She enquired what she could expect to happen now that her world was an integral part of the Empire. This I think was the reason for the meeting. I had to admit that I had no way of knowing; after all there were literally hundreds of such provinces with their princes, dukes, landgraves, margraves and bishops... Nothing much would alter, I suggested, except taxation and military recruitment. She seemed content with this and probably was just as aware as you and I of the impossibly slow and confused working of the Imperial authority, especially as Charles himself was about to leave for Spain. We spoke of such matters for a long moment and then I mentioned St. Ursula’s.
“Ah, St. Ursula’s.” She leaned back in her chair, looking very different from the callous torturer of the dungeons below. I explained my problems in getting the prestigious convent to give me the information I needed.
“Both Milan and I have influence there and we shall intervene on your behalf,” Eliska said. “You should know, sir, that our Mother Superior, Maria Magdalena, is terribly overworked. Upon my instructions, the good dame is generous enough to take in numerous poor girls, mostly of bad repute, even whores who cannot find places of work in my brothels. Like me, she takes infinite care to cleanse them and render them useful to society. I do my best to take off their charge as many polluted females as I can. Only yesterday Mother Maria was obliged to entrust to me one of her noviciates to deal with and purify. A truly ungrateful and lascivious slut of seventeen! This caitiff, this good-for-nothing, is found to be involved in a lesbian affair. You understand what I mean by that, my lord?”
My hostess sometimes treats me as if I has just dropped from the moon.
“Now, such things, alas, are rife among nuns,” she went on. “It seems the slut got involved with a much older Sister, responsible for the stores and larder. Perhaps she was hungry in more senses than one.”
Eliska enjoys her own jokes more than I do.
“You see our problems, sir. A young noviciate hardly out of her probationary stage desecrating her convent between the thighs of a nun ordinary!”
I tried to display concern: “Such a case, I suppose, can be referred to the Bishop if not handled within the convent itself?”
She dismissed the holy man with a curt slap on the table, upsetting my ink-horn that I had propped up among the papers.
“The Bishop? That useless whore-monger? But it is true that the convent is authorized to deal with common, everyday failings like neglect of prayer, disobedience, sloth, indolence, lethargy, slovenliness, swearing, dirtiness and clandestine masturbation...”
I thought the list would never stop. I was quite disconcerted at the last term - not shocked because nothing shocks me any more here - and lifted my eyebrows.
“Yes, masturbation,” she said. “You are a man and a bachelor. You cannot know the distress and heartache this causes a noble conscientious woman like Mother Maria.”
All this is unploughed virgin ground to me, if you will permit the expression, but Eliska was now launched out into one of her favorite subjects - recalcitrant females.
“All the junior nuns and noviciates sleep in large dormitories without cubicles which are reserved, like cells, for the senior Sisters. Anyone reporting a colleague abusing herself is rewarded, spiritually, by Mother Maria. The system of spies functions quite effectively in weeding out the guilty ones although, as you can guess, it is by no means easy to detect nocturnal games.”
As I could not guess, I asked: “So what correction is there to curtail the practice?”
“Enforced fasting, penances of various sorts on bread and water and, of course, the whip. I have at last persuaded all three Mothers Superior to strip their culprits naked, whether for masturbation or other sins, and flog them.”
The lady was now warming well to her subject.
“What more can one do, dear lady?”
“What more, sir? What more! I will tell you what more. I have ordered that any inmate convicted of clandestine self-abuse for the third time shall be roped naked to a special post in the cloister garden and whipped before the whole convent. All approve of such measures and also of those employed by St. Barbara’s where Mother Emelina prefers binding her culprits to a carpenter’s trestle, the four limbs tied to the diverging wooden legs and the offending genitals crushed against a neat bed of nails on the bar. My young scoundrel Milan always rides down to watch these little ceremonies but annoys us all by his pleading to have the nuns breast-whipped.”
Eliska smiled indulgently, shaking her head.
“In any event the culprit is deprived of all privileges for a month after her whipping and is made to wear a leather triangle to prevent her using her clitoris. A chastity belt of sorts, allowing natural functions like any other celibacy belt. Well?”
“I suppose the same approach can apply to the lesbian you mentioned,” I suggested, to revert to St. Ursula’s from which I still needed information,
“I really cannot understand how these women dare take the risk,” Eliska exclaimed. “It is foolhardy. We have fewer cases in the castle but many in the nunneries. As to St. Ursula’s, in this particular case, the older nun will be dealt with by the Mother Superior - she has some sturdy Sisters to do the flogging for her. As to the young girl, she has been passed to me to deal with in the dungeon and I can assure you that she will not ‘fall in love’, as she has the effrontery to put it, with any other women after I have finished with her. You should see my bailiffs bringing a lesbian to heel! It is a shame you will have left when the sessions begin ten days from now.”
I silently thanked my patron saint that I would indeed be on my way home. The Margravine interrupted my meditation.
“Yes, every now and then, my lord, I have this burden thrust upon my shoulders. The only detail I do not relish is the custom of shaving lesbian victims completely - for I think a thick pubic growth over the sex is admirable. But this is the custom and Ladislav, for one, would rather die than offend custom and ritual.”
The interview was obviously coming to an end, and this encouraged me to broach certain confidential matters and present other papers to Eliska since I needed her seal which, with the help of my wax and her ring, she gave me with good grace. Then she surprised me again, as we heard the bell tolling for Vespers and were preparing to go down.
“You must not think me a prude, my dear lord,” - this is about the last epithet I would have used! - “in refusing these trollops their pleasure together. To be sincere with you, I myself do not quibble over passing a night with a salacious, vigorous lesbian, strictly in private. It does provide a change from these wonderful, insatiable men of mine. But lesbian practices in a convent in my realm, no! Never!”
I am still mortified by the memory of the Imperial troops, even if unpaid, sacking Rome last year. They should have done the act here instead!
I struggle on and will be so relieved to depart. I hope the Court will recognize my work and my steadfastness under the tribulations I am bearing.
Be virtuous, dear Nephew,
Huldrych
Letter The Thirteenth
I am writing this letter, after doing some drawing (I do about a dozen sketches a day), sitting in a delightful wood. Hans has made a fire of twigs with his tinder-box and flint and Tereza is with him cooking fish and onions. I wonder, watching them, if they should not marry? Brother Ignatius would suffice for the ceremony.
Now I must revert to the Margravine. First, she asked me to comment on the political situation for her benefit once again, which I was glad to do concerning Bohemia.
The Emperor had, I said, appointed members of his family as regents: his aunt Margaret of Austria to the Low Countries, his wife Isabelle of Portugal for Spain, his younger sister Mary, married to Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia, to report on those lands, while his brother, the Archduke Ferdinand, was responsible for Austria and Germany. Ferdinand had married
Louis’ sister, Anna, and when the childless Louis died miserably in a bog on that terrible August day in 1528, defeated by the Turks, Ferdinand was eligible, through her, as king. The Bohemian Diet however insisted that the crown was elective; and finally last year it ‘elected’ Ferdinand. Thus Bohemia was now an integral part of the Holy Roman Empire. Hence my mission.
Eliska listened with interest as I mentioned the Emperor’s powerful and astute tutors and secretaries, and the brilliant chancellor, Mercurino de Gattinara.
“And who will be appointed for Bohemia?” she enquired. “It could be you, my lord. You now have experience of our parts. You are liked. You have my support.”
I dismissed the idea with a modest gesture. “We do not have the ear of Nuremberg, dear lady. And I have neither the competence nor the language, alas.”
“It might be arranged.” A strange silence followed. This, to my mind, could be more than a poisoned gift. Then she reverted to her problems.
“I have the sentiment, my noble lord, that you are not yet convinced by my sincerity and resent some of my methods, such as those I use to reform fallen women in my domains. Now, I want you to understand me. It is true I enjoy the physical rewards in whatever form they take, in scourging iniquity out of these females. Their flesh must not be relinquished to the fires of hell. As you serve your Emperor, so I serve to purify my realm and” - she sought the word in Hochdeutsch - “exculpate all females from sin. In so doing, I exculpate myself from sin.”
She went over again to the window and stood outlined in her slim beauty against the glow of the evening braziers below, which incidentally remind me, Nephew, of those fires we had to light to ward off the plague.
“Sin is what is thought of as sin,” she remarked. “I do not know if your rigid conceptions of life allow you to follow me. I sacrifice my victims on the altar of my duty and so am sanctified in this Garden of Eden of mine.”
Her face was hard as rock.
“Let me go further. This whore I am cleansing, for example, receives just and due punishment of her sinful body and constitutes for us a redemptive sacrifice. You notice she does not protest. She is as soft and yielding as silk and provides us with gratification. I do not deny ourselves - or her, for that matter - the sexual reward. It is part of the local tradition of our Flagellants. That is why I demand that she and my whip-master to be naked to recall the state of our First Parents in Eden before the Fall.”
I was lost for a reply but managed a comment which did not please her. “While I admire your strivings for justice, gracious lady, can one not have some compassion for these wretched people lost in this rapidly changing world?”
Eliska stared at me with surprise. “My lord, take this female below: she is a contemptible whore, an insolent lustful whore who had defied my authority, defiled my Garden. She must be retrieved through the whip and this provides us with pleasure.”
She paused.
“What is more, she derives a perverse pleasure herself, as you have witnessed.” She began to gather her papers together to descend as the Angelus sounded. (By the way, Nephew, here time is reckoned by counting the hours elapsed since the Angelus.)
On the threshold of the chapel, she added: “Our next session will be rather special and even colourful. You will see my cherished companions in action, each clothed as he desires and thinks appropriate for the further cleansing of the whore. You must not miss it.” She concluded with a sweet smile: “I assume you would prefer to attend in the usual robe and cowl and remain not only anonymous but passive.”
The last thing I desired was to be active here! And also I wondered from whom I was still meant to hide my features! Then we took our places in the melancholy chapel as she signalled to Brother Ignatius to commence his mumbled office.
Some nights ago we were entertained by jugglers and magicians (I held tight on to the wallet at my belt) and a dancing bear. There are many bears here in the mountains, I am told. The animal was made to dance to the tune of a pipe. I gather it has been trained on heated ploughshares. Perhaps they seek to cleanse its soul...
Your loving uncle Huldrych.
Letter The Fourteenth
The third session took place in extraordinary circumstances. The dungeon was stifling hot, particularly for me in my robe and hood. Yet I was relieved they had not asked me to dress up. Eliska was voluptuous in scarlet velvet and a newly starched coif and goffered ruff; her arms gloved in mauve, the fingers heavy with jewels that flashed like the spurs on her long boots. Her companions stood behind her, clad entirely differently from the way they were in the earlier sessions. Resplendent in richly embroidered bodices, high boots or fawn slippers, each wore a different satin mask; other than these few items, they were naked, their genitals well-greased and hanging before their thighs.
There was an atmosphere of ceremony, as usual, but also a strange aura of festive anticipation. Amid the odours of stone, candles and leather, I sensed a pungent smell of lilies and lilacs; bunches of purple and white branches of blossom were set out in large vases on the dais and around the cellar.
A further variation was in Maryska herself. She was led in by Sebastian held loosely on a long, glittering chain attached to her neck-strap; her shoulders and unroped arms were covered by a short purple cape reaching to her hips, her eyes encircled by a crimson blindfold, replacing the usual one, and bright ear-rings adorned the lobes. A jewel was buried in her navel, drawing attention to the flatness of her belly. The lips of the mouth and the areolae of the nipples glowed dark red, the pubic hair was carefully combed. Her buttocks had been reddened by a preparatory whipping - more of this later, Nephew.
She seemed to walk with a new attitude of sensuous pride as if aware of the impression her perfumed and oiled body with freshly burnished rings in her breasts and labia made on the gathering. I began to understand the erotic pleasure she evoked in her abusers.
The whole scene recalled more a gay pageant than the entry of a girl about to be whipped in bondage. It was then I realized that the session was reserved for the three lovers, as Eliska had hinted. Then something strange happened.
Standing before her Mistress, Maryska spoke for the first time. Her voice was hoarse, and in its dialect seemed to reach us from another world.
“Gracious Mistress, to whom I belong,” the words came falteringly, “I entreat you and my Masters to whip the vicious venom out of my body.”
The girl hesitated.
“And?” Eliska’s calm voice filled the chamber. “And?”
“And deliver me from whoredom.”
Manifestly the girl had been made to learn the plea. How was it possible to humiliate a victim to this degree? To force her to beg for the whip as one begs a favour?
The only reply was the soft ringing of the bell and the ceremony commenced.
After being stripped slowly of her cape, Maryska was led to the weird gallows-like frame I had noticed in the course of the first session. It consisted of a small platform of rough-hewn planks holding two sturdy posts surmounted by an upper cross-bar. A second bar traversed the frame half-way down.
Sebastian’s erection throbbed rigidly as he went to work to secure Maryska. As if readily consenting to what the ritual imposed on her, she knelt and lifted her breasts to cradle them within the grasp of two thin straps riveted to the lower bar. The inner surface of the leather was ladened, I noticed, with small barbs, spurs rather than spikes, clearly designed to clench the breasts in their grip. As the soft masses were throttled, Maryska recoiled for a second and then seemed to proffer the breast flesh with pride or defiance.
Sebastian encircled the breasts as close as possible to the chest, hauling brusquely on each strap in turn until the buckle found the last hole in the leather. Maryska jolted the gallows in the shock of constriction as the flesh was wedged in; she swayed her head as she felt in her blindness the scores of minute barbs bit
e into the first tissue of the skin. Immediately the breasts gorged outwards, lined with swollen, blue veins, the areolae and throbbing nipples surging into capacious cones of red tumescence, to a degree that allowed one to discern behind the rings the orifice created by the piercing.
Sebastian passed his hands over the tight spheres and stiff nipples to ensure that the utmost swelling had been attained to allow him to proceed further. He roped the wrists to the upper bar - the first time I had seen hempen cords used - and manacled the ankles well apart to the boards. Maryska was kneeling now before Eliska’s altar...
It was Ladislav who leaned over to me to whisper: “The bondage straps make it inadvisable for the whore to tug at the bar while the breasts receive the riding crop. She would only rip her flesh and the Gräfin and ourselves have a horror of blood.”
I attempted to move away, only to be held by my sleeve as the man went on:
“We have drawn lots and it is Milan to perform first. He cannot resist a fine pair of tight breasts and Sebastian knows precisely how he prefers them. Even the Margravine enjoys a moment of pleasure with Milan’s silken whip on hers, bound with red ribbons but, of course, tonight he will use Eliska’s riding crop on the whore...”
Catching the sibilant sound of her name, Eliska frowned and gestured for silence. But Ladislav had to add for my benefit: “The rump is left to the lord Premsyl and me. We infinitely prefer and advocate buttock-whipping. I must have scourged every girl in the house at some time...” Then to my distress, he added excitedly: “If you were to probe into this whore’s cunt, you would discover her already awash with lust.” He had no time in which to correct his language, as the silver bell tinkled through the sultry perfumes of the dungeon.
The young Milan now stepped down from the dais, grasping the Margravine’s own silver-handled riding crop which I have myself seen in her hand when she was out cantering through the broom-bright meadows. I suppose this is a privilege - to use her crop.
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