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Morena became ambivalent about spending the entire day locked in her bedchamber. Yesterday, her heart soared with hope when Amoro burst into the dinner feast, but plummeted again when he agreed to fight Ernesto. The fact that Ernesto promised to leave her alone until after the combat appeased her somewhat.
Her dinner of partridge, roasted carrots, and a small sweet cake sat in a tray by her bedside untouched. No maidservant came to help prepare her for bed. Nonetheless, she turned down the bed covers, completed her ablutions, and combed her tresses. She snuffed the candles. Darkness engulfed the room save for the gentle glow from the hearth. Morena walked to the windows and stared out at the courtyard, and beyond that, the sea whose waves tossed restlessly beneath a dark sky.
An eruption of thunder boomed in the heavens and shook the earth.
Her heart drummed frenetically against her breastbone. A cold wind from the open window blew into the room.
Whatever happened between Ernesto and Amoro would forever alter her life. For the better, if Amoro won. For worse if Ernesto came out victorious. A brief prayer to God to grant her heart’s desire came and went from her lips. She fell to her knees and sobbed her desperation.
She knew not how long she cried, but she wept until no more tears appeared. Time became lost to her. She rose to her feet and gazed out at the tranquil sea as if its vastness held the resolution to her plight. In the distance, a church bell rang the canonical hour of compline.
The turn of the lock in the door caught her attention. The latch lifted and the door opened.
Ernesto swayed in the doorway. His lascivious gaze swept over her in drunken appreciation.
Morena stood like a warrior queen, her arms crossed. “Get out of my bedchamber.”
His right hand closed into a fist as he stepped further into the room.
“I’m lord here and I do what I want,” he said. “And what I want is to put a child in your belly.”
Morena felt the blood drain from her face. “You gave your word not to lay a hand upon me.”
“I’m master of my own castle and I can change my mind at will.”
“You degenerate barbarian,” she cried in anguish.
The fire in Ernesto’s eyes terrified her. Her knowledge of men consisted of the sole encounter with Amoro. Over the years, however, from the gossip of other women, she understood that lust sometimes kindled a man’s savage traits.
Ernesto latched the door behind him and staggered to where Morena stood.
Her courage faltered and she turned away, but he grabbed her by the upper arm and swung her back around.
“Please...” her voice disappeared.
He ran his hand over her hair, grabbed a fistful, and yanked it back hard. He brought his face close to hers. “I’ll abide no defiance you. Get on the bed.”
Her stomach lurched at the ale-soured stench of his breath. She raised her hand to strike him, but he grasped her wrist and held it viciously.
“You were about to strike me.”
“Let me be free,” she demanded.
He laughed at her. “Striking a man is not the way to attract him.”
“I want nothing from you!”
“Ah, but I want something from you.” He dropped his eyes to the rise and fall of her breasts. “I want to bed you well and hard this night.”
Ernesto smirked and unclasped his hold on her hair.
She rubbed her head at the ache.
“Come, come, that cannot have hurt. There is much pleasure in pain, I’ll soon show you.”
“You dream if you think I’ll let you lay a hand upon me again.”
“We shall see about that.” Like the crack of a whip, his threat stilled her. She knew she had pushed him too far.
He gripped her left wrist so hard, it hurt. Morena recoiled and she opened her mouth wide to scream. A clap of thunder overshadowed her cry.
With unmatched strength, Ernesto covered her mouth. He twisted her left wrist and thrust it up between her shoulder blades. Pain wracked her shoulder as she tossed about to free herself. Morena cried into the dirty calloused fingers pressed against her lips.
Ernesto broke out into a deep, hollow laugh. He clamped his hand tighter over her mouth. The increased pressure battered her lips. Her mouth filled with the metallic taste of her own blood.
Morena swung her right arm, desperate to strike a blow. She writhed about in his grasp. Her struggles only drove her further into his arms. The room resounded with his sinister laugh as he raised her up. She kicked her legs in protest and screamed into the hand at her mouth. A cold gust of wind burst in from the open window and inflamed the fire in the hearth. It brought a burst of light then long, dark shadows.
“Yes, vixen, fight,” Ernesto sniggered as she flailed about. “Soon you will beg for my touch on your wanton flesh. You will cry out to feel my seed in your cunny.”
Morena shuddered at the tone of his voice, shocked at his intent.
At her reaction, he roared with laughter and pushed her toward the ominous bed. She struggled with all her might. If he broke her will, all would be lost. Desperation to flee the sordid chamber possessed her.
Hunger for freedom drove her to inflict several insane blows.
Morena bit his hand. Ernesto bellowed in anger. She kicked back to dislodge herself from his grip. The heel of her shoe struck his shinbone.
The act enraged him and he bellowed a feral snarl into her ear.
Morena battled undaunted.
Ernesto tightened his grip on her arm and struck her mouth hard with the flat of his hand. He wrenched her arm so far up her spine, the pain in her wrist and shoulder burned as if he tore them from her flesh.
Morena screamed, but he muffled the sound with a sweated hand.
Tears of rage streamed as she fought to escape. She thrashed her head from side to side. The movement merely unravelled her braid.
Ernesto swept her past the bed towards the open window. He thrust her against the ledge. The blow knocked the breath from her body. He forced her head over the casement. The ledge pressed against her stomach and stole her breath. Ice-cold darts of rain struck her face. A fear more intense than she experienced in her entire life gripped her. Her resistance seemed to drive him from rape to murderous bloodlust.
Morena stopped struggling. The cracked cobblestones of the courtyard below began to swirl before her. Loose hair flew about her hanging head and obscured her vision.
Ernesto removed his hand from her lips.
Morena coughed and gasped. Drops of blood from her mouth splattered the rain-slicked stone of the window ledge.
Behind her, Ernesto slid his fingers beneath the neckline of her dress.
His grip upon her left wrist tightened. Hard drops of rain pelted her skin and soaked her gown. She swung her right hand to escape his clutches.
The sound of tearing cloth split the air. With one thrust of his arm, Ernesto ripped the back of her tunic and kirtle then yanked the cloth down to her waist to expose her breasts. He used her twisted, painful arm to press her face down onto the weather beaten stones. Cold rain chilled the expanse of her back. Morena screamed into the wind.
Ernesto broke out in thunderous laughter and pressed her harder to the ledge. “Scream if you will. No one will hear you. No one will come to your rescue this time.”
She bit her lip and tried to swing her right arm about, but she scraped her hand against the weathered rock. “Get away from me, you filthy dog!” Upon her angry words, the winds gusted harder and the rain grew more vicious. She shrieked louder as Ernesto squeezed her wrist tighter and twisted her tortured arm almost to the breaking point. Below, a mist rose from the puddles of chilled rainwater.
With his free hand, Ernesto seized her right breast and squeezed hard. “Stop fighting me or it will be far worse for you, my little putana.”
“Stop, you will pay for this if you don’t!” Fear drove her to bargain with this devil.
He thrust his knee between her thighs and pushed her harder against the soaked casement. At the same time, he released the grip on her breast and ripped the bloodstone pendant from her neck. “I’ll take this pretty little bobble. It belongs to me now, just as you do. I’ll fuck you as the beasts do, from behind.”
Morena cried out in fear.
“Where is your precious Amoro now? Why does he not come to rescue you?” Ernesto mocked.
Fear constricted her heart as a blade shredded the ripped clothes that hung at her waist. Cold metal traced the outline of her inner thigh and slid up her leg. Her skirts yielded to the blade as it climbed ever higher.
He did not stop the blade until it reached the downy nexus of her legs.
Ernesto used his body to press her against the ledge while he grasped what remained of her tunic and kirtle and ripped them to tatters in the wind. Her entire body was exposed. The pelt of the rain nipped. A harsh slap upon her naked flesh tore through the air. Morena shrieked and bucked with pain.
“Beg for it, slut,” he hissed in her ear. The weight of his flesh kept her pinned taut. He flicked his tongue into her ear. Morena felt the press of his cock against her backside. Terror shattered her thoughts. Fear threatened to overwhelm her. Her heart beat a frantic cadence in her chest. “No!”
“Stupid bitch! You will learn to obey me because I’ll show you the heavy price you will pay when you don’t.”
***
WHILE AMORO SHARED a meal and a tankard of ale with his men in the dining hall of an elaborate inn on the outskirts of Savona, Laria secretly entered through the back door and stopped a serving girl. She reached inside her mantle and withdrew an engraved silver flagon filled with fine wine and laced with a powerful sleeping potion. “A gift from my master, a rich merchant, to wish the duke of Genoa good fortune on the morrow,” she whispered to the young slip of a girl whose eyes widened at the silver Laria left in her palm.
The maidservant nodded as she reached for the flagon, but Laria didn’t release it. “No, I must see to the task personally. Which chamber is the duke’s?”
A slight smile of understanding crossed the maidservant’s lips.
“Follow me.”
The woman led her to a well-furnished chamber on the second story of the inn. Laria recognized Amoro’s weaponry neatly stacked in a corner. Satisfied, she set the flagon on a small bedside table and followed the maidservant back down the stairs.
“I have two more silver coins if you can guarantee me free entry into the inn and Lord Dragone’s bedchamber later this night.”
The woman nodded greedily. “I’ll let you in myself.”
With the terms agreed, Laria left the inn and waited in the dark courtyard behind. She sought shelter from the pelting rain in the doorway of a small stable. When lights no longer burned in any of the windows of the inn, Laria raised the hood of her mantle and wrapped it tight about her. She braved the storm and scurried across the dark courtyard to the rear door of the inn and knocked gently. As promised, the maidservant opened the door. Laria smiled and slid the first silver coin into the woman’s palm.
As she followed the maidservant up the stairs, a shred of doubt entered her mind. Her entire plan depended upon Amoro drinking and falling heavily to sleep. What would happen if he refused to indulge in the wine? Laria shook her doubts off. Of course, he would sample a drink. Who would not indulge in fine nectar that came in so splendid a flagon?
Quietly, they made their way to the Amoro’s chamber. The maidservant opened the door slightly and waited. Laria handed her the second coin. The woman gave a small nod and disappeared down the dark corridor. Laria pushed open the door and whispered a prayer of thanks that the hinges were well oiled.
Amoro lay on his back with the bedcovers to his waist and his upper body naked against the linens. A slight snore escaped his lips. She tiptoed to the side of the bed, picked up the flagon on the bedside table.
A smile came to her lips when she discovered it half-empty. She carried it to the window, opened the shutters, and poured the contents into the courtyard below. After she closed the shutters, she returned the flagon to the small bedside table.
Laria removed her clothes and scattered them about as if hastily removed by the heated hands of a lover. She ran her hand over her belly and the child that grew within. Ernesto’s child by seed, but she would make it Amoro’s child by name. Although her courses were overdue by a mere fourteen days, swollen, painful breasts and nausea upon awakening assured her condition. Naked, she lifted the bedcovers and slipped in beside Amoro. When next she would awake, it would be in her lover’s arms.
***
RAYS OF EARLY MORNING sun shone in through the cracks in the shutters. The light penetrated Amoro’s closed eyelids and drew him from a deep slumber. He muttered a curse, rolled over, and pulled the covers over his head to bring back the dark. Fatigue endured in his bones and muscle. He moved his leg and made contact with soft, warm flesh.
The sensation disoriented him at first. His confusion drew him further into consciousness. He remembered drinking wine at dinner and before bed, but he had not imbibed to the point of stupor. The sounds of the new day threaded through his slumber. A cow clamoured for someone to milk her. Birds chirped. Children shouted. The sounds comforted and Amoro drifted back into sleep.
A warm body pressed against him and a soft hand slid over his arm to caress his chest. Sumptuous ardour inflamed Amoro’s groin. To make love in the morning, with one’s mind unclogged and only the pure pleasure of flesh upon flesh, was one of his favourite things. The hand roamed downward past his belly to his manhood while kisses warmed the back of his neck.
Consciousness returned in full force. Amoro seized the hand. He gripped it hard and rolled over. He could not believe what his eyes beheld. “Laria. By the blood of the devil. How did you get in here?”
Laria smiled dreamily. “Do you not remember, my lord? You sent a messenger to summon me. Your lust for me was equal to that of a heated stallion to a mare.”
Amoro stared into her eyes. Confused, he searched his memory, but could not recall doing such a thing. He drank little the entire night in order to remain alert and unimpeded for today’s combat. Then he recalled the flagon and the rich wine that had a strong, intoxicating effect upon him. He remembered nothing after that. Could it be possible that he did summon her in drunkenness?
“This is a trick, woman. I recall finding you in my bed once before.”
“This is no trick, Amoro. You summoned me and I came.” Laria’s eyes shone bright as she brought her hand to his cheek. “It was good between us, just like before, as if we had never been separated.”
Amoro pushed her hand away and he softened his tone. “We enjoyed many good times of which I carry fond memories, but it is over between us. I never gave you any expectations. I intend on marrying Morena and I’ll go to my wedding bed as a man faithful to his wife. You must understand.”
“I’ll never understand. Our passion last night proved you wrong.”
Amoro turned around and swung his legs off the bed. He tried to shake the fog from his clouded mind. His body felt lethargic, his mind sluggish. Then he saw the scattered clothes. He rose, picked them up, and shoved them at her. “Dress yourself and get out, Laria. I have provided for you very well for long into the future. There is nothing more between us. It is over.”
Laria spoke through clenched teeth. “Very well, Amoro, I understand. But remember this, one day you will have need of me and when that day comes, I’ll not deny you as you have denied me.” She pulled her kirtle over her head and straightened. “I’ll give you my love whenever you need it. My heart will always bear hope that you’ll one day return my love.” She slipped the over-tunic over her head, thrust on her shoes, and walked to the door. As she lifted the latch, she turned back around for one last look at him. With head held high and a swish of her mantle, she left the chamber.
Amoro breathed a sigh of relief, but his guts churned. He sensed something amiss.