I suppose that was the beginning. Juanita had taken charge of me.
She stripped me naked and tied my wrists the way they still are tied. She then took me to see the dungeon, and anther equally horrifying stone room in which there were all sorts of horrible devices for punishing a girl. If they were not actually ancient, a simulation had been artfully achieved and I noted with cynical suspicion that every orifice was small sized and would in no way accommodate a male. The slave pen was actually a relief when she pushed me inside and closed the gate. Wanderings within the mind keep prisoners from going nuts. I keep thinking of Hugo and the golden handcuffs, and of Margo, who would certainly be tightly bound at that moment. And she would be getting a fine, wet snatch out of what is not really punishment at all. I hope Hugo knocks her around a bit, it would serve her right. As for myself. I don’t know if I’ll be moved on to my next ordeal tomorrow or left in this enclosure to rot a few more days. I wonder what Andrew Everleigh gets out of treating me this way. But I suppose he occasionally thinks of me tied in here like this, and feeds his ego by knowing he can keep me thus or turn me loose. Such power should not belong to any man!
Juanita is probably as bored as I. She decides my hands have been tied behind my back long enough and I deserve a change. She unlocks the gate and leads me to where Jacob and his tools await. I am still bound and she guides my steps by grasping my hair and shaking my head to tell me I must behave. I remember Hugo using this trick on Margo not long ago. It is wonderfully effective.
Jacob is waiting with his hammer, his anvil and rivets heating in the fire. I get carefully fitted with an iron belt just a little too small, and then held down to enable a glowing rivet to be thrust through waiting holes in the brutal iron and hammered flat. It is the beginning of a fresh control of a young woman who used to be Miss Diane Durrant, a lawyer.
At the back of the iron belt there is a ring and through this ring there is a chain. And at each end of it is a shackle for my wrist. Once more I am pushed and twisted into a desired contortion. Once more a glowing scrap of metal is thrust through waiting holes and I cringe as the hammer strikes it flat. The same thing now is done to my other wrist. When I am allowed to stand free. I discover that I can pull one hand up enough to scratch my nose but the other hand is then pulled up tight to that ring at my back. I can feed myself with a painful indignity. San Jancith is certainly striving for a historical atmosphere. These iron shackles are certainly not the same as smooth, efficient handcuffs.
“You is nice and comfortable, missy,” Jacob assures me earnestly. “You not get loose but you do not hurt.”
“You’ll probably wear then until the Master returns,” Juanita explains. “I think they’re cute and you look nice in them. Miss Durrant. Nice and tight, heh?”
They are indeed ‘nice and tight.’ The snug grip of the irons falls just short of pain. Remorsefully I explain, “You don’t have to keep me ironed like this. I’m not an animal, and I can’t possibly get off this island.” I hoped my voice sounded close to tears.
“We can make it much worse for you, Missy.” Juanita assures with a smile. “Would you like Jacob to iron your ankles and maybe rivet a collar around your neck?” Her tone is sugar sweet.
I hasten to disclaim desire for additional iron, and assure them both of gratitude for the way I am now. Good gosh, if I was once a lawyer, no one would know it now.
I get put in a different pen. I think Juanita is trying to be kind within the limits allowed my Uncle Andrew’s wishes for my discomfort. This pen is pretty much the same except a tree grows in one corner. But this tree will be a real boon at mid day. I have to feel I have met with approval and am moving up the ladder in some one’s approval. After Juanita has locked the gate and left. I went to the wall to experiment to see if my new bondage will permit me to climb. It won’t! No matter how I pull and tug my chained wrists back and forth through the ring. I cannot get the use of both my hands to attempt a climb. I am as foxed as ever. But if it was not for the terrifying solidity of hot rivets hammered flat, I could feel better off than with my crossed and bound behind by back. I go and gratefully sit in the shade of the small tree and wonder what will happen next. I don’t have to wonder what I will do. I can’t do anything!
A few hours later Juanita tells me it is time for change and I follow, her hand grasping my hair. Once more it is to the smithy and I am devastated by what the fact portends. “But I haven’t done anything!” I cry aloud. “I don’t deserve to be punished any more, or have to wear more chains. Juanita ... Please!”
“You are not to worry. Missy.” Juanita assures with an easy confidence because she knows it is not she who will be hurt. “It is believed what you suffer now will make you very good girl.”
“But I’m already a very good girl. I haven’t given you any trouble!”
“That is true. Please do not complain. I will punish you. It is something I am allowed to do.” She thrusts me towards the anvil and Jacob’s waiting smile.
The bondage now grasping my middle and hands would have defeated me for a hundred years but swiftly falls victim to Jacob’s hammer and cold steel punch. My chains are taken off, but my freedom is short-lived as Jacob places on the anvil some heavy, rusted shackles. I am invited to kneel and place my wrists within the awaiting jaws. Juanita grasps my arm and I kneel. But I ask plaintively, “Do you have to use this miserable rusty iron on me? Haven’t you anything that isn’t a couple of centuries old?”
No one answers. Since my wrists are now where they belong and I kneel humbly to await the hammer, Jacob closes the tiny but wickedly solid shackles around my wrists, and pounds happily away while I wince with ever blow and long to cry. When my second wrist joined to my first by only a couple links of ancient iron, I know myself well constrained. It is only a beginning.
Since I already kneel, it is convenient to deal with my neck next.
The collar is the right size for my neck, although snug. I am now even more frightened of the hammer blows which rivet this circlet. It seems so permanent to have cold iron hammered on, knowing that there is no way I can ever free myself from it. I notice a ring is firmly attached to the collar at the back and my spine goes cold at the possibilities inherent in that. My ankles are treated in the same manner as my wrists. I am given a box to sit on while my feet go up to the anvil. I see everything and hate it all. To make sure I don’t get too far up the wall, my ankles and wrists are joined by other chains that keep my hands from raising above my waist. The sheer weight of what I must now carry is daunting.
It is now difficult to walk and I am terribly helpless. Chain seems everywhere upon my nakedness and I make a frightful clatter as Juanita leads me to what comes next. I have already guessed what that is.
Juanita did not call it a dungeon. But it was a stone chamber beneath the surface of the land and it’s small amount of light came from a couple of tiny windows high on the wall. [ was led in to where a heavy ring was set into the wall with heavy chain trailing from it on the floor. The end was now padlocked to the ring at the back of my neck. I was now so ridiculously constrained that it might have been laughable. To an observer, perhaps, certainly not to me.