~*~It was a piece with the rest: twelve tables spread in succession,perhaps in honour of the Stormreaver Realms' Twelve Tables of the law,perhaps in mockery of it. Galen,who had had to order the preparation of a state dinner or two himself, could admire both the resources and the resourcefulness of a woman who, after a voyage of some days' duration and with but the fraction of a day to discover the capacity of skill her servants did possess, produced so splendid a range and variety of courses. Most of them, inevitably, were fish,but there were roasts of lambs,duck,goose, and something suculent in the spiced sauce that was, the servant said, gazelle and chamois. There were figs from the Forests of Elphindale, dried and honeyed or spiced with cloves and cinnamon;apples of Avalon baked in little caskets;dates from Amrothvia; dried grapes from the Ard Rhighan's own vineyards,juice of pomegranates from the Kingdom of Kivulimi from the garden of Gancomber.~*~
~*~There seemed no end to it,either in abundance or in variety. The Ard Rhighan was apologetic:"If I were but in mine own palace,"she said in her voice that was as beautiful as her face,both low and sweet,"I twould prepare a far more proper feast."~*~
~*~"Tis proper enough,"the Ard Rhi said. "I doubt that I could do as well in mine own palace and citadels in the old days of New Agropas."~*~
~*~Thine wives,tis said,art enterprising women,"the Ard Rhighan said. Was there a barb in it? "We do keep the state required of thine station, yes? But that,in the customs of Crystal Dragondom,requires a certain austerity."~*~
~*~But this is the West,"said Archos Zyan,"my Lady of Folcuth."~*~
~*~Edain smiled with a gleeful glint of mischief.~*~
~*~The main course was to surprise them all.~*~
Ambica sees the High Queene. She sits at the very end upon a raised dais. Her veiled head encircled with a gold crown,and the deep sleeves of her emerald green gown are trimmed in pearls and gold and silver embroidery. Ambica is led forward by a quick snap of the Ard Rhi's talons. The Ard Rhighan has risen and now she embraces her Ninaste as he stands before her in his commanding form.
"Tribute,Beloved,from some strange land over our Karvish Mountains, and one of the loveliest we hath received in a long time if mine memory serves me. Our first shared Slave..and she hath nae entertained in a long while."
"Exquisite..."said the Queen,"but all the Court must have a look at her for it hath been two years since her burning to be allowed to be abated." She makes an airy gesture to a servant..and there appears the Ramoshi retainers to grasp Ambica.
A great murmur rises from the Court gathered round. And Ambica sees a tall grey haired Lord approach,though she can nae see him clearly.
"Display her......"
"And shall she be gagged,Your Highnesses?" asked this strange tall man.
"No, that is nae necessary.Though punish her surely if she speaks or cries out."
And the man lifts Ambica up and immediately has her wrists clasped over her head. As she stands,the impertinent Goddess feels herself hopelessly revealed and can nae prevent crying. She dreads a reproof from the object of her lust, the legendary Dragon King whom she sought to ensnare, and she can see the Sidhe Queen all the better though she does nae want to see her. Blonde hair shows beneath the Queene's sheer veil,hanging in ripples over her shoulders and back and knees, and her eyes are molten silver.
"All that hair shields her, Master....."
"Leave her hair as it is," commands the King.
"Oh,he will defend me!"Ambica thought.But then she hears the King himself give the order that sends her hopes spiralling downward.
"Mount her to the table for all to see."
The table was rectangular and stood in the center of the room.It reminds Ambica of an altar. She is forced to kneel on it facing the royal couches where the Ard Rhi has taken his place....stroking his beloved Siveni Sidhe Queenes and Property.
Quickly the grey haired man places a large block of smooth wood beneath her belly. She can rest her weight on it and she does,as he forces her knees wides apart and then stretches out her legs so her knees do nae touch the table at all. Her ankles bound by leather to the edges. Now her wrists treated the same. She keeps her face hidden as best as she can,weeping.
"You will be silent or I shall see that yea can nae be anything else. Do nae misunderstand the Queen's leniency. She does nae gag thee only because it amuses the Court to see thy mouth as it is, and to see thou struggle with thy own willfullness and shameful whorish manner."
And now, to Ambica's shame,he raises her chin and places beneath it a long thick wooden chin rest. She can nae lower her head,though she lowers her eyes. And she sees all the room about her.
She shudders as she thinks of herself~ spread out,yet mounted so that all could inspect even her face if they choose, and she tries to conceal her crying by tightly pressing her lips together. NO part of her body cloaked.
Ambica's eyes glaze over,but she can still see the distant couches where the King and the Queenes are talking together quite naturally. But she realizes all the Court has risen and is moving toward the dais. Bowing to the Majesties before turing and coming towards her.
She squirms. The air itself touching her naked ass and the hair between her legs, and she struggles to lower her face but the firm chin rest will nae yield and all she can do is drop her eyes again.
Ambica lets out a low moan.Ambica feels cool fingers gathering her heavy breasts, and twisting them almost painfully. She trembles,trying nae to cry out. For others have gathered around her, and behind her she feels a pair of very slow and calm hands parting her legs even more. And now someone touches her face,and another hand pinches her calf cruelly.
It seems her body is all concentrated then it is secret places. There is a throbbing in the tips of her breasts and those hands feel cold as if she herself were burning, and now she felt fingers examining her ass and prodding even at her anus. She can nae help but moan .
The grey haired Lord whispers in her ear,"Now look up and to your left."
High up along the wall of the Great Hall of the royal barge, on a broad ledge, she glimpses a row of naked women.
~*~Taliennse rather liked him. He found her terribly shocking, she could tell, but unlike most men from the outerlying lands, he did nae presume to lecture her on the proper conduct of women in public. Nor did he reckon quality by the quantity of gold that went into it. Quite rarely for an augur of his kind, he had taste.~*~
~*~He ate in silence that maybe he meant to seem aloof. To Taliennse it was merely shy. She might hath coaxed him out of it, but she was watching the two who led the feast and its amusements.~*~
~*~They had spoken little beyond their exchange of greetings and slightly barbed civilities and the matter of Ambica. And yet,Taliennse thought, something had roused that had nothing to do with words nor with the long unspoken matter of Ambica.~*~
~*~Maybe it had been there when they knew each other before, in the East while Corinth was alive. But then there had been Corinth, for whom little had respect; with him, Edain had been always in contempt. With Archos Zyan,for whom words were both armor and weapon, Edain was always on her mettle, her wit honed to its finest edge.~*~
~*~Archos Zyan had aided her and he had gained in power and substance, in return. The Godslayer was as calm in grief as she, Edain, was,but under the calm a white rage. The rage was gone now,the stocky solidity softened a little about the edges, the heavy shoulders braced beneath the weight of Empire.~*~
~*~Edain's own rage from the Third Age of the Empire had ne'er truly died. Taliennse had half expected it to burst out in mockery of this Crystal Dragon;but something,prudence perhaps, restrained it. As the feast went on in its blaze of light, Taliennse watched that rage transmute into something quite unlooked for. It was nae peace. Edain had ne'er been a peaceful creature, nor could she e'er be. But here,somehow, she found a calm.~*~
~*~The Ard Rhi understood, or seemed to. When the bloodwyne had gone round, and round again,as all the lights seemed to swim in a sea of Caecuban and Samian and pale gold Chian, eye met eye across the golden and silver couches. Later, maybe, the words would come, the long winding skeins of alliance and counteralliance with subject and neighboring Nations, prices paid and prices to be paid,all the impedimenta of kings and queenes. Now there were only them.~*~
~*~The Queenes,Taliennse was pleased but nae surprised to see, had lost their nervousness somewhere between the dressing chambers and the hall. The effect of their entrance was all that they could hath wished. The foreign Fereghi were struck to silence. E'en the younger augur seemed to hath lost a fraction of his scorn for anything that was elvyn.~*~
~*~Taliennse watched him out of the corner of her eye. Mortal faces from the Auraks tended toward cragginess,noses like prows of ships, cheeks deep-furrowed with the weight of self-importance. Galen Servi the Augur had self-importance in plenty, but his face was more cleanly carved than most, his nose less monumentally arched. In fact he was quite handsome;pretty, for a fact, if his mouth had had a shade less character. Twas long and a little crooked, and looked as if it did nae smile enough. With his fine olive skin that looked as soft as a girl's, and with his black curls and his big brown eyes, he looked like a boy. But there were fine lines at the corners of those eyes, and a look in them that spoke of more years than his face admitted.~*~
~*~"Aphrodite comes to Dionysus for the joy of the land." The voice was Taliennse's, soft beneath the roar of conversation. It seemed no part of her, as always when the Goddess spoke. No more came than that, though she laid herself open to it.~*~
~*~The young augur was staring at her. He must have seen the Goddess: his eyes were white around the edges. She found a smile for Galen Servi the Augur. "Yea should nae mind me,"she said. "Tis only Divinity."~*~
~*~"Yea are,"he said slowly, but without the stammer that seemed to vex him."Yea ART a priestess!!"~*~
~*~"Thou didst doubt me?"Taliennse asked.~*~
~*~His blush was charming,like a boy's, darkening the fine olive cheeks to crimson.~*~
~*~"There now,"she said, meaning to soothe him if she could,"no one e'er believes it till he sees it. I am one of the Goddess' many Voices in the Two Lands----and, for that matter of that,outside them,too!"~*~
~*~"But,"he said,"such things need order---ritual----sacrifice---"~*~
~*~"I am the rite and the sacrifice,"said Taliennse."She hath ne'er needed more than that! And why should She? She be a Goddess! She can do whate'er she pleases!!"~*~
~*~Poor, punctilious man, he could nae understand a goddess with a mind of her own. All his gods were safely bound in cords of ceremony, their priesthood reduced to political office, their power shrunk to a shadow and a name. No wonder Folcuth possibly appalled him. Folcuth's gods and goddesses were alive, and lively with it. One ruled on its silvered Throne in the Emerald City of Terestai. Their Names meant something outside the confining walls of temples.~*~
~*~If Galen Servi the Augur could nae comprehend Divinity,Archos Zyan Vryce Griffinsbane Godslayer had no need to. On this night as on many others,in this company, he was Divinity himself. The Ard Rhi's armor was gilded,flashing in the light of the lamps. The Ard Rhighan's robes, like golden armor, dazzled the eye that rested on them. It was difficult to train the eye to see through the veil of splendour.~*~
~*~Glittering in gold,expansive with wine, the High King rose. The wine caught him;he stumbled, but he laughed, and steadied himself, holding out a hand. The High Queene smiled up at him, took the hand that he offered, let him draw her to her feet. He swayed again as he turned to the Junior Queene, or Edain softened,both bending toward him. Briefly;nae e'en an embrace, so swift it was,but it said all that words did nae.~*~
~*~Taliennse might hath protested, but there was nothing to her but eyes; her Voice was mute. No one else seemed to see. They were all well gone in wine, or absorbed in watching the dancers whom the Ard Rhighan had brought from Avernus or amusedly playing with the bound Ambica. SO soon? Taliennse meant to say. So ABSOLUTE?~*~
~*~If they had heard, they would nae hath cared. Maybe Edain knew what she was doing, and did it open-eyed. Maybe Archos Zyan, too. Taliennse could nae know.~*~
~*~But then,having nae quite embraced, they parted. Edain and Eden slipped through the curtains that swayed behind their couch. Archos Zyan walked out of the hall. Taliennse, sharp-eared with startlement, heard him call for his boatmen.~*~
~*~Taliennse found that she was staring at Galen Servi. He for once was staring back, neither lowering his eyes nor blushing. The corner of his mouth curved very slightly up. "No' tonight," he said.~*~
~*~"Aye..nae yet," said Taliennse.~*~
