Alice whimpered in pain. Sir Rubin jerked the leash again. ‘If you want to save yourself further suffering you had better pay more attention!’ he warned her.
She stumbled after him, keeping close to his side, alert for any change in his pace or direction. Together they marched up and down the glade, her ankle chains cross-linked into a hobble shortening her stride. A master taking his girling for a walk. But how cruelly she was leashed!
The Red Knight had found and cut a long bramble cane and curled and twisted it in his thickly gloved hands into a large loop. Then he had backed Alice against a tree and forced the loop over and around her breasts, ignoring her yelps as the thorns pricked her soft heavy globes. Only when they bulged out of their new restraints was he satisfied, gazing with approval into her agonised features as she tried not to move or even breathe too hard for fear of adding to her misery.
‘Perhaps this will teach you not to insult your betters, girling pawn!’ he told her with evident relish.
Taking a length of rope from his saddle pack he slipped it through her enforced cleavage and tied it about the two sides of the bramble loop, pulling them together a little more and so driving the thorns deeper into her. Alice bit her lip, eyes bright with tears. The free end of the rope he passed through her collar ring, forming a leash which when pulled transmitted the pressure to her cruelly imprisoned breasts.
‘Now you’ll learn to walk to heel like a proper girling should,’ he said.
And so they began marching up and down, Alice fearfully following close behind the Knight, alert for any tightening of the leash that might signal a change of direction. Sir Rubin’s improvised discipline harness was horribly effective, and she did not want to inflict any more torture on her breasts, which already felt as though they had been turned into pincushions. She knew it had been stupid to insult him that way, but she was still furious at him for what he had done to Leonus. An image of the lionman filled her thoughts once more. No, he was strong, he was a fighter! Even if he had been knocked out he would survive. But would she ever see him again? The intensity of her longing shocked her. Was this what true slavish love felt like?
‘If Her Majesty allows, I’ll train you like I would a dog,’ he told her with relish. ‘Eventually this streak of insolence will be driven out and you will learn your proper place, like a good little bitch. I’ll have you eating out of my hand and thanking me for it.’
Alice gritted her teeth. She must let go of her pride and allow her submissive side to take over fully. It was not being disloyal to Leonus. Embrace the pain and humiliation, she told herself. You don’t have to like this pompous creep to get off on what he’s doing to you …
‘Yes, Master,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’m sorry for what I said, Master.’
‘That’s better.’
He halted by a large tree. ‘Now relieve yourself like the lowborn thing that you are,’ he commanded.
Alice rested a foot on the curve of the lower trunk and crouched slightly so her legs were well splayed and she could pee neatly. As the urine hissed out of her she felt Rubin’s eyes upon the open pout of pubes and the stream issuing from it. How men loved to watch that act she thought once again, with a little thrill. Underneath his armour and title she suspected he was no better than the Tweedle twins. Perhaps she could trick him as she had them. How long had she got before the Red Queen arrived?
When she was finished he tied the end of her leash to an overhanging branch, pulling it taut so she had to stand almost on tiptoe to spare her breasts additional pain. He then wrapped the trailing chains round her ankles again, binding her legs together and making it harder to keep her balance. But worse was that the branch was swaying gently in the breeze, rhythmically drawing the noose about her breasts tighter, digging in the thorns then easing once again. She felt a small hot trickle of blood run out from the twist of bramble and down her chest. Rubin walked round her, admiring the taut lines of her body, the trembling firmness of her buttocks and the way she had to bow her back and lift her chest to ease the strain on the leash.
He flicked and pinched her erect nipples, then chuckled. ‘So, your kind really do like being treated harshly. I should have known. Well, I can guarantee plenty more of that, girl. Just wait until we’re done with this quest and –’
He broke off, twisting his head round as though he had heard something. For a moment Alice wondered what it was, then came a distant jingle of harness and the sound of approaching voices.
Alice was tethered close to the winding track that ran though the middle of the wood. Keeping low, Sir Rubin ran to its edge and peered along the trail. Whatever he saw caused him to retreat quickly back to Alice, his face grave.
‘It’s the White Queen!’ he hissed. ‘Curse her for being ahead of time. I must slow them down. Though it may mean my life, I may at least weaken them! The Queen will find you when she comes. She still has a chance.’
And he ran to his horse, the larger of the two he had brought with him, mounted up, drew a mace from its sheath, dropped the visor of his helmet and thundered past Alice and out onto the trackway. Ignoring the pain, Alice twisted round to see him go. Through the trees she saw him take up position on the track barring the way. Facing him she could just make out a group of three riders with someone on foot following behind as they came to a halt. She strained her eyes to make out the last figure. It was a girling. It must be Juliet!
‘I challenge you to a knightly combat, Sir Blanche!’ Sir Rubin called out loudly.
There was a pause, then came an unexpectedly weary reply: ‘Stand aside, Rubin. I do not wish any more killing.’
The White Queen’s sharper voice interjected. ‘I do not care what you wish. Remove him from the path, Sir Blanche!’
‘As Your Majesty commands,’ the weary voice replied.
Through a gap in the trees Alice saw one of the riders throw off a long cape, revealing a suit of silver armour. He drew out a mace like Sir Rubin’s, lowered his visor and galloped towards his counterpart. The two Knights met in a crash and bang of metal on metal. With snorts and drumming hooves, their two mounts wheeled about each other even as their riders swung their maces and strove to stay in the saddles.
A disconcerting sense of déjà vu suddenly struck Alice. It was the battle of the Red and White Knights almost exactly as portrayed in the book – except that the vicious impacts of their blows were making her wince. No, this was no Punch and Judy combat; this was life or death! In the book the Red Knight had been chased off. She did not think Sir Rubin, for all his faults, was a coward. Which meant the contest could only end one way.
Even as the knowledge impinged upon her the White Knight caught Sir Rubin a sickening blow on the side of his helmet. As Rubin swayed back drunkenly, his opponent struck him again full on his visor. Like a falling tree, man and beast crashed to the ground in a rattle of armour …
And faded away as though they had never been!
Alice blinked in disbelief, but there was nothing there where knight and horse had fallen except trampled grass.
Through the fog of her confusion came an image of the strange statues ringed about the Red Queen’s tent on the edge hills. A playing ‘piece’ had been killed in combat, or by the rules that shaped the chessmen’s lives, he had been ‘taken’. Is that where they went? Did the White Queen have a matching collection, somewhere beside which a statue of Sir Rubin had just materialised? And when the game was over, would they revert to being of flesh and blood again?
Alice wrenched her mind away from the eerie mystery to face more immediate concerns. One way or another Rubin was gone and the White Queen’s party would surely be moving on. If she kept quiet they probably would not realise she was there, but she would have to wait for the Red Queen to arrive to be freed, however long that would take. Meanwhile, what would happen to Juliet?
‘Hallo!’ she shouted, wincing as she did so. ‘I’m over here!’
They rode cautiously through the trees and surrounded her. She saw
Juliet was being led on the end of a chain from her collar hooked to the back of Albinous’s saddle. At the sight of Alice her face lit up in surprise and delight.
‘Extraordinary!’ said the White Knight. ‘What’s a girling doing out here?’ His visor was open once again, revealing a mild face adorned with a white moustache.
The White Queen, now wearing her crown openly but still looking plain and dumpy, said impatiently, ‘She’s the one I told you of, Sir Blanche. Obviously Sir Rubin obtained her from Leonus somehow and she was left here awaiting Magenta’s arrival.’
Dismounting briskly from the small horse she was riding, the Queen walked round Alice inspecting her closely. Bending over she slid a finger between Alice’s buttocks and it came out wet with Rubin’s sperm, which was still oozing out of her anus and down her thighs.
‘Quite fresh,’ the Queen pronounced. ‘A signal recently sent to Magenta that her knight and pawn had, ah, “mated”, I suppose.’ She looked Alice in the eye and held up her sceptre, no longer disguised as an umbrella, for her to see as a warning. ‘How long before she arrives?’
‘Rubin didn’t say exactly,’ Alice said honestly. ‘I guess a couple of hours. You know better than I do how fast you people can travel if you want.’
The White Queen beamed. ‘Then she will be too late, for by then we shall be in the crown square.’
‘Look, take me and let Juliet go,’ Alice said. ‘I promise I’ll open the barrier for you. You don’t need her.’
‘Once again the noble gesture, and once again I cannot accede to it,’ the Queen replied. ‘You see, while I was in Brillig I learned more about the guardian of the Crown and its peculiar habits. So I will take both you and your friend with me, not only to frustrate Magenta’s plans but also to serve mine. Any control Magenta may be able to exert over you now will do her little good. Cut her down and secure her with the other one,’ she commanded.
As they freed Alice from her bramble bra and attached a chain to her collar, her mind raced. What was the guardian of the last square?
Alice plodded on beside Juliet, both their chain leashes now clipped to the back of Albinous’s saddle. Alice’s hands, like Juliet’s were still fastened behind her back, but at least they were not gagged so they could converse in low tones.
‘Thank you for trying to make her let me go,’ Juliet said. ‘It was very brave of you.’
‘I’m sorry the Queen seems to have changed her plans. How have they been treating you?’ Alice tried to look Juliet over. Her face was as pretty as before but she seemed subtly different. Then she caught a glimpse of her friend’s bottom and saw livid purple weals. ‘What happened in Brillig?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing much. I was locked away in a room for a few days. They were waiting for Sir Blanche to come from another square. He finally turned up last night so we set off early this morning.’
‘But what did they do to you?’
‘Oh … the Queen had Albinous cane and rape me a few times. She said she wanted me to be “responsive and malleable”, at least that was the way she put it.’
Alice felt a rush of compassion for her sweet-faced companion. ‘I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t the right sort of life for you.’
Juliet’s eyes shied away from Alice’s. ‘It wasn’t worse than what they did to me on the train. I’ll get over it.’ She turned her face back smiling.
‘Now you’re being brave,’ Alice said.
‘But what about you?’ Juliet asked. ‘Your boobs look terribly sore. Is that blood on them?’
‘Yeah, but it looks worse than it is. Anyway, you know I get off on that sort of thing.’
‘How’s Suzanne? Tell me what happened to you. The Queen came back last night very angry that you’d got to Brillig somehow.’
Alice related their adventures from when they were thrown from the train to Leonus and the boxing match.
‘I like the sound of your lionman,’ Juliet said with a grin, ‘and I’m glad Suzanne’s back with her master. At least one of us got back home.’
‘We will, too,’ Alice said firmly. ‘I just wish I knew what these chesspeople were really up to. It’s more complicated than picking up this golden crown and saying I won. The White Queen said on the train it changes things, but on how big a scale? And why are we suddenly more important to getting it?’
‘Does it matter?’ Juliet wondered. ‘I mean they’ll either let us go or not at the end anyway.’
‘Maybe.’ Alice frowned. ‘Underland is shaped by stories from our world, right? Which means it’s also changing as the stories get bigger and more dramatic, like blockbuster films having to outdo what they did last year. And action fantasies are really big now, which might explain why what was a chess game has got more like a fantasy quest, with a quickfix sort of ending. You know, when at the last moment the heroes find the gadget/magic ring/gem/spell-thing, whatever, that solves everybody’s problems in a puff of CGI. Well, I can think of a few stories where the thing they’re looking for can destroy a world. And here it would really exist.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Juliet said, looking more subdued.
‘So that’s why we must be ready to escape the first chance we get.’
‘But what about getting rid of your feathers?’
‘I’ll just have to put up with them until I find another cure somewhere. Anyway, you see why we’ve got to be prepared for anything? Do you know what this guardian of the crown square is?’
‘No, sorry. The Queen did go to a library while she was in Brillig and she came back looking very thoughtful. She talked to Albinous afterwards about an “it” as though he knew what she meant, but they didn’t give a name. There was something about the barrier round the next square even keeping the locals out because they were so afraid of what was inside.’
‘Which is why only girlings, being outsiders, can get them through I suppose.’
‘I think so.’ Juliet looked at Alice with a rueful smile. ‘Maybe you’d have been better off waiting for your Red Queen. She certainly won’t cure you if she finds out you’ve been helping the other side.’
‘I wasn’t counting on it much anyway. Tell you the truth, the more I’ve found out about these chesspeople the less I trust any of them, Red or White.’
‘Oh, I think Sir Blanche is all right,’ Juliet volunteered unexpectedly.
Alice gave her a searching look. ‘How can you tell? You’ve only known him a few hours.’
‘Sometimes you just can,’ Juliet said defensively. ‘He’s different. He’s a sort of old-fashioned gentleman.’
Alice gazed curiously at the armoured figure ahead of them. It was true that in the story the White Knight was one of the more sympathetic and often comic characters. He had become obsessed with making impractical inventions and kept falling off his horse, as she recalled. Though Alice could see some extra baggage slung about his huge war charger, Sir Blanche rode with a stiff back and she knew he could fight and kill if required. How close was he still to his fictional precursor?
She looked back at Juliet. ‘So you like him, then?’
Juliet blushed. ‘I’m only saying it because it’s true. Listen for a bit. He keeps arguing with the Queen. Albinous does everything she says like a robot, but Sir Blanche sounds pissed off with this whole war thing, only he wouldn’t say it quite like that. He’s too polite.’
They passed out of the wood and onto a bleak open plain, dotted with scrubby trees and low hillocks of withered grass. It was the largest stretch of unused countryside Alice had yet seen in Underland. Did nobody want to live here? Beyond, like a vast backcloth, was the shimmering wall of the final barrier. Alice shivered. It looked ominously dark and foreboding. What else was in there apart from the Crown?
As they rode deeper into the desolate landscape, Alice heard Sir Blanche say to the Queen, ‘Need we involve these poor girlings, Majesty? To fight against a worthy foe on sporting terms is one thing, but to employ such methods. There are so many better uses for such pretty things.’
The Queen’s retort was sharp and unsympathetic. ‘I will hear no more about it, Sir Blanche. I believe you have spent too long amongst the natives.’
‘Any time I have spent down here has been at your order, Majesty. As to the natives, they are merely rebuilding their land with energy and invention. You admitted you yourself travelled on one of their trains, Majesty. Wonderful things, aren’t they?’ He added wistfully, ‘I just wonder why everything changes around us but we do not.’
‘Then you will be pleased to learn that this will be the last battle, after which there will be great changes, I assure you.’
‘But at such a price, Majesty?’
She did not answer him.
* * *
They stopped in the shadow of a scrubby group of thin trees and dismounted to water the horses. After he had seen to his animal, Sir Blanche brought his canteen over to the two girls and allowed them to slake their thirst as well.
Close to, Alice saw he was not quite as old as she had at first imagined. It was the white moustache that gave the impression of age, she decided, and the weary lines about his eyes. But otherwise his face was firm and he certainly carried himself well, moving easily in his armour.
He looked her up and down admiringly as she drank but otherwise did not touch her. As it would do no harm, she said, ‘Thank you, Master,’ when he took the spout of the canteen from her lips, and received a slow mild smile in return. Juliet beamed at him brightly when he watered her, and received a pat on the head when she thanked him.
‘Enough of that, Sir Blanche,’ the Queen snapped. ‘Albinous, I want both the girlings roused and sensitive. Shaft and strap each, but don’t allow their pleasure to peak. They must be primed, not satiated.’
‘Yes, Majesty,’ Albinous said.
He pushed Alice and Juliet down to their knees and then forward onto their faces so, with their hands still bound behind them, their breasts scraped on the dry hard earth and their bottoms were raised in unwilling invitation. Albinous took up position behind Alice and methodically laid a dozen strokes across her pale buttocks with a leather strap, until a rosy blush spread across their soft curves. Alice bit her lip but willed herself not to respond. In between blows Albinous felt her pubic pouch and noted its unexpected dryness.
Alice In Chains Page 19