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 JUDGEMENT OF THE COUNT







   I never had an easy life but it was still better than most.  My mother
died of fever when I was young and my father raised me.  He was a tutor in
the large village where we lived and taught the sons of the merchants and
freeholders in return for pennies and the rent for the room that was both
the classroom and the place where we lived.  I worked at the inn next door
to earn our meals by doing the bookkeeping and sometimes tending the bar
but never serving the tables.  For you see a girl like me would be treated
unkindly if I were to venture into the dangerous world of the back tables
so I very carefully avoided it.  As a town bred girl who didn't do physical
labor and who was educated I was a cut above both in class and looks.  My
father was already receiving inquiries about my marriage prospects but
nothing had been offered because at thirteen he felt I was too young
especially since my courses were not yet regular and strong.  I was a small
girl with a slender build that promised better things to come but was still
comely and good to gaze upon.  Just before my fourteenth birthday my father
allowed me to post our banns on the church door and to declare our
handfasting.  Jethry was the only son of one of the wealthiest merchants in
town and I was very lucky to win his interest.  Even if it was unusual we
were very much in love so I was able to prevail on my father to allow us to
post banns.  However he still insisted we wait until I was grown larger
before he would approve out wedding.  As a dutiful daughter I agreed to my
everlasting grief and sorrow.  For not two weeks after the posting of our
banns my father sickened and died of the same fever that had robbed me of
my mother.  Still I thought my future was secure for my love persuaded his
father to pay the rent on my room until such time as it was proper for us
to marry.  I continued to work at the inn and because I was only receiving
meals for one now I was able to set aside a few silver pennies.  At least I
would not go to the alter destitute and I would be able to save my father's
library which was the best in town and was worth a goodly sum.  Besides I
had plans to use it to educate my children someday and would need it.  My
plans were dealt still another blow when Jethry was killed in a riding
accident before we were wed.  His heartbroken father sold his warehouses
and returned to his hometown to die and I was left with no one and almost
nothing.  My money would not last long and I was once again faced with the
need to sell my father's books.  The innkeeper offered such help as he
could in the form of a letter of reference and somehow he arranged for me
to join a caravan going to the Count's city where he felt an educated girl
such as myself would be able to find honest employment and support myself
until I could marry.  I very carefully packed my belongings and after
several days journey I arrived here.  My old friend had given me several
names to try for work and it was no surprise that all of them were
innkeepers.  After asking the city guard I made my way to the largest and
most prosperous of the ones on my list.  My luck seemed to be turning for
the worthy who owned it needed a bookkeeper and I was soon employed at a
wage that would allow me to me to live comfortably and still set aside some
money from time to time.  I even found an older man who would pay me to
read to him evenings and who would sometimes pay for a new book which he
would allow me to keep after he had heard it.  Life was good once more and
soon I was settled in.

   Alas life does not run to our wishes as it had shown me too often and
once more I was a toy of the fates.  I went to the home of my old reading
friend and there was told that he had died in his sleep the night before
and so sad at losing my only friend I slowly walked back to the inn.  I was
not paying attention as I walked and suddenly was pulled into a dark alley.
The hand covering my mouth and the one groping my breast warned me this was
not a prank but rather a serious attempt on my virtue if not my life.  My
upbringing in inns did have a practical side and I was not unable to defend
myself.  The small dagger hidden in my sleeve was out and in action before
anything serious could happen.  One of the things I had learned was a
threat to his manhood would often scare off a simple rapist without really
injuring him so I inflected a small wound to the inside of my attacker's
thigh and he did release me.  However instead of running away he began to
shout for the guard which responded in record time.  I was shocked when the
sergeant called him by name and before I knew it I was bound and taken off
to my lord's cells to await his court. A bailiff asked me if I had ever
attended court before and I told him I had but only at the baron's back at
home.  He told me that I would find the Count's a bit different but still
the same in all important aspects bur warned me not to lie under pain of
severe punishment.  The count had strict laws against giving false witness
and enforced them with an iron hand.

   To my surprise I was not mistreated nor molested while I waited for the
court and one of the guards informed me that by the law all were innocent
until found guilty and to mistreat a prisoner before trial would be
usurping the Count's right to dispense justice. The trial was held on a
Monday and my case was the big one of this session so it was last and
didn't start until after noon prayers.  I was not offered a chance to
explain my side until after every one else was questioned and I listened
with a growing sense of fear.  The young ruffian I had cut was the youngest
son of the largest arms merchant in the Count's lands and was claiming that
I had tried to rob and murder his in that alley.  Witnesses who all
testified to his character and swore he would never attempt to rape a woman
followed him.  Indeed the whole court laughed as he claimed to be unable to
handle the willing ones so had no need to fight with the unwilling.  The
sergeant claimed to know the boy well and knew his voice when he heard him
yelling for help and when he arrived on the scene I was the only one armed.
Further he was wounded on the leg and there was no sign of any injury on
me. The bailiff whom I had talked to earlier had investigated my story and
could find none who could verify it.  Instead he testified that I was a
single woman with on ties to the city and who worked at an inn [which
automatically made suspect as a whore] and who had a valuable collection of
books that she could never have afforded on her wages.  The innkeeper was
questioned about me and could offer little new knowledge about me.  I had
arrived with some heavy baggage and a letter of reference from another
innkeeper he knew years ago and I slept in the smallest room in the inn. 
He was fairly certain that I was not whoring at the inn but it was my
practice to disappear evenings and I often returned with a new book or some
other trinket.

   I was nervous when the Count finally asked me to give my statement and
once again I was warned to speak only the truth.  If I was to speak only
the truth I would do so and I told my tale of attempted rape and self
defense to an unbelieving courtroom.  I could not offer any proof that I
wasn't a whore because I could not declare myself a virgin.  I was no
lightskirt but in the happy days when Jethry and I were handfasted I had
known the pleasure of taking my love into my body and pleasuring him.  The
Count questioned me closely about my activities and I could tell he did not
believe me but I stuck to the truth and prayed to somehow win through. 
Once again I was asked how I knew that my victim always wore a short mail
shirt and thus avoided wasting my blow and cut his leg instead.  Again I
spoke only the truth and was mocked for my honesty.  It all came to an end
and the Count sent a man wearing a black half hood to inspect me.  I was
forced to stand as he looked me over like I was a horse, teeth and legs,
hands and body; he ran his hands over me and looked closely at anything
that caught his interest. He returned and whispered to the count who
thought for a short time and then announced to the court that he had
reached a judgment in the case.  I stood as he prepared to render his
decision.

   "It is my judgment that you have broken the law three times and I find
you guilty on all three charges.  The first and most serious is the charge
of armed robbery and of giving an injury while performing armed robbery. 
The second is bringing a false charge of attempted rape to cover up your
attempt at robbery.  The third is bearing false witness in my court after
several warnings about limiting yourself to the truth and your guilt in
this is plain as you have been found guilty of the first two charges so
your defense must therefore be false.  Hear now my sentence for your
crimes. On the charge of bearing false witness I order you to be stripped ,
taken to the dungeon where you are to be racked for two hours.  While on
the rack you will be given twenty full arm strokes with the thin rod on
each breast and on your privy parts.  You will then have your arms secured
behind your back and lifted by them until your feet are clear of the ground
and you will hang for another two hours while the executioner visits upon
you any small torments he sees fit.  At the end of that time you are to be
placed on the impalement stand and forced to stand there until dawn.  On
the charge of bringing false charges I order you to be taken to the low
scaffold and once there be placed in the waist high stocks with only your
head inserted in the stocks.  Your hands are to be chained behind your back
and you will be naked.  It is my also my order that any man, boy , or woman
who wishes may use your body as he sees fit save only he does no injury
that will affect your ability to withstand punishment.  On the last two
joined charges of armed robbery and of causing an injury while engaging in
armed robbery I sentence you to death.  You will be killed by being left in
the stocks in the manner already ordered until fatigue, thirst,
strangulation caused by your inability to support yourself, or some other
cause shall end your life.  It is not allowed for any person to give you
mercy or grace save for water.  After your death your body will be left
until the sun has set on it twice.  It then will be taken and be fed to the
falcons and the hounds.  This is my judgment and I have spoken.  Guards
strip her, bind her, and remove her from the presence of myself and my
subjects.

   My luck was still the same and I cursed the day I was born.  I, who had
done nothing wrong, was going to be tortured, whipped, raped, and killed.
There is no justice I tell you and I can only presume God is punishing my
for some horrendous sin or else my name is Job.  I stood quietly as I was
stripped and chained to be led away to my doom and my ears rang to the
jeers and catcalls of the assembled people.  My victim stood to one side of
the passageway and as we went by asked for a private word with me [to
forgive me and to promise to pray for my soul he claimed] but in reality he
wanted to gloat and laugh at his victory.  He promised to be the first in
line to use my body and asked if it had been worth it to deny him his
pleasure that night.

   We didn't return to the cells but went deeper into the castle until a
heavy iron crossed door opened to admit us to one of the circles of hell. I
heard the screams of those poor souls condemned to their punishment and
knew that too soon mine would join theirs.  The rack loomed before me but I
was not laid on it to be stretched but instead was bent over it to be raped
for only the first time of many.  My ankles were fastened to the legs of
the machine and two men held my wrists as the first molester brutally
entered me.  And to my horror he did not take me as a normal man might but
instead entered my arsehole.  I was to find to my sorrow that many men when
offered the chance to use a woman thus will do so.  The next beast pounded
into my cunny with such force that the fronts of my thighs were bruised
from being beaten against the wood of the rack with each of his thrusts.  I
tried to close my eyes and remember the gentle love Jethry and I had shared
and use the memory to shield myself from the horror my life was now but it
was useless.  I think five or six of the monsters used me before I was
released and placed on the rack to begin my ordered punishment.  At first
the rack was a relief after the gang rape but as the drum turned and the
strain mounted on my arms and legs my world shrank until there was nothing
but pain.  Every joint in my body cried out for death or relief as I was
stretched beyond all limits and beyond all human endurance.  Just when I
could stand no more I heard a voice order the machine to stop and I blessed
him for his mercy.  To my grief there was no mercy, I had just been pulled
to the limits set in my sentence and it was time for the next part of my
punishment.  A faint whistling sound was my only warning before the first
of the sixty strokes exploded on my privy parts.  I had only though that
the pain was as bad as I could stand but I was to learn over and over that
pain can always get worse.  One after another the blows landed until I had
no way of knowing how many had fallen.  The wait between each was long
enough to make me hope I had reached the end but each time my hopes died as
another burst of agony was dropped on me.  Even bad things must end and so
it was with my beating.  After a year on the rack I was helped off and
given water.  As I stood to have my hands strapped behind my back I could
see my once beautiful breasts were now almost black and were swollen beyond
belief and what little I could see of my cunny did not look any better.  I
could feel its swollen mass forcing my thighs apart as I stood.  When one
of the beasts had me bent over the rack again I was crying and begging for
mercy even before his swollen member touched me.  His entry into my sex was
if he was using a red hot steel bar instead of his manhood and my screams
rebounded from the dank walls.  The weakness I had shown was blood in the
water as it inspired the rest of my tormentors to follow the first in using
me once again for their sick lusts.  The end of the second gang rape left
me too wrung out to move or to even do more than just lay and wait dumbly
for whoever the foul beasts would do next.  The lifting of my body by my
bound wrists sent wedges of fire burning through my shoulders as my weight
was thrown onto them in a way that the human body is not meant for.  I was
left with my toes just brushing the floor and slowly twisting.  For the
first time I was afforded a full view of the horror filled chamber that I
was now a prisoner of and my mind recoiled at what I witnessed and heard.
In spite of my soul eating pain it was clear that there were others
suffering much worse than I and I shuddered at the thought of what was to
come.  The added torments the Count had mentioned were soon added to my
lot, weights were hung from my ankles and clipped to my breasts, my feet
were randomly beaten, I was used again and again for sexual outlet as I
hung there, my face was branded with the letters L and F to mark me forever
as a liar and felon, and my eyes were splashed with some liquid that burned
them with hell's own fire and left me looking through mist and fog.  I was
no longer able to separate the causes of each agony but instead they all
blended to form one that overpowered me and washed me in its heat and flame
and acid breath.

   In many ways the impalement was both the easiest and the worst torture
of that long painful night in hell.  It was the easiest because there was
only [compared to what had gone before, if it had been first I would have
called it the awful and wept even before I was mounted on it] a small
amount of suffering involved with standing with a steel rod the thickness
of a man's member penetrating my sex with the one end and the other end
firmly mounted on the floor.  The blocks under my feet were vary carefully
set so as to allow it to penetrate as deeply as any man but not deeply
enough to do serious harm.  My wrists were tied over my head to prevent me
from slipping down onto the steel phallus and my ankles were secured so
that I was unable to lift myself off.  [As if my poor damaged shoulders had
the strength to do so].  What made it the worst was the fact that I was
unable to do anything to move away from the unrelenting pressure of the rod
as it pressed against the opening of my womb where every breath of mine
moved my inner parts around it in a parody of lovemaking.  There was no
comfort or relief neither from the always present rod nor from my thoughts
and fears.  No sleep, no escape from the horrors in both the chamber and in
my mind.  The small torments continued, a push to the side meant a tearing
feeling in my womb, a slap to my breast was agony that lasted forever, my
teeth were pulled one by one until there were none left and I was sick from
drinking my own blood, my arse was used for base lusts, a whip marked my
back, other tortures stretched the night until it was a lifetime.

   Morning was not something to be welcomed when it came.  During the night
I was cruelly treated but I knew I would survive it.  This day would see
the beginnings of the effort to murder me.  Buckets of cold dirty water
splashed over me before I was taken, naked and chained, to the punishment
scaffold where I would die.  Just before I was locked in the stocks my
thirst was slaked by large draughts of cold water.  At the time I blessed
the good person who allowed the kindness but I soon realized there was no
kindness there.  The refreshing water would restore me and only prolong my
suffering.  There was already a long line of good subjects ready and
waiting to use me in the manner allowed by the Count and the one at the
head of the line was than young bastard who was the author of my troubles.
As I was led past him he smiled and wished me a good day.  I wanted to spit
in his face but a person with no teeth can not spit.  All I could manage
was to drool and mouth my damnation of him before the steps required my
attention.  The neck hole in the stocks was large enough to allow free
movement and in no way interfered with breathing or talking but still would
not allow my head to pass through it.  By the time the Count's sentence was
read to the crowd I was already finding the many ways this simple device
could and would pain, torture, and cause my death.  To breathe freely I
must hold some of the weight of my head and body up off of my throat.  The
effort caused cramps in my back and legs.  Without the use of my hands I
could not balance or save myself from a fall to the side.  There was no way
for me to gain even a second's rest without paying for it in air or pain.

   As I was just realizing how evil was my punishment I felt hands on my
hips and the first of countless things was entering my body.  The stocks
prevented me from seeing my attacker but I knew who it was.  His evil
laughter sounded in my ears as he not only raped my but used my other hole
as well.  When he finished I thought I had missed his spending but I
hadn't. He came to my head and after showing me his shit covered member
forced it into my mouth.  "I paid the executioner extra to remove your
teeth just so I could do this to you.  I hope you like it." I was the
victim but he was seeking revenge and was getting it as he used my helpless
body.  He sprayed his spunk and as he left he kicked my foot out from under
me and I fell twisting to hang choking and gasping.  The scramble to
recover my footing and to allow my breathing only reinforced how unstable
my position was and how easy it would be for anyone who wished me ill to
fulfill their desires.  From that time on there was always somebody using
my body to slake their carnal urges.  I was penetrated by every size member
and by fingers and other less worthy things.  I was made to lick woman's
privy parts and suffered having them lick mine.  A game soon developed
where whoever was using me would press down on my shoulders to force me to
fight for the air I needed and thus increase their pleasure.  The hot
summer sun burned my skin and even though I knew it would cause me to
survive and suffer longer I still begged for water.  Bands of fire ran from
my feet up my legs to my back and shoulders as the strain of holding the
only position that allowed me to breathe mounted.  My breathing was raspy
and the water could not ease my flayed throat.  Vomiting from the amount of
seed that had been sprayed down my throat and the loss of control over my
bowels failed to affect the number of newcomers mounting the scaffold to
abuse me and after a while having things pounding into my body was
something that had always happened.  There had never been a time in my life
without my body being used to slake somebody's base desires.  The dawn of
the second day found me bereft of any thought except the wish for the agony
to end.  I didn't know what was causing it and I knew not why I was
suffering nor did I know how to end it.  I was only a mass of pain that
went on forever and that had no end.  I gulped greedily at fluids offered
without knowing what they were and noted gratefully when the number of
things being rammed into me decreased but it never occurred that I could
end it all by just laying down and letting the wood encircling my neck
choke my life away.  Instead every time I felt the flow of air decrease
somewhere I found the will to fight back to the pain filled place where I
could breathe again.  The need for sleep was so overpowering that even the
choking wood was almost overcome by my need to rest.  The words of the good
people ceased to have meaning and each new rapist found it necessary to
support my body while he used me.  Then there were no more men standing by
me forcing their way in and my legs finally lost the necessary strength to
hold me up.  I fell to my knees and even the unforgiving wood pressing
against my windpipe was not enough to spur me to stand.  My feeble efforts
only twisted me around so I was now face up with my body hanging from the
stocks.  The pressure was gone from my throat but there was still not
enough air.  Mindless my body twisted and turned, my legs kicked and
scrambled for traction, arms flailed uselessly, there was no relief and a
dim and distant part of my mind somehow knew this was finally the end and
drew comfort that my long struggle was almost over.  I still managed to
turn over and over as I found that for a small part of the time I was
turning I could obtain a little air.  There was a magic place where the air
lived and I fought to find it, if only I could find it all would be well
and I could sleep at last.  Alas I had no power to command the magic and it
continued to tease me.  It was hiding in the darkness that was covering the
sun and hiding everything from my sight.  The cool darkness that was
washing away my pain and calming my fears.  The blessed darkness that
soothed my hurts and offered me peace.