Swan's Neck Ch. 01: Danegyth's Love

My Mistress was worried; which meant I was.

'Danegyth, this could end badly for us all, you are a clever little thing, can you think of a way in which we could persuade the earl to think again.'

I hated to see my beloved Ealdgyth upset.

By common consent she was the most beautiful woman in England. Known as 'the fair; or 'swan's neck,' and her husband, the great Godwin earl, Harold, loved her in a way few women are loved.

She had, of course, her own reasons to be worried. With the death of the king, Edward, known as the 'Confessor' imminent, Harold could claim the throne, but not by right of succession. If he were to do so, he would need to win support, and there was already talk of Harold marrying Edith of Mercia, to win the support of the powerful Mercian earl and his family.

Ealdgyth was married in the way people of our nation had always married. Harold had asked her to be his, and hand-fasting, that is holding hands in public, she had proudly accepted him. That was what made a wife among our folk.

Five children she had born the handsome Harold: three sons (including twin boys); and two beautiful daughters. The youngest, Gytha, would be a beauty to match her mother, but even at the age of ten, she was pretty as a picture. Her blonde hair and blue eyes marked her out as the successor to her mother.

'But my lady,' I replied, 'you know Harold, he is a masterful man, and he has spent many a long year planning for what happens when the king dies.

'I do not want this Mercian bitch to take my place in his bed. These many a long year have I kept him satiated, and he has never needed to look elsewhere. Look, am I not as beautiful as I was when you first knew me, a decade ago?'

Ealdgyth's blood was up. Her beautiful face red with the force of her anger, and to my eyes she looked even more beautiful than usual. She looked at me, and as she finished her question, she opened her robe. Few women of forty could match that body. Her breasts were still, despite five children suckling them, firm and in need of no support. Her hips were shapely, and her belly flat and tempting. The blonde curls which hid her womanhood were unmarked by tinges of grey, and the same was true of her blonde mane. Oh, I loved her now, as I had loved her when she had first employed me as nurse to her children.

Godwin, her eldest, and Magnus and Edmund were a handful, and when the latter reached the age of four, in the year of Our Lord 1056, she had taken me as their nurse, and then nursemaid to the girls, Gytha and Gunhild. I loved them as though they were my own.

She had been kind to me. My father was a runaway monk, Adalbert, who had fallen in love with my mother, Ellan, who had been one of her ladies in waiting and had died when I was born. My father, who, having betrayed one set of vows, set about failing another vow. On her deathbed, my mother had asked him to take care of their child, but he had promptly run off with a Norman lady in waiting from the entourage of Duke William.

It was Ealdgyth who had fulfilled my mother's wish of naming me Danegyth, which in our tongue means 'cute'. It had turned out to be an apt name. My growth, always slow, had ceased at eighteen, and at less than five foot tall and with small breasts, I was no catch. No man ever sought me out, and I knew there were those in the Godwin household who pitied me.

But I cared not. As I looked at my Mistress, my beloved Ealdgyth, I wanted only her. I loved her with a passion that the Church called sinful, but which I could not help. Men did not interest me, but when my lady took me to her bed, then I was a happy woman.

It had first happened when I was eighteen.

Ealdgyth alone insisted on celebrating my birthday. She had nurtured me from a child. She had given me the only love I had known before her children came to give me their affection. But for the last year there had been something tense in that love.

It is no secret that we Saxons love our mead, and that birthday feast had been a mighty occasion, not least because my lord Harold had returned safely from his temporary captivity in Normandy only the week before. I had not seen much of my Mistress, occupied, as she had been by him.

It was, therefore, a surprise when, as the feast finished, she asked to come to my chamber. Harold, she explained, had supped and drunk too well and he could not do for her what was his wont, and yet she needed what he did, or a simulacrum thereof.

She looked warmly at me.

'You have grown into a beautiful young woman, Danegyth, and though I have been as a mother to you, I have other feelings for you as well,'

I remember I blushed. I told her that I was glad she felt that way, and when she asked why, I recall even now with a blush, my answer:

'Because you are not my mother, and towards you, I have feelings which I could never have to my mother or other relative.

I recall, even now, her hungry grin.

'Let me take the gown from your shoulders, my dear-ling.'

So saying, she stood before me, tall, majestic, commanding, and I melted. She stripped me, my kirtle and my under-dress pooling around my feet. I stood before her naked, blushing at the lack of womanly attributes. My breasts were not developed, and I had never been able to grow hair where other woman had it. At four feet ten inches, I had never felt attractive. I could not imagine anyone lusting after such a flat-chested dwarf.

But I was wrong. The most beautiful woman in England removed her own kirtle and under-gown. Never had I imagine such beauty.

Her breasts were not large, but they were perfect globes, her nipples dark pink, hard, pointing upward slightly, their surface crinkled and tempting. Her body was perfectly proportioned, and being only a few inches shorter than Harold, who was almost six foot, she towered over me.

She sat on the couch and beckoned me to kneel before her.

It felt so natural.

'Kiss me there, dear-ling.'

The scent from her sex was heady, and I longed for the sweet nectar which, as I first tasted it, was better than the finest mead. It was sweet, like mead, but a little salty, with a tang unique to itself. I licked up from her bottom, my tongue parting her lips as it moved up towards the V-shape at the apex of her sex.

There I encountered something not as soft as the rest of her sex. My tongue pressed on it. My Mistress moaned. Seeing this pleased her, I did it again, with the same result. Some instinct told me she would like it if I sucked her bud there, so I did. The moaning became louder, and, the more I sucked the more insistent. The more my tongue worked her bud and lips, the louder she groaned and the wetter she got.

I was the happiest girl in England. I loved Ealdgyth, I always had, but had lacked the means to show her how much; now I had it. As I knelt, my face between her thighs, I sighed. To give her pleasure was my greatest delight, and now I knew I could.

Her hands gripped my hair, pulling me further into her wetness. My tongue curled, and pressed between her petals, finding her entrance. Pulling her lips apart, I pushed my tongue in as far as it would go, like a little tube. My nose pushed against the bud I had been licking, and she moaned so hard I almost feared I was hurting her. More nectar poured forth from her. My nose pushed her again, and once more, she moaned loudly.

I could not give her what Harold could, but my tongue inside her love hole seemed to delight her, and she began to moan, 'fuck me, fuck me.' And so I did, pushing my tongue deeper.

My tongue and my fingers played with her sex. I could have done it all night. Indeed I rather think I did. It was a surprise to me when, of a sudden, with a huge scream, what she called her cunt, gushed forth more sweet, sticky nectar, which tasted even stronger. Oh, but how I loved it, that first orgasm she had with me.

I knew nothing then, but stayed with her through it, and, she had several more in succession before begging me to stop, and pulling me up, on the couch with her, our nipples rubbing and she ruffled my hair and kissed me.

'I do taste nice, don't I?' She giggled.

'My lady, you do so, you are my heart's queen, and I would lie here with you forever.'

'Have you ever done that before, Danegyth, my dillydown?"

I loved being called her 'dillydown,' which was a term of endearment often bestowed on a beloved daughter.

I assured her that I was as virginal with women as with men. I was only just of age, and beside, it was not as though any had sought my pearl of great price.

'In which case, my dillydown, you are a natural. I am fortunate to have claimed that pearl as you are now an adult. You will be my hand-fast woman, and we shall love in the manner of women. But we speak not of this to men.'

I assured her of my discretion.

And for this last nine years, we had been lovers. I think people knew. I think even Harold knew, but he called me his pretty dear-ling, and regarded me as his wife's plaything, which was, indeed, how I saw myself at times.

But it was much more than that. I loved her, and she loved me. The Norman bishops may have frowned on such things, but I cared not for them. Our own churchmen were less intrusive.

So for years, we had lived as lovers, as friends, and as companions. Ealdgyth had shared her deepest thoughts with me, as I had with her. I so wished I could do as she wanted, and think of a way of weaning the great Godwin earl of his ambition to be King, but nothing came, save the desire to be once again between her matchless thighs.

'My lady, there is a messenger,' came a voice from without the Chamber, the maids knew better than to disturb us.

'What is it?' She shouted.

'The king, Ma'am, he is mortally stricken.'

Even had I ideas, the time was running out. I dressed her, and then myself. We were bound for Westminster.