A week after Thetford's Magistrate had put on the spectacle of Molly Simpson's public flogging—and Dawn Smith's excruciating (and equally public) death by torture—he received a message from Marlow, the Head Steward and Marshal of Viscount Henry Arundle's Household. It was one he had lusted after, but with scant hope of happening: To have the beautiful Lady Ingrid Arundel, the old Viscount's ward, in his power. A week after the—even he had to admit—inspired double performance of a whore's whipping and the falsely accused "heretic's" gruesome public death, that hope was unexpected realized—and quite unexpectedly. Apparently the Viscountess Bertha's intolerance and jealousy at having a much younger—and very much prettier—female under the same roof had compelled her to action. And in Corto Hayward, Magistrate, she had found the means to rid herself of that irritant in a way that appealed to her innate cruelty.

One afternoon, there was a covert message from the Viscount's manor to be present at the gaol, and in the middle of the night. Soon after midnight, Marlow arrived, accompanied by two servants, holding an obvious female between them. She was well dressed, hands tied behind her, and wearing a cloth bag over her head. "The Lady Ingrid, magistrate," he said without preamble. "The Viscountess Bertha has a special task for you. She isn't telling you exactly what to do with her, but she wishes that the bitch be made to suffer every possible pain and indignity before she dies. One thing, though, she requites: That you pay particular attention to the attributes of her sex. The Viscountess believes the German bitch has been deliberately flaunting herself to entice the Viscount, especially those proud udders of hers. When she is around, the old fool can't take his eyes from them." He shrugged. "I, myself, don't believe the old Viscount could do anything with her so old is he, but it irritates the old bat and I take my orders from her as the true power in the household. She is adamant in her displeasure and desire for vengeance."

Now that he had delivered his charge, Marlow turned away, then paused. Turning his head, he added, "While she is content to leave the specifics to you she wants regular updates on whatever you do to her. She has empowered me to appropriately reward you in equal measure to her satisfaction with your—ah—efforts. In gold." Marlow paused, then went on, "I need hardly tell a man of your—ah—perspicacity that the more Lady Ingrid suffers, the more of Lady Bertha's gold you shall see. Eh?" Then he turned and walked back into the fog.

Magistrate Corto knew how to make the most of his opportunities. He had become rich, very rich, through his power. And this new commission offered both even more wealth and the promise of a new, never even hoped for, pleasure: having a beautiful noblewoman for his sadistic inclinations. He had seen the Lady Ingrid sitting in the box above the execution stage and found his cock swelling to fullness from just the anticipation of having the young beauty helpless in the dungeon. Patience though, he advised himself. Lady Ingrid presented a very heady wine, and it wouldn't do to get too drunk on it too soon. No, this poor bint promised many hours of unique carnal satisfaction and she was now all his to indulge that.

Lady Ingrid Arundle only knew she was in trouble. One moment peacefully asleep in her bed, the next grabbed, quickly dressed in an embroidered gown, hooded, and carried roughly away. She knew that it was at her step-mother's orders—the old "Potato-Face", as all in the household knew her—was a spiteful woman who couldn't tolerate the presence of any female younger and prettier than she. Secretly, every such servant had been secretly thankful that the Lady Ingrid had drawn the old woman's ire and not they. Ingrid was a sweet girl, and kind, but there was no little relief when she was taken and not they. Thetford's Magistrate was known far and wide as a brutal sadist and no woman ever wanted to find themselves in his hands.

It was a Tuesday morning when the notices were posted. Magistrate Corto usually planned his torturous spectacles for Sundays, just after the Mass, but—being a practical man—there was no reason that he should not make use of the lurid desires of the peasants in between. Especially as it could only add to his considerable purse. He was sure that the Viscountess would reward him particularly well for making Ingrid's first ordeal a public one; and what he had in mind was always a favorite diversion for the peasants. So the notices went up. "Come witness the humiliation of a Noble this Tuesday. Come watch as the sub-Viscountess, the noble Lady Ingrid Arundel, is made to suffer behind the cart immediately following matins. Yet to all and sundry, be advised that no throwing of stones or filth will be tolerated. Curse as you may, but no, no, physical abuse will be tolerated on pain of death!" It was signed by Thetford's Magistrate, the feared Corto Hayward.

Word spread quickly from those few who could read to those who couldn't. Many were disappointed, of course; the pelting of prisoners with rocks or feces, their own or some animal's, was always an added delight, but then again this was something special, the public whipping and humiliation of a Noble—no less than the Lord's daughter, and the Lady Ingrid, at that! Famous for her beauty, even if most had never seen her.

On the morning decreed, an eager crowd waited outside the prison's doors. Close by, the young apprentice torturer, John Clarke, waited on the driver's bench of a two-wheeled tumbrel cart. Then the door opened and the Magistrate led a slim female out, still wearing a black cloth hood. Most were surprised to see that she still wore the rich, embroidered dress of the nobility, even if her small feet were bare. Behind Hayward emerged the two primary executioners, Ben Cooper and Charlie Wright, both holding long slim whips. Without a word, Hayward dragged the girl to the cart and tied her wrists to its back end. Only then did he grasp the top of the hood and pulled it up and off her head.

The young beauty recoiled a bit, her eyes blinded by the sudden bright sunlight. She looked about, trying to orient herself, to make sense of this sudden unexpected turn in her fortunes. She saw her wrists bound to the cart, the line of peasants to either side, leering at her with vile intent. Oh, what was this? One moment asleep in splendor, the next here. She tugged at her wrists, but they were firmly attached to the back of the cart. Corto Hayward had seen the girl from a distance, sitting up in the box overlooking the Square, but never this close and he was momentarily stunned speechless at the sight. By all that's holy she was truly beautiful! Her hair was the color of straw and fell in a soft cascade to her shoulders. The face of a goddess. He was particularly taken by her eyes, a captivating bright sea blue, still blinking as they adjusted to the light. Even though dressed—something he would remedy shortly—he could tell that she possessed a fine body beneath the expensive brocade. His momentary awe was quickly replaced by an equally intense feeling of eager anticipation and he felt his cock start swelling in his pants. Soon, my pretty, I shall sample your charms to the full, but I can wait. Yes, I can wait. The Magistrate moved in close and stood to her side and raised his arms.

"Good people of Thetford!" he yelled. "This wretch has passed herself off as better than you. That she and that spawn of Satan, Martin Luther, knows the will of God more than our Mother and Holy Mother Catholic Church. She is not even English, but an accursed German!

"Well, we know how to show a heretic, a foreigner, that she is wrong! So, to demonstrate the price of her heresy, I, as your magistrate, have ordered that she be walked behind the cart, under the lash—and before you all—to the Gallows Tree and back. Only then shall I risk my own immortal soul to interrogate her in the gaol until she confesses her crimes against God, Queen Mary, and the sacred Virgin!

"Executioners! Prepare the heretic bitch!"

Ben Cooper and Charlie Wright moved in to the girl. Both were wearing their "official" garb, upper bodies bare to show their impressive musculature, yet still covered over their heads with the black hoods designed to inspire fear in their victims. Ingrid whimpered in terror as Ben approached from behind. He grasped her gown up at the nape of her neck, then wrenched it apart and down. Two more powerful tugs and the young noble was suddenly and starkly bared above the waist. With a grin, Cooper put his hands on her sides and gave the fine dress an additional tug down her hips until he could just make out the top of the crack separating the cheeks of her tight round buttocks. He laughed and gave them a swat with one large calloused hand. "This is gonna be a real delight, lass, a real delight! We don't get many o' yore kind a'hind the cart, oh no, but don' you worry. We'll sure take special attention to see that yore high station is given every respect it deserves! HAH! But first, we gotta make sure yore properly exposed. That fine hair o' yorn is hangin' too far down yore back for what's gonna happen. Charlie, give us a hand here!" Working together, the men took twine and bound Ingrid's blonde locks into a single tail that hung between her shoulder blades, then flipped that up and tied it to the hair at the nape of her neck. Now the entire expanse of her well-muscled back was exposed beneath shoulders. The preparations complete, they stepped back to leave the handsome topless girl standing alone in the sun for the appreciation of the assembled crowd.

The comments and murmuring around the Square died as if on command at the sight. Their women were all old before their time, heavy from a diet of little but potatoes, and tanned dark from hours in the field. The Lady Ingrid was known as a rare beauty, fine features, and long straw-blonde hair. Now, nude to the waist in the bright morning sun, her sensuous allure was magnified. An impossibly desirable image of femininity. Dressed from birth in fine dress and gowns, her skin was a delicate milky white. While slim, she was an equestrienne, and so athletic. Her narrow shoulders and taut belly only set her now naked breasts into special prominence. There was no avoiding the way her coral-pink nipples thrust forward, crinkling in the cool morning air and erecting the pert teats. Ingrid shivered in shame at this exposure to their stares and the cool morning air.

The young monk from St. Albans, the one Corto had corrupted to violate the Confessional with sex, Augustine James Haskins, stepped forward to deliver a prayer, but Hayward knew he could go on forever when the religious passion took him and had no intention of waiting. The sooner Ingrid's punishing walk started the sooner he could get her to himself in the gaol. Scarcely had the monk invoked the Virgin than the magistrate cut him off. "Thank you, Brother Haskins!" he yelled above the monk's droning, pious voice. "Begin the ordeal!"

John Clarke, the apprentice, whipped the reins. "Hayup!" the boy cried, and the mules started walking. Ingrid felt a sudden pull on her arms and stumbled forward behind the cart. Clarke had been carefully instructed—just fast enough to keep her walking, yet not so fast as to make her fall and be dragged.

The two hooded executioners waited a bit after she started, allowing a dozen lurching steps, then Ben threw his arm down and across so the braided leather cracked against Ingrid's shoulders with a loud crack. "Ahhhhhhh!" the girl gasped. The pain was hideous. Two more steps and Charlie swept out with his lash to bisect the middle of her back. "Ohhh! Owwwww! Stop, stop!" she cried. "Oh, it hurts! Why are you doing this to me?" There would be no stopping, of course. It was almost two miles to the Gallows Tree and the men took their time. They were patient. They waited about a minute between the blows, striking the fine white skin from just below her neck to just above the hips. Every stroke was rewarded with a squeal of pain from the pretty young noble.

It took over an hour to reach the hanging Tree, ninety long, long minutes walking behind the slow-moving cart. Three dozen, four dozen times—she had no idea—the bitter lashes struck her shapely back. A few of the strokes had been delivered with sufficient force and drag to abrade Ingrid's smooth white skin, and so some bright scarlet tendrils of blood ran down her back to stain the top of her fine gown. But there was worse. Young Clarke had been advised by Charlie Wright to occasionally give the mules a little extra snap of the reins, making for a couple of quicker steps that drew the girl's wrists forward, with the desired effect of pulling her arms forward and away from their protecting place at her sides, and so briefly expose her chest. Each time, anticipating, either Ben or Charlie would sweep his whip around with slightly greater extension so the tip of the whip could reach the sweetly rounded curves of her bare breasts, each earning a keening shriek of agony from the young woman. But they were measuring their force on her front, causing appalling pain to that supremely sensitive flesh, but without tearing the flesh.

Finally the procession reached the gnarled tree and Clarke brought the cart to a stop, temporarily ending the grueling walk. Ingrid slumped and dropped to her knees on the coarse gravel road beneath the branches and recovered as she could. Her back burned from the agony of her beating and her chest heaved from the hellish ordeal. At least fifty inflamed red stripes crisscrossed her narrow back, leaking runnels of scarlet down to her skirt. Corto walked in close. He grabbed her tied blonde hair and tugged it back so he could look down into her weeping blue eyes.

"You think this is over? No, my pretty bitch, it is not. This is only the half-way point. You still have the walk back to the gaol. And this march will be more demanding than the one up here, I can promise you that. Wright! Wake the bitch up! She looks half-asleep to me! Clarke! Secure her arms to the upper frame. Haul her up!"

Charlie Wright smiled beneath his hood. He had been expecting this and was prepared. Taking a bucket of strong salt water from the bed of the cart, he dashed its contents against the girl's bleeding back, drawing a loud squeal of pain from her as the salt irritated the nerve endings made raw by the whips. At the same time, young Clarke did as ordered, undoing the rope ends from the back of the cart and tossing them over the high horizontal bar. Now the meaning of the high framework above the back of the cart became obvious. As the young man pulled on the ropes now over the upper bar, the tension increased, the ropes slowly drew her body up off her knees, to her feet, then extending her wrists upward until she was fully erect and standing. And then even higher until her arms were extended all the way over her head. Now her breasts were presented, lifted, fully bared without any protection. Even after the shock of the brine aggravating the rips in her skin, she was still slow to come to grips of her new predicament. "Oh, no, no, no," she gasped when it did, when she realized how profoundly her torso was now exposed. "No, you can't! Oh, no, not this! No, this is wrong! This is vile! I am a noblewoman! You can't do this to me, you can't!," she bawled.

Magistrate Corto Hayward stepped up behind her. He came in close, then reached around and grasped her bare breasts with his hands, cupping and fondling them. He used his fingers to tease and pinch her nipples, making her whimper. He moved his hands to their under curves and flipped the globes up, making them jiggle to the delight of those townspeople assembled at the Tree, and drawing various ribald comments from them. Ingrid could feel the bulge of his erection pressing against her buttocks. Corto leaned forward even more so he could whisper into one petite ear. "You think that the whips hurt as they crossed your back? No, oh no, my sweet, that was just to introduce you to the pain they could cause. You have felt a few stings on your front, but now you will feel true agony when the whip kisses these sweet tits of yours. I must say, they are superb. Never have I felt any skin softer, any so fine. I have instructed my men that they are not to ruin them—just caress them a bit. Oh, it will be excruciating for you and no mistake, but I will want them undamaged after this for my future play so I can give them the special attention they so richly deserve. We shall have days together, weeks possibly, for me to get to know your every nerve and how to agonize it, but not now, and certainly not for the enjoyment of these simple dolts. I'd say you should prepare yourself, but there is no way you could." He grabbed the front and back of her dress and yanked it even further down, so it scarcely stayed on her hips and her gently rounded abdomen showed beneath the dainty navel. He gave Ingrid's teats a final, vicious pinch and twist, then stepped back to address the crowd.

"Good people, this heretic bitch has been marched here to the Gallows Tree under the lash, but she is still proud. She spits on the Bible and spits on your good, pious faith in the One True Faith. Now she must march back to the gaol for a serious interrogation! But first, first she should be given a proper introduction to the price of her heresy! You can all see that I mean for you good people to understand the errors of her heathen faith. Now it's time her arrogant chest really feels the lash!"

"Begin," Corto cried out again.

"Hayup!" John Clarke yelled, adjusting the reins to turn the mules back around toward the town. This time he led them on a somewhat quicker pace—there was no longer any danger of her falling and getting dragged, after all. Even if she lost her footing, the higher binding of her wrists to the crosspiece ensured that the worst that would happen would be some abrading of her feet.

The two executioners went straight to work, much to the delight of the villagers who still lined the path. Charlie Wright was first, snapping his arm in a horizontal stroke that sliced over Ingrid's rib cage an inch below the jiggling naked breasts. Ben followed half a second after from the other side with a cut that crossed the upper slope of her left mound.

"EEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!" Ingrid shrieked. "Oh, god, oh god, oh god, it hurts! Sweet Mary, it hurts, it hurts meeee!"

"Will you listen to the heretic!" Corto yelled. "The Lutheran slut has the gall to call upon the blessed Virgin! Executioners, make sure to teach the wretch what happens when an unbeliever calls to the Holy Mother!"

Indeed, the two brutes needed no encouragement. The Lady Ingrid Arundel was the most beautiful female they had had under their whips and also the first of the aristocracy. A few lashes found her midriff and belly, then Charlie returned to the tits, a vicious cut that found both tender under curves, the pointed tip biting into the upper left side where the mound started to bulge out. "AAAAHHHHHH!" the lovely blonde wailed.

An occasional stroke would still savage her bleeding back, of course, but it was obvious now that the front of the wailing topless girl would be the focus of her miserable hike back. With every step, the blonde's tits, although not exceptionally fleshy, still quivered and bobbled to her ordeal, bouncing to the limit of their youthful exuberance. Some lashes curled around her taut belly and heaving rib cage, but the majority sought out front of her torso. After twenty strokes had landed and they were nearing the halfway point, the hooded executioners changed their attack. Charlie exchanged his long whip for a different one about a yard long with a split tip like a snake's tongue, then stepped forward so he was to the girl's right side and just ahead of her. Ingrid looked over at him with misery in her pretty blue eyes. Then she saw his mouth break into a smile beneath the black hood and her misery turned into panic. It was justified. Charlie Wright snapped his wrist to deliver a sharp slice across the middle of her breasts, for the first time finding the coral-pink aureoles, a hair's-breadth beneath the pointed teats. This time the scream was piercing, desperate. It felt like a red hot knife had sliced her flesh. Ben continued sending lashes across her back, some reaching around to carve her belly or ribs, three to every one of Charlie's, but they paled against the cuts biting her quivering naked breasts. Charlie worked on the globes from the collarbones on down to where they rose from her chest. An expert at causing agony to women, he made sure that some reached into the deep notch where her upper arm met the torso. While he had orders not to tear the breasts, he had no such restriction regarding the sensitive hollow of her armpit, so by snapping his wrist the twin points at the tip could bite deep and crack open the skin there. Already several thin tendrils of bright shining blood ran down her side. Spectators on either side of the road applauded every lash, laughing and jeering the once haughty noblewoman. Particularly loud cheers followed every stroke to the naked breasts which would leap and shiver on her chest.

Lady Ingrid Arundel's composure was now broken by the vicious pain afflicting her, her imperious pride completely shattered. She screamed, she wailed, she begged—all to naught, the most desperate whenever Charlie's short whip sought out her naked nipples. Her pleas fell on deaf ears. Her captors didn't want a thing but what they were getting—her shrieking misery. One overly excited farmer threw a cow turd that hit her face, but was immediately cut down by one of the soldiers guarding the cruel procession and after that there were no more offenses against the magistrate's command. Wright wrenched an especially keening wail with a fiendish cut that bisected Ingrid's left nipple and flattened the engorged teat. "Here now, Charlie," Ben Cooper called to him. "We're almost back to town and I want a crack at them tits!" The other laughed and walked back behind the cart where they exchanged tools, then Ben Cooper went ahead to Ingrid's other side. Equally adept with either hand, he was now positioned to use his left arm to scourge the relatively unhurt right side of the girl's topless body. He gave her a moment to see him and her wild eyes grow large when she comprehended the new threat he presented, then went straight for the middle of the right breast to impact its delicate roseate nipple. "AAAHHH! AAAAAHHHHH! AAAHHHHH!" she screeched at this atrocious fresh agony.

With the somewhat faster pace or the return trip, they arrived at the Square in less time than it had taken to get to the Gallows Tree and John Clarke pulled back on the reins to stop the tumbrel at the entrance to the gaol. For the past ten minutes, the Lady Ingrid Arundel was no longer even able to keep her feet moving. Her topless body just hung from the ropes to the high crosspiece, shivering with the pain. Like his partner, Ben ensured that several of his venomous strikes ripped the achingly sensitive flesh of her armpit and upper side, so gleaming scarlet oozed from that side, as well.

Despite the cool temperature, her bare torso was gleaming with the sweat of enduring the hellish beating. Now both the back and front of her upper body was liberally decorated with the crimson welts left by the two thin whips. Under strict orders from the Magistrate, her naked breasts, while well striped with the weals, had not been cut. The same could not be said for her belly, ribs, and flanks, all of which were now oozing blood. In particular, Ben Cooper's fiendish skill had ensured that more than a few lacerations leaked scarlet down her sides from her arm pits. The miserable girl could only hang from her wrist cords, whimpering in pain, her chest heaving. Charlie dashed another bucket of brine over her bleeding body to bring her back to full aching consciousness, before finally releasing her from the cart and dragging her twitching body into the gaol's depths. All of those involved, the two executioners, young John Clark, even the outwardly pious Brother Haskins—who had been walking alongside the cart during the girl's long ordeal—were sporting painful erections beneath their clothes and desired nothing more than to strip Ingrid all the way and fuck her, but all knew that that wouldn't happen until Magistrate Hayward gave his permission; and that wouldn't happen until Hayward himself had done it first, and taken his full measure of pleasure from her.

Not that Corto was worried about any mutiny; he had given them the Cameron twins. Twin sisters—not great beauties, but with the attractiveness of their youth, and lush enough in body. In this country, twins were easily branded as witchcraft-inspired, so getting them condemned was easy. They had provided days of lurid entertainment for all in the gaol. Why, just two days ago they had played the always popular game of tying their nipples, one to the other, and then started a fire between them, so each had to pull her breasts back to avoid the fire—which, of course—meant that the other's tits were roasted. Amusing enough with two strangers, but special with sisters who cared for each other. The game had no winner—not between the women—but made for a lot of fun with the men who could hardly wait to fuck them afterward. No, Corto wasn't worried. The Cameron twins were still alive, barely, yet they were alive and so available for more torture and rape. So his men would be satisfied while he had his way with the Lady Ingrid. Besides, they knew that they would get their time with the lovely blonde before she was finally allowed to die.

Indeed, scarcely had the now ex-Lady Arundel been dumped into a filthy, straw-covered cell than Corto was wrenching the remains of her gown away until she was completely nude and helpless. With equal passion, he ripped his pants open and down, exposing his rampant penis. With an inchoate roar of lust, he threw himself upon the naked girl, forcing her legs apart, and then rammed his impatient cock to the hilt inside her. "Yes!" he cried, as he started pumping his sex in and out of hers. "What a pretty bitch you are!" The sensations between his legs grew more intense and the speed of his thrusts increased. "Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch" he grunted at every stroke. Weak from her beating, Ingrid could scarcely fight her rape. Corto held a wrist down while his other hand grasped one painfully whipped breast, fondling it coarsely and pinching the swollen nipple until tears flowed from her lovely blue eyes. Quickly, all to quickly for Corto, he felt his orgasm surge up from his balls and shoot deep inside her tight young vagina. He rode her for the brief, if intense, duration of his climax, then weakly rolled off her, his already fading erection slipping out of her cunt. Ingrid curled over onto her side away from him, hugging her pain-wracked torso and moaning in shame.

Corto lay on his back, also gasping, although from a different passion. Finally he regained his control and lurched to his feet, tugging his pants up. He nudged at her flank with one shoe, but the lovely blonde just hugged herself tighter. "You think this ends things, you German slut?" he said ominously. "Oh, no. No, this is only the beginning for you—and me. I am tired of peasant wenches, bar maids. Bah, fat smelly cows most of them. Good for some of the play I like and a fuck, but you are my first noblewoman, and I like the change. I've never had a beauty like you to amuse me before and I don't plan on wasting that pleasure. Let me tell you what will happen, my Lady Arundel. Tomorrow, or the day after, I shall go out and address the soft-witted fools of Thetford. 'After a most exhausting and painful interrogation,' I shall say--they so enjoy that—'after a most exhausting and painful interrogation, the Lady Ingrid Arundel confessed to her heresy. She confessed that she was a loyal believer in the heresies of the satanist Martin Luther and that she had renounced the Holy Madonna and One True Mother Church.' Then I shall say, 'I wish I could bring her before you. I wish I could parade her before you, march her up the steps to the public stage and let you all watch to see God's Own Holy Justice as she is tortured and burned alive to show the price of heresy. But, also,' I shall then say, 'alas the heathen whore expired from her interrogation. Her remains shall be cremated and her ashes scattered over unconsecrated ground that her wayward soul shall wander eternity in damnation.' That's what I shall say, and I shall look appropriately sad as I do.

"But the reality will be this: You will remain down here, in the deepest cell of the gaol. Only five people on earth will know you are alive. My three executioners, Brother Haskins, and myself. Oh, there will be one other." He chuckled. "Well, the Viscountess Bertha Arundel, she will know also, but she won't announce it. It seems she didn't fancy having a pretty young woman sharing her roof. Did you know it was she who gave you to me? She who told me to subject you to every possible pain and indignity that I could for as long as I can keep you alive? And that will be for a very long time, indeed. You are young. Strong. And much too beautiful to kill quickly. I already have ideas for our next game. I shall keep you for myself for a while, but eventually I imagine I shall grow bored with you. Before then you shall beg to please me any way I wish. You will beg to use your pretty mouth and tongue to pleasure my cock. Then you will beg for me to kill you—and eventually, I shall, but not before Ben and Charlie and young John, even Brother Haskins has had every form of satisfaction they can think of from you. Oh, and I shall make regular reports to the Viscountess detailing every vile and agonizing degradation you will suffer and she will give me a lot of money for doing it."

Corto gave her cringing nude body another light kick. "You hear me? You hear me, wretch?" All Ingrid could do was hug herself even tighter and whimper again. It wasn't over, dear Virgin, it wasn't over.