Chapter Five

Events up at Lassignac had taken a strange turn. Although relieved by the departure of Martine, Elodie was doubly disconcerted. Not only had Francis-Etienne expropriated the new slavegirl, Joanne who was showing a certain promise, but without warning had consigned Anthea - of all people - to the armoury. Simone had been ordered by her master to conduct the beauty to the place, which she did with misgivings, aware that trouble lay ahead. And it was Simone who informed the Marquise.

Leaving the Dominican to slaver over Martine's transfer to the convent where he could have easier access to her, Elodie hurried to the armoury to lodge her protest. Vexed over being deprived of Joanne for her own use and that of the occasional visitor she wished to entertain with her new acquisition, she seemed about to be dispossessed of her darling Anthea. After all, she needed the girl in bed where the young tongue performed wonders on her cunt - and to help with the preparations for the approaching weekend.

The sight she encountered beyond the rows of muskets, halberds and hunting guns left her dumbfounded. Anthea's divine body had been stripped naked and bound backwards over the iron bar used for supporting weapons, the ankles wrenched to the rear by chains tightened to wall rings. Bent like one of the nearby archers bows, the slender odalisque of quivering muscle and tendon lay curved completely taut, the gorgeous belly concave below the ribs, the breasts pointing upwards; deprived of its wig, the girl's head swayed between the arms chained to the summit of the posts. Elodie gazed at what she liked best, the auburn swath of sex hair between the parted thighs; it hardly covered the vulva splayed by the tension. Elodie's anger mounted when she saw Francis had removed the jewel, the gift she herself had placed in the navel.

"But Francis," she hissed, "what in the name of sanctity is going on here?"

The Marquis continued to tighten the chains. He knew fully tensed nudity took the whip better and longer than a slack, writhing body.

"You do realise, Francis, don't you, this is my concubine and not a slave? Whatever she may have done to annoy you, I forbid such treatment. Don't we have enough whipping flesh around to satisfy you? First, you selfishly remove that blonde parpaillote from the cellar to some remote room or other and lock her in for your own pleasure. And now it's my lesbian darling, ventre saint-Gris! I really object to this."

Her husband turned to confront the fury. Stripped to his riding breeches and spurred boots, he glared back at Elodie, his stiff cock eying her from the unbuttoned fly.

"This sex-slut of yours requires a lesson. I will not have her taking matters into her own hands here..."

"But what for heaven's sake has she done to deserve being laid out like this? And unclothed too. I agree she's sumptuous when nude but why chain her like that?"

"She has overstepped her prerogatives, Elodie, and must be punished. At long last and most austerely. Something that should have been done long since. Her arrogance tries my patience. As to her being unclothed, as you say, does she not idle away most of her time nude? Between your thighs. So why not now, for my riding crop? She'll probably enjoy it. But whipped she must be. Perhaps you'd prefer Bouchard to flog her, except that he'd rip the nipples off her breasts. Why don't you stay to see whether her undisciplined flesh flares up in the same way as on her victims? Remember the chapel?"

"But, Francis..." Distraught, Elodie failed to find the words. True, undisciplined or not, the girl tended to be a little too free with the whip. Staring at the breathtaking spectacle, she had to admit it was an enticing sight. And Elodie was not one to let a flagellation go by without being present. So, with no alternative, she decided to remain, swallowing her indignation but suspecting the punishment was probably deserved. Her heart pounding, she cleared the armoury table of gun oil and rags for room to perch her arse.

In silence Francis-Etienne, handsome as ever - how Elodie loved that Florentine beard! - ran his riding whip up between the girl's pouting sex lips. To Elodie's relief it came away wet, testifying that Anthea was ready to taste what she had so generously fed to the slaves. Elodie's vagina clutched; she was comforted the girl was not hog-tied as guilty serfs always were, and she hoped the crop would not split those sweet nipples.

The Marquis tapped the sleek belly to ready the nude, raised the weapon high over his shoulder and lashed into the nearest thigh. Waiting for the weal to ripen and the expected cry, he seemed surprised when the girl only groaned. She was not going to gratify him with screams too soon in the game. The other ham received a similar blow. Then, slowly the braided leather mounted to the crotch with its neatly haired mound crowning the slit. The sudden yelp sounded much like that of one of Francis's hunting bitches when whipped back into the pack. With that precision Elodie admired, he laid a series of strokes across the sex delta, the leather loop of the crop slicing into the labia. As he struck the clitoris, Elodie stopped up her ears to avoid her lesbian's screams; yet she saw the pallid stalk had divested itself of its hood to protrude from the crater. At least the brave girl, her darling, was nicely aroused like those experienced slaves down below. Once this stupid session was over Elodie knew she would have to treat her gently and with caution the next time they tangled together in the silk sheets; she would soothe the sex with her come.

The whipping continued, for Francis was far from finished. In fact he had just begun and Elodie was not averse to waiting as he embarked on what she relished watching most - a hearty breast beating. Strangely, she had to remind herself that the shrieking victim was her lover who could bewitch her with just a pout.

The stiff length of horsehide had returned to the deep-navelled belly as if the sound, like that from a dragoon's tensed drum, stirred the man. Then the ribs had their share of purple welts. Suddenly, to Elodie's alarm (and a twitch of lust), the crop buried itself in the taut breasts. Francis-Etienne aimed directly for areole domes and erect teats. Trying to ignore the yells coming from the girl's jolting head, Elodie watched the mammaries her lips knew better than her own, flatten, bulge, flatten again to turn scarlet into mauve. It was then the turn of the sallow undersides to suffer. And suffer they did. The force of the strokes flung the bulges upwards towards the dribbling chin and the mouth shrieking dementedly. Requited, Francis grinned, grasping his cock to smear it for action.

Elodie had to admire her man's talent; maybe he did not whip as flawlessly as Bouchard but it was rigorous all the same. Her hand strayed down to cup her groin through the brocade as she reminded herself of her faithful major-domo's courtyard floggings; he needed only a dozen horizontal lashes to draw blood from a female's nipple, and did so each time she ordered it. But her Francis was no amateur with the crop either, that she admitted, praying he would stop short of blood.

The hoarse howls subsiding, Anthea's head fell back, moaning as she slid into that wind-swept limbo where orgasms begin. The body had become a ladder of scarlet rungs.

"Surely, dear, that ought to suffice, don't you think?" Elodie ventured, scared the girl's teats might suffer damage; in addition, the Marquise's vagina was beginning to create trouble, demanding firmer management than through the embroidered silks. "I beg you to remember, Francis dear, you're not dealing with a slave. Why don't you leave it at that and treat the naughty cherub to a canter on your great cock? She deserves it after that load of lashes, no? Believe me, the darling's ready to spend. I know the signs, Francis. Be generous as well as stern."

"She doesn't merit it." He mopped his brow and slicked back his prepuce. "But I'll give her a fuck all the same. I suppose that beating will teach her not to go whipping slaves without sanction. Especially that new blonde who did so well in bed with us."

Narrowing her eyes, her nostrils flaring, the Marquise recognised the reference to the slut, Joanne. He didn't even recall the bitch's name!

"I'm sure Anthea will behave now, Francis dear," she cajoled. "Give her a nice fuck and let's forget the incident, for goodness sake."

The Marquis in fact truly relished a hot vulva fresh from the whip; long experience at Lassignac and elsewhere had confirmed that a well-beaten female orgasmed more violently than a 'cool cunt', as he expressed it. He bent his monster down and drove into the swollen, purple-blotched fig. The stanchion slid smoothly up into the pith as it took its due. Grabbing the girl's sweating arse cheeks for purchase, he used her with that brutality Elodie adored. Like Joanne, the Marquise often pictured herself, when Francis or even a guest was ramrodding her, as a Christian slave, hung from a ship's boom, being flogged by corsairs on the high seas. Elodie's fantasies were always extreme but then her climaxes were even more extravagant.

Anthea began to lurch in the manner Elodie knew so well. The groans became breathless cries and, after not even a dozen plunges of the cock up into the steaming slush, the whipped nude disintegrated hysterically. The convulsive, white-hot climax surprised even Elodie who thought she knew how the girl crumbled under orgasm... Anthea's muscles seemed to tetanize and lock solid as she spent. Then again. And yet again, the yells echoing into the roof beams like wounded birds, until the gleaming phallus withdrew leaving the cunt spasming and frothing. The Marquis moved slowly round the jolting, flagellated figure to grab the head; that stopped its flailing as he loosened the arms, bent the thorax down and rammed into the throat. Taking his time, he clenched one of the welted breasts and with the other hand clutched the girl's hair to control the rhythm of the fellatio. The girl was almost at the point of suffocation as he pumped his glutinous rope of sperm into the gullet. As Anthea gulped and swallowed, Elodie found herself envying her; in addition, she contended that live sperm was not only a wholesome and nourishing beverage but a tonic for vocal chords strained to the limit by screaming.

"There, Anthea," the Master of Lassignac remarked contentedly, "swallow the lot. I don't want a drop wasted, unless you seek twenty more lashes over those swollen tits. In future you will behave yourself, in the spirit of my noble house. You'll use your whip only when and on whom I tell you. Offend me once again and I'll hand you ever to Bouchard to rip strips off your fine arse. Do you understand?"

The mouth, spluttering sperm, managed a weak "Yes, sire... I'll behave. But in fact... I was ordered to whip the one you speak of. I only..."

"You heard me. I repeat, next time it'll be Bouchard on this end of the whip. And you've seen him flay plenty of naked whores raw. Recall what he did to that young Flora when she tried to escape - breast-hung her out there in the yard. So watch your step."

"Yes, sire... Thank you for whipping me and for letting me come. I... rather enjoyed it all. May I be released? My slit's on fire and my back's breaking Please...!"

"That's up to Elodie. My feeling is that you should remain there to think things over until tomorrow. And meanwhile my virtuous wife might like you to tongue her."

Elodie would not have refused, for the beating and the rest had brought her to an impasse. Instead she looked down over the beautiful creature's welts; they had flared up into purple bars glutted with blood just below the epidermis. A further dozen lashes would have opened her up and she had no wish to see those delicious teats damaged.

"Francis," the Marquise purred, her hand emerging from beneath her petticoats, "now you've disciplined this fractious little cunt-licker of mine, perhaps you would in return be good enough to release that caitiff, Joanne. I need her for further initiation if she's to grace our coming festivities. And passing guests are quizzing me about her whereabouts."

"Very well," the Marquis consented reluctantly. "I'll free this beautiful slave, Joanne." The assent was given warily but it was given, his wife noting the adjective and the slave's name. "I agree to surrender her. Send Simone to collect her on the eve of the next guest session."

Elodie gave him one of her more verdant and triumphant smiles. The blonde slut, Joanne would be back in the cohort and ready for the breast quirt. As to her precious Anthea, the crimson bars of pulp and cascade of orgasms would have prepared her for bed, it not that night, at least a day or so hence.

With a twinge of regret at having relinquished the attractive slave, Francis-Etienne slipped on his silk blouse and left the armoury. What Elodie would now decide to do with Anthea was not his concern. Even if a strictly bound female took infinitely more punishment than one slackly fettered, the girl was less erotic than Joanne; she lacked the elegance of the gifted parpaillote. Moreover, she fellated listlessly with a sort of sublime arrogance. At least she had been well flagellated for once.

Though tempted to visit the distant guest chamber, he decided to return to the stables and have his piebald reshod for the hunt next day. Having given his orders he suddenly changed his mind and made for the west wing. Parpaillote or not, she was too tempting and, alas, he was surrendering her.

In her lonely prison Joanne heard the jangle of silver spurs as her owner-lover approached along the passage. A rush of adrenaline streaked through her, the vagina clenching, the nipples jutting in expectation. Now she knew she would be beaten, and she yearned for him to draw blood so that with it she could pledge a secret troth of dedication and submission. Thrilled, she wondered how she would be chained and what part of her he would whip, which orifice, if not all three, he would use. She readied herself, tidying her hair, and knelt crossing her still miraculously free hands behind the whip-starved buttocks and waited. It had been a while - far too long - since she had been used properly, since she had screamed - as he liked her to do - and since she had lain alongside him on the silken sheets, hearing sweet words... Port after stormy seas.

Joanne held her breath as a key turned in the lock and the door opened.

"I want this to be a rather special evening, Joanne, for both of us," the man said, lounging on the bed. "Normally I take scant notice of the women I use for my pleasure. Apart from my strange wife, females are merely flesh. You are different."

Astounded, Joanne felt at liberty to stare at him. How handsome he could look with his neat Renaissance beard and windswept features! She hoped he would not talk too long although his discourse fascinated her - since she sorely needed the lash to requite her lust and prepare her for orgasms she knew would be cataclysmic, it not almost lethal. Without the kiss of leather she was a wilting lily of the valley. With a shudder she recalled what the repulsive Dominican had inflicted on her body. But her adored owner could do whatever he wished with her. She would respond with love.

"I don't understand master. I'm only a sex slave to be used. If I'm different from the others my religion may account for it or else my..."

"No, it has nothing to do with your beliefs. They are your business. I mean your character, your beauty and your erotic gifts. For a whipping slave, as you're termed here, you're exceptional. You have a body that fascinates me, Joanne, and a personality I like. You're the type of woman I take to heart - and I adore beating you."

The compliment and the use again of her name took her aback. Praise was rare at Lassignac. "But I enjoy the whip, master. I'm proud to be your sex slave and used by you. I love your body, I love your strength. I may say such things, may I not? I've not met a person like you before. The way you take pleasure beating and loving me gives me joy."

"That I know and you will honour me tonight as never before, I assure you. I'm going to make use of your superb body in a way you'll never forget. In a sense it's the culmination of your time in this chamber, for you'll rejoin your colleagues tomorrow..."

The prospect of undergoing something she would not forget excited her submissive nature as a flogging slave. But if the end of her solitary confinement answered one of her prayers, it gave her a shock. Being his private property had thrilled her and restored her confidence and self-esteem. She listened carefully as the Marquis went on.

"I cannot, of course, free you from your duties or from your existence here," the man added. "And I regret what happened to your sister-in-faith. She was not, I fear, the sort ready to adapt to my wife's needs but a short spell of training where she is now consigned may help. As the Marquise told you, we do not hold your religious convictions against you, even if we should, and even if our resident mendicant friar, who is far from irreproachable - and I lament the incident in the chapel - holds that you must be converted. That is not my concern. Here Elodie entertains herself and certain friends with sex flesh. Most of your colleagues would starve were it not for their being here. It's as simple as that. Hence your portly friend - Maryline or Martine, I forget - is misguided not to cooperate with her body. Her beliefs and yours are irrelevant." He paused, looking at the resplendent nude body kneeling as if in penitence. "And this friar, despite his mission, will be kept at bay insofar as that is possible. But you are prisoner here for Elodie's use. You - and your parpaillote sister when or if she returns from training - must live by the rules. You're here to be chained whipped, tortured and used. That's all."

Astonished at the man's frankness, Joanne could not help recalling the merciless whipping he had given Martine following her arrival. But then, she thought, if that was what they sought. What hope was there of prevailing on them to change? The nobility was the nobility, the Church the Church with its corrupt ecclesiastics, and a peasant slavegirl the humblest of all in the chain of power. In any event, although she appreciated his candour, just now the man interested her in other ways. She had three things in mind. First, in view of the bulge in his breeches, the Marquis's leather flap needed unbuttoning to free the cock; second, her vagina and its downpour called for urgent attention; and last, above all she craved to be tied, thrashed and freed from want through orgasm.

Francis-Etienne seemed to read her thoughts.

"So, let us start." He rose from the bed, stripped off and slicked back his foreskin off the purple helmet. A second later Joanne, still kneeling, had to brace herself against the bed as the shaft slid across her palate into the gullet. Her tongue curling round the rigid stock, she worked with all her energy, her sex rings jangling. While his rough hands clasped her head, she grasped the dangling testicles, tugging gently as he had taught her to do. The fellatio did not last long for abruptly the phallus withdrew to stand pulsing before her face. Drooling, she grabbed and milked the rod, using the clear liquid and her own saliva to daub her sphincter in readiness; she knew how her anus always tempted him early on in the proceedings. But she was mistaken and deliciously so. What she desired most was announced peremptorily.

"Go and choose the whip your flesh tells you to take. Fetch the spreader bars and clip them to your ankle straps and one wrist. I shall fasten the other. And then to the tiles, slave, belly up, arms and rod above the head. You'll be hung first by the lower bar and whipped the way you like. I shall then lower you and suspend that splendid body by the wrist rod and flagellate you as never before." Joanne smiled and went for the whip and bars stored in the alcove. That was what she wanted. Handing the plaited thongs to him, she bent down and attached the spreader bar. As she did so, the man walked round her to stare at the bulge of the ringed vulva, noticing the glint of liquid seeping from the shaved slit. The girl was indeed ready. Then he himself completed the wrist bondage, ran down a chain dangling from the ceiling pulley and passed its hook through an eye on the lower rod. Turning the ratchet wheel bolted on the far wall, he cranked her upwards until, the hands clear of the paving, the nude body gyrated slowly.

"That's exciting, master." The flaxen head hung between the arms. "I just hope I don't faint like the last time." The muscles had begun to tighten under sweat.

"Oh, that would displease me, for I would have to stoop to using smelling salts!"

"Then I promise not to. But after the whip, you will use my two other holes, won't you, dear master? My other orifices get jealous if my throat receives too much attention..."

Despite the strain in her pelvis joints and ankles, she tried to remain carefree, knowing how Francis disliked drama. The position and the exposure of her clitoris freed from its sheath, gave him special pleasure as he marvelled at her exhilaration; she was fully aroused and, after a dozen lashes from pubis to those twin dimples bordering the coccyx, he knew she would be frenzied, the suffering changing into delight. She was the dream all floggers dreamt and, like good wine, mature and chambré. Compared with Anthea she exhibited pure whipping flesh as the blue eyes closed, the teeth gritting.

Her master gave her thirty lashes diagonally across the back and arse and then directly into the open groin. The whip sounded sibilant in its descent, but dull and liquid as it buried itself among the rings and cunt slush. Only then did she shriek, unable to lift the ponderous spreader bar to protect her crotch. Once again the man was amazed at her resilience and the sudden thrill she seemed to derive from the strokes across the sex.

The crotch became dark red or garance, as Francis liked to call the hue. She was marking well. Having slit the skin of the left buttock, he lowered the shuddering length of whipped flesh to the tiles. A moment's effort at the ratchet handle sufficed to have her suspended upright from the rod parting the wrists. Discarding the sodden scourge, he took up the lean riding crop he had left on the bed. Tears dazzling her, Joanne saw it curving in the powerful fists and then felt it flicking her teat rings. The nipples hardened with lust.

"Ah, sweet master," she faltered, a faint smile showing she knew what was coming but hoping he would not listen, "have mercy on my tits. They're the only two I have..."

"Fret not, my beauty. I know you and those nipples of yours - they're as sturdy as my own thumbs. Come now, my Joanne, no quailing. Those mammaries are made for the crop and not just the quirt. Tonight, as I said, is special - a farewell flagellation for you to remember the west wing and me..."

The crop fell with a sharp schlack just below both areoles at once, sending the flaccid bulges of lymph upwards towards the collarbones: the flesh slapped back, shuddering, as the welt surged up, first as a white line, then lilac-mauve, to turn to livid violet. Twenty strokes and countless howls later, the globes hung furrowed and bloated, the petal-smooth areoles ablaze, the teats swollen like purple grapes at harvest, jerking with the throb of the slavegirl's heart. Except in her most secret dreams, no one had ever flogged her with such force, the crop burrowing into the underhang of each breast.

"Take me... master!" The mewling became desperate. "Take me to my... orgasm... please! Before... before I faint..." She knew the man, different from Elodie and her guests who forbade such entreaties, enjoyed her cries. Grasping the pelvis bone, Francis-Etienne turned the sweating body round and steadied it. The other hand parted the welted buttocks for the shaft to penetrate the anus. It sank in smoothly to the hilt, a hand reaching round to seize the outer rings quivering in the labia as the sodomy commenced. Her vagina in a state of despair, Joanne's sphincter clenched the penis, as Elodie had tutored her, the bloodstained bottom thrusting into the man's groin, in the hope that the metal circle bouncing in her clitoris would bring her off. Despite her efforts, the longed-for orgasm wavered beyond reach. The ramrod plunged and receded interminably with an occasional grunt from its owner, Joanne believing it would never end. Moreover her wrists were threatening her as the straps linking them to the bar tightened. About to implore mercy - a rashness that, in the cellar, would have merited a night in a torture cell - she suddenly felt the hard phallus withdraw, dragging with it the circle of rectal membrane.

With a curt tribute to her bloodstained buttocks, the Marquis swung the body round again. Grappling the thighs, he stepped into the triangle formed by the spreader bar and splayed leg tendon and, just as suddenly, Joanne's vagina was speared by the one-eyed monster, the celestial sac of testicles slapping her whipped perineum. Starving, she ground her rings into the mass of dark hair and tightened on the cock with all her force, the clit ring riding up and down each thrust into her. The naked suspension and the throbbing of her welts did the rest.

As a well-trained whore slave should, she felt it coming, like the lash of a whip. The spasms began high in her uterus, spreading like unearthly fire through her loins and cut along every nerve of her vagina. The white flame licking the cunt walls, she orgasmed potently, shrieking her lust in what Francis took to be her crudest peasant language. And again she came, yelling for sperm, the leather thongs, breast torture - anything...

The Marquis took his time. Then his guttural groan joined the cries as the viscid rope of semen tethered her again, stark naked, to the stake of his penis.

The Marquis held the body, jerking like a hooked lamprey, in his arms and kissed the quivering lips and tear-stained freckled cheeks on the dimples, and then the whipped breasts. Different from the sexual embraces during cunnilingus in the slave cellar, Joanne felt a male tongue invade her mouth rather than her cunt. She returned the kisses with her last strength and sagged, extinguished like one of those flickering candles the Comtesse de Burre-Sage enjoyed quenching in the sex sap of a slave she had just whipped.

Lowering the inert body, Francis-Etienne released the spreader rods and, as if it were a rag doll, laid the welted corpse on the bed to revive in the ripples of Cevenol silk. As she surfaced, Joanne kissed again the bearded face poised and smiling above her.

The Marquis let her rest, before taking her in all three orifices through what remained of the night until his own strength was milked out of him. And yet, each time she seemed to kindle anew, spending like the splat of a whip until she too was haggard. Exhausted, he conceded she surpassed all the whipping whores available chez his friend, Claude-Eugène, and they were considered to be the best sex available in the Cevennes.

Jolting with spasms, Joanne regained her poise, continuing to kiss the bearded face. The whipping and sex had exceeded anything her erotic dreams had ever envisaged.

"Oh, Francis," - the name slipped out easily - "I've never been loved like that! Do I really have to be returned to that ghastly cellar and those whores? I love you, Francis."

"I'm afraid your flesh belongs to my wife and her guests," was the reply.

When finally she awoke to the sound of larks singing above the sycamores beyond the lancet bars, Joanne found herself alone again. Her body ached. She was drained, lying clothed in welts, sweat and crusts of sperm. Painfully she raised herself to sit and examine the damage. The tumified crotch and breasts hurt more than the rump and she spread spit over the marks. Then, on the pillow, still dented where Francis-Etienne's bearded face had lain and fallen asleep, she saw the bouquet of primrose and honeysuckle. A card, written with the quill that lay or the desk, said simply: I shall cherish you with fondness. Whatever you intend, be cautious. Fr.Et. de L.

Her eyes underscored with fatigue, Joanne stared at the words again. What could he mean? Did he know of her secrets shared with Florence, the cook? Impossible.

Beyond the trees the sun was just rising out of the Cevenol hills.

Gathering her wits together, she sat at the desk but her buttocks and sex proved too painful, so she stood to write. With laborious care she used the same quill pen, addressing the note, as Florence had hinted, to Pastor Dizier, one of the few faithful in hiding who still preached in the woods above Pressignac.

The scrawl was long completed when Florence entered with the food - black bread, cheese and goat's milk. The handsome, sturdy woman in her late thirties had obviously taken a liking to the prisoner in the west wing. Already on Joanne's second day of imprisonment there, the cook told her that she also was a parpaillote but prudently kept the fact from her employers. The disclosure did not really surprise Joanne who felt akin to her even if Florence apparently did sleep with Brissac, the blacksmith, probably under coercion. At Lassignac, even servants were not free to choose; the Marquise chose who would sleep with whom, just as she decreed who would wield the whip on whom.

Joanne had decided to ask Florence to share her risk in transmitting the note to the pastor, somewhere among the hills. She bided her time before broaching the subject.

"Look dear, I've filched some cheese for you," Florence winked, after laying the plate on the bed. "Now, eat while I smear some camomile on those lash marks. He really went for you this time, by my faith!" There was an encouraging absence of violence in the woman and Joanne already knew she came from the same region as herself - equally reassuring. It seemed to justify running the risk with her.

"You told me once, Florence, you're often allowed to go to market and that you know friends of the Faith there."

The woman nodded, smoothing the beautiful belly, as Joanne summoned up a smile. "Well, Florence, I need you to do something important for us, and I include you. But it involves danger. I want you to contact our colleagues, at least those we've got left, and tell them I'm still alive, locked up in this hellhole where I have no intention of spending the rest of my life. Nor does Martine. Nor, I presume, do you."

"What do you want me to do?" Florence's voice had a touch at nervousness in it as Joanne handed her the folded message, showing her the pastor's name on the front. "But I can't read love," the cook murmured, "though I'm learning slowly with a Geneva bible when no one's about in the kitchens. I hide it in the disused oven. So, who's it to?"

Joanne told her and read her the short text. Florence stared at the script and then at the naked girl. "That's mighty dangerous Joanne. Even to tell our friends where you are. You know what'll happen to you if the Marquise gets hold of that, leave alone the Dominican. And to me too!" Joanne could imagine but pressed the letter on her. "Please, Florence! It's a sacred mission."

After a moment of hesitation, the cook nodded and thrust the scrap of paper into her bodice between the weighty peasant breasts that must have shared other secrets.

Joanne had expected questions. Only one was posed: "How did you guess I would do it? Don't you fret. I'll see to it even if has to reach Geneva or that Queen in England." The coarse hands returned to rubbing cream into the whipped crotch, without a glance at the smiling, blue eyes. Jubilant, the slavegirl leaned down and kissed her. Florence rose, taking the dishes and ointment and departed, turning the key.

The clandestine note left just in time, for Coursel arrived soon after to clip Joanne's wrists to her neck strap. Using his cravache liberally - believing a few more welts would be of no consequence - he towed her down to the cellar where the cohort barely greeted her. She sensed her companions were uneasy. How was it that she had been absent so long? Why the privilege of the guest chamber while they remained in the clammy cellar and were misused by Marie-Félice or Coursel to keep them in form? But when they saw the state Joanne was in, the subject was dropped.

Joanne was left to wonder whether her note would elicit any response.

Meanwhile, the preparations for the following guest weekend began in earnest. The slaves were shaved of sprouting sex hair, oiled daily to prepare the skin while Simone massaged the teats and clits to ensure prompt erection.

***

A week later, very different measures were in hand elsewhere. Pastor Dizier, after seeking divine guidance, had passed on the poignant message. Seven leagues above the Roc de Malpertuis, Castenet, the forest ranger and Camisard leader, after considering matters with his lieutenants, detached a posse of men, armed with a few muskets, a sabre or two, pitchforks and psalms, with orders to assault the place called Lassignac and return with two females of the faith. Elated, the little band set out like wolves at night through the bracken towards the castle. Propitiously, the moon was full.

Measure for measure, Castenet declared. An eye for an eye.