Chapter 7

Roberta And Paula

"I wonder how these people will react to your nudity, Roberta?" asked Paula. "I hope you don't collect another whipping just yet! A really satisfactory and aesthetically pleasing lashing needs to be done on a nice fresh back in my opinion! I know you don't get to watch, but I do and you should always try to think of others, darling! And, thanks mainly to you, I've seen quite enough to have a right to form a judgment in such matters!

You need at the very least, a couple of weeks to recover before the next one. Your scars are still fresh and weeping from the last. So let's hope they at least allow you time to heal before they punish you. Of course, you might be lucky this time! Doubt it, though! I think the store is over there!"

Paula and Roberta were in a small village looking for a nice swishy stick for Paula's backside. They needed one in order that Roberta might subject her to a fun caning. The couple were also hoping to purchase food for the continuing journey. Roberta decided that they must stay here for a while.

"I'll see if they have any work for me, Paula. From the look of the place, there seems a lot to be done around here and a pair of strong arms and shoulders will be useful. We'll buy your nice stick and ask to be introduced to the head man!"

Roberta was told the mayor was also the owner of the store. This dignitary, full of self importance, came out and looked angrily at Roberta. It was clear that if the Golden Guard hoped for a greater degree of tolerance for her nakedness than in the last village, she was in for a disappointment.

"What have we here? A shameless strumpet who thinks her great strength allows her to behave as she pleases! I see you have been whipped recently, my good woman! They gave you quite a going over! I can guess why! I suggest you complete your purchases and move on. We won't add to those wounds today - not while they are so fresh. We are not that cruel."

"Do you have work for me, Sir?" said Roberta in a placatory voice. "My friend and I are short of money and we have a very long journey ahead of us."

"I'm not so sure about your little friend but we certainly have plenty of hard work for you. You are obviously very strong and can start at once if you wish. But please! I beg you to put some clothes on! We are respectable folk around here. There is a very strong Ladies League for Truth and Decency around here and elections are due. I daren't let something as blatant as this pass. I must make an example of you."

"I have my reasons for refusing to wear clothes." said Roberta firmly, but politely. " I understand your feelings and those of the worthy citizenry and you may punish me as you see fit and I will accept whatever you decide and not resist. I am happy to pay the penalty for being naked, whatever it might be. But I will always be naked. My body is as a blazing beacon of truth never to be hid from people's eyes."
Paula blinked at this last remark! She had never seen it like that before! Roberta continued.

"What is the work I am to do? There are still a few hours of daylight! All I ask is that my friend be given shelter and rewarded when we finally leave. I will sleep wherever you wish as long as she is given food and comfortable lodgings."

Roberta was shown to a grove of trees. It consisted of about thirty in all. Some were big and with trunks that two or three people could stand around with arms outstretched. Others were hardly more than saplings.

"We want all these trees felled and the roots taken out. We intend to cultivate this area. The timber must be cut up into suitable lengths for our craftsmen to use. You have three weeks to complete this task. We have axes, saws and shovels. Digging out the roots will be the hardest part. If you complete the job on time your friend will be given twelve gold pieces, enough with care to last her for several months. Because you are a naked whore, you will receive nothing and you must promise that she will keep it all. We will regard you as her property. If she wishes to feed you on it, that is her affair, but the money is all hers and you are merely her slave as far as we are concerned. You must give your solemn word to us."

Roberta nodded her agreement. Paula looked after these financial things, such as they were, in any case. Roberta was a warrior, not a coin counter.

"What if I take longer than three weeks?"

"In that unhappy event, your friend here will get nothing. Not only that but you will be publicly branded as a whore. You will be branded with hot irons on each buttock and on your back. Do you agree or do you wish to go on your way?"

"I agree. The land will be cleared inside three weeks."

"Get to work! I see from the scars on your chest and stomach that you have already been branded! Or was that the Chief Torturer's work? Golden Guard Roberta!"

"If you know who I am, then you must also know that I was tortured last year. Tortured unjustly, I might add! Please believe me when I say that I am innocent of any wrongdoing, save that of having been wild and undisciplined for a while for which I was well punished many times. I am a loyal servant of the King and always will be!"

"You may be innocent but you have no right to be naked now that you are disgraced and suspended from the Golden Guard. I understand that you wish to stay unclothed but, if you persist, you must be punished for it. We will not attempt to force you to wear clothes, but we will enforce a severe chastisement before you are allowed o leave. I will make only one concession. Complete the work on time and your branding will be reduced to a whipping. "

He looked at the two girls' purchases. His eyes lighted on the swishy stick.

"Why have you bought this cane?"

"My friend likes to be caned on her bottom. It is for me to use on her, but only when she asks me to do it. I love her desperately and would never hurt her badly."

"We do not allow these carnal relations between women. If Paula wishes to avoid great punishment, she will keep away from you until you have finished your duties here. You will work as long as it is light and I have decided that you should spend the nights in a cellar, chained to the wall."

"But Paula will be treated well? That's all I ask. Do what you like to me. How will my whipping be delivered?. I see that I am not going to escape that, even if I am not to be branded with hot irons."

The Mayor looked at Roberta's raw and weeping wounds. He guessed that she had received them at the neighbouring town, whose recent difficulties with Lord Gerald he was aware of, as well as Roberta's assistance. Like Paula he thought their ingratitude somewhat of a disgrace. Not that he intended to deal any more gently with this defiant whore himself!

"I see that you have very recently been given about two hundred lashes, although mostly they were not laid on all that well. It was a very incompetent piece of work as I am sure you realise. We will tie you to the side of a barn and give you one hundred and fifty, well laid on so that you howl for mercy long before we have done with you."

Roberta reflected that the wretched mayor would be disappointed when she took her lashes in silence! But you can't please everyone! The mayor then promised that Paula would have comfortable lodgings. Roberta made to go and start work but the mayor told her to stop. He was full of bad news for our heroine this afternoon!

"I think you will have to wear something while you are with us. Two metal bands around your ankles and a long chain to link them together and stop you running away before your work is done. We don't want our strong slave absconding before we decide to free her! Let us go to the blacksmith's."

This was a new one for Roberta! Even during her trial and imprisonment she had not been treated like this. Her leg irons as a prisoner had been the sort that could be locked and unlocked. But these would be permanent, at least until they were cut away by the blacksmith. A strange excitement came over her as she realised that she was on the verge of a totally new experience in degradation and bondage!

Paula heard the sounds of hammering coming from the smithy and, like her Mistress, she was excited at the prospect of seeing a permanently shackled Roberta! Finally her friend was led out, with iron bands around both ankles and a chain linking them.

Her chain was long enough for Roberta to walk fairly easily, but her stride was less that its usual length and the heavy chain rattled and clanked as she made her way to the grove.

The first tree came crashing to the ground after a mere twenty minutes. Roberta was totally untrained as a woodsman but she was strong and a quick learner! She found herself hampered to some extent by not being able to get her feet far enough apart to get the best rhythm. And the iron hurt her legs. The metal had still been pretty hot when the blacksmith had not ungently fixed the shackles, making her fear for her legs being crushed as he hammered the rivets into place. Her legs would most likely bear the scars for ever. Roberta did not mind this. She collected scars and took great pride in the large number that she could sport on all parts of her body.

Roberta had not started on the trees until two hours before nightfall and she managed to fell a third of them, mostly the smaller ones, leaving the big ones for the next few days. The thought of the hard work that lay ahead did not frighten her. She was strong enough to complete this task with days to spare!

The cell they locked her in was deep below the prison building and stank from a mixture of the damp and the rotting corpses of dead rats and other filth. Her chain was fixed to the wall and she was left crouching on the floor with her supper, which made her feel sick to look at and smell, let alone eat. But she forced herself. She would need to keep her strength up if she were to get through the coming twenty one days!

They fed her in the morning after a poor night's sleep and led her to the grove. From time to time during the long hot and dusty day she would drink from the large jug of water they had given her. On the Hell Island she had been used to go for five hours at a time without drinking and this ready availability of liquid sustenance was a great blessing. She found herself working three times as hard as when she had been a convict labourer.

Roberta spent most of this first full day cutting up the trees she had felled yesterday into the kind of dimensions that would make them, good for firewood. It was the larger trees that would provide the building material. By the time they came to take back to her cell she had achieved all she had set herself to do. Roberta was well pleased at her progress. This was the first really hard work since her escape and it felt pretty good. Her body ached all over and she slept like a log that night.

Paula

"I'd like to look at my slave working, if that is alright with you, Mr Mayor" said Paula as she welcomed the Head of the Community into her comfortable cottage, lent to her for the duration. "I know she is rented out to you, but it pleases me to see her working hard and earning her keep - and my fortune!"

"We are well pleased with her work so far, Paula. In five days she has felled all the trees. The smaller ones have all been cut into logs for firewood and she is stripping the bark off the larger ones and sawing them into sections for the carpenters to work on in due course after they have been seasoned. In years to come the village will have several fine buildings as a result of your generosity and your slave's hard work... And you may go and inspect your property. But we would ask that you not keep her long from her work."

"Of course I will not hold up the work for more than a few minutes. I merely wish to see that you are maintaining my property in good condition. She may be strong but she needs feeding well. In that sense at least sense, she is as human as you and I!"

Paula didn't know what to think or feel of this new situation where her adored Mistress was being regarded as her Slave. On the whole she disliked the arrangement and felt bitterly for the wounded pride of the bravest of the brave. But there was an element of excitement at the idea!

Roberta was sawing the trunk of one of the larger trees into lengthwise sections. She was covered in sweat and dust. It was clear to Paula's eyes and, more distastefully, her nose that Roberta had not bathed for six days. She guessed that this unwashed state of affairs was destined to continue for over two weeks until the couple could continue their journey. Yuck!

"Making good progress, darling?" she asked.

Roberta started at the sound of that beloved voice which she had missed terribly this last few days. She continued sawing.

"I think I'm ahead of schedule, Paula. From tomorrow I will be digging out the roots. That will make the previous five days seem like a picnic, The hardest work is all ahead of me! I won't let you down, Paula! You'll get your ten gold pieces!"

"Our gold pieces, darling!"

"Yours, Mistress Paula! I made a promise to the worthy Mayor!"

"I don't want to be your mistress. I was happier in the old days when you were the King's trusted Guard and I was your plaything. I wish those times were back."

"They are gone for ever, Paula. You will never be my toy again and I don't wish it. You know yourself that you grow as a person all the time. It is thanks to you that I am here and not still slaving away on Hell Island."

Paula looked at her friend's toiling back and smoothly working muscles as she reduced the tree trunks to workable timber.

"It doesn't seem much of an improvement. You are still hard at work - work that is so far beneath you. And you still get unjustly flogged for no more than wearing the uniform of a Golden Guard. I don't seem to have been too much help so far!"

"Yes, you have, Paula. This is a million times better than that desolate piece of rock. I have the fresh air and the greenery of the countryside to enjoy and my muscles need this exercise. I am happy enough, Paula. During the day at least!"

"Is it terrible where you are chained up at night, Roberta? Tell me how it is. I command you!"

"It stinks. I am given foul tasting muck to eat. For the first few days my stomach revolted and I suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting. But my insides are used to it now. I hate having to sleep covered in my own filth, though and to be unwashed and foul smelling all the time. But I'm a Slave now."

"I will ask the Mayor to improve your conditions. I doubt that he will agree, the bastard! But I will do what I can. Keep up the good work, darling! The sooner you are finished the sooner we can get away from here - from this hateful place."

As Paula had feared, her request that Roberta be given a more sanitary place to spend the night was refused.

"A Slave should sleep in her own shit, Paula. Let her learn her place! It will be good for her in the long run to forget her proud past. She is the lowest of the low these days, Paula. And now to pleasanter matters! My wife and I would be glad if you would join us for dinner tonight. We are having a few friends around and they are all anxious to meet you and hear about life at Court."

"I was only a humble maid and later an auxiliary Golden guard. I was hardly in the King's inner circle. And I am on the run as well as Roberta. You could hand us both in and get a rich reward. But Roberta is innocent. The seer, Philippa, established her innocence. She examined her blood after it had been ritually shed and said it is the blood of a wild and wilful woman who is also loyal and true to her King!"

"I respect Philippa, Paula. And I admire you. So I shall not give you over to the King's men when they next visit these parts. Now forget your slave! Leave her to rot in the cells! Come to our house and have a good time. I have asked a couple of really nice young men whom I am sure you will like."

Paula very much doubted that she would like either of the two young men. Most of the men she had seen around here sucked! And there was only one man she would ever look at. And he was married and unattainable. No man in this village would be able to give her the riches and happiness promised by Philippa all those weeks ago. Paula was keen on getting to enjoy this good life and knew she would before too long.