Beauty's Kingdom

by Anne Rice

  “It’s not as taxing as it looks,” said Alexi, following my eyes. “They are mounted in those niches for no more than three hours each evening. They’ll be relieved later on by others and then by the stroke of midnight they’ll be packed off to bed. The King and Lady Eva are ever vigilant that every slave be well treated. And Queen Beauty would be shocked were they not.”

  The castle and the castle gardens were splendidly illuminated as we drove up. I could hear a great gentle buzz of voices everywhere, and the high crenellated walls of the castle were ablaze with torches as well.

  I kissed my companions goodbye, hurried up to my room, and fell down on the bed in a dead faint. My cock pulsed and demanded things of me. I told it to be still, and fresh for the night.

  vi

  The great red-and-gold-canopied pavilion of the King and Queen dominated an immense garden that I didn’t recognize from before, so huge was it, and filled with other smaller pavilions, fountains, and potted and natural trees.

  The King and Queen were feasting at a long banquet table when at last I was summoned, along with several other royal returnees, and told I might be introduced and present my gifts now.

  I’d dressed carefully for this in a lighter silken European tunic and leggings and slippers, and felt much more comfortable now in the warm delightful breeze.

  The air was filled with the music of harps and horns and drums.

  On great polished platforms laid down on the grass, lords and ladies danced with stately precision, and a long carpet ran up to the platform before the King and Queen.

  King Laurent looked larger than life in his brilliant scarlet velvet and gold tunic and long full bordered sleeves, and the Queen was a vision of delicacy and enticing loveliness, suggestive of lilies, with her pale skin, golden hair, and girlish eyes.

  To either side well-dressed members of the Court dined with them, the tables seeming to go forever out of sight. I knew some of these faces, even from a distance, and thought I glimpsed old Lord Gregory there, bending over his plate rather moodily with heavy brows. And if I wasn’t mistaken the severe cold-eyed woman looking back at me sharply from the Queen’s left was Lady Elvera who had once been the harsh, merciless mistress of the King.

  There were others far too numerous for me to note. Everywhere I beheld costly attire, jewels on throats and fingers and wrists, and shimmering veils of the sheerest silk, and the glitter of silver and gold plate. The many tables all around me and before me were strewn with fresh flowers.

  The scent of gardenias and lilies was intoxicating. Potted rose trees bloomed everywhere I looked, it seemed, and pathways had been made through the maze of the garden by fine India carpets, trodden under foot now as carelessly as the grass.

  Naked slaves, exquisitely coiffed and groomed, and some even decorated with leafy chains of little flowers laid over their hips, served wine and steaming hot platters of food to the royal guests and to a wilderness of other banqueting nobility and gentlefolk in pavilions or at open tables everywhere I looked.

  Behind the King and Queen, naked slaves stood on a low wall, still as statues, legs wide apart, oiled genitals gleaming, garlanded heads bowed. Man, woman, man, woman. Arms raised, hands clasped behind the neck.

  To the far right as I approached I saw slaves running on the familiar Bridle Path where I’d been such a failure in my time, falling down and then crawling away from the mounted lord who sought to drive me with his paddle—such a disgrace.

  The slaves I glimpsed ran fast and with grace, knees high, booted feet striking the earth gracefully, but I realized quite suddenly that the “mounted figures” driving them were not mounted on horses at all. Each was in a small light chariot, like an ancient battle chariot, pulled by a male pony!

  I wanted to see more of this and knew that later I would.

  I could see companion slaves everywhere at the feet of those they served, sitting back on their heels waiting for the slightest command, and some being made to play “fetch” with a flowering branch or a bright golden ball.

  There were fountains surrounded by naked slaves on their knees facing out with their arms bound to the rim of the fountain, and in the center of these busy sparkling pools of water stood other slaves about the high pillar that held the smaller second basin with its splashing spout.

  Now all this took me back to the sultanate where every night it seemed I’d been in a lighted garden, playing at games of fetch, or adorning some fountain, superbly taught by my dark-faced and delicate-fingered masters, none of whom spoke our tongue, but managed to convey their wishes to us effortlessly with their firm hands. Only Lexius had spoken our tongue and he’d been taken away by Laurent and the Captain shortly after we’d been brought there.

  Surely the Sultan’s influence was alive here in this endless paradise of sweetly illuminated trees with its countless guests.

  I saw slaves as footstools, and kneeling as pets beside their masters and mistresses. And then the spectacle of X crosses, to which spread-eagled slaves were bound with shining silver and gold cuffs at ankles and uplifted wrists, heads held in place with stately collars, and often crowned with flowers, genitals decorated in gold.

  Here and there leashed slaves were being driven as puppies through the festive crowds, their necks collared, their heads bowed. Inevitably some were prodded about by a phallus driven into the anus at the end of a handsome tooled leather rod. How I recalled the feel of that phallus and the way one was prodded forward by the rod or wand.

  I saw a stately young noblewoman standing idly beneath a tree strung with flickering lanterns, making her little boy kneel up and beg for the sweets she dangled over his head, with his hands bound behind his back.

  Slave cocks were everywhere erect, bottoms red, faces modest and submissive. The serving slaves with the pretty fluttering flower chains around their hips looked more naked than all the rest.

  I found myself in a short line of others waiting for my audience. Fabien stood beside me with my gifts. I think he had become more used to things by this time, perhaps with memories of India and Lexius returning to him, but he was devouring what he saw.

  I’d added to my gifts since my visit to the village—several antique volumes of history in Greek and in Latin, and a book of old Roman poetry especially for my lord, the King. These I’d brought with me for my own sometime pleasure, but was now delighted to offer them to Laurent.

  At last my name was announced.

  I stepped forward before the long banquet table and bowed.

  “Prince Dmitri, we welcome you to the kingdom,” said the sweet-faced and generous queen as if we hadn’t met earlier that day. She was outfitted entirely in blue, blue that matched her peerless eyes, and her thin white veil barely concealed her magnificent hair.

  The King stood and put out his arms to me, his face filled with warmth and good cheer, and we embraced over the litter of meats and fruits and platters of sweets and then I stepped back smiling at both of them, and telling them from my heart how happy I was to be here and how I hoped to remain. This is usually where I dip my long full sleeves into a plate of sauce and despise myself for it, but this time I did not.

  Fabien stepped forward at my summons and I opened the first casket and presented my gracious hosts with the gold and silver vessels I’d brought from the Russian lands.

  “These came from old Constantinople in my grandfather’s time,” I said with muted pride. “For Your Majesties, with all my heart.”

  Then came the casket of gold, equivalent to the collective dowries of all my sisters and female cousins, and the King nodded gratefully with the seemingly very sincere words that I was “too kind.”

  Other gifts followed—candlesticks and plate, a necklace of Indian diamonds for the Queen, emerald brooches, and finally the books and the book of poetry which I gave to the King with my own hands.

  “The Latin poem of Propertius, my lord,”
I said.

  “Ah, but I shall treasure this, Prince,” he said. “And will you remain with us? We are so hoping that you have made your decision to stay.”

  “My lord,” said the Queen. “Prince Dmitri will be living in a fine townhouse adjacent to the Place of Public Punishment. Lady Eva has arranged it all.”

  The Queen nodded to her left and for the first time I saw Lady Eva there, her hair pinned up and back and studded with pearls and diamonds and ivory combs. How grand she looked, how truly regal, and I had treated her so casually. I was ashamed. After I kissed the Queen’s hand, I took Lady Eva’s hand.

  “Ah, Prince, I do hope you’ll be pleased,” she said to me. “Your house is ready for you tonight, if you so choose, though it’s our hope you’ll feast late with us and go tomorrow at your leisure. It’s your choice.”

  She was indeed high in favor here, and had a self-possession well beyond her years.

  A sweet-faced naked boy stood behind her chair, arms pulled back as if they were folded against his back. I could see his cock was about half hard, which is the usual thing during long banquets, but his pubic hair was decorated with small flowers, and so was the full blond hair of his head. His nipples had been gilded, but apparently with a paste of gold, because small bells hung from them on delicate shimmering threads. I could feel this when I looked at it, feel the paste on my own nipples, feel the bells against my chest. Soon I realized that was true of almost all the slaves. Nipples were tinted with paste and many decorated with flowers and bells. And this fine stripling dared not raise his eyes to me as the lady spoke.

  “What’s your pleasure now, Prince,” asked another voice. It was Alexi at my elbow, in fresh garments with an exotic Eastern embroidery. “I’m here,” he said, “to take you wherever you might like to go.” His hair was clean and lustrous and in his deep gray velvet he looked more impressive.

  “Might I have some wine near to the Bridle Path, Your Majesties,” I asked, “and watch the slaves being run there?”

  Of course, anything I wished, said a clamor of voices, and soon, tired and dazed as I was, I found myself seated at a small table right at the edge of the Bridle Path, beneath the limbs of a great old tree that was strung with lanterns, and with torches on both sides of the path burning brightly to illuminate the figures flying by. There were guests on raised platforms on the far side of the Bridle Path and they seemed to go on forever. The scope of this was weakening me all over and lulling me into a gorgeous sense of safety and peace.

  Never in the days of Queen Eleanor had I seen such scope and grandeur. The kingdom seemed invincible in its splendor as if it had always been what it was on this night.

  Fabien rested against the bark of the tree. He looked as amazed as I was. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the voluptuous slaves who drifted past, setting sweets out for me, and refilling my goblet, or the twitching and undulating slave bound to the X cross nearby.

  Whether this was special punishment or mere adornment, I didn’t know, but I saw this slave had been rubbed and burnished with gold-pigmented oil. He was a powerfully built male. In fact he put me in mind of Laurent, he was so sturdy, and he dozed on the X cross, his head held upright by a beautifully embossed collar of blue and silver and gold, but he never stopped his subtle twisting movements. His hair was strewn with flower petals and tiny flowers like those that grow wild in the grass. Flowers were bound up with his scrotum and balls as well.

  There came one of those moments when I could do no more than absorb all that I was seeing and had seen. My mind was empty of words.

  But the Bridle Path I had not even begun to observe! I drank another gulp of wine. It was tart but delicious. I looked at the goblet. It was fitted with jewels the size of those I wore on my fingers. I smiled to think I was part of the spectacle in my finest dress and with rings on my hands, and emeralds studding the border of my tunic—as much a part of it as the bound slaves.

  I turned my full attention to one slave after another running past on the Bridle Path trying to keep pace with the lord or lady in the pony chariot beside him—or her—who whacked away hard with the great paddle, laughing and urging the slave on. Soon several girls in a row came running by, seeming as fast as men, though they never were really as fast as the men at all, and again came the flashing pageant of the masters and mistresses in their little enameled chariots, and the ponies, male all, in delicate but gleaming red-and-gold harnesses, bells jingling, running as fast, apparently, as they could. It seemed to me the laboring ponies were not really ornamented for the occasion but merely hard at work, though each wore a streaming horse tail out of his anus, and some even had flowers fixed to these tails.

  But it was the enameled and embossed chariots, the lords and ladies, and the helpless running slaves who were the magnet of attention.

  How terrified many of them appeared. I wondered if for any it was their first time, fitted into the boots with wrists laced tight behind their necks, told to run as fast as they could.

  The ponies certainly had the advantage over the poor slaves being spanked along, as the ponies had muscular legs and no doubt strong lungs.

  And these poor beauties were being driven, quite literally, to distraction to keep up.

  I’d never made it even once around the old circuit before I’d fallen down and tried to get away. I’d ended every attempt hung upside down by my ankles for half an hour while being whipped hard by a stinging leather thrash. And then there had been so many other punishments—crawling on my belly with back arched, so that my balls and cock were off the ground, behind the strolling queen, with the bit in my mouth tethered to her heel, and the red X painted on my back which meant “Bad Boy.” Oh, the scorn. That I could bear.

  A hot memory came back to me of those long crawling journeys when my anus was stuffed with a plug of flowers, which the Queen thought so amusing, and my mouth sometimes was distorted by thick metal bits with bells on the ends. I could feel the plug in my anus now. I could positively feel the grass beneath me. And the Queen’s cold voice, “Come along, Dmitri, don’t make me any angrier than I already am.”

  I studied the moving figures before me. I wondered how Barbara and Valentine had been chosen for the village rather than the Court, now that slaves were given duties suited to them. And I did not see slaves here any more beautiful than either Valentine or Barbara, or the little black-haired “bad girl” from the Punishment Shop. Just thinking of any one of them was too much.

  I sat back, sleepy, and almost in a dream. When would I have time and privacy to enjoy a slave of my very own? I had no thought of ever leaving here.

  I could see to my right and left gentlemen coarsely enjoying their slaves at their tables, though ladies did not indulge themselves in the same crude way.

  A proud young lord had forced his slave to stand bent over for mounting with the slave’s forehead and hands on the ground. That was common enough. He pounded away at the slave with complete abandon, ripping his cock out of the slave’s backside when he was finished and shoving it back in his clothes. With a pat or two he dismissed the slave who scampered on his hands and knees, though to where I did not know.

  Grooms were everywhere, it was true. No doubt they did keep watch on each and every naked little personage. And now I saw a groom approach the magnificent male tethered to the cross and give him a few sips of wine. With his head up, the poor boy couldn’t lap it, so he was allowed to sip it. Then the groom tormented his immense cock to make it stand up in its lacings, and then he moved on.

  Though noblewomen would not make spectacles of themselves as the lords here with their ever-ready cocks, obviously many were slipping away. And I realized there were handsome little tents scattered about with fringed roofs and billowing flags. Perhaps in those noblewomen coupled with the slaves of their choice or offered their privy parts for pleasuring.

  The whole garden was busy.

  Bands of musicians
clad in pied garments were strolling through the sea of tables and gaily dressed people. I heard the low nasal melody of horns, the soft throb of flutes, and heard the soft crash of cymbals. Now and then a sprightly drummer appeared, beating the two little drums affixed to his belt as he danced and turned artful circles.

  My cock was hard, but I was so tired. It had a life the rest of me did not possess. My brain was warring with my cock.

  All day I had maintained myself in a state of torture.

  I looked about and saw none other than beautiful Princess Rosalynd coming towards me, such a welcome sight. All those years we’d been together in the Sultan’s land. She was buxom as she’d been then, with glowing skin and huge breasts, and the most noble of faces. Her gown was a deep rose color and her slippers were silver.

  I stood to greet her.

  “You are tired, Dmitri. Truly tired! Tired from your journey and all you’ve seen.”

  Behind me the slaves struggled on, pounding the beaten earth of the Bridle Path. I could hear the eager cries of the mistresses driving them.

  “Your raven hair is as thick as ever, darling,” I said. I crushed Rosalynd to me. My chest was burning, my nipples pulsing, and when I felt the crush of her breasts I felt my cock take over. “Precious one,” I said, drawing back carefully and looking into her large always-mournful blue eyes. “Would the King and Queen take it amiss if I slipped away now to my rooms?”

  “Not at all, Dmitri,” she said. “I’ve been sent to tell you so expressly. The Queen is worried. You are white as those flowers there. Let me take you back myself.”

  Before we ever reached the castle, we were kissing and fondling one another coyly, and I was licking at her ears. I had always loved her small ears. Ears always make me think of seashells. In the sultanate my ears had been fitted with gold rings, like many other slaves’, and sometimes stuffed with fresh flowers. When that was done the world became a blur of sounds as if my sight had somehow been affected as well as my hearing.