Psiberzerker
08-19-2019, 11:21 AM
Author
Note: The narrator is only fourteen, but the social standard of the time was a bit more lax. Which is not to say that there's nothing wrong with May/December romance, only that they didn't have such laws back then. Today, you must be at least 18 to read erotic stories, look at risque pictures, or pursue a relationship with an older man.
I'm just going to leave off ye olde English, and there's only really one obscure word that I'll have to define, for readability. I'm sure it was a "Towne" instead of a Town, but it's not like anyone actually wrote this down back then.
Suffice it to say this was a long time ago, in a land far away...
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The Maiden:
Adelaide awoke, and dressed, then opened the shutters to find the morning cool, with the air fresh from the night's rain. Springlike, though the season had begun to turn from late summer, not yet autumn.
From the street below rose a miasma of smells, laced with the sweet stench of moist horse apples. So, she held her nose, and backed into the room. Went about making the bed, as the chambermaid came in for the honeypot, and help her with the linens.
"Thank you," Adelaide curtsied, and ran down to breakfast. Hoping for a sweet roll, but smelling no scent of baking, the cook poured her boiled barley, and creme. A disappointment, but a filling one, she finished, and thanked the cook as well.
Always polite, she sincerely appreciated the servant's work, and the privilege of avoiding the more odious chores. The hot smoky windowless kitchen, where her mother would never go, the most hated rooms in the house. To say nothing of the odious chamber pots, the mystery of where they went solved years ago when she asked, and was shewn. Better left forgotten.
Finally, she took up her purse, and felt through her petticoats. The gaps at the hip to the pocket she had tied on with laces underneath. Dressing herself, with pride as she had ever since before she had lost her first teeth. Which isn't to say she resented having a staff, she knew all of their names, and their children were her friends, her playmates growing up.
She merely respected them, and appreciated their hard work, aware that the rest of her family took them for granted, and depended on them. Particularly, when dressing. She prided herself on dressing herself, and avoided anything which would require assistance to get into. At an age when she really should be wearing stays underneath her shawl. For warmth, modesty, and a fashionable figure, she had tried them when her's began to fill out.
She had such a modest bosom, underneath the layers. Narrow hips, and thin graceful limbs. However, her mother dressed her, for the last time. Sitting to wrap the stays around her front, and lace them behind her. She knew young women, her peers who complained about difficulty breathing. Their bosoms crushed upward to present a glimpse of décolletage , spreading the corners of their shawls to fan down the open neck of their blouses, invitingly.
"Then why do you wear them, if they're so uncomfortable?" One had a habit of withdrawing her Busk. A wooden splint from the front of her stays, that forced her into a certain posture. A proper, upright poise, though she was married now. Her suitor took it, and his belt knife to carve it for her to take back, and hide beneath her bosoms. Withdraw in private, and slouch with the girls. Shew them the promises whittled into the wood, especially 2 intertwined rings when he proposed.
On the stoop, Adelaide took a deep breath of the morning air, and held the firm embossed leather cover of a book up to her chest, then sighed. Wrinkling her nose at the smell of the street, and looking up at the shadow of her roof. The chimneys with their wrought iron cages to deter burglars, and confound chimney sweeps.
Cast across the street, on wall of the houses facing their home. A familiar view, as familiar as the odors, deciding once again not to let it spoil her morning. She tucked the book under her arm, and carefully made her way down the steps, holding her petticoats. She had stepped on them but once, and learned her lesson from bruises. Taken a bad spill down the stone worn smooth as ice from countless footsteps over the generations.
At length, she came apon something else on the street. An open cart, rough hewn, and the man jumping down from the seat with the reigns in his hands. "All right, have a drink then." The horse, a single draft horse with tufts of fur over it's rough iron shot hooves bent to the trough, while the owner pulled back the oil cloth, and carried hay forward to feed it. "Have a snack as well?" He offered. The horses' eye turned, and looked, before shaking the water from it's snout, and turning to pull hanks from his outstretched hands with it's lips.
Adelaide loved horses, and saw that this one hadn't been brushed. Whickers, and twitches rippled under the fur, and the harness, so without asking, she brushed it to feel the stiff prickles of whiskers, and brush more out from under the leather strap. Pulled a strand of the main out of the brass riveted end, bent to a ring in the tack, to make it more comfortable.
"All right," the man stepped up, and pulled himself to the seat, holding the reins "Have your fill, then? Oh." He spied Adelaide stepping back to give room for him to drive off. "Hello there."
"Good morning," she attempted a curtsy, but fumbled the book, slipping out from under her arm. Losing her grace, but making up for it with a quick catch before it tumbled to the rough, and dirty cobblestones.
The horse ignored them, and went back to the water trough. "Where are you headed, the market?"
"Yes, and you?" He leaned down with his free hand to bow, and offer it. She handed up the book, first. Then took it, pulling up her hems to find the step with her heel. "The booksellers."
"You read."
"Of course! My father has quite the library, but. Oh!" The cart surged with a gentle slap of the reins on the horse's rump. A playful reposte with the tail. The young maiden found her seat, and she sighed. "Unfortunately, I have read all of his most interesting stories, and grew bored with the others. Gripping tales of trade, and taxes."
"Which brings you to seek out new books." He nodded, enjoying the company, and conversation. "I am not lettered, myself. I envy you a little, having that to pass the time as I would, if I could."
"How do you sign your name?"
"Oh, I know that. With a pencil, but by the way. How does one carry a feather? I always wondered that, the gentlemen with their feather pens."
"Quills?"
"Is that what they're called?"
"Yes, however they need not be feather quills. There is an animal in the bestiaries, called a prickly pig, or porcupine. It has featherless quills which are suitable for travel. I suppose, I have never seen one."
"Oh," Like a hedgehog, he imagined. "I thought they carried them in their hats."
"Oh no, that is just the fashion. It does make a hat look ever so dashing, but no. I would think they have another, to avoid getting in stains in their hat-bands."
"Indeed, what I would give for such a dashing hat, to get the attention of the ladies."
"It 'twould only serve to draw attention from your face. I believe such affectations must be for the men who aren't so handsome."
"And yet, the ladies such as yourself wear such finery. Which does little to take the eye away from your beauty."
"Huh!" Adelaide had to stop, and smile. Shake her head, and look away as her face warmed with his words. "I'm no lady."
"Well, I won't tell any of the gentry, if you would keep up the pretense."
"No, I'm." She bit her lip, forcing herself to say what she has to, to pursue this conversation to it's end. "Unmarried." Her heart beating out of control. Thrilling, and proud of herself for finally admitting her attraction to a man. A common man, rough jawed, and simply dressed. Driving a simple cart of simple hay to market, but for years now.
Ever since she began, growing from an innocent child to a young lady, she had become dissatisfied with the typical tales. Every maiden a princess, and every man prince charming, or a villainous rake. Every ending happily ever after, in a castle. Perhaps with a window to look out over the walls, and the town for a glimpse at the fields from afar. But naught about the simple common life of the country folk. The freedom of fields to run through, shining with wildflowers, and rattling as her hem brushed through them.
Aware of the roughness of his strong calloused hands, now tugging the reigns to pull the to a stop. "Here we are." he stepped down, first lashing the hackamore to a post, and then returning to the step. Holding up his hands to the side, and she laughed. Feeling his strong rough calloused hands at her sides, and slipping up to her ribs through her clothes. For the first this morning grateful that she hadn't submitted to being fitted with stays.
So she could feel this briefest of sensations, as she imagined but a moment ago, until he set her heels on the cobbles. The market was beginning to bustle, with other carts already there, young girls offering eggs, flower, or milk at the buttercross, and shop owners leaning out to fasten the shutters.
"Oh," she fished through her petticoats for her pocket, her purse, and offered a full shilling. "Thank you."
He took it, without a word, but returned her a bow, and a smile.
"My pleasure," he even added a flourish of his simple worsted wool hat. "My lady."
She giggled, and started running off.
"Don't forget your book!" Grateful for her to stop, turn around, and come back to him. If only to take back the heavy firm embossed leather from his hands, with more thanks, and another courtesy.
Still a little surprised, when he helped her down that he had gripped her bare ribs, and not the expected stiff reinforced padding she should be wearing at that age.
"I'm not a lady," she had said. "I'm not married."
"Huh!" He shook the daydream out of his head as she disappeared in the crowd. Giving up hope of ever seeing her again, he went about unlashing the oiled cloth. "Hay here, hay for sale!"
He began to go about his day...
;
The Market (fM Cont...)
Having just the one errand, Adelaide sold the book she had finished, and asked the bookbinder for a Primer. She had some, or rather her father did in his collection, but it was cheap, and saved her a trip back to her home. A chance for her mother, or father to see her, ask her where she had been, and what she had planned for the day.
When she woke, her plans had been as simple, and uninteresting as any other day, but a Sunday. Without the duty of attending service, she would have filled it as she did any other. With a trip to the market for a new story, then comfortably reading it, to pass the time. But for a chance encounter, with a man.
A handsome man, a commoner, but rough, and human for his lack of pretense, and finery. It was no trouble at all to imagine him with a dashing hat, a rackish tilt, and a feather, sweeping back from the brim. Perhaps a pistol, sword, and a more noble mount than the draft horse that pulled his rough hewn cart, but those were the daydreams of a regular gentry maiden.
To be honest, the dreams her mother had for her, and possibly her father as well. Tho marry up, into a wealthier family, an even larger house, and even greater staff of servants, but she was always graced with an independent spirit. Not only when it came to dressing herself, and venturing down to the kitchen, rather than send someone to bring her a meal.
On a silver tray, to the padded and beautiful parlors of luxury, and ease. Such things bored her, and she longed for something unique for a maiden of her age, and station.
In a word, Work. She longed for it, and not the sort of "Work" her father did with parckment, quill, and inkwell. Good honest work, which she had only ever seen through the servants'. Cooking, cleaning, and laboring to provide the comfort she resented, and even despised. The dull, but pretty life of a gentry wife. Waiting to be waited on. Being served, when honestly she would rather be doing the serving.
Dreams that she learned very quickly not to share with her peers, let alone her family. Instead, she played at dusting, cooking, and even hanging rugs over the railings to beat at with a switch. Only to be taken off, stripped, and scrubbed until she expressly forbade the daughters of the cook from bathing her.
"I can bathe myself," she insisted with pride. Her greatest pride so far was that she didn't require servants. Until she had begun to grow, lean, and lithe in comparison with her peers. Had anyone given it any thought, it would have occurred to them that she was too active. While her peers grew fat, sitting on their asses, being waited on literally hand and foot. She was never one to ride a carriage when she could walk, before a handsome man offered his hand, up to the rough wooden plank his cart had for a seat.
And there he was, stuffing hay into a sack, with the giant wooden fork over his shoulder, then tossing it back in the pile before accepting a few pence. Dropping it in his purse before pulling up his tunic to lash back to his belt underneath.
"Huh!" She stopped, and held onto a post at the sight. Breathless, heart thrilling at the slightest glimpse at the tops of his hose. The simple brown unbleached linen of his breeches, and the loose bulge between his legs, but then it was gone. He straightened the flap of his tunic, and cupped his mouth.
"Hay here, fresh hay for sale!"
She ran up. "So, I was wondering something."
"Oh," he turned around, and spied her looking up from his broad back. He assumed, that she wasn't trying to spy his rear through the back flap of his split tunic. Hanging down modestly over the tops of his woad blue hose.
"What's the difference between hay, and straw?"
"Oh, hay is straw, only the freshest, and greenest is good for a horse to eat."
"Oh," the conversation restarted, she withdrew a simple wood bound book, with laces through holes drilled in the cover, and the leafs between. "I bought you this."
"I can not read," he admitted, again.
"Of course, that's what this is for," she held it out, open as a governess or nanny, at storytime. "See, it 'tis a primer, for teaching letters." She looked over, and puzzled at the inverted letters. Illuminated as the initial of a page in an old medieval book, though printed. The pictures themselves illuminating the initial of each word. "Help me up?" She clapped it shut, and set it on the back of the cart.
Once again, he took her in his hands. Careful not to touch her too far forward, though his thumbs pressed through the loose blouse. Devoid of reinforcing stays, boned with baleen. Her ribs hard enough to grip, but despite himself, he encountered a soft roundness at his wrists, and squatted to get under her weight.
Like a father, picking up his own child, except she was quite a bit heavier, he let out a grunt, then set her on her rum to lay back, and nestle herself into the hay. A void where it had been shoveled out with the fork, but then he handed her the wood bound book.
"Here," she turned on her hip, and elbow, to hold it up sideways. "[A] Apple."
"Yes it is. An apple?" He nodded, and she shook her head with a giggle of mirth.
"This," she pointed, "Is an A. See how it has a tail, like a stem?" In the illustration, the lower case [a] was green, with the body of the fruit, and a leafless stem curling up over the top. "A is for apple."
"PHBH!"
"No, Mary. No apples for you, yet." He chuckles. "She loves Apples. She's a horse, so she loves apples, and carrots."
"B" She pointed, "B is for Bee, as in honeybee." She sat up, and looked back. "Mary, eh? You like honey, sweet honey like sweet sweet apples, and carrots?"
She whinnied, and nodded back.
"She understands us?"
"Well, I don't know how much she understands, really. She knows the words apple, and carrot all right, but no. She's never had honey, that I know of."
"So, she is a. Woman horse?"
"A mare, yes. Hence the name?"
"Oh!" She laughed at the play on words.
"I know the letter C." He traced it with his finger on the page. Then the Carrot next to it. "We better not say what it stands for. She may yet forget before I have to buy her any."
"Okay, so what letters do you know?"
"Well, C. is also for Cuthbert. So, the B as well. B is for Bert?"
"Cuthbert," she smiled. "I'm Adelaide, that begins with an A as well."
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The Hayride (fM...)
So, presently the first load was sold, and the oil cloth folded up in the back. About midday, he offered his hand, and to take her back where he found her, but she invited herself along back to the country. "I could use the fresh air," and every excuse to spend more time with him. "In return for more letters?"
Not that either of them needed the excuse, to spend more time together. So, he took up the reins, and lead Mary around the market square to head back to his side of town.
She sighed, "It has been so long, far too long since I have seen the fresh air, and open fields of the country. I hate the city, honestly."
"Why?" He neither loves, nor loathes it. 'Tis but a place where there are more people, and money to spend on a cartload of hay to him.
"I don't know, it's just. The same people, and the same buildings, day after day dreadfully the same. A different story to read, but I would rather get away in person. Enjoy the wide open spaces, and breathe the fresh air myself. Oh, and the smells." She wrinkled her nose, and wiped her lip with the side of her fingers. "Huh, I love the smell of hay, though."
"Is that so? I hardly ever smell it, but I know what you mean. The city has a peculiar smell of it's own, but I have never met a lady who pined for the smells of the farm."
"Well, I like horses."
"Of course." That was never uncommon.
"Enough to endure the smells of what comes out of this end, for the feel of their bristles, and the joy of brushing one. Can I brush her when we get back?"
"Oh, well I know she would love that!" That was one chore he didn't mind, once he unbound her from the arms of the cart, and brushed the furrows out of her flank. Being a horse, she loves it too, but for once he could let this peculiar young lady handle that duty, while he loaded up the cart to take to the stables.
His best customer of course. In town, his neighbors needed it for their own horses, but the stable bought more each day, and payed much more. As it doesn't grow there in the streets as it does in the fields to hold grains up to the sun, and be beaten out with flails to separate the seeds for the grindstone.
She is odd, ever so peculiar in that way, however. One would think that oddness a bad thing, but not Cuthbert. If not for that peculiarity, he would not have her company over the cobblestones, and out the gate to the dirt track.
"Huh!" She settled, then jumped as a wheel hit a rut. "I would have thought that the shaking from the cobblestones couldn't have gotten worse. This hard board, would you mind if I sit in back?"
"No, go right ahead, but be careful." He held her hand, and she held onto the board between the seat, and the flat deck of boards between the open wheels. A cart could have sides on it, of course. However, this one is mostly used for piling up hay, so all he needs is the oilcloth she's turning around to use as a seat.
"Huh, that's better. My rump feels as tender as a beaten cutlet!"
He smiled, nodding, and not even fighting the image in his head. Of her lifting up her skirts, and rubbing the reddened globes of her bum as if spanked by the cart for daring to leave her station. Not even knowing the proper term being petticoats, because women's dress is as much of a mystery as the tales that lie between the covers of a book. However, he appreciated the fine workmanship that went onto the leather cover of the book she carried this morning.
"I would truly give up all of the finery for all of this." She spread her arms, as if to embrace the countryside, including the walled town slowly dwindling in the distance. Then caught the back board, and held on as one of the wheels found another rut.
"You don't have a sword, or shield for highwaymen waylaying you away from the gates, and guards?"
"This close?" He had to chuckle, "No, mayhap if I were to ride out farther, but they would get naught for their trouble but an empty cart, a few coppers" and a shilling, "And disappointment for their trouble."
"I would buy you a hat, the finest one that anyone in the world could make, and a peacock feather to wear in the brim."
"A peacock, is a sort of rooster?"
"No, they are a fabulous bird from a far off land, with the longest feathers in their tails. To hold up, and fan, showing a hundred eyes to entrance terrible beasts, and mates alike."
"Another fantastic animal, from your bestiary?" He'd like to see that.
"Oh yes. Perhaps I can show you them. Not one bestiary, but many. Volumes and volumes of animals, and creatures from all over the globe. Dragons, and Gryphons."
"Tell me about gryphons, then." She knows so many stories, from so many books, and the cart is slow. So, they have hours to get back, before he has to load up the cart while she gives Mary a good brushing.
"Well, it is like a Lion, that is a great cat. The greatest cat, he lives like a king with a harem of lionesses, and his head is crowned by a mane of hair. Their fur is as golden as day's eye blooms in spring."
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Author's Note: "Day's Eye" is an old Scott's term, that eventually found it's way down to England, and the colonies. We call them "Daisies" today.
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The Hayfield (fM...)
Adelaide didn't know what to expect. If she had given it any thought, then when the cart turned off the rutted track, and she turned around to look over the plank. Perhaps more than a haystack, with a wall around the bottom, and boards leaned up around one side.
Not the only haystack, of course. Just the largest appeared to be held up by a fence of sticks, then a door as they came around to a stop in front of a sort of door. Of course she'd seen thatched roofs before, and even associated them with the poor parts of town, but this one just appeared to be a giant pile running over the top of a palisade fence.
Cuthbert pulled the reins for a stop, then let them drop slack to the ground. Dismounted, but before he could turn around, the maiden had run a few steps down the deck, and jumped off the end to run around. Spin in place with her arms out, then stop with a deep breath of fresh air. Heavily scented with fresh cut hay laid out to dry in the sun, but still green.
Cuthbert had removed the hackamore, and started wrapping up the reigns tied to it by the time she had run around, the entire hovel. It wasn't much, scarcely a yard from the fire to the wooden wall with a thatched roof. In another land, far away, they would have covered it in hides, and called it a yurt, but be it ever so humble, it was home.
He stretched, and even twisted a few cracks out of his back, with the leads gathered into a loose coil he could hang under the lean-to. Meanwhile, his guest had opened the door, and peeked inside, but there wasn't much to see through the shadows, and the triangle of daylight that came through the door. The fire was dead, and the floor covered in rushes, that was about it.
"Is this your stable? Where do you live?"
"The huh!" He shook his head, and took a deep breath. "I live in there, and the mare. She sleeps under the shelter here, but let me get this harness off."
"How does she lie down, with all these things."
"She's a horse, she doesn't lay down. Ere would she never get back up."
"Oh," she hadn't read that, in one of her bestiaries.
He grabbed the stiff bristled brush, and handed it to her. "Would you still like to brush her?" Hoping she would calm down, though he enjoyed the childish glee, and even got a smile out of it, he still had work to do.
"She'll enjoy it, I swear." She nodded. "I once went to the stable, the one by the palace gate."
"The Bridle and Bucket."
"You know it? You must drink there often."
"When I have the coin to spare, sometimes. Would you like to go there tonight?" Shaking his purse on his hip, as much to remind himself of the shilling she'd given him, and a silent oath to spend it on her tonight. "I have to get you back, isn't your family expecting you?"
"For supper, I may have to send someone when we return to the gates." She shaded her eyes, and peered around the tail end of the horse. "You can see the towers from here."
"Yes, I. Well, I used to want to go there, when I was a boy. With my father, he was a plowman, but his knees won't bear it any more."
"Why don't you have a family? Oh, I beg your pardon."
"Oh, no. It's all right, 'twas years ago, and I have mourned enough for one lifetime."
"Your wife?"
"She, she bore me a son, but they went ill. Before he lived a full year, and then she was so weak with sadness. She joined him shortly thereafter."
"Oh, I am so dearly sorry. It must still be painful, but. Now it must be lonely to live out here, just you and Mary."
Her ears perked up.
"Oh yes." He chuckled, and went in to the larder box. Came out, "I do have a carrot, for being such a good horse."
Hopefully she had forgotten all the talk of apples, though I should stop by the orchard. It is not too late for apples, though so close to the end of the harvest. After so many have been sold, the last weeks may be held more dear.
Not a whole shilling, of course. Again, he was stricken by how odd she is. To have so much money, and yet know so little of it's value. A shilling, a whole shilling for this, then to sell her prized book, and buy him that primer to teach him letters. She is such a giving person, but he could not help but wonder at her believing he deserves it.
Putting that from his mind, he detached the harness from the arms, and took them up to roll them back to the closest stack. Piled up so high that it hangs down, all but covering the 3 posts lashed together to hold them off the ground. Carved, polished, and waxed to be difficult, though not impossible for rodents, and rabbits to climb. Also to keep the bottom from soaking in, when it rains as it had last night, but by the time he has sold the first load, the mud had dried in the road, and it was bumpy, but didn't suck at Mary's hooves. Drag at the cart's wheels so it was quicker to return.
Settling into a rhythm, pitching hay onto the deck between the wheels, his mind didn't wander to daydreams. It just gave up thinking to settle into his work. He had forgotten she was there quickly, and stopped only to pull off his tunic as it began to soak through with sweat.
Tanking up his fork again, in his leather shoes, tied on over his ankles. Undershorts tucked into the tops of dark woad blue hose, tied onto the thin leather belt with a small knife on 1 hip, a nearly empty purse on another.
He didn't feel 2 curious young eyes on his bare back, his muscles flexing in his arms, and the brush stroking over the thin bristly flanks of the mare. She sighed, and felt it with her fingers.
Wondering if his muscles felt as firm as this. Without the itch of the stiff pointed tips of the fur. Switching back, and forth with each stroke, but she had seen his chest, and even some thinner curls continuing down. Scattered sporadically across his taut midriff, even with a live horse right in front of her.
She had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.
;
The Watercarrier (M topless f)
It took quite a while to pile up hay on the deck of the cart. More than long enough to finish brushing the mare, content to chew on the carrot. Eventually, the maiden looked around the space covered by planks, leaned up against the side.
This side was flat, in contrast to the rest of the wall that curved out, and around, but she didn't have to duck her head. Given that it was tall, and wide enough for a horse to get in out of the weather, but up against the roof at this end, she found a couple of leather buckets, tied together with rope, and a short staff between them.
She immediately recognized them from a woodcut she remembered in in some book or another:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Ein_Dienstmagdt_zu_Dantzig.jpg/1200px-Ein_Dienstmagdt_zu_Dantzig.jpg
She couldn't read it, of course. However, it was a means to carry water, which ment that there was somewhere nearby to carry it from? It turned out to be a stream, a shallow one, but deep enough to throw the buckets in, and drag them back out. Standing up, with the bar across her shoulders, they swung, and hung too low. Sized as they were for a man, much taller than her, so she turned the staff across her shoulders to wind the rope, and managed to half drag herself up the shallow slope, back to the level of the field.
Without tripping on her peticoats, which she hadn't even though to avoid enough to be proud, but as they sloshed, and splashed the ground, they got lighter. She couldn;t let the staff go, because she'd already found it to roll, and chaffe her neck. So, she gripped it tight, and tried not to swing them into her legs, quite so much.
They still splashed, and popped back out to round, with each step. Her petticoats soaked, eventually she made it back to the leantoo, and decided to go around, rather than try to go through it. Then she stopped, and looked around for Mary. The horse, she was gone, and she set them down to call him. "How do you keep her from running away?"
"She always comes back." He saw that she brought water, and smiled. Hopping to a trot, and quickly kneeling down to cup water out. Slurp from his cupped hand, and splash on his face.
Not on his back, which shown with a dew of sweat, giving a sheen to his deeply tanned skin. The muscles flexing, and even creases appearing in his shoulders, but his biceps bulged from how he lifted the fork, or shovel, when he was digging, instead.
She hesitated to touch him, and merely brushed his shoulders, but he didn't even feel it, the touch was so light. By then, he'd taken a rag out of his belt, and soaked it, to swab under his pits, and out of curiosity she smelt her damp finger, and then gingerly, she tasted it.
She spat, finding it as salty as tears, but finally ha stood up. "There," he pointed. "See?"
Mary had indeed come back, from the stream, though Adelaide had only carried the water roughly half way, her heart swelled with pride.
For this was something she could do for her man.
;
A Roll in the Hay (Mf 1st)
"Oh," Adelaide pulled laces at the front, "My pettycoat is wet." Picking at the knots, she pulled the first over her head, and asked "May I hang this in the side to dry?" In her under pettycoat, she lost a bit of the fashionable bell , and Cuthbert just stood, smiling. Then, when she looked back, holding it up he realized that she had asked him a question, and swallowed, with a nod.
Having done so, the maiden bent down to gather the hem of the finer linen, and feel dampness where it had soaked through. "And this one?" Lifted to the clocks of her stockings, hiding the seam at the ankles.
She honestly didn't know what she was doing, but learned quickly, once he had taken off his tunic. It was hot, and she was dressed for the city. Perhaps a ride down to the market with a book, but not scrambling up the bank from the stream with a staff, and 2 pails of water.
Her book learning hadn't prepared her for this, most of them ended with "And they lived happily ever after," before the lord, and lady were even married. At most, there was a kiss, and a promise, for ever.
Cuthbert, on the other hand, had been married, and even briefly a father. He knew well enough what she was headding for, and was willing to wait for it to happen. Then, when the finer pettycoat was pulled up, it also dislodged a pin holding one end of her shawl to her blouse.
"It 'tis very warm out here."
"We haven't the buildings to shade the ground." He agreed, "Tis always cooler on the streets in the late summer." She carefully withdrew the other pin, and another oddity ocured to him.
He had also been with other young ladies of stature, and why not? He was a handsome man, and spent time in the city, where women came down from their tall homes, their stoops and porches to buy things from the market, or drink in the stables, and have an out-of bodice experience.
"Why do you tie them in the front?" He wondered aloud. She smiled, turning back from the wooden pegs, driven into the posts of the wall. Typically for holding the Tack, the strap of harness, leads, and hackamore, but there was no need, with the horse wandering, and cropping the tender shoots of the cut haystalks.
"My petticoats?" She felt them, with both hands. Standing in her blouse, belted over her hips with the laces of her pocket, and the bottom of her undershift hanging down over that, but her hose were turned down at the knee. Over the lace tied to garter them above the calf, revealing a tempting gap of pale skin between.
"So I can see what I'm doing." She turned the pocket behind her, to pick at the buckle, and let the blouse drape, but in so little, almost shear fabric, he could see that she had no need fr the stiff padded stays.
"And the." he felt up his sides, to indicate. "What are these things, a lady wears beneath her clothes, to shape her body?"
"Stays, or a bodice." She idly unbuckled her pocket belt, still heavy from the purse within, and her eyes locked onto the damp rough greyish tan of his undershorts. Loose, except at the top where it was belted, and the laces from his hose tied at the hip, without garters.
He'd never seen a man's underthings, let alone the bulge standing out, as if he'd sprouted a twig between his legs. "What is that?" She came forward, tilting her head in curiosity. "That you hide in your breeches?"
"Would you like to see?" He felt her hips, her surprisingly broad, and generous hips for a maiden, who had not yet born a child, and reflected that she would. Bear children well without the pad most ladies tied on to support their petticoats, and aprons. To bell them out, and give that feminine profile, but the shift rumpled, and wringled at the waist form all the laces tied about it.
She felt it instead, wrapping the coarse unbleached homespun, and straightening up her head, with a confused expression on her face. She knew that a man, especially a lord. They would appear on the streets, with their cod-pieces, and had thought they must carry their bladders on the outside. She had no idea of the anatomy, beyond that.
Unaware that her father avoided any of the classics, with obscene nudity. Which to him ment any representation of the nude male. Not so much as a fig leaf, added for modesty, and as her fingertips traced up the muscular rippled of his midriff, they found, and tickled the small curls there.
"Huh, you're like an animal. Almost as furry as a beast, and your flanks." She dug her thumbs in over his hip bones, gripping her sides with her fingers, and gasping a breath to let out a sigh. "As lean, and firm as a horse." She blinked, "Oh!"
"What?"
She felt back down, "Is this how you vent your bladder, like a horse?"
She had forgotten, but of course not all where mares, and stallions have about as much decorum when it comes to urinating on the street as switching their tails away from fresh horse apple.
"That's not all it is for." He found the soft modest young swells under her shift, and blouse, then slipped his fingers under her arms, to feel her ribs again. Grip them, and pick her up, not as a child, but a maiden.
About to become a lady. Without a grunt, and not knowing what else to do with her legs, the natural inclination was to hold on around his hips.
That was exactly the right thing to do, but what the mind hadn't learned yet, her body knew purely by instinct. She held his broad bare shoulders, and smelled the sweat on his neck, kissing it, and licking the savory salt on her lips, then she fell back. In his arms, the fresh forked hat on the cart gave under her weight, and poked her through her sift. Especially her bare bottom where it rode up, and the backs of her thighs, when he pushed her back to climb up on his knees, straddling her.
Breathless? The word came unbidden to her mind, and his lips found her's, and her breath wasn't literally taken away. As she had read, and heard, that a man was supposed to take her breath with a kiss, like a cat in the night, but instead she was breathing deeply. Excitedly, and enjoying these newfound feelings, he had awoken in her body, but this thing. This strange masculine thing, his manhood was the greatest surprise, and presently, he had unfastened his belt to let down the privy flap in the front, but he kept his hose on.
Merely slipped the tied ends off the belt, along with his knife, and the purse strings, so the copper, and silver weighted leather pouch rolled, and tumbled to the ground with a muffled clink.
"What are these?" She felt his other purse, the one he was born with, and pinched the jewels within out of curiosity.
"Gently! Handle them as gently as eggs. They ache if handled too roughly." He knew better to spend himself in his hand, but he had to grope it for a few strokes of the foreskin over the bell end to maintain it's turgidity.
;
...And they lived happily ever after?
;
^This means "I can go on." I also use them as chapter breaks, but none of the tales I read as a kid even made it this far, and the Romance stories usually cut between chapters. "He reached out, and turned out the light," ... "The next morning;"
Note: The narrator is only fourteen, but the social standard of the time was a bit more lax. Which is not to say that there's nothing wrong with May/December romance, only that they didn't have such laws back then. Today, you must be at least 18 to read erotic stories, look at risque pictures, or pursue a relationship with an older man.
I'm just going to leave off ye olde English, and there's only really one obscure word that I'll have to define, for readability. I'm sure it was a "Towne" instead of a Town, but it's not like anyone actually wrote this down back then.
Suffice it to say this was a long time ago, in a land far away...
;
The Maiden:
Adelaide awoke, and dressed, then opened the shutters to find the morning cool, with the air fresh from the night's rain. Springlike, though the season had begun to turn from late summer, not yet autumn.
From the street below rose a miasma of smells, laced with the sweet stench of moist horse apples. So, she held her nose, and backed into the room. Went about making the bed, as the chambermaid came in for the honeypot, and help her with the linens.
"Thank you," Adelaide curtsied, and ran down to breakfast. Hoping for a sweet roll, but smelling no scent of baking, the cook poured her boiled barley, and creme. A disappointment, but a filling one, she finished, and thanked the cook as well.
Always polite, she sincerely appreciated the servant's work, and the privilege of avoiding the more odious chores. The hot smoky windowless kitchen, where her mother would never go, the most hated rooms in the house. To say nothing of the odious chamber pots, the mystery of where they went solved years ago when she asked, and was shewn. Better left forgotten.
Finally, she took up her purse, and felt through her petticoats. The gaps at the hip to the pocket she had tied on with laces underneath. Dressing herself, with pride as she had ever since before she had lost her first teeth. Which isn't to say she resented having a staff, she knew all of their names, and their children were her friends, her playmates growing up.
She merely respected them, and appreciated their hard work, aware that the rest of her family took them for granted, and depended on them. Particularly, when dressing. She prided herself on dressing herself, and avoided anything which would require assistance to get into. At an age when she really should be wearing stays underneath her shawl. For warmth, modesty, and a fashionable figure, she had tried them when her's began to fill out.
She had such a modest bosom, underneath the layers. Narrow hips, and thin graceful limbs. However, her mother dressed her, for the last time. Sitting to wrap the stays around her front, and lace them behind her. She knew young women, her peers who complained about difficulty breathing. Their bosoms crushed upward to present a glimpse of décolletage , spreading the corners of their shawls to fan down the open neck of their blouses, invitingly.
"Then why do you wear them, if they're so uncomfortable?" One had a habit of withdrawing her Busk. A wooden splint from the front of her stays, that forced her into a certain posture. A proper, upright poise, though she was married now. Her suitor took it, and his belt knife to carve it for her to take back, and hide beneath her bosoms. Withdraw in private, and slouch with the girls. Shew them the promises whittled into the wood, especially 2 intertwined rings when he proposed.
On the stoop, Adelaide took a deep breath of the morning air, and held the firm embossed leather cover of a book up to her chest, then sighed. Wrinkling her nose at the smell of the street, and looking up at the shadow of her roof. The chimneys with their wrought iron cages to deter burglars, and confound chimney sweeps.
Cast across the street, on wall of the houses facing their home. A familiar view, as familiar as the odors, deciding once again not to let it spoil her morning. She tucked the book under her arm, and carefully made her way down the steps, holding her petticoats. She had stepped on them but once, and learned her lesson from bruises. Taken a bad spill down the stone worn smooth as ice from countless footsteps over the generations.
At length, she came apon something else on the street. An open cart, rough hewn, and the man jumping down from the seat with the reigns in his hands. "All right, have a drink then." The horse, a single draft horse with tufts of fur over it's rough iron shot hooves bent to the trough, while the owner pulled back the oil cloth, and carried hay forward to feed it. "Have a snack as well?" He offered. The horses' eye turned, and looked, before shaking the water from it's snout, and turning to pull hanks from his outstretched hands with it's lips.
Adelaide loved horses, and saw that this one hadn't been brushed. Whickers, and twitches rippled under the fur, and the harness, so without asking, she brushed it to feel the stiff prickles of whiskers, and brush more out from under the leather strap. Pulled a strand of the main out of the brass riveted end, bent to a ring in the tack, to make it more comfortable.
"All right," the man stepped up, and pulled himself to the seat, holding the reins "Have your fill, then? Oh." He spied Adelaide stepping back to give room for him to drive off. "Hello there."
"Good morning," she attempted a curtsy, but fumbled the book, slipping out from under her arm. Losing her grace, but making up for it with a quick catch before it tumbled to the rough, and dirty cobblestones.
The horse ignored them, and went back to the water trough. "Where are you headed, the market?"
"Yes, and you?" He leaned down with his free hand to bow, and offer it. She handed up the book, first. Then took it, pulling up her hems to find the step with her heel. "The booksellers."
"You read."
"Of course! My father has quite the library, but. Oh!" The cart surged with a gentle slap of the reins on the horse's rump. A playful reposte with the tail. The young maiden found her seat, and she sighed. "Unfortunately, I have read all of his most interesting stories, and grew bored with the others. Gripping tales of trade, and taxes."
"Which brings you to seek out new books." He nodded, enjoying the company, and conversation. "I am not lettered, myself. I envy you a little, having that to pass the time as I would, if I could."
"How do you sign your name?"
"Oh, I know that. With a pencil, but by the way. How does one carry a feather? I always wondered that, the gentlemen with their feather pens."
"Quills?"
"Is that what they're called?"
"Yes, however they need not be feather quills. There is an animal in the bestiaries, called a prickly pig, or porcupine. It has featherless quills which are suitable for travel. I suppose, I have never seen one."
"Oh," Like a hedgehog, he imagined. "I thought they carried them in their hats."
"Oh no, that is just the fashion. It does make a hat look ever so dashing, but no. I would think they have another, to avoid getting in stains in their hat-bands."
"Indeed, what I would give for such a dashing hat, to get the attention of the ladies."
"It 'twould only serve to draw attention from your face. I believe such affectations must be for the men who aren't so handsome."
"And yet, the ladies such as yourself wear such finery. Which does little to take the eye away from your beauty."
"Huh!" Adelaide had to stop, and smile. Shake her head, and look away as her face warmed with his words. "I'm no lady."
"Well, I won't tell any of the gentry, if you would keep up the pretense."
"No, I'm." She bit her lip, forcing herself to say what she has to, to pursue this conversation to it's end. "Unmarried." Her heart beating out of control. Thrilling, and proud of herself for finally admitting her attraction to a man. A common man, rough jawed, and simply dressed. Driving a simple cart of simple hay to market, but for years now.
Ever since she began, growing from an innocent child to a young lady, she had become dissatisfied with the typical tales. Every maiden a princess, and every man prince charming, or a villainous rake. Every ending happily ever after, in a castle. Perhaps with a window to look out over the walls, and the town for a glimpse at the fields from afar. But naught about the simple common life of the country folk. The freedom of fields to run through, shining with wildflowers, and rattling as her hem brushed through them.
Aware of the roughness of his strong calloused hands, now tugging the reigns to pull the to a stop. "Here we are." he stepped down, first lashing the hackamore to a post, and then returning to the step. Holding up his hands to the side, and she laughed. Feeling his strong rough calloused hands at her sides, and slipping up to her ribs through her clothes. For the first this morning grateful that she hadn't submitted to being fitted with stays.
So she could feel this briefest of sensations, as she imagined but a moment ago, until he set her heels on the cobbles. The market was beginning to bustle, with other carts already there, young girls offering eggs, flower, or milk at the buttercross, and shop owners leaning out to fasten the shutters.
"Oh," she fished through her petticoats for her pocket, her purse, and offered a full shilling. "Thank you."
He took it, without a word, but returned her a bow, and a smile.
"My pleasure," he even added a flourish of his simple worsted wool hat. "My lady."
She giggled, and started running off.
"Don't forget your book!" Grateful for her to stop, turn around, and come back to him. If only to take back the heavy firm embossed leather from his hands, with more thanks, and another courtesy.
Still a little surprised, when he helped her down that he had gripped her bare ribs, and not the expected stiff reinforced padding she should be wearing at that age.
"I'm not a lady," she had said. "I'm not married."
"Huh!" He shook the daydream out of his head as she disappeared in the crowd. Giving up hope of ever seeing her again, he went about unlashing the oiled cloth. "Hay here, hay for sale!"
He began to go about his day...
;
The Market (fM Cont...)
Having just the one errand, Adelaide sold the book she had finished, and asked the bookbinder for a Primer. She had some, or rather her father did in his collection, but it was cheap, and saved her a trip back to her home. A chance for her mother, or father to see her, ask her where she had been, and what she had planned for the day.
When she woke, her plans had been as simple, and uninteresting as any other day, but a Sunday. Without the duty of attending service, she would have filled it as she did any other. With a trip to the market for a new story, then comfortably reading it, to pass the time. But for a chance encounter, with a man.
A handsome man, a commoner, but rough, and human for his lack of pretense, and finery. It was no trouble at all to imagine him with a dashing hat, a rackish tilt, and a feather, sweeping back from the brim. Perhaps a pistol, sword, and a more noble mount than the draft horse that pulled his rough hewn cart, but those were the daydreams of a regular gentry maiden.
To be honest, the dreams her mother had for her, and possibly her father as well. Tho marry up, into a wealthier family, an even larger house, and even greater staff of servants, but she was always graced with an independent spirit. Not only when it came to dressing herself, and venturing down to the kitchen, rather than send someone to bring her a meal.
On a silver tray, to the padded and beautiful parlors of luxury, and ease. Such things bored her, and she longed for something unique for a maiden of her age, and station.
In a word, Work. She longed for it, and not the sort of "Work" her father did with parckment, quill, and inkwell. Good honest work, which she had only ever seen through the servants'. Cooking, cleaning, and laboring to provide the comfort she resented, and even despised. The dull, but pretty life of a gentry wife. Waiting to be waited on. Being served, when honestly she would rather be doing the serving.
Dreams that she learned very quickly not to share with her peers, let alone her family. Instead, she played at dusting, cooking, and even hanging rugs over the railings to beat at with a switch. Only to be taken off, stripped, and scrubbed until she expressly forbade the daughters of the cook from bathing her.
"I can bathe myself," she insisted with pride. Her greatest pride so far was that she didn't require servants. Until she had begun to grow, lean, and lithe in comparison with her peers. Had anyone given it any thought, it would have occurred to them that she was too active. While her peers grew fat, sitting on their asses, being waited on literally hand and foot. She was never one to ride a carriage when she could walk, before a handsome man offered his hand, up to the rough wooden plank his cart had for a seat.
And there he was, stuffing hay into a sack, with the giant wooden fork over his shoulder, then tossing it back in the pile before accepting a few pence. Dropping it in his purse before pulling up his tunic to lash back to his belt underneath.
"Huh!" She stopped, and held onto a post at the sight. Breathless, heart thrilling at the slightest glimpse at the tops of his hose. The simple brown unbleached linen of his breeches, and the loose bulge between his legs, but then it was gone. He straightened the flap of his tunic, and cupped his mouth.
"Hay here, fresh hay for sale!"
She ran up. "So, I was wondering something."
"Oh," he turned around, and spied her looking up from his broad back. He assumed, that she wasn't trying to spy his rear through the back flap of his split tunic. Hanging down modestly over the tops of his woad blue hose.
"What's the difference between hay, and straw?"
"Oh, hay is straw, only the freshest, and greenest is good for a horse to eat."
"Oh," the conversation restarted, she withdrew a simple wood bound book, with laces through holes drilled in the cover, and the leafs between. "I bought you this."
"I can not read," he admitted, again.
"Of course, that's what this is for," she held it out, open as a governess or nanny, at storytime. "See, it 'tis a primer, for teaching letters." She looked over, and puzzled at the inverted letters. Illuminated as the initial of a page in an old medieval book, though printed. The pictures themselves illuminating the initial of each word. "Help me up?" She clapped it shut, and set it on the back of the cart.
Once again, he took her in his hands. Careful not to touch her too far forward, though his thumbs pressed through the loose blouse. Devoid of reinforcing stays, boned with baleen. Her ribs hard enough to grip, but despite himself, he encountered a soft roundness at his wrists, and squatted to get under her weight.
Like a father, picking up his own child, except she was quite a bit heavier, he let out a grunt, then set her on her rum to lay back, and nestle herself into the hay. A void where it had been shoveled out with the fork, but then he handed her the wood bound book.
"Here," she turned on her hip, and elbow, to hold it up sideways. "[A] Apple."
"Yes it is. An apple?" He nodded, and she shook her head with a giggle of mirth.
"This," she pointed, "Is an A. See how it has a tail, like a stem?" In the illustration, the lower case [a] was green, with the body of the fruit, and a leafless stem curling up over the top. "A is for apple."
"PHBH!"
"No, Mary. No apples for you, yet." He chuckles. "She loves Apples. She's a horse, so she loves apples, and carrots."
"B" She pointed, "B is for Bee, as in honeybee." She sat up, and looked back. "Mary, eh? You like honey, sweet honey like sweet sweet apples, and carrots?"
She whinnied, and nodded back.
"She understands us?"
"Well, I don't know how much she understands, really. She knows the words apple, and carrot all right, but no. She's never had honey, that I know of."
"So, she is a. Woman horse?"
"A mare, yes. Hence the name?"
"Oh!" She laughed at the play on words.
"I know the letter C." He traced it with his finger on the page. Then the Carrot next to it. "We better not say what it stands for. She may yet forget before I have to buy her any."
"Okay, so what letters do you know?"
"Well, C. is also for Cuthbert. So, the B as well. B is for Bert?"
"Cuthbert," she smiled. "I'm Adelaide, that begins with an A as well."
;
The Hayride (fM...)
So, presently the first load was sold, and the oil cloth folded up in the back. About midday, he offered his hand, and to take her back where he found her, but she invited herself along back to the country. "I could use the fresh air," and every excuse to spend more time with him. "In return for more letters?"
Not that either of them needed the excuse, to spend more time together. So, he took up the reins, and lead Mary around the market square to head back to his side of town.
She sighed, "It has been so long, far too long since I have seen the fresh air, and open fields of the country. I hate the city, honestly."
"Why?" He neither loves, nor loathes it. 'Tis but a place where there are more people, and money to spend on a cartload of hay to him.
"I don't know, it's just. The same people, and the same buildings, day after day dreadfully the same. A different story to read, but I would rather get away in person. Enjoy the wide open spaces, and breathe the fresh air myself. Oh, and the smells." She wrinkled her nose, and wiped her lip with the side of her fingers. "Huh, I love the smell of hay, though."
"Is that so? I hardly ever smell it, but I know what you mean. The city has a peculiar smell of it's own, but I have never met a lady who pined for the smells of the farm."
"Well, I like horses."
"Of course." That was never uncommon.
"Enough to endure the smells of what comes out of this end, for the feel of their bristles, and the joy of brushing one. Can I brush her when we get back?"
"Oh, well I know she would love that!" That was one chore he didn't mind, once he unbound her from the arms of the cart, and brushed the furrows out of her flank. Being a horse, she loves it too, but for once he could let this peculiar young lady handle that duty, while he loaded up the cart to take to the stables.
His best customer of course. In town, his neighbors needed it for their own horses, but the stable bought more each day, and payed much more. As it doesn't grow there in the streets as it does in the fields to hold grains up to the sun, and be beaten out with flails to separate the seeds for the grindstone.
She is odd, ever so peculiar in that way, however. One would think that oddness a bad thing, but not Cuthbert. If not for that peculiarity, he would not have her company over the cobblestones, and out the gate to the dirt track.
"Huh!" She settled, then jumped as a wheel hit a rut. "I would have thought that the shaking from the cobblestones couldn't have gotten worse. This hard board, would you mind if I sit in back?"
"No, go right ahead, but be careful." He held her hand, and she held onto the board between the seat, and the flat deck of boards between the open wheels. A cart could have sides on it, of course. However, this one is mostly used for piling up hay, so all he needs is the oilcloth she's turning around to use as a seat.
"Huh, that's better. My rump feels as tender as a beaten cutlet!"
He smiled, nodding, and not even fighting the image in his head. Of her lifting up her skirts, and rubbing the reddened globes of her bum as if spanked by the cart for daring to leave her station. Not even knowing the proper term being petticoats, because women's dress is as much of a mystery as the tales that lie between the covers of a book. However, he appreciated the fine workmanship that went onto the leather cover of the book she carried this morning.
"I would truly give up all of the finery for all of this." She spread her arms, as if to embrace the countryside, including the walled town slowly dwindling in the distance. Then caught the back board, and held on as one of the wheels found another rut.
"You don't have a sword, or shield for highwaymen waylaying you away from the gates, and guards?"
"This close?" He had to chuckle, "No, mayhap if I were to ride out farther, but they would get naught for their trouble but an empty cart, a few coppers" and a shilling, "And disappointment for their trouble."
"I would buy you a hat, the finest one that anyone in the world could make, and a peacock feather to wear in the brim."
"A peacock, is a sort of rooster?"
"No, they are a fabulous bird from a far off land, with the longest feathers in their tails. To hold up, and fan, showing a hundred eyes to entrance terrible beasts, and mates alike."
"Another fantastic animal, from your bestiary?" He'd like to see that.
"Oh yes. Perhaps I can show you them. Not one bestiary, but many. Volumes and volumes of animals, and creatures from all over the globe. Dragons, and Gryphons."
"Tell me about gryphons, then." She knows so many stories, from so many books, and the cart is slow. So, they have hours to get back, before he has to load up the cart while she gives Mary a good brushing.
"Well, it is like a Lion, that is a great cat. The greatest cat, he lives like a king with a harem of lionesses, and his head is crowned by a mane of hair. Their fur is as golden as day's eye blooms in spring."
;
Author's Note: "Day's Eye" is an old Scott's term, that eventually found it's way down to England, and the colonies. We call them "Daisies" today.
;
The Hayfield (fM...)
Adelaide didn't know what to expect. If she had given it any thought, then when the cart turned off the rutted track, and she turned around to look over the plank. Perhaps more than a haystack, with a wall around the bottom, and boards leaned up around one side.
Not the only haystack, of course. Just the largest appeared to be held up by a fence of sticks, then a door as they came around to a stop in front of a sort of door. Of course she'd seen thatched roofs before, and even associated them with the poor parts of town, but this one just appeared to be a giant pile running over the top of a palisade fence.
Cuthbert pulled the reins for a stop, then let them drop slack to the ground. Dismounted, but before he could turn around, the maiden had run a few steps down the deck, and jumped off the end to run around. Spin in place with her arms out, then stop with a deep breath of fresh air. Heavily scented with fresh cut hay laid out to dry in the sun, but still green.
Cuthbert had removed the hackamore, and started wrapping up the reigns tied to it by the time she had run around, the entire hovel. It wasn't much, scarcely a yard from the fire to the wooden wall with a thatched roof. In another land, far away, they would have covered it in hides, and called it a yurt, but be it ever so humble, it was home.
He stretched, and even twisted a few cracks out of his back, with the leads gathered into a loose coil he could hang under the lean-to. Meanwhile, his guest had opened the door, and peeked inside, but there wasn't much to see through the shadows, and the triangle of daylight that came through the door. The fire was dead, and the floor covered in rushes, that was about it.
"Is this your stable? Where do you live?"
"The huh!" He shook his head, and took a deep breath. "I live in there, and the mare. She sleeps under the shelter here, but let me get this harness off."
"How does she lie down, with all these things."
"She's a horse, she doesn't lay down. Ere would she never get back up."
"Oh," she hadn't read that, in one of her bestiaries.
He grabbed the stiff bristled brush, and handed it to her. "Would you still like to brush her?" Hoping she would calm down, though he enjoyed the childish glee, and even got a smile out of it, he still had work to do.
"She'll enjoy it, I swear." She nodded. "I once went to the stable, the one by the palace gate."
"The Bridle and Bucket."
"You know it? You must drink there often."
"When I have the coin to spare, sometimes. Would you like to go there tonight?" Shaking his purse on his hip, as much to remind himself of the shilling she'd given him, and a silent oath to spend it on her tonight. "I have to get you back, isn't your family expecting you?"
"For supper, I may have to send someone when we return to the gates." She shaded her eyes, and peered around the tail end of the horse. "You can see the towers from here."
"Yes, I. Well, I used to want to go there, when I was a boy. With my father, he was a plowman, but his knees won't bear it any more."
"Why don't you have a family? Oh, I beg your pardon."
"Oh, no. It's all right, 'twas years ago, and I have mourned enough for one lifetime."
"Your wife?"
"She, she bore me a son, but they went ill. Before he lived a full year, and then she was so weak with sadness. She joined him shortly thereafter."
"Oh, I am so dearly sorry. It must still be painful, but. Now it must be lonely to live out here, just you and Mary."
Her ears perked up.
"Oh yes." He chuckled, and went in to the larder box. Came out, "I do have a carrot, for being such a good horse."
Hopefully she had forgotten all the talk of apples, though I should stop by the orchard. It is not too late for apples, though so close to the end of the harvest. After so many have been sold, the last weeks may be held more dear.
Not a whole shilling, of course. Again, he was stricken by how odd she is. To have so much money, and yet know so little of it's value. A shilling, a whole shilling for this, then to sell her prized book, and buy him that primer to teach him letters. She is such a giving person, but he could not help but wonder at her believing he deserves it.
Putting that from his mind, he detached the harness from the arms, and took them up to roll them back to the closest stack. Piled up so high that it hangs down, all but covering the 3 posts lashed together to hold them off the ground. Carved, polished, and waxed to be difficult, though not impossible for rodents, and rabbits to climb. Also to keep the bottom from soaking in, when it rains as it had last night, but by the time he has sold the first load, the mud had dried in the road, and it was bumpy, but didn't suck at Mary's hooves. Drag at the cart's wheels so it was quicker to return.
Settling into a rhythm, pitching hay onto the deck between the wheels, his mind didn't wander to daydreams. It just gave up thinking to settle into his work. He had forgotten she was there quickly, and stopped only to pull off his tunic as it began to soak through with sweat.
Tanking up his fork again, in his leather shoes, tied on over his ankles. Undershorts tucked into the tops of dark woad blue hose, tied onto the thin leather belt with a small knife on 1 hip, a nearly empty purse on another.
He didn't feel 2 curious young eyes on his bare back, his muscles flexing in his arms, and the brush stroking over the thin bristly flanks of the mare. She sighed, and felt it with her fingers.
Wondering if his muscles felt as firm as this. Without the itch of the stiff pointed tips of the fur. Switching back, and forth with each stroke, but she had seen his chest, and even some thinner curls continuing down. Scattered sporadically across his taut midriff, even with a live horse right in front of her.
She had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.
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The Watercarrier (M topless f)
It took quite a while to pile up hay on the deck of the cart. More than long enough to finish brushing the mare, content to chew on the carrot. Eventually, the maiden looked around the space covered by planks, leaned up against the side.
This side was flat, in contrast to the rest of the wall that curved out, and around, but she didn't have to duck her head. Given that it was tall, and wide enough for a horse to get in out of the weather, but up against the roof at this end, she found a couple of leather buckets, tied together with rope, and a short staff between them.
She immediately recognized them from a woodcut she remembered in in some book or another:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Ein_Dienstmagdt_zu_Dantzig.jpg/1200px-Ein_Dienstmagdt_zu_Dantzig.jpg
She couldn't read it, of course. However, it was a means to carry water, which ment that there was somewhere nearby to carry it from? It turned out to be a stream, a shallow one, but deep enough to throw the buckets in, and drag them back out. Standing up, with the bar across her shoulders, they swung, and hung too low. Sized as they were for a man, much taller than her, so she turned the staff across her shoulders to wind the rope, and managed to half drag herself up the shallow slope, back to the level of the field.
Without tripping on her peticoats, which she hadn't even though to avoid enough to be proud, but as they sloshed, and splashed the ground, they got lighter. She couldn;t let the staff go, because she'd already found it to roll, and chaffe her neck. So, she gripped it tight, and tried not to swing them into her legs, quite so much.
They still splashed, and popped back out to round, with each step. Her petticoats soaked, eventually she made it back to the leantoo, and decided to go around, rather than try to go through it. Then she stopped, and looked around for Mary. The horse, she was gone, and she set them down to call him. "How do you keep her from running away?"
"She always comes back." He saw that she brought water, and smiled. Hopping to a trot, and quickly kneeling down to cup water out. Slurp from his cupped hand, and splash on his face.
Not on his back, which shown with a dew of sweat, giving a sheen to his deeply tanned skin. The muscles flexing, and even creases appearing in his shoulders, but his biceps bulged from how he lifted the fork, or shovel, when he was digging, instead.
She hesitated to touch him, and merely brushed his shoulders, but he didn't even feel it, the touch was so light. By then, he'd taken a rag out of his belt, and soaked it, to swab under his pits, and out of curiosity she smelt her damp finger, and then gingerly, she tasted it.
She spat, finding it as salty as tears, but finally ha stood up. "There," he pointed. "See?"
Mary had indeed come back, from the stream, though Adelaide had only carried the water roughly half way, her heart swelled with pride.
For this was something she could do for her man.
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A Roll in the Hay (Mf 1st)
"Oh," Adelaide pulled laces at the front, "My pettycoat is wet." Picking at the knots, she pulled the first over her head, and asked "May I hang this in the side to dry?" In her under pettycoat, she lost a bit of the fashionable bell , and Cuthbert just stood, smiling. Then, when she looked back, holding it up he realized that she had asked him a question, and swallowed, with a nod.
Having done so, the maiden bent down to gather the hem of the finer linen, and feel dampness where it had soaked through. "And this one?" Lifted to the clocks of her stockings, hiding the seam at the ankles.
She honestly didn't know what she was doing, but learned quickly, once he had taken off his tunic. It was hot, and she was dressed for the city. Perhaps a ride down to the market with a book, but not scrambling up the bank from the stream with a staff, and 2 pails of water.
Her book learning hadn't prepared her for this, most of them ended with "And they lived happily ever after," before the lord, and lady were even married. At most, there was a kiss, and a promise, for ever.
Cuthbert, on the other hand, had been married, and even briefly a father. He knew well enough what she was headding for, and was willing to wait for it to happen. Then, when the finer pettycoat was pulled up, it also dislodged a pin holding one end of her shawl to her blouse.
"It 'tis very warm out here."
"We haven't the buildings to shade the ground." He agreed, "Tis always cooler on the streets in the late summer." She carefully withdrew the other pin, and another oddity ocured to him.
He had also been with other young ladies of stature, and why not? He was a handsome man, and spent time in the city, where women came down from their tall homes, their stoops and porches to buy things from the market, or drink in the stables, and have an out-of bodice experience.
"Why do you tie them in the front?" He wondered aloud. She smiled, turning back from the wooden pegs, driven into the posts of the wall. Typically for holding the Tack, the strap of harness, leads, and hackamore, but there was no need, with the horse wandering, and cropping the tender shoots of the cut haystalks.
"My petticoats?" She felt them, with both hands. Standing in her blouse, belted over her hips with the laces of her pocket, and the bottom of her undershift hanging down over that, but her hose were turned down at the knee. Over the lace tied to garter them above the calf, revealing a tempting gap of pale skin between.
"So I can see what I'm doing." She turned the pocket behind her, to pick at the buckle, and let the blouse drape, but in so little, almost shear fabric, he could see that she had no need fr the stiff padded stays.
"And the." he felt up his sides, to indicate. "What are these things, a lady wears beneath her clothes, to shape her body?"
"Stays, or a bodice." She idly unbuckled her pocket belt, still heavy from the purse within, and her eyes locked onto the damp rough greyish tan of his undershorts. Loose, except at the top where it was belted, and the laces from his hose tied at the hip, without garters.
He'd never seen a man's underthings, let alone the bulge standing out, as if he'd sprouted a twig between his legs. "What is that?" She came forward, tilting her head in curiosity. "That you hide in your breeches?"
"Would you like to see?" He felt her hips, her surprisingly broad, and generous hips for a maiden, who had not yet born a child, and reflected that she would. Bear children well without the pad most ladies tied on to support their petticoats, and aprons. To bell them out, and give that feminine profile, but the shift rumpled, and wringled at the waist form all the laces tied about it.
She felt it instead, wrapping the coarse unbleached homespun, and straightening up her head, with a confused expression on her face. She knew that a man, especially a lord. They would appear on the streets, with their cod-pieces, and had thought they must carry their bladders on the outside. She had no idea of the anatomy, beyond that.
Unaware that her father avoided any of the classics, with obscene nudity. Which to him ment any representation of the nude male. Not so much as a fig leaf, added for modesty, and as her fingertips traced up the muscular rippled of his midriff, they found, and tickled the small curls there.
"Huh, you're like an animal. Almost as furry as a beast, and your flanks." She dug her thumbs in over his hip bones, gripping her sides with her fingers, and gasping a breath to let out a sigh. "As lean, and firm as a horse." She blinked, "Oh!"
"What?"
She felt back down, "Is this how you vent your bladder, like a horse?"
She had forgotten, but of course not all where mares, and stallions have about as much decorum when it comes to urinating on the street as switching their tails away from fresh horse apple.
"That's not all it is for." He found the soft modest young swells under her shift, and blouse, then slipped his fingers under her arms, to feel her ribs again. Grip them, and pick her up, not as a child, but a maiden.
About to become a lady. Without a grunt, and not knowing what else to do with her legs, the natural inclination was to hold on around his hips.
That was exactly the right thing to do, but what the mind hadn't learned yet, her body knew purely by instinct. She held his broad bare shoulders, and smelled the sweat on his neck, kissing it, and licking the savory salt on her lips, then she fell back. In his arms, the fresh forked hat on the cart gave under her weight, and poked her through her sift. Especially her bare bottom where it rode up, and the backs of her thighs, when he pushed her back to climb up on his knees, straddling her.
Breathless? The word came unbidden to her mind, and his lips found her's, and her breath wasn't literally taken away. As she had read, and heard, that a man was supposed to take her breath with a kiss, like a cat in the night, but instead she was breathing deeply. Excitedly, and enjoying these newfound feelings, he had awoken in her body, but this thing. This strange masculine thing, his manhood was the greatest surprise, and presently, he had unfastened his belt to let down the privy flap in the front, but he kept his hose on.
Merely slipped the tied ends off the belt, along with his knife, and the purse strings, so the copper, and silver weighted leather pouch rolled, and tumbled to the ground with a muffled clink.
"What are these?" She felt his other purse, the one he was born with, and pinched the jewels within out of curiosity.
"Gently! Handle them as gently as eggs. They ache if handled too roughly." He knew better to spend himself in his hand, but he had to grope it for a few strokes of the foreskin over the bell end to maintain it's turgidity.
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...And they lived happily ever after?
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^This means "I can go on." I also use them as chapter breaks, but none of the tales I read as a kid even made it this far, and the Romance stories usually cut between chapters. "He reached out, and turned out the light," ... "The next morning;"