The Treatment of the Lower Orders

The Treatment of the Lower Orders 22

Disclaimer: not mine, just enjoying the ride.

Summary: Well Vaisey has her now, what can Guy do?

And once again thank you so much Jen for your patience and encouragement.

Elias was conscious of little but heat, colour flashing about her and the music that made her want to move her reluctant limbs. Her world had shrunk to that which was immediate. Touch, sight and sound.

She could connect nothing in her head, all was disjointed and random. She rolled her shoulders and stretched her arms, leaning her head back. Her eyes closed.

The bound wrists puzzled, but did not alarm her. Nothing appeared threatening. She smiled and shook her hair about her, it was very strange. She found the feel of it falling about her shoulders most pleasurable.

A hand snaked across her buttocks; she shivered and turned, stumbling. A tall man caught her and held her. She giggled and swatted at hands, that now stroked, held and cupped her.

Guy gripped the table’s edge tight as he watched the acrobat turn to Elias’s naked form, pawing at her, grabbing.

Vaisey took a gulp of his wine and smiled at the scene before him. He would revenge himself upon those who thwarted his ends.

He watched de Lacy closely, noting the man’s studied indifference that, while it was meant to give the impression of nonchalance, betrayed only more overtly his desperation. Vaisey preened and smiled to himself. How delicious it was to see the man’s discomfiture. Oh, and to have the elusive seamstress within his power. What delights he planned for her. It was quite intoxicating.

Guy’s control on his emotions was slipping. The hands touching her were careless and greedy. No matter that he had touched her that way naught but a few hours ago.

To see her thus manhandled appalled him.

Unable to watch, he occupied his eyes with the surveillance of the hall. The noble Black Knights were debauching themselves with gusto. The drunken companion at his side now had a head bobbing betwixt his legs and was groaning enthusiastically. Whether the head was male or female, Guy could not tell, nor did he wish to know.

There was a time, long gone, when he had taken part in entertainments such as these. But the drunkenness and the indiscriminate couplings had palled. He had experimented with Annie. But her simple minded adoration had bored him.

Then he had taken Elias, and his world had changed.

She made him angry, yet soothed him. Excited his passions, thrilled then calmed him. When he hurt her, she waited. No reproach, no betrayal.

And he had hurt her so much.

She had been like some mysterious physic that he must have to keep him alive. And he had no understanding of this need. When he lost her, he floundered, burning Knighton to the ground the very next day. Railing against Marian and her father. Gradually he had seen a glimpse of Elias in Marian, and again pursued her in the hope she could give him what was missing. But that had been a disaster and pushed him further into Hell.

Now, when it seemed a life was there awaiting him, Vaisey, that devil incarnate, was there to drag him back to Hell.

Now his only thought was to free her from the obscenity that he and Vaisey had thrust her into.

On the cushion strewn floor, Elias tried to stand, to move away from the slippery muddle of bodies. Perceptions, confused and dimmed, showed her faces she almost knew; actions were familiar, but uncomfortable, and she shrugged them off.

Vaisey, the Lord of Misrule, noted that she was freeing herself from the tangle of lust. He could not allow that. She was there to be humiliated, defiled, raped as many times as it took for him to feel repaid for the loss of face she had caused.

He stood; disgusted that she might escape her rightful fate. Shoving aside sweating, heaving bodies, he kicked his way to her small twisting form.

“Hold her.” He barked to two of the troupe. They obeyed without a word. And Elias was pulled back into the midst of the fray. “Well Missy, I think you may need my personal attention, mistress what-ever-you-call-yourself.”

Guy saw with growing horror, what Vaisey was about to do.

“Bend her forward, yes…” He kicked her legs apart and unlaced his britches.

Guy was on his feet, this could not happen.

Vaisey grinned at the audience he had attracted, and sucked sloppily on two fingers. He was about to penetrate the now furiously wriggling Elias, when he felt the dagger at his throat.

“Touch her and you die, Vaisey!” Guy snarled.

“Oh, I wondered when you would rear your asinine head Gisborne!”

“I waited as long as I needed, dog!” Guy gripped harder. “You have learned little, it would seem.”

“And you even less, turd breath.”

“Enough to hold you thus.” The blade drew blood, and Vaisey winced. Guy had no real idea what course he should now take. They would needs get to the stables, or mayhap the good towns people could be persuaded to hide them as Hood and his men had been hidden. With the former sheriff as a hostage, chances of escape were marginal, but at least there was a chance.

But first he must get the stumbling drugged Elias away from this heaving hell.

“Tell your men to part the way for us, NOW!” Guy held the seething Vaisey in a death grip. He would not hesitate to kill this time.

Vaisey jerked his head and the startled guards kicked and shoved bodies aside, leaving a path to the doors.

But Guy had not reckoned with Elias, he could not hold his prisoner and pull her with him.

“Tell them to cover her and take her to the doors.”

“Cover her! How courtly of you, my how you’ve changed. I recall your enthusiastic contributions to our…feasts of delight.” Even with a knife at his throat, Vaisey was a swine.

“Quiet your tongue you cur, or I’ll cut it out.”

As they approached the doors, Elias turned her head and saw him, she tore herself from the soldiers who hauled her forward, and cried out a startled: “Guy!” She caught sight of the hilt of the sword that came crashing down on the back of her beloved’s head.

Guy saw only darkness.