Rain on the Roof

Neyaday, the 41st day of Spring's Beginning

Would you like tea, my dear?" the Traveler Queen said to Sedra. They sat outside the caravans in the morning air, the Queen in a little chair, Sedra on a pair of pillows against a tree. Connin stood leaning against the tree listening while the other Travelers went about the business of their tidy little camp.

"Yes, thank you, mistress," she replied, accepting a cup from the bony old hands.

"What news?" said Connin.

Sedra looked up at him briefly and sipped from her cup. "My brother obviously has not told our father about my visits with you. I'm not really all that surprised, he never was a tattle-tale. He was always in too much trouble himself to carry stories about anyone else's misdeeds.

"Other than that," Sedra continued, "we still await word of Brinnid's arrival."

"And how highly does your highness anticipate the arrival of your beloved betrothed?" said Connin. Sedra winced.

"Stop it, son," snapped the Queen. Addressing herself to Sedra again, she added, "And Teacher? Have you made it up yet?"

"You know he disapproves of me coming here on my own."

The Queen shrugged. "What's between you and me is our concern, not Teacher's. But I implore you to mend that friendship. Teacher needs all the love in the world, and while you are still in Tremont, I beg you to offer yours."

"I did," she sulked. "Apparently mine was neither wanted nor needed."

"There are many kinds of love, sweetheart, you know that very well."

"Yes, mistress," she sighed.

"Now, are you finished with your tea? Yes? Connin, take her cup. Open the book, child."

"Mistress, does he know you have this?" said Sedra, taking the red book into her lap.

"I should say so. We made them together, long ago. Apart--but together. Mine are the enchantments that reach into the mind of the listener, Teacher's are the ones that bind them to the book. Men's magic has no effect on living things, women's magic has no effect on inanimate ones. We must work together to make such a thing as this book."

"Do they tell the same stories?"

"Yes. It's one of the only ways we've been able to have anything to do with one other in all this time. I can't see or hear Teacher in the flesh, but I can see and hear these stories. It eases the pain a little. But our time is coming. Now. The book."

Sedra opened the leather-covered book and spread it on her lap, waiting for the blank pages to fill.

"Mindful of their luck, Ilhovin and Macca waited until after Harla's Day to tell King Creithig about their engagement," began the Queen. Sedra's eyes glazed over and her mouth slackened as the enchantments wove into her mind and her consciousness left the clearing for the past. The more Sedra was drawn into the book, the more the Traveler Queen changed, until she was no longer the old crone she appeared to be, but the round, dark woman sometimes seen out of the corner of a stranger's eye.

"Oh!" said Sedra as a drop hit her nose, "it's raining!" She shook the story from her head and stood, bracing herself on shaky legs against the tree. The sky opened up and the patter turned into a roar as the rain came down in a torrent.

"In you go," said Connin, shooing her into his nearby caravan. He winked at his mother, and climbed in after the princess, closing the door behind him. The Queen shook her once-more grizzled head and sighed. She slid her little fold-up chair into a rack beneath her caravan, picked up the book and pillows Sedra had left scattered on the ground, and climbed into her own berth.

Inside the caravan, Connin struck a match and lit the lamp. The rain was nearly deafening as it fell in hard, fat, staccato drops; the sound made the little caravan even cozier, the light warming the wooden walls as the lamp swayed slightly from the curved roof. But after a few moments, the rain slackened into a soft, dull drumming. "It looks just the same," murmured Sedra, pushing back the curtains on Connin's bed in the far end of the caravan.

"The same as when?" said Connin. "You've never been in here before. We usually just go deeper into the forest."

"The same as the story Teacher told me out of the book. When your eyes were crossed and uncrossed. Being in the book is like being there, you know. The only thing different is the lamp and the quilts on the bed. Everything else is the same." She looked in the cabinet and ran her fingers along the little shelf above the bed's head. "I wouldn't be surprised if the little vial were still here with Emmae's blood in it."

He removed her hand from the shelf. "That was a long time ago, Sedra."

"She was my many times great-grandmother, you know. When I realized that when Teacher was telling me the story, it made it both more real and more nauseating." She sat down on the bed and looked up at him. "Tell me, Connin, did you enjoy what you did to her?"

"Mother set the enchantment on her, not me."

"Did you enjoy what you did," she said flatly.

He sat next to her on the bed and took Sedra's hand. "It had to be. I had to do it. If it had to be, where's the harm in enjoying it? Your marriage to Brinnid has to be," he murmured, kissing her palm. "On your wedding night, will you lie back and think of Tremont, or will you enjoy yourself?" he continued, pushing her down onto the bed. "It's all coercion, Sedra. The world runs on coercion, whether gentle or harsh. A woman of rough or royal birth knows that better than anyone else."

"And who's forcing you?" she said, stroking his rusty hair.

"Fate. The gods. Prophecy. You." He bent lower over her.

"Me?"

"Lying there on my bed, what else can I do but this?" Connin kissed her softly, barely brushing her lips, then dipped down again for a fuller kiss. Sedra sighed into his mouth as he ran his hand up her leg under her skirts, past the top of her stocking. "Why, my lady, you're entirely without your drawers. If not Tremont, will you think of me when Brinnid is between these thighs?"

"I would almost think you were jealous," she said as she shivered under his touch.

"You're hardly the first woman in my bed, and you won't be the last," he answered, eyes hardening, but his hand never stopped making feathery circles on her naked hip.

"I dare say, since you were in this bed when my many times great-grandfather was a baby and will still be in this bed when my many times great-grandchildren are dead and gone."

"No, I don't think so," he said half to himself. "Kiss me, Sedra, I want you to kiss me!" Sedra circled his neck with her arms, pulled him down on top of her, and opened her mouth to him, kissing him with a fierce intensity. "You never close your eyes," he said breathlessly when they broke apart. "Why is that?"

"I like to know where I am," she murmured.

"Let me remind you." He let his weight sink them into the quilts. "You are beneath me," he whispered gruffly, "and you feel so very good there." She could feel his arousal against her mound, pressing hard into her through their clothes, and she kissed him again more ardently, slipping her hands inside his shirt to feel his heart beat directly through his warm skin.

Connin moved quickly, pushing Sedra's skirts up around her waist; he took possession of her with his hand. "Sedra, how will I live without this?"

"You've lived without me for a very long time--you can do it--again--" She moaned into his mouth, and he kissed her almost sloppily, pressing his lips and tongue anywhere he could find her bare skin.

Connin sat up, scrabbling for a pillow. He slid it under her bottom, tore off his shirt and opened his trousers. Reaching above her head to the little shelf, he came up with a towel and a vial of something slippery; Sedra felt it ooze down her as he poured it onto her bottom and slicked both his hands. Slowly, he pressed one finger, then another inside her ass. Her breathing turned harsh as he pressed in and pulled out, so slowly, and she ran her own finger round and round the stiff little nub of her clitoris.

With his free hand, Connin slathered his slippery hand up and down his shaft. "Tell me you want this," he muttered.

"I want this," she gasped, pushing back against his hand.

"You shall have it, then." The fingers came out, and she felt the big head of his cock replace them. She pushed out against him.

She hooked her legs over his shoulders and cried out as he slid past her entrance, achingly slow. "Don't move for a moment--" she grated out. Sedra looked up at him in the low light of the caravan, his head framed by her own legs. She could feel the hair on his chest on the backs of her thighs. The rain began to pound down heavier again on the roof, blocking all sound from outside. "All right--it's all right--Connin, move--move--do it--"

He pulled back a little, then pushed in further, pulled back and pushed in, until he was fully inside her. Connin's face was wild, almost frightening. "Don't let him take you this way, Sedra," he breathed, as he began stroking slowly inside her ass. "This is for us, no one else, d'you understand? I can't have you forever, and I can't take what's his, but this is mine. He can never have you like this, never!"

Sedra stared up at him but didn't answer. His eyes were open so wide the whites showed all around the blue, and he was snarling like an animal. She felt her orgasm beginning; he sped up as she began to tighten around him, the unbearable, delicious fullness overcoming her. She picked up the pace of the finger on her clit until finally she came, thrashing and crying as the little caravan shook in the wind and the rain.

Watching her come undone was enough for him. Connin roared and pushed deep, and she felt him emptying himself inside her, his strokes lessening in speed and intensity until finally he gingerly pulled out. He picked up the little towel and cleaned her thoroughly, then cleaned himself and took her next to him, spooning her against his chest.

"The storm will be over soon," she whispered.

"The storm is just beginning," he mumbled, pulling her tight. Sedra lay there in the dim light of the caravan listening to the rain, staring sightless into the gloom with an unreadable face.