O, if Beauty and I could only be alone for a moment. If I could only talk to her, tell her what I had learned and the feelings that had been aroused in me.

But my Master had come back, and bidding me to rise, he led the way out of the square. We were soon at the west gates of the village and we walked along the country road that led to the manor house.

He put his arm around me, offered me the wineskin.

It was beautifully quiet now under the high dome of stars. Only one coach passed us on the road and it seemed a moonlight vision.

A team of twelve Princesses brought it smartly along, the lovelies harnessed three across in snow-white leather, and the coach itself was exquisitely gilded. To my amazement, my Mistress Julia rode in the coach beside a tall man, and both waved, as they passed, to my Master.

"That is the Lord Mayor of the village," said my Master softly to me.

We turned before we reached the manor house. But I knew we were already on his land, and we walked over the grass, through the fruit trees, and towards the nearby hills that were densely covered in forest.

I don't know how long we walked. Maybe an hour. And we settled finally on a high slope halfway uphill with the valley spread out before us. The clearing was just large enough for us to make a little fire and to sit back against the side of the hill, the dark trees hovering over us.

My Master tended the fire until it was going well. Then he lay back. I sat up with my leg crossed looking at the towers and peaks of the village. I could see the brilliant glare of the Place of Public Punishment. The wine made me sleepy and my Master stretched out, with his hands beneath his head and his eyes wide open and fixed on the dark blue moonlit sky above and the grand sweep of the constellations.

"I have never loved any slave as I love you," he said calmly.

I tried to restrain myself. To listen only to my heartbeat for a moment in the stillness. But I said all too quickly:

"Will you buy me outright from the Queen and keep me in the village?"

"Do you know what you are asking?" he said. "You've only endured two days here."

"Would it do any good if I begged you on my knees, kissed your boots, prostrated myself?"

"It isn't required," he said. "At the end of the week, I will go to the Queen with my usual accounting of the winter activities of the village. I know as certainly as I know my name that I will offer to purchase you outright and make a strong case for it."

"But Lord Stefan - "

"Leave Lord Stefan to me. I shall make you a prediction about Lord Stefan: Every year on Midsummer Night a strange ritual is enacted. All those in the village who wish to be made into slaves for the following twelve months present themselves to be privately examined. Tents are set up for the purpose and the villagers are stripped and carefully looked over in every particular. And

the same takes place among the Lords and Ladies of the castle. No one is entirely sure who has made himself or herself available for the examination.

"But at midnight on Midsummer Night the names are announced both at the castle and on the high platform of the marketplace in the village of all those who have been accepted. It is only a tiny portion, of course, of those who have offered. Only the most beautiful, the most aristocratic in appearance, the strongest. As each name is called, the crowd turns searching for the chosen one -  everyone here knows everyone else, quite naturally - and at once he or she is found out, rushed to the platform, and there stripped naked. Of course there is dread, regret, abject fright at the wish being violently fulfilled, the clothing ripped off, the hair let down, and the crowd enjoys it as much as the auction. The regular slave Princes and Princesses, especially those who have been punished by the new villager slave, scream with joy and approbation.

"Then the village victims are sent off to the castle, where for a glorious year they will serve in the lowest capacities, but almost indistinguishable from Princes and Princesses.

"And from the castle we receive those Lords and Ladies who have given themselves over in like manner, having been stripped by their peers in the Castle Pleasure Gardens, sometimes so few that there are only three of them. You cannot imagine the excitement it brings on Midsummer Night when they are brought to be auctioned. Lords and Ladies on the block. The prices are dizzying. The Lord Mayor almost always buys one as he reluctantly gives up last year's prize. Sometimes my sister, Julia, buys another. Once there were as many as five, last year only two, and now and then one. And the Captain of the Guard has told me that this year, all the bets are down that the castle exiles will include Lord Stefan."

I was too amused and surprised to answer.

"From all you've said, Lord Stefan doesn't know how to command and the Queen knows it. If he offers himself he will be chosen."

I laughed softly to myself. "He does not even guess what is in store for him!" I said quietly. I shook my head, and then laughed again under my breath, trying to subdue it.

He turned his head to smile at me. "You'll be mine soon, all mine, mine for three, maybe four, years." And when he rose on his elbow I lay down beside him and embraced him. The passion was rising again, but he bid it be quiet, and I lay still, trying to obey, my head on his chest, his hand on my forehead.

After a long time, I asked: "Master, is a slave ever granted a request?"

"Almost never," he whispered, "because the slave is never allowed to ask. But you may ask. I will permit that much."

"Is it possible for me to discover how it goes with another slave, if she is obedient and resigned or being punished for rebellion?"

"Why?"

"I came down in the cart with the Crown Prince's slave. Her name is Beauty. She was high-spirited, a sensation at the castle for her hot passions and her inability to conceal even the most transient emotions. In the cart she asked me the very same question you asked: Why do we obey? She's in the Sign of the Lion now. She's the slave whom the Captain mentioned by name to you today at the well after he whipped me. Is there any way to discover if she has found the same acceptance that I've found? Just to ask, perhaps ..."

I felt his hand gently tug at my hair, his lips touch my forehead. He spoke softly. "If you like, I will let you see her and ask her yourself tomorrow."

"Master!" I was too grateful and amazed to put it further into words. He let me kiss his lips. Boldly I kissed his cheeks and even his eyelids. He gave me the faintest smile. Then he settled me back on his chest.

"You know your day will be hard and very busy before you see her," he said.