Fire and Sweetness

Fire and Sweetness by Kenneth Lapointe (registered copyright)

At some simple but secret abode, in the middle of a spring or summer night, a knight in full chain armor, weary from fighting in the war raging through the outlying lands of Scotland for the past year, trotted his horse slowly into the yard. A woman with beautiful long red hair ran out to meet him.

She helped him slide slowly off his mount to the ground. She held his arm as they moved together into the hut.

Leading him over to a long, simple cot, and stepping back to watch him, he slowly removed his coif and hauberk until they lay dusty but proud in a corner of the small abode. *A knight without his armor is no longer protected from his enemies...or love!

He now lay back on the cot, underneath a window of the hut with a billion candlelight stars outside shining in vast array in the night sky.

She removed the rest of his dust and dirt and sweat and blood-stained gambeson from his body, that had been used to protect his skin from the chain metal armor.

Two days ago the Lady Rose had gotten word that he was coming to her, to this place of safety and sanctuary, for a while, that seemed to be the exact center of a whole world of turmoil and strife clashing around it. King Edward I of England now fully intended to quell any Scottish resistance and idea of freedom that it should ever be its own country.

She had taken out from its deep hiding place in the hut, an old cloth that her grandmother had given her years ago. It had her grandfather's family crest sewn into one corner of it. It had a single use. She hoped with all her heart she could use it tonight.

Yesterday she had washed it lovingly with soap and water, then let it dry outside; she stood and watched it dancing back and forth in the warm wind and open sun, with the deepest blue sky and whitest soft clouds above.

In a dream she had seen a child produced from her loins who grew to great stature in Scotland, who was able to finally assuage the bitter reasons for the wars that had ravaged over this land for so many years---like the spreading of oil over a raging sea, changing it from chaos to calm.

Thus was this purpose born in her now, a purpose to bring this dream about, to make it live, to merge these two family lines together, that of her father's line and her knight's, and help it come to pass.

And now was the time.

The knight was breathing heavily with eyes closed on the cot. She walked back over to him with her grandmother's cloth in her hand, then hearing the silent words of her grandmother, she started the ritual---she kissed a tender, loving single kiss into the very center of the cloth, and laid it over the middle of his naked body, barely covering his strong-love.

Taking a small vial containing exotic oils, perfumed with the crushed petals of a flower that had sensed the life-giving earth, the wetness of the soft rain, and the source of heat from the sun, she slowly dripped the oil over his body. An indescribably intoxicating perfume filled her nostrils. The essence of night! And the essence of this moment.

Speaking with soft timbre of voice she spoke her native French language to him--- he did not understand what she was saying, but he felt deep into his core what she was saying.

Now she started spreading the oil with her fingers onto his shoulders, replacing the dust on his skin with the oil, smoothing it onto his arms, his chest, his muscular stomach, with her fingers always insisting...insisting...(she made sure there was no doubt!), then moved down the tops of his thighs, down his legs to his feet.

Now she draped and swept her long red hair, as if it burned like fire, ever so lightly over his body.

The knight was breathing easier now, he opened his eyes slowly, to look at his woman with the soft, long red hair.