Cauldron of Fear (28 page)

'See,
reverend, that's all the gratitude you'll get from me, you godless
bastard.'

Wickstanner
stared, as though transfixed, at the criss-cross pattern of welts.
Matilda remained thus for several seconds and then slowly turned
back to face him again.

'If you think I'd ever be grateful to you, then think again,
you evil little worm,' she said. Her voice sounded as if it had
been coated in ice. 'I think I know your game,
reverend
Wickstanner. Well, forget it.
There's no way you'll ever get what I think it is you want from me,
always supposing I ever do live long enough.

'So, you might as well take it now, eh? Come on,
reverend
, what are you
waiting for? See? I'm totally helpless, so why not just shuck your
breeches and do what you've wanted to do ever since you first set
eyes on me. C'mon, get your holy prick out, why don't you? Why
should I care, eh? Your prick, Crawley's prick, those other
animals—'

'Stop!'
Wickstanner leapt to his feet, covering his ears with his hands.
'Stop! Stop, please! Please, I beg you!'

Matilda stared
at him for a few seconds and then began to laugh, a sound that
seemed to start from deep within her stomach and grew and grew
until, in Wickstanner's tortured mind, it was ricocheting around
the walls of the empty chamber like the sound of battlefield
musketry.

With a supreme
effort she managed to climb to her feet. With her wrists and arms
pinned to her sides her breasts were thrust out and unencumbered,
and she deliberately shuffled her heavily weighted feet until she
stood with legs spread.

'C'mon, mister
priest man,' she hissed. 'C'mon, let's have your prick inside my
devil cunt to rot with all the others I must have had in there.' As
she spoke she began to inch towards him.

'Nooo!'
Wickstanner retreated towards the door, but instead banged hard
against the wall a few feet from the opening. Covering his eyes
with one hand he held the other up between them, as if to ward
Matilda off, but she stopped just short of it, breathing hard.

'Pathetic
little bag of shit!' she exclaimed. 'Can't even take a woman when
she's neatly plucked and parcelled for you. Or did you want that I
should come sweetly and beg your love?'

'No!'
Wickstanner's denial came out like a rush of winter wind. Slowly he
lowered the hand from before his face, which Matilda saw had gone
even paler; so pale, indeed, that he looked almost transparent.
'No,' he repeated. 'No, I beg only that you forgive me.' Tears
welled up in his eyes and coursed down his puffy cheeks like two
streams. 'Please, Harriet, forgive me, for I know now that I have
sinned greatly and offended the Lord.'

'Oh, is that
so?' Harriet drew her legs slowly together and squared her
shoulders. 'You've offended the Lord, have you? Well, deary, deary
me, how terrible for you.' She paused, but only for a brief
instant. 'How terrible indeed. But pardon me if I say that I don't
give a shit how offended your so-called God is! If he were half a
god I doubt he'd countenance the likes of you as his servant, let
alone let you get away with the sort of atrocity you've committed
here in his name!

'So don't come
snivelling to me, Wickstanner, because it'll be a cold day in Hell
before I offer you any forgiveness. You ragged, useless, spineless
little turd - I'd have thought more of you if you had just come in
here to finish what you started, but I see now you can't even
manage that.

'I'd rather be
flogged and hanged than give you the satisfaction. Take your guilt
and suffer it. Who knows, little man, you might even achieve
martyrdom and sainthood. From what I've seen of your church, it
wouldn't surprise me!' She turned her back on him, almost tripping
in the cumbersome boots as she did so and stared at the blank
wall.

'Go on!' she
growled. 'You ain't got it in you to fuck me, so why don't you just
fuck off, eh?'

The bath
certainly left Sarah feeling refreshed and a lot more alive than
when she had first woken, but the relief she felt at being released
from the strictures of the tight corset and the shoes did not last
for very long afterwards. Prudence's curious servant, Jasmine, now
attired in a brief Greek style robe, helped her from the water,
towelled her briskly and then guided her back through the door that
connected the bathroom with Ellen's bedroom.

Ellen was
sitting propped up on the bed, still fully clothed, even to her
boots. On a table alongside the bed sat a strange glass bowl-like
contraption, half filled with what seemed to be water, a brass
container set atop it, a flexible tube rising from its side. The
other end of this tube Ellen held, periodically raising it to her
lips and sucking upon it, causing a stream of bubbles to rise to
the surface of the clear liquid inside.

'It's called a
water pipe, or hookah,' Ellen said, seeing Sarah's look of
puzzlement. 'The Arabs invented it. Very pleasant and most
soothing. Come, try some.' She held the mouthpiece towards Sarah,
who after a momentary hesitation, padded forward uncertainly. The
ivory end felt cold between her lips and again she hesitated.

'Suck gently,
pretty,' Ellen whispered encouragingly. 'I know you can do that.'
She giggled and laughed even louder when, as Sarah tried to obey,
the sudden inhalation of smoke sent her into a spasm of coughing
that brought tears to her eyes.

'Don't worry,
pretty,' Ellen chortled, 'you'll soon get used to it, same as
you'll soon get used to a lot of things around here. Try it again,
only take it into your lungs more slowly and let it just drift out
again.' Sarah blinked, wiped her eyes with the back of her free
hand and did as she was told.

Once again the
cool smoke felt harsh in her throat and mouth, but at least she
managed to take it down without choking this time. However, as she
slowly exhaled a curious feeling of detachment began to creep over
her. She struggled to focus again, concentrating all her willpower
on trying to stop Ellen's image from wavering.

'That's a good
girl,' Ellen said softly. 'One more now, and then we'll get you
into your nice new corset.'

When Sarah
stood for Jasmine to wrap the heavily boned stays about her, she
was actually swaying rather than standing properly, and she was
barely aware of the steady tightening as the servant girl began to
draw in the laces at the rear. By the time her head began to clear
again she was suddenly and acutely aware that whatever drug was in
the smoke was quite a powerful painkiller, for as its effects
slowly began to abate, she realised this latest corset was even
tighter than the one in which she had spent the night and her ribs
felt as if they were being crushed in a vice.

On the outside
the shimmering black satin looked so elegant, so feminine with its
lacy trimmings top and bottom, but as Sarah stared down at her
rapidly reducing waistline, she realised that appearances could be
totally deceptive and that the inner lining, whatever it was made
from, combined with the vicious whalebone stays that were hidden
inside the fabric, formed a cage in which she was now held
rigidly.

'I just adore
the way the French couturiers design their undergarments, don't
you?' Ellen said. 'Such a tiny waist you have now, pretty Sarah -
one could almost believe one could snap you clean in two.'

'P-please!'
Sarah gasped, fighting for breath. 'Please, mistress, have some
charity. I shall surely suffocate in this terrible garment.' Ellen,
however, did not seem at all disposed to heed Sarah's protests.

'Nonsense,'
she cried dismissively. 'In a little while you will grow quite used
to be laced so snugly and you will even thank me for making you
look so elegant. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how much
that beautiful corset cost.'

Mercifully,
Jasmine conceded that she had closed the corset as far as was
humanly possible and began knotting off the laces, slicing away the
spare end lengths, which were by now very long, with a small knife.
Sarah groaned, realising that, with the way the laces had been
tied, there would be no way for her to release the pressure
herself.

'Black
stockings, Jasmine,' Ellen instructed. 'The long ones if you
please, and those really wide garters that came from Spain earlier
this year. She has such pretty legs, doesn't she? It seems a shame
to cover them with skirts, but then that need not be for very long,
I suppose.' She grinned at Sarah, but Sarah was more concerned with
trying to inhale sufficient air to prevent herself from passing
out.

Once the
stockings were in place - beautiful spun silk of the finest quality
- long gloves were produced, once again in black, this time satin,
to match the corset. Jasmine drew them up the full length of each
of Sarah's arms in turn, employing a small button hook to close the
wrist openings and the small open darts just above each elbow, thus
ensuring a perfect, unwrinkled fit.

'You look
delicious, pretty,' Ellen murmured. She stepped forward and cupped
both Sarah's barely supported and mostly uncovered breasts, using
her thumbs to stimulate the already erect nipples. 'These are such
sweet bubbies, too, not great melons like that Kitty creature has.
No, these are just right, aren't they?'

Sarah had
expected to be forced into more high-heeled shoes, but was
surprised when Jasmine took a pair of long boots from one of the
closets. They too were black and fitted right to the knee, lacing
up the entire front to give a fit as tight as everything else Sarah
was wearing, and the heels were every bit as drastic as those of
the shoes from the night before.

'You'll find
these a little easier to walk in,' Ellen said, as if anticipating
Sarah's possible protestation. 'The leather supports both ankle and
calf, reducing the chances of you stumbling and breaking a bone.'
She said this last with the air of someone who clearly thought she
was bestowing a tremendous favour, rather than the reality of the
situation, which was to reduce Sarah to an almost puppet-like state
in which she could walk with only the tiniest of precarious
steps.

'The boots
will also prevent your stockings from ripping when you are in the
saddle,' she added, as Jasmine completed the lacing of the second
boot. 'And you will have a pair of specially adapted stirrups, from
which, once your instep has been placed in it correctly, it will be
all but impossible for your foot to slip. And then,' she continued,
'there is even a special heel strap, so even the tiniest element of
chance will be removed.'

Once again, a
diamante decorated choker was produced and fastened about Sarah's
throat like a collar, the stiffened inner lining forcing her to
resume her previous posture with head held as though proudly erect,
and then heavy earrings were screwed to each lobe, as they had been
before.

'Excellent,'
Ellen declared, walking slowly around Sarah, who stood perched
almost on tiptoe, feeling like a helpless doll in her new finery.
In truth, she realised, that was almost exactly what she had now
been reduced to, for this new costume made what its predecessor had
inflicted seem almost like total freedom in comparison.

Even the
gloves were more stringent, their tightness restricting her ability
to bend her arms at the elbow by more than a few degrees and the
fingers holding her own fingers almost rigidly within their grip.
Her arms and hands, Sarah saw, were now of little use beyond
decoration and a slight aid to her balance when she attempted to
walk.

'Perfect,'
Ellen said, stooping and kissing each of Sarah's nipples in turn.
'Well, almost,' she added, with a crafty little smile. She turned
to Jasmine.

'You can
pierce her teats now, Jasmine,' she said, 'and put in those nice
thick gold rings I showed you earlier. They'll be the best to use,
at least until the piercings heal properly. Then, pretty,' she
continued, turning back to the horror-struck Sarah, 'we shall have
a new, heavier pair for you and have the goldsmith braze them shut
permanently!'

The churchyard
behind St Matthews seemed deserted as Jane Handiwell approached it
from the narrow back lane, but she paused for a few minutes,
watching from the clump of ash trees, fingering the heavy key Ellen
Grayling had given her. At last, satisfied that there really was no
one else about, she pushed open the narrow wicket gate and made her
way quickly along the path to the ornate stone structure that
dominated the rows and clusters of tombstones and crosses.

The Grayling
family vault had stood here for more than two centuries now, the
bodies of seven generations incarcerated in the depths below,
Grayling family money ensuring not only its continuance but at
least half the cost of the upkeep of the old church itself.

Pausing only
to check again that no one was watching her, Jane jiggled the key
into the solid looking lock and turned it, surprised at how easily
the wards moved beneath her hand. The door, too, opened quietly and
smoothly, testimony to regular maintenance, though inside the dust
suggested that no one had been here since the death of the previous
Lord Grayling, some quarter of a century earlier, though Jane knew
the truth of the matter was quite different.

Slipping in,
Jane closed the heavy timber structure behind her, inserted the key
from that side and locked the door once again. The only light now
came from four shallow window openings, set just beneath the
vaulted ceiling but, as she allowed her eyes to become accustomed
to the gloom, she found she could see easily enough to find her
first priority.

The lantern
was tucked away in a small alcove, to the left of the door and with
it sat a tinder box, just as she remembered from when she had come
here with Ellen, four or five years ago now, she realised. She
smiled, the image of the willowy young aristocrat girl, standing
naked in the centre of this surface level chamber, her budding
breasts pert, her rosebud nipples stiffening with a mixture of
cold, anticipation and even fear, Jane suspected.