Chapter 7
THE PILLORY
Sabina Miles repeated the arithmetic over and over in her mind. It was a straw to clutch, a boost for a morale slipping into despair. Five thousand and five thousand made ten thousand dollars. It had been pointed out how well she had survived her whipping at the cart's tail, its marks had faded in captivity, even its memory was diffused. Perhaps this too...?
She twisted against the solid timbers of the stocks, moving them not at all, and easing herself but little. The stocks were not quite as she had supposed. Her memories of pictures and stories were mostly humorous. But there was nothing funny for a girl to be standing naked with bowed head and raised arms, her neck and wrists firmly locked in bonds of wood. The freedom of legs and torso tantalized, enabling her to do nothing that mattered. The parts of her that mattered most were held immovably.
And there was the nagging doubt. When was her freedom! What was her reward! As yet she had not seen a dollar. When Sister Amaldis talked gently and reassuringly everything seemed to fall into place and assume logic. But afterwards ...!
"You do it so well, dear. The Seigneury is so pleased with you. When you go home you will know you will have given much happiness."
There was a considerable traffic. Most of it stopped and admired. Some tested the rigidity of her imprisonment, others tested the resiliency of her flesh. She was well postured for their convenience. She had been warned against protesting or complaining. Mention had been made of a "scold's bridle." She had been fervid in her assurances of good behavior.
In this first hour of her placement in the pillory, the courtyard had much the flavor of a street in a major studio. A good deal of preoccupied motion. Sabina's sex and breasts had been fingered by a pair of cowboys, two nuns, a Roman senator, and were now receiving the attention of a couple of early Puritans.
"She's too fair a piece for the colony. Nothing but mischief," one of them pronounced dourly.
"Aye. But shell be well dealt with this day."
"Tell me, lass, were ye properly whipped as a child?"
Sabina longed to tell him to grow up and stop playing silly games. But a vision of a magic check coupled with total helplessness counseled caution. She was proud of the meek respect she was able to infuse into her voice. "No, sir, I was never whipped until I was adult."
"Ah, a pity!" Wise heads wagged knowingly. "For want of the rod ye have come to this. Tell us, child, would ye not prefer to have been well scourged than to be now standing in the pillory?"
Silly old fart! Sabina could see the erection in his trousers. Both of them were drinking in her plight with avid eyes. "I do not know, sirs," she admitted innocently. " 'Tis a fearful thing for a maid to be whipped at any time. I pray thee mercy."
They nodded, pleased. A second erection joined the first. "Yet thou art full of the wiles of Satan, are ye not?"
"So I am told, sir. But I think myself innocent. Please, can I not be covered? Surely 'tis shameful for me to be thus naked?"
Heads were shaken sadly. "Too late to speak of shame, lass. Ye have been knowing too little of it. Tis but meet thy female parts be exposed for all to see. They be the tools of Beelzebub."
In the name of purity they felt her breasts and pubes. Then walked on their way, their heads wagging, their movements awkward for the first few paces. Sabina hated them and all their kind, but was absurdly aware of how easily they created an atmosphere, not entirely illusory. In the brief exchange of dialogue she had found herself a delinquent damsel in the Plymouth colony. She shivered. The Seigneury was never easy.
The next were women. Middle aged, informally dressed but with the proprietary air of chatelaines. They studied Sabina's helpless nudity with the same hungry curiosity.
"Nice material. Where did we pick you up, girl?"
"The office, Beth. Margaret Connors," the other interjected. "Her name's Sabina. She's been used."
There was a chuckle. "Enjoying yourself with us, Sabina?"
"No." Sabina found refuge in truth.
"Why d'you stay here then?"
"Because I'm kept prisoner."
"But you volunteered for this today-didn't you?"
"I suppose so. They've promised to let me go home after."
"Who's 'they'?"
"Sister Amaldis."
There were chuckles. "Think you'll last the day, kid?"
"I don't know what's going to be done to me. I'm frightened."
"You haven't been whipped for a long time. No marks?"
"No. But I've been punished-in other ways."
"Well, what's wrong with that, Sabina?"
"They don't have the right. No one has. Not to punish a girl because she doesn't want to be a prisoner, because she wants to go home."
"Are you any good at making love to a woman, Sabina?"
The captive nudity tensed unhappily. Always something new to keep her off balance, and never knowing the right answers. "I don't know anything about being a lesbian," Sabina retorted sulkily.
"We could arrange for you to learn."
"No, thanks."
"Would a good whipping change your mind?"
Sabina had lost illusions of heroism. "I expect it would," she admitted honestly. "I think you can make a girl do anything if you whip her enough. But-but please don't make me. I'm in enough-enough-well, trouble now."
"Have any of the chevaliers named you?"
"I don't know what that means."
More chuckles. "The little beauty's innocent! You can be 'named', Sabina. If a man wants to bed you he simply makes a claim. You become a sort of perquisite of office."
"Dammit, Beth, let's you and me name the little baggage. I'd soon whip her into being a turtle dove."
"There's the rule, Laura. Sex only. Only the Seigneury punishes."
"I'll talk to the Seigneur about her. There's a sweetness there I like. Pity to waste her. The way we go through girls ...!"
They went their way, laughing. Leaving Sabina with fresh concerns and distasteful vistas of a captivity without end. The grip of the wood on neck and wrists doubled its implacability. Any effort to move told the naked girl how abstract freedom or escape had become. To the Seigneury she was an acquired asset to be used as required. She thought of the girls who suddenly appeared and as suddenly were gone. Suppose they did not go back to freedom! Suppose...! Suppose...?
Sabina drifted into a cheerless reverie, head bowed. Her first awareness of Rolfe Campys within her limited range of vision was an exquisitely polished pair of shoes.
"Sabina Miles! Have you any idea how gorgeous you are, standing like that?" It was the voice that fluttered a million female hearts.
Sabina looked up, guiltily glad. Her heart, too, doubled its beat. "Oh, Mr. Campys!" Her eyes lit with pleasure. But, suddenly a hundred times naked, she blushed in a mantle of pink. "Oh, Mr. Campys!"
"That's me, poppet. You seem to be in a bit of a fix."
"I'm-I'm locked in the pillory, I think they call it."
"And a very pretty picture you make."
"Please, Mr. Campys, let me loose."
"Naughty, naughty!" He shook an admonitary finger. "Bad girls have to stand in the stocks. Does 'em good."
"It's not doing me any good. It's beastly."
"The benefit will show in your character, dear girl. Not today but in years to come."
"Oh, Mr. Campys, don't make fun! I know if it's you who lets me loose no one will mind. Gee, I need to stretch so bad!"
"Bit confining, eh! But that's the idea. Sabina Miles, you have the perkiest breasts-and you're blushing."
"I shouldn't be naked like this."
"But indeed you should! Damn shame to cover up what you've got to offer. The Seigneury's not going to waste those treasures you've got on display."
"But it's not right! A girl hates...."
"Remember, love, I've seen you naked before."
Sabina was overwhelmed by the memory. Her blush deepened. "You whipped me...!" It was less an accusation than reproach. "Someone told me-afterwards."
"I was greatly privileged." He bestowed a commdely grin. "You are most rewarding to whip-such writhings! And don't tell me you didn't enjoy every stroke-afterwards?"
"How can you joke about such things! For a girl to be whipped naked is awful. And to be tied the way I was...!"
"How d'you know I won't whip you again today?"
"I don't. Are you going to whip me?"
"Would you like me to?"
"Oh, please, Mr. Campys, don't tease!"
"But seriously, poppet, if you're to be whipped would you sooner it was me than someone else?"
Sabina twisted her hips in embarrassment. "Yes, I suppose I would," she admitted grudgingly.
"Better the devil you know than the one you don't? Or some other reason, sweetheart?"
She looked up at him yearningly. Why were men so obtuse! "I'm one of the foolish females-about fifty million of them-who are in love with you," she told him desperately, "You represent something to us, something we long for. And that first day we met-you were so kind to me....
"And then I had you tied to the tail of a cart and whipped you through the streets!" His voice was husky with remembrance.
"Why? Oh, Mr. Campys, what does it do for you? Do you hate girls?"
"I adore you all."
"Why, then? Is it that ugly word?"
Campys chuckled. "Sadism? Maybe. I'm not sure what sadism is. But whatever it is, it only applies between me and girls. I couldn't possibly beat old ladies or domestic animals."
"All right, then. Why girls?"
Campys studied her vehement nudity with amusement. "I think perhaps it's for contrast," he said slowly, "Girls are pampered like crazy. Their little ass gets kissed every hour. Striping their skin strikes a nice balance."
"Do you really believe that?"
He shrugged. "As good a theory as any."
How ridiculous a plight for a girl! Naked! Locked in a pillory! Chatting pleasantly with Rolfe Campys. Knowing you can't move, his eyes devouring every bit of you every moment! If her feet had not been as bare as the rest of her Sabina would have stamped them in fury.
"But, actually, you enjoy it? That's the real reason?" She made her surmise an accusation.
"I enjoy it enormously, poppet," he conceded with an unusual seriousness. He glinted at her slyly. "And so did you."
"I did not!" Sabina was suffused with outrage.
"Think again. Be honest. Somewhere along the line you got a wet cat...?"
Sabina's denial wavered and died. "I'm ashamed of it," she admitted blushingly, "Afterwards! I got horny as hell. It makes no sense."
"You're horny right now, aren't you?" He pressed the advantage.
"What girl wouldn't be!" She flared. "Fixed like I am, and you! Standing there looking at me."
Campys bestowed upon her the intense regard by which he had throbbed a million feminine hearts. His voice was persuasive. "I can unlock that thing you're held in. I can take you to a very private place. D'you want me to?"
Sabina was angry at her heart, and surprised by its sudden leap. But she would yield no ground. "And lock me back in here after?"
"Of course."
"No thanks." She was close to tears.
"After all, this is the Seigneury, remember."
She twisted angrily against the stocks. "How d'you expect a girl to forget!" Her voice was bitter.
"That was a good offer I made you. We could keep you out of that pillory for over an hour. Today's show is going to be slow getting going-a long wait for you like that."
"Oh, stop it!" Sabina stamped a bare foot, hurting it. She glared up at Rolfe Campys' smile. "You must know how I long to get out of this hateful thing! Is that your way of getting a girl? To get her in a spot and make her buy her way out?" .
"Sweetheart." His tone was infinitely tolerant. "I can name you any time I wish. D'you know what that means?"
"Yes."
"Would you like me to-after today?"
It was not possible! But it was her own voice. It said meekly: "Yes. I want you to."
Campys tilted up her chin and kissed her left eye. "Your lips can wait, beloved." He had returned to his casual banter. "But not for long."
Sabina watched him walk upon his way. Once more she was trembling.
Rolfe Campys' magic went with him. When he was lost to view in the courtyard's changing pattern of motion, the invincibility of the stocks reasserted their implacable possession of Sabina's slender nudity. Morosely, she looked to either side to view her hands hanging limply like an extrusion from the wood. As though for reassurance, she flexed her fingers and made what small motions she could. Her hands responded, but the effect was incongruous. She had become a part of this stark structure for the discomfort of a girl. Nothing she could do would evoke response from the wood. Escape was, as always, a pretty dream.
She should have accepted Campys' cynical offer.
Looking sideways she beheld the hanging padlock to which he had a key. She could have smiled and been submissive and been free. By now she would have been in his private place, working what wiles she could upon his tolerance. She would not have been the first girl to have used the orifice between her legs to gain a freedom.
Why, why, why! Sabina was bitterly angry with her pride and pique. She could not afford either. For some minutes Campys had desired her. No doubt, in this, the pillory had been her friend. She probably looked sweet and helpless and erotic. His lust was probably as evanescent as his charm. Next time...? But there might be no next time! He might "name" her or he might not. She had little faith in his promise. She had had her chance and she had blown it. The dolor of the pillory descended on her like a blanket of gloom. There would be no check, no freedom-nothing! Only an endless captivity interspersed by bizarre punishments. Her tears fell in soft salt drops upon the soil.
"Not the best possible place to have a good cry, Sabina."
The girl stood watching, an introspective smile examined the pillory and the female thing it held. It was a wise smile, possessing knowledge. Its owner was older than Sabina-thirty, thirty-one. Her loveliness fully up to Seigneury's standards. Strangely, she was clothed.
"Here, let me dry-must be damnably frustrating."
Sabina sniffed. She was grateful for the cambric square and the deft fingers. She felt helpless and silly.
"Sorry I don't have the key."
"Thank you." Sabina sniffed again. "It's-it's got me down. Being like this-Oh, damn!"
The fingers ministered again. Perfume enveloped the pillory in sweetness. There were deft sure touches to captive hair. "Gosh, there's not a thing you can do, is there?" It was an interested comment, no more. "Is it very tiring?"
"Horribly." The prisoner cocked a cautious eye at beauty. "Why are you being nice to me?"
"It's that bad, eh?" There was a tinge of sympathy now.
"What gets to you, hopelessness?"
"Everything!" Sabina's smile was a failure. 'There's never a chance. It's endless, on and on-You must have felt it-"
"I should have told you. I'm a chatelaine." The girl laughed. "Don't look so shocked. We come in all sizes." The lovely eyes were intent in their assessment. "You must want to escape in the worst way?"
Sabina tensed. This was dangerous ground. "All prisoners want to escape, don't they?" she countered cautiously.
"I suppose so. If you want me to, I'll help you."
"Why?"
"Poor Sabina!" The exclamation held warmth. "I know you have to be suspicious. Don't be. I'm for real. I want you."
"Me!" Sabina was startled.
"Why not! You haven't known, but I've watched you for a long time. I'm tired of the Seigneury. I'd like to take you home with me."
"Oh, that!" Sabina put all her weariness into the words. "You want a well behaved lesbian pet?"
"You put it so well, dear. By the way, my name's Candice Remple. Daddy was Remple's Tire and Rubber Compay. Now I am. Even the Seigneury treats me with respect."
"Why don't you just 'name' me? I'd have to do whatever you wanted. I expect I'd get between your legs if I was whipped enough."
"Don't talk like that! Don't ever! Not about something beautiful." Candice Remple's command held a surprising vehemence. In it was sincerity to promt Sabina's question.
"You mean you can get me out of here?"
Candice grinned ruefully. "They don't respect me enough to let me walk out with you. But I'll contrive something. It won't be too difficult." Her eyes sparkled. "But there are conditions, y'know! You'd expect some conditions, wouldn't you?
"What are they?"
"If you can't put more enthusiasm into it than that, Sabina, maybe I should just walk away and leave you alone."
"No, don't! Please don't!" Sabina was envloped in a terrible loneliness. She had rejected Campys. Now this! "I'm so scared," she wailed. "How can I know about anything!"
"Poor darling girl!" Soft fingers lifted the prisoned head, warm lips found Sabina's. For some moments no words were spoken. Then, softly, Candice whispered, "I'd be beautifully cruel. You know that, don't you?"
Sabina had suspected. But hope of release from the Seigneury was devastating. It swept all hesitation aside. Her words seemed formed by other lips. "I don't mind. Please take me. Please get me out of here."
"You'll go in handcuffs, pet."
"I don't care. Put six handcuffs on me. I want out."
"And I'll whip you into an obedience such as you've never dreamed."
"You won't have to. If you'll get me out of here I'll do anything."
"But, darling, I'll want to whip you anyway...."
Sabina twisted her hips in a frustration of longing. "I understand that too. At least I think I understand ... but, yes, yes, yes! Just get me out of this hateful place. Do what you like with me. At least you're honest."
"I'll make you glad. Oh, I'll make you so glad. Darling...!" Lush lips nibbled at the ear into which they whispered. "Look, I'm going to back away. We'd better not be seen as too intimate. We can talk a minute, then I'll go."
"Candice, when? When will it be?"
"Soon. Perhaps tonight. I want it as much as you do. I'll make it happen. Don't be surprised at anything."
Sabina's captive heart was thudding furiously. She looked in wonder at Candice's casual loveliness. Suddenly, within her, there was a hunger to know the unknowable. She tumbled out her need in words.
"I said I understood. I mean, about the-the things you'll do to me-about whipping me! I do understand, sort of. But there has to be more than I know...?"
Candice laughed delightedly. 'That's easy, silly girl! The weals on your skin make you a hundred times more beautiful, and they make me horny like nothing else ever. While I whip a girl I rage with lust." She chuckled. "Is that reason enough?"
"But why, Candice? Why?"
"I don't know why," Candice affirmed cheerfully, "And I don't give a damn. I don't think there is any why. I don't see why we have to look for a why. It's something beautiful that just IS."
The logic was feminine enough even for Sabina.
The magic of Candice did not fade with her passing as Campys had done. It clung, a tangible hope. It clothed the captive of the pillory in dreams. Strange erotic dreams, absurd and exciting and impossible. But an excitation of the spirit much to be desired. Candice Remple was not the Seigneury! Her being was vital and alive and utterly feminine; as much a reverse of the amorphous impersonality of the Seigneury as one could imagine. Sabina knew that, for good or ill, she had taken a step into the unknown.
The captive girl had been in the grip of the Pillory a long time. Now, without much interest, she raised her head and examined the courtyard's changing scene. As though by some natural evolution it was different. It had acquired the Seigneury's chameleon quality of merging into something it was not, leaving the beholder uncertain of reality. The twentieth century had slipped back into the seventeenth. The dress, the wigs, the scraps of talk....Impinging on it all were the sound of hammers, a sound intermittent through the past hours, a sound now delivering a visible evidence of its purpose. At the far end of the huge enclosed space there had been erected a gallows.
Sabina moaned, a small involuntary sound for herself alone. Even if she were no more than an unwilling spectator of the gallows' use she wanted no part of its cruelties. But suppose? Suppose she herself was to be the one for whom the rope was noosed! Was she conveniently locked in the stocks to await execution! It would be a masque, a grim and frightful play enacted with all the Seigneury's practiced perfection. But it would need a star!
Was this the explanation of the second five thousand? To earn it by standing all day in the pillory was almost a gift, hateful as it might be. But what good was five thousand dollars if you were hanging by the neck until you were dead, dead, dead ...!
"She's a pretty wench! And her neck's chafed a bit already, I'll warrant. Perchance well ringed for the rope."
"Aye, she's that. 'Tis a pity to waste that cunt and tits. She'll make a pretty sight a kicking in the air."
They were a florid paunchy pair, well in their cups, viewing her nakedness with immense enjoyment. Sabina closed her eyes, but she could not close her ears.
"Will she get her flogging 'ere she mounts the steps?"
"To be sure! Ye may lay a wager on't. Tis a free benefit the law provides. A well whipped wench is a fine sport."
She could stand no more. Sabina's plea was piteous. "Oh, sirs, is it me? It can't be me!"
There were bawdy guffaws. "Tis not Nell Gwin, lass! Ye may lay a guinea on that."
"But why?"
"Know thee not of treason, girl?" 'Treason! Me! It's not possible!"
"Tell it to the executioner, lass. Mayhap he'll give thee pardon." There were more guffaws. "And flogged?"
"And what's wrong wi' a good flogging! T'will warm thy back, so it will, my pretty baggage."
They departed. Sabina wateched them go, uncertain. They could be drunk and having sport with her. It was a cold comfort. She was seeing now the planting of the post. She knew its function. Its function was herself.
When the two soldiers came for her she did not fight. The lifting of the hated yoke left her stiff and cramped. Strong hands grasped her arms. There was no escape. All eyes sought her as she was lead to center stage. Sabina Miles was the star. She was quivering with terror.
They raised her hands and tied one on each side of the post. Tied them bitterly tight, since if she was to die the circulation did not matter. She stood, exquisitely exposed. Thoughtful fingers made a hank of her hair and brought it forward across one shoulder to shield one breast and leave her back virgin for the thong. She was left to stand.
But there was more. The crowd was agog with hushed expectancy. In the depths of fear, Sabina clutched at hope. Perhaps her role was minor to some main event! A flogging began to seem merciful. Surely the gallows were a sham, a realistic prop ...!
The gallows were not a sham.
Candice Remple marched between the soldiers, head high, face flushed in outrage. Her arms as firmly gripped as Sabina's had been. For her, too, there would be no escape. As she passed the prisoner of the post their eyes met in agonized communion. Sabina felt sure she had received a message, but she knew not what it was. If they were to die, what did it matter! And they were to die-even the Seigneury could not simulate that!
Candice Remple's gown and wig were of the period. When the executioner began to strip them from her she fought. Fought with a fury it took the strength of three men to control. At last, breasts heaving, hair awry, she stood naked and exhausted as the man in black bound her hands behind her back and then, in an excess of caution or cruelty, strictured her elbows too so that her shoulders were wracked, her breasts jutting.
The guards led the naked woman a few steps forward, then stepped back so she might stand alone. Candice stood in pathetic loveliness. She did not run. Sabina knew the feeling all too well. Where could a girl run! What else could a girl do but stand where she was placed!
The man was a clerkly type, soberly clad. He took his place before the woman who was to die, his voice dry and ancient and without passion as he read from the scroll he held in claw-like hands. It made no sense, none of it. Sabina rejected every word. It spoke of treason, treason-treason! And at the end: "To hang by thy neck 'til ye be dead, dead, dead."
Was it better than to be beheaded! Some kind of mercy...?
It was when Candice was mounting the steps that Sabina realized the final beastliness of the execution was to be discreetly hidden. They would see her fall, but the obscene jerking and twisting at the rope's end would offend none present. The area below the trap was boarded in so that Candice's last motions would be hers alone.
But her final words were for them all. Positioned with her frontal nakedness exposed for all to see. Her black triangle a heavy bush speaking only of life and a love now denied, she said in a loud clear voice:
"Spare the girl. She is innocent, without fault."
They led her to the trap. Swiftly, the executioner bound the slender ankles, then fitted the ugly noose to clasp the .tiny column of the lovely neck. Candice shook her head against the proffered fold for her eyes. For a living moment she turned and sought the gaze of the girl pinioned to the post. Again Sabina had the awareness of a message she could not fathom. Then Candice Remple turned her face to a horizon only she could see. The executioner pulled his lever....
Candice Remple was no longer there. The rope jerked and twisted a surprisingly long time. Sabina was glad she could not see. The atmosphere was electric. In unison the crowd exhaled, then drew in a deeper breath and turned to where a naked girl stood ready to be flogged. Their joy was tangible.
It was the same executioner. Of course! Why not! His trade was death and torture. He strode forward to his second task. Sabina gasped and shrank against her bonds at sight of the cat. But that too was authentic to the scene. A flogging! The word held a majestic horror all its own. The nine knotted tails slapped back and forth against the black clad legs. Soon they would wrap around her waist and across the whiteness of her back! Sabina longed to die. The Seigneury held naught of life. It was a denial, a feasting on the innocent flesh of girls.
It was not until he had stepped past her to make his stance that Sabina realized who he was Rolfe Campys! She had no doubt of it-none! She turned her disbelieving eyes back over a naked shoulder to receive an insouciant nod from a head she knew too well. A black arm swept back in a wide arc....
When the knotted leathers bit into her back, Sabina screamed as she had never screamed before.