It was still dark when the three figures rode out from Hollybum, the Finch estate. The road was, indeed, a mire, and it was hard going even with the best of horses under them.
Dawn improved things somewhat, and they were at last able to relax a little and look about them. Since the parish surveyor lived along this road, the undergrowth and hedgerows had been freshly hacked away. As the sun rose, the twitter of the larks could be heard as they woke to begin the new day. The new grain sprouts showed pale green in the bordering fields, steaming in the early morning mist. The air was fresh and clean, and the discomforts of the rutted pathway were soon forgotten as they turned into the main road leading to the Green.
Here they were joined by many others travelling in the same direction. They were of all classes and traveled by various methods. Many were on foot; some were on horseback and some on the backs of recalcitrant mules. Women and children, if they could afford it, rode in the gaudy, springless carriages and though the conveyance saved their legs, it battered the rest of them unmercifully. Many of the younger women, like Belinda, preferred to take their chances on horseback. A few, the frail, or old, or very wealthy, rode in litters.
The density of wheeled and pedestrian traffic made things slow going for those on horses, but it was easy enough to leave the road and ride down the verge of the fields. It was certainly quicker, and probably a good deal smoother going than the road itself. If the crops got tramped, as they often did, that was the lookout of the poor devil who planted them.
By mid-morning, Belinda and the men were both hungry and parched. Although they had passed many cottages displaying the holly bush outside the door as an invitation to the thirsty travellers, they preferred to look for a regular inn.
The first one that suited them was located a scant mile from Bethnal Green. They rode into the courtyard and the two men dismounted. Robert smiled to himself as he watched John lift his niece from her saddle. If they hadn't already found a spot to get fucked in, they soon would.
“We'll do well here,” he told them as the stable lad lead away their horses. “I know 'The Red Bull' well, and they serve fine fare. They also have some fine French wine on license from Raleigh and I, for one, have a throat as dry as a dust storm.”
They entered the inn and were shown by their host to a private room upstairs. As they ate great plates full of meat and bread, of game and poultry, and fresh, early vegetables, they decided that they would be well advised to book rooms before going on to Bethnal Green. It was much too long and hard a ride to return home this night, and after the long day of pleasure, with the wine and punch that would accompany it, they would be far better travellers for a good rest.
After finishing their breakfast and making arrangements with their host, they mounted fresh horses rented from the stable and arrived at the green within an hour.
Robert departed on business, if it can be called business to seek out some buxom, willing lass to warm his bed that night, and Captain Fothering took Belinda's arm as they strolled about the crowded green.
People swarmed everywhere, the human mass ebbing forward, then receding like the tide. There were stalls for meat, for ale and wine, for shellfish and sweets. There were bear dancers and bear pits, a bull baiting ring and a small stage for the plays that would be performed off and on throughout the day. Minstrels sang their bright, foolish ditties and fortune tellers vied for customers.
A large platform had been erected, with a canopy to keep off any rain that might unluckily fall, for the evening's dancing. This edifice was, of course, for the quality. The baser folk would have dancing, too, but they were content to use the slick, new grass of the green itself.
Stands had been built with boxes containing comfortable seats, so that when the time came for the four-part madrigal singing, the performing horses and the grand race, the spectators could watch at their ease.
The stands, the booths, the people themselves were riot with color. Red, green, lemon, rose, white, gold flashed and glittered everywhere.
Belinda glowed. This riotous, noisy, almost frantic gaiety suited her exactly. That she was escorted by a dashing gallant, who's broad, handsome frame rose head and shoulders above everyone around them, added much to her already ecstatic mood.
“Oh, John, I do love the fairs! Even God must love them, since he gave us such a perfect day for it.”
John looked down at her beaming face. “Perhaps he does, but I warrant even he would have a poor time trying to get through this crush. By the blood of our Lady, I can see nothing for miles but masses of people! We had better pick a spot to join up in the case we get lost.”
“No fear,” Belinda laughed, “I shall cling to you like a barnacle to the bottom of your ship.” She looked around. “If you do manage to shake me loose, I'll wait for you in the box stands. We'll be sitting with Sir David's wife.” She stopped and waved her arm. “Karen! Karen!” The blond child to whom she had been beckoning disappeared around the corner of the barn that stabled the horses entered in the competition.
“That was Karen Cassen, Sir David's little girl. I guess she was going to the barn to look for her father.”
Karen Cassen was going to the barn, but not to look for her father. Sir David, she knew, was putting his horse, Pan, through it's paces in a pasture some distance from the green, and it was only for this reason that she dared venture into the barn at all. She had heard the grooms talking about “relieving the stallions,” and had watched them lead a horse away and close the door of the stable. They were gone some time, and she could hear the animal knickering and screaming, and then they were back. She had asked her father about it, but he had simply told her sharply to rejoin her mother.
In spite of his own peculiar arrangements with his daughter, who by now, at twelve, felt regularly the pleasure of her father's cock buried deep in her little cunt, he was most careful to protect her from any other contact with sex. The reason the horse had been taken into the small stall was very much a sexual one. With this much horseflesh about, there was almost certain to be one or more mares in heat, and even the best trained stallion gave a damned shoddy performance if he were rutting about after a filly. It was therefore the custom for the stable attendants to “relieve the stallion” at least once and often twice before he was due to race or be exhibited.
Karen had started back to her mother, but she was curious. Her father's tone was one he rarely used, and the reason for it aroused her curiosity more than ever. She had drifted about with the crowd for a little while and then, when she knew her father would have left for the pasture on Pan, she worked her way back to the barn. After watching at a discreet distance for a few moments, she saw a young man take another stallion into the closed stall. When he had shut the door behind him, she slipped into the stall adjoining, and bolted the door. Walking silently across the straw-covered floor, she found a tiny crack through which she could peek.
Bending down, she pressed her eye against the partition and looked in.
The big stud was standing against the far wall. His feet had been well secured to stakes so that it was impossible for him to kick or rear, and the swarthy, handsome groom was standing beside his flank. Having previously drenched his hand in the flow of a mare in one of the other stalls, he had rubbed it over the stallions nose immediately after tying him up. Karen could see the immense scarlet nob that now protruded from the animal's protective sheath. While she watched, the groom reached down and took the great globe in his hand, teasing and stroking it. The stallion whinnied softly and tried to rear, but the man continued to stroke and fondle it's cock until the whole great length had pushed itself out of the sheath. The huge organ jutted out sharply, wet and red and dripping. Karen caught in her breath, her eyes round and fascinated. It was so big and the horse was getting more and more excited as the groom manipulated him. She could feel her cunt send a warm trickle down her leg, and she crossed her little legs and rubbed her thighs together.
The stallion was fully at the ready now and the groom knelt beside him and, reaching up under his belly, took the enormous rod in both hands. He started pulling back and forth, his strong hands keeping a quick, steady stroke. The animal tried hard to buck, and screamed with the frustration of immobility and the hot pleasure that this human was pumping into him.
Karen watched, her eyes glassy with lust. She looked at the kneeling groom and saw that he, too, was affected by the passion of the animal he worked on. His tight yeoman's britches did little to conceal the thick bulge that strained against his thigh, and his breathing was rather harder than the exertion of his work warranted.
Oh, how she wished she was the one who was handling thus that beautiful, fierce, male animal. Her hands were small, but she could manage. She looked at the young groom's bent head, the dark, unruly hair falling into his handsome face, and her hand pressed her skirt hard against her burning sex as she thought of him secretly watching her as she watched him now.
The big stud was becoming frantic. Sweat gleaned on his black coat, and he pitched and tossed his mane about, throwing his head back to scream his need through his distended nostrils. The man speeded up his stroke, jerking his hands up and down, hard and fast. At last, with one final, high wail, the magnificent body stiffened, and the panting Karen watched as a flooding torrent of spunk burst from the jerking nob and drenched the straw beneath it.
Karen's hand worked over herself, rubbing through her silk dress, her soaking cunt.
The groom got up, and she could see that he, too, was panting. While the stallion stood shivering, recovering from the loss of his burning juices, the young groom unlaced his pants and took out his prick. It was hard and twitching, the head sticky and swollen. He prepared to give himself the same treatment he had given the stallion, and leaned back his rod aimed at the straw under the horses belly.
In her passion, Karen wanted to lie down and roll in that straw. This same stall had been used for this purpose before, this morning, and the floor was soaked with the come of beasts and men. Surely the other stable hands were no less susceptible than this one, and doubtless acted in the same way. She wondered if he jerked off after every stud he masturbated? How she would love to lie under the horse's belly and feel that great splash of come wash over her face, and then, a moment later, to feel the man's come shoot on her, too.
The groom breathed heavily, eye's half closed, as he pulled on his joint. He grunted loudly, pumping like mad, as the thick cream shot out of his body, spurting into the pool already left by the horse.
Fingering herself wildly, Karen bit her lip to keep from crying out as she felt her own passion grow and grow, and finally skyrocket into orgasm.
The groom did up his pants and untied the horse. He led the animal out and Karen sank down, exhausted. She rested for a moment, then slipped to the door, unlocked it and peered out.
Luckily, there was no one about, and, unseen, she slipped out of the bar and melted into the crowd. It had been wonderful, well worth the risks involved, but now that her lust was cooled a little she had no wish to have her father catch her out. He would not be pleased.
She smiled slyly to herself. No, he certainly wouldn't be pleased, but she was just as sure that he would have been very much aroused.
Luckily for Karen's security, Sir David had not ridden straight back to the stables from the pasture. He had only stayed away a short while. Pan was trained to letter perfection, and he was afraid that too long a workout would only make the horse stale. Still on horseback, he was picking his way through the crowds, stopping to chat with friends and place a wager here and there on the outcome of the race.
Karen had reached her mother safely, and they were sitting in their lavish box, looking out on the press. High and low, people of every status and station mingled, and one could see every kind of garment from clerical garb, to absurdly-hooped out skirts, to the vilest and most abysmal tatters. The green swarmed with mendicants of every kind, soliciting from the wealthy. Marion's ghastly experience with the London beggars was now years in the past, and though she thought at the time she would never forget it, she no longer felt her heart stop at the sight of these human derelicts, their filthy rags and twisted, out-stretched hands. She sat now with her daughter, leaning over the side of the box, throwing coins to those who milled around her.
She saw her husband coming through the mob toward her, and she waved her hand and laughed.
“Cor! It ain't 'alf a bleedin' squeeze. Out o' me way, mate. I got a livin' t' grub, too.”
Another figure moved toward her, palm outstretched for alms, and Marion looked into the one blue eye that would remain burned into her memory till her dying day.
The laugh died. Her face drained and she clutched at the edge of her box, digging her fingers into the brightly colored bunting.
Big Red moved nearer, squinting up at her, then backed off a step as recognition swept over him.
“God flay me arse! It's the doxy!”
“No, you villain. My wife.”
Big Red whirled as Marion whispered “David.”
Sir David looked down at the man that stood before him. He saw the patch, the ginger hair, the hideous scar. Though he had never seen the man before, had only heard him described once, over four years ago, he could have picked him out of millions. His face went dead white, and his cold grey eyes narrowed to slits.
“'ere, m' lord, don't look at me so mean!” Big Red was trying to back away into the crowd, but Sir David's big grey was pressing him toward the back of the stands. He was badly frightened and looked in vain for someone to come to his aid. He looked again at the hate that poured down on him from Sir David's face, and cringed. “What's up? What 'ave you got to do wiv me?”
Sir David said nothing. Had he spoken one word his iron control would have broken and he would have leaped from his horse and strangled the scum with his bare hands. That was too quick a death; too clean.
As he maneuvered the man into a small clearing directly behind the stands, he reached out and picked a sharp ended crowbar out of the ground, where a workman had left it standing upright.
“Jesus! No! No!”
Big Red threw up his hands to ward off the heavy shaft of iron that came hurling down at him, but to no avail. The knife-sharp steel caught him and pinned him to the ground, piercing his belly as cleanly as a table knife stabs through butter.
He lay there, unable to struggle for fear of tearing his guts out; unable to pull himself free of the bar.
“Up, Pan.”
The big horse reared, and Big Red screamed, his cry lost in the swarm of noise around them, as the horse's hoof came down hard on his upper arm. He could hear the bone break, and blood spurted from the horrible gash as the horse reared again, coming down this time on his knee cap. As a new wave of agony engulfed him, he became aware of the sprightly air Sir David was whistling softly. The greys hooves rose and fell in rhythm, as he crushed first a hand and then the pelvic bone. He never missed his footing. Why should he? He had trained for this dance for many months; he was step perfect.
Sir David continued to whistle, slowly now. He would have preferred to flay this pig alive, but this would do; this would do.
Big Red jerked and twisted. His frantic convulsions had ripped his stomach on the spike that held him, and thick bulges of entrails ooozed out around the shaft, but he hardly felt them. Red fire burned his eyes, but he tried to calm himself; to think. He knew that he was to die, and his only concern now was that he die quickly; that he be spared any more of the soul-searing agony that tortured him.
He saw his tormentor pull a long, wide strip of bunting off the back of the stand and gazed up in horror as he realized what was going to happen. Sir David was going to cover him and leave him to die of his wounds. Die he certainly would, but it might take hours before the last drop of blood drained from his ravaged body; hours in which he must lay there, conscious of the pain of his shattered bones, his ripped and mangled flesh. Covered with the bunting, no one would find him here behind the stands until late into the night or even next morning.
As Sir David leaned from his horse to pull the bunting over the shattered lump of gore, Big Red forced out a word.
“Cuckold.”
Sir David's hand stopped in mid-air, his eyes blazing as he sought to regain his control. Again Big Red forced words from his pain-gagged throat, and blood trickled out of his mouth faster than the sounds as he spoke.
“Cuckold.” He sneered, his face twisting horribly. “Cuckold by an ape.”
Sir David snapped, his sanity going with an almost audible crack. He dropped the bunting and jerked Pan up, dropping her down with both front feet landing squarely on that ugly, grinning face. Again and again he brought the horse down, until the thick mist cleared from his eyes enough to see that there was nothing left of the beggar's head but a slimy lump of blood and bone and pinkish-grey brain, and a few clumps of stringy, ginger hair.
Sir David sat quietly for a moment, allowing his brain to clear. The whole incident had taken no more than a few moments, but it seemed that he had been behind these stands for hours.
He scooped up the bunting and threw it over the gruesome mess. He knew what the swine had done. He knew now that he had let himself be taunted into ending the agony the filthy rakehell had so dearly earned. He cursed the corpse, but it no longer mattered much. The thing was done. For the first time in four and a half years he was at peace. He had avenged his own honour; avenged his wife.
He dropped from the saddle and cleaned the gelding's hooves with moist, new grass. He remounted and turned to join his wife, not bothering even a last glance at the grisly mound he left behind him.