Westrons Pt. 12

- "You didn't hurt me, Cook. I understood. You were a little upset, and a little bit angry ... and you channeled that energy into me. I would have told you immediately if I hadn't enjoyed it."

That made me feel a little better.

"You know," she said, "if we can sign a lasting peace, I may want you to give me a child."

I made a sound something like a 'gleep'.

"A daughter?" said Kanitz "To follow in my footsteps, perhaps? Or yours?"

After a quick breakfast, she was all business once again. She took me back to her receiving room, and passed me a bundle of papers.

- "Read these, Cook. I will return, shortly."

The first paper was a letter.

Congratulations, you lucky bastard! Tell Langoret that I'm pleased for her as well. Damn you both - why couldn't I have been there?

There's nothing happening down here - well, a few skirmishes between outposts. I lost a little piece of my ear when a Crolian missed me by an inch or so - don't know if he was lucky, or I was!

It looks like the war may be over. It won't last, though. Before you know it, those bastards will be back at our throats. Trust me on that.

When that happens, I want to be wherever you and Langoret are - because that's where the action will be.

Please don't forget me!

Yours,

Tudino

Tudino! The real victor at Tonol ... Langoret and I had set the table, but it was Tudino who'd delivered the crucial, decisive blow. And she wanted to work with us!

There were two more applications - or petitions, I suppose - asking to serve with me, or me and Langoret. I didn't know any of the names.

Then there were drawings of a building, a map of Cercen ... I had no idea what they meant. I was still trying to make sense of them when Kanitz returned.

She had several soldiers with her.

- "Colonel Cook, these are your new bodyguards." said the Chancellor.

Ishana was a hard-faced, slightly older female. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear that she was wanted for murder in all three kingdoms. She had dark circles under her eyes, and sharp, angular features.

Madze was a big girl, with brown hair, powerful arms and a cleft chin.

Nasta was a tall, blue-eyed blonde. If I'd met her at home, I would have guessed that she had Russian or Ukrainian blood. Except for one thing: she had a wide, flattened nose.

Koroba was a skinny blonde, with brown eyes, which reminded me of Themis. But the Queen's sister had a lush body, generous hips and full breasts. This girl was thin, and sharp-featured. She also met my gaze straight on.

There was one more thing I noticed, at first glance: Nasta looked like a nice girl. The other three had hard eyes - killers, if I wasn't mistaken.

"Ishana will arrange a rotation, so that you aren't left alone." said Kanitz. "We don't want any ... accidents."

Then her tone softened. "Can you come back tomorrow night? Spend the evening with your friends, but I would appreciate it if you could join me for dinner again."

- "I would be honoured."

- "You can trust these women, Cook. They were all friends of Oshide."

***

It was decidedly weird, knocking on Talley's door, with four women like these. Tisucha was completely unfazed; she embraced me warmly, and then invited my bodyguards in.

- "We won't disturb your reunion, ma'am." said Ishana, who seemed to be the leader of the squad. "We can watch from outside, for now. But if Colonel Cook is staying the night, I'd prefer to have one or two of us inside, then."

- "I have blankets and pillows," said Tisucha, "if you don't mind sleeping on the floor." She didn't mention that I'd be sleeping there, too.

- "Perfect. Thank you." The four of them left.

- "I'm glad that you have bodyguards." said my hostess. "Tallia told us about the attempt on your life. And that poor girl Oshide ..." The rest of the family appeared.

Talley actually embraced me.

- "You did it. Goddamn - you actually did it!" He broke out another special bottle.

Tallia hugged me, and kissed me on the lips. Then, suddenly, it got a little awkward. Esyle was standing shyly behind her sister. I wasn't entirely sure how to greet her, after what her sister had told me.

Esyle had tremendously long dark brown hair, which hung down her back almost all the way to the top of her ass. She wasn't quite so slender as Tallia; 'a little more meat on the bone' would be one way to describe her.

Tallia was more exotically beautiful, like her mother, but Esyle was lovely in her own way, with a certain vulnerability that made me want to cherish and protect her.

Better not to delay - even if I made a faux pas, that would be better than to leave her hanging. I stepped forward, and took her in my arms. Just a hug - but a warm one.

- "Welcome home." she whispered.

They had questions about everything. Tallia had already described the battle for her family, from her perspective. Now they wanted to hear it from my point of view. Talley, so far as I knew, had never had a military career, but he asked technical questions, more to show off his own knowledge than to hear my answers.

Tisucha kept the food and drink coming, without seeming to miss one word of the conversation. But it was Esyle who kept attracting my attention. She sat quietly at the end of the table, her mouth slightly open. Her eyes never left me, except when I glanced her way; then she'd blush and look down.

I knew what the sisters wanted; Tallia had spelled it out for me, quite clearly. They hoped to share me.

It was flattering, of course, and the idea was intriguing. But to have Tallia's sister sitting only a few feet away, watching, and listening to every word ... it was definitely odd. I hardly knew Esyle.

She'd been barely 16 when I first arrived. I was 25 now, but felt as if I'd aged a decade in the past two years. Esyle still seemed very young to me.

I was thinking like a Terran, of course. There was nothing wrong with having sex with someone you'd just met - but that wasn't what was happening here. Esyle wanted to sleep with me, and then be a partner for life - along with her sister.

I caught their mother watching me, too. She knew what her girls were planning - and she approved! Tisucha eventually called an early end to the meal, and tried to hustle her husband upstairs to bed. Usually, Talley would have gone, after only the mildest of protests.

Tonight, though, he broke that pattern.

- "You go ahead, dear." he said. "The boy and I have a little talking to do."

- "Don't be too long. Your daughters need to talk to Cook, too."

- "I'll call them when we're done." he promised.

I braced myself for one of two things:

- a father and son-in-law heart to heart (maybe Talley was going to tell me to stay away from Esyle, or to choose one daughter and stick to her exclusively)

- or, some male bonding over military matters

It was neither.

- "What'd you say to Kanitz?" he asked. "Did you shit the bed?"

- "Pardon? What do you mean?" Talley was speaking to me in Terran slang. If anyone was listening, they were unlikely to understand a word.

- "The Chancellor called me up on the carpet - gave me the 3rd degree about Pylos." He glared at me. "What did you tell her?"

Talley and I were on the same side on this one - in fact, we were the side - there was no point in keeping secrets from him on this subject. I related my astonishing conversation with Kanitz, including her shrewd questions about my failure to write letters to any of my friends back in Pylos.

- "You're telling me that she guessed?" said Talley. "Holy shit ..."

He poured us both a stiff drink.

"We are royally fucked, boy."

- "Not necessarily." I said. "She could have exposed me immediately - but she didn't. Hell, she could've made us both disappear, if she wanted to."

- "That's true."

- "I think she's curious. But she doesn't question our loyalty - either of us."

- "As long as we're useful." said Talley. "My maps, you on the battlefield."

- "Exactly."

- "Alright. S'long as neither of us says anything stupid. By that, I mean s'long as you don't say anything stupid. Maybe we should compare notes - get our stories straight."

- "That's a good idea." I agreed. "Tomorrow, though? We should do that when we're sober."

- "Mmm. Yeah."

Talley finished his drink, and climbed the stairs to his room. I don't know if he told his daughters that we were done, or if they'd been listening all along, but Tallia and Esyle came down a moment later.

Tallia poured us another drink.

- "Well? How do we do this?" she said.

- "It's not a we, yet." I replied. "There has to be Esyle and me, before anything like that. But I think that we need to discuss it, first."

It wasn't entirely my imagination: I'm pretty sure that Esyle flashed me a look of gratitude. She seemed to be eager, but also terrified, in equal parts.

- "Alright." said Tallia. She began rolling up her sleeves.

- "He means me and him." said Esyle. "Just the two of us."

Tallia seemed a little disappointed. She looked to me for confirmation.

- "That's exactly what I meant."

Big sister gave in. "Fine, you two work it out. But I want to hear everything in the morning." She kissed me, and stroked my hair as I caressed her leg. "Goodnight, then."

She left me alone with her sister.

- "You can relax, Esyle." I said. "I'm not going to insist that we copulate on the floor."

She surprised me by grinning. "I'm not afraid of the physical act, Cook. Mother and Tallia have described it for me - many times - and it sounds wonderful. Tallia even said that it's very exciting to do it on the floor."

These women were never going to cease amazing me. Here I'd thought that Esyle was a blushing virgin ... but she was worried about something ...

- "What is it that you are afraid of?"

Esyle took a deep breath. "I'm sorry ... it's just that ... I don't know if Tallia and I have given you a choice in the matter. If I know my sister, she simply told you that you would be my first, and then that we would share you afterwards."

"I don't believe that we ever asked how you felt about it."

I'll admit it: I was touched. I reached out, and gently placed my hand over hers.

- "Thank you, Esyle. For thinking of me."

- "Oh, Tallia thinks of you, Cook. She just assumes that she knows what you would like, without the need to ask. But she loves you dearly."

- "And I love your sister, too. But I learned to love her, when we were working together, day after day, sharing meals, sleeping in the same tent ..."

- "I'm not very military, I'm afraid."

- "I know. I don't expect you to be. One Tallia is plenty. But what I meant was ... we had time to discover that we liked each other. I knew that I was attracted to her, but I found out that I admired her quick thinking, her cheerfulness ..."

- "You want to know me better, and decide if you like me ... before you decide if we should copulate? I don't understand ..."

- "No. It's not about ..." Suddenly, I had the urge to laugh. Here I was trying to talk myself out of sleeping with a lovely young girl.

"You're very attractive, Esyle. Of course I want to copulate with you. And I like you - very much. That makes it even more appealing to me."

- "It increases your pleasure, if you like your partner?"

- "Well ... yes, it does. But we Pylosians ... we can differentiate between fucking, and making love." I proceeded to explain the two concepts to her.

- "So ... you fucked Countess Aneli, and gave her a child, but you make love with my sister." Esyle frowned. "I'm not sure that I understand, Cook, because some of the things Tallia described sound more like fucking."

"Perhaps I should ask my mother whether she fu-"

- "Yes! Splendid idea." I interrupted. "The point is ... I'd like to get to know you better, Esyle. Before we commit to the kind of relationship that I have with Tallia."

- "I see. You want to fuck me, but you're not sure if you like me."

- "No! I mean ... I do like you. Very much. I just don't know if ... we should commit to a long-term relationship, when we don't know each other all that well yet."

Esyle nodded. "I'm sorry, Cook. I'm not trying to be difficult. I just don't see why we can't copulate, and then decide if we have a future together."

- "Ah - because ... that might make you feel bad, if I'm with your sister, but you and I decide that we aren't right for each other ..."

Esyle smiled, suddenly. "I think that I'm beginning to understand! You don't want to copulate, and then discover that you don't really like me ... because you're afraid to hurt my feelings. You're worried about me."

Her smile grew even broader. "That's very sweet."

What a woman. What a planet.

***

I slept on the floor, with hard-faced Ishana on one side of me, and the big blonde, Nasta, on the other.

Ishana snored.

***

Kanitz had invited me back to the Palace. That was just was I needed, at this point: another erotic encounter with an amazing woman, while I tried to work out in my head if I wanted to have sisters as my lovers, in a long-term relationship.

She insisted on showing me more diagrams of a building in Cercen. I didn't understand what it was, or why she was consulting me about it.

- "I am not consulting you." she said. "The Queen is trying to decide if she should give it to you."

- "Wait - this building? It looks like ..." There was no Westron word for 'mansion'.

"It's practically a ... Palace."

- "It is a Palace, Cook. It's called the Belere, and it once belonged to the Queen's great-aunt. She was a very good general, you know."

- "The Queen wants to give me a Palace?"

- "How else is she to reward you?"

She could buy me more 3-pounders, I thought. But it made sense, all of a sudden. She couldn't very well give me a title - since their disasters with a male army, the Westrons had undergone a profound social and cultural revolution.

Nobles, officers, the entire army ... these were the preserve of females. I was an anomaly - and a potentially dangerous precedent.

- "That's ... very generous." I ventured.

- "An address in Cercen could be beneficial for your social standing." said Kanitz. "You can't very well continue to sleep on Tisucha's floor."

"Your aide could turn it into a sort of ... headquarters, for you, when you're in the city."

- "Thank you." Kanitz hadn't said a word about Talley. No mention of her meeting with him. Maybe it wasn't going to be an issue.

- "Dinner in an hour." she said. "I have some business to conclude. Can you find your way upstairs, to my rooms?"

- "I know the way."

Kanitz leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek.

- "Good."

I washed up, in a porcelain basin, and then wandered out to her balcony, to look out over the city.

A Palace. The Queen was going to give me a Palace. Tallia would be in her element, updating the furnishings, finding staff to keep it clean, to maintain the gardens ...

Would Esyle like it? Would she want to live there, if Tallia and I had to go back to war?

I found myself grinning, as I looked at the rooftops of Cercen. This was not at all what I'd expected, lying in stasis aboard a Halygon ship, on my way into exile.

It was a thousand times better. Successful general, respected by able soldiers like Langoret and Tudino ... hero of the hour, with a grateful Queen looking to reward me ... on a planet of fascinating women, who loved talking about sex, having sex, and especially having sex with yours truly ...

Plus I had the ear of the Chancellor, a fascinating woman who engaged me at every level. I heard her footstep behind me, and turned around, wondering what she might be wearing this time.

It wasn't Kanitz.

- "Hello, Cook."

I couldn't catch my breath.

- "Princess ..."

- "No. Only Themis." she said. "Always Themis, with you."

Maia Simonia. Themis. Bright yellow hair, amazing brown eyes ... she was wearing a simple shirt, and plain military breeches. It didn't matter; she could have worn a burlap sack and made it look great.

Besides, the simple military attire immediately took me back to the camp outside Tonol. Two years ago ... and I remembered it all, like it was yesterday.

She closed the gap between us, and took me in her arms. Then she tilted her head upwards, and our lips met.

For her, it was a hug, and a tender kiss. For me, it was like my first kiss with the girl of my dreams. I was instantly hard, and my knees were trembling.

She pulled back, and drew me into Kanitz' rooms.

- "Will you have dinner with me?" she asked.

- "I would rake the Palace grounds with you. I'd empty the chamber pots, if you asked me."

I'd forgotten the simple beauty of her smile, the incredible sensations I experienced when she laughed.

She steered me to the table, and sat me down. Then she sat down opposite me.

- "I've missed you so much." she said. "Even now, we're only meeting because Kanitz wants to create some sort of hold over you."

- "What?"

My aide Themis was back. "I wanted to be here, Cook. But it would never have happened if Kanitz didn't think that it might give her some advantage over you."

- "Why? She doesn't need any ... advantage."

- "My sister and her Chancellor are afraid of you. They fear that you might flirt with one or two of the other parties, and discover what they're willing to offer you."

- "You mean a party like the one that tried to kill me?"

Themis frowned. "Don't make a joke of it. I was very afraid for you. I still am."

- "Let's not talk about politics." I suggested.

- "Fine. But you should know: Kanitz will try to use you. That's why I'm here, tonight. To exert some ... leverage on you."

- "I would never hurt you. Or your sister. You don't have to worry about my loyalty."

- "Yet they do, Cook. You mustn't trust that they have your best interests at heart."

- "I appreciate the warning."

Themis shook her head. Then she stood up, and transferred her meal to the spot next to me. She moved her chair, and sat right beside me.

Then she smiled, and leaned closer.

I kissed her. She gave up the pretence of eating a meal, and wrapped her arms around me. The sensation was incredible, for me, but I had to remind myself that she wasn't in hemmer. My nagging erection had no place here.

- I worry about you." she said, softly.

- "And I you."

- "Don't. I'm in no danger. My sister negotiates alliances, and Kanitz investigates the advantages to be gained by marrying me here, or there. But they've yet to find a good match."

I didn't like hearing her talk about this. Themis wasn't mine - and never could be - but that didn't make it any easier to hear about the royal matchmaking. I really didn't want to know who they were planning to marry her to - he could be the nicest guy in the Kingdom, and treat her like a Princess ... well, as she deserved. I just didn't want to know.

Yes, I recognized the irony. She was alone, and chaste, while I was off with Tallia and Kanitz and my bodyguards and Aneli ... and I was the one feeling jealous.

- "That is why this evening is bittersweet, for me." she said. "It's part reward, and part bribe."

- "Tell me about our daughter." I suggested.

She did, and for a moment I enjoyed the illusion that we were a married couple, discussing our child.

- "I follow your career - everything you do." she said. "Kanitz lets me read your reports - I love finding out what's going on, from your perspective."

"I know you've copulated with Kanitz. She was very complimentary. But I think I'm happier about your aide - Tallia? I'm told that she's exceptional. Is she good to you? It must be wonderful to have sex whenever you want."