by Anne Rice
The sky was paling. Alexi embraced her. She was now bound to the wall, her long hair pressed between her back and the stones behind her. And she could not get out of that dusty chamber in her homeland, and it seemed to her she was traveling up through layers and layers of sleep, and this dressing room about her in this cruel country had lost its substantiality.
A Prince had come into her sleeping chamber. A Prince had lowered his lips to her. But it was only Alexi kissing her, wasn’t it? Alexi kissing her here?
But when she opened her eyes on that ancient bed and looked at the one who now broke her spell, she saw some bland and innocent countenance! It was not her Crown Prince. It was not Alexi. It was some pristine soul liken to her own who now stood back from her in astonishment. Brave he was, yes, brave, and without complexity!
She cried out. “No!”
But Alexi’s hand was over her mouth. “Beauty, what is it?”
“Don’t kiss me!” she whispered.
But when she saw the pain in his face, she opened her mouth and felt his lips sealed over it. His tongue filled her. She pressed her hips against him.
“Ah, it is you, only you ...” she whispered.
“And what did you think it was? Were you dreaming?”
“It seemed for a moment all this was a dream,” she confessed. But the stone was too real, his touch too real.
“And why should it be a dream? Is it such a nightmare?”
She shook her head. “You love it, all of it, you love it,” she whispered in his ear. She saw his eyes linger languidly on her and then drift away. “And it seemed a dream because all the past, the real past, has lost its luster!”
But what was she saying? That in these few days she had not once longed for her homeland, she had not once longed for what her youth had been and the sleep of a hundred years had given her no wisdom?
“I love it. I loathe it,” Alexi said. “I am humiliated by it, and recreated by it. And yielding means to feel all those things at once and yet to be of one mind and one spirit.”
“Yes,” she sighed, as though she had falsely accused him. “Wicked pain, wicked pleasure.”
And he gave her his smile of approbation. “We’ll be together soon again ...”
“Yes ...”
“... be sure of it. And until then, my darling, my love, belong to everyone.”
THE VILLAGE
THE NEXT few days passed as quickly for Beauty as those before them. No one discovered that she and Alexi had been together.
The following night the Prince told her she had gained his mother’s approval. She would now be trained by him as his little maid, to sweep his quarters, to keep his wine cup always filled, and to perform all those duties that Alexi performed for her Highness.
And from then on Beauty would sleep in the Prince’s quarters.
She found herself envied by everyone, and it was the Prince and the Prince alone who prescribed her daily punishments.
Each morning she was given to Lady Juliana for the Bridle Path. Then Beauty would serve the wine at the noon meal and woe to her if she spilt a drop of it.
Then she would sleep in the afternoons so she might be fresh to attend the Prince in the evenings. And next Festival Night she would be entered in a race of Bridle Path slaves which he expected her to win after her daily training.
All this Beauty heard out with flushes and tears, again and again stooping to kiss the Prince’s boots as he gave his orders. He seemed still troubled in his love, and while the castle slept, he frequently awakened her with rough embraces. She could scarcely think of Alexi at these times, the Prince so frightened her and scrutinized her.
And when each day dawned she was brought out in her leather horseshoe boots for Lady Juliana.
Beauty was frightened but she was ready. Lady Juliana was a vision of loveliness in her crimson riding dress, and Beauty ran fast on the soft gravel path, the sun often causing her to squint as it flashed in the overhanging trees, and she was weeping when it was finished.
Then she and Lady Juliana would be alone together in the garden. Lady Juliana carried a leather strap, but seldom did she use it, and the garden was soothing to Beauty. They would sit down on the grass, Lady Juliana’s skirts a wreath of embroidered silk about her, and quite suddenly Lady Juliana might give Beauty a deep kiss that startled Beauty and weakened her. Lady Juliana stroked Beauty all over. She lavished her with kisses and compliments, and when she did beat her with the leather strap, Beauty cried softly with deep moaning breaths and a languid sense of abandon.
Very soon she was gathering little flowers in her teeth for Lady Juliana, or with great grace kissing the hem of her skirts, or even her white hands, all of these gestures delighting her mistress.
“Ah, am I becoming what Alexi wanted me to become,” Beauty thought. But most of the time she did not think at all.
At meals she took great care to serve the wine gracefully.
Yet there came that moment when she spilt the wine, and must take her punishment dangling from the Page’s strong grip, scampering afterwards to the Prince’s boots to beg silently for forgiveness. The Prince was furious with her, and when he ordered her spanked again, she was scalded with humiliation.
That night, he whipped her mercilessly with his belt before taking her. He told her he loathed the slightest imperfection in her. And she was chained to the wall to spend the night in weeping and misery.
She dreaded new and frightening punishments. Lady Juliana hinted that Beauty was but a virgin in some respects, that she was being tried very slowly.
And Beauty feared Lord Gregory too, who was always watching her.
One morning when she stumbled on the Bridle Path, Lady Juliana threatened her with the Hall of Punishments.
Beauty fell to her hands and knees at once, kissing Lady Juliana’s slippers. And though Lady Juliana relented at once with a smile and a toss of her pretty braids, Lord Gregory, nearby, showed his disapproval.
Beauty’s heart was a throbbing pain in her chest as she was led away for grooming. If only she could see Alexi, she mused, and yet he had lost some of his charm for her, and why, she was not certain. Even as she lay on her bed that afternoon, she thought of the Prince, and Lady Juliana. “My Lords and Masters,” she whispered to herself, and wondered why Leon had given her nothing to make her sleep when she was not tired at all and tortured by the little throb of passion between her legs as always.
But she had been resting only an hour when Lady Juliana came for her.
“I don’t much approve of it myself,” Lady Juliana said, as she forced Beauty out into the garden, “but his Highness must let you see those poor slaves being packed off to the village.”
Again, the village. Beauty tried to conceal her curiosity. Lady Juliana thrashed her idly with the leather belt, light but stinging blows, as they moved down the path together.
Finally they reached an enclosed garden full of low limbed flowering trees, and on a stone bench Beauty saw the Prince and a handsome young Lord at his side who was talking to the Prince earnestly.
“That is Lord Stefan,” Lady Juliana confided in a hushed voice, “and you must show him the utmost respect. He is the Prince’s favorite cousin. Besides, he is quite miserable today. It is his precious and disobedient Prince Tristan who is the cause of it.”
“Ah, and if I could only see Prince Tristan,” Beauty thought. She had not forgotten Alexi’s mention of him, an incomparable slave who knew the meaning of yielding. So he had caused trouble, had he? She could not help but observe that Lord Stefan was very handsome. Golden-haired and gray-eyed, his youthful face was heavy with brooding and unhappiness.
His eyes rested on Beauty only for a second as she drew near, and though he seemed to acknowledge her charms, he lapsed again into listening to the Prince, who lectured him sternly.
“You bear him too much love, it’s the same with me and this Princess you see before you. You must curb your love as I must curb mine. Believe me, I understand even as
I condemn you.”
“O, but the village,” murmured the young Lord.
“He must go and he will be the better for it!”
“O, heartless Prince,” whispered Lady Juliana. She urged Beauty forward to kiss Lord Stefan’s boots as she took her side beside both of them. “Poor Prince Tristan will be in the village the whole summer.”
The Prince lifted Beauty’s chin and bent to take a kiss from her lips, which filled Beauty with a softening torment. But she was too curious about all that was being said and dared not make the slightest movement to attract him.
“I must ask you ...” Lord Stefan began. “Would you send Princess Beauty to the village if you felt she deserved it?”
“Of course I would,” said the Prince. But he did not sound convincing. “I would do it in an instant.”
“O, but you couldn’t!” Lady Juliana protested.
“She doesn’t deserve it, so it does not matter,” the Prince insisted. “But we are talking about Prince Tristan, and Prince Tristan, for all the abuse and punishments he has endured, remains a mystery to everyone. He needs the rigors of the village just as Prince Alexi once needed the kitchen to teach him humility.”
Lord Stefan was deeply troubled, and the words rigor and humility seemed to pierce him. He rose and begged the Prince to come with him and make a better judgment of it.
“They go tomorrow. The weather is already very warm and the villagers are already preparing for the auction. I’ve sent him to the prisoners’ yard to wait there.”
“Come, Beauty,” the Prince said, rising. “It will be good for you to see this and come to understand it.”
Beauty was intrigued and followed eagerly. But the Prince’s coldness and sternness made her uneasy. She tried to remain close to Lady Juliana as they proceeded along a pathway, out of the gardens, past the kitchen and stables to a plain dirty yard in which she saw a great cart, without its horse, standing on four wheels against the walls that surrounded the castle.
There were common soldiers here, menials. She felt her nakedness as she was made to follow the brightly dressed trio. Her welts and cuts smarted anew and fearfully she looked up to see a small pen, fenced in crude sticks, in which a gaggle of naked Princes and Princesses stood with their hands bound to the backs of their necks, milling as if it were less exhausting to walk than to stand by the hour.
A common soldier dealt a blow now through the fence with a heavy leather belt that sent a squealing Princess towards the middle of the group for cover. And, catching other naked buttocks, he walloped them as well, producing a groan from a young Prince who turned to him resentfully.
It infuriated Beauty to see this lowly soldier abusing such lovely white legs and bottoms. Yet she could not keep her eyes off the slaves who backed away from the fence only to be tormented from the other side by another idle, devilish boy who struck much harder and with much more deliberation.
But now the soldiers saw the Prince and bowed at once, showing him the strictest attention.
And it seemed at that same moment the slaves saw the little group approaching. Moans and whimpers commenced from those who struggled in spite of their gags to make their plight known, and their muffled cries became a lamentation.
They seemed as beautiful as any slaves Beauty had seen, and as they writhed now, some of them dropping on their knees before the Prince, she saw here and there a lovely peach-colored sex beneath curls of pubic hair, or breasts quivering with crying. The Princes were many of them painfully erect as if they could not control it. And one of them had pressed his lips to the rough ground as the Prince and Lord Stefan, and Lady Juliana with Beauty at her side drew up to the little fence to inspect them.
The Prince’s eyes were angry and cold, but Lord Stefan appeared shaken. And Beauty perceived that his gaze was fixed on one very dignified Prince who neither wailed or bowed, nor in any way begged for mercy. He was as fair, as was the young lord, his eyes very blue, and though the mean little gag distorted his mouth, his face was otherwise serene as ever she had seen Prince Alexi’s. He looked down humbly enough, and Beauty tried to conceal her fascination with his exquisitely sculpted limbs and his swelling organ. He seemed in great distress, however, behind his indifferent expression.
Lord Stefan suddenly turned his back as if he could not quite contain himself.
“Don’t be so sentimental. He deserves his time in the village,” the Prince said coldly. And with an imperious gesture he ordered the other wailing Princes and Princesses to be silent.
The guards watched all with folded arms, smiling at the spectacle, and Beauty dared not look at them for fear their eyes would meet hers, giving further humiliation.
But the Prince ordered her to come forward and to kneel up and listen to his instruction.
“Beauty, look on these unfortunates,” the Prince said with obvious disapproval. They are going to the Queen’s Village, which is the largest and most prosperous in the country. It houses the families of all those who serve here; the craftsmen there make our linen, our simple furniture, supply us with wine, food, milk, and butter. There is the dairy there and the fowl are raised on the little farms, and there are all those who make up a town in any location.”
Beauty stared at the captive Princes and Princesses, who though they could no longer beg with groans and cries, still bowed before the Prince who seemed indifferent to them.
“It is perhaps the loveliest village of the realm,” the Prince went on, “with a stern Lord Mayor and many Inns and taverns that are the favorites of the soldiers. But it is allowed one special privilege that no other village enjoys, and that is to purchase at auction for the warm months those Princes and Princesses in need of dire punishment. Anyone in the village may purchase a slave if he or she has the gold for it.”
It seemed at this some of the captives could not prevent themselves from imploring the Prince, and with a snap of his fingers he ordered the guards to go to work with their belts and long paddles, causing an immediate uproar. The miserable, desperate slaves huddled together, turning their vulnerable breasts and organs towards their tormentors, as if at all costs they must protect their sore backsides.
But the tall, yellow-haired Prince Tristan made no move to protect himself, merely allowing himself to be jostled by the others. His eyes had never left his Lord, but now slowly they turned and fixed upon Beauty.
Beauty’s heart contracted. She felt a slight dizziness. She stared straight into those unreadable blue eyes while at the same time she thought, “Ah, this is the village.”
“It is wretched service,” Lady Juliana went on, obviously imploring the Prince. “The auction itself takes place as soon as the slaves arrive and you can well suppose that even the beggars and common louts about town are there to witness it. Why, the whole village declares a holiday. And each poor slave is carried off by his or her master not only to degradation and punishment, but miserable labor. Mind you, the crude practical people of the village do not keep even the loveliest Prince or Princess for mere pleasure.”
Beauty was remembering Alexi’s description of his exposure in the villages, the high wooden platform in the marketplace, the crude crowd, and their celebration of his humiliation. She felt her sex secretly ache with desire, and yet she was horrified.
“Ah, but for all its roughness and cruelty,” said the Prince, now glancing at the inconsolable Lord Stefan who stood still with his back to the unfortunates, “it is a sublime punishment. Few slaves can learn from a year in the castle what they learn from the warm months in the village. And of course, they cannot be really hurt, any more than slaves here. The same strict rules apply: no cutting, no burning, no real wounding. And each week, they are herded to a slaves’ hall for bathing and oiling. But when they return to the castle they are more than sweet or meek; they have been reborn with incomparable strength and beauty.”
“Yes, as Prince Alexi was reborn,” Beauty thought, her heart pounding. She wondered if anyone could see her perplexity and excitement. She s
aw the distant Prince Tristan among the others, his blue eyes calmly fixed to the back of his master, Lord Stefan.
Her mind was filled with lurid visions. And what was it Alexi had said, that such a punishment had been merciful and that if she found it too difficult to learn slowly, she might make herself ripe for some heavier punishment?
Lady Juliana was shaking her head and making little tisks. “But it is only Spring now,” she said. “Why, the poor darlings will be there forever. Ah, the heat, the flies, and the labor. You cannot imagine how they are used, and the soldiers crowding the taverns and the Inns, at last able to buy for a few coins a lovely Prince or Princess that they should never possess in a lifetime.”
“You make too much of it,” the Prince insisted.
“But would you send your own slave!” Lord Stefan appealed to him again. “I don’t want him to go!” he murmured, “and yet I condemned him and before the Queen.”
“Then you have no choice, and yes, I would send my own slave, though no slave of the Queen or the Crown Prince has ever been so punished.” The Prince turned his back to the slaves almost contemptuously. But Beauty continued to look, as the beautiful Prince Tristan commenced to push his way forward.
He reached the fence and though a haughty guard who was having much sport with the group flailed at him with the leather belt, he did not move nor show the slightest discomfort.
“Ah, he is appealing to you,” Lady Juliana sighed, and at once Lord Stefan turned and the two young men faced each other.
Beauty watched as if in a trance as Lord Tristan knelt now slowly and gracefully and kissed the ground before his master.
“It’s too late,” said the Prince, “and this little sign of affection and humility counts for nothing.”
Prince Tristan rose and stood with his eyes down in perfect patience. And Lord Stefan rushed forward and reaching over the fence embraced him immediately. He crushed Prince Tristan to his chest and kissed him all over his face and his hair. The captive Prince, his hands bound to the back of his neck, quietly returned the kisses.