Jack Whyte - Uther

It did not even occur to Ygraine that Uther might simply have left the camp again that same night so soon after arriving. They did not discover that until much later in the day when they discovered, too, that Huw Strongarm had ridden out this time with Uther and the cavalry that Uther called his Dragons, leaving the camp in the charge of a subordinate commander, and Morgas, as Uther had promised, in the charge of the decurion called Nemo. And so for three days, the women established a pattern of waiting and being bored.

When the rumours reached Morgas that Uther had returned, she commanded one of her guards to take a message from her to the King, demanding that he come to speak with her. The man gazed at her in silence for a time, offered a derisive "humph" and returned stolidly to his post, leaving her to fume impotently and eventually to compose herself and wait in patience for her captor to return. This was his tent, she told herself. His belongings were here, as was his bed, and she believed that, having spent the last three nights on the ground beneath the open sky, he might wish to sleep in his cot for a change. She was determined to be ready for him when he did.

She dressed with particular care that day, taking pains to make herself look as alluring and as seductively attractive as she possibly could. The results were spectacular, drawing and holding the eyes and the stares even of her regular guards, who had all been selected, she had begun to believe, for their ability to remain undistracted by her charms. She wore a flowing, voluminous gown of material so fine as to be almost translucent, with nothing else between its draperies and her skin, so that the garment revealed breathtaking glimpses of her curves and swooping, fleetingly outlined silhouettes of breast and belly, hip and thigh as she passed between men's eyes and the bright light of the sun—which she contrived to do as often as possible, the better to gauge and evaluate the effect of such sightings. Overall she was encouraged by the slack-mouthed awe of her observers, who stood watching her, rather than pacing their posts as usual. So successful was she, in fact, that the sheer freedom of her unconfined body beneath the gown began to affect her erotically as her skin, and particularly her nipples, became sensitized to the gentle friction of the garment's fabric. But as her erotic tension increased, the afternoon drew towards evening, night fell, and her evening meal was served without any sighting of Uther Pendragon. Eventually she retired to her own cot, where she tossed and turned for a long time before finally falling asleep, angry and distempered.

She awoke some lime later; perhaps hours later or perhaps only a fraction of that time, she had no idea. She knew only that she had been awakened by a heavy, muffled noise close by, and when she opened her eyes, startled and disoriented, she had no memory of where she was. It was dark and quiet, but there was a yellow effulgence on one side of her, a dim radiance that lit one side of the enclosure in which she found herself. Rigid, she lay wide-eyed, fighting down panic, and as her heartbeat fell back towards its normal pace, she began to think coherently again. She remembered where she was, and she remembered, too, that just beyond the walls of the tent wherein she lay at least two guards stood vigilantly, not merely guarding her, but guarding against any attempt she might make to flee.

Then came the noise again. This time she heard it clearly, and she saw an accompanying movement of shadows against the backlit leather wall close by her cot. Uther Pendragon had returned to his tent and was now in the act of removing his armour, evidently attempting to do so quietly without disturbing her. Then she heard a muffled voice speaking very quietly and saw the massive shadow on the wall split into two human shapes, one moving off to the right, where she could no longer see it, while the other remained in place. A picture sprang into her mind immediately of the cruciform wooden rack that was made to hold a full set of armour—cuirass and sword belt, helmet and kilt of armoured straps—and she knew that Uther was being assisted by a trooper, who had carried his discarded armour to hang it upon the device while his master looked to his own comfort.

A moment later the remaining shadow, which she presumed to be Uther's, also moved out of sight, looming first to engulf the entire wall and then disappearing completely, so that she knew he had now moved beyond the light, leaving it between him and her. She heard a quiet splashing as water was poured from a jug into a bowl, and then a muttered farewell as the trooper left the tent, evidently taking a light away with him, since the brightness on the far side of the wall decreased sharply as soon as he left.

Morgas lay quietly for some time after that, holding her breath for long stretches and straining her ears to make out every sound of movement from beyond the partition, but she heard only the sound of softly splashing water and occasionally the sound of breathing from the man on the other side. She heard a sudden, muffled grunt and then a sharp intake of breath, and then another silence stretched out, during which she heard nothing at all. A renewed sound of gently pouring water and a soft, scrubbing sound, and a vision formed in her mind to accompany the sounds to which she listened, a vision that excited her and brought a swelling of her heartbeat and a shortness of breath as she envisioned the man close by her, naked in the dim light of a taper, washing himself completely in the almost-dark. Before she knew what she was doing, she had risen from her bed and moved soundlessly to where she could see into the other part of the tent.

There, sure enough, she saw him naked at his ablutions, washed in the gentle radiance of a single candle so that much of him shone golden in the light while the rest of him was shrouded in darkness. So tall was he and so broad across his back and shoulders that he appeared gigantic, his bulk amplified and enhanced by the giant black shadow thrown now by the candle onto the wall opposite her. His slightest movement caused the flame to flicker and sent the shadow leaping to engulf fully half of the tent wall beyond him and the roof of the tent above him.

Aware but uncaring of her own nudity, knowing that he could not see into the blackness that contained her, Morgas approached the opening in the partition cautiously, making sure that she remained clear of the wedge of pale light spilling into her sleeping area from his candle. Moving slowly through the pitch blackness, she felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest as she allowed her lust to stir and stretch itself.

His chest was broad and deep, coated with crisp, curling black hair that tapered downward to his loins and blended with the dark, impenetrable shadows on the front of him. Behind, the golden candlelight limned the edges of his arms and torso and threw liquid light to outline the edge of his left buttock and the strong sweeping column of his thigh and rounded calf. As she watched, he raised one foot and placed it upon a low stool while he soaked the cloth he held in one hand and used it to wash his crotch, stooping and reaching backwards as he scrubbed and cleansed himself thoroughly. She could not see much in detail, but her imagination served her requirements admirably, and when he dropped the cloth into the bowl and reached for a length of towel behind him, she was delighted when he failed to reach it easily and had to take a small half-step towards it, turning towards the light to pick it up, so that she saw him completely. Then, standing thus, his every movement sensuous and redolent of lazy pleasure, he dried himself at leisure and turned back finally to the basin, where he took himself in hand and pissed, in an arcing stream, into the water wherein he had washed. That done, he took up the basin carefully in both hands and carried it to the doorway of the tent, where he shouldered his way through the flaps and flung the contents of the basin out onto the ground. He returned immediately, emptied the remaining water from the jug into the bowl, swirled it around and took it outside again, repeating the procedure. Returning again, he dried his hands once more with the towel and threw it into the bowl before turning quickly and picking up the candle, cupping his hand around the flame to keep it from guttering.