Pillaging Elinor's Castle [Elinor's Stronghold 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (4 page)

Elinor ached all over the next morning. After she and Rhys hung the blood-spattered sheet out of the arrowslit window of the solar for everyone in the courtyard to see, she took one of the pillows down to the great hall to sit on as she broke her fast. She could have managed without it, but she was sore, and the pillow emphasized to all present that she’d been thoroughly bedded by her lord.

She and Rhys called Hammond over to eat with them, and the men began discussing collecting wood and storing it inside the castle walls, extending the fishponds, and many other things. As they talked, she looked around the great hall.

Against all odds, Wade, the guard whose hand had been sliced off in battle, was still alive and his stump no longer bled, nor did it smell bad. But what could a one-armed guard do? He couldn’t even collect wood with the children, or pick fruit or vegetables. He could throw stones to keep birds from the grain, she supposed, but he’d be slow as he could only hold one stone at a time.

Really, the older children needed to be taught to do more of these tasks, so the guards could concentrate on reinforcing the castle’s defenses. Children not old enough or strong enough to work all day in the fields, but plenty old enough to learn and help. They already collected wood and ran messages, but too many of them struggled to remember their messages. They needed to be taught how to remember. Trained. Trained by someone like a soldier, whose duty had been to remember routes walked, the way to people’s homes, where the herds hid in winter for the hunt, and how to tell if soldiers approached. “You don’t need two hands to teach children how to tell if an army approaches,” she said slowly.

“Beg pardon, my lady?”

“I don’t understand, Lady Elinor.”

“Wade is healing, but his soldiering days are over. With the danger of attack facing us, it’s time the older children began to help the stronghold. Wade could teach them how to remember routes traveled, how to remember long messages, how to tell if enemy soldiers are approaching the stronghold. Children could do all these tasks, supervised by Wade and one able-bodied guard, freeing two other guards for more important tasks.”

“That’s an excellent idea, my lady. It makes use of Wade’s skills, gives him status and a real duty to perform, and also makes use of the children who are growing up and must learn to be contributing members of the stronghold,” said Hammond.

“It’s brilliant, my lady. The perfect solution to several problems,” said Rhys, smiling at her.

“I agree that Lord Jeffrey will be looking at this castle, at our crops. As soon as they’re harvested, he’ll attack us. We need to get the fishponds extended immediately and the children stockpiling all the wood they can find. Every crop must be picked and reaped the minute it is ripe, no delays. It will be a lot of work,” she said.

“The new guards have to be blended into a single team with everyone’s status defined. We have to be able to trust them to respond correctly to orders if there’s any trouble. That means new rosters, new teams, and testing games between them to establish status.”

“Could we hold our own private tourney? The guards, and any freemen who wish, may enter. The two Captains of the Guard could judge everyone, and any freeman who is particularly good could be offered a reward. The guards and soldiers’ reward would be their recognition as best in a particular skill,” she suggested.

“There would need to be other prizes, too, to keep people training and aiming to win, but the purse need not be a big one. As you said, the status is its own reward, at last to some extent.”

Once again, Rhys and Hammond began to plan and talk fast, and Elinor stopped listening. She had her own duties to organize. If the crops were to be harvested early, all the cooking equipment, salts, and spices must be counted and prepared. She would need to calculate how many animals they could feed, those which could remain alive over the winter, and how many must be killed and their meat preserved. With more people in her stronghold now, as well as building bigger fishponds, they ought to build bigger animal pens. Every animal that lived through winter meant another baby animal come spring to increase their flocks and herds.

If they extended their animal barn, the sheep and cattle would rest on the ground and chickens and geese in the rafters. If the men caught and killed a sow as well as a boar, they could raise the piglets, or at least one or two of them.
We can do this. Let me think.

* * * *

Hammond spent many hours watching all the guards, the ones he’d captained for some years, and the new ones from Rhys’s demesne. Rhys’s Captain of the Guard, Albin, was an older man, well aware that he no longer had the stamina needed to fight a pitched battle, but full of wisdom and military lore. He owned all the skills needed to teach the younger men strategy and tactics, and to supervise their training, but was more than happy to surrender the Captaincy to Hammond.

“Lord Rhys has the right by law to order my death for losing the battle. I’m grateful he chose not to do that,” Albin said simply when he was told he was to be second to Hammond.

“You have much wisdom to offer the younger men, and during our tourney, your opinions will be much appreciated as to those who show the greatest ability,” Hammond replied.

Hammond had no intention of having half his guards hurt in the tourney, or their few horses injured, so it was not to be a genuine one. Only wooden jousting poles were to be used, and practice swords, not battle swords. He, Rhys, and Albin planned the events carefully and set the date for Monday a week hence. As well as the jousts, and sword fight, there would be foot races to capture and protect a banner, bow and arrow contests, and throwing games. The older boys would be permitted to enter a team for the running and the throwing contests.

“I want to add one more contest at two levels, for adults and for children,” said Lady Elinor.

“Yes, my lady?”

“We’ll set up a course for them with markers. They’ll be given a message which requires them to go to several of the markers and retrieve something, or do something, then deliver the items and message at the end. I want my people trained to follow instructions, but also to discover for themselves the most efficient way of moving from place to place. When Lord Jeffrey attacks, we won’t have time to tell every man, woman, and child exactly what to do. There must be enough people among them to understand the situation and plan a passage for them to safety.”

“You are wise, Lady Elinor,” said Hammond.

She was wise, and clever, an able lady of the Castle. Her thoughts and plans were never childish or unreasonable, but always well worth a man thinking through and acting upon. She was also so beautiful his prick ached continually with the need to be buried in her soft, wet heat. He wanted his seed filling her, his child growing in her belly, but most of all, his prick in her cunt, her ass, her mouth, night after night.

He and Rhys had agreed not to lie with Lady Elinor for the two nights after the wedding, to give her a chance to heal, but since then, on most nights, he and Rhys had fucked her on the bed, leaning against the cold stone wall, and lying on the rug before the fire. Tonight they’d agreed to double fuck her, and his prick could think of nothing else since they’d made that decision. He’d been very tempted to use his hand to ease the ache, but he wanted to save all his seed for this night. She made him spurt more seed, faster and harder and more often, than he’d ever done before. He wanted her and only her.

Reluctantly, Hammond forced his mind away from the pleasures that awaited him in bed this night and concentrated on the tourney. It wasn’t a true tourney, but that was the word they were using for it. He’d encouraged the guards to talk of strategies and skills as they trained. He wanted every one of them able to do their very best by the time the inevitable attack was launched against the stronghold. Hammond was sure the more the guards thought through tactics, as well as the more they trained their bodies, the better and faster they’d respond when the time came.

He was also painfully aware of the loss of Lord Huart, and of Walter and Roderick. Roderick was young, barely eighteen, but he’d been fighting with his father and brother for four years and was not unskilled. Walter had been twenty-five, a man at the peak of his fighting fitness and well skilled in battle, although never as good as his sire. Old Lord Huart had been second to none on the field of battle, able to fight two men at once without tiring. But he was getting old. He must have been almost fifty, a great age for a warrior.

The truth was, Lord Jeffrey and his men were good fighters with sound strategy and tactics. Keeping the stronghold from them was not going to be an easy task. Right now, he needed to bend all his abilities to achieving that aim. He could not afford to lose this coming battle.

* * * *

“Lord Jeffrey won’t attack today during our tourney, will he? He knows almost all the men will be on the fields, watching and participating,” asked Lady Elinor. She was sure Rhys and Hammond would have discussed this matter endlessly, but it just seemed to her such an obvious time to attack, when their minds and resources were focused on having fun, not watching and guarding.

“He’ll not attack until after the harvest is gathered in. It’s so much easier to put the stored bags of grain on a cart and steal them, rather than to have his men guarding the fields as the peasants harvest, watching the workers don’t keep back more than their fair share of the grain.”

“Of course.” She sighed with relief.

“However, taking the idea from you, my dear, I have asked Wade to be sure to sit and talk to any of Lord Jeffrey’s men who come to watch our tourney. I anticipate at least one or two will, possibly they’ll even compete, and Wade is just the person to have them talking innocently about things that it may be advantageous for us to know.”

“Oh, very clever, indeed,” she said, smiling up at her handsome lord.

“Oh, I’m even smarter than that. Wade has asked one of the young boys he’s training as a messenger and watcher to stay with him. The boy will carry a stool for Wade to sit on, as getting up off the grass is still hard for him, one-handed. The boy will then be questioned as to how much of the conversation he can recall. That way Wade can concentrate on inferences, while the boy remembers the actual words.”

“My Lord, you are without compare. Your ideas are so far beyond clever. I’m in awe of you.” She gave him a little bobbing curtsey.

“Wait until you hear my ideas for the three of us tonight. They, too, are beyond compare,” he whispered, making her blush.

They walked onto the field, which was crowded with peasants in their Sunday clothes, soldiers and guards in full armor, but not with battle axes or battle swords, and with flags, markers, and pennants showing where each competition would take place.

The horses were corralled to one side, as the jousting would be the first display. The horses, too, wore their battle armor. Even though only unsharpened wooden spears would be used, a man could still be killed with a hard enough blow to some vital part of his body, or by falling off his horse and being trampled. Elinor knew this was a huge risk, but had been unable to think of any other way to impress on all the people of their great need to be prepared, trained, and aware of the coming attack. Only with the full help of every person did she believe they’d keep Lord Jeffrey from the stronghold forever.

Lady Elinor and Lord Rhys took their seats in the center of the field, and the guards, soldiers, and several other nobles and their sons from the valley formed their horses into the two jousting lines. Elinor knew Rhys, Hammond, and Albin had spent many hours and drunk many tankards of ale as they’d planned who should joust against whom. The two men needed to be well matched, so it was a fair fight, but if the best men fell in the first round, the entire joust became a waste of time and poor entertainment for everyone watching.

It seemed to Elinor they’d made good decisions, as no one fell in the first pass, and only one man, a younger son, possibly in his first tourney, in the second pass. It took five passes before one man from each pair had fallen. But by now, both the horses and the men were tiring. Elinor wondered, too, if the soldiers had been determined not to be eliminated in the first round, but felt to fall in the second was acceptable, as the next few rounds went quickly, until only the last two combatants remained.

Elinor was not best pleased that Lord Devon, one of Lord Jeffrey’s men, was one of the finalists, although she supposed it proved that her father and brothers had at least been killed by men who were worthy fighters. The final round lasted for several passes, though it was very obvious both men and horses were tired. Full body armor was very heavy to wear, both for horse and man, and even wooden jousting poles demanded enormous muscle strength to hold straight and steady. In the end, it was a very fair match, with Lord Devon being unhorsed and conceding defeat.

The next event was a children’s running race, to give the adults time to recover and to break the tension. The children had to race from one end of the field, snatch a banner, and take it to the other end of the field faster than the opposing team. Two of the children on the red team were girls, and Elinor was excited to see they ran as fast as the boys. In fact, the red team won, finishing several heartbeats ahead of the blue team.

Archery targets were set up, and the peasants now came to the fore, many of them as good a shot as the soldiers and guards. Elinor noticed Hammond and Albin speaking to various men and happily gave the winner’s purse to a free man who she knew had many children and would appreciate the largesse.