Interlude: Queen Nantokanette [p.I]

Sarie knew her monthly blood still had not come before the sheet maid told her.

The woman entered at dawn wearing the dark blue dress and white gloves required of royal bedchamber servants. She folded back the blankets, inspected the linen beneath the Queen's naked hips, and then checked the small pad which had rested between Sarie's legs during the night.

"Still clean, Your Majesty. That makes seven mornings."

Sarie nodded. She had been counting without the maid's help.

Lady Monette wrote the result in the household health ledger. She was a noblewoman and therefore as naked as Sarie, although a gold chain crossed her full, gently pendulous breasts and a sapphire seal hung just above her shaved pussy. The two common maids beside her kept their dresses buttoned to the throat. One changed the sheets while the other carried the unused pad to Doctor Mirelle's testing room.

The inspection belonged to the Crown. The timing of a queen's blood mattered to the kingdom, and Sarie had never been encouraged to confuse dignity with concealment.

She sat up. Her breasts felt heavier than they looked, with an unpleasant tenderness gathered behind the small pink nipples. The scent of beeswax from the fresh candles turned her stomach for a moment. She waited for the nausea to pass, then placed her feet on the carpet.

Sterry's side of the bed had not been slept in, which did not surprise her. His appointment secretary had placed Lady Cressida in the western guest room the previous night, and Sterry had lately become very serious about the traditional privileges of kings. He had always kept mistresses. Since the garden party, he seemed determined to prove that a king's cock did not need to be impressive so long as it remained busy.

Sterry's seed carried no royalty of its own. Every schoolchild in Goa knew that. Only the Queen's womb could make a child royal, which meant Sterry could fuck noblewomen, servants, courtesans, married women, and anyone else willing or obliged to accommodate him without producing a rival heir. The children belonged to the women who bore them, their husbands, or their households. They did not belong to Sterry, and they certainly did not belong to Goa.

Sarie had no objection to the principle. She objected only when his pleasures appeared in her accounts.

The bath attendants arrived with steaming water. Both were common women, fully clothed beneath waxed aprons while they washed their naked Queen. One cleaned beneath Sarie's arms and breasts. The other knelt, opened her thighs, and passed a warm cloth between the lips of her pussy. She wiped away the ordinary moisture of sleep, checked once more for blood, and combed the little patch of blonde hair above it in its neat heart shape.

Sarie stood while they rinsed her. She was tall and thin, with blue eyes, a pointed nose, and long bright-blonde hair falling in wet waves down her back. Another maid rubbed rose oil over her shoulders, belly, thighs, and bare buttocks, leaving her skin smooth without making the throne cushions slippery. By the time the Royal Wardrobe Mistress entered, the Queen's body had been washed, perfumed, groomed, and prepared for dress.

The Wardrobe Mistress was a soft, rather dumpy woman, with a round belly, broad hips, and heavy breasts that sagged comfortably against her stomach. She wore nothing but heels, a pearl collar, and a pincushion strapped to her wrist. Six clothed seamstresses followed her carrying Sarie's morning gown between them.

It was yellow-orange silk, fitted closely through the waist, with a high collar and translucent sleeves covered in embroidered flowers. Seed pearls formed the towers of High Town around the hem. The train stretched twelve feet behind it and was far too delicate to survive a walk across the palace, which was one reason Sarie approved of it. The Wardrobe Mistress finished the ensemble by fastening a long yellow feather into Sarie's blonde waves.

The seamstresses dressed her carefully. Twenty-two witnesses waited in the morning salon, naked nobles in jewels and common wardrobe clerks in sober gray. Sarie walked before them, turned, raised each arm, and stood still while the Wardrobe Mistress described the silk, the stitching, the number of pearls, and the arrangement of the flowers. The Wardrobe Mistress idly pinched one nipple while a young clerk squeezed her breast through her gray dress and kept writing. The witnesses repeated the details until Lady Monette was satisfied that the ensemble had entered reliable court memory.

Sarie wore the actual gown for about ten minutes before the seamstresses removed it.

A servant carried the folded silk toward the disposal stair. The royal seal would be cut from the collar before the gown traveled downhill, but the rest would pass through the usual hands. A merchant's wife might purchase the sleeves. A Town Center dressmaker might divide the train into six respectable skirts. Whatever remained would reach Grey Terminal, where a woman sleeping under broken boards could wear real seed pearls while Sarie retained the superior garment in memory.

Lady Monette complimented the way the transparent sleeves framed the Queen's wrists. Sarie thanked her and walked naked to breakfast, properly dressed in imaginary yellow-orange silk.

Sterry arrived late, his valet carrying his crown on a cushion and a bundle of appointment cards. Sterry himself wore a ruby collar and nothing else. A smear of Cressida's lipstick remained low on his belly, and the little cock between his narrow thighs looked rubbed nearly raw.

Sarie pointed at it. "Isn't it not not obvious that you need salve?"

Sterry looked down as if he had only just noticed the damage. "It doesn't hurt."

"It will by this evening. Have your valet see to it before court."

Sterry promised he would. Sarie accepted however many women he chose to fuck. His habit of injuring himself through enthusiasm and poor judgment was another matter.

Sterry sat on the cushioned chair opposite her. A clothed servant placed eggs, fruit, and sweet bread before him. The smell of the eggs turned Sarie's stomach sharply enough that she pushed her own plate away.

Sterry noticed and looked at her bare belly. "Is Mirelle still examining you at noon?"

"My blood is seven days late, isn't it not not? Mirelle will tell us whether that means there is a child."

Sterry smiled. Another child growing inside Sarie would secure the royal succession for another generation. It was splendid news, worthy of a grand celebration, and his thoughts soon wandered to which of his favorite ladies he might invite to the festivities.

"I'll give three barks," he said. "The old succession bark."

"After Mirelle confirms it."

"The court musicians have prepared the proper response. The Mirror Ball players could join them this evening. Their drummer says the full measure is traditional after news of a conception."

"The full measure ends with half the dancers fucking on the floor, doesn't it not not?"

"That is why it is traditional."

"They may play the court arrangement during the state supper. What you arrange afterward in the western salon is your concern."

Sterry accepted that compromise happily. Arranging little orgies for himself had become one of his favorite pastimes, and he took considerable pleasure in choosing the guests. His appointment secretary leaned near with the evening's list. Sterry corrected two noble names, added a courtesan from the Sapphire House, and reserved a pair of hostesses from the sailors' house near the western quay for after the banquet. Sarie returned to her tea.

By the time the bells called them to court, the nausea had passed. The heaviness low in her belly had not.

The first matter placed before Queen Sarie Nantokanette that morning concerned the sale of a royal office to a soap merchant who wanted to take off his trousers.

Three clerks had spent four days examining his warehouses, household accounts, ships, creditors, marriage contract, and six thousand bars of lemon soap hardening beside the docks. Master Paldo Vess possessed enough wealth to maintain an Open Estate and had tendered the full purchase price for the vacant office of Royal Comptroller of Soaps and Scented Oils. The office carried letters of nobility for its holder and his lawful children, provided its annual renewal fee continued to reach the Crown. He entered the audience hall in the blue velvet coat and matching trousers of a prosperous commoner.

Paldo was sweating with hope.

The nobles assembled on either side of the hall watched him with the mild interest one gave a dog attempting a clever trick. Every one of them was bare. Lords displayed soft bellies, narrow chests, sagging bottoms, groomed pubic hair, and cocks which had never been threatened by hard labor. Ladies stood with painted nipples, oiled thighs, jeweled navels, and family crests traced in gold powder across breasts or buttocks. They wore rings, necklaces, crowns, and the elaborate outfits held in the memories of everyone qualified to see them.

Lady Cressida had presented a lavender gown before joining Sterry the previous night. Pearl-sewn sleeves, a low square neckline, silver birds across the train. Sarie could still describe it perfectly. Cressida now stood beside the throne with her broad tits and blonde pussy fully visible while Lord Bastian praised the remembered sleeves.

Only a vulgar person looked at a naked noble and imagined that nothing was being worn.

Common clerks and servants moved among them in formal livery, covered from throat to ankle. A female clerk squeezed one breast through her wool bodice as she passed Lady Cressida, who idly circled a painted nipple with one finger. Clothing made the court's hierarchy visible at a glance.

The Chief Assessor bowed. He was a noble and therefore naked despite being poorer than half the merchants he judged.

"Master Paldo Vess has paid twelve million berry for the office of Royal Comptroller of Soaps and Scented Oils," he announced. "The Treasury has also received the first annual renewal. His fortune is sufficient to support the dignity of an Open Estate."

Paldo swallowed.

"You understand what you have purchased, don't you not not?" Sarie asked.

"An office in Your Majesty's service, letters of nobility for my house, and the privilege of opening my estate."

"The letters make you noble today. They do not make your father noble yesterday or place a single lord among your grandfathers."

"My grandfather boiled soap in a yard behind his kitchen, Your Majesty. He would have considered the distinction worth the price."

A few of the older nobles smiled despite themselves.

"And isn't it not not understood that the office requires more than standing naked at supper?" Sarie asked.

"I will inspect the guild measures, certify imported oils, provision the royal household at the contracted price, and pay the renewal every year."

"Then the Crown may profit from your knowledge as well as your ambition. The patent is granted. Master Vess may open his estate."

The Wardrobe Master raised his staff.

"Master Paldo Vess presents his first Open Estate ensemble. Blue Lvneelian velvet, lemon-yellow silk lining, six silver buttons, soap-bubble embroidery at the cuffs, and a fall of matching lace beneath the throat."

Paldo turned slowly while the court inspected him. The old families studied every button with exaggerated care. They would be expected to remember the ensemble after the cloth was gone, although several already wore the faint smiles of people who planned to misremember it whenever doing so might embarrass him.

Two dressed attendants removed his coat, waistcoat, shirt, boots, trousers, and underclothes. Paldo stood proudly naked before the Queen, his soft cock rather short, with a loose foreskin and a pair of fuzzy balls beneath a dense thatch of dark pubic hair. His cock seemed to retreat a little further under the court's attention, though he kept his chin raised. A clerk stamped his certificate. Another entered his name into the Open Register. A third collected the first portion of his levy before he was permitted to step away.

The nobles offered polite applause. Lord Bastian immediately told Paldo that the imaginary lace suited his complexion.

The royal letters made Paldo a noble in law. They had not lengthened his pedigree by a single day. Old families called an ennobling office commoner's soap, something a wealthy man bought from the Crown to wash away the stain of trade. In Paldo's case the joke required no invention. They would call him a bought-bare when they were charitable and a soap-washed lord when they were not. They would dine with him, take his money, remember his clothes, and ensure that he never forgot how recently he had needed real trousers.

His discarded outfit was placed in a refuse hamper beside the doors. It would follow Sarie's gown downhill before noon. By evening, Paldo might pass a laborer wearing the actual blue velvet coat while accepting compliments on the remembered silver buttons covering his naked chest.

Paldo bowed and joined the lowest rank of courtiers. He kept reaching toward a coat which was no longer on his body, catching himself each time before anyone could laugh.

The next matters concerned a collapsed warehouse wall, a dispute between two pearl importers, and whether a countess could commission an imaginary mourning veil without allowing cloth to cover her face during its presentation.

A sealed report from Foosha followed. Thieves had somehow emptied the village's storehouses and private cupboards of every contraceptive herb, pill, oil, and potion, although the locks remained intact and nobody remembered seeing so much as a loaded cart leave. Foosha's famous preventatives ranked among Goa's most profitable luxury exports. The mayor wanted investigators and Marines sent quietly before foreign merchants learned that the village had nothing left to sell.

The last morning petition ended with the Master of Ceremony striking his silver staff against the floor.

"His Majesty will give the Royal Bark of Assent."

A clothed servant placed the blue velvet cushion within the marble circle beside Sterry's throne. Sterry stepped into position, spread his feet, bent forward with both hands upon his knees, and raised his narrow backside toward the court.

"Woof! Woof!" he barked. "A King's bark commands the respect of all!"

The court applauded. Paldo clapped a moment too long and earned an amused glance from an old viscount.

Sterry straightened and returned to his throne with satisfaction. Two barks completed ordinary royal business. Three belonged to the succession, and he kept glancing toward Doctor Mirelle as if eager to perform them.

The petitioners were dismissed. The nobles remained.

Servants carried an examination couch into the center of the audience hall and set it beneath the chandeliers, fully visible from every side.

Doctor Mirelle was a commoner and wore a spotless white coat buttoned to the throat. Her two assistants were nobles, one a physician in her own right and the other Lady Monette with the health ledger. Both were naked except for their seals of office. A clothed laboratory servant arranged the testing dishes, folded cloths, oil, and a bowl of warm water nearby.

Sarie descended from the throne. Her morning gown remained properly present in court memory, yellow-orange silk and transparent flowered sleeves surrounding a body everyone could see. She reclined upon the couch, placed her heels in the padded rests, and opened her knees. The blonde heart above her pussy as her thighs spread, exposing the pink between her outer lips to the assembled court.

Lady Cressida played with one nipple, a clothed clerk squeezed her breast through her bodice, and Sarie briefly rubbed one sore breast. A queen's pussy was no more private than her face. Her womb belonged to the succession, and examining its entrance was ordinary state business.

Mirelle washed her hands, then touched Sarie's inner thigh.

"Your hands are cold. Aren't they not not meant to be warm before you put them inside me?"

The doctor apologized and returned them to the bowl.

Once her fingers were warm, Mirelle conducted the examination with practiced efficiency. She inspected Sarie's exposed folds, then used two oiled fingers internally while her other hand pressed low on the Queen's belly. Lady Monette entered the findings as Mirelle dictated them: no blood, softening tissue, a high closed cervix, and a womb already slightly enlarged. Sarie reported pressure but no pain. Lord Bastian leaned for a better look until his wife jested that anyone staring into the Queen's pussy would be expected to remember the findings as accurately as her imaginary gown.

Mirelle collected a small tissue sample and three drops of blood for the testing dishes. Sarie remained reclined with her legs open while the reagents changed. The required questions established that her last bleeding had begun twenty-eight days before the garden party and that the stranger had been the only man inside her during the relevant weeks. Sterry accepted this without offense. His own seed carried no importance, and he had spent most of that period in other beds.

A queen required heirs. Sarie had opened her legs for the stranger's cock and the pleasure it promised; conception became relevant after his enormous load was buried against the mouth of her womb. She saw no reason to wish it away. Low birth, foreign blood, and a dangerous nature could not diminish a child formed inside the Queen of Goa.

Mirelle raised the first glass dish to the light. The clear mixture had developed a pale ring around a dark center. The second dish followed, more slowly but just as completely.

"The blood and tissue tests agree," she said. "Her Majesty is pregnant."

Sarie beamed at the announcement. An heir, just as she had hoped! Why, that was the very reason she had spread her legs for that splendidly endowed man in the first place. His magnificent, well-developed phallus had seemed an excellent choice for the task, and now her hopes had been rewarded. She rested a hand on her lower belly, delighted to think that a new prince or princess was already growing inside her. The child was still far too small to stir beneath her palm, but she felt a swell of maternal pride all the same.

The Master of Ceremony waited for Sarie's nod before raising his staff.

The nobles applauded. Naked men bowed from the waist. Naked women sank into graceful curtsies while wearing gowns which existed only in collective memory. Their attention did not avoid the Queen's open pussy. Several bowed toward it as naturally as they bowed toward the crown resting among her curls.

Sterry came to his feet with undisguised relief. The kingdom had an heir in progress. He had not been required to father it, and nothing about the pregnancy reduced the freedom of his bed.

"How certain?" Sarie asked.

"As certain as I can be at this stage," Mirelle replied. "Seven days without bleeding, the changes to the cervix and womb, and two complete reactions. I will repeat the blood test in another week, but the pregnancy should be entered today."

"Then isn't it not not ready to enter?"

Mirelle cleaned the Queen's open folds, and Sarie removed her heels from the padded rests and sat upright upon the couch.

Lady Monette brought the Royal Womb Register to the couch.

It was a handsome volume bound in crimson leather, so new that the spine gave a small creak when Monette opened it. The first page was clean except for the headings ruled across it in fresh black ink.

The Keeper of Records and his deputy exchanged a quick, uncomfortable glance at the sight of that pristine page, then fixed their attention upon Monette's pen. Lady Monette lowered it to the first line. She had reproduced the Royal Womb Register's traditional arrangement exactly. Every entry began with the woman whose womb had borne the child. A narrow column labeled SIRE ran along the outer edge, where generations of clerks were remembered to have written husbands, lovers, foreign visitors, acknowledged guesses, and occasionally UNKNOWN.

The sire column never determined succession. A man's seed could make a child, but only the Queen's womb could make that child royal. Goan queens had no reason to seek noble fathers. In fact, old families were often the least desirable choice. A foreign sailor, soldier, craftsman, or healthy commoner could bring something new into the line without bringing a Goan house full of relatives who might mistake access to the Queen's pussy for access to the Crown.

The sire column could remain UNKNOWN without changing the child's place in succession. That did not make High Town indifferent. Courtiers wanted to know who had fathered an heir, what his body and ancestry might contribute, and whether the story became better once they had a name. Some of that belonged in the medical record. Most of it was gossip. His rank did not matter either way.

Lady Monette entered Sarie's name, the date of confirmation, and the estimated date of conception. Then she reached the sire column and waited.

"What name should I enter?" she asked.

"I don't know it, as you well know.” she gently admonished, before continuing to them all, “Isn't it not not peculiar that none of us asked?"

The stranger's name had gone unasked in the garden. Sarie had been far more interested in his magnificent phallus than in introductions, Sterry had been enjoying the entertainment, and the guards and servants had simply assumed someone else knew the fellow. Now, nearly three weeks later, everyone could recount the scandalous details of his encounter with the Queen, but nobody could supply so much as a name.

A nervous cough came from the lowest rank of courtiers.

Paldo Vess bowed. "Your Majesty, I may have brought the answer."

Several old nobles looked irritated before he had said anything else.

Paldo explained that he had visited the Marine base the previous afternoon to register the departure of two of his ships and request patrol coverage through pirate waters. A newly arrived wanted poster had caught his attention. Its picture showed no face, but High Town had spent nearly three weeks discussing the extraordinary cock that had fucked the Queen in her garden. Paldo had requested a clean copy to bring to court.

"The photograph seemed too distinctive to ignore, Your Majesty."

"Show me," Sarie said.

Paldo's clerk brought the rolled poster forward. When Lady Monette opened it beside the register, the court saw a soft cock of absurd length hanging from an open pair of trousers, heavy even without an erection. Beneath it hung two enormous balls, each seemingly as large as coconuts, with the left hanging visibly lower. The photographer had centered the genitals with the care normally given to a criminal's eyes and scars. The man's face did not appear anywhere in the image. A small Marine stamp named Mirror Ball Island as the place where the likeness had been taken.

A flurry of women's hands rose to breasts throughout the chamber. Noblewomen cupped their bosoms, squeezed them absently, or toyed with their nipples as they leaned forward to admire the extraordinary specimen. Several ladies abandoned their seats for a closer look, and soon a small crowd had gathered around Lady Monette and the remarkable document.

Across the top was the name IRON COCK TSUJO. Apart from the bounty and an order to report sightings, the notice offered only two facts: EMERGING PIRATE THREAT and KNOWN ASSOCIATE OF IRON MACE ALVIDA.

Sarie recognized him at once. The poster showed Tsujo soft. It could not show how much longer and broader that heavy shaft became when hard. She cupped one breast as she remembered the carved chair beneath her in the palace garden, her legs spread around Tsujo's hips, and the last of his impossible cock pushing into her. The Big Dickgasm had taken the garden from her sight and left her body locked around him while she screamed. Even now, the memory sent a small, pleasurable clench through her pussy.

"That is him, isn't it not not?" she said.
Paldo tried not to look triumphant and failed. Sterry shifted on his throne and crossed one narrow leg over the little cock between his thighs. Lady Cressida pinched one nipple while studying the thick soft shaft in the picture.

"He was really that large before he was hard?" Cressida asked.

"Yes."

The word pirate drew the court's attention away from the cock.

"A pirate put his seed in the Queen," Lady Perrine said, plainly offended.

Lord Bastian sounded impressed. "He walked into a royal garden, bred Her Majesty, and left before anyone thought to ask his name. That seems a promising beginning for one."

"The next monarch of Goa may carry pirate blood," the Chancellor said.

"Isn't it not not the purpose of a royal womb to take a man's cum and make it royal?" Sarie asked. "I should hope the child inherits something of his father's splendid vigor."

"A little adventurous spirit would hardly hurt a monarch," Lord Bastian agreed.

Lady Perrine frowned. "Provided the child does not grow up, see a ship, and flee to sea after its father's pirate lusts."

"Then we shall see that the child receives a proper education," Sarie replied. “Goa can make use of that fire without letting it run away."

"Quite so, Your Majesty," the Chancellor agreed.

Approval replaced most of the alarm. The Queen's womb had already taken Tsujo's lively, fierce pirate seed and begun turning it into royalty. His piracy gave the court another quality to weigh, not a claim for the father or a stain upon the child.

"Enter the name, Monette," Sarie instructed.

Lady Monette dipped her pen and carefully wrote Iron Cock Tsujo into the sire column.

"And Master Vess."

Paldo straightened immediately.

"Your Majesty?"

"Isn't it not not proper that a gentleman who has rendered the Crown such a service should receive its favor?"

"Your Majesty is most gracious."

"We shall have a royal letter sent to the Marine commander supporting your request for patrols. And you must attend our next garden reception. We should be delighted to have you."

Paldo bowed deeply. "It would be the greatest honor, Your Majesty."

Sarie smiled. "And do bring your wife, if you have one. We should like to meet her."

"Of course, Your Majesty!"

The surrounding naked nobles regarded the naked soap merchant with considerably less amusement than they had earlier that morning. Paldo had purchased his place among them only hours ago, and already he had secured a personal invitation from the Queen. He withdrew to his place with a smile that threatened to split his face.

Sarie settled back upon her cushions, one hand resting fondly upon her belly. The father of her unborn child was an extraordinary young man, apparently a pirate, and now possessed a name that the whole court could gossip about.

As for the Marines, they were welcome to chase him across the seas.

Goa had a royal nursery to prepare.