Beauty's Release (29 page)

When spring came round again, I could scarcely believe nine months had passed. Tristan and I lay together in the recreation yard, confessing our fears to each other.

“Nicolas is going to the Queen,” Tristan said. “He is asking to purchase me when the year is out. But the Queen is not pleased with his ardor. What will we do when these days come to an end?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll be sold back to the stables,” I said. “We’re good steeds.”

But it was like all our conversations of this sort—pure speculation. All we knew was that the Queen would consider our cases at the end of the year.

And when I saw the Captain of the Guard, when he came into the stables and sent for me and let me talk to him, I told him that Tristan was desperate to return to Nicolas, and I was just as desperate to remain where I was.

After the life of a pony, how could I bear anything else?

He listened to me with obvious compassion.

“You’re a credit to the stables, both of you,” he said. “You earn your feed twice and three times over.”

“More than that,” I thought, but I didn’t say so.

“The Queen may grant Nicolas’s wish, and as for you, it would be the natural thing for you to be given over for another year. The Queen’s more than pleased as it is to hear that you’ve both quieted down and behaved yourselves. And she has plenty of new playthings to content her at the castle.”

“Is Lexius still with her?” I asked.

“Yes, she’s frightfully hard on him, but it is what he needs,” said the Captain. “And then there is a lovely young Prince who wandered into this Land and threw himself upon her mercy. Said he was told of the Queen’s customs by Princess Beauty. Imagine that. He begged not to be sent away.”

“Ah, Beauty.” I felt a sudden stab of pain. I don’t think a day had passed that I’d not thought of her in her velvet gown, a flower held in a gloved hand, its petals looking all the more delicate for the fabric that pinched it. Gone forever into propriety, poor darling Beauty....

“Princess Beauty to you, Laurent,” the Captain corrected me.

“Of course, Princess Beauty,” I said softly, reverently.

“As to what will happen,” said the Captain, going back to the question at hand, “there is Lady Elvera, who asks about you constantly.”

“Captain, I am so happy here ...” I said.

“I know. I shall do what I can. But continue to be obedient, Laurent. You have another three years to serve somewhere, I am sure of it.”

“Captain, there is one more thing,” I said.

“What is it?”

“Princess Beauty.... Do you ever hear anything of her?”

His face grew a little sad, wistful.

“Only that she’s sure to be already married by this time. The suitors were beating down the door.”

I looked away from him, not wanting to reveal my expression. Beauty married. Time had not made me miss her less.

“She is a great Princess now, Laurent,” said the Captain, teasing me. “You are having disrespectful thoughts, I can see it!”

“Yes, Captain,” I said. We both smiled. But it wasn’t easy. “Captain, grant me a favor. When you do hear for certain that she has been married, don’t tell me. I would rather not know.”

“That isn’t like you, Laurent,” he said.

“I know. How explain it? I knew her only a little while.”

Coupling in the dark in the hold of the ship, her little face blood-red as she came beneath me, her hips pumping so ecstatically, she all but lifted my weight with her, off the floor. Of course, the Captain didn’t know that part of it. Or did he? I tried to put it out of my mind.

 

Weeks passed. I couldn’t keep track of them. I didn’t want to know how fast the time was running out.

Then one night Tristan confided to me with joyful tears that the Queen was giving him over to Nicolas when the year was out. He would be Nicolas’s private pony and sleep again in Nicolas’s chamber. He was ecstatic.

“I’m happy for you,” I said again.

But what would befall me when the moment came? Would I be put up on the auction block, and bought by some wicked old cobbler, and made to sweep out his shop while the ponies trotted past the door in all their glory? Ah! I couldn’t think of it. I couldn’t believe in anything else but this! Days following days....

In the recreation yard, I devoured Jerard as if each moment was our last. And then one evening at twilight when I was just finished with him and pulling him up into my arms for a little tender nuzzling, I saw a pair of boots standing before me. And looking up, I realized it was the Captain of the Guard.

He never came out here. I went pale.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “Please rise. I have a message of the greatest importance. I must ask you to come with me.”

“No!” I said. I stared at him in horror, thinking madly that if I could somehow stop his lips the words wouldn’t work their evil spell. “It can’t be time yet! I’m supposed to serve for three more years!”

We had all heard Beauty’s screams when she’d been told of her reprieve. I wanted to roar just as loudly now.

“I’m afraid it’s true, Your Majesty!” he said. And, extending his hand, he helped me to my feet.

It was amazing, the awkwardness between us. And right there in the stables were clothes for me and two young boys, with heads bowed not to see my nakedness, who helped me to put the clothes on.

“Must this be done here!” I demanded. I was in a rage. But I was trying to hide my grief, my utter shock. I stared at Gareth as the boys buttoned my tunic and laced my breeches. I looked down in silent fury at my boots, my gloves. “Couldn’t you have had the decency to take me up to the castle for this little ritual! I mean I’ve never seen it done right here on the hay-strewn floor!”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty!” the Captain said. “But this news couldn’t wait.”

He glanced at the open door. I saw two of the Queen’s most important advisers, both of whom had used me well at the castle, and now they too stood with bowed heads. I was on the edge of tears. Again I looked at Gareth. He too was about to cry.

“Goodbye, my beautiful Prince,” he said, and he knelt in the hay and kissed my hand.

“‘Prince’ is no longer the proper address for our gracious ally,” said one of the advisers, advancing. “Your Majesty, I bring you the sad news that your father has died, and you are now the ruler of your Kingdom. The King is dead, long live the King.”

“Damn it all,” I whispered. “He was always an utter bastard, and he would choose this time to breathe his last!”

MOMENT OF TRUTH

T
HERE WAS no time for lingering at the castle. I had to ride for home at once. I knew my Kingdom would be on the verge of anarchy. Both my brothers were idiots, and the Captain of the Army, though devoted to my father, would now try to gain power for himself.

And so, after an hour’s conference with the Queen in which we talked mostly war and diplomatic agreements, I rode out, taking with me a great amount of treasure from her and also some little lovely trinkets and souvenirs of village and castle life.

I was rather amazed still that all these cumbersome, heavy garments went everywhere that I did—it was annoying not to be naked—but I had to be on my way, and I did not even glance at the village as I rode by.

Of course, a thousand Princes had undergone this sudden reprieve, this shock of clothing and ceremony, but few had had to take the reins of the Kingdoms to which they returned. There was no time for lamentation, no time to linger at a country Inn on the way and drink myself into a stupor as I tried to get used to the real world.

I reached my castle by the second night of hard riding and, within the three days that followed, put everything right. My father had already been buried; my mother was long dead. And what was needed was a powerful hand at the helm of government and I soon made clear to everyone that that hand was mine.

I flogged the soldiers who had abused the village girls in the few days of anarchy. I lectured my brothers and directed them to their duties with ominous threats. I had the army assembled for inspection and gave generous rewards to all those who had loved my father and who now came to me with the same love.

None of this was difficult, really, yet I knew that many a European Kingdom fell because a new monarch could not do it. And I saw the look of relief on the faces of my subjects when they realized that their young King exercised authority easily and naturally, that he directed all matters of government, both large and small, with great personal attention and force. The Lord High Treasurer was grateful to have someone to assist him, and the Captain of the Army went at his command with renewed strength with me at his back.

But when the first frantic weeks were over, when things quieted down in the castle, when I could sleep the night through without interruptions from servants and family, I began to think about all that had occurred. I had no more marks on my body. I was tormented by endless desire. And, when I realized I would never be a naked slave again, I could scarcely stand it. I didn’t want to look at the trinkets the Queen had given me, see the leather toys that were of no significance to me now.

But I was ashamed afterwards.

It was not my destiny, as Lexius would have said, to be any longer a slave. I had now to be a good and powerful ruler, and the truth was I loved being King.

Being a Prince was just dreadful.

But being King was quite fine.

When my advisers came to me and told me I must take a wife and father a child to insure the succession, I nodded in agreement at once. Courtly life was going to devour me, and I should give it all that I had. My old existence was as insubstantial as a dream.

“And who are the likely Princesses?” I said to my advisers. I was signing some important laws as they stood about my writing table. “Well?” I looked up at them. “Speak!”

But even before any of the men said anything, one name suddenly came full force into my mind.

“Princess Beauty!” I whispered. Could it be that she had not been married! I dared not ask.

“0, yes, Your Majesty,” said my Lord High Chancellor. “She would be the wisest choice without question, but she refuses all suitors. Her father is in despair.”

“Does she now?” I said. I tried to conceal my excitement. “I wonder why she refuses them,” I said innocently. “Go saddle my horse at once.”

“But we should send an official letter to her father—”

“No. Saddle my horse,” I said, rising from the table. I went to the royal bedchamber to dress myself in my finest clothes and to get a few other little things as well.

I was just about to rush out when I stopped. I felt a sudden invisible blow to my chest. And just as if the wind had really been knocked out of me, I sank down in the chair at my desk.

Beauty, my darling Beauty. I saw her in the cabin of the ship with her arms out, beseeching me. And I felt a surge of longing that left me naked as I had never been. Other mad thoughts came back to me, of mastering Lexius alone in his chamber in the Sultan’s palace, of having Jerard in my full possession, of the tenderness that came out of me in those precious moments when I looked at the reddened flesh beneath my open hand, the dangerous awakening of love for the ones I punished mercilessly, for those who were mine.

Beauty!

It took a surprising amount of courage to rise from the chair. And yet I was so eager! I patted my pocket where I had put the trinkets I was taking to her. And then I caught a glimpse of myself in the distant mirror—His Majesty in purple velvet and black boots, his ermine-trimmed cloak flaring behind him—and I winked at my reflection.

“Laurent, you devil,” I said with wicked smile.

 

We reached the castle unannounced, just as I had hoped, and Beauty’s father was jubilant as he brought us into the Great Hall. There had not been many suitors of late. And he was eager for an alliance with our Kingdom.

“But, Your Majesty, I must warn you,” he said politely. “My daughter is proud and moody and will receive no one. She sits at her windows and dreams the whole day long.”

“Your Majesty, humor me if you will,” I answered. “You know my intentions are honorable. Merely point me to the door of her parlor and leave the rest to me.”

 

She was sitting at the window with her back to the room, and she was singing softly to herself, and her hair, gathering the sunlight to it, looked like spun gold.

My sweet darling. The dress she wore was rose-colored velvet trimmed in carefully embroidered leaves of silver. And how finely it fitted her magnificent little shoulders and arms. Arms as juicy as the rest of her, I thought. So sweet to squeeze, those little arms. And let me see the breasts please, immediately ... and those eyes, that spirit.

Again, the invisible and completely imaginary blow to my chest.

I crept up behind her and, just as she gave a start, I clamped my gloved hands over her eyes.

“Who dares to do this!” she whispered. It had a frightened, imploring sound.

“Quiet, Princess,” I said. “Your Lord and Master is here, the suitor you will not dare to refuse!”

“Laurent!” she gasped. I let her go, and she rose and turned and threw herself into my arms. I kissed her a thousand times, all but bruising her lips. She was as gorgeous and pliant as she had been in the hold of the ship, as succulent and feverish and wild.

“Laurent, you haven’t really come with an offer of marriage, have you?”

“Offer, Princess, offer?” I said. “I come with a command.” I forced her lips wide with my tongue, my hands squeezing her breasts hard through the velvet. “You will marry me, Princess. You will be my Queen and my slave.”

“0, Laurent, I never dared dream of this moment!” she said. Her face was beautifully flushed, her eyes gleaming. I could feel her heat through the skirts against my leg. And the surge of love came again, overwhelming and mingled with a maddening sense of possession and power. It made me hold her very tight.