THE COLLAR AND THE RING | chained in dungeon | bdsm stories

It was strange to be clothed again, and in rich clothes! Aveline had never known such costly raiment. Strange too, the deference and respect of the woman who tended her. She had been bathed, scented and well fed after Dixon had delivered her into female hands.

“ ’Tis a fine Lady yel make o' her,” he had said sourly. “Mayhap ye’l bring her back ere’ night to wear my pretty baubles instead o’ thine.”

Aveline's night had been desolate. There are depths of grief that cancel out all else but a numbness of the mind.

Disposing her chains as best she could the tired and frightened girl had curled into a nude ball and found oblivion in sleep.

Deferential as the serving woman might be she would answer no questions. It was thus, unarmed with knowledge, that the erstwhile captive was led, thrust through the portal by a gentle hand, and the door closed at her back.

It was a large and cheerful room. A fire blazed in the hearth. It was a male room fil ed with male accoutrements. It was the military figure of a man who rose at her entry. “M’Lady, welcome.”

“M'Lord?”

“Malenfant.” He added the missing title with a smile. “Broule is honoured by thy presence.”

He was darkly handsome, a man beyond youth but without age. Aveline guessed him as one who would find social graces a waste of time. But he appeared civilized to a degree inconsistent with her treatment of the last three days. She sought a clue:

“Am I indebted to you for this ... visit, M'Lord?”

He saw her trap and smiled indulgently. “There have been discomforts; Aveline?”

She flushed at his use of her name and his easy reference to the many shames of her capture.

“I have been kidnapped, stripped and bound, M’Lord. It was beyond discomfort.”

Aveline was chagrined by his lack of concern, his query was merely a statement of the obvious.

“Injury!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I have been robbed of my maidenhead and bound naked on a horse like a sack of corn. Look!” She held up her hands so that her sleeves fel away to reveal her wounded wrists. “Must I thank you for these?”

Malenfant was amused by her vehemence. “Aye, that ye may,” he admitted without embarrassment.

Aveline was startled. Her arms fell to her sides like broken weapons. She stared in disbelief.

“By your orders I was so il used?”

“Know ye a better way, Aveline, to gentle such as thee?”

It was preposterous. Malenfant’s casual disposal of her agonies was infuriating. She was about to voice her anger when she remembered the dungeon from which she had so recently been taken -- remembered nakedness. Even though it confirmed her cynicism she had best tread lightly.

1

“And what am I gentled for, M’Lord?”

“Marriage.”

His single word struck her as might a blow. It was as out of context as al the rest. Her voice was tremulous. “Marriage! To whom, M’Lord?”

“Myself.”

“I can think of less brutal courtships.”

He waved her words away. “They are not for me, girl. Ye suit my purpose; I have taken thee.

‘Tis that simple.”

“But there are ways, customs ...”

“Bent knees and dowries and blessings! Bah ... nonsense!”

“You prefer chains and a dungeon?”

“I do. Ye’re a more sensible wench for having spent the night below.”

Aveline was forced to take him seriously and to concede some glimmer of truth in what he said.

The dungeon and its chains had conditioned her in ways he would approve but from which she cringed. This man was outrageous, but he was intel igent and to be feared.

“I can scarce feel affection for the man who put me there.”

Malenfant surveyed his captive assessingly. He did not vouchsafe a reply. He paced to the window and back in thought. The watching girl stood trembling, knowing herself without a weapon, striving to adjust her mind to the incredible. When her companion halted and turned his attention to her once more he said as though in meditation:

“We do what we must, girl. It serves my purpose to wed thee and to produce sons. There are matters of the Realm which need not concern a woman. I can bed ye by force but my need demands a priest join us.” He eyed her evident distress with irritation. “There are those who would consider you fortunate.”

“I am not one of them.”

“I'l not court thee with flowers.”

“Do not court me at all, M'Lord. Send me home.” Malenfant's gesture was eloquent of disgust at feminine intransigence.

“Today I leave on a mission. I wil be absent for a matter of days. I would fain settle this matter before I leave.”

“It wil never be settled, Sire.”

“It wil be settled, girl!” He gazed at her in sombre vexation. “It wil be settled as I wish.

There are worse fates than being Mistress of Broule. I wil give ye time to think of them.”

For a moment they stood, each seeking to stare the other down. Then, with a disgusted shake of his head, Malenfant took a parchment from the table and strode purposeful y from the chamber.

Aveline stood, puzzled and lost. She looked down at her splendid gown and around her at the rich trappings of nobility. It would be easy to consider that if she was indeed sundered from her past without hope of escape it might be well to accept the wealth and power of Broule. But to be treated as a brood mare by a man so devoid of humanity! It was a fate she would not wil ingly accept. She wondered miserably if the Holy Church would aid his desire and join her to him legal y by force. She knew not if such a travesty of wedlock could be contrived without her consent. She had heard it said that in the Realm of Wil iam Rufus the Barons had power to bring about whatsoever they wished.

“M'Lady.”

Aveline turned, startled by the female voice. It was the serving woman who stood within the doorway, gazing at her with troubled eyes.

“Yes?”

“My name is Amiot, M’Lady. I must attend thee.”

“Thank you. I am glad.”

Amiot made a gesture of deprecation. “It is not as we might wish, M’Lady. I am to be thy jailer.”

It was in keeping with the rest. Aveline eyed the handsome woman assessingly. Amiot would be strong and lithe, not easy to best in a struggle. She had a look of shrewdness not easy to deceive. As though reading her evaluation, Amiot said softly:

“M’Lady, ye wil like not what I must do. I have to tel of help at hand should I cal .”

“You are telling me I must obey you?”

“Yes, M'Lady.”

Aveline smiled bitterly. “I am to be punished then?” Amiot shrugged.

“M’Lord calls it persuaded.”

“The whip, the rack, the dungeon?”

“None of them, M'Lady. There is little pain for thee as yet. I need give thee naught but shame.”

How sad a choice! To fight and be subdued by force or yield herself passively as might a simpleton. Pride could survive neither. No doubt that was Malenfant's reasoning. Aveline gazed pensively upon Amiot and saw her as a woman she could trust, perhaps a friend.

“I wil not struggle, Amiot,” she said slowly. “I wil suffer the things that ... that you must do to me. But I must ask thee first: Wil ye not set me free? There would be much gold for thee at Plinlymon.”

“You have asked your question, child.” Amiot smiled sadly. “My answer must be no.”

“Amiot, call me by name. There is little of the Lady about me now.”

“That please me. Aveline is sweet and serves thee wel .”

“Tel me, Amiot. What must I now do?”

3

“Come, I wil take thee to where you must go. ‘Tis less fearsome than ye think.”

It was a garden, a pleasant place of flowers and shrubs, pleasantly hot and scent laden in the summer sun within the high enclosing walls. The captive girl sighed in pleasure at the sight of it and looked questioning at her mentor.

“It is called the Garden of Women,” Amiot explained. “A place of privacy for the females of the Keep. ‘Tis better than the dungeon.”

“I do not understand.” Aveline looked about her wonderingly.

“You wil know soon enough, Aveline. Now, let us use this bench for thy clothes.”

The captive tensed. This was the beginning. “You want me - ?”

“Yes, child, naked.”

“But outdoors - there are men!”

“None here. Look about. There are none to see.”

It was true. They stood in a smal and lovely world of their own. There was neither entry nor egress save by the door through which they came. Aveline shrugged resignedly and divested herself of the costly things she would fain have worn. As she stripped Amiot folded each thing neatly. Bare, she felt the heat of the sun and remembered the shaming exposures of her journey. This was better.

“ ‘Tis in the centre, Aveline. Come.” Amiot held out a hand.

It was a stone paved square, no more than twelve feet across. In its centre was a heavy iron ring, deeply bedded. The naked girl shrank from what she saw.

“It grieves me, Aveline, that it must be thy neck.” Aveline knelt and bent her head. It was as though rehearsed without a need of words. Amiot fastened the metal col ar upon the submissive neck and locked it to the chain from the ring. Aveline was captive.

“It allows you much freedom, child, but never enough.”

Instinctively Aveline's fingers rose to her throat and explored the band of iron which snugly circled it. From there they fingered the chain which tethered her to the ring. Both were heavy but no more than she could bear. She looked up in bafflement. “Is this all?”

Amiot smiled at the naivete. “Is it not enough!”

The captive gestured with a free arm. “I had expected ... is it no the custom - ?”

“To iron thy wrists and ankles?” Amiot laughed at her charge's puzzlement. “ ‘Tis the custom right enough. But this way ye be cheated of martyrdom.”

“You mean I am to be just chained by my neck?”

“Yes. You can stand or sit or walk a pace or two back and forth. Ye can tend thy own needs and can converse.”

“But ... but how - ?”

4

“Ah, there's the rub! No one wil use a key. The days wil pass, as wil the nights. But the col ar on thy throat wil stay, nor wil ye break the chain that tethers you.”

“In the open ... like this ... always?”

“Until M'Lord's return, and that's uncertain.”

“But at night?”

“For the dark there's a blanket. It wil be taken away after sunrise.”

“Alone, here like this?” Aveline glimpsed terror.

“Nay, ‘Tis a public place for women. You'l have company, but it may shame thee to be seen thus.”

Aveline comprehended a subtlety at odds with Malenfant's impatience. She would earn no wounds. Should her chained sojourn bear fruit she would approach the altar unscarred.

Beholding a vista of shaming days and nights she wondered at her courage. To live as a chained cur had become a daunting prospect.

“And if I cannot change, Amiot, what then?”

“A maid once stayed as ye are now for twenty weeks, Aveline. For most, it takes a lesser time.”

“I am not the first?”

“Cans’t not see, the chain and the iron ring? They have been there long.”

“Does the girl always cease ... to resist?”

Amiot nodded. “The days are long, child, and the nights longer. The col ar becomes irksome on the neck. Hope dies.”

“Oh, Amiot!” Aveline's stricken gaze besought pity. “You mean a girl is left here - just left, chained?”

“Yes. I wil not tel thee differently. It is in my heart to counsel ye to obedience to the wishes of Milord Malenfant. I fear that after many days you wil yield. But that is a road which each one chained to the ring travels in their own way. I know not what I myself might do if I were chained as you.”

Aveline's mind was besieged by visions and perplexity. “But, Amiot, there are terrible things that may be done to those who do not change their minds, I have been told of them. Why would M'Lord have patience for the ebbing of a maiden's courage here chained to this ring?”

“I do not know, child. M'Lord Malenfant is a strange man who does things in his own ways.

Feel thankful the chain is on thy neck here and not elsewhere. There are worse places for a girl than this Garden of Women.”

Aveline knew this true. She had much time to reflect upon the fact. It was as strange a situation as al else. She spent most of her first day adjusting her consciousness to the fact she could not walk from where she was joined to the ring. The ring became the focal point of her universe. She could stand nakedly free with arms upraised in worship to the sun, she could sit or lay in any posture she chose, she could even walk a pace or two in any direction. But in the end the chain and the col ar control ed her, she must fol ow the static compulsion of the metal at her throat.

5

She tried it all, tentatively and feeling foolish. At first, even when the chain snubbed her back from freedom, her mind refused to accept. There would be something she could do! Someone would come with a key! She could work upon her tether and in some magic manner free herself! It al seemed possible in the rationale of the freedom of her arms and legs. But to sit, or to stand, and that was al ! It seemed absurd.

The Garden of Women was a pleasant place. This and the turmoil of her thoughts kept boredom at bay for the first hours of her new captivity. She even dozed lazily in the sun. It was in such a relaxation she heard the voice.

“Are you asleep or just pretending?”

It was a girl of her own age, a serving maid of sorts judged by her attire. A gamin face and pixie eyes dancing in amusement at Aveline and the chain. The naked girl sat up, startled.

Then, seeing no menace, she said demurely: “What would ye have me do but sleep?”

The mischievous young face lit in a smile of understanding. “My name is Ismay. I was chained like that once.”

“And I am Aveline. Why were you punished?”

The dancing eyes considered the question, the ripe lips giggled. “I bit him and ran away.”

Aveline was intrigued. For a moment she forgot her chain. “You bit M'Lord Malenfant!”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t dare. It was Miles Hardwin.”

“Am I supposed to know the name?”

“He's M'Lord's half brother, or something.” Ismay giggled again, “Miles Hardwin can do no wrong in Broule. If he wants to bite thy tit it's best to let him.”

Aveline's captive heart warmed to her visitor. She understood how a serving wench could be more informative than Malenfant himself. Perhaps she might learn answers!

“Were you chained here because you bit or because you ran?”

“Mostly because I ran. I was new to Broule and thought I could run back home. I know now it was sil y, but I did not know it then.” She paused meditatively. “Had I been here longer I would have been whipped and chained in a dungeon to cool my heels, but M'Lord was merciful.”

“How long were you kept here, chained I mean?”

Nine days and nine nights.” Ismay's eyes sparkled fresh. “The nights would have been most sad had Miles not come comfort me.”

Aveline tensed. “A man! I was told none entered here?” Ismay had the grace to blush. “Miles Hardwin goes where he wil . Besides, he felt sorry for me and I'm a pretty piece to fuck.”

Aveline rapidly rearranged perspectives. “Are you a captive here?”

Her companion considered the question. “If I stray beyond the moat I earn a whipping,” she said slowly. “So, in a way, I must be a prisoner. But I had not thought of it that way. Even though I get oft’ punished I would not go from Broule.”

The philosophy of a serving wench, replete with food and sex. Such a one might be fallible.

“Woulds’t thou free me, there would be much gold?”

“There would also be much lashing and branding and hanging by my thumbs. None wil aid thy escape, none would dare.”

“You know who I am?”

“The Lady Aveline D'Almaine of Plinlymon. Milord desires to wed thee before a priest to beget a son.” Ismay grinned knowingly. “Ye be chained to the ring to persuade thee to answer yes when the Prior asks for thy response at the altar.”

Aveline liked the girl. “Could he not do as wel with thee?”

“I am not of noble blood. He would be a laughing stock.”

“Why did he not court me; visit my father? He had me kidnapped and brought here naked lashed to a horse.”

“He is passing proud. M‘Lord takes, he does not ask.”

Aveline sighed and rueful y reflected. “He makes hard work of it.”

“For thee, but not for him. Ye wil think much beside that ring whilst he goes about his affairs.”

It was infuriatingly true. She was being conditioned! Aveline's own pride rose in a flood to deny capitulation. She would stay chained by her neck forever rather than yield to such an ungallant courtship. But suppose there were other trials besides the ring! She looked up doleful y. “You spoke of punishments and the whip, Ismay. Has’t been so hurt?”

Ismay produced a superior smile of pure pride. Slipping her scant shift off her shoulders she let it fall. She turned her back.

Aveline gasped. The white slenderness of the girlish back and bottom was marked by purple welts horizontally proclaiming themselves like the implacable bars of a cage. There were not many, but they had been shrewdly spaced as though for effect.

“I got them two days ago for smashing a pot and saucing the cook.” Ismay sounded as proud as she looked. “Fifteen strokes wel laid on. Aren’t they lovely!”

“Lovely!” Aveline was aghast, her worst fears confirmed. “You speak as though those awful weals were a gift.”

“Well, they are, sort of.” Ismay giggled as she shrugged back into her covering. “Fifteen isn’t all that bad - even though they were hard. But it makes a difference who holds the whip.”

“How ... why?” Aveline was lost.

“Well, when he heard about it, Miles Hardwin decided to whip me,” Ismay giggled in a self-satisfied note. “Miles loves whipping a girl. He screws us beautiful y after - while we're stil hanging by our wrists.”

“You mean this happens often?”

“Of course, why not!”

Aveline's adjustment of perspective continued apace. “But you sound as though you like him, you sound proud.”

“Well, Miles Hardwin is M'Lord's favourite and he fucks beautiful y.” Ismay came up with the inevitable giggle. “You'l see when he does it to you.”

“He never wil .”

“He wil if he wants to. The first time he did it to me he came down to where I was standing in the stocks waiting to be whipped and played with my tits and my pussy until I was ready to scream. When I was triced up to be whipped I was in such a dither of wanting to be fucked I scarcely felt the whip. I couldn’t wait for him to get at me.”

“You let him do this?”

“Don’t be sily. What else can a girl do but let him when she's standing with her neck and her wrists fastened in the pil ory and she's stark naked!”

Ismay was hard to refute. Thought of such a predicament caused the chained captive to blush.

The knowledge that Broule contained a second male hazard to Malenfant himself was disquieting. Aveline's mind churned furiously. “This Miles Hardwin ... he would not dare touch me.”

Ismay eyed the imprisoned nudity with an appreciative eye. “With thy shape and tits he is certain to,” she tittered. “You'l like him.”

“But that's preposterous! If Malenfant desires me he would not allow it.”

“Malenfant does not desire thee, he desires an heir to Broule.”

So simple, so frightening, so absurd!

It was not until Ismay had responded to a peremptory call from the doorway with a scamper of feet and a gay flutter of a hand that Aveline saw the ful import of what she had learned. In one fashion or another Broule would have its way with her. She picked up the chain from her col ar and weighed it pensively. If only ... if only! She lay back and tried to resume her doze.

But sleep had fled. The knowledge that a handsome scion of the nobility who enjoyed whipping naked girls might make an appearance at any time kept her mind awhirl. She tried to picture her plight, chained and unable to flee, and only her hands to cover her nakedness. It was not a vision conducive to slumber.

Her next visitor was the cook, a bulky, no-nonsense dame with a shrewish voice. “What has that little minx, Ismay, been tel ing thee, lass?”

“I like her,” Aveline said defensively. “She just refused to help me escape, that's al.”

The cook grunted. “She's a saucy baggage who needs her arse tanned daily. I suppose you'l be sensible when M'Lord returns?”

“No, I won’t.”

“Humph, dratted girls! Al the same, flighty.”

“I've been kidnapped. Wil you help me to escape?”

8

The cook eyed the plaintive captive with a disil usioned eye. “Nobody escapes from Broule,”

she said with conviction. “I should report what you've just said to the seneschal. Milord left him power to whip ye should ye give good cause.”

Aveline trembled, malignant retribution was so close! It hovered over every incautious word.

“Is it wrong for a girl to wish to go home?” she demanded forthrightly.

“If M'Lord has taken thee, then ‘tis wrong and ye can be well striped. Remember it wel, lass.”

“She - Ismay, she told me of a man named Miles Hardwin?”

“Oh, him!” The cook's exclamation was ambiguous. “A proper one be Miles Hardwin. You're lucky, lass, he's away on the hunt. With thy tits ye'd no be safe.”

“Must I be chained here like this day and night? Cannot ye help me?”

“You need no help, girl: What's a col ar 'round thy neck! And sit in the sun all day in idleness.

Best I leave ye to it afore I warm thy pretty arse.”

The bulky figure ambled away, grumbling. Aveline watched her retreat without regret. The captive fingers once more found their way to the band of metal on the captive throat. If only she could get it off! If only she could be once more free! Thoughts of Plinlymon were too much for her. Aveline wept.

In the night she found what comfort she could in the blanket, vouchsafed her grudgingly by a woman impervious to her plea for two. She rolled herself in the single and was grateful that her nakedness be covered, but her dreams were without joy. The scanty covering was wrenched from her in the morning before the sun was high.

She became used to her captivity and supposed grimly that a girl became inured to anything if she was robbed of choice. Her condition was shaming and wickedly frustrating, but without pain other than a chafed neck. She was an object of avid curiosity among the staff, the younger females of which sometimes clustered about her with questions and advice. Al of them at sometime or other had been chained to the ring, one for only a day, another for a month, one admitted to thirteen weeks. Al claimed to prefer a quick whipping to the long, drawn out punishment of the chain and col ar. But Aveline gathered much of their distaste arose from the obloquy they heaped upon each other. It was an accepted sport to torment any unfortunate girl captive to the ring. She could be pelted with anything handy, she could be mocked and teased, her food could be placed a few inches beyond her reach, her blanket might be stolen in the night. She herself was exempt from such attentions only because it would be foolish to arouse the enmity of one who, if she had any sense, could stil become the Mistress of Broule.

They thought her stupid. To suffer the ring when she could wed the high and mighty Malenfant! They wished they had the chance and said so. He had used them al in an absent-minded manner to appease a need. Those who had at first been reluctant had sat with her neck chained until she changed her mind. Aveline discovered a week or so had been enough for most. One or two admitted to having been taken within the keep and soundly whipped as an aid to decision. Negatives did not survive. Al of them in their talk betrayed their conviction that with Aveline herself it was but a matter of time. They could understand that because she was of noble blood and proud her time might be long.

Most of them had been kidnapped as she had been. Some were bartered from parents desiring Baronial favour. Al were resigned to an easy and comfortable captivity within the wal s. They accepted the whip upon their back in much the same spirit as they accepted their daily tasks.

That none of them were actively unhappy seemed due to an erotic and gigglingly feminine 9

enjoyment in the sporadic attention of Miles Hardwin. They shared Ismay's recipient of the lust generated by the whipping of their bottoms and backs by his skil ful hand.

Sitting or standing naked and chained to her ring whilst a circle of feminine chatter enveloped her had at first been hard to endure. Even before female eyes Aveline had longed to cover her breasts and pubic hair, and had done so to the best of her ability until laughed out of countenance. It was hard also to listen to herself discussed and her chances of being given more painful persuasions bandied back and forth. There was general agreement that her physical attributes were of such superlative excel ence that she could expect no mercy from the lords of Broule. On one occasion an animated discussion arose as to whether the father of her first child would be Malenfant himself or Miles Hardwin.

Becoming accustomed to her shame, Aveline would join in the chatter. When she protested the bearing of any child of Broule, it was explained that should she prove awkward enough in her rejections she would undoubtedly stand out on the ground or on a bed and be ravished each night until pregnant. None saw the semi-rape as other than to be expected. She told none of her violation by the five men on the night of her seizure. It was a shame she tried not to think of.

When alone, and she was alone most of the time, Aveline's thoughts were sombre enough. She supposed on his return Malenfant would be angry and have her whipped or worse. It was one more fear to set at the back of her mind. The gossip of the girls had placed within her awareness the masculine figure of Miles Hardwin. Sooner or later she would face him in some capacity she would not like - probably naked as she was now. When her mind tired of fears, and the sun was hot, she would lay stretched upon the stone and recover some of the sleep the chil of night denied. It was on the fifth day that, sleeping thus, she was awakened by a new voice. The voice was male.

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