Bound & Bound – the Curse and the Captives – - 11. Chapter 11: Rape of Ambition

Chapter 11: Rape of Ambition

The first snow of the season lightly settled on the stone windowsill.

Lady Gretza watched it fall from the warm safety of her bedchamber, and felt old.

To be sure, she considered that she was still in the fertile age where she could bear children, and would not turn twenty-nine for ten months. Nevertheless, being childless was a sore strain on her wellbeing – that and being stuck in this god-awful wilderness of a remote colony. She had no family here, she had no support, and she barely had the luxury of updated clothes sent from Buda twice a year. All of that being duly measured though, she was a near queen in her authority in this pitiful and claustrophobic realm, and in the castle she certainly had Lord Laszlo's full attention.

It goaded her though to think of 'that woman,' the wife of the teenage King of Hungary, sitting on the throne in her stead. If Laszlo would only claim what was rightfully his, then Gretza would never have to see this cursed land ever again, and if she did it would be as queen, and not as a second-rate lady.

From the vantage of her second floor window, the courtyard buzzed with frosty activity. She gathered the ermine cuffs of her gown to luxuriate against her cheek while she watched the scene below. A small crew of Romanian men and boys pecked and clawed at the wellhead like lazy chickens as the snow dusted the cobblestones. They rooted around, waiting for something, and slapping evidently cold hands against shoulders and upper arms to warm them.

At a signal, the boys stepped back from the mouth of the pit, and the men hoisted on the rope slung over the double-A frame. They pulled in unison, and the younger of the two Turkish slaves slowly emerged, glowing in sweat and clad only in a loincloth. The Romanian boys grabbed onto his legs and placed him on solid ground. Stefan, the taskmaster, instantly set himself upon the younger Turk, and using his hands, brushed at the near-naked man's private regions. The slave obviously did not seek or relish the other man's attention, for he deferentially stepped out the Hungarian's touch and reached for his tunic right away.

As she watched them lower the rope again into the well, Lady Gretza's mind absently scanned the movements of the young slave. This one was the better bred of the two, she could tell. He was more educated, and more self-aware, but she knew she could never allow herself an 'intellectual conversation' with her chattel, at least not one that could be witnessed by others.

She reviewed all the means she had used to try and conceive. Besides the usual plying of her husband with seed-producing aphrodisiacs – like lettuce, and muscari bulbs – she turned to soothsayers and their darker means of conjuring. If the spirit world wanted her to atone for a past transgression, she must find out; it was her duty to produce an heir. If none could be issued from her flesh, then her husband had a legal right to toss her over and remarry. She'd be declared mad, or worse, declared 'religious,' and in either case shipped off to a nunnery.

She had developed into a strong practitioner of black magic for herself, and as her original purpose receded into the background, she began to witness the results of her powers. Things began to happen the way she wanted them to, and step-by-step her abilities to summon the hidden forces that can affect the outcome of situations grew, while she delighted in her newfound control over many aspects of her husband's thoughts.

A small smile came to her face, and with it was a flash of heat that shot down her spine. She liked control – relished it in fact. As she had not consciously acknowledged progress with the workers, she was startled to suddenly see the other Turk had been lifted from the well.

In contrast to the younger man, this one was at the height of his prowess, and was perhaps only a few years older than Lady Gretza. He was burly and bronzed, a soldier, and his exposed chest, legs and abdomen were cunningly dusted in dark, curly hair. His physique was stunning as he rubbed himself down with a cloth, and his fellow slave stood by waiting with the man's tunic. In a way, Lady Gretza was sorry to see the glistening of his body be diminished by his moving hands with the rag, but then again, as her eyes traced his movements in apparent slow motion, his lingering hand running and pressing over his rippling muscles could not have delighted her more. At last she paused her gaze on his confident facial features. He bared grinning teeth and good-natured banter for his compatriot, and his beard was full and balanced on his strong jaw and chin when he smiled.

A lump caught in her throat, and she swallowed it down.

Without any interfering thought at all, another tingling jolt slid down her backbone, but this time it settled in her nether regions. There it stayed. While in the courtyard below, the younger man tossed the fit soldier his tunic, their easy and jocular way with one another added inexplicably to her growing pleasure.

The feeling of excitement morphed from a sharp exterior sensation like stimulus to a more diffuse one. It rose as if it were a cresting wave into the interior of her womanhood. There, because of it – because of the Turk – the stimulus turned into delicate pulsations. These peeking and waning ripples were accompanied by a growing warmth, and that warmth in turn smoothed out the last of the sharpness into a rising and delicate moisture.

She half-closed her eyes, and let her head tip back to better enjoy her state of mellow arousal. Beyond the intrusion of thought, she knew that no man could ever feel pleasure this deeply, nor even begin to understand it. For a woman, the division of an aroused body from her pleasure is the same as a climaxing mind from a profound discovery – it is felt everywhere from the end of hair follicles to tip of toes as indivisibly complete as a brain and its thoughts.

A soft and subservient voice called to her from near the door, "My Lady."

She knew who it was, so she suppressed the grin she had watched growing in the window glass and turned to him instead. "Yes, Razvan?"

As she watched her minion cross the room to her, pride glowed within. Her cosset, her faultlessly faithful vassal, was the greatest accomplice to her dark arts. This man, who was several years her senior, exhibited no free will of his own. Through invocation and possessed of corporal aspects of his being – a phial of his blood, to be specific, that she wore next to her skin in a secret spot – she utterly controlled him.

As he got within an arm's length, Lady Gretza extended her left hand. Her minion stopped, bowed to the proffered hand and kissed the large ring on her finger.

"Have you completed your task, Razvan?"

"Yes, Your Ladyship." As he straightened, he extracted and handed her a pair of folded letters.

She opened one, and carried it towards the light. Scanning it, she asked, "One for Prince Vlad, and one – "

"For his younger brother, who is known as Radu the Handsome."

She glanced at her servant with a half-raised leer.

He added, "I shall make a full report to you if the title is well deserved or not."

Lady Gretza's attention returned to the letter. "Tell me the contents."

"To Prince Vlad, an invitation is extended to form an alliance with Lord Laszlo; the official pact to be sealed in person by them, here. I will accompany him from Walachia. To Radu, explanation is given of your true intents. If he agrees, then your plan will be underway."

"Yes." She folded the letters. "All will be done in Lord Laszlo's name."

"I am ready to travel," Razvan reassured. "I am fully prepared to set this plot in motion. On word from you, and I will be on the road tomorrow."

She began to pace before the frosted light coming from the windows. "The correspondence only lack one thing – My Lordship's signature. Leave them with me; he will affix his seal to them today. Go ready all the preparations for your journey."

Razvan bowed, and began to exit in a backwards motion. "I live to serve your ladyship's desires."

Just as he was at the chamber door, Gretza said softly, "Success in this delicate matter will mean great reward for you."

He bowed, and the lady of the place felt pleasure at the amount of barely-masked emotion he exhibited.

Razvan left, but before she could collect herself, Lord Laszlo's voice was heard at the threshold.

"Is Lady Gretza within?"

"Yes, Your Lordship."

She walked casually towards the mantelpiece.

As her husband strode in, she placed the missives between the stone wall and a metal vase on the wooden shelf.

"My dear?"

She rotated to smile at him. "Laszlo, just the man I wanted to see."

He closed and latched the door behind him.

Stepping into the room, and away from the fire, she delighted to see a lustful glint in the man's gaze for her. She would be able to use that for her own purpose.

Lady Gretza curtsied as he came up to her.

He used his hand, took her by the cheek and made her rise.

"I have missed you, my dear." His voiced dripped with desire.

She coyly cocked her head, and turned her back on her husband. To make her intentions clear, she used her hand to sweep her long hair off the nape of her neck. She felt the fur of her cuff brush the advancing form of the man.

Laszlo took her by the upper arms and kissed the freshly exposed skin. His breath was moist and instant as he ran his lower lip along her hairline, from the back of her baubled ear to the crease where neck became shoulder. As his fingers began to tug on the fabric to expose more of her shoulder, she let her head fall back onto his.

"Have you heard the news, my dear?" Her tone was all business. "Word is the Sultan's army will put pressure on Walachia in the spring. They will siege Targoviste."

He spun her around forcefully. "Politics later, Gretza." His open palms pressed at her bodice, one of which continued up until he was applying pressure on her bosom. The second hand slipped lower to tug at and raise her skirt.

Lady Gretza grew angry, but hid it. She grappled with her husband's upper arms and jostled him away from her. "Laszlo, the time to prepare for a Turkish onslaught is now, not after they have beheaded Dracul and are marching on this castle."

He slowly lifted his arms to break his wife's bond. "Do you sometimes wish, Gretza, that you were born a man?"

"Why do you ask that, my darling?"

He refused to look at her. "Ba-because, you live a secret life of ambition under your ermine and silk, don’t you?"

A half-lilting grin played about one corner of her mouth. She lifted his chin. "Men are privileged; it is true. You and I both know that. But my dear, the path to greatness is paved with advice from every great man's most trusted counsel. For you, Laszlo, that is me."

He looked shocked. "Gretza, what more do you want of me? I support you and your every da-desire – "

Her smile stopped him in mid-thought. Then she raised a hand and stroked his cheek. "Yes. No lady in Christendom has a better spouse than I."

"But your pressure on, on, on sta-state affairs – "

She cut him off again, this time by pressing her finger to his mouth. "My dear husband, I do not wish to apply pressure to the nature of your decisions, but only to help you see which direction may be in your best interest. You do know that, don’t you, in your heart of hearts..?"

Under the application of her touch to his lips, Laszlo's head slowly began to nod. "What I do…" She hated the man. "I do for you. What I do…" She loathed his weakness. "…I do for us, and I do for our future children, so that they will have what they deserve." Gretza kissed him while she thought that he was much too easy for her to control.

And then suddenly, a pair of dark thoughts occurred. One that confirmed, yes she did want children, but another that said after all this time and after all the implantations of her husband's semen, the fault must still lie with him and not within her womb.

To drive the dark broodings away, she sank her tongue into his mouth and caught his excitedly exhaled breath. As he began to reciprocate her kisses with an ever-intensifying ardour, and showed his passion by slipping his hands around her waist, she formulated the path to victory over the final lingering resistance of Laszlo's full consent to her will.

She pushed back with her hands on his chest and left a parting whimper in his mouth in the act of separating them. She then slithered behind his form and laid a series of lips partings and caresses with her tongue on her husband's bared neck.

A rippling of surrender shuddered through his entire body, and she could easily feel that where her lips made contact with his flesh. The goose bumps she raised there allowed her supreme confirmation that this man was hers to use as she saw fit.

His skin grew hot. His pores relaxed and radiated heat and a tinge of musk onto her palate. She was back on course with him.

Her fingers slipped along the inside of his lower arm until she could feel the ridge of his wrist starting. With added pressure, she forced her way down and interlaced their hands.

She stepped before him, and drew Lord Laszlo along with her.

Lady Gretza took him to her bed, and once they were near it, guided him to stand with his back to it. She then pushed at Laszlo's shoulders until he fell down upon the sheets.

Her smile lingered where she knew he could see it. She watched him prop hands behind his head and offer his own lustful smirk.

She lifted the lower part of her skirt and petticoats until the hems of them brushed her shins. Carefully, with her eyes locked on his, she began to climb over him. She mounted him so that her upper legs pinned her husband's under her weight. She felt the heat from their fabric and clothes, the heat from their legs pressed tight together as it radiated up to her nether regions.

Watching every lick of his growing pleasure animate his features, her hands let her skirts fall over them, and reached out in front. Her gracile fingers began to press and play at the folds of his doublet. Slowly, maddeningly for him, she lifted off the skits of his coat from where it covered his manhood. She pressed it hard, and relished that it was already rock-hard for her.

She skilfully tugged at the waist of his tights and used the tight band to cup him below the source of his seed.

She stroked him.

He allowed his eyes to loll into the back of his head in intense pleasure. His breathing began to be laboured and choppy.

Lady Gretza knew how to make him even more rigid. She expertly used the index finger and thumbs of both hands to create the never-ending rippling sensation of running water over her husband's manhood. He flared mightily under her ministrations.

She began to speak in a rhythmic tone whose beats were timed to the pulsations of intense throbbing she felt communicate up through her fingertips.

"Align yourself with Walachia, and with Radu, then you can drive the Sultan's army away and march your combined army into Hungary."

The amazing impression she created with perfectly timed sliding motions of tightening and release made Laszlo grip the sheets and moan loudly to the ceiling rafters.

She lifted her skirts all the way and climbed up on his legs like she was scaling a ladder with her knees.

Lady Gretza reached around behind her and positioned her husband's member. She slowly sank herself onto it.

He responded by latching onto her thighs, holding her eyes with his half-shut own, and cried as if in pain.

She sat deeper in him, then bore down and extracted herself along his shaft to begin a rhythm.

Laszlo's hold on her tightened and he drove upwards to meet her sitting motions with depth and force.

She craned her head back to give the illusion of her own pleasure – but did so only to further heighten his own.

"Laszlo; Laszlo; Oh, Laszlo," she called his name several times, and could feel the effect of this firsthand.

When Lady Gretza knew that her husband was nearing orgasm, she let herself collapse onto him. She used her lower arms and elbows to support herself on his chest and abdomen while she continued to ride him.

He raised his head and watched her intently.

As his breath began a series of hoarse bursts and held-back gasps, Gretza felt his hands slide up to hold onto her lower arms. He transmitted a gripping set of pulsations and contractions with his fingers. She calculated that with these love grips it was time to bring him all the way.

She clenched again and sat fully on him. Into his ecstasy that she instinctually could feel about to erupt, she drove home her point; she made the man beneath her a helpless thrall to her rape of ambition.

As he started to climax, she whispered, "Fight. Kill your brother. Rip the crown of Saint Stephen from his severed head and let me make you king."

Lord Laszlo looked to her eyes to be in agony. His mouth was partially open, his breathing was erratic and stopped for eccentric pauses. His eyes were wild and unfocused.

As he let loose with his seed into his wife, that woman sank to lay her head on his shoulder. She slowly rotated her head and crooned softly into his ear. "For once my dear, be a man – not a boy."