INTRODUCTION

 

Lord Byron Rockharte looked out of his dressing room window over the fields that surrounded his castle and smiled. It was `that` time of the year again. It was time for the peasants who worked the fields and made their living off his land to pay him their rent. It was the time of year Lord Rockharte looked forward to with relish, for each of the peasant families knew from their agreements with him that if they could not pay their taxes then they had to make a choice; either they had to leave their peasant cottages and take their chances in another part of the country, or Rockharte's men would take one of the family members up to the castle for an experience that was locally called `A Chastening`.

Rockharte knew each and every member of the families who lived under his jurisdiction and he had already issued his men with his instructions. Rockharte watched the tax collector and his team ride from the gates of the castle, together with the cart they would carry their quarry back in, and knew that within a few hours his pleasure would start.

Such was the way of life in seventeenth century Britain that no one ever questioned the Lord of the Manor's right to treat his workers in this way, and each year for the past several years, Rockharte had savoured the sheer pleasure of chastening several of the young women whose families worked on his land. He knew, as his men left the castle, this year held great promise of even greater pleasures in the days ahead.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

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 and tears 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.

"Don't worry, father dearest. 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 demise. 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, bound her wrists together behind her back with a coarse rope, 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 secured the free end of the rope that bound her wrists 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.

Heather sat silently in the cart as it bounced its way down the track, her thoughts wandered from those of love and affection for her sisters and her poor, sick father, to thoughts of what she imagined now lay ahead of her. Rockharte's reputation was well known in the area and she had, on occasion, heard the screams that came from his castle from time to time, often late at night. Heather bit her lip and silently prayed to a God she had never known that Rockharte would not be too harsh with her.

 

***

 

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. As soon as they left the main track the four girls looked at each other with consternation and fear in their eyes.

"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. We have long ago also agreed that when we collect payment in kind, such as you four young lasses, that we get our share of that too. Only we won't be up at the castle tonight when his Lordship starts to claim his own payments in kind, so we agreed with him we would 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 and what a real man wants," 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. After all, your parents could have agreed to move out of their cottage as they couldn't pay what was due today, but this route was chosen instead, so you have nothing to complain about really."

"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 out fiercely. In her state of bondage and with the sudden exposure of her body for the first time ever to a man, let alone in such a public place, 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. His hand was tantalisingly gentle as it ran easily over her naked flesh. It was almost as if he was disinterested in the effect such a gentle touch was having on the young girl, when in reality he knew exactly what he was doing, and knew such young flesh responded well to a gentler touch. The time for something much rougher would come later. When he figured Grace was burning hot deep inside her lovely young body, his hand travelled down from her fiery nipples to the tender flesh between her spread legs.

Grace climaxed immediately when the hand dipped between her legs and touched her bare flesh just above her knee. Then the hand started to climb slowly up the inside of her right leg, under her skirt, pulling the skirt up as the hand rode ever higher.

"You're wet," said the tax collector when his hand finally rubbed against her mons. "You climaxed already?" he asked her.

"Climax, sir, what is a climax?" Grace was blushing from a mixture of the heat that was raging within her and the embarrassment of her situation.

"Oh God, you are so naïve," he said. "It's when you shudder and get wet like this and you feel really hot and your little body feels like it wants to explode and then something happens and the pressure is released. That's a climax, girl. Did you climax already?"

"Yes sir, I think I did."

"Good answer. That means you are ready for fucking," he said with a smirk. As he spoke he pulled the skirt right up around the girl's waist. She was wearing nothing beneath the skirt except for her trimmed patch of red pubic hair.

In a moment, and before Grace could complain further, he had his cock out of his trousers and was standing between the girl's legs. Because of the way she had been tied to the tree, her bottom was being pushed forward, causing her mons to be pushed forward and thus making it exposed. She was in just the right position for him to stand there and simply stand up between her opened legs so that his cock pushed urgently against her virginal labia.

Making a small adjustment to the position of his erect cock with his hand, the tax collector felt the head of his manhood part her sex lips. God she was hot, and wet! He had wanted this young woman for some time now, and the tension had been building up inside him these past few days since Rockharte had given them the list of young women he wanted to take in lieu of payment. Now he thrust his manhood hard into her virginity and he felt the hymen rupture as the single thrust caused her to scream out with the pain of her defloration and his cock ended up inside her buried to the hilt.

A virgin no more, he thought to himself, but then the bitch deserved everything that came to her after what her father had done to his son a few years back.