Chapter Three

Author's notes: Any direct quotes from William Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" are in double quotation marks.

Severus marshalled his thoughts before he answered Merlin; it would not do to let the old man lead him along the path to any more admissions than he wanted to make at that time, or to state as facts what were really just speculations on his part. He pushed away thoughts of the over optimism and the way he had allowed himself to be distracted at Camelot; this time would be different. This time Severus had a plan on which he would focus; this time he would not let lush ripe women's bodies lead him astray, he thought, as he found his eyes had rested on Minerva's generous arse as she bent over the fire.

He had studied the signs, and Minerva had cast her rune stones, and even now Bella was brewing her hell broth. Luna had watched the moon's aureole for the last eight cycles; tomorrow would be the ninth full moon, the Hunter's moon. Severus sighed to himself, thinking of her other lover, her familiar, the bridge between beloved Luna and her namesake, the moon. He hoped he could get away from Merlin tomorrow to secure the wolfman; it would serve nothing for him to roam this blasted heath in search of prey, not the ultimate hunter under the Hunter's moon. One never knew what unwary traveller would cross the haunted heather once darkness fell. That aside, Merlin thought the wolfman perished, along with the man born not of woman, and the Black Grim. He sighed to himself again, this time in pleasure, suitably distracted once more from the things he should have been worrying about, instead thinking how many wounded troubled souls had come to him for succour after the collapse of their world, and of how they had sought him out. His little world of the lost and helpless, how he had nursed them all back to their rightful glory, and how they all looked to him as their saviour, and how his brides had nightly rewarded him with their women's charms.

Severus dragged his mind back from where it had threatened to wander to the delights of the flesh, where it was most at home. 'Many things have to happen first, Merlin,' he said, lacing his voice with as much mystery as he thought he could get away with. 'The signs will not be hurried; they march to their own drumbeat, not ours.'

'Humph,' Merlin grunted, as though Snape were stealing lines rightfully his.

'What my Mage Lord says is true, Lord Merlin,' Minerva remarked somewhat sternly, casting her rune stones yet again to where they clacked together on the dusty floor of the cavern, before coming to rest. She pointed a slim finger to where they lay. 'See there?' She indicated the stone nearest the fire. 'The king... see how the tree lies atop him and also atop the hill.' She looked up at the old wizard. 'Macbeth may take the crown, Lord Merlin, but the movement of trees will herald his fate.' She snatched the stones up and let them click into the pocket of her gown, giving Severus a long troubled look.

Merlin nodded, and Severus wondered what else Minerva had seen, if it had been something that satisfied the old man, if there were some message that Snape had missed, but that both Merlin and Minerva had understood. He had always believed the reading of the runes to be a somewhat woolly art, but thought it odd how Minerva had cast that same message nine times now: a king, a tree, a hill, and yet had never seemed troubled before. She would cast it no more; nine was perfection.

He watched his fiery Minerva as she turned to him: wise woman, witch, wanton. Perhaps he should lie with her tonight instead. Whoever he lay with, Severus hoped it would be soon; already his balls were beginning to ache at the thought, and his cock would need little ministration to give forth its first load of creamy glory. He found, much to his consternation, that he had turned from Minerva and was holding the Fey's eyes, as his mind still meandered down the tunnels of love of his own beautiful witches. He had an uneasy feeling that she too was thinking of love, of spreading her thighs for a younger man than the ancient she had come north with, for a man who would have no need of the levitating charm she probably had to cast on Merlin's mouldering old prick, and he remembered the hot pulsing warmth of her cunt, and the way it would suck at his cock with more expertise than the mouths of the finest courtesans of Paris.

'What knowest thee of this Macbeth, Severus?' Merlin asked, breaking into Snape's rather pleasant reverie. 'The king's favourite, is he not?'

The Fey looked away, and Snape shrugged, noticing Minerva and Luna and Bellatrix whispering together as though they too had noticed Morgaine's scantily veiled attentions. 'A fighting man, brave and decked in glory,' he replied, wondering how he would head off trouble if he allowed himself to succumb to the Fey's obvious invitations. 'Duncan's favourite indeed.'

'And yet a sodomite, Severus, if what the moon child sayeth is truth,' Merlin murmured his doubt. 'Unusual a general useth his arse as a quim for the men he commandeth.'

'Luna cannot be false,' Severus lied glibly himself, not really caring if Macbeth got buggered senseless by anyone, as long as it wasn't him. In truth, having trusted most of that to Narcissa the Black, Snape knew little about Macbeth, save for the fact that he had fought in foreign parts for years, and had a legitimate claim to Scotland's throne, albeit twice or thrice removed. He had arrived back in his family home of Inverness Castle three years before, around the same time Severus had arrived on this godforsaken heath he called home. After a little careful manoeuvring by Severus and Minerva, Macbeth had courted Narcissa the Black. Despite her assertions that she had used no such thing, Severus knew Narcissa had cast ensnaring charms to aid her task, just to make sure neither Macbeth's eyes, nor his hands, nor indeed his cock wandered to the wenches and slatterns in the castle, as seemed to have been their custom. After his marriage to Narcissa, Macbeth had left with Banquo once more to fight in the low countries of Europe for King Duncan. He had been back again in Inverness for a twelvemonth.

Severus didn't feel much like telling Merlin any of that though, and he was sure that Narcissa the Black was carefully monitoring the situation in Inverness. He sighed to himself; perhaps he should fly to Inverness once Merlin was asleep, and take Narcissa tonight, after all it would be shameful if her cunt really were to wither for want of service.

Severus wished he could shake the doubts from his mind though; there was so much, too much, not directly under his control. He would have ideally liked to be in Macbeth's confidence, instead of leaving so much under Narcissa's jurisdiction. In fact, he had been worming his way into Inverness Castle until recently, until Macbeth's last trip to the low lying lands, but now every time Severus went to the castle, Macbeth seemed to be absent, and Snape was becoming a little uneasy about that... that coupled with Narcissa's growing discontent. Narcissa could be rather shrill if things weren't quite going her way.

Severus threw more herbs on the fire, drawing close so he could wreath himself in their fumes, and he had just got himself comfortably settled when Bella sat at his side. At first he thought she had leant in to whisper words of love, and shifted his position slightly to allow for fact that his cock had seemed to think so too, but Bella seemed distracted, casting glances across the fire to where Merlin drowsed, and the Fey sat quietly and thoughtfully at his side, a parody of the faithful chatelaine of his house that she pretended to be.

'Mage Lord,' Bella whispered. 'My kinsman comes tonight, remember, with an urgent message. Perhaps you and I should walk awhile upon the heath.' Her eyes promised him a pleasant tumble in the heather on the way back to ward off the chill.

Damn, Severus swore to himself; he had forgotten about that. It was warm in the cave now, and outside he could see the mist had fallen, and the night was already darker than the hour. He was loath to move, but it would not do for Merlin to know too much of the people he had about him. He dragged himself to his feet, watching the Fey as she looked across the fire in interest, only doused when Bella stood and took his arm.

'Whither goest thou, Severus?' Merlin asked.

'I have inhaled too deeply, Merlin,' he replied, nodding to where the purplish fumes still rose from the fire. 'I need air to clear my wits.' He cocked his head to the entrance of the cave, and Bella pulled up her shawl, all but hiding her raven hair.

*****

Bella walked on as Severus stopped for a piss, watching absently as the steam rose from the heather to join the swirling mist. He frowned into the fog as he tucked his reluctant cock away and retied the laces on his breeches; he had lost sight of Bella. He moved on, almost losing his footing and nearly letting out a yelp of fright as an arm snaked around his waist, until he felt a hot tongue poke its way through his black hair, and into his ear.

'We have the time, Mage Lord,' Bella whispered throatily, her arm drawing him closer still, and her free hand dropping to where his cock had awakened again, ever hopeful of the release it had been longing for.

Severus shoved her to the ground, charming the springy heather below them dry and warm; he pulled the laces at her bodice and grappled with her kirtle, shoving it up to her waist to bury his face in her welcoming warmth. He raised his head at last from lapping her love, as she moaned and writhed beneath him, and he saw the mist had cleared a tiny bit, just enough to let the moon shine on Bella's bared white orbs, dusting them with ghostly whiteness. He dropped his face to her bosom, attaching his mouth first to one nipple, and then its neighbour, like a starving infant finding itself at the heavy breasts of a milk-engorged wet-nurse, as Bellatrix unfettered his cock at last, and it sprang free of his breeches, angry at its daylong imprisonment, yet longing for confinement of its own choosing.

It truly would not take long, Severus thought contentedly, as he sucked at her breasts, letting Bella guide his dripping prick to where her juices ran, grunting in base pleasure as he felt her greedy folds swallow him up. It was only a pity that it was just him and Bella; if one of his other women had come too, he would have had something to do with his hands.

He gasped as he felt Bella pull away, and a draught breathed about his cock, until she closed her mouth over him, slurping and licking, and at last engulfing him, as her hands deftly fondled his heavy balls. He found his own hands occupied after all, as his fingers raced up her milky white thighs to soak in her juice, and felt her squeeze her cunt around them. As he sensed the warmth of imminent climax wash over him, he drew his cock from her mouth and shoved her legs apart, drawing them up onto his shoulders to spread her like the wanton he loved, so the moonlight caught the glistening folds below the black curly thatch on her mound. He plunged into her, as unwilling as he was unable to wait any longer. He put a hand across her mouth, to silence her squeals of pleasure, as her walls pulsed around him; and as his balls drew up to spurt their heavy load into her quivering love, he pretended not to fantasise about the Fey.

*****