Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 10:48:55 -0700
From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com
Subject: Knight of Carlovain, Chapter Two

		     Knight of Carlovain, Chapter Two
			  By "Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		   "Captured by the Archbishop's Guards"

     Andrew decided that it was best if his family didn't know he had gone
until he was well on his way.  Otherwise, his mother would surely have
insisted upon an armed escort for him. So he wrote a short note explaining
that he would be gone a few days on a private errand and left it where he
knew Jarret would find it before nightfall...but probably not until then.
Then he dressed in his riding clothes, sturdy leather pants dyed red, a
plain white woolen shirt, and riding boots.  He decided to snatch a
foul-weather cloak from the stables as he rode off, for the trip to
Merlemagne was long enough that he'd have to spend at least one night on
the road, perhaps two.  Only this cloak and some money in his purse at his
waist, and with these his only provisions, he set out for Merlemagne and
the monastery of the Merlemagnist Brothers of the Sorrow of the Crown of
Thorns (known as the Merlemagnists in common talk, though they always
signed themselves as "of the Thorns" to denote their brotherhood).  In less
than an hour, he was among the forests that still held most of the lands of
Carlovain in their tangled thrall.
     It had been a long time since he'd been this alone, and he felt
surprisingly buoyant and cheerful because of it.  For a few days, he would
not be Sir Andrew, Heir of the Duchy of Heslov, he would be a simple
traveler.  The cloak he'd snatched was somber enough in its dark brown
color; he would claim to be on a pilgrimage to Merlemagne and the Chapel of
Blessed Erdan, the Healer, founder of the order.  Though it was rather too
late in the year for pilgrimages, the lie would do well enough to explain
his travel.
     He rode on a fine white Carlovain stallion, one of the best of the
King's brood and of exceptional lineage, and being scarcely two years old
was in its youthful, energetic prime.  His sword was a pleasing weight on
his left hip where it rested in a woven-leather drawing scabbard.  And the
woods went on and on.
     Too far, the woods went on and on.  He had made too late a start, and
the villages were few in this section of Carlovain.  He should have stopped
at that inn some two hours back, though the sun had been high in the sky
still at that hour, he could have tarried and drank and reveled in the
simple country style of his imposture.
     Now he must make camp and with nothing for the making of a camp, not
even a tinderbox in his saddlebags to light a fire.  Such a fool, he!  He
had been so busy concealing his trip from his family and their servants
that he had failed to secure such simple necessary amenities for a night's
camping out.
     He saw the fire ahead with gratitude.  He would be free with his
coins, and the poor travelers at that fire would surely share their humble
food with him gratefully.  It had been so long since he'd had a supper
composed of pulse-porridge and black-bread, he would actually relish it!
     He rode on up.  Several men were at the fire, which was good-sized.
All of them wore the blue tunics with the golden cross of the Bishop of
Heslov; members of his House Guard.
     They were not a welcome sight for Andrew, for the current Bishop of
Heslov was the younger brother of Montaigne, the former Duke of Heslov (and
now merely the Earl of Sheredov).  Placed upon the seat of the Primate of
the Church of Carlovain thanks to his family's wealth (which now lay
instead in the hands of Andrew and his family), the Bishop had supported
the recent rebellion.  The rebellion's failure had sent his older brother
into semi-exile on the dour, salty, near-barren lands of southeast
Carlovain, but thanks to his title, the Bishop had remained secure on his
lands and avoided all punishment for his aid.
     So this Bishop, of the blood of the Montaignes, remained Primate of
the Church of Carlovain, a title which gave him control over much arable
land (though made up of small and scattered pieces across most of southern
and central Carlovain) which brought him an income that rivaled the more
prosperous duchies, such as the Duchy of Dentremon and Andrew's own Duchy
of Heslov.  The Bishop used his monies to live as a fellow lord among the
peerage, and this overly large-sized House Guard, was one example.  Not
content with the native Neresterii, the Bishop imported his Guard from all
the countries of Europe, bringing in foreign mercenaries, mostly men of
unsavory character and bloodthirsty appetites, and these were the ones who
he decked out with the golden Cross in the name of the Church.  And these
men were the ones whose fire Andrew had happened upon in the darkness and
in need of protection.
     Well, Andrew was incognito, he decided he would simply keep his cowl
about his face and disguise his voice, and so seek shelter among these
ribald soldiers of the cloth.  They would have no reason to molest an
impoverished pilgrim.
     They were laughing and talking when Andrew rode up closer to them,
then dismounted and led his horse the nearer.  Their faces were red from
the fire, which gave them the appearance of being covered in blood, their
golden crosses sizzled bright yellow upon their tunics, lighter from the
flames' proximity at the bottom, and thus looking like so many firebrands
being heated before their application to the flesh of the recalcitrant peon
in torture.
     "Think you that the serfs of Timmel's Crux shall have their coins of
tithing on the morrow?" one asked another.
     "Nay, methinks we needs must seize from their flocks and their
households enough to make the tally." another said.
     "And perchance have a dalliance with a likely maid or two?" laughed a
third.
     "If one happens along, we shall.  You shall have to search among the
thistles of the mire for their maids; however, for they know we are coming,
I doubt not and have taken to the safety of the fallow lands." the second
said.  The attentions of the others marked him as their leader.  "But if
you have a taste for a young country lad instead, they shall be at hand for
your choices."
     "What ho, who are you?" a guard called out, who had seen Andrew
approaching.
     "Peace and goodwill to you all, who bear the blessed cross upon your
tunics." Andrew said.  "I am but a pilgrim who has ridden far and in need
of a place to rest away from the wolves of the forest."
     "That's a very fine horse for a poor pilgrim." one said skeptically.
     "It was given me for my ride by the House of Heslov." Andrew lied
quickly, for horses this fine were only owned by the nobility.  The wisdom
of his attempt at dissemblance escaped him now that he had cast it upon the
ground for public view.  "I must return it before the end of next week or I
shall forfeit my land to them."
     "I'm surprised they didn't give it to you outright." one soldier
sneered.  "That old Duke is too generous with his monies, and that snotty
son of his is little better."
     "That old hag of a Duchess would know how to best rake it in." another
laughed, a hard sound.  "I hear she was going to have the children of a
village rounded up and sold to slavery in Arab Africa, save that her
husband and son stopped her."
     "What know you of that?" the leader asked.
     "I...I know nothing of it." Andrew stammered.  It was a blatant smear
upon his mother's character, she was shrewd but not that cruel in her
dealings.  "They seemed to be goodly people to my own eyes, but I met them
little."
     "What village do you come from." the leader challenged.  He approached
Andrew dangerously close....  If this man got close enough to mark the
details of Andrew's face...
     "I...I come from Corion's Weald." Andrew named the little village near
his family inn.
     "Then you are a villein of the Bishop's own lands," the guard said,
correctly if Andrew had in fact been upon the village lands when he was
born, rather than upon a piece of the Ducal lands nearby, "So where is your
paper for leave to depart from the land when harvest is so close upon us
and all hands are needed to garner the autumn grains?"
     "I...I lost my paper this last night." Andrew said, lost miserably in
this lie upon lie upon lie, but not knowing what else to do.
     "Then you should have returned to your land and foregone your
pilgrimage." the leader said rightly.  "You are now a felon in flight, and
we must take you into custody."
     Andrew turned, then, for felon or nobleman in hiding, the result would
be the same.  He made two steps before a hand from a seated guard caught
and held his ankle, he fell to the ground.  He was swarmed by the soldiers
and the cloak was yanked from his body.
     "This is no land-grubbing villein!" crowed the leader when he marked
Andrew's carefully groomed and shaped beard and mustache, a sure mark of
the nobility.  "Know you all who we have here?  The Duke of Heslov's only
son, and the catamite of his Royal Majesty these many years!"
     "His Majesty's bedwarmer?" another crowed.  "Why, his Majesty is off
to the east, and has he left his comfort-mate behind, then?"
     "Aye, and him without even a bed to warm!" One laughed.  "Hie,
Hjalmar, I shall offer him half of my bedroll this night, and let him ply
his trade for a simple soldier."
     The leader just laughed.
     "Laugh if you will." the guard protested.  "But I think after a ride
in my arms, he'll not enjoy the royal meat the further."
     "Why should you have the pleasure of him alone, Bertril?" a guard
challenged.
     Andrew struggled in his captor's grips, cursing himself as an idiot.
He'd done nothing but foolish things ever since laying hands upon the Sword
of Heslov!  He could have ridden just as fast with a guard about him as he
had alone.  He could have climbed a tree in which to spend the night, or
ridden on in the dark to the next village or back to that inn behind him.
He hadn't had to try to trick these guards, who had been poorly tricked
indeed, and now he lay exposed.
     "Take your hands from me!" he snarled.  "Let any who wish draw forth
their blade and we shall see who lies upon this ground gasping not in
pleasure, but in pain as their life leaves them in red runnulets upon the
ground."  He tried to pull his hands free, but the men holding him kept
tight.
     "Do you think I'll stand by and watch while you whittle away at my men
with your assassin's blade, son of Duke Falin, the former Royal
Swordmaster?" the leader said.  "Nay, we'll keep you fast and I'll just
take this blade from you to give to the Bishop when we tell him how you
slipped upon his lands without so much as a call for leave from him."
     And he had almost worn the Sword of Heslov on this journey!  Oh, woe
if he had, that it should fall so ignominiously into such foul hands!
Andrew let his own blade go, though it had been his blade since his youth,
almost without caring, so relieved was he by this fact.
     "Where shall we keep this one for the night?" a guard said.
     "My bedroll remains only half full." the guard who had offered it
earlier chimed in.
     "Then you shall have to fill it on the morrow by taking from the peons
of Timmel's Crux." another guard said.  "For this one shall not be left
lying idle."
     "We must bind him." another guard opined.  "Perhaps to the body of
this tree here, which shall be in our midst for the night?"
     "And how would you bind him tightly enough to keep him while so many
would have their hands upon him?" one guard said.
     "Where, then?"
     "Take his hands and we shall lift him.  Let him dangle by his hands
from a lower bough and I doubt not but that all the fight shall be gone
from him by the time we retire for the night."
     "And so Andrew was lifted up and his hands tied to an overhanging
branch of a widely spreading oak tree.  "Vedron, protect me!" he groaned as
he was released, and found that his feet wouldn't quite reach the ground in
this position; he dangled, he whirled at the least movement, he swayed as
with the wind, and all movements were to the tune of pain.
     His pants were ripped from him, exposing his nether parts for all to
view as they would.  Andrew swung and swore an unending stream of oaths
upon the rascals, but it was all for naught.  He was caught and
well-caught, they would have their way with him unless Vedron would reach
his sword of light from the sky and slash among them as he had in olden
times....
     The guards cast lots among themselves, and after a time a brawny man
stepped forward.  "I have won the right to first take this one, Hjalmar."
he told the leader.
     "Very well, Rurik." Hjalmar nodded.  "Take care only to not damage him
overmuch, for there are many who would sample the king's taste in men this
night, and they should not have to take their turn inside tortured flesh.
Let your manhood be smoothed with oil and let not your thrusts ravage his
flesh overmuch."
     Andrew heard a small whimper, and realized that it came from him.  How
many men were here?  This was worse by far than the foul Masque of Lord
Montaigne, this was to be a series of assaults upon his body.  Not wanting
to look, but looking just the same, he regarded this first man before him,
who was doffing his tunic in the anticipation of his lust.
     Rurik was fair-haired like Hjalmar his leader, outcasts of the Swedish
nobility.  He was large, strong-shouldered, flat-hipped and would have been
handsome had that face not also been creased from the cruelty of the nature
within.  That Scandavanian prong waved at Andrew like a sword thirsty for
his blood.  A comrade of Rurik's poured oil upon that evil-looking organ,
so that it now glistened in the fire like a flickering torch.  Andrew
shuddered as this broad, horribly-grinning man advanced upon him.
     His legs were lifted up and his arms groaned at the pit from the
weight of his body being place now totally upon them.  It felt as if both
arms would be ripped from their sockets, and when his legs felt Rurik's
thighs, he clutched to them tightly to ease the pain.
     But Rurik laughed, taking it for desire, saying, "Ho, our prize is
eager for this first claiming, it seems."
     Andrew could have cast himself free at those words, but Rurik's hands
had grabbed him by the legs and now held him in place.  Rurik scooted
Andrew's legs up to around his waist, and Andrew felt the hot oil-crusted
pud touching the top of the crevice of his buttocks.  "Nay, I pray of you,
do not do this thing." he pleaded.  "Name your price for my ransom, my
father shall pay it gladly, if you will spare me this."
     "Claiming a ransom of a ducal heir in these days can be a tricky
thing." Hjalmar said.  "Not only is there the problem of where to keep you,
but what is to prevent the king from laying siege to the place where you
are, declaring that he will let none live if you are harmed.  Nay, we shall
take our pleasures here and now, and you may keep your coins."
     "Now unclench these tender orbs that I may enter unhindered." Rurik
commanded.
     In despair, Andrew complied.  He felt the thick cockhead as it found
his anus, felt it shove into his bowels, cold as a cannonball and feeling
nearly as large.  Andrew grunted, found that his body, in an effort to
avoid the pain of the entrance, had fallen back nilly-willy into the
relaxation of a joyous coupling, his body even assisted the thick dong as
it pushed into his body, Rurik giving out small eager grunts of joy.
     "Ah, the king has taught this one well." he told his comrades when
Andrew's body had finally taken his long prick into itself.  "He was as
easy as new-churned butter to cut into, but fear not that he is a drafty
barn to be plunging into, for his flesh dances upon my own most compactly.
Now to give him just a few short strokes to test him out...ah, he is primed
and ready for me.  No wonder the King turns from his blue-blooded dame to
nibble at this tender morsel."
     Andrew groaned as the bulky prod dove into and out of his anus, he
clenched his teeth and tried not to let a sound of protest leave his lips,
but instead, what fell out were grunts that sounded pleasured and inviting.
     "Ply him well, Rurik." Bertril called out.  "I have the turn after two
next, and I don't wish to be pumping into a mush.  Leave him unscathed and
ready for the rest of us."
     Andrew looked down at Rurik's body, the pale blond hair foremost in
his sight, those round, large shoulders on either side, and the arms that
clutched at his hips, holding him up.  Only this sight, and the pulsing
cock inside his anus, were his sole experiences of Rurik.  It would be so
easy to pretend that this was some game of the King's, something he had
dreamed up to pass a quiet time and to liven up their tender embraces.
     Rurik was heeding his comrade's entreaties, his movements into and out
of Andrew were insolent but not overly rough.  Andrew found his body
relieved by this, and the more ready to accept this intrusion for that
reason, he groaned again, and this time his cock began to fill and broaden
itself.
     "No question there be, this bedmate's a willing one!" jeered a guard.
"Let any with a timid prong take note, this piece of meat is hungry for
your man-whips!"
     Rurik grew more confident in his motions now, attuned to the weight of
Andrew's body as it was suspended above him, and he began now to thrust
more savagely with his hips into Andrew, Andrew feeling the long pole
heating him, the thrusts moving like a piston in its shaft, and his body
warmed itself all over.  Andrew looked at the many men waiting their turn,
and he groaned, and his cock rose up to full height and turgidity.
     Hjalmar reached in and began to pump Andrew's dong, Andrew threw back
his head and groaned in pleasure and dismay, oh traitorous body that would
give itself so totally to these men!  Was he a common dog on the street
that any could mount as they would?  His body declared aye to that, he
groaned and felt his precome gush out onto Hjalmar's flailing hand.
     Hjalmar flinched when the slimy ooze contacted his hand and he
snatched it away.  "Feh, but that is sticky and hot!" he complained.  "I
expected the King's bedwarmer to be an easy piece, but I never expected you
to lust after a group of guards on the tramp such as we."
     "Come on, Rurik, finish off and let another take your place!" a guard
complained.
     Rurik didn't heed them, but he was deep within his passions, his face
flushed and he moaned, and Andrew felt the hot seed spilling into his body
while Rurik clung to him tightly, actually weighing him down upon the
bough, increasing the strain.
     Done, Rurik left him, gasping and staggering away to find a place to
rest and catch his breath once more, and like a guard stepping up to take
the place of a wounded mate, another stepped up to Andrew.  A darker-toned
man, this one was, his body was a smooth brown in color, and hair covered
most of his body.
     "My turn next, whore of the palace." the man snarled.  Andrew had his
legs grabbed and he was pulled over bodily, this time from the back, the
gnarled, calloused hands gripping him at the joint of the legs to the body
with a strangle-grip, and his back arched backwards as the man lifted up,
and Andrew felt a cock, this one unlubricated, seeking out his come-slicked
butt.
     Yet that come saved him some of the pain, the man was cruelly rough,
shoving into him with heedless brutality, and there to coat this aggressive
invader was the slickness of Rurik's jism in his bowels, and so jab as the
man would into Andrew, he could not hurt him overmuch, Andrew grunted but
it was not a killing pain and it could have been had this man been the
first to use him so.
     "Come on, you bastard heir, bred from an English slut!" the man
growled out.  "Take my prick up your ass, take all of it, damn it, we'll
make you squeal yet, you horny shaven-assed scum!"
     The man fucked him hard, Andrew groaned, managed to catch the bough in
his arms and hang like that, this helped the immense pressure on his
arm-sockets,
     Andrew felt his cock boiling from its base of the shaft, he was
appalled as the pleasure spread across his groin.  No, not like this, not
with this man, with any but this rough, cold beast in a man's form....
     Climax crawled up his spine like a squirrel up a tree trunk, and it
dived into its nest at the base of his neck, Andrew groaned, his cock
surged like a living thing apart from him, his body electrified with a
hundred shocking needles of joy...and he was spraying his shame into the
air in front of him, to the boisterous tune of a dozen laughing men
glorying in his degradation, Andrew blasted his seed out onto the cold,
dark leaves covering the ground around him, and done, his body quivering in
post-coital tremors, he was aware that the man fucking him was furious
about this.
     "You filthy whore-son, you vile, disgusting piece of trash!  Argh!"
And the man humped at his ass viciously, and spewed into him with a roar of
angry ecstasy, almost a snarl of frustration at not wringing any cries of
pain out of Andrew at his callous assault.  Andrew felt the come hitting
his innards like grapeshot, tearing at his intestines, though doing no
damage other than the splatter of hot seed upon his ravaged body's insides.
     "Out of the way, mangy dog." a guard came up and bodily shoved the
gasping rapist aside.  "Let me show you how to make this royal puppy
squeal.  Bertril, you wanted your time at him, come up here and we'll take
him together.  That'll bring a squeal out of him, I'll lay wager."
     "How much?" one soldier called out.
     "I have ten gold pieces that says he'll yell out before we're done!"
the man boasted as Bertril stepped up.
     Andrew looked at these two men and he groaned.  "Nay, not this, I
pray, not this!"
     "I'll take that wager." a man called out.  "And if he doesn't call out
and I win the wager, I'll pass my turn."
     "That's making it odds I can live with." a second man said.  "I'll
take a piece of that."
     "Hear that?" Bertril said as he dropped his tunic onto the dark earth
beneath him.  "Let's make this sporting.  You bite back any sound while the
two of us take you, and the others will pass on their turn and take our
coins instead.  They can take their fill with the peasant boys on the
morrow, they won't mind overmuch letting this overfucked ass go on by.  So
this is your lot in the wager, take us both, take us quietly, and this will
be the end of it for you."
     "I understand." sobbed Andrew.
     The men stood on either side of him.  He clenched the bough with a
grip tight enough to wring droplets of the tree sap out of the bark onto
his scraped hands, it burned his skin where it crept out to burrow into
him.
     And there was the push of turgid, hot man flesh into his ass, and if
the others had felt large, this was more than twice as bad, it felt as it
he were being ripped apart from below.  His hands slipped from the bough,
Andrew felt a massive wail rising up in him as the pain was a white-hot
blaze at his ass, and he clenched his throat, trying to hold it in, hold it
in....
     And darkness clutched him with blessed relief from pain, a darkness
larger than the abyss threatening from the grave, and far, far more
welcomed, he sank into it and lost himself utterly.
     He had escaped, in this way, at least.  They couldn't hurt him the
more, not down here.
     Darkness..and silence.

THE END OF CHAPTER TWO

[I will be posting these chapters as I post them to the free area of my own
website, one every other week.  I will be concluding this series in my pay
area on 9/25/00.  If you're interested in my works and would like to see
more (it's a members/UGAS/Agecheck site, but I also have a large free area
which has illustrations), you can it listed in Nifty's Link section as
"Tommyhawk's Fantasy World."]