Stupor Mundi
The Fifth Tale of the Daphne Boy
by GGDC
Author's Note: This is a tale of a unusual young man and those he encounters in the first half of the thirteenth Century AD in Sicily and the Holy Land.
This is another in a series of tales about an undying youth named Alexander, called Alessandro Orsini in this story. The other stories in this series so far are 'Antebellum', 'Daphne Boy', 'El Dorado', and 'The Erythraean Sea'.
It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body and of consensual and non-consenual sexual activity between adult males. If any of this would offend a reader, read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever jurisdiction applies.
It is offered for entertainment. If it manages to both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its aim.
It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only minor poetic license. This story, after all, is fiction. It is not a historical monograph. Except for the rulers mentioned in the story, Emperor and King Frederick II Hohenstaufen and Sultan Al-Kamil, the characters are not intended to resemble any person living or dead.
To learn more about Frederick II, visit the website www.stupormundi.it.
Alexander's comments about his visit to the Holy Places are autobiographical, echoing my own thoughts years ago during my own visit to Jerusalem. Note Alexander is a character with his own viewpoint, based on his personal history. He does not necessarily speak for his author.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Jungle Boy' series of tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the archive. See also 'Naked Prey' in the historical section and 'Mer-Boy Kit' in Gay/Beginnings, both the first stories in new series, and my 'Track and Field' Series in Gay/College.
Comments and feedback welcome.
Chapter 1. Boar Hunt
I should have known better than to go boar hunting with a man imbued with a sense of personal invincibility. At my age, with all my centuries of life experience, I should have marked the man down as reckless. My only excuse is that, like half the world, I was fascinated with him.
Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany, Burgundy, and Italy minus the Papal States. He was also King of Sicily, which in those days meant all of Italy south of Rome plus the rich and fertile island itself, the largest in the Mediterranean, shaped like an isosceles triangle 200 miles on its two long sides and over 100 at the base. Some called him the Antichrist for his religious skepticism. Ruler of the most extensive lands in Christendom, he was a religious skeptic who tolerated Islamic settlers in his southern realm, indeed had enrolled Saracen soldiers in his army and his personal guard.
Most called him 'Stupor Mundi' the wonder or the amazement of the world. hewas a poet, a writer, and a patron of the arts. He spoke six languages, was an avid hunter, lawgiver, soldier, founder of the first university in Southern Italy, at Naples, and the first state-funded one anywhere. He was a man with an unorthodox and nearly unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He often wrote to the leading scholars in Europe and the Saracen lands posing questions of science, mathematics and physics. In short, the king was a polymath, a Renaissance man before his time, the first half of the thirteenth century.
We were hunting boar in the central Apennine mountains on the mainland near the town of L'Aquila, the two of us and a servant momentarily separated from the rest of our hunting party by a tangled thicket. Frederick was certain he had seriously wounded the boar with a thrust behind its shoulder. He dismounted, advancing on foot toward the tangle.
"Don't be reckless, sire. We can set the brush on fire to drive the beast onto our spears." I shouted.
He turned and flashed me a confident smile. It was just then that the boar charged. The king braced his spear as the beast ran onto it. The blade struck the boar solidly but the shaft snapped and the beast rushed past tossing his massive head. The king went flying, his cap sailed across the clearing. I caught a flash of his famously red hair as he rolled to his feet drawing his dagger. That was the fashion among bravos in those days, to finish a boar off with a dagger. Personally I preferred to hunt boar the way we did it in Persia. The hunting party sat in perfect safety on top of elephants which drove the boars into a marsh. Then we shot arrows into the beasts either from the elephants or from boats. Eminently sensible, if you must hunt boar in the first place.
I spurred my mount forward but missed my thrust when the horse shied from the enraged boar. At least that distracted the beast from my friend the king. My horse reared up in fright and struck with its front hooves at the boar. The boar countered slashing at its belly with its tusks. My mount became completely unmanageable in its pain and its terror, so I disengaged from the stirrups and slid off its back and readied my own spear. The boar was huge, easily six hundred pounds (300 kilos), outweighing me five to one. I am a small fellow only five and one half feet tall (165 cm). My frame carried only 122 pounds (56 kg), though I had a fairly strong upper storey and a wiry musculature.
I cursed myself for an idiot for joining the hunt, but there was no help for it now, and braced myself to receive the charge of the boar. It impaled itself on my spear and continued to drive forward. If mine were an ordinary spear, it might, in its rage, have driven itself all the way up my spear to reach me. I have seen the results when that happened. They are not pretty. Mine though was a boar spear with a cross piece to fend him off. Even so the boar forced me back, my feet scrabbling uselessly at the ground. I wasn't trying to stop the animal so much as keep the spear between it and me. If I lost my grip, I would find myself under its hooves and slashed by its deadly tusks. Suddenly a red haired blued eyed demon threw himself atop the boar, his knife plunging into it repeatedly, seeking its vitals. The boar shuddered in its death throes then lay still.
There we were, dirty, disheveled, garments awry. My hose had torn in the struggle exposing most of one cheek, yet Frederick still looked every inch a king even though he was not a tall man, really only four inches taller (10 cm) than I was. He sported a red beard along his jaw line, much like his paternal grandfather Frederick I Barbarossa, who had died during the Third Crusade in 1190, thirty-five years before. (Barbarossa is Italian for Red Beard.)
"Thank you for the assist, Alessandro. I admit I had a bad moment there. I shall award you the tusks."
"Thank you, sire. I shall treasure them always," I said sarcastically.
Frederick just laughed. The man had little use for sycophants and toadies. He knew I was more than a little annoyed, but overlooked it. After all, I might have saved his life. Not that we made anything of it. We were just two hunters who had taken down a boar together.
I had met him in Sicily where I was living the comfortable life of Alessandro Orsini a wealthy landowner and merchant in the early thirteenth century, one of many identities I have assumed down the years. I was born in Germany in the late second century BC. For reasons I have never understood, I had stopped growing and aging after reaching seventeen. Now, more than thirteen hundred years later, I still looked like a boy in his late teens. No, there had been no encounter with a sorcerer nor a pact signed in blood with eldritch powers. It just happened that way.
What brought us together originally was the king's desire to see the newfangled garderobes at my country estate, actually a copy of those I had known in the days of the Roman Republic and Empire. The Roman design was sheltered from wind and rain, drew no flies and had no smell. Stream fed and gravity powered, it was a two-holer with a constant flow under the seat; the waste flushed by gravity into the stream lower down. A smaller flow ran in a narrow trough behind the footrest. You did your business and wiped off with a sponge on a stick. Then you washed the sponge in the trough and hung it up for the next user. The outhouse had four walls, but the sloping roof covered only two thirds of the space enclosed, allowing ventilation. Hence no odors and no flies. I had built two such water closets, one at each end of the house, the second for the servants.
I explained how this was just something that the Romans used to build as a matter of course, nothing special. Frederick resolved to use my design at all his residences. I drew him up a set of plans which he could read as well as any builder. That is what brought me to his notice. He also liked my other inventions: ceiling fans powered by leather straps run off a small water wheel and a shower (cold water only) fed by a pipeline of specially cast roof tiles set upside down to carry water from a small pond upslope, much like a very small aqueduct.
At his invitation I started spending time with him. I had no official position at court though he did sometimes put me to work translating and answering his extensive correspondence. Muslim, Byzantine, Italian, and German civilisation met and mingled in Sicily as nowhere else. Greek and Arabic were living languages on the island. I spoke and read his own six languages (Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek and Arabic) and more. He was pleased that, merchant though I was, I did not seek royal favors such as commercial licenses or monopolies which would run counter to his economic program. Frederick believed in freer trade, and had abolished all internal customs. He minted gold coins, called 'augustals', the first gold coins in the West for many centuries, which helped commerce flourish.
In truth I did not need the king's favors. I was quite wealthy, more than I let show, for fear of inspiring envy and taxes. I usually keep a low profile, especially avoiding kings and princes, but I made an exception for this man. I tried to stay above the seething intrigues of the court, with no axe to grind myself, and had little wish to get involved in Italian and German politics, well-known as blood sports.
"Come my friend, leave the servants to deal with the kill while we take refreshment under yonder tree."
We sat down heavily. I must have looked especially boyish at that candid moment for he asked.
"How old are you now, Alessandro? Twenty-two you said? You hardly seem it, more like a beardless boy in his late teens."
Indeed. I did not have the classic muscular physique of the Discus Thrower, much less the Dying Gaul. I was quite slender and boyish -- almost skinny, with narrow shoulders and a flat but corrugated chest and stomach sporting well-defined abdominals, prominent ribs and sharp hip bones. I wore tight hose, which displayed my taut rump and slender legs to advantage, and a white shirt open to my pectorals with a leather hunting vest tight around my torso.
My face was comely with almost elfin features. It is fair to say that I am pretty rather than handsome. I had a straight nose, large green eyes, and high cheekbones. For all the admixture of Norman blood in the last century, few in these parts sported sun gold hair and green eyes. And I was beardless. My beard had never come in so I never had to shave.
Frederick himself was thirty at the time, red headed, already thinning in the back. He had an intelligent face, startling blue eyes, and the strong constitution of a soldier.
Chapter 2. Ahmad
A month later we were back in Sicily. Frederick ruled his far-flung lands from his capital at Palermo or through his traveling court and chancery. I had a merchant house and residence in the city and a villa in the country as well. There I reunited with my young lover Ahmad. I had left him in the charge of my major domo, Carlo, poor man. Carlo must have had his hands full with an irrepressible teenager on his hands, not that Ahmad wan't a good kid, considering how we met.
Ahmad was originally a street kid I had encountered in town when he was fourteen. I had seen him running from a bake shop with a large loaf of bread under his arm. Instead of trying to seize him, I 'accidentally' blocked the outraged baker, giving the lad the chance to get away. (I made it up to the baker with a sizable order of loaves for my servants in town.) On the second occasion that we met, Ahmad returned the favor by trying to lift my purse. I am wise to such tricks as pickpockets and cutpurses use, so I quickly put him into a painful handlock and plucked my purse from his sash where he had concealed it. I then turned him over my knee, pulled up his tunic and gave him a few swats on his bare rump.
"That's for your bad technique, boy. A blind man would have spotted your move. Now be off with you." I said as I released him.
He stood there for a moment, astonished at being let go. Then a sly look came over his pretty features as he held his hand out and asked for "alms for the poor, alms for a poor orphan". The boy had pluck. I'll give him that. In fact I tossed him a silver coin, enough to feed him for a week. He bowed courteously then ran away happily
"What is your name?" I called out.
"Ahmad". He shouted back before turning a corner
His designs on my purse became a welcome game with us every few weeks or so, but his attempt to snatch my coin had to be made in public. A burglary would not count. Each time he tried to lift my purse, I managed to turn the tables, though I always tossed him a silver coin as a consolation prize. He twice disguised himself as a girl, but I can spot a lovely boy easily enough by the way he walks, especially one with his striking physique and looks. Ahmad was slender and dark haired with an olive skin. His father was a Saracen from Tunisia who had settled in Sicily under Frederick's tolerant rule. He was as beautiful a boy as you could ever wish for: curly hair, straight nose, large brown eyes, fine white teeth, with a mischievous look about him even when he was doing something entirely innocent, which wasn't very often in those days. He wasn't much shorter than I, though I was more muscular. A very pretty boy indeed.
I learned from my contacts in the underworld that he was a street kid who lived by his wits. Sometimes he sold himself for coin. An orphan, he had been on his own since he was twelve, though his earlier circumstances were comparatively comfortable. His father had been a tavern keeper before his establishment burned down killing both parents. It turned out that Ahmad was literate, quite a distinction for a street boy.
I was attracted to him from the first day, but I had to wait for him to grow up a bit. Given my own personal history, enslaved as a catamite at fourteen, I would never take so young a lad to bed nor take advantage of a youth's desperation. I offered him a job at a tavern I owned. I wanted to see if he had possibilities as an employee and later, perhaps, as a lover.
"You mean all I have to do is work in the tavern, serve food, clear tables, sweep up, and such."
"Indeed." I told him. "And you will have no other duties."
"No men, you mean."
"No, not even me. Especially not me."
"Why not? I can see you fancy me."
"Maybe when you are older. Not now."
"You are a strange man, but yes, I accept."
I had nothing against boys sleeping with men for coin. I had much experience of male prostitution over the centuries, having spent my true youth as a rich man's catamite, a slave and a spoil of war. I later worked voluntarily in boy brothels in ancient Alexandria and Antioch in the first century BC and still later as a houri boy in Islamic lands. In ancient Antioch in the early part of the first century AD, I spent a few years as a Daphne Boy, enslaved as a temple prostitute. The cult of the nymph Daphne is allied to that of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Male acolytes, for that is what they called us, offered themselves as sacred prostitutes to boy lovers. We were very popular because we were scrupulous about personal hygiene, trim and fit, and picked for our beauty of face and form. In some ways I still have fond memories of my time as a Daphne Boy, slave though I then was.
Other stints of sexual slavery were not so pleasant. I spent three years working at the dangerous trade of pearl diver in the Persian Gulf. I was kept perpetually nude, set to dangerous work, taken sexually by guards and fellow divers regardless of my wishes. Our masters were strict about segregation from females. It was 'common knowledge' at the time that sexual activity increased buoyancy, so we divers were prohibited any contact with women. Slave owners kept slaves in male-only quarters, with the inevitable result that same sex relations were nearly universal among slave pearl divers. Our masters punished us for fighting and would have punished me even worse if all I was fighting about was protecting my non-existent virtue.
I have been enslaved or captured more than a dozen times over the centuries. I am small and pretty and frequently naked, looking entirely too temptingly like someone's natural catamite or pleasure boy. Throw in gang rapes by bullies, soldiers, sailors, or bandits -- at least till I mastered the arts of unarmed and armed combat, and I am something of an expert on the victimization of youthful males.
As a result of my own experiences, I have never forced myself on anyone nor taken advantage of their desperation. Having been enslaved myself, I valued personal autonomy. I never owned a slave and I never will. Human beings belong to themselves. No one should own another human being, no matter what the laws said.
Ahmad did well in his job at the tavern. He had good work habits, once he settled in, and realized I meant to keep my part of the bargain. I paid him well for such humble employment, and he got his meals and a clean place to sleep too, so he was not out on the street. I even tossed him a coin on his birthday and certain feast days like Christmas. For his part, he never tried to lift a purse at the tavern and discouraged those who did.
Nevertheless, he sometimes took a man to his bed for money. I did not particularly like that, but I had to give him his head. He had been a street kid after all, and soon was of age in the legal sense. In those days, the age of majority was regarded as fifteen, anyone younger considered under-age (infra annos). My only orders to the tavern staff were that the guards and barmen see that no one took advantage of the boy or abused him. I visited the tavern at least weekly when I was in Palermo.
Ahmad was sixteen when he finally managed to snatch my purse.
It started off with the tavern master Enrico calling loudly for his serving boy. A commotion started in the inner rooms. The doorman dragged Ahmad in by his ear. He had been taking a bath and had soap and water dripping off him. Except for a damp strip of cloth held around his narrow hips he was entirely naked. Ahmad protested that this was his day off, that Enrico was taking advantage of him. Enrico grabbed the boy roughly. The cloth fell away displaying the nude boy in all his glory. I was shocked and angry at the discord but also enthralled by the boy's beauty. His genitals were generous in size but not out of proportion. His taut rump was entrancing, his slender physique utterly alluring. I stood up, confused about the inexplicable argument but with desire surging through me. Suddenly both the boy and the tavern keeper stopped their play acting and spoke to a boy standing behind me.
"Good work, Lorenzo."
A ragamuffin of some fourteen years with a big smile on his face tossed my purse to Ahmad who poured the contents out into Enrico's hands. All three of them had grins that would have done credit to a crocodile. The joke was on me. I had been had. The boy had enlisted both of them as his allies. What could I do but gracefully acknowledge how cleverly the trio had tricked me. Enrico held his hands up placatingly.
"It was the boy's idea, sir. We joined in for the challenge. I hope we have not displeased you."
"Of course not. Actually Enrico, I think this scamp is ready now for domestic service in my employ. Are you coming, Ahmad?"
"But sir, I am entirely naked. What of my clothing?"
"Enrico will send over your things with Lorenzo here. You are coming with me right now, just as you are. You'll need better clothes working for me anyway."
We made a strange procession, me a very young man, seemingly in his late teens, Ahmad, a naked Saracen youth dripping wet, both trailed by a ragamuffin running after us with a hastily gathered bundle of Ahmad's belongings.
When we got to my house, which was not very far away, I gave the boy the choice of being my body servant or something more. For answer, he trooped his pretty ass into my bedroom and drew down the covers then jumped into bed. It brought joy to my heart. This is one body servant who would not be sleeping on a pallet at the foot of his master's bed.
I am attracted to two kinds of males. I like sex with boys who look like me and I crave sex with powerful older males too. The difference is that when I have sex with another pretty boy, I am having fun with an equal. We often engage in sixty nine as we pleasure each other or trade off taking the more active role. Sex with another boy is an absolute delight, as it was with Ahmad. Sex with an older male, especially one taller and powerfully built is a need, a craving. With a boy, I feel energized as we jump into bed and roll around kissing and laughing and touching. With a man I go all weak in the knees and submissive, ready to drop to my knees and worship as a supplicant.
Ahmad had a long darkish member, smooth not gnarly with veins, very like my own except for the color. He was formidably equiped. It took both my small hands to cover his erection. Despite his occasional dalliances with other males for coin, no one had ever played with him as I did that afternoon. For a change he was the one being pleasured, the one whose delight was the object of the game. No one gives better head than another male and I had well over a millennium of practice. As I licked him, his smooth cock started to plump up and straightened out, as the head emerged from the foreskin, to point toward his deep belly button. Then the cock lifted completely off the boy's belly, cantilevered out from the root, twitching with the throb and beat of his heart, as a clear fluid leaked from the tiny slit at the end.
My hands and lips caressed this exquisite boy whom I had desired for two years. I stroked the length of his legs, cupped his small buttocks, slid my hands along his flanks, and delved into his cleavage, making love to his body with my hands but touching the boy's proud cock only with lips and tongue. I swallowed him to the root, noting that he had plucked his pubes like many a Muslim boy, bobbing my head up and down his length. I pulled off just in time. The ball sac pulled tight against the fork of his legs, its globularity standing out below the cylinder of his virile member. The head turned purple, its tiny lips spreading open. Abruptly, with a quick intake of breath, his proud cock engorged beyond its previous impressive girth and began spurting and spitting his white seed onto his belly. After several strong spurts, the gism continued to drain from the softening shaft but slowly, creating a pool in the hollow of his hairless belly.
I used the tip of my finger to gather some of his chrism and brought it to my lips and then to his, coating his lips like a gloss, and spreading more just above his lip, so his nostrils would take in the scent of his own seed. He reached out with his tongue as I offered more of it to him. I lapped some of it up and took him back into my mouth, sucking and tugging on a cock that the moment before has spit his essence onto his belly. He whimpered bewitchingly, inarticulate sounds indicative of the combination of pleasure and pain he felt at the head of his cock, especially when I tongued his sweet spot. He put both hands to my head to still its movements, but my tongue continued to torture him deliciously. He finally begged me to stop. It felt so good, it hurt. He shuddered as I drew back from his softening member, belly twitching as I kissed it repeatedly, practically sobbing with pleasure. I was happy too. I lay my head on his belly, content myself that I had given him such joy. I had so wanted his first experience with me to be memorable.
After we caught our breath, I asked Ahmad to reciprocate. He was quite talented for a rank amateur, by my standards. A natural then. Later I rolled him onto his belly and rode his sweet ass to a simultaneous climax. That was the first time we made love, and it had been worth the wait. Over the last two years I had taken only casual lovers from among the seamen or young bucks of the town. Ahmad and I were very much taken with each other, and I am afraid I rather neglected my business for some weeks.
At Ahmad's urging, I gave his young friend Lorenzo his old job at the tavern, though with no thought of later enlisting him as a lover.
Ahmad and I often swam in the cove below the bluff on which the main house stood. We swam and ran along the beach, reveling in the kiss of the sun on our bare flanks. Sometimes we waved to the fishermen passing just offshore. Ahmad loved my smooth hairless skin. Centuries ago I took up the Roman habit of having all my body hair, little as it was, plucked with tweezers. After several decades of plucking it stopped sprouting. Now I was completely hairless forever.
It was during this time that Frederick visited my villa for the third time, showing up quite unexpectedly. He was always doing the unexpected.. On the day of Frederick's visit Ahmad had gone swimming alone. I had been working in my study with only a sarong around my hips and received the king in my garden. Ahmad quite innocently returned to the house stark naked, crossing the garden while the king and I were in converse. Frederick was too sophisticated and polite to comment on my companion's display of youthful male pulchritude, but he did nod at the lad.
"So, Alessandro, I suppose this is the boy my informants tell me is your go between with the smugglers?" Frederick asked with an eyebrow arched.
I opened my mouth to deny it, but I knew that he knew the truth of it, and he knew that I knew it too.
"Please sire, if your displeasure falls on anyone, let it not be on that boy. He has not had an easy life, for all of his youth."
"Don't worry, my friend. A ruler must expect a certain amount of effort to escape his customs officials. Else he would not be able to tell how high to raise the tariffs to extract maximum revenue without driving commerce underground. Besides, we know you declare the great majority of your cargoes, except those from Egypt. "
I colored.
"Sire, Egypt is Saracen and a sworn enemy of this kingdom."
"Yes, it is my merchant friend, and it is also the entrepot for products like spices, and incense, and silks from much farther east. That is why we tolerate a certain amount of, shall we say, irregular commerce."
We laughed and had a draught of cooled wine mixed with fruit juices on the terrace overlooking the sea. Frederick was a perfect guest and I the attendant host. We talked of recent letters he had received from Arab astronomers and botanists. He never mentioned my smuggling activities again, having made his point. I did cut back some, declaring a greater percentage that before, meeting the king halfway.
Frederick's friendly relations with the Saracens were no secret. He wasn't called an emir with a Christian crown for nothing. Indeed, it was through his realm that mathematical innovations from the Arab world including the zero spread to Europe via Italian merchants who used the new arithmetic to keep their accounts. (I had been using Hindu numerals myself for some five centuries in calculations. It was one of my commercial advantages in the West.)
Frederick had established the Norman Kingdom of Sicily as the first centralized absolute monarchy in Christendom, going further than the Norman kings of England. Under William the Conqueror, England was a centralized feudal state with every lord a direct vassal of the king rather than a vassal of some greater lord like a marquess, earl, or duke. Frederick not only swore all the lords of southern Italy to him personally, he centralized political power, the courts, and governmental administration generally in a body of paid officials reporting directly to him. His southern realm was the first to establish the primacy of statutory law.
In northern Italy, Frederick was a suzerain over a fractious congeries of cities called communes, small republics ruled by oligarchies, and princely states, split between the faction that supported him as emperor, the party of the Guelphs, and the Ghibellines, those who supported the Pope, who ruled the Papal States in central Italy. It was a constant struggle to maintain primacy in the north. It is fair to say that Frederick had little interest in Germany except as a source of taxes and soldiers.
He was profoundly attached to the land of his birth. Southern Italy was where he flourished. For all his Norman and German ancestry, Frederick was an Italian by predilection.
Frederick told me that Ahmad reminded him of himself as a lad. He himself had once been a wild street boy in Palermo, despite his noble birth.
"I almost envy you, my friend." he told me. "You and the boy are both very beautiful and very much taken with each other. I can see that even though my own tastes run in a different direction. I wish the both of you the very best of luck in the future."
Chapter 3. Acre
I am a good sailor. Alas, Ahmad was not. The poor boy spent most of the two week journey across the Mediterranean seasick. It is more than thirteen hundred miles (2,200 kilometers) from Palermo to the eastern shore of the vast inland sea, the length of the eastern seaboard of the United States. The Mediterranean covers a million square miles (2.5 million km2). Once it united the lands ruled by Rome, now it divided Christendom from the Saracen lands.
Only during the last few days did Ahamd get his sea legs under him, though he begged me never to take him to sea again. I am an excellent sailor, but I do not count it against a person if they cannot stand the perpetual pitch and roll of a ship at sea. It is just one of those things, not something to find fault with, any more than blaming a man for being color blind or tone deaf. I would have been amused had the boy not been in such distress. After three years as lovers, I had come to care for him deeply.
We were on the way to the Holy Land, to try to recover something of the Christian holdings in those lands, reduced to coastal enclaves since the days of the great Muslim king Salah al-Din or Saladin. More than a century ago, the crusaders had set up a string of small states the length of the eastern Mediterranean, stretching about 500 miles (800 km) from the Principality of Edessa on the upper reaches of the Euphrates River, to the Sinai, including the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, and the strongest, the Kingdom of Jerusalem on both sides of the River Jordan. Still the crusaders never managed to seize all the fertile lands between the sea and the Syrian Desert. The Emirate of Damascus had blocked that expansion then joined with Egypt to reverse it under Saladin. He had destroyed the flower of Christian chivalry at the battle of the Horns of Hattim, in 1187, bringing on the Third Crusade and his greatest foe Richard the Lion-Heart who only managed to stabilize the situation. That was thirty years earlier.
Frederic had finally started on his delayed crusade having vowed to free Jerusalem. By marriage he was now King of Jerusalem, but that was still an empty title. The Egyptian Sultan Al-Kamil ruled the city. Frederick's expedition was small compared to previous crusades. Frederick needed to win the city by diplomacy rather than war, having alienated the pope and many potential supporters. Indeed the pope had excommunicated the king, and much of the original army had melted away. The king's excommunication was purportedly for delaying his crusade for several years. Actually the pope feared the king's territorial ambitions in central Italy which clashed with his own.
Ahmad and I sailed on one of my own ships. The supplies it carried were my personal contribution to the Sixth Crusade. My ship carried additional supplies and equipment for the diplomatic mission that would let the king live and entertain in style, for many weeks, however long it took to charm or swindle the Sultan out of the Holy City.
I had left my household in the care of Carlo and my business in the hands of my captains. I owned eight ships, and my captains had considerable latitude within my overall plan for the business, so I could absent myself for a while, keeping in touch by letter. Those would reach me via the port of Acre, still in Christian hands, and at that time the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The king had stopped off on Cyprus to sort out his dynastic claims there, whereas I sailed straight to Acre.
I took comfortable quarters in Acre. It had a very mixed population: Arabs both Christian and Muslim, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and large numbers of western Europeans invariably called Franks, regardless of their country of origin. The city was at peace though everyone was nervous. It was no secret that another crusade would soon descend upon the Holy Land.
What a palimpsest of cultures this small land was. How many people have lived there. How many empires have ruled it, each leaving traces behind, not just architecture but cultural practices, absorbed and transformed by their successors. Canaanites, Israelites, Philistines, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Palmyrenes, Arabs, Kurds, and now Turks around the periphery.
With some time on my hands till the king arrived I explored the pleasures the city had to offer. I took Ahmed to the finest boy brothel in the city. The proprietor was surprised to see us entering through the front door.
"You two! What are you doing?" He hissed at us. "New boys present themselves at the rear door. If you are going to work here, you had better remember that."
"You misunderstand, we are not here to sell, but to buy or rather to disport ourselves."
Hassan, for that was his name, was quite surprised. I dare say the two of us were prettier than the best he had on offer. I wanted a relaxed atmosphere where I could enjoy my time with Ahmad in pleasant surroundings and also show my lover off to men who appreciated a pretty boy. I also wanted to show myself off for him. I had worked in boy brothels myself, so in some sense this was a kind of homecoming, the closest I could come these days to the symposia of my early days in Antioch and Damascus.
Fabled Antioch. The second city of the East in Roman times, now simply one the crusader states fighting for survival. I had owned a brothel in Antioch in the first century BC and worked there myself, and then, a century later, served there as a Daphne Boy. Damascus was currently in Muslim hands, but it held fond memories of my life as a merchant, before I was enslaved in Antioch.
In those days, I devoted many an evening in Damascus to symposia or drinking parties. It was a forum for men to talk, debate, brag, or simply to party, to celebrate victories in athletic and poetic contests or to introduce youths into aristocratic society. The men would recline on couches; a youth would attend as the companion and eromenos (lover) of an adult male. Free boys could participate too but sat instead of reclined on a couch.
The wine was usually well mixed with water, drawn from a large jar called a krater and served by nude servant boys from pitchers. The degree the wine was diluted depended on whether serious discussions were intended or merely sensual indulgence. Getting drunk was not the object. Entertainment might include games, singing, flute-girls, and acrobats. Though the flute-girls were available, most attention was on the cute boys.
My status was a bit of an anomaly. I came alone in my own right rather than as an older man's lover. I was thought to be eighteen (as I claimed) though due to my small stature and slight build and lack of body hair I looked as young as any eromenos there. I attended as a free boy, sitting rather than reclining. I was nude like the other boys rather than dressed like the men. I sometimes performed acrobatics or danced lasciviously as part of the entertainment, drawing on my old skills as a joy boy.
The brothel in Acre was the next best thing to those pleasant evenings of antiquity, though without the intellectual stimulation. Ahmad and I shared a couch, both of us naked or in diaphanous garb, showing off our delectable faces and bodies. It is not vanity for me to acknowledge that I had and have a lovely form that inspires admiration and lust in the hearts of any male who appreciates a beautiful boy. Nude as we were or very nearly, it was only natural for the men to approach us, to ask if we were available, to take our measure, even taking considerable liberties: stroking rumps, running their hands over our slender torsos, fondling our manhoods and stealing sweet kisses. The truth is that both of us knew that a little variety was good for our relationship. We were males after all, and we both relished the attention.
As the evening wore on I might allow myself to be led to an alcove for a tumble with a man who had taken a fancy to me and to whom I was attracted. Large powerful men were a weakness of mine, my second preferred type after pretty boys like Ahmad and myself. Sometimes I felt practically engulfed as a large man bent me over, either on all fours or with my arms braced against a door frame and mounted me as a stallion does a mare. Big men like to ride boys like me hard, to drive into my depths, to talk dirty to me, telling me I was a whore boy, a filly in heat, a shameless slut hairless as a girl, punctuating their word with slaps to my ass hard enough and often enough to turn it red, an indicator of how much in heat I was, they claimed.
Ahmad also took casual lovers sometimes selecting hairy men for a change of pace. Although he lacked my exotic 'Frankish' looks, his flashing eyes and bright smile contrasted with his tanned and olive face, making him quite attractive too, in his own way. We paid Hassan well enough that he did not begrudge us the attentions of his customers, and we even tipped the boys so they would not resent our intrusion into their territory. This was for our pleasure after all, and we did not want any hurt feelings. We got to know some of the patrons and the boys too, like little Waqqub of the kohl-rimmed eyes.
Ahmad got to show off his dancing. I had enrolled him in informal lessons at the brothel, a skill he could take home with him when we returned to Sicily. He was an enthusiastic pupil and improved greatly in the few weeks we spent awaiting the arrival of Frederick. Sometimes after the dancing Ahmad and one of Hassan's boys performed for an audience. He was really in his element, and could have earned a good living in brothel while his youth lasted.
Sometimes Ahmad and I made love together to show them how it should be done. We made a fine couple, dark and light, both very young or youthful, pretty, energetic, athletic, shameless in our desire for each other and quite vocal in our lovemaking. We joined our bodies in playful ways, highlighting our flexibility and the tightness of our musculature. We loved to prolong our loveplay, letting the sensation build as we thrust into each other's orifices, kissing and fondling, snuffling armpits and groins, our sexy tanned and hairless bodies glistening with sweat. We licked each other, tasting the other's saltiness, bringing all of our senses to the task of making love: sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, joining together in every possible way.
Chapter 4. The Sixth Crusade
Once he arrived in Acre, the king had the support of the military orders of monks: the Teutonic Knights, and, more reluctantly, the Knights Hospitaller (later Knights of Rhodes then of Malta) and the Templars. Frederick could also count on his Saracen soldiers, completely unaffected by the king's excommunication, but the army was too small to fight the Ayyubid Sultan in open battle.
Fortunately Al-Kamil had his own difficulties with his rivals (his relatives) in Syria and Mesopotamia. Frederick hoped to conclude negotiations that actually had been going on for several years to restore some of its territories to the Crusader Kingdom of Jersusalem as a buffer state. They both risked the displeasure of their confessional communities. Al-Kmail, after all was negotiating to yield up one of the holy cities of Islam. Frederick was already an excommunicate and was negotiating with rather than fighting the enemies of the Church and Christendom.
Frederick established a comfortable camp not far from Jerusalem where he met and entertained the Sultan. The large central pavilion was situated in a saddle amid round hills covered with scattered trees, the imperial flag waving from a tall staff nearby. A pleasant stream in a fold in the land supplied ample water for every need of the large party that attended the king, and made life pleasant for the monarch and his guests. The traveling chancery worked in nearby tents and pavilions with the servants living in an outer ring of smaller tents. It was like a small town suddenly erected in the wilderness.
This was the scene of five months of negotiation, entertainment, leisure, hunting, training, but no military action. From time to time I attended the king in his pavilion helping his chancery keep up with the correspondence from his far flung lands. I met some in the Sultan's retinue too, impressing them with my skill in languages and also at chess, a game I had been playing for centuries.
I never played with the king. He told me privately that he knew that he would likely lose, and if he won, people would merely say that I had thrown the match. It was an insight into the loneliness of a man who wears a crown. We did enjoy our evenings talking of learned matters. The king knew I was bored with politics. One of the reasons he trusted me was that he knew I had no ambitions of my own. I like to think that, in my own small way, I helped him to be a better king.
One day Ahmad and I rode out with only a single servant to attend us. I wanted to find a quiet place to resume my practice of archery. I could practice sword fighting anywhere and did, but I needed room for archery. We found a delightful spot next to a pool of water fed by a small stream. In the heat of the day, the water was tempting, so we both stripped and swam about. Like many boys who grew up near the sea, Ahmad was an excellent swimmer. It was a way for poor boys to have just as much fun as the rich. All swimmers in the water were naked. Who then was the noble and who the street boy? We returned to the spot often, both for dalliance and for target practice.
We weren't always by ourselves there. Village youths liked to swim there too. It was one place they could slip off their long concealing robes and disport themselves with like minded lads. Arab teenagers had little chance to see young lasses much less spend time with them alone. Often the only outlet for their sexual energies was each other. Ahmad and I were popular because we were new faces and new bodies. We could talk with the lads easily enough, despite dialect differences.
The pool was not long enough for competitive swimming but we did run foot races the length of the hollow between the hills which cradled the pool. The races were a delight of bare limbs and tight buns and happy smiling faces and laughter as sand flew back from thrusting legs. We hoisted the winner of each race onto our shoulders and saluted him as we walked back. Afterwards we sat down to a simple but tasty meal brought in by my servants. The villagers felt very naughty sitting down for a meal stark naked and with outlanders no less.
I related stories of the Greek Olympics, telling the initially shocked boys that at one time hundreds of naked males would compete in all sort of athletic contests before crowds of thousands. They had no inkling of institutions in the past like gymnasia where men and boys were schooled and trained naked or of the Roman palestra and baths or thermae. These centers for public bathing and socializing were extremely important in civic life. Romans usually went daily and spent several hours, accompanied by one or more slaves. Both girls and boys were available to the patrons as were other services like massage and light refreshments. I painted a picture of a wonderful age to live in, when naked young men could mingle publicly without anyone raising an eyebrow much less a hand in opposition.
Those were some of my happiest days with Ahmad in our early years together.
Some weeks later, as Ahmad retrieved my practice arrows, a party of notables rode over the nearby ridge. It was the king and the Sultan and their party, out hunting I could see, though also accompanied by guards. They made quite a spectacle, guidons flapping from lances, the monarchs in splendid though rather impractical hunting garb, two men on foot straining at the leashes of a pair of hunting dogs.
They could see us too, a pair of slender youths entirely naked, one with a powerful recurved bow in his hands. We were not trying to make an impression, but it was obvious many in the party appreciated our lithe physiques and comely looks. From caution, I lowered my bow to the ground.
"What have we here?" the Sultan began. "Two naked pretty boys. Lovers mayhaps."
"I know this man," the king interjected. "Alessandro Orsini, a merchant from Palermo. He is trustworthy."
"In that case, what were you doing with that bow, Orsini?" the Sultan asked me.
Our clothing was quite some distance away, and it seemed I must converse in the nude. I was not embarrassed, but this is not how I would have wished to meet the Sultan. I explained that I practiced archery in case I needed to discourage pirates on the high seas. In the past I had escaped pirates either by shooting their helmsman in clear weather or the lookouts if my own ship were trying to disappear into a mist, a fog bank, or the gloom of night. On land, I could at needs fire extremely quickly to create a breach in an attacker's lines allowing me and mine to break out of an encirclement. As to why I had laid the bow on the ground, that was so I would not alarm the bodyguards of two sovereigns who might see treachery in harmless target practice.
"Very wise, for someone so very young," declared the Sultan. "So what was your target? That tree a hundred paces off?"
"Nay, Majesty. That is a live tree. This dry land needs every tree that can cast shade upon it. I shot only at that dead one beyond and to the right."
"That must be over 300 paces! You can shoot so far?"
"Indeed. If I may demonstrate."
Both the Sultan and the King indicated I might take up my bow again, though I could see skeptical looks on many faces. I shoot a bow in the manner of the Huns holding extra arrows in two fingers of the bow hand. That let's me fire off seven arrows in twelve seconds and put them all into the target. I can do that from a cantering horse too. A man sized target, especially a stationary target like a tree was easy work. I sent seven arrows, one after the other, thunk, thunk, thunk, into the dead trunk. I could see Frederick was pleased that a man he had vouched for, one of his subjects, had impressed the Sultan with a display of prodigious bowmanship.
I know I also impressed many of the onlookers with my physical appeal. Archery might have been designed to show off the male physique, the torso totally exposed, legs spread with genitals dangling between, arms up and straining, belly and buttocks taut, sweat trickling down, head up, gaze concentrated on a distant target, every muscle outlined and tensed, as the archer suddenly holds his breath, aims, then releases. The act of shooting is itself suggestive of sexual consummation, especially with the archer stark naked as I was for that demonstration.
The sultan was also impressed by Ahmad's looks. "I don't suppose your boy is for sale, Orsini. His rump looks quite fetching as he runs off to retrieve your arrows. He is very outdoorsy and healthy. My own boys are pale and pampered and soft. He would make a good addition to my harem."
"Nay, Majesty, he is a free man and my close friend and apprentice. I am sure he would choose stay with me."
"Pity."
I was not surprised then when I got an invitation to a dinner the next night with both rulers. I sat on pillows not far from the twin sovereigns, close enough that they might speak to me. The evening was quite pleasant at first. I told travelers' tales of my adventures over the centuries, attributing some of them to other men of course, describing far off lands in China and Central Asia along the Silk Road including the oasis on the rim of the Taklamakan Desert, the Ferghana Valley and Balkh, before the Mongols made that vast city an empty shell, literally. Once called the Mother of Cities and birthplace of Zoroaster, the outer walls stretch for seven miles (11 km) with only emptiness inside.
A server passed by with a wine pitcher in his hands. I tugged on his robes to get his attention, and he turned to me, suppressing a glare in his eyes. He leaned forward and refilled my goblet and I caught a whiff of hashish on his breath. I watched him as he walked away, moving like a cat. I looked up into the eyes of the Sultan's captain of the guard who was also following the progress of the servant. I made a motion with my right hand miming as if to pull a dagger from my belt. The captain nodded then signaled to his men who quietly moved to block the man. Suddenly the man shouted, pulled out a dagger and hurled himself at the Sultan. The bodyguards were ready and hacked him to death. No need to question who sent him. The dagger he carried was that of the Old Man of the Mountain, the leader of the cult of the Assassins.
Once the excitement was over the Sultan and the King met with me privately.
"I must thank you for spotting that assassin, Orsini." he began.
"Majesty, the captain of your guard already had his eye on the man. I just happened to be close enough to smell hashish on the assassin's breath, and I saw he did not walk like a servant, so I gave the captain a signal."
"Yes, Captain Qasim has served me well over the years, as on this day too."
The captain nodded to acknowledge the way I had declined the major credit for thwarting the assassin. It wasn't false modesty. It was his men who killed him, after all. Besides, I would rather have the captain of the Sultan's guard as an ally rather than a rival.
"I am sorry I cannot publicly reward you for your service this night. It would not be politic for me to owe my life to a Frank. Some Muslims already think I am betraying the umma, the community of believers, treating diplomatically with the King of the Romans. Can you think of some quiet reward I may safely confer on you?"
"Yes, Majesty. Ahmad and I have never visited the pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt. After we conclude our business here we would like to travel to Egypt and view these wonders. If I could have a pass that would let us proceed from Alexandria to Cairo, I would be more than grateful."
"Granted. Captain Qasim shall see to it. And when Orsini arrives in Cairo, Qasim, see that he is given comfortable but inconspicuous quarters in one of our guest houses in the palace complex."
"As you wish, Majesty."
So now I had two powerful monarchs well disposed toward me, and not from flattery or bribery or conniving at their power games.
The politics and geopolitics of the day were complicated and pointless to describe. While rulers squabbled over small territories in the Levant the Mongols had seized Central Asia and were soon to march on Persia. In fact the Mongol advance wouldn't be halted till thirty years later in Syria, by the Egyptian Mamluks, but not before the Mongols carved out the largest contiguous empire in history.
In the end, Frederick got the best terms possible, restoration of considerable territories including the city itself though with full recognition of Muslim rights and access to their holy places. Remarkably his crusade succeeded without Papal support, without battles and with no slaughter, pillage, or robbery. Quite a contrast with the Fifth Crusade that failed utterly before Damietta in Egypt or the misbegotten Fourth Crusade a quarter century earlier that ruined the Byzantine Empire as the bulwark of Christendom against the Muslims of the East.
Ahmad and I visited the holy places in the city. Neither of us was Christian. Ahmad was nominally a Muslim but not pious. I was skeptical of all faiths and creeds. We were both appalled at the crass money grubbing of the staff at every point of pilgrimage. Priests and monks had their hands out for entry fees, offerings, alms, donatives, incense, whatever. Some things never change whether for pilgrims in those days or for tourists in modern times.
We visited the supposed site of the Last Supper, as our guide told us. One glance at the cross-groined roof and I told him flatly.
"This entire building is a Crusader construction; it cannot be more than a century and a half old."
That flustered him, and his hasty assurance that the rooms had been built over the original site must have sounded false even in his own ears. We next visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where the white Christ was said to have risen from the dead. I wondered out loud how the original crypt could have been sited within the city walls contrary to all law and custom of the region.
"How disappointing, my young friend," I added, pretending this was my first visit.
"We are told this is where the key event of world history, the resurrection of a god made man, opened the gates of Heaven. Yet there is nothing extraordinary to mark it. You would expect a perpetual light shining down from the sky, or angelic voices, or to find the sanctuary filled with a divine effulgence. Something out of the ordinary. There is nothing here at all."
"It is just another building, housing another over-decorated church, with too many statues and images, too many candles, and too much silver and gilt and incense."
I did not press my point, though I could see annoyance on the faces of the Church's priests who could not help overhearing my skeptical remarks. These days there are actually two churches in Jerusalem, one Orthodox, one Catholic, both claiming to shelter the tomb of the Christ. I doubted the authenticity of all sites sacred to the three great faiths.
And it is not just ancient sites and relics. (I once held in my hand what I was assured was a sliver of the True Cross.) True believers blindly overlook the most manifest absurdities in their creeds like the tale of the six days of creation. How could even omnipotence separate day from night on the first day without the rising and setting of the sun to mark the passage of days? In Genesis, the sun and the moon and the stars were not created till the fourth day. And what of the notion of a chosen people, surely ethnocentric and parochial and ultimately selfish. Only the later Calvinist doctrine that the elect will number no more than 144,000, out of the twenty billions who have lived on earth to date, is more selfish and smug. I object to such creeds on moral grounds as much as I reject them as offensive to reason.
I do not know the ultimate truth of things. Perhaps men can never know. In my centuries I have seen religions rise and fall, seen conversions at the point of a sword, or watched whole countries change faiths to suit a king's dynastic political interests. This has not made me cynical, for I can still see the worth in other people, but it has made me skeptical. I have never accepted the unsupported claims of others that they do know exactly how and why all things came to be. I find their answers completely unpersuasive.
Chapter 5. Leave Taking
Successful though the crusade was, even the cession of Jerusalem and the ten year truce did not mean much in the long run. Frederick was at odds not only with the Pope but also many of the local nobles, especially John of Ibelin, Lord of Beirut. I had stayed behind when the king sailed back to Italy, to confront the Pope, in which endeavor he was successful, forcing the Pope to lift his excommunication. Meanwhile I was trying to developing business opportunities in Acre and the restored kingdom.
Although I had kept a low profile around the king, I was still known as his man. In the context of the virtual civil war that Frederick left behind that created difficulties for me.
"Merchant" I heard a rough voice call behind me. "Why do you carry a blade more appropriate for a soldier than for a hairless boy who spreads his legs in a brothel?"
It was a rough looking man at arms dressed in scale armor and helmet walking with three other bravos.
"I think he likes the way the tip pokes at his backside." Another of them said. "No doubt many swords have done so over the years."
The men laughed at this crude witticism. I did wear my blade on my back with the hilt protruding over my right shoulder where it does not get in your way when you run or climb or fight with hands and feet. Yes, the point of the blade hung down to my rump, but the men were obviously trying to provoke me. I think I had turned one down at the brothel and by his device he was in the service of one of Ibelin's allied lords. Ahmad was at my side and glared belligerently at the men. He had known such men from his days on the streets, bullies in a word. I pushed him protectively behind me as he carried only a dagger himself. This looked like real trouble brewing, brazenly provoking a fight in the streets in the late afternoon. They couldn't be drunk so early.
People gave us space, clearly expecting a fight. At least they had confronted us in a small square which gave me room in a fight. My small physique made me quick and nimble. As long as I had room for maneuver, I could more than hold my own. That is why I usually wore no armor which might slow me down. I was dressed in a combination of oriental and western dress. Loose flowing pants instead of hose, shirt and vest instead of a robe.
The men continued provoking me, us really, calling us catamites, speculating on which of us slept on top, mocking our pretty boy looks, asking if we were castrati -- that sort of thing. I am slow to anger in any event and was more annoyed than angry much less afraid. I knew how to deal with bullies, so I did not bother to reply except to warn them in a low voice.
"You are making a mistake."
As indeed they were. Centuries of practice and experience had made me better than an expert swordsman. It had been several centuries since I had met anyone really close to my level of skill with a blade of any sort. One of the main advantages I have over mortals is my centuries of experience and practice of survival skills like sword fighting. I also have greater stamina, though much of that is the result of constant physical exercise.
Finally they worked themselves up to violence. The leader drew his sword and swung at me though with the flat of his blade. I was too quick for him. Stepping within his guard, I blocked his arm, seized it, twisted, drew him over my hip and threw him onto the ground, using his own weight to break his arm. I am also a master of all manner of unarmed combat, an eclectic system based originally on the pankration of the ancient Greeks, but modified for a small man's capabilities. I stamped on his groin to put him out of action entirely.
"Stop this now." I shouted, "and we all go our separate ways."
I was willing to stop at that point. The man had not actually tried to kill me after all. But their blood was up at the way I had not only defeated but humiliated a much larger foe. Three to one they drew their blades, shouting they would first tear off our clothing, whip us with belts, then publicly rape us, leaving us to the mercy of street thugs afterwards. The leader came at me, the other two fanning out to block our escape. Fools, I knew escape was not possible, nor was it my intention. Their only chance had been to rush me together and hope to get lucky.
"You have drawn steel on us. I am acting in self-defense."
I called out so the crowd would hear and be my witnesses. Our blades clashed. These were ordinary men at arms, not knights, who had no idea how good I was with a blade, how hopelessly outmatched they were by the small, slender, pretty catamite they scorned. I knew I had to stop them before one of them got to Ahmad who had his own blade out, standing next to a pillar, using it to protect his left side, more vulnerable than the right from a right handed foe.
I used all my speed and skill, darting left and right, to wound and disarm the first two almost before they realized it, pinking one in the shoulder and the other in the forearm. One of them was distracted by the thrust Ahmad made to his ribs. They were lucky I did them no lasting harm. The third man I injured more seriously, cutting off the thumb of his sword hand. That was the last time he would wield a sword against me or anyone. (For just that reason, I often practice with my sword in the left hand just in case.)
I did not slay them because their own declared intentions were not lethal. Also I was cautious about taking life in this foreign land without the king on hand to protect me. His bailiff knew who I was but was not a real friend, someone I could count on. Had they harmed Ahmad though, I would have killed them without hesitation or regret.
"Alessandro, that was unbelievable!" Ahmad enthused. I shrugged it off.
"Let's get the hell of of here, Ahmad. Put your blade back in its scabbard and follow me."
The boy was excited, but he followed my lead. We turned and walked down the narrow streets and alleyways. I had carefully reconnoitered and walked the city over the last two months as a standard precaution. We quickly left the excitement behind us, arriving at the back door of the boy brothel where we had spent so many pleasant evenings. I spoke with Hassan and both Ahmad and I were led to a small room in the cellar where we changed into Arab dress, full robes and all. I kept them there for just such an emergency. I sent Waqqub with a note to recover a small lock box I had left in safekeeping with a fellow merchant. It contained ready coin plus drafts on counting houses in Alexandria, Palermo, and Naples and my pass and safe passage from the Sultan. The note also gave instructions for paying off my servants. I did not care about recovering my personal effects. It was time to cut our losses. Hang the commercial opportunities in the Levant. I just wanted to get out of town.
I was implementing one of my escape plans, this one via the sea. I did not wait to see what legal charges or private revenge the men at arms or their faction might try for. They were welcome to Acre and their damnable power struggles. All I had ever wanted was to make an honest profit. No one had died in our confrontation, so any pursuit would not be serious. All we had to do was give them the slip and leave.
As dusk fell, Ahmad and I sailed a boat out of the harbor. We looked no different from many similar boats, so our departure went unchallenged. We stood out to sea with adequate supplies for a straight run across the sea, southwest to Alexandria. That took the better part of a week. Ahmad was a better sailor this time, quickly getting over his queasiness.
Ours was a sturdy boat large enough for six though two could work it safely. The weather held good and we had the stars to steer by at night as well as a compass and the sun, so I could sail a steady course out of sight of land. How different it was compared to some of my early sea voyages.We sailed along unconcerned about our reception in Alexandria. I knew we could expect a good welcome among the Saracens in Egypt.
We had plenty of water and food and much time on our hands. We used it playfully, enjoying our closeness, our successful escape, our vitality, and sexuality. We didn't wear a stitch the whole time we were at sea. It was a toss up as to which was rocking the boat more, the sea or ourselves. Sometimes we had an audience for our frolicking when a seabird perched in the rigging to rest. Do birds have enough intelligence to connect our enthusiastic couplings with their own mating instincts? Sometimes I bent Ahmad over a thwart and spanked him lightly before thrusting into him. Sometimes he tickled me, reducing me to helpless laughter before suddenly asserting himself and taking the commanding position with me thrown over the seat. My laughter soon turned into a different kind of joy, as I submitted to his masculinity. We were so good together, glad to be alive, to be lovers, friends, and fellow adventurers.
At Alexandria I showed Ahmad where the great lighthouse had once stood, long since brought down by an earthquake, its stones used to build a fortress. We traveled to Cairo to see the pyramids, climbing to the top of the tallest for the unparalleled view. Indeed the pyramids were magnificent, but what a monument they were to a single man's pride and hope for an afterlife. At least the Romans in their days built infrastructure which served the needs of the living, not vainglorious tombs for dead rulers. Ahmad marveled at the mysterious Sphinx, a lion with a human head. Of course this was not my first visit to the wonders of Egypt, but I could hardly explain that to my young lover.
We even sailed up the Nile as far as the stupendous temple at Karnak, largest ever built. Nothing quite makes you realize how much Egypt is the gift of the Nile than to travel beyond the delta and see the contrast between the black land of the alluvial strip along the river contrasting with the red desert to either side. We swam in the Nile with a bowman keeping watch for crocodiles, then, in the evening, made love under a cloudless desert sky, the stars as witness to our happiness.
Finally we returned to Alexandria and caught passage to Palermo.
Epilogue
We resumed our comfortable lives in Sicily. Soon we were running along the beach, swimming, and dining on the terrace in the nude, talking and joking just as before. Ahmad was clever and became the chief assistant in my merchant house including arrangements with the smugglers. His street wisdom helped there. I think he had a touch of my gift for the years were very kind to him. He always looked like the pretty street boy I had help get away from the baker.
Frederick gradually grew remote, engrossed in his struggles to turn Italy into a unified country against the interests of the northern communes and the popes who were at the peak of their power in the thirteenth century. He lived till 1250, still struggling for supremacy. His ambitions led him to impose a tax burden greater than the realm could bear. Like many rulers he became intolerant as wars and rebellions kept him on campaign for many years. I had long before dropped out of his inner circle, not interested in power games.
Was he a good ruler and a good man? An effective ruler, certainly, but an overly ambitious one who gave in to the arrogance of power. He did much for his southern realm, at least at first, promoting economic development and creating a modern style administration. His wars later imposed an intolerable burden on the kingdom. He was an intellectual with wide interests and a great patron of the arts and of learning. He was a religious skeptic so far ahead of his time, he was a revolutionary. His philosophy of life was commendably anti-religious in an overly religious age. A pope once denounced him for "maintaining that no man should believe aught but what may be proved by the power and reason of nature." We now see that as a virtue.
On his death some of the legend surrounding his grandfather attached to his own person. It was said he (or Barbarossa) was not dead but asleep in a cave. Someday one or the other would arise to again rule Germany. Next time, he would establish an empire that would last a thousand years. Folk memories of this legend were woven into a Hitler's political ideology in the 1920s leading to the great tragedy of a second world war. Hitler even called his invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 Operation Barbarossa.
After nearly ten happy years together Ahmad died of a sudden illness. I don't even know what it was. A fever carried him off while I was away on business, not that I could have done anything for him if I had been there. I don't have any special powers like the laying on of hands to cure disease. I am seldom ill myself but I cannot confer that power on another, much less my longevity. I only wish I could. So many of those I have encountered over the centuries are more worthy of my gift than I. And it would ease my loneliness. There are a very few like me around the globe, but we are not in touch and are not easy to find, and don't always like each other's company when we do meet.
The saddest thing about never growing older is that eventually you must lose those you love or befriend. I can accept that philosophically, but I am still working on accepting it emotionally. Only in my memories or my dreams can I now spend time with clever Ahmad, one of the great loves of my life. He was so very much alive and so very beautiful, and so much fun to be with. It hurts that he is gone, but in retrospect I can still chortle at the way he finally tricked my purse away from me that day at the tavern or recall how his rump flexed as he ran to retrieve my arrows. He delighted me immensely. As time goes on the hurt fades, and we remember the happy things about those we have lost.
I do not know what happens after death. I suspect the worst, but I understand why most people hope for a second life, even without good evidence. I would like to see Ahmad and my other lovers and friends again. I wouldn't be human if I felt otherwise, would I? I wouldn't be rational if I did not see that as wishful thinking.
Only recently could I write of these things, choosing, from caution, to cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of modern science will believe it. In this tale, all of the names are real. The events described really did happen just as I have written.