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

of them dream of sensual realms where passions were flamed to white-hot heat, of exotic and demanding rituals that laid bare the very mystery of erotic love? Did none of these simple people long for Masters or slaves in their secret hearts?

Normal life, ordinary life. She wondered if there were not lies worked into the fabric, lies she could discover if only she took the risk. But, when she studied the serving girl at the door of the Inn or the soldier who dismounted to bow to her, she saw only masks of common attitude and disposition, as she saw them on the faces of her courtiers, her maids. All were bound to show respect for the Princess as she, by custom and law, was bound to her proper and lofty place.

And, suffering silently, she made her way back to her lonely chambers.

And she sat by the window, resting her head on her folded arms on the stone sill, dreaming of Laurent and all those she had left behind, of a rich and priceless education of body and soul interrupted and forever lost.

“Dear young Prince,” she sighed, remembering her rejected suitor, “I hope you have made it into the Queen’s country. I did not even think to ask you your name.”

LAURENT: LIFE AMONG THE PONIES

THAT FIRST day among the ponies had had its significant revelations, but the true lessons of the new life came with time, with the constant day-to-day discipline of the stable and the numerous small aspects of my prolonged and rigid servitude.

I had known many an ordeal before, but no special test had been sustained as this existence was. And it took a while for me to grasp what it meant that Tristan and I had been condemned for twelve months, that we were not to be spirited out of the stables for the Public Turntable, or a night with the soldiers at the Inn, or any other diversion.

We slumbered, worked, ate, drank, dreamed, and made love as ponies. And, as Gareth had said, ponies are proud beasts, and we soon admitted this pride, and a profound addiction to the long gallops in the fresh air, to the firm feel of our harnesses and bits, and to the quick struggle with our fellow steeds in the recreation yard.

But never did the routine make things easy. Never did the discipline soften. Each day was an adventure of accomplishments and failures, of shocks and humiliations, of rewards or severe punishments.

We slept, as I have described, in our stalls, bent over at the waist, our heads resting on pillows. And this position, though quite comfortable, did as much as anything else to strengthen the sense that we had left the world of men behind. At dawn we were hastily fed and oiled, and taken out in the yard for hiring to the waiting populace. And it was no uncommon thing for the villagers to feel our muscles before they chose us or even to test us with a few wallops of the strap to see whether or not we responded with quickness and good form.

Not a day passed that Tristan and I weren’t asked for a dozen times, and Jerard, who had asked Gareth for the privilege, was frequently tethered in the same team with us. I grew used to having Jerard near, just as I was used to Tristan, and used to whispering little threats in Jerard’s ear.

At the recreation periods, Jerard was mine completely, and no one dared to challange me, least of all Jerard himself. I whipped his backside lustily, and he soon was so well trained that he didn’t wait for me to tell him to assume the proper position for the whipping. He came on his hands and knees knowing what was to happen and kissing my hands after. It was the joke of the stables that I whipped him harder than any coachman, that he was twice as red as any other steed.

But these little interludes were brief. It was the daily work that made up our true life. As the months passed, we knew every manner of cart, coach, and wagon. We pulled the fancy gilded carriage of the rich country Lords, who divided their time between the castle and the manor house. We pulled the runaways on their Punishment Crosses to the public display and chastisement. And, just as frequently, we found ourselves drawing plows in the fields or singled out for the lone chore of tugging a little basket cart to