“What’s your pleasure now, Prince,” asked another voice. It was Alexi at my elbow, in fresh garments with an exotic Eastern embroidery. “I’m here,” he said, “to take you wherever you might like to go.” His hair was clean and lustrous and in his deep gray velvet he looked more impressive.

“Might I have some wine near to the Bridle Path, Your Majesties,” I asked, “and watch the slaves being run there?”

Of course, anything I wished, said a clamor of voices, and soon, tired and dazed as I was, I found myself seated at a small table right at the edge of the Bridle Path, beneath the limbs of a great old tree that was strung with lanterns, and with torches on both sides of the path burning brightly to illuminate the figures flying by. There were guests on raised platforms on the far side of the Bridle Path and they seemed to go on forever. The scope of this was weakening me all over and lulling me into a gorgeous sense of safety and peace.

Never in the days of Queen Eleanor had I seen such scope and grandeur. The kingdom seemed invincible in its splendor as if it had always been what it was on this night.

Fabien rested against the bark of the tree. He looked as amazed as I was. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the voluptuous slaves who drifted past, setting sweets out for me, and refilling my goblet, or the twitching and undulating slave bound to the X cross nearby.

Whether this was special punishment or mere adornment, I didn’t know, but I saw this slave had been rubbed and burnished with gold-pigmented oil. He was a powerfully built male. In fact he put me in mind of Laurent, he was so sturdy, and he dozed on the X cross, his head held upright by a beautifully embossed collar of blue and silver and gold, but he never stopped his subtle twisting movements. His hair was strewn with flower petals and tiny flowers like those that grow wild in the grass. Flowers were bound up with his scrotum and balls as well.

There came one of those moments when I could do no more than absorb all that I was seeing and had seen. My mind was empty of words.

But the Bridle Path I had not even begun to observe! I drank another gulp of wine. It was tart but delicious. I looked at the goblet. It was fitted with jewels the size of those I wore on my fingers. I smiled to think I was part of the spectacle in my finest dress and with rings on my hands, and emeralds studding the border of my tunic—as much a part of it as the bound slaves.

I turned my full attention to one slave after another running past on the Bridle Path trying to keep pace with the lord or lady in the pony chariot beside him—or her—who whacked away hard with the great paddle, laughing and urging the slave on. Soon several girls in a row came running by, seeming as fast as men, though they never were really as fast as the men at all, and again came the flashing pageant of the masters and mistresses in their little enameled chariots, and the ponies, male all, in delicate but gleaming red-and-gold harnesses, bells jingling, running as fast, apparently, as they could. It seemed to me the laboring ponies were not really ornamented for the occasion but merely hard at work, though each wore a streaming horse tail out of his anus, and some even had flowers fixed to these tails.

But it was the enameled and embossed chariots, the lords and ladies, and the helpless running slaves who were the magnet of attention.

How terrified many of them appeared. I wondered if for any it was their first time, fitted into the boots with wrists laced tight behind their necks, told to run as fast as they could.

The ponies certainly had the advantage over the poor slaves being spanked along, as the ponies had muscular legs and no doubt strong lungs.

And these poor beauties were being driven, quite literally, to distraction to keep up.

I’d never made it even once around the old circuit before I’d fallen down and tried to get away. I’d ended every attempt hung upside down by my ankles for half an hour while being whipped hard by a stinging leather thrash. And then there had been so many other punishments—crawling on my belly with back arched, so that my balls and cock were off the ground, behind the strolling queen, with the bit in my mouth tethered to her heel, and the red X painted on my back which meant “Bad Boy.” Oh, the scorn. That I could bear.

A hot memory came back to me of those long crawling journeys when my anus was stuffed with a plug of flowers, which the Queen thought so amusing, and my mouth sometimes was distorted by thick metal bits with bells on the ends. I could feel the plug in my anus now. I could positively feel the grass beneath me. And the Queen’s cold voice, “Come along, Dmitri, don’t make me any angrier than I already am.”

I studied the moving figures before me. I wondered how Barbara and Valentine had been chosen for the village rather than the Court, now that slaves were given duties suited to them. And I did not see slaves here any more beautiful than either Valentine or Barbara, or the little black-haired “bad girl” from the Punishment Shop. Just thinking of any one of them was too much.

I sat back, sleepy, and almost in a dream. When would I have time and privacy to enjoy a slave of my very own? I had no thought of ever leaving here.

I could see to my right and left gentlemen coarsely enjoying their slaves at their tables, though ladies did not indulge themselves in the same crude way.

A proud young lord had forced his slave to stand bent over for mounting with the slave’s forehead and hands on the ground. That was common enough. He pounded away at the slave with complete abandon, ripping his cock out of the slave’s backside when he was finished and shoving it back in his clothes. With a pat or two he dismissed the slave who scampered on his hands and knees, though to where I did not know.

Grooms were everywhere, it was true. No doubt they did keep watch on each and every naked little personage. And now I saw a groom approach the magnificent male tethered to the cross and give him a few sips of wine. With his head up, the poor boy couldn’t lap it, so he was allowed to sip it. Then the groom tormented his immense cock to make it stand up in its lacings, and then he moved on.

Though noblewomen would not make spectacles of themselves as the lords here with their ever-ready cocks, obviously many were slipping away. And I realized there were handsome little tents scattered about with fringed roofs and billowing flags. Perhaps in those noblewomen coupled with the slaves of their choice or offered their privy parts for pleasuring.

The whole garden was busy.

Bands of musicians clad in pied garments were strolling through the sea of tables and gaily dressed people. I heard the low nasal melody of horns, the soft throb of flutes, and heard the soft crash of cymbals. Now and then a sprightly drummer appeared, beating the two little drums affixed to his belt as he danced and turned artful circles.

My cock was hard, but I was so tired. It had a life the rest of me did not possess. My brain was warring with my cock.

All day I had maintained myself in a state of torture.

I looked about and saw none other than beautiful Princess Rosalynd coming towards me, such a welcome sight. All those years we’d been together in the Sultan’s land. She was buxom as she’d been then, with glowing skin and huge breasts, and the most noble of faces. Her gown was a deep rose color and her slippers were silver.

I stood to greet her.

“You are tired, Dmitri. Truly tired! Tired from your journey and all you’ve seen.”

Behind me the slaves struggled on, pounding the beaten earth of the Bridle Path. I could hear the eager cries of the mistresses driving them.

“Your raven hair is as thick as ever, darling,” I said. I crushed Rosalynd to me. My chest was burning, my nipples pulsing, and when I felt the crush of her breasts I felt my cock take over. “Precious one,” I said, drawing back carefully and looking into her large always-mournful blue eyes. “Would the King and Queen take it amiss if I slipped away now to my rooms?”

“Not at all, Dmitri,” she said. “I’ve been sent to tell you so expressly. The Queen is worried. You are white as those flowers there. Let me take you back myself.”

Before we ever reached the castle, we were kissing and fondling one another coyly, and I was licking at her ears. I had always loved her small ears. Ears always make me think of seashells. In the sultanate my ears had been fitted with gold rings, like many other slaves’, and sometimes stuffed with fresh flowers. When that was done the world became a blur of sounds as if my sight had somehow been affected as well as my hearing.

We stopped more than once to observe the activities going on in the garden. On a large grassy court we found an eager crowd surrounding girl slaves playing at a ball game with knees and elbows, their hands bound behind their backs. The girls were delightfully adorned, one team burnished with gold pigment and the other with silver, hair pinned up to reveal tender necks.

“Don’t ask what happens to the losing team,” Rosalynd said, laughing gaily. “But then, don’t ask what happens to the winning team, either.”

The Hunt in the Maze was taking place as we passed by, and I could see the torches flickering through the shrubbery and hear the excited voices.

“I failed at that one always,” I confided.

“I’m surprised,” said Rosalynd, stroking my hair tenderly. “I rather enjoyed it. They really had a challenge hunting me down. I knew just where to hide, and how to outsmart them. I emerged the victor more than once.” Victors were celebrated and then rewarded by being chosen for more hunts.