CAPTURE | horse naked bound | bdsm stories

They led her without gentleness to where the changing glow of the campfire merged with the trees and the dark of night. The flickering reflections lit and illuminated her bare skin in a mischievous play of light and shadow. Two rough male hands held each of her arms.

She was still panting from her resistance when they had stripped her. She stood now in a hostile and frightened acceptance of superior strength.

“We'l make thee a bed, Lady.”

It was a sal y of wit to invoke complacent chuckles and contributions. Male eyes fed upon female nudity and spurred male tongues to humour.

“Aye, her thighs be ripe for it.”

“Mayhap we'll clip her bush to find the place.”

“A toothsome twin o' tits fer a man's teeth.”

She fought again, she could not hear such talk and stand passive. But the hands tightened and gripped and lifted her so that her flailing legs beat only air. Implacably, they let her exhaust herself once more until she subsided into sobbing impotence.

“If she fucks as good as she fights!”

“Them hips weave a pretty pattern.”

“A touch o' the lash and she'd give a man a good galop.”

“She'll not need it. We'll raise her arse high enow'.”

Her bed took shape beneath the diligent hands. It was a thing of the Forest, of gathered earth, of moss and leaves. When they draped it with the blanket it became as the mound of a grave, a grave for the death of her virginity.

They went about their task of rendering her securely available with a casual competence that bespoke long practice. The girl had already exhausted her pleas, her threats, her promises.

She had no more words with which to counter the supple strips of hide with which she would be bound. The same strong fingers offered her handily for loops upon her wrists and ankles that when drawn tight and knotted left a long trailing length for a purpose self evident when the stakes were sharpened and driven hard and deep. Four stakes! The captive guessed their use.

The girl was young and strong. She would not submit. She knew to what she was doomed, but would show no wil ingness. They must use force: her honour demanded it. Her lithe muscles fought the hands and were subdued. Four eager males caught the trailing strips of leather and tightened them inch by inch around the stakes until the panting and frantic girl lay upon the mound looking up at them with a wide-eyed appeal that found no mercy; her arms and legs stretched wide toward the stakes to which she was now tautly bound as a naked “X”.

They stood around at a distance from the spread-eagled girl and beheld what they had created.

For moments there was about them an air of reverence, as though their uncouth minds glimpsed beauty for the first time in the stretched nakedness bound helpless on its mound. The obscenity of its flagrantly exposed and open sex muted in the dim light from the fire.

1

“Plinlymon u'l be agog by now,” a coarse voice chuckled. “Let's hope they're draggin' the moat for her.”

“With D'Almaine gone there'l be no wide hunt. She'll be in good hands 'afore the old man searches her passing.”

“And Malenfant; think ye he'll approve our loosening her cunt?”

“We've got his gold; and the five o' us u'l not wear it out fer his Lordship.”

“Mayhap the horse ... “

The unfinished remark evoked general amusement. Aveline, straining at her bonds, made no sense of it. She knew herself lost. When these men were done with her she would be no longer virgin. She wondered if it was true girls died beneath the thrusting male phallus. She had never felt more fearful y or vividly alive than she did at that moment. Instinctively she sensed survival in every nerve and sinew of her being. In their badinage these wandering men-at-arms indicated no intent to harm other than her maidenhead. She would live to seek revenge. The daughter of Plinlymon would not be ravished with impunity.

“Ransom me.” Her eyes sought theirs. “You'l get more gold than pays for a night's sport with a girl who must be tied.”

“Oh, aye, lady. But thy price is paid, and we're honest men. Mayhap ye’l share our sport. I have heard tell!” Aveline sensed herself more than a prize for a night of lust. There was a purpose hidden. She was about to plead again when an insistent voice demanded:

“Do we draw lots or pluck straws to be first?”

The Leader guffawed. “Let us make a sport on't. Wel toss the twigs, lads.”

There was general approval. Five twigs were matched for size before the quintet took position.

‘The closest toss to her cunt, lads - that's the lucky man. Try fer her bush, 'tis a fine target.”

The naked Aveline wondered if there could be an end to shame. A final blunting of a girl's responses to the violation of her maidenhead. Bound and spread wide for the enjoyment of five men, she writhed in scarlet misery, her wrists and ankles already chafed raw by her battle with the withes by which she was rendered helpless. The cheery disposal of her body by these men told her all too clearly the futility of bargaining.

The impact of the twig upon her concave belly was trivial yet felt as might a blow. It settled upon her navel and was cheered as a ‘Good try, lad’.

The next struck the target itself but bounced back and to the ground.

“Want us to hold it open fer ye, Gilie, boy?”

“Easy does it, lad.”

The third nestled in the crease of her thigh. But the fourth tangled itself within the bound girl's pubic hair and stayed firm.

“Dammit, Hal, ye're too good fer the likes o' us. I'l ne'er best thee.”

2

It was a good try. The tiny scrap fell neatly upon the twig already in possession but slithered slowly down across the shining hairs until it fell to the ground. The privilege of breaking the maidenhead of Aveline D'Almaine was fairly won.

They raped her through the night. At first the five of them took their turn to pierce the maiden cunt, watching sombrely as each coupling took its heaving and panting course to repletion. The girl being raped longed to hide her face. She was well aware the watching eyes cherished every flicker of expression or grimace of pain she was forced to yield to the thrusting organs that sought her womb. She could not turn away, for they circled slowly for ful enjoyment of her shame. When they had done with her they left her bound and sought their slumber by the fire.

To Aveline D'Almaine her rape was both a degradation and a miracle. She plumbed the depth of shame and she lived; lived with a panting awareness of herself as a woman seething with sensation, pulsingly sentient. Unwil ingly, she saw rape for what it was: a ghostly monster without the power to kil . A threat within the mind that when fulfil ed left her with no more than a desire to bathe and cleanse herself of sweat. Intermittently throughout the night one or the other of her captors would stumble to where she lay conveniently bound and possess her again before he returned to place wood upon the fire and resume his rest. Whenever one of them provoked her awakened glands to orgasm before withdrawal Aveline slept.

To the naked girl the real miracle was morning. Awakening to the sun she fought her momentary desolation at being stil bound and naked. She was too stiff and hurting to even try to move. Her wrists and ankles protested steadily the compulsion of the rawhide strips which had bound them impotent through the night and held them stil . One of her visitors in the dark had draped a blanket across her helpless nudity. Beneath it she shivered.

They were practical men, and she had value. They knotted a thong around her neck, took her to the spring and gave her twenty feet of slack, binding the other end to a handy tree. They left her to her own needs. It was a cold, rough toilette, but she was grateful.

They fed her, taking her within their circle about the fire. The tether remained upon her neck but she was otherwise free. She cherished no il usions about escape. One of them would have her within ten paces. The demeaning leather upon her throat ensured her compliance.

When the bindings were replaced upon her ankles and her wrists, Aveline came near to breaking down in misery. To be spread and bound and ravished through the day! To lie there to be pierced again and again, her sex soaked with their seed, unable to move … It was too, too cruel! She stood in her dejected nakedness, upright but afraid, the supple leathers trailing from her limbs. She faced her captors seeking words that they might heed.

It was then they brought the horse.

It was a fine beast, and mettlesome. One of them had ridden it the day before. It stood now fresh and ready, held by its halter, yet odd and incomplete. It was neither saddled nor bridled.

The waiting girl became aware of a vibrant atmosphere of expectancy, holding them all.

“Ye've got the girth, Rennet?”

“Aye, an' it be a good'un. I'l buckle it fast.”

To the tied girl it was like the preparation for a joust. The leather object Rennet proceeded to buckle tight upon and around the withers of the restive horse was just another of the accoutrements in which men took delight. It was no more than a saddle girth on the ends of which were rings. From the rings another girth circled above. When it had been made abundantly tight it formed a secure band. On each side and well below centre the metal ring broke the symmetry of the surcingle.

3

The binding of Aveline's nakedness upon the horse was accomplished with such dispatch as to forestall protest or demand. It left her breathless in disbelief that a girl could be so positioned and so held. Its very simplicity was its virtue. Her head was upon the animal's mane, her own hair falling over its shoulders. She lay upon her back, insecure, until the leathers on her wrists and ankles had been drawn wickedly tight and knotted to the rings. With her arms this had been simple, but to hold her immovably upon the horse's back it had been necessary to draw her ankles down and back towards the rings on each side with such a degree of tension Aveline believed herself splitting from the stress and division of her thighs. She was blushingly aware that their junction with its black triangle was displayed and open to an extent that made her exposure of the night seem almost decent. She could not move. She hurt.

“ ‘Tis a fine job. Ye must ha' done it 'afore, Rennet lad.”

“Oh, aye,” Rennet snickered. “ ‘Twas a Lord I served tied all his women so.”

“Malenfant's got more faith in this beast than I'd have.”

“ ‘Tis his faith and his horse and his woman, m'boy. We have her price. Stop thy blithering.”

“ ‘Tis passing far.”

“That concerns us not. Horse and wench have time enow'.”

“She'll no get free. By the saints, Rennet, ye fix a woman well. T' lass u'l have the ride o' her life.”

“A nimble chap could stil have a go at her.”

There was laughter. “We'll hold the horse, man an' ye want a try. Fer my wager the wench's arse u'l be a bit low.”

Aveline was deathly afraid of the fate to which she was so unconcernedly consigned. Bound helpless on a horse! “Please, don't do this to me! Not like this, not alone – “

The crack of the rope across the horse's rump cut short her pleading cry. Her words were lost in the wind of her steed's startled plunge and the pain of wrist and ankle as they held her nudity to a firm anchorage on the straining back. The tied girl caught one last look at the enraptured faces of the five who had so evil y used her, then the foliage cut them from view as the hooves thundered their passage down the forest path.

It was the strangest of rides, like no other. She would remember it always. Welded immovably upon the sleek back, Aveline shared every strain and motion of the muscled strength taking her she knew not where. Her hair flew in the wind, her breasts shivered and trembled, her unwil ing legs and arms held the equine flanks in a strange, inverted embrace, sharing its stress.

Captive to a horse! It was a thing beyond belief, a nightmare. Among the tumult of emotions crowding her mind one need was uppermost: escape! Yet, bound as she was, it was a glorious dream without reality. Aveline could not believe in it. The leather bands tugging her hands and feet down to the rings offered no promise of slack or of loosening. They were taut as bowstrings. Perhaps later when the furious gal op slackened or stopped there might be a chance, not now.

The name of Malenfant nagged. She had heard it once before, remembering it as of il repute: One of the Barons whose power and ambitions rivalled that of Wil iam Rufus himself, then unenthusiastic monarch of a torn and conquered land. It was said that Rufus the Red found 4

more comfort in his Saxon Thanes than in his own Norman Lords. If Malenfant had indeed paid gold for her kidnapping he must have a reason. But she could think of none. There were Saxon wenches a'plenty for a noble's diversion. He would not seek the daughter of Plinlymon for his leman.

She clung to an obvious hope: Rescue! Surely some traveller must see the fleeing animal with its nude burden and give chase. But that would depend on the horse's choice of route. And she was naked! Rescue might be as hazardous as per present plight. Groping in her memory she believed the lands of Malenfant were far distant ...

The gallop merged into a jolting trot that made the captive girl thankful for the tightness of her bonds. To have been strictured with less severity would mean a painful and perhaps dangerous instability. Her wrists and ankles suffered but she remained an integral part of the beast on whose back she was firmly tied. Rennet had done well. When the trot gave way to a steady walk Aveline was thankful y able to take stock.

They had left the depth of the Forest. There were stretches of greensward, the grass of which tempted the homing horse to pause and munch with hungry relish. In these brief periods of relative immobility the captive girl explored her bonds with searching fingers and tugging arms.

It took but little time and pain to convince her of the hopelessness of freedom by her own efforts. She was craftily and competently tied. She could never get loose. She and her steed would remain inseparable until such time as he delivered her into the hands of men. She noted with a sense of loss that the worn path had dwindled or turned in directions they must not take.

They were adrift in a landscape without signs of human hands or feet.

It took no more than an hour or two for the captive to realize her dependence on rescue for food and drink. She was in need of neither yet, but the day was warm and thirst was inevitable. The horse could slake its own in the occasional stream, but she could not. She had little idea of how long her journey was to be. Fearful imagination made time precious.

Whenever the animal to which she was bound faltered in its forward march, she clucked at it and urged it on. It responded with the bone shaking trot it found effortless and could maintain for miles. Time and the leagues passed not swiftly, but they fell steadily behind the rhythm of the hooves.

With the hours and the miles came pain and an intensified fear. Aveline knew she could die should the horse's vagrant moods fail to deliver her. It was a frightening thought that she could remain bound thus as the days passed. Even the first night, stil hours away, was a frightening spectre of dark and chil and things unknown. Her helplessness was so total she felt like flotsam on a stream. And with it all was pain. The ceaseless attrition of thongs on wrist and ankle and the sundering stretch of her thighs from legs ruthlessly drawn back and down to the girth rings. Moreover, the blatant openness of her loins was a thing ever present in her mind. She longed for rescue, but rescue would demand its price in shame.

It hurt too much to twist in an effort to look ahead. Aveline's view was restricted to either side and to the rear. It came as a shock when the grave male face looked down upon her and its owner's horse fell in step beside her own.

For a moment the naked girl was too startled to speak; it was the man who gave greeting.

“I bid thee welcome, M'Lady.”

“Who are you?” It was al she could think to say.

“I am called Adam Godsoule, Madam.”

5

Beyond a general survey of her plight his eyes did not focus unduly upon her exposed sex. The bound girl took heart from the impersonality of his regard. The events of the past twenty-four hours robbed it of much of the shrinking shame she would once have known.

“You know who I am?”

“The Lady Aveline D’Almaine; M'Lady.”

There was something wrong. This polite exchange was out of context with her distress. The helpless girl looked up at the unsmiling features in puzzlement. “I am grateful for rescue, messire Godsoule.”

“Yes, Madam.”

Aveline was overwrought, the non-committal words turned hope into anger. “Must I beg you to free me?”

“You wil not be freed, M'Lady.”

It was like a blow. Astonishment and despair held her mute while Godsoule halted their mounts and ran a tether from the halter of her steed to the pommel of his saddle. When they resumed their journey it was at a brisk trot. The tied girl was more than ever aware of the quivering responses of her breasts. Her escort could scarce look at her without observing their beckoning invitation to male interest.

“Where are you taking me?” She was close to tears.

“To Broule, M'Lady.”

“And where and what is that?” Her sentence was punctuated by the jar and motion of the trot.

“It is the fortress of the House of Malenfant, M'Lady.” The shamed and disappointed girl managed to hold back her tears. Godsoule's casual acceptance of her state was preferable to an errant wandering, bound and helpless, across the wilds of England. But stil it was a cruel blow.

“Could'st not at least cover my nakedness?”

“I am il equipped, Madam. Bear with it. There is none but me to see.”

In a spasm of revolt, and perhaps in the faint hope of touching his pity, Aveline tugged and twisted painful y at her bonds. She put all her small store of courage and her greater wealth of outrage into the pathetic bid for freedom, only to be rewarded by Godsoule's appreciative comment: “Thou art wel and truly tied, M'Lady.”

“like baggage on a donkey,” she retorted. “Surely you can treat me more kindly?”

“I am satisfied to have ye thus. Thou art safer and more secure than riding without a saddle and with thy hands tied behind thy back.”

Infuriatingly, he was right. Aveline little relished sitting bound astride a barebacked horse.

“Why must I be bound?” she demanded petulantly. “Naked and unarmed I can give thee little trouble.”

“Fastened as ye are ye can give me none at al .” For the first time, he smiled.

6

It was hopeless. Freedom was not for her. What then of her captivity! “This place called Broule - what awaits me there?”

Was there not pity in his lowered glance? And why not? Her plight was not to be envied. “I cannot tell thee that, M'Lady.”

“Because my fate is too awful to speak of?”

His smile was real. “Nay, nay. Me thinks should ye have sane judgement ye might be wel pleased.”

“I would be well pleased should ye loose me from these bonds, messire Godsoule. Even if I must run behind thy horse on a leash. I hurt.”

He did not bother to answer. She probed again.

“This sane judgement? If I do not have it, what then?” This time Aveline was certain of his pity.

“T'would be best ye use good sense, M'Lady.”

“My blood is Norman, Godsoule. In King Wiliam's England Norman blood is not lightly shed.”

“Aye. But thy blood wil not be spilt. There be many ways.”

Godsoule would say no more. He parried her questions until she tired of them. At a stream he stopped to drink and to hold water to her lips. Resuming their journey he drove the horses hard so that twilight brought weariness to them and despair to the tied girl.

“We must camp the night. Broule is not until the morrow.”

It was almost with disbelief that Aveline felt the loosening of the knots which had held her wrists and ankles for so long. A strong arm supported her as she slumped grateful y to the ground. She had read an intent in Godsoule's eyes she sought to counter.

“There is no need to bind me again. I am too tired, and too stiff and too hurt. I shall not run.

Please!”

His hesitation was brief. Then he left her to tend the horses. Gratefuly she fell asleep. When sometime later he wakened her, it was dark; there was a fire and there was food and drink.

Heartened by both, Aveline resumed her questioning.

“Would money buy my freedom, messire Godsoule.”

“M'Lord Malenfant has small need of gold, Madam.”

“I meant from thee. Take me back to Plinlymon.”

“I have a loyalty, M'Lady. It is not to thee.”

Godsoule would be a rock. She sensed his strength. It would be best to give him respect. But he was male and he was human.

“Feel ye no pity for me? I am naked and so helpless.”

“Aye, that I do, M'Lady. It changes naught.”

7

“Is there no scrap of covering ye can give me?”

“If I may give thee counsel, Madam, it is that ye forget thy nakedness. Ye may know much of it. If I tear a garment I now wear it wil cover no more of ye than wil make thee thrice naked.”

He was right. It would help nothing to add absurdity to shame. If she could not hide she might as well use it. With a wantonness born of lost hope and lost virginity, she asked quietly,

“If gold is valueless in my barter, can I offer you myself?”

“You jest, M'Lady?” He was startled.

“Nay, I am but facing what I must: Last eve the men who tied me as ye found me used me through the night. From what ye fail to tel me of Broule I have small doubt I wil meet with rape enow' there. Why then should I not offer thee with some smal affection that which men so highly prize? My gratitude for freedom would be real.”

Godsoule studied her sombrely but with a fresh interest. “You are not a wanton,” he said as though in judgement. “Therefore it is courage and shrewdness. … “ He nodded in faint approval. “I think it likely, M'Lady, you wil well survive.”

“I have offered you my body. Wil you purchase it?” Again the pity in his smile.

“M'Lady, ye forget. Ye are my prisoner. I can do with thee what I wil. Ye seek to barter what is already mine.”

Aveline blushed in the shame of realisation that he was right. It was hard for a girl, even a captive girl, to accept that the treasure she had been taught to cherish was no longer hers to give or to withhold. Instinctively she glanced down at her pubic hair in wonderment that so much of all of life centred upon the small slit nestling between her legs.

“Last night they staked me down upon a mound. Is that how you wil use me?”

He laughed at her earnestness. “Ye wil not yield wilingly?”

How loveless was this use of her! “I suppose I wil ,” she admitted listlessly. “I have no wish to be tied again. Wil you take me now?”

“I take ye not at al , M'Lady. I escort ye in trust.”

With relief there was chagrin, and bafflement. Aveline blushed anew at her emotional conflict.

She realized with faint shock that there was more to the loss of virginity than the rupture of a membrane. With the treasure gone there was naught to guard. It was a new freedom.

“Your honour leaves me nothing then,” she reflected bitterly. “I am but a package for you to deliver.”

“A package I must keep safe.”

She started, catching the implication. “Do not tie me through the night. I wil pledge thee my word.”

“A word I would wilingly accept, M'Lady. At other times, not now. I would hold ye blameless in breaking it.” She eyed the rope he was running through his fingers. Her wrists were chafed and tender from the ride. She traced their red indentations with cringing fingertips, wanting no more.

8

“I give thee a reasonable span of time,” he said gently. “If ye choose to give me trouble I wil be harsh.”

The naked girl asked not the penalty for disobedience. She was grateful. “Thank you. I promise I wil return.” She slipped away to the smal stream and the slender privacy of a bush.

When she came back she felt awkward and shamed by what she had become and that which must be done to her. She was grateful for his charity, and understood his need to make her secure. She wished it otherwise.

“You are certain ye must tie me?”

“Ye are certain yourself, M'Lady.” There was a glint of humour in his regard of her. “Both of us are doing what we must.”

Aveline wanted sleep and would not argue. “How ... how do you want me?” she asked bashful y, holding out her hands.

Godsoule was large and male beside her slenderness. He turned her about with a gentleness close to a caress and crossed her wounded wrists at the small of her back.

“Must you tie my hands behind me, cannot they be tied in front so that I may better sleep?”

she pleaded.

“ 'Tis a foolish question and ye know it,” he chided. “I would as wel not tie thee at al . Tied as I am tying thee ye’l have no wish to wander the forest alone and naked. Ye’l share my blanket through the night and be here come sunrise. I'l place enough trust in thy sense not to tie thy feet.

She supposed she owed him gratitude. She stood quietly while he tied her crossed wrists. He tied them tightly, but if she did not struggle there would be no pain. She was weary and did not care. The half of his blanket he tucked around her felt warm on her bare skin in the summer night. Without concern she nestled against his bulk and went to sleep.

In the morning their readying for the resumption of their journey brought them to a confrontation Aveline dreaded. The, horses were ready, there was naught left but to mount.

Aveline looked up at her captor piteously. “Please don't tie me as I was tied yesterday.”

“Can'st tell a better or safer way, M'Lady?”

She knew she could not. She twisted and flushed awkwardly beneath his gaze. “It hurts so brutally, I dread it. And it shames me so.”

Aveline supposed his heavy sigh one of exasperation with her femininity. But he looped rope in each of the girth rings so as to improvise stirrups. “Do you prefer this with thy wrists and elbows bound, M'Lady?”

“Oh, yes! Oh, thank you!” She was naively grateful.

“Are you certain?” he asked dryly. “ ‘Tis far from pleasant to ride with bound elbows?”

“My elbows – “ The thought was new to her. “I know so little. Why tie my elbows as wel as my wrists?”

“It makes thee trebly safe. I need not to watch thy every move.”

9

Knowing her day must be without comfort, Aveline was concerned only that it should be without the pain and shame of yesterday. Discarding the agonies of decision she turned and crossed her wrists.

Uncrossing them he placed them palm to palm and tied them securely. His captive stood in her hurt pride and made no complaint. When the hide strips tightened ‘round her elbows, pul ing back her shoulders and tautening her breasts, she confined her protest to a gasping intake of breath as her flesh met and was joined by the several loops nestling into her maiden skin. If Godsoule believed this must be done to her to keep her safe from temptation of escape she would bear her new bondage with what grace she could. Tightly tied, she turned and smiled up at him playful y.

“You wil have to place me, messire Godsoule. I cannot.”

He lifted her with frightening ease. It was borne upon the naked girl how helpless she was against such strength. A growing burn from her elbows told her it would be another day without hope of escape. She sought the makeshift stirrups with her bare feet, then met his eyes. “It hurts. You said it would. But I am grateful.” She knew she sounded like a smal child tendering dutiful thanks.

For Aveline it was a most shaming day. She could ride a horse with the best, but in trot or canter or even at a walk her outthrust breasts responded erotically to the constantly varied motion. She knew that were she a man, her gaze would seldom leave their inviting quivering.

She was constantly looking at herself as though in surprise at the behaviour of her twin possessions. But her vexation with her body's responses was as nothing compared to the ever increasing pain of tied elbows and wracked shoulders. Each passing hour made her doubt more and more the wisdom of her inexperienced choice. When they stopped briefly at noon beside a stream she ashamedly made her confession.

“Messire Godsoule ... before you lift me back upon the horse – “

“M,Lady?”

“Please be not angry with me.”

“You give me no reason.”

“Aye, but I am about to.” She looked up into his grave face piteously. “You were right. I have been foolish. The pain is growing more than I can bear ... I did not know.”

He nodded, waiting for her capitulation.

“Please tie me as I was - as yesterday. Forgive me.”

He was amused, secure in the superiority of the male. He went about the task Aveline had imposed upon him. Slowly and with goodwil he loosened the knots, quietly enjoying her chagrin. When she was free he paused and watched while she gingerly massaged the weals left by his rope. Looking up expectantly she offered:

“Several of those ... those men held me to be tied. I wil not struggle, but until I am made fast it would be easy to fall.”

“With thy help, M'Lady.” Her concern had made him smile.

With an awareness of incongruity and a strange unity of purpose, the naked captive allowed herself to be lifted to face backward on her now familiar perch. She offered her hands, one at a time, for the bands to be made tight upon her wrists. Then looked down as the same service was performed for her ankles. Did ever a mind prepare for a journey with so daunting a ritual!

10

Had ever a captive girl accepted so grateful y! Feeling sil y and inadequate, she wriggled and positioned herself as best she could while Godsoule drew her tethers through the rings. It was not until her arms were drawn down and back demandingly enough to impose strain that she felt safe from sliding sideways to the ground. It was she herself who draped her legs an either flank and bent them back to aid the strong male hands in drawing them harshly back to the rings of the girth. When the task was done, she once again reluctantly recognized Rennet's skil . She was safe from a fal and doubly safe from escape. Save for the shame of her exposed sex she was prepared to concede that if a girl must be bound upon a horse, this was the better way.

“You are as comfortable as may be, M'Lady?”

“Yes. Oh, Godsoule, thank you. `Tis hurtful enough, but better than ... the way I was.”

With a male gentleness he smoothed her hair and drew it down to one side, then checked his knots and the taut tethers that held his prize. Without further ado they resumed their forward pace. Neither spoke. There was nothing more to say.

It was approaching twilight when she perceived the signs of human activity. Twisting her head as best she could to get the view ahead she beheld Broule. It was a bigger fortress than she had seen, grim and forbidding in the evening light. Before they reached the drawbridge of the moat, Aveline pleaded:

“Messire Godsoule, I am naked and there wil be many to see my shame. Cannot the blanket we used in the night be thrown across me until we reach ... wherever I am to be taken?”

“Thy condition is as ordered, M'Lady. Ye wil not be covered.”

Godsoule's voice was as regretful as it was grim. Aveline was a daughter of her time, and could thus well believe in the wil of some unknown, presumably Malenfant, to diminish her courage and her pride for some reason she could not yet divine. Women were chattels. She knew well enough how the Barons used them for their playthings and their pawns. She made no further protest. Adam Godsoule had been kind to her. She gave her concern to avoiding the curious glances bestowed as they entered within the walls.

“A pretty piece, Adam.”

The gruff male voice heralded the end of their journey. They had stopped beside a door. The speaker wore a belt with keys along with the coarse, impersonal air of a jailer. Godsoule dismounted.

“The audience?” he asked curtly.

“Nay, 'tis for the morrow. I'l house the wench.” Aveline sensed Godsoule's distaste. It showed in his words.

“I'l carry her then. ‘Tis a poor sort of walk at journey's end.”

“Ye don't trust me wi' the girl, Adam?” the voice sneered.

“Ye've had orders for the care of her?”

“Oh, aye, orders a'plenty.” The voice was bitter. “Her cunt's her own fer the nonce. Feed her and keep her safe.” The two men worked upon the knots and eased Aveline to the ground.

She clutched at Godsoule for support so that he picked her up bodily while the jailer unlocked the door and lit a torch. The steps were stone and led sharply down. The frightened girl held tight to her bearer and tried not to see the cold and cheerless masonry they traversed while fol owing the jailer's smoky il umination.

11

It could be called naught else but a dungeon. Granite and iron bars past a massive door. By the standards of such places it was clean, but the metal fixtures bedded in the stone bespoke its purpose all too well.

“I've picked good irons fer the lass. She'll carry no heavy load.”

“You have to chain the girl?” Godsoule demanded irritably. “Be sensible, Dixon, she'll ne'er break down thy door.”

“That's as may be, Adam me lad. But ye know the rules. And this time there's special orders from above; the less wears chains.”

Godsoule set his burden on her feet. “I am sorry, M'Lady. There is naught I can do in the manner of your confinement.”

“It does not matter.” Aveline said the words bravely although her heart was pounding in dread of a fresh shame. Chains were not for such as she. She smiled up at the man who had escorted her, bound, to Broule. “Mayhap I wil rest easier than on a horse.”

It was a familiar gesture now to hold out her hands and extend a slender ankle. Aveline watched the shackles locked upon her wrists and felt their unaccustomed weight. Her humiliation seemed complete when her ankles were clamped in metal bands joined by a span of links, but Godsoule's disgusted exclamation heralded on more imposition.

“By the saints, Dixon, there's no need to iron her to the wall!”

“And why not, pray! I've got me orders.”

“Not by that damn col ar on her neck.”

“What's wrong wi' it! Wrought special fer ladies o' quality, so it be. I've seen heavier.”

“You can find something less onerous than that, man!” The naked captive stood in her chains and watched her jailer make a grumbling search. When he approached her it was with a metal col ar noticeably lighter. When it was locked about her throat and its long length of trailing links affixed to a ring in the wall she knew herself hopelessly confined.

“Housed like a lady, so she be,” Dixon said with grudging approval.

“Give the girl a blanket.”

“Oh, aye, and a feather bed, no doubt.” Dixon obviously felt imposed upon. “She gets her blanket come night. That's the word. 'Tis not yet time.”

Left alone in near darkness, Aveline stood naked and chained in her stone prison. She was as close to despair as she had ever been. The implacability of her bondage was more befitting a male giant than a slip of a girl. Wonderingly, she toyed with the iron things fastened upon her.

Questing fingers sought her neck and its metal circlet. She took tentative hobbled steps until her tether to the wall snubbed her back. It stopped her advancing more than halfway to the door. She was a prisoner without hope of escape. Groping her way to the corner and its pitiful covering of straw, she sank down on the coarse stuff, buried her face in her shackled hands and wept.

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