Cauldron of Fear

by Jennifer Jane Pope

  Immediately the diminutive creatures sprang up, their unfettered breasts jiggling freely as they ran a cross the room to flank their master, sheer adoration shining from their huge eyes. They seemed to know exactly what was expected for them, for having paused long enough just for Grayling to tweak a nipple each, they suddenly dropped to their knees and slid beneath the two bound white girls, squatting on their haunches, facing the feet of their respective woman, their upturned faces mere inches away from the two bared sexes.

  'The kiss of the whip is one thing,' Grayling purred, 'the kiss of the tongue is another. Put the two together and we create a thing of pure beauty.'

  'I don't follow, man!' Soberton exclaimed. 'Just what are you getting at?'

  'Well, my lord,' Grayling said, 'prepare yourself for a new education. My two little Nubian beauties here have tongues the like of which no white woman has ever been possessed. Why, I suspect they may even be descended from the serpent in the Garden of Eden itself.' He clapped his hands again and made a flickering movement with his tongue.

  Immediately the two black girls stuck out their own tongues and Soberton gave a cry of astonishment, for both girls easily curled their tongues in great loops, so that their tips touched not just the tips of their noses, but the very bridges themselves.

  'Good God, sir!' Soberton exclaimed again. 'But they are a pair of little serpents and no mistaking!'

  It was a good analogy, as Sarah and Kitty quickly found out. Another signal from Grayling and the crouching girls went to work. Sarah gasped, her startled moans forcing their way past her gag as the warm appendage pushed its way inside her, parting her labial lips easily and penetrating almost as far as Ross's member had earlier.

  Almost immediately her girl's fulsome lips seemed to clamp about Sarah's swollen clitoris, sucking it out to an unbelievably distended length and sending fiery currents of desire swirling throughout her every nerve ending. She was dimly aware of Kitty's eyes growing even larger above her gagged mouth and realised that the other girl's tongue was having just the same effect upon her.

  'Excellent,' Grayling said with quiet satisfaction. 'You see, milord, how they can work a cunny, eh? Every bit as good as they are at sucking a man's cock, I can tell you.' He laughed and continued to pace up and down, stooping every so often to study the girls' progress.

  'See here, milord,' he invited, bending down to examine between Sarah's splayed thighs. 'Have you ever seen a nubbin stretch to such length? Hold Topsy, loose your devilish little grip for a moment.' He clicked his fingers and Sarah felt her clitoris sliding from between the soft lips. At the same time, Soberton moved around to see for himself.

  'By Jove!' he wheezed. 'Damn you, Grayling, name me a price for her, at least. You'll still have the one with the big titties, for heaven's sake!'

  Hannah Pennywise halted less than a hundred yards on from the clearing where she had left Jane Handiwell. A fallen tree, long dead and rotted and victim of the previous winter's storms, lay half across what there was of the track she'd been following and she eased down onto it, sighing heavily.

  'Well, little Miss Janey,' she said, voicing her thoughts out loud, 'a lot of use you intends to be, unless I'm mistaken, which I knows I ain't.' Her eyes narrowed and her wrinkled forehead furrowed even deeper in concentration.

  'I reckons you've got more to hide than just your tomfoolery efforts at witchin',' she mused. 'But one thing's for certain, you ain't got nothing to do with Wickstanner's wicked doin's and you don't know what's happened to the lad, neither.'

  Pausing and straightening somewhat, Hannah lifted her head, sniffing the breeze. She remained thus for two or three minutes, her eyes half closed, yet not blinking, her breathing barely noticeable. At last, she relaxed again.

  'Ah,' she whispered, 'so that's it, is it? Well, you're closer than I thought, my lad, and at least you're more than just alive. And what's this?' She stiffened again, her head inclining to one side, a cunning smile spreading across her weathered features.

  'Well, well,' she hissed, her knuckles whitening as she gripped her cane even more tightly. 'So comes the keeper, eh? And fresh with the smell of his devilish excesses, too. Well, we'll soon see about this, won't we?'

  With a stifled grunt, Hannah pulled herself back to her feet and then, with one curious glance back towards where the clearing was now hidden by trees and bushes, she manoeuvred around the rotting tree and began to move even deeper into the woods.

  The two women and the three lads walked together along the lane towards the crossroads and the Black Drum. Late though the hour now was, they knew the small taproom at the rear of the inn would still be open, for although most of the travellers who were staying overnight would like as not have taken to their beds by now, there were always a few local men happy to drink on into the night and ever the chance that there would still be others on the road, seeking shelter and refreshment for a few hours.

  Sure enough, as Harriet pushed open the door a dozen pairs of eyes - male, apart from Lizzie Eldridge, who was performing her usual late serving duties - turned towards her. Ignoring the men, Harriet made for Lizzie, only to be told that Master Handiwell had not yet returned from the coast. Harriet thought for a few moments, considering the possible courses of action that remained open to them. They were not many.

  'Mistress Jane,' she said eventually, 'is she at home?'

  Lizzie looked blank. 'I'm blessed if I know, Miss Harriet,' she said. 'We don't hardly see her down here. I can pop up and see if Beth, her maid, is awake, though it's quite late, you know.'

  'Yes, I do know,' Harriet said apologetically, 'and I should not be here at this hour, were it not a matter of great importance.'

  Leaving Anne to deal with any more orders for ale, Lizzie disappeared through a curtained doorway. Anne drew closer to Harriet and whispered in her ear.

  'Why ask for Jane?' she asked urgently. 'You surely can't expect her to be of much use? She's a queer one, and no mistaking.'

  'Maybe so,' Harriet replied, 'but I've been thinking since we left your cottage and something has been eating away at me. Jane Handiwell has no time for me anyway, but I just have a feeling that something here is sitting all wrong.'

  A few minutes later Lizzie reappeared, shaking her head.

  'Beth reckons Miss Jane is fast asleep and has been these past two or three hours,' she informed them. 'Reckons it's more than her job's worth to wake her, whatever the reason.'

  'I see,' Harriet replied thoughtfully. 'Well, I thank you, Lizzie.'

  'Would you like to wait for the master?' Lizzie suggested. 'The little parlour is empty and I could fetch you something, maybe some wine?'

  'No, thank you all the same,' Harriet replied, smiling. 'Perhaps we shall return in a while, but for the moment I think I need some air and a little exercise. The thought of just sitting in the one place would drive me to my wits' end.'

  The three boys were waiting for them outside, Toby not wanting to risk entering the taproom in case his father Ned, an habitual late night drinker, should be inside. He greeted the news that Ned had not been present with some surprise and not a small amount of sarcasm.

  'Probably started early and gone off to sleep it off,' he muttered. 'There's a few comfortable ditches hereabouts.'

  'You hold your tongue, Toby Blaine!' Anne snapped. 'Show a bit of respect for once.' She turned to Harriet. 'So, what next?' she asked.

  Harriet pursed her lips thoughtfully. 'Toby,' she said, 'you were saying earlier about Lady Ellen's two horses?'

  'S'right,' he agreed. 'Know 'em both well. Both fine beasts.'

  'What about Miss Jane's horse? Does she always ride the same one?'

  'Mostly,' he said. 'That big bugger, Marquis. Black as the night, he is.'

  'You know him well, then?'

  'Pretty much, miss, yes. We all sees her out riding. She's often over towards the downs.'

  'On her own?'

  'Um, mostly, yeah,' Toby said.

  'Seen her riding with Kate Dawson a
couple of times,' Matt Cornwell offered.

  'And with Lady Jane,' Billy Dodds added, 'though only the once, I think.'

  Anne looked closely at Harriet's face, but Harriet's expression remained impassive.

  'You ain't thinkin' what I think you're thinkin', are you?' she asked quietly. Harriet let out a long, low breath.

  'I'm not sure what I'm thinking,' she replied. 'Too many unexplained things, too many possible coincidences. However,' she continued, looking meaningfully towards the boys again, 'there's one thing we can check out for certain.

  'Toby, I want you to go around to the stables, if you please. Tell whoever is on duty in there that I wish to discuss the possibility of hiring a mount until the morning. Tell him I am waiting here, under the light. Then, when he comes around to see me, I want you to sneak inside and see if you can see this Marquis.'

  'No need for that, Miss Harriet,' Anne interrupted before Toby could move. 'Master keeps his three mounts and a couple more, including Marquis, in the smaller stables, over there, under them trees by the paddock, see?' She pointed towards a low, darkened building about fifty yards from the main stable block.

  'It'll be locked for the night, then, surely?' Harriet said.

  'Surely it will,' Anne said, 'but I knows where they keeps the key. Give me a couple of pennies to slip Lizzie and I'll go fetch it for you.'

  Sarah felt as though she were in the midst of a dream, drifting weightlessly on clouds of lust and desire, the long tongue thrusting in and out of her taking on a life of its own, coaxing from her some inner self that she would never have believed existed. Oblivious to everything but the warm, wet little invader and to the eager and nimble little fingers that now teased her nipples, she sucked languidly on the penis gag, groaning and writhing gently in her bonds.

  The stinging cut of Roderick Grayling's crop, as it hissed across her raised buttocks, brought her screeching out of her reverie, bucking in agony, her teeth clamping on the leather that held them apart, Kitty's head writhing in time with her own. A second later she heard the sharp crack of leather on flesh again, but this time it was Kitty who howled and jerked.

  All the while the two black slave girls remained at their tasks, tongues lapping and probing, lips massaging and sucking.

  'Pain and pleasure,' Sarah heard Grayling say. 'Such bittersweet harmony, I always think. See, Soberton, how even the kiss of my lash does little to dull their desires. In fact, you will see that, if anything, a well-placed stripe or three will actually serve to heighten them. See here!'

  He moved back behind Sarah as he spoke and again the braided crop fizzed through the air. The report seemed to echo inside Sarah's very head, yet, though her anguished cry was scarcely stifled by her gag, the fire in her ravaged nether cheeks seemed merely to merge with the furnaces already burning within her.

  As the crop descended upon Kitty for a second time Sarah let out a long wail, her back arching and stiffening like a board, her stomach tightening like a bow-string and then releasing, as an orgasm of the greatest proportions drove everything else from her consciousness. She was not even aware that in front of her, joined to her by their communal gag, Kitty too had finally surrendered to her body's demands.

  And neither girl, each as helpless to resist as the other, either heard, or cared, as Roderick Grayling chuckled evilly to himself and Henry Soberton, his hands pressed tightly to his crotch, ejaculated madly inside his fine silk breeches.

  'Would anyone else ride Marquis?' Harriet asked Anne, after the boys had returned from the paddock stable with the news that Jane's big black stallion was not in any of the stalls there. 'How about her father? Might he have taken the horse to go to Portsmouth?'

  'He's got his own two favourites,' Toby replied, not waiting for Anne to respond. 'There's Lightning, the one with the funny looking blaze and then there's Quicksilver, the grey. Lightning's not in there either, in case you was going to ask.' He grinned impishly and Harriet could not help but smile back at him.

  'I think I chose well when I recruited your help, eh Toby?' she chuckled. 'So,' she continued, looking up into the moonless sky, 'we can assume that Thomas has not ridden to Portsmouth on Marquis.' She pondered silently for several more seconds.

  'Which begs the question,' she continued eventually, 'as to where the beast might be. And I can think of only one logical answer.'

  'Me too,' Toby said smugly. 'She's gone out a-ridin' somewhere and don't want anyone to know. That Beth would say anything she was told to say. She dotes on Miss Jane like a soft puppy dog.'

  'Well,' Anne said cautiously, 'maybe we'd best not go too far down that road, but Toby's right: Beth would do anything for her mistress.'

  'So, we have two of our three ladies definitely out and about this night,' Harriet said, 'and possibly a third one. Ellen Grayling we don't know about, but we can assume that she's somewhere in the vicinity of Grayling Hall, which was the direction these lads last saw Mary Watling and Kate Dawson riding.'

  'You think Jane Handiwell is mixed up with them three, then?' Anne asked, doubt in her tone but eagerness in her eyes.

  'I don't know,' Harriet admitted. 'None of us does. As I said earlier, there are just coincidences, nothing more, and nothing less. But I do know one thing for certain, I most certainly cannot suggest such to Master Handiwell, if and when he returns.'

  James Calthorpe came out of his fitful sleep with a start, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. Laying motionless in the dark, he listened keenly, certain that it had been some unexpected noise that had awakened him. He did not have long to wait.

  From beyond the door of the hut he heard two sharp snapping sounds, as unwary boots fell upon dry twigs and then, muffled, but nonetheless recognisable, the sound of an oath and a low groan. After a few further seconds of silence another twig snapped, and then came the sound of heavy boots on the dead and dried leaves that carpeted so much of the forest floor this late in the season.

  Slowly, James levered himself up into a sitting position, tensing himself, though he was only too well aware that his fettered ankles made any effective attempt at confrontation most unlikely. Halfway to rising to his feet he hesitated, considered his situation, and sat down again.

  A moment later the door swung open, revealing a rectangular patch that was only marginally less black than the rest of the interior walls and a barely distinguishable silhouette that quickly filled it.

  'Who are you? Speak man!' His voice sounded too high, even to his own ears, but James was determined to voice his indignation. His only immediate reply, however, was another muttered curse, followed by a succession of sparks as the newcomer, whoever or whatever he was, struggled with a tinderbox. Finally the wick spluttered into flame, the flame was brought towards the lamp the man had brought with him and then, at last, the hut was bathed in light again.

  Staring up, James studied the fellow and was not heartened by what he saw. The man was perhaps in his late thirties, or early forties, with weathered face, large rough hands, and powerful shoulders. His clothing was serviceable and of reasonable quality, but his shirt looked grimy and his fingernails, as he reached out to place the lantern alongside the now near empty water flagon, were encrusted with dirt.

  'Who are you?' James demanded at last, his voice now nearer its normal pitch. 'I demand to know and I also demand to know why I have been kept prisoner here?' The fellow straightened up, placed his hands on his hips and grinned, revealing teeth that were uneven and badly blackened.

  'Don't matter who I am,' he said. His accent reminded James of London, and his attitude was all too reminiscent of the villainous underclass that frequented the taverns around the docks. Up close it was easy to see - on the road, James realised now that he had not been so astute, for he was certain that this fellow had been one of the two riders who assaulted him. 'What matters, mister,' the man growled, 'is that I've brought you food and water, so mind your manners or I'll tip the lot outside and the foxes can have it, see?'

  'Then at least tel
l me,' James persisted, though in a tone he hoped sounded more reasonable, for the importance of fresh water was not lost on him, 'why I am being held against my wishes.'

  'Because his nibs says to, that's why,' the man replied carelessly. 'And that's all I'm going to say, so you just rest easy, right. You'll be set free again soon enough, so long as you don't give no trouble.' He turned, stepped outside the hut, reaching for something, and a moment later ducked inside again, clutching a small sack.

  'See here,' he laughed, reaching inside the bag, 'I even brought you some meat tonight. Fresh cooked at that inn and very nice it is, too.' He set down a hunk of pork and followed this with half a loaf. The final item was another pewter flagon, the twin of the one in which James had discovered the water earlier.

  'There was a lump of cake, too,' the man said, grinning, 'but my mate wolfed that, gutty pig that he is. Still, we could have just let you starve. If it had been up to me I wouldn't have bothered. It's a fucking dangerous ride through these woods at this time of night, I can tell you.'

  Ignoring the original flagon and bowl he folded the sack and turned towards the door, from where he looked back, still with his foul-toothed grin.

  'I'll even leave you the lamp, see?' he said. 'No use to me out there, 'cos his nibs said not to show a light, but it'll be all right in here. Mind you,' he added, 'I'd turn the wick down some, if I was you. There ain't much oil in the bugger.'

  'When will you be back?' James asked hurriedly.

  The man paused and shrugged. 'Depends,' he said. 'Tomorrow night. Maybe earlier. Way I hear it, it all comes down to whether the old baggage pays the tithe. If not, we hangs the wench at midday and that's an end to it.'

  'What old baggage?' James demanded, more alarmed than ever now. 'And what wench are you to hang?'

  The fellow shrugged again. 'Does it matter? You ain't in no place to do anything about it, which was the general idea, of course.'