"Wilbur Smith - Courtney 03 - Blue Horizon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

Gertruda clapped her hands. "And I love you too, Louisa."

"Now it's time for your bed, and here is a cup of hot milk to make you sleep tight."

That evening when Louisa stepped through the secret doorway into Mijnheer van Hitters' bedchamber, she stopped dead in astonishment. This was a new game and she was at once confused and frightened. This was too real, too terrifying.

Mijnheer van Hitters' head was concealed with a tight-fitting black leather hood with round cutout eye holes and a crude gash for a mouth. He wore a black leather apron and shiny black boots that reached to the top of his thighs. His arms were folded across his chest, and his hands were covered with black gloves. She could barely tear her gaze away from him to look at the sinister structure that stood in the centre of the floor. It was identical to the flogging tripod on which miscreants received public punishment in the square outside the law courts. However, in place of the usual chains, silk ropes dangled from the top of the tripod.

She smiled at him with trembling lips, but he stared back at her impassively through the eye holes in the black hood. She wanted to run,

but he seemed to anticipate her intentions. He strode to the door and locked it. Then he placed the key in the front pocket of his apron. Her legs gave way under her, and she sank to the floor. "I am sorry," she whispered. "Please don't hurt me."

"You have been sentenced for the sin of harlotry to twenty strokes of the whip." His voice was stern and harsh.

"Please let me go. I don't want to play this game."

"This is no game." He came to her, and though she pleaded with him for mercy he lifted her and led her to the tripod. He tied her hands high above her head with the silken ropes, and she peered back at him over her shoulder with her long yellow hair hanging over her face. "What are you going to do to me?"

He went to the table against the far wall and, with his back turned to her, picked up something. Then, with theatrical slowness, he turned back with the whip in his hand. She whimpered and tried to free herself from the silken bonds that pinioned her wrists, twisting and turning as she hung on the tripod. He came to her and placed one finger into the opening of her nightdress, and ripped it down to the hem. He stripped away the tatters and she was naked. He came to stand in front of her, and she saw a huge bulge under his leather apron, evidence of his arousal.

"Twenty strokes," he repeated, in the cold, hard voice of a stranger, 'and you will count each one as it falls. Do you understand, you wanton little whore?" She winced at the word. Nobody had ever called her that before.

"I did not know I was doing wrong. I thought I was pleasing you."

He cut the whip through the air, and the lash hissed close to her face. Then he went behind her, and she closed her eyes and tensed every muscle in her back, but still the pain of the stroke defied her belief and she shrieked aloud.

"Count!" he ordered, and through white, quivering lips she obeyed.

"One!" she screamed.

It went on and on without pity or respite, until she fainted. He held a small green bottle under her nose and the pungent fumes revived her. Then it started again.

"Count!" he ordered.

At last she was able to whisper, "Twenty," and he laid the whip back on the table. He was loosening the strings of his leather apron as he came back to her. She hung on the silk ropes, unable to lift her head or support herself. Her back, her buttocks and the tops of her legs felt as though they were on fire.

He came up behind her, and she felt his hands on her lower body,

drawing her red, throbbing buttocks apart. Then there was a pain more dreadful than any that had gone before it. She was being impaled in the most unnatural way, ripped apart. Agony tore through her bowels, and she found fresh strength to scream and scream again.

At last he cut her down from the tripod, wrapped her in a blanket and carried her down the staircase. Without another word he left her sobbing on the bed. In the morning when she tottered to the cubicle and sat on the commode she found that she was still bleeding. Seven days later she had still not healed completely, and another red rose was delivered to Gertruda. Trembling and weeping quietly, she climbed the staircase to answer his summons. When she entered his chamber the tripod stood in the middle of the floor and, once again, he wore the hood and apron of the executioner.

It took months for her to gather her courage, but at last she went to Elise and told her how Mijnheer was treating her. She lifted her dress and turned to show the welts and stripes across her back. Then she bent over and showed her the torn, festering opening.

"Cover yourself, you shameless strumpet," Elise shouted, and slapped her cheek. "How dare you make up filthy lies about such a great and good man? I shall have to report you to Mijnheer for this, but in the meantime I will tell Stals to lock you in the wine cellar."

For two days Louisa crouched on the stone floor in a dark corner of the cellar. The agony in her lower belly was a fire that threatened to consume her very soul. On the third day a sergeant and three men of the city watch came to fetch her. As they led her up the stairs to the kitchen yard she looked for Gertruda, Elise or Stals but there was no sign of them or any of the other servants.

Thank you for coming to rescue me," she told the sergeant. "I could not have borne it another day." He gave her an odd enigmatic glance.