt right beside him, off his right knee, and leaned forward again. Her tongue grazed the curves of his ear, and her breath was louder. Daka swallowed again, afraid to move, and put his quaking hands on his thighs.
After trailing around the outside edge of his ear, her tongue slid down his neck, joined by her lips. So gently it was like a dream she began licking and sucking at his flesh. Daka closed his eyes and tried not to shiver.
Her hands slid down his chest and undid the belt at his waist. She opened the front of his robe, exposing first his stomach, then his groin and thighs.
“Ooooh,” she cooed, looking down. His big cock was rock hard, bent in a painful arc, its head tethered down deep between his legs. His cock strained hard at its bonds, but the new piercing had stopped aching in the heat of the moment.
Nuzzling and nibbling at his neck, the courtesan ran her hands over his chest. Her nails lightly scraped him, and tugged at his nipples, making him jump.
Her right hand slid down, down, across his flat stomach and smooth mound. Her palm felt cool against his throbbing flesh as she gripped his curving shaft in her hand. Daka groaned involuntarily, and was immediately embarrassed. He focused his eyes to see his Mistress watching him intently, laying on her futon scant feet away. That unnerved him, and he looked down to watch Gugina's hand.
She stroked him slowly, her grip firm, as she nuzzled his neck and licked his ear. Her soft breasts were pushed against his shoulder, and she rubbed them back and forth as she stroked him. Her nipples were hard under the green silk, and big.
The assaya moved her lips to Daka's ear and began whispering to him. Lady Koho couldn't hear what was being said, but Daka immediately reddened and looked at the floor. The courtesan kept whispering to him, her pouting lips tickling his earlobe, as she ground her breasts against his shoulder.
Her hand left his shaft and slid downward, out of sight. Her fingertips explored the head of his cock and the two rings, one big, one small.
The whispering continued as her hand came back up. She licked her fingertips, which moved back down and began rubbing the head of his throbbing organ. With every beat of his heart it bucked against its restraints, but could not break free.
Gugina whispered hoarsely into his ear, now bringing up her left hand. Daka watched it come up; apparently she was telling him what she was doing, and going to do, to him.
She licked these fingertips also, making a show of it, until they gleamed with saliva. Then the hand moved down behind his back, inside his robe, all the while her other hand was rubbing his sensitive cockhead.
Her slick fingers slid across his muscular buttock and down his crack. She pressed their flats against the puckered ring of his anus, and he started a little. When she began massaging his sensitive ring of muscle he groaned and involuntarily bucked up. She stayed with him, slick fingertips rubbing his sensitive flesh front and rear.
Daka hunched over, his fingers digging into his thighs, and cried out as he orgasmed. His cock bucked against the rings with every spurting clench, but the pain was inconsequential to the moment. His thick white seed shot from the head of his tethered cock with surprising force, splashing against the wood floor beneath him.
The assaya stayed with him as he hunched and shook, milking every last drop from him with her twirling fingers. They slowed as his spurts did, and grew still as he knelt there panting, sweat on his forehead. She whispered briefly into his ear, then backed away from him and stood up. Daka looked around for her, in a fog, as she turned to Lady Koho and bowed.
“I see they're satisfactory,” Lady Koho said. “Expertly done. You may leave now.”
The assaya bowed again. “M'Lady.” She turned and moved to the door, nipples still hard against the front of her dress. After stooping to retrieve her robe, she silently exited the room. Lady Koho waited until the door closed, then looked to Daka. He was still kneeling on the floor, looking dazed.
“Get up, carefully, and go sit over there,” she told him, pointing to the other futon. He did as she asked, buckling the robe around his lean body. His Mistress came off the futon on her hands and knees and cautiously approached the small white puddle on the floor. Daka watched her stare at it for several long minutes, as if she was waiting for his seed to speak to her. Tentatively, she reached out a finger, but quickly pulled it back and stood up.
“Clean that up,” she said. “You're sleeping there, tonight,” Lady Koho informed him, nodding at the futon. “Please, tell me you do not snore.”
The handmaiden came in at the requested hour to awaken her but Lady Koho was already sitting up on her cushion, watching Daka sleep. She roused herself, as if from a dream, and finally acknowledged the handmaiden.
Lady Koho accompanied Daka to the stables, saying she wished to look in on her ponies before breakfast. The ponies were awake and glad to see her. Because the stable was so busy, to eliminate any potential problems Uma put the ponies to bed in their hoofboots and armbinders. She lay them on their stomachs and bent their knees back so their boots hovered above their buttocks. Then with a short length of cord she secured their ankles to the bottom of the armbinder. The ponies slept quite peacefully, and no one had to worry about them during the night.
Lady Koho petted her ponies' heads as they lay in the stall, on a soft bed of hay, reassured they were being well cared for. She left Daka with Uma and stepped around a grounds crew just heading out. There were four of them, two men and two women, bare to the waist in the already growing heat. They wore loose loincloths and work shoes and were leading two ponies hooked to a cart. The three-sided cart was heavy with gravel, to use in repair of the numerous walkways crisscrossing the grounds. The ponies had to strain mightily to get the gravel-laden cart moving, but once the wheels started to roll they had few problems.
The circle reformed and the Ladies debated hotly what courses of action, if any, they should take. A lot depended on whether the Lost Prince had been found or not, but Lady Koho could give no assurances.
“I will know only after I have left here, and returned to him,” she told her sisters. “It is not what I would like, but that is the situation, and we must acknowledge it, and work around it.”
“The sisters would not be so worried if the Queen had but a few more years behind her,” Lady Roba said to Lady Koho, as they walked around the garden once again. After mid-day meal there had been a call for reflection, and they'd gone their separate ways for an hour. The two had met again in the garden, not by specific design, but neither was the event unexpected.
“That is true,” Lady Koho admitted. “And if the Queen had a few more years, maybe she would think for herself more and listen to her spinster advisors less, and welcome you and your clan with open arms. She knows only what she sees in the palace, which these days is rarely more than the simple loving of women. Her advisors distract her with the agile tongues of nubile assayan while they jockey for position in the court.”
“They are but bitter old women who now only lick each other to gain an advantage,” Lady Roba agreed.
“I was at the court not two months ago,” Lady Koho told her sister. “The Queen is no fool, and no dunce. But she knows not what she misses. She hardly knows ponies! And she's never toured the clans, much less an inseminarium. If she but stepped out of the palace her eyes would be opened.”
“Which is why I fear,” Lady Roba lamented.
They came across the grounds crew the Lady Koho had seen setting out that morning. They were taking a break in the shade of a big-leaved decorative maple. The ladies had passed many patches of fresh gravel in their walk, and the few weeds they'd noticed the day before had been pulled.
One man and one woman were sitting in the shade, eating fruits and dried meat. The other two were a few feet away on the grass. The woman was on her hands and knees, her loincloth around her thighs, and was being vigorously thrust into by her coworker. Their days toiling in the sun had baked them brown as the earth. The pony cart had been pulled nearby also, so the ponies could stand in the shade. They watched the rutting couple with interest, shifting their thick thighs occasionally.
The ladies stopped and watched the rutting couple, struck by the image. The woman's cheeks were tan, but still paler than the rest of her body. The man had her by the hips and was leaning over her, thrusting hard and fast. Her face was hidden to them, hung down between her arms. She rested on her elbows, her body shaking with his rhythmic thrusts. She had no breasts to speak of but still he was making them jiggle.
As they watched the man finished, grinding hard against the woman. After a few seconds of panting he withdrew from her and tugged up his loincloth, then sat down and resumed eating.
The woman, breathing hard, pushed herself upright and pulled up the fabric wrapped around her thighs. Then she sat down next to the other three and ate some more and rested for the length of their break.
“Sometimes I wish for such a simple life,” Lady Koho said, nodding at the two lovers who now were just two more workers resting in the shade.
“As do I,” Lady Roba agreed. They began walking again. “But it is not to be. And I would not give up my pets, they are my family. I care for them, as no one else would.”
So, they headed back to the main house to continue the discussion.
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