SQUIRE OF CARLOVAIN, CHAPTER 14
"The Knights Errant"
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
When Renaud insisted that Andrew accompany him the following day to visit with Lord Montaigne, Andrew's had an immediate gut-wrenching reaction, a surge of disgust every time he thought of how his body had been invaded by Lord Montaigne at the masque. When Renaud noticed--and how could he not--Andrew felt comfortable enough with Renaud and Marcel to say so.
"I will not defend his actions." Renaud said. "There are many who take the masque as a means to behave abominably. But by this same reason, you go now not as a masked guest that he may misuse with impunity, but as my servant and he will expect your presence now that you are healed."
"It is true." Marcel said. "I have been told that he hosts frequent masques and has done as much to others."
"That is more than I have heard." Renaud said. "Though I did hear his plans for the second masque. Had I known he had intentions toward you, I would have said more. Still, it is past and probably not to be repeated. He is the Lord Protector and we petition his favor; we must let this go as well as we can."
Andrew thought about playing sick, but it was a card he had played too many times and, besides, he really was well now and tired of feigning weakness, even though it had proved useful to him yesterday. "Very well, I agree. But if he lays another hand upon me, I do not promise to be answerable for my actions."
Renaud smiled. "If he lays another hand on you, I shall answer for you, you may be sure." Renaud reached a hand across the table and stroked Andrew's cheek. "You are my friend, and none may molest my friends without my intercession. Rely upon that and rest your fears."
Andrew nuzzled the hand. "I shall rely, then, upon your intercession."
With that agreement, they went to call upon the soi-disant Lord Protector.
It was Andrew's first up-close look at Lord Montaigne; the night before, he had worn the mask and been further disguised in rather flowing full-length robes. Now he wore a simple jerkin and tights, no better than Andrew's own, and only his position among the group told Andrew which he was.
A tall but somewhat slender man, he put Andrew in mind of the slender whippets that were gamboling around the outer courtyard. He had moved to the King's outer throne and was seated there, not in royal assembly, but in what appeared an earnest consultation with his retainers. His posture was arrogantly comfortable, slouching over the throne as if it were some ordinary chair. That brought home to Andrew more than anything how wrong this was, that someone besides the rightful King should sit upon the throne.
"Ah, Renaud." Lord Montaigne called out, that familiar, cultured, affected speech causing Andrew to grit his teeth. "You are here. I was about to send for you."
"I am at your disposal, my Lord." Renaud said.
"And now I see the face of the valiant Andre, of whom you have spoken so highly." Lord Montaigne said. "I am pleased to see him restored, indeed, quite vigorously restored to health."
That brought an obliging titter of amusement from the congregation; for his part, Andrew simply waited to hear the next words, he settled for bowing while plastering a smile on his face. It felt like a grimace there.
"We are pleased to see you have such a loyal and sturdy retainer." Lord Montaigne continued. "And we commend you, Andre, for your service to your lord against those execrable footpads."
"Thank you, my Lord." Andrew said.
"Yes, for such loyalty, we can forgive much." Lord Montaigne continued. "Even if your sense of honor is sometimes a bit misplaced."
"My Lord, if I gave insult to you last night in the matter of the prisoner, I humbly beg pardon." Andrew said. "I serve my Master, and I serve honor."
"And what of your loyalty to Carlovain?"
Andrew knew the official answer to that, and it was ambiguous enough to suit his purposes. "Carlovain is its lords, and its lords are Carlovain. I serve my Master and thus I serve my country, in a single fealty."
"And you serve honor. That makes a double fealty, by your own words. What if those two should be at odds?" Lord Montaigne riposted, earning another titter from the company.
"I know my Master, and cannot imagine him performing any duty without honor." Andrew said. "So the issue shall never arise."
"And what of your duty to me, as the head of the Lords of Carlovain?" Lord Montaigne said.
And there was the trap! A quick glance at Renaud told him he was still on his own; whatever intercession Renaud would offer was not yet there.
"The Lords choose who is to be first among them. My Master has chosen you and is loyal to you. For myself, I am loyal to my Master." That should throw it back in his teeth!
"So I am to be given only secondary loyalty?" Lord Montaigne pressed. "With your primary loyalty going to young Renaud here, who has no land or title of his own? What if the requirements of Renaud and myself should differ? Whom shall you choose?"
"You yourself were in this position, when you chose between your loyalty to your fellow Lords and loyalty to the King." Andrew said. "You have made your choice and it seems not to have caused you grief. I misdoubt but that, should the need arise, I shall find my own course equally clear and easy to my conscience."
He had just insulted Lord Montaigne, for the oath to the King was quite clear and unequivocal, to support the King against any who would oppose him. But he had boxed Lord Montaigne as well, who could not rebut this comment without recalling this directly to the assembly.
Lord Montaigne's response was unexpected; he laughed a hearty laugh. "Well spoken, Andre! Did I not tell you all that he has spirit?"
"You did indeed, my Lord." one of his retainers said.
"I knew he wouldn't back down to me, for all my titles and power." Lord Montaigne said. "I knew it when I heard of him. You can't tame the spirit of such a man, you can only earn its loyalty. Renaud, you have earned his loyalty. That speaks well of your own abilities."
"Thank you, My Lord." Renaud had been watching this exchange carefully, and the relief in his voice was very clear. "For myself, I have chosen to follow you, and my loyalty to you is chief among those in my own heart."
"Excellent." Lord Montaigne said. "For it is time for me to depend upon that loyalty. Your uncle is not here?"
"Nay, my Lord, he is still with my father's ships in the harbor at Gullsport."
Andrew tried not to look like a dog with its ears perked up. The Count's ships were at nearby Gullsport? Count Ratisbon had held the King's navy for eastern Carlovain. Trevish and Adomeh had spoken of trying to capture some of those ships. As for the rest of Carlovain's tiny fleet, some had fled Heslov's harbor entirely under the King's loyalists, and the rest had been scuttled and now lay at the bottom of the harbor. But if the Count's ships were here...what then? He wished he dared question Renaud directly on this.
But Renaud, for all his vaunted confidences in Andrew, had said nothing of all this.
Lord Montaigne stood and Andrew could almost see them all prepare for a speech. His voice changed timbre and pitch, became resounding and fervent; the affectational inflection now gone. Now there was the voice of a leader among men!
"Go, then, to your uncle and tell him to prepare the ships. Know you all now my plans which I have kept a closed secret until now, when I may speak of it to you, each of whom has declared their loyalty to me. I have deliberately kept my own men out of the field, and assembled them in Heslov for this purpose, a force now twelve thousand strong. The other French lords will continue to keep the Neresterii rabble busy in the heartland while you will travel with me and my men by ship to land an expeditionary force at Winseran Point. From there we will have a free hand to plunder their lands, burning their fields and killing their livestock and peasantry, leaving an empty wasteland in our path. The Neresterii shall have to retreat to defend it, and in doing so, their forces shall become disorganized and fall into discord, as the lords each choose to protect their own lands at the costs of the others We will crush them in a vice and I don't doubt but that we'll drink our Christmas wassail in the vaunted stronghold of Castle Tiresval, surrounded by the bounty of the Neresterii treasure hoards." Lord Montaigne looked keenly around the group, which was mostly the younger nobles and their retainers, and they were hanging eagerly on his every word. "As for all of you, you will have your chance to show your prowess in battle. There'll be lands enough for all when the Neresterii lords are crushed, and Carlovain becomes totally ours!"
A loud cheer rang out through the assembly, and Andrew, feeling Lord Montaigne's eyes upon him, joined in as heartily as he could fake it. Renaud was genuinely happy, he could see.
What would such a rear attack do to the loyalist forces? Andrew knew from his days abed and talks with Renaud that the King's lands in southern and central Carlovain were now totally under French control. Scattered and with small populations on the whole, they had fallen easily to the larger French forces around them. The large section of the King's land in the south of Carlovain was mostly the Tenemon Marshes, and while loyalist forces still held much of those marshlands, the only usable portions of it, the northern stretches where the King's horses were raised, had been eagerly seized by the French lords. On the whole, only the Neresterii lands were still free from the rebellion and battles were raging all through the heart of Carlovain as the French lords' smaller numbers were balanced by the superiority of their armament. The northern provinces were poor and the ground not as fertile, they faced not a true army in the field, but an armed rabble of peasantry that were easily cut down by the armored lord's forces.
With this blow falling, it could mean the end of Carlovain's long reign of independence. The land which had successfully held off the forces of the Roman Emperors, who had retaliated by forbidding the small peninsula to ever be drawn on the maps of Rome, the army of Charlemagne, who had lost over two thousand men to the bogs of the Tenemon Marshes. Phillippe I had won because of his use of ships, and now Lord Montaigne meant to do the same to wipe the last of the Neresterii from their holdings, land held by them uninterrupted for all of human memory! Even their language remained intact, unrelated to the many Romance tongues that held sway over the rest of Europe. Only the Basques in Spain could claim a similar past, and even they could not claim the long independence of Carlovain!
"I shall begin the travel to Gullsport today, then, if I may." Renaud said when the applause and cheers had died down. "And you may depend upon the ships to be ready."
"Very good." Lord Montaigne said. "I shall depend upon you, and you may in turn depend upon my favor when the Neresterii rabble have been sent to join their forefathers and I must place their lands in hands more trustworthy to the French cause."
Renaud beamed at that more than ever. He was assured of a share in the despoiled lands, it seems.
"You will need another, in case the hazards of the trip are more than you can bear. I would not trust your retainer to continue the mission if you were slain, since his loyalty, by his own words, would then be at an end. Ah, Marcel shall accompany you." Lord Montaigne said, peering about. "He is your friend, is he not?"
"He is, my Lord." Renaud said.
"You may leave then. With the courageous Andre protecting the two of you, I am certain my message shall arrive safely."
Andrew barely remembered to go with Renaud and Marcel as they left. He was too stunned by the plan. It would work. How could it not?
He had not yet been contacted by Adomeh or Trevish. How was he to use the knowledge he had gained by this long pretense, how to get it to the hands of the loyalist forces? He would have to steal away at Gullsport after getting a count of the ships there, and make his way to the loyalists as best he could.
But what good would that do? All the knowledge would do is split the loyalist forces in two quicker than before. He imagined the lands of northern Carlovain, emptied of its fighting men, only the commoners left to till the soils and fish in the abundant waters of the North Sea, these would be all that would oppose Lord Montaigne. Many would die before any loyalists could be brought to bear upon his men, and even then, such a force was unlikely to be enough to overcome a force of twelve thousand men! Montaigne had by far the richest lands in Carlovain, his lands held the most people, he was far richer than the King, and he had seen with his own eyes that Montaigne's men were well-armed and trained. Montaigne must have planned this rebellion for years!
It all depended upon the King, now, and the help he could gain from England. England, which had lost its substantial holdings in France but for the port of Calais and made no attempt to regain it. And after a hundred years of war, would England help?
He would not, were he the King of England!
"You are pensive, Andre." Renaud said.
"I am thinking. Lord Montaigne has trusted you much, this day."
"Yes, and this is what I knew, why I came here to the palace. I knew he needed my uncle's ships and I was an obvious choice to use as liaison between my father and the Lord Protector. My uncle thought the ships themselves were more important, so he has gone to them instead and sits there waiting for Lord Montaigne to come and humbly request his help in using them. But I knew better. Montaigne will not ask, he will show up with his men and he will simply take, given my word as my father's son as sufficient license." Renaud babbled. "I, not my uncle, will be the favored one."
"There is still a long road to travel." Andrew warned. "Not just to Gullsport, but thence to Winseran Point and by foot across northern Carlovain, which is a rugged and unfriendly place."
"But it is the final path to be taken." Renaud said. "A man may endure much, if he knows his goal awaits at the end."
"What of Cederel?" Andrew asked. "You spoke of it as the land you wished to take for your own."
"Let my father keep it, as he and my uncle's men seized it upon the chosen day for the rebellion. It was only a place I knew well. He and my uncle may spar for it as they will, that and the King's land to the south which he divided with Lord Montaigne and Lord Bouillon. For myself, give me a land to which others hold no claim and I shall take it and make it my own."
"The Neresterii lords hold claim." Andrew reminded him gently. "Do not forget what will come first, the killing and burning and stealing of everything of value."
"We shall take our share of all that." Marcel interposed. Andrew had forgotten he was there, he had been silent for so long. "And use a generous hand with it at first when the land is given to us, so that we will be the benefactors of the peasants. They will remember their old lord only as one who failed to protect them, and will embrace our new protection with gratitude."
"Are you sure that will work?" Andrew asked.
Marcel shrugged. "It worked here when Phillippe I and our ancestors came to this land. It will work again."
That silenced Andrew. Marcel was right. Taking away the treasures of the land and then giving it back as largesse. How could they lose?
They were packed and on the road again by noon. Andrew rode the horse he had ridden all this time, the King's own horse, and none had known it. It was the first he had occasion to think of this. Odd, he had known every regular customer's horse by sight after the first few visits; he could see the horse and knew who visited, even if the horse were unsaddled and otherwise featureless. Horses had individual faces the same as men. Were the men in the stables so blind?
Ah, but the lands were in turmoil. No doubt many men rode horses which were no longer owned by the men of a few days ago. Or the stablemen could have been replaced by Lord Montaigne's own men. Yes, that would be what would happen. Lord Montaigne would not trust the King's own stable-hands, or they would have fled, and he would have replaced them from his own house. That made him feel better.
The ride was slow and quite pleasant. They would be in Gullsport by morning, for it was not a long ride, and the road was wide and well-traveled. It was easy enough to forget that this was a land in the throes of civil war, if you ignored the occasional groups of peasants in wagons or on foot, carrying all they could and trudging along, bound for Heslov and the chance for a new life there. This meant that their lands had been taken from them or despoiled by the troops; now footloose, they would naturally gravitate to the towns, their best hope, where work could be had for a lucky man with a good pair of hands.
They had been alone on the road for some hours, and it was nearing nightfall when Andrew heard it. He cocked his head and looked over at Renaud. "What is that?" he asked. It was a jingling sound, a clanking sound, and heavy hoof-treads all combined. Clomp-clomp-jingle-clank!
"You know not this sound?" Marcel grinned at him. "And you the son of an innkeeper?"
"Nay, I have not heard it before." Andrew admitted.
"It is the sound of a knight in armor. More than one, I should judge. Nobody else makes such a racket while traveling, with armor clanking and spurs and bridles jingling and the poor horses laboring along under that heavy tread."
"Knights in armor." Andrew said. They had always been scarce in Carlovain, and ever since the battle of Agincourt, armor had fallen into increasing disuse and disrepute. Though useful against spears and arrows in the thick of battle, the danger was that you would be unhorsed; as at Agincourt, where many knights in heavy armor had fallen and drowned in the churned-up mud or died at the hands of the common soldier, who had the prostrate man below him and could choose an entrance point for his spear at his leisure.
An armored man was encumbered, depending upon the amount of his armor, by over a hundred pounds of solid steel. Strapped properly onto the erect body and with practice, it rode with you well enough, but if you fell down, that same steel became a dead weight to be raised along with your own body and strapped in a way that you could not get up and then pick it up, you had to raise it with your own muscles, the smaller ones unused to heavy burdens. So the one best way to defeat an armored foe was to unhorse him or knock him off his feet, after that, his life was yours.
But here they were, two men in armor riding their way. Silvery armor gleamed, they wore helmets, breastplates, backplates, and arm and leg guards. The horses they rode labored under their heavy weight; they did not gallop, they plodded.
"Ho, there, fair knights!" Renaud called out good-heartedly. "How fare ye?"
"Are you friend or foe?" came the response. "Who be ye?"
"I know not if you would call me friend." Renaud admitted. "I am Renaud, son of Count Ratisbon, and this is my friend Marcel, son of the Marquis of Lesleran."
"And the third?"
Renaud shrugged. "He is merely my retainer. Now who may you be and whence do you travel?"
"That me regards." came the enigmatic response.
Marcel was taken aback, then laughed. "This is rich! Right out of the old stories, it is!"
Renaud was laughing as well. "Can you remember the right response?"
"Not exactly."
"I don't think they'll mind if you get the gist of it. You'd best start it quickly, if we're to have a running start at them." The two knights were now close enough to make out details, and Andrew frowned. There was the faintest bit of familiarity about these men. And those horses. He had seen them before, as well, but where? It was recent.
"Knight, that is discourteously said." Marcel called. "And if ye give me not your names, we shall not let ye pass."
"Then we shall pass anyway."
"Ride beside me, close but somewhat behind." Renaud whispered hurriedly to Andrew. When we reach them, ride on their right-hand side." And Renaud handed him--the end of a rope! And he winked at Andrew.
It took Andrew a moment, then he grinned. "As you wish, Master." He said.
The knights kicked their steed, who whinnied in protest but began to gallop so slowly towards their group. Marcel took Renaud's right-hand side, leaving Renaud in the center, and they began to gallop toward the two knights, who had drawn their swords. Those swords shone in the evening sun the same as the shields. Marcel rode up ahead of Renaud, while Andrew kept by his side and behind as ordered. Marcel galloped up to the larger knight on the right and going to his right-hand side, deprived the knight of his protection of his shield and swung a blow at the knight with his blade. The knight turned in his saddle, awkwardly and slowly, and just managed to fend off the blow, catching it on his armored arm guard. Marcel was able to dodge the slow-moving response of the knight's sword easily, not encumbered by the arm being weighted with twenty pounds of steel and rode on behind them.
Now Renaud and Andrew were upon them and Renaud said, "Now!" and cut to the two knight's right as well. Andrew took the left, going around the other knight whose horse had turned sideways in the road at his behest, leaving his shield foremost and Andrew had to duck to keep that blade from slicing at his head.
But the rope was now there and did the trick. Just clearing the horses' heads (both had dropped their heads, as a good fighting horse is trained to do when battles close, which permits his rider to swing his blade freely), the rope caught both knights across their chests and the force of their ride and Andrew's tight grip with both hands on the rope and his legs clenched to his horse's sides, they were able to unseat both knights in short order, them toppling to the road's dusty surface.
"Hah!" Marcel yelled at the horses, after ducking the rope himself--but he at least had expected it--and managed to scare the horses away from the hapless knights, so that they did not even have the help of the horse's stirrups to pull themselves up with.
For they were both flat on the ground and struggling.
"Quickly!" Renaud said as he slipped off his horse and ran to the two men. Andrew did the same and imitated Renaud's action, which was to promptly sit down on the knight and carefully pry the sword out of the helpless man's hand. Both shields were already discarded.
The men tried to rise despite the weight of a man perched on them and the weight of the armor, but they moved slowly under the weight of the steel on their arms, and Andrew was able to anticipate and counter every movement.
"Do you surrender?" he asked the man below him.
"You sons of serpents!" came a rather familiar response to the man beneath him.
Andrew reached down and yanked off the helmet which hid the man's features entirely and looked down.
He was looking into the face of Adomeh. His eyes widened and seeing that Adomeh recognized him as well, he covered well as he could. "Do you surrender now, knight?" he asked. "Or must my sword find its way into your body through your eye?"
Andrew lifted his sword up with both hands, point downwards, to illustrate his point.
"I yield." came Adomeh's grudging response.
"Do you yield?" Renaud asked his still-struggling counterpart. He also yanked off the helmet to reveal...Trevish!
"I yield." Trevish said.
Marcel came up and looked down at the two prostrate forms, one leg still in the stirrup and the other cocked over his knee, a comfortable man with no need to fight at the moment. He grinned down at Trevish and said, "Well, sirs, shall we have your names and your mission now? These are days when a man must know where any stranger stands."
"I'll tell you nothing." Trevish said.
"Then we needs must apply some persuasion to these arrogant knights." Marcel slid off his horse, reached down and took Trevish's pouch and opened it. Hmm, just coins here. No letter from any protector. Knights errant then, are you?"
"Yes." came the grudging answer.
"But we still don't have your names. Shall you tell them us now?"
"Nay. Nay!" came the two responses.
Marcel sighed. "Help me drag this one off the road. Andre, you keep that one pinned down until we can return for him."
They grabbed Trevish each by a leg and pulled him like a dead weight into the bushes which marked a small campsite clearing by the roadside.
"What are you two doing?" Andrew hissed at Adomeh. "Are you mad?"
"Not so mad as to ride into Heslov with our faces showing." Adomeh whispered back at him. "We were too well-known by Lord Montaigne. We had planned to go into Heslov and then to seek you out by stealth, but feared being recognized on the road, and so this armor, which we took off a couple of dead French nobles in a battle two days ago. But this is better, and we are well-met, kinsman. You are doing right. You don't know us. Where are you bound?"
"Gullsport." Andrew said. "Count Ratisbon's ships are harbored there. And...." Marcel was returning. "Tell us your names and we may let you go." he said louder.
"I shall not!" Adomeh responded.
"Okay, Andrew." Marcel said as he took up one of Adomeh's struggling legs. "Let's grab the other and drag him so fast he can't get up. Watch him as we go lest he grab a handhold of some kind. He is helpless without a handhold or room to move."
"You offspring of a lonesome noble's wife and a barely pubescent page!" Adomeh stormed. "You get of curs, let me up!"
They dragged him down to the clearing which abutted a small stream, and found Renaud perched atop Trevish who still struggled feebly, obviously tired from the dead weight of the steel armor which he couldn't have been used to. To ride with that weight on in this heat! It must be a mercy to get into the shade of this area, with the coolness of the stream nearby.
Adomeh kicked and Andrew lost his hold, falling down, and Adomeh kicked entirely free. Then he used the sloping land to roll himself onto his stomach, and then managed to get his legs beneath him and rose to his hands.
But Marcel was upon him and Renaud jumped off Trevish and came to his assistance. Soon they had Adomeh pinned beneath them, though still on his legs and hands, it took both of them to hold him in place. Andrew saw Trevish rocking himself (he was lying in a small concavity in the ground, which further hindered him) and ran over to sit on Trevish's lower chest, grimaced, and slid down to Trevish's crotch, where there was no armor at all, only the cloth of the close-fitting, hooded, padded doublet and trousers he wore beneath the armor.
"We must learn if these two pose a threat to our Lord Protector." Marcel said. "But I do flinch at force upon what may well be simply an ally refusing to admit defeat in honorably combat."
"Honorable combat!" Adomeh surged. "You played a peasant's trick on us."
"Yes, and it worked." Marcel agreed.
"We should find means to persuade them." Renaud agreed. "There must be many things we can do to men who are helpless beneath us."
Trevish went into a bout of struggling, and Andrew rode him out.
"You look very fetching, sitting astride him like that." Marcel ventured. "One would think you were lovers, not antagonists in a battle."
Andrew saw, then, a way out for his friends, perhaps. If he could turn this into a game, these young noblemen would likely forget entirely any thoughts of torture. "Well, as you said, we may do what we would to these two knights errant." And he wiggled on Trevish's crotch suggestively.
"Ah, Mother protect us!" Trevish groaned. "Are you so lacking in honor that you would use us as you would a common barmaid?"
"Andre, I think he just insulted your mother." Renaud said.
"I think you're right." Andrew gave Trevish a hidden wink. "And none may do that with impunity. It is time I taught that to this whelp in iron clothing."
Marcel came over, leaving Renaud to keep a tight grip on Adomeh, Renaud sitting astride Adomeh like a man on a horse with his full weight resting on Adomeh's strong back, and reached down between Andrew's buttocks.
Andrew slid up and looked over his shoulder, Marcel was fondling the helpless Trevish's crotch which had swollen up in response.
"Well, if we have to slice anything off to get them to talk, we know where to start." Marcel said as he fished his knife out of its sheath.
Trevish's eyes grew wide with this. "Mercy, sir, have pity! Take my submission, good sir, with all honor!"
Andrew was equally disturbed. "Marcel, please, you wouldn't!"
"You are too kind to the enemies of the Lord Protector." Marcel jibed at him. And he stabbed down with the knife and Trevish moaned in fear.
But the knife merely slit the trousers wide open. In a trice, Trevish's entire groin was exposed and vulnerable. And his cock was erect and standing tall.
"I do believe he has a taste for this treatment." Marcel said.
There was another surge from Adomeh, Andrew looked over to see Renaud having slid off of Adomeh, clinging to his back and now fondling Adomeh. "Yes, I think they both like the idea of being our playthings." Renaud said. "Don't you, Sir Knight?" He slid down Adomeh's trousers and soon Adomeh was equally vulnerable. Adomeh again tried to move, to stand up, but the combined weight of Renaud's body and the armor was enough to pinion even strong Adomeh quite effectively, he moved a few feet forward, but that was all. Renaud had slid back even further now and was thus kneeling behind Adomeh while he clung to Adomeh's cock with his hand.
"Ah, thank you, sir." Renaud said as he hitched back at Adomeh. "I accept your offer with gratitude. You have a choice now to make." he said as Adomeh continued his struggle. "I have my knife at hand. I can either use my free hand to convey my mouth's water down to my manhood and prepare it thus, or I can use my free hand to hold a knife to your throat. Pray take your selection now, for I tire at your convulsions beneath me."
"I do recommend that you hold still, sir, for I can attest that he is a gentle lover when he wishes to be." Andrew said to Adomeh. "While both of these men are quite loyal to the Lord Protector Guy Montaigne, they are not naturally sadistic. But you challenged us to a combat and now must pay some penalty. As we have no desire of your armor or your gold, we must take what offerings you have."
"Ah, then be done with it!" Adomeh growled.
Renaud began to hawk spit into his palm and grease his cock. Andrew watched this, and hearing Trevish give out a familiar moan, he saw that Marcel was ministering to Trevish's prick with his very talented tongue. Andrew looked into his friend's face, and smiled, scooted up more to where he sat on Trevish's chest. "Now if you will join your comrade in his payment, I shall be grateful." he said to Trevish. He winked again secretly at Trevish and got a small smile in response, before Trevish raised up his head to touch Andrew's cock to his lips.
Andrew needed to put on a show for Renaud and Marcel, so he grasped Trevish's head and pushed it in, hard, knowing that Trevish was adept enough to be able to handle such rough treatment. Trevish grunted, choked, but bore it and soon Andrew's cock was being given a powerful suction as he forced Trevish's head back and forth upon his organ.
"Agh, ahh!" Adomeh groaned as Renaud's cock slid into his anus. Knowing how Renaud's small yet broad prick worked on him, Andrew sympathized with Adomeh's grunts, the faces he made as he lay his head down on the summer grass still moist and verdant in this favored spot, and Renaud humped at him eagerly.
Marcel was playing his tongue over Trevish's cock, not taking him completely, but rather taunting and teasing the supine warrior, and Andrew felt a strange pride in this, his old friends being taken by his new friends, and neither knowing the other. It caused a strange gurgling in his balls as Trevish slurped on his pud, driving him to greater and greater heights of passion, so that he moaned lustily with the warm lips on his prick, the feel of cold metal beneath his legs, the heat of the summer day, all coalescing sensations in his nostrils and his brain, so that he felt a strange powerful ecstasy quite unlike his normal passion stealing into his soul.
Adomeh was grunting and moaning as if in real pain, but Andrew saw that his pud was still erect and twitching of its own accord, Renaud having released it, and his face flushed, he growled in his submission and his cock suddenly became a churning bubble mass of white soggy jism that poured out of his slit and partially down his shaft before the twitching movements of his body from Renaud's thrusts sent it flying off to land with rich ripeness on the green carpet below him. Renaud gasped in pleasure as Adomeh squirted his wad and Andrew saw his face light up with a familiar pleasure-look, and he knew that Renaud was pumping his jism into Adomeh out of that stubby, wonderful prong of his, which was just long enough to trigger that love-button buried deep inside.
Andrew felt Trevish shift, and then Marcel's body behind him, sensed rather than seen, and he watched Trevish's face, wondering how Trevish would take this violation. But Marcel must have lavished some care on his own pud, for Trevish's face crinkled only in a brief flinch of insertion combined with pleasure, and then he was slurping on Andrew more lavishly than ever, and Andrew saw this, knew his friend was being ravished as he sucked on Andrew's prick, and Andrew gurgled, sputtered, gasped, and he was blasting his load into Trevish's sucking maw.
Marcel was making Trevish's body rock as he moved, and Trevish, drowning in Andrew's jism, suddenly clutched as if stabbed with a spear from beneath the ground, and Andrew felt the heavy splatters of jism hit his back. Marcel was left to finish a poor fifth, and he pumped at Trevish lustily for some minutes afterwards, until he shot his wad into Trevish's now limp and unresisting flesh.
"It is nearly nightfall." Renaud said as he got to his feet. "I think this is a good place to set our tent."
"Might we camp here with you?" Trevish said as he got to his feet, now that nobody was stopping him. Then to Adomeh, still lying there in his ravished position. "Come on, my friend, you have taken worse. And dealt it out, if you will recall."
"True." Adomeh said. "But it's this blasted armor. I am fain worn out from trying to rise in it with this luggard on my back as well."
"We warned you to quit struggling." Andrew said.
"True." Adomeh managed a grin. "And I need to remove this armor anyway, for I have decided it is useless in a fight. Until I meet up with an army, I intend to keep it strapped to my horse."
"Good of you to decide that." Andrew said. "For I doubt if it would make for a comfortable sleep."
"May we know your names now, good sirs?" Renaud said, with a tone in his voice that made it no confrontation at all.
"Certainly." Adomeh said. "I am...Adam and this...this is Trevor." Andrew grinned, Adomeh had converted their names from its Neresterii form to its English forms, the same as his had been changed from English to French. The problem with being a spy was keeping track of all the lies you were faced with telling. "We are Englishmen who heard there was a war brewing over here and decided to come try our fortunes. Having decided that the Neresterii had nothing of value to offer us, we thought to speak to the new Lord Protector."
"You should come with us, then." Renaud offered. "For we travel to Gullsport on the Lord Protector's business."
"For what reason?" Adomeh said.
Renaud shook his head. "We are not at liberty to reveal that. I will simply say that it is a good place to be."
"We would speak with the Lord Protector ourselves." Adomeh said after casting a glance at Andrew and getting a shake of the head in prompting. "If he is still at Heslov, then we journey there. But we thank thee for your kindness in our defeat. I shall not be so quick to challenge again when in armor."
"Armor has its purpose." Renaud said in a tone that meant he had discussed it in depth in his past. "But you trade agility for defense when you don it. I'd rather trust to my own abilities and eyes to protect me. Though in the midst of battle with arrows flying thick and fast, it must be invaluable."
"No more valuable than a large shield which you can cast aside at need." Marcel put in.
"Yes. We should speak more on armor." Adomeh said.
"And we shall, for we have the night ahead of us before we retire." Renaud turned to Andrew. "Go fetch our pack horse and set up camp. Then start our meal." And Renaud turned away from Andrew, forgot him in the enthusiasm of greeting these new men.
So he was a mere retainer now. Well, under the circumstances, perhaps that was for the best. Andrew walked away to find the pack horse, which was fortunately still on the road and down it a fair ways, having wandered in search of forage.
"I shall fetch our horses." Trevish called and joined Andrew a moment later.
"Good to see you again." Andrew said softly.
"Would I would say the same." Trevish said. "Why did you arrange that...degradation for us?"
"Because last night I attended a party where the enemies of the Lord Protector were not treated nearly so kindly. I trusted my knowledge of these two, that once they had shared their bodies with you, they would look on you with favor and not as enemies."
"Seems you were right, though I would as lief have foregone the sharing in just that manner." Trevish said, working his jaw with exaggerated care.
"Shouldn't you be rubbing your buttocks instead?" Andrew asked.
Trevish managed a grin. "All right, so it was fun, in a distorted way. But why shouldn't we accompany you?"
"Because you must get word to the Neresterii forces at once." Andrew said, and he explained the plot.
"I see." Trevish said as they gathered the horses and turned back to the clearing. "You are right, we must ride and warn as we can. You are certain they go to Winseran Point?"
"That is what Lord Montaigne said." Andrew agreed. "Though perhaps he thought to distract us, for he told many people at once."
Trevish pondered, then asked, "Who was in the crowd he told?"
"Those such as Renaud and Marcel, young noblemen, and their retainers such as myself."
"Then he trusted all of you." Trevish said. "We shall treat this intelligence as accurate, then. It was a lucky day for Carlovain when the King rode into your inn."
"I wish I felt lucky." Andrew said ruefully. "For I see no way to stop him. The Neresterii cannot fight a battle on two fronts. And Lord Montaigne will not accept surrender as Phillippe I did, he has too many French lords to reward. He will wipe the Neresterii nobility out to the last man if he can."
"We must return to our roles now." Trevish said. "Anything else."
"Only that, unless the King can pull off a miracle of alliance in his exile, I see nothing to stop Lord Montaigne." Andrew said. "He shall win over all of Carlovain. And when the Grand Duke's forces arrive, they shall stay here forever. Nothing will stop them."
"Yes, we need a miracle." Trevish said. "Until then, we fight on as best we can and trust to God to supply the miracle."
"Yes." Andrew said. And he said his private prayer to Vedron instead. "Pray, noble sir, have mercy upon your people. Let the King work a miracle in England."
END OF CHAPTER 14