Beauty s Punishment - By Anne Rice Page 0,78

tall blond Princess who years before had so tormented Beauty's beloved Alexi in her little circus performance for the Court at the castle? And where was she now? Clothed and safe in another Kingdom? Beauty should envy her, she thought, but she couldn't. She couldn't even think of it with any concentration. And her mind returned again and again, without judgment or fear, or even thought, to the stunning image of Prince Laurent mounted on the cross, his massive torso throbbing under the strap, his buttocks riding the wooden phallus.

She slept.

Yet it seemed that sometime before morning she saw Tristan. But that must have been a dream. Beautiful Tristan kneeling at the door of the Inn, looking up at her. His golden hair fell almost to his shoulders, and his large blue-violet eyes gazed up at her with the most complete affection.

She wanted so to talk to him, to tell him how strangely content she was. But then the vision of Tristan was gone, as surely as it had come. She must have been dreaming.

Through her dreams came Mistress Lockley's voice, in low conversation with the Captain. "Pity that poor Princess," she said, "if they are out there. But so soon, I can scarce believe they'd try it."

"I know," the Captain answered. "But they can come anytime. They can strike the manor houses and the farms and be off before we even know it in the village. That's what they did two years ago. That's why I've doubled the watch, and we'll be patrolling until this is settled."

Beauty opened her eyes. But they had moved away from under the keg and she could no longer hear them.
PENITENTIAL PROCESSION
When Beauty awoke, it was late afternoon and she was alone in the Captain's bed. A loud roaring came from the square below, with the slow chilling beat of a deep drum. In spite of the alarm that the drum sounded in her soul, she thought of the chores she should have done. She sat up in panic.

But immediately Prince Roger calmed her with a little gesture. "The Captain said for you to sleep late," he said. He had the broom in his hands, but he was looking out of the window.

"What is it?" Beauty asked. She could feel the reverberation of the drum in her belly. And the steady beat filled her with dread. Seeing no one else in the room, she climbed to her feet and came up beside Prince Roger.

"Only the runaway Prince Laurent," he said, putting his arm around Beauty as he pulled her close to the thick little panes. "Being wheeled through the village."

Beauty pressed her forehead to the glass. Below in a great loose crowd of villagers she saw a giant two-wheeled cart being pulled around the well, not by horses, but slaves in bits and harnesses.

The flushed face of Prince Laurent, bound to the cross with his legs straight out, his protuberant sex as hard as ever, stared straight up at Beauty. She saw his eyes wide and seemingly still, the mouth quivering on the thick leather that bound the head flat to the top of the beam, the bound legs shuddering with the cart's uneven movement.

The sight riveted her even more strongly than it had the night before, from this new perspective. She watched the slow progression of the cart and looked at the odd expression on the Prince's face, so devoid of panic. The roaring of the crowd was as bad as it had been at the auction. And as the cart turned round the well and back towards the Sign of the Inn now, Beauty saw the victim fully from the front and she winced at the welts and bands of reddened flesh that covered the insides of his legs, his chest, and his belly. Two whippings more he'd had and a third promised.

But an even more disturbing sight absorbed her as she realized that one of the six slaves harnessed to the cart was Tristan. He was passing directly beneath her again, and it was Tristan without mistake, his thick golden hair shimmering in the sun, his head pulled back by the bit in his mouth, his knees rising sharply. And streaming out from the cleft of his handsomely shaped rump was a sleek black horsetail. No one had to tell her what held it in place. It was the phallus inside him.

Beauty covered her face with her hands, but she felt the familiar secretion between her legs, the first clarion of