Beauty's Punishment - By A. N. Roquelaure & Anne Rice Page 0,87
you will occupy a much more lowly position. Of course, you will be the playthings of your Masters and Mistresses, very valuable playthings. But you will no longer be treated as beings with high reason. On the contrary, you will be trained as valuable animals are trained, and you must never, heaven help you, try to speak or to evince anything more than the simplest understanding—”
“My Lord,” I interrupted.
“As you see,” the Lord continued, “the attendants will not even remain in the room here if you are spoken to as if you have wits. They find it too incongruous and unseemly. They retire at the distasteful sight of a slave treated as ...”
“... as human,” Beauty whispered. Her lower lip was quivering as she tightened her little fists on the bars, but she was not crying.
“Yes, exactly, Princess.”
“My Lord.” I was furious now. “You must ransom us, we are under her Majesty’s protection! This violates all agreements!”
“Out of the question, dear Prince. In the complex exchanges between great powers, some things must be sacrificed. And it violates no agreements. You were sent to serve, and serve you shall, in the Palace of the Sultan. And have no doubt, you will be treasured by your new Masters. Though the Sultan has many slaves from his own land, you captive Princes and Princesses are a special delicacy of sorts, and a great curiosity.”
I was too angry and defeated to speak further. It was hopeless. Nothing I said made any difference. I was imprisoned like a creature of the wild, and my mind lapsed into miserable silence.
“I did what I could,” said the Lord, his eyes including the others now as he stepped back.
Dmitri was awake and leaning on his elbow as he listened.
“I was ordered to obtain an apology for the raid,” the Lord went on, “and a stiff indemnity. I got more gold than I expected.” He was going to the door. His hand was on the latch. “Two years, Prince, that’s not so long,” he said to me. “And when you return, your knowledge and experience will prove of inestimable value at the castle.”
“My Master!” I said suddenly. “Nicolas, the Chronicler. Tell me at least, was he harmed in the raid?”
“He’s quite alive and, in all probability, fast at work at his written account of the raid for her Majesty. He grieves bitterly for you. But nothing can be done. Now I must leave you. Be brave and be clever, clever at pretending you are not clever, that you are no more than the most abject little bundles of ever-demonstrable passion.”
And he left us immediately.
We all remained quiet, hearing the distant shouts of the sailors above. Then we felt the sea surge sluggishly as the other craft pulled away from us.
And the giant ship was moving again, fast, as if at full sail, and I slumped back against the cool gold bars and stared forward.
“Don’t be sad, my darling,” Beauty said as she peered at me, her long hair veiling her breasts, the light glinting on her polished limbs. “It’s only the same whirlwind.”
I turned over and stretched out, despite the uncomfortable metal between my legs, and rested my head against my arms, and for a long time I wept in silence.
Finally, when my tears had dried themselves, I heard Beauty’s voice again.
“I know you’re thinking of your Master,” she said gently. “But, Tristan, remember your own words.”
I sighed against my arm.
“Remind me, Beauty,” I asked quietly.
“That your whole existence is but an entreaty to be dissolved in the will of others. And so it goes on, Tristan, and we move deeper and deeper, all of us, into that dissolution.”
“Yes, Beauty,” I said softly.
“It’s but another turn of the wheel,” she said, “and we understand now more keenly what we have always known, since we were made captives.”
“Yes,” I said, “that we belong to others.”
And I turned my head to look up at her. The position of the cages wouldn’t allow us to touch more than our fingertips if we tried, and it was better just to see her pretty face and her luscious little arms as she held the bars still.
“It’s true,” I said. “You’re right.” And I felt a tightening in my chest and the old familiar awareness of my helplessness, not as a Prince, but as a slave, entirely dependent on the whims of new and unknown Masters.
And gazing at her face, I felt the first stirring of the wonder that was kindled in her eyes. We