King of the Castle

"It could be. I just don't know. I'll try to find out if I can but the castle gates are shut. Getting in would be difficult if any group wanted to attack us. I'd be less worried if we had at least some guards on the walls. There's no one outside the main keep. The rest of the castle seems deserted. That's very unusual. Normally the buildings in the outer bailey would be full of local craftsmen such as the blacksmith and farrier."

As I led my friends on a tour of the castle I became even more concerned. I couldn't see any activity in or around the castle. The village is over a mile away but clearly visible. I saw no people, no animals and no smoke from the chimneys. It seemed deserted too.

When we returned to the Great Hall the maids were setting up for the evening dinner. Sarah suggested that we might want to dress for the first night dinner. It would have a medieval theme so we should be Lords and Ladies. Suitable clothing was laid out in our rooms and maids were available to help the women dress. The men could ask for help if they needed it. Gary and James did need help. I heard laughter and female giggling from their rooms.

When the three women emerged they were wearing flowing gowns with a long belt slung around their hips. The belts hung almost to the floor down the front of the gowns. But that's not what we looked at first. Their breasts were straining the bodices and in danger of spilling out. How the effect had been achieved I didn't know but all three seemed much more endowed up top than we had ever seen.

We men were wearing opaque hose with tunics falling to about six inches above our knees. We too had belts wound three times around our waists and daggers slung from them. The daggers were ornamental. Each hilt and sheath was in a continuous piece but they looked good.

The maids were dressed as serving wenches. They too were showing more breast than I had ever seen them display before. They were wearing red headscarves almost as caps and had more scarves tucked into their belts. Sarah and Petra were standing by the door from the kitchen directing the other maids. I thought there were too many maids to serve six of us. There were two or more maids for each visitor.

The meal was as great as previous meals I had remembered at the castle. Our wine glasses were topped up throughout the meal. By the end all six of us were bloated with good food and slightly drunk. Petra suggested we might need to freshen up before the demonstration. We did. I splashed some cold water on my face afterwards before drying myself. As I returned to the Great Hall I saw Sarah leaving through the kitchen door with two of the maids. Was it my imagination or were they pulling her through?

Matryoshka

There was an unusual addition to the Great Hall since my last visit. Standing to one side of the main fireplace was a tall figure like a massive Russian doll of a peasant woman. I walked up to it. Like the nesting dolls it seemed to part in the middle. Petra saw me looking at it.

"Stephen," she said, "that's a new toy. We received it a week ago but haven't tried it yet. Would you like to be the first user?"

I knew this was a set-up for the demonstration. It is probably a bondage device and Petra would prefer me to be the subject. I speak the local language and can object if things go too far. Madeleine has helped me with this account of my experience because she could see things I couldn't.

"Yes, Petra. I'll have a go. What do I have to do?"

"I'll need Madeleine's help."

I looked at Madeleine. She nodded.

"Please stand where those feet are painted on the floor," Petra said.

The outlines of two feet were painted inside some concentric wooden hoops fixed to the floor. I stood with my feet on the marks.

"This is the traditional five stage Matryoshka," Petra said. "The inside part is in one piece. Madeleine?"

Madeleine came forward. Petra opened a chest standing beside the doll. She pulled out a mass of material and put a couple of pieces on a chair.

"This goes over your head, Stephen."

She and Madeleine lifted the material. It was a massive dress that they pulled over me and downwards. My head entered a hood. I had seen that the front was painted like the simpering smile of a Russian doll. To my surprise I could see through it clearly although the painting appeared opaque from outside. The inner lining of the dress stretched over me, lightly constricting my arms at my sides. The outside was much wider. It seemed to be held out with something like bubble wrap.

"You need the traditional accessories," Petra said. "the apron..."

She tied a flowery apron around the middle of the dress. It barely dented the padding.

"And the head scarf."

The head scarf was large. She and Madeleine folded it into a triangle, placed it on my head and crossed the ends under my chin before tying it at the back of my head. The back of the triangle covered the knot. The scarf had pulled the hood into a head shape. My vision was slightly restricted to the sides by the edges of the scarf and the hood was tighter across my face. Even so I could see and breathe.

"These dolls taper at the bottom."

Petra knelt down to pull on a draw cord that restricted the bottom hem of the dress. If I had wanted to I could now barely move my feet. The padding inside the dress was pressed against my legs from ankles upwards. Maureen told me that I was the traditional Matryoshka doll shape, wide around the waist and curving inwards to the base. It could have been anyone inside, male or female. I was an anonymous doll.

"Stephen is now the first and inner doll," Petra announced. "Madeleine? Can you help me with the rest, please?"

I could see them lift off the rigid top of the large doll. They put it down before lifting the lower section. They had to repeat that three more times until they had a row of four top halves and four lower halves all brightly decorated as Russian peasant women. Petra and Madeleine lifted the smallest lower section, tilted it, and gently slid it down over me to the floor. It clicked into place on the inner wooden hoop. It had slightly dented the dress and restricted my legs and my lower arms.

Two of the other local women brought a couple of step stools for Petra and Madeleine to use as they lowered the upper section. It fitted to the lower section perfectly. My vision was slightly blurred by two layers of paint but my arms were now squashed against my sides.

The two of them repeated the process for the next layer of doll which was slightly larger. The lower section clamped to the hoop. The upper section was a push fit onto the lower.

By the time the lower part of fifth and last layer of doll was secured to the floor all I could see were the shapes of Petra and Madeleine moving around. As they lowered the top section over me it was obvious that it was totally opaque. I was plunged into complete darkness. All I heard was the sound of the two sections nesting together followed by four loud clicks. Maureen later told me that they were metal clamps that held the upper body of the doll to the lower body.

"Now Stephen is a Matryoshka," Petra announced, "If he wants to stop being a Matryoshka? He can't. He is imprisoned inside five layers of peasant doll. He can hear us. He can speak. He can't see and he can barely move. He can't move the dolls. They are clamped to the floor. He can't lift the upper sections off. The inner ones are just pushed together but the friction of three layers would be too much even if the innermost dress gave him enough freedom. It doesn't. Even if it did? The outer sections are clamped together. Stephen is stuck inside until we release him."

"Stephen, can you hear me?" Madeleine asked.

"Yes, Madeleine, I can. Can you hear me?" I replied.

"You're fairly faint, Stephen, but I heard that. Is Petra right? Can you move?"

"No Madeleine. I can't. I can wiggle my fingers and toes. That's about it. I can turn my head..."

I tried.

"An inch or two. That's all I can do."

"Do you want to come out?"

"Yes, please."

It took Petra and Madeleine a quarter of an hour to get me out of the nesting Matryoshka dolls. I sat down on one of the step stools.

"That's evil, Petra," I said. "and could be boring if anyone is left inside too long."

"That was just the experimental version," Petra replied. "Now we know it works the next one will be for a couple, preferably naked and facing each other. They'll have a bit more room to move, not much, but enough for them to play with each other until they are let out. But the idea needs work. A larger one would have to be lighter or else too many people would be needed to put it together."

"It was reasonable with two of us," Madeleine said, "but if the sections had been larger we would have needed four. It's not just the weight, it's the bulk of the outer sections."

"The Matryoshka was made to illustrate one of the ghost stories about this castle," Petra said. "If you will sit facing the fire, we'll turn the lights down and Katya will tell the story. Anyone want drinks first?"

Some of us did. We pulled some settees into a semicircle facing the fire. Katya stood to one side of the fire beside the reassembled Matryoshka.

"A long time ago," Katya started, "a Count Edwin owned this castle. He was married to Maria, a rather foolish woman. Maria didn't act as the Count expected her to do. She had been spoilt as a child, and although of a noble family, she hadn't been taught how to run a household and certainly not a castle. She loved new clothes and spent too much money on them employing three seamstresses and two ladies' maids to dress her and keep her supplied with gowns. Edwin loved her. She was very beautiful and delightful company. She was a large and well developed lady. At the time larger women were considered very attractive but that meant each of her gowns took a lot of expensive materials to make. Perhaps he shouldn't have married Maria just because he loved her but she was noble as well as beautiful.

Maria didn't supervise the servants properly. She didn't discuss meals with the cook. The housekeeper was old and should have been retired but Maria didn't care. Maria's personal servants gave themselves airs above their station and could be rude to everyone else, servants or not. When Maria became bored with a gown she would pass it on to her seamstresses or maids, not to be reused or remade but for the servants to wear. Visitors couldn't tell Maria's servants from members of the nobility because they were so well dressed.

Edwin became very annoyed with his wife Maria. Her worst offence happened when the Count's overlord came to stay. The food was awful. The castle wasn't kept clean. Those should have been Maria's responsibilities. But the Count should have managed the soldiers as well. After all a castle is a military base. Some of the Count's soldiers were unkempt and sloppy in their duties. The overlord wasn't impressed. He told the Count that if he couldn't entertain visitors better - his castle and lands would be passed to someone who could. The overlord gave the Count three months. If when he returned he wasn't entertained as he should be? Edwin would be landless and homeless.

Of course the Count wasn't wholly blameless. If Maria couldn't or wouldn't run the castle properly the count should have employed an efficient housekeeper and butler who could. Maria really didn't know what she should do. Her family had very good servants who did their tasks unobtrusively and efficiently. Maria had never known what hard work and organisation had gone into making her life easy.

Edwin shouted at his wife, reducing her to tears. She promised to do better but she had no idea how to. In desperation she visited her sister in law, the Count's elder sister, who lived in another castle several leagues away. Maria wept all over his sister-in-law Susannah who wasn't impressed. Susannah had tried to suggest to her brother that if he were to marry Maria he needed a castle manageress as well, but Edwin had been besotted with Maria. Susannah agreed to come to visit the castle and she what she could do. She would travel with a small escort of soldiers led by an efficient sergeant and would bring her assistant housekeeper and assistant cook. They could find out what was really happening with the servants. Of course Maria was grateful but didn't know what Susannah was really like. Susannah could be a bitch.

When she arrived Susannah insisted that if she was to help Maria and Count Edwin they had to obey her orders, whatever they were. They agreed without reservation.

Susannah had no illusions about her younger brother, Count Edwin. He had been the dim one of the family. He thought he had been given the castle to defend because it was important. Susannah knew he had been given the castle because it was pointless as a military installation. The pass it was supposed to protect was no longer a pass. The castle was the place to send retired and useless soldiers and an incompetent commander. All it was fit for was to entertain hunting parties and Maria and the Count had failed at that. The overlord would actually be unlikely to evict Susannah's brother because the rest of his family were too important in Ruritania, but he had really been angry. He had visited Susannah on his way back to the capital and had been lavishly entertained, and yes, calmed down. But the castle had to be made suitable for its sole purpose as a place for Ruritanian nobility to enjoy some hunting in comfort.

Within hours of Susannah's arrival the castle's cook had been dismissed. The kitchens were a filthy disgrace. Susannah's assistant cook had all the kitchen staff scrubbing and cleaning everywhere. Susannah was sent a message that the evening meal would be a cold buffet because the kitchen was unsafe to cook in.

Susannah spoke gently to the elderly housekeeper. It was obvious that the old lady was barely able to look after herself and couldn't run the household. Susannah had the housekeeper moved to a set of rooms in the inner bailey. The old lady could entertain her friends and sit outside in good weather just to watch the activity. She would be retired but would be treated as a valued friend. The old housekeeper was delighted. She knew things were going wrong but had been unable to do anything about them without Maria's backing. Susannah's assistant housekeeper moved into the housekeeper's office and started causing chaos among the servants.

Susannah's sergeant started on the castle's defenders. He paraded them, inspected them, and more than half were on a charge for uniform and weapon offences before the parade had ended. Count Edwin was nominally the castle's commander but had never reviewed his troops. Although there were two sergeants, lacking the Count's authority to discipline the troops, they had been unable to enforce their orders. They offered to work with Susannah's sergeant, accepting him as their temporary commander.

By the end of a long day Susannah had found the root causes of all the castle's problems beyond Edwin and Maria's incompetence. The major one was the vast sums of money spent on Maria's gowns. They were spending more than their income. A minor but important one was the status and pride of Maria's personal seamstresses and maids. They were resented by everyone else. Susannah went to see Maria and asked to look at her wardrobe of gowns. There were dozens and dozens of expensive dresses. Susannah also looked at the wardrobes of the three seamstresses and the two ladies maids. They too had dozens of gowns each.

Susannah wanted to show how stupid this emphasis on clothing was. She started with Maria. She ordered Maria's maids to dress her in five gowns one on top of another. Maria started to object but Susannah retorted that Maria had agreed to obey Susannah in everything so shut up. Maria continued to object. Susannah grabbed some scarves and gagged Maria into silence. The maids couldn't put Maria's bulky sleeves into the sleeves of the last dress. Susannah ordered them to put the gown over Maria and lace it tight with Maria's arms inside the bodice.

Maria was a large bundle of clothes, unable to speak with her arms bound inside the outer dress. She could barely walk because of the layers of massive skirts around her legs. She stood in the middle of her dressing room like a stuffed doll.

Susannah summoned the seamstresses. She ordered them to dress the two maids like Maria in five of the gowns Maria had given them. The maids didn't protest as Maria had done. They didn't dare oppose Susannah. Soon two more stuffed dolls were standing beside Maria.

Of course you know what's coming next. The seamstresses were treated like the ladies' maids. Susannah had five women standing stiffly around Maria. She ordered that all six of them should be brought to the great hall, here, carried if necessary. They were lined up along the main table."

Katya stopped talking. She grinned at us.

"That was the beginning of the ghost story. Now it is your turn to participate in the story. Will you please stand up, take off the belts around you, and hand them to the women behind you."

I stood up. The other five followed. I took off my belt with its attached dagger and handed it to one of the two women standing beside me.

"Stephen will be playing the part of Maria," Katya announced. "Please stand still, Stephen."

The two women pulled a long dress down over my head. It was a soft silver colour fabric reinforced with Lycra. It clung to me like a second skin and had no armholes. My head emerged before the hood was fitted closely around my head. My belt, without its dagger, was wrapped three times around me from torso to hips and buckled.

"As you can see, Stephen as Maria is helpless. Anyone can do anything to him. Madeleine? I think he'd like a kiss."

Madeleine took the hint. She kissed me, hugged me and kissed me again.

"Now the other two men can pretend to be the ladies' maids."

Gary and James were enveloped in silver dresses and belted into helplessness. Angela and Helen didn't need an invitation to start kissing. I was surprised when the two women who had dressed me also kissed me. In between their kisses and Madeleine's I could see that Gary and James were being ruthlessly kissed and caressed by three women each.

"But we haven't got the three seamstresses yet..." Katya continued.

The three women were imprisoned in golden dresses and belted tight. They too were kissed by their jailers. All six of us were gently lowered to sit back on the settees.

"Susannah sent her housekeeper to summon all the indoor servants to see their mistress and her five favourites helplessly trussed up in multiple layers of clothing. Oops! I forgot. Maria had been gagged."

Katya waved at one of the women standing behind me. That woman took a scarf from her belt, rolled it, knotted it in the middle and gagged me. It was more of a symbolic gag than a real silencing. Madeleine started to object. Katya wagged a finger at her.

"Any objections and the objector will be gagged properly."

Madeleine shut up.

"When the servants had been assembled Susannah told them that Maria and the five were being punished for their extravagance. Every day they were to be dressed as they were now. They would need help to eat, to drink and to go to the toilet. Apart from Maria who was gagged into silence each one of the five would have to ask a fellow servant to help. If no one would help them then they could ask Susannah's housekeeper. If they had to, each time the housekeeper was asked for help would mean another day added to the punishment. They would start with five days. If after five days their fellow servants had helped them, the punishment would end. If not...

But these six were not the only ones who had failed the Count's overlord. Susannah told the servants that everyone in the castle was on trial. If things hadn't improved by the time the overlord returned every servant and soldier would be dismissed and homeless. It was up to them to show that the castle could be well defended and a pleasant and welcoming place for noble visitors. Susannah said that she was in complete charge of the castle at present. She would punish anyone who failed in their duties. She turned to her housekeeper and spoke quietly in her ear. The housekeeper took two maids and headed for Maria's room.