LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Ohh!” Averil exclaimed, and she blushed. “I never realized . . .” Her voice trailed off as she blushed once more.

      “You will not discuss what I tell you or teach you with either of your sisters. Junia is too young for such knowledge, and as for Maia, it is up to her mother to enlighten her. Now, with regard to a husband’s manhood, you must be absolutely certain it is clean before you touch it. Most men do not bathe regularly, but you must make certain that your husband does. Wash him yourself, which he will enjoy, or bathe with him, which is even more pleasurable,” Gorawen said. “In the finest castles and keeps the hostess is responsible for bathing her guests of honor. That is how the daughters of the house learn. Here at Dragon’s Lair, however, we have no guests. There is no reason for anyone to come here.” She paused a moment to think, and then Gorawen continued. “Both you and Maia must learn the art of bathing a man. I will speak to Argel about it. I believe you should practice on your brother, Brynn.”

      “Wash Brynn?” Averil was scandalized. “That little heathen never bathes, Mother, and except in the summer when he swims in the stream I think water never touches his skin.”

      “Well,” Gorawen said, rising from the garden, “you and Maia have to learn how to properly wash a male. Brynn and your father are the only men of rank at Dragon’s Lair, and I do not think it proper that you wash Merin.” Then, forgetting Averil entirely, she hurried off to find Argel and present her with this problem.

      Argel was in the hall of the keep, working at her loom. She was weaving a tapestry depicting King Arthur’s marriage to his wife, Guinevere. The other of Merin Pendragon’s concubines, Ysbail, was with her, sorting out threads by color for her embroidery frame. They looked up as Gorawen entered the hall.

      “The girls must learn to bathe a man,” Gorawen began. “Here, our Lord Merin is beginning to consider husbands for Averil and Maia, and they are lacking in the basic knowledge needed and known by the most common goodwife!”

      “Marriages for Averil and Maia?” Ysbail screeched. “What of my daughter?”

      “Junia is too young yet,” Argel said, ending any argument. “First our lord will seek a match for Averil, for she is the eldest. It must be a very good match if Maia is to have an even better one. And these two marriages will determine what kind of matches can be made for Junia and Brynn.”

      “Of course,” Ysbail said slowly. Then she added, “Our good lord had best work quickly, for Averil is really getting too old to match. I want to see Junia wed at thirteen.”

      “Averil’s beauty will make up for her age,” Gorawen said through gritted teeth.

      “Averil is the perfect age to wed,” Argel noted quietly. “But Gorawen is correct. The girls are well versed in housekeeping, but know little of common hospitality or courtesy towards a guest. This lack must be remedied quickly.”

      “We’ll have to use Brynn,” Gorawen said.

      Argel and Ysbail burst out laughing.

      “I know, I know,” Gorawen said with a grin, “but we have no one else, do we?”

      “Nay, we do not,” Argel said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “We will begin this evening. I shall have the large oak tub set up in the hall, and they can begin to learn. Junia may also take part in these lessons. She is not too young for that.”

      “Poor Brynn,” Ysbail said.

      “He will survive,” Argel said dryly. “And who knows what we will find beneath those several layers of dirt. They’ll have to pick the nits from his head.”

      “There is much to learn,” Gorawen said, “as our daughters will soon find out.”

      In early evening the tub was brought into the hall and set before a fireplace to be filled with hot water. Cloths for scrubbing, brushes, cloths for drying, and soap were placed on a small table that had been set at the tub’s edge. Averil, Maia and Junia, long aprons over their chemises, were waiting for their brother to be brought into the hall. They looked at each other, and began to giggle as he was dragged in forcibly, howling with his outrage. At eight years of age, Brynn Pendragon was the image of his father. He was tall for a boy of nine, with long gangly limbs, and thick black hair.

      Seeing the tub he struggled all the harder. “I’m not taking a bath!” he raged. “Bathing is for weaklings and Norman coxcombs!”

      “Shut your gob!” his father roared at him, and he cuffed the boy sharply, stilling his outrage and struggles. “A proper chatelaine of the house always bathes her guests. Your sisters have had no experience in this art as we rarely receive visitors. You and I are the only men of rank here, and I don’t intend on allowing my daughters to wash me. I am not yet that feeble. So ’tis you, my son, who will submit with good grace, or I’ll beat the hide off of you. I am about to seek a husband for Averil and then Maia. Would you have them disgrace the name of Pendragon by being ill-mannered in matters of hospitality?”

      Brynn said nothing, but he was still now. He had received one or two beatings from his father in recent years. It wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.

      “Do you never change your clothing?” Averil said as she came up to him, and began to peel his garments from the boy’s frame. “Ewww! And you stink, little brother! For shame! You are a noble’s son, and should have more care of your person.” She handed the boy’s clothing to Maia and Junia, instructing them to toss them in the fire.

      “That’s my favorite sherte!” the boy protested.

      “You could poison soup with it, you heathen,” Averil scolded him.

      Their father and his women chuckled, but made no move to stop her.

      When the lad was brought naked Argel said, “He should stand in the tub, lasses, while he is thoroughly washed. Then he is to sit in the water while the nits are picked from his head prior to washing his hair.”

      The three girls set about to bathe their brother, scrubbing him vigorously until his skin was pink again.

      “Do we wash all of him?” Maia inquired nervously.

      “All!” the three mothers chorused.

      Maia looked at her little brother’s masculine apendage, then her eyes met Averil’s.

      “You do it,” she said. “He is my brother.”

      “He is my brother, too,” Averil noted, “but I’ll do it today. You will have to do it tomorrow.”

      “Tomorrow?” Brynn yelped! “You’re going to do this tomorrow, too?”

      His mother laughed. “Every other day until the girls can bathe you properly. I’m sorry, Brynn, but they must learn. If we had guests they would have already learned, but we are so isolated here in the Welshry, and only those with business at Dragon’s Lair come to Dragon’s Lair.”

      Averil took up the washing cloth, soaped it heavily and washed her brother’s male member, pushing the foreskin on it up to wash beneath the skin. Her hands moved quickly and efficiently beneath him to soap his seed pouch. She splashed water on him, rinsing the foam away. “That wasn’t so bad,” she noted to Maia.

      “A grown man’s equipment will be bigger, lasses,” their father warned them.

      “Sit down,” Maia instructed her brother, and when the boy had, the three girls began picking the nits from his head and hair.

      He squealed as their fingers dug sharply into his scalp and pulled along the locks of his black hair. “Ouch! Have a care, sisters! Ouch!”

      “Your hair is filthy, Brynn,” Averil told him. “You are old enough to know you need to wash it, and yourself, regularly.”

      “Too much bathing is not good, the priest says,” he told them. “He says it is a vanity to wash too much.”

      “Listen to the priest in matters concerning your soul,

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