Golden Girl Ch. 06

The Scarlet Lady

On the day the Scarlet Lady returned, Dorée was roused from her slumber by the sound of footmen running in the halls and someone pounding on a nearby door. At first, she stuffed her head under her pillow to drown out the commotion. She had lain awake late thinking on her humiliations and was now in no mood to be dragged from bed before her habitual hour, which already came early enough. But the sounds continued, and soon enough her curiosity overcame her sleepiness. She rose, washed, and dressed in haste. When she went to the servant's kitchen to break her fast, she found it bustling with an overflow of work from the main kitchen. Orders were being sent out for huntsmen to bring quails and pheasants, for the butcher to slaughter a lamb, for figs and spices to be brought from the orangerie. And all this was not for a lavish dinner to be held later that night, but for a light mid-day repast!

Dorée wanted to ask Berenice what it all betokened, but she could not find the Head Chambermaid anywhere. Her room was empty but for a pair of pewter goblets with dregs of wine in the bottoms, and her bed-linens were heaped in an unsightly pile. Dorée hesitated a moment on the thresh-hold, then entered and tidied up quickly for Berenice. It was a disgrace for a chambermaid to leave her own room in disarray, and Dorée didn't want Berenice to be disciplined for a slip on what was clearly a momentous day. On her way to the laundry with the used sheets, she asked a laundress who was also heading in that direction if she knew where Berenice might be.

"In the Lady's chambers, dolt. Only Berenice is allowed to clean them. But, oh, wasn't she busy with something else when the Lady arrived!" The laundress cackled suggestively.

Dorée's mind flashed to the two goblets. Of a sudden, she understood the scent in the sheets she held to her breast.

"You'd better hurry along or you'll be cooked in the same pot," the laundress added.

"Hurry where?" Dorée asked in confusion.

"Why, the South Wing vestibule. The Chambermaids must all be there when the Lady arrives to show their willingness to serve."

Dorée stopped dead in her tracks. No one had told her anything about that.

"Well, go on then! Don't be late, dullard!" The woman laughed at her.

Dorée felt a wave of suspicion. Was this another cruel trick designed to get her in trouble? Or was the laughing laundress telling the truth?

Not willing to risk it, Dorée scrambled to drop Berenice's bed-linens at the laundry. She took the back hallways, where she could run full-tilt without impropriety, and made her way to the South Wing. When she arrived, all the other chambermaids were indeed dutifully assembled. Dorée took her place at the end of the line, grateful that she had heeded the laundress' warning instead of giving in to mistrust. She straightened her skirts and then stood with her eyes lowered and her hands clasped in front of her apron, as she'd been taught by Berenice. No sooner had she adopted this pose than the door was flung open by two footmen.

The Lady entered the South Wing vestibule like a galleon upon the waves, lofty and grand in a scarlet riding dress. Behind followed her gaily-apparelled Lady's Companion in a buttercup-yellow morning gown. After her came several men bearing travelling bags and trunks. The Lady barely glanced at the chambermaids lined up along the wall, but instead sailed up to the door of her suite at the South end of the long, elegantly appointed vestibule. Then she stopped. The door did not open. The footmen, who were still holding the North doors open for her retinue, looked at one another in panic. Clearly something was not right. The lady folded one arm over the other, swung her raven hair back upon her shoulder, and tapped a booted foot on the parquet floor.

The room held its breath.

Then, all in a gust, the door swung open. Berenice stood on the other side, her hair wild and her wide-set eyes even wilder. She stepped aside, curtsied very deeply, and panted,

"Your chambers, my Lady."

The Lady looked down between lidded eyes and said with the greatest contempt,

"Late. Again."

Berenice -strong, capable, cynical Berenice- looked as though she might burst into tears. Shame stained her cheeks, and her eyes were rimmed with red. A powerful surge of compassion swept through Dorée, whose own cheeks were still flushed from running to make it on time.

"My Lady, it wasn't her fault."

The Scarlet Lady turned around. Dorée found herself stepping out from the line and into the centre of the vestibule to address the noblewoman again.

"My Lady, Berenice was late because...ah...because she had to make up my room as well as hers after I left mine in disarray. Please do not punish her for my slovenliness. The fault is mine."

The Lady turned slowly. Her gaze raked over Dorée as a poker rakes over embers.

"Is that so." She said in a flat tone, clearly unconvinced. Then her eyes focused on Dorée's mane of honey-gold hair.

"Ah, it's you. The Golden Girl. The martyred saint. Now this makes more sense. Poor Berenice is in trouble, so you thought you would give yourself up instead to save your...what is she, your mentor, is that it?"

Dorée shifted from foot to foot.

"Yes, my Lady." She finally admitted.

The great woman looked knowingly at her Companion, who giggled in response. It was a strangely merry sound in the tense hall.

"Well then, Golden Girl, I'll give you a choice. You can take Berenice's punishment here and now, in front of everyone. Or, I can deal with Berenice in private later, and double the severity of her punishment for your sake. What do you choose?"

Dorée froze. Helplessly, she sought Berenice's gaze. The older girl seemed to be pleading with her eyes for something, but Dorée couldn't tell whether she was begging to be spared or asking to be given over to the Lady. In the end, Dorée could only respond the way her inner nature dictated.

"I will take Berenice's punishment now."

For the first time since entering, the Lady smiled.

"Very well."

She lifted the hem of her red riding dress and reached into her boot to withdraw a short horse crop. At the Lady's beckoning, the two footmen came over and took Dorée by the arms. They turned her around and bent her over slightly at the waist. The Lady's Companion skittered over gleefully in her silken slippers to lift Dorée's skirts.

"For Berenice's lack of punctuality, ten lashes."

The Lady struck Dorée's exposed bottom and thighs with the crop. Between each stroke, she paused to let the full impact of the sharp, lingering pain sink in. Dorée was in tears by the fifth stroke. This went far beyond any pain she had experienced so far. At the fall of the tenth stroke, Dorée sobbed in relief and struggled to stand. But the Footmen did not allow her to rise.

"Ah, ah. You're not finished yet, Golden Girl." Said the Lady. "For lying to me, your punishment is five hard lashes. And this time, between strokes, you must tell everyone the truth."

The Lady lifted her arm high and brought the crop down full force on Dorée's tender, throbbing flesh. Once Dorée's echoing screams had died down, the Lady asked,

"Why was Berenice late to open my chambers this morning?"

Dorée sobbed, "I don't know!" 'Not for sure,' she added in her mind.

"Unacceptable. This is stroke number one again. You shall have the first stroke over and over until you confess. Now, the truth!"

The Lady struck Dorée again just as hard in the exact same spot as the previous stroke.

Dorée screamed louder, certain the lash had broken her skin.

"She was in her room with someone! I found two used cups in there, and the sheets smelled of--"

"Smelled of?" The Lady's Companion prompted sweetly.

"Sex." Dorée's voice broke as she spoke the damning word.

The Lady nodded in approval. Then she raised her crop again.

"Very good. Question two. Why were you in Berenice's room?"

Once Dorée's cries from the second stroke had died down, she confessed,

"I went to ask her what was going on this morning but she wasn't there. I saw that her room wasn't made up yet, so I went in and did it for her."

The Lady eyed Dorée skeptically and raised her crop again.

"It's the truth!" Dorée shouted hoarsely. "I didn't want her to get in trouble."

The Lady nodded, then struck hard again.

"Three. Is there some relation between you two that drives you to protect her? Sisters? Or, perhaps, lovers?"

"No!" Dorée and Berenice cried out at the same time. Then Dorée continued, "It's just that I'm grateful to her. She's taught me much about life in the Chateau."

"Apparently she hasn't taught you enough to prevent you from forming attachments. Did she not tell you that every kindness you show is a form of cruelty?"

"Every day, she says that." Dorée wept.

"You should believe her."

The Lady's lash fell again.

"Four. What are your thoughts about me?"

Dorée's body writhed now as much in embarrassment as pain. She could hardly believe she had to admit this in public, and to the one who was tormenting her. Nonetheless, she confessed in full.

"I think about you each night. I have since the Feast of the Fall. I've heard that you want to train me, and I...I want to serve you, Lady! I don't know what drives me, but I need this."

"Need what?"

"This. The pain. The passion. The truth. All of it!"

The Lady's final stroke fell harder than all the others, and it was a very long time before the hall was quiet enough for her to ask her last question.

"Five. Will you enter into training with me, knowing that this betrayal, this pain and humiliation, are only a foretaste of what you will endure as I prepare you for the Duc?"

Dorée shuddered in horror at the thought of it, but she could not draw back. Underneath her mind's resistance was a deeper appetite, a drive that spurred her forward.

"Yes, my Lady." She said. To her surprise, her voice rang out as calm and clear as the tolling of a great bell.

The Lady nodded. Then she turned to Berenice, who still stood stricken in the doorway.

"You are pardoned. You are also dismissed. Dorée will serve in my chambers from now on."

"Yes, my Lady." Berenice said quietly.

Gathering up her tattered pride, the former Head Chambermaid walked out with her tear-stained face held high. She pointedly did not look at Dorée as she passed by her in the center of the room. Dorée felt her heart would burst. Her body trembled with the effort it took not to reach out and clasp Berenice to her breast, to beg for her forgiveness. How had all her good intentions come to this?

"Dorée, come. You have much to learn." The Lady said quietly.

Dorée turned and joined the Lady, taking care to stay two paces behind. Just as Berenice had taught her.

"The rest of you may resume your duties." The Lady commanded.

The other maids filed out of the vestibule. Dorée could hear the raucous chorus of their voices rising as they exclaimed over what had just happened. Then the heavy wooden door closed, and silence rushed in behind it.

Still shaking, Dorée followed the Scarlet Lady into her chambers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On that day, Dorée performed for the first time the acts that would become a home-coming ritual. The Lady, as it turned out, was an avid equestrienne. The Chateau's surrounding parklands were her seasonal hunting grounds, and she rode most every day as Spring began to show her delicate face on the grounds of the estate. Whenever the Lady returned, Dorée was expected to be waiting at the door of her suite to admit her promptly. There was a bell that rang in the Lady's chambers whenever someone entered the South Hall, which let Dorée know that she was to drop whatever task she was engaged in and prepare to receive her Lady. There was also a clever window of glass, small and round as a bubble, set into the inside of the chamber door which showed the entrance hall on the other side, so that Dorée could see when her Mistress was approaching and open the door, as if by magic, just as the Lady reached the threshold. This was the task that Berenice had so sorely failed at on the fateful day the Scarlet Lady returned to her bower.

Once the door was open, she was expected to kneel and offer her services. As at the Feast of the Fall, she often served as furniture for the great Lady's convenience. Curling her back over her knees and placing her forehead to the floor, she became a footstool on which the Lady could rest her boots as she undid them. Many was the time that the Lady's Companion offered to undo the lacing, and many was the time the Lady refused, being of an independent character when it came to practical matters. She would have her way in every little thing, and in most things that meant tending to herself when she could rather than relying on maids. She did, however, take great pleasure in using her servants as toys and props for whatever rituals she devised. And in the case of the entrance ritual, that meant using Dorée as a fleshy ottoman on which to rest her boot.

The first time she was commanded to kneel in this position, Dorée was puzzled. There were many fine and sturdy pieces of actual wooden furniture in the Lady's suite, and she could hardly believe that her back was any more stable. But the way the Lady ground in her metal-shod boots, and the slow, deliberate pacing of her actions, made it clear that she was savouring the experience of having a girl as her footstool. Something deep inside Dorée compelled her to answer the Lady's desire and perform as well as she possibly could. With her eyes closed and her face to the floor, she could not see anything, but every other sense responded. Her breath grew shallow and her body stilled. There was no sensation but the weight of the noblewoman's foot pressing her down, and no sound but the rasp of the laces as the Lady pulled them out. She could feel dampness from the wet and muddy soles of the boots spreading, soaking into her thin shift-dress. The moment she shifted or shivered, however, the Lady would dig in her sharp heel in admonishment. Very quickly, Dorée learned that she must stay absolutely still. Something about this scenario often put her in a strange state of mind. It was almost like kneeling for prayer. A stillness came over her mind as well as her body, something that might be called peace, were she not also attentive to every small movement or pressure against her back that might be a signal of the Lady's desires. Dorée slipped into a kind of serene receptivity, even as she squirmed to be covered with the smell of the stables and the wet of the rain that inevitably clung to the equestrienne's boots.

When the Lady finished removing her boots and donned silken slippers in their place, Dorée was finally allowed to rise.

That first day, Dorée wondered naively how she would be able to commence her cleaning duties as a chambermaid when her white dress was dripping with muck. The Lady, however, quickly saw to it. Giving Dorée an appraising glance, she said,

"You're filthy, Golden Girl. Take off that shift. Now."

"Yes, my Lady. Only...I have nothing but this shift..."

"And?"

"And...no matter. I will do as you say, my Lady."

Dorée began to shuck off the dress hastily, wanting to be done with it. The Lady stayed her hand.

"Slowly, my girl. We do not rush these things here."

Dorée's face was burning by this time. Still, she complied, unlacing her stays as slowly and deliberately as the Lady had unlaced her boots. Though she kept her gaze down, she could sense the Lady's approval in her unwavering gaze. Soon enough, she held her own soiled gown in her hands. She stood unclad before the Scarlet Lady. The hot red welts of the strokes she had received in Berenice's stead still stood out on her buttocks and thighs, bringing a heightened sense of chagrin to her nakedness. But she had learned better than to try and cover herself. She simply stood, bared and waiting for her next command.

After a long moment, the Lady stepped forward and ran a finger along Doree's cleft, as she had on the night of the Feast. The girl's pulse quickened and she felt a strange, sweet tension spring into her thighs. But the Lady made a small, intrigued sound as she noted that Dorée's sex was not quite so wet this time as it had been the last.

"Not yet ready? Hmmm. Perhaps betraying a friend does not appeal to our Golden Girl?"

Mutely, Dorée lowered her head in agreement. The thought of Berenice's cold, closed expression as she walked away chilled Dorée's soul and body alike.

"Well then, my martyred saint, we shan't do that one again. It seems you much prefer to suffer than to inflict suffering, even indirectly. That is the truth -or one of the truths- of your desire."

The Lady's fingers tightened on Dorée's delicate flesh, pinching first one lip, then the other, then the sensitive pearl at the top where the lips joined. It was as if her new Mistress were feeling her out to see what might be done with her, as one feels a new horse's legs. Dorée bowed her head in acquiescence, but the Scarlet Lady did not release her until she felt the dampness of Dorée's arousal swell from between the captured lips.

"Now you are ready to serve me."

And it was true. Dorée was very ready to begin in the service of the Scarlet Lady.