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  ELISKA

  The Margravine of Zatoransky

  By Von Mechtingen

  Publisher Information

  Digital edition converted and

  Distributed in 2012 by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Copyright © Katherine Forbes

  The right of Katherine Forbes to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Description

  The Thirty Letters Addressed by the Distinguished Graf Huldrych Von Mechtingen To His Nephew at the University of Tübingen.

  Being an account of his mission to a Bohemian region for the Imperial Court of the Holy Roman Germanic Empire in the year 1528.

  Eliska, Margravine of Zatoransky

  Introduction

  The following letters were found among papers of the Semund monastery when its library was split up and relocated. It is not known how this material dating back to the early sixteenth century came to lie there, particularly in view of its indelicate contents. What is known is that the letters were addressed by a certain Huldrych Martin Schonheimer, Graf von Mechtingen, to his young nephew, a law or theology student at the university of Tübingen.

  The original letters are written in sixteenth century courtly Hochdeutsch with passages in Plattdeutsch or in the author’s renderings of the local language and dialect. For this translation the text and names (such as Regensburg for Ratisbon, etc.) have been modernized, and irrelevant passages and those dealing solely with family matters omitted.

  However coarse the text may at times seem to the modern temperament, it remains a revealing testimony of a charitable and diligent man caught in the complex web of a bygone age.

  Letter The Second

  (The first letter in the series, though known to have existed, was lost when the library was relocated)

  I have now a further surprise for you, Nephew. At supper, which was excellent and a pleasant change from the inns, we were joined by a group of three men, all remarkably handsome in different ways; one is younger than the other two and must be about thirty while his colleagues are in their early forties. This fair-haired, clean-shaven youth goes by the name of Milan and is the son of some local lord; the others wear pointed beards and carry themselves with a certain aloofness. The older of the two, Ladislav, is especially well built with dark hair arranged with meticulous care; the second older man is somewhat less engaging but quite handsome and I understand his name is Premsyl.

  They have titles of some sort but these, although the Margravine cited them, I did not catch. All three are attired with exquisite taste for a region as indigent and wretched as this. But what intrigued me was their total familiarity with the Margravine, holding her hand, kissing her cheek, with something far more than mere respect.

  It was not long before I deduced that they are attached to her in a highly personal way; in other words they are her lovers. And not just one but all three... (I suppose we should not forget that our noble, if unpredictable, Landgrave Philip of Hesse himself lives in bigamy to which even your Luther closes his eyes... if you will forgive the analogy!) In addition, their endearments and caresses, while they embarrass me, do not seem to disconcert the Margravine who returns their loving gestures quite openly.

  Conversation is not easy as they tend to use the colloquial dialect among themselves until Eliska urges them to turn to Plattdeutsch in which they are all proficient fortunately for me; my hostess commands excellent Hochdeutsch. She is most polite towards me, but the men seem suspicious of the mission that has brought me here.

  “I rule here, Graf von Mechtingen,” she declared, fixing me with narrowed eyes. “I alone demand labour of these serfs, thieves, beggars and harlots of mine. I alone levy my taxes on land, flour, bread, wine, increase tithes as I wish and order military service to protect these lazy serfs. I reward and I punish. I do not believe in what you people call tolerance. It only corrupts.”

  I sensed at once that I was on delicate ground, taken aback by her calm fury. I tried to lead the discussion to items that might intrigue them more, such as the recent formation of the Catholic Defensive League to counter the League of Protestant Princes. It did not interest them and so I recounted the terrible pillaging of the countryside I had witnessed on my journey and the dangerous lansquenets returning from the wars. I was, I added, appalled by the sight of vagrant women and prostitutes...

  Quite suddenly the faces turned towards me. It was Milan who broke into my list of woes, his features reflecting his agreement

  “There you are right, my lord,” - I noted with relief the use of the correct address - “and you have put your finger upon a curse. We are plagued with whores. The gracious Margravine has done everything possible to curb illicit whoring and puts as many as can be caught to the whip immediately. But they become ever more brazen and insolent.”

  Eliska nodded gravely. “Indeed, this is a tremendous problem, sir. We are crowded out with vagrant illicit whores - loose females that defile my lands and defy my laws.”

  I saw that no one was really interested in the outside world with its foreign wars, peasant revolts and the advance of Lutheranism, not to speak of their disregard for my mission. Not even the famous eclipse of the sun in 1519 that scared us all in Nuremberg could have shaken them out of their feudal past and their hunting down of whores and witches. I regretted having even mentioned prostitutes.

  I found myself wishing you were here, Nephew, to talk with me. Later, I sat down before my lancet window with a candle and wrote you this with blessings.

  Your loving but weary uncle. H.

  Letter The Third

  ... after several days, an incident occurred that may interest you.

  We were at table enjoying duckling, fresh vegetables and these dumplings that are so popular here; the conversation was more animated than at other meals since it dealt with some new serving-girls who had been taken from starving families in the countryside to work in the castle. In this connection, I should tell you that we are waited upon at table by several pretty young serving-maids who are naked to the loins; and it is difficult for me to accustom myself to their breasts swinging over the table as they bend to pour the wine or clear the plates. The Margravine looked more attractive and more relaxed than usual, embracing her lovers and graciously offering me her hand to kiss.

  At a certain moment we were interrupted by the entry of a masked figure, his head covered with a canvas cowl pierced with eye-holes, sinister in the extreme; he wore a black short-sleeved doublet and dark hose, his codpiece buttoned tight over the bulge of his genitals. A sword swung from his baldric or belt. The hall fell silent as the man leaned towards the Gräfin’s ear; she listened quietly and then, releasing the hand of her nearest lover, rose and went out of the hall with her servant.

  I enquired of Ladislav the reason for the interruption.

  “Ah, that is Jakub, the Margravine’s trusted senior bailiff,” he told me. “It seems that a whore has been found using a brothel illegally. I need hardly explain how gravely the Margravine views this, for the brothels in the town a
re her own personal property. You see, sir, many of our menfolk have either been tempted into your Imperial armies or incorporated by force and this, together with the recent peasant revolts, has left countless women without support. To survive, they sell themselves to any soldier, peasant or vagrant who can spare a coin. Here we maintain that prostitutes should work only in our brothels. That is what a whorehouse is for, my lord, is it not?”

  He paused before adding: “Moreover all this brings in a healthy income to the castle.”

  Not being an expert in whoremongering, I let him continue. “The Zatoransky brothel alone employs some two to three dozen harlots - the number varies and sometimes we have to send out a posse to bring in more females from the countryside. They are almost invariably stalwart hardy creatures, hard-working in bed and fairly obedient. Most girls are only too grateful to find a roof and a morsel to eat. The main stew here is run by a brothelmaster and his bawd of a wife who make a good living out of their tavern.”

  I was tempted to mention that Luther had achieved the closure of all such establishments in cities like Ulm, Nuremberg and Augsburg but I think I was probably wise to desist.

  “Ah, sir,” Ladislav sighed, “these vaginas are Satan’s doorways.”

  I was about to discuss this - you know how I love theological argument - when Eliska returned, her eyes flashing, leaving Jakub at the door.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, “I am told that some brazen slut is fornicating without a licence in my brothel. This she has managed through the connivance of one of my legal whores. What is more, the bitch is a vagrant from a distant part of my lands and not even from Zatoransky.” She paused to allow the enormity of the crime to impress itself on us, before adding: “I have therefore given orders for the two sluts to be brought up to the vault and put in chains. It will be for us to decide on the precise sentence we wish to pronounce on the illicit whore.”

  Her lovers nodded while Eliska turned to her servant. “Carry out the arrests forthwith. Order Sebastian to whip the conniving whore while we are at Vespers. Then bind her open in the stalls for general use. She will be returned to work tomorrow. Order Sebastian to prepare the illegal bitch for sentencing and the full ceremony of the Three Sessions.”

  In a whisper I asked Ladislav who this Sebastian was. Apparently he is the chief flagellator of the castle, a task inherited from his late father who had worked for the Margrave and died with him. Ladislav added that Eliska had had the youth’s tongue torn out to ensure he can keep a secret. He is now twenty-six and never leaves the castle dungeons.

  “Graf von Mechtingen,” the Margravine said, smiling at me, “I should be honoured if you, as an emissary of our newly found noble Emperor and our guest, would accompany my bailiffs to witness my justice being done and testify to the proper arrest of these sluts.”

  I felt uncomfortable at both invitations, but out of deference agreed, which I shall probably regret. It is not always easy to respect hospitality at the same time as the terms of my mission. And above all I am cautious not to offend my hostess in any way.

  So I rose and followed the cowled servant down the long passages until we came to a room within the guardhouse in the great gate. A second hooded individual sat at the table, writing laboriously with a quill. In the centre of the chamber stood a dirty ragged-clothed fellow in clogs, turning his felt hat nervously round in his hands.

  Jakub offered me a chair and then sprawled out on another, ordering the man to repeat his testimony which was in fact a denunciation. Despite the dialect I gathered that a woman whom he had never seen before and certainly not one of his whores, was fornicating (his was a rougher term) in his tavern-brothel. The man using her seemed to be some officer in the Imperial lansquenets. At this I became uneasy but the bailiffs, as if reading my diplomatic fears, confirmed that as such, the officer was beyond the jurisdiction of Zatoransky.

  How was it that they were using the brothel? Jakub queried. The innkeeper muttered that he and his wife had been misled by the officer who wished merely to pass the night there. The girl had then been introduced secretly by one of the whores, who was bribed to do so. (I thought it more likely that the innkeeper and his bawd had accepted the bribe, if bribe there was; but I kept well away from this primitive show of justice.)

  The man was rewarded with a few kreutzer - our own coin is frequently used here along with Venetian money. As I saw it, one of the regular whores had indeed connived to allow the unknown woman and her lansquenet to use the room. As the girl was not part of the brothel, the case for the bailiffs was clear. The ragged informer was kicked out of the guardroom, grasping his precious and well-earned coins.

  In the mild afternoon, therefore, we mounted our horses to descend into the town. Hans asked, as he saddled my mare Zenon, if he was needed; I preferred to leave him playing dice with a couple of pikemen. Anyway, I do not want him too involved here with brothels...

  As we were preparing in the yard, Milan, the youngest of the Margravine’s lovers, sauntered up to me in his gorgeous brown velvet doublet and Italian silks.

  “This is a perfect opportunity, sir, for you to appreciate some of the problems we discussed at table,” he said. “These females are incorrigible.”

  As I mounted, with Hans holding my stirrup iron, I remarked: “You speak only of females. Surely there must be male culprits also, are there not?”

  “The castle deals only with the female,” he replied, patting Zenon’s neck. “It is the female that interests the Margravine and us. Male offenders - and there are many - are dealt with by the ecclesiastical and secular authorities in the town. This applies to males in the castle also. So, dear lord, make sure you bring back a couple of well-favoured bitches to provide us with a little pleasure in the dungeons. We thrive on new flesh.”

  On this note we set off down the path, the two bailiffs and I. The Spring weather was superb and it was a joy to be out of the grim castle, to be under the blue sky with its swallows and to be amid the flowering broom - so different from the dank corridors, the flapping tapestries, stags’ heads and threatening weapons frozen on the cold walls. As I breathed the air, I saw Premsyl on horseback with a hawk on his wrist, a hawk hooded like my strange companions. And like falcons, I thought, they too descend upon their prey.

  As we arrived in front of the inn, townsfolk knelt or bowed obsequiously, some crossing themselves at the sight of the dreaded bailiffs. Although a small crowd gathered round the door of the stew, I sensed in it the abject fear and deference born out of the menace of communal reprisals for any infringement of the castle’s laws.

  The building is a poor thatched affair but boasting an upper floor, rare in these parts. Above the entry is nailed a crude wooden escutcheon that depicts, in case of any doubt, an erect phallus and testicles. Beneath it the squint-eyed bawd, her head wrapped in a filthy wimple, was gesticulating towards the windows above. Behind her, still unsure of himself, the brothel keeper continued to turn his hat in his shaking hands.

  The bailiffs dismounted and I followed them in.

  Led by the bawd, we mounted the rotten stairs. At the end of the passage, she eased open a door, nodding towards the room. Silently we peered inside.

  Dear Nephew, you know me well enough by now and so will forgive me if in my letters I am straightforward. Moreover, only if I give you the raw detail can you understand the perplexing atmosphere that prevails here and in which I have to work.

  Kneeling on a bed in a disarray of soiled sheets, a bearded man with handsome, rugged but well-cut features was clasping an exceptionally beautiful young woman against his body; she was straddled over his muscular thighs, her legs locked round his loins, her arms encircling his neck. They were both naked. The girl was in profile and thus displayed the rich curves of her flesh, shining with sweat. Her skin was uncommonly pale for peasant stock, which is usually swarthy and rough.

  As the bodies met and part
ed, the man’s glistening shaft was clearly visible as it thrust upwards into the woman’s matted sex-hair. She moaned with pleasure, kissing her man lasciviously, arching backwards to let him take her swollen nipples between his lips and teeth. Now and then he would withdraw his sex from hers and friction the erect clitoris directly with the straining purple head; then he would slide into her again.

  Suddenly the girl orgasmed. Binding herself to her lover, she came with overlapping waves of spasms, her cries filling the room as the man let her shoulders fall to the bed where she lay exhausted, drenched with sweat and shining with the discharge of her liquids over her belly and thighs.

  I was able to calm the bailiffs, who were anxious to make the arrest. The girl could not escape them, I said. And my rank and influence with their Mistress probably awed them. And so they hesitated. At the same time we all marvelled at the perfection of the copulation and - I admit it, Nephew, for my part - we tacitly agreed to let the couple continue their mad, erotic ecstasy.

  After a pause, the girl rose from the sheets and, grasping the erection, drew her man down to the foot of the bed where she splayed him out and knelt between the thighs. There she commenced a smooth, regular masturbation along the entire length of the superb erection before swallowing the shaft into her throat The fellatio gathered in intensity as the girl probed into her man, tugging at the testicles while the man seized the girl’s hair, wrenching her towards him, plunging deeper and more passionately into her lips until he was ready.

  He came with a long guttural cry as the scalding pent-up sperm pulsed, jet after jet, into the waiting gullet. The girl milked as much of the semen as possible out of the penis until the man was emptied and drained into her. Then she fell across his loins, caressing the sagging penis and the hot body very slowly, lovingly.

  Without reference to me, the group burst into the room. As I followed I noticed the lansquenet’s clothes lying in a heap with the girl’s few rags and above them the man’s sword - well out of reach of its owner. It was the second bailiff, Bohumil, who seized the girl, binding her arms behind her rump with a leather thong and bending her backwards to show all her dazzling nudity.