Tristan looked forlorn. He was resting his elbows, staring at the glistening joint of meat before him, which he had hardly touched. His eyes were dreamy and sad.

“Tristan, you are unhappy?” asked the Queen. “Please speak completely. I must know your heart. And more to the point, I must know what you think of his.”

Tristan started to answer but then fell silent as if he needed to gather his thoughts.

I spoke up softly. “You have not told me this slave’s name, but I think I know exactly who he is. May I ask—are there some special circumstances surrounding his training of which I’m not aware? I noticed he was wearing a handsome painted mask. It covered not just his eyes but the upper part of his cheeks and most of his nose. I’m not sure anyone would know him with this mask. Has he asked for this mask?”

“No, Prince,” said Tristan. “I was the one who put him in the mask. I thought it would go easier for him if he were masked. And if he goes to the village, if that is the decision here, might he not be masked for the first week?”

Tristan looked miserable.

“I mean if it all goes wrong,” said Tristan. “Can he be spared the gossip and the shame? A week perhaps with the mask lest someone from the Court see him and cry out ‘There goes Lord Stefan!’”

“You’re imagining the worst,” said Beauty. “He is quite beautiful and sensitive and I suspect he has aptitude, as we say.”

“Well, he does, without question,” I replied. “I saw that myself. His cock couldn’t have been any harder when I’d seen him. And it never flagged as I inspected him.”

Tristan was too downcast to speak. He shook his head.

“Tristan, Lord Stefan has lived in this kingdom all his life,” said Queen Beauty. “He’s never lived anywhere else. It is unspeakable to live in misery in such a kingdom as this and never be able to give vent to your deepest feelings, to be denied what you truly want.” A blush flared in her cheeks as she said this. “I say give him to Prince Dmitri and let him be plunged mercilessly into what he wants! Has he begged you to let him go, to return him to his old station?”

“No, he hasn’t,” said Tristan in a murmur. “But he suffers.”

“He suffers because he isn’t broken,” said Lady Eva, “and the mask, the mask is a way of bringing him along slowly. He’s a colt. But he can certainly grow into a stallion.”

Tristan gestured that he would speak. He looked imploringly at Beauty. His large blue eyes were filled with the glint of the nearby fire, and his hair looked golden. I secretly thought this fine and philosophical man was hardly the right person to master any unbroken slave, but I waited.

“I think this,” said Tristan. “Stefan cannot return to Court and be as he was. He cannot. He will go out of his mind with grief for his failures, and over his longings, and he will end up eventually wandering away from the kingdom and he will be lost.”

The Queen nodded. “I agree with you.”

“He has never once begged to return,” Tristan said. “He has not begged me and he has not begged Lady Eva, but he weeps uncontrollably for hours, and my precious Blanche and Galen her groom are miserable in trying to console him. I don’t know if he can survive the village without running away, running away from his own desires, from the shame of living in the old way, from the rigors he’s forced to embrace. I just don’t know.”

“Give him to me,” I said. “I used to be just like him.”

“But you were young then,” said Tristan. “So was I.”

“He’s young,” said Eva, “in his heart he’s young. And besides, age does not matter. We have older slaves coming to us now daily. Dmitri likes older slaves. He was just explaining this to me earlier. Surely you’ve all seen César, the King’s favorite pony. César is forty.”

“Yes, but he’s been a pony in the village for twenty years,” said Tristan, “and now he’s been elevated to the Royal Stables.”

Silence.

“Clearly you are as torn as he is,” said Eva to Tristan. “Tristan, it is you. You are the problem here. You cannot train him. And the King is right. It goes back to your early love as boys, and to his failure to master you. You’re pleading with him to be your obedient slave, as he once pleaded with you.”

I knew this was true. I remembered.

I had seen Lord Stefan with Tristan at Court before I’d been exiled to the village. Lord Stefan couldn’t master anyone.

No one spoke.

“Give him to me,” I said.

Tristan turned to me and our eyes met.

“If I think he’s going mad, I will send for you,” I said.

Silence.

“Tristan,” said Beauty. She looked across the table, her blue eyes as soft and earnest as they had always been. “Dmitri is right and perfect for this. I shall take the decision out of your hands. I do this for both you and Stefan. Stefan will go with Dmitri tonight. And yes, he will be masked for seven days at least, and for however long after that Dmitri feels is right. And you, my lord, must put your old lover out of your mind till he’s broken, trained, and perfected.”

ii

It was a clear night. I stood on the old road, the winding road that ran through the woods to the village. It was rocky in places and overgrown, but it was perfect. I’d walked it only a week ago alone, in my roaming of the kingdom.

I’d sent word to the village that I did not need a coach tonight. Here, beyond the torches of the manor house, I could see the stars clearly above in the wide margin of glowing sky between the banks of the high oak forest. The air was warm and sweet with the scent of pine and oak and all the lively green things of the wood. No wild beasts prowled the great thick forests of Bellavalten.

Slowly three figures approached. Two big hulking guards with bright torches who would lead the way, and the pale, naked, and trembling masked slave between them.

A thin leather strap had been bound around Stefan’s chest and arms, and his hands, behind his back, had been tethered to it.

The first guard came up to me and gave me the handle of the leash.

The slave was booted and gloved as I’d requested. I inspected him carefully. He stood before me shaking more violently perhaps than any slave I’d ever beheld. His golden mask glinted in the torchlight. It was impossible to see into his soul through the dark eyeholes. But the artful work of the mask made him look handsome. And his mouth was wet and shuddering. His cock was hard.

I looked at the leash.

“Unhook it,” I said. “He’s going to walk for me of his own will quite well. Unbind him. Gather up the straps. Roll up the leash and keep all this in your belt.”

The guard obeyed without the slightest argument. I knew him well, one of the Captain’s finest. What did he care if a slave was going to be beaten through the forest?

The other guard came forward with the long thick leather strap I’d requested. I took it and felt of it and weighed it. A fine thong for whipping.

Not too wide or heavy for my hand to hold it easily, but broad enough and heavy enough to make a good spanking sound. It was three feet long and dark, almost black, the natural color of the leather.

“Walk ahead, just a little way,” I said to the two guards. “That’s it. Now keep that distance in front of us so we are in the light of your torches.”

They acknowledged and waited.

Stefan suddenly sank to his knees, his hands flung out before him. He cried bitterly.

“No, my lord, that will never do!” I said. I pulled him up hard by his left arm until he found his footing. “Now get those hands on the back of your neck!”

At once he obeyed, though he cried as bitterly as ever.

“Lips sealed!” I said in a sharp impatient voice. I ran a finger over his mouth. Certainly he was trying to obey. “I mean keep them firmly pressed shut! You can sob your heart out, but not out loud!”

I whacked him hard with the belt three, four, five times, but he stood firm, though he was choked with sobs.

“Now start walking!”

I began to whip him hard as he obeyed.

“Faster,” I said. “I mean it. Pick up the pace!”

At once he struggled forward and I continued to pile on the blows, and of course the guards picked up their pace too.

“Onward, pick up those feet!” I whipped him again and again.

Finally I was driving him as fast as he could go, with the guards striding ahead, and smacking him harder and harder.

As I had hoped, he had forgotten about everything else in the world but moving at my command, and his sobs had died to groans.

I now chased him handily with the belt, smacking his legs, making him jump, but he scurried to keep ahead of me.

“Move those feet. Move them faster. Guards, set a brisker pace.”

I drew up alongside of him and spanked his posterior as hard as I could, driving him into a frantic trot. I was still quite comfortable walking but this was perfect, his trotting, and I pounded him all the harder. His cock never wavered, but remained hard as stone. And so did mine.

On and on through the dark forest we moved, the only sound the crackling of the torches, the thwack of the strap, and his high-pitched moans, and occasional bursts of muted sobbing.