Princess

of her emotions grew stronger still. Then her drawers had been split and it was all showing, the tight roundness of her bottom, the red furred purse of her tuppenny with the folds of inner lips pouting from between the outer, and worst, the little brown pucker of her bottom ring. A long squeal of despair broke from her lips as her most intimate secrets came on view, and Mistress Loida spoke.

‘The fuss you make, little Iriel, anybody would think you were highborn. Now hold still, and if you kick or pinch it’ll only last the longer.’

Iriel barely heard, her overwhelming shame and fear too strong to think of anything but the position she was in and what was about to happen to her bottom, and maybe her tuppenny. There were watchers too, their voices loud with mirth and crude observations from the open window behind her, and even as the spanking begun and pain exploded across her rear cheeks their every word seemed to cut into her head.

‘Now there’s a fine sight, and a ready cunt if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Ready and ripe! She how she wriggles and kicks!’

‘Plump too, her bottom as well. Ho, Mistress, will she be for the taking once you’ve done your duty?’

All the while Iriel’s bottom bounced to the slaps. Mistress Loida did not answer, either to rebuke the man or offer the use of Iriel’s mouth. It was something Iriel had occasionally been made to do when it amused the big woman to see her apprentice sucking on a man’s cock, tear-stained cheeks bulging first with effort, then with jism. A moment of relief broke through Iriel’s pain, only to die under a flood of new and hotter shame as Mistress Loida spoke.

‘Be sure of it, big fellow. Just as soon as her bottom is rosy she’ll be in the back room, ready for cock. It’s time we broke you in, my girl.’

Iriel let out a high pitched squeal of despair as her worst fears were realised. She would be put out for fucking once she’d been spanked. It was a moment she’d known was coming, and again and again she had sworn to allow one boy or another to burst her maidenhead, but always she had resisted at the last moment. None had succeeded in ravishing her, but now, with her bottom on fire and her tuppenny already growing warm, she knew there would be no real resistance. The precious little piece of skin that guarded her tuppenny would be burst around the cockhead of some hulking soldier or evil smelling peasant, whoever was biggest or strongest among the watchers. He would not be the only one. Up would go the cocks, men she had never met, bluff artisans, burly peasants smelling of dogs and dung, coarse mannered men at arms, fucking her in her virgin blood…

At the thought, and the sudden need that came with it, her fighting redoubled. It could not happen. It was impossibly shameful, and

her own stubbornness, she made a dart to one side, more than happy to earn the extra slaps she would get for resisting if it allowed her to avoid the humiliation of being done in front of the window.

Mistress Loida was ready, and snatched out as Iriel skipped past her, but still was she not fast enough. Free for at least an instant, Iriel dashed for the store room. Mistress Loida followed. Her back to a pile of cloth bales, with no means of escape, Iriel waited, determined to fight despite knowing the utter futility of her struggles. She would be spanked, bare bottom, probably until her tears came, something in which Mistress Loida took great pride. The big woman appeared in the doorway, grinning as she saw the look of determination on Iriel’s face.

‘That’s right, make a fight of it,’ Mistress Loida sneered. ‘It will improve the sport.’

Iriel set her jaw and crouched low, wondering if a sudden break might let her reach the door and so the freedom of the street. It was foolish, meaning postponement of her punishment at best and more probably a full public spanking, bare in the street, with the crowds gathered to watch the Lady Kaissia’s shaming there to enjoy the spectacle. Afterwards maybe she would the consequences of having her naked tuppenny on show in the street…

Still she tried, feinting, then darting low as Mistress Loida swept a great arm in. One fat foot extended from beneath the Mistress’ skirts, perfectly timed, to trip Iriel and sending her sprawling on the floor. The next instant a heavy hand had locked in her hair. She was pulled up, squealing and attempting to kick out with one leg, but only into a kneel position, then forward, towards the door.

‘No! Not by the window!’ she wailed, immediately realising Mistress Loida’s intention. ‘People will see!’

‘All the better,’ the Mistress answered, ‘for them, for you, and for me. And besides, it might just be your time today.’

Iriel’s response was a broken sob. She fought harder still, scratching with her hands and kicking with her feet as she was dragged, crawling, into the main room and to Mistress Loida’s work bench. Seeing the crowd beyond the window she shut up abruptly, but too late, a huge, red-haired peasant turning in curiosity at her squeals, then amusement as he saw what was about to happen. Tapping a friend on the shoulder, he drew attention to the coming spanking, the second man’s delighted, lust-filled face the last thing Iriel saw before she was upended unceremoniously across her Mistress’ knee and her long dress thrown up to cover her head.

Bitter, burning consternation rose up in her throat as she was locked into place, one huge arm tight around the narrowness of her waist. Her bottom was to the window, the bulging seat of her petticoat already on show. Up it came, her drawers were showing and the agony

Chapter One – Aegerion

‘Do you think she will fight?’

‘She is a Lady, disgraced or not. She will attempt to take it in stoic pride.’

‘Do you think they will display her burst maidenhead?’

‘Without doubt. It is part of the ritual. Now concentrate on your work.’

Iriel returned to her sewing, concentrating on making the stitches as tiny as possible. Across the room from her, beyond a long table piled with cloth at one end and neatly spread with partly finished garments at the other, Mistress Loida stooped low over a pattern, cutting shears in hand. After less than a hand breadth of stitches Iriel spoke again.

‘Should we not attend the shaming, Mistress? Would it not do good for my own sense of decency?’

‘What sense of decency is that?’ Mistress Loida demanded. ‘You have none, save what I impose on you with the flat of my hand. Now work.’

Again Iriel returned to her work, trying hard to apply herself to the delicate task of following the precise curve needed in fixing together the two cuts of silk in her hands. Again she failed, a sudden surge of noise drawing her attention to the window and the street beyond. She looked up, to see the backs and heads of the crowd outside, red hair and tawny, rough cut or plaited and tied in the male and female fashions, and beyond, the high wheels of a tumbril. Unable to push her excitement under any longer, she dashed for the window, to stare out at the scene, mouth open, her head filled with scorn and pity, amusement and shock.

In the tumbril, high above the heads of even the tallest among the crowd, stood the Lady Kaissia, a girl no older than Iriel and of similar build; tall, slim, full at the chest, but blonde where Iriel’s own hair was red. She was still dressed, in a long blue gown, soiled and torn at the hem, but she was fixed to the central post of the tumbril, her hands tied tight together behind it. Her face was a mask, mouth set hard, eyes staring out, seemingly focussed on some point in the far distance.

‘Iriel!’ Mistress Loida snapped.

‘Sorry, Mistress,’ Iriel answered quickly, turning back towards her work only to discover Mistress Loida already on her feet and in the act of rolling a sleeve purposefully up one brawny arm.

‘Time for a spanking,’ the Mistress stated.

Iriel’s emotions changed sharply, to self-pity and consternation. She gave one horrified glance to the window, outside which maybe a dozen people would only have to turn to see the inevitable exposure of her bottom, and the spanking that would follow. Cursing herself for