Chapter No. 43 Femina mortis

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Grimsy smiled when he knocked on the door to Dame Shoka's quarters.

"Come in," she called out in a squeaky voice.

Grimsy unlocked the door and swung it open but didn't enter. He found her looking out at him with fearful eyes, and it made him smile the more.
"I want you to come with me," he said, gesturing to the corridor. "I have an assignment for you."

"Assignment?"

"Yes. I'll tell you about it when we arrive."

She hesitated, and it made him gesture with more agitated motions.

"Am I dressed properly?" she asked in a tentative voice.

Grimsy looked over her taffeta silk blouse over a tufted wide cotton skirt. He particularly liked her polished wide leather belt and matching shoes.

"Looks perfectly fashionable to me," he said with a shrug. "Now, come on. We don't want to keep our penitent waiting."

She gave him a funny look before obeying his order.

Grimsy escorted Dame Shoka to a chamber down in the freshly cleaned dungeon. The round stone room contained two wooden benches, a wooden pillory, and a metal rack with several leather instruments hanging from it.

"What is this place?" Shoka asked, looking around with concerned eyes.

Grimsy smiled. "I forgot that you are not acquainted with the vicissitudes of the dungeon. This is a house of pain, a place where sins of the flesh are afforded ablution."

"Am I to be punished?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but you are here to do the punishing,"

Shoka gasped, "What?"

Grims cackled. "Surely you prefer to be on the handle side of an instrument of flagellation."

"Well, I . . . I  . . ."

"Think of it this way: you get to keep your clothing on."

The astonished look on her face brought a smile to Grimsy's lips.

A guard appeared with a raven-haired woman in tow. She was dressed in a linen tunic over a wide pleated skirt, her feet dressed in soft leather slippers. In her late thirties, she was taller than the average woman with a more curvaceous figure than Shoka would have expected for a woman of bearing, especially when the woman's angular face was accented with soft eyes, thin lips, and an eloquently narrow up-turned nose.

"Dame Shoka," Grimsy said, gesturing to the woman. "This is Dame Listo."

Shoka nodded politely and Listo returned the gesture.

Grimsy turned to Dame Shoka. "Dame Listo is here to be punished for adultery."

"How am I to punish her?" Shoka asked.

"She's to be given a proper whipping."

Shoka looked at Listo with surprised eyes and then at Grimsy with concerned eyes. "I've never whipped anyone. I don't know what to do."

"You've never disciplined a child?"

"Heavens no. That was my husband's duty."

Grimsy smiled. "I see. Well, it's not really that difficult."

He walked over to the metal rack and selected a wide leather strap with a knurled wooden handle and handed it to her. She accepted it, but it felt awkward in her bony hand.

"You simply smack the flat surface of this against the buttocks. The more times you smack, the more pain you cause."

Dame Shoka raised her eyebrows. "That doesn't sound very dignified."

"It's not supposed to be. You're here to punish not pamper."

Shoka's face twisted with disgust.

Grinning with satisfaction, Grimsy walked over to the door. "I have more important business to attend to. Do your best. I'll check back with you later."

Dame Shoka gave him a half-hearted nod. The dismayed look on her face made Grimsy's grin last a long time after he left the room.

After staring blankly at the closed door for several minutes, Dame Shoka turned to Dame Listo. "This is not the way that I wanted to spend my evening."

"Nor I," Dame Listo said with a brief smile.

Shoka smacked the belt against her hand. The grimace on her face attested to the pain of the collision.

She looked at Listo with concerned eyes. "This is going to hurt."

"Especially against my bare derrière."

Dame Shoka's eyes widened. "I have to apply this to your bare skin?"

Listo sighed. "I'm afraid so."

"I have no desire to make you suffer in such a humiliating manner."

"You don't have a choice," Listo said, bowing her head.

Dame Shoka plopped down on a bench and placed the belt next to her. She scanned her eyes up and down Dame Listo as if she were sizing her up. She marveled at the way in which her supplicant's nicely sculptured form advertised through the smooth linen fabric of her dress. Listo had a narrow waist, the smallest she had ever seen and it made her jealous.

"You have good form for your age," Shoka said. "How do you do it?"

"Chasing around with lovers does wonders for a girlish figure. As a matter of fact, if I didn't maintain a fine figure, I wouldn't have to worry about attracting lovers."

Shoka sighed. "Perhaps that would be less painful in the long run."

"Perhaps. However, instant gratification is often more exhilarating than future comfort."

The two women eyed each other for several silent minutes before Listo turned up the right side of her lips in a subtle smile. "I suppose I should remove my clothing."

Shoka sighed again. "I suppose. At least you won't have to bare your body to a room full of lecherous men."

"Oh, you're talking about the Inquisition," Dame Listo said as she began to slowly unhook her dress.

"Yes," Shoka said, blowing the word out in disgust. "Thank goodness they abolished that evil institution. I've heard that they had tormented women in that dreaded place."

"I doubt that I would have had to face the Inquisition for the crime of adultery. Besides, the Inquisition only function was to extract confessions."

"Extracting confessions by means of torture is barbaric," Shoka said. "Especially, when they demanded that the subject be stripped naked."

"That aspect of it wouldn't have bothered me," Listo said.

"What? It's indecent to expose your body to strange men."

Listo guffawed. "It seems that I've been doing that for quite some time."

"I could never do that," Shoka said. "I confessed to a crime that I didn't do to avoid it."

"Not a very equitable trade," Listo said.
"There is little equity in this Empire, especially in the infamous Den of Iniquity that was the Inquisition."

Shoka watched Listo remove her tunic top.

"Here," Shoka said. "Let me take that."
After receiving the garment from Listo, Dame Shoka folded it neatly and placed it on a bench.

"What ever possessed you to risk a sexual liaison in the Temple of Athena?"

Listo unhooked her belt and pulled her wide tufted skirt down before stepping out of it and handing it to Shoka.

"Passion has a way of abrogating good judgment. There are not very many public locations for liaisons in Terra. Finding them requires a lot of ingenuity."

"I can imagine," Shoka said, adding a weak smile.

Her weak smile faded completely when she watched Dame Listo pull the thin straps of her silk slip down from her shoulders. The bodice and hem were lined with fancy lace needlework.
When she saw Listo struggling with the back hooks, Shoka stood up. "Let me help you with those."

Listo gave her a graceful smile. "Thank you."

"Let me ask you something," Shoka said while carefully unfastening the hooks on Listo's slip. "Do you think that the sin of adultery deserves corporal punishment?"

Listo twisted her neck to look at her. "A sin deserves the wrath of the gods. A crime deserves the punishment of justice."

"Do you think that adultery should be considered a crime?"

"No, but I am not responsible for the law."

Shoka helped pull the slip over Listo's head. Silk briefs covered the intended target.

"Those are cute," Shoka said, smiling. "Where ever did you get them?"

"My lover got them from a caravan merchant. They're all the rage in the Chin Empire."

She pulled them off and handed them to Shoka.

"Very fashionable." Shoka admired them for a few minutes, running her fingers around the delicate needlework before placing them on the pile of Listo's clothing.

"Speaking of lovers," she finally said, "what happened to yours?"

"I was told that he was released," Listo said.

"What?" Shoka screeched.

"He was allowed to go with just a reprimand after he confessed and implicated me."

"Men!" Shoka's word dripped with disgust.

Listo's eyes flashed with anger and frustration. "Yes."

After a few moments of silence, Listo exhaled a long breath. "Well, I suppose we had better get on with it."

Shoka sighed and then picked up the belt. "I suppose." Her eyes brightened. "There's no need for me to actually hurt you. If you would voice imagined pain loud enough, perhaps it would suffice."

"If we're caught in this deception, you and I could become objects of our Emperor's displeasure."

Shoka smiled. "I am already on his list. One more infraction will not move me up on it much."

Listo returned her smile, lowering her eyes briefly before looking directly into Shoka's eyes with a sheepish look. "Actually, I wouldn't mind if you put a little force behind your application of leather."

Shoka's face exploded with shock. "Why? Surely you don't want me to hurt you."

"I wouldn't mind. In fact, you may actually enjoy it."

"Well I . . . I don't know if . . . I don't understand."

Listo tilted her head and smiled. "Haven't you secretly wished that you could inflict a little well-deserved suffering on someone like me, a woman with my loose mores . . . and my sinfully sensuous body?"

Shoka ran her eyes up and down the smooth unblemished flesh of her willing subject, stopping to examine her well-shaped bottom, which was being thrust out as a willing, if not actually tempting, target. She alternately looked at the strap that she held loosely in her right hand and the target, as if not sure that she wanted to proceed.

"Go ahead," Listo said. "Indulge in your secret pleasures."

Shoka simply shook her head and sighed. "I find this most distasteful."

"Go ahead. I'll enjoy it."

"Why?" Shoka asked in a high-pitched screech. "Why do you enjoy pain?

"It's not the pain so much as the idea of being disciplined by a woman. The process is very stimulating to ones libido."

"You derive sexual pleasure from pain?"

Listo turned to smile at her. "It is quite the rage in some sectors of this Empire. Women often pay magnificent sums to enjoy such stimulation by both women and men. In some cases, they have it performed in front of an appreciative audiences."

"They pay to be whipped in front of men?"

"Yes. And here I am having it done for free; although, in this case there's no audience present to enjoy it."

Shoka sighed. "I had no idea that the mores of this Empire had deteriorated so badly."

"It seem that you have led a sheltered life. Perhaps, this will be a suitable introduction to the more perverse pleasures of this wicked Empire."

Shoka sighed again.

###

Grimsy smiled when he knocked on Lady Mocha's door.

"Come in," a high-pitched voice beckoned from within.

Grimsy unlocked the door and entered to find Lady Mocha attired in her nightgown.

"Get dressed. I have an assignment for you."

She gave him a confused look before disappearing behind a divider. He watched her nightgown being flung over the divider.

"What assignment?" she asked as she dressed.

"You'll find out after we arrive."

Lady Mocha did not press him. She quickly completed dressing and reappeared from behind the divider. She wore a silk blouse over a wide pleated skirt.

Grimsy smiled at her when he gestured to the door. She gave him a suspicious look before exiting.

He escorted her outside, across a garden filled with newly bloomed daisies and petunias to a large building. The ominous entrance door swung open as if by magic.

The spacious room was long and high ceilinged, consisting of buttressed arches for support of the copper roof. Lady Mocha hesitated when she saw what awaited her. Tied to a wooden pole was Hollen, her cousin and her co-conspirator in Grimsy's attempted assassination. He was stripped to the waist.

Grimsy led her over to a cross bow mounted on a stand. The instrument was mounted with a bolt that was pointed at Hollan.

"As I promised, the perpetrators in my attack will meet their death. In the case of Hollan here, you will have the honors."

"What?" Her face exploded with disgust.

"I order you to pull the trigger," Grimsy said, pointing at the cross bow's release.

"I can't do that. I'm not a killer."

"You certainly didn't restrain from being a party to my potential murder."

She set her eyes like flint. "I won't do it."

"If he does not die, then you will die in his stead."

"Tie me to that stake," she said defiantly.

"Oh, no. He is being afforded a warrior's death. You will be fed to the bugs."

She nearly retched. "Please no." Her face reflected both revulsion and indecision. "What will happen to me if I pull the trigger?"

"Nothing. You will be afforded comfortable hospitality."

She looked back and forth from Hollan and Grimsy as if not sure of her decision.

"Do not hesitate long," Grimsy said. "The bugs are hungry for a nice fleshy meal like you."

He watched her retch and he smiled. When she recovered, she wrapped her hand around the cross bow's handle.
"I'm sorry Hollan," she said in a weak voice before she pulled the trigger.