- The Inquisition

Corto Hayward, Thetford's magistrate, had Dawn Smith seized in the dark, early hours of the morning. A coarse burlap bag was pulled over her head and she was dragged, struggling, to the city Keep where he was waiting. He immediately embarked on a determined assault to break the girl's innocent resolve. From the first time he had seen her serving pints at the King's Arms, he was eager to have the cute young blonde in his power so he could play with her in the manner he had come to love. Newly turned 18 a week before, Dawn was a comely wench with a body in the first full blossom of womanhood. Down in the basement of the Keep, the pretty straw-haired wench was rudely stripped naked by the two executioners. The brutal, foul-smelling men tossed her between them while they ripped away her bodice and dress, the worn and flimsy chemise, and finally the simple bandeaux wrapped around her chest, laughing at the way her delightful bare breasts jiggled and fondling her buttocks and sex lewdly before tying her down to a waiting wooden frame. Before leaving, both looked at her with undisguised lust, but didn't remain. They knew that they would have her for rape play once the magistrate had broken her by cruel torture—and taken her first, of course, the prerogative of his office and power.

Her first night in the dungeon was spent in a hellish depilatory. Young John Clarke, the apprentice executioner, was tasked with plucking the hair from her armpits and genitals. A standard exercise to teach the young male apprentices patience, he had to use a small pair of tweezers to grasp and pluck out Dawn's fine underarm and pubic hairs one by one. Dawn was laid out on her back on the punishment structure. It was shaped like a capital H mounted about a yard above the floor. A wheel in the middle allowed it to assume any angle they wanted. Her arms and elbows were secured by strong leather cuffs at the top and her long shapely legs secured to the bottom of the planks. Additional straps were buckled around her knees to pull them widely apart and pointing out, forcing her pubic mound to lift up as if offering itself. The position was designed to expose a female's torso and sex totally to the intimate techniques of the Catholic Inquisitors. A separate board was placed to support the head, padded to deny the victim the escape of unconsciousness by beating her head against it. There was no such crosspiece below so there was nothing to block easy access to her genitals. The gradual and relentless plucking of the wispy hairs under her arms hurt like the devil as they were removed, but that pain was as nothing compared to the inevitable final attention he paid between her thighs. Dawn Smith did not yet have the pubic pelt of a fully mature woman, yet it still took two and a half grueling hours before the apprentice had plucked her sex lips clean from perineum to the top of her mons. As each pubic hair was individually grabbed by the pliers and slowly tugged up and away from the sensitive genital flesh, the pretty blonde writhed on the torture bench, squealing in protest as the hairs pulled free. They could have used larger pliers, of course, and ripped the hair out in batches, but that often tore the skin and caused profuse bleeding. The hair-by-hair method employed not only preserved the skin, but also prolonged the gnawing pain of having her genitals so slowly and deliberately bared. The teenage apprentice was forbidden to fuck the beautiful naked girl, but shortly into the plucking his youth and budding sadistic urges made his penis so painfully erect that he simply had to release it. His fingers fumbled at the waist knot, but even so he soon found his pants undone and hanging around his ankles to expose the rigid shaft to the pleasures of the lurid chamber. He came twice before the onerous task was complete, the exquisite hot spasms of orgasm surging through his penis and engulfing his body and mind. The first came shortly after he started working on her sex, a spontaneous eruption stimulated by youth and triggered by the sight of her writhing female body. It was so sudden and powerful that he had to drop his tweezers and grasp the side of the wooden frame to steady himself. He returned to his task, but it wasn't long after that he felt his cock swelling anew. The sight of the young girl's body splayed and helpless on the raised frame quickly made it hard as an iron bar once more and it just felt so good to have it free this way while he worked. His second orgasm came just after he finished the blonde's pubic plucking. He moved in close between the spread legs and made use of Dawn's swelling raw labia, rubbing the taut underside of his throbbing erection up and back against the pretty blonde's yawning lips while his hands fondled her soft bare breasts. The erotic sensations were so intense that it wasn't long until he crossed the thin line of his control again. The apprentice groaned with pleasure and his fingers dug into the girl's tits while the hot demanding convulsions between his legs spurted out over the flushed pubic mound and up to her cute dimpled navel. His jerking motions soon subsided, only to give way to a sudden pang of fear. He realized he had lost all awareness of the time and the magistrate could be at the chamber door this very moment! and he quickly pulled his trousers up and retied the rope around his waist, then cleaned Dawn's lower torso in a near panic with rags dipped in hot water.

He was still rubbing her down when Corto did arrive with the two executioners who had stripped her earlier to begin the primary interrogation. Both were heavily muscled, powerful men, stripped to the waist and now wearing the black hoods of their profession. The magistrate smiled to himself when he saw the milky splashes John left on the straw. A good executioner should take pleasure in his work and he was pleased that his apprentice was showing this aptitude for the job. He was also satisfied that this evidence of consummated lust was on the floor and not dripping from the girl's sex. The first rape was his right, one he would have immediately exercised himself had he not spent the previous hour having his cock licked and sucked by Molly Simpson, a whore eager to minimize the savagery of the public flogging he had decreed. Besides, he didn't think doing it in front of the help was appropriate. There was the decorum of his office, after all.

The magistrate bent over Dawn's body to inspect her crotch. He rubbed the inflamed mound and lips with one finger and nodded his head in satisfaction. “Fine job, Johnny-lad, fine job. She didn't have much there, but now her quim is smooth as a babe's bum. You stand back now and watch. I want you to learn more about how different parts of a wench's body responds. I have ordered the men to start with the obvious organs of her sex, her titties and slit. Remember what I've told you: You must pay early and special attention to those organs, be it man or woman. Questioning is never only physical pain and sexual torment creates the fear we want right from the start.” He leaned over and spoke quietly into Clarke's ear. “Of course it's also a lot of fun with an exquisite young wench like little Smith there.”

The first thing Corto ordered was the rubbing of Dawn's denuded pudenda with a fiery hot pepper oil imported from the West Indies. Both minions covered their hands with goat-skin gloves to prevent the burning oil from blistering as they dipped their fingers into the red slurry and rubbed it deeply over the blonde's tender notch. One, Ben Cooper, reached one finger just inside her vulva to apply the hellish oil around the entrance to her vagina. He added a special daub to the girl's clitoris, rubbing it carefully over the dainty bud. Dawn groaned in shame at this intimate touch. The calloused hands withdrew. Very soon she became aware of a warmth between her thighs, a warmth that rapidly grew from warmth to heat, and grew from heat to a fierce fiery burning that filled her loins causing immediate and anguished cries of pain. The prolonged plucking of her labia had left the delicate lips swollen and sore, but now the pepper oil penetrated into every gaping raw follicle, irritating the countless genital nerves with an unbelievable, relentless burning. The two brutish men stared and laughed as Dawn's lovely young body squirmed wildly on the angled bench under the hellish chemical torment attacking her labia. Her skin was already shiny after her plucking, but now more sweat burst from her body at the pain, lubricating her back as it slid over the hardwood frame. Her groans and squeals were pitiable, but only served to enhance her male torturers' pleasure. The fiery heat was still growing when Dawn's nude body was untied from the bench for her next torment. The minions carried her naked body to the Spanish Horse, a raised wedge of stout English oak with a sharp metal ridge atop. Her protests rose and she struggled madly as they lifted her up over the angled metal back of the Horse, but the two men were each powerful as draft horses and held her easily. Cooper reached down with one hand as they lowered her, using his fingers to part the plump lips so the sharp edge would reach up into the very center of her notch and press against the pubic bone. Dawn squealed loudly when the cold iron first cut up between her legs, unable to believe the shocking pain. The men quickly attached 10-kilo weights to each ankle, deliberately dropping them to jerk to a stop just inches clear of the floor. The weights pulled inexorably down on her limbs, making it feel as if she were being split right up the middle. The blonde groaned in abject misery. But even all that was just the beginning of her ordeal. Thin leather laces were tied around the base of both thumbs and passed through rings hanging from the ceiling to secure her arms overhead. Now Dawn was unable to lean forward enough to hide her chest; held upright, her entire nude torso was available to the cruel torturers. The pleading girl became suddenly, horribly aware of the way they were all staring at her nude young torso, especially the heaving globes on her chest. Her fears were quickly realized. Hayward smiled at the sight they presented. Dawn had the body of a newly matured young woman and her breasts were ripe with the proud elasticity of that youth. Her arms were not stretched up high enough to flatten them, so they thrust straight out from her chest like two perfect alabaster cones. He stepped up to the front of the cruel device and reached for the prominent mounds. He lifted them, bobbling them in his palms to make the flesh jiggle. Then his fingers moved to the dainty caps at their tips and almost gently played with the disks that tipped them. They were larger across than most, but not overly so and their sublime rose-petal color provided the demure look he enjoyed. He chuckled when the delicate aureoles puckered at his intimate touch. He felt his already swelling penis stiffen even more at the sight of the little bumps that rose up across the nipples and the way her teats hardened beneath his fingertips into proud distended peaks. He dropped his hands back down. There was no need to be a glutton; he had all the time he wanted to play with the girl and it was time for her torture to begin in earnest.

”Cooper, Wright! Get your pincers. Give the Protestant slut a taste of what will happen to her if she doesn't admit her guilt!” The two men smiled and took them in hand. The pincers, six-inch long implements with jaws that could not only pinch the captured flesh painfully, but also crush and rip the tender morsels away should they choose, were the magistrate's preferred opening tactic. It was easy to control the pain with them, so there was plenty of room for escalation to other torments later.

"Confess, you heretic bitch, confess and save your damnable soul!" Hayward yelled at her. “Confess to your heresy now and I will stop your pain! Resist and it will get far worse!” Her mind still filled with the hellish burning in her loins, her only response was a few wordless croaks. The magistrate gestured angrily to the men. The tongs darted in to grip small portions of tissue along her svelte sides. They had to push hard against the tight skin to grasp enough to pinch, then the cold jaws gripped and closed on the sensitive flesh.

"HEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! OH, IT HURTS, IT HURTS! OW! OW! OOOOOWWWW! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHH!" The pincers held the tiny morsels of skin and gradually pinched the flesh between them. Now with a firm grip, they slowly twisted the jaws until the skin cracked open a hair and small droplets of blood oozed over the jaws. Dawn squirmed desperately on the cunt-splitting ridge at the intense pain, but could do nothing to ease the bitter biting agony afflicting her sides. The torturers were skilled from long experience. They would break the skin, but were careful to do no permanent damage. There was plenty of virgin flesh at their disposal, although returning to the most sensitive places for a repeat attack was an effective tactic.

“Well, heretic? Several good people have testified that they saw you spit out the communion wafer, the Holy Flesh of our Lord! And the priest testified that he hasn't seen you at Holy Confession in over a month! Well, what say you?”

"But I've done nothing, nothing wrong! I'm just a poor tavern maid. I'm a good Catholic! I am! I confessed just last week! Please, I've done nothing!"

"LIAR! Pinch her again, both of you!" The dark tongs darted in again, one gripping a bit of flesh higher up one sleek side while the other pinched an equally tender morsel where her thigh met the rounded ass cheek in back. Both of the jaws crushed and worried at the delicate meat until the skin tore and blood started seeping down her body from these new holes.

"AAAAARRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! Oh, it hurts, it hurts! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! Oh, God, my poor cunny is burning! Please, I've done nothing wrong! Why do you hurt me so? I'm a good girl, I am!"

"LIAR! Again!” This time both pinched up small pieces of flesh on her belly on either side of her navel.

”OWWWWWWW! OW, STOP IT, PLEASE STOP IT! OH, I'VE NOTHING! I'VE DONE NOTHING TO DESERVE THIS!”

”LIAR! Pinch her fat breasts this time! I'll teach the bitch not to lie!" The minions moved to the girl's front and reached in with their pincers. Dawn could see the jaws moving in and she tried pulling back and away with enough violence that both had to grab one shoulder to hold her upper body in place. One captured a morsel on the left's upper slope where it flared from the armpit while the other choose a spot on the other's bottom bulge. Slowly they squeezed and twisted.

"AAAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Oh my titties, my poor titties! AAAHHH! Stopitstopitstopit! Ah, the pain, the pain. PLEASE, I'm innocent."

"LIAR! Pinch her tits again! Make her feel it!"

"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH! Oh, God!"

”You dare to call on God?! You who have forsaken the One True Church! Pinch her again! Go for those paps this time, but just pinch them. I don't want her bleeding there yet.” The two torturers were highly skilled and the pincers came forward with fiendish accuracy to find the young girl's pointed nipples with their metal jaws. Now that she had felt her tender breasts pinched, this time both men had to reach around Dawn's back to hold her torso steady. They started on Dawn's areolas, Cooper at the lower border of the left while Wright chose a spot on the other halfway in towards the erect tip. The tongs pressed together about those two nubbins of female flesh, squeezing and squeezing until the pretty blonde screamed from the sharp sexual agony. The men kept pinching and twisting the pink morsels to the edge of ripping the flesh. Dawn screamed again at the harsh burning pain ripping through her titty tips.

"Confess, heretic! Save your damnable soul!"

"But I'm not, I'm not! Please, oh please, I'm innocent!"

"LIAR! Pinch them again! Only through pain will Satan's hold on her be broken! Only through pain will she be purified!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRAAAAAAHHHH! IT HURTS! PLEASE NOT THERE! PLEASE, MY NIPS ARE SO SENSITIVE! STOP PINCHING THEM! OH, I'VE DONE NOTHING! PLEASE STOP HURTING ME! PITY, I BEG YOU, PITY!"

"LIAR! Pinch her nipples again! The nibs this time! I want to hear the bitch really scream!" Obediently, the pliers sought out the very tips, closing about the flinty pellets and squeezing the sensitive flesh.

"N-N-NOOOOOOOOOOO! Don't hurt my chest again. AAHHHH, NO! NOT MY NIPS AGAIN! NOT THERE AGAIN! I'M INNOCENT! PLEASE NOT THERE AGAINNNNNN . . . !"

"LIAR!"

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! PITYYYY!"

”Again! Pinch her nipples again! Make them bleed this time!” Once more the cold steel jaws bit into Dawn's aching teats, pressing and twisting until small beads of shiny scarlet pushed out of the very tips.

”AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH! AAAHHHH, IT HURTS! STOP, OH STOP! IT HURTS!”

The devilish pinching went on for almost an hour, fifty long minutes of endless torment that seemed to last hours, made even worse as the entire period was spent perched on the fiendish Spanish Horse. Twice into the interrogation, the executioners added additional 10-kilo weights to the miserable girl's ankles. It felt to the frantic girl as if she was sitting on a white-hot sword slowly slicing up the middle of her groin. The steel ridge pressed inexorably up into her sex, parting the lips and splitting, always splitting her tender loins. Each additional weight only served to add to the pain between her thighs and always there was the fierce burning. Clear, thick fluid streaked with red oozed down the sides on the steel wedge from cracked blisters on her labia caused by the fiery pepper oil. A couple of times her eyes rolled and she seemed not to know where she was, but they brought her back to the horror with dousing buckets of cold water.

Corto moved in and lifted her chin. Her blue eyes showed her suffering, but there was still resistance there. She had seen the fate of other heretics, burned alive and screaming. The pain was awful, but she knew confessing to the magistrate's accusations would only consign her to the stake. She also knew she was innocent.

Corto didn't care either way. He himself had little faith and found the whole Catholic Latin mass a boring waste of time, but that didn't prevent him from regular, one might even say religious, attendance; the public appearance of piety was important. Queen Mary's orders to persecute Protestants gave him the power to indulge his lusts and was also making him a wealthy man and that was good enough for him. The bitch would confess—they always did. The only question was how long they would hold out and how much fun he could have with them. It was really just a game, a game he loved and never lost. He stepped back and looked to the men.

The pincers gave way to supple, inch-wide leather straps. The two brutal men swept their straps viciously across Dawn's nude torso in an endless tattoo of loud wet smacks. They started on her back, sweeping the supple leather across her frame from shoulders to the two enticing dimples at the base of her spine. The strikes on her lower back hurt atrociously, the more so as they made her grind her plucked and oil-irritated slit against the cruel metal ridge.

After fifteen minutes he called a brief halt. He clapped John Clarke on the back. “Go ahead, lad. Give the wench a few lashes. Ben, hand over your belt to the boy. You and Charlie can take a break. There's beer over in the corner.” Wright went for a couple of the stoneware bottles while his partner handed over his strap with a smile.

”Have at it, Johnny-lad,” Cooper said. “Just snap it from your arm and wrist.” Then quieter, “Magistrate Hayward will want this one to last a while so make them sting, but don't overdo.” Walking over to Wright, he looked over his shoulder. “Just have fun, boy, just have fun. A true craftsman enjoys his work.”

The apprentice moved to a spot behind and to the side of the cruelly perched girl, swishing the heavy leather belt. This was an unexpected treat. Usually Corto only permitted him to practice his skills on the old and ugly women or the men, not the pretty, sexy wenches. He gave the magistrate an almost shy smile that turned into a large grin when the man waved him to begin. Dawn looked over one shoulder to the youth, just slightly younger than she was. He looked up her sweat-shiny and welted back to the misery and pleading in her eyes. Still grinning, he drew back his arm.

SWAPPPPPTTTTT! The leather exploded across the top of her small rounded buttocks and the muscles clenched in pain. Clarke felt his penis fill to even harder erection, pressing against the front of his trousers in a strange combination of pleasure and pain so intense that he had to reach down the front to reposition it before he could proceed. SWAKKKKKTTTTTTT! Three, four, five, six, again and again, the supple leather struck Dawn's ass cheeks, each blow accompanied by a grunt of anguish and renewed pleas for pity. The pain was hideous. Every new stroke returned to the clenching buttocks and every time she arched her back and ground her blistered labia forward over the Horse's upper ridge.

The magistrate waited until a dozen lashes struck. Corto held up his arm as he approached. Dawn Smith's nude body twitched violently on the cruel wedge and she wheezed loudly with every gasping breath. Both of her thumbs were rubbed raw and leaking blood from her maddened efforts to lower her hands and protect herself from the torment. Hayward saw that her bottom had turned bright red from the vicious spanking and there were darker lines from the edges of the belt. He turned to the boy. “Good, good. You show fine enthusiasm. Focusing your attention on such a limited area can be an effective technique, but I suspect that was not why you did it, eh?”

Clarke looked back sheepishly and dropped his face. “No, Magistrate. I'm sorry.”

”Then why?”

The youth hesitated, cleared his throat, then stammered out, “I-I j-j-just like girls' bums, sir. I t-think they're pretty.”

The man smiled. “I understand. Still, if you ever want to become a Master Executioner, you must learn to make use of every part of the body. Different places lend themselves to different methods, all excruciating in their own way. I will demonstrate that a bit later. I myself have a personal preference for a wench's breasts. The way they protrude is unique to their sex. They may feel softer and more delicate because there isn't as much muscle, but like the bums you enjoy so, they can take an astonishing amount of abuse.” He chuckled. “And of course, a wench has no nipples where she sits! Step around now and give the bitch a few good ones across her paps. You will see the difference.”

The apprentice did as he was told. Corto was amused at the way the boy moved, slow and bent forward a bit. The randy little snot's up for another go already—ah, to be so young again, he mused. Dawn's tear-filled eyes followed Clarke to her front. She had heard Hayward's callous words and was blubbering pleas for pity that wouldn't come. Taking a stance to her right, he took aim and then swung a crisp horizontal slash to the very middle of both poised nude breasts, flattening the tender nipples.

”AAAAARRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHH! SWEET MOTHER, IT HURTS! IT HURTS! OH PLEASE NOT THERE! NOT MY POOR BOOBIES! PLEEEEEESEEEEEEE, NOT THERE!” Dawn wailed.

HisssssssSWAPPPPPPP! HissssssSSSSSWAAACCCCCKKKKKKK! HissssSSSSSSMAKKKTTTT! Stroke followed brutal stroke, each squashing the fleshy turrets against the girl's chest and set them dancing about. Bright fresh blood leaked out of the pinched teats from the blows. “That's good for now,” Corto said after six lashes punished the globes.

He gestured young John Clarke over to his side, leaving the naked wretch whimpering on the trestle. “Now look you, lad,” he instructed, “any lout can hurt a bint until she will say anything she thinks you want to hear. Perhaps this one really is a secret Prot. I don't much care and neither should you. To be good at this job, while it matters is how much pain you can inflict, there's more to it. If you do too much or do it too fast there's a chance that something will break in their head. It takes skill and experience to know how and when to adjust her suffering so you can continue to amplify the pain in her body while not losing her mind. You have to tailor your work carefully to keep the person and not just the flesh aware and hurting. That's what separates a master torturer from a simple brute. Later, at her execution, it won't matter if she loses her mind since there will be nothing we want from her. Her agony will simply be an example to the people watching of what could happen. Keeps 'em in line, you see.” He chuckled. “You don't want to break 'em too fast then either, of course. The longer you make it last the more coin you make from the crowd. There's so little entertainment in their drab lives that they want to enjoy it as long as they can and there's good money to be made with that knowledge. Let me show you something else you can do; they really hate it and yet it's so simple.”

Loud enough that Dawn Smith could hear him: ”Gag the bitch! Her constant denials bore me. I want her to think on her stubbornness before I resume the questioning.” The girl wrenched her head about as the two executioners approached, but Charlie grabbed it and held it steady so it only took a moment before Ben could push a piece of carved wood into her mouth and tie it in place. A two-inch long stick with a small knob in the middle to hold her teeth apart; the gag was carefully made so the victim could breathe, even express her pain, but not speak.

He immediately returned to the torture of her breasts, for the first time inflicting the pain himself. He started by stabbing the jutting female turrets with several fine, two-inch long steel needles each, varying the placement to cover the under curves, sides beneath the arm pits, either side of the areola, and finishing with one down the very center of each rigid teat, right down the tiny holes where milk would flow. Every penetration was rewarded with a chuff of pain from her nostrils. Then Corto removed a long heavy rod from the brazier and held it up so she could get a good look. An inch thick, the thing glowed with fierce unholy heat. Dawn instinctively tried to recoil from the hideous implement. She had already suffered horribly but as yet her soft flesh had not been subjected to the intolerable kiss of fire. Corto saw the look in her eyes and smiled. How well he understood these feeble wretches, so easily terrified by such a simple thing as heat. You poor wench, he said to himself, you have no idea of what awaits you. He bent down and slid the incandescent rod into a hole in the front of the Horse placed just beneath the metal apex, then stepped back and waited. Inside of five minutes, Dawn began to feel the hellish splitting ridge between her thighs warming, a different kind of heat than the one created by the pepper oil. This new heat grew ever more fierce and a keening whine came from her. She hadn't thought that anything could be worse than the chemical burning between her legs, but now it felt as if she was being split up the middle by a white-hot sword and she couldn't control her squirming. The pain attacking her genitals was excruciating, beyond belief and she had been denied even the feeble release of screaming. Earlier blisters cracked open only to be replaced by fresh scalding ones. With the fine judgment acquired over years Hayward pulled the rod out and handed it to Ben. It was enough and he didn't want her cunt ruined for later raping. It amused him to think that the oil tormenting her actually served this purpose, lubricating and protecting that most tender flesh from searing beyond use.

Hayward let her be for a while to catch her breath before resuming. He picked up a squat candle. Dawn's blues eyes grew wide, staring at it in terror when he raised it toward her chest. ”You didn't really think I was finished with those lovely breasts of yours, did you? Oh no, my dear, they are simply too fine and too sensitive for that. You will regret your stubbornness. Johnnie-lad, stand beside her and hold her shoulders. She will try to swing those melons away and that just won't do.”

Once the apprentice was in place holding her torso firm, he moved the yellow flame under the end of one of the needles piercing the underside of Dawn's left breast. In seconds the lancet took on a dull red color that moved down its length toward the trembling bulge. He watched the glow advance until it reached the skin and he heard the soft hiss of frying flesh. Dawn tensed so furiously that her sweat-slick upper body wrenched free of Clarke's grasp. Corto smiled at her response; as much as the straps hurt the kiss of fire always provoked an extreme reaction, especially when it was applied to such sensitive flesh. ”That got your attention, hey? Hold her steady now, boy. I've just started.”

He next treated the needle under her arm drawing the same frenzied reaction. Another stuck in the bottom curve came next, then he turned the flame to her nipple, starting with the two on either side of her aureole. John Clarke had to put one arm around her shoulders and squeeze her body against his to keep it in place at this fiendish new assault. Finally only one remained. This time he stared into her eyes to relish her suffering, guiding the flame with the edge of his vision to the needle projecting from her plier-pinched teat.

Hissssssssss! “NNNNNNNNNN!” she grunted. Corto just laughed.

”Now that you know what it's like, let's try the other one, hm? Those nerves are nice and fresh. Take a good hold now, lad, she's going to buck again!”

The miserable girl did indeed buck on the cruel Horse to each new burning, but now that he knew what to expect, the apprentice was able to keep her from moving her right globe away from the candle flame. Corto treated each needle in turn, moving in until that nipple tip sizzled. The man nodded to Clarke to release her and Dawn's gleaming nude body writhed in agony. Her breasts throbbed in pain, especially the supremely sensitive nipples capping them. Her pretty blue eyes were filled with abject misery, looking at him with desperate pleading. “Plssssssssss! Plssssss! UUUUUUUUUU! PLSSSSSSSS!”

Hayward gave the wench another short rest. As soon as she regained some control, her eyes took on a new pleading. She was obviously trying to speak, but with the gag still in her mouth, no understandable words came out. Corto was a skilled interrogator and could read the signs. He brought the candle back to her chest and reheated the needle embedded in her left teat, renewing the frenzied struggles. He turned to the boy. “Remove her gag.”

Dawn gasped for breath when the wood was taken from her mouth. Corto pounced immediately. "Confess, heretic! Confess now and save your miserable soul! Confess and beg forgiveness! Or do you want more pain?” He lifted the candle again meaningfully.

”NO! N-N-No, no more. I confess! It's true! Yes! Yes, I'm a heretic! I AM! I AM! Anything you say! I CONFESS! Just don't hurt me anymore! Please, I beg you! No more! Oh, you can't know. Oh, it hurts! My poor nips! Please take me off! It burns! It burns so between my legs! YES! I CONFESS! JUST STOP TORTURING MEEEEEEEEE!”

”There. Don't you feel better declaring your sin against the Holy Mother Church to God and me?”

”Y-Yes! Oh, yes! I've said it! Yes, I've sinned! Now take me off this thing! Please! Ah, my poor cunny burns! It burns! PLEASE! TAKE ME OFF!”

”I shall. Indeed, I shall give the order immediately.” He saw the desperate hope in her eyes. “Just as soon as you give me the names of the other Protestants in Thetford.”

”W-Wha-Wha-What? I don't understand! Other Protestants? I don't know any other Protestants. Please! I confess! Me! I confess! I'm the heretic! That's what you wanted! You said that's what you wanted! Now take me off this thing! I don't know of any other Protestants!”

"LIAR! Harlot! Filthy harlot of Satan! Do you expect me to believe that a servant girl, here in Catholic England, fell into foul heresy all alone? No! No, you heretics gather together like nests of vermin. Tell me! Who are the others!”

”Please! You must believe me! I don't know of any others! I DON'T KNOWWWWWW!”

”LIAR! Gag the bitch again!”

Ben stepped in to assist Clarke in pushing the carved wooden gag back into her mouth over new protests, tying it in place behind her head cutting off her begging. Once the task was completed, Corto moved to her front again.

”You had your chance, bitch! You think you hurt already? Do you?! No, your obstinacy has only earned you more pain! You are young and strong. That is good. You will need your strength. You will tell me what I want to hear soon enough, but I like it when the heretic is stubborn!”

He looked to Ben and Charlie, finished with their beer. Both went to a long bench against one wall. He stepped back, tugging the apprentice with him. “You remember when I told you about different methods and different places?” The boy nodded. “Watch now. While torturing a heretic's sex organs is horrible enough, most of that is in the mind. Other techniques can actually cause more physical agony.”

The two burly executioners approached Dawn carrying devices chosen from the table. Ben held his up so she could see it. “Any horseman knows that you need good stirrups for a proper ride. Here are yours.” The miserable girl mewled in horror at the sight, loosely connected iron plates with screws that made up the Stirrups comprised this version of the `Spanish Boot' so popular with the Inquisition in Spain. They knelt at either side and placed the barbaric things almost gently on the young blonde, carefully fitting them over her tiny feet. It took little time to enclose them both. Once in place, they actually resembled iron boots, but with a few differences that meant a fresh hell for the victim. Large, ornate wing-screws projected from the outside of the forefeet, more stuck out from the heels, and a last one projected up from the tops of her feet an inch behind the toes.

Dawn understood her stripping and torture on the horse; occasionally screams had been heard from the Keep, desperate wails of souls in mortal agony. At such times she had engaged in whispered gossip sessions with other village girls, tales of the sexual horrors and rape, wicked imaginings. But these . . . these things they had placed on her feet were unlike anything she had heard of. All she knew was that they looked evil and could only mean more pain for her.

Hayward didn't keep her waiting. “Begin. I want her to confess, but don't cripple her. She goes to the platform on Sunday and I want her able to walk.”

The two men nodded and turned to the task. They started turning the winged stems at the widest point. Dawn immediately felt the touch. The bolts connected with smaller curved metal panels inside the boots. Each twist moved the inner plates a quarter-inch closer. Three full turns forced the small bones in her forefeet to grind against each other, provoking the first keen stab of anguish. Another turn compressed them further. The next turn produced the first hairline fractures, causing sharp enough pain that her attention fled the throbbing between her legs. Her eyes opened wide and the muscles up calf and thigh tensed furiously. Loud, incomprehensible sounds of distress escaped the gag. Ben had been looking at her face, waiting for this moment and ceased twisting. He signaled Charlie to stop as well. But this was just the beginning of what the Stirrups could do. The two executioners now took hold of the wing-nuts projecting from her heels. Unlike the forefeet, there was only one, much thicker and stronger bone here, so they had to exert more force before the first fine splits through the bone occurred. The agony was incredible. Dawn's head jerked about, looking down from one foot to the other in shock and disbelief, her strangled cries louder and more frantic. Thin threads of blood ran down her arms from where the cords had chafed her wrists raw.

Corto turned to his apprentice. ”Now I shall question the wench again. Here's something important you must learn for future interrogations, Johnnie-lad. The first few names they give you are generally useless; worth investigating, perhaps, but not people she knows well and cares about. Based on gossip usually, nothing more. No, it's the next few names that you want. You have to give her a sharp increase in the pain to get to those. These are the ones people she likes, perhaps even honestly thinks or knows are guilty. Often they are close friends. That's why you have to add that quick jolt to break her reluctance. After you get those, the wench will start naming anyone she can think of. She will say anything to stop the pain. Knowing the difference is an art it takes time to learn. Remove her gag,” he ordered the men.

The maddened pleas started immediately, punctuated only by deep gasps of air. “Please, no more! No more! Have pity, I beg you! It hurts! It hurts so bad! Oh, please, I've confessed! Yes, I'm a heretic, I am! That's what you want! I confess! Oh, why do you still hurt me so?”

Hayward moved in to the cruel frame. He cupped her chin and lifted it so he could look into her eyes, pleased by the abject misery he saw there. “Yes, yes, I know. I know you confessed, but you haven't given me everything I want. I asked you for the names of the other heretics in Thetford and you didn't give them to me. You claimed you didn't know when it's well known that you protestants cluster like maggots on a pile of dung. I didn't want to hurt you again. You could have spared yourself all that pain if you had just been less obstinate. No, it's your own fault I had to hurt your feet so. But I want those names, and I want them now. Don't make me hurt you more. Tell me. Who are the other heretics in Thetford? Speak!”

John Clarke watched, fascinated. Just as the magistrate predicted, names began pouring from the wench's mouth, seeming to trip over themselves in her eagerness to get them out. But he also noticed that all of the names were unlikely ones, sheep-herders, farmers, and layabouts—she even tried naming the tavern owner she worked for, but he was sure that was just out of revenge.

” . . . and Martin! Uh, P-Pete Martin! He's one! And, uh, uh, the Ballentynes! Yes! Yes, them, too! Both of them! Came from Scotland, people say, so they must be heretics! Oh, please, stop hurting me! Take me off, I beg you. I've told you. I've told you the names! That's all of them! Now please, PLEASE, stop hurting me!”

Corto glanced to the boy. See? the look said. “LIAR!” he yelled at her. “That isn't all of them! There are more! More!” Then quieter, subdued, almost apologetic, “Alas, I fear Satan has control of your tongue. The devil himself is filling your mouth with deceit to protect his own.” He turned to the executioners. “Continue. The bitch's voice must be freed from the Corrupter's influence and only more pain will do that!”

”No! Oh, no! NO! PLEASE! NOT THAT! NOOOOOOOOOO!”

This time Charlie and Ben moved to the front of the horse. They reached for the wings on the top of the girl's feet and started turning them, much slower this time. The effect was immediate when she felt the first touch, a shriek of panic. Unlike the side screws, these ended in spikes and were designed to inflict their pain in a small point rather than crush. Ever so gradually the prongs pressed down into the upper feet. The points were shallow so there was a very small hole when they punctured the skin; their primary effectiveness was in the way they focused the stress on the delicate bones. Again she tried to wrench them away from the relentless pain, but the heavy weights held her ankles in place so all she accomplished was further aggravating her burning genitals. More screams ripped from her throat. Experienced in these things, the executioners twisted the bolts a little more, pressing deeper into the tendons, but stopped before cracking the bone apart. The magistrate wanted her able to walk to the platform so walk she would. Not easily—every step would be agonizing—but walk she would.

It took almost ten minutes before she was able to speak instead of scream and additional names poured out. More likely candidates this time, and personal friends. Even though these were given with some reluctance, the ghastly pain had pushed her beyond any amity or loyalty—she would have named her own mother for heresy to stop her suffering. Again as he predicted, there followed a litany of more names, people she didn't know, people who couldn't possibly be protestants, even people who didn't exist, names she made up. Corto was satisfied there was nothing else of value she could give him. A couple of the names bore promise and having them identified by a confessed heretic was all the evidence he needed to have them arrested. He would have her removed to her cell, but she was still conscious so there an opportunity for a final cruelty. He patiently waited until the naming died to a inchoate blubbering before approaching her again.

"Good, very good. Now don't you feel better, child, for having confessed your sin before God and given the Holy Catholic Inquisition the means to root out more of Satan's vile influence in Thetford?” Dawn shook her head violently up and down, desperate that the man believe her and end her torture. Corto just enjoyed the way the motion made her pointed breasts jiggle so delightfully. “I shall end your ordeal . . . “ The blue eyes shone with pathetic hope. “ . . . but there is one last thing I must be sure of . . .” Her blue eyes got even wider and her head shook. Not over, not over, not over, not over, not over . . .

“Sometimes a confessed heretic recants after she has had time to heal and think. I must be certain you will not be so tempted. Go to the public stake and you will die in the flames, a merciful end and a quick one. Recant and you will be returned here for me to continue the torture, even worse for having turned your back on the Mother Church after she is willing to take pity on your soul. Here is a small taste of what that will mean.” He looked to the executioners. "Finish with the stirrups, but use brine, not the oil. I want her to perform in this Sunday's event so I can add her to the McCarty whore's punishment. The spectacle of two such young women subjected to public torment is certain to loosen the tightest purse!”

The two hulking men understood exactly what the magistrate meant. They had given Clarke instructions earlier that day in preparation. Charlie went to a flat, foot-long pan perched near the brazier, also filled with a layer of embers. Two long-handled metal mugs rested on it atop a grate. He selected one and returned to the girl, horrified beyond words that her trial wasn't over. Each of the tankards contained about a quart of simmering liquid. The one Charlie carried back held steaming sea water, heavy with salt. The other with cooking oil, roiling with heat. Both were ready for use because they weren't sure how extreme the magistrate would decide to get; either liquid would inflict hideous agony, but the oil lingered on the skin longer and so left many more blisters and damage behind. The brine was more effective on lacerated flesh where the salt could outrage newly exposed nerve endings of course, but the near boiling water was still excruciating and wouldn't mutilate her feet as badly as the oil. He went to Dawn's right side and bent forward so he could tip the mug and pour some of the brine into a small gap at the top of the stirrup, carefully created for just this purpose.

”HEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH! OH, I CONFESSED, I CONFESSED! AND I GAVE YOU THE NAMES! PLEASE! YOU PROMISED THERE WOULD BE NO MORE PAIN! I DID EVERYTHING YOU WANTED! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! PLEASE, IT BURNS! IT BURNS! OH, MY POOR FEET! OH, THEY HURT, THEY HURT, THEY HURT ME SOOOO!" Then, just when she thought that there was no greater suffering, the executioner stepped around the back of the frame and drained the cup down the other one to bathe her left foot with the scalding brine. The young girl's shrieks bounced off the stone walls, covering the sound of the water spattering on the floor under her. It wouldn't be long now before her nerves were completely overwhelmed, but she was still aware so Ben reached over and gripped the base of her teat, still punctured by Corto's needle. He pinched it between thumb and forefinger, twisting and pulling at the aching bud. The miserable girl was indeed consumed by pain. It seemed as though all of her flesh was one single mass of burning agony. The pincers produced tiny spots that oozed scarlet, her back and ass had been strapped, fine skewers pierced her breasts and nipples, warmed by the magistrate's candle flame until they sizzled inside her, now her feet, compressed until the bones just barely cracked were subjected to blistering hot salt water, and most persistent, longest of all, was the fiendish heat in her genitals, plucked clean of pubic hair, rubbed with fiery pepper oil, and perched atop a sharp ridge of steel. Charlie reached for her other teat, but before he could catch it Dawn Smith's nude body gave a powerful shudder and sagged limp from the cords still holding her hands up, both thumbs swollen and discolored to a florid plum color.

”Bah! The heretic has fainted,” Ben exclaimed.

Charlie Wright took a handful of sodden straw-gold hair and pulled her head back. “You want me to try to revive her, Sir? The bitch should be able to take some more.”

”No, that's enough. I don't think she will give us any more and I have what I want. Take her off.”

Clarke moved to his side. “Magistrate, I don't understand. If you could get her to admit everything with the Stirrups, why hurt her breasts and cunt at all?”

Corto smacked the back of the boy's head, hard. “Dolt! Of course I could have made her talk with simpler methods! There are two good reasons to use sexual torture, besides the fear it creates. The first is during their public punishment. That kind of thing, watching a pretty girl naked and suffering, is necessary to get the peasants to open their tiny purses.”

”And the other, Sir?”

Hayward smiled. “The other is simply because I enjoy it! There is nothing more pleasurable in this world than having young women totally in your power, helpless and bare as worms so you have access to every private and sensitive parts of their bodies, and tied down so there is nothing they can do to stop you except beg and scream—and that just makes it even more fun! You've felt it. You just have to let go of any pity or restraint and give yourself fully to whatever feels good between your legs!

”You take her to her cell now and clean her up. Then fetch the barber to fix her injuries as best he can. And tell him not to bleed her! I want her to regain her strength; not let that old fool drain her.”

Cooper and Wright lifted Dawn off the cruel Spanish Horse and dropped her to the straw-covered floor where she lay. Even scarcely conscious, her nude body curled up, twitching uncontrollably and moaning from the agony that still inflicted her nerves. The young apprentice torturer got his hands under her arms and dragged her from the room.

Cooper turned to the magistrate. “You know he is going to play with her again, don't you? I know you saw how aroused he was watching us work on her. Charlie and me sure did.”

Hayward chuckled. “Oh, yes, I saw. Don't you remember when you were his age? You could fuck six times a day and would stick your rod into a sheep if there wasn't anything better around. Hell, you probably did anyway, haw! It doesn't matter. The boy has the right attitude for the job—he enjoys it—and he knows what I will do to him if he tried to fuck her without me giving him permission first. That's still my privilege. Then you two can have her next.” His face lit up with a large smile. “Anyway, even if he does just rub up against her to get off again, he will learn a valuable lesson. He may have the necessary attitude, but I'll bet both of you a guinea he will be so eager that he doesn't clean her cunt well enough first. You boys rubbed enough of that pepper oil on it that I'm thinking Johnny-lad won't be thinking about sticking his prick into anything other than a bucket of soapy water before too long! Hah, get on with you! Buy a couple of pints. Beth at the pub still spreads her legs easily enough. She may not be as pretty, but after I arrested Molly for a whore she won't be too quick to demand any coin first!

”And speaking of Molly Simpson, I confess that working on the heretic has me hard again! The promise of only twenty lashes makes her suck like a newborn calf at the udder! You lads ought to try it with Beth; I swear it's even better than shagging a tart between her legs! And Molly will still get flogged next Sunday! Can you believe it! Every day she licks and sucks my cock until I swear I can hear the angels sing and all I had to do is promise her that I wouldn't strip her naked for the lash!”

Ben laughed out loud. “With all respect, Lord Magistrate, go teach your gran how to suck eggs! Me and Charlie been using their mouths that way a long time now! We just can't make the promises you can, so's we have to . . . uh . . . take precautions. After we take the whip and irons to them, some of those bitches ain't too fond of us and would like nothing better than to bite us where it counts!” He looked at Corto with a mixture of doubt on his face. “You ain't really going to keep your promise to the bitch? About limiting the lashes and not stripping her?”

“Now, now, I can see what you're thinking. Don't worry, the stupid bitch will still regret the day she spread her legs for a shilling! Off with you now!”

Dawn's questioning had concluded on Tuesday, so there were five days before her sentence would be carried out, but she was given little peace. Corto went to her cell in the lower Keep the following morning to exercise his prerogative of her first rape. A good shagging was his favorite way to start the day. He didn't bother binding the girl. Still weak and naked from her ordeal, it was a simple thing to hold her down on the cold floor and then brutally shove himself inside her. There was a brief resistance and low squeal of shame at his penetration. He hesitated just a moment in surprise. Well now, a virgin! There was unexpected pleasure of being the wench's first man ever. That and his vigorous thrusting brought him to a quick orgasm. He stood and retied his trousers, looking down at the girl who had curled up again on the straw, moaning. I hope you enjoyed that, bitch, he thought. That's the last time it will be so pleasant for you.

She was still hugging her legs to her chest and weeping in shame when the others came for her that same afternoon. The two executioners laughed aside her protests, lifting her struggling body easily and carrying it from the cell. They took her back to the main chamber. Young John Clarke waited there with another man in the black alb worn by junior priests of the Church. The apprentice had already followed their instructions and adjusted the angle of the heavy wood frame down to near horizontal. They laid her effortlessly atop the arm and leg extensions and held her steady so Johnny could belt her wrists and ankles to the ends. A moment later he buckled her knees and elbows as before so her body was again helplessly outspread and bound for whatever horror they choose to inflict on it.

Ben Cooper saw the way the young priest was staring at Dawn Smith's splayed female nudity. He also couldn't miss the obvious bulge that pushed out the front of the cassock and smiled to himself. He knew the story. Augustine James Haskins had been a monk, recently sent from St. Albans, the nearby monastery, to shore up Thetford's old and feeble church priest, Father Theodore. Theodore barely made it through the Masses he celebrated, so the monk was brought in to handle the administration and finances, as well as taking confessions. It was this last responsibility that interested Corto. The confessional was considered sacred and inviolate, so the Church had access to every secret or bit of gossip in the shire. It was knowledge that could provide both power and profit to an unscrupulous man. Father Theodore, for all his faults, was a pious man with few human desires. The arrival of Brother Haskins, a young man confined to a monastic life since abandoned at St. Albans as a child, presented an opportunity too good to pass up. With the instinct of a natural predator, he knew that money and sex was the way to penetrate the monk's vows. After a life of austerity and celibacy, Augustine James Haskins was ripe for the allure of worldly corruption. The magistrate had his executioners befriend the young monk, accompanying him to local taverns and buying many pints of ale and bottles of wine, while he plotted his assault on the other chink in the Holy armor. He appealed to the monk's Catholic zeal, telling him that he was needed to properly question a suspected Protestant. She was a peasant girl and the charge was false—she was only chosen for her youth and pulchritude—but she would be his key to the secrets of the Confessional. Corto saw the craving in the monk's eyes grow as the pleading girl was stripped naked and hung by her wrists in the lower chamber. He was amused at the way he tried to bury the newly awakened desire with prayer while still being unable to keep from looking up in ungovernable lust. The sexual hunger he exuded became almost palpable as the two executioners flogged the writhing nude peasant until she hung senseless and bleeding. The magistrate was too clever to push, content to let his fish nibble at the bait this first time. He waited a month to let Augustine stew before requiring his presence for another questioning, again with a comely wench of no importance. This time he made an excuse and left the monk alone with her after the torture. He watched through a peephole while the monk fought his feelings, but then slowly and haltingly advanced to get his first feel of naked female flesh. Corto saw the sudden spasm contort his face when the powerful orgasm shook his body and smiled. The bait was almost taken. Still patient, Corto let Haskins wrestle with his guilt a while, but the next time he was called to an interrogation, Ben and Charlie had little trouble chivvying him into opening the alb and mounting the naked victim after her torture. After that, the monk was gradually coerced with decreasing insinuations of exposure and ever increasing access to women until he would pass along the confidential whispers he heard in the booth.

Brother Haskins showed up outside of the magistrate's office early Wednesday morning, bouncing and eager as a puppy. He started prattling before Hayward even reached his desk. “Last night, last night Ben said you had the Smith girl here. That she confessed to being a heretic. Why wasn't I told? Why wasn't I sent for? You should have sent for me. . .” Almost a whine.

Corto deliberately took his time sitting behind his desk. He was pleased but didn't let it show. He knew from Cooper and Wright that the young monk was taken with Dawn from talks in the tavern where she worked. It was he who told Ben to casually drop the information and he had no doubt of this visit. “Now Brother Haskins, you know that I only need a representative of the Church when I expect the accused to prove difficult to break.” It was too easy playing on the monk's desires, teasing him. Introduced to the pleasures of women in the context of brutal interrogation, now his lust was irretrievably linked to the bloody sadism Corto provided. Hooked and landed months ago, the magistrate now required the information Haskins could provide before he would let him play. “Yes, I have the Smith girl, and yes, she has confessed her heresy. She shall go to the stake this Sunday after worship. It is the only just sentence for a heretic.” He hesitated, drawing out the monk's discomfort. “Perhaps you know of another who has denied her Catholicism? Where there is one there is usually another. The vile Corrupter is as pervasive as he is pernicious.”

There was still a little reluctance at violating the sanctity of the Confessional, but not much, especially as Haskins had convinced himself that it was necessary for the greater well-being of the One True Church. “Well, um, yes, I believe so. Last week an old woman came in to make contrition. She is a cook for Viscount Henry, the younger brother of the Duke of Norfolk. The Viscount took a new wife after the first died of consumption five years ago, but not before bearing him a daughter, Lady Ingrid, a dozen years prior. This daughter, now grown, has become a rare beauty by all accounts. Now hear: the cook said that the first Viscountess was a German and the cook said that a hand servant told a scullery maid who told her that the daughter was a secret follower of that arch spawn of Satan, the German, Martin Luther.”

Corto could fill in the rest without being told: The new Viscountess, an ugly, yet wealthy woman married a man with a title, but little money. She was now a noble, but was bitter about sharing her roof with a younger and lovelier female and gave vent to her jealousy within earshot of the servant. He leaned back in his chair. He had also heard of Ingrid's beauty, but always considered the nobility to be outside his reach—until now. A Lutheran, hmm? Whether she was or not didn't matter to him in the slightest. What did matter was that this randy fool of a priest believed it and he had the weight of the Church and bloody Queen Bloody Mary behind him. Yes, it would be a rare treat to have a beautiful young noblewoman in his power. Well, fool or not, Augustine came through and deserved his reward.

”Yes, Brother Haskins, those filthy Lutherans must be rooted out. You have done a great service to the Mother Church. Now as to the already confessed heretic, Dawn Smith, perhaps she will find the opportunity to see a pious man of the cloth like yourself a comfort. She must still burn, of course, and suffer the other just punishments for her heresy, but your words may yet save her soul. Ben and Charlie will be giving my apprentice some training later today. I will send for you.” Just too easy, he thought watching the pathetic way Haskins' face lit up.

Now the four men had the miserable girl back in the torture chamber for their play. Following the magistrate's instructions, the two executioners permitted the monk to take her first, patiently waiting through his prayers and exhortations over the splayed nude, but the obvious erection straining at his cassock and the bright carnal desire in his eyes told them they wouldn't last long. Ben spurred him on. “You waste your time, Father,” he said, using an honorific he knew the monk didn't merit, but would feed his ego. “Words alone won't change this little bitch's black heart. I think you may do better with the laying on of hands—and of course the insertion of your faith directly inside her to purify her flesh.”

”Y-Yes,” the monk stammered. “You are right. The Devil has too strong a grip on her to receive the Holy Word. I must attempt a more direct method to purify her flesh.” He stepped up to the frame and took hold of her head, one hand behind and the other on her forehead and he intoned an invocation for the devil to leave her. It started with great sincerity, but Ben knew he just needed an excuse to get down to what was so obviously eating at him.

”Heretics are well known to offer their bodies as well as their souls to Satan in blasphemous rituals, Father. Who knows where his evil is buried? Since those depraved rites involve sexual coupling, it is beyond doubt that it will be concentrated in her obvious female organs. I think you must attempt to draw the corruption from her flesh wherever it may try to hide. Only through the consecrated touch of a holy man like you can truly seek it out.”

”Yes. Of course, of course, you are correct. It is my sacred duty to do battle with her flesh as well as her soul.” Haskins released her head and his hands went immediately to the bare breasts rising from her chest. Even almost horizontal, there was little sag to them. He stroked the soft white turrets, excited by the silky feel of the pale skin. His fingers lingered on the two delicate rose-petal nipples, almost reverently fondling the erect tips. He left them reluctantly, sliding his fingertips down the under curves, then trailed them over the rising thorax. Spread as she was, he could feel every rib through the taut skin. He moved further down the side of the frame until he stood at her flank. He placed his left hand on the gently rounded swell of her abdomen and then used the other to caress Dawn's trembling inner thighs before finally settling on the plump lips open between them. He couldn't take his eyes away from her notch. Plucked clean and parted by the way her legs were bound, every bulge and crevice was revealed. He was intrigued by the small gleaming pea nestled at the top of the feathery, innermost lips. He brushed it with his forefinger. He jerked his hand back in fright at the girl's sharp hiss and hip twitch at this most intimate touch.

”Haw, Padre, that's it all right! That's the teat the devil likes to suckle! It's sensitive, real sensitive! You wouldn't believe how much you can get a wench to squirm by stabbing it a couple of times with a hot needle. Make you laugh out loud, it do! Well, I think you've found all of the sinful places on the bitch's outside. I think it's time you did battle with the evil within, eh?” He made a circle with one hand and pumped one finger of the other through it. Haskins could only bob his head up and down. A few clumsy paces took him to the bottom of the frame. Another step found him up between the wood planks that held the girl's legs apart. He grabbed at the front of his cincture, fingers clumsy with lust. He wrenched the knot open, threw the thick cord down, and pulled the garment open to expose his rigid sex, already leaking fluid from the intense arousal. He started to step forward, but Charlie Wright held up a hand to stop him.

”That is a brave decision, Father, worthy of such a holy man as yourself, but trying to save her should be reward enough; the bitch shouldn't enjoy it. No, she must do penance for her sins. Allow me to prepare her for you.”

”Just don't rub any of that pepper oil on her cunt again,” Clarke muttered.

Wright chuckled. So Corto was right and the little wanker did rub his dick on her again after he took her away. Thought he was walking funny yesterday. “No, Johnny-lad. I have something else in mind that will still lubricate her nicely for the good Father.” He walked to one of the braziers, already alight and with pokers heating in the coals in anticipation for the play he knew would happen. He took hold of one handle and drew it out. He swung it to cast off some sparks and then held it up so Dawn could see the bright yellow glow. She blubbered in horror at the sight, but there would be no pity this day. Wright picked up a small jug and poured some of its contents, cooking oil, over the rod so it sputtered, then he moved quickly so the metal had no time to cool and aimed the rounded tip at the junction of her thighs. He dragged the glowing iron rapidly down and back against the fleshy lips, then finished with a fast push just inside her vagina. Every muscle of her body tensed furiously at the hellish touch, her frenzied shrieks drowning out the hiss of frying skin. Wright replaced the rod in the coals and turned back. “There now. The wench won't be liking anything down there now! Go ahead, Father, she's ready for you now.”

The monk stepped forward eagerly. Many Catholics, otherwise learned men smart enough to ignore the Church's stricture on sexual congress, feared that coupling with a heretic would somehow pollute them. It had been laughably easy for Corto to dissuade young Augustine from that foolish superstition through the simple expedient of telling him that the opposite was true, that his holy seed would battle the devil from within her, a fiction he was eager to believe. With faith in his divine mission, and the fervor of a young man's lust, he reached down to position his swollen glans just inside Dawn's gaping slit. He gasped sharply at how hot her flesh was after its burning, but the heat only served to jack his arousal up to an even higher level. He snarled in lust and roughly shoved his rigid penis all the way in. He groaned loudly with pleasure at the feel of her inner walls gripping the shaft and the way the young muscles rippled along its length. He grabbed her naked breasts and began lunging his hips back and forth. Dawn rolled her head and moaned in pain and shame. The friction of each thrust aggravated the seared nerve endings between her legs painfully. That would have been bad enough, but it was more the thought of this man raping her that had her sobbing in humiliation. He had heard her confessions, had granted her absolution, yet now he was rutting on her like an animal.

Haskins was thinking about nothing except the warm wet sensations of erotic delight that flowed from his loins and filled his body and mind. The first few times Corto had encouraged this wondrous sexual play it had taken scant moments before his body was wracked by orgasm and left weak and shuddering atop the female prisoners. He didn't understand that these lusty games were only a reward for each new corruption of his vows. Now he was able to ride the agonized women longer, but even so, his youth and the excitement of doing the forbidden only extended his control from seconds to a few short minutes. Vastly more experienced, Ben Cooper watched for the telltale flush suffusing his face and put a hand on his shoulder in accordance with the magistrate's instructions, stopping the monk just before he passed the point of no return.

”Hold a moment, Bro—Father—Father Haskins. Let me introduce you to a special treat. A good jockey knows when to use the whip on his horse to make it run better and a heretic bitch ain't no different. Now you just poke your old John Thomas all the way in and hold it there while Charlie and me liven up your ride!” The monk stopped his motion, only with great effort, then watched in fascination as Charlie handed Ben a strap and the two men moved to either side of the torture frame. Dawn's head twisted back and forth between them, horror in her blue eyes. Then Ben raised his arm and suddenly swung it down so the leather strip burst across the upper slope of both of her helplessly offered bare breasts with a loud THWOPP!

”HEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! OH GOD OH GOD! HAAHHH! HAAHHH! HAAHHH!” SsssssTHOPPPPTTTTT! Charlie Wright followed Ben's lead with a bitter stroke from his side that also sought out the mounds on her chest, still jiggling from the first lash on them. “AAAHHHH! AAAAHHH! IT HURTS! MY POOR TITTIES! S-STOP! IT HURTS SO! PLEASE NOT MY POOR TITTIES!”

SssssssSWAPPPPPP! Ben attacked the mounds from beneath to strike the tender bottom curves. A moment later Charlie returned to the same place from her right. ”OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH,” the monk groaned and his head rolled back, eyes closed into narrow slits at the unexpected sensation between his legs. The shocking pain that exploded in the young woman's upthrust bare breasts made her entire body tense with the intended result of convulsing her vaginal muscles about the young man's embedded penis. THWAPPPTTTT! THWOPPPTTT! THWAPPPPPP! From right then left, one side then the other, the straps whistled down to deliver their fiendish kisses on the prostrate girl's sensitive mounds. “Oh, Mary! Oh, sweet Mother! Oh! Oh!” Haskins exclaimed his elation after each impact, so consumed by the erotic sensation between his legs that he was unaware of the way he was invoking the very object of worship he had vowed to serve. The two executioners, with a skill acquired from the suffering of countless victims, varied the rhythm of their strokes, using their timing to play Dawn's writhing nude body like a violin. The way they varied the cadence varied the spasms inside her slit to mimic the movement of fucking. The monk need only hold onto her jerking hips and let the rippling inner muscles squeeze and release his buried penis and ride the sweet throbbing waves toward climax. His eyes were glued to the delicate female gourds before him, shuddering to each new blow. “Oh, Mary, Mary, Mary!” he exclaimed after a particularly fierce contraction when Ben paid his first attention to the very middle of the girl's bare breasts, flattening the hard teats viciously. Charlie immediately followed suit.

Like the man raping her so cruelly, Dawn Smith was also lost to the intense sensations assailing her, only hers were of relentless mounting agony. Where time had no meaning to the monk, every second seemed a slow, dragging eternity for the suffering girl, broken only by fresh lightning bolts of pain attacking her aching breasts. The delicate gourds were now flushed from the remorseless beating, her sensitive nipples swollen, teats hard and red as ripe currants. Her slim body could only squirm and writhe on the torture frame, utterly defenseless and now gleaming with sweat as though from long and strenuous labor.

Like master musicians performing a melody, the executioners played their instrument to the inevitable finish. They now increased the tempo of their strokes to change the girl's vaginal spasms to fast, unvarying muscular twitches. Haskins' body also sensed the imminent crescendo and his hips started moving without conscious thought, pulling back his shaft until the swollen glans just parted her seared labia, then thrusting forward until it was embedded to the hilt and his balls slapped against her groin. Faster and faster he moved until the dam of his control shattered. As at the first lash across her tits, his eyes closed, his head snapped back, and a loud groan sounded. The rapid humping slowed to short powerful stabs as the hot, heavy spurts shot from his cock and he gave himself totally to the waves of exquisite sexual pleasure. The two executioners held their straps, the breast beating no longer necessary, but the young blonde continued screaming with each breath, her mind only dimly aware that her violation was complete with the molten jets filling her. Finally the peak of his lust broke and he sagged forward across Dawn's twitching naked body, weak and drained. He had reached the transcendence, the all-consuming ecstasy promised by the Church, finding it only in a chamber of torture accompanied by the shrieks of a young woman in unendurable agony.

Ben Cooper waited until the monk's cock went limp enough to slip from Dawn's cunt and he slumped back and away. Ben reached around his shoulders, partially supporting the monk while handing him a mug of beer. Haskins took it and stepped dully back, not even aware that his black cassock was still open and his flaccid dripping sex still exposed to the room. “Excellent, Father!” Ben clapped him on the back. “You gave the godless bitch a ride she won't soon forget! There's a bucket and sponge over there by the wall so you can clean yourself up. I'd say let the bitch do it with her mouth and tongue, but we wouldn't want the devil to take control of her again while your cock is inside, now would we? Best close up that robe before you make your way back to the presbytery, too. We don't want your flock to know what you've been up to, now do we?” He saw the sudden flash of fear on the monk's face. “There, there. Don't you fret. Just trying to convert the heretic, save her soul, eh? That's the story and me and Charlie will swear to it. Don't you worry none. We knows how to keep a secret, Charlie and me and Johnny-lad. Magistrate Hayward won't let anything hurt you, Father. He values you, he does.”

Two days later, the magistrate was in his office counting his money box when there came a knock on the locked door. He quickly stashed it back in its secret hole before opening the door where Ben stood. “Come in, come in.” He saw the smile on his executioner's face. “So the arrest went well?” He had sent Cooper with the soldiers to bring in the Ballentynes, two people named by Dawn Smith as other Protestants.

”Excellently, Sir, most excellently. And with a most unexpected reward!”

”Sit, sit. Let me get you a little brandy and you can tell me about it.” He always sent one of his own men with the soldiers to execute the searches since they knew what to look for. He also knew that the big executioner was not given to emotion or exaggeration, so his news must be good.

”Thank you, Sir, I believe I will. As you know, early this morning I went with the raid on the Ballentyne farm. They didn't suspect a thing so we caught them completely by surprise. Well, they didn't have much worth taking and the wife was ugly as a mule so there was no reason to bring her in. But the timing was perfect. Not a week before two of their nieces, the sister's girls, came to visit from Scotland. Camerons. They made the thing very worthwhile. Twins, they are! And they are sweet and ripe as June strawberries! I would have brought 'em in anyway when I saw them—just the type you like—but it turns out they almost certainly are heretics! Followers of that John Calvin. I even found one of them translated bibles in their room! Why, taking them is almost enough to have the Smith bitch strangled instead of burning her.” He saw the look on Hayward's face, a mix of negation and interest. “'Course, we won't be doing that, 'course not. Brother Haskins wouldn't like it and it's worth it to keep him that way, but Holy Mary, these Scottish wenches are beautiful! I got 'em down below for you to inspect when you like. The old man tried to fight, so I just run him through—there weren't no trouble after that. They got strange Scottish names,” he took out a piece of paper, “Uh, Fionnaghal and Ceana. Funny, eh? Don't really matter, o'course, but I asked and the aunt said they meant 'White Shoulders' and 'Fair One.' They sure earn them names! Skin like milk, they have. And red hair and freckles! I ain't even heard of anything like 'em in the whole Shire! That brandy is tasty. Can I pour another?”

Corto absently waved him over to the bottle. Excellent! That they were so obviously guilty meant he didn't have the excuse of interrogation, but that wasn't important—he could tell the monk anything so long as he got to shag them. He had pondered some of the things he could do with a mother and daughter, using one to make the other do whatever he liked. He made Molly compliant enough to willingly suck his dick the way he liked by promising her an easier time on the platform, but having twin sisters—and pretty young ones at that—opened up a totally unexpected range of possibilities for his pleasure. He was pleasantly surprised by the way his cock was already erect in his pants from just the anticipation of the things he could do with them. Control, he told himself. A good ale should be sipped, not gulped like a hog at the trough. If these Calvinist wenches are as good as Ben says—and he is as good a judge of flesh as I am—then they should provide weeks of sport, not just a few days. There ain't too many more good ones around Thetford that I haven't already had taken. No, until I can get rid of the old priest and bribe the bishop into appointing young Haskins Head Priest, I should make a good thing last. “Excellent work, Executioner, really excellent work! I shall be down to inspect them this afternoon. Keep my randy apprentice away from them; he knows better than to fuck a prisoner unless I say, but I don't want him scaring them. No, I must consider the best way to proceed with them. Get the bottle and bring it here. I think another drink in honor of your success is in order.”

The magistrate had had Ben drag Dawn to the interrogation room the day before and bind her with her elbows tied behind her. Then a rope was knotted around her wrists that fed into a windlass and her ankles secured to cuffs at the ends of a four-foot long rod, spreading her legs widely apart. He left to leave Corto alone with the girl. The first thing done was to cut away the ragged shift she wore. Corto had learned that stripping a wench before every session of torture was worse for her than leaving her naked in her cell. Even knowing where they were didn't seem to prevent the bitches from the pathetic feeling of security such a meager covering provided. After a few quick slices with his knife, the man ripped the cloth away and tossed it to one corner, enjoying the girl's mewling cries of fear. He slowly cranked the handle of the windlass, each click of the ratchet hauling her arms higher until her nude body bent forward from the painful strain on her shoulders. He walked past her and grasped one dangling breast, squeezing it roughly. Then he went to a table and removed his shirt and trousers, folding them carefully before turning back to her, now naked himself. Well, not entirely naked. Before heading down to the chamber he had put on a small accessory he had crafted specially by the saddle maker, a black leather belt that buckled around his hips. There were two loops in front, one large, one smaller. The larger loop lodged snugly against his groin, enclosing the genitals from abdomen to the back of the scrotum. The smaller enclosed the base of his penis, slightly larger than its flaccid circumference. He immediately felt his manhood twitch and harden in response to being freed and the sweet anticipation of the play to come. Now the purpose of the harness was clear. By constricting his balls and cock when soft, it held the blood in once he was aroused, making his erection harder and stretching the skin all along the shaft to make it even more sensitive to touch. He stared at the hanging blonde wench and unconsciously licked his lips. He took a special pleasure from tormenting his female victims this way, with his sex exposed to the lurid delights of the torture chamber, and always arranged to have at least one of these sessions with them, and always privately—it would be unseemly to his office to do it in front of his men, especially wearing his harness. Dawn lifted her head awkwardly and groaned in shame when she saw the man's erection pointing at her, rigid and insistent. As she looked, she saw it twitch up a couple of times in excitement as if with an eager mind of its own. Even after the rapes she had already endured, she still felt intense embarrassment from being naked with a man, especially one so obviously aroused. From the imperious way it stuck out at her and the look of cruelty on the man's face, she suddenly understood that she wouldn't be released until that loathsome rod of flesh had been satisfied—and she also realized that it wanted pain first. Corto moved behind her. He lowered his hips to slide the shaft between her legs and pushed his loins forward to touch her bottom so its full length pressed up against her bald labia. A little more wriggling slipped it up even more until it nestled snugly between the soft lips, drawing another groan of humiliation. He reached around and down to close his hands over Dawn's swaying breasts, relishing the sudden gasp of pain as the strain on her shoulders increased. Corto took his time, slowly moving his hips to rub the hard ridge surrounding his glans up and back against the slick flesh while he fondled the girl's tits, caressing the silky skin. His fingertips found her nipples and he pinched and rolled the teats into full turgid erection. The erotic ripples flowing through his penis were exquisitely pleasurable. He felt a new lubricious sensation and knew without looking that his body had responded to his intense arousal by oozing out a thick drop of fluid from its head. He spent a little longer groping her flesh this way before releasing her and stepping back. It was time to get to the sport he enjoyed the most, the infliction of pain on a pretty young woman.

He started with the tits he had just fondled, passing a torch beneath them, slowly enough to aggravate the sensitive nerve endings, yet not so long or so close that the fire damaged the delicate skin. Dawn twisted her nude body in an attempt to avoid the flames, but only succeeded in adding to the pain in her shoulders. She twitched at the end of the rope, her slim legs, spread by the rod holding them apart, jerked up and down in a frenetic jig, unaware of how much Corto was enjoying her naked dance.

”Owwww! Oh, oh, oh! It burns! Stop it! Stop it! You're hurting my titties! Stop! Stop!” she protested, but the man was having too much fun to even consider it. Around and across her chest, higher and lower beneath the swaying breasts, he kept moving the torch, always irritating yet never damaging the tender mounds. Occasionally he would vary his attack, moving the fire down her belly and abdomen. A couple of times he walked behind her to let the flames briefly lick up at her parted genital lips, plump, smooth, and flushed from horse and pepper oil, drawing louder, more insistent objections. “STOP IT! What are you doing? Oh, not there! Not between my legs! OWWW! You're burning me! OWWW! Not my cunny! OW! Please, it still hurts there! Please! It hurts! OWWWW!”

Corto continued teasing the nude girl with the torch, relishing the way her body writhed in reaction. A fine sheen of perspiration spread across her torso even though the interrogation chamber was cool. He chuckled at the sweet way her small round buttocks twitched when he slid the torch back and forth under her loins, singeing her upper things and labia, yet never long enough to raise a blister on the delicate skin. He replaced the torch in its sconce and returned to her backside. He then spent a delightful time indulging the lubricious sensations in his rigid penis. He placed the swollen head at the base of her slit and worked it forward and back a while to slide the corona between the velvety lips, enjoying the heat left by the flames, then would allow it to pop free so he could rub its length up through the valley separating her ass cheeks to stimulate the underside. More of his precum soon lubricated the furrow to make the slippery feeling even more delightful, especially when the small delta just beneath the glans, stretched tight from the constriction, slid over her skin. Dawn's protests took on a new quality, insulted at this most intimate of contacts, calling him vile and depraved and wicked. Her invective didn't bother him in the least; he knew he was all of those things and more. His greatest pleasure was being naked like this with an equally nude young woman and the sadistic thrill he felt torturing her. Her intense embarrassment and outrage only added to his enjoyment.

Corto finally stopped the delightful frottage, not because he was sated, but rather that he was finding the desire to penetrate and ride her to orgasm getting too hard to control and he wasn't ready to let the fun end so soon. Besides, he had something else he wanted to do to her before that. He reached under her and started fondling her genitals from behind. He slipped a couple of fingers just inside her vagina, drawing a sharp gasp of outrage, then worked them out and forward to gently roll the oh so sensitive berry of her clit about. The girl tried to lift her crotch up away from the prying fingers, but couldn't keep her hips from squirming at his intimate play with her most private, most female organ. She shivered in revulsion as the teasing went on. “Well, well, now. Your bald man in the boat is all swelled up and your minge is hot and wet!” He grasped a hanging breast with his other hand. “And your teats are hard as pebbles! Why, you're as randy as a barn cat in heat! Look at the way your hips are grinding down—shameless! You act so prim and proper, but you're just a common slag, aren't you! All you really want is a good shagging! Well not yet, missy, not yet. No, you have to earn it.” He flicked the nipple tip back and forth, pinching her clit at the same time. “No, you seem to be enjoying this entirely too much and no heretic slut gets to have more fun than I do in my own dungeon!” He patted her helpless sex. “And I know just how to ensure that!”

The presumptuous hand left her crotch. Dawn tried following the man, tried seeing what he was doing, but looking up added to the strain in her shoulders, so she kept her face down, body quaking in fear. Corto went to a row of hooks and selected his instrument, fairly benign as they went, two-feet of supple, inch-wide calf hide on a short handle. The end was even rounded to make it less likely to break the skin. It would serve his purpose admirably. The magistrate went back behind her to a place a few feet away. He lowered the whip to the floor, judged the distance, then swept it straight up to smack into the vee between her thighs.

”HAAAARRRROOOOOOOOOOO!” she cried out. The pain wasn't as intense as the caustic oil or steel ridge, even the quick kiss from the hot iron before the monk raped her, but her tender labia had the extreme sensitivity of youth and the crisp stroke stung terribly. Thwipppppttttt! “OOOOOOWWWWWWWW! OW! OW! OW!” Thwipppptttttt! “AAAAAHHHHH! OH, NOT THERE! NOT THERE! HAH! HAH! HAH! HAH!” Thwicccccckkkkkkkk!

Lash followed lash, each accurately finding her plump sex, each landing with a bitter slap. Corto varied the timing between them so Dawn couldn't anticipate when the next would hit. He employed a quick snap of the wrist so just the final couple of inches actually struck home between her thighs. He enjoyed her squealing protests, but it was the salacious way her slim legs capered after each one that he found even more captivating. There was a sweet erotic throb growing in his groin from the sadistic play. Several times he stopped the genital whipping to move in close so he could repeat the delicious frottage, rubbing the upper and under sides of his iron-hard erection between her sex lips and ass cheeks, alternating between them. The sensations were especially delicious from the way the constricting leather harness stretched the skin and held the shaft up and out. Corto gave himself fully to the lascivious game, letting his penis dictate the type and tempo of the play, denying it only the release of orgasm, a release it hungered for more with every whip strike and every rub. Both tender female valleys were now slippery from his aroused secretions and her puffy labia radiated heat from the cruel strapping. For him the heat was an intense pleasure just short of pain, but it must be well nigh intolerable for her. Finally, after another set of lashes punished her gash, he knew it was time. He dropped the strap and moved in close. He could have used his hand to guide his manhood into her, but it was more fun dipping and wriggling his hips to let its bloated head seek the entrance by itself. Thanks to the blood trapped inside, his erection was easily firm enough and the sling kept it pointing straight out from his loins so he had no difficulty aiming it. Dawn felt the hard glans prodding her sex and tried to twist away from the insistent knob, but her squirming only amused him even more. He felt the tip part the lips to find the opening he wanted and pushed the shaft in to the hilt. “OH, OH, OH!” she cried at the sudden penetration. “Oh, it's vile, vile!”

Corto said nothing. Now inside her, he reached down and grabbed her hanging breasts, using the grip to steady himself and began a slow back and forth motion with his hips. He pulled back until the corona nestled just within the cleft then gradually stabbed it in until the full length was embedded to the balls. In and out, forward and back, he worked the shaft with deliberate purpose. Every time it was fully buried, he pinched her nipples and hesitated a moment to savor the way the pain made her powerful vaginal muscles ripple and squeeze it. He leaned over more during each rough fondling, adding increased tension on her shoulder joints to the pain in her breasts. The erotic sensations grew more stronger with every thrust, but he knew he still had a little time before he came. It was another reason he loved the harness, in addition to increasing the sensitivity of his organ by stretching the skin taut, it had the contradictory effect of delaying orgasm so he could enjoy fucking his victims longer. Even so, the sadistic thrill of torturing the cute blonde girl and the way her slippery vagina was him couldn't last indefinitely. His hips started moving faster and faster and he was breathing heavily as if from some great exertion. The lusty throbbing between his legs grew more intense with every passing second. He was still letting his penis dictate his actions and let it decide the moment of orgasm without trying to control it; he had learned it was more extreme this way. The feeling of carnal pleasure expanded inexorably until Corto threw his head back and let out an animal roar as the first hot wet spurts surged from his sex. The deliberate pace of his humping gave way to jerky twitching movements. There was no conscious thought, his entire being reduced to the throbbing convulsions in his groin. It felt like the girl's vagina was also acting on its own, the rubbery muscles squeezing and pulling as if to milk him dry. Dawn felt the eruption inside her and shuddered in revulsion. She had been raped several times already in this horrible place, even by the village monk, but each violation still filled her with loathing in addition to the physical suffering they always inflicted. The man's vigorous pumping slowed as the spasms diminished. At last it stopped completely. Corto stood with his groin pressed against the maid's bottom, breathing deeply until his composure returned. He still waited, enjoying every last sweet sensation. Dawn could feel his penis soften inside her, its girth dwindling gradually as the constricting leather harness loops finally allowed the internal genital pressure to ease. He pulled his hips back until the heavy glans emerged with a soft, moist plop. He cut the rope holding her elbows up behind her and the miserable girl collapsed in a heap on the floor, her sweaty nude body twitching fitfully. Corto dropped to one knee beside her. He took hold of one trembling bare breast, caressing it softly after the previous rough groping.

”That was lovely, my dear, really lovely. I've rarely enjoyed a shag more. You want to soothe your minge and chest, I'll wager; too bad your hands are still tied behind your back. This soft titty, now, it feels so hot.” He rolled her over a bit and cupped her swollen labia. “Here, too. Like a mutton haunch fresh from the broiler, hah! You just lay there now and rest. Get some composure back, hey? I'll send Ben in to return you to your cell in a little while.” He rose and looked down at her. “Really, really lovely . . .”

II - The Execution

On the appointed day, Dawn Smith had largely recovered, at least outwardly. The ugly bruises and burns of torture were pretty much gone; her young body again smooth and white. It wasn't from any consideration for her, of course, but the better she looked to the audience expected for her ordeal, the more money in tips would be made. Even so, the previous couple of days hadn't been free of abuse. Yesterday, only one day after the magistrate's strappado rape, the two executioners, accompanied by the boy apprentice, came for her, returning her to the dank room where she had already suffered so much. They were under orders not to mark Dawn's body, but that didn't spare her from pain and humiliation. First they forced the girl to strip herself, whimpering as she pulled the new camisole up over her head. Now naked, her forearms were overlaid and tied in place, then cords, specially crafted of soft cloth, were tightly wrapped around her tits so the pert cones deformed into tight round bulges. They tied long strings to the base of both teats, already hard from the breast constriction and still sore from the magistrates roasting the day before. Finally Ben and Charlie pushed her down to her knees and fitted her with a special gag, a devilish device that fit over her head with dull hooks that held her mouth open. It didn't impede her ability to breathe, but made it impossible to close her jaws. Now that she was properly prepared, the three placed stools around her. Each untied the ropes holding their pants up to expose them below the waist before taking their seats and spreading their legs apart. Dawn looked around in revulsion. Between the men's legs their pricks pointed at her, already tumescent in anticipation of the game to come.

Ben, the senior, bent over and picked up the ends of the nipple strings. He tugged on them, forcing the girl to awkwardly walk on her knees toward him. He spread his legs even further apart to make room for her between them. “Come on, bitch, that's it, keep coming.” He looked down meaningfully and Dawn followed his eyes to the large, fat sausage projecting from his groin. “That's right, bitch, my little mate Willie here is waiting for you to introduce yourself. Now you just wrap your lips around him and use that sweet tongue of yours to show him how friendly you can be!” He tugged the twine again separating his hands when she moved in between his knees, pulling her breasts apart by the nipples. She looked up briefly, pleading with her eyes, but saw nothing but cruel amusement on the coarse face. She lowered her head and forced her mouth over the rigid glans. Ben let the girl lick and suck on his penis, but pushed her head away before his orgasm. He tossed the ends of the strings to Charlie, who jerked on them, leading the girl over to him like a bull to pasture, using her nipples in place of a nose ring. After letting her fellate him a while, he threw the cords to young John Clarke.

The sadistic game went on for almost three hours. Dawn was forced from man to man by the nipple strings, used like reins to aim her between their legs and the expectant erections there. While waiting for their next turn, they would drink beer and make ribald comments to one another. The boy was nervous at first in front of these experienced men, but quickly got into the festive mood. He was the first to come, spurting into Dawn's mouth and over her face. He looked sheepish after the spasms subsided, but the older executioners set him at ease with some good-natured joking, even voicing admiration for the strength of his ejaculation. Ben was the first to vary the game. Just before Dawn got near enough to reach him with her mouth, he pulled her in closer, guiding her with one hand gripping her blonde hair to hold her head back until his shaft pressed against her sternum. Then he crossed the strings, pulling on her teats to wrap the swollen breasts around his penis. A barking command and a few guiding tugs quickly had her working her torso up and down, fucking the man between her tits. “Cor, but this is bloody lovely, mates! Bet even toffs in their big fancy mansions don't have as much fun with their high-born wenches as we are today!” He looked into Dawn's face, twisted from the pain in her throbbing nipples. “The cow sure don't seem to like it none, but that just makes it better!”

Charlie Wright followed the advice in his turn, expressing his delight with Ben's suggestion as Dawn's chest slid up and down around his erection. He gave the strings a tug to spur her on and she let out a sharp croak of pain. The sound broke through Charlie's control. His head snapped back and he grunted in pleasure as the molten jets erupted over the tops of Dawn's bloated globes. He reveled in the salacious feelings as his climax slowly subsided. Finally looking back to the chamber, he reached for his beer mug, then turned to toss the nipple reins to Cooper. Ben just smiled and tipped his chin toward John. Charlie glanced over and burst out with a snicker. The young apprentice was aroused again. A mere twenty minutes after his orgasm, the youth was once more fiercely erect and eager to go. “Here you go, Johnnie-lad,” he laughed, flipping the cords to the boy who was grinning like a fox who just outran the hounds. “Remember when we was ready again so quick, Bennie?” He smiled back at the boy. “Have at it, mate, have at it. Try fucking her titties this time. It's a right cracking way to get off!”

Only after the apprentice came again and Ben finally shot his load down her throat did the three executioners call it a day. Dawn had fallen to her side on the cold floor and lay there weeping in shame while the men cleaned themselves off and redressed. Ben doused her back to full alertness with a bucket of water, then Charlie and John lifted her by her underarms and carried her back to the cell where they untied her arms and removed the bindings from her nipples and tits. Both breasts had flushed an angry scarlet-plum color with darker red lines encircling the bases. At their tips, the teats were bloated up like ripe currants, but all these marks would soon fade and she would be in prime condition for tomorrow's spectacle. They left her curled up on the floor, arms wrapped around her chest, naked and moaning from the painful sensations in the globes as fresh blood revitalized the nerves in them. Charlie clapped Clarke on the back. “Ain'tcha glad now you signed on to apprentice? May not earn too much in coin, but there ain't no other job makes a man happier! Come on now, lad, let's you, me, and Ben get to the inn for some grub. I swear playing with a saucy young wench like that gives me a powerful hunger!”

Ben Cooper came into her cell that morning and kicked her awake. Her breasts ached, her nipples puffy and sore from yesterday's play. Her feet still hurt terribly from their crushing, but she would be able to walk to her final ordeal. The large executioner tossed her the old and threadbare chemise she had been forced to remove the previous day. She pulled it on over her head gratefully. Flimsy as it was, Dawn was still glad to be dressed again after her vulnerable nudity. Just the feel of cloth covering her made her feel safer, but that quickly died when he placed the Scavenger's Daughter restraint on her. It was modified from the original full body device into just a metal collar with a bar that stuck out a couple of feet with cuffs at the end for her wrists. He led her out of her dank cell to a small room already occupied by the other executioner and Molly, a village girl she knew in passing whose neck and wrists were secured the same way. Cooper listened at a small window and they waited while outside the church emptied and a crowd gathered, jostling to find the best view of the festivities to come.

The platform was the pride of Thetford and the finest in all of Norfolkshire. It rose where the earlier simple wooden gallows had stood, but upon deposing the old and dimwitted previous magistrate, Hayward had immediately seen the financial potential and ordered the new one built. Made entirely of fitted stone, it was twelve yards long by eight yards wide in the very center of Thetford's town square. The stage sat eight feet high so there was a clear view of the activities everywhere in the square. To maximize the variations possible there were no permanent fixtures, simply several holes and fittings for whatever frames the day's events might require. Corto also instituted the policy of scheduling all executions and punishments on Sunday afternoons following Mass to ensure as large an audience as possible. Hangings and the lopping of hands for theft were common and would be performed whatever the weather, but he waited for clear days when he had a young female or two. He made sure that word would leak out so the spectacle would attract an especially large crowd. At such times farmers and tradesmen who rarely attended church would flock to worship, bringing their families to what was guaranteed to be a festive event. It also ensured that village merchants and tavern keepers—even the Whore's Guild—would make especially large contributions to him. Tip bowls, carried by lads hired specially for the event, would also add a sizable amount to his purse.

There was an eager buzz as the people filled the square and saw the preparations made to the stage. The stout oak whipping post rose up on one side with a pillory mounted on the other. John Clarke had been up early to start fires in a pair of large elevated braziers at either end which still showed some flickering yellow flames. Branding was a fairly common occurrence, but still a big crowd-pleaser. Some watchers made comments and bets about how they would be used. Several closer in then noticed the shorter iron post surrounded by faggots behind the pillory and the word spread quickly that there would be a special burning today, as well. A cheer went up as the magistrate climbed the stairs to the stage. He was dressed in his finest and most imposing garments and cape. He turned and looked out over the plaza.

Good, very good. Word had spread about the type of today's entertainment and there was an unusually large audience. He glanced up to a balcony that overlooked the square. As expected, the Viscount and his wife was already seated there. Lady Bertha, the rich and ugly Viscountess, was a regular, watching avidly while the old man usually dozed in drunken slumber. Then his eyes opened wide. The hard-featured woman had brought her step-daughter for the first time and Corto could see that the reports of Ingrid's beauty were, if anything, inadequate to describe her extraordinary loveliness. Oh my yes! He expected that his perversion of the monk would yield some fruit, but the possibility of having this, this young woman in the torture chamber was beyond his wildest hopes! He raised his hands for silence.

”My Lord! My Ladies! Good citizens of Norfolkshire! Today two miscreants shall receive just punishment for their crimes and all of you shall witness it!” He had to gesture for silence again at the cheering this statement prompted. “Now you shall all see that justice in Thetford is both swift and harsh for those who break the laws of both decency and Church! Bring them forth!”

The heavy door of the keep swung open. First Molly Simpson was pushed out. She stumbled forward, but caught her balance and stopped just outside. She ducked her head, unable to shade her eyes from the bright sunshine, blinding after the dark keep. Ben Cooper followed her out and gave her a shove toward the platform. Charlie Wright emerged next with Dawn. He held her erect with one meaty hand, but even so she tottered on her feet, still weak and painful from their encounter with the Stirrups. “Come on, heretic,” he growled, “it ain't far and there's a lot of people waiting.”

There was a cheer from the assembled people when they saw the girls emerge from the keep. They parted so they could make their way to the stage. Molly hesitated at the foot of the stairs, but the look on the waiting magistrate's face told her that there would be no escape from the flogging and she began climbing slowly. Dawn tried to draw back, but Ben took hold of her other arm and the two men dragged her up the steps. They took her near the pillory and pushed her down to her knees, securing her to the stage with a short chain screwed to the iron collar of the device she wore.

Corto took hold of the dark-haired Molly and presented her to the milling assembly. She wore a baggy, dark green blouse over a long gray skirt. The way the front of the blouse swayed when the magistrate pulled her towards him provided ample evidence that she wore nothing underneath. An expectant silence fell when he raised a hand. “Here stands Molly Simpson!” he announced. “She has been found guilty of prostitution and lewd behavior. The sentence is that she be publicly flogged as an example to any woman who may consider selling her body for profit!” He pushed her toward the high Whipping Post where the two executioners waited. “Prepare her for the punishment! You shall begin with two dozen lashes, well laid on!”

Charlie grabbed an arm and pulled her to the pole. Molly jerked her head back over her shoulder with a surprised look on her face. She had resigned herself to the shameful public ordeal, but his words shocked her. She knew she would be flogged, knew it would hurt terribly, but she had degraded herself, letting him use her body in ways that she found vile, using her mouth to lick and suck on his manhood, even swallowing his gushing seed, all for his promise of a minimal sentence. She was sure that her punishment would only be two dozen lashes, only that; withstand twenty-four strokes and the nightmare would be over. But he had just declared that her coming chastisement would begin with the two dozen! How many then would she have to endure?

Her mind was still reeling as the Scavenger's Daughter was removed and her wrists immediately roped together. Placed close to the post, Ben raised her up so his partner could lift the rope over an iron hook embedded near the top. Once released, her body dropped down from her wrists and pressed against the pillar. She could just reach the platform below and so had to stand on the tips of her toes to ease the strain on her shoulders. She had scarcely balanced herself when Ben stepped forward behind her. Taking a knife, he slit both sleeves and then sliced down the fabric in back. With a quick wrench, he tore away the blouse and tossed the shreds aside to leave her nude to the waist in the bright early afternoon sun. A roar filled the square at the sight of the young woman's revealed flesh. Ben took hold of the top of her skirt and tugged it down to expose her lower back, so low on the hips that the sacral dimples were clearly displayed and the gap separating her buttocks was just visible. Back in the Keep her long dark hair had been braided into a ponytail that reached just past the nape of her neck, a simple tactic to ensure that not even that feeble protection was available for the coming punishment. Ben took the end and draped it over one shoulder to completely expose the broad pale expanse of her back.

Molly was well-fleshed with a voluptuous form. With her deep chest pressed to the pole, her full breasts curved out on either side to the delight of the villagers in the main area of the square. The latecomers who could only find a place at the back of the stage were treated to a frontal view of naked titties they rarely got to see.

The two burly executioners removed their shirts, displaying powerful musculature, then put on the black head masks of their profession. Each armed himself with their tools for the flagellation, short whips with six slim twisted thongs. The tails were nothing more than three leather strips of different length nailed at the center to the end of a wooden handle. By using different lengths in the construction, each pair of pointed tips would strike slightly separated places of the victim's body, maximizing the pain of every impact. Applied with sufficient force, the sharp spiral thongs could slice the skin like a knife and expose the back ribs and spine. They could also be employed to the ultimate sentence of being whipped to death when they would flense the condemned wretch's entire body front and back. Neither of these extremes would happen today; Hayward's plan for Molly was for her to provide some profitable amusement. Dawn Smith's ordeal would be the primary entertainment and he didn't want the whore's punishment to distract too much from that.

”Begin!”

Charlie Wright shook out his whip and administered the first stroke, a whistling horizontal slash across Molly's shoulders. She grunted at the bitter pain, but the sound was lost to the loud exclamation of “ONE!” that roared from the crowd. When he initiated these public displays, Corto had the executioners call out the number, but that immediately became unnecessary as the audience grabbed on this way to join in the spectacle. Ben struck next from the other side. “TWO!” The two executioners had taken positions to either side of the post so each stroke could find its own portions of her form to kiss. As Ben was equally adept with either arm, he stood to Dawn's right so his lashes could caress the skin up her left side while Charlie's right arm worked the other.

The crowd shouted the count again after Ben expertly swept his whip so the tips reached around her back to find her taut left side just above the hip. “TEN!”

”AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” Despite her resolve to endure the punishment silently, to not give the villagers the satisfaction of hearing her scream, the bitter lash stung terribly and she could not hold the gasp behind her lips. The executioners were deliberately moderating the force of their blows, but still the pointed leather ends would occasionally bite into the soft skin enough to crack it open and draw shiny beads of red.

”FOURTEEN!”

”AAAAAAHHHHHHH! NO, NO! NOT THERE!” There was especially loud approval from the back of the stone scaffold. Charlie Wright had added just enough reach so the pointed thongs could find the soft round bulge of Molly's right breast just below the armpit. This new attack on her chest melons was not a spur of the moment thing; both men had planned from the start when they would do it. As Charlie's strike fell away, Molly's body twisted and she pressed against the pole trying to protect the stinging mound. Of course, that just revealed more of the plump left gourd and the air behind her split with another whistling hiss as Ben's stroke accurately sought it out, the longest strips impacting just short of the broad coral nipple.

”FIFTEEN!”

The next couple landed higher so the pointed tips could reach into Molly's sensitive armpits. The shapely brunette's body writhed madly from her bonds, her feet hopping back and forth in the lascivious dance of the whip. “HAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

Raucous cheers followed every new lash along with the count. Charlie Wright delivered one more lash that reached around to strike her right globe, but then both men left them alone, although a few more delved into the tender hollow beneath her arms. Molly's back was crisscrossed with angry scarlet welts and her body was jerking in pain, but there were still loud exhortations for the executioners to whip her harder, to produce more of the blood the assembled people were eager to see. Indeed, there was a vibrant, festive atmosphere in the crowded square. Hawkers shouldered their way through, selling fruit, cold meat pies, bottles of fresh ale brewed just for the event, even sweets for the children, the smaller ones sitting on a father's shoulders to have a better view of the show. A few pickpockets worked the crowd, but not many, and then only the bold or desperate ones. Many of the Sunday punishments included some cut-purse losing a hand to the executioner's axe, so the wise ones didn't risk the increased constable presence a spectacle like today's was sure to have.

Another group was also plying its trade, with the magistrate's permission and especially profitable because of the day's special entertainment. The women of the Whore's Guild were out, their number swollen from outlying villages. They slipped through the crowd to whisper their offer into the ears of lone men. More often than not the sly proposal was answered with a fumbled coin and the woman would drop to her knees, well wrapped with burlap to cushion them, and expertly unbutton the front of the man's trousers so she could take his rigid member into her mouth and start the rapid head motion to relieve his lust. The Head Madame of the Guild, Meg Jones, knew well that the latent sadism in even the most timid man was brought out by the lascivious dance of a naked young woman suffering public torture and they would pay well to satisfy the demanding arousal it produced. The magistrate always required a sizable bribe for her ladies to work unhindered, a healthy percentage of the take, but her profit would still be large enough to make it a bargain. That Molly was being so cruelly punished for the very thing her harlots were so actively performing didn't bother her in the slightest. Both she and the magistrate were pragmatic and both were interested in nothing except the money they would make from her pain. And anyway, Fanny reasoned, Simpson wasn't a member of the Guild, merely a servant who thought to make a little brass by spreading her legs. She also knew that the example being so brutally set would help keep her girls in line. They would be less likely to try to hold out a little if they knew that they could find themselves up on the stage with a word from her.

”NINETEEN!” Molly's back was covered with over a hundred scarlet welts from neck to ass crack. Enough had abraded the once pale skin where they overlapped in addition to the scattered places where the leather points had bitten that shiny beads of blood seeped down to stain the hem of her skirt. The agonized girl shook from her bonds, more red drops oozing down her forearms from the rope that chafed her wrists. Charlie delivered the final lash. “And TWENTY-FOURRRRRRR!”

When the time for the anticipated next stroke passed, Molly sagged limp against the post, heedless of the pain this caused her wrists. Her whole existence had been so focused on the relentless flogging that she felt only relief, the magistrate's earlier words forgotten. Her reprieve didn't last long. Ben exchanged his whip for one of the buckets placed about the stage. He swung it forward to slosh the contents over the girl's red-streaked back. The effect was instantaneous. Molly heaved up, lurching against the post and crying out, drawing another cheer from the crowd, familiar with the effect of strong brine splashing over raw whipped skin. Her body shivered and she danced again at this new pain. Corto let the squirming go on until finally subsiding and the woman's body again hung limply from the hook.

”Two dozen administered for lewd behavior!” the magistrate called out to the mob. “Take her down!” Molly heard the words, but was only dimly aware of their meaning until she felt hands raising her body and lifting the rope off the iron peg. Ben held her up so Charlie could untie the bloody knots. Cooper lowered her and she crumpled down to the stones, propping herself up with one arm and crossing the other to cover her chest in a pitiful attempt at modesty, still trembling in pain.

As expected, there was a murmur of disappointment from the crowd at this break in the entertainment. The festive mood diminished slightly and the magistrate heard comments being made, some of appreciation for Molly's body and the way the whips finally broke her silence, but most a disappointment that the flogging had stopped. There were a few positive thinkers that pointed out that Dawn Smith was still on the stage for her turn, but they were a minority. Even the Viscountess had a sour look on her potato face. None should have worried; the magistrate knew his audience and there was still money to be made from the miserable shaking woman.

He raised his hands for silence. “Good people of Thetford! Honored royalty! This wretched woman, this slattern, was sentenced to twenty-four lashes and twenty-four lashes she has received! The punishment for her lewd behavior has been carried out.” There was a collective groan and a few catcalls from the villagers at this announcement. Corto waved them silent again. “However! However, she has also been found guilty of prostitution!” Both crimes stemmed from the same single act, but he had deliberately applied two separate charges. He saw the interest perk up as this pronouncement began to penetrate. “Therefore she must now receive just punishment for that even more foul offense!” There was no need to quiet the crowd now; they were listening to every word. “And so it is my decision that she return to the Whipping Post until I deem that she has been properly disciplined.” A low buzz began. “And since the whore's back is already well striped, I rule that she now face the lash, and that the citizens of Thetford assist me in determining how many she should receive! I have lads among you with cups where you can express your opinion in coin and I promise to honor your desires! Executioners! Bind the bitch again! Back to the post this time!”

Molly heard the noise around her with slowly growing awareness, then the full import struck her. No, oh God, no no no! It was over! I took the two dozen! It's over. It has to be over! Then she felt the two men take hold of her arms and she panicked. “Noooooo! NOOOOOOO! Let me go! Let me go! It's a mistake, a mistake! It's done! My whipping is done! oh, please, PLEASE, it's a mistake! No more, please, no more! Oh, let me go! Let me go! PLEASEEEEEEEEESE!”

Molly's pleas grew more strident and she struggled desperately, but the powerful executioners had no trouble lifting her and pressing her bleeding back against the tall pole. Ben held her steady and Charlie retied her chafed wrists behind the beam. A final addition to her binding was an additional length of rope looped over the hook and tied around her neck to hold her torso upright and prevent her from bending over to hide her front. Wright reached around and pulled the dark ponytail back over her shoulder. They stepped away, finished for the moment, and Molly Simpson was now revealed to the crowd. There was a brief hesitation, almost as if everyone was holding their breath, then there was a deafening roar.

The frantic girl wriggled at the post, wrenching at the rope holding her wrists together. The untouched skin of her front, creamy-pale in the bright sunshine, presented a tantalizing contrast against the dark wood. They had left her the skirt, still low-hung on her hips, but that only served to draw all attention to her upper torso, especially the swaying bare breasts. They stood out proudly, perched high on her deep rib cage. Well-fleshed as she was, they were full and round, yet with an insolent, insistent thrust. Tying her arms behind instead of high on the post didn't stretch them up, but she was still young enough that there was little sag. At their peaks sat the darker disks of her nipples. The broad aureoles were a lush coral-pink color, tipped by slightly darker teats. The points already stood out from the paps, but now that they faced out so the spring breeze could caress them, they grew even more prominently erect as the surrounding flesh crinkled and pushed them up. Ribald comments were made at the way her futile struggles made the naked globes cavort on her chest. Corto smiled. He had seen her completely naked, of course, but he knew how much seeing a lush female bare to the waist could arouse a crowd of peasants and farmers, especially one helpless and facing torture. Time now for one more announcement. He could almost hear the shillings and pence drop into the cups.

”As prostitution is a female crime, a crime unique to her gender, her punishment shall focus on the most obvious organs of her sex. Executioners! Prepare the whore for her breast whipping!”

Molly jerked wildly at this horrifying pronouncement. She could still feel the sting from the earlier kisses there and those had only struck the outermost curves. Now this man had ordered that they be the primary target for the flogging to come and with her hands tied behind her there was absolutely nothing she could do to protect them. The executioners wouldn't even bother with her belly and abdomen, addressing their lashes solely to the prominent globes. Yet even now there would be one final tactic, one last refinement to increase her terror and the crowd's excitement. Ben returned to the woman and tied a cord around one arm just above the elbow. He passed the end around her other arm, looped it back, and then tugged it taut before knotting it. The effect was dramatic. Where before her naked breasts were merely exposed before her, now the fierce binding at her elbows forced them to jut out arrogantly as if demanding complete attention. Even having had her totally unclothed in the privacy of the Keep—and she was now only bared to the waist—the sight of her chest melons thrusting out this way for the whip increased his already strong arousal. It drove the villagers wild in anticipation.

Corto walked up to her and reached around the beam from behind with both hands to find Molly's breasts. He took her nipples between thumb and forefinger, pinching and rolling the teats into fuller, harder erection, drawing groans of pain. Then he cupped the gourds and joggled them up and down to the raucous approval of his audience. Even jutting so dramatically from her chest, they still were soft and fleshy enough to provide a salacious bounce. He leaned over so he could whisper in her ear. “You think your flogging hurt before, Missy? What you felt is nothing, nothing compared to what it will feel like when these beauties take the lash, them being so sensitive and all. But don't you worry, Ben and Charlie won't ruin them. A wench's titties can take an unbelievable amount of punishment before anything permanent happens and yours have a lot of good meat in 'em. I've instructed the executioners to use the straps for your breast beating; it will still be more painful than you can imagine so you won't notice the difference, but the belts won't bleed 'em so quick.”

Molly twisted her head around as much as she could. “B-but you promised! You promised! All those times you made me do those vile things to please you. All those times I sucked you down there. You promised,” she finished in a whimper.

”Don't whine. It makes you ugly.” He was more concerned that a weeping, pleading face might engender some sympathy in the audience, instead of the lust one contorted and screaming in agony produced. “I don't understand why you are complaining. I said you wouldn't be stripped naked and you still have your skirt. If anything you should be grateful that I'm not having my executioners roast your nipples first. That really adds to the pain and I like doing it, but today is a two-act performance and I don't want the people to see any fire treatment before it's the heretic's turn. Her suffering will make yours seem like being in your lover's bed. You might as well accept that they are going to get well and truly beaten, but I won't have the executioners destroy 'em even if you will still wish they just cut them off before it's done. Once it starts, I want you to go ahead and scream all you want. Beg, too. That will just make the show more entertaining!” He released her tits and looked to the men. “Begin the punishment!” he called loud enough to carry across the square.

Corto heard the applause and knew that Cooper and Wright had moved into position behind him, swinging the supple leather straps in their hands. He made his way back to where young John Clarke stood. He saw that the boy was bent forward again to ease the swelling obvious in his groin. The flames in the brazier behind him had died down and the bottom of the metal bowl was glowing a dull brick-red. A dozen long rods stuck out, ends buried in the coals to heat, and he nodded in approval. At least the boy remembered his apprentice duties. He glanced over to the kneeling Dawn Smith and saw the utter shock on her face. You should be afraid, bitch, he thought. She didn't know the ghastly horror that awaited her, but having to watch Molly's ordeal before her own would just make her reaction even more hysterical. He turned back to watch the show.

This time Ben administered the first stroke, a full-armed swing that smacked loudly across the upper slopes of both proffered naked breasts. The blow mashed the flesh down, then the turrets leaped up and danced about wildly on her chest.

”ONE!” the crowd roared.

Molly Simpson was silent for a moment, paralyzed by the sudden appalling pain that exploded in the globes, then her head snapped against the pole and she gave full vent to her agony. “AAAAAAAAAHHHH!OOOOOWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! HAHHH! HAHHH! HAHHH!”

She was still wailing when Charlie's strike returned to the very same place, adding to their vigorous flopping. A hole had been drilled an inch from the end of the belts, a modification that helped them move through the air faster and more forcefully. The holes had the added effect of occasionally producing a hard, painful blister on the skin.

”TWO!”

The two executioners took their time. Molly wrenched madly at her bonds after every lash across her tits. She tried bending her head down to protect her chest, but only succeeded in rubbing her neck raw on the rope noose holding it to the post hook. Corto deliberately left her legs unbound, so she was free to perform the lascivious dance of the whip he knew the people loved. Even with her elbows tied to tightly together in back, her naked globes kept their feminine pear shape and they, too, capered delightfully to the strapping. Eight brutal lashes were inflicted before Ben varied the attack and delivered a vicious horizontal slash that slapped across the middle of both breasts to savage the broad coral nipples for the first time and flatten the erect teats. Molly's nipples were extremely sensitive and hideous agony exploded in her chest.

”HEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Molly's raw shriek of anguish ripped out, overcoming the count of the gathered throng. “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRRHHHHHHHH! OH, PLEEEEEEEEESE! IT HURTS! NOT THERE! PLEASE DEAR GOD, NOT THERE! NOT THERE!”

The excited watchers roared their approval, many calling out to the stage.

”Well struck, Master Executioner! That got the bitch's attention!”

”Again! Whip the nipples again!”

”Yes, again! She sings so beautifully!”

”Harder! Hit them nipples harder! Listen to how much she hates it there!”

” More! Harder! Againnnnnn . . .” SWAPPPPPPTTTTTTTTT! “TEN!”

”AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHH! NO MORE! NO MORRRRRRRRR!”

By the time the leather had caressed them twenty times, the top and center of her bust was flushed an angry scarlet. Half a dozen stiff, plum-red blisters sprouted on the tender skin beneath both underarms. Three of the blebs had already burst releasing trickles of shiny wet blood that slid down both incurved sides. There was one bizarre aspect to the image she presented: the bulges just under her nipples remained creamy white in soft contrast to the florid welted flesh above. The variance was planned, of course. The executioners looked to the magistrate, who nodded agreement. Attuned to the mood of the people, he knew that they were starting to get impatient for the main event, but there was one last contribution the whore would make to his coffer.

Charlie Wright went behind the miserable woman. Blood dripped from her torn wrists to splash into a small puddle on the stones. Even the upper arms were abraded where the cord pulled her elbows together. His evaluation was purely clinical, satisfied that there wasn't enough blood loss to weaken her. He reached into a back pocket and removed a pair of pincers like the ones used to question accused heretics. In front, Ben replaced his strap with a quirt, a flexible shaft with a foot-long length of braided rawhide oiled for added pliancy.

Charlie reached over her right shoulder with the pliers and placed the jaws about the bloated teat below. He squeezed the nubbin and used it to lift the plump gourd up off her rib cage, careful not to tear it off. Molly wailed at this new pain, but her cry rose to a piercing squeal when Ben expertly snapped his wrist so the end of the quirt kissed the newly exposed white under curve.

”TWENTY-ONE!”

A thin crimson line appeared as if by magic as Cooper crossed over to the other side and switched hands on the whip. Charlie Wright released his morsel and did the same with his tool, then reached down for the left aureole's tip, cautiously closing the jaws and lifting to expose fresh milky skin to the quirt. Ben took aim. SsssssssssTHWIPPPPPPPTTTTTTTTT!

”TWENTY-TWO!”

Last followed lash, separated only by the time it took for Ben to move from side to side. Already swollen from their vicious strapping, the teats bloated even more under Charlie's pinching. Molly's shrieks were interrupted only by her gasps for air. They were no longer punctuated with pleas; each was nothing more than a raw expression of unendurable agony. The left nipple was the first to surrender to the repeated assaults, caused by the frenzied heaving of her chest, a small rip that produced a bright droplet of blood when the eighth slice landed beneath it. The right lasted for two more. Unlike the broad effect of the straps, the quirt left a filigree of slim rising welts across the sensitive bottom curves. And being so much thinner, the braided rawhide occasionally left fine slices behind that exuded their own bloody dribbles. Lifting the breasts also revealed the girl's upper sides to the whip so the tip was able to crack open a few more of the blisters there to create tiny spots of fire.

After the thirty-sixth lash, Charlie returned the tongs to his pocket, but Ben continued the breast torture. Now that the pliers were gone, he had access to the every part of her globes and used it to punish the upper slopes and broad disks capping them with his slim quirt. An artist with the whip, Ben employed a special wrist snap with the last few so the pointed end snapped viciously, finding just one nipple after the other, drawing new runnels of blood with the very first strike. Molly endured seven of these cruelly focused lashes before, with a last keening wail, she sagged senseless on the post. Corto had been expecting this, but was still gratified she had lasted this long and the profitable entertainment she had provided. Well, your public ordeal may be over, bitch, he thought, but not your value.

”Wake the whore up!” he ordered the executioners. “The silly bitch is going to choke to death the way the rope is digging into her neck!” Ben nodded. He dropped his quirt and picked up one of the waiting buckets of salt water. Moving to her front, he dashed its contents over her. The brine aggravated the countless nerve endings exposed by the cruel flogging as it dripped down to soak her skirt and spread in a bloody pool at her feet. Molly sputtered back to consciousness, aware of nothing at first except the hideous pain. Then the horror of her situation came back. She thought the torment would start again, but instead Charlie stepped around in front of her drawing a knife. He cut the rope holding her head up. The brunette's upper body bent forward, then she sagged down the post, wrists still bound behind her back. Charlie left her that way, a quivering lump of flesh, whimpering in her agony.

Corto walked to the center of the platform. “Fetch the heretic,” he ordered. The monk had wanted to lead a prayer over her, of course, condemning her heresy, asking God's mercy even as he condemned her soul to hell and sent her body to the stake. Hayward knew that Haskins would run on and on in his zeal, but he also knew that more religion after two long hours of droning Latin would kill the mood he needed to maximize his profits. In the end, it had been a relatively simple thing to promise the monk first go at Molly after she was returned to the keep that evening. He never had any intention of releasing her. She would be given to Ben and Charlie—even young Johnnie—to torture and rape to death. After he told Haskins that he would get to inflict some of the torment himself, the man was so excited that he actually seemed to think that the decision to not pray was his own. So easy to manipulate a priest with sex. All their piety, all their denial and chastity vanished in the presence of a naked girl and the chance to stick his prick in her. There might be some small, buried realization of the hypocrisy, but the monk could never acknowledge it. Probably holed up in his room right now, thinking about tonight and wanking off. Corto, at least, had no illusions that he indulged his lust for pain and rape for any other reason than that he enjoyed doing it and it made him money. He returned to the moment.

Cooper went over to where Dawn Smith was huddled down, chained to the stone deck. “Okay, Missy, your turn now!” he said, unfastening the chain from the iron collar.

”No, oh please no,” she blubbered. She had watched every moment of Molly's cruel whipping, heard every strike of leather on flesh, and every scream of pain. She knew that they would come for her, but now that the moment had come she was filled with dread. The chain clinked to the stones and the executioner hauled her roughly up by the bar holding her wrists and head. He dragged her to where the magistrate waited, stumbling on bare feet still weak and aching from the Stirrups. The crowd noise grew; even after enjoying Molly Simpson's tribulation, the prospect of watching another young woman in torment kindled fresh excitement. Once in place, Charlie joined Ben and the two men held her upright facing the village square. Hayward motioned for quiet.

”Before you stands Dawn Smith, a foul wench who secretly practiced heresy in your very midst! She turned her back on the Catholic Church and betrayed the Holy Mother! But she was found out! Thanks to a few of you good people she was discovered. Under the authority given me as magistrate, I interrogated her and extracted her confession! Yes, she has fully admitted her sins against God and Church! Now she will pay for those sins, in public and before all of you! Let her fate be an example to all filthy Protestants that they cannot hide from the righteous wrath of God! Now hear the sentence!

”Dawn Smith, you have confessed to the vile crime of heresy. I therefore condemn you to the stake so that you may be purified by fire. First, that these good Catholics may see how evil is rewarded, you shall feel the torments that will await you in hell for all eternity!” Then softer to the executioners: “Hold her steady now while I peel her.”

He reached up and sliced through the fabric above the girl's shoulders. Ben and Charlie held the flaps up without being told; they had done this before. Corto stepped in until he pressed against her back, close enough that he could feel his erection rub against her through his pants. He took hold of the shoulder straps and began to lower them, slowly exposing her torso. The villagers fell silent in anticipation. Down came the chemise, gradually lower and lower. The upper slopes of her breasts came into view. Corto stopped just as the chemise reached the outermost curve. He could sense the crowd holding its breath. Then he quickly yanked the cloth down, all the way to her hips to reveal her torso fully naked to the waist. There was the briefest moment of hesitation, then a roar burst from the assembled people. Hayward knew how to put on a show. Dawn wriggled between the two executioners and wrenched at the wrist cuffs, fighting to cover herself. A furious blush rose up her cheeks in shame from being unclothed this way in front of so many people. Her flesh seemed to glow in the bright afternoon sun. Corto had ordered that she be spared from any beating the past few days to enhance her appearance, even if didn't spare her from numerous rapes and the cruel game played by his men. Her skin was back to the color of fresh cream and was greeted with appreciative comments from the audience. Even her struggles to hide herself from their gaze only made her look even more desirable. There was a gentle rise beneath the collarbones, then the two female turrets thrust straight out toward the crowd without the slightest sag. More lewd remarks called out at the way her nude breasts shimmied, the pink disks of her prominent nipples dancing about on their tips. Corto reached around to give both paps a quick rising pinch so the teats pointed up even more impudently.

Corto gave the crowd time enough to look, but a minute or so only, playing their excitement like an orchestra conductor. He took firm hold of the cloth at her hips, then ripped the threadbare chemise apart and down to leave the pretty blonde totally and gloriously nude on the platform. Dawn had the form of a fully matured woman, the only proof of her barely eighteen years the pointed turrets on her chest in front and the almost boyish bum in back. Long slim legs rose up to swelling hips. Above that her waist drew inward to taut curved sides and a hard concave belly. Then her body swelled out again to accommodate a short, but robust rib cage that served as a splendid platform for her two splendid bare breasts. They weren't as fleshy as Molly's, but they were still lovely with the pride and elasticity of youth. Dawn's narrow back and slim stature made the mounds appear larger than they were and the tapered funnel shape seemed to thrust the erect nipples forward as if demanding attention. There was another pregnant pause as the crowd gaped at her. A different sound arose, this time more in surprise than anything else. Then the catcalls started.

”Look at her! Look there between her legs! Why the harlot's quim is slick as a new laid egg!”

”Haw! Well ain't that just dear! Never saw one without a beard before!”

”I heard that the dirty heretic shaved herself that way because the devil demands it of all his harlots! The butcher's wife says that's a sure sign!”

Dawn's blush grew even brighter red at this new indignity. She looked desperately to the crowd, looking for someone, anyone, to step forward and stop her shame. What she saw instead was laughter, derision, amusement—and lust. She saw many she knew. Women she greeted on the street, men she had served with mugs of ale and laughed with over old ribald jokes. She never knew that behind the jokes was frustrated sexual hunger, that behind the greetings was jealousy over her beauty and resentment over their men's desire. Now they all watched, eager to see her scream and burn. Corto gave them another full minute to stare and revile the maid. He looked over to the executioners. “Okay,” he said, “put her in the pillory.”

The executioners lifted her easily from her upper arms and carried her across the stage. The apprentice was already there. The frame was a stout board mounted between two square upright posts. It was split horizontally across the middle and hinged on one side. Holes had been cut in it to hold a victim's head and hands. When they arrived, it took only a brief effort to remove the Scavenger's Daughter, then Clarke lifted the upper crosspiece so the burly men could push Dawn's neck and wrists into the notches cut for them. The top was dropped down then a small hasp locked it in place, securing her firmly. Finally, they both knelt down and tied her ankles a yard apart to iron rings hammered into the stone.

The crowd jostled to get the best view they could, even though every detail had been taken to present her nude body to its best advantage. The split plank was made of seasoned oak so it could be narrow, yet still strong enough to hold firm against the most vigorous struggles. It was mounted on two side uprights instead of one central one to provide a clear forward view of the prisoner's front, especially the female ones. The wrist holes were cut so when the girl's wrists were locked inside her elbows bent at right angles to keep her arms up and out, making it easier to see her breasts shudder and sway. Even the height had been carefully adjusted that morning for Smith's size so she was forced to stand up on her tiptoes to keep from choking, a minor refinement that pulled her leg muscles into fine relief and made the limbs appear even more slim and shapely, tapering down from the pert round buttocks. With her feet tied apart, it was even easy to see the plump bald lips of her sex at the junction of her straining thighs.

He moved to her side and placed a paternal hand on her back, slowly caressing down over her ass to the hairless labia and back. Even after the past few days of rape and abuse, Dawn still squirmed at the intimate touch. His fingers roamed down again and this time he gave her a quick, painful pinch right where one inner thigh met the cheek. Dawn's head jerked up in surprise. Raucous laughter came at the look of shock on her face and the mincing little way her feet rose and fell against the ankle cords. It was time for the next act of the entertainment and the test of an thought he had last night.

Corto knew that Molly's whipping had already drained some of the peasants' copper, but he had an idea for a new way to add to his purse, one that would tap into the more wealthy members of the community. He gestured to John Clarke who busied himself with some items on the stage. Corto turned to his eager audience. “Since this wench's heresy is an offense against every good Catholic in Thetford, indeed in all Norfolkshire, it is fitting that you also take part in her punishment!” The laughter died away and he saw widespread curiosity. “Yes! Some of you will be able to earn the opportunity to punish the heretic personally!” He had them, he saw. “Now who will be first? The bitch must be greased for her burning. Who among you will pay a crown for the right? Come now! Only five shillings and you get to grease her right here, right now! Well?”

Corto saw the unexpected offer slowly sink in, then there was a roar of excitement. One fat merchant near the stage shot a hand up. “Me! I'll pay a crown for that!” he yelled.

The magistrate pointed to him and waved him forward. The crowd parted in front of him and the merchant climbed the stairs, stumbling in his haste. Once up, he dug feverishly into his purse and pressed a coin into Hayward's hand, who stepped back and gestured toward the helpless girl. The man stepped over to her eagerly. Clarke was already there holding a pot of lard. Pudgy fingers dove into the lard. The storekeeper glanced over his shoulder as if unsure, but the smile on Corto's face lit his up with glee. Turning back to Dawn, he laid his hands on her back and began rubbing the thick white fat over her body.

New cheers greeted this new development and suggestions were called out. The plump man worked with haste, as if afraid that there was some sort of trick and his fun would be snatched away. His hands immediately found the girl's dangling white breasts, standing bent over behind her so he could reach them both and press his crotch against her ass. The gourds were vigorously squeezed and massaged until they gleamed, shining in the sun. He dipped into the pot repeatedly, rubbing his hands together to spread the lard, then reached for some new part of the pilloried girl. After coating her thighs, he hesitated once more, then slid one hand up between them to grease her plump sex lips. He was laughing nervously and Corto saw how he was bent over from the painful erection straining the front of his trousers. He knew the man would have dearly loved to reach in and ease the pressure, but was constrained by the embarrassment he would feel doing it in front of his friends. Hayward idly wondered if the merchant would cream in his pants. He waited until Dawn's nude body was shining from neck to knees before calling a halt. He knew he could have stopped it sooner and coaxed two or three different people up to finish, but he understood the concept of priming a pump and knew doing it this way would prove more profitable. The merchant climbed down the stairs, wiping his hands on his pants. He was sweating as if he had just run a league.

Corto was just about to announce the next act, but held up when a heavy-set woman, even fatter than the merchant, barged up the stairs. She said nothing, just slapped a crown coin into his hand and bustled over to the pillory. She planted her feet beside it, then pointed down into the crowd at a man who suddenly looked as if he was trying to vanish. “I know yore mind, Cletus Miller!” she bellowed, “don't you think I don't! All them nights at the pub! 'Just a pint with the mates, my Sweet.' 'Just talking about whether it'll rain good this year, Dearest.' Bah! You was just going there to make google-eyes at this slut! Well now we all knows her for the godless tart she is!” The harridan looked down into Dawn's face. “Not so high and mighty now, are ya? And not likely to try stealing a husband either, I'll be bound! You'll get what's coming to ya today!” She took a short step back and reached her heavy arms down and around Dawn's back. She grasped the oily breasts, but not with the merchant's lust. The soft melons were roughly grabbed and twisted out of shape. Dawn cried out loudly when the woman took hold of her nipples to squeeze and wring them viciously. Then her hands left them and just as suddenly she went for the girl's sex. More squeals of outrage accompanied this new assault as her genitals felt the grasping nails pinch her most private flesh. Then, without warning, the woman stabbed two fingers up into Dawn's vagina! She pushed as deeply as she could go, then dragged them out, scraping the inner walls as she did. She held up the hand as if announcing a victory. “She's no virgin! Looks so prim and proper, but she's spread 'em already!” Corto chuckled since he knew exactly how he had cruelly stolen that virginity. The spiteful wife turned away and triumphantly waddled past him to descend the platform. By God, he thought, this is going to be even better than I imagined!

”Now, who's next! The harlot has been fondled and fucked, but she shouldn't be enjoying her crime.” Loud, crude laughter greeted the joke. “I think it's time that her punishment begin in earnest! Now, then, who has a crown to treat the heretic to the whip? Ten lashes for just a crown!”

Thoroughly fired up now from the astonishing turn of events, a dozen hands shot up from the crowd. Corto deliberately selected a short, scrawny hostler who all but tripped up the stairs. The magistrate chose him deliberately for his unassuming size; he was unlikely to damage the wench as quickly. Once on the stage, Johnnie handed him one of the straps that had just been used on Molly's breasts. Like the merchant before him, the hostler looked to him in uncertainty. “That's right, Mr. Cornwell, ten strokes, just as hard as you like.” A lefty, the hostler went to Dawn's far side. The man licked his lips nervously, then raised his arm and delivered the first lash straight down across Dawn's shoulders, not very hard.

”ONE!” Emboldened by the crowd, the hostler put more power into the next slap over her lower back. “TWO!” He smiled now with obvious happiness and set his feet for the next stroke.

There was almost a party atmosphere now in the plaza as the people counted along with the beating. The strap steadily down until the last two smacked against her jiggling ass cheeks. The pretty girl's face contorted and she protested loudly after every blow, which, along with the way her grease-shiny naked breasts cavorted beneath the pillory only added to the boisterous mood of the audience. After the tenth, Corto accepted the strap absently as the man passed. He was thinking. The third stroke clearly reached over and down enough that the end struck the side of the girl's hanging tit and he meant to save the serious breast torture for later. He called young Clarke over then sent him scurrying off to the keep.

Hands were already holding coins in the air when he turned back. He held up his arms. “Good people! I see that Thetford is up to the task of punishing the vile followers of that spawn of Satan, Luther!” he saw Johnnie hurrying back holding the items he wanted. “I shall have another one of you up for the next ten strokes in a minute, but first I have something special in mind so the wench doesn't get bored in between. A little taste of the fires that await her down below!”

Ben and Charlie took the things from the boy and quickly set up two small metal supports topped with shallow basins beneath her chest. They adjusted them until the saucers rested halfway between the stone floor and the lowest point of her boobs. As soon as they were in position, Johnnie came over with a small fireplace shovel filled with coals from the far brazier. He carefully deposited them evenly around the first, then returned with a second load for the right side dish.

Dawn heard the activity, but the pillory was holding her head so she couldn't see what they were doing under her. It didn't take long for her to find out. She felt a waft of heat. Then another, a bit more pronounced. There was a breeze, but it was gentle and intermittent. Then it died completely for a moment and there was an alarming increase of warmth on her chest. Hayward didn't bother to enlighten her; the bitch will figure it out soon enough, he reasoned coldly. Well, time to move on. Mustn't keep the audience waiting too long.

Next up on stage was the keeper of the pub where Dawn worked. He had tried once to sneak into the room where she slept with the ale kegs, but she fought him off and cursed him as he fled stumbling with his pants around his knees. He flogged her savagely. Two more were allowed up to the platform Corto noticed the same awkward way they walked past when their lashing was over. Right now they were so randy they would stick it in a sheep. He knew he could make a small fortune, at least a quid apiece, if he charged to fuck the wench. He might have to coax the first to come up and drop his pants in front of his neighbors, but after that there would be a flood. Too bad I can't, he thought, but he understood that even his influence over the young priest-to-be wouldn't be enough for the Church to countenance such an obvious display of earthy desire. Ah, well, it was something to think about. He set the idea aside and returned to the girl's torture. Next chosen was Thetford's blacksmith, a large man as powerful as his executioners. The strokes he delivered were especially savage, literally pushing Dawn's back down at every blow. Corto had to hold him up after the fourth one though when it reached too far around. “Now, now, Angus, remember the rule, back and ass only. I can't have you spill the coals. Back and ass only, there's a good fellow.”

After forty lashes from the strap, the girl's backside down to her thighs was heavily streaked, bright scarlet in some places, deeper red in others from where the strokes overlaid. Small plum-purple spots decorated her sides, hard little blood blisters left from the hole in the strap's end. Dawn was wailing in pain from the brutal beating, but now there was another sensation competing for her attention. There was a distressing warmth on her chest she didn't understand, a warmth that grew ever more irritating with every passing minute. She didn't notice it as much while her tits were swaying from her struggle to escape the lash, but would flare up again every time a new villager mounted the stage. It was especially pronounced in the lowest part of her dangling globes, the rosy paps. The audience before the platform saw what was happening easily enough: Roiled air above the raised dishes was bathing her shiny bare breasts with heat from the coals. Dawn saw some of the people pointing at her and speaking animatedly, but still didn't understand their excitement. All she knew was that her back ached horribly and her tits were growing painfully hot.

Corto was just about to select the next villager when a large man in fancy livery pushed his way through the crowd and mounted the steps, accompanied by a small boy. He went directly to the magistrate. “I am Marlow, Head Steward of the Viscount's household. I have a . . . request from the Viscountess.” Corto knew what that meant. He nodded. The Steward produced a leather purse. He shook it with the jingle of coins. “I have here five pounds. Five pounds for five minutes with the heretic.” The boy moved near and handed him a larger cloth sack. “Five pounds for five minutes with the heretic.” he repeated, hefting the bag. “With this.”

”This?”

”Besides being Steward, it is also my honor to serve as Marshall of the Household. As such, I am responsible for maintaining proper respect and decorum from the staff. Milady is a most exacting mistress. She makes it a point to personally supervise discipline. She has taken a particular interest in seeing justice done to this heretic. Now what say you, Magistrate?” He jingled the purse again.

The magistrate took the pouch. He looked up toward the balcony across the square. The old Viscount was leaning back in his chair, fast asleep, but beside him the ugly Viscountess, Bertha, was leaning forward on the railing. So, that's it. This tavern wench's youth and beauty are an affront and the old bitch wants to see something special. This could prove useful information. Servant gossip of Lutheranism would make a weak case for arresting a noblewoman like the Lady Ingrid, but if the Viscountess harbored jealousy enough . . . He brought his mind back to Dawn. No reason to argue the request; for five quid she can light the bloody faggots herself. He lifted the pouch toward her and bowed. “She's all yours,” he said.

Marlow nodded and stepped behind the pillory. He removed his decorative jacket and tossed it to the boy, then reached into his sack and pulled out a whip. He let the end fall to his feet and Corto saw that it was a little over three feet of finely braided black leather. There was no separate handle that he could see, just a thick end for the hand that tapered down to point. It was a truly vicious weapon that seemed to exude cruelty and pain.

Dawn could see none of the activity behind her. Her back and ass still throbbed from the beating, but most of her attention was focused on her chest. The magistrate had waved a torch beneath her breasts a few days ago, down in the Keep, but that was a minor discomfort compared to this. The hot air rising from the coals had been caressing both of her dangling bare breasts for the past twenty minutes and the skin was horribly inflamed from the slow roasting. They were flushed as if exposed too long to the summer sun. The worst pain radiated from her nipples, more sensitive and closest to the heat. The only way to ease the heat was to keep the udders swaying, much to the delight of the observers. The effort of enduring the strapping inflicted so far was strenuous and now the greased skin was decorated with countless bright droplets of sweat. Most flew away from her exertions, but a few dripped down to die hissing in the coals. She didn't notice the unexpected quiet, then her sex exploded with unbelievable pain. From his stance behind the bent over girl, Marlow had lowered the whip to the stage floor and then swept it up with a sudden motion to strike straight up between her trembling thighs. “AAAAARRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAHHHHHH, GAWWWDDDD!” The onlookers seemed stunned, but only for a moment.

“ONE!” they roared, delighted by this unexpected development.

The Steward worked with slow deliberation, giving Dawn Smith just enough time to feel each stroke fully before attacking with the next, every one seeking out her helpless genitals. Most came from straight behind, vicious rising uppercuts into the tender furrow, but he also moved to either side near the crosspiece to send the fiendish little whip down to curl around her hips and strike the delicate parted lips from above. Marlow was an expert with the whip, so the pointed tip explored genital flesh from her bald pubic mound all the way back to the tender perineal ridge. With a skill honed by experience, he applied several with just the right amount of reach that the point could seek out the exquisitely sensitive bud of her clitoris and snap viciously against it. As with the tit roasting, she had taken a genital beating previously, but that had been with a narrow strap, and while it had hurt, and hurt badly, that pain was as nothing in comparison to the fiendish braided whip that now darted up into her notch. The naked blonde was shrieking hysterically to this new sexual torture. She wrenched against the pillory with such frantic abandon that the stout frame actually wobbled, but there was no escaping the bitter lash. The agony between her legs was excruciating, intolerable. After each blow she thought she could endure no more, but the next would only raise her suffering to a new level and all she could do was scream her anguish at the rapt villagers.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH! AAARRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! HEEEEEEEEE! OH IT HURTS, IT HURTS! OH THE PAIN! HAAAAAAAAAAAAA! NOT BETWEEN MY LEGS! OH, NOT THERE, NOT THERE! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! S-S-STOPPP! I BEG YOU! NO MORE! NOMORENOMORENOMORE!"

At the twenty-second impact the swollen flesh finally split with a small spatter of scarlet. Corto saw it occur, but did nothing to stop the whipping. He hadn't planned on bleeding her this early, but it would have happened soon enough anyway and this way the crowd was working itself into a frenzy beyond even his hopes. Almost every eye was glued to the platform, but he could make out the backs of some heads dropping down and knew the whores were doing a record business. He glanced up to the balcony and saw the sadistic look on Helga's porcine face. Better and better, he thought, then turned back to the action.

Marlow was inflicting his lashes about one every ten seconds. He finally stopped after thirty-four strokes had found Dawn's sex. After the first tear, a few of the next lashes also sliced the sensitive flesh and runnels of gleaming blood trickled down her legs to the stones beneath. He retrieved his jacket from the boy, then carefully cleaned his bloodied whip before replacing it in the sack. He made his way toward the stairs. As he passed, he nodded. “Magistrate,” he said simply before leaving.

Back on the stage, Dawn was sagging from the plank holding her wrists and neck, feverish with pain and barely able to keep from strangling at the pillory. It felt as if waves of acid surf were eating her loins away. So intense was the genital agony that she could scarcely feel the way her hanging breasts burned from their slow roasting. All she could do was gasp for breath and whimper in abject misery.

After the brutal genital whipping, more strap play would be a letdown, so Corto gestured to Ben and Charlie. The two executioners were well versed at their jobs and went to her. Charlie opened the hasp and lifted the top of the pillory so Ben could gently lower her. He held Dawn against his bare chest, her nude body shivering uncontrollably. The girl's hands went to her groin, swollen and raw, but it did nothing to quench the fiery pain. John brought Ben a cup of brandy which he tenderly made her drink. He continued to cradle her until the magistrate judged that she had revived enough to proceed with her ordeal. In truth, the break was as much for the audience as her; their excitement was almost as draining as her trial and Corto knew they had to recover a bit as well before the final act played out. After a few minutes he judged she had regained as much strength and composure as she was likely to. “That's good enough, Cooper. I don't want to lose the mood. Mount her!”

Charlie and John had been busy behind them. Now two slim poles were erected out to either side of the short iron post and the pile of branches surrounding it. Ben stood and lifted her effortlessly. Still feverish with pain, she reached around his neck as a frightened child would, not seeing the look of cruel lust on his face. He set her to her feet just in front of the smaller post where Wright and Clarke immediately disengaged her arms from Ben's neck. In seconds they had cords tied to both wrists. Dawn looked about in sudden confused terror when the ends of the lines were passed through loops set into the poles and her arms were pulled apart and up just above shoulder level. “Wha-wha-what are you doing?” she sputtered. “What's happening? What is this? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” The three men just ignored her questions. When her arms were out at right angles to her frame, Ben lifted her around the waist to position her just above the iron shaft. The other two executioners grasped her ankles and tugged them back and apart behind her. Ben carefully lowered her until the tip of the post just touched her sex, then pushed her down roughly, embedding it into her vagina.

”EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! OH GOD, OH GOD, OH GOD, OH GOD! AAAHHHHHH! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! AHHHH GOD, IT HURRRRTSSSSS!”

Corto watched with approval. The old magistrate was content with hanging heretics; even in the rare cases when the Church called for burning, they would just be tied to a simple wood stake and strangled before the flames consumed them. Why the old fool even permitted them to remain fully clothed! Upon assuming his office, Corto immediately had the stone scaffold built for all future punishments. He also understood that there was much that could be done to make the executions more entertaining. One evening over beer and brandy he got Ben and Charlie—even Meg Jones, the hag who ran the whores in Norfolkshire—together to discuss what could be done to enhance the performances. Sentencing more young women to punishment and stripping them were early and obvious conclusions, as was the idea of torturing the victims before their burning. It was the old Madame who came up with the metal stake. The two executioners made some suggestions, then Corto put it all together, added a few refinements of his own, and the hellish device was born. The height was adjustable so it would penetrate just shy of the cervix. (A new one was made with a bulb just beneath the tip after one desperate woman plunged her body down on it with enough force to kill herself before dying of the fire. The magistrate was furious.) Small sharp spikes lined the metal phallus that would shred the genital flesh as the girl—he had tried it once on a male homosexual; the village women loved it, but since the men controlled the purse strings the tips were too meager to do it again—struggled. Even the modified bulge, so frustratingly necessary at the time, proved to add its own increase of pain by stretching her vulva like the torture Pear he used in the Keep. Watching the mounted wretches try to lift themselves off of it when the flames rose was an early crowd favorite, but Corto found that binding their arms out and up a bit worked even better. The wrist cords were tied high enough to fully expose the torso and prevent any possible protection by unwanted hands, yet sufficiently loose that she would still try. They were also useless for pulling her body up so the victim could only push up on her tiptoes to try to lift herself off the spiked knob. It was as perfect a contrivance for making its rider suffer the agonies of hell before they died that he could devise. The audiences loved the screams and frenzied contortions it never failed to produce.

The wrist ropes were tied off when Dawn's arms were in their proper position, then Ben and Charlie removed the pillory from the front of the stage so there was a clear view from all around, then they took seats near the still whimpering Molly Simpson, pulled off their hoods, and filled their beer mugs. They knew the magistrate always enjoyed performing this part of the show himself. it was a warm afternoon anyway and the cool beer was refreshing.

Corto went right up to her, stepping over the wood faggots to her back. There was no need to encourage the people with words; their rapt attention was complete. “It's almost over, wench,” he said to her, “but that doesn't mean the end will be quick or easy.” Then, knowing how it would add to her suffering, added quietly, “I know you aren't guilty of heresy. From the first time I saw you I just wanted to torture and rape you. You provided me with some very enjoyable sport this past week, very enjoyable, but now that that's done you will burn up here before everyone for no other reason than the coin that will give me. I just thought you should know that.” Dawn turned her head back over her shoulder at him with shock in her eyes at his abhorrent callousness. He smiled back. “There's something else I want you to know. I'll have all this wood piled around you lit soon enough, but not just now. No, Missy Smith, that would be too quick. First I'm going to torture you. Torture you until you scream. Torture you until you pray for death. Torture you until you even beg me to light the fire. Let me tell you how I will do it. You got a taste of hot steel down in the Keep, remember? When I let the candle flame heat the needles I stuck into those pretty titties of yours? I know you didn't like that—I could see it in your eyes. Well that was just the slightest little taste, a mere introduction to the pain those irons in the brazier will cause you.” He saw her blue eyes get even wider in horror. She opened her mouth, but no words came out, so total was her panic. “Now then, let's proceed, hm? Scream all you want. Scream loud as you can. That will only make the show better. Johnnie, bring me the lard!” Then one final whisper. “Greasing you will keep your skin from charring right away and ending the fun too soon. It also makes a female look sexier as she dances in the sun and I want you looking your best!”

The apprentice held the pot so Hayward could dip into it. His hands went straight around her back to cover her breasts. He slathered the grease across them and then rubbed and massaged it over the mounds. He finished by cupping their bottom curves so he could bobble them with his palms toward the crowd. The girl's arms were bound deliberately low enough that her tits didn't stretch up and so kept their distended cone shape and they jiggled with an exuberant arrogance. The front was flushed from the previous slow roasting, more richly shaded scarlet in the middle around the nipples, fading to soft alabaster under her chin and where they rose from her heaving rib cage. More fat coated her taut belly, flanks, back, and thighs. He used his fingertips to carefully daub the painfully spread labia front and back, smearing the streaks of blood that dribbled over the iron. He took an extra moment to pinch the delicate nub of her clitoris, bloated out from its hood after Marlow's kisses with the slim whip, drawing a loud groan of pain and shame. He finished by turning to the latecomers behind the stage. He grinned at them, then gave the girl a loud wet smack on the small clenched buttocks, like her back vividly discolored by streaks of crimson, burgundy, and plum halfway down the thighs.

While he was playing with her, Clarke had taken a small bellows and was vigorously pumping air into the brazier, fanning the coals into bright incandescence. Corto went over and took the instruments out one after the other, standing to the side so Dawn could see each one as it was held up, radiant even in the sunshine. A few were the same, two-foot long rods with stubby ends, but most had a variety of tips, some tapering to points, others to small blades. There were even a couple of pincers with shimmering yellow jaws. He knew he could have prolonged the spectacle by having the executioners flog her first, but he wanted her as animated as possible for the hot irons—and anyway, the audience had already seen Molly whipped to the blood this day. After all the tools had been displayed, he selected one of the pointed wands and made his way back. He swung it once through the air to clean away some sparkling ash.

Dawn wrenched at the ropes, fighting to pull back away from his approach. All she managed to do was rub her vagina against the sharp spikes inside her so more blood oozed down the sides of the hellish metal penis. “No! No! Oh God, NOOOO! GET AWAY! NO! AH GOD, IT HURTS! STOP! GET AWAY! GET AWAY FROM MEEEEEE!” But Corto was unmoved by her pleas. He wanted to apply the glowing rod while it was still fresh from the coals and lifted the point to a spot just below her right armpit. He hesitated a brief moment to let the terror peak, then touched the tip to her flesh and slid it slowly down the curve to her hip, sizzling on the lard coating. ”HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! HEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS MEEEEEEEE!” The crowd roared its approval at Dawn's shrieks and the maddened way she tried to escape the cruel instrument. Corto immediately returned it to the brazier and selected a fresh implement. This time Dawn's left side felt the touch of red-hot steel and her screams ripped out across the square.

Again and again, Corto returned with new tools from the brazier. Every one was applied the same way, dragged down her writhing form, each leaving a bright scarlet line to mark its passage over the gleaming white skin. He constantly varied his attack. One shimmering blade left a thin red slice from the back of one upper thigh to the knee. The next traced down her spine to the split between her buttocks. Others crossed her front, always seeking untouched flesh from the base of her heaving rib cage to the tender bulge beneath the navel. After one blade sliced down the middle of her chest to cross the lines across her midsection, Corto selected one of the rounded wands. He stood close to Dawn's right side so he didn't obstruct the view and then drew the tip around the base of the jutting breast from sternum to armpit, pausing briefly to bobble the turret with the rod for the amusement of the villagers. The left was next. This time Corto pressed it against the boundary where it met her ribs and dragged it straight upward across the tender under curve to lift it up before sliding past the pointed nipple to leave the cone jiggling on her chest. An angry red blotch appeared immediately on the delicate female bulge.

”AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! HAAAAAAAA! HAAAAAAAA! NOT THERE! PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE, NOT THERE, NOT THERE! AH, IT BURNS! PITY! PITY, I BEG YOU! AH, MY POOR TITTIES! IT BURNS, IT BURNS! PLEASEEEEEEEEEESE!”

Hayward did leave Dawn's front, but not in response to her begging or any pity. Now he went to work on her backside. He pressed the length of one iron against the middle of her back and slid it down to her hips. The next was a blade that sliced the untouched right leg, this time upward from the knee. He followed with another of the thick irons, pressing it for a second against the furrow where thigh met buttock, then up, lifting the bulge as he had her boob and leaving the same crimson rash behind it. The girl tried frantically to escape the rod, but pushing up on her tiptoes only served to lift her bleeding cunt briefly on the spiked staff. He gave her a short rest after replacing his tool in the brazier and evaluated her. The miserable girl writhed between the poles holding her arms away, gleaming in the sun from the grease and now copious sweat. Bright scarlet lines and blotches decorated her nude body where it had been caressed by the red-hot irons. With an expert and experienced eye, he judged that she was still strong enough for more branding play and there additional things he could do to increase her suffering even more before lighting the pyre around her. He also examined his audience and was pleased to see that they were still excited to a fever pitch of lust and sadistic zest. The occasional sinking head told him that the whores were still doing good business, adept at finding the single men, or those who had managed to duck their wives, sexually aroused by the naked female's torture and happy to pay to have a woman free their painfully tumescent erections and suck them to release. Even the Viscountess was leaning forward on the balcony, eyes bright and glittering with glee. Even without her five pounds it would be a record day and there was no reason to wait any longer. had the apprentice fan the coals some more, then selected a fresh implement.

Corto held the brightly glowing wand up in front of Dawn's face. “It's time to continue, bitch,” he said. “and now it gets worse. Did you ever accidentally touch a hot pan when you were a child? Remember how you snatched your fingers away from it? Well, there's to be no snatching back now! No, this time I'm going to press the irons to your body and hold them there against your skin no matter how much you try to get away. I don't care any more if I leave any permanent marks; your performance is almost over.” He took a step back and looked as it making his mind up about some vexing problem, then darted the rod forward and pressed its tip midway up her right flank. There was a brief sputter as the hot metal touched the oily flesh, but it was immediately drowned out by the shriek of inhuman agony that burst from her throat.

The plaza became a riot of noise as the young woman's screams were answered by the assembled villagers. Dawn's form twisted violently atop the post and wrenched desperately at the cords holding her wrists, but their was no escape from the searing pain as Corto matched her every movement to keep the cruel utensil in contact with her flesh. He only pulled it away when he was satisfied that the nerve endings there were destroyed and a small darkened brown circle of charred skin remained. He returned to the brazier.

The next twenty minutes were an eternity of anguish for the girl as one red-hot instrument after another was applied to her naked body, always some new place. The agony was ghastly, excruciating, unendurable, yet never ended. Ugly brown spots were left after each hideous contact, the nerves beneath ruined for further pain, yet surrounded by a ring of angry burn blisters. Particularly strident howls accompanied the sizzling kisses into her armpits and inner thighs just below her bleeding labia. Then he was able to extract even louder ones when the glowing irons sought out fresh spots on her sensitive naked breasts. It was more difficult to keep the sizzling instruments in place on them the way the jutting cones cavorted, but he had plenty of practice and several steaming brown circles soon adorned their tender bottom curves. Toward the end, he used the flat of the rods instead of just the tips, pressing them against the indention where breast met rib cage, ass cheek met thigh and, last, vertically into the valley between her buttocks. As he predicted, every scream was now punctuated by desperate pleas to end it, to just kill her, anything to stop the terrible pain that consumed her yet always, unbelievably, grew more intense.

”EEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHH! S-STOP! STOP! AH, GOD, NO MORE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! PLEASE, OH PLEASE, NOT THERE! NOT MY POOR TITTIES AGAIN! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! I BEG YOU, NO MORE! K-KILL ME! PLEASE, OH PLEASE, JUST KILL ME AND HAVE DONE! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! NOT THERE AGAIN! AAAHHHHHH, MY TITTIES! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Corto finally stopped. He exchanged the cooled rod in his hand with a cup of brandy from Clarke. He had to grab a handful of her sodden blonde hair to hold her head back and still enough to pour some of the liquor down her raw throat, so violently was her torso shaking. It took just a moment before the alcohol hit and the shivering became less extreme, but her chest still heaved as she gasped for air. “P-P-Please, Please,” she whimpered to him, “please, no more, no more. I can't endure any more. Oh, it hurts, it hurts me so. Please kill me. Please, I beg you, have mercy and kill me. Haven't you hurt me enough?”

”There, there,” he crooned, as if to a child frightened by thunder. “There, there, it's almost over. Just a little more. You have done well, very well. I doubt the good people of Thetford have ever seen a better show. Just a little more. Just a little more and it will all be over for you.” He yanked her head back again roughly, all gentleness gone from his voice now. “I don't believe in hell, bitch, but you do!” he snarled. “It doesn't matter. If there is a hell, I don't think it will be any worse than what you will feel now!” He released her and turned to the crowd. “Now see the just and lawful penalty for offending the Holy Mother Church! Watch now the vengeance of God on a vile heretic! Executioners! Bring the torches!”

The two hulking executioners rose and made their way across the stage. Ben picked up the two pitch and straw torches, handing one to Charlie. A hush fell over the square when they lit them from the brazier. While it had been an excellent show thus far with Molly Simpson's whipping and the heretic's hot iron play, the live burning of a pretty young woman was a rare treat. Dawn looked back and forth between them, staring at the flaming branches. She had been pleading for death a moment before and the fire would provide that blessed release, she had seen one burning and couldn't control the panic now that her time had come. She had no way of knowing that even such an agonizing death wouldn't prevent the magistrate from milking the last full measure of pain from her.

Standing to either side of the girl, the men held their torches high to their audience, then lowered the ends to the sticks at the foot of the penetrating stake. The apprentice had prepared them earlier that morning with coal oil so the wood caught immediately. When the yellow flames began flickering up the true cruelty of Corto's preparation became apparent. The pile of faggots surrounding the base was just a small pyramid, stacked so the fire only reached up to lick at Dawn's upper legs and groin. She wrenched at the ropes holding her wrists apart and pushed up on her toes in a frantic effort to escape the hot rising air roasting her inner thighs and sex. The thick coating of lard was serving its purpose, crackling and bubbling so the fragile skin didn't char. It was then that the device's last fiendish refinement came into play. The iron stake embedded within her was not solid, but rather a hollowed cone so the heat could move more quickly up the shaft. Now it, too, became scorching hot and the spiked metal phallus began to fry the delicate inner walls of her vagina. The agonized girl thrashed atop the stake like a thing possessed and it was impossible for the assembly to believe that such raw strident sounds could come from such a small girl. A few people cheered, but most remained silent, awestruck by the monstrous display of suffering before them.

Even with the deliberately small fire, Corto knew that the end would come soon. He grabbed two of the handles projecting from the basin of coals and lifted a new instrument out, a pair of long pincers, radiant with fierce internal heat. He reached with the tip, watching for the right moment, then darted in to close the glowing jaws about the pointed nipple of Dawn's left breast. He pressed the handles together to crush the extraordinarily sensitive peak of flesh and twisted the tongs until ripping the ruined nubbin away from her chest.

”HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! AAAAAAHHHHHHOOOOOOOAAAAHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Shriek after hysterical shriek echoed across the square. The vicious and relentless sexual torture so consumed her that no pleas, indeed no intelligible words at all, accompanied the screams. The pincers were easily hot enough to cauterize the flesh between their jaws, but tearing the pap away split the skin around it so thin streams of scarlet trickled down her chest. The girl's frenzied struggles to escape the fiery pain caused the sharp spikes to lacerate her genitals and labia, but the blood just flashed to steam when it emerged over the iron post and a fine reddish mist gathered around her loins. The cunning bulge buried inside near its top prevented her exertions from stabbing it deep enough into her vitals to permit a quick, if still ghastly, death.

Corto replaced his tongs with a fresh pair. This time Hayward caught a morsel high on the right side where the underarm met the tit, squeezing and burning the flesh before ripping it away. The first pair had barely heated back up enough when he pulled them free of the coals, leaving the young Clarke furiously working his bellows to make the just used ones ready in time for the next application. Mounted on the stake as she was, it was easier to grip the next spot from behind high on her inner thigh in the furrow where it met the butt cheek and swollen red lips. Another entered the left armpit, followed by one that squeezed a spot an inch beneath her dainty navel. The sixth he timed with her movements to catch the bouncing right nipple and pinch it flat between the sizzling jaws. Corto saw that the girl was fading fast now, so his last attack found the very top of the girl's slit to wrench what remaining pain it could from her clit, crushing the uniquely female nubbin between the glowing pincers and tearing it away. He moved back and gestured to Ben and Charlie. The executioners were already waiting with long hoes. They used them to push the remaining faggot stacks into the smaller fire at the base of the iron stake. Also previously treated with coal oil, they caught immediately and flared up to envelop Dawn's body. The girl's nude form writhed between the side posts as if the very demons of hell were assailing her. Shriek followed impossibly loud wailing shriek after every ragged breath. Soon the rope holding her left wrist burned through, but she didn't use the newly freed arm to try and push her body off the pole. She was so consumed by pain that it just fluttered in the flames. Voices called from the crowd. There were a few cries of satisfaction at her paying the price of heresy, or righteously sending her soul to hell, but most just cheered the spectacle. This was the culmination they had waited for, the peak of their amusement before heading back to their drab lives.