The Gift, Chapter 02

Chapter 2

"I do not understand it," I said

"What’s so strange about it?" Asked Lord Tesuan and smiled a teasing smile.

"It is strange! I told him I was going to find someone to take him over, and I promised him I would find someone that would treat him good. I meant it too, mind you, I wouldn’t just let anyone take him. And then he looks up at me, and I’ve never seen a single flare of life in those…figurine eyes before but then he looks up at me and says he doesn’t intend to leave me."

Lord Tesuan looked sincerely surprised for a change I noticed. "Did he really say that?"

"Not in so many words. But he actually said he would rather die than having me leave him in the city. I guess he meant it, he wouldn’t risk talking back to me otherwise."

"I’m sure he did mean it. You find it strange that he wants to remain in your service?"

"I sure do."

"Why?"

"Well," I felt myself go a bit red, "I haven’t exactly been treating him very nicely. I have been slapping him around a little, when being in a bad mood… he hasn’t really deserved it."

"He’s a slave, he expects, as much, I’m sure there are many persons here more brutal than you are. Besides, how do you treat the slaves in your land? Like princes?"

"No, no, but we don’t keep that kind of… well, fragile types."

"Well, as he is still alive after your rough treatment he may not be as fragile as he looks."

"I guess not…"

"So, what’s it really about?"

The old man read you like an open book, but I was not going to tell him, I couldn’t talk of it, to him or anyone. He read me better than I could have imagined though. I was shook up by his next comment.

"I know you used him, if that’s what you mean, don’t worry about it. It shook him up I would imagine, but he’s quite fine with it now I would think."

"My God… How did you…? I’ll kill the little bastard! He told you? I can’t believe he told you."

Lord Tesuan laughed at my horrid, shamed and angered expression and for the first time I was really angry with him for laughing at me. How utterly embarrassing this whole matter was. At least I’d thought no one knew.

"Calm down, my friend, please. He hasn’t said a word. That’s the truth. Do you really think he would dare talk about your private life? No, he’s quiet about your affairs, believe me, unfortunately his body can’t be trusted as much. I saw he had bled through."

"Bled through?" I didn’t understand.

"You were unnecessarily brutal in this case though, I must say, for a virgin that was not the best way to be introduced to such games. You could actually have killed him you know? Well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed he must have got quite… torn. I saw bloodstains at his trousers. So, I figured…"

I looked away "Oh my… you are not making me feel better. I didn’t know he had never… Are you sure? Well, I never meant to be that hard on him, I was drunk and…"

"You don’t have to excuse yourself. He’s supposed to be used like that too and you have all the rights to do it any way you please. I know many that drive even more pleasure from adding such harsh elements to the act. I know a few boys like him that quite enjoy it too. Though personally I think it a waste on good slaves…"

I interrupted him feeling still quite angry and ashamed. "Well, I didn’t intend to use him at all, it just happened because I was drunk and he reminded me of a woman… and I had… a bad experience in the city at night and… Well, I don’t play games like that. I feel bad about hurting him that much and I can not believe that he enjoyed it the least. If he is… was, a virgin as you will have it, how can he like this or the other, he can’t have much notion of anything?"

"True." Lord Tesuan smiled

"Well it makes it even stranger that he would want to stay with me, doesn’t it?

Lord Tesuan shrugged. "Maybe, but I will tell you why you got him…"

"I know why, the Emir wanted to give me a nice present."

"Yes, but I’ll tell you why you got him and not anyone else. No one else has ever wanted him as long as he’s been here, and the court saw a chance to get rid of him and give the diplomat from the mountains a nice enough gift at the same time."

I blushed slightly again from sheer indignation. Wasn’t that a sort of insult if any? "Did they set me up? What’s wrong with him?"

"Nothing at all, really, nothing. There was no insult in that gift, nor was the intention to insult you in any way. They thought you of a different character than most people here, and you really are, being from another culture. They simply took the chance of you coping with him better. No, there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s healthy enough and has good manners, obedient and skilled in the art of servitude. He’s pretty enough too, he could compete with most of the Emir’s own harem I dare say, but don’t mention to the Emir that I said that, he’s kind of sensitive about his women."

"Then what is it about him?"

"His mood, his very personality. He’s so… gloomy, never smiles, always serious, silent and thoughtful. You said it yourself, dead eyes. People here are superstitious. They want boys and girls who are happy and content. Who can cheer them up and spice up their life. Who laughs pretty and sings well. His seriousness makes no one happy. He’s intelligent my friend, they notice it and feels he sees through them, they don’t like it. They sense his mind work behind those dull eyes and that expressionless face. He certainly tries to please everybody but he can’t fake cheerfulness. People think that gloomy sullen mood contagious. They think he’s got the "evil eye". Once that rumor started no one wanted him near. He’s been totally ostracized and lonely here in the palace for quite many years now. That he wants to stay with you is not strange at all. You do see him differently than the others here do. Every human being needs attention. Painful attention is better than no attention at all. Believe me, he doesn’t hate you for using him, though he might have wished it had been less painful. He probably even loves you for using him… no one else has even wanted to touch him before."

"That’s sick!" I exclaimed, quite upset.

Lord Tesuan didn’t abandon his amused smile "But true nevertheless. He wants to stay with you because you care about him. A few punches now and then are a low price to pay. The curse of the evil eye lifted from him as soon as you took him, some pain and blood is a low price for being rid of it."

"I do not care about him." I objected sulkily.

"Oh I think you do."

"So, what are you saying? That I should take him with me?"

"Why not?"

"He can’t manage. There’s a long way to travel. Rough lands all the way and harsh climate. Can you se him making his way through passes and over rivers? Can you even see him on horseback? Or walking mile after mile? Can you see him in snow and blizzards? And the risks of bandits on every part of the trail… Can you imagine what they would do to him if they got hold of him?"

"What does it matter if he can’t manage it, I thought you didn’t care about him?"

"Well… I don’t want him to die."

"He would be better of. He can’t change his nature. You will have no problem selling him in the city. Good families would pay a large sum for him and treat him good. Those good looks of his would attract buyers, no doubt. But after a short while they’ll discover that that sulky mood of his isn’t just some temporary thing brought on by being sold. As my people sees it he’s just not normal and where ever he goes he’ll be ostracized. I’m sure he himself thinks it’s better being dead. I guess if you too cast him aside, he will probably kill himself, he has that in him. Why don’t you keep him? I know there’s something about him that annoys you, but it’s not his gloomy thoughtfulness or his intelligence, right? Rather the opposite, that he tries to hide it. You know instinctively that the dead look in his eyes isn’t connected with his somber mood. It’s because he’s forced to be ashamed of it."

"How come you’re the only one here to see it then?"

"I don’t think I am, but I’m old and wise enough not to care. His evil eye curse, doesn’t scare me, I’m too old to play with boys anyway. Some do see it, but doesn’t want to bother. There has been a hidden interest in him; people just don’t want to go against the public opinion."

"All right then, I’ll tell him what he’ll face if he comes with me and then he can choose for himself."

"Yes, you can do that and then you should punish him."

"Punish him? For what?"

"For talking back to you, if you told him your plans concerning his future, he shouldn’t have disagreed."

I shook my head. "I don’t understand you, you did all this talking on his behalf and then you think I ought to punish him?"

"Oh, it’s all about principles. Do take care of him, he deserves it. Let him serve you the way he knows how, that’s what you deserve. You even might let yourself love him, and by all means, let him love you. But in between, treat him like you would treat any slave that’s a matter of principles. And principles are important for a real man. He is not a real man so he may falter in this field, you shouldn’t. Don’t let him cross any lines of conduct and get away with it just because you are weak for him. And do by all means feel guilty if you treat him unfairly, that’s a sound reaction, but don’t let him see you do. How you treat him is none of his business. You can be good to him without letting him think you weak."

"All right, I understand. But I’m not weak for him."

Lord Tesuan just smiled and didn’t seem to believe what I was saying. I didn’t care what he thought. Of course I wasn’t weak for that slave that was just nonsense. In my country, in the mountains, we had no such slaves. We didn’t have the need to be waited on. At least not young and healthy persons like myself. No, slaves were for hard work and hard work alone. They were only beasts of burdens to us and we had no relations to them, we certainly didn’t get intimate with them.

We were proud men that took care of ourselves. I would have absolutely no use for him when I returned to my own land. If he were an anomaly here, it would be nothing compared to what he would be considered there. If I let him serve me there like he did here I would be an object of ridicule. I felt ashamed of myself. I had really gone weak living here and for only such a short time too. I had got much too used to these luxuries and their ways of living. Maybe Lord Tesuan was aware of this, maybe not, either way it seemed a bad idea to follow his advice and take him with me. Well, I have always been bad at listening to myself…

>>> * <<<

"If you go with me I can’t assure you that you’ll even survive it, do you understand that?"

He nodded slightly but didn’t show any reaction in particular. Either he didn’t understand after all, or he didn’t care.

"Have you any notion of what my land are? Or even where it is? No? Do you realize how far away it is and how cold it is in wintertime? Do you know that we must pass several rivers? That we have to go through a deep forest and that we then will enter terrain where there are no trees at all and where the winds are strong enough to take such striplings as you with it?"

There was still no reaction.

"We can’t take any consideration to you; we can’t slow down because of you. You must keep up or we’ll have to leave you. Can you ride a horse? Yes? Where on earth have you learned that? Never mind. That’s one good thing. I’ll get you a horse and good clothes, but you will have to fend for yourself most of the time, get it?"

He nodded…

"Do you realize that it is not a civilized world out there? It’s lawless land, full of bandits, if a band steals you…"

A slight shudder but he nodded.

"And if you make it all the way… I really don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with you in my father’s house. Do you understand that there is none of your… kind, in my land? We don’t use servants like you at all. I could ask my father to let me keep you and he might be curious in an exotic object from this strange land. But if he sends you to the mines, where most of our slaves are, there’s nothing I can do about it."

He looked down and bit his lip. Not so sure anymore, ha? I thought. No wonder, he couldn’t possible imagine what it really would be like. I had tried to explain it to him but in reality it would probably be much worse for him.

"I have explained to you what’s in store for you if you come with me, and you know better yourself, better than I do, how your life will turn out if I leave you in the city, but I would think it must be a much better choice for you. I tell you all this because I will give you the choice. Think hard about it because that’s the only choice I will ever give you. You decide. Do you want to come with me despite all the hardships and the hazards, or do you want me to find you a buyer here? I’ll give you till tomorrow to think about it, but you can speak now if you want to ask me anything."

"If you don’t mind me saying so Master…" he started in hesitation and I ushered him on, "I think I know already… I want to come with you Master, if you’ll please let me?"

I stared at him in surprise. I had been quite sure he would change his mind after all I’d said. But he seemed persisted and bent on facing the unknown. Life here couldn’t possible be that bad. He looked up at me now and almost met my eyes. Strangely enough, for a second, the dead look was gone.

"I’ll ask you one more time, now think about it because after that it’ll be no turning back. Do you really want to come with me?"

"Yes Master." Was his simple reply, no hesitation in his voice now.

I must admit he impressed me. He might be small and lean and built like a woman, he might be effeminate and deprived of all manhood, but it seemed he had been born with the heart of a real man and that, they had not been able to remove.

>>> * <<<

He stood before me where I reclined at the fur-clad bunk. The tent was well heated and built to withstand worse weather than a house of stone would. We would ride out the blizzard here in perfect safety. I could here its muffled sound out there and now and then the tent covers shook in the powerful gusts of wind. Out there it would send arrows of snow and ice to blast the hides of all living things. But in here things were calm and still and warm… and he stood there before me.

He had removed all his clothes except the leather boots. The bootlegs reached up to the middle of his thighs and were hard bound with leather strings around them not to glide down. They were high enough not to let the deep snow in and were lined with the whitest of rabbit’s winter fur. The snowy white of the fur stood against his dark lean and smooth thighs, an appealing sight.

I let my eyes wander over his body where he stood, relaxed, arms at his side, his eyes at the ground. His bony hips protruded slightly, his flat stomach could still show for a deep navel that was a black well in that desert landscape. He was hairless like a doll, carved and polished from dark wood. He was still proportioned somewhat like a man and his shoulders were a bit wider than his hips. He had been lean when we left but the trip had so far been quite rough on him and he was really skinny now but he hadn’t complained about anything. His small frame filled me with a kind of tenderness.

I told him to turn around and he did without so much as a questioning look in his face. He never questioned my orders, not even in his head. I could never figure it out. I demanded of him that he fended for him self during our travels and he did, never bothered me. So thinking and acting on his own did not present any difficulties for him. Still, when we made camp and I allowed him to share my accommodations I demanded of him the absolute opposite, to totally submit to my wishes and never question anything. That didn’t present any difficulties for him either, obviously…

I looked at his back, there were faint scars on it. I had put them there. I hadn’t really meant to, I didn’t always know my own strength, but that was before, when still in the palace. Since we left I had not hit him once. Didn’t feel the urge to anymore. He didn’t annoy me as he used to. I did not know what had changed but his submission didn’t make me awkward anymore. He had proved to me that he had strength and pride, courage and even a mind of his own. I suppose I had discovered that these features all lay on another level, for him there was other ways of being true to them.

I told him to join me and he turned again and slid under the covers of my bunk. He sighed as he let himself glide near my body and I folded my arms around him. I felt his little warm body coming as close to me as it was humanly possible and I didn’t push him away. I kissed him…

>>> * <<<

It was still not a natural thing for me to do. But I did make love to him. For several reasons I told myself. First because I was a man. A real man and real men have urges and because there were no other ways to relieve those urges out here. There were no women here. There was only him. I did it because I was young and he was even younger and as smooth and soft skinned as any woman, his natural scent as fresh as any girl’s, his hair as soft. I did it because he had lashes as long and thick, lips as soft and full, teeth as white and smooth, voice as silky and a heart as passionate as any woman I’ve ever known. I did it because his eyes were not dead when we did it. I did it because he really enjoyed it. I did it, and, I admit that now when I’m old enough not to care about what people say anymore, because I really did care for him.

>>> * <<<

We passed dangerous land, lawless land and it was no man’s land. It was hard to believe anyone lived out here. I realized that more than before remembering the lush gardens of the palace I’d left. The warmth of their land seemed to be the natural climate for human beings to dwell in. And the richness of the greenery that grew everywhere, the multitude of colors of flowers and birds was something rarely seen in our land. Except when the gods "drew their multicolored curtains over our black skies" as our old nursemaids used to say when we as children stared wide-eyed at the northern lights.

It was hard to believe that anyone would want to live out here when there was a paradise down south. But as uneasy as I felt out here on these frozen fields I still longed for my father’s castle. Cold it may be but not as desolate and frozen as this wretched land. But people did live here. People had in spite of all chosen to live out here.

If you could call that a choice, because these were people that were welcome nowhere else and who valued their freedom more than their convenience. And that was the most positive thing that could be said about them because the reason to why they were shunned by every civilized nation was that they were bandits and rogues all of them. Not an honest thought in their minds, or any courage in their hearts. They had no compassion, no morals, no loyalty, no honor and certainly no other way to make a living out here than to rob all the unfortunate souls passing or nearing their desolate land.

For weeks we had sensed a presence and a few days earlier we had found evidence proving we really was being followed. We were constantly on our guard knowing that as soon as they found a weak spot they would attack us. There were obviously a large number of robbers in the pack otherwise they wouldn’t dare to nibble at the heels of a party of warriors from my father’s kingdom. They must know our strength but thinking they could still beat us if they greatly outnumbered us and managed to surprise us. At every moment we expected them to fall in our backs and even though none of us doubted that we could kill every one of those pathetic thieves and robbers it was still hard and put a lot of stress on us waiting for it to finally happen. And so we made plans to beckon them out.

>>> * <<<

I saw him halt suddenly, like he had bumped into an invisible wall. He arched his back and his head snapped back and for a few seconds he was like suspended in air in this position like a dancer or a playful horse frozen in time. But then he fell slowly backwards and landed softly in my arms. He looked like a pincushion…

Some twenty arrows stuck out from his body. They protruded from his chest, from his stomach, from his arms and from his thighs. My men came rushing past me avoiding me like a tidal wave the powerful rock. The enemy archers would not have time for another round. Their surprised screams of terror blended with my men’s roar of bloodthirst as the slaughter began.

But I sat still in the snow and held his little body in my arms. Why on earth had he done a stupid thing like that? Why would he jump in front of me? If he hadn’t I would have been the pincushion.

He was strangely enough still alive, but I knew he couldn’t remain so for long, I gave him at most a few minutes. He was conscious and he looked me in the eyes like he never used to do, his face stricken with pain. He tried to speak but only a gurgling sound was heard and a gush of blood welled out of his mouth and spurted over his chin like a waterfall. It couldn’t be long now. He knew it too, that he was about to die, he didn’t try to save his strength. He clawed the air with his hands and tried to grab at my shirt breast. I understood he wanted me to hold him tighter but there were just too many arrows in the way, I couldn’t get close to him. I let go of him and he sank down a bit in the deep snow. He might have thought I was about to leave him because his face now got the expression of real fear that it had lacked when he’d faced the archers. But I didn’t intend to.

With the fastest and strongest motion I could muster, to cause him as little pain as possible and before he would pass I broke the arrows at his torso as close to the skin as possible. His face twitched in unimaginable agonies as I did so but he didn’t signal for me to stop. As I finally finished I could take him in my arms again and this time hold him tight. I could feel the sharp ends of the broken arrow-shafts painfully prick my chest but I couldn’t have cared less. I held him tight and whispered soothingly in his ear, he buried his face at my neck and I could feel the warmth of his blood as it ran down my back at the inside of my shirt.

For a short moment he answered my embrace but then his arms went limp and fell back and a barely audible sigh in my ear told me it was all over. I let go of him then and he fell at his back in the snow as if he had been a rag doll. His eyes were still open but glazed over, as dead as when I first had looked into them, but now there was no way to revive them again. I drew my sword and stepped over his corpse and joined my men in the battle. I didn’t leave a single flare of life behind me…

>>> * <<<

The ground was too frozen for us to be able to bury him. We put him down directly on the snow covered ground and built a mound of stones over his shrouded remains. I hoped that would keep the wolves from ripping him apart and spread his gnawed bones across the land. Earlier I had myself taken care of his corpse. Cut every barbed arrowhead out of it. Washed the blood off his limbs, off his tattered chest, off his cold cheeks. I closed his staring eyes and forced his stiffening jaw to move so I could close his mouth and I wiped the clotted blood from his lips. And he looked as lovely as he had always done then, his face as pretty and I admit I shed tears thinking of the love he must have felt for me and that that beauty of his would soon be destroyed by the frost. And I admit I wept when I let the shroud cover his face. He would warm my bed no more…

>>> * <<<

But when we surrounded his grave to read him the last rites I was all gathered, it was not my nature to show weakness like that in front my men. I was even happy in a way that he had died the way he had. His courageous deed was the only thing that had given him the right to a burial like this. In my land, dead slaves were only slightly more worthless than living ones and their corpses were kicked over the edge of the nearest ravine, left as food for birds. If he had died any other way than saving their King’s son’s life my men would never had allowed me to show any respect for his dead body.

Now I watched in surprise that many of my men were touched too as we surrounded his lonely grave. I realized he had spent as much time with my men as with me on our travels back to our land and I suppose they had already then not quite seen him as just a simple slave for he looked nothing like the slaves they were used to. Sure they had at first thought him weak and small for being a man and felt contempt. But then he had proved his tenacious nature. And I think they learned to respect him in much the same manner that they respect our women who may be small and seem weak but who are as strong as our men in their minds and hearts if not in their bodies. I had let him fend for himself among my men and somehow he had charmed them.

No one shed any tears; they wouldn’t have done that even if I had died. But they were all present, they all stood with their eyes downcast, grave looks in their faces, they all without exception paid their respects to the man that gave his life to save their leader. And I had to smile and think it was all for the best even though it pained me a lot that he was gone. He had never had a good life but he had got the best death he could hope for. And when he jumped before me to take all those arrows he had maybe done it more for his own sake than for me…

>>> * <<<

And that was all that it was to it. I have had many women in my life and my father bestowed me with three wives that I married for political reasons and which I felt much respect for but no passion. I also took two more of my own choice that gave me much pleasure, and all did they give me sons and daughters that were my pride and joy. And I have lived to become a very old man but I have never forgotten that gelded boy that for a short time shared my bed…