The Palace Guard

Chapter 27 - A Resurrection

The Queen was catatonic with grief. She lay in a darkened room, unable to speak or eat. The Maid in Waiting tried to care for her. She sponged her pale face with rose scented water and brought her bowls of fortifying broth, but the Queen lay with increasingly matted hair, staring into space, her blue eyes blank and empty.

Then, one day as the first snows began to fall, a stranger came riding up to the house. The hood of his course wool cloak covered his face, but the Maid could see his dark eyes intensely fixed on her as he dismounted his exhausted horse and strode towards her.

She gasped as he removed his hood and went running into the house.

“My Lady,” she cried as she burst into the stale bedchamber, but he was right behind her and the Queen opened her eyes and thought she was hallucinating.

The Guard stood before her, his strong chin unshaven, his cheeks hollow, his long hair reaching his jaw line.

“I thought you were dead!” she managed to say as he came to her, kneeling beside the bed and drawing her into his arms.

The Maid quietly exited as the Queen sobbed into his chest.

“I escaped,” he said as he stroked her hair, “Isabella helped me.”

The Princess gazed up at him, still unable to believe this was real.

“He told me you were dead,” she said as her hands held his face.

“I have been searching for you for months,” he said as he choked back tears, “And here you are! I’ve found you,” and his hot mouth enveloped hers, his strong hands cradling her head as their tongues met.

His hands delved beneath her gown and found her breasts and with an ecstatic sigh his lips enclosed her nipple through the thin cotton and his tongue lashed across the sensitive peak. She squirmed against him, desperate to feel him again, her long dormant desire awakening suddenly, a fire growing in her belly. Her hands went to his hardening cock as his fingers found her wet centre. She tugged him free from his coarse trousers, and then stilled for a moment, drinking in his face. Watching his eyes darken, and the long eyelashes lower, she opened her legs and pulled him onto her. He stared into her eyes as he slowly rubbed his hardness against her, and then sank into her with one long stroke, sinking up to the hilt and sighing at the joy of feeling her surround him once again. He continued to stare into her eyes as he slowly withdrew and then sank into her once again, bringing a strangled moan from her throat. Her legs wrapped round him as his rhythm intensified and deepened. She grasped hold of his tight buttocks, and his hot mouth once again found her nipple, biting it gently as he drove into her. She threw her head back as he drove into her, again and again and his moans wrung a trembling release from her, all grief momentarily erased by an all encompassing ecstasy.

She lay on his heaving chest and her grief returned with a sudden pain. Tears began to flow once again.

“What is it, my love?” he asked, his gentle eyes full of concern.

“He has taken our child,” she sobbed.