Beauty's Punishment - By A. N. Roquelaure & Anne Rice Page 0,86

nearly perfected; and crouching in the cage, she appeared some bizarre creature imported from a strange land, to be set in a pleasure garden. We must have all appeared that way.

“We might still be rescued!” she said anxiously.

“I don’t know,” I answered. Why were there no soldiers? Why was there only that single voice? I couldn’t frighten her by telling her we were true captives now, not valuable Tributes under the protection of her Majesty.

Finally Laurent was coming to himself, rising slowly on account of the welts that covered his body, and with the rubbing of gold oil he looked as splendid as Beauty. It was an odd spectacle, in fact, all the welts and stripes so deeply colored with the gold so that they became almost purely ornamental. Maybe all our welts and stripes had always been purely ornamental. His hair, so neglected when he had been on the Punishment Cross, was dressed now and trained into magnificent dark brown curls. He blinked as he looked up at me, clearing the drugged sleep from his eyes rapidly.

Hurriedly I told him what had happened and pointed to the ceiling. We were all listening to the voice, though I don’t think either of them heard it any more clearly than I did.

Laurent shook his head and rested back. “What an adventure!” he said slowly, with an almost sleepy indifference.

Beauty smiled in spite of herself at the word and glanced shyly at me. I was too angry to speak. I felt too helpless.

“Wait,” I said, kneeling forward and taking hold of the bars. “Someone’s coming.” I could hear throughout the hold a dull vibration.

The door opened and into the room stepped a pair of the silken dressed boys who had been caring for us. They carried little boat-shaped brass oil lamps. And between them stood a tall elderly gray-haired Lord clothed in familiar doublet and leggings, his sword at his side, his dagger in his thick leather belt, his eyes sweeping the room almost angrily.

The tallest of the two boys gave forth a stream of soft foreign chatter to the Lord, and the man nodded and motioned with an angry expression.

“Tristan, and Beauty,” he said, advancing into the room, “and Laurent.”

At this, the olive-skinned boys at once seemed disconcerted. They averted their eyes and left the Lord alone with the slaves, closing the door behind them.

“I was afraid of this,” he said. “And Elena and Rosalynd and Dmitri. The finest castle slaves. These thieves have such excellent eyes. They freed the others down the coast as soon as they had ferreted out the prizes.”

“But what’s to happen to us, my Lord?” I demanded. His attitude was too clearly one of exasperation.

“That, my dear Tristan,” said the Lord, “is in the hands of your Master, the Sultan.”

Beauty gasped.

I felt my face harden, the rage welling up in me, silencing me for the moment as I stared at him. “My Lord,” I said, my voice shuddering with anger, “will you not even try to save us?” I saw in my mind’s eyes the figure of my Master, Nicolas, thrown down on the stones of the square, as the horse carried me away, my struggles useless. But that was not the half of my anguish. What lay ahead of us?

“What I have done is the best I can do,” said the Lord, approaching me. “I have exacted an enormous indemnity for each of you. The Sultan will pay almost anything for plump, soft-skinned, well-trained slaves of the Queen, but he likes his gold as much as the next man. And in two years, he will return you well-fed, in good health with no blemishes, or he will not see his gold again. Believe me, Prince, it has been done a hundred times over. Had I failed to intercept his craft, his emissaries and our emissaries would have met together. He wants no real quarrel with her Majesty. You have never been in any real danger.

“No danger!” I protested. “We are going to a foreign land where ...”

“Quiet, Tristan,” he said sharply. “It is the Sultan who inspired our Queen to her passion for pleasure victims. He sent the Queen her first slaves and explained to her the care with which slaves must be treated. No real harm shall come to you. Though of course ... of course ...”

“Of course what!” I demanded.

“You will be more abject,” said the Lord, with a little anxious shrug, as if he couldn’t fully explain it. “In the Sultan’s palace,