The Steward Of Galicia And The castellan's Daughter m/f

Southeastern Poland in the latter half of the 18th century. At that time and place national boundaries were as fluid as the mercury in the newly invented thermometers. Personal loyalties were as volatile as the oil in the lanterns and lamps people used to light the dark nights.

Markgraf Karl Von DuBlan was descended from a long line of knights who had earned their salt through loyal military service. Originating far to the west in the half French province of Alsace, generation by generation that service had taken them inexorably eastward. Three years ago, he had taken up his latest post.

Karl was now castellan of Gleiwitz, a small trading town in the province of lower Silesia. He served the Duke Ruprecht Von Tamm, who ruled the province in the name of King Frederick of Prussia, called ‘The Great’ by his friends and allies (and mostly by obsequious courtiers trying to win favor through flattery).

Karl hated almost everything about his new post. He hated the old, draughty castle Gleiwitz. He hated its location and design, poorly sited and built for defense against a modern army. He hated the dumbly insolent burghers and tradesmen of the nearby town of Gleiwitz. He hated the stupid, obstinate Polish peasants of Lower Silesia. He hated the third rate troops he was forced to use as a garrison.

He hated the fact that in order to safeguard his interests his lovely Irish wife Brighid, daughter of the British ambassador, had to stay behind at the King’s court in Berlin. The only bright spot in the whole sorry mess was his stunningly beautiful daughter Alessandra, called Sandra for short.

She had accompanied Karl to his new post to act as his official hostess. Her woman’s touch had brightened, warmed and softened the cold, draughty stone of the aging castle with well chosen, comfortable furniture, carpets and tapestries. Her intelligence and compassion had won the respect and affection of the townspeople, and, for a wonder, the blind devotion of the ox-like peasantry of the surrounding hinterland.

The occasion was the grand ball to celebrate the investiture of the new Steward of Galicia. Not the Spanish province of Galicia, pronounced gal-leash-she-a. By some strange coincidence, it was spelled identically to a province in southeastern Poland, lying just to the north and east of Lower Silesia. Polish Galicia, however, was pronounced gal-eet-tseah.

Galicia, with two provinces to its immediate north, constituted the farthest western advance of the Russian Empire. Galicia’s newly appointed Steward, Malkor Anastasovich Gorchkov, had long been nicknamed Casimir. This was due to his uncanny physical resemblance to a long ago king of Kiev, said to have had an affair with a then married (to someone else) ancestress of Malkor’s.

Protocol required that every noble of baronial rank or above from Galicia and all neighboring provinces must be invited to the celebration. As a markgraf or margrave, equal to an English earl or a marquis of one of the western nations, Karl Von DuBlan had to be invited. Having been invited, Karl’s duties required him to accept, and he brought Sandra along as his official hostess.

During the week leading up to the grand ball, each of the foreign delegations threw it’s own lesser ball. As the ranking Prussian official present, Karl had to host one. Malkor attended, and was prepared to be bored spitless. That he was, until he set eyes on Sandra. The moment Malkor saw Sandra, both of their fates were sealed.

He wanted her on first sight. For the rest of that night, Malkor had eyes for nothing but Sandra, ears only for the sound of her sweet voice. When, as a part of the evening’s entertainment she led an exhibition of the native dance of her mother’s home in Ireland, Malkor’s attention was riveted.

Sandra’s grace and lithe beauty were beyond belief. He felt that he was watching an angel dance. He hoped that she would prove to be a lusty, earthy angel. He weighed his options. If circumstances did not intervene, the childless widower would make her father an offer for her hand in marriage.

The Gorchkovs were a family of merchant princes, who sent a second son in every generation into the military service of the imperial throne. Because his elder brother had died unwed, Malkor was now heir to the Gorchkov fortune. Even though steward of a border province was a relatively minor post in the service of the Czarina Catharine The Great, Malkor was in a position to offer a bride price for Sandra that would do honor to a princess.

Such was in fact his intention. Karl could not have refused an offer so generous, had it ever been made. But circumstances intervened.

The week of balls and parties passed in a whirl. Like any person of any pretension to education in those days, Sandra, Karl and Malkor were fluent in French, the universal language of culture. It was in French that Malkor monopolized Sandra’s society and time for that whole week, and in French that he flirted with her and romanced her.

Malkor had a wide choice of affairs to attend; he was always found at whichever party or ball Karl took Sandra to. Passing long hours fascinated with each other, the two brilliant and attractive young people found much in common. In addition to French, both spoke German, English, Latin, Greek and Russian. Both were educated in the classics. Malkor was also trained in the sciences, engineering, and military tactics and strategy. Sandra was trained in the arts, both representational and performing. She loved to dance, and delighted in listening to music. Malkor found Sandra entirely enchanting. Sandra found Malkor completely enthralling.

At the Grand Ball, Malkor openly displayed his intentions by dancing every dance with Sandra, save for an obligatory handful with elderly dowagers and widows. Towards the end of the Ball, something happened that cemented Malkor’s determination to possess Sandra, come what may.

The Ball was nearly over, the last dance had been danced. Malkor and Sandra sat in armchairs side by side, and she slipped her slightly too tight slippers off to rub her aching feet in the deep, soft Caucasian carpet. Malkor remarked; “If we were husband and wife, I could take your lovely little feet in my lap and rub them to ease the ache, and no tongues would wag about impropriety.”

Sandra sighed. “That would be heavenly.” she said. Then Sandra caught her breath. They both suddenly realized that, should some listener choose to do so, those casual remarks could be construed as a proposal and acceptance of marriage!

Just then Karl walked up. “Time to go, my dear. I’ll wait for you by the entryway cloak room. Thank you for inviting us, your Excellency. It was a magnificent ball.”

As Karl walked away, Sandra began feeling about beneath her voluminous skirts for the slippers she had kicked off. She accidentally kicked them out from under, in Malkor’s direction.

Malkor bent and scooped them up. Holding his left hand out, he said; “Allow me.”

Blushing, Sandra extended her right foot, careful to keep the hem of her skirt down at the level of her ankle. Malkor took the back of her ankle gently in his huge, powerful left hand. He put the slipper down on an adjacent side table and slipped the right slipper onto Sandra’s foot.

Malkor paused for a moment to take in the lovely, sweetly curved shape of that foot. The high arch, the overall shape, the cute little toes were all exquisite. Unable to resist, Malkor smiled at Sandra and ran the tip of his right index finger softly up her sole. From the bottom of her heel across the center of it, along the inner edge of her arch, up the crease between the greater and lesser balls of her foot, and then briefly sideways across the stems of her toes.

Sandra laughed helplessly, stifling the sound down to giggles as Malkor slipped the shoe onto her foot and released her ankle. With a wicked glint in his eye, Malkor wordlessly held out his hand for Sandra’s other foot. Suppressing another giggle, she gave him her left foot. This time the tickle was much briefer, and Sandra looked a little disappointed. Malkor’s smile became a grin. He had made up his mind. Sandra would be his, if he had to start a war to have her!

Ten days later, Malkor was on the eastern border of Galicia, where it was bounded by southwestern Byelorussia, or White Russia. He was supervising a resurvey of the border, ordered by the ministry of the interior up in Petrograd. Malkor thought it a colossal waste of time, because both sides of the border belonged to the Tsar, no matter where the line was drawn.

Most of the peasants who dwelt in the small, miserable village a few miles to the west were in anxious attendance, apprehensively watching the surveyors.
The chief surveyor made a notation in his book, shut it with a resounding clap.

“Well, that’s that. The true border is 27 miles farther east than the previous surveyors marked it in 1698.”

One of the anxious peasants diffidently inquired; “Please, your honor? What does this mean to us?”

“Well my good man, it means that your village is no longer a part of White Russia. It turns out that you belong to Galicia, which is part of Poland!”

“Does this mean that we now pay taxes to the Polish king instead of to the Tsar?”

“Not at all! This part of Poland belongs to the Tsar anyway. It’s only a matter of administration. Your taxes will now be collected and sent in through the steward’s office in Krakow instead of the Boyar’s office in Pinsk.”

The village mayor, with a very earnest look on his face, interrupted; “So we are now part of Poland? We are no longer in Russia?”

“That is correct.”

With a completely serious expression, the mayor declaimed; “Thanks be to God! We won’t have to endure any more of those terrible Russian winters!”

The rest of the assembled peasants emitted a ragged chorus of “Thanks be!”

The surveyor looked at the earnest peasant faces in growing dismay, then mounted his horse and cantered off southward to survey the next stretch of border, shaking his head as he went.

Malkor signed to his men to keep quiet. He suppressed his reaction and took in the carefully solemn faces of the peasants until the surveyor had ridden well beyond earshot. Then Malkor roared with laughter, joined by his own men and all the gathered peasants.

Finally calming down, Malkor sighed; “Ah, me. That was the best jape I’ve witnessed in decades! Mayor; tell me how much the tax is on each household in your village, each season.”

“5 rubles from each head of a household, your Excellency.”

Turning to his chancellor, Malkor said; “Raskov, give each head of household a ten ruble gold piece! I will pay six months of tax for the whole village in appreciation of such an excellent jest!”

Malkor watched as the heads of household lined up to accept their coins. After, as Malkor and Raskov rode northwestward in the direction of Krakow, Malkor asked; “How many heads of house had a son who lives with him get in line as if the head of a separate house, and collected double?”

“All of them. Some with more than one son.”

“So I thought.”

“Why do you let them think they have hoodwinked you so easily?”

“So that when it is really important that they NOT succeed in tricking me, they will believe the task to be far easier than it really is, and get caught at it.”

Just then a messenger came galloping down the road from Krakow. Seeing Malkor’s standard flying atop the lances of the men who were with him, the messenger reined in, saluted, and handed Malkor a sealed message.

Raskov said; “Sire?”

“The Austrian’s are trying to pry Lower Silesia out of Prussia’s grasp again! With their typical inability to grasp basic strategy, instead of invading far to the northwest and cutting the whole province off from the rest of Prussia, The Austrians are invading the extreme southeast tip and will try to fight their way up the whole province.

They’ll try to take Castle Gleiwitz by storm, so they don’t get bogged down in a siege until King Frederick arrives with reinforcements. If they succeed, anything may happen in the subsequent sack of the castle and town. Huh! Sandra is there.

This could prove a real opportunity for me; to serve myself while serving my Tsar! Let’s ride! I want to gather a couple of dozen regiments and move in the direction of Gleiwitz. I mean to do some fishing in troubled waters!”

Just three weeks later, which was remarkably fast for the time, Malkor had gathered an army of Russian troops and was marching for the border where his Russian province of Galicia met the Prussian province of Lower Silesia. As he went, Malkor kept cavalry scouts up ahead in a double screen.

The inner screen was general Russian cavalry, and it kept Austrian scouts from reporting the presence of a Russian army while sending back reports of promising locations to forage for supplies. The outer screen were most of a regiment of Cossacks widely spread and far ranging. They quickly located the Austrian army, and reported back on its placement and activities while avoiding the Austrian’s notice.

As Malkor had hoped, the Austrians were deeply engaged in besieging Castle Gleiwitz. They had dug four successively closer parallels of trenches, linked by zigzag approach trenches. There were batteries of siege guns firing from well dug in positions in the third and fourth parallels. Zigzags from the fourth parallel, closest to the walls of Gleiwitz, were being pushed forward at three points, while the four batteries in the front line were creating a breach in the walls.

Atop a hill, shielded from view by dense underbrush, Malkor observed the Austrian efforts through his wonderful British made telescope. Focusing in on the forward end of one of the zigzags being pushed forward from the front line, he watched the meticulous, machinelike progress of the work.

The trench was on its second zig. Like the previous zig, it pointed beyond the left end of the castle walls, so that guns in the castle could not throw shot that would travel down the length of the zig. The intervening zag, equal in length to the first zig, pointed at a spot beyond the right hand end of the castle fortifications.

By the time the heavy guns finished making a breach in the walls, the three zigzag trenched would be close enough to allow an assault. Going forward under cover of an intense artillery barrage, the assailants would try to enter the breach and drive the defenders back. They hoped to succeed in taking possession of the outer works and possibly taking the entire castle and town.

As Malkor watched, he observed the very professional technique of the Austrian Sappers, soldiers who specialized in siege operations. The edge of each zig and zag that was nearest the castle was rimmed with a solid row fascines. These were big wicker baskets, each about three feet high by four feet in diameter, filled with solidly tamped earth.

At the head of the trench, a massive wooden shield on a wheeled frame, tilted back as it rose, protected the end of the trench from small arms fire and light cannon. This device was called a mantlet. Directly behind the mantlet, a crew of sappers shoveled dirt from the narrow end of the trench into a nearly full fascine.

The diggers paused while another sapper swung a huge, broad headed wooden mallet to tamp down the earth in the fascine. When that was done, they resumed shoveling. When the fascine was filled with well tamped earth, the diggers downed their shovels and made their way up the zigzag to the parallel. On the way, they passed a new shift of diggers moving forward.

The new group of sappers shoved the heavy mantlet forward just far enough to throw a new, empty fascine up on the ground between the fascine just filled and the edge of the mantlet. They then began digging earth from the narrow end wall of the trench and throwing it into the new fascine. With each fascine added, the end of the zigzag got three feet farther left and six inches nearer to the castle walls.

Soon it would be time to dig eight feet straight forward behind the mantlet in order to finish the second zig and start the second zag. Malkor knew the man who commanded the Austrian force; he estimated that the man was too impatient to wait for another zag to be dug. Malkor was sure that the next day, with the completion of the zig and the breach, there would be an Austrian assault on the castle. He went back to camp to move his own army up. When the assault went in, he would be ready to make his own opportunity.

As Malkor had anticipated, the Austrian general sent almost all of his men in to storm the castle. There was a handful, mostly ill and injured, left to hold the camp. A few squadrons of cavalry held the perimeter to prevent any of the garrison escaping. Everyone else joined the attack.

The first wave faltered, but the second passed through them and went in through the breach in the walls. As defenders attacked from behind abandoned the wall tops, the third wave not only went in through the breach but also over the adjacent sections of wall on siege ladders, The fourth and final wave picked up the survivors of the first wave and carried them over and in. That was what Malkor had been waiting for.

Shutting his telescope with a snap, Malkor sent his orderlies galloping off with the word to execute his previously given orders. His troops sprang into motion.

Two regiments of Polish local infantry levies descended on the nearly deserted Austrian camp, sweeping in and taking it easily. Three regiments of Russian cavalry broke and drove the squadrons of Austrian horsemen from the perimeter, and the Cossacks snapped up the fleeing remnants.

Malkor called for his beautiful long rifle, lovingly crafted by a master gunsmith in the distant British colony of Pennsylvania. This weapon, with its four and a half foot long barrel and rifled bore had range and accuracy that nothing made in Europe could match. He took careful aim at the Austrian general, where he stood on the platform of the observation tower erected above his command post. Taking and holding a breath, Malkor steadied his sight picture and gently squeezed the trigger. The Austrian general’s head exploded.

Malkor handed his rifle to an aide, then climbed onto his warhorse and rode to the head of his main body of troops. He ordered the column of seventeen infantry regiments forward. They swept over the Austrian command post, ending all control over the Austrian troops in the assault.

Malkor dismounted, and leaving one infantry regiment to control the area, personally led the other sixteen through the breach and up the siege ladders, all still in place. Malkor arrived minutes after the Germans in the streets of the town had surrendered to the Austrians. He sent fifteen of his regiments in three waves of five into the rear of the unprepared Austrians, unwarned, and disarrayed by their triumph. The Austrian’s in the streets shattered under the impact, tried to flee, and soon surrendered piecemeal.

Malkor strode at the front of his personal regiment, tough and hardy mountaineers from his family’s ancestral lands in the rugged Ural Mountains. He led them straight to the castle itself. When he found the gates destroyed, the battlements festooned with climbing ropes and ladders, and the fighting vanished within, he strode through the gaping maw of the wrecked gatehouse while his Urals either crowded in behind him or swarmed up the ladders and ropes.

Karl Von DuBlan had no idea what the source of the Austrian’s sudden distraction might be, but he took advantage of it. He and his immediate entourage mounted their saddled horses and exited the rear sally port of the castle. Malkor’s Cossacks had been instructed to let any party flying Karl’s coat of arms pass unmolested.

Entering the keep of the castle, Malkor headed right for the castellan’s living quarters. The fighting between Germans and Austrians here had ended just minutes before, with the death or surrender of the last German soldiers.

When Malkor stormed in Sandra was in the hands of a squad of Austrian soldiers. With no officer present, they were cheerfully arguing over who would rape her first. Malkor let fly with his pair of Swiss manufactured, four barreled rifled percussion cap pistols, taking down eight of the rowdy Austrians with as many shots. Then he drew his Shashka saber and Kindjal shortsword as he plowed into the remaining Austrians.

By the time a squad of Urals crowded in behind Malkor, all seven remaining Austrians were down, three of them beheaded by the heavy and razor edged Shashka. Malkor wiped the blood off of his blades on the greasy hair of the Austrian sergeant.

Sandra had backed into a corner, dagger in hand as she prepared to defend herself. Malkor strode up to her corner, resheathing his blades as he walked. Sandra, dazed by events, gazed up at him. She recognized his face, blinked twice, and, realizing she was not going to be raped, fainted. Malkor swept her up in his arms as she fell and carried her away.

Sandra awakened to find herself being bathed and dressed by her own servants. She was in the chambers, never used since she had been here, reserved for Duke Ruprecht and his wife.

The tiring-women dressed her in a deep crimson ball gown, strapless and with a deep décolletage. To her surprise, they had put her in only a single undergarment, instead of the multiple layers that were standard for women at the time. Despite being as covered as she normally was at a ball, the absence of underlayers made Sandra feel half naked. They had not even given her stockings to wear under her slippers.

Once she was dressed a quartet of peasant women entered the room and conducted her to another, leaving her own servants behind. Sandra was taken into what she quickly recognized as the Duke’s bedchamber. She had been there to see it cleaned and maintained, but even though there was almost no chance that the Duke would ever use it, no one else was allowed to.

It was the most comfortable room in the castle. All the walls were caulked and plastered and painted, keeping out the icy draughts that plagued the rest of the old structure. The floor was covered with carpets and the walls were hung with tapestries, shielding the inhabitants from the outside chill of this high mountain locale, cold even in high summer.

Sandra noticed at once, to her shock and dismay, that equipment from the castle dungeon had been brought up the stairs and moved into this bedroom. The most prominent item was the seated stocks with overhead pillory. The other was that huge tripod mounted brazier where branding irons were heated white in the dungeon. Now, it carried a big glowing pile of coals that spread warmth throughout the room. There was not a branding iron in sight.

Looking more closely, Sandra realized that the stocks and pillory had been modified. The holes meant for ankles and wrists had been lined with layers of thick wool, which had then been covered with fine muslin. Puzzled at first, she figured out that the purpose must be to securely restrain a person whose skin is soft and sensitive, without abrading or irritating that skin. That would also account for the featherbed that had been placed to cover the wooden platform where the restrained victim must sit.

Just as she came to this realization, the four hefty peasant women seized her and seated her firmly on the featherbed covered wood. They guided her wrists into the overhead pillory and closed and locked it. Her hands were ten inches apart, and far enough above her head to leave no significant bend in her elbows. They then placed her ankles in the stocks, closing and locking those.

Pulling experimentally, Sandra discovered that while the muslin covered wool padding was both warm and comfortable, the devices held her quite securely. She had never felt so helpless.

Then Malkor walked in. He shooed the four women out, closing and barring the door behind them. He turned and gazed at Sandra with open appreciation and desire in his face writ plain. Now Sandra really felt helpless, but somehow the feeling was accompanied by some kind of fuzzy inner warmth. Malkor was grinning wickedly, and that made the warm feeling stronger.

In a tone of mock severity, Malkor told Sandra; “My Tsar’s spies tell me that your father has a hidden treasure room, where information that the spies need to know is kept along with the treasury of the province.”

Sandra was puzzled. She knew of no such room. She said so. Malkor, with that wicked glint even stronger, said; “Unfortunately, my dear, I cannot take your word for that. My duty forbids. I will have to assume that you are following your own duty by lying to me, and therefore I will have to interrogate you.”

Now in those days and in that part of the world, interrogate was a synonym for torture, and Sandra was alarmed. Then she took in the expression on Malkor’s face. She recalled that this was the man she had been ready to marry if he asked. She didn’t know why, but somehow she was utterly certain that he would not hurt her nor harm her.

Malkor leaned forward. With his lips an inch from Sandra’s ear, he whispered; “Tell me, dear Sandra; are you, by any chance, ticklish?”

First Sandra’s blood ran cold, then it ran hot---burning hot. Somehow, the thought that this big, handsome, overpoweringly masculine man was going to tickle her was the most intense turn on she had ever experienced!

Malkor pulled up a chair, and he sat down behind Sandra’s back, the upright square cross sectioned pole between them. Malkor reached out with both hands. He lifted her shoulder length brown hair aside and whispered in her ear; “Now I am going to tickle you. I will not stop until you have broken and told me the location of the treasure room.”

Sandra silently mouthed; “Oh, no!” as Malkor spread his big hands across the fabric of her silk dress where it thinly concealed the flesh of her torso. His fingertips felt their way to chosen vantage points on her ribcage, waking her wiggle and smile with the still mild ticklish sensations.

When his fingers were deployed to his own satisfaction, Malkor dug in softly and started to tickle. Instantly, Sandra was laughing. She wriggled and backed, but could not dislodge those tickling fingers. She could NOT stop laughing! She felt so humiliated, and yet at the same time so excited.

Malkor’s hands moved down her torso, and now he was tickling her hips. That made her laugh harder, and also made her buck those hips really hard, trying to escape from those tormenting hands. No chance; she was too well restrained and he was far too strong.

Sandra now felt Malkor rest his chin on her right shoulder, his lean and tanned cheek touching the soft, alabastrine pinkness of hers. The silky whiskers of his chestnut brown full beard felt soft and warm against her bare skin. His moustache tickled her earlobe as he whispered teasing taunts in her ear.

Then his hands moved down to tickle her thighs. Sandra arched upward and held that position, striving to tear loose the bonds that were holding her. She laughed uncontrollably. She her arousal also breaking loose, out of control. She turned her head, intending to face him and beg him to stop. He was driving her mad! But she miscalculated.

Malkor’s face was much closer than she had thought. As she became fully turned towards him, her wide open, laughing lips touched his. With a smile, he stifled whatever sounds she might have intended to make by kissing her.

For the next several minutes, Malkor pursued his deep, sensual kiss while his hands kept on tickling Sandra’s hips, inner thighs, and now also her groin and her crotch. If Sandra thought she was turned on before, she was really into it now! God, he was making her horny!

Sandra knew that the thin layer of silk which was the only covering he had allowed her was doing nothing at all to conceal the growing erection of her nipples. She also knew that his gently questing, tickling, teasing fingers must have noted the steady engorgement and moistening of her labia. Oh, lord, she was so damn embarrassed!

Malkor leaned back for a moment. He moved his hands back and up, then slipped them inside the top of Sandra’s dress at the sides. Sliding them down to her hips, he began gently tickled her sides. From the peaks of her hips to just below her armpits, then slowly gliding and walking and tweaking back down again.

The smooth, gliding strokes were the worst. They really made her laugh, and they made her body twist from side to side. Sandra thought that was the worst, until Malkor started to tickle her helplessly and widely displayed underarms.

Sandra’s laughter turned wild. Her shapely body undulated like a snake, futilely trying to cover her armpits or pull them a way from those maddening fingers. No matter how she twisted and turned, Malkor’s hands stayed with Sandra’s tender pits, teasing relentlessly.

Malkor leaned forward again. He taunted his lovely victim; “Tell me what I want to know, Sandra. Where is the secret room? Tell me or I’ll never stop. Tell me or I’ll just keep on tickling you forever and forever and forever.”

Sandra’s helpless laughter took on wailing note of despair. In between peals of laughter, she wailed; “There is no room! Heehahahaha! I never saw a secret room! Eeeeeeeheeheeheehee! I never heard of it! Whoohoohoohoohoo! There’s no such thing! Nohohohohohoho! Waaaaaaaaah! Hahahahahah!”

Gently grasping Sandra’s chin with two fingers, Malkor turned her head to her right and kissed her again. While he was kissing her mouth, he took his fingers out of her underarms and slipped them back down the top of her dress. Then he was tickling her breasts!

Sandra just lost it. She was frantic. Those hands were not only tickling unbearably, they were teasing even worse! Within minutes he had her so turned on and horny she felt that she would explode if she didn’t get some kind of relief! And to top it all off with complete humiliation, Sandra was still uncontrollably laughing into Malkor’s unendurably sexy kiss!

When Malkor broke that kiss, Sandra gasped for breath, eyes shut tightly, still ragingly aroused and sexually needy. When she opened her eyes what she saw only made her even needier. Malkor had stripped, and his magnificent, muscular, masculine body would have gotten her juices flowing even if she had not already been desperately horny. The battle scars, some old, some new, only made him sexier. He said; “I believe you, Sandra. There is no secret room. Now, would you like me to make love to you?”

Sandra tried to fight it. She held back. She licked her lips. She knew she shouldn’t. But dammitall, she was just too turned on to think! She said; “Yes! Please, please yes!”

Malkor gripped the hem of her dress and pulled it all the way up, bunching it up around the cuffs on her wrists, revealing that nothing but bare Sandra lay underneath. Then he lightly swung himself onto the wooden platform Sandra was seated on, padded by a thick, soft featherbed.

Malkor insinuated the toes of each foot under Sandra’s knee on that side, then pushed himself forward. Sandra felt the fronts of his legs sliding under the backs of hers. She was slowly lifted, until the backs of her thighs were resting on the fronts of his, and she felt his manhood slip into her, filling her up with delightful sensations.

He seemed to be just the right size and shape; he was touching her in all the best places, the same ones that she touched to pleasure herself in the long, lonely nights. He shifted his weight and adjusted his position, and he touched those spots more firmly and yet still gently. It felt even better.

Then Malkor leaned back, resting his head on the middle of the stocks padded by the end of the featherbed, just when Sandra expected him to lean forward and start thrusting. Puzzled and impatient, Sandra stared at him just in time to see him lazily stretch out both arms along the top of the stocks and dip his hands out of sight behind them.

Malkor glanced left and right to position his hands, and Sandra understood, just as he started to tickle her defenseless bare feet! Sandra laughed crazily, desperately. She frantically tried to pull her ticklish feet away from those maddeningly teasing hands! Every pull thrust her hips forward, every relaxation to prepare the next pull pushed her back again. She couldn’t stop, and even as she laughed wildly she realized that these involuntary hip movements were rubbing all her sweet spots against Malkor’s flesh, bringing her closer and closer to......BLAM!

That’s what it felt like to Sandra as she had the best orgasm she had ever experienced. Malkor kept tickling, but now he was concentrating on her tender toes. Suddenly, the flood of hormones released by her climax stepped up her sensitivity and responsiveness to nearly double.

Sandra screamed out her laughter, she writhed like a serpent, she twitched and she squirmed, and she soon came a second time. Then a third. Then he abandoned her toes as he started to tickle her delicate, high arches.

Sandra’s screams of laughter became wild, demented, animal-like shrieks. The movements of her body were using some hitherto untapped source of superhuman strength, but the bonds still held. Sandra was right on the edge of a fourth orgasm. This one, she knew, would be bigger and better than the other, which were the three best she had ever had. Somehow, it seemed that the more unbearably he tickled her, the better the climax became!

Then she felt him climax into her, and that faint sensation somehow pushed her over the edge. And for some reason, knowing that she had made him climax also made hers even better. They rode each other to completion, and then he stopped tickling.

Malkor released the stocks, and Sandra wrapped her legs around his muscular torso and squeezed him into herself as hard as she good. Her action startled another last burst of pleasure from both of them. He finished unbinding her, and dried them both with the featherbed.

Malkor stood up with Sandra in his arms and carried her to the bed. The covers were already turned back and the bed warmed with a brass pan full of coals from the fire. He removed the warming pan and slid it across the floor to the stone hearth.

Malkor sat on the bed and swung Sandra into place at his left. He pulled the quilt up to her chin and across his own chest. She rested her head on his shoulder. With satisfaction in his voice, Malkor said; “I have probably made you pregnant. Men of my line are notoriously fertile. Now, you’ll have to marry me.”

“Have to? What, this was all so i would have to marry you? That business about the secret room was just a charade?”

“Yes. I knew there was no secret room. That was just an excuse to get to tickle you until the tickling made you want to make love with me. I knew it would. Now, you will have to accept my proposal of marriage, my love.”

She turned her head to gaze up at him. With a wry grin, Sandra inquired; “You couldn’t just ask?”

“I was afraid you would say no.”

“Hey! Is this all some ploy to avoid the offer of a full bride price and demand a big dowry?”

“Nyet! No! Non! I will still offer the bride price of a princess and ask for no dowry at all. I want only you, not some dowry. I love you!”

“You do?”

“Of course! I would never have become involved in this war if I were not in love with you! I certainly have no need to go to such lengths just for lust! I could have assuaged that at home, with far less effort and cost! Of course it is love!”

Returning her head to it’s comfortable rest on his burly shoulder, Sandra sighed; “Ahhh. Well, that’s alright then. It’s just, you didn’t have to be so damn devious. I love you too. Couldn’t you see that? Did you have to do things so intricately and indirectly?”

“Yes, I had to. I’m Russian. It’s the way our minds work!”

They kissed and went to sleep.

Three months later, with the war between Prussia and Austria over, Duke Ruprecht and King Frederick attended the wedding, as did Prince Igor Azeroff, Lord of Galicia, Vitebsk and Lithuania, Malkor’s overlord. Making a virtue of necessity, the Duke and the King jointly gifted the newlyweds with the Barony of Gleiwitz, which was still in the hands of Malkor’s Galician army.

The Prince, not to be outdone, made Malkor’s title of Steward of Galicia permanent and hereditary, and gifted him with the secondary fees and entitlements of the cities of Krakow and Katowice in perpetuity. He took up his new title and dignity under his nickname, wryly styling himself “Casimir The Usurper”.

This deserves a standing ovation!!!!!

I love it!!!! Thank you so much MT1!!!!

You're very welcome. my dear.

TicklishGrl4Lfe said:

I love it!!!! Thank you so much MT1!!!!

Click to expand...

It was a lot of fun to write, with you in mind!