Change of Plans

For the last three years, Trisha has gone to the gym every Monday, Wednesday and Friday before work. This particular Friday was no exception, but it doesn't look like she'll make it back on Monday.

Debt To Society

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Gagged Effect #9

Miranda and Diana Allers get to know each other.

Using Her Head

To resolve a battlefield matter during the Great March of 1839, Baron Rudolph Norwich called a meeting with the invading army's commander in hopes of negotiating the preservation of his estate. Much to his pleasant surprise, the general asked to settle the conflict over a simple game of cards. If the baron won, then the estate and all within it would be spared. If the general won, then the estate would be turned over to the army unless the baron submitted something of equivalent value.

Naturally, Norwich was trounced. Unwilling to hedge his fortune on a silly card game now that he had lost, the baron implored the general to take his daughter Elizabeth instead. After some deliberation, the general agreed.

Returning home a defeated man, Norwich announced his intentions to Elizabeth and pleaded with her to sacrifice for the family, promising to ransom her at a later date and grant whatever she desired. Brokenhearted but offering at least the appearance of cooperation, the daughter retreated to her chambers to bathe and dress. An hour passed, then two, and it was finally the maid who discovered the open window in the lavatory, with Lady Elizabeth nowhere to be found!

Dismayed and now fearing not just for his estate, but for his own life, Norwich returned to the general and humbly delivered the unfortunate news. Alas, far from angry, the amused general escorted the baron to a cluster of wagons at the back of the camp. There, in a cart that was otherwise empty, Norwich spotted his dear Elizabeth bound hand and foot, having been captured while attempting to flee down the main road.

It was obvious, the general declared, that this entire charade had been set up for spying on the queen's army, and he was of half a mind to execute everyone and burn the estate to the ground. But he might yet be persuaded not to, if only someone would tell the truth.

From a short distance, Norwich watched his daughter as she lay on her side in the wagon, fighting against the strong ropes on her wrists and ankles. She had lied and defied him outright. He'd had no intention of ransoming her anyway, so what more was there to lose?

"Milord," he said, "I fear you have exposed my darling rightly. She has been wild as of late, prone to lying and slipping away at all hours without explanation. Not even the crop or the branks have seen her back to the straight and narrow. It now seems obvious that she acts under the guidance of heretic loyalists, and perhaps only your queen's justice can save her eternal soul. Take her, please, with my apology and my blessing, and spare a loving father and mother their own ignorance."

And so it was that the general took her, indeed. He took her to the balcony of the baron's estate, where he stripped her naked in full view of his gathered soldiers. He bound her wrists, elbows and ankles so tightly that tears formed in her eyes, then tormented her further by lashing a rope around her hips and pulling the free strand between her legs.

Helpless and humiliated, unable to run away this time, Elizabeth knelt before the wooden block on command and presented her neck. It is said that she struggled gently while waiting for the inevitable, testing her bonds rather than attempting to defeat them. Her last recorded words were, "Please, sir, do not strike. I am not a spy."

Elizabeth's head was spiked along the roadside as a warning to loyalists. Her nude, bound body was taken to town and hung by the ankles outside the main gate, where it remained until the queen's army moved on within a fortnight. After being reunited, her remains were interred in the Norwich family plot.

Later in life, as dementia overtook him, Baron Norwich began writing at length about the old days of the war, when he had singlehandedly saved the kingdom by using his daughter's head.