Chapter 3

How many nights are there worth remembering in ones life? Not many, I would say but for a few months almost every night was such that I thought I would remember them for the rest of my life. I was invited several nights a week to spend time with the prince and I would like to think that we became good friends. He always treated me friendly and respectfully and I think he saw in me a sort of father figure. I would surely come to love him almost as a son. I say a son, because a son you love even when you see his flaws. The reason for my visits was to plan and plot. To lie out strategy and send messages between different parties. I was an adviser in things like politics and warfare, but most of the time I thought I might not have been much else than a go-between. The prince tied knots to the left and to the right with my help and slowly a network was forming that as slowly knitted together the runs in the web drawn around the council. The council, whose members surely were doing much the same thing. But there was plenty of time left for just spending time in lazy indifference to the worldly problems we were facing as well. The four of us, the prince, his consort, the eunuch slave and myself, spent these dark warm nights together in a dreamy state of unreality. How could anything be real in that environment? The palace walls hid us from the harsh state of things outside and sometimes I thought it a wonder that anything of use was ever decided on. And sometimes I felt like one of those unlucky people of the fairytales who fell victim to the weavers of dreams. And when I was leaving the palace at the first light of day I wondered if I too had slept for a hundred years and if I would recognize the world I was now stepping out into. I wandered often through the gardens with the consort. I cherished those moments, both for the beauty of that garden and for the company. She had lay out this garden herself and it was a night garden she said. Every plant was chosen because it showed it’s best sides at nights. Flowers bathing their white petals in moon light only. Plants that sent their strange alluring scent out to attract only the creatures of the nights. Bats instead of birds, ghostly white moths. Black cats whose glittering eyes wandered beside us as if floating in the air without a body. We talked of many things then and she never said it in so many words, but I often had the feeling that she wanted to warn me about her husband. Although I learned to value her every word I brushed those hidden warnings aside. I only remember it now afterwards when I realize the true extent of the wisdom of her words. Sometimes a pair of glittering eyes and a sleek black form that slithered up beside us was not a cat but the jade-eyed slave. I could never get used to the way he would just suddenly appear without a sound to warn of his coming. It annoyed me and made me wonder how long he had been standing there, listening and remembering. Though the consort always smiled at the boy and caressed him over his hair as she stroked the cats leaning against her legs. I sometimes thought that boy had a bigger place in her heart than her husband had. >>> * <<< "You has sure never seen anything like it." The prince beckoned and led me by my elbow into his consort’s night garden. There would be a bit of entertaining he said. I had been about to tell him that we had important things to discuss, but he looked like an enthusiastic child and I gave in to his whims and followed him. There were cushions laid out on the ground and we leaned comfortably into them. But for a small torch glowing in the scented darkness stuck into the ground before us we would not have seen much. The consort was already there and as we settled in she clapped her hands twice and not until it stepped into the feeble light of the glowing torch did I see the faint outlines of a strange black creature. The demonic creature seemed to lean over the torch and suddenly the glade was a bit more lit up. I saw now it was the boy and that he had nothing on. He was as naked as a newborn baby. I startled at the sight because he most of the time showed as little of his naked skin as possible. Always dressed in black, always high necks and long trailing sleeves. I suppose he was ashamed about his scarred frame. Of those scars that he had showed me a glimpse of a few months ago at our first meeting I saw nothing of now though, because it was not quite true that he was naked. He was dressed in black paint. He held out his arms and from them hung chains almost down to the ground. At the end of the chains were small bowls of iron and whatever was put in those bowls had easily caught the flames of the torch and there was a small but steady fire going in each of the bowls. He looked like a statue made of ebony where he stood still as an effigy, lean and smooth and all black. His long hair seemed at first sight simply gone but I realized soon that it was put up in a crown around his small head. He just stood there and I couldn’t understand the purpose of this though it was a beautiful and dramatic sight by all means. I looked questioningly at the prince who just smiled and had a look in his eyes that clearly bade me wait and see. And slowly the slave started to swing those bowls back and forth and faster and faster he swung them until they began to write circles in the night air as writing made in lava. It was simply beautiful. I remembered wondering if he might be a dancer and now I learned he was. One of the best I had ever seen, men or women. His body seemed almost liquid as it turned and twisted seemingly without any effort at all. And sometimes the black painted naked apparition disappeared totally in the darkness and all we saw where those glowing circles spin faster and faster like dragons fighting. But now and then the glow would catch his form and he looked like he himself was on fire and his twists and turns seemed made in the most agonizingly of pains. As the fire slowly died out his dance slowed down and once completely snuffed out, he just slithered away again and left the glade empty and dark. "As I was saying,", said the prince, "have you ever seen anything like it?" I had to agree I had not. >>> * <<< Only a few nights later I saw him dance again. I had by now learned to master the maze of anterooms and corridors and needed not the slave to guide me anymore. So when I came I helped myself in to their quarters. This night I seemed not to find any of them though. The consort’s mild presence was not seen or felt anywhere and I even wandered through the garden a few times to look for her. As I ventured into the palace again I heard a sound, as a moan from pain from a room somewhere and my first thought was to rush to find however needed help. But I remembered that my visits were really of a serious nature and that caution too often had had to yield lately for pleasures. So I padded softly quietly and unseen towards that sound and peeked through the crack in the door into a room lit up by candles… and froze. He hung from the ceiling by his bound wrists. His toes did not reach the floor and light as he was it must have put a strain on his arms. I had to admire that sleek body suspended naked at the same time as all of it made my stomach churn. There was a striped red pattern running along his thin arms and I realized it was blood. I didn’t understand it until I saw that it was no ordinary rope used. It glittered in a way that finally made me believe that it was made of metal wires. It must have nearly cut his wrists to the bone. No wonder he moaned. I simply did not understand the sight. To me it seemed too strange to believe and I wondered if the dream weavers finally had caught me but then I startled at the familiar voice of the prince as he appeared out of a dark corner and went up to his lithe lover. His lover? There seemed to be no love here now. It was pretty clear that what I saw was a master punishing his slave and nothing else and no matter how it pained me seeing the poor boy treated so it was not my business and I intended to turn and leave as quietly as I came. But something made me stand there and look on in spite of myself. I braced myself for the sight of seeing him beaten or flogged and I wondered what he could have possibly done to so anger a man that normally seemed to be so weak for him. But the prince seemed not mad, he just smiled and stroke the boy’s back tenderly, whispering things to him that I couldn’t hear but it sounded not like harsh words spoken in anger or cold words to discipline. It sounded like the whispered endearments of a lover. A lover? Was this love? Suddenly he turned the boy around and I could see his face. I startled; afraid I’ve been seen but no one seemed to have noticed me and I kept looking on, fascinated, intrigued… appalled. The expression in the slave’s face held nothing but fear. The prince, his back to me now, seemed to sweep his hand lightly over the boy’s chest and the touch seemed so light and tender that it really surprised me to see his face contort in agony. It was evident that he tried his best not to scream out loud with the pain he obviously felt but after many such light caresses he could no longer keep silent and whimpered soon like a small child. I couldn’t understand it, how could those soft touches hurt him so? The prince went behind him to no doubt continue that devilish touch at his back and I was surprised to see red stripes all over his chest and stomach and thighs. But then the prince held up his hand in the air and the mystery was solved, in a gloved hand to protect him self he held a bunch of nettles… The poor slave whimpered inhibited now as almost no part of his body was spared the poisonous caress of the fire plant. With a smile that never left his lips and an almost mad shimmer in his eyes, the prince stroked the dark green leaves over his back, his legs, his nipples and his blood drenched arms. His tear drenched cheeks got soon even redder from him stroking his face back and forth with the nettles. And his mutilated sex, small and withered already seemed to shrink even more as he ground it in his hairless crotch. It was then that he danced… He seemed to stand it no more and he started to scream and squirm and tried to get away from the vicious plant. His wiggling made the wire cut into his wrists even more and blood started to drip on the floor. I felt sick where I stood and wanted nothing else than to rush into the room and stop it. But I was embarrassed about watching things I had no business watching in the first place. And that was the prince, the ruler of this land, the man I’ve sworn to aid in everything, doing this. Could I really stop him? And in the end… the boy was just a slave. Or maybe it was that something dark and hidden in me had been beckoned to the surface? I might not have been able to stop it but why didn’t I just leave if it made me feel bad? Why did I stay and watch it? The prince seemed not to want the slave to cut his own hands off. He put the bunch of nettles away and held the boy still by putting his arms around his thin waist. When he got him still he lifted him a bit and loosened the noose of wire. The boy fell listlessly in his arms and seemed to have almost fainted. The prince shook him to revive him and I thought it must all be over but I was wrong. The boy was pushed to bend over the side of a big wooden table standing in the middle of the room and I wouldn’t have believed it if I had been told that a man could come up with such an idea. But the prince grabbed again the bunch of nettles and ground them so forcibly deep in between the poor slave’s parted ass cheeks that the whole bunch crumpled and I think much of it must have been pushed into the very hole. He screamed and clawed at the table top without getting hold of anything. The table was to wide for him to reach the sides of it and his bloodied hands just slipped on the polished surface. The scream seemed to anger the prince. He tore him from the table by the long, now blood soiled hair, turned him around and struck him in the face. It took two more hard slaps to silence the boy but then he turned so quiet that it appeared as if he had cut his vocal cords. It seemed a mere limp doll that the prince now put back on the table, on his back this time. And while he lay on the table resembling a side of lamb soon to be quartered, the prince removed all of his own clothes apart from the gloves. I knew I had to leave. I knew this was not meant for my eyes. But I was frozen with shock and dismay. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t avert my eyes. The prince leaned against the edge of the table between the slave’s parted legs and promptly pulled him close. He clawed the nettles out of the way and pulled him even closer. I could see no reaction whatsoever at the prince entering him. It was a ghastly sight. The prince might as well have made love to a corpse. But then after several very hard thrusts that made him jerk bonelessly like a puppet on strings he started to react. He moaned and his head thrashed from side to side and suddenly he pulled himself violently up to throw his arms around the prince’s neck. And his moans and shouts were now frantic as he clawed at the prince’s back and neck and smeared him all over with his blood. Those screams were not of suffering anymore but pure animalistic lust and he seemed to almost devour the prince with deep kisses as he clung wildly to him and trying to force his member deeper into his body. His lust was shameless and the prince broke out in a sweat and started to moan as well with the effort of trying to satisfy the incubus that clawed at him. It was obvious from the long outdrawn moan of the prince and the way he slumped right after it that he was finished. And he pulled the boy’s arms from his neck and pushed him away. He fell to the floor in a sobbing heap. It would seem he was not finished and it struck me that maybe he couldn’t. Being cut may have deprived him of the relief of release. It was of no concern to the prince. He just told the sobbing wreck to shut up and then he left through an inner door, probably to clean himself up. I nearly went to him then. I thought I had never seen a more sorry sight in my life. I wanted to go to him and offer a consoling word. But I could still not bring myself to let them know I had witnessed this and besides, I think that in spite of it all, the boy was too proud to take me consoling him very well. I went away as silently as I had come and stole down the corridors like a criminal. I heard his sobs long down the hall. >>> * <<< I decided I had not seen it. What else could I do? I could not tell them that I had seen it. I could tell no one what I had seen. The eunuch slave was as brazen as always in my presence. And nothing in his manners showed what he’d been through. If he was sore he didn’t let us see it. He moved as lithe and softly around as always, waiting on us as we took a break in our planning to get a bite to eat. I suppose his wrists must have been bandaged but there was no way to tell what were under those sleeves so long only his fingertips was seen. He could not hide the bruises in his face though, even though I could see when I got closer to him that he had tried to paint them over to some extent. But no one asked him about them. The prince didn’t because he of course already knew how they had gotten there. The consort didn’t ask; she just tenderly caressed his black and blue cheeks and looked so sad he had to avert his eyes. It struck me that she might have seen similar marks many, many times. I sure didn’t mention the bruises for obvious reasons and also because he returned all my looks of pity with a defiant look of coldness that warned me of asking. And I looked at the prince and was confused about what to think. The man that I had seen in that room was not the same that now shared my nightly meal. That had been a cruel and perverted man, this was a brave and honorable one. I was unsure who was the true prince. But soon I forgot all about it because things were starting to heat up. >>> * <<< Everything happened so fast that now when I think back I can’t understand how we were able to pull it of. But we had no choice. Everything told us the same thing, all the rumors and whispers around the palace presented continuously to us by the slave whose clever mind stored away everything he heard. All the information handed to us by our spies, everything… told of the same thing. The council was about to make their moves. But the coup that they were planning would backfire on them and they would not get away with it. Only hours after we had given the first orders to move, the palace was a pandemonium of confusion. Our solders swarmed the whole palace, arresting members of the council, their associates, their family and friends… Screams were heard and fights broke out and fires were started. There had not been enough time to plan it all exactly as it should have been planned and there was confusion not only among the members of the council but among my men too. I think many an innocent life was wasted that night and I deeply regretted it, but we had no choice and every great nation is to some extent built on innocent blood. I aided my men as best I could but soon thought I made no difference in the over all chaos. This was a fire of men’s heart that had to burn out of it self. I turned to leave for the night garden, it was hidden far away at the back of the palace and the prince and his consort would be there in perfect safety. I could see him from afar. The prince sat at a cushioned bench among the trees and behind him stood the slave caressing and fondling his neck as if trying to release his master of the stress he must feel at this battle that was fought for his right to stay on the throne. The scene moved me and I stopped to watch how the longhaired boy lovingly massaged his master’s neck and how the prince leaned his head back with closed eyes into the small body behind him. And the slave raised his arm over his head and something strange glittered in his hand…

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