Our story began here.

More Trouble with Witches
Katrin felt nauseous as she looked upon her homeland. Timbre was not as she remembered it. Everywhere she could see smoke, palls of it rising in columns on every horizon. The roads too were not the firm clear affairs of memory; those had been used for fast moving travellers and merchants. Now the tracks and lanes of every village were chocked with refugees all fleeing north and east away from the war.

The news was that Motra Mundy had fallen some weeks before, but worse still there were exiles from every town Katrin had ever heard of. Some had determination in their eyes and had resolved to make for the capital Timon, but she could not help agreeing in her heart when an old cynic at the roadside had spat and murmured: “Timon will fall soon enough.”

It was enough to make her wish she hadn’t come. But if the world was to end she would be with Fear. But he was somewhere up ahead on the road to Timon and she despaired of catching him before the coming battle.

Earlier the ship had made landfall on a beach some miles south of Timon and Fear had set out as soon as the hull touched the beach. Amber and the other women had to contact Meredith’s coven and were to follow on. So in the event he had left before Katrin had been discovered in the hold and never suspected that she and Tabitha were stowaways.

“He’s gone,” Katrin wailed.

Meredith looked more bemused than angry but Amber sage had enough wrath for the both of them.

“Yes he had gone,” she said angrily, but she could see the despair of abandonment on Katrin’s face and could not find it in her to scold further.

Later the witches had gathered in a barn some miles from landfall where they had met the rest of the coven caparisoned for war.

The wind had got up and whistled through the old beams of the barn until they creaked and howled with a pain that echoed that of the land about them.

At one end the senior members of Meredith’s regained coven stood in a huddle while half a dozen or more others gathered around the walls and kept their own councils.

Katrin recognised some of them, Hemple, the shape-shifter Peel and the old warlock, Gas-something. She remembered them from her earlier encounter with the coven with Fear when they had tracked the Beast. But most of the others were unknown to her or were just faces she might have seen before. But Katrin adjudged them no great power on account of their exclusion from the knot of leaders conferring with Amber Sage. Or maybe the others were just indifferent.

The only ones not of the coven besides herself were Tabitha and Erin, both of whom stood where they had been bidden since the stowaways’ discovery in the ship’s hold. And for once Katrin decided that both girls’ looked decidedly nervous. Not that Katrin could care now. The fate of Timbre hung in the balance and Fear had gone.

The wind kicked up again, like some great demon without but desperate to get in. Katrin shuddered and thought of the beast. Suddenly without Fear she felt exposed and vulnerable. Did the Wolf know she was here? Did he care? Fear had been right, she should never have come.

At the far end of the barn Katrin saw Amber look at her and then at the other two. She well knew that face and unbidden to her mind came images of devil root and switches. Despite it all Katrin gulped and quickly looked away.

Amber fixed her eyes on the girl and frowned.

“It is as prophesied,” Demdike Runecaster muttered, “I saw it.”

“Yes and did you foresee me blistering their cherry red behinds for a year and a day?” Amber held her anger tightly under her breath.

“Katrin must be reunited with the Black One,” Demdike urged.

Amber shot an anxious glance at Meredith Greydove.

“She means Fear,” Meredith told Amber.

“I thought you had seen that Fear would kill Katrin,” Amber said in disgust.

“Not I,” Demdike said smoothly, “I merely counselled him to do it. But my sight was as then unclear.” The old seer seemed unabashed.

“Maybe you don’t see so clear now either,” Amber snapped back angrily.

Demdike shrugged.

“And what about the other two?” Amber continued under her breath, “I could murder that Erin. She knew they were there, she smuggled them the little witch.”

“Discipline must be maintained I suppose,” Meredith sighed, but she didn’t seem much given over to regret.

“That is meet, for we must have no dissent for what is to come,” Demdike croaked, “But the De Lacy girl must be sent on.”

“I agree, and anyway, I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes when Fear finds out she defied him,” Meredith replied.

The two elder witches looked at Amber who shot another glance at Katrin and then to the younger witches. Then with a sigh she nodded.

“Then all that remains is the other one,” Demdike said.

“Our old friend Draken, yes, can you see what he plans?” Meredith asked the seer.

“That path is clouded for now, but tomorrow I will again cast the runes and…” she shrugged, ignoring Amber’s snort of derision.

“We will be ready come what may and hope it is enough,” Meredith said in the grimmest of voices.

As if to underscore her words the wind set to howling again and the three witches shuddered. It was a night for demons and for long moments they fell silent like rabbits hiding from the fox.

After a few moments Amber spoke. “Well then, let’s send Katrin on her way and deal with…” she looked at Tabitha and Erin, “…those two. I trust there is no requirement that they can sit down for the battle.”

“I saw no horses in the runes,” Demdike cackled, “and in my experience a good witch works better with a fire in her behind.”

“Perhaps you should spank us all then mother,” Meredith said sourly.

Amber remembered her youth under Meredith’s tutelage and blushed. It had happened she remembered. But the crone Demdike only chuckled.

*
The wind had finally died down and the air had become still and almost oppressive. The night had even become a little warm, which was just as well given what was needful.

Perhaps it was the calm before the storm to end all storms, Amber thought as she looked up at the crystal black and star-speckled sky. It was as if the heavens had been splashed with buckets and buckets of precious gems until there was almost as much colour above as night. Now a million billion eyes looked down like gods holding their breath as the fate of mankind hung in the balance.

A bench had been set up outside the barn doors and Amber had arrayed it with all manner of herbs and branch cuttings until it looked like green grocer’s stall in the market. Most of the fare was for the preparation of medicine, which would be needed later in the coming battles, but some of it had more immediate uses.

Amber looked back at the two young women secured in the pillory set in the middle of the barn. Both were naked and looking very sorry for themselves and dreading what Amber may be preparing for them.

“Come on, this isn’t funny,” Erin Stone wailed.

Tabitha had been spanked often enough now to keep her mouth shut. She was certain that this was going to get very much worse before it got better. Although quite how it could be worse than being bent over at the hips in a pillory she was not sure.

For one thing she hadn’t liked the look of the bundles of twigs on the end of the table. Some of them looked thick enough to use as canes and would certainly make decent switches in their own right. Still others, being slightly thinner, put Tabitha in mind of the makings for a stout birch rod.

Then there was the mortar and pestle that Amber was fussing with. The elder witch had her back turned and it was too dark to see colours beyond the barn, but Tabitha thought she saw some devil root. She felt decided queasy and a tickle of sweat ran down her spine to lose itself in the cleft of her bottom.

Nor was this the only cause of warm dampness and the young witch felt her bud harden in expectation. Down girl she thought, you don’t want this, really you don’t. But the warmth continued to grow and through her mind ran images of Meredith’s firm thighs firm beneath her tummy and a sharp hand on her bottom.

“Hey let me out of this contraption,” Erin wailed again, but no one paid her any mind.

From her position behind the two women Meredith had a good view of their bare bottoms. Not bad, she thought, but decided she ought not to enjoy the show too much. Nevertheless she could not help but make comparisons between the two girls. Oh thy hypocrisy is boundless, ran a mantra through her mind.

Whether conscious or not, Tabitha had kept her legs straight and her back dipped so that her small high-set bottom was well presented. Erin on the other hand was trying and failing to make her slightly larger round bottom less obvious by tucking in at the knees. Although this did not push her bottom up so much, it did thrust it obscenely back so as to make an inviting target.

Meredith shifted slightly on the milking stool she had found and adjusted her thighs. These were Amber’s students not her coven mates, she had no requirement to assist. She licked her lips, but maybe with two of them to deal with Amber might… she didn’t follow the thought. It was unprofessional and tomorrow her coven might go into battle. My mind should be on higher things.

*

Two kings stood side-by-side and looked out into the night. Neither of them spoke, but on this evening they were as brothers. Behind them in the distance was the city of Timon, its curved high walls silver white against the night sky, vast and splendid like some great crown on the land.

Then there over to the east it was just possible to see the mountains as dark on darker; a break in the star-dashed sky like tears on a black paper star chart.

But it was the south that held their attention, although as yet there was no sign of the enemy and one might have supposed that the land was at peace. But all day riders had come and gone with news. The Western Host was on the move and would arrive within three days.

King John towered over his fellow royal, who himself was by no means a short man. But next to the more stolid Peron, John had a slim gaunt look and was older by nearly a decade, a happenstance that had until now had led him to cede leadership of the war to Maelon. He pursed his lips and look back at his capital. In a week would those walls be black like the sky?

Beside him King Peron sighed. John looked down to meet the King of Precips’s eyes as if sizing him up. At least the man found the strength to smile and after a pause and with a great effort the dour John smiled back.

“A beautiful night,” Peron sighed.

John looked up again as if seeing the sky anew. “Yes,” he said with an appreciative nod. But both were stalling for time and they knew it.

Earlier it had been decided not to accept siege and to meet the western army head on. Many had counselled against it, even Dr Fear and Gort. But this time reinforcements from the fleet and Precips itself had swelled their ranks and they had some weight in numbers. They might yet meet the foe on something like equal terms.

In any case a siege was certain death for them. There were no more allied armies to come, no more wizards who were not already present and Dniester had assured them he knew of no more dragons this time.

“In any case,” Gort the High Hand had told them earlier, “No dragon can stand against the Wolf.”

Dniester had nodded as had Dr Fear.

“We were lucky at Precips, the foe had little magic to counter my friend,” Dniester said quietly. In his heart he still saw the dead laid waste by his will and for the first time in his long, long life he felt old.

Now King John looked over at the line of mages watching the two kings patiently. They had the look of crows in the night sizing up carrion. But it was an unworthy thought, John Armarlon berated himself. They were not crows but hawks come to defend his lands. He looked back at them and smiled. But try as he might, still he saw only feeble crows. Then with a sigh he spoke.

“Come cousin,” he said to Peron, “Let’s have a council of war. We have a battle to win.”

*

Amber had asked Peel, Demdike’s young daughter, to apply cotton oil to the naked witches’ bottoms. Amber had chosen young Peel because having a girl of their own age touching them so would humble them more.  Also from the scowl on Peel’s face throughout the proceedings, she judged that the Runecaster girl had no prurient interest in the shaming.

Not that a prurient interest was bothersome, but cotton oil was a soft sensuous commodity to tenderise and yet toughen the skin. Amber didn’t want to appeal to Erin and Tabitha’s sensitive erotica natures at this time; it would detract from the punishment. But she had judged her girl right and Peel went at her task as if she were rubbing down a horse, drawing gasps and squeals from the two miscreant witches. Then Amber put the last touches to the fire baste for afterwards and set about trimming the devil root for the final part of the punishment.

“Isn’t that going too far?” Hemple whispered at her shoulder.

Hemple was a young witch, little more than a girl herself. She had wild orange hair that hung to a heavy fringe to where dancing green eyes regarded the punitive preparations in awe.

Meredith, Gasgook, the coven’s warlock, and Demdike had spanked her often and sometimes she had been sent to cut switches, but never had she been seared with devil root or other such things.

“Disobedience this close to the time of peril must be quelled,” Meredith assured her.

Her leader too had come close now to watch the arrangements unfold.

“But Demdike said…” Hemple licked her full lips and blinked hard in wonder as she imagined the trials to come.

“It was foretold yes, but that does not mean we are only actors on a stage and all must take responsibility for their choices,” Meredith sighed.

“But…” Hemple began.

“Erin and Tabitha knew what they risked,” Amber said sharply, “Maybe they hoped to slip away to battle before we found out, but they knew.”

Hemple looked as if she might speak again but Meredith warned her with her eyes and the young witch lightly massaged her rear in trepidation.

“Now Meredith, I mean to have them both soundly birched, but can you warm them first? A sound spanking will sting them nicely on their oiled behinds,” Amber suggested.

“My pl… duty,” Meredith said archly.

Amber cast the elder witch a glance and smirked. At least Meredith had the good grace to blush before taking a heavy spatula from the bench. Then with a wry smile she crossed the barn to confront the twin targets. Only once she stood behind Tabitha and Erin did she became stern.

“Stop wriggling,” she said, “and stand up straight, well as straight as you can. I want to see those bottoms.”

Tabitha obeyed at once. It was almost as if she was eager, but Meredith just put it down to her training. Erin on the other hand, bucked her knees even more and had to be told two or three times before she was cajoled into swallowing her pride and abandoning all dignity to stick her bottom out.

“Lovely,” Meredith said sweetly and then let fly with the improvised paddle.

Tabitha squealed, but then managed to stay silent as the spanking continued.

“It is so not fair,” Erin complained.

Her face burned with shame from sticking her bum out like music hall act and she felt like spitting frogs.

Meredith smirked at Erin’s reluctant obedience; it put her in mind of a hound in the slips or a young Amber Sage oh so many years ago. But her main attention was on Tabitha’s pert red oiled bottom as it shone like a ruby in the torch light. Spanking it was a joy.

The witch kept to her task for a few minutes before changing targets to take in Erin.

“Ow, you…” Erin yelped angrily.

So much bottom, so little time, Meredith mused.

But Amber was in no hurry and Meredith was able to spank Erin at length until her attitude was very much reined in and tiny tears bubbled in her eyes. Meredith even had time to switch back to Tabitha for a few long minutes before finishing up spanking Erin again. After two rounds of spanking both witches had glossy red bottoms submissively angled back at her in the firelight.

Amber gave her a quizzical look and Meredith realised that she was at liberty to go round again. She should, she knew, they deserved it, but restraint was a virtue.

“I give you two birds, basted and prepared for the cooking,” she beamed.

Amber affected nonchalance and rolled her eyes up at the quip. But she couldn’t help allowing herself a small smile.

*

Gasgook was an old man with wizened white hair that merged with his beard to frame his entire head. The effect was all the more startling as he had no moustache to soften the look. It had been he who had been called upon to discipline the two girls and he took to the task as one who had been put upon and with none of the glee that Meredith had harboured. With one birch rod in his hand and at his feet was a bucket holding three more, he sternly contemplated the two well-presented cherry red bare bottoms.

If could have seen their faces he would see that Tabitha was resigned and focussed. Her eyes a little curious as she wriggled her bottom in the still air of the barn.

Erin, on the other hand, looked pensive and nervous, her eyes scanning back and forth as if she wished she could see behind her. All defiance was gone now and she gulped.

Gasgook waited. The smaller bottom on the left was ready and obviously expected to be first. The other flexed its glutes and bulged back at him as if it might flee. But there was no harm in being obvious, he thought.

The brand of thick twigs swiped across Tabitha’s bare bottom with all the burn of a torch and she gasped. A million little bees tingled and sang in her hinds and each one competed for her soul. The next stroke was worse.

“Nyah,” she grunted and began to duck her head out front, gaping like a fish for some air.

Erin looked sideways in horror at her friend’s face and wished she had never seen a ship.

“Omigosh,” Tabitha shrieked at the next blast of rod.

The pain and relentless assault did not get any better.

Erin tested the frame that held her and then shot a glance at Amber. Okay, I’m sorry, you have had your fun now let me go, she wanted to say, but she was witch enough to know she was in for it.

Tabitha could take it, Erin knew that, this was just another walk in the park for her. My bottom is not like hers, she quailed inwardly. But it seemed from her response, Tabitha couldn’t take it. And if she couldn’t… spanked, I knew I would be spanked, not this, Erin cursed.

Then Tabitha began to shriek and didn’t stop until it was Erin’s turn.

“Please Amber,” Erin sobbed after just three strokes, “I’ll be a good girl.”

And for the first time in her young life she meant it.

*

Both girls had taken two dozen strokes now and there was not a tear between which was the most miserable. They were both crying hard and both had a vivid bubble-rash all over their bottoms. In fact they both looked so raw it was a wonder they didn’t bleed.

“Listen up girls,” Meredith said sharply. “This is military grade discipline; we are no longer playing games. Mark these bottoms well…”

There were nervous giggles at Meredith’s unintended pun and she growled in frustration.

“This is serious,” she shouted and the barn fell silent.

Then she nodded at Gasgook and he took up the next rod.

“Please, please, please, please,” Tabitha muttered at the sound of the scrape at the bucket.

But between her legs, soggy little pussy perked up. You sick little kitten, she chided herself, you deserve this. Then she howled like a banshee while little pussy purred. She hated this, hated it, but like puss she love hating it so much.

“Now come on,” Erin spluttered through her tears, “No more, please, I have learned my lesson really I have.”

Next to her Tabitha rocked and yelled in the pillory, announcing to the world that she had had enough while Erin knew her turn was yet to come.

*
The ooze that Amber applied to Erin’s bottom was like soothing balm at first. She had guessed as much from Tabitha’s cooing next to her. But it was too good to last. By the time the devil root was inserted into the rosebud between her cheeks the drying gunk had already begun to burn.

“Not the root, please,” Erin whimpered.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take it out after an hour or two,” Amber said, “Just as soon as you tell us what you did wrong and why you were such a naughty girl.”

Then root and paste sang a discordant harmony in both bottoms and after much gasping and groaning, both girls joined the chorus.

“I won’t smuggle anything anywhere ever,” Hemple whispered earnestly.

“Nor me,” Peel agreed.

Both girls’ eyes were out on stalks, and prayed to the gods in thanks that Amber wasn’t in their coven.

To be continued.

Today’s offerings are from 1919, the 1920s and the 1930s.

This snippet was first published by Alex Birch on his blog A Taste of Birch. Alex Birch sadly died a while back and his blog is no more, but apart from his stories, which can now be read at the Library of Spanking Fiction, he published historical accounts of punishments.

This story is a true one in all regards except possibly the last part. Perhaps Alex invented it, or perhaps his sources were better than mine. Lady Sophia Lindsay was indeed sentenced to be whipped for her part in the plot but the public portion was not carried out.

Was there a private portion as described in the account that follows?

In 1660, after a bitter Civil War and many years of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, England was restored to a monarchy with the triumphant return of Charles II as King. For many, their delight at seeing the restoration of the monarchy was soon tempered by the degree of retribution exercised by the new King for past crimes against his father and his own followers under the Cromwellian regime.

Before his return from exile, the new King had promised that all religious opinions throughout the lands of England and Scotland would he respected, yet soon signed a series of Acts of Parliament which outlawed any religious gatherings except those which pursued the authorised Prayer Book. Dungeons in England and Scotland were soon overflowing, a prime target for the new King being the rebellious Presbyterian Scots whose religious dissent was put down with ruthless ferocity.

The King’s brother James, Duke of York, became extremely powerful and, in many parts, feared, because as well as being a man of ruthless ambition he was a Catholic and therefore distrusted by the new restored Anglican Parliament. After some years as a kind of roving ambassador for Charles II, James was given a Scottish estate and appointed his brother’s unofficial representative for Scotland, which gave him sweeping powers of attorney. The Scots were suffering great hardship and torment in defence of their religious beliefs and rose up in revolt, eventually being routed at Bothwell Bridge by an army led by the Duke of Monmouth. The Duke of York now increased his campaign against Scottish dissenters but, with breathtaking hypocrisy, secured his brother’s permission to institute a Scottish Protestant Parliament dedicated to preventing a ‘return to popery’ while ensuring that he, a Catholic, would remain all powerful in Scotland.

The new Scottish Parliament instituted an oath which was confusing in the extreme but which intended to ensure that every sitting Member pledged allegiance to the organised Protestant faith. One of those members was the Earl of Argyll who was a Presbyterian and took the opportunity of such confusion to announce that he saw nothing in the oath which would prevent him from favouring changes to the law regarding Church and State while still remaining loyal to the Crown. In such a climate, these words were as a red rag to a bull and Argyll was arrested and charged with high treason. The Earl was tried by a jury of which the Marquis of Montrose (a Charles Stuart loyalist) was foreman, found guilty and sentenced to hang.

The news was received with horror by Argyll’s family and it was resolved that something daring needed to be done to avert this fate. One of the visitors allowed the Earl during his incarceration was his beautiful daughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay, the wife of Alexander Lindsay, Earl of Buccleugh. Lindsay himself was known to be a ‘soft’ Anglican thus trusted by the King’s representatives but who allowed his wife her Presbyterian views just so long as they were not publicly expressed. A very daring plan was hatched within the Earl’s family, apparently unknown to Alexander Lindsay, whereby Lady Sophia would visit her father accompanied by maidservants and pages. Because of her position, the family gambled that no obstacle would be placed in the path of such a visitation. They took extra clothing with them and, after distracting the guard for some minutes, they made up the Earl’s bed with blankets to make it appear that he was sleeping then the Earl of Argyll escaped, dressed as a page, as part of his daughter’s entourage. The deception was not discovered until too late and the Earl had contacted influential friends who spirited him away in a boat to Holland.

When the prime agent of this deception was discovered, Lady Sophia Lindsay was arrested and tried by a Civil Council. Such was the anger at her effrontery that the Council voted that the young woman should be stripped to the waist, tied to a cart tail and whipped all day through the streets of Edinburgh. The sentence was received with horror by Lady Sophia’s family, not least by her husband who sought urgent talks with the Duke of York, pleading desperately for some reduction in the sentence, emphasising the degree of humiliation for the whole family including himself, a Stuart supporter, should such a sentence be carried out.

The Duke of York listened sympathetically and, to Lindsay’s relief, agreed to substitute an alternative private punishment. He told Lindsay that as his young wife had behaved like a spoilt child she would be treated like one and pronounced his alternative judgement.

Thus it was that on a May morning in 1681, a very tearful Lady Sophia Lindsay was taken to a private room in Edinburgh Castle and there she found waiting a Sergeant-at-Arms, her embarrassed husband and her frantic mother. Knowing her intended punishment, she pleaded with her husband that she be spared this indignity but Lindsay bluntly pointed out that she had brought this upon herself and was fortunate that the affair was not public as originally intended. The Sergeant-at-Arms motioned the duty guard that Lady Sophia was to be made to kneel down over a low stool with her face pressed to the carpet, bottom thus fully raised. When that was done, her long dress and petticoats were lifted up and pinned to her shoulders thus completely exposing her naked bottom. The Sergeant-at-Arms then took up a birch rod and proceeded to give the young woman a very thorough and painful birching lasting half an hour after which she was released into the custody of her husband, amid floods of tears, presumably unable to sit down for a week! Some unsubstantiated reports have said she was given 50 strokes of the birch rod, wearing out two substantial birches in the process. The experience must have been painful and deeply embarrassing but surely preferable to the original sentence!

Sadly, the lady’s sacrifice was all too short term for the Earl of Argyll made his way secretly back to Scotland where he was caught, tried once more and this time he was executed.

Here is a bizarre Russian TV Series, Favorit (2005), featuring a very odd birching scene. It is not clear what is going on, but it appears to be some sort of revenge scenario.

A well-to-do woman is kidnapped and then lowered into the floor so that only her head is seen. A man then eats a snack while she is switched from bellow by men who (presumably) do not know her identity.

You Tube movie here.

There will be another Russian spanking tale on Thursday together with a chance to win a prize for your comments.

An entry in the Winter Spanks Cold Hands Warm Bottoms Blog Hop (2-4 January, 2014). Comment for your chance at a prize.

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Princess Sofia Molotov unleashed her full shapely pout at the ever stiffer wind and the heavy snowfall that accompanied it. Winter was hard upon them and soon she would be a prisoner in the castle for the rest of the season. Already her father had forbidden her from going out and none of dvornik would be available to escort her on one final adventure.

Luckily Sofia was generally considered too petite to handle the horse-sled alone. Indeed she was so petite that it was her father’s proud boast to prospective suitors that her waist could be encompassed by the span of a man’s hand. A ridiculous claim, she thought, because as narrow as she was it took almost two hands for such a feat. But still, this perception of her frailty only worked to her advantage as so far no one had thought to put her away her sleigh.

Donning snug fawn hunting breeches and a jerkin, she covered the ensemble with a sable coat and a huge fur hat to cover her long dark braids. Then as quiet as a snowflake on water, she made her way through the kitchen entrance to the yard.

Most of the servants were still sleeping on the hard stone floors, with only ragged cast-off coats between them and the chill. Although here and there more industrious serfs were shaking themselves awake to begin the task of making breakfast. But if any saw her then it was none of their affair.

Sofia reached the stables almost without incident, only staggering briefly as she stepped into the biting chill. She was thankful then that a hundred stoats had surrendered their winter coats for hers and pulled her cloak about her. She loved this part and grinned to display a row of perfect teeth in greeting.

As she did so a cloud of breath burst from her throat and tumbled whitish-grey towards the sky. Better still was the creak-crunch of her boots upon a hand’s-depth of snow and she gleefully stamped her feet as she made her way to the stable to enjoy the softly yielded squeak of her steps as she walked.

But it did not go all her own way. Without servants she had to remove her gloves to put on the horse’s harness and the tangy steel burned her fingers as she worked until pins and needles assailed her and she had to allow her hands the retreat of her pockets. In the end it took three attempts to ready the sleigh, but after that it was as easy as runners upon snow. Then she simply slipped away.

Luck was with her that morning as not only did none of the guards see her, but by the time she reached the forest under the castle, the wind had dropped and the snowfall had reduced to nothing but a light flurry.

“Hey you wondrous day,” she yelled to the trees in crisp aristocratic tones, “Catch me if you can.”

It took a moment to breech the line of fur trees, but then she let fly with the whip and sailed on into the crystal white sea of ice with great grey-brown masts of leaf-stripped trees lining her route.

*

It was mid-morning and some 10 leagues from the castle another was abroad. Like a great bear, brown-black against the snow, he stepped into the track between the trees and regarded the foolish scar of the nobleman’s runners on the ground.

Who would be about this close to Christmas? Surely not a hunter, he mused. The man sniffed the air and frowned.

The woodsman, Ivan Ivanov, hefted his great axe and studied the tracks. He saw at once that there were no outriders and that the sleigh was running light. Very light, he decided. If the traveller had not clearly been alone, Ivan would have concluded that there was a race in progress. Damn these nobles, had they nothing better to do? He heaved a great sigh, this boded nothing but trouble for him.

For a big man Ivan made good progress as he strode across grizzled white drifts and shards of fallen branches. Another storm would soon come to close the road, he thought and for once he was grateful for the itch of his great black beard.

“As soon as I find this lost fool I will make for the fire and home,” he said aloud and followed his words with a grunt to make the image of a man-bear complete.

Being well used to the forest it did not take Ivan long to track the fool. A mile on there was twist in the path and way became suddenly steep. A woodsman or a hunter on foot would have struggled ably on the slope, but for a single horse hauling, it was hard a gradient.

So it was that the childishly small horse-sled had taken half a tumble and was anchored at the turn. The occupant appeared unhurt however, although like the sled, the person was diminutive in the extreme and for a moment Ivan wondered at the age of the driver.

“About time too,” the figure spoke, betraying herself to be a woman.

Despite the diminishingly small chance of being discovered by a man before either beasts or deadly night frost claimed her, she seemed remarkably casual about his sudden appearance.

“You had best turn back,” Ivan answered, not liking the girl’s tone, but knowing better than to comment.

If she belonged to the landowners noble house she could have him put to death for… well anything really. And from her clipped haughty tones she was clearly highborn.

“I want to get to the mountain,” the girl said as if that explained it all.

A puzzled Ivan was about to ask which mountain she meant when he saw the razor peaks of Urals in a break in the cloud; two days distant in fair weather. He looked at the sky doubtfully.

The girl was pointing now at the highest and sharpest of the peaks in the range as if it were candy in a sweet shop. Ivan’s heart sank. This girl was going to be trouble for him. For one thing there was at least one range of hills between that mountain and where they stood.

“Best you wait to spring then Ma’am,” the woodsman suggested.

“But I want to go there now,” the girl said petulantly.

Ivan eyed the mountain and then the girl.

“The Tsar and all the soldiers in Peter couldn’t take you there before spring,” Ivan offered.

“Don’t you know who I am?” the girl said indignantly.

Ivan swallowed hard and studied the girl. A beauty to be sure, but she had none of the look of a Kelch or Kern. But if he got it wrong she would be offended.

“I am Sofia Molotov, my father is Prince…” she began haughtily, saving him a guess.

Ivan didn’t listen to any more, the Molotov lands were miles away; his master was her family’s enemy. Was the girl mad? Ivan pulled at his beard. If he took her to Kern Castle he would be freed. He might even be made a dvornik and allowed to posess his own serfs.

“These are Kelch lands my lady, but we border my master’s estates,” Ivan told her, “Count Peter Kern.”

Sofia drew a breath and reached for her dagger. It was a small sliver toy and no match for this giant’s axe.

“I can pay you,” she said arrogantly, or at least that was the mood she was going for.

Ivan nodded.

“To take me to the mountain I mean,” she added.

His pale blue eyes were as steel then and they pierced her like the wind.

Her own eyes were a softer clearer blue like the sky, but for all their beautiful nobility she missed the danger in his face.

“I am not beholden to you,” he growled, omitting the token of respect, “For silver I will set your sleigh upright and point you at your father’s lands.”

It was the best course for both of them. Nobles were tricky and even for a chance of a reward it was better to stay out of their business.

“You arrogant pig,” Sofia sneered and drew her dagger.

The pin-like blade bounced impotently off his thick coat and he seized her wrist where it held the silver hilt.

“How dare you,” she wailed, tugging at him like a weasel on a bear.

The dagger slipped from her mitten and found its way to his pocket. It was worth more than a year’s work if he fenced it right.

“Give me that back,” she ordered him, her small fists pounding on his chest until he held her wrists.

“What would your father do if he knew you were in the land of Kelch?” Ivan barked at her.

Her wondrous blue eyes glared at him, but only for a moment. Although she proudly held his gaze, her pout gave her away. She would be whipped so soundly that she would not sit down until halfway to spring. Then she blushed, that would happen anyway once she got home. If father ever finds out I am here he would marry me off to the first bear to come along. She eyed the man who still held her wrists. Even this one, she told herself and prayed that she exaggerated her fate.

“Let me give you a taste of what I would do,” Ivan growled.

He lifted the small noblewoman easily and draped her across his lap as he sat on the seat of the sled. The fur of her coat slid away to part smoothly up the back to expose the pert domes of her sued breeches uppermost across his knee.

Nor did he stop there. Despite the chill he tugged at the leather cords pinning the attire at her nipped waist and quickly unlaced them so that her breeches might be drawn down her alabaster thighs.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked.

“Come now, even for nobility a spanking is always given on the bare,” he chuckled.

“I’ll have your head, I’ll hang you, I’ll…” she raged as she bucked.

By now her smooth pert bottom was exposed to his gaze and the marble perfection was complimented by the hint of blue veins from the cold. As she struggled across his knees the heat of their bodies produced a border of vapour around them, a hazy cloud that captured the forenoon apricity like a halo.

“Is that a request you will make to your father or your father’s enemies?” Ivan rumbled in a heavy baritone.

Sofia’s eyes widened and she realised any option would get this beast gold and her whipped just for the start of her misery.

Ivan didn’t wait for her to consider this and brought his bear-like paw with all the sound and bite of a laundry paddle. The pistol crack of the impact ricocheted back at them off the forest as Sofia was robbed of her breath.

There was no finesse of the governess or scolding pater familial to the spanking. For even as a million clichés of bees and wasps attacked her tail another spank landed she was quickly overcome and bawling for mercy.

“I understand, you win,” she shrieked, “I didn’t mean to… ahh.”

Her bottom held his attention as he laid on rapid spanks, his fingers like knouts finding the curves and noble cleft of her tight once-white bottom; turning it first hard pink and then winter berry red.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please… eeeeeh,” Sofia kicked her legs.

Ivan spanked her until she not only protested her pride away but surrendered it absolutely and began to cry. But he was in no hurry. A sound spanking was tame compared to her threats, tamer even than anything she could expect from friend or foe alike for her folly.

“I’m sorry, I‘m sorry,” she blubbed as the spanking lasted for a good 10 minutes until he set her on her feet.

The two hot berries of her bottom glowed in the snow now and she danced woefully, her eyes like two deep overflowing pools. He was surprised that she did not cover the jet triangle at her front or haul up her breeches as she massaged her wounded tail.

“You…” she spat and then blushed and averted her eyes as she failed to match his.

Ivan folded his arms and studied the girl and the increasingly leaden sky above them. Even the mountains had slipped from view now and the snowflakes that fell made gentle crisp impact sounds as they landed.

Still self-absorbed, Sofia wondered what was redder, her face or her bottom. And the everlasting sting… nothing short of cords burned so. Moreover, it was infuriating that even with this peasant she did not amend her attire until directed, but such was her training. Besides, if this man was anything like her people then she could expect to be resoundingly spanked again for such defiance.

“Now we are in a pretty pickle,” he sighed. “Castle Molotov lies far to the south and you will never reach it alive this day.”

Sofia flushed again, but this time from fear.

“Both Castle Kelch and Kern are both beyond reach too,” he pondered aloud. Not that he could surrender such beauty to either of those dark foreboding places, even if it was his duty.

“Please… I’ll… my father would pay you anything,” she pleaded. “I swear if you return me home you’ll get gold and land enough to be a kulak.”

Ivan tugged at his beard to consider this.

“You think I can bring mountains to you like gifts on a platter,” he grunted, “You say that now, but what happens when things don’t match your foolish notions?”

“Is it really so far to the mountains?” she asked, suddenly feeling a fool.

He nodded.

“You swear to get me home as soon as the storm passes… as soon as you are able?” she asked him shyly.

With another beard pull he gave her an emphatic nod.

She licked her lips and he fancied he saw schemes being hatch behind her eyes.

“On one condition,” he said.

Her hands hovered nervously in front of her still exposed front and she shivered.

“Until that time I will have no preening from you and you will do what you’re told or suffer the consequences,” he told her severely.

One of her hands strayed to her bottom but she nodded.

Just then the wind whipped through the trees like a courtly harp and he narrowed his eyes. As if to support his caution somewhere a wolf howled, quickly answered by another.

Seeing his doubt Sofia said hastily, “I swear it.”

“Then pull up your things and get back in the sled,” he told her, “We might just make my house by nightfall.”

“I think I’d rather walk,” she said ruefully rubbing her bottom.

He snorted in amusement and then said, “There might just be one more chance to get you home by tomorrow.”

“And if not?” she asked. Her eyes widened just a jot in apprehension.

“Then you and I will be together until spring,” he answered with a shrug and then moved over to push at the sled,

“Oh,” she said and then as it sank in more urgently exclaimed, “Oh.”

“Yes well, quite,” he sighed, giving her a significant look over his shoulder.

As Sofia put the last of her clothes in order she felt her heart race. This adventure was much better than a few more days at the castle and there was no chance she wouldn’t be home for Christmas was there? After all she was a princess and everything always came right for her.

“Can I help?” she asked as she followed in his wake.

He gave her a long hard stare and then glanced again at the sky.

“You can cut me three dozen lengths of birch twigs,” he said, tossing her the silver dagger, “About yay long,” he added holding his hands a cubit apart. “It is going to be a long winter and life will be hard for us. I suspect that I will very much need all that you can collect.”

Sofia blushed and glowered at him. But she picked up the dagger and tucked it in her belt. Damn the man and damn the profusion of ready birch trees, she thought. She would feign puzzlement but knew well what he wanted and why. Now he had her word she would think longingly on her father’s cords before the spring, she just knew it.

“You never know,” he said doubtfully, “We might just get you home tomorrow.”

But the chorus of wolves under a low grey sky sang a different tale and Sofia wondered idly if she minded as much as she should.

Once upon a time in a land on the outer reaches of Europe dwelt a man and his daughter. They both lived in what had once been a small castle, but was now little more than a fortified house on the edge of town.

Count Verity was a tall dark haired man of middling wealth and discernment, although not all that blessed as an intellectual. His daughter, Cinderella, was beautiful, being flaxen haired and blessed with deep blue eyes as clear and deep as the fabled ocean so far away. It was this perhaps that was to be her downfall.

The Count’s wife having died many years before, he decided to remarry a poor widow with two grown daughters purely because she happened to be one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. However, as pretty as the widow and her daughters were, they were not as fair as Cinderella. A fact not lost on the new Countess and her daughters.

Even then all might have been well but less than two years after the wedding Count Verity succumb to a fall whilst hunting and died three weeks later.

Cinderella was heartbroken of course, but that was not all she had to grieve. For no sooner had the good count been placed in the ground when Countess Verity ordered Cinders to vacate her rooms to make way for her own daughters and move to the servant’s quarters.

“Since she is living in the maids garret now, perhaps she should help with the chores rather more,” suggested the eldest stepsister Virella.

A small self-satisfied smile danced cruelly on her lips as she spoke, prompting Denise, her younger sister to snigger.

“Whatever you think,” The Countess said dismissively, “I have no time for the girl.”

“Then she doesn’t need all those dresses does she?” Denise sniggered.

“But…” Cinderella protested.

“We will start with that gown,” Viral sneered prodding Cinder’s particularly fine blue eye-matching silk dress with a sharp finger.

“My father bought me…” Cinders began.

“Your father is dead, now get undressed and get out of our sight,” Virella snapped.

“You can’t do this…” Cinders wailed.

The Countess who had been about to leave rounded on her and glared.

“You are barely 20 and the will states that I have full authority over you until you are 30 or until you are married, whichever is the longer,” she hissed, “And since you cannot get married without my consent…”

She let the full implication sink in.

Cinders was still considering this and pondering her options if she fled when the Countess seized her and pulled towards a divan outside her suite.

“Denise, fetch me my hairbrush,” the Countess barked.

With Virella’s help she was quickly stripped of her blue gown and silk underskirt. It being an age before women’s draws and such like, this left Cinder’s naked bellow her short shift so that her pert bottom was elevated across the Countess’s knee.

By the time Denise had returned with the hairbrush Cinders had already been spanked for long enough to give her a smooth cherry red behind at the Countess’s hands and tender in the extreme as the spanking was continued with the flat side of the brush.

“Oh please, oh mercy,” Cinders wept, but to no avail.

The Countess spanked her stepdaughter for long, long minutes until Cinders was a sobbing heap.

“Now since the maid’s room is not good enough for you, you will sleep by the hearth in the scullery until further notice. And I give Virella full authority to punish you as she sees fit if you don’t mind her,” was the Countess’s parting words.

*

Days and weeks passed and Cinders soon adjusted to her new regime. For one thing, opportunities for an unmarried woman were not abundant at this time and free of the normal conventions she was able to run in the woods and pick flowers without the constant presence of a chaperon.

True she had chores, but most of these were given to her out of spite and very little she had to do had very much offer the smooth running of the house. So little of what she did, or failed to do, came to the attention of her stepmother.

Of course if Virella or Denise caught her not doing her chores then she was punished. But then she was often punished at other times too.

The Countess, with a passing regard for her duties would infrequently summon Cinders to her rooms. There the girl would be scolded for the tattered rags she wore or her unkempt hair. On these occasions Cinders would be upended over her stepmother’s knee and soundly spanked with the flat side of a hairbrush for long, long minutes before being sent to the corner in the main hall.

Such times were a trial for Cinders because with her hands upon her head her short rags rose up behind to display her russet sheened bare bottom and she was utterly at the mercy of Virella and Denise’s teasing. But these were not the worst of times.

Often when she crept in following a walk in the woods or a day’s bathing in her favourite pool Virella would be waiting for her.

“You have not swept the hearth today, nor have you…” Virella would scold in that self-important way of hers listing a hundred chores that had either been done or were endless tasks and unimportant. The result was always the same.

Cinders would be sent back out to the woods to cut lengths of apple switches or birchen withes and directed not to return until she had collected all that she could carry. Then she would be set at the scullery table making putative rods long into the evening and well beyond supper time.

Then Virella and Denise would come to her and have her bend across the table to present her smooth white bottom to them while they ‘tickled’ it with the first of the birch bundles.

These thrashings were intense, like brands of fire, biting blisters would sear every nook and fold of her exposed bottom as she squealed and wailed at the onslaught. Each licking of viper-like rods lasting for a time well beyond counting until Cinders sobbed piteously.

Then with a grin Virella would take up a fresh rod from a great pile in the corner and begin again and again until every rod was used up and scattered like brittle rain across the scullery.

“That you can have instead of your supper,” Virella would sneer, “Now get this place cleaned up before you get to bed.”

The days that followed these thrashings were the worst. For although Cinders was always left purged and renewed by them, she was too cowed to go out and instead had to get on her knees under close scrutiny of the girls while she scrubbed endlessly clean floors while they stood behind her mocking the violent rash of fire that scared her still exposed bottom.

Sometimes she would be taken over Virella’s lap for another spanking until she cried and pleaded that she would be good. But as stinging-making as this was, it was sometimes a welcome break from the being alone and she came to often ruefully regret it when they at last became bored and left her alone.

And so the summer days would pass picking flowers and swimming naked by herself. A time punctuated only by an occasional spanking from the Countess until she was again caught out by Virella and soundly thrashed without mercy.

*

And so things went along. The months turned into years as Cinderella experienced an endless round of scrubbing, sweeping, swimming, flower picking and some of the soundest punishments of any girl’s young life. But within it all she found a kind of peace, for after all she knew where she was and no one expected very much from her.

Then one fateful day news reached the castle from the capital. It seemed that the King’s eldest son had decided to marry and all the nobility of the land had been ordered to gather at the royal palace to present their daughter’s for consideration.

“There is going to be a ball,” Denise shrieked excitedly, “There is going to be a ball.”

Virella too was excited by the news but she contained her jumping up and down to the inside as she considered what to wear.

Secretly too the Countess wondered if she not yet beautiful enough to be considered, but then decided that marriage to a callow youth might prove tiresome and so she decided to pin her hopes of aggrandisement in her daughters.

“But what about Cinderella?” Denise asked suddenly.

“What about her?” Virella said dismissively.

“Well the order says all nobility must attend the ball,” Denise said nervously.

To defy a royal order was a grave crime, but if they obeyed to the full regard then not only might Cinderella outshine them all, but someone might begin to ask questions about the equitable disposal of the late Count’s wealth.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Virella sneered.

And after a moment’s pause the Countess too shrugged and went about planning their attendance.

But as luck would have it, and as unlikely as it may seem, not far from the castle lived an old friend of Count Verity, a powerful witch who in absentia had appointed herself as Cinder’s godmother. Clementine Tardyhope had been following Cinder’s fate for some time and had been pondering for years what she might do about the situation when the news reached her that Castle Verity had accepted three invitations to the royal ball.

It did not take her long to realise that Cinderella would not go to the ball and she resolved to remedy that prospect.

Now matters get somewhat confusing. For in some versions of the tale Clementine gathers up various unlikely and assorted goods and manufacturers a coach and horse team complete with servants. Now given that one of the principal objects was a pumpkin, a vegetable completely unknown outside of North America at the time of this tale, we can treat these suggestions with a certain amount of doubt. Especially when carriages and horses were plentiful and a day’s labour for a coachman could be had for a small coin.

But however it happened on the day of the ball Cinders was scrubbed up and dressed in one of her old gowns (or had one conjured if you prefer) and put in a coach bound for the palace.

Now consider this. Firstly Cinderella was astonishingly beautiful and yet did not entirely know it. Secondly she hardly ever went to balls and unlike the rest of the aloof nobility gaped in a wide-eyed and charmingly innocent way about everyone and everything from the moment she arrived. And thirdly, she had no idea who the prince was or what he looked like and so spurned his advances when he asked her to dance.

The combination of these three things insured that Cinders was not only noticed, but became the centre of attention.

The prince was not best pleased to be spurned at his own party and so with righteous boldness he seized Cinders by the arm and dragged her on to the patio overlooking the rose garden.

“What do you mean by spurning my advances?” he demanded, “You could at least pretend to consider my suit.”

“But don’t you know that I am just a scullery maid and in any case you look far too gentle a soul to suit my… disposition,” Cinders said carefully.

Outraged at being described as too gentle and by being tricked by a scullion he upended poor Cinderella across his knee and tumbled up her skirts until he had exposed her pert round bottom. Then grabbing one of her own slippers he brought it down with a sharp report on her behind extract a pretty squeal from the girl.

It was such a satisfying smack that he spanked her again before looking on the girl anew. This, he thought, was going to be fun.

Thereafter he spanked Cinderella for a good few minutes until her bottom was as red and polished as a summer strawberry and she was wailing as ever she had when the Countess had at her with hairbrush.

“Ooh, you… you beast,” Cinders wailed and scurried away holding her behind leaving the amused Prince holding her slipper.

“Well done your highness,” chuckled the Lord Chamberlain emerging from the shadows.

The Prince shrugged and asked, “Who was she anyway?”

“The young Countess Verity I believe,” the Chamberlain answered.

“But I thought…” the Prince frowned.

“The other woman is the Dowager Countess, the girl’s stepmother,” the Chamberlain said smoothly, “I fear they do not get on.”

“Is that so?” the Prince mused aloud, “Perhaps you should make some further enquiries.”

“Your Highness,” the Chamberlain bowed.

*

A week later the Prince called upon the residents of Castle Verity and asked to see the Countess.

The Dowager Countess greeted the Prince with a gracious smile and invited him into the parlour.

“You are the Countess?” the Prince asked carefully.

“Indeed,” the Countess smiled.

The Prince appeared to ponder this for a moment and then he too smiled.

“I have in my possession a slipper belonging to one of this household,” he said, “I would match it to the owner for it is her that I will marry.”

The Dowager Countess greeted these words with a wide-eyed inhale and clutched at her heart. Before she could make a suggestion the Prince announced that he would see all gentlewomen in residence for a personal comparison.

“There are but two others,” the Countess said hastily.

“Only two you say?” the Prince said sharply.

“Indeed yes your highness,” the Countess gushed, “Myself and my two daughters.”

The Prince paused to see if she would say more and then he nodded and bid her summon the two girls.

“Shall I remove my shoe?” Virella asked eagerly.

“Your shoe?” the Prince said in a puzzled voice, “No, indeed not,” he said imitating the exaggerated manner of her mother. “For I have no interest at all in feet, I intend to match this slipper to a bare bottom.”

All three women gasped and gaped at him.

“I will spank all three of you, youngest to oldest and the one that matches I will wed,” the Prince said barely hiding his smirk.

“Mother, I don’t think…” Denise wailed.

“Yes spank her first and hard too, your highness,” the Countess snapped, “For I am sure she is the one.”

The Prince removed his coat and sat firmly upon an armless chair and took the reluctant Denise across his lap to bare her bottom. He wished at once that he had something more compelling with which to spank her, but nonetheless he did a fair job with the slipper and quite enjoyed himself for several long minutes spanking her until she howled like a sorry banshee at midnight.

“This is not the girl,” he said disdainful and at long last.

Virella gulped and began to back away. She had presumed until then that Denise had been the one, for she was certain she had made no impression upon the prince at all. Now she began to suspect a trap.

“Oh no you don’t,” the Prince growled and seizing the eldest he dragged her over his lap and bared her copious bottom to his wrath.

This time he took an age to spank the woman and by the time he was done Virella’s bottom was a blistered purple and she was sobbing like a queen who had lost her kingdom.

“That leaves only you,” the Prince sighed turning his attention to the Countess.

“I-I… you would marry me?” she spluttered wondering if a spanking was worth the price.

“I doubt it, but you are the only one left,” the Prince chuckled.

“Wait,” the Countess protested, “There is one other.”

“Then bring her to me,” the Prince ordered, addressing the still weeping Denise.

Then grabbing the Countess, he dragged her across his lap and bared her bottom for the longest hardest and soundest spanking he had ever given. So long did he spank her that the poor woman confessed all, over and over. Not that this stayed the Prince’s hand for he spanked her long into the afternoon until everyone in the castle and beyond knew of her fate.

“Now go and stand in the corner,” he snapped, “All of you and leave those bottoms bare.”

As Cinders who had watched all the proceedings with an admixture of awe and apprehension turned to obey the Prince took her arm.

“Tell me little one, why did you lie about being a scullion?” he asked her.

Cinders cast a glance at the row of three red bottoms and their sniffing miserable owners and then back at the Prince and shrugged.

“No matter, first I will spank you and then we will talk further,” he barked at her.

Cinders was quickly bared and once the pert dome of her bottom was uppermost on the royal lap she too was spanked. And while she did not suffer as the Countess had, she was spanked long and hard until she had thoroughly surrendered.

“No you too can go to the corner for you are their equal, at least until we wed and you can all think on that while I take my supper,” the Prince chuckled.

*

The wedding was a state event and princes from all over Europe came to pay their respects. Cinders had only placed one condition on the marriage and fully expecting her to be avenged on her stepmother and the two sisters, the Prince agreed.

However Cinderella’s request was rather more unusual and after due consideration the Prince acceded. On that we will hear more shortly. Nevertheless the Prince was not content to let the scandalous Dowager Countess Verity and her daughters escape justice for their harsh treatment of Cinders and their usurpation of her position.

The two daughters were married off to modest yeoman farmers who were charged not to spare their bottoms when they gave trouble and work them fairly for the rest of their days. In truth Denise was not so troubled by this and soon settled down much as Cinders had in those early days. But Virella was appalled and rebelled often in the first months of her new life.

On each occasion she was denuded from the waist and belaboured with straps and switches until her bottom was well striped and too sore to sit upon. Then she was set bare bottomed in the corner until her pride was well curbed and she was ready to apply herself to her chores. In time even she found peace and lived like her sister, happily ever after a fashion.

The Dowager Countess did not fare half so well.

About a month after the wedding the palace was quieter than usual and Cinders had awoken early. She still hadn’t got used to wearing fine silk every day and made her way self-consciously to breakfast. She only got as far as the foot of the stairs leading to the grand hall when she saw a maid servant scrubbing at the slate floor.

She was a raven haired beauty in rags so sparse and tattered that as she worked upon her knees the hem of the brief skirts rose up behind to expose the heroic curves of her bottom. It was clear that the woman had been soundly birched for the entire area of her spilt rounds was grazed with prominent tender purple rills.

Even as she thought the woman looked a little familiar the maid turned her woeful face to regard Cinders and the newly-wed princess gasped. It was the Countess her stepmother who was working as a maid in her own palace. The woman’s sad eyes seemed to say ‘go on, mock me.’

“The King has ordered that the former Countess be indentured as a scullion for at least five years,” a stern voice announced.

Cinders whirled around to see her husband the Prince at her side.

“Must we be so cruel,” she asked, her eyes still wide with astonishment.

“Perhaps if she applies herself without complaint in time she might be allowed to wed a worthy peasant,” the prince shrugged. “She has more hope than you did in her position.”

Nearby the kneeling former countess baulked at this news, for ever the schemer she had still held some hope of a reprieve.

Cinderella considered this for a moment and then lightly kissed the prince on the cheek.

“You are so wise my prince,” she said shyly.

The prince embraced her and kissed her back hard.

“Now are you sure you wish me to honour your… request?” he asked carefully.

He glanced significantly at the former countess still on her knees, reluctant to speak too much before the woman.

Cinderella returned a small uncertain nod and then licking her lips she whispered, “Yes.”

“Very well then,” said the prince, “All is prepared.”

*

In a quiet corner of the royal estates and far from the palace stood a small cottage with lime-washed walls and warm reddish-brown beams all set under a thatched roof. There were roses at the borders and a winding cinder path to the door.

Inside it was much as any humble cottar’s house, but with an open fire place and flagstones upon the floor. There was also heavy oaken furniture that few peasants could afford, but it was as close to such an abode as the prince could conceive of. At the back there was a steep wooden staircase, almost a ladder, leading up to the half open attic floor where there was a wide quilt covered bed.

The rags on the bed were too brief for decency and were little more than rags, but nonetheless Cinderella stripped herself of her fine silks and packed them away carefully in a battered coffer in the corner. Then she donned the attire so that rough material scratched at her skin and when she pulled at the fabric small rents exposed her skin.

Then once dressed she descended the steps, taking care to hold on tight as she went and presented herself to her husband who had found the only serviceable chair in the whole house.

“You look very becoming,” he said, “But hardly much like a princess.”

“And when we are here you agreed not to treat me as one,” she said shyly.

He nodded as her eyes strayed to the implements hanging from the walls and she gulped. There were knouts aplenty, riding switches, paddles and all manner of dire rods of correction.

“This floor is filthy,” the prince scolded her, although it was not, “And you have not made up the fire,” which was so, for they had just arrived.

Cinders swallowed and glanced nervously at the grate.

“As this is your first offence here I will merely spank you with your own slipper that I have kept. But in future you can expect much harsher treatment.” The prince sounded severe and not a little angry so that Cinders feared she may have really crossed him in some way.

Then he winked and almost smiled; the last she would see of his kind side for the rest of the day.

It took him very little for him to bare her bottom for as soon as she was bent across his knee her short hem rose off her thighs exposing most everything below her waist. If anything the clothing was even more revealing than that worn by the former countess that day.

The slipper landed with a resound splat across both her proffered cheeks and she squealed. It had been some weeks now since her last spanking and that only the tame affair handed out by the prince in her own home. Now he threatened to spank her soundly, the bite of the soft leather across her bottom certainly promised as much.

In a few short moments the blasting sting took away her breath and she began to squirm and kicked at the treatment. Idly she wondered if she was unfair demanding such handling from her gentle prince against his nature. Then she remembered how he had first spanked her without prompting and his treatment of her stepmother and the sisters.

Thinking of the former countess she resolved that when next permitted to return to the palace she would enjoy sitting with a glass of wine and watch the woman endure a good sound birching. Then the sting set her bottom to a real tang and she realised that she would have to settle for standing for a while.

It was then that the first of a great many silver tears splashed onto the floor and she yelled in protest. The prince was settling in now to spank her for a very long time. During their days here she would have to be very diligent indeed, she thought ruefully as she again glanced at the rods and paddles.

Then the burn took her and all she knew was the spanking and the fire in her bottom. No girl ever wanted this, she wailed inwardly, but if it wasn’t a lie then she did not dwell overmuch on such a need.

And they both lived happily and unhappily ever after.

The end.

Our story began here.

Home for the Heart
Fear had acceded to Katrin’s wish to delay their departure for one more day. Although she really would have preferred a week, she thought ruefully as she eased her behind onto the seat of the coach.

It would take many days to reach Downley and despite her punishment she wanted to make the most of them before they reached home where they would have to have separate rooms.

“Are you still angry with me?” she said shyly and then winced as the padded seat proved too hard.

He snorted in amusement as she jerked to her feet and scowled at him.

“It looks like you will have to kneel up on the seat,” he said with a smirk.

Katrin blushed, her chastisement was probably already the talk of Timon and she wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction by giving them such a humiliating display. But a second attempt to sit transferred the ache to her face and she openly winced again as she took some weight on her hands.

“Perhaps once we are on the open road I might be permitted to kneel on the floor,” she said tartly with an exaggerated tone of dignity.

“Perhaps I should pin your skirts up and make you kneel on the outrigger,” Fear teased her.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Katrin gasped, very much afraid that he might.

He laughed and then sighed, “It’s a long journey; I’ll put a cushion on the floor once we are out of sight of the city. But remember I haven’t finished with you,” he added with a frown.

Katrin tried to glower at him, but that ended in a blush and she cast her gaze downwards. Then the coach pulled away with a lurch and Katrin was thrown back hard upon her bottom.

“Ooh sheeesh,” she groaned, adding ruefully, “Maybe I’ll just risk kneeling right off.”

Fear indulged her with a smile and tossed a cushion at her from the seat beside him.

“Thanks,” Katrin said shyly.

*

Downley appeared as it always had, solid and permanent with its grey and red brick walls and high ground floor windows, a legacy from more dangerous times. Katrin frowned at the thought. When had things been more dangerous than now, she mused. But as she took in the scene another thought entered her mind. This is where it all began. Katrin sighed.

The trees that framed the house were still dressed in summer green, but here and there a yellowing interloper could be seen among the leaves and one or two of these had been shed like premature confetti for an unconfirmed wedding.

The only thing that had changed was perhaps the track that led to the front apron. It was more rutted than Katrin remembered and as the coach lurched she praised the fact that her bottom was no longer quite so tender as it had been almost a week before when they had set out from the capital.

“Are you sure I will be welcome here?” Fear asked in his serious voice.

Katrin took his arm and grinned.

“Of course, father was very clear about that,” she nodded enthusiastically. “A De Lacy woman taking a lover is a scandal somewhere well below one becoming an apprentice to a Magus. Besides, the war makes everything seem so… unimportant now.”

Fear smiled back allowing an escape of air through his nose. The best he could manage by way of a laugh just then. After all, Lord De Lacy, as he now was, was not a man to be trifled with and no amount of magic would protect him from a jealous father.

“You’re nervous,” Katrin gasped in amusement.

Fear became uncomfortable and shifted on his seat.

“I wasn’t always a mage,” he said, “I remember climbing out of young girls’ bedrooms with an angry Papa in pursuit.”

Katrin giggled and Fear returned a broad grin that lasted all the way to the front door of the house.

Delia Cain stood impassively on the front step and beside her were two maids; Ellen, who Katrin knew well and another, a short rust-haired girl with too many freckles.

Katrin noted that her former governess who was now her father’s mistress had small flecks of white in her immaculate black hair, but far from looking older, she looked younger than before. Katrin noted with amused approval that the woman had made no concession to vanity with regard to her hair. Not because she was against such things, but because the woman had thrashed her many times for just such a crime.

Katrin and Delia eyed each other, both with a slight blush touching their faces. Both had been severely punished at the other’s hands, Katrin extensively over several years. But at their last such encounter it had been Delia who had suffered.

“My lady, I am so glad to see you,” the former governess gushed.

“Delia,” Katrin said warmly.

After a pause they embraced as if Mark had indeed married her.

“Lord Downley is…”

Katrin giggled at the pompous opening and Delia smiled.

“Your father is in his study, he’s been working for days,” she said with a laugh as she caught herself on. Then to Fear she offered a small bow. “Welcome Arch Magus, Trudy will show you to your room.”

Fear remembered that Ellen was the taller maid and so offered his smile to Trudy who giggled and stared back at him in awe. Katrin saw the exchange and pursed her lips in disapproval.

“Thank you Mistress Cain,” Fear said pleasantly and then reached out to rescue his bag from the struggling Trudy.

*

Mark De Lacy, the newly made Count of Downley, was framed by the door of his study as Katrin entered the front hallway. For a moment his face had a thunderous look as if he had lost something and was still looking for it. His stern countenance seemed to scan his daughter for the least thing worthy of his approval.

The woman he now faced looked like his daughter, but she was now grown and poised like her mother and the old nobleman scarce recognised her. The he saw her scowl as she had as a child, a small crinkle marring the bridge of her nose. In his mind he heard her say ‘oh Daddy’ and his face cracked into a smile and he grinned.

Katrin abandoned dignity and sprang across the hall into his arms.

“Oh Daddy,” she cried.

The County swept her up into his arms and did a pirouette for a full circle. As they returned to face the door Mark caught Fear’s eye and mouthed the words, ‘thank you.’

“I trust your journey was acceptable,” Mark said at last as he returned to a more dignified posture, “The roads are so terrible at the moment, I have to attend a county committee meeting next week to discuss it. The damn war you know.”

“We stopped off at a few inns on the road,” Katrin said sheepishly with a blush. Memories of the night before assailed her and she was certain that her father knew.

“As you say the roads were quite bad my lord,” Fear put in.

Mark nodded and smiled awkwardly at his rival for Katrin’s affections.

“Are you here for long? I mean, perhaps tomorrow I could organise a hunt?” he asked carefully.

Katrin beamed at him and did a girlish half bounce as if the prospect of riding the estate was all she dreamed of.

“We are in no particular rush,” Fear said, “But I am afraid Katrin and I have something else to attend to tomorrow and I doubt that our girl will want very much to sit a horse for a few days after that.”

Katrin gaped and rounded on her man, her face crimson at such words being spoken before the servants.

“Ah,” Mark said, but a small smirk touch his face and he rubbed it away with his hand. “What has she done now?”

“Oh nothing as yet, I rather suspect that she wouldn’t dare,” Fear said sharply, his eyes defying Katrin to berate him. “But we have still to resolve the matter of our girl’s incursion onto the battlefield against orders.”

She knew ‘that look’ and swallowing her embarrassment ducked her head.

“What still?” Mark said with a frown.

“We had another issue to resolve before that and have been on the road since,” Fear replied, I thought it prudent, not to mention kinder to defer the matter until our arrival.”

“Absolutely,” Mark said casually, “Not my business anyway,” he added looking at Katrin significantly, “Not these days. Delia will attend to anything you need.”

Delia, who had been standing discreetly back, looked dismayed at the suggestion she should get involved and to cover her embarrassment made scolding faces at Ellen and Trudy, ushering them away.

“Oh I think I can handle things,” Fear said, still looking at Katrin, “But I trust you will not be disturbed by the noise and any undignified displays? I mean to make a point.”

“Oh it is of no account,” Mark said dismissively, “These walls have seen worse. Come and have a drink.”

Katrin gulped and ducked her head again.

“Come on I know I…” she wailed, but it sounded far too childish to continue and she settle for offering the retreating men a rueful pout.

*

Katrin felt silly getting up so early. After all, who would know if she didn’t? But Fear had been very specific and in very certain terms he had explained what would happen if he even suspected that she had not obeyed him.

Worse than surrendering to a punishment of her accord was the attire she had to wear. The brief muslin shift was ridiculously short and the thin material was no protection against the pre-dawn chill. She particularly resented the way in which the cloth just covered her in front so as to give a veneer of respectability to her shame, but was hopelessly revealing behind even if she tugged the cloth down at the back.

An inspection over her shoulder in the long mirror in her room showed exposed bottom cheeks well below the hem. She glowered angrily at the display and made to stamp her foot. Damn the man, he is so strict and father thinks it is funny.

What made her all the more apprehensive was that the only clothing she had been permitted, no required to put on, were stiff canvas slippers of the kind that she might wear for gardening. This was more than a hint that she would be taken outside, which in her current mode of dress was mortifying.

But it had happened before now. Life under Delia’s hand had often led to such experiences and she blushed at the memory. In her mind she reluctantly prayed that Fear intended to switch her, but she rather suspected that her morning would be spent gathering birch rods for a stiffer sanction.

The worst part of that was that she would be outside all the longer and at greater risk of being seen.

However, before that she had to go down to the morning room and stand in the corner with her hands on her head and be there when the first of the household had risen. Damn the man.

Katrin felt an absolute fool as she faced the corner of the room and for a long minute or two she contemplated sitting in the window seat until she heard the maid get up. But servants were such quiet creatures and it was a certainty that Trudy or Ellen would appear announced and see that she had not obeyed her master.

She could hear Fear now, “I trust all was in order when you came down?”

The maid would blush and stammer her betrayal even if unintended. And even if Fear questioned only her, she would fail in a lie. Damn the man.

Katrin gave a heavy sigh and silently cursed the corner before striding defiantly into it. My hands don’t need to go on my head right away, she thought, but her arms lifted without volition and her fingers found their way to her crown and locked themselves there. It was a kind of magic, she thought bitterly. Damn the man.

*

Katrin first sensed, rather than heard Trudy gaping at her predicament from the middle of the room. She had been standing with her nose in the corner shivering at the chill around her exposed bottom for some time. Not long enough for her arms to ache overmuch, but she had long enough to zone out a little. Perhaps that’s how the maid had entered the room unheard.

“Eh… my lady I…” Trudy stammered.

Katrin felt a blast of shame flood her face and bit back a hint of tears.

“It’s alright… Trudy isn’t it? Just go about your work,” Katrin said in a rather wan voice, “I am sure you have seen a punished girl before.”

“Yes Ma’am, Ellen and I are often in that very corner. Mistress Cain is most… I mean,” Trudy realised that she was being over familiar and felt her buttocks clench, “Well yes… eh… my lady… I’ll… the grate… yes ma’am.”

Trudy gaped once more at the sphere of Katrin’s exposed hips and the tight curves of the deeply split bottom so humbled before her. Here and there were tiny traces of brown and yellow bruising, belying a previous spanking of some sort. But those marks were old and did nothing to mar her master’s daughter’s astonishing beauty.

Trudy was glad that her own bottom was not so inviting or Delia would have blistered her much more often than once a week, she thought ruefully, her hand straying to rub at her behind.

Then thoughts of a spanking and her own bottom spurred her back to work. In a moment she was on her knees humming into the grate as she washed it down and got ready to replace the flowers that adorned it during the summer months. Another few weeks and I will have to start lighting it, she mused absently.

“La, la, da,” she sang much to Katrin’s annoyance.

*

Half an hour after Trudy’s appearance the house came fully alive and it seemed that the morning room had more visitors than a seed table in an orchard.

Every one of these unwelcome witnesses paused significantly at Katrin’s exposure and either coughed and left the room, as her father had, or made an amused sound like Ellen’s giggle.

Only Delia tried to ignore Katrin’s plight, but not having to meet the young journeyman’s eyes, she found herself remembering when the tables had been turned and the suffering had been hers.

It was an amusing enough thrill when one’s own bottom was not for the chop, she thought with a shrug, and no harm would come of it. After all it was just a colourful tradition they all suffered from time to time, even Delia when Mark put his mind to it. It would probably do the proud Katrin De Lacy some good.

Knowing Delia was behind her watching, Katrin sighed and renewed her acquaintance with the fresh hot blood at her cheeks. The whole house was drinking in her curves for amusement and she couldn’t even look them in the eye and say it wasn’t fair. Not really. Oh damn the man. Involuntarily she stamped her foot and a tear rolled down one cheek.

Delia just had to giggle at that.

“Poor girl,” she muttered, “But you have had worse and it will soon be over.”

*

Finally Fear arrived and stood with his arms folded regarding his love.

“Turn around,” he said in a dark rich voice.

All resentment drained from Katrin then and she slowly turned and looked at the mage sheepishly, nervously biting her lower lip.

“You are a student of Pandoria, my young apprentice. It is a disciplined life and one that requires active thought and active decisions. Am I correct?” Fear said calmly.

Katrin blanched and nodded. She hadn’t seen Fear so angry.

“You of all people should be aware of dark subtle forces and the importance of consulting with someone more experienced before yielding to such influences,” Fear continued. “That you were ‘drawn’ to the battlefield is a case in point. Where was your will? Can you tell me that you would do so again, if you were in your right mind I mean?”

Katrin swallowed. She hadn’t seen it like that before and if it had been anyone else on the battlefield she would have kicked herself for yielding to such a summoning.

“But I…” Katrin said in woeful voice.

“What did you? Saved the day did you? It is possible. We will never know now will we? I might have prevailed anyway. But what you must see, what it is essential that you understand is…” Fear sounded urgent now and took a step forward so that she backed away. “…that-is-not-the-point.”

Katrin swallowed and averted her eyes as if looking for an answer in the recently cleaned grate.

“We have a great power you and I. And with it comes a great responsibility. A cliché I know, but it is true. You cannot be so susceptible to outside impulses,” Fear hissed at her, “Can’t you see that?”

Katrin tightened her jaw and unfocussed her eyes. The sensation had come from within, she was sure of it? Wasn’t she? Doubt filled her now. She didn’t know, not for sure. It had seemed to be the right thing at the time. But she remembered the Beast and how it had assailed her. If she had been as weak then… she shuddered.

“I see you begin to understand,” Fear sighed.

Katrin licked her lips and offered him the merest of nods.

“Now this is your home, you were punished here,” Fear said gently. “It made you who you are and… and that brings me to the most important thing. Here you are safe, here you can make mistakes. And as we go on, I will be your home. But if you ever, and I mean ever, put your life so recklessly in danger, regardless of what you have been told. Then my precious love I will put you so firmly in your place that you might not sit down for a month.”

Fear seized her by the shoulders then and shook her.

“Do you hear me?” he barked. “I don’t care if you are a mage or even make it to being the Grand Magus, you will deal with me in such matters.”

It was a promise, an eternal promise and Katrin’s heart pounded in her chest. What did it mean?

“Has it not occurred to you why your family, your father has permitted me to handle you so?” Fear allowed a small light to his eyes.

Lifting her head to meet his face, Katrin’s eyes darted back and forth in her head as she tried to contemplate the unfathomable. The hope was exquisite and she could not name it even to herself.

“Last night I asked your father for your hand in marriage and he agreed,” Fear said in a calm slow voice.

Katrin’s eyes went wide and she could not help smiling.

“But we can’t… you’re a mage and I’m… the rules… what about…?” she gabbled.

“I am Arch Magus and I make my own rules,” Fear said sharply, there was danger written in his eyes, “If necessary we leave Pandoria and I will train you myself. I know enough to get you to adept level in any discipline you chose,” he promised.

“But…” there was one more thing; it escaped her like a mot in the eye as she confronted it.

“Katrin De Lacy… Lady Katrin, Journeyman of Pandoria, will you consent to be my wife?” Fear did not go down on one knee as was traditional, that would have been absurd in the circumstances, but he made a curt bow like a courtier.

Katrin felt a flash of pride, not to be asked, but as a noblewoman who had been so scarcely regarded in a marriage deal. But then she remembered that she was half naked and until a moment before had been standing in the corner like a naughty youngster.

The internal dialogue might have continued but the explosion of joy overtook her and rushed at the man clung to him for her soul’s existence.

“You bastard,” she wept.

“Is that a yes?” he grinned, tears pooling at his own eyes. “I know… I mean I hadn’t intended to ask you until after… but…”

Katrin nodded. She didn’t care. Nothing mattered.

“Can we tell father?” she gushed.

Then Fear frowned.

“Not just now, we have something left to attend to, don’t we?” he said.

Katrin gaped. “That’s not fair,” she wailed. “I mean it is but…”

Her mind was in turmoil.

“I mean to start as we will continue, do you understand?” he said sternly.

“Yes Sir,” she replied with a bite of her lip.

“Now let’s get this over with,” Fear sighed.

*

Katrin walked at a nervous crouch as if lowering her body would lower the hem of her impossibly short shift. At that moment even the prospect of marriage, a happy arrangement that whirled around in her head like a drunken bee, could distract her from her mortifying plight.

Fear had led her through a side door of the house and onto the small lawn that abutted the house between the west wing and the woods at the edge of the estate.

As she shivered and cowered on the step, Katrin noted the unkempt grass that was now ankle deep and wondered when the gardeners would return to see to it. It was a stray thought that kept her sane but it led her to hope that there would be few if any estate workers about to see her so exposed. She shivered again, this time not from the cold and blushed, the heat on her face in contrast to the chill about her legs and the lower curves of her naked bottom.

It was still yet early and it was not until they stepped out of the shadows that the sun felt warm. But still Katrin shivered and looked nervously about for any glimpse of a witness.

It was not the first time that she had been half-naked out of doors to be sent to collect birch rods or a switch, but it had been a long time since and in another life. She was well past 21 now and might be considered far too old for such a shameful indignity, but the truth of her life was that it was not for her to say.

In the panicked circle of emotions in her head this last idea was actually a comfort and led her to think again of her sudden betrothal to her master. She glanced back at Fear behind her and gave him a shy rueful smile.

He scowled at her and pointed angrily at the woods ahead.

For a moment he reminded her of Dniester, and what the old uncompromising wizard might have been like in his younger life. Despite everything she had a love for that old bastard too. But it was a transitory thought overtaken by the Arch Mage’s sharp directing finger that not only had to be obeyed, but directed her to the relative sanctuary of the trees where she might not be seen.

Still at an undignified crouch, Katrin scurried across the lawn to a gap between a holly bush and an old rowan tree quickly gaining the welcome chill of the shade.

“I am trying to make a point here and you just make cow eyes at me,” Fear snapped at her. “I have a good mind to march you down to the village to find the makings, down to the village on the open road,” he added.

“But its four miles,” Katrin gasped, “And everyone would see. I’d never live it down.”

She tugged at the front of her shift defensively, glad that at least it offered some covering, but that only raised the hem at the rear even more and did nothing to mitigate her plight.

Fear couldn’t help enjoying this more humble demeanour of hers. He had no intention of being as cruel as all that and he doubted that Mark would approve anyway. In fact he had taken care the day before to ascertain that most of the men and estate workers had yet to return from the war and that the only likely witnesses, if any, would be women and the very young.

However, Katrin did not know of any of this and she would squirm a little in sacrifice to his very sharp point of view on her discipline.

“So what, you will learn to obey,” he said, his voice hard. “I might even pause there at the tavern for an ale. You would look cute standing in the corner by the bar or does the village have some stocks? I could stay for lunch perhaps,” he teased.

Katrin’s jaw hung low and she blanched. It was impossible to tell if he were serious. He was certainly angry enough at her failings. And she had made a commitment in her heart years before that she was his no matter what and that she would submit to all. That morning’s betrothal only reinforced that.

Remembering that she felt a tickling warm glow that extended to between her legs, despite it all, this submission was a thrill. For a moment this comfort dulled her plight and she came again full circle in her emotions.

“Your eyes are smiling again,” he barked, do you think I am playing games?”

“No Sir,” she said hastily and ducked away deeper into the woods praying that he would not carry out his threat.

*

The forest was alive with birdsong that trilled in counterpoint as myriad flocks announced the intruders in their midst. The day was becoming warmer now and the sun had now journeyed above the tree tops and rained sunbeams through the canopy like curtains of light.

If Katrin had not had been almost naked and on her way to collect punishment rods for her bare bottom, she would have thrilled at the day. Drawing on the patterns, she saw it all in vivid swirls which overlaid the perfect mundane. Water and Earth power surged through it all until the forest resembled a garden for the gods in which late summer butterflies danced on air before alighting on luminescent flowers.

Katrin stopped and sighed, drinking in the scene as balm to her soul. For just a moment her nudity felt like an appropriate sacrifice to it all.

Fear might have scolded her, but he too saw it and all it might be. It was all there to be shaped to his will, a garden in which he could play like a deity. But a true master knew when to withhold his hand… and shifting to the mundane he studied the greater beauty of Katrin’s curve… and when to commit.

“Come on,” he chided her.

After a bit they broke from the trees and onto a track that Katrin knew led to the road to town. The wagon ruts in the ground were partially overgrown like a newly healed scar. It was another sign that there were few people about.

Nevertheless Fear’s threat assailed her and she bit her lip as if to prevent the heart in mouth tumbling onto the ground.

“What is the furthest you have ever been to collect birch rods?” Fear asked casually.

Katrin gulped and pointed deeper into the woods. She could not lie.

“A mile further on is the edge of some farm land. The best switches grow where it is most exposed to the field,” she said woodenly, staring at him expectantly.

“There are none closer?” he asked.

But he looked thoughtfully in the direction she had pointed and nodded in approval so that Katrin felt sick. As a girl it had been shameful to be watched by field hands as she collected switches. Delia had been cruel and she hated such punishments worse than any other.

She swallowed hard and in a hopeless voice replied, “Only back near the house where switches were cut for winter punishments.”

Fear nodded again and said, “I am enjoying this walk. I will remember it well. We will make a turn of the grounds and return for those.”

For a moment Katrin was terrified that he would lead them up the track to the village road but after a pause he turned the other way to follow the path deeper into the trees.

“You bastard,” Katrin sighed with relief. But she was careful to keep her words well under her gentle breath.

*

Katrin now stood facing the wall in what had been her old school room. In the middle of the room someone had thoughtfully pulled the flogging bench from the wall and dusted it down. The windows had been left open to air the room, which now smelt of polish and old leather.

Coupled with the walk in the woods and the undignified collection of birch rods, Katrin felt utterly humbled. Old feelings of scolding and tummy nerves tumbled through her mind and soul. She was transported back to endless schoolroom days and shameful spankings while maids tittered at the door, all this on the day she had been betrothed; long would it be a memorable one. She felt her face flush.

There were several birch rods now steeping in buckets and Katrin had no idea if he would use one or many. In her surrender she found it did not concern her. Her man would decide.

There it was again, the circle of bitter thrills. Her heart lurched again.

She looked closely at the wall in front of her nose until it defocussed and excluded the room behind her. Then she imagined she was in the corner at the inn with a gang of smirking labourers and shopkeepers all enjoying the view. Belly tightening shame flooded her and she shifted a little in her fantasy.

The stocks were harder for her to picture. But she wondered if she would mind the game so much if they were already married and about to leave the next day. Married, she gasped inwardly forgetting the inn. There it was again, the circle of bitter thrills. The gods she was aroused.

*

An hour had passed and at last Fear called Katrin from the corner to take her place over the flogging bench.

It was an antique, brought by her mother’s father from Timon. A solid affair of dark oak with a soft leather ‘ladies’ saddle’ on top of the frame. There was a place to kneel and bend right over or the furniture could be adjusted to hold a miscreant with straps.

Delia had made much use of it for birching Katrin in former days and no doubt from time to time the maids still felt the benefit. But Katrin had always wondered if her mother had suffered on the contraption or her grandmother, and how many before that?

Delia had told that her grandfather had given it to Mark as a wedding present. Thanks grandfather, she thought ruefully, I bet mother really appreciated that too.

It now stood before her like a threat and she scowled at it as if it were an old unwelcome friend at a feast.

“I am going to put you across my knee and spank you first,” Fear said and took her arm.

The reprieve was a pyric one. Katrin found herself upended over Fear’s knee and snuggled down with her bare bottom upper most. Exploring her generous curves with is hand he set the target area tingling in expectation. Then just as she began to enjoy it he let fly with a sharp slap that made her squeal.

There was no gentle warm up for her, Fear just set to spanking her soundly until she bucked and gasped over his knee. Within in moments her bottom was deeply red with fingertip blotches quickly merging into one.

“Have I been a cruel master?” he asked his voice a low rumble now.

“No Sir,” she groaned.

“Am I unjust now?” he murmured, his hand made an extra hard effort.

She sniffed and rapidly shook her head.

The spanking made tangy echoes of the walls and ceilings and there was no doubt it could be heard by anyone who came close enough to listen. The hand on flesh was so distinct that the indignity was hard to disguise. Katrin blushed a colour near to rivalling her bottom at the thought of it.

“Please, they can hear, it’s embarrassing,” she wailed.

“Embarrassing is it? Perhaps you would have preferred a trip to town?” he rasped.

“Nooo,” she squealed, kicking her legs in protest.

Katrin could later have sworn that the spanking lasted a week and even Fear had to shake his bruised hand in discomfort once he finally stopped.

“The gods, your bottom is firm,” he complained.

“Oh I’m so sorry,” she said in a sullen sarcastic tone.

“Oh don’t be, I have a cure for that,” he told her.

As he put her on her feet Katrin remembered the flogging bench and the waiting switches. For the first time since he had asked her, the prospect of marriage was far from her thoughts.

“Oh,” she sighed dejectedly and then bobbed up and down in distressed frustration.

*

Hard over and bare bottom upwards Katrin felt so vulnerable. She was still pondering this when the room was filled with a rattling-roar like wet hail on a tin roof. The shush-thwack that followed ended at her bottom and the breath-taking impact was followed by fire.

“Aiyeee,” Katrin shrieked.

It was a betrayal of her resolve and with white knuckles on wood she swallowed down air in a resolve to do better. She did for a count of four, but then the fire on fire was continuous and pain danced across her face.

“I… I… I…” she muttered over and over rolling with the burn.

Her thighs were now lightly sheened with sweat which loaned a gloss to the polished red that bubbled on her bottom. In response Katrin sniffed back unbidden nasal moisture, but a bead of water rolled from one eye around her nose down to her philtrum.

The next blast of the rod drew another scream and Katrin tumbled into true sobbing. Then with each further rain of pain she let out with something like, “Ay-yay-aiie,” and growled in angry frustration.

Fear birched on until Katrin’s empurpled behind was temporarily ruined and the first rod was in tatters. Katrin was left prone and sobbing in the wake.

“You have a choice now,” it was cruel he knew, but she was too accepting and his point needed that she took no salvation from buried pleasures. “I can spend rods until your reserve of anger turns to full contrition and then let Delia return a favour you once did her…”

Katrin’s eyes widened and she remembered her gift of devil root and a long, long day of misery for the woman.

“…or you can stand in the corner with the door open for an hour so between bouts of correction. The latter will take near as long and be far more shaming, but physically much less demanding.”

Katrin sucked in one long miserable breath and wailed, “That is the coward’s way.”

“It is the more merciful road that leads to humility and my true purpose,” Fear said gently.

“How… h-how many more times will I be birched?” she asked humbly, her words were laden with moisture.

“Not so many if you truly understand my point,” he told her, his voice still gentle.

“I do, I do,” she wailed.

“Then what is my point?” he asked soothingly.

“That I must be strong and obey you,” she sniffed.

“Yes, but above all it is yourself you must obey if you are to command the magic isn’t it?” his palm itched and he feared he did not have enough rods.

But Katrin nodded.

“That’s what I meant by being strong,” she said.

“Truly?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Then I will thrash you twice more,” he sighed, “Once to finish you off to be sure and once more because…?”

“…a contrite bottom is more tender and willing and more fittingly learns its lesson,” she quoted.

It was one of Delia’s favourites. But until that moment she had never fully understood the truth of it. Now Fear would complete the education her governess had begun.

“Good girl,” Fear smiled.

“Thank you Sir,” Katrin said meekly, managing a smile back over her shoulder.

“Alright, now into the corner with you and don’t you dare move,” he chided her. “We will continue you this in an hour or so.”

*

Katrin lay face down on her bed in a stupor. Her long dark hair was combed out across painfully white sheets at her shoulder while her body curved elegantly on top of the bedspread. Delia ran her eye down Katrin’s prone smooth white skin, which was only interrupted by the purple welted domes jutting up like tender hills between her long legs and the narrow sculptured waist.

The former governess stood supervising Ellen who dabbed gently at her mistress’s sore bottom with a cold wet flannel. The maid was totally in awe of the raw tender aftermath of the worst punishment she had ever heard of, let alone seen.

“I half expected you to bring devil’s root balm,” Katrin said ruefully. “It would probably serve me right.”

Ellen’s eyes noticeably widened at the suggestion and she gaped at Delia for the least sign that the woman could ever do such a thing. Then drawing on personal experience she hastily concluded that she would and dipped her head to the task in hand.

“That was an option the maestro had discussed with me, but I understand that he persuaded you to another course,” Delia said gently.

“I bet you’re disappointed, but then I am disappointed with myself rather, I turned out to be a bit of a coward didn’t I?” Katrin said somberly.

“It would be hypocritical of me to deny that I wouldn’t have extracted a measure of satisfaction from a little cruel participation, but I don’t think it was needful and I think things turned out for the best,” Delia said lightly.

Katrin snorted derisively, but then shot Delia a glance and saw sincerity written there.

Katrin dropped her head and stared blankly at the pillow and beyond it to space.

“I totally surrendered you see,” she said quietly, “As meekly as any maid.”

“Well you do have a very sore bottom ma’am, I am not surprised,” Ellen piped up.

Katrin laughed, able to now, although she still remembered standing in the corner just hours before like a naughty girl set there for the edification of girls like Ellen.

“Ellen,” Delia cried impatiently, adding in an irritated voice, “You can go now.”

“Girls like that don’t understand such things as the submission of the marriage bed. But you feel stronger now don’t you?” Delia said once Ellen had gone.

Katrin nodded, but the movement brought on a wince.

“Here let me,” Delia said taking up the cloth from the bowl. “I have some kinder balm somewhere; I think you’ll going to need it.”

Katrin smiled and nodded gratefully.

*

Katrin did not emerge from her from her room until the day that followed the next. Even so she could only walk with slow careful steps and sitting down was completely out of the question.

It would be embarrassing whatever she did, but standing as in times of old to take breakfast off the dining room mantle was beyond shame. So she opted instead for standing behind her chair to pick at her plate until hunger overtook her and she could eat more enthusiastically.

Her father took scant notice of her discomfort and barely spoke a greeting until he had polished off two lengths of bacon and a sausage served with egg sauce.

“Lughnasadh is well passed and in any case propriety demands that we wait at least a month after the announcement,” he said at last.

Katrin frowned, she was unsure what he was talking about, but the question died on her lips and then intensified when her father continued with: “Mabon will serve us better anyway and you and Fear will still have time to attend the Conclave before winter.”

“Mabon, Conclave? What… what are you saying?” she asked.

“The autumn equinox is an auspicious time to be wed,” Fear said as he entered the room, “And traditional too, in lieu of a spring wedding anyway, but I don’t care to wait.”

Wedding, Katrin gaped; she hadn’t expected things to move so fast.

“In any case, I want it decided before we confront the Conclave and our friends at Pandoria,” Fear continued.

“Conclave?” Katrin said absently, but she was still thinking about a Mabon wedding.

“A messenger arrived while you were… indisposed, the Magister has called a Conclave,” Fear sighed as if he dreaded such an event.

*

They gathered under a sycamore tree outside the Temple of Hatra. The late summer had given way to autumn and the nights would soon draw in.
Although various greens still dominated the surrounding forest many of the leaves had turned golden with the occasional patch of bronze. But the day was warm and a silver yellow sun burned in a clear blue sky as sharply as any at Beltane.

The temple stood between the town of Downley and the De Lacy Estate and although it was bone white and well-furnished there was no permanent priest and the building was mostly used for storage for vessels and other equipment used in ceremonies throughout the year.

The squared-off stone was fronted by eight thick columns each representing key markers in the pagan year. This was reflected in the carvings and decoration on each pillar, beginning with imbolc and ending at yule.

Someone had decorated the temple and surrounding grounds with seasonal vines and flowers from the woodland, but the only people in visible attendance were Fear and Katrin, Mark De Lacy, Delia and the priest with the two witnesses.

The priest, Hadron, had been called upon from the town and was well-known to Katrin and her father. He was a rather dour man who never smiled except in his cups and had been the priest for years, ever since fleeing Timon a generation before following charges of dark arts and dubious Wiccan practices. But the grey clad man looked too grizzled and frail to be so celebrated now.

The witnesses included the senior town alderman, Benedict Chapman, a tall skinny man with sharp features, and his wife, Maud, a much younger woman of noble birth and a spiral of neat blonde braids piled on her head like a cone. She was rather pretty, but the hair fashion didn’t suit her and she looked a fright.

Katrin didn’t care one jot. She was exploding with joy and could not stop grinning even as her father and Fear were determined to look so sombre. She knew that beyond sight within the trees Ellen and Trudy stood with many people from the estate and surrounding villages, all of whom would attend the feast at the house that night. But for now this day was for the family and the priest’s entourage.

Katrin’s simple white dress glowed translucent white in the sun and the lightest of breezes made the fabric cling fetchingly to her barely concealed form naked beneath the cloth. In Pandoria it was the colour of Air Magic, neither her gift nor right to wear and before donning it that morning she had wondered what brides wore there. But now such thoughts were gone from her and she was lost in the moment, a moment that hung in time and seemed last forever.

No one had spoken for an age and the only sound was the light breeze in the trees and the occasional lowing of a cow. To Katrin it felt magical, but she forswore the patterns to test the feeling for fear that the spell would be broken. Her faith in such things as gods was weak, but if they held truth then even her magic could not have defined them.

Another light gust rippled the treetops and somewhere an insect buzzed as if oblivious to the change of season. Then finally the priest stepped forwards and began to speak.

“We call upon Mabon ap Modron, the Child of Light, god of this season, and upon Cernunnos and the Green One. We call upon Dagda, the All-father as your humble children. Please oh great ones hear our prayers and bless these children and give them virtue.”

The wind seemed to die away at his words and even the cattle fell silent. Katrin felt her heart stop and she cast a glance at Fear. But his eyes were closed perhaps in prayer and she wondered at that even as it added to the true magic.

But seizing the moment Katrin knelt between Fear and her father and clasped her hands in supplication.

“Who offers this woman?” Hadron asked.

“I do,” Mark said boldly. “I name myself Mark Euan De Lacy, Count of Downley.”

“Who claims this woman?” came the old man’s ritual reply.

“I,” Fear said, his voice seemed to catch a little as grooms often do. “I name myself… Arlon Sebastian Fear, formerly Black Mage of Pandoria whom some call Arch Magus.”

Katrin stole a sideways at the revelation of Fear’s middle name. She had never heard it until now and almost giggled childishly.

“Who gives herself freely into this bond?” Hadron inclined his head and asked the now still wind.

Katrin gulped and for a moment could not find voice. Then she said, “I do. I name myself Lady Katrin Matilda De Lacy of Downley, Journeyman of Pandoria.

Hadron bowed to the assembled company and then turned to bow to the shrine beyond the pillars of the temple. At this point Mark handed Katrin a small bundle of twigs formed into a punitive rod of various trees and shrubs and decorated with coloured ribbons.

She blushed as she accepted and prayed that the full traditional ritual would not be observed. After all it was common enough in the region. It was also customary that such matters not be discussed with the bride beforehand.

If the wedding had not been in haste, her friends would have gathered and stripped her bare at an all-female feast and she should have been whipped and spanked in merriment to embarrass her. At least she had been spared that.

Pausing for a moment, and still on her knees, she blushingly kissed the rod and handed it back to her father.

He might now demand that she pull up her gown and offer her behind for a lick of the ‘whip,’ but more likely he would deliver the blow over her gown.

But after hefting it for a moment and smirking at her, Mark handed the rod to Fear who took it with a bow. At this point Hadron stepped forward and raised his arms to the sky.

Fear extended an arm and Katrin stooped lower to kiss the rod again. The hush fell while Hadran remained motionless and blank-faced.

The Arch Mage would either swat her rear with the rod or put it in his belt, either action would conclude the wedding ceremony and they would be married. Fear grinned and choosing the latter he swept his wife into his arms and kissed her.

From the woods a hundred villagers and townspeople emerged all applauding and in short order they hefted the couple onto willing shoulders and broke into song.

To be concluded in the final chapter Reformation.

The island fell away from them from this vantage, a teardrop of rock in a turquoise sea a thousand miles from anywhere. The sub-tropical forest that dominated 10 miles by five of private haven was impossibly green and only here and there did purple rocks poke through like natural towers that gave vantage points like the one on which they now sat sipping cool drinks.

The Petard was a private nation unto itself, a luxury destination for a certain well-paying elite, which was something Edward was beginning to think his latest beautiful employee was having trouble grasping.

“You’re joking, aren’t you?” Elisabeth said in amazement.

Edward leaned back and eyed the raven-haired woman with a dispassionate curiosity for a moment. For someone of her background and experience, she sometimes seemed somewhat naïve.

“You have crossed two oceans to ask that? Didn’t you read the files you were sent?” Edward said sharply.

At 40-something he was perhaps little more than 10 years older than Elisabeth, but where his steel grey thinning hair backed this up in spite of his youthful trim heavy build, his eyes were far older and wiser.

“Yeeess,” Elisabeth said carefully, “But…”

“You didn’t quite believe it?” he concluded.

Elisabeth pursed her lips, making her look her age.

“I thought given the situation and the indemnity and permissions I had to sign, not to mention the rather generous pay and pension provisions, well that I would be required…” her words tailed off as she paused still puzzled. “I mean, I watched that movie you sent, it was quite graphic as I recall, I assumed you wanted to make sure I knew what I was letting myself in for.”

“Well that is correct, but corporal punishment as it applies to you was just a matter of course in case it was needed. All the women on my staff have to put there tidy little behinds on the line or it wouldn’t be fair,” Edward explained.

“Mine is not so little, let’s be honest, is that why?” Elisabeth looked hurt.

Edward grinned.

“Not at all, you’re prettier than most of the rest put together,” he lied, “But damn it all, you’re a motivational therapist and management development consultant. There are 46 women on this island all thinking they are here to take my money and party. I can’t spank them all when they get out of line and that’s what they are counting on.”

“So you are serious, you want me to handle the day-to-day punishments,” Elisabeth said in an incredulous tone, she also sounded disappointed. “But I thought… I mean I was trying to get away from that kind of thing, you know, enforcing disciplinary procedures and responsibility.”

Edward sighed and looked up at the sky in frustration.

“Let me be frank Liz, you’re great, no I mean it, but I have at my disposal some of the most beautiful women in the world…”

“And most of them are at least 10 years younger than I am,” Elisabeth put in.

“To put it bluntly, yes, but that is not my issue, not personally,” he insisted, “You are definitely more my speed… but you know what I mean.”

“You are all charm,” Elisabeth said tartly.

“Look these girls are not some kind of harem…” he began again.

“That is exactly what they are,” Elisabeth countered him, “I know, because that’s what I signed on for. You own me if you want, I am at the mercy of your wicked ways, right down to a whipped backside and a three year contract period of eating off the mantelpiece.”

“Yes, well great, I’ll take you up on that, but that’s between us sure… the girls… they are for my clients and other guests as and when… You don’t think that I have time? do you see?”

Elisabeth was beginning to.

“Look,” Edward continued, “If you want to join the fray and let me get someone else then absolutely. You’re a good fit. You can serve drinks naked or I can stick a pony tail up your bum and you can compete in the pony races… whatever.”

Elisabeth blushed; it had been kind of what she had imagined.

“But I need a supervisor and woman to keep the girls in line for me,” Edward said wearily. “You don’t actually have to wallop anyone if you really don’t want to, but hold the line. Set some boundaries, there are plenty of dominators to help.

“Okay, okay, I guess if that’s what you need, I am here to serve and I already made that commitment,” Elisabeth replied now mostly mollified, “But I am no dominatrix, in my book it is better to receive than to give.”

“But you can handle it?” Edward asked pointedly.

She nodded.

“Great,” he sighed, “Now remember they are tough girls and in my name you own their little bottoms. Do what you want, have fun, just keep them in line and weed out those whose greed was too big for their backsides, if you know what I mean?”

“I thought you only hired the genuine submissive?” Elisabeth said, suddenly concerned. “Besides they are all over 21…”

“Sure they are, older mostly and I do only recruit girls who into the lifestyle, but with all expenses paid, £60,000 a year, plus pension, plus bonus, plus £100,000 severance payment… you know one of my girls on a medium contract can walk away with a cool million. Well you begin to see my pint, even with screening… you know… we get the wrong element sometimes,” he said sounding irritated with her now. “Hell, it makes me feel bad if the girls don’t really dig it and some of my clients can play rough. I really don’t need anyone freaking out.”

God how naïve was she anyway? The thought troubled him for a moment and then he shrugged, it was quite charming in a way.

*

That morning Elisabeth had found out that Candy and… she struggle to recall and then shrugged, the leggy one anyway, had been skiving off and smoking dope on what they imagined was a private part of the island. Drugs were strictly verboten for the staff and strongly discouraged among the clients, which was a hard sell when two girls got caught doped up.

Damn it, she thought, can’t they just do what they’re supposed to?

She had taken them off the recreational service rota and sent them for a good bottom blistering from Alec, a man who could extract discomfort from the most hardened submissive. Furthermore she had put the girls on triple cleaning duty, including scrubbing out the sceptic tank, a job normally done once a year by outside contractors. The week looked set to be warm for several days; she didn’t envy them.

“Oh please Miss,” Candy had wailed.

“Don’t please Miss, me,” Elisabeth had snapped at the girl, “Once Alec is done with you I want to see that tank shiny and clean enough to run drinking water through it. If not, you’ll do it again with a toothbrush… or have I’ll Alec supervise you as you lick it clean…” she added fancifully.

The leggy one was bug-eyed at these threats, but ash-blonde Candy only returned a pout. Elisabeth wondered if she might not be into that too. How do you punish a punishment addict?

“Oh but, please Miss, when can we go back to normal duties?” the leggy one asked wringing her hands, her limbs all a dangle as she chewed on bee-stung lips like a woman starved.

“You can graduate to pony service or gimp maids at the end of the month, whatever Alec thinks you like least,” Elisabeth told them with relish, maybe she was a sadist after all, she considered, few women liked permanent assignment to either. One of these duties would be irksome to one or the other.

That truth was written in Candy’s eyes now and for the first time since getting caught she looked miserable. The leggy one looked like she was going to cry. Candy is the ringleader then, Elisabeth knew she was going to be trouble.

Once Elisabeth had witnessed them both stripped and facing the wall in Alec’s dungeon she left them to it. Alec was scary, only hard-core girls went to him for recreation; Elisabeth only wished she had the guts.

She checked her i-phone for another task and for once saw that everything was under control. Right, she thought, I need an attitude adjustment before I turn into a freak.

Tom was her favourite dominator, and the most creative. He rarely stuck to a script and selecting a scenario with him was always a rollercoaster ride. Elisabeth found him spanking a small Latino girl over his knee. He must have been at it sometime because her bottom was a hard dusky red and she had given herself over to full-bloodied tears.

The fact that the girl was still wearing a t-shirt and had her jeans down around her ankles suggested a genuinely punitive episode and Elisabeth was intrigued.

“So what has she done?” Elisabeth chuckled as she strolled up onto the warm cedar-wood dojo-like cottage.

Tom was sitting in a white wicker basket chair like one from a 1970s porn movie and held the mewling Latino firmly across his lap.

“Found her spying on me and a very shy client. The woman was not amused,” Tom growled.

“And all she gets is a spanking?” Elisabeth said curiously.

“I was just getting started,” Tom barked down at the girl.

He was a stocky man of average height, with tanned arms that were just too thick for him. On top of his squared-jaw head was a short rash of grizzled grey and dark hair.

Elisabeth studied the girl’s eyes and decided that she was about as welcome as a tsunami about then. The girl had an obvious crush on Tom and from his gentle handling it may have been reciprocated. Elisabeth felt an irrational flash of jealousy then and crushed it.

“I’ll have her assigned with Candy and… and thing,” Elisabeth said casually, “At the end of the month she can serve as your personal… whatever on an Unlimited for… oh until we are short-handed.”

Elisabeth didn’t care so long as the girl pissed off just then. But despite being relived of the girl’s discipline and the promise of a long-term gift, Tom looked pissed-off at her interference.

“Well?” she addressed herself to the girl, “Cut along.”

To her credit the small bare-bottomed woman looked at Tom for her orders. But after a scowl the man reluctantly nodded. The woman leapt up and pulling her jeans over her overlarge red behind, she scurried away.

“So what can I do for you?” Tom asked.

“What did the client want?” Elisabeth boldly asked, but she was blushing.

“Victorian ward, very old-fashioned,” Tom told her, but his arms were folded and he looked annoyed, adding “And unrestricted.”

Elisabeth’s throat tightened so that she felt it in her ears. An unrestricted with Tom was a fantasy of hers, but she had never dared with any more than she would have with Alec.

“With or without?” she asked, thinking that she could really use another kind of workout just then.

Tom frowned and looked Elisabeth up and down, he hadn’t finished with Maria and was furious at the woman’s intervention whatever her needs. Why did the disciplinary supervisor have to be a woman, he wondered and not for the first time?

“It was a special,” Tom muttered, “And I am not going into details.”

Elisabeth was curious now and there was only one way to find out.

“I’ll take it, but with…” she began.

“No,” Tom growled.

“But…”

“You can take it, but no conditions, amendments or forewarning,” he replied firmly.

The tightness in Elisabeth’s throat was all the way down and she was wild with anticipation. All the red flags were up, but she was a woman with a need. After all she was safe…

“And I reserve the right to improvise as per usual,” Tom added.

He could see from her eyes that she would bite and he had long dreamed of an Unlimited with the pesky woman.

As for Elisabeth, she knew she should run now. But instead she said, “It is going to be total purgatory isn’t it?”

Tom looked like a spider just then and he smiled; but only a little. Then he opened the door to the dojo to admit his fly.

“Oh God,” Elisabeth groaned.

*

The corset was too tight and pushed her breasts up to a ridiculous aspect. The rough cotton draws over silk stockings scratched a little and Elisabeth wondered why he had bothered with them, surely he wouldn’t permit them to her for long?

“You will do what you are told, girl,” Tom told her, his voice hard and deep, resplendent in its authority.

God he didn’t he have to try, she gushed inwardly.

“So you thought you could escape did you?” he growled.

Elisabeth frowned and wondered if this was part of the scene, it certainly seemed real enough.

“We will deal with that little matter first and then you will tell me where your sister is hiding,” he said.

So it was part of it, she relaxed.

“Smirking are you girl?” his voice sounded sharper now.

Should she resist or be smart-mouthed? She was just pondering her response when Tom turned to the corner and picked up a bucket. There was a funnel and a rubber hose inside, which he removed before filling it with hot soapy water.

“You know I don’t do…”

“Be silent and go and face that wall,” he bellowed.

“Tom I…”

Tom put down the bucket and took two strides towards her. Then upending her across his knee he partially pulled down her draws and slammed his palm down hard across her bottom.

“Ouch,” she yelped, puzzled at the lack of warm up.

The spanking that followed was hard and fast and in a minute Elisabeth was kicking and gasping for breath as she bucked under the onslaught.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she wailed.

“No you’re not,” he said in disbelief and began to spank her harder.

“Tom… I…” her voice trembled and she clamped her mouth shut to ride out the sting.

He lit quite a fire before he was finished and what she had taken for dry breathy sobs, to her surprise was augmented by some dampness around her eyes.

“Now go and stand in the corner,” he barked at her.

She didn’t need telling twice. The corner made her blush, not her scene at all, but she wasn’t exactly a time-out virgin. Strangely her head swan as if from wine, red no doubt, she thought ruefully as she sneaked a rub of her bottom. But then she had to contend with the sound of hot water landing in the bucket.

*

Tom made her kneel up on the leather bench and fold herself right over with her arms grasped behind her thighs. This made her bottom stick obscenely upwards and exposed as she rarely had been before.

The brass antique nozzle at her anus felt cold and the physical discomfort began to contend with her shame as it press at her narrow opening.

“Tom, please,” she whispered as finally the metal broke the last of her resistance and eased itself deep into her innards.

Intimate now with his every movement she felt him raise his arm, and something slurped.

The stinging heat was impossible and flooded her like liquid steel as it penetrated her like a devil goat to the core of… of, oh cripes… she gasped her breaths tumbling over one another as they escaped ahead of the surge which began to assault her behind the eyes.

Elisabeth was given corner time in lieu of relief until she rocked, cramping at the wall.

“Please Tom,” she begged.

Finally she traded one humiliation for another and she cried.

That’s unexpected, she thought, but it felt strangely cleansing in more ways than one.

“Over you go again,” he said as he started to refill the bucket.

Elisabeth gaped at him and started to cry again.

*

It took two more spankings for her to comply fully with his demands and then she had to simple endure the cleansings that burned intimately in her bottom over and over until she was uncertain of the count.

“Now where is your sister?” he asked.

“Couldn’t I have a more logical safe word?” she asked, breaking from a character she hadn’t really got into yet.

“There is no safety for you and I want only one word and that is of your sister,” Tom barked ignoring her.

Then she had remembered that she had agreed to an unlimited. Oh God, she quailed, but the idea thrilled her.

*

As he strapped her across the bench again her anal bud throbbed and tickled her all the way in. But the sensation was amazing. Why hadn’t she…? Then she saw at once the taws and the birch rod. Both looked mean.

The strap had a rough edge like sandpaper and the birch was halfway to being of the penal variety. This was supposed to be a naughty ward scenario, she baulked. But then she remembered that he had said there were refinements. Oh God she was in the hands of an evil dastardly Victorian guardian with criminal intent.

Before this was over she would begin to wish she had a sister to surrender to his wrath.

She’s in the cupboard, blister her bum good. Give a million enemas and I’ll help. The little scene ran through her head as a false comfort.

“Please, eh… please don’t, I’m sorry… don’t…” she muttered, begging was another distraction, she loved to play at it sometimes, but she wasn’t usually so sincere.

Instead of the taws though, Tom took up a huge battledore paddle with lots of small holes drilling in its striking surface.

“Your sister hated this in her sorority days. But strangely…” Tom patted her bottom with the beast as he spoke.

Elisabeth wondered if he were actually speaking of the client now. A bead of lubricant tickled at her split and ran to her bud in an echo of the throb at her anus. She blushed. It was impossible he couldn’t see it. His laughter confirmed it.

“Oh well I’ll just have to go harder then,” he chuckled.

The sudden blast of the wood on bottom was soul stealing.

“Yah,” she gasped, unable to be more expressive with the wind knocked from her sails.

*

Elisabeth’s bottom stuck up like two great grazed knees and she was sobbing for England. Never had she felt anything like it and in no uncertain terms he had promised her the taws and birch for desert.

“Tight enough for you?” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes Sir, thank you Sir,” she wailed her distress.

But all the tears were a counterpoint to hot water that trickled elsewhere.

“I don’t suppose you will be so keen for my attention next time I am busy will you?” he whispered in her ear, as if soft words didn’t count as a character break.

“No Sir,” she sobbed miserably, but part of her wasn’t so sure and suddenly she wanted to be thoroughly sorry. She needed it.

“This taws is interesting,” he said stretching between his hands, not that she could see, nose down and still crying as she was. “I had intended a lengthy dose for our little voyeur, but she can wait. You will have the pleasure first.”

“Yes Sir,” Elisabeth croaked.

The rough leather soared across her flesh like fire and she shrieked.

“See what I mean?” he asked.

Elisabeth drew a hard breath and finally gasped a soft, “Yes Sir.”

“Your blistered bottom is about paddled-out,” he said with genuine regret, “But this hurts as much and I can go for a very long time with it.”

“Yes Sir,” she gasped.

Her knees ached from her posture, a sure sign that her bottom was needful, but she hated the up-thrust indignity of it.

“Shall we continue?” he posed the rhetorical question.

The tongue of leather fire licked her again forcefully and she had no need to yell for relief. The throaty howl she made was heartfelt and entirely natural.

*

For the first 40 minutes she cried lovely tears. It was all she had in her surrender. Then as she came to herself she felt him watching and the throbbing itch in her bottom was the thing. That took over an hour to ease and by then she was beginning to ache from her punitive vigil, becoming bored even.

“If we are done…? I could…” she offered meekly.

“I have a few days off now,” he replied casually, “Besides I haven’t birched you yet.”

Elisabeth gulped. “Then at least can we… I mean…” she blushed.

“Sure,” he said brightly.

*

Elisabeth loved anal sex, but not when her hands were cuffed in the small of her back and certainly not when coupled with pleasuring him with her mouth. For once she thanked God for the extensive enema earlier that day. His cock felt massive in her bottom as he rode between throbbing raw cheeks; every curve of her hips seared by the birch.

“Please, please, please Tom, let me come, please let me come,” she begged.

“May be after your second birching, or your third,” he said finally allowing his manhood to pulse fiercely in her bottom. “Or… or…. Ahhh.”

“Oh God Tom,” she groaned.

“Do you really want to go?” he gasped as he collapsed beside her.

“Bastard, don’t you dare release me yet,” she wailed.

Tom laughed and rolled over.

“Like I said, I have a few days off,” he said with a yawn, “But I expect Edward will be pissed off at you if you drop out for that long; such a shame.”

End

The clock ticked slowly, almost like a dirge to match the gloomy dark hall that led to the Dean’s office. There was a musty smell of polish and old wood here and with all the doors closed against them it was like a gaol-cell as they waited to be seen.

“It will be alright won’t it Rachel?” Emily Conroy asked her friend.

Her eyes, as blue as the sky in August, danced at the edge of her creamy blonde fringe; a deep sad blue that almost matched her crinoline frock so respectably buttoned to her neck in small pearl buttons and so provocatively flaring at her hips.

The rest of Emily’s hair was tied back and piled on her head as was the norm for a woman of her age, but she looked somewhat uncomfortable in such a grown-up style. Not like Rachel Wendover who would look at home in frontier buckskins.

She was almost a head taller than Emily and her piled-high mid-brown hair gave her a more authority than her more apprehensive friend. It was a colour that matched both her deep dark eyes and the powder brown of her long bodice-tight dress.

“It will be won’t it?” Emily asked again.

Rachel tilted her head so that her nose was set arrogantly against the world and pondered. For the first time since embarking on her protest she wasn’t entirely certain.

“I don’t see why not, our position is perfectly sensible,” Rachel said with confidence.

“But perhaps Mr Bartram won’t see it that way,” Emily said in a voice that was altogether too whiney for Rachel’s liking. “Mrs Lavender certainly doesn’t.”

Rachel adjusted her stance to one she imagined the noble Cicero would have adopted, her arm set almost as a classical rhetoric.

“This is a new age,” she announced, “Women no longer need be ashamed of their bodies, and we are ready to take our place among men in the world.”

Emily hated it when Rachel got political, and began to despair. The more she thought of it the more she was convinced that Dean Bartram was not going to be sympathetic. Her parents would be beside themselves if she were to be expelled.

“After all, we stand at the dawn of the 20^th century,” Rachel continued, “Are we not surrounded by art celebrating the human form?”

Emily blushed. She had had quite enough of the human form for one semester. She didn’t think Corrigan College for Young Ladies was quite ready for any more either. The bicycles and knickers had been quite enough in her view. It had certainly caused storm enough under the circumstances. It was only supposed to be a short ride around campus to protest the removal of the classical statues from the quad. The adventure into town had been so embarrassing in such attire; people had even thrown rocks. Then there was the other matter.

“But we were naked,” Emily hissed, the last word softly spoken, “Naked in…” here she mouthed the next word, “public.”

“Nonsense, we were merely exercising our right to bathe,” Rachel said pompously, “How were we to know that those… those scoundrels from the so-called gentlemen’s college would be so caddish as to spy on us?”

“Well we were out of bounds,” Emily said meekly.

She eyed the Dean’s door nervously, certain now that Mr Bartram was not going to be at all sympathetic.

“A small matter set against the principle of privacy,” Rachel said piously.

Emily might have said more but just then the door finally opened and the middle-aged bespectacled Miss Hardham stepped out. She was an imperious woman with a quite officious manner Rachel always thought, but ultimately she was of no account, she decided.

“The Dean will see you now,” Miss Hardham announced in a cold hard voice.

“Thank you Miss Hardham,” Rachel said perkily and brushed past the Dean’s secretary with a dismissive wave.

“Not at all Miss Wendover,” Miss Hardham replied.

Emily fancied that the woman was smirking.

If the two women had expected tea and a civilised chat then it did not show one jot on Rachel’s face. But Emily took half a step back and gasped when she saw the bucket and what was within it. Next to this and its implication, the sight of the Dean in his shirt sleeves rolling up his cuffs was a mere distraction.

The Dean was not an elderly man, not like his predecessor and the gossip around campus was that he had been an invalid from the army. He certainly looked the type, with broad shoulders and a bearing complimented by a huge red walrus moustache.

He had been known to smile and make great witticisms at public meetings but that persona was at odds with the glowering man who now confronted them.

“Have we called at an inconvenient time Mr Bartram?” Rachel said airily.

Emily could not believe her friend’s sang froid in the face of the bucket.

“Not at all Miss Wendover,” the Dean replied stiffly, “Not for me at any rate, although I do mean to inconvenience you somewhat.”

“I see,” Rachel said tartly her attention finally regarding the bucket.

Within the old iron pail were a number of bundles all tied up into birchen rods of the type that were occasionally used at Corrigan College in lieu of expulsion.

“Are we not to be allowed to give a defence?” Rachel asked.

The Dean frowned and cast his gaze at Miss Hardham and then back again.

“Oh you have something to say by way of mitigation for your outrageous behaviour?” he said impatiently.

“Can’t we just apologise?” Emily wailed anxiously.

Rachel shot her an old-fashioned look and then turned to regard the Dean.

“Indeed I have,” Rachel began.

“I don’t want to hear yet another speech Miss Wendover, please spare us,” the Dean groaned. “You were out of bounds were you not?”

“Yes but…” Rachel tried again.

The Dean silenced her with a hand.

“You were what is commonly termed as ‘skinny dipping,’ is that correct?” Bartram said sharply.

Miss Hardham gave a gasp from behind them.

“Well surely Sir but…” This wasn’t going the way Rachel had presumed at all.

“So your words of mitigation concern the wearing of knickers, riding bicycles and riding around town like hellions I can presume?” Dean Bartram had finished rolling up his sleeves and had begun to stroll towards the bucket.

For a moment even Rachel looked somewhat disconcerted at this move and licked her lips before continuing. “We were modestly displaying the athleticism of the female form in light of the crass decision to remove all classical statues from around the quad,” Rachel told him.

“Your claims of modesty might have cut a modicum of sympathy from me if it had not been for the blatant and defiant display you later put on for the benefit of the town’s young men,” Dean Bartram shot back. “Not that you are excused such behaviour.”

“Merely college boys I assure you and I soon gave them a piece of my mind…” Rachel replied irritably.

Bartram sighed heavily.

“I am not here to discuss semantics Miss Wendover, you both brought the college into disrepute. But as the mayor and various authorities see the humour in the situation I can offer you leniency on this occasion,” he groaned, “Will you accept it or will you resign and accept permanent exclusion?”

“We will accept it,” Emily cut in hastily.

“Very well, Miss Hardham,” the Dean barked.

The secretary quickly stepped forward and began rucking up the back of Emily’s skirts. It was a quick efficient action as one by one she pinned the layers of the apparel to the small of the girl’s back.

“You don’t mean to thrash us,” Rachel protested.

“I certainly do,” the Dean said sharply.

Rachel opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. Her father would hear of this of course, but she knew he would hardly be sympathetic. Angry possibly, but more likely and much like her older brothers somewhat amused. Her mother would be livid of course, but who would suffer the most ire was anybody’s guess.

She was not too old for a sound spanking now and again, she knew that, but such an indignity for standing up for her rights was outrageous. But then what could she do? She would be a martyr then, she decided, and put her nose haughtily in the air.

Miss Hardham had finished fussing with Emily’s skirts and directed her to step out of her bloomers. Emily gasped and shot a mortified look at the Dean.

“At once,” the secretary snapped.

Rachel half expected Emily to rebel, but she didn’t and Miss Hardham was left to cross the room to address herself to Rachel.

“Oh this is too much,” Rachel sighed and rolled up her eyes.

*

Despite her outward display of ostentatious dignity, Rachel had never felt so vulnerable and exposed. She and Emily now stood facing the Dean with their bare bottoms turned to his mantelpiece as he absently handled one of a great many birch rods from the bucket. The man was half-way through an epic scolding that even made Rachel doubt that she had been entirely reasonable about everything.

As yet he had not laid eyes on their exposed posteriors, having politely averted his eyes during the denuding procedure conducted by Miss Hardham, but all the same just having him know set Rachel at two’s and eight’s, while Emily was in a perfect funk and the colour of ripe cherries.

“Did you have no thought to your reputations at all?” he bellowed, “Do you imagine that this will be a jolly jape that you will one day recount at matronly dinner parties?”

Emily was wide-eyed now and her hands absently tickled at her tail. So much so that Rachel wondered if it was the rod her friend feared or the future shame. Poor Emily, Rachel sighed.

“You may well sigh Miss Wendover, you may well sigh indeed, but your behaviour has been an outrage,” the Dean barked at her.

“I did only what…” Rachel began, but she did not like the uncertainty that had crept into her voice.

“Now we come to it, don’t we?” the Dean said wearily, seeming now to abate his anger, “It is you isn’t it, all you? You have led this poor girl astray.”

“Please Mr Bartram,” Emily offered meekly, “I am as much to blame, really I am.”

“And so you are,” the Dean agreed and let out a long slow breath. “I ought to put you both across my knee and treat you like the foolish girls you are.”

Miss Hardham smirked at this even as Emily went peony and Rachel spluttered.

“Who is first?” the Dean asked suddenly taking a swipe through the air with his chosen rod.

Rachel clutched at her throat and Emily stepped back to cower a little behind her older larger friend.

“They rebelled together did they not?” Miss Hardham put in.

“Indeed they did,” the Dean said sharply, “Alright Miss Wendover, bend over my desk.” He smiled at his own little joke. “You too Miss Conroy, I want your rebellious behinds side by side for this.”

Emily looked to Rachel to make the first move and the elder obliged, drawing herself up and boldly walking forward not even pausing to blush as her bare bottom thrust out at the Dean.

“I can’t, I just can’t,” Emily wailed as she surveyed the scene.

Miss Hardham made to move but the Dean pursed his lips and waved her away prepared to be patient. As this happened Rachel jostled a little and pressed her heels tight together and pushed her bare bottom backwards and up a little more as if in pride.

“Come on Emily,” she said softly, “It’s licks for tricks,” she added remembering something from home when she had been rebellious there.

Emily sucked in a breath and then following Rachel’s example reluctantly pulled away from the relative safety of the fireplace and went to join her friend. An act that was strangely surreal, comforting and mortifying all at once. Then as she jiggled her thigh against Rachel’s their bottoms almost touched as they lined up together to receive the punitive gift.

“I am glad to see such an improvement in your attitudes,” Bartram said sternly, not entirely unmoved by either the comely scene or the young women’s humble submission. “I shall of course be writing to your families about this matter.”

Licks for tricks, Rachel thought ruefully, oh well, I wonder why I always go too far; poor Emily. The rash of fire that suddenly blazed across her backside transported her back to a certain New York State woodshed and she gasped. The man was no amateur then, she decided. A decision confirmed as another thousand biting flames nipped at her tail, not once but three times in as many moments. Rachel even began to wonder if she could stand it at all and got ready to cry out. My face must be quite a comedy, she pondered as she tried to contain herself under the onslaught.

Then saving Rachel the indignity the Dean switched targets and lay three strokes across Emily’s bottom. The younger girl was not so stoical and squealed from the first, her feet lifting as it they had encountered hot coals. But that was not at all where the heat was burning her.

Next Bartram put six across Rachel’s bottom, taking the pinkness to a somewhat ragged rash of red, but no skin was broken and although she hadn’t cried out as with Emily, she was breathing heavily now.

I will break this one, he thought, knowing it was both just and necessary. But he would be both fair and slow in his work. So in short order he switched back to Emily giving her six more too.

Emily had been spanked and hard, an experience that brought an unrelenting heat to her bottom and left her in tears. But not only were these private events rare, they were never so harsh and already she was bawling under a short duration of the birch as ever she had at her father’s knee.

To the viewer her bottom held a deep pink stain that held mottles of red, but some primeval instinct told her the matter was far from concluded.

“I’m sorry Sir, so sorry,” she wailed, a tear dripping at her nose.

Her face unseen, Rachel frowned; peeved that Emily should surrender so early in the game. Then it was her turn again.

The rod was becoming quite a trial now and she had to clamp her jaw against the waves of burn that clawed deep into her nether curves. To think it had been a mere bicycle that had brought her to this place and with so much less perspiration and breathlessness, Rachel considered by way of a distraction. Well I doubt I shall sit upon a bicycle any time soon, she thought ruefully.

Bartram laid nine thwacking strokes across Rachel’s exposed rear, frustrated that she had not once cried out or expressed regret. Her bottom was a multiplicity of reds, some deep in blotches while others hugged texture, and now looked rather raw.

Emily’s turn was a noisy affair and she bucked and shrieked as her bottom finally moved from dark pink to true red too. The girl was sobbing now and her shoulders dipped up and down as she made great laboured breaths.

“Have pity on her Sir,” Rachel said in a strained voice that was on the edge of an abyss, “She was trained up on slippers and the hairbrush.”

Bartram nodded and turned to regard Miss Hardham for a moment.

“Take this girl and once she is set, take her over your knee and spank her silly little bottom for her,” he said in gruffness that belied the kind thought, adding, “But soundly mind you.”

As he spoke he discarded the first rod and took another.

“This is not your first birching is it Miss Wendover?” Bartram rasped as flicked the rod.

“No Sir, I had it twice last semester, but at home I feel the strop and switch, both of which have their own charms,” Rachel said bravely, but her bottom felt like skinned knees and throbbed worse than it ever had under correction.

“You have never been chastised by me though have you Miss Wendover?” Bartram said as he lined up the rod to Rachel’s punished tail.

“No Sir,” she said emphatically, words that escaped her in a gasp.

Behind them Miss Hardham had already helped Emily to her feet and was leading her sobbing into the corner for a good cry.

Rachel was about to thank the Dean for his kindness to Emily when the fresh rod struck and she gasped. With no consideration for the meeker girl, Bartram was free to make his point. He first plied her with 12 in under a minute, an act that left her panting like a horse and grunting somewhat on contact, and then he paused.

“You are a rebel aren’t you Miss Wendover?” he said, some admiration creeping into his voice.

Rachel considered this for a moment and realised that she had been. It was a proud thought but all in vain now. She had been defeated, and knew it. But it was too hard to take that last step of surrender; it had been ever thus with her. So consequently she didn’t answer.

Rachel’s bottom, unconsciously or no, was thrust up more than ever, more plums than peaches now on account of the colour and Bartram considered it a little tender. Her punishment had outlasted most he had administered; young college women usually given to sobbing to surrender before the first strike and yielding totally at little more than a dozen strokes. But she was stubborn and would have to reap what she sowed.

The Dean wiped his brow and then brought the rod in wide sweep across both buttocks in a slow steady motion to another count of 12. Each biting swish-thwack made Rachel jump now and once or twice she lifted a leg and let it hang. Her breathing was laboured to grunts and she groaned little at each blow as it landed.

Her bottom too was more than raw and the colour of tawny port wine. It put him in mind of beefsteak before the fryer.

“Miss Wendover, are you alright?” he whispered.

She nodded and looked back, her face a picture of misery and tears pooled in her eyes. It was enough he decided and tossed away the rod.

“Then we are finished,” he sighed in relief.

Rachel clawed her way to a standing position, but remained at a stoop as she contended with the fresh fire of blood assailing and assuaging her posterior parts. She would have given dollars to rub at her behind but her pride would not allow it.

“Mr Bartram,” she said in strung out voice so close to cracking, “Thank you, that was most instructive.”

As they shook hands she started to cry and for the first time he was uncomfortable. To hide his consternation he reached for his coat and took his kerchief from his top pocket and handed it to her.

“You are most welcome Miss Wendover,” he said with a cough and turned away.

Miss Hardham too was feeling the strain and to cover it she reverted to type and turned her attention to Emily.

“Right you madam,” she barked, “Let’s have you across my knee for that good sound spanking.”

It was almost amusing to watch the hapless Emily mewling like a child as she was spanked by Miss Hardham until she regained her posture of abandoned tears. It was hard going on a bottom that had been first birched, but at least she was on familiar ground and felt better for it.

As Rachel watched she felt she had earned the right to enjoy it somehow and identified with her friends cathartic punishment as she kicked and sobbed across Miss Hardham’s knee. As she looked on she even felt a little homesick for simple times. Licks for tricks, she thought ruefully.

“I’ll be good, I’ll be good,” Emily bawled as the secretary’s hand spanked on for some minutes.

Then at a nod from the Dean Miss Hardham brought the spanking to an end and set Emily on her feet. They all waited in silence while the Bartram replaced his jacket and Emily’s tears abated. Rachel even risked a surreptitious rub of her behind only to wince openly enough to collect a chuckle form the secretary. She blushed.

“Now young ladies, since you like to celebrate public nudity but can’t seem to behave yourself in town I have some news for you,” the Dean said sternly, his hands grasping the lapels of his coat.

Rachel suddenly had a sinking feeling and gulped. There was a rare sanction for rebels she had heard of and even giggled over. But surely… she swallowed down some dread.

“You are restricted to campus until further notice and for the remainder of today your skirts will remain pinned to the small of your back,” Mr Bartram intoned.

Emily gasped and Rachel felt as if she were falling.

“Be warned, I know my pin-work,” Miss Hardham scolded with a wag of her finger.

“Yes and you can collect your bloomers when you report to her to have the pins removed after supper tonight,” the Dean announced.

Supper, Rachel started, but that would mean…

“But we have class,” Emily wailed.

“Yes and any tardiness or failure to report will see you back in my study,” the Dean growled. “Now ladies I bid you adieu.”

*

As Rachel and Emily collected their short shoulder cloaks and hats from the hooks at the door in the hallway, both of them wished they had chosen longer outdoor attire.

“Oh Rachel whatever will we do?” Emily wailed.

Rachel sighed and regarded the tree-lined quad beyond the faculty building with dread. An apt lesson the Dean was teaching, she thought, grudgingly admiring the man. But she had to show some spirit.

“We are restricted to campus remember, a place forbidden to men,” Rachel said with more enthusiasm than she felt.

“There is the Dean and old Professor Jenkins…” Emily moaned, fresh tears springing to her eyes.

And the old gardener, Rachel thought silently, remembering that sometimes he had a young companion. But she didn’t remind Emily.

“Nonsense, the Dean has already seen the goods my girl and Professor Jenkins is a gentleman and will not look,” Rachel said boldly, “Come on, best foot forward, we have quite a day ahead of us and we must not be late, my posterior would not bear it.”

Then arm-in-arm the two women stepped onto the quad and marched as if to war as they headed to class. No one who saw Emily’s face could doubt her recent fate, although Rachel hid it better. However, there was no hiding the proof of their chastisement from the rear and as they walked they gathered a cascade of laughter, a sound that would follow them until the nine o’clock bell when the refractory emptied out after supper.

“Chin up, nothing to be ashamed of,” Rachel said boldly and slightly too loudly, but all the while she was thinking, licks for tricks, licks for tricks…

The end

Nowhere extended for as far as the eye could see and it was beautiful.  Karl Justice had no idea why anyone would want to change things, it was perfect.  He had just crested the ridge of the Never Hills and was on the final approach to the Vanity Valley. The forest of Tapu trees in every colour green never failed to lift his heart and he remembered climbing the red cork trunks as a boy all the way to the top of 500 foot giant just to see the view.

In the distance he could see Miriam, the capital of the region and before that lay his destination, Castle Vanity, which rose like a crystal spike above the canopy of the forest.

Just then an azure and green butterfly fluttered by, with a six-foot wing-span it was one of the smaller ones he guessed, a mere youngster judging by the lack of crimson spots. He watched it for a moment and then it flew away into the silver rose bushes with blooms as big as his head.

But Karl didn’t have all day to dawdle for he had an appointment with Lady Marmoset who had been most anxious to see him and her castle was still some way off. So with one more look at the view, he adjusted his hat, hefted his bag and broke into a stride to descend the hill on the steel blue highway.

*

Lady Marmoset sat like a queen on a wicker chair overlooking her garden. Karl Justice was late and she was getting anxious. It had been three days since her ward Amy Monseigneur had left the castle without permission and now her spies were telling her that she was consorting with rebels.

Not that the rebels were dangerous at all. Their names were well-known to the authorities and none of them had done a thing but write pamphlets for nearly three generations. Some of the hereditary rebel leaders even had respectable jobs and only worked as rebels at the weekend.

They would meet in ale taverns to set the world to rights, sometimes even writing another pamphlet, some of which were quite good. But none of this was the point. Her ward Amy should not be consorting with them, not when Lady Marmoset was one of the Seven on the Council of Regents.

Lady Marmoset sighed and pulled at a strand of long raven hair, a habit she had had since being very young. The black hair and dark complexion was a mark of her aristocratic ancestors but sometimes it was a burden, particularly for a noblewoman who had not yet married. But still she was young, barely 138, she still had time.

No, at the moment it was her noble wards that troubled her. She glanced at Amelia Du Bow, her youngest ward who sat patiently nearby waiting lest she should be required. Lady Marmoset was certain that the girl’s meekness was a cover for all manner of mischief, but it was so hard to tell.

Amelia had similar dark features to herself, but where Lady Marmoset wore her hair piled on her head, the younger woman wore it down in a thick plait over the left shoulder of her silver grey dress. This was no doubt significant among the youth in the city, but Lady Marmoset had long since lost touch with such fashions.

“Amelia,” Lady Marmoset spoke.

The girl blinked her dark brown eyes twice and said, “My Lady?”

“Have you done anything naughty lately?” the Regent asked.

Amelia’s mouth opened to speak but closed again. She was not sure how to answer that. Until only a few weeks ago she had been subjected to weekly maintenance spankings and jolly embarrassing painful ones too. But then this regime had stopped. Perhaps Lady Marmoset wanted to resume the practice.

“Shall I fetch a hairbrush?” Amelia asked with a sigh, now standing up.

As she did so she reached around to the rear panel of her tight hobble dress and made to remove it. All respectable women had spank-panels at the rear of their clothing; a consequence of the Dark Empress who had been overthrown by the Council of Queens a thousand years before. But then everyone knew that story.

“No,” Lady Marmoset said wearily, she was certain that Amelia was a mischief-maker now; she was too good at hiding in plain sight. But at least she was discreet.

Why hadn’t she kept a tighter rein on Amy Monseigneur? Now there was a girl who would have benefitted from regular spankings.

“Is someone else going to get a spanking then?” Amelia asked.

It was not that unusual, the young woman considered, most offences were dealt with a spanking. But since the end of the maintenance regime, none had happened at Castle Vanity. Not that Amelia had gone without being spanked. Two weeks before she had been rude to a peasant at the market and he had spanked her soundly in the town square. She had had to be rude to him three more times in as many days before he asked her out. Sometimes peasants could be so dull-witted.

In answer to the question Lady Marmoset sighed, “I rather think they are.”

*

Amy Monseigneur sat eyeing up the rebel leaders wondering who would speak first. Not that they weren’t all good at speaking. Charlie Bigger was particularly loud. He was from a long line of rebels and had won rebel of the year three times running.

Of course, on the side he was a stock-broker. He even had a knighthood in that capacity. He said it helped him bring down the system from the inside.

Amy didn’t actually know what the system was, but it sounded pretty dangerous as it had already enslaved half the population and they hadn’t even noticed. Just thinking about it she reached for her sword and tugged at it wondering when the fight would start. But that was as far she got.

Drawing her sword made the others nervous and once she had been thrown out of a pub for doing it. That wasn’t all that had happened that day. She blushed. But that didn’t count, she hadn’t been ready.

Then there had been that time down by the river when Charlie had…

“Maybe we should write another pamphlet,” Dr Sedgwick suggested.

There was some all-round nodding at this and Amy sighed in frustration. No fighting today then, she decided.

*

Karl Justice bowed curtly to Lady Marmoset and then without being invited dropped into a chair beside her and reached for a bun on the table.

“Is there any more tea?” he said, eyeing the cold empty pot that had sat on the garden table since before his arrival.

Amelia, always nervous in Karl’s presence anyway, hastened away to fetch some.

“Amy has joined the rebellion,” Lady Marmoset sighed.

“Excellent,” Karl replied, his mouth full of bun, “I always said she needed a career.”

“But it is all my fault,” the Regent wailed, “I should have been harder on the girl.”

“Oh, isn’t it a good thing then?” Karl paused.

She looked at him. Even sitting down he looked tall. But he was rather too pale to be so familiar with the aristocracy. Even his hair couldn’t make up its mind what colour it was. It was mostly light brown, granted. But in places it had reddish streaks and was flecked with premature grey. Even peasants could get a pill for that, Lady Marmoset thought, what was wrong with the man? And what was with that hat?

Seeing the fall of her gaze Karl reached for the large floppy cavalier hat he wore and removed it. The aristocracy were always touchy about that kind of thing. It was up there with not using the desert spoon for soup. It was even worse than consorting with rebels. Some of them had the nicest table manners by all accounts.

“I see that it’s not,” Karl continued brightly. “I had assumed that I was here to attend to Amelia as usual. But seeing as she is not in a freefall of a funk and most certainly isn’t standing in the corner as she should be I must assume you have something else in mind.”

“Always so astute Mr Justice,” Lady Marmoset sighed.

“I suppose you want me to go and find Amy and bring her home,” Karl said as he munched on his bun.

Amelia chose that moment to return carrying a tray with a fresh pot of tea and a clean set of cups. At the mention of Amy she listened intently. That little madam always got away with far too much in her humble opinion.

Lady Marmoset licked her lips suggesting some nervousness and then sucked in a long slow breath through her nose. Karl and Amelia waited expectantly knowing that some kind of announcement was about to grace their presence.

“All in good time Mr Justice,” Lady Marmoset said carefully, “That is to say, certainly yes and when you do…” the good lady wafted her hand airily as if her words were of now true import, “…deal with her thoroughly.”

Karl nodded absently even as he eyed Amelia significantly. The girl blanched and took half a step back before realising it was the tea he was after. So she shook herself and hastily placed the tray on the small garden table.

“No what I need you to do…” Lady Marmoset began.

Amelia leaned forward in anticipation, although Karl was more preoccupied with pouring himself a cup of tea.

“Lovely,” he cooed as he hefted a steaming cup in one hand and another bun in the other.

Lady Marmoset shot a glance at Amelia and said in a brittle voice, “You may leave us.”

Amelia frowned, but nonetheless executed a perfect curtsey and hurried away, although she didn’t go very far.

“So what do you want me to do?” Karl asked, turning his full attention now to the Regent.

“I think you know already that,” Lady Marmoset said icily, but he could see she was blushing.

*

Lady Marmoset was mortified. It wasn’t that she didn’t know the rules, but she had counted on some privacy at least. Instead, “just to get started,” Karl had said, he had taken her over his knee right there in the garden and unbuttoned the removal panel at the back of her long tight skirt. Underwear not being the custom ever since the reign of the Dark Empress, as everyone knew, her bare bottom had just been allowed to burst through the large rectangular hole in her skirt to expose it to the breeze.

“Can’t we just…?” Lady Marmoset spluttered her face now a colour to match the roses. She just knew Amelia would be skulking in the bushes watching.

“Come now, this is just a warm up,” Karl had tut-tutted her.

That ominous phrase caused Lady Marmoset to glance at apprehensively at the padded frame now assembled in the middle of the lawn in full view of the lane and anyone on that side of the castle.

“Please can’t we…?” the Regent made another miserable attempt for mercy.

“Your private spankings are therapy as you know, for a punishment we have to get serious and you in your own words need a punishment to make amends for failing Amy,” Karl chided her.

He brought all further debate to an end by landed a heavy blow with the short teak paddle he held in his right hand, the impact of which made a crack that echoed around the garden.

Lady Marmoset responded to the spank with a gasp and clamped her jaws tightly sealed while the introductory strike sizzled in her bottom.

For Karl this response wasn’t good enough and he was determined to extract some contrition before the main event. Nevertheless, it took a dozen spanks before he even got a vocal grunt from the Regent and even then she only bucked modestly as her bottom turned scarlet and gentle tears tumbled from her wide starting eyes.

It was the supressed giggle somewhere behind the rose bushes that broke her. Her own ward was watching her shame.

“Please,” Lady Marmoset bawled, “Please I’m sorry, no more please.”

Karl ignored her entreaties and went on spanking the sobbing woman for another five or 10 minutes before setting her on her feet.

“You may have 30 minutes in the corner before we put over the bench,” Karl told her. “It will let you pull yourself together.”

Lady Marmoset was wracked backwards, her body a tight bow as she clawed at the unrelenting sting in her behind, her tear-streaked face purple with impotent rage. Corner time, but she was a regent, what if…? She wondered frantically if she could cower behind the aspidistra in the conservatory where no one would see her.

“The patio, over there,” Karl pointed, “That is where I want you.”

“Oh you wouldn’t make me,” she wailed.

But Karl’s expression was hard and she had no choice.

*

Corner time had been hell, all 45 minutes of it. It seemed that not only had Amelia ‘chanced by’ but every gardener, maid and bottle washer had business in that part of the castle grounds. The story was certain to make the evening chronicles and she didn’t wonder that the town crier would be announcing it. But at least she recovered some measure of dignity.

Then as she was released she saw the punishment frame still awaiting her on the lawn. The long thin bundle of rods looked evil.

“I wasn’t that remiss in my duties,” she wailed.

“Weren’t you?” Karl asked, “Is that what you will say if the Council of Seven asks?”

He was right, she thought, if she made amends now she would make some political capital out of it. Better that than be forced to make an even more public show of penitence. Damn that Amy, how dare she consort with rebels?

“Let us have your skirts right off before you bend over the frame,” Karl said officiously, “I want that humble bottom of yours pointing at the sky for the rest of the afternoon.”

Lady Marmoset sighed heavily. This was too much, she groaned inwardly, even though in truth she knew it was what she had signed on for. Just you wait Amy Monseigneur, she thought bitterly, I’ll confiscate every rear panel you own for a year and the chores… ooh I’ll have you spanked so hard…

But just then it was her own bottom that was in jeopardy and she gulped before steeling herself for the long, long walk to the punishment frame.

The bench itself was like two As joined by a padded bar. Below that was another platform to kneel on, which she obliged Karl by so placing her knees. The lower bar on the other side of the padding had handles where a girl could hold on and held in place by gravity as she bent over. It was a most undignified part of the procedure. It took a moment but before long she was right over to be rendered prone and exposed.

The posture was obscene and once again she heard giggles from behind the roses. More than one person was watching her now, she was sure of that. But that was the last of her true thoughts on the matter. For in a moment liquid fire was painted right across her bare bottom and she screamed. I wasn’t ready, she told herself, a statement that was equally true of the next searing swipe and the 38 that followed that.

By then of course her maroon bottom was a rash of networked welts and as raw as beaten liver. A status of girl flesh that drew a song from her lips throughout the entire operation.

“Amy Monseigneur, just you wait,” she was heard to yell at one point, but there was a lot of yelling and it was hard to be sure.

*

As soon as Amy Monseigneur saw Karl Justice sitting on the milestone at the corner of the road that led from the inn she knew she was in trouble. For a moment she even considered drawing her sword and challenging the man to a duel. However, he was a commoner and in any event he had no sword.

“Would you be so kind as to remove the tail panel form your breeches,” Karl said pleasantly.

Amy blushed and not for the first time resented the embarrassing custom of having such a facility in her attire. It was mortifying that she had to be ready for a spanking at all times. But everyone woman in the land had to do it; a fact of life ever since the reign of the Dark Empress.

“Can’t we talk about it?” Amy offered.

“I am happy to talk it over with Lady Marmoset that you refused a lawful request,” Karl said gently.

Amy returned a pout and kicked a pebble on the road so that rattled away and skidded into the bushes.

“Do I have to?” she asked sullenly, “Here I mean?”

Karl nodded.

“If I do, will that be the end of it?” Amy asked hopefully.

She looked around and there was no one about just then so maybe if she did get it over with it wouldn’t be so bad.

“I am not here to bargain,” Karl replied, “But I warn you, there is a punishment frame waiting back at Castle Vanity and when I left Lady Marmoset was busy removing all the rear panels from your clothes.”

Amy gaped and her hand absently teased at the hilt of her sword. It was a gesture that Karl did not miss.

“I further warn you that Lady Marmoset’s own rear panel is removed and she is not expected to sit down until Tuesday,” Karl informed the woman.

“Oh fiddlesticks,” Amy sighed, “I am in deep do-do aren’t I?”

Dejectedly she stumbled across the road fumbling with her rear panel and unbuttoning it as she went. In a moment her bare bottom was peeking through the back of her breeches and she was blushing for the nation.

“Here,” she snapped angrily, handing the large square of cloth to Karl.

“You know you won’t get this back for a while?” he said as he pulled her firmly over his knee while Amy gave only a token resistance.

“I know,” she sighed, “I guess I won’t be seeing the rebels again for a while too.”

“Quite a while I would think,” Karl chuckled as he patted her exposed bare bottom.

The spanking began well enough. Amy took it stoically at first and Karl soon got into his stride as the two pert halves of the woman’s bottom turned ever pink and pimpled-up to the beginnings of true red. But after a few minutes Amy began to pant like a labourer and kicked her legs. Then shortly after that she began to mewl like a lost kitten.

“Please, okay I’m sorry,” she muttered, “You can quit now.”

“I hardly think so,” Karl said indignantly and spanked her firmly with the flat of his hand.

Amy Monseigneur’s explosion into tears was sudden and violent, mortifyingly coinciding with the passing of a work gang on their way home. They paused only for a moment to laugh at the bawling girl in a flood of tears getting a spanking and then went on their way.

“Don’t worry about them,” Karl said casually, “There will be plenty of other passers-by before I am through and then there is the long walk home…”

This was too much and Amy broke to full sobbing.

“That’s the way, let it all out,” Karl soothed as the spanking reached halfway done.

He studied the lines of canes that hung above the solid Jacobean drawers. In them, he knew, were paddles and straps and all manner of tools for his trade. The furniture had been darkened with age until it was black with authority. He ran a finger along its curves in appreciation, an echo of more appreciated shapes.

Bottoms came in all shapes and sizes and in his mind there was an endless parade of gut-crunching beauty for him to appreciate. Shape was more important than size, but curves that suited one woman would never do for another, they were all unique. In any case he had never met a woman who did not think her bum was too big.

It was folly really, when he was in the business of taking girls down in size in order to make them grow and swell; sometimes literally. A harsh game but someone had to play and there was no shortage of players.

He was not a young man, not anymore; well it came to us all in the end. But neither was he old. He stood straight and firm without the niggling complaints that tormented his contemporaries; a consequence perhaps of years of working out and always taking the stairs. Nevertheless, his hair was thinning, but only a little, but it was whiter now than the rugged dark of his youth, rendering it grey.

He considered again the 17^th century furniture that held his little tools. It was a craftsman’s piece rather than a finery for a noble house. It had been perhaps ordered by a yeoman farmer for some corner of his room. He liked that. It was used as it was intended with a job in mind and was not some pretty-pretty for visitors to gawp at before they moved on to admire the antique Belgium drapery.

He smiled at the thought and then looked back at the canes. His visitor would be here soon as she had been before. Did she ever notice his acquisition, he wondered? Or was she more concerned with what was in it and what they would do?

It never occurred to him that for her it began and ended with her mentor.

*

She stood at the end of the lane where the tarmac met the more rugged unadopted road. Behind her the field of rapeseed glowed so brightly yellow that it hurt her eyes to look and she even shed a tear. The scent of it was sweet and heavy in the air, a marked contrast to the immature green buds in the field that ran alongside the lane.

His house, here she smiled at the secret pretence, his house was at the end, just one of three down the track, separated from the others by a good 30 feet and a stand of silver birch. It was an old brick affair with dull yellow London brick details around the doors and windows. It stood high and gothic like a castle and although not sinister, she felt sick with nerves as she hung back working up the courage. It was ever thus.

Not that she was a kid in the first year of her explorations. She had been on this road for 10 years or more and was now nearer 40 than 30. Still beautiful she hoped, but her thick red locks were occasionally chemically assisted and her figure tending to be fuller than she liked. She was certain that her bottom was too big and wore carefully chosen cute patterned skirts as obfuscation.

It was her needs that troubled her, great overwhelming desires that she could no more live without than she could turn into a man. But she was who she was.

It wasn’t that she liked spanking or being spanked. She hated it. Her fear of punishment was hard like the knot in her tummy and almost as strong as her wide-eyed need. But that was just it, she needed it with a passion. But not today, not when she didn’t know what he might do.

Worst of all was the cane. The sight and sound of it made her tremble. The hard scrape of wood on wood as he picked up from the desk reminded her of the dentist drill. The swoosh thwack sound it made as he cut the air. The crack across her behind was louder but by then she was overwhelmed by sharp biting pain that overrode all else. Then came the indelible lines that could be felt for sometimes weeks and left her unable to sit down properly for a day or two after.

But at least the cane was honest. It announced itself boldly and a girl always knew where it had been. It brought with it a sharp clear pain that could clear the head. Not like the birch. That seemingly feeble bundle of rods clattered like old bones and when it struck it tingled all over imparting a gentle sting. But each tingling assault grew hotter until a girl was taken by surprise. Just as she thought it couldn’t get any worse the fire really took hold and then she would do anything to make it stop.

The texture on her bottom in its wake was always interesting. The chaffed sore skin had an after burn like nothing else and where the cane left reluctance at sitting, the birch stole chair privileges for the duration, and that could be days.

The birch however was not as bad as the strap. The hard baked leather meant business from the start, imparting a heavy sting to take breath away. And that was just for an opening. No a dozen blows into a good strapping and she was sobbing that she would be a good girl.

The aftermath was a glory too. Deep red leathery welts clung to the curves of her bottom like giant Nicorette patches that were all itchy and sore. The blisters were hard and spikey to the touch with an undercurrent of deep seated soreness she could feel for days.

The strap could be made worse still if he used the rough side like sack-cloth canvas or one of his sandpaper specials. She had to be a very naughty girl indeed for such treatment. She shuddered.

Then there was the paddle. The dull hard relentlessness was endurance itself. Both sting and ache during and deep ‘never sit down again’ bruises for a long, long time afterwards. Such interesting colours too.

A naughty girl she wasn’t, she didn’t dare be. Once or twice when she had been, he had used a combination of two or more corrective techniques. After the cane on a strapped or paddled bottom he owned her.

Throw in a birch session in between for added texture and she would contemplate her never used safe word and pray that she never see him again; a resolve that lasted hours sometimes.

But there were so many sanctions and punishments to contend with. A humble over the knee spanking could be very effective. Beyond the sting, which could be imparted over a very long time, then there was the embarrassment factor. A grown woman could really be taken down a peg or two by a simple hand-spanking; especially when it was coupled with corner time.

The thrill of shame and submission was a complex matter.

She remembered reading about a girl who had sought out a mentor in her college years. This young woman would beg to be given dozens of cane strokes rather than get a spanking in front of her mentor’s friends.

That girl said that being bare bottomed in the corner after a spanking while men commented on her punishment was right at the edge of her endurance. Yet still this woman went back for more.

She knew too that such things were not for everyone, not even those who sought out such a guiding hand. For her it was about him and what he could do to her. But she procrastinated and he would not tolerate that.

The lane was still now and she looked up the track to the house. The scent of late spring was almost cloying and in that moment she thought that she would remember it forever. But he was waiting.

*

Her face held a permanent startle as she looked around the room. The canes had been polished and there were two taws on the desk. At least there was no paddle yet and no evidence at all of a birch rod. She looked into the corner to double check, everywhere in fact but right at him.

He regarded her like a work of art as he tried to compose himself. The secret was to remember that she was a being with her own needs, but to never to quite let her know that she was the focus of his every motive. She had to be off-guard never knowing what he might do or what she might have to endure. For this there was trust between them developed over many years.

“You look nice today,” he said with a warm smile.

She blinked.

“It is a pity that I have to ask you to remove your skirt and take your knickers down,” he continued, the smile instantly vanishing.

She blanched and clutched at her throat. He had said such things before, but they never failed to shock her. But still she fought back; just a little.

“I am not wearing any knickers,” she said boldly.

“And who told you to do that?” he asked, his voice sharp with an edge.

“I…” she was off-guard again.

“You will be punished for that,” he told her.

She blushed and looked at the floor.

“Well?” he barked.

She jumped and hastily scrabbled to remove the clothing he had specified. Then once she was naked below the waist and shyly cupping her sex he sat down in his padded leather armless chair and began appraising her again. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes and made girlish kissy pouts out of the side of her mouth.

“The strap before the cane today I think,” he mused aloud, “But that will take a while.”

She sighed heavily as she struggled to keep her breath even. But her mouth was open like a jogger who quailed before a marathon.

“Don’t worry, we have time,” he said reassuringly. “I might even add something extra for your outrageous lack of underwear.”

She visible gulped; her eyes suddenly wide.

“But I thought…” she stopped herself lest he decide she was questioning him. She had thought the cane and strap combination was her punishment for not wearing her knickers.

“Don’t think,” he snapped, “When was the last time I put you over my knee for a good spanking?”

“Eh…?” she was off-balance now.

In a moment her bare bottom was a dome over his lap and smoothed out her skin.

“Rose pink with my hand and then a nice cherry red with a hairbrush,” he muttered as if choosing from a menu.

She blinked rapidly but the spanking had already begun. Crisp smacks where the sting in her bottom met the burn of his hand.

“No rush, no rush,” he drawled adding a volley of spanks.

From her head down position she could see that there was some dust on the skirting board. She would have to see about that tomorrow, she thought, but then he began to spank her with a will and she was lost again.

The rough cotton smock scratched, not that it surprised her. She was totally naked under it and even outside of a judicial institution luxury was hard to find in this far off country.

Helen was alone now. The woman from the British Consulate had left in disgust, a harassed dour woman, not yet 40, but old before her time after years of service in the far-flung corners of the world. She was one of the old school; horrified that an Englishwoman abroad should find herself ‘so misused’ as she put it.

But Helen wasn’t being misused, not exactly. She was guilty, as guilty as a tenant of hell. She had been given three options by the court. More choice than a local woman would have been given she was sure.

Firstly, she could go to a hell-hole of a prison for the next three years. Her second choice was to pay a fine equivalent to £20,000, which was equally out of the question. The third option was a flogging.

As soon as Helen had found out that the latter would be commuted to a private application within the police station she accepted it at once.

That was when her troubles had begun.

She had good reasons for privacy and had decided that however horrific a flogging would be, at least it would be discreet. And above all it would have been over and she would have been free to get on with her business.

Then the oh-so-outraged consulate woman had pulled some strings. “The sentence can be suspended,” she had said, “A simple interview to the national press to show how civilised they were and she could accept being deported.”

But the trouble was, she couldn’t accept that, or the international press coverage that went with it.

“But you don’t understand,” the consul had said, “They mean to flay your naked backside, it’s barbaric. At least let me arrange an appeal. Maybe we can prove your innocence.”

But I am not innocent, she had screamed inwardly. Now she was alone with her guilt.

*

They came for her around three o’clock.

She had spent most of the afternoon since the consul had left sitting up on the cot hugging her knees. Every once in a while she would hear were hard footsteps in the hall outside getting nearer, but then they would pass her door and fade again.

This time the sounds of feet in the hall stopped at her door.

The two women were dressed in grey uniforms with hats pulled down over their hair. Neither spoke nor barely even looked at her as they first handcuffed hands behind her back and led her out into the hall.

The slight canvas slippers on her feet were no protection against the cold stone floor and se could feel a chill all the way up her legs to her thighs to where it opened at the back. Although it seemed the least of her concerns, she wondered if the material had parted to expose her bottom and felt pools of heat on her cheeks. But she was under no illusion that her backside would be exposed soon enough in any case.

Helen was led down a dark unpainted hall that was lit only by a single filament bulb hanging from a twist of cord from somewhere above. This through the women’s faces into shadow under their caps and gave the proceedings a clinical air.

“Where are we going?” she asked, but the women did not reply.

Finally they reached two doors set at right angles at the end of the corridor. The first obviously leading to a courtyard, which Helen could see through a small window cut into it at eye level, the first true daylight she had seen in days. But the sight of it made her fear she was going outside to a public arena and she fell back dragging on the guard holding her arms.

But it was the other door that was opened and she was propelled into a large room where it was suddenly bright and she staggered in blinking hard. The room smelled of fresh paint and acrid wood as if someone had over done it with the creosote. It had the same hard floors and small high windows set eight feet from the ground. These served to illuminate the far wall and the iron-framed angled bench. But it was the figure standing next to it that held her gaze.

He was a dark-haired man with a swarthy but pleasant complexion. She noticed that he wore a dark figure-hugging western-style polo neck sweater that emphasised his tall powerful broad-shouldered stance. As she entered he looked up with a serious expression of concern and folded his arms in a way that reminded her of a teacher from school who had run out patience. His dark sympathetic eyes only supported this impression and Helen’s heart sank. Surely this was not another diplomat trying to help her, she thought.

“My name is Stefan Boyar,” he said in a stern accented baritone. “I work with the justice department and I am to be your instructor today.” His English was perfect and poised.

Helen frowned and shook her head. Instructor in what, surely he wasn’t a teacher after all? What was going on?

Behind her, the two women escorts stood back and then followed one another out as they left the room.

“For the duration of this procedure you will call me Sir, is that understood?” Stefan continued after they had gone.

Helen nodded dumbly.

“Answer me please,” he barked so that she jumped.

“Yes Sir,” Helen said quickly.

“Good,” he replied with a nod, his eyes hinting at a smile.

Before she could say more he turned to another table that had been behind him and picked up a meter length of stiff thin sticks that formed a bundle of 30 or so with a handle at one end.

“Usually we use a prison strap,” he said casually placing most of his attention on the object in his hand. “But you are a woman and a westerner…” he shrugged, “I thought that this might serve us better today.”

Helen blanched finally understanding. By westerner he implied soft.

“I see,” she said in a thick voice and straightened up.

“I see… Sir,” he snapped.

“I see Sir,” she amended.

“Good,” he smiled. “Now you are sentenced to 100 lashes; 50 today and another 50 in 28 days’ time. So we had better proceed.”

“Proceed,” she sucked in her breath and looked at the angled bench, “eh… Sir?”

“Please will you kneel on the lower portion of the bench, the pad near the floor, and bend over the higher part,” he told her, “You will find a bar to hold on to on the far side.”

“I…” Helen tugged at her smock and suddenly felt self-conscious.

“You will have the opportunity to call for a pause up to three times,” Stefan told her, ignoring her hesitancy. “Do you understand?”

Helen nodded and swallowed down a nasty taste. Then steeling herself she walked purposefully across the room and knelt as he directed. The next part was harder. She knew that without underwear her bare bottom would be obscenely elevated to his gaze all at once.

“You signed a request for no witnesses,” he said softly. “Do you wish me to bring in a woman; the English lady perhaps?”

Helen emphatically shook her head and hastened to comply with his first instruction.

The top of the bench was hard under her belly and until she was right over the lower padding hurt her knees. But as soon as she found the crossbar she was able to set herself perfectly. They must have adjusted it for her size in advance she decided. The prosaic thought distracted her from the reality of the exposure of her bare bottom to a strange man.

“Remember, you can ask me to stop three times during the procedure. Ask any more than that and it will count as a penalty. Penalties are extra stroked. Any questions?” he asked sternly.

“What else constitutes a penalty?” she managed, her voice muffled by her position bent over the bench.

“What else constitutes a penalty… Sir,” he barked, “That does for one, getting up, undue complaint, and generally any failure to cooperate. Do you understand that?”

“Yes Sir,” she nodded and strangely she felt that she should apologise.

Satisfied, he studied her firm round bottom and admired the way it curved and divided. It looked like those seen in an American magazine. Did all western girls have such bottoms, he wondered? But he had a job to do and although he was allowed to enjoy it, he shouldn’t be unjust or distracted.

“Very well,” he coughed, “we shall begin.”

Helen held her breath, blushing furiously at her obscenely displayed bottom sticking up for his inspection. She couldn’t see him now, but if she looked down under the bench she could make out a shadow moving under it like some sinister dancing ghost. She could hear him breathing and along with the faint rattle of the bundle of thin rods he held, it was the only noise in the room.

As she focused on this sound it grew louder until she was put in mind of a skipping rope. Then in one loud escalation, this whistle-crash ended suddenly in a burst of fire right across her bottom. In that instant all breath, all will and all thought were robbed from her and she was transfixed.

From above and behind Stefan saw her lurch at the first impact and she reared like a stricken pony. Then as she found her breath she let out a long sharp groan. Then as he watched her bottom flooded with pink.

The second blow got a reaction at once and Helen grunted, letting her bottom wag up and down as if trying to lose the sting.

Eight more times the rattle-crack landed with a crash and each time Helen yelled before falling back into ever more laboured breathing until she was panting like Stefan’s Alsatian, Sheba, after a summer walk. Her bottom was rose red with vivid rills in full blossom across the full extent of her rounds.

Helen was aware of none of this. She only knew the unrelenting sting. Even the sound was drowned by the blood pumping through her ears and she gripped and hauled upon the crossbar with every ounce of her will to escape the fire in her tail. But this forlorn gesture only served to elevate her bottom still more until it was a raw bubble fit to burst with pain.

Stefan admired her stoicism and adjusted his position. He would make a natural pause here to give her a chance. After all, it was only going to get worse for her. Then mindful of justice he landed another stroke down hard making her scream.

“Oh for… ahhh,” she hissed, her legs kicking at the ankles and her grip on the bar rendering knuckles white.

He aimed for the curves where she sat, bridging the faintly wrinkled gap between her thighs and bottom rounds. Here the rods chafed her hellishly and budding blisters crinkled to tiny raw welts. One or two touched her more intimately until she began to make short sharp blowing sounds like a girl skipping over hot sand without shoes.

“Please Mr…” Helen couldn’t remember his name and it was all she could do to yell out, “Sir.”

Stefan ignored such vagaries and struck her half dozen times more, taking her low and then successively higher to just under the small of her back.

“Sir, please,” she shrieked.

“You wish a pause?” he inquired, slicing the rod through the air.

She had taken 21 now, a good place for a pause. But if she were smart she would say no and take advantage of his question as an extra respite.

Helen lay bent over panting hard, conscious now of a run of moisture down the side of her nose and some snot on her lip. Her thrashed bottom had a life of its own and the pain continued to sizzle there like a fire no longer in need of kindling.

“Yes Sir, please Sir,” she gasped.

“You are doing well,” he said gently, “You are a brave woman. Tell me. Is it true what they say? Are you guilty?”

“You would beat me if I wasn’t?” she asked in a strained voice.

Stefan shrugged. It had happened and he regretted that. But sometimes foolish women were at least honest. He was bored with endless pleas of ‘I didn’t do it.’

“Well, if it makes you feel any better… I’m as guilty as hell,” Helen said sullenly.

Stefan laughed.

“I like you,” he chuckled.

He cast his gaze over her luscious curves. Even marred by dozen upon dozen fire-red raw welts, she overwhelmed him with her beauty like a force of nature. It was good to know there was some substance behind her pretty façade. It was a pity that she would never want to see him socially now, not even if she didn’t accept deportation before their next meeting.

“Hey, I like you too,” she said sarcastically, “You’re the nicest executioner-come-torturer I have ever had.”

He laughed at this, but the jibe bothered him.

“Try and take 15 more and then ask for a pause again,” he suggested earnestly. “That way you’ll still have another break with only 14 to go.”

She nodded, but sensed that break time was over and braced herself. And so it proved. But this time the sting was devil sent and she screamed in earnest. By the time he had taken her to 30 she was sobbing hard and begging for him to stop.

Although Stefan slowed the pace to eye her feather-touch raw skin closely he took her to a slow count of 36 before he verified her request. Otherwise, he reasoned she would be broken by 40 strokes and in serious danger of incurring some penalties.

For the next five minutes, three longer than the permitted break time, Helen sobbed like a woman bereft. Her bottom bucked up and down as she did so, never leaving its obscene posture in waiting submission for another round. She was a natural, he thought, some women, he had found, just needed this, even when they really didn’t want it.

“Alright, you have one more pause coming,” Stefan said gently, “I am going to give you eight more, pause, and then lay on the last six. Do you understand?”

Helen sniffed and nodded vigorously.

It was enough and he struck again, a blow that Helen announced enthusiastically before earnestly falling to boo-hooing ostentatiously.

Good to his word he guided through the last strokes until she was limp and surrendered in his care.

“The guards will come in 20 minutes. I will wait until then,” he said gently. “Your consul has a plane waiting. You will be able to sell your story to the press. Then everyone in Europe and America can gnash their teeth over my countries barbarism.”

“But I don’t want…” Helen began, misery dripping from each word, “I thought…”

“The punishment was private, but your deportation will have to be public,” he shrugged. “We can’t stop that. The airlines, the consulate…”

“What if I don’t want to be deported?” Helen asked clambering to her feet.

It was a movement she at once regretted and she clutched furiously at her throbbing bottom.

“Shit, I feel like I have been dragged for a mile on my arse by horse,” she wailed crudely.

Stefan laughed.

“I wouldn’t try sitting for a week or two,” he chuckled, “But seriously, you can refuse deportation and protect your anonymity but in 28 days…”

“I am serious, it hurts,” she sniffed back the last of her tears, “And about deportation too. I handled 50 already, so…”

Stefan grinned. He really liked this woman.

“Will you be the one… next time I mean?” she asked shyly.

“If you prefer, wild horses couldn’t stop me,” he said gently.

“Then it’s a date,” she giggled, before wincing and grabbing her bottom again, “Ooh.”

“Oh I look forward to it,” Stefan grinned more widely, this time a predatory look creeping into his eyes.

It was a look Helen didn’t miss and she blushed.

“I’ll see you in 28 days then,” she said huskily.

Part I

The hour she stood in the corner had passed impossibly slowly for Sofia, a long miserable experience that left her with a strange new emotion she could not place. If she had been more worldly and less proud she would have recognised it as humility.

At first she had been angry, but it was a difficult emotion to sustain when all you wanted to do was runaway and cry. So little by little she became meek and something else, secure. It was embarrassing to be sure, but it was strange how…? She had sighed; she could not come to terms with how she felt. But then she didn’t have to, all that was required that she stand there until released. It was so simple and clear.

Outside the wind blew and the drafty room was in contrast to her still hot throbbing bottom behind. He was watching her she knew and she blushed. It was embarrassing, but she felt… safe. Not that she would ever, ever admit it.

When he had finally released her she had fled to her room and hidden there until he had roused her the next morning.

It was still dark when he pushed open the door.

“I need more wood for the fire, what we have is damp and besides we are running low,” he yawned.

“The storm?” she groaned, for once not keen to leave her bed.

“It has passed and the frost has done its work well,” he chuckled.

She didn’t know what he meant, but as soon as she tried to move her bottom flared and the memory of the day before came flooding back. She would never look him in the eye again. Oh just you wait until… she imagined sweet revenge and the perils of her father’s dungeons. What she wouldn’t do.

“Get up,” he bellowed.

She moved at once.

*

The day was almost warm. It was certainly clear and crisp with a crystal blue sky that seemed to go on forever. The snow was a smooth unbroken blanket shining in the morning light and for a moment Sofia thought that she might get home.

“This is likely to be the last good weather we have for a few weeks and I doubt if it will last more than a day or two,” Ivan said gruffly looking at the sky with distrust. “If we had not abandoned the horse and sled we might just have risked the road, but without it we could not hope to gain even Kelch Castle before the lull ends.

The mere mention of her father’s enemies made Sofia quail and the news that their lands were out of reach was a small compensation for being told she would not reach home.

“But I can’t stay here, I just can’t,” she wailed. But part of her knew that she was being childish.

“Follow the slope through the trees until you reach the small wood. There you can gather firewood,” Ivan said ignoring her. “Further on is the pool I mentioned. If you can brave the icy water you can bathe. But mark me, you will return at once if the sun falls behind a cloud or it should snow.”

With her chin resting on her chest Sofia stood and glowered at him, but she could not long meet his eye.

*

She made good time on the firm frozen snow. ‘The frost has done its work’ she remembered he had said. It was certainly easier to walk than before. Grudgingly she admired the way the man could read the forest even in adversity.

However when she came to it the firewood was harder to gather. Most of it was now buried and the larger pieces that she could see were almost too heavy to lift. She cursed every stick of wood and every step back to the hut; more so as she could not find the time or strength to go out again to find the pool.

Worse still, when she did final trudge back with a heavy armful of wood she saw a huge stack of sticks at the side of the hut where Ivan had been busy. His efforts almost rendered hers futile and her heart sank.

“You did not think you would fetch enough alone did you?” he chuckled.

The words she spat were low and fast so he could not catch them. Even then her hand strayed to her bottom in fear. But Ivan merely laughed and winked.

“Now you know how hard the country is. Next time you can take a basket and spade for the snow,” he said. “Now come eat.”

*

Ivan spent the morning showing Sofia how to collect snow for water and where to dig to get the last clinging plant or small wood for kindling. He even showed her how to deal with lice in her clothes by burying them in snow with just a small corner showing. Thankfully her jacket had none, but she grasped the concept well enough. All the lice would gather in the small exposed area where they could easily be removed. The very idea disgusted her and she made a face until he fell about laughing.

“Better not to have lice in the first place eh?” he chuckled. “Don’t worry; there are ways for that also.”

In the afternoon and with the work done, she asked if she might go to the pool. The day was warmer even than it had been the day before and with no wind she was dying to bathe.

“Very well, but remember, if clouds come or snow falls, return at once,” he told her. “But I have a condition.”

She nodded eagerly, in her fantasy dreaming a passing prince or Molotov warrior come to rescue her. She didn’t care what else he wanted.

“You will go to the birch trees on your return and bring an armful of rods as before,” he said sharply, then holding apart his arms, he added, “About yay long.”

She gaped for a moment and then blushed. She had no doubt his purpose and having twice been spanked by the man she was mortified and in no doubt of his resolve.

“But what have I done?” she wailed.

He frowned.

“Nothing little princess, but I think now that we will not get through this winter without their aid. Trust me. It is better this way. Or else one of us will kill the other,” he said, his eyes smiling at her as if he was truly offering her a gift.

“But surely… couldn’t you just spank me,” she blurted, “I-I mean,” her face went crimson, “I mean, if you must… if you think I d-deserve…” she faltered again and unconscious hands stole to her behind.

His face took on a sage look and he smiled.

“I had a young cousin once. We too spent a winter together. She said much the same as you. But after a week or two she would provoke me regardless. Just to relieve the boredom I think,” he said.

Sofia gaped and looked at him aghast. “I wouldn’t… I mean…”

She wished she could not fathom such actions, but some measure of understanding touched her eyes and he saw it there and winked. She wished then the snow would open and swallow her. To answer him she turned on a heel and scurried away back to where he said she would find a pool.

“Remember,” he called, “I would have you cut birch switches.”

She stopped in her tracks and considered forgetting his request.

“Don’t come back without them,” he cautioned, as if reading her mind.

His eyes didn’t waver as she returned a killing look, but it was Sofia who broke contact first.

*

The snow was heavy on the ground, but the sun was shining and it was warm enough without a coat. In her mind Sofia had expected a smooth clean pool in a sunny glade. But when she got there she; almost missed it. The pond was tiny and fenced in on all sides by thick snow-draped pines, which towered like green trolls right to the poolside. The edge itself was layered in ice, which meant she either had to risk breaking through as she walked to a clear area or grab a branch and smash the crusted sides to gain access.

The latter course was much easier than it looked and the exertion made her warm enough to contemplate a plunge. In a moment she had shed her clothes.

Standing naked it was bitterly cold and for a moment she stood shivering with her arms hugging her breasts. Then something primeval seized her soul and shrieking she ran full tilt at the water until she couldn’t have stopped if she had wanted to.

The shock of the icy water might have killed her and she gasped beyond a scream. Then as a thousand needles pricked her skin she ducked under. Little by little the chill retreated until the shallow sunlit water felt warmer than the air, a happenstance she greeted with squealing joy.

The sun was red and long in shadows as she trudged back. Her skin fizzed like champagne from distant France and for the first time in days she felt like herself again. She even began to believe that Ivan had been wrong and that if the weather held up she might yet make it home.

“Oh please heavenly father seer of all, let me get home again,” she pleaded with the sky desperate for a sign of some sort.

Somewhere something crashed in the undergrowth and some formerly leaf-bound snow fluttered to the ground. A deer perhaps or Ivan come to spy on her. The thought of Ivan cast its pall as she remembered his orders regarding the switches. The man was a bastard, she cursed inwardly, and after all she hadn’t done anything. How dare he make her gather such a shameful crop?

For long moments she considered defying him. He would spank her again that was certain, but if he wanted to thrash her further let him gather his own God-cursed switches. Sofia folded her arms defiantly savouring the small triumph. Then she saw a stand of birch trees with crystal white talons reaching bold and straight from the ground. Each one was no thicker than her little finger and they would be so easy to gather. She imagined the sweep of the rods across a firm female bottom; God himself could have no wiser purpose for such bounty.

She remembered former defiance to her governess who would order her skirts to be raised and for Sofia to bend across a stool to offer her bare bottom.

“God has provided no better place for correction,” the governess would say. Even Sofia could not deny it, however much it shamed and however much it stung.

Is this your sign Lord? She rolled her eyes and ruefully glanced back at the stand of birch.

“It is so unfair,” she wailed.

*

The rods sat wrapped in damp skins in a box by the door. Diplomatically out of sight but never far from Sofia’s mind. It had taken far longer to cut and collect them than she had thought, but as she had worked a kind of defiant fervour had overwhelmed her and she had snapped off withe after withe in a kind of spirit of ‘damn you.’

Then bringing them to Ivan’s hut had required her to make a huge bundle on her back like a peasant woman. A ridiculous amount, she decided, but again in angry defiance she raged, “Well if he wants birch twigs, he can have birch twigs.”

Ivan had stifled a laugh as she staggered up to his door knee-deep in snow and bent like a babushka under the weight of her burden. Kept supple, a dozen would have more than sufficed for his purpose, but the girl had brought half a forest. How often did they thrash this girl back at that castle of hers, he mused? Once they are dried out they will make fine kindling, he thought with a shrug, but that wasn’t what he told her.

“I was hoping for rather more,” he had said with a scowl, no amusement showing on his face. “But I suppose that will have to do.”

Sofia had just gaped.

Now the rods sat wrapped in damp skins in a box by the door. With no books or even paintings on the wall, the box held all of Sofia’s attention.

*

The weather held and three days later Sofia decided to take one last swim before the winter finally closed in for the duration. This time she braved the high track where the snow was thinner. It was an elevation that put her above the treeline where she could see the far mountains in the crisp clear air. They looked so close, she thought, and yet Ivan had told her they were further yet than Castle Molotov and home.

For a moment she wondered if he had tricked her and was keeping her against her will. But then she remembered the storm and the wolves howling among the trees. He was right, with weather that could turn in in the time it took to draw a breath and without a horse to draw a sled, it was much too far.

So for the moment she was almost content to go for a swim.

Half an hour later she reached the place above the pool. From where she stood the water looked like a small blue stone, delicate enough to be held in the palm of her hand. Completing the suggestion of a jewel were the dark green pines that ringed it like emeralds and she sighed. Never had the forest seemed so beautiful.

Then all at once mischief overtook her and she ran headlong down the bank of snow screaming like a banshee. The weather was warm and the sky was blue. There was no one to see her swim naked but the squirrels and… she shivered. She did not dwell on thoughts of wolves and bears.

By now she was accustomed to the cold so when a cloud dashed across the sun she paid it no mind. Even when it began to snow she remained unconcerned as the water was tepid compared with the growing chill.

It wasn’t until she heard a low distant roar that boomed beyond the trees that her ears pricked. Somewhere far off she heard a shushing sound like a wave breaking on rocks. Then as she listened it got steadily louder and moved towards her faster than a man’s run. It broke all around her in a tempest of dancing trees showering snow upon the water.

In moments the light flurries of snow had turned into a cascade and she could hardly see the edge of the pool. Even Sofia now took the hint and splashed for the sides and her clothes. The cold was bitter on her naked skin and for the first time in days she feared she might actually freeze to death.

It took her a minute to pull clothes over her slick nude body, but the boots were a struggle. By the time her dead white finger had worked the laces she was caked in snow and shivering hard.

Luckily the storm was yet high in the tree tops and although it was now dark, she could still see the main track that led past the stand of birch trees and on to Ivan’s hut. But the snow was falling hard and the shallow path of compressed ice was covered in a white dusting that already obliterated her earlier footsteps. At a run she adjudged the hut was 10 minutes away, but she would only make it if the storm didn’t worsen.

*

Damn, damn, damn, she thought. Each word sounding in her head in time to the crunch of her boots on the snow. She was blind now; her only view was of dark grey tree spars to her left and right. Still, the hut must be near, just around the bend in the path, she guessed. But what path, it was impossible to see track from forest floor now. Damn, damn, damn, she sang inwardly, trying to quell the rising panic.

The troll-twisted rock at the foot of a steep bank loomed out at her suddenly. In the gloom it looked alive and she almost screamed before she identified it. Not only was there no way through, but she had not seen the boulder before, not on the way that first day or since.

“Ivan,” she yelled. But the storm swallowed her words.

She shot a glance back and just made out the blurred pits of her feet in the otherwise perfect carpet of white. She missed the turn was all, she told herself and turned and ran back.

“Ivan,” she screamed, “Ivan.”

Backtracking took her to a clearing. Well she guessed it was a clearing. There were no trees near, not near enough to see anyway.

“Ivan,” she called.

There was a clearing near the hut, wasn’t there; this clearing? Wasn’t this where she gathered birch rods? She could no longer see the trees at all, just a wall of swirling white, and barely that in the blinding glare. I must be close, I must be, she prayed.

The dark looming shape made her heart lurch.

“Ivan,” she wept in relief.

A moment before she realised her mistake the creature roared.

The bear didn’t charge but she didn’t wait. Instead she whirled around and ran. Damn, damn, damn, went the litany in her head. Please Holy Father save me, she prayed, but she felt unworthy.

Ivan had told her to return at the first hint of a change in the weather. He had told her. Curse you girl, you’re a fool, she berated herself. But at least there was no sign of the bear. Perhaps he was just as lost as she? She looked back in terror, dreading what she might see hard on her heels and ran straight into a hard wall of fur and muscle. Her scream rivalled the wind.

*

Ivan carried her for what seemed like hours as they clawed their way through the ever deepening snow to a point in the gloom neither could see. The girl was lost in a funk now, muttering over and over that there was a bear. Fool of a girl, of course there was a bear and three score wolves or he was no woodsman, but why had she dallied when the weather closed in?

In later days he would claim that the journey had been second nature to him, an instinct born of years in the forest. But as his foot found the snow-covered plank at his door Ivan knew that he had found home purely through dumb luck.

He dropped Sofia on the floor and turned at once to manhandle the door back into the frame, a heroic endeavour in the teeth of the snow-laden gale. By the time he was done he was knee deep in snow to that end of the room of breathless with exertion.

Sofia knelt in a heap glowering from under a damp mess of hair, no more able to move than he. But finally she found the strength to cough and mouth the words “I’m sorry.”

“Oh you will be,” Ivan growled.

She knew it was a promise he made and nodded. Fool, she breathed herself, but she thought of home and her foolish escapade in leaving it. Suddenly all of her father’s petty rules and restrictions made sense. She had a whole life-full of growing up to do.

“Go to bed,” Ivan said at last as he staggered to his feet. “We will talk in the morning.”

*

Sofia was awoken by the howling gale and knew she was lucky to be alive. She knew too that Ivan had risked himself to save her when it would have been far safer and easier to let her die and never be found. She sighed. Now she was beholden to him, was this God’s plan for her? She remembered the curses and secret promises she made while lost in the woods. What did it all mean?

The first thing she saw when she staggered through the door into the other room was the rod on the table. It was a larger birch bundle than even her governess had used and she swallowed hard. She knew what it was for and unbidden her buttocks clenched. He wouldn’t dare would he? But she knew he would. Deep down she knew too that she deserved it. Too deep as yet for her to accept her fate bravely.

“But I am a princess,” she moaned, “A noble woman of the house Molotov.”

Ivan snorted at this and regarded her with eyes of steel. But he was pleased that by her words she had half accepted what was to happen.

“I’ll tell my father,” she whined.

“If you were my daughter I would have your arse raw until spring time,” he replied, the implication being clear.

Her father would think much the same way she realised with a sinking feeling. She remembered the summer before and her governess’s slipper long applied to her bare bottom as prelude to some hours in the corner. It had been a long grim wait, knowing as she did her father would come with the rods. She had not sat down for a week. Sofia could now not meet Ivan’s eyes and he saw the truth of it.

“Remove your coat and lower your breeches,” he said sharply.

Her belly lurched and the blood shot to her head so that she felt faint. But something lower became tight and tingled, a feeling to be supressed if she were to retain any honour.

“But…” she began.

“Do it,” he barked so that she startled.

She clung to the coat more tightly; it would serve as her final veil. Under it she undid her belt and let her breeches fall to her knees. She wore nothing beneath.

“How do you want me?” she whispered.

“Bend over the table,” he said quietly.

She nodded and bowed her head. Then with the leaden feet of one facing execution she tottered forward and slumped at a bend over the roughhewn wooden surface. As she did so she dropped the coat so that her bottom was bared to his gaze with her sex turned away from him.

“Bend right across so that you can grasp the far edge and stick your bottom out,” he ordered.

Flushing around the face she swallowed hard, but after a pause she obeyed, her backside obscene now in its posture.

Ivan was not unmoved but honour had its demands and seizing up the rod of switches he stepped to within an arm’s length of Sofia’s exposed bottom. So close in fact that he could hear her breathing and see the tight goosebumps arrayed on her alabaster skin.

Then drawing back his arm he brought it down with a wide sweep so that the thin withes struck crossways on her bottom. She hissed.

It was the sound that unnerved her more than the first impact. It was a swish-thwack that ended in a sharp tickle across her flesh. But the searing pain was a delayed one, and after a beat she went wide-eyed and gasped. The grazing pain was worse than any she had felt and even her father could not rival this man. But another stroke robbed her of reasoned comparisons and she clenched her fists at the table’s edge.

After three he stood back, admiring the strain of her lower back where it tapered to an almost impossibly small waist before ballooning into almost spherical tightly divided hips. He felt his manhood twitch and cursed the distraction.

Her bottom was pinkened with streaks of roughened red welts like cat’s scratching’s across both cheeks. But he knew he had hardly begun.

The next four strokes came fast and hard so that by the last Sofia was rocking her hips in a vain attempt to twist her bottom out of range of the rod. She was breathing hard too, straining ever harder so that her knuckles were white where she gripped the wood.

Her bottom too was a rash of tiny red welts and raw like butcher’s beef; this just a few strokes into her punishment. Not that Ivan would thrash her to the thousand strokes or so often ordered by the Kelch or Kern. But if she weren’t already so red raw he might have gone to half a hundred without breaking a sweat before he even considered stopping. It was no more than his sisters or a house maid would get in this brutal country.

Sofia bucked up her bottom in an obscene curve and let out a shuddering wail. At 16 or so she cast a plaintive look back over her shoulder and he could see tears flowing although the woman did not sob.

He had seen women birched almost to blood and then kiss the rod in gratitude before getting on with their work. Why should this over privileged brat fare better? It irked him that he should be so soft-hearted.

In annoyance he struck her hard and followed a dozen times more as she mewled and bucked under the onslaught. But still she didn’t cry out.

“Defiant to the last then my pretty one,” he murmured, at the word ‘pretty’ his hard part twitched again. Focus man, he chided himself, she is not for you.

He took her beyond 30 before she shook at the shoulders and began to claw and unclaw her hands in distress.

“Ivan, Ivan please,” she wept, “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

Ivan struck her hard thrice more to break her down and then cast the rod into the fire. Even a light punishment would have been half as much a gain for a woman among his people, but the weakness was his and he cursed under his breath.

“Since you can only take a girlish punishment you can go to the corner like the brat you are,” he scolded her, “And leave your breeches down so that your bottom has some air.”

Her behind was twice the size as was usual and redder than a holly berry. It certainly looked as if it had been scratched by a dozen holly twigs. But she was comely nonetheless and his manhood was painfully hard.

Her vigil would serve as an itch he could not scratch as penance for going soft on her.

“You will stay there for a good while and until I have a chore for you. Now get over there,” he growled, angrier with himself than with her.

All the way to the humble corner Sofia held her dignity, only sniffing as she struggled down her breathing as she went. But once facing the wall he could see her shoulders shake and after a moment she gave over to loud heartfelt sobbing which did not abate for almost an hour.

At any other time Ivan would have felt a grim satisfaction at her submission but today he felt something else and it was all he could do not to cross the room to console her. Instead he turned to the fire that blazed now like Sofia’s bottom as it consumed the birch rods as it had burned her.

Our story began here.

By the time the car pulled out of the drive Alice was ready as she had been instructed. After a long night of contemplation her mind was made up to it, she was going to be severely punished as she deserved. She had fallen short of the high standards she had set for her girls and now she too must pay the price.

The way to a girl’s soul is through her bottom, Alice thought ruefully.

She had arrived at her sanguine state of mind after a punitive ordeal that had begun with almost two and a half hours standing with her nose in the corner while the throbbing burn in her bottom halfway subsided. Halfway because after a night sleeping on her tummy it still ached somewhat and was jolly sore to the touch.

Alice had also been instructed to write out 400 times ‘well brought up young ladies who smoke will be soundly spanked on their bare bottoms.’ She had forgotten how humiliating and soul focussing such an exercise was.

“Alice, promise me you will give up smoking,” Muriel had urged her the night before when she had come to collect the set lines.

“I’ll try, I mean I will,” she had wailed, “Only…”

“Promise and know this, if you do give your word I will punish you as I have never punished anyone if you break it,” Muriel had continued sternly. “I mean it. You are my best student and one day… well, just remember we have standards girl.”

Alice knew then that she might only promise to try, but it was not her way.

“I promise,” she said earnestly. God she had missed this clarity.

“Good girl,” Muriel said eagerly, “But you know tomorrow…”

“I know,” Alice sighed, “And I know I deserve it Ma’am.”

After a fitful sleep the morning had come and so too had the true punishment. Now she was ready.

Alice took one more look in the mirror and took a deep breath. She was wearing only a tennis shirt over a brassiere and booby socks with newly whitened tennis pumps. It was a ridiculous ensemble devoid as it was of any coverage between her hips and ankles, and so very shaming.

Of course that was the point, she thought, now tugging at the front of her shirt to cover the neat dark triangle at the top of her thighs. God it had been so long since… The knock at the door was like a death knell and summoned her to her doom.

*

The worst part of her parade of contrition was that in the last week Alice, with Muriel’s help had finally engaged a cook. The woman had worked for Muriel’s people before and was well familiar with the Sinclair Method, but it was mortifying to Alice that a woman she hardly knew and an employee yet was about to witness part of her shame.

Still at least they had yet to engage a live in maid or a daily, both of whom would have been around at this time if they had.

Alice took a deep breath and descended the stairs to where Muriel was waiting to lead her out to the woodshed.

“Oh my, that is the sorest behind I have seen in many a year,” said the cook from somewhere behind Alice, she sounded awestruck and Alice blushed knowing that the behind in question was hers and very much on display under the hem of her shirt.

To tough it out Alice half turned and gave a shy smile.

“I had it coming Mrs Stevens,” she said and blushed a little more.

“I should hope you did,” the cook said earnestly and shook her head, “You girls, such a handful.”

Alice wanted to protest that she was the governess, but today she felt very far from it.

“Come along Alice,” Muriel chided her, “the woodshed is waiting.”

Alice responded with a long slow breath and then with a rueful pout followed Muriel out into the sunshine.

*

The birds tweeted incongruously while Alice gathered switches and as she laboured in the morning sunshine with an unfamiliar chill around her legs and bottom she felt a lightheaded disconnect with the world around her. It was a kind of liberation and for the first time Alice understood something of the naturist she had read about in a magazine once.

Then she saw the woodshed up ahead and the winding path that took them inexorably there.

“I was up early this morning,” Muriel told her, “To make some arrangements you understand. I wasn’t best pleased that you have neglected this important asset. I gather none of the girls except Mary have even made this trip.”

“No Ma’am,” Alice said solemnly, it was true. Had she been failing the girls then?

For a moment she was overridden with such things, a useful distraction from her impending fate, but one that did not last one step beyond the threshold.

The collecting of switches was a traditional American custom and not to observe it was something close to sacrilege, but next to what awaited her that punishment was positively gentle. For inside were three buckets, each holding half a dozen birch rods bundled as expertly as any European jailhouse. Here too at half a yard long and complete with drilled holes was a good old American paddle. Alice could only hope that the razor strop alongside it was just for future use on the girls because if they were all for her then she could kiss her bottom goodbye or at least count on eating her meals standing up for a year or two.

Alice was still blanching with shock when she saw what else had been assembled on the tool bench at the back. Next to an old Belfast enamel sink were a bucket, a funnel, a large hot water bottle and a long length of tubing. There was no doubt what they were for and her eyes were wide with apprehension.

Following her gaze Muriel nodded grimly.

“From young adulthood I was trained in such things and my mentor was rather keen on abrasives,” the older woman grimaced. “But no one can doubt their efficacy.”

“But…” Alice gaped and began shuffling nervously from foot to foot.

“Don’t worry, simple carbolic will suffice, stings a bit but quite cleansing and you do need a cleansing after putting those dirty things in your mouth,” Muriel sighed.

“My mouth,” Alice iterated.

“It’s a symbolic cleansing,” Muriel said in amusement. “The other end will serve as well.”

Alice let her mouth hang open in defeat and nodded. This was going to be worse than she thought.

She had just steeled herself for the ordeal when Muriel pulled her away and lead her to the sawhorse.

“Not so fast,” Muriel chuckled, “First we have to put those switches to work on your tender bottom so they don’t go to waste. Besides, the saw horse puts you in a good position for what comes next.”

The switch was a bitch but nothing she hadn’t encountered before and she was for once grateful for the distraction. So walking forward she bent over and lowered herself down onto the crosspiece of the horse. It was hard beneath her belly and with her head right down her bottom seemed too big and elevated.

It took a moment for Alice to get ‘comfortable’ and she had to steady herself by resting her elbows on her thighs under the crossbar of the sawhorse. She was just about to lament how self-conscious she felt when the first snick-flick of the switch descended. Like a series of electric shocks Alice jerked and squealed girlishly as Muriel expertly plied the switch across her exposed upturned bottom.

The burn was all the worse for tender bruises from the previous night’s spanking and Alice began to wonder how she had ever coped under Muriel’s tutorage.

“Oh Ma’am, omigod, jeez,” and the like spewed form her mouth as she bucked in place under the sting.

“There are four or five good switches here and it would be churlish not to give each one a dozen or two goes on target,” Muriel said casually.

In truth the Sinclair Method usually called for a lot more but Alice was beginning to suspect that the first part of her day was going to be largely symbolic to put her in her place. Some place, she thought ruefully, even this light punishment had tears pooling at her eyes and trickling down her cheeks.

*

Alice lay bent over and prone as she gently sobbed. The switching had well and truly rekindled the spanking of the night before and on top of that she could feel every welty line of fire as it continued to throb from the top of her cleft down to where her bottom curves met her thighs.

“That’s the way,” Muriel cooed, “Now for something interesting.”

Alice tried to look back over her shoulder as the sounds of water filling a bucket followed the scrape of metal at the sink. The metallic glug seemed to go on for ages and Muriel was actually humming to herself as she worked.

Alice always hated this kind of punishment, well hated it more than the rest anyway, but at least she consoled herself with the knowledge that this time it would be a private affair, which had not always been so during her training.

Then at last she felt the cold nozzle against her anus and her breathing became ragged with panic as she wriggled.

“I am just going to ease this in a little more, that’s it,” Muriel soothed.

Alice went wide around the eyes as she imagined she was accommodating a bull’s pizzle; a little more my… she screwed up her face and tensed up, quite literally my… the rest of the angry thought was literally washed away.

“Relax,” Muriel commanded her, “relax or I will spank you.”

The threat was enough and sudden she was open and something filled her to full. However, that was only the beginning, she realised, the real delivery was yet to come.

“Oh, oh, aaaaaah,” Alice groaned as the water poured into the funnel.

The tube was long but not long enough to delay the sudden burning flood that throbbed, pumped and moved in her innards.

“Muriel, M-m… ooh, Ma’am, that’s… that’s enough,” Alice gasped.

But Muriel continued until the carefully measured amount had been administered.

Alice responded by gripping the sawhorse and gasping herself cross-eyed as the deep filling burn began to take hold.

“Now you just stay like that a while, I’ll be back,” Muriel said wiping her hands and leaving her alone.

To Alice’s dismay the door was left wide open and she prayed no one would see her like this.

*

The cramps and spasmodic discomfort had made the 20 minutes of waiting for Muriel to return seem like days. Just about then she would have done absolutely anything she was told.

When finally she heard someone behind her she gave a little sob of relief.

“Now don’t you fret Miss Bowman,” Mrs Stevens said in a maternal tone.

“Mrs Stevens,” Alice gasped, “What…?”

“Hush now, Mrs Baxter sent me,” the cook said, “she’ll be along later.”

Alice wanted to crawl away and just die as Mrs Stevens helped her up. But that was only the beginning. The woman made no effort to move as Alice hopped from one foot to the other and finally dashed for the undergrowth.

“Feeling better?” Mrs Stevens asked when Alice returned.

Alice nodded, her face so red and hot she would have gratefully melted.

“Now Miss Bowman, are you ready for another?” the cook asked holding up the funnel and tube.

Alice gaped. “But…”

“Over my knee now and we’ll get started,” Mrs Stevens said, now sitting on a stool by the sink.

“If you think I am going to… why you are just staff here,” Alice snapped in a shrill voice.

“Oh dear, Mrs Baxter said you might take that attitude,” the cook sighed and as Alice watched she took up the paddle off the bench and beckoned Alice to her.

“You’re not going to…” Alice gulped, hastily looking around for an escape.

The cook shrugged and said, “Mrs Baxter said it was up you but if you didn’t cooperate she would postpone your punishment until tomorrow when Katherine was around to help. She said you would look cute standing in the corner downstairs in front of the other girls.”

“Tell me Mrs Stevens, you didn’t used to be a Sinclair girl did you?” a mortified Alice asked ruefully.

“Once a Sinclair girl always a Sinclair girl,” the cook grinned.

Alice winced and allowed herself to be tugged forward by the arm and deposited crosswise over Mrs Steven’s knee.

“Now for giving me some attitude you are going to get a nice long and good sound spanking,” the cook said cheerfully, “Hell, I have missed this.”

The word ‘this’ cumulated in the impact of a stiff paddle right where Alice sat and she shrieked. The woman was a devil, Alice thought in horror, but the spanking had begun in earnest and Mrs Steven’s wondered if they could hear the woman yelling all the way to town.

“Alright, alright, I’ll take your damn enema,” Alice wept.

“Oh I know you will, two or three before I am done,” Mrs Stevens chuckled, “But first you have that spanking coming and do please give me some attitude about it, please. It is all I ask.”

“Ooh,” Alice wailed through gritted teeth, her bottom really didn’t need the extra help, not today.

I’ll never smoke again, she promised the universe, but she knew that was the least of her sins. This was about standards, the bedrock of the Sinclair Method, and her failure to meet them.

To be continued.

Lady Constance stopped at the corner of the rose garden and the small Tudor-style maze at the south side of the house. Since her elder sister and cousin had got married, life at the Hall had been somewhat lacking. In fact her only diversion was her growing obsession with Mr Brandon who served as tutor to her young cousin Prudence.

Well obsession was too strong a word, perhaps interest was a better one. After all where was the harm? John Brandon was the only presentable young man in the county since Cousin Michael’s friends had all gone back to their regiments to fight the Boers.

Constance sighed and let her thoughts dwell on the man. True he was a rather dour sort and only a little above a middling height. But he was dark-haired broad in the shoulder, a build emphasised by the dark black frock coats he tended to wear. She also liked the way that he eschewed facial hair; apart that was for the heavy sideburns that framed the heavy features of his face and set off his steel grey eyes. She smiled dreamily as she blinked against the sun momentarily distracted.

Nevertheless, she still had the choice between a turn of the roses or a lonely stroll through the maze. Neither for the moment was that appealing and she sighed heavily. She wondered idly if Mr Brandon and Prudence had finished in the schoolroom for the day and whether they might be induced to join her.

Not for the first time she wondered that Prudence had a tutor at all. After all she was now 18 and if further studies had been required, then why hadn’t her uncle, Lord Somerset, engaged a governess? Prudence was not to be drawn on the subject and Mr Brandon tended to keep himself to himself when not teaching. It was such a bore. Well she supposed it was to do with her young cousin’s total inadequacy in her studies and the fact that her wilful ways had led to the departure of three governesses’ already that year.

The dichotomy of the maze versus the rose garden lay unresolved before her and Constance sighed again. She pursed her full lips and tossed a careless brown curl from her face. Perhaps she could go to the schoolroom and offer the scholars some tea? They could hardly refuse that could they? After all it was almost three o’clock.

She paused only to smooth down her ankle length white cotton and lace garden dress before absently twirling her parasol. Tea on the terrace was just the thing, she decided, and this time Mr Brandon would join her, she was quite determined about that.

*

As Constance made her way up the passage to the schoolroom and through the half open door she could hear the low tones of Mr Brandon’s voice. He sounded serious, stern even, the timbre of his voice resplendent with authority. By contrast Prudence sounded shrill and uncertain in her reply and despite the door being open she sounded somewhat muffled. Perhaps she was being scolded, Constance considered. She found the idea strangely thrilling. So in anticipation of eavesdropping Constance slowed to a creep and approached the door carefully to peep in.

The sight that greeted her stole away her breath and set her pulse racing. For just inside the door Prudence was bent double over the back of an easy chair with her skirts pinned up into the small of her back. Nor was this all, for her bloomers were unfastened and had been drawn down to well below her knees so that her big moon of a bottom was quite bare and exposed at the uppermost of her person.

Constance sucked in a breath and stifled it with a hand at her mouth as she drew back, but not so far that she could not continue to peer into the room. From the retreated vantage she troubled herself to take in every detail of the scene within.

Prudence was whimpering as well she might and as she lay prone her bottom twitched and squirmed under Mr Brandon’s indecent gaze. The bottom itself was a strawberry red and marred with little scrapes that here and there had risen to a criss-cross of small welts. These, Constance decided, must have been caused by the stout rod of birch in her teacher’s hand, a fearsome object as thick as a man’s wrist and almost a yard long.

Constance recognised the rod at once as a governess birch, such as the one she had been threatened with six or seven years before when she still yet had need of such guidance. In those days once the imminent threat of such a punishment had passed she had always thrilled at the idea of it and part of her had always regretted that she had never experienced it.

“Now Prudence,” Mr Brandon intoned as he moved behind his charge, “You were warned were you not?”

“Yes Sir,” Prudence squeaked, her voice indeed muffled on account of her head being half buried in the seat of the padded easy chair.

Constance idly wondered what Prudence had done, but at that moment she really didn’t care. As she watched Mr Brandon raised his arm and brought the birch rod down full force with a loud swish-crack that was only outdone by the yell issuing from Prudence’s throat.

Constance jumped at the sound and hugged herself. But she couldn’t tear her eyes from the rocking motion of Prudence’s bare bottom as she absorbed the stroke.

“I’m sorry Mr Brandon, so sorry,” Prudence wept, but her entreaties were to no avail as another harsh stroke landed and then another.

Constance marvelled at Prudence’s meekness, a trait that usually evaded the quite haughty young woman, and she smiled. Nor did she have any sympathy for the ragged rawness of her cousin’s bare bottom and how sore it looked. Indeed she silently hoped that the punishment was just beginning and that the miscreant would be flogged for an age.

In the event the birching lasted another 15 strokes or so, although no doubt to Prudence that was indeed an age. By then of course Prudence was lost in sobbing and her bottom looked as if she had ridden a porcupine over jumps at that the county fair. Constance doubted she would sit down for days to come.

“Let that be a lesson to you Prudence,” Mr Brandon said sharply.

Prudence didn’t answer, a situation tolerated for only a minute before Brandon said again, “I trust you have learned your lesson girl.”

“Yes Sir,” Prudence replied miserably.

“Then you may rise,” Brandon said sternly, before waiting as he was very slowly obeyed.

Constance was amazed at what a sorry little thing Prudence looked as she stood with her head bowed. Then to her astonishment her cousin again apologised and extended a tentative hand to her chastiser.

“Thank you Sir for correcting me so firmly,” Prudence whispered.

Brandon shook her firmly and nodded in satisfaction.

“You do know of course that you will forfeit your leisure time this afternoon?” he said.

Prudence nodded sadly and looked across the room at something.

“That’s right young lady, you will stand in the corner as you are until I send word to dismiss you,” he growled.

Constance stifled a giggled and hopped up and down a little with barely supressed glee while inside Prudence acknowledged his command.

“May I… might you…?” Prudence began her still tear-pooled eyes sweeping back and forth in her head in consternation. “Please Sir, the door…”

“The door will remain open wide and you will stand in the corner for all that pass to see,” Brandon announced in a commanding voice. Continuing, “And why is that?”

“Because I… because I… ooh, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I will stay there all week if you tell me. Just please let me close the door,” Prudence wailed.

“No my fine young miss; you disobeyed me and tried to cheat your punishment. Now you will have to suffer the added shame of exposure on these occasions. Do I make myself clear?” Brandon spoke in a lecturing tone that quailed even Constance.

“Yes Sir,” Prudence replied miserably as she turned her bottom back for Constance to gaze upon and limped over to the corner.

Once there she raised both arms and placed them on her head in a penitent posture that truly belied her 18-years. Not that her prominent sore bottom spoke of anything else but full-grown womanhood.

Constance was still staring at her cousin’s predicament when Brandon stepped into the hall.

“Lady Constance,” he said in surprise.

“Mr Brandon,” she gulped down some embarrassment, “I… I wonder if you might like to take… tea,” she finished uncertainly.

Brandon almost smiled, almost but not quite.

“I trust our… discussion did not disturb you,” Brandon said with nod over his shoulder.

“Not at all,” Constance brightened, “I am delighted to have the chance to see you at work. You are very good… expert I mean.”

Brandon frowned and then his expression softened as he caught something of her mood and shrugged.

“Tea then,” Constance said firmly.

*

“Tell me Mr Brandon, do you thrash Prudence often?” Constance asked conversationally as she stirred her tea.

“Thrash…?” Brandon answered still weighing her attitude to what she had witnessed.

“Well… punish? Punish so… effectively?” Constance amended.

“I have had cause to spank her soundly often for childish misdemeanours. That usually entails some time in the corner,” he explained, “But as we have grown to an understanding she has also been caned for major infractions.”

“Caned? On the bare…?” Constance blushed.

“Only way I am afraid. Lord Somerset is of much the same opinion. Your cousin was barely literate when I came to be responsible for her studies you see. Refused the rod from her governess and most of them could not handle her anyway,” Brandon continued.

“And the… um… birch?” Constance licked her lips.

“Always bare too of course and needful in latter days I am afraid,” Brandon said dismissively, “You see Prudence almost seems to… well… let us say that sometimes I need to be more severe.”

“Of course, of course,” Constance said airily as if it were of no import to her. “Tell me how long will she be in that corner?”

“Until she is dismissed if she knows what is good for her,” Brandon replied as he took a sip of tea. His demeanour suggested that he would explain nothing further.

Constance demurred and averted her eyes with a blush. “Anyway, anything I can do to help,” she added hopefully.

“Oh… yes well… useful to know, but haven’t you heard? Prudence is sufficiently improved in her studies to be sent on. My services are no longer required,” Brandon told her.

Constance dropped her spoon and gaped for a moment before recovering herself. She began a reply but the words choked her and she had to sip tea.

Finally she swallowed hard and managed, “Sent on?”

“Pardon?” Brandon finally smiled, not understanding.

“You said Prudence was being sent on,” Constance pressed him. Although the real thrust of her inquiry was the part about him leaving the family’s service.

“Oh Lord Somerset is packing her off to a finishing school in North Wales, quite Spartan I hear; an establishment that will both polish her for society while it polishes her behind for her. His Lordship feels that she would benefit from mixing with other young women hence my services being dispensed with,” Brandon said with a note of resignation.

“But surely…” Constance began desperate to think of a reason for his continued employment, “Prudence will need a firm hand in the summer and during…” she wafted her hand, “Whatever holidays these places have.”

“Perhaps,” Brandon shrugged, “What am I to do in the meantime?”

Constance licked her lips and cast her gaze into the middle distance.

“I might have an idea about that,” she said carefully, scarcely believing what she was about to propose.

*

Constance was blushing from her ears down to her neck. She was beginning to think that her idea had not been such a good one after all. Lord Somerset had been keen enough when she had first raised it, but had given his permission on the proviso that once beginning the arrangement she would have to see it through to the end.

The arrangement was that Mr Brandon would be retained for the teaching of Constance who had strictly speaking never been to school, which she decided would be rather fun. But Mr Brandon had a few conditions of his own.

Now the 24-year-old Lady Constance found herself standing in the school room dressed in a cotton blue sailor suit of the kind her grandmother might have worn to school as a child. To make matters worse the skirt of the ridiculous costume was rather short at the back and barely covered the rather tight knee-length breeches she had to wear with them, or she should say, unusually had to wear with them.

The day before she had protested vigorously about Mr Brandon’s dress requirements saying, “But I don’t see why? Prudence never had to wear such clothes.”

“Prudence had not got accustomed to getting her own way and was after a fashion used to accepting authority. But you, Miss Spoiled, you need to be taken down a peg,” he had scolded her.

“I won’t do it, I simply won’t put that ridiculous…” she had begun.

Mr Brandon had silenced her and quite without warning he had spanked her. He had put her across his knee and lowered her draws and spanked her bare bottom cherry red until she had submitted.

“Mr Brandon, please,” she had wailed, but entirely in vain.

“You will do as you are told and if you don’t that spanking will be the least of what you will get,” he growled, “Do you understand me?”

“Yes Sir,” Constance had said hastily as she stood meekly rubbing her bottom.

“Tomorrow you will report to the schoolroom in this very outfit, this time without the benefit of the under breeches. After a week of going without you will soon learn to appreciate them I’ll wager,” he had pronounced firmly.

“But… I can’t…” she had gasped.

“You will or else I will take further measures.” That had been all he had had to say.

That morning Constance had considered defying him, first by not donning the outfit at all and then by putting on the breeches anyway. But at the last minute she had funked it and despite the embarrassment had quickly taken them off again. As a consequence she had been late.

“I will not tolerate defiance or tardiness,” Mr Brandon had told when she finally turned up. “You will go to the corner and put your hands on your head.”

Constance had gaped in horror but after the spanking at his hands the day before she thought better of arguing. But it wasn’t until she started to obey that she realised the act of putting her hands on her head would raise the short hem of her sailor tunic and expose her bottom to his gaze.

“I see you are going to be quite as troublesome as Prudence,” Brandon sighed.

“I won’t I promise,” she had wailed, her voice muffled by the proximity of the wall in front of her face. “I’ll be a good girl.” The tearful submission made her tummy tingle and she bit her lip.

“We will see,” Brandon mused aloud. “As it is you have already earned a taste of my cane. Any further difficulties and you will not only graduate to the birch but you will be required to wear your school clothes in the afternoons as well as the morning.”

Constance gasped at this news and almost whirled around to face the man and protest. But he was already moving on.

“Now as for your studies,” he said, “I will concentrate on your music, French and other more advanced subjects. But unless your basic written work and arithmetic improves rapidly I may engage a nursery maid to school you in the basics.”

Constance shot a glance over her shoulder and gave him a withering look.

“Are you challenging me?” he growled.

“I rather think Lord Somerset did not mean for you to…” she began in surly tone.

“Lord Somerset has given me carte blanche to do as I see fit and if think you need a nanny to spank you, school you and the like, then I know a good one who has lots of humiliating little rituals for a big girl like you who needs a firm hand,” Brandon informed her.

“You… you wouldn’t,” Constance wailed. “I don’t mind if you are strict with me, I probably deserve it, but a nanny is going much too far.”

“That is for me to decide,” Brandon said sharply. “You, young lady, will get what you need and not what you demand. Do you hear me?”

“Yes Sir,” Constance whispered. In her darker thoughts he had been like this.

“That’s better,” Brandon sighed.

Constance heard him reach for the cane and swallowed down a lump in her throat.

“Can’t you just spank me again?” she asked pleadingly.

“Come here and bend over the desk,” Brandon said ignoring her.

Constance eyed the desk like it was poison before reluctantly moving towards it.

“H-how many?” she asked nervously.

“I never give less than eight but for very naughty girls I might award 36,” Brandon said firmly.

Constance paused and with wide eyes she stepped backwards in horror.

“I will give you what I think you deserve and can manage,” Brandon warned her. “We’ll start with eight as it is your first time and see how we get on. But I warn you, any fuss and I’ll add penalties.”

“Penalties?” Constance gulped.

“Extra strokes.”

Constance moved quickly forward and bent over the small hinge-top desk almost eagerly. She wasn’t about to give him an excuse.

“Bottom out,” Brandon said sharply as he lined up the thin dark rattan.

Constance blushed some more but obeyed. It was a shameful pose.

Wasting no time Brandon raised is arm and let it drop. The cane landed with a sharp efficient stroke putting a hard white line across rosy flesh and drawing a hiss from Constance. It wasn’t as bad as she feared and she managed to stay silent for the next.

Then as the third stroke was delivered the first stroke began to really hurt.

“Oh lord,” she groaned.

“Indeed,” Brandon agreed as he caned her again.

At five Constance gave a shout and wagged her bottom shamelessly. Then at each further cut she gave a little cry and clawed at the tattered wood on the underside of the desk. By the time the eighth stroke landed she was red in the face and panting like a dog.

Across her exposed bottom were eight neat lines beginning at just below the dimpled small of her back and extending down under the lower curves just above her thighs.

“You took that well,” Brandon said. “I think you could handle another eight.”

“Oh please Sir,” Constance pleaded but the ninth cut drew a shriek.

Then as seven more efficient strokes fell between their fellows she danced and yelped until small tears sprang to her eyes.

“I think the cane is no challenge to you,” Brandon said with some satisfaction. I think you can take 18 as basic punishment from now on. “Much as Prudence learnt to take. But she wasn’t half so brave as you.”

Despite the sting in her bottom Constance simpered at the comparison and offered him a shy smile as she got unsteadily to her feet.

“Now shake my hand and say thank you,” he told her, extending his own.

She took it meekly and whispered, “Thank you Sir.”

“Now you may go back to stand in the corner while I take some refreshment,” Brandon told her.

As he spoke he rang for the maid and reached for a newspaper. But seeing that she was still gawping at him he pointed a stern finger at the corner.

“But…” she was horrified that the maid would come, but if he carried out his other threats then she had better get used that. “Yes Sir,” she replied dejectedly.

The corner was just one of the bitter sweet elements that she would also have to get used to.

Ends

We knew the Victorians were keen on spanking on the birch, it went hand in hand with keeping young women in their place but just how far did they go? Here we have a true account of a woman offering a discipline service for unruly adult daughters.

I came across this tale in the History of the Rod, but investigation online reveals several sources for this tale including from the contemporary source the Truth magazine.

It seems Mrs Walter operated from Oakfield Road, Clifton, in Bristol England and advertised her respectable chastising service for unruly daughters in the national papers. One advertisement read: ‘Bad temper, hysteria, idleness etc. cured by strict disciple and careful training’.

The Truth sent an undercover woman reporter along to find out. She explained she had an unruly daughter she wanted tamed. For the sum of £100 Mrs Walter offered to take the unruly girl under her wing for a whole year. She even offered references from the Dean of Lincoln, an admiral, a general and several aristocrats.

Mrs Walter was well equipped with a birch table, several birches and evidentially made the girls dress in a gown that was open at the back. She claimed never to birch or punish in anger, but to always punish soundly on the bare bottom when the young woman was ‘needful.’

“Taking the birch, I measure my distance and, standing at the side, I proceed to strike slowly but firmly” Mrs Walter explained. “By moving gently forward, each stroke is differently placed and six strokes may well be enough if given with full force. If the fault has been such as to need severe correction, then I begin on the other side and work back again.”

Mrs Walter did not like the girls to resist or even scream and for such behaviour she would add strokes or even repeat the punishment.

At its height Mrs Walter ran a respectable business advertising her services openly and contracting via the church magazine for a supply of birch rods from a reputable supplier.

Here is the The Truth article in full.

Some months ago I called attention to the advertisements on the part of the women, offering to flog unruly girls of any age on payment of a fee. It struck me that this sort of thing ought to be exposed, and I endeavour to enter into correspondence with the “operator.”

She probably, however, suspected the hook, for she did not rise to the fly. On October 5th the following advertisement appeared in the Daily Telegraph: — Bad temper, hysteria, idleness, &c, cured by strict discipline and careful trainer. Three girls received. — Address G., care of Mrs Clapp, St. John’s Wood, Clifton.

This was followed by this further advertisement in the Times of October 21st:— intractable girls trained and educated. Excellent references, “Hints on Management of Children,” “Training of Children,” and “The Rod,” Is each. Advice by letter, Is.— Address, Mrs Walter, Clifton. Since then several other advertisements of the same nature have appeared.

A friend of mine has thrown a fly, and the fish has risen to the bait. He got a lady of his acquaintance to write to say that she had an intractable daughter, whom she wished to be “broken in,” and requesting the advertiser to send pamphlets, and letter of advice. The books and the letter were sent. Here is the letter, together with a list of persons to whom references are kindly permitted:— Clifton, October 24. Dear madam, —Thank you for your latter of to-day. I am prepared to take another girl at any time, and offer her a comfortable and refined home, with educational advantages.

With much experience I am able to say that those girls who will not work at home, do so when they are taken individually. I have one girl here who had been troublesome for five years, yet who is most amenable to me and my wishes.

Her friends live near London, but I prefer not to refer to them unless I am obliged, because the daughter’s neglected education is a very sore subject with them. You will see from enclosed testimonials and lift of references that I can be recommended. Mr Christopher Heath knows the parents of one of my pupils, and will, I am sure, be happy to answer any questions you may like to ask him. My old friend, Admiral Strode, will be iu Town next week, but a man at, his club is not easily seen by a lady.

Mr proper name is Mrs Walter Smith, “Walter” being my nom-de-plume. My second daughter assists me with the girl and I have professors for music, painting, dancing, &c. I could take your niece for £100 per annum, entering at any time, if she is under twenty years of age. If more, I must have some little extra for holidays. My present arrangement is to be in Town about the 11th of November for a day, but I may be called there on Saturday for a few hours.

You will, perhaps, let me know as soon as you have come to a decision about your niece. My fees are usually paid three months in advance. Enclosed please find the explanation of my system. Believe me, dear madam, yours faithfully, E. Walter, MODUS OPERANDI WITH IXTRACTAULE CURLS.

Unwilling as I may be to say it, very often the fault of the girls is merely the natural result of careless training. Parents do not always realise the fact that unless the girls are well occupied and carefully trained at all times, much mischief will accrue. Some girls are idle constitutionally, this must be cured; others have a superfluous amount of energy, this needs to be well directed.

Whether at lessons or play, real interest should be taken so as to do it thoroughly. It is better if girls have got troublesome to make plans, and then completely change their system, beginning in a new groove. Change of scene is, of course, helpful but if for fresh habits are formed, and on the return improved comfort shows itself.

My first object when a girl is placed with me is to show her kindly, but firmly, that I must be implicitly obeyed It is always a good plan to rule by moral suasion if possible. When that has been fairly tried and fails, then it is positively necessary to use some other means of making the girl obey. First I warn her of the consequences of repeated faults; then, when a direct act of disobedience, a lie, or very serious fault shows itself, I tell her that presently I shall punish.

Never birch when angry. During the interval she thinks over the fault. I make preparations. These consist in having ready a strong narrow table, straps (waist band with sliding strap, anklets and wristlets), cushions, and a good, long, pliable rod, telling her to prepare by removing her dress, knickers, &c, and putting on the dressing-gown (hind part before). Then I talk seriously to her, show her the nature of the fault, and the need of punishment as a cure. Next I put on the waist band, after having told her that if she submits quietly no one need know; if she struggles I must call in help (girls generally prefer to be quiet).

Placing her at the end of the table (on which there are cushions to protect the person) I turn her body over the table and fasten the straps underneath it. Then I fasten the knees together, wrists the same, unless I anticipate a struggle— then I use anklets and wristlets, and fasten the limbs to the legs of the table. This really takes less time to do than to write about. Unfastening the dressing-gown, the orthodox surface is found at the right angle for punishing.

Taking the birch, I measure my distance, and, standing at the side, proceed to strike slowly but firmly. By moving gently forward each stroke is differently placed, and six strokes may be enough if well given with full force. If the fault has been such as to need severe correction, then I begin on the other side and work back again.

For screams increased strokes must be given. If a girl tries very hard indeed to bear it bravely, then, perhaps, I give 10 instead of 12.

Directly it is finished I cover up the part exposed, unfasten the girl, and, finding her probably more subdued, help to resolutions of amendment. If this birching has been judiciously and conscientiously administered, the girl will bear against the operation no resentment, but be ready to “kiss and be friends.”

After allowing the culprit a little time to compose herself and re-dress, I expect her to join the others, and no mention of any kind is made of the punishment unless future misconduct makes it necessary, and this is not often.

Birching is an extraordinary thing, not an every-day work, therefore care must be taken that the operator has the proper nerve and patience for the operation. Mothers are the proper persons to whip girls; but if they have not the necessary nerve, then it is better to appoint a deputy. After this serious business is over, much steady patience is needed, for a birching is no use whatever if a girl is to be petted again and allowed to do just as she likes. She must be under firm, kind discipline.

None of my girls have been more attached to me than those whom I have been obliged to discipline severely. They have a great respect for those who can master them, and who do not taunt them with past misdeeds. One good scolding is worth months of “nagging.” Efforts at amendment must be encouraged, and those having the charge of girls must not expect to reform them all at once. ” Rome vas not built in a day.” The old Adam will sometimes show itself, and for checking his work nothing is so useful as a birch rod judiciously used. E. W. [Here follow the names of gentlemen whose reference? are kindly permitted].

My friend then put himself in communication with the woman, saying that he had an intractable ward, aged sixteen. He had three interviews with her at a boarding-house in Porchester Gardens. Subsequently, as he was passing through Bristol, he called on her.

He describes her as a tall, strong woman, arrayed in the dress of some sort of order, and wearing a medallion with the effigy of a “Good Shepherd” stamped upon it. As an inducement to him to confide his ward to her tender mercies, she said she had girls of twenty in her house, to whom a week or two previous she had administered 15 cuts with a birch rod, and she explained that she had a considerable number of clients in London whose daughters she chastised. This appears probable, for when my friend called on her, it was difficult to get more than a few minutes’ conversation with her, there were so many waiting for an audience. Each interview costs half-a-guinea. She had before her a book, in which her flogging engagements were registered, and they appeared to be numerous.

I append two extracts from the pamphlet entitled “The Rod”: According to some writers and physicians, flagellation is a remedy for torpid condition and lack of muscular energy; it clears the brain, and braces the nerves; in short, there is nothing it will not do, when properly applied _ The rod has been found to cure all feigned diseases. For hypochondriacally cases it is an excellent remedy.

To be effectual the rods should be of the right sort. They can be bought at Clifton of Mrs Clapp, St. John’s road, from 5d upwards, trimmed if required. They can be sent post free for 3d each. They should be made from 2. to 3ft. Gin. long, and very thin and pliable. I get mine from a family who have made them for generations. And here are two extracts from the pamphlet entitled “Hints on the Management of Untractable Girls “Parents who have not the necessary patience or nerve should depute some person for this office, and, having done so, let them not be restricted in any way, for something must be left to the discretion of the operator. Anyone who would be deterred by screams or struggles from carrying out what has been begun should never attempt whipping, because, unless it is thoroughly done, ground is lost, and the girl will rejoice in her triumph.

Part I

The winter got very much worse before it got better and by the end of January their food supplies were low and they were left with only the grimmest fare. It was a situation that did little to aid the humour of Sofia or Ivan and within the confines of the small house short sharp words left their mouths at the least provocation. As it was barely a week would pass without a confrontation and the diminutive princess would frequently find herself stood bare bottomed in the corner following the soundest of spankings.

Not that she resented such treatment, not once Ivan’s anger had passed anyway, as such rough handling tended to clear the air and even Sofia could not remember who had been in the right after the fact.

But on other occasions there was no doubt and the spoilt noblewoman of old would reassert herself to give in to rages about the food or the lack of home comforts. At these times Ivan would sigh heavily and take up a rod from the corner before beckoning to his winter guest with one stern finger.

“Oh come on, please Ivan I’m sorry,” she would wail as she backed away as far as the small room would allow.

But once the woodsman’s mind was made up all protests were futile.

If she were feeling brave and repentant then she would dip her gaze and meekly lower her breeches before bending across the table to present her bare bottom. The fiery bite of his lambasting rod was bad enough on such occasions and afterwards she could not sit down for days. But at other times she would refuse his correction and strike out at him with her small fists and call him a beast.

Then he would spank her soundly until she wept and then set her in the corner until she was ready to ask for her true punishment. This would follow with a will until she wailed and begged as she was truly mastered with a kiss to the rod. Then her raw buttocks would throb like hot coals in the corner again and she would rue the day that they had ever met.

But such emotions did not cling to her long and despite the fact that she was often left unable to sit until he had cause to spank her again, she could not truly blame him or hold a grudge.

So the days passed, each one a little longer, and as the long winter shadows shortened, each one became a little warmer. If Sofia had not been so distracted by the other heat in her bottom she might have noticed this change and perhaps regret it.

*

One day Ivan returned from one of his increasingly frequent sorties with a huge stag across both shoulders. Even Sofia could see that outside there were green shoots were breaking from the snow and finally she sensed a change in the air.

As Ivan stood framed by the doorway he seemed to regard her with something like sadness and Sofia gripped her throat as if it were her heart. The space between them was no more than 10 feet but suddenly it felt like a thousand miles.

Then Ivan shook himself and tossed the carcass onto the table and turned away. Nor did he meet her eyes as he said, “March is upon us so in a week or two, I think we can set off for Molotov lands.”

Sofia felt as if she had been struck. For weeks it had been all she had thought of, well almost all she had thought of, but now… home? She swallowed hard as if choking something down. The castle that had once seemed so large now shrank in her memory. She thought of high confining walls and the guarded gates. She thought of the narrow rules and the even narrower path that her life would now follow.

“Aren’t you happy?” Ivan asked in an even voice.

Sofia blinked hard and shook herself to a forced smile.

“Of course,” she said, but her words carried little conviction.

Ivan gave a small grunt like a bear and turned away. It was for the best, he thought, of course it was.

As it was the snow retreated almost as fast as the days that remained and when at last Ivan gathered some food and belongings for the journey the grass was more abundant than the ice and fierce buds covered every branch. Here and there even the first spring flowers forced their way from the hard ground as they stretched for the sky like yawning men awaking from a long sleep.

“It is a long walk without a fast pony and it will take most of a week to get to Castle Molotov,” Ivan told her, “But we will make good time now.”

Sofia nodded. Somehow she was happy that there were no horses and she thought of her rapid escape. Such reckless racing seemed so immature now.

“I have the last of the nuts and some dried venison,” he told her for something to say. “And we may find some game along the way.”

Sofia gave him a tight smile and a single nod.

“But we could…” he thought of fishing in the pool. It would be good eating and might delay their departure for several days, but it was a pointless agony. So instead he said, “Never mind, we will leave tomorrow.

*

They did indeed make good time and for a while it was if the world belonged to them. After weeks in the small shack the forest was coming alive with birdsong and dancing squirrels that darted hither and thither among the stout trees. Even Ivan’s mood was lifted and he would often stop to identify the chirping cheep of this bird or that or point out bear tracks on the damp ground.

On all sides of the path the cathedral-like woods stretched out under the wild green roof in a tapestry of light where dark pines stood with the birch in its new spring coat. Even when Ivan had got ahead of her, he was an ever present guardian relentlessly placing one certain foot before the other. The forest was wild but no wolf or bear would trouble her while she had such a man.

“I could live here forever,” Sofia breathed.

“What was that?” Ivan called back.

“I said the woods go on forever,” she replied.

“From the Urals to Siberia,” he answered, “We are a long way from Peter neh?

“I have never been,” she whispered with true regret.

“Bah, one day some young man will take you there,” Ivan snarled patting the air dismissively with one arm as he strode ahead.

But all she could think was that St Petersburg could not be as beautiful as this place here and now.

By the time they broke for the night Sofia had legs like lead. The endless tranquillity of the trees had long since surrendered their charms and she fell onto the blanket Ivan had set on the ground like timber felled.

“Missing your horse now I’ll bet,” Ivan chuckled.

But Sofia was already asleep and it was an hour before Ivan roused her with some food and a small fire. But it was a short reprieve from her slumber and by the time it was full dark Sofia again surrendered to her dreams.

*

On the afternoon of the fourth day they reach some high ground where the snow had not yet melted and the dense forest gave way to more open rocky ground that afforded the couple glimpses of far mountains and cultivated land beyond the valley. Here the slope was gentle and seemed to end at a granite ridge just ahead of them. Not that they were completely out of the woods. To the right and behind of them was a fence of denuded silver birch trees, their white paper trunks forming a haphazard border to the deeper timberland they had just travelled through.

“I know this place,” Sofia gasped.

Ivan frowned and waited for more but the tired princess was still.

Sofia was vaguely aware that she must have ridden this way at some time and the aspect of the hills looked rather like those viewed from her room at Castle Molotov. She was still pondering this idea when they gained the ridge. There across the sunlit valley like a fist of stone stood her father’s fortress. The curved walls and onion domes glowed in the dying spring sunshine like a glimpse of heaven in the wilderness so that her heart leapt and she could scarce draw a breath.

“I’m… I’m home,” she said wistfully.

“Yes,” Ivan growled.

“Oh shit,” Sofia said suddenly.

Ivan rounded on her with half an eye to the forest and raised one quizzical eyebrow.

“I just remembered,” she said ruefully, “I am in so much trouble.”

As she spoke her hand made an unconscious move to her behind. But this only drew a chuckle from the bear-like woodsman who merely muttered, “I bet you are,” he said with amusement.

*

At first her father had been pleased to see her. He had wept as he swept her into his arms.

“Where did you find her?” at last the Prince demanded of Ivan.

Ivan shrugged. “The forest, where else?” he said.

“And she has been with you this whole time?” the prince demanded suspiciously.

“Where was I to take her, to the Kelch perhaps, or the Kern?” Ivan shrugged again.

“Father Ivan has been…” Sofia began.

“Be silent girl,” her father roared.

The Prince eyed Ivan Ivanov carefully but the woodsman did not blink. He stood like a rock not quite meeting the nobleman’s eye but not quite avoiding his gaze either. He stood like one who had rendered service and now expected reward.

“You are a free man?” Prince Molotov asked him.

“I am by my lights, but Count Kern may have a different view,” Ivan said gruffly.

The Prince nodded and weighed this up. “I am not one to listen to such a bastard,” he said, “and you have done me a great service here. For that I am grateful, although through her reckless actions my daughter’s reputation is shot. But I see you are an honest man and I bear you no grudge for your part. I have good kulak lands south and east of here. It is rich bottom land in need of restoration. It is yours together with 100 roubles and three years free of tax. Make it pay and I will grant you the rank of rystar with legal tenure over the serfs there. Treat them well and they will serve you in kind.”

Sofia gaped and then grinned widely.

“Thank you my prince,” Ivan bowed.

It was a great reward but somehow it seemed a hollow one. He bowed again and backed away.

“As for you my girl, you have a reward of another kind coming,” Prince Molotov rasped angrily, “Go to your room until I decide what to do with you.”

Sofia blanched but offered him a deep curtsey and hurried away. If she hoped to see Ivan she was thwarted. No sooner had she slipped away than her old governess stepped forward and took her by the arm.

“Come with me you foolish girl,” the rather severe dark-clad woman barked.

Sofia bristled at being so handled, but Baroness Moskova’s sharp visage and scraped back hair silenced any protests.

“You won’t sit down for a year by the time your father finishes with you and if you resist I will thrash your backside raw before Prince Molotov even lays his first stroke,” the Baroness hissed.

Sofia drew herself up proudly but seeing no hope she snatched away her hand and imperious walked to the staircase that led to her room.

“If you are lucky your father will find a poor baron to marry you to, the very idea, running away like that,” Moskova said with more sadness than anger.

Sofia rounded on her at the very suggestion, but what did it matter if she married prince or duke, baron or pauper, none of them would be Ivan? There, she had said it, if only in her heart.

“Go to your room,” the baroness barked.

Tears pooling at her eyes Sofia nodded and did as she was told.

*

Sofia stood with her hands clamped to the back of her neck and her elbows at right angles. Her nose was so close to where the two walls met at the corner of the room that she was effectively blinkered. Her bottom had been left bare and facing the room, but it was the light chill and not fear that left her shivering.

The night before the maids had come to bathe her more thoroughly than she had ever been bathed before and every inch of her skin had tingled from their ministrations. Then after a crude repast she had slept the sleep of ages until the strong spring sun had stirred her from lonely dreams.

It was not until Baroness Moskova had come to supervise her morning toilet and dressing had Sofia got a first hint of her fate. For one thing she had been permitted only a high cut corset and stockings to dress in and for another not one of the maids had giggled when she had been sentenced to the corner. Her father must still be furious then, she thought.

It was a shameful and uncomfortable predicament but with the door left wide and the constant sound of footsteps out in the hall Sofia dared not move or even risk a quick glance over her shoulder. So an age passed before anyone came to her directly.

“Sofia, turn around,” her father’s voice was a sudden shock as she had not known he was there.

The blood rushed to her face and she gulped hard before obeying, even then she quickly covered her front with both cupped hands as she did so. She needn’t have bothered just then as her father stood facing the window with his back to her and it was the Baroness who watched her hawk-like from by the door.

But Sofia could not miss the multi-tailed short whip grasped at her father’s back nor the copper bucket of birch rods at the baroness’s feet. She gulped and averted her gaze. For the first time since sneaking off she actually felt sorry for her sins.

“Father I…” she began.

“Be quiet Sofia,” the Prince barked.

She could only nod at the solid wall of her father’s back.

“Before I thrash you I want you to know that I am so disappointed in you. Your behaviour is…” he sighed and bowed his head before straightening again. “Well what is done is done,” he sighed, “I have arranged a marriage for you. A certain count… anyway, he is loyal and the best you can expect under the circumstances.”

“But…” Sofia began.

“Be silent,” the Prince barked. “News of your disappearance has even reached St Petersburg, your reputation…”

For one vital moment Sofia thought her father would cry but then steel returned to his voice.

“Sofia, get on your knees on the bed and present your bottom,” he said at last.

Sofia swallowed hard but nodded. She shot a glance at the baroness for any sign of satisfaction, but saw nothing but grim duty written on her face.

“Yes Sir,” she said.

The nerves that clawed at her belly were worse than the embarrassment now and she dipped her head as if making herself small. Still her father did not look at her, but whether this was out of respect for her partial nudity or from disgust Sofia could not tell.

The bed creaked as she mounted it and hastily she pressed her legs protectively together as she kowtowed to the headboard. She hadn’t even considered that this elevated her bottom so and in her haste to hide her face in the bed pane she had obeyed her father so perfectly.

When he finally turned and saw his humbled daughter he grunted in some non-committal way as he took some small pride at least in her obedience. Damn the girl, why had she been so wilful? But at least… something welled up and took him by surprise and in a rush all the nightmares that had assailed him that winter filled his head to the point of nausea.

“I thought you were…” the word held and he could not speak it as tears filled his eyes.

The baroness chose the moment to take an unwavering interest in the floor while keeping her face blank.

“Damn you girl,” the Prince roared and falling upon his daughter he hauled from her knees and across his lap.

In half a minute his hard leather hands blasted Sofia’s bottom with a hundred hearty spanks as he poured out his rage and relief.

“Damn you,” he spat, choking back a sob.

“I’m sorry Daddy, I’m sorry,” Sofia wailed and hugged into her father as of old.

“Do not think… do not think…” he repeated unable to complete the threat as he lambasted her, “do you know what you did? Do you know?”

But he let his hand do the talking and the spanking lasted perhaps 15 minutes until the Prince finally wavered. By then Sofia’s bottom was sunset red and she was sobbing gently into the space between the back of her father’s shins and the smooth wood of the bed.

“Oh Sofia,” Sofia’s father sighed giving her an affectionate squeeze. “I had such… the Tsar’s son perhaps… oh well this count is not so old and poor…”

“My lord… shall I…?” the baroness’s interjection was to ask if she should go and she pointed to the rods in the bucket by way of asking if she should take them.

“Would you?” Prince Molotov sighed, “My heart is not in it.”

But before the baroness could leave the weary man said casually, “thrash her well for it is needful.”

Sofia was not surprised by the command, for once she knew she well-deserved it and at the back of her head a braver version of her knelt and begged to be soundly thrashed beyond all endurance. But with still undried tears from the spanking and a persistent sting in her bottom such requests would remain unspoken and it was all she could do not to beg for mercy.

As soon as Prince Molotov had gone Baroness Moskova ordered Sofia to take up the position on the bed again and Sofia meekly nodded. Then with her bottom high in the air Sofia’s governess took up the first rod and stood poised behind her exposed bare bottom.

“Sofia attend,” she said sternly, an old custom between them at such times.

Then the rod swept down like fire and where once Sofia would have glared angrily in silence she now responded with a grunt of distress into her pillow.

No pride now, have you? Baroness Moskova thought, a small pleasure for her after years of prideful defiance from the girl. Then she eyed the bucket still full of bitter rods. The Prince had not countermanded his earlier order and the governess saw no reason to go easy as she struck the sore up-struck bottom again. There were a great many rods and the baroness intended to use them all.

To be continued.

It has been said that the first spanking in history was when Eve went over Adam’s knee after they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. However, before there was even a Bible the ancient Egyptians had already incorporated spanking into their religion.

To the followers of the goddess Isis spanking was actually a sacred duty. In the temple female slaves had their bottoms whipped to honour the goddess of motherhood and fertility. This made such an impact that centuries later the Greeks and Romans adopted the habit and held their own spanking parties to promote fertility.

The interesting thing about spanking and other forms of corporal punishment centred on the buttocks is that rather than being directed at children the practice was original reserved for women.

As a recent article points out, “Spare the rod, Spoil the child” is not from the Bible but was in fact written by Samuel Butler in his satirical poem Hudibras to ridicule the Victorian lifestyle.

Another article written in 1966 by John Barry said:

Spanking has a long history, probably as long as the Oldest Profession. Documented incidents even date back to Ancient Greece. Then it was customary for childless women to visit the temple of Juno in Athens, to be cured of sterility by the priests of Pan. The women had to lie face down on the temple floor, and be whipped with a lash made of goat’s hide. The priests clearly were aware of the erotic powers of the whip, but history does not tell us whether or not the resultant children were sired by the whip-wielding priests.

It goes to describe how the Roman story-teller, Virgil, describes the feast of Lupercalia, where naked men danced in the streets beating every woman they came across.

Also, as my previous article said the Romans followed a tradition for ensuring the fertility of brides to be. The girl was placed across the knees of the ‘sponsor’, and then the girl’s bottom was bared and strapped to the accompaniment of clashing cymbals. This theory that whipping would make barren women fertile was popular right up until the sixteenth century.

Indeed Queen Claude of France was said to be barren and remained childless for the first 15 years of her marriage. To counter this severe threat to the French state she was soundly and regularly spanked. In fact after undergoing a daily spanking on the bare bottom for some time it was said that her ordeal was occasionally augmented by using rods.

After 15 years of this treatment she did have several children!

The curious thing about this period in French history is that at a time when belief in flagellation for fertility began to wane erotic whipping became more common in the French court. Ladies bottoms were even frequently whipped in public. This was particularly curious because at the same time the Church had begun to advocate whipping for the purging of sins.

The church even defined different types of whipping; superior was whipping on the back, usually reserved for men, while an inferior whipping referred to spanking and chastisement on the bare bottom, generally reserved for women.  It was common for women, after confession, to retire to a priest’s room and have her bare bottom birched while resting on a specially designed kneeler.

This dichotomy of religious and erotic practices seems to have been confused even at the time. A 50-year-old Jesuit, Father Giraud, wound up in court for spanking the very pretty 25-year-old Catherine Cadiere, an alleged French witch who he had confined to a nunnery for this very ‘service.’

In fact the later trial of Catherine Cadiére in 1731 formed part of the basis for the pornographic novel Thérèse Philosophe.

Nor was he the only priest to follow this practice. Father Cornelius Adriason founded a punishment called the Cornelian Discipline, and became famous for flogging female bottoms. In the 1550s he became involved with Marie-Ann Leveque, a niece of the Mayor of Bruges, Belgium. As her confessor he customarily whipped her and other young women half-naked, but for him Marie-Ann deserved an extra-special penance. He stripped her completely naked and after her whippingis said to taken advantage of her.

Around the same time Catherine de’ Medici’s favourite sport, to quote from her biographers, was to order serving girls and ladies of her court to be stripped naked and thrashed in front of her. This seems to have begun as a punishment but as time went by this custom evolved into a kind of spanking party. At a banquet in 1577, she made the most beautiful and noble ladies of the court serve half naked. She personally spanked them on the buttocks with the palm of her hand, with great blows and fairly rough handling.

It seems that spanking has been ambiguous at the very least when it comes to motivations.

Part I

The storm was bad. It was perhaps the worst storm Ivan could remember for the time of year. Not that it was any worse than those he had lived through over many a winter. But he did understand why many of the Prince’s men quailed in the face of it.

The rain fell almost horizontally and as they passed great trees bowed down to them as if in supplication for their plight. So low did the great branches swing at them that whips of birch lashed at them and after too long most of the men had to dismount and all but drag their horses along the paths through the trees.

“We must find shelter until the storm passes,” their captain bellowed.

Ivan nearly laughed at this until he saw most nodding and the grim chuckle died on his face.

Just then a sudden burst of wet wind sent several horses rearing and two men were dragged along in mud until they could gain control.

“There is a village near here, we will hold up there for a few hours,” the captain decisively announced.

With horses it made sense but Ivan could only think of Sofia and in any case he was no rider and knew they could make better time afoot. But it would do little to protest for most here stood higher than he and his word carried no weight.

*

The sky broke in great shouts of pain as rain-laden thunder tore through the dark clouds in protest. Sofia wondered if God had not sent the storm in his anger at her treatment, but if God was so angry why had he let her suffer so in the first place?

Not that she could see much of the sky. The room had two high windows and unless the sun shone on it directly it was almost as night in the chamber. Therefore she was only dimly aware of the bars facing the outer wall and had as yet had no idea what was beyond them in the gloom.

Also it was cold where she was, the stone floor was hard and she lay shivering in terror as she reassembled the pieces of her broken mind. They had given her but a single fur to hide what was left of her attire and she had struggled to know whether to cover herself or use it to soften the icy ground. So instead she curled in a ball on the floor staring at the windows, half under and half on the fur.

She had no idea where she was or how exactly she came here. She remembered only blood and crowing warriors standing around the body of her husband. Then had come hard fast riding through close razor trees, much of it bundled under a sheet and all of it bruising to body and soul. By the time she had been dragged through the castle gates she had been half conscious and certain that she would die.

But they hadn’t killed her, not yet. They had merely stripped her outer clothes and anything of value and thrown her in this chamber. If they meant to kill her why would they have taken her? For a second she stopped mid shiver and set her eyes wide and alert. It was but a pause in her chill-trembling huddle but she took comfort from it and began to strain her gaze to the room.

There was a jug of what she presumed was water to the right of the windows and in the corner facing it was a privy with a narrow chute to the outside. She knew the kind and although there were many grim tales of smelly escapes through drains, she knew there would be no succour there, even for one as small as her.

So instead she sat up and studied the bars. She could see now that the room was an open cell with one wall that was all bars opening out onto another as unlit area. Not a cell for a Countess, still less for one that was a daughter of a prince, but yet here she was. Did they know who she was and what her father would pay as a ransom?

What would he pay, she wondered? After all she was no longer his concern and even if she had been, she had been a disappointment and a runaway. She hardly thought he would rouse his warriors on her account. But perhaps that was not her captor’s business then?

Sofia hugged the fur tight and refused that train of thought.

Outside the storm had eased somewhat and although the light was still a dim bluish grey, the sound had settled down to a hard rush of a million droplets tumbling over stones. It was the kind of heavy rain that cut the dust and gave off a bitter odour. Sofia crinkled her nose. She smelt none too good herself and lamented the amount of water so close at hand when she had no bath.

*

Ivan had opted for leaving the horse and trudging onwards through the rain. At least he was again his own master and the paths he took through the forest led efficiently towards his quarry. He did not dwell on the fact that his quarry was no more than his captain’s guess. It was his earnest prayer that the Prince had fared better and had had the right of it. He also doubted that Prince Molotov would have been deterred by a little rain. Ivan grinned. Water fell like God’s piss and had the ground not been well-drained he would have been wading waist deep in mud. He had been hard on his comrades, the devil curse them, this was no small rain.

But still he strode out, one leg lunging ahead of the other by sheer force of will. Mile after mile he went scarcely looking up as he scanned the rising ground for a sure footing as he picked his way through the trees to the top of a long slow ridge.

He knew that out in the open where the horses were most useful there was no shelter and men would be huddled around fires drinking mulled ale and vodka from flasks. For a moment he envied them and cursed his stubbornness. He would be still scouring the forest days after the issue was settled at this rate. Then he thought again on Sofia and his hand gripped his sword hilt. His steps fell a little lighter then and he pressed on.

Ten minutes later he crested the hill in triumph. From the top he saw no great fortress or bandit camp. Instead, bellow the ridge was another line of trees rising to yet another; a day’s stride encompassed in a single gaze. Well what did he expect? Then with a grunt he took another step.

*

The rain fell more gently now and the light from the windows penetrated the gloom. Not that she saw much more grounds for hope. The only thing she had missed was a hunk of rye bread next to the water jug and that didn’t look worth the gaze.

But perhaps because of the softer rain, or because it had not been there before, she now heard the sound of iron and boots on hard floors. As she listened she was sure it was coming nearer and despite herself she huddled back into the fur like a frightened child. She prayed then to God, muttering familiar words under breath as she asked for help and daddy and… her lip trembled and tears came… and Ivan.

The chains were distinctly audible and something else… there were tears that were not her own which she could clearly hear above the sound of tramping boots. But why would men in boots be weeping? She pondered it in her befuddled mind and listened at the sound as it drew ever nearer, more curious now than afraid.

Under the tramping and chains and above the gentle sobbing was a slapping sound like… she thought of fish flapping on wet stones by the river and of the steady applause in an alehouse. No it was not that. It was the sound of bare feet on stone.

Just then light swept the chamber beyond the bars and a large hairy fur-clad Cossack strode into the room carrying a flaming torch. In his wake came a line of huddled naked women all walking at a hunch and cowering in chains. Sofia could see them clearly now. None of them were old and most of them were very young. And only from their hair could Sofia glean some idea of their rank. Although she knew at a glance that most of the women were peasants, some Sofia could tell, must have been higher servants or even rystar’s wives.

Victims of a raid then, but what use were they for ransom?

As Sofia watched she saw a woman of 20 or so dragged half resisting from the line, her legs buckling as she dug in her heels and she tugged on a chain that held at the wrists. It was a brief resistance and the willowy blonde was soon pulled forward and thrown face down over a barrel-like affair that stood against the wall. The device had only come into a view with the light of the torches and Sofia could now see other odd contraptions and racks of knouts there. There were even pokers and iron brands on hand, but mercifully there was no brazier lit for these. But the knouts and whips were fearful enough.

The blonde was now bent double over the barrel with her pale bare bottom glistening in the torchlight as a Cossack moved behind her with a stout birch rod braced in his fists. The girl was more stoical than Sofia would have been and even from her place in her cage huddled under the fur the newly widowed countess could hear the naked woman’s tight breath.

A moment later the birch lashed down with hissing crack that landed with a sharp thwack upon the girl’s bottom. Only her fellows squealed, no doubt knowing they were next, because despite the sudden rash of angry red that now marred the blonde’s bare behind the blonde made no sound.

Thrice more the birch lashed down and only then did the birch-wielding Cossack become frustrated at the woman’s stoicism. So in a rage he thrashed his arm more than dozen times in a frenzy until the girl made a scream.

Sofia remembered Ivan’s words and how his cousins and sisters had been thrashed a thousand lashes at times and she feared the worst for the girl. But within a half a minute the Cossack seemed satisfied and pulled the girl up with her hair and sent her staggering towards the end of the chamber. Although her bottom was grazed and raw, Sofia knew that even she had had worse and she relaxed a little. The scene might even be called fun if she hadn’t been so afraid. An unworthy thought soon supressed as another woman was hauled forward for the same treatment.

This girl was older, perhaps 30 or so and already she carried pockmarks on her thighs and her belly was a little sagging as if she might have been a mother. She too took her thrashing well but had the sense to cry out at each biting stroke and was let up after perhaps only two dozen.

And so it when on, 20 in all Sofia counted, one after the other bent over and soundly birched. Then without a word of anger the Cossacks shoved at the last of the women and left.

For a long moment Sofia waited as the women sniffed and sobbed to themselves huddled in the half-light. Then seeing the second woman standing to comfort one of the other girls she decide to speak.

“Hey you,” Sofia hissed, “Who are you?”

The woman wheeled around and immediately curtseyed. She knew nobility when she heard it.

“I am Anya Ma’am, from the Village of Ansk,” she answered, again incongruously dipping at the knees and averting her eyes. “There was a raid and we…. we… the men are all dead,” she almost sobbed.

Then the woman shrugged.

“We will be fine, after all we are just serfs,” she said bitterly, “We will be sold to a new lord. Our lives will not change so much. But my lady, who are you? What are you doing here?”

Anya found the courage to look up now and regarded Sofia quizzically.

“I am Sofia M… Countess Dvorsky, my husband too is dead,” Sofia replied.

Anya shrugged.

“Where are we?” Sofia asked.

“Who knows? The Cossacks frequently take captives in these lands; if you are truly a Countess then they will seek a ransom. Did they use you?” Anya sniffed.

She sounded bored now and was rubbing idly at her bottom.

“Use me?” Sofia frowned and then she realised and shook her head.

“Then you have some value. Lucky you,” Anya sighed.

*

Ivan had slept in the hollow of an old tree and was as stiff as old bear skins. But at least the rain had stopped and with greater visibility he had made better time. His comrades would be on the move again, although how they would find Sofia in this dense forest was beginning to trouble him.

Ahead of him lay yet another ridge of dense trees. He didn’t need to ask God what lay beyond it.

“Maybe I have died and this is hell eh Lord,” he chuckled. “Is this the endless toil of hell, wall after wall of trees? Well lord this is had been my life and there is no forest on earth that can best Ivan Ivanov.”

However, after two days of thick undergrowth the going at least had become easier, as if perhaps a village lay nearby. But all the same the narrow path wound crossways to the slope so that for half an hour Ivan had to zig-zag back and forth to gain the top of the next ridge.

From the top he just knew there would be another vista of trees, but he cared not. Bring it on, he said inwardly as he placed one foot soundly before the other.

Finally he reached the summit and even he had to pause to lean on a stout tree overhanging the valley; a small victory in all his travails. But as he looked up it was not another sea of trees that he saw but a ruined castle which still stood at three sides still containing intact towers. Before this upon some open ground were two dozen tents and many campfires.

“Cossacks,” Ivan cursed and dropped to a crouch.

But although he had no logical reason for hope his heart soared. If there was a God in heaven then he had guided Ivan here, he prayed. No there could not be two groups of raiders in these parts, not bearing banners of the Count of Kern.

To be continued.