Under a Stern Reign

by Raymond Wilde

  Elise looked around. She was in a dingy, damp cell, and it was cold. Beneath a small barred window, from which dull grey daylight seeped, there was a chair and a desk, behind which hulked a man, another beside him with his back against the wall.

  ‘Come here,’ the man behind the desk beckoned. They were both sullen, a fresh-looking scar marking the cheek of one who spoke to her. She moved to the desk, feeling chilly, her thighs and shoulders aching. ‘Take a seat,’ he ordered. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to wake up, Elise de Tranville. You’ve had a long sleep. Have a drink.’

  There was a bowl of water on the desk in front of her, so she sat on the vacant chair and drank thirstily.

  ‘I have some bad news for you, and some good news,’ the man behind the desk went on. He held a riding-crop and swished it casually through the air. ‘Which would you prefer first?’

  Elise stared at him. He was a tall man with grey hair. He had sharp features and a long nose, his complexion slightly pockmarked. His eyes were dull, lifeless. She glanced at the crop. It was Count de Tranville’s.

  ‘Well, the bad news first, I suppose,’ he answered for her, smiling, his teeth looking sharp, like those of a rat. ‘Bad news for you, at least, but not for the revolution.’

  ‘What is it?’ Elise snapped impatiently. Her head hurt.

  ‘Your stepfather is dead.’

  She stared at him coldly. He rubbed his nose with a bony finger and gazed at her coolly.

  ‘He died of the wound inflicted by Rodolfo de Agora before our surgeons could do anything to help him.’ The man smiled and looked down. ‘And before he could be tried for his treachery.’

  Elise’s eyes watered slightly; she did not want to cry in front of this loathsome creature.

  ‘That was a nasty knock you received,’ the man went on, watching her closely. ‘You’ve been unconscious for over a day. I’m sorry my men were a little boisterous, but they couldn’t afford to put themselves at risk. You understand, I’m sure.’

  ‘Where are they?’ Elise asked, feeling sick at the realisation that her stepfather was dead. ‘Where are Rodolfo and Genevieve?’

  ‘Ah,’ the man sighed. ‘Now, that is a very good question. One that I was hoping you could help me with.’

  Elise stared at him blankly. What was he planning to do to her?

  ‘But first that piece of good news I promised you.’ He smiled in a way that disconcerted Elise. ‘It seems you have a friend in a high place who thinks very highly of you. A certain Madame Coubette. According to her, you are an ardent supporter of the revolution and you are willing to assist us in any way you can.’

  He looked at Elise quizzically, and she felt compelled to lower her eyes.

  ‘She has requested that no harm come to you,’ he continued. ‘She wants to take you home to help you recover, but I need to keep you here for questioning,’ he smiled in a way that made her shudder, ‘for a while, at least.’

  Elise remained silent.

  ‘You’re very lucky, you know,’ he went on. ‘If it wasn’t for her insistence on your revolutionary ideals, you would not only be sharing the same fate as all other aristocrats, but I would make your punishment a matter of personal pleasure.’ He slammed the crop down on the table with a loud snap, making Elise flinch where she sat. He chuckled, bending the crop in his hands, smirking through his sharp teeth. ‘What a strange bunch you aristocrats are,’ he sniggered, staring at her coldly.

  Elise noted tightness setting into his jaw. She felt warmth filling her cheeks, a tingling in her nipples, but she stoically fixed her eyes on his. ‘If Madame Coubette, your high-placed friend, has expressed a wish for me not to be harmed,’ she said, as calmly as she could manage, ‘I would suggest you do as she says.’

  The man remained silent, but still the inquisitor’s glaring eyes did not flicker from her face, and she couldn’t help but notice the intensity with which his fingers gripped the crop, the implement forming a slim leather arc between his two fists, and she wondered at the wisdom of goading him. He was clearly very volatile and very dangerous.

  ‘Monsieur Coubette and his wife have been very generous and very useful to me,’ he said, so quietly Elise could barely hear him. But there was menace in his cold tone. ‘He has donated considerable funds to our cause, and she has extended numerous services of all kinds. However, I am the head of Rency’s revolutionary committee, and let me warn you that if you provoke me I shall whip you like a cur, regardless of what our bourgeois friends request.’

  The man was in control again. Elise’s cloak had slipped open slightly, and he casually glanced down a little, blatantly admiring the upper slopes of her creamy breasts and the beckoning shadows of her deep cleavage. He drew his tongue pensively over his upper lip and looked back up into her eyes. He was mocking her again.

  ‘While you have been sleeping,’ he went on, ‘Madame Coubette and I have been discussing you at length. You, and your future.’ Elise thought it wise to remain silent. Perhaps she shouldn’t push him too much too soon.

  ‘What do you know about this man Rodolfo?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘He is Portuguese,’ Elise told him without compunction; she felt nothing but loathing towards the man who had murdered her stepfather, and would rejoice on the imminent day when the guillotine took his head. ‘He is a man of leisure, an aristocrat. He was planning to take my stepfather and me to Portugal. I didn’t want to go, of course.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I expect he’s making his way out of the country, as planned.’ Elise shrugged. ‘He may have already parted with Genevieve, to save his own worthless skin.’

  ‘Genevieve de Montvert?’ the man probed curiously, and then smiled. It was an icy smile, a smile that made even Elise shudder. ‘It is strange,’ he went on, as though thinking aloud, ‘but it is clear that Madame Coubette harbours a hatred for this Genevieve de Montvert.’

  ‘I know exactly how she feels,’ Elise muttered, and the man observed her silently, his dead eyes once more flitting down to her smooth slopes of bared flesh.

  ‘Personal feelings aren’t my business,’ he said firmly. ‘But spies are.’

  Elise frowned with puzzlement.

  ‘I believe this Rodolfo is in touch with other aristocrats in France, as well as their sympathisers. I believe he passes funds to those with cause to interfere with the revolution. I also believe he intends to continue with his activities, despite his near capture.’

  As he spoke Elise followed the movement of the man’s eyes, crawling over those areas of her flesh that were naked to him. She felt her lascivious nipples stiffen and pulled the cloak tighter so that their outline could be seen through the rough fabric, deciding it would be much wiser to have the man as an ally rather than an enemy.

  The sight of her sultry beauty was clearly distracting him, so she smiled invitingly and crossed her legs, allowing the cloak to slip apart, baring her slender thighs. He stared down for a moment, and then lifted his eyes back to hers.

  ‘It is for these reasons that I want Rodolfo de Agora to be located and captured,’ he continued, as though unmoved by her beauty. ‘Captured or killed, either will suffice.’

  Elise smiled alluringly. ‘It is a commendable ambition, sir,’ she purred in hushed tones. ‘And one that would make me very happy, too. I would have nothing but the highest regard for the man responsible for instigating the operation. He would have my undying gratitude and admiration. He would be a man worthy of my most sincere affections...’

  ‘Madame Coubette believes that you might be able and willing to help me with this objective,’ he went on, his penis hardening under the desk as he interpreted her innuendos correctly.

  Elise remained silent, but absently smoothed a hand over her thighs.

  ‘According to her you are able to facilitate his capture, and as a bonus, the capture of Genevieve de Montvert, either in Fr
ance or wherever they hide like the vermin they are.’ He watched her hand gliding over her thighs. ‘In exchange for your assistance you will be freed. You will also be entitled to keep a proportion of your property.’

  Elise frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Your stepfather’s chateau and goods have been confiscated by the revolution,’ he answered blankly. ‘However, there are certain debts that we have owing to Monsieur Coubette. In part exchange for the write-off of these debts we are handing over fifty percent of the estate to his wife. The other fifty percent will be given to you in exchange for your services; this one I have just mentioned, and those that either myself, others in the committee or Monsieur and Madame Coubette may from time to time call on you to perform.’

  Elise grimaced, her eyes staring at him coldly.

  ‘But relax,’ he said slowly. ‘As far as I am concerned, the capture of Rodolfo is the only real service I want from you. And if it happens that in some way you can help with the capture of other traitors, then I may call on you further.’

  Her lips were still tightly clenched.

  ‘As far as Madame Coubette is concerned,’ he continued. ‘Well, she is well known for her fiery temper, a temper so strong that it often clouds her wisdom. As we spoke she swore that if you could offer her Genevieve de Montvert as a prize, she would well consider returning her half of the estate to you. It is something I’m sure you two can discuss together. I believe she is coming this afternoon to invite you to enjoy her hospitality at her home. Her hospitality is splendid, I can assure you.’

  The man stood up to leave, and Elise stood up too.

  ‘I hope we understand each other, Elise de Tranville,’ he said, and then without warning his eyes narrowed and with the speed of a snake he snatched her wrist and spun her round. Elise could only offer a staccato shriek under the speed and surprise of the attack, unable to offer any resistance as he twisted and pinned her arm excruciatingly up behind her back. The desk bumped against her thighs as he breathed down her neck and leant his weight against her, pushing her down flat over the rough wood and ripping off the cloak, which he dropped to the grimy floor. Her cotton shift rucked up, leaving her bottom bared, and she grimaced as her breasts squashed painfully against the wooden surface, his weight pressing her down.

  Then with a sudden crack she felt a scorching strip bite across her exposed buttocks. She wanted to yell her outrage, but held it in as terror blended with a treacherous heat simmering between her legs, warming her insides, making her heart pound and her breath catch in her lungs.

  With one hand still twisting her arm the man slashed the crop down onto her bottom again. She bit her lip against the pain, her sex rubbing against the edge of the desk. She whimpered lamely. He struck again, turning the stripes of scorching heat into a generalised spread of warmth all over her rounded bottom cheeks. Her pussy pulsed heatedly, growing increasingly wet. Her mind spun, and she saw herself back on the dinning table, her buttocks proffered to her stepfather, and she wanted it again. She wanted something to fill her now, to throb deep inside her and make her rock back and forth as her pleasure rose to new heights. And she wanted Genevieve there to witness her ecstasy. She wanted to live that ecstatic night again.

  ‘Fuck me...’ she urged hoarsely. ‘Please, fuck me as hard as you can...’

  But the man needed no invitation. His erection was already in his hand. It thrust into her, filling her with one long penetration and drilling deep into her molten centre. She moaned, mumbling deliriously to herself, her eyes tightly closed as she absorbed the joy of being roughly fucked by the loathsome brute.

  He pumped angrily, watching the girl’s perfect fleshy spheres quiver and listening to the slap of his hairy groin against them as he inexorably quickened his rhythm. She fucked like a whore, he mused, rutting even more aggressively against her.

  Elise felt her nipples harden and rub painfully through her shift against the desk. Her legs were shaking, leaving her barely able to hold herself up, especially when he let go of her wrist and clasped her buttocks with both hands, kneading them like dough. He grunted like a wild boar, still rutting furiously, his rod ploughing deep inside her.

  And then he pressed deeper than ever and slumped, exhausted, onto her back, his cock pulsing rhythmically as it discharged his load, some seeping back and trickling down the insides of her thighs. She lay beneath his weight, panting, savouring her own diminishing waves of pleasure, her mind still reliving the recent night when her stepfather had fucked her in similar fashion, right in front of Genevieve.

  The man refastened his breeches. The riding-crop was on the floor, so he stooped and picked it up, glancing at Elise the whole time. Then he opened the heavy wooden door and left her alone in the silence and gloom, tears suddenly blurring her vision and meandering down her cheeks.

  Chapter Nine

  There was too much confusion going on in Genevieve’s mind. She had wanted Rodolfo from the first moment she ever set eyes on him, and she still did, didn’t she?

  She knew there was no one else like him. But during the period they had spent together he seemed removed from the man she imagined him to be. She was surprised and uncertain of his ruthlessness.

  So much had happened to her in so short a time. Things of all kinds flashed through her mind all through the day, and more so while she slept in her bedchamber in the craggy, hillside home of the Conde de Agora, near the ancient town of Sintra, some twenty miles from Lisbon.

  Their flight from France had exhausted every nerve in her body. After fleeing from de Tranville’s chateau she found herself crying uncontrollably as she struggled into the dead man’s clothes and as Rodolfo shouted and lashed furiously at the horses.

  Through the night they bumped along a deeply rutted forest path, and once clear of it he took them across fields and manoeuvred from one track to the next for the whole of the following day. He seemed to want to stop only briefly, and only then for the sake of the horses.

  Somehow she managed to sleep intermittently on the wagon floor, although each time they stopped she felt every inch of her body aching.

  At times he was taciturn. He said they would need to stay away from towns, so hungry and dirty they would sit by a wood fire at night, and she would nestle into his brawny arms for warmth and fear of the dark and the outdoors. But, as close as she was to him, she would stay awake wondering what would happen to her if he slept too deeply to hear the night’s dangers. It seemed as if she had never slept at all.

  There were times when he would simply ignore her and wander off with the musket he had quickly snatched after the fight, leaving her alone and terrified, returning hours later with a string of dead birds. He would pluck and roast them and avidly they would feed their aching stomachs like savages. He would smile as they chewed on the rough birds together, almost as if he were enjoying himself.

  Guessing routes, they arrived at the port of La Rochelle in what must have been about three or four days, but the time seemed to have merged into one long painful blur to Genevieve.

  In his way he had been considerate and oversaw her survival in the wild, but there were times when she thought surrender would be preferable to the painfully buffeting ride, the vigils for pursuers, the sleepless nights, the diet of little more than roast wildfowl, berries and water, and then the voyage to come.

  They were filthy as he pulled her along the harbour jetty, chatting, bartering with or simply talking down to scruffy captains as if he still were the fine gentleman and dandy and not a desperate man on the run.

  He would switch from one language or dialect to another, at times remonstrating with his arms and shouting like a street vendor, at times making her wince with the crudeness of his colloquy and vulgarity. The mariners seemed to come from all over the place - Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians and Greeks. He treated them all with the same mix of bluster and camaraderie.

  Rodolfo’s jaw
was covered in dark stubble, and sweat and soil clung to his clothes and forehead. He had almost no money in his purse, and after watching him spend nearly all of it on food and wine for them both in a seedy, whore-filled inn, she watched him sell the horses and wagon for a fraction of their value to a total stranger there.

  As the man trundled off, singing happily, her heart sank to new depths and tears filled her eyes. The sight of their departing transport reminded her that there was no return for her to the place she had called home. Where would she end up now?

  With the money from the sale he negotiated a pricey passage to Portugal from a small, highly dangerous looking man who would not take his eyes from her as they bartered over the fare. Finally, rubbing his chin and winking from her to one of his bearded and toothless crewmen, he agreed.

  She remained silent throughout, close behind the dishevelled man who had once been the one of her dreams, terrified of the dangerous faces that seemed to bode her nothing but ill will.

  The grubby man was a Portuguese sea captain, and almost as soon as they had set sail a heated argument erupted between him and Rodolfo outside their shoddy cabin, all over something she did not understand.

  They harangued each other in Portuguese for a lengthy period, and towards the end the voices of three of the ship’s equally menacing crew joined in, and she could perceive that threats and curses were being exchanged. At one point there was a thumping and stumbling sound, followed by curses and shouts.

  But amazingly it seemed to all end with laugher, and the voices of Rodolfo, the captain and the crewmen faded up onto deck. Rodolfo returned some hours later, fairly drunk and with a purplish bruise around one slightly swollen eye.

  He only explained it to her afterwards, though, casually and with a burst of laughter, once they had arrived in safety and spent a few days resting at his father’s hillside home.

  The captain and crew had taken Genevieve, with her clear eyes and slender shape, her grubbiness, her long hair hidden up under a hat and man’s clothes, to be a harbour rent boy. The captain’s own cherished cabin boy, a former rent boy from Marseilles, had run away while the ship was in port and the captain wanted Genevieve to take his place. He insisted that he had given them such a low passage fare on the assumption of Rodolfo’s consent to this arrangement.