Henric and Alex III (v2.3)

Tags: Villainous male knight/virtuous female squire, reverse-trap, exposition chapter

Alex woke with a splitting headache--a hangover--and no immediate memory of where she was, only that she was wrapped so securely in Henric’s arms that she knew she was a prisoner. She flailed and attacked, but only managed to sink her teeth into one of his biceps. That woke the knight up all the way and he struck Alex to make her let go as he released her with a cry of anger.

“You disgusting savage,” he hissed at her, looking at his bloodied arm where a few of her teeth had punctured the skin. “What is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with you?!” She said, spitting his blood without care onto his sheets. Alex could probably have thought of something better to say, but she didn’t. She was hungover for the first time, and brought hands to her head to cradle it. “What’s… I feel like shit. What did you do to me?”

"You did that to yourself. Coming in here drunk. I had to take some rather extreme measures just to get you to submit." He smiled, thinking of his pleasure the night before. "That wound on your back should heal soon. It isn't too deep, but it will sting for some time."

Things were coming back to her, and she groaned and scowled seeing dried blood on his sheets. Wounds that bled left scars. Alex looked at Henric and saw the ring shaped bite mark she had left on his arm. Tit for tat. "I don't regret my belligerence one bit," she said.

Henric grabbed her again by her hair, such a convenient handle, and shook her. “Finish waking up. Get ready for your day. We’ve work.”

Alex had no interest in fighting his orders when they were related to actual training. For all that she loathed Sir Henric the rapist, the violent, the sick, he was a very skilled swordsman and she wanted to learn what she could from him. She was pragmatic. Out in the training field when the other squires and knights were around, he didn’t even call her names. Those were her favorite times.

Henric, who was of course sober as could be, got out of his bed gracefully and climbed down his loft to get to his closet to dress himself.

It was much easier said than done for the girl to get up. Alex got out of his bed blearily. She was at first shamed by her nudity, but then decided to rub it in his face by trying to seem confident. She was anything but, and Henric took special delight in seeing the naked girl move about his quarters, stumbling sometimes and touching her head. He’d left hand-shaped bruises on both of her buttocks and it made him positively beam as he pulled on his undergarments. It was a challenge for him to fight a brand new erection seeing Alex look as she did, his victim. She even walked with a slight bow-legged limp, and it made him want to rush up to her and bend her over the table for another round, grab one of her strong thighs and lift it up so he could pound her again and again. But he restrained himself. They had places to go and there was no time to stop and fuck the squire.

The girl went to his wash basin to get cleaned up as she had been instructed. She performed a careful inspection in the mirror. There was blood around her mouth. His from this morning. And blood on her back. Hers from last night. She winced as she cleaned the cut with a wet cloth while straining to look over her shoulder at the mirror and noticed bruising where he had grabbed her neck. A high collared tunic would hide that. There were more bruises on her ass, and if she squinted they looked like hands. Eventually she peeled herself away from the mirror to put the knight's armor on him.

Henric was already standing by the chest where he kept the metal plates that made up his dark metal armor. He was dressed in his typical dark green tabard and regarded his naked squire with a leer. She was trying so hard to seem like it didn’t bother her that he could see every inch of her pale skin and every one of her curves. There was a special pleasure for him in knowing that not only was he the only man who got to see the way her spine curved before meeting her ass or how wide her lovely hips were or how cuppable and perky her breasts were--he was the only man here who knew they even existed in the first place.

She put his armor on him without saying a word. She hated that this job that should have been simple had become an excuse for him to make her touch his body. Alex was getting very good at getting the armor on with minimal contact to Henric. It helped that he didn’t like to wear armor on his torso, only his arms and legs and head. Alex had commented on how stupid this was before, but the knight had dismissed it and insisted that he preferred to rely on his dexterity in battle, not his armor.

Alex could only hope he’d get himself killed this way, but didn’t see that as likely. She’d seen him spar with the other knights and of course he was the one teaching her to sword fight, and the girl could say with absolute certainty that she’d never seen anyone better than Henric, not even at tournaments she’d watched as a page. It was a shame, because she wanted him to die.

When his armor was in place, Alex dressed herself. She started with her underwear and then retrieved her torso wrap. It was a long, wide piece of fabric that she wound very tightly and carefully around her chest to flatten her breasts down and hide them. Her trousers were dark brown and she buckled her belt higher on her body to draw attention from her hips, but she didn’t need to because her tunic was long enough to cover her rear. It was the maroon of her family, the gold dragon of Smythe embroidered on her shoulder. It made her proud to wear it, and it gave her a sense of strength that she often needed.

“What are we doing today?” she asked Henric.

He perked up at the question and smiled. “We’re going to town, meeting with some friends of mine, and taking a trip.”

That didn’t sound good. “Oh. You should have told me, I would have packed ahead.” She went to her corner where she started pulling things into her backpack. A heavier coat, some money, a bedroll...

Henric snarled, “I would have, but you vanished with those useless boys. Don’t bother packing bedding, that will be provided.”

She took his word for it and finished gathering her things. They were out the door moments later with Henric already packed and the squire bounding to keep up with his much-longer strides. Alex imagined Henric’s friends would be absolutely detestable, but believed that the knight would have the intelligence to keep her secret around them. Her head still throbbed.

Out in the stables, Ian was waiting for them. A gorgeous red warhorse built with naught but muscle and size, Alex thought he was probably the most expensive thing that Henric owned outside of his armor.

Henric patted Ian’s great neck and then pointed to the tack where it was hanging. “You know how to saddle a horse, noble boy?”

Alex glared at the intended insult as she went into Ian’s stall to get him. “Of course. Ever since I was old enough to hold a saddle I’ve known how to do it. And then when I was a page my room was above the stables and I was working with the horses all the time.”

“Ah of course. And I bet you had your own saddle when you were eight, and your own horse as well?” Henric taunted.

Ian didn’t like Alex any more than Henric did, but he was well-trained and submitted to her as she brushed him and got his saddle and bags into place. “No,” Alex said. “I didn’t. Before I was a page I mostly just rode ponies.”

Henric leaned back and watched his squire work while the other horses belonging to the knights watched with unintelligent amusement. “And did your noble parents only keep ponies around for you to ride? I can’t see a reason for them except training children to ride or pulling small carts.”

She hadn’t thought about it before, but realized with frustration that it was probably true. Instead of addressing Henric’s point and proving him right, she retaliated about other things. “Parent. Singular. I’m Lord Edgar Smyth’s son and if you knew anything about us--and you should, my father is the king’s second cousin--you’d know my mom died giving birth to… to my sister and I.”

The knight’s deep hatred of nobility flared again as his squire flaunted her birthright, but he began to piece a few things together. “I remember this story. Twin noble children and the girl died when I was… oh this must have been thirteen years ago, I would have been around eleven, I wasn’t even a page yet. But I remember this, one of you noble twins, there was a boy and a girl, and the girl died. Everyone was very sad, except for me.”

“Yes,” she grumbled. The pain was so old and the memories so blurry that she barely remembered her twin brother, whose place and name she had taken upon his death. “When we were three.”

Henric saw she was still keeping something else to herself. “It wasn’t the girl who died, was it? You’re still here.”

She didn’t answer him, but that in itself was enough of an answer. Ian resisted his bit for nearly a minute before Alex got his bridle in place. She resented this horse and passed the reins to Henric, then stepped back when Henric mounted his steed.

“Hop up,” he said.

Alex was mortified. Sharing a saddle was for small children and women. “No way!” she said, unwilling to take such a blow to her culturally ingrained manly pride. Henric grabbed her hair and pulled her in closer, and she quickly gave in and hopped up behind him. She realized she needed to pick her battles with this monster, and let him ride out of the stable.

She hoped no one would see and was frantically looking around. Her heart fell when she saw Ellis and locked gazes with him. She blushed and shrugged with shame, he raised an eyebrow as if to ask, “Seriously?”

After that, Alex just shut her eyes and let her forehead rest on Henric’s back. She said to the knight, “If you keep pulling my hair I’m just going to cut it even shorter than it already is.”

He laughed at her as they went down the path, a loud barking sound. “Now that I’d like to see. I’d have to just drag you by the neck then.”

The girl was quiet for a while. Then she asked, "Why do you enjoy hurting me?"

"I enjoy towering over those weaker than me," he said. Henric glanced back to her over his shoulder and a wicked smile pulled on his lips as if he were confessing a secret to her. "Should you become stronger, I may cease to enjoy it."

"I will," she assured him immediately. The girl had no doubts about her ability to become stronger. If she didn’t have faith in her own abilities, she may as well have given up, told on Henric, and accepted her punishment for pretending to be a boy. Even if they let her live after that, there was nothing for her in life if she couldn’t be a knight.

She asked Henric, "What made you that way?"

"Nothing could make someone like me," he scowled, the first time he didn't seem narcissistic. "I was born this way."

This mildly baffled Alex. She sighed heavily against his back, her hot breath going through his tabard to his skin. "I think you are actually sick," she said. "Not just... sick."

Henric huffed, but said no more. Alex tried to catch up on sleep while leaning on his back, but the cut on her back kept stinging as Ian walked and it kept her from feeling relaxed in the slightest. All she ended up doing was thinking about the night before. It made her hands shake and it made her eyes wet, but an inner grimness in her heart reminded her to be proud, for she had survived and she had made Henric angry. She had fought him and made it difficult. She didn’t feel like a coward, and that was enough.

The moment she saw the town, she took her chance and jumped off Ian’s back, hopping away from Henric so she wouldn’t be seen riding behind him. She was much happier walking than looking like a child or a girl.

It was almost noon by now and the town looked well. Alex had heard from Sir Isaac, Ellis’ knight, that the town had been a constant target of bandits before the king had allocated a few knights and soldiers back into the previously abandoned barracks four years ago. Since then, Isaac had told her, things had picked up for the town.

Henric guided Alex to one of the first buildings they saw. An inn, predictably. Inside it wasn’t special, everything made of wood and not a single piece of art on the walls. There was an open area off the the side where bards might have played if it had been night. As it was the middle of the day, there wasn’t even a bartender there, just a slender, dark skinned man sitting and reading a book at a round table.

They joined him with Alex just following her knight’s lead. The reading man looked up and smiled at Henric, then saw the squire and grimaced. "What is the mighty Sir Henric doing with such a little squirt?"

"Aziz, this is my squire, Alex." Henric gestured towards the well-disguised girl.

"Any kid who's raised by Henric is gonna be some trouble, pleasure to meet you." Aziz tossed out a jewel-covered hand.

Alex shook it more out of instinct than because she wanted to, and her words followed in kind. “Good to meet you. I’m Alexander Smyth.”

Immediately Aziz withdrew his hand and looked at Henric as if he’d been cruelly tricked. "I didn't know you'd be training some noble kid Henric. You sure it's safe bringing a kid like that in here?"

Henric looked sideways at Alex harshly, then back to his apparent friend. “You don’t need to worry about anything.”

A fourth figure wearing purple and black sat at the table. It was disconcerting to Alex that her ears hadn’t picked up the sound of the newcomer’s footsteps. With a hood over his head and a matte grey mask sculpted in the likeness of a face it was impossible to tell what he looked like, but Henric and Aziz recognized him immediately.

“Yorick, good of you to come,” Henric said with a slight nod.

“Good to be here,” the masked man said in an emotionless voice, and he never did acknowledge Alex. “Ssazra is waiting outside the town for us to get moving. He’s eager and says he smells them on the wind.”

“How fortuitous,” Henric said with a grin.

“What is he smelling?” Aziz asked, leaning in. He put his book away now in a brightly colored bag that hung at his side, and he was grinning at the promise of adventure.

Henric leaned in with him, planting his elbows firmly on the table and steepling his fingers. “There’s a band of goblins camping out not far from here. They haven’t done anything yet, and the knights in the barracks are cowards with squires who can’t handle swords. We’re going in there to kill the goblins before they become a problem, and we’re going to take whatever they have on them.”

Alex almost gasped. Goblins were almost universally despised as trouble-makers at best, but if they hadn’t done anything yet there was no reason at all to kill them. She opened her mouth to argue, to say something to Henric, but then felt his hand reach across her lap to her opposite thigh under the table, squeezing. She clenched her jaw shut and tolerated her knight’s thumb stroking the inside of her thigh gently for a moment or two before he let go.

The squire hadn’t even noticed that Yorick had been speaking that entire time, but Henric had been listening, and he responded, “The rest of the men should be meeting us outside the town but they’re hired hands. Rather, they’re hired hands that I don’t care about keeping around like you two and Ssazra.”

Aziz and Yorick nodded and Alex wanted to smack them and tell them that there was something wrong with the situation if Henric of all people wanted to keep you around. Yorick and Aziz left on their own a few moments later when Henric said nothing more, and Alex merely stared at the knight to her side.

When they were the only people left in the inn, she finally spoke and told him, “I won’t murder goblins.”

Henric rolled his eyes and scoffed with exasperation. “You make it sound like they’re people. These are goblins, young one. Filthy, grey, sub-human monsters that come into our lands to take our food and livestock.” He spoke with utter calmness as he explained his way of things to Alex.

“We have laws about this,” she said uncertainly, jamming a finger down against the table.

“Alex,” he said, looking at her directly in the eyes with his arresting stare. He reached for her and grabbed her jaw, pulling her head forward. “Who enforces laws?”

“Knights!” She said angrily. “You’re supposed--”

He shifted his grip of her face to cover her mouth and hold it shut. He no longer seemed merely annoyed by her, and now a scowl was pulling at his brow. Teeth locked, he said, “I am a knight, Alex. They gave me the job of enforcing laws. And that means that I get to choose which laws to enforce and when. And I also choose which laws to break. Do you know who cares enough to stop me? Absolutely no one. I have been going out and slaughtering vermin these last four years and not one of the poor excuses for warriors that I have to live with has noticed.”

He let go of Alex. She said, “You are disgustingly corrupt.”

He turned his chair to face her and leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees. “I dare you to tell them. Go on back to the barracks alone, tell Sirs Cyrus and Isaac and Cuthbert about me. Tell them I kill goblins and fuck little girls pretending to be squires until they cum all over my cock.”

“I am not pretending to be a squire, I am a squire!” Alex hissed. Even though the entire building seemed empty, she would not risk being overheard. “I worked hard! I spent four years studying as a page and now I am working hard studying as a squire even though you are making my life hell!”

The knight went on talking and let a cruel smile keep pulling at his lips. “You know, not long after I first fucked you outside the barracks, I even told Sir Cuthbert about it? I told him I bedded an adorable brunette girl who made the most delightful squealing sounds every time I pounded into her. He was jealous, of course. Who wouldn’t be? But he doesn’t know what you’re hiding underneath your rich boy tunic, and he doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

Alex eyes were damp at the corners with liquid anger. What hurt her most? Every word he jabbed at her was a separate knife, but if she had to choose the most painful wound… “You told him we had sex? Not that you grabbed me by the neck, almost drowned me, and raped me?”

True malevolence exuded from the knight’s every word: “I told him the sweet girl begged me for it, flaunted her tits and ass and pulled me with her into the spring while she kept saying, ‘take me, take me.’ And I was rather generous of my description of you, wasn’t I? You’re not being the sweetest thing right now.”

The squire left the table and wiped her eyes before she went back outside to where Ian was waiting patiently. She didn’t want to be alone with this man and she refused to listen to his words. It was obvious that he only wanted to wound her, and she just didn’t want it to be obvious to hm that he was winning.

But it was.