Chapter 31b

Carcassonne

They found a costume that looked like something out of an old science fiction movie. It had lots of bust support, a deep square bottomed neckline, a high collar and no arms. There were tight pants of the same plastic looking material and spike boots.

“You’re all modern, Tracy. Put it on.” Tracy changed into the outfit.

Tracy looked at herself. “Space m-a-a-a-a-a-n!” She called.

“You mean space chick. Men don’t have boobs.”

“The future wasn’t politically correct back then.”

Rosalyn took down a peasant blouse that came with a full skirt, a girdle and hemp sandals. The girdle lifted her bust and crowded her breasts together to make them look like an auxiliary pair of buttocks. The blouse had been torn down one shoulder to reveal more bosom. The skirt had been torn from hem to waist so that when she stepped one bare leg emerged.

They found an inquisitor’s outfit. It was a scarlet cloak that fastened but did not quite close in front with frogs and came with a red cap, low patent leather boots and a gavel.

“It’s the Inquisition,” said Rosalyn. She went to a frame along the wall and reached up to grab a pair of fur lined handcuffs. “No, no, kind sir,” she squealed. Don’t strike me. All I want to do is go back to my husband and children.” Her body writhed and jerked as if with a whipping.

Tracy laughed. “Heretic!” she said. “Confess, so we can burn you at the stake.”

Rosalyn changed into light pewter body armor, the breastplate sculpted to show the teats in front that it concealed behind. There was a large diamond shaped opening over the solar plexus. The legs and a metal apron shielded the front but left the back bare except for the leather straps. She put Tracy into a burlap sack that she wet down in a lavatory.

“Hanging is too good for you, peasant scum,” Rosalyn snarled. You must face the iron maiden. They went over and inspected the object she named. It was a heavy iron box in the shape of a woman. Spikes in the lid were placed so that if a person were enclosed inside every vital organ would be ripped.

“Maybe later,” said Tracy.

“The Scotts invented the maiden for beheading people,” said Rosalyn. “Being hit over the head was too noble; it was a warrior’s death. But people got tired of seeing the deaths man make a hash of it with an axe, so they built something with a dropping blade. They called it the maiden, like when a man kisses you in the lap. It takes a little persuasion to get him to put his head in the right place, and he isn’t happy if it isn’t clean or if he thinks somebody has been there before. Of course the French invented the guillotine, which was an improvement. This was another improvement.”

“I guess you could call it that.”

“Can you imagine being in it. They wouldn’t slam it; they tied you in. And then they’d slowly push it closed so you could feel all the spikes piercing you, coming inside you, tearing you up. And you knew you’d had it.”

Next Rosalyn put Tracy into a brown Gestapo uniform with black belt and shoulder straps and jodhpur pants with black jackboots. She put on a long peasant’s shirt caked with mud on herself and stretched out on the rack, hooking her feet into restraints at the bottom and reaching up to grab hold of the windlass line. Tracy took a wooden paddle down from its hook and made as if to strike her on the soles.

“You vill tell us vair ze others are hiding,” Tracy squawked.

“Go ahead, do it,” said Rosalyn. “Hit me on the feet.” Tracy slapped the paddle against the dainty arches.

Rosalyn whispered, “No, no, I’ll never tell.” Whap. Then with straining voice, “All right. My husband and the boy are hiding in the barn, but I won’t tell you about the baby.” Whap. “Mmmph.”

Whap. “Talk.”

Rosalyn whimpered, “The baby’s in the laundry hamper. You won’t hurt it, will you?” Whap.

Rosalyn laughed and got up.

Tracy changed into an Indian princess costume with a deerskin fringed skirt and a feather in a headband and a fringed vest that uncovered the curve of her breasts below. Rosalyn put on pilgrim clothes with silver buckles on the shoes, black knee britches and a white shirt open at the front but knotted at the waist. There was a high hat with a buckle and a flat top.

Then they inspected what looked like a refrigerator. Rosalyn pulled it open. It was a freezer. “Is there anything to eat?” asked Tracy.

“Yes, there is,” said Rosalyn. She brought out a piece of ice about the size of a banana shaped like a phallus. With a greedy look she licked it until it had warmed enough to begin to melt. Then she sucked on it, pushing it down her throat until she gagged. She pulled it out and gasped. Then slowly she stuck it under Tracy’s vest and rubbed the nipple with it. “This is how they get your nipples up when you pose nude for a photo.”

“My nipples are already up,” said Tracy.

Rosalyn giggled, “You’re so queer.”

She tossed the piece of ice away. “Let me tie you up, Tracy.”

They changed into white tee shirts. Rosalyn tied Tracy’s wrists a foot apart in front and made her kneel. She ran a hemp rope from one ankle around one elbow, under the crotch, up the front and around the back of the neck and then back the same way on the other side to the ankle.

“You’re really into your bondage,” said Tracy.

“Don’t tell me you never let anybody do this to you before.” Then she threw a bucket of water on her.

(For the browser: By now I am sure you have had quite enough of Tracy without her shirt, so I am going to delete a portion: 2,786 words, but who’s counting? Nothing much happens during this time except that the ladies continue their heedless and less than wholesome fun for a while. Eventually, while Tracy is tied up, Hans Turelli turns up. It emerges that Roselyn is the “Iron Maiden” and works for Hans. After some more unpleasantness and threats, Turelli leaves for a bit and Tracy is rescued by Konrad, who has noticed something amiss and has been looking for her. The unpleasantness is reversed, and there is an episode with a fishhook. We resume the narrative while the two are making good their escape. You will find the page count is off in the next chapter.)

Then Tracy and Konrad were racing down a stone tunnel. Outside the motorcycle club was mounted on their big BMW’s with big horizontal opposed pistons and steel drive shafts that looked as if the world was too small to tax their mettle.

A cold wind had kicked up. Someone handed Tracy a helmet and somebody else produced a riding jacket. “Thanks for helping,” she said.

“Little Goth,” said Konrad. “We only dream of having adventure.”

Even as the steel engines were roaring into life, two men met on a roadside in the rising wind. It was a turn in the road that overlooked the same valley from the southeast that the Tower of the Magdalene and the shepherd tomb guarded on east and west. Ali, who had just driven from the grotto, met his son, whom he found standing beside the pavement. They embraced.

“Father, I usually bring triumph home, but this time I am banished, my friend owes a life debt and now I owe a life debt to the same man.”

“My son, I deeply fear for you. I would ask you to come with me. We shall run and hide.”

“Father, were I to do less than what I think right, you would lose me more completely than in the case of my death.”

“Then you must help them, but what are your thoughts on their purpose?”

“If they are right and succeed, then their women will behave more like our own. Islam will lose its monopoly on the young.”

“It is not Islam we submit to but Allah. What if they are wrong?”

“Then it is the end of everything. The whole world dies. There will be nothing to do but act as we believe Allah wishes in the brief time we have.”

“Which is no less than we seek on any day,” said Ali. Then he continued.

“Since you are determined to go, my son, there is one other thought that has haunted me. For days I have searched the ancient world. There are two things that are the abiding concerns of human kind. One is war, and one is the fertility of the women. War, hatred, prejudice, all forms of hostility serve to narrow one’s choice of husband or wife, for otherwise humans are so loving and so open of heart that any are happy with all.

“If this dream you seek is the truth, there is a relationship between conflict and fecundity. Those who love the outsider choose to love those who will give them infertile children and progeny. Those who are most fertile are those who hate the most easily. So if you succeed, there is more than the survival of Allah’s children you will win. It will mean the end of war and all things related. It will be the golden age come down to us at last.”

“I thank you for this blessing, father. It warms my heart, where it was cold before.”

“Where will you look?”

“Where Allah leads, father.”

They exchanged blessings again and an embrace. Both men wept. Aden spoke into his cell phone, and abruptly a line of men ahorse bearing torches galloped out of the dark. Someone handed reins to Aden who sprang into the saddle. He made his horse rear up, and the wild battle cry of the desert rang across the valley for the first time since the days of Charles Martel.

Then they were gone.

Back in the dungeon Turelli was looking at Roslyn.

“She …”

“Yes, I know she’s good.”

“O shut up, and get me down so I can find a pair of wire cutters.”

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