“Despicable? He is my kin. And it is to my Uncle that I owe my allegiance. Whatever you do to me here, that will not change.”
The man shook his head. “How misplaced that allegiance, I fear.”
“My uncle saved me from the barbarians who killed my father and destroyed my home.”
The man smiled, ruefully. “Ah, you are a naïve child. How refreshing to have one so untested as you under my roof, in my care.”
“I don’t care to be in your care.”
“You prefer your uncle?”
“I prefer my kin.”
The man shrugged. “So sad for you, then. Though perhaps you would change your tune once the truth is told.”
“As if you know a truth that I do not?”
The Duke eyed her with great care as if he were probing her insides, picking through vast stores of information to glean for further use.
“I suppose you know nothing of the villainous machinations that sent your parents to their grave.”
“And what machinations were those?”
“Why your uncle was behind the scheme. At his behest, General Drago and his soldiers committed the treacherous acts.”
“That is not true!” Roslyn shot back, although she was clearly rattled by this charge.
“No?”
“I don’t believe you. My uncle loved his brother as did my father love him.”
“A child’s vision, certainly.”
Roslyn began to shake. “No, no, I refuse to believe your lies.”
“You refuse to believe that you were the prize Drago wanted for that murderous raid? Does it not make sense? What use would you have been to your Uncle? He had his concubines.”
“No! This can’t be! You shatter me with these lies. And General Drago was a loyal man.”
“Loyalty can be bought,” he quipped smugly.
“Who are you to tell me this? You think that somehow I’ll find favor with you, that I’ll resign myself to be your captive, when you, like those who stole me from my parents’ house rip me away from my proper place.”
He laughed now. “As if you have a proper place but at the feet of the one who owns you. Believe what you will. I speak the truth as I know it, as it was told to me. I really don’t care about the treachery in your own house; I merely report what happened.”
Roslyn took a deep breath and tried to think...tried to wipe away the fear that what the man said was true, painfully true. Certainly, his theory was plausible, even believable, after having glimpsed her Uncle’s dark heart. And she wanted to believe anything of the cruel despot Drago that would force her to hate the man. She had all the more reason to hate the man, if she believed this Duke.
“I am sure this is a shock,” the Duke continued when it was clear that she’d been reflecting on these revelations. “I’m sure that your life would have seen more woe under the ownership of those traitorous blackguards. You were just a pawn.”
Yes, she’d been referred to that way before.
“Why don’t you sit down, have a bit of wine and refresh yourself.”
“Yes, I shall.”
The Duke motioned to a chair behind her and then moved to a nearby table where he poured two goblets of wine. Roslyn remained lost in her thoughts and did not focus again until she was handed her drink.
“I see you’ll need some new clothes for yourself and the girl. This is your maid?” the Duke asked as he placed the goblet in her hand.
Roslyn suddenly remembered her maid. “Yes, this is Celia.” The girl stood, alone and shivering, fingering the simple shift, tears streaming down her cheeks, leaving streaks along the dirt-smudged skin. Never had she looked so alone, so forlorn, as if all the life had been drained from her body. She reflected her mistress’ mood as if the two were one body and mind and Celia was expressing in the flesh what Roslyn could not. The noble lady rather cling to her misery with a miserly zeal than let this man or anyone else see how she suffered.
“Ah, she will do well,” the Duke said. He approached the girl as if she were an object, lifting her yellow hair and inspecting it with great interest before sliding his hand down her neck where it continued on, feeling her body down to her crotch. He turned her around and felt her ass, afterwards giving one fleshy cheek a sharp smack.Where was the girl’s fight now? Roslyn wondered. What was it about the Duke that returned Celia to the withering beauty who jumped at her own shadow? Where was the charm, the flirtatious eyes, the sly smile, vanished now as this man wrapped her in the invisible bonds of ownership? She had bloomed like a new rose in Drago fortress, but had been reduced again. Would she remain the timid mouse?
“I like her,” the Duke said, as he moved back toward Roslyn. She’d sipped her wine and the glass was almost empty.
“What will you do with her?”
“She’ll serve you as she has before. Why not?”
While she was reluctant to believe this pompous duke, perhaps her life with him would again be that of a noble lady.
“Is that all?” she asked. He appeared not to understand the question.
“What I mean is: Can I expect to be treated with the respect that is owed a woman of noble birth, and that my maid will again be mine to rule and care for as I see fit?”
The Duke stopped a moment, reflecting on Roslyn’s question, then he paced a bit, head down, while she followed him with curious eyes. When he finally stopped, his back was to her. He paused, then turned abruptly. “Surely, how you live your life is mine to decide,” the Duke said. “I’m afraid that plucking you from the General’s fortress was an incendiary act designed to show my strength to both Draydon and his General. I’m rather proud of your capture and I intend to use it to my full advantage. Within a fortnight, there will be few who do not know that Ledo’s daughter, Draydon’s kin is now owned by the conquering Duke of the Northern Valley. It will not be long before I have conquered their lands as well.”
Roslyn shrunk back. Whatever momentary ease she’d felt vanished in that instant.
The man stood before her like a proud bird, his head held high, his eyes as evil as any man’s she’d ever seen, surpassing her Uncle, Drago, the marauders that brought her here, Theron and the Captain.
“I can certainly understand your desire to return to the easy life of a noble woman, but, I’m afraid that is behind you now. I cannot help but make an example of you to my people. You’ll have your leisure here, your comforts. I won’t demand hard labor. But you will be molded into a slavish toy so that your Uncle’s fiefdom will be mocked forever. Those who visit will see the pride of that realm as my chattel.” By now his keen eyes shone with all the evil that he bore in his heart. “You don’t know how much I’ve longed for this day.”
Rather than sprout tears as Celia had done, Roslyn suddenly moved to her knees before the man and bowed her head; then she looked up at him imploringly. “Dear sir, if I could only persuade you otherwise.”
The man did not quit. Relishing every second of her pain, he kicked her kneeling body, then kicked her again, leaving Roslyn dumbfounded by the Duke’s cruelty. He inched her across the floor until she was at the feet of a hefty, graceless woman dressed in servant’s garb. He needed no more than to nod to have the woman reaching down and dragging Roslyn to her feet.
“In time, she’ll need new clothes, but for now, her naked skin will do,” he told the woman coldly, having now transformed himself into a vicious beast. He grabbed a fistful of Roslyn’s skirt, “Take these clothes and burn them.” Then he turned toward Celia. “Burn hers as well. Then you can put the little baubles back in their cell. Tomorrow is our feast.”
“You want them washed, sir?”
“Oh no! They can parade through my village as they are—” A sudden sneer broke out on his face, his spite turning from hot to chilling. “Yes, paraded, led by leashes. Bring Thaddeus to me. We’ll discuss which jewels they’ll wear.”
The woman snickered, understanding his wicked intentions. “Yes, milord. They’ll make a fine example of your
strength.” She bowed out with the two stunned women in tow.
Chapter Ten
Shamed Before the Throng
Thaddeus was a blacksmith by trade, a stocky fellow with a huge jowly face and nimble hands. As he was shoeing the Duke’s horse, two naked women were led to his stall in the castle stables. Although the sun had risen on a new day, the place was as black as night with smoke filling the air and orange embers glowing inside the fiery grate.
Roslyn and her maid watched for nearly twenty minutes until the man finished with the horse; then the animal was led away to await the day’s ride. Though the two women still had little clue why they were in this dragon’s lair with its heat and fumes, they feared that something terrible was about to happen, worse than the other tortures they’d suffered so far.
“You have to restrain them,” the blacksmith ordered the woman who brought the trembling beauties into his stall. “Strap the girl to the bar,” he pointed to Roslyn. “And tie her hands behind it.” He thought a moment. “And, ya better strap ‘er forehead too. I can’t have ‘em moving or we’ll mar the merchandise.” The blacksmith motioned to a flat board some ten feet off that had been pounded into the earthen floor and was now slick from age and wear; its six-inch wide surface gleamed as if it had been deliberately polished to its rich shine.
Roslyn shivered, still unaccustomed to her lack of clothes and the way the world around her was free to gaze at her nakedness. With her hands bound with rope behind her back, there could be no modesty. She understood now that she was kin to this Duke’s sworn enemy and for that she would become an example to flaunt before his people. Swift was this newest transformation. Where Celia had been the one to suffer the worst for their grim circumstances, the focus was now on Roslyn, while Celia hung back. Although Roslyn’s eyes burned with shame, the girl’s were hardly clouded. After having cowered in fright, Celia now seemed to treat this newest twist in her disgrace with an oddly noble ease that was lacking in her mistress. Or, perhaps, she was just too numb or too petrified to reveal her emotions.
“If only they would accept me as a sacrifice, and leave Lady Roslyn be,” Celia had prayed almost constantly since she’d learned what was to happen. She’d even begged the woman who brought them there to release her mistress from this ordeal. But for that suggestion, she was slapped across the face and told to be quiet.
Now that woman shoved Roslyn toward the board and the noble lady was strapped into place, with her hands uncomfortably squashed against the wood, her feet, her thighs, her waist and torso snugly roped. An inch-wide leather band around her forehead held her head in place, so there was no way she could move. Terror mounting, her eyes filled with tears when the blacksmith approached her with a needle between his fingers.
“Close your eyes,” the man said, as if trying to be kind.
She closed them tightly with every nerve in her clenching in fear, her muscles taut and her face frozen in panic.
“The Duke likes his properties with a nose ring,” he said as explanation.
Roslyn had no time to react to the shocking statement. The blacksmith was swift in spearing the flesh between her nostrils and inserting the ring that marked her enslavement to the Duke. As the sharp pain shocked her body, her mouth opened in a voiceless scream that sent chills through the small crowd that had gathered in by the blacksmith’s stall. The strange and sudden heaviness in her nose was nearly eclipsed by the throbbing ache that followed the piercing, although none of that was as dreadful—or thrilling—as what followed next.
The Lady Roslyn’s eyes remained closed, even as she felt the blacksmith drop to one knee in front of her. Those nimble hands pried apart her womanly cleft, revealing the bud of her sexuality as a tiny pulsating finger that found a hellish thrill from the man’s deft fingers. Although she understood that what followed would be painful, her heart beat with great excitement and her loins heated with a passion she could not squelch. This was too much for a Lady who’d held back her favors to men, denied her physical lust and squashed the wickedness that had abided with her naturally for as many years as she could remember. Just before the shocking pain of the second piercing, she felt a flood of desire turn her crotch to liquid, and she shrieked with the crisis upon her.
No soundless scream this time—Roslyn’s cry reverberated throughout the small space filling every ear with the sound of a woman becoming the chattel of the Duke. He would have been pleased if he had been there to witness the proceedings, but he was more interested in the finished result, presented to him as the triumphant procession through the village began and all the villagers came out to see what trophies their Duke had to show them as a testament to his increasing power.
***
The spectacle began at noon. A chill wind whipped through the valley where the Duke’s castle stood, and through the adjacent village where it would seem that the entire town had gathered in the muddy street.
The Lady Roslyn had been perfectly prepared according to the Duke’s precise specifications. She stood now with her arms bound behind her naked body, and chains dangling from her nose and sex rings. Each ring was attached to reins that were connected to the Duke’s saddle, with just ten feet separating her from the horse’s ass. Like the conquered prize she was, she’d be led through the village where the worked-up crowd would jeer and taunt the captured kin of Draydon. They’d throw rotten food, aiming at her ass and her privates, where the sore flesh still throbbed hotly and each strike would make her grimace in pain.
Celia, who had been pierced in the same manner as her mistress, now stood behind her a few feet off. A chain had been attached to her clitoral ring, which was then threaded through her mistress’ crotch from behind, and finally fastened to Roslyn’s sex ring.
Both their collars and Celia’s shackles had been removed, making their ties to Drago a thing of the past. This was a new day, a new country, and these new rings, the mark of Duke Wilhem, signified the most lowly state in his realm. To be able to flaunt the girls in this way, especially one so nobly born as lady Roslyn, testified to the man’s greatness and what enormous threat he posed to anyone who crossed him. His reach was far and wide now, beyond the imaginations of his peasants, in territories they dared not go, in lands they considered alien to what they knew.
The Duke had been crafty in his choice of feast days. A minor saint’s holiday, the village was packed with revelers already in the mood for making merry. Their bellies were filled with ale, and their minds had already turned to lust and sodomy. The impending spectacle through the village fired their passions, and the men whooped and hollered at the show of the foreign noble lady and her maid. Though the pair did not hang their heads, they seemed to walk in a trance-like stupor, being too afraid to show how terrified they truly were—or how much in pain, as the miserable chains tugged at their freshly pierced flesh.
Although the villagers were told to stay out of the procession line, there were those who walked with the girls and yanked the chains, only to see them wince, or even howl.
“Little arses need big whippings!” one man jeered right into Roslyn’s ear. She tried to shrug him off, while attempting to keep up with the Duke’s steady pace. Not to do so would be catastrophic; the rings would be torn from their bodies. But, as if it were a test of their merit, they managed to keep a bit of slack in the chain attached to the saddle. Roslyn fended off smelly tomatoes and rotted squash. She raised her shoulders when she caught something flying toward her and often ducked, quickly gaining a sixth sense regarding the perils of this treacherous trek.
“Let’s wipe the pride from that purdy face.”
“Cry, girl, you should cry for the crimes of your wretched father.” An ugly woman came at her, spitting in her face and she had to be pulled back, while Roslyn stumbled in the mud and scrambled to right herself before the Duke moved another step closer to ripping out the rings.
A pretty young woman with a child at her breast sauntered forward, scowling, her lip upturned. She stared at the Lady Roslyn
, then said, “Yer a foul woman from a foul land… you deserve to suffer. What a stinkin’ whore!”
True, her body now stunk, more fuel for the crowd’s turbulent passion and their pointed hisses.
“The lassies need a good wash, Duke!” some man shouted.
Wilhem reined in his horse, then stopped and turned around, sneering at his chattel, then smiling at the crowd. “Yes, bring the buckets, my friends. Bathe them before they foul my castle.” Such contempt! Such scorn!
When at last the procession reached the castle entrance, the reins were removed from the horse’s ass and the two women were strung up to posts, where the crowd showered them with buckets of water that was likely to be as filthy as their bodies. Once they were fully doused and looked like bedraggled rats, they were led inside the castle to the washroom off the main kitchen for a proper bath.
Chapter Eleven
A Feast In Her Honor
While the pageant was intended as a humiliating spectacle for the peasant crowd, the feast that followed was for the Duke’s noble court, a higher class of citizen: the Duke’s friends as well as those he wanted to impress. He was lucky to have several travelers and a few merchant caravans there to share in his victory celebration. From their mouths, the word would spread to those who would take notice. Lord Draydon would learn that his niece was in the hands of his fiercest enemy, while General Drago would be humiliated to learn how his defenses had been breached and the prizes he’d so swiftly collared were now the property of a better, smarter, more able man—an adversary due Drago’s respect. Duke Wilhem wanted it known far and wide that the Lady Roslyn belonged to his house now, and that she would serve him with her legs parted and her mouth open wide—in a most unladylike fashion.
Oh! How she’d suffer to right the past wrongs wreaked on their sovereign land!
Roslyn was scrubbed; her body from head to toe brushed of every bit of soot and sweat and rotten food. While the women attending her were not unkind, they were thorough in the most gross manner. She was forced to bend over so their wet rags would clean out her bottom hole, and while in this position, with her hands braced against a chair, a leather bladder filled with soapy water was pumped into her entrails until her bowels filled and the liquid gurgled strangely inside her. Overcome by familiar but painful urges deep within her belly, she begged the women, crying:
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