The scrawl was long completed when Florence entered with the food - black bread, cheese and goat's milk. The handsome, sturdy woman in her late thirties had obviously taken a liking to the prisoner in the west wing. Already on Joanne's second day of imprisonment there, the cook told her that she also was a parpaillote but prudently kept the fact from her employers. The disclosure did not really surprise Joanne who felt akin to her even if Florence apparently did sleep with Brissac, the blacksmith, probably under coercion. At Lassignac, even servants were not free to choose; the Marquise chose who would sleep with whom, just as she decreed who would wield the whip on whom.
Joanne had decided to ask Florence to share her risk in transmitting the note to the pastor, somewhere among the hills. She bided her time before broaching the subject.
"Look dear, I've filched some cheese for you," Florence winked, after laying the plate on the bed. "Now, eat while I smear some camomile on those lash marks. He really went for you this time, by my faith!" There was an encouraging absence of violence in the woman and Joanne already knew she came from the same region as herself - equally reassuring. It seemed to justify running the risk with her.
"You told me once, Florence, you're often allowed to go to market and that you know friends of the Faith there."
The woman nodded, smoothing the beautiful belly, as Joanne summoned up a smile. "Well, Florence, I need you to do something important for us, and I include you. But it involves danger. I want you to contact our colleagues, at least those we've got left, and tell them I'm still alive, locked up in this hellhole where I have no intention of spending the rest of my life. Nor does Martine. Nor, I presume, do you."
"What do you want me to do?" Florence's voice had a touch at nervousness in it as Joanne handed her the folded message, showing her the pastor's name on the front. "But I can't read love," the cook murmured, "though I'm learning slowly with a Geneva bible when no one's about in the kitchens. I hide it in the disused oven. So, who's it to?"
Joanne told her and read her the short text. Florence stared at the script and then at the naked girl. "That's mighty dangerous Joanne. Even to tell our friends where you are. You know what'll happen to you if the Marquise gets hold of that, leave alone the Dominican. And to me too!" Joanne could imagine but pressed the letter on her. "Please, Florence! It's a sacred mission."
After a moment of hesitation, the cook nodded and thrust the scrap of paper into her bodice between the weighty peasant breasts that must have shared other secrets.
Joanne had expected questions. Only one was posed: "How did you guess I would do it? Don't you fret. I'll see to it even if has to reach Geneva or that Queen in England." The coarse hands returned to rubbing cream into the whipped crotch, without a glance at the smiling, blue eyes. Jubilant, the slavegirl leaned down and kissed her. Florence rose, taking the dishes and ointment and departed, turning the key.
The clandestine note left just in time, for Coursel arrived soon after to clip Joanne's wrists to her neck strap. Using his cravache liberally - believing a few more welts would be of no consequence - he towed her down to the cellar where the cohort barely greeted her. She sensed her companions were uneasy. How was it that she had been absent so long? Why the privilege of the guest chamber while they remained in the clammy cellar and were misused by Marie-Félice or Coursel to keep them in form? But when they saw the state Joanne was in, the subject was dropped.
Joanne was left to wonder whether her note would elicit any response.
Meanwhile, the preparations for the following guest weekend began in earnest. The slaves were shaved of sprouting sex hair, oiled daily to prepare the skin while Simone massaged the teats and clits to ensure prompt erection.
***
A week later, very different measures were in hand elsewhere. Pastor Dizier, after seeking divine guidance, had passed on the poignant message. Seven leagues above the Roc de Malpertuis, Castenet, the forest ranger and Camisard leader, after considering matters with his lieutenants, detached a posse of men, armed with a few muskets, a sabre or two, pitchforks and psalms, with orders to assault the place called Lassignac and return with two females of the faith. Elated, the little band set out like wolves at night through the bracken towards the castle. Propitiously, the moon was full.
Measure for measure, Castenet declared. An eye for an eye.
Chapter Six
Joanne's return to the cohort coincided with preparations of the slaves for the festivities. It was for her a return to routine. The precursory sessions took place before Elodie, Joanne finding herself poised on the balls of her feet, eyes wide with anxiety, not so much over the pain as the fearful possibility of not being able to orgasm - or of coming too hastily - when a guest took her after a whipping. She was not alone with her problems. Even Isabelle worried. Huddled teary-eyed against the wall awaiting a rehearsal, the girl watched the smoke wafting lazily from the brazier into the cellar chimney, the irons reddening by way of warning. Dalinde fretted over her ability to face once more the unequal duel between a naked body chained to a post and the cock-rigid Vicomte de Challes brandishing flesh tongs. Mariette was her usual calm self, even when arched back, writhing and twitching over the wooden tripod after a bracing session with Coursel and the nipple screws; the redhead was like a leaf floating downstream into the rapids of orgasm that Christine de Challes would expect of her. On Joanne, Elodie tried out a slave hood of crimson leather that laced up at the rear and thrust a stout, penis-shaped gag into the gullet, something Joanne feared, for it limited breathing, but at the same time appreciated since it would stifle her screams which she felt discredited her.
Meanwhile, above, matters advanced rapidly. Coursel had had the courtyards cleared of rubbish to allow the guests' coaches to be stationed within easy reach of the keep and the horses led to the nearby stables. Simone checked the linen in each bedroom to ensure it was fresh and ready for the warming pan. Elodie herself inspected the kitchens and chose the wine from the cellars. Finally, the best table linen, cutlery and crystal laid out, she saw to it that her young serving wenches, who were to wait at table naked, apart from the usual painful but attractive pinafore, were well scrubbed of their habitual filth, powdered and wigged. Music was to be provided, at least prior to and during the evening's repasts, by two elderly flautists and a blind harpsichordist, who would leave before the enjoyments began. The Marquis, out hunting stag, was nowhere to be seen.
Strangely abashed and silent since her session in the armoury that remained a bitter and mortifying memory, Anthea was charged with ensuring each guest chamber had the requisite crops, scourges and instruments available and that the dark velvet whipping posts and chains were spotless. It was she also who saw to it that that heavy furniture in the great drawing room was shifted back to allow ample space for the inaugural flagellations by way of an aperitif prior to dinner and the evening proper.
Elodie relied on Bouchard, as her major-domo to oversee everything in detail and, above all, the readiness of the gibbet in the courtyard in the event of a guest, displeased with a slave, demanding immediate punishment. Elodie found her more discriminating guests appreciated such touches of finesse and she did her best to satisfy them.
Furthermore, there was the delicate matter of her visitors' apparel. Even before the preliminary whippings started, Elodie was in the habit of asking her dominants to garb themselves in lace masks and dark cloaks for the evening sessions.
"It is, once again, dear friends," she would announce, "my wish for you to wear high boots or at least cross-gartered sandals, like myself, and body straps and gauntlets when working on a slave, the cloak being discarded. Of course, I do not insist on this but I believe such near-nudity on the part of a guest does add erotic quality to the scenario."
By noon on the Saturday the castle was bustling with activity. In the cellar the slaves were being beautified, greased, nipple-rouged and marked with a roman numeral on the
chest below the collarbones to identify them.
While she was being prepared, Joanne saw the Dominican stroll in, accompanied by his handsome acolyte, Brother Christophe. The parpaillote blanched as the lascivious hands extended her breasts by the ripple rings and started to interrogate her. It was Marie-Félice who hurried to inform the Marquise of the situation.
Her appearance seemed to halt the proceedings. "Your presence over a weekend, Dom Anselme, is out of place." Elodie remarked. "This girl's being prepared for sex which is not, as far as I'm aware, your domain. You two are not invited to our ceremonies and I suggest you interest yourselves elsewhere. Perhaps in what I have sent to the convent."
The shaved pates bowed, aware they were not wanted. And departed.
"As our Number Seven," Elodie comforted her new slavegirl, "you will be treated no differently from the others. You should fight this odious man and concentrate on my demands. After all, he has your friend down there in the nunnery and her conversion should suffice him. I regret this incident. You are my slave and no one else's. Now forget him and ready yourself. Lucky I came just in time. The whoresome wretch!"
"Thank you, sweet mistress," Joanne replied, kissing her owner's jewelled hand. "I couldn't have borne another conversion session. I belong to you, mistress, to serve you."
"Well, I trust you will serve me well, Number Seven. I count on you."
The weekend upon them, Coursel came for the slaves as the castle bell sounded. Linking them as a coffle, he led them up into the opulent drawing room. The transit from the darkness below into the late afternoon light slanting across the room took place in total silence, broken only by the pad of bare feet and the soft jangle of genital rings. To Joanne's mind whatever was about to happen would be joyous compared to a minute with the Dominican and she would recompense Elodie and her guests, whoever they might be, with all the gifts she had in her naked body...
The cohort of flesh lined up at the back of the room, facing a semicircle of thrones below the casements with the blue Cevennes beyond. The guests barely noticed the nudes but finally took their seats. Elodie in the centre, scintillating in her high-collared, sepia cloak of embroidered silk. To her right was slumped a slender, middle-aged man; the gap in his robe revealed a long penis, already towering to his navel.
"That's the Vicomte de Challes," Joanne's neighbour, Dalinde, whispered, "and next to him it's Christine, his ghastly wife or mistress. Dangerous stuff. Over to the left, there's Evelyn, Comtesse de Burre-Sage. Keep your tits clear of her, if you can. See what she's got in her hand? That's the worst length of rawhide around, darling. It can slit an oiled arse open in less than six lashes. And over there, that's Artemis, our depraved Baron de Bessinge, with his vicious whore, as usual. She's a real bitch. Stings like a scorpion. But it won't be she who lashes your tits," Dalinde added to comfort the novice, "because, over there, that's Raymond de Montclamart who thinks of nothing else than a girl's breasts."
Joanne dared not reply. What she had heard sufficed to scare her. While she stood trembling, several serving wenches entered with what looked like glasses of Xeres and mugs of chocolate - the fashionable new beverage imported from the French slave colonies in West Africa. Joanne could see the detail of how the maids were dressed: each wore the small triangle of brocade over her front, the upper fringe pinned directly through the nipples, the vertex below through the shaved pubis. She presumed the lace was meant to add spice to the aperitifs being handed round on silver salvers. Now and then a guest's gloved hand reached out to part the vulva folds of one or other of the domestics and ream into the sex. Invariably, the suede came away glistening. Had it not, Dalinde told Joanne the wretch, come Monday, would be thrashed naked at the gibbet. Juice was essential.
Gradually the conversation dwindled and Anthea came forward, erotically but less scantily clad than usual. She wore the usual riding boots but also, Joanne noticed, a long cape, no doubt to conceal the streaks left by the Marquis's crop, but which did not hide the cones of sparkling metal over the sepia-tinted teats, promising stabbing pain in anyone she happened to embrace. She carried a heavy whip, each lash terminating, to the slaves' consternation, in an unpleasant iron spherule.
As silence fell, the Marquise's announcement sent a tremor of excitement through Joanne who felt even more naked and vulnerable than when chained to the cartwheel. A treat which The Marquis had given her one night, leading her by her clit ring down into the lower corridors and using her half the night mercilessly after lashing her nearly senseless.
"Well, cherished friends, this is what we have to offer you this weekend for your pleasure. These slaves of mine are at your entire disposal, not only here until dinner but, of course later in the cellar, the torture precincts, which all of you know well, and then in your bedchambers. My slaves have been well honed by the whip and are used to sexual torture under the usual range of instruments. You may do what you wish with them and my servants are at your disposal to assist you." She paused, lowering her voice. "Should any slave fall flagrantly short of what you require, please bring the matter to the attention of my major-domo so that punishment can be administered, either forthwith or after your departure." Then she added: "I trust this will not be the case but, as you know, the courtyard whipping gibbet is always ready."
A murmur of appreciation greeted the preamble. The fat Comtesse Evelyn de Burre-Sage heaved herself laboriously out of her chair to waddle over to the line of glistening flesh. In turn and leaving his whore-slag on her knees before his chair to fondle her clit, Artemis de Bessinge joined Evelyn. Slowly, with a critical eye, the two sauntered down the array of nudes, weighing breasts and parting buttocks with their whips. Evelyn paused before the new Slave VII. She lifted Joanne's chin. "You have a very sensual body, child." The woman then turned to her hostess. "It's a shame your novice has been so vigorously thrashed. I would have preferred her, being new, more or less unmarred. But she will do. If you agree, Elodie dear, I'll use her first. And I'd like an hour or so with her later in one of your delightful torture cells or in my bedroom. It's just unfortunate she's been welted to this degree," she repeated. "I'm so partial to turning white flesh into red meat..."
The Mistress of Lassignac silently cursed Francis-Etienne for damaging the new plaything that attracted her preferred guest. "Yes," she admitted, "both my dear husband and I regret her state. But she's ready for more, if she tempts you."
"She does tempt me. Have her strung up while we assess the others."
Joanne's nudity seemed to become the centre of admiration, simply, she thought, because she was a novelty. Other guests rose to examine her and again she easily passed muster, while the plump, arse-branded Bette, the nut-brown Therèse, Dalinde and the slinky, boyish Isabella were passed over without more than a glance. Mariette and Laurent, his cock throbbing, were totally ignored for the moment; all knew the weekend was long and that their turn would come in the cellar or a bedroom. Only the dark-skinned Louise, with her upturned teats and ripe clitoris, found favour and de Bessinge selected her.
At a sign from Elodie, Anthea sashayed across the floor to drag the cream of the bunch forward, making Joanne stand in the centre of the room and ordering Louise to wait close to a heavy wooden device nearby: Joanne found the object so closely resembled that on which she herself had suffered in the chapel that she cringed, murmuring a prayer for her companion. The slender Louise - an unwanted slut purchased by Elodie for ten louies from a starving peasant family some ten months earlier - seemed undisturbed by the grim object to which she had been so casually condemned.
More placid than usual, probably on account of her own recent correction in the armoury, Anthea released Joanne's arms and made her mount a footstool. Looking up for the first time, the slave noticed the chains hanging from the beam overhead. Swiftly, the rings in the wrist straps were hooked to them and a moment later the stool was removed, leaving the naked beauty swinging. The guests gazed at the sl
ender form in lascivious wonder. Rarely had they seen whipping flesh as tempting as this.
Grasping the chains to relieve the tension, as Mariette had told her to do, Joanne wondered what was about to take place. In her time at the château, she had known scores of whipping postures and remembered each vividly: chained out on the slab, at the stake, over the cartwheel or flogging trestle; hung by the ankles, the legs split open; crucifixion on the studded cross; on the iron grid with the breasts thrust through and throttled beyond the rods - and so many other stances, each spurring her on to orgasm as the leathers slashed her. But where she found herself in the drawing room, before countless eyes, hanging stark nude in her perfect symmetry or compliance rivalled all other positions. She knew how her breasts with their ever-swollen teats tilting upwards, tempted a flogger and how, as Elodie had told her, she should thrust them out or, when bowed forward, let them swing below the sternum like bells ready to toll under the breast quirt... Slave breasts after all, Elodie maintained, were there to be whipped.
Without warning, a sheet of flame licked Joanne's body, paralysing her brain; the Burre-Sage creature had almost buried four strips of leather in the rump meat. With a gasp, the naked slave wrenched her knees up high in pain. "Keep your body still, please," the comment came. "It needs welting and I cannot do that if you lurch. The tradition here - and may the Marquise Elodie-Helène be thanked - is that a hung slave should remain docile under the whip." She laid on a further ten formidable strokes that brought Joanne to tears and to the limit of her strength. Then the woman changed position to whip the rear of the thighs. Joanne did her utmost to remain still and mute through the flogging.
Somehow, Louise's quiet presence helped Joanne to contend with the flagellation when Burre-Sage again changed position and delivered a dozen murderous lashes over the breasts with the quirt. The Comtesse's huge body put its weight behind the strokes and the slave's cries rebounded from the drawing room walls and windowpanes as if they were wounded birds seeking freedom. Joanne's body began to blossom like a rose.
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