From: "A.K." <andrej@andrejkoymasky.com>
Sent: Tue, August 28, 2007 6:06 am
Subject: The Gilded Cage 6/11 (Historical)

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THE GILDED CAGE
by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2007
written on November 8, 1993
translated by the author
English text kindly revised by John

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USUAL DISCLAIMER

"THE GILDED CAGE" 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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CHAPTER 6 - The acquittal, the falling in love and the secret encounters

At the end Jakobus agreed, even though with some hesitation, to be
hypnotized. But he demanded, and succeded in having his brother
Friedrich present. And he, afterwards, told him all that had happened in
the séance.

The doctor, after having hypnotized him, had first asked a set of
innocuous questions - "What is your name", "When were you born", "Where
are you born", "What is the name of your parents", and similar
nonsenses.

Then he asked him, "What sex is yours, Jakobus?"

"Male."

"Therefore you are a young man."

"Yes."

"Would you like being a woman?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I am born a male."

"But if you could have chosen how to be born, what would have you
chosen?"

"There can be no choice. Before birth one does not exist."

"What do you think of males?"

"That they are males."

"But is it good or bad being male?"

"It is natural, for the males."

"And being a female, is it good or bad?"

"It is natural, for the females."

"Do you like males?"

"Some of them."

"Do you like females?"

"Some of them."

"Do you prefer to lie down with a male or with a female?"

"It depends..."

"What does it depend on?"

"Who he or she is."

Later, Friedrich told him that the doctor, clearly perplexed, asked him
some other questions apparently of no importance, then went back to the
subject he intended to examine and explore.

"Did you have sex with a male?"

"No."

"But I was informed you did..."

"It is wrong."

"Is there a male you would like to lie with?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Not to feel alone."

"But do you desire to take profit sexually with this male?"

"No."

The doctor was more and more perplexed. Friedrich thought that the
doctor was a rather silly person. Evidently, as it seems that under
hypnosis it is not possible to lie, he had badly formulated his
questions. In fact Jakobus didn't have had sex with "a male", but with
three... And he didn't desire to "sexually take profit" of anybody, but
make love... If he had just asked the first question using the plural,
and the second with a more neutral "have sex", the answers to both would
have been yes.

Anyway the illustrious doctor in the end concluded that the Crown Prince
was not suffering from homosexuality, but he was simply "passing through
a growing-up period and a slight mental confusion possibly caused by too
strict a control and the psychological pressure to which he was
subjected".

But this diagnosis didn't produce an appreciable improvement on the
prince's life. In fact the surveillance didn't lessen very much. But
Jakobus at this point had considered the famous French doctor's verdict
as an acquittal. And he started again to think and to desire to find a
lover. And amongst those who surrounded him, there was above all the
beautiful Reinhardt, the noble guard on duty in the antechamber of his
quarters, the one who attracted him much more than any other.

And finally one night, having ascertained that the attendant's room door
was closed and that his page was deeply asleep, passed through his study
and entered the antechamber, decided to risk everything in a single
throw.

Reinhardt was sitting near the door leading to the corridor. As soon as
he saw the prince enter, he immediately stood up and stood to attention,
stiff.

Looking straight in front of himself, he asked, "Your Royal Highness
desires to go out? Shall I call for the escort?"

"No, Reinhardt, I am here for you..." Jakobus said drawing near the
beautiful youth and, when he was close to him, lightly caressed the
gentle swelling in his tight uniform trousers.

"Your Royal Highness!" the guard protested in a low voice, remaining
still at attention.

Jakobus continued to gently caress him there, "What's the matter?"

"You... you are taking profit of the fact that I..."

"Does it bother you?"

"Your Highness is so humiliating me, treating me as a toy..." the youth
said, remaining rigidly at attention.

"And yet I have the feeling that you don't dislike it... it is becoming
hard..." the prince whispered now more daringly feeling the growing
erection.

"It could also please me but... Not so, Royal Highness! If you
continue... tomorrow I will immediately present my resignation." The
youth said, troubled but determined.

Jakobus stopped touching him, stepped back and looking in his eyes,
asked, "Can we talk about it?"

"At your Royal Highness' orders. I am not forbidden to speak."

"Can you come now in my study?"

"I cannot leave the antechamber, Highness."

"Can you sit down?"

"Not in your presence, Highness."

"I don't feel like talking with you here and so... with you straight
like a tin soldier."

"I am sorry, Highness, but the rules..."

"Well. If when you are not on duty I summoned you, would you come?"

"Certainly, Royal Highness. Your call will be an order."

"Tomorrow morning you will sleep, I guess."

"Yes, Highness."

"I will summon you in the afternoon, then. Will you be in the noble
guard quarters?"

"Certainly, Royal Highness."

"Can you... forget what I... I just did?"

"Certainly, Royal Highness."

Jakobus went back in his bedroom and laid down. Yes, he wanted to talk
with Reinhardt. But, he thought, if he summoned him, he would draw
everybody's attention to him, and anyway, how to manage to talk with him
in private? Unless... A plan took shape in his mind, clear and
practicable.

The following morning he went to see Friedrich. As soon as they were
alone he told him what he had done the previous night.

"You have been inconsiderate, Jakobus. If that guard presented a
complaint to his commander... you know what a bedlam would come out! You
have to try more gradually, without exposing yourself so..."

"I am confident he will not talk..."

"Let's hope so."

"I really don't know what happened to me last night. Possibly my desire
too long repressed ... But now I want talk with him. I can't summon him
to my study, as I had first thought, without forcing attention on him
and I don't want to do that. So I was thinking that if by passing
through the secret passages you took him to my study..."

"No, it would be dangerous. First of all we don't yet know him enough to
know if we can trust him, therefore we cannot show him the secret
passages. Moreover, in your study during the day... your voices could be
overheard from the other rooms and they could understand somebody is
with you... somebody who should not be there."

"What to do then?"

"The secret passages also lead to the sacristy of the Palace Great
Chapel. He could go there, during the night, when he is not on duty.
From the noble guards quarters it is easy to go there and it seems to me
that there are no controls and no patrols in that part of the
corridors."

"He is waiting for me to summon him this afternoon..."

"I will go to talk with him and will tell him to go to the Great Chapel.
You will wait for him there but not in the sacristy. He shouldn't see
you using the secret passage. You will be able to talk there. Is that
alright?"

"Yes, sure... I don't remember clearly at which point of the sacristy
the secret passage opens ..."

"Inside the big closet of the sacred vestments. It is well disguised.
But, Jakobus, do you think he will be game?"

"I don't know... when I was touching him there, he said he could also
have liked it... and anyway he was aroused..."

"Bah! The most important thing is that he doesn't report it..."

"He almost promised it..."

"Be more prudent, please Jakobus, I beg you."

"Yes, Friedrich, and thank you for helping me."

Jakobus waited anxiously until night fell, passing through moments of
hope, doubt, depression, trepidation. The date had been fixed for two
o'clock that night. When he heard the pendulum strike one thirty, he
silently slipped out of bed. He went into the study, slid the secret
passage panel aside, entered, silently closed after him. With a flint he
lit the lantern. Wearing a light cloak over his night shirt, he put on
cloth slippers and held his lantern very low so that its light fell only
on the floor and didn't seep out of external gaps. He walked through the
long and narrow corridor, passed behind his father's bedroom, went down
the stairs leading to the ground floor, passed by the corridor leading
to the north wing, turned, went up and down more stairs until he was in
front of the passage with the cartouche where "Great Chapel's Sacristy"
was written.

He put the lantern in a niche and made the panel slide aside. He slipped
between the vestments and closed it again. Then he pushed the big
wardrobe door and stepped down into the dark and deserted sacristy. The
door towards the chapel was open and through it came the flickering
lights of the votive candles. He peeped out of the door - the chapel was
deserted. He asked himself if he had to wait sitting in one of the pews
or remaining in the sacristy. He opted for the latter course. His eyes
were becoming accustomed to the gloom. The cracking of the old, dark
baroque wooden furniture made him jump every now and then. Would he
come? he asked himself.

He heard a faint noise coming from the chapel, a rustling. Feeling his
heart in his mouth, he peeped again. In the gloom a slender silhouette
was walking towards the altar. The silhouette came to the level of the
first pew, knelt and made the the sign of the cross, then sat down. Then
Jakobus came out of the sacristy door and stopped hesitantly - what if
he was not Reinhardt? When he appeared, the silhouette stood up and went
towards the altar and the sacristy door.

"Royal Highness..." he whispered and at once Jakobus distinguished his
features and relaxed.

"Here you are, Reinhardt... Thank you."

"At your orders, Highness."

"I... come and sit in the sacristy... at least if somebody entered he
would not see us immediately."

They sat on two stools.

"I, er...Reinhardt... I have to ask you to forgive me for last night."

"Thank you, Highness."

"Thank you?"

"For having the moral strength to apologise."

"I have to do so. I made you feel uneasy and... I acted in an
inconsiderate way."

"Nothing happened, Royal Highness."

"Yes, it did happen. I... I love men, Reinhardt."

"Yes, Your Highness, I know that."

"You know it?"

"Two years ago... on the night when the queen mother passed away... I
was on duty in your antechamber."

"You were?"

"Yes, Highness. Moreover... for a long time I have noticed how you look
at me."

"Ah... And my way of looking at you... does it bother you?"

"No, Highness, not at all. May I speak freely?"

"Of course, you have to."

"Well, Your Highness, I... I too love men as you do. And if, instead of
being my prince, you were... let's say... another noble guard, I think
that I would have courted you a long time since."

"Do you... do you find me handsome?"

"Handsome? You certainly are handsome. But I find you above all
attractive, desirable... It could be the veil of sadness that always
accompanies you, I don't know... I would like being able to give you
some joy, I..."

"You... are you making me a... a declaration of love?" Jakobus asked and
could not notice the blush spreading on the youth's face.

"You did allow me to speak freely you, Highness..." he apologised.

"Yes, certainly, continue."

"Yes, You Highness, I think I am in love with you."

"So, then, why last night..."

"Yours was not love, it was only carnal desire... Forgive me, but..."

"No, go on."

"Between us love would not be possible, as I understand it. You, the
Crown Prince and I a noble guard... and I'm not even really a nobleman.
But if love could not be possible, Highness, I would not want just to
have sex."

"You are not a nobleman? But if you are in the noble guard..."

"To be admitted into the noble guard there are only two ways - a noble
birth, or being the son of a noble guard. My father was the cadet of a
count. He didn't inherit any title, therefore he could not pass one onto
me, but he could enter the noble guards. Therefore I too was
admitted..."

"I see. But the fact you are not an aristocrat changes nothing for me.
My page was the son of wool workers."

"Did you love him?"

"No... we just enjoyed having sex together, that's all. But now the poor
boy is paying it for my fault - he had been exiled. Oh, this is why you
don't want to become my lover, then? For the risks, the consequences...
I can understand you."

"No, Royal Highness! It is not because of that. If I accepted to become
your lover, I would accept all the consequences without any fear and
without any hesitation..."

"But then?"

"Are you looking for lover or for a... pastime? And if what you are
looking for is a true lover, why don't you look for him amongst your
peers? Somebody who could be at your side without problems?"

"Well, because... I don't know. But I like you very much."

"You like my appearance, Your Highness, not me. You don't know me..."

"And don't you think that getting to know you, I could fall in love with
you?"

"Oh, everything is possible on a theoretic level. But practically? Could
we ever have a future, you and I?"

"But you are in love with me, Reinhardt, you just said so."

"Yes. The heart has its reasons, Highness. But I never harbour this
sentiment for you, because I know it is just a dream, a chimera."

"A dream? Could we not to make it become reality?"

"But why me, Your Highness? What can you find in me, besides an
appearance that you like?"

"Just to start, I am discovering in you pride and dignity. And I like
that. I am finding in you sincerity, and I like that too. Anyway, you
know me very little and yet you say you love me."

"It is true, Your Highness... But don't entertain my secret
illusions..."

"Why?"

"Because he who loves, is strong towards the exterior but weak towards
the beloved, Your Highness."

"Are you feeling weak towards me? And yet yesterday night you were
strong, stronger than me."

"Because I was dreaming of you something else than... than what you were
doing."

"Did I disappoint you?"

"No, I can understand you. I would not like being at your place. I would
have gone mad a while ago..."

"I am afraid I'll go mad, sooner or later. I need a lover, it is true.
Physically, I mean. But even more, I need somebody I can give my love to
and from whom I can receive it. Why can't he be you?"

"Could you really love me, besides desiring me?"

"I think so. Why don't you want to give me the possibility of trying?"

"Are you asking me to... to come to bed with you?"

"No. No more, at this point. Not after what we are now telling each
other. I am asking you to allow me to court you, and for you to court
me... to let me try to understand that it could be love that drives me
towards you..."

"You are tempting me, Highness..."

"So, then?"

"If one day we really could become lovers, Highness, it will be really
hard, for you and me. We could scarcely see each other, and always in
secret, in hiding..."

"Love between two men seems to be doomed to be concealed anyway."

"That's true. But if we were at least of the same social milieu..."

"Doesn't love make equals?"

"Yes..."

"Will you allow me to court you?"

"Royal Highness..."

"If you really love me, you can not deny me this hope..."

"Royal Highness..."

"It is not your prince asking you. It is only a poor nineteen year old
boy... more lonely than an orphan, more poor than a beggar, more
prisoner than a malefactor. I beg you, Reinhardt! I am not asking you to
have sex with me, I am asking you to let me try to love you." Jakobus
said, kneeling in front of the youth.

Reinhardt at once stood up, took the boy's arms and made him stand up,
"As I told you, the one who loves is weak towards the beloved. How can I
say no to you?"

"Oh, Reinhardt, do you accept?"

"I accept we try to get to better know each other..."

"Will we meet here, then, more times?

"Here, or where you want."

"Will we talk again?"

"Certainly."

"Will we learn to know each other?"

"It is the first thing we have to do."

"You are giving me back life, Reinhardt. More than if last night you had
let me continue."

"Yes, Your Highness. And you are lighting my more unbelievable dreams
again."

"May I kiss your hand, Reinhardt?"

"You are putting me in an embarrassing position..."

"Why?"

"My prince kissing my hand?"

"No, Reinhardt, it is not your prince asking to be allowed to kiss your
hand, but the same nineteen year old boy who just now you made stand up
again..."

"It is difficult for me to separate the two things..."

"Then it means that you too have to learn to truly love me. I want you
to love the boy of nineteen, not the Crown Prince."

"You are right. Perhaps I'm not yet able to love you as you want."

"Shall we try? You and I?"

"We'll try." Reinhardt answered and, on impulse, he took Jakobus in his
arms and clasped him to his chest. Then, almost immediately he parted
from him and confused, murmured "Forgive me..."

"No. And you have to do that whenever you feel like it... Of course when
we are alone." Jakobus said, happily smiling.

"It will not be easy, Your Highness."

"No, it will not be easy. But we will try. And we will help each other."

"Do you know... I'm happy being in love with you."

"And I feel I'm beginning to fall in love as well."

"It is late, Your Highness. Tomorrow morning I shall have the first
shift, I will be on duty in the antechamber of your quarters."

"Yes, it will be better to go to sleep, now. Anyway... when I wake up,
I'll see you again..."

"Yes, and I will see you."

"Good night, Reinhardt, and thank you."

"Have a good night, Royal Highness. I'll think of you while falling
asleep."

The guard stood up, saluted without clicking his heels and went away,
silently as he had come , leaving the chapel.

Jakobus then entered the vestments closet and made his way back. On his
bed he recalled the long conversation he had just had with Reinhardt and
felt happy - a new life was opening before him. Bristling with
difficulties but filled with sweet promises. For the first time in
months, he fell serenely asleep.

On the following day, as soon as he woke up, he had the court barber
called to have his hair trimmed and to be shaved. He asked for different
and more cheerful clothes from those he had chosen the previous evening.
When he finally went to the antechamber his look at once dwelt on
Reinhardt and their eyes smiled. When the pages were gone, he asked his
attendant to go to call his brother.

Being at once alone with Reinhardt, he said, "It is a joy seeing you."

"You are radiant, this morning."

"It's thanks to you."

"Shall we meet, tonight, in the chapel?"

"Certainly, at the same time."

When Friedrich arrived, Jakobus went with him in his studio and they
locked themselves in.

"So, Jakobus?" his brother at once asked anxiously.

Jakobus told him all the conversation he had had with Reinhardt.

"I think it is a really good beginning..." Friedrich said at the end.

"A wonderful one, I dare say. I was hoping for just sex from him and he
offers me love! And I already feel I'm falling for him. He is a splendid
young man! Oh, I know it will be a relationship full of obstacles,
but... I feel reborn!"

"I can see it. I am happy for you."

"You will help me, won't you?"

"Of course. Will you meet again, tonight?"

"Certainly yes. And I am already longing for it."

"You have both to be really careful that nobody can suspect anything."

"Yes, we have to be very careful."

The two youths went on meeting almost every night, besides those when
Reinhardt was on duty in the antechamber. They talked at length. Jakobus
told him about his life, his thoughts, his experiences and adventures.
Also Reinhardt told him about himself.

"I remember very little about my childhood. But I have a happy
remembrance of it. Like all the married noble guards, my father was
living in the detached quarters, behind the orangery. I played there
with the children of the other noble guards. And it was there that my
first love bloomed when I was thirteen. He was a boy of fourteen, his
name was Aldimar. Our love was born from a close friendship and also
expressed itself physically in a most natural, spontaneous way.

"With the fine weather we went to swim at the small lake at the far end
of the park, in secret, passing through a hole we had found in the
grille behind the hedge trimming the northern wall. We had to walk
between the hedge and the wall almost bent double until we reached the
small lake. You possibly know that the lake is cleaned in June and is
used only between mid-June and mid-October. Thus, before the end of May
or after October 15, we could go to bathe, undisturbed.

"It was gorgeous in May. We bathed, both always naked so as not to wet
our clothes, and we were lying under the sun to dry, when we kissed for
the first time. I would not be able to tell you which of us started. We
were simply ready for it. Our kisses and caresses became more intimate
each time, until he taught me to make love. We really were in love. We
loved each other with all the vigour and tenderness of two adolescents.
With passion and real devotion. We went on making love for three years.

"Then, when he was seventeen, his father sent him to the King's Light
Horse Academy, so we couldn't meet any more. I was sixteen. I really
suffered because of that. Then, when I turned seventeen, my father made
me enter the noble guard. Thus I came to live here in the Palace, in the
quarters of the unmarried noble guard where I am still living. Here I
started a strong friendship with a twenty-six years old guard, to whom I
was assigned as adjutant. And he, quite soon, carried on so that between
us a physical relationship started.

"We were in the training room and we were doing some catch-as-catch-can.
After a while we remained alone. He then, with a skilled move, threw me
on the floor and he pinned me down... and he kissed me on the mouth in
an intimate and passionate way. Also this time everything started with a
kiss. I was in love with him. You possibly know that we noble guards
sleep in small one-bed rooms that, besides opening towards the corridor,
have normally locked communicating doors. But usually an adjutant is
given an adjoining room to that of his "veteran" and the communication
door is then unlocked.

"Thus every night, without anybody knowing it, I went to sleep in his
bed and we made love. I think that also other veterans make love with
their adjutants. Of course not all of them, but more than one, I
presume. We made love for two years, and I was more and more in love
with him. But when I turned nineteen and became an effective noble
guard, that is when I was assigned to your service, he took a new
adjutant. That was normal. But what I didn't expect was that he made of
this new seventeen years old boy his new lover and broke off with me. I
felt betrayed...

"Then, last year, I also was given my first adjutant. But I was not at
all interested in making of him my lover, because meanwhile I had fallen
in love with you, even though I was sure that it was a hopeless love.
And on the contrary, I am now here, in the gloom of this sacristy, with
my hand in your hand..."

"We have not even yet exchanged a kiss..."

"You're right. But when we are both ready... it will happen."

"I'm dreaming about that day..."

"It will probably be a night, I guess..." Reinhardt joked.

Through the sacristy window moonlight was seeping inside and Jakobus saw
its reflection in his companion's eyes, and felt his sweet smile.

"Reinhardt, may I ask you an intimate question?"

"Of course you can."

"You... do you feel desire for... for my body?"

"Oh, yes, it is natural. And I can feel your desire for mine... But we
have to be patient, to be certain. It will be an important and difficult
step for both of us, you know that."

"Yes, I know. What is odd is that now, even though I desire you so much,
it is not a burden to wait..."

"We are just starting to know each other..."

"Yes. And do you like what are you discovering about me?"

"Very much. And you?"

"As well. You are the most enchanting being I ever met."

"Enchanting? Don't you think you are exaggerating?"

"No. I... these few moments stolen during our nights are the most
beautiful. Just being near you is sheer joy."

"I too like very much being so close to you. Possibly also this silence
that wraps us, this gloom... the scent of wax and incense... make our
closeness mystical."

"Is it not blasphemous, Reinhardt, that I feel I love you in a sacred
place, and that I'm feeling a growing desire towards you?"

"Blasphemous? Are you joking? On the contrary, to me it makes it even
more beautiful and sacred."

"Also the physical desire?"

"Also."

"Don't you believe, then, that our love, our desire can be sinful, as
the priests say?"

"No, not at all. Love, and the desire that naturally accompanies it, is
beautiful and sacred and cannot be sinful. Violence, deceit, abuse are
sinful. But neither you nor I are committing violence or deceit with the
other. I would declare I am in love with you even in front of the
consecrated host."

"Are you a believer?"

"Yes, of course. And on Sundays, when I receive the holy communion at
the Mass, I always pray for our love."

"And don't you tell about your love in confession?"

"Of course not. I tell him only my sins, what I have to ask forgiveness
for, not about the right and good things. It would be a nonsense."

"But when the confessor asks you for your sexual acts, what do you
answer him?"

"Simply that I have no sins regarding my sexual life."

"I would like having your faith, your self-confidence. But it was the
confessors who made me lose it."

"Don't you believe in god?"

"Yes, I do."

"God is love, isn't he? Love puts us in communion with God. Stealing,
lying, harming, killing are all things that keep us away from god's
love. Certainly not loving... Reflect on this, and come back to the
faith, to the sacraments..."

"But if they ask me if I am in love with a man and deny it... I'm a
liar."

"No, you are just protecting your love. Falsehood is evil, is a sin when
it harms somebody else. When it is for protection of a good thing, it is
no longer so. I am more than positive about this."

"But if... but if you were wrong?"

"If I were wrong... When I will be in front of god's tribunal, I don't
believe he will charge me with my mistakes, but only with my evil deeds.
He will possibly tell me - you made a pile of mistakes, but you presumed
to act rightly. You are a real block-head... but come with me!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am."

"You are making me become reconciled with my conscience..."

"Good."

They were meeting for two months, without no more problems than some
time stolen from their sleep, when one night, during one of their
meetings in the gloomy and desert sacristy, they kissed.

For Jakobus was like seeing a blinding flash of life. And when their
mouths parted, it was sheer joy hearing Reinhardt saying, "Jakobus, I
love you!"

The fact he had called him by name was the proof, for the prince, that
the beautiful noble guard had totally surrendered to love.

"I too love you, Reinhardt, with all my soul!"

"Yes, I know it now. Do you want to be my lover?"

"Yes, I want it."

"And do you accept me as your lover?"

"Yes, I accept you."

They kissed again to seal these words. Then Jakobus took Reinhardt hand.

"Will you come with me to kneel in front of the altar?"

"Certainly.

"And to offer our love to God?"

"Yes..."

They knelt in the chapel faintly lit by the flickering flames of a few
candles and Jakobus said, "Lord, I love Reinhardt. Protect out love..."

"Yes, Lord, and do so that my love for Jakobus become always more strong
and true."

"We are relying upon you, Lord."

"Protect our love. Thank you. Amen."

"Amen."

They went back to the sacristy and embraced tightly.

"It is like we are married, now."

"Certainly yes, Jakobus, we are. And now our difficulties will start,
you're aware of that, aren't you?"

"Yes, my love, but now they don't scare me, with you at my side.
Whatever could happen, we are for ever united, now."

"We will have to defend our love with all our means..."

"Listen, my love - if by chance one day we shall be separated... we have
to agree on a meeting point."

"Are you thinking about your page sent to exile?"

"Exactly. If we are not in prison, or dead... we shall meet away of
here, abroad."

"Where? Tell me. I never went abroad."

"In Vienna. Inside Saint Stephen's cathedral, at the right of the main
entrance, each first Sunday of the month, at noon."

"Yes, it is clear. But Our Lord will protect us."

"I hope so, my love."

"And now, my life belongs to you."

"And yours is mine. For ever."

"I would now like to make love with you, Jakobus. But not here... On a
bed, in the light, looking at you, with calm... will it ever be
possible?"

"We will make it possible, my Reinhardt. Or also surrounded by nature,
in daytime, under the sun, with calm..."

"Do you have an idea?"

"No, not yet. But possibly, with Friedrich's help..."

"Your brother knows everything about us, doesn't he?"

"Yes, and he will help us."

"Unhappily I can do very little. Now everything depends on you,
Jakobus."

"We will succeed!"

The next day the prince talked with Friedrich, who was really happy.

"Then last night, it is as if you got married?"

"Yes."

"You are happy, aren't you?"

"Terribly happy. And now we want tomake love. Safely, nicely... not in
hurry and in some corner, standing, nor on the floor like two
animals..."

"I can understand you. You know, the room where you were sleeping before
your investiture is still empty, it is no longer in use now and is
always locked by key. Using the secret passages, you can meet there,
instead of in the chapel."

"This will mean that Reinhardt also has to know and use the secret
passages..."

"I will guide and teach him. At this point it is right that he knows
them too."

"But if by chance somebody comes while we are making love?"

"The outside door is definitely locked by the key, and you can also lock
the internal one. You would certainly hear them coming and have plenty
of time to flee through the secret passage. I think that the windows are
locked on the inside too, so nobody can notice the light from outside if
you have a couple of lanterns with you,. There, besides having the bed,
you will be safer than in the chapel's sacristy."

"And if somebody came to look for me during the night, like that time?"

"They will find you neither in your bedroom nor in your study and will
ask themselves how you could get out... But you can go back through the
corridor and say that the guards were dozing and you just went for a
walk..."

"The guards will deny it..."

"Your word against theirs..."

"They would be punished..."

"But at least they wouldn't think of the secret passages..."

"It would not be fair to have two innocent people punished."

"We will do our best to avoid punishment, if we can."

In the end Jakobus surrendered, if only because that was the only way to
be able to unite with his beloved Reinhardt, and the probability they
would look for him in the dead of the night was remote.

So, Friedrich went to see the young noble guard and told him about the
secret passages. He gave him an appointment for that same night in the
chapel and from there guided him to the former bedroom where Jakobus was
waiting for him.

The secret passage was left open and the room was lit by Jakobus's
lantern. He was lying on the bed, and when he saw his lover enter, he
stretched his arms towards him, with a wide and luminous smile.

Friedrich also smiled, pleased, and went back to his own bedroom to
sleep.

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CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 7

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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

andrej@andrejkoymasky.com

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