Sisterhood - Temptation Ch. 49

For a moment after taking her first stride over the lip of the stairs, Katharina was dazzled. There was a curious sensation that felt like the blinding of looking into bright light after darkness yet at the same time like having to squint at every shape sidewards in order to make it out. The light was not brighter than in the amphitheater. As Katharina's eyes adjusted she noticed that it was in fact considerably darker. But even with her vision partly cloaked by the low hang of her hood, there was something bracing and clean about the darkness that made it appear more lucid than it was, a fineness to the air that Katharina had not noticed she had missed until now, having spent so long in the stifling underground of the North Wing.

Once she had gathered her thoughts and stilled her nerves, it seemed as if Katharina's eyes adjusted a second time. She saw the movement of figures around her, saw their thick robes and their hoods. Judging that they would not be able to see her face any more clearly than she could see theirs, she dared to lift her head a little and examine the scene in front of her.

Katharina saw walls all around her, enclosing what was clearly a very secluded area of the grounds of the Summer House, a small private garden. Against the soles of her feet she felt grass, dry and uneven, perhaps parched by the summer. She knew for certain that she had never stood in this place before. But with equal certainty she recognized what she saw, even among the hazy blue shapes of the night-time. As well as simply the location, she recognized the scene. Immediately in front of her, in the center of the enclosed lawn was a very large circular stone, one that looked as if it might reach as high as the tops of her thighs, and was at least a few meters in diameter. The surface of the stone was more or less smooth and flat, but it lay at a very slight angle, as if the ground on which it had been laid had shifted very slightly with time. And kneeling at the edges of the stone, laid out face down on top of it, with their torsos and their faces resting on heaps of strewn cushions, were seven dmurrhisi girls, surely those that had been offered to the Seven Sisters in the amphitheater.

Katharina recalled with clarity having stood in front of a strikingly faithful depiction of this same scene, in the dim attic of the library, and then again a second time in the clearer light of Vera's chambers. Only as she looked around to orient herself did Katharina see a few differences in the details between the painting as she recalled it and the scene that she was now witnessing first hand. She remembered the pose of the girls on the altar slightly differently. Where in the painting each girl's hands had been bound together at the wrists, now instead each had both hands bound to a circular metal rail in the center of the stone altar, a fixture that had not been depicted in the painting and that looked as if it might be a more recent modification. The bonds themselves were different too. Katharina recalled what had looked like hemp or flax rope in the painting, but here all of the bonds were of cloth. The girls wore more cloth wraps around their eyes, blinding them, and over their mouths, gagging them. Katharina was fairly sure that in the painting there had also been rope around the girls' ankles. But the seven girls laid out in front of her now had their legs free. Those kneeling closest had even spread their legs apart so far as to be touching each other at the ankle, a curiously sweet gesture that they had perhaps adopted for mutual comfort.

All around the altar was the high stone wall that Katharina had noticed first upon emerging from the tunnel. It stood where in the painting there had been a circular ruin, a crumbling low wall of large stones. The present wall looked modern, very sturdy, and much higher than the ruins.

And of course there were the robed figures. Katharina's scalp prickled with a dreadful excitement at the thought. She was now one of the robed figures that she had herself seen and wondered at when she had first contemplated the depiction of the rite early the previous evening. The Seven Sisters. She was not one of the Seven, she did not even for a moment of fantasy imagine that she was or that she would somehow become one of them as the result of what she was about to do. But she was among them.

She recalled then one further discrepancy between the painting and the scene she was now witnessing. A curious detail in the painting that had drawn her attention, and then had seemed also to draw Lena's, was that the faces of the seven robed figures had all looked strikingly similar, even identical. And that of course had only been obvious because in the painting their faces were uncovered. Katharina looked around again at the other of the Seven Sisters, and reassured herself that the hoods of their cloaks were drawn forward, as was her own, obscuring their identities. Her stomach convulsed with a flutter of dread at the thought that she might later be called upon to reveal herself. She hoped only that Miriam could be trusted and that she would be able to avoid exposure by remaining concealed and simply following as the others led.

Katharina drew herself into readiness and clutched her cloak around her waist as she saw a rustle of movement beside her. A cluster of four robed figures, those four whom she had watched ascend the stairs ahead of her from the amphitheater, had just finished discarding their shoes. Feeling for her own feet, she was reminded that she was not wearing shoes. The soles of her feet were bare to the grass beneath, slightly cool in the sharper near-morning air. The last of the other girls' shoes clattered onto the floor, and one bare foot at the end of a very long and pale slender leg disappeared back under the folds of a robe. Anna.

Katharina thought then to try to identify the others of the Seven. In particular she wondered about Julie, who was, or so it seemed, the dmaani, the Sister who in the painting had been singled out with a peculiar symbol, whose identity had been decisive for Vera, and whose decision had fallen against Vera, despite her having described her as a friend. Katharina watched two more robed figures moving around the edge of the circular stone altar. Katharina found that she could identify neither of the two. Both were shrouded in the bulk of their dark green robes. When Katharina turned to look again at the other four, those who had just discarded their shoes, she found she could not identify any of them either. She could not even pick out again the one that she had moments before recognized as Anna by her distinctive long legs.

The four joined the other two in circling around the altar. They seemed each to be seeking a particular position. Accustomed to the elegance and the severity with which the Seven Sisters typically conducted ceremony, Katharina was surprised to see some disorder in their movements, a few false steps, two of the figures even nearly collided as they sought their spaces. But they moved quietly and swiftly, and in a matter of a few moments each had taken up her place behind one of the dmurrhisi girls lying on the altar.

Although none of the figures looked directly at her, Katharina saw some of their heads twitch and glance upwards. Startled into action, she rushed to move before she knew where she was moving, then almost stumbled into the back of one of the other girls before she collected herself and took up the only remaining empty space around the altar.

She stood still, squinting up from beneath the hood of her robe, and observed the other Sisters across the top of the stone altar. Slivers of faces were just visible, jawlines, smiles. Katharina's heartbeat sounded in her skull, she could even see her own pulse as a faint tremor in the contour of the edge of her hood where it hung across her vision. She wondered how the outline of her face compared to Miriam's. It was perhaps sufficiently similar. Both of them were slender, and pale-skinned. Miriam was a little darker, but not to an extent that would be discernible in the half light of pre-dawn.

Only her height might betray her for now. Katharina knew that she was taller than Miriam. She tried to stoop a little as they all stood in a circle. She spread her legs and let her joints relax, standing loose. As she did so it occurred to her that she might still be able to identify the others by their heights. But as she glanced around the circle she found it was difficult to make a clear judgment of each girl's size. Some stood taller than the others, but given that so many of them sometimes wore high-heeled shoes and sometimes did not, she had no clear idea of who should be taller when barefoot.

Only one girl stood out. Katharina recognized one of the Seven Sisters with whom she had never spoken, but who she had seen often at gatherings, and had heard speak, usually on matters concerning the Sisterhood's relationship with the Order of Saint Lydia in the East Wing convent. Lauren was conspicuously tall, standing a clear head above the tallest of the other girls, and her robe did not quite reach the floor, leaving her thin ankles exposed.

Lauren was standing two spaces around the altar to Katharina's right. As she recognized Lauren, Katharina's attention turned to the dmurrhisi girl lying face down on the altar just in front of where Lauren was standing. Katharina saw a thick tangle of glossy dark brown curls, soft smooth skin, and the striking bulge of one very heavy breast spilling out beneath the girl's torso, having slipped free of a tight black band of lace that she wore around her chest. Emmie.

Belatedly it occurred to Katharina to wonder whether each Sister was standing behind the girl that had been offered to her. But Katharina had of course missed the events of the ceremony and did not know who had been offered to whom. With one exception. If Julie was indeed the dmaani and if Leah, Lena's champion, had been selected first, then Julie would perhaps be standing behind Leah. Katharina looked over the girls kneeling around the edges of the altar. With their eyes bound and their mouths gagged, it was not easy to identify them in the twilight.

Before Katharina could look carefully at each of the bodies bent prone over the altar, a cry startled her and drew her head involuntarily upward to seek its source. She knew the voice. It was Marianne's. Marianne spoke most often and most prolifically at coven meetings, and her voice had a peculiar but compellingly beautiful music to it, as if she sometimes sang a little when speaking. Rhythmic, loud, and very high pitched. Marianne's voice sounded close beside where Katharina stood, just to her left. When Katharina looked, she matched the voice to the movement of a pair of lips in the dimness, then also saw beneath the cloak the breadth of Marianne's big hips and backside. Marianne was standing two spaces to Katharina's left. In front of Marianne lay another girl that Katharina recognized, Caroline. Caroline was naked, and her broad, bulky body glistened with sweat.

Marianne's voice rang out very clearly in the thin air of the outside, loud and high-pitched. It echoed off the stone walls that enclosed the garden, as if Marianne were singing over a choir of identical voices. What had sounded at first like a simple sung note of music then descended and broke into the first syllable of a word. Katharina's pulse quickened with excitement when she found that she recognized it. Or at least she thought she recognized it. A long i gave way to the hissing of Marianne's tongue against the roof of her mouth and Katharina heard the end of a word, -issa'ul, drawn out and sung like the keening of a wolf.

Hrissa'ul. Either Katharina had simply not heard the awkward cluster of consonants at the beginning of the word, or what she had heard now was a related or component word. Hrissa'ul, submission to desire, indulgence. An important ritual word, and one that Katharina recalled having heard most recently spoken by Anna, as part of the chant with which she had seemed to bewitch her ka'ini Mari. Just as this particular memory came to her and she recalled Mari's writhing body bound to the bedpost, Katharina heard Anna's voice, joining Marianne in the chant, repeating it. Anna's voice was distinct for a moment, and it seemed she stood very close to Marianne, perhaps right beside her, but then Katharina's attempts to pick out the source of Anna's voice were thwarted by a succession of further voices from around the altar, joining the chant at different moments and drowning each other in echoes. Katharina thought she heard Lena, and Lisa, before the singing fused to a single rambling music in her ears.

Having focused her attention on picking out the voices, Katharina found that the words of the chant had passed her by. The word hrissa'ul had been repeated, several times she thought, but there had been more too, a sort of irregular poem with occasional rhymes and a tantalizing near-regularity. Katharina could not be absolutely sure, but it seemed to be the same chant that Anna had spoken to Mari earlier. Katharina's lips began to follow and her voice rose hesitantly in her throat as sh stitched together those few parts of the chant whose approximate sound she could recall from before, although ignorant of their meaning.

Almost as soon as she had found her place in the chorus and begun to feel quite pleased with her performance, Katharina's focus was punctured by a final voice joining in belatedly, right beside her. Julie's voice was sweet and girlishly cheerful. Curiously, the voice carried rather less of the heady charisma that Julie otherwise exuded, particularly since she seemed to be stumbling and improvising a great deal of the chant, was singing it even more poorly than Katharina herself.

Julie had spoken only a few lines of the chant when the other voices began to die down, continuing to murmur but quieter, close to the edge of hearing. Like Julie beside her, Katharina hurriedly ceased speaking. Katharina saw the other Sisters, Julie among them, raise their arms, hands parted. She rushed to copy them, but realized just a moment too late what the intent of the gesture was. When the others brought their hands swiftly together to break the silence with a loud and more or less synchronized clap, Katharina was behind, and her clap came just out of time, alone and awkward. Some of the shrouded heads around the altar looked up, and Katharina was swept by a suddenly rising panic. The confidence she had gained from the chant dissipated and she was reminded starkly of the precariousness of her deception, and the impulsive madness of what she was doing.

A voice at her right, probably Lisa's, hissed at her, "Miriam!"

Katharina's heart beat hard and her legs shook with cold fear. She hung her head, trying to let her hood hang as low as possible without conspicuously appearing to be hiding her face. She waited, already beginning to rehearse what she might say if she were discovered, what far-fetched excuses she might still be able to offer.

But no further reprimand came. The lingering murmur of the chant died out, each voice at a slightly different time. The faintly comical hint of miscoordination among the other voices was reassuring. Katharina's general impression was that not all of the other Sisters were absolutely well-rehearsed with the chant, or with the rite in general. Miriam had hinted that she mostly relied on copying the others. So it was perhaps not necessarily an obvious giveaway if Katharina failed to follow every step exactly correctly. And Lisa had hissed Miriam's name just now, after all.

Having let her hood fall further over her eyes, Katharina could no longer observe clearly those on the other side of the altar. But she was able to glance to each side and see that on her left Julie was stepping forward, and on her right the figure that had just spoken and was presumably Lisa was doing the same.

Julie moved forward eagerly, and laid her hands on the hips of the girl bent over the altar in front of her. As Julie's slim fingers dug in to a plump cushion of softness, Katharina recognized then Julie's girl. Leah, with her big broad backside raised in the air, and her thick, athletic legs spread wide, crossing ankles with the two girls either side of her. It made sense, if each Sister was positioned behind the dmurrhisi girl who had been offered to her, as Katharina had suspected.

Katharina stepped forward in turn and approached her own girl, whose foot Leah was idly stroking. So far absorbed in the task of tracking and imitating the actions of the other of the Seven Sisters, Katharina had not thought to examine the girl right in front of her. She looked at her now for the first time, and did not recognize her. She thought back to her brief and rather cryptic conversation with Miriam, wondered whether Miriam had mentioned which girl had been offered to her, but Katharina did not think she had said.

The girl had quite a distinctive figure. Her waist was slim, and her shoulders slight, but behind her waist her hips widened and then gave way to a broad and very soft backside. Her figure was encased in a fine lattice of silver chains, as if several linked necklaces had been laid across her back. Her hair was very long and strewn across the cushions on which she lay, obscuring her face. In the dawning dark it shimmered with a bright silvery metallic color, was perhaps dyed.

Her own girl was silent, but Katharina heard Leah groaning, the sound muffled by the gag and burbling with the wetness of saliva. Julie had swept her robe aside a little and her dick was now exposed, thick and hard and upright. Katharina watched Julie bend to angle it downwards to press it against Leah's pussy then push it open. Even in the dimness Katharina could see the glisten of wetness on the two faintly hair-lined ridges of Leah's opening as they parted and stretched round Julie's thick shaft then began to slide along it.

Katharina turned her attention to her own girl, with the long silver hair. Katharina noticed to her chagrin that she was not yet hard enough to be able to penetrate the girl with ease. Since entering the walled garden, she had been preoccupied with finding her place in the rite and making sure she followed correctly and avoided detection. Her nervousness had kept her excitement in abeyance and she had not stopped to think of the act of the rite itself. While watching Julie enter Leah Katharina's dick had begun to lengthen, and to fill with the heat and heaviness of anticipation, but it still hung heavy between her thighs.

She leaned forward and reached out to set her hands on the girl, a little like Julie had done to Leah, only not on the hips but on the girl's invitingly soft backside, one hand planted firmly in the center of each cheek. Katharina felt the softness beneath her fingers, squeezed and then shook, savoring the slouching weight in her hands, and the warmth of the soft skin against her palms. Katharina kneaded slowly, drinking in the shape and movement of the girl's figure as she watched the little silver chains encasing the girl's body ripple and glimmer.

From beneath the tangle of the girl's long hair sounded a moan, muffled by the gag as Leah's had been. The girl had a very high-pitched voice. Her body beginning to warm with excited energy, Katharina took hold of her dick as it rose, then felt it throb in her hand as she guided it up to brush it against the girl's pussy. Katharina felt the tickle of sparse, silky hair against the now pulsing taut skin of her tip, then as she nudged forward past the friction of the girl's folds, she found the heat and the wetness just beyond and slid into it, the end of her dick enveloped in a tight pocket filled with moisture.

Katharina paused, and breathed in. She let the hot swell of satisfaction spread through her body, and her dick continue to thicken inside the girl's pussy, sliding deeper and tighter.