Sentence The Threehundredandfortyeighth

And so, when Tavish came to a door through which he could hear cries for mercy, he had no hesitation in shoving it open and striding in, only to find a naked man, kneeling over a bed, while

 

Bernie Westwater whacked his buttocks with a cane; Bernie smiled at her uncle and waved him out of the room, while the Father Abbot begged alternately for the caning to cease and to continue; the next two rooms were empty but, at the third, Tavish could hear heavy breathing and so he pushed that one open too; this was evidently the Father Abbot's office, for it contained many charts and scrolls as well as a number of bound books; there was a scene of disarray: the Abbot's desk had been cleared and a man lay on his back, bound by ropes around the desk and his naked body, and beside the table stood Tammy, Tavish's daughter, with a quill pen in her hand but reversed so that it was the tip of the feather that tickled the man's genitals; “Daddy,” said Tammy, “meet Sir Parlane MacFarlane,” and

Tavish nodded to the man and was about to leave the room when he had a thought: “where is Doubleday?” he asked, and Sir Parlane raised his head so that he could view his questioner: “Dominic? why do you want him? he'll be near the kitchen's I expect, if he's found a tart!” he laughed and lay back, asking Tammy to continue his exquisite torture. with her consummate skill. Tavish left them and it was not long before the smells of baking drew him closer to the kitchens and then, at one closed door, he hear the faint sounds of a child's voice whimpering; Tavish pushed open the door and saw two figures on a makeshift bed, the man who was on top of a small child looked up and to Tavish

it was like seeing the kenspeckle face of Duncan Doubleday, Chief Constable of the Edinburgh Police, and he knew that this must be his ancestor, Dominic Doubleday – Tavish moved quickly, approached the bed and punched the man hard on his left ear, evoking a cry of surprise and pain; he pulled the man off the child, a small girl, and told her to dress and go to the Almoner's Office for shelter, meanwhile, he had hauled Doubleday off the bed and this time gave him a Glasgow Kiss, a smashing

blow to the nose with his own forehead; Doubleday screamed and crumpled on the floor – he would cause no more trouble today! and pondering the nature of evil and whether there was indeed one genus of human beings quite separate from the rest of humanity, driven only to cause suffering to others for it's own pleasure: he thought of Mediaeval torturers and of Nazi demagogues and those who carried out the dirty work in Concentration Camps and Gestapo cellars! and those who groom girls and boys for their own gratification or to sell on in the lucrative Human Slave Trafficking business he had been working on before his brother had shot him and by some strange process he had found himself here, now! with perhaps a chance to stop one ring – but in what way might that affect the future, and at what cost?