Chapter 8

“What do you want?” Seraphina yelled. “Am I never to get a moment’s peace?”

“Please, my lady, you must go to the castle at once. The queen has summoned you. There is a grave crisis and you are sorely needed.”

Seraphina swore. But duty was duty. She stood up, water running off her beautiful body. “Help me,” she said to the maid who had brought the news. “Dry me then fetch clothes.”

Rowena went into the bedroom. She was not a maid-servant, but instead Seraphina’s facilitator in erotic activities (the cynical might have called her a female pimp), and her occasional partner in bed. But at moments like these she performed other, invaluable services. Quickly she assembled a saddle bag containing items which Seraphina would be likely to need at the palace. Then she hurried down to the kitchen to get some food for the journey, before waving Seraphina goodbye.

As soon as she reached the court, Seraphina was summoned into the presence of Queen Ingeborg. The queen explained that she intended to mount an expedition into Breconia to rescue Yolande, and that Seraphina would lead it.

“You do realise,” the queen said to Seraphina, “that it is imperative that my daughter be brought back alive.”

“Of course, your majesty,” said Seraphina.

“However, though hoping for the best we must prepare for the worst. Should, by some twist of fate, my daughter not be safely returned to me, we must find a way to punish the Breconians for this outrage. In fact, even if we get Yolande back I intend there to be action against them.”

Seraphina considered it her duty to warn the queen about the difficulties of such a proposal. “Parvania is small,” she said. “And though Breconia is not a major power, invading it would be beyond our capacity. It is generally reckoned by the best experts that to invade another country you need a superiority of men and equipment of at least three to one. Five or six to one is preferable.”

“I intend to ask the assistance of King Hrothgar,” the queen said.

“But why should he give it, your majesty?”

“I shall offer him inducements,” the queen said.

“Money? Do we have that much?”

“There are other things he might like besides money. But we shall not discuss that now. Prepare the rescue mission.”

“Yes, your majesty,” said Seraphina, bowing.

What the queen did not care to tell her was that the inducement she had in mind was herself. Though well past forty, Ingeborg had retained some of her good looks. Hrothgar was a notorious philanderer, and would surely be tempted by the offer of the queen’s body. Of course that alone would not induce him to risk his own kingdom to help another. But the queen was willing to talk of marriage. If such a contract could be agreed, Parvania and Hrothgar’s kingdom of Hivernia could be united. Surely that was a prize worth having.

There was one problem as far as the queen was concerned. Hrothgar’s sexual appetite was legendary. He was a vain man, with a long flowing beard, which he had combed and trimmed every day by his personal barber. The king’s hair was likewise long, and stylishly coiffed. This barber also shaved the king’s privates, Hrothgar being rather particular about personal hygiene, unusually for the time. At the base of his belly, just above his cock, was a tattoo of an eagle, Hrothgar’s personal symbol, and the head of his cock was pierced by a silver ring, an adornment of which he was inordinately proud. He was known by his people as Hrothgar the Rough, on account of his manner towards women. He prided himself on never having taken a woman against her will, but his style of love-making was boisterous in the extreme. Some ladies derived much satisfaction from being bounced around by the king; others, whose preference was for more subtle methods, less so. He had three sons, but his wife, possibly worn out by Hrothgar’s excessive demands, had expired after the delivery of the last one.

By contrast, Queen Ingeborg’s appetite for sex was now non-existent. She had never had much of a taste for the pleasures of the bed. Immediately after her twin daughters were born, she had informed her husband, King Cnut, that sexual relations between them were henceforth terminated. The king had merely shrugged his shoulders and continued with his practice of fucking any comely women who happened to find themselves at court. But his dissipation extended not only to adultery. One night, when the twin girls were ten years old, the queen discovered the king drunk in the bed of Thalyssa. Outraged, she had summoned two guards and had the king suffocated, having sworn the guards to secrecy. But, not trusting them with her secret, soon afterwards she had the guards put to death as well, on trumped-up charges of treachery.

At the time, blinded by rage, she had simply assumed that Cnut had violated his daughter, who, as a child, must be assumed innocent. It was only some years later that the nature of Thalyssa’s sexual depravity became clear to her, and then she began to wonder if her husband, while undoubtedly guilty of a grave crime and a sin, might not to some extent have been led on. Thalyssa had sworn that no such act had ever occurred before the fateful night. But increasingly the queen began to suspect that this was not so.

She had never communicated her suspicions to anyone else, and above all not to Thalyssa. It was a secret she intended to take to the grave. It merely served to confirm her in her distaste for any kind of sexual activity, and she was pleased that this appeared to have been reproduced in her other daughter Yolande. However, in the interests of the country she was willing sacrifice herself on the altar of duty. If patriotism required that she open her legs for Hrothgar, she would close her eyes and think of Parvania. Accordingly, Hrothgar had been invited on a visit. Even as Yolande was preparing her escape from Breconia, the king and his eldest son, Eric, were riding towards Blackthorn, the queen’s castle.