But then who were these prisoners? Would she only be one of them? Was this the meaning of the odd conversation that had passed between the Prince and her father and mother? No, they could not have served like this. She felt an odd mingling of torrential jealousy and comfort.
It was a ritual, this treatment. Others had suffered it before. It was fixed and she was all the more helpless. She felt herself soften as she thought of it.
But her Lord, the gray-eyed one, was speaking: "Now, for your second lesson. You have seen the Princesses who are tributes here. Now look to your right and you shall see the Princes."
Beauty looked to the other side of the hall as best she could through the shifting figures about her, and there, on another high ledge, in the ghastly shadow-light of the fire, stood a row of naked young men, all of them in the same position.
Their heads were bowed, their hands behind their necks, and they were all of them very handsome to look at, as beautiful each in his own way as the young women on the other side, but their great difference lay in their sex, for their organs were erect and hard to a one, and Beauty could not take her eyes off this sight, for they appeared to her even more vulnerable and subservient.
She knew she had made a little noise again, because she felt the Lord's finger on her lips, and she sensed almost from the air itself that she was now being left by the Lords and Ladies.
Only one pair of hands remained and these she felt touching the tenderest flesh around her anus. She was so frightened by this -- for almost no one else had touched her there -- that involuntarily she struggled again, only to have the gray-eyed Lord stroke her face again gently.
There was a great commotion in the room. Beauty could just catch the aroma of cooking food, and dishes being brought in, and now she saw that most of the Lords and Ladies were seated at the tables, and there was much talking and lifting of cups, and somewhere a group of musicians had begun to play a low rhythmic music. It was full of horns and tambourines and the strumming of thick strings, and Beauty saw that the long file of naked men and women on either side was moving.
"But what are they?" she wanted to ask. "To what purpose?" But now she saw the first of them appear amid the crowd, carrying silver pitchers with which they filled the goblets at the table, always bowing when they passed the Queen and the Prince, and she watched them, forgetting herself for the moment, with great absorption.
The young men had softly curly hair, cut at the shoulders and neatly combed so that it framed their lean faces. And never did they raise their eyes, though some seemed to move in obvious discomfort from the hardness of their penises. How she could tell this discomfort, she was not sure; it was their manner, a manner of bearing tension and desire, with no expression for it.
And as she saw the first of the long-haired girls bending over the table with her pitcher, she wondered if she too felt this same softly agonizing pleasure. Beauty felt it now just looking at these slaves, and she felt a quiet relief that for a moment she herself was unobserved.
Or so she thought.
Because she could sense a restlessness in the room. Some were rising and walking about, perhaps even dancing to the music. She could not be sure. And others had gone to gather near the Queen, their goblets in hand, regaling the Prince it seemed with stories.
The Prince.
She caught a clear glimpse of him and he smiled at her. How regal he looked, his black hair glossy and full, his long, shining white boots stretched out on the blue carpet before him. He was nodding and smiling to those who addressed him, but now and then his eyes moved to Beauty.
But there was so much to see, and now she felt someone was very near her, and touching her again, and she realized that a line of dancers was just forming to one side of her.
There was a reckless air to things. Much wine was being poured. There were great eruptions of laughter.
And then, quite suddenly, she saw far to her left a young naked boy drop his pitcher of wine, and the