Harriet recognised all the men who came to her in turn and used her helpless body like slavering beasts, clearly unable to believe their good fortune, and just as obviously not giving a single thought to the poor girl inside the mask. The fact that they assumed she was Matilda did nothing to lessen her ordeal; if anything, it served to emphasise the cruelty of her tormentors, for she doubted they would have worried who it was Crawley had turned over to them, and even if they suspected her true identity it would have made little or no difference to them.
In her eyes, the five men who took her represented the worst element of their little local society, although only one of them, Peter Farren, actually lived in the village itself. In theory, he was a wheelwright, but he had not worked much in that trade since old John Tyler the wagon maker died and his daughter passed the business on to a cousin in a village five miles to the south. Every week or so, Farren would ride down and work for a day or two, but in between he barely earned a living labouring on the surrounding farms. His reputation as a drinker and a sloth meant that even this work was sparse as he was only ever hired during the busiest parts of the season.
The same was more or less true of the other four. One, George Prentice, was the youngest son of a sheep farmer. He scrounged enough from the old man to drink and gamble, and did only as much as was necessary to persuade Harry Prentice not to kick him out. Alfred Diggins went from village to village and from farm to farm performing odd repair jobs and ditch clearing. His brother, Edward helped him occasionally and from time to time went off to the city for unspecified reasons.
The fifth man was originally a Londoner, Thaddeus Gilbert. What he did for a living no one really knew for he was never seen to work locally. It was rumoured he had originally been a thief in the capital and that he kept a hoard of gold coins hidden somewhere around the small cottage he rented from James Calthorpe's father, the miller Francis Calthorpe. Like the others, he spent much of his time in the Black Drum, but unlike them he never seemed short of a shilling or two, and would stand his drinking cronies rounds when they were short of cash.
Jacob Crawley would not have had to offer this seedy band much by way of inducement to join him, Harriet reflected grimly. There was not one among them who might not have sold his own grandmother if the price was right, and they would see acting as the witchfinder's bodyguard an easy way to make extra drinking money.
Harriet blinked, and looked up as yet another shadow loomed over her. It was Thaddeus Gilbert again, the third time he had come to her in what was probably no more than two hours, although time was now something Harriet had no way of judging accurately. He stood over her, unbuckled his belt and dropped his breeches, revealing the massive penis she now knew only too well.
'Get your legs open, slut,' he commanded in a raspy voice without further ceremony. 'Can't waste a good pussy while it's still available. Mind you, if your grandmamma comes up with the money, we might get to enjoy each other's company for a day or so longer, eh? I hope she does, sister, for both our sakes. I seen too many pretty wenches dancing on the end of the rope to find the prospect as good as the alternative. Now lay ye back, and try to act like you're alive this time, otherwise I'll like as not take my belt to your arse!'
Sarah was almost relieved when Ross returned, even though she knew what must inevitably follow. How long she had remained spread-eagled and impaled upon that terrible seat she could not tell, but the sound of the blood pulsing in her temples seemed to have grown both louder and slower, and her shadowy prison felt as if it had slipped into a timeless eternity of its own.
'Still comfortable on the throne, I see,' Ross remarked dryly.
Sarah peered out at him wondering just what sort of man could treat a fellow human in this fashion, and apparently even find humour in her plight. Had she not been gagged so efficiently, she knew she would have felt compelled to launch upon him a stream of invectives that would have had both her parents turning in their graves. As it was, all she could do was sit and glare back at him.
'By the time you leave here,' Ross said, moving closer to her, 'you'll think nothing of opening your legs to any man that commands you.' He reached out and with the backs of two fingers traced a feathery line down the length of her gaping sex lips.
Before she could stop herself, Sarah felt a tremble of spiky heat run from her groin up her spine and explode inside her head like a small fireball.
'You see,' Ross said, smiling thinly, 'there are already some things you cannot keep yourself from doing and being. You're beginning to understand that you no longer have any control over your existence, nor any control over the way in which your body wants to react. Quite soon now your flesh will demand things that only a short time ago you would surely have found abhorrent in the extreme, and you will crawl willingly at the feet of any master who you think might give them to you.' He reached out and gently ran one fingertip about her right nipple.
Again a shiver passed up her back.
'Not so big as Titty Kitty, but pretty titties all the same.' He moved his finger to her left nipple.
Although Sarah tried to steel herself, the resulting sensation was almost identical.
'If I'd done that to you in a drawing room a day or so ago,' Ross drawled, 'I daresay you'd have slapped my face and cried out for your servants to toss me into the street, but already you're understanding that feeling of helplessness a slave needs to experience as her entire life. Do you feel yourself to be a slave yet? Hmm, maybe not quite yet, but very soon I promise you will.' His fingers descended to her labia again, and this time probed just between them.
To Sarah's horror, she realised she was quite wet down there as the two digits slipped easily over her lubricated flesh.
Ross chuckled, and probed slightly deeper. 'Your body understands what your mind is still fighting against,' he told her. 'Here you are, primed and ready for a hot cock, and yet inside your head you still want to fight it, to fight even the desire for one. Shall I put my hot cock in here for your body's sake, slave Sarah?' Abruptly he stepped back, breaking the intimate contact. 'Maybe not just yet,' he said teasingly. 'Maybe we should encourage your body with a few more little tricks.' He leaned forward, and suddenly his lips were around her left nipple. He sucked on it, drawing it into his mouth until the ring beneath it was pressed against his lower lip.
Sarah groaned into her gag and only the broad strap about her waist prevented her from arching forward with an instinct she would never have believed herself capable of.
'Very nice,' Ross commented, straightening up and stepping back again. 'Let's try the other one.' Leaning forward again, he repeated the action on her other nipple.
This time Sarah was ready for the shockwaves, yet still she could do no more than fight the urge to jerk forward against the straps, for her head quickly began to buzz and she could feel the first warm trickle of her escaping juices on her inner thighs.
'Now your body is really betraying you,' Ross informed her. 'We both know I could take you easily now. If I removed your gag, would you perhaps even beg me to take you? No, I think not.' He shook his head. 'Your mind would still make you cry out and curse me, no doubt, whatever your body really wanted. And that's what this is all about, slave girl, freeing you from the mental restraints of years with the physical restraints in which you now sit. But be assured, my sweet little cock-sheath, free you I shall, and quicker than you might think!'
They came to the fence about a mile-and-a half into the woods. It was a simple structure, with eight or nine inch square sectioned posts driven deep into the ground every fifteen paces or so, and horizontal lengths fixed a few inches above the ground a similar distance from the top. To these had been nailed thinner vertical palings, set four or five inches apart, forming an impenetrable barrier some ten feet high and offering no purchase for a would be climber.
'They must have cut down half these woods to build this,' Paddy Riley whispered, grinning at his two companions. He looked to left and right, to where the fence disappeared
as far as the eye could see along the broad swathe cut through trees in either direction, a further precaution against anyone using nature as an aid to scaling the perimeter. 'You say this goes all the way round? How far, for the love of Michael?'
'Miles,' Toby grinned back. 'But they didn't get all this timber from the woods here,' he added. 'I remember when I was young there were wagons coming and going for weeks, and all these men down from London, most of them. Spent nigh on the entire summer putting this lot up.'
'Like their privacy, for sure,' Sean Kelly observed dryly. He peered up at the sharpened tops of the palings. 'Are we going over or under, me old sergeant friend? I've got a length of rope in me pack and a small trencher, too. The earth here feels a bit hard though, and I reckon they'll have bedded these bastards in a good foot or so.'
'We'll go through,' Paddy said. 'I've a small saw here, not nearly so big as I'd like, so it'll take maybe half an hour, but I'd rather take the time and make sure we have a decent bolthole if we get rumbled. A man trying to shin up over this lot would make a good target for those bastards, and we've already seen how straight they can shoot.'
'What about the dogs?' Toby reminded him. 'They've got keepers with dogs patrolling, and those dogs hear just about anything louder than a rabbit farting.'
'We'll just have to go real slow like,' Paddy said. He heaved the pack off his shoulder and dropped it to the ground at his feet. A moment later he was drawing out a foot long blade with a gleaming, serrated edge. 'My da' used to use this to cut into Lord Fleming's barns and hencoops. I nicked it off him ten years ago, and just sort of forgot to give it back. Useful little tool this is and I'm never without it. Amazing what uses something like this can have to a soldier on his travels, but then that's a whole lot of other stories and we've got work to do. Sean, you get along that way about fifty yards, and Toby, you do the same the other way. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears flapped well back and whistle to me if you hear anything. And Sean, the first sign of anyone with anything that looks like it might shoot, make sure you pick the bugger off before he gets a chance to take a pot shot in my direction. You let me catch one, and by the Holy Mother I'll come back and haunt you for sure!'
'Are these costumes entirely necessary, Grayling?' Sir Peregrine Wellthorne peered down at himself and wrinkled his nose. The tight leather breeches and figure-hugging jerkin had been dyed black to match the heavy boots. Alongside him, Roderick Grayling stood similarly dressed, except he also wore a black leather hood mask that covered his features down to just below his nose, leaving two narrow slits for his eyes.
'Not entirely necessary my dear fellow,' Grayling chuckled, 'but they do serve a purpose as defence against thorns and suchlike, and the masks add an element of mystery that is slightly terrifying to our quarry. Besides, this way they have little idea who it is that is actually bearing down on them, any more than we can tell one of the pretty feathered things from another.'
'Well, I must say, I feel a trifle foolish,' Peregrine complained, eyeing the mask he held in his hands with a mixture of suspicion and distaste. He looked around the drawing room as if expecting someone to burst in on them at any moment.
Grayling laid a reassuring hand on his arm. 'Relax, Wellthorne,' he urged. 'Take some more brandy and then get your mask on and no one will know who you are. There are three more guests to join the hunt, and none of them has any idea as to the identity of the others any more than you would know them or they you.'
Peregrine sniffed, and walked heavily across to the cabinet upon which the brandy decanter stood.
'Not too heavy on that,' Grayling called out. 'Not that I mind how much of my brandy you drink while you're here, for you're an honoured guest, but it helps to keep the head reasonably clear for the hunt itself. A fellow can break an ankle if he trips over a trailing root or a stray chunk of stone.'
'Tell me, Grayling,' Wellthorne replaced the decanter and picked up his glass goblet, 'these pistols we're using, you're sure they don't injure these girls permanently?'
'Of course not,' Grayling assured him, smiling. 'I'd not risk wasting valuable merchandise just for a few hours fun. No, all they fire is a soft pellet of thin leather sewn about oil-soaked muslin. They sting like hell and can knock the wind out of a girl, but they're not very accurate above twenty paces, so we have to get in fairly close, which makes it more of a sport, don't you think?'
'Seems to me a fellow would have to get very lucky, or else land several hits, in order to bring his bird to ground,' Peregrine observed.
Grayling nodded. 'The knack is to hit the right places,' he said. 'In the stomach or the lower chest will wind them for sure, and a hit around the top of the leg numbs the muscles and usually sends them into spasms, which makes running much harder. A hit on the head will usually stun them completely, but the head is off limits here. If the slug catches the wrong spot it can kill, and we did lose one girl last year. So no head shots, please. Have yourself some sport with a few shots at their titties, by all means. But remember, you want to enjoy the prize to the full afterwards, so you want to keep your bird wide awake for the table!' He turned away and walked across to the window looking out across the lawn. 'Well sir, as soon as you've finished your drink I think we should make a start. It doesn't hurt to keep the birds waiting for a little while, keeps them nicely on their toes, but time marches on and the sun is almost overhead now.'
Matilda's original fear and confusion had begun to clear and was now beginning to metamorphose into a cold determination. Peering out from her feathered bird mask, she watched as various grooms and servants moved about through a steadily growing knot of what she could tell was mostly nobility, even if some of their number were most curiously garbed themselves. To her surprise she saw there were women amongst them; women dressed in lavish silks and satins she was sure would not have been out of place in the late king's court, their hair piled high and beset with glittering jewelled pins and bright ribbons. Their painted faces were animated with an excited lust reflecting that on the features of their men folk, at least on the features not hidden behind those dreadful black masks.
One of the younger grooms had taken great delight in explaining to the bird-girls that these were the actual hunters and that the others were merely spectators, some of whom would be watching from hides and platforms set among the trees while the women would watch and wait from the lawn, eager, no doubt, to see the captured bird slaves brought home in triumph.
A red-haired female, the youngest among their number as far as Matilda could tell, kept drifting towards the bird-girls, and although she did not approach them directly, her interest was obvious. What does she find so intriguing about a few helpless females dressed so ridiculously? Matilda wondered. Was it their near-nakedness despite their feather coverings, or was it just their overall pitiful plight she was mocking by her nearness and the contrast with her own beautifully tailored finery compared with their gaudy feather traps?
One of the unmasked men called out to the redhead. 'I say, Isobel,' his face was flushed with drink and excitement, 'what on earth is going through that pretty head of yours? I swear, you've looked over every inch of these pretty little tweeters not once but a dozen times. Fancy someone to hunt one for you, do you?'
The young woman rounded on the fellow, eyes blazing. 'If I did,' she snapped, 'I'd not choose you as my champion, Guy Bressingham. I wouldn't trust you to sit a horse in that state, let alone try to track one of these pretties through Roderick's wood. You'd like as not fall and break your fool neck, if I know you!'
'Tish!' Bressingham chided her, raising a hand in a mock defensive gesture. 'You're too cruel my dear, too cruel by half. Give me half a good reason and I'd be as good a hunter as any you care to name, but then I don't see you as a hunted bird, more's the pity.'
'And if you did,' Isobel retorted, 'it'd take more than you've got to ruffle my feathers!'
'But we'll never know, will we?' Bressingham replied, and deliberately yawned. 'I'd wager five hundred guineas I'd h
ave you within the hour, but then you wouldn't take that risk, would you?'
Immediately, several heads turned and even Matilda's ears pricked up. Five hundred guineas? That was a small fortune, even in these circles.
'Hah, a wager, is it?' another man asked. He was some years older than Bressingham and going badly to fat, which certainly precluded him from anything as active as this hunt. 'Why, I'll offer even money on Bressingham to anyone who wants to take it. I'm sorry, my dear Isobel,' he leered at her, 'but the odds are against any of these birds remaining on the loose for more than a couple of hours at best, and I doubt you'd be quite as quick as they.'
'And why do you doubt that, my lord?' Isobel snapped. 'Just because I haven't spent my life scrubbing floors and carrying buckets doesn't mean I cannot run. Besides, brains come into the equation, and I'd back my intelligence against a dozen of these silly whores.'
'Ah, so you'll accept my challenge?' Bressingham laughed, and the young redhead looked suddenly confused and alarmed. 'Or perhaps your brains aren't really what you claim them to be?' he added.
Matilda gawped in disbelief as the scene unfolded before her. Surely this young noblewoman wasn't intending to allow herself to be put through the same humiliation that had been inflicted upon herself and these other girls? And yet... maybe that was why she had been so interested in them in the first place, she reasoned. Perhaps she had been looking at them and wondering what it would feel like to be so helpless, to know that soon she must run, if not for her life then at least for her honour, whatever remained of it. Whatever the reason, the redheaded fool seemed reluctant to back down.
The Devil's Surrogate Page 6
