Chapter 4

"What are you doing in this dreadful place, Paula?"

Roberta could hardly believe it was her darling Paula who had just loomed up out of the gloom., She had a vague memory of having last seen her when she was watching her being flogged to death - or so the subsequently disappointed Commandant had hoped - almost exactly one year ago.

"I have been sent here by the King for a few weeks. I did him a favour and asked that I be allowed to see you. I shall be staying in one of the apartments in the Castle mostly, although I can come and see you as long as I don't make love to you. He will increase your whippings as a kind of payment for seeing me. My company will perhaps make things easier for you, so you must pay by having your conditions made worse in other ways. He is only doing this for me, Roberta - not for you. He still considers you to be a traitor. Do you agree to having seventy lashes in future, once every month instead of fifty every three months? This will be for keeps, Roberta - not just for a month or two, but for the rest of your life. It's for you to decide."

"I don't care how many extra lashes I get. It's just so wonderful to see you. How long will you be here for?"

"A few weeks. No longer. His Majesty likes to see me around the place these days - especially now the poor Queen is so ill."

"You seem to have done pretty well for yourself, darling! I am glad for you! And a few more lashes are neither here nor there. I don't enjoy my whippings like I used to in the good old days, but I still have no fear of pain."

"Good. You may leave us alone for a while, Raymond! We have a lot to talk about after a year apart. You know how we women are!"

As soon as they were alone, tears started flowing down Roberta's face and she started shaking and sobbing.

SLAP! SLAP!! SLAP!!

Paula amazed the prisoner by slapping her hard on the face many times. The sobs ceased.

"That's better! I was so ashamed of you! Crying like a baby! Really Roberta! What ever became of the bravest and best of the Golden Guard?

"That nice guard, Raymond was telling me how quiet you are these days. He knows of your brave exploits, Roberta and can hardly believe someone like you can be so broken spirited. Why are you still like this? It's been a year, Roberta! You've had plenty of time to get over all that!"

"A year! It might seem a long time for you Paula, but for me it's just the start of a very long road. I may live this life that is no life for forty or even fifty more years. I, who was born and trained to fight hard and to die young and gloriously in battle! You have no idea what it is to rot here and know yourself to be a traitor like me - full of shame and self hate!"

"Traitor - rubbish. You are no traitor, Roberta! I have spent the last six months and more, a considerable part of it with my face stuck not entirely unwillingly up Bertha's large and exceedingly juicy cunt, proving it to my complete satisfaction. You were drugged, Roberta. Something was put into your evening meal. I know who supplied the potion and I know who put it into your drink that night. And you must go back to the Palace and unmask her! Then go and get your glorious death - if that's what you really want! Speaking for myself I'd opt for the glory without the death!"

"And how do you propose that I do that? Are you going to put me in your trunk and take me back on the boat with you in a few weeks? I hardly think they will take too kindly to that! These people weren't born fucking yesterday, Paula!"

"No. You must swim back to the mainland. It's not that far. You can easily see the land from here. You CAN swim, I hope?"

"Very well indeed. We were trained to excel in all forms of physical activity. I was the best of my intake at everything - especially swimming. But that stretch of sea is impossible even for the strongest swimmer. You should know. Your family come from the coast opposite. How many corpses have been washed up of idiots who thought they could make it? Dozens. And how many succeeded. Fucking nobody!"

"Not impossible for you, my dear! Remember this. Don't fight the current. Use it to carry you away from the island and try gradually to edge yourself towards land. I estimate that you will come ashore twenty miles north west of my Uncle's cottage. You'll be tired and need a day to rest up.

There is a cape that juts out like two fingers. On the shore to the east of it is a simple fisherman's hut, full of nets and other gear. It's been deserted for years. I have left clothes and food for you there. You are big for a woman so I have left men's clothes. I know it will pain you to cover that noble and hardy body but it is for the King and his safety. For he is still in danger, Roberta and you must save him. You are his Chief Protectress still!"

"I am under observation all the time, Paula. I may not be watched too closely at night these days because after eighteen hours work I only wish to sleep and am fit for nothing else. I can hardly keep my eyes open as it is, even with the pleasure of being with you again so unexpectedly. As soon as it is light they will be here to rouse me and put me to work. I work very hard!"

"I know how hard you work, Roberta! I have been watching you all day. It must be pretty grim for you in this heat! I felt tired and very thirsty just watching!"

"I can take it, Paula. A Golden Guard is trained to endure infinitely worse hardship than this!"

"I'm sure! One thing I noticed. The other women seem to really hate you. Why is this"?

"They are all rebels, Paula. As a Golden Guard, even a disgraced one, they would be bound to hate me. At first some of them were willing to be friendly. But as soon as I made clear to them my total remorse at what I had done and my continuing love for the King, they turned against me to a woman!"

"Well, next time one of them throws a stone at you, throw one back. And as for remorse! Remorse for what! You did nothing wrong, Roberta. Don't take that shit from then any more! Even if they punish you, you mustn't let them treat you like that without fighting back!

"I am serious, Roberta! You are totally innocent of all the charges they made. That evil bitch Rowena lied about you when she made that dying accusation. You've simply got to start believing in yourself again. And you start as of now!"

"I lost my weapons, Paula. There can be no doubt about that!"

"Because your food and drink had been poisoned, Roberta. You are a very light sleeper. I, who slept so happily by your side for those wonderful weeks know just how light! Nobody could have disarmed you if you had not been deeply drugged. What do you remember of that night?

"Very little, Paula. I was due to join Anna on duty in the Queen's apartment. We were to overlap for four hours and I was to escort the King and Queen to their bedchamber and be on duty outside all night. I had my supper.

Next thing I recall was that I was being dragged down to the cellars by a half dozen of the Guard and given over to the Chief Torturer. Charming man! Good to his wife and family and kind to animals! He wasn't kind to me, though!

I was tortured for a long time. But all appeared to be happening such a long way away. Even when they were dipping me into the cold water and nearly drowning me it seemed like it was someone else they were doing it to."

"When did you start to feel more connected to reality, Roberta?"

"When they hung me upside down and started whipping me. I knew I was in the deepest possible disgrace to be punished like that. I felt total despair at that moment. Then I remember nothing until I was conscious again and told I was to be imprisoned here for the rest of my life."

"And all these months you have continued to believe yourself guilty? When you must have known all along that you did no wrong? Well, you had better start believing differently from now on! I haven't come to this arsehole of the universe for the sake of my health, Roberta!"

"Please leave me for now, Paula. I need to sleep. Tomorrow is the longest day of the year. I shall be nearly nineteen hours at work and I need rest. And I need to think. My mind is in quite a state after what you have said. Are you sure about what all this? You're not just trying to make me feel better. You have proof?"

"I have enough proof to satisfy me. And you must produce the proof that will satisfy the King and everyone else. Good night my darling!"

Paula went up to her quarters, guided by Raymond, who tried his best to ignore the fact that this guest, here by permission of the King himself, was very naked and very pretty. He kept his hands off that luscious flesh but only after a massive exercise of self restraint. He only got to look at one other naked woman these days and that was Roberta, who did not attract him as powerfully as Paula did.

Paula was small and flawless in every way, but Roberta had been wounded several times. There was an ugly scar on her right thigh and one across her stomach, both souvenirs of deadly fighting as a Golden Guard. Her back was a ghastly mess after all the floggings she had been given during the past eighteen months. And there were the burn scars on her chest where the torturers had branded her so horribly painfully a year ago. She might be strong and have a.wonderful physique, but she was hardly a beauty these days, although her face was still lovely as well as her golden hair which once more reached almost to her waist.

He was tremendously impressed by Roberta, though. Her strength was more than just physical. He knew of her incredible record in her first year as a Reserve Guard and that she had been marked for a high position, eventually succeeding the Commandant. Then she had started to go completely off the rails, being awarded several incredible floggings before seemingly abandoning her wild behaviour for a time and then betraying her King and her colleague Anna, who had been left to die, fighting against seven intruders that she, Roberta, had let into the Queen's apartments by some kind of arrangement with a maid called Rowena.

He still found Roberta's treachery hard to fathom out and was more than half inclined to wonder if a mistake had not been made. He kept these doubts to himself.

Paula sensed that Raymond might be sympathetic to Roberta. It might be useful to get to know him a little better. And his uniform was very tight fitting about the groin area. She saw that Raymond was very well endowed there. Here might be an opportunity both to broaden her experience and see if he might be willing to help get Roberta off the island. She guessed he would be unable to do much, but it was worth trying.

"Feel like a chat before going to your room, Raymond? I kept you waiting while I caught up with Roberta's sad story this last year. Maybe I can make up for that!"

The pair talked for hours until Raymond finally went to his own rather bare room, leaving Paula to snatch a few hours sleep.

One of the things Raymond had said was that Roberta was to be whipped the day after tomorrow. If her friend took her advice and retaliated next time a stone was tossed in the general direction of her head, this would mean extra lashes. Raymond said twenty extra.

"Ninety lovely lashes!" moaned Paula as she writhed on her bed, feverishly massaging her cunt. "I can
hardly wait!"

ROBERTA

Her mind seethed with all manner of thoughts. Was Paula being serious? She remembered eating a meal brought up from the kitchens by one of the servants on that horrible night. Had Paula not been visiting her uncle, she would have fetched the meal. Who had brought it to her? It was just far too long ago to remember. And the turmoil she had been plunged into only a few hours later had caused all the events of that day to be confused inextricably in her mind.

But she was Roberta! She was the cleverest of all the Golden Guard. Must concentrate. But she was too tired to think. If she got tired during the day, they would punish her. So Roberta put all thoughts out of her mind and slept.

PAULA

"Do you wish to speak with Roberta again today?" asked Raymond in the morning.

He and Paula were sitting in the dining hall, being waited on by a couple of the more privileged prisoners.

"I think I'd like to see around the island first. We mustn't interfere with the work the convicts do!"

Later on she was escorted around the island. It was certainly a grim place! There seemed to be hardly a blade of grass or a green shoot anywhere in the entire area. It was just a bare rock rising up out of the sea. In the fierce summer heat the ground under her bare feet was scorching hot. Paula could not think of a more desolate place to work for even a few months, let alone live in servitude for the rest of one's life.

Raymond showed her the well from which the water supply was raised. he told her that the winch was operated at night in the very early hours, by a team of three prisoners, who then transported the water tanks to the cellars in time for the coming day. Apparently this nocturnal duty was one that prisoners greatly desired to be on, being extremely light in comparison to the work in the quarry, which was back-breaking and the very worst place to be sent. Roberta had been in the quarry since Day One and would never work anywhere else even if she lived to be a hundred.

It was quickly apparent to the observant Paula that nobody could possibly hope to get to the port and board a boat without being seen and stopped. The tiny jetty was only accessible through a narrow gap in the rocks and was covered by several dozen soldiers, all of whom looked to be extremely vigilant. Raymond told her they were instructed to shoot to kill if any prisoner tried to reach the port.

"Has anyone ever tried" asked Paula.

"Yes. People get pretty desperate after a year or two here! They'll try anything to get away! Even the staff are glad to be finished with their tours of duty! I'm going home in five months and believe me, it can't be soon enough!"

"Do you have a girl on the mainland, Raymond?"

He looked for the hundredth time at that trim body. He did have a girl on the mainland, but she was nothing like Paula. She was over thirty and somewhat obese.