"Yes, Sir," I answered.

"Now, go to sleep," he said. "There's much work for you to do in the orchards on the farm tomorrow before we go back to the village. You'll be harnessed to pull a good-sized basket of fruit back to my town house, and I want to be done with all that so that by high noon when the crowd is at its daytime thickest you can be punished on the Public Turntable."

A little conflagration of panic flared inside me for a moment. I clung to him a little more tightly. And I felt his lips brush the top of my head tenderly.

Gently he disengaged himself and turned over on his stomach to sleep, his face away from me, his left arm curled under him. "You'll spend the afternoon at the public stables to be hired out," he said. "You will trot on the pony track there, harnessed and ready, and I expect to hear that you showed such spirit you were hired out immediately."

I looked at his long elegant form in the moonlight, the gleaming white of his sleeves, the perfect shape of his calves in their sheathing of supple leather. I belonged to him. Completely I belonged to him.

"Yes, Master," I said softly.

I knelt up and, bending over him silently, kissed his right hand, which lay on the grass beside him. "Thank you, Master."

"In the evening," he said, "I'll talk to the Captain about sending Beauty."

An hour must have passed.

The fire was out.

He was sound asleep, I could tell from his breathing. He wore no weapons, not even a dagger concealed on his person. And I knew that I could easily have overpowered him. He hadn't my weight or strength, and six months at the castle had toned my muscles well. I could have taken his clothes from him, left him bound and gagged, and made off to the land of King Lysius. There was even money in his pockets.

And surely he had realized all this before we ever left the village.

He was either putting me to the test or so certain of me that it never crossed his mind. And as I lay awake in the dark, I had to learn for myself what he already knew; Would I or would I not run now that I had the opportunity?

It was no difficult decision. But each time I told myself that of course I would not, I found myself thinking of it. Escape, going home, standing up to my father, telling him to call the Queen's bluff, or going off to some other land in search of adventure. I suppose I would not have been a human being if I didn't at least think of those things.

And I thought too of being caught by the peasants. Being brought back over the saddle of the Captain of the Guard, naked again, to some unspeakable penance for what I'd done, and perhaps losing my Master forever.

I thought of other possibilities. I thought them all through and through, and then I turned over and snuggled close to my Master and slipped my arm gently around his waist, pressing my face into the velvet of his doublet. I had to get to sleep. After all, there was much to be done in the morning. I could almost see the noontime crowd around the turntable.

Sometime before dawn, I awoke.

I thought I heard some sound in the forest. But as I lay listening in the dark, there was only the usual murmur of the creatures of the wood and nothing to break the peace of it. I looked down on the village lying asleep under the heavy, luminous clouds, and it seemed to me something in its appearance had altered. The gates were locked.

But then maybe they were always locked at this hour. It was no concern of mine. And surely they'd be open in the morning.

And turning on my belly, I snuggled close to my Master again.

REVELATIONS AND MYSTERIES

As soon as Beauty was bathed, her long hair washed and dried, Mistress Lockley paddled her through the crowded Inn and out under the torchlit Sign of the Lion to stand on the cobblestones.

The square was crowded, young men drifting in and out of the various Inns, most village tradesmen and a very few soldiers. Mistress Lockley straightened Beauty's hair, gave a rough fluff to the curls between her legs, and told Beauty to stand straight with her br**sts thrust decently forward.

Almost at once Beauty heard the loud approach of a horse, and looking to the right at the far end of the square, she saw the open gates of the village and the dark shape of the countryside under the paler sky and the black figure of a tall mounted soldier approaching.

The hooves clattered on the stones, echoing up the walls, as the horseman pounded towards the Sign of Lion and reined in his mount sharply.

It was the Captain, as Beauty had hoped and dreamed, his hair a cap of gold in the torchlight.

Mistress Lockley pushed Beauty forward, away from the Inn door, and the Captain walked his horse slowly around Beauty as she stood bathed in the light, looking down at her own shivering br**sts, her heart thumping deliciously.

The Captain's huge broadsword flashed in the light, and his velvet cloak fell down behind him to form a deep rose-colored shadow. Beauty's breath halted as she saw the brightly polished boot and the powerful flank of the horse passing again in front of her. Then, as the horse came dangerously close and she almost backed away, she felt the Captain's arm catching her up and lifting her high into the air to bring her down facing him on the horse, her naked legs closing about his waist as she threw her arms around his neck tightly.

The horse reared and raced forward, out of the square and through the village gates, and along the road through the open farmland.

Beauty was jogged up and down, her sex spread wide open against the cold brass of the Captain's belt buckle. And her br**sts were pressed against his chest, her head tucked beneath his head against his shoulder.

She saw cottages and fields flying by under the dim crescent moon, the dark outline of an elegant manor house.

The horse turned into the denser darkness of the woods, galloping on as the sky vanished above, the breeze lifting Beauty's hair, the Captain's left hand bracing her.

Finally Beauty saw lights ahead, the flicker of camp-fires. The Captain slowed his pace. And they drew near a little circle of four snow-white tents, and Beauty saw a score of men gathered around the large fire in the center of the circle.

The Captain dismounted, setting Beauty on her knees at his heel, where she crouched, not daring to look up at the other soldiers. The tall trees towered over the camp, delineated in a ghastly flicker of firelight.

Beauty felt a thrill at the lurid flicker, though it struck some deep chord of terror in her.

And then to her shock she saw a rude wooden cross staked in the ground facing the fire, a short stubby phallus sticking up where the two beams were fitted together. The cross was not quite as high as a man, and the cross-piece was nailed to the front of the other beam, the phallus jutting up and forward at a slight angle.