The old man is so terrified, he can barely speak. “I — I . . .” stammers the old man. “Oh, forgive me, sire . . .”
“Silence!” roars Beast, striding down the steps. His hooves crunch menacingly in the gravel, and the old man, incapable of flight, falls to his trembling knees and cowers in terror as Beast approaches. “Have I not fed you, warmed you, provided you with the most civil hospitality?”
“M-more than civil; I . . . I should call it splendid,” blathers the man.
“And this is how you repay me?” Beast demands.
The old man is bent so low, he can scarcely be heard. “It is . . . only a rose.”
“But it is not yours,” rumbles Beast. “And neither is this!”
The old man dares to raise his eyes to see this monster towering above him, a mountain of rage blocking out the sun, as Beast stamps to the horse’s side and plucks me out of the saddlebag. I see the relief in Beast’s eyes as he inspects me, cradling me in his paw, before he glares down furiously at the old man — whose face reflects stark terror at this proof of his thievery. He was in such a panic over Beast, it seems he forgot all about me.
“Oh, s-sir,” he stammers. “Oh, please, my lord . . .”
“Never call me lord!” the monster roars. “I am Beast!”
“Please, Sir Beast, I beg your forgiveness.” His nervous gaze jumps to me. “It was . . . foolish of me. I’m afraid I acted out of desperation. I — I meant no harm.”
Beast glowers down at the old man, clutching me to his chest. I can feel his heart beating. “Did I not hear you swear yourself indebted to me?” Beast demands.
“And so I am, more so now than ever,” agrees the old man hastily. “I — I confess myself financially embarrassed at the moment, but —”
“Your money means nothing to me,” growls Beast. “But in return for all you have received in my home — and for all you presumed to take from me — I propose that you pay off your debt to me with your company.”
“Stay with you? H-here?” The old man’s voice quavers.
“Since you are so fond of my roses.”
The old man lowers his face again to regard the one plucked rose, lying in the gravel where he dropped it. “It was wrong of me to take a . . . a souvenir without permission. But . . . the rose is not for me. It’s for my daughter.”
Beast frowns down at him. “You have children?”
“Three daughters, sir. And three stout sons, God be praised. Although my wife was taken from us many years ago.” He straightens up on his knees and hurries on. “We have lately removed to the country in poverty after a cruel reversal of our fortunes. I was a merchant of some prosperity once, but —”
“Your family?” Beast prompts.
“My daughters are scarcely accustomed to country ways, poor things. They were so excited when word came that one of my ships had been recovered and that our fortune might yet be restored. I promised the two eldest to bring them back fine trinkets from my journey to the seaport where my last ship lay.” The old man bows his head again. “But my venture did not pay off. I can’t bring them what they ask.” He risks a glance at Beast. “But the youngest asked me only for a single rose. She is as good as she is beautiful, poor child. This is the only promise I could keep.”
Beast considers this. “And what of your debt to me?” he asks quietly.
“Good Sir Beast, I . . . I will pay my debt to you. I swear it!”
Beast gazes at him in silence, still clutching me close to his massive chest, as if to emphasize the enormity of that debt. With an ominous rumble of cogs and latches, the gilded gates at the end of the drive clang shut; the sound reverberates with awful finality under the arch of roses.
“Kind S-sir Beast,” the merchant stammers. “I am an old man. My days upon this earth are numbered. I will share as many with you as you require. Only —” He dares to raise his face to implore Beast directly. “I beg you, allow me to return home to take leave of my children. I cannot simply disappear without a trace from their lives. Please, I throw myself on your mercy!”
Of course, he is a merchant, accustomed to bargaining; he calculates his chances in Beast’s mute, dark eyes and presses on. “Accept my word, from one gentleman to, ah, another, that I will return to pay my debt.”
Beast thinks it over. “One fortnight,” he says at last. “Take your leave, settle your affairs, whatever is required. But at the end of a fortnight, you must return to me. That is our bargain.”
“Thank you, oh thank you, Sir Beast!”
The merchant staggers to his feet and, somehow, commands his wayward limbs to hold him upright as he stumbles back to the support of his horse. As the old man clambers into the saddle, Beast goes low on his haunches and sweeps something up from the ground. The merchant reins up his horse and glances hopefully at the still-closed gates, but looking back, he is startled to find Beast standing beside him.
“Don’t forget your rose,” says Beast, holding it out to the merchant. The red rosebud looks impossibly fragile in his huge paw.
The old man takes it with nervous fingers and laces the stem carefully through the clasp of his cloak.
Beast reaches for the bridle, and while the man still cowers in his seat, Beast leads horse and rider down the gravel drive toward the gates, which swing open magically as they approach. At the foot of the drive, Beast turns to regard his guest one last time.
“Tell me,” he rumbles, “your daughter, the beauty. Has she a name?”
“Rose,” whispers the merchant. “She is called Rose.”
Back inside, Beast returns me to my favorite perch in the window, but he is too agitated himself to take a seat.
“Are you all right?” he rumbles at me.
I am neither tarnished nor scratched. Yet it infuriates me that I was not able to do more on my own behalf.
“I hope you know that is not what I meant.” Beast’s paw trembles slightly on the sill beside me.
I know.
“I lost sight of him from the stairway,” says Beast. “I didn’t want him to see me, of course. So I didn’t realize what had happened until it was almost too late.”
So Beast was still hiding in the shadows, watching his guest.
You mean you didn’t leave me there to tempt him into his bargain?
Beast is shocked. “I would never risk your safety like that!” He pauses, then glances at me sideways. “Although — perhaps if I had thought of it . . .”
I wish I could laugh; it would be a relief after the events of this morning.
Scaring him out of his wits was scarcely the best way to win a companion, I observe instead.
Beast shrugs. “Perhaps not. But he had to be made to know how serious his crime was. What if he had succeeded? What would have become of you?”
What indeed? Suppose I had been handed over by the old merchant to pay off some creditor, passed along from one bill collector to another until I ended up locked away in some cupboard of forgotten things. Or perhaps even melted down, my essence squandered for rings or coins. And no one would ever even know. No one but Beast.
Thank you.
Beast responds with a brief but decisive nod of his shaggy head.
But you can’t really expect the old man to come back now?
“Perhaps not.” Beast sighs in agreement. “But you are safe. That is what matters.” He draws another breath and adds softly, “That is at least one thing I could do for you.”
Yet Beast’s movements about the chateau grow more aimless as the day passes. And the next. We go no more to the library, for fear he may not hear his visitor return. He occupies himself among his roses in view of the gilded gate. It surprises me that he would seek further acquaintance with this troublesome old man, no matter how lonely he is. But, surely, Beast can’t possibly delude himself that the merchant will ever come back to this place. To him.
And when he does not arrive, what will Beast do? He’s not a fairy or wizard, for all the otherworldly forces he can sometimes command. He can’t fly through the air like a witch on his unresponsive wings to snatch up his prey, nor conjure him here through black arts.
For all his apparent menace, he is the lamb who’s been tricked.