“Bow, you stupid bitches,” the overseer yelled, snapping his short whip behind them. Margaret and her two young daughters did as they were told and Sir Charles smiled and scratched his groin. “So,” the gross man said with a leer, “they refused to yield and now they lie bleeding in a ditch, your stupid husband and your fair son, when they could be here serving me just as you will be doing.”

“Never, you bastard,” snarled the beautiful woman, her dark hair almost covering her face as her head was forced down by the overseer’s foot.

He laughed and had the youngest girl brought before him. He tore off her light gown with both hands, mauled her high young breasts and then jabbed a fat finger into her deep recess and smiled in her face. “A virgin, eh, a prime virgin. Ha, you’re worth gold, you are. Take her to my private chamber and restrain her and bring the other little bitch here. Do not poke her, you dolt!”

Two of his soldiers dragged Beatrice away, sniffing back tears, trying to be as brave as her mother was.

Simone, the 16-year-old redhead, stood before Sir Charles and glared at him. “Coward,” she spat.

The huge nobleman waved his eldest son to his side, nudged the boy with his elbow, and asked, “Want her, boy. A decent bedwarmer, eh?”

The young man nodded and said, “Yes, father, mine jumped from the parapet last week. I’ve been using scullery maids since.”

“Then you may have her, my boy, but share her with me now and again, eh?” Simone stared at the short young man and knew at once that she could best him. In her mind she had already strangled him and rescued her sister.

“Now,” said Sir Charles, “the dame, eh, the whore of the family, this handsome bitch. Have her strung up in the courtyard. I’ll flay her a bit this morning and then let my men enjoy her flesh.”

The girls’ mother was hauled away while several leagues off her only son came to his senses in the muddy drainage ditch where he had been tossed by one of the horsemen who invaded his father’s keep. He crawled to his prone father and found him dead, pierced in several places, his throat cut. He pulled the dirk from his father’s boot, swore the corpse that he would be avenged and crawled to the well.

After slaking his thirst, he stood and whistled and out of the dense woods came his horse, ears pricked. The boy mounted and rode toward the nobleman’s keep.

Meanwhile his mother’s robe had been ripped from her and tossed in the dirt and she had been tied, arms spread, to the side of the stage where the minstrels and passion players performed. A small crowd gathered as Sir Charles snaked out his whip and began high on her back, snapping his black whip before he lashed down on her pale skin.

By the time the boy arrived, turned his horse free in a pasture and entered the keep unchallenged, his mother was being raped by the guards, who rutted her from behind, twisting at her breasts and pumping out their seed on her back and legs. Her son watched, controlling his anger, and when the sun set and the despoiling of his mother ended, he came in the night and cut her free, gathered up her robe and led her out to the woods, summoned his horse and urged her to go to her brother’s home. She kissed him, mounted and rode away, wordlessly, knowing he would do what must be done.