Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:40:22 +0100
From: A.K. <andrej@andrejkoymasky.com>
Subject: The Mercenary and the Friar 09/14 (Adult Youth)

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THE MERCENARY AND THE FRIAR
By Andrej Koymasky © 2010
Written on January 20th, 2003
Translated by the Author
English text kindly revised by Ed, a reader

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USUAL DISCLAIMER

"THE MERCENARY AND THE FRIAR" is a gay story, with some parts containing
graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion,
family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better
not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't
care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my
welcomed guest.

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NINE - Questions, proposals and silver bells

Time seemed to have stopped. At a certain point the limpid silence of
the forest, broken only by far calls of wild animals, was broken by the
muffled but ragged sounds of weapons and grenades. Augustin, still
immersed in his prayers, felt all his body stiffen, and started to
lightly tremble.

The animals' voices had suddenly ceased and now the boy was feeling his
heart beating strongly and fast, he could almost perceive its thuds like
a counterpoint to the far explosions. One could believe they were the
bangs of the fireworks of the feast days, they weren't so different. Yet
those bangs weren't an expression of joy, weren't bearers of amazed
wonder for the beauty of a fireworks display, but they were the voice of
the death and bearers of pain and terror.

And, almost like the fireworks, they seemed to have no end. The boy
resumed praying with all his fervor. But now he was not just praying for
Neil. He prayed for all those men, to any part or side they belonged to,
asking himself why man had to be so cruel and insensitive towards his
fellow man, his neighbour. "Homo homini lupus" Father Xavier once said -
"man is like a wolf to other men"... and yet the wolves don't fight
against each other except in the almost ritual fighting to establish a
social hierarchy in the pack. In the book he read about life in a pack,
it was written that the wolf never gets to fight his adversary to the
death. The weaker submitted to the stronger and the latter let him,
afterwards, live in peace.

Man anyway, even though he too belonged to the animal reign, should
distinguish himself and be better than the other animals - for the use
of his intelligence and his sense of social responsibility... and yet
history said it was not so. Humankind during its existence always
oscillated between bursts of sheer generosity and of wicked selfishness.
He has always been a creature half way between the essence of the angel
and that of the beast...

From the shadows he could see in the narrow stretch of sky that the
tarpaulin closing the back of the truck let free, Augustin judged that
several hours already had elapsed. This was also confirmed by the hunger
he was feeling and by the discomfort he was feeling in his aching body
because of the position he had had to assume and keep for so long.

At times the weapons seemed to become silent, giving the boy the
illusion that all was finally over, but then they started their angered
barking again. Augustin never saw the mercenaries in action. In all his
life he had never seen a war movie, nor even read a book describing it,
therefore he could not even really imagine what was happening, besides
the fact that two groups of men were facing each other trying to
annihilate each other.

And for what, after all? So that other men, certainly in a safe place,
could get the power to their only advantage. At least the animal fights
and kills to eat and to feed his cubs. Man instead kills to allow other
men to fatten, and those men, in the best of cases, at the end would
leave to those who fought to assure them their wellbeing, just the
remains of their rich tables and the scraps of their safe existences.
Wasn't all this sheer madness?

These thoughts had taken the place, in the boy's mind, of his prayers.

Then, for a time longer than the other times, the weapons were silent
again. The sun was now low, the sky was darkening. All the boy's senses
were tense to perceive the least noise of approaching men, and for the
first time he asked himself, when he would start to hear them, how he
could understand if they were the mercenaries coming back to their
vehicles as winners, or instead the rebels who came to seize all that
the defeated gringos had left on their backlines.

It wasn't long before he heard the noise of several people approaching.
If he could hear their voices, what language they were talking, he would
have understood who was approaching; but the silence was broken only by
the noise of broken branches, then a few voices launching short guttural
calls that didn't betray the language they were uttering. He felt
tempted to lean out of the truck wall to spy towards the thick of the
forest, but Neil's orders had overridden the temptation. Therefore, he
didn't move.

All of a sudden, he heard a few words clearly pronounced in English,
"Down there!". So Augustin understood they were the mercenaries who were
coming back... and he resumed praying with all his fervor that amongst
them there was also Neil, not only alive but also safe and sound. And
finally a voice, near and well known, that of Neil, called his name.

"Augustin! Take the first aid box and come, hurry up!"

He immediately obeyed, while in his heart he said, "Thank you, Lord. At
least he is alive!"

While he was jumping out of the truck he saw him. The man had a tired
expression, but he seemed unharmed. He then saw that other men were
transporting, or helping to walk, their wounded mates, and were
converging towards him.

Neil was the first one to reach him.

"How are you?" the boy at once asked him.

"I'm fine. I'll give you a hand to treat my comrades."

"Any dead men?" the boy asked tersely, while placing his first aid box
and opening it.

"I don't think so... but we will know for sure only after the captain does
the call."

They started to take care of the first wounded men who came near the
truck, doing the first, summary triage medicating. Afterwards they would
assist them better, with more time and care. Neil watched the boy work
quickly, with skill and care, as a real professional. He helped him,
under the orders that Augustin, without even being aware of doing so,
started to give him. Meanwhile Isidro also came to give a hand.

Augustin, out of the corner of his eye saw that somebody was standing
near him. Thinking it was a man possibly wounded more lightly than the
others, as he could stand up by himself, turned his head and looked
upwards. It was Captain Sanders.

"Can we get off, Augustin?"

"If there aren't other wounded men... I'll finish bandaging George, then
we can go." the boy answered. Then, while he was again caring for the
wounded man, asked, "Do we have dead men?"

"No. Seriously wounded men?" the captain asked.

"Only two really in danger, Harry and Brian."

"Will they survive?"

"I am not a doctor, but I hope they will."

"I didn't ask what you hope, boy. For what you are able to say, will
they survive or not?"

"I think they will... even though they will be out of action at least a
month. But I could be wrong... I can more easily be wrong for optimism
than for pessimism."

"Everybody can be wrong. You do your best. I can't ask anything more
from you."

"Certainly, captain."

Soon after they settled the wounded men, the column resumed its road.
Augustin didn't keep count of how many men were wounded, but there had
to be about twenty. While his thin body was jolted about by the movement
of the truck proceeding on the uneven road, he turned to look towards
Neil. The man was sitting near him, his back leaning against one of the
posts of the tarpaulin covering the back of the truck, and was looking
at him. Augustin gave a hint of a smile towards him. Neil answered with
a short nod, and with a serious expression, and the boy saw in his eyes
a mixture of tiredness and of a light joy.

When they reached the outskirts of a small town, it was already night.
The column stopped in front gate of a barracks of the "Guardia
Nacional". The captain got off and talked shortly with two gendarmes,
then went again to his jeep and the column proceeded amongst the houses,
but not towards the center of the town. After several bends, they
stopped in front of an army barracks. The captain again got off. Soon
the gates were opened and the column entered into the wide inner yard,
stopping at one side of it. A Columbian soldier with a showy red cross
on his uniform asked in Spanish who the nurses were. Augustin jumped off
the truck and introduced himself.

"Ah, you aren't a gringo."

"No, se–or, I'm Columbian like you."

"So much the better. I am Doctor Salvador Pedro Novo-Molina. Tell your
comrades to move the more seriously wounded men to the room behind that
door where we have the infirmary; I will care for them at once. The
other wounded men will instead have to go in that room and wait there.
We will care for them later. In any case, you stay with me to give me a
hand and be my interpreter. You do understand English, I presume."

"Rather well, captain."

"I'm not a captain, boy, I'm a lieutenant."

Augustin nodded to tell him he understood and at once cared for moving
the seriously wounded men into the infirmary of the barracks and gave
the needed orders to the others. Then, following the lieutenant, he
assisted him while he checked the seriously wounded men.

"You did a very good job, boy, with what you had available." The
military man observed and then started to give orders to help him care
for the men.

The men were tended to again, and given needed injections and some
stitches, then made to settle on the infirmary folding beds.

"Find somebody to stay here with them, and to call me if there is an
emergency. You come with me, we are now going to take care of the
others."

Augustin called Isidro and had him stay in the infirmary. He then went
again to assist the doctor. When they were finally finished, he was worn
out. He looked at the clock hanging on a wall - it was four fifteen in
the morning.

"May I lie down here somewhere?" the boy asked the doctor, before he
left.

"All the beds we have are taken. You could sleep on a chair. But before
that come to see where I sleep, so you can come and call me if there is
an emergency. But only call for a real emergency, boy."

"Of course, se–or. And... thank you for what you did... and will do."

"My duty, only my duty. I got orders from my superiors to give you full
assistance." the doctor dryly said while they were crossing the yard.

"You don't like gringos, se–or, am I right?" Augustin asked.

The doctor turned shortly to look at him, almost amazed by that
question, then answered, "I neither like nor dislike them. I just carry
out my duty." he answered back, drily.

Back in the barracks infirmary, Augustin took a chair, sat, leaned his
head down on his arms on a table and tried to sleep. He had to be
quickly rested and restored if he wanted to be ready and efficient. He
had some difficulty falling asleep, but finally sleep seized his tired
limbs.

He woke up, shaken by a hand. It was Isidro.

"What's up?" he asked, his voice drowsy. Looking at the wall clock - it
was eight thirty in the morning. He had slept just three hours, but was
feeling a little better.

"I brought breakfast for everybody. Yours is here." His friend told him.

Yes, he was hungry. He wolfed down the contents of the bowl of milk and
coffee, lukewarm and diluted, where there were drowned a few dry and
hard biscuits. He was so hungry that even they seemed tasty to him.

When he emptied his bowl, he asked his friend, "Did you already eat?"

"Yes, in the kitchen... after letting the cook fuck me."

"The cook? Which cook?" Augutin asked.

"The barracks cook, of course. A nice little twenty year old bull, a boy
from Cartagena with a cock about eighteen centimetres long." his friend
giggled.

"But... aren't you with Joe?"

"We aren't married, are we? And that young, nice bull wanted it at least
as much as me."

"Did he ask you?"

"No way, I proposed it to him when I noticed how he was scanning me. He
fucked me standing, in the larder. It seems he was hard up since it had
been at least a month. It took him just five minutes to come. Then he
gave me a good piece of fresh bread with some wonderful cheese..."

"And you gave yourself out for a piece of bread and some cheese?"
Augustin asked him in a tone half way between amazement and reproach.

"No way, dumbass. Not for the bread and cheese, but for his eighteen
centimetres of cock!"

Augusin shook his head, then stood up and made the tour of the beds to
see how the wounded mercenaries were, to check if they had and fever and
to tidy the blankets on their bodies. Meanwhile, he was taking notes on
a sheet of paper, to be sure he would forget nothing when the doctor
came back.

In the afternoon Neil came to see how he was doing. "Aren't you tired?"
the man asked him, thoughtfully.

"Yes, but I can't take the luxury of resting right now."

"And on the contrary you have to get off duty, even just for half an
hour. The captain agrees with me. Leave Isidro here and come out with
me, come on!"

"If it's an order..." the boy said, hesitantly.

"It is. Come."

"Where?"

"Let's take a short walk, just here in the surroundings of the
barracks."

They went out. After a while they were walking side by side, Augustin
said, "I really can't understand it..."

"It? What?"

"The life that you and your comrades chose. Why? What for?"

"Bah... for the money, we are well paid. For spirit of adventure. To put
ourselves at the test and feel we are somebody. To escape from
something... each of us has, I think, a different reason, or possibly all
these in a different order of importance."

"One can make money, have adventure, put oneself to a test and feel like
somebody with other means also. Without having to kill unknown people
who didn't do anything bad to us. About escaping... one cannot escape from
himself. But you... why did you decide to become a mercenary? Which are
your reasons?"

"I don't know, I never seriously thought about it. They just proposed it
to me... and I accepted. Possibly to give a turn to a life I didn't like,
that was doing nothing for me."

"And this life, what is it giving you?"

"The solidarity of my comrades, a sense of order that I never had
before, and a lot of money."

"To kill."

"That also - but also to risk being killed."

"It's nonsense."

"What would have sense, then, in your opinion, in a man's life?"

"Surely not to kill the enemies of whomever pays me better. If the
rebels paid you better than the government, you would kill the
government's soldiers, wouldn't you?"

"I think I would... To me they all are the same."

"And, for money, would you kill me too?"

"You? Not you... I know you now, how could I?"

"Ah. Therefore whomever you don't know, doesn't count. And yet, before
you didn't know me. But I was there, I was the same Augustin as now,
nothing more, nothing less."

"No, before you were a little friar, now you are one of us... and my boy."

"But it was always me. It is not a frock or a combat suit that makes the
difference. It is what a man has inside. And it is not because you fuck
me that I'm different from before."

"For me you are different from before."

Augustin changed the subject, "All long those hours, while I was waiting
for your battle to came to an end... I feared for you."

"Feared? Why? I, who was there to fight, didn't have fear. Why would
you?"

"Because I know you, because to me... you became important."

"So then do you see that you are like me? Before you didn't even know
that I existed, therefore you weren't worried about me. You now know
that I exist, and you are worried."

ÒOf course, I would not have worried for one Neil Lynn, whose name is
like the ring of a small silver bell, whose eyes are deep like wells of
fresh water, whose hands are strong like those of an ironsmith and yet
delicate like those of a painter... But, do you see, while I was hearing
that horrible battery of shots and blows, I was worried, sad, and I
prayed, not only for you, but also for all who in that moment were dying
or were wounded, be they rebels or mercenaries. All of them are my, and
your, brothers, even if we don't know them. Did you ask yourself how
many Augustins did you kill yesterday, or since you have been a
mercenary?"

"You are too sensitive, possibly because you are still a boy, possibly
because you just came out from a monastery."

"Or aren't you one who did your best to shut up your sensitivity?" the
boy asked him.

"If you condemn me for what I do, for the life I chose, why did you want
to come with me?"

"I am not condemning you. I have no right to judge you and even less to
condemn you. But your choices... I can judge them."

"Anyway, why did you come with me?" the man insisted.

"Possibly... possibly because I caught a glimpse of things in you that...
that possibly you are not able to see."

"Things, of what kind? What did you see in me?"

"I still don't know. Possibly it was that, to better understand it that
I decided to come with you."

"If you don't like this life, you can leave at any moment."

"Would you like me to go?"

"I didn't say that. I'm just saying that you are free. You owe me
nothing."

"Ah." the boy said and stared at him.

"Why are you looking at me so?" the man asked, feeling slightly ill at
ease, and in consequence somewhat annoyed by those limpid eyes, like
pure springs.

"I am looking at you in the only way my soul is able to look at you."

"This is not an answer. What do you want from me?"

"Did I ever ask you anything?"

"No, but... that way of staring at me is demanding something of me."

"Even if it were so... it's useless I tell you, as long as you will not
understand it by yourself."

"Are you demanding that I change my life? Do you want to convert me?"

"I? No. I know I have no right, no power, and I can't have any claims on
you. And so it's all right to me."

"For sure you have a power over me - that of making me get horny just
being near you, just thinking of you."

"That's a power you give me, not one I take."

"Yes, that is right, but I can't help but to give it to you. It is
nonsense to repress one's own passions, his own instincts."

"That's true. One doesn't try to repress them; it would be a mistake,
absurd and also useless. But one has to at least try to control them, to
address them, and not to be slave of them. At least... if one wants to be
a true man."

"What do you know about being a true man?"

"Nothing more than what I am learning, day after day, living and
reflecting about how I am living."

"You are very skilled at avoiding my questions."

"Or are you not able to understand my questions?" the boy answered,
trying to attenuate the weight of his words with a smile.

"When you smile at me so, you make my blood boil in my veins and you
arouse my desire to make love with you."

"But unhappily we can't do it here on the street... and not even in the
barracks, I'm afraid."

"Tonight... we can hide in one of the trucks and..." the man aroused now
proposed.

"I have to assist our wounded comrades. In fact, the half hour of rest
is over. I have to go back to the barracks."

"Don't you want to do it?"

"Of course I would. You know how much I do like being in your arms,
don't you? I think I showed it abundantly."

"But the instincts and the passions have to be controlled, addressed so
as to not be slave to them." Neil said lightly pulling the boy's leg by
repeating the words he said just before.

"Exactly so. In this moment our wounded comrades need me more than the
pleasure I would like to get by abandoning myself with you. Therefore
they have more right to my care than I have of being in your arms... and
between your legs."

"The captain said we will have to stay here for about two weeks... should
we control ourselves and renounce everything for all that time?"

"I really hope we don't have to, but if it is necessary..."

"But why did you decide to come with me, without really knowing me?
Didn't you ever think I could be much worse that you thought?" the man
asked again, studying the boy's expression.

"Worse than one who kills only because he is paid to do it? I don't
really think so." Augustin answered while they were going in the
barracks.

It was evening. Augustin had just had his supper and was again checking
the conditions of the wounded comrades. Isidro went somewhere by the
captain's order, therefore Augustin was alone. When he went near the bed
where Damien was lying, the Belgian took his hand.

"Here is our guardian angel!" the man said with a smile.

"I? Don't take me for a ride. How do you feel?"

"Much better with you nearby taking care of me."

"Put this thermometer in your ass and stop it." the boy answered him in
a playful tone.

"Why don't you put it there?" the mercenary said, than added, in a low
voice and in a cunning tone, "Even though I would like to be the one
putting... something else in your nice little ass..."

Augustin gently freed his hand from that of the mercenary and with
playful severity said, "I see that you are almost healed. I think I have
to tell the doctor to discharge you quite soon."

"Do you know that I like you a lot? Wouldn't you like to do it with me?"
the young man insisted.

"No."

"Am I not your type? After all I am not uglier than Neil, am I?"

"No, you are not ugly at all. You are a handsome fellow, it's true.
But..."

"But, what?"

"You are too late. I have no intention of doing it with anybody else, as
long as Neil wants me."

"Are you his boyfriend?"

"Ask him."

"But I want... I want you."

"Beat your meat after I switch off the lights. If you want I will give
you some tissues to clean yourself afterwards."

"I would like it better doing it with you..."

"You already told me so, and I already answered you."

"So steadfast?" Damien asked with a winning smile.

"It seems."

"Not even just once?"

"I'm at your disposition as a nurse, not as a sex toy."

"I never said you are, I did not even think so."

"So much the better." The boy answered him with a smile and passed to
check Tom, another wounded man.

The man asked him, "I bet that Damien just tried it with you."

"Oh, really? And why would you bet that?"

"He said he wanted to try... he likes both boys and girls, and he likes
you a lot. Don't you like him?"

"No more and no less than the others." Augustin answered, handing him
the thermometer.

"I only like girls... usually."

"But you content yourself with what you find." Augustin concluded with a
giggle.

"No, usually not. But... with one like you, I could even do it."

"What's up this evening? Did you all pass the word to court me?"

"You should be flattered."

"Should I?"

"Well, I think you should. Especially if the one who tells you so is an
affirmed straight man such as I am..."

"You need to take care to get back in good shape, now."

"And afterwards? When I am back in a good shape?"

"Look for a nice woman!"

"Yes. I told Damien that with you it would be useless - that you would
be faithful to Neil. Even the little I know you, I can't imagine you
passing from a bed to another."

"Oh, really? And why is that?" Augustin asked, amused.

"Because one has to be blind not to see that you are in love with Neil."

"Ah. Then I have to be blind."

"Do you mean that you are not in love with him?"

"Exactly so. I simply fit well with him as he respects me."

"Yes, then you really are blind."

Augustin laughed lightly and passed to care for another of the wounded
men.

But he started to think about Tom's words. Was he possibly right? Was he
in love with Neil? Yes, he had to admit it, Neil was becoming
increasingly important to him, but from that to say that it was love... On
the other hand, the boy said to himself, how can one who has no
experience at all become aware of if he was in love, or even just be
falling in love? He never read anything on this subject, he never talked
about it with anybody, he had no experience about it at all. In love... In
love with Neil... No way! It was simply the blossoming of a friendship,
and he was more than comfortable to be in bed with him to make love...
Even though he didn't like some aspects of the life and the choices of
Neil...

He didn't like them, and yet this was not enough to make him desire to
distance himself from the man... He was feeling tenderness towards that
man, possibly also affection... and he liked him physically, and how he
made love... and notwithstanding the life he chose, he could feel that
hidden under thick layers of self-imposed cynicism, the man had an
unsuspected sensitiveness and delicacy. Even though Neil declared to him
plainly and clearly that he would have taken him and amused himself with
him even if he didn't want it - it wasn't likely so. At times, the boy
was thinking, a man wears a mask, possibly for self-defense; he then
tries to adhere to the mask he made for himself... From what was Neil
defending himself?

After all, he knew nothing about his life, about his past; nothing about
the reasons that could have pushed him to the choices that led him to
enlist as a mercenary, to kill unknown people only for money... What is
the difference between a mercenary and a killer? Possibly that the
killer has to look in the face of the man he kills, while a mercenary
shoots into the crowd... It seems that man is really skilled to be able to
silence the voice of his heart, of his conscience... And yet, according to
Augustin, a man cannot live without ideals, without values, therefore
Neil should also have some ideals and some values... and he wanted to
discover them.

Then the boy asked himself - why do I "want" to discover them? Possibly
so that he could get a good reason to... to love Neil? Possibly because I
need to give and to receive love? But how does one recognize love? What
after all, is love? At the abbey they talked plentifully about the love
towards God. But how is the love towards a man known?"

These thoughts were yet overlapping and piling up in the boy's mind
when he could finally lie down on the makeshift straw pallet that Neil
had prepared for him in a corner of the infirmary. Neil... Neil Lynn...
whose name was sweeter than the ringing of a small bell of pure silver...

While he was slipping insensibly into sleep, an image took shape clearly
in his mind, with the mysterious clearness of the dreams - at times the
silver little bell of the church became stained with the fingerprints of
the altar boys, and at times, with dust... and yet underneath, it was
shining like before, it was enough to take a cotton swab and some
vinegar and brush it... Could he be that cotton swab impregnated with
vinegar to make the silver of Neil again shine?"

Neil... Neil... Neil... the little bell always rings three times during the
mass, at the moment of the Elevation... the elevation... Neil... Neil... Neil... a
ringing silver small bell that elevates... and finally Augustin gradually
relaxed, gently slipping into the warm embrace of a good, serene,
restoring sleep.

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CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 10

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In my home page I've put some more of my stories. If someone wants to
read them, the URL is

http://andrejkoymasky.com

If you want to send me feed-back, or desire to help revising my English
translations, so that I can put on-line more of my  stories in English
please e-mail at

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