“That’s it. I remember now. Yes. Lord Stefan. I remember hearing that he might step forward . . .”
“Yes, well, she forbade Lord Stefan from being sold in the village and she abolished the custom. Now, she still allowed villagers to come forward on Midsummer Night and offer themselves for naked service. This was permissible to her, villagers, as they were not noble and not her kin. But that didn’t always happen. Nicholas said few villagers had the courage for it.”
“Yes, makes perfect sense.”
I pondered for a long moment.
“I’ll tell you something else,” Tristan confided. “There were always slaves who were released if they showed absolutely no aptitude.”
“There were?”
“Yes, those boys whose organs could not be aroused, those girls who dissolved in tears and paralysis. In sum, the ones who never found it stirring or pleasurable at all to serve. But no one was ever told about it. They only heard of rebels like Prince Alexi who, in spite of themselves, had hard cocks and fiercely beating hearts even when they would not obey, or little females who writhed like kittens when they were stroked and punished though they had to be bound most of the time.”
I smiled. “Well, that makes sense too,” I said.
“Queen Eleanor called those she sent away pallid little creatures, dimwits, and pitiable beings. Nicholas told me all this. But it was all secret.”
I fell into deep thought for a long time. I remembered so many things. My cock had been hard even when I was on the Punishment Cross for public display as a runaway. I’d found it all so deeply and richly intoxicating. It had been spellbinding.
But Tristan was waiting on me.
“Put your worries aside,” I said. “We’ll establish this manor house. We shall have servants and naked slaves to run it; and it will be the place for such things. Oh, we have so much to do, don’t we? I need maps of the kingdom. I intend to build walls around it entirely even if it takes years. And this manor house shall be a jewel when we are finished with it.”
“Thank you, Laurent,” he said. His voice was muted and there was a dark intensity to his eyes, to his expression. There was something very provocative about him suddenly, the way he lowered his eyes, the way he glanced up at me. He was daring me to master him now, I knew it. I wanted to do it. I found myself wondering what it would be like to master him now that he was a man, so self-possessed, so unlike the suffering pilgrim of passion he’d been in those days. I would do this, I knew I would. And I thought to myself, I shall do this when I wish, not when he wishes.
After I had seen him to the door, I found Beauty in her parlor at her dressing table, brushing her long hair. She was singing softly under her breath. I came up behind her, wrapped my arms around her, and began to kiss her tender little neck.
“Oh, Laurent, I am so tired,” she said. “You have the spirit of a new king.”
“Beauty! How are you going to be the queen of this new realm if you have so little stamina!” I said. I slipped my hand down between her legs, but the silk of her gown might as well have been a coat of mail.
“Doesn’t a queen spend a great deal of her time presiding over and watching entertainments prepared for her?” she asked. “That doesn’t take so much stamina, does it? Oh, I wish we were already at Bellavalten and in the gardens and that the gardens were filled with lanterns and that there were slave spectacles for us to enjoy this very night.”
She turned and looked up at me.
“Do you remember when we were in the hold of the ship, sailing to the sultanate, and they took Tristan and me, and they rubbed us all over with gold? It was an oil they used, filled with gold pigment, and we were burnished like statues, and they painted our nails and our eyelids gold.”
“I remember it vividly,” I said. My cock was painfully hard. “We were kept in cages and all we could do was watch.”
“Ah,” she went on dreamily. “I would so love to have many slaves at the castle burnished in that way for evening festivals, like so many gold or silver statues. I must talk to Lady Eva about such things. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
“Lovely,” I said. “You want to see a spectacle here now?” I knelt down beside her and, turning her towards me, I kissed her breasts through the pale blue silk of her gown.
“I wouldn’t mind it,” she whispered, kissing me tenderly. “Why, what do you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we need another night apart, visiting with our old friends, each of us . . .”
She nodded. I saw something quicken in her face. She didn’t need my urging.
“Laurent, from now on every night for us should hold full promise, shouldn’t it?”
“Yes, Beauty,” I said. “It should. But I was wondering. Last night, when you and Alexi were alone here together . . .”
“My lord, why trouble yourself with such things? We coupled. That’s what we did. We coupled, as we had long ago. But you are my king, my spouse, and my lord. You alone are my ruler.”
How earnest she seemed, and how much wiser than I would ever be.
But what if he had mastered her, what if? Why did this matter to me? I knew that it should not matter, any more than it mattered to Beauty what I had suffered at the hands of Eva.
I kissed her again slowly, as if my lips were seeking her soul—as if my breath and her breath were one, as if our souls were linked with one vital fire.
“Queen of my heart,” I said gravely. “I am yours and yours only.”
“Yes, beloved sovereign,” she whispered, throwing her arms tight around me, nuzzling into my neck. “I adore only you and no other.”
Blanche lay naked on the floor of the dressing closet, her head on a pillow, the cruel golden chastity belt covering her tender sex with its little cage of mesh so that she could not hope to alleviate the burning desire that she felt.
All last night, she had languished in torment as her master Tristan had talked by the hour with Lady Elvera in the bedchamber beyond.
Only when Lady Eva came finally to tell them that “all was well with the King” did they stop their endless commiseration, but then Tristan had turned to his writing without so much as a word to her, and finally, she had cried herself to sleep.
This afternoon and this evening, they’d been in the great hall of the castle, feasting and talking all together, and she had again been left here in the shadows, alone and frightened and starved for her master’s touch.
Galen had come more than once to see to her, to make certain that she had not left the dressing closet, and to spank her hard once or twice over his knee as he told her to behave herself and be patient, and not dare to touch the golden chastity belt that covered her private parts.
As if I knew how to unlock it, she thought bitterly. But Galen had not meant to be cruel. Not really. He was uneasy as was everyone else, waiting for the all-important decision of King Laurent and Queen Beauty, but Blanche’s breasts and sex burned for Tristan, and these hours were a torment she could scarcely bear.
Nevertheless, in Blanche’s mind, Galen left much to be desired in a groom.
At last, Galen had come rushing to tell her that it was decided: the King and Queen would take the thrones of Bellavalten, and were at this very minute giving forth their first all-important decrees. Galen had taken off the chastity belt long enough to bathe Blanche and rub her thoroughly with oil all over, and then to brush out her hair. But he’d been very strict that she must keep her legs apart as he tended to her. “Don’t make me tell him that you haven’t been a good girl.” His slow firm hands had sent the chills ripping through her as they rubbed the oil into her breasts, into her underarms, and into the muscles of her arms and legs. Galen was always happy when he worked, whistling to himself, and he gave little random kisses to Blanche, on her mouth or on her forehead, and always whispered flattery into her ear.
“You’re the most gorgeous slave I’ve ever groomed,” he said. Or, “I can scarcely resist you. Someday, I’m going to beg the master just to let me lie with you once.” This puzzled Blanche but she paid little attention. She’d been used in all ways by many grooms in the castle of the old kingdom. But then, her new master, Tristan, made his own rules.
Of course Blanche had been happy about the King’s decision. How could she not be happy that the kingdom would continue, that she would not have to leave the life that had engulfed her now for two years. But all this excitement in the great hall meant more lying in wait on the floor of the dressing closet, her fingers prying vainly at the little cage that covered her, trying to touch just the edge of her nether lips but in vain. Now and then she pinched her own nipples but this only intensified her longing, and her frustration.
Finally she’d fallen asleep again, and she did not know how many hours passed before Galen again awakened her.
“Get up quickly,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I mean it, now, hurry!” He was whispering. “Your master’s had his late supper and he wants you.”
She rose to her feet and stretched like a cat. He quickly unlocked the chastity belt and removed it. “Marks, it’s left marks on your flesh,” he said crossly.
She was tempted to say, Well, what did you expect?