Chapter II: Meet Beauty

Twilight at the palace
Copyright © Jeffrey K. Bedrick 1992.
Used with permission.

Beauty arrived in the antechamber where I had always welcomed the other girls.
"Don't go further, young Beauty," I commanded dryly.
Even if my anger had dissipated I had absolutely no desire to be polite with this flibbertigibbet. She looked up to my alcove, her gaze having an acuity worth of Sirli's, bowed - in the same way a boy would have - and answered:
"My lord, I'm afraid you are mistaken: I am called Bo and I am Jod's brother."
I had a wry smile: was I supposed to know who Jod was?
"You are called Beauty and you are a girl! You are in infraction with the decree ruling your town!"
To my great surprise she covered her ears with her hands and declared:
"I won't listen to anything as long as my lord won't stand in front of me to tell me those things by himself. It's too easy to stand in the darkness and trick a poor ignorant townsman."
I was so irritated with this girl's impudence that I went down a secret stair and appeared suddenly in the antechamber, in Beauty's back - though this trick could seem a little childish, the effect was never wasted. Beauty turned on her heels when hearing my claws scratching the wall on purpose and her eyes widened when seeing me. She fell on her knees, joining her hands, and looked up to the alcove.
"Mercy, my lord, mercy!" she begged, forgetting her disguise.
Her real voice was soft and pleasant to hear. I stepped toward her. She immediately jumped on her feet and ran to the door she had come from. With a magic move, I locked the door without her noticing. She tried to open it and then banged on the door with her two fists.
"Let me go! I beg of you, let me go!"
She collapsed on the ground, bursting into tears, her hand still against the door, as her hair chose that very moment to suddenly fall down on her shoulders. Her fear and tears extinguished my anger as quickly as it had begun.
"Beauty," I said softly. "Don't be afraid, the monster will go away."
She straightened up a bit and looked at me - looked at the Beast I was.
"I am not afraid," she said bravely.
But I could see her shoulders were against the door and that, if she could have done so, she would have disappeared behind the door. She probably noticed what she was unconsciously doing, for she stood up and stepped toward me - toward the Beast - and repeated like a defy:
"I am not afraid."
"I see," I answered, unable to restrain from smiling.
Beauty's eyes widened and I saw on her face that I had just betrayed myself. Until now she had believed that the Beast - me - had been sent by her lord to punish her and suddenly she understood that her lord and the Beast were only one. She shivered from head to toe, opened the mouth as to say something - or breathe - and collapsed on the ground, unconscious.
I was feeling stupid, seeing her at my feet, until the moment Sevulf's voice scolded me:
"Well, Master, don't leave her on the floor like that! Lady Melanie's room is still free and Maguy aired it this very morning."
I shook myself and lifted Beauty in my arms, filled with dread that I would harm her: I had learnt to move glasses without breaking them, to care for roses, but never to carry a girl in my arms. It was the first time I was holding one against me and shivers were running down my spine; I didn't even notice that Sevulf was attentively observing me and that the old wolf was smiling under his silvery moustache.
I lay Beauty on her bed and then hurried back into my room, more than disconcerted by what had just happened. I was unable to do anything but think of this skinny little girl who had just irrupted so brutally in my life. After having fought with myself for some time, I turned to my mirror, which showed me Beauty's room before I even asked. I suspected my mirror to have a certain weakness for girls. Beauty was slowly regaining consciousness. At the foot of her bed was Maguy, one of the servants, half-cat half-woman.
"What do you want?" asked Beauty, straightening and looking around her in surprise.
"My Master only wishes to make sure you are feeling well," replied smoothly Maguy.
"I am feeling perfectly well, thank you," retorted Beauty. "I'm not used to have people caring for me."
It was more than obvious: her boyish clothes certainly didn't hide her skinny silhouette, nor the fact she probably didn't eat enough.
"A hot bath is waiting for you in the next room," said Maguy with the patient tone she adopted regularly - and which exasperated me as regularly.
Beauty looked at her with undisguised surprise.
"A bath?" she repeated, puzzled. "What for? Your Master..."
She suddenly realized whom she was speaking with - and probably whom she was speaking about - and remembered everything.
"Naturally," she murmured to herself. "So very delicate to allow the main course to feel clean and smell good..."
Maguy heard her - so did I, but the mirror often allowed to hear till whispers - and it shocked her so much she remained speechless for a moment.
"My Master has no intention to eat you!" she exclaimed then, finding her voice back. "You are safe here."
Beauty shrugged, her fingers brushing against her ribs that her clothes couldn't even hide, and then smiled:
"Well, anyway, I would advise him to fatten me first."
Maguy glared at her but didn't reply as Beauty was walking straight into the bathroom the cat-woman had shown to her before and my mirror showed me my rose trees.
As soon as Beauty came out of her bath - and was decently available - my mirror focused on her again. Maguy had a very good taste - which explained why I had chosen her, though her patient tone was enough to irritate till the god of patience - and Beauty seemed to have been transformed into a princess. The girl looked at her reflect in a mirror and shook the head.
"Out of question," she said. "This poor dress would dress a coat hanger better than me. Give me back my clothes."
"Your male rags? Certainly not!" Maguy got indignant. "I'm going to burn them. You are far prettier like this."
"But I have work to do!" she exclaimed. "Wood to cut and diner to cook for Jod and me!"
Maguy seemed disconcerted for a short moment and then smiled.
"Hum... It seems to me that the Master forgot to tell you some like things, child. You are not going back to your town. You are staying here."
I felt slightly angry to listen to Maguy announcing it instead of me, but somehow she had more tact than me to present it to Beauty. Anyway my concern was Beauty's reaction and so I forgot everything about Maguy overstepping my orders. The girl opened wide her eyes and put her hands on her hips.
"What?" she exclaimed. "He intends to lock me up here, after having tried to lock me up in the women's town? He will see if he can toy with me with complete impunity! Lead me to your master!"
"Nobody goes to my Master. He comes... if he wants so."
I called upon magic and suddenly my room was almost next to Beauty's. I knocked at her door and Maguy opened it; seeing me she nodded and slipped outside the room. Beauty, who was facing the window, turned around when hearing a pace that wasn't the cat-woman's. Contrary to the first time she didn't show any fear.
"Why do you want to lock me up?" she attacked at once.
I stepped once toward her and I noticed that her hands were trembling nervously.
"Am I frightening you?" I asked without answering her question.
"No," was the immediate answer.
I stepped again and, with a small voice, she admitted:
"A... a little bit."
"You transgressed the law - my law. The punishment for that till now wasn't very rejoicing, but obviously it wasn't enough. I think that the idea of spending some time in my company will make people think a bit more."
"Oh no! They will all rush here to seduce you, having chosen with their most beautiful dress and jewels: nobody knows you are a monster... I mean..."
"I know what you mean," I replied, containing my anger. "But, well, for punishing trespassing, I would hardly care for nice dresses. A stay in my so comfortable cells may not be that appealing and they are probably already thinking that I locked you up in there!"
"And they would be right!" Beauty exclaimed, her temper flaring. "For even if your castle is beautiful and vast and everything you want, it's still a jail for me!"
"My castle, a jail?" I shouted.
Beauty stepped back; I forced myself to calm down and added quickly:
"But when you will go back, they will all know."
"And they will all rush here to kill you," retorted Beauty. "You cannot allow yourself to trust me if you care for life."
"Who said I care for my life?" I roared. "Did you see what I am? A monster, not a man!"
The conversation was no more in my control and I was reacting far too much to what Beauty was saying. She stared at me with a strange gaze that I couldn't decipher.
"Isn't there a... a spell or something that could help you?" she asked softly.
"I had that hope a long time ago. Now I have lost it."
"Is it so hard?"
Beauty's kindness and solicitude were torturing me and, unable to stand it anymore, I stepped back, closed the door on me and fled into my room, magically putting it where it was before. It was the first time I had shown myself to the girl in the castle and I couldn't explain how I had come to that point. I had the presentiment the fairy had had enough of our game of hide-and-seek, but which new torture had she invented for me, which pain was coming from Beauty's hand?
But then Beauty had something in her that was definitely appealing. She had the same piercing, inquisitive gaze as Sirli and though it bothered me, it generally was the proof of a developed observation sense. She had the same temper as Cherry and I remembered having thought that this kind of temper could have helped the girl to accept me as I was. And finally there was something in her that reminded me of Katherine; maybe it was because she was so thin, a sort of fragility in her that her strong character was hiding...
I shook myself and put Sevulf in charge to tell Beauty that she would have her dinner in the dining room; they had all dinned here, but this time it was different: I could be present in the same room as her. But when the evening came I didn't even need to go into the dining room to know that Beauty wasn't there. Furious I asked my mirror: Beauty was in her room, clothed with a boyish outfit she had discovered I-didn't-know-where, sitting on the window ledge. None of the nine previous girls, not even Lenore, the boldest of them all, had dared to behave like that and I was beginning to regret to have forced Beauty to stay. Still angry I decided that since she didn't want to dine where I had said she would, she wouldn't dine at all and I told so to the servants.

But the moment came when Beauty, in spite of her resolution, got hungry - though she was probably hungry since the beginning - and, hesitantly, she slipped out of her room. How she did to find her way till the kitchens was a mystery for me, even if I strongly suspected one of my servants to have altered the castle corridors. They were all in the kitchens, as usual, even Sevulf: Maguy, Geolf, the brown bear, who was our cook, Weaverbird, who had been transformed into the bird of the same name, Gilla and Fiona, the two sisters, who were now two adorable raccoons, Stoat, half-woman half-arctic fox - why an arctic fox was still puzzling me and the shape chosen by the fairy seemed to me a total nonsense considering Stoat's name - and Eponerius, the centaur.
Beauty stopped on the threshold and looked at all my servants; Geolf seemed to be the one frightening her the most, most probably because his enchanted shape was so close to mine.
"What do you want, child?" asked gently Maguy.
I had a movement of surprise: never before had one of my servants dared to call one of the girls 'child'! Of course, never before had one of the girls ventured in the kitchens either...
"I... I'm hungry..." she admitted miserably.
"She's hungry!" growled Geolf, startling Beauty. "I knew she would be!"
Without adding another word he went back to his cooking. Sevulf stood up, giving his place to Beauty, and whispered some words to Geolf. The brown bear growled again - Geolf had always been bad-tempered, even if he was as dangerous as a teddy bear - and continued to cook a diner for Beauty, against my very orders! Sevulf turned helplessly to the others.
"The Master..." he began.
"Won't know anything about it," Weaverbird cut him with his piping voice.
"Fool!" retorted Sevulf. "He probably already knows it! He may even be observing us right now!"
"He will understand," intervened Gilla while washing some tomatoes. "He gets angry easily, but you'll see, he's a noble soul," she added soothingly to Beauty.
Her raccoon muzzle wrinkled into a smile and she rubbed more forcefully the apples her sister just gave her.
"How dare they?" I yelled in my room, banging my fist on the table I was leaning on. "How dare they?"
In the kitchens, probably hearing me, Sevulf raised up the head.
"The Master is upset."
"He will understand," Gilla said again.
"We cannot let this child starve to death," added Fiona. "She's already thinner than she should be. Far too thin," she concluded disapprovingly.
Beauty blushed with shame when hearing those words.
"I don't want to bring you troubles with your master," she said, rising from her chair.
Geolf had only one growl - he hadn't been very enthusiastic as for learning again how to speak - and Sevulf translated it immediately: the old wolf pressed his paw on Beauty's shoulder and forced her to sit down on the chair.
"Calm down, child. The Master can sometimes be very understanding and it's obvious you cannot miss another meal. Our Master knows it certainly and will understand."
To my great shame I had to admit that I hadn't thought of the fact that Beauty was probably starving and the result was that my anger looked quite petty and childish.
Geolf was delighted to see Beauty wolfing everything he was putting in front of her; the poor child wasn't even caring to appear well-educated: her hunger was taking the best of her. But as he was bringing her dessert he froze on the spot: Beauty had fallen asleep on the table, her head on her arm, her russet-red hair falling down in her back and hiding half of her face.
"We should bring her back in her room," said Sevulf looking worried.
Every gaze turned to Geolf who protested immediately with forceful growls:
"No, no, not me! I would harm her! We must ask the Master. He will know."
"He doesn't have more experience that you do, Geolf," Weaverbird pointed out.
"The Master knows," persisted Geolf. "He is the Master."
I slightly smiled in front of the naïve faith of my cook: because I was the master, I knew everything, I could do everything. And, if I had understood well, I knew how to carry a sleeping girl in her room without awakening her or harming her. Well, I had already carried her in her room once before, let's hope I could do that again...
The door of the kitchens opened and I stepped in, looking upset. I went straight to Beauty, lifting her in my arms. The servants didn't say anything but their look vaguely guilty didn't hide the fact they were obviously thinking to have been right in doing what they had done. Maguy followed me, as did Stoat, and they took care of Beauty as soon as I lay her on her bed.
I went back in the kitchens, telling Geolf to bring breakfast to Beauty in her room the following morning. Then I went back to my own rooms; I wasn't thinking of sleeping. Sleep was deserting me for too long. I settled down in front of my mirror, which focused on Beauty's room, showing me the sleeping girl, her russet-red hair spread all around on the white sheets. Clean she already looked better, even in her boyish clothes that Maguy just took with her to burn them, as she had done with the rags Beauty had been wearing when first coming.

Beauty was haunting me in a way that even Katherine had never done, but it wasn't the same feeling that was agitating me. The following days confirmed this first impression: Beauty seemed to me to be difficult, hardly accepting to remain confined in my castle when she knew Jod probably needed her. We spent those first days to be aggressive with each other, even if she was still afraid of me. Sometimes I was seeing her raising the chin, biting her lower lip, and I knew then I was too close for her peace of mind.
She was still refusing to take her meals in the dining room, preferring the intimacy and the warmth of the kitchens. She was still shy with Geolf whereas she obviously didn't fear Sevulf at all, though Geolf looked like - according to me, at least - a big teddy bear. She had managed to find again some boyish clothes, as unsuitable as her previous rags, and she was exploring the castle in that outfit, almost brushing against the walls, ready to flee in case I would have been in the nearness.
That was how she discovered the castle chapel. Despite the curse I was the victim of, I had kept my faith and I was in the chapel when Beauty came in. I saw immediately she didn't know how to behave in such a place: she was looking around her, at the paintings, the sculptures, trying to understand what it meant. I silently came near her.
"You never entered a holy place?"
She started when hearing my voice and turned to me; she stepped back a bit - I was too close for her taste - and shook the head.
"No, I was... am too thin, too dirty and too poor to go in. There was always a good soul to push me aside when I was coming too near. And yet," she sighed, "the priest looked so gentle..."
"Why did you never go to speak with him?"
"Me?" asked Beauty, amazed. "Be serious! It would have hurt too badly if he had pushed me aside too. Sometimes uncertainty is better: you still have some hope left."
"He's supposed to care for the poor!" I replied, furious to hear that in my kingdom - though small and though I wasn't a king, it was a kingdom for me - there were such injustices. "Nobody told you so?"
"Who would have told me?" shrugged Beauty. "Jod saved me from death when everybody else were looking away and he's no more educated than me. You have to be rich and well-born to be well-educated, not a gamin!"
"And your parents?"
Beauty's glance was enough for me to figure it out. It was the first time an orphan was coming to the castle - and from the streets too. A wave of pity ran through me and Beauty probably noticed it, for her eyes took an adamantine glow I had learnt to recognize.
"Keep your pity for you!" she spat out between her clenched teeth. "I was perfectly happy - and free - before you forced me to come here. Talking to the priest was my one dream that would never be fulfilled and everything was alright!"
I thought I knew what Beauty was trying to do: she wanted to show only her worst sides, so that I would dismiss her. Strangely this behaviour only reinforced my decision of keeping her here, with me.
Beauty's mood lightened up quite noticeably when, two weeks after her arrival, Sevulf, irritated to see her going around and around in the castle and starting when seeing any shadow, opened the gates of the gardens to her. Beauty rushed there with the impression of finding back a part of her lost freedom. The servants let her wander all she wanted in the gardens, even if, tacitly, the rose garden was now impossible to find, for they knew only too well what would happen to her if I happened to find her there.
As Beauty was once again in the gardens, I went there also, believing her in her room, in the kitchens or in the stables, which were her favourite places. I went, as I was doing quite regularly, to Raynal's grave. I had the surprise to discover a small kneeling silhouette, putting something on the stone. A terrible rage seized me - how dared she profane Raynal's grave? - and I roared savagely, pouncing on her and lifting her from the ground by the collar of her ragged tunic. She howled with fright, eyes wide open, struggling like a maniac, covering my inarticulate growls with her shouts, and the fragile fabric ripped. She fell on the ground, jumped on her feet and fled immediately, holding her torn tunic against her, giving me a glimpse of her bare back.
As soon as she disappeared from my sight, I leaned over Raynal's grave to erase the profanation the best I could. And I froze on the spot. There, on the cold grey stone, among the irises I was growing for him, there was a little package of herbs weaved into the shape of an iris. I knelt and I took the herb iris. It wasn't mere grass, but herbs of different kinds and weaved in such a way that they were perfectly showing the iris pattern. Creating such a thing required great skills and I looked up, regretting my brutality toward Beauty just a moment ago. My eyes fell back on the iris I was holding, then, again, they turned to the castle. I put back the iris on the stone and stood up.
"Sorry, Raynal," I murmured.
I headed for the castle.

I had often seen Beauty wander around a specific corridor in the castle, which she always managed to find again in spite of our habit to play with the corridors' topography. I knew immediately she was back there; it was as if I was seeing her footprints glowing on the floor to guide me. All the doors in the corridor were closed, except one, left ajar. Just before pushing the door open I stopped a moment; this corridor was vaguely familiar to me and it seemed to me that by going in this room where Beauty was sheltering, I would learn something that I would prefer to ignore, something that would revive an old wound.
I drove away those impressions, judging them absurd, and I opened the door. The room was dark and, when seeing my shadow appear in the doorway, Beauty looked up. She was curled up on the ground, head leaning on a big clock. A clock! My blood froze in my veins and, despite myself, my eyes went up along the clock and stopped on the dial. They remained fixed there, without seeing the position of the hands. Beauty slowly stood up and I knew, without having to look at her, that her face was soiled with tears.
My eyes at last left the dial - and I would have been unable to say which hour was showing the clock - and went back to Beauty. Her arms were wrapped around her, still holding her torn tunic against her; she hadn't gone to see Maguy or Stoat and I had noticed that, often, the servants - or me - weren't watching when our guests - or former guests, in the case of Katherine and Iris's graves - needed us the most. Noting that she had cried brought to my mind the absurd thought that she hadn't cried since the first day, even after I had told her the worse insulting things.
Strangely it reminded me of the clock. That Beauty had chosen for shelter this deserted room where I had stored the clock, where no servant ever came in and where dust was reigning as undisputed master - even if I could see that Beauty certainly did clean it a bit - didn't look like a coincidence to me: undoubtedly the fairy was manipulating the girl to make me suffer more. Once again anger seized me and I walked toward Beauty, motionless and quiet, and, like the... Beast I was, I uttered imprecations between growls.
New tears appeared in Beauty's eyes and it surprised me so much that I stopped where I was for a brief instant. It was enough for her: bursting into convulsive sobs, she escaped by the door still open, passing so fast near me that I didn't have the time to hold her back. I rushed into the corridor, just in time to see her back half-covered with russet-red hair disappearing in the shadows and, this time, my mind registered - and analysed - what it had seen earlier: Beauty's back was covered with whip marks and some of them were quite fresh. The discovery kept me frozen on the spot, even if I had the reflex to close the door behind me before stupidly staring at the corridor where Beauty had disappeared.
This time Sevulf didn't find me in this position - even if he often had the irritating habit to always be here when I looked stupid - but Stoat certainly did. Unassuming, quiet most of the time, Stoat was - before her transformation and she was still - the housekeeper; she ruled the house with an iron hand and a flint gaze, for she spoke so rarely I couldn't really say that she was giving orders. Every servant knew how to read Stoat's gaze as for the house maintenance.
Stoat had another quality: she was the only one among us to be able to transform any reflecting material into a magic mirror allowing her to observe everything she wanted. Without ever leaving the kitchens she knew everything happening in the castle and even when I was spending my time looking at my mirror she knew more than me.
She thus came to me and, as usual, her presence gave me the impression of becoming again a very small boy. Stoat looked at me lengthily and her gaze was such that I wanted to look at my feet while looking embarrassed, without really knowing why I should have done such a thing.
"Beauty often goes to see Raynal's grave," she said, staring disapprovingly at one of the portraits on the wall. "She talks to him as if he was an old friend and often makes offerings on his tomb. He's the only friend she has here, if one can say that."
I had already understood that Beauty meant no harm to Raynal - nor his grave - and I certainly didn't need Stoat's remarks to feel ashamed! But she who had been transformed into an arctic fox added:
"She likes this room for it is the only place nobody ever comes. Even your magic mirror never shows you this room. In there she's at peace and can calm down. That's generally where she comes after a quarrel with you."
I thus heard with astonishment that Beauty was taking at heart what I was telling her, even the reproaches; she simply had the will to hold back her tears - or cries, distress, anything - in front of me, just to let them go once alone.
Stoat turned her flint gaze to me.
"Master, be nicer to this child. You are totally unable to talk to her without getting angry. She doesn't know anything of our customs, she doesn't have your education and you know nothing about her. You never speak with her about what she had lived and, by the way, I think you don't care at all."
I opened the mouth to protest but I realised at the very moment that Stoat was perfectly right. What I knew about Beauty was very short to summarise: she was an orphan, poor and without any education. And then? Stoat knew she was right and she added:
"Beauty sometimes says some little things when in the kitchens; did you notice her back?"
I nodded. The whip marks on Beauty's back had deeply impressed me and I wondered about their provenance, while knowing fully that if I tried to speak about that with Beauty, I would more than probably end up by getting angry or by harming her without willing to do so.
"When she was still... free... the foreman she was working for - and who believed her to be a boy, Jod's brother - felt free to flog her when she wasn't working enough to his liking. Naturally he was doing the same with Jod."
Anger invaded me - and I wasn't without knowing that the more time went by, the more I got angry easily: the Beast in me was overtaking the humanity I had left - just at the idea that someone could hit my Beauty.
"Where is Beauty?" I said, not caring that I interrupted Stoat.
She looked at me with a strange look and I felt obliged to justify myself:
"She is under my protection, Stoat! I'm not accustomed to let girls invited in my castle be hurt and suffer if I can do something to help them, if I can punish those who hurt them!"
Stoat's expression didn't change and I had the impression she was wondering about my motivations.
"She is mine, Stoat!" I suddenly growled. "She is mine!"
Stoat smiled slightly and I suddenly noticed what I just said: was I becoming crazy? Nobody - not even me - could claim someone else as his property! And certainly not Beauty...
"Where is Beauty?" I asked again.
"In her room," replied Stoat quite reluctantly. "I sent Maguy to give her a new tunic."
Then I remembered how Beauty was clothed and I frowned.
"About that, Stoat, I think that Beauty's outfit is quite... coarse. Is it thus impossible to have her wearing something more fitting?"
"Master, don't forget Beauty is not coming from the same society as all the girls you are used to be around," Stoat warned me before leaving I-didn't-know-where.
I shrugged and went to Beauty's room, knocking gently at the door.
"Beauty? May I speak with you?"
"Come in, my lord, the door is not locked," replied a chocked voice from inside.
I looked at the door during a moment then shook the head, forgetting she couldn't see me.
"No, Beauty: I don't want to force the door of your refuge once more and if ever I got angry again, I want you to have a place to shelter."
A silence answered me then the door opened on Beauty, looking miserable. Maguy had given her a new tunic - still that boyish kind of clothes, which wasn't suiting her at all - and had done her hair so that her long russet-red hair was pinned on her head instead of falling down on her shoulders as usual.
"My lord..." she said almost timidly.
"Come with me, dear child. There are place more pleasant to talk."
Beauty opened wide eyes: I had never called her like that before. I first thought of going to the library, which was one of my favourite places, but maybe Beauty wouldn't appreciate it, since she probably didn't know how to read... I thus chose the top of the donjon, which was so high one could see the whole domain from there and the view was splendid.
"Beauty," I began, very embarrassed - Hell, never before I had apologised and this time, I intended to do so! - "I would like you to forgive my rudeness before: twice I... I threatened you, while you... I mean..."
Beauty's expression was undecipherable, but I had the very clear impression she had a hard time believing what her ears were hearing. She lowered her eyes on her hands toying mechanically with her belt and murmured:
"You don't have to apologise, my lord... You are the master here..."
"No," I protested, "no, Beauty! I don't want it to be like that! It's not because I'm your lord that you have to accept everything coming from me!"
Fortunately for her - it was obvious, her gaze was growing more and more incredulous - Beauty was saved by Sevulf's arrival, who came to remind me of any unspecified boring lordly task, which I had thought I could escape from. As, for once, I wasn't angry with Beauty, I bowed to her - and though I had never rehearsed my bowing, I thought that mine wasn't that bad - and went down the donjon behind Sevulf, thinking deep down that I quite looked like a little boy caught out.