Heather Carter was just eighteen years old and had been helping her father work the fields
they rented for the past two years. She knew well the struggle he faced year by year to
pay the evil Lord his dues and this year her father had been sick for several months.
Heather was an attractive, blonde long-haired girl, with a curvy body and medium sized
firm breasts, and though she had done all she could to help her father work the land, she
knew they had failed to put enough money aside to pay the exorbitant rent demanded of
their Lord and master.
Now, as she sat in her bedroom, the tax collector sat downstairs with her father.
“Now, Carter, it’s time to pay his Lordship for your use of his land.”
“I know, I know,” Carter sounded weak and tired. “But I’ve been sick these past
three months. Can his Lordship make no allowances?”
“You know the rules, Carter.”
“Yes,” he said even more wearily, “I know the rules.”
“Then, as today is tax day, are you going to pay what is due?”
“I can’t. My family barely has enough to exist on, let alone any chance of living a
decent life.”
“That may as be, but we have a duty to his Lordship. So, you can not pay?”
“No, sir, I can not pay.”
Heather listened to the conversation from her partly open bedroom door and as she
listened, she went pale.
“Then, you have a choice to make, Carter. Either you leave the farm you are renting
within the next seven days, or you pay his Lordship in kind.”
“I, I can’t make that kind of decision,” said Carter helplessly.
“Maybe not, father, but I can,” said Heather, standing at the top of the stairs.
“Without this place you would not survive another year and where would that leave me and
my three younger sisters?”
“I can’t let you do it,” said Carter looking up at his eldest daughter with fear in
his eyes.
She looked so much like his late wife, yet she had a fire about her that his wife
had never possessed. Carter looked with fear also because he knew more than his daughter
what was meant by `A Chastening`, and it was the last thing he would let his daughter
agree to.
“You don’t have to let me do it. I am now of age and can make my own decisions. What
I am doing is my own decision. It is the least I can do after all you have done for us
these past years since Mother’s death. If I am to become an object of his Lordship’s
desires then what must be, must be.”
“We could take the young lady as payment in kind. I am sure his Lordship would
agree,” said the tax collector, knowing full well that Heather Carter was one of the names
Rockharte had specifically put on the list of people to look out for.
After further protestations from Carter and even greater determination from his
attractive, naïve daughter, the men accompanying the tax collector took hold of
Heather and escorted her out of the cottage, smiling at the sight of her father holding
his head in his hands with shame.
Outside they helped the wench onto the back of the cart. Once she had climbed
aboard, they tied her wrists together with coarse rope and then secured the free end of
the rope to a metal ring mounted on the floor of the cart. A few minutes later were on
their way to the next cottage from which a tithe was due.
***
All morning the tax collector visited the various farms and tithed cottages. At some
he collected the money due but by lunchtime he and his two henchmen had taken four young
damsels in lieu of payment. With the cart now laden with the young girls, the men turned
from the last farm and headed off into the forest.
“It seems we are not going back to the castle. This isn’t the way back,” Heather
looked up and whispered to the petite brunette opposite her. Charity Spears looked up,
tears on her cheeks already.
“No, they should have gone back up the main track. What’s going on?” She called out
louder to the henchman who was driving the cart, sat perched on a bench at the front of
the cart, the reins and a whip in his hands.
“We’re going to collect our commission first,” said the henchman and laughed at his
joke. “You’re what?” Asked Jenny, the dark-haired girl crouched next to Heather.
“When we collect the tithes, his Lordship gives us commission on what we gather.
Only seems right when we collect payment in kind that we get our share of that too. Only
we won’t be up at the castle tonight when his Lordship begins, so we collect ours now,
before we go up there.”
“Are you referring to the four of us?” Heather asked, fear on her face.
“My now, and aint you the bright one!” The driver said with mockery in his voice.
“Well, it doesn’t take much to work it out. What exactly do you intend to do?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
Heather had to crouch down low as the cart left the badly made track and headed into
a thicker part of the forest.
“His Lordship says to us only not to mark you permanently, other than that we can
collect what is due to us.” The driver said as he pulled the cart to an abrupt halt in a
small clearing in the trees.
The tax collector and his other henchman were riding behind the cart and they now
alighted from their mounts and the tax collector walked over to the cart.
“You,” he said, pointing to the cowering red-head at the back of the cart, “will be
first.” The driver of the cart jumped into the cart and released the rope from the
mounting on the floor.
Grace Malvern stood up slowly, her tear-stained, muddy face indicating she had been
taken from her family without time to clean herself up after a morning in the fields.
The driver pushed the girl over the side of the cart and she was grabbed by the tax
collector as she landed. He took the free end of the rope that tied her wrists and yanked
her forcefully towards the large oak that was at the end of the clearing.
Pushing her back to the tree, he released her wrists only to order her to place them
behind her and round the trunk of the great tree. In a moment her wrists were bound again
with the rope that was passed round the back of the tree.
“Now let’s see what we have here,” the tax collector smirked as he ran his hand
lightly around the girl’s face. “What’s your name, little one,” he sniggered knowing she
was greatly afraid of him and powerless to resist what he was going to do.
“Grace, sir, you knows it is,” she stammered.
“Well Grace, I hope you know what a real man is,” he said seriously, making Grace
gasp in horror. As he spoke, his hand went lower, over the girl’s coarse clothing to her
full, ample bosom.
Here he rubbed the palm of his hand roughly over both her breasts in turn. Grace
cried out for him to stop but his hand was immediately over her face.
“Shut up you stupid little slut. What we are going to do to you is nothing compared
to what his Lordship has planned for you. So, I suggest you get used to your new role in
life.”
“But, I have no experience of a man and I vowed not to until I was legal wed,” said
Grace. “So if you please, unhand me, sir,” she added.
As reward for her bravery, she felt the hard sting across her left cheek as the back
of his hand was brought to bear.
“If you don’t shut up or you complain again I will hit you harder. Now, you will
take what is coming.”
He stood back for a moment and looked at the girl. Then he took another length of
rope and lashed her ankles with it, tying the rope behind the tree so she could not kick
out at him. Then, with a swift movement of his hand he pulled the knife from his pocket.
It was a short bladed affair and the blade was enclosed in a leather sheath. The sheath
was soon thrown to the forest floor as the tax collector pulled at the girl’s coarse
garment covering her upper body.
The blade was sharp and made light weather of slitting the garment from the bottom
hem right up between her breasts to the upper hem. When he withdrew the blade the cloth
fell to the sides of her body, exposing her pale, almost white, flesh and her young, firm
breasts. Grace had dark areolas and in the middle her rose coloured nipples jutted
fiercely out. In her state of bondage and with the sudden exposure of her body for the
first time ever, Grace felt hot. It was a heat she had never experienced before except one
Sunday afternoon in a bail of hay a few years back with one of the local lads. She
remembered that the poor lad had got a severe cuff on the ear from her father for fooling
around with his daughter when they had been caught semi-naked. Now the heat was starting
to burn within her and she instantly felt like she was going to explode when the tax
collector’s hands once again rubbed over her naked breasts, gliding firmly over her
rampant nipples as they did so.
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