Jaspernon the Prince Ch. 02: Tower Pt. 01

Jaspernon The Prince: The Rise of the Cult of the Goddess

These events took place around one thousand years before the stories of the 'Life and Times of a Priestess', which describes the Life and Times of the Priestess Danella, during the Times when the Empire of the Goddess was partly conquered and came under the most threat from the nations of the continent of Vanmar. The Rise of the Cult of the Goddess describes the events just before the founding of the Empire of the Goddess, when Jaspernon who became King, and then Emperor, was just a Prince.

Chapter 2: The Tower

Part 1

Jaspernon lifted the key. He knew it to be the means of entry into his father, the King's private tower, and he was curious as to what lay within. Many times in his youth he had wondered what lay within, and why sometimes his father would lock himself away up here, away from all the fuss and attention of court, telling no one where he had gone, and allowing no one, as far as Jaspernon knew, where he had gone. For a long time he had harboured a desire to unlock this door to a private world, of what he could not imagine. He had looked on occasion for a key that would fit these locks. Many times he had subverted servants into 'lending' him their keys to all sorts of boxes, chests, storerooms, private rooms and cabinets within the Palace, and tried them all on this lock, hoping with each one that it would be sufficient to bring him inside these walls. Unlike other rough hewn and heavy keys the servants often lent him, this one was delicate and fine, a golden brass instrument, narrow and complex, strangely light. He had suspected immediately when he laid his hands on it that this key was different, important.

Jaspernon continued to search the locked room of the tower with Alixerand, his courtier and friend, while High Priestess Patience waited patiently to see the outcome of this new discovery. She had been invited along on this expedition by the insistence of the Prince, who had become a friend and confidant to her in this strange court of strong and very individual characters. All the people here were friendly when she came to know them, even the King's Concubine, the exotic Riala, who should have been her rival, but despite her testing nature held out the hands of friendship and understanding.

They found other strange objects; a mystical glass ball... There were paintings hanging on the walls, and stood on the floor, resting against boxes. The first which caught Jaspernon's eye was an exotic scene from times long ago. Certainly he had seen little like these before. There were women who seemed to be concubines, waiting in forest glades and grassy parks for their master, a lord or king, to come amongst them. The women were beautiful and largely naked. Their tender breasts pointed and drew the observer to them, so real and yet so perfect did they seem to be. They were in various states of undress. Some wore no garment at all, but most were in a position of disrobing, gowns over the shoulder, but revealing the breasts in all their glory. The lord was a man well dressed in ancient clothes which were not completely different to those of present times. He approached in the foreground through trees.

"Come and look at this Patience," Jaspernon demanded. She drew close and looked over them enough to know they were unclean images of human bodies engaged in the acts which the Priestesses of her order were forbidden to engage in.

At last Jaspernon found a heavy wooden trunk behind an old worn shroud. It proved to be full of old clothes, of many colours, some discoloured and faded with age. They were antique, but despite the musty smell of being stored away for so long the Prince seemed enthralled by them. These were ancient clothes of royalty, probably his ancestors. Sensing the prince's eagerness to discover Alixerand suggested, "Let's try them on! There's a mirror over there."

"Yes. What an idea! Patience come here. Why don't you try some of these women's clothes on. You'll look lovely." He exhorted her in enthusiastic tones, which taunted her playfully. She was at once regarded as a child by the young prince, but also as an object of admiration. She had the impression that the young Prince really did wish to see her in these clothes.

Of course she held back. It did not fit her station to become a child again. There was too much good to do in the world for that. "No, I cannot. I think perhaps I should go about my duties if you are to try these on."

"No, I forbid it," he snapped playfully, but forcefully. "We need an audience, to determine which suits and which does not. We need you Patience. A woman's judgement is always superior in clothing." She could not go now. After all he was the Prince, the son of the benefactor of her priesthood, and when his father died the future of the Priesthood in this land would depend on his support. She could not anger him, and did not wish to. Despite his playful nature, which she found herself liking more as she learned to trust, he was a warm hearted young man. He may tease, but she felt sure he meant no harm. Always it was done with good humour, and she sensed that he knew and liked her.

Although all the males she knew treated her with great respect, for her position as High Priestess, in the Priesthood and amongst Cult members, she found their deference kept a distance around her. She was in an elevated position and had power and authority over them. There were some other High Priests and even Priests who did in their own ways try to become close to her. She was well aware they appreciated her beauty as well as her character, but she had not wished to offend the principles of her Cult by encouraging their friendship and desire for a closer relationship. By allowing too close a connection, or even physical companionship, or comfort of any sort she would be tempting them, and herself, from their path of dedication to the Goddess and to the people they served. Jaspernon however was in no way subservient or deferent towards her, which she was able to find quite refreshing. Being the Prince he was comfortable in his position of relative freedom to do or to think or to say what he wished, but she also sensed strong intelligence and a caring nature towards people, including herself, which she counted as being a quality similar to her own nature, of loving all, which came from the Goddess. She sensed somehow that the Goddess was at work in him, as she felt sure it was within her.

The courtiers of King Croesian's court and the courtesans were continually trying to question her values and her position, and the court seemed to be a hotbed of scandal and promiscuity, but in other respects the people of the court were largely friendly and well meaning, and she detected much interest among them for her crusade of improving the well being of the poor and uplifting the whole society. She had determined to stay at court for the present because she felt the sponsorship of the King and his court was helping her cult to achieve its goals.

Jaspernon began to strip his tunic off, unfastening first buttons, and then pulling the top of it over his head, to reveal a fine handsome slender and youthful torso beneath, Patience recoiled by habit. She expected not so sudden a revelation, and would have averted her gaze if she had been allowed a warning.

"Why don't you take off your robe, and put these on," suggested Jaspernon, moving towards her while still half naked. He waved the slightest dress she had ever seen. The straps for the shoulders were narrower than any she had ever seen. Most of her back would have been uncovered, and the hem of it would have revealed so much of her legs she doubted her bottom would be sufficiently covered.

"No, sir," she exclaimed, "I cannot wear these. They are not at all modest."

"They were worn a hundred years ago, or more," he said. "Many ladies wore dresses like these!"

"How do you know that sir?"

"I have read books. I know my history, or much of it. Besides I have seen the pictures from those times, as you have seen some now. Am I not correct Alix?"

"You are Jaspernon," Alixerand confirmed. "In those times many people wore revealing clothes and people were not so prudish as they have since become."

"You want me to wear those clothes sir, but I cannot!" she protested. "I am a High Priestess, the head of our priesthood. I cannot possibly wear those clothes."

"Not even if I said I know you would look very lovely in them?" he persisted, smiling.

Her cheeks reddened, "I thank you sir, but I am not some ordinary woman who may be flattered. I have pledged myself to the Goddess. It is a higher calling than the enjoyment of self and the appreciation of appearance."

He sensed her pleasure at the compliment, but there was no sign of that in her words. "As your Prince I oblige you to change for me." Unable to achieve his purpose by any other persuasion he fell back upon the authority of his position. If you wish I will ask Alix to wait in the next room. You can change in that room over there. I will not watch if you prefer."

"Sir you ask me things I should not do."

"No one else is watching. This part of the palace is empty. We are the only persons here. The rest of your cult will never know. Besides I thought your Goddess was caring and understanding. She does not judge her flock, but wants them to experience the fullest of lives. I see nothing against your Goddess in the changing of clothes and the full experience of life."

"You keep changing your demands sir. First you encourage me to explore this tower with you, and the next minute you want me to view those pictures. I think you knew they were there all along. Now you want me to change into those lascivious clothes. Unable to persuade, you now insist, because you are the prince. Where will your demands end? I fear your answer to that question."

"Patience, you do not realise your beauty. We know you would look very lovely in those clothes, but if you absolutely refuse I might just tell some of your cult members what you have seen here today, or even perhaps my father."

"I do absolutely refuse!" She was angry. Temper flared. He had pushed her too far. "You hint strongly of blackmail Prince. It does not become you, and I won't be affected by it." With that outburst she turned and went to the door quickly. She ran through the next room and fled down the stairs. Jaspernon thought he detected a tear in her eye, but she was gone too quick to be certain.

The Prince laughed, "Oh dear I have pushed her too far, I think." He appeared more amused than chastened by the reaction of the priestess.

"Yes I think you have Jasper," agreed Alixerand. "You were becoming too forceful. She may not forgive you for it. She is strong minded."

A worried look came over the prince. Perhaps he had indeed lost some of the Priestess's goodwill. They had been just words to him. He was hardly going to carry his threats out. But she probably did not know him well enough yet to know that. She was such a beauty he could not help provoking her because he desired her so much. He knew she felt something for him too. That gave him the confidence and assurance to push her. But there might be a limit. He had better be more careful with her. "I had better run after her."

Jaspernon went to look at the beautiful pornographical paintings of his family's past in the locked tower room quite often at that time. He could not resist the sense of sexual freedom they represented and the thrill which the breaking of so many taboos gave him. He imagined himself as the King portrayed in one of the pictures who approached his concubines to select which ones he would place his penis in. In the next picture the King was portrayed mounting one of the women while another engaged him in a long erotic kiss, and other concubines stroked him and each other all around. Jaspernon removed his excitable cock from his breaches and, impervious to the danger of discovery, began to mould it, all stirred up by the scenes he saw around him and other scenes resulting from them, which only he could imagine.

Jaspernon and the King had given the High Priestess Patience another room in the same tower as the locked room, to stay in when she was at court. He left the door open and she heard his sounds when she opened her door, emanating down the stairs. She heard rustling sounds and the beating against boxes, heavy breath and a gentle moan. Wondering what it was she climbed the stairs curiously, peered in and saw him there. The young Prince was partly naked, his breaches down his legs, lying on some cushions amongst the boxes, and looking intently at the forbidden paintings. In some shock she saw the stiffened penis he held, his own, for never had she seen any man's erect penis, except in those paintings Jaspernon had revealed to her on the previous occasion she had come into this room. His eyes met hers immediately as she appeared, and she was about to ask if he was well, but the words stuck in her suddenly dry throat and would not come out. But something, maybe fascination at the sight of his enlarged penis, prevented her from fleeing straight away. He continued without stopping when he saw her and called to her, "Come and join me Patience. We could do this together, or take your robe off and let me look at you, while I finish."

She stayed transfixed, but would not do as he bade. Still the words would not come and she knew not what to say. There was not long for the impasse to continue, because very quickly the strokes upon his penis became faster and wilder, while his hips rose up, and he moaned. He looked at her fully. It was as if he cast a spell in which she could not escape. The demon was inside him and his arm and his legs seemed to shake uncontrollably, as if in a fit, and the white sticky fluid came out of his big handsome penis and squirted up in mid air onto his belly and fell back onto his big thing, running down its sides, like a volcano having erupted. It was a splendid thing to see, some act of nature she had only barely imagined, but she knew she should not have seen it, and she knew not what to say of it. In the only way she knew, the friendly, hardworking High Priestess was for once lost for words. She knew not what to say. She was like a child again in just those couple of minutes.

She turned tail and ran down the stairs, being sure to close her own room door and retreat into her privacy once again, to think, and eventually to plan what she should do next. She would have to think before she would be able to speak to the young Prince again. Maybe she should leave this hotbed of sins and carnality, or maybe there was some way of rising above it or at least coming to terms with it or understanding what it was.

She lay on her bed, with the door closed, hoping for sleep. After sleep would come calm to settle her troubled mind. But sleep would not come. Her thoughts were turmoil. She had felt so sure of her purpose here in the court of the King, serving her Goddess by influencing and ministering to the leaders and influential of Pirion and the City of Anachronar. Funds poured into her Cult from the generosity of the King, but also from some courtiers, impressed by her reasoning and explanations for the work of her Priesthood.

It disappointed her to realise just how little she was able to influence their romantic behaviours. She had thought the Prince Jaspernon such a kind and friendly young man. He had talked to her and questioned her about the activities and beliefs of the Cult of the Goddess at great length. He had seemed genuinely interested and supportive towards the work of the Cult in encouraging the poor and the disabled, and in improving their lives. She had been excited to find just how similar their thoughts were on many of those issues. She had even dared to believe she had found a kindred spirit.

She now felt distraught and let down. It appeared that he must have been talking to her so much because he found her attractive and wished to earn her sexual companionship. All those thrilling and involved conversations had not been what they had seemed to her, but a mere excuse to become closer to her in order to tempt her into his arms.

She had told him in no uncertain terms that a Priestess, and particularly a High Priestess took a vow of celibacy in order to concentrate on the work of the Goddess, and devote herself to unselfish activity. This was also true of Priests and High Priests. There had indeed been exceptions to the rule, in fact more than a few, and in earlier days of the Cult's history Priests and Priestesses had often married, each other or Cult members. Some notable Priestesses and Priests, even in more recent years, had been granted dispensations to have families, or to take partners, while retaining membership of the Priesthood. It had always seemed self evident to her that a Priestess or Priest could better serve the Goddess and her people by avoiding the entanglements of the flesh. That had been the modern thinking of the Cult, despite the exceptions which were sometimes allowed.

The Prince seemed to want to constantly provoke and test her. His introduction of her to the erotic paintings in the Tower, and then his shameless act of depravity in causing her to witness his uncontrolled lusts this afternoon proved the true purpose of his mind. He surely wanted to test and tempt her, to bring her down to the levels of this promiscuous and shameful court. It seemed that instead of being one of the more sensible and reasonable members of the court, he was actually far gone down the path of perversion and sexual delinquency. His interest in the Cult must have been a ruse, for she knew he wanted to take her in physical abuse, and bring her down from her mission for the Goddess to a more selfish purpose.