Steel Roses

The Paintings

Over the next few days, Beldon waited impatiently for the final word from The Beast to tell him he was allowed to see the painting. He took his idea to clean up the West Wing in full stride and sent the servants into a wild panic – seeing as he was doing a job they were supposed to but didn't – for some unknown reason.

It did mean he interacted with them a little more however. At least the maids, because they were the ones to come running in, worrying about him doing jobs below him.

In the afternoon of the fourth day, one of the maids – Jenny – shrieked when she walked in on him high up on a ladder, a good twenty feet above the ground, working on a window, battling the grime that had settled there.

"Sir!" she squeaked, running in – she looked like Julius, dressed in a maids uniform but with a plain mask over her face. "Sir! Come down, that's dangerous!"

"Now really, it's not that dangerous, I'm not going to fall," Beldon said, leaning out precariously far to get to the corners of one of the panes of glass. Jenny almost wailed in fright.

"But you could fall! You'll hurt yourself! Oh, Sir!" She grabbed the ladder, holding it steady, not that it was rocking in the first place.

Beldon rolled his eyes. "Why does no one clean this part of the castle anyway?" he asked.

Jenny looked up. "Why? Well, because The Master said to not bother."

"But he's The Master, surely if anyone should have well kept quarters, it would be him."

"The Master became very closed off after the curse fell and never really came back from it," Jenny said.

Beldon smiled slightly as he moved to work on another pane. This was what he loved and hated about servants; they were so easy to gossip with. Well, not all, higher ranking servants were too well trained and their status depended on discretion but lower ranks – now they were more loose with their tongues – especially when they weren't quite sure what your rank was, it hardly felt like Beldon was a guest after all, but he certainly wasn't staff or anything like that.

"So he closed himself away?"

"Well for the first five years he was locked away in the West Wing and most of the staff didn't even see him for that time."

Beldon looked down at her.

"Honestly, a lot of us still don't see him often, it's like he doesn't exist most of the time. When we were finally allowed back into the West Wing, it was like storms had ripped through it. Well you must have seen in the unlocked rooms, they were just left in ruins."

Beldon turned to the window. He'd certainly seen the ruined unlocked rooms... and all the locked rooms as well.

"His servants said not to bother with the rooms, that The Master didn't care anymore and didn't want things touched. So we left it alone, thinking he would move to the East Wing... but he didn't. He just said to make it ready for Beauty and we did. Of course, Beauty hasn't arrived yet. You did though, so at least we have a reason for keeping everything neat and well kept in the East Wing. Even if Beauty hasn't arrived, you're a beauty, so it's alright."

Beldon looked down at her and he knew she would have blushed if he could have seen her face. Instead she jumped in shock at the boldness of her statement and the ladder rocked, making Beldon grab the curtains with a shout, making Jenny shout, grabbing at the ladder, almost pushing it sideways, making them both shout in fright, causing two hall boys to look in, almost letting out their own shouts and running to the ladder.

Beldon slammed his hands against the wall and stabled himself before anymore hands could grab the ladder.

"Enough! Enough!" he snarled, clutching at the curtains again for dear life, scared they'd knock the ladder right out from under him.