After all, they were condemned slaves, were they not, so what did it matter? They had been given by their

parents as naked tributes to the Queen, told to obey during their years of service. But they had failed. They were now condemned to hard labor and cruel use by the common people.

"Why, Beauty?" Tristan pressed. But no sooner did he ask the question again than he covered Beauty's open mouth with his own so that Beauty could only receive the kiss, standing on tiptoe, Tristan's organ lifting her moist sex which hungered for him desperately. If only their hands were not bound, if only she could embrace him!

Suddenly Beauty's feet no longer touched the floor of the cart, and she tumbled forward against Tristan's chest, riding him, the throbbing inside her so violent that it obliterated the cries and loud wallops of the mounted soldiers' leather straps, and Beauty felt her breath sucked up and out of her.

For eternity she seemed to float, unanchored to the real world of the immense creaking wooden cart with its high wheels, the taunting guards, the paling sky arching high over the soft dark hills and the dim prospect of the village lying under a blue mist far below them. There was no rising sun, no clop of the horses hooves, no soft limbs of other struggling slaves mashed against her sore bu**ocks. There was only this organ splitting her, lifting her, and then driving her remorselessly to a silent yet deafening explosion of pleasure. Her back arched, her legs out straight, her ni**les throbbing against Tristan's warm flesh, her mouth filled with Tristan's tongue at the same instant.

And dimly through the ecstasy, she felt Tristan's hips go into their final irresistible rhythm. She could not bear any more, yet the pleasure was fragmented, multiplied, washing through her over and over. In some realm beyond thought, she felt she was not human. The pleasure dissolved the humanity she had known. And she was not Princess Beauty, brought as a slave to serve in the

Prince's castle. Yet most certainly she was, because this excruciating pleasure had been learned there.

She knew only the soft wet pulse of her sex and the organ lifting her and holding her. And Tristan's kisses growing more tender, more sweet, more lingering. A weeping slave pressed against her back, hot flesh against her own, and another warm body crushed against her right side, a great sweep of silky hair brushing her naked shoulder.

"But why, Beauty?" Tristan whispered again, his lips still touching hers. "You must have done it deliberately, run from the Crown Prince. You were too admired, too accomplished." His deep almost-violet-blue eyes were thoughtful, meditative, reluctant to reveal him completely.

His face was a little larger than that of most men, the bones strong, perfectly symmetrical, yet the features were almost delicate, and the voice was low and more commanding than the voices of those who had been Beauty's Masters. But there was nothing but intimacy in the voice, and that, and Tristan's long eyelashes, gold in the light of the sun, gave him a touch of enchantment. He spoke to Beauty as though they had been slave companions forever.

"I don't know why I did it," Beauty whispered in answer. "I can't explain, but yes, it must have been deliberate." She kissed his chest, quickly finding the ni**les and kissing them both and then sucking them hard one after the other so that she felt his organ thump against her again, though he begged her softly for mercy.

Of course, the punishments of the castle had been voluptuous; it had been exciting to be the playthings of a rich Court, to be the object of relentless attention. Yes, it had been infatuating and confusing, the exquisitely tooled leather paddles and straps and the welts they caused, the exacting discipline that had so often left her crying and breathless. And the warm perfumed baths afterwards, the massages with fragrant oils, the hours of half-sleep in which she dared not contemplate the tasks and trials that awaited her.

Yes, it had been heady and seductive and even terrifying.

And surely she had loved the tall, black-haired Crown Prince with his mysterious unnamed dissatisfactions, and the lovely sweet Lady Juliana with her pretty blond braids, both of whom had been such talented tormentors.

So why had Beauty thrown it all away? Why, when she had seen Tristan in the stockade with its crowd of disobedient Princes and Princesses, all condemned to be auctioned in the village, had she deliberately disobeyed in order to be sent to the village with them?

She could still remember Lady Juliana's brief description of the fate awaiting them:

"It is wretched service. The auction itself takes place as soon as they arrive and you can well suppose that even the beggars and the common louts about town are there to witness it. Why, the whole village declares a holiday."

And then that strange remark from Beauty's Master, the Crown Prince, who never dreamed at that moment that Beauty would soon disgrace herself: "Ah, but for all its roughness and cruelty," he had said, "it is sublime punishment."

Was it those words that had undone her?

Did she long to be hurled downward, away from the high Court of ornate and clever rituals imposed upon her, into some wilderness of disregard where the humiliations and spanking blows would come just as hard and just as fast but with a greater, more savage abandon?

Of course, there would be the same limits. Not even in the village could a slave's flesh be broken; never could a slave be burned or truly harmed. No, her punishments would all enhance. And she knew by now just how much could be accomplished with the innocent-looking black leather strap and deceptively decorated leather paddle.

But in the village she would be no Princess. Tristan would be no Prince. And the crude men and women who worked them and punished them would know that with every gratuitous blow they were doing the Queen's bidding.

Suddenly Beauty couldn't think. Yes, it had been deliberate, but had she made some dreadful error?

"And you, Tristan," she said suddenly, trying to conceal the quavering of her voice. "Was it not deliberate with you, too? Didn't you deliberately provoke your Master?"

"Yes, Beauty, but there's a long story behind it," Tristan said. And Beauty could see the apprehension in his eyes, the dread he couldn't admit either. "I served Lord Stefan, as you know, but what you don't know is that a year ago in another land, as equals, Lord Stefan and I were lovers." The large violet-blue eyes became a little more penetrable, the lips a little warmer as they smiled almost sadly.

Beauty gasped to hear this.

The sun was fully risen now, and the cart had taken a sharp turn in the road and the descent was slower over uneven terrain, the slaves pitched more roughly than ever against one another.