The Winchester Geese

What is a Winchester goose?

During this time, the local prostitutes were known as "Winchester Geese". These prostitutes were not licensed by the City of London or Surrey authorities, but by the Bishop of Winchester who owned the surrounding lands, hence their namesake and extracted money for their occupation.

This story is inspired by the events of the Wars of the Roses, the unfortunate women forced into whoredom and the exploits of those with great courage.

The Winchester Geese.

Throughout the winter of 1455, God had punished the people around the old city with the harshest of winters, the snow fell in great white flakes and lay upon the ground as a smothering blanket, over three feet thick. Outlying families had little chance of survival unless they could make the arduous trek into the walls of London, around the Southwark gates. By the second month of winter, the Heathcote family could stand it no longer. The two daughters, Amy and Bethany were faced with the awful choice once their father had been struck down with pestilence and come the spring, the Lord of the Manor would take the land from them, as being only women, they were not deemed worthy.

"We must away to London, " Amy, the eldest of only just 20 years packed what few belongings and took her sister, Bethany but two years younger and set off into the bleakness of the snow. The journey was hard, as they were barefoot, and found shelter wherever they could. Both the women were sturdy, and upon the fourth day's travel saw the walls of London through the snowfall.

Amy, a sly and clever girl, knew the gates would be guarded so she waited until the guards changed and slipped through the gate and made their way up the Southwark lane to the bridge over the river. Amy knew the way to the house, that she had been told of. Her Mother's sister, Mary, had left the village and went off to London and had only sent word twice in the ten years that followed. The two girls were naturally stealthy and alert, and despite the cold and their hunger, they avoided the Night watch and anyone who might raise the alarm. Bethany was the one who saw the light in the distance down the alley that backed onto the Wooden spires of St Pauls. Now, starving and desperate, Amy found the side door and tapped on it insistently. Finally, a woman dressed in a swollen blue, low-cut dress opened the door and shone a light from her candle. She looked at the pathetic air and gasped,

"Oh, my lard, Come in Amy! Is that Beth? Come in," By sheer good luck, the aunt had been the last to close the shop.

After stirring the fire, and giving the girls warmed beer from clay mugs, they became more alive. With hard bread and cheese, which they gobbled almost without pause. Their aunt watched them intently,

"Why did you come girls, and in the dead of winter? Is your Pa not with you?" Aunt Mary looked for the answer,

Amy looked up, "Pa passed Aunt Mary, and so did Ma!" She was too cold to weep, she had to hide any grief and rely on her innate practical nature.

"Oh, my poppets, and now you're here. Well, I miss I had gold to give but I'm not a wealthy woman at all. I lost my husband two years since and I live and keep house here as I told your Ma," Mary sighed.

"Can we stay here?" Amy asked, without hesitation.

"For a little while, but you must know what shop this is. The Bishop of Winchester is the man I pay tithe to, and the girls that work here are bawds," Mary looked at Amy, who knew the word straight away, but Bethany looked blank.

"What is this place?" Bethany asked innocently, she looked around the dimly lit kitchen and Mary then stood up and took them through to the stairs,

"Enough now, go to the first chamber on the left, there's an empty bed there, We will talk in the morning," With that Mary, put out the fire and then saw the girls in the chamber.

It wasn't until the morning that the girls heard commotion from the other chambers and voices. It was Amy who noticed that the chamber was quite bare, but along the window sill, and the fireplace had the spent oyster shells. Amy got up, still dressed and peered outside. The upper floor was filled with women, emptying their nightsoil from pots into a larger bucket, which Aunt Mary was then shifting to the door, where a man dropped a few copper pennies into her hand.

Mary climbed the stairs and opened the door, found Amy looking at the oyster shells and Betany still asleep. Amy turned and looked hard at her aunt,

"This is Cunnywarren. Pa told me that you kept a house, I didn't know til I saw the shells," Amy was wide beyond her years and often listened to the words of her Ma and PA when they thought her asleep.

"The oyster disguises the smell of sex in the chambers, and yes I do keep a warren. It's the best I could do after my Nathiel died and the girls needed a safe place. There are too many brothel keepers who would beat the girls, but here I keep them safe. We are the Winchester Geese, and we are guests of the church, though we are buried in unconsecrated ground when we die."

Mary sighed and then shook Beth awake. If you're going to stay, you'll earn your keep by fetching, carrying and making the fires and such, that's your board and lodging, except you sleep when the girls have done with the beds up here.

And that was how it was: at the start.

Mary kept the girls hidden from the men who dropped shillings for rutting with one of the girls. They were; in shapes and sizes, Anne was a large round woman with large tits that some men took to bed, and Maggie was the favourite of the foot soldiers as she could take two at a time in the furthest chamber and could be heard screaming as two men took her at the same time. Still, she seemed happy enough when she took her cut from the nightly purse. The prize of the Cunnywarren was Catherine, her price was two crowns, she was fully fleshed, with high pointed breasts and a comely face, and squires and even a knight came to fill her every two weeks, she didn't need to work every night for her lodging. Finally, there were two Welsh women, who sucked off the penny paupers, they were too well used for the beds, but were highly prized for their tongues and mouths. Amy and Bethany, without Mary's permission, often stole a peek through holes in the wattle and daub walls and watched the women work the men. Amy, who had seen a boy's prick before in her father's sty was still surprised by the size of some and Bethany was shocked and yet naturally curious at what a man did to the girls.

Once Mary had found them peeking in, she decided to let see what a real rutting was and what it would mean to them, should they be seen by a man. Mary scolded them,

"If one of those hostlers saw two tight cunnys in the scullery, he'd pay a purse of crowns to rut you and double that to spill your maiden blood, at the same time! If you want to keep your maidenhead, then keep silent and out of sight!" Mary looked at Amy,

"And if we work the chambers, what do we get to keep on the purse!" Amy had seen enough and saw the coins and wanted her share of the money now. Her virginity was doing her no good here and now the warmth of summer would draw on in the May of 1455, but darkness would come. The streets were filled with men-at-arms and in the palaces across the Thames; royalty and nobility had become contentious, argumentative, and now drawing soldiers to their banners.

But still men took to their heels and knocked upon the warren door, in search of a woman.

"Half, and that's family rates. If you want to give her maidenhead, then I arrange a hitch!" Amy knew a 'hitch' was a breaking-in of a new girl.

A girl's hitch was the only real opportunity to make real money; the cunny visitors would pay greatly for the first dip into a fresh honey pot and both Amy and Bethany were quite lovely, not stunningly beautiful but not plain either. Mary, despite being their aunt, saw the possibility of a shower of crowns and although the girls had been told about the debts, she had accrued to her 'landlord', she could pay out any arrears to the Winchester Bishop, as they were his 'geese', or his whores from which he could extract a price for the cunny warren.

"Well, you best that a peek at Anne, watch her with her special guest tonight and see what you're asking for!" Mary grimaced. As both the girls scurried off to their chores, Mary sighed and shook her head. After a moment, Catherine appeared in a loose dark woollen dress with a shawl to warm her,

"Will the Prior be here as usual?" She asked and Mary nodded.

"Well, he's going to pay double now. He's used my bunghole just once too often and I want twice the usual. Ten crowns if he wants it up there!" Catherine winced, as she moved, not sitting.

"You've got the plug up you, already? "Mary asked, knowing the answer from her discomfort.

"Of course, I 'ave!" She replied, a rueful smile on her face.

"Well, don't get too clever, if you want real money, you need the Prior to make some introductions," Mary knew that Cathrine was still pretty enough and more importantly debauched enough to work her way into the clergy. If she could work them, not only would real money pour in, but her warren would also be able to pay off the bishop in one lump sum.

That night, the generous busted brunette was dressed in her grey nun's robes and waited at prayer in her chamber with both Bethany and Amy peering through a crack in the wall. Nearly an hour later, a tall man in black robes and a severe tonsure entered the chamber and walked up behind then pulled Catherine up from her kneeling position and then drew a chair and she climbed it, facing away from him. He pulled her grey robes up and over the head and she pushed out her neat, naked hindquarters for him. Amy watched intently and Bethany held her hand across her mouth in utter shock as she watched a priest, undo his cassock and drop it to the wooden floor.

"Praise the Lord in his bounty and forgiveness for the sins of our sister here. She stands repentant and willing to receive thy mercy!" The now naked holy man intoned as he stroked his long, stiff prick and then spat repeatedly on the cock's head and rubbed his saliva into it and then levelled it at Catherine's winking bunghole.

"Do you accept the Church's atonement Sister?" The priest asked in ridiculous solemnity, as he was about to spear her anus with his prick.

"I do Father Prior, give me God's great mercy!" Catherine repeated from underneath her grey nuns' habit. Amy saw her tense as the Prior slid his lubricated prick into Anne's dirt hole and began to use it like a cunnyhole. She made soft mewing noises, that seemed to excite the Prior. Amy glanced back to Beth, who was transfixed with the sight of a man fucking a woman in that fashion. Amy, being only slightly older had realised from her own stolen looks at the other 'geese' that men came to empty themselves inside each of the women in different ways.

Amy, despite Mary's insistence that she should be hidden from the visiting men, had seen Gwen and Malla sucking on men's pricks and then swallowing what they emptied into them, smiling with pearl semen still visible. She had stolen a moment or two, and talked to them and asked what they did to the stiffened prickns and in broad Welsh accents, they described how they used their hands and mouths to bring a man off. Amy had even watched Anne endure two of the Lancastrian soldiers that came later one evening, and while one was suckled by her mouth, the other rammed her forcibly from behind and then they changed positions and, in the end, both sprayed the woman on her round teats.

With this latest viewing, Amy had come to realise that her maidenhead, once used would not make her a fortune, but should she be careful, like Catherine, she might find a way to a man that would marry her. She looked back at the now gasping Prior, who shook as he prodded Catherine's bunghole with great rasping breaths until he moaned loudly and emptied himself inside her rectum.

"Oh, my Lord, thank you for thy mercy!" Catherine intoned with a solemn voice.

The Prior sank back onto the floor, his ace red, his prick dribbling still. His thin, wiry frame coated in sweat and Amy saw the stripes on his back made by the whip that he would use later to punish his sinful flesh. Catherine got off the chair, arranged her nun's habit and knelt by the Prior.

"Brother prior, I feel even greater sins and I implore you to take me before the Bishop and let him chastise me further!" His eye cast downward,

"My child, the bishop is now on his way to the place to attend the King and then on to St Albans. I will address this matter upon his return," With that the Prior dressed himself, with Catherine's aid and then blessed her with the sign of the cross and left, leaving a dark leather purse on the chair. Amy and Bethany stole out of the cranny and fled into the warren to avoid any customers or Catherine.

Mary had waited for the Prior to leave, before entering the chamber, and found Catherine struggling with her nun's robes.

"So, did he say when the bishop would be blessing your sins?" Mary asked, looking around for the purse.

"When he returns from St Albans, "Catherine swore, "Damn that man and his dirty prick! I need to wash!" Catherine turned, "What the devil is in St Albans?"

The news was shouted from the streets only three weeks later, that a mighty victory had been won in St Albans by the Duke of York and the King had been captured.

Mary and the 'geese' fretted now at this turn of events.

Amy stood and announced to them,

"This is our moment, with war comes blood and gold. Soldiers who fear that they will not see another day will now empty their purses, for a night of comfort, with us. We should prepare!"

End of Chapter One.