The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty Page 0,7

clung to his as if she were afraid to let him go, and then he kissed her eyelids.

"Now everyone is going to want to have a look at Beauty," the Prince said to the Captain of the Guard. "Bind her hands over her head by a rope from the sign over the Inn gate, and let the people have their fill of her. But no one is to touch her. They can look all they like, but you stand guard and see that no one touches her. I'll have your food sent out to you."

"Yes, my Lord," said the Captain of the Guard.

But as the Prince gently gave Beauty over to him, she leaned forward, her lips out to the Prince, and he received her kiss gratefully. "You're very sweet, my darling," he said. "Now be modest and very very good. I should be very disappointed if all this adulation made my Beauty vain." He kissed her again, and let the Captain have her.

Then going inside and ordering his meat and ale, the Price watched through the diamond-paned windows.

The Captain of the Guard did not dare touch Beauty, except to put the rope about her wrists. He led her by this to the open gate of the courtyard, and throwing the rope up over the iron rod that held the sign of the Inn, he quickly secured her hands above her head, so that she was almost on tiptoe.

Then he motioned for the people to move back, and he stood against the wall with his arms folded as they pressed to look at her.

There were buxom women with stained aprons, and coarse men in breeches and heavy leather shoes, and the young well-to-do men of the town in their velvet cloaks with their hands on their hips as they eyed Beauty from a distance, unwilling to elbow in the crowd. And several young women, their elaborate white headdresses freshly done up, who had come out lifting their hems fastidiously as they looked at her.

At first everyone was whispering, but now people began to speak more freely.

Beauty had turned her face into her arm and let her hair shield her face, but then a soldier came out from the Prince and said:

"His Majesty said to turn her and lift her chin so they might have a better look at her."

An approving murmur went up from the crowd. "Very very lovely," said one of the young men.

"And this is what so many died for," said an old Cobbler.

The Captain of the Guard lifted Beauty's chin, and holding the rope above her, said gently:

"You must turn around, Princess."

"O, please, Captain," she whispered.

"Don't make a sound, Princess, I beg you. Our Lord is very strict," he said. "And it's his wish that everyone admire you."

Beauty, her cheeks flaming, obeyed, turning so the crowd could see her reddened buttocks and then again to show her breasts and her sex as the Captain kept his finger under her chin lightly.

It seemed she breathed deeply as though trying to remain very calm. The young men were calling her beautiful and saying her breasts were magnificent.

"But such buttocks," whispered an old woman nearby. "You can see that she's been spanked. I doubt the poor Princess did anything much to deserve it."

"Not much," said a young man near her. "Except have the most beautiful and pertly shaped buttocks imaginable."

Beauty was trembling.

Finally the Prince himself came out, ready to leave, and seeing the crowd as attentive as before, he himself took the rope down, and holding it like a short leash above Beauty's head, he turned her. He seemed amused by the crowd's grateful nods, and thanks, and bows to him; and very gracious in his generosity.

"Lift your chin, Beauty, I shouldn't have to lift it," he reproved her with a little deliberate frown of disappointment.

Beauty obeyed, her face so red that her eyebrows and eyelashes gleamed golden in the sun, and the Prince kissed her.

"Come here, old man," the Prince said to the old Cobbler. "Have you ever seen such loveliness?"

"No, your Majesty," said the old man. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and his legs were slightly bowed. His hair was gray but his green eyes gleamed with a special almost wistful pleasure. "She is truly a magnificent Princess, your Majesty, worth all the deaths of those who tried to claim her."

"Yes, I suppose so, and worth all the bravery of the Prince who did claim her," smiled the Prince.

Everyone laughed politely. But they couldn't conceal