My mother had said once I had a double dose of the magic juice for a girl and for a boy—with pretty hair and eyelashes and girlish skin, and the limbs of a farm boy. And then there was my beard, which I had to shave twice a day; how did that look on a baby-faced young man? Well, I would know soon enough, I brooded.

Sybil had no such doubts. She was a celebrated beauty, regardless of her poor prospects for a dowry.

We both had the curly black hair common in our land, and blue eyes, and she had voluptuous breasts which drew teasing from girls who envied her. Sybil had a high beautiful forehead and a kissable red mouth, and a long graceful neck and hands that were long and pretty too. I always notice women’s hands. I loved Sybil’s fingers.

As we neared the great walls of Bellavalten and its gates, we saw something of a makeshift fairground all about with tents and booths, and serving boys came up to offer us a drink, but we pressed on to the guards who looked at us expectantly.

“They know already,” said Sybil, leaning forward as I was the one with the reins at present. “See? They know.”

But what did they know?

She had let down her hood a while back and now I did the same and it did seem that the guards liked what they saw because one of them, waving the serving boys away, came up to us.

“We’re here because we want to serve the King and Queen,” I said at once.

“Ah, yes, and in what capacity?” asked the guard.

I think we both blushed, and Sybil laughed.

“What do you think, soldier?” said Sybil. “Do I look like a cook or a maid to you? Does my companion look like a footman?”

“No, my lady,” he said at once, and he bowed. “Ride ahead, please, to the great white tent on the left. And there you’ll find the questioner.”

As we approached the tent, it seemed there was no one before us, and glancing back before dismounting, I saw the soldiers already turning away other travelers.

“Come on, hurry,” said Sybil as I lifted her down. “But first you kiss me and kiss me hard. And promise you’ll wait to see if I’m accepted and I’ll wait to see if you are.”

“No, darling, I won’t have you do that for me,” I said. We walked towards the tent together. “You’re very likely to be accepted and you must go ahead.”

She didn’t reply, but squeezed my hand, and though the guard at the door of the tent tried to stop us, we insisted that we must go in together.

The questioner was polite to a fault, an elderly gentleman with thin white hair and gray eyes who rose at once to greet us. Then he seated himself and began his questions.

“No, we are not brother and sister, no kin at all,” explained Sybil, “but we’ve come together and want to stay together as long as we can. But we’re prepared for what may come. Only give us a chance for a kiss farewell, if it comes to that, that’s all we’re asking.”

“Well, it will certainly come to that, my lady,” said the questioner, his voice polite and gentle, “because you cannot be admitted and trained together. That has never been done, not as far as I know, but let’s see what you can answer now for me and we’ll leave the separating to others.”

We were asked to put off our cloaks, and lay our bundles down which we did. And I realized that two other finely clad gentlemen who stood nearby were taking our measure carefully. Now Sybil looked enticing to me in her boyish leggings and little tunic, and I’m sure they saw the same and this was hardly the first woman who’d come here disguised as a man for obvious reasons.

The questioner began to recite from memory what we knew—that we’d be carefully inspected and tested for service before we would be admitted. That if we were not found fit to be “anointed” slaves for the King and Queen, we might be invited to serve in the kingdom in some other capacity. If we were accepted, we would take the oath for six months, and then, at the end of that period, for two years, and then again perhaps after that for however long we were found to be fit and pleasing . . .

We knew all this. It had been in the Proclamation.

“Yes, I would welcome that chance, for honest employment,” I volunteered. “Though that is not why I’ve come. I am a good scholar, and scribe.”

But Sybil of course stood silent.

“And the paddle and the strap,” said the questioner, “are the emblems of this kingdom, and the discipline of slaves is strict and relentless. You are aware of this?”

We were. It had all been in the Proclamation.

We divulged much else, that we were educated, that we were of age to make the decision to come to Bellavalten on our own, that no one had coerced us, and we gave our first names, and were told no other names were needed.

Then the questioner recited the protections we would enjoy, but we knew all that as well.

Soon two small chests or caskets were brought, and our cloaks and bundles were put into these respectfully and then we were taken through a side flap in the tent, and towards a small gate in the wall where a guard beckoned to us.

“Kiss goodbye now, children,” called out the old questioner. “And don’t dare to inquire after one another.”

And so we did, standing on the beaten green grass under the blue sky, the great wall of Bellavalten seeming to reach above us to the heavens.

ii

In a small chamber, rather well furnished for a gatehouse, it seemed, I was told to sit on a bench and wait, and Sybil went on without me.

I felt a terrible convulsion of fear as I saw the door close behind her. Why had I ever come with her? I mean, why had I not come strictly alone so that only my fate was a burden to my soul now?

An hour dragged by until I was summoned.

I found myself in a spacious but shadowy room, and when the door was shut I was the only one present. I stood on a carpet and there was a small carved table there and no chairs, and a heavy wooden screen before me.

From behind the screen, a masculine voice spoke to me:

“Young man, your deportment is of the utmost importance from this moment forward, do you hear me?”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You wish to be a pleasure slave in this kingdom, is that true?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then remove your clothes, all of them, and your shoes and put them on that table. And do not ask to keep any article of clothing about you.”

I did this immediately, and only as I felt the soothing air on my naked skin did it hit me that at last, at last, I was here and this was truly happening to me. I felt weak suddenly, and my hands trembled. But I was soon completely naked, and very much ashamed of the dust of the road that seemed to cling to my hair and my hands, and I was staring at the floor and struggling to appear collected.

A very long moment passed.

Any spoken word might have been a mercy.

None came, and then a door in the side wall opened and a lovely young woman in a servant’s livery of apron and wimple beckoned for me to come to her. She smiled.

“Don’t worry about your clothes, little boy,” she said in the most cheerful voice. “They’ll be put in your chest with everything else.”

Surely I blushed violently. It certainly felt like it, this pretty girl speaking to me and me being utterly naked. I went into the room and found it was smaller than the other but very warm with a big bronze tub there of steaming water, and a little fire roaring on the hearth and buckets set all around it.

“Into the bath, little boy,” said the girl.

I stepped in and sank down into the water, and she commenced to scrub me all over. She washed my hair thoroughly, rinsing it with buckets of warm water, and then, telling me to stand, started to wash between my legs with the same thoroughness she’d used all along.

“Well, I can tell you, that you’re gorgeous enough all right, but I don’t make the decisions. And look at that cock, standing up already.”

She turned me around and scrubbed my bottom in the same efficient way.

“Now you answer me as ‘madam’ and you answer all men as ‘sir,’ do you hear, though you may say ‘master’ or ‘mistress’ if you like, but I wouldn’t bother. Your lips are sealed, you understand, unless you’re directly questioned. And you never make an openmouthed sound—never an openmouthed moan or a sob or a cry, do you hear? Lips tight at all times. Now, go stand by the fire.”

I said, “Yes, madam.”

She rubbed me hard all over with the towel, and then oiled me with a delicious perfumed oil, and then dried and brushed my hair till she said it was “shining.”

None of this took very long as she was very good at what she did.

I was desperate to ask about the girl who’d come before me, but I didn’t dare.

“Well, if they don’t accept you, little boy, then I don’t know anything,” she said when she was finished. “So! From now on you walk with your eyes down and your hands on the back of your neck. Go through that door, and I wish you luck.”

She gave me a peck on the cheek. “Little boy,” she said as I was almost to the door. “If they don’t accept you, they’ll hire you for some service, I’m sure of it. You’re not just pretty. You’re a precious little knave if ever I saw one.”

The door opened before she finished, as though someone had been watching through a chink in the wall, and I headed into a larger room on a red carpet.