Chapter XIII: Gone

Guinevere and Lancelot
Copyright © Esther Morrison Smith.

I had seen enough. I turned off my mirror and thought hastily. I had now the reason for Beauty to leave the castle. No more way to go back, I was at the point of no return. I stood up and went to Beauty with a heavy heart, trying to organise in my head the little speech I was about to give her.
She was in the library, buried in a large armchair, the kitten on her knees, asleep, and she was reading Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. I came to her, feeling clumsy and afraid like a young boy - or a young man about to propose - but I was none of them.
"Beauty dear...," I began, trying to remember everything I had prepared.
"Yes, my lord?" she answered calmly, raising the head of her book.
I sat on a chair, leaving another chair between us.
"A foreign man just arrived in your town and he's asking questions about you and me. He wants to see you," I said quite bluntly, having no idea about the way to say that with tact.
"So I guess you want me to go back... home?" she said most unhappily. "No, don't say a word," she added hastily, preventing me to protest. "I told you once I would leave at once if you told me to go..."
"Beauty, I'm not dismissing you. I'm asking you to save me," I told her gently.
"To save you?"
"I'm afraid so, Beauty. If you don't go, he could come to the castle and seeing wild beasts like Sevulf, Geolf and me..."
"He would call the townsmen to a hunt!" finished Beauty, horrified. "Oh no! I'll go at once and prevent him from coming here."
"So you'll save us all."
"And I'll leave you...," she said with a low voice, lowering her eyes.
I saw the glitter of a tear in her eyes.
"Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
 All that is won and lost;..." I declaimed softly, quoting Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.
She offered me a sad smile while I was trying my best not to think to what followed in Antony's line:
"...give me a kiss;
 Even this repays me."
I concentrated on Beauty's sad smile.
"You would thus be happy to stay here, with me... us?" I asked, hope filling my heart about to burst of joy.
"Yes, my lord, I would. But I'll go, since I promise you," she said without raising the eyes.
"I need you to send this young man away, but you can come back whenever you want," I said cautiously, trying to calm down the wild beats of my heart. "This castle is yours, Beauty. You are the lady of all those grounds and the mistress of our lives," I added in a breath, unable to restrain myself.
"I'm just a poor girl," she objected.
"You're the only one worthy of the name of lady and mistress," I said, kneeling before her.
I took her little hand in my big paws and I brushed my lips against it in a brief kiss.
"You will leave this castle with all my love, for I've got nothing more to give to you, Beauty, my lady," I whispered.
"You'll always be in my heart...as... as my friend," she answered softly, leaving the library with her kitten.
"Fare you well, my love, for I will most probably never see you again..." I said when she disappeared.
I knew she would find some clothes on her bed, clothes I had chosen myself, quite plain, but elegant enough to show she was under my protection. I had asked to Stoat to put too a ring with a precious stone - a diamond, somehow symbolic: my love would only die with my life - with an explanation letter written with this elegant cursive handwriting I managed to create by the power of mind. With the ring, I could intervene if she needed my help.
Sevulf went with her to the gates of the castle while I was on the top of the dungeon, watching those gates close behind the one who took my life with her.
"If you decide to come back, my love, do it quickly if you want to see me still alive, for I cannot live without you," I said to the emptiness, not caring for the wind playing with my fur.
When I entered once again my castle as dark as a tomb and as pleasing, since Beauty was not more in there to light it up with her very presence, Stoat announced me that the mirror in my room was broken. Thousand pieces lay on the ground, catching the dim light of the fire and sending it to me, as an accusation. I felt a bit as if I had lost my last friend. Possessed with a wild rage, I fled and ran to shelter in the vaults. There, I created another mirror which lightened on Beauty arriving to the town.

"It's Beauty!" murmured some voices on her way.
Here she was, my Beauty, walking like a queen, wearing the outfit I had asked her to wear. People gathered around her and she had a light smile for them.
"Why did he take you in his castle?"
"Why did he release you?"
"You and Bo were only one person, weren't you?"
Questions fused from left and right and Beauty would have had difficulties to answer to all of them... if she had tried. But she kept smiling, without a word. Then a voice said:
"So you are the girl named Beauty, aren't you?"
Beauty turned to face a young man she probably recognised at once, as I did: it was the young man from the dreams, the one I had seen long ago who wanted to see his lord.
"I am Beauty, yes."
"I am the Tiger Prince."
Beauty couldn't conceal an ironic smile but she said quickly:
"And do you have another name? This one reminds me of some other things."
"Err... yes, I guess... I think you can call me Tiger, for short."
Beauty nodded.
"Why a Prince would come here and why would he wish to speak with me?" she asked with a note of impertinence he missed.
"I came to make you my wife."
Beauty opened wide eyes in surprise, and her jaw nearly dropped.
"Me? A princess? You're crazy! Why the hell would a prince call me his little wife?"
"Because you're beautiful and because you're a green witch. That's all my kingdom needs."
I almost roared of laughter. His proposition of marriage was so prosaic! Even I could have proposed better - especially to Beauty - if I hadn't been too shy to do so.
"I'm not beautiful," said Beauty.
"You are, trust me. Everybody knows I have an excellent judgement on women's beauty."
"I'm not beautiful," repeated Beauty, stubborn.
"You are, in my eyes. Isn't it what's more important? So, we're agreed?"
Beauty's face had become sardonic and she had a brief laugh.
"You better stop that, kid," she said with her worse accent. "I'm not beautiful, nor even pretty, and I will never be, no matter what my name means. So you better drop it now, before even telling me that you could spend your whole life trying to convince me of the contrary."
This facet of Beauty surprised me and, obviously, Tiger was as surprised as me.
"But you are beautiful!" he insisted, a second too late. "Let me show you how beautiful you are!"
Beauty made a very unladylike noise, but the young man didn't seem to hear it. He produced a mirror, looked at it a few seconds, pronounced some words and held it to Beauty.
"Look!"
Beauty just had a glance to it and laughed. She actually laughed!
"It can't be me!" she said, still laughing. "Oh God, you will at least have given me a good laugh!"
I had a glimpse of the picture displayed in the mirror and I laughed too - even if in my case, it was more a roar - for the maiden shown in the mirror was a beautiful one, indeed, but with long blond hair, and Beauty was all except blonde! But the laugh died in my throat for I recognised the lady in the mirror for who she was: Katherine, my Katherine. And Beauty knew it too.
"Rest in peace, Katherine," she said softly. "Nothing - and no one - will harm him, I swear it to you, I'll protect him as you would have done, have you lived enough to do so."
She didn't see the incident the same way I did: if Katherine was in the mirror, if her face was there, then it could only mean one thing: Katherine was one of the fairy's pawns. My saliva became suddenly very hard to swallow.
"I won't be your princess or whatever you said you wanted me to be for you. I'll remain free and I already told you no. I already told you to let me free."
Dear Beauty! She remembered this dream where the young man had come to her, near the lake, and where she turned him away, so she knew he was one of the fairy's puppets. And as he used magic, she knew he knew it too.
Murmurs rose around her and she looked around, only to see unfriendly faces.
"What did you do to my townsfolk? You let them see wonders, brought by your money and the favour you'd have spread on them for giving me to you? Well, I'm not in the league with them, nor with you. I'm born free and free I will remain!"
She addressed her fellow citizens:
"You have no right on me! The only one who could perhaps have a right on me is Jod and I doubt he would ever give me as you intended to do. You really never learn. Once a man tried to take me by force and I struggled. You knew he lied to you when saying I was with his child, you knew that I would never have given him what he wanted, but you're so fearful, so coward that you can only grovel to powerful people, giving them your daughters, your sisters, your wives if they asked you! So you let them condemn me, so you showed reprobation on your face when you met me, but it was more to hide the remorse and the shame you felt! Oh, shame on you! And if someone must show to these powerful people that the common people has some pride, if that someone must be me, so be it!"
"That's easy for you to say that, when you just come from the lord's castle," said an anonymous voice in the crowd.
"I was expecting that," replied Beauty with a smile. "No, little scared people, I won't invoke the protection of our lord or such a thing. If I must fight, I will fight alone, with my pride, my honour and my freedom. I know what I did and I feel no shame about it. I have nothing to hide, so I can say to everybody what I think of them. Beginning with you."
I was really impressed by my courageous Beauty, throwing away her restraint to say all she thought. She was standing on her own, alone in a circle of people less than friendly, looking proudly at them, showing no fear.
"Welcome home, Beauty, dear child," said a young voice, soft and warm.
Beauty turned on her heels and her face clearly showed her surprise. The young man coming toward her was smiling, obviously someone kind, and he wore around a neck a chain with a pendant I recognised only too well: Chyraz's scarab. Shuqra's believers rarely went well along with Chyraz's.
"Father," said Beauty with a little voice, suddenly becoming again the girl she was before she came to the castle.
"My child, I've heard a lot about thee," answered gently the priest.
Beauty laughed bitterly.
"I'm sure there were not many kind words in all you heard, Father!"
"Don't say such things, child," the priest scolded her. "Thou never comest to me while thou wast here, didst thou not?"
"No, Father. Nobody wanted me to come near you! I was the black sheep!"
"Such bitterness doth not suit thee, child. I've heard thee speak to thy fellow citizens and I'm proud of thee, child. Be assured I will always be with thee, no matter what people say of thee."
"May the Gods bless you, Father."
"I would say they already did it, child," smiled the priest.
He left the place but his intervention had changed the atmosphere. Beauty looked around her and, with a disgusted look, she left the square. Three persons came to her: Jod, silent and grumpy, Jerry, smiling, and a girl whose face expressed both happiness and doubt.
"Daisy! How are you?" asked Beauty at once, after a quick, but warm, smile for Jod and Jerry.
"Quite well, in fact," answered the girl.
So she was the young mother whose baby died when Beauty was sixteen! She didn't look much older than Beauty. I suspected something, for her outfits were the ones of a quite wealthy person. Beauty noticed the same thing.
"He married me!" announced proudly Daisy.
"Who?"
"Well, he wanted an heir and as he knew I had carried his child, he married me!"
"You accepted?"
"Well, yes, of course! Now, I'm quite wealthy and happy. I'm no more hungry, people have consideration for me, I have a beautiful house and a nice husband!" she said on the defensive.
"Oh, Daisy..."
I understood quite well Beauty's disagreement, since I had grown to know her, but Daisy didn't want her to shatter her daydream.
"You can't say anything! You spent more than six months in our lord's castle and then, you come to moralise me? Who are you to do that?"
Beauty's face became very pale.
"I didn't... I..."
She was unable to defend herself and as tears were filling her eyes, she left brutally her friends. Jod followed her on the way back to their home.
As soon as they were in there, Beauty turned to Jod. He hadn't said a word since her arrival, not even a 'welcome'.
"So that's how thou welcomest me? Not a word, only the silence? I thought thou wouldst be happy to see me again. Obviously, I was wrong."
"That's not that, Beauty," tried to explain Jod. "I mean... I don't know what happened in the castle during all this time," he finished lamely.
"I would have preferred to be deaf than to hear this," muttered Beauty. "After all that happened, after all these years together, thou still thinkst of me like the other townsfolk! I thought better of thee, Jod! Very well, I see I'm not welcome here anymore, so I won't stay. All my life I've feared to be a burden; it seems I have become one. Farewell, Jod."
"Hello there," said the merry voice of Jerry, whose head appeared in the door opening. "What's going on?"
"Nothing really important, Jerry," answered Beauty. "I just thought I had two friends here, Jod and thee, but I'm afraid thou remainst the only one."
Jerry threw a stern look to Jod and said:
"Well, my home is thine, Beauty, if this one is no more such. A robust girl like thee is always welcome in a house of workers."
"No," protested finally Jod. "This home is Beauty's. I will not let her go away. It had always been her home. Stay, Beauty. I'm a fool and I'm afraid I was jealous... Thou lookst so happy, so healthy..."
I saw Beauty nodding and it was enough for me. Jerry was definitely someone one could count on, as I first judged him. Jod was a bit more lunatic, but Jerry would defend Beauty's interests. She didn't need me anymore - if she had ever needed me. I turned off the new mirror I'd created and it shattered at once, as if they could only be whole when showing Beauty.
Then I sat on my bed, feeling a little dejected. An idea came suddenly to me: I wanted to know which ancestors were Beauty's, if Sirli was of her kin. I created hastily another mirror, walking on the pieces of the old one without caring. Then I went back in the past of Beauty's mother, for my mirror didn't want to answer directly to my question. I saw how her family fell with the years, living in misery, when the children didn't remember anymore their past glory. For two generations before, Beauty's kin was quite rich; I smiled when I saw the proud and joyful expression of a young man marrying his betrothed, one of Beauty's ancestors. When I saw the young man's parents, my smile froze. Sirli. She was there, she was of Beauty's kin. Beauty's mother was descended from one of Sirli's sons. I had been right. I smashed the mirror before it broke, with a single blow. It was stupid, I knew it, but I couldn't help it.
I left the quietness of the vaults and went back in my rooms. My eyes lighted upon the portraits; my gallery was now incomplete, since Beauty's wasn't in it. I knew then what I had to do: I began to create Beauty's portrait with all the memories I had of her. I half-forgot the time when working at it. The night didn't exist for me and, for once, I let the sunlight enter in my always dark room by opening the heavy velvet curtains that hid me from the sun and the light, and fires replaced the daylight when the sky was dark. I wanted his portrait to be perfect, so I spent hours on tiny details I was the only one to see. I remembered spending three hours on a curl and the plays of light on it. I didn't eat during all the painting process - if one can call it like that, since I painted with the help of the mind and magic.
When at last I was satisfied with the portrait, I had the impression it was almost alive, as if Beauty would move or lower her eyes. I had given her the same smile than Sirli's. Sirli and her great-grand-daughter - putting aside several generations - summarised my whole life. I sighed. Stoat had told me only one week had passed and Beauty hadn't come back.

I became almost mad. I paced restlessly during hours, counting the days going by, hoping desperately against all reason that Beauty would come back. Stoat and Sevulf didn't dare anymore to come near me, for my eyes were blazing fire and fury.
Two weeks! Two weeks and she still wasn't back! How could she do that to me? She said I was her friend and now, I was all alone, due to die, and she wasn't here with me! Was I doomed to die without seeing her again? Eponerius, the only one who had the force to subdue me, came to me with some food. I had only to look at him with bloodshot eyes to make him move backwards, a strange gleam in his eyes.
I was unable to do something else but pacing nervously, paws clenched tight in my back, muttering under my breath all the insults I could find for the fairy, calling Beauty with deep heartbreaking sighs, forgetting the night, the day, the meals, the sleep - which I didn't know since the beginning of the curse, except restless sleeps. My only field of view was the parquet floor on which I paced tirelessly, and the marks of claws I printed on each lap.
I knew no more of the difference between day and night, because I had closed again my heavy curtains. The light of the candles was still flickering, for those candles had a strange sense of humour. They seemed to love mocking me and I hated that. I didn't look at them, but I saw how they sniggered by the light on the floor. I was too preoccupied by Beauty's absence to pay attention to their stupid little games. Quite annoyed by their flickering light, I went back to my vaults.
I realised suddenly that I hadn't heard Beauty's voice in my head since the last dream. She really had lost all her magic against her voice, but it was only justice, since now, she was back where she belonged. I felt conscience-stricken for all poor Beauty had suffered because of me. But now, I had righted all I did wrong, hadn't I? Now, she was with those she loved and she would soon forget the big terrifying Beast. All what happened in this castle would fade into a dream - or a nightmare - and she wouldn't pay attention to it.
Feeling very weary, I fell on the ground and remained there, gigantic silhouette curled up, my big head in my paws. I didn't want to move. I knew with a quite frightful certainty that I was going to die. It was only the last test before the end. I lay down slowly on the ground, watching the ceiling, feeling the cold of the stone getting into my bones. I felt nothing more but this acute cold. I closed the eyes and had the nonsensical idea that I didn't want to die feeling cold. I had felt cold all my life in this castle I wanted to be cold and dark, for I didn't want the sun to reveal my shame, and now, I wanted to be warm at least once in my life.
I tried to stand up but I couldn't manage it. I fell back heavily on the hard ground and closed again the eyes. I was too weary to move anymore. Since Beauty was gone, I hadn't eaten - or so little that it didn't count - and I had exhausted myself with work and grief. I sighed, accepting passively my doom - and the fact I was going to die feeling cold.
"Thou wilt not die!" said a familiar voice near me.
I recognised it at once.
"Shuqra," I greeted her. "What a pleasant surprise. I thought thou hadst left me for good."
"I never betrayed thee as thou thoughtst I did. I had always been with thee."
"Yes, yes, I know," I acquiesced quite impatiently. "Art thou coming for the burial? Thou art a bit early, but it doesn't matter. At least, someone will say a prayer on my grave for my soul. How kind of thee."
"Stop saying such stupid things! Thou art not going to die now. I'll not allow thee to. And thou wilt not stay on the cold ground. Remember I gave thee magic. Use it!"
"Of course, I won't die... I'm immortal," I said sarcastically. "Let me die, Shuqra, I'm not worthy of life."
"Art thou telling me that I lost my time when caring for thee? That all I've done for thee was in vain? This is an insult, child."
"I think thou canst forgive a dying man - Beast, sorry," I continued with the ironical tone I had chosen.
"Child, thou wilt learn I'm not the Goddess of wisdom for nothing!" said Shuqra between her clenched teeth.
She made a curious noise and I was suddenly on my bed, feeling warm and more healthy than I have ever felt during all those years.
"So, can we discuss now?" asked Shuqra, coming near me.
"It's useless, Shuqra," I sighed. "I'm sure the hands of the clock are near the twelve. I'll die soon, no matter what thou canst do."
"Doest thou really think that a fairy could defeat me? I've not said my last word."
"Shuqra, please... Stop lying to me, I know I'm dying. And Beauty isn't there and... she's the one I love, the only one I could ever love, but I can't love her! I don't have the right, I'm not worthy of her! How could she ever love me? And even she loved me, doest thou think the fairy will let me free like that? She hates me, Shuqra, and she won't let me be happy, if only happiness was meant for me."
"I don't know if it was meant for thee, since thou seemst to do thy best to escape it. Thou lovest Beauty, that's all I ask of thee. Now, thou wilt spend thy 'last moments' watching her!"
And she left me, covering the ceiling of the vaults with a gigantic mirror lightened on Beauty's face. I cried after her, but she didn't hear me. I couldn't close the eyes, it was as if the mirror came into my head and it was worse than ever. So I had to watch and I watched with eyes filled with tears and the heart filled with love.