Routiers

 

A tale very loosely based on the activities of mercenary bands who ravaged France during the Hundred Years' War. Rape, pillage and mass murder were a way of life, the norm and not the exception.

                                                Routiers

                                     A tale by Ivor Sukwell

 

"Not that one!" James Acre shouted to the burly German pikeman who was about to slit a squirming peasant boy's throat, "Can't you see how old he is? He goes in the cart."

"Mein Gott!" the pikeman hissed, holding the struggling boy at arm's length by a handful of what might have been his shirt before the German grabbed it, "He tries to kill me with an axe and I must ask his age?"

"Take more than a boy with an axe he's not big enough to more than lift to kill you, you hairy arsed German butcher," Acre grinned, "But I warrant Sir Robert will have your balls off if you don't put him gently in the cart. You know his orders and you know how he deals with those who disobey."

Gotfreid, the burly German pikeman did, and he still had a use for his balls, so he slung the kicking boy over his shoulder and trudged off to the cart that already held some dozen others, boys and girls of the age Sir Robert required.

Sir Robert Mountjoy, once a respected knight, though a penniless one, was no longer penniless, and respected now for his ruthlessness rather than for any knightly, chivalric reason, led a band of more than five hundred routiers, mercenaries left over from the war that ravaged France, not needed by either the King of France or the King of England, during a time of temporary peace.

Not needed for an official war, these routiers conducted a relentless unofficial one, raping, burning and killing their way through France, down into Italy and back up to France again, looting churches and destroying villages as a way of life.

They were men born to kill and they killed for pleasure and they were very, very good at killing.

When Edward of England and Jean le Bon of France decided on a temporary halt to the endless wars that had raged on and off about whose head the Crown of France should rest on, men such as Sir Robert Mountjoy, his archer James Acre and the German pikeman, Gotfreid, and thousands more the same, had no-one to pay them for killing, so they took, like ducks to water, to murder, rape and pillage, keeping their hands in until war came again.

Sir Robert's band of killers was more disciplined than most such bands, kept as content as such men could be by Sir Robert's careful leadership. If called upon to fight a battle, as even now they sometimes were, perhaps against the French or, more likely, another routier band who had foolishly strayed into lands Sir Robert regarded as his, no lives were thrown needlessly away; Sir Robert's choice of battlefield and his deployment of his two hundred longbowmen ensuring victory before the first arrow took flight.

That alone would not have ensured the loyalty of his mercenary killers; such men needed food and plunder, so Sir Robert led them to unprotected villages where they could raid churches for gold and silver, rape and burn and leave nothing living behind them.

Such was good enough for the killing season of summer, but men needed to be fed and satisfied in winter as well, and that was why he had issued his order, and why a peasant village boy did not have his throat cut by a German butcher.

"Boys old enough for a priest or monk to fuck, but with balls not yet dropped and no hair upon them, and girls not yet of an age to bleed, will be taken and not slain," he had ordered, "Nor will they be raped, but taken to Chateau Rouliers to serve us in the winter."

His men would mount any female they could find, but the tight cunnys of young girls and the tighter arses of young boys, Sir Robert knew, would keep them content when the snows came.

Chateau Rouliers became Sir Robert's home when he took it from its previous owners, a routier band who had foolishly thought that his wolf pack was small enough to overcome with ease, slow moving as they were, encumbered by their wagon train of plunder looted from the churches and monasteries of northern Italy, but Sir Robert had two hundred English archers and those men could put two thousand cloth yard shafts in the air in a single minute and a war bow can send those deadly shafts to kill at four hundred paces.

A war bow is a fearsome weapon; two cloth yards of yew, it needs a man of strength and skill to wield it, the stave as thick as a young boy's forearm needs muscle in shoulders, arms and thighs to manage the two hundred pound draw weight and a man must learn to use such a bow when he is a boy or never will he master the art of it.

The page who sat horsed beside Sir Richard would never draw a bow. Though he was fourteen now he was as slight and slender as a boy of no more than twelve, as delicate of feature as he was of form, and with the long, golden hair that flowed to below his slight shoulders, had he been clothed as such, none would have thought he was other than a girl.

Once he had been page to a minor nobleman of France, but Sir Robert had won him in a wager, a friendly combat with that French nobleman, five hundred gold marks placed against the boy and the Frenchman yielded before he was battered beyond repair.

The boy had been ten then, seeming more angel than boy, but looks can be deceptive, and even at that tender age the boy had a skill with a slender Toledo blade that any Italian assassin would have envied.

He had not used that skill on Sir Robert, but shown other skills in plenty that pleased Sir Robert much, performing his page boy duties with evident enjoyment and great enthusiasm.

The boy, whose name was Raoul, showed neither resentment nor concern that he had been lost and won in a bet, and opened his mouth and legs for his new lord as willingly as he had done for the lord who lost him.

Sir Robert, no less nor more than any other man of his time, knew the uses a page boy could be put to when there was no cunny to be had, soon lost all interest in cunny, for there was no maid or whore in the world who could take cock as well as Raoul, nor show such delight in giving service to his lord.

"You need never fear a murderer come in secret in the night," the boy had said, placing his Toledo blade beside his pillow before he removed his clothing, "Any such will think me but a sleeping boy you have fucked, and never will he think again."

"And will you be a boy who I have fucked?" Sir Robert asked as the boy revealed his nakedness.

"Lord, you wagered five hundred gold marks for me, and I do not think that was so I may clean your mail, but more that I may polish your sword and be a sheath for it."

"And your dagger? Is that also to be sheathed in me?"

"The one of steel is for your enemies alone, the one of flesh is yours to use as you wish."

The Black Friars would doubtless say that Sir Robert had been bewitched by the boy; that the boy was no boy but a devil in boy's disguise, and perhaps he was, for he neither spoke nor behaved as a boy of ten would be expected to speak and behave.

He did not reveal his nakedness with shyness nor with reluctance as a pageboy would normally do, obliged by his service to give his arse to his lord but wishing it were not so; Raoul presented his flesh to Sir Robert in the certain knowledge that the mere sight of his boy's slender nakedness would rouse desire greater than the knight had ever known before, and in giving satisfaction to that desire he would light a flame that would burn still in the morning, and for many mornings more to come.

And so it was, and Raoul more mistress now than page, though Sir Robert also played the part of mistress, for the tiny dagger Raoul had at ten had grown to a stiletto that was sometimes sheathed in Sir Robert in the secret dark of the bedchamber.

That there is more pleasure to be had from a boy than that afforded by his arse was a creed Sir Robert had learned well from Raoul, and never since he had won the boy in a wager had Sir Robert felt desire for cunny more.

"There is space in the wagon yet," Raoul remarked as the captive boys and girls were loaded, "Perhaps another village before we turn for home?"

"One with a monastery," Sir Robert said, "Monasteries harbour more gold and silver than village churches, and greater stores of victuals also, and winter will soon be upon us."

"And where there are monks there are nuns," Raoul grinned, "Our men may turn for home with full bellies and empty balls."

"Slaughter the cattle and pigs," Sir Robert ordered," And get them roasting. Throw the dead in the church, we'll give them a sacred burning in the morning. Tonight we will feast here and rest, and tomorrow another village before we turn for home."

Sir Robert's band of murderous routiers were not the only men in arms in that part of war ravaged France. Barons and Counts raised private armies and sought to bring an end to the destruction the routiers caused. Such Counts and Barons cared little for the slaughter of peasants but they cared much for the loss of rents and provisions from the villages that were burnt and the fields that were destroyed.

One such small army had followed the path of devastation left by Sir Robert, and camped now in the forest, half a mile to the north of where Sir Robert's men feasted.

Routiers in the field take little care of such matters as sentries and scouts when they feast and camp, but Sir Robert's band were no ordinary routiers and took as much care with their night time defence as any Roman troop would have done, save that they did not build a fort to hide behind, but selected ground where should a battle come, they had a killing field before them.

"Armoured men in the forest," Will Thurgood reported to Sir Robert, who, with Raoul beside him, was tearing freshly roasted meat from bone with his teeth. The boy was more delicate, slicing slivers of roasted beef with his Toledo knife and eating as though he were a genteel maid.

"Attracted by our cooking, no doubt," Sir Robert tore himself another mouthful, "Did Will Fletcher send word how many?"

"Some three hundred men at arms or knights and a few hundred more on foot. Crossbows in plenty, but no sign of a proper bow."

"French, then," Sir Robert decided, "We'll kill them in the morning. Have the men take their positions now as quietly as they can. They may take their feast with them. French will not attack till dawn."

"They may be hungry, and have some wish for early breakfast," Will Thurgood grinned in the darkness.

"Cloth yard arrows is all they'll get," Sir Robert shrugged and waited till Will Thurgood had departed before speaking more.

"Your Chevalier Henri had lands in these parts I recall," he said to Raoul, "It may be that he rides with those in the forest. If he does, he dies on the morrow. If you have no wish to see him slain, keep yourself with the wagons and horses."

"He wagered me for five hundred marks," Raoul sliced another sliver of beef, "Would you set so little value on me?"

"Perhaps ten more," Sir Robert grinned.

"Then I belong to the highest bidder," Raoul held the sliver of meat between his teeth before taking it in his mouth, "I will not wait with the wagons and the horses."

Raoul was not made for war, his slender, delicate frame no more suited to wielding the heavy, bludgeoning weapons used by men than is a girl's, and though perhaps he could have added strength and muscle some, to do so would have denied his true purpose. Raoul was meant for the bed, not for the field.

Yet he could kill, his slender Toledo blade could take a life as easily as a sword or mace; Raoul was beautiful and he was deadly.

The French came with the sun their battle plan as predictable as the rising of the sun they waited for.

They came from the forest they believed had concealed them and formed their line of battle, the mounted knights and men at arms in full plate armour and splendid in their colours of war. Their code of honour demanded that the enemy they faced must know who they were and so they flew their banners and pennants, wore their devices on their surcoats, and believed their splendour would strike fear into the hearts of those they came to kill.

They waited, as Sir Robert knew they would wait, till the sun rose fully and their glory glittered in the morning light.

Behind them the ranks of foot, armed with pikes and on their flanks the crossbows, deadly weapons, but useless at any range.

They expected to find a disorganised band before them, men slow to wake from a night of feasting and debauchery, but they found instead, two hundred men with warbows with arrows ready, stuck in the earth before them, and a treble line of pikes behind.

Though all Sir Robert's men had mounts, all but fifty fought on foot, and those who were horsed would not join the battle till it became a rout.

Above them flew but a single banner, black and with the depiction of a hanging skeleton, the motto, `Death Awaits You', too distant for the French to read.

Had they been close enough, that banner would have meant little or nothing to the French, though in Italy it was well known. Sir Robert and his force had spent three years serving the city state of Florence as mercenaries, and there Sir Robert had made his reputation and his fortune, and learned also the true wonders of a boy's body.

"Let the horse come to the four hundred mark and then start killing those behind," Sir Richard said to Henry Fletcher, the thick set man who commanded his force of archers.

Fletcher no more than grunted in reply; he'd been killing men with his warbow since he was little older than the slender, delicate Raoul, though Fletcher had never been slender or delicate. He knew with absolute certainty the range at which his bow could send a killing arrow into an unarmoured man and the distance at which a steel bodkin point could drive through mail.

"Yon's some fancy French lord's private army. Foot'll have mail or boiled leather," Fletcher gave his opinion.

"Not on their faces," Sir Robert said, staring at the still distant host, "And men look upwards when they hear the flight of arrows."

That was a fact; a thousand goose flights in the air makes a sibilant whisper, like a summer breeze ruffling leaves on trees, and men always searched the sky when they heard it, though doing so could mean their deaths.

"Upset them, Henry, make the bastards charge too soon."

Fletcher grinned, a fox about to take a rabbit. Four hundred paces was too distant for heavily armoured men to charge with any effect, their horses would tire, the impact of a charge be lost and the archers could hold their ground for longer, send more killing shafts into the air, before they retired behind the pikes.

The French began their canter forwards, foot running behind them, clumsy, as running with a pike is no simple matter. They should have advanced at a steady walk, but, as always, the French nobility were over-eager to ride into the dirt any who stood against them.

"Nock, draw, loose," Fletcher called as mounted men reached the four hundred yard marker, carefully laid down in the night by Fletcher himself, and the third flight of two hundred shafts was in the air before the first fell on skyward looking men.

Some died, some were wounded, but their cries of shock and pain were too much for the mounted knights and men at arms and they charged far too soon.

At three hundred yards a bodkin tipped shaft would drive clean through mail, and though it will not likely pierce plate at such a distance, it can strike with force enough to knock a man from his horse or kill the horse he rides.

At a hundred and fifty yards only the finest Milanese plate can deflect an arrow sent from an English warbow with its two hundred pound draw weight, and fewer than half of the three hundred who had charged were still horsed, with the bowmen who killed them still a hundred paces distant.

"Half and half," Fletcher called at that range, and one hundred of his archers loosed shafts at horse and knight, the other hundred sending goose flighted arrows above them to fall amongst the staggering pikemen behind.

"Crossbows," Fletcher called next, and those unfortunate enough to be armed with such clumsy weapons were scythed down before they were close enough to loose a bolt.

It was a massacre and not a battle, Sir Robert's pike and horse playing no part except to finish off the few men at arms who reached them and chasing down the remaining foot who fled, leaving their unwieldy pikes behind them.

Raoul's slender form flitted amongst the fallen, his Toledo blade seeking out gaps in the armour of those still living, for though he was not made for battle, he had the same lust for blood as any man who was.

"The Chevalier was not amongst them," Raoul remarked as Sir Robert's routiers plundered the dead, "I am glad of that."

"I also," Sir Robert said, "He was a fool to wager you, but by doing so he gave you to me, and for that I wish him no ill will."

It was not a village with a monastery that Sir Robert's routiers raided next; rather it was a large and wealthy religious foundation, both monastery and convent, with a small village of peasants attached, peasants who could work the fields and provide the holy monks and nuns with the luxury they so richly deserved, for they were monks and nuns who devoted their lives to caring for the unwanted bastard sons and daughters of the wealthy and noble.

Sir Robert could not have wished for more; the peasants were few in number and being under the protection of Holy Church, did not so much as raise a pitchfork in protest when sons and daughters of the proper age were taken from them, as such must be the Will of God and punishment for whatever sins they may have managed to commit.

Husbands and grown unmarried youths stood silently and sullenly by while wives and older daughters and sons young enough to rape but too old for the wagon, were raped, the daughters more so than their brothers and mothers.

The Brothers and Sisters of the religious house protested only with prayer, and the nuns parted their legs with as much devotion as they showed when they recited their Holy Offices. The younger novice monks bent over with a will and a prayer, and when all was done not a virgin remained amongst them, though it was doubtful if there had been any so before.

Five hundred men, fresh from killing, have five hundred hungry cocks, and many, religious and peasant, were martyred several times before all were done, but none were slain and no peasant huts or church burnt.

"More a holiday than a raid," James Acre commented as he fastened his breeches for the third time, two nuns sandwiched between a young novice monk being his tally.

The religious foundation was, of course, stripped of its wealth along with the unwanted bastard sons and daughters it had given protection to, who, regardless of their noble origins, joined peasant boys and girls in the now full wagon.

Though the order to take and not kill boys and girls was given by Sir Robert, the idea had come from Raoul.

"Men need to fuck as much in the winter as in the summer," he had observed as his nakedness was explored by Sir Robert, as it was every night there was a bed to explore him in, "Perhaps more so, as there is no killing to be done in winter."

That was a truth Sir Robert could not deny, though the urgency of that need did not concern him, he having Raoul to fuck whenever he pleased.

"Men will serve you better if they can use their cocks," Raoul spoke as one may not imagine a boy of his years would speak.

"There are whores," Sir Robert said, stroking the smooth flanks of his page.

"And would you be content with a fat and well-used whore in your bed instead of a boy as young and smooth as me?"

It was not a question requiring an answer, and Sir Robert did not give one, but continued instead to stroke smooth skin in places that skin would not be expected to be smooth on a boy of near fourteen.

"You won me in a wager, did you not, because you lusted for me," the pride that Raoul felt that men should lust for him when he was but ten evident in his voice, "You lusted for me because I was young and my arse would be tight around your cock. You lusted then as you lust now for the smoothness of my flesh, flesh I take pains to keep smooth for you."

Sir Robert had discovered the true wonders of a boy's body whilst in Florence and in that same city Raoul had learned some mysteries of the East, of the Moors who had great affection for boys and knew of creams and lotions that would keep a boy smooth and young for longer than nature intended.

Sir Robert had no care that Raoul spoke as he did, spoke as no page boy should speak to his lord and master, for Raoul was page, mistress and lover all in one, and boy and man were content that this was so.

"Men like the flesh they bed to be smooth and young, do they not?" Raoul queried, "Boys with tight arses yet not old enough for seed to flow and hair to grow, and girls with cunnys not yet come to monthly bleeding."

"Of course they do," Sir Robert grunted, "It is a fact of life. Though," he added, reaching for Raoul's ever available stiletto of flesh, "I confess myself satisfied with a boy who can now seed."

"Who keeps himself smooth for your pleasure," Raoul smiled, content that his hairless young organ was fondled with affection. "But, Sir, how would it be if, when we raid in the coming summer, we take hairless boys and girls not yet bleeding, and bring them here that they may do service as stable and kitchen boys and maids to wash and clean, and serve also the needy cocks of your men? Would they not like that more than fat whores?"

That they would was beyond question and so the order was given, and with the two wagons that now slowly trundled back to Chateau Rouliers, Sir Robert now had some hundred such to keep his men content in the coming winter.

The new stable boys and cleaning maids now housed at Chateau Rouliers had need to be made aware of their status and purpose, and this had been done, at Raoul's suggestion, by housing them in a barn large enough to accommodate them all, boys and girls together. They had fresh straw to sleep on, plentiful food provided, and, it being summer, they were kept all naked.

"No doubt there will be some games played," Raoul commented, "But the boys cannot seed and the girls cannot breed, so it will prepare them some for what is to come."

That games were played seemed evident to Sir Robert on his return from the summer's raiding. His stock of boys and girls had grown accustomed to their always nudity and raised ribald laughter at the latest addition to their numbers, who seemed most reluctant to shed their coverings, especially so the bastards taken from convent and monastery, for once naked, how may a byblow of a Duke be told from a common peasant?

Men had grumbled much about the order that had brought these young captives to Chateau Rouliers, boys and girls who should, by rights, have been raped and left in the burned villages they were taken from, but when Sir Robert revealed that they would work in stables and kitchens, wash, scrub and clean, but their main purpose was as young flesh to fuck, those grumbles turned to words of approval.

Mat Longstaff, an archer who was little more than a boy himself and still beardless, called that nakedness became them and they should be kept ever thus, even when the snows came, as there were men enough to keep them warm.

"There do not be enough for each man to have one every night," another archer shouted amidst ribald guffaws, "So don't you be thinking your arse be safe now, young Mat," and, indeed, Mat Longstaff, being not yet seventeen, had an arse that had seen much cock.

"They have holes and cunnys more suited to a cock like yours than is mine," young Mat called back, "Did I not have need to ask if you had it in, for I could feel nothing?"

Such exchanges of insult were done with great good humour and no malice intended nor perceived, for such is the nature of men who kill and burn for a living.

"All may use one when they are free from duty or from training," Sir Robert announced, "But for the nights there are too few for each man. Jack Acre will divide all into companies of a hundred, and each company will be made of men you stand beside in battle. I will have no dispute on this, and every man amongst you will have young arse or cunny for his cock two nights in six."

Other bands of murderous men may well have come to blows and killing, but Sir Robert's routiers had discipline and saw the sense of his dictate, and indeed much sense there was in it, for men who fight together and fuck together develop a sense of common purpose and bond that holds them close when battle comes.

Mercenary men have more to do in the winter than just fuck and wait for warmer, killing, weather to arrive again. Killing is a trade that must be worked at; at other trades a man may lose custom if he grows lazy and careless, but if killing is his trade and he is not a master of it, then he gets slain instead of slaying.

For many, war is more strength than cunning, cunning is for commanders not for men in the line of battle. It takes strength to smash a man to death with mace, axe or sword, it takes strength to handle a nine foot pike, it takes strength to pull a warbow, and so Sir Robert's men spent many winter hours working on muscle and sinew, and after such work, they fucked.

That they could fuck and had young flesh to fuck kept them content, for what better place is there for a man to sink his cock in than the arse of a hairless boy or the cunny of a girl not old enough to bleed?

That the owners of those arses and cunnys suffered some may not be doubted, but arses and cunnys stretch with use, and throats learn how to open and swallow cock as easily as they swallow food, and though they were put to much use, all always had food to swallow, which in their peasant villages was not always so in winter.

More use was found for them also, for their small hands and nimble fingers were good for the careful smoothing of ash shafts, the plucking and trimming of white goose feathers, the fletching of those feathers to smooth ash shafts and the spinning of the hempen cords that would send those shafts on their deadly flights.

The English warbow was the most deadly weapon of its age, but a warbow is of no use if it does not have arrows to loose and arrows are needed by the thousand.

Chateau Rouliers became a place where arrows were made by their thousands.

What to do when killing summer came again concerned Sir Robert more than some little. The villages for many miles around had been burned to the ground, the peasants slain and the children taken for fucking. Churches had been looted of their gold and silver, and what was needed was a war, but Edward and Jean maintained their uneasy peace while both sought ways to raise the money they needed to go to war again.

"Thank God you remain so young and smooth," Sir Robert muttered aloud his thought as he caressed Raoul's delightful, slender form.

He had not intended to speak his thought so it should be heard, but heard it was by Raoul, who smiled at the pleasure of hearing it.

"No thanks to God," the smooth boy licked his rosy lips, "But thanks instead to a wise Moor of Florence who has the secret of how to hold nature at bay for a year or two."

"It was in Florence that I won you," Sir Robert recalled, "Have you never had regret that I did so? That I took you from your Chevalier?"

Sir Robert had never made enquiry of Raoul of his past; the past is past and only the present and the future matter.

"Why should I so?" the boy asked in his turn, "It was my destiny to be lost and won. Why should I not embrace it?"

"Your destiny?" Sir Robert repeated, "Now you may so think, but then? Did you not have hopes that your Chevalier would win the wager? You were but ten, could have no knowing of destiny." Sir Robert said that more to convince himself than as a thing of certainty, for he could not but recall the willingness with which the boy he had won had come to his bed, made offer of his body.

"The Chevalier took me as his page when I was seven," Raoul recounted his history, "My father slain by the English in battle and I for a monastery had he not taken me. He took me from his kindness, but also from his desire, though he ever fucked me with gentleness and care. I have some affection for him for that, and glad I am that he did not ride with the French that day in the autumn and we be obliged to slay him."

"And I," Sir Robert agreed with some feeling, "If only for that he taught you how to fuck."

"Lo, Sir," Raoul grinned and pushed his hard slenderness against Sir Robert's thigh, "I think he had but little to teach me. Fucking is in my nature. Even from the first I took much pleasure in the Chevalier's cock, and I but seven then. But to my story, Sir, for in truth, I did not come to you by chance. When first I set eyes on you I knew of your desire for me, even at that first sight of me your eyes burned with lust, and what boy of ten is there who does not have liking to be so desired, and have a man of such a reputation as yours to lust for him? What, I wondered much, would it be to be fucked by one such as you, a man, ruthless in battle with many dead by his sword?
It was in such contemplation, seated by a fountain, my brow furrowed in thought, that a kindly Moor made approach to me. He questioned not the furrows in my brow, but took my hand and gazed upon it, and said that soon my question would be answered, for within a week would I be lost and won. This, Sir, before you made your wager with the Chevalier, and when I enquired his meaning, he said only that I must follow my destiny and be true to the boy I was. Thus, when I learned of the wager made, I knew I would be lost to the Chevalier and won by you, and I would find what it is to be fucked by a man like you."

"I should make thanks to this Moor of yours," Sir Robert smiled, pulling close the smooth, slender boy, "For though he be nothing more than a wandering teller of fortunes, his words brought you willing to my bed."

"More than a teller of fortunes," Raoul continued, "He told me also what I must do to please you."

"Not, I think a thing of any mystery. Who is there that does not know how a boy may please a man?"

"And how should a boy of ten, though he have some great liking to be fucked, know how he may please a man who has little knowledge of boys? Save that, as a page himself, he was fucked from time to time, and as a man, uses boys only when no cunny is there to be found? You lusted for me because I was young and smooth and slender and more than common pretty. I made present of my body to you and you fucked me, and then you slept."

The boy's words were true, and Sir Robert felt the shame of them. He had lusted for the beautiful boy, though he had never felt lust for a boy before. He had lusted for the small, slender delicacy of the boy's form, lusted for the tightness of his young arse, and lusted much because, by the boy's age, he would be smooth and hairless.

It was lust for the boy's slender hairless body, though he had seen it only clothed, lust for the clenching tightness of his young arse, though as a page, that arse would know already of cock, lust to cover the boy's small and slender frame with his own, scarred by battle full grown man's body, lust to mount him and spend seed in him. Sir Robert would have killed for that lust, yet when the boy, without shame, revealed his glorious nakedness and made present of it to him, Sir Robert had fucked him once and slept.

"I feel still the shame of it," Sir Robert confessed to the naked boy he held close, "I knew nothing of the wonder of a boy, knew only that they had arses that may be used when no cunny could be had."

"Yet still you wagered gold in hope to win me," Raoul whispered softly, "Why should you do that? Why risk such as sum as you did to win my arse when you had no great liking for boys? Was that not destiny?"

"I like not this talk of destiny," Sir Robert grunted, "True I felt great lust for you, and true also that I intended to have you. Had your Chevalier not yielded I would have battered him to death for your arse and had no care of it that I did so. No destiny but lust alone brought you to my bed."

"That lust is your destiny as it is mine," Raoul said, "And it burns as fierce now as it did when I was ten. Does that not seem strange to you? That you should lust for a boy who is fourteen now and not ten?"

"Fourteen he may be," Sir Robert smiled, "But only one thing is there about him that shows he is that age." Sir Robert reached for and took into his hand the stiletto slenderness of Raoul's cock, the hot, throbbing hardness of it raising desire in him as it always did.

"And does that not bring some wonder to your mind?" Raoul whispered, though his voice was one of matters more than desire alone, "That all of me, save that part you hold now in your hand, is of a boy who is not fourteen?"

"It is some wonder," Sir Robert agreed, feeling some need to caress the smooth body of the boy who was his page, his mistress and his lover, "But it is a wonder I do not question but give thanks for."

"It is no wonder, Sir," the boy confessed, "But the art of a Moor of Florence."

"How so?" Sir Robert started, though he held still the slender hard cock of the boy, "A Moor of Florence? And his art? Do you speak of sorcery?"

"The black Hounds of God would call it such," Raoul confirmed, "But the magic is one of physic and no forbidden art, save by the Church."

Sir Robert had a fear of witchcraft as great as any man and a fear also of what the Hounds of God did to those suspected of it.

"If sorcery then never must it be spoken of," he hissed, "I would not have you cast into the flames. Not so, even if you be a devil in disguise of a boy and have bewitched me these four years."

"Have no fears of that, my lord," Raoul spoke softly, "If I do be a devil I have no knowledge of it, and if you are bewitched, it is by my boy's beauty alone that it is so. Though, Sir, I must confess that it is by the art of the Moor of Florence, that I have that beauty still."

Then Raoul made confession of all that had been and Sir Robert ignorant of, how he had seen the Moor again after his first fucking by Sir Robert and wept that it had been as though his new master had but fucked a casual peasant boy, and wept for his distress that lust now gone, he would be cast aside.

The Moor had comforted him read his hand and made a chart of his stars, and bid him bring a lock of his master's hair that the Moor may read his stars also. This Raoul had contrived to do, hiding a trimming of Sir Robert's beard until he could take it to the Moor, who asked if Sir Robert fucked him still, and the manner of the way he fucked him.

Then he had made a divination of Sir Robert's humours and said that Sir Robert knew nothing of the wonders of boys, but that he could be brought to learn them.

Raoul, he said, must learn to use his hands and mouth and also the power hidden inside his arse to give his master pleasure, and doing this was common knowledge amongst the boys of his country of Al Andalus where boys were held in greater esteem by far than were girls.

The Chevalier had never requested that his cock should be nursed and nourished as the Moor instructed Raoul should do now with Sir Robert's cock, and the message was strange to him, but if it was his destiny to be Sir Robert's page, then it must be also his destiny to give pleasure as much as he could to Sir Robert's cock.

"The more pleasure a man finds in a boy," the Moor had told him, "The more he will learn that his pleasure is greater if he pleasures also the boy."

Raoul must, the Moor had told him, find ways to give cause to Sir Robert to beat him, for second only to the pleasure of fucking a boy is the pleasure of beating him, and always, when beaten or fucked, Raoul must contrive for his own little cock to harden so it was plain how much he found enjoyment in what was done to him.

Raoul had then found a way to discover the date of Sir Robert's birth, and from that the Moor had cast a chart of the knight's stars, and made comparison of the chart with that of Raoul.

"He desires you for you are young, slender and hairless," the Moor declared, "And for as long as you are so will he desire you still. This is no secret it needs the stars to make discovery of, for you are young and pretty, and many men would have desire to fuck you for that alone, but there is a secret here in his chart that Sir Robert has no knowing of, and one in yours that you have some slender understanding of, and the two must come together."

That secret, the Moor told Raoul, was his cock. Raoul knew, said the Moor, by instinct that his cock was as important as his arse, though at ten, he had no cock to speak of. Sir Robert, he said, would wish for Raoul to stay young, slender and hairless, though he would come to wish for Raoul's cock to grow so he may find pleasure and delight in that as much and more as he found in Raoul's arse.

Raoul knew then that the words the Moor spoke were true; had Raoul not said, though he knew not why he said it, when first he revealed his nakedness to Sir Robert, that his tiny cock was Sir Robert's to do with as he wished?

The Moor then sucked in his breath, as traders do when asked to name a price, for more had he discovered in Sir Robert's chart.

"Sir Robert," he'd said, "Will want your cock to grow, but he will not desire it to grow as the cocks of boys normally grow. Length he will want, but no thickness. Your cock no thicker then that now it is when hard, but longer by times more than two or even three. He will want you as a young boy still when you are no longer such a one, but your cock he will want not as a young boy's cock, though as near to one as may be."

Binding tight his cock so when it grew hard it could lengthen but not expand in girth would suffice, but to do so would require the knowledge and consent of Sir Robert as he had great liking for Raoul to be unclothed, and this should be a thing Sir Robert had no knowing of.

The Moor then examined with great care Raoul's fingers and his feet and said that all the signs were that Raoul's cock would not grow thick.

"More girth than now it has, but never the thickness most boys would long for," he had smiled, perhaps in some relief. "A lotion I can contrive for you that, applied regularly to the skin, will much slow the growth of any hair, and a potion also that, if taken at the proper time and in the proper dose, will slow the growing of the body some, so that at fifteen you will seem no more than twelve. It will take much time and care to make that potion so it affects not the growing of your cock, and never must you take more than the prescribed dose, or your balls may never drop and you never make seed."

Sir Robert needed to hear no more to be certain that sorcery and witchcraft were involved; how else could Raoul appear as a boy no older than twelve save for his cock, a cock no boy of twelve could own? How else could it be that the boy's cock alone showed the passing of four years, the rest of him little different from the boy of ten Sir Robert had won and fucked? And even that cock had not grown as boys' cocks grow by nature; lengthen it had, but thickened almost not at all, so it was indeed a stiletto of flesh.

"That Moor is a sorcerer," Sir Robert said, "He bewitched you, and by his forbidden arts you have bewitched me. This," he held firmly Raoul's slender cock, "Is a magician's wand and it holds me in its power."

"No magic, Lord, save only that natural magic that is in the flesh of boys all," Raoul said softly, "The magic that drives men to lust for them as you lust still for me. True that I am small and hairless by his art, and true that he gave me knowledge of the skills I may employ with my hands, mouth and arse to give you pleasure, and true also that he contrived a potion that would let my cock grow when the rest of me did not, he reading in your stars that you would come to have great liking for my cock and take much pleasure from it and give me much pleasure also that you did so."

"Magic or nature or art, I care not," Sir Robert sighed, "I care only that your body is young and hairless and that your cock is long, slender and hard."

Sir Robert had made determination to go south again to Italy when the thaw came, and place his men in service of the Duke of Florence there for one more year.

The pay was good, and though there was but little fighting to be done, a little fighting is better than no fighting at all for men who live for war. A hundred of his older men he would leave to keep Chateau Rouliers safe, men whose best killing days were behind them and who would be content to temper the boredom of being guardians by making much use of their cocks, as there would be young cunny and arse sufficient for each man to sup his fill there, both by day and by night.

Another reason Sir Robert had for his decision, and that to make acquaintance of the Moor who had bewitched him and Raoul both, and discover if there was yet more magic to be used.

This noble aim came to naught, and that by no fault of Sir Robert, for with the thaw came a messenger to Chateau Rouliers, with a letter for Raoul and news for any who would hear it.

The news was that, having grown tired of peace, the Black Prince, son of King Edward of England, had determined to make try for Paris, and would bring a small army to France, and wished to grow his numbers by enlisting for aid as many bands of routiers as would join him in his venture.

Such news was a delight to Sir Robert as it brought the prospect of war, and nothing thrills a man of war as does the excitement of battle. Slaughtering ignorant peasants cannot compare with the joy of slaying a man in battle; the noise as steel clashes steel and men and horses scream in agony from their wounds; the stench as bowels empty and blood and intestines make footing slippery and dangerous – it is for this that men of war train and long for, not the burning of peasants in their hovels.

But more news there was, and news that gave even Sir Robert pause for thought, for it seemed that the stinking peasants of France were rising in revolt, and in their thousands they would gather to waylay and slay those routiers that answered the call of the Black Prince.

This was news that reached the ears of Sir Robert's men and caused talk more than some amongst them; a thousand or two peasants ranged against them was no cause for concern, but the rumours brought by the messenger were of gatherings ten times that number, and a host as vast as that was, indeed a matter of concern.

The letter that messenger brought for Raoul was not of war or of a peasant rising, but contained instruction as to what he must do when the effects of the potion he took began to fade.

"That is done when the last has been consumed," the Moor wrote, "And in time your body will begin again to grow and you will turn from boy to youth. Your body will stay slender still and your cock not thicken, for that has grown as nature intended it to grow. Fear not that you will grow too fast, for at twenty it is like you will seem as a slender youth of seventeen, and your lord still find desire some to fuck you.
Hairless you may stay, for the lotion you use on your skin has no effect but to slow the growth of hair, though you will need to use it more often as you age. The receipt for it is simple and I give it freely to you that you may have it made for your use.
But, and this I told you most plain before you left my city, that your lord will come to have more desire for your cock than for your arse, and some trickery and cunning you should make resort to that he has ever wish for your cock, even as your body grows.
That he has liking for your cock in his arse is written in his stars, and written also is that he finds he should not have wish for this, thinking it is not becoming for a man to be fucked by his page. Happier he will be if he does penance for his desire, so when he shows wish for your cock to fuck him, present him with a birch wand and beg him beat you with it, for you are the cause of his transgression. And instruct him that he must beat you on the parts that are most tender, the backs and insides of your thighs are most painful places, and even upon your balls, as doubtless he will have wish to do, should you present them to him as I advise.
Always at such times must they be tied tight, and drawn up into a pouch and so raise lust in him, and this lust you may more than satisfy when you fuck him after, for that cord around your balls will greatly slow the flowing of your seed and build also your desire to seed, that you will fuck him fiercely and for much time.
Follow always your nature. May your God protect you."

There was enclosed both the receipt for the smoothing lotion, and also a drawing of how the balls should be tied as the Moor had described.

Sir Robert delayed his decision as to where to go for the summer's killing; Florence called to him but so too did the war promised by the English Prince. The joy of seeing French knights in their thousands cut down by English arrows was a joy he longed to see again, but to reach Paris he must needs cross France from bottom to top, and how to do this without being trampled by many thousands of stinking peasants?

Intelligence reached him that the peasants in revolt were not content with merely waylaying and slaughtering routier bands, they turned also their attention to the Chateaux of nobles who had failed to protect them, allowed their villages to be burned, and they burned those chateaux in revenge and slaughtered all within them, and it was like that Chateau Rouliers may come to their attention.

James Acre it was who was pushed forward by the men to speak on their behalf, he being most senior amongst them.

"We'd all like a nice pretty war, Sir Robert, that we would, but with the land in uproar as it is, it be most like we would never get to Paris, and should we hop over the hills into Italy we would leave this place undefended, and we have come to have some affection for it and for the comforts you have provided for us in it.
The thinking is, Sir Robert, that with all them peasants being revolting, they don't be in their hovels, villages and their churches with nothing but old men to defend them. Should we send out a band of say a hundred, we could range further to the north and come to places not yet raided, plunder the churches and collect the boys to bring back here.
No killing and burning, Sir, just a little rape and plunder. Be like a summer holiday, Sir."

Raoul hid a smile at James Acre's words – it had not gone unnoticed by him that during the long winter, men had developed a greater liking for arse than for cunny, girls now walked with a greater ease than did the boys.

The threat of assault by a peasant army was real enough for Sir Robert to abandon plans for Florence and hopes for a war near Paris both, and he gave order for James Acre to divide his force in four; one quarter to ride out each month and return before the end of it with whatever plunder they could scavenge, be that in gold or silver or in boys.

Four hundred men were sufficient to hold the chateau against any peasant assault if such assault should come.

An assault did come, and in the very first month of the killing season. Sir Robert's scouts – Chateau Rouliers had good walls but Sir Robert did not defend his chateau by just sitting behind those walls, if there was an enemy coming for him he wanted to know how many, how organised and how best to kill them – brought news that a band of peasants, perhaps five thousand strong, were some two days shambling march away, and heading for the chateau.

The mountains were behind it, the chateau built originally to guard the road to Italy and to tax any merchants using that road, and the land before it had been cleared of forest and scrub, giving some six hundred paces of open ground for attackers to cross, room to ride any down by a sortie should numbers permit. The attack, when it came, would burst from the forest six hundred paces distant, and for four hundred of those paces, those who came would be slain by arrows.

"No need for markers," Will the Bastard, a burly archer, so named as he was bastard by birth as well as by nature, observed, "Not a man amongst us cannot judge the distance he may kill at."

"And no need for markers you will not see," Sir Robert replied, "These are not French noblemen who come against us in their pretty colours, these are peasants, scum like us, who, like us, will come at night, concealed in darkness. James!" Sir Robert called for James Acre, and when that man came, he gave his order. "By daylight, ten archers on the walls, eyes fixed on that forest, and changed each hour, for their eyes will tire. In darkness, fifty, and hope they see shadows moving in the dark. Change those each half hour, they must not strain their eyes."

"We have but one hundred and fifty archers, Sir Robert," James Acre said carefully, "With so little rest between watches, all will have tired eyes come daylight."

"Yet it must be archers that watch. No other men have such sight as they."

"No men, Lord," Raoul spoke. He stood as ever, beside Sir Robert; day or night the page was always beside his lord, save in the day he was clothed and not so at night, "But none have keener sight than boys. Let the boys keep watch while the bowmen sleep. They will need but a pikeman or two to warn should they see moving shadows come against us."

"They are of the same stock as those who come in hope to kill us," Sir Robert reminded his page, "Are they not as like to open gate for them as warn us of their coming?"

"Have you learned so little of boys in four years?" Raoul said softly, his rosy lips curving in a smile that showed most plain the nature of the boy he was and of what he spoke, "Do not they now have food in their bellies every day? Do they not sleep warm at night, even in the coldest of the winter? Do they not have men to pleasure them, and do they not know that men seek for them more than they seek now for girls? Think you they would change all this to return to a peasant hut and toil in some stony field? And even should they do so, do they not know that if we die they also die?"

Even if there were boys amongst them who liked it not that they were fucked, there could be no doubt that there were not boys who had some wish to die, and no doubt either that, should the peasant army prevail, none would be left living in Chateau Rouliers.

"The moon will be behind us," Raoul spoke his thoughts, "And watchers on the walls clear to see, but boys with blackened faces may peer through arrow slits and battlements, and none have any knowledge they are there and watch. The peasants are not soldiers, Lord, they will think us careless and unguarded."

Raoul would never have the form of a man who could do battle, but he had the mind of one who could command and see how battles may be won.

The boys did not display willingness when Raoul gathered them and told them what he wished; boys are ever boys, and peasant boys, though they be peasant boys who were fucked twice or more each day and night, they were no less boys than others. That they should play their part in battle excited them beyond bounds and they wished only that they had the strength to draw a bow and join the killing to come.

"The forest is moving!" a sibilant voice whispered in the dark of the dead of night.

"I can see it, too," another treble whisper and more and more as boy after boy spotted moving shadows and hissed their excited warnings.

"Right about their eyes, " an archer whispered as he struggled to string his bow without standing, "Good with them as with their arses."

"Running or walking?" an instantly awake and alert Sir Robert asked the nearest boy.

"Coming slow, like they don't want to make a noise," the boy cheeped.

"A minute then to be within range," Sir Robert calculated, "A minute and a half, then stand, nock, draw and loose for three hundred paces," he sent word to the archers who were still staying low, concealing themselves as much as was possible.

"Now!" he called, and the early summer night was filled with the fluttering flight of goose feathers, followed soon after by the soft thuds as arrows struck flesh, and the gurgles and cries of the peasants whose unprotected flesh had been torn by bodkin tipped cloth yard arrows.

"What do they do, boy?" Sir Robert asked his boy watcher, as more soft thuds and cries accompanied a second flight of arrows.

"Back to the forest," the boy gloated, "And faster than they came from it."

"Good! As I hoped," Sir Robert breathed with some relief that the peasants had been unnerved by death coming for them from the dark. "No more," he sent word to his bowmen, "No waste of arrows loosing at what you cannot see. They won't come again until they can see what it is that kills them."

"I can't see how many, sir," the boy said sadly, "It's difficult to see them on the ground, but we did kill several. I saw some shadows fall."

"We'll see in the morning, lad," Sir Robert patted the boy on his head, "The men will be grateful to you for your eyes."

"I hope so, sir," the boy's voice was full of innocence, "I like it when the men are nice to me."

Morning light showed no more than twenty or so dead and that number again still living, but unable to crawl to the safety of the forest. The boys begged to be allowed out with knives to slit throats, pleading that they could run back to safety if any rushed from the forest while they were dispatching wounded peasants.

"If we have archers standing ready," James Acre suggested, "And the boys are slow cutting throats and pulling arrows from the ground to bring back, I believe some could be enticed from cover in hope of getting at the boys, and we could send a few more to whatever room in Hell it is that revolting peasants go to."

The boys were much excited by that, not only would they be able to cut a few throats and watch blood spurt, but they would have the thrill of hearing ash shafts fly over their heads and even be able to turn and watch men struck down by them. It was the stuff of dreams for peasant boys.

"They'll be beyond satisfying after," Mat Longstaff grinned widely, he still being young enough to know the need his cock and his arse felt both after his first battle, "There won't be a man amongst us with a straight shaft in the morning."

James Acre was right, and a hundred or so rushed from the forest, thinking to kill boys, but fell instead to goose feathered ash shafts before they reached near them.

"Leave them!" Acre bellowed as the boys turned intent on finding more throats to cut, "We need the arrows you carry!"

The archers did not, enough arrows had been made in the winter to kill ten times five thousand, but the boys, believing they carried yet more death in their hands, took notice and ran back to the safety of the chateau's walls.

Then the killing began in some earnest as enraged peasants flooded from the forest and the archers slew them at will, sending shaft after killing shaft amongst them while the watching boys cheered at the glory of it.

Perhaps a thousand died that morning, but the peasants had five times that number and so they came again and yet more arrows flew and more peasants died, and none had reached within two hundred paces of the walls.

Only a hundred and fifty archers, but each man loosing ten shafts a minute; a thousand and a half bodkin tipped arrows of ash falling into massed, unarmoured men, charging so close together there was no need to aim, they fell like reaped barley.

"They will come once more, I think," Sir Robert said, "And the next time we will sortie forth and kill as many as we can reach. We want no peasant army to interrupt our summer holiday."

And so it was; the peasants came once more and once more arrows slew them and when their charge faltered, the chateau gates opened and two hundred and fifty mounted killers, armed with mace, sword and axe, tore into them and sent almost all to Hell.

Mat Longstaff was right also, for that night eager boys serviced with a will any cock that came near them with arse and mouth, and often both at once, so high had their spirits been aroused.

Sir Richard's spirits and desired had been raised also by the killing, for such is the nature of men that they have need to fuck when they have killed, but Sir Richard's desire was not for the arse of Raoul, but for his slender cock.

To be mounted by a boy of seeming twelve, but with a cock older by some years than that, was a lust and desire known only to the knight, his page and a Moor in Florence, and was a lust and desire Sir Richard believed he should not have.

Raoul saw this lust and desire in his master's eyes and knew it was both his destiny and his duty to give satisfaction to this lust. He tied up his balls as the Moor had instructed so they hung not but pouched below his cock, and presented thus his nakedness to Sir Richard, birch wand in hand.

"Lord," he said, `I know the great desire you have for my cock and that I should mount and ride you, and I know also that you fear much that this desire you should not have. I have ridden you before and much time upon your knees making penance for it after and this should not be so.
There is no sin in a man riding a boy; though the scriptures say a man must not lie in that fashion with a man, but no mention is there of boys. The sin then, should I mount and ride you, is not yours but mine, for when we do such, do not you play the boy and I the man? Yet though you play the boy, still are you a man, and the sin is mine for it is I that rides a man and lies with him in a way that is forbidden.
It is I then, that must do penance. So you must beat me, Lord, and in places where I will feel most pain, and you must beat me, Lord, till you have driven sin from me, and then will I be fit to mount and ride you."

"My lust is great," Sir Richard confessed, "And I do long much for you to sheath your flesh stiletto in my arse, but should I beat you first, my lust unsated, I will not beat you gently, for you must know a man's desire is raised most great by the beating of a boy."

"My pain and screams will be my penance," Raoul handed his lord the birch, "And any sin you feel you must expiate, you will do by causing me to scream. But after, Lord, I will ride you at full gallop, this cord around my balls will much delay the flowing of my seed, yet by doing so it will also increase my desire for my seed to flow, and I will thrust into you deep and hard and fast until it does."

So it was, and never again did sin need to made penance for; be it boy riding man or man astride boy, who was rider and who mount mattered not, for both found pleasure and delight in the gallop.

The turmoil that was France as peasants revolted and Counts and Barons raised men to subdue those peasants, having little care for the time for routiers who scoured the land, gave Sir Robert's band full leave to raid villages that were lived in but by the old and young, and when the men of Sir Robert left such a village, the old and the young still lived, though less of the young remained than before, the boys taken to Chateau Rouliers.

With great care Raoul studied the boys that were brought, seeking for one Sir Robert would find pleasing to fuck. A boy, fair of face and slender of form, with fingers long and thin, though when he found one, still would he have that boy's cock bound tight in case the Moor's words were not always true and a boy's fingers did not always show how his cock would grow.

Raoul would stay a boy for another year, perhaps for two, but the time would come when he could no longer pass for page but be grown to squire's size, and what man is there who would have wish to fuck a squire?

"The lotion to keep all smooth and hairless I have knowledge of," Raoul said to his lord, "But of the potion to keep one young I am ignorant. But as each boy grows too old for you, another will I find. That is my duty as well as my destiny."

"Your cock, I think, will please me for a while yet," Sir Robert said thoughtfully, "Though as I am a man it is indeed natural that I should wish for arse that is young and tight, for such is the way of things. And natural also that, as you grow from page to squire, your cock will find desire for such arse, and that desire you must not deny yourself, for to do so would be most unnatural."

"Then, Sir," Raoul smiled, "I will begin my search amongst the boys brought to us, for one to give you pleasure."

"I would have us share that pleasure," Sir Robert declared, and as his page was naked, for it was an hour of darkness, he reached for that part of Raoul that he had come to wish for most. "You were fucked first when you were seven, but not by me till you were ten. It would please me much if so were with the boy you find for me. Find one of the age you were and teach him how to be fucked as you were taught, and when he is ten I will take him from you and you may search for and train another."

This instruction greatly pleased Raoul, for he did indeed find a wish for young, tight arse to be growing in him and should he do as his master wished, then still would their destinies be joined together.

He thought to pass instruction to the next group of one hundred who would ride to near deserted villages that they should take boys as young as six or seven, but the need to do this was overtaken by the return of others, who brought in their wagons boys younger even than that.

"You said ones that were old enough for monks and priests to fuck," the German Gotfreid who had led that group explained, "And it seemed to us that old enough to walk was old enough for the priests we came across."

That the men of Sir Robert's band of killers had sympathy with those priests was made much evident by their calls of approval, and Sir Robert was obliged to make a ruling that no boy must be fucked until he were seven, less his arse be ruined by cock too large for him to take, though that was not so with his mouth.

So greatly did the men of Sir Robert come to understand the wonder of boys' bodies, that talk amongst them began of how they may enjoy boys not just in the winter, and that fucking boys was greater pleasure even than killing.

"How would it be, Sir Robert," James Acre once more the spokesman, made suggestion, "If we took under our protection all the villages for two day's ride? Your flag we would fly from their churches' towers that all would know they belong to us, and some little harmless killing would no doubt be needed should any baron or routier band disagree. Those villages would supply us with the victuals we need and they could pay their rents with boys."  

Raoul, who had heard of this thought of the men, added one of his own.

"Chateau Rouliers was built to guard the road to Italy," he said, "And should we not return it to that purpose? We will be as the Knights of the Hospital and make safe passage for all who travel that road. Merchants we may tax, and may it not be that pilgrims may wish to leave their boys with us while they make their dangerous way to Rome, and as it is a most dangerous road, many may never return for the boys they left."

Such cunning thinking appealed much to all, for there were bandits aplenty on that road who must be encountered and slain and wealth would come by taxes paid by merchants and also boys some from deluded pilgrims.

Sir Robert's band rode no more through France, killing and burning, but protected villages and guarded travellers, and while they did so, they fucked also boys.

 

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