Thanks again to Nouh Bdee, who introduced us all to Leinyere. This is my second contribution to that universe, and I hope you enjoy it. This story stands as a VERY loose sequel to my It Pays To Be Nice, Sometimes; same neck of the Marches, anyway, but the two are only tangentially related.
* * *
The Stews were a fairly nasty place, it was true... but even here, in the poorest domain of the shoddiest province in the very lowest of the Stews, it wasn't every day they chucked a noblewoman in the pillory.
It certainly wasn't the pillory itself that was unusual, that was for sure, and I'd stood guard beside countless petty (and a few not-so-petty) criminals during their humiliating hour in the sun, bent over naked, pinioned at neck and wrists for the edification of the passing peasantry.
I always stood well away from the poor bastards they threw in there, particularly if they were women. That's when it could get really nasty, especially if the woman was a cutie. All the pilloried wretches got things thrown at them, ranging from the mundane rotten tomatoes or eggs, to lumps of human shit. All of them were jeered at, cursed, insulted, pissed on. All of them started scared and ended terrified, needing to go home and take a three-day nap.
But the women. Well. Many times, we had to beat back drunken bumpkins who grew a bit... amorous, let's say? Who tried to sneak around behind and stick objects into places those objects did not belong? Who did all manner of things that, if their wives saw them doing it, would have gotten them cut off from marital relations for a month, at least. Why, just a few weeks before Her Ladyship was thrown in there, my friend Gilbert had had to smack the shit out of a sot from the countryside who'd snuck behind the pillory to jerk his prick to the sight of the (admittedly fine) ass of Sasha, the miller's wife, who'd been caught in an unfortunate situation with her husband's business partner.
I'd not been there that day. I'd been on duty up in the castle, but I'd been staring down into the courtyard instead of out at the road. Although, that's not how I knew what a fine ass Sasha had; that knowledge had come earlier, when she and I had gotten to know each other one night after the bloodfights down on the common.
So Gilbert and I were in charge of the pillory the day they clapped up Lady Manda. The priests were keeping quiet about just why they'd done something as crazy as pushing the Lord's wife between the slats, but that just meant people would come up with their own reasons. And what people! They came from all over the Dale to see their overlord's wife's tits, and to be fair, I probably would have too.
"No monkey business," we'd been told in no uncertain terms: Thorald, the Sherriff, was planning on being there to oversee this one personally (from behind, of course, so that he could look up m'lady's bunghole), but he was no fool. He knew the people hated him, and was expecting his share of tomatoes and eggs too. "Tolerate
no
undue disrespect to Her Ladyship, you hear?"
"Can we kill people if they get too close?" Gilbert asked eagerly.
Thorald glanced at me, but I made sure to stay carefully lemminglike. "No." He ran his fingers over his chin through his beard. "I'll authorize up to three fingers from any given peasant." He considered some more, sucking at his lower lip. "Plus one ear if they're men. And
only
if they act up. Fair?"
"Fair, Sheriff." Gilbert rubbed his hands briskly together. He just wanted to bleed someone, and he glowered out at the crowd like Shall'a the Cloudbringer herself as the stablemaster led Lady Manda out the gate and toward the ol' slats.
"But only if they try to touch her," he stressed, shouting now over the rising hisses from the crowd. The hisses were ignorant: nobody out there knew exactly what Her Ladyship had done. But the priests were putting her in the pillory, so all the peasants knew was that she must be a Very Wicked Person. And, of course, you always hissed at Very Wicked People. Folks had come into Hallowhall from miles around to see this.
For, again, it wasn't every day they chucked a noblewoman into the pillory.
I kept my eyes carefully ahead as the High Priest stood at the edge of the platform and read out the judgment, his fine rolling voice filling the whole marketplace, and then he turned and nodded to his underpriests. I made sure not to look as they stripped her, hearing nothing but the usual noises: an indignant yelp or two from her, then the sound of ripping cloth, then the hushed
oooh
from the crowd as her tits came out.
The crowd always liked tits, and Lady Manda certainly had some.
She squealed again as they brought her forward, and now I could see her out of the edge of my eye: nothing but a pair of hands and that fine, high-boned face of hers as they pushed her down into the holes and then brought the beam down, trapping her hands and head between the thick wood. I spared her a thought or two, for nobody really likes to see a lovely woman brought so low, but then I had work to do as the underpriests, leering down at her bent naked back, locked the slats.
"Behold, a sinner!" the High Priest thundered, and that was our cue: Gilbert and I drew our swords with the kind of ringing flourish that impressed the commoners, and we stepped a discreet pace away from the pillory. Meanwhile the priests scampered off, because it never took long for the tomatoes to start flying once the High Priest had said his piece.
And so the hour passed to the weeping of m'lady and the jeers of her people, while I just tried not to get any stains on my tunic. I succeeded for the most part, and it was a good day out: the sausage sellers made their money, the crowd got to throw eggs at their Lord's naked, humiliated wife, she remained unraped, and Gilbert got to slice of seven fingers (and one ear!). So on the whole, everyone was pleased.
But... well. That's fucked-up, locking up your own Lord's wife. And that was the day I thought it might just be time for me to get out of the Lower Stews, for good. Especially if Wendy didn't get her monthly blood, and soon.
* * *
Just three minutes naked with that old bitch Hilda, and I already knew I was going to have to give a lot more than I'd bargained for. The woman was almost forty years of age, I assumed, and I'd reckoned she'd be grateful enough for a look at my balls, a few pumps of my cock, and my seed on her thigh.
But no. She was already turning out to be horny and supple as a springtime maiden, her naked body surprisingly sexy under the prim clothes Lady Manda made her wear. She was down between my legs now, lapping at my balls, that wet warm tongue lifting each nut in turn with a look of lazy, catlike contentment in her crafty eyes.
Based on how she talked, I'd expected her tongue to be sharp as a dagger. I guess that's a figure of speech.
I cleared my throat. "Did you not want to get started?" I asked.
She chuckled, her breath a series of warm bursts through my curly pubes. "I've already gotten started, soldier. As I think you've noticed," she winked, both of us glancing at where my cock rose iron-hard and sturdy above her head. I peered at her curiously. We'd both been working in Lord Berken's household for awhile, and in all those years this was the first time I'd ever seen her hair uncovered. I was surprised that so much of it was still dark. She kissed my scrotum. "Were you in some sort of hurry, young man?"
Well, actually, I was. A pretty big hurry. The need to get going, to set this little plan of ours into motion, burned in my head like my lust burned in my loins. A week! A week since Lady Manda had been clapped up! Time pressed at me, and I had things to do. But none of that could happen until Hilda played her part with Her Ladyship, and Hilda wasn't going to do that until she'd taken what I'd offered in return for her help: a vigorous roll in the hay out in Lord Berken's stable block with the late-afternoon sun streaming in. "It's just that I was hoping you could mention me to m'lady before supper," I ventured.
Another chuckle, more warm breath on my skin. My rigid cock shivered. "I'm already eating my supper," she gloated, her eager lips nibbling wetly along the ridges of my shaft before she opened wide at the top, engulfing me, and the sight of that experienced mouth sucking my cock deep inside made me groan, my head falling back against the wattle walls. "I'm savoring it, as well," she continued, talking to my meat, kissing every surging inch of me as she worked her way back down to my root.
She felt good, dammit. Vaguely, it occurred to me that I should have fucked her before, that I might have been too quick to write her off as an old maid. Sure, there'd been that one time, that bet at Yule when she'd sucked me off in front of all the servants, but that hadn't felt as good as this. Maybe, just maybe, some of the other older women around the household might be worth a length, at least as much as little Wendy the fuller's daughter, her with the roguish dark eyes. Her that was driving me out of this town, this household, this domain, maybe even out of the Stews, and probably forever, and all because her sweet little slit had simply felt too good to pull out of before I'd launched my duff into her.
So in about seven months' time Wendy would produce a pewling babe, and no doubt the fuller would curse my name and complain to His Lordship, and if greedy old Hilda did her job this evening Manda would tell the man,
no, sorry, I sent my paladin Pewick to go hunt down that escaped sneak-thief Nellie, and he's not come back. I fear he might be dead, master Fuller.
And then, knowing Lady Manda, she'd spread her noble legs and offer the man a place to lodge his cock for the night. Or? Maybe not.
