There was the Sign of the Bear and the Sign of the Anchor, and the Sign of the Crossed Swords, but by far the most magnificent was the gilded Sign of the Lion, hanging high over a vast carriageway and under three stories of deeply cut leaded windows. But the most startling detail of all was the body of a naked Princess swaying beneath the sign, bound with her ankles and her wrists together on a leather chain, so that she hung like ripe fruit from the shingle, her naked red sex painfully exposed.

It was exactly the way that Princes and Princesses had been tethered in the Punishment Hall at the castle, a position Beauty had never suffered and that she dreaded most of all. The Princess's face was fixed between her legs only inches above her swollen and mercilessly revealed sex, and her eyes were almost closed. When she saw Mistress Lockley she moaned and wriggled on the chain, straining forward in supplication, just as the punished Princes and Princesses had done in the Hall of Punishments.

Beauty's heart stopped when she saw the girl. But she was pulled right past her, quite unable to turn

her

head for a better view of the unfortunate, and trotted into the main room of the Inn.

Despite the warmth of the day the enormous room was cool, and a little cooking fire blazed on the giant hearth under a steaming iron kettle. There were dozens of smoothly polished tables and benches spread out over the vast tiled floor. Giant kegs lined the walls. There was a long shelf at one end coming out from the hearth and, on the far wall opposite, what appeared to be a crude little stage.

A long rectangular counter extended towards the door from the hearth, and behind it stood a man with a flagon in his hand and his elbow resting on the wood as if ready to serve ale to any who asked for it. He lifted his shaggy head and caught Beauty with small deep-set dark eyes, and smiling said, "Quite well you've done, I see," to Mistress Lockley.

Beauty's eyes took a moment to get used to the shadows, and when they did she realized there were many other naked slaves in the room. One naked Prince with beautiful black hair was on his knees in the far corner scrubbing the floor with a heavy brush that he held by its wooden handle with his teeth. A dark blond Princess was set to the same task just inside the doorway. Another young woman, her brown hair coiled on top of her head, polished a bench on her knees, mercifully allowed to use her hands to do it. Two others, a Prince and Princess, their hair free, knelt at the far edge of the hearth in the blaze of sunlight from the back door, polishing pewter plates vigorously.

None of these slaves even dared to glance at Beauty. Their whole attitude was one of obedience, and as the little Princess with the scrub brush hurried on to wash the floor very near Beauty's feet, Beauty saw her legs and bu**ocks had recently been punished.

"But who are these slaves?" Beauty thought. She was almost sure that she and Tristan had been among the first load to be sentenced to hard labor. Were these the incorrigibles who behaved so badly they had been consigned for a year to the village?

"Get the wooden paddle," said Mistress Lockley to the man at the bar. She pulled Beauty forward and quickly threw her over the counter.

Beauty gave a groan before she could stop herself, feeling her legs dangling off the floor. She had not made up her mind whether she should obey when she felt the woman unfastening the gag and the buckle, and then slapping her hands to the back of her neck.

But the woman's other hand had passed between Beauty's legs and the searching fingers found her wet sex and swelling lips and even the burning kernel of the clitoris that caused Beauty to clench her teeth against a pitious moan.

The woman's hand left her in torment.

Beauty breathed freely for an instant, and then she felt the smooth surface of the wooden paddle being pressed softly to her bu**ocks, and the welts seemed to burn anew.

Red with shame over the little examination, Beauty tensed, waiting for the inevitable spanking, but

it didn't

come. Mistress Lockley twisted her face so that Beauty could see to the left through the open door.

"Do you see that pretty Princess hanging from the sign?" The Mistress asked. And grasping Beauty's hair she pushed and pulled her head into a nod. Beauty understood that she mustn't speak, and she decided for the moment to obey. She nodded of her own accord. The Princess's body turned a little this way and that on the chain. Beauty could not remember if her unfortunate sex had been wet or shy beneath its inadequate veil of pubic hair.

"Do you want to hang there instead of her?" asked Mistress Lockley. Her voice was flat and severe and cold.

"Do you want to hang there hour after hour day after day with that hungry little mouth of yours starved and gaping for all the world to see?"

Quite truthfully Beauty shook her head no.

"Then you'll stop the insolence and rebelliousness you showed on the auction block, and you'll obey every command given you, and you'll kiss your Master's and Mistresses's feet, and you'll whimper in gratitude for your supper when you get it and lick the plate clean!"

She forced Beauty's head into a nod again, and Beauty felt the oddest sensation of excitement. She nodded once more, of her own accord. Her sex pulsed against the wood of the bar.

The woman's hand moved under her and gathered her br**sts together, holding them like two soft peaches plucked off a tree. Beauty's ni**les burned.

"We understand each other, don't we?" she said.

And Beauty, after a strange moment of hesitation, nodded.

"Now understand this," said the woman in the same no-nonsense voice, "I'm going to spank you till you're raw. And there won't be any rich Lords and Ladies to delight in it, nor any soldiers or other

gentlemen to enjoy it, just you and I preparing for the Inn to open for the day and doing what must be done. And I'm doing it for one reason only and that is so you'll be so sore that the touch of my fingernail will make you squeal and scurry to obey my commands. You'll stay raw like that every day this summer that you're my slave, and you'll scamper to kiss my slippers after I spank you, because if you don't you'll dangle from that sign. Hour by hour day after day you'll dangle there, let down only to sleep and eat with your legs bound apart, and your hands bound behind your back and your bu**ocks spanked just as it's going to be spanked now. And put back to hang there again where the village toughs can laugh at you, and laugh at that hungry little sex. Do you understand?"

The woman waited, her hands still cradling Beauty's br**sts, her other hand on Beauty's hair.

Very slowly, Beauty nodded.

"Very good," said the woman softly. She turned Beauty and stretched her out on the length of the counter with her head towards the door. She scooped up Beauty's chin so that Beauty was looking straight through the open door and at the poor dangling Princess, and then the wooden paddle lay against her bu**ocks again, pressing gently on her welts and making her bu**ocks feel enormous and hot.