Part 4: Melusine

Vienna, Austria 1770

Melusine von Sachsen leaned against the wall of the long gallery above the stables where courtiers tried their foils against the skill of her father, fencing master by appointment to her Highness, the empress Maria Theresa.

Melusine was seventeen and uncommonly tall for a girl. Was she taller, she wondered than the young French lieutenant who parried now with the Master von Sachsen? She had been watching this particular young man for some weeks now, ever since he had arrived with the retinue from Paris that was to escort the young archduchess Maria Antonia to France and her marriage to the dauphin, grandson of His Most Catholic Majesty, Louis XV.

The young lieutenant, Moncoutant he was called, fascinated her in a way she was unable to define.  There was a curious…duality about his looks, a fine balance of beauty and imperfection. He was small and slender, golden-skinned, and his smooth, beautifully defined muscles were visible beneath the thin cambric of his open-fronted, sweat dampened shirt. His coal black hair, thick and lustrous, was swept back from his high forehead. He had a long, aristocratic nose, a wide, sensual mouth, the slightly down turned corners of which conveyed an intriguing hint of cruel nature. Even the large black birthmark high on his left cheekbone seemed to enhance, rather than to mar his beauty. But it was the eyes that fascinated most. An extraordinary greenish-gold color, they seemed to gather and reflect the light, glittering like the colored glass in the high windows of the cathedral where she took the Mass.

"You are quick, monsieur," Melusine heard her father say as he dropped his point and stepped back from the buttoned tip of Moncoutant's foil. "You have wings on your feet today, lieutenant."

Not only was the young man amazingly quick and light, but Melusine observed, he always fought as if he had a deadlier purpose behind his practice than mere sport. It showed in every muscle of his body, in his lethal concentration, in the ferocity beneath the impassive surface of his eyes.

She watched him as he walked over and picked up the water carafe from the stone sill beneath the windows, not ten feet from where she stood. He drank thirstily, then tilted back his head and poured a cool stream over his face.

Too quick for me today," the master went on, "But still I feel your footwork on the lunge is occasionally just a miniscule beat off perfection. Will you have another bout? This time, perhaps with an opponent who is not so old and heavy as myself, eh?"

Moncountant shrugged, and with the smallest of smiles, nodded his assent.

Her father clapped his hands. "Monsieur!" He beckoned to Melusine. She had been anticipating this moment for weeks, secretly willing her father to put her to Moncoutant, for she was anxious to try her skill against one with whom she felt she was well matched. But now the moment was here and she suddenly felt dry-mouthed, leaden, slow to move. The lieutenant was waiting.

She made her self stride forward with the confident, masculine gait she had practiced and perfected, her stockinged feet making no sound on the cold stone floor. Like every other young man in the gallery, she was dressed in breeches, a loose white shirt and unbuttoned waistcoat. Her breasts were tightly bound to her chest with linen strips, and she wore her light brown hair at shoulder length, gathered in a queue. She knew she was not a beauty, but neither, she thought, when she examined herself in the glass, did she really look so much like a boy. But it seemed that others did not look much beyond the surface. Or perhaps if any opponent had ever guessed her secret, they had chosen not to acknowledge it, perhaps out of respect for her father, or perhaps out of shame, for she seldom failed to "kill" her man.

"Monsieur Blixe-Coburg," her father introduced her using her mother's maiden name. "Lieutenant le Marquis de Moncoutant."

Moncoutant raised his blade and saluted her. She did likewise, noticing he did not meet her eyes. She knew what he did, for she would do it too. To reduce one's opponent to simply a blade, to allow nothing to interfere with one's concentration.

"Commence!"

Then there was only clash of blade on blade, the soft thudding of their footfalls, the echoes of their breaths in the vastness of the space. They were well matched, perfectly matched, thought Melusine as she parried his every thrust effortlessly, not even having to give conscious thought to her moves for it was as if she battled her own self! They moved back and forth on the same circle, neither one gaining nor conceding a greater piece of ground.  

After a few minutes, Melusine's exhilaration began to give way to a gnawing frustration. He was so strong and fit. The muscles in a man's arms and torso were stronger than hers would ever be. Her advantage had ever been her lightness and speed, as well as her infallible instinct for finding her opponent's weakness. If this stalemate kept up, the handsome French lieutenant was going to discover hers. If he managed to exhaust her strength, he would have her. She must find an opening. She must put him off his stride.

Quite suddenly she realized that the game had already changed, for all at once she found herself merely reacting, no longer initiating the thrust at all. She cursed herself silently for having to think, for she had lost the advantage that fighting on mere instinct and muscle memory had given her. Moncoutant was now in control of the dance, and she was pressed. He breathed easily. His eyes glittered like the steel of the rapier, his eyes that would not look at hers.

She feinted right, far enough so that he must make a quarter turn to meet her blade. But then she turned her shoulder, almost showing him her back, and leaving herself blind for the merest instant. And in that moment she knew he must decide what her next move would be, whether to wait for her to turn or to put himself in front of her. She spun on one foot, changing her blade from her right to her left hand. She did not fight well with the left hand, but that did not matter. She needed only to cause him a moment's distraction. Lightning quick, she brought her rapier in for a froisse, a blunt attack move that if delivered with sufficient force would disarm her opponent. But he moved with the agility of a cat, and their blades clashed ineffectively as she lost her balance and fell against him.  They stood for a moment, sword arms touching, wrist to elbow.

She raised her face and looked boldly into his eyes and this time he could not escape her. She meant only to distract him, to break his concentration. But then she did a thing that even she did not fully expect herself to do, a foolish, reckless thing. She smiled at him. It was a feminine smile, a beguiling smile, a smile full of promise and knowing.

In an instant, she saw that she had her advantage.

She leapt back and came at him again, and this time his blade faltered. Melusine slipped beneath his guard, and her slender foil bent in a graceful arc as the button pressed into his ribs. With a grim smile he dropped his point and held out his hand. "Well fought…Chevalier," he said.

Melusine bowed low. She had cheated, she knew it, and abominably so, but still, she felt she had never savored a victory more. And what she said next would only compound her shame, and yet she could not resist. "Something happened in your eyes, monsieur," she said archly. "Only you know what."

The way he was looking at her roused a peculiar emotion in her. Strangely indefinable, it was not fear, but something very like it. Something like the excitement she felt when fighting with a naked blade, the edgy thrill that came from flirting with danger.

He would not stop looking at her. It was hot in the gallery. She felt the prickle of heat on her neck, the crawl of sweat running down inside her shirt. Uncomfortable, she made another quick bow and hastily left the gallery.

She took her belongings from the servant at the door. She stuffed her feet into the shoes and snatched the coat and hat and began making her way down the open passageway that led from the stables to the wing of the vast Hapsburg palace where her father's apartments were located.

Had her father seen what she had done? With any luck, he had been preoccupied with another student at the time. Why had she done it? She hated to lose. She always had. Of that there was no doubt, and she had feared to lose to Moncoutant. But to take such a risk, to expose herself so boldly when the match had not yet reached a critical moment, when there were still any number of tricks she might have tried? She knew the truth, of course, but she was loath to admit it to herself, for now it made her feel shamed and foolish. Quite simply, she had wanted him to know that she was a woman.

She slipped inside the door of the apartment and immediately began stripping off her sweat soaked clothing as she headed for her own room. They kept no servant, but a woman came twice a day to bring water and to make up the fires. There was a full jug of cold water on her washstand and she splashed some hurriedly into the basin. She glanced at herself in the mirror as she began to unwind the linen bindings around her chest. Her face looked very pink, she thought, and her eyes rather bright and glassy, almost fevered. She was so hot! She tossed the bindings onto the floor and picked up her washrag.

The cool water refreshed her as she sponged her face and neck. She ran the rag over her shoulders, washed under her arms. She watched herself in the mirror, swishing the rag in the water once more, then squeezing it out over her chest, watching the water run over her full, rounded breasts, down to her taut belly and thighs.

She was aware of a familiar oozing warmth between her legs. Was she bleeding again already? It was not time. She slipped one finger down there to see, and her hand came away wet, slippery, covered not with blood, but with a clear, slightly sticky essence. She shrugged to herself and hastily washed off her hand. She dried herself with a coarse towel and reached for her shirt that lay over a chair.

As she pulled the shirt over her head she thought she heard the door to the outer chamber open and close. Her heart sank a little. It was her father coming to upbraid her for behaving so stupidly. Maybe he would even forbid her to return to the fencing gallery. She sighed. She would take her time dressing, and then she would go out to face him.

She heard the sound of his footsteps outside her door. He was walking quickly. He must be angry. She whirled to face him as the door to her room was flung wide open and then she gasped in surprise for it was not her father standing there, but the French lieutenant.

He stood in the doorway, looking at her in a way that made her feel as if her heart would explode inside her chest, holding her transfixed with his green and glittering eyes.

He was coming towards her and she could not move or speak. He took her by the shoulders, and she meant to cry out, but suddenly his mouth was on hers, and all was confusion. His hands were hard on her arms, propelling her backwards. He pushed her up against the wall. She opened her mouth to protest, to scream, but instead she found herself yielding to press of his lips, and then shockingly, to the plunging thrust of his tongue. She had never been kissed by a man, had never imagined this. She felt like she was being devoured and all she wanted do was deliver herself up for the feast. Her hands grabbed at the fabric of his shirt, and then they were moving down his body, gripping his small, hard buttocks through the white wool of his breeches. The hard bulge of his erect flesh jutted against her loins, and instinctively she moved her body urgently against his as her own tongue drove into his mouth wanting its own taste of the feast. She was vaguely aware that perhaps she should be afraid, that here was danger, that she was poised on a knife-edge, standing at the entrance to a place from which there could be no return. But her barely conscious thoughts could not overcome the overpowering rush of feeling that his mouth on hers was creating. She had wanted this, she knew with sudden certainty, had wanted him from the very first, and she could not resist him now. Her heart pounding, her blood racing, she wanted nothing more than to surrender, to let him take her where he would. Every want she had ever known, every sensation she had ever felt before was but a faint shadow of this wild abandonment.

Her skin burned beneath her shirt, tingled under his heated palms as her ran them over her. He gripped the loose material at the back of the garment and pulled it tight so that her body was molded by the linen. He looked down at the pink glow of her breasts beneath the white, the hard crowns jutting against the material, the dark shadow at the apex of her thighs.

Her lips were parted, her breath coming swiftly as she watched him examining her body. Boldly, she placed her hand under his chin and forced him to look into her eyes, scorching with passion. With a rasping breath he dragged the shift over her head and put his hands on her naked body. His caresses were rough and urgent, and she drew a sharp breath in response to each demanding stroke. She was thrusting her body at him, wanting him to touch every inch of her, to brand her skin with his mark. She pushed her own hands inside his shirt. His skin was hard and smooth, slippery with sweat. She pressed her mouth to his breast, licked at the salt tang sweetness of him.

His hands were under her buttocks, lifting her. She gripped his shoulders; her long legs wrapped themselves about his slender waist. Her back was pressed against the wall, the smooth plaster shockingly cold in contrast to the heat of his body on hers. He seemed to be fumbling with his own clothing, and then his fingers delved between her thighs, opening her petaled center, and she gasped again as he reached her virgin core. His eyes met hers with a look of knowing triumph as he felt her slick readiness. His fingers plunged.

The pain was sharp, brief. She did not cry out, only caught her breath, staring into his shining eyes. The corners of his mouth turned up in the faintest of smiles and he moved in and kissed her slowly. She melted into the kiss. His fingers were moving inside her, his thumb caressing her hardened, tender little nub. She heard herself moaning as she felt something building deep in her belly, a liquid fullness in her loins. She saw herself moving as if through a red mist of desire as the waves built inside her, rolling towards an unbearable, inexorable crescendo. When it reached the end, she thought, she would die.

And when she felt him enter her, it was almost as if she did die, if only for a moment,  toppling slowly from a scarlet height of ecstasy into a soft blackness that leached every ounce of strength from her body. Her mouth was dry and she could hear little sobbing cries that she knew must be her own. And when she landed and the liquid rush of pleasure flowed from her, she clung to her lover as he moved again and again within her, taking his own pleasure now, savoring the glorious tightness of her honeyed sheath until suddenly he gasped and his head fell back as he withdrew from her and let his own climax overtake him, his seed spilling warm and wet on her belly and thighs.

Together they slid down the wall collapsing onto the floor. She lay sprawled half on top of him, wanton, past care, exhausted and breathless. He wrapped his fingers in the tangle of her hair and pulled her head back.

"What did you do to me?" she whispered.

His voice was cool and smooth. "This time, I think the match has fallen to me," he said. "Tell me your name, monsieur."

Looking into his eyes, clear as glass, she suddenly wanted to weep, for all at once she knew that she had lost her soul, and never again would it belong to her alone.

"Melusine," she whispered as the tears filled her eyes. She saw one fall onto his face, rolling down the side of his smooth bronzed cheek. " Melusine."

Go to Part Five