Authors: Jennifer Jane Pope
If the thing hadn't been actually made-to-measure for Angelina's body, then someone had made a damned lucky stab at the size, for it was cut and stitched in such a way that the variously laced sections ensured that the supple leather fitted to my corseted body from tiptoe to neck like it was my own skin. Open-mouthed, I could do no more than lay there as it was inched up me, laces tightened, gradually reducing my figure to an anonymous mannequin.
My body, however, was not the end of it, for as the front was pulled up over my breasts and my arms guided into the sleeves, I saw the shapeless bag attachment now hanging down from beneath my chin and didn't need telling its purpose. Sure enough, no sooner were my upper limbs laced snugly, my already useless gloved fingers now trapped inside an even more limiting mitt section on either side, than I was hefted forward and, while Polly supported me, Meg began tightening the laces at the back and threading them on up until she had drawn the skin about my torso up as far as the base of my neck.
Now the sack-like attachment was brought into the equation and just the way I'd feared it would be. It was pulled up and over my head and down the back of my neck, tightened to fit closely to my skull by means of yet more laces and then the collar part of the main suit was in turn laced tightly over it, a thicker leather collar buckled around my neck over the two and a small lock clicked into place to prevent any chance of removal, not that my now even more useless hands were ever going to effect that.
'Oh, how sweet we do look now, your ladyship,' Meg cried mockingly. 'Like a little calf, or a deer. What do you think, Polly?' The ginger-haired younger maid stepped back and peered at me and I peered back at her through the two narrow slits that now aligned with my eyes.
'Well, she do look weird,' she muttered. 'Don't hardly look human at all, if you asks me.'
'No,' Meg agreed with a grim smile, 'she doesn't, does she? More like a helpless little animal now. Well, don't just stand there gawping at her, my girl, get her boots on and then we can add the cuffs.'
The boots were unusual in that they seemed to have both a platform sole and a chunky heel, quite out of keeping with any fashions I had ever seen depicted for this era, and far more like the sort of footwear I'd been used to clumping about in back in the early seventies.
I also discovered, when I went to move my feet, that there was something else decidedly unfashionable about my new footwear: these boots were by far and away the heaviest things I had ever had on my feet and the weight of them seemed to be out of all proportion, even allowing for the thick soles. Meg, the bitch, waited for a minute or so and then just had to explain.
'Weighted soles,' she informed me with undisguised malicious glee. 'Lead poured into both the soles and the heels. They'll remind you of just what you really are here now.'
'And what's that, exactly?' I said, my voice sounding muffled through the slit opening across my mouth, as Polly began locking a broad leather cuff about my left ankle.
'Why, you're nothing but a slave as far as the master is concerned,' Meg retorted. 'In fact, you're worth little more consideration than the livestock on the estate, and come to that, why that's exactly what we're turning you into now, isn't it?' She cackled out loud at this and any medical man hearing that sound would have had little doubt about declaring her at least slightly insane. Polly, meantime, moved on to my other ankle and I was once again fettered and hobbled, though with the boots on my feet these fetters were just about as obsolete as the pair Polly had removed before taking off my last impossible footwear.
They turned their attention to my wrists next, buckling and locking thinner leather cuffs about them, from which short chains extended to sturdy rings set in the waist at either side of the doe skin suit, preventing me from raising my hands as far as my face, though leaving just enough slack to enable me to bring my fingertips together in front of me.
It was not an uncomfortable form of bondage, but it was a very efficient one. To all intents and purposes I was now completely helpless, unable to free myself nor even any part of myself and now the finishing touch was applied. Meg produced a long leather lace and what I at first took to be a small ball, though this turned out to be a soft wadge of something sewn into an outer covering of smooth leather.
Before I had time to even contemplate resistance, she forced my lower jaw open as far as the enveloping helmet would allow and thrust this foul tasting gag into my mouth. Then, as Polly reached across to hold my jaws together, Meg began threading the lace in and out of the two rows of small reinforced holes that ran above and below the mouth opening, drawing it tight and sealing it completely, so that any chance I might have had of expelling the wad was removed with utter finality.
'Better,' Meg sniggered, straightening up again. 'Just how a little cow should be. Say "moo" for us, little cow!' She began to laugh again as I tried to settle my tongue around the awful obstruction and I had the most terrible feeling that all this, bad enough as it was, was simply the beginning of the next chapter of horrors these evil maniacs had in store for me.
As you've probably realised and as friends and acquaintances have remarked down the ages, I have a somewhat skewed sense of humour and I've always prided myself on the ability to see the funny side and make a joke - albeit a black joke at times - about almost anything. However, as I sat there now, imprisoned inside a skin of leather, hobbled, cuffed and rendered incapable of making any intelligible sounds, for the first time in my life I just couldn't see anything remotely humorous in my situation.
12
.
Whether Hacklebury actually had any money or not, he certainly had wealth in terms of land, for the grounds of the estate, even to judge from that small part I was now able to see, were extensive in the extreme.
At the back of the house the cultivated garden area, with its manicured lawns and carefully tended flowerbeds eventually gave way to a wilder area of trees, shrubs, long grasses and some of the densest bramble bushes I had ever seen. Blackcurrants, blackberries, redcurrants - I identified these three from the berries already forming and beginning to ripen in many cases, but there were others too, which I simply did not recognise.
If this area wasn't cultivated in any true sense, there was at least evidence of man's hand at work, for the path down which they led me, shuffling awkwardly in my bondage and weighted footwear, had not been kept clear by accident. For myself, the leather hide skin I was laced into offered plenty of protection against wandering thorns, but neither maid had that dubious advantage and their skirts would have been torn to shreds in any case, had the way not been maintained to a sufficient width.
Away to the east I detected the first greying fingers of the impending dawn and reflected that it was as well that the daylight approached if we were to continue much farther. The moon, if it was still up, was at least tucked behind gathering clouds and the flickering lantern Polly held before us served only just to differentiate between the undergrowth and the uneven pathway as we passed deeper beneath the canopy of trees.
Several times I stumbled, grunting in alarm, but Meg, who brought up the rear behind me, quickly jerked me back to a balance by means of some sort of strap attached to the back of my leather suit.
'Clumsy little cow!' she hissed, when I missed my footing for the third, or was it fourth, time. 'Watch where you're going.'
I bristled with indignation; easier said than done; still nearly dark and these eye slits did little to improve one's field of vision. Either the bitch was completely oblivious to the obvious or, more likely, I reckoned, she was just emphasising her superiority and deliberately adding to my feeling of sheer helplessness and humiliation.
It was all but impossible to gauge the distance we travelled: my progress was so painfully slow that it felt like miles, though in reality it was probably little more than several hundred yards before we emerged into an irregularly shaped clearing, in the centre of which was a brick built building that was plainly a recent construction, to judge from the colour of the mortar.
In appearance it resembled a large shed, though without any obvious windows. Instead, there was a series of narrow apertures set high in the walls, just below the eaves of the slated roof, which closer inspection revealed were unglazed. If this was to be my ultimate destination and if I was to spend any time inside, I thought grimly, it was as well it was still summer and the awful hide skin in which I was encased would certainly have its uses, and I suspected I might be grateful for the insulation it offered before much longer.
As we made our way around the end of the building, I was able to make out, in the gradually lifting gloom, that the shed in fact formed one end of what appeared to be a small courtyard, the other three sides comprising brick walls perhaps seven feet in height and with a gateway set into the shortest of these opposite the shed end.
This opening was designed to be closed off by means of a roughly timbered door, but as we approached I saw it had been left half open, so that I could just make out the enclosed yard within and the shadowy figure that began to move towards us from the direction of the building. Even in the near darkness, there was no mistaking the fact that this newcomer was a very large male, well over six and a half feet tall and with shoulders that seemed as if they must have been hewn, rather than grown to their current proportions.
Peering out from behind my mask, I saw he had fairish hair, straw coloured, which hung loosely in an unkempt fashion well below collar length - or at least, it would have been below collar length were it not for the fact that he wore no collar. Instead, he was clad in what I could only describe as a black leather vest and tightly fitting breeches and boots of the same colour and fabric.
He paused, framed in the opening for a second or so and then stood back, allowing the three of us to enter. As I passed him I stole a covert sideways glance and saw pale blue eyes and an expression that was both puzzled, amused and perhaps even anticipatory. Anticipatory of what, dear reader, I shall leave to your fertile imagination!
'This is your charge, Erik,' Meg sneered, grasping the strap at my back and hauling me around so that I faced him square on. Don't ask me why, but I just
knew
his name had to be spelt with a 'k' rather than a 'c'. 'Her name, while she is here, will be Buttercup.' She snickered meanly. 'Her real name need not concern you and if you ever learn it, his lordship will be severely displeased.'
Erik inclined his head slightly.
'Of my discretion assured you are,' he lilted. Oh my God, I thought, a real bloody Viking! 'Sealed my lips will always be.'
Meg grimaced as she stepped past me and turned to peer closely into my face. 'And you, dear little Buttercup,' she rasped, speaking so quietly that only I could hear her clearly, 'will never mention any name but the one you have just been given. If Sir Gregory so much as suspects anyone learning your true identity, that person's life will be measurable in hours rather than years. Do I make myself clear?'
I nodded my comprehension. Insane she might have been, but she was a sound enough judge of character to know that 'we' or I would certainly think more than twice before risking being the cause of another human being's demise.
'She is to be kept gagged at all times, except when you feed and water her,' Meg continued, turning again to Erik. 'The suit is also to be kept enclosed except for when she needs to perform her bodily functions. Its workings have been explained and demonstrated to you, I believe?' Erik nodded, his features devoid of expression.
'Demonstrated indeed it has been,' he confirmed. 'Simple enough it is and it shall be done as you wish. Leaving her with me you may now be doing with confidence due.' Yes, okay, so his English was as stilted and as stereotypically Scandinavian as you like, but then who was I to criticise? Did I speak Norwegian, Swedish, or whatever his native tongue was? Too damned right I didn't.
The inside of the shed-like building had been partitioned off, not unlike a stable. At one end was a stall area, guarded by a two sectioned stable door, within which was a simple mattress - straw-filled as it transpired - and a metal bucket set within a low retaining wall of bricks to prevent it being knocked over.
The outer part of the interior, if that's not a contradiction in terms, contained a rustic timber framed bed, a small table and a simple chair. There were shelves along one wall, upon which stood a variety of bags and metal containers, together with an assortment of jars. Away in the corner a heavy metal bowl stood upon a stand made from more bricks, and two stone pitchers stood alongside this. If these arrangements were for Erik's benefit, I realised, then his comfort here would be only a marginal improvement on my own. Still, his Viking ancestors would probably have laughed in the face of far worse deprivations...
...reflection time...
Things were going from bad to worse, but then it didn't need a rocket scientist to come to that conclusion. Dear Gregory, having had his wicked way with me in best melodramatic novel traditions and then some, seemed to have lost all interest, possibly preferring to concentrate his efforts on the Angelina doppelganger, or just as possibly content to go back to screwing Meg. Either way, I had been rapidly and unceremoniously reduced in the ranks and seemed to be consigned, for the time being at least, to a life in what could best be described as a byre.