The Judgement Moon Pt. 01

This story takes place in the fantasy world the others are set in around the great city of DunnisUrom. There are new characters as well as characters from previous stories but you should be able to follow without having to read them.

Returning Characters:

Dame Knight Listily: - A female knight of exceptional beauty and skill. She is in charge of the "Third Riding," a sprawling set of lands beyond the city walls.

Kalavan - The Dame Knight's footman. A young man who petitioned to be her servant, having no other good options, and was taken on by her.

Cais Verah (not in this chapter) - the son of a member of a "Great House" (an extremely wealthy family with ties to the royalty). His mother has ordered him to offer his hand in union to the Dame Knight to bring her into their family.

Yais [ Verah ] - a street girl who was selected by Cais to help with a plot that required a skilled pickpocket and became his full time servant (albeit assigned the role of a "pet-girl" since she was part of a criminal scheme). She travels with Cais now.

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DUNNISUROM'S THIRD RIDING: HEATHER

Heather stood out by the fence line and looked at the fields that lay before the dark row of trees that marked the beginning of the Western Wood. Behind her--quite distant--were the walls and towers of DunnisUrom. Despite having grown up in one of the ridings that surrounded the city, she had only been a handful of times. Twice during the Punishment Day festivals which she found uncomfortably fascinating, and to the Harvest Markets where she and her sisters helped her father bring in excess storage to be bid on by the merchant houses.

Even those brief trips had left her unsettled and her mother, a bustling big-boned woman, watching her like a bird of prey in the following days, alert to the positions in bed or time in the out-toilet. The woman must have used a sandglass to time her, bursting in with precise timing to, Heather was certain, assure herself her daughter was not 'in the act' of self pleasure. 

No. If her daughter, no matter her age, wished to have an orgasm, she had best get married or join the order where such things would be doled out strictly and unpleasantly! Her mother, bless her and curse her, was an order devout. Heather knew the woman got smacked hard on her bare broad buttocks by her father each moon on a maintenance schedule, whether she'd misbehaved or not.

If she was good enough to warrant it, then she got her orgasmic reward and relief. That her mother practically glowed with satisfaction after this arrangement was a further pebble in Heather's shoes as well as her sister's--but her three sisters, two older, and one younger, all bore their family's rules with more equanimity than she did. Certainly, they didn't like going to the traveling order services that, when they came out to the ridings, were nasty and inventive events--but they went without much complaint and even showed off their various marks or other evidence of their trials and, especially appalling to Heather, saw the awful events as a chance to mingle with boys!

No, she hated it. Her mother certainly meant the best--but she was, in her 18th year, in a constant state of discomfort and the 'urgent itch,' as her mother called it. It left her in foul moods her sisters found amusing---and it led her into more and more collisions with maternal discipline.

Now, trudging angrily along the fence line with a basket of small bright flags and a mallet and nails, she observed each post for integrity and, if it was lacking, was to hammer in a flag to mark it for repair. It wasn't an arduous job, but it meant a day of walking--and thanks to her recent foray into fighting with mother, it was going to be especially hideous.

Generally, she wasn't allowed to wear anything but dresses. Her mother certainly didn't. Her sisters, the two eldest,  even had fine ones they wore to attend the farmer's hall meetings every moon so as to catch the eyes of boys! But, her mother, possibly with some kind of spy-glass or telescope, she thought, dismally, had spied her daughter at exactly the moment that, out at the feed stall, had decided to shift her dress and squat to pee rather than trekking around to the out toilet!

Now her buttocks had an aching burn from the humiliating spanking she received--using some of her rare tenderizing oil, rubbed thoroughly into Heather's bottom before the application of her hand. Her cheeks recalled the burning blush of the lecture and scolding--for creating the obscene, immodest spectacle of peeing out in the yard like an animal!

And now, worst of all, the real punishment. She didn't wear a dress--oh, no. She wore a set of pants similar to her father's work clothes but designed for a very specific purpose. They had straps that went from the high waist over her shoulders and then fastened in back like a bra. The fastening was fitted with a hearty lock. The material wasn't rough, but it was extremely sturdy: she couldn't get it down, much less off.

Her mother had cheerily bade her drink three tall glasses of water and a bit of strained juice--so that she would, over the course of the day, produce ample urine.

If she tried to hold it in all day--an unhealthy event!--and didn't return home thoroughly soaked her discipline would continue. If she was going to pee outside, her mother ensured she would experience the full ramifications of the humiliation she deserved.

She'd submitted before she even started out, squatting outside the home, under her mother's arm-folded gaze and blushed and sniffled as the hot stain spread across the seat of her pants, ran out to her thighs and dribbled through the fabric. Her mother, looking smugly satisfied, then sent her out with a sandwich and leather waterskin for her lunch.

She wasn't crying as she trod along each step, a soaked reminder of her punishment--but she certainly trudged under a cloud of humiliated misgiving. Her sisters were going to be especially amused by this and she thought, angrily, she might even have a rash down there after this day-long indignity! OH!

It didn't help that it brought to mind the sight of unfortunates out on display in dangling cages, their wrists and ankles shackled so as they sat, drooping, defeated looking, wearing only a thin shirt and a huge bulky absorbent that, in each case was sodden with urine.

She'd asked her father what was done to them to leave the displayed criminals so worn looking and he told her they were on display from the tickling rooms under the judicial annex where they were exercised to exhaustion and inevitably lost their continence during the horrible process. She remembered looking at them, wet eyed and hangdog. Was their ordeal over following this humiliation and discomfort? she'd asked.

Not for certain, her father had said. When they were returned on the shaming cart in the evening, acolytes of the order would be on hand to assess their degree of contrition. If it was found lacking in any way, they were remanded for another cycle of punishment and display. He told her that given a choice between a public whipping or being sent to the tickling stations the first time many malefactors were caught; they chose the whipping--but never the second.

She thought how awful it must be to be displayed so, in a visibly wet oversized diaper and here she was, chafing and stinking and furious. Heather picked up the pace. She was to be in by sundown, finished or not--and if not, her punishment would simply be extended by a day. It was still well into daylight, but the ghostly image of the Judgment Moon hung low in the sky above the forest.

This was considered a propitious omen for disciplinarians and a dismal one for the punished. It also was said to draw out the Unclean from the depths of the dark, untamed Western Woods. She didn't want to be out at night under a Judgment Moon. She plodded on. It was movement from the fallow fields between the fence-line and the wood that caught her motion--first with the flickering of alarm, then with relief, and then with alarm again!

The movement wasn't something odd and dark, slithering out of the trees and into the old ruts to creep its way closer to their house: it was a pair of riders. Unusual out there, but hardly unheard of. Then, as it became clear they were altering course towards her, she felt the awful heat of possibly being seen (or far worse, smelled) if they got close enough.

Her response of dull resentment rose to a spike of alarm when she made out who one of the riders was! Blessed Sattva!! It was the Lady Knight!!

Much had been made of the arrival of Dame Listily to the riding. She had been gifted the old stronghold by the main road. Gifted--not leased--by the Governor! That, itself, assuring it would be owned by her children decades or even centuries hence. The act of assigning the land thus had angered the folk of the riding. If the tower was owned by the family of a Dame Knight, how could it be assured a protector and sheriff? Would continue to patrol their lands? If her sons decided not to? Or she had no sons? What then?

Moreover, the menfolk had been quite certain in the farmer's hall that whatever tales of this dame knight they had been told, no girl was going to deal with anything from bandits to unclean to land disputes the way a man would! They exclaimed on the folly of this decision and accused the governor of appointing the dame knight to either appease the crown (she was said to be of some relation) or perhaps to give the broadsheets and criers something to shout about beyond his latest tax increase or the stench of the low quarter's sewers!

That was until they'd met her.

Heather had seen her at a distance on her steed--was really an unclean she rode?? She had been striking then. Apparently, up close no one--not the Trachett family patriarch--not the obese forge smith--not the ale brew master--had thought to challenge her to her face. Her father, when he returned from the farmer's hall, had been shaken and slightly pale!

Heather had felt this a welcome development: at least the men would find something to complain about other than a woman being appointed to an unlikely position--but now the Dame Knight was headed straight to her!

She slowed her pace--perhaps the woman was going to pass in front of her and it simply seemed she was targeted to collide. Please let that be it!

No. The armored woman and her nightmarish steed (were its eyes really red? Yes, she caught flickers of them! Oh, mercy!) was angling directly towards Heather! She smelled of stale urine. Her pants had a darkened soaked seat and telling dark streaks down her thighs and calves.

"Foo! Fuck!" she swore softly. 

To the side and a bit behind the Dame Knight rode a boy in her livery. Only a bit older than Heather, probably, from afar he looked lean and handsome. There was something about the cant of the man's shoulders and the hang of his head: he was taking up as little breadth width as he could---careful not to impinge to heavily on his mistress' existence.

She recognized it from the look of innumerable wives at the hall meetings and elsewhere, quietly sitting by while their husbands debated and argued. Seeing a boy doing it was, if she were honest, a bit refreshing--all the same, a boy coming upon her in the midst of her punishment was awful. Still, she wasn't going to outrun the two on horses, so she stood by the fence and waited for them to ride up upon her.

Heather came to a proper stance, tucking her hands behind her, her legs close (yuck! The feel of the pants was awful!) and forced her head up. She was blushing with embarrassment--but being a mousy, head hung girl was asking for extra punishment and she didn't want to risk that.

"Hail, child," the Dame Knight said, riding up towards the edge of the fence now close enough for Heater to reach out and touch. Heather gave a slight curtsey trying not to let the discomfort of moving in her punishment outfit show on her face.This woman didn't seem to have that many more years than Heather--but no one would ever think to address her as 'child'!

"Hail, Dame Kight," she answered. Hopefully this woman--Sattva, she was big!!--would have pressing business elsewhere--anywhere else!! 

"Are you a daughter of this household?" the Dame Knight gestured in the direction of the cluster of barns and grain houses and livestock yards that was her family's farm houses.

"Yes, mistress," said Heather a bit softly. The boy had ridden up and while he still looked, well, meek, next to his mistress (how could he help it!) at least he wore dry clothes.

"I wish you to return to your household immediately," the Dame Knight said. "There is a foulness at work here. My footboy will accompany you." She didn't even look to her servant. He slid from the saddle and she took his reins, ponying his horse to lead it with her.

"Mistress," she asked, suddenly worried. "Is there danger?"

"There is," said the dame knight, scanning the treeline. "Me."

Heather blushed! The woman wore bluish steel plate of a fine design, the helmet was off so her head was free and hair lay about her armored shoulders. Across her back was a sword of such size it appeared as a symbol of office more than a weapon and her outsized black horse also carried a spear with the same metal comprising the tip.

The boy, her footman, slipped under the fence and addressed his mistress. "I shall wait for you to collect me, Mistress?"

She nodded, not taking her eyes off the forest--although she did look up at the ghostly shape of the Judgment Moon. "We may need to stay here the night."

"Aye, Mistress," agreed the boy.

The horse's red eyes were fixed on Heather with intent. She instinctively backed away from the huge steed. Its tail flicked and its nostrils flared.

Oh--was it--was it sniffing at her!?

"Come with me, Heather," the boy said. "I am called Kalvan and I am the servant of the Dame Knight--I'll get you back to the house."

He motioned for her to come with the curve of his outstretched arm brushing her shoulders and she quickly stepped away from the rider, who was already moving away from the treeline in the direction of the forest.

He walked with the girl, a tall one, strong and sturdy looking. He moved with her, her gait a bit slower than his as she moved in the punishment clothes she'd clearly been made to wear. "Can you tell me what your mistress is looking for?" she asked. Behind them the Judgment moon hung in the sky.

"Do you have much of forest folk here?" he asked.

"We get Nixies sometimes," she told him. "We leave out saucers of cream and mother makes little cakes for them and they mostly leave us alone." 

He nodded.

"She thinks there is something worse out there. She received a missive--not shared with me--but it bore grim tidings. You know of the robbery?"

She did. Less than one moon ago a wealthy merchant's coach had been accosted by "Lady Vulpis", the nom de delit of a brazen woman who had waylaid and robbed several merchant's passage.

In this case the two passengers--quite obese--had been left naked and tied to a tree, their hands bound above their heads and covered with hard leather inflexible 'gloves' that fastened, locking at the wrists. Thus made helpless, they were switched with an implement cut from a poison-wood tree so it left irritated pink welts across their buttocks, thighs, and even some on their cocks when coaxed erect by the girl and her gang.

If this weren't enough, each man's anus was fitted with a ginger root that both of them had soiled themselves, expelling in burning pain!

She'd left a smoldering fire-pit by the roadside, calculating the stream of rising smoke to lead people to them. The city gendarme didn't range this far out and they had not even been within the Dame Knight's riding when they were attacked, but still, this audacious behavior had been the talk across all the farms. While Heather didn't think this "Lady Vulpis" was likely to rob a household--of what? Bread?--there was nothing to say what such a person might do!

"She thinks this robber girl is out in our woods?" She asked.

He shook his head. "I don't think that's it. But I think she found the robbery a kind of omen. When things go badly in a place like the Western Woods, she says, they can quickly draw worse things to them."

"Oh," said Heather softly. Then: "Her horse--her steed--I felt its gaze on me--is it--?"

"It's a Valiance Stallion," confirmed Kalvan. "An unclean--tamed though. It... should be treated with care and distance by us. It obeys her completely. I'm sure it--he--found your punishment to its taste."

This was the first time the boy had brought up her humiliating circumstances, and she flinched, blushing!

"Oh, don't fret," said Kalvan. "He finds my circumstances to his taste most of the time."

She gave him a look.

"She's got a rack in the stable where she'll have a misbehaving servant--including myself--stretched out naked. It's in his stall and he can spend hours amusing himself by swatting the subject with his tail!"

"OH!" The image filled Heather with amazement.

"He gives quite the cutting lecture while doing this," Kalvan told her. "The tail is a unique instrument--each stroke like a bracing, painful splash of water!"

"It sounds awful!" she said.

"It's bad," he agreed. "One of the simpler disciplines in the Listily household!"

"So she's horrible?" Heather asked. Should she pity this boy?

"Mmm--no," he shook his head. "I was given the chance to serve her or flee back to the city. I chose to stay. Oh, I find myself regretting it constantly," he gave a dry cough "but, no: she's not horrible. Just strict and she is one of those people who considers discipline an art form." He shrugged.

She could see the blush on his face. She felt the boy was carefully restraining himself from gushing about his mistress--clearly she punished him often and badly, from the sound of it.

"Sounds like my mother," she groused. "She certainly thinks punishing her daughters is an enjoyable expression of hers!"

"What will she do when you are all off and married?" Kalvan asked.

"Oh, she's been very clear that our husbands are to bring us back after any punishment for an 'additional lesson.'" She matched his dry laugh. "At least until we have children. Then when they're of age, I guess she'll handle them."

He nodded. The farmhouse stood in front of them now.

Esti, her younger sister, stood in the doorway. A rising wind swept the weather vane and  spun its blades in a circular blur. 

"Who did you pick up?" called the girl

"The footman of our Dame Knight," said Heather, approaching. 

Esti looked at Kalvan with something like awe.

Kalvan spoke: "My mistress wished me to take Heather back to the house. You all ought get inside--she fears some Unclean may be out."

Esti took one look along the western skyline and the low hanging Judgment Moon.

"MOTHER!" she yelled, turning and beckoning them in. "MOTHER! THERE'S A BOY!!!"

THIRD RIDING: NEAR FELLS

Kalvan sat in the common room, given the master of the house's good chair--something he felt uncomfortable taking for himself. Thankfully, the farmer wasn't back yet, having left to deliver something to a more distant neighbor.

The day had darkened, and his mistress had not yet returned. In the meantime, the daughters of the woman, who had a big booming cheerful voice and a stature to match, scurried in a hive of activity, preparing a dinner for him, and attempting to serve him hand and foot, ply him with pastries. They even had with a cup of wine for him they had brought out of a cellar.

He knew if he was besotted when DameListilly arrived, he'd be returned to her tower tied naked over the back of her stallion. He drank sparingly.

Heather had had her soaked clothing removed and been fitted with panties and an apron. Her serving duties were not at all disregarded due to her lack of proper dress and she buzzed about, terribly embarrassed but, to Kalvan's eye, not overly wretched.