Torture Forgery

Copyright Oggbashan August 2019

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

+++

"Ow! That hurt. It isn't large enough for my wrists, Alice."

Alice was trying to fit a wooden brank around my hands. It was a hinged portable pillory, sometimes called a neck fiddle because it was shaped like a violin. The two halves of the large round hole clamped around my neck and two holes in a line should go around on my wrists, fixing my hands in front of me. Branks had been used in Scotland for minor offenders. While the brank was attached, the offender couldn't eat, drink, or go to the toilet without help and was unable to defend himself -- usually himself -- from abuse or thrown vegetables. It was used for public drunkenness, swearing in public or for just being a nuisance.

"It doesn't restrain me at all, Simon. My head and hand just slip out," Alice retorted.

"Perhaps they had smaller ones for women, or maybe the women wore a scold's bridle?" I said.

"Perhaps they did. Anyway, I'm taking it off you. It doesn't fit either of us. The drunkard's barrel is next..."

Alice and I were cataloguing the exhibits of the torture dungeons. We were trying everything to see how they worked and if they were real ancient examples or more modern replicas. The brank might be two or three hundred years old. The drunkard's barrel had been made in the last couple of years. It was an open-bottomed barrel suspended from a leather strap buckled at the back of the wearer's neck. The hands protruded through holes in the sides of the barrel and were also secured with leather straps around the wrists. The wearer could not reach the fixings and like the brank, could not feed himself.

The original drunkard's barrel was an exhibit but the leather straps had perished long ago.

Alice put the barrel on me and fixed the straps. I was helpless inside it.

"I can see this has possibilities," she said, "but I would have preferred you to wear the brank. You can't reach me, and I can't reach you. I might if you were to sit down but that would be very difficult. It works as designed. That's enough. Out you come."

We tried several other devices, most on me and some on Alice. We had dozens more exhibits to catalogue and to work out how they were used.

We were surprised at the effectiveness of the Scold's Bridle on Alice. The Museum had the original example from a Manorial Court. It was too fragile to be used, but there was also a 19th Century copy. Once I had fitted that on Alice's head she could only grunt. If she tried to use her lips or tongue the spikes on the Scold's Bridle hurt her.

"This was last used in 1780," I said, reading from the catalogue, "on Mistress Mary Soper. She was the plaintiff..."

Alice grunted in surprise.

"Yes. The plaintiff. She was claiming that her two brothers had evicted her from the house and land left in their father's will. She wouldn't keep quiet while her older brother was being cross-examined. The Lord of the Manor told her several times to keep quiet. She refused, repeatedly claiming that her brother was lying under oath. The Lord threatened her with the Scold's Bridle. She still kept shouting at her brother. The Lord ordered the Beadle and his wife to fit the Scold's Bridle on Mary, together with fetters securing her to a chair. Her brothers laughed at her, annoying the Lord.

The case continued with Mary crying silently. But it was decided in her favour. Neither she nor her brothers could read but the terms of the father's will held by the Manorial Court were very clear. Her brothers had the farmland and the farmhouse. She had been left a substantial cottage and smallholding that the brothers wanted so their two families didn't have to share the farmhouse. The Lord ordered the Beadle to remove the younger brother's effects from the cottage today. Until that was done? The two brothers, who had lied in their testimony under oath, would be put in the village stocks for the rest of the day. The court only had one Scold's Bridle. One brother would wear it for three hours while the other would be gagged with whatever improvised means the Court's officers could devise. Then the Scold's Bridle would be worn by the other.

The brothers objected strongly that a Scold's Bridle could only be used on women. The Lord retorted that while that might be the custom, the traditional punishment, not used in this enlightened 18th Century, was to tear the oath-breaker's tongue out with red-hot pincers. They could choose. The brothers chose the Scold's Bridle and gag. The Lord was annoyed with them and added that the gag should start with each brother's wife's used dish-clout. There is a note from another hand that 'dish-clout' was a euphemism for a more intimate item of women's monthly wear.

That other hand goes on to say that the brothers were unpopular, not just with the village but with their wives because they were misers. They had ample money but hated spending it. Their time in the stocks wasn't too difficult except that their wives and other village women verbally abused them.

Eventually they built a second farmhouse. As for Mistress Mary Soper? Five years after the court case she became the Lord's second wife."

I had enjoyed reading all that while Alice couldn't interrupt. I took the replica Scold's Bridle off her head.

"Phew!" Alice said. "Wearing that for ten minutes was bad enough. Three hours would be hell. I'd like to put it on you, Simon, but your head is too large for it. Maybe I could make you eat my used panties instead?"

"I wonder? Would that be a punishment?"

Alice pretended to hit me.

+++

We were making each other helpless several times each day. Both of us experienced the temptation to take advantage when the other couldn't resist. We tried hard to remain professional museum staff exploring the uses of the exhibits but when Alice's lips, or breasts or other parts were so available... It was difficult to resist the opportunities we were giving each other, and awkward because we were still developing a relationship. We liked each other, knew we had a mutual attraction, but so far we were only friends, not lovers.

+++

After our first three months of employment Alice and I were sitting in the tea room of our local stately home quietly complaining about Danny Bohun, our employer and the owner of the estate.

+++

We were History graduates and had both additionally qualified as Museum curators. We had found that getting employed in our field was difficult. Museums wanted people with experience and preferably in depth expertise of the particular museum's speciality. All the others on our course were mature students already employed by museums. But as new graduates how could we get the experience and relevant expertise?

Danny Bohun had seemed to be our saviour. He had approached the university where we had been working as part-time bar staff. He wanted a replacement curator for the collections in the stately home he had unexpectedly inherited five years ago when the more immediate heirs had died in a private plane crash. He didn't need the money or the estate. He had become seriously rich by dubious means. He employed very skilled tax accountants to fend off the frequent investigations by the taxmen. The Police fraud squad had been circling a few years ago but so far he had been declared as a not innocent but not proven fraudster.

He was using the stately home as a tax loss opportunity. Yes, it was open to the public almost all year. But the declared income was far less than the declared expenses. After five years of ownership he had paid no tax at all despite earning many millions each year.

The university had told Danny that Alice and I were seeking employment as curators. The previous curator, Joan Danvers, had been a distant relation of the deceased owners and well past retirement age. She had stayed on but was too frail to continue for the next season. She had inherited a small income, which would be sufficient for her to live comfortably in sheltered accommodation in Wales close to her grandchildren.

We were surprised when Danny insisted on interviewing us together. He offered us a job share. We would be part-time employees on the minimum wage but with free accommodation in part of the stately home. We would share a three-bedroom flat on the highest floor of what had been the servants' wing. He insisted that the offer was for both or us or none. He gave us an hour to consider.

It didn't take us an hour. We were on minimum wage as part-time bar staff. Free accommodation was irresistible even though we weren't a couple and had never been on a date together. Sharing a three bedroom flat couldn't be worse than some student accommodation we had endured, could it?

After we had accepted Danny's offer we went to celebrate with a cup of tea at the local stately home. As university employees we had free access to that place because it was owned by the university even if it was run by a charitable trust. While students, we had volunteered as unpaid guides because the work would help on our resumes.

"Simon?" Alice said suddenly.

I looked at her. She looked serious.

"Why have you never asked me for a date?"

"Why?"

"Why what?" she retorted.

"Why do you want to know?" I asked.

"We're going to be effectively living together," Alice said, "yet we have never been out as a couple. Why? Don't you like me? It will be important that we can work together. So why?"

"OK, Alice," I said slowly. "Yes, it is important. The reason was simple. We were the only two single people of our age on the curators' course. If I had asked you for a date, and you had refused, we would still see each other every day. If we had gone on a date and it didn't work out? It would have been awkward for us. But there was another reason -- David. I thought that you and David were a couple, possibly engaged."

"David? That ended months ago."

"It did? I didn't know, Alice. Why?"

Alice sighed.

"I thought... No. It's stronger than that. I believed that David was someone he wasn't. He is self-centred and selfish at heart. He didn't seem so at first but he started making decisions for us as a couple without asking me first. He made it clear that if we married, and he thought my consent was superfluous because of course I would want to marry someone as marvellous as David, I would be the junior partner, the housekeeper, housewife, sexual object and my career plans would be irrelevant..."

"Ouch!"

"Ouch, indeed. He had no understanding at all of my passion for genuine historical research, or the associations with an historic artefact. He thought history and museums were pretentious nonsense..."

"And it took you what, nearly a year, to find out?"

"Yes. I was stupid. I believed that he valued my brains as well as my boobs. I saw David as a potential husband. He was polite, attentive, even gentlemanly, but it was all an act to get what he wanted -- a trophy wife."

I spluttered into my tea.

"What's so funny, Simon?" Alice asked with a dangerous tone in her voice. "Don't you think I'm attractive enough to be a trophy wife?"

"No. Not that. It was the idea that someone with as much intelligence and passion could be just a trophy wife. That is an insult to you. I'm sure you could look wonderful as a trophy wife, if you wanted to. I know you can present yourself in spectacular fashion at formal events but that is only part of you, Alice, and not the part that is important to you. Even in your formal gowns you don't hide your brains."

"Thank you, Simon. You can look great too -- except when covered in mud on a Rugby pitch. But even in your best evening suit you look like a Rugby player."

"It's the chewed ear, isn't it?" I laughed. "That's not from Rugby. That was a cycle accident when I was about eight."

"I don't notice the ear, Simon. It's part of you. But you are taller than most men, your shoulders are wide and you are massive. You're larger than most bouncers at the local night clubs. They used to look worried when you went in, but after years as a student and postgraduate, they all know you will never be any trouble."

"I'm too big to get into trouble. Even the most aggressive drunks take one look and forget any idea of tackling me. I'm a gentle soul, really..."

"I know, Simon. I wish..."

"Wish what?"

"Wish we had been on a date together."

"We're going to be living and working together, perhaps for years, Alice. We'll get to know each other very well, better than we do now."

"But..."

"OK. Alice? Will you give me the pleasure of your company tomorrow evening when we're not working? Please?"

"Yes, Simon, I would be delighted. To do what?"

"Whatever you want -- that I or we can afford."

"That is a severe limitation, Simon. We're both broke. OK. I would appreciate a walk together through the riverside park and a pint at the Waterman's Arms. OK?"

"OK."

+++

We went for that walk, hand in hand at first, then with arms wrapped around each other's waist. We never got to the Waterman's Arms. We stopped at a bench a hundred yards short and had our first kiss, our second, third and...

When we started work for Danny we had accepted each other as potential boyfriend and girlfriend. We were slowly building a closer relationship and enjoying the process but hadn't gone further than kisses and cuddles. Why? Perhaps we were frightened we would awake passions we couldn't control.

+++

We had enjoyed working with Joan Danvers for the month before she retired. She had no illusions about Danny Bohun.

"He's a fraud," Joan had said. "He doesn't care about history or this estate. It is just an asset to be used to hide money from the taxman. The changes he has made are just to attract visitors. The torture dungeons are nonsense. They were the wine and beer cellars, the cool store rooms for food, and the servants working areas. The grilles in the floor above weren't oubliettes for unwanted prisoners but for ventilation. Half of everything on display was bought from a funfair's ghost train -- the racks, the fetters, the thumbscrews -- all that. Yes, they were well made and solid. They were made by the travelling blacksmith and are 19th Century."

"Is everything fake?" Alice had asked.

"No. That's the problem. Some of what was here is associated with the estate's history. Some of the items Danny bought were genuine antiques from a closed museum. Danny doesn't know but I have recorded all the provenance of everything that was here before he inherited, and everything that he bought, genuine or not. He wanted me to authenticate all the torture implements. I refused. He'll ask you to do it. Don't. It would damage your careers if you agreed to say his fakes are genuine."

+++

That is why we were complaining about Danny over our cups of tea. Three months after we had taken up the post of joint curator, Danny was pressing us to provide fake historical evidence for the items in the torture dungeons. We had refused, together and separately. The Iron Maiden, for example, was a crude 20th Century copy of the original Iron Maiden of Nuremberg that had been lost of destroyed in a 1944 air raid. Danny wanted us to say it WAS the real one that had been found.

If we were to say that any museum curator would laugh at us. A few simple tests would show that the Iron Maiden was made of modern steel in the 1960s. Even the fittings had machine-cut screws and bolts. It didn't even match the known details of the original. Worse -- the original Iron Maiden of Nuremberg was probably an early 19th century forgery. The medieval torture device it was supposed to be was based on a legend that was not known or recorded before the late 18th century. Even that legend didn't match the pictures of what had been in Nuremberg.

If the Iron Maiden had been real, genuine and medieval it would be worth millions. Even the modern copy is worth between ten and twenty thousand pounds as it is because of the skilled workmanship. It is a copy of something that didn't exist in medieval times but a well-made exhibit.

Danny had been insisting that we catalogue and as he put it 'authenticate' all the exhibits in the torture dungeons. So far we had refused to lie for him. Joan's notes had been invaluable. The items bought from the closed museum all had details of their source, date, provenance and the time they had been owned by the museum. All we had to do with the old museum's records was to word-process them, add Joan's notes and match them to the inconspicuous numbers on each item.

The items from the travelling funfair's Ghost Train were better than we had expected. We had thought they would have been for display only, looking like the real items, but might have been made from wood painted to look like metal. They weren't. For their original purpose they were far too good. The metal was genuine iron or steel. Everything worked as it was intended. The fetters locked and unlocked and would be real restraints. The wooden parts were made from seasoned oak. The nails, hinges, clasps etc. were made by the blacksmith, not bought from a hardware shop. It would be easy to pass them off to a non-expert as genuine items -- except for Joan's notes and our training. The funfair's blacksmith had been an artist in his own right. His creations had a value as examples of late 19th century handwork, but not the value Danny wanted them to have as genuine ancient originals.

We couldn't understand why Danny wanted us to create fake provenance for the funfair items. He was very rich even if some of his money was obtained by dubious means and concealed from the taxmen. Authenticating the 19th century replicas might increase his assets by a few tens of thousands but that would be a mere nothing compared to his existing wealth. He might gain a little. Alice and I would have ruined any possible careers as Museum creators if we helped with the fraud.

It was Sunday. We had already worked three hours of unpaid overtime cataloguing genuine items and had gone to the tea room for our free lunch. We felt that we had earned it and the cups of tea afterwards.

"We're already compromised," Alice said. "As Joan was. We are the curators that justify the accreditation of the museum and its artefacts, yet we know many of them are replicas, not genuine."

"Other museums have replicas too," I objected.

"Yes, they do. But they make it clear that they ARE replicas for educational or illustrative purposes. We don't, or Danny doesn't. The public could assume that everything on display is real and historic."

"So what do we do, Alice? We've already annoyed Danny..."

"We have, and we will, Simon. Eventually? We'll have to make a stand or wreck our professional prospects."

"What professional prospects, Alice? No one wanted us without experience."

"But the experience with Danny is possibly worse than NO experience."

"Shall we go for a stroll in the grounds, Alice?"

She knew what I meant. The tea room and all the buildings were covered by an expensive CCTV system that recorded everything in real time. So far we hadn't said anything we hadn't previously said directly to Danny. He knew we were unhappy with the status of some of the items in the museum and worried about our credibility as curators.

"We knew what we were being offered, Simon," Alice said once we were walking down a grassed aisle with tall slim trees on either side. "We two cost Danny less than he had paid Joan, even though both of us are full-time. But we get free accommodation, a free meal each day, and as much coffee and tea as we want to drink."

"I know, Alice. If Danny didn't want us to authenticate replicas, it is a good deal for both of us. Danny pays the Estate Manager, the Customer Services Manager, the Events Officer, the Catering Officer, and even the waiting staff in the tea shop more than he does us."