platform, and there stripped naked. Of course there is dread, regret, abject fright at the wish being violently fulfilled, the clothing ripped off, the hair let down, and the crowd enjoys it as much as the auction. The regular slave Princes and Princesses, especially those who have been punished by the new villager slave, scream with joy and approbation.
“Then the village victims are sent off to the castle, where for a glorious year they will serve in the lowest capacities, but almost indistinguishable from Princes and Princesses.
“And from the castle we receive those Lords and Ladies who have given themselves over in like manner, having been stripped by their peers in the Castle Pleasure Gardens, sometimes so few that there are only three of them. You cannot imagine the excitement it brings on Midsummer Night when they are brought to be auctioned. Lords and Ladies on the block. The prices are dizzying. The Lord Mayor almost always buys one as he reluctantly gives up last year’s prize. Sometimes my sister, Julia, buys another. Once there were as many as five, last year only two, and now and then one. And the Captain of the Guard has told me that this year, all the bets are down that the castle exiles will include Lord Stefan.”
I was too amused and surprised to answer.
“From all you’ve said, Lord Stefan doesn’t know how to command and the Queen knows it. If he offers himself he will be chosen.”
I laughed softly to myself. “He does not even guess what is in store for him!” I said quietly. I shook my head, and then laughed again under my breath, trying to subdue it.
He turned his head to smile at me. “You’ll be mine soon, all mine, mine for three, maybe four, years.” And when he rose on his elbow I lay down beside him and embraced him. The passion was rising again, but he bid it be quiet, and I lay still, trying to obey, my head on his chest, his hand on my forehead.
After a long time, I asked: “Master, is a slave ever granted a request?”
“Almost never,” he whispered, “because the slave is never allowed to ask. But you may ask. I will permit that much.”
“Is it possible for me to discover how it goes with another slave, if she is obedient and resigned or being punished for rebellion?”
“Why?”
“I came down in the cart with the Crown Prince’s slave. Her name is Beauty. She was high-spirited, a sensation at the castle for her hot passions and her inability to conceal even the most transient emotions. In the cart she asked me the very same question you asked: Why do we obey? She’s in the Sign of the Lion now. She’s the slave whom the Captain mentioned by name to you today at the well after he whipped me. Is there any way to discover if she has found the same acceptance that I’ve found? Just to ask, perhaps ...”
I felt his hand gently tug at my hair, his lips touch my forehead. He spoke softly. “If you like, I will let you see her and ask her yourself tomorrow.”
“Master!” I was too grateful and amazed to put it further into words. He let me kiss his lips. Boldly I kissed his cheeks and even his eyelids. He gave me the faintest smile. Then he settled me back on his chest.
“You know your day will be hard and very busy before you see her,” he said.
“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