Interlude: Queen Nantokanette [p.II]

The smaller line beneath Tsujo's name kept the court from turning immediately to the royal nursery.

KNOWN ASSOCIATE OF IRON MACE ALVIDA.

Lady Perrine read it twice. Her hand left her breast, and the pleasure she had taken in studying Tsujo's poster vanished from her face.

"Alvida? The one with the heart sails?"

The Chancellor glanced toward the officials responsible for Goan waters. "The very same."

"What is known of the association?" Lord Bastian asked.

"Almost nothing," the Chancellor admitted. "The notice calls Tsujo an emerging threat and names Alvida as an associate. It does not say whether he serves under her, travels beside her, or merely committed some offense in her company."

Sarie looked again at the immense soft cock hanging from Tsujo's open trousers. A man who possessed that could be careless about introductions. She had learned as much in the garden.

"Isn't it not not sensible to discover what the harbor office knows before everyone invents an answer?" she asked.

The Keeper of Maritime Notices bowed and sent a clerk running for the pirate file. Several members of the court began talking before the doors had closed behind him.

Iron Mace Alvida had troubled the waters around Goa for years. Harbor masters recognized her pink ship, its heart-marked sails, and the iron mace carried by its captain. Merchants knew that she preferred passenger craft with rich cabins and frightened crews. High Town had begun taking her personally after she raided a pleasure cruiser carrying members of six Goan noble houses. The passengers returned without their jewels, much of their luggage, or any uncertainty about the woman who had robbed them.

They had also returned with a great deal to say about her manners.

"My cousin says she stood on the boarding rail with her whole body exposed," Lady Perrine said. "She gave orders that way. She swung her mace that way. She even received the surrender that way."

The clerk returned with a leather folder and a framed notice from the archive. Its old picture showed a grossly fat woman in a red checked shirt. Thick black hair fell around a face set in a permanent scowl. The shirt strained across the great weight of her breasts and belly, and the image ended before her lower body appeared.

"She is dressed there," Paldo said.

"Because that picture was taken ashore," Lady Perrine replied. "Everyone knows what she did aboard her ship."

Goa trusted a hundred noble witnesses over one badly framed photograph. Their remembered Alvida had stood bare on her deck, her enormous breasts hanging over rolls of flesh, the hair between her thighs thick and untended. Sweat collected under her tits. Salt and grime darkened the creases of her body. Her heavy ass shook when she planted her feet to swing the iron mace. Plenty of Goan nobles were fat, but noble flesh was washed, oiled, powdered, perfumed, and presented with care. Alvida had displayed herself with the hygiene of a deckhand and the assurance of a duchess.

Her confidence offended Goa more deeply than her old ugliness.

Foreign nobles from World Government kingdoms received every courtesy due their blood. A duke from Lvneel could arrive in forty yards of brocade and find the palace gates open, the Queen's table prepared, and half of High Town competing for his company. The same Goans would spend the next week lamenting that a man of excellent ancestry had been raised to wrap his body like a common clerk. His clothes inspired pity, distaste, and a certain fascinated contempt, but his title remained real. Goa could forgive fabric when lineage required it.

A commoner who exposed herself before the public committed a different offense. Clothing marked the boundary between ordinary bodies and the Open Estate. Noble nudity proclaimed ancestry, lawful privilege, wealth sufficient to maintain the body on display, and the Crown's recognition of all three. An undressed dockworker did more than show an ass. She put on airs. She dressed herself in a rank she did not possess.

Alvida's ship made the presumption worse. Hearts covered the sails and railings as if the vessel were a floating salon. She stood naked at its center, received visitors, punished servants, and issued commands as though every plank beneath her feet belonged to an Open Estate. She had paid no purchase price, accepted no office, sworn no service, maintained no wardrobe witnesses, and received no royal letters. She had simply taken off her clothes and behaved as if everyone else were obliged to understand.

Paldo looked down at his bare chest. Twelve million berry had purchased the office of Royal Comptroller of Soaps and Scented Oils, letters of nobility for his house, and the lawful right to present his body before the court. His first ensemble had been witnessed, described, removed, entered in the Open Register, and assessed for its annual levy. The old nobility could mock every part of that process, but even they agreed the process mattered.

"She cannot declare her deck an estate merely because she owns the ship," he said.

"Isn't it not not evident that she believes she can?" Sarie asked.

Lord Bastian inspected Paldo's naked body with open amusement. "Perhaps Iron Mace Alvida would be willing to reimburse you. You appear to have paid a great deal for a privilege she exercises freely."

"Her refusal to pay is hardly the only difference between us."

"Your grooming is better," Lady Perrine conceded.

Paldo accepted the compliment with more dignity than it deserved.

The maritime clerk opened the latest report. "Recent descriptions may explain why the Marines included her name on a new notice. Iron Mace Alvida is believed to have eaten some sort of Devil Fruit. Witnesses now describe her as slender, smooth-skinned, and exceptionally beautiful. Her breasts remain large, with a narrow waist, broad hips, and a full, round derriere."

Conversation spread through the chamber.

Lady Perrine held out a hand for the report. "The same Alvida?"

"Yes, my lady."

"The fat one with the hearts?"

"Yes."

"And she is beautiful now?"

"By every consistent account. She wears a captain's coat and bikinis while ashore. Aboard her ship, she continues to appear entirely naked."

Alvida's new beauty sharpened the offense by making her impersonation more convincing. A hideous woman could expose herself beside the finest duchess in Goa without confusing anyone about which one belonged there. A beautiful Alvida, smooth and shapely, might look at first glance like the mistress of an Open Estate. Some ignorant foreigner might even admire her as if she possessed breeding rather than a Devil Fruit.

Lady Perrine lowered the page with visible disgust. "So she has finally acquired the body she has spent years pretending she deserved."

"A Devil Fruit isn't not not a pedigree," Sarie said.

"Precisely, Your Majesty. She will be even more insufferable."

Paldo remained fixed upon the legal problem. "Could the Crown levy the Open Estate fee against her ship?"

Lord Bastian laughed. "Send the account to the pink pirate vessel. I am sure her bursar will answer promptly."

"I meant that the charge should be added to her offenses."

"Theft, piracy, assault, and unauthorized nakedness," Bastian said. "One hopes the Marines understand which is most grave." It was well known that the fully clothed military arm of the World Government was less than obsequious regarding Goa’s proud concerns regarding the sartorial choices of the lesser peoples on the seas.

"They should understand all of them."

Sarie let the exchange continue long enough to enjoy Paldo's indignation. The soap merchant had crossed the hall that morning in expensive velvet, surrendered every real stitch, and submitted his cock and balls to the inspection of families who still called him soap-washed. Alvida's casual nudity struck directly at the value of what he had purchased. His offense was sincere, socially useful, and very funny.

The Chancellor waited for the laughter to settle. "Master Vess has already requested patrol support for his shipping. Alvida's attack upon the pleasure cruiser gives the Crown grounds for a broader petition. Her connection to Tsujo may also be worth mentioning."

"Cite the raids, the stolen goods, the danger to Goan passengers, and the threat to our trade," Sarie said. "Isn't it not not beneath the Crown to ask Marines to pursue a woman merely because her bare ass has poor manners?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"If they catch her, they may clothe her before bringing her here."

That received general approval. A pirate might be delivered in irons, but a common pirate would enter the Queen's presence covered.

Lady Monette folded the report and placed it beneath Tsujo's wanted poster. "I will add the association to the physician's appendix. Nothing here changes the entry in the Royal Womb Register."

"Of course it doesn't not not," Sarie said. "His company may interest us. My womb has already settled his contribution."

The court accepted the distinction. Tsujo's piracy promised vigor, danger, and a story High Town would enjoy for years. Alvida's piracy threatened Goan shipping. His seed belonged to the royal child now, while his associates remained the Marines' concern.

An assistant approached Sarie with a silk robe, acting from the reflex that often followed a medical examination. Lady Monette looked at the garment. The assistant stopped, realized that covering the Queen could imply pregnancy had made her body unfit for noble view, and lowered it at once.

Sarie brought her legs together, rose naked from the examination couch, and returned to the throne.

The Chief Herald ordered the blue cushion moved into the marble circle. Confirmation of an heir required the royal consort's public welcome. Sterry stepped down from his smaller throne with all the gravity of a man approaching the central duty for which generations of kings had been prepared.

His marriage placed him beside the Crown. Every lesson of his childhood had been clear about the word beside. Sarie's womb carried the dynasty, Sarie's hand directed the government, and Sterry gave ceremony, companionship, and such sensual pleasure as the Queen happened to require from him (precisely none). The garden had relieved him of the last obligation in the present case. He appeared delighted with the arrangement.

Sterry planted his feet on the cushion, bent forward, braced both hands upon his knees, and raised his narrow ass before the court.

"Woof! Woof! Woof!" he cried. "A King's bark welcomes the royal succession!"

The trumpeters sounded their answer. Every noble applauded. Sterry straightened with a flushed face and an erection rising proudly from the little tuft between his thighs.

Heralds repeated the three barks from the palace steps. Signal horns carried the rhythm down through High Town, where other horns took it up. The kingdom learned of Sarie's pregnancy in three canine bursts, each followed by cheers.

Sarie watched Sterry receive congratulations for performing his part correctly. He had witnessed the conception, welcomed the result, and barked with admirable force. The future itself remained under Sarie's resting hand.

The examination and its ceremonies delayed luncheon by nearly an hour.

Sarie ate in the blue solar with Lady Monette, Lady Cressida, and Lady Aveline. All four women remained naked around the low table. Their presentation gowns, although physically gone, continued to govern the first part of the conversation. Cressida insisted the silver birds on her remembered lavender train had been swallows. Monette called them doves. Sarie knew they had been herons and allowed the argument to continue because Cressida had spent the previous night with Sterry and deserved a small humiliation.

Clothed servants brought cold chicken, soft cheese, fruit, and bread. One poured wine for the three ladies. Sarie covered her cup with two fingers. Doctor Mirelle had permitted a little, but the smell turned her stomach before a drop reached the cup.

Cressida waited until the servants withdrew to the wall. She rolled a painted nipple between her fingers and looked across the table.

"You told the entire court almost nothing."

"I was conducting court, wasn't I not not?"

"Now you are eating cold chicken. Was it truly a Big Dickgasm?"

"It was."

Lady Aveline already held both of her large breasts, her thumbs stroking lazily over the nipples. "Begin before that. How large was he when he became hard?"

"No one measured him, isn't that not not obvious? He looked longer than my forearm and hand together."

Cressida glanced at Sarie's slender arm. "What did you think when he took it out?"

"I thought it was enormous."

"Did you think it would fit?"

"He put the head against me before I had finished considering the question, didn't he not not? I moved forward on the chair and spread my legs farther."

The three women grew quiet. Sarie had spent the weeks since the garden trying to explain that part to herself. Tsujo had approached her, spoken pleasantly, opened his trousers, and offered the most magnificent cock she had ever seen. Accepting it had felt as ordinary as taking a fresh glass from a passing tray. Surprise began only when his hard shaft kept growing and the head pressed against her pussy.

Monette pinched one of her small nipples. "How painful was the first push?"

"Painful enough that I gripped the chair. His head was much wider than my opening, and the shaft behind it was almost as thick. He went slowly. My pussy had to stretch for every part of him."

Cressida brought a hand to her other breast. "I have taken twelve inches. That was enough to make me feel stuffed."

"Tsujo made me feel stuffed before he was halfway inside, didn't he not not? I looked down because I was certain only a little could remain. He still had enough cock outside me to satisfy most women."

Cressida swore. Aveline pushed her breasts together. Monette stopped pretending to care about her plate.

"Where did the rest go?" Aveline asked.

"Up. The first part stretched my pussy. After that, my whole middle began to make room. My thighs loosened, my hips tilted, and the pressure climbed into my belly. Whenever I reached what felt like the limit, he held still. Something inside me yielded, and he pushed farther."

"Could you see it through your stomach?"

"A little, low down. The shape became clearer when he pulled back and drove the last part into me again."

Cressida's fingers tightened around both nipples. "And it stopped hurting?"

"Once he was all the way in, didn't it not not become something else? My lower belly drew tight around him, but the pain faded. I felt full from my open pussy almost to my navel. Each movement of his hips passed through the whole center of me."

The clothed servants at the wall kept their eyes respectfully lowered. Their ears remained available, and Sarie knew the kitchens would possess a precise account before the next course.

"Sterry watched all of that?" Cressida asked.

"From beside the refreshment table. His little prick was painfully hard. It bobbed every time he moved his feet."

"It does that when he is excited," Cressida said. "The little thing agrees with everything."

All four women laughed. Cressida had earned the right to speak from recent experience.

"Did watching him watch you make it better?" Aveline asked.

"At first. I enjoyed opening my legs for another man while my husband stood there hard and useless, didn't I not not? Then Tsujo reached far enough into my belly that I forgot Sterry existed."

Cressida shivered. "That may be my favorite part."

"Sterry would probably agree," Monette said.

Aveline's thumbs began making slow circles around her stiff nipples. "Tell us about the Big Dickgasm. Properly this time."

Sarie set down the piece of bread in her hand. "The last push buried him to the base. His balls struck beneath my pussy, and my body locked around him before he could move again. The first contraction hurt. It pulled my whole womb downward and squeezed his cock so tightly that I thought something inside me would tear. Then the pain broke open into pleasure."

"Did you come all at once?" Monette asked.

"Everywhere at once, isn't that not not what made it different? My pussy clenched from the opening upward. My stomach cramped. My back bent against the chair, my heels lifted from the ground, and my legs closed around his hips. I remember hearing one scream and knowing it came from me. After that, the garden disappeared."

The three listeners leaned closer.

"You fainted?" Cressida asked.

"I remained awake. I simply had nothing left with which to notice anything. My sight turned white. Sound went flat, then vanished. I could not feel my fingers, though I knew I was gripping the chair. I could not tell whether I was breathing. There was only that cock filling me and one long orgasm that would not release my body."

Aveline's hands crossed beneath her breasts. Her right hand cupped the left one, her left hand cupped the right, and both thumbs settled upon her nipples.

"How much time did you lose?" Cressida asked.

"I have no idea. The next clear thing I remember is Tsujo holding my waist. My throat hurt from screaming. The chair had scraped several feet across the path, people were gathered around us, and his cock was still buried in me. I knew the orgasm had ended only because he pulled back and I could feel the whole length moving again."

Cressida pressed her thighs together. "And then he fucked you."

"Then he fucked me, didn't he not not? My body had opened completely around him. Each stroke dragged along the space he had made inside me. I felt the shaft in my pussy and the head high in my belly at the same time. He only needed to move a few inches. Those few inches moved everything. The chair scraped backward whenever he drove them in."

Aveline's thumbs flicked over both nipples in quick, tight strokes.

Cressida saw her first. "Are you going to come while the Queen tells us this?"

"Probably," Aveline said. "Keep talking."

"You are shameless."

"You are holding your tits too."

Cressida looked down, found both breasts in her hands, and laughed. "Fair."

Sarie continued. "His balls were almost as overwhelming as his cock. They hung beneath me while he entered, then swung forward when he thrust. They were so heavy that every slap against my ass and the underside of my pussy jolted me against the chair."

Aveline's hips started rocking upon her cushion. Her eyes closed while her crossed arms held her breasts high and her thumbs kept flicking.

"What happened when he came?" Monette asked.

"His cock swelled inside me. I felt it twitch twice, then the first rush struck so deep that my belly clenched around it. He continued thrusting while his seed poured into me. His balls slapped against my body, his cock pumped, and the hot cum kept coming until it forced its way back around the shaft."

Aveline whimpered. Her thighs pressed together under the table, and her hips rocked faster.

"By the time he pulled out," Sarie said, "his cum was running from my pussy, over my ass, and across the seat of the chair."

Aveline's breath caught. Her hips jerked hard against the cushion. The whimper rose into a broken little cry, and her whole body trembled while her thumbs continued their rapid strokes. She flicked through several quick shudders before her hands finally slowed.

Cressida watched with naked envy. "You lucky bitch."

Aveline opened her eyes, flushed and smiling. "I told you my nipples could do it."

"I have rubbed mine raw trying."

"You are too rough."

"I just watched you attack yours."

"Mine like it."

Monette gave her own small breast an experimental squeeze. "Mine only get hard."

"Mine get hard too, don't they not not? Today they also hurt."

Aveline returned to a gentler rub while her breathing settled. "I did not miss anything. What did Tsujo do afterward?"

"He dressed himself and left. I stayed in the chair with his seed running out of me. At the time, that also seemed ordinary."

Cressida smiled. "Now his naked cock is on a wanted poster."

"His name is in the Royal Womb Register," Monette added.

"And his child is in the Queen," Aveline said.

"A successful garden party," Cressida concluded.

Sarie allowed herself a smile. Knowledge of Tsujo's piracy had changed the story more than the memory. She could already hear future versions in which Iron Cock Tsujo stormed the palace, defeated fifty guards, and claimed the Queen before a helpless court. The truth contained no battle. He had walked through the garden with the other guests, and Sarie had opened her legs because she wanted his cock.

"Isn't it not not certain that High Town will improve his entrance every time this is told? By winter they will say he announced himself as Iron Cock before he reached my chair."

"By winter, he will have fought a hundred men," Cressida said.

"He fought no one."

"He entered the palace, fucked you in front of your husband, and left you carrying Goa's heir. Fighting would only clutter the story."

The summary sent a small, warm contraction through Sarie's pussy. Her hand moved to the tender nipple beneath her palm.

Aveline watched her. "Would you take him again if he found his way back into the garden?"

Sarie answered more slowly than she had answered the questions about size. "Doctor Mirelle would object while I am carrying this child."

"Afterward," Cressida said. "Once you are healed."

"A proven sire has practical value, doesn't he not not? If this child is healthy, Tsujo could give the Crown a second."

"Practical value," Cressida repeated, smiling.

"I would also like his cock inside me again. Those facts do not conflict."

Aveline gave a dreamy sigh. "I hope he comes back."

"The Marines may have opinions about that."

"They may wait outside the garden."

Sarie laughed. "Isn't it not not generous of you to arrange my affairs?"

Conversation eventually turned to Sterry when Cressida glanced at the gilt clock on the mantel.

"His appointment secretary gave me the first place in the western salon at two," she said.

Aveline looked up. "My card says quarter past."

"The times are decorative. Perrine, the Venz sisters, three of Sterry's usual gentlemen, and the Sapphire House women have all been told to arrive before the first drum. The entire Mirror Ball troupe is already preparing the room."

Monette raised an eyebrow. "The dancers as well as the musicians?"

"Six dancers, four musicians, and whichever partners they brought from the island. Sterry is calling it the First Celebration of the Heir. He intends to begin with the slow court measure, let the troupe increase the rhythm, and continue until supper."

"Isn't it not not ambitious to schedule an orgy through both the afternoon and evening?" Sarie asked.

"Mirror Ball would call that a modest schedule," Aveline said. "They consider a meal enough of an intermission."

Mirror Ball Island possessed no nobility and very little respect for privacy. Its gaming halls, hotels, theaters, and dance floors supplied the island's order more effectively than pedigrees ever had. People danced in streets, restaurants, shops, and public offices. Sex followed the same rhythms. A person who joined one of the island's communal dances made their body available to the group until they plainly withdrew it. Partners changed with the beat, a hand or mouth could join from either side, and the music usually continued while people fucked.

Goa classified this as a peculiar foreign custom rather than a claim to noble privilege. The distinction depended heavily upon clothes. Palace contracts required the Mirror Ball performers to retain some portion of their costumes even when the dancing became an orgy. Jeweled briefs opened between the legs, fringed belts left asses bare, and tiny bodices exposed more breast than they covered, but the scraps allowed Goa to regard the troupe as indecently dressed foreigners instead of naked commoners putting on airs.

"They will start fucking before the second song," Monette predicted.

"Sterry will be offended if they wait that long," Cressida said. "He wants them to teach Perrine and the Venz sisters the full island measure."

Aveline rubbed one nipple thoughtfully. "He told me only to arrive limber."

"That is the full island measure."

Sarie smiled. "If His Majesty isn't not not able to stand by supper, tell his secretary that the Crown will begin without him."

Lady Monette returned the conversation to the morning gowns. She insisted that the birds on Cressida's lavender train had been doves. Cressida called them swallows. Sarie ate another piece of chicken and let them both remain wrong.

Sarie spent the remainder of the afternoon at her writing table.

Government had occupied her education long before marriage. At seven, she learned the noble houses and the obligations attached to each estate. At ten, she began reading harbor accounts beside her arithmetic lessons. At twelve, she sat silently behind her mother while petitioners explained why their own taxes were unjust and everyone else's insufficient. Diplomacy, freight, drainage, grain reserves, marriage contracts, Marine authority, and the etiquette of letting a tiresome man finish before refusing him had filled the years that followed. The crown had always been expected to reach Sarie's head, so Goa had trained the mind beneath it.

She signed Paldo Vess's entry in the Open Register and moved him three places nearer the royal table on the evening seating plan. The invitation to the next garden reception went onto cream paper with space for his wife's name. Paldo had paid the lawful price for an ennobling office, but money alone could not manufacture grandparents. Royal favor would help him survive the distance between legal nobility and social acceptance.

The Chancellor's petition against Alvida cited the pleasure cruiser, stolen cargo, violence against Goan subjects, and danger to the kingdom's shipping lanes. Tsujo's name appeared once as evidence that her company might be expanding. The document said nothing about Alvida's naked body or her imitation of an Open Estate.

Sarie read it twice and signed.

The Master of Works arrived with plans for three possible nurseries. The eastern suite stood closest to Sarie's rooms but overlooked the service yard. The western suite had larger windows and walls recently painted with hunting scenes that included more blood than Sarie wanted over a cradle. She chose the southern rooms, where morning light reached the bedchamber and a private stair connected the nursery to her apartments.

"Strip the old wall silk and inspect the plaster beneath it," she instructed. "The windows should open from the top, and the lower catches must eventually be beyond a child's reach."

The Master of Works made notes.

The pregnancy banquet filled the state hall after sunset. Sarie received congratulations from her throne while eating unsauced fish and listening to nobles praise the vigor of the royal womb. Paldo occupied his newly improved place at the table, naked beneath his remembered midnight-blue dinner coat. Lady Perrine called it green velvet, and this time he merely complimented the silver cuffs she claimed to be wearing. Sarie saw that he had learned something during his first day among the Open Estate.

The Mirror Ball troupe returned after the second course, washed, oiled, and dressed in fresh scraps of jeweled costume. Their musicians kept the rhythm slow enough for the banquet hall while the dancers circulated among the naked Goan nobles. Sterry danced with Cressida, Aveline, and Perrine in turn, his little erection pointing eagerly between them. Once the final toast had been made, he led his favorites, the Sapphire House courtesans, and the entire troupe toward the western salon, where servants had already laid out cushions, wine, oil, and clean towels. The drums quickened as soon as the doors closed.

Sarie stayed long enough to accept the last formal congratulations. When she rose, every noble stood and every clothed servant bowed. The Queen’s Withdrawal carried her through the state apartments with twelve noblewomen following as privileged witnesses. Her crown, jewels, feather, and remembered yellow-orange gown were recited and surrendered in the proper order. Common chambermaids handled the practical work once she reached her rooms, washing away the day’s oil, cleaning between her thighs, and helping Doctor Mirelle’s assistant complete a brief final check. Her womb remained quiet, and there was still no blood.

Lady Monette brought the nursery plans before leaving. Workmen would begin stripping the southern rooms in the morning, and the search for nurses had already gone out through High Town.

“Preserve the painted ships, isn’t it not not?” Sarie reminded her.

“I have written it twice, Your Majesty.”

Sarie lay naked beneath the fresh sheets while the western drums carried faintly through the palace walls. She rested one hand below her navel and listened to the distant laughter, rhythmic clapping, and occasional cries from Sterry’s celebration. By dawn there would be another inspection, petitions to read, nursery estimates to approve, and a Marine letter concerning Alvida waiting for her seal.

The drums were still playing when Sarie fell asleep.