“Well, I have considered it, my lord,” Tristan answered. “This is why I invited Lady Eva to come down earlier today.”
“And you’ve seen him, Eva?” asked the King. “So what do you think? Can you break him? I’d be surprised if you couldn’t. I’ve yet to see a slave you couldn’t break.”
“I thank you, sire,” she said. “He’s as fit to be a slave as any man I’ve ever whipped. He wants it with his whole heart, but he’s going to require great severity and I suspect that severity must come from a man.”
“But shouldn’t he be taught to obey both men and women?” asked Tristan. “Who is he to choose one over the other?”
“Once he’s broken and trained, Prince,” said Eva, “he will submit to either with good manners. But he’s a long way from being broken.”
“What do you suggest?” asked the Queen.
“Well, I have asked Prince Dmitri to join us because I think that he may well be the one to break and train this sort of slave in the village.”
The King laughed. I’m sure that he already suspected that I’d been summoned for this purpose, but he laughed when it was said aloud. “The village for the late queen’s cousin. And to think years ago he so wanted to be sent there!” He took a deep drink of his wine and then bent to pour out a little of it in the puppy boy’s plate.
I couldn’t prevent myself from watching as the boy lapped up the wine, tongue darting like that of a puppy all right and licking his lips in the same way. Quite a puppy boy, and quite a slave—secretly bristling with humiliation and shame, as far as I could tell, yet obeying so unreservedly.
“Prince Dmitri,” asked the Queen. “What do you have to say?”
“I am more than willing to take him in hand, Your Majesty,” I answered. “I find him very appealing. I remember . . . I remember when I first came to the kingdom, how I failed everyone for months on end. I am rather excited by the challenge. I’ll gladly whip him back to the village tonight.”
The Queen raised her eyebrows. “Lady Eva, this is what you have in mind?”
Tristan looked forlorn. He was resting his elbows, staring at the glistening joint of meat before him, which he had hardly touched. His eyes were dreamy and sad.
“Tristan, you are unhappy?” asked the Queen. “Please speak completely. I must know your heart. And more to the point, I must know what you think of his.”
Tristan started to answer but then fell silent as if he needed to gather his thoughts.
I spoke up softly. “You have not told me this slave’s name, but I think I know exactly who he is. May I ask—are there some special circumstances surrounding his training of which I’m not aware? I noticed he was wearing a handsome painted mask. It covered not just his eyes but the upper part of his cheeks and most of his nose. I’m not sure anyone would know him with this mask. Has he asked for this mask?”
“No, Prince,” said Tristan. “I was the one who put him in the mask. I thought it would go easier for him if he were masked. And if he goes to the village, if that is the decision here, might he not be masked for the first week?”
Tristan looked miserable.
“I mean if it all goes wrong,” said Tristan. “Can he be spared the gossip and the shame? A week perhaps with the mask lest someone from the Court see him and cry out ‘There goes Lord Stefan!’”
“You’re imagining the worst,” said Beauty. “He is quite beautiful and sensitive and I suspect he has aptitude, as we say.”
“Well, he does, without question,” I replied. “I saw that myself. His cock couldn’t have been any harder when I’d seen him. And it never flagged as I inspected him.”
Tristan was too downcast to speak. He shook his head.
“Tristan, Lord Stefan has lived in this kingdom all his life,” said Queen Beauty. “He’s never lived anywhere else. It is unspeakable to live in misery in such a kingdom as this and never be able to give vent to your deepest feelings, to be denied what you truly want.” A blush flared in her cheeks as she said this. “I say give him to Prince Dmitri and let him be plunged mercilessly into what he wants! Has he begged you to let him go, to return him to his old station?”
“No, he hasn’t,” said Tristan in a murmur. “But he suffers.”
“He suffers because he isn’t broken,” said Lady Eva, “and the mask, the mask is a way of bringing him along slowly. He’s a colt. But he can certainly grow into a stallion.”
Tristan gestured that he would speak. He looked imploringly at Beauty. His large blue eyes were filled with the glint of the nearby fire, and his hair looked golden. I secretly thought this fine and philosophical man was hardly the right person to master any unbroken slave, but I waited.
“I think this,” said Tristan. “Stefan cannot return to Court and be as he was. He cannot. He will go out of his mind with grief for his failures, and over his longings, and he will end up eventually wandering away from the kingdom and he will be lost.”
The Queen nodded. “I agree with you.”
“He has never once begged to return,” Tristan said. “He has not begged me and he has not begged Lady Eva, but he weeps uncontrollably for hours, and my precious Blanche and Galen her groom are miserable in trying to console him. I don’t know if he can survive the village without running away, running away from his own desires, from the shame of living in the old way, from the rigors he’s forced to embrace. I just don’t know.”
“Give him to me,” I said. “I used to be just like him.”
“But you were young then,” said Tristan. “So was I.”
“He’s young,” said Eva, “in his heart he’s young. And besides, age does not matter. We have older slaves coming to us now daily. Dmitri likes older slaves. He was just explaining this to me earlier. Surely you’ve all seen César, the King’s favorite pony. César is forty.”
“Yes, but he’s been a pony in the village for twenty years,” said Tristan, “and now he’s been elevated to the Royal Stables.”
Silence.
“Clearly you are as torn as he is,” said Eva to Tristan. “Tristan, it is you. You are the problem here. You cannot train him. And the King is right. It goes back to your early love as boys, and to his failure to master you. You’re pleading with him to be your obedient slave, as he once pleaded with you.”
I knew this was true. I remembered.
I had seen Lord Stefan with Tristan at Court before I’d been exiled to the village. Lord Stefan couldn’t master anyone.
No one spoke.
“Give him to me,” I said.
Tristan turned to me and our eyes met.
“If I think he’s going mad, I will send for you,” I said.
Silence.
“Tristan,” said Beauty. She looked across the table, her blue eyes as soft and earnest as they had always been. “Dmitri is right and perfect for this. I shall take the decision out of your hands. I do this for both you and Stefan. Stefan will go with Dmitri tonight. And yes, he will be masked for seven days at least, and for however long after that Dmitri feels is right. And you, my lord, must put your old lover out of your mind till he’s broken, trained, and perfected.”
ii
It was a clear night. I stood on the old road, the winding road that ran through the woods to the village. It was rocky in places and overgrown, but it was perfect. I’d walked it only a week ago alone, in my roaming of the kingdom.
I’d sent word to the village that I did not need a coach tonight. Here, beyond the torches of the manor house, I could see the stars clearly above in the wide margin of glowing sky between the banks of the high oak forest. The air was warm and sweet with the scent of pine and oak and all the lively green things of the wood. No wild beasts prowled the great thick forests of Bellavalten.
Slowly three figures approached. Two big hulking guards with bright torches who would lead the way, and the pale, naked, and trembl
ing masked slave between them.
A thin leather strap had been bound around Stefan’s chest and arms, and his hands, behind his back, had been tethered to it.
The first guard came up to me and gave me the handle of the leash.
The slave was booted and gloved as I’d requested. I inspected him carefully. He stood before me shaking more violently perhaps than any slave I’d ever beheld. His golden mask glinted in the torchlight. It was impossible to see into his soul through the dark eyeholes. But the artful work of the mask made him look handsome. And his mouth was wet and shuddering. His cock was hard.
I looked at the leash.
“Unhook it,” I said. “He’s going to walk for me of his own will quite well. Unbind him. Gather up the straps. Roll up the leash and keep all this in your belt.”
The guard obeyed without the slightest argument. I knew him well, one of the Captain’s finest. What did he care if a slave was going to be beaten through the forest?
The other guard came forward with the long thick leather strap I’d requested. I took it and felt of it and weighed it. A fine thong for whipping.
Not too wide or heavy for my hand to hold it easily, but broad enough and heavy enough to make a good spanking sound. It was three feet long and dark, almost black, the natural color of the leather.
“Walk ahead, just a little way,” I said to the two guards. “That’s it. Now keep that distance in front of us so we are in the light of your torches.”
They acknowledged and waited.
Stefan suddenly sank to his knees, his hands flung out before him. He cried bitterly.
“No, my lord, that will never do!” I said. I pulled him up hard by his left arm until he found his footing. “Now get those hands on the back of your neck!”
At once he obeyed, though he cried as bitterly as ever.
“Lips sealed!” I said in a sharp impatient voice. I ran a finger over his mouth. Certainly he was trying to obey. “I mean keep them firmly pressed shut! You can sob your heart out, but not out loud!”
I whacked him hard with the belt three, four, five times, but he stood firm, though he was choked with sobs.
“Now start walking!”
I began to whip him hard as he obeyed.
“Faster,” I said. “I mean it. Pick up the pace!”
At once he struggled forward and I continued to pile on the blows, and of course the guards picked up their pace too.
“Onward, pick up those feet!” I whipped him again and again.
Finally I was driving him as fast as he could go, with the guards striding ahead, and smacking him harder and harder.
As I had hoped, he had forgotten about everything else in the world but moving at my command, and his sobs had died to groans.
I now chased him handily with the belt, smacking his legs, making him jump, but he scurried to keep ahead of me.
“Move those feet. Move them faster. Guards, set a brisker pace.”
I drew up alongside of him and spanked his posterior as hard as I could, driving him into a frantic trot. I was still quite comfortable walking but this was perfect, his trotting, and I pounded him all the harder. His cock never wavered, but remained hard as stone. And so did mine.
On and on through the dark forest we moved, the only sound the crackling of the torches, the thwack of the strap, and his high-pitched moans, and occasional bursts of muted sobbing.
He was breathing harder and harder, so I slowed down, commanding him to walk again and not to trot, and spanking his backside with even harder blows when he failed to immediately obey.
He was getting out of breath. I could hear it and see it.
“Stop,” I commanded. With a deep shudder he stood still. “Back straight,” I said. “Head up. And don’t you dare unclasp those hands!” I gave him four or five very hard whacks. He was bending with each blow, almost dancing, as we say, and this was precisely what I wanted.
“Guards, come here.” They obeyed at once, flanking us. “Now you, my lord, put your gloved hands down on the ground and spread your legs.”
He began to go down on his knees.
“No, hands down, legs straight and wide!” I commanded. I lifted him under his belly, jerking him up, and soundly punished him for his clumsiness. His hands were now on the earth but his legs were wobbling. His cock jumped.
“Now guards, each carry one ankle. Our postulant is going to walk on his hands for a while. And I am going to walk beside him and school his pretty posterior in obedience.”
A wail went up from him as if this were positively anguishing to him, but the guards speedily obeyed, each clasping one ankle and carrying the torch with the other hand.
“Now walk fast. We’re going to teach our little pupil what it means to please his master!” I said.
And off he went on his hands desperately because he couldn’t do anything else as the guards forced him to a brisk pace.
His beautiful backside was turned up towards me, open to me, and I wanted so to sink my aching cock into it, but this was not the time and I whacked him over and over as we walked on, moving as fast as I could move.
He cried with more abandon and more softly and exhaustedly, but his cock never flagged.
When we’d gone a good ways in this way with him scrabbling desperately to keep up the pace with his hands, I told the guards to set him on his feet again.
“Stand up straight and on both feet!” I shouted. “And now you’re going to run for me! Hands to the back of your neck. And you know what I want to see. I want to see those knees high and that head back. You’ve seen a thousand slaves run in that way, and you are going to do it for me perfectly.”
Desperately he struggled to obey. His sobs came evenly and brokenly but on he ran and I drove him faster and faster and faster till he began to wail again.
And so it went—walking, running, stopping, him dancing on his hands, and then running again—until we approached the gates of the village.
I saw the Captain of the Guard had come out to meet me.
I greeted him but was far too busy just now to chat, and I kept whacking my charge and forcing him to march as we passed through the gates.
Stefan was now drenched in sweat and utterly worn down and thoroughly exhausted. I wished I could see beneath the mask, but I couldn’t. His cock told the story if his face could not.
“Now, carry him,” I said to the guard I knew. “Over your shoulder to the Public Turntable.”
Nothing unnerves a slave as much as being tossed over a brawny man’s shoulder, and up he went like a bundle of goods, and found himself upside down and sniveling and weeping uncontrollably. But it had lost that desperate edge of panic sound. It was the empty powerless weeping that I wanted.
The Place of Public Punishment was quiet at this hour though not deserted by any means.
The turntable was not engaged, though the whipping master was taunting the crowd to give him a partridge or a pork pie.
“Put him down on those steps,” I said, and the guard deposited Stefan with appropriate roughness on the steps as Stefan’s hands flew out to break his fall. This I did not mind as he had to go up using his hands and toes.
“Now up there, fast, and let me tell you, I want to see perfect composure on that turntable.” I spoke loudly enough for the groom and the whipping master to hear me, but they knew my ways and what I wanted.
Stefan scurried frantically to the top, his cock bobbing, and then the groom at once gripped him by the neck and forced him into the proper position.
The whipping master picked up my angry tone, as he always did, with a wink for me.
“Hands to the small of your back now, handsome little pork pie!” he said. “And a nice crowd’s gathering for you. You dare lift that chin off the beam and you’ll learn what it means to give them a show.”
I walked around ti
ll I could see Stefan’s face or what the mask revealed of it. His lips were shuddering and the tears bathed his cheeks and chin, but he was not daring to cough up his sobs, and he cried like one utterly defeated.
But he wasn’t utterly defeated.
And the crowd was pressing in, young couples coming round from the other booths and tents and amusements, glad to see some turntable sport. The groom was massaging the thick cream into Stefan’s sore flesh, and his whole body quivered and jumped at the feel of the fingers on his backside. But he didn’t dare to move.
“Can you see me down here watching you?” I called out. “I want an excellent show! You dare break form and I’ll come up there and take that paddle myself!” I called out. The crowd gave a great approving cheer.
Ah, the wonder of it, the way his torso tightened and his whole frame shuddered, yet he did not remove his hands from the small of his back or try to get up from his knees. He had learned so much already.
Finally, the good sound spanking with the paddle commenced and the crowd began to chant the number of the blows.
I stepped back the better to enjoy the spectacle. The Captain of the Guard came up beside me with a cup of wine. I took it gratefully and drank. “Ah, that’s so good.”
“And who’s the sleek piglet?” he asked.
“Let’s just call him the Masked One for now,” I said. “As the King and Queen wish it. The Masked One is going to learn more tonight about submission than ever he’s learned in his whole life.”
My eyes were fixed on him, watching every jerk and jump and shudder. His cock was beautifully hard, and soon his knees were jittering just as the crowd wanted, and cheers rose all around as he twisted reflexively trying to avoid the paddle which he had no chance of escaping.
It was a horrific paddling.
At last, I signaled to the whipping master, and the groom caught Stefan’s shoulders and brought him up so the whipping master could take his arms and then hold him up by his wrists and turn him and twist him on his knees for the crowd to see the dark red and sore flesh of his entire backside. He’d been so thoroughly whipped and spanked, there was scarcely a bit of white flesh showing. And I could see he was limp, utterly pliant, utterly without resistance. His mouth was open in jagged breaths but he dared not make a sound. The gold coins and tokens flew from everywhere. And I waved for the groom to keep them. When I brought my slaves here for punishment, I never collected them.