The Last Lagharis Pt. 08

Misha's camp had survived without her. Years ago, when she had been young and hungry, dwarfed by the legend of her ancestresses, that might have offended her. But now it made her proud to know that this thing she had built could stand on its own.

There had been hiccups. When Samar had told her horror stories of the discipline problems cropping up in her absence, she had assumed he was exaggerating. He hadn't been. And Chaarumathi's return had caused a stir. Through no fault of her own, Chaaru had split the company into factions, one supporting her as the new chief and the other opposing her. There had been rumors of an impending duel, one which both Chaaru and the interim chief had told her they did not want. Misha believed them. It was moot now regardless, because her return had silenced any such rumblings.

Now Misha rode on her horse, at the head of the Laghari Company once again. Today, her warriors were spread out on either side of a caravan that ambled across the muddy roads from the mountains to the sea. The Laghari company did the good, honest work of protecting good, honest folk from bandits.

A horse thundered up next to hers. "Captain," said a sharp female voice in a mountain accent. "A word?"

Misha turned to see Ihina the scout glaring at her. She would have taken that as a challenge, except she knew that Ihina was physically incapable of not glaring, so she did not raise her guard. "What is on your mind, scout?"

"I'm dying here," said Ihina. "We haven't had a battle since you came back. I'm a warrior, and there's nothing for me to do!"

"There is more to life than battle, scout, even for fighting women such as us. I seem to recall that, three times last week, you have been sent to reconnoiter for possible bandit hideouts."

"And I found nothing! I'm dying of boredom here."

"There are far worse fates than that, scout."

That made her cool down a little, but only a little. "It's just that I need plunder, Captain. It used to be, we got the chance to plunder every couple of months, but now it's nothing. I want..." she looked over her shoulder, making sure none of the merchants were listening. "I want to capture a man. That's the main reason I joined this company. It's time to stop being single."

"I understand better than you know. But if a husband is your goal, then I will remind you that there are many unmarried men in the Laghari Company."

"None of them will talk to me!"

"There are many more men who are slaves. It is possible one of them is for sale."

"I haven't got the money!" Ihina snapped, then she tempered herself again. "...Captain."

"How much are you paid, scout?"

"Twelve Queens every month."

"And how much do you spend?"

"Two." She shrugged. "Okay, eight, whenever we're in town."

"Then, should you curtail your spending, in about four years' time you will have more than enough to purchase a man capable of satisfying any need you have."

"Four years!" She said it as if she'd never heard of such a stretch of time.

"You face the prospect of four years without a man, and then the rest of your life with one. That is not so bad." Misha smiled. "I understand, Ihina, truly. You are young and hungry. You are eager to make your mark on the world before life passes you by. You are heedless of obstacles, as a young woman should be." Misha leaned in closer, and her smile grew wicked. "But if I were you, I would be grateful to be alive. I heard about what happened to your brother-in-arms Shiro. He named you as one of his attackers."

Ihina went pale. "You're... taking his side?"

"There were only two eyewitnesses, and the other is less than certain that you were one of the guilty. I do not hang women on the word of just one man, but there are many who would. Rather than complain of your pay, you should thank the gods that your missteps have not led you to the grave."

Ihina pursed her lips. Her eyes went wide, and Misha even thought she saw tears glisten on them.

"Now," said Misha, "Return to your place."

Ihina did not need to be told twice.

Misha smiled to herself. That had been extreme. Perhaps even cruel. But Ihina was a type of woman that Misha understood well, because the Laghari lineage was full of them. Such women didn't respond to soft-handed correction, but when put in line, they served well. They did well for themselves too.

That night, the merchants gathered in their caravan, and they let the mercenaries not on watch join in the merrymaking. Someone brought out a guitar and someone else, a flute, and together they were whistling out a bouncy, joyous tune. Everyone danced. Misha watched as Chaaru obligingly twirled around with a few star-struck caravan boys and then, finally, extended her hand to Jalil. As soon as their hands met, Chaaru truly came alive.

She orbited around Jalil, and where other men would have been confounded, Jalil kept up with her, following her with his hands, with his eyes, giving her a steady spot to caper around, pulling her in when she needed it. Watching, it was hard to believe it was all spontaneous.

During a lull in the music, Chaaru sat down to rest, sweating and happy, and Misha could not help saying, "Your marriage to him has been a very good thing."

"I'm so glad I have him!" Her whole body pumped with sincerity, and with the latent energy of the dance. "He always listens to me, he helps with everything, he gives me massages..." She stretched, as if reliving a memory of his palms on her back. "And he gets up to make us breakfast every morning. I get to spend longer in bed, and I love it!"

"By the way you look at him, I can think of another reason why you've been spending more time in bed."

Chaaru colored and gave a big, guilty smile.

"I have to confess, when you two first married, I did not take it seriously as I should have. I thought Jalil would hold your interest for a while, and then lose it and be forgotten." She remembered Chaaru and Jalil joining hands as they circled around a pot of perfumed broth, saying their wedding vows as was Chaaru's native custom. She remembered Chaaru promising to be patient and wise and Jalil promising to be diligent and obedient. Those were promises kept.

And that, in turn, got Misha thinking about her own marriage, specifically that she had none. She had put it off many times already and nearly gone to ruin, unmarried. Now, by some grandly undeserved stroke of luck, she was back in her old position as captain of the company, and she was determined not to repeat her old mistakes. She looked around for the nearest man, not caring who it was. She saw a strapping merchant lad of about twenty sitting on the sidelines. "You, boy," she said to him. "Let us dance!"

Hours later, Misha was in the warmth of her tent, seated on a mound of blankets layered over a wooden chest, her back against a heavy stack of boxes. Most of her clothing was gone, exposing everything from her shoulders down to her knees. She held her legs open, and she breathed hard as the young merchant man pushed his shaft into her.

He had the enthusiasm of a good lover. He had the energy. But he did not have the discipline. Thrice now, she had ordered him to slow down, and if he obliged her to say it a fourth time, she was determined to put a collar around his neck and leash him like a slave, just to remind him who was the woman. Not that that would mean much to him, born and raised as he was in the barbarism of patriarchy.

But thankfully, it seemed, that would not be necessary. Finally, he was looking into her eyes, matching his movements with hers, treating her and him as one. His speed had calmed to a pleasant, lively rhythm, and his grip on her thighs was firm and not too tight, and Misha was starting to enjoy herself.

He spent into his condom, and--here was the advantage of younger men!--recovered and was back at it in no time. Misha told him to finger her, and he did, and with some guidance brought her to orgasm. He gave her only one, but one, Misha decided, was enough. He finished again, and, finally, he was spent.

They lay on the blankets together, and gradually the pink mist cleared from Misha's mind. Where her body had felt like a rushing river, it settled into a tranquil lake once again.

The young man lay halfway between sleep and wakefulness, blissfully smiling at her. He held her hand, which was nice, but he was clearly too gone to hold a conversation.

The more she cooled off, the more ridiculous this encounter seemed. This man was young and clueless. Perhaps he would mature into a thoughtful husband and a hardworking father, but Misha would be old by then. She thought back to the dance and to Chaarumathi happy with her husband, and Misha laughed at herself. This man she'd brought into her tent was useless to her as a suitor. He was only good for fun. Even at that, she'd had better; if he had been a whore in the mountain-canyon brothel she'd frequented long ago, she would have tried someone else on her next visit.

The next morning, she kissed him goodbye and saw him off without asking his name.

Gavriil was handsome, there could be no doubt about that. But he was in many ways the opposite of most handsome men.

Most handsome men filled Misha with warmth. Most of them filled her head with fantasies of commanding them to kneel and be vulnerable, of seeing into their hearts and learning all their secrets. Of taking away their clothes, of taking away whatever they'd been before until they were nothing but lovers, men who existed purely to serve and please her.

Gavriil did the reverse. With him, Misha felt her passions cool. Her worries ebbed, her almost-forgotten grudges fled her mind completely, and her muscles relaxed. With Gavriil's hands on her naked back, massaging the stress and pain out of her hard-bitten body, she felt as if she could fall asleep at any moment. Oddly enough, when she laid him on his back and rode him, it had the same effect. His strong, soft body and strong, soft voice made her feel so calm, she felt as if she were in a trance. When she wanted to relax, he was just the man for that. But when she wanted excitement, he was no help at all.

Misha felt bored. It occurred to her to dismiss Gavriil, even as he was in the middle of massaging her, but she was enough the lady that she could wait for him to finish. Then she got another idea. She would never want to marry such a staid and unsurprising man, but she realized that she knew somebody who would.

"Gavriil?" she said. "Did it ever cross your mind to wonder if ever I would marry?"

Gavriil did not twitch. "It never crossed my mind that you'd choose me if you did."

"You're right about that, as much as I enjoy your company. And I fear that, by keeping you as my personal masseur, I have inadvertently scared away other women you might otherwise catch the eyes of. I've used you, selfishly."

"It's no trouble, captain. I do not chafe at my role."

"But still, I have deprived you of options for my selfish pleasure, and I wish to make it up to you. I have..." she struggled with whether to call it an offer or an opportunity. Which would appeal to him more? "An offer for you. What if I told you that there was a woman, within marching distance, who has never held a weapon in her life. One who loves peace and abhors discord and whose commitment to being right and proper has never, to my knowledge, wavered."

"I have not met a woman like that in a long, long time."

Most people would have missed it, but Misha knew him well enough that she detected a sheen of longing in his voice. Or maybe it was nostalgia. She pressed her advantage. "She is a woman who adores men who..." here she stopped and realized that she was not sure what Ayani wanted in a man. What a poor sister Misha had been, never to ask! "...she is a woman so scornful of violence that, when she became convinced that she had to choose between death and banditry, she chose death. Thankfully, there was a third option."

"If this woman who prefers death to danger is a friend of yours, then you are an odd couple."

"You are right about that. We came from the same womb, and that is probably the last time we ever went the same way about anything."

"Your sister is your very opposite?" said Gavriil, and the touch of enthusiasm was gone. Then again, he couldn't well show interest in Misha's very opposite without being rude to her, so whether he was uninterested or just sparing her feelings, Misha couldn't say. He said nothing after that. For all his virtues, he was one of those men who made Misha do all the work in a conversation.

She tried again. "Suppose I told you there was such a woman, and she was single and seeking a man. How long would you require to decide whether to offer yourself to her?"

"I have a good life here in the company. I do good work."

"Of course you do, Gavriil. I have spoken to women who told me the same from firsthand experience. But we face a dilemma, you and I. We are stalked by old age, and either we will marry soon, or we never will.

"Summertime is here, but it will not last forever. I trust you will keep this a secret, but very soon I will abdicate command of the company and hand it over to my trusted second, Chaaru, and I will retire to the mountains, my home, with the man of my choosing. And I will bring a second man, because I promised my sister that I would come back with a husband for her, and I do not intend to share."

"And you would have this other man be me."

"I can think of no man she would want more." Misha was sure of that much. Ayani had been so tight-lipped about what kind of man she wanted that Gavriil, being so similar to her in temperament, would be an easy sell.

Gavriil was silent. His hands still kneaded her back, but they had slowed a little. He was thinking. Finally, he asked, "How much danger will the company face in the coming years?"

"As I said, that will be for Chaaru and the gods to decide. I will have no part in it."

"Chaaru is a woman who loves to be merry. She loves to be loved. But she does not love battle, does she?"

"No. I suppose she only fought for me because she loved me."

"Since you came back, you have set the Laghari Company on a more peaceful path. My services have been almost useless." He radiated approval. "Chaaru will make that change permanent." His fingers tightened very slightly. "I will be honored to introduce myself to your sister."

At that, Misha grinned. She had one man committed. And one still to go.

Misha stared a scroll, practicing her reading. At least, she pretended to. On a normal day, she could have read whole sentences without hesitating, but today she was so nervous that she could barely work through three words without getting stuck.

Samar was due, and she did not know what to expect. Dominating a man was no challenge for an experienced lover such as herself, but the last time she and Samar had played together, it had been him in charge and her at his beck and call. After something like that, could she make him kneel again?

It was only the second time in her life she'd been hesitant on the cusp of sex. Not even her time as a slave had given her that feeling--after all, dominating men had taught her so much about them that it was not so hard to puzzle out how to submit. No, the only other time she'd felt this way had been on the day she'd first set foot in what would become her favorite brothel, money in hand and comically unsure what to say or how to start. She remembered the feeling of not belonging, of somehow being an impostor, as she scanned the diverse roomful of men, trying to make the impossible decision of which one she would pay to take her virginity.

That had been a long time ago. Not so long when measured in years, but very long in changes made and adventures had. In lessons learned.

Samar called, Misha bade him to enter, and in he came, sweet but fiery, calm but with a rough edge. They exchanged pleasantries which completely failed to mask the excitement that Misha felt and which he immediately picked up on.

"Take a seat," she said, gesturing to a big cushion across from her.

"You don't wish for a drink?" He said it with a teasing eyebrow cocked up, challenging her to flirt with him, prompting her to lord over him her power as a woman.

But she was too tense to do that properly. Fear always made her want to procrastinate, and she always compensated by rushing in. She tried to control herself so that she moved only a little too fast. "Samar. We have been through... much together."

"Highs and lows, Captain. And I regret none of it."

Misha smiled. That kind of talk was a good sign that he was ready to resume his submissive role. And there was another reason she smiled: any self-respecting man knew how to flatter a powerful woman, but Samar was exceptionally good at it, so good that Misha nursed a hope it was sincere. Now came the part she'd been dreading: "The last time we met in private, it was under different circumstances."

Samar smirked, remembering. She had stripped naked for him while he kept his clothes on, she had masturbated at his command, danced for him and used her mouth to please his cock. He was tactful enough to say nothing and let the memory drift between them.

"To this day, I do not understand what came over me. But from now on, we will be as we were, with you at my service. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly."

The tension flowed out of her. "Now come here." And she drew him into a kiss.

With the kissing came feeling, Samar's well-practiced hands touching all the most sensitive spots on her neck, on her sides, on her legs. His kisses touched down on her lips, but not only there. He also graced her neck, her chest, and so traveled down her body as they slowly stripped each other naked.

Misha wrestled Samar onto his back. He resisted a little, playing with her, prolonging her pushing and pulling on his muscular body, until finally she had him flat. She straddled his stomach, her sex slick on his skin. She sat there a moment, enjoying the sight of him spread out beneath her, enjoying the feeling of her thighs pressed around his middle. Then she turned herself around, took a sheepgut condom from the pot and unrolled it over his penis. All the while, she knew he was looking at her rear, but she did not mind.

She turned to face him again. She kissed him more, pressing harder this time, pushing her tongue deeper into his mouth, holding it for longer. And as they kissed, she shifted her weight, eased herself over his standing cock and sat on it. She rode him gently, and he bucked against her with a subtle, perfectly timed thrust. Instantly, he found her rhythm.

"Samar," she said through heavy breaths. "Samar, you have become my favorite. Do you realize this?"

He smiled like a conquering heroine. "I do."

He was a cocky one, certainly. Some time, she thought, she may have to whip him to remind him of his place. But she was finding she liked this attitude. She gripped him harder, harder with her fingers, harder with her sex, and rode him mercilessly to his orgasm.

When he was finished, she stayed mounted on him, fell forward and braced herself with hands on either side of his head. She gazed straight down at him. "Samar..." her voice was husky. "What we did alone, on our way back from the slave fair was a secret. And you kept my secret."

"I did."

"Trust, you may know, is more precious to a wise woman than gold."

He caressed her legs, his fingers telling her he was glad to do it.

She put a little more weight on her arms, making the cushion sink underneath him, and moved her torso up, her legs around his arms, until her sex hovered over his mouth.

"Samar, do you know why I started the company?"

"To become like your ancestress, Old Binsa?" Misha could tell by his voice that he knew that was not it. He did not know the real reason and was prompting her to give it.