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In The Churchyard

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King Diocletian

King Diocletian

Magistrate
I've been struggling with Liberty, so write a very short (for me) and simple scene to try to get going again. Here it is....


I’d left the farm long before dawn. I wasn’t the only one. Nobody wanted to miss this.


Actually that’s not quite true. Nobody quite knew what was going to happen, nobody quite understood, nobody quite believed that they’d actually go through with it. But nobody wanted to risk not being there if they did.


It had been a couple of weeks since I’d first heard the story. I’d been on my weekly trip to the tavern when Tom, in that slightly shifty way of his, had announced that they were going to put Lady Agnes on trial for blasphemy. I didn’t believe him. I don’t think any of us did. Why would they do that? Nobles just weren’t put on trial. Not for blasphemy, not for anything.


I don’t think any of us really understand what blasphemy is. It’s just a thing they use when the church takes against you, or if you do something stupid, like that time all those years ago when daft Huw spat at the priest and got himself 20 lashes. They threatened people with it when there were a disputes or arguments over tithes and very occasionally they flogged somebody for it. We all saw the whipping frame in the churchyard every Sunday, two stark uprights about eight feet high and eight feet apart on the stone platform, but it was only used once every couple of years. Sometimes I’d go and watch if I was in town anyway, and we saw floggings in the marketplace every six months or so, but usually I ignored them. You’d go if it was a youngish woman, which was rare, or somebody well-known, which was rarer.


Over the next few days it became apparent something was up. One of the other shepherds works with a merchant who sells wool to the hall and he was sure of it. He also said that it was some political issue, although nobody was quite sure what: either the church taking on the Portfoy family, which seemed dangerous even if they had been wrangling over the land by the ford for generations, or perhaps a plot involving Agnes’s stepbrother who, at 19, was four younger than her and, they said, didn’t stand to inherit when their father dies. And we’ve known for months that he’s very ill.


We talked about that in the tavern, but in truth I think everybody was just thinking like me. Would they flog her? And if they did, would it be in public? And if it was, would she be stripped to the waist?


I don’t think I’m a cruel man. I don’t much like the mobs who attend floggings, all snide and mocking, pumped up with the lust for blood and bullying. If they’re whipping a woman, of course I go. But I can’t remember the last time they whipped a woman I really found attractive. I remember a whore being thrashed when I was about 10 or 11, a slight blonde girl of 18 or so, creamy breasts pressed against the dark wood of the post in the marketplace as she sobbed through a dozen lashes, and the thought of that still keeps me going on nights when my wife’s ageing body disappoints me. I don’t even remember what her back looked like afterwards although having seen plenty since I can guess.
 
But since then, very little. And you have to understand that Agnes is very beautiful indeed. There’s a freshness to her that takes your breath away, cheeks like apples. She is, I think, a good woman who does what she can for the poor, but there’s also a mischievous side to her. She likes to laugh and when she does you see her perfect rows of white teeth. And she’s got a neat, trim figure, slender and graceful. She’s not just a noble, she has class. And, yes, I’ve thought of her on bad nights with my wife, although she’s so lovely she’s almost a different species. It’s like you don’t want to defile her even by thinking about her. And yet there was a chance they were going to whip her.


The sun was only just emerging when I got to the church. I was with Ned and Harry, who had the neighbouring huts to mine, and our three wives. There was an air of excitement, like at Christmas or Harvest. This was an event, something to enjoy and remember. It was spring, so although the night was cool, the day itself promised to be pleasantly mild. I wasn’t the first to arrive. I was a little taken aback as I pushed through the gate. There were already perhaps three or four dozen people standing around. I’d thought we’d be able to get right up close to the platform, but there was already a small crowd and, more significantly, half a dozen soldiers in chainmail keeping people back. More guards protected the route to the church steps.


Even when we’d heard the day before that she’d been convicted, we still wondered if they’d find a way to pardon her. Fine her or make her do some penance like washing the church steps. But this looked like a flogging. She was to come to the church that morning, sentence would be passed and then, if she was to be whipped, she’d be stripped to the waist at the church door, led down the steps, across the 10 yards or so of the churchyard to the platform, up the steps, then fastened between the posts. If they followed the usual procedure, that is. Perhaps they wouldn’t strip her. Look, I liked her, I thought she was better than most of the nobles, but all I was thinking of was her breasts and seeing something I’d thought about for years.


Where to stand? We could have stood in the narrow space between the platform and the wall, which meant we’d be looking at her front on. That made sense for seeing her tits, but it meant you didn’t see the whip land, and it also made obvious you were really there for the nudity – and my wife wouldn’t like that. Ideally we’d have taken a position near the route from the steps to the frame that allowed a diagonal view of the platform but there were enough people there we already we couldn’t get the perfect spot. We stood a little way back: if – and it was a big if – they flogged her she’d have to walk fairly near us and we’d see both her back and the side of her left breast.


More and more people kept arriving. We ended up getting pushed further and further back. I’ve never known anything like it. Everybody was chatting and joking, mainly talking the usual rubbish, but inevitably conversation kept drifting to her. Would they really whip her? Would they strip her? Would they let us stay to watch? How many lashes? Rumours kept taking off. She’d been pardoned. They’d hang her. It was to be 12 lashes. It was to be 100 lashes. She’d begged for mercy and ceded her claim to the inheritance. Her stepbrother had been arrested. It was to be a symbolic flogging, with her bound between the posts fully dressed and touched with the whip. That seemed most likely. I consoled myself with the thought that even that would stimulate the imagination.


The sun had been up perhaps three hours when Lady Agnes arrived. There was a suddenly kerfuffle and then the soldiers were clearing a path for her. She was wearing a dark dress with a pale collar. There were four men in mail with her, although whether they were there to protect her or to stop her running away was unclear. She was also accompanied by two of her maids, both of whom looked terrified. As she made her way up the steps, she looked weary, her head bowed so her glossy dark hair fell across her cheek. She walked slowly, but determinedly, as though she was trying to show she wasn’t scared. From the moment she’d arrived in the yard to the moment we lost sight of her through the door, a hush fell over the crowd, by then well over 100 strong.


As soon as she’d gone inside, the gossip began again. She knew she was going to get away with it. She knew she was going to be flogged. They’d sneak her out through the crypt.


She’d been inside only about quarter of an hour when the doors opened and a herald emerged. “For the crime of blasphemy…” he announced once the hubbub had fallen. “For the crime of blasphemy, Lady Agnes Portfoy has been sentenced to receive at the public post a dozen lashes. Sentence to be executed forthwith.”


There was a collective gasp. It was happening. I still wondered if there’d be some cop-out, that it would be a symbolic gesture and no more, but you could sense the excitement in the crowd. There were probably 200 people packed into the churchyard by then, maybe more. We’d been shuffled back, and there were people packing in behind us.


A few minutes later, she emerged, the guards flanking her. She looked over the crowd from the top of the steps, but you could tell she wasn’t really seeing us. She seemed calm, but perhaps she was just numb. The hubbub dropped as her hands went to the belt at her waist. Her two maids approached and helped her shuck the dress off, leaving her in a pale linen shift. One of the maids unfastened the cord at her neck and then, after a glance at the bishop, who had followed her out of the church, they let the shift slide from her shoulders.


I’ve never heard a silence like it. For a moment she stood in the sunlight, naked but for a loose cloth wrapped around her hips. Her skin was a flawless radiant white, her breasts round and pert, capped by delicious pink nipples. She was everything I’d dreamed she might be, perfect. She turned to the posts and slowly, calmly, began to walk down the steps, the soldiers around her, her maids a little behind. I saw the ebony hair bounce on her shoulder, an astonishing contrast of hair so black it was almost blue and skin so white it seemed almost pink. I saw the slight quiver of her breast and then she was lost amid the crowd. My wife prodded me. “You can stop gawping, now,” she said. But I still stared, desperate to soak in more of her nakedness.
 
She moved through the crowd, a pale flicker amid the colourful shirts and jerkins, the soldiers, creating a path for her. Others often had to be dragged, but she walked, seemingly calmly, to the platform. As she ascended the steps, I saw her again, the virgin back, brushed by the dark curls, the pale side of her breast, largely obscured by her arm, firm, giving only the slightest wobble. The firm roundness of her buttocks was apparent through the cloth, her legs taut and smooth. She seemed almost sedate as she took her position between the posts.


As the soldiers fastened her wrists she stared straight ahead. The yard was oddly quiet, as though everybody was awed by the vision she offered. It wasn’t just her beauty; it was the sense of purity, everything white and pale pink but for the darkness of her hair. They tightened the chains, pulling her arms out taut. She raised her head slightly, her jaw jutting defiantly.


From the church came the constable. He was a big man, tall and powerful. His face was impassive. How I envied him his job that day. In his hand he bore the whip, eighteen inches of polished wood and then eight braided strands of dark rawhide, each perhaps three feet long and tipped with a heavy knot. It seemed a huge, brutal instrument to use on a back so slender and smooth, but I was looking forward to seeing the damage it did.


He walked up to her, put his hands on her hips and pushed the strip of cloth down slightly. Oh to have my hands there on her waist! Oh for the cloth to fall! But it didn’t. From the top of the church steps the bishop called out. “Constable, is the prisoner prepared?”


“She is, you grace,” he replied, his voice strong and confident.


‘Then proceed. Twelve lashes.”


I realised I was holding my breath. The constable took up a position a few feet behind her and slightly to the left. Beyond him I could see the white of her back, the pink-capped uplift of her nipple. She gave a slight toss of her head, her ebony hair shimmering. He drew his fingers through the whip, separating the thongs. He drew the whip back, pausing with his arm raised, the cords hanging down from the handle and then, with terrific power, he swept it down and round into her back. There was a whoosh and then a great smack as the leather exploded into the tender skin. The crowd gave a slight cheer. Her head jerked back and her body was thrown forwards, her left tit bouncing up then quivering deliciously.


She gasped then whimpered. Across her soft skin a vivid streak sprang up, a deep pink. She lowered her head then raised it again. I’d seen this before, victims trying to be brave, but it rarely lasted. You could see her shoulders trembling slightly as she tried to remain calm. ‘Make the bitch scream!” came a shout from behind me. There was laughter. “Harder!” somebody else shouted.


The constable knew his job. He stepped back calmly and shook out the lashes, ran his fingers through them again. Perhaps 15 seconds had passed before he struck her again. This blow was lower, wrapping around the waist and biting into the soft skin beneath her ribs. She gave a sharp yell of pain and was half turned by the force of the blow, feet scrabbling on the platform for purchase. “Two,” came the call and this time the mob was more vocal. “You’re going soft because she’s a noble,” somebody shouted and there were roars of agreement. It was ridiculous, I knew. You only had to look at her back to see the power of the blows, but there were a chorus of shouts for the constable to do his job properly.


He looked calm, but perhaps the shouts irritated him. He pulled his fingers through the thongs again, turned to face her and strode in again. This lash did seem harder, a ferocious strike that followed the line of the first but a little lower. Her torso was flung forward, her head flew back and the strain on her arms was clear. You could almost hear the air being driven out of her lungs, a cough of pain, followed by more whimpers, each breath a little bleat of pain.


There were three stripes on her back now, deepening in shade according to age, leaving two triangles of white – the upper part of her back around her left shoulder and a smaller section stretching from the lower part of her right ribcage toads her spine. I checked my wife. She was staring, rapt, so I didn’t feel too bad about my own fascination. My eyes, obviously, focused on that left edge of her left breast but the whole spectacle was astonishing: beauty, delicacy, exposed and savaged. The fourth lash was delivered almost vertically, whipping down from her left shoulder across that expanse of white. Lady Agnes twisted slightly and I saw that left breast straight on, bouncing as she writhed. There was a shout of appreciation from the crowd. Her jerk had made clear how hard the constable had hit her. The knots seemed to have broken the skin where they’d wrapped over her shoulder.


There was discussion around me of the merits of the lash.


“That was a good one…”


“Yes, hit her good.”


“Why hit vertically?”


“It’s to spread the lashes.”


Everyone’s an expert. “Next one she’ll scream – got to hit on bruised flesh.”


“Should be some blood as well.”


“If he whips her properly.”


But there was a delay. The constable held up some hairs he was pulling from the tails of the whip, gesturing to the bishop. After a brief conversation the bishop nodded and an order was given to one of Lady Agnes’s maids. There were catcalls and whistles as she climbed the stairs onto the platform – a pretty girl of about 18 – and approached her lady. I couldn’t work out what was going on and feared they were going to end it, but she simply tied Lady Agnes’s hair up, exposing a graceful neck. The effect was somehow to make her seem even more vulnerable. The constable nodded with satisfaction and took his position again.
 
He flicked the lashes out, once, twice, and then swept in again. This time there was a collective gasp and a murmur of appreciation at the power as the braids slashed horizontally across the centre of her back. Her torso jerked forwards, breasts bouncing and she shouted with the pain. A few flecks of blood appeared, her fingers clenched and unclenched and she whimpered as she tried to compose herself. “Five.”


The constable stepped back, his face impassive, but giving an impression of satisfaction nonetheless. He waited until she had raised her head and lashed her again, striking on the same diagonal he had earlier. Her head flicked back and the muscles of her back contracted delightfully, blood rising where the knots bit. She groaned and a tremor passed through her. ‘Harder!” came the shouts again. My wife, even, joined in the baying. “Flay her!” she screamed. “Make her pay!” I wondered again whether I should have gone for a front on view and got a look at both tits.


She stood with head bowed, shoulders hunched, trembling. An area of the upper right part of her back was marked with blood. He flew in again and I saw how the muscles of his forearms tensed as he laid the whip into the lower part of her back. It snapped around her slender waist and from the oohs from the crowd on the far side of the platform, I guessed the ends had drawn blood as they’d bitten into that soft flesh below the ribcage. “Seven!”


Her head stayed down for several seconds but, to my surprise she raised it again before the eighth lash, which slapped with tremendous power across the centre part of her back. Her head flew back, her breast bounced and for a moment she was frozen staring at the sky, back arched, teeth set in a grimace through which she finally emitted a moan of agony. It took her longer to regain her composure and the weaker she looked the more the crowds jeered. I was amazed by my wife’s viciousness. “Rip her apart!” she screamed. “She’s had it so easy! Let her know what suffering is!” There was a discussion about whether aristocratic skin was softer than peasant skin.


The constable waited for her. Finally, her head came up and her shoulders straightened. It was clear from her breathing that she was in significant pain, her delicate shoulders trembling. He flicked his wrist a couple of times. You could sense the tension in her. He lashed more vertically again, striking just below her neck and dragging the lash down her spine. Her back arched, her breast was pushed up and as she gasped with pain, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who saw something sexual in her pose. Hoots of laughter burst out. A tremor passed through her and more blood began to bubble from the welts.


The constable adjusted his position slightly, moving closer to her and more to the left. The effort he put in to the tenth lash was clear, the leather striking fearsomely hard across her shoulder blades. The muscles of her back contracted delightfully and she shouted in pain. As her body slowly relaxed, her head dropped and she emitted a deep groan. A bead of blood slowly ran from a wound on the right of her back across skin now bright pink and marked with ridges and welts. She clenched and unclenched her fists, breathing deeply, as though forcing herself to remain calm.


The constable paced back and fourth, flicking his whip-hand before finally taking up his position again. The blow was hard and low, driven just above her waist. Her shoulders and head flew back, breast jumping and falling to quiver on her chest. There was a great “Ooooh!” from the far side of the stage, and I knew there must be blood drawn beneath her ribs. Did all nobles, I wondered, have such neat breasts? Hers were perfect, pale and pert, just the right size without a trace of sag, the nipples a coral pink and not too large.


One to go. She set herself again. Nearly there. The constable dragged it out and the crowds enjoyed the spectacle, taking the opportunity to add final shouts of abuse. The whole canvas of her back was pink now, streaked with welts and mottled with specks of red where the skin had broken. The constable drew his fingers through the lashes, he held them up to show a smear of red where he blood had stained the whip. He took his position, shaped twice to strike then finally swept in, the lashes thudding on a shallow diagonal from the point of her right shoulder down across her back.


She gave a sharp grunt as she was thrown forward and I thought for a moment she was about to lose her footing, but she recovered. Her next three breaths all came with an audible sigh of pain and then, as her breathing returned to something approaching normality, she rallied. Her pain was obvious, and so was her shame, but so too was the sense that she had survived. The soldiers unfastened her wrists. Oh, to be that close to that torso, the back bruised and bleeding, the front so pert and smooth! She lowered her arms slowly, as though they were painfully stiff, and covered her chest.


She half-turned so I saw her almost front on, the delicious smoothness of her body, the pale pink skin, such a contrast to her ebony hair, flawless but for the odd wheal where the whip had clawed over her shoulder. Her legs were soft and smooth and I had a momentary fantasy of kissing those silken thighs. Her maidservants, carrying her clothes, rushed up to booing from the mob as they interrupted the view. And then came one last look at those breasts as she tried to lift her arms to put her shift on. There were hoots of laughter as she failed, pain shooting through her, and her maidservants ended up pulling her shift awkwardly over her, arms still tight to her sides. They draped her dress loosely over her and then, with the soldiers clearing a path, she made her way through the crowds to the gate. The taunts continued, comments about her breasts, people making the noise of the lash and jerking in imitation of her movements, but her face was blank, as though she were unaware of anything but her pain. But it was over. She had her scars and we had our memories.
 
Had she been naked this would of been a much better film. The whole film can be found on You tube . I got the file from Gimp .
 
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