Beauty could see the basket was heaped with such carefully prepared flowers.

The Queen gave a cheerful laugh and shifted in her chair. "Wine, Alexi," she said, "sweet wine, this room is rather permeated with sweetness."

Lady Juliana burst into soft laughter as though this were a wonderful compliment, and she danced about the room, twirling her rose-colored skirts, her braids swinging.

Beauty watched her in wonder, her vision still unclear from her crying, and the woman seemed, like the Queen, immense and powerful. She turned her smiling face on Beauty like a light. And the glare of the torches flashed in the deep red brooch she wore at her throat, and in the jewels sewn skillfully into her heavy girdle. Her pink satin slippers had silver heels and she danced up to Beauty and kissed the top of her head lovingly.

"But you look so forlorn and that is not good. Now kneel up, fold your arms behind your back to show your exquisite br**sts, that's it, and arch your back more becomingly. Her hair, Felix, brush it."

And as the Page hastened to obey, gently untangling Beauty's long locks down her back, Beauty saw the Lady Juliana take from a chest nearby a long oval paddle.

It was very like the paddle used on the Bridle Path, but nothing as big or as heavy. In fact it was so flexible that Lady Juliana, setting down her basket of flowers, could make it vibrate when she pressed the tip of it with her thumb. It was white, smooth, and limber.

It will sting, Beauty realized, but it will not truly hurt as badly as the Queen's hand, and it will hurt nothing as badly as that weapon on the Bridle Path, yet she realized her bu**ocks were so thoroughly welted that each light blow would enkindle a certain amount of pain in her.

Lady Juliana, laughing, whispering with the Queen in her girlish manner, turned back as Felix finished. Beauty knelt waiting.

"And so our gracious Sovereign spanked you over her lap, did she? And you have had the Bridle Path, and you have learned something of grooming. And then there has been your Lord and Master's temper and demands, and now and then a little routine smacking from your groom or Lord Gregory."

"My groom has never smacked me," Beauty thought crossly, but she merely replied, "Yes, my Lady..." as was expected.

"But now you shall learn some actual discipline, for in the little game I devise your will to please is direly tested. And don't think you shan't profit from it. Now..." She lifted a handful of roses from the basket. "I shall scatter these about the room, and do you know what you shall do, my precious girl, you shall run very fast to gather each one in your teeth and place in the lap of your Sovereign. And when she has quite finished with you, you shall go fetch another, and another, and another. And you shall do that as fast as you can, and do you know why, because you are commanded to do so, and you shall be much punished if you do not rush to obey as we command you."

She raised her eyebrows, smiling at Beauty.

"Yes, my Lady," Beauty replied, unable to think, though the thought of having to hurry to obey struck a strange new note of apprehension in her. Gracelessness. She dreaded it. On the Bridle Path there had been much gracelessness when she was running so fast and out of breath...O, but she must not think of anything save what she had to do now.

"And on your hands and knees of course, my girl, and be very very quick!"

Lady Juliana at once scattered the little pink rosebuds with their waxed stems everywhere.

Beauty bent forward and was grasping the nearest in her teeth when she realized that Lady Juliana was right behind her. The handle of the oval paddle was so long, Lady Juliana did not even bend over as she spanked Beauty and with a start, Beauty dropped the flower.

"Pick it up at once!" Lady Juliana cried out, and Beauty's lips scraped the carpet before she had it.

The paddle came down with a fearful zinging sound, smacking her sore welts as she rushed on her hands and knees to the Queen, and Lady Juliana managed some seven or eight good blows before Beauty had dropped the flower in the Queen's lap obediently.

"Now turn around at once," commanded the Lady, "and off you go." But she was already spanking Beauty fiercely as Beauty ran in search of another flower. As soon as she had it in her lips, she ran to the Queen, but the blows followed her. And Beauty wanted to cry out for patience as she went for another.

She gathered a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, depositing each in the Queen's lap, yet there was no escape from the paddle, from its persistence, nor Lady Juliana's voice urging her on crossly.

"Quickly, my girl, quickly, get it in your lips and back again." It seemed her flaring pink skirt was everywhere in Beauty's eyes, and Beauty was surrounded by the flashing of her little silver-heeled slippers. Beauty's knees burned from the rough wool of the carpet, yet she went breathlessly on in her search seeing the tiny pink roses everywhere.

And yet no matter how she gasped for breath, no matter how moist were her face and her limbs, she could not blot from her mind the thought of what she was doing. She could see her own bu**ocks splotched with white welts, her reddened thighs, and her br**sts dangling between her arms as she rushed across the floor like a pitiable animal. There was no mercy for her, and the worst of it was that she could not please Lady Juliana, Lady Juliana goaded her, even kicked her now with the toe of her slipper. Beauty's cries were wordless pleas, but Lady Juliana's tone was angry, unsatisfied.

It was dreadful to be struck in anger.

"Hurry! Do you hear me!" Lady Juliana sounded almost contemptuous, spanking Beauty all the harder, and making little tisks now of impatience. Beauty's ni**les scraped the carpet as she bent to obey, and with a shock she felt the toe of Lady Juliana's slipper in her pubis. She gave a startled cry and rushed back to the Queen with the rose as all about her it seemed was the muted laughter of the Pages and the Queen's higher laughter. But Lady Juliana had found the tender spot again, forcing that long pointed satin slipper right into Beauty's vagina.

Suddenly as Beauty turned and saw yet more roses scattered before her, her sobs went into muffled shrieks and she turned to Lady Juliana even as the paddle spanked her thighs and her calves, and kissed and kissed those pink satin slippers.

"What?" Lady Juliana said with genuine outrage. "You dare beg me for mercy before the Queen? Wretched, wretched girl!" She smacked Beauty's bu**ocks, but she had Beauty by the hair with her left hand and pulled her up, snapping her head back so that Beauty's knees went wide apart to keep her balance.

Beauty's open-mouthed sobs were choked and uneven. And she saw the paddle being passed to one of the Pages who offered the Lady a heavy broad leather belt immediately.