Walden and Bayard crouched low in the grasses beyond the crumbling stone wall outside Carmarthen Abbey. The young squire's leather skull-cap kept slipping down over his eyes each time his jaw turned and stretched wide to gnaw off another bite from the mutton-shank he held in his greasy, dirt-stained hands. Bayard, Knight's Yeoman to Sir Setheryn of Tye Gwyneth, elbowed the heaving rib-cage of the young squire crouched beside him sharply, the politest gesture he could manage in his present state of mind, to get the boy to share their meager dinner. Without taking his eyes off the lamp-lit lunette window high above them in the rectory tower, he grabbed the half-denuded mutton-leg and hungrily took a chomp.

"What's this for, mate? What're we doin', Bay?" the squire asked, with his mouth full of sheep grease.

"His Lordship's orders, boy. Now shut your greasy yap before I shut it for ye," Bayard grumbled, as he tore off strings of gristle with his yellowed teeth, "Bahhh, ye've left me nuthin, ye bastard!"

Walden straightened his cap again and nervously shuffled sideways on his knees, fearing another painful poke to his ribs from Bayard's sharp elbow, but his right knee unexpectedly slid out from under him when it squished down into a soft patty of fresh cow-shit a Holstein had deposited near the monastery's outer wall a few hours earlier.

"Sard!" he bellowed, quickly lifting his soiled knee from the stinking pile, but Bayard clamped his palm over the boy's mouth before another expletive could emerge.

"Shut yer blooming' hole, ya imbecile! You want the dogs to come out after us?"

"Bay! Look!" The young squire pointed up to the tower, where a woman had just appeared at the window, silhouetted by the torchlight from the wall behind her. She was naked.

"Celibates, my arse!" The Yeoman sneered. "Her hair. What color is her hair?"

"Can't tell," Walden replied. "Why?" The woman turned from the window, and her large, pendulous breasts caught the light at the same time as her coal black hair. A naked monk appeared and spun her back around, leaning her roughly over the sill of the window. They watched as the monk splayed her buttocks in twain and thrust himself inside her. She let out a guttural gasp that woke the cows, and lurched towards the window opening again and again, as he pounded her from behind. "Sard!" Walden exclaimed, as they watched the ribald tableau from below.

"What's the matter, boy? Never seen a bitch take it the hard way?" Bayard chuckled. "Anyway, it's not her," muttered the Yeoman.

"Who?"

"Arianrhod!"

* * *

Setheryn Bale, Lord Widdlesten of Gwyneth Borough, sat in his horse-hair padded curule chair, warming his feet by the stone fireplace his great-grandfather had laid. He was draining the last swigs from a tankard of ale, and tossing scraps of food to his lazy sheepdog lounging at his feet. On the wooden bench by the hearth sat his friend, the vicar, warming his hands by the fire, after his long, uphill walk from the village to Widdlesten Manner.

"Jus Primae Noctis. The law of the first night," his Lordship mused aloud, "Since King Gilgamesh of old, have the rights of lords and priests been fairly practiced. A good tradition, no?"

"Yes, m'Lord," replied the Vicar, "Young Padrig will receive a worthy bride in fair Arianrhod, if the Abbot returns in time for their marriage. If not, the claim falls to you, Sir Widdlesten. The Church will defer to your honor, should his Eminency be detained."

The knight errant's rough-hewn features betrayed no emotion at the vicar's comment, but Lord Bale had already set in motion the very instruments of the Abbot's untimely delay, and he was determined that young Padrig's beautiful bride would be his to deflower on the couple's fast-approaching wedding night. Should the Church be unable to consecrate the young girl's honey-pot, and verify her purity, the next in line for the ordinance of the right of lords, fell to Sir Setheryn, as local magistrate. Since he had first beheld fair Arianrhod as a young girl, he had vowed to himself to take her maidenhood.

* * *

"So, Gwillem, when's the big day?" the smithy bellowed over the roar of the forge.

"The old hag's decreed it be Monday, to honor the moon-goddess, or some such pagan nonsense," Gwillem replied, as he heaved down on the bellows, making the embers glow brightly under the red-hot iron.

"Ah, be careful, lad! Callin' Murhwyn a hag'll get ye cursed! That witch is capable of it, ye know!"

"Aye, but let her curse me after my son's married her darlin' Arianrhod!"

"Padrig's a lucky boy, Gwillem. Many a man would kill to be in his shoes." The blacksmith lowered his head and lifted his gaze from under his sweat-soaked leather brow-band, as if to warn his apprentice.

"Tell me more about that kegelin' game ye saw in Germania, when ye traveled there with the master?" Gwillem changed the subject. "Ya know, we could clear a bowling green in the woods behind the abbey."

"And wake the dead in the cemetery, ta boot?" joked the old smith, "Those skittle-pins make the devil's own noise when ye bowl 'em over, lad. But I'll ask his Lordship. He may be in a fair mood, owing to the occasion - 'specially if he gets to deflower the bride!"

"But that's the Church's province. The old Abbot won't allow that."

"According to Bayard, his Eminence may not be back in time for the wedding night. His Lordship's had his eye on that young maiden for years. Sumthin's up! Told me this mornin', he did. This here clevis we're heating up is from the hitch on the Yeoman's old livery-cart."

"Sumthin's up, alright!" Gwillem smirked back, "Sir Setheryn's noble pecker!" The old smith laughed, over the pounding of his hammer.

* * *

Murhwyn Tilgrynen tucked a thin, wet lath into the collar of the basket she was weaving, and pulled it taut as she looked out her window, craning her neck to see if her daughter was around the house. Meghyn was told to stay close to their little stone cottage today, but she was wont to wonder, especially if Arianrhod was with her. The two girls were usually inseparable, and often roamed the woods together, searching for mushrooms and wildflowers, the latter of which Arianrhod often wore woven into the braids of her strawberry blond hair. Meghyn adored the older girl, her step-sister since Arianrhod had first appeared in the village years ago as a child, alone and abandoned. No one knew where she came from, or what had become of her parents, but Murhwyn had taken her in, when no one else seemed to know what to do with the unusual orphan.

The mystery of Arianrhod's origins, over the years, had only been embellished by the local townspeople, to an almost fanciful degree. She spoke with an unusual Gaelic inflection, casting her from the outset as an outsider, but also imbuing her with an exotic quality, which was only enhanced by her growing pulchritude. Beyond her astonishing beauty, there was also a fey, almost other-worldliness to her nature, which the villagers attributed variously from her being the offspring of faeries to her upbringing in the house of the local witch. Murhwyn's reputation itself was none too respectable, and by extension, her two daughters were often viewed by the townspeople with a suspicious eye. While the other daughters in the village were usually married off soon after puberty, Arianrhod, despite her beauty, was nearly an old spinster at the age of seventeen.

Not that the boys didn't look! Most were struck dumb in her presence, as if she herself had bewitched them with her charms, leaving them with stiff members and buttoned lips - too intimidated by her beauty to engage her in conversation. Padrig, son of Gwillem, had somehow summoned the courage to speak to her one spring day, and at sixteen, they had become friends. Meghyn often teased her step-sister about the son of the smithy's apprentice, but Arianrhod judged the boy to have a brave heart, and encouraged his attentions, despite her younger sister's derision. After a year of coy and joyful courtship, he had asked for her hand, and to everyone's surprise, she had accepted.

Their engagement had served to ameliorate Arianrhod's peculiarity, somewhat, in the villagers' eyes, and she began to be regarded with a more inclusive attitude by her peers. But she still retained her native mystery, as her long jaunts around the countryside with her sister to gather herbs and roots for Murhwyn's potions were perceived as proof that Arianrhod might be a student of the witch's dark craft. The magic of Arianrhod's allure was attributed by some to be the result of Murhwyn's witchcraft, rather than her own elusive origins.

Murhwyn was a necessary enigma in the borough, as she often cured the ailments of those who put themselves in her hands as a last resort, when their maladies were not healed by the local physician or the priest's prayers. Leechcraft, and the bleeding of evil humors was the prevailing science of men schooled in medicine, but wise women had passed down the lore of herbs and tree-bark medicines for centuries, at the risk of being cast as witches by their male counterparts. The women of the village knew when to avail themselves of Murhwyn's skills, even when the menfolk balked, and feared the old woman's arcane knowledge.

Her sister's upcoming nuptials were troubling Meghyn, even though Arianrhod assured her that their bond as loving sisters would never change. Arianrhod exuded a confidence that never abided a fear of the uncertain future. She took every day as it came, innocently believing the beauty of the world around her could be no less than her own, but her sister knew that the ugliness of people's prejudices and fears were an unfortunate part of the beautiful world her sister inhabited. Meghyn could not let that ugliness harm her beloved sister, and took her fears to Murhwyn.

"Mother, why must Arianrhod be given over to the priest on her wedding night. It does not seem fair to Padrig."

"It is tradition, daughter," the old woman replied, "Men of power and station have always enforced their rights over our daughters upon their bridal nights, saying they are blessing the union for the success of the marriage, and verifying the purity of the bride's virginity. It has been done for centuries, child. Jus Primae Noctis, they say in Latin - the law of the first night. Droit du seigneur they have called it in Gaul. It is the practice in every fiefdom. Priests and nobility have always availed themselves of virgin girls before their bridegrooms may lay with them. It's just the way it has always been, since the kings of old."

"But shouldn't Padrig be the first to mate with his bride? She is his, after all. The Priest is committing fornication, isn't he? How can a successful marriage begin with a sin by the Church?"

"Meghyn, you ask sensible questions, but the world makes little sense. Men with power make the rules for their own benefit. They cloak it, saying they are God's representative on Earth, acting in His stead. It does not have to make sense when they justify it with such nonsense. Why are you troubled so, daughter?" Meghyn hesitated, then leaned over to her mother and whispered in her ear. The old crone's eyebrows raised in surprise, then a shallow sigh escaped from her lips. "Are you sure?" Meghyn nodded, and they sat in silence. Murhwyn sat in deep thought.

* * *

"Where the fuck are we, boy?" the Abbot shouted to the monk, who shook the reins of the covered oxcart to drive it out of a muddy rut. The Abbot's tonsured head poked out through the canvas curtaining the front of the rickety wagon, and he looked around the sylvan lane for signposts or landmarks. He was in a hurry to get back to the monastery, but their progress had been deterred by a string of unusual mishaps along the road, and the driver had taken a detour through an unfamiliar woods.

"It grows dark, Sire. We'd best pull up for the night," the young monk advised cautiously.

"Bahhh! We've been on this accursed trail for days! How far have we yet to travel?"

"I'm not sure, Sire. This forest is unfamiliar to me, your Grace. Maybe the signs posted when we detoured were wrong?"

"Where is the map the Knight gave us?" the Abbot moaned, "Surely you can follow a map, can't you, lad?"

"The map does not show this road. I have been following the sun to keep us headed in the right direction, but we have passed many side-paths that aren't on the map either."

"Bahhh! We are going to miss Sunday mass!" the Abbot fumed, and disappeared inside the cart again. "Come inside, boy! We will undress, and sleep till morning. We must keep each other warm yet another lonely night!"

* * *

Arianrhod uncovered the basket she had filled with fresh Morels gathered from the edge of the woods, and dumped them into a pile on the wooden table where Murhwyn sat, stretching a pigeon's stomach with a small, wooden pestle. Arianrhod displayed no curiosity at the strange activity. Instead, she pulled Meghyn from her seat in the corner to dance around the room with her, to a melody she had heard in her mind, as the breeze whistled through the treetops during her hunt for mushrooms. They whirled and twirled in crazy circles around the table until they were dizzy, then Meghyn collapsed in Arianrhod's lap in the chair across from their mother.

"Will you be so carefree on your wedding night, child?" her step-mother asked. "What do you imagine the Abbot will do when he finds no blood on his cock?" Arianrhod's eyes widened, then cast downwards over her sister's shoulders.

"He will say I'm a whore, and I will be one for fucking another man when my bridegroom sits alone in our house, suffering like a cuck!" She gave Meghyn a playful push from her lap to the other empty chair.

"You will bring shame to your name, girl, and to your husband's!" said the old crone. "It will be difficult for you, unless we take steps to..."

"The shame is in the act of the Abbot, stealing what belongs to Padrig." Arianrhod interrupted impetuously.

"What belongs to Padrig seems to have already been stolen, unless Padrig himself was the thief, my winsome daughter. To whom have you lost it then?"

"Does it really matter? If I bear Padrig a son before a year is out, who is to say it will even be his? Is that not a greater theft?"

"You make me wonder, daughter, if you are marrying Padrig to cover your own indiscretion with another."

"Mother!" Meghyn interjected.

"You know the law of the first night. You will be discovered!" warned the witch.

"I have denied the Church my virginity, Mother. Whatever they do to me, I shall have that small victory, at least." Arianrhod looked over at Meghyn and smiled. Her sister reached out and grasped her hands in hers, but a tear sparkled in her eye.

* * *

The wedding was a small affair, celebrated upon the day of the Moon. The whole borough turned out to receive the couple and fete their union, after the vicar had performed the ceremony in the churchyard. Arianrhod was bedecked with flowers, and baby's breath was woven through her silky, flaxen locks. The wedding party danced through the afternoon and into the evening, until the ale was exhausted. The townspeople wished the couple their best, and gradually repaired to their homes to sleep off the brew.

With tears in his eyes, Padrig kissed his bride goodnight, and the vicar led her away to her deflowering. Arianrhod cast a last, wistful glance over her shoulder to her groom and disappeared into the darkness. A cart had been sent from Widdlesten Manner, and the vicar helped her up to her seat behind the driver. With a slight bow, he sent her on her way, to the jingle of cowbells. Along the rutted path to Widdlesten Manner, her sister caught her up in the darkness, and pushed a small purse into Arianrhod's hands, giving her a kiss, and whispering a message.

Lord Bale rose at the clap of the iron ring on the strike plate of his oaken outer door, and waited for the servants to escort his young guest to his bed chamber. A moment he had long awaited was at hand, and he had planned meticulously to make this night happen. A man of endless confidence, he had always charged into any fray, prepared to conquer, through wit or through guile. He had never been disabused of his belief in his own self-importance, and the certainty that God and fortune were both on his side.

His Lordship had been with many women, and owing to his titles and wealth, they were always submissive to his wants. Arianrhod was not the first maiden he had deflowered. Between the Abbot and himself, nearly every maiden in the township had surrendered her virtue to one or the other of them - at least the pretty ones, whom they both took pains to maneuver into their own beds by connivery, especially if she was particularly comely. The deviousness by which Bale had plotted to arrange for Arianrhod's wedding night had descended to new lows in dis-ingenuity!

Sir Setheryn Bale stood at the balustrade at the top of the ornate stairs leading up to his bed chambers, and watched as the young bride entered his front hall and climbed the stairs to him. He greeted her respectfully, and gestured her towards his room, staying outside the door to give instructions to the servants to close up the house for the night and retire. Arianrhod pulled something from her bag and squeezed it gently with her fingers. She wet her fingers and lifted the hem of her wedding gown. In a moment, the Lord of the manner appeared in the doorway, looking her over from head to toe, then he closed the heavy door behind him.

"You were perhaps expecting to be delivered to the Abbot tonight, lass. His Holiness is, unfortunately, out of the borough at the moment, and he has asked me to act in his behalf."

"I am yours then, m'Lord," she said quietly, deferentially.

"I expected you long before this, girl."

"I was brought as soon as the celebration ended, sir."

"That was not my meaning. You are late to wed, Arianrhod, especially for one so fair."

"A girl can only wed when she is asked, Sire."

"Were you noble-born, I would have had your hand myself. I have searched for years for your origins, Arianrhod, hoping to discover you were. But for my honor, I would have forged the evidence of your bloodline myself. Your beauty, my child, is incomparable. You deserve far more than the son of a smithy's apprentice."

"Padrig is a good man, Sire."

"And you will be a good wife, I'm sure, Arianrhod. But are you a good lover?" He untied the strings holding her gown together. "Let us see."

The cross-lacings of her bodice loosened, and her dress fell away from her shoulders, crumpling around her bare feet. She stood before him, naked, and unashamed of her nudity. Her calm and confident expression remained changeless, as she felt his eyes scrutinize her every curve. His expression, by contrast, was moved quite noticeably. Modeled by the warm candlelight from light to shadow, her soft, sensuous skin revealed every secret he had ever yearned to see. He took a step back, beholding her body as if a revelation of heaven, and the effect it was having on his own body only seized his attention when his heart jumped abruptly in his chest, because he had stopped breathing. She was in control of his desire, and she saw it in his eyes, burning like a torch.

He reached out to touch her with trembling hands and became suddenly self-conscious of his own loss of control over his physical reactions. He had faced battle and danger with nerves of steel, flinching at nothing, and yet this frail creature before him had reduced him to a state of trembling excitation. With every woman he had bedded, he had never concerned himself with whether they were appreciative of his touch. This was the first moment he wanted a woman to want him back, for her own pleasure and satisfaction. He carefully cupped her breasts, and watched as her puffy nipples constricted into stiff points. She backed herself up to the heavily-carved bed, and reclined on her elbows, relaxing her thighs so they fell open to his view.

Her eyes were locked onto his, as she needed to see his lust, and feel her own control over it. This man had privilege to use her body, but she gave him nothing of her heart. In her submission, she still felt her own power over him, by what she saw revealed in his eyes, now completely lost to wanton desire. His eyes were cast downward to her womanhood, laid open before him like a resplendent flower in full bloom. He reveled in the idea of being the first man to see her unwrapped, and hastily tore at his own coverings, throwing them away to feel her naked skin under his at last. His swelling flesh strained impatiently to be released from constraint, and the hot fire in his limbs made him feel like a young buck once again.

His oak-hard member bobbed stiffly as he lowered himself to his knees between her wide-swept thighs. He gathered her to himself, as she rolled her hips upwards to receive him. She had a moment's trepidation that she would not seem to him as other virgin brides had, at the moment their membrane was breached. She had only momentarily glimpsed his cock, waving in the candle-light as he had descended upon her, and judged it at a glance to be perhaps half a cubit at best in length. Her petals were already wet and yielding, as he glided his phallus through the slick surfaces of her cleft, coating his swollen shaft with her silken juices, preparing for his ultimate thrust inside her.

To her sides, she saw scars from many battles on the well-muscled arms which supported his large, shaking frame. By contrast, her own pale skin, now under his shadow, was soft and flawless. She felt her full breasts bouncing under his firm pectoral muscles, as they grazed her flesh with each push of his rigid member through the trough of her outer womanhood. Her wetness spread between them, and he was ready to impale her. She sensed his desperation to plunge inside her, and knew the moment of truth was at hand. His angle of attack changed suddenly, and she felt the head of his cock spread her inner labia as it ducked under her pubic bone.

Setheryn Bale felt the resistance he expected, and he slowed his thrust into Arianrhod's sex. He shifted his hips, wiggling the glans of his cock around, just inside her opening, feeling a membrane stretch inside her as it pressed back upon him. He let his weight settle downwards as her heels folded around his lower back, but still he could not enter her beyond the first inch. He felt his long-eye begin to bend when he pressed in harder, and began to feel puzzled at his inability to break her hymen. She lay beneath him, wide-eyed, waiting to be penetrated, but his Lordship was now taking shallow pokes in rapid succession, trying to stiffen his member enough to tear through her maidenhood.

He withdrew, and she released him from between her long legs. The Knight, with a bewildered look on his face, apologized, in the event he had caused her any pain or discomfort, but she assured him she had felt nothing. His Lordship grabbed his cock and guided it back into her opening with a renewed determination to deflower her once and for all. Attempting to keep himself straight, he firmly held the center of his shaft, and pushed again and again, until his own discomfort at the compression left him with a growing soreness. He backed out once more and gritted his teeth, then girded himself for one final assault on Arianrhod's purity.

Lord Bale arched up his buttocks and snapped his hips downward with all his strength, then let out a howl of pain as his cock bent back at an awkward angle, and rebounded out of Arianrhod's closed tunnel. After rubbing the ache from his sore shaft, the frustrated nobleman hunched on his knees with a shocked look on his face.

"My dear, I'm sorry, but I am unable to break you!" he gasped, trying to recover his breath.

Arianrhod pulled herself into a sitting position and faced the brave Knight with a feigned expression of sympathy, as he rocked on his knees at the foot of the bed, still squeezing his damaged organ. As he did so, it grew limp in his hand, and he knew he would not be able to regain his erection to try again. The thought grew in his mind that this was so odd as to be un-natural, and he began to suspect the girl may indeed have been born of faerie spirits, and her virginal honey-pot was protected by some magic which rendered it unbreachable by mortal men. He wondered if Murhwyn had cast a witch's spell upon her step-daughter's body to keep her chaste.

Arianrhod herself was at a loss to explain her unusual condition, but had she a reasonable explanation to offer up, his Lordship was in no mood to hear it. He nursed his sore cock with a beaten look on his face, and dismissed the girl from his chambers. But even in his wounded condition, he watched with longing, the incomparable beauty of her lithe and flawless body, until she had gathered her clothes and left his room, and his hall.

* * *

Arianrhod was surprised at the strange turn of events, but believed she knew what had happened. She walked gingerly through the warm summer night down the path towards the village and her new husband, who awaited her return. She stopped at the gate of her mother's cottage, and walked into the yard, looking up at the star-filled sky overhead. It was not yet midnight, and a candle was still burning inside. Pulling the latch-string, she entered the home she had known since she was a young lass, and her mother and sister greeted her with open arms.

"Well, mother, your contraption worked, but not quite the way you expected!" She pulled up her dress and sat down at the table. "Now, how do we get it out?"

Her mother looked surprised. "It didn't break?"

"No, but Sir Setheryn's pecker nearly did!" she chuckled. Her mother took a spoon from the drawer and lifted the pleated gown from her step-daughters shapely legs. Carefully inserting the spoon into Arianrhod's slick vagina, she created an air-pocket which allowed the small sack of pig's blood to be freed from the girl's womb. She pulled on the spoon, and the small pouch she had fashioned from a stretched pigeon's stomach fell into the witch's hand. It was still tied off to keep the blood from escaping until ruptured, and Arianrhod looked at it as her mother attempted to squeeze it several times. It still wouldn't break.

"I seem to have miscalculated the strength of a pigeon's innards," she laughed, "but at least your virginity can't be questioned!"

"Nor my reputation for being quite strange!" Arianrhod giggled. "Now if you two will excuse me, I have a husband to fuck!"

Meghyn kissed her goodbye at the door, and watched, as Arianrhod made her way across the village green to the small cottage where Padrig awaited her homecoming, a duly consecrated bride, deflowered, and blessed for a happy marriage. Her husband tore off her dress, threw her upon their wedding bed, and joyfully fucked his beautiful bride all through the night, the first man to have fully penetrated the young goddess' juicy honey-pot.

* * *

"So, young lady..." Murhwyn asked her daughter, as she tucked her into bed, "Who did take Arianrhod's virginity, as if I couldn't guess?"

Meghyn just smiled and waved her fingers in the air. "It was magic!"

(c) 2015 - Bethany Ariel Frasier