Six Rings and a Pendant

"Lord Lurpin's Peace runs on the road," I shrugged. "He's this year's Overlord, and I believe we're now on Lord Glerming's lands. We made excellent time." I paused, but she didn't seem to cheer up. "Berken has no authority here," I reminded her. "And we can probably travel by day from now on, but I have to make sure I know where we are first."

"You don't know where we are?" She rolled her eyes. "I'm not sure how eager I am to keep traveling with you," she snarled viciously, and I wasn't sure I could blame her for her bad mood. Her legs had to be screaming after her first night on horseback. I'd already planned on giving her until tomorrow to mount up again, but only if I could be certain we had nothing to fear from Berken. "I might be better off on my own."

"An unarmed young woman, dripping with her mistress' jewelry," I mused, leaning my head back onto the thin grass. I was getting warmer, my clothes finally in full sun beside me. "Yeah. You'll do great."

"Fuck," she whined, tossing her hair, "how on earth could my hips hurt this much?"

"Because you're riding," I pointed out, basking now: the sun felt better and better. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been able to just lie in a field with nothing much to do. Odd that it was happening while I was fleeing my lord..."Without me, you'd be walking."

"Walking free," she sniped.

"No, for you'd still be in the Lower Stews," I laughed, "with no idea where to go or how to get anywhere else. And you'd be starving."

She frowned, picking at her blanket. "A woman can always find a way to support herself," she replied, with a pointed glance at my penis. I arched an eyebrow, then twitched it for her; she rolled her eyes. "I'd do all right."

"This is a peaceful realm," I reflected, "but only because the people who have gold also have men like me with them." She looked away again, sour, but I wasn't worried. The little wench was no fool, most of the time. "And I have no interest in seeing the likes of you turn into a harlot."

"Whatever." She sat up suddenly, staring hard across the field. "There's a man coming."

I tensed, my eyes snapping open. "Just one?"

"Yes."

I relaxed. "Won't be a problem, then." I yawned. "Probably the farmer, come to see who we are." Undoubtedly he'd seen the horses. I wondered what the custom was when stopping on a man's land: as a paladin, I'd never had to worry about it. Might makes right, and all that. Would the farmer expect an apology? A penny? I was pretty sure only lords could charge tolls... I sat up, ignoring my own sore hips, then made sure my sword was plainly visible at my right hand. "Don't put your clothes on."

"What?" She'd been fumbling for her damp shift.

"He won't be scared of a pair of nude travelers," I explained, watching his approach. He'd want to know what we were about. "Cover your hair, though, obviously."

I thought of a story. It was not too difficult.

The man was short, broad of face and with the long-loping gait that suggested he spent a lot of time on his feet. He looked much less wary once he realized we weren't wearing anything, even smirked as he reached us. "You're underdressed." I saw his eyes take in my weapon. "Where are you from?"

"Is this your land?" I smiled disarmingly. "We're just passing through. We fell into the river this morning, and we'll be on our way shortly."

"Not a problem." He hesitated. "It's just that I saw your horses, grazing over by my lane..."

I thought I saw where this was going, and spread my hands calmly. "Forage fee? Say, half a penny for the trouble we're causing?"

"Well, shit," he drawled, his eyes flickering to where Nellie's bare shoulders emerged from the blanket, "I can't say I'd turn that down. You're coming north, then? From the Lowers?"

Fuck. "That's right," I lied, "all the way from Barrowe."

His eyes glinted. "Been through Harrowhall, then. Yesterday, maybe?"

"Maybe."

He chuckled. "I heard a rumor that the Lady of the Lower Stews, her that's married to Berken the Mirkin, she got her fine bare ass pilloried a little bit ago." He glanced again at me. "And now that I see you two, it seems hanging about with no clothes is something of a local pastime down there?"

I joined him in a long laugh, and even Nellie managed a smile. "It's nothing I've heard of," I shrugged, "but then we hardly stopped there." I could see the man wanted more, so I launched into my lie. "The girl here is off to the abbey, up Prossfield way." The abbey. This guy wouldn't know: Prossfield was a large place, and far, with a huge abbey. It was awash with priests and nuns. I wouldn't need to specify. "She's the daughter of the Lord of Smallbridge. Over near Rannack's Dyke?" Again, he'd have no clue, which was fine; I'd made the names up. "He's paying me to escort her."

"Oh!" The man looked relieved. "Not a problem. Um, so I guess you'll be coming back through in a few days?"

"Doubtless."

"Good, good." He glanced one last time at Nellie. "So. Egan and Krall'a give you a safe journey then, lady."

"Thank you." She did a passable impression of a haughty bitch, I gave her that. An interesting choice of gods he'd invoked: trade and peace. I leaned sideways and burrowed through my money sack, jingling along until I felt the sharp corner of a hacked penny in there.

"Here you go." I flipped him the coin, flashing another smile. "We'll be leaving just as soon as our clothes dry. Um, mind telling us where we might be?"

He caught it. "Buffland Manor. We follow Lord Noldegar here. But you're on the Duke of Hoggin's land, that's Jorom of Hoggin. He's overlord. They say he's going to be giving this manor to his son, though."

"Oh. Sverri?" Everyone knew Jorom and his sons. Two of them were margraves now, people said.

"No, the next one. Kimmet. Seems a decent fellow. Anyway. Stay as long as you like." He studied the penny curiously, as though he didn't see many of them. "From the Year of Lord Kleptick, eh?"

He'd died three years and two Overlords ago. He'd been brother-in-law to Lady Manda. "His silver's still good, though."

"That it is." The man nodded pleasantly, then waved himself out of our lives with a studied air of nonchalance as he strolled back across the fields. I glanced over to see Nellie glaring at me.

"We're fucked," she moaned.

"In no way are we fucked." I shrugged, the sun much warmer now. "We'd be wise to avoid the main road, though, that's true."

"Where, then?" she demanded. I arched an eyebrow.

"Wherever you wish, m'lady of Smallbridge," I smirked. "I thought you'd be striking out on your own, anyhow."

She scrunched up her face, her little nose wrinkling. "You know I can't."

"Yes. I do. Not until I get you to the Sea, anyway." I stretched my arms high, yawning cavernously. "I'm going to take a nap, then when I wake up we'll gather the horses and get on our way. East on the Road, toward the abbeys, then we'll leave the way when we're well past our inquisitive farmer's manor and go back west." I lay back, my arms and legs sprawled. "I doubt it matters." I was getting an idea, one that might work well the farther we got from the Stews, and I needed to think while I slept. "Don't mess with my prick while I'm sleeping, slave," I smiled as I closed my eyes.

"You wish." I could hear her smiling, though, and that was something.

* * *

And so, in the end, Nellie the Slave from the Witch's Tit had no real time for her thighs to get over her first night in the saddle, because I had her up again early in the afternoon riding down the Road past Buffland where we'd spent the morning drying off, each of us with a bellyful of hard bread and some cheese. I was already worrying about our provisions. I didn't see that farmer again, nor any others, but I led us a good mile away from the manor before I took a deep breath and plunged north off the road down a lane. "Where are we going?" she called from behind, her voice coming in little spurts as her horse walked.

"West, eventually."

"No shit, asshole," she grated, "but to where?"

I smiled to myself. All around me stretched the Dale, just as it always had everywhere I'd ever gone: fields and hills and streams and woods, in lovely profusion under the slender autumn sun. "We're going to the Sea, Lady Nellie of Smallbridge."

"Where the fuck is Smallbridge?"

"You heard me. It's near Rannack's Dyke." I shrugged and laughed, my mood suddenly soaring. "I made it up." I reined Dickhead back, with nothing at all in view except a distant gang of men to the west, reaping. "Hey," I said quietly, twisting in my saddle, "why not be Lady Nellie of Smallbridge?"

She cocked her head. "What's this now?" She looked quite fetching after a meal, some sleep, and a life of newfound freedom.

"The jewelry." I glanced down at her vagina without even thinking. "Some of it is... well, accessible? Yes?" I shrugged. "Put that shit on."

"I can't."

"You can," I scoffed, "for the rich young daughter of a lord, riding to an abbey with one of her father's paladins, is a far simpler situation than a mysterious pair of wanderers with no reasonable errand." I glanced back at the reapers. "Hurry."

"But... they're too good..."

"Not for Lady Nellie of Smallbridge." I snapped my fingers. "No. Fuck that. Pick a new name."

Her mouth fell open in a way that did not inspire confidence. "What?"

"Why be Nellie, a former slave, when you can be..." I leaned toward her pointedly, amazed I hadn't thought of this sooner: this was the idea I'd been sleeping on. "Your new name, m'lady?" I prompted softly.

She stared at me a few seconds before her gaze sharpened, her fingers plucking at where one of Manda's pendants hung beneath her dress. "Jessa," she nodded.

"Lady Jessa," I smiled, bowing in the saddle, "daughter of, um, Wibbin, Thane of Smallbridge. And I will be your father's faithful retainer..." I pondered, then nodded. "Osber. I'll be Osber of Gribble."

"This is fucking insane, Pewick."

"It is not, Jessa," I snapped. "Now get that pendant out and let's get riding. We're wasting time." Indeed, Dickhead was scraping impatiently at the farm lane, so I watched as she hauled out one of m'lady's jewels to leave it sparkling on her shapely tit. "Looks great."

"I'll dig out some rings when next I piss," she snapped. "They're up in there pretty far."

"I don't need to know that." She dug hesitantly into the bundled clothes behind her, wincing as she shifted, and returned with a thick gold arm-ring. "There you go. Now you look like you're worth hiring a soldier to ride with you."

"Pretty shitty soldier," she groused, rubbing at her thighs. "After you, Osber."

"That's better." I nudged my horse about and carried on up the lane, scanning the ground before us and seeing, as expected, absolutely nothing. This corner of the Marches was nothing if not bland, essentially the same from the Wizard's Nose all the way to the sea, but it was the best kind of bland. I heard tales of war in the past, fifty or sixty years ago when the Elves had still come; tales of battle in their own homeland too, over the sea, and of course everyone knew the lands in the other direction were a mess too.

Only here. Only Whitelinen Dale lay at peace. I rode a little taller in the saddle as the sun sank behind.

She did put some rings on when we stopped for a quick meal in the shade by the riverbank, just where our path finally left the meandering water for good. We spent the afternoon crossing nameless fields, skirting innumerable ponds. Birds flocked above, all of them beating steadily south, a reminder that the nights would soon turn colder. I was nervous about that: we were past the time that I should have been seeing frost on the grasses by dawn, and my body knew I needed to get to Galtin's Port as soon as I could, to find a job and a place to stay for the winter.

The shadows before us reached down a long, gentle slope when I began looking around for a place to spend the night. I was trying hard to concoct a story that would work if we met anyone: the idea that I was taking young Jessa of Smallbridge to an abbey was a fine story, I knew, and plausible... but I needed an abbey to be taking her to, and Prossfield was behind us now. I turned in the saddle.

"Do you know anything about the lands west of us?"

She picked her head up from where her chin had been bumping at her chest, lulled by the motion of the horse. "What?"

"West. The lands ahead. Do you know of any places? Any abbeys or villages?"

She frowned, looking tired. "This part of the Dale? That's where m'lady is from. Her brother is sheriff here." She looked doubtful. "I've never been here, though."

"I need a place far away. Way ahead." I strained to remember whether I knew of anyplace else, anyplace well west of here Ah! "Zhowak. That's ahead of us. Way the hell on the other side of the Wound."

"If you say so." It had been a long day for those fragile hips of hers, still unused to being on horseback. Nellie wasn't going to be very helpful, I decided; instead I turned back and frowned, trying to remember the names of places near Zhowak. I snapped my fingers. "Melima. That's where we'll say we're going."

"For me to be a fucking nun," Nellie said dully, and once again I could almost feel her eyes roll.

We had a day's provision left after we made a simple meal of some stale bread, a fair bit of cheese, and the last of the bacon, along with an onion and some cress we'd found by the river when we'd stopped at midday. I risked a fire, which Nellie hunched over gratefully, her face transforming as the orange light danced up toward her. "Fuck, I'm sore."

"Yeah." I stretched out on the other side of the fire, yawning. "We'll need to find more food tomorrow. I don't know how near we are to the Sea."

"Too far for fish," she said after a moment, smiling tiredly.

"No, I mean I don't know how much longer we'll be on the road."

She nodded, her eyes drooping, then she seemed to shake herself into alertness enough to stare across the fire at me. "Hey."

"Mmm?" I was just thinking about going to sleep, probably in the grassy bit down under that elm tree...

"Thanks, Pewick. For helping me."

"I'm helping us," I shrugged, "but you're welcome."

She ducked back to the fire once more, taking care to keep her curly hair out of the flames, then yawned like a cave. "Let's sleep."

"Let's." I'd banked the fire well, and it was low anyway, so I just left it and took my blanket beneath the elm. "It'll be a cold night."

"Yes." She rose and shrugged matter-of-factly out of her dress. "Share a blanket?"

"Why not." I debated about whether to leave my leggings on, but in the end opted to leave them near the fire instead. I'd need to wash them tomorrow night, I knew. My tunic joined the leggings, and I stood there in my shirt with my feet in the cold grass. "Hurry up," I yawned, scratching my ass.

"Shift, or no shift?" she fretted, tugging at her linens.

"Who gives a shit?" I grunted. "I'll be asleep either way." I threw aside my shirt and rolled myself into my blanket in one motion, my hood over my head with the rest of the cloak underneath as a pillow. "Come on." She scuttled nude under her blanket, throwing it over both of us and tucking into my body. Hers was warm and smooth, a squirming tangle of supple limbs and smoke-stenched hair. I was amazed that she'd left her hair uncovered, the wild tresses stirring my face and my blood. I felt my cock lurch, quite unexpectedly. "Where's the jewelry?"

"Safe enough." She pressed back against me, feeling my own heat. "I buried it." She yawned, then twisted back toward me with a squawk. "Really?"

"What?" I blinked, the picture of innocence as the dying firelight warmed my face.

She shifted her hips, not without a little hiss of pain. "Your cock is hard," she accused.

"Yeah, don't worry about it." I laid my arm casually down her body, my hand resting on her thigh. "It'll subside eventually."

"Even without cumming?" She sounded skeptical, and I admitted to myself she might have a point: the cheeks of her ass felt very good trapping my shaft in between. I willed her not to move; if I spewed all over her back, I'd never hear the end of it. She'd be mocking me forever.

"I'm a man, not an animal." I sniffed in her hair. "I have total control over my urges. Trust me: it'll go down on its own."

She relaxed, wedging tighter against me, the night deepening around us. At length, she sighed. "It's not going down, Pewick."

"Yes, I'm keenly aware of that, Nellie." I gritted my teeth and tried to think of something else: embroidering, say. Or woodcarving. "Stop moving."

"Why?" She had a note of mischief now. "I'm just trying to get comfortable." Her tail was wagging, though, her body shifting in gently sinuous waves against me. "I'm trying to keep my hips from getting stiff."

"Bullshit."

"What?" she snickered, "do you think I'm trying to get you off or something?" Her voice had a singsong quality to it now, the little bitch. "I'm sure that could never happen, Pewick. After all," she added, her voice smug, "you're a man, not an animal."

My thumb ran over the skin alongside her thigh; I wondered when I'd started that. "I'm just trying to go to sleep, Lady Jessa."

She giggled. "Most of you is trying to go to sleep." She craned her neck around, sounding curious. "When's the last time you spurted?"

Her breath smelled of cheese. "The night before I came to fetch you." I knew my hips were moving, slight swinging motions in time with her hips, and I also knew I didn't want to stop myself. Though, I told myself I could. "Hilda."

"Your first time with her?" She sounded impish.

"Yes. Well... almost." I ran my hand up her flank, feeling the slats of her ribcage, then the back of her firm tit against my fingertips. "She'd sucked me once, years ago. On a boast at Yule."

"Let me guess: you bragged that you could keep yourself from shooting? She set out to prove you wrong?" Again I could hear her smiling. "I can relate."

"Is that why you're smearing your saddle-sore backside against my cock?" I reached around and tweaked her breast. It was something I'd wanted to do ever since she'd shown up at the Castle, a bold-eyed wench of nineteen? Twenty? She was every bit the firm, juicy handful I'd imagined she'd be, and she did not seem to mind me groping her. "Is this some sort of boast?"

"It's not Yule," she pointed out, her voice low and hoarse. I nodded in the night; they told tales of the pagans we'd once been, the way they'd abandoned themselves to their lusts on Yule, before the Gods had come. Hilda and a number of the other servants sometimes kept up the old customs, fucking the night away with the peasants, though I'd never heard of Nellie participating. "I'm just trying to stretch out my hips, is all, after a long day of riding."

My throat had gone dry. "And... well, perhaps a night of riding, too?" I thrust forward hopefully, my cock vibrant now.

She reached back under the blankets and slapped my leg. "Of course not," she hissed. "I'm no slut, Pewick."

"I've heard otherwise, girl."

She laughed playfully. "Yeah, well, only sometimes." We lay in silence for a few moments then, hips churning easily, companionably, our thoughts aligned now as surely as our bodies. I was brutally hard, thrusting in short, firm movements along her crack, my fingers light over her hardening little nipple. "What are we doing here, paladin?"

"I'm trying to go to sleep, slave," I growled, and she gasped when she felt my breath on her neck. "I don't think you are."

"You can stop anytime you wish to," she pointed out, and now whenever she spoke there was an exhilarated laugh waiting around every corner. "After all, you're a man. Not an animal."

I had the sudden urge to pull back, swing low, and push forward between the wench's thighs, seeking a cunt I knew had to be smeared wet with her arousal. I wasn't sure she'd mind, but something held me back. That was serious, a step impossible to walk back from. A gamble. Instead I dug forward deeper into her crack, feeling her welcome me. I wondered for a moment whether she'd ever had a man in her ass. "Although," she mused, hoarse, "you're feeling more and more like an animal by the moment, if you don't mind my saying so."