Life and Times of a Priestess Ch. 16 Pt. 01

Chapter 16 : Separation and Unity

Part 1 : Ravelleon Returns

His excitement was a fever pushing him on. He breathed in the night scents of the foliage in the gardens. Danella would be back from the opera by now he thought. He had been away for sometime, not knowing how long it would be. He had wished he had taken her with him, but he had been on campaign into the Empire of Pirion and he had needed to be with his army. He would have found little time to get away in the urgency of this push. Besides in Pirion he never completely trusted her. He knew he had failed to convince her of the stagnation of her Empire, of the sordid laxity of it's whole structure, the soul starving laziness of it's people. In Dalos he had feared that she might one day leave him, returning either to her Priestesses and the life of sin and the flesh, or escaping from the city back to the territory of Pirion, returning to her old abandoned sexual practices. He had felt it safer to bring her to Dumis where she would be free of such temptations and encourage her cultural education. He was often in Dumis for meetings with the government ministers and the other Generals, and indeed they had shared many good times here. But the recent campaign had kept him away from her for too long and he had missed her.

He had also missed his wife. He could not have believed he could love two women so much. Form had dictated that he visit his wife at first when he returned, but as she lived in the Chamillon countryside at his country house he could not stay there all the time and would have to come to Dumis for his important meetings regularly. He had returned to Catherine and the children for two weeks. But now as soon as he could he was ready to see his mistress again. She excited him more than his wife ever did, even though he could honestly say he had found it was quite possible to love them both. He saw nothing wrong in that. Catherine was his wife and mother of his children. He needed her and loved her. His relationship with Danella could do her no harm. He, a Prancirian conqueror could never publicly accept a Priestess of the primitive Pirion as a wife, even if he had wanted to. She would have brought him into question with the government and with the opposition in the assembly and perhaps even more importantly with the people of Prancir. It had been imperative that he be as discreet as possible with her. A mere mistress attracted little concern in Durmis where many other Generals, government ministers and other public figures had them. It was almost acceptable. There was an understanding between these leaders of the nation that they would not allow each other's infidelities to be mentioned to the public, that they would help each other to prevent such reports from reaching or being published by the press. Many editors and publishers were a part of this conspiracy. Ravelleon had been a natural critic of this cover up in the past but like most citizens he had never seriously attempted to do anything about it. But now he found himself conveniently protected by it. His views had changed. Danella had changed him a lot, he knew, and only for the better. A powerful public figure with a mistress was acceptable but it would have been quite another thing for him to divorce his wife. Divorce was very much frowned upon although some people who did managed to save their careers and rebuild their reputations. Ravelleon did not want that anyway. He loved them both each in their own ways. Danella excited him more but it was normal for a mistress to be more exciting than a wife.

Now his day was ending and he was returning. He drew his image of her around him, feeling his strength enter her flesh, her bones, as he imagined her caressing his back, his hot open moth over hers. He ascended the steps of his own house. A light was on in the hallway and some of the windows of the rooms were lit, but the outer light which might have lit the steps was not lit. She should have been expecting him. He had sent a letter, but it did not really matter, a small detail. Perhaps the letter had not arrived for some reason.

He ascended happily up the steps. The ivy overgrowth on each side of the doorway gave off a pleasing earthy aroma. He put his key in the lock of the wide oak door and went through. None of the servants were in the main house at this time of the evening. Those of them who lived in would be in the servants quarters in the basement. He went to the lounge first, where he expected her to be. The lights were on but otherwise no sign. Next he looked in the dining hall but she was not there. It had been left tidy by the servants. She must have retired to bed he thought, although if she had his message she should have been expecting him. As he glided swiftly up the wide staircase he reflected that she was probably preparing herself for him in the bedroom. His thoughts became sexual as he imagined her well formed slim body waiting for him, her robe unfastened to invite him into her warmth. The light was on in their bedroom. He came to the door and passed in without warning. Her name "Danella" died on his lips, and he watched in horrified fascination the two bodies coupling on the four post bed.

Blood shot through him as rage pumped through his whole body, as he stared at the animal thrusting of his friend. Mireau's slim tight buttocks back and forth, back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. Dazedly he found himself thinking that it must be painful for that woman who he had loved being subjected to those awful pounding animal thrusts. Then dimly, he heard the panting and the soft liquid sucking, and the knowledge of this reversal humiliated him, made him feel lost, like a child. He felt a kind of vertigo, a strange frightening pressure along his chest. He felt terribly chilled, numbed into immobility.

Then Danella moaned and the spell was broken. It was as if he had been touched by electricity, violent and elemental. He drew himself up and leaped forward.

Mireau's neck twisted as his head came up, "What is this?" he began to lift off Danella.

"No, no!" Her voice rose to exhale, her pale fingers soothing along the muscles of his arms. "Don't leave me now! Not yet. Don't!" Her breath shot like an explosion. She had not realised until now that they had been discovered so intent had she been on achieving her orgasm, which was destroyed by the realisation.

Ravelleon's clenched fist drove towards Mireau's flushed face. It slammed into his ear. Then Ravelleon's shoulder crashed into his and he tumbled off Danella.

Mireau's arms came up. "My god, what in the world are you doing." His rampant hardness was already deflating.

"You bastard, son of a whore," was all Ravelleon could cry. "And you bitch are a whore. You came from whores! I tried to change you but you are a whore temptress! You silly whore." Was all he could cry in his loss. He thought he would choke on all the words he wanted to say but could not elucidate.

Alone on the bed Danella bucked and rolled, her fingers clamped between her wet thighs, her full breasts shaking. A thin dribble of Mireau's fluid still linked her with him.

"God Ravelleon!" exclaimed Mireau, recognising his adversary and former friend. But hitting him, Ravelleon would not allow him to speak. He had let him do more than he deserved of that. His military training made it hurt, but his rage altered nothing, he had lost the mistress he had trusted.

"Ravelleon! Ravelleon, stop please, will you listen to me?" Danella had come around sufficiently to realise what was happening. But Ravelleon would not listen, he knew she would talk if he let her but it would not restrain him from punishing Mireau. He would hit Danella too when he had finished with Mireau, the traitor. His fist caught him flush on the mouth, his knuckles tearing through the tender flesh, drawing a thin stream of blood. Mireau leaped away, his eyes wide with fear of his erstwhile friend. Mireau knew that he could not control him. By involving himself with Ravelleon's mistress he had bated and awakened this beast. Ravelleon saw the fear contorting Mireau's dark handsome face.

"Well he gets what he deserves," Ravelleon said to himself, hitting out at him again.

"Don't hurt him," pleaded Danella, concerned for Mireau's safety, and frightened of what Ravelleon might do to her also.

"Look I'm sorry Ravelleon! I know I shouldn't have done it," Mireau cowered before him, smarting from the more powerful man's assault. "Please desist, be reasonable," Mireau made to move to fight back, although he failed miserably to defend himself by attempting to hide behind his own upraised arms. He felt guilt because he was a Prancirian by birth and upbringing. His natural reaction when accused of taking someone else's wife or mistress was to be apologetic and assume an air of deferent shame. But he had persued her and wanted her from the first time he had laid eyes on her. Something about her, in her manner and her eyes had told him from the beginning that she liked him and wanted him. Why should he feel guilty when she had invited him. Ravelleon was not even married to her. By what right did Ravelleon assume possession of her. Mireau instinctively avoided these rational thoughts. He had known what he was doing was wrong in the eyes of the world and it was a betrayal of his friend. Ravelleon did have rights oven her. She was his protege, collected just as booty from the wars, picked up in the wastes of a conquered city, taken under his wing, rescued and brought to Dumis, and given the perfect home of a wealthy man to live in and use as her own, a virtual palace.

"What do you think you are doing? She is mine! You bastard. Get out of my house. I don't want to see you ever again. To think that I ever trusted you as a friend!" Ravelleon moved forward again threatening to attack again, but the restraint of a self disciplined General held him back from taking his attack further. He wanted to hit Mireau hard again and again at that moment. He believed he could have killed him and in the think of battle he would have done without any sense of guilt. But here he was an important man. Above all else he was devoted to his career. This war would increase his public profile more than ever. When the war was over he intended to move into politics. The Imperial party currently in government (harking back to the age of the Emperor a hundred years and more ago) would have him as one of their leading figures. Who knows he might even become the Prime Minister or even the President. To throw his future away by killing Mireau would be a very foolish thing to do. In the heat of the moment he wanted to kill him, but reason told him not to and he could control himself. He would find other ways to punish Mireau.

"Let me get me clothes."

"Where are they?"

"Over there," Mireau pointed behind the bed on the other side. He would have to get around Ravelleon to pick them up and he didn't want to have to do that, but he had to have his clothes.

There was a brief stand off. Ravelleon would not stoop to picking up the clothes and flinging them at that bastard. He was tempted to make the pathetic traitor run naked from the house, through the streets of Dumis. That would have been good sport but he could not cause a scandal over this. He must behave sensibly or people would not take him so seriously as a leader of men. Besides he did not wish it to be widely known that he had been 'cuckolded' by his mistress and by one of his closest friends.

"Throw them to him," he ordered, with his General's voice of authority, calm and implacable again after his sharp anger. The order was directed at Danella. The tone of voice suggested that she had been demoted from the object of his desires to the mere servant that she had been before she had caught his eye in the dormitory all those months before. To placate him she did as she was bid, swinging awkwardly off the bed, bending her slender proportioned body to stoop and collect the trousers, pants and shirt. Even as she did so Ravelleon's gaze took her in and admired the body, even if he felt the hatred of betrayal at this moment.

"Mireau's jacket must be elsewhere," noted Ravelleon. 'How long has he been here?' he wondered, but stayed silent now. He would find the answers to his questions from Danella later.

She had tried the Vanmarian way. Ravelleon had begged her to become his mistress and she had agreed after some persuasion. She had not agreed to commit herself to one man for the rest of her life, as she had known even then that Ravelleon intended. How could anyone have expected that of a Priestess of the Empire of the Goddess. Impossible! But he had offered her a passage to Prancir, and to Dumis, the leading city of that great and powerful nation. She had wanted to see it desperately after reading the books of Paul, and of General Polad before, and hearing the reports which Ravelleon and others gave of vibrant streets filled with crowds of living, breathing people dressed in the finest and most beautiful clothes any land had to offer. To Ravelleon and to Paul it was the centre of the world. General Polad had not been to Dumis, but he had been equally impressed with the other Vanmarian cities he had visited. She had been curious to see the paintings, the plays and musicals, the concerts, to read the books of a culture which had in many ways gone far beyond her own in the practise of these arts. She was curious to see where these men, for whom she had been enacting their greatest desires, came from. What was their background which brought them to her like lambs starved of the most basic comforts of life and yet often, despite that, worthy and genteel with character. She had been bored with Pirion before the war had altered the course of her life. To Vanmar she had been travelling anyway, and it had become time to complete that journey. What better opportunity could she have hoped for but to be the guest of a wealthy and famous Prancirian General who could show her the sights and enable her to live a life of some luxury, tantalising to a citizen of Pirion who had mainly led the communal life of a Priestess without the quantity and variety of material possessions which the Vanmarian wealthy enjoyed.

Self interest had not however been the only purpose. She felt herself, like High Priestess Sreela, to be responsible to her own people. She owed it to them to find out about their enemies so that they might best be able to work out how to counter the monster that sought to conquer them and to protect her own people and their culture. She had felt that she was a spy attempting to extract the secrets of the enemies of Pirion before it was too late. Pirion might learn a lot from Prancir, and Vanmar as a whole. It might use some of this learning to fight back, and also to improve itself. She would also find their weaknesses. She had met their soldiers and knew they had many weaknesses. These hopes and this wider plan were still with her as her life as Ravelleon's 'possession' fell apart, and it drove her ever onward to further adventures.