Выбрать главу

His sister looked up at him imploringly. It was easy for him to interpret the question in her eyes.

"Yes, kitten, the whip you loathe."

Terry wailed and joined her tears to those already floating. "Don’t use that awful thing on Dorinda. She doesn’t deserve it. I’m the one to blame."

"You’re a pair of idiots," Mark affirmed, baffled. "Dorinda’s as bad as you. She doesn’t have to let you talk her into things."

"Oh, but she does. She does have to. She’s my slave too, y’know. We can’t ask her to obey you in everything and me in nothing." "You’ve got a point there, love. Just a little one, maybe," Mark acknowledged. He turned and looked down at Dorinda. "Have you been obeying her in the belief that if you didn’t I’d punish you?"

Dorinda squirmed. How define a communion so amorphous. "We did start out like that, master." Her eyes appealed. "But in what we are guilty of now I am as much to blame as anyone. Please don’t punish Terry more than you punish me. I did what I did knowing the penalty. I’m guilty. I won’t make excuses…"

"Such nobility! I suppose this is my cue to let you both off with a caution," Mark laughed at their woebegone faces. "But I’m not going to. You’ve behaved absurdly: making Amity put you in this place and loading you up with all those ornaments." He paused and eyed the kneeling figures and the chains, clung to them. His eyes glinted. "You must have wanted them. Far it be it from me to spoil the sport…"

He left them where they knelt. The door closed behind him with a thud.

Dorinda was bereft. The chains, the deepening gloom. The certainty of the whip. All confirmed her premonitions of the day. But beyond those loomed the fact that her master had returned to daylight and dinner on the terrace, a dinner probably shared with Mabel. Without doubt Mark would be in the picture with him in some way. The thought made the dungeon doubly dark.

Terry disconsolately and noisily rose to her feet. "Oh darling, I’ve botched everything." She looked at her fellow captive piteously.

"He’s made up his mind. We are really in for it. I can tell."

With equal dolor Dorinda joined her on the bench. Arranging her chains she said: "When will he whip us?"

"That’s what scares me, darling. I expected it to be the first thing that happened to us. I was sort of resigned to the awful whip and the pain and the tears for a couple of hours, or maybe longer if he left us tied up. But now he’s got me guessing – all deliberate of course. He says suspense is good for me. I can’t bear it. But I suppose you’ve caught sight of the same thing I have."

Dorinda indeed caught sight of the obvious. "You mean that since we were fools enough to ask for this fix we’re in, and against his orders too, we can damn well stay in it…"

Terry clashed her fetters angrily." Oh, damn!"

There was not much else to say.

The prisoners held each other as closely as their chains allowed. It was their only comfort left.

Hope rose momentarily when Amity appeared. But was quickly dashed.

"I’m sorry, miss. I really am. But it’s Mr. Mark’s orders." She busied herself with the big chest.

"Oh Amity, not more chains!" Terry wailed.

"Well, miss, I suppose you have sort of asked for it. The master said something about making the punishment fit the crime."

"I’d run if I could," Terry vowed. "Mark’s just being mean."

"Whatever you say, miss." Amity eyed her prisoners questioningly. "I don’t suppose you are going to be silly."

"You mean are we going to hold still while you clamp a lot of horrid things on us?" Terry demanded disgustedly. "Oh sure. What the devil can we do. Look a couple or right Charlies, wouldn’t we, trying to struggle."

"Movement is not completely inhibited, miss."

"Balls."

"Thank you miss. And now I think, the neck please."

Dorinda watched, cringing, as a metal collar was locked upon the slender neck. A long length of lighter chain led to the wall where it was padlocked to a ring.

"Oh Amity. It’s beastly. All that chain. It drags at my neck."

"Quite so, miss."

"I could kick you when you say that. You sound snug."

"I’m really sorry about this one miss. I fear it will seem an unkind imposition."

The leather belt was removed. The shining steel that replaced it was not unduly massive. But it was metal clinging above the slender hips. From it ran the same tether to the wall, but also heavy links ran down to the ankle shackles.

"Darling, it weighs a ton." The girl on whom it was fastened shook herself and tried to kick to test the new confinement. The result was to evoke a cry of protest.

"But Amity! This doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t stop me doing motions I could do before. Just makes it more miserable."

"I believe the intent to be punitive, miss."

It was Terry’s turn to watch. Dorinda meekly accepted the collar and grimaced at it’s cold clutch and weight of metal that her neck must bear. She knew she would be forever rearranging the tether to seek easement of the strain.

"Amity." Terry’s voice had come to live.

"Yes, miss." Their jailer’s voice was politely attentive.

"If we were very nice to you and made you come about six times, would you take these last things off? They’re just so much." "Thank you miss. But I would consider the risk inadvisable for all of us."

"You mean Mark might walk in and catch us?" Terry chuckled.

"He caught you, miss. Red handed so to speak, if I may say so. I would find a similar situation most mortifying."

"What would he do to you?"

"I would rather not say, miss."

The youthful captive’s laughter gurgled accusingly. "I bet he’d chain you to the other wall."

"There is a clause in my contract to that effect, miss," Amity admitted reluctantly. "At the master’s discretion so to speak."

Dorinda was startled. The housekeeper had dropped her small bombshell without a qualm. A mental picture of this precious female chained as they were chained was entrancing. Bizarre, but quite in keeping with the rest of Kyrexos.

Terry could not allow so delicious a tid-bit to be ignored.

"Come on. Oh please, Amity. Do it. I’d love to have you chained with us. It would be such fun. Do you no end of good. By morning you’d be talking normally."

"Thank you miss. But it would not be fair to ‘Islop."

"See, you’re exited. You dropped an aitch." Terry tried to clap her hands. The effort produced a fine metallic orchestration.

Amity stepped back, her task completed. Dorinda surveyed herself ruefully. The weight of what she must carry was frightening. It would be too easy to think of things she had read. To be chained for life in a dungeon…

She wanted to test her bonds and explore whatever tolerance they might concede. But not before this woman who had placed them upon her nakedness. She could wait.

"What are you going to give us for supper, darling?" Terry asked expectantly.

Amity was distressed. "I am indeed sorry, miss. But the master felt it appropriate that none should be served."

"But we’re hungry." The girl’s voice was anguished. "You mean the absolute rotter’s treating us like two bad little girls sent to bed without supper…?"

"I fear so, miss."

"But you’ll smuggle us something, won’t you darling?"

Amity sounded genuinely distressed. "Water only, miss. I cannot counter the master’s wishes."

"We’re famished."

"I’m sure you are, miss. It has been an exacting day."

"Oh damn and blast! Wait ‘till I get at him. I say, Amity, it’s almost dark. What about some light."

"The same prohibition, miss. You are not to have any."

They watched her go in silence. Then clung together as best as they could and wept.

It was very dark and much later when they remembered to make love.

Breakfast was not encouraging. A little water, a little bread, a little fruit. Amity refused to answer questions.

"He’s going to teach us some sort of lesson," Dorinda decided. "We really must have hurt him."

"He’s not hurt. I know he isn’t. He’s just working out some notion of his own about behaviour and discipline. This could go on for days." "And we still have to be whipped." Dorinda found it hard to forget.