J.O. Dickingson

Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro

1. The Kongo

Ebony-Ivory Special (boy=black) ToC

As soon as our preceptors released us restless charges, we would race each other to the docks to await the return of the fishing boats. The older boys eagerly helped secure the vessels upon their return and helped hang up the nets to dry, each dreaming of the day his schooling would be over and he could join his father, brothers and uncles on the open sea. Though I loved the sea just as dearly, myself, I was not so interested in becoming a fisherman as I was in hearing of the fishermen's adventures, of the mystical creatures that lived in the ocean depths and of dangers that the more daring fishermen faced as they ventured further and further out into the sea in search of better fishing grounds. Of even greater interest to me was the return of merchant and exploration vessels. Viano do Castelo is the major port from which merchants and explorers set sail and while others dreamed of becoming fishermen, I dreamed of sailing away on one of those ships to see with my own eyes the many wondrous things the sailors told of upon their return.

Best of all were the tales my father João and my uncle Paolo would tell before the hearth after one of their long journeys in search of riches for our great king and country. It was as I sat with wide-eyed wonder during the telling of one of these tales one late spring eve, on the occasion of my fourteenth birthday, that my father asked if I would like to see the world beyond our shores with my own eyes, to which I of course responded in the positive most enthusiastically. To my surprise, he said that he and Uncle thought it was time for me to do so, and that I should join them on their next voyage. Upon that disclosure my mother was greatly dismayed and afeared, and she protested that I was too young and needed my schooling, but my father, with the help of his brother Paolo, argued that they'd set sail for the first time at that age, and that I would learn much more through living than sitting in a classroom. So it was a month later, on the fourteenth day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety, I, Nicolau Ribeiro, found myself, to the envy of my schoolmates, proudly striding down to the Theresa del Morau with my oilskin bag slung over my shoulder and my heart in my throat with the excitement and fear of leaving home for the first time. I was heavy-hearted to hear my mother and sisters sobbing, but I was a man now and forced the sadness from my heart.

On our thirtieth day at sea, I saw for the first time fish as large as a man frolicking in the ocean before our ship, leaping right out of the water and dancing on their tails. There is no doubt in my mind that they in their high-pitched squeals were talking to each other. Swimming up to our boat, they even attempted to engage us in their fishy converse. Older hands told of the close friendship between these fish and sailors, and told of men falling overboard and being borne above water by these gentle beings back to their vessels. Even more wondrous were even larger fish, some as big as our sailing vessel, moving with ponderous grace and sending spouts of water into the air higher than the fountain in the middle of our town square.

We sailed along the coast for many days until we came upon the mouth of a huge river up which we travelled. Tales of those who had travelled these waters before us warned of fierce cats that leaped upon their ships and carried off any man so unlucky as to be caught unawares. They also told of men no larger than children who shot poisonous darts that caused a man to die instantly. Such tales put me at great unease, but by the Grace of God we encountered neither of these horrors. Still, as the days passed, we were certain we were being watched, though none of us, not even the most sharp-eyed, ever saw more than a rustle in the dense vegetation bordering the river on both sides. On the tenth day we passed the most-distant marker indicating the farthest that the most daring of men had gone. Many of our men were gravely ill and despondent and our supplies of food were almost depleted but we pressed on. Five days later we came to a small clearing, and there to my eyes was the most unbelievable sight I had yet to see. There stood a half dozen men, tall and muscular, with skin burnt black by the sun, even darker than the pitch shipbuilders use to seal the underside of our vessels, and naked save for a flap of woven grass hanging from a belt to cover their privates. Each carried a fierce looking double headed spear so that if it penetrated the flesh beyond the second pair of barbs it would be impossible to extract.

Father, Uncle, and myself as a token of our friendly intentions, with two of our largest men for protection, disembarked and cautiously approached these strange, wild men. Though they could not speak our tongue nor we theirs, each other's intentions were made known by way of gestures and drawings in the earth. After much gesturing and repetition it was explained that we came in search of the fabled kingdom of Prester John, and they enjoined us to follow them to meet their leader, whom they called Manikongo.

Whether the two were one and the same we could not determine, but much encouraged, Father insured our ship was properly guarded and he, Uncle Paolo and I, though Uncle strongly advised against my coming, stuffed as many trade stuffs as we could into our packs and followed our new hosts. As we walked, the trail became narrower and less defined and began to twist this way and that, which Uncle was convinced was intentional so we would never find our way on our own. Despite the extreme heat and humidity that caused our sweat to pour from our bodies and our clothes to stick to our skin, I suffered little discomfort so awed was I with the marvels of this new land, exquisite flowers, rainbow-coloured birds, snakes ten times the size of those at home hanging from the tree branches, and thousands of huge, biting insects.

Along the way we ate mainly berries and fruits and we shared our hardtack, which our hosts took as much a disliking to as I did. To my shock when one had to answer nature's call, he would simply step away from the path and squat in the jungle, or brush aside his grass breechclout and urinate with legs outspread without the slightest attempt to hide what he was doing. At first I was so embarrassed I could not perform and finally it was only out of desperation that I did. Our hosts took a great interest in our clothing, which they found amusing and perplexing, especially when it came time for us to perform those simple functions a man must perform, and they suggested by gesture it would be much simpler for us to go almost naked as they did. Of course being decent and respectable Christians, we declined.

On the fifth day, by which even Father and Uncle were beginning to worry, we arrived at their village. Our approach having been heralded long before we arrived, the entire village turned out to see these strange pale men. Old, wizened men stood and openly stared at us in as much wonder as we'd first stared at the six who'd met us. Behind the men stood the women, and I could not help staring at them with the same intensity as they were staring at us, especially at the young girls near my age. They were wearing skirts made of woven grass but went naked from the waist up, openly and unashamedly revealing their breasts. Children, as naked as Adam and Eve had been in Eden, stared out from behind the adults. To my dismay, my body reacted as would be expected with such obscene nudity, and I flushed a brilliant red in embarrassment at the sight. To an even greater embarrassment, I felt a rising between my legs and was thankful I had not taken their suggestion and donned only a breechclout.

The people suddenly parted and an imposing man taller than the rest stepped forward. Like the other men he was almost naked, but unlike the others he wore gold bands around his biceps, wrists, thighs, and ankles, and he had a long, mane of bird feathers interspersed with gems that extended down his back to his buttocks. He was evidently the Manikongo, and clearly not Prester John. Father and Uncle dropped to one knee and bowed respectfully before him as did I upon Uncle's gesture, which pleased him very much. We sat and Father and Uncle again explained why we were there through gestures and drawings on the ground, and then we showed them the gifts we'd brought, fine woven cloths from the finest tailors in our land, exquisitely crafted necklaces, and sharp knives and hatchets, and Father indicated there was much more back on our ship that we would trade for the gold bands like the chief had and for the feathers, skins and gems he and others wore.

After much talking we ate. A pig had been roasting on a spit and it was served with strange and unfamiliar vegetables and fruit. Being ignorant savages, they ate with their fingers and we were obliged to do so also. They passed around a bowl of a clotted, foul-smelling and even fouler-tasting white liquid which Uncle said was fermented milk. Father warned I should drink only the smallest of sips, which was totally unnecessary as I would have preferred to take no sips at all.

Darkness fell suddenly, as it does in this strange land, and after the exertions of the past days I was ready for sleep and was glad when it appeared we were about to retire. At that point one of the men left and returned with three young girls about my age. To my bewilderment, Uncle explained that they were gifts for us for the night. At first I thought they were to be servants, which considering the lateness of the day did not make sense, and with some amusement Uncle explained the service they were to provide. I turned an even brighter red than I had earlier in the day, much to the amusement of the men who seemed to understand despite our different languages and culture. With much difficulty and not wishing to offend, Father explained that he was married and had a wife, but to these wild savages that didn't seem to matter. They asked if Uncle too had a wife, and he replied no, that he was a confirmed bachelor. They appeared to have great difficulty understanding why at least Uncle and I were refusing to spend the night with these chosen women. They exchanged perplexed glances until one of the men said something which caused them all to grin with flashing white teeth, a frightening sight with their black faces and the darkness of the night. The women were dismissed and minutes later three boys, two no more than the age of ten, and one about the age of six, were brought forward. That I found even more perplexing. Again Father and Uncle began to protest, but upon this second rejection, our hosts' faces darkened, and in the light of the torches their black faces looked fierce.

Father and Uncle, better understanding the strange ways of these savage people, exchanged knowing glances and accepted these 'gifts' though to me what use such children were going to be was incomprehensible. Once again smiling and laughing, our hosts rose unsteadily, the result of too much fermented milk, and escorting us to one of their grass huts, ushered us inside and closed the flap. Father quickly explained to me that to have refused to accept these boys would have been a serious insult and could have cost us our lives so as distasteful and immoral as it was we'd had no choice. He said he and Uncle were going to feign drunkenness and fatigue to avoid polluting themselves, and that I too should feign exhaustion. I had no idea what he meant but for me there was no need for pretense. It had been a very strenuous and stressful day and the grass mat the six-year-old boy lead me to looked as inviting as a down-filled mattress.

We laid down on the mat and after looking at me curiously for a few minutes, the boy tentatively reached out and touched my clothing, first my breeches and then my tunic. Assuming he was curious having never seen clothing before, I let him explore as I prepared to drift off to sleep. After considerable fumbling, he untied the lacing of my tunic and pushed it up, probably just as curious about my pale, white body underneath. As he began trying to pull it over my head, I sat up and helped him, the nights being as hot as the days and not looking forward to sleeping in my stinking, sweat-soaked clothing. He untied the drawstring to my breeches and began to push them down, and after a moment's hesitation, I raised my buttocks to make it easier for him. My eyes were growing accustomed to the dark and with the light of the full moon shining through openings in the thatch roof, I saw the look of wide-eyed surprise upon the discovery that I had still another layer of clothing under my breeches, my linen underpants. With some difficulty he removed my boots and stockings and then returned to my underpants but there I objected and to his surprise pushed his hand away. He persisted but I was unrelenting, which he obviously found confusing.

From the whispered protests and shuffling of bodies, Father and Uncle were evidently having the same problem. Though each mat was no more than three arm lengths away, the hut was in total darkness and I could barely make out their dark forms and that of the two naked boys. I could see by the light of the moon shining on pale skin however that they both had removed their tunics, boots and stockings.

"No, no," I heard Father whisper. "I… I… it is not that I am not pleased with you. I… I am just tired, and have had too much to drink." I could see in the dim moonlight reflecting off his naked chest and arms that he was trying to convey his meaning with gestures. Uncle was doing the same and growing quite perturbed when the boy persisted. When he collapsed and pretended to have passed out, the boy succeeded in pulling down Uncle's breeches with the lack of opposition. The young boy with me was growing just as frustrated as I and began to jabber in that high-pitched mumbo of theirs as he tried desperately to draw down my underpants. From the look on his face he was at first confused, then concerned, then hurt, and finally to my surprise frightened to the point of tears.

Father and Uncle discussed the problem in hushed tones but purposefully loud enough for me to hear. Apparently to continue to dissuade the boys from their mission would not only be an insult to them but also to our hosts, and would undoubtedly result in the boys being punished for their failure and could possibly physically endanger ourselves besides. So they decided to let the boys proceed unobstructed, knowing that what the boys were intending was so repulsive and immoral the two of them would not be able to perform, putting an end to the boys' efforts and saving face for all when they explained in the morning their drunkenness was the cause of their impotence. Certain that I'd find it just as repugnant and that my loathing would similarly prevent me from performing, they advised me to lie back and pray to Jesus and recite the scriptures, and to forgive the boy for he was but an ignorant savage with the baseness of an animal. If questioned on the morrow Father advised we could claim it had been my weariness that had thwarted the boy from his mission.

What that mission was and what Father meant by performing I had no idea. Having faith in him however, as he and Uncle ceased their protests, curious and apprehensive what could be so disgusting, I too laid back and allowed the boy to finally continue. Eagerly untying the drawstring to my linen underpants, the young savage drew them down, at last revealing my nakedness, which I found most embarrassing and I began to pray to Jesus for forgiveness for such lewdness. Whether it was the presence of my fine hairs, or the whiteness of my flesh, I did not know, but the boy appeared to find my genitals most curious and leaned over me and examined them so closely I could feel his breath upon them. Later Uncle Paolo was to inform me that it was likely both reasons, in addition to not having a hood over the head of my snake as he and all the males of his village did, the people here not being Christian and knowing nothing of the covenant with God to sacrifice that ring of skin, and, above all, the fact these heathens were no better than animals and were drawn to sex as a child is drawn to candy. To be honest, I was just as curious about the privates of this young boy. Taking the opportunity to examine them as he bent over me to examine mine, I found his member and his stones, which reminded me of black walnuts not just in colour but in size and their wrinkled appearance, were as black as the rest of him, and the presence of a hood over his knob I found as fascinating as he found the absence of mine.

Examining each other's nakedness filled me with shame and guilt but I could defend as understandable. What the boy did next was not. To my shock and total disbelief, he reached out and slipped his fingers about my member, something no decent Christian boy would ever do. I was about to slap his offending fingers away when I remembered Father's observation that we had risked endangering ourselves, and that we should let the boys proceed unobstructed. Reasoning that the boy was simply curious if mine felt the same as his, I found it in my heart to forgive him for he was only six and unaware of Christian morals. However, as he began to play with my member, squeezing it and stroking it and rolling the sensitive, unprotected head between his fingers and then slipping his fingers down and carefully rolling my stones between his fingers, it was evident this was more than curiosity, and that he was not inexperienced in fondling another male's privates.

At his age I and my friends knew it was a sin to touch ourselves down there, and even more of a sin to touch another. I shuddered with revulsion, but I also felt a great sorrow and compassion for this poor soul and his lack of moral conscience. And to my shame, as he continued to fondle my most private parts I found myself wondering what his little black sausage felt like and what it would feel like doing the same to him, evidence of the power of Satan when the door to temptation is opened. Looking up at me and I suspect noting my curiosity in my eyes, this child of Satan reached over and taking my hand, placed it on his own genitals. My initial impulse was to draw my hand away, but Father's warning that we were not to resist came to my mind and so I did nothing. His member was limp and smooth and felt not unlike a fat little worm, and though half my age his stones were as large as mine. Squeezing my fingers about his member, he drew them back, drawing back that loose hood of skin to reveal a moist, purplish knob that looked like a pealed grape.

To my surprise my member began to grow firm, like it did when thinking of girls or seeing more breast or ankle than a boy should decently see, and even more to my surprise, so did his, something that mine at the age of six had only done during my sleep due to a full bladder. At the age of fourteen, I had only the vaguest idea what happened when a male and female copulated, knowing only from the more vulgar of my companions that a man had to have a stiff sword in order to penetrate a woman. Why it was happening now between two males was as bewildering as why a full bladder caused that nocturnal transformation. Finding what the black devil was doing to me filthy and perverted and fiddling with his equally disgusting, just as Father had said I would, I reasoned the stiffening of my member was normal and designed to prevent me from performing just as a stiff member made it difficult to urinate.

I wondered if the members of Father and Uncle had reacted as mine had. Shocked that such an obscene thought would enter my mind, and shamed by the image Satan conjured of their privates in such a condition, I felt my member throb in the young boy's fingers, clearly a reaction to such obscene and unchristian thoughts designed to further prevent my body from performing. Surely such fierce throbbing was God's work to protect me. The young boy had been causing my fingers to stroke his stiff little member, which had grown still hotter and firmer, and I felt it throb as mine was, evidently in reaction to the boy feeling mine throbbing in his fingers. I could not help but wonder if the two boys and Father and Uncle were doing the same, causing my member to throb still more violently and I clenched my eyes tightly and prayed to Jesus for forgiveness, but in my mind Satan created images of Father and Uncle stroking the little black worms of the two black devils while they pumped their fists up and down their humongous, white snakes.

Again the boy bent over me, to better see my member in the dark I assumed, and I felt his hot breath on my naked loins. Suddenly to my surprise, he began to nibble and lick my stones and my erect member, causing it to twitch and ache in a way it had never felt before. This pain I could only assume was meant to happen as Uncle had predicted, and I was relieved to feel it. The more the boy nibbled the greater the pain grew, especially around the rim of my knob. He then slipped his mouth over my swollen knob and tightening his lips below it he began to suck, causing my member to ache with such pain I could not help gasping with the sensation and had to clamp my mouth shut to prevent from calling out, almost biting off the tip of my tongue.

The heat and moisture from his mouth, and the obscenity and filthiness of his act, caused my phallus to throb in hot protest and caused an ache up the core of my member like when one is about to urinate. I was about to inform him but realized he would not understand my words and then I felt it begin to gush up the core of my member so quickly I didn't have time to even push him off. As it began to spurt out of the tip I felt great remorse and guilt, but then figured I should not, for what had happened had been of the black devil's doing and he fully deserved what he was getting. In my numbed confusion and horror, I slowly realized my water was not flowing from my body in a stream as it normally did, but was coming in spurts. At the same time my leg was trembling uncontrollably and my loins had gone numb. Father and Uncle had been very correct in assuming I would not be able to perform. From the slurping and sucking sounds and the gasps and deep sighs coming from the direction of Father and Uncle, I assumed the two boys had done the same to them and I was reassured by the fact that the reaction of Father and Uncle was the same as mine and comforted knowing they were just as repulsed by this obscene act as I was and, from the sound of it, feeling even more pain.

The ordeal over at last, I lay on my back to recover as did Father and Uncle as the laboured breathing around me subsided. Our peace was short-lived. The young boy, who had snuggled up against me and pressed his hot, naked body against mine, once more reached down for my now limp and sticky member and once again began to fondle it and my stones. Once again my flesh rose and once again he bent over it, but this time he drooled his spittle over it. So shocked by this affront and incensed by this show of disrespect, I found myself paralysed with anger and disgust. Before I could gather my wits and deliver the young devil the beating he deserved, the boy stood and straddling my body and facing me, he reached back and grasping my saliva-slicked member he slowly squatted.

The perversity and unexpectedness of this latest action was such that by the time I realized his intent he had sunk down on my member and was sitting on my stones like a little black duck sitting on her eggs, my member embedded up his rectum. Flexing his legs, he began to ride my member, and as it eased in and out of his hot, moist rectum, he reached for my right hand and slipped my fingers about his once again stiff little sausage. The warmth and moistness of his rectum and the tightness with which it squeezed my throbbing staff caused the knob to itch and ache and my phallus to seem to swell even larger. From the heavy breathing coming from the cots beside mine, it was evident that the same was happening to Father and Uncle.

As the boy rode me I could feel my member growing hotter and larger and the ache I'd felt before returned. Knowing what it meant this time, and figuring if the filthy savage wanted me to spurt my urine up his buttocks then I'd oblige him, I lay back and waited for it to happen. Perhaps realizing what would result, the boy stopped. Determined to finish what the devil had started, I thrust my body upward, driving my member up his rectum, and then drew back. Over and over I thrust my throbbing, aching spear into him, grasping his little back sausage and rapidly rubbing it as I did so, causing him to squirm and gasp with the pain I was causing. Faster and faster I tugged on his swollen little member and faster and faster I rammed mine up his smooth, firm black little butt until again I felt my flesh grow numb and my leg spasm, and once again I spurted repeatedly, this time up his rectum, and he quivered and squealed as I did so. In the daze of my own pain I could see shadows on the walls of the grass hut bobbing and from the heavy panting and the grunting it was clear that Father and Uncle were similarly punishing the other two black devils.

The next day we began our journey back to our ship and each night we welcomed the three boys to our beds, not wanting to offend our hosts. On the last night we met in secret so as not to worry the crew and I felt regret that I would not see my young bedmate again, and on the trip home I would often stare out at the sea from whence we came and think of him. Oft times I'd catch Father or Uncle staring out at the sea also, and I knew their eyes were not seeing the vast ocean and their minds were not on our voyage nor our arrival back home.

I had seen and experienced many marvellous things on this voyage, and we were returning with great treasure and many things never seen before. My former classmates would be awed by my most wondrous tales and my wealth, but my greatest treasure of all, I would never be able to mention, at least not to them. Father and Uncle had said nothing, but at times I saw the yearning in their eyes, and I knew that like myself, they too would find a few discrete young boys in our town to share our secret discovery with. Such was the reward of exploration.

The End

As the Theresa del Morau drew closer to land and I could begin to make out the larger buildings of Viano do Castelo and the cliffs above the town, I felt such an immense happiness that it made my heart ache and brought tears to my eyes. My voyage in search of the Kingdom of Prester John was the first time since I was born fourteen years past that had I ever been away from home and I had not realized how much I had missed it. Ashamed of my childish reaction, I quickly wiped the tears from my cheeks and glanced around hoping none of my fellow shipmates had noticed. I was not so fortunate as I caught the eye of old Three-finger Duarte, one of the oldest sailors on our expedition who had taken it upon himself to keep an eye out for me and to teach me the basics of a sailor's life, basics which I had foolishly thought I had known upon first setting out to sea three months past.

"Sea spray from the bow, carried up by the wind," I explained.

"It has a tendency to do that," he replied, and at first I thought he was making fun of me, but as he looked out at the approaching land, I saw a moistness in his own eyes that somehow did not seem out of place with his weathered, creased face. "Of all the wonders on God's good earth, none be as grand as home," he observed, to nobody in particular. Before I could reply, he had turned and walked away.

I had no time for sadness for the next several hours as we entered the port and secured the Theresa del Morau in her berth and prepared to disembark. As I saw the throng of townspeople crowding the dock in eager anticipation and the half dozen more adventurous and able older boys, all of them my former schoolmates, who had joined the dock hands to help fasten down the gangplank, my heart swelled in my chest once again with joy, and when I spotted Mother and my sisters worriedly searching the deck with their eyes, the wind once again tossed up a spray of saltwater and I put aside my manly decorum and waved excitedly until my oldest sister spotted me and pointed me out. As I walked down the gangplank behind Father and Uncle and saw the awe and wonder in the eyes of my former schoolmates, I could not help but throw back my shoulders and march proudly forward with a smile on my lips for my well-missed friends.

It was the most glorious day of my life, and the remainder of the day I was bombarded with questions from my sisters and from my friends about what it had been like to have been at sea these past three months and what I had seen, and I had so much to tell I fear it all came out in a jumble of words. We had a fabulous meal of roasted chicken, hearth-baked potatoes and fresh garden vegetables that evening and Father and Uncle observed that of all the things they had missed, Mother's cooking was at the top of the list, right after Mother herself of course, to which I heartily agreed, and to which they quickly amended to be third after my sisters, which I teasingly debated if they should not come after Mother's cooking. That evening Father Francisco held a special Mass to thank God and Saint Nicholas of Myra, the blessed patron saint of sailors and merchants, for the safe return of the crew of the Theresa del Morau and the bounty we had brought back for our king and country. I thanked both with more sincerity than I have ever done, and left a generous donation in the collection plate to make up for my sometimes meagre offerings and even weaker gratefulness in the past. Having received my share of wages along with the rest of the crew, I could afford to be generous.

We did not have much time to rejoice and relax however. Father was eager to report our findings to King João and so after a day's rest, he, Uncle and I with enough crew to man the Theresa del Morau sailed down the coast to Lisbon. Having favourable winds, we made the journey in two days. The city towered above the port on the terraced sides of a range of low hills overlooking the harbour. Being over a hundred miles from my home and having no reason to go there, I had never been to the city before and was awed by its size and the crowd of people who bustled about its streets. Finding lodging in a modest but respectable inn, we ate and retired, having had a strenuous day. After breaking our fast the next morning, we wandered the streets in wonder the rest of the day. I knew Lisbon was one of the wealthiest cities of all the western world and very old, but even so I was not prepared for the grandeur of the Se, Lisbon's grand Cathedral built three hundred years past, or of the University, which Uncle said was built over two hundred years past, and has graduated many wise men, or the grand statues and piazzas and the beautiful fountains throughout the city, too many for me to remember their names.

Word had been sent of our return to King João upon our arrival at Viano do Castelo so after donning our finest apparel and making ourselves presentable the following morning, we made our way to his palace, an impressive castle on top of the highest hill. That I was to be included in the audience along with Father and Uncle filled me with great pride, and with great fear. King João was much admired and respected by his people, and especially the country's merchants with his promotion of exploration and trade since assuming the throne nine years past, but he was also known to be a severe monarch who had no tolerance for those who opposed him, having had many nobles who had disagreed with his decisions executed, and, rumour says, having killed at least one of his strongest opponents himself.

We were announced and as we approached and dropped to one knee before him, my fear equalled that which I had felt upon our first meeting with the black savages of the Kongo now two months past. He was a stern looking man with dark, penetrating eyes, a long thin nose, and a dark black beard and moustache and he appeared older than his thirty-five years of age. To my surprise, sitting to his right was a boy who appeared to be no more than a year older than myself whom I assumed was his son Prince Afonso from his rich raiments and similar looks, having the same dark penetrating eyes, long, thin nose and dark hair, his chin and upper lip still hairless but darkened with the sign of beard and moustache soon to come. To his left was a much younger boy also in fine raiments but with fairer complexion, blue eyes and reddish-blond hair, evidently someone of import though I knew not what, King João to my knowledge having only one son. With them were three elderly men, his top advisors.

The king was much impressed by Father's tale of our exploration of the Rio Poderoso, so named by Diogo Cao six years past, in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and eighty-four. He was disappointed with our failure to find the kingdom of Prester John, but much interested in our encounter with the Manikongo and much appreciative of the gold and gems we had returned with, a portion of which would be turned over to his treasury as was the law. He was also impressed that I had journeyed with them, as, I could tell, were the two boys sitting beside him, and he asked me several questions about the people we had encountered and what it was like to be at sea for such a long time, to which I answered as best I could. As the talk continued about trade and commerce and other boring matters, I glanced at the two youngest members who had received us, and particularly the youngest, and I could not help but recall my pleasures of the flesh with an even younger boy back in the depths of the jungle. To my horror my member responded instantly to those memories and became rigid, and though I immediately began to think of other things, my disobedient and strong-willed member would not go back down. It was particularly awkward having to face our royal highnesses and back out of the audience chamber as is the custom of our people. Blushing a bright red and keeping my hands before my crotch, I prayed nobody would notice. If anyone had, they did not show it and neither Father nor Uncle mentioned it.

Except for that incident it had been a glorious and prestigious experience that my friends back in Viano do Castelo would envy when I told them of it, but there was a dark moment. When Father had presented his request for funding to return and explore further south of the Rio Poderoso, I had been most surprised and disappointed when King João did not immediately agree and had said he would have to think on it and discuss it with his advisors. It had not come as a surprise to Father and Uncle however, and they were encouraged by the king's invitation to stay at the castle while he considered the matter. Servants of the king were sent to our inn to bring back our belongings and we were informed that on the morrow there would be a large feast in honour of the ninth birthday the younger of the two boys who had been at the audience that day, and that we were invited to participate.

It was then that Uncle informed me that the younger boy was Jorge de Lencastre, the bastard son of King João, his mother being Ana de Mendonca, a maid of Joanna La Baltraneja who lived in the castle of São Jorge here in Lisbon. Father and Uncle had of course brought some of our treasure to sell in Lisbon besides that which was allotted to the king's treasury, and we each searched through the goods for suitable gifts. Father chose a small ring with a light blue stone the name of which I do not know and which I had never seen before, Uncle a dagger carved, the savages had said, from the tusk of an animal twice as tall as a man and as big as one of their huts, and myself a small wooden carving of that very same animal, whose name they gave I have forgotten and which anyway was obviously an imaginary beast. No animal could be of such a size nor have huge, floppy ears like the wings of a bat or a snout longer and thicker than a snake and that reached to the ground, evidence of the superstition and ignorance of the savages of that land.

When I saw the gifts that the nobles and others had brought, I was proud of ours, and, it appeared, the king and the guest of honour were also impressed. There followed a feast like I have never before seen and I am sure never will again, servants bringing platter upon platter piled with steaming goose, duck, pig and venison and an endless stream of bowls of vegetables, some of which I had never heard of and many prepared with exotic spices and sauces that only royalty could afford, and constantly filling our goblets with the finest tasting wine I have ever drunk, and we were entertained throughout with most splendid music, jugglers and acrobats. I was sure I would not be able to eat for a week, nor would ever again see such skilled entertainment. Throughout the evening I noticed the young guest of honour glancing over at me frequently with a friendly but strange look, which I thought perhaps was because he had never been in the company of the son of a sailor-merchant before. As for myself, I was careful not to dwell on him or the lustful thoughts of the day before lest my member swell again, though to be truthful I was unable to completely block either from my mind. When I sank into bed that night, I must confess, to my shame and great weakness, and for which I blame the wine I had consumed, that I gave full reign to my wicked thoughts and I fell asleep with a horn that lasted until morning.

The next day Father and Uncle set about selling the goods we had brought. They had planned on me accompanying them to learn the skill of trading as it was expected I would be following in my father's footsteps, and which I too expected even though the trading part to me sounded boring and tedious. However, at the last moment one of the court pages arrived with an invitation for me to join Prince Afonso and Master Jorge, who wanted to hear more about our search for the kingdom of Prester John, and I was happy to return to the palace with them. I soon discovered that though they were interested in all aspects of our expedition, there was one part that they were especially curious about.

"Is it true, what your father said? That the people go about almost naked?" asked Prince Afonso.

"Of course," I replied, somewhat indignant that he would question the integrity of my father, but then I was only fourteen and at that time unaware of the day to day life at court in which lying, subterfuge and plotting were common occurrences.

"And the women, they really wore nothing above their waists, revealing their… their breasts?" asked Jorge with a giggle.

"Yes."

"Did that not… excite you?"

"It did," I replied honestly and my two hosts laughed.

"And what did you do when that happened?" Afonso asked with a glint in his eye.

"I prayed to our Lord Jesus and recited the gospels in the hope it would go down."

"Did that help?"

"No," I confessed with a sheepish grin, and they laughed again.

"And the children. They really wore nothing at all?"

"As naked as Adam and Eve in the garden. And the adult men might just as well have been naked." I told them about their openness performing those bodily functions civilized people perform in private. Our talk of course inflamed our passions, and as I thought about my experiences, and the most unexpected and shameful experience of all that I could not put out of my mind and which I dared not mention, it had, to my embarrassment, the result I should have expected. The youngest of my hosts of course noticed, and made no attempt to hide the effect our discussions had on him also as he openly, and it appeared, purposefully, revealed the bulge in his breeches to me. I was at first shocked by such crude behaviour, but then recalling that he was a bastard, I reasoned that perhaps it was in keeping with his breeding after all.

"I think the snake that tempted Adam has found its way into your breeches," he finally observed with an impish grin. I was about to reply that he had evidently brought along a friend, but mindful of the royal personage to whom I was speaking, I dared not. "Would you I beat him down with my fist?" he asked, "or would you prefer my mouth or my asshole?"

I stared at him in surprise, not expecting such vulgarity from one so young and certainly not from one living in the household of the king, even if he was a bastard child, and not knowing how to answer.

"Jorge!" said Prince Afonso, evidently just as surprised and scandalized.

"Well, anyone with eyes can see he is aroused."

"Even so, it is not something a gentleman mentions to another. Besides, perhaps our guest would rather prefer to have the matter taken care of by the gentler sex."

"No, he likes boys," Jorge said flatly, looking me directly in the eye with a confidence that only one accustomed to giving commands and having his way can have. "I saw the way you were looking at me during the audience with your father and uncle, and during the banquet at my birthday yesterday. Do you deny it?"

"No, I do not," I replied, unable to lie. I stared down at the floor and steeled myself for whatever repercussions were to come. What was the fitting punishment for one so rude and debased to have considered committing the lewdest of acts with one so young and the son of one's king? Whipping? Imprisonment? Banishment from the kingdom?

"I know that look. I should. I have seen it enough times while I lived with Aunt Joana at the convent to know what it means."

"The convent?" I asked, not understanding.

"Jorge has lived with our Aunt Joana at the Convent of Jesus in Aveiro since his birth until her death three months ago," Prince Afonso explained.

"That is where I learned the pleasure that one male can give another, from a boy fifteen years of age, an orphan being raised by the brothers at the monastery there," Jorge said openly and honestly. "It was a common practice between older and younger boys at the orphanage run by the brothers, and there was more than one monk whose vow of celibacy was eased by congress with a young boy."

"Jorge was one of their favourites."

"Because of my looks, and my skill in satisfying those needs a male has, as Afonso can attest to," he said coquettishly as he looked up at the prince.

"You and he?" I asked, looking at Afonso in surprise and even more confusion.

"Yes."

"Forgive my asking, but I was under the impression you only recently married."

"Yes, to Isabella, the daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. It was a marriage agreed to several years ago between her parents and mine, for political reasons. Though it later became unnecessary for the Castiles and her parents tried to annul the agreement, Father would not hear of it, and the agreement was all legal so there was nothing they could do about it. The ceremony was four months past."

"But it is not a… ah… happy union, physically?" I asked brashly, a flaw of mine that Mother says will some day get me into serious trouble.

"Oh, no, it is a very happy union, physically," Afonso said with a grin. "Very happy, very often. Almost daily. Sometimes several times a day. And it is more than physical. In the short time we have been married I have come to love her with all my heart, and she me." From the happiness in his eyes and the glow about him, I could tell he was telling the truth.

"Yet you have congress with… with… your… brother?"

"First," he replied stiffly and I feared I had over spoke. "Jorge is not my brother, not legally. He is my father's bastard son, his mother being Ana de Mendonca, a maid of Joanna La Baltraneja, whereas I am our father's legitimate son by his wife, Leonor of Viseu. That is why Jorge was raised by Father's sister Joana in the convent of Jesus in Aveiro until she died this past May. So, you see, we are not committing the cardinal sin of incest. And second, yes, I do have congress with another male. Congress with one's wife is a husband's duty first, a pleasure second. With another male it is all pleasure, and a very different type of pleasure than with a woman. And, I must confess, with Jorge, it is a pleasure indeed," he said smiling at Jorge.

Before I could reply that I had meant no accusation nor disrespect, Jorge spoke up as he turned and looked directly at me. "As I am willing to show you, but I am thinking from the looks you have been giving me you already know the pleasure that one boy can give another."

I confessed that I did, and told them of the practice of those we had met in the Kingdom of Kongo of giving guests young girls, or if they prefer, young boys, and particularly of the young boy, whose name I never did know, that I came to know carnally.

"Then let us see if I can give you as much pleasure," Jorge offered, reaching over and without waiting for an answer, untying the cord to my breeches.

In my defence I could ask who was I to deny the wishes of the son of my king, even if he was a bastard son, but to tell the truth, engaging with him in the pleasures I had been introduced to had been on my mind since the moment I had met him. And so the three of us lowered our trousers there in the apartment of Prince Afonso and I discovered the phenomenal pleasure of sharing a young boy with another of my age. Leading me to the royal bed and pushing me back onto it, Jorge knelt on the mattress on his hands and knees and took my stiff, aching member in his mouth while Afonso, who had turned fifteen just three months past and married just a month before that, knelt behind him and lubricating his member, which was of a most impressive size, with a greasy substance he kept in a jar beside his bed obviously for that very purpose, and, I presumed, also for penetrating his wife, inserted his member up his nine-year-old half brother's ass. From the ease with which he penetrated him, it was evident the two had experience at this, which I found amazing if he had told the truth about the frequency with which he had congress with his wife. As he began to pump his hips to and fro, he reached under Jorge's belly and began to stroke the boy's stiff little noodle.

Jorge was skilful and experienced at what he was doing, as skilful as the six-year-old black boy of the Kongo who had introduced me to this pleasure two months past. He grasped my swollen member tightly with his lips and slowly slid them down my shaft to my stones, and then slowly slid them back up and over the knob of my throbbing cock. At the same time he inhaled, sucking on my swollen flesh so as to create a tug on it. My lust quickly grew even stronger until my cock felt like it was about to burst when suddenly he stopped and clamped his lips still tighter about my throbbing member just below the knob. To my surprise, the need for me to squirt, which had been rapidly growing in intensity, suddenly disappeared. He waited for a moment, and then resumed sucking and bobbing his head, and to my delight it was like starting at the beginning again, though to my disappointment my lust rose much faster the second time.

I noted that Afonso also paused in fucking his bastard brother's ass, and I assumed for the same reason, to delay squirting. He looked down at me and smiled, his dark eyes gleaming with lust and his lips curled in a broad grin, and the look of lust on his face caused my member to throb hotly in Jorge's mouth. Afonso soon resumed fucking his brother, and it was not long before the three of us were once again gasping for breath and squirming with the strange sweet pain throbbing between our legs. Knowing what to expect now, I warned Jorge lest he not want me to squirt my bodily fluid into his mouth, but like the little black boy who had introduced me to this carnal pleasure, he kept his lips tightly fastened to my swollen member so as to drink every drop I had to offer. Moments later I began to squirt and Jorge began to swallow. At the same time Afonso grunted and thrust his hips against Jorge's ass and squeezed him tightly and I knew he was squirting up his half-brother's ass. Jorge gave a muffled squeal as he began to jerk and buck just as the little black boy had when I had pulled on his little sausage and I knew he was feeling the same explosive and mysterious pleasure as Afonso and I were feeling even though he was too young to squirt. Exhausted and flushed from our lustful frenzy, the three of us lay back there on the large, four poster bed and stared up at the canopy, our bodies hot and beaded with sweat, our chests heaving as we caught our breath. As I lay there, I turned my head and glanced over at Afonso, wondering if he had lain with his wife in this very same bed as I had presumed, and if doing it with her was anywhere near the pleasure of doing it with another male. Afonso opened his eyes and his eyes caught mine, and the smile that crossed his lips answered both of my unasked questions and caused my now limp member to twitch. Finally Jorge sat up and looked down at me with a big grin.

"You shot so much I thought you were going to drown me with your seed," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. There was a thin film of my bodily fluid on his lips, and as I looked down, I found a globule of the milky-white substance clinging to the tip of my now partially soft member.

"My seed?" I asked, glancing down at the whitish droplet.

"Yeah. You did squirt before, with the little black savage, did you not?"

"Yes, I did, but I did not know that was my seed that squirted out of my body," I confessed. I glanced over at Afonso's member and saw that it too had become limp, and that it too had a globule of the thick, whitish fluid clinging to the tip. "That is what a man's seed looks like?" I asked, glancing up at Afonso for confirmation.

"Indeed," he said. "Had I been between Isabella's legs and not Jorge's I could have made a baby just now."

I stared down at my offending member. The first time I had squirted I had assumed it was urine that had squirted out of my hose, and though when I saw what it was the second time and knew it was not urine, what it was I had not known, and of course I had nobody to ask. It had not occurred to me that it was my seed, having assumed in my youthful and Christian innocence and ignorance that a man's seed looked like any other seed, hard and oval, the size of a grain, and that there would only be one. I looked down again at the slime clinging to the tip of my member, now in disbelief and in despair. It was a sin for a male to have congress with another male. So the priests said, though I know not why it is so, despite Jorge's claim to the contrary regarding the practice of those priests he knew growing up. It is even more of a sin for a man to spill his seed. That it says in the Bible, or so I have been told, having never actually seen it myself and unable to read Latin even if I had. Everyone knows for that sin God smote down the sinner and destroyed entire cities. Guilt and fear of the Lord swept over me, totally and utterly, replacing the pleasure I had just felt only a few moments ago. What had I just done! What had I done so willingly and eagerly back in the jungles of the Kingdom of the Kongo?!

To my surprise, Afonso and Jorge did not appear to have any guilt nor fear. Indeed, they seemed quite content, and pleased, as I had felt with the little black six-year-old boy that had been gifted me back in the jungle, just as I had felt until being told the truth moments ago. Not knowing what to say or do, I said and did nothing as I lay there on the bed and stared up at the canopy in confusion. Had I misunderstood what the priests had said, what I had been told was in the Bible? Why else would Afonso and Jorge show no regret over what we had done? I was, after all, a mere merchant and sailor's son, whereas they were of royal blood. They surely knew more than I what was right and what was not. Besides, my mind did have a tendency to wander during Father Francisco's sermons and I did not always pay the closest of attention.

"So, are you ready to do it again?" asked Jorge, sitting up and bending over and looking me directly in the eyes. Do it again?

"Let us reverse," suggested Afonso. "Jorge can take me in his mouth and you can give it to him up his ass this time."

Without waiting for a response, Afonso rolled over on his back and spread his legs wide and Jorge immediately crawled between them and lowering his head and picking up Afonso's limp noodle, began to lick it despite where it had recently been. I lay there still in shock over my discovery, unable to believe the prince of our country would indulge in such a mortal sin, that instead of producing heirs to rule our great country, he was not only willingly spilling his seed in his bed with another male, but with a boy six years his junior. As I lay there watching, his member quickly began to harden until it was standing up straight and eager as Jorge licked it as a child might lick the spoon his mother used to prepare a custard for the evening's dessert. I could not help but recall the custard he had dipped it in, and I could not help screwing up my face in disgust as I imagined how it must taste. Despite my revulsion and my dismay over my discovery that I had been spilling my seed, and my shock that my prince would engage in such a transgression, the sight of his long, thick cock and of his bastard half-brother licking it caused my own member to begin to rise, and the sight of Jorge's compact, pale pink buttocks was as appealing as any young maiden's privates might be, even more so in that I had seen the former and knew what to expect whereas a maiden's charms I had only heard about. To my dismay and great weakness, that expectation caused my member to rise all the more quickly. I glanced over at the jar of ointment sitting on the stand beside Prince Afonso's bed.

"Go ahead and use some," he said, "though I do not think it will be necessary. I have I think stretched open Jorge's hole, and the slime from my eggs will make the way slippery enough for you to penetrate him."

The idea of sticking my member up a boy's asshole filled with another's slime, and of adding my own slime to that of my prince, I confess caused my member to wag with much excitement so great was the hold of the devil on me. Indeed, so great was my lust, I rose to my knees and kneeling behind Jorge I mounted him as he continued to suck on the prince's once again stiff cock. The feel of his hot, moist hole gripping my stiff, aching member, and the feel of Afonso's hot, thick slime flowing over my most private part, caused my cock to ache with desire and my body and heart to ache with such lust that I never before felt such a desperate need to squirt.

Grasping his smooth, compact buttocks with demon-driven lust, I began to pump my hips to and fro, driving my stiff, aching cock deep up his body and withdrawing it until it almost slipped out. So great was my lust and the pleasure I was feeling, I quickly forgot about my earlier shame and guilt, and thinking of the pleasure and the privilege of adding my seed to that of my prince in the same chamber caused my lust to utterly overcome me. I pumped my cock in and out of the ass of my newly turned nine-year-old partner with a lust greater than I had ever felt before and I even slipped one hand under the little bastard and stroked his stiff, hot little sausage as I had seen my prince do.

I had much to think on that night as I lay in my own bed. That the rich and those of noble blood often had mistresses in addition to their wives I knew, but not being either, I had not put any thought to it. The Bible told of great kings and prophets having had concubines in addition to a wife, including Solomon, the wisest of them all, so clearly for a married man to have congress with a female other than his wife was acceptable to the Lord. That King João had lain with a maid, and had a bastard son by her, I had not known but that did not distress me. Such is the way of men and the world. That Jorge, being a bastard and raised without the guidance of a mother and father, had congress with other males I could understand also. I could even understand one raised in such circumstances having no guilt nor concern for his mortal soul, possibly even not knowing what he was engaging in was an abomination in the Eye of the Lord.

Afonso, on the other hand, being a recent bridegroom with a beautiful wife, I had no understanding why he would want to lay with another male. Even though that male was a bastard and a half-brother, that he would do it with the son of his father was even more curious. And that one of his royal upbringing would have sex with another male without any sign of guilt or fear of God was the most difficult to understand of all. As for boys in an orphanage being so crude, that was understandable, but that monks sworn to celibacy and knowing the wrath of God would engage in the pleasures of the flesh with another male, and a boy besides, I had great difficulty believing to be true. Being a bastard, and evidently enjoying the sin he was willingly engaging in, I could understand Jorge also being a liar, for surely he had to be.

But what of myself? I was raised in a good Christian home, with a God-fearing father and mother. How could I not only engage in such a filthy and disgusting act condemned by the Lord and by all decent Christians, but enjoy it besides? Strong is the temptation of Satan and his power over man. Gripped with remorse and shame now that the heat of lust had cooled in my veins as I lay there staring up at the ornate ceiling in the rich apartment we had been ensconced, I swore before God and on the purity of my mother and my sisters that fully knowing now what I had been doing, I would never engage in such perversity again and I begged our Lord to forgive me my trespass and keep me out of temptation. I even swore I would find a priest in the morning and confess my sins and make a generous contribution to mother church. I finally fell into a tormented sleep, my guilty conscience unable to allow me to rest.

Remembering my vow when I awoke the next morning, I rose with heavy heart, no more wanting to confess to a priest than I wanted to cut off my arm. It was, however, the Christian thing to do, and I resolved to do so right after I broke my fast. I was still eating when once again a court page arrived with an invitation to again join the two sons of João II. My heart leaped with joy and anticipation and sank with despair all in one. After our previous afternoon, I was both eager to join them again, and at the same time most reluctant. What we had done there in the prince's apartment was undeniably the most pleasurable thing I had ever done, but to engage in such pleasure was also undeniably a sin, condemned by God and the Pope and all good Christian folk of our land. I was sore pressed to say no, but one does not decline an invitation to join one's prince and so I accepted but vowed I would keep my member inside my breeches no matter how great the temptation. Instead of being taken to the prince's apartment, I was taken directly to the royal stables where I discovered a horse had been saddled so I could join the prince and Jorge in a day of horseback riding.

Having never owned a horse nor known anyone who did, it was a new and frightening experience. I gripped onto the reins so tightly my knuckles were white and I pressed my thighs against the beast's body so firmly Afonso joked that the poor animal would have difficulty breathing. When he began to run, my body was jerked from side to side worse than being on board a ship being tossed in the wildest storm. I greatly feared I would fall off, and he ran with such speed I was sure if I were to fall I would break every bone in my body. It was, I decided, God's punishment for the sins I had engaged in, and if I was right, He was thoroughly annoyed. Jorge looked almost as uncomfortable as I was, and I later discovered horseback riding was also quite new yet for him. Afonso on the other hand had been riding almost as long as he had been able to walk and was an expert horseman, as was his fifteen-year-old Castilian valet, Menendo, and he intended on riding for the entire day.

To my relief, and I must admit to my disappointment, we engaged in no pleasures of the flesh that day. God had kept me from temptation as I had asked. That He would have answered the prayers of one so undeserving as myself caused me great humility and wonder, and I found great relief in that knowledge given the severity of the sins I had engaged in. It renewed my faith in Him and His compassion. Though I must confess that in my great weakness and that so great was the lure of Satan, I was disappointed we had done nothing in the way of carnal pleasure, I prayed to the Lord that night in great thankfulness for forgiving such a wretch as I and for keeping me from evil. Though I lay down with my mind at peace, my body ached from head to toe and my legs felt so sore I lay with them spread as if I still had a horse between them.

To my dismay, upon waking I discovered the Lord's punishment was not yet over: I was informed the prince was inviting me to join him horseback riding again that morning. I met the news with again a mixture of joy and despair, this time joy that once again I would not be lead into temptation, dismay in that very muscle in my body, some of which I had not even known I had, was screaming with pain. So, when Afonso, Jorge and I headed out riding again, I was if not exactly of good cheer, I was pure of heart. We rode for several hours, along the tops of the hills around Lisbon, and then down on the beach, ending up at the hut of a fisherman near the mouth of the Tagus River. As we approached two boys sitting in the sun on a pile of driftwood and mending fishing nets, I felt a pang of homesickness, their activity being something I was very familiar with having spent many hours with my friends helping repair the nets of their fathers, uncles and older brothers. The boys evidently were familiar with Afonso and they immediately stood and bowed respectfully to him, but, I noticed, not to his bastard brother. I also noticed though respectful, their behaviour was surprisingly familiar for the sons of fishermen.

The boys looked very much alike, with thick, shoulder long, black hair, dark brown eyes, and bodies darkly tanned from long hours in the sun, and I suspected they were brothers, which was correct. The oldest, whom I learned later was thirteen years of age, introduced himself as Adao, and his brother as Mateus, who was eight, and I was correct about them being familiar with Afonso. He informed me that he often rode along the beach and the margins of the Tagus and he and the brothers spent many hours exploring the tidal pools and swimming in the ocean. From the glances they exchanged, and then the glances over at me, there was evidently something else, something they were keeping a secret from me, but it was not my place to ask.

Taking them aside, Afonso spoke softly to them, and then motioned for the rest of us to follow them. We hiked along the beach a distance away from their hut to where the cliffs jutted out into the ocean. Stripping off our clothes and tucking them away in the bushes and tethering our horses where they could feed on the tall sea grass, we waded along the abutment until it became too deep and we were forced to swim to round it. On the other side we headed back to the shore, a small sandy alcove with the ocean on one side and steep cliffs topped with thick forest on the other three. A ring of stones and charred wood on the beach indicated that this little alcove was visited frequently. We swam in the deep, quiet pool between the two outcroppings of rock for a while, and then lay down on the sand to let the sun dry our bodies.

"Why do you suppose cold water makes one's member shrivel up so?" Mateus asked, looking down at himself.

"Who knows? Perhaps it is so the fish do not see it and think you are dangling a tasty worm for them to eat," suggested Menendo, Afonso's valet, with a grin and we all laughed.

"That would be an interesting way to go fishing," Mateus observed. "Not so much work as the way Da and the men in the village do it."

"The fish would take one look at your little worm and decide it was not worth the effort even before the sea shrivelled it," his brother Adao teased.

"Well, Nicolau has a way that can change limp little worms into long, thick snakes," Afonso observed as he grinned over at me. Shocked and disappointed that he would reveal the secret we had engaged in now two days past, I stared at him in surprise, not knowing what to say. "And without touching them," he continued.

"Without touching them? How is such a thing possible?" asked Adao.

"Just by using words," Afonso said. "Nicolau has just returned from the jungles of the Kingdom of Kongo. Tell them of the people you encountered there," he encouraged, adding with a twinkle in his eyes and a sly grin, "I am sure they will find your story most stimulating."

So, what he had been referring to was not what we had done together at all. Much relieved, and chagrined to have thought my prince would betray a trust, I began to tell my story, something which I found easier with each telling, and as what had happened to Afonso and Jorge began to happen to Adao, Mateus and Menendo. With the six of us laying there naked and fully exposed, none of us could hide the stirring of our snakes, which, for me, and I suspect for the others, hastened the rising of their heads. To my surprise Afonso and Jorge, who were lying beside each other, reached over and began to stroke each other when I concluded my tale. Adao and Mateus quickly followed suit, eagerly turning to each other. Receiving a questioning look from Menendo, who was sitting beside me, I nodded and he reached over and slipped his fingers about my rigid member and I reached over and wrapped my fingers about his, which, I noted was just slightly shorter and thinner than Prince Afonso's. I also noted that his fingers were smooth and soft, as Jorge's had been, whereas mine were calloused and rough, and for a moment I was embarrassed but he did not seem to notice nor mind. The six of us sat there in silence, enraptured by the throbbing pleasure between our legs, and the same throbbing in the stiff members in our fists. Adao and Mateus were the first to twist around to form what they later called the two-backed monster, the two facing each other but lying in opposite directions so they could take each other's member in their mouth. Afonso and Jorge quickly followed, and finally Menendo and I, myself being curious what it would be like to do it and have it being done at the same time, and not wanting to be different from the others.

Now I must confess that the first time I had my member sucked I had wondered what a man's penis would taste like, but the idea of putting that part of a man's body in my mouth was so revolting I could not bring myself to try it no matter how pleasurable it was having it done to me. Besides, the boy doing it was a black savage and I was not about to do such a perverse thing with a savage. When Jorge had done the same thing to me, and to his half-brother, two days past, my curiosity was peaked again, but though curious, the idea of putting that part of one's body in my mouth was still nauseous, and despite the relish with which Jorge did it, I figured it had to taste terrible given what one's member was used for. Now seeing the two brothers taking each other in their mouths, and seeing Prince Afonso taking his bastard brother's cock in his mouth, I yielded to temptation. To my surprise, and relief, I found it really had no taste at all, no more than one's finger, which everyone has at some time or another cut or hit and put in one's mouth to soothe the hurt. In fact the knowledge that I had that most private and obscene appendage in my mouth seems to inflame my lust. It did take some getting use to breathing with one's mouth full, and there Afonso and Adao had the advantage, the members they were sucking being much smaller, but I was soon just as eagerly slipping my lips down Menendo's shaft to his thick, hairy bush and large, hairy stones and back up to his knob as he was doing me.

With the handsome, dark-eyed valet doing the same to me as I was doing to him, the two of us not only had the same pleasure throbbing between our legs, but we had the same experience of having a rigid member throbbing between our lips, and the knowledge that he was feeling, tasting and smelling the same things as I was seemed to heighten my lust still further. As I began to slip my lips up and down his shaft faster, he began to do so also, evidently feeling the same lust as I was which made my desire even stronger. So great was that desire that all too soon I felt the passion rising in my groin and then I was spurting my seed into his mouth, and seconds later he was doing the same, evidently just as lustful as I, and as he swallowed mine, so did I his. It was warm and bitter and slimy, and as it filled my mouth and spurted down my throat I shuddered with my first taste of a man's seed, and as my mind spun dizzily with my release and I was numbly aware of my delight at that release and an inexplicable overall joy, I also knew in the back of my mind that by the act I had just engaged in I had condemned my soul to eternal hell.

That as it may be, so great was our lust, that drinking each other's seed did not quench our thirst for carnal pleasure, and soon we were stroking each other's members and testicles again, the six of us entangled and withering like a nest of snakes, and I found myself eagerly stroking whichever member was in reach, small or large, with hairy bush or smooth pubes, and sometimes I found a member in each hand while unseen fingers stroked mine and fondled my stones. Quickly stiff once again, we formed threesomes to satisfy our lust once more. Disentangling himself and getting on his knees and elbows, Adao took Menendo's member in his mouth and Afonso's in his ass, and Jorge knelt similarly on the hot sand and took Mateus in his mouth while I sank my member up the fisherman's eight-year-old son's ass. With the ocean waves lapping at the sandy shore and splashing up against the rocks of the surrounding promontories and the cries of sea gulls on the nearby rocks, the six of us openly and unabashedly gasped and grunted in our drive to reach that peak of ecstasy one more time, the six of us relishing the pleasure pounding between our legs and the pleasure of sharing that pleasure with each other, the six of us rutting like mad-crazed demons in the pit of hell in our lust.

As I thrust my member in and out of Mateus's hot, tight ass, I happened to glance over at Afonso and found him watching me fucking the boy, a knowing smile on his lips, and the fact I was being watched heightened my lust to a new level I would never have imagined possible. I grasped Mateus's smooth buttocks tightly and smiled back at my prince and his grin widened before he turned his attention back to the youngster's brother whom he was fucking. Soon the two of us were squirting our seed up the receptive asses of our two willing brothers while Menendo filled Adao's mouth while the thirteen-year-old sprayed the sand with his seed and Mateus and Jorge shuddered and gasped with a common pleasure of young boys who cannot yet produce seed. Disentangling ourselves, we again lay on the hot sand, our chest heaving, our bodies flushed with the pleasure of orgasm, the six of us totally exhausted. Being from far different walks of life and upbringings, a Prince and his valet, two fisherman's sons, a merchant-sailor's son, and a king's bastard man child, we differed from each other in many ways, but we had in common that tube of flesh hanging between our legs, the knowledge of the pleasure that flesh could bring each of us, and the unique pleasure that one boy can bring another.

Five days after our audience with King João, Father and Uncle were summoned to appear before him, and though warned not to be too hopeful, I was much disappointed when they returned and informed me that he had not granted Father his request for funding to further explore the Rio Poderoso and the Kingdom of Kongo. I asked if that was so, how then was it that they were of such good cheer, to which they replied that instead King João had commissioned them to travel to Cairo where officially they were to pick up a supply of cinnamon and other spices from the Far East. Unofficially, they were to inquire as to the whereabouts of two of his envoys, Pero da Covilha and Alfonso de Paiva, whom he had sent to Cairo to investigate a possible sea route to the Indian and Chinese empires by way of the Red Sea and rumours that the Kingdom of Prester John lay to the south of that ancient city. The pay would be handsome, Father said, and the only danger would be an attack by the Berbers off the Barbary Coast. Father and Uncle Paolo were returning to Viano do Castelo on the morrow to make arrangements for their business concerns in our hometown to be taken care of during their absence, and to stock up the Theresa del Morau and outfit her with a crew for the voyage across the Mediterranean.

Much to my surprise, Father informed me that King João had a special request of me, that being to accompany his son Afonso and his young bride Isabella to Madrid and to serve as Afonso's scribe and personal page. I was much bewildered why the king would choose me for such a mission and more than a little reluctant. It would be a great honour but I was not sure I would be up to such a task and would not wish to bring dishonour to Father nor the Ribeiro name, and I was certain there would be many individuals more much more capable in the king's court. Besides, as much as I enjoyed the company of the prince, I enjoyed even more the secret sin that we had been engaging in and I had been looking forward to leaving Lisbon and the unresistible temptation behind. As to why the king had chosen me, Father said King João had much praise of my skills of perception and understanding other peoples and their ways based on my responses to his questions about my life at sea and about the savages we had encountered in the Kingdom of Kongo.

Father added that there was little for me to do back in Viano do Castelo and my time would be more profitably spent in service of our king here, and that they would stop to take me on board on their way to Cairo in two weeks time. Uncle also pointed out, with a twinkle in his eyes, that if I did return with them, Mother would most certainly take it into her head that while I was home I should return to school, and that once back home, she might not let me leave, having been hard pressed to allow me to accompany Father and Uncle on their last voyage. Those were arguments I could not find fault with, especially Uncle's, so on the morrow as Father and Uncle headed back to Viano do Castelo, I packed my bag with my meagre belongings to begin the overland trip to Madrid.

As I was about to leave there was a knock on my door, and when I opened it I was astounded to see standing there King João himself, and I must confess it was so unexpected I could not speak, and after he left, I honestly do not recall if I had paid him the proper deference in word and deed as a loyal subject should have. He observed that he had noticed that Prince Afonso had taken a liking to me, which added to my embarrassment and muddled mind and caused my heart to leap for my throat as the perversion the prince and I were engaging in came to mind and for a moment fear gripped me that his father had found out and had all along only intended on separating me from my father so that he might deal with me in the same manner as it was rumoured he dealt with nobles who had opposed him: death by his own hands. To my relief he went on to express to me personally his observation regarding my powers of perception and my intuitiveness regarding others and other languages, and then informed me that I too had both an official and an unofficial mission, the latter being to observe the attitudes of the people toward his son, particularly his in-laws and the nobles of the court, advising me he was well aware of the dangers he was placing his son in sending him into, as he called it, a den of vipers.

He further advised me that the official reason for the visit to Madrid was to show the Castilians, and the Catholic Monarchs in particular, Portugal's support of their Excellencies and good intentions, but it was also so Prince Afonso could try to discover the plans of the Castilian Monarchs to expand their kingdoms and their fortunes, particularly with regard to the silk and spice trade. He said my having the intelligence and instincts to see and hear everything, including things many people would miss, would serve me well as a second pair of eyes and ears for Prince Afonso, and for himself. That combined with my display of honesty and my nature of thinking things through carefully and thoroughly, he said, was exactly what was needed. As the prince's page, my presence would be taken for granted and would allow me to be anywhere and everywhere and my low station and youthful age combined with my innocence and lack of subterfuge, he concluded, made me ideal for the assignment.

I was most astounded and flattered by the king's praise and by the responsibilities placed upon me, and much burdened also. I weighed his words carefully on our journey, which made the dreariness of riding a horse all day and the aches of buttocks and spread legs at night bearable. We rode long and hard, on the road before the sun rose and stopping for the day moments before the sun set, making the journey in four days, by which time I was sure I would never sit again nor walk like a normal man after sixteen hours a day on the back of a horse which seemed to grow wider as each day passed. The trip itself was uneventful and I was comforted by the escort of a dozen Household Guards, supposedly to protect the prince and his wife from vagabonds and highwaymen. One good thing about our journey was that I need not have worried about succumbing to temptation, the prince having his wife to meet those needs of a man that might arise, and being always in the company of four or more guards, not having an opportunity to seek an alternative means of satisfaction.

I noticed several things over those four days. For one, the Household Guards selected were fiercely loyal to the prince and his wife, and highly competent and diligent in their duties. For another, the prince's claim to love his wife deeply was clearly true, and from the way she looked at him and reacted in his presence his claim that she loved him just as completely was also true. Why, therefore, he sought dalliances of a sexual nature with those of his own sex was a complete mystery to me, and how congress with her was a duty but congress with his bastard brother was a pleasure as he had claimed totally escaped me, but having no experience with the fair sex, I was hardly in a position to judge. As for his Castilian valet, Menendo, there was no hint of a sexual interest between him and his prince, nor of any interest in me, the latter bringing me much relief, and I could not help but wonder if God, in His Way, was keeping me from temptation as I had prayed, and each night I was sure to thank Him for answering this humble servant's prayer.

Arriving at the Palace of Juan de Vivero in Madrid, the prince and his wife were warmly greeted by her parents and we were taken to our accommodations. I was much relieved to wash off the dust of our travels and the stink of horse. The following day being a Sunday, the prince and his wife joined her parents at morning services, and I, as his personal page, was accorded a seat in the pew directly behind him. Mass in Madrid, I found, was just as boring as Mass in Viano do Castelo, though I tried my best to pay attention as I felt was my duty considering the favour the Lord had granted me.

As we headed back to the palace after services, our procession was momentarily delayed by a huge crowd filling the city's largest plaza. In the centre was erected a stake around which faggots were piled and to which a man, near naked, was bound. With his dark skin, high cheek bones, flattened nose and square, chiselled features of face, I knew he was not a Castilian but I did not recognize his nationality. We were informed by one of the King's soldiers, a member of the Santa Hermandad, the Holy Brotherhood, whom I learned later had been established by the Catholic Monarchs by order of Pope Sixtus some twelve years earlier, that the man was a Moorish Captain captured recently in the battle between the Kingdom of Castile and the Emirate of Granada.

When I inquired as to the nature of the man's crime that warranted being burned at the stake, the soldier looked at me incredulously and replied that he was a moro, a dark-skinned man, as if that was all the justification that was needed. Portugal having expelled the Moors from our land nearly two hundred years ago, I knew of them only by name and that they had invaded our land some five hundred years before that. Even though they deserved to be punished for invading our land, I was certain our people had not and would not treat an officer of any enemy army so cruelly. As I watched as they lit the faggots and as the flames slowly climbed higher and higher until they engulfed the poor soul, and as his screams pierced my very soul and the stench of burning human flesh assaulted my nostrils and I was certain I would be sick, I could think of no crime so heinous as to treat a fellow human being in such an unchristian manner. A glance at my prince and I was certain he was as horrified and as sickened as I was. We, it appeared, were the only two.

That incident left me shaken and much distressed, but from it I was able to conclude several important things. The first was that the war with the Emirate of Granada, going on now for over eight and a half years and which everyone wished would come to an end, above all other things occupied the time, thoughts and wealth of the Castile Kingdom. It was on the minds of everyone, royalty, nobility, and commoner alike. The second was the insatiable thirst for power by Ferdinand, already King of Castile, Sicily and Aragon. He was a cruel and perfidious man, and his wife was of similar nature and thoughts, being high-spirited and politically astute herself. Although she had the same fair complexion, blue eyes, and reddish-blond as her daughter, there was no similarity in personality whatsoever. There was little love between the royal majesties and their nobles, or them and the common folk, and it made me appreciate all the more the love and respect the Portuguese have for King João, and I say that honestly with no bias despite the assignment given me by my king and the report he was expecting back from me. At first I had thought coming across the burning of the Moorish Captain an unfortunate coincidence of time, but as the days progressed and I came to know and understand our hosts better, there was no doubt in my mind that the incident had been purposefully arranged to unnerve and impress my prince. The incident, as it was to turn out, also had a major role in a decision I would make later that would affect not just my life, but that of Prince Afonso and those of my father, uncle, and the crew of the Theresa del Morau.

The following day, my prince, with of course myself in accompaniment, was introduced to Tomas de Torquemada, a Dominican friar who had been appointed by Pope Innocent VIII as Grand Inquisitor. He was an old man of seventy years with grey hair cut in the tonsure of Dominican friars, much wrinkled, and with cold eyes that I swear could penetrate a man to his soul. His looks alone caused my heart to sink in my chest, and after only five minutes of listening to him speak it was clear the man was a religious zealot, and I feared that any moment he would turn on me and have me burned at the stake for the demon that dwelled inside me and perverted my mind and inflamed by private parts with the desire for boys. Although appointed by the Papacy to ferret out witches and heretics, which he did with a fervour, he was really appointed to bring the Christian Monarchs closer to the church and to serve them to subjugate the power of the nobles. He was a man disliked and feared by everyone, so much so that wherever he went he was surrounded by armed foot soldiers and mounted body guards. Next to the war with Granada, the Inquisition was the second thing on the minds of every man, woman and child in the kingdom.

Following the meeting, which again was clearly arranged to intimidate my prince, he, with myself in accompaniment, was taken on a tour of the city's dungeons and torture chambers by one of the Grand Inquisitor's top minions, and I discovered that the horror of the previous day, said to occur on an average of once a week, was nothing compared to what went on daily in those dark and grimy cells beneath the city. Every Christian female twelve years of age and older and every male fourteen and older in the lands ruled by Ferdinand and Isabella were accountable to the Inquisition. We were informed since it had been instituted twelve years past thousands of people had been found guilty of sorcery, heresy, witchcraft, bigamy, usury and sodomy, their land and goods seized for the crown, and themselves tortured and put to death. Given that, I was rightly surprised at the present populousness of the lands ruled by their Catholic Majesties.

While we toured the dungeons, I noticed a large number were Moors, and an even greater number were Jews, whom I recognized from their physical appearance and similarity in dress. There are a few such persons in Portugal and I was aware that in my own country they were also being forced out of our land. I personally knew of only one family, that of a gem merchant, who being in competition with other merchants, including Father and Uncle, where generally shunned and disliked, and I had found nothing about them to cause me to feel otherwise toward them. These particular Jews I was told were called Marranos, which in Castilian means swine, and were Jews who had professed to be Roman Catholics in order to stay in the country and keep their wealth but in secret continued to adhere to Judaism. Having no truck with such blatant dishonesty and trickery, I found little sympathy for their condition.

Our guide, who clearly was as zealous and as cruel as the Grand Inquisitor himself, and who just as clearly was a sycophant who hoped to impress my prince and garner his favour, thinking him to be as cruel-minded as his father-in-law, offered to show us first hand the fate of those who would lie to their monarchs and to God Himself. Taking us into one of the torture chambers, we found a man who appeared to be in his late thirties and a boy of about sixteen lying on their backs side by side on a wide table, their wrists tied by cables to a crank at the head of the table and their ankles tied to a second crank at the foot of the table. We were informed they had been confined in that position since morning with each crank tightened by a notch every candle mark. The muscles and sinews of their limbs were taut and clearly at the point of maximum stretching.

Upon closer examination, I discovered the man's breeches were unlaced and opened to expose his genitals and the table was so constructed that there was an opening directly below them. A rawhide cord had been soaked and tied tightly about the man's testicles and weights had been added to the end of the cord, causing his testicles to be stretched to an unbelievable length. The cord of course had begun to dry, causing it to tighten and cut off the circulation to his balls, which were swollen to double their normal size. Reminding the man that if he had embraced the Catholic faith honestly he would not be there, our host leaned over and smiling down at the man, held a finger to his thumb and thwacked his swollen testicles, causing the man to scream and to lurch, pulling on his already stressed limbs. Adding another weight, he mused how many more it would take before they would rip his testicles off. Taking the man's member, the knob of which was reddened and swollen, the man stroked the rim with a calloused finger, and despite the man's condition, his member began to swell. Continuing to fondle the man's penis, he picked up a thin needle and toyed with the man's mind, bringing the tip to his swollen knob and making a few false thrusts, causing the man to tense and raise his hips, pulling further on his tortured legs and arms and his stretched testicles.

Continuing to smile down at the man, he took one of the Jew's teats and began to tweak it, causing the irritated bud to become firm, and then pinching it between thumb and forefinger he rammed the pin through it, causing the man to scream and lurch once again. Despite the volume of his tortured screech, we all heard a very loud pop, and our torturer glanced over at us with a twinkle in his eyes and a huge grin, like a child having succeeded in mastering his ABC's. Stepping up to the man's arms and glancing down at them with a practised eye, he untied the right and holding it up, allowed it to drop back down on the table. The man's arm had popped out of its socket. I stared at it in horror, unable to imagine the pain the man had to be feeling, and all for his subterfuge in adhering to his belief in a false faith.

"Well," the torturer said with a maliciousness in his eyes, "that must have hurt. I will tell you what, to help you get your mind off the pain, I am going to let you pleasure yourself this one time." With a deft flick of his knife he cut loose the cord about the man's swollen testicles and he stood there waiting and smiling down at the man. "I mean it. Go ahead. Reach down and stroke your cock until your Jew seed spurts. Go ahead," he urged, thwacking his balls again and nudging his loosed arm. "Oh, yes, of course," he said as if just realizing it, "I guess you can not use that arm can you?" The man paused, as if in thought, but he was a gaoler, not an actor, and was fooling nobody that he did not already have a plan. "Well, I know what we can do," he continued, turning to the boy stretched out beside him and untying his wrists and ankles. "I am sure your son would be glad to oblige you. Get up you lout," he ordered, striking the boy with the leather strap attached to his belt, "and masturbate your father."

The boy was the man's son? I could not believe what was happening, nor what the man had just ordered the boy to do. Never had I imagined such cruelty nor humiliation in my life. The boy struggled to sit up but had no strength in his limbs. "What is the matter? Your arms a little sore today?" the torturer grinned. "Move it before I decide to cut your father's balls off instead." He gave the boy a whack on the side of the head with the strap. The boy wiggled down painfully, evidently this not being something new from the haunted look in his eyes, and reached out with his right hand. It was then that I saw his fingers were twisted and gnarled like the hand of an old man. "Oh yes, I forgot, you are not much good at masturbating any longer are you?" the torturer asked gleefully. He held up the boy's mangled hand and explained that early on in his captivity the boy had confessed to being a chronic masturbator, and had proven it by masturbating himself in front of his father, and then masturbating his father, a dozen prisoners, and the gaoler himself. To cure him of the habit, his knuckles had been crushed.

"I guess you will just have to use your tongue," the gaoler said. "Lick your father until he spurts his Jew seed." The boy stared at his father's member with revulsion. "No? Well, if your tongue is no good for licking, we might just as well remove it," the man said, glancing around and picking up a pair of pinchers from a nearby bench. The boy struggled down on the table, his eyes wide with fear and his face reflecting his revulsion and shame. Bending over, he began to lick his father's penis, to the amusement of the gaoler. I had no stomach to watch the boy perform such a perverted act on his father nor their humiliation, but as I began to look away I noticed the gaoler glance at me out of the corner of his eye, and I knew he was waiting to see such weakness in his foreign guests. I turned my attention back to the boy and his father, having no intention of giving the gaoler such reward, and as I did so I noticed the boy's member was stiff and swollen, much larger than should be naturally, and that like his father only moments ago, a cord had been tied tightly about his testicles, which were shrivelled to the size of a baby's, just below his member.

"He is a randy one, he is," the man said, noticing that I had noticed. "Been like that now for two days." Never seen a man with a horn for so long. Reaching out, he grasped the boy's member and began to roughly stroke it, causing the boy to squirm and tense each time his hand slipped over the boy's irritated knob. Just imagining the pain caused a shiver to run up my spine and my own member to shrivel in my breeches, as if trying to disappear so it would not be noticed. "The strap about the base of his cock stops it from going down, and the cord about his nuts stops his seed from travelling up his prick," he explained. "We must have milked out a dozen loads out of those balls so far, with nowhere for them to go," he chuckled.

We stood there and watched, my prince and I, unable to do anything else. Although the wretches deserved everything that was coming to them, and to turn away or suggest we leave would be a sign of weakness and sympathy on our part, the sight of the tortured boy licking his almost dead father's privates caused my skin to crawl. Despite their pain and humiliation, and despite the abuse their private parts had already evidently received, the Devil's will was stronger and their flesh responded, the father's to his son's tongue and the son's to the gaoler's fist. The sixteen-year-old boy lay there licking his father's nuts and swollen member, running his tongue up the length of his cock and around the rim of his knob, his eyes reflecting his shame, and, I thought, perhaps reflecting his hope, as weak as it was, that he was indeed bringing his father a moment or relief from his pain. His father stared up at the ceiling, but I saw no pleasure in his eyes, only his humiliation and shame, shame that he was unable to protect his son, shame for having responded to his son's licking, shame for engaging in this lurid act.

He had no choice, and in time, the father's seed spurted out of his swollen cock, spraying his son in the face and squirting in his mouth. Thick and white, it ran down his member and over his swollen balls. The boy was forced to lick his father clean and swallow his seed, and in the process he began to buck and quiver with evidently his own orgasm, but he was unable to spurt.

To 'reward' the boy, the torturer had him sit on his father and had his father take his swollen member in his mouth and suck on it. Father and son were numb with fatigue and acted mechanically, and I, as I was sure was my prince, was numb with the horror and inhumanity of what I was being forced to watch. The man sucked deeply on his son's cock and slid his lips up and down over the knob rapidly, proof, the gaoler said, of the degenerate Marrano's obsession with sex, but I suspected it had more to do with the father's desire to bring his son off as quickly as he could to end his pain and their humiliation. Having just shot his seed, that was not going to happen soon and only after the longest time did the boy tense and quiver with another dry orgasm.

The gaoler began to leave and as we turned to follow, he motioned for us to stay, unless we "did not have the stomach to watch any further." That, of course, ensured we would stay. As my prince glanced over at me, I could see his frustration and anger in his eyes. The gaoler returned a few moments later with a large, dark-skinned Moor. The man was naked, and had an impressive member dangling between his legs. Having the boy still kneel there above his father, the man had the boy lick the Moor until his member was stiff, and I could not help but stare at the long, black monster, at least two hands long I swear, and so wide around I am sure my fingers and thumb would not touch if they were to encircle it. He then had the Moor fuck the boy's ass. Considering the man's size, he had great difficulty getting his member up the boy's rectum, but despite the tight fit and the pain the two were evidently feeling, he finally managed to do so. He sank his long, thick member up the boy's ass until his curly black hairs were pressed against the teenager's buttocks. He then began to fuck the boy there on the torturer's stretching rack and again you could see the humiliation and despair in the eyes of the boy and his father.

The Moor savagely and roughly fucked the boy, which the gaoler again said showed the perversity of his kind, claiming that it was the Moors who had introduced sodomy to the kingdom, the people having no such lust prior to their Invasion. Whether or not that was true, that his zest for fucking another male up the ass was the nature of his kind, or that it was the Moors who had introduced this sin to our land, I did not know and did not dwell on. I only wished it would be over and we could leave. In time the large dark-skinned man filled the teenage boy's ass with his seed.

Still not satisfied, the gaoler had the boy, in front of his father, lick the Moor clean of his ass shit and slime and suck the remainder of the Moor's seed from his member. I had noticed when the gaoler had returned with the Moor that he was having difficulty walking, and from the size of the bulge in his grimy breeches that he was either very well hung himself, or had found the torture arousing. As the moro and Marrano finished their performance, for it indeed had been a performance for the benefit of the gaoler, and for my prince, I could not help notice a very distinct dark splotch between the gaoler's legs that had not been there earlier, and I knew it was not sweat. He sighed a heavy sigh of satisfaction and I quivered with revulsion as I considered what it must feel like to have unloaded in his breeches, and how many other loads those unwashed breeches had received in the past.

Although I had no trust or empathy for the Marranos, I was sickened beyond any sensibility and even breathing the clean air once we emerged into the street did not clear my head. I had touched nothing, but I felt filthy all over. I could not comprehend how any human being could subject another to such pain and such indecency no matter how severe his sin or his crime, no matter what his nationality or his faith. Just as shocking to me was the power of the devil to inflame one's flesh so that even under such conditions he would desire carnal pleasure. It was a revelation to me, as was the revelation that a man such as the gaoler could derive sexual pleasure to the point of ejaculation from inflicting pain and humiliation on another human being. It was no wonder a simple merchant's son as myself so easily succumbed to Satan's temptations of the flesh and I was stunned by the power of the Dark Angel and the weakness of mankind. The incident left me with much to ponder for the remainder of the day. Although Afonso said nothing to me, I could tell that he was just as disturbed.

King João had been quite right that as the prince's page I would be able to go anywhere and everywhere without question and largely without notice. I stood in the shadows behind my prince unseen and unheard but at his side instantly on his whispered command. I accompanied him as he met with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and discussed with them affairs of state, as he sat with them as a respected guest of honour and representative of Portugal when they held court and when they sat in council with their leading nobles, I followed a respectful distance behind as he and his wife toured the city, attended church, and were feted at balls and dinners. And, when left on my own or sent on supposed errands by Prince Afonso, I listened in on conversations by Castile's rich and leading families and merchants, committing their words to memory and observing their behaviours and attitudes.

From my eavesdropping I quickly concluded that there was no love lost by young Isabella's parents for her husband and that they would as soon he be dead or divorced, though they would not be so foolish as to harm him while under their protection. There were also a number of Castile's leading citizens who felt the same, and, I was not so certain, not averse to doing him in during his visit. Their names, occupations, and anything I thought might be relevant I committed to memory, or, in my role as page to the prince, jotted down in notes, in ambiguous terms and a code I had devised myself, not being so foolish as to risk discovery of my secret mission.

It was on my third day in Madrid that I discovered first hand the fears the general population face under the rule of their not so beloved monarchs. Having become particularly suspicious of one noble in particular, a very rich and influential Count from Aragon, I took it upon myself to follow him. Although unaware of the environs of the city, it was evident as I followed him that the section of the city I found myself in was not the part of the city one would expect one of his station to frequent. Fortunately for me, he chose to conduct his business in the dark in the street rather than be seen in one of the seedy and disreputable inns and taverns in that section of the city. Also fortunate for me the place he chose to meet his accomplices was in a small, rundown plaza near a narrow and filthy alley that afforded me cover to sneak within hearing distance.

They had barely begun to talk when to my surprise there suddenly appeared from the shadows a boy close to my age, evidently intoxicated, who singing and staggering, blindly bumped into the threesome. Given a cuff on his head, he mumbled his drunken apologies and stumbled on, turning into the alley in which I was hiding. It was at that point that the count discovered the little drunkard had relieved him of his purse, and he and his accomplices set out in pursuit. Having no alternative, I leaped from my hiding place and followed the young thief, who suddenly was as sober as a priest, hoping that he had an escape plan, and that my youth and agility would better my opponents. I was right on both accounts, and although they started off in hot pursuit, we managed to lose them.

Laughing and gasping for breath, he slapped me on the back jovially as if it had all been a grand game of tag. "What were you doing hiding in the alley?" he finally asked, taking appraisal of me. "You are no cutpurse with those grand clothes and such finely coiffured hair." I did not know how to respond, certainly not being able to tell him my purpose. He suddenly broke into a wide grin, his white teeth shining in the dark and all the whiter in contrast with his dark brown skin. "Ah-ha, you were following the finely dressed gentleman whose purse I lifted so he need not carry such a heavy burden." Having no other reason, I nodded. "You were going to put those long, delicate fingers to a different use, but you were hoping to also help relieve the fine gentleman of some of his burden, were you not?" I had no idea what he meant. "Come now, do not deny it. I am sure he would have paid well to dally with a pretty boy such as you," he continued with a leer, and I turned crimson as I realized what he had thought. "Well, I am sorry to have beaten you to it," he continued, not giving me a chance to speak. "But here," he said, reaching into the purse and taking out a handful of coin graciously, "there is more than enough here for the two of us." Before I could respond he stepped out of the alley and began to walk away. Shoving the coins into my pocket, I stepped out to follow him when around the corner appeared two members of the Brotherhood. "Crap!" he swore, crouching down and slipping back into the alley from which we had emerged.

"You, stay where you are and raise your hands!"

Having been seen and knowing they would be more fit than the three who had been pursuing us, I did as I was told. They quickly approached and searched me for any weapons, which of course I did not have, though they did find the coins I had shoved into my pocket and my Letter of Credence from King João.

"You do not look like any common cutpurse, but what is this?" one said, looking at the coins and the letter.

"My name is Nicolau Ribeiro," I replied. "I am the personal page of Prince Afonso of Portugal, the husband of the daughter of your royal majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. I was sent by my prince to take that letter to… Lord Iberto," I said, choosing the first name to come to my mind. "I am afraid I have become twisted around in your huge city and have become lost."

He glanced at the letter and then at me. "He is a foreigner by his appearance and tongue," he said to his companion. He began to unfold the letter.

"That is intended for Lord Iberto's eyes only," I protested. "My prince will not be pleased to learn another has read it."

Seeing the official seal, he paused, and then returned the letter to me. He hesitated again, and then thinking better of what he had in mind originally, he returned the coins also. The letter was actually the one written by King João identifying me and my position as the page to Prince Afonso to explain my presence should I be intercepted as I conducted my covert business on his behalf, and which he had admonished me to keep on my person at all times. As I had hoped the man had given it only a cursory glance, and as I had expected, did not know how to read anyway.

"If you could show me the way back to the Palace of Juan de Vivero, I would be most grateful, and I am sure my prince would reward you for my safe return."

That was tempting to him, as I had expected it would be. He glanced at his companion. "We are searching for a cutpurse, a boy of about your size, a Berber. Have you seen him?"

"Yes, he bumped into me less than a tenth of a candle mark ago, very much in a hurry."

"Where?"

Pretending to be confused, I glanced around, and then pointed in the opposite direction of the alley down which he had disappeared. "Three streets over, in that direction."

"Back toward where he committed the crime?" the second soldier asked the first suspiciously.

"Circling back where we have already searched. Clever."

Reluctant to give up the possibility of a reward for returning me to the palace, but knowing if the count were to discover they had a lead on the cutpurse and had not followed it up it would not go well for them, the soldier gave me quick directions on how to get back to the palace, and the two headed off on a run in the direction I had told them.

Sighing with relief, I glanced around for the young thief, and seeing no sign of him, I hurried off in the direction I had been given.

I even spied, for there is no better word for it, on Prince Afonso's valet, Menendo, and that was one positive thing of my miserable visit to Madrid. It was quickly evident that Menendo was fiercely loyal to the prince, bordering, I would dare say, on love, not as one comrade for another, or a brother for a brother, but something even deeper, as a love between husband and wife, though of course such a thing between two of the same sex is absurd, and impossible.

The third overriding interest on the minds of everyone, I found, was the same as in Portugal, increasing the country's wealth and power through the exploration of new lands and finding an alternative route to the spices and silks of the Far East with the Mamelukes and Ottomans having virtually cut off the traditional land routes. It would appear, as far as I could ascertain, and to my delight, that they were no further along in that regard than we were, and perhaps were even further behind. They, I understood from conversations between the rich and idle scions of rich lords and barons that hung around the court, had even been approached four years ago by a foreigner with the absurd idea of sailing not south and east, but due west to reach the rich lands of China and India, and had actually seriously considered it before turning him down.

Having made my observations, I was eager to be gone from this depressing and oppressive place, so at the end of our fourth day when my Prince announced that we would be returning to Madrid on the morrow, I was filled with much delight and went to bed with great happiness and anticipation.

Much to my surprise, I was awoken in the middle of the night by a shake of my shoulder and a hand placed tightly over my mouth. My mind muddled by sleep and my imagination inflamed by the horrors I had witnessed these past four days, I imagined myself being murdered in my bed as part of the assassination of my prince or being dragged off to the torture chambers of Madrid for the sins I have committed in seeking the pleasures of the flesh by my own hand and with those of my own sex. What I did not expect was to look up into the brown-black eyes of the young cutpurse I had encountered the night before. What he would be doing in my bedroom was a great mystery. After I assured him I would not call out, he carefully removed his hand.

"What-?"

"I have come to thank you, my very nice friend," he interrupted in a soft whisper, "and to pay you back for the great favour you have done me by doing a great favour for you."

"Thank me?"

"For sending the Santa Hermandad off in the wrong direction. Had they sought me in the alley to which I had retreated, they would have surely caught me, for much to my dismay I discovered there was no exit at the other end. And if they had caught me, you know what they would have done to me." I stared at him blankly. "They would have flogged me, and then cut off my hands. That is the punishment for cutpurses and highwaymen in this great Christian Kingdom. Can you imagine, going throughout life with no hands! I would have to learn to relieve men of their heavy purses with my toes!"

I would have laughed were it not for the circumstances I found myself in. Besides, I saw the young cutpurse was deadly serious.

"And so I thank you again my good friend, and for your kindness, I, Ahmar Sayyd Ma'tollah bin Ashrat Muhammad el-Qu'itar, have come to pay you back." He paused and looked at me intently.

"Thank you."

"The information I have is very, very important. Of such great importance if certain others knew I had it they would surely cut my throat." He made a cutting motion with his hand across the front of his neck for emphasis, and paused a second time. "So important, certain others I know would pay me handsomely for it." To my bewilderment, he paused a third time and stared at me intently again. "Not that I would expect a friend who has saved me from spending the rest of my life separated from my hands from paying me for the information," he continued, looking at me pointedly, "though if such a friend were to offer me coin in thanks for my information, who would I be to object to the kindness of a friend."

"I have little money, other than the coins you gave me last night. You are welcome to them," I said, finally understanding. I started to get up.

"No, no. I gave them to you, to lessen your disappointment in the outcome of last night. What sort of friend would I be to ask for them back?" Pushing me onto my back, he looked down at me with deep hurt, though I was doubtful just how genuine the hurt was. "Of course," he continued, placing a hand on my leg and slowly slipping it up my thigh under my sleeping gown, "if a friend were to offer a friend something else, perhaps to show him pleasures that only royalty are the recipient of…"

"I," I began, uncertain what he was saying, and then turning crimson as I caught his meaning. "No, that is not the way it is between my prince and myself. I am his page, and personal scribe. Nothing more."

"You cannot fool me. I have been watching you, and your prince, all day. I saw the glances you give each other, and the glances both of you give other handsome young boys. It is plain as the nose on your face, a very nice nose I might add, that you like boys. It is just as plain that so does your prince, and that you like each other, and not as prince and page. But that is of no offense to me. Royalty has its privileges, and its concubines, and whether they squat or stand to piss means nothing to me. Do not fear. Your secret is safe with me. Even if the Grand Inquisitor's torturer ripped out my tongue, I would not tell the secret between you and your prince."

I was about to point out that if the Grand Inquisitor's torturer ripped out his tongue, he would not be able to tell, but I knew it would be useless. "What is this information that is so important?"

"Curious what our mutual interest of last night was doing in, shall we say, that part of the city where men of such upright breeding are not normally found, after you had so kindly not revealed the place to which I had retreated to the Holy Brotherhood, I headed to a tavern that I knew his two accomplices were wont to visit, and sure enough, I found them there, and as the ale flowed it loosened their minds, which did not take much for minds such as theirs, and their tongues. I discovered our fat friend had hired them to do in your prince."

"What?" I asked in alarm, quickly sitting up again.

"Shhh, not so loud," he cautioned.

"They plan on assassinating Prince Afonso?"

"Yes, when he returns to Lisbon, once he is again safely, or so he will think, within the borders of his own country, but not so far that his attackers cannot slip away back into Castile. They know which inn your prince stayed at on his way here, and have assumed he will stay there again on his way back. That evening when your prince goes to the privy to do what even the rich must do, they plan on catching him, with his pants down in more ways than one. It being in his own country, Castile will not be in as much suspect as if it had happened within their own borders, and anyway, they plan on leaving behind a dead Moor or two to make it look like the moro were the ones who did your prince in."

"You learned this last night, and waited until tonight to inform me?" I asked angrily.

"Of course. I had to be sure you were who you said you were, or what you said you were not, and not part of the plot. You could have been hiding in the shadows to see if anyone was spying on your fellow conspirators for all I knew. Besides, you are not easy to get alone."

I had to admit that was true. As I began to get out of bed once more, he again stopped me.

"Where are you going?"

"Where do you think? I have to inform Prince Afonso."

"At this time at night? Let him enjoy his sleep."

"He is going to be assassinated!"

"Were you not listening? When he decides to return to his homeland, and then only after he crosses the border into Portugal. It is hardly an emergency he must address tonight. Besides, what is he going to do, charge after the would-be assassins on the word of a cutpurse? Or perhaps he plans on seeking help from his father-in-law, who would not weep if his daughter was a widow?"

He had a point there also. I lay back down.

"There, now, that is more like it," Ahmar said, placing his hand on my leg once again. "But since we are both wide awake, and I am sure you are too excited about my news to fall asleep soon, you can pay me now."

"You said friends do not expect to be paid."

"Ah, that is true." He thought for a moment. "So, we are friends now," he said with an impish grin as he caressed my inner thigh. "Good friends?"

"Not that good," I replied, trying to remain sober but not succeeding. His grin was infectious.

"I have just given you information that will save your prince's life, and make you a hero in his eyes, and those of his father and your countrymen. If that is not enough cause to be considered a good friend, you have very high expectations." His hand began to move up my thigh. I reached down and stopped it. "Ah, how nice, your hand wishes to show my hand where to go," he said, leaning close and brushing his lips against my cheek. "But it is not necessary," he whispered in my ear, "my hand knows the way."

"How can you expect me to think of sex at a time like this knowing my prince is in danger?"

"Sex is the most certain way to get your mind off your worries, and it is the least a friend can do for a good friend. You will find my fingers are skilled in more than lifting purses." He gently massaged the inside of my thigh, causing an immediate stirring of my member. "There, you see, your flesh knows even if your mind does not. I am not inexperienced in these matters," he said, pushing my nightshirt up. "I can teach you many ways how a boy can please a boy." He had my night shirt up to my armpits. "And I am most eager to learn how a page pleases his prince."

As I opened my mouth to protest what he was doing and to object once again to the relationship he insisted existed between myself and my prince, he placed his mouth against mine and kissed me. At the same he ran his fingertips over my chest and as they brushed against my teats they sent ripples of pleasure through them. Somehow also at the same time he untied his shirt. It was as if he had four hands, not two. He quickly drew his shirt over his head, and untying the ties of his breeches he pushed them down along with his underpants. Stepping out of them he straddled me and laid down, pressing his naked body against mine and gyrating his hips so that his member rubbed against mine. The contact caused both to immediately began to swell, and as he kissed me on the lips again, my flesh overpowered my mind and I awkwardly returned the kiss, having never before kissed anyone on the lips, male or female.

His fingers gently skipped over my body, teasing my now firm and burning nipples, stroking the inside of my thighs, cupping and tugging on my testicles, and causing my now rigid member to twitch with excitement. Feeling I should be doing something, I reciprocated, causing him to squirm with the same painful pleasure as I brushed my fingers over his aroused nipples. His testicles were hot and damp with his sweat and cupping them in my fingers sent a quiver of arousal up my stiff cock

Twisting around so he was laying head to toe, I knew his intention, and as he wrapped his fingers about my swollen member and slipped his lips over the knob, I eagerly reached over and slipping my fingers about the base of his, I ran my tongue up the underside of his shaft and teased the groove that cleft his knob into two halves, a trick I had learned from Menendo. It caused him to tense and inhale sharply with the pleasure and it pleased me to know that I could teach him something about how a boy can please a boy besides. While he slipped his lips down my shaft and began to suck, as Jorge had done to me, I ran my tongue along the rim of his knob, which I knew caused the same sweet pain as he had caused brushing his fingertips over my teats. He inhaled sharply with the pleasure and sucked even harder on my member.

I finally slipped my lips over his throbbing member and began to suck as he was sucking me. We continued for a short time and as I felt my need swelling up in my groin, he must have realized the extent of my arousal and clamped his lips down tightly just below my knob just as Afonso's bastard brother Jorge had done to me when we had engaged in sex, cutting off my need. Figuring he had to be at the same point, I did likewise. We lay there like that for what seemed like a long time before resuming. As I went down on his cock, slipping my lips right down to the base, I found it much easier, his member being smaller than that of Menendo both in length and in width. Although he was the same age as me, he was a hand shorter and at least a stone lighter, but his cock when stiff was only slightly shorter and thinner than my own. It did, I discovered, have a tangier taste and a sharper odour than Menendo's, neither of which were repugnant, and, in fact, which I found even more arousing, and I wondered if the smell and taste of cock varied from one race to another. We brought ourselves to that point of eminent climax a second time and once again cut it off, but as we approached the third, I could not possibly delay once again and I whispered that I needed to squirt. He replied in a gasp that so did he.

I do not know which of us came first, the two of us being that close. As I felt my seed burn up the core of my cock and spurt out of the tip, I felt his cock throb more forcefully than it had been and seconds later the first of his spurts shot out of his tip and into my mouth. Trembling with the pleasure of my orgasm, I swallowed his seed eagerly and he similarly swallowed mine. As the force of our spurts and the waves of pleasure finally subsided, he continued to suck on my member, drawing out the remainder of my seed, and I did likewise, the will of the devil having taken over my mind. Finally we stopped, and twisting around so we were once again head to head, he leaned over and kissed me, his lips slimy with my seed, and mine with his, and though I thought I had been totally drained, the kiss and the taste of my own seed on his lips caused a drop of seed to ooze out of my member, and I felt a hot, slimy droplet ooze out his also, his stiff member being pressed between our bellies alongside mine.

"That was very nice," he whispered, "but I still prefer being a cutpurse to being a prince's concubine's concubine."

I opened my mouth to object but as he grinned at me, his lips shiny in the moonlight, I saw he was joking with me and I returned the grin and commented, "ah, but that was only the beginning," causing him to giggle.

Although having spent half the night awake, we were both awake before the sun rose, which was fortunate as I do not know how I would have explained the two of us laying naked in my bed, the smell of spent seed hanging heavy in the air. Washing off the sweat and dried semen from our bodies and making ourselves presentable, we went directly to Prince Afonso, and Ahmar related his tale to him, leaving out of course how we had become acquainted. Afonso doubted his honesty considering he was a cutpurse and a Berber and was surprised and even more suspicious when he refused any type of reward, but only requested that he be allowed to travel with us as he was being sought by the Brotherhood, unjustly he added, and feared for his life. Having seen the results of being caught by the Santa Hermandad, my prince agreed, later confiding in me that besides and primarily, if Ahmar was up to some trickery, it was better to have him with us and in our sight than otherwise.

In late afternoon on our second day out of Madrid, as we approached the little village of Plasencia on the banks of the Rio Tejo, Prince Afonso's Household Guards noticed a movement in the bushes alongside the road ahead of us and we paused while they rode ahead to investigate, being extra vigilant knowing the plans to assassinate the prince and not trusting that the assassins would stick to their plan and even more doubtful about our informant than the prince and I. Moments later they flushed out of the bushes from where they had been hiding, a man and a young boy seven or eight years of age. I could tell immediately from their manner of dress and physical appearance that they were Jews. They fell upon their knees immediately upon being brought before my prince, and the man spoke excitedly in a language that was not exactly Castilian nor Portuguese but a bit of both with mainly the language I had heard the Jew family from Viano do Castelo speak, some of which I had learned listening to them at the market where they sold their gems.

He said that his name was Josepe and actually a shoemaker from Lamego in Portugal. He claimed to have been purchasing leather when he and his son were seized and were being taken along with a dozen others suspected to be Marranos to Madrid to be questioned by the Grand Inquisitor. The wagon they were being transported in had broken a wheel and they had managed to escape. He swore they were not Marranos, but he feared he would not be able to explain not speaking the Castilian language that well, and that they would not pay him much heed anyway being from Portugal and not having renounced his faith. He begged my prince's compassion and protection as a Prince of Portugal and pleaded that we not turn them over to the Brotherhood, or at least take his son under his protection if not the two of them, for he feared greatest for the life of his son. This I interpreted and explained to my prince. Taking me aside, he asked if I thought they were telling the truth, to which I honestly replied I could not tell, Lamego being some seventy miles from Viano do Castelo having never been there, and that although his hands were rough and calloused like those of a shoemaker that it was unlikely, particularly being Jews, but at the same time, having seen how the Castilians interrogated the Marranos, I felt compassion for the man and his son. My prince confided that he agreed with me, and though he felt no kindliness toward them, he could not turn an innocent child over to them having seen their torture chambers and knowing the delight the torturer would have in a tender young boy, and especially in the presence of his father.

Having me take them aside, he had me explain that as the Prince of Portugal although he could come to the protection of his own citizens he could not interfere in the affairs of his in-laws, and that he had no sympathies for them and their kind, but nor could he agree with the methods of the Brotherhood and the Inquisition. So, he had me explain, he would have them bound and placed in the supply wagon behind him so that it would appear to the Household Guard that they were our captives. It was done, and the Captain of the Household Guards was told if we were stopped by the Santa Hermandad he was to say nothing about our captives and bring their leader to him.

We had barely resumed our journey when we caught up to the Brotherhood searching for their missing captives. The Captain of course brought their leader to Prince Afonso, who spoke to the man softly so that only he could hear. The man was suspicious, but being reminded by the prince that his consort was the daughter of their king and queen, he apologised for our delay and allowed us to continue on our way without a search of our wagons. Late in the evening on the following day and before we reached our destination for the night, our small company stopped and Prince Afonso released the man and his son, telling them they were now in Portugal and safe, but he and his kind were not wanted here either, and he would be wise to head immediately for the coast and find passage out of the country. The man immediately dropped upon his knees again and thanked my prince profusely for his help, and me for mine, somehow having the impression I had been instrumental in convincing my prince to show mercy, and said his God, who he said was the same as our God, would look kindly upon this act and bless my prince and me. As the man and his boy disappeared into the forest and we continued on, I noticed the Captain of the Household Guard was perplexed, and not all together pleased, but he was a loyal man and was not about to question his prince.

We approached our destination for that night with great apprehension even though we had been forewarned and we were prepared. Upon learning back in Madrid of the plot to assassinate the prince, one of the guards had ridden in advance to the town of Marvao where we would be staying to make arrangements. After escorting Afonso and Isabella to their room and leaving four guards outside their door, the remaining guards took our horses and the carriage to the stables where they exchanged their uniforms for the clothing of a selected handful of loyal subjects who had been waiting for them and who then returned to the inn in disguise of the Household Guard while the guards positioned themselves in the bushes along the path to the inn's privy. The Captain of the Guard had proposed that Menendo or myself dress in the prince's clothes and act as if we were him, but Prince Afonso would not hear of us risking our lives for him, asking what sort of prince would he be to hide under the bed while his loyal subjects took such a risk?

Ahmar of course was not about to miss the action, and to be honest, nor was I, determined to be present to defend my prince even though the only weapon I had was the small dagger I carried with me for my own protection. So instead of staying in the inn as instructed, the two of us and Menendo slipped out through the servants' entrance in the back and made a wide circle around to the privy to avoid the hidden Household Guards and the would-be assassins whom we assumed would be gathering. It was while doing so that we stumbled upon the murdered Moors the assassins were planning on leaving behind to take the blame for Prince Afonso's death, and, for some reason, one lone Moor, a sixteen-year-old, whom they had left bound and gagged.

Hearing the battle begin, and seeing the fear in the whites of the eyes of the captive Moor, I made a snap decision. Fearing that should the battle end in the assassins favour they would return to complete their plan and kill the remaining captive, or should they be routed that they would return to kill the one witness to their plan, and remembering the horror of the Moor burned at the stake shortly after our arrival in Madrid, I took out my knife and cut the bonds of the Moor and pointing behind us told him to run for his life. To my surprise, he instead leaped up and sprinted directly toward the sound of the battle. Ahmar, Menendo and I followed hot on his heels. Thinking they had the advantage of surprise, and relying on stealth and experience and the darkness of the night, it was a small band of assassins who had attacked as my prince had made his way to the inn's privy, but they were fierce and determined men, and even though the guard were prepared and outnumbered the assassins two to one, it was a fierce fight. When we burst out of the woods, we found several of the Household Guard laying dead and several others wounded.

To my horror, the Moor I had released picked up the sword of a fallen would-be assassin and charged into the fray and I feared for a moment he was about to join the assassins, but his intent quickly became clear. He instead joined the Household Guard in defending Afonso, and so great was his fury he killed two of the would-be murderers himself in revenge of the murder of his fellow Moors. When finally every last one of them was dispatched, the young Moor tossed aside his sword and bloodied, fell upon his knees before my prince, fearfully proclaiming he had no willing part in the plot to kill him and revealed that they had planned on forcing him to rape the prince as a final insult, preferably while the prince was still alive or, to my horror and disbelief, his dead body if it need be, before killing him. Afonso bade him stand and assured him no harm would come to him, and indeed, he would be rewarded for his part in coming to his defence.

At the mention of reward I saw Ahmar's eyes brighten and I was truly surprised when he did not remind Afonso then and there of his role in having discovered the assassination plot. On second thought I suspected that he thought his reward would be larger once Afonso recovered from the shock of the battle and realized the enormity of the information Ahmar had revealed. Elated with the outcome of the night, Ahmar was not so hesitant to suggest to me that he join me in the room assigned to me rather than retire to the stables and celebrate our victory, pointing out that the prince would surely be seeking the arms of his bride for comfort that night so would have no need of me. I assured him that Afonso would not have done so anyway regardless of the presence of his wife, and informed him that having witnessed the death of several of the Household Guard and the near death of my prince, and seen the brutal slaughter of the Moors, even his charms could not lead me into temptation that night. He nodded solemnly in agreement, and placing a hand on my shoulder, observed in all seriousness that then as a good friend the least he could do was sit with me in my time of distress. By the time we reached my room, his hand had discretely slipped down my back to my buttocks in the dark and I knew I was doomed.

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