“I would say she knows what she wants too,” said Alexi. “We’ve both spoken with her and Lady Juliana. They’re ready for the mask. They’re asking only for a limited time, say six months of slavery, and then a chance to renew their vows, like all the other slaves.”

Beauty nodded.

“Now for the three lords,” said Dmitri. “The first is Prince Jerard, the blond one, who was a pony in the stables after you left. And he knows perfectly well what he wants. No doubt about him. He understands that once he dons the mask, he will have no choice in the matter of where he’s made to serve, but he wants to be a pony again. He’s fit enough. And frankly handsomer than he was in the old days. And then there is a young duke, Claudio, only lately come to the kingdom. He’s very innocent but he’s spent the last eight months here and knows well what all this means.”

“Yes, Claudio,” said Beauty, “of the auburn hair, rawboned, tall, but utterly enchanting. We’ve had him at the royal table countless times. He keeps the most piquant little slave, Isabella.”

“Yes, well, I’m for letting him do it,” said Dmitri. “In fact, I’d love to acquaint him with the rigors of the village myself, as I did Stefan. Now as for the third, well, this is young Lord Lysius, grandnephew of the old king at our border, and I think he is being hasty. He does not realize what it means to be anointed a slave. He thinks he does, but, well, all I can say is, he does not. He’s a dreamer, a poet, in love with the kingdom but not ready to serve others.”

“I agree,” said Alexi. “Lord Lysius should be refused. And if we do have four ceremonies of acceptance a year, well, he could be put off for a certain period of months with the promise that he might apply again.”

“Seems you have it well in hand,” Beauty said. And she believed it. But she was not so sure young Lord Lysius should be refused. She knew him. He was a lad of sensitivity and great imagination. He knew what the slaves felt as he punished them. Why shouldn’t he take the mask? But she would press this later.

“But what special night, what festival, should be the occasion for these presentations?” asked Rosalynd.

“A Festival of Masks,” said Beauty. “I have been thinking of it for some time. A great and beautiful Festival of Masks when all the Court shall mask as well, and all free men and women of the kingdom.”

“Ah, lovely,” said Rosalynd.

“A great night of masked dancing and frolicking when all wearing clothes shall wear masks to embolden them to celebrate the freedom of Bellavalten,” said Beauty. “Something like the old celebrations of Perchta at Midwinter.” She smiled to think of Perchta, the old goddess of spinning.

And it had been a spinning wheel that had been Beauty’s long-ago undoing, when as a girl of fifteen she pricked her finger on a spindle and fell asleep for a hundred years.

But what did Perchta mean for all the world?

Didn’t matter. She was seeing a more complex and wholly original festival.

“And in our festival,” said Beauty, “all naked slaves of the village and of the Court and of the kingdom may frolic as well in the castle gardens for that one night, free of restraint and punishment, to dance and drink and embrace one another, along with their masked lords and ladies. We shall all celebrate the freedom of the kingdom.”

“A form of Saturnalia,” said Dmitri.

“The only naked slaves who shall wear masks on that night,” said Beauty, “will be the five who are accepted for the Discipline of the Mask, and they shall wear their masks thereafter for six months, at which time they may remove them and return to Court or become slaves indefinitely.”

“Perfect,” said Alexi. “Simply perfect.”

“And that settles it,” said Dmitri. “Stefan should wear his mask for six months from the time he put it on.”

“That is my wish,” said Beauty. “And as for young Lord Lysius, the decision is his also.”

“Ah, this will be wonderful fun,” said Rosalynd, “but what great ritual will lie at the center of it.”

“I’m coming to that,” said Beauty. “You, and Dmitri, you were both on the ship with me and Tristan and Laurent as we sailed to the sultanate. Do you remember an early feast on board the ship in which Tristan and I were gilded lovers?”

“I remember it vividly,” said Dmitri.

“So do I,” said Rosalynd. “And we spoke of it often afterwards. We saw other such reenactments in the sultanate. It had no great meaning for them, but I am seeing what meaning it might have for us.”

“I was painted in gold,” said Beauty, “and surrounded with fruit dipped in honey, and my body filled with such, and I was laid out on a great bier as if I were a feast myself, and then Tristan came, and ate the fruits with which I was filled and coupled with me.”

“I can see this,” said Alexi.

“Yes,” said Beauty, “but now imagine it with our gracious king agreeing on that night to remove all his clothes and adornments—except for his mask—so that he, of his own will, couples with the gilded female slave offered to him on a great platter. Imagine it, the great ceremonial coupling of king and kingdom.”

“Oh, so splendid,” said Alexi. “The marriage of king and kingdom. Yes, this would be a great and sacred moment.”

“I can hear the harps and the drums,” said Beauty, “and see His Majesty rising from the throne at the sacred moment and stripping off his fine clothes, with only his mask left—perhaps a mask that has the horns of Pan or the horns of a goat—for he would be the goat god, the god of wine, the god of fertility, the god of rampant celebration—and imagine him approaching the bier on which the gilded female slave is offered to him.”

“Breathtaking,” said Alexi.

“Yes,” said Beauty. “She would be all painted in gold, and she too would be masked because she represents all slaves of the kingdom—all slaves, not her single solitary self—as the King couples with her.”

“Yes,” said Dmitri. “The King should eat the fruit from inside her and then take her. Ah, the great wedding of all who rule with all who serve!”

“But how shall you figure in it, Beauty?” said Alexi. He had forgotten to address her as “Queen” or “my lady,” but Beauty didn’t care. If anything she wanted all of them to be less formal.

“Well, the Queen must watch from behind her mask on the throne, I would imagine,” she said. She had chosen her words carefully. But she was thinking of something else entirely.

“Do you think our beloved king will do it?” asked Dmitri.

Beauty laughed. “If ever there was a king who would, it is Laurent. I can see it now, see his ruddy flesh and the gilded flesh of the prone slave, and see the two masks, his decorated with horns, yes, and hers perhaps with green leaves and purple grapes painted on the leather, and the whole platter, the whole bier, decorated with such Bacchanalian foliage.”

A moment of silence passed.

“My queen, you keep dreaming the dreams,” said Rosalynd. “We can easily make of this a perfect reality. I’m ready now to make drawings, the plans. We will need many more musicians, vats of the finest wine, and all the naked slaves shall be encouraged to dance on that night with utter abandon.”

“All shall dance with utter abandon,” said Beauty.

“But the masked girl, the slave chosen to represent the kingdom,” Dmitri pressed. “Who should she be? Someone very special. I mean this should be a very special honor, to be chosen for such a ceremonial wedding. Should she remove her mask afterwards?”

“Remove her mask? Why should she? For she is everyone,” said Beauty. “And I do have someone very special in mind, but you must let me ponder that now on my own for a while.”

Her eyes drifted and she saw Dmitri looking up dreamily as he envisioned this. But Alexi’s eyes were fixed quietly on Beauty, and Rosalynd too regarded her with a secret smile, gazing at her out of the corner of her eyes.

“Announce the feast. The night does not matter. We make a new custom here, and shall hold such a feast as soon as we can. And we shall make the date a memorial. Announce it shall be the night when the accepted Disciples of the Mask will step forward and be taken off by Prince Dmitri at the end of the night to the village to begin their servitude. Perhaps they shall be ceremonially bound for their journey. Make a great raised dais for this great platter or banquet table on which the slave girl shall lie after she is brought in. And make sure the dais for the King and Queen is above it. And leave the King to me. I will put it to him so that he will do it. And the Queen shall preside as always from her throne as the ceremony is accomplished.”

For an hour they spoke of nothing else but the feast which now had the title “The First Festival of Masks,” and Rosalynd at Beauty’s writing table scribbled down many ideas and drew some scant pictures.

At last Beauty dismissed them all except for Dmitri.

The bolt was thrown on the door, and in the warm shadowy chamber, they both removed their garments. How marvelous to shed the heavy trappings of royal attire and stand naked on the bare floor.