Ride tied | THE MARE'S RETURN | bondage stories

He disturbed her by rising at dawn. She was still secured to the bar, which cut painfully into her thighs. Her back was aching, her arms in agony from their long binding behind her back, her vagina and anus sore and oozing slime. Sweat and mucous streaked her face. Her hair was matted and tangled. Despite her pain, and the awkwardness of her position, sheer exhaustion soon overcame her again, and once more she dozed fitfully on her perch.

Later the same servant returned, to give her yoghurt made from mare's milk and more of the flat unleavened bread. He released her from the bar, but left her hands secured behind her, and led her out of the tent on stiff and trembling legs which could barely support her. Outside, he allowed her to squat in the grass and relieve herself. He looked on impassively as she groaned and strained, her bladder and rectum protesting at their treatment, her mind at the

humiliation of having to perform her natural functions before a man. There was no sponge on a stick as she had been used to, to wipe herself with, nor could she have used it, if she had one, with her tied hands, and she felt the additional humiliation of her soiled anus and wet labia.

They found the chieftain down by the horse lines.

"A fine night's gallop," he commented, as she drew near, "though, like all your sex, you went better for a touch of whip and spur. Did you enjoy the ride?"

"You bastard," she cried, "I'll make you so sore you'll not take another ride in a hurry." Heedless of the futility of the gesture, and the certainty of punishment if she connected, she kicked out for his groin.

He laughed as he caught her foot in mid-air, and held it as she hopped helplessly on the other.

"The mare seems to have cast a shoe!" he remarked, caressing the bare sole, "we shall have to see to it." He murmured to one of his aides, who grinned broadly, then he called for the slave clerk, who had identified her the previous day.

"Get your inks and parchment, you have a letter to write for me to His Excellency. The Lady Lavinia will be returned to her people today, and she will need to take some explanation of her absence with her."

As she was led away she thought it was to the horse lines, to be mounted for the journey, though she was still naked, and her hands were still tied, but the men led her past the saddled beasts to where the farrier was working at his forge, beating iron on the anvil.

"Good day, Hannag," her escort addressed the muscular smith, "we've brought you a mare for shoeing."

She panicked then, as the full awfulness of the retribution she was to suffer for her rash and futile attempt to kick the Chieftain sank in, but the men easily suppressed her useless struggles. He threw her on her face. and held her ankles. While she cried out in terror, they pulled her right foot over the anvil. She felt the cold of metal on the sole, a slight scratching as the nail was placed in the hole prepared for it, then agony as an iron nail was driven through her flesh. Another nail, another scream of anguish, and her foot was allowed to drop, then she struggled again, as remorseless hands pulled her left foot to the anvil. Two more nails, two more screams, and she was shod.

They hoisted her up, forcing her to put her feet under her. The pain was hideous. The weight on her feet made little difference, but when she moved it was renewed agony. They would not let her rest until she had been half dragged half carried back to Talla and his scribe. The letter was ready, and the clerk tied it into her back hair.

"Thank you again for the ride," Talla said mockingly. "I hope my gift pleases you."

The journey back to the fort, slung across the aide's saddle bow like a sack of wheat, was not the most comfortable ride Lavinia had had, but any way of progress towards safety was bearable. Just out of sight of the fort, where the track lay in a little hollow before crossing a rocky plateau devoid of vegetation, the aide dropped her to the ground. She landed on her wounded feet, with a cry of pain.

As he turned to ride away, she called after him.

"I can't move like this," she pleaded. "At least cut my hands lose, so that I can crawl."

The Barbarian leant down from his saddle to where she knelt up on the stones of the track and raised his scimitar. For a moment she thought the Chieftain had given orders for her to be killed just outside the fort, and left for the men to find with the letter still tied into the hair of her severed head. But no, it seemed that her return, violated and abused, was a more satisfying gesture, for the man deftly slid the blade down her back and parted the leathers joining her wrists, then galloped off into the wasteland again, leaving her to make her way as best she could.

The sentry gazed idly down from his post above the gate house, scanning the sunlit road, where it wound, hot and dusty, across the small rocky plateau below the fort. He was bored and sweaty, but one did not neglect one's duty in a place like this. If one didn't believe the tales of barbarians in the district, and

there was talk enough of women seized and raped, men killed or sold into slavery, then there was always the ever present threat of whip or worse for those who had fallen below the tight standards of discipline enforced in these vital frontier posts.

All at once, his attention was caught by a small movement, where the track rose out of a dip. An animal? It was something about the size of a sheep, he judged, moving slowly along the middle of the track, just at the extreme limit of his vision. With nothing more to do, he watched it as it drew slowly nearer, moving slowly, with an unnatural persistence for an animal which might be expected to explore the herbage from time to time, looking for fodder, or pause to groom it self. And this was a solitary beast as well. He had carefully scanned the ground around for more of the same flock, conscious also that he shouldn't allow himself to be diverted from his watch, but nothing else stirred.

It was a lot nearer now, and he could make out what appeared to be a long mane of hair hanging over its face. The body, too, seemed less sheep-like now, more the rounded pinkness of a domestic pig, not a wild boar, but what was a pig doing plodding slowly along a deserted track out there in the wilderness?

He started, and took another look, then called down to the centurion in the courtyard below.

"Something strange moving on the road, Sir. Think you should take a look."

When the officer had climbed the steps to stand beside him, he pointed out the small figure still moving painfully towards them.

"If I didn't know better, Sir, I'd have sworn it was a woman on her hands and knees," the sentry said.

As he spoke the figure stopped, and lifted its head towards the distant fort. A small cry reached them, as they saw the hanging hair part about a pale disc of a face.

"By the tits of Venus, it is a woman!" the Centurion got out, "and a fair specimen of the sex too, by the look of her; I can see her dugs. What in the name of Mars is she doing here, and what's the matter with her that she doesn't walk on her two back legs, like the rest of her kind?"

"Shouldn't we open the gates, and send out a squad to fetch her in?" the sentry asked.

"Hold on soldier," his commander advised, "there's something strange going on here. Lots of nasty rumours recently about barbarian activity in the neighbourhood, and various raids and missing persons. I'm not falling for any trap to get the gates open, and our attention engaged, while they rush us. Go round to the other posts, and warn them to be extra alert, then come back here, and we'll see how things develop. She's come this far, she can go a little further, while we take a look around."

By the time the sentry returned from his errand, the woman was within a hundred paces of the gate. Satisfied now that there were no enemies near enough to rush the gate, the commander sent out two men to rescue the crawling female.

She was naked and dirty, distressed and weary, but her greatest hardships were on her feet. Someone had fastened iron horseshoes to her soles, the iron nails passing through her flesh, and clenched over on top, so that they could not be extracted. She had obviously tried to walk on her swollen and inflamed feet, but they had become too painful, and she had been reduced to crawling on her hands and knees. She was naked, her skin reddened by the sun, her back and buttocks laced with thin welts, but otherwise seemed basically unharmed, a fine looking woman, with, even in her distressed state, something of the patrician about her.

At first she could barely speak, her tongue thickened by thirst, for she had been some hours in the sun, and without food or drink for several more hours before that. A little wine and water poured down her throat worked wonders. Her first words, woman-like, were to ask for something to cover her, for the men had not hurried to cover up her ample charms. They had no resident whore at the time, and the regular visitor was not due for several days yet. Vigorous men on lonely stations found thoughts of women constantly intruding, and even the sight of a female body was some comfort for their torrid thoughts.

The centurion recognised the quality of his capture at once, and called for a cloak to cover her nakedness, then escorted her to his own room, to interrogate her. He was glad he had done so, as soon as she began to tell her tale, for his captive, now to be regarded as an honoured guest, was none other than the Lady of the Governor himself. Moreover he had recovered, from where it

was tied into the woman's hair, a scroll of parchment addressed to the Governor.

Since it was not sealed, he stole a surreptitious look at its contents.

To Gaius Maximus, Governor of Pityus, from Talla the Alan, greetings.

I found your mare straying on the high pastures and have tried a gallop or two in her saddle. I congratulate you; a very comfortable ride, though I had to use whip and spurs at times. Also she seems to have cast a shoe. I shall have it made good by the blacksmith before I return her.

Marcellus had been seated with the Governor when the news of Lavinia's reappearance was brought to him.

"Will you have her back?"

"Well, in the old days, a woman raped by the enemy was expected to do away with herself to salve the family honour, but I've had Lavinia too long for that.

Beside," the Governor added practically, "women are too few up here on the frontier. We can't afford to waste them. I'll give her a couple of months to see if she's in foal to that barbarian stallion first."

"And if she is?"

"Have her flogged unconscious," came the uncompromising reply. "That usually shifts an unwanted brat. Otherwise turn her over to the Syrian women.

They have ways of removing unwanted bulges. The women who go to them usually come back a little subdued, one doesn't enquire into their methods too closely, but they do get results. It's worth putting a bit of effort into Lavinia. She's still a fine woman, and we've shared a lot together. I dare say she'll be more obedient after this."

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