Her decision made, she slipped the counterpane down over her knees once again, and spreading her legs and dipping her fingers into the love juice still dripping from her pouting labial folds. Sensuously, she anointed both his lips with her honey, pushing her fingers into his mouth and rubbing the glutinous yield over his tongue.

"I will be ready when you come for me," she said simply.

Prince Vulkan stood in the centre of the field. Before him the huge figure of Count Branco, the king's champion, settled his battered shield on to his arm and hefted his broadsword ready to begin another attack.

The roar of the crowd seemed come from all around, rolling over the field like thunder as the two knights began to warily circle one another yet again. The champion was the favourite of the crowd, to both vanquish the upstart foreign prince and carry off the beloved Princess Flamia.

However, Vulkan had other ideas. The satyr had come to the summer festival as Malpurgo had instructed and easily fought his way through the lists to this final combat with the never before beaten Branco. However, the Champion was weakening after twenty minutes of punishing combat. His best and most powerful attacks had been easily warded off by the unknown prince and for the first time the knight who had never before tasted defeat, began to face up to the prospect of being beaten at the very moment of his greatest triumph!

Summoning up all of his reserves of strength and courage Branco attacked again, his great sword whirling above his head as he advanced. Vulkan parried and blocked repeatedly as Branco pressed home his attack. The clang and clash of their flashing swords echoed around the field as they fought back and forth with a ferocity that had the crowd on its feet, baying like a pack of wolves for blood.