THE DEVIL'S SURROGATE
by
JENNIFER JANE POPE
The Devil's Surrogate first published in 2001 by Chimera Publishing. Published as an eBook in 2011 by Avid eBooks.
Smashwords Edition
New authors are always welcome, or if you’re already a published author and have existing work, the eBook rights of which remain with or have reverted to you, we would love to hear from you.
This novel is fiction - in real life practice safe sex.
This eBook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The characters and situations in this eBook are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.
Copyright Jennifer Jane Pope. The right of Jennifer Jane Pope to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Author's Preface
Well, here we are again, back in the seventeenth century, and things are just the same as when we left them some months ago, with our main heroine in a very precarious predicament and a lot of other people variously confused and frustrated by the machinations of our assorted villains. But I promise you, all will be resolved, for good or bad, by the end of this book; no more 'hanging on by the fingernails' open-endings.
To those of you who wrote to me after reading Cauldron of Fear... yes, I know it was a bit of a mean trick to leave everything so 'up in the air' like that, yet it was gratifying to know so many of you had enjoyed the book to the extent that you were left chewing on your knuckles. However, I swear it was not my original intention. My books (and I know it happens to other authors as well) have this tendency to assume a life of their own in which events are governed by the developing characters and I end up feeling like little more than an observer recording what happens for the benefit of posterity. In Cauldron, this happened to such an extent that... well, we basically ran out of book, and short of chopping everything short in what would have been a most unsatisfactory fashion, or ending up with a volume so thick it would have been nearly impossible to publish, there was nothing else for it but to make this a two book story.
Back on the positive side, it is nice to know so many of you enjoyed Cauldron of Fear for reasons other than the most obvious, and especially that you appreciated the historical bits. I do like to be accurate, and yes, I have always been a bit of a history buff. That's the main reason I began the Teena Thyme series, and now I have the opportunity to bounce our eponymous heroine around through the ages. If you haven't met Teena yet, her first adventure takes her back into early Victorian days, complete with tightly laced corsets, silk stockings, villainous noblemen, and... well, that's another story and the book is out there if you fancy it.
For the moment, we're back in sixteen-sixty. For those of you who may have missed the first volume, there's a bit of background in the following prologues, together with a brief summary of the plot so far. You can skip over both if you wish and probably enjoy this volume just as much, but I think it will be worth a few minutes of your time to do the job properly.
Well, enough of the chat, apart from thanking you all once again for your continued interest and support. Now let's turn the clock back precisely three-hundred and forty-one years...
Prologue I
A Brief History According to the Jenny Pope Annals
The seventeenth century was both a curious century and an important one in that it linked the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. If that sounds obvious, and even a bit silly, maybe it is worth thinking about the fact that this particular span of one hundred years linked the Elizabethan era to the beginning of what we now can think of as the modern age, and so many things happened in that time that it would take twenty volumes the size of this one to even begin to do the subject justice.
Indeed, at the birth of the seventeenth century, Elizabeth the virgin queen was still on the English throne, albeit in the twilight years of her long life and reign, and by the end of the century the country had executed a king, experienced Parliamentary 'democracy', made great strides towards colonising and 'civilising' great tracts of the globe, and seen the real beginning of the first scientific age, thanks to the enthusiasm and patronage of Charles II when he wasn't bouncing around atop Nell Gwynne and others.
In between times there was the Bubonic Plague, which decimated a large part of the population, and the Great Fire of London, whose origin still gives rise to much debate. Was it a plot by the powers that be to cleanse the capital of the deadly plague virus? We will never know, just as we will never know the real truth behind so many momentous historical events, but then this is not a history book.
What we do know, and what a lot of people forget, is that the Plague epidemic of sixteen sixty-five was not the first time the deadly disease reared its ugly head. For decades there were sporadic and mostly isolated outbreaks, and thousands died prior to the final apocalypse. The church preached that the Plague was a punishment from God, and even hinted that the Plague might be the work of witches, even though the bishops had by now decreed that there was no such thing as witchcraft. Mind you, they had not quite gotten around to actually outlawing the execution of witches as such, but merely declared that perhaps witches did not really exist... perhaps.
It seems crazy to us now looking back from the relative sanity of our own times (and I use the term 'sanity' very advisedly) that on the one hand the church could say witches did not exist, and on the other hand it could still turn a blind eye when some poor young wench or old crone was strung up for allegedly practicing the dark arts. But then we have to understand that these were times of great flux, lacking in the sort of communication we take for granted today. Also, as one contemporary scholar put it, there was a perceived difference between actually being a witch (the church said you could not actually be one now) and practicing the Satanic arts. The fact that the former had been decreed impossible did not preclude unfortunate souls from being prosecuted and persecuted for still believing it possible. Believing in the black arts was heresy, and this was the crime for which women, and some men, were actually sentenced.
The one fortunate aspect of the situation for the unfortunate victims was that at least by this time England had stopped burning heretics and witches. Hanging, although not yet the relatively instantaneous death it later became when the 'drop' method was universally introduced, was a far preferable and less agonising way of going to meet your Maker. Strangulation may not be nice, but compared to writhing around as your flesh is roasted away... well, enough said, I think.
The 'drop' method of hanging was finally officially introduced and perfected as a method of swift dispatch in the middle to the late nineteenth century, but it was in existence a long time before that and originally employed in places such as Italy and the Balkan States, as we know them now, at least by the more enlightened and compassionate rulers, which made its use rare indeed. I mention this in case some of you are wondering about the fact that its use was touched upon in Cauldron of Fear and again in this book.
As for the state of crime, law and order and justice in general, especially in England, it would not be inaccurate to suggest they left a lot to be desired. Cromwell had created the country's first standing army, but as for civilian law enforcement, it was at best hit-or-miss and at worst merely chronic. A patchwork of magistrates, constables, wardens and local militia-style forces had sprung up without any real order or organisation, and were generally run by whoever held the most sway locally. It was a situation ripe for corruption and good-old human nature was not slow to oblige.
It is also worth remembering, at least in order to get this story into some sort of context, that slavery was still legal in this country, as it was in most of the world, and not just the enslavement of non-whites. Europeans could find themselves sold into slavery by courts, whose authority was often quite dubious, for the most trivial offence. Slaves made money, and people with money seldom tended to be content with what they had, not when they could make a lot more money with the aid of a few bought testimonies and a few greedy magistrates and judges. Quite often, in fact, these people were the magistrates and judges.
And so, dear reader, armed with this little potted analysis, let us move on now and view the unfolding events in the same dark light that was all-pervasive back then...
Prologue II
The Story So Far
(Note: Please see Cast of Characters Appendix at the end of the book)
From Cauldron of Fear
The girl was young, fresh and virginal, even her shaven skull unable to disguise her basic, innocent prettiness. Jacob Crawley, standing in the shadows at the far end of the vault from where she hung chained against the rough stone wall, licked his thin lips in anticipation.
Quietly, with a lightness of step that belied his fifty-something years, he moved closer, until he hovered at the very edge of the pool of orange torchlight that illuminated the captive wench, his black hair and the long black cape he held about his tall frame blending with the darkness behind him and rendering him all but invisible. He saw that her eyes were closed and guessed she was probably fallen into a light sleep of sheer exhaustion, despite the pain her enforced position would be growing in her shoulders and arms, and in the stretched muscles of her calves and thighs as they tried to take some of her weight via the tips of her toes that barely touched the cold floor.
Her breasts, distorted somewhat by her stretched posture, were small and firm, the nipples prominent and deeply coloured, as yet unmarked, per Crawley's strictest instructions. He grinned maliciously to himself, knowing that they would not remain thus for much longer.
Between her taut thighs, her shaven pudenda pouted alluringly, the chains at her ankles holding her legs apart just sufficiently to prevent any attempt at modesty, and Crawley felt a cold shiver of lust crawl slowly up his spine. This one, he thought, was far too good to waste on the scaffold, far too sweet a fruit to plant in the chill earth beyond the consecrated ground of the churchyard. No, he chuckled, this one would not be broken, though he knew she would probably require a taste of his own peculiar skills and more than a modicum of bending before she would be totally satisfactory.
Not that the process would take that long; it seldom did. Two days, three at the most. Three days that would to her, however, pass like a millennium, so that when Crawley finally granted her even the smallest measure of relief and the chance to avoid the fate to which she would by then have consigned herself and probably even craved, she would take it gratefully, no matter to what level of degradation she must surely know she would sink.
Crawley shuffled his position, the muscles in his right thigh having stiffened in the damp air, and the slight sound brought the girl immediately awake again, her wide brown eyes flickering from side to side in alarm.
'Who... who's there?' she cried, her voice thin and wavering in her terror of the unknown. 'Please,' she wailed, when Crawley made no reply nor moved to reveal himself, 'please, whoever you are, take pity. I am no witch; surely you must all know that by now. Ask in the village, as I said, everyone will tell you.'
'Oh, people always tell me what they think I will believe,' Crawley replied, breaking his silence at last, though still remaining back from the light, 'at least in the beginning.' His voice betrayed his north country roots, though many years had softened the harsher edges of his accent. 'Satan woos his brides to proliferate his evil lies, but the Good Lord has bestowed on me the gift of cutting through them.'
'Sir!' Tears welled up in the girl's eyes and began trickling down cheeks that were already stained. 'Sir, I am no bride of the devil, nor do I lie. I fear God and worship our saviour and a more devout girl you will surely never find.'
'You are Matilda Pennywise, of the Parish of St Jude?'
The girl nodded, swallowing hard.
Crawley inched forward, so that his outline was now visible to her, but only as a deeper shadow. 'Speak girl,' he commanded. 'Are you, or are you not, Matilda Pennywise?'
'Yes!' Matilda gasped. 'Yes sir, indeed I am... sir,' she added as an afterthought.
'That's better, wench,' Crawley cackled, 'you seem to be learning something at last.' He coughed, clearing his throat. 'Then, Matilda Pennywise,' he continued after a carefully judged pause, 'you stand accused of several counts of witchcraft, sorcery and consorting with unholy forces.'
'No!' Matilda shrieked. 'No, it's all lies, as God is my witness!'
Without warning Crawley leapt forward, his right arm swinging in a wide arc, the open palm of his hand slapping into the girl's unprotected cheek with such force that she would have been knocked off her feet were the chains not holding her upright. She let out a howl of pain, not least because the full weight of her body had momentarily been transferred to her already tortured upper limbs.
'Silence!' he roared. 'Heresy, to invoke the name of the Lord God you have betrayed.' Matilda was struggling to regain her balance and clearly scarcely heard him, but Crawley knew his words would sink in eventually. 'You are all the same, you Devil's spawn harlots, every single one of you,' he intoned. 'Yet I shall save your unholy soul, mark my words. You will return to the arms of the heavenly master cleansed of your foul wickedness, else my name be not Jacob Crawley!'
The main action of the story takes place in and around the fictitious village of Leddingham, near the border between the counties of Hampshire and Surrey, set on what is now known as the main A3, the road from London to the great naval port of Portsmouth on the south coast. The local inn, The Black Drum, owned by Thomas Handiwell, does a brisk trade from both travellers and locals alike.
Just to the north and west of Leddingham lies the huge Grayling estate, run in the absence of his father, Earl Grayling, by the cruel and manipulative Roderick, who has built up a lucrative business in white slaving, concentrating mostly on young women trained at the Hall by his strict overseers and then sold on to all parts of the world.
A little south of Grayling Hall is the much smaller farm estate of Barten Meade, owned by Oliver Merridew, a former army major now virtually bedridden as a result of wounds sustained during his military career. The impoverished farm is kept going by Harriet, his pretty and intelligent daughter, but times are so hard that she is beginning to consider the marriage proposals she has received from the widowed Master Handiwell. He is unaware his affection for her has triggered a terrible hatred in his daughter, Jane, who sees Harriet as a threat to her inheritance and who is also terribly jealous that she was not blessed with the same fine looks.
A would-be witch, Jane has recruited a small band of highwaywomen, including Roderick Grayling's younger sister Ellen, and this foursome have terrified the night roads, robbing coaches and abducting any suitable young females to sell to Roderick. Into this trap comes Sarah Merridew, Harriet's cousin, recently orphaned in London after a local plague outbreak and now seeking the sanctuary of her only remaining relatives.
Meanwhile, Jacob Crawley has arrived in the village, a brooding, menacing figure who carries with him a written authority appointing him as a witchfinder, even though the church supposedly abandoned such practices more than a decade earlier. Crawley has been summoned by the local minister, Simon Wickstanner, whose spurned advances toward a young local girl, Matilda Pennywise, have turned to thoughts of revenge spurred on by the rumours that Matilda's grandmother, Hannah, is hoarding a small fortune amassed by her own father, Nathan, now dead many long years.
With a dubious signed testimony by a local labourer, who has since mysteriously died, Crawley arrests Matilda and subjects her to a horrifying ordeal whose purpose he alleges is to draw a confession from her as well as to purge her of her sins. However, when he attempts to persuade Hannah to pay penance in gold to save Matilda from the scaffold, he is astonished to be met with outright refusal.
Thomas Handiwell has meantime set off for London in an attempt to persuade the army to send men to help him search for the abducted Sarah, while the resourceful Harriet has recruited the assistance of young Toby Blaine and his friends to try to help her discover who is behind the kidnapping. Unfortunately, although she succeeds in uncovering some of the identities of the perpetrators, she herself is captured when she attempts to pay a ransom, and is substituted by the vengeful Jane for Matilda and left in the crypt of the church, naked, hooded and gagged, and surely soon to be hanged before Crawley or his assistants have the chance to discover her true identity.
Thomas Handiwell has meantime returned to Leddingham, completely unaware that the hand behind the now double abduction is that of his own daughter, Jane.
'Our methods are now well and truly tried and tested, Sir Peregrine,' Adam Portfield said smugly. He always enjoyed escorting prospective clients around the estate; delighted in showing off the training techniques he and his fellow overseers utilised, secure in the knowledge that his employer, Sir Roderick Grayling, would have vetted these visitors most thoroughly before permitting them access to this, his most closely guarded citadel.
Today's visitor, Sir Peregrine Wellthorne, was younger than most. The sort of money the Grayling enterprise commanded for its human products tended to be beyond the reach of all but the most wealthy and such wealth usually took time to accumulate. Sir Wellthorne looked to be in his early thirties, although his flushed countenance suggested a lifestyle not conducive to longevity. Wellthorne had inherited his father's shipping fortunes when the old man had, unfortunately, gone down aboard one of his merchantmen during an unseasonable storm in the Channel. Peregrine had since proceeded to employ much of his wealth in ways that would have had his father turning in his grave, had they ever been able to recover his body and give it the luxury of one, that is.
'Yes, I'm sure you know what you're doing, Mister Portfield,' Sir Wellthorne drawled, his eyes bulging slightly as two buxom females appeared in the doorway at the end of the long barn, naked except for stringent leather harnesses and matching leather hoods that completely obscured their features. Behind them, a young and lanky sandy-haired fellow cracked a heavy whip. The wicked thong missed the girls' defenceless shoulders by mere fractions of an inch, but the sharp report made them flinch nonetheless.
'Tell me, though,' he continued, swivelling his head to watch the progress of the glistening bodies with their bouncing bosoms, 'why the hood thing? Don't want your clients to see what they're buying, is that it?'
Adam smiled, but kept his face turned away so that his companion could not see his amusement. It was the usual question, after all, and few visitors understood without having it explained to them, sometimes more than once, and then there were still those who were unable to grasp the concept. 'The girls are slaves now,' Adam said very slowly and deliberately. 'They all come from different backgrounds - city streets, country lanes, and even, sometimes, from quite comfortable circumstances. The only thing they have in common is that they are comely, young, fit and pleasing to the eye. Once they arrive here, however, they have everything and one thing in common, the only thing that counts, namely that they are now slaves and have no will, or choice, of their own. Neither will a pretty face or a pleading smile avail them, not while they are kept hooded, as you see most of them now. By hiding their faces we submerge their individualities, indeed their very personalities. They soon come to understand that now they are seen as only one thing, a means of gratification and service to their masters and mistresses to be. Here we view them only as one might view any other livestock. A farmer doesn't value his cows by the prettiness of their faces, after all!'
Sir Peregrine guffawed and nodded enthusiastically. 'Indeed not! A good point, and well made, sir. Though a good brood mare may oft times be judged by the lines of her muzzle and not just by her flanks.'
'Which is why we always give our buyers every opportunity to view the goods properly before buying,' Adam said. 'Meantime, however, we keep the bitches masked and their hair shorn, so that even when they are not wearing the hood for bathing they all feel as if they look alike. Besides, for those we send abroad, the lack of hair is an advantage when it comes to ensuring they don't become flea-ridden during the long voyage.'
Sir Peregrine retorted, laughing, 'Well, a few fleabites never hurt a wench, that's for sure! But I daresay you fellows know your trade.'
'Indeed we do,' Adam muttered. 'The easier it is to keep our cargoes clean, the more of them survive to reach their destinations. Lost stock is lost money, Sir Peregrine, and I was raised to abhor waste in any shape or form.'
'Well, I must say, the shapes and forms about here are most pleasing.' Peregrine leered as another pair of hooded and harnessed slaves appeared at the end of the barn, followed by an even younger groom. These two girls were very pale-skinned; evidently their bodies had never been exposed to the elements.
'These two,' Adam said, noting Peregrine's renewed interest, 'come from the north, probably from the Norse lands. They were purchased cheaply from a Scandinavian sea captain who needed money to affect some urgent repairs to his vessel after a storm forced him to turn into Harrogate two weeks since.'
'But you'll not be offering them on so cheaply, I'll venture.'
'Business is business, Sir Peregrine,' Adam smiled at him again. 'Besides, the prices are none of my business. Sir Roderick sees to that side himself.'
'When he's not got one or another of his little piccaninnies sucking on the end of his cock, that is?' Peregrine sniffed, and then let out a raucous laugh. 'Damned if I can see what he finds so attractive in that pair of black wenches. Not one of them stands any higher than this!' He raised a hand to about the level of his heart. 'Probably only keeps them because nobody else would pay good money for such freaks!'
Adam refused to be drawn out. Like Sir Peregrine, he found little he considered attractive in the two diminutive African girls, but then he knew that tastes varied, and he was not about to decry those of his employer, who very much enjoyed the doglike devotion and willing mouths of Popsy and Topsy, and would not willingly swap them even for the most alluring white beauty. 'Perhaps you see something you might like to sample yourself? With our compliments, of course,' he suggested, deftly changing the course of the discussion. 'We have several girls now who are suitably broken, and they're all clean enough once we sluice the dust of the day off them. Perhaps I could show you some possibilities and then offer you some refreshments while the lads prepare your choice?'
Harriet recognised the gaunt figure of Jacob Crawley even in the near darkness of the crypt room into which she had been cast by Jane Handiwell's cohorts, but she knew he would not have recognised her even if the room had been bathed in bright sunlight. The thick leather mask concealed her identity completely, and the barbarous spike from the metal cage that had been locked onto her head over the hood dug viciously into her tongue every time she tried to move it, making intelligible speech completely impossible.
'Ah, dear little Matilda,' he grunted, stooping over her prone figure and reaching out a bony hand to stroke her naked left breast. 'What a shame to waste such youthful perfection, but the work of the Lord allows little room for personal gratification or preferences.'
The man was clearly insane. Harriet was sure now of what she had already suspected as she saw the strange light burning deep in his eyes. That he would assume she was Matilda was no surprise, but that he could pretend, let alone evidently believe, his evil actions were even remotely excusable or connected with religion proved to her beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was completely mad. However, mad or not, she was now totally in his power, and judging from what she had heard from the villagers, in imminent danger of her life.
'I have decided to allow a little more time for that witch, your grandmother, to see sense,' he growled, his fingers moving to her other breast.
Harriet felt her stomach tighten and her blood turn to ice in her veins, but knew there was little point in risking antagonising this lunatic further by trying to draw away from his touch.
'The old woman has sent word that she wishes to barter,' Crawley continued, his lip curling back in a grin that revealed misshapen, yellowing teeth. 'I sense she is simply trying to buy time and seeking to trick me. However,' he muttered, 'one of the village men tells me he saw her with the young Calthorpe lad, which may well explain the apparent disappearance of my man, Jed Mardley. The crone is planning something, I can feel it, but if she thinks to outwit me, she'll live to regret it, if only briefly. Jed tells me that dropping you whore-spawn on the end of a rope makes for a painless end, but it also makes for a quick one with no time for intervention. I discovered, many years ago, that even the most cowardly soul may be stirred to action by the sight of a loved one dancing on the end of a gallows rope, but with this new way there is no time. Jed pulls his lever, and bang, down you go.' He snapped his fingers and cackled to himself. 'Just like that, the neck is broken and you're no more than carrion. Not so much as a twitching toe, Matilda, dear.' He moved his other hand up to the side of her neck, fingering the narrow steel band that kept the old scold's bridle from being removed. 'This is even thin enough that it won't interfere with the rope,' he snickered, 'so you'll meet your death with nothing more than a garbled whimper. No witching curses from the scaffold from you, my dear child, no indeed.'
He straightened up, and with an awkward gesture managed to throw his cape from his shoulders, letting it cascade to the floor behind him in a crumpled heap. 'But that is all for later, my precious.' He fumbled with the buckle of his belt. 'Now that most of the devil's work has been scourged from you, it's time again to at least welcome your physical body back into the fold.' He drew the front of his breeches apart and Harriet saw that his shaft was already growing erect. To her horrified astonishment, she saw also that it appeared to be inordinately long, making it appear thinner than she might have expected, like the neck of a rearing serpent. 'Let's see if you still have the strength to wriggle as you did before,' he challenged, leering. 'Up on your feet now, whore girl, and let us dance together!'
Kitty realised resignedly that she was now even beginning to think of herself by her new name. Miranda Parkes, after all, belonged in a world so different from the one in which she now found herself that she would probably have killed herself rather than submit to the appalling indignities now inflicted upon her with such cold detachment. It was easier to imagine she was indeed Titty Kitty, and that she had lived no other life before this.
As she trotted dutifully along - wrists bound tightly in the small of her back, waist cinched by the cruel girth strap, her breasts bouncing, their size exaggerated by the thin leather bands that had been drawn tightly around them at their base - the crack-crack of the whip seemed to echo inside her head as if from another world, its sound muffled by the restraining hood encasing her smoothly shaven head. Alongside her trotted a similarly garbed girl, distinguishable from Kitty only by the fact that her breasts were considerably smaller, whilst behind her she could imagine the cool yet interested expression of their groom, the ginger-haired Ross who had taken over her training now that the man Adam seemed to have lost his earlier interest in her.
Perhaps, she mused, chewing on the wad of leather that served as an immovable gag inside her hood, the fact that Ross himself seemed far more interested in the newly arrived Sarah might mean that she, Kitty, would get an easier time of it for a few days, but she was not pinning any hopes on that. The men who ran this terrible place all seemed to have an insatiable appetite for their charges - they were all so young and undeniably fit, as she had seen immediately - and seemed able to go from one to another with barely a break in between.
At least, she sighed to herself, they weren't superhuman and she had eventually been allowed to rest when they finally retired to wherever it was they slept, although Ross had reappeared at dawn to stir them from their slumbers and curse and kick them back into consciousness. Kitty risked a covert glance to her left, peering sideways through the vision-restricting slits in her hood, in an effort to see how her companion was faring. There was little to indicate Sarah's state, the leather-masked features betraying nothing, her breathing as laboured through her nostrils as was her own.
'Eyes front, whore!' The whip cracked out again, but this time the tip caught Kitty exactly between her shoulder blades and she leapt, a sharp squeal of pain forcing its way past her gag. Damn him! she cursed in her head, her eyes burning with tears, for it had only been the briefest of glances and she could have sworn she had not even turned her head, certainly not more than the merest fraction of an inch.
'Pick it up there now!' Ross snapped. 'Let's see those bubbies bounce. Or shall I get some bells to hang on those teat rings?'
Kitty blinked to clear her vision and desperately tried to obey, for the thought of anything being hung onto the rings that now adorned her recently pierced nipples was almost too much to bear. Ross had demonstrated the previous evening just how painful even the smallest tug could be, and how by means of even two of the thinnest leather thongs attached to the twin metal circles a man could exert total control over her.
'That's better!'
Kitty stifled a sigh of relief. At least for the moment she was to be spared that indignity, though she knew there would be others and that it would not be long before one of the men, even if it were not Ross himself, would take advantage of her helplessness. Both she and Sarah had been brought out without thick dildos strapped into them, and Kitty had discovered this meant only that their sexes were being left that much more available for a human phallus.
'Left now... left, I say!' Ross flicked the whip in an arc that allowed it to merely kiss both sets of shoulders. 'There!' he cried. 'There, onto that path, you idle sluts. Let's get some blood running in those legs and pussies.' The ground beneath their bare feet began to rise slightly, but even this gentle gradient imposed considerable extra strain upon muscles that were already screaming in protest.
This way, Kitty now knew, lay two smaller barns which the grooms used to house their charges on some nights when the main barn was particularly crowded, or when they decided it was time to impose some particularly wicked discipline on certain of their charges. Both buildings had been equipped with a bewildering array of punishment and torture devices, ranging from simple trestles - upon which a girl could be painfully mounted - to stocks and pillories that must have tested the ingenuity of their designers, and which could be employed to secure a victim in almost any position of pain, degradation and availability for either punishment or sexual gratification.
She sucked in as deep a breath as the constricting girth would permit and ground her teeth into her gag. At least, she tried to console herself, whatever indignity their coldly efficient trainer decided to inflict upon them, it could be no worse than this constant trotting uphill with lungs already threatening to burst and sweat now pouring from every pore of their bodies. Also, she had discovered almost immediately upon her arrival, the pain and indignity would eventually become partially assuaged by the waves of pleasure even such inhuman treatment somehow managed to generate in her treacherous body.
Jacob Crawley gripped the writhing girl's buttocks hard with his bony fingers, delighting in the way her body squirmed helplessly against his own, and in the deep heat gripping his throbbing member as she hung impaled upon it, her bare toes inches off the stone floor, her legs kicking helplessly as she strove to free herself; a fruitless struggle, for he had her firmly and would not release her until he had sated himself.
'Bitch... whore...' he hissed. 'Try to seduce the Lord's appointed hand with your lewdness, would you?' He barely suppressed a chuckle, for even his warped mind knew well enough that Matilda's desperate twisting and turning was no attempt to stir his lust but merely the instinctive struggling of a trapped creature, the way a fly might twitch and twist in the helpless grip of a spider's web.
He moved one hand up, pressing against the small of her back so her naked breasts were crushed against his own bare chest. The smell of her was overpowering; sweat, fear, and yes, even that smell of lust. These ungodly sluts simply could not help themselves. Weakness, the weakness that was woman incarnate, the same weakness that had led Eve to sample the forbidden fruit, and all at the behest of a serpent. Now another serpent was summoning this Eve's whore, the stiff serpent that sprang up from his loins and upon which she was now so totally impaled, repenting and repaying the treachery of her sex to the Lord God their maker. Crawley ground his broken teeth hard together, feeling the first waves of his own surrender beginning to build, knowing he must soon spurt his seed deep into her faithless womb and yet wishing to prolong the moment of deep, agonising ecstasy for both of them.
'Bitch...' he groaned, butting his head against the leather covering of her cheek, forgetting the steel band that crossed it and yet oblivious to the pain as his forehead slammed into it. 'Bitch!' he roared again, and holding her writhing body even tighter, exploded a torrent of semen into her with a ferocity that threatened to buckle his own legs beneath their combined weight.
Very dimly, Sarah Merridew was aware that something had happened inside her head, something she could not explain and yet something for which, in a curious way, she was grateful.
It was as if some part of her brain had simply shut down by refusing to accept that any of this could actually be happening to her. Now she found herself blessed with the ability to experience everything as if it was happening to someone else, as if she was viewing it all dispassionately through a smeared and smoky glass. It was not as if she could do anything about it anyway. These terrible people, whoever they were, had seen to it that she was kept in a state of total helplessness ever since they seized her, wasting no time in reducing her to a condition that was at best animalistic, and at worst...
She peered down through the eye slits in her hood at her breasts, which bobbed up and down as she trotted dutifully along, the early morning sun occasionally glinting on the metal rings that now hung from just below each of her nipples. They really did look quite pretty, she mused, and then castigated herself fiercely for entertaining such a thought. It was one thing to accept a certain inevitability about her situation, but quite another to consider it anything but terrible. And for a young lady to even enjoy the sight of her bared bosom, especially one that had been handled in such a crude and summary fashion, had to be a sin on a level no Christian woman could begin to contemplate.
So why did her nipples tingle so pleasantly in the fresh, warm breeze? Why did she continue to feel that heat deep inside her groin, the same heat the brutal Ross had kindled and which refused to cool even though she had since managed a few hours of very uncomfortable sleep? Why did she, knowing that Ross would soon be thrusting into her again, not view the prospect with terror and abhorrence? Why, she was forced to ask herself, did she feel almost as if she were looking forward to it?
'Damn all of them to hell!' Thomas Handiwell slammed his tankard down onto the bar of the Black Drum and glared at the small assembled company. 'Call themselves men and talk about freedom, yes,' he sneered, 'but ask any one of them to go against their so-called lords and masters, even when we have evidence of their guilt, and they run and hide their faces!'
'My men report that at least four of them have joined up with this Crawley fellow,' Captain Timothy Hart said quietly. 'It would seem they respond to gold rather better than they do to duty, but then I cannot really blame them, those who'll not join us, that is. The Graylings are a rich and powerful family, by all accounts, and they doubtless have rich and powerful friends.'
'Aye, that they are, and that they surely do,' Handiwell muttered, 'but I'm damned if I'll stand by and let any man's supposed birthright or wealth flout basic laws and human standards. They can't simply snatch innocent people from the roads as if they were no better than common slaves!'
'And what of your friend, this Mistress Merridew?' Hart enquired, blinking his watery eyes as the first shaft of sunlight suddenly penetrated through the east facing window like a bright sword shaft thrusting into the gloomy barroom. 'Should we not have heard something from her by now? I fear they may have taken her as well.'
'Damn the foolish wench,' Handiwell snapped, but there was a note of tender concern in his oath. 'I warned her against the venture, and warned her to stay back and run if there was trouble.'
'Maybe she tried and simply could not run fast enough,' Hart suggested.
Sergeant Paddy Riley nodded, sagely. 'Ain't easy fer a lady to run fast in skirts, and not that much better if'n she wears breeches, I'd say. Running ain't woman's work, that's what my ma used to tell me, anyway.'
'Thank you, sergeant,' Hart retorted a bit acidly, 'your homespun family philosophy and wit are hardly called for here, I think.'
'Maybe not, sir,' Riley replied, unabashed by the intended rebuke, 'but there's maybe a few homespun skills that would be welcome. Sean Kelly and meself could get ourselves in there, I reckon, unless they've got a whole regiment of those bastards wandering around the woods.'
'And what good could two of you do?' Hart asked impatiently. 'All that would likely happen is you'd get caught, or shot, and that would leave me with two less men. We've already lost Hollis. Isn't that bad enough?'
'Certainly it's bad, captain sir,' Riley said. 'I've known Hollis since he first joined up, as it happens, and a nicer lad you couldn't wish for, not even when he was in his cups, but that's a soldier's lot and we all accept it when we take the shilling. On the other hand, sir,' he continued, leaning forward in his chair, 'maybe this Grayling place isn't quite the ground for ordinary soldiering, eh? No self-respecting general would commit his troops into woods like those, not when every tree and every bush could be hiding a musket primed and ready. No, captain, begging your pardon, there's a time and a place for everything, and a reason for some, and woods were made for poaching, just as sure as me name is Patrick Michael Flaherty Riley.'
'And just as sure as you probably grew up feeding your family on rabbits that didn't belong to you, sergeant?' Handiwell interjected, quite unable to keep the grin from his face despite the gravity of the situation. 'Kelly too, perhaps?'
'Without it we'd have all starved, and without being caught I reckon neither of us would be in this damned army, begging your pardon, sir,' Riley retorted, but his own grin belied the supposed apology in his words. 'The two of us could slip in there, I reckon, though we'd need to be borrowing some more suitable clothing. These damned tunics are far too bright. Something nice and drab would do the job, I think.'
'I'll see what I can find for you,' Handiwell said without waiting for further comment from Hart. 'Meantime, perhaps Anne would be so good as to see what might be available for breaking our fast. This could be yet another long day, if I'm any judge of these things, and it could be many a long hour before any of us gets the chance to eat again, at least when it comes to a decent hot meal.'
Paddy Riley nodded. 'It might also be a good idea if we took the young Blaine boy along with us,' he suggested. 'He seems to know this country better than most know the back of their hands.'
'But he's only a scrap of a lad!' Anne Billings protested, halting in the doorway on her way to the kitchen.
'But a cunning wee lad, to be sure,' Riley said. 'Believe me, young Toby will be more use than a whole company of troopers out there in those woods and he's less likely to come to any harm than either Kelly or meself. The boy's a survivor if ever there was one, and believe me mistress, it takes one to know one.'
To the surprise of both Hannah Pennywise and James Calthorpe, the little side door of the church was unlocked and the handle turned easily in the old woman's grasp. She looked back at the young man's petrified face, and grinned. 'Careless of the bastards, I'd say,' she declared in a harsh whisper, 'but we'd better go careful, nonetheless. It may be some sort of trap. That Crawley devil is no fool even if Wickstanner is, and his sort don't go around leaving doors unlocked as should be locked, not by mistake, anyways.'
James gripped the unfamiliar weight of the pistol in his right hand and swallowed hard as he tried to stop himself from trembling. 'Perhaps I should go first,' he volunteered gallantly. 'I've got this, after all.'
'And I've got this one, don't forget,' Hannah muttered, drawing the smaller pistol from beneath her shawl and shaking her head. 'No, you stay behind me, my young lad. The world won't miss one more old woman, but it hasn't got so many bright young men it can afford to waste one so willingly, and while my Matilda will no doubt mourn my passing, in the long run she'd mourn yours more. Besides,' she grinned, 'while they're wasting time trying to pot me, it'll give you a chance to take proper aim, and I daresay you can shoot straighter than me?'
'Um, well, I don't know,' James stammered. 'I mean, I've shot a pistol before, of course, but never, well, never at anything that was alive and moving.'
Hannah's eyebrows lifted. 'What, not even a rabbit? No, I suppose not. Too many hours at your schooling I reckon, and a father with no need to put free meat on the table. Ah well,' she sighed, 'just you make sure and take good aim when the time comes. Make sure your first shot counts because you won't have time for a second. And don't,' she added grimly, 'try shooting the bastard in the head. Far too small a target, and it can move too quickly. Aim about here.' She prodded James so fiercely in his stomach that he let out an involuntary gasp. 'Then, if you aim too low,' she chuckled, 'you'll like as not shoot his bollocks off. Stomach or balls, it's all the same, and when one of them goes down making all sorts of noise, the others, if they're there, get less brave, and maybe that'll give us time to reload.'
'You seem to know a lot about these things, Mistress Pennywise,' James said falteringly.
Hannah grimaced and winked up at him. 'These eyes have seen a sight too many things over the years, and this head has maybe taken in at least twice as many as ought to be good for a person's sanity. Now, enough of this talk and let's see what's skulking on the other side of this here door, shall we?'
Slumped into the corner of the damp smelling crypt chamber, Harriet fought desperately to shut out the images and recollections of the way in which Crawley had used her, and the way in which, when he had spent himself, he had simply discarded her like an unwanted jacket and strode from the room. Perhaps death would be far preferable to this horror, she thought. The brute had said the way in which he and his men hanged their victims was quick and painless, although how he could be certain of the latter assertion she had no way of knowing. Yet even death by slow strangulation had to be better than this death of a different kind, the slow and tortuous murder of all her beliefs and values.
With a groan that became a sharp gasp as the wicked metal barb dug into her tongue, Harriet forced herself up into a sitting position. Her wrists were once again shackled at either side of the thick waist belt, but her arms were of little more use to her now than when they had been fastened behind her back. Her ankles remained shackled by the short chain, which had now been attached by means of a length of thick rope to a heavy ring set into the stonework a few feet from where she sat.
Above her head pale light managed to filter in through the narrow and grimy strip of glass, glowing green as it forced its way past the weeds and grass which grew up against it on the outside, so that the entire chamber took on a spectral atmosphere that was as depressing as it was frightening. Somewhere out there lay the real world, the world Harriet knew and which, until such a short time ago, held as its worst prospect a marriage to Thomas Handiwell to save Barten Meade from bankruptcy, and her father from the poor house hospital the army had set up with so much trumpeting, but which Parliament had failed to maintain with sufficient funding. Now, it seemed, if she ever got out of this horror chamber, all that was left her was to stumble naked in her chains to Crawley's scaffold, to die as Matilda Pennywise at the hands of a perverted rogue, probably to the jeering accompaniment of most of the village men folk. If only, she prayed, there was any way she could let someone, even Crawley himself, know of this awful travesty and tell people that this was not even a mistake but a deliberate act by Thomas Handiwell's own daughter. The world had gone mad. Greed and fear, superstition and myth - what price now the bright new age of reason? What price now on the life of a poor wench whose only sin had been to miss church in order to care for a sick father and a struggling farm?
'By the eyes of Hester, what devil's work is this?' The sight that greeted them in the main church visibly stunned Hannah Pennywise, not known for being a woman who was easily shocked.
James Calthorpe put out a hand to steady her, at the same time waving the pistol in a defensive arc about them. Nothing moved, however, and the thick walls and glass meant that even the sounds of the morning birdsong failed to penetrate the oppressive silence. James let out a long breath and took a faltering step forward, his eyes growing larger and rounder as he stared down at the corpse.
The black cassock and the long and slender, almost feminine, fingers told him the body was that of the minister, Simon Wickstanner. Apart from that, it could have been the corpse of any priest, for where there should have been a head there was now only the ripped and bloodied stump of a neck, the pool of blood covering the stone floor in all directions emphasising the fact that the head had not been removed easily or cleanly.
'Monsters!' Hannah breathed. 'The dark ones have sent for their revenge, make no mistake about it!' To James's surprise, the old woman crossed herself and closed her eyes, her lips moving in a silent prayer.
'No,' he announced, regaining some semblance of composure. 'No, this is not the work of any monster, not unless you count the monster who now lies dead before us. Look, Mistress Pennywise.' He jabbed a wavering finger at the ladder, and pointed up to where the rope dangled, a small and bloodied noose at its lower end.
Hannah eventually forced her eyes open again, and gazed upwards. 'What...?' she began, but then a light began to dawn in her eyes. 'But how...?' she muttered.
James shook his head as if in bewilderment, but his educated and fertile brain was already deducing. 'Suicide,' he breathed. 'The bastard hanged himself!'
'But where's his damned head?' Hannah looked wildly about them.
James grunted. 'It'll be here somewhere.' He stared upwards trying to picture the scene. 'The fool tried to make his end quick,' he muttered. 'There's an execution method known as "the drop", in which they drop the victim and the jerk of the rope snaps the neck, killing him instantly. Only, if they make the drop too long...' his voice trailed off.
'He made it far too long then, by the looks of it,' Hannah grasped the implication of James's statement with a turnabout leap that staggered him. 'Ripped his fool head clean off... except it ain't that clean.' She turned to grasp James by the arm, her bony fingers digging into his flesh through his thin jacket. 'We have to go! Come lad, let's get out of here!'
'But what about Matilda?'
Hannah hesitated. 'Not now,' she urged, pulling him back with surprising strength. 'If she is still here, there'll be locked doors for sure, and Crawley and his damned murdering henchman won't be that far away, but we cannot risk being found here like this. ''Tis one thing to shoot that black-hearted bastard if he tried to cheat us on the ransom, but another to be found here with a dead priest, no matter how wicked that priest might have been in life. Nay lad, I tell ye, we'll court more trouble than even I can face down if they find us like this. Better to run now and let someone else make the discovery. Besides,' she added, her eyes narrowing, 'even Crawley won't risk trying to hang my Matilda just yet, not once news of this gets out. Folks around here are a lot of things they shouldn't be, and aren't much of what a body might wish them to be, but at least they're respectful, so they won't go along with no hanging, not until they've given this sod a decent Christian burial, whether or not he deserves it.'
'But she may be only a few steps from where we stand now,' James protested.
Hannah nodded, but her resolve was as firm as ever. 'Aye, like as not she is, and there she'll stay, at least for now. We get ourselves into a fight with Crawley meantime, and he'll find a way to blame us for all this mess. People say I'm a witch, and when blood flows and vicars start jumping off ladders with ropes around their scrawny gizzards, well, someone has to be at fault and I knows only too well who'll be first up for the blame, believe you me!'
'Just a few minutes, please!' James begged, but the old woman was adamant.
'No,' she hissed, 'not now. Come on, you young idiot. Remember what they say, "he who runs away, lives to fight another day".'
'But surely that should be, "he who fights and—"'
'Bollocks! Go tell your own grandma to suck eggs, but leave this old woman to know what she knows and just get the hell out of here while we still can!'
Ross McDonald considered himself a Scot, even though his parents had left the land of his birth when he was but a few months old and he had never since returned there. He also considered himself a very fortunate young man, being paid to do a job he knew many of his contemporaries would have volunteered to do for free. However, he was also certain of one very important thing - very few men could have performed his duties quite as efficiently as he did, and neither could they maintain the air of detachment that was the essential ingredient in a good slave handler and trainer.
No matter how beautiful the female, no matter how pitiful or how brash even, Ross treated them all in the same fashion; maintaining a rigid discipline within himself he was then able to impose upon his charges. Even when he finally took a girl - be it for the umpteenth time, or be it an actual deflowering as had been the case with this new arrival, Sarah - he did it primarily as he did everything else, and only when he had begun to take his victim down to depths she had previously never known existed, then and only then might he permit himself the luxury of actually enjoying the act.
He smiled contentedly to himself as the second barn came into view through the thinning screen of trees. The building had lain derelict for many years and its restoration had been Ross's idea, and then his personal project, carried out with the enthusiastic backing of his employer, Roderick Grayling. The furthest structure from Grayling Hall itself, and still more than a mile-and-a-half from the nearest estate boundary, this Conditioning Centre - as Ross had himself named it - was still the object of some mockery by his fellow trainers, or at least by those of them who had yet to put its facilities to the proper test.
The C.C. had to be used properly; it was a waste of time bringing the girls out here for just a few hours and then returning them to the main barn, where they would once again be accompanied by their peers and the general hubbub of their shared misery in surroundings that, if not exactly comfortable, would at least have begun to take on a familiar and reassuring atmosphere. As far as Ross was concerned, that reassurance had to be earned, and would be all the more appreciated when a girl had spent at least two or three days in the isolation of his centre subjected to the various devices his peculiarly inventive Scottish mind had created.
After a protracted session in the C.C., even the most truculent slave would become docile and cooperative. Even girls who had been raised in the most affluent circumstances would willingly crawl on their knees and abase themselves in all manner of potentially profitable ways to avoid repeating the experience. A prudent Scot if ever there was one, and a man not given to wasting time any more than he was given to wasting money, Ross exposed each newcomer to a short session in the C.C. However, a prolonged spell in this centre was always eventually necessary, as had been the case with Kitty.
After the short session, when the girl returned to the main establishment, his expert eye soon told him which captive would need further full conditioning and which one was already so chastened by even that short exposure that her training would continue without trouble. There was little point in any of his charges trying to fool him in this respect, and he was also never fooled by a temporary state of shock.