Cruel Enchantment

by Janine Ashbless

  Ursilla pleaded sickness – an upset of the stomach – to avoid sitting with me at the high table, the first night. I acquiesced, but ordered that no food was to be sent up to her, and on the evening of the second day hunger drove her down to the hall. I was all but alone on the top table, only Callum and the castle priest – who stuttered abominably whenever he descended from Latin and gave every appearance of fear in my presence – to keep me company, and they would converse neither to myself nor each other unless I forced them to polite interchange. I had retreated into reverie, considering the banquet I intended to host at Christmas.

  Ursilla showed up late, but I was pleased to see her at all and was inclined to be tolerant.

  ‘You are feeling better, I hope?’ I enquired.

  She nodded, did not curtsey – which I should have reprimanded, but failed to – and sat down at the end of the long table on my right side, next to Father Andrew and as far from me as she could manage. She muttered grace, broke her bread and began to devour the mutton stew before her with the speed of the starving.

  I picked at my own plate, waiting until her appetite had slowed. The hall was quiet, those servants and soldiers eating in our company talking among themselves. Callum supped his beer through his red beard and watched his men. ‘Ursilla,’ I said, when I had had enough of my own thoughts, ‘sit up here with me.’

  The girl took a mutton-bone from her mouth and laid it by her trencher. ‘I eat with good Christian folk,’ she said in a low, clear voice, ‘and not with you, lady.’

  Father Andrew looked nervous. Callum leaned back with a grunt and looked at me, waiting for my reaction. A slow wave of silence washed down the hall.

  ‘Ursilla,’ said I, standing, ‘you have the sense and judgment of a child, and for that I will forgive your rudeness, if you will apologise to me now.’

  She bit her lip and set her shoulders.

  ‘If not,’ I warned, ‘you will be punished. Like a child, if that is how you want to be treated. Is that clear?’

  ‘God rot you,’ she replied deliberately. I felt the indrawn breath of every witness in the hall. I turned away from her.

  ‘Sergeant Callum –’

  He was on his feet at once, blue eyes cool.

  ‘Take the Lady Ursilla, put her over your knee and administer to her a sound spanking.’

  He hesitated, nearly protested, the colour rising in his face. Our eyes locked. His discomfort was palpable, but my will is stronger than any vassal’s. ‘My Lady,’ he growled, dropping his gaze and walking around me to Ursilla. I thought for a moment she would bolt, but she stood her ground, mouth trembling. I do not think she actually believed that I would do this to her in public. She had a lot to learn about many things.

  ‘Tie her hands,’ I added.

  Callum loosened his knife-belt, caught up her hands behind her and swiftly strapped them together with the narrow length of leather. I admired his quick thinking and obvious skill. Ursilla gave one cry of outrage; ‘You would not dare!’

  Callum glanced back towards me. ‘Do it,’ said I.

  He took his orders as a soldier should, put one foot up on the bench and dropped her neatly over his knee. His one hand steadied her by gripping her bonds while the other moved to the round upthrust promise of her arse.

  ‘On the bare skin,’ I instructed. Trained to obedience, his hesitation was hardly noticeable before he pulled up her skirts and laid them over her back. You might have heard a ghost walk through that hall. Every eye was upon the white glimmer of her raised and vulnerable buttocks, the helpless dark slash between them. A slow pulse beat between my thighs.

  Callum began to measure the seconds with hard, echoing slaps. Father Andrew, seated only an arm’s length away, closed his eyes and began to pray, his lips moving soundlessly. I will never forget that scene; the yellow candlelight gleaming on her pale skin and his red braided mane of hair, the rise and fall of the warrior’s callused hand and the way it lingered after each blow, the jouncing quiver of her flesh, the sound of her gasping and crying out – the only noise in the castle to break the entranced silence between each slap. He had a good, firm hand, did Callum. I let him go to thirty blows before I called a halt, though she made no vocal plea for mercy.

  ‘Take her up to my room,’ I said, ‘and return here directly.’ I emphasised the last word. Callum swung his prisoner off his knee and on to her feet, turning to face me. His arousal was obvious even through the heavy fabric of his kilt and he wisely did not attempt to hide it.

  ‘My Lady,’ he said, his eyes fairly glittering. He pushed her out of the hall before him. Ursilla kept her tear-streaked face turned away from me.

  I sat again and awaited my Sergeant’s return. The hall slowly relaxed from the terrible tension and people began to talk again in soft voices. Faces were pale or flushed; there would be much activity between the blankets tonight, I knew.

  Callum re-entered in good time, his erection under control once more. The face he turned to me was hot and dark with passion, which suited me well enough. He had been challenged, and shamed a little, and would not return to his old, lazy, condescending obedience. I have no use for a liegeman who is lukewarm in his affections; I want either devotion or dislike coupled with fear. My plans for Callum would have to wait, however, for the conclusion of my business with my stepdaughter.

  Taking a formal leave of the diners – their salutations were loud and fervent – I picked up my skirts and mounted the long stairway to my room. Janet waited in her accustomed place outside the door.

  ‘The Lady Ursilla is within,’ she said, holding the portal open for me.

  Nodding, I swept inside. Ursilla was kneeling on the bearskin beside my bed, her hands still tied behind her back, her face bowed so that her dark hair, knotted by exertion, fell in ropes before her face. I walked right up to her.

  ‘Do you wish the punishment to continue?’ I asked. ‘Or are you ready to apologise for your rudeness?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she choked, leaning forwards, ‘Oh, God, yes; I’m sorry.’ She pressed her head against my thigh through the thick brocade of my skirt and began to sob. I laid my hand upon her dark head.

  ‘I hate you,’ she wept.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I said soothingly, stroking her hair. I let her wet my skirt with her tears for a little while. Then I took her chin in my hand and raised her stained face. ‘Did Callum touch you?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ Her face crumpled again. ‘Oh – I wanted him to!’ Her humiliation and frustration washed over her anew. I was not entirely surprised by her response, but very pleased. Her skirts were rumpled up on the floor around her. Balancing myself with one hand on a bedpost, I slid my right foot under her skirt and nudged softly between her thighs. She opened to me with a groan of submission, spreading her knees helplessly. The heat of her flesh was startling – as was her wetness. She sank down on my satin-clad foot, her juices soaking through the slipper. I probed her gaping flesh, felt the rough scrape of her hair on my skin, felt her yield to my toes and try to encompass me, desperate for her raging, hungry flesh to be sated. She came almost at once, whimpering as she spent her torment in a flood of ecstasy and slick moisture. I watched her face twist and her breasts shake, saw her lose all control, and I delighted in her release.

  I hoped after this that Ursilla would understand and in understanding change her ways, but old habits are like a mule we grow used to; it is frightening to put aside the old mount and harness a new stallion with unknown temper and wicked, rolling eyes, and to learn to ride this wild creature, no matter how fleet or handsome he might be.

  I kept Ursilla with me when I could, making her work at everything from picking apples to sorting fleece. Idleness was not her problem, but it was the opportunity for her descent into the mire – and besides, it did her infinite good to hear me praise her when she pleased me.

  And, oh, she did please me. In looks, she could not fail to charm; in temperament, her fiery spirit promised much – if only her pride could
be harnessed with dignity and rebellion reforged into will. In the meantime, her need was to be mastered with love. My only doubt was whether this was a task that I should undertake myself, whether she was not too old for a mother’s care, and I too young to provide it. I wondered if I might be able to find her a suitable husband, and considered speaking to Lord Malcolm of Eildon, a friend of my late husband’s. My mistake was in mentioning this to Ursilla.

  We were upon the glen road at the time, having been to visit the wife of one of our shepherds who was recovering from childbirth. I was riding my favoured palfrey; Ursilla was walking at my stirrup, as it was not my intention that she should be allowed such dignities until she had grown into that estate. Our conversation was polite and sparse, Ursilla speaking only in reply to my own enquiries and otherwise silent. When my musing aloud turned to her prospects for marriage, however, I saw her shoulders go up and her eyes flash as she turned up to me a face twisted with anger and fear.

  ‘I will not marry your Lord Malcolm!’ she shrieked. ‘Nor anyone you choose to give me to!’ She threw up her arms, her long sleeves flapping. ‘This is my home; you can’t throw me out!’

  My mount shied sideways at this sudden explosion of shouting, fluttering fury and I was forced to wheel her in a tight circle to prevent her bolting. By the time the horse was obedient once more, Ursilla was a diminishing figure running down the track, her skirts hitched to her knees, her pale calves flashing. I stared after her but did not call. I certainly had no intention of riding her down. I let her precede me to the castle, holding my mount in on a tight rein, despite my own flustered anxiety. It would do me no good to be seen to be chasing her, whatever my instincts.

  Of course, the consequence of this was that she arrived back within the stronghold a good way before I did. Her stamina, driven by panic though it was, was admirable. As I handed the reins of my palfrey to a groom, I asked where Ursilla had gone. Indoors, was the general response from those present. I bit my lip as I hurried within, brushing aside those servants who tried to attend upon me. No one in the Great Hall knew for sure where the young lady had disappeared to, so I strode to her rooms – but they were empty, as was the Solar, where I knew she sometimes retreated for privacy. Only when I returned, tense as a tethered hound, to my own rooms, did I find her. Janet was not in sight, but from within my chamber I heard a crash that made my heart jump.

  The scene inside was one of chaos. Ursilla had taken up my boxes of jewellery and scents and thrown them to the floor, had upset the chairs and thrown open the coffers containing my dresses and hurled them about, tearing the rich trim from their necklines. The curtains of the bed were in shreds – by what means I did not realise until I saw the knife in her hand; she was slashing at my skirts, sobbing and grunting with the effort of ripping open the thick fabrics. I froze as I took the scene in. My glance went to the inner door, but that was still securely closed. My embroidery frame was collapsed, the bright threads spilled and tangled like the entrails of slaughtered birds.

  I stepped into the room. She turned to face me, her visage a white smear in which her dark eyes glared, livid as bruises. She stepped back away from me, glancing about her, looking for some last thing to destroy. Something more to hurt me. Something precious. Her gaze seized upon the mirror; obviously expensive, obviously fragile – the decorated bronze frame set with amber encased a sheet of real glass – and she turned away in a swift, savage movement to snatch it from its stand. I moved in quickly, but I would not have got to her in time had she not frozen, staring into the cloudy depths of the mirror, her hands gripping the frame. She had seen, unlucky girl, that that room reflected within was naked of either her own reflection or mine.

  I gripped her paralysed wrist and twisted the knife from her grasp, then I grabbed her shoulders and turned her brutally to face me.

  ‘Ursilla!’ I snapped. She fell to the floor at my feet, crouched on hands and knees. She was shaking convulsively and gasping so hard I believed she was about to vomit. It was hard to recognise a young woman in this savage, helpless, terrible creature.

  ‘Look up!’ I commanded, but she could not, turning away from me a face frozen in a snarling rictus and flinching from my touch. I bit my lip and clenched my fists to stop them shaking. Then I unbound the soft, woven belt from about my dress and knotted it around her neck; I used it to drag her to her feet. And on the end of that leash I marched her out of my room and down the stairs into the bowels of the castle, past the Great Hall, through the smoke-filled vault of the kitchen and behind the ovens to the small buttery. She lurched and choked on the end of the belt, keeping her footing with difficulty. Servants scattered before us like panicked hens. ‘Get out of here!’ I ordered, and they fled.

  When we were alone among the barrels of thin barley beer and sour, elderly wine, I yanked Ursilla to her knees once more and fastened the end of the lead to a heavy table leg. Then I stripped her, ripping the clothes from her back, laces and seams tearing under my hands. I stole even her undershift from her, leaving her naked on the stone floor, the belt around her neck her only garment.

  ‘You,’ I said, in tones of winter ice, ‘will stay here until I come back for you. Do not move from this place. Do not speak. Do not touch that belt. You will learn obedience. Now.’

  Carrying her clothes, I left her there. I gave instructions to the remains of the kitchen-staff that she was not to be approached or acknowledged. Then I retired to my room to effect what repairs I could to the wreckage.

  I returned to Ursilla at the end of the day, long after the final meal, when all the servants had finished their work and the kitchen was empty. In the pitch dark, she must have had warning of my approach by the light of the candle-lantern I was bearing, but she did not raise her head as I entered the small room. She kneeled in the same position as I had left her, dark hair curtaining her face, but she had in the meantime found an old apron discarded nearby and contrived to wrap it round her as a shift in a vain attempt to conserve both her warmth and her modesty. She must have been quite cold in that room. The stained linen covered her breasts but barely brushed her naked pubic mound with its lower edge, and she crossed her hands over her pudenda as I stood over her. I found her shyness touching.

  ‘Well, Ursilla,’ I said softly. ‘Does it please you to be treated like an animal, as you have acted like one?’

  ‘I … I have to make water,’ she replied. Her voice was cracked.

  ‘I thought a bitch pissed wherever it pleased her,’ said I.

  She shivered. ‘I wanted to wait. For you.’

  I permitted myself a small smile, which she did not see because she still would not look up at me. ‘Then, Ursilla, you have my permission to relieve yourself.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Go on.’

  She spread her thighs, gave a single little moan of relief, and let the piss flood out from her aching belly. It ran in steaming rivulets across the bare flagstones. The pleasure of that release was visible in the shudders that chased across her flesh; I could see the tension flow from her with the water.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘You may undo the rope now.’ I watched her reach to the belt, but to my surprise she did not slip the noose from about her neck, but instead tugged free the knot at the table-leg, so that the loose end of the silken rope fell free and dangled down the length of her body. She made no move to escape the belt itself – indeed, I suspect she found it comforting now. My belly tightened. ‘Come here,’ I said hoarsely.

  She came to me on hands and knees, across the length of the floor, her leash trailing, avoiding as best she could the puddles she had made. When she reached my feet she bowed her head low and kissed my right ankle, her warm breath tickling me shyly, the touch of her lips as soft as cobweb. The apron left her buttocks bare; they tipped up as she kneeled, pale as the soles of her tiny feet, almost glowing in the candlelight. I could not help but sigh under her supplicant caress, and leaned back against the barrel
behind me.

  Fearfully, with great hesitation and daring, she lifted the edge of my skirt further, and explored the curve of my calf with her lips, planting dozens of tiny, gentle kisses, breathless with trepidation, across the bare swell of skin. I permitted these familiarities graciously, even parting my legs a little to allow her greater ease of access. Not a word passed between us. No words could have fully expressed my surprise – my delight – my gratitude and glory. It was as if I had given birth to an angel. My heart felt as if it were trying to escape from my breast, my skin flushed with fire. I touched the dark and shining mass of her hair with my fingertips, not daring to grasp her in the savage caress I felt building within me, not daring to break that fearful miraculous moment of joy and mutual surrender. Her kisses burned my skin. I lifted the bunched weight of my skirt higher and higher, leading the way for her to my thighs and beyond. She whimpered softly as she kissed me. Her tongue described swirls of delight on my tenderest flesh, her face was in my hair, her lips were on my lips, her hot breath was on my soul. I opened to her. She crushed her face into the perfumed nest of my groin, gasping and nuzzling, her tongue a slippery finger of torment and need. She drank me down. She ate me up. I cried out and danced on her suckling, hungry mouth. I wrapped my fingers in her hair and crushed her closer, grinding on her writhing face, feeling her teeth and tongue and lips as I had never dared hope, feeling her wetness mingling with mine, feeling fire throbbing through my possessed and raging flesh –

  And, oh, she held me to her lips like the Holy Grail itself as I was filled with the flames, and she drank the white liquid fire of heaven that poured through me down her open throat. In the cellar of a windswept castle, my skirts hitched to my waist, straddling the face of my stepdaughter – clasping her to that wet hole from which she had never emerged but now clove to as if trying to force her way back in – oh, there my heart was torn asunder.