The Hoodsman - Killing Kings Read online

  "What do you think Sonja, is he clean enough now? Do you want to be his first or may I?"

  "I shall be first, Britta. I have the greater need, and you will surely suck him dry." Sonja pulled him to his feet and led him hand in hand towards his clothes. Their words were filtering through his pleasant daze and he was slow to take their meaning. She grabbed the linen from the pile and led him to the sunny rocks where the women had been washing their hair when he had first caught sight of them.

  She spread out the linen on the warm dry sand behind the rocks and knelt on it. Then she pulled him down to kneel in front of her. "Slowly and gently," was all she said and their chests closed together and she ever so delicately touched his lips with her tongue. He enjoyed the sensation and tried to return it, but now she had his lower lip sucked gently between both of hers. And so it went. Inch by inch. Exploring each other's bodies, caressing each other's skin. And finally, with him still kneeling straight up and sitting on his heels, she lifted herself astride him and lowered herself onto his swollen cock.

  After two comes already, this time he had more control as she sat lower and he pushed deeper. They were kissing again. Soft gentle kisses. Whisper soft. He held her in his arms and supported her gently as he lowered her backwards down to the linen, in such as way as to not become disconnected. And then his hips started jerking, harder and harder. He could not help himself from pushing in and pulling out of her over and over, faster and faster. He tried not to look down at her breasts, which were jiggling erotically with the motion.

  He tried to slow himself. He tried to keep himself from crossing the point of no holding back. He tried stopping and then starting again, until he could not delay it any longer. She felt the change and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself up so that her breasts were crushed against his chest. His cock, buried in her and swollen huge, began to pump. And now she was moaning and writhing and his cock was trapped as if a hand was clenched around it.

  He could not pump anymore and she told him to roll onto his back. She rolled with him and kept them connected, and once she was on top, she started pumping him. The head of his cock was so sensitive that at first it was painful, but then he started watching her move above him. The wild hair, the swaying breasts, the laughing eyes, the ear to ear grin, the huge pleasure she was taking, and he started growing big inside of her again.

  "Yes, yes, yes," she moaned, and kept riding him. His eyes regained focus and he glanced around. Britta was sitting naked sunning on a rock and watching them cavort. She was slowly massaging her own skin and the underside of her breasts, and the thought of being watched sent shivers of pleasure through Raynar’s body. He was coming again and Sonja squealed in pleasure as he did so. And then they lay exhausted and panting together. Still connected, skin hot and sweating, breathless and both smiling ear to ear. She pulled her head off his chest and they watched each other smile.

  "You, my dear, are going to make some woman a very good husband," Sonja said. He rolled to his side and lifted himself up to kneeling and then pulled her up into his arms. With both arms he cradled her and walked with her slowly into the pool. The water felt delicious on his skin. The air smelled delicious. The birdsong sounded delicious. The summer colors looked delicious. He felt more attuned, more alive than he had ever felt before.

  Britta had followed them into the water and floated around them for a few minutes while Sonja relaxed in his arms. Eventually he sank down until they were both up to their necks, and Sonja pushed him away. The taller woman floated up to him and then found her footing and pulled him to his feet. She took his hand and led him towards the sunny rocks. Once out of the chill of the water, his cock started growing again. She encircled the shaft with her hand and began those gentle squeezes again.

  She led him by the cock over the rocks and to the linen. They kneeled up on the linen facing each other and she looked into his eyes. Her eyes were green with golden flecks. She brushed his lips with hers and then started to kiss him more strongly. And still more strongly. And her tongue entered his mouth and he could not catch his breath in the ecstasy of the moment. She pulled back from his lips and smiled at him, and the smile turned to a smirk. She bent down and kissed the top of his cock. Her kisses moved down around the head and to the start of the shaft and she gently flicked the tip of her tongue against the underside of his cock just below the head.

  There was a gasp from Sonja at the pools edge, "Britta, you are mean. You will ruin him for the Saxon girls." Raynar glanced at Sonja and she was watching him, watching them. "Close your eyes," she told him, "and enjoy".

  He closed his eyes and waves of pleasure vibrated through all of his senses. "Thank you , thank you, thank you," was all he could say. He looked down and could not believe how swollen he was. It seemed to be twice a big as before. Yet when he closed his eyes it felt ten times as big. He watched as she took the whole head in her mouth and started moistening it. Britta then pushed herself up and kissed his chest and put her arms around his neck. With him still kneeling she lifted herself onto him. She was not as gentle as Sonja had been, and she was much larger inside, but her muscles were continuing the sensations that her mouth had begun.

  The rhythm was slow and she was clamping him with each stroke. Britta did not want him on top of her, so she pushed him backwards, and he shuffled along the linen so that he could lean back against a smooth warm rock. And she rode him, and she rode him, and she rode him. And this time he had the control to hang back from the edge of delight. She was the first to spasm, and she kept spasming and washing his face with her breasts until he joined her. Afterwards, after they had slept in each other's arms for mere minutes, they all strolled hand in hand back into the pool and the three of them floated in the warm sun.

  Britta was the first to stand. "Say 'Thank you', Raynar," she whispered, and then in a harder voice, "you will now leave this place and not look back, and not follow us." She pulled him to his feet and pointed him to his clothes. "This never happened, you have never seen us before, and if you see us in the village you will not approach us." She shook his arm strongly. "Do you understand? This never happened. A word of this would be our undoing." Then her face softened and she gave him a sisterly kiss on the cheek. "Now go."

  The women sat naked on the rocks drying, watching Raynar fumble with his clothes. "Go," they said in unison. And he went. But he did look back. They were tidying themselves and dressing. He wondered who they were and where they lived, but he understood their caution, so he would not try to find out. They knew who he was and where to find him. If they were wives, then many common laws had just been broken at this pool, and the consequences of not keeping this secret could prove deadly to one or all of them.

  He wandered dreamily back to the ywen tree and found John making twine from willow bark to bundle his staves. John was talking to him but he was still lost in reverie in his own mind as he reflected on the wonder of women, and the wonder of what had just happened. Only an hour ago he had been a virgin and yet now he was very much not a virgin.

  And suddenly he felt embarrassed. He was such a fool, an ass. How many of those lonely widows at the glade had been thinking of him like this? How many times had they hinted and he had not responded? How could he have missed such obvious signals. Those widows and near widows were all missing being kissed gently, missing being held against the warmth and protection of a man's body, and they would grant sex to have those feelings, if only for an hour.

  "Here!" John said it louder the third time as he again pushed one of the two bundles into his friend's arms. "Are you stunned? Where did you go, your hair is all wet."

  "I went to the next pool for my bath. I couldn't stand the smell of myself anymore, " said Raynar. He must not ask John about the women. He would know them for sure, but asking about them would just make him curious, and that could lead to disaster. Thinking of the women made him think of other women and then of his sister, Leola. "John, when you were in the high country with Leola, did you take h
er."

  "What do you mean? " John turned around and almost knocked him over with his armload of staves.

  "I wouldn't be angry if you did, so long as it was gentle. But I would like to know." Raynar parried John's staves with his own bundle.

  "You mean do her," John said.

  Raynar reflected that those were the very words he would have chosen only an hour ago. But not now. Never again. So John was still a virgin. That means they hadn't. "I mean kiss her, hug her, caress her, and then join with her, and then lie with her afterwards and make smiles."

  John looked at his friend as if he had gone soft in the head. "We held each other, and experimented with kisses, and I held her breasts, but no further. Why not? She is fourteen now. Old enough to wed. Are you satisfied?"

  Raynar put his free hand up on John's shoulder and turned him towards home. "Well, next time be very patient, and be very gentle, and maybe she will go further. But it must be her choice and her timing. I trust you never to force her or to hurt her."

  "Are you saying this as her brother or as my friend?"

  "As both, of course. And maybe as your brother eventually. I would like that."

  John thought for a while, then said, "I had a brother once for about five years. And a sister once for two. It would be nice to have a brother again. Even if he is a short little Saxon turd."

  Raynar took his arm from John's shoulder so that he could punch him in the upper arm. "I feel the same, little John."

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  THE HOODSMAN - Killing Kings by Skye Smith

  Chapter 5 - Death of a Lamb, Peaks Arse in June 1064

  The next day John joined young Raynar for the hike back up the valley to the glade of the sick miners. Leola was due back, and John's mother knowingly overruled his father's brusque "No". They hiked with a dozen of Raynar's porters, and with Brother Tucker. Raynar was not carrying a load, whereas the other porters were carrying sacks of oats for the miners. Raynar asked John to bring along his bow and a quiver. John didn't need to be asked twice.

  Though no one else knew but Bother Tucker and Raynar, Tucker was carrying a lot of coin to be deposited in the stone counting house up at the mine. Due to Raynar's competence, the brother no longer made frequent trips to the mine, so it would not be long before everyone in the valley figured out that his trips were always to carry the coin. Tucker had a long heavy staff, Raynar had his strange looking bow-staff, and John had his Welsh bow, so they felt safe enough.

  The porters took a well deserved rest at the porter's glade and Raynar asked Gwyn if Leola had returned from the high meadows. She was overdue, but that was not unusual when working with Hugh the shepherd up in the high country. Anything could happen up there, and usually did. A thunder clap could have panicked the flocks across the peaks and it would take days to round them up again.

  They continued up the porterway to the mine and waited to be let into the heavily-barred door of the counting house. Inside there was a large table and a heavy oak chest with two locks. That chest was where the tallies were kept. There was a second heavy door in the room that led to the chests of coin. That door was never open unless the tally man was locked up and alone inside the house.

  Weapons were not allowed inside, so Raynar suggested that John take their bows and watch the path for Leola. This way past the mine was the easiest path down from the high country. Raynar went in with the good Brother as witness, and they bolted the outside door behind him. Once under lock, the Brother brought two heavy purses from under his robe, and started piling the coins in like piles of ten. Once the tally sheet was written and signed and witnessed, they left the house and heard the heavy bar dropping into place behind them.

  This payment was for the galena lead ore itself. The porters were paid at the bottom of the valley once the galena was weighed and tallied and safe in the carts. The carters were paid at the smelter once the galena was weighed and tallied and safe in the barn. Sometimes, if there were rumors of footpads, some of the porters would accompany the carts for extra security. Usually extra security was not necessary due to the weight of galena. To steal any quantity of it required stealing the cart, and the carts moved slowly and left tracks.

  There was still no sign or word of Leola, so John had asked after her to some of the women that were hammering at the raw ore to break off chunks of useless rock. No one had come down the high path since this morning.

  When he returned to the counting house, John's face showed his disappointment so clearly that Raynar suggested that, since they were at the foot of the high path, they may as well go and look for her with Hugh in the high pastures. The good Brother had finished his business now and was feeling lighter without the purses, and asked if he could join them. He had never been up towards the Tor.

  Raynar walked over to a group of porters and told them what they were about, so that word would spread down the valley. On the way to the foot of the high path, they stopped at the biggest house near the mine and talked to the miner's wife. She had known Raynar all his life and was pleased to lend him three winter cloaks for the hike, and all she asked in return was for the cleric's blessing on her home. No one questioned the need for the cloaks. Though it was closing on summer, the peaks could return to winter within an hour, at any hour.

  The climb was steep and hard for John. He was a village man and did not spend his days endlessly walking up and down hillsides under load. The good Brother was ten years their senior, but he was not often in the Abbey and was well fit because of it. Once they reached the ridge where there was a view all around, they rested. While John caught his breath, Raynar's sharp eyes inched across the terrain looking for any movement.

  "So, Brother Tucker," John gasped, "I've been meaning to ask. Down in Grindel the small smelter is hurting for business since you have been buying so much of the ore. Are you almost to the end of what you need? What was it for, a new roof on the abbey?" The large spanned roofs of church buildings had become the major use of lead. Rolled into thin sheets it was waterproof, weatherproof, lightning proof, and fireproof. Though expensive, it was a roof you only had to set once and it lasted for lifetimes.

  The Brother wondered if he should be discussing Abbey business with a smith who probably did work for the competing smelter, but he shrugged his shoulders and explained, "Repton Abbey owns the mine in Wirksworth. That is halfway from Grindel to the Abbey. Two years ago we spent a lot of coin to build a smelter there, and a rolling mill. Our plan was not just to supply lead for our own roofs, but also to support the Abbey's finances by supplying lead to the Trent valley and perhaps as far as London. We, actually I, took on more contracts than our mine could supply. We will need Woden lead until we can dig a second producing shaft in our own mine. That could take two years, perhaps more."

  He rubbed his knees and wondered to himself if he should have wrapped them in linen strips. He found that hill climbing hurt his knees, especially going down steep slopes. "I know the smelter in Grindel and I know the owner. Before we built our rolling mill, he would smelt for us. But with our new mill, we smelt and then roll it before the lead is completely cool, so we need to use our own smelter. You should walk with me the next time I go to our mill, John. The new mill would interest a man of metal such as yourself. In any case, I have an agreement with the Grindel smelter that I would buy only from Woden, and not from the Slitherstones mine. Otherwise we would have bid the price of lead up."

  "I don't see anything yet," Raynar said. "Come along, let us stay on the ridge track towards the Tor, and keep a sharp eye. Hugh often uses the old earth fort at the Tor, and if not, at least it has the best view." Raynar started to walk. The ridge track was an easy walk compared to the climb up from the valley and they should make good time. "Can you say a prayer for us Brother? There are barrows of ancients hereabouts and it would be wise to settle their ghosts with a good prayer."

  Though the ridge provided a fast track and a good view it was also in the blast of the wind, and the wind wa
s damp and cold. Raynar thought more than once of unrolling the cloak, but then decided to just quicken the pace to keep them warm. The Tor and the hill fort were empty save for the ghosts. A light mist was creeping around them and causing the men to see things out of the corners of their eyes. They all squinted around at all the other knolls looking for the beige blobs that would be sheep. John saw them first. Just a few on the crest of the next knoll.

  "Hugh must have them in the dell beyond. There is a wide cavern mouth there. He must be expecting bleak weather to take them to that side. Let's be off. " Raynar knew the tracks from his summers as a child spent finding strays for Hugh. He set off in what seemed like the wrong direction, but the others soon realized that the track he had chosen stayed high and out of the boggy thickets of the lower land between the knolls.

  Raynar was moving fast and John was trailing further and further behind. To Raynar it was a light dance along the narrow game trails, but John was too big for lightly dancing. At a word from Tucker, Raynar stopped and waited for John catch up. The sheep were obvious to the eye now. Lazy lumps of wool in no mood to do anything but lie and chew and watch. Once the sheep had spotted them, they moved as one over the ridge and out of sight.