They were swiftly overwhelmed.
Under the command of the invading lord, his men took no prisoners
until they reached the tower room that held his method of revenge on
the king he felt had betrayed him, confiscating his lands and
offering them, as tribute, to the brother king who was challenging
his right to the whole of the lands.
The prince, his only son, banned to this castle rather than take his
proper place next to his father, fighting for his inheritance, was
unprepared for the fact that these soldiers did not listen to him.
That they dared place their rough and bloody hands on his person.
That they knocked him about, finally rendering him unconscious.
The lord's men wrapped the pretty, pampered pet son of an old king
in one of the blankets, took him and the only other occupant of the
room, a boy chained to the prince's bed, and made off with their
booty.
Their lord was pleased with their capture of his enemy's son,
wondered as to the presence of the second boy.
"His whipping boy," explained his lieutenant. "As pretty in his way
as the prince is. And he should fetch as pretty a price."
And the lord looked at the two young men who were kneeling in his
presence, gagged, arms bound behind their backs, feet manacled.
"I'm not quite certain I agree with you," grinned the lord to his
lieutenant. "I need to see more before I judge."
At a signal from the lieutenant, the guards hauled the two to their
feet, divested them of their clothing. Sharp knives slid equally
easily through rough wool and fine silk, sometimes nicking rough
skin, and the fine one too.
The lord looked over the prizes he had in front of him. The prince
was tall, slim, lightly muscled from what training had been forced
upon him. He was known to prefer books to the sword. He was,
thought the lord, probably regretting his preference now. The white
body was lightly haired, the chest bare but for a patch of fine
princely hair at the sternum. His face was fine- boned—though
sadly, he had inherited his father's nose—with hazel eyes that
revealed his shock at the events unfolding in his oh, so protected
life. The guard behind him held his head up for the lord's
inspection by wrapping his hand in the long dark hair and pulling
sharply back.
The other, the prince's whipping boy—because though disobedient
and in need of discipline, no ungentle hand must touch the prince's
silky skin—was, as his lieutenant said, beautiful in a rough way.
The body was thin, probably through lack of proper feeding, but
muscled. He not only had to take the prince's punishments, but also
work for the privilege. Though as tall as the other, the shoulders
were wider, the unfurred chest broader, the thighs thicker. The
face had an exotic cast to it, from the shape of the cat-green eyes,
the slant of the cheekbones. No local slave must have been deemed
fine enough for their fine prince, scowled the lord. The guard
holding his head had had to grab the hair at the forehead as the
slave's was cut short at the back. Nothing must be allowed to
interfere with the discipliner's whip.
"Turn them around," ordered the lieutenant.
The slave's back still bore signs of his most recent whipping, scars
of past ones. The prince's was unblemished but for the bruises he
had acquired in the past hours.
The lieutenant used his riding crop to point the reasons he had had
the youths turned. "When has my lord seen such fine asses?" He
shared his malicious grin with his now understanding lord.
The slave understood too. His ass cheeks clenched and he forced
himself to relax them.
The prince did not understand.
He and his whipping boy had their arms unbound, their wrists
manacled to the wall and there he learnt.
As the lord took his time to regroup his forces, make his way into
the exile he had been sent on the whim of a weak king, that king's
son provided him with entertainment, he and his whipping boy. For
five nights the two were brought to the lord's tent where he and his
lieutenant, and one or two other chosen men, favoured them with
their attentions.
The whipping boy suffered less. He was already experienced in the
ways of pleasing men. The prince learnt that he was nothing more
than a hole to fill.
And when the lord, his lieutenant, and their guests, tired of the
night's game, the two were returned to the enclosure they shared,
chained to a stake and left to shiver in reaction, in the cold.
And there, the whipping boy would wait until no one was around,
gingerly—because even though he was not inexperienced, his body
had still been roughly used—make his way over to the prince he
had served, carefully pull the shuddering body into his arms, and
offer what comfort he could.
And the prince who days before would scarcely have acknowledged the
presence of his whipping boy, let alone permit his touch, wrapped as
much of himself as he could around the other's body and cried his
terror and pain into his shoulder.
Once across the border and into new lands, the lord took one good
look at his two new toys.
"I want the king," here he spat onto the floor by the kneeling
prince, "to know that when I return at the head of my mercenaries,
his son provided the monies for their purchase. Right now, he
couldn't buy me a whore for the night." He sighed. "Still they
both made the journey here less tedious. Have them chained in the
stables, give them some clothing and see that they eat regularly.
We leave for our next port of call in a week. Between that and the
voyage, they should find their worth again. And make certain that
all know not to touch them. They must be healed for the slave
market."
They were taken to the stable, given rough clothes. Each had an
ankle manacled and one of the men thought it would be humourous to
have the prince chained to his whipping boy. And when they were
brought food and water, the prince was forced to serve his whipping
boy, to see to his needs before he was allowed water and food for
himself. The whipping boy was given a tattered blanket for the
night, the prince was told to wrap himself up in the straw that
lined the stall they were kept in.
At night, the whipping boy would pull on the chain that linked them
and the prince would join him under the blanket, sharing it and
whatever warmth their bodies produced.
One night, when he awakened from a nightmare of hands touching him,
hurting him, the prince finished wiping his tears on the woollen
shoulder of his whipping boy and asked, "How do you bear this?"
The whipping boy smiled. "It is hard at first. But you get used to
it. You're new to slavery. I've had years of it."
The prince looked at the face of the youth he had callously had
beaten for his temper, his tantrums, his refusal to do anything but
what pleased him. "How can you bear to hold me when all I have done
is cause you pain?"
The whipping boy shrugged. "We each had our role in that life.
Yours to be a prince, mine to be a whipping boy. Whether yours or
some other lord's. At least I was fed, kept in warmth. When I was
beaten, someone saw to my wounds."
The prince winced. "Wounds that I had placed on you."
The whipping boy said nothing, smoothed back the prince's hair off
the strained face. The prince accepted the comforting touch,
wondering if he would have been so generous in the whipping boy's
place. And wanting to give him something in return.
He tilted his face up and offered the only thing he had left of
himself.
"My mother's people come from a far-away country. When I was a
child living with her, she called me Mulder. My father hated the
name, ordered that it not be used."
The whipping boy was taken aback by the gift, then cautiously
offered one of his own. "My mother called me Alex."
And though the night was cold, the two wrapped themselves tightly
around each other and found warmth in friendship.
The slaver was pleased with his purchases, the lord with the price
he had gotten for his revenge.
The two youths had been purchased together, to the secret comfort of
both, and remained chained together at the pleasure of the slaver.
He had had them stand before him naked, recognizing the fineness of
the one, the exoticness of the other. Where he intended selling
them, he would make more than enough to compensate for their
purchase, their maintenance until he got them there.
At the lord's recommendation, he had tested both their skills in
pleasing their new master. The green-eyed youth needed some
refinement, having the basic skills well in hand. The white-skinned
one proved to be a novice, resistant to training, not even
attempting to learn what the slaver wished him to learn.
And then, one night, the slaver came upon his new purchases by
accident and found them sleeping, tightly clasped in each other's
arms.
The choice was his, the slaver informed the prince; accept or the
other would be whipped for his refusal to learn. The prince looked
at the friend who already bore too many marks on his body because of
him, bowed and accepted.
The day before the sale, the two were taken to a special building,
given water with which to wash. The attendants gave them loin
cloths to wrap around themselves, the only garment they would be
permitted to wear at the sale, until a prospective buyer wished to
examine them more closely. And then they would be denied even that
protection.
The two were to be sold separately.
That night, each clung to the other, offering and receiving comfort,
support. The prince had learnt many things during this journey to
the slave market, about the cruelty of men, but also about the
special friendship that existed between two who were suffering the
same indignities, the same hardships. He had seen the dignity with
which his whipping boy accepted the fate Chance had sent him, the
humiliations that so pleased others. He swore to himself that he
could do no less.
The door of the slave quarters was thrown open and the slaver
entered bearing a lantern, acting as a servant to some great man who
followed behind him. The slaver stopped in front of the two youths
who blinked stupidly in the sudden light.
"Get up," ordered the slaver. And kicked at them when they were
sluggish in responding.
The man standing out of the light grunted and the slaver held back
his booted foot.
The whipping boy and his prince stood, side by side, their bodies
not quite hiding from the eagle eyes of the buyer the fact that they
held each other's hand.
The whipping boy held his head bowed, as all well- trained slaves
did. The prince had not yet acquired that habit. He looked into
the dark, trying to see who it was that they were being paraded for
at this time of night.
The slaver back-handed him hard for the effrontery.
The buyer noticed that the other slave brought his hand up, as if to
defend his companion, then, fist clenched, dropped his hand.
The buyer rested his shoulder against a post and listened to the
slaver spin a tale of the prince and his whipping boy. Whether it
was true, he had no idea: slavers, in his experience, were always
selling "princes" from other lands.
Still, there was a fineness that he recognized as high breeding in
the one the slaver had struck, and a beauty to the second with those
green eyes of his that had flashed so there for a moment.
"Enough."
The soft voice of the buyer caught the slaver by surprise. He had
not yet ordered the two to remove their cloths, so that the buyer
could examine just how fine a purchase either one of these would be.
"How much for the two of them?"
The bowed head of the whipping boy rose and two sets of eyes
worriedly followed the bargaining that ensued. At one point the
buyer totally rejected the slaver's price, announcing that he wasn't
made of gold. He turned to leave, catching the despair on the
prince's face, the resigned acceptance on the other's. All the
slaver saw was his sac of gold disappearing out the door with the
buyer and hastily lowered the price.
He offered, what he swore was a good price, if his buyer would be
satisfied with only one.
"No," insisted the buyer. "It amuses me to have both."
The final price, though much lower than the slaver had dreamed of,
was still more than sufficient. And this man often bought from him.
It would be worth the lower revenue to keep his good-will.
"Have them delivered to my residence in the morning," ordered the
buyer. "And," he turned to the slaver as he reached the door, "see
that they're dressed."
By the time the purchases were delivered to the slave's entrance,
the two had learnt that their new master was a general, respected by
his allies, feared by his enemies. They were taken by the
slavemaster to the baths where they were properly washed, their hair
trimmed, deloused, their beards shaved off. The house physician
inspected them thoroughly, embarrassing the prince to no end by the
careful examination of his anus and rectum. Even the whipping boy
reddened at the physician's handling of his genitals, the way his
fingers entered his asshole as if searching for treasure.
They were given short tunics to wear, of unbleached linen, nothing
more. Fed. Shown the tiny alcove that they would share unless
called upon by the General, for any reason.
The slavemaster opened the door next to the alcove and brought them
into the General's private quarters. There he appointed them their
tasks. To see to the General's clothes; the General, they were
warned, insisted on neatness. To see to the condition of the arms
the General kept with himself—even though this was his home, the
General did have enemies and never went unarmed. To see to the
condition of the room; disorder, cautioned the slavemaster, was
intolerable and would be severely punished. To serve the General's
food. And to service the General in any manner that he desired.
And then he left them in the General's room.
"Alex?" whispered the prince. "I don't know how to do any of that."
"Don't worry, Mulder," smiled the whipping boy, "I do."
"Then," said Mulder, "you had better hope that I prove to be a good
student for you will have to teach me."
The General arrived late that night to find his room in perfect
order, a cold supper waiting to be served and his two new bodyslaves
ready to divest him of his armour. He was pleased to see that there
was a tun of water, standing hot by the fire, for them to wipe the
dirt of the day off his body.
He could tell from the surreptitious glances the so- called prince
sent his companion that the other was the leader in all this, and
found himself wondering, just in passing, as he belted a robe around
himself, if there had been any truth in the slaver's story. He
shrugged. Even if there had been, the lad was no longer a prince,
the other no longer his whipping boy. He had purchased them for
their beauty and they would be serving him equally.
He ate, aware that as they waited for their orders, the pair knelt,
just out of his sight, side by side, bodies touching. He turned and
looked at them. The green- eyed one quickly dropped his eyes. The
other followed more slowly. The General grinned: he would learn.
"Do you have names, or shall I name you?"
The prince raised his head, looked on the face of his new master.
He had had much taken from him, but to bear a slave's name, rather
than his own, that was too much. "I am called Mulder. This is
Alex."
Alex raised his head to look upon the master whose hand they had not
yet felt: Mulder's tone was still too imperious for a slave's. He
had been beaten often for just answering questions that he was not
expected to answer.
The General saw the concern the one called Alex felt toward his
companion and smiled. He liked a little spirit in his personal
slaves. He had no wish for browbeaten ones who flinched at every
shadow. If the slaver's story was also true for this one, he knew
Alex would be more effective at training Mulder than any beating he
ordered administered.
He stood, stretched, yawned. He was tired but still edgy from the
day's proceedings. War was on the way, in spite of his attempts to
fend it off. There were people in his royal liege's court who were
hungry for what they perceived as the spoils of war. They did not
take the cost into account. That, they told him, was his concern,
not theirs. That's why he was the General, not the king.
He looked at his two new bodyslaves and decided to see just how well
trained they were.
He walked over to his bed, unbelted his robe and signalled to them
to approach him.
Mulder closed his eyes and tried to find the strength in him that
Alex showed as he gracefully approached their master. Then he rose
and, as he had done all day, followed Alex's lead.
Their master was as tall as they were, with a furred chest that bore
witness to the strength necessary to bear armour and swing the heavy
two-edged battle sword with grace. His hips were narrow, his thighs
well muscled from years of carrying the weight they did. He was not
a beautiful man, thought Mulder, but there was a handsomeness to
him, in the intelligence in the face, the bearing of one used to
respect and responsibility. The dark, almost black eyes that seemed
to see everything.
It didn't detract from the manliness of his body that the General
was losing his hair. That he kept it close-clipped at the sides,
with a long thin plait hanging between his shoulder blades, in the
manner of these people.
Alex had assumed a position between the General's legs, taken his
thickening cock between his lips and worked his way down it as the
slaver had insisted it be done. Mulder knelt behind their master
and, warily, because neither Alex nor the General had indicated what
he was to do, spread the hard, muscled ass-cheeks apart and used his
tongue to tease the skin behind the heavy ball-sack, work his way up
to the puckered button and there, to tease his tongue into the
General's hole.
The General smiled his pleasure and allowed the two to service him
as they thought tonight. There would be time enough to train them
in his particular pleasures.
He had far less time than he thought.
The courtiers and the so-called diplomates stirred matters much more
quickly than he would have liked. It didn't help matters that the
king they were challenging was young, new to the throne and less
patient than his father would have been.
The slavemaster was surprised when the General insisted that his
bodyslaves should accompany his tent and personal items into the
campaign. Normally, when the General took to the field, only his
soldiers served him.
The two were outfitted with clothing more suitable for the days and
travelling ahead. The linen tunics were replaced with heavier
woollen tunics that went below the knee, leggings that were
cross-gartered to above the knees. They were even given solid boots
and dark mantles that would double as blankets.
All that mattered to the two was that again they were being kept
together.
Every evening, the soldiers were responsible for the General's tent
being erected but all else was the responsibility of the two
bodyslaves. Their beauty attracted many an eye, but no one dared
touch them. They were the General's private property.
Yet there was One who wondered aloud in their hearing just how much
longer the General would appreciate their special skills. After
all, the General was not known for keeping slaves beyond the point
of his disinterest. Yes, there were two of them this time, but
eventually, laughed the One, he would tire of them and then they
would be anyone's for the taking.
For once, Mulder did not need Alex to explain what would happen to
them then. He could see the condition of the boy slaves that had
been taken along by the whoremaster on this campaign. One or two,
he knew, had already died from their treatment at the hands of the
soldiers.
He and Alex never mentioned it, but, at night, when they were
released from the General's service to find their mat on the floor
at the foot of their master's bed, they held each other tight, each
thinking he was hiding his fear from the other.
But the General had discovered his slaves had other talents. Mulder
could read. He found him doing so one day over his shoulder as he
stood behind him, awaiting his orders. The dispatches were badly
written and the General was sounding out what he could decypher of
the scribe's hand when Mulder recognized the word and said it aloud.
Out of curiosity, he handed the slave the dispatch and told him to
read it to him. He did, as hesitantly as he himself would have,
more out of the difficulty of reading the hand than the words.
"Can you write, Mulder?"
Mulder raised an eyebrow with a hint of his former arrogance. "Yes,
Master, I can." As if all bodyslaves normally possessed this skill.
The General resisted chastising him for the tone, He looked at Alex
who was quietly cleaning some mail. "And you, Alex, do you also read
and write?"
Alex looked to Mulder who echoed the question with both eyebrows now
raised. In the world that had been the prince's, there was severe
punishment for slaves who attempted to learn what were skills
destined only for their betters and masters. But he had also been
Mulder's shadow in his schooling, there to be punished should his
noble master's mind wander, or he make a mistake in his recitation,
or throw a temper tantrum because the day was fine and he preferred
to go hawking than to sit with his pen.
"Yes, Master," he confessed. "I can read. I don't know if I can
write because I've never tried. I do know that Mulder writes with a
fine hand because I could easily read his words and not those of the
tutor." And wondered what the reaction of this master was going to
be.
The General handed the dispatch to Mulder, sent Alex for old
parchment, ink and quills from the company scribe and ordered Mulder
to recopy the message so that it was legible. That night, when his
eyes were strained from trying to read other dispatches that had
arrived but were of lesser importance than the ones he handed to
Mulder, he had Alex sit at his feet and read those to him.
And when they were done, he thanked them for their efforts. Mulder,
he noted, accepted this as his due. If anything convinced him that
the slaver had been telling the truth, it was this calm nod of
acceptance. Alex was taken aback so much that the General knew that
he had rarely, if ever, been thanked for any service. That too made
him accept the history of the lad.
The One who watched was not pleased with this development. The more
use the General had for them, the longer they would hold his
interest. And he wanted them. For his bed. For the pleasure of
breaking the fine one to his will, for the pleasure of hearing the
other scream from the pain of his particular foibles.
But he was patient. There were more games afoot than just the
up-coming battle and one way or another, he would have what he
wanted. All that he wanted. All for the cost of patience.
The day of battle arrived.
A fine and beautiful day, thought the General. Pity that so many
would die upon such a day as this, to please the desires of men who
were safely far away from the confrontation.
The previous night, he had had all his commanders in his tent, going
over all possible strategies that might be needed. He was nothing
if not thorough. Some, he knew, looking at a particular commander,
thought him too cautious. But his caution had kept him victorious
and alive.
Before seeking his bed, having sent his bodyslaves to find theirs,
he wondered aloud as to their opinions of his commanders. He sat in
his camp chair, goblet of watered wine in hand and encouraged them
to tell him their observations, their hearing of rumours that
permeated the lower levels of his camp. That one drank too much.
This other was well-loved by his men, he fought along-side them.
This other fought from behind, quick to lay blame, quicker to accept
praise. Another complained sourly, in his cups, that his counsel
should be sought more because of whom his father was.
All this the General knew, but it pleased him that his slaves were
intelligent enough, preceptive enough to come to the same
conclusions not having known these men for the years he had.
"Master," asked Mulder, as they settled to catch what sleep they
could, "you will win tomorrow, will you not?"
The General thought it pleasant to reassure them. "No reason not to.
My men are better trained. We have a full understanding of the lay
of the land. And better yet, as my scouts have reported, we
outnumber them."
But they also had treachery to deal with. Treachery that he had not
taken into account.
The General was standing on a rise, watching as his men easily
routed his liege's enemies when Mulder came running up to his
master, barely able to breathe out the warning that there was a
force advancing on them from camp-side, from behind. And that his
master and his forces would be caught between two of his enemies'
troops, and that there were more men coming to re- enforce the
troops fighting his master's at present.
The General and his commanders quickly reassessed the situation,
signalled the forces to regroup and with tactics that had made his
reputation, regained the day. It was not the victory he had
predicted, but neither was it the rout that his enemies, both on the
other side and in his camp, had expected it to be.
Both sides pulled back to count their loses and to prepare to fight
another day.
It was late in the afternoon when Mulder accompanied his Master back
to the camp to find it blackened, smouldering, littered with the
wounded and the bodies of the ones who had been left to protect the
camp.
The General's tent had collapsed onto the ground, partially burnt.
The youth who had walked by his master's horse screamed, "ALEX!" and
began working his way under the heavy oiled tenting. The General
slid off his horse, grabbed the distraught boy by the waist and
pulled him back.
"No! Let me go! I have to find him!"
The General shook the slave roughly. He was exhausted,
short-tempered and in no mood to put up with Mulder's arrogance.
Until he heard the words Mulder was yelling. That Alex had been the
one to see the second force coming. That he had taken it upon
himself to scout close enough to learn of the troops hidden, waiting
for their signal to come out and support the original forces. That
Alex had hurried back to camp and sent Mulder to warn the General
because he was the fresher of the two.
The General called for some of his abler men to roll back the heavy
material, slowly revealing that more than the weight of the
descending tent was responsible for the condition of his few pieces
of furniture. The dispatch chest that he kept locked had been
smashed open, the scrolls scattered about. He knew now that some of
the information sent to him had been purposefully wrong. That
someone had known it would be used to plan his strategy.
And it was obvious that whoever was responsible wished to leave no
evidence behind.
"My lord!"
The General released Mulder and followed him to where the soldier
stood. There at his feet lay his other bodyslave, in a pool of
blood. Mulder gasped, dropped to his knees and reached for his
friend. The General grabbed him, not letting him touch the inert
body. "Get my physician. Immediately."
Pushing Mulder aside, he carefully checked the body for the wound
that had produced so much blood. Blood that was still warm to the
touch, that was still bright, rich red. That meant that the boy was
not yet dead.
He found a pulse, light, sluggish at the boy's throat. With gentle
hands, he turned the boy over onto his back and found the cause of
all the blood. He must, thought the General, have raised his arm to
protect himself. He had been successful, but the arm had taken the
full strength of the blow. The sword had cut through the outer
skin, the muscle, even through the bone so that the left arm hung by
a thread of skin.
His physician scowled at the sight and at the thought that he was to
care for a slave.
"I want him alive," said the General in a tone that indicated he
expected to get what he wanted, or there would be trouble to pay.
He knew that the arm could not be saved, that it would required
cauterizing and that it would be better for Mulder to be occupied
while Alex was being worked on. He gently, but insistently, pulled
the boy away and, until the physician came to him and informed him
that he had done all that he was capable of, that the fate of the
slave was in the hands of whatever gods he believed in, the General
kept Mulder too busy to worry. Then, he went to see the boy for
himself, finding him lying naked on a mat, covered with some mantle
a soldier had found.
The boy was white, as if all colour had been drained out of him.
His left arm ended now midway between shoulder and elbow, loosely
wrapped in bandages that would require regular changing should he
survive the amputation and blood loss.
Funny, thought the General, that he should owe so much to two slaves
when his own men, his own side had betrayed him. He smoothed back
the dark, sweat soaked hair and wondered why this slave had taken
such risks for a master who could order him whipped, even killed, on
a whim.
"Will he live?"
The General looked up to see Mulder, face strained with exhaustion,
eyes red, slowly kneel by his side. Even now the General paused to
appreciate the unconscious grace of the movement. "I don't know.
He's young. He's strong. And he has you."
Mulder looked his master in the face. "I love him," he said, voice
so low that the General nearly missed the words. "I've never told
him, but I love him."
The General sat back on his heels, reached for the slave who had
once been a prince. He pulled until the head rested on his lap, and
then he stroked the tears off the boy's face as he gave in to them
silently. "Yes, I know you do. And he knows it. As we both know he
loves you well. It's easy to see in the way you care for each
other."
Mulder rubbed his face against his master's leg. "I did things that
got him beaten," his voice was so tight with pain that the General
thought his slave's throat would rip from the effort of speaking,
"that got him whipped and he forgave me."
The General said nothing, kept on stroking the exhausted slave until
he fell asleep.
In the morning, the General left the few survivors, the wounded in a
small camp surrounded by guards who knew should anything happen to
those they were protecting, that they had better die with them than
face the General's wrath.
The General looked over his commanders and placed those he knew he
could trust at his side. The ones he was not certain of, he placed
at the head, sending them first into battle top bear the brunt of
the enemy forces. Only the One dared protest and that One quickly
slipped under cover of battle to a secure and safe spot where he and
a few trusted men awaited the outcome, hoping, and praying, that the
General would not be victorious.
But neither his hopes nor his prayers were answered. By midday, the
General was victorious and the traitor and his men had to cut
themselves with their own knives, rub dirt on themselves and their
horses to make it seem that they too had fought their best.
There were more skirmishes, quickly fought and subdued. And every
night, when the General found his tent, Mulder was there waiting for
him, to remove his armour, to wash down his body with water kept
warm for that purpose, to serve him food and wine. And to tell him
of Alex's progress.
Because some hopes and prayers had been answered. Alex survived.
He was weak, fevered. But Mulder cared for him, only left his side
to attend to their master.
Alex had had the presence of mind that first time on awakening to
reveal the name of the man he had seen reporting to the enemy, a man
whose body was found still warm when the General sent for him. The
man who commanded him swore he had no knowledge of the man's
betrayal. The General believed him: the commander was there
because he was a royal cousin, not because he had the training, the
skills, the experience needed for the position. He was out of
favour at court and this command had been his exile.
When the time came for the General to return with his troops to
their home base, he arranged for Alex to travel in a cart. Mulder
made certain that it was deeply padded, that Alex would make the
journey as comfortably as possible. The One was heard to grumble in
the General's hearing about pampered bed slaves who would hold up
the movements of an army, but the General ignored him and his
grievances. He was used to the One's constant complaining. They
had grown up together, been trained together, warred together: he
no longer even heard the words.
And he continued checking on the condition of his slave during the
day's trek. Alex bore his pain in silence, the only outward display
of it being the deep furrow that seemed to have taken residence
between his eyebrows, over his nose. Mulder, when not needed for
other purposes, rode with him, tending to him. Once he came upon
them sleeping, Alex on his back, Mulder alongside him, arm
protectively thrown across Alex's chest. Alex's eyes opened and the
General was surprised to see, under the pain, fear that the boy
hadn't the energy to hide.
He found out the cause one evening, after Alex had been settled onto
the mat he and Mulder shared.
The physician was quite pleased that his tending had produced a
survivor, in spite of the seriousness of the injury, the amount of
blood lost and, of course, the fact that it was a slave. The only
thing that worried him was the slight fever that wouldn't go away.
Still, he told the General, he attributed it to the fact that they
were travelling.
That evening, the slave was awakened by the sound of the General's
arrival. He watched as their master tossed his cloak onto the bed,
removed his own armour—- for Mulder was working with the scribe,
and left it on the camp stool for Mulder's attentions.
The General walked to the table, scratching his chest where the
straps had rubbed, found the ewer of cooled watered wine and poured
himself some. He was drinking the cup empty when he realized that
he was being watched. Alex, he realized soon after the amputation,
was used to bearing pain, discomfort silently. He knew that the
boy's fevered eyes were on the cup that sweated in the heat of the
late afternoon. And he knew that, though thirsty, the boy would
wait until Mulder arrived to ask for something to drink.
The General refilled the cup, went and knelt by his slave, gently
raised him and placed the cup at his mouth so he could drink.
Alex swallowed gratefully. And unlike the water Mulder would give
him, this one was flavoured and "Cool," he sighed, his eyes closing.
"Do you like cold liquids?" asked the General, once more holding
the cup to his slave's mouth. Alex nodded. Drank. "The waters of
my home were always cold."
Alex never talked about his life before becoming a whipping boy.
The General had gotten Mulder to talk about his, enough to be able
to tell him that his family no longer ruled his homeland, that those
who did were those who had sold him into slavery. But Alex was more
experienced to slavery, had learnt many years before not to look
back.
"Is the land cold?"
Alex allowed the fever to lower his barriers. "Yes. I remember
snow most of the time."
And then he opened his eyes, looked into those of his master.
"Please, Master, may I ask..." His voice faded and the General saw
the despair in those cat eyes.
"You may ask anything, Alex. I may not answer, but you may ask."
The words rushed out. "Please, Master, what is to be done with me?"
"Done with you? I'm sorry, I don't understand."
Alex reached deep within himself. He had started this, but he
needed to know. He found the courage to open his eyes and explain.
"A one-armed slave is of no use to anyone. Especially as a bed
slave, or a bodyslave. One has to have a pleasing body for that. A
stump such as mine is not pleasing to look upon. Disfigurements
repel. As for resale value, again, who is going to spend money on a
cripple? Please," he whispered, "may I know? Will I be sent to the
mines?"
"The mines?"
The General turned to see Mulder standing there, almost in shock.
The slave, shaking his head, dropped to his knees beside the
General. "No. You can't do that to him, Master. He put his life at
risk to get you the information you needed to beat the enemy. He
was wounded defending your goods. You can't do that to him. He's a
hero."
The General looked at his slaves. Mulder had thrown his body on top
of Alex's as to protect him from being removed then and there on the
spot. Alex, barely containing his own fear, was rubbing Mulder's
shoulder, offering comfort. Mulder raised his head, tears streaking
lines on his dust-stained faced. "Please, Master, if you must send
him there, send me with him."
"NO!" Alex shook his head, the first tears the General had seen
from him, trailing into his bearded cheeks. "No, please, Master."
"No one is going to the mines," snapped the General in his most
authoritarian tones. "Ridiculous even to have considered it." He
stoked the dark head on Alex's chest, gently rubbed his knuckles on
the gaunt cheeks of the other. "Enough of this stupidity. We are
going home. Alex, you will have all the time you need to recover
your health. Mulder will continue caring for you. Both of you will
remain with the duties you have now. I have no intention of
replacing either of you. As for your stump, Alex, I do not see a
disfigurement. I see a war wound, a honourable wound of bravery."
He slowly got to his feet. His bones ached. He wasn't, he thought,
as young as he used to be. His two slaves were looking up at him,
Mulder with relief, Alex still not accepting. As he said, he had
been a slave longer, and so was far less trusting than Mulder.
But, as Mulder had said, he owed the boy a fair lot. He hadn't had
to put himself into jeopardy to get the information he had. He was
a slave and that was not a slave's role. And though he had had no
training, he had tried to stop the ones who raided his dispatch
chest from taking the documents away, at high personal cost.
"When we arrive home and you are well again, I think it might be
time for you and Mulder to receive some training in arms. From what
Mulder has told me, he did everything he could to avoid the tedium,"
he looked to Mulder for confirmation, got a sheepish nod, "of
training. You, Alex, may have been given some instruction, but if
so, it was too far back to be of any use."
He was pleased with both stunned expressions looking up at him.
"Mulder," he ordered gently, "perhaps you should see to our evening
meal?"
The General watched his bodyslaves and laughed to himself. Their
instructor was shaking his head, growling at Mulder. "Idiot! Think
before you attack. You're going to get yourself killed if you plunge
into battle without considering your enemy's moves."
Alex, the General noted, was the abler of the two, even though, with
only the one arm, he had to carry himself differently to compensate
for the loss. The trainer never had to counsel him to coolness: it
was ingrained in him.
Once home, Alex had improved quickly enough. He regained the weight
he had lost, the stump had healed far better than most such
amputations—probably from the attentive care it received from
Mulder. He had immersed himself in what training the General
allowed with fervour. He and Mulder continued serving him by day,
servicing him at night when he called to them, but there was
something different about his slaves, something that he probably had
begun noticing on the campaign that, only now when the slaves slept
in his room, he had finally realized.
They both serviced him as he instructed them. Both saw to it that
he was sated from their attentions. He knew that they loved each
other. Could see it in the way they touched each other, held each
other when they slept on the pallet at the foot of his bed.
But he had never heard them make love.
Or had one of his servants snicker in his hearing about their having
sex in the bushes as other slaves were wont to do.
At first he thought it might have to do with the fact that Alex was
still recovering, but when he considered the situation, he found he
never could remember hearing them having sex even before the battle.
Privacy was a rare thing in this time. People had sex wherever
they could, no matter who was in the room with them.
Raised a prince, Mulder would rarely have been left alone for any
amount of time. If he had groped a maidservant, and what lord did
not, there would have been a lookout nearby to alert them.
As for Alex, his life as a slave had begun early, when he had been a
child. He would have been initiated at an early age. Maybe
roughly, but surely there had been someone in his past who had shown
him the pleasure of gentle loving?
He carefully watched his slaves as they serviced him. They
concentrated on him, offering their mouths, their asses for his
pleasure. That was, after all, what they were there for; for his
pleasure.
He often had two bodyslaves service him at the same time. He liked
the dual attention his body got. But he also enjoyed watching the
attentions the slaves gave each other. Like kissing or stroking,
even bringing each other to orgasm once he no longer required them.
But other than sleeping, tightly wrapped around each other, he began
to doubt that Alex and Mulder ever touched each other in a sexual
manner.
Mulder would be easier to approach, always ready to talk. Except
when it came to his sexual experiences. And the General finally had
to conclude that based on what little Mulder had told him, he had
been a virgin in all senses but that of self-pleasure until the
night he and Alex had been chained to a wall and raped by the lord
and men who had stolen them.
Mulder did tell him about their time with the slaver, the
instruction the slaver himself had provided them with. But it was
instruction for the giving of pleasure, not the enjoyment of it.
And he did let it slip that Alex had been shared by his tutor, the
castilian and the captain of the guard.
The General began wondering if either of his bodyslaves had known
themselves the pleasure that they brought him.
He was thinking about it one night, not having needed them since he
had been at Council and only returned late when the house he resided
in was all quiet but for the guards at the front gate. He came in
silently as good soldiers learn to move if they care to live,
undressed in silence and took to his bed in silence.
Alex, however, was muttering in his sleep. He often relived the
losing of his arm, the final amputation, the cauterization. The
physician had not thought a slave worthy of something to deaden the
pain. Not that there was much that would have done so.
Alex sat up, gasping, his body trembling from the after effects of
his dream. Mulder sat up with him, carefully put his arms around
Alex and held him close, quietly murmuring words of comfort that
only Alex could hear. Alex, the General knew from having heard him,
dealt with Mulder's nightmares in the same way.
He swung his legs out of bed and went over to the fire, lit a taper
and used it on the branches of candles that sat on the table, the
chest by his bed.
"Nightmares," he spoke softly, "are best chased away with
love-making."
Alex disentangled himself from Mulder. Both of them rose and came
to kneel in front of their master, awaiting his indication of
tonight's preference.
"No, not me," said the General. Two startled faces tilted to look
up at him. Alex, he noted, also spared a glance for the door, as if
he expected it to open and find someone else entering the room,
expecting their attentions.
"I know you two love each other. But, have you ever pleasured each
other? Driven each other to satiation? No. I can tell by the
expression on your faces that you haven't. Yet you sleep so tightly
entwined that I doubt that a breath could come between you."
The General knew that Alex would not answer, so he posed the
question to his chatty slave. "Mulder, do you not wish to make love
to Alex? He is beautiful. He loves you deeply. As you love him.
Do you not have the urge to touch him, to make him moan under your
touch, to drive him to heights of ecstasy with your mouth, to have
him spend himself in your body?"
The General waited, but apart from lowering their eyes, neither
youth reacted. He tried again. "Mulder?"
Mulder glanced sideways at the bent head of his lover and shrugged,
inarticulate for once in his life. Finally he looked up into the
patient eyes of their master. "It hurts so," he whispered and
dropped his eyes to the floor. His hand reached out and clasped
Alex's and they held tightly to one another.
The General wished to protest that he did not hurt them. He always
made certain that they had well prepared themselves for him, that
their asses were well oiled for easy passage. And as he opened his
mouth, the thought came to him that, though this was so, he also
never saw to it that there was pleasure in his penetration. That
when he used their mouths, he considered his own sensations, never
theirs.
And their only experiences with sex, he suddenly realized, had been
rape. That though he did not actually violate them, he also never
touched them apart from the pleasure it gave him. That their
experiences being what they were, the fact that they could sleep in
each other's arms without worrying about being forced, about being
taken selfishly, was probably all that they could handle. Mulder
held onto Alex because he had needed Alex's strength to survive the
past year. Alex held on in turn out of need for some touch that was
not painful. He had not denied Mulder's statement about hurt though
his training had conditioned him to it.
The General's hands caressed the faces of his slaves and gently
insisted that they raise them. Both, he realized, were looking up
at him with slaves' expressions: resigned, expecting to be
punished, hurt for something they had no control over. And the
General was stunned to find that he never wanted to see those
expressions on either of their faces again.
"On the bed," he kept his voice gentle, knowing that this night, he
would require a greater amount of trust from them than he demanded
from his commanders.
As one they rose, went and knelt on the bed as he had trained them
to do.
"Alex, lay on your back."
Silently, Alex obeyed. He turned his head to watch the General,
eyes wary. Mulder reached out and grabbed his hand. The look he
sent the General was afraid.
They are lost, thought the General, both of them. And they hold
onto themselves like lost children who have found each other in the
dark.
Maybe, thought the General, he could show them a way out of the
dark.
Like Mulder he knelt on the bed, on Alex's other side. He smiled, he
hoped, reassuringly at the two children on his bed. No, not
children. They were men, both of them. Men with courage, who had
faced hardships, upheavals, brutality and who still, somehow, had
retained their spirits.
"Mulder, as I do."
"I will not hurt him," Mulder said, his voice soft but ready to
accept any punishment for this decision.
"No pain. No hurt. I promise. It is time the two of you learnt
the pleasures of your own bodies. The joy that you can find in each
other. Do as I do."
The General reached over and took Alex's hand out of Mulder's, lay
it flat on the bed. "Be careful of his shoulder. You should know
just how much he can be touched there."
And then the master bent and took his slave's mouth, playing with
it, exploring with his tongue the wet recesses, drawing his slave's
tongue into his own mouth. He withdrew and nodded to Mulder. And
Mulder tasted not only his lover's flavour, but that of their master
as well.
While Mulder played with Alex's mouth, the General gently smoothed
the thick sable hair. When Mulder looked up, his lips wet, the
General smiled. "His neck. The underjaw can produce some
interesting reactions."
Mulder discovered a spot just under Alex's ear that made him mew.
While Mulder continued on his exploration of Alex's jaw, throat,
ears, the General took Alex's hand in one of his, slowly brushed his
fingertips up and down the sensitive inner skin. The hand he held
in his tightened its grip then, as if remembering whose hand it was,
tried to let go. The General merely held on stronger, not
painfully, just hard enough for the man to understand he was not
letting go.
Mulder was a quick learner. He reached the collarbone and checked
to see what new instructions there might be. The General grinned.
He placed his free hand on Alex's shoulder, began a slow massage of
the muscles there. Mulder copied him, stopping at the beginning of
the biceps. Ah, thought the General, understanding that to go
further would be to cause pain. He nodded and brought his hand to
the chest, rubbing a circle that grew smaller with each passing
until his fingertips were encircling the small brown tit. Then he
lowered his mouth and teased with his tongue, flicking the hardening
nub, sucking on it until Alex made a sound that immediately captured
Mulder's attention.
The General looked up. "He is not in pain. Mulder, trust me."
Alex turned his face towards Mulder, opened his eyes. "It is
not... pain. It is sharp, but it is not pain."
Mulder carefully lowered his mouth to Alex's other tit, and began
duplicating the General's moves. With a smile, the General watched
Alex's eyes grow too heavy to keep open. He dropped his mouth back
to the nipple he was tormenting and grinned to hear the louder gasps
of pleasure Alex could not hold back.
After that, Mulder copied him without question. Now and then, he
would look up and check to see how Alex was reacting. Sometimes he
would see an expression that made him think something they were
doing was painful, but then he knew if it truly were, Alex would not
show it.
The General slowly worked his way down Alex's chest, his stomach,
the long flank. He showed Mulder how to use his mouth, his teeth,
his fingers, his hands to work magic on his lover's body. To make
him writhe and twist. And all the while, the General purposefully
avoided the rampant cock that wept for attention.
Alex's hand had forgotten whose held it. It gripped painfully
tight, but the master did not release it. He worried that if he
did, it would jar the man who was silently calling for completion.
He leaned over and whispered in Alex's ear, "It's all right to make
noise. To moan, to call out your lover's name. No one will beat you
for it."
Alex's eyes sprang open and, for a moment, the General could see the
training he had gotten at the hands of his keepers. He bent and
claimed Alex's mouth as Mulder finally could no longer resist the
erect cock calling to him. He took Alex into his mouth as he had
been trained to do.
But, from the General this night, he understood the pleasure of
going slowly. He took only the reddened glans into his mouth,
circled it with the tip of his tongue, sucked on it with just enough
pressure to make Alex's hips jerk.
He released it, traced the thick undervein with his tongue and then
abandoned cock for ball-sack. He had to hold Alex's hips down so
that he could amuse himself moving back and forth between cock and
balls until Alex screamed "Mulder!" and he raised his head to see
the General grinning his approval at him as he reached for the vial
of oil he kept by his bed.
And there he almost lost Mulder.
"No. Not me." The General had understood the flash of fear, the
look of betrayal, that this had all been a game for their master's
pleasure.
"Dip your finger in the oil. Now carefully, tease his hole open.
As you do with your tongue to me. Go slowly. We are in no hurry.
And you want to use your mouth again on his cock. It seems to be
withering from lack of attention. That's it. Court it with your
mouth. It deserves all the pleasure you can give it. Now slide more
of your finger in. Careful. Now then, use the pad of finger to
press toward his cock. Gently. Feel something hard, like a small
stone? Now a little more pressure."
Alex's voice rose in pleasure. The General smiled at his student.
"Yes. Now finish him at your leisure."
And the General lay back, handling his own erection as he watched
Mulder tease and play with Alex until the sound of Mulder's name
coming from the man was almost incoherent. And then Mulder allowed
him to come, eagerly swallowing the creamy emission until he could
not swallow fast enough and it began streaming over his lips and
down his chin.
The General had trained them well for the moments after orgasm.
Mulder carefully cleaned off the softening cock, but instead of
going for a cloth to finish the job, he snaked his way up his
lover's body and claimed his mouth. The General watched as Alex's
tongue licked the last of himself out of Mulder's mouth. Mulder
raised his lips from the other's so that he could look into the
sated eyes of his lover, then he reclaimed the mouth for a kiss so
sweet the General turned his head to allow them some privacy. He
looked back only when Mulder left the bed to return with a dry cloth
to wipe down Alex's body.
And only then did the General release his grip on Alex's hand. Lids
heavy, eyes greener than the General had ever seen them, Alex raised
their hands to his mouth and kissed the back of the General's. The
General smiled at the man falling asleep in his bed. "It would be a
shame to wake him," he whispered. "Mulder, there should be room
enough for you on his other side."
And the General reached for the bedclothes and covered both his
slaves before he lay down on the edge of his own bed and pulled what
blankets were left over onto himself.
He was late again the next night. The Court was a place of
intrigue, of factions that moved back and forth like a tide that was
controlled by the king's fancy.
The courtiers who had counselled war were not pleased with the final
results. The cost had been high, too high to reap the rewards they
had calculated.
And then there was the problem of the traitor. Who still had not
been discovered.
The General was surprised to find his bodyslaves waiting up for him.
Yet he was pleased to have his court garments taken off him, to
have warm water rinse the smell of the perfumed rancidness of the
Court off his skin.
He looked at the two who knelt at his feet and wondered if they had
moved on in their discoveries of pleasure by themselves.
"No, Master," said Alex.
"We belong to you, Master. Alex explained that we needed to wait
for your permission." And Mulder looked up at his master, eyes
bright with anticipation.
The General smiled into his cup of watered wine. He drank some,
then offered the cup to Alex and then to Mulder. This sort of
instruction, thought the General who had spent the day explaining
the facts of war to a nobility that did not wish to learn, let alone
listen, was a pleasure in and of itself. The discovery surprised
him a little.
"On the bed. Mulder, on your back."
The General dropped the robe he was wearing and went to take his
place on the bed. He made himself comfortable against the
headboard, ready to instruct should instruction be required, when
Mulder raised his hand and waited for it to be taken.
The General was surprised, yet touched, by the gesture. So his slave
needed more than his permission. He slid down from the headboard
and knelt by his slave, tightly holding onto his hand. He knew
without their saying anything that Alex would not touch Mulder until
he gave the signal. He lowered his mouth to his slave's, teased the
pouty lower lip before tasting the nectar of his slave's mouth.
Mulder made a small sound that strangely affected the General. He
sat back and let Alex taste the special sweetness that was Mulder.
As with Mulder, Alex copied the General's exploration of his lover's
body. With a shared smile—Alex's hesitant at first; he was far
more reticent than Mulder—the General added improvisations from
the first night's strategies. Mulder was more vocal than Alex.
And again, when Mulder's cock was weeping copious pearls of tears,
the General sat back and enjoyed watching his slaves discover the
joy they took in each other.
Alex needed special instruction for he could not balance himself
with one hand while he played with Mulder's ass with the other. And
his stump was still too sensitive to bear his weight.
"Raise your legs, Mulder. Let Alex rest his shoulders against your
thighs. Lean over, Alex. Trust your Mulder. He will not let you
down."
And Mulder's scream of surprise when Alex found the small stone of
pleasure made the General laugh out loud.
He was still chuckling to himself when, after he had been cleaned
off, Mulder slowly turned to his side, Alex resting against him.
With a whoop of delight, the two slaves knocked their master onto
his back, demonstrating to him how well they had learnt these
particular lessons.
And the General discovered what pleasure there was in having the
hands that touched him, aroused him, were hands that did so of their
own volition. Of having his hands play with the sex of one slave
while the other willingly brought him to the edge of orgasm, only to
have them suddenly change positions and the playing begin all over
again.
The General was a man of war, had been trained to be so since as a
child. Oh, he had been married, but on her death and that of his
newborn son, he had never bothered to remarry. He used whores when
he felt like it, slept with the women of the nobility who wanted
favours from him for their husbands, their sons the few times he was
in Court. He kept male bodyslaves who were trained to his pleasure.
But never before had he realized that there could be such
satisfaction in the pure delight of two who had suddenly discovered
the pleasures of sex and acted as though it was a personal gift of
his to them.
Every night they waited for him, growing braver, more daring in the
games they played with him, with each other. He lay one night, Alex
curled tightly against him, his arm wrapped around Mulder who lay
snug against his other side and realized that there was laughter in
his bed. That Alex smiled with his eyes and actually laughed aloud
in this bed. That Mulder, more daring of the two, often directed
their play on the General's body, laughing at the reaction of their
master who thought that only certain things, certain manners were
what his body desired.
And now, when his cock was in their mouths, or up their asses, he
was aware of their feelings, that they too needed the sensations he
had only considered for himself. And that his reward for this
"sacrifice" was the light in their eyes when they saw him, the
eagerness with which they shared new discovers—not just of their
bodies, but of world around them. As a whipping boy, Alex had been
confined to castle grounds. As a prince, Mulder bad been tightly
controlled, not even allowed the slight freedom Alex had known.
They made him laugh with their observations, and he badly needed
laughter. The tide in the Court was changing. There were whispers
when he entered a room. People who had desired his attention now
scurried away, fearful they would get them. There were rumours that
the traitor was one close to the king who thought he was better than
his liege lord. Who thought his skills were what saved the country
time and again from the disastrous decisions made, and that his
proper worth was not being recognized.
The General's enemies smiled more openly, his friends began
deserting him.
He had requested a meeting with his royal lord, one on one, as
deserved a man who had proven his trust, his respect, his loyalty to
his king. He was angry that his word was suddenly suspect. His
bodyslaves dressed him carefully for the meeting, worried by the
tension they felt in their master's body. He smiled at them as he
dusted some unseen speck of dust off his sleeve.
"Well, do I look courtier," he spoke the word with disdain," enough,
do you think?"
Mulder cocked his head as though seriously considering the question.
"Like a peacock, Master."
And though the three laughed, Alex's eyes were worried, Mulder's
concerned.
"Amuse yourselves. I shall be back before sunset."
But he wasn't.
He came back to his residence, stunned beyond belief that the king
would believe him capable of betraying him, of dirtying his honour,
of leading his men into sure death, all for his own betterment.
He had no sooner descended from his horse when his home was invaded
by the king's personal troops. The men who rushed to his aid were
killed, his servants brutally murdered. As he was finally
restrained, bloody but unbowed, the One, the royal cousin so often
in disgrace, came up to the man in chains. "Find me the boys," he
ordered, "his bodyslaves. I want them alive, unharmed. They," he
smiled coldly, "have been promised to me."
The man who had once been general slowly came back to himself,
painfully pulled his head up and rested his forehead on the rough
stone wall.
The last questioning had been particularly brutal. His wrists were
hanging from manacles that were overly high, forcing him to stand on
the balls of his feet, when he had the strength to stand. His back
throbbed from the whip's wor. His ass... he could feel lines of
wetness that were blood and the leavings of the guards who had used
him roughly.
He wondering in passing how Alex and Mulder had found the
wherewithal to survive such dehumanizing touch. He could bear the
torture. He was a soldier. He had known pain, had been trained to
bear it. But the rape was soul-destroying. Alex had been a child.
Mulder, though older, a child still in so many ways. Yet they had
endured, accepted. Now he respected their ability to go on. And he
understood the reason they had clung so to each other. He only
hoped that their new master would allow them that comfort, but,
knowing what he did of the One, he could only pray that their deaths
be swift.
There was some noise in the hall, not loud, probably a rat of some
kind. Then he heard the key in the lock and went deep within
himself to find the courage to accept what they were next coming to
do to him.
The door opened. There was a soft gasp behind him, then... "Master?
Master! By the gods, Master, what have they done to you?"
And the man opened his eyes, painfully turned his head to see Mulder
at his side, a ring of keys in hand and him trying one then another
in the manacle which suddenly released. His arm fell like a dead
weight to Mulder's shoulder. Mulder braced it against the wall,
hurried to the other side and released the other manacle. His legs
refused to carry him for a moment and Mulder had to insert himself
between wall and man. "Master, please, you're too heavy for me to
carry. You must walk. Quickly. We must leave here."
Somehow, the military training of years reasserted itself. With a
soft groan, because he knew they must not attract attention, he
braced himself, locked his knees and, leaning heavily on Mulder,
took the steps that brought them out of the cell. As they made
their way clumsily down the hall, he saw the body of one of the
guards, lying, his throat cut. There was a second in a pool of
blood as they mounted the steps. At the top, Alex stood, short
sword in hand, its blade shining wetly by the torch light. Mulder
moved around to the man's other side, allowing Alex to help bear the
weight, all the while leaving his right hand free to defend them.
The man who had been general remembered little of their journey out
of the keep's dungeons, out of the fortified walls through a way
only servants and slaves knew, to a copse where one of his old
servants stood waiting with four horses, three for riding, one
packed with clothes, monies, supplies for their escape.
The man was quickly dressed, somehow gotten into his saddle on his
favourite stallion.
"Tie me to the horse," gasped the man. "If I faint, I won't hold
you back."
And after they did, he thought he imagined Mulder grabbing the old
servant who had been with his family since birth, holding his head
back as Alex cut his throat with one sure stroke.
The sun was colouring the horizon when Alex finally called a halt to
their flight. As the old man had promised there was a cave where
they could take refuge while binding their master's wounds, allowing
the horses some time to recover from the swift pace he had set.
While Alex boiled a pot of water on the small smokeless fire, Mulder
undressed their master and carefully prepared the ointments, the
dressings he had learnt to use when tending Alex. Together, Alex
following Mulder's orders, they cleaned the wounds, doctored them,
bound them. Alex heated the bottle of broth, ate some of the cold
chicken while Mulder spooned the soup into their master. Then he
ate while Alex slept, close to the man who had slipped into sleep
while Mulder had been feeding him. When Alex woke, Mulder feed
their master more of the broth, then slept his turn, arm
protectively thrown across their master's chest.
It was dark when they took up their journey, their master once more
tied to his horse. They went north rather than south because no
sane man went in that direction. There were monsters who lived in
that land. Forms so grotesque, so villainous that the mere touch of
a finger would freeze a man to death.
Alex had come from such a land. And though he had been only a
child, he had memories enough of that time to know that their only
chance lay in the north.
On the fifth day of their travels, they found a small hut that had
been built into the side of a hill. Mulder checked it to find that
the roof still performed its duties, that the earth floor was dry.
There was enough room for the three of them to sleep, a small
fireplace to provide warmth. Alex found an enclosure to the back
that was overgrown with sweet grass and that with just a little work
would keep four horses secure.
The man who had been general woke one day to find the sun tracing a
path along the blanket that covered him. He watched it, wondering
where he was and how he had gotten there.
"You are awake, Master." Mulder smiled as he felt the man's
forehead. "And cool again. Are you hungry? Could you take a little
broth?"
Alex stuck his head into the room. "Master." His voice showed his
pleasure.
The man allowed them to feed him, to clean his body, to dress his
healing wounds. Then, though he wanted answers to so many
questions, he yawned and fell asleep.
The next day, he felt stronger. Though he often thought that his
body was growing old, his strength helped him regain his senses
quickly, so that by the next afternoon, sitting propped up against
his saddle, he learnt of the events that had brought them all here.
The old servant had known that the king's fancy was not a reliable
thing. When he had first heard the rumours of the king's disfavour
with his General, he had quietly prepared a pack for the General's
escape. He had even, as the days had continued and the rumours
gotten stronger, spirited the pack, several of the General's horses
to a secret place.
The slaves had been preparing a surprise for their master, out in
the garden, when the attack had occurred. They had hidden in the
bushes, watching the killings take place. Only when Alex had
determined they were safe, had they come out of their hiding place
to find the servants and slaves had either been killed, were dying,
or had fled. All except the old servant who had also been hiding.
Together they had planned their master's rescue.
The man who had been general was astonished that the two bodyslaves
acted as if this were nothing. They had penetrated the keep, found
out where he was being held, quietly, proficiently killed the guards
who were between him and freedom, and had found their way to this
place using an old map that Alex had once found among his charts.
He looked at his two slaves and knew that though he had purchased
two boys, they were now men. Moreover men he could respect, who had
proven their worth as warriors. Still, he did wonder about one
detail.
"Why did you kill my old servant?"
Alex and Mulder exchanged looks. Mulder sighed. "He made us
promise to do so. He was afraid that if he were caught, they would
torture the information of our direction out of him. And he was
dying. In a great deal of pain. That was his price for helping us
free you, a quick death."
The man closed his eyes and offered a prayer for the man who had
been his first tutor. "He showed you where to put the blade for a
quick death, how to cut a throat."
The two nodded.
"And would it not have been a better idea just to kill him and make
off with the horses by yourselves?"
Alex smiled. "No, Master, It might have been a better idea, but it
was not what we wanted. We wanted you with us."
"Why?" asked the man.
Mulder laughed softly. "You are part of us, Master. We are not
complete without you."
"Do you not know," Alex's voice was gently curious, "that we love
you?"
"It is not a wise idea to love a master," the man said.
"But we do not love the master," started Alex.
"We love the man who loves us in return," said Mulder.
He reached out his hand and took one of the man's in his. Alex
smiled and took the other in his one.
And together they held on tightly.
On the road to the far north, there is a farm where horses are
breed. The stallion and the three mares from the south made a good
foundation for the breeding stock. Their sons and daughters are
breed with the hardy local ponies and those progeny are born with
heart, intelligence and endurance.
The farm is owned by three men, each known for a particular skill.
Alex, though he has only one arm, can tame the wildest pony, some
say, with only a word or two whispered into the ear of the animal.
Mulder can doctor man or beast, scribe a letter to a loved one.
The third is known to the area for his hunting skills, for his
ability to peel a pelt off a carcase with nary a nick.
For which ability, he now bears the name Skinner.
Slaves
by Josan
The attack took the inhabitants of the castle by surprise. It was
the middle of the night and they were supposed to be safe, far
beyond the line of battle, so far that the castilian had only set up
a minimum of guards.
