Chapter 20. Princess Effie

Things were different when I returned from Alcatia.  They billeted me in the main barracks, for one thing, and they really had started to build out a women’s wing, although for the moment, that meant I had a small room with six cots all to myself.  Another woman had already been recruited, an Easterner with dark hair and slanted eyes, who supposedly could shoot a bow better on horseback than most men could on foot.  While I tried to be friendly when I met her, it wasn’t easy.  Her accent was harder to understand than my own, and to be honest, she just wasn’t the friendly sort.

Jona was happy to see me, and I really hoped we’d get a chance to spend more time together, but we only had one night before he shipped out, which left me alone in Alcatia for an entire week before my next orders came up and I was bound for Moscar, a city almost as far North as Fail, but inland and much farther to the East.  It was a very different sort of assignment.

In theory, I was one of a dozen soldiers escorting a caravan, but my particular assignment was to safeguard the caravan’s prized cargo, Princess Elizabeth, who was to be delivered into the hands of her bridegroom in Moscar, some barbarian prince, with both her virtue and her possessions intact.

Princess Elizabeth was truly beautiful, a delicate little dark haired girl with big blue  eyes, a nice little figure, a quick wit and a flair for manipulating and controlling everyone around her, including not just her guards and attendants, but her parents as well.  The girl was really sharp, difficult to deal with, and it wasn't hard to see why the King was anxious to get her off and married as soon as soon as I’d met her.

Since I lacked the physical means to deflower her, I was assigned to stay with the Princess and her two attendants at all times, which sounded alright to me.  After all, how bad could it be?  She was about my own age, as were her two attendants, and while I can’t say I was thrilled with the mission, it didn’t seem difficult.

Then, two days before we were due to depart, I was summoned to her chambers to meet her.  I knew immediately I was in for trouble from the look the guard outside the door gave me.  I stepped into the chamber and it took all my discipline to keep my mouth shut.

Standing in the center of the chamber was a young man, muscular but slim and entirely naked.  His rather impressive manhood was fully erect, thanks to the attention of two young women.  Elizabeth was on a couch in front of them, eating grapes and giving orders.

“No, stay away from the tip” Elizabeth commanded, “the idea is to draw things out.  You’re close, now Roscoe, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am” Roscoe blurted out, obviously in some distress, despite what the two girls were doing to him.  

“Don’t blow it” Elizabeth said, “or you’ll be sorry.  Panda, lick his stomach.  Emmie, tug on those things and see how he likes it.  That’s a girl.”

I stepped forward silently and the minute Elizabeth spotted me, she lost interest in the show she was putting on.

“Oh my.  They weren’t kidding.  You're huge!”  

Elizabeth stood up and walked around me, looking and then finally physically reassuring herself that I was both real and female with her hands.  I stood there at attention, as she touched my arms,  breasts, and stomach,  but when her hand slipped under my skirt and started probing, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Your Highness” I said, “I wasn’t aware this was to be part of my duties.”

She smiled and withdrew her hand, smiling up at me.

“Its not of course,” Fiona, “strictly speaking, and neither is it part of Roscoe’s.  He just likes me and the girls, don’t you, hon?  Pandora, take him over to the bed and relieve him.”

Turning back to me, Elizabeth smiled and took my hand, leading me over to  a table and offering me a glass of wine.

"Go ahead.  It's quite good, and it'll help you loosen up. I want us to be friends and have fun.  I know you have a job to do, but if you're going to hang out with us. we should at least get to know each other."

I sipped at the wine, and after Elizabeth took a seat on the couch, even settled down on the floor next to her as she politely asked me all about myself.  As with the Duchess before her, I could immediately sense that Elizabeth, although young and spoiled, was socially sharp and sophisticated in a way that commoners really never could be.  She’d spent her life as a virtual prisoner of her station and had little in the way of real world experiences, but she’d been educated and was used to talking with people like myself, who’d actually done and seen things, and she soaked up the stories of my childhood, my training and my first mission, filing the information away for future use and asking questions at the same time.  After I’d gotten through what I was willing to tell her, she pushed a bit more, though.

“So, no man has had you?” she asked with an evil, but friendly grin.

I blushed a bit, but shook my head.

“No, your Highness” I said.

“Has anyone tried?” she asked.

I took a sip of wine before answering.

“Once, your Highness, but he was young, and, uh, too eager, i suppose is one way to put it.”

Elizabeth laughed and drained her glass.

“When we’re alone, I’m Effie to you, Fiona.  It may not seem we have all that much in common, but there’s one thing, at least, and I’m sure the’re’ll be more.  Panda’s had Roscoe, but Emmie, you and I are still in the Club. Of course, i won't be much longer, but that's why you're here, to make sure i leave the club the right way.”

Pandora, Emmie, and Effie and I finished that bottle of wine that night and it really wasn’t all that uncomfortable, thanks to Effie’s masterful efforts.  Panda and Emmie, like myself, were clearly there for Effie’s pleasure, but we were also her entertainment, and she liked the idea of us being “friends” as well as servants and guards, and she was really good at making the fiction seem real, at times. Of course I was on the outside of this little circle, and shared even less with Effie than the other two.  But  that gave them something new to talk about, which I was later to figure out was a constant problem for pampered noblewomen with any intelligence whatsoever.  Effie was bored with her life, and, as a result, made fun however she could, which included both making friends with her servants, and, living vicariously through them at times.

At the end of the night, although I had misgivings, I was fairly sure that a long journey with Effie would be interesting in one way or another.