Beauty was quiet, gazing at him. "Then you have given over your soul," she said. "You've given it to your Master. That I haven't done, Tristan. My soul is still mine and the only thing a slave can truly possess. And I'm not ready yet to give it. I give my whole body to the Captain, to the soldiers, to Mistress Lockley. But in my soul, I think I belong to no one. I left the castle, not to find the love I had not found there. I left to be tossed and tumbled among harsher and more indifferent Masters."

"And you are indifferent to them?" he asked.

"I am as interested in them as they are in me," she said, reflecting. "No more, no less. But my soul may change in time. Perhaps it's only that I have met no Nicolas, the Chronicler."

She thought of the Crown Prince. She had not loved him. He made her smile. Lady Juliana had affrighted her and disturbed her. The Captain thrilled her, exhausted her, surprised her. Mistress Lockley she secretly liked, for all the dread of her. But that was the extremity of it. She didn't love them. That, and the glory and excitement of belonging to a grand scheme, to use Tristan's word, was the village to her.

"We are two different slaves," she said as she sat up, taking the wine and drinking deeply. "And we are both happy."

"I wish I understood you!" he whispered. "Don't you long to be loved, don't you long to have the pain mingled with tenderness?"

"You don't have to understand me, my love. And there is tenderness." But she paused, imagining the intimacy that existed between Tristan and Nicolas.

"My Master will guide me to greater and greater revelations," Tristan said.

"And my destiny," she answered, "will also have its momentum. When I saw poor, punished Prince Laurent today, I envied him. And he had no loving Master to guide him."

Tristan sucked in his breath, gazing up at her. "You are a magnificent slave," he said. "Perhaps you know more than I do."

"No, I am a simpler slave in some ways. Your destiny is mingled with greater renunciation of self." She leaned on her elbow and kissed him. His lips were dark red from the wine, and his eyes seemed unusually large and glassy. Gorgeous he was. Mad thoughts came to her, of tethering him in the harnesses herself and . . .

"We must not lose each other. Whatever happens," he said. "Let's take our stolen moments whenever we can to confide in each other. We may not always be allowed ..."

"With a Master as mad as yours we might have plenty of opportunity," she said.

He smiled. But his gaze was broken suddenly, as if by some distracting thought, and he lay still listening.

"What is it?"

"There is no one on the road outside," he said. "It's absolutely silent. And there are always coaches on the road at this hour."

"All the gates are closed," she said. "And the soldiers are all gone."

"But why?"

"I don't know, much whispering of searching the coast for raiders."

He looked so beautiful to her now, and she wanted to make love again. She drew up on the bed, sitting back on her heels, and looked at his organ, which was already springing to life once more, and then she glanced at her own reflection in the far mirror. She loved the sight of the two of them in the mirror together. But even as she looked she saw another ghostly figure in the mirror. She saw a man with white hair, his arms folded, watching her!

She let out a shriek. Tristan sat up and stared forward. But she had already realized what it was. The mirror was a two-way mirror, one of those ancient tricks of which she'd heard tell as a child. And Tristan's Master had all the while been watching. His dark face was amazingly clear, his white hair almost glowing, his brows knotted seriously.

Tristan half smiled and flushed. And a strange sense of exposure softened Beauty.

But the Master had vanished from the murky glass. The door of the room opened.

He drew near the bed, the elegant man in velvet and balloon sleeves, and he turned Beauty's shoulders towards him. "Repeat this to me, all you've heard about the soldiers and these raiders."

Beauty flushed. "Please don't tell the Captain!" she begged. He nodded, and at once she told what she knew of the story.

For a moment, the Master stood still, thinking.

"Come," he said and drew Beauty up from the bed, "I must take Beauty back to the Inn immediately."

"May I go, please, Master?" Tristan asked.

But Master Nicolas was distracted. He didn't seem to hear the question.

He turned and beckoned for them to follow. They walked quickly down the corridor and out the back door of the house, and Master Nicolas motioned for them to wait as he walked out towards the battlements.

For a long moment he looked from one end of the great wall to the other. The stillness commenced to unnerve Beauty.

"But this is foolish," he whispered as he returned. "They seem to have left the village too little defended."

"The Captain thinks they'll strike the farms outside the walls, the manor houses," Beauty said. "And there's a watch posted, surely."

Master Nicolas shook his head, disapprovingly. He locked the door of his house.

"But, Master," Tristan asked. "Who are these raiders?" His expression had darkened, and there was nothing of a slave in his manner.

"Never mind all of that," Master Nicolas said sternly as he started off ahead of them. "We will take Beauty back to her Mistress. Come quickly."

DISASTER

Nicolas led the way fast through the little tangle of streets, allowing Tristan and Beauty to walk together behind him. Tristan held Beauty tightly in his arms, kissing her and stroking her. And the late-night village seemed peaceful enough, its inhabitants unaware of any danger.

But suddenly as they drew near to the square of the Inns, there came from far off a terrible din of shrieking cries, and the thundering crash of wood against wood, the unmistakable sound of a giant battering ram.

Bells rang from the towers of the village. Everywhere doors opened.

"Run, quick," Nicolas said, turning and reaching out for Beauty and Tristan.

From everywhere people appeared, yelling, shouting. Shutters slammed against windows, men ran to fetch down their manacled slaves. Naked Princes and Princesses darted out from the dimly lit doorway of the Punishment Shop taverns.

Beauty and Tristan raced towards the square only to hear the sound of the great battering ram shatter the wood that resisted it. And just beyond the square Beauty saw the night sky open up as the east gates of the village gave way and the air filled with loud, alien shrieks and ululations.