"You're a coward sir!" Samara bit out furiously, once more struggling against her holds. "If you were a real man, you would untie me right now and let me face you one on one. What sort of man ties down a woman to flog her. That bitch is not my Queen. Never has, never will be! Untie me if you dare! I will face you one-on-one in single combat, and win you!"
"Oh I don't doubt that, Samara. I don't doubt it at all" Sebastian assured, with a smile, as he got out his whip "You are gyspy after all, and I am but a mere man, with no powers of my own, except the ability to walk and breathe. But you see, we're not here for a spar or brawl. Nor are we here for a superiority contest. We are here however, to give you a lesson. And by God, a lesson you will learn. Now, I will be flogging you exactly twenty strokes, as per the Queen's Orders, and will not stop once I start, until the strokes are completed. You don't even need to count, if you don't want to. The crowd does a good job of doing those themselves."
"Twenty? Are you fucking insane? In the past, only twelve strokes have been delivered to errant gypsies! You would peel my skin with twenty strokes!" her voice shook from the desperation edged into it
"I'm sorry Samara. I protested against that too. But the Queen has the utmost say, over Florence. Apparently she'd thought the twelve strokes have lost their effectiveness, and lessons were no longer taught with it. You will be the first in a long line of twenty-count whippings that I'm sure will start as from now on"
As soon as he'd finished that statement, he raised the whip, and dragged it down on her soft, rounded buttocks
"Arrrghh!" she screamed, the same time, the large crowd chanted "One"
He repeated the process again and again, the second, third, fourth, fifth strokes hitting her buttocks squarely, more often than not, the same spots over and over again
"Two!"
"Three!"
"Four!"
"Five!"
"Six!" The engorged, and overly excited crowd, chanted, some screamed, over and over again, with each jabbing landing of his angry whip, on her soft, pliant flesh, through the too-light clothing.
The girl was crying and screaming now, begging for mercy. Yes. The whip would do that to you. The pain alone could make one go insane. He more than pitied for the girl. Usually, he tried to not let his emotions get mixed into these things. He was just a punisher. He simply carried out the actions of the Queen— his Queen, like any executioner would. But even he, wasn't immune to the desperation, crying for help wrought in a man's voice. His body. And this girl screamed with everything she got. Cried for help with everything she got. And there was no one to help her. She was absolutely at the mercy of the Queen.
No, he wasn't comfortable. After today, he was going to take the issue of the twenty strokes up with the Queen. The Act itself was inhumane. One ought to reduce it, not increase it. And so with that thought in mind, Sebastian affirmed in his mind that he was going to be infact flogging Samara twelve times, no longer twenty. Twelve after all, had been the usual norm.
He wasn't stupid. He knew what his act of defiance was going to cost him. For him to openly defy the Queen, and mete out a lesser punishment than the one she'd offered, was a direct jab at her, and knowing Queen Rebecca, she had her tiny, little ways to make him pay.
He might just have to rumple in those sheets with her after all, as she so openly felt was her due. Just to soothe her anger.
His mind continued to journey further, even as his hands kept on with the automatic motions of whipping the girl still strapped to the table.
"... Eight!"
"... Nine!"
He tried to look at things from a different perspective. What if Samara had did infact killed that guard? She wouldn't have just incited public uproar. She'd have killed a man with a family. A man with a spouse waiting for him to get back home, and children waiting to be kissed by their father Goodnight. Everyone needed to be protected. Humans. Gypsies. Everyone had someone to love, and something to lose. Yet both sides were dead set on going to war, and hurting one another. Nobody wanted to listen. They all just wanted to hurt, and keep hurting. Take as much pounds of flesh, as they could. Just for revenge. It couldn't end well. None of this could possibly end well. And Sebastian was right in the center of it all.
"... Eleven!"
"Twelve!"
Sebastian finally came back to himself, and looked at the girl strapped to the table. She had not screamed. For that last whip, the twelfth one, she had not screamed at all. And was even now lying motionless. She'd stopped struggling. And the once clean and white chemise she wore, was now stained with blood. Her blood, from stripes and marks the whip had made on the creamy flesh of her buttocks.
"Continue!"
"Why did he stop?"
"Continue!"
"It was supposed to be to twenty. Or have you forgotten Sir Sebastian?"
"Oh my God. The gypsy girl has bewitched him" there were different murmurings from the crowd, the sounds reaching Sebastian's ears.
Sebastian was more than worried. Had she fainted? Had she died? Before he could even think of the next action to take, someone— no, a girl instantly burst out from the crowd, and climbed up to the wooden podium where he was.
She was all fire, and red fury. With brightly flaming red hair. Sebastian could see the fury in her eyes, could have almost been scorched by it, if care was not mistaken, as she ran to untie an unconscious Samara, still tied down to the table.
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A/N: Yay. Our characters finally meet themselves in chapter fourteen. What a long way. If you liked this chapter, don't forget to VOTE
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Gentlemen Of The Court
Short Story"If I die tonight, donate all my organs to those in need, except for my middle finger - give that to the king" - Delilah Salvador ~~~~~ THERE WAS A WAR COMING! between gypsies and humans. And whether Delilah liked it or not, she has been placed in...
