Chapter 9
CANDICE
"It will take me a little time to digest," said Sabina. She looked about in wonder at the huge bedroom. "You must be frightfully rich, Candice."
"All the chatelaines are frightfully rich, sweetheart. That's the only way you make the grade."
"I can't really believe it, y'know. After awhile I will, I will because of you. Oh, Candice!"
"Think I was dead?" Candice Remple laughed. "I wanted the thrill. They do those simulations damn well."
"But it's not all simulated ...!"
"It is for us chatelaines, pet. Although some of the hornier girls accept a few of the milder tortures or a whipping just for the experience-something to boast about."
"But some of the girls, girls like me...? When I was imprisoned with some of the others I was told stories. Girls disappear...."
"Where are your hands, Sabina?" The irrelevant query was casual.
Sabina was startled. "Behind my back-handcuffed."
"You're my sweet little slave girl. Remember?"
"Of course I do. We made a bargain. Oh, Candice, I'm so grateful! You've no idea."
"And slavegirls don't interrogate their Mistresses."
"Oh, gee, I'm sorry! But I'm so...."
"Of course you are, lovebird. But the less you know about the Seigneury the better." Candice Remple's lovely face clouded. "I think I got you out of there without leaving a clue or a trace. But if they did track you they'd take both of us, and they'd want to know what I'd told you. Best you know nothing."
"Take us both! You mean they're that powerful?"
"Damn right! If they're powerful enough to get away with Glynis-well, never mind! There's other things to talk about. Sweetheart, are you happy?"
"Am I ever! Mmmmm!"
"I'll change your hands after awhile. But I'm enjoying you the way you are, delightfully helpless. Notice anything on the floor?"
Sabina had noticed. A shining swirl of links from a bronze ring and at the end....
"Get over there, darling, I can't wait."
The anklet was a thing of beauty, heavy, gem-studded. Under Candice's fingers it closed around Sabina's left ankle snugly with a solid snap. No join was visible. Its weight alone spoke of servitude.
"Walk, darling."
Amused, Sabina walked, one foot lagging. The shining links followed her like a snake until they tautened and snubbed her to a halt. "Test the radius."
Sabina gleefully obeyed. The big bed was within range. But that was all. Door, windows, the dresser, cupboards were denied. Always the chain snapped her short of a goal. Candice nodded approvingly and held up a key. "See this! It hangs on the wall where you can't reach."
They shared laughter. "I wouldn't run away from you, Candice. I've given my word," Sabina said with innocent sincerity. "But you like me like this, don't you! I don't mind. It's-oh, it's so-so good to be free."
"But you're not free, darling. You belong to me."
"I am too! I'm beautifully, gorgeously free!" Contradictorily the slave kicked at her chain and made her handcuffs clink. "I'm away from that awful place. I don't care what you do with me, I'm out of that beastly Seigneury."
"I've got all sorts of chains and things waiting for you, pet," Candice warned. "I've had them fabricated here and there. I knew I'd find a girl to put them on. When I saw you ... mmmmm!"
"I'm so grateful. It's a miracle."
Candice waved it away. "Sorry I took so long, sweetheart. But the day after they flogged you...! You weren't in very good shape. I didn't think they'd be that rough. It's that damn Campys! They spend girls like water...! Darling, your back! How is it?"
"I'm naked. Can't you see how it is?" Sabina shrugged away her wounds. "Candice, are you always going to keep me naked?"
"Hmmmm, mostly! I like you nude. Besides, it's convenient when I want to whip you or make love. But I've had a few trifles made...! You'll see them in good time. They're yummy!"
"I don't mind being naked for you," Sabina said thoughtfully. "There's been enough people who've seen me stripped-I've got used to it. But, Candice, how is my back? Where they kept me there weren't any mirrors."
Candice went to her slave, kissed her sparkling eyes, and loosed the handcuffs. 'There you can get close enough to a mirror to look."
"Oh, wow!" Tugging at her anklet, Sabina twisted and turned and looked back over a shoulder. She turned stricken eyes to her new owner. "Oh, Candice...! Will it ever heal?"
"Looks awful, doesn't it, pet? Or beautiful, according to the point of view. I wish they hadn't used the knotted thongs, though," Candice mused reflectively. "Give it a month, I'd say. Then you'll be back to virgin skin." She chuckled at the question she could see in her slave's eyes. "Don't worry, lovebird, in the meantime I'll use all your other places...! You've got more of them than maybe you know."
Sabina forgot her back. The weals were several days old now and had ceased to hurt except when she lay on them. She was enjoying the ecstatic luxury of massaging her wrists. From time to time she stretched her arms as wide as they could go, a free bird testing her wings. She turned to Candice's amused regard and said simply,'Thank you....Oh, thank you...!"
"Feels good, eh!"
"Glorious!" Sabina kicked her chain. "And I can't run away. You've thought of everything."
"It's forever, y'know?"
"All right, so it's forever," Sabina agreed amiably. "Aren't you curious about the things I'll do to you?"
"Not too much. I'm too happy."
"I'll make you scream."
"Well, okay, I've had a lot of practice. I'm sure you'll find my screams satisfactory."
"Gosh, you're sweet! You're precious. Just looking at you on the end of that chain makes me hrony as the Devil. And the things you say and the way you say them...! Mmmmmm!"
"Do I get time off for good behavior, Candice? I'm going to be boringly well behaved."
Candice Remple grinned. "I've thought of that. Yes, I'm going to take you out and around. Not right away, but after the kerfluffle of your disappearance has died. It will test your loyalty. You'll be able to run."
"And if I do?"
"I feel a bitch, darling. I had a threat figured. A threat that would scare the pants off you-if you wore any! I can't use it now."
"Oh, Candice, tell me."
"If you ran I'd put the Seigneury on your tail. They'd pick you up in no time-and take you back."
Sabina shivered. Her eyes widened in dismay.
"But don't worry, lovebird. I can't do it. I've fallen in love with you. And after the way they flogged you ... ugh!"
"I'd come and hug you, but my chain won't go that far." Sabina glowed. But she had momentarily beheld an abyss and must ask the inevitable question. "If the Seigneury never lets a girl go-then-then...?"
"You've guessed it, pet. Let's leave it at that."
"It means you've given me back my life...?"
"Mmmmmm, solemn thought!" Their eyes met and locked. "But that's about the size of it, pet."
Sabina forgot her chain. With open arms and shining eyes she leaped to grasp, but was snubbed short and tumbled to the rug. Candice, her Mistress, laughed delightedly and, pulling her to her feet, led her to the bed. It held them for a long, long time. .
It was Sabina's first lesson.
Idylls are rare. Candice and Sabina lived theirs to the full in an endless discovery of each other and themselves. Both, in ther separate roles, were gloriously fulfilled. Sabina the slave was never without chains. Implacable as they might be, they were also a jewelled loveliness bestowing on their wearer a delighted fascination. Under the amused regard of her owner, Sabina tested their tolerance, and if it was sometimes short, it never occurred to her to complain.
It ended during the night of the eighth day. With the switching on of the bedroom lights Candice came awake and sat up. Her first thought was of her slave. But Sabina was still peacefully sleeping beside her, the links from her anklet trailing their shining way to the bronze ring in the floor. Sabina was safe. Candice Remple's eyes focused in horrified dismay....
"Maslin!"
"Good evening, madam. I see our quest is ended. Forgive the intrusion but it appears warranted."
"Maslin, get out of here! And take those two men with you."
"You know we will not do that, madam."
Sabina awoke and instantly guessed She looked wildly from the impassive faces of the three men to her shackled feet, and from thence to the key on the wall She was trapped! But Candice was trapped too, even though she bore no bonds.
"What do you intend, Maslin?" Candice was trembling.
"We will escort you to the Seigneury, madam."
"Escort?"
Maslin shrugged. "We do not expect you to accompany us voluntarily. In my position as custodian I cannot engage in risk."
"Maslin, don't, don't do this! You know what it will mean."
"I am profoundly regretful of my course of duty, Miss Remple. I have always held you in the highest regard."
"All I've done is rescue a girl-and look at her chain! She's safe enough."
"Miss Miles is the property of the Seigneury, madam."
"Oh, blast the Seigneury, Maslin!" Candice's voice was impassioned. "Can't you unbend a bit? Be human."
"We have taken an oath, madam. You yourself have sworn-"
"Maslin, it's not that big a deal. One girl! The way the Seigneury runs through girls Sabina will never be missed."
"She has been missed, madam. Why else would I be here?"
Two naked girls in a bed, one chained by her ankle, and three men. The suave butler and his two helots. They gazed at each other in a total awareness of the inevitable.
"Maslin, if you take Sabina and I back to the Seigneury, you know what will be done to us. Do you want to see that?" Candice put everything she had into the appeal.
"It will grieve me, Miss Remple. But my wishes are irrelevant."
"Maslin, I'm rich. I'm very rich."
"So I understand, madam. But please refrain from offering a bribe. It only demeans us both."
"One million dollars, Maslin?"
"Please, Miss Remple-please...!"
"A million for you and a million to be split between your helpers?"
"Emphatically no, madam."
"Name a figure then. If I can meet it I will."
The butler waved a deprecatory hand. "Madam, you forget. Even if we were disposed to accept, it would be an act of suicide."
Candice slumped. "Very well. I know the spot you're in," she admitted slowly, "But I'm the real quarry, aren't I? I mean, I'm the culprit, the guilty one. Sabina certainly isn't. Let her go?"
"No, madam."
"But dammit, she's innocent. I stole her handcuffed, she had no choice. She was helpless."
"A more than willing victim, I suspect, madam."
"Look, there's a compromise. There has to be!" Candice looked around her helplessly. "Name your price to let Sabina go. Take me, but tell them she escaped."
Maslin did not deign to reply. The silence was a denial. The liberty, and perhaps the lives, of two girls were forfeit.
Candice looked at the girl beside her on the bed, and said, in desolation, "It's hopeless. I know them. Oh, darling...!"
"I hope you will not compel us to use force, Miss Remple."
"Be good little girls and let you truss us up? Is that the drill?" Candice asked bitterly.
"It would be helpful-and most wise."
"We're both naked. May we dress?"
"There is little point in clothing, madam. But the two essential undergarments if you wish."
"Thanks a heap." Candice's sarcasm was deep and desolate. "Maybe I unlock Sabina's anklet? She can't dress...."
"Of course."
It seemed wrong not to fight. Compliance seemed so much an admission of guilt, a willingness to do penance. Sabina seethed inwardly as she watched her Mistress don panties and bra and toss over the same trifles for herself. When the shackle fell away from her ankle she tugged on the brief covering for her loins and prisoned her breasts in the bra. It was a long time since she had worn either. They felt strange. They were a return to bondage.
"It's no use fighting them, darling," Candice ordered miserably, "They can beat us into submission with one hand. What's happening to us is bad enough, we can do without that."
"Most sensible of you, Miss Remple. I have always admired your common sense." Maslin sounded genuinely relieved. "Hands behind your back, please."
"Look, Maslin, must you? We are adult, y'know! Being tied up is a beastly humiliation. Can't we just take orders?"
"You know better than that, madam."
Sabina watched her Mistress, and did what it seemed she must. She turned and allowed her arms to be pulled back and her hands placed palm to palm. The bite of cord was instant and vicious. Despair settled upon her like a blanket.
"Oh, no! Don't!" Candice wrenched herself away from the male hands. "Leave our elbows alone. You don't need to rope them too!"
"We shall do so, Miss Remple."
"But, Maslin, what for! Why! Tying our wrists has made us helpless."
"Strictures on her elbows renders a young woman sensibly amenable, madam. It is desirable."
"But it hurts! It's a kind of punishment!"
"Yes, madam."
They were lost! Without their hands they could no longer fight. The brutal binding was but a foretaste of things to come. In bitter resignation the two girls stood meekly to be tied. Their gasps and exclamations of pain as the ropes were drawn cruelly tight were disregarded. With arms immovably welded they stood with breasts pointing and strained, their shoulders wracked, their elbows aflame with the bite of cord.
They looked at each other with a terrible knowledge.
The Seigneury honored them with its best. The period was fifteenth century. The place, the Italy of Pope Calixtus III. The proceedings, semi-ecclesiastical. Maslin and his helots delivered them into phantasmagoria, then vanished.
"A preliminary questioning only," said the parchment-faced ancient at the table. He shuffled documents absently and tested his quill. "We must establish intent and idenity."
The force rested with the darkly handsome man who stood with one foot negligently raised upon a brocaded chair. He was surveying the tableau before him with a cynical eye. It was from him the cuirassed guards took their orders.
"Make thy rituals short, father. 'Tis all on record. There's naught to dispute."
"Messire, these things must be done properly. There is the matter of her estate." The cleric allowed the word to hang.
"We will take it."
"It is massive, m'lord. There need be signatures."
"Get them, man! Get them!"
"She has refused to sign...."
"They always refuse to sign, father." The sneer was impatient. "Surely Holy Church holds persuasion?"
"Messire, torture! For one so noble...?"
"Aye, she'll not be the first, nor the last to need Mother Church's aid to make up her mind. Leave her right hand intact, 'tis all she'll need."
"The maid, sire, the younger one? She is without property."
"Treat her the same. In heaven's name, man, what are you quibbling about? The screams of one work upon the other to our advantage."
"They be passing beautiful...."
The sneer was open. "Ye do the Church credit, father. Lust at thy age! They can be ravished at will, so keep 'em in one piece 'til ye have slaked thy thist. They'll make a luscious feast for thy holy house."
It was the end! It had been the end ever since the first bite of Maslin's cord. The cord still biting deep at wrist and flaming elbow. Sabina stood beside her Mistress, twin penitents before an altar to greed and a strange lust. It appeared that Holy Church did not approve of argument. She was gagged, as was Candice, with a wad of wet stuff bound deep in her mouth by a cord cutting her cheeks. Cynically, she supposed that what delinquents might have to say could be taken for granted. Tongues muted by a gag would ease the Reverend Father's task. Behind them stood the soldiers, eyes alert, hands ready. Their hands had been brutal ...!
The cowled elder ignored the inference. His voice was still dry and tinged with regret. "We will deal with them then, sire. May I send thee a messenger when there be aught to tell?"
"Aye, that ye may." The dark visage betrayed amusement. "Be tender with them awhile. They'll make rich sport. But waste not too much time."
The cleric sighed.
"Darling, I'm sorry. I blew the whole thing." Candice's voice was wan. "It's my fault. I'll never forgive myself."
"Don't think about it. It's over. Oh, Candice ...!"
"I stayed away from them, that was the mistake. I was so besotted with you...!" Candice exhaled miserably. "Darling, is the pain very awful?"
Looking at her Mistress, Sabina saw a mirror of herself. The total nudity, stretched, suspended from the bar by the slight leather bands about each thumb. The reaching toes a foot from the floor...."Yes, it hurts pretty bad," she admitted abstractly, "but don't blame yourself. I don't think anything matters now-except I love you."
"The bastards! The rotten bastards! Gagging us so we had to stand like dummies while they played their damnfool game! I know that son of a bitch who was playing the high and mighty! Oh, lovebird, to think I used to play such games too...!"The lovely eyes spanned the distance between their strung-up nudities ruefully. "Say it, sweetheart, say it-serves me damn well right!"
"It doesn't! It doesn't...! The cruel thing now is they're going to do it all to you too. They always would have done it to me anyway. I know that now."
"I'll never sign their rotten papers. I don't care what they do to me. It would do no good anyway, they'd still kill me." Candice's voice held all the heartbreak of the world.
Girls were beautiful beyond belief! Sabina was poignantly aware. Cruelty accentuated their loveliness. Stretched and tortured, Candice's body revealed a hundred delights beyond the norm, her flattened armpits, the tautened breasts into which the nipples had inverted to leave a blunted symmetry. The elongation of the pubic hair...! She supposed it was the same with her own nakedness. But it hurt too much to try and look. Everything hurt...! Even breathing!
"Will they just leave us like this?" she asked uncertainly.
"Hell no!" Candice spoke from bitter knowledge. "They don't consider this one torture at all. Just slapping our wrists and saying: naughty, naughty."
"Why wouldn't they be satsified with punishing us? Maybe they will be. ... "
"You heard 'em talking, pet. Did that sound like simple punishment?"
Sabina was lost. Her new found love for her Mistress left her doubly vulnerable. "They could torture me," she gasped bemusedly. "That's all they get us girls for. But you're different. You're one of their own. You're a somebody. If they just punished you and took you back...?"
"Thanks, darling. That's a lovely dream." Candice moaned. "Oh, damn them to hell, this hurts ... hurts!"
"It is but a scourge for thy spirit, daughter."
The dry old voice and the parchment face had entered unobtrusively. Wise, sad eyes examined the tortured fem-ninity with quiet approval. The ancient man had about him an atmosphere of timelessness, of infinite patience.
Candice played a hopeless card. "Look, you old fraud, I don't know your name, but if you'll get us out of here I'll make you rich."
"I am already rich, child."
"Yeah, you would be!" Candice conceded brokenly. "What about mercy? Do you have any?"
"Only the Chuch is merciful, child."
"Fuck your chuch, and don't call me 'child.' I'm a woman. So is Sabina. Can we interest you in our bodies? They're grade A."
"I already have your bodies, child."
"We could make them lovable for you. We could both be grateful. We could both be a lot better to fuck than the way you are going to take us."
"You should be grateful at this moment. Surely, girl, you recognize leniency?"
Candice raised and flexed a helpless leg in frustratin. "All right, you haven't racked us or burned us or had us flogged. Why?"
"I need signatures." A wrinkled hand waved depre-catingly. "I think you are more likely to give them to me if we can talk rationally instead of by screams and threats. Such agony as the two of you now suffer does not impair reason."
"Clever old swine, aren't you!"
There came the ghost of a smile. "Thank you, madam."
"Can I get you to contact Campys? Get him to intercede for Sabina? I think he might-just on the score of maintaining assets. And she's innocent....She certainly doesn't deserve what you'll do to me."
The smile remained. "And what will I do to you?"
"Torture me and execute me. Oh, sure, you'll make a big tarada out of the juicier bits so the chevaliers and chatelaines, and the hired help, can get fine erections or wet cats out of-out of-well, out of what you choose to make me suffer."
He nodded wisely and shrugged. "You know it all, madam." He studied the pain-wracked nudity of the suspended beauty, quietly musing on some speculation of his own. "It crosses my mind to speak of your case to the Seigneur," he said meditatively. "Not that he is unaware, but I will advance the suggestion, madam, that you are altogether too exquisite to be wasted in a single grandiose masque."
For naked girls hanging by their thumbs it is not easy to either tense or relax. But Sabina and Candice became suddenly alert, their eyes widening in a questioning hope. In cautious silence they listened.
"Miss Miles is, of course, already the property of the Seigneury. She has proven herself responsive. There is no reason to use her in a, er, terminal role. You, Miss Remple, offer the Seigneury a rare treat. You are a fallen angel, an extremely beautiful angel fallen from grace. Indubitably you must be punished." The clerical voice fell silent for several moments, and then offered, diffidently:
"One is given to understand a convicted person's joy in having their death sentence commuted to one of life imprisonment...?"
Sabina's instant surge of gladness was blunted by realization. For life! To be whipped and tortured intermittently on through the years! In between the highlights, a prisoner! One of the Seigneury's stable of female lovliness. On call! Forever available. She looked at her punished Mistress in an agony of emotions.
"Yes, it is better than death," Candice admitted slowly. "You sound doubtful, madam. Let me not make a plea for a mercy you'll reject."
"Tortured ... and tortured!"
"Let us not be overly dramatic, Miss Remple. Your companion has survived her ordeals remarkably well, her back is almost without blemsih. I am sure you will prove equally resilient."
Candice was bemused. "But, from being a chatelaine-to this?"
"The contrast presents a potent eroticism, ma'am. It's certain appeal will be the basis of my suggestion to the Seigneur."
"You'll keep me chained...!"
"Handcuffed, I suppose. The other young ladies in waiting do not complain of. the minor inconvenience. They soon adjust."
"I'm ungrateful. I'm sorry." Candice shook her head in defeat. "I know you're being kind. And, yes, I want to live! It's just that-well, look at me now! It's so hard for me to realize....I'm hurting so much it's difficult to think straight...." She fixed her pained regard upon the black clad figure. "Help me to live. Oh, yes-please-please! I do not want to die."
"Very well, madam. I will do my best. I promise nothing."
"Thank you-thank you ...!"
"And now, the matter of the signatures?" The dry old voice was relentless.
"But if I am to live...?"
"Your estate is, in either case, forfeit, ma'am. It is as much the property of the Seigneury as you yourself."
"I cannot!"
"Cannot you realize, madam, you will have no need of it. As the property of the Seigneury, all your needs will be provided."
"For always! My life-gone!"
"You are punishing yourself, Miss Remple." Sarcasm crept into the persuasion. "There can be no doubt in your new life you will be frequently 'named.' Both of you will."
"Raped!"
An impatient shrug of the shoulders. "It need not be."
"Can't you speak to my estate or the Seigneur? Ask clemency? It was bequested me by my father. I have a moral obligation to preserve it. Not give it away to save myself pain."
"We are splitting hairs, madam. I am hopeful your present discomfort may, given time, induce reason. If it fails, then tomorrow will bring the heated iron. You are familiar with the repetoire of rack and whip. The rail, suspension! You have a magnificent body. Do not spoil it. It may stand you in good stead."
After the aged cleric had gone his way, the hanging girls exchanged their exclamations of dismay.
"Candice! Oh, Candice, it's too cruel for you!"
"No worse than for you, lovebird. You're not exactly happy like this, are you?" Candice's voice was close to a moan. "Maybe we'll live, but we haven't much of a future.
That old bastard may mean well, but he's right about our bodies-they'll be used and used...." She kicked angrily at nothing. "If I can make a weapon out of mine, I damn well will-and I'll use it!"
"But the torture and your possessions-"
"I don't know." Candice's moans was all too real. "Oh, darling, I just don't know...!"
They hung in silence as the hours passed. Their thumbs and shoulders screamed but could not be heard.
The headsman was Rolfe Campys! Sabina was sure of it as she had been sure of the hooded torturer of the previous day. The glitter of male eyes behind the slits in the all encompassing black tights flickered constantly over her nakedness and the nakedness of Candice as the two of them stood bound and exposed on the platform for all to see. Once more, their hands were bound palm to palm and their elbows cinched tight together with implacable cord. Already, their arms and wrists were swelling against the strictures. But what did it matter! They were expendable!
The crowd was hushed in awe. Only a sussuration of whispers floated up to where the dark figure held the broad bladed axe, resting on the ominous block with its indentation to accept a female head. Beneath it waited a wicker basket...! Sabina had looked once but not again.
It had happened quickly, yet was vividly implated in Sabina's mind as the agonies of a century. Their night in the dungeon had been a fierce entanglement of nudities and seeking lips, hampered by the chains fastened upon them at wrist and ankle, neck and waist. Punitive chains, serving no purpose but to demoralize as part of their punishment. Their sleep had been punctuated by savage ecstasies and tears. Morning had brought the smoky stone chamber and the brazier.
"The Fleur de lis. On her thigh."
It was the same voice of authority, the dark features as intent as ever upon a task to be done. But he was not alone In the outer perimeter beyond the flame stood figures. ... The Seigneury was going to get good value from Candice's torture.
Sabina had been stood against a narrow pillar. Her wrists handcuffed behind it so that, with her back against the stone, she would have privileged view of what was to be done to her beloved. She watched askance as Candice, naked as she herself, was corded firmly to the bench.
"Get the bitch's thighs immovable."
"She'll not move them, sire."
The voice aknowledged that both girls were gagged. "You can nod your head, woman, when you're ready to sign."
Candice closed her eyes.
"Brand her, man. At least she'll bear'the Seigneury's mark."
Sabina had smelt her Mistress' burning flesh, and beheld the smoke rise from her burning thigh. She had watched the bulge of thew and muslce against the bite of rope, and the wild thrashing of Candice's head as the glowing iron ate through her skin to the count of five.
"A pretty piece of work, Headsman. For her other thigh the Seigneury 'S.'"
From within the bound girl's gagged lips the sounds were frantic, indecent, ineffectual. But Candice Remple did not nod her head. The iron pressed home upon her skin its burning of the maiden flesh both audible and visible. ... By the count of four Candice had fainted.
They allowed her to regain consciousness by herself. They stood in reverent silence, admiring the brands, raw and black, reliving the sentinent minutes of her agony.
"Come, girl, enough of this! We have a pen."
Candice shook her head.
"By heaven, I've had enough of her! We can deal well enough with the legalities-her name on paper can be contrived. We've managed before. She can yield us better sport than by whittling her body away in this dismal hole." Dark-face was furious.
"I can burn off her nipples, sire?"
"Let be. Do your work tomorrow."
"The block and the axe, sire?"
"Aye. See to it-for both of them."
As the chamber had emptied, Sabina had searched desperately for the ancient cleric who might have been a friend. But he was nowhere to be seen.
How do condemned girls spend the night before their execution? How? Candice and Sabina spent it in chains, in tears and in passionate clutchings. When, in the morning, their arms had been so cruelly bound it was a reminder of Maslin and his men. His binding ropes had been the beginning of the end.
Sabina looked around at the eager faces, avid, intent. Truly, the Seigneury outdid itself this day! She fluttered her wracked shoulders. But she was helpless! If she fled, there would be a hundred hands to grab her. She realized people walked nobly to their execution because there was naught else they could do. Perhaps at the final moment you were glad to have done....
But she was not glad now! Her life, her loveliness to be extinguished by a blow! She gloried in her nakedness and knew it good. A hundred of the watching men would give much to possess her. But there were other girls, available, waiting their turn. Perhaps down there watching!
"The older one first."
Two guards led Candice to the block. She shook off their hands and protested, "No! Don't force me. I'll do it."
Candice knelt, her bound arms making it awkward to do anything. She turned to Sabina and smiled. Her heart was in her eyes. She bent forward and placed her head within its wooden resting place. A guard gathered her long hair and draped it forward....
Her neck was tiny.
The axe rose and fell.
The wicker basket shivered as it received its burden.
A Hand at Sabina's back impelled her forward.