Cruel Enchantment Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Loud Sing Cuckoo

  2. The Dragon’s Bride

  3. Renaissance

  4. The Temptation of St Gregory

  5. The Fairest of Them All

  6. Montague’s Last Ride

  7. Bodyguard

  8. Sacrifices

  9. Toil and Trouble

  10. Captive Audience

  11. White As Any Milk: Black As Any Silk

  Copyright

  About the Book

  He rode me upon the sacred altar of the Owl Queen. I tore at his back and kissed his throat and lifted my hips so he could thrust deeper. My black hair was split in a wave across the white stone and tears dropped from my eyes as I pleaded shamelessly for more, for faster, for deeper. Had a mortal witnessed our glory he would have been blinded by it.

  Winged demonesses, otherworldly lovers and a dragon with an enormous sexual appetite collide with spoilt princesses, spell-weavers and wicked ancestors in Janine Ashbless’s fantastic tales of lust and magic. Cruel Enchantment is a stunning collection of unique and breathtakingly beautiful erotic fairy tales. Seductive, dazzling and strange, with each story a journey into the marvellous realms of a fertile imagination.

  ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil …’

  She released his head and he raised his face to the sky, eyes still closed, features tight with concentration. She bent over him. Her hair brushed his face and then his shoulders. She bent over and the ripe globes of her breasts bumped softly against his brow, trailed down over cheek and nose. Gregory stopped speaking. Her breasts, soft, firm, alive with sensation, nestled in the hollows of his eyes. They were big enough to touch as they hung down, big enough to encompass the whole of his face. His nose had slipped into the warm cleft between them. He could not breath, except for the sweet smell of her skin.

  Cruel Enchantment

  Jane Ashbless

  To Chris: This is all your fault …

  And Phil: For making it possible.

  Loud Sing Cuckoo

  IT WAS UNSEASONABLY warm that week in May. Sevran was working the rows of plants behind the longhouse and had been since noon, pulling the young weeds from where they had flushed between the clumps of herbs. The heat of the sun beating into the clearing in the wood made it seem more like a summer task than a spring one.

  A blackbird was singing noisily in the elderbushes at the edge of the clearing. The smell of hawthorn blossom, half honey and half rancid, thickened the air.

  She worked without pausing except at the ends of the long rows, straddling the low mounds, trying not to think of the heat or her thirst. Her legs were straight and she bent forwards from the hips, arse in the air in an undignified manner, but it was easier than kneeling her way along. She had hitched her full skirts up to clear the tender leaves, tucking them at the sides into the waistband, and had discarded her tunic, leaving only her linen undershift to cover her back – that was for the sake of coolness, but the skin between her breasts was still damp where the deep neckline of her shift all but bared them to the sunlight. Her long, firm legs were exposed too by the hitched skirts, almost to the thigh, but it did not matter; there was no one to see. If anyone were to pay a visit to the herbalists’ house they would be out at the front, talking to old Metta. Sevran had taken advantage of this; she had enough to do without worrying about her modesty, too. Her mind was half on the weeds her brown hands were twisting from the soil, half on the earthen jug of water waiting for her at the end of the row. If the heat kept up like this, she knew she would be out again watering the garden in another day. She paused momentarily to scratch at her prickling breastbone and left a streak of dirt on the pale linen. Her full, unbound breasts brushed together as she bent over the bright new leaves of feverfew and tansy and yarrow.

  Sevran reached the end of the row and straightened gratefully, arching her back. It ached, but she was young and lithe and her muscles would take more abuse than that. She seized the jug and savoured the pure, innocent pleasure of the cool water flooding her parched mouth and throat. Her hair itched with heat, too; she had bound it back behind her but most of it had escaped in thick wriggly coils that now clung to her neck; brown, it was a shade darker than her skin, with copper streaks where the sun had caught it already this year. With a sense of almost guilty enjoyment, she raised the jug over her head and let the water spill down through her hair and over her face. It trickled coolly on her breasts and darkened the linen. Sevran laughed.

  A horse whickered softly.

  Sevran turned with a gasp, letting the jug fall from her hands. There was a huge grey horse standing motionless at the edge of the clearing – on its back, equally motionless, a man. His hair was long and white, the colour of ashes, his skin yellow as old bone. He and Sevran stared at each other. There was no telling how long he had been there; she had not looked up as she worked. Suddenly, despite the water she had just drunk, she could not swallow, could hardly breathe. Her eyes took in the details before her – the sword sheathed across the saddle, the gaunt, ungainly look of the horse with its too-big head and hooves, the bitless bridle – but she seemed unable to think. She waited for something to happen that would free her from the awful limbo, but the man did not move; the horse did not move. Birds whistled in the wood. Eventually, for there was no other choice, her own body moved without any instruction. She began to walk back down the row towards the longhouse, never turning her face away from the stranger. As she strode forwards her hands plucked the skirt hems from her waist and let them fall to cover her legs, but it was too late for that.

  As soon as she started to walk, without any discernible instruction from the rider the grey horse eased into motion too and paced alongside her down the rows. He made no attempt to overtake her and, as she was closer to the house, she reached the corner of the building first. She had to drag her gaze from the rider and turn one corner, then another, not able to run, knowing it was all but useless to retreat.

  She reached the front of the house. Old Metta was sitting alone by the front door, her hands busy crumbling herbs in her lap, her face turned up towards the sun. Sevran’s heart sank; she had hoped that there would be people up from the village, a pedlar, the trader from the city – anyone to make up a crowd, to bear witness, to show defiance. There had been peace between the nations for a year now, but Sevran had never expected to test it herself, and she had no trust in any warrior. She stumbled towards the old woman, but stopped part way. There was no safety in numbers here, and Metta could not run.

  ‘Sevran?’ said Metta, turning milky eyes towards her. Her hands kept busy at their work, independent creatures that did not need the herbalist’s last vestiges of sight to do their tasks. Sevran opened her mouth to speak but found no words. She felt so heavy in every limb that she might have sunk into the hard-packed earth.

  Hoofbeats sounded and the horseman rounded the corner behind her, unhurried, and drew to a halt. Sevran turned to face him.

  ‘I hear a man on horse,’ called Metta. ‘Have you come for herbs?’

  The man lifted one leg over the neck of the horse and slid from the saddle. ‘By your goodwill and my good faith,’ he said, ‘I beg your hospitality this night.’ He shaped the words awkwardly, but they were clear enough. Metta raised her eyebrows at the old-fashioned formality of the greeting.

  ‘You have my goodwill; be welcome at my hearth,’ she replied with a wry shrug. Sevran bit her lip.

  ‘I don’t recognise that accent,’ Metta continued. ‘Where are you from, rider?’

  The man said nothing. His gaze shifted to Sevran and she looked hurriedly away. He might have blu
e eyes, and to meet those was said to be deadly misfortune – though she did not doubt that her luck was to be very bad tonight.

  ‘Metta, he’s a Northerner,’ said Sevran hoarsely. She had picked the only word she knew which was not pejorative. Metta’s hands stopped moving and she grew very still. The man leaned against the shoulder of his horse.

  ‘How many of them?’ said the old woman. Her face had gone grey.

  ‘He’s alone,’ said Sevran. ‘At the moment.’

  ‘Then fetch him a drink, child,’ she replied, tight-lipped. ‘Be hospitable.’

  Sevran walked into the house, almost blind, and scooped a cup of goat’s milk from the crock in the corner. She was halfway back before it occurred to her that she should have slipped aconite into it. Outside, no one seemed to have moved. She passed him the wooden cup. Her hands were shaking a little, but he moved awkwardly too. Sevran looked down as the milk slopped on to the earth and waited until he had finished the dregs. He handed the cup back to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, in barbarous syllables but politely enough. Then he turned back to his mount and began to untie the girth.

  Sevran walked over to Metta and put her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. The older woman gripped her wrist fiercely and hissed, ‘Run to the village, Sevran!’

  ‘I’ll not leave you alone,’ said her apprentice.

  ‘I’m an old woman,’ Metta insisted. ‘He won’t touch me.’ Then, more honestly, she added, ‘If God is kind.’

  ‘Come into the house,’ said Sevran. ‘There’s nothing to be done.’ She felt nauseous; she did not think she could run even if she had to.

  ‘I will pray for us,’ Metta said, allowing herself to be steered towards the door.

  ‘Pray he doesn’t use a knife,’ said Sevran flatly. She stopped on the threshold and watched the man finish unsaddling the horse, which he did not bother to hobble or tether. She had only seen a Losfarn close up once, and that was a corpse left behind when a band had swept through the village three years before. She had been fourteen. This one, though taller than most men she knew, was shorter than she had expected; she remembered white giants and horses that struck with hooves and teeth, a confused nightmare. Much more clearly she remembered Hettel, who had been raped by one of them. When the pregnancy had become impossible to hide, the priest had cut the child out of her. Metta had packed the wound with comfrey and yarrow and done her best, but of course Hettel had died anyway, days later. Sevran would have broken her new oath of apprenticeship then, if there had been anywhere else to go. Now she was blackly grateful that she was not a virgin, that she was saved that at least. Herbalists, more than halfway to being witches in the eyes of others, did not marry – but Sevran, burning and desperate, had offered her services to a pedlar who came to the house one day. The experience had been disappointing, though the man was comely and gentle enough; over far too quickly, it had left her an itch she had had to bathe for a fortnight. She had not been tempted to repeat the experiment with any of the villagers, though there were enough men who stared and smirked at her when they met, even as they made the sign against evil behind her back. That was another reason for not running from the clearing; she did not believe that throwing herself on the mercy of the village men would save her from violence. She watched the man with the white hair and felt tension freeze like a fist of ice inside her. At the same time she saw the way he moved and realised that it was weariness that had made him clumsy. He favoured his left leg, too, walking with a slight limp. When he glanced in her direction she ducked into the shadow of the doorway, into the dusty aromatic interior.

  He followed her into the house and, after looking around him, dropped the folded saddle by the door. The sword he laid carefully in front of the hearth fire. Metta, seated in her chair and mumbling under her breath, twisted away as he passed by; he glanced down at her, expressionless. Sevran watched from behind the heavy oak table that they used for all their work, as he paced the central room, looking at the few furnishings, the two great pillars that held up the high peaked roof and the many sheaves of dried herbs hanging along the walls and from the rafters. His face did not betray what he thought; in fact, she had not seen the slightest trace of emotion written there since he had appeared, neither ill intent nor gratitude nor interest. When he passed close to her she could smell him, mingled scents of horses and sweat and leather, and her breath caught in her throat. He walked to either end of the house and lifted the curtains that set aside their two bedchambers, looked in, and walked back to the fireside without comment. There he sat in the other chair, her own, across the fireplace from Metta and, leaning back, fixed his gaze on her.

  ‘Make us supper, child,’ Metta said uneasily into the dead silence. Sevran moved to comply, dipping water from the bucket into the iron cauldron they cooked with. She had to use both hands to move it into the fireplace, and had to kneel in front of his outstretched feet to set it on its hook and rake the embers up underneath it. The leather of his boots was decorated with copper wire, but very worn. Likewise his clothes, though of fine weave, were now scuffed and stiff with wear; once dyed expensively black, she guessed, they had faded to grey. She did not look into his face. She kneeled within arm’s reach and waited inwardly for a move on her, yet it did not happen.

  She returned to the table and prepared food, parsnip and barley and salt bacon – for spring was a lean season, before the harvest set – without another word being spoken. The unleashed violence in the room made the air thin and she found herself breathing quick shallow breaths. She sliced the food with the big iron knife, wielding it fast in a silent and pathetic symbol of defence. She was under no illusion about her ability to overcome any attack; he was heavier than her, stronger and crueller. He carried a sword. She felt his gaze like a spiked weight on her skin; it was unbearable to turn her back on him, worse to look up and meet his steady, undisguised regard. She wanted to find a tunic and cover her bare arms and shoulders. Her skin crawled with goose-flesh. She was shamefully aware that fear and chill had hardened her nipples to visible points under the thin linen. She saw him looking and a flush warmed her skin. She was glad Metta could see nothing of this.

  Eventually, when the supper was set on to cook, Sevran slipped out into the evening sun to empty the peelings on to the midden. As she passed the man’s horse, it raised its head from the grass it was cropping and bared its teeth at her. To her horror, she saw that it had sharp canines like a dog’s and she shied away from it. She walked around the house and found her discarded tunic in a damp shadow, then she sat next to the patch of lovage and watched the house, chewing her lower lip, until she was too afraid to stay away longer. Her heart was beating so strongly that she could feel the pulse at her throat. She thought of him watching her, unawares, in the herb-garden, looking at her legs and breasts.

  The red rays of the sunset slipped in through the west-facing door with her as she returned, outlining her in copper and setting her hair ablaze with light. In the almost-darkness of the windowless longhouse, she ladled stew out for the three of them. The man said a few words she did not understand as he took the bowl, flat, harsh-sounding syllables in his own half-human language. He ate three bowlfuls of the pottage and a small loaf of black bread swiftly, with the concentration of one who has not eaten well in days. The break from his watchfulness was a relief to her, but she only picked at her food. She noticed that he had not taken a bite until Metta had started on hers.

  The two women were used to sleeping and rising with the sun. Metta yawned as she put aside her bowl, then whimpered with shame.

  ‘Go to bed,’ said Sevran swiftly. She helped the old woman from her chair to the curtained alcove at the northern end of the house. ‘Please sleep, Metta,’ she begged as she pulled the covers over the small body.

  The herbalist squeezed the younger woman’s hand. ‘God be with you,’ she whispered.

  Sevran slipped back into the room with tension singing in her body. She was entirely unprepared to find h
im asleep, his head turned aside against the high shoulder of the chair. His breathing was deep and regular. For a moment she sagged all over. Relief was like a blush that caressed her whole body. Asleep, the man was not something she feared. She watched him as frankly as he had watched her, seeing the gentle curves his long fingers had relaxed into on his thighs. She had thought him young at first because he was beardless; now she saw the fine lines about his eyes and mouth. Although he was still alien, his hair a pale tangle about his shoulders, the menace had gone from him – or from her perception of him. She looked for a long time, motionless. She knew she could kill him now, if she were swift. Or wake him. Both images played themselves through her head; her choice. She smiled faintly to herself and slipped away to her own bed.

  Normally she slept naked, but this night she could not bring herself to remove the last layer of cloth between her and the night. She slipped under the wool and sheepskin blankets and lay curled on her side with one palm pressed between her legs. She could feel her own dampness through the cloth. Fear, perhaps. A great wave of yearning and loneliness swelled within her and she longed to bring herself to a climax, but she could not believe that the man outside would not hear, would not smell, would not feel her desire; it would tear the roof down and shake the house to rubble. Aching, her head buzzing, she slipped reluctantly into sleep.

  She awoke when the door slammed. She was surprised she had slept at all. She stared at the coarse weave of the cloth that shielded her sleeping space, seeing through it the dim glow of the hearth fire. It was not much later, then. The door banged again and she sat up. The breeze was knocking it back and forth; it must be off the latch. It would wake everyone. Sevran slipped out of bed, still clad only in her undershift, and cautiously peered around the curtain. The door was a few inches ajar, and both chairs were empty; the man was not in the room.

  Sevran moved swiftly to the door, silent in her bare feet, but as she laid her hand upon the bar it was pushed back in her face. She retreated a few steps as the man came into the room. His shirt was loose and his trews hitched loosely over his hips, the belt unfastened.