Lady Jane Larch’s cousins and other young men had left for the hunt and she had been determined to go with them. Legends were made from killing and especially capturing trolls and she wanted part of the glory. Besides, the castle was dull and beyond the forest were magical creatures of all kinds and trolls were the best she could hope for.
There were however a few obstacles to the slender golden haired beauty’s plan. Firstly the hunt was forbidden to women by law. A stupid law made by a faraway king who had no business making laws for the people of the March Lands in the first place, but it was a law nonetheless and one which was strictly enforced; very strictly.
Lady Jane’s second problem was that she had been caught at the first hurdle, a forbidden sword at her hip and dressed in boy’s clothes in the castle courtyard with a horse. The possession of a sword and the wearing of male clothes by a woman were strictly forbidden by other laws that were strictly enforced. It really did not look good at all.
“I was just going for a ride,” she had told her guardian’s chatelaine.
Dame Mary was the keeper of Lord Garand’s house and the young crone had the eyes of the black hawk she resembled.
“That, young lady, is a lie,” Dame Mary had scolded her.
Under Lord Garand’s direction, Dame Mary had a way of dealing with liars. The maids would take a whipping every Sabbath for a season rather than be caught out in a lie by the Chatelaine.
Lady Jane had hastily tried to retract her falsehood but Dame Mary had grabbed her by the ear like the naughty boy she was dressed as and hauled her off to see her guardian.
That had been some hours before and now she stood naked but for her shift in the main hall where Dame Mary had left her. The linen blouse was too coarse for her station and one she wore to ride in. But unlike her more feminine under shirts, this one was short and barely covered her hips. Thank God Lord Garand had dismissed the guard from the hall, she thought with unbridled gratitude.
Jane reached around to the back of her shift and felt the exposed lower curves of her bottom peeking under the hem. It wasn’t that much better in front, she thought ruefully as she tugged it down over the silk golden triangle of hair that was little fingernail’s width from being exposed as well.
At least the damn shirt came up high to cover her large breasts, but that did not stop the nipples from visibly hardening against the linen in front. Thank God, there are no guards, she prayed again silently and please let them not come back.
Her eyes darted to the corner by the high table and a little behind it. She remembered when her young cousin Eloise had stood there dressed much as Jane was now. The 19-year-old miscreant Eloise had faced the wall with scarlet welts displayed on her bottom for the edification of the entire castle. Up to now Jane’s own suffered indignities had been more of a private affair, although a very sore bottom and many corners had played their part in them.
This time it was different she knew. She had not only disobeyed her guardian but was in open breach of the law. She shivered. Please, please, please let him just spank me, she prayed, but she knew that the best she could hope for was being handed over to Dame Mary who would no doubt remember the lie as well.
Her speculations were interrupted by the arrival of four maids carrying a large curved stool. They were led by the chatelaine herself as they half carried and half dragged the great oak and leather throne-like furniture to the middle of the room in front of the great table. Jane’s heart sank, especially when she saw the large governess birch cradled in Dame Mary’s arms.
At least there are still no guards she consoled herself, but the smirking maids marred her hopes somewhat. Then even that consolation was completely crushed.
Lord Jerome, her guardian’s eldest son, swept into the hall accompanied by Jeffrey, his gallowglass and Jane swallowed. She had thought Jerome out on the hunt, one of the principal reasons she had wanted to go. Oh don’t let him see me like this, she quailed inwardly. Jane hugged at her breasts with one hand and tugged the hem of her shift down in front with the other.
Jerome was tall and dark with his hair cut in a military style. He carried himself with broad-shouldered pride and even in just his shirt he looked powerfully broad with unwavering chestnut brown eyes that were almost black. Garand’s son was eight years her senior and she supposed that now he was near 30, he was no longer so well disposed to frolicking with his brothers when his father needed a strong right hand.
“Why are you such a trial to my father?” Jerome said impatiently. “Why couldn’t you have sneaked out side-saddle in a dress like my sisters do on troll hunts? Everyone knows what you intended and this can’t be settled with just a sound spanking.”
Eloise was to be spanked then, Jane thought gleefully, forgetting for a moment her own fate. She glanced at the corner and pictured her cousin standing there with her red bottom on show.
“My father has given your punishment over to me foolish girl,” Jerome sighed, “So come here.”
Jane gulped and blushed to her golden hairline tinting even that a momentary pink.
“Later you will be confined to your room until further notice under the direction of Dame Mary,” Jerome told her, “Frankly I hope she uses your tail end for spanking practice for the rest of the summer.”
Jane gaped and shot a glance at the row of smirking maids. The rest of the season would be much worse than that now that the chatelaine owned her bottom. A semi-public spanking in the upper salon would just be an amuse bouche for some extensive bottom-centric adventures, she thought grimly.
Jerome sat down on the throne-like stool and patted one knee.
“A spanking first,” he said.
Jane’s cheek’s coloured and she looked in horror at Jeffery. Surely he wouldn’t get to watch, he was low born she bridled. But Jerome didn’t wait and in a moment she was hauled over his lap with her bare bottom uppermost.
“Decorum, appearances and respect for the law,” Jerome chided her as he brought his firm paddle-like hand down on her exposed behind.
The sting robbed her of breath and compared favourable, that is to say unfavourably, with Dame’s Mary’s hairbrush.
“Please my lord,” she squealed.
“You don’t please me,” he scolded, “You enjoy all the trappings of this family and bear none of the responsibilities.”
He spanked her again hard with great smooth sweeps, turning her pert white bottom to a peony red in moments.
“I’m sorry,” she wailed. Sorry she was caught, she thought, her teeth clenched tight.
“You will be. When I am done here I am going to birch you raw and be thankful I don’t hand you over to the beadle,” Jerome barked at her.
The young lord spanked her for a goodly while before he was even close to being satisfied.
“You can have a stint in the corner to think about what you have coming next,” he said once he was done with her.
Jane was lost in tears and past caring about her shame. Just then the corner sounded like a welcome respite.
*
At that moment far across the Evergreen Forest another youngster was meeting a similar fate. The elven folk were just as exacting when it came to keeping youth in line and one particular youth was the thirty-sixteen Aerin.
This particular juvenile elf was also keen on the troll hunt, and had sought some magical help in her would-be pursuit. Her obsession with trolls was ingrained deep. Any that knew her would say it was because she held her dignity in high esteem and craved the status that went with being a great troll hunter. But that was only part of her story.
True she had been drawn to tales of heroism from an early age. Also she had a need for status in a world where her elders were often a thousand years or more her senior drove. But that was not the whole story. There were after all many ways to gain status.
Aerin’s obsession with trolls had begun years before when she was still sneaking into taverns to hear hero’s tales. One day two hunters had come in from the wild with stories of their adventures. They claimed to have been captured by trolls and held as prisoners for weeks. They further claimed to have traded their lives for sexual favours. This had drawn great hawking of mirth from the tavern goers. An older wiser elf girl might have suspected some embellishment was the order of the day, but Aerin was neither old nor wise.
“Trolls have male parts like horses,” said one of the hunters holding her hands widely spaced. “And their favourite sexual sport is buggery.”
“And when they want a lick,” said the other with glee, she made a motion with her fist and mouth so that her tongue pulsed her cheek as she spoke; “A girl can scarce get her lips around it.”
The pub drinkers all howled with laughter while a young Aerin had sat wide-eyed and squirmy.
“Do they have you by the mouth ‘fore or after the buggery?” asked one mirth filled customer.
“They have you anyway they want or they tan the skin off your arse worse than my gaffer ever did,” the second hunter girl threw back merrily.
The ribald tales continued until Aerin’s head had spun. Later she had retired to her cot to experiment with various vegetables while contemplating a spanking form a troll.
Now as an older if not wiser elf girl and would-be troll hunter she had hit upon the idea of borrowing a little magic to aid her. The street door to the Sorceress Glandrith’s house had been tantalisingly open and beyond it the library door had been ajar. What harm could taking a little book or two do anyway?
Unfortunately her experiments had gone a little awry. The books that she had chosen had been put under a trivial but inescapable forbidding spell. Some of the tomes had burst to fire with such a sound and fuss that Glandrith had appeared at once. The consequences were embarrassing, painful and immediate.
“Not here, please not here Glandrith,” Aerin pleaded as the Elder plucked a razor switch from the prerequisite tree.
‘Here’ was an upper concourse outside Glandrith’s house near one of the main bridges leading to the main thoroughfare.
The Elder ignored Aerin’s pleadings and easily bested her with a light justice spell that enabled Glandrith to put the reluctant elf across her knee without a struggle. For good measure and to thoroughly make her point, Aerin had been hastily half-stripped the girl until she was almost naked with her small but prominent bare bottom made even more prominent over Glandrith’s knee.
The sorceress then tapped Aerin’s bottom with the switch and considered her next move. This was going to be a lesson the girl would remember for a thousand years she decided. Theft and illicit magic dabbling were not to be tolerated.
Both being Forest Elves, they both had yellow-white hair and crystal blue eyes. But where Glandrith was pale in complexion, Aerin was sandy red from an outdoor tan. Her bottom, although small, was a good one and the Elder was determined that it would be well-serviced.
“Now my little one, do you want a chafing spell for your relish or a compulsion?” Glandrith grinned mischievously.
Aerin had suffered both as a student of her master, neither was to be envied or ever forgotten.
“Oh please, please, please,” Aerin wailed, “Not here, please don’t.”
Already one or two villagers had gathered on account of the commotion and one of Aerin’s companions gaped in wonder at the scene. I’ll never live this down, she thought bitterly.
“Chafing or a compulsion?” Glandrith pressed the bare-bottomed girl over her knee. She was in no hurry. “Ask me nicely for one or I will employ both.”
A chafing would ensure that Aerin’s bottom would be too sore to cover let alone sit on for at least a month and a compulsion would compel the hapless younger elf to seek Glandrith out for a top up as soon as her flesh was half healed. The elves were a hardy long-lived race who could recover from almost anything non-fatal. Such sanctions were both commonplace and necessary.
Linking the two spells would put Aerin’s bottom at Glandrith’s pleasure almost indefinitely.
How to choose, Aerin wailed inwardly.
“Is it to be both then?” Glandrith teased.
Permanent exposure and standing up for meals at the communal table would be a shame beyond measure. A switching every three or four days until the spell wore off was marginally preferable even if some of her punishments were public like this one.
“Consider your next words very carefully,” Glandrith warned Aerin.
“Please Elder Glandrith, I was wrong to take your books and I am sorry. Please punish me very severely and lay a compulsion on me to return for further correction for as long as you decide is just,” Aerin said miserably.
“Are you sure young Aerin? I usually like to ply my switch to a bottom well-seasoned with stinger oil and bite crystals. My students find it most instructive,” Glandrith explained.
She hadn’t resolved yet to be quite so cruel, but she would definitely employ the technique once or twice if Aerin was contrite. More often if she was not.
Aerin’s eyes went wide and she considered pleading again. Damn this do-gooder sorceress. School, bah, it was strictly for goody-two shoes and nasty swats.
“Might I ask if my punishments will be in private?” she whispered.
She hated that there was a small audience and that they could hear her beg. Some were already laughing at her.
“Most of them I expect, so long as you call on me before the compulsion is upon you and you bring your own switch, stinger oil and bite crystals. I will teach you how to blend them if you are good,” Glandrith teased.
“Ooh,” Aerin wailed, hastily adding, “Yes of course lady, I am so grateful.”
She tried to sound respectful and earnest as any hint of sarcasm or bitterness would be punished. It was the elven way.
Aerin had been spanked once or twice using bite crystals or stinger oil. But her mentor had never used them together. Oh well, her tight doeskin breeks would be in her wardrobe for a while and as for sitting down… well at least she could keep her tail covered in public if she were careful. If she wore very light short skirts, she pondered. At least she hoped that would be the case or else her surrender was for naught. As it was her switching would be the talk of the village for days.
The switch sliced across the crowns of her bottom and Aerin knew she was in the hands of an expert. The fiery gift was one that went on giving and as the pain built. The line of searing fire continued to saw into her until Glandrith laid another stroke neatly below the first so that the two stinging welts could sing together.
Aerin was a tough girl, but by the time the duet of pain had become a choir she was drowning out the chorus with an unseemly song of her own and one that could be heard across the elven village.
“Oh please my lady, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she wailed, little pearls of moisture tumbling down her shame-red cheeks.
For the watching audience the sight of a bawling mewling elf-girl had them cackling with glee.
Glandrith took no notice of any of them as she set in to administer a long, long sound switching on behalf of her books; a switching that could take up much of the afternoon if she crafted it just right.
*
The coming and going in the hall for the evening meal was almost disconcerting in its normality. There was the usual hubbub of chatting and the clink of pottery jugs brim-full of ale. And yet for Lady Jane it was possibly the worst night of her life.
She was standing in the corner of the hall still dressed only in her short shift. Only this time it had been tucked-up well clear of her bottom exposing the red rash of birch rod spore that expansively stained the curve of both cheeks. The relentless throbbing fire that mercilessly pulsed there showed not least the hint of abating, so much so that it had taken most of the afternoon for her to bring her rather copious tears under control. Even now her bottom felt twice its normal size with a million hornets all crawling and stinging as they made a home under martyred skin.
Earlier after the spanking and a long and embarrassing enough time in the corner, Jerome had summoned her again and bent her across the stool in a crudely obscene arse up posture as if she were nothing more than a maid servant. Then he had thrashed her slowly and hard for a time beyond counting until all her defiance had fled and she cried like a baby and promised to be good.
Even compared to the first time, her return to the corner had been a blessed relief and she could have kissed Jerome’s boots in gratitude for his small mercy. But that had been hours ago. Now she was acutely aware that she was shamefully exposed to the mirth of the court and unrelenting rasp pain in her bottom promised to make sure she never sat down again.
Once, after the evening meal in the hall when none seemed to have any further regard for her, she stole a glance over shoulder. The gruff guards were bad enough as they stood as silent witnesses to her shame and the idle yet admiring glances of her male cousins was mortification admixed with an unnamed thrill. But worst of all were the women who huddled together giggling in loud whispers as they made no effort to disguise their mockery of her. Lady Jane wanted to melt into the floor.
Nor did it get better as the evening wore on. For as the hall emptied Jane became ever more conscious that she was again the centre of attention. So much so that once the cousins had retired for the night she had another little cry.
Finally Dame Mary came to remove her to bed.
“My lady, you are in such trouble,” Mary chided her as she led the way with a single candle. “Your tomboy days are over my girl. By the time I am finished with you, you won’t dream of trolls or troll hunts.”
But that was the trouble, she did dream of them and she was more determined than ever to hunt one.
*
The Evergreen Forest was a haven for all her kind and the night sounds and music of the trees soothed her. The gentle throb in her bottom even seemed to match that of the elf song that rang through the forest. And perhaps because she was still under the influence of Glandrith’s justice spell, Aerin felt cleansed and could not find it in her heart to resent the Elder or her harsh punishment.
The sore-bottomed elf shifted on the bed where she lay face down naked and pondered her next move. She could not possibly stay around the village until her punishment was over. She had trolls to hunt. Even her mentor Paris, an ancient elder from the distant sea, had said as much.
Well he hadn’t exactly said she should evade punishment or that she should actually hunt trolls. But he had said, “When will you amount to anything girl? Why are you always so late?”
He had said this while she was bent over the mushroom stone in the yard while he belaboured her bare welted bottom with his belt for being late home.
He didn’t ask where she had been. The whole village was talking about her punishment and even if he hadn’t heard, the welts on her behind told their own story. Paris took no notice of these as he beat her with his belt to the full measure. She didn’t mind much, not beyond the shaming pain anyway. He was entirely within his rights and she deserved it. Damn that justice spell, she cursed. How was a girl ever going to get up to mischief?
“Whatever you do or don’t do in this life,” he always told her, “Don’t get caught.”
It was sage advice and in this at least she had failed him.
Now she had the same problem as before. How did she escape Glandrith’s compulsion? She could try stealing a book again, but that hadn’t worked out too well for her so far. Maybe she could work out some sort of deal with the elder, she pondered as she listened to the sound of the music of the forest.
In a day or two, three or four at most, she would have to gather a switch and the other ingredients for her torment and report to Glandrith for another prolonged tail blistering. There was no getting around that. But she had to come up with some sort of deal by then.
*
Four days later Lady Jane knelt at the prie dieu with a bottom that felt like it had been kitchen roasted. Only it was not only the surface of her hinds that gentle throbbed with a soreness that rasped even against the air of the room. The small bud between her cheeks glowed like a hot pepper stone with an intensity that burrowed deep. The chatelaine was nothing but thorough in her cleaning as the soapy taste of loam testified. Both were a fraction of the consequence for her lies.
She had been counselled, no commanded, by Dame Mary to kneel there with her bottom exposed and read the advanced encyclopaedia of etiquette for noble ladies. It was an almost impossible task as she had to memorise the long boring passages she had been set, but failure to do so would result in another spanking and some lengthy corner time contemplating a gruel supper. That’s if she got any.
She remembered when Eloise had been so treated. She had been as meek as a kitten for months. Jane had found it highly amusing to see the immaculately turned out Eloise routinely made to ask for spanking just to teach Eloise her place. It wasn’t so funny now.
“If I could only escape and capture a troll,” she said aloud, “Then even Lord Garand would listen then. That would wipe the smile of their faces.”
Beyond the Evergreen Forest another young woman harboured similar thoughts of escape.
Earlier that day Aerin had stood at the back of one of Glandrith’s classes. It had been a dull complex lesson right up until the time a 22-teener girl had been called out for her inattentiveness. Aerin had joined the class in laughing as the young woman was turned over Glandrith’s knee for a prolonged bare-bottom spanking as a prelude to being sent to the corner still exposed for the rest of the lesson.
“Ah, young Aerin,” Glandrith said brightly after the young elf woman was dismissed.
“I have come for my appointment,” Aerin said ruefully as she held up the razor switch, a bag of bite crystal and a bottle of stinger oil. “I traded for the best and the merchant assured me that the young lady I had in mind to punish wouldn’t sit down for a year once she had experienced his goods. I suspect he was exaggerating a mite, but…”
“Only a little,” Glandrith said evenly. “I must say your attitude has improved.”
Aerin blushed.
“I am sorry about before, really I am. I deserve all I got,” she said sheepishly.
“And all you are going to get,” Glandrith smiled humorously.
“Yes my lady,” Aerin chewed at her lip, “I agree.”
Damn the woman, Aerin thought.
“Had you come tomorrow and dragged this out I would have punished you in front of my class,” Glandrith said casually, “They are a cruel lot, as am I. We would all have enjoyed that tremendously.”
Aerin blanched.
“It is very useful in my studies you see,” Glandrith explained, “I seldom get the chance to so thoroughly test my methods.”
“Why not capture a human, aren’t they fair game?” Aerin suggested conversationally.
“Human women are so hard to come by and few ever venture into the forest,” Glandrith said with regret.
“You could trade a half share in a troll for a dozen human girls,” Aerin suggested gently.
“Is that so?” the Elder smiled, she sensed an offer in the making.
*
Aerin’s bottom had been polished for long minutes with a paste made from bite crystal and stinger oil. The acid gunk had felt both abrasively sticky and harshly dry by turns as it had been applied, but that unpleasantness was nothing to the slowly growing rasping pain as the intense itching first prickled and the began to burn. The concoction lived up to its name and the hapless elf-girl felt as if her bottom had been peeled back with flaying clout and birched for a year.
Then she had been required to kneel on a bench at the back of the open class and bend over with her elbows on the floor and her bottom uppermost. The undignified semi-public position would have been enough by itself to cause the tears that sprang to her eyes, but the paste liberally applied to her bottom made her feel as if she had already been switched.
“Feeling tender?” Glandrith asked as she tapped Aerin’s bottom with a razor switch.
Aerin gritted her teeth and struggled with her breathing as she replied, “yes ma’am, thank you ma’am.”
“Now let me see if I have this right,” the elder elf said in a considered tone.
The switch cut the air and landed with a satisfying thwick. Aerin’s eyes flew open and she hissed with pain.
“You wish to be temporarily released from your debt to me in order to hunt a troll. In exchange for sharing half your stake in this creature, you wish to be released form my thrall altogether,” Glandrith pondered aloud. “What if you don’t capture or kill this troll?”
The switch plied its trade vigorously for several strokes actually making Aerin yell out and squeal. It took several moments for her to compose herself. Then in a tight voice she managed, “Well… then I will return to face the music, as it were.”
Yeah and snow don’t melt in summer, she vowed quietly.
Glandrith nodded imperiously and then studiously and firmly resumed the switching.
“Nyah,” Aerin groaned and then even more incomprehensibly began a litany of pleading like yelps.
“So if you don’t get this troll, then what is in it for me?” Glandrith said in a pause.
Aerin was trembling now and she struggled with great heaving gasps. The elder elf waited patiently. She understood.
“The combination with the paste is rather effective isn’t it?” she murmured idly.
“Oh yes ma’am,” Aerin’s voice strained.
“And so, you were saying?” the Elder urged her switch hovering menacingly over Aerin’s raw behind.
“Y-you get the chance to gain the troll,” Aerin was struggling now.
“How confident are you of besting a troll?”
“Oh I can do it ma’am, really I can,” Aerin sniffed.
Glandrith pursed her lips and then focussing carefully on Aerin’s bottom she began a long and thorough series of swipes that sent the elf maid to wild gyrating and bucking.
“You’re a thief and therefore untrustworthy,” Glandrith decided.
The switch continued its work.
“Nooo ma’am, please…” Aerin tore at her lower lip with her teeth and swallowed back a banshee wail in her distress.
“On the other hand,” Glandrith momentarily suspended the punishment, “You are under my thrall and I can always summon you.”
“Yes ma’am, yes,” Aerin said eagerly through her tears.
“If you fail then you agree you will come and serve me in any way I see fit for… seven years say,” Glandrith decided.
“Agreed,” Aerin shrieked.
“Good,” Glandrith nodded in satisfaction.
Aerin sagged in relief and was ready for a thoroughly good cry.
Behind her Glandrith had turned away and picked up a small bowl.
“Oh look there is some unguent left. Pity to waste it,” she said cheerfully.
Then carefully she applied a fresh smear of the mixture on Aerin raw and blistered behind, making a determined effort to smooth it into every crack and crevice of her bottom before taking up a fresh switch.
“I will free you tomorrow,” she chuckled.
“Yes ma’am ,” Aerin groaned.
*
To be concluded on Tuesday.
