Some of the feedback I got was a request to see more of Eleni, the Dryad. She is a nature spirit who became infatuated with a human lord and stalked him—first spying on him and then seeking to tease and taunt him. When he struck a diplomatic agreement with the Stag Spirit of her forest, he requested her as part of the agreement. She was turned over to him as a "judicial slave" with the agreement that he would not just command her but ensure she was properly punished when under his service.
She has been under his command for a couple of years. She was first introduced in the great city of DunnisUrom during the Punishment Day Festival.
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Lord Karl Grummand sat in the saddle of his Rathdale. It was a huge horse, a powerful breed and one that could possibly defeat even a Valiance Stallion should they find themselves matched against one.
He gauged the time by the sun. Near Middens. He steered his horse towards the road that led into the small crescent of town that huddled at the foot of Ormally hill, atop which was the stately castle Ormally. The castle he'd been put in charge of.
Ormaburg had colored banners flying over the ramble of houses, shops, and plazas. It had grown prosperous in the last years and now, if there were an enemy or an incursion, he doubted he could shelter its populace in the castle he was the steward of.
He doubted there would be any such danger in his lifetime, but he would look into extending a Mott, in any event: that was what being in command meant. He had many privileges and also many responsibilities.
He saluted the watchmen at the gates of Ormaburg and they snapped back crisp acknowledgements, as their lord rode through the checkpoint. It was hardly a gate, Karl Grummurand thought. The town had expanded too fast for that. It had wooden walls and beams that could be lowered or raised to restrict traffic. The entry was flanked by wooden watch-towers. It was defensible in terms of keeping out bandits or the rare Unclean that might slink out of the nearby woods at night. It wouldn't hold against a real force, but the young men standing on the towers had never seen a real enemy force or an incursion of Unclean. Ormally had ceased to be a front line of defense before even Grummurand's birth.
Still, his instincts told him that the main paths should have stone towers and defensive ditches. If the treasury would tolerate it, he'd look into that.
Beyond the entry points, the street was cluttered with rickshaws, carts, and pedestrians carrying packs laden with goods for sale. To the right was a brick plaza with wooden furniture within it. The punishment plaza. He could see the white robed acolyte waiting to receive him.
He knew he would not avoid an extensive review of the penitents in the plaza: the acolytes were very proud of their service to the karmic debt of the township and it would be deflating if the lord of the castle, meeting with the Proctoress, ignored their handiwork.
He dismounted from his horse, letting two timid looking acolytes try to tend to the beast. It was well behaved, though, and it would not hurt them . . . so long as they were properly submissive to it.
A slim young man in the acolyte robes stood straight, his hands behind his back. His head was shaved, and he wore a fine steel necklace with several keys on it—his subordinate's chastity belts or cages, presumably.
The man bowed deeply. "I am honored to have your attendance, Lord Grummurand," the acolyte said. "Our proctoress awaits your audience. Would you do us the honor of a brief tour of the penitents we are caring for today?"
"Very much," said Grummurand, not wanting to grunt assent. This young man was doing well. Ormaburg was provincial as these things went, and although an acolyte, he was almost certainly common-born and required to show strict submission to his betters. In the Key Cities, the acolytes didn't grovel—but even on his own doorstep, the boy could have decided that his proper greeting of the Lord of the castle would put him on his knees.
Indeed, if he opened his pants, the boy would suck his cock. Grummurand was pleased the boy wasn't trembling or bowing on his knees or any such nonsense.
"My thanks, Lord Grummurand," said the acolyte. "Your presence is very uncomfortable for our unfortunates. It makes their experience more educational!"
A row of stocks held three unfortunates. Two fully adult men, perhaps in their thirties, and a younger woman, sat on a wooden bench with their legs out and feet trapped with the closing of a hinged board.
The men looked disgruntled and looked away, shamefaced when Lord Grummurand was walked up. The woman brought up her shackled wrists to cover her face. He could see the title cards hung about their necks. Drunkenness, Arguing, Gossip.
"Before they are seated," said the acolyte, these unfortunates were given their ages in sound swats from the enclave's paddle—Spirit Breaker. It usually guarantees a very penitent unfortunate when they are seated!"
"Their shoes are removed for tickling?" Grummurand asked, noting the three pairs of bare feet.
"Yes—although it's generally mild if they behave themselves," said the acolyte. "Some of my girls will get slightly carried away at times. We reign them in."
Grummurand nodded.
A set of raised pillories towards the back held two young men. Their shaming signs read Fighting and Stealing. Both were dressed, but looked wretchedly uncomfortable.
"Both wear irritant laced panties under their pants," the acolyte said. "Their tenders also see if they can coax an erection! If they can, it may be displayed."
The boys squirmed in discomfort. Grummand watched a cute acolyte girl, bent over next to the Stealing boy, speaking quietly and sympathetically with him. She stroked his hair as he whimpered and nodded as well as he could.
Satisfied with his acquiescence, she made him take a long drink from a water-skin.
"If the subject is well behaved," said the head acolyte, "Their tender will usually assist them in peeing. It will be humiliating, of course—but better than spending their term in soaked trousers."
Grummurand watched the girl skip happily around to where she planned to climb down from the platform, giving the boy a soft pat on his buttocks.
Grummurand knew that there were those who misbehaved intentionally to get the kind of attention the acolytes gave them. It didn't surprise him.
The three display stools held young women, perched on high stools, looking miserably out and, blushing hard when they saw Lord Grummurand.
"Ah, our socialites," said the acolyte dryly. "The stools are for girls, mostly. If they were to rise, you would see the small blunt rubber pyramids on the seats. The girls are given a sound paddling as well and the seats are made to have their sit be extremely uncomfortable. If they are judged to squirm—"
He indicated one girl who had her hands cuffed in a "fiddle" that wrapped her neck and held her wrists out in front of her.
"Or other such additions." A pretty young woman with eyes reddened from crying, wore a bit-gag strapped to her head. Drool dripped from it and she whimpered. Her hands were cuffed at her waist, attached to thick leather belt, wrapped around her and buckled behind her back.
"Over time, most will accrue more and more additions. The girls are quite creative in coming up with them! And it also attracts boys."
The crime plaques were Backtalk, Masturbation, and Illicit, which usually meant the girl had been caught with some form of pornography or some such.
They looked mortified and miserable and he nodded his approval and followed the acolyte up a flight of stairs and into the enclave's building.
"Thank you for indulging me," said the acolyte. "I have three boys and five girls under my command and I assure you, they were all watching eagerly to see that you approved."
Grummurand nodded. "I do. I know as well as anyone how important it is to maintain a good balance in a township."
The man nodded. They stood before a door—it was made of light wood and seemed to be carved to depict a woman, naked, with an octopus like creature wrapped around her sex, its tentacles gripping her waist and buttocks. The Sea Bride, he knew. One of the old stories.
The acolyte pulled a grip on a small chain and a bell inside jingled to signal their arrival.
"Lord Grummurand!" came the Proctoress' voice from inside. "Please! Do come!"
Gruummurand stepped through the door.
"Proctoress Abagail," he said. The woman stood wearing white clothing—a slit skirt and blouse—with a cape of white cloth with gold trim.
She smiled brilliantly. Coming forward to stand before him as the acolyte shut the door.
"I greet you humbly," she said. "And I am your loyal subject—available in all things."
Her smile was genuine. She looked up at him. He gave her his hands and she clasped them.
"Ah, Karl, it has been far too long since you have visited us."
He nodded, feeling her smooth fine fingers over his larger, coarser ones.
"I have been busy. I now have the Southern Jewel Coast and I am appointed the Warden of the Lindell Wood." He let her lead him to where tea had been set out. She sat next to him, pouring for him and for herself as well.
"I know—The Throne and Crown finds you so capable—thus you accrue these responsibilities like shackles."
"Yes—well, I am not quite so tired that I have petitioned for retirement," he said. He took the tea, as did she. "I do enjoy your company Abagail, never think it is not so. But I suspect there is some reason you sent me a request for this meeting?"
"There is," she said, sitting back up. They sat off to the side and behind her desk was a stained glass window depicting the ancient Proctress Esera in the tentacles of an imundopus, its various arms entering her in ways that were certainly unpleasant even if its skin had not been coated with fine, stinging hairs. An early founder of the order, the scene that had been chosen to adorn Abagail's room was one of humiliation and defeat.
She took a sip of the tea.
"Do you know what an Imp of the Perverse is?" she asked.
Grummurand was extremely well read, but he shook his head.
"We have a penitent abbey, out in the hills," she gestured to the east. "You may have seen it?"
"It sits inside my lands," he confirmed. "I've not been."
"It's a place to send acolytes who fail at a substantial trial or forget their place badly." She gave a little sigh. "An unpleasant place! But also, a sound library and the acolyte sisters who oversee it conduct research and study."
"In to what?" he asked.
"Order things," she said. "Well, if you must know, karmic-mechanics." At his nonplussed look, she gave a laugh. "Think of it as the study of math and physic—but for the deeper world around us?"
"I shall hold to the clarity that explanation gives my thoughts," Grummurand said dryly.
"If you feel I am being . . . difficult," the Proctoress suggested, her voice with a faint hint of slyness, "it is within your domain to chastise me."
His laugh rumbled through the office.
"The Imp—a particular kind of spirt, an unusual kind—appeared there."
"Summoned?" He asked.
