August. He was a healthy child who was called Brynn.
After that there were no more children born of Merin Pendragon’s seed, and as the years went on the master of Dragon’s Lair Keep began to lose interest in his women. Now and again, however, Gorawen could lure him to her bed, and help him to gain pleasure. It was usually when she wanted something badly, for Merin Pendragon was no fool, and she would not shame him. So when that evening she murmured an invitation in his ear he had smiled knowingly, and nodded.
Gorawen was awaiting her lord. She had had a tall oaken tub brought to her chamber, and filled with hot water. Now having undressed Merin she climbed into the tub with him, and began to bathe him. He grunted with pleasure as she scrubbed his back with a boar’s bristle brush, and a rough cloth. She picked the nits from his graying head, and washed his locks thoroughly. “Where have you been sleeping?” she demanded. “You are flea bit on your back. You need a new mattress, my lord. I shall tell Argel.”
“Do it yourself,” he said. “She is morose of late, and can take no suggestion. She weeps at nothing. I do not understand it. She is not breeding, I know for certain.”
“Perhaps her juices are drying up,” Gorawen suggested. “ ’Tis a sad time for a woman to know she may never again bear life in her womb.”
“You and Argel are the best of friends, and make my life pleasant,” he said. “You would think kindly of my lady.” He pulled her wet, naked form against him, and kissed her heartily. “You’re a good lass, Gorawen, mother of my eldest child.”
She stood quietly in his embrace, and smiled. “You are good to me, and to our daughter, my lord. But come now, and let us get out of the tub. I have a fine treat for you.” She smiled again, and climbed out of the water, quickly wrapping a drying cloth about herself, picking up the other to wipe the water off Merin’s big body. He was yet a fine figure of a man. When they were both dry she led him to her bed, settling him, hurrying to bring a plate of sweetmeats and a cup of wine for his pleasure.
Merin Pendragon had a sweet tooth, and reached at once for the plate. He popped a sweetmeat in his mouth, chewing appreciatively. “What are they?” he asked her.
“I dried plums last summer, and soaked them in sweet wine in a stone crock all winter. Then I rolled them up, dipped them in honey, and rolled them in crushed almonds. Do you like them, my lord?” She climbed into the bed next to him, and sipped from his cup.
“You’re a clever wench, Gorawen,” he told her, unaware that the wine the plums had been soaking in was imbued with a potent aphrodisiac she made from the herbs in her garden. He reached for her as he felt his passions begin to stir.
Gorawen melted into his arms. “My dear lord,” she murmured, holding her face up to him for his kisses, tasting the wine and the plums on his breath. Her fingers began to caress the back of his neck gently, but in a way that had always pleased him greatly.
“What do you want of me?” he demanded, shifting her so that she now lay beneath him. He pulled the drying cloth open, and stared down at her big breasts.
“Later, Merin,” she said softly, her tongue teasing his ear, her breath hot, and sending shivers down his spine.
He chuckled. “A very clever wench,” he told her with emphasis. Then covering her body with his, and feeling his lust beginning to rage, he thrust into her, sighing gustily as she received him, wrapping her legs about his waist. Soon she was crying out to him with pleasure, and for the first time in a very long while Merin Pendragon felt like the inexhaustible youth he had once been. He groaned as her body shuddered with her pleasure not once, but twice. And at that second burst of satisfaction he loosed his own juices with a howl of gratification, finally falling away from Gorawen, his breath coming in quick pants.
They lay together recovering from the bout of Eros that had surprised even Gorawen. The plums were more successful than she had anticipated. At last recovered she said, “Now I will ask a favor of you, my lord.”
He laughed aloud. “And I will grant it you, sweeting, as you have pleasured me mightily this night. What is it you will have of me?”
“I want you to find a husband for Averil. She will be fifteen at the end of the month. It is past time she was matched, wedded and bedded,” Gorawen said.
“I have been thinking on it,” he said. “For both Maia and Averil.”
“Maia is your legitimate daughter, but she is the younger, my lord. She will be easier to match, but she should not be wed before her elder sister. If they had not all been raised together without prejudice in your hall it might be a different thing. But you have treated all your children, both licit and illicit, in the same loving and kindly manner,” Gorawen pointed out.
“Ahh,” he said, “I see the difficulty here, sweeting. It takes time to make the kind of match that must be made for Maia, and if much more time passes, Averil will be considered too long in the tooth.”
“Aye, she will. My lord, she is the most beautiful of your daughters. Use that beauty for a good match. Then the match you can make for Maia will be even better than you might have hoped for as she is the legitimate daughter. And little Junia will have an opportunity she might not if her sisters are married well, and better.”
“A clever wench,” he repeated for the third time that evening. “But who?”
“You have said you would follow the example of our prince and seek among the Marcher lords for sons-in-law. This may also prove useful when Brynn is of an age to take a wife. I know that the prince hopes to rid himself of this English king who is his overlord, but I wonder if that will ever happen. And we who live here in Wales must think of ourselves, and our children, first. What are the politics of great men to us?”
Merin Pendragon nodded. “You reason well, sweeting, though you be but a woman. The more we ally our family to the families of the Marcher lords the better off it will be for us. I will do as you have asked me, and find a husband for Averil first, but I will tell Argel of my decision before I do. She is my wife, and as loyal to me as are you.”
“Of course you must speak with Argel, my lord! She is mistress in this house, and I respect her as I do you,” Gorawen said sweetly. She lifted the plate of sweetmeats from the table by the bed. “Will you have another, my love?”
“Aye, I will!” he said smiling at her. “I vow, Gorawen, no one, not even my dear Argel, pleases me, or treats me as you do.” He ate three more of the plum delicacies.
“I have been happier with you than with anyone else,” Gorawen told him honestly.
He smiled warmly at her. Soon his lust was afire once more to his surprise, and he was putting her beneath him once again, and satisfying their shared desires with the enthusiasm of a man thirty years younger.
When afterwards he slept, replete with his pleasure, Gorawen arose, and took the plate of sweetmeats away. There was but one left upon the plate, but she did not want him to have it lest he associate the wine-soaked plums with his lust for her this night. It was the first time she had used such means to arouse him, and she was quite surprised by the success she had had. But he was content with her, and his own performance tonight. She smiled wickedly. He would not have the same success with Ysbail. The other concubine would have to suck his cock to a stand to bring them both any pleasure at all, and it would be quick. As for Argel, she no longer cared if her husband visited her bed. But because of this night Gorawen’s daughter would be matched first. Merin would explain it all to Argel, and Argel would not argue. She never did.
