Cauldron of Fear (16 page)

'Wrong, devil
whore,' Crawley sneered. 'We have the testimony of your witness and
the Lord has appointed me to be your judge, or would you rather
swing from a gibbet tomorrow noon?'

'I doubt that
would serve your purposes, Master Crawley,' Matilda muttered, 'nor
the purposes of that slug, Wickstanner. Calls himself a man of the
cloth, yet I see he is not here to witness the results of his foul
plotting.'

'Very well,
Matilda Pennywise,' Crawley said, stepping away again, 'if that is
your choice then so be it. My men can erect a gallows soon enough,
but you shall certainly go to the next life with your body purged,
if not your soul.'

Again the
terrible hissing, followed by the excruciating firebrands, but this
time, as if by some merciful intervention, Matilda scarcely felt
them, as she passed away into a dead faint.

Although
outside the day itself had been no more than warm, inside the
cramped hut the heat had risen to an almost unbearable level. James
had early on divested himself of his torn and muddy jacket and
quickly followed that expedient by unbuttoning the front of his
shirt, but the stifling humidity continued unabated and, by the
time darkness began to fall outside, bringing with it a welcome but
slow decrease in the interior temperature, he realised he'd all but
finished the water supply his unknown captors had left behind.

He prayed they
would return soon, for he knew that another day like this would be
more than he could face with only the meagre dregs of liquid that
now remained. Moreover, the hours of enforced activity were
beginning to take their toll.

Over and over
he tried to find a reason for his abduction, other than the most
obvious one that his assailants would approach his father with a
ransom demand. That, he knew, made sense, yet throughout the day,
as he lay sweating in the straw, he could not escape the nagging
thought that it might just be something more than that...

Adam returned
for the girls accompanied by yet another handler, this one being a
little older than the majority of the younger grooms, together with
a woman who was clearly fast approaching middle age, though her
fine-boned features still bore more than just traces of her former
youthful beauty.

'This is
Master Robin,' Adam announced, after stirring the two dozing female
forms with the toe of his boot. 'And this lady is Miss Prudence.
She will prepare you for your evening performance and you will obey
her, as you would obey me, or I'll have the skin off your pert
little bottoms before the sun rises again.'

As Sarah and
Kitty scrambled to their feet, they realised that Miss Prudence was
abnormally tall for a woman, standing equally as tall as Robin and
only an inch or so less than Adam. Although not heavily built, she
was certainly well boned and muscled and probably, Sarah thought,
quite capable of dealing with an average female without any male
assistance.

In addition,
she wore a pair of men's breeches and what was almost certainly a
man's shirt, though the front of it bulged considerably, thanks to
a generous bosom. Her long neck was tanned and bare, with her brown
hair pinned up clear of it, and she had brown eyes that hardly
seemed to blink at all.

'You will both
follow me,' she said in a quiet yet very firm voice. 'There will be
no talking and you will follow all my instructions immediately. If
I ask you a question, you may reply to it and you will address me,
at all times, as mistress. Do you understand that?'

'Yes,
mistress,' Kitty replied immediately.

'Yes,
mistress,' Sarah added in a low whisper, dropping her eyes.

To the
surprise of both girls, they were led to where a closed coach and
pair stood waiting and helped up inside. The journey was not long
but would, Sarah guessed, have taken perhaps half an hour on foot.
When the coach finally stopped the door was opened by a liveried
footman, who held up a hand to assist each of the bound girls to
step down and who, if he was at all surprised to be confronted by a
pair of naked females, did not betray the slightest sign of it.

Looking up,
Sarah saw that they were at what she took to be the rear of a large
country house - a very large country house, in fact. There were
three main floors stretching towards the night sky and small
dormers projecting from the roof. Whoever lived here was not short
of money, she guessed.

Inside, they
were taken through a series of passageways and up a flight of
narrow stairs, until eventually Prudence stopped before a panelled
door and took a small key from her breeches pocket.

'Inside,' she
said curtly, stepping back as the door swung open. 'Everything is
ready for you.' Everything, Sarah saw to her amazement, included
two large porcelain baths set a few feet apart from each other on a
marble tiled floor. Both had been ready filled and with hot water,
for steam curled off their surfaces and the room was heady with the
scent of oils.

'Now,'
Prudence said, confronting the pair of them, 'I am going to remove
your harnesses and you will not wear them again this night. But be
warned, if you even think about trying to take advantage of that
situation I have an even more stringent form of harness that you
will find yourself in. And just in case,' she added, 'you need
further convincing, I shall show you what I mean.' She clapped her
hands together loudly. 'Jasmine!' she cried. 'Get your unworthy
arse in here - now!'

As the two
girls looked on, a curtain against the right hand wall moved aside
and a tall dark-skinned female walked awkwardly through it -
awkwardly because she was perched on the most incredibly heeled
shoes either Kitty or Sarah had ever seen before and because her
arms appeared to have been folded double up her spine and were
cuffed to a wide collar that forced her head at an almost
impossibly erect angle.

'This is
Jasmine,' Prudence said. 'She is my own personal maidservant, but
an incorrigibly lazy little bitch at times. Therefore, I dress her
as you now see for two hours each evening, just to encourage her to
work a little harder during the rest of the day.' The girl - she
had to be Arabian, or maybe even Indian, Sarah thought, approached
and they could see the thin strap running across her face and
between her lips.

Her raven
hair, hanging down her back to her waist, had been arranged so that
it concealed most of the strap and her full lips had initially
disguised its purpose, but now, as she halted a few paces in front
of them, Sarah realised that it served to hold something in place
inside her mouth. Prudence's next words confirmed this
observation.

'You will see
that Jasmine is also gagged,' she said. 'Not that she would ever
dare to speak without my permission, but it amuses me to discomfort
her further during her punishments, doesn't it, Jasmine dear?'

The dark girl
nodded briefly and made a sort of gurgling sound by way of reply.
Prudence nodded, apparently satisfied, and turned back to her two
newest charges.

'If either of
you give me cause,' she said menacingly, 'then you will be dealt
with exactly as you see Jasmine now, except that it will not be for
two hours. More like twenty-four or even thirty-six without food or
water, and with a sound flogging every four hours in addition.

'Right then,'
she went on brusquely. 'I shall now release Jasmine and she will
release you and help you bathe. I shall be in the next room,
preparing your costumes properly. The door to the corridor is
locked, and there are bars at the windows behind those curtains, so
please don't trouble your sorry little heads with thoughts of
escaping.'

The adjoining
room was a large bedroom, the centrepiece of which was a massive
French, four-poster bed, draped in luxurious deep red velvets.
Prudence, it seemed, had been busy, for there were several items
laid out in two identical rows, one along the top of each side of
the bed.

There were
also two padded stools, set a few feet apart at the foot of the bed
and Sarah and Kitty were instructed to sit upon these, still
wrapped in the huge towels Jasmine had given them as they emerged
from their baths.

Immediately
Prudence began to work on Sarah's hair, brushing it out while it
was still damp and Jasmine turned her attentions to doing the same
with Kitty. No one spoke and the silence in the room, with its
heavy wall drapes and thick piled carpet, was eerie, broken only by
the sounds of the stiff brushes as they did their work.

Sarah closed
her eyes, trying not to shiver, for although the room was warm
enough the thoughts of what might be to come, together with the
memory of her most recent humiliation, threatened to start her
trembling with apprehension. Beneath the towel her pubic mound felt
cold and very exposed, now that she, like Kitty, had been expertly
shaved by Jasmine and the soothing oil the Asian girl had massaged
in to the newly bared flesh had left a mild tingling sensation that
could not be ignored.

'We will
finish your hair when it is drier,' Prudence announced, tossing her
brush on the end of the bed. 'It is pointless trying to pin it up
in its present condition.

'Now,' she
continued, 'let's see if we can turn you into an acceptable pair of
courtesans. The gentleman you're entertaining this evening has
given very precise instructions and his lordship is eager to
impress him.'

They began
with garments that neither girl had seen before, stiffly boned
corsets that reached from beneath their breasts to just on the top
of their hips and, as Prudence picked up her one, a stunning
emerald green and black concoction trimmed top and bottom with
black lace, Sarah let out an involuntary gasp.

'You think it
looks too small for you, I suspect?' Prudence said.

Sarah
swallowed and nodded. 'It does seem so, mistress.'

Prudence
laughed and began unhooking the front busk. 'They're from France,
girl,' she said, 'as are most of these things. The women there
cherish small waists - or rather their menfolk do - and the fashion
is spreading to London. Now, stand up and fold your arms behind
your neck.' Reluctantly, Sarah rose to her feet and unwrapped the
towel that had been her protection these past few minutes.

'Just drop it
at your feet for the moment,' Prudence instructed. 'Jasmine will
take care of it later. And stand up straight, you little slut.'
Sarah pulled herself to attention, her breathing shallow and rapid,
and Prudence wrapped the confining garment about her and proceeded
to refasten the row of tiny hooks.

As she worked
her way down Sarah gave out a series of stifled grunts, for the
wickedly boned confection compressed her stringently. However, as
she quickly discovered, this feeling was as nothing to what it
would become, for immediately prudence began drawing in the back
laces, reducing the girth even further.

A few feet
away Jasmine was performing the same operation on Kitty, whose
cheeks were already a bright red from the exertions of breathing,
but Sarah had to admit that the corset was producing entirely new
contours on her new friend's body, shaping her figure dramatically,
so that her hips and especially her stunning breasts were made to
look even more prominent. She peered down and saw that her own
corset was having a similar, if less marked effect.

'Not bad,'
Prudence said eventually. Kitty could not have said anything much,
even if she had dared to, for it was all she could do to draw
enough air into her lungs to prevent her from fainting away
completely.

'Breathe from
up here more,' Prudence said, jabbing a finger between Sarah's
breasts. 'And forget about breathing deeply - you can't, not now.
Come on, sit again and let's get you both into some stockings and
shoes.'

The stockings
were pure silk, green in Sarah's case and pink in Kitty's, to
reflect the colour of their corsets. They reached to just above the
knee and were fastened in place by matching lace garters, except
that the colour of these matched the darker hue of the respective
corset, rather than the paler shade of the stockings.

Sarah's eyes
almost rolled in her head when Prudence produced her shoes. Made
from soft deerskin-like leather, they encased the foot to the lower
ankle, drawn snugly about by a row of tiny glittering metal
buttons, which stood out from the darker green like myriad stars.
But it was the heels that Sarah could not believe, for they forced
her instep into such a cruel arch that she felt certain she would
not be able to stand in them, let alone walk.

'French
again,' Prudence chuckled, detecting the consternation in her
subject. 'Most impractical for walking any great distance, but then
we are not concerned with practicalities and you are not expected
to walk far. All the same, you will have a little time in order to
practice and I can tell you, they do make a girl's assets wiggle
most provocatively, which I assume is the idea.'

Gloves came
next, deep green satin gloves for Sarah, which smoothed up her arms
almost to her shoulder and were then buttoned tightly at the wrist,
stretching them so that they shone like a second skin. This task
completed, jewelled collars were added about the two girls'
throats, row upon row of paste stones, but fixed to a leather
backing which was hidden from view, yet ensured that the wearer was
forced to hold her head high and, supposedly, proudly.

The two women
now turned their attentions to the girls' faces, powdering,
painting, rouging, working deftly and assuredly. Sarah felt the
various cosmetics as they dried upon her features: her face began
to feel as if it was now a mask and she began to wonder exactly
what she must look like.

However, there
seemed to be no mirrors anywhere in the room and her only clue was
when she sneaked a sideways glance at Kitty, who was receiving the
same treatment at Jasmine's hands. What she saw made her all but
gasp out loud, for the face she now saw bore little resemblance to
the original Kitty, who now looked like an ornate and passive doll,
complete with a bright carmine, cupid bow mouth.