Beauty's Punishment - By A. N. Roquelaure & Anne Rice Page 0,3
how much could be accomplished with the innocent-looking black leather strap and deceptively decorated leather paddle.
But in the village she would be no Princess. Tristan would be no Prince. And the crude men and women who worked them and punished them would know that with every gratuitous blow they were doing the Queen’s bidding.
Suddenly Beauty couldn’t think. Yes, it had been deliberate, but had she made some dreadful error?
“And you, Tristan,” she said suddenly, trying to conceal the quavering of her voice. “Was it not deliberate with you, too? Didn’t you deliberately provoke your Master?”
“Yes, Beauty, but there’s a long story behind it,” Tristan said. And Beauty could see the apprehension in his eyes, the dread he couldn’t admit either. “I served Lord Stefan, as you know, but what you don’t know is that a year ago in another land, as equals, Lord Stefan and I were lovers.” The large violet-blue eyes became a little more penetrable, the lips a little warmer as they smiled almost sadly.
Beauty gasped to hear this.
The sun was fully risen now, and the cart had taken a sharp turn in the road and the descent was slower over uneven terrain, the slaves pitched more roughly than ever against one another.
“You can imagine our surprise,” Tristan said, “when we discovered ourselves Master and slave at the castle, and when the Queen, seeing the blush on Lord Stefan’s face, immediately gave me over to him with the sharp instructions that he train me himself to be perfect.”
“Unbearable,” Beauty said. “To have known him before, to have walked with him, spoken with him. How could you submit?”
All her Masters and Mistresses had been strangers to her, defined perfectly in the instant she realized her helplessness and vulnerability. She had known the color and texture of their magnificent slippers and boots, the sharp tones of their voices, before she had known their names or their faces.
But Tristan gave the same mysterious smile. “0, I think it was far worse for Stefan than for me,” he whispered in her ear. “You see, we had met before at a great tournament, struggling against each other, and in every feat I’d bested him. When we hunted together, I had been the better shot and the better horseman. He had admired me and looked up to me, and I had loved him for it because I knew the extent of his pride and the love that equaled it. When we coupled, I was the leader.
“But we had to return to our Kingdoms. We had to return to the duties that awaited us. Three stolen nights of love we had, maybe more, in which he yielded as a boy might to a man. Then letters that at last became too painful to write. Then war. Silence. Stefan’s Kingdom allied with that of the Queen. And later, her armies at our gates, and this strange meeting in the Queen’s castle: I on my knees waiting to be given to a worthy Master, and Stefan, the Queen’s young kinsman, sitting silently at her right at the banquet table.” Tristan smiled again. “No, it was worse for him. I blush with shame to admit it, but my heart leapt when I saw him. And it is I who, out of spite, have triumphed by abandoning him.”
“Yes,” Beauty understood this because she knew she had done it to the Crown Prince and Lady Juliana. “But the village, weren’t you afraid?” Again there came the quavering in her voice. How far were they from the village, even as they spoke of it? “Or was it simply the only way?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know. There must have been more to it than that,” Tristan whispered, but then he stopped as though bewildered. “But if you must know,” he confessed, “I am terrified.” Yet he said it so calmly, his voice so full of quiet assurance that Beauty couldn’t believe it.
The groaning cart had made another turn. The guards had ridden ahead to hear some orders from their Commander. The slaves whispered among themselves, all too obedient and fearful still to discard the little leather bits in their mouth, yet able to consult frantically on what lay ahead as the cart rocked on slowly.
“Beauty,” Tristan said, “we’ll be separated when we reach the village, and no one knows what may happen to us. Be good, obey; it can’t ultimately—” And again he stopped, unsure. “It can’t ultimately be worse than the castle.”