As Jayne contemplated the implications of the young woman's tagged sex, Don Estanio came over and spoke softly to Lady J. She smiled and nodded, the wide brim of her hat exaggerating the slight movement of the head. As Don Estanio moved back toward the table, Lady J. summoned her niece with a genteel raising of the fingers of her right hand, and moved to the blind side of the frame. Jayne, her eyes gleaming, joined her.

In the interim, the pale breasts of the fettered filly had reddened to a hectic crimson within the constriction of their rubber binding, the nipples and heavily swollen aureoles almost purple. As Lady J. predicted, her discomfort had increased considerably, and she now uttered occasional, brief groans.

'She is ready for ringing now' explained Lady J., resuming her role as commentator. 'You will feel, I imagine, that the manner in which this is accomplished is brusque and un-feeling to a degree. Quite intentionally the procedure, which even if accompanied by as much gentleness as were manageable would still, since no anaesthetic is used, involve the girl in some discomfort, is instead carried out with quite deliberate callousness. It will probably seem to you rather cruel, even brutal.

'But as I say, it is part of the culture. Each sponsor knows that at this moment, his filly will be treated very harshly, to test her, and expects it. The filly too knows that she is to be put to a test, a physical ordeal, and expects it.

‘The owner would lose face if it became known his charge had been treated any differently - as indeed would the girl herself, among her peers. No pony-girl would wish it said of her, once she were in the stables, that when she had been taken to the blacksmith she was let off actually quite lightly, that she had not been 'put through it' properly. The harder they are on her now, the more standing she has when she takes her place among what will be, after all, her rivals. And she accepts the rigours of the piercing itself - that is of being pierced by this method as opposed to any other, perhaps more humane, method - as being a necessary part of the process of toughening her nipples for the reins and harness.

'Here, she has a chance to show her mettle - which is why she will do her best to endure what will be done to her next if not in silence then at least with a minimum of noise. Should she struggle or cry out unduly the ringing will be stopped, and her enrolment process terminated. A great deal rides for her on how she comports herself in the next few minutes. The piercing of her nipples, the fitting of her rings, mark the defining moment of her acceptance as a pony-girl, her transformation, if you like. Watch, and observe.’

Following closely beside Lady J. Jayne moved round again to the other side of the board, the left side this time, the side to which the girl's face was turned. The tightly-bound young woman stood pressed hard up against the board, held firm and quite immobile by the straps, waiting. Her eyes were closed, but her lips were parted as her breathing settled, the tip of her tongue curling out over the parted lips, running across them to leave them moistened, glistening. Her back was arched to press her hard against the padded surface, a deep furrow between her shoulder blades. Don Estanio moved to the strap across her back, pulling firmly, tightening the strap by one, then two notches. The girl grunted quietly in response. Don Estanio placed a hand on the girl's up-pulled shoulder, and quietly uttered one word.

'Ready?' The girl, her cheek pressed flat against the rubber padding of the ringing frame, replied, her voice barley more than a whisper.

'Oui. Je suis pres. Poursuivez-vous, s'il vous plait.’

Jayne instantly recognised the familiar formula, the very formula she herself had been taught during her own training that she must use at the commencement of any trial.

'Ready. Please begin.’

By these words, Jayne instantly knew, the girl freely and without reservation offered her breasts for Don Estanio's most rigourous test of her fortitude.

Moving slightly to her left Jayne could simply by moving her head see both sides of the board against which the girl stood. From such an angle the girl's reddened breasts, thrust through the holes and gripped tight by the stretched rubber, appeared unnaturally hard and round, thrusting forward horizontally, the nipples engorged and swollen.

With Lady J. she moved wholly to the front side of ringing board, where only the unnatural, isolated breasts could be seen. Don Estanio stood by the far side of the ringing frame, with the plier-like stapler again in his grasp. At the end of the jaws of the stapler - Jayne could not see precisely how - had been fitted the opened split ring which, Jayne rightly surmised, was now to be driven through the swollen nipple. Beside Don Estanio, the leather-aproned blacksmith again held his pair of tormenting, rubber-tipped tongs. Barely perceptibly, Lady J. nodded to Don Estanio and, with a gesture to begin, the trainer spoke in Spanish to the blacksmith.

Using the tongs, the blacksmith gripped the right nipple tightly, placed his free hand against the flat board between the two breasts and with deliberate callousness pulled hard, drawing the tender breast even further through the hole until it was cruelly stretched, the nipple and pink aureole pulling outwards in an extended cone. From behind the boards came a low, rasping groan.

For the girl, Jayne realised, the ordeal was heightened by not being able to see what was being done. She had been told the procedure, even shown the piercing tool; she knew the moment was at hand. But she could not see the progress of her ordeal, did not know at what precise moment the pain would come, must even guess, by what she felt, what each pull and tug represented. But she clearly sensed that it must be almost time. The pace of her breathing speeded up, sucking shallow panting gasps through parted lips as she contained the hurt in her over-stretched breast and tightly squeezed nipple.

The breast was held stretched taut, pulled remorselessly into an elongated cone, for several seconds before Don Estanio placed the open jaws of the stapler over the clamped nipple, close up behind where the tongs exerted their cruel grip. In a low voice, speaking in Spanish, he counted slowly: 'una, dos, tres, quatro, cinco..’

At five he abruptly squeezed the plier-grip of the stapler closed and with a dull metallic click the sharpened end of the open ring was driven cleanly through the pulled-taut gristle. The girl gave a single, deep moan, almost a sob rather than the cry which the dry-mouthed Jayne had expected and then her breath came in rapid, rasping gasps.

As the blacksmith continued to pull on the greatly elongated nipple, Don Estanio tugged the piercing pliers downwards so that the ring, which was held in a cleft on the very end of the implement, was freed. The blacksmith released the tongs and the cruelly stretched breast sprang elastically free, the dull metal ring spike-like through the swollen teat, gripped tightly by the surrounding flesh so that it sat out above and beyond the end of the now bulging nipple, rather than hanging downwards as might be expected.

Setting the pliers aside, Don Estanio took the end of the nipple between finger and thumb, holding it firmly while working the ring fully through the pierced and now almost purple, heavily swollen stalk, twisting and turning it until the ring had been pushed exactly half way through while the girl's harsh breathing was overlaid with tiny moans at each tug on her flesh. Finally, satisfied that the nipple was properly ringed, he squeezed shut the hollow end of the ring over the barbed point.

Throughout, the girl had uttered no cry other than the low moans of her heightened, gasping breathing.

The two men waited for a pause, and in the silence the girl's panted breathing settled. For once Lady J. did not comment. After a long moment of silence in the ringing room, the blacksmith moved toward the girl's left breast, shifting as he did so the tongs into his own left hand so that he still stood directly in front of the board through which the breast so blindly thrust.

Lady J. glanced at her niece. Jayne stood rigid, transfixed by and absorbed in the scene before her, her gloved hands clasped tightly before her, held before her own breasts almost protectively, but clasped together as a supplicant in prayer. Her eyes shone and her own breathing almost matched that of the young woman being pierced, so shallow and rapid was it in its tension. But whether that tension was caused by horror, by alarm, by fear or by excitement would be impossible - at least for a stranger - to tell. Lady J. smiled lightly to herself: she knew her niece very, very well.

Jayne, she knew, could not divorce herself from what she was seeing; could not, on the contrary, but help imagining herself in the young woman's place. And Lady J suspected, quite rightly, that neither could her niece, try as she might, rid herself of the frisson of sexual excitement which the thought of having such a thing done to her, of surrendering herself to such an ordeal, of putting herself to such a trial, provoked within her trembling loins. Beneath the crisply feminine summer dress, held firm and high as they were by the strictures of her own rigorous corseting, Jayne's own nipples, stiffly erect since the pony-girl's ordeal began, ached dully but steadily.

Again, the blacksmith fitted the rubber jaws of the tongs over the pony-girl's already distended nipple. He used them to tug roughly and several times at the thickly distended teat, pulling it out into even stiffer projection until he was satisfied that he could render the nipple no larger. Carefully he placed the rubber grips as close to the end of the enpurpled nipple as he dared before closing them on the tender flesh and squeezing hard.

The girl's breathing quickened again, and this time there was an unmistakable whimper as the tongs begin to draw her reddened breast outward. This time, she knew exactly what to expect - and could not quite stifle her fearful anticipation. As Don Estanio moved round to the blacksmith's left elbow, the reloaded ringing tool already held ready, the blacksmith placed his right hand again between the two breasts and once more pulled hard on the captive nipple.

The breast stretched cruelly, and the girl gasped fitfully. Don Estanio waited as the breast was drawn fully forward.

'A little more' he said in English. 'She is to remember this moment for many months to come. ' The blacksmith took his right hand from between the twin globes, placing it over his left to tighten the grip of the tongs, and actually leaned backwards, pulling the stretching flesh into a long cone, the nipple and its pink halo elongated to more than the length of a man's thumb. The girl uttered a long, virtually continuous groan - but still did not cry out. Don Estanio fitted the piercing tool over the stretched nipple, and nodded to the blacksmith, who continued his steady pull.

'Una, dos, tres, quatro, cinco...' and again the dull metallic crunch as the finely sharpened spike was driven through the tough teat-flesh. The second nipple was cruelly pierced.

When both the girl's breast-tips had been ringed to his complete satisfaction, Don Estanio moved behind the blank wall of the ringing frame to the girl's side. From a jug on the table he poured a glass of water, took it to the girl and lifted it to her lips. She opened her eyes and tilted her head to drink, and the Don raised the glass, following the tilt of her head, so that some of the water spilled out the side of her mouth, trickling down her chin. He took the glass away, and the girl, to Jayne's utter amazement, smiled, her breath still sounding in short, sharp pants. Jayne heard the young woman murmur, softly, 'merci - thank you.’

Almost tenderly, Don Estanio too smiled and smoothed her hair, wiping her lips with a pure white lawn handkerchief. With one finger he took a tendril of black hair where it had stuck damply to the perspiring temple, and curled it back over her ear.

'Almost finished' he said quietly. 'Only your crupper-mark still to do, then it will be over. Be brave.' She parted her lips, exhaling deeply, and nodded her head in acknowledgement. She allowed her right cheek once more to rest against the rubber padding against which her body was so tightly pressed by the heavy straps, and closed her eyes again. The black rubber by her hands, Jayne noticed, was marked and scuffed where her fingers had clawed deep vertical furrows.

There was a rattling sound from the direction of the grate, and a trembling, silent Jayne shifted her fascinated gaze to see the blacksmith settling the ends of the long metal rods more firmly into the bright orange heart of the small fire. As Jayne watched, unable to tear her eyes away for even a second, utterly absorbed, her mind whirling, he pulled one from the fire to check the heated end. Casually, he turned the rod away from the fire for a moment, allowing Jayne to see clearly the glowing curl of shaped wire set at right angles to the rod itself, the wire shaped into the form of a Norman shield with, stretched across as a diagonal, a rudimentary likeness of the spread wings of a raven in flight.

Already, as the blacksmith made to bury it back in the heart of the small fire, it glowed a dull red. Beside the fire he had set a large copper water pitcher.

'She will be given a few moments more' said Lady J. to her niece 'to recover her composure, and to allow the irons to become properly heated. Then she will be branded.

'But come. I think you have seen enough.’