CONCLUDING CHAPTERS - Part One

Roberta finished going over in her mind the painful experiences that she had undergone since leaving Philippa and Rodolfo at the bandit's cave. It had certainly been a very unpleasant few months one way and another. She looked down at her body and saw the horrible scars the Town Tormentor's white hot irons had given her, just as the equally unpleasant burns from her first spell under torture had begin to fade. And she felt her still tender back and all the ridges and furrows there where she had been flogged without mercy so many times, the last such occasion being only a couple of days ago. It wasn't much of a life, really!

The closer she was to the Palace, the greater the danger of capture. Word of her approach must have reached the King's men by now. Several times the two of them had hidden while parties of soldiers had ridden past. It was easier to hide now that both girls were on foot. The horse had been left behind at the last town. The noble beast was now the property of Amelia and the Ladies' League for Truth and Decency.

How she hated Amelia! And how she loathed the contemptible Alfonso! Those two had better watch out once she was restored to favour! If she ever was restored to favour, of course! That was hardly guaranteed!

Then she tensed as she heard about a dozen riders approaching. As usual the phenomenally sharp eared Roberta  heard these sounds long before Paula did.

"Hide, Paula! I Another search party  - I think!!" she warned her friend.

The couple quickly hid themselves behind some bushes.  But Paula saw who the riders were and nudged her companion in the ribs. (Or where she judged Roberta's ribs to be under all those ridges of muscle).

"It's Rodolfo, darling! These are friends!"

Paula had told Roberta about her meeting in the woods with two of Rodolfo's men. She had encountered them while the naked girl was still hard at work and sore from the latest flogging. It had pleased Roberta to think that the bandit leader still thought about her. She didn't believe that Philippa had been following every detail of her sufferings with the aid of a magic crystal. It was odd that the old woman could keep so well informed, though. But carrier pigeons seemed a more likely explanation.

Roberta’s continuing scepticism continued to imperil her chances of regaining her lost reputation. But the silly girl would persist in her course of wilful disbelief! Would nothing convince her?

The girls came out and greeted the riders. Rodolfo dismounted and embraced Roberta. It seemed to Paula that the lusty bandit leader took a little longer over this salutation than mere social politeness might dictate! She could hardly blame him, though. Roberta was more magnificent to look at by the day! The pair did make a handsome couple, being both tall, fair  haired and strong.

Roberta must have thought somewhat along these lines herself, for she made absolutely no effort to disengage herself from Rodolfo’s embrace. On the contrary she was visibly responding and pulling him closer to her naked body with those very powerful arms. Finally she kissed him with extreme passion on the mouth and Paula sighed to herself. She could see just where this was going!

She wandered off to find the two men she had met in the woods more than six weeks ago.

“Hi, you guys!” she said. “Thanks for coming to Roberta’s rescue - a couple of days too late! But I knew it was no use interfering. I think she and your boss like each other!”

As Paula spoke, an obviously willing Roberta was being led away behind a conveniently large bush - the one behind which the two girls had just sheltered. She smiled at the two bandits.

“I suppose you boys get a bit sex-starved with the life you lead! Always out rampaging about the country. Fancy taking out your suppressed desires on me, while your leader fucks the arse off my lover? I can take twenty different cocks from twenty strong and rough men in a night and still be craving for more! My stamina has been described as phenomenal! How’s about it, guys?”

Paula was amazed to see the fear on both men’s faces. They shook their heads in refusal of her offer. It would seem that there was more to the arrival of Rodolfo’s men than merely a wish to preserve Roberta’s flesh from further torment.

“You are not for the likes of us, Lady Paula. We can only assume that you were joking! Any man laying a finger on you would be risking his life. We are here to protect you, not to make love to you!”

“Lady Paula? Who told you I was a Lady! I’m just a parlour maid, really. Once I was Roberta’s plaything, then I became the King’s toy (though he never laid a finger on me - such a gentleman!).

“It is the King who has made you a Lady!” replied the taller of the two men. “He still seeks the traitor Roberta to have her flogged, tortured and branded before being permanently shackled and returned to Hell Island, but you are still high in his favour. When Rodolfo has finished his pleasure with Roberta, he will escort you to the Palace and a future as a Great Lady.”

“And what about Roberta? Rodolfo’s not taking her back to go through all that unpleasantness, I hope!”

“We will not return your friend to captivity, Paula, but in future Roberta will be on her own. Rodolfo has told the King’s men of Roberta’s innocence, but he was not believed. You must come with us and Roberta will walk the land alone, naked and friendless, to survive as best she can.”

Paula was excited to think of the prosperous future that seemed to lie ahead of her, while at the same time sad to have to leave Roberta. But she hadn’t seen all that much of her Mistress this last few months. They would have some exciting times together on the road and then they would inevitably be involved in some escapade which usually seemed to involve Roberta being flogged, put in prison and given hard labour of some kind or other.  While all this boring nonsense was going on, Paula would have to kick her heels for a few weeks, admittedly in reasonably comfortable conditions. But before the pair went their separate ways, she must have a long conversation with her former Mistress and lover. There were things Roberta needed to know.

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Because her back was still very sore, Roberta lay on top as she and Rodolfo made love. Despite her being a Golden Guard and a lover of her own sex, she was not a virgin, having been enjoyed by several men in her time. If Rodolfo had hoped that his noble cock was to be the first to penetrate the muscle goddess‘s remarkable cunt, he was disappointed.

The couple lay together for some minutes after a very hurried and almost brutal love making. Rodolfo had a very large member and it had more than satisfied even the well endowed Roberta.  Roberta spoke first, a little breathlessly. That had been good!

“Great fuck! Thanks a million! I take it that was the sugar on the pill, Rodolfo? First the good news and then the bad?”

“Was I good, Roberta? I’d value a commendation from you more than from all my many other rapturously satisfied lovers put together. It goes without saying that you were utterly terrific! What a crying shame that  you prefer making love to women! And - yes. I do have a bit of bad news for you. Smart girl to cotton on!”

“You were among the three men who gave me most satisfaction, Rodolfo. Now can we get to the point?”

“Considering you have known so few men in a sexual sense, Roberta, that is hardly an outstanding compliment! But I fear I shall have to be satisfied with that faint praise! Since we last met, I have been in negotiation with the Royal government. I am sure you will rejoice to hear that I and my men have been pardoned for our former crimes and are now His Majesty’s loyal subjects.”

“I am happy for you. It pleases me to think that you are loyal like me. For I too am loyal to the King. Despite his seeking me to have me horribly punished, I still live only to serve him.”

“But he doesn’t seem to realise this! To him you are a traitor. We have told him of your ordeal by whipping and how Philippa pronounced so favourably on the purity of your copiously shed blood. It may be that his mind will change in time, but he tends not to believe in seers like Philippa. He is a very modern man and has been infected by all manner of dangerous modern ideas.”

Rodolfo paused here to make love to Roberta again. For the rest of his days he would boast of his double entry into that most sweet and succulent of cunts. When he had finished, to the entire satisfaction of both, he continued.

“The King misses Paula very badly. He wants her back at court and has made her a Lady. The Queen is very sick these days and her days are thought to be numbered. Paula may well be Queen before the year is out. So we will escort your little friend and helper to the King‘s presence and you will be left to survive on your own as well as you can. Perhaps you should put clothes on, Roberta, and flee the country in disguise.”

“That would be the coward’s way out, Rodolfo. I am not a coward. One day I will be restored. I would sooner die the most horrible of deaths in my own country than live in wealth and comfort in another. You believe in my innocence. Why are you casting me to the wolves like this?”

“I’m looking after Number One, Roberta. You wouldn’t understand, having been brought up on a diet of total selflessness and loyalty to the King. Good luck, Roberta. Although I shall not lift a finger to help, I wish you well. Paula has some words to have with you before I escort her to the Palace.”

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THE KING AND PAULA

“It’s so nice to see you again, Paula. Now that my wife is ill and dying, I am very lonely. She doesn’t know me these days. It breaks my heart to see the poor lady the way she is. But your sweet bottom has lifted my spirits a little already! It looks a little red. Have you been caned lately?”

“No, your Majesty! Worse luck! My Mistress, the traitor Roberta, used to cane me, but stopped doing so more than a month ago. There was a misunderstanding in a place called Rockwell Green and they tortured her horribly for seven days until I was able to straighten things out. Poor thing!”

“Let us not talk of Roberta! If you know what is good for you, my sweet little bubble bottomed Paula, you will forget all about Roberta.”

Paula obediently forgot her friend’s existence from that moment onwards. It was her plain duty to her Sovereign as well as the way to continue enjoying a wealthy lifestyle, which she already liked far too much to put in jeopardy!

There was one drawback, however, to this new life of wealth and high social status. The King insisted on the Lady Paula being naked at all times. He kept the Palace well heated, which was just as well considering the severity of the winter this year. But the place was inclined to be draughty and every now and again a stray blast of icy cold air would bring the King’s naked favourite out in goose flesh. He would laugh jovially to see her shiver, but she failed to see the joke.

But she dined well, had plenty of excellent musicians to play the latest songs to her and life soon began to get pretty good. The Queen continued to sink into the grave, although with tiresome slowness. When she was Queen herself, Paula would nag her new husband into letting her wear the fine clothes all the other Ladies seemed to be covered with and she would personally choose a pretty parlour maid to be the King‘s nude toy, after which she would have the heating turned down to save money!

The only members of the Golden Guard that Paula saw these days were the two in constant attendance on the King. These were still Rosemary and Charlotte. Since the incident involving Anna’s death and Roberta’s disgrace there had been no more trouble. The passage through with the intruders had got into the apartments had been blocked up and guards doubled throughout the Palace complex. But not even a whisper of a fresh plot had been detected.

She would sometimes look out of the window overlooking the Palace Yard of an evening and see the daily disciplinary floggings being administered. Bertha was getting flogged a lot these days, after having been given an easy time for a while. But her lashes were few in number and usually delivered by the smallest of the Guard and never that well laid on. Any one flogging Roberta that lightly would have felt the lash on her own back for going easy!

All of this total lack of serious trouble only served to make the King and his advisers more convinced of Roberta’s guilt than ever. But it was odd, thought His Majesty from time to time, that Roberta’s activities while on the road with Paula, had been so commendable. Could it be that the woman had repented and was trying to make amends for the great wrong she had done? Or was that crazy old Philippa right about her?

ROBERTA

The hardy Golden Guard soon adjusted to life without Paula. Rodolfo had forced her to hand over her sword to him as a condition of his not surrendering her to the Royal police, but she had her bow, so hunting was no problem. She also had a very useful pair of hands and feet to keep any would be attackers at bay and send them packing with more than just a flea in their ear!

Six weeks passed and she was wondering if life as a lone huntress was quite such a bad thing! Without the luxury loving and delicate Paula, Roberta had no need to visit civilised settlements any longer, and her back remained unpunished for all this time. The scars from Alfonso’s last frenzied whipping had begun to fade a little and she had almost forgotten what it was like to be tied up helplessly and tormented at the whipping post.

The winter was appalling this year and even Roberta was happy to seek out a cave in the mountains and spend much of her time looking out at the utter desolation below. She must venture out to slay the odd animal, but restricted her ventures to the minimum.

Paula had told her to hold her fire until the weather improved before making a move and so she waited patiently for the sign that would let her know it was time to bring her long disgrace and exile to an end. Roberta trusted Paula. And Paula had done one last favour for her former Mistress before her Royal master’s instruction to forget her. But Paula had then obeyed that instruction. Roberta was history now!

Finally the Spring made a belated appearance, the snows began to melt and the naked Golden Guard came out of hibernation.

She looked across the valley beneath her winter hideaway. The plume of blue smoke appeared over the isolated copse in the midst of the Clearwater Meadows.

It took Roberta five hours to reach the signal fire and she was exhausted when she finally arrived, The snow might be melting, but the ground was wet and muddy, every step being an effort as she sank into deep mire every inch of the way. It was a filthy, muddy and dishevelled Roberta who staggered into the clearing to meet the one who was to get her inside the Palace.

Not one, but three people were waiting for her. One was an old woman, squatting over a heated cauldron. Obviously another witch, like Philippa. The other two were young women and as naked as Roberta. These two girls pointed at an upright post in the centre of the clearing. It was clear that Roberta was expected to stand near this post, which was as tall as she and with a cross bar near the top. It bore a disturbing resemblance to a whipping post. What was it with these cursed witches?

The old woman looked up from her cauldron. Roberta doubted that she was preparing some nice nutritious broth! She tried not to think about just what horrible ingredients had gone towards this particular witches brew! It smelt like nothing she had ever smelled before - not even in high summer when downwind of the latrines!

“You may like to come over here, Golden Guard Roberta!” said the elderly lady, apparently countermanding her youthful acolyte’s order to go over to the whipping post. Seeing the relief in Roberta’s face, she cackled horribly.

“Don’t worry, my dear! You’ll get your whipping soon enough!! Now come here! AT ONCE!!”

Roberta obeyed, a tingling between her shoulder blades in anticipation of yet another application of the whip. The old witch pointed at a glass ball which reposed on the ground, next to the cauldron.

“Look into the crystal, Roberta! Look and see what you shall see!”

“I see the King and I see Paula. She is naked and His Majesty is pinching her bottom!  Now I see the Commandant and Bertha. They are in bed and Bertha is being fist fucked - horrible!”

“Horrible, my arse!” growled the witch. “Don’t tell me you haven’t done the same in your time. Hypocrite!”

“Bertha and I did exactly that! It’s not the act so much as the thought that the Commandant is having such relations with an ordinary Guard. That is why I am horrified. I’m not a hypocrite, Mother whatever your name is.”

“I am Mother Felicity! Mother of the Golden Guard who whipped you so well and so often during the days of your foolishness and indiscipline!”

“How is Felicity? She was almost as strong as me, you know! A whipping from her really hurt! I hope she is well!”

“She is very well indeed, Roberta and one day soon you will meet her again, though not at the punishment post, you will be relieved to hear!”

“Why am I to be whipped today? And who is to whip me?”

“Questions, questions, Roberta! One day you will have that simple faith which accepts the wisdom of such as we without quibbling! Go over to the tent and inside you will find a selection of whips. Choose the two that you consider most suitable for my assistants to use on you and hand them to the two young lovelies!”

Mother Felicity cackled. Elderly witches did a lot of cackling. They were famous for it!

“They are lovely are they not, Roberta? Lovely and desirable! You desire them, don’t you? And you shall have them, Roberta! You shall taste the lovely juices that ooze from each of those ripe cunts - like honey only sweeter by far! You shall enjoy them both soon enough. But first,  it is necessary that you be whipped by them until they are too tired to raise their arms any more!”

“I suppose I am not allowed to whip them after they have whipped me?”

“If you wish. Why ever not! But you are a strong experienced Amazon, the veteran of many battles. Your warrior’s body is scarred from a hundred fights and many whippings. They are young and pure with ivory white and silky smooth skin. Their bodies are slight and willowy. Could you really wish to scarify such delicate beauty?”

Roberta looked at the young witches and her heart softened towards the pair, despite the fact that they were about to chastise her. She hung her head abjectly. It would indeed be a crime to mar such delicate beauty.

“You are so right, Mother Felicity! I could not raise a hand against them and would fight anyone who wished them harm!”

Both girls looked happy and smiled bewitchingly at the blonde giantess. Roberta looked at their pale faces with those black eyes and blacker hair. Her experienced eye ran down the length of those glorious bodies - those twin temples of sweet seduction! How she desired them! But first she must be whipped. Roberta went inside the tent and saw an array of whips. She chose the two with the thickest, heaviest and longest lashes, not knowing why she did so.

“You have chosen well, Roberta! For your last flogging you have picked the whips that will slice that hide to ribbons! I salute you, brave Roberta!”

Roberta handed them to the two young women, who were called Amy and Celestine. She was then tied to the post, so tightly that even with her enormous strength she could not move her arms an inch. Then the first lash landed, cutting her transversely across her whole back and drawing blood from a deep cut. The second followed a second later and the agony from both slashes was like the pains of Hell itself. Roberta had never known such pain as that inflicted by the witches’ whips, wielded by those deceptively strong young enchantresses. For even Roberta, with her prodigious strength, could not have struck with such colossal force. She had never cried out before and knew that she must maintain her composure now, under the most horrible flogging of her life.

Seventy times each naked young witch laid her fearsome whip upon her torn back, methodically crisscrossing it in a horrible fashion. After seventy apiece they were as tireless  as at the start. This demon possessed pair would never tire. They would rip every piece of flesh from her back and lay bare her ribs before they finished. Roberta kept silent and finally lost consciousness.


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“How does Roberta feel?”

She opened her eyes and saw the old woman standing over her. The naked girls stood on either side of the old witch and all were smiling down at Roberta as she lay on a comfortable couch out in the open with the now empty whipping post a few yards away. She looked at the ground and saw it was covered with blood. Warrior blood. Her blood.

“I feel well. Better than I can ever remember feeling! But I should be dead! Your two delectable assistants must have killed me!”

“Get up, Roberta and come with us!”

Felicity led the wondering Roberta over to the tent and sent the two young witches inside. They came out, each bearing a large looking glass. One stood in front of Roberta and the other behind. She stared at her back in total astonishment. She  fainted with shock at the sight of it. It bore not a mark! Her skin was as soft and silky as the day she first joined the Golden Guard as a twelve year old oblate!

When she woke up the two young witches were lying next to her, one on each side. For three hours Roberta tasted the charms and delights of first one body and then the other. Every word Mother Felicity had uttered concerning the sweetness of those magical beings was correct! Finally she fell into a deep sleep.

In the morning she woke up to find herself alone in the clearing. None of the three witches were around. The cauldron was gone, along with the tent and the whipping post. Not a drop of blood was to be seen at the spot where she had been flogged so painfully the day before. She felt her back and the scars from many whippings were still reassuringly there! But she felt no pain and was totally healed after that last hellish flogging - if it had really happened!

It must have happened. The memory was fresh in her mind and she felt her blood freeze as she called to mind the horror of the whole episode. How she had kept quiet under such torment she would never know. It had certainly required every ounce of her famous courage and self-control.  Roberta was glad, however, that her back was still scarred. If she ever did rejoin the Golden Guard she would be very conspicuous without the marks of at least one flogging on her! The embarrassment would be shaming.

And the old witch, Mother Felicity, had said that the worst and latest punishment had also been her last. She hoped this was true! For a girl of just over twenty one she had endured more pain in the last couple of years than most people get to experience in a lifetime. It was time to take things easy! She felt tired this morning, after making love to those incredibly sexy witches the night before; otherwise she might not have felt as she did about future punishments, which could hardly be ruled out in the harsh world of the Golden Guards, to which she devoutly wished to return.

Roberta looked around for her bow and arrow. It was time to shoot and cook some breakfast. But there was no sign of them. All she had was herself - her naked self and a vast expanse of deserted country.

Since there appeared to be nothing further to detain her around here she started walking the last few miles towards the Palace.  Paula had told her, before leaving her a few months ago, that she should leave the witches’ wood and make for the lake a mile from the Palace complex. There was a small island in the middle of this stretch of water and she was to swim out to it and wait until nightfall.

The three witches, one elderly and foul of visage and the others young and of surpassing, if dark, beauty, watched her leave the enchanted wood. The silly girl might think her troubles over, but they knew better! Amy and Celeste followed, disguised as birds of ill omen, and Felicity stayed behind. Roberta saw the hovering and swooping birds overhead and wished she had something to shoot them with. Amy and her friend sensed this and started diving on their victim and lover of the night before, pecking at her body and drawing blood from a dozen deep cuts. Roberta knew who they were and sank to her knees.

“My friends! I am sorry. Please forgive me! Whip me again if you wish. Do what you will if only I can share a bed with you both again soon!”

Both witches ceased their attacks and Roberta was able to continue, although her cuts still hurt from where the sharp beaks had torn deep into her flesh.

At the summit of a low hill Roberta caught a glimpse of the wide and deep lake, and the familiar shape of the King’s Palace a short distance away from it. Paula had been insistent that she swim across to it and Roberta, by this time, was not about to go against the little girl’s wishes. The experience with the three witches, what she saw in the crystal and the miraculous healing after such a horrible flogging all showed the former sceptic the error of her ways.

Because Roberta was a Believer at last! How sad that some people only come to belief the hard way! Paula had always been a believer and she was now a Lady. Roberta, the sceptic, had gone through one horror after another and her ordeal was not over yet. There is a moral here!

The Spring might have arrived, but the lake was fed by streams coming straight from the surrounding mountains where the snow still lay heavy. Some pieces of ice still floated on the surface. It might be clear enough of ice for a swimmer to make her way to the island, but she would be frozen before she got half way there - except that Roberta was no ordinary woman.

She walked straight into the water until it was up to her waist and launched herself towards the island. Even one as toughened as Roberta  by nearly a decade of naked exposure to the coldest of cold weather could not suppress a gasp as the cold enveloped her strong body.

Roberta knew something about the coming swim! She must swim three times around the island, keeping well away from the shore before she set foot upon it. No one had ever told her this. Paula had merely said that she must swim out to the Island and wait. But fresh instructions were coming from somewhere all the time. There was no voice telling her what to do, but she knew all the same.

Thirty yards from the shore, Roberta turned to the right and began to swim anti clockwise around the tiny wooded island. A large fish was between Roberta and her goal. The girl knew that the sea beast would not allow her to get any closer until her three circuits had been completed. Her fingers and toes started to hurt first. But gradually the cold crept further and further up her arms and legs and her chest was gripped by an agonising iciness.

The cold finally took over her whole body and even the hardy Roberta knew that life was ebbing out of her. She still had one circuit to complete. On one side of her a large fish blocked further progress to the island and on the other, a companion fish stopped her making back for the lake shore.

Finally, just as she was ready to die from the extreme cold and a tiredness that was more profound than anything she had ever experienced even in the fiercest and most prolonged of battles, she was free to swim the few yards to the island. She dragged herself onto the narrow beach with what strength still remaining and lay seemingly lifeless on the white sand.