Monica's Travels 14

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

(story continues from Monica's Travels 13)

Chapter Fourteen – Turning the Tide

It was some minutes and three renditions of the “Flight” before the drawbridge was lowered, and I wondered what was going on amongst the inhabitants of the castle during that time.  Were they battening down the hatches, securing captives, or discussing strategies?

When the drawbridge did finally drop, Pearson was standing at the far end of it, clad in his full armour, save for a helmet.  I had pondered on how to play this moment, and knew not to let my emotions get the better of me.  Any chance of success I had lay with staying in control of myself, no matter what provocations were flaunted at me.

“My lord, I have travelled many leagues to challenge you for the ownership of the maidens you hold captive in your castle.  I hear you are strong of arm and skilled of sword – a champion amongst your peers.  What say you?  Are you man enough to accept this challenge?”

There was a pause, while the Earl appeared to be weighing up my summons.  And of course it was not just the challenge itself.  The implication of my presence in full armour – his armour – along with the tent and the other gear I had brought, made it quite clear what I had been doing of late.  The bound and gagged Leon impaled on the shaft just behind me was also a piece in the chess game, albeit probably a disposable one from the Earl’s perspective.  But then again I thought about what Leon would spill if he was turned over to the authorities, and decided that maybe he was worth something after all.

 “Who dares issue this challenge?” demanded the Earl.  I figured he was stalling for time, while he considered his approach.

“Lord Steven of Brisbane,” I answered, deciding if he was an Earl then I was a better man than he was, any day.

“What have I to gain from a victory in such a contest?”

“You gain the release of your servant, and the assurance of silence from him,” I replied pointedly, in case he hadn’t worked out his exposure here.  “You also gain the vassalage of myself, to do with as you see fit.”

He seemed to think about this.

“I will wager you two for two,” he said at length.  “I will put up the two interlopers who trespassed here last night, against yourself and your prisoner.  I must say, however, that I have not heard of you, nor do I know of your feats, and thus until you have proven yourself, I do not consider you a worthy opponent.  You will fight - as a substitute - my second, Grand Master Warren.  Should you prove yourself successful against him, I will reconsider your challenge.  Those are my terms.”

“I accept them, my Lord.  I ask that you bring out your two captives as a sign of good faith, with your champion, to the field of combat.”

“Very well.”  He turned and walked back to the open portcullis, which dropped behind him.

I could only guess what the talk would be inside the castle.  How would Warren react to finding he had been volunteered to fight me?  I was sure he was not into all this medieval nonsense and Pearson’s little obsessive fantasies.  All Warren wanted was to extract his revenge on Monica and the girls – particularly Mary and Trish – and the idea of putting Mary on the table as a prize first thing up would not have endeared Pearson to him.  It all came down to the power play between Warren and Pearson, but I felt that on home turf, Pearson would carry the day.  Besides, it only needed a suggestion that Warren was not up to the job to stir up his indignant pride – something he could never live down.

There were several large oak trees in the immediate vicinity of the approach to the drawbridge, and after checking my gear I sat down under one of these, waiting for some action.  Leon remained out in the hot sun, sweating, sore and no doubt hungry.

I carried with me a heavy sword and shield, and had a long bullwhip wrapped round my waist, looking as though it was nothing more than a belt of some sort.  I did not know what Warren would come out with.  I was hoping he would be at least as unused to combat as I was, and in this regard we would be perhaps evenly matched.  Mind you, no doubt Warren would be getting a rapid rundown on the finer points of swordplay even as I sat there, feeling the butterflies flutter about in my stomach.

The butterflies got worse when there came the sound of the portcullis rising, and Warren walked slowly across the drawbridge.  For a moment I felt an elation that my plan as a concept was working, and for that reason I stayed where I was, some fifty metres distant.  Behind Warren, being led on a chain, came Mary and Shawnee.

They wore the same clothes that they had had on yesterday, although their blouses seemed to be partially undone.  I could not really tell because they wore things like violins around their necks, the devices having a large hole for their necks and two smaller holes – one in front of the other – for their wrists to poke through in the longer part extending half a metre forward of their throats.  Their unequally bent arms thus covered their partially exposed breasts, and they looked terribly uncomfortable.  Warren held the chain – around three metres long – at the midpoint, with each chain end being locked to the outer ends of the yoke devices.

Not content with immobilising the girls’ arms, their tongues had been stilled as well, with what I knew to be Scold’s Bridles.  These metal gags had been locked on their head, with some sort of tongue depressors in their mouths.  Mary and Shawnee both looked at me briefly, before concentrating on where they were being led. 

Warren turned off the path at the end of the drawbridge and took the captives across to where a large oak bough had collapsed on to the ground.  He locked the chain to the bough, then turned the girls back to back, and appeared to lock the two iron bridles together.  In doing this, the pair found themselves severely hampered, in that they could no longer turn their heads, nor move independently.  They tottered momentarily then worked out that the only thing they could do was sit down and hope for the best, and this they did very gingerly, for having one’s head trapped in a semi-rigid iron cage was no doubt uncomfortable, awkward and probably just a little scary. 

I waited until Warren had finished securing his captives, suddenly feeling nervous as all hell and convinced I had done a really stupid thing.  I caught sight of Pearson watching from the battlements and began to fancy my chances even less.

Warren was about the same height as I was, but wore heavier plate armour.  Like me he carried a sword and shield.  I sized him up, thinking that he was probably less mobile, but I could not see a great future in taking on his armour with just my sword.  Short of running him through at a joint or some other such rather permanent immobilisation, it rather looked like I was in for a major battle.  I, on the other hand, was protected by the chain mail, but I had no experience as to just how well this would stand up to a full blooded thrust or swing of a heavy sword.  Picking up my shield and slipping my left arm through the leather grips on the back of it, I used it to shield my movements as I carefully unwound the bullwhip from my waist and coiled it up in my left hand, hidden from view.

I stood up and began to walk the intervening distance to Warren.  Leon was continuing to make moaning noises as he watched from the shaft on my right, while the two girls struggled to turn their heads from their position on the ground to my left.  Warren pulled a visor down on his helmet and at once seemed to become more intimidating and a bit taller.  He drew his sword as I did, before bringing my shield directly in front of me to hide the transfer of my sword to my shield hand and the whip to my right.

I have always liked the scene from Indiana Jones where – confronted with a huge whip-flourishing native, Indy calmly pulls out his pistol and takes the guy out.  It is the essence of realism and practicality.  Chivalry is only good up to a point.  I don’t mind letting people into a queue or holding a door for a lady, but chivalry between guys in mortal combat is just a bit off, I think.

I waited until Warren was only a couple of metres away before dropping my shield arm and letting fly with the whip.  It was not intended to sting, or to strike a blow.  Rather, it was intended to do exactly what happened, wrap around his left ankle.  I yanked with all my strength and jerked his leg off the ground.  Totally unbalanced, Warren crashed backwards and I was on him in a clash of armour and shields.

Warren never had a chance to strike.  There was a brief tussle before I had his helmet off and my sword point poking into the soft flesh under his chin.  I stared into his eyes and mustered all the ferocity I could manage, with this suddenly made easy through the thought of what he had been doing to the girls.

“Yield!” I shouted in his face.  Whatever it was in my expression or tone, it had the desired effect.

“I – I yield!” he stammered.

“On your stomach!” I ordered, easing myself up just enough to let him turn over.  I untangled the whip from his ankle and heaved his armoured arms one at a time behind his back, binding one wrist to the other with several plastic cable ties I had secreted in my pockets.  I was amazed – though I guess I shouldn’t have been - at how difficult he seemed to find movement in his armour.  I had to help him to stand after I’d finished tying the knots, for which I had to remove my own chain mail gloves.  Warren staggered to his feet  with a clatter, then I dragged him across to where Leon still stood impaled, legs apart with his splinted erection, whimpering quietly.  I forced Warren to his knees and used the whip to tie his neck to the steel shaft between Leon’s legs.

I had barely completed this, however, when I was astonished to hear a thudding of hooves behind me, and turned to see Pearson charging across the drawbridge and then over the open ground towards me.  I had not seen this coming at all.  Naively I had thought we would then have another civilised little arrangement for the next stage of the contest, but perhaps he had been upset by my unsporting use of the whip.  Whatever the reason, I was caught in no man’s land, without my sword, whip or shield. 

Pearson was mounted on a chestnut steed and carried a nasty-looking lance levelled at me.  I knew it would be fatal to run, unless I wanted to get a lance in the back and trampled by the horse.  Never turn your back on the enemy.  I only had a few seconds to work that one out as he came at me at a gallop.  At the last minute I tried to throw myself aside but he anticipated my movement, for I had to move away from the horse, and the lance caught me on my left shoulder, in the soft spot just above the armpit.

I gasped with pain and was spun and thrown to the ground.  Immediately my arm seemed to go numb.  The lance did not have a sharpened point, but the impact and momentum behind it were enough to have an effect.  The chain mail had certainly saved me from a dislocation, but I was still stranded up the proverbial creek without a paddle, sword, or any other form of defence. 

Desperately I scrambled to my feet and staggered towards the weaponry that lay on the ground where I had struggled with Warren.  Pearson was alert to that, however, and spun his horse to cut me off.  Seeing his strategy, I changed mine, instead working my way towards one of the big oak trees near the foot of the drawbridge.  It had low branches and I hoped to hinder his movements on the horse and force him to fight on foot.

Twice more I had to throw myself clear of a charge before I got into the protection of the spreading oak boughs.  My shoulder and arm was starting to throb with pain by now, and any thought I had of retrieving my weapons was gone.  Pearson had me trapped under the tree and reined in his mount in a flurry of leaves and stones, sliding off with the skill of an expert horseman.  I looked around frantically for something to defend myself with, for I was now in no doubt that this guy was seriously pissed off and whatever chivalrous arrangement might have existed was now a no-holds-barred contest.  I found a hefty piece of broken branch, and prepared to defend myself as best I could.  Had I had the use of my left arm I might have been able to lift a bigger branch and swing it more effectively.  As it was, the future looked just a tad one-sided.

It was only when Pearson approached me, sword drawn and shield discarded as unnecessary, that I saw a glimmer of hope, though quite how it would manifest itself I couldn’t fathom.  Pearson’s back was to the drawbridge, while mine was to the tree.  Beyond him, I saw two figures appear on the drawbridge.  One wore a red full length gown and the other a blue peasant skirt and white top.  Both had what appeared to be wooden wheels locked around their necks, and they seemed to be locked together with a length of chain which was wrapped around a length of branch.

I didn’t know what help they might be to me in their restrained state, but any distraction might prove enough.  In the interim, until this chained up Amazon cavalry could reach me, I had to keep Pearson occupied.  Fortunately he still wore his helmet with its limited vision through a horizontal slit, and I was sure his hearing would be affected somewhat as well.  Figuring that he thought he had the upper hand, and deciding that attack was the best for of defence, I launched myself at him as he approached, barely giving him time to raise his sword to parry my swinging piece of wood.  It deflected off the sword and clanged against his helmet, which if nothing else must have made his ears ring.

But the attack was doomed to failure, as he thrust me away and came at me in a flurry of bows.  Most I managed to parry or somehow deflect with the branch, but one caught me in the ribs and another on my left bicep.  As I backed towards the tree, all the while the girls were getting closer behind him, but they were still a dozen metres away.  I could see that both were gagged with balls strapped in their mouths, distorting their features as they struggled for breath from their exertions.  I saw, too, that their wrists were connected with short chains between heavy iron cuffs, and between these restraints and dragging the piece of branch which was somehow locked to the length of chain linking their timber yokes, they were struggling to cover the ground.

I knew Pearson would be aware of their presence at any second, and so I stooped and grabbed a handful of dirt and debris and threw it in his face.  It splattered against the helmet while it otherwise seemed to have no effect, it was just enough of a distraction to gain vital seconds for Jill and Leila to cover the final metres.  Pearson became aware of them at the last second and half turned.  Jill was in the lead and had paused momentarily to grab the big branch that their chain connected to.  I didn’t know what she had in mind, but I was petrified at the thought of what could happen to them if either one fell or took a blow from the armoured knight.  The presence of the wooden yokes could easily break their necks, and it was perhaps this thought and the momentary diversion that prompted me to launch a flying rugby tackle at Pearson’s legs.

On reflection it perhaps wasn’t the brightest thing I have ever done.  Tackling steel-sheathed legs is not clever at the best of times.  Leading with a wounded shoulder was positively dumb.  Nevertheless he crashed to the ground with considerable force – enough to knock the wind out of him under the weight of the armour.  Jill and Leila had the presence of mind to immediately squat down and wrap their joining chain around Pearson’s neck, sitting on it to completely immobilise the now helmet-less and gasping knight.

We all stared at each other for a few seconds, the girls snorting and making mmphing sounds around their gags, and me just trying to catch my breath and come to terms with the further pain in my shoulder.  At length I got to my knees and tried to undo Jill’s gag, but it had been locked on with a small padlock.  I should have figured out that even had she not been able to reach it herself, Leila could have, and thus the reason it had not been undone was obvious.

I was concerned that Pearson could cause more trouble as soon as he was compos mentis again.

“Hold him there,” I gasped.  “I have some rope in the tent.”

I got to my feet and stumbled painfully across to the little tent and opened up the box of stuff I had brought.  It contained various ropes and chains and stuff that I had gathered quickly from the workshop before coming to the castle.  I took a couple of lengths of rope and returned to where Leila was now sitting on Pearson’s neck and Jill was on his back.  Between us we bound him into a secure hogtie, tugging his limbs as far as they could go in the restrictive armour, before tying the tail of the rope to an overhead branch.

Only then did I help the girls up and untangle their chain from around Pearson’s neck.  I searched him and Warren for keys, but they had obviously left them in the castle.  I explained this to Shawnee and Mary, sitting back to back, their iron bridles locked together like Siamese Twins joined at the head.  They made grunting noises of understanding, and looked considerably more cheerful than they had been half an hour previously.

Flanked by Jill and Leila, I crossed the drawbridge and entered the castle, taking in the two tents, the camp fire and the open air kitchen.  The girls went straight to one of the tents and disappeared inside, reappearing several minutes later without their gags, yokes, and wrist chains, but wearing iron collars that had obviously been half-hidden by the wooden wheels.

We hugged each other and there were tears of relief and happiness, before we returned across the drawbridge to unlock Shawnee and Mary, at which point there were more tears, and they almost had me crying.  It was one of those instances where you don’t quite realise how emotionally stressed you have become until it is over, and an unthinkable fate has been avoided.

After making sure our captives were still secure, we again returned to the castle and stoked up the fire for a well-earned coffee and a council of war.

*   *   *

Everyone was a lot more comfortable now, not least Leila and Jill who were able to remove the chastity belts and inserts that they had been wearing, locked in place.  They still wore their heavy collars, but there was nothing we could do about that until we got back to the workshop at the Hall.

We had a lot to talk about both in terms of what we had discovered and what had happened to us.  I managed to get the chain mail tunic off to find a huge black bruise spreading outwards from the impact site on my shoulder.  The girls were falling over themselves to help me, and while it was most appreciated, I would rather not have had the injury at all.

I brought them all up to date with what had happened to Trish, and what I believed had happened to Monica and Emma.  The girls were shocked and dismayed.

“The bastard was using a video camera here,” said Leila angrily.

“Have a look in his tent,” I suggested to her.  “There might be something on it that we can use.

Leila returned a minute later with the small video camera and passed it to me.  I wound the tape back, searching through some of the indignities that had been forced on the girls within these castle walls, then suddenly stopped and played it forward.  It was like a repeat scene of what I had watched last night, with a black suited figure being buried in a metal box, the top of which was then riveted shut.  I squinted at the tiny screen.

“Yes!”  I exclaimed. 

“What is it?”  Jill asked.

“He’s written the address on the box – just as he did with the one I saw last night!  It’s too small to make out on this screen, but if we get back to the Hall, we should be able to read it.”

It was unexpected, uplifting news, and we were at once filled with hope that Monica and Emma were not yet out of reach, and the discovery filled us with a sense of urgency.  We collected the essentials we needed – suitable restraints, keys to these, car keys, video camera and drawbridge and portcullis remote controls - and headed out to where our captives were secured.  None had moved and Leon was still whining at his predicament.

“Good job, Steven,” said Leila, eying Leon’s humiliation with a total lack of sympathy.  Warren and Pearson were allowed to stand and their wrist bonds were checked, before the group of us  left Carreg Cennen, its drawbridge now raised, behind us.

*   *   *

Back at the Hall, Warren and Pearson, now naked, were incarcerated in the smallest cell wearing the Scavenger’s Daughters, their dicks drawn up tautly to crocodile clips fastened on to their nipples.  Warren wore one of the Scold’s Bridles we had brought back, while Pearson was gagged painfully with the mechanical pear gag that had apparently been used on Monica during her brief stay here.  It was all an interim measure, spur of the moment sort of thing while we planned something more significant. Leon wore one of the iron yokes, which held his arms and neck very tightly, since it was designed for a smaller person.  His ankles had been locked in bilboes and a chain locked between the bilboes bar and the yoke, giving him almost the same minimal movement that the Scavenger’s Daughter provided to the others.  He had the privilege of wearing the other Scold’s Bridle, completing the iron restraint of all three of our captors.

With the three of them secured, our most pressing task was a proper viewing of the Monica Tape, as we called it.  With the camera playing through the inlet to the television, we witnessed the terrible sight of Monica and Emma being enveloped by sand and disappearing from sight in two separate boxes.  They were addressed identically, Pearson writing in his fussy handwriting which we could make out clearly:

“BondCon
137 Fifty Fourth Street
Queens
New York
USA”

We were elated at the news, and I was about to ring Trish when I thought about where we went to from here.

“I’m going on to New York,” I told the others.  “But we need to decide if anybody else comes.”  I don’t know why I had become a sort of defacto leader.  It was a crap job, but somebody had to do it.  “I know that Shawnee and Leila haven’t been to England before and it seems stupid for everybody to just bypass this place now that we’re here.  Jill, why don’t you stay and look after Leila and Shawnee?  Show them a good time.”

“Well…” She looked a bit uncertain.

“I’ll come with you, Steven,” Mary declared in such a decisive tone that I knew there would be no argument over her involvement.  “Us three old hands can sort out the Yanks.”  Jill looked relieved, but tried not to show it.

“Are you sure?  I’m happy to lend a hand.”

“No, I think you’ll be needed here,” I agreed.  “Not right here, of course, but here in England.  In fact I think you’ll need to be well away from right here, but we can sort that out shortly.  Let me ring Trish.”

The others clustered round and made suitably cheerful comments as I spoke to her.  Her plane had been delayed and she had only just landed.  She was about to head to the city and take up our booking at the Waldorf. 

“Mary and I will be joining you as soon as we can get a flight,” I said.  I gave her the address we had seen on the video and told her not to do anything stupid on her own.  We’ll let you know as soon as we’ve made arrangements.  We have a few matters to attend to here, first.”

*   *   *

Mary was elected president of the Retribution Committee and plans were made.  It was a busy afternoon.  Mary and Shawnee returned to the castle to bring back some gear that we had decided we needed, while Jill and I got on the internet on Pearson’s computer.  It did not take long to track down contact phone numbers for the Sunday Mail, England’s most notorious tabloid, and Channel 10, the most intrusive investigative television channel.

A phone call from this point established firstly that there was accommodation available at a local pub, the Highwayman, in Ross-on-Wye.  Further phone calls put Jill in touch with investigative reporters from both the newspaper and the television channel.  I listened in to part of the conversation on the speaker phone.

“If you want the biggest scoop of the year, you should drive immediately to Ross-on-Wye and book in to the Highwayman Inn,” said Jill.  She had a good telephone manner, managing to disguise her Australian accent with a passable English one.

“What sort of scoop?” came the question.  The male voice was a tad dubious, but interested. I tried to picture the guy on the other end.  Maybe middle-aged, experienced, been around the block a few times.

“Kinky sex, English nobility, abduction, missing persons, international slave trading… That enough for you?”

“You’re kidding.”

“I most certainly am not kidding,” Jill said frostily.  “When you get to the inn you’ll find a package waiting for you with some video tapes in it.  You may choose not to go, but your competitors from television will be there.”

“All right, all right.  What’s your name?  Where do you fit in with this?”

“My name’s not relevant, and I fit in by having been on the receiving end of these lunatics.  That’s all you need to know at present.”

“Wait – what happens then – after we get the tapes, I mean?  Why do we have to come to Ross-on-Wye?”

“You will wait in the hotel and then you’ll be contacted later tonight.  Further instructions will be forthcoming and you will then get to meet the perpetrators of these outrages.  You will no doubt want a photographer to document all this as well.  I’ll be in touch. Good bye.”

“Okay but –“

Jill hung up and we gave each other a high five.  The first block of the Wall of Retribution was in place.

*   *   *

Having put the highest priority matters in train, Jill, Leila and I went out to the workshop with the intention of removing the iron collars that were welded in place around their necks.  The girls had found their luggage – and that of Monica and Emma – and had changed back into their own clothes.   Removing the collars now was going to be an awkward job, for there were several tack welds down the joint where the two halves of the collar butted against each other.  I pondered just how I was going to deal with this.

I had to ensure the collar wouldn’t slip, and eventually made Jill kneel on the floor with her fingers tucked inside the collar at her throat, while she rested her neck on a large chopping block.

“I feel like Anne Boleyn,” Jill said throatily, “waiting for the executioner’s axe.”

I had slipped a fire blanket under the collar first, to ensure sparks did not find their way into Jill’s mop of blonde hair, but now I had the task of ensuring the grinder I had chosen did not slip off and do serious harm to her.

“You’re going to have to hold really still,” I told her.  Leila watched anxiously as I braced myself and stood over Jill, starting up the small grinder with a loud clatter.  There was a shower of orange sparks and a howl from the grinder in contact with the welds.  Pain shot through my wounded arm and shoulder, but I focussed on the job at hand.  Jill remained like a sphinx as I gingerly ground the welds away.  As the welds disappeared, the joint slowly became visible and abruptly opened.  Jill stood up and removed the collar with obvious relief.

“Who’s next?” I said.

*   *   *

Mary and Shawnee returned in early afternoon with the shaft and the stuff that had been left outside of Carreg Cennen castle.  Jill and Shawnee then took the Beemer to the Highwayman Inn with two packages of video tapes, one for the Sunday Mail and one for the television crew.  While in Ross-on-Wye they were to collect a hire car and arrange flights for me and Mary to New York.

Meanwhile, the shaft was immediately put to use, with Pearson impaled on it.  It was positioned out the back of the castle, and after being freed from the Scavenger’s Daughter Pearson was forced to stand astride it, his manacled hands lifted over his head and connected to an iron collar locked around his neck, thus forcing him into the position I had seen the girl named Rachel in, on the video.  Pearson had abruptly lost his bravado and casual relaxed manner.  Now, with his legs held apart by the spikes on the shaft and his little willy trapped in the split in the front phallus, he looked decidedly apprehensive, especially at the sight of Mary in Monica’s borrowed black skin tight leather pants and sleeveless vest advancing on him with a flogger.  She looked all business, with a particular score to settle.

While the subsequent carnage was taking place on the back lawn, I had more artistic concerns to deal with in the workshop.  We had decided on our plan of attack, part of which centred on the dual iron prongs that Mary and Shawnee had been forced to spend the night on, while locked in the Scavenger’s Daughters.  This plate with the double phalli was one of the items that Shawnee and Mary had retrieved, and I had now cut it into two plates of roughly half a metre on a side, with the oxy torch.

We had set up a saddle on a support in the workshop.  The saddle had been borrowed from the stables, and was now on a support beneath a block and tackle suspended from the roof, such that I could shape the prong and plate to the contours of the saddle, with the intention that Warren and Pearson would make one last ride into the sunset.

It took me about an hour of heating and hammering the plates to get them to sit properly on the saddle, and that was when Pearson was brought in.  He was glowing bright red over his whole body from the thorough thrashing he had received at Mary’s hands, and his buttocks were criss-crossed with the rapidly darkening distinctive welts of a cane.  His wrists were still locked behind his neck and he was making distressed gurgling noises through the iron pear depressing his tongue.  He had been blindfolded with duct tape, to make him a little easier to handle.  Mary and Leila then went to fetch Warren to replace the older man at the whipping post.

In the workshop were numerous suits of armour in various stages of disassembly, and it was these that we now tried out on his lordship.  We worked from the ground up, starting with a pair of chain mail trousers.  I cut a slit through the crotch of these with bolt cutters, though I had to cut the first couple of rings with the oxy gear, for the rings were too small for the jaws of the cutters to grip.  With the mail trousers in place, all Pearson’s vulnerable bits remained vulnerable, but there was a plan behind all of this.  We secured the mail trousers with a piece of heavy stainless steel wire threaded through the top line of rings, and welded in place, using a piece of fire blanket to limit the weld splatter.  The mail trousers were well and truly there to stay.

Now it was a question of finding appropriate plated armour for his feet then shins and thighs.  Unusually, he wore the mail under this suit that we were putting together, and hence it was a little tighter perhaps than normal.  When we had his legs as completely protected as we could, I hooked the chain from the block and tackle under his armpits and around his body and began to haul him into the air, while Jill  - back from Ross-on-Wye - and Leila steadied his legs.  When he was high enough, we moved the block across so that he was positioned above the saddle with its iron seat and big prong standing up vertically.  Pearson began to make more burbling noises of protest and struggled as best he could, but that evidently proved more painful than what he was about to experience, given the tightness of the chain around his armpits and well-thrashed back and chest.

I lowered him down while Leila and Jill held his legs apart and allowed the big phallus to enter his backside.  He moaned and mmphed as he sank down on to the saddle with his full weight coming to bear on the prong and also his wounded buttocks.  Now it was time to complete the costume, and again starting at the bottom, we began the process of immobilising Pearson.  With his feet in the stirrups, I started a series of tack welds at the joints on the armour that would fix his legs in position.  More to the point, we had decided that since he was so in love with his precious medieval suits of armour, we would weld him inside one.  Most of the plates for his thighs and shins were strapped on, and after cutting a number of pieces of 3mm steel from some spare plate, I welded these in a series of U-shaped strips over the top of the straps around his legs, preventing access to the buckles and leather straps.  Jill splashed water to quench the weld as soon as I had finished, but Pearson would still have a series of nice little burns all over his body, I suspected.

It was now time to remove his wrist chains from the lock at the back of the Brank, and we did this very carefully.  We did not really expect any trouble from him, not being blindfolded, gagged and impaled on the prong, with his legs now immobilised, but you couldn’t be too careful.  We freed his wrists while we slipped the mail shirt over him, before re-chaining them and again locking them behind his head.  The shirt was a snug fit, and once in place I held the front of it up while Leila screwed a pair of vice-like nipple grips in place.  Pearson thrashed and moaned as his tender buds were trapped and squeezed between the two compressing jaws, but he could do nothing about it.

The mail shirt was smoothed down and a further stainless steel wire threaded through the bottom of it and intertwined with that of the trousers, before being welded in place.  For luck I welded a few links of the top half to the bottom half, which would be in positions that would be impossible to get at with a grinder.  Someone would have to do a lot of cutting of the rings themselves.

Now came the breast and back plates, again strapped, but this time much easier to weld together and with more than just tack welds this time.  I was able to make a thorough job of it, and it would take somebody an awfully long time to get them off and eventually get access to the clamps on Pearson’s nipples.  On the front of the breast plate, at the bottom, extending from around the navel to the groin, I welded a piece of ten millimetre rod.  The rod was shaped like a tick, vertically down, then bent out and up like an erect penis.  Strangely enough, this was exactly what was intended for it, although the outcome of Leila’s ministrations proved to be somewhat less imposing than we had hoped for.  It appeared to keep trying to retreat into itself, and it was only with difficulty that we managed to tape Pearson’s manhood to the rod with duct tape.  A section of pipe was then slid over the rod and dick.  I said I thought the Rod and Dick sounded like a pervert’s local pub.  Jill and Leila thought this was hilarious and couldn’t stop giggling over it.  I put it all down to stress.

The steel sleeve was welded to the rod, then a pair of handcuffs was separated and one manacle was closed shut passing behind Pearson’s scrotum and over the top of the rod.  A squirt of superglue took care of the lock.  I had no doubt that the journey down the hill to Ross-on-Wye would prove to be the ride of Pearson’s life.

There remained only to fit the plate protection to Pearson’s arms and then to weld steel gauntlets first to the forearm plate, and then gripping the pipe sticking up from his groin.  To all intends and purposes, he looked like a mounted knight in the midst of a massive wank.  The final accessory was the helmet, and we kept this down to a simple sort – one of those inverted rubbish bin types with the eye slit, that fitted over the protruding shaft of the metal pear gag protruding from his mouth, which we had effectively sabotaged with epoxy glue on the threads.  Nothing irreversible, just something which would cause sufficient pain and reflection for all the times he had practised the same thing on innocent captives.

With Pearson at last completely welded into his suit, we lifted him off the saddle, complete with the prong plate roped to his armour, then brought in his horse and fitted the saddle, before replacing him on it and tethering it outside.

“Don’t go riding off anywhere,” I warned him.  He made a plaintive moaning sound, and I returned inside to deal with a very unhappy looking Warren O’Rorke.

*   *   *

It took another hour to get Warren similarly restrained and mounted.  There were two significant differences between the end result of Warren and that of his predecessor.  Pearson sported the only pear gag available, which had been specifically reserved for him, and thus we thought it appropriate that Warren remain gagged with the Scold’s bridle, which we managed to fit a helmet over.  The second difference was that Warren was considerably better endowed than Pearson, and the duct taping of his member to the rod took considerably more turns of tape, and was, as Leila described it, considerably more satisfying as a result.

It was getting dark by now, and my shoulder ached from the labour, as did my head from the welding fumes.  Leon was the last of the trio to be dealt to, and we had decided that it would be appropriate to leave him in the same condition as he had left Monica and Emma in, except without the rubber suit.  We discovered that the Scavenger’s daughter would fit quite neatly inside one of the metal boxes in which this crowd seemed to like sending helpless females away.  We were obliged to remove the Brank and replace it with some duct tape and a squidgy rubber ball, in order that the rubber gas mask fitted snugly, and before putting him into the box, the girls demanded a few adjustments to Leon’s state of well-being. 

Predictably, he wound up wearing a pair of nipple vices like his two cronies, and was also fitted with a padlockable chastity device made of steel, with the manacle of a handcuff that ratcheted closed around his balls.  Mary thought it appropriate that his willy be given a liberal application of glue paste before it went into the chastity device, with the very obvious intention that the sand would insinuate itself into the space between metal and skin, and it would be a rather painful and possibly time-consuming process for removal.  There was no argument from the others, and no comment from me.  As a final present, courtesy of Pearson’s apparently inexhaustible supply cupboard, Leon was treated to a large acrylic butt plug with electrodes attached to a battery device.  Ordinarily the battery and controller would have been worth a couple of hundred quid, but who were we to care if they went into a box and were filled with sand.  Jill insisted on writing on the controller, “Property of the Earl of Penrhoth”.

Leon was not a happy chappy as we settled him down in the box, the stirrups around his ankles, pulling his legs into a bent position, his hands locked in the manacles attached to the main bars just under his chin, and the final stirrup around his neck.  Under the gas mask he was making all sorts of protests, though with the breathing tubes in place these noises dissipated very quickly.  By the time I had dumped a tractor shovel-load of sand on top of him, and the top of the box had been riveted in place, his gagged howls had became inaudible.

We used the tractor to load the box on to the Land Rover, then Jill and Leila set out at a snail’s pace with the two horses in tow.

I was exhausted, and sat back while Mary and Shawnee left a suitably incriminating display of evidence pertaining to the perverted nature of the Earl of Penrhoth – all the bondage gear, albums of photos of his victims and computer records – anything we could find.

Finally we dined on his food and took the hire car to Ross-on-Wye, passing Jill and Leila in the process.  It was for this reason that we had elected to have the horses following the Land Rover, since the lanes were narrow and we did not want a nasty accident at this late stage.

We dropped Shawnee at the hotel where Trish and Mary had originally booked us all in twenty-four hours previously.  I found it hard to believe that so much had happened in such a short time.  We waited half an hour with Shawnee before there was a call from Jill, saying they had reached the small village green on the outskirts of Ross and were ready to be collected.  We drove there in the hire car and after Jill and Leila squeezed into the back, Jill made two phone calls to the Highwayman Inn, suggesting that it would be in the interests of the reporters to make their way to the village green if they wanted to find some of the stars of the videos in the reporters’ possession. 

The village green was a hangover from older times, before the start of the suburban sprawl had slowly encroached on it.  There were houses and a pub and a few shops on the roads bordering the green, which sported a cricket pitch and was ringed with majestic trees.  The girls had parked the Land Rover outside the cricket pavilion, outside which were two security lights.  The horses were tethered to the Land Rover, with Leon’s box on the back tray, overseen by the two motionless mounted knights, their armoured hands clutching their dicks.

We parked in the shadows in a side street and watched as first the newspaper and then the television crew turned up.  The latter set up some lights and began to film, while the reporters tried to make sense out of the grunts coming from the mounted figures.  One reporter climbed on to the back of the Land Rover and pulled one of the horses alongside so that he could reach the rider’s helmet and remove it.  It turned out to be that of Pearson, who now peered pitifully down at them, the threaded shaft of the pear gag protruding from his open mouth.  The reporter tried to undo the gag, but met without success, thanks to the glue on the shaft.  We could not hear what was being spoken, but we could see Warren’s helmet removed, and further frustration at the Scold’s Bridle locked behind his head.  One of the crew found a screwdriver and began to undo the screws securing the top of the box on the Land Rover’s tray, possibly hoping for some nubile young woman to be inside, but instead finding – after scooping a few handfuls of sand out – the gas-masked face of Leon mmphing at him.

A small crowd had gathered by now, mostly from out of the local pub, even though it was not yet closing time.  It was predictably not surprising that the local coppers arrived shortly thereafter, and there were intense discussions between the reporters and the police, with arm gestures towards the riders and waving of a video.  I suspected that if the reporters were worth their salt they would have had them copied already, allowing the originals to be given to police in evidence.

Seeing all this take place gave me a great sense of relief, but also a sense of anticlimax, for Monica and Emma were still missing, and the job was only half done.  Whatever happened here was now out of our hands, and we returned to the hotel to say our farewells.

“Whatever you do, get out of here tomorrow morning,” I told Jill, Leila and Shawnee.  “Take the train and lose yourselves.  Don’t take public transport from here that requires a name or ID.  You don’t want the cops sniffing around after you, though I’d be surprised if Warren and co will be too talkative.  Even so, I reckon you might be better off taking some time to explore Europe.  How does Paris sound, Shawnee?”

“Paris?  Awesome!”

“But read the newspapers and keep the clippings,” said Mary with a smile.  “I love a juicy scandal.”

*   *   *

30.04.04

story continues in Monica's Travels 15

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