Free The Ever Knight by Georgia Fox

THE EVER KNIGHT
     
    Georgia Fox
     
    Copyright © 2011
     
     
    Chapter One
     
     
    All Hallow’s Eve, England 1078
     
    “Which one, Jisella? Your turn.”
    The only dark-haired girl in the small group around the window, she looked out and pointed. “That one,” she said decisively. “The one with the scar on his thigh and the close shaven head. I’d fuck him.”
    No one flinched. Jisella said “fuck” a vast deal. She found it particularly thrilling for that to-the-point brevity and slightly brutal quality.
    “Filthy Norman devils,” her closest friend Deorwynn growled, fighting for space at the window. “The rotten enemy. Pigs!” She spat through the air. “We ought to poison their supper.”
    “War is over,” Jisella replied. “Didn’t you hear? They won. The fuckers.”
    It was, in fact, twelve years since the battle of Hastings, when William of Normandy vanquished King Harold of Britain. The women around that window were only children when they were conquered, but Saxon resentment ran deep and they grew up listening to their men-folk deride anything Norman. Today, however, what they gazed upon was not merely the enemy, but some rather splendid specimens of manhood. A sight they’d been without for a large part of their lives.
    “Whatever else they are,” said another wistfully, speaking her thoughts aloud, “they’re men. Strong, healthy, young men.”
    Thanks to frequent war and disease there was a shortage of young males in general, but for these women, shut up in a convent by their families until they could be married off, it was literally a famine. Spying on these vital male creatures—friend or enemy—was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.
    Below in the courtyard the rowdy group of Norman soldiers washed off in the horse troughs, unaware of their audience. Despite the brisk October weather some of the men were completely naked, much to the horrified delight of the ladies spying on them from high above.
    Jisella had cast her eyes, and even further-reaching senses, over each man solemnly, making her selection with much greater thought than it might appear to the others. The warrior she’d picked out was scrubbing the bristles of his head with a brush commonly used for grooming a horse. He’d caught her notice in the same way that a stray, boldly playful, rough-and-tumble pup would claim her attention amid a litter of superior pedigree. The bitter chill, she noted, did not affect his equipage as it did some of the others. There was too much of it to shrivel away and hide.
    One of her companions exclaimed, “You wouldn’t know what to do with all that, Jisella.”
    The others chuckled at this, Deorwynn remarking that her friend had eyes bigger than her belly. Jisella’s excessive appetite for puddings, tarts and other sweet things was well known.
    “Laugh all you please, ladies,” she replied, chin high. “I know what I want in a man.”
    “Aye. The flattest stomach, broadest shoulders and biggest cock,” said Deorwynn, on tip toe as she, the shortest there, struggled to look down. She was so eager to view the naked “filthy Norman pigs”, she almost took a few eyeballs out with her elbow.
    “It’s not how big it is, it’s what they do with it.” Jisella pushed the shutters open another half inch—a chancy operation, for the rusted hinge could squeal and expose their spying. “And what we do with it,” she added.
    The others looked at her, but she clamped her lips shut. Her education in these matters was a hastily patched quilt, sewn together with a great deal of imagination and supposition. But they weren’t to know how much of it she made up.
    Suddenly Deorwynn said, “If you know so much, I dare you to do it.”
    “Do what?”
    “Fuck him.”
    A biting breeze blew in through the window, nibbling at her warm cheeks. “I heard Sister Annunica say they’re only here for tonight.”
    “What’s the matter?” Deorwynn teased. “Afraid?”
    Someone smothered a