This story takes place in the fantasy world the others are set in around the great city of DunnisUrom. There are new characters as well as characters from previous stories but you should be able to follow without having to read them.
Returning Characters:
Dame Knight Listily: - A female knight of exceptional beauty and skill. She is in charge of the "Third Riding," a sprawling set of lands beyond the city walls.
Kalavan - The Dame Knight's footman. A young man who petitioned to be her servant, having no other good options, and was taken on by her.
Cais Verah (not in this chapter) - the son of a member of a "Great House" (an extremely wealthy family with ties to the royalty). His mother has ordered him to offer his hand in union to the Dame Knight to bring her into their family.
Yais [ Verah ] - a street girl who was selected by Cais to help with a plot that required a skilled pickpocket and became his full time servant (albeit assigned the role of a "pet-girl" since she was part of a criminal scheme). She travels with Cais now.
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DUNNISUROM'S THIRD RIDING: HEATHER
Heather stood out by the fence line and looked at the fields that lay before the dark row of trees that marked the beginning of the Western Wood. Behind her--quite distant--were the walls and towers of DunnisUrom. Despite having grown up in one of the ridings that surrounded the city, she had only been a handful of times. Twice during the Punishment Day festivals which she found uncomfortably fascinating, and to the Harvest Markets where she and her sisters helped her father bring in excess storage to be bid on by the merchant houses.
Even those brief trips had left her unsettled and her mother, a bustling big-boned woman, watching her like a bird of prey in the following days, alert to the positions in bed or time in the out-toilet. The woman must have used a sandglass to time her, bursting in with precise timing to, Heather was certain, assure herself her daughter was not 'in the act' of self pleasure.
No. If her daughter, no matter her age, wished to have an orgasm, she had best get married or join the order where such things would be doled out strictly and unpleasantly! Her mother, bless her and curse her, was an order devout. Heather knew the woman got smacked hard on her bare broad buttocks by her father each moon on a maintenance schedule, whether she'd misbehaved or not.
If she was good enough to warrant it, then she got her orgasmic reward and relief. That her mother practically glowed with satisfaction after this arrangement was a further pebble in Heather's shoes as well as her sister's--but her three sisters, two older, and one younger, all bore their family's rules with more equanimity than she did. Certainly, they didn't like going to the traveling order services that, when they came out to the ridings, were nasty and inventive events--but they went without much complaint and even showed off their various marks or other evidence of their trials and, especially appalling to Heather, saw the awful events as a chance to mingle with boys!
No, she hated it. Her mother certainly meant the best--but she was, in her 18th year, in a constant state of discomfort and the 'urgent itch,' as her mother called it. It left her in foul moods her sisters found amusing---and it led her into more and more collisions with maternal discipline.
Now, trudging angrily along the fence line with a basket of small bright flags and a mallet and nails, she observed each post for integrity and, if it was lacking, was to hammer in a flag to mark it for repair. It wasn't an arduous job, but it meant a day of walking--and thanks to her recent foray into fighting with mother, it was going to be especially hideous.
Generally, she wasn't allowed to wear anything but dresses. Her mother certainly didn't. Her sisters, the two eldest, even had fine ones they wore to attend the farmer's hall meetings every moon so as to catch the eyes of boys! But, her mother, possibly with some kind of spy-glass or telescope, she thought, dismally, had spied her daughter at exactly the moment that, out at the feed stall, had decided to shift her dress and squat to pee rather than trekking around to the out toilet!
Now her buttocks had an aching burn from the humiliating spanking she received--using some of her rare tenderizing oil, rubbed thoroughly into Heather's bottom before the application of her hand. Her cheeks recalled the burning blush of the lecture and scolding--for creating the obscene, immodest spectacle of peeing out in the yard like an animal!
And now, worst of all, the real punishment. She didn't wear a dress--oh, no. She wore a set of pants similar to her father's work clothes but designed for a very specific purpose. They had straps that went from the high waist over her shoulders and then fastened in back like a bra. The fastening was fitted with a hearty lock. The material wasn't rough, but it was extremely sturdy: she couldn't get it down, much less off.
Her mother had cheerily bade her drink three tall glasses of water and a bit of strained juice--so that she would, over the course of the day, produce ample urine.
If she tried to hold it in all day--an unhealthy event!--and didn't return home thoroughly soaked her discipline would continue. If she was going to pee outside, her mother ensured she would experience the full ramifications of the humiliation she deserved.
She'd submitted before she even started out, squatting outside the home, under her mother's arm-folded gaze and blushed and sniffled as the hot stain spread across the seat of her pants, ran out to her thighs and dribbled through the fabric. Her mother, looking smugly satisfied, then sent her out with a sandwich and leather waterskin for her lunch.
She wasn't crying as she trod along each step, a soaked reminder of her punishment--but she certainly trudged under a cloud of humiliated misgiving. Her sisters were going to be especially amused by this and she thought, angrily, she might even have a rash down there after this day-long indignity! OH!
It didn't help that it brought to mind the sight of unfortunates out on display in dangling cages, their wrists and ankles shackled so as they sat, drooping, defeated looking, wearing only a thin shirt and a huge bulky absorbent that, in each case was sodden with urine.
She'd asked her father what was done to them to leave the displayed criminals so worn looking and he told her they were on display from the tickling rooms under the judicial annex where they were exercised to exhaustion and inevitably lost their continence during the horrible process. She remembered looking at them, wet eyed and hangdog. Was their ordeal over following this humiliation and discomfort? she'd asked.
Not for certain, her father had said. When they were returned on the shaming cart in the evening, acolytes of the order would be on hand to assess their degree of contrition. If it was found lacking in any way, they were remanded for another cycle of punishment and display. He told her that given a choice between a public whipping or being sent to the tickling stations the first time many malefactors were caught; they chose the whipping--but never the second.
She thought how awful it must be to be displayed so, in a visibly wet oversized diaper and here she was, chafing and stinking and furious. Heather picked up the pace. She was to be in by sundown, finished or not--and if not, her punishment would simply be extended by a day. It was still well into daylight, but the ghostly image of the Judgment Moon hung low in the sky above the forest.
This was considered a propitious omen for disciplinarians and a dismal one for the punished. It also was said to draw out the Unclean from the depths of the dark, untamed Western Woods. She didn't want to be out at night under a Judgment Moon. She plodded on. It was movement from the fallow fields between the fence-line and the wood that caught her motion--first with the flickering of alarm, then with relief, and then with alarm again!
The movement wasn't something odd and dark, slithering out of the trees and into the old ruts to creep its way closer to their house: it was a pair of riders. Unusual out there, but hardly unheard of. Then, as it became clear they were altering course towards her, she felt the awful heat of possibly being seen (or far worse, smelled) if they got close enough.
Her response of dull resentment rose to a spike of alarm when she made out who one of the riders was! Blessed Sattva!! It was the Lady Knight!!
Much had been made of the arrival of Dame Listily to the riding. She had been gifted the old stronghold by the main road. Gifted--not leased--by the Governor! That, itself, assuring it would be owned by her children decades or even centuries hence. The act of assigning the land thus had angered the folk of the riding. If the tower was owned by the family of a Dame Knight, how could it be assured a protector and sheriff? Would continue to patrol their lands? If her sons decided not to? Or she had no sons? What then?
Moreover, the menfolk had been quite certain in the farmer's hall that whatever tales of this dame knight they had been told, no girl was going to deal with anything from bandits to unclean to land disputes the way a man would! They exclaimed on the folly of this decision and accused the governor of appointing the dame knight to either appease the crown (she was said to be of some relation) or perhaps to give the broadsheets and criers something to shout about beyond his latest tax increase or the stench of the low quarter's sewers!
That was until they'd met her.
