THE LITTLE CANNON (A "Carlovain" story) by Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
Andrew's Family Inn Late Spring, 1475
Andrew was relieved to see that they had at least left the old well the same. While he had known that his mother had hired workmen to refurbish the old family dwelling, the inn where he had been born and grew up, almost a year ago, he hadn't realized just how extensive the renovations had been. His mother had declared that she intended to turn it into a "place where we can get away from things now and then" and he had acquiesced along with his father and thought little more of the matter.
But she had taken off the thatch roof and replaced it with cured-wood shingles, the walls had been heavily plastered both outside and in, she had extended the roof to turn the front of the old inn into a large patio, yanking out the tables where guests had once drank and reveled in the warmer days of the years, replacing it with colored stones laid out in a fanciful mosaic. He had thought he was coming home again, but instead found little that was familiar to his eyes.
But the old well was the same, and he hauled up the bucket. The water was as clear and crisp as ever to his lips and he shucked off his shirt (no peasant tunic this, but a fine silken shirt with the ruffles that his haberdasher had promised was all the latest fashion) and with only his tights on, he scooped up the water and laved it over his body as if needing to wash away the sweat of labor, as he had done often in his past. The water was chill to his body, for the water in the well ran deep underground, and the spring air was too cool still to make it an enjoyable experience.
"We only need a moment of your time, your Majesty...."
"No, no, not at this time." came the familiar silken voice. Andrew smiled and didn't turn around. "Now leave me and I'll examine your wares when I'm done here."
"Very well, your Majesty."
Andrew curled his arm, pleased to see that his regular workouts kept his body in tone. He felt out his muscle, noting the scar on his forearm from the footpads, that was still after five years, a rather ugly, wrinkled, tuckered mass on his arm. His life had nearly bled out there, he knew, had it not been for Renaud.....
And arms reached around his body, stroked him, and Andrew leaned his head back to let it rest against the familiar shoulder. Had it not been that this shoulder now was covered with a rather stiff over-tunic as well as the soft shirt, it would have been so much like that first time....
"I am pleased you could make it." Andrew said to the man behind him.
"As am I." the King said to him, kissed his outer ear.
"Can you stay for long this time?" Andrew begged his sovereign and lover.
"I can stay the night and tomorrow night." the King said. "Then I must return to my court and meet with the Council of Heslov."
Andrew sighed. Well, at least it was for two nights, and an entire day in between. "We shall make the most of this time." He said, turning in the King's arms. "And I am glad that we meet upon this spot, where you first touched me and inflamed my desire."
"You were a lad aflame already." the King said. "I but warmed myself at your fires. I was in flight for my life...."
"And I was but a peasant lad who had spent the morning cleaning the stables." Andrew said, looking over at the stables, whitewashed but otherwise as they had been before. "I think of that day often lately."
"As well you should, now that you have a son of your own." the King said.
"And I hear you have done your duty a third time to your Queen." Andrew smiled.
"Yes, I may put her aside now, without damaging my alliance with Denmark." the King agreed. "And with two sons that are King Christian's grandsons and perhaps a third to be born this winter, I can please myself where my bed is and I think even the Queen will not protest. But I hope that this third child is a daughter, for then I could join our families together entirely with her marriage to your son and heir."
"You must speak of anything concerning my wife to my mother, who has managed it all until now. But I ask if we can put this aside for your visit with us here?" Andrew pleaded. "I would be that peasant boy once more, and you my sovereign lord in flight and in need of my assistance, just for the next two nights."
The King smiled and reached for Andrew's lips with his own, but as they kissed, there came a sound as if a tree branch had broken suddenly, or a beam in the house had given way, a loud, sharp report.
"What was that?" Andrew said, scowling.
"We had best go and see, I think." the King said. "I fear there are too many courtiers about for us to do more than fondle each other until nightfall."
Andrew picked up his shirt and donned it as they walked. In front of the inn, a group of young men had gathered around in a cluster, observing two men who held between them a large, oddly decorated, metal rod.
The two men were doing something with the rod, pouring something into its end, then they stuffed in a rag and then slipped in what seemed to be a pebble, then, using a long thinner rod, began to shove the entire thing down the shaft of the rod.
"Ahh, perfect." the man said, as the King approached. "You, Sire, may observe as we touch the taper to the fuse." He lifted up a small taper that had been soaked in oil and was now aflame at its tip, and touched this tip to a small piece of cloth on the rod while the other held it steady with one end against his shoulder.
Andrew watched, puzzled at these actions, which made no sense. The cloth burned rapidly, with a sparking sort of flame and then, "P-too!" That sound again, and smoke issued from the end of the rod both at the holder and at the end.
"Hah!" one of the watchers said. "Missed again."
"Missed what?" Andrew asked.
"The target over there." the man gestured and Andrew now saw a piece of wood hanging by a rope from a tree.
"What is this thing?" Andrew asked.
"It's supposed to be a cannon you can carry about on your shoulder." the man trumpeted. It was Maxime, the son of the Earl of Mimresnon, a loud, brash, young Neresterii lordling. "You load it up and when you meet a foe, you light the fuse and hold it with the barrel aimed at your enemy and he's supposed to have a sudden meeting with the angels. Except I think the safest place to stand with this little cannon is right in front of it!"
"A little cannon?" Andrew asked.
"Is this the fearsome weapon you promised to show me?" the King said to the two men.
"Please, Sire, one more time." the man said to him, seeming to realize that his display was going awry. "My friend has sighted in the target this time, I am sure he will strike it with the next ball."
"Very well." the King said. "But if you do not, you need not tarry here the longer."
"For God's sake, Benedetto, aim it properly." the man hissed at his younger protege. They again went through the laborious task of tucking the fuse into its small hole, then loading the barrel with gunpowder (Andrew recognized the black powder now), then a bit of cloth to keep it inside the barrel, then the shot and all was tamped in tightly. "Now, your Majesty, if you will observe the rather small target these men had placed for us to strike over twenty paces away, my friend will show you how this weapon will save the lives of your men in battle."
Andrew watched the small oval of wood, and then came the "P-too!" and this time the piece of wood suddenly burst into pieces all at once.
"Whoo!" came the sounds of the men watching. "That's the stuff of perdition, all right!"
"Let me try it."
The men gladly loaded up the little cannon once again and Maxime, who had been jeering the loudest, now held it eagerly to his shoulder, his hands and arms and stance being guided by the young Benedetto.
"It shall have a rather powerful kick against your shoulder." Benedetto warned. "You must be ready for it. I'm lighting the fuse now. Brace yourself!"
Andrew watched the new piece of wood now suspended from the tree. But instead of the now-familiar "P-too!" there came a duller "Putt!" sound, and then the scream of an injured man.
Andrew looked at Maxime, who had dropped the little cannon, for it had burst apart in his hands. A large gouge of flesh had been torn from his hand, which he clutched while squealing like a pig about to be butchered, and another fragment of metal had flown entirely free from the little cannon and was now lodged in his cheek, like a nail driven into the flesh.
"My fault, your Majesty." the older of the two men showing the weapon was suddenly not at his device, but at the King's side. "We were forced to use an inferior grade of metal to cast this, uh, petite cannon, and the repeated use and heating of the metal has caused it to crack under the pressure. But with your Majesty's help, I can contract with a foundry in Heslov to produce these weapons with a far finer grade of iron, and with the hotter fires of a proper foundry in which to cast them, they shall withstand all the use you can make of them. With a larger charge of powder and with the stronger barrel, you can throw the shots as far as you would an arrow, or further, and the practice of aiming the weapon is less demanding than arrows...."
Andrew looked at Maxime, who was bleeding and then yowling with pain as a friend plucked the piece of metal out of his cheek, which was followed with a spray of blood, then Andrew looked back at the tree, not at the target hanging there, but the pieces of the first target lying on the ground in several pieces, like the body of a man struck by a cannonball dead-on.
And suddenly, all he wanted to do was to get away. As in his young childhood, faced with a fear, he ran inside the front door of the inn, through to the kitchen an up the stairs to his old room.
It was still there, unchanged but for the facing of the walls and ceiling, for the old family's quarters had been converted into rooms for their servants, he was faced with the personal possessions of one of the kitchen staff. He ignored it, threw himself on the small bed there.
He had seen bloody aplenty before, why did this slight wound churn his stomach so? It was as if he were being wracked apart from within! As if his world were spinning out of control. Was he about to faint, like that foolish maid-in-waiting upon the Queen who flopped down on the floor, incoherent, at the least provocation or fright?
"Ah, I thought I would find you here." the King's voice said.
Andrew turned over. "Sire, I...I regret my hasty departure from you without your leave." He got hastily to his feet.
"Think naught of it." the King said. "That was not upon my mind for a moment."
"Are those men with their...their little cannon still here?" Andrew asked. He was as surprised by this demanding tone in his voice as the King was. He had opened his mouth without knowing what he was going to say.
"No, I sent them back to Heslov."
"That is good." Andrew said. "I...I don't wish them upon my lands again."
"I can promise you will not need to meet them again." the King said after a pause.
"That will do." Andrew said in relief. "My gracious Lord, I cannot say why, but I feel they are the greatest danger to your crown that I have yet encountered. It is as if the evil demons of the Bible were suddenly confronting me in those two."
"They are but young inventors with a gadget." the King said. "I have encouraged such to come to this country and make it their home these past years. Carlovain needs clever men, the more the better."
"I know, Sire, but...still, they are evil."
"Let us not speak on it at this time." the King said. "I have sent them away from here. May I see once again that peasant lad whose innocent lusts I breached upon and insinuated myself into without so much as a pardon?"
"You were very welcome." Andrew said. "And we are once more in my bedroom."
And his lord's arms were around him, and those royal lips were upon his own once more.
Andrew sighed as his body pressed itself against the King's, to feel that strong breast against his own, the flesh which was revered by so many yet understood by so few. He did not play the docile servant, for the King didn't wish that, he kissed his sovereign back with fervent lips, his arms reached and took his King's shoulders and stroked over them, to press against the stiff, unforgiving cloth and make it give way.
That over-tunic, the starched, heavy cloth, was the first thing he peeled from his lover's body, and the shirt was the second to be undone , the tie at the throat untied and then he could grasp the soft cloth and skin it off from his King's body, stripping all the royal trappings with it, so that when it was done, he faced not His Sovereign Majesty, he faced a man in his early forties, with a body still firm and a face now well-known to him, that begged to be kissed again, for it had been too long since their separate myriad duties had permitted them to be together like this!
That soft flesh at the throat beckoned, and Andrew leaned in to kiss it, lift it free and hold it in his lips before letting it fall back, snap taut as the King threw back his head and groaned, and again took Andrew into his arms and this time ground his body against Andrew's face, sighing, "Closer, my dearest friend, closer to me!"
Andrew fought free of his clothes, not caring if he tore the flimsy cloth of the shirt or not, so long as it left his body and he could peel down the tights at his King's thighs and husk them off of him, though the cloth clung so tightly that it was like skinning an animal for the rendering, saving the skin for shoes and revealing the body below, the succulent meat that could be devoured....
There it was! The turgid pole of manhood that thrust forth to him with its old peremptory challenge, and he knelt and gladly seized it, feeling the hot strength that surged through it and ripped into his body with musky domination, trampling his tongue and scratching heedlessly his tender mouth, caring only that it got inside him to the dark cavern at the back of his mouth, and there it plunged in as hard as it could...nay, this was not the King's doing, for he stood there discreetly and kindly, but his own lusts that drove this turbulent shaft into his depths and begged it to dive onward even when the balls slapped against his lower lip and his nose was buried in the ticklish pubic hair that danced on his nose like gossamer spiderwebs.
"Ah, my love, ah!" the King sighed. "Would that you would let me partake of your body as well in this hour!"
Andrew relinquished his prize reluctantly, but only to work off the King's tights, and then to peel down his own, step out of them and then join the King on the bed, feet to head, and scoot to the nexus of the legs and the resumption of his hunger, which was now matched with a hot wetness that seethed against his own manhood and covered him with moist darkness that clutched and sucked at his potency.
Andrew groaned, not caring that a dozen or more could hear him in this still afternoon, they were friends for the most part, or friends of friends, and any who chose to speak more than they should could meet his blade on the field of honor! He sucked his lord's massive prong and felt a powerful suction upon his own tool, which thrilled his senses and drove him into the semi-madness of unadulterated lust.
He would have finished it like this, had not the King interjected, yanking his cock from Andrew's desperately clinging lips, and arising from the bed only to rejoin him again, this time facing him, and his arms caught Andrew's ankles and held them up and apart, and Andrew reached and captured his King's scepter of maleness and guided it to his damply eager crevice.
Though it had been weeks since any had impaled Andrew's rectum, he found the gap was of no consequence, he could relax and expand his bowels to accommodate his royal intruder, and he gasped only with lust as the powerful prick shoved deeper and deeper into his body.
The King paused when he was fully inserted, to lean over and bestow a kiss upon Andrew's face and Andrew took it, but then when the King released him, he said, "Now, ride me as you will, but let it not be gentle, for I am an animal enraged and must be sated at once. If you care for me, my liege, then thrust it into me roughly, for I would not have it otherwise."
The King smiled in acquiescence and shifted, and Andrew now could place his heels upon his lover's thighs, and now the King was just a man to him, a man whose cock was pulsing inside of his anus, and now the thrusts of the hips were moving that cock in and out of him, every stroke a rush of pleasure, every movement a new surge of passion to clamber atop the old, and Andrew moaned, reached up and pulled the King down upon him and began to fuck back at the pumping prod, forcing it to faster and faster onslaughts into his body.
"Ah, please, my dearest one, be not so ardent." the King begged him. "We have many hours here and can take our leisure."
"Nay, not this once." Andrew sobbed out. "I would have you quickly to take me completely once more, for it has been too long that I was away from you. You say we have many hours, I say we have too few moments to waste them in anything but the completion of our desire, again and again."
The King fucked at him then, objecting no more, but tired and was forced to rise up so that he could bring his body more into play, and Andrew lay on the bed with the King hovering over him, and the greatest area of their contact was the King's cock as it plummeted in and out of his body.
Then the King's hand encircled his schlong and began to pump him hard and Andrew groaned all the more at this new source of pleasure. "Ah, my lord, I burn!" He groaned out. "My heat is about to consume me entire, I pray, join me as I perish with my lust!" And these were the last coherent words of gentility he could muster, his body no longer had energy for such careful constructs as words, and now he only groaned and uttered base syllables of pleasure, for his cock was surging in the King's still-sturdy grip and he rutted against his sovereign's hand, pleasuring himself within the royal palm, and his dong at last ignited the ultimate passion and he threw back his head, his eyes stretched wide, and he blasted his load, long white arcs of jism that flew to land upon his body.
The King watched this with satisfaction and when Andrew was at last done, he leaned forward and slammed his cock into Andrew's compliant buttocks with a rapid series of thrusts, and after a moment or so of this, he flushed, his lips let slip a dollop of his saliva that fell onto Andrew's throat, and the King erupted into Andrew, spewing his wad into Andrew's body and thrashing in Andrew's lust-enfeebled embrace, and spasming there while Andrew's ass burned with the hot liquid invasion, finally lay still and breathed heavily against Andrew's shoulder.
Finished, their sweat cooling upon their bodies, Andrew felt the chill and threw the covers over him and the King so that they were covered when the young woman stepped into the room.
Of course, she was surprised, and then abashed as she recognized her unwelcomed guests. "Oh, my Lord, my King, I did not know!" she gasped out. "I beg pardon and will depart at once."
And she turned on her heel and fled. Andrew heard her voice again in the kitchen below. "The young Lord and the King are both in my bedroom, in my bed!" she gasped out to the older woman below.
"Yes, I know." the older woman said.
"But...but what am I to do?"
"You'll leave them be." the old woman said pragmatically. "This is the young Lord's house and he may entertain as he will and where he will."
"But...but if they stay there, where shall I sleep?"
"I think we are in the young woman's bed." the King smiled at Andrew.
Andrew smiled back a bit ruefully. "Yes, this is no longer my room, it seems. As this is no longer my home."
"It is not such a foolish thing, to wish to return to your childhood for a visit." the King said as Andrew rose.
"Yes." Andrew said as he found his tights in the mess of clothing strewn upon the floor. It had fallen into a gown which no doubt was the young woman's, the sight disgusted him in some ambiguous fashion. "But as is clear, my childhood had gone to the past where all things must come to lie sooner or later."
"Think not on the past, but on the future." the King urged him. "Let us go and see about the young man who was injured by that...that little cannon."
"Yes, that little cannon." Andrew frowned again. "Can I not persuade you to deport those two at once?" The King smiled in a way Andrew knew, he would be tolerant but would not change his mind. He dropped the subject rather than press the King into a gentle denial. "Very well, Sire. Let us go and join the others and we shall discuss how best to pass our time here when we are not soiling young lady's beds with our male rut."
The King laughed at this. They dressed and went down into what had been the common room and was now a hall where many could gather, and they had.
Maxime was lying upon a table there, and a young Merlemagnist cleric was tending to his wounds. The cleric turned and Andrew saw but a glimpse of the face, and then the cleric turned back to his patient.
"Sire, the wound shall heal, but it must be kept clean. I...I shall go back to my house and return in the early morning with the proper stringent herbs to prevent gangrene from taking hold.
"Very good, Brother Healer." the King said. "We are grateful you were nearby to tend to our young man."
"He may pay the traditional gift in lieu of service." the cleric said.
Andrew frowned; that voice was familiar, begging him to recognize it. "Brother Healer?" he asked.
"Yes...yes, my Lord?" the cleric said, not turning to him.
He must ask something. "Have you tended wounds of this sort in the past?"
"I am new to my craft, but I have studied all the texts, and this is not so different from a sword wound." the cleric mumbled. "With your leave, I shall depart now, for I have a long way to ride if I am to return for him."
"You may depart as you would." Andrew said. The cleric got up and left with an undue haste. Puzzled, Andrew followed him out to where his mule waited. The cleric got upon the mule, and as he did, the cowl fell away and Andrew saw the face that locked eyes with him, and then the cowl was yanked back around the face and the cleric turned and spurred the mule away hastily.
Andrew stared at the figure as it rode down the road. "Did you know that cleric?" the King asked.
Andrew turned with his eyes unblinking, his lips numb, and he managed to stumble out the name of the man whose face he had seen. "Yes. It was Renaud."
THE END
[Author's Postscript: This story is a prelude to "The Knight of Carlovain", which is the next series in my Carlovain saga. I plan several more series, following this small country over several centuries if all goes according to plan. However, I will not be posting "Knight of Carlovain" to Nifty Archives until late summer/early fall. I am currently running a paysite which will run "Knight of Carlovain" with full, sexually explicit illustrations beginning July 30, 2000. I will post the chapters of Knight onto Nifty Archives when I am also ready to cycle it into the free area of my own site beginning September 9, 2000. I'll then post one chapter every other week. I won't be posting any further installments of this saga onto Nifty, reserving that for my own site. So, if you'd like to continue reading this series, you can find the link to my site on Nifty's Links page, or in any search engine by searching for "Tommyhawk's Fantasy World."]