Indigo, or, the Swordswoman's Tale

1. A Curious Device--

The old man had a curious device: a box fashioned from tin, with
a clever mechanism inside that rolled his cigarettes for him. I
did not get a clear view of how it functioned--it seemed to
consist of a couple of rollers and a leather sling, the whole
affair taking up so little space that the tin could be used to
store his tobacco and papers--and so, as each perfectly rolled
cigarette popped forth from the slot in its lid, it seemed more
than a little like magic. He offered me one and I lit it with the
candle in the center of our table. "Neither of them have ever
known a man, then?"

He leered at me. "You would really buy one of my daughters?"

"Would you really sell one?" I countered. "You made the offer.
Was it in jest?"

"That all depends." He lit a cigarette for himself, waggling his
bushy eyebrows in what he no doubt intended as some sort of
conspiratorial gesture.

"Upon the quality of the merchandise in question? I quite agree."
The cigarettes were oddly flavored, with a fine spicy tang which
I fully enjoyed; the only first-class thing about this gentleman
so far. "One has to wonder at the beauty of daughters a father's
so eager to sell."

"I can see, sir," said he, with a pride only faintly dinged,
"that you aren't a father, or, if so, you've been blessed with
sons. Me, I once had three daughters. Wedding of the eldest
nearly bankrupted me, between dowry and ceremony. Second's got
her heart set on marrying as far above her station as the first,
not even noticing how I must scrimp and save to pay her school
bill every month. To take one off my hands would be a blessing."

"If the price is right."

His attempt at an ingratiating smile was pathetic. "If, as you
say, the price is right."

I had nothing better with which to entertain myself, and so when
he offered to show them to me, I accepted, stubbing out the
cigarette on the scarred table (and earning a scowl from Molly,
then). He led the way, brandy sloshing not a little from the
glass in his hand.

He had taken one of the back rooms for them, as he confided in me
on the way up the narrow flight of stairs; room only for one
narrow bed for the two of them. He himself had to sleep in the
commons. Just one more in the long line of inconveniences in
having daughters, it seemed.

"Why, then, do you travel with them?" I asked.

"Eliza is on her way back to school. Holidays are over, after
all. And Lucy, that's my youngest, can't bear to be parted from
her until the last possible moment. She loves her sister, that
one does. They'll be sleeping, you know. You'll be quiet."

"Of course."

The room was indeed small, and quite close, and retained much of
the day's heat. The girls had gone to bed wearing only stockings
and chemises; they had covered themselves in a sheet and a thin,
threadbare quilt, but had kicked these aside, perhaps, in their
restlessness, until the bedclothes lay rucked about their feet.

"That's Lucy there," hissed the old man, "and that's Eliza." He
held the candle above my shoulder, that I might better examine
them. "Lovely, eh?"

That they were. Lucy, whom I judged to be about fifteen or so,
lay on her back, with one pretty leg half-raised. The skirt of
her short child's chemise had fallen about her hips, leaving her
raised thigh bare for all of its pale, slender length. Its collar
was unlaced and fell open between her small breasts, to which it
clung, rendered faintly transparent by a thin film of sweat. Her
blond hair was unbound and spilled in a mad curly profusion over
the pillow and down to the floor.

Her sister lay on her side, her head nestled on Lucy's shoulder;
their hair, I noticed, was of the same shade and texture, so much
so that, mingled together on the pillow, I could not tell where
one's ended and the other's began. Lucy's mouth was half-opened,
her face turned up and back, whereas Eliza kept hers pressed
close to her sister, despite the heat. One hand seemed to be
cradled beneath her head, while the other lay in seeming
innocence in Lucy's lap, and she had twined her legs, as pale and
as slender, about her sister's.

"Well," said the old man, in my ear.

I was aroused; more than that. In the first glimpse of the
sleeping sisters (and here I look down, and glimpse them sleeping
again; all innocence gone now, heads pillowed on each other's
thighs, Lucy smiling in a surfeit of pleasure, one arm lifted
toward her sister's feet, raising and flattening a breast with a
pretty little nipple as pink as the inside of any fresh conch
shell; Eliza, her fingers still tangled in the curls between her
sister's thighs, still sticky with that pleasure, shivering as I
stroke her cool, bare flank) the mad scheme upon which I am
embarked sprang full-blown into my mind. It was too providential
to be a coincidence. I was meant to find these girls, meant to
take them away with me into my brief exile. If not me, after all,
then someone else; men, who would separate them, break their
fragile union and spend the rest of their lives resenting them,
and hating them, for a reason they could never fathom. Better a
brief time of happiness than a life of misery.

But the simple truth is, I had to have them. And I will have what
I must.

The old man moved past me then, slurping noisily at his brandy,
to take up the quilt tangled about their feet and pull it up and
over their legs and bellies, their breasts. Lucy turned
restlessly as he did so, her arm flopping over the side of the
bed so that her fingertips brushed the floor. Eliza murmured
something, and snuggled more closely to her sister, spooned
against her back. The old man stood over them both, looking down
with a kindly and indulgent eye.

"I would have them both," I said, my voice suddenly loud in the
close room, and hoarse, from the smoke, and not a little from
desire. He stiffened visibly, his head snapping up. "What? What!"

"Shh. Else you will wake them."

He turned on me then, a flare of anger lighting his eyes. It
faded. He waved a dismissive hand. "You jest."

"Never. About something so important, that is."

The anger returned. "Sir, I--"

"Papa?"

Lucy had stirred, and opened her eyes. I could not see their
color then, in that light, but even then I could imagine it: pure
cornflower blue, startling in intensity. And Eliza's are a cloudy
green.

"What is it, Papa?"

"Nothing, my sweet." He bent to kiss her cheek, and I took that
moment to open the door. "I was just checking on you."

I held the door for him as he walked out, his back stiff, his
gaze cutting away from mine. As I turned to close the door, I
looked back. Eliza had also stirred, and raised herself on her
elbows; her chemise had also been unlaced, and had slipped over
her shoulder. From where I stood I could see her breast, slightly
larger than her sister's, the shadow of her nipple quite clear
against her pale skin in that flickering, receding candlelight.
She caught my eye as it traveled from her breast along her throat
to her face, and there held it with a steady gaze and a small,
unconcerned smile. She made no move to cover herself. Lucy, also,
stared at me, motionless, and her face was without expression. I
smiled at them, and blew them a kiss, and closed the door. My
head was light and my knees were weak.

"They are indeed most beautiful," I said to the old man as I
joined him in the hall. "Their mother must be quite a woman."

"Sir, I--"

"What began as a jest--your jest, sir, I believe--has become
something else entirely." I named a figure he had no way of
knowing I could not pay, not now.

He blinked. "I couldn't--both my--I couldn't--" He sputtered.
"Lucy, perhaps, yes, but my girls, both--" A wave of decision
passed over him then; a palpable thing, as if sloughing off a
visible patina of drunken twitches, slurs, slouches. "You may
take my Lucy, sir. For half that amount. That's what I can do.
But you're not a father, sir. You can't know what it's like. I
can't sell you both my daughters."

There was then a rustle from the stairs; we both started, I'm
afraid. It was but Molly, though, coming up for the night, maid's
cap tucked under one arm, barefoot, unlacing the throat of her
simple white dress. She stopped as she saw us. "Your pardon,
m'lord," she said, curtseying at the old man.

"Come here, Molly," I said. "Come here." I held out my hand to
her. She came to it, slowly, a puzzled smile playing at the
corner of her mouth. I took her cheek in my hand and drew her
closer than she had expected, kissing her fully on the lips even
as my other hand drew up her skirts.

"Sir!" cried the old man.

I turned Molly about so that her back was to me and pressed her
close, my right hand still tangled in her skirts. "Molly," I
said, and kissed her neck, "who is this man?"

"My Lord George Ponsonby, a Baronet." She gasped as I found her
drawers under the layers of skirt and underskirt and petticoat. I
smiled; she wore one of the pairs I had sent to her over the
years, pretty whore's underwear, little more than scraps of sheer
lace held snug by a knotted cord. "Granted a small fief in return
for services rendered during the last war, an' it please you."
She moaned and began to move against me as I cupped her cunt
through the lace, and rubbed my fingers against her lips, feeling
the heat of them, and the dampness.

"His daughters?"

"I don't--ah--don't know much about them, save one married a
Duke-to-be."

"Above her station, indeed," I murmured. I found the knot which
held her drawers and slipped it loose.

"Sir, I--" He stared, fascinated; his skin ruddied, and I fancied
I could see the sweat beading on his forehead. I shushed him, and
slipped the drawers down Molly's thighs. "And his wife?"

"Dead, ah!" I slid one finger inside her, then a second. She was
most warm and wet, and she rolled her hips against me and arched
her back. I kissed her throat as I frigged her, feeling the buzz
of her voice against my lips as she said, "Dead now three years,
oh, oh Indigo!"

"You!" gasped Ponsonby.

"I had not thought the mother of girls so beautiful could stand
idly by as their father sold one or the other away." I stroked my
fingers in and out of her now, as her hands dove into her skirts
to play with mine, to stroke her thighs as they fluttered, her
belly as it shivered. "You are correct, sir, when you say you
cannot sell me your daughters. It is quite against the law even
to offer so." She threw her head back against my shoulder, biting
back whimpering cries as she began to come. "And yet, you have
done so, and to the Queen's Champion, no less."

"You monster!" was the best he could manage, as Molly let loose
one sweet pealing cry, her body quivering like a plucked
bowstring. "I took you--" sputtered Ponsonby.

"That's beside the point." I removed my hand from her skirts and
held my fingers up for her to lick, which she did with a playful
lascivity, relishing the taste of herself. "You made a mistake
tonight. Learn from it, or not; your daughters are mine either
way. Molly."

She looked up at me with a satisfied, feline smile. "M'lady?" she
asked coquettishly.

"Draw my bath."

She took two mincing steps away from me, then lifted up her
skirts to pluck at her delicate, lacy underwear that had pulled
awry, drawing them down her legs, lifting out each foot in turn.
Smiling, she handed them to me, then trotted down the hall to my
room.

I knelt to pick up her cap, which earlier had fallen to the
floor. "Don't think to try and spirit them away from me, either.
My man will be watching their door." I smiled then, myself, and
allowed a brief hint of the pain and frustration and anger and,
yes, grief of the past few days to dwell there momentarily. He
shuddered quite satisfactorily. "You know what happens to people
who try to thwart me."

"She's dying, you know," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. It
confused me. I thought for a moment he meant Molly, or one of the
girls--ah, but of course, he did not know; few yet did, that she
was already dead. Had died, two days ago, in her bed at Calmorra.

"You know my tastes, my 'proclivities,' as I believe the
broadsheets term them. 'The Queen's Tribade,' you call me in your
clubs. Believe me, sir, it goes far, far beyond tribadism. I
shall enjoy teaching them." His eyes bulged, his hands trembled.
"Then, if you weren't so blind, you might have noted how
familiarly they lay together, on that narrow bed. Perhaps Eliza
has already learned something at her school; perhaps she has been
teaching Lucy some of what she--"

"Insolent bitch!" he sputtered. "I will have satisfaction, damn
your eyes, for what you have slandered about my daughters!"

I sketched a faint mockery of a bow. "First light, the yard.
Rapiers. I shall be glad to oblige."

And you know, I think I finally shocked him with that last.

--n.

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