The Devil's Surrogate (17 page)

'Go on, lad,'
he snapped. 'This is no place for you. Get yourself to the outer
door and keep watch. This blackguard may well have friends close by
and we don't want to give them the jump on us. Here,' he urged,
seeing Toby's lack of response, 'take my pistol. You know how to
use it?'

Dumbly, Toby
nodded.

'Good lad. And
aim at the body; it's a bigger target than the head. Now, Sean lad,
you hold her still and let's see what all this is about. This
strapping about her middle can't be doing her any good.' Sean, he
could see, was only marginally less shocked by the scene they had
witnessed than the boy, and seemed almost afraid to touch the naked
girl.

'Will you keep
a decent hold on her?' he asked impatiently. 'This is no time for
trying to play the bloody gentleman. And try not to let her poor
back rub on the floor, either; her flesh is sore as hell from the
look of it.'

'I don't like
this at all, Paddy,' Sean whispered. 'She acts as if she's
possessed by the devil himself.'

'Pa!' He aimed
a half-hearted slap at Sean's head. 'The only thing as has
possessed this one is that bloody cock thing up there.' He nodded
tersely back at the object of her degradation. 'Your man had her
bouncing up and down on the damned thing for the Lord knows how
long, and she lost her mind to lust, that's all.'

'Is she going
to die, do you think?'

Paddy peered
down at the girl's face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth open.
'Well,' he said slowly, 'I've never heard of a body dying from a
good shagging, but then this is something else again, Sean, and I'm
no doctor. But no, I think she'll be all right in a while. This is
just a fit of the hysterics and it'll pass, like everything else,
in time.'

It had felt like an eternity. It had been the longest hour in
Isobel's life. But now, as she stumbled wearily but triumphantly
out onto the path, it was over and she had won. She stopped to look
up at the sky and draw a deep breath in through her nostrils. The
air tasted fresh and good, apart from the faint aroma of the
leather still encasing her head and face. She grinned around the
disfiguring gag and groaned with anticipation. The hood, the
feathers, the gag,
everything
would soon be in the past and she would enjoy
every moment of Bressingham's defeat.

She pulled
back her shoulders and thrust her breasts forward in a defiant
attitude, jiggling them slightly so the bells tinkled merrily, but
now the tiny ringing sounds were peals of victory; gone was their
haunting mockery. Yes, she thought, this was the way to return, not
cowering helplessly but rather glorying in her victory, proudly
displaying her body... and suddenly her muscles contracted and went
into spasms as the two shafts inside her reminded of their
presence. She shuddered, started to fight their wicked influence,
and then shook her head. Why fight it? She had already won.

She fell to
her knees, bowing her feathered head, and her body began to
convulse as waves of unbelievable power and release swept through
her.

She did not
notice the bright length of ribbon fluttering innocently on the end
of the bramble branch behind her, where it had caught and been
tugged free of the loose knots Grayling had tied in his eagerness
to begin the hunt. She did not notice that the ribbon no longer
hung between her clamped and distended nipples as she surrendered
to the power of her orgasm. She did not notice the two pairs of
eyes that watched her from deep in the trees, one pair with a
mixture of disdain and amusement, the other with a ferocious hunger
even the brown furry mask could not hide.

Crawley stood
silhouetted in the doorway by the light of a lamp behind him, and
there were other men out in the passageway. 'Prepare her with
another scourging,' he said, 'then wash her down with salted water
and bring her to the rear door. She shall stand at the stake and
watch Wickstanner laid to rest, and then the sun dipping towards
the hills for the last time. The whole village shall then see what
becomes of those who dare to meddle in the ways of the dark
side.'

'You want that
we should remove the hood and the other thing?' a male voice
asked.

For a moment
Harriet's hopes rose. If Crawley's henchmen knew her true identity
they would be unlikely to help him kill her, even though the man
himself might want to do so in an effort to cover up his
mistake.

'No.'
Harriet's heart sank once more. 'No,' Crawley repeated, 'we'll not
risk giving her any chance to spin her enchantments again. You all
saw what happened to Father Wickstanner. No, leave the witch to her
silence and prepare her as I said.' He turned away, and his place
was taken by several other shadows before the one carrying the
lantern entered the little chamber, flooding it with a light that,
though dim in reality, seemed as bright as the sun to Harriet after
her hours of near darkness.

'Aye,' said
Thaddeus Gilbert, looming over her, 'we'll prepare the witch with
one last good tupping from us all, eh lads?'

'Well then,
Paddy,' Sean Kelly sighed and leaned back against the post that had
until so recently been the host to Sarah's humiliating surrender,
'you're the sergeant, so what do we do next?'

Paddy Riley,
still crouching by the semiconscious form on the floor, looked up
with a grimace. 'If there's one thing I'm sure of in all this, Sean
me boy,' he said softly, 'it's that I'm sure of nothing. I've never
come across the likes of any of this in all my days, and if I never
come across it again, it'll be a day too soon.'

'Any idea who
she is?' Sean asked. 'Not the one we came for, I'd guess, or the
lad would've said.'

'It doesn't
matter who the poor lass is,' Paddy muttered. 'Wherever she came
from, and whoever she is, she sure as heaven's mercy doesn't want
to be staying here a minute longer than she has to.'

'Amen to
that,' Sean agreed. 'But how do we get her out of here? We could
try carrying her, but that leaves us with only one gun, unless we
count young Toby out there, and I'd not like to leave the state of
my hide in the hands of a whelp.'

'I'm trying to
think,' Paddy muttered, sitting back on his haunches and running a
hand over his rough chin. 'You're right, of course, we can't carry
her, and I don't like to beat a retreat without at least trying to
find out if the other woman is somewhere hereabouts.'

'Maybe we
could risk leaving her here for a bit?' Sean suggested. 'Yon fella
there looks out of it for a good while yet, if he ever does come
round again. We could leave the lad to watch over the pair of them,
and give him that length of timber with instructions to whack the
bastard again if he so much as stirs.'

'And then
who's going to tell us if and when we find Mistress Harriet?' Paddy
shook his head. 'No, we'll need to be a bit cleverer than that,
Sean Kelly, and I have the scrapings of an idea.'

'You said that
a while back,' Sean reminded him.

Paddy nodded.
'I know I did,' he conceded, 'and that plan may still hold good.'
He stood up again. 'We'll have to leave Toby with the girl for a
while, yes, but only for as long as it takes us to grab one of
those black-hooded bastards out there. If we can grab two, all the
better, but one will do. Then we'll need to see where they keep
their horses, and with luck a coach or a wagon.'

'And then we
look for the other girl?'

'Maybe,' Paddy replied, 'and maybe not. Seems they have the
girls here running about in all sorts of garb, and even this one
has been shaved. Young Toby might not recognise our lady, but I
know who he
would
recognise.'

'And who might
that be?'

Paddy pursed
his lips and walked slowly towards the doorway. 'Sean,' he said
slowly, 'there's two ways to win a battle and I've seen both.
There's the one where the generals say "charge up that hill lads
and take the flag and don't worry how many of you all get cut to
ribbons by the cannons and muskets, 'cause it's for king and
country you're fighting". Of course,' he added wryly, 'now it's for
Cromwell and country, but it amounts to the same thing: you end up
just as dead if you get a ball through the heart. And then,' he
continued, turning back to stare at the girl who was now moaning
softly and rolling her head slowly from side to side, 'there's the
other way, where a couple of worthy lads sneak up around the side
and climb the hill from the back. They grab the flag, shoot the
enemy officers, and then grab the main general as a hostage.'

'You've seen
that done?' Sean asked, visibly impressed.

Paddy kept a
straight face for a second or two, and then his weathered features
wrinkled into a broad grin. 'Well, maybe not quite the way I just
told it,' he confessed, 'but it always seemed to me it would be a
damned sight less wasteful if it could be done, and there's been a
war or two won by ways not so very different. When Cromwell grabbed
the old king there were still thousands of royalists ready to
fight, but did they? No, they all laid down their guns and went
home like good little boys.'

'I don't get
you,' Sean said.

Paddy smirked
at him. 'No,' he said, 'I know you don't. But then, like you said,
I'm the sergeant, ain't I?'

'Wait, Oona,'
Jane whispered, bending close to the dog-girl's furry head. 'Wait
just a little while now and you shall have your sport. Let the
stupid bitch wander a little further down the path, and then no one
can say we must have seen that ribbon.'

The pair had
been hiding behind the trees, yet Isobel probably would not have
seen them had they strolled casually down the middle of the path;
since emerging from her hiding place she had not once looked back.
The tolling of the tower bell had signalled her wager won, and now
it was plain enough to see she had abandoned all caution.

'But no one
said anything about what was to happen after the hour,' Jane
chuckled as much to herself as to Oona. 'She may have won her bet
with that oaf, but no one has signalled the end of the hunt and
she's still fair game as far as I can see. Besides, Bressingham's
bird was marked out especially and we see no mark on this one, do
we, Oona?'

Beside her,
walking with her distinctive crouch, the dog-girl gave a low
growl.

Jane shushed
her. This was a rare chance, she thought, a rare chance to even the
unfair balances of life. She had known Isobel de Lednay for a few
years now, and the young aristocrat had made her disdain for the
common innkeeper's daughter plain enough for all to see. Jane's
presence at Grayling Hall owed everything to her childhood
friendship with Ellen, and whilst Roderick himself never alluded to
her roots (after all, Jane and her little gang were valuable to
him) Isobel knew nothing of Jane's nocturnal double life and wasted
no opportunity to score points over her.

Unfair
balances were no better illustrated than in Isobel, Jane thought
grimly. Born to wealth, she was also beautiful, as beautiful as any
female could be, and men fawned after her, even if inside that
pretty fluffy head was a fluffy brain. And here she was, still
dressed in that ridiculous bird costume, still helpless with her
arms trapped in the stiff wings and still with her pretty little
mouth filled with the foul leather gag, her face hidden behind the
feathered mask and beak. Who could possibly blame Jane, or anyone
else for that matter, if they assumed she was just another of the
slave girls? So far there had been no sounds of gunfire from
anywhere in the woods, so it was safe to assume none of the other
hunters had yet run their prey to the ground. If any had, they had
done so without resorting to firing one of the numbing slugs
first.

'Time for a
little fun, I think,' Jane whispered. 'Our pretty bird is going to
find out just what it means to be properly stuffed for the platter.
And then,' she added, a malicious grin spreading across the visible
part of her face, 'we'll even give her a good basting in her own
juices, methinks.'

The mournful
tolling of the tower bell reached Kitty as she was loping along
through a long stretch of meadow near the northern perimeter fence
of the Grayling estate, although in truth she had absolutely no
idea where she was and cared not a jot. For her, the entire hunt
scenario had now moved into the realm of sheer enjoyment. She was
out and free in the fresh air and sunshine, and the two dildos were
sending messages she was quite content to surrender herself to
periodically.

Compared to
her more recent experiences, this was as close to bliss as she
could ever have hoped to be, and the fact that she knew she would
ultimately be run to ground by one of the hunters held no terror
for her whatsoever. She raised her arms as she ran and flapped her
artificial wings, snorting past her gag with the sheer joy of a
freedom she was enjoying to the full.

She was a
bird, a beautiful, gaudy, brilliant and bizarre bird, a creation of
men for men, and she felt so good knowing there were men running
around out there somewhere whose sole purpose for the next few
hours was to claim her for their prize. The feeling was almost
overwhelming... so many men, so many rich and powerful men, and the
one thing they all had fixed in their minds was claiming her for
their own.

She staggered
to a halt and leaned against a sapling, tears of laughter clouding
her eyes. Oh, this was so wonderful, so totally wonderful. To think
she had risen from what she had been to become an object of so much
desire and admiration.

Kitty peered
down at herself and at her awesome breasts, their nipples pulled
and swollen with rings and bells, and she knew the power of freedom
had been granted her in the form of these two huge orbs. For did
not all men stare at them in wonderment and seek to have and hold
them? The men here were little different from men everywhere, she
concluded. Soon she would be sold again, and this time it would be
her ability to please that would ensure she found a master worthy
of owning her.