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This comment caused the now withering beauty to take note. Turning her head square, her eyes shot open as another indignity was thrust on her. A belt of smooth metal was affixed around her waist and locked with a clasp. Henceforth, a chastity girdle was then attached to the waist belt; the entire device cinched tight and secured with a tiny padlock. This thicker metal split her cleft apart in a way designed to ensure that no man—nor Charlotte’s own hand—could have access to the delicate flesh of her proven virginity. While the chastity belt allowed for her natural bodily functions, that was all the freedom she would have in her nether regions. Save being transported by eunuchs, she was safe from rape, lust and her own probing while on her journey to her new home. The disconsolate young woman gazed on her audience, her expression replete with fear and the painful degradation this clumsy apparatus afforded her.
“You’ll come to hunger for the feel of this garment, slave,” Harrow declared in a voice rife with mockery. “I’m told this fits like the clouds of heaven compared to the crude devices that will follow.”
Unable to contain her rage, Charlotte spit in the old man’s wrinkled face as he lowered his visage to glower more.
He retorted, slapping her cheek brusquely. “Bring her father back here now!” The old man stomped away, grumbling under his breath.
On her feet again, Charlotte’s dress covered her embarrassing attire—though the physical effect of this bondage made it seem as though she were nakedly exposing the vile chastity belt. The result was alarming when she moved even the slightest bit. How would she walk? Or sleep? Or sit inside this miserable thing?
“Oh, my father, what have you done to me!” she exclaimed, as Sir Malcolm moved back inside the room while his keen eyes cast a reproving glance her way.
“Your examination has been successful?” he inquired of the entourage.
“Indeed,” Doctor Tibor acknowledged.
“But too much spunk!” Harrow immediately chimed in. “She should be punished now for her insolence.”
“Father, please!” Charlotte moved awkwardly toward her father, though he kept her at arm’s length.
“Accept your fate, fair one. I have given you all I can for these eighteen years—you’ve enjoyed the fruits of my labor, lived in this luxury, sucked life from this bounteous land. But now, it is time… your service to me begins from this day.” His arm swept wide acknowledging the waiting assemblage. “These men are not here to squash your spirit, or tread on your freedom. Their Lord Mountbane is not a monster to fear, but a husband to love and cherish as I once did your sweet mother. Your life will change, my darling daughter, but think it not some horror, instead an adventure.” His eyebrows raised and his complexion flushed as his lofty words inspired him, while his fellows appraised his speech with amusement in their hearts. Certainly Castile was not so daft as to believe this babble… perhaps it was just the wishful thinking of a foolish father, or the machinations of a cunning one who’d try to sway the listeners. They would hear this twaddle and joke on it by nightfall when they made camp. “Charlotte, Charlotte,” Sir Malcolm’s emotions rose in the face of his daughter’s grimacing countenance, “you will accept. And trust me, as you do accept this change, your life will find some peace, I swear.”
“And do you swear as well that you’ll come claim me if I should hate this place, Ilusia?”
He shook his head condescendingly, taking her into his arms for a last fatherly gesture of affection. Once kissing her fair cheeks, he pushed her off. “Gentlemen, please be gone. Though I rejoice in the outcome, this is a sad day for me.” He held his fist to his heart, a single tear about to fall from his one damp eye—the other eye was sharply focused on old Harrow.
“Yes. Best not belabor this day,” the fellow glowered miserably. With a rude jerk, his bony hand grabbed for Charlotte.
She instantly shook him off, saying, “If this is my fate, I will attend it on my own accord. You certainly don’t need to abduct me.”
“Mind yourself, daughter of Castile,” Harrow started in, but one of his fellow nobles moved forward to interrupt.
“We have a long journey ahead. I’m sure we’ll all be glad to quit this place as soon as we can garner a decent meal.”
d
The first afternoon of Charlotte’s new life might have been spent pleasantly. The day proved sumptuously temperate—with blue sky, the hint of a southerly breeze, and traces of honeysuckle blossoms in the air. It might have been a welcome journey considering the young maid’s fearless sense of adventure, but every second of the trek was destined to be met with discomfort. The mean cart that bore her from her father’s home jostled against the ruts and valleys of the rude and rarely used road. With each jarring bump the metal girdle fused to Charlotte’s body cut into her flesh. There was not one comfortable position on the hard wood bench. Her rough predicament was made worse seeing the expressions on the faces of her captors. They seemed to hold her in contempt mixed with a leering lust. Perhaps Mountbane was wise to insist on this chastity belt considering their obvious fascination with her.
Listening to the quiet conversation among them, she learned that there was a single key to the device that protected her groin, that key in Mountbane’s keep, many miles from them now. Though that key seemed a symbol of her freedom, she feared what that freedom might mean—or if there would be any freedom at all. Harrow’s comments about the “other” devices would haunt her every moment of the trip.
When she wasn’t thinking of her future in Ilusia—as if she could actually piece together a decent picture of that reality—she thought of escape. All wishfully, of course. They hardly needed to bind her more; running seemed nearly impossible in this miserable belt, though she hadn’t been given the opportunity to try. Walking was difficult enough. She couldn’t imagine what it might be like to traverse this uncivil landscape. But escape was never far from her thoughts. Perhaps in the dead of night, when they were sleeping—perhaps then, she mused.
The company stopped for the night at a small forest encampment in the heart of Ilusia’s wilds. Some time during the day they’d crossed the border, though Charlotte’s companions gave her no clue when this occurred. The air seemed pleasant, the sky as blue, the sun as bold, and her heart as empty from the beginning of the journey until the incessant bump, jolt and grind of the wagon ceased for the day.
Taken into the woods, she was given the opportunity to relieve herself. A messy task it was, and an embarrassing one as well, with one of Mountbane’s beastly henchmen attending her. By that time, however, she was so in need of release that she forgot herself as a gentlewoman and completed the job quickly.
Back inside the camp, she was given food and drink, and shown where she would sleep for the night.
“Would it be all right if I took a short walk,” she asked Harrow, politely.
“And why?”
“To stretch my legs.”
“I’d think you’d find the prospect difficult?” he eyed her with the same obscene amusement he’d shown her all day.
“I need to move about.”
“I’ll take her,” one of Mountbane’s noblemen announced. Coming to her side, the man gently took her arm.
