“We are two different slaves,” she said as she sat up, taking the wine and drinking deeply. “And we are both happy.”
“I wish I understood you!” he whispered. “Don’t you long to be loved, don’t you long to have the pain mingled with tenderness?”
“You don’t have to understand me, my love. And there is tenderness.” But she paused, imagining the intimacy that existed between Tristan and Nicolas.
“My Master will guide me to greater and greater revelations,” Tristan said.
“And my destiny,” she answered, “will also have its momentum. When I saw poor, punished Prince Laurent today, I envied him. And he had no loving Master to guide him.”
Tristan sucked in his breath, gazing up at her. “You are a magnificent slave,” he said. “Perhaps you know more than I do.”
“No, I am a simpler slave in some ways. Your destiny is mingled with greater renunciation of self.” She leaned on her elbow and kissed him. His lips were dark red from the wine, and his eyes seemed unusually large and glassy. Gorgeous he was. Mad thoughts came to her, of tethering him in the harnesses herself and . . .
“We must not lose each other. Whatever happens,” he said. “Let’s take our stolen moments whenever we can to confide in each other. We may not always be allowed ...”
“With a Master as mad as yours we might have plenty of opportunity,” she said.
He smiled. But his gaze was broken suddenly, as if by some distracting thought, and he lay still listening.
“What is it?”
“There is no one on the road outside,” he said. “It’s absolutely silent. And there are always coaches on the road at this hour.”
“All the gates are closed,” she said. “And the soldiers are all gone.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, much whispering of searching the coast for raiders.”
He looked so beautiful to her now, and she wanted to make love again. She drew up on the bed, sitting back on her heels, and looked at his organ, which was already springing to life once more, and then she glanced at her own reflection in the far mirror. She loved the sight of the two of them in the mirror together. But even as she looked she saw another ghostly figure in the mirror. She saw a man with white hair, his arms folded, watching her!
She let out a shriek. Tristan sat up and stared forward. But she had already realized what it was. The mirror was a two-way mirror, one of those ancient tricks of which she’d heard tell as a child. And Tristan’s Master had all the while been watching. His dark face was amazingly clear, his white hair almost glowing, his brows knotted seriously.
Tristan half smiled and flushed. And a strange sense of exposure softened Beauty.
But the Master had vanished from the murky glass. The door of the room opened.
He drew near the bed, the elegant man in velvet and balloon sleeves, and he turned Beauty’s shoulders towards him. “Repeat this to me, all you’ve heard about the soldiers and these raiders.”
Beauty flushed. “Please don’t tell the Captain!” she begged. He nodded, and at once she told what she knew of the story.
For a moment, the Master stood still, thinking.
“Come,” he said and drew Beauty up from the bed, “I must take Beauty back to the Inn immediately.”
“May I go, please, Master?” Tristan asked.
But Master Nicolas was distracted. He didn’t seem to hear the question.
He turned and beckoned for them to follow. They walked quickly down the corridor and out the back door of the house, and Master Nicolas motioned for them to wait as he walked out towards the battlements.
For a long moment he looked from one end of the great wall to the other. The stillness commenced to unnerve Beauty.
“But this is foolish,” he whispered as he returned. “They seem to have left the village too little defended.”
“The Captain thinks they’ll strike the farms outside the walls, the manor houses,” Beauty said. “And there’s a watch posted, surely.”
Master Nicolas shook his head, disapprovingly. He locked the door of his house.
“But, Master,” Tristan asked. “Who are these raiders?” His expression had darkened, and there was nothing of a slave in his manner.
“Never mind all of that,” Master Nicolas said sternly as he started off ahead of them. “We will take Beauty back to her Mistress. Come quickly.”
Disaster
Nicolas led the way fast through the little tangle of streets, allowing Tristan and Beauty to walk together behind him. Tristan held Beauty tightly in his arms, kissing her and stroking her. And the late-night village seemed peaceful enough, its inhabitants unaware of any danger.
But suddenly as they drew near to the square of the Inns, there came from far off a terrible din of shrieking cries, and the thundering crash of wood against wood, the unmistakable sound of a giant battering ram.
Bells rang from the towers of the village. Everywhere doors opened.
“Run, quick,” Nicolas said, turning and reaching out for Beauty and Tristan.
From everywhere people appeared, yelling, shouting. Shutters slammed against windows, men ran to fetch down their manacled slaves. Naked Princes and Princesses darted out from the dimly lit doorway of the Punishment Shop taverns.
Beauty and Tristan raced towards the square only to hear the sound of the great battering ram shatter the wood that resisted it. And just beyond the square Beauty saw the night sky open up as the east gates of the village gave way and the air filled with loud, alien shrieks and ululations.
“Slave raid! Slave raid!” The scream came from all directions.
Tristan took Beauty in his arms, and dashed across the cobblestones towards the Inn, Nicolas beside him. But a great cloud of turbaned riders roared into the square. And Beauty gave a piercing cry as she saw that the doors and windows of all the Inns had already been bolted.
High above her loomed a dark-faced rider in flowing robes, his scimitar gleaming at his side as he bore down on her. Tristan tried to dodge the horse. And a powerful arm swooped down, catching Beauty up and knocking Tristan off his feet as the horse reared and turned, Beauty’s body heaved over the saddle.
Beauty screamed and screamed. She struggled under the powerful hand that held her down, lifting her head to see Tristan and Nicolas running towards her. But the dark streak of another rider appeared, and another. And in a flash of white limbs, she saw Tristan suspended between the two horsemen as Nicolas was hurled to the ground, rolling away from the dangerous hooves, his arms around his head for protection. Tristan was being thrown over a horse, one rider assisting the other.
Loud whooping screams filled the air, shrill pulsing cries such as Beauty had never heard before. Beauty’s captor reared his horse, and as Beauty sobbed and wailed, a rope was looped about her shoulders, tightening and securing her to the saddle, her legs kicking vainly and furiously. The horse galloped on out of the square back towards the village gates. And everywhere it seemed there were riders shooting past, garments streaming in the wind, naked upturned bottoms bucking helplessly.
Within seconds they were on the open road, the clang of the village bells growing ever more distant.
On and on through the night they rode, over the open fields, crashing through streams and copses, the great gleaming scimitars rising to hack at the overhanging foliage.
How large the party was Beauty could not tell; it seemed to go on forever behind her rider, the soft shouts of some alien tongue filling her ears, along with the sobs and groans of captive Princes and Princesses.