The Seige

I had been in command of the forward garrison for only the last few weeks, having been rushed in with the sudden demise of my predecessor, a man infamous for his maltreatment of the neighboring tribes women. I was a distant cousin to the ruling Duke and in this aged castle with my new young wife because nobody else wanted this remote posting. Indeed if he had cared more about the region he would have committed more resources to it's defense. The tribes in question obviously had a grievance with my predecessor and his men, and perhaps it was even justified, but their probing raids into the surrounding villages and the taking of some of the local women for their sport had to stop.

The witnesses accounts were vivid, and always the same; the warriors would sweep in by surprise and select one or two of the fairest of the village women, and savagely strip them of every stitch of clothing on the spot. They would then bind their wrists and ankles firmly and simply ride away with them away thrown over their mounts as the village men were powerless to stop them. The night of those raids the abducted women's howls could clearly be heard in the distance encampments, leaving little to the imagination as to the purpose of the abduction.

We were safe in the castle proper as the thick stone walls were no match for their primitive weapons, but we were literally overrun with the villagers in fear of their lives, and they had taken to move into the yard and behind the safety of the bailey wall with us. It would soon be harvest time, but the villagers had no desire to harvest their crops and loose from among them the fairest of their women to fates that no one had to guess at, especially if we could not defend them from the assaults. We were hopelessly outnumbered by the invading tribesmen, and on two separate occasions I had sent a messenger to the Duke to ask for more men and supplies, and each time their mounts returned without them. We could not leave the castle without incurring attack, and while our weapons and training were superior, their sheer numbers and fire from cover attacks left many of my young men, who were just as fresh and inexperienced as I was, wounded and unable to continue the fight.

In a word, we were under siege.

We had little food in reserve as it was harvest season, and burdened as we were with the whole damn village encamping with us we were running out fast... Days later, after we had endured half rations of food and slaughtered all our horses, I knew I would have to come up with a plan or this would be my first and last command, if we even survived it.

At night I could just see the tribesmen around their bonfires from the roof of the castle keep well out of reach of our weapons, and they could be seen having a feast on the game of our forest in combination with the stolen bounty of our fields. From the look of things the tribal warriors intended to have one extended party with our food until we either all starved to death watching them, or we came out to fight and were slaughtered allowing them to have all of our women at once. I had to begrudgingly admire their cunning and timing though, attacking when there was plenty of food in the fields, and denying us the same food meant they could travel light and starve us out at the same time.

Again, driving the peasants onto the castle grounds as a further burden meant we were obligated to their care, and used up our precious resources even faster. All in all a pretty good plan for men my predecessor thought were barbarians! A curious occurrence with the abducted women was noticed by many of us, once they were captured they seemed content and made no attempt to escape, even though we had seen no method of force preventing it. There seemed no permanent injuries to any of them either, and it gave me a thought...

...The best plan I could come up with was also the least courageous and would require little of us men, but a heavy sacrifice from the women of the village. I had decided to distract the invaders with a peace offering gift of all of our ale, one of the two things we had in great supply, and deliver every barrel of it to them by wagon in the evening for their extended party. I hoped they would drink to excess and be an easy target for us in an early morning raid, but I needed more than hope as this was a trick that could only work once. I told the assembled occupants of the castle the second part of my plan and none of them at first liked it, but none could devise a better one either as they agreed to hear me out, with their empty stomachs reminding them of our limited options.

As we knew of our opponents desires for our fair women, and the way they liked to take them, I proposed we select from among us the cream of the crop, so to speak, and use them to deliver the ale to further distract and exhaust the invaders as only a lovely woman can. I also explained that there was the practical matter of how we actually delivered the wagon full of ale to the warriors as we had consumed all of our horses previously. Simply stated, we needed the women to pull the wagon for us. We all knew the other women who were taken looked none the worse for wear, and in fact seemed in no hurry to escape the warriors from the distances we observed them.

I proposed we attack them before sunrise in their post fornicatitive lethargy, and route them soundly and reclaim our women's virtue in the process. The discussion was lively, and at least some of the men didn't mind the idea thinking if they donated their women to this folly and it didn't work, they could have an opportunity to "trade up" without guilt later. I didn't point out to the assembled group that if the whole plan failed we would still have a better chance of surviving the coming winter with twenty less mouths to feed. By a show of hands the assembled group reluctantly approved of what I wanted to do, and also agreed to donate as necessary to make it happen.

What followed next had to be seen to be believed!

I detailed my men to select from all the women the fairest and most lovely twenty ladies to pull the wagon full of ale to our opponents. I came up with that number thinking twenty women could do the work that four stout horses could do in pulling the heavy wagon the short distance required, by my estimate less than one mile. When my men came around to the various groups camping in the yard, each presented at least one young lady for inspection, and their was genuine competition among the ladies to be chosen as most desirable.

In order to prevent an all out riot my men were forced to choose over thirty five women with many of them demanding to know why she was not deemed as desirable as another, to the point that the women in question shucked their simple clothing for the men to be able to more easily decide between them. The insanity didn't end with the peasants either. When it was learned that none of our wives were chosen, only because the men thought to choose from the peasants first and easily filled their quota there, they DEMANDED to know why a particular peasant woman was deemed more desirable than they were. I counted my blessings that I had the wisdom to relegate the selections to my men while I handled matters with our leather master and his apprentices. When I heard of their problems I asked the leather master to double my order, and I had to promise him twenty men to help him meet his deadline with the modified harnesses.

With our wives just as competitive with each other as with the peasant girls, my unfortunate men were forced to choose several of them as they each posed for the men completely nude to ease their decisions, or so they had claimed. My poor men were in a terrible situation, choose their own wives and share them with our enemies, or deem them less than some of the simple peasant girls and never share their bed again from the sting of the insult. In the end we ended up with forty three girls to pull the wagon, including my young bride at her insistence, but only harnesses for forty two of them. I wondered how on earth we could choose who to leave behind.

By sending twice as many girls to our enemies it made the simple mathematics of my desperate plan work out better, and made success much more likely. With the over one hundred fifty men we observed in the enemy camp, each of our women would "only" have to entertain three or four men each, making it more likely that the men would be thoroughly exhausted by first light and our attack. And if my plan failed miserably, we could probably survive the winter with forty three less mouths to feed, and either way I would look like a military genius. One of my men made a joke about a contest for who got left behind, and it gave me another idea.

I decided on a secret ballot to vote for the queen of the wagon, and so we would leave no girl behind who wanted to go, the queen would get to drive the wagon just like she would have to drive a team of horses. The secret ballot was only voted on by the men present, and a queen was selected without any pressure from the women. To the exasperation of our women it ended up being one of the peasant girls, and if I were compelled to tell the truth, the group chose wisely!

The leather master had converted every one of our former horse's tack into something that could be buckled to one of our women, as per my request, and just the sight of those harnesses hanging in his barn caused a stirring in my loins. Many of the village's men had helped to modify the harnesses in time, and would have to help harness up the women as well if we were going to meet our deadline.

It took hours, but we finally had the women naked and harnessed to the heavy wagon with our six barrels of ale safely in back, and the queen of the wagon in the drivers seat with the overlong reins in her hands reaching all the way to the lead women's bits. They were four wide in front of the wagon and their harnesses were attached to the draw bars with their wrists secured to the belt areas of the heavy leather harnesses. The leather criss crossed their bare breasts, as well as framing their womanly charms, and each of us I am sure had a stirring in our loins that wouldn't be satisfied anytime soon. The only human clothing our temporary pony girls wore were simple leather work shoes to protect their bare feet from injury.

The draw bridge was opened, and the queen of the wagon shook her reins firmly as the women pulled their heavy burden out toward our foes. I and my men had the best view from the roof of the castle keep, but all we could see was the wagon entering the tree line, and nothing more until it again appeared at their bonfire with a loud cheer from our enemies. We couldn't tell who was who, but we could see groups of men select individual women and free them from the draw bars, but not their harnesses as they were sat down around the large fire and the men fed the restrained women and shared their ale. It was apparently to be a feast first, and fornication later as the men fed and inebriated our hungry women.

When it was dark we could hardly see the happenings with the fading firelight, but we all could hear the sounds of passionate screaming and other noises normally associated with impassioned lovers. The women were more vocal than any I ever heard, and were obviously not suffering at the hands of our enemies. We all needed sleep as we had worked hard to bring this little trick off as quick as we did, but it wouldn't come to me as I clearly heard the sounds of our women providing aid and comfort to our enemies for hours without pause. The only way I could sleep was to stimulate myself as my young wife sometimes did when she was unable to provide for my needs in the traditional way. I assumed the other men had similar feelings, and the morning couldn't come soon enough for me...

...I woke to the sounds of the birds chirping, and when I turned over in my empty bed the sun shone in my eye at a height above the horizon to tell me it was late morning and we all overslept. I walked up to the roof of the keep in no hurry, instinctively knowing our plan had failed. I looked to the bonfire area and saw it smouldering and deserted, but more importantly our women and the heavy cart were gone with our foes to who knows where. I scanned the horizon and saw nothing, and I knew our pony girls must have been driven hard to get that far away in so little time. I reflected on how soundly we all slept, and how quiet the castle was for the first time since I had arrived several weeks ago. There was no bickering or petty arguments to mediate, and we had enough women, and food left in the fields with the tribes sudden departure if we all shared. I liked the silence, and found some of the remaining peasant women quite lovely even though they had not been chosen earlier, and I clearly learned last night that I didn't mind sharing quite as much as I thought I would.

08.12.12