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6. Condemned
Mirch stared at the condemned women in the cell. Now in rusted ankle fetters, lying amidst the filthy
cobbles of the dungeon floor. He smiled a toothless grim at Clara.
“I’ll wait until you’re whipped wench, your loins burning from the wooden horse, then you’re mine.”
Clara leant against the wall.
“Go to hell!” She caught Mila’s terrified gaze. She found it difficult to cope with the fact that she
would be crucified at dawn.
“And you wench, I’ll make sure that I nail the final spike through your tethered feet, before they raise
you.”
Mila shuddered and spat through the iron bars at Mirch’s feet.
“D…Damn you!”
“You’ll suffer wench, that’s for sure, carrying the beam through the streets, under the lash, then nailed
high, for all to see. The Duke was right. An example must be set for your crimes. Think on that as they
nail through your wrists and ankles.”
Once more he stared at Clara’s naked form, taking in the curve of her thighs, covered now in the grime
of the cell floor as she lay, her ankles once more chained into the heavy fetters.
As he laughed and walked away, Mila stared at Clara.
“You know these people. You knew that Captain. What have you done. You’ve condemned me to
death Clara. What have you done?” she almost screamed, her chains rattling as she moved across the
cell, safely out of reach of her fellow prisoner.
Clara looked up slowly.
“I’m sorry Mila. I know the Captain yes.” Her voice was quivering. She had lost much of her earlier
composure through the increasingly unpredictable events that now meant that by the following dawn,
she would be lying here once more, in chains. Tomorrow her back would be raw from the lash and her
loins…goddess, she struggled to think how bad the wooden horse might be. She had seen women,
normally adulteresses, spend hours sitting on the apex of the horse in the square, their screams
resonating as evil men in black masks added round weights to their ankle chains, their legs pulled taut,
their loins pulled down against the wood. She swallowed nervously. She would be placed there for
hours after a whipping. She closed her eyes, for that would be carried out…by Captain Lared.
Mila, seemingly sensing her pain, had little sympathy.
“At least I’ll die within days,” she croaked. “You’ll die at the oar. In chains, sitting above your own
shit and piss, wearing only the lashes of the overseers.”
“Mila…this isn’t my fault,” Clara began.
“He knew you Clara, that Captain,” she spat. “We are in this mess because he knew you. We both
might have been condemned a while to the oar as it was, but probably freed by the guild. But once…”
she swallowed…”Once I’m nailed in place, they’ll leave me to die. Food for vultures.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke. Clara stared back.
“I’m sorry Mila. Truly, I am.” She brought her legs up toward her, wincing at the weight of the steel on
as the chains rattled. Slowly, she lay down on the wet stone, the stench of the unwashed pervading the
stone cell. She knew that she wouldn’t sleep.
Against the odds and despite the fact that this was her last night, Mila did sleep, though fitfully. Clara
watched her stir amidst the filth of the dungeon floor, uncomfortable in the curled position that she
assumed, but at least she was getting some rest before her ordeal. They would force her to carry the
beam through the city, her arms tied to it, as they whipped her and then…
She looked up as a shadow flitted past in the corridor outside. She moved out from the wall, instantly
regretting it as her ankle pulled the chain taut, the fetter biting into her flesh.
“Who’s there?” Oh goddess, not Mirch, not now.
She breathed a sigh of relief as Lared stepped into the pale light granted by the torch at the entrance to
the corridor.
“Hello Clara,” he whispered, apparently eager not to wake Mila.
Clara’s eyes narrowed.
“You betrayed me, at the temple. I told you where I would be and your men were there…you…”
“I did not betray you,” he said, slowly, deliberately.
“You did…your men were there!” She was angry. She was to be whipped and horsed and condemned
to the oar because of a damned man she had made the mistake of trusting.
“Mirch overheard everything,” he whispered, dropping his gaze to her body and her chained legs. “He
is to be placed in charge of the Riverwake. I’ll be lucky to be sent into exile. But first, they want to see
me whip you. I…have little choice.”
Clara’s voice shook as she spoke.
“I hope you enjoy it. I’ll try not to scream too much. I wouldn’t want you to feel guilty when they drag
me to the oar.” She stared up at him through the bars, from the dungeon floor, tears at last beginning to
form.
“Clara, I…”
He looked away, then turned and walked back toward the stairs.
***
Mirch stood smiling in the corridor as the women were forced to stand and their hands tied behind
them. The guards unlocked the thick fetters as Clara glanced across at a terrified Mila.
“Feeling strong wench?” Mirch sneered. “Ready to carry the crossbeam?”
Without warning, Mila screeched and made for Mirch, despite her bound state, her bare feet splashing
through puddles of urine. Were it not for the alertness of the guards, who had perhaps witnessed such
acts of desperation with the condemned before, she might have reached him, despite the slim chance of
her being able to do any damage to the gloating, newly made commander of the Riverwake Tower.
Both men grabbed her by her bound arms, forcing her to the floor and beating her down until she lay
gasping on the cobbles.
“Take her to the crossbeam.” He looked up at Clara, who, still shocked by Mila’s attack, stared as the
guard dragged Mila, head lolling, to her feet. “This one goes to the whipping block. Captain Lared is
waiting.”
A crowd had gathered in Irulan. It was always the case for a crucifixion or whipping. To have both on
the same day was a veritable treat for the unwashed masses and mercenaries in need of dark
entertainment in the evil place that Irulan had become. Clara watched in silence as Mila grunted under
the weight of the heavy oak beam under the shadow of the low stone buildings. As the guards bound
her wrists to it she swayed slightly, yelping and crying out as the lashes welted against her back and
thighs, as they forced her to walk, carrying a beam for which her frame, strong as it was, was not
designed. Her feet moved, slapping against the stone as she tried to brace the weight under the assault
of the whips. She began to walk, slowly, between crowds of jeering peddlers, scum and villainy, all of
whom, Clara reasoned, deserved the cross far more than Mila ever would; many of whom deserved the
lash far more than she.
As she watched Mila whipped and pushed toward the post to which she would be nailed, the guards
grabbed her arms. Most of the crowd was still focussed on the departing Mila, but some leered at the
filthy, naked, dark haired female who was now being guided toward the wooden scaffold on which the
whipping post and the terrible wooden horse sat. Atop the large stage she could see a thickly muscled
man, a dark hood over his head. The one who had whipped her so long ago perhaps. Beside him stood
Lared, his stare distant, his stance relaxed, his hands stroking an ugly cat’o’nine tails.
Her bare feet walked up the wooden steps. She heard them creak despite the roars of the crowd. Her
bound arms were rigid with tension. Eighty lashes, she thought, Lared would hear her scream in agony.
As she reached the top she looked to him, though he would not in turn catch her eye. Her anger welled
and she spat in his face, he wiped it clear with little reaction as the crowd jeered and the masked
inquisitor, who would merely observe the whipping today, slapped her across the face.
“Simply take the whip wench. You’ve had it before.”
Lared stared at the crowd as she was led to the post, her hands loosened and retied to the simple ring
fastened high. As the bond was pulled it cut into her wrists and yanked her body upward, so that she
stood only on the balls of her feet, her legs quivering.
A screech and a cheer resounded from behind her. Goddess, they were nailing Mila to the wood. Clara
gasped. She couldn’t even cover her ears. Another scream. And another. They would raise Mila soon.
Force her to dangle from her nailed wrists and feet. She could hear the crowds cheer far away.
“Thief…sentenced to eighty lashes and three turns of the glass on the wooden horse, with weights!” the
inquisitor boomed behind her. What was left of the crowd cheered. “Then to be condemned to the
galley.”
Clara shuddered. She could feel Lared close behind her, almost hear him coiling the whip, staring at the
white scars of old lashes on her back. The crowd grew silent, awaiting the start of the flogging with
lurid, eager fascination.
She heard the swish in the air before the weight of the lash and the sting of agony. She should have
known, should have remembered as her body tensed and a painful gasp escaped her lungs.
“One!” the inquisitor roared as the crowd cheered. Lash after lash followed, as Lared dealt the stinging
blows, as the strokes crossed over the welts caused by the lash before. Clara’s naked body twisted and
writhed with each blow, her gasps becoming grunts as the cured leather straps tore at the flesh of her
back, just like before.
“Seventeen!” she heard the masked figure say at her side as she cried out for the first time and the
small crowd cheered. Panting, eyes wide, she rested her head against the stout post as the next lash
struck home.
“Aiieiie,” she cried to the sky. “Eighteen!”
Her back was on fire now, as the memories of her last whipping slowly returned. Lared was no novice
to the lash, she thought, trying to focus and keep the agony from her mind, as the next stroke landed
and she yelped. “Nineteen!”
Clara’s legs were beginning to feel weak as her body suffered under the constant barrage of the whip
and the shock of the impact upon her body. She closed her eyes, wincing, ready for the next stroke,
crying out almost involuntarily as it struck home, again and again, her bodyweight pulling against the
thin cord at her wrists, creating further agony in her arms.
“Thirty Five!” the masked inquisitor called as the stroke wrenched a cry of agony and despair from the
bound Clara. She moved a foot out to balance her swaying form and twisted awkwardly against the
wood, so much so that the next lash garnered a terrible gasping yelp as it crossed the underside of her
breast as well as part of her back. “Thirty Six!”
Clara’s body lurched with each stroke, as if in desperate reaction to the landing of the heavy straps
across her now bloodied and raw, back and buttocks. She remained conscious though her thoughts and
feelings were replaced with intermittent stinging agony across a body already living in fiery pain. She
had lost count of the strokes now, knew that her back must be a mess of open welts and raw flesh. She
would try to listen for the next count, the next…
“AUGHHHHHH!”
She twisted, watched blood seep from her torn wrists into the thong that held them as her legs felt
numb, as she started to feel faint.
“Sixty Five!”
Her head lolled, finally finding its place against her sweating shoulder as the next lash landed.
Her head pounded, all of her weight suspended by her tied wrists, blood dripping down her arms. She
tried to stand, but couldn’t, her bare feet slipping from under her. She had to stand, had to...
“Auhhhhhhhh.” The dry throated yelp was wrenched from her throat. “Seventy Three!”
Oh goddess, nearly…nearly done. Nearly all done, she thought, head lolling. “Uhhhhhhhh,” she grated
as she spun a little, the lash slicing into her. “Seventy Four!”
The last few lashes made her screech dryly, as eventually she hung like bloody meat from the post.
“Cut her down,” she heard a voice say as a blade made short work of the thong at her wrists and she
collapsed to the floor of the stage, moaning loudly and wheezing. The sun made Lared seem like a
black silhouette, but she could see the sweat glistening on his face. He had spared nothing as he
wielded the lash. He had given her the full force of his strength. She hated him now. And he would
watch, doing nothing, as they put her on the horse.
Even now they dragged her to her feet as she moaned, lifting her by the thighs. Lared’s face was stone,
displaying no emotion.
“B...bastard,” she moaned as her legs were pulled wide, as they lifted her across the apex of the sharp
wooden instrument. Lared did not react, merely stared forward and held her, under the thigh. He had
touched her there before, when they had shared a bed. Now he spread her for the pain of punishment.
She whined shrilly as her lips rode the apex, as it bit into her womanhood. Instinctively, she used her
hands to try and push her punished body away from the sharp wood. All too quickly they were pulled
away as a thick wooden yoke was placed about her neck. She struggled and grunted as they
manhandled her into position. Locking the yoke about her wrists and neck, the weight pushed her down
further, her struggle merely increasing the pressure on her crotch. She gritted her teeth, her body weak
and in shock from the whipping, drenched with sweat despite the coolness of the morning. She stared
wide-eyed as her weight pulled her down, legs wide because of the triangular design of the large
wooden horse. Goddess, they were going to add weights to her ankles.
Even now Lared fastened steel fetters with rings.
“Damn you Lared…damn y..you,” she croaked.
He looked away, walked to the side of the stage as the inquisitor approached with cast steel balls – each
the size of a large egg, with lengths of chain and hooks. She struggled frantically, immediately
regretting it as pain lanced through her splayed loins. Without mercy or feeling, he hooked a heavy
steel weight onto the right ankle fetter. Clara felt her leg lurch, the movement pulling her onto the apex,
and she cried out shrilly.
***
Lared stared up at the platform. Clara’s legs had tried frantically to hold back the weight of the three
steel balls on each ankle fetter, that pulled her painfully against the apex of the instrument of agony
upon which she rode. His face betrayed no emotion, although those few who could have said that they
had known him for many years, would have noted simply that it was a mask and that when he wore it,
someone was sure to die. He turned, looking at the woman still writhing on the wooden cross near the
city gate, hearing her screams. Clara too had screeched as her perch had gripped her. It seemed that she
had passed out for now, balanced perfectly with her loins as the centre of her agonies. He walked away
slowly, in the direction of the Riverwake Tower and his fate.
***
Clara dreamt of pain, a nightmare of agony. She would wake up and know that it had all been some
terrible dream. Instead, she screeched in wide-eyed terror as men worked at her ankles, removing the
weights. She jerked. In her position that made the agony excruciating and she screamed loudly. The
crowd had gone. In her pain she had almost been unconscious. She heard the weights hit the wooden
floor as the fetters were removed from her swollen raw ankles. The yoke was removed but she felt sick.
She felt herself being dragged from the scaffold, moaning desperately, her thighs soaked with…she
didn’t want to know. Her back and body were wracked with stiff unyielding pain, her head bowed, a
deep-throated moan from deep in her being her only sound now as she glimpsed her feet being dragged
through the dust and cobbles. Brown dirt and blood caked her ankles and feet. Goddess, how would she
survive the galley after this?
“Take heart wench,” the low voice of Mirch whispered at her side. “Once you’re back in the
Riverwake, you’ll be mine.”
She was too weak and beaten to react, too defeated to care what happened to her now. Mirch would get
his way, what was left of her spirit after the whip and the horse would not be enough to resist him. She
looked up, gasped as fire shot through her back. They were dragging her back to prison, through the
streets, which were empty in comparison with the morning. The crowd had gone, apparently having its
lust for blood sated this day. She tried to look up, see Mila, but she couldn’t. The last thing she
expected to hear was the approaching horse.
Perhaps it was her nearness to the ground, her weakness to all other sounds as the thugs dragged her to
her fate. But a horse, getting louder on the cobbles was approaching fast from behind. The men
dragging her hadn’t noticed. Then she felt one of them turn and his body shuddered as a dull thud
struck him. She fell, the other man letting go of her. What new torment was this. She lay on the damp
cobbles, face down. A second dull thud and the man to her left lay beside her. She heard Mirch
fumbling for a weapon as the horse got louder and louder. Women were screaming now. She had to try
to get up. She looked as Mirch drew a sword -too late. The massive black horse filled her view as it
jumped across her, the rider, having drawn a weapon was too powerful and coming far too fast for the
stunned Mirch, who lost his contest and his head, to the curved sword of the black rider.
Clara tried to focus but the noise and the rampant activity of the last few seconds threatened to
overwhelm her.
“Get up Clara!” the voice of the masked rider grunted as he re-sheathed his weapon.
Instinctively, despite the pain lancing through her body, she got to her knees, then tried to stand, yet
knew that she would fall. She was dizzy, scarcely believing that the three guiding her were dead now.
She saw movement and the running of soldiers to her left, near the tower. The rider made a lunge for
her from the saddle and scooped her up as she fell sideways, grunting as he lifted her across the front of
his saddle. She cried in anguish at these further agonies as the horse turned, making for the city gates at
a speed at which she never travelled. Shouts, crossbow bolts, a flurry of desperate activity followed as
it seemed the entire city tried to stop them.
“Close the gates,” they shouted as they neared a crucifix near the steadily closing massive wooden
gates. She felt him draw something, a small crossbow. Guiding the horse with his legs she looked up as
he loosed a small bolt into the neck of the naked woman nailed cruelly to the cross. She writhed once
as she died.
On and on across cobbles and dirt road the horse shuddered with each step, its rider spurring it
mercilessly so that all three might make the thick wooden gates that were now being pushed closed.
Casting aside used hand crossbows, the rider once more drew his sword, swinging at those guards who
were brave enough to try and stop him. Thankfully, their bravery outweighed their resourcefulness as
none had access to crossbows of their own.
“Hold on!” the rider screeched against the noise of the horse, the wind and the screams of the guards
who were assembling far too slowly. They passed rapidly through the ever-decreasing gap, galloping
on the dirt road now, away from the lash, the horse and the evil city of Irulan.
***
“Enough Lared…please. I need to stop!”
After miles of galloping, steam rising from the almost exhausted horse, the black rider slowed.
“They’ll be chasing us. We can’t tarry long.” He reined in the panting animal, ripping the cloak from
his shoulders and wrapping it around the naked woman across his saddle. She screeched in response as
the cloth crossed the ugly red welts across her back.
“How did you know it was me?” he said in a low tone.
“Because…because no one else would have rescued me,” she gasped.
“…especially after whipping me so effectively…you must have felt guilty.” She winced, trying not to
move too much, her body still tensed with agony at each movement.
Lared nodded, removing the crude mask from his face.
“Aye,” he nodded. “No one else would have.”
He tried gently to manoeuvre her on the large animal, so that she sat side saddle, reasoning that sitting
astride another horse, no matter how less intimate it might be, would be more than her loins would
stand. He began to move the animal again as she gently wrapped herself in the cloak.
“Do you think we might make it Clara?”
She nodded gently, nuzzling into the heat of his body as he spurred the horse once more…
THE END
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