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“Now did I order that?” he chided. “Bad move, slave.” His voice was filled with disappointment. Charlotte lay still hog-tied, feet and hands still awkwardly bound together behind her. Though there was some ease in her position, her body still ached unreasonably. “Bind her over the board and punish her,” he ordered the
young disciples. “And use her if you like.” As Tristan’s pupils followed his command, he rose from his chair and moved into a tiny alcove behind a screen where he would sleep the night.
After being bound in punishment over a thick wood board, Charlotte was whipped by both men. Afterwards, her ass was taken by one eager prick, and her cunt by the other. Finished with her, she was released from the ropes; they threw a scratchy woolen blanket over her body and she was sent to the corner. This was how she’d spend her night. It would be a restless one until finally, too exhausted to let her body-ache keep her awake, she escaped into a fitful sleep.
Chapter Ten
At dawn, Charlotte was taken from the hovel wearing just her collar, a mask, and a thin robe that fell softly about her feet. The mask was customary for these rites. The villages nearby had been informed that a lady from Mountbane’s castle (her identity would remain a mystery) had been sentenced to “the stations” for a day and night. Delighted by the prospect of seeing such a lady’s torture, there were plenty of eager men waiting long before sunrise to execute her misery. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, and a warm sun would take away the chill. To be “whipped at dawn” by the general masses was the first station of this primitive custom. In a clearing not far from the forest hovel there was a dais of stone rising several feet above the ground. At its side stood a weighty oak with massive branches reaching out in a canopy over the huge granite altar. From one great limb there were ropes dangling down ready to capture a submissive woman’s wrists.
Standing flat-footed under the hanging rope, Charlotte was bound with her arms stretched wide, made ready for the lecherous rabble to dispatch with her first punishment. Six men of well-muscled stock came forward, chosen by the larger lot for their strength and steadiness. Each, in turn, before the leering eyes of a scornful audience, whipped her soundly. Some laid on leather. One used a thick wooden paddle directly on her ass. And the rest used sticks and birches they’d gleaned from the forest. Freshly cut, the sap still ran and tiny buds barbed the surface, enhancing the potential damage.
Would she survive this? Better to have been sent to Caius’ dungeon, she thought. She began to cry. These men were not schooled in the finer arts of flogging women. They could take out their angers, relieve the stress of their sorry lives; and she could do nothing but take the worst of it.
It took some time, but eventually—especially during an exchange of executors—Charlotte found some warmth to relish. The day was cool, her skin was hot; and those contrasts danced inside that unseen place within her form where her carnal sprites happily welcomed such extremes. If she could help it, she would not show her arousal, but enjoy the torment in private.
To the air she protested ungraciously and to the earth she rebelled trying to dance away from the strikes. To the audience she was an offering from the their quixotic ruler; to the tormentors she was their release; and to Sir Tristan, she was a slave being returned to the surrendering side of her nature. Only he, not even his confederates, could see how the struggle passed from her body and a pleasure, known only by slaves in such circumstances, was delivering her into the highlands of certain ecstasy. Even the increased intensity of the punishment did little to make her falter. Though in the end, with her back, breasts and belly swathed with red lines, she’d reached her endurance and collapsed in exhaustion.
In the second station of the ritual, Charlotte was bound in a prostrate position to the flat rock and left to be viewed by a curious crowd of onlookers, who found it delightful recompense seeing a noblewoman so humbled. From the latter edge of dawn until dusk, she remained—spat on, humiliated, chided, jeered and even kicked. (Though her guards were there to shoo away those who would abuse her so, a few would get through.)
Exhaustion increased as the long hours moved slowly on. She had one last ritual to bear before she could rest—perhaps the worst, perhaps the best of the three, the third station in the ceremony.
It had been some time since Charlotte had been the center of a general ravishment, but she knew what it meant. To know that this would be the end of her ordeal almost gave her some satisfaction. At least her loins would realize some sexual gratification.
Freed from her bonds, she was given to the crowd to use. As long as they kept her in the glade, she was theirs to screw as they pleased. Charlotte yielded as the best of noble slaves would yield.
This last rite might have been heaven for a sex-hungry slave had this not been a surly, smelly crowd, with foul breath and dirty hands. To relent took more determination than she imagined. But soon she managed even this repulsive lot. Though they would never know her identity, she was the wife of Mountbane, and that was reason to take pride in how she performed for her lord—even if she was estranged from the vile blackguard.
The night gone, Charlotte was returned to the hovel by Tristan’s initiates and laid on the bed inside the tiny alcove. Her body hurt with a hundred fires and her cunt and ass seemed rent apart. Despite the pain and her great ache, it took but one swig from Sir Tristan’s goblet of liquor to put her fast asleep.
“You can be relieved of your duties tonight,” Tristan informed the two young men as they watched the lady’s peaceful slumber. “I’ll see to her, and you can return the day after tomorrow—late. I doubt she’ll be conscious until then and she’ll be little trouble in this state. There is little to learn from a sleeping slave but what serenity looks like.”
d
Charlotte’s sleep-filled eyes stirred late the next morning—far sooner than anyone would expect. Not until her heavy lids finally opened and she stared into the humble room around her did she remember where she was, or how she’d spent her last day. Spying Sir Tristan eating a plate of food, her stomach instantly turned sour, aching with hunger. The rest of her body was stiff and sore.
“Sir?” she whispered quietly.
“Ah, awake so soon.”
“Soon?” she wondered, looking toward the window. “There’s a midday sun shining through that window.”
“Indeed, it is midday, though your night was a long one and you didn’t sleep until well after midnight.”
“Still. I am awake and very hungry.”
“I’m sure you are. I believe you fasted yesterday.”
“Will you continue to mock me all day long?” she asked, trying to be polite.
“Perhaps. But then I can hardly starve Mountbane’s wife, can I?”
“I doubt he’d care.”
“But then, your death would be on my shoulders, and that I couldn’t bear.”
Sir Tristan scraped some stew from his pot and handed her the plate of food.
“It may not be the best. But forgoing slaves to wait on us, we’ll have to let this satisfy your hunger.”
