A Queen's Hart

And while all around me my countrymen wrung their hands in fear of their little lads gettin' sent to war, or new lords seizing their family farms. All my selfish heart could do was worry that the Queen I adored would choose this sunny, silly bairn for a husband. Anyone but him. I found myself thinking that over and over again. Anyone but him.

But then, within weeks, another guest arrived. Prince Malcolm. Now this was a man worth his salt. He spoke our language very well, though it is not a useful nor fashionable tongue beyond our borders. He brought the Queen only a pair of fine riding boots as tribute -- something that showed he paid attention to her passions. And he was kind to his servants and his horses; which if you ask me, is the only decent measure of a nobleman.

And I realised with a heavy heart that anyone but him was never true. For here was a man; respectful, thoughtful, accomplished and good. And I hated him. And I despaired that she would ever choose him. And the pain in my chest kept me awake at night.

What ever could be done? Nowt at all.

***

Now, I had the fool's notion that I might mend the pain in my heart like I had mended the pain in my shoulder, and so feigning the reappearance of my injury, I sort permission to return to the springs. To my surprise, it was granted.

"I miss yer singing!" the foreman joked.

I hadn't noticed I'd stopped.

So I set away back up the mountain. Had I not already thought of her every moment I was awake, I might have regretted my decision immediately. Every step of the trail reminded me of Seren. Still, I took a stupidly meandering path to avoid the bothy. I would hike higher too, to a different spring, in hope of fending off the memory of my last visit.

I was exhausted and sweat-drenched when I finally arrived at the spring of my choosing. Even though the ground was thick with snow, I flung myself free of my clothes and dove into the water like a kingfisher.

There was a moment of perfect serenity as I was suspended in the warmth and the healing balm of the spring. And I thought for a moment -- perhaps I was right - perhaps my heartache was healed...

I emerged for air.

And there she was.

Naked. Her long hair - still wavy from its braid - shimmering in the winter sun, and damp at the ends where it touched the water that came to a few inches below her waist. Her expression was one I'd never truly seen her wear -- astonishment.

We both stood stock-still.

"Do you command my leave?"

My courage to speak surprised me.

"No," she said, "I command that you stay."

She began to wade toward me and I toward her.

I trusted my heart. I put my hands upon either side of her face and gently kissed her.

For a fraction of a moment she was motionless and did not kiss me back. But before the despair of my mistake had time to settle, she had flung her arms around my neck and was kissing me fiercely. Her soft lips enveloping mine, her tongue pressed decisively into my mouth. And it was all I could do to keep the strength in my knees and to return her kiss with matching fervour.

I stroked the apple blossom of her cheeks with my clumsy thumbs.

"I have missed you so," I managed to rasp.

"You've never missed," she laughed lightly.

"Please don't mock me," I implored her, holding her tight against my body, my fingers caught in stroking her hair, "I have been a man without air."

"Then let me grant you breath," she whispered, before pulling me again into the rapture of her kiss. And breathe her in I did.

Her hands grasped urgently at my shoulders, her little talons pinching at my flesh. Her pearly teeth gripped for the barest second upon my bottom lip. Every contour of her perfect nude body pressed to my own skin. I swelled not with mere desire, but with agonising need. How many nights had I longed for just such a moment?

Seren pushed gently down upon my shoulders and I obeyed her touch, sinking to my knees in the water; so that it's surface lapped about my throat, and my face rested against her milky thigh. I set my lips there. Her fingers threaded through my hair, massaging my scalp.

I lifted my lips a little higher, to kiss her more closely to the promise of her womanhood. She cooed and guided my face with her hands. I slipped a tender finger into her thatch to part the dewy lips. My Queen was slick between her petals. Anticipating me. I twitched in the water. Anticipating too.

I brought my lips close to her, breathing out and blowing softly against the little bud above her entrance. She sighed sweetly. I extended my tongue to take my first taste of her. Is there anything so intoxicating to the senses as the taste and scent of a woman? That cream that is not sweet yet evokes sweetness? I wrapped my mouth about her bud and suckled greedily. Her gasp was gorgeous.

As my lips and tongue worked diligently, I slipped my bow fingers to her entrance. So slowly, slowly, sinking them into the heat of her. So slowly, slowly, still exploring her cunny for the places that would have her quiver and writhe against my fingertips. And so I gave my service to her, my mouth and hand working in unison to pleasure my Queen.

My arousal trembled beneath the surface of the water. The longer I knelt in worship, the harder my rod became. The spring water rippled about my throat and I wondered if a man could drown in his own happiness. My lips, nose and chin were soaked in the wet of her. Her hands knotted in my damp hair.

Seren grew impatient, I felt her chafe against my slowness, wriggling her hips and pulling my face more urgently to her. I worked my fingers more quickly in her depths, provoking a little melody of moans from her. Her sounds only heightened as I kissed and licked and sucked her petals with a hunger. My tongue once again lapping at and coiling about her little peak.

I gazed up at her flushed face. By her laboured breath and desperate calls she was nearing her summit. I suckled again where she throbbed with desire, fingers fucking her fast as I could, groaning with my own indulgence, completely in thrall to the taste and the scent and the heat of her. Then she shook. And wailed. And I thought for a moment that my own ecstasy would come upon me, so entranced with her I was.

Panting for breath, Seren released my jaw from her grasp and sank into the spring to kneel beside me. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were rosy, and her eyes half-shut in the wake of her pleasure. She put her arms around me, pressing her breasts against my chest and her lips against my neck.

"That was beautiful," she told me. I kissed her cheek. She kissed my lips. I opened my mouth to tell her that I --

"Lay back," she said. I did. I floated on my back in the water. I felt awkward and unsightly again, like a pad beside a lily.

Seren pulled me closer to where she kneeled, until I bobbed there with a knee floating above each of her pale shoulders. But I could not have been so ugly to her as I feared, for swiftly she had her soft hand coiled about my shaft and the point of her deft tongue dragging languidly across my tip. I stiffened in her grasp.

I craned my neck to peer upon her, foundering for balance in the shallow water. She wore a knowing, certain, smile as she brushed my member against her cheek and cradled it gently in her palm. I twitched uncontrollably in her hand as she set her puckered lips to kiss my helmet - her tongue to trace its ridge and track the pulses of my veins - her mouth to tenderly engulf me. I groaned in the bliss of it.

Seren's hands took my hips, holding me steady as I floated. I was in rapture to her. Her beautiful lips wrapped so delicately around my trembling thickness. Her head bobbing rhythmically up and down my length. She was serene and elegant. Her eyes were closed. I let my head loll back in the water, closing my own eyes, relaxing into the splendour of her touch and tongue.

She made small sounds as she sucked upon me, making her enjoyment known. I swelled between her lips. Urgent and wanting in the warm space of her mouth. She moved more quickly and I felt I might come undone --

But she stopped. And with a grin, made her way to slither up my body, her skin delicious against mine, as she lay across me. We embraced and kissed for the briefest moment, only to find ourselves sinking to the rocky surface of the spring.

Upon resurfacing, she had her back to me. I pulled her close, my hands cupping her breasts, weighing them in my palms, pinching gently at her pointed nipples. She sighed musically. I brought her still closer. Her spine aligned to the shape of my chest. My cock pressed, hot and aching with want, against the crease of her rear.

"I saw all of you that day," Seren confessed in a whisper, "When I bid that you leave that I might bathe," she lifted her arms above her head, to lock them about my neck, binding us tighter together.

"I feared you had," I apologised.

"Afterwards I could not stop thinking of you. I had thought of you before then, but always in conflicted anger and admiration for shooting my hart..." She turned a little to look upon me. "I was so struck by you..."

There were few words that could make me happier; I twisted to kiss her lips. The kiss swelled again, full of passion. I rubbed my shaft back and fourth between her thighs, skimming against her inviting opening. She moaned. I released her from the kiss. Her arms were still around my neck. I took her outer thighs in each of my hands and pulled her up against my hips, so that my hardened cock was pinned against the heat of her entrance.

"Take me," she commanded.

I did as I was bidden. Deep inside her I sunk. Her hot, sodden cunt was tight around my thick shaft. I groaned in hazy pleasure, the sensible parts of myself dissipating as I lost myself in the feel of her. I wrapped an arm around her torso, so that my forearm separated her breasts and my hand clutched her collarbone. With this secure grip, I began to pound her sex. Over and over I took her.

Seren squealed and panted, her sheath squeezing me. My blood ran hot. My heartbeat shook my chest. I was lost. Wild. Taking her consumed me. My only thought was to fill her. To fuck her.

I would not relent. She screamed curses I'd never known a woman to use and a grin broke upon my lips despite my intensity. I whispered my appreciation in her ear -promising I'd always make her feel so good every time she'd bid I'd have her.

Still I filled her. I trembled on the verge. Eager to release, yet equally eager to prolong our passions. I grew close. I felt the surge in my body. Dark, hot, urgent.

I came apart. Spilling myself inside her cunny. Euphoria swept my senses. I thrust breathlessly in and out a few more times, before releasing my woman to the water.

Seren's cheeks blushed peach and her eyelids rested half closed. She was weak from happy effort and laid her head upon my chest. We glowed together, bodies entwined. I ran my fingers lightly over her skin. Learning its map of beauty spots and silk. I worshipped every inch.

"Will it be so long again?" I dared to ask, the pain of awaiting such similar circumstances to befall us already descending upon my heart.

Seren looked away from me as she spoke.

"I cannot say. There is much to be lost for me in respect and reputation if our trysts are known of."

I nodded solemnly. Tightened my jaw and kept the tears from my eyes.

What else did I expect?

***

The pattern of things was unchanged by the meeting at the spring. Still Seren summoned me several days a week to groom and tack her mare, replace her bow strings or other such tasks that she was fit to do by herself.

Every moment of it was agony that I smiled through. For our rapport was as it ever was and her company and manners endlessly delighted me; but there was also the sickly hope that each time we found ourselves unobserved she might move to kiss my lips. And of course she never did.

On one such day, we were alone together in the stables, feeding the young colts bran and apples. Bickering almost merrily about the best ways to train lymers. When the Queen coughed to make herself serious.

"Owain, would you offer me your counsel?" she asked, her eyes fixed on her own gloved hands.

"You know wiser men to ask whatever is," I said.

She pulled a face that meant Do I though? I smiled weakly.

"None-the-less, it is your opinion that I should like." She smiled back.

"Very well,"

"You may already know that I have now received marriage proposals from both King Harold and Prince Malcolm?"

A chill came over me.

"Indeed, I suspected,"

The Queen nodded.

"I have delayed my decision many days, but must make a judgement. Who would you have me choose?"

I shook my head. I searched my heart for a sentence that was both an answer to her question, and an honest truth that I could live with having said aloud. There was only one thing to tell her.

So I knelt at her feet. Not as subject, on one knee with head bowed, but upon both knees like a worshiper, gazing up into the bewildered splendour of her face.

"My Queen, you ask for my advice on marriage, but I can be no surer of another man's intent to deliver on his promises than you can. I am the only man whose word I can put my faith in. And I hope, that as you have asked my counsel, you would trust in my word also?"

"Owain..." Her voice was full of warning. Her lip trembled as if she were about to cry.

"Please, I must say this,"

"You must not, for you will break my heart. I cannot suffer to hear what I know you wish to say."

"If you already know what I must say, then your heart is already broken." I said quietly.

"It is."

And she did cry. A single sob that she tried to seize back with her hands clamped across her mouth.

My chest tightened.

"I still must say it," I told her, still gazing up from the floor before her.

She shook her head. Over and over as if I were still speaking.

"No, I forbid it, you will say not a word more on the subject,"

"I must, I --"

"I forbid it!" she shrieked. Her tears were thick and fast now. Her face flushed with anger. "I am your Queen and you will obey me."

My jaw locked shut around my unspoken words. My blunt fingernails found the insides of my palms. Now I looked at the floor. Eyes welling with tears.

She was right. She was my Queen and I would always obey her. On my knees in front of her, I was silent. My fat tears landing on the stone flags.

She turned away from me. She raid the back of her hand across her forehead and took deep breaths to compose herself. Then all at once she was calm.

"Leave at once." My Queen ordered without turning face.

The pain that racked my chest was just as sharp as all the bards had promised. Shaking all over, I dragged myself to my feet and left.

***

My Queen didn't summon me for hunts, or company or certainly not advice any longer. What had she wanted me to say? Did she trust that I, in my love for her, would recommend her the better man of the two? She was perfectly able to make that judgement with her own sound mind. Why drag my sorry heart into it?

In the moment, I had half hoped that her asking was in understanding me. In knowing that I was not brave enough to act on my own interests unless at her behest. That she might command me to tell her not to take either match.

It is a rotten thing to be born common and love a woman in a crown.

Or as my father once told me: it is a rotten thing to be born and love a woman.

***

It was just after breakfast when Dyffad came hurtling across the yard like a year old whippet.

"Owain! Good news la! You won't believe it!"

He was waving a scroll in the air, crowing and generally carrying on like a berk in the middle of the courtyard.

"What is it ye eejit?" I sighed.

"It's yer fuckin' freedom!" he grinned excitedly, "Look at this!"

He unfurled the scroll. I felt a stone in my stomach.

"Are ye daft?" I said, "I can't read this,"

"Well neither can I," laughed Dyffad, "But I know what this means." He pointed at the red seal clinging to the lower half of parchment. A stag's head against a setting sun. "Early release on account of exemplary service that is."

"Oh." I said.

Dyffad slapped me across the back.

"You can go home - aren't yer happy?"

"A-aye, aye... it's just a shock is all..."

"I'll bet it is la, I guess all that extra work you did for the Queen really paid off," he said with a charmless wink.

"Come off it," I complained. Though I never told a soul of the nature of our time together, my adoring eyes were seen often enough by my fellow labourers to make teasing and crude jokes inevitable. They all knew I was enamoured, but I'm doubtful any suspected my affections were ever returned.

"Here, I'll help you with packin' up yer things. Do ye want us to take yer up home in me cart an' all?"

"Nah, I'll sort it out lad, I didn't have owt but my bow and quiver,"

I spent one more night in the bunkhouse with the other men serving sentences. Even though I would have liked to say a proper good bye to a few of them, I didn't have the heart to tell any of them I was leaving early. Especially when I didn't have the good manners to be grateful for or happy about it.

She wouldn't stand to hear that I loved her, and now that she could pretend no longer to believe otherwise... she'd sent me away. I cried as quietly as I could into the crook of my elbow until the daylight fell through the cracks in the window shutters.

***

The custom in many provincial places is for a man to offer a carved wooden love spoon to the woman he wishes to propose to, that she might know the skill of his hand.

The woman who held my heart had no need of spoons. There was only one gift that made any sense to make her.

I untethered the flax string from my bow, and then used it to tie the two-dozen arrows together in a bundle. For my Queen, there could be no more fitting bouquet. I set them down on the stable steps.

I stood for a moment, feeling more like a mourner at a funeral than a lover leaving a gift. It was getting light. I was not a lover any longer. I slung my elm bowstave over my shoulder; I set away on foot to begin the long journey back to my cottage home.

***

The walk was hard. It ought not to have been. Spring was in its first days, gifting me with softer ground underfoot and birdsong in newly budding trees to make the journey pleasant. In truth, I cried most of the way. Scrubbing my face red with the back of my sleeve each time I heard the approach of horses and traps.

Was I nought but venery? An animal pursued and caught? I could not think that of her. Nobel and lovely Seren. But what else was there to conclude? What else had I to offer when I was of common blood and criminal means? Would she have been too much a coward to love me truly if I was royal and rich? I hated every answer to every question.

It took more than a week, and I regretted rejecting Dyffad's offer of a cart many times on my path, but eventually I reached the hamlet I was born in.

The little cottage was bonnier than I remembered. Perhaps it was the way the ivy climbing the windows had become overgrown in my absence. I sighed. Doubtless it would need a new thatch too. Still, it offered a humble, but cosy comfort compared to the barrack-like bunks on the castle grounds.

As I neared my dwelling, I noticed there was some object on the doorstep. A coal sack or that the like of.

Then the object shifted before my eyes. Growing taller and odder before I realised with a start that I was looking at the loveliest woman I had ever seen in my life.

"I have done you a great cruelty," said the woman that I loved, "I doubt I will ever make true amends for the ways that I have treated you. Yet I am here with a proposal just the same."