Beauty felt a catch in her throat as she stared at it in the grim unsteady light of the fire. And she looked down at the Captain's boot quickly.

"Well, are the patrols back?" The Captain was asking one of his men. Beauty could see his feet planted before her. "And you've had no luck?"

"All the patrols are back but one, Sir," said the man, "and we have had luck but not what we expected. The Princess is nowhere to be found. She may have made it to the border."

The Captain gave a low disgusted sound.

"But this," said the man, "we flushed from the woods just over the mountain at sundown."

Timidly, Beauty looked up to see a tall, large-boned naked Prince pushed forward into the light of the fire, his body streaked with dirt, his balls laced up tight to his erect penis, with a pair of heavy iron weights dangling from the leather. His long full head of brown hair was snagged with bits of leaf and earth. His legs and massive chest exuded power. He was one of the biggest slaves she'd ever seen. And he looked directly at the Captain with large brown eyes that showed resentful fear and excitement.

"Laurent," the Captain said under his breath. "And no alarm yet even from the castle that he is missing."

"No, Sir. He's been flogged twice; his bu**ocks are raw, and the men have had a go at him. I thought it was what you would wish, no use keeping him idle. But we waited for your command to mount him."

The Captain nodded. He was eyeing the slave with obvious anger.

"Lady Elvera's personal slave," he said.

The soldier who held the Prince's arms pulled the Prince's head back by the hair; and the light shone full on the Prince's face, his brown eyes flinching, though he still looked at the Captain.

"When did you run away?" the Captain demanded. He took two long strides towards the Prince, and twisted the Prince's head back even more cruelly. Beauty could see them clearly against the light of the fire, the Prince bigger even than the Captain, his body shuddering now as the Captain examined him.

"Forgive me, Sir," the slave said under his breath. "It was late today that I ran away. Forgive me."

"Didn't get very far, did you, my pretty Prince?" the Captain asked. He turned to the officer. "The men have taken their pleasure of him?"

"Two and three times over, Sir. And he's been run and whipped well. He's ready."

The Captain shook his head slowly and took the slave by the arm.

Beauty's soul trembled for him. As she knelt in the dirt, she tried to keep her legs apart and her glances furtive.

"Did you plan this attempt with Princess Lynette?" the Captain asked as he shoved the slave towards the cross.

"No, Sir, I swear it," said the Prince, stumbling as he was thrown forward. "I didn't even know that she'd run away." He kept his hands clasped on his neck, though he almost fell. And Beauty saw his backside for the first time, a perfect mesh of pink stripes and white welts all the way to his ankles.

As he was turned around with his back to the cross, his c**k pulsed under the lacings. It was large and red, the tip moist, and the slave's face was coloring darkly.

An excited murmur rose from the company, and Beauty heard men stirring and moving about in the shadows beyond the light of the fire, as if drawing in closer.

The Captain motioned for his men to lift the Prince.

Beauty's throat thickened and went dry. The soldiers lifted the slave, spreading his legs way out on either side of him, and fitted him down on the wooden phallus.

He gave a harsh groan.

A low cheer went up from the soldiers.

But the Prince groaned even louder as his widespread legs were bent all the way back to lie atop the crossbeams. It made Beauty's thighs ache to look at it, the Prince bound flat now to the cross, sore bu**ocks against the beam under him, the phallus deep inside him.

But it was not finished. As the Prince's arms were laced behind the cross, his head was being bent all the way back flat on top of the upright beam, a long leather belt bound across his open mouth, and buckled to the wood beneath his ears as he stared straight up into the sky helplessly. Beauty saw his glossy tangled hair fall down in back. She saw his throat undulating with his silent swallows.

But the display of his bulging sex seemed the worst, and as the lashings were torn off the cock, it wagged and quavered, pulling at the heavy weight that hung from it. And Beauty felt her own sex again twitching and flinching.

The men had gathered all around as the Captain inspected the work. And the Prince's whole body shuddered and strained on the cross, the iron weight swinging from the swollen penis. Beauty could even see the bu**ocks rising and contracting on the thick wooden phallus.

The whole figure stood no higher than a short man, and the Captain stood alongside it now and looked down into the Prince's face and wiped the hair back from his eyes roughly. Beauty could see the eyelids moving, and the Prince's mouth straining to close on the broad leather belt that bound it open.

"Tomorrow," the Captain said, "thus exhibited, you will be mounted on the cart and driven through the village and the countryside. The soldiers will march before and behind, and the drums will beat to rouse the public attention. And I shall send word to the Queen that you have been taken. She may ask to see you. She may not. If she does, you will ride in the same fashion to the castle to be placed there in the garden on display until she decides to make her judgment. If she does not wish to see you, you are sentenced without recourse for the rest of your years here to the village. I shall have you whipped through the streets, then auctioned. Now you will take your whipping from me."

Again the company cheered.

The Captain took the leather strap that was hooked to his waist and stood back to gain the room for the swing of the arm and commenced the whipping. It was not too heavy a strap, nor a wide one, but Beauty winced and secretly covered her face with her fingers, peeping through them to see the flat lash descend upon the inner thighs of the Prince, which brought immediate grunts and groans from him.

The Captain whipped hard, sparing no part of the legs, the strap licking the sides of the calves, the upturned shins, the ankles. Even the soles of the upturned feet, and then he whipped the Prince's naked belly. The rounded flesh quivered and jumped and the Prince moaned against his gag, the tears streaming down the side of his face, his eyes open as they stared above him.

His whole body seemed to vibrate on the cross. The bu**ocks rose and fell in spasms, revealing the base of the phallus.

And when he was a deep shade of rosy pink from his pubic hair to his ankles, and chest and stomach were well latticed with swelling ribbons of pink, the Captain drew up to the side of the cross and, taking only the end five or six inches of the strap, lashed the Prince's bouncing c**k with it. The Prince strained and pumped on the cross, the iron weight dangling, the c**k growing huge and almost purple in color.