When she’d come round to us, having made a circuit of the place from left to right, I felt her succulent wet sex and kissed her upturned mouth.

“Bad girl!” I said. “Take it from a bad boy. I know.” I put two coins in her pouch.

“My lord,” she whispered with perfect manners.

I felt of the sweet firm flesh under her arms, and then pinched both her nipples.

Alexi, who’d been watching all with very detached eyes, beckoned for her to be brought round to him. “Lift her,” he said. The groom did this so that her hips were right in front of him. “Now offer me your ripe little plum, girl,” he said.

She pushed her pelvis forward as best as she could, fresh tears springing to her eyes. He spanked her pubis hard with his flat fingers over and over. “Bad, bad, bad girl!” he said in a low scornful voice. “Do you know the meaning of the word ‘perfection’?”

“I’m so sorry, my lord,” she said, her lips quivering, her wet cheeks glistening in the candlelight.

I observed all this with a little surprise. But I said nothing.

He slipped coins into her little purse for more spanking.

“You tell the whipping master to spank her until she exhibits complete control,” he told the handler.

And off she was taken to be put in the line and spanked once more. Maybe only once more.

It was then that Prince Richard saw us and joined us and he chatted with Alexi as though he could afford to have a little relief from his vigilance. He remembered me.

“Prince Dmitri,” he said. “You don’t know how I envied you, that you knew the sultanate before it was destroyed.”

“Yes, that was an education, Prince,” I said, “but this is our world, and frankly, I find it now infinitely superior. I suspect whatever we learned in the sultanate will blossom in this realm under a brighter more loving sun than ever we knew there.” I thought of Lexius; I thought of many things.

He smiled at me. “Dmitri, you are as I remembered you,” he said. “Always so filled with philosophy.”

“I’d call it poetry,” said Alexi with a little grin.

“Ah, it’s all talk,” I confessed. “We learned things in the sultanate, true, but in a way, everything that truly shaped my soul had occurred here.”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Richard answered. “Well, you have chosen the most glorious time for your return.”

“That is undoubtedly true,” I said.

It was full dark when the three of us went out, as Prince Richard wanted to be at Court tonight and lived at the castle besides, and Alexi invited him to return with us.

We walked through the village together. It was filled with light—torches, lighted windows, candlelighted shops open for late visitors, and lanterns hung outside doors. Lots of gaily painted paddles and straps for sale, along with myriad other toys.

Lots of slaves on display, Herms indeed. I saw one splendid damsel with a silver phallus rising between her legs. Alexi pointed out it was a new fashion, the double phallus—one-half well anchored in the girl, the other half displayed in manly fashion. There were many such new toys for sale in the shop behind her. “It can be strapped on tight if she’s meant to use it to penetrate a young piglet in the rear,” said Prince Richard. “Lady Eva designed it.”

Prince Alexi said that Eva was brilliant.

“I’ll come down later, after all the festivities,” Richard explained to me. “Should you want to join me, you’re welcome. The crowd’s a bit more rowdy and the late-night whipping mistress is a marvel. She’s a different story from the loving old father you just witnessed.”

This set my cock to stirring again. But then so had the double phallus.

“Thin, pointed features, but hands made of living marble,” Richard continued describing the late-night whipping mistress. “She wears an old-fashioned wimple over her hair, and is immaculate and severe in attire.”

“A child’s nurse from the Underworld,” said Alexi breezily, “where Sisyphus struggles forever to move his boulder up the hill.”

Richard laughed. “She is a great believer in her own dour methods,” he said scornfully.

“She puts me in mind of old Lord Gregory,” said Alexi. “He is still with us, Dmitri, and the same. Always angry, always in a state of indignation, always believing that a slave is beyond hope!”

“Yes,” said Richard. “She’s cut from that very cloth. She offers vicious indignation and horror to each little piglet and partridge at their disobedience, and even those sent merely for their weekly maintenance hear her imprecations and ominous warnings against being lazy and disrespectful and utterly lost.”

I’d never known a whipping mistress in the village in my time. Oh, the women of the village whipped their slaves hard enough, but women had not worked in these places then.

When we reached the gate, I expected to see all the King’s ponies refreshed, but this was an entire new team except for Caspian and Bastian in the lead and a tall magnificent pony tethered to their far right. It was all as blindingly impressive as it had been before.

I went up to have a look at that splendid new pony.

“That’s César, Prince,” said a groom. “The King’s favorite of the moment.”

The pony was too tall to be well matched with the others, but likely there weren’t many with whom he could be matched.

He stood staring straight ahead, his back respectfully arched, and his chin high as I looked at him. He had a great mane of white-blond hair, but with some of it tied back and braided to keep it out of his face.

And this pony had an extraordinary face—a high and broad and serene forehead and beautifully etched dark eyebrows that were high placed to show off his huge blue eyes. His cheekbones were beautiful. His mouth, even with the bit in it, was clearly magnificent.

I reached out tentatively towards his mouth.

“Oh, do examine him,” said Alexi softly to me.

I felt of the man’s lower lip. I could see him sigh and lift his shoulders and then straighten himself, all but shivering under my touch. His gilded nipples were enormous and had been wound with adhesive paste and fine wire, and from the wire hung teardrop weights against his chest.

In his navel was a gold medallion with a lion’s head on it.

He was one of the more nearly perfect humans I’d ever beheld.

“He pulls the King’s small chariot, my lord,” said the enthusiastic and helpful groom. He drew up and smoothed back César’s hair. “He’s the ‘king of the stable,’ if you will. Aren’t you, César?”

The pony smiled, his eyes crinkling, his cheeks plumping, and I heard a low secretive laugh come from him.

The groom smacked his backside and he jumped, but only a little. His legs were like marble.

“He’s been kept idle all day,” said the groom, “in case His Majesty should want to ride out, so we’re to work him hard tonight.”

“And does this mean he is a paragon?” I asked.

“He had better be,” said Alexi in a droll voice. “If he weren’t, well, let’s just say his backside and legs would be the color of burgundy wine, and his face would be so wet you would think it freshly enameled.”

The groom thought that was wondrously clever. And something quickened in César’s face as if he too were amused, but he stood firm as if on principle.

All the while Richard observed these things with vague amusement.

We returned to the chariot, the ponies straining at their harnesses and shifting their weight from foot to foot as if eager to run.

“Tell me, Richard, if you can—there was an old scholar in my time,” I said. “Well, no older then than we are now. A very cheerful and learned man. Do you remember him? Is he still in the village? He used to stroll by my old master’s house . . .”

“Why, of course, I recall the man. He’s the bookseller, and quite the connoisseur of ancient texts as well. His shop is the only one of its kind in the kingdom and it’s a bit of a library, with everyone borrowing from it now and then, and with the King sending down for books, and even donating new ones. Seems the King is as partial to books as to gold when visitors come.”

“Ah, of course. A bookseller!”

“Yes, and the scribe for the most demanding documents or letters, you know, as he knows all the official greetings and even some of the law. Roland is his name.”

“Ah, that’s it,” I said. “I remember now, Roland. I recalled him when that poor boy, Valentine, said that he spilt the ink.”

“Did he say that?” asked Richard. “Well, Valentine belongs to Roland, and Roland is hardly the strictest of masters. Likely he must write himself notes to remember to send Valentine to the Punishment Shop, but it’s demanding work in that bookshop, and Roland makes a pretty footstool of Valentine for hours when he’s writing. He paid a lot at the public sale for Valentine, as Valentine is highly educated and can read and write. Our lady mayor bid against him for Valentine, but lost.”

I smiled. Often the slaves with the most serene faces were those who knew how to read and write, why I had no idea.

But it was time to mount the chariot and be off. The festivities would begin late and I was tired and needed the warmth and comfort and cleansing of the bath.