The Princess and the Rogue (5 page)

She remembered the dull whine of the strap, the loud crack as it struck her bottom, and the ferocious sting it imparted. The first lash had taken her breath away. Many more followed. Sister Malverna had whipped her methodically, seemingly on a mission to drive the lust from her body. She’d been lashed from the tops of her knees to the crowns of her buttocks. For several agonizing moments her whole world was the splat of the strap and the searing blast of sting that followed. She lost count of the strokes, but from the state of her welted buttocks and thighs as she examined them later, it must have been several dozen.

She’d spent the next several days on her knees in the chapel doing additional penance, and poor William had been thrashed with the rod by his father. After that he avoided her. But he had been a boy, just a year older than herself. This was a man.

* * *

Well, that was something,
thought Roland. Things were not as they appeared. Something was going on between the princess and the high minister, some unknown conflict. But he would have to wait until tomorrow to find out what it was. Tomas Cramden had scowled through the rest of the evening, saying little and leaving Roland to find his own amusement. Weary from his travels, he excused himself and made for his guest quarters.

He found that despite his weariness, it was difficult to sleep. He felt restless, so he rose and pulled his trousers back on. What he needed to do, he told himself, was get a layout of the castle and assess its strengths and weaknesses. It was a routine he had followed for years, now almost automatic. He supposed it was his military mind at work.

He had just climbed a stone circular staircase that ended in an upper corridor when he heard heated voices coming from around a corner up ahead. One of them he could identify as that of Princess Juliet. He paused, stepping back into the shadows to listen.

“You’ll do as I tell you, you common whore,” said a male voice. It seethed with anger.

“Let go of me,” said the princess’s weak voice that lacked the tone of command. There was fear there.

“You serve at my pleasure, girl. Never forget that. You’ll do as I say. If I forbid you to keep company with this knight, you will obey me. You are not immune from a trip to the dungeons below for a lesson in obedience.”

Then Roland heard what sounded like face slap. A sharp “oh!” was uttered by the princess, followed by the sound of dainty feet running down the corridor, the sound fading in the distance. He slipped into a nook in the wall veiled in shadow, becoming as invisible as he could. A male figure walked past him and down the staircase. It was Lord Cramden, the high minister.

Very curious,
thought Roland. Why would King Robert Greystone’s daughter allow what amounted to a highly placed servant to talk to her in this manner, much less strike her? Permit him to call her a common whore and apparently intimidate her? He vowed to find out.

Chapter Six

Bathen Castle

She was being herded along with the rest of them, along a hallway that emptied out into a long gallery. Juliet was in a crowd of other young women. She had been able to talk to a few of them once she’d gotten over her shock. She realized now she was a captive as a result of being kidnapped.

No one had believed her story. They all thought she was delusional, claiming to be a princess of Westvale. But what could she do? She was a prisoner here now. As such, she worked during the day as the other girls did, sitting in a big room at long tables laboring over large tapestries.

They sewed by hand under the sharp eyes of overseers who were quick to scold, criticize, and note those considered to be slow or mistake-prone. Where the tapestries went when they were finished, Juliet didn’t know, but she knew similar works had decorated the walls of her home. She supposed they were sold to rich merchants, noblemen, or whoever else could afford them. All day, every day, the young women toiled at this boring relentless task under watchful eyes. Juliet and her fellow captives were, in reality, slaves.

Juliet had also heard disturbing rumors about other areas within the castle. The girls spoke about it in whispers. The training rooms, they called them. “Pray they don’t take you there,” said a frightened girl. Juliet tried to press her, to find out what they did there, but she shied away from further conversation.

The attention of the kidnapped princess was suddenly drawn back to the present as the group arrived at their destination. She had no idea why they were now being brought to this room, but she gasped when she saw what was in the middle of it. There were three wooden stools made from heavy timber. Each one had a curved top forming a cradle. The legs had buckling straps. Juliet recognized them as birching stools, frequently used by tutors for lazy students or head mistresses for thieving maids, or masters for disobedient pages. A tall urn stood to the side of the stools. It held bundles of switches bound up in rods. Juliet shivered as the fact dawned on her—someone was going to be whipped. That’s why they were here.

At the front of the room on a raised dais sat a woman dressed in a rich red velvet gown; it was Morgaine, the red countess. Juliet had been told stories in hushed whispers at night, stories of how this woman had seized girls from the neighboring villages and brought them here against their will. The stories told of how she liked to punish those who failed, or made mistakes—or sometimes just because she liked to punish. Her favorite method was the lash or rod applied to the bared buttocks. It was a punishment calculated not only to inflict pain but to shame. She surveyed her surroundings. There were maybe thirty of them in the room. Each girl looked around apprehensively, hoping the culprit or culprits in trouble would be someone other than she.

Morgaine had a pair of assistants and several leering guardsmen blocking the doorways. The assistants were solidly built older women. One of them was Moll.

“Who are the lazy servants today?” said the woman in red. Her voice rang out in the hall, immediately quelling all chatter. “Well, Madame Fromme, who are they? Whose work was sloppy? Who is on my list today?” Even as her eyes flashed angrily, Juliet noted a thin smile on her face.

The woman she had addressed as Madame Fromme came forward with a scroll.

“These girls will come forward,” she read. “Gisela, Beatrice, Annora.”

There were gasps as the names were annunciated. Cries of “No! Please!” rang out. The girls nearest the trio backed away as if fearful that being too close to the condemned might bode ill them as well. The space allowed the unfortunate young women to be seized by guardsmen who grabbed them and hustled them forward. Juliet watched in horror as they were forced face down over the stools. Their wrists and ankles were tied to the legs, rendering them immobile.

“Prepare them,” said Morgaine.

Immediately the two assistants sprang to do her bidding and gathered the skirts of the unfortunate miscreants and lifted them, exposing buttocks and thighs covered by linen drawers. The helpless captives squirmed with embarrassment at being publicly exposed. But the worst was yet to come.

“Lower their drawers for the whipping.”

The girls shrieked as the burly assistants slid the undergarments down. They were now ready for the rod, bare bottom cheeks on rude display. They continued to beg for mercy, insisting that whatever reason the countess had for administering punishment, it was not their fault.

“Silence!” said Morgaine, standing and approaching the girls. “You will each receive three dozen. Madame Moll, begin with this one. Give her a dozen, then proceed to the next.” She had pointed at the girl on her left, Gisela.

With a smirk on her face, Moll selected a rod from the urn. They were soaking in brine, so Moll shook it, spraying droplets. It made a sick whining sound as she swooshed it through the air. She approached Gisela from the rear and Gisela, panicked, tried to crane her neck to see over her shoulder.

“Look forward, girl,” barked Madame Moll. She took a stance next to the punishment stool securing Gisela in its grip and brought her arm forward, lining up the rod. Juliet observed that the rod consisted of six or seven supple switches, three feet in length, that splayed out like a fan about half a foot wide. The end of the rod covered a good bit of the area of bare skin that was Gisela’s quivering posterior. She flinched visibly as Madame Moll tapped her with the rod.

Seeing that Moll was ready, Morgaine nodded and said, “Proceed with the punishment. Twelve strokes, then move on to the next one.” Then she lifted her head and addressed them all.

“This is the punishment you will each receive if you are lazy or perform shoddy work. I will not have it. Let these girls be an example for what awaits you if you do.”

She sat back down and made a brief hand gesture. Madame Moll nodded and drew back her arm. The rod descended with a whine and landed on Gisela’s flesh with a sharp thwack.

Gisela cried out as her buttocks rippled with the impact. Red lines appeared where the switches had struck.

Thwack!
Another stroke produced a sharp squeal.

Thwack!
A third stroke produced a louder squeal and a plea for mercy.

But there was none to be had.

Juliet watched, transfixed, as the girl underwent a painful birching, one stroke after another falling methodically. Gisela squirmed frantically, her backside wriggling in a vain attempt to avoid the stinging switches, her cries becoming more shrill. The color of her bare bottom changed from a creamy pink to beet red as stroke after painful stroke laced her exposed skin.

Piteous cries of “Yow! Ow! Ahh!” accompanied the swishy birch rod as it whipped down on her smarting seat, imparting its maddeningly hot sting. Gisela seemed to flex the muscles in her bottom cheeks in time with the strokes, but all in vain.

By the time twelve strokes had been meted out, Gisela was sobbing piteously and her bottom was a mass of red weals. Moll threw her rod down. Madame Fromme picked another out of the urn and approached Beatrice, who was secured to the middle punishment stool.

Beatrice’s flogging was the same as Gisela’s punishment. The girl writhed and squealed as cruel strokes from the birch reddened her bare bottom, making the cheeks quiver, lasciviously it seemed. Juliet couldn’t help but notice the broad smiles on the faces of the guardsmen as they watched the girl’s anguished writhing with apparent amusement and even lustful enjoyment.

It took the best part of an hour for the punishment to run its course. At the end, only tears and frayed birch rods lay on the stone floor of the gallery as the girls were led away to Morgaine’s chambers. Juliet heard the whispers from the others, that the punished girls would be expected to service the countess in her bedchamber, performing unspeakable acts on pain of further punishment should they refuse. It was only a matter of time, she knew. Before long she would be the one tied to the whipping stool for punishment. She was truly alone. No one believed her and no one would help her. There was only one thing to do—escape.

Chapter Seven

Greystone Castle

Roland rode beside the princess in silence. It had been a strange morning. Clearly she had been keen to have him accompany her on a ride, but the odd thing had been her behavior just prior to their leaving the enclosure. She had arrived in a foul mood, complaining about this and that. Then her horse had not been ready and they’d had to wait. But that was not all. The princess had been so put out with the stable boy that she had ordered the head groom to thrash him. And he had. In full view of everyone, the head groom had ordered the boy across a bale of hay and had whipped him with a harness strap to the princess’s satisfaction. The poor boy had howled. The injustice of it had bothered Roland. The lad hadn’t deserved that. Someone standing near, a sergeant of the palace guard, had whispered to Roland that the princess often had servants whipped when they displeased her. He speculated that it sometimes looked as though she was fond of the spectacle.

Fond of it, was she? Yes, he’d have to have a serious talk with this girl.

And there was another odd thing. The girl was clearly uncomfortable on a horse. For a princess of nearly twenty years, reputed to be a fine horsewoman, it looked like she barely knew how to ride. Then there had been the scene with Lord Cramden he’d witnessed the previous night. How could that happen? More important, why? He vowed to get answers.

* * *

Could Scarlett trust him? Would he help her? Her experience observing knights was that they were mercenary soldiers at best. They respected no one but the men who paid them and otherwise took what they wanted. But this man seemed to be of a nobler breed.

She could tell he had been bothered by what she had felt compelled to do that morning. Somehow she would have to make it up to the poor stable boy. But she had to maintain appearances, to keep up the façade of the princess as a spoiled imperious brat. So that is what she had to be. Otherwise Cramden would do—what? He had actually threatened her last night. That he could do what he wanted was clear to her. She served at his pleasure and he could punish her any way he wanted, or even make her disappear if he wanted. He must know where the real princess was.

But the major question was—what game was being played here? It was becoming clear to Scarlett that the story she’d been told about the princess and her illness was likely not true. She knew for certain that whatever it was, she was a mere pawn, and that thought frightened her more than anything. So the question remained. Could she trust this man? He certainly had an effect on her. His robust maleness, the way he moved, his total confidence—all those qualities made her feel just a bit weak in the knees when he was around. And the way he looked at her. It was the way a man looks at a woman. She knew that much. It gave her a feeling like butterflies in her stomach and made her blush. But she was still afraid. She would tread cautiously, she decided; she’d maintain the illusion of being the princess.