A TUMULTUOUS SHOCK to be spoken to.
At once the group of slaves obeyed, coming round to kneel up in front of the Master, the golden leashes trailing on the floor. Even Laurent was freed now from the Master's slipper and took his place with the others.
As soon as they were all still, kneeling with their hands clasped to the backs of their necks, the Master said:
"Look at me."
Beauty did not hesitate. She looked up into his face and found it as appealing and baffling now as it had been in the garden. It was a better-proportioned face than she had realized, the full and agreeable mouth finely shaped, the nose long and delicate, the eyes well spaced and radiantly dominant. But, again, it was the spirit that magnetized her.
As he looked from one to another of the captives, Beauty could feel the excitement coursing through the little group, feel her own sudden elation.
"O, yes, a splendid creature," she thought. And memories of the Crown Prince who had brought Beauty to the Queen's land and of her crude Captain of the Guard in the village were suddenly threatened with complete dissolution.
"Precious slaves," he said, eyes fixing on her for a brief, electric moment. "You know where you are and why you are here. The soldiers have brought you by force to serve your Lord and Master." So mellifluous the voice, the face so immediately warm. "And you know that you will serve always in silence. Dumb little creatures you are to the grooms who attend you.
But I, the Sultan's steward, cherish no such illusions that sensuality obliterates high reason."
"Of course not," Beauty thought. But she didn't dare to voice her thoughts. Her interest in the man was deepening rapidly and dangerously.
"Those few slaves I pick," he said, his eyes traveling again, "those I choose to perfect and offer to the Sultan's Court are always apprised of my aims, and my demands, and the dangers of my temper. But only in the secrecy of this chamber. In this chamber I want my methods to be understood. My expectations to be fully clarified."
He drew closer, towering over Beauty, and his hand reached for her breast, squeezing it as he had done before, just a little too hard, the hot shiver passing down into her sex immediately. With the other hand he stroked the side of Laurent's face, thumb grazing the lip as Beauty turned to watch, utterly forgetting herself.
"That you will not do, Princess," he said, and at once he slapped her hard and she bowed her head, her face stinging. "You will continue to look at me until I tell you otherwise."
Beauty's tears rose at once. How could she have been so foolish?
But there was no anger in his voice, only a soft indulgence. Tenderly, he lifted her chin. She stared at him through her tears.
"Do you know what I want of you, Beauty? Answer me."
"No, Master," she said quickly. Her voice alien to her.
"That you be perfect, for me!" he said gently, the voice seeming so full of reason, of logic. "This I want of all of you. That you be nonpareils in this vast wilderness of slaves in which you could be lost like a handful of diamonds in the ocean. That you shine by virtue not merely of your compliance but by virtue of your intense and particular passion. You will lift yourself up from the masses of slaves who surround you. You will seduce your Masters and Mistresses by a lustre that throws others into eclipse! Do you understand me!"
Beauty struggled not to sob in her anxiousness, her eyes on his, as if she could not look away even if she wanted to. But never had she felt such an overwhelming desire to obey. The urgency of his voice was wholly different from the tone of those who had educated her at the castle or chastised her in the village. She felt as if she was losing the very form of her personality. She was slowly melting.
"And this you will do for me," he said, his voice growing even more soft, more persuasive, more resonant. "You will do it as much for me as for your royal Lords. Because I desire it of you." He closed his hand around Beauty's throat. "Let me hear you speak again, little one. In my chambers, you will speak to me to tell me that you wish to please me."
"Yes, Master," she said. And her voice once again seemed strange to her, full of feelings she hadn't truly known before.
The warm fingers caressed her throat, seemed to caress the words she spoke, coax them out of her and shape the tone of them.
"You see, there are hundreds of grooms," he said, narrowing his eyes as he looked away from her to the others, the hand still clasping her. "Hundreds charged with preparing succulent little partridges for Our Lord the Sultan, or fine muscular young bucks and stags for him to play with. But I, Lexius, am the only Chief Steward of the Grooms. And I must choose and present the finest of all playthings."
Even this was not said with anger or urgency.
But as he looked again at Beauty, his eyes widened with intensity. The semblance of anger terrified her. But the gentle fingers massaged the back of her neck, the thumb stroking her throat in front.
"Yes, Master," she whispered suddenly.
"Yes, absolutely, my little love," he said, crooning to her. But then he became grave, and his voice became small, as if to command greater respect by speaking its words simply.
"It is absolutely out of the question that you do not distinguish yourselves, that after one glimpse of you the great luminaries of this house do not reach out to pluck you like ripe fruit, that they do not compliment me upon your loveliness, your heat, your silent, ravening passion."
Beauty's tears flowed again down her cheeks.
He withdrew his hand slowly. She felt suddenly cold, abandoned. A little sob caught in her throat, but he had heard it. Lovingly, almost sadly, he smiled at her. His face was shadowed and strangely vulnerable.