Beth examined herself in the small, polished metal mirror that was one of her family's most prized possessions. A curl of her shiny brown hair was a little out of place. She wet her dainty finger and damped it back down. She was still very beautiful, but she wondered if her ordeal had left some mark or stain that others might see.
It was market day today and her whole family was preparing to leave the farmhouse. It was the first market day since that awful night that she had been raped while trapped in the town's pillory. Beth could not hide all her life. She would have to face the towns folk one day, and today was a good as any.
The mayor had plotted to imprison her in the pillory. That night he had bribed her guard Jethro to abandon his post and then had cruelly raped her. After the mayor had had his fun, three young men had found her, but instead of helping her they had violated her too. Finally, the guard Jethro, when he eventually returned to his post, had forced himself on her as well.
They had all raped her knowing that she could not accuse them without admitting that she was not a virgin. Her marriage prospects and her families honor depended on her chastity. Beth had always seen herself as too good for this little town; she dreamed of marrying some knight or lord and living in luxury. If it was widely known that she was not a virgin, those dreams would have been ruined.
No one knew about her rape except Beth and her attackers. She hadn't even confided in her family. Her mother and sisters were terrible gossips, and she simply didn't trust them to keep quiet.
When she had been raped, Beth was almost a virgin. Her only experience of sex had been when she had let her suitor, a knight's son called John, deflower her in her father's barn. To make matters worse John had been sent away. His promise of marriage had come to nothing.
There were two positive outcomes of that horrible night. The first was that, even though they had deposited their seed in her young womb no fewer than nine times, by some miracle they hadn't made her pregnant. The second was that Jethro's old heart couldn't take the excitement of riding the most beautiful young woman in the county and the exertion had killed him.
There were four men left to punish. Beth was not going to let them get away with what they had done to her. She was clever and determined as well as beautiful and she swore that she would not be just a victim. She would get her revenge.
---
As they reached the market square the family went their separate ways to perform their errands. In the past Beth had been confident to walk through the crowds on her own, but after her ordeal she didn't feel safe anymore. So, she stayed in the company of her two older sisters Mary and Sarah.
She didn't get on well with her sisters. Mary and Sarah resented the fact that their parents spoiled Beth. They worked hard on the farm and in the house, while Beth always seemed to avoid any chores and just sat around looking pretty. While Beth was petite, graceful, and beautiful, her sisters were large, awkward, and plain. It was as if Beth and stolen all the beauty from them and kept it for herself.
When a drunk standing outside a tavern loudly compared the three girls to 'two trolls guarding a princess', Mary and Sarah went puce with rage and humiliation. Beth positively beamed with pleasure at the comparison. Despite all that she had been though, Beth was still lovely. She had worried that her ordeal had somehow marked her, that people would know. But the men still gawped and leered, and the women still looked envious. It was as if nothing had changed.
As she walked, Beth studied any groups of young men she saw. She had never seen the faces of the three young men who had raped her. She looked around her searching the crowds trying to uncover some indication of who her three attackers had been. However, all the young men just gave her their usual hopeless slack jawed stares. Of the young men who had attacked her, one had been quite tall that might help a little. It really would help to identify them if she could look at their cocks; one had been small, one long and thin and one had been thick. However, she couldn't really ask all the men in town to drop their breaches.
In the center of town, she saw the mayor. Her blood ran cold to be in the presence of the man who had engineered her rape. The mayor was a wool trader by profession, and he was too busy bartering over a cart load of fleeces to notice Beth at first. Eventually the deal was done, and the mayor shook hands with the man with the fleeces. He glanced up and saw Beth watching him. She hoped that he would look ashamed, but he just looked her up and down like she was a piece of meat and smirked. How she hated him!
Beth noticed her father moving through the crowd, she wanted to shout to tell him that the mayor had raped her. She wanted her father to strike him down. But then everyone would know. Her father was a decent god-fearing man, and he would have relied on the law for justice. The law that the mayor controlled.
To her surprise, the mayor beckoned her father over and started to talk to him. Beth couldn't hear what they were saying but they both kept glancing towards her as they conversed. To see this evil man in pleasant conversation with her father, to watch her father smile at him and shake his hand was like a knife through her heart. She couldn't bear to watch, she had to get away. Beth turned and pushed her way through the throng. Bitter tears streaked her face. She hated herself for her cowardice, but she hated the mayor more.
---
That evening at home her parents behaved a little oddly, they kept glancing in her direction and smiling at each other. They clearly wanted to talk to her and eventually they took her aside.
Her father smiled at her "I had an interesting conversation today with the mayor. You know that the man has a soft spot for you. Well, it seems that he doesn't just like you. He asked me if he might marry you."
Her father clearly expected this to be happy news. Beth thought that she was going to puke.
Her father was surprised at her horrified expression "I know that he would not be your first choice; I know that you had your heart set on John, but he has gone up to Norwich and he might not come back. The mayor is a little older than you, but he is a successful man and I'm sure that he would treat you well."
"You would have your own house and soon you would have babies. Wouldn't that be nice?" added her mother. "Being an older man, I'm sure that he won't want to 'bother' you too often," she added with a knowing smile.
Beth clutched her mouth and ran.
"At least think about it," her confused father called after her.
She only just made it out of the house and into the privy before she emptied her stomach.
A little later there was a light knocking on the privy door. "Are you alright dear?" came her mother's voice. "Is it your monthly time?"
"Go away!" came Beth's angry response.
Her mother's wheedling voice continued "The mayor was the one who found you with John. He knows that you have been with a man, but he is still willing to marry you. Isn't that nice of him?"
"I'd rather die!"
Her mother, clearly surprised at the vehemence of her daughter's outburst, said nothing for a while. When she spoke again, she sounded a little more serious "I know that the mayor was sworn to secrecy, but I worry that if you reject his offer of marriage, he might be upset. He could start spreading rumors about you and John. Men get so silly when they feel slighted. Please think about it my darling, please be a sensible girl!"
Beth heard her mother's footsteps fade as she returned to the house.
Her choices were bleak; marry the man who had raped her or watch him destroy her reputation. To Beth, one thing was crystal clear; the mayor had to die, and he had to die soon. It was a simple as that.
---
As the days passed, she struggled to come up with any kind of workable plan to kill the mayor. She was too petite and slight to physically attack him. Even a knife in the back was too risky. He was bigger and stronger than she was, and she would be caught.
Then she remembered her mother telling her not to eat any mushrooms that grew in the forest unless she was certain that they were safe. She should be especially wary of ones with white gills and sap. That at least gave her a clue as to what to look for.
An old forest skirted the western boundary of her father's small farm. After searching amongst the trees and undergrowth Beth found three types of mushrooms and toadstools and harvested some of each.
She didn't know which if any of them was poisonous and she could hardly ask her mother. She would just have to test them. Finding the kitchen deserted she quickly chopped them up and put each sample inside a stale bread roll. She would have liked to try them on the mayor himself, but if it didn't work he might become suspicious.
Beth was a very self-centered young woman who didn't much care about the suffering of others, certainly not of dumb animals. That evening she fed the first sample to her father's dog Rex. She didn't like Rex because he kept trying to snuffle her pussy. The second sample she threw into the pen of her father's prize sow. The third she fed to their neighbors sheepdog.
She would return later to see if any of the poison samples had worked. But how to use the poison on the mayor? She could hardly walk up to him and feed poisonous mushrooms to him, he wasn't an idiot. She would have to find a way to slip them into his food unnoticed by anyone. She needed to go to the mayor's house and see if there was a way.
At dusk, she slipped out of the house and made her way into town. She wore a plain cloak with the hood pulled up that belonged to one of her ugly sisters.
Most people had gone home for the evening and the streets were mainly deserted. She didn't want to be seen if possible. She skirted the center of town as there were always men hanging around outside of the taverns.
The mayor lived in a stone house set a little way off the road on the far side of town.
Seeing no one around Beth opened the gate and crept into the garden. Circling the house, she came across a window and gingerly looked inside.
