I felt her legs hooked over mine, her starched petticoats tickling my flesh, her wet little crotch rubbed against my cock, and then the hairy little sheath opening as she came down on me very tight. I was moaning louder than it seemed possible to moan. And the young soldier smiled above me and lowered his head again to bestow his wet, sucking kisses.

O, lovely hot little pair. I thrashed uselessly under my leather bonds. But she made the rhythm for both of us, riding me up and down, the heavy cross shaking, my c**k erupting into her.

I hadn't seen anything after that, not even the sky.

I vaguely remembered the young soldier coming and saying it was midnight and time for my next good whipping. And, if I was a very good boy from now on, and my c**k stood well to attention for every whipping, he might have another village girl for me the next night. It was his opinion a punished runaway ought to have a girl often. It only made his suffering worse. I had smiled gratefully under the gag of black leather. Yes, anything to make the suffering worse. And how was I to be a good boy, by twitching and struggling and making noises to show my suffering, by thrusting my hungry c**k into the empty air? I was more than willing to do it. I wished I knew how long I would be on exhibit. I wished I could remain so forever, a permanent symbol of baseness, worthy only of scorn.

Now and then I had thought, as the strap licked at my ni**les and my belly, of how Lady Elvera had looked when they had brought me to the castle gates on the cross.

Looking up, I had seen her with the Queen in the open window. And I had wept desperately, my tears overflowing. She was so very pretty! And that she would give me the worst now was why I worshiped her.

"Take him away," My Lady had said with an almost bored air, her voice carrying over the empty courtyard. "And see that he is well whipped and sold to a good, cruel Master or Mistress."

Yes, it was a new game of necessary discipline with new rules in which I discovered a depth of submission undreamed of. "Laurent, I shall come down myself to see you sold," she had said as I was being taken away. "I shall make certain you are given absolute drudgery."

Love, real love for Lady Elvera, had underscored all of it. But Beauty's later ruminations in the hold of the ship confused me.

Had the passion for Lady Elvera been all that love could be? Or was it merely the love one can have for any accomplished Mistress? Was there more to be learned in the crucible of heat and sublime pain? Maybe Beauty was more discriminating, more honest ... more demanding.

Even with Tristan, one had the feeling that the love of his Master had been given too quickly, too freely. Had Nicolas, the Queen's Chronicler, really been worthy of it? When Tristan spoke of this man, did he illuminate any particular? What came through Tristan's laments was the fact that the man had invited the love with moments of remarkable intimacy. I wondered if, for Beauty, such an invitation would in itself have been sufficient.

Yet in the village it had been bittersweet to think of my lost Lady Elvera as I stretched and twisted on the Punishment Cross, the strap doing its work. But it was also bittersweet to think of pert little Princess Beauty back in the soldiers' camp, who had stared at me in frank amazement. Was she on to the secret? That I had willed it? Would she herself dare such things? They had said at the castle that she had brought the village punishment upon herself. Yes, I liked her very much even then, bold and tender little darling.

But my life as punished runaway had ended before it began. I had never seen the auction block.

Within moments of that last midnight whipping the raid on the village had commenced. The Sultan's soldiers thundered through the little cobblestone streets.

My leather gag and bonds were cut, and my aching body thrown over a speeding horse before I could even glimpse my captor.

Then the hold of the ship, this little cabin hung with jeweled tentwork and brass lanterns.

And the gold oil had been rubbed in my abraded skin, the perfume combed through my hair, and the stiff mesh covering had been chained over my c**k and balls so that I could not touch them. And the confines of the cage. And the timid and respectful questions of the other captive slaves: Why had I run away and how had I endured the Punishment Cross? And the echo of the warning of the Queen's emissary before we left her Kingdom:

"In the Sultan's palace ... you will no longer be treated as beings with high reason.... You will be trained as valuable animals are trained, and you must never, heaven help you, try to speak or to evince anything more than the simplest understanding."

And I wondered now, as we drifted offshore, if in this strange land the diverse torments of the castle and the village might somehow be reconciled.

We had been abject by royal command, then abject by royal condemnation. Now in an alien world, far from those who knew our history or our stations, we would be abject by our very nature.

I opened my eyes, seeing again the one small night lantern hanging from its brass hook amid the tentwork drapery of the ceiling. Something was changed. We had dropped anchor.

And there was much movement above. All the crew it seemed had been roused. And steps were approaching....

Chapter 3

BEAUTY: THROUGH THE CITY AND INTO THE PALACE

BEAUTY OPENED her eyes. She had not been sleeping, and she knew without having to see through a window that it was morning. The air in the cabin was unusually warm.

An hour ago she had heard Tristan and Laurent whispering in the dark, and she had known the ship was at anchor. And she had been only slightly afraid.

After that, she had slipped in and out of thin erotic dreams, her body wakening all over like a landscape under the rising sun. She was impatient to be ashore, impatient to know the full extent of what was to happen to her, to be threatened in ways that she could understand.

Now, when she saw the lean, comely little attendants flooding into the room, she knew for certain that they had come to the Sultanate. All would be realized soon enough.

The precious little boys--they could be no more than fourteen or fifteen, despite their height--had always been richly dressed, but this morning they wore embroidered silk robes, and their tight waist sashes were made of rich striped cloth, and their black hair gleamed with oil, and their innocent faces were dark with an unusual air of anxiety.

At once, the other royal captives were roused, and each slave was taken from the cage and led to the proper grooming table.

Beauty stretched herself out on the silk, enjoying her sudden freedom from confinement, the muscles in her legs tingling.

She glanced at Tristan and then at Laurent. Tristan was suffering too much still. Laurent, as always, looked faintly amused. But there was not even time now to say farewell. She prayed they would not be separated, that whatever happened they would come to know it together, and that somehow their new captivity would yield moments when they might be able to talk.