The Surrender of Lady Charlotte (12 page)

“Perhaps we should stop for the night,” she wondered aloud when it seemed as though any sign of a decent path had disappeared.

“Perhaps,” he agreed, but they kept moving, inching their way forward in the dark.

When Tristan stopped his mount, he listened, and Charlotte listened too; but he didn’t speak. The moment demanded quiet. They began again, only to stop a second time to listen to the woods. A third time, they heard the distinct rustle of leaves and undergrowth; they felt a breeze on their cheeks and a tingle of apprehension raced up their spines.

“Move forward fast,” Sir Tristan suddenly lurched forward grasping the reins of Charlotte’s horse in an attempt to take them both out of the reach of what haunted them. And yet, his intuition came too late. Any act, save sprouting wings and flying free of the forest, was too slow to save them.

Clutched by unseen hands, Charlotte toppled from her horse; while a dagger hit Sir Tristan knocking him off his animal. The pair was captured by two disparate bands of Mountbane’s warriors, taken separately from the woods, each small company moving in opposite directions. While their voices were gagged into silence, their hearts were screaming to the other so their inner ears would hear.

Charlotte was taken to the tower of Mountbane’s castle, left to herself for nearly three days before someone finally entered the tiny room. Though she might have wailed for someone to take notice, she had little desire for any such activity. Sure that her plans for loving Tristan had been destroyed, there was little left to live for.

“Why it’s Charlotte here!”

These were the first words uttered to her in days. She didn’t have to turn to know their source. Her husband’s sarcasm was so common to her ear, she could hear his vileness even when he wasn’t speaking.

“How sad you look.”

She turned to him, her expression blank.

“Are you hungry, perhaps?”

“You know I must be.”

“You must think me the devil, Charlotte, but then, it was you who betrayed me.”

“I won’t argue with you, husband, because I wouldn’t even want to win the battle.”

“That despondent, how miserable for you. But I will feed you.” He thought that might lift her spirits, but it did not. “My mind’s been working so feverishly to find some penance that would befit this crime of yours,” he went on. “I think I might have found the very one that would satisfy me.”

“Before your throw me in the dungeon?”

“Hmm. I’m far more crafty than that.”

“How so?” Now she did worry, knowing how his demented mind worked.

“You think I’d give away my secrets so soon? Never. I’d rather have you twist in the wind and battered by worry, wondering what I’ll do next. That is far more satisfying. To think you could escape me—taking my trusted friend with you? There is enough in this crime to condemn you to death, and yet, I have a much more pleasant solution figured.”

“And for Tristan?” she inquired—trying to disguise her anxiety about her lover.

A wrinkle of upset fell across Mountbane’s brow at that question. Had something gone wrong? she wondered. She couldn’t be certain. “He faces treason, milady. In the fashion that befits him. You needn’t concern yourself with him any more because you’ll not be seeing him again.”

“Why not just complete your mission—send me away to Sir Guy?”

“Oh, no! I’d rather attend to your punishment right here where I can happily gloat.”

He was hiding himself, but not well enough for Charlotte to be deceived. What he wasn’t saying was information for her glean. She had more friends in the castle than did he. Time. It was only a matter of time before she discovered the truth.

d

With her flight into the forest with Sir Tristan, Charlotte had hopes that her appearances before the crowds of gawking, drunken men had finally finished; and that the days of her greatest abuses had been ended by the love of one good man. But that wasn’t true.

After just two slight meals in six days, the famished, naked slave was brought from her tower chambers into one of Mountbane’s halls. Her arms were manacled behind her; her neck collared by an iron band, and her ankles were hobbled by shackles, attached by a short bar. Walking was nearly impossible. She would rather have crawled in slave fashion, but she was made to make the humiliating journey through the castle shuffling on foot.

Having reached her destination, she stood in the middle of the room flanked by two other slaves who would be punished at the same time. They were no doubt there to make her less the centerpiece of this show. She wouldn’t have that kind of clout in Mountbane’s world again.

“It will be a long night,” one of Mountbane’s hosts announced. Then turning to several attendants, he ordered, “Bring them down and bind these slaves until we’re ready to begin their abuse.”

The instructions given, Charlotte and her two companions were commanded to the floor in poses where they were bound with rope. Driven to her knees, Mountbane’s wife was forced into the arch, the most grueling of Master Caius’ ten poses. Her hands were bound to her feet, and her head thrust back so that her collar was tied to the lower ropes. Just to keep the position feasible for some length of time, a strut was placed under her back. However, despite the small device, there was no comfort in this horror.

At Charlotte’s left, one slave was trussed up belly down, her feet and hands tied together behind her. A loose end of that rope was attached to a winch above. With the rope pulled taut, the poor slave strained in the awkward pose just as Charlotte strained with her position. At Charlotte’s right, a third cowering slave was bound in the same way that Sir Tristan had ordered her in the hovel. On her back, her hips raised, her legs bent and tucked into her ass. These three were a startling trio of agony. And while they were a curiosity for some minutes of initial examination, they were soon ignored. Those attending this gathering went on to eat the heavy meal laid out before them while the slaves bore their agony and waited in silence.

It was nearly forty-five minutes before the slaves had any relief from their awesome bondage. By that time, any torture would be better than the ones they had endured. Charlotte was the first to find her bonds loosened as three women, all directed by the Mistress Gwnyth, swarmed her. Once eased from her position she was pulled to her feet, Mountbane himself tugging her by the collar.

“I give her to you, my dear woman,” he spoke directly to the haughty Gwnyth, “that you may seek your revenge for the horrors she’s perpetrated on your good name.”

Did any slave have a right to a “good” name, the crowd and Charlotte would wonder? But for the punishment of this slave’s crimes, noblewomen can be made of slaves. In this case, Mountbane gave Tristan’s wife a good deal more than she’d earned. He didn’t give a wit for what she might have suffered for her husband’s infidelity—if she’d suffered at all. Nor was Mountbane inclined to give Gwnyth any real power. For this one night, however, he would give Charlotte to the malevolent bitch, knowing that a scorned woman could likely heap one priceless punishment on a deserving slave.

“She is yours,” he said, as he gestured graciously. At that moment, the two were kin—one in spirit and desire, one in shrewdness and cunning skill.

“Thank you, milord,” the woman replied graciously.

For the occasion, Lady Gwnyth was dressed in britches—a most unusual sight in Ilusia. In black leather, she was a stunning picture of feminine power, from her high-laced boots, slim-fitting trousers, and a vest that hugged her waist and bosom like a cinch. Its deep cleft billowed with the flesh of her breasts, while the garment pinched her waist to the extreme. Each asset in the lady’s small but spectacular package was pronounced to such an amazing degree that there was not an eye that was not fixed on the breathtaking sight. One would wonder where she came on such attire. It was obvious that her normal clothes had hidden her generous endowments. But there was nothing hidden now, and she proved to be a most full-bodied woman.

Adding to the amazing picture, the woman’s tiny hands were clothed in polished leather gloves. Gripping a sleek riding tawse in her fist, she revealed a substance akin to any dominant man’s.

Gwnyth’s black hair was tied from her face, fixed in a bun high atop her head. Her brows appeared to arch more severely than usual, while the deep violet of her eyes looked like the beginnings of a winter storm. Her tiny mouth was painted red, pursed and grim.

“I should just make you stay like this the night,” she spat out as the crop toyed with Charlotte’s exposed pubis. She pushed it at the splayed crotch until she heard the slave gasp, then she ripped the frayed end on the crest of Charlotte’s belly, bearing down gravely. With each strike, her aim descended until she was whipping hard on the slave’s swelling labia. Stopping abruptly, she turned to one of the male attendants, “Raise her, kind sir.”

Two hefty fellows came forward and moved Mountbane’s wife to the top of a three-foot pedestal and bound her to a bar above. All could see her body quiver, and how her thighs were weak with fright and tension. Gwnyth moved closer, pressing her gloved fist to Charlotte’s cunt, and pushing several fingers inside. Working them for several moments, she then withdrew her hand, snarling, “She’s wet. Untie her arms. I want her fresh and relaxed for what she’ll endure from me tonight.”

Removed from bondage, Charlotte could breathe a little easier, though she knew that her night would not be easy. If on the very basest level of her being, she didn’t derive some pleasure from these bizarre rituals, she might be inclined to faint away. But now, Gwnyth was correct, her body did enjoy the crudities. She let her mind go free; easier to let go than fight.

The mistress was a fussy woman. Having worked in the baths for many months training slaves, she’d learned a craft uncommon to most Ilusian females. Her skill had been solely for sport since such things were not required or expected of her. In the process of her labors, however, she’d found that these strange rites with women excited her pussy more than she desired the hardness of a man’s cock. Whether her subjects derived any pleasure from her crude ministrations didn’t matter to her—in fact, she was equally as happy to have them cry for mercy as enjoy the attention. Taking this well-earned wisdom to Lady Charlotte’s punishment gave her an opportunity to show herself in a way that would be most pleasing for a woman who, an Ilusian slave herself, had been otherwise overlooked in Mountbane’s court.

For the next fifteen minutes, while men were working the other two slaves, Gwnyth tied Charlotte’s body with rope, working thick hemp cords in figure eights about the slave’s breasts, torso and groin. Cutting into Charlotte’s skin, the tightly rigged contrivance altered her beauty in a remarkable fashion. Her breasts seemed pulled from her body and proudly vulnerable, with areoles and nipples turning a deep shade of purple in such severe captivity. Below, her labia were pulled wide to leave her bare cunt defenseless and wholly accessible for assault. And from behind, the expert working of the ropes made her ass end nearly as exposed as her front portal.

Finally strung up by the manacles at her wrists, her feet were attached to distant ends of a bar, making the disgraced lady ready for Gwnyth’s revenge. Adjusting her to the appropriate height to suit her needs, the female bitch stepped back scowling happily.
       
After appraising her artwork for several seconds, she then laid into Charlotte’s flesh with the vile end of her tasseled riding crop. The attack came in volleys unleashed with unchecked fury; the extent of her beating going on until the mistress tired of the whipping.

When the woman backed off for several seconds, both slave and mistress could rest; though there was little relaxation for the embattled slave. Charlotte needed to remain vigilant, keeping her mind fixed on the sensations lavished on her body. If she could focus on the whole of it, she could reach that moment of bliss she so treasured at such times. To have that would be Charlotte’s single vindication in the awful ordeal.

Mistress Gwnyth, however, was not handling this punishment in the manner of a master. There would be no extended whipping—no rise and fall, nor ebb and flow, no delightful crest when her sexual desire would find that delicious peak of pheromones and body lust. Gwnyth’s planned torture was a distinctly feminine one—and one, yet, untried in the form she would desire for the Lady Charlotte. Being given such free reign with this shameful wife inspired her genius in ways that set her own body reeling with anticipation.

Having welted the slave’s fair skin and heard her miserable cries, she was now bored with the banality of the act. Moving to her favorite abuse, she centered on the slave’s ripe vagina. Swathing one leather fist in Charlotte’s pussy juices, she slowly eased the whole of her hand into the woman’s opening. As was the rest of her petite form, Gwnyth’s fists were so tiny that without much effort her leather-gloved digits, knuckles and palm slid easily beyond the doorway. The bound slave gasped finding the center of her widened beyond limits she might have at one time placed upon herself. Sensation tore through her in fantastic waves. The thrust and beat of the invading hand made it seem as though she might swallow the whole woman inside her. When she could focus on sensation, she survived; when she focused on the fullness, she felt reconciled with the crudity. But when the Mistress began to tease her from behind, Charlotte began to panic. Gwnyth’s one hand was driven deeply into her cunt, so that her second hand could invade her ass.

“Do it the easy way and relax, or bear down and feel the pain—it doesn’t matter to me, slut,” Gwnyth chided her. “Both of these will fit inside your whorish body and scour you out.”

“Ah, milady, nooooooo!” Charlotte’s cry fell on deaf ears, and on a crowd more interested in seeing this abuse than worrying over the terror it might cause.

Greased and ready with her second hand, Gwnyth began to open the back door, slowly easing first her fingers and then her entire hand up the channel. Inching her way into Charlotte’s interior, the mistress’s body swelled with delight while her pussy grew raw with desire the more she penetrated the slave’s spasming holes.

The crowd about them cheered so their awful roar drowned Charlotte’s pleas for mercy. There was no mercy, there was only holding on. Forcing her body to relax, the defamed wife made her mind let go of the pain. Her muscles began to ease and her sphincter softened; and all the rings of flesh within her relaxed as the two fists began their fucking. The petite femme between her thighs was an adamant tigress with a skill for depravity that was only matched by the peerless mastery of Caius, Tristan and Mountbane himself. Her glee extended all about the room, mesmerizing even the Lord himself as the throng watched fascinated. Even Charlotte’s slave companions in this abuse were attentive to the scene when their masters stopped long enough to enjoy the sight themselves.

“You’re going to cum, harlot,” Gwnyth roared at her like an angry cat.

Charlotte couldn’t speak, but she could answer with her physical reply. So full now… something beyond her own body raged within her, as though she were in the midst of a thunderstorm and there was lightning all around … and hail on her insides … Everything thundered inside to the frenetic beat of Gwnyth’s rhythms.