Chapter 5

The lonely and wandering naked girl was aroused by the rain. It fell on her unprotected body, driven stingingly against it by a fierce wind which had been blowing up all night. Only her extreme exhaustion had caused her not to be wakened long since. She recalled the Fairy's harsh sentence. No shelter from the wind and rain and burning sun. The despair that she was beginning to feel left her. If this was to be her fate, then so be it. She would survive - somehow!

She scrambled to her sore feet and started walking again. Her every step was the purest agony, and she could no longer resist the imperative need to weep. Her tears mingled with the rain as it swept her tortured body. That beautiful body, delicate and frail, shook with her sobs, but she still kept on, never once flinching from her destiny.

This weather was dreadful enough, she reflected, but the Winter would be impossible for her to survive. It could remain many degrees below freezing for weeks, even months, on end in these parts. Many a time had she and Martha been forced to remain indoors, looking out at the white wilderness, for weeks at a time. No mortal could live in the great outdoors through that white hell and certainly not a frail girl in her vulnerable and unclothed state!

She must head South, to lands where the sun shone strongly all year round. There was no other hope for her, and she must travel quickly, as she had many leagues to cover on her feet before she could feel she had escaped the danger of freezing in the harsh cold of her native climate.

Night soon fell and she found a spot beneath a tree, where she laid her weary and famished body to rest. It was chilly and she shivered. Already, the ordeal was taking a fearful toll on a body already weakened by weeks of grief. She touched the ring - that sole covering for her nakedness.

No sooner had she done this than two white shapes emerged out of the gloom. When they came near, she saw that there were two huge white dogs approaching. She was about to cry out with fear, when she remembered who she was and forced herself to face these fearsome hounds bravely. There was no cause for alarm, however! The wagging of their enormous tails and the friendly grins on their faces was proof enough of that!

One dog settled itself on one and the other on the other side of the Princess. Together they covered her tired and naked body from the cold and she fell thankfully asleep. When morning came her two canine protectors had vanished, but the poor naked wanderer had slept well. She was still very hungry, though. It was vital she eat soon or she would perish.

After walking for a couple of hours, she came upon a two men, on their way to their work in the fields. She stopped them, forcing herself in her desperation, to confront them in her nakedness.

"Please, kind sirs, I am hungry. If you give me food, I will work for you all day until I drop from exhaustion. I ask no charity! Please let me work for you, that I might eat!"

One of the two looked doubtfully at her, but his companion smiled and addressed her in his rough and ready country manner. "There's one kind of "work" a beauty like you could do that would involve no more than lying on your pretty backside for a few minutes! Here's a gold piece, if you will only come into that wood with me for a while, my pretty! Not a lot of meat on you, but what there is of you is very nice!"

Although sex-education was still many years in the future as a part of most countries' educational curricula, the former Princess was no fool. She knew full well what this creature wanted! She glared scornfully at the insolent man, telling him that she would sooner die than sell her body, which was, one day, to be the sole property of her chosen man.