But Beauty's time of trial at the Maypole was coming to an end. Very quickly and deftly, she was released from the collar and taken panting from the circle. Her bu**ocks smarted and seemed to swell as if waiting for the next spank, which never came. Her arms ached as they lay doubled behind her back, but she stood waiting.

The Captain's large hand turned her around and he seemed to tower over her, gilded with sunlight, his hair sparkling around the dark shadow of his face as he bent to kiss her. He cradled her head in his hands and drew on her lips, opening them, stabbing his tongue into her, and then letting her go.

Beauty sighed to fell his lips withdrawn, the kiss rooting deep into her loins. Her ni**les rubbed against the thick lacing on his jerkin, and the cold buckle of his belt burned her. She saw his dark face crease with a slow smile and his knee pressed against her hurting sex, teasing its hunger. Her weakness seemed complete suddenly and to have nothing to do with the tremors in her legs or her exhaustion.

"March," he said. And turning her around he sent her with a soft squeeze of her sore buttock towards the far side of the square.

They drew near to the pilloried slaves, who writhed and twisted under the taunts and slaps of the idle crowd milling about them. And behind, Beauty saw closely for the first time a long row of brilliantly colored tents set back beneath a line of trees, each tent with its canopied entrance open. A young man handsomely dressed stood at each tent and though Beauty could glimpse nothing in the shadowy interiors, she heard the voices of the men one by one tempting the crowd:

"Beautiful Prince inside, Sir, only ten pence." Or "Lovely little Princess, Sir, your pleasure for fifteen pence." And more invitations like these. "Can't afford your own slave; enjoy the best for only ten pence." "Pretty Prince needing punishment, Madam. Do the Queen's bidding for fifteen pence." And Beauty realized that men and women were going and coming from the tents, one by one, and sometimes together.

"And so even the commonest of the villagers," Beauty thought, "can enjoy the same pleasure." And ahead at the end of the row of tents, she saw a whole gathering of dusty and naked slaves, their heads down, their hands tethered to the tree branch above behind a man who called out to one and all: "Hire by the hour or the day these lovelies for the lowliest service." On a trestle table at his side was an assortment of straps and paddles.

She marched on, absorbing these little spectacles almost as if the sights and the sounds were stroking her, the Captain's large firm hand now and again punishing her softly. When at last they reached the Inn, and Beauty stood in the little bedchamber again, her legs wide, her hands behind her neck, she thought drowsily, "You are my Lord and Master."

It seemed in some other incarnation she had lived all her life in the village, had served a soldier, and the mingling of noises coming from the square outside was a comforting music.

She was the Captain's slave, yes, utterly his, to run through the public streets, to punish, to subjugate totally.

And when he tumbled her on the bed, spanked her br**sts, and took her hard again, she turned her head this way and that, whispering, "Master, and then Master."

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew it was forbidden to speak, but this seemed no more than a moan or a scream. Her mouth was open and she was sobbing as she came, her arms rising and encircling the Captain's neck. His eyes flickered, then blazed through the gloom. And there came his final thrusts, driving her over the brink into delirium.

For a long time she lay still, her head cradled in the pillow. She felt the long leather ribbon of the Maypole prodding her to trot as if she were still lost in the Place of Public Punishment.

It seemed her br**sts would burst as they throbbed from the recent slaps. But she realized the Captain had taken off all his clothes and was slipping into the bad naked beside her.

His warm hand lay on her drenched sex, his fingers parting the lips ever so gently. She drew close to his naked limbs, his powerful arms and legs covered with soft curly golden down, his smooth clean chest pressed against her arm and her hip. His roughly shaven chin grazed her cheek. Then his lips kissed her.

She closed her eyes against the deepening afternoon light from the little window. The dim noises of the village, thin voices from the street, the dull bursts of laughter from the Inn below, all merged into a low hum that lulled her. The light grew bright before it began to fade. The little fire leapt on the hearth, and the Captain covered Beauty with his limbs and breathed in deep sleep against her.

TRISTAN IN THE HOUSE OF NICOLAS, THE QUEEN'S CHRON

Tristan:

In a near daze, I thought of Beauty's words, even as the auctioneer called for the bids, my eyes half closed, the screaming crowd a swirling current around me. Why should we obey? If we were bad, if we had been sentenced to this penitential place, why must we comply with anything?

Her questions echoed through the cries and jeers, the great inarticulate din that was the crowd's true voice, purely brutal, endlessly renewing its own vigor. I clung to the silver memory of her exquisite little oval face, eyes flashing with irrepressible independence, as all the while I was poked, slapped, turned round, examined.

Maybe I took refuge in the strange inner dialogue, because it was too excruciating to bear the blazing actuality of the auction. I was on the block, just as they had threatened I would be. And the bids were rising from everywhere.

It seemed I saw everything and nothing, and in a dim moment of excruciating remorse, I pitied the foolish slave whom I had been, dreaming in the castle gardens of disobedience and the village.

"Sold to Nicolas, the Queen's Chronicler."

Then I was being roughly shuffled down the steps, and the man who had bought me stood before me. He seemed a silent flame in the midst of the press, the rough hands slapping at my erect cock, pinching me, tugging at locks of my hair. Wrapped in a perfect stillness all his own, he lifted my chin, and our eyes met, and with an exquisite shock, I thought, yes, this is my Master!

Exquisite.

If not the man himself, robust enough for all his slender height, then the manner of it.

Beauty's question thudded in my ears. I think I closed my eyes for a moment.

I was being pushed and shoved through the crowd, told by a hundred taskmasters to march, to lift my knees, lift my chin, to keep that c**k erect, while the auctioneer's loud bark called the next slave behind me to the platform. The roaring din enveloped me.

I had only glimpsed my Master, but in the glimpse all the details of his being were fixed perfectly. Taller than I by only an inch, he had a square but lean face and a wealth of white hair curling thickly well above his shoulders. He was much too young for the white hair, almost boyish despite his great height and the pure ice of his gaze, his blue eyes full of darkness at the very centers. He seemed much too finely dressed for the village, but there were others like him on the balconies over the square, watching from high-backed chairs set in the open windows. Well-to-do shopkeepers and their wives, surely, but they had called him Nicolas, the Queen's Chronicler.