On The Queen's Service

Part The Second

 

Disappointed as he was to learn from Mr.Goodboy that Harry was not to be swived, for the country knight had used him most vigorously and time was needed for him to recover, still was there the consolation that Harry's mouth carried no such prohibition and the boy did use that mouth with enjoyment as well as skill when he used it not for talking and imparting all that there was to know.

"I liked him not at all," Harry confessed, screwing his sweet and so seeming innocent face into a scowl of distaste, "For not only did he force his way in without care for me, I swear he meant to drive his prick right up into my throat so fiercely did he ride me. And though he be a man of thirty or more years, yet did he have the energy of a boy of half that age and seeded me five times before he was done."

"He bruised not your mouth though," Stick replied and pulled young Harry in to share tongues, a thing Stick most liked doing when with a boy.

"But he did stink in a most country manner," Harry complained when he was once more allowed to speak, "And his breath also was most foul. I would swear he comes to London for the boys in his county do run from him and have no wish to be swived in such manner."

"But that is not all he came to London for," Stick prompted and, having released Harry's prick from its confines under the simple tunic which was all he wore, descended upon it and savoured its sweetness, for young Harry had a prick most worthy of savouring.

"He came to meet with gentry who would favour the Scottish King," Harry sighed as he was suckled, for Stick, being a boy trained in the house of Mr.Goodboy, was as skilled in the suckling of prick as any could be, "Though he confessed to being much distressed to learn that some in that faction did intend to hasten that succession if means could be made to so do."

"Learned you who such were?" Stick paused in his suckling long enough to ask, though he ensured Harry suffered not in that pause by fondling gently the boy's full and smooth balls.

"One name he mentioned was of one Sir William Rich," Harry told him and sighed once more as his prick was engulfed by mouth once more, "One he said he wished to meet no more and would back to Wiltshire as soon as he was able."

There being no further matters to learn from Harry, Stick completed his ministrations, swallowing the boy's seed with relish, for one thing he had learned while indentured to Mr. Goodboy, was that the seed of boys is a most delightful repast, sweeter far than is the seed of men, though he ate his master's often and with enjoyment enough.

The flavour of Harry's seed lingering still in his mouth, Stick resolved to broach a matter with his master, one that had been growing in his mind for some months.

Harry was no ordinary boy for he was by birth one Harry de Vere, the fourth son of a third son who had distant but direct links by blood with the Earl of Oxford, and Mr. Goodboy must need arrange Harry's future employ with some care.

Mr.Goodboy had obtained Harry not by his usual means of purchasing him, but by being gifted him by his concerned parent.

Harry, though yet to reach ten years of age, had formed an attachment to one who was well known and well favoured at Court, and that well favoured and well titled gentleman had, overcome by Harry's sweetness and forwardness, consummated that attachment in no uncertain manner, though the boy was but nine years old.

That a man should wish to swive with a boy of such tender years was by no wise a thing uncommon, for Ganymedes of such age and even less there were by the hundred who thronged the theatres and bear pits searching to earn a coin or two. London was full of boys from the Rookery who would bare their arse and bend willingly enough, for a prick in their arse was food in their bellies and food honestly earned and bringing with it no fear or threat of a rope around their necks.

That a boy of some breeding who had no need to find such a way to fill his belly, but presented his young arse to a man because the need to do so was in him, was a thing most unusual, and a thing not like to bring favour on the boy nor on the man who swived him should it be known abroad.

Thus, when remonstration and frequent birching served only to make young Harry grow a cock most hard for a boy of such few years, his parent, himself a man who knew intimately of the service Mr.Goodboy offered, entreated that man to take the boy, for it was clear, the parent stated, that Harry would find prick to sit on wherever he could and a resulting scandal would be an inevitable consequence of the boy's unquenchable appetite.

Thus Harry de Vere disappeared from Worcester, supposedly to distant cousins somewhere in the North, and reappeared as simply Harry, a boy in the house of Mr. Goodboy, a boy most delighted to be ridden by any who were in need of a boy to ride.

Now Harry had passed the end of his fourteenth year and Mr.Goodboy would need to find employ for him, and Stick had the perfect place, as he thought, for such employ.

He needed only to convince Mr. Fletcher that he was in great need of a second catamite, for Stick grew no younger and though he could serve as catamite well enough for a year or two more yet, soon would Mr.Fletcher have an urge for younger flesh than his in his bed, and surely, Harry was the perfect flesh for him.

His resolve to broach the matter was, though, frustrated, for no sooner had he imparted all that Harry had told him than a messenger arrived with news from Mr. Secretary himself that Fletcher was tasked to investigate a murder, and not one murder alone, but two together.

 

"That is indeed, one Sir James Rice," Fletcher said when the face of a corpse was revealed to him by Mr.Peabody, the London Searcher of the Dead. "I met him but last afternoon and have no doubts that this is he."

"This was he," Mr. Peabody corrected, "For see, Thomas, a single upward thrust, perhaps from a bollock dagger, under the ribs and into the heart has turned him from an `is' into a `was'. Whoever it was that endowed him with such a thrust knew well how to use the blade he held."

"A bollock dagger you say, Richard?" Fletcher enquired, "How can you know such a weapon killed him?"

Bollock daggers were weapons much in present favour with those of the Court; the pommel was formed by two brass roundlings shaped after the manner of testicles; the hilt was in the form of an erect penis from the head of which sprouted not seed but a long, thin blade, a blade some twelve inches in length.

"See," Richard Peabody said, pulling away the cloth that covered the body, "A single wound here, under the ribs. An upward thrust," he took a thin wand of wood and inserted it into the wound, "Going up thus far." He marked the spot where the wood entered the dead flesh with his thumb and withdrew the sliver. "Eleven inches by my measure, sufficient to reach the heart. Your Sir James was slain by one who knows well how to kill."

"I know him but as a country knight, lately come to London. Are you sure this deed was done not by a footpad or cutpurse?"

"Such would kill from behind, Thomas, an arm round the throat and a dagger from behind or sideways into the ribs. This man was slain from the front, and in such a way would give rise to the thought that he was known to the one that slew him. That they were perhaps," Peabody ventured, "Engaged in conversation when the fatal blow was struck."

"Not a simple murder then, but one planned beforehand, or perchance the result of an argument between them."

"If an argument, then for him it was one of words only, for see, his dagger is still sheathed. He had no expectation that death would strike him. This other one is a matter of much greater interest."

Peabody pulled back a sheet from another body, a much smaller body, the body of a boy.

"I would hazard that this is a boy of no more than some eight years of age and he has been dispatched to his maker in a manner most unkind."

Fletcher viewed the body of the child so revealed, and even death had not softened the expression of pure agony on the boy's small face.

"Again a single thrust, but here a thrust up into his rectum. This boy was buggered by a dagger, Thomas, and he was meant to die in agony, his bowels punctured. And," Peabody added as though it were of no great significance, "He was found naked on a gravestone by St. Martin's Church."

"God save us," Fletcher breathed in horror, "Some satanic rite?"

"That is for you to discover, Thomas. I but search the dead and tell the Crowner what I find."

"If it indeed be a thing of such a nature, then Mr. Secretary will wish to know of it," Fletcher agreed, "Though my task here was but to consider the death of this Sir James of Wiltshire, this other a matter of no great consequence, yet now I feel I cannot in all conscience disregard this other."

Fletcher's musing was much interrupted by the inconstant nature of the stomach of his apprentice, for Stick, though as any boy his age would be, was far from unacquainted with the sights of violent death, public executions being thought as even more sport than the baiting of bears, was not yet accustomed to the stench of Richard Peabody's domain.

The crypt in which he worked was well below the surface of the ground, affording some respite from the heat above, but though that aided in delaying the decay of bodies it admitted not the flow of air to dispel such odours as did arise. The smell of bodies taken a week or more since from the mud of the Thames, or from the refuse filled midden pits where they had been dumped, hung thick and heavy, of great offence to any not accustomed to it for it made the stink of London's shit ridden streets seem as fresh country air by comparison.

"The bucket yonder is one that may be used for vomit," Mr.Peabody remarked upon observing the difficulties Stick was experiencing in remaining in possession of his latest meal, wondering aloud also how one of such girlish constitution would fare as intelligencer proper should he, in fact, survive his apprenticeship.

"See here now," Peabody commanded when Stick had wiped his face clean of vomit, "Observe with some care the anus of this boy. Note here," he said to both Fletcher and his apprentice, "See the bruises around the hole? How some be quite new and livid while others fade as bruises do with age?"

Though the dead boy's anus was much destroyed by the blade that had entered it to slay him, yet were bruises still truly in evidence, and not of the nature that would be caused by whatever knife had been used to thrust therein.

"This boy," Peabody stated as though such things were matters of everyday occurrence, "Was no innocent virgin taken from his home to be human sacrifice in devil worship. He was by trade a Ganymede, and though he be not more than eight or nine years of age, he was not new to his chosen trade. These bruises," Peabody pointed to the most livid of such marks, "Are but recent, no more than a mere hour or so before his unfortunate ending. Before the blade that ended his life entered him, he had been stabbed by a dagger of a very different nature, swived by a man of no inconsiderable endowment, and that most vigorously and brutally.
These others," he pointed to bruises that were much faded by comparison, "Came from swivings past, and such markings may be found on the arses of all Ganymedes of such an age, for the anus of a boy of eight or nine is greatly stretched by the prick of any grown man."

"Think you he was swived by his killer?" Fletcher asked.

"That is for you to discover," Peabody shrugged, "Though to me it would seem unlikely to be so, for he was swived an hour or so before his killing, and I think not that one would swive a boy and slay him in such a wise an hour or more later, for if murder were in his mind would he not have thrust his blade in where his prick had just been?"

While Fletcher thought on that, Peabody drew attention to other marks on the small body.

"See here, Thomas," he said, "These scratches and bruises on the face and arms and chest." He turned the body over so it now lay face up and such marks could be clearly seen. "They arise, I would hazard," Peabody explained, "From his struggles as the agony seared through him. This boy was held in place, and that most firmly, on the gravestone where he died. Kept there most cruelly till his struggles ceased.
And here, see here, look where the markings of a cloth that was bound tightly round his mouth show most obviously. He was gagged before the dagger entered him so his screams would alert no constable and lead to discovery of the deed."

Though it appeared that the death of the boy and the murder of Sir James had no obvious connection, for their bodies had been discovered in places different, yet Fletcher could not rid his mind of such a link, though he struggled to find a reason for such thought.

"Could Sir James have been the one who buggered this boy?" Stick asked, for the thought had come into his mind of Harry saying how vigorously and brutally he had been buggered by that knight. "Harry did say how violently this Sir James did treat him, and wished more than once Harry was half his age and then the swiving would have been twice the pleasure."

"Did he so?" Fletcher raised his eyebrows in question, "Then must we must discover what this country knight did on his departure from Mr.Goodboy's establishment and where he did frequent until his body was discovered by a constable this morn. My thanks to you, Richard, for you have been of great help and given me much to think on."

"We must again to Mr.Goodboy's," Fletcher said as he and his apprentice boy made their way to a tavern, for Fletcher had much need of beer to wash the air of Mr. Peabody's crypt from his mouth. His catamite may have no stomach yet for beer and meat, but that concerned not Fletcher, for that crypt was a place he visited with some frequency and had learned to ignore the stench as best he could.

"He had not much to say," Stick grumbled, for though he delighted much in his visits to Harry, as yet his prick had no notion of rising any more than his stomach craved food. "That the knight smelt of the country, had stinking breath and fucked most carelessly were the things he remembered most."

"And most frequently," Fletcher mused, slowing his walk. "Could any man wish to swive more in the same eve as he has swived Harry as many times as he is said to have done?

"He is a boy that takes most kindly to swiving," Stick observed, thought of young Harry overcoming for a moment the still churning nature of his gut, "Though with no disrespect, master, I feel that between us we would be pressed to manage as many as five."

"Yet that dead Ganymede was fucked most brutally, as it would seem was Sir James's wont, and did he not express opinion to Harry that he had great preference for young arse? More must we learn of this Sir James, though first I will wash my mouth with ale and then we will to an apothecary friend who may have help in enlightening us as to how Sir James showed such profligacy in his night's swiving."

"I would have words with you concerning Harry, master," Stick ventured as he sipped ale, his stomach recovered sufficiently by thinking on Harry's flesh to risk a sup or two.

"I know well enough your thoughts on that boy," Fletcher emptied his mug and reached for cheese, "And blame you not for having such regard for his arse, but now is not the time to sing his praises. We must to work."

Relenting of the sharpness of his tone, Fletcher said in kinder wise that they would to Mr. Goodboy's first and the apothecary after, for perhaps there was more to be learned from Harry that would be of use when talking with the man of science and herbs.