Queen Abigail’s mouth pulled back into a toothy smile, and she thanked her little spy when she provided her report. But the Queen’s eyes didn’t smile. Instead they squinted into darts, piercing into the night outside the window of her chambers in the Castle’s northern wall.
Her spy retreated, thankful for the coppers she had been handed, but too afraid to ask if the news meant that the Princess would be locked away.
“They kissed?” The Queen asked again, looking at the young girl in front of her with a skeptical eyebrow.
“Yes, m’lady.” The girl confirmed. “And she hugged him about the neck.” More coppers fell into her greedy hand. As much as she had hoped her news would put an end to the Princess’s visits with Stefan, she was terrified of the Queen.
Over the course of the following days, Abigail schemed. She had learned that Charles the Tamed Squirrel had allowed the illicit rendezvous and had even encouraged it by wandering off from the love birds and giving them privacy. As usual, her intricate plan required secrecy, but the King would be easily manipulated and if everything went accordingly Charlotte would be hundreds of miles away soon enough.
The King was planning a campaign to reclaim territory to the North. The Barbarians had razed villages along the coast and discontent had spread to neighboring villages. The King would need to respond, and his forces were terrifying.
The night before the King left to lead his army into battle against the Barbarians, Queen Abigail floated into the King’s Hall carrying her Crystal Ball. “My King, before you go tomorrow, please allow me to use my Crystal Ball so that we may envision your victory together!”
The King had learned to believe in his Wife’s talents with the Crystal Ball. So many times he had avoided disaster by heeding her visions, and on those rare occasions when he had discounted her predictions he had always come to learn later how accurate her visions had been. And so it was this day when she settled down on the red velvet stool next to his table he had built of the skulls of his enemies.
Queen Abigail stroked her hands over the crystal, and her eyes opened wide. She let out a gasp, and he saw her eyes fill with tears at the mysterious vision only she could see.
“What is it, Love? Do you see defeat in our future?!” He asked with disbelief at the absurdity of losing to the unorganized and illiterate Barbarians.
The Queen stared intently at her ball, and traced her fingers around it in a furtive caress. Her concentration was so great that she didn’t hear his question. Instead, her gaze became more intense and her brow furrowed. “This CAN’T be…” She whispered under her breath.
“What?!,” the King asked hurriedly. “What do you see, Love?”
The Queen’s concern grew visibly across her face before she looked up to meet her powerful husband’s concerned face. She hesitated, then said, “I… I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Go on!” The King pleaded. “No matter how bad it is, we can cheat the fates! Tell me what awaits us to the North!” He boomed.
“No, it isn’t the Barbarians,” she stammered and hesitated. “It’s Charlotte…”
“Charlotte?” He repeated, not expecting her to bring up his daughter the night before a Military campaign of this magnitude.
Abigail told the King of her fake prediction. “While you are away,” she began. “Charlotte will fall in love with a Peasant boy in the Village. And they will run away to live in sin…” Her voice trailed off in feigned exasperation.
“What? Impossible!” The King shouted.
The Queen shook her head in disbelief. “Oh, it’s worse than that!” The Queen’s fake tears poured down her icicle cheeks. “This Peasant will tell her lies about you, and teach their children to hate you. And one day, their oldest child will become a mighty warrior, and he will overthrow you!” She burst into tears and turned away from the crystal on the table as though the vision of her husband’s defeat caused her physical pain.
The King’s face twisted in disbelief and horror. How could such a thing happen? Charlotte was not even allowed to go into the Village without his most trusted Guard, Charles. It was impossible, and yet Abigail’s Crystal Ball had always been correct. Always!
He shook his head, “No, my daughter would never betray me like that!” He said, and stormed out of the room. Anger and confusion raged in his heart and his feet pounded the wooden floors and marble staircases, down long corridors and into Princess Charlotte’s chamber.
Charlotte spun around in her chair as her father threw open her door. She had known his wrath many times, but this felt dangerous! He stormed into the room, determined to say, or maybe do … something. But once he was inside her room he stopped and looked at his daughter. What was he thinking?
He saw the fear on her face and for a moment his heart sank. How could he have suspected his sweet daughter of raising a traitor? How could she have fear in her face when she looked at HIM?
But no sooner had he thought this, than his eyes fell upon carvings of angels beside his daughter’s bed. He recognized the peasant carvings. He’d seen the children in the village playing with the little trolls and gnomes.
The King walked to the Princess’s bed and picked up the largest carving. It was a sleeping Angel on a tree limb. And her face looked exactly like his daughter. Then he picked up the one beside it. This Angel was crying. “Where did you get these carvings?” He asked, thinking of the boys he had seen showing off their little trolls along the shore. They were everywhere among the … peasants.
He turned to face the Princess and she was crying. And at that moment, he knew.
His mind raced and the powerful King flew into a rage that shook the stone walls of his mighty Castle. He had already summoned his Knights and they had arrived to begin the campaign the next morning. He couldn’t call it off now.
“Perhaps there is another way,” the Queen’s voice calmly restored peace in the room. She was standing in the doorway having arrived just after her husband. “Let us have a private discussion, my King,” she said coolly as she motioned the King to join her outside of Charlotte’s room.
Once they were in the hall, Queen Abigail said to The Badger, “Lock her in there.” She said in a commanding voice, “and THIS time, make sure she stays put!”
The King listened intently as she told him her well-prepared plan. He would leave tomorrow as planned, but since they knew the problem was the young Carpenter, he would instruct Charles to conscript the boy as they left the Village the next morning.
…
“Sire, your wisdom in matters of battle are unquestionable.” The enormous Guard spoke in a hesitant, and deeply concerned voice. “But, these peasant men are untrained. He will slow our progress. We will prevail, but he will not likely survive.”
The King shot a piercing glare at Charles, “I’m COUNTING on that!”
He hadn’t told the Knight of his wife’s prophecy. He knew his most trusted guard did not understand the myths, and lived only in the corporeal. He didn’t have time to convince him, so he overruled Charles with a wave of his hand.
The Badger left his King’s quarters with clear instructions and a mind filled with confusion. And when he returned to his small home constructed against the outer wall next to the stables he was only half-surprised to find the Queen inside waiting for him.
Her meeting with “The Badger” was more brief, and far less subtle than the visions she pretended to see in her Crystal Ball.
By the time she left his home in stealthy silence minutes later, Charles had only three thoughts on his mind:
First, the Queen somehow knew he had betrayed the King’s trust regarding Charlotte. Secondly, he would personally draft the young Carpenter into the Raiding party that would attack the Barbarian Village. And thirdly, The Badger had to kill the boy himself if he wasn’t lucky enough to die in the battle first.
Despite his callousness, Charles suffered over these orders. His massive hands gripped his sword. Normally he would spend the evening before a battle getting mentally prepared for the Campaign. But the struggle in his head dwarfed the anticipation of battle. He could never kill his brother’s Son!
…
Princess Charlotte crept back from the window on the back of The Badger’s hut. She had escaped from her locked chambers and had heard enough to know her secret love was in trouble.
She snuck past the stables, bolted through the back gate in the wall, and then ran down the path to the river. The guards on the wall were sleeping, as usual, and she was completely undetected as she ran, wearing only her nightgown all the way to the Carpenter’s shop. Her body felt damp from sweat under the silken gown, but the night air blew over her body and washed her skin in its cool breath as she crept slowly around the hill.
She approached the cottage cautiously. During the day Stefan would be carving next to his log, but at night he would likely be inside. Fortunately as she crept closer up the hill she saw him stacking wood on his father’s wood pile beside their cottage.
Princess Charlotte knelt just past the edge of the fire light that filtered through the small dingy windows of the little hut. Stefan worked with his shirt off, and Charlotte crouched in the bushes to watch. She had never seen him without a shirt on, and she smiled.
Stefan’s muscles tensed each time he picked up a log, and she admired his fluid movements as he worked. His chest was well-developed, and his arms flexed with each log. His body was almost a man’s, more than the other boys his age, anyway. He was taller, more muscular, and his beard was starting to come in. She wished she could watch him from afar all night, but the fear of what she heard the Queen discussing with Charles drove her to poke her head up cautiously.
“Psst,” she said from the shadows, and Stefan paused his work. Looking around in the shadows for the source of the quiet noise. “Over here in the bush.” The Princess whispered, waving at him quickly with one hand.
Stefan approached with acute unease. He was unsure whether he was being lured into a trap of some sort, but when he peeked around the bush he saw the beautiful Princess shivering in her nightgown.
“Princess!” He said aloud, concern thick in his voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Shhhh,” she hushed him. “I need to talk to you quickly!”
Stefan could see the fear in the girl’s eyes. He pulled the young Princess into his father’s shop. “No one is here right now,” he explained. “My father is at the Inn.” He could see the faint outline of Charlotte’s breasts in the fire light beneath the thin fabric of her nightgown. “Why are you here?”
“You have to leave,” she blurted out, and then explained the story to her shocked young friend. Once she finished, Stefan shook his head.
“No, if I leave then I will never see you again.” He protested. His bare chest heaving with the effort of his anguish in the light of the Carpenter Shop’s fireplace.
“Well then I must give you a kiss, goodbye,” She said softly with a sad smile.
Princess Charlotte ran her fingers through Stefan’s long brown hair and pulled him to her mouth. His lips were chapped and rough from working outside in the cold wind, but he kissed her gently. His arms slid around her thin waist, and held her against his body in a needy embrace.
Charlotte opened her mouth and the tip of Stefan’s tongue probed into hers, tasting her. She felt a shiver race up her spine. This wasn’t allowed, she thought. Good girls don’t kiss like this.
Stefan’s hand slid down her back to her waist, then to her bottom. She melted into his embrace and put her arms around his shoulders to hold him closer. His cock was growing beneath his pants and pressed against her belly. She had never felt a man’s penis before. She hugged him tighter and rubbed her belly against his groin. She loved feeling his hardness through the thin silk of her nightgown as his cock throbbed against her.
Stefan’s hand cupped Charlotte’s butt and he squeezed and pulled her into his groin. She opened her mouth and Stefan’s tongue slid in again, probed her mouth lightly, then licked and kissed her neck and ears. Nibbling the lobes of her ears, and his breath tickled her. Then his hands roamed up her waist, and cupped her breasts.
His hands were on her naked body, searching her and feeling everything he wanted to feel. She gave herself to him. Nobody had ever kissed her like this. The awkward boys behind the chapel only ever gave her brief pecks on the cheeks when she was a girl. But she wasn’t just a girl anymore, and Stefan didn’t kiss like those boys did either.
He took her to his small hay cot in the corner and pulled her nightgown up and over her head. Her breasts glowed with the sweat of her run and the heat of kissing Stefan in the warm light of the fireplace. She laid down on the hay and Stefan lay beside her. His mouth kissed her on her neck and then her chest, between her breasts, and along her collar bone. His hands were everywhere on her body. Everywhere except where she wanted them most.
Princess Charlotte spread her legs apart just a little, and Stefan’s hand was already there. His fingers spread her lips apart and he felt her wetness. His fingers probed inside her, slowly massaging, rhythmically sliding in and out of her with an undulating movement as her hips rocked slowly against his hand.
His fingers massaged her, his tongue coursed up her breasts to her nipples and he sucked. Lightly. Just in sync with the movement of his fingers, and their bodies pulsed against each other.
Charlotte could feel Stefan’s yearning body against her own nakedness, and she pulled and tugged at his pants to get them off of him. Gratefully, she was finally able to get them loose enough that they slid down his thighs and she put her hand on his cock.
Her hand barely wrapped all the way around his shaft, but she stroked him lightly. She had never stroked a man’s cock before and didn’t know if she was doing it right. Stefan smiled at her, put her fingers in his mouth, making them slobbery, and then put her hand back on his cock. He slowly guided her hand over the head of his dick and then stroked her hand down his shaft in short, gentle movements down to his balls.
Once he showed her that movement a few times, she practiced it on her own. She put more spit on her hand and stroked over the head of his dick again, only this time she added in a kiss right on the tip of his dick.
The throbbing response and dribble of pre-cum she got in response told her everything she needed to know about that little kiss. And so before too long, she had his cock all the way into her mouth and licked her tongue all over his throbbing head.
Her pussy was dripping wet, and all she could think about was putting Stefan’s hardness inside her. She rolled over on her back and spread her legs wide apart. “Take me…” She said longingly to Stefan.
Stefan kneeled in front of her, his large cock hard and straight with thick veins and the slickness of her spit all over it. God, he looked gorgeous.
Charlotte adjusted her hips and slid her hand around Stefan’s hardness to guide it into herself. But just then, the door slammed open. The Princess shot up from the bed. The Badger was standing in the doorway!