None of these slaves even dared to glance at Beauty. Their whole attitude was one of obedience, and as the little Princess with the scrub brush hurried on to wash the floor very near Beauty’s feet, Beauty saw her legs and buttocks had recently been punished.
“But who are these slaves?” Beauty thought. She was almost sure that she and Tristan had been among the first load to be sentenced to hard labor. Were these the incorrigibles who behaved so badly they had been consigned for a year to the village?
“Get the wooden paddle,” said Mistress Lockley to the man at the bar. She pulled Beauty forward and quickly threw her over the counter.
Beauty gave a groan before she could stop herself, feeling her legs dangling off the floor. She had not made up her mind whether she should obey when she felt the woman unfastening the gag and the buckle, and then slapping her hands to the back of her neck.
But the woman’s other hand had passed between Beauty’s legs and the searching fingers found her wet sex and swelling lips and even the burning kernel of the clitoris that caused Beauty to clench her teeth against a pitious moan.
The woman’s hand left her in torment.
Beauty breathed freely for an instant, and then she felt the smooth surface of the wooden paddle being pressed softly to her buttocks, and the welts seemed to burn anew.
Red with shame over the little examination, Beauty tensed, waiting for the inevitable spanking, but it didn’t come. Mistress Lockley twisted her face so that Beauty could see to the left through the open door.
“Do you see that pretty Princess hanging from the sign?” The Mistress asked. And grasping Beauty’s hair she pushed and pulled her head into a nod. Beauty understood that she mustn’t speak, and she decided for the moment to obey. She nodded of her own accord. The Princess’s body turned a little this way and that on the chain. Beauty could not remember if her unfortunate sex had been wet or shy beneath its inadequate veil of pubic hair.
“Do you want to hang there instead of her?” asked Mistress Lockley. Her voice was flat and severe and cold. “Do you want to hang there hour after hour day after day with that hungry little mouth of yours starved and gaping for all the world to see?”
Quite truthfully Beauty shook her head no.
“Then you’ll stop the insolence and rebelliousness you showed on the auction block, and you’ll obey every command given you, and you’ll kiss your Master’s and Mistresses’s feet, and you’ll whimper in gratitude for your supper when you get it and lick the plate clean!”
She forced Beauty’s head into a nod again, and Beauty felt the oddest sensation of excitement. She nodded once more, of her own accord. Her sex pulsed against the wood of the bar.
The woman’s hand moved under her and gathered her breasts together, holding them like two soft peaches plucked off a tree. Beauty’s nipples burned.
“We understand each other, don’t we?” she said.
And Beauty, after a strange moment of hesitation, nodded.
“Now understand this,” said the woman in the same no-nonsense voice, “I’m going to spank you till you’re raw. And there won’t be any rich Lords and Ladies to delight in it, nor any soldiers or other gentlemen to enjoy it, just you and I preparing for the Inn to open for the day and doing what must be done. And I’m doing it for one reason only and that is so you’ll be so sore that the touch of my fingernail will make you squeal and scurry to obey my commands. You’ll stay raw like that every day this summer that you’re my slave, and you’ll scamper to kiss my slippers after I spank you, because if you don’t you’ll dangle from that sign. Hour by hour day after day you’ll dangle there, let down only to sleep and eat with your legs bound apart, and your hands bound behind your back and your buttocks spanked just as it’s going to be spanked now. And put back to hang there again where the village toughs can laugh at you, and laugh at that hungry little sex. Do you understand?”
The woman waited, her hands still cradling Beauty’s breasts, her other hand on Beauty’s hair.
Very slowly, Beauty nodded.
“Very good,” said the woman softly. She turned Beauty and stretched her out on the length of the counter with her head towards the door. She scooped up Beauty’s chin so that Beauty was looking straight through the open door and at the poor dangling Princess, and then the wooden paddle lay against her buttocks again, pressing gently on her welts and making her buttocks feel enormous and hot.
Beauty lay still. She was almost basking in the odd calm she had felt in the cobblestoned lane, but coupled with it was the mounting excitement between her legs. It was as if the excitement cleared everything—even fear and trepidation—out of its path. Or rather the woman’s voice cleared these things away. “I might disobey if I wanted to,” Beauty thought, in that same strange calm. Her sex was unbelievably swollen and wet.
“Now listen further,” Mistress Lockley went on. “When this paddle comes down, you’re going to move for me, Princess. You’re going to twist and you’re going to groan. You’re not going to struggle to get away from me. You wouldn’t do that. And you’re not going to take your hands from the back of your neck. And you’re not going to open your mouth either. But you’re going to twist and groan. You’re going to bounce under my paddle, in fact. Because with every blow you are going to show me how you feel it, and how you appreciate it, and how grateful you are for the punishment you’re receiving, and how much you know it’s what you deserve. And if that is not exactly what happens, you will be dangling from the sign by the time the auction stops and the crowds come and the soldiers are ready for their first flagon of ale.”
Beauty was amazed.
Never at the castle had anyone spoken to her quite like this, quite this coldly and simply, and yet it seemed to have behind it some awesome practicality that almost made Beauty smile. Of course it was exactly what this woman should do, she reflected. Why not? If Beauty were running the Inn and had paid twenty-seven pieces of gold for a rebellious little slave, she might do the same thing. And of course she’d demand the slave twist and groan to display her understanding that she was being humbled, to exercise the slave’s spirit thoroughly rather than simply flail away.
The odd sense of normality came back to Beauty.
She understood this cool shadowy Inn with the sunlight splashing on the cobblestones outside the door, and she understood full well the strange voice that spoke to her with such an air of aloof command. The sugar-coated language of the castle was cloying by comparison, and, yes, Beauty reasoned, for the moment anyway, she would obey, and she would twist and groan.
After all, it was going to hurt, wasn’t it? Abruptly she found out.
The paddle slammed her, bringing forth effortlessly the first loud moan. It was a large thin wooden paddle with an unnervingly crisp sound when it smacked again, and in the hail of blows that stung her sore buttocks, Beauty found herself without a conscious decision suddenly writhing and crying, the tears springing freshly to her eyes. The paddle seemed to be making her twist and turn, tossing her about on the rude bar, slamming her buttocks and making them rise again. She felt the counter creak under her as her hips rose and fell. She felt her nipples rub against the wood. Yet she kept her tear-filled eyes on the open doorway, and lost as she was in the sound spanking of the paddle and the loud cries muffled by her sealed lips, she could not help but try to picture herself, wondering if Mistress Lockley were pleased with it, whether it was enough.
Beauty heard her own full-throated moaning in her ears. She felt her tears sliding down her cheeks, to the wood. Her chin hurt as she rocked under the paddle, and she felt her long hair fall down around her shoulders, sheltering her face.
The paddle was really hurting now, hurting her unbearably, and she was rising high off the board as if asking with her whole body, “Isn’t it enough, Mistress, isn’t it enough?” Never in all her trials at the castle had she so profuse a display of misery.
The paddle stopped. A soft torrent of sobs filled the sudden silence, and humbly, Be
auty squirmed against the counter as if imploring Mistress Lockley. Something brushed her sore buttocks very lightly, and behind her clenched teeth Beauty let out a little cry.
“Very good,” came the voice. “Now get up on your feet and stand before me with your legs spread apart. Now!”
Beauty rushed to comply. She slipped down off the counter and stood with her legs as wide apart as she could spread them, her whole body shuddering with her sniffles and sobs.
Without looking up, she could see the dim figure of Mistress Lockley with her arms folded, the white of her puff sleeves very bright in the shadows, the big oval wooden paddle in her hands.
“Get down on your knees!” came the sharp command with a snap of the fingers. “And with those hands behind your neck, you put your chin on that floor and crawl to that far wall and back again, fast!”
Beauty scurried to obey. It was miserable trying to crawl in this manner, with her elbows and chin on the floor, and she couldn’t bear the thought of how awkward and miserable she looked, but she reached the wall and hurried back to Mistress Lockley’s boots at once. On a wild impulse she kissed the boots. The throb between her legs intensified as if a fist had been pressed against her sex and Beauty almost gasped. If she could only press her legs closer together... but Mistress Lockley would see and never forgive.
“Kneel up,” Mistress Lockley ordered, and grabbing hold of Beauty’s hair, she wrapped it in a circle on the back of Beauty’s head. With pins from her pockets, she fastened it.
Then she snapped her fingers: “Prince Roger,” she said, “bring that bucket and scrub brush here.”
The black-haired Prince obeyed at once, moving with a quiet elegance, though he was on his hands and knees, and Beauty saw that his buttocks were raw and red as though he too had known the discipline of the wooden paddle not too long ago. He kissed the Mistress’s boots, his dark eyes quite open and direct, and retreated through the back door to the yard at her gesture. The black hair was thick around the little pink mouth of his anus, his small buttocks rather exquisitely round for those of a man.
“Now you’re to take that brush in your teeth and you’re to scrub the floor with it, starting here and back to there,” said Mistress Lockley coolly. “You are to get it good and clean. And you’re to keep your legs wide apart when you do it. If I see those legs together, if I see you rubbing that hungry little mouth against the floor or touching it, you’re to dangle, is that understood?”
Beauty kissed the Mistress’s boots again immediately.
“Very good,” said the Mistress. “The soldiers tonight will pay high for that tight little sex. They’ll feed it well enough. For now, you’ll hunger in obedience and humility, and you’ll do as I say.”
Beauty went to work at once with the brush, scrubbing hard at the tile floor with a back-and-forth motion of her head. Her sex ached almost as much as her buttocks, but as she worked the ache grew fainter and fainter, and Beauty’s head was strangely clear.
What would happen, she wondered, if the soldiers adored her, paid plenty for her, fed her little sex to overflowing so to speak, and then Beauty were disobedient? Could Mistress Lockley afford to hang her outside?
“I’m turning into such a bad little girl!” she thought.
But the strange part of it was that her heart beat fast at the thought of Mistress Lockley. She liked her coldness and her sharpness in a way she had never liked her fawning Mistress of the castle, Lady Juliana. And she couldn’t help but wonder, was there just a smidgen of pleasure in it for Mistress Lockley, all that paddling? After all, Mistress Lockley did it so well.
She was scrubbing away as she thought, trying to make the brown tiles of the floor as shiny and clean as she could, when she suddenly realized that a shadow had fallen over her from the open door. And she heard Mistress Lockley’s voice say softly,
“Ah, Captain.”
Beauty raised her eyes cautiously but boldly nevertheless, fully aware it might be impudence to do. And she saw a blond-haired man standing above her. His leather boots went up well over his knees, and a jeweled dagger was buckled to his thick leather belt as well as broadsword and a long leather paddle. He seemed bigger to her all over than the men she had known in this Kingdom, yet he was slender of build except for his massive shoulders. His yellow hair hung luxuriously long down his neck, curling thickly at the ends, and his brilliant green eyes were crinkled with laugh lines as he looked down at her.
She felt a stab of dismay, though she didn’t know why, a sudden melting of the coldness and toughness that affected her. And with calculated indifference she went back to her scrubbing.
But the man came round in front of her.
“I didn’t expect you so soon,” Mistress Lockley said. “Tonight I thought surely you’d bring the whole garrison.”
“Most definitely, Mistress,” he said. His voice was almost lustrous. Beauty felt a peculiar tightness in her throat and scrubbed on, trying to ignore the softly wrinkled calfskin boots in front of her.
“I saw this little partridge auctioned off,” said the Captain. And Beauty flushed as the man made an obvious circle around her. “Quite the little rebel,” he said. “I was surprised you paid so much for her.”
“I have a way with rebels, Captain,” said Mistress Lockley in her iron-cold voice without either pride or humor. “And she’s an exceptionally succulent little partridge. I thought you might enjoy her tonight.”
“Scrub her and send her up to my room now,” said the Captain. “I don’t think I want to wait until this evening.”
Beauty turned her head, deliberately shooting a harsh glance at the Captain. Brazenly handsome he seemed, with a blond stubble of beard on his chin as if his face had been brushed with gold dust. And the sun had left its mark on him, deeply tanning his skin so that his golden eyebrows and his white teeth seemed all the brighter. He had his gloved hand on his hip, and as Mistress Lockley told her frostily to drop her eyes, he only smiled at Beauty’s insolence.
PRINCE ROGER’S STRANGE LITTLE STORY
BEAUTY WAS lifted to her feet roughly by Mistress Lockley, who, twisting Beauty’s wrists behind her back, forced her out the back door into a large grassy yard of heavy-limbed fruit trees.
In an open shed on smooth wooden shelves half a dozen naked slaves slept as deeply and easily, it seemed, as they had in the more sumptuous Slaves’ Hall in the castle. But a crude woman with her sleeves rolled up had another slave standing in a hogshead of soapy water, the slave’s hands tethered to an overhanging tree branch. The slave was being scrubbed by the woman as coarsely as if he were salted meat for supper.
Almost before she knew what was happening, Beauty had been forced to stand in such a tub, the soapy water swirling about her knees, and as her hands were tied to the branch of the fig tree above, she heard Mistress Lockley call for Prince Roger.
At once the Prince appeared, upright this time, with the scrubbing brush in his hand, and he went to work on Beauty immediately, covering her with the warm water and scrubbing at her elbows and her knees, and then at her head, as he turned her this way and that very rapidly.
It was all necessity here, and there was no luxury to it. Beauty winced as the brush scrubbed between her legs, and she moaned when the harsh bristles ground at her welts and bruises.
Mistress Lockley was gone. The heavy woman had spanked the poor whimpering scrubbed slave back to bed and disappeared herself into the Inn. And the yard, save for the sleeping ones, was empty.
“Will you answer me if I speak?” Beauty whispered. The Prince’s dark skin was waxy smooth against her own as he tilted her head back and poured the pitcher of warm water over her hair. He had cheerful eyes now that they were alone.
“Yes, but be very careful! We’ll be sent off for Public Punishment if we’re caught. And I loathe amusing the common louts of the town at the Public Turntable.”
“But why are you here?” Beauty said. “I thought I came with the first slaves to be sent down from the castle.” r />
“I’ve been in the village for years,” he said. “I scarcely remember the castle. I was sentenced for sneaking off with a Princess. We hid for two full days before they found us!” he smiled. “But I’ll never be summoned back.”
Beauty was shocked. She remembered her stolen night near the Queen’s very bedchamber with Prince Alexi.
“And what happened to her?” Beauty asked.
“0, she was in the village for a while and then she went back to the castle. She became a great favorite of the Queen. And when it was time for her to be sent home, she remained to live here as a Lady.”
“You can’t be speaking the truth!” Beauty said in amazement.
“0, yes. She became one of the Court. She even rode down to see me in her new finery and asked if I should like to come back and be her slave. The Queen would allow it, she said, because she promised to punish me quite hard and drive me relentlessly. She’d be the wickedest Mistress a slave ever had, she said. I was quite stunned, as you can well imagine. Last time I’d seen her, she was naked, turned over her Master’s knee. And now she rode a white horse and wore a gorgeous gown of black velvet trimmed in gold and her hair was braided with gold, and she was ready to have me packed naked over her saddle. I broke and ran away from her, and she had the Captain of the Guard bring me back and she paddled me over her horse right out in the square before a crowd of the villagers. She enjoyed herself immensely.”
“How could she do such a thing?” Beauty was outraged. “Did you say she wore her hair in braids?”
“Yes,” he said. “I hear she never wears it free. It reminds her too much of when she was a slave.”