When she had wed poor Ehrik, three months agone, dear old Lord Hari had generously feasted them in the hall and gifted them and presented them to his king stallion, his daughters and his lady. But on that joyous day, Mairee had been too full of the giddy happiness of the events and awe of the sumptuous surroundings and the old nobleman’s preferential treatment of her and Ehrik to note aught but that the lady was stout, black-haired and aloof, seeming displeased with her noble spouse.
But the lady of the initial phase of her second meeting was all solicitude, tenderly embracing Mairee and kissing her cheek in a motherly greeting, drawing her down to sit beside her on a soft-cushioned settle, insisting she eat of the rare dainties and drink of the strong, brandied wine. The lady’s plump, beringed fingers gently brushed the bruises left on Mairee’s fair skin by the cruel manhandling of Danos and his men, lifting the hem of her sole garment and pulling the low-cut neck even lower that she might see and touch the entireties of the discolored areas, all the while clucking sympathy and promising dire punishments for the guardsmen responsible.
And the combination of soothing words and strong drink had had their effect Mairee had forgotten her fears enough to weep, thinking of poor Ehrik lying dead in his blood on the floor of their home amid the smashed wreckage which had been its furnishings, and the lady’s pudgy arms had immediately enfolded her.
“Do not weep, little Mairee,” she had crooned. There is naught to be feared, for never again will any dirty, lustful man lay his hairy hands upon your sweet flesh. Never, so long as I live. My word upon it.”
And Mairee had sobbed, “Oh, my lady, they . . . those men slew my husband. Murdered my dear Ehrik. He … he is dead, all bloody and dead.”
“My husband, too, is dead, fair Mairee,” the lady breathed. “But what need have we two of husbands, when we now have each other? Little one, I will be husband and more, so much more, to you. I shall provide for you and care for you . . . and please you as no base man has ever pleased you … or could.”
It was not until Lady Hehrah’s strength and immense weight had borne Mairee back, pinned her under that mountain of musk-scented flesh, that the girl realized, remembered the half-comprehended remarks made by her captors on that terrible ride from village to hall, recalled the sly whispers of women of the village when word was passed to be on the lookout for the girl Ehlaina, who was missing from the hall.
Then the mists cleared and she heard again the words of the man whose horse had carried her, the words he had spoken while his hands squeezed and groped at her: “Enjoy me while you can, you little slut, for once you’re old Hehrah’s glohsah-athehlfee, you’ll never again be allowed near a man!”
Glohsah-athehlfee! Tongue-sister! That whispered-about vice of Komeesa Hehrah. The thought alone was enough to sicken Mairee. But when she opened her mouth to protest, the older woman’s thick, blubbery lips pasted themselves over hers while the hot, winy tongue forced between her teeth in search of her own.
Mairee struggled to wrench free, to sit up, but Lady Hehrah’s layers of fat concealed other layers of muscle, and she held the slender girl easily enough to free one bejeweled hand.
And when Mairee felt that hot, damp hand slip betwixt her slim thighs, she reacted frantically, sinking her sharp white teeth into that alien tongue thrusting between them, while punching at the head and face above her, tearing at the coif-fed black hair. And when at last she had felt some of the weight shift, had made to get to her feet, the lady’s buffet had set her almost to swooning. And she had thus understood only snatches of the things the lady said to the women who had come to her screams.
“Ahtheena, Khohee, Ntohrees . . . skoola . . . ahkahrees-tosha . . . Ktoopeemaptehrnasl . . . eeahkoopohgnohmohsoo-nee…”
Though the language was archaic Old Ehleenohkos, it was sufficiently similar to Confederation Ehleenohkos for Mairee to understand that she was being called an “ungrateful bitch” along with something about “stubborness”; the term Ktoopeema-ptehmas she did not know… not then.