MALENFANT'S WHIP | bound and tied with chains | bdsm stories

It was uncomfortable and frightening upon the horse. Aveline's ankles were roped and cinched beneath the withers. Her wrists were tied behind her back and once more the hated bands of rope circled her elbows and drew them tight. She would have preferred the manner of her binding when Adam Godsoule had taken her. This was cruelly painful and without dignity.

They had covered her, a crude sacking thrown over her shoulders and tied to keep away the night chil . She sensed a value placed upon her, but not of love.

There were two of them, soldiers. They would speak to her only to command, they answered no questions. They had paid Unity with a purse of silver. Aveline wondered wryly what her price had been.

It had been a shock, a surging mixture of hope and joy when Unity, now clothed, had used the key and whispered an apology for the rope: “I must bind thy hands at thy back, Aveline.”

She had cared naught for the binding. It was a smal thing compared to the weight of metal from which she had been freed. The two captives had exchanged bewildered glances as they were led from the Abbey in the dark of night by the sister whom the Abbess had so cruelly whipped. But with thought of escape riotous in their minds they questioned not. That she alone was bound while Nest was free was an anomaly Aveline ignored. To be in the open air beyond the convent walls was magic enough without quibbling about a pair of tied wrists.

Quite probably Unity was only being cautious.

The men awaited them in the trees. Two soldiers and an extra horse. Aveline was scrutinised like a bad penny but accepted. The purse changed hands. When she had secreted it, Unity held tight the girl whose hands were tied and kissed her sadly. “Forgive me,” she had whispered. “Forgive me, Aveline, thy fate may be no worse.” The errant sister had clasped Nest's hand and said urgently: “Come, child, we find thy parents.” The two of them had diminished into the dark.

It was cruel to be tied. Free, she might have made a run for it. But the cords were tight upon her crossed wrists. There would be no fleeing in the dark for Aveline D'Almaine. She had been sold. Tears of disappointment were heavy in her eyes.

“She's naked, Piers, let's fuck her.”

Shock had driven back the tears. “No, no! Ye must not!” She had surged away from the hands upon her arms. “Why not, Wil ! Would'st be fol y not to used a tied cunt. She's as neat a package as I've seen. Ye'd like a good diddling, wouldn’t ye, girl? I'l promise something better than a convent tongue.”

They had taken her with ease, remarking on the beneficial effect of her bound arms. She lay painful y and helpless while it was done to her. The pounding thrusts between her spread legs fil ing her with sperm and disgust.

After they were satiated with their unusual good fortune they bound her elbows in the hated way she knew so well. “You don’t need to do that to me,” she had begged. “My wrists are tied tight. I can’t escape.”

“Better safe than sorry,” she had been told. “You wenches have a way with ropes. Ye wriggle all too wel .”

“Where do ye take me?”

They had laughed at their own knowledge and her lack of it. “ ‘Tis where ye'l do a better service than in a convent,” they assured her genially. “Give us no trouble and we'l give ye none either.”

“Don’t you call raping me trouble?”

“ ‘Tis but a man's way with a maid. If ye like it not now, ye'l learn.”

“Give me a saddled horse so I can ride sensibly. Tied like this I'm helpless enough. Don’t tie me to its back.”

They had laughed at that too and hoisted her astride and girthed her ankles so that she was cruelly helpless. Leading her mount they set off into the darkness at a steady pace, she knew not where.

They had ridden far from the convent and from Broule before they deigned to ask her questions. Dawn was breaking in the East and Aveline was dreaming hopeless dreams of Miles and of Plinlymon.

“Did Milord Malenfant fuck thee, lass?”

“No, he did not! And don’t talk like that.”

“Hoity-toity. I'l wager a crown or two Miles Hardwin got inside thee?”

“Wager what ye like.” She looked haughtily ahead.

“She liked Hardwin's cock. ‘Tis easy to tell.”

They laughed at her blush. Then, in the growing light, discussed her physical attributes.

“Wonder what she'd say if I bit her tits off.”

“Let's put flame to her bush and watch it burn. I've never seen the like. Damn near got lost in it.”

“She's a lovely cunt, tight and juicy. Ever noticed, Piers, a tied girl is never dry. Being helpless makes 'em think of rape and gets their sap flowing.”

“Hey, lass, were ye like to wed with the Baron o' Broule?”

“I certainly was not!”

Her answer concerned them. They seemed surprised. “Ye mean to tell us, girl, you were in that convent as a prisoner, and not for instruction on thy wedding?”

“I was there for the amusement of those who rule the Abbey. They cared not for my wedding.”

“Who striped thee?”

“The Abbess.” She could not speak of Miles.

“Naughty girl, eh?”

“I suppose so. Is there something sensible you want to know?”

“She's got Norman blood for sure. Haughty little bitch. Coudraye wil be pleased enough with her. Poor chap could do with a bit o' tail.”

When the sun grew warm they took away her covering and enjoyed her nudity. “What say we whip her arse when we stop at noon?”

“Nay, be not so rough on the lass. Her arse is purple enough and she's got to ride. There's other places.”

Aveline hated the tear that stole down her cheek. It was a tear of shame and anger and of frustration. They beheld it with pleasure.

“Got a gentle nature, she has. She's crying.”

“Weeping for another good poke, like as not. What say ye, lass?”

“Shut up your stupid talk,” Aveline demanded angrily. “Is that al you think of; raping a tied girl?”

“Don’t know a better sport, girl.”

“Set me free and I'l get thee gold.”

“Getting uppity, she is. Needs a good whipping.” Aveline let her tears flow freely. What was the use! Everything was lost and hopeless and absurd. Her elbows were aflame, the bands on her ankles cut deep. She longed to scream.

They ceased to bait her. Whatever she had said had given them food for thought. They spurred forward at a steady gait. At noon she was not whipped, at night she was not raped.

They staked her out upon the grass, but loosely so that she could reach neither herself or the stakes. They covered her with the sack. She slept, cherishing a small, faint hope.

As they rode through the day there fell upon the two men an air of purpose, a preoccupation with their thoughts. Aveline sensed tension. She spoke little, since to do so only provoked coarse references to her breasts, her nipples and her pubic hair. She was kidnapped, and for a reason, but from her kidnapers she could elicit nothing.

They came to Coudraye in the dark of night. The castle lay in a valley. At a distance there were tents and horses and the fires of a camp. The scene might have been peaceful once; it was not now.

“There's naught but the quick gallop for the drawbridge, Piers. They promised to be watching

'round the clock.”

“Aye, Wil. ‘Tis a do or die thing, to be sure. But we'l deliver the maid and get our gold. The men of Broule are watching Coudraye, not the slope we'll cross.”

“The girl, think she's secure?”

They tested her bindings. To Aveline it seemed absurd. She was helpless, roped to the horse to become a part of it, her elbows numb from their bond. While she was made doubly secure, she peered through the trees at their destination. Coudraye was under siege, but for reasons of its own it wanted her.

“Best gag her, Wil.”

Aveline made no protest as her mouth was stuffed and tied. She could understand their urgency and need for caution. They would have no patience with feminine foibles. She found a wry amusement in her female revulsion to her condition: trussed, covered with a bit of sack, her mouth wadded with cloth, a bit of rope binding her cheeks. She was reduced to an appendage of the horse, untidy and unfeminine. Whoever she was being delivered to must surely receive a poor impression of her quality.

A leaping gallop is an exhilaration no matter what its end. The bound captive shared it with her captors, even to the point of a painful suspense in watching for the drawbridge to fall across the moat. If it failed their need, the men of Malenfant would most surely take them. She had a quick vision of Adam Godsoule leading her back to Broule tied fast upon his horse and destined for a dungeon and more chains.

The drawbridge fell. They clattered across it wel ahead of the hue and cry from the camp and its sentries. It rose behind them with a clanking racket of windlass and metal that told the captive girl she was once more hostage in a strange place, and for reasons that might be stranger stil .

They were expected. Her escort, the horses and herself were dealt with in rapid precision. She was carried far within the castle wal s by strong and ready arms. In the small stone chamber high in a tower there was a cot, a blanket, a pair of buckets and the inevitable chain and shackle which was immediately locked upon her ankle. The sacking was whisked away, leaving her nude, the ropes were cut from her elbows and her wrists. No word was said. She was left alone in her smal , clean prison. The sounds of the locking of the door told her there would be no escape.

Aveline did the things that prisoned girls do; they are instinctive. She tested her chain and her shackle. They were firm upon her ankle and within the stone of the wall; she could bear them and forget them. She went to the window, it was large and well barred but would make the cell a cheerful place by day. To grip the bars and peer through them she was obliged to stand on one foot, her chained ankle snubbed well back so she could advance no further. The same was true of the door, she could not reach it. She tried the cot, it was almost luxury. Draping herself in the blanket she lay down and slept.

Awakening was another step into unreality, one more excursion into disbelief. The woman who quietly stood and smiled down at her was verging on middle age, her features pleasantly domestic, faintly maternal. But she was richly garbed and carried the aura of authority.

“Welcome to Coudraye, Aveline D'Almaine.” The voice was soft.

The captive sat up, blinking in the sunlight of late morning. She clutched the blanket; nakedness seemed wrong in such a presence.

“We let thee sleep. T'was a weary journey. Now ye shall be bathed and given food and raiment.”

“Why - where ... Why am I brought here?” Aveline was lost.

The quiet smile deepened. “We wil attend my husband, the Lord of Coudraye, when thy needs are met. He wil tel thee what ye need to know. Fear not. Today ye are safe.”

“But I am a prisoner?”

“Aye, a prisoner.” The smile was shadowed. “But between thee and me let us call thee guest.

Call me Emma and I wil name ye Avline.”

“Ye are at war with Broule?”

“A stupid business.” The Lady of Coudraye waved an impatient hand. “You wil hear enough of it.” She beckoned to a servitor waiting in the passage. “Remove her shackle. She wil bear the lightest chains. See to it.”

Emma of Coudraye led her bemused captive into a world of magic, of comfort, of wealth and luxury. Despite her fears, Aveline's spirits soared. To be bathed with deference, to be fed and clothed with courtesy! She could scarcely believe her fortune. To be done with nakedness was a miracle. The clothes that covered her were richer than she had ever worn. Even the arrival of the armourer with the chains dampened her joy no whit.

“It grieves me that ye must be chained, Aveline, but ‘tis the custom. It is expected. Please bear with them. They are as light as may be, and fashioned well for such as thee.”

They were chains such as Aveline had never worn nor ever seen. They were light enough to be no great burden, the connecting links were many, giving her much freedom. Yet wearing them she would not escape. They forbid her feet to turn and her fists to fight. She knew a strange pleasure as they were locked upon her wrists and ankles. They were exquisitely crafted to enhance the loveliness of the woman they contained. She looked at Emma with gratitude and said with sincerity, “Thank you. They're beautiful.”

“Ye do not mind?”

The captive laughed. “After being bound and chained as I have been, these give me pleasure.

I forgot about escapes long since.”

They ate a belated breakfast, the Chatelaine of Coudraye finding amusement in her guest's dexterity in bondage. Aveline took pride in the shining metal that moved as she moved and clinked cheerful y each time she moved a dish or plied a fork.

“Yet ye must long for freedom, my dear. I wish I could grant it thee. Perhaps when - “ Emma left her thought unspoken.

“Am I to be whipped or punished?”

“Great Heaven, no!” Emma's shock was genuine. “Was that the hospitality of Broule?”

Aveline's reply was cut short by the advent of a serving maid who eyed the chained girl with furtive curiosity and announced that M'Lord Coudraye awaited them in his room. His Lady made no comment, confining her concern to matching her steps with those of her hobbled companion. Humane as her fetters might be, Aveline stil found them an impediment. She walked with caution and much sound.

Coudraye was a handsome man whose smile might have matched his wife's had he been not troubled. His spouse, having delivered her captive, bade them a bright au revoir and made good her absence, leaving her lord and the fettered maiden facing each other alone.

“Be seated, M'Lady. Let us speak in comfort.” His voice was as courtly as his manners. “Wine?

I'l drink a goblet with ye.”

Aveline accepted the potation and settled herself as bid. Her chains were an incongruity her host seemed not to notice. She waited in polite attention.

“Malenfant weds thee, so I'm told?”

“He wishes to. I do not.”

Coudraye digested her statement soberly. “And the convent? Was that of thy choice?”

“I was sent there to be whipped into compliance. M'Lord of Broule found the task not to his liking.”

“Ye jest, M'Lady?”

“Nay. I bear the stripes.”

He cupped his chin in thought. His captive sensed disquiet. “There's gossip goes the rounds - “

he said slowly. Then, in sudden accusation: “What of Miles Hardwin?”

Her heightened colour answered him.

“Ah ha! And did not the much loved Hardwin wish a bride?”

“I do not know, M'Lord. I would much doubt it.”

“I suppose he used ye?”

“I wil not lie about it. He used me.”

Coudraye laughed. It was neither in bitterness or in glee, but in deprecation. “I judge ye tell me truth,” he acknowledged. “But ‘tis a truth I thought not to hear. It makes a fool of me.”

It was very simple. Aveline suddenly understood. “Ye brought me here as hostage?”

This time his laugh was real enough. “Aye - or worse! I thought to use thee to end Malenfant's lust for blood. I've men enow' to fight him, but I want no war. I thought to wager thee. Thy life could save a hundred good men.”

“My life!” Aveline trembled.

Coudraye nodded sombrely. “Aye, if need be. A man does what he must. I'd hoped to barter thee so that the hothead might take ye back to Broule in honour and leave Coudraye in peace.”

“And now I am of smal value?”

“From what ye say.” He examined her shrewdly. “Hast aught to say of Malenfant?”

Aveline lifted her shackled wrists and looked at them musingly. Others might win or barter her, but she stil wore chains! “And if I am left upon thy hands unwanted? What then?”

Coudraye made a gesture of frustration. “Then Malenfant wil have his battle. At the end of it he'll take ye back to Broule in chains or I'l set ye free. I love the Lady Emma, I'l make no talk of using thee. Thou art high born and Norman. If Wil iam Rufus thought of other than the hunt he'd have ended thy slavery long since.”

“Milord Coudraye;” Aveline struggled for the right words. “Within thy purpose your lady and thyself have been kind to me. I wish thee well.” Again she lifted her chained wrists as though they were a symbol. “It would seem ye must offer me to Broule; then if rejected fight. I do not wish to be taken back to Malenfant, tied upon a horse. Thus my fortunes are with thee. If ye fight and prevail I have my dearest wish, to be free. Freedom has been so distant ... my heart desires it.”

“At the price of half my men and half of Malenfant's?” Aveline fingered the links of her chain as she might a rosary. She was more than just a pawn in this game between two warriors. “What would ye have me do, Sire?”

“Ye can offer to wed Malenfant as the price of peace between us.”

She had seen it coming. It was a cruel decision for a girl. “An' if I do, and he refuses?”

“Then we must fight.”

“When ye speak of a hundred lives ye leave me no choice,” Aveline said bitterly. “How can I offer myself to Malenfant as his brood mare?”

“Ye can fol ow a flag of truce from hence. Ye and Malenfant are Norman and wil honour a pledge.”

It was a grotesque wooing. “My pledge? What wil it be?”

“That if he rejects thee you'l return within these walls of thine own wil.”

“For what purpose would I return to this captivity?” She used her fettered hands as her question mark. Coudraye made a gesture of deprecation. “I cling to straws and what advantages I may lay my hand on. Until the battle's done I cannot judge the loss. I have a thought for thee - “ He grinned wryly at some vision of his own. “Consider well: Come ye not back to Coudraye ‘tis scarce like Malenfant to set thee free. Ye've hurt his pride and you'l bruise it more. He'l take thee as a slave.”

She had a sudden vision of the ring and the col ar on her neck. What Coudraye said made sense. She wondered where Miles was in this welter of conflict. She dared not mention him.

“Does’t send me on thy mission chained or do I walk free?”

They took her chains. Before she folowed the man at arms with his flag of truce across the drawbridge, Coudraye took her hands and kissed her lightly. She knew him troubled, and could not hate him for what he made her do. Had Malenfant been such as he her choice would have been easier. “Ye have my promise,” she told him simply. “Should he want me not upon thy terms I wil return and wear thy chains.” For a moment they found communion with their eyes before she turned away.

She was free! Yet never had she been more surely bound! Upon her slender shoulders was a great weight. How good it would be to run across the sward into the forest and on to liberty.

But she had pledged her word. Lives hung on it. Steadfastly she turned her face towards the tents and arms of Broule. The white flag fluttered gently to and fro.

“Coudraye has a magic.” Malenfant eyed her dourly and without favour. “What has he more potent than the Abbey's whips and dungeon?”

Aveline stood before him in his tent. Around them were strewn the accoutrements of battle. It was a brutal male atmosphere from which she shrank. It made her presumptuous bargain seem trivial. “The lives of many, M'Lord. I am a smal price to pay for them.”

“Ye are indeed.” His eyes were cold. “A maid who prefers the lash to his embrace is no bargain for any man.” It was true! Aveline saw its truth. She felt no tears, for in her heart she wished her mission to fail. To be bedded nightly in nuptial submission to this hard, dark, visaged man was a prospect she loathed. But she must play her role. “I offer thee my person and my loyalty as thy wife,” she told him simply.

“If I strike camp and spil no Coudraye blood!”

She could feel his outrage. Injured pride seeped from him in tangible waves of anger. “Ye wanted me enough to steal me from my home,” she pointed out reasonably “Ye wooed me with ropes and rapes and chains - and then with whips.”

“Your stubbornness demands them all.”

“Even as thy wife?”

He sneered. “And why not! I've no time for roses and pretty words. I want sons.”

She could feel sorrow for this man who knew so much of war and so little of love. His conviction of rightness was fearful. It placed him behind a wall of male savagery in which she had no place. He saw her body as a reproduction facility, her Norman nobility as a legal convenience. Yet, giving none himself, he stil demanded love - or a simulated simile. She tried again. “I wil mould myself as you desire.”

“Damn, girl! You promise now! Why not before?” Aveline motioned with hands strangely free.

“I am but a girl, Sire. I make no claim to wisdom.”

For a moment she thought she had him. But the moment passed. “I've been too concerned with usage and with ritual and thy feelings,” he told her gruffly. “I should have wed thee and bed thee at the start, even if I took thee tied to the altar. I could do it now. Does’t not realize that, M'Lady, I could do it now.”

“Yes, lord.”

“But I'l not be foxed by a wench, nor by Coudraye's guile. I'l bring his walls tumbling about his ears and slay whatever force he may possess. And in the end I'l take thee. I'l take ye for nowt and no bargains. Does’t understand?”

“Yes, lord.”

He glowered. Aveline trembled at the import of his vow. Could Coudraye best this brutal man?

She knew not. But in Coudraye's victory lay her only hope of life.

“I wil take thy message back within the walls, lord.”

“Aye. You're free. I'l respect the truce. But there's a lesson I'l have ye taught. Mayhap Coudraye can learn it too.”

He went to the tent flap and called. To the two soldiers who responded he ordered curtly:

“Take this sil y bitch hence. Strip those Coudraye clothes from her back, leave her no stitch of his costly finery. Then tie her to a tree and flog her wel .” He paused, considering, “But not so well she cannot walk back behind her flag.”

It was a horror she had not foreseen. Yet it was typical of Broule. Coudraye could not have imagined it. Only to Malenfant or the Abbot or Cissota could it have logic. No doubt the men-at-arms were bored and would welcome the diversion of watching a young noblewoman stripped and lashed.

“Please, lord, do not do this. It demeans thee.”

He laughed shortly at her plea. “Rest assured, madam, it wil demean ye more. Maybe t'wil spur Coudraye's manhood when he beholds thy weals. I'l send ye back naked:” He motioned with his head at his men. “Take her!”

Aveline reflected bitterly that what was happening to her now was nothing new, save that her audience would be larger and less to her liking. To be whipped naked before an army, with no other woman in sight! She quivered in bitter shame and pure fear in the grip of the two soldiers who led her to the tree.

They tied her first. The act told clearly her raiment's doom. The tree was small enough that it was easy to place a forearm on each side so that it touched the bark from elbow to fingertips.

Then they tied her wrists, tight and hard so that she must stand as a suppliant to the trunk.

That was al . It was very simple and very cruel. It left her body deliciously feminine for the scourge.

They took her clothes. Aveline sensed something ritualistic in their manner of tearing Coudraye's rich loveliness from her body. She jerked and winced under their tugging insistence, pul ed this way and that as the cloth fought for survival. It did not take long. Her shoes were last so that she stood barefoot to accept the pain to come.

“Someone's had a go at her already. Look at those stripes and her arse.”

“Mayhap she likes it. That right, lass, it warms thy cunt?”

“Lay it on proper and she'l sing us a song.”

“We should have fucked her first, but she's a lady.”

It bespoke their rough thoughts. Aveline could no longer be touched by male vulgarity. She heard but cared not. But her whole being was vivid with fear of the whip. These men were strong and would lash her cruelly. Passionately she longed not to scream before them. To scream in pain brought her to the level of a kitchen wench. But perhaps that was the common gauge of all female flesh! She pressed her forehead against the coolness of the bark.

They flogged the Lady Aveline D'Almaine well. The weals mounted up across her back. She tugged and heaved at the ropes on her wrists at the level of her eyes. It was a shrewd way to bind a naked girl to be flogged. She could twist and weave her hips enough to delight the military, but she could do little else but kick at an enemy that was not there.

She could not keep silent. Aveline made what sounds she must. She was sure her moans and gasping cries met with approval and were to be expected. When her back was aflame so that each fresh scald took her into a sudden awfulness too great to bear, she began to scream - not always with each blow, but only when she could not help it.

“Takes it like a lady, so she does!”

“She'd make a lovely screw.”

“Look at that arse wave!”

Aveline, beneath the whip, experienced one of those fleeting moments in which her femaleness knew a great and frightening power over men. Even though it was she being flogged, they were all slaves to her body and its responses. Any motion she cared to make as the lash scored her skin would agonize their loins. The intensity of their massed desire fil ed her with wonder and with awe.

Pain drove the reflection from her mind. She screamed afresh as they whipped her thighs. In between the extremities of agony she wondered if Malenfant was among those who watched.

She would not turn to see. She would not turn at all to meet the avid eyes, but kept her head fast against the tree and the ropes that bound her hands. It seemed impossible the bands 9

about her wrists could make her stand thus and accept her pain. But their compulsion was total, and doubly mocking in their proximity to her teeth. Left alone she might gnaw on them, but not before a hundred hungry eyes.

When it was done and she was freed they held her upright, suddenly solicitous. Perhaps it took fine judgement to know the number of lashes between a maiden's life and death! She was panting and bemused and glad of their support. Her back and ribs were a burning agony. With a skil she recognized with gratitude they had left her breasts inviolate. Al else of her nudity was aflame.

“ ‘Tis a loss we cannot keep the lass.”

“Oh, aye. Fuck her by night and flog her by day.”

“How's a man to fight with a hard on! She keeps me rigid.”

“Every camp should have one.”

When one of them picked up the rope, she pul ed away. “No! No more. I beg of you, no more.”

“Her cunt can’t stand it any more than my prick” said a ribald voice.

“Why?” Aveline demanded desperately. “There's no need to bind me. I am to return to Coudraye.”

“Aye, so ye are. But Milord wants thee proper naked. So ‘tis best your pretty hand be tied behind thy back to cover nothing.”

Captivity and nakedness spawn strange values. Aveline found herself glad enough to be tied.

At the end of her shaming walk she would face kindly folk before whom her nudity would be trebly bare so that she would be striving to cover pubes and breasts and navel with hands inadequate. It was in this pathetic fluttering of maiden modesty that true shame lay. But with hands bound tight behind her back she could walk erect and face whatever eyes she must.

Bound she needed no apologies for breast or buttock, nipple or cunt. She crossed her wrists and stood quietly while they were firmly tied above her scarlet rump.

Her escort with the flag of truce dared not look below her chain as they traversed their path of humiliation back to Coudraye. There was no need of speech, so neither contrived it. But their crossing of the lowered drawbridge brought Aveline face to face with the blushing confrontation she could not evade. None thought to cover her as she was guided to the room where Coudraye awaited the verdict of Broule.

They stood as they had stood before. But now Aveline was nude and bound and it was Coudraye who waited on her word. Suddenly presented with her naked loveliness he was bereft of speech.

“I am sorry, lord. I did not choose it thus.”

“For the love of heaven, girl, what befell?”

She could afford a demure smile. “I was rejected, lord. I was also stripped and flogged as some sort of lesson to us both.”

“Lesson!”

“M'Lord Malenfant saw my striping as such.”

“Ye mean ‘Tis his way of scorning us?”

“He says he wil destroy thee and take me by force.”

“He is mad ... insane.”

“Nay. He values me but little and is sure he can have me for naught. It is thee he desires ...

desires thy death and the destruction of thy keep.” Her face crumpled. “I am sorry, lord, I did my best.”

Her tears unlocked his awareness of her condition. With an oath, he sliced away the cords upon her wrists and found her a cover and a rag. “Sit, M'Lady. In a minute Emma can attend thy needs. But let us first talk of this ... this - “

“Of this, M'Lord.” Aveline got back upon her feet and turned, allowing her cover to fal away and reveal her wounds. “Talk of this, lord. What ye behold is all of Milord Malenfant's reply.”

She stood naked long enough to hear his breath gusting in anger, then covered herself again and resumed her seat. “He warrants death,” Coudraye said heavily. “To do that to a girl!” He gazed at her in sorrow. “I would not have sent thee had I known. At least ye did me service.

If I fought not before, I'l fight him now.”

“Not because of me, lord?”

“Because of him,” Coudraye motioned angrily. “The man's a mad boar running wild. I'l have his tusks.”

She knew a maid's desuetude beside a man avowed to war. They were beyond sympathy in a male world to which a woman had no key. Coudraye was changed from the man she had first known. Before Aveline went wearily to the Lady Emma's chamber, they talked but changed nothing.

“I have never seen a maid so whipped!” Emma exclaimed incredulously as she bathed the sweat and dust stained nakedness of her returned captive. “He must hate thee sorely.”

It was strange to feel a superiority over the older woman's innocence. Amused, Aveline thought to tell her of the whips of Aubyn and of St. Agnes but held her tongue. Of Miles and his wil ow wands she would never speak. Emma would be happier if she did not know of such things. “I fear for what must now happen.”

Aveline understood Emma's disquiet. Her man was going to war. ‘Twas no glad prospect. In her own weariness with it al she took the gentle hand and kissed it with tenderness. “Ye have troubles enough without me,” she said softly. “There are things ye wish to do. Put me safe where I need not be entertained ... “ she smiled rueful y, “or watched.”

“You mean ... ?”

“Yes. Be not shocked at my wish. I am weary from the whip - and all else. Chain me and go thy way. I wil sleep.” The small stone room was bright with afternoon. It was a prison without gloom. “I wil be safe and happy enough here,” Aveline told her distraught companion.

She placed her bare foot upon the cot. “Come, lock the shackle on my ankle so that I have no foolish thoughts.”

“But, my dear, I must get thee clothes.”

“No. I am so used to ... being as I am. And, chained, I cannot take them off to sleep. I am content.”

In wonder, and perhaps with love, the Chatelaine picked up the metal gyve and locked it fast upon the slender ankle. Looking doubtful y at the now chained captive she said: “I wish I had thy courage. I wil pray that after the battle it is not Malenfant who opens this door and finds thee thus.”

“It wil not be Milord Malenfant,” said Aveline with conviction. “It will be only you. None other.”

They were both wrong.

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