No Jesting Matter

The great hall was filled with laughter as the Earl’s guests wined and dined, music from the minstrel gallery, the hustle and bustle of servants ensuring each plate was piled high, each flagon was full of mead.

The Duke turned to the Earl, and said “You have put on a very fine spread for us.   It is a delight to be here.”

“Thank you, sir – you are most kind.”   A Duke outranks an Earl by two full counts, and etiquette demanded that a Duke should not be displeased with any of his underlings.

There was a slight jingle, of cap bells, and the Earl’s jester appeared from behind them, wearing a bemused and quizzical smile.

“My masters make merry – but will they riddle me a riddle?”

“Jester, not now,” said the Earl.

“No – let the fool prattle on,” commanded the Duke.   “What riddle have you, Jester?”

“My master and his men will ride into battle with you and your men and with our sovereign King..   Your standard has two bears.”   This was true - the Duke’s standard depicted two bears facing each other, holding a smaller crest.

“Yes, yes, what of it?”

“How is my master to know that you do not bear two Standards?”

The Duke leapt to his feet, sweeping his plate and flagon on to the floor in front of him.

“How dare you!   How dare you accuse me of treachery?”   He put his hand on his sword hilt.   “So help me, I will …”

“Sir, sir” implored the Earl.   “The jester is fooled by the word play.   I assure you there is no harm meant.”

“Harm!   By the Lord above …”

“Sir.   The jester will be dealt with.   To your complete satisfaction.   Please, take your seat.   Jack!  A fresh plate for our guest.   Quickly, bring more drink.   Let us make peace now.    And Guard!”

“Yes sir?”

“Escort the Jester to the Sergeant at Arms.”

“Yes sir.”

---oo0oo---

The jester sat on a wooden bench in what, if it was locked, would be a cell.   There was nowhere to go, no place to run to, so there was no need for the Sergeant to lock up his prisoner.

“You again?   What did you do this time?”

The jester pulled off the belled cap, and shook her hair free from its restraints.

“Saving your life, that’s what, Sarge,” she looked up and smiled a rueful smile.  “Being a jester is supposed to about singing songs and making up stories for his kids, not acting like some sort of bait.”

“How do you mean?”

“You know next month the Earl was to ride into battle with the Duke on the King’s side?   Our master is not sure if the Duke is really for the Northern army, and rides with the King in order to execute an attack on the King, from the rear.   So, as I was told to do, I asked the Duke if he could be trusted.   He got real fired up about such a simple question.”   She half smiled as she shook her head

“No wonder they call you a fool.   That was not foolish, it was downright insane to go at a Duke like that!”

“He lost his temper.”

“I am not surprised.”

“But it was fake.   He was only pretending to lose it.   It was dead obvious.   If the Earl had ridden with the Duke and the King, on some signal, the  Duke would have changed sides and, with surprise on his side, wiped you and your mates out.”

“Have you been drinking out of the madness well?   There is no way that would have happened..”

"You will see.   After the Duke has left, you will see.   For now, the Duke is to be kept happy that his secret is still secret.  He must not know that the Earl is on to him.   Not until our Master has the King’s protection.”

He pondered for a moment, and thought through carefully the plot she had revealed.

“Which is why I am going to whip your backside tomorrow morning on the lawn below his bedroom?”

“Yeah.   I will make a lot of noise for him.   That will make him happy.   He won’t know it is just for show”

“What do you mean, just for show?”

“Well, you just pat my bum, and I will yell my lungs out.   He won’t know what we are up to.”

“Jester, this is not the first time I have birched you.   I did not expect you to make up such wild and fanciful tales to get me to go easy on you.   Calling the Duke a traitor! – ye heavens, did you expect me to believe such a tarradiddle?   Why can’t you just take your punishment like a woman, and stop such stupid nonsense and pretense?”

She blinked back the tears.

"Why don’t …” She left the question unasked.   The Earl hadn’t told him.   May be he wanted it to be real enough to convince the Duke.   She was only a jester.   That didn’t really amount to very much in the order of things, really.

---oo0oo---

She was escorted by a small detachment of troops to the lawn below the guest bedroom.   Its window was open.

The sky was a vivid blue, small puffy clouds drifting high above in the light breeze.   There was a saw bench set up in the middle of the grassy area,   The Sergeant stood beside it, a freshly made birch rod in his right hand, a spare one lying on the ground by his feet.   He was stripped to the waist.

She stepped out of her cloth leggings, and, as was the custom of the day, wore no undergarments.  She then lay across the bench, and offered her wrists and legs to be secured, no resistance, no unseemly wrestling away.

As she was secured, she looked up at him.   “Will it make any difference if I yell?”

“Not to me, it won’t.   Might make the Duke happier, though.”

“Then I won’t bloody yell, then!”

“Oh yes you will.   There’s a good girl.”   He tapped her lightly on her splayed buttocks.   “You always end up yelling.”

He turned the handful of troops who would witness the punishment.

“Four dozen strokes of the birch rod,” he announced.   Upstairs, a drape in the window moved slightly, not enough to draw attention from the people below.

“Husband, come look,” said Lady Elizabeth, looking down from the window sill some twelve feet above the hapless victim.   Although it was nigh on ten, she still wore her untressed nightgown, and stood, slightly bent, with elbows on the sill.   The bright sunlight silhouetted the naked form within her gown, making her breasts dark, firm and inviting.

The Duke climbed out of the bed, and joined her.   He wore a similar night gown, draped loosely around his supple, muscular body.   His black beard was trimmed close, so that it was clear that he had a natural broad and firm chin.

“She is very exposed,” she whispered “Will they hurt her badly?” 

“Nothing more than she deserves.”

Her nipples tightened, pushing the loose cloth away, and she felt the familiar stirrings in her loins.     She jumped up alertly.  

"If I ever displeased you, would you tie me up and thrash me like that?”  She went to the end of the four-poster, flipped up the hem of her gown, and placed her feet against the feet of the bed and stretched her arms out to grasp both upright pillars.  

“And afterward, would you take me roughly and coarsely?”

He came up behind her, looked at her bare rump, and then lifted the bottom of his night gown to drape it over her back.   He reached over to cup her breasts, fondling them through the thin linen, gently squeezing her nipples between thumbs and forefingers.  She sighed the gentle sigh from deep in her throat, the purr of the tigress stirring its own haunches in arising hunger for sexual release.

He could feel the warmth of the back of her legs, pressing against the front of his, the cleft of her bottom pressing against his groin..

“Women, I might not whip you, but I shall certainly take you.”   She did not have to touch him, must less touch himself.   His erection needed no stimulation.

She felt his manhood fill her, and his groin rub against her buttocks.

Outside, the sergeant started the birching.   He dealt the blows evenly and firmly, landing a swathe of stripes every five seconds or so.

Upstairs, as that first stroke landed, the Duke thrust deeply at the sound of the crack.

Remembrance of childhood thrashings caused Elizabeth to clench herself in sympathy with the Jester’s pain, tightening her bottom, groin, and clutching her husband with a deep muscular grip, momentarily holding him still.

Outside the Sergeant raised his arm slowly to deliver the second set of stripes.   Inside the bedroom, she relaxed enough to let him pull back and push forward.

Jester bucked in grim silence as the second blow landed, while the Duke, in pace, whispered two to his young wife.   Again a grip was applied, one so tight that he was held in check for a second, a grip that brought a gasp of incredulous pleasure to his lips.   She responded in kind, and thought for a second she would faint from such intense emotion.

By the time the first six were complete, the rhythm was established, and the two soared into erotic ecstasy.

Jester gasped loudly from the impacts of the second half dozen - she knew that screams for mercy were only moments away.    

Elizabeth’s mews had turned so that they almost like small cries of pain – and for the Duke, the entire universe shrank into a maelstrom of sensuality and emotion.   All that existed was this bed, this wife writhing in his grasp, and the urgency of relief soon to be granted.

Once broken, the Jester yelled long and hard thereafter at each fresh swipe of the birch saplings.   She thrashed as if in ecstasy, but it was a false image - her agony was no source of enjoyment for her.

The Duke and his lady kept time with each stroke, he counting the count, she lost to the moment.

The first birch rod was cast away after thirty strokes, its frayed ends reduced to half their original length.

The fresh rod made her yells more frantic, the pitch climbing higher up the scale.   Her pain inspired fervor giving Elizabeth extra zest to her passion.   As the Duke counted 45, his voice cracked.   Neither he nor Elizabeth had clear recollection of the next moments, save that both came together in a peak of tumultuous ecstasy.

The Duke lay forward for a moment, resting on her back, panting, gasping, regaining his senses.  Then he quietly withdrew, and went to the pitcher on the dresser to wash himself down.

“That was … the beating was … Mistress wife, do you find personal pleasure in such pain?  Would you ever want me to …?”

“No, Husband,” she interrupted.   “I have no pleasure in feeling pain.   Her birching did somehow lend spice to your thrusts.   And you pleasured me greatly.”

Outside, a bucket of cold water was tossed over the Jester’s welted bottom, and then she was untied.

The Duke went to the window and watched as she stood up.   He was satisfied that justice had been carried out properly, effectively and to his complete satisfaction.

“Dearest,” said Elizabeth.   “Albert is getting very … old … to be your Jester for very much longer.   Do you think Mildred would like to take over after his retirement?”  

The Duke thought for a moment – ah yes, Mildred – the young lass with a body and the spirit of a tom boy – a delightful choice.   

“And if she ever displeased you, we could always go to the guestroom that overlooks the courtyard …” said Elizabeth, with a fresh twinkle to her eye,

The drape in the window high above fell back into place, as the Jester slowly and carefully pulled her leggings back up over her tortured flesh.

“No hard feelings, eh, jester?” asked the Sergeant.

“No hard feelings, Sarge,” she replied.   “But I bet within a week you will apologize.”

 As usual, she was right.   Jesters have an uncanny way of knowing such things.