The Saga of a Naughty Lady

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

“What is this!” the magistrate’s great body swooshed through his chambers with the skirt of his judicial robe whipping like the cloak of death. His imperious eye glared at the accused, inspecting her nose to toes, noting specifically her odd attire.

“She’s been arrested for adultery,” the Captain of the Guards answered. Snapping the heels of his black boots together, he saluted the Judge.

The magistrate looked perplexed. “Have I tried her for any crime?” he wondered.

“No, no yet, sir.”

“Then put her in some clothes,” he scowled darkly as the woman clutched the two sides of the cloak together to cover her nakedness. “You’re premature to discard her garments before the trial. This is shameful.”

“Yes, sir,” the starched officer snapped, as he remained dutifully at attention.

Annoyed, the magistrate grumbled, “Go now!” as he shooed them off.

Grabbing the accused by her makeshift attire, the Captain of the Guards whisked her with him out the door.

Two hours later, the formal proceedings began. Marie Jolie Gabrielle Antoinette stood before the magistrate in a court filled with gawking gossip-seekers. There were no seats in the Judge’s chambers—as defendants spent little time before the magistrate under such circumstances. At least now, the accused was properly clothed, and handsomely so. She was beautifully dressed in an emerald gown. The color of her broad satin skirt dappled glimmering in the torchlit room. Her low bodice revealed the white flesh of her bosom as it graciously heaved with every measured, anxious breath she took. A thin film of perspiration covered her skin, which only made her look more gloriously seductive to the eye of a lecherous man. Her lips were dabbed with pink, her cheeks pinched and flushed, and her incorrigible green eyes sparked with a flirtatious luster, as though she had plans to woo the Judge.

He was impressed; but grumbling under his thick beard.

“The accused’s name?”

“Marie Jolie Gabrielle Antoinette Gilbere,” the bailiff announced.

“And her crime?”

“Adultery.”

The man stared out at the crowded room. “What’s happened here? Has this province run amok? Are there no true and honest women anymore?” He waited for an answer, as if someone was supposed to reply.

“I couldn’t say, sir,” the gawky prosecutor finally spoke up.

“And you, woman! What have you to say for yourself?”

“I’d beg some mercy from the court and a conference with my husband,” Jolie replied, in a genuine effort to sound sincere, even contrite.

“Is the husband here?” the magistrate searched the room, finally seeing a man of obvious wealth step from between two guards.

“Gilbere? That you?” the Judge squinted to see the aging, but dapper looking gentleman. His waistcoat was of the finest cloth, his necktie silk, and his manicured hands ringed in gold. He had a courteous bearing, though a little severe, and an eye that could not look at his wife with anything but complete contempt.

“Yes, sir, it is Antonious Gilbere.”

“It is your wife who stands accused? What do you say to that?”

Jolie looked back longingly at her husband, finding nothing but a cold stare as she sought his mercy. “That she be delivered to this court for trial as an example of the rampant unfaithfulness that plagues this region,” the stern husband replied.

The magistrate nodded. “You are offended?”

“Deeply.”

“My condolences to you, my friend,” the Judge said with some real sadness in his gravelly voice.

Gilbere nodded and the Judge returned his eyes to the faltering woman.

“Please, husband, if I could have just a few minutes of your time, alone.”

“My time for you has expired,” he replied coldly.

“Sir, please,” she c****d her redhead cutely, as she might have early in their marriage when they still had a marriage in more than name. She offered him a sighing smile that dripped with gracious sweetness.

“Don’t demean me further with your theatrics, Antoinette. I am not moved nor amused by your cloying antics.”

“But just one word alone. Please.” Her eyes looked so pitiful.

He was deaf to her pleas. “Deal with her as you will, Antheus,” Gilbere declared to the Judge. He turned on his heel and strode from the room.

A roar of amazed gasps rose noisily from the audience.

Boom! The magistrate rapped his thick staff on the chamber floor to quiet the chattering gawkers.

“Cage her in the square pending trial. I’ll read the case before the public tomorrow, four o’clock.” He banged his staff again. “Now, clear out!”

The marketplace bustled with frenzied animation. The smell of fresh fish mingled with the aroma of wine, while dust and grime covered everything with a layer of silt, muting colors with the stains of living. Portly men and tall ones, with wives of similar or opposite build strolled through the alleys and lanes, looking into bins of fruit—oranges, grapes and pears—into barrels of fresh-baked bread, at jars of pickles and enormous wheels of cheese. For dinner, they purchased slabs of Gouda and honey bread, which they ate at the marketplace hall where an auction of goods was conducted nearly round the clock. Except for the hours between midnight and first light, the gavel pounded to seal the acquisition of traded goods from cattle, to sheep, to grain, to chickens, to human slaves. The procession was as endless as the buyers with coin for purchase.

For the amusement of this carnival, street musicians played pipes and stringed instruments. A joker or two juggled bottles and apples, while a mellow singing songstress climbed the high pitches of her favorite aria—all this while the magpies of dissent and debate argued politics and reform. Emotions swelled and emotions ebbed as the hours passed, and marketers entered and disappeared, and were replaced by another assemblage of humankind, there to make wagers, buy their stores, and catch up on the scandals and calamities springing from this tiny corner of the earth.

There was a new felon in the square. Marie Jolie Gabrielle Antoinette Gilbere had been delivered to her cage at ten that morning, thrust into an iron-barred crate where she’d remain until the following afternoon. While her trial was still a day away, she was already on trial before the leering masses. They passed by her new home to see the noblewomen in satin green attempting to fend off the glaring gazes and the merry chatter that accompanied their interest in her. They pointed, jeered and ridiculed the lady in the fancy dress. A few young boys threw rotten fruit that got hung up on the bars. Pieces landed on her clothes, soiling her skirts; and when she tried to close her eyes and close out their taunts, they banged at the cage with sticks and spit and called her names—like w***e, trollop, harpy, b***h.

The worst of the harassment occurred late in the morning and early in the afternoon when the marketplace was the busiest, packed with human flesh looking for a few thrilling moments to take home and dwell on for the week.

Later in the day, once the children were gone, a few middleclass ladies came to haughtily inspect the adulteress. Their sneering judgment was a reflection of their mirthful occupation with the demise of noble ladies. There had been three in three months to amuse their minds and add to their prattling conversation.

“She could have picked a more modest dress, don’t you think?” the first bitty spoke.

“Looks like a fancy w***e to me,” her friend scoffed. “I don’t know how she’ll convince a judge of her innocence.”

“She gets this far, ladies,” another hoity snickering harridan said, “she’ll be convicted.” She nodded her head to make her point. “No magistrate can refuse to appease the masses when they want flesh—good, fine, noble flesh is always the best to punish. I think it’s detestable that they put women through these public horrors, but then, she did break the law and she does know the consequences of her crimes. Shameful. Utterly shameful.”

“Just look at her,” the first lady pointed to the prisoner.

The sad young noblewoman sat inside the cage, leaning against the bars. She had been pretty in the morning, in the magistrate’s chambers, but she wasn’t now. There was, however, a subtle beauty to her face inside its sadness. She looked perpetually resigned and infinitely subdued. The fire in her eyes was gone, reduced to a passive green.

“Looks a bit haunted to me.” The most compassionate viewed her with a different eye than the other snobbish, indignant women.

“She’ll be haunted, all right. Haunted all the way to prison, if she survives the punishment she’ll suffer.”

Nothing got through to Jolie now. They could have spat in her face, glared at her all night, thrown cow dung into the cage; she would remain unmoved and indifferent to the world. Escaped. Spent. Deep within, she prayed for night. The marketplace would clear and she’d be alone with the jailer who sat some distance off, just watching.

***

The gavel banged on the massive rostrum, quieting the clamoring crowd. They were obnoxiously loud for a gentle afternoon, but that was the way of public trials in this jurisdiction—they’d become events of huge proportion. People loved spectacle, the human drama, the anguish, and especially at this time, the titillating scandal surrounding these odd rites. With the roar reduced to a murmur of noise, the bailiff signaled the beginning of the prosecution. On cue, the magistrate appeared with his thick, black judicial robe swishing like a sad but mighty sail, hung in the air by a healthy wind.

The accused had been taken from her cage and was now standing upright in the box.

She had been demeaned, abused, scorned and spit on. She’d been defeated. Though that was the night before… not now. Now, she stood proudly—without the haughtiness common in her bearing, like what she’d witnessed from many of her censors—but with a noble mien, as if she’d tapped into a power beyond herself, and beyond these horrendous proceedings.

“The accused is being tried for adultery. And how does she plead?”

“She pleads for mercy from the court,” her defender declared.

“What witnesses are here to substantiate the accusations?” the Judge asked the prosecutor.

“Her consort is unavailable for questioning, but we have two others who will substantiate the charges.”

“And who are they?”

The prosecutor stepped aside to introduce his witnesses.

First, the Captain of the Guards testified to the defendant’s seizure—that the accused was found naked in a man’s bedchamber on the morning of her arrest. He rattled off the information without emotion, the first nail in the lady’s coffin. With no questions from the defender, he was excused.

“And who is next?” the Judge asked.

“The lady’s maid,” the prosecutor revealed.

Jolie’s eyes opened as she heard this astounding surprise… and even more so when she watched from her box, as Jacqueline LaPierre, her innocent and virtuous maid appeared before the crowd looking as though she’d chased a nightmare through a patch of briars. Her beautiful dark curls were now a rat of tangles, her face tearstained and drawn; her eyes wild with panic. She was so unlike herself, when her buoyant grin and sunshine face could perk the hearts of those in mourning. She was mourning herself, appearing as though she’d lost her most precious prize.

“Ah?” the magistrate looked up with interest as the struggling woman was led to the center of the platform.

Jacqueline tried shaking off the guard whose fingers clutched her arm. But he wouldn’t budge.

“What have you to say for yourself?” the Judge asked.

“I have nothing to say, sir,” she spat out defiantly. Having gathered her courage, she looked less frightened and a good deal more certain of herself.

“You know nothing of this woman’s infidelities?” he probed.

“I will say nothing to accuse milady.”

“Nothing?”

“That is right, sir.”

“Are you aware of the penalties for refusing to testify?”

“I don’t care about your penalties. I care about my mistress.” She stood more proudly the more she spoke.

The magistrate eyed the woman circumspectly. “You say you are the accused’s personal attendant?”

“Aye, I have been so for three years.”

“Then you’d be privy to her personal business.”

“I suppose I might.”

“Then I suggest you speak of what you know, or the court will find a way to make you talk.”

“I say nothing, sir. Not a word.” She put her foot down hard as she made her point.

The Judge’s eyes flashed angrily. “Put her to the post!”

Jacqueline flinched, but did not object as she was handily taken to the whipping post and strung up to the top so that she had to stand on tiptoe.

“On her bare back,” he magistrate nodded to the Captain of the Guards, “with the bullhide flogger.”

“Nooooooooooo!” Jolie shrieked. “I will not have her whipped!”

The Judge turned his keen eye on the accused. “You have no say.”

“Should I confess to the crime will you release her?”

“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked.

“No, milady, please. I can take the pain,” Jacqueline cried.