So what the slave pony Jerard had said was true! I sat, stunned, thinking about this. But I was even more stunned by the fact that the words had so little impact. My mind was in chaos.
He started to pace again, slowly, deep in his thoughts.
“Of course, there are slaves who would never take such a risk,” he started up suddenly. “They cannot endure the thought of the search parties, the capture, the public humiliation and even worse punishment. And over and over again their passions are roused, fed, roused again, and fed again so they can no longer tell punishment from pleasure. That is what the Queen wants. And these slaves probably cannot endure the thought of reaching home only to try to convince an ignorant father or mother that service here was unendurable. How to describe what had been done? How to describe that they bore as much of it as they did, or the pleasure that was inevitably incited in them? Nevertheless, why do they accept it so readily? Why do they strain to please? Why are they caught up in the vision of the Queen, the visions of their Masters and Mistresses?”
My head was swimming. And it wasn’t the wine that caused it.
“But you’ve shed much light upon the mind of the slave,” he said looking at me again, his face earnest and simple and beautiful in the glow of the candles. “You’ve shown me that for the true slave, the rigors of the castle and the village become a great adventure. There is something undeniable in the true slave who worships those of unquestioned power. He or she longs for perfection even in the slave state, and perfection for a naked pleasure slave must be yielding to the most extreme punishments. The slave spiritualizes these ordeals, no matter how crude and painful. And all the torments of the village, even more than the more decorous humiliations of the castle, tumble fast one upon the other in an endless current of excitement.”
He approached the bed. I think he could see the fear in my face as I looked up.
“And who understands power, worships it, more than those who have had it?” he said. “You who have had power understood it as you knelt at Lord Stefan’s foot. Poor Lord Stefan.”
I rose and he took me in his arms.
“Tristan,” he whispered, “my beautiful Tristan.” Our passions had been purged, but we kissed in a fever, our arms tight around each other, the affection overflowing.
“But there is more,” I whispered in his ear as he kissed my face almost hungrily. “In this descent, it is the Master who creates the order, the Master who lifts the slave out of the engulfing chaos of abuse, and disciplines the slave, refines him, drives him further in ways that random punishments might never provide. It is the Master, not the punishments, who perfects him.”
“Then it is not engulfing,” he said, kissing me still. “It is embracing.”
“Over and over we are lost,” I said, “only to be retrieved by the Master.”
“But even without that one all-powerful love,” he insisted, “you are enfolded in a womb of relentless attention and pleasure.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I nodded, kissing his throat, his lips. “But it’s glorious,” I whispered, “if one adores one’s Master, if the mystery is intensified by an irresistible figure at the core of it.”
Our embrace was so rough and sweet, it didn’t seem that passion could have been any better.
Very slowly, gently, he drew back.
“Get up,” he said. “It’s only midnight and the spring air is warm outside. I want to walk in the country.”
Under the Stars
Unfastening his breeches, he tucked in his shirt, laced it and laced his doublet. I hastened to lace his boots for him, but he did not acknowledge it. He gestured for me to rise again and follow him.
Within moments we were outside, and the air was warm and we were walking silently through the intertwining lanes, west, out of the village. I walked at his side with my hands clasped behind my back, and when we passed other dark figures, most often lone Masters with a single marching slave, I dropped my eyes, as seemed respectful.
Many lights burned in the little windows of the close-peaked-roofed houses. And when we turned into a broad street, I could see far away to the east the lights of the marketplace and hear the dull roar of the crowd in the Place of Public Punishment.
Even the sight of my Master’s profile in the dark, the dull luminosity of his hair, excited me. My spent cock was ready to come back to life. A touch, even a command, would have done it. And the concealed state of readiness heightened all of my senses.
We had come to the square of the Inns. There were suddenly bright lights all around us. Torches flared beneath the high painted Sign of the Lion, and the noise of a large crowd swelled through the open doorway.
I followed my Master to the entrance, and he gestured for me to kneel as he went inside, leaving me there. I rested back on my heels and peered into the gloom. Everywhere men laughed, talked, drank from their flagons. My Master was at the counter purchasing a full wineskin, which he already had in his hands as he spoke to the beautiful dark-haired woman with the red skirts whom I had seen that morning punishing Beauty.
And then, high on the wall behind the counter, I saw Beauty. She was bound to the wall, her hands above her head, her beautiful gold hair falling down behind her shoulders, and her legs were straddling the immense keg on which she sat, her eyes closed in pleasant sleep, it seemed, her luscious pink mouth half open. And on either side of her were other such slaves all dozing as if in deep fatigue, their whole attitude one of hopeless contentment.
O, if Beauty and I could only be alone for a moment. If I could only talk to her, tell her what I had learned and the feelings that had been aroused in me.
But my Master had come back, and bidding me to rise, he led the way out of the square. We were soon at the west gates of the village and we walked along the country road that led to the manor house.
He put his arm around me, offered me the wineskin.
It was beautifully quiet now under the high dome of stars. Only one coach passed us on the road and it seemed a moonlight vision.
A team of twelve Princesses brought it smartly along, the lovelies harnessed three across in snow-white leather, and the coach itself was exquisitely gilded. To my amazement, my Mistress Julia rode in the coach beside a tall man, and both waved, as they passed, to my Master.
“That is the Lord Mayor of the village,” said my Master softly to me.
We turned before we reached the manor house. But I knew we were already on his land, and we walked over the grass, through the fruit trees, and towards the nearby hills that were densely covered in forest.
I don’t know how long we walked. Maybe an hour. And we settled finally on a high slope halfway uphill with the valley spread out before us. The clearing was just large enough for us to make a little fire and to sit back against the side of the hill, the dark trees hovering over us.
My Master tended the fire until it was going well. Then he lay back. I sat up with my leg crossed looking at the towers and peaks of the village. I could see the brilliant glare of the Place of Public Punishment. The wine made me sleepy and my Master stretched out, with his hands beneath his head and his eyes wide open and fixed on the dark blue moonlit sky above and the grand sweep of the constellations.
“I have never loved any slave as I love you,” he said calmly.
I tried to restrain myself. To listen only to my heartbeat for a moment in the stillness. But I said all too quickly:
“Will you buy me outright from the Queen and keep me in the village?”
“Do you know what you are asking?” he said. “You’ve only endured two days here.”