The End of Things Ch. 04: One Flesh

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Ever since the Saxons had settled in what had been our lands, there had been tensions. Relaxed as I had been by my time with Berta and the wonderful orgasm she had just given me, I was now suddenly tense.

The withdrawal by the Romans had seemed something of an anti-climax. Yes, Saxons had come, but peacefully. The recent clashes over land ownership had created tensions – and whatever the cause, the appearance of a great crowd of men at the gates of the fort portended no good. I hid in the reeds to watch. As I knew the secret way in, I took it, getting back to the house just in time to be caught by my mother.

“Carwen, where have you been? You are wet. It is not safe to stray outside.”

I took a deep breath and finally told her the truth.

“I have been with Berta the Saxon, she and I just made love. I love her.”

She looked puzzled.

“But Carwen, my child, what is this? Is this because no man wants you? Have you talked with Father? Have you confessed?”

I could honestly answer ‘yes’ to her last two questions, but the first, well that was harder.

“I have never felt that I liked men the way you like my father, nor have I ever wanted men in the way my friends do. It is the way I am made mother.”

She looked stern.

“No, Carwen, women are made for men and for child-bearing. But it is my fault, perhaps I should have done more by way of helping you find a husband.”

At that moment my father came in and the conversation lapsed; we never resumed it.

“What is going on father?” I asked, swiftly changing the topic.

“The Saxons are complaining that some of our men have been setting fire to their settlements; this has to stop!’

“Well,” I said, thinking fast, “perhaps both sides would accept the judgement of the Church on such matters? Father Gregory would, I am sure, be useful.”

My father considered the matter and decided that even though the Saxons might think him biased, it was worth trying. So it proved. After looking into the matter, Father Gregory decided that the Britons were at fault and ordered damages to be paid to the Saxons who had been wronged. Our people felt affronted, but they knew the truth, and the Saxons, content that they had received fair treatment, stopped being so resentful, and when their people committed a crime and Father Gregory found against them; then both sides decided that justice, of a kind, had been done.

It was as well that in our little spot of Britannia peace had broken out, as elsewhere it got worse.

It was just before Easter that my brother Artos and his men visited Garrianonum. Artos looked exhausted. As I served him food and wine, I talked with him. It seemed that across what he was now calling the “Saxon shore,” that is from the Great Estuary south of Lindun Colonia, down to the Thamesis, there were incursions of Saxons. Lacking the sort of deal we had cut with Edwin, there had been clashes, and there were rumours that there would be an invasion in force when the weather improved.

“We are doing our best sister, but unless we can get accurate information about where this big invasion will come, we shall simply waste our strength across the region.” He looked me in the eyes. “I understand you have, shall I say, close links with their priestesses, is there any help you could give me, sister?”

I blushed. I had not known he knew, and indeed was unsure precisely what he did know, beylikdüzü escort but there was no way I could refuse to help, and I promised to do so.

One unexpected result of Fr Gregory’s intervention was that Edwin decided that he and his tribe would become Christians. I talked with Berta about this, but she said that it was for the leader to decide, and as being a Christian seemed to be a mark of being civilised, Edwin had decided to embrace it. I asked what place there would be for her and the sisterhood. She lamented that it seemed there was none, but I told her not to be too hasty.

Talking a few days later with Fr Gregory, as we prepared for the Eastertide celebration, I asked him about Edwin.

“All that matters, child, is that they have come to the True God and will pay towards our task here. Why do you ask?”

I explained to him that there was a danger that it could fracture the Saxon unity on which much rested, because, as he knew, there was a group in the tribe which cleaved to the old religion.

He looked at me with interest, knowing I never raised a problem to which I did not have at least a putative solution.

“There is a way forward, Father, and it is one which might solve other problems. I understand that you are not happy with the reports we get of Pope Innocent’s attitude on certain matters?”

He looked even more curiously at me.

“His view on the Trinity might,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “be seen not to match your own. But perhaps most of all, his view on clerics and celibacy would not, I think be in line with the practice in these Islands.”

Of course, what I meant was that the Pope’s teaching was that Fr Gregory was a heretic and a fornicator, but my words gave him a hiding place, which he took.

“Well, these are only reports, Carwen, and from time out of mind it has been our custom for the priest to have his housekeeper as an alternative to what St Paul calls ‘burning.’ But what has this to do with us?”

“Well, my lord,” I said, knowing how easily the old fool was flattered, “what if you were accept a new order of nuns on the island? How well would that look if reported back? It would also neutralise the priestesses by aligning them with the Church.”

Even as I uttered the words, I could see how nonsensical they might seem to him, but as they fitted the story Fr Gregory wished to tell himself, and Rome, he accepted them without question. I promised that the priestesses would appear at the Easter Service.

It did not appear so mad when Berta and I discussed it later. She accepted that it would prevent the tribe splitting in two, and that as all wise women knew, there was but one God, it must follow that we all worshipped him in our own way.

I discussed arrangements with Fr Gregory and the Deacons, and it became clear that there was a problem. It was a long time since a whole tribe had wanted to convert, and while there were established procedures, the sisterhood insisted that they should be baptised separately. According to ancient tradition that meant that they would be baptised by full immersion, which meant in the nude; for that, a female deacon was needed, at least according to the old texts.

“We cannot have men doing that job. Why can’t your friends just accept joining as others do?”

“Because they see themselves as an order of sisters and want something more,” I replied, “but there is an answer.”

Fr avcılar escort Gregory looked at me.

“What is it? I do not want this to fail.”

“Well,” I said, “as I already do much of the work a deacon does, why not make me a female deacon?”

He looked at me:

“Such a thing has not been known in living memory, but as you say, it is a part of our tradition, and needs must.”

He anointed me and spoke the words of consecration.

“Now you can serve more fully.”

I felt it. Although it was an expedient, it was more than that to me. I had never understood why our Faith accorded such a small role to women. This seemed, in some small measure, justice.

Thus it was that on Easter Eve, before the people gathered in the great field outside the fort, the Sisterhood and I gathered in the pool surrounded by the reeds. They wore nothing save a dark shift, and I wore a white one with a stole round my neck. One by one each of them came to me, and stripped. I ducked them into the water and spoke the words of baptism over each of them, after which they went to the bank to dry and don a robe of pure white. As I baptised Berta she smiled; she knew, as I did. The bond was sealed.

That night I went back to the island with her and we consummated our new relationship. Stripping her of her white robe, I guided her to our bed and, as she lay back, I placed her legs across my shoulders so that I could access all her pleasure places. Unlike me, she was hirsute around her cunt, so I peeled her hairs and lips back to expose her glistening pink inner lips. She looked so delicious. I placed my tongue flatly across the width and licked slowly upwards, stopping just short of her pearl, before moving down and, making a tube with my tongue, pressing it into her folds, catching a taste of the tangy inner juices before, pushing my whole face into her gooey wetness, proceeding to use my tongue to fuck her.

Gripping the cheeks of her arse, I pulled her closer, so that my tongue could rub her pearl. Her moans filled our chamber, even as her juices did my ravenous mouth. I heard her moan. Removing my probing tongue, which I replaced with two fingers, which her cunt immediately gripped tightly, I then applied it to her pearl, which I flicked before surrounding it with my lips. As I sucked slowly on it, feathering it with my tongue, I used my fingers roughly to drive in and out of her.

As her passion flamed higher, she gripped my head, and as I pulled my fingers out, she pushed my face against her gooey wetness. I just loved the feeling, the taste, and the smell coming from her, and as a result, drove my fingers back in – deep and hard – as soon as I could. It was enough for the flood to overwhelm her, and I felt her juices squirt into my face.

As she lay there, shuddering, small after-orgasms working in waves through her body, I left my fingers where they were, loving the feeling of her slowly relaxing around them. Eventually I withdrew them and, climbing on our couch with her, offered her a finger. She smiled and sucked it – I sucked the other.

“We are one, Berta.”

“Only when I have done the same to you, little one.”

And she did. And she was right. And we were one that night, and for many to come.

The conversion of Edwin and his tribe, and the establishment on our island of a women’s community of nuns, ushered in a much welcomed period of stability and of peace.

In esenyurt escort our corner of Britannia, Britons and Saxons managed, albeit it with some tension, to live, if not side by side, then in close proximity. Edwin’s conversion helped enormously. It gave us a common church, and as will happen when peoples meet, both communities discovered they had more in common than divided them. Young men and young women wanted something in which tribal identity played no part. But we were a rare exception from what my brother Artos told me.

I knew that my mother had raised with father the issue of my relationship with Berta, but as is the way of wise men, he refused to get involved, saying I was a woman grown (if not very tall) and it was my issue. His fears, as he told me once when we walked the coastal path one sabbath morning, was that I would end by being an unhappy brood mare to a man who was not worthy of me.

“You are a strange creature, my daughter, but loved. As long as Berta and the sisterhood make you happy, I am content.”

“Thank you father. I consider Berta and I as one flesh, as you and my mother are.”

He smiled tenderly at me.

“I can see she makes you happy, and what more could any father want for his little girl?”

He was right. I would that others could come to such simple wisdom.

I would help Fr Gregory with the women, and would prepare the younglings for confirmation. I loved being in the church, it was where I felt the happiest, and I helped Berta and the sisters to see that the One God loved us all.

We established a small chapel on the island, which we allowed Fr Gregory to consecrate – the only time until the ending a man set foot there. i took to spending most of my time there when I was not walking the coastal path. As the summer passed I sensed in Berta an uneasiness. It was only when, one early September morning when there was already a chill of autumn in the air, Merlin arrived, that I understood why.

As ever he turned up at the gates out of nowhere, demanding to see my father, who invited me to join them. Father had taken to calling him Storm Crow, as the Saxons were wont to. It was an apt name in this occasion.

Merlin’s news was grim. We already knew from my brother Artos that he and his cavalry had their work cut out defending the Saxon shore forts in East Anglia, but it transpired that further south the Saxons had taken three of them. More horribly, just across the estuary, there were reports that foreigners from the far north were settling. Suddenly I had a sense of foreboding. Could even my brother and his cavalry stem the tide?

My father asked Merlin if he had any counsel? Merlin looked at me.

“Carwen and the sisters did well with Edwin and his tribes. These Jutelanders have a dual chieftainship held by Sweyn and his sister, Ethelreda. I suggest she and some of the Sisters should scout out the situation. I can make an introduction.”

None of us dared ask how Merlin knew these things. He liked to pose as omniscient, and was correspondingly displeased when anyone questioned him. I knew him well enough by now to have some idea of how to manage him.

“If you will do that, Merlin, though I do not know the way, I shall go.”

“It is enough, little Carwen that I know. Do not take Berta, I do not think her presence would help.”

That made me uneasy, but when we talked later, Berta agreed.

Thus it was that on an unseasonably warm autumn morning I boarded a ship with Merlin, and Sister Martha, to cross the estuary and see what it was that had come to threaten us from the north. Would it never end?

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