Beauty’s Kingdom (Sleeping Beauty #4)(50)
Author: Anne Rice

“I long to serve,” said Lord Stefan in a tremulous voice. He looked directly into her eyes. That was hardly difficult for her or anyone, thought Beauty. For what did her eyes say, but that she wanted so to help him? “My queen, I long to serve with all my heart! I always have. My cousin the late queen despised me utterly for it, forbade me ever to speak of it to her or to others, excoriated me for my unseemly weakness.”

Beauty said nothing. Tristan leaned closer to his friend, the fingers of his left hand gently cradling Lord Stefan’s shoulder.

Nothing quivered at all in the alabaster face of the feline Becca. Indifferent as a cat. As secretive and aloof.

“Go on, my lord, tell me all,” said Beauty. Her heart went out to Stefan.

“You know there was an old custom in the kingdom, that on Midsummer Eve, those of the Court who wanted to be slaves could become slaves—but only to be sent to the village. And the Queen forbade me from ever disgracing the royal family by such a step, threatening me with banishment if I were even to suggest it. And so I kept my peace and I lived as one condemned to burn with passion forever without respite, and did what I could, sought what I could in secret.” His eyes shifted, lighted upon Becca, and then veered away as if he had been slapped. He looked to Beauty. “Your Majesty, now that the new kingdom blossoms like a magic garden planted and watered by the wise women of legend, I am in ever-increasing agony!”

“My lord, what would you like me to do?” asked Beauty. “Hasn’t my lord, the King, set up a manor house where you might go to seek the discipline you so crave, without judgment?” Oh, how I should like to go there myself!

“Yes, my queen, and it was very generous of the King to allow this,” Stefan replied.

“Nonsense, my lord, the King was happy to allow it. And I am happy that it is allowed. We do not conform to the ideas of the late Queen Eleanor.”

“My queen,” Tristan said. He spoke softly, haltingly, waiting for Beauty’s permission to continue. She nodded at once. And he went on, “What Stefan wants is to come to live with me permanently in my household.”

“Ah, well why not?” said Beauty. “I can see no reason to prohibit it.”

“But as my naked slave,” said Tristan, “entirely subject to my authority and bound to me for six months like any postulant to the kingdom, and thereafter for years of his own free will and mine.”

“Ah. Well, I see no objection to it whatsoever,” said the Queen. “And my lord, the King, has entrusted this matter entirely to me, and won’t question my decision. Why not, Lord Stefan? Why not?”

Lord Stefan sat back and closed his eyes. A long shudder passed through him. Obviously he was overcome with gratitude. Yet he was afraid. He was tense. He was still anxious.

“But you do realize, my lord,” said Beauty. “That this may be far more difficult for you than you now realize.”

“I have explained the terms on which I will accept this,” said Tristan gently, gesturing with his open palm. “I have told Stefan that there will be no special rules for him, or special allowances.”

“And you are right. There cannot be any special allowances,” said Beauty. “For the discipline of the kingdom is the citadel of all slaves and their masters or mistresses.”

“I understand, my queen,” said Lord Stefan. “I have every confidence that Tristan, my new master, will allow no half measures.” A deep blush came over Stefan’s face. He glanced at Tristan, then lowered his eyes. Such pain. Such fear.

“And Stefan understands as well,” said Beauty, “that he will not be shielded from the eyes of others in any certain safety in your house, does he not, Tristan? He cannot be closeted away there with any guarantee of perfect privacy. Once he becomes a slave of the kingdom, inevitably this will be known, and someone sooner or later, someone of his former kith or kindred, will see him in his new state. From that he cannot be protected. It is a practical fact as well as a matter of propriety. No slave is given special concealment.”

Tristan glanced at Stefan.

“I do understand,” said Stefan under his breath, gazing at the Queen. But she could see the timidity, the uncertainty.

He is taller than me, Beauty thought, yet he tilts his head so that he is looking up at me. That is his manner, always to be looking up even at those who are shorter, smaller than he is. Very pretty and in a slave irresistibly charming.

“Frankly, it terrifies me,” said Lord Stefan. “I cannot but think of being seen by those at Court, I cannot bear to think of ever being brought into the gardens and displayed, I cannot bear to think of those who’d supped with me and talked with me, and hunted with me and lived with me suddenly having me naked and at their feet. But I have no choice but to pursue this path, and I have no hope except that Tristan will bring me along with gentleness and indulgence and some mercy on me for my fears. I cannot—” He broke off helplessly.

Tristan nodded silently at Beauty. There was a trace of a smile on his full lips. His blue eyes were filled with patience and understanding, and when he embraced Stefan again it was tenderly.

“Well, my lord,” said Beauty, “no man in the kingdom knows more of what it means to master and to serve—no man except the King—than Prince Tristan.”

“Yes, my queen,” said Lord Stefan. His eyes were thick with tears. “I am so grateful to you.”

Then why are you still so miserable, thought Beauty. And why am I so afraid for you?

“And may I then take my Lord Stefan with me now?” asked Tristan. “My servants may pack up all that belongs to him and store this safely in my house? And then we need trouble you no more with this.”

“Ah, not quite so simple,” said the Queen. She was thinking, pondering, thinking of all the great ways of Bellavalten and the principles that lay behind them. She looked at the cold and comely Becca who was staring forward as before, as if she heard nothing when in fact she heard everything.

“I shall tell you how it will be,” Beauty said. “In that you have come to me for an innovation, I shall set the terms of it.”

Her eyes moved idly over the distant window, and over the many objects of the room waked by morning sun, as she continued speaking.

“Given that you are who you are, I shall arrange it for you. Now, tonight, or tomorrow night, or the night after—Tristan, you decide—the King and I, before the usual grand feast, will come down to your manor house, and there in a garden grove or fountain court of your choosing, you will present your new and naked slave to us for anointing. We will hear his vows—to serve with his whole heart for six months—and then we shall leave him to you. And then it is in your hands, Prince, as to when, if ever, you bring him into the great gardens of the castle with you, or what you do with him on all accounts.”

No one spoke. But the casual lift of Beauty’s right hand held them in abeyance.

“In three nights,” said Tristan earnestly. “Please, my queen. Give me three nights to work with him before he’s to be anointed. I can turn him out beautifully in three nights, surely.”

Looking around the room as before, Beauty continued:

“Very well, three nights it shall be. But he must be anointed.”

“Yes, my queen.”

“And I give you now the benefit of my experience.” She lowered her voice as if to underscore the importance of her words. “Be strict, very strict, and don’t wait too long, Tristan, to bring your obedient slave to Court, and whip your charge yourself along the castle Bridle Path.”

Lord Stefan flinched. He stared forward, his lips quivering. Beauty caught this though she was not looking directly at him.

“Choose a late hour if you like,” said Beauty, looking at the distant window. “When not many are about, for the first time. It doesn’t matter. But don’t wait too long. And at the end of six months, I trust to your judgment that this must be a perfect novice to take his vows for another two years. Do not present him for that moment if he is truly unworthy.”

Silence.

Slowly Beauty turned and looked at Lord Stefan. The color had drained from his face and he was staring at her. His mouth, so tender and boyish, so vulnerable, was still quivering. But there was a wild gleam in his eyes that was more than his tears sparkling in the sunlight.

“I understand,” said Tristan. “I understand completely. And if I cannot put Stefan forward as a worthy slave at the end of six months?”

“Well, then that will require extraordinary measures,” said Beauty. “A period of retirement perhaps from the kingdom or a year of gentle imprisonment in Lord Stefan’s old quarters. I do not know which. I cannot say. But I say only that Lord Stefan will not be permitted to serve if he cannot serve, any more than any other slave who fails at it. And we shall have no hybrids here, no creatures who are half slave and half master. We shall have no breakdown of ritual or discipline which could spell ruin for all. What I allow, I will allow. But it shall be enshrined for all to know, and shall have its consistency and its principles.” She sighed. “I owe this,” she said, “to every single slave in the realm. I owe this to every single master as well.”