by Ann Rice
"We must wait and see what happens to us," he said. "Remember, Beauty, in the end they will win over us."
"But how, Tristan?" she asked. "You mean you condemned yourself to this, and yet you will obey?" She felt again the thrill she'd known when she left the Prince and Lady Juliana weeping behind her at the castle. "I am such a bad girl," she thought. Yet...
"Beauty, their wishes will prevail. Remember, a willful, disobedient slave will amuse them just as much. Why struggle?" Tristan said.
"Why struggle to obey?" Beauty said.
"Do you have the strength to be terribly bad all the time?" he asked. His voice was low, urgent, his breath warm against her neck as he kissed her again. Beauty tried to shut out the sound of the crowd; it was a horrid sound, like that of a great beast coming out of its lair; she knew she was trembling.
"Beauty, I don't know what I've done," Tristan said. Anxiously he glanced in the direction of that awesome, menacing noise: shouts, cheers, the mayhem of a fair day. "Even at the castle," he said, the violet-blue eyes fired now with something that might have been fear in a strong Prince who could not show it. "Even at the castle, I found it was easier to run when they told us to run, to kneel when they told us to kneel, and there was a triumph of sorts in doing it perfectly."
"Then why are we here, Tristan?" she asked, standing on tiptoe to kiss his lips. "Why are we both such bad slaves?" And though she tried to sound rebellious and brave, she pressed herself against Tristan all the more desperately.
THE AUCTION IN THE MARKETPLACE
The cart had come to a stop, and Beauty could see through the tangle of white arms and tousled hair the walls of the village below, with the gates open and a motley crowd swelling out onto the green.
But slaves were being quickly unloaded from the cart, forced with the smack of the belt to crowd together on the grass. And Beauty was immediately separated from Tristan, who was pulled roughly away from her for no apparent reason other than the whim of a guard.
The leather bits were being pulled out of the mouths of the others. "Silence!" came the loud voice of the Commander. "There is no speech for slaves in the village! Any who speak shall be gagged again more cruelly than they have ever been before!"
He rode his horse round the little herd, driving it tightly together, and gave the order that the slaves' hands should be unbound and woe to any slave who removed his or her hands from the back of the neck.
"The village has no need of your impudent voices!" he went on. "You are beasts of burden now, whether that burden be labor or pleasure! And you shall keep your hands to the back of your necks or be yoked and driven before a plow through the fields!"
Beauty was trembling violently. She couldn't see Tristan as she was forced forward. All around her were long windblown tresses, bowed heads, and tears. It seemed the slaves cried more softly without their gags, struggling to keep their lips closed, and the voices of the guards were miserably sharp!
"Move! Head up straight!" came the gruff, impatient commands. Beauty felt chills rising on her arms and legs at the sound of those angry voices. Tristan was behind her somewhere, but if only he would come close.
And why had they been put out here so far from the village? And why was the cart being turned around?
Suddenly she knew. They were to be driven on foot, like a gaggle of geese to market. And almost as quickly as the thought came to her, the mounted guards swooped down on the little group and started them forward with a rain of blows.
"This is too bitter," Beauty thought. She was trembling as she started to run, the smack of the paddle as always catching her when she did not expect it and sending her flying forward over the soft, newly turned earth of the road.
"At a trot, with heads up!" the guard shouted, "and knees up as well!" And Beauty saw the horses' hooves pounding beside her, just as she'd seen them before on the Bridle Path at the castle, and felt the same wild trepidation as the paddle cracked her thighs and even her calves. Her breasts ached as she ran, and a dull warm pain coursed through her sore legs.
She couldn't see the crowd clearly, but she knew they were there, hundreds of villagers, perhaps even thousands, flooding out of the gates to meet the slaves. "And we're to be driven right through them; it's too awful," she thought, and suddenly the resolves she had made in the cart, to disobey, to rebel, left her. She was too purely afraid. And she was running as fast as she could down the road towards the village, the paddle finding her no matter how she hurried, until she realized she had pressed through the first rank of slaves and was now running with them, no one before her anymore to shield her from the sight of the enormous crowd.
Banners flew from the battlements. Arms waved and cheers rose as the slaves drew closer, and through the excitement there came the sounds of derision, and Beauty's heart thudded as she tried not to see too clearly what lay ahead, though she could not turn away.
"No protection, nowhere to hide," she thought, "and where is Tristan? Why can't I fall back into the flock?" But when she tried, the paddle smacked her soundly again, and the guard shouted to her to go forward! And blows were rained on those around her, causing the little red-haired Princess on her right to break into helpless tears. "O, what's to happen to us? Why did we disobey?!" the little Princess wailed through her sobs, but the dark-haired Prince on the other side of Beauty threw her a warning glance: "Quiet or it will be worse!"
Beauty couldn't help but think of her long march to the Prince's Kingdom, how he had led her through the villages where she had been honored and admired as his chosen slave. Nothing like that was happening now.
The crowd had broken loose and was spreading out on either side of them as they neared the gates. Beauty could see the women in their fancy white aprons and wooden shoes, and the men in their rawhide boots and leather jerkins, robust faces everywhere alight with obvious pleasure, which made Beauty gasp and drop her eyes to the path before her.
They were passing through the gates. A trumpet was being sounded. And hands reached out from everywhere to touch them, pushing them, pulling at their hair. Beauty felt fingers brush roughly across her face; her thighs were slapped. She let out a desperate scream, struggling to escape the hands that shoved her violently forward, while all around came the loud, deep, mocking laughter, shouts and exclamations, random cries.
Tears were flowing down Beauty's face and she hadn't even realized it. Her breasts throbbed with the same violent pulse she felt in her temples. Around her she saw the tall, narrow half-timbered houses of the village opening broadly to surround a huge marketplace. A high wooden platform with a gibbet upon it loomed over all. And hundreds crowded the overhanging windows and balconies, waving white handkerchiefs, cheering, while countless others choked the narrow lanes that led into the square, struggling to get close to the miserable slaves.
They were being forced into a pen behind the platform. Beauty saw a flight of rickety wooden steps leading to the boards above and a length of leather chain dangling above the distant gibbet. A man stood to one side of the gibbet with arms folded, waiting, while another sounded the trumpet again as the gates of the pen were shut. The crowd surrounded them, and there was no more than a thin strip of fencing to protect them. Hands reached for them again as they huddled together. Beauty's buttocks were pinched, her long hair lifted.
She struggled towards the center, desperately looking for Tristan. She glimpsed him only for a moment as he was pulled roughly to the bottom of the steps.
"No, I must be sold with him," she thought and pushed violently forward, but one of the guards shoved her back into the little cluster while the crowd hooted and howled and laughed.
The red-haired Princess who had cried on the road was now inconsolable, and Beauty pressed close to her, trying to comfort her as much as to hide. The Princess had lovely high breasts with very large pink nipples, and her red hair spilled down in rivulets over her tear-stained face. The crowd was cheering and shouting again now that the herald had finished. "Don't be afraid," Beauty wh
ispered. "Remember, it will be very much like the castle finally. We will be punished, made to obey."
"No, it won't be!" the Princess whispered, trying not to move her lips visibly as she spoke. "And I thought I was such a rebel. I thought I was so stubborn."
The trumpet gave a third full-throated blast, a high echoing series of notes. And in the immediate silence that fell over the marketplace, a voice rang out:
"The Spring Auction will now commence!"
A roar rose from all around them, a near-deafening chorus, its loudness shocking Beauty so that she couldn't feel herself breathe. The sight of her own quivering breasts stunned her, and in one sweeping glance she saw hundreds of eyes passing over her, examining her, measuring her naked endowments, a hundred whispering lips and smiles.
Meantime the Princes were being tormented by the guards, their cocks lightly whipped with the leather belts, hands plumping their pendulous balls as they were made to "Come to attention!" and punished with severe cracks of the paddle to the buttocks if they did not. Tristan's back was to Beauty. She could see the hard perfect muscles of his legs and buttocks quivering as the guard teased him, stroking him roughly between the legs. She was miserably sorry now for their stolen lovemaking. If he could not come to attention, she would be to blame.
But the booming voice had sounded again:
"All those of the village know the rules of the auction. These disobedient slaves offered by our gracious Majesty for hard labor are to be sold to the highest bidder for the period of no less than three months' service as their new Lords and Masters shall see fit. Mute menials these incorrigibles are to remain, and they are to be brought to the Place of Public Punishment as often as their Masters and Mistresses will allow, there to suffer for the amusement of the crowd as much as for their own improvement."
The guard had moved away from Tristan, giving him an almost-playful blow with the paddle and smiling as he whispered something in Tristan's ear.
"You are solemnly charged to work these slaves," the voice of the herald on the platform continued, "to discipline them, to tolerate no disobedience from them, and never an impudent word. And any Master or Mistress might sell his slave within this village at any time for any sum as he should choose."
The red-haired Princess pressed her naked breasts against Beauty and Beauty leaned forward to kiss her neck. Beauty felt the tight wiry hair of the girl's pubis against her leg, its moisture and its heat. "Don't cry," she whispered.
"When we go back, I will be perfect, perfect!" the Princess confided, and broke into fresh sobs again.
"But what made you disobey?" Beauty quickly whispered in her ear.
"I don't know," the girl wailed, opening her blue eyes wide. "I wanted to see what would happen!" and she started to cry piteously again.
"Be it understood that each time you punish one of these unworthy slaves," the herald continued, "you do the bidding of her Royal Majesty. It is with her hand that you strike the blow, with her lips you scold. All slaves once a week are to be sent to the central grooming hall. Slaves are to be properly fed. Slaves are to be given time to sleep. Slaves should at all times exhibit evidence of sound whipping. Insolence or rebellion should be thoroughly put down."
The trumpet blasted again. White handkerchiefs waved, and all around hundreds upon hundreds clapped their hands. The red-haired Princess screamed as a young man, leaning over the fence of the pen, caught her by the thigh and pulled her towards him.
The guard stopped him with a good-natured reprimand but not before he had slipped his hand under the Princess's wet sex.
But Tristan was being driven up to the wooden platform. He held his head high, hands clasped to the neck as before, his whole attitude one of dignity despite the paddle soundly playing on his narrow tight buttocks as he climbed the wooden steps.
For the first time Beauty saw beneath the high gibbet and its dangling leather links a low round turntable onto which a tall gaunt man in a bright jerkin of green velvet forced Tristan. He kicked Tristan's legs wide apart as if the Prince could not be addressed even with the simplest command.
"He's being handled like an animal," Beauty thought, watching.
Standing back the tall auctioneer worked the turntable with a foot pedal so that Tristan was turned quickly round and round.
Beauty got no more than a glimpse of his scarlet face and golden hair, blue eyes almost closed. Sweat gleamed on his hard chest and belly, his cock enormous and thick as the guards had wanted it, his legs trembling slightly with the strain of being so widely spread apart.
Desire curled inside of Beauty, and even as she pitied him, she felt her organs swelling and pulsing again, and at the same time the terrible fear, "I can't be made to stand up there alone before everyone. I can't be sold off like this! I can't!"
But how many times at the castle had she said these words. A loud burst of laughter from a nearby balcony caught her off-guard. Everywhere there were loud conversations, arguments, as the turntable went round again and then again, the blond curls slipping off the nape of Tristan's neck to make him appear the more naked and vulnerable.
"Exceptionally strong Prince," cried the auctioneer, his voice even louder, deeper than that of the herald, cutting through the roar of conversation, "long-limbed, yet sturdy of build. Fit for household labor certainly, field labor most definitely, stable labor without question."
Beauty winced.
The auctioneer had in his hand a paddle of the long narrow flexible leather kind that is more a stiff strap almost than a paddle, and with this he slapped Tristan's cock as Tristan faced the pen of slaves again, announcing to one and all:
"Strong, attentive organ, capable of great service, great endurance," and volleys of laughter rose everywhere from the square.
The auctioneer reached out and, taking Tristan by the hair, bent him from the waist suddenly, giving the turntable another whirl while Tristan remained bent over.
"Excellent buttocks," came the deep booming voice, and then the inevitable smacks of the paddle, leaving their red blotches on Tristan's skin. "Resilient, soft!" cried the auctioneer, prodding the flesh with his fingers. Then his hand went to Tristan's face, lifting it, "and demure, quiet of temperament, eager to be obedient! And well he should be!" Another crack of the paddle and laughter all around.
"What is he thinking," Beauty thought. "I can't endure it!"
The auctioneer had caught Tristan by the head again, and Beauty saw the man lifting a black leather phallus, which hung from the belt of his green velvet jerkin by a chain. Before she even realized what he meant to do, he had thrust the leather into Tristan's anus, bringing more cheers and screams from all quarters of the marketplace, while Tristan bowed from the waist as before, his face still.
"Need I say more?" cried the auctioneer, "or shall the bids begin!"
At once they started, bids shouted from everywhere, each topped as soon as it was heard, a woman on a nearby balcony – a shopkeeper's wife, surely, in her rich velvet bodice and white linen blouse – rising to her feet to call her bid over the heads of the others.
"And they are all so very rich," Beauty thought, "the weavers and dyers and silversmiths for the Queen herself, and so any of them has the money to buy us." Even a crude-looking woman with thick red hands and a soiled apron called out her bid from the door of the butcher's shop, but she was quickly out of the game.
The little turntable went round and round slowly, the auctioneer finally coaxing the crowd as the bidding grew higher. With a slender leather-covered rod that he drew from a scabbard like a sword, he pushed the flesh of Tristan's buttocks this way and that, stroking at his anus, as Tristan stood quiet and humble, only the furious blush of his face giving his misery away.
But a voice rose suddenly from far back in the square, topping all the bids by a broad margin, and Beauty heard a murmur rush through the crowd. She stood on tiptoe trying to see what was happening. A man had stepped forward before the platform and, through the scaffolding beneath it, she coul
d just see him. He was a white-haired man, though he was not old enough for such white hair, and it sat upon him with unusual loveliness framing a square and rather pacific face.
"So the Queen's Chronicler wants this sturdy young mount," cried the auctioneer. "Is there no one to outbid him? Do I hear more for this gorgeous prince? Come on, surely..."
Another bid, but at once the Chronicler topped it, his voice so soft it was a wonder Beauty heard, and this time his bid was so high that clearly he meant to shut off all opposition.
"Sold," the auctioneer cried out finally, "to Nicolas, the Queen's Chronicler and Chief Historian of the Queen's village! For the grand sum of twenty-five gold pieces."
And as Beauty watched through her tears, Tristan was roughly pulled from the platform, rushed down the stairs, and driven towards the white-haired man who stood composed with his arms folded, the dark gray of his exquisitely cut jerkin making him look the Prince himself as he silently inspected his purchase. With a snap of his fingers he ordered Tristan to precede him at a trot out of the square.
The crowd opened reluctantly to let the Prince pass, pushing at him and scolding him. But Beauty had only a glimpse of this before she realized with a scream that she was herself being dragged out of the gaggle of crying slaves towards the steps.
BEAUTY ON THE BLOCK
"No, it can't be happening!" she thought, and she felt her legs give out from under her as the paddle smacked her. And the tears blinded her as she was almost carried to the platform and the turntable and set down. It did not matter that she had not walked in obedience.
She was there! And before her the crowd stretched in all directions, grinning faces and waving hands, short girls and boys leaping up the better to see, and those on balconies rising to get a more careful look.
Beauty felt she would collapse, yet she was standing, and when the soft rawhide boot of the auctioneer kicked her legs apart, she struggled to keep her balance, her breasts shivering with her muffled sobs.