As the full moon drifted behind a cloud, shrouding the ominous towers of Bolton Castle in shadow, Osmund peered from behind a tree at the park's edge. Good -- the coast was clear. The young serf stepped out from his hiding place and silently stole across the grassy quadrangle -- then, with a shudder of fear, took the final few steps onto the lord's demesne: the fertile farm acreage that belonged solely to the Earl of Bolton. It was death to poach from the lord's demesne, and Osmund knew it -- but the winter was harsh this year. His mother's cough grew worse with each passing day; the icy wind shrilled incessantly through the cracks in the walls of their wattle hut, and the rotting thatch of the roof let the bitter rain dampen everyone indoors. Osmund glanced up at the bulk of the castle on the hill, where warm firelight glowed from many of the deep clerestory windows, and his jaw tightened with bitterness at the thought of the fine lords and ladies safe and dry and warm within the stone towers.
Faster now, Osmund crept across the fields, to where he knew the fine turnips and sweet carrots were buried in the field beneath a frost-protecting layer of hay. Ah, but they would make a fine soup for his mother -- and the hay would provide a warm if brief fire. He clutched the thin rags of his clothing around him as the wind howled again; then his half-frozen feet stumbled into the hay. Eagerly he knelt, thrusting his hands into the soft earth beneath the straw, and began to pull one fat turnip after another, laying them next to him in a pile. When he had collected ten, he twisted their frost-wilted tops together, then gathered an armful of the hay and began his slow way back across the field.
Osmund had nearly reached the edge of the deep forest of the park when he heard the baying of the hounds. His heart leaped in terror, and he dashed for the cover of the woods as he heard the dogs coming ever closer, clearly trailing his scent. Poor Osmund -- for the moon again passed behind a cloud, and in the darkness, he stumbled over a protruding tree root and fell headlong against a trunk. "The dogs will eat me...." the young serf thought dimly as he lost consciousness.
When he awoke, his head throbbing, Osmund slowly opened his eyes and peered around him. Though his head swam, he perceived stone walls -- a thick oak door -- bars on the high window! He must be in the castle, in the dungeons! "Oh, Holy Mother of God, have mercy," Osmund prayed in a whisper of despair. The Earl brooked no violation of feudal law; the young serf would die for his crime -- he accepted that. But in what manner, who knew? The Earl was reputed to make the punishment fit the crime; he had once had a serf who poached a deer from his park skinned and roasted alive -- just as the deer had been.
There was a clanking of brass keys, then the oaken door flew open to bang against the stones. A guard, clad in a chain-mail corselet over the Bolton livery, stood in the doorway. "Get up with you, there, dog! His Lordship will deal with you now!" the guard shouted, dragging the serf from the rough pallet and shoving him through the door and up the winding stone stairs.
The guard pushed aside a heavy tapestry and pulled Osmund into a great stone hall, brightly lighted by torches and the enormous fire blazing at one end of the hall. The guard knelt, addressing a powerfully-built man in a black velvet doublet who had risen from the long table as the guard and serf entered. "My lord, here is the serf caught last night," the guard said. "Get down, kneel to his Lordship you filthy dog!" the guard shouted, dragging the serf down to his knees.
"Ah yes," the Earl said, advancing with a rustle of his velvet cloak, "So this is the young thief who wanted my turnips, is it?" Osmund raised his head and looked at Lord Bolton. "Sir -- m'lord -- I di'n have food for my ma, please your lordship!" "A ha ha ha!" the Earl laughed. "It didn't have any food for it's mother, did it? Hard to believe it HAS a mother!" he said, turning to the group of velvet-clad gentlemen at the table, who chuckled appreciatively. "Well, young thief, perhaps we should boil you up with my turnips and give that to your mother, hmm?" the Earl said with a cruel smile. "Oh NO, please m'lord, I won't do it again!" Osmund begged, the fear of being plunged alive into the boiling pot making him leap to his feet. Though not yet twenty, the serf was tall and muscular, with sturdy arms and legs and a thick shock of coal-black hair that fell across his eyes. Lord Bolton looked at Osmund, inwardly sighing at the necessary waste of a perfectly good, strong serf.
"I'm growing weary of killing them, Philip," the Earl said, turning to his waiting chamberlain. "And what a waste -- look how strong he is." "But your Lordship's own law says he must be punished," the chamberlain replied. "Yes, yes, I know," Lord Bolton said testily. "But there must be some other way!" "There is no other way than death to be sure the serf will not repeat the offence, your Lordship," the chamberlain sighed. The Earl put his hand to his chin as if in thought. Then he, too, sighed. "I suppose you are right, Philip; have him taken back to the dungeon. We'll have him hanged with the turnips 'round his neck in my field in the morning." Osmund burst into wails at this speech, throwing himself forward to cling to the Earl's boots. "No, please God, m'lord, it will kill my old mother!" he begged.
Suddenly a tall man clad in oddly checked wool garments stood up from the table and addressed the Earl. "Beggin' your pardon, Lord Bolton, but ye say your chief concern is that th' lad should do it n'more?" he said. "Yes, MacDuff, but how else than death?" the Earl replied, surprised at the interruption. "Oh aye then, your Lordship, I kin tell ye how tha' is done!" the tall Scots lord said with a chuckle. "'Tis no laughing matter, my guest," Lord Bolton said in annoyance, "I must hang a good serviceable strong serf!" "No, ye need not, yer lordship. Oh, we dinna ha' yer fancy ways in th' North Country, but we knaw how to deal wi' th' likes o' that," MacDuff gestured at the serf sobbing prone at the Earl's feet.
Lord Bolton was skeptical but intrigued. If he could avoid killing the serf, and thus losing a good laborer -- yet be sure the youth would never break his law again......"Tell me, friend MacDuff! How may this miracle be accomplished"? the Earl asked. "Run, Jamie, an' get th' tawse from m'chest," the talls Scotsman said, cuffing his teenaged son, who sat next to him, on the shoulder. The youth paled liked a ghost, and leapt from his chair to run from the room. The Earl looked wide-eyed on this display of terror -- perhaps MacDuff had an idea after all! In a few minutes, the young Scot ran back into the room and handed his father a roll of leather. "This, yer Lordship, is th' tawse!"
MacDuff shook out the leather, and it unrolled, as long as a man's arm. Though extraordinarily thick for a leather strap, it unfurled as supple as a silk ribbon. The end the Scotsman held was curled around itself and stiffened to make a grip; the other end was split in two to divide the strap for the last third of its length. The Earl eyed the strap skeptically. "And I suppose we beat him with it? It doesn't look terribly painful," Lord Bolton said. The tall Scot laughed. "Ha, is it not? Tell 'em, m'lad, you've felt m' tawse have ye not? Perhaps ye sh'ld feel it agin?" Jamie rose and then knelt at the Earl's side. "Your lordship -- I -- I have n' words t' tell ye -- only once was I tawsed, fer I dulled m' father's sword in play. 'Tis horrible, m'lord!" The boy gasped, nearly sobbing at the memory, "I'd ruther be burnt alive th'n tawsed agin!" Lord Bolton raised his eyebrows at this extraordinary show of fear. "And would you touch your father's swords again, my lad,?" he asked the boy. "NO my lord, NEVER, I swear on th' sacred heart o' Jesus I w'ld be hanged first!" the teenaged Scot burst out. "Well! Perhaps there is something to this after all!" the Earl said, extending his hand for the tawse, which MacDuff handed to him. The Earl was surprised at the heavy weight of the split strap, and amazed at the almost- liquid flexibility with which it curled and undulated at the least motion. The Scot spoke up again. "A hun'red strokes o' the tawse on his bare arse, yer Lordship, an' he'll na touch yer field agin!" MacDuff promised. A slow smile spread over the Earl's face. He had a liking for the strong full rumps of his male servants, though his interest had so far applied only to the insertion of his hard _c_o_c_k_ inside them, not the application of a strap to the outside of them. But the idea was intriguing -- and after all, he was only a serf........
"We shall try the experiment, gentlemen!" the Earl announced, flourishing the tawse. "Guards, strip the serf!" Three of the guards dragged Osmund to his feet and quickly tore the rotting rags from his well-muscled body, leaving the serf standing naked. "Faugh! He's filthy! And the smell!" the Earl exclaimed, holding his nose. "Take him down to the kitchens and scrub the filth from his worthless hide, then bring him back!"
Naked, Osmund was dragged down the long stone stairs by the guards. "Here there, you!" one guard shouted to a kitchen drab, "Clean this serf till he shines like a prize pig, or the Earl will have your head!" "Oh will he, my fine fellow?" the drab demanded, crossing her thick arms akimbo. " 'Tis no joke, Cath, his Lordship wants him back an' clean as quick as ever you can, or we'll all suffer for it!" the guard replied. The woman jerked into action as she recognized the fear and truth in the guard's voice. "Here, Joan, Sylvie, come now, we must clean this filthy slave or the Earl will have us boiled!" she shouted. Quickly a wooden tub was filled with steaming water, and the struggling serf -- who had never bathed in his life -- was dragged into it. "Do as yer told or it will be the worse for ye!" the kitchen drab commanded him, and he shrank back. With brushes of boar's bristles and the strong yellow soap they used for floors, the three women scrubbed Osmund from head to toe, the water in the tub turning dingy as they did so. "Ah, look here girls, here's a fine piece o'mansflesh," Cath laughed, tugging at the serf's large _c_o_c_k_ and peeling back the foreskin to wash it. "Aooww! Have mercy, good woman!" Osmund yowled as the stiff brush scraped and scratched at his tender _c_o_c_k_head, then moved lower to rasp against his hairy balls.
In fifteen minutes Osmund was clean. His body gleamed as never before in his life, the skin white beneath thick curls of dark hair on his chest and belly, and the finer dusting of black hair across his arms and legs. His back and buttocks were nearly hairless and whitely smooth, though his flesh glowed pink here and there from the drabs' thoroughness with their brushes. Quickly the women dried him with clean old cloths. "That's better, now!" the guard said, looking the serf over. "Come on, then, back to his Lordship!" and the guards pulled Osmund bodily back up the long stone staircase.
The Earl let his eyes rove appreciatively over the serf's body. Clean, Osmund's muscular teenaged physique was shown to superb advantage by the contrast between his very white skin and his coal-black body hair. Lord Bolton was amused, too, by the youth's blushes as he was held naked before the gathering of gentlemen, feebly pulling against the guards in an effort to hide his large dangling _c_o_c_k_ and balls with his hands.
"Tie him to the column," the Earl commanded the guards. "Ah, pardon me f'r interruptin' ye, m'lord," MacDuff spoke out, "But ye'll find th' tawse works best when a' the skin o' the arse is stretched tight. Bend 'im over, m'lord!" The Earl nodded his appreciation. "Tie him bent over the table then," he said to the guards. They dragged young Osmund to the long table, and, bending him over the edge, tied his ankles to the heavy trestles so his legs were widely spread and securely fastened. Then the serf's arms were stretched out above his head, and tied to the thick side rails just beneath the heavy table's surface. Osmund was helpless, bent spreadeagled over the edge of the massive oak table, the smooth white skin of his buttocks stretched drum-tight, his balls hanging down between his spread legs for all to see.
"Now, gentlemen, we shall see if our Scots friend's little toy has the desired effect!" the Earl announced, stepping up to stand behind the bound serf a bit off to the left, and shaking out the supple tawse. He drew his arm up high and brought the leather whistling down with all his strength across Osmund's naked bottom. SsssssssssTHAAACCKK!!!
"YYAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOO!!!" the young serf screamed, his entire body jerking against his bonds, as white-hot agony erupted in his exposed buttocks. Several of the gentlemen stepped back, astonished at Osmund's violent reaction, even as the room echoed with the serf's shriek. Again the Earl swung his arm far back, then powerfully forward to slam the tawse across the serf's bare bottom. SSssssssssTTHHAAACCKKK!!! "YAAAHHHHHHOOOAAAOOOWWWWAAHH!!!" Osmund screamed even more loudly, and Lord Bolton gasped as the serf jolted so powerfully against his restraints that the heavy ten-foot oaken table made a scraping noise as it moved a fraction of an inch on the stone floor!
"My apologies, friend MacDuff!" the Earl cried. "Perhaps you had the answer after all!" "Oh, aye, m'lord, I knew 'twould not fail ye. Here, Earl, only two strokes o' th' tawse an' look!" The burly Sctosman gestured at Osmund's quivering naked ass. Lord Bolton stepped closer to see. Yes, yes -- two broad brilliant crimson stripes across the silky white flesh -- and in the center of each stripe, a thin angry purplish-black raised welt oozing blood, where the twin tongues of the tawse viciously bit the sensitive skin between them. "Impressive!" the Earl exlaimed, feeling the first stirrings beneath his doublet of his own _c_o_c_k_ lengthening. "Go it, m'lord, don't let 'im rest, lest the fire ye've started burn low!" the Scotsman laughed.
Lord Bolton again raised the tawse. SSsssssssTTHHAACCKKK!!! SSSSssssTHACCKK!!! SSSSSsssssTTTHHHAAACCCKKKK!!!
"YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGHHHHAAA!!!" "YAAHHHAAOOOWWW!" "AAAIIIEEEEEAAAARRGGGGHHHHOOO!" The young serf screamed and writhed, sobbing, as the vicious tawse crashed against his bleeding bare backside again and again. Osmund wailed and sobbed wildly between shrieks -- the horrible pain was unrelenting, agonizing! -- a scorching agony worse than anything the village priest told of in describing the tortures of the _d_a_m_n_ed! Yet the Earl took no heed, continuing the savage punishment. SSSSSsssssssTTHHHAAACCCKKK!!! "YyyyyHHHEEEEEAAAAAAGGHHHHH!!" By accident, Lord Bolton had pulled the tawse short -- and instead of slamming squarely across the now-scarlet, bleeding buttocks, the twin leather tongues curled around the curve of the serf's bottom and thigh, to bite into his hanging ball sac like two vipers with fangs of fire. THUNK! The weighty table was actually lifted from the floor for a moment by Osmund's desperate struggle, and young Jamie MacDuff burst into tears and ran from the room sobbing, his hands over his ears to shield them from the serf's wild screams!
The Earl was delighted with his accidental discovery. He carefully aimed the tawse again, and again it whistled angularly across the serf's spread buttock cheeks -- one leather tongue scourging between the cheeks to flail Osmund's tender asshole; the other curling down between his spread thighs and lashing against the exposed hypersensitive balls. "YYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAA!!!!! The serf screamed yet again -- then the Earl burst into roars of laughter as Osmund's bladder lost control from the pain, and he pissed helplessly onto the floor between his legs like a beaten hound.
Again and again Lord Bolton tawsed the wailing, howling serf, carefully aiming to strike the exposed asshole and low-hanging balls as often as the full muscular buttocks themselves. Thin trickles of blood dripped down Osmund's sturdy thighs, and flew off to twinkle scarlet on the floor as the serf flung himself violently back and forth in his inescapable bonds. The chamberlain, looking on, turned pale and held a handkerchief to his lips, swallowing hard.
Finally the Earl delivered the hundredth stroke of the tawse, and tossed it aside, panting from his exertion. Osmund lay sobbing and wailing on the oaken table, his brawny bare bottom a mass of bloody weals, his hanging scrotum swollen and crosshatched with crimson stripes. The chamberlain took the handkerchief away from his lips and stammered, "B-but, your l-lordship, the serf is l-likely to die of those wounds anyway!" A frown of doubt shadowed Lord Bolton's face, and he looked at the Scotsman whose idea this had been. "Ne'er fear, m'lord," MacDuff said with a chuckle, "we sh'll keep off th' pus sickness an' see a serf dance!" He stepped forward, and, drawing a sharp dagger from his belt, cut the ropes on Osmund's ankles. Then the Scot took the flask of brandy from the table, drew the stopper out, and -- with a grin at the men standing around the table -- upended the flask to pour a gush of the strong alcohol over the serf's freely-bleeding asscheeks.
"yyyyyYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" Osmund screamed as the brandy sizzled and boiled in his open welts like boiling oil. His legs kicked and flailed wildly at the blistering burning, and the Earl laughed as the serf "danced" as promised!
"Thank you, friend MacDuff, for a MOST enlightening experiment!" Lord Bolton said. "I have no doubt our young thief will never presume to poach my fields again! But now, gentlemen, if you'll pardon me, I have some urgent business to attend to. I'll have the guard deal with our poor sore serf here," he chuckled as the men bowed and left the hall. The guard stepped forward toward Osmund, but the Earl waved him back. "Take your men and begone. I'll call you when you're wanted," he snapped. "Yes, my lord," the guard replied, a tingling soreness between his own asscheeks reminding him of what would likely happen to the young serf now.
Alone with Osmund, who was still bound to the table by his arms, the Earl opened his velvet doublet and his long thick _c_o_c_k_ sprang free, hard as stone. "Aahhhh..."Lord Bolton breather as his aching meat was set free of the tight velvet confines. He dipped a bejewled hand into the congealing fat on a platter of roasted goose, and slathered the slick grease over his swollen _c_o_c_k_shaft. "Now, young thief, you'll find out that I can plow a well- furrowed field as well as any serf!", the Earl laughed as he stepped up behind the moaning serf and pointed his thick shaft between the welt-covered buttocks........