Open the little gate that leads into a cinder path where in the spring the primroses grow in clusters by the fence. Follow the path as far as you can then you will come into a garden. The colour of the trees changes with the season. The mimosa blossoms into a deep yellow in midsummer after the laburnums and the forsythia and long after the cherry tree and the apple. Cross the garden by the rose bushes, the deep yellow ones that bob and shiver in the slightest breeze. Go down the bank that separates the upper from the lower lawns and smell the deep drowsy must of the fig tree. Stand on the lawn and stare at the cloudless sky, knowing that within the house live those who care for you and whom you love. My Alsatian, Bel, if it lives will want to go for walk. Cross the lawn and go into the cool, stony house and you can enter where I can no longer go.

Even to speak of that earlier place that other time is a privilege granted that I may account for the night that has taken place of my life. It was raining on the day I ceased to exist. I remember it clearly, a cool much-wanted summer rainfall under which I had lingered after the fierce heat of the day. I had been asked to work on a neighbouring farm. It was getting late and I decided to take the path across the fields that went through the riding school. Those whom I once called my parents lived in a house on the other side of the hill which rose behind the school. It could only be reached by a long road that wound in and out of the border, requiring checks, even at night. Instead I knew of a lane that ran by some coppices and then wound up the side of hill to descend steeply to the village the first house of which was my home.

The village had been my nursery, my school, my university and my church. Now I have only my apprenticeship in hell. I was never to reach my home that rainy evening and will never go there again by any path.

As I passed the School, hearing the whinnying of the beasts, I saw a figure dressed in black. It was indistinct, but its white face and stiff posture put me at once in a state of dread and awe. As the figure approached, I made it out to be that of a woman. Her face was beautiful and yet I was overcome with a sense of dread and heavy despair such as I had never felt before. I was staring at the face of dear Pomona who had died a year ago. She had escaped a terrible oppression, yet had paid for her freedom on a criminal's scaffold. She stood for a long time at a distance then put a finger over her lips and beckoned me to follow her. My Pomona had always been a happy and positive spirit and my heart was bursting in a terrible mingling of pity and fear. I have never forgotten the odour of cinders and hibiscus that had risen in the dank air. Terrified and fascinated, I followed the dead Pomona back through the drizzle into the stables where the only light was a burning brand outside the manor house from which the East wing and the West wing of the stables ran. She was surely dead for her face had the pallor and the stiff horror of corpses and yet she moved with an electric agility.

I followed her again, not heeding the shouts of servants as I entered the stable yard. The ghastly figure beckoned me to approach one of the stable doors. I could tell by the motions of its cadaverous hand that it wanted me to open both sections. As it did so it gave me a look of such longing that I saw again my Pomona and I opened the door to lift from her whatever further damnation she had incurred. I knew enough about the ways of superstition to be sure the damned seek to restore an earthly fault which they are powerless to bring about. A man was standing there wearing a black coat and an old peasant's hat. He did not see the figure who was leading me to him. As I approached, Pomona's unnatural ghost stood on his other side and continued to gesture at me with an unblinking countenance. She gave me a look of the most intense supplication and nodded gravely and slowly. We had always been loyal. I slipped the latches and a white horse bolted from the stables. The figure thrust something into my hands, threw itself on the stallion's back and rode off or vanished into the intense dark. "Don't be frightened. Your will is mine now." I heard a whisper. It was Pomona's voice. I looked round at the figure. It was staring at me from the top of an invisible mount, with a look of triumphant hate. Her eyes were blazing in the moonlight. It was the last I was ever to see of that fearful apparition.

"Stop, don't you know what your doing?" the man asked me. "What have you got in your hand?" I looked down. I was holding a knife which only she could have passed me. In my surprise I jabbed it forwards without meaning to. The man took my wrist with a grip that seemed fit to shear off my hand, yet I could tell he was not a violent man.

"Will you drop the knife? You can't get away."

"Yes." I answered. I dropped the vile weapon.

I heard him give a gentle sigh of relief. Shocked, I pulled back. The man stared at me, as he gently led me towards the stables.

"If I turn you over to the Bourgeoisie tomorrow, the community will have its revenge, yet I won't get back my horse. Will you tell me who your accomplice is, with whom you arranged to steal my stallion?"

"It was a ghost. The ghost of a dead friend who made me undo the door and gave me the knife."

"Ghosts do not carry real knives. You acted alone then. Do you admit I have no choice but to take you in tonight?"

I wanted to tell the man he could let me go. I was not guilty of trespass, or theft. If he could only understand that I had no accomplice, then as a member of a respectable family he need not be frightened of me. My presence could be explained in that I had followed a ghost. All this I rehearsed in my mind, for I was too fearful to speak, though whether it was out of terror of the spectral figure or fear of further punishment for my trespass I will now never know. I was led to a barn. It was pitch dark and cold. The man gestured I was to enter. I did so. He left me locked in the barn. I cast my worried eyes about the vast night of that place, half wanting, half fearing the spectre's return.

Had we not been such dear friends I would never have trusted her. Now I felt the pain of a strange betrayal even though it was beyond the grave. Pomona had died in a state of grace and only the deepest trembling told me now my happy childhood companion was among those who my parents speculated were not of the Lord. As I contemplated this my mind grew colder than the floor of any barn and my limbs stiffer than any locks. My soul was struck down with a horror no blindness, no darkness could fathom.

Another spirit had come. Evil and earthly it licked me on my face and threw hay over me. In a grated high pitched voice it told me I had liberated a girl from a state of fallen nature. Now I had replaced her, the creature would always look after me. I felt reassured and so glad, though a fiery awe trembled inside me at the thought I owed so much to this physical brute endowed with unholy speech. I marvelled that I still lay prone despite his help. He nuzzled me. I grew warm inside. His breath was warm and arousing. It smelt of sweat, straw and leather.

The next day I woke. The sunlight was shining through the broken slats in the wood and under the great doors. Cold and wet, I was shivering as I heard the varied sounds of barking dogs, the laughter of children, the crowing of cocks, the clucking of hens and the whinnying of animals. I heard the distant chorus of birds, recognising the distinct notes of the blackbird, the doves and the clattering of magpies. Yet a joyful sound recollected in suffering awakens a worse anxiety than any further trial. Why should the birds sing, when I lie here, a trespasser to be judged a thief by a man gentle and just enough to bid me whether I had acted freely before taking me into his custody?

The door opened. Someone bent down and raised me to my feet. I stiffened hoping my gaoler would not notice the efforts I had made to batter down the door... Then I realised the gentle animal of the night had been no more than a dream. He raised me to my feet. I muttered and moaned, yet the man did not listen. I blushed involuntarily. He was younger than the other man, quite handsome in fact, yet rougher and unable to decide my fate for himself. I had wanted him to tell my parents and to listen to my defense. Neither he nor anyone else has listened since.

I was taken through the farmyard, stared at by the children who made me feel so ashamed, I blushed again. I was not taken to the Manor House but to another stable where I was given over to young woman whose English jodhpurs told me she was a stablewoman. I expected kindness from her, bur received only cold indifference. She curtly told me to undress. I blushed for the third time that terrible morning. I wanted to thank her for offering me a bath, yet when I looked round in the parquet floored saddling room I found there was no pitcher, nor tub. Bemused I asked if I was to fetch it myself, for fain I would not walk about a public place so immodestly. The woman laughed and took hold of my hair. As her grip tightened, I began to squirm and gasp. She tied my hair into pony tail, which I assumed I had no right to touch.

"I'm sorry I trespassed last night, but you have no right to keep me here. Hand me over to the gendarmes and I will explain everything."

"Did you not say you came willingly?"

"Yes, last night and I still submit to your authority, but it must also be according to the law."

"The law holds sway over men and men hold sway over beasts. Justice will take you away, when at least we have you in return for the horse. Bend down."

I was forced to my knees on the wooden floor. My hands were pinioned with what the woman called a local pair of steel and leather back bands. She placed a strange coupling of steel and leather around my neck. It was not an instrument of lawful restraint, which I might have properly deserved. It stretched my neck and greatly impaired its free and painless movement. I cried like a child, shouting "No! Get off me!"

At that, I felt the weight of a chain attached to a steel ring at the back of my neck band. I was led to another stable and pushed sharply against the wooden gate of a stall. I hard the sound of steel clips being fastened. The door was opened and I was pushed in, helplessly crying and shouting to my everlasting shame. I lay there like a selfish brat, shrieking and cursing.

I found the following week or so a sobering and gradual awakening to my own habitual nature. At first my throat was raw with shouting. The children giggled and poked me with sticks. The hostler came every morning and threw a bucket of water over my shivering form. Food and water were left which at first I refused to touch. The man to whom I had first submitted myself would come and stare at me, looking at me in a way a man might stare, but in a fashion no rightious woman could comprehend. Towards the end of the week, I began to pine with hunger and thirst. They had realised I had been refusing food and what I had refused they now denied me.

I would stand at the double door begging for food and promising to behave. I had been punished. It had been terrible. If I could work for them as a servant for a year or so, then surely they would let me go. Village justice was often harsh and yet its vengeance was brief.

One night after wriggling on the pack straw out of hunger and thirst, I had a vision. It was a cold darkness that told me I was damned. I was an evil soul damned to hell. This explained the mystery of my treatment. Yet the beast creature wearing a long cloak told me I could evade the fate of the damned by living a life of pure nature, wholly to die, but never to suffer the torments of the relapsed.

The next day when the woman came to the stall, not only did she change my straw, but she found a changed girl. I drew her to me whinnying in the way I had heard the horses do in the next stall. I told her my dream and she smiled quietly to herself. She went and brought me some beans and cabbage on a plate which I wolfed down in the way animals do, without the use of hands fingers or arms. I gulped water from a trough, then braced myself for the morning buckets of ice-cold water. This time the woman brushed my skin down with a scrubber. It made my skin tingle with an animation I could not understand. It welled up with the same insistence as the impulses I felt generated by my thoughts that I would never use my arms in a human way again and then transmitted to my midriff and my flanks in a terrible spasm of vulnerable yet irrational energy.

Not entirely trusting my conversion, the woman took a tight hold of my neck chain and led me the saddling room, where she took a down some breeches, shortened to the groin and a leather jacket which laced up behind. Both smelled of uncured horse leather so pungent my eyes began to water. I was shod with strange boots with a hoof and pastern levelled. I felt my now redundant hands being fastened to the neck chain, which they called a martingale. This had the effect of delivering me a stiff upright mien, such as would be thought pride in a creature endowed with a soul, but was the nature of such a brute as a horse. I was led outside to the excited chatter of the farm-workers.

I still blushed at the sight of the young men and children staring at my naked legs. The man to whom I had first submitted took upon himself the suitable task of first chaining the front of my neck. He stared down at me with a grim look. I felt wretched.

"Though you have a steady hind foot, you have far to go. It will take time for a young mare to be broken to the harness. Do exactly what we ask," he ordered and pulled me sharply towards the yard. I was led into the open yard by the woman who made me make strange prancing steps raising my knees above my waist almost level to my breasts. My hind-fastened hands were firmly secured by the neck chain. At first I found it hard to do what she wanted, and then I found my stride, having always walked and run and climbed all my life. I kept telling myself that to embrace the condition of an animal and wholly to die was better than to suffer the pangs of thwarted love for God in the hell I was bound for. The better the animal I became the greater the chance of my extinction as an innocent brute. After several hours exercise I was exhausted and was led back to my stables where my harness was removed and I flopped down under the hay, never thinking I would welcome such a naked bed.

The next day I became aware there was another person in a nearby stall. I heard a familiar voice crying and stiffened under the hay. Had the spectre returned?

What further harm would those glittering eyes inflict? In the course of a difficult and restless night I began to realise that no ghost would cry so long and so wretchedly. A terrible thought struck me, supposing my Pomona (whose human name I am bound not to utter) had not died in the flood, for her body had never been found. Supposing she had been entrapped as I had been? She had been promised release but had been betrayed.

I was soon to have my fears set at ease as the next day I was paired for harness breaking with a beautiful, but pathetic figure. Yet I was so delighted I could not wait for the metallic clatter of ratchets being screwed on and being shod on my points and almost ran to see as she was led out of her stable attired exactly as I was.

"At least you're alive my sweet new companion" I gushed. "It's so wonderful to know you are not a ghost." I thrice kissed her cheeks and nuzzled her, not being able to embrace or shake hands.

However the girl was bitter. I knew nothing of how she came to be at the farm.

"Don't speak. If you do…"

Suddenly a cylinder of wood was thrust into my mouth. I bit on it instinctively. The piece of wood had a hole bored at each end. Thin ropes ran through them. They were instantly knotted at the bridge of my nose. Then I felt a double rope tighten over the parting of my hair where another reef knot was quickly and skillfully tied. The ropes separated and I felt the woman's fingers slip both ends over a loop which was pulled tight under my chin and ran to the nape of my neck where it was knotted firmly.

So much for conversation! The woman told me that mine was a temporary bit. She then explained the pieces she was placing on my companion who was being fitted with a steel and leather headstall. She struggled resentfully, but I wanted to soothe her though all I could manage was a moaning noise. The man came over to hold her head tight. The woman put a headpiece behind her ears, joined to a head band over her brow. Then two tight cheek straps ran down to her metal snaffle where they were secured. A throat latch just like my rope went round her neck where it was linked with steel rings to the reins and to her head band. I watched fascinated. I would have to wait. My reins were attached to a pair of wooden rings.

After the two of us were harnessed we were led out together, the double clang of hollow iron ringing out from our shoe hooves. The woman stood in the centre of the exercise area, holding both our reins. With a crack of her long whip we were coaxed into running in a circle. Then with detached and attentive snaps of the whip which brought sudden stings behind my buttocks, yesterday's lesson was enforced. At first we were forced to make short running steps at the cry of "walk". By watching my companion I fell just in time into a four beat rhythm. Lines from my dear favorite German writer, Klopstock, came to me with their regular rhythm and consoling words.

Im fruhlingsschatten fand ich sie;
Da band ich sei mit Rosenbandern

How those words stung me with an inner pain that made me forget by degrees the whipped nudity of my exposed hock, my gaskin and even as far down towards my fetlocks.

I found her in the shady Spring
and bound her up in chains of rose…

How I longed to wake like that girl into paradise, hearing the mutual rustle of rosy chains.

The reins press the chin rope onto my jaws. My tongue lolls on the wood. How ironic that silenced language should become the language of compliance in the same jaw. I am led about by my chin. "No dishing" the trainer shouts. A line of pain enforces that my short tripping leg movements stop swinging out, closing my legs to my flanks with the feel of the wooden bit in my mouth. "No brushing" she barks, as my feet come too close to my thighs. At intervals she stops us and checks for marks to what she calls my hind pasterns. Then she walks us out again. This time she gets me to turn away by pulling the rein on the cheek on the opposite side to the movement. We are already tired but constant pressure on the jaw gives us a headiness that releases a powerful but frightening energy. At first the martingale and the headstall is comforting and helps me comply. It has raised my arms keeping them free of my legs, by locking my hand chains and joining my neck. A moment comes when its comfort becomes a torment and without wishing it, we both become sluggish. Yet in everything I have ever done I would never be a sluggard.

Then the rhythm changes. How fastidiously my harness gives me little choice but to obey my trainers. Yet I am a creature of free will who knows they also own me. No horse knows this. How soon will it be before I can abandon my will as Pomona's last ghostly words promised me I could? This time we are being trotted out. She does not tell us, but the pressure of the rein and the whip together with pressure on our legs breaks into a two time movement. To keep us straight she checks us more strictly for dishing and brushing. The female body has only its hind legs to replicate the movement of a horse. Hence the increased use of the whip for ground covers. As a country girl I know how horses are trained. Yet my trainer uses the reins that control horses' forelegs. Each time she turns me with the rein against my neck I lose ground cover. The whip makes no difference. Her efficiency tells me she does not want to be cruel. How I long to talk to her about these problems, but silence is strictly enjoined.

The trot is a deadening pace that requires us to prance like Lippizaners and yet keep straight without kicking ourselves. At the end we are turned so that our legs cross as a horse's hind legs would. It is always painful. We clip clop back our heads still raised and are unharnessed, flopping gratefully onto the straw, glad our hand chains have been lowered. We perform all functions into the straw, making sure our nose bags and the trough are kept as clean as we can with the limited use of our hands. Yet another new use for the tongue. Everywhere there is the threat of flies and worms that frightens me. Farmyard children persecute us. Though the owners drive them off when they can, I find their curiosity more savage than the state I am trying to achieve.

After a month the full harness arrives. I did not think I could be thrilled at the thought. Yet I was intrigued. I have tried to keep human emotion out of my dealings with my owners as keepers or trainers. Viola, for I have overheard the name, will never be my mistress, nor will Mark be my master. This is why I keep silent unlike my whining training partner. They have a horse not a woman and I recognise the more they feel they are dealing with a horse the happier they are. All that was to change.

Viola came to the stable door, clipped the Martingale to my neck collar and put an extension piece on that ran from the front ring down to my pubis and then split into two thongs to follow the stifles and to join with an iron ring that bit into my private parts. She then reattached another from the ring to the martingale which now ran like a breeching between my buttocks to my crupper. My hands now dangled even higher and more uselessly and my posture became even more rigidly upright. I hissed and blew deep breaths with the pain, for which I was shown the short whip. Instead of the short leather jerkin and shorts, a breast strap of rigid new leather was buckled by a lattice harness and harness straps, six traces ran around my flank over the martingale and bound my upper arms to join with the same metal rings to six traces on my right flank and back to the tight breast strap that held my breasts rigidly to my ribs. The pain again made me draw a series of sharp intakes. With an almost absent minded whip blow to my flanks, Viola made it clear there should be no protest. I quickly steadied myself, making a neighing sound that I knew she found acceptable, accompanied by much clip-clopping of hooves. The blow was not one to be administered to a horse but to a human being. It hurt my pride and I cried openly in defiance of any bullying whip.

I was naked as a horse is naked. Its private parts and its rear exposed to view. Yet there was nothing I could do. The harness fitted correctly and I was left hiding my skin under the constantly needed dry straw, chained to the stable floor as always, my hands loosely manacled behind with the back band as always. I was weeping uncontrollably for the first time.

The next day dawned grey and cold. The birds seemed to have sympathy with me. Apart from crows and jackdaws, there was no rejoicing dawn chorus. We had a constant fight to keep our food from them. A large horse-worm was crawling along the floor of my stall and I was trying to end its life with a blow from a brick in my hand that I was trying to deliver from my back. It was making for my anus and I stifled a scream, succeeding in throwing the beast into the air with a resultant painful tug on my neck collar and chain. I felt frightened and anxious, a deep pit of insecurity rising in my belly.

When I finally summoned up the courage to raise myself up and be in expectation of harnessing, I came face to face with the same knot of children. They were throwing the worms back in and chanting.

Horse Woman, Horse Woman,
Lift up your legs
Beast woman beast woman
We'll do up your pegs.

They kept this up until Mark arrived carrying the harness. He undid the chain on my collar and led me out, stroking my hair and chin. He stroked my mouth which loosened involuntarily and I took the new metal bit, which was hinged in the middle and tightened on each side of my mouth. In the same movement he had fitted the head band, the cheek straps and the new double rings. The swivelling bit made speech a further impracticality. Even with this curb I dared to speak out. I blubbered and moaned that the children should not be allowed to see me like this. I was very restless. Then came six hard blows to my buttocks, thighs and flank. The children cheered. I was gasping with pain incredulity and panic. The message was clear - I was a horse woman, not a woman and I was a horse woman for the whole farm. Yet the woman was being taught this not the horse. This despite the free education in female mature physiognomy the children were lapping up at my expense. I felt hands stroking my skin and whinnied. Yet it seemed a comforting caress not a probing one. I have developed the utmost sensitivity to sounds and sensations. I also have developed a strong memory for incidents and procedures. My memory for names and places has decreased.

Without any comment or further delay I was harnessed. Only the sound of the bolts being attached and the squeaky new leather being buckled could be heard. My entire body was blushing with an involuntary shame and humiliation. I had never felt an emotion so strong and so vulnerable before. I had had a sheltered upbringing, one taken in the shadow of the teaching on sin and the sunshine of hope. I had only begun to react to young men who would flood my mind with lofty thoughts of great deeds.

My companion had a sneering expression on her face at least if any expression could be seen on a face distorted by the inane rictus of the bit. She had obviously witnessed me being beaten and seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. She seemed more accustomed to her bareness which made me think that my trainers had deliberately dressed her like me to avoid my reaction being too early in my training. Still seething with a turmoil of physical and passionate feelings, I was led out followed by my train of jeering children. One of them was particularly brutal, a large sturdy boy whom I had seen bullying the other children. Not all the children were cruel, though they found it difficult to behave sympathetically in front of the others. Someone was bringing me extra water and food. Someone was also bringing me dry straw outside the weekly routine.

I had to adjust quickly to the new harness which brought the bite of steel to my chin and mouth. I had two rings, one for the headstall straps and one for the reins. One day we cantered. We were driven up from being trotted to being moved diagonally forward to one hands' breadth. Mark pressed the left rein against our necks forcing us to use our right legs to hold us to the bit. We were not pushed and Mark skilfully flexed our heads in the direction we were being moved. It was almost as if we were not involved at all. Only our bodies moved. First we made the left half-passage and then the right. Mark had cleverly started with us on the off foreleg by cracking the whip a full minute sooner than usual. He began by walking us then forcing the trot with a chorus of "Gee Ups" from the children which Mark hushed. He got us to trot together on a large right-handed circle increasing the pressure on our mouths from the reins and flexing our heads to the left to increase the tension on the left leg. We cantered at a rapid pace with the off-fore leading. Yet we had only one pair of legs each and although their hard muscles contrasted with our wasted arms, we grew tired. Women prance; horses run. It was then I fully understood Mark's sensitive and insightful handling. He made us half-passage to the right at the trot and deliberately restrained the whip making loud clucking noises as we found ourselves impelled to canter with one off fore leading. Then with only a feather-light pressure upon the rein he brought us to canter in straight lines on the training ground.

It was going to be a long day. Mark reversed his persuasion to canter with the near fore leading. I have always been left footed and found this difficult. Mark checked me to a trot while allowing my companion to canter separately. It was an incredible feat to follow two horse-women in separate paces. He led me to half-passage until my canter broke out spontaneously on the proper leg. Mark then taught me how to control my momentum. Mark loosened the rein which left me cantering at my own pace, though I did not really wish the freedom. Being forced had taken my shamed identity from me. To be allowed freedom made me self-conscious, Mark saw this and increased the pressure on the reins. This made me slow down as he forced me into a series of sideways passages which let me change from one leg to the other with an ease that is now an unconscious instinct. I found myself being made to give a little leap which was the first pace of the canter.

We were led back. I was exhausted and sweaty. Mark unharnessed me, rubbed me down and let me sleep, though I could not sleep. I felt a terrible wild energy coursing through me. It was as if the very source of my shame, my nakedness, the guilt of my apparent offences and the resultant hand and neck chains was becoming a wild inhuman passion. It had been my aim to side with nature against the sure pains of hell and wholly to die, only the soul of a beast, bred to vanish. Now my human soul was being invaded. Throbbing through my veins was no more than the very embodiment of my wish. It was seething through me and I had no master, no mistress, only the power that was to transform and let me rot unjudged in the soil of the earth.

Viola began to take a more personal interest in my style. She would come and take me from the stable and slowly harness me in white show-leather. She would lead me into the garden in front of their beautiful house, where a fountain gurgled and two tame peacocks wandered about giving that strange cry that seems to come from another place and another time. She told me how much further I still had to go. Then she would exercise me, taking pains to check the elegance of my prancing and canter. Months had gone by and Mark was beginning the gallop with me. One day when she was taking me for a private lesson (I remember it was about the time when she first told me why my hair was being grown so long, so as to develop my mane and my tail) a car came up the drive. I knew I had to stand. It came to a halt and Viola greeted an old friend from the village. Another friend was with her, much younger. I had blinkers on by then to help me concentrate. With a start I recognised her voice. It was an old school mate of mine. I shut my eyes. I wanted to crouch down in a corner, my face unseen and immobile. All the shame and wretchedness came over me in a wave. Viola with her expert touch tightened the rein with one hand while kissing her friends with the other. I felt the cooling air blow over my hands, rump and haunches. I could smell the fragrance of their perfume. Surely my friend would protest, or would she think that in some terrible way I wanted this animality. Though the thought was eclipsed by another that this was the truth I was trying to hide.

"Why, is this one of your pony girls?" The older woman came up to me and stroked my forehead and muzzle.

"Isn't her hide beautiful? Like so many of her breed her head is so well-proportioned to her body. "

"Yes, she's a Swiss hill-pony girl. She's just over fourteen hands. She took my head and turned it in order that the two women should see my profile. "Can you see the dished face? It's a sure sign of Arab blood. She'll keep that even when she's a nag. Her village has inbred a lot. They're descended from Romans and Moors," replied Viola.

"That's my village." said Sara. "I went to school with her. Thank God I passed all my exams!" The two older women laughed kindly.

"Yes we take a lot of young mares from that village. Her parents were so delighted we'd taken her on; they've sent us some money. We found her wandering in the grounds up to no good, so we took her in. Let me walk her for you."

The tone of Viola's voice changed briefly.

"Up, girl! Walk."

I broke into what I hoped was my most elegant mincing walk.

Both the women gasped. "How well you've trained her." said Sara. "Can I see her jowl?"

"Of course."

I felt her rough inexperienced hands on my mouth. I resisted.

"Open your mouth, girl." she barked. I complied. "Oh what lovely jaws? How they take to the bit."

"Yes she's unusual. She's neither parrot-jawed nor sow-jawed."

"Look at these points though. Let me stand her square. She deftly turned me left then right forcing my legs apart. Viola went on. She moved to my rear. "Her neck sits perfectly and see how there's a completely vertical line from her hock." She ran a stroking finger lightly at the back of my knee, "to her rearmost quarter. And yet there's a lot of muscle there too." Viola's finger brushed, and then poked my rear. I heard Sara giggle. "It's a characteristic of her region. I dare say you..." Viola turned Sara, who blushed at the compliment.

"Let's go in. Sara, as you're an old school friend. Would you like to take the pony-girl back to the stables? Here's a list of what to do we've made for the stable. Call me if you have any trouble. We haven't given her a name yet. Perhaps you'd like to think of one."

Sara smiled, thanked Viola and led me rather clumsily back to the stables. On the way she chattered on knowing perfectly the penalty I would suffer should I reply to her.

"It's great to see you again. I won't use your real name as I know that would upset you. Things aren't too bad after all. You weren't having much luck hiring out as help to other farms, were you? And you do look beautiful as a pony." As she was leading me down the path to the stables my mind was in turmoil. I wanted to break those hard bands that kept me in training. Three wounds had been deliberately inflicted to me as a woman, while as a horse I was being praised. She winced at the assumption I owed my harnessing to being stupid. I had been cleverer than Sara at school, but her parents had come into an inheritance. My parents had effectively sold me. There had been talk in the village about people leaving to labour for rich families, but the valley kept many a secret including this one. Viola had spoken about how I would keep my Arab looks even when a nag. Was I to be an animal for life? My gorge rose and I whinnied involuntarily, yet there was also a strange thrill to the thought that I could still my evil wager with the God who would have me damned. By this time, we had reached the stable and Sara took out her instructions.

She began to stroke my cheeks and chin. "There... who's a good pony? How pleased everyone is with you." She carefully lifted off my headstall and undid the martingale. She began to fumble with the straps on my breasts, which were many. I saw a look of jealousy when she exposed my breasts. Viola had explained how they radiated with a perfect line from my vertebra with a 60 degree and formed an angle at the axis and how each cup had an exact 90 degree angle from the nipple to the ribs. She was a plain girl uncovering a beautiful one. Remarkably she undid the back bands that had locked my hands behind me for almost a year. With the speed of instinct I brought them to my front, even if it was only to look at hands that had not written, stroked, gathered, embraced, or carried.

Sara gasped. "Oh God, I shouldn't have done that." I whinnied and then without thinking embraced my old school friend. She gave me a long soft and strong embrace which made huge tears well up in my eyes like the pure water surging down into a mountain spring. No one could calculate the depths they had come from. I had to pull away from her and turn my back and wait while a strange silence was broken only by the sound of Sara re-screwing the bolts. I shut my eyes as she did so. I had an impression of her brown eyes looking down at me so kindly.

"There, now you can rest, girl. You must be a tired pony." Sara attached the steel clip of my neck chain to the ring on the floor of the stall and shut the bottom door. I stayed by the door. Sara took my face in her hands and stroked my hair. She whispered "You must be frightened of Viola. Just think, so many girls have gone your way. I can't do anything to change it, but I have never heard of anyone dying from it. It's a tradition and they'll have to let you go sometime. I'll try and look in from time to time."

The door opened. It was Viola. Had she been listening? Thank God I hadn't spoken. Sara changed her voice. "Back girl. Good girl. Good bye." She gave me a cold double pat on my rump and stroked my hair, then shut and bolted the top door.

I felt the smart but understood why.

"Call her Sara. That way she'll have to remember me." So Sara I became. She named my stable mate Drusilla, because she had scowled throughout the time she had been talking to me.

Months went by. There was much I wanted to say, but spoke only to my companion who wanted to escape and feared for far worse things than I. There was something strange about her detached anxiety. I hoped my personality would not change like that. My training was exciting and exhilarating. Oddly enough my companion was quicker but loathed everything she did.

I was taught to pull up on my haunches, to feel the reins closing my legs and to lean my body back trusting my snaffle to keep me upright. I did this again first at a walk, then at a trot, then at a canter. Once I was taken in a van to the high meadow where I was walked, trotted and cantered, then I discovered my gallop. I never thought my body was capable of it. I always had been a good middle distance runner. That was as a girl. I do not know how through some mystery of the body I came to extend my canter prance to a rapid movement that kept the poise and straightness of the earlier training with a tremendous burst of speed. I saw the pine trees and the summer grass speeding past me. Then I grew frightened that Mark would not keep up and I would break my jaw against the rein. Yet Mark had anticipated me and shouting, "Slow girl!" he forced a half passage, which broke me to a hard canter and then by another turn to a walk. I doubled over in breathless joy to be reminded that horses never touch the ground so celebrated by leaping instead. Drusilla was standing several hundred yards away having not even attempted it. I loved the sun on my skin and was growing tanned. I loved the excitement of training. I loved my straps and my bands. My owners certainly showed me more love than my parents ever did. Viola laughed, as she kissed me behind the ear and gave me a treat. She said I was turning into a Palomino when she undid the breast straps to reveal patches of chestnut and white. "A good horse is always a good colour."

One morning as the thrill of autumn air filled the air with the scent of apples and wood smoke, I was taken with Drusilla to the barn and walked onto a platform where I could see a small trap. By this time my head was shorn on both sides of my head with a blond mane which continued to fall down the centre of my back. The shorn hair had been made into a long tail that fell from my lower back. It was secured by a large and firm plug which did not impede its other function as I had had an implant that gradually widened it. At first I was in horror of the worms. I spent hours snorting and pacing and stabbing at the ground with my hooves. They got the message and my stall was cleaned immaculately after that. A horse's tail falls from its coccyx and though mine began in the anus, an invisible wire was doubled round a ring that sat between my buttocks.

Mark stood me between the two struts of the carriage and in front of the whiffletree. For the first time I understood what the corset was really for. Each was fastened to the shafts by a strap locking my sides to them. A side strap ran to both sides of the whiffletree securing me to the trap fixed to wrist rings on my back band. I had wondered over and over again what they were there for. The reins were threaded through rings on the sides of the corset. A breeching rein ran from my pubis to Mark's hands. A bearing rein was fitted to my cheek rings and finally a check rein ran to the top of my head. I will never forget that day when Mark rode me out for a run along the bridle path. The trees were turning a myriad of colours, vermilion, silver, gold, deep red, luscious oranges and yellows. Even the pines were splendid. The sun had lost its fierceness and the fruit was full-bellied in the orchards. Mark's dog ran alongside for the first few yards then we turned from the farm into the deep woods. The silence was only broken by the sound of my hooves on the path, the crack of the whip and Mark's voice bidding me "Giddy up, Sara." and "Whoa now" and the pull on the bearing reins at the turnings. I had once sung Haydn's The Seasons in my church as a child. The melody came to be as I canter-pranced along. "Hort du as Laute getone." I sang with the greylag geese as they flew across the white ponds leaving a double arrow. I sang with the finches and the linnets feeding on the berries. I sang with the falcons turning in the air. I sang for the lynx and I sang for the fox and I sang for the badger and the mountain goat. I sang for the horses and I sang for myself. I sang for the forbidden energy of my driving bonds.

One morning, the nasty boy opened my stall and roughly harnessed me. He had been lounging around the stables looking for an opportunity to tease me. He was big for his age and always had a nasty grin on his face. I tried to protest by whinnying, but the little bully had fitted a snaffle bit which made it impossible for me to speak. He hit me with the whip and pulled me to the tack room and harnessed me clumsily but tightly to the trap. He tried to get me to canter but I stood proudly still. Then he began to whip me so painfully that I had no choice but to break into a canter, though I refused to prance, an omission he noticed. It made him whip my legs. I bit my lips on the snaffle and cried angrily and bitterly as I raised my knees for this unpleasant and brutal boy who was less than half my age. Soon I began to lose my temper and broke into an open gallop. I ran over bumps and hills. Sprinting over a large mound I heard a crack and turned on my haunches to see the trap had fallen over and the boy was lying injured in the wreckage. With a combination of dragging with my mouth and pushing with my feet, I got the prone boy back into the cart and slowly took him back to the farm. Mark and Viola seemed to understand what had happened.

The children were saying I was dangerous and should be put down. To prove them wrong, Mark and Viola harnessed me to another trap and challenged the children to take me out for a ride. It was my friend, the small boy who gave me food, who took up the challenge. I smiled and whinnied at his gentle approach. He stoked my muzzle and quietly took the reins. Feeling the light tug on my bridle I broke into a canter. The whip sounded promptly and efficiently and I delighted in racing across the field with my thrilled boy rider in mastery of me.

It did not prevent Viola taking me to the tack room to punish me as a woman, for faults no horse would be accused of. That night I realised no treatment could be so wretched as to deprive me of my soul. My back was smarting and I began to feel angry and wanted revenge. The next day, despite my sore shoulders, Mark showed me how to gallop properly.

"Giddy up! Giddy Up", came the call and the whip cracked by my left ear. The reins slapped my flanks I broke into a gallop and ran straight for at least 800 yards, delighting in my precise high stepping speed. The head rein gently pulled back my brow and I broke into a canter. Then Mark whipped up another gallop and we practised halting on the gallop with a particular turn on the haunches. We reached the top meadow and Mark could see I was exhausted. He unfastened me and led me to the bushes where I grazed on blackberries until the mauve juice was running from my mouth, and then I fell asleep under the bushes.

I woke to see Mark standing over me with a strange expression on his face. It was a look I had sometimes seen before, but this time he was in earnest.

I knew nothing of the ways of mating, though I knew to my shame it was an impulse of the beast, such that I often felt about myself. I do not know what impulse of wounded innocence made me act as I did. I pushed him off with both my legs in such fury that I leaped off the ground completely. Mark fell over backwards, hit his head and seemed to be concussed. I ran off in terror not knowing where I was going. I managed to reverse the back bands by painfully threading them over my rump and hock. Something never before possible because of a bar Mark had undone that fastened my hands to my back. In instant I had undone the clips with my teeth. I sped stealthily through the undergrowth aware that by regaining my freedom I could be done with this terror. I tried to get as far away from the farm as I could but every time I did so, I only succeeded in coming back to it. It began to rain in terrible sheets and I was wearing very little, as I had ripped off every leather garment I could.

As I approached the out-buildings of the farm, I saw a figure bending down at the entrance to a barn. It might have been Viola. In desperation I struck her with my iron hooves. She fell down senseless and I hauled her indoors. The blow had disfigured her face. I stripped off her clothes and dressed myself in them, hiding the neck and wrist cuffs I could not remove in the material. I headed out along the track and took to my heels. After having run what I estimated to be about five miles I sank into sleep, exhausted and cold, in a little hollow by the road.

The next day I avoided towns and farms and kept to the open country. In a hunting lodge I found a rusty knife and cut away the leather neck and wrist bands that were the last mementoes of my imprisoning.

I was found by a search party and arrested on a charge of the double murder of my employers. When I was taken back to the farm, the children, Drusilla and all signs of the blasphemy that had taken place there were gone. They laughed at my story. I told them Sara from my village would speak for me. They put me in a cell and then returned to tell me she had disappeared.

I am to be hanged tomorrow.

I know the children, Sara and even my parents will return once I am dead. As will I, to wander the paths of my village, a haggard ghoul, to entrap another lost soul with the promise of earthly death and escape earth's pain on a stallion of the night.