My Lady of the Whip

My Lady of the Whipa medieval romanceCara Hogarth Copyright © 2023 Cara HogarthAll rights reservedThe characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.Cover design by: Cara Hogarth Contents Title PageCopyrightChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveHistorical NoteThanks from CaraThe Minstrel and Her KnightAbout The AuthorMore Books by Cara Chapter OnePlagueLondon, 1348Bess stumbled through the gate of St. Helen’s and shoved blindly through the beggars crowding outside. Doubtless, they already felt the tentacles of plague tightening about their throats. One was coughing, a hacking, glutinous sound. Then he bent double and retched into the gutter.Bess sagged against the nunnery wall.The vomit was streaked red.Did my aunt die like that, retching her life’s blood up?Too late. She had been too late, and she had only heard of her aunt’s illness this morning. At least it must have been quick. The image of her aunt’s body assaulted her memory again. That serene face twisted into a caricature of itself, the white swathe of her wimple not quite concealing the bubo weeping on her neck. Choking her aunt to death.“My lady?”It was the guard. He sounded edgy. He had remained outside the nunnery with the horses and was no doubt anxious to return to what little sanctuary the Savoy Palace offered.“She is dead.” Bess’s voice seemed to come from far away.The guard signed the cross. “God rest her soul.”“She died caring for the likes of these.” She jerked her head toward the beggars clustering by the gate. “There will be no lingering in Purgatory for her. She rests in Paradise.”What other explanation was there for God taking the life of a selfless nun in such a way?“Come.”The guard was tugging her palfrey forward. The need to gallop out of this midden of disease was scrawled clear across his face. Bess waved him away and mounted slowly without his help. She fumbled for her riding crop—the mare need only see she bore it—and the beast began to move down Broad Street.Beyond the clop of hooves on cobbles, silence enveloped the street.Except for the bells. The damnable things had not ceased their dolor since Michaelmas. Bells for the dead. They had even rung for the king’s daughter. No one was safe—princess or saintly nun. How long had Bess herself left upon this sickening earth?She coughed.The drizzle had begun again. The cobbles were slick with water, excrement and worse. Her palfrey’s hooves slithered in the muck, but Bess was inured to fear. What did anything matter when the world was coming to an end?“The high cedar of Lebanon will be felled!”That was what the bare-soled friar at the Grand Conduit had shouted as they passed earlier. He had followed up with some garble about battles, plagues, and famines, death in all its guises, and finally bellowed, “The Antichrist! The Antichrist walks this groaning earth. Repent while thou mayst!”“Aye, same story as last week,” the guard had muttered, but he fingered his rosary all the same.She had been going to quiz her aunt about it—in an off-handed way. It did not pay to give such madmen credence. But now…Now a man paced toward them with a whip.It was a short implement with leather strips winding up the handle, strips that unraveled to dangle loose, weighed down with wicked shards of metal—rough-edged twists that flicked blood with each movement of the man’s wrist.Bess could not tear her eyes away. Her hand tightened over her own crop.The man was naked from the waist up. Right down the middle of Cheapside he moved, the bustling, breathless heart of the city on any normal day. And with every second step, he twitched the flails to land with a crack upon wet and broken flesh.His own flesh.“What is he doing?” Bess whispered.“Mea culpa, mea culpa, Lord have mercy!” The man’s voice turned falsetto as the lash snaked over his shoulder.Now he was moving past them, Bess saw the rivulets of blood snaking down his back. Crimson soaked into the coarse gray of his braies.“Mortification of the flesh, I reckon,” muttered the guard, once they were out of earshot. “That’s what them monks call it. They say it’s caught on something vicious in Flanders.”“Mortification,” Bess murmured. “Mort means death. Why, with death all around, would he want to inflict it upon himself?”She flinched as another snap of leather on flesh interrupted her, still far too close. She didn’t really expect an answer. There were no answers to be had in this insanity.The guard raised stolid shoulders.Bess looked about her, dazed. Cheapside was eerily quiet—none of the usual hubbub of hawkers crying their wares, customers bawling prices down, or mutts yelping as they were driven from stalls with well-aimed boots.Until a cry shattered the deathly peace.Bess jerked back on the reins. It was a woman’s voice, but there was no one in sight.Then again, louder. A girl. Screaming for help.“Saint Seb protect us, m’lady, this is not the time nor place to linger. Come on!”The man-at-arms was reaching for her reins, face grim.You cannot turn your back, whispered the spirit of her aunt.As the guard’s hand closed over the reins, Bess slipped from the saddle.Two quick steps, and she was peering down the nearest alley. Nothing to be seen between the leaning walls, or at least nothing alive. A bundle of rags lay crumpled halfway down but, by the smell of it, whatever it contained had been there some time.Again it came—a high-pitched shriek, this time abruptly cut off.Bess darted toward the next alley, the dark gap between the Crowned Seld and the premises of a mercer. She heard a thump, then the guard’s hesitant steps behind her.She squinted into the dim. There were two shapes in