3.
The whipping post didn’t mind waiting on a beautiful day like this. It stood in all seasons, ready to receive miscreants getting their richly deserved comeuppance. The post knew that it played an important role in the community, helping the Baron to maintain good order amongst his subjects.
But the summer was its favorite season. The rays of the late morning sun warmed its fibers. Perhaps that would provide a small measure of comfort to the young woman when they wrapped the ropes tightly around her waist, pressing her soft breasts into the rough wood.
And they were attractive breasts, that was beyond contesting. Even from a distance one could tell that they were firm and well-formed. The post could see why that boy Ivo had wanted her so badly that he had risked this humiliation in front of the whole village and the excruciating pain that would soon follow.
And here he comes now, shirtless and barefoot, like his lover, clad only in a pair of drawstring trousers, one of the Manager’s assistants on each side with a firm grip on each arm. A handsome lad, trying hard to look unconcerned by the prospect facing him.
But the post knew better. It had seen many make a show of bravery, but the whip always won in the end. That was how it had always been and how it would always be.
***
Agnese kept her eyes glued to the ground in front of her feet. She couldn’t bear to look at her friends and neighbors in her current shameful state. The girls that she had played with when she was younger and worked beside in the field, the boys that had flirted with her before she had chosen Ivo, the baker and the store clerk to whom her parents had sent her with the few pennies they had to buy tea or thread and whom she had charmed with a smile into slipping her a treat.
But when she heard one of the older women cry, “There he is!” she looked up. It was Ivo, shirtless and barefoot as she was, but accompanied not by his parents, but by two of the Manager’s men. They stopped him some distance away on the other side of the post, so that if they wanted to look at each other, their eyes would inevitably fall on the site of their upcoming suffering.
Agnese assumed that now that Ivo was here, she would be released and led to her fate at the whipping post. But nothing was happening. She could sense the crowd growing impatient. After all, they had stayed after church, rather than returning to their homes for lunch to watch the spectacle.
Then Agnese saw the members of the crowd turning their heads to look behind them. She twisted her body as much as she could in the pillory, but couldn’t see beyond the crowd. Finally, it came into view-an elegant carriage pulled by two white horses.
It could only be the Baron, come in person to watch their punishment. He normally didn’t attend these events in person, but obviously, for whatever reason, he had decided that her case merited his personal attendance.
The carriage driver descended, reached up onto the top of the carriage and pulled down an ornately carved and upholstered chair, which he brought to a position close to the whipping post. Then he returned to the carriage and opened the door. The Baron stepped out onto the bare dirt, dirt which he owned, along with, more or less, the assembled people.
His footman opened a large umbrella which shaded the Baron as he walked to his seat and held it over him as he awaited the spectacle.
Now that all was ready, Agnese saw Juris, the Manager, approach her. He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the pillory, lifting the top wooden piece. “Come on slut, time for your ass warming. On your feet,” he said.
Reluctantly, Agnese stood, her legs unsteady, both from fear and from the strain the pillory had put on her muscles. Juris took hold of her arm to steady her, then guided her towards the post. When they reached a point a short distance away, he stopped and turned her to face the crowd.
“You have to take your skirt off now,” he told her quietly. She shook her head.
Louder now, loud enough to be heard by the entire village, he ordered, “Get your skirt off now! A whore like you shouldn’t pretend to be ashamed of showing her body to everyone. It might bring you more business.” The crowd laughed at his joke.
Feeling deep shame, but knowing she had no choice, Agnese reached to the waist of her skirt and lowered it slowly over her hips, letting it fall to the dirt at her feet. She was naked now. She tried to cover her breasts and genitals with her hands, but Juris grabbed them and pulled them away.
“No!” he shouted. “You show them! Let them see what caused your boyfriend to do such a stupid thing!” She stood now, totally exposed, her cheeks burning in shame.
The young men in the crowd were whistling and hooting. Some of the women, jealous at the impression Agnese was making on their men yelled, “Whore! Slut!”
“Now turn around,” Juris ordered. “Let them see your ass before I mark it with my birch.” He pushed her, forcing her to turn around. Then, after the crowd had seen enough, he marched her to the post, where he raised her hands over her head to tie them to the ring set high in the post with a cord that he had taken out of his pocket.
Juris adjusted the cord so that Agnese would be raised on her toes, then tied it tight. Then, he called for a longer piece of rope, which one of the assistants brought him. He pushed Agnese’s naked torso against the wood, firmly, though not unnecessarily roughly, wrapped the rope twice around both her waist and the post and tied it tightly.
Now, Agnese was held in place, totally helpless and exposed, her ass bare and defenseless against the onslaught of the birch.
Once she was affixed in place, the Manager turned his attention to Ivo. “Strip him!” he ordered. One of the assistants who held him took hold of one of the legs of his trousers and yanked them down, leaving him just as naked as his lover.
Agnese didn’t really want to watch, but couldn’t help herself. She had to admit he looked handsome, even if his cock was shriveled from the shame and fear that he must be feeling, despite his attempts to hide it, which were a bit more successful than hers had been.
She felt a tingle in her groin at the site of him. She wished they had had time to complete their lovemaking before Juris and his men had so rudely interrupted them. She hoped that after all this was over and they had paid for their sins that they might be forgiven and allowed to marry by her parents and the Minister.
The men hustled him to the post and quickly tied him opposite Agnese. “I love you, Agnese. Please forgive me,” he whispered.
“I love you too, Ivo,” she replied.
“You must be strong,” he said.
“I will try,” she replied. “You, too.”
“Shut up, you two!” the Manager shouted. “The only sounds I want to hear from either of you are the screams when we whip you. Any more talk and I will add strokes.”
Then he stepped away and turned to address the crowd. “These two worthless criminals have stolen the work time that they owe our Lord, Baron von Kaltenbach. For that Ivo has been sentenced to be whipped 40 times on the back and Agnese has been sentenced to be birched 30 times on her buttocks.”
The crowd nodded approvingly. “Furthermore,” he continued, “The slut Agnese has been sentenced to 30 additional birch strokes for her lewd and whorish behavior.” Many in the crowd cheered. None thought to ask why Ivo wasn’t also paying a price for his sexual misdeeds. There was no need to; he was a man and that was how men were expected to act, but she was a woman and was supposed to resist his urges.
His speech done, the Manager motioned for the birch and the whip, which one of his assistants carried through the crowd, holding them over his head like a trophy.
The birch consisted of two supple branches, each almost as thick as Agnese’s little finger and longer than her arm, bound together at one end. This was the infamous “rod pair” or “
ruten paar” in German, which was used to punish disobedient females in that time and place.
Of course, she had seen it before from afar, when other women had been punished, but to see it up close now, knowing that it was to be used on her, was horrifying. She bit her lip to keep from crying. But, the whip to be used on Ivo looked even worse, a long piece of cured horsehide.
The assistant took his place behind Ivo, while Juris, the Manager, took his place behind Agnese. She turned her head to see him and his awful birch, which she felt tapping gently against her soft ass flesh as he measured the distance.
“We will alternate,” Juris announced. “Five lashes for one, then five for the other and so on until all the lashes ordered have been given. I am a gentleman, so it will be ladies first,”
Agnese watched him draw the birch back. Then, unable to watch any more, she turned her head to look Ivo in the eye as she heard the rods cut through the air.
