J.O. Dickingson

Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro

Chapters 16-17

Prince Abbas being eager to return to his home and see his family, we remained at Bukhara for only one day. While he met with high officials and discussed business, I was free to roam about the vast fortress, and I was amazed at its size and the number of families that lived within its walls. There were apartments for the emirs, the chief viziers and the military leaders all within the fort, and of course accommodation for their servants and retainers besides those required to maintain the fort. It also contained an immense library which I was told housed hundreds of ancient scrolls and books on every topic one could think of. Most were written in Arabic, Turkic, or Mongolian and many in languages I did not recognize. I knew Uncle, who knew how to speak, read and write many languages, would have been ecstatic at such a find and would have become so engrossed in the books he would have forgotten to eat or even sleep. Picturing the look of wonder on his face and the spark of delight in his eyes, I felt a flash of homesickness and I wondered how he fared and sent a prayer for his well-being. He, Father and my mother and sisters must surely think me dead by now, or beaten and languishing in a hovel as some heathen's slave, or worse, in some seraglio as his harem boy. Saddened by their distress, I felt myself on the verge of tears and quickly left the library in search of a distraction but so great was my sorrow I could think of nothing else.

The following morning saw us saddled up and continuing to head east. We travelled for four days, the trail constantly climbing. Entering a wide valley, we followed the Zerafshan River, a swift, ice cold river fed by snow melt from mountains to the south and to the east which, Syed said, were so high and so cold the snow stayed all year and formed great valleys of ice. The closer we got to Samarkand the greener the valley became until it stretched out before us unbroken, the banks of the Zerafshan River lined with orchards of fruit trees, vineyards, tea farms and vegetable farms and beyond them the hills providing lush pasture for flocks of sheep and for herds of horses. The land, Syed said, was the most fruitful of all the lands under Allah. Samarkand was known especially for its wines and fruit, and for its wool and horses, a breed he called Shen and which he said were very hardy and came from China. Bukhara had been large, but Samarkand was even larger. I was surprised by the size of the city, two hundred and forty furlongs in circumference according to Syed, who informed me that the city was one of the oldest and largest in Central Asia. He said the founder of the Tamurid Empire, Tamerlane, made it his capital in 1369 and his mausoleum, located in the city, is now a place of pilgrimage.

Syed went on to say that the city had a huge college, founded by Uluqh Beg where the most famous and talented scholars and artists studied and taught, and that in addition to the college Uluqh Beg had built a khanaqah, a hospice, with hot baths and paved by many different types of stone; a grand mosque, known as the Carved Mosque due to its carved islimi and pictures made of inlaid woods; and a three-story tall observatory on the edge of the Kohik upland to study the heavens and measure the movements of the heavenly bodies. I observed that he must be a very powerful and respected leader to have built so many grand things, to which Syed laughed, and said that Uluqh Beg had been beheaded forty-two years ago, in 1449. We rode on in silence as I once again marvelled at the barbaric brutality of these people in the midst of such intellect, grandeur, and achievement.

The Palace of the Sultan of Samarkand, Bukhara and Hisor, once the palace fort of Tamerlane, was immense and reflected the Sultan's wealth and power, and the antiquity of the building and the esteem of its original occupant. The guards stationed at the entrance to the grounds and, I found out later, throughout the grounds and the palace itself also reflected the uneasiness of the times. With great power and wealth come great jealousy and covetousness and many enemies. Prince Abbas was greeted by the guards and servants with impassioned and formal reserve, my first hint that the eighteen-year-old prince was not particularly well liked by the common people. Syed saw to the taking care of our horses and belongings, and Prince Abbas entered the Palace along with Jama'ah and myself.

As in Bukhara, we were quickly whisked away to have the sweat and dust of our travels washed away, this time Prince Abbas heading to his private apartments while Jama'ah and I were escorted to the private baths reserved for royal relatives and special guests of the Sultan. Contrary to the rumours back home, these heathens were among the most clean of all peoples I have yet met. Again our hygienic needs were tended to by four young, exceptionally beautiful, scantily-clad maidens, and again we were escorted to our accommodations next to the Prince's and dressed in new, fine robes, blouses and pantaloons, but this time there was no offer of sex.

Thus refreshed, we joined the royal family as honoured guests in a lavish meal of boiled mutton and roasted game birds whose identity was obscured by some yellowish-orange sauce I have never tasted before, and which, quite frankly, I did not particularly enjoy and would have preferred the natural, gamey taste of the fowl, several hotly spiced noodle dishes whose ingredients and names I do not know, a sharp-tasting goat cheese which you could still taste long after it had been consumed, and delicious freshly baked flat bread with individual bowls of dipping fat which I must confess I consumed quite gluttonously, and for the men, a rich red wine which the servants poured continuously from the beginning of our meal to the end. Accompanying us were the Sultan's chief, second, and third wives, two of his daughters, and, I suspect because of the presence of Prince Abbas, the Sultan's favourite concubine, Prince Abbas's mother. (1)

I sat lost in thought through most of the meal as again I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in a household where my father had not one but several wives, and any number of concubines besides, and what it would be like to have sisters who had the same father as I but different mothers. I had difficulty conceiving such a thing, and I know Mother would never approve of Father having more than one wife, or children from a woman other than herself. Myself, I could not imagine having the same relationship to my sisters if each had a different mother than myself, or even the same relationship to Father knowing he had other children by other women. To my surprise the wives all seemed most cordial toward each other, and even toward the concubine Ayisha Begi Khan, though I did sense a definite difference in respect and position. Also to my surprise, the two girls interacted with each other and with their brother no differently than my three sisters and I interacted despite the fact that the three of them each had a different mother.

They were all, of course, most interested in Prince Abbas's journey to the west and the things he had seen and done, and the Prince, having a gift of the tongue and having no shyness being the centre of attention, delighted in telling them of his journey, some of which I knew from experience was pure fabrication and exaggeration. That I knew so did not deter him in the slightest. In a way he reminded me of the Berber cutpurse I had met in Lisbon and who had befriended me and accompanied us to the Barbary Coast though the social status of the two could not be more different. The women were also delighted with the gifts of jewellery and clothes he had brought for his mother and half-sisters, and his father's three wives.

They were also curious about the presence of Jama'ah and myself of course, and they sat spellbound as Prince Abbas described how I had saved his life, greatly exaggerating my feat much to my embarrassment, and Jama'ah added to my discomfort by telling them all of my prowess on the battlefield. Sultan Ahmad Mirza was most effusive in expressing his gratitude to me, as was Abbas's mother, adding to my embarrassment, and he promised me I would be richly rewarded, to which I humbly replied that I expected nor required any reward for doing what any decent and civilized (I almost said Christian but thankfully caught myself) person would do, which only caused them all to praise me all the more.

I was most grateful when the conversation turned to Jama'ah, who had even more lavish praise for Prince Abbas than he had for me. The Sultan was proud that his son had been chosen to initiate young Jama'ah into manhood, and none of the women nor Abbas's two sisters seemed discomforted by the arrangement, though surely they had to know the sexual component, it having a major role in the conversion of a boy to a man. I could not for a moment imagine Mother or my sisters looking upon me with such pride if I had brought home an eleven-year-old boy and told them I was responsible for initiating him into manhood, which included injecting him by way of his anus with my seed. As I thought about it now that the attention was not on me, none of them had been the least bit phased when Abbas had told them how I had saved his life and had been the first to draw blood, though it was obvious from his details that to do so I had to have been not just in his bedroom, but in his bed. Now that would certainly not have gone unnoticed by Mother, Father, Uncle or my sisters!

The conversation turned to what had been happening in their lives since Prince Abbas had left, and as I sat there and half-listened to their conversation I envied him as his half-sisters entertained and amused him with their daily activities and once again I felt the pangs of homesickness and wondered if I would ever be able to share my experiences with my sisters and they with me. By now my eldest sister could well be married and living in her own home. A great sadness filled me once again and I tried to focus on the conversation at the table but thoughts of family were too strong and I confess to having no recollection of the content of the rest of their conversation.

Following the meal, Sultan Ahmad, Prince Abbas, Jama'ah and I retired to another room where we relaxed on soft divans and servants brought in fresh fruit and a mild cheese and served us a strong, bitter coffee, and Abbas and his father discussed the political side of his visit to the west, and his father filled him in on the battles and tensions building up in Mawarannahr. As the prince's personal guard and comrade at arms it was only natural that I be privy to such conversation, and as Jama'ah was learning the role and responsibilities of being a man and eventually a leader himself, it was only natural that he be present also. As the evening began to come to a close, the servants served us, except for Jama'ah who had grown drowsy and had been excused, another drink, which they called ma'jun, a cloying, highly intoxicating drink that after one small cup left me light-headed and my mind spinning as an extraordinary feeling of peacefulness and euphoria passed over me. Fortunately for me, our discussion came to an end before I was served a second cup. (2)

We slept late the next morning and the fuzziness in my head and the thickness of my tongue reminded me of the party in honour of Cesare Borja back at the Vatican and my first experience with drinking too much wine. Abbas found my condition most amusing and told me that he would make me a Tamurid yet, to which I replied, unless it killed me. That afternoon, the three of us joined Sultan Ahmad for an afternoon of pheasant hunting, and that evening we again had a lavish meal, consuming the birds we had killed, this time us men eating alone. The Sultan ate well, as was evidenced by his rotund body and a stomach that made him look like he was nine months pregnant. That night the three of us, Abbas, Jama'ah and I, had sex, the first time since leaving Bukhara, and our abstinence resulted in the three of us being particularly lascivious.

Having been asked to join Prince Abbas in his rooms, I knew there could only be one purpose and I was not disappointed. As the Prince disrobed, I could not help but admire his body. Just over seventeen hands tall, he was a tall man, especially for those of his race. I estimated his weight to be twelve stone. Being physically active, it was all muscle, his biceps and thighs thick and solid, his chest, devoid of any hair, broad and firm, and his abdomen flat and rippling with muscle. As I have said before, his eyes were the darkest I have ever seen, almond-shaped and half-lidded, giving him the appearance of constantly leering, especially with his thick, sensuous lips, which I found most erotic. He was flat faced with high cheekbones and though eighteen there was no sign of hair on his cheeks nor his upper lip. In fact he had only the finest, silkiest strands of hair under his arms and a narrow triangle of hair at the base of his stomach pointing to his long, thick member, over a hand long soft and two fingers thick, and his large eggs in a silky, pendant sack. His name meant "lion" in the Persian tongue, and his long, shiny black hair was like a mane, thick and gorgeous and hanging down past his teats. Vedat would have killed to have such hair. Contrasting with his gilded complexion, a white scar cut across his right breast from the upper corner down under his nipple to the trough between his breasts, another down his right forearm, and others across both his biceps. Rather than distracting from his beauty, they added to it.

As I have said, his facial features made him look younger than he was, closer to my age. I was now one month and eighteen days after my fifteenth birthday, and much different from the boy who had left his mother back in Viano do Costello nine and a half months ago. Tall for my age, I had grown at least another two fingers, placing me less than three fingers shorter than Abbas despite him being more than three years older. I had also been muscular, having spent my childhood rowing our dingy to my secret fishing spots along the coast when not helping Father and Uncle load and unload their merchandise, and my three-month voyage to the Kongo aboard the Theresa del Moreau had hardened my body and darkened my skin. My journey across these Arab lands for now almost seven months had darkened my skin even further so that I now easily passed for an Arab. Even though my chest and legs were covered by robes and pantaloons for most of the day, they had gotten enough exposure for my sensitive skin to have darkened even there.

My life as a soldier and dancer had strengthened my muscles even more, particularly my thighs and my chest, so the weight I had gained since leaving home, making me now nine stone, was all muscle, though I still had a narrow waist and flat stomach, and many men have mentioned, tight, compact buttocks. Otherwise, I suspect I was much as I was when I had left home, the hair under my arms perhaps a bit longer and the hairs at my crotch a bit thicker. I always wore my hair on the longer side, cut in a bang just above my eyebrows and almost to my shoulders on the sides and back. Not having cut it since I had left home, I now had to wear a head band whenever I was not wearing a turban to keep it out of my eyes, and it had grown close to two hands so it extended to my biceps and well past my collar in the back.

I have mentioned several times comments by others about my appearance. I have in the past mistaken tellak boys and köçekler. for girls, and with my longer hair and finer features and smooth cheeks and upper lip I suspect that there were many who now made the same error about me. Naked, I can proudly say, no one can make such a mistake. Of all things, and which my mother would have no knowledge of, my privates had changed the most. My verga had grown so it was now at least a thumb in length soft, and hard was now six fingers, the head now peaking out a finger above my fist when I wrapped it about my stiff prick. My stones had grown also, though nowhere near the size of Abbas's, and had become strangely darker though not exposed to the sun as the rest of my body, and were beginning to develop a nest of fine hairs.

Jama'ah, as I have mentioned, was a good-looking boy with the wide eyes of innocence and the toothy grin of a child. His muscles, as I have also mentioned, were still rounded but firm, being physically active, and starting to develop that definition that comes with puberty. Not yet having reached that point, his body was still smooth, lacking any hair except for that on his head, which was longer than mine in that wearing it long was the custom of many of his culture. He stood at fourteen hands, two and a half shorter than myself, and probably weighed about five and a half stone. His member, as I have mentioned, when firm was about the size of a man's thumb, and his stones were the size of a thrush's eggs.

As I had begun to say, our abstinence had made all of us lustful, and merely disrobing before each other and viewing each other's nakedness had the three of us erect before even touching each other. Prince Abbas of course mentioned our eagerness, a comment that seven months ago would have caused me to blush with embarrassment but which now made my member nod its head as if in agreement, and he observed that our lustfulness was an indication of our manliness, a real man being, he said, strong, frank, brave, noble, independent, honourable and above all else sexually aggressive. Jama'ah beamed with pride hearing such words, and I must admit, I felt a sense of pride and worth myself.

Without saying a word, the two of us stepped forward and embracing Abbas, we began to caress him, running our fingers over his body with the lightness of feathers and stimulating those areas most sensitive to our touch. While my fingers circled the dark area around his right nipple and gently brushed against the tender bud, Jama'ah gently brushed his fingers along the inside of Abbas's left thigh. While I brushed my lips against the inside of his right thigh, Jama'ah brushed his lips against his left nipple. I used all the skills I had learned as a tellak boy in the baths in Constantinople to arouse a man, and Jama'ah used all those that Abbas and I had taught him. Our actions of course caused his member to begin to rise, and the two of us turned our attention to it and to his large, pendulous balls. We took turns, me taking his limp member in my fingers and stroking it, Jama'ah cupping his balls in the palm of his hand and gently rolling them, then taking his growing member in his fingers and stroking it as I gently caressed his balls.

I leaned in to his crotch and nibbled on his growing member and inhaled the earthy fragrance of his balls, and Jama'ah mouthed that hairy sac and then sucked gently on the lower nut. Together we licked his cock as it slowly began to stand, running our tongues along the shaft and over the bulb, delighting in the salty, mushroomy taste of his member, and delighting even more in speeding up its growth and causing him to squirm and arch his back with the sweet-pain piercing his bulb as we ran our tongues along the rim and over the tender skin beneath. I know there are those who would be revolted by the thought of licking that part of a man that he used to piss and his hairy, sweaty balls, and I would have been nauseated by such a thought a year ago and considered anyone who would do such a thing as perverted or insane. Now it filled me with such pleasure and desire that my own member began to rise in response to the taste and smell of him, and in response to the knowledge that I was giving him a pleasure that only a man can know.

Slipping my lips over the knob of his member, I tightened them just below the knob and gently sucked on the spongy bulb while Jama'ah knelt on the other side and sucked on his nut sack. Moving over to the bed, the three of us lay down, Jama'ah and I in one direction, and Abbas in the other, and as the two of us sucked and licked his genitals he reached out and taking our swelling members in his hands he stroked them and fondled them, causing them to grow all the faster. It was unusual for us to take his member in our mouths in that most times he was quickly aroused or already erect and eager to mount us. Both Jama'ah and I were eager for his cock, and he was just as eager for our flesh.

Finally unable to take our foreplay any longer, he had Jama'ah lay on his back with his ass raised on several pillows and his legs spread. So eager was the eleven-year-old to be mounted and so eager was his eighteen-year-old lover to bury his cock up the boy's tight, hot ass, that Abbas penetrated him with one smooth thrust. I envied the look of sheer delight in Jama'ah's eyes as he was penetrated and as Prince Abbas slowly began to fuck him, driving his cock deep up the boy's asshole until his little nuts were nested in Abba's thick bush, and then drawing his long, thick cock out until the knob was about to stretch open his anus. He worked slowly and deliberately, enjoying every moment of his fuck, and Jama'ah enjoying being fucked just as much. Abbas then paused and motioned for me to partake in the pleasure of congress with the boy also, and I eagerly shuffled forward and presented my verga to him to suck, which he eagerly did.

Slipping his lips over the knob of my swollen member, he clamped them down below the bulb and began to suck eagerly while Abbas eagerly thrust his cock in and out of his tight ass. His smooth, soft cheeks sucked in as he inhaled, drawing the air out of my cock, and he kept up the suction as he ran his tongue over the rim of my knob now inside his mouth. I arched my back with the sweet pain and could not stop from whimpering in delight. While his ass was being fucked and he was sucking on my cock, the boy, the son of the Bey of Tabriz, reached down with his right hand and began to stroke his now stiff little bamya, and he squirmed with the sweet pain that shot out from his knob as he brushed his fingers against it. Watching him stroking his little cocklet no bigger than a man's thumb while a hand's width away Abbas's thick, horse-sized zubr was pumping in and out of his asshole as he sucked on my throbbing sausage was just as stimulating as was the pleasure rippling out from my swollen knob.

So great was our lust that we did not pause to prolong the pleasure nor to take the time to enjoy it. Jama'ah sucked eagerly on my throbbing cock and I arched my back and began to pump my hips to and fro, fucking his hot little mouth in my eagerness to shoot my seed. At the same time Abbas speeded up his thrusts and withdrawals as he felt himself also approaching that blissful climax and Jama'ah began to jerk his little cocklet with a fury of a boy gone mad, and mad the eleven-year-old boy was, mad for the cock in his mouth, and for the cock up his ass, and for the throbbing, painful pleasure of his own bamya in his own hand. At last Abbas grasped the boy's shoulders and lunged forward as his seed raced up his swollen cock and erupted up the boy's ass. Moments later I arched my back and groaned with pleasure as I felt my seed racing up the core of my swollen, numbed member and then erupt out of the tip with a delightful, burning pain and into the young boy's mouth. Being filled at both ends with hot, thick cream, the boy trembled and jerked uncontrollably as he reached his own orgasm, his little red cocklet sending spasms of delight through his groin.

After a brief rest, we began to caress and kiss each other once again with an eagerness and with a quickness in our arousal as if it were our first time, not our second. This time I dropped to my hands and knees and although I have had my ass fucked more times that I can possibly recall, and countless times by Abbas himself, I inhaled with anticipation and apprehension like a virgin boy as I felt the prince's fat, spongy knob press against my anus. He pushed forward slowly but relentlessly, gradually stretching my anus open until his knob popped inside. Pausing for a moment, he caught his breath and then grasping my hips he pressed forward, sinking his long, thick zubr up my rectum. I closed my eyes with delight and squeezed my anal muscle tight about his stiff member and I inhaled deeply as he slowly eased his hips back, drawing his cock out of my body until the bulb began to stretch open my anus from the inside.

After setting up a rhythm, Abbas motioned for Jama'ah to sit beside us and to reach under me and masturbate me. The boy did so eagerly. And so the pleasure of having my ass stuffed with a thick, long cock was combined with the pleasure of having my cock stroked, and the tingling pleasure pulsating out from my knob was equalled by the burning pleasure pulsating out from my anus. I could feel his massive cock pulsating inside me, an awesome feeling, and my rectum pulsated in time with his zubr as my hot blood throbbed through my stiff cock. I could have knelt there and enjoyed those pleasures forever but all too soon Abbas began to speed up and I knew he was approaching his climax as I too felt the pressure building in my loins. Finally he grasped my hips tighter and thrust his cock forward and I felt his hot seed spurting up my rectum. Heartbeats later I felt the same burning gush up the core of my cock and my own seed spurted out the tip of my throbbing, burning verga.

Again we collapsed on the bed in a daze of exotic bliss, our hearts pounding and our chests rising and falling from our exertion, our bodies flushed and sweating, our minds numbed by our climax. And again as we slowly recovered, we began to caress and kiss each other a third time. Sitting up, Abbas spread his legs and motioned for Jama'ah to crawl between his legs on his hands and knees and suck his cock. That left the young boy's smooth, compact buttocks nicely raised for me to approach on my knees and take him from behind. His rectum slick from Abbas's seed, I easily slid my shorter, thinner member up the same chute as Abbas had. As I grasped his hips and began to fuck him, he clamped his anal muscle about my stiff member. His inner channel was hot and slippery with seed and his flesh squeezed tightly about my stiff cock. I could not help recalling my first experience with a female and comparing her cunt to the young boy's ass. Her hole was even more slippery, from her own juices, which I found less appealing than sliding my cock in and out of Abbas's seed. A lot less actually. And, to me, the boy's ass was much tighter and provided greater pleasure. The greatest pleasure of all though, was knowing exactly how the boy was feeling, having had my own ass stuffed with cock. That was one advantage a woman could not have, knowing what it was like to stuff another's ass.

So, as the boy sucked the Prince's cock, I fucked his young ass, thrusting my cock in and out of his tight rectum as he worked his lips up and down the Prince's stiff member, his cheeks sunken in as he sucked on the long, thick horse-cock. Slipping my right hand underneath him, I found his little bamya to be stiff once again and I wrapped my fingers about it and began to masturbate him. It took the three of us longer to reach our peaks, but reach them we did. Abbas groaned with pleasure and closed his eyes as he pumped his seed into the boy's mouth and heartbeats later I grasped his hips and plunged my cock up his rectum as my seed spurted up the boy's asshole. Filled with man seed from both ends, the boy eagerly swallowed the Prince's seed as mine penetrated him from behind and he quivered and moaned and his little cocklet throbbed violently in my fingers as he reached his own orgasm.

I thought that we were done and had almost drifted off to a blissful sleep when Abbas got to his feet and slipping his fingers under his limp cock and flopping it glanced over at me. Dutifully, I crawled over to him and kneeling before him, I took the knob of his cock in my mouth and began to suck on it. It still being limp, I slid my lips farther down, taking his entire cock in my mouth, something I would never be able to do when it was stiff. Crawling over to me on his hands and knees, Jama'ah stretched his head forward and took my limp cock in his mouth, also going all the way down on it. Slowly the three of us began to respond, and as the Prince's cock grew in my mouth I was forced to draw back on it. Jama'ah did not have the same problem of course, at least not at first.

Again I found myself thinking of my experience with the bath girl Pasha in Bukhara. She had been skilled, and had taken me in her mouth without the slightest hesitation, and had brought me to an erection. It had not been an act onto itself however, but a part of the foreplay before she spread her legs for me. In that she had not intended on me spurting my seed in her mouth, it had been much different with her than it was with Abbas and Jama'ah. It was also different in that having sucked cock myself, I knew how Jama'ah was feeling at that moment, and having a cock and having been sucked, I knew how Abbas was feeling. Again I was of the mind that engaging in sex with those of the same gender had the advantage of me knowing more exactly what it was like for my partner. Knowing the pleasure I was giving Abbas was the same pleasure as I was feeling having Jama'ah sucking my cock made sucking the Prince's cock even more pleasurable.

Another advantage of engaging in sex with another male was the ability to suck and be sucked at the same time, which intensified my pleasure even more. I was sucking on Abbas's member just as Jama'ah was sucking on mine. I knew how I was feeling having a stiff cock in my mouth and knowing it would be squirting in my mouth was how Jama'ah was feeling also. And being sucked at the same time, I knew that the pleasure of having a hot, wet mouth sucking on my member was the same pleasure as Abbas was feeling, a pleasure that I was causing. Having already shot our seed three times, when at last we did for a fourth, our seed was thick and bitter and half the amount our first time. I swallowed Abbas's glutenous paste while I filled Jama'ah's mouth, and as he swallowed my slime so I swallowed the Prince's. If a man's seed imbued masculinity on the receiver, I wonder if swallowing the Prince's seed would make me more masculine, and if my seed had the same power on Jama'ah.

As I lay back, exhausted and contented, my mind returned again to the differences between men and women. A man takes the dominant role with a woman, unless she is a slut, a proper woman being submissive, but when a man has sex with another man, he can be the dominant partner or he can be the recessive. And, when engaged in sex with two other men, a man can be both dominant and recessive. Furthermore, whereas with a woman it is her duty to bring a man pleasure it is not the duty of a man to reciprocate and bring her pleasure. Indeed, it is my understanding that a proper woman finds no pleasure in the sex act. Two men, on the other hand, engage in sex solely to bring each other pleasure. Even when it is the duty of one of them, the one giving pleasure cannot help but feel pleasure in the act himself. I drowsily concluded men give and receive equally, making sex between men more pleasurable. As I finally drifted off the sleep, I could not understand the absurdity of declaring sex between two men, or a man and a boy, a perversion or something illegal.

The following afternoon we accompanied Sultan Ahmad, who had recently become interested in falconry. It was a sport I knew little about, being a sport for nobility, and I found it most fascinating. The bird gliding silently and effortlessly through the air and then suddenly swooping down on its prey was beautiful. As I watched, the thought crossed my mind that these Tamurids were beautiful in a way also, and were as vicious and bloodthirsty as their falcons. That evening Ahmad and Abbas had a long private discussion and I was asleep before he retired for the night. The next night he made up for it, much to my delight.

As the days progressed, it was impossible not to notice how both the Prince's father and his mother, and his father's other wives, doted on him. You could see their love and admiration in their actions and in their eyes, which Uncle once told me were the windows to the soul. I casually remarked on my observation to Syed, who informed me that Sultan Ahmad had two other sons who had died in infancy. Being an only son myself, I understood the relationship that I had seen between Abbas and his father and his mothers.

On our tenth day in Samarkand we celebrated Laylat al-Baraat, a festive occasion commemorating the day Allah released all of his sinful servants who were destined to hell. It was also an occasion to remember deceased ancestors with much eating and drinking and prayers long into the night and early morning. Having overheard servants talking about the upcoming celebration, this time I was prepared and I think redeemed myself in the eyes of Syed whom I had discovered was a deeply religious man.

After a week and a half of hunting, feasting, and sex, which went by quickly and erased the horrors of warfare and killing and the drudgery and weariness of travel, Abbas announced to Jama'ah and me that he would be soon embarking on a mission for his father, combining a visit to his paternal uncles with a trade mission to the east. He confided in me that officially this was a family affair, a friendly visit to his relatives to maintain and strengthen family ties, but like everything these people did, there were hidden motives. Although not travelling in any official capacity, such a tour of the empire would remind his father's brothers, and the people they governed, that his father was the nominal ruler of all Mawarannahr. It would also imply Abbas was travelling as a representative of his father and would some day upon his father's death take over leadership, a message that needed delivery in that he was the son of a concubine, not a royal wife, and so not legally an heir.

It was also expected that he would receive verbal confirmation of existing alliances between his father and each of his brothers and at the same time get a sense of the allegiances and power of his relatives. Although they say blood is thicker than water, ambition and greed can greatly thin the thickest of blood. His father, having grown fat and having abandoned fighting and campaigning to expand his empire for pheasant hunting and falconry, was grooming his son to become the future leader of the empire and this mission was an important part of that grooming. As for the trip to the east, each of his uncles was vying for trade with China so securing an agreement between Samarkand the Chinese would be a major coup for his father.

So, supplies were gathered and messages sent on ahead and after two weeks of relaxation, the three of us, Prince Abbas, his loyal advisor Syed, and myself, along with a royal guard and retainers, headed out once again, Jama'ah reluctantly bidding us farewell and preparing to return to his father under the protection of Sultan Ahmad's soldiers, his initiation over. True to his word, the day before we left, Sultan Ahmad honoured me for having saved his son in a grand ceremony in his court, giving me the title of Bek, the equivalent of the title of Lord back home, and a beylik, which was a stretch of land over which I had authority to govern, the equivalent, I gathered, of a palatinate back in Portugal. I was told the land included two small villages and enough pasture for my three hundred head of Shen who would be looked after by a herdsman in my absence. A scroll recording my title and land, a medallion and ceremonial sash designating my position, and a purse of a hundred gold coin were presented in front of the leading nobility of Samarkand. It was all quite grand and I was disappointed we were to leave before I had a chance to see my beylik.

We travelled north and east, and each day the valley became greener and richer. The trail twisted and climbed, following a rushing, mountain river. From the width and condition of the trail it was evidently well used and we made good time, travelling to Fergana and then on to Andijan, a distance of twelve hundred furlongs, in seven days of easy riding though we did ride from sunup to sunset. Abbas's uncle, Umar Shaikh Mirza, had been living in Akhsi, the largest town in the valley, but had recently moved to the fort at Andijan. He had been expecting us and he greeted his nephew warmly. After a bath and an opportunity to relax after our ride, we met with him and his three sons in the garden pavilion for the evening meal. Though not as lavish as our fare in Samarkand, the food was abundant and delicious. Umar Shaykh was a young man, only thirty-six years of age, and was, I learned, the youngest of the four sons of Sultan Abu Sa'id Mirza. The conversation focussed primarily on family, Umar asking about the welfare of his brother Ahmad, Abbas's father, and of his nieces, Abbas's half-sisters, and Abbas inquiring about the health of his uncle and his wife, Qutlugh Nigar Khanim, who was the sister of his father's wife, Mihr Nigar Khanim. I tried to imagine what it might be like for two brothers to marry two sisters, having never heard of such a thing happening back home. (3)

I was made to feel welcome as Prince Abbas's comrade at arms even though I was not of royal blood, Umar Mirza himself a most unpretentious man and apparently having little regard for formalities and titles. I was made even more welcome when the Prince told them of my having saved his life from the Turkoman assassins, without the details of the fact we were sharing his bed at the time, and praised my swordsmanship. I was told Umar Mirza was quite a swordsman himself, and a few days later found the proof of that first hand when he challenged me one day on the practice field. I was hesitant to press him at first, not wanting to harm my host, but he had no such qualms and I had to fight my best to prevent being injured, the two of us using real swords, not wooden practice ones. Over the eight days we stayed at Andijan, I came to admire and to like the man.

Over those eight days I also got to know quite well his oldest son, Zahir ud-Din Muhammad, Abbas's cousin, who had celebrated his eighth birthday just a little over four months previously, and I was most struck by him. He too was a skilled swordsman for his age. He was also very intelligent, already speaking and writing both Persian and Turkic, and very astute, and like his father, highly cultured for someone living amongst barbarians whom I found generally to be undisciplined, crude and boorish. Much to my surprise, I discovered that he had been engaged to Abbas's sister, Ayisha Sultan Begim, who would be Zahir's cousin, at the age of five when he had last visited Samarkand. It was his first visit and the first he had seen of his betrothed, and the last. When I mentioned to Abbas I found that most strange, being engaged at such a young age, he explained that the marriage was purely political. One would hardly covet land that was owned by his wife's father, or, he said with a smile, at least he would be less likely to. Not surprisingly, not once did Zahir inquire about his intended. I also noticed that although Zahir was very much like his father not just in skills and interests but also in temperament, and although he clearly respected his father and his father admired him, the two were not close, and it was more than the fact that neither of them was accustomed to showing their affection. (4)

The weather being quite hot during the day and night, we spent most of our time in the summer kiosk or the garden pavilion. Umar typically wore a turban with the sash hung down along the side of his head, but when it was hot he wore the Mongol cap called a bork, reflecting, I noticed, both his Turkic and Mongol backgrounds. I also noticed he was a great drinker of ma'jun. During our time at Andijan, I also saw a lot of Zahir's mother, Qutlugh Nigar Khanim, and his grandmother, Isen Devlat Begim. They seemed to have a large influence on Zahir, and on his father, and Abbas confirmed my observation, commenting that he suspected the two of them to be the real rulers of the Farghana valley. (5)

After such an enjoyable and relaxing break, I was somewhat reluctant to resume our travels, particularly when Abbas's uncle commented on the harshness of the land we would be travelling through, towering mountains whose tops were concealed by clouds, narrow trails along plunging precipices, and burning sands stretching as far as the eye can see and where even the experienced traveller easily got lost never to be found again. Still, the opportunity to travel to the fabled land to the east, the source of the spices and silks so valued at home, not just out of personal curiosity but to perhaps discover some meaningful information for King João and perhaps for Father, was something I would endure the greatest hardships and risk the greatest dangers for.

To be honest, Abbas's journey to see his second uncle, Sultan Mahmud Mirza, after that sounded almost as hazardous. His uncle Umar had said nothing untoward about his older brother, which was in keeping with his character, but upon hearing of his cousin's intention, Zahir was not so reticent.

"I would not go there for all the spices in China," he observed with all the sincerity of an eight and a half year old child, "or all the gold and rubies in India. Uncle Mahmud is an ugly, fat, lazy coward who spends every waking moment in debauchery, as do his sons. He is a cruel, untrustworthy, heartless man, and his sons are also. Badakhshan is a den of evil, and Uncle Mahmud is surrounded by buffoons and shameless people who think nothing of performing lewd, indecent acts in the open for all to see." His voice dripped with disgust, which from a boy his age, was shocking. He turned and looked at me. "It is well known that every good-looking, beardless youth in the territory he rules is brought to him to be his catamite. If I were you, I would not go within a hundred furlongs of the place, and I certainly would not turn my back on him!"

"I … un … thank you for your warning, and I will certainly keep your advice in mind," I replied, surprised by the passion and the venom in his voice. In the eight days we had been at Andijan, I had not shared Abbas's bed, and I wondered now if the attitude being expressed by his young cousin might have been a reason for it.

So, packed once again, we headed east out from Andijan. Abbas's uncle had not exaggerated about the land. The trail was constantly climbing, at places wide enough for three men to ride abreast, at others just wide enough for one, and in some places, not even that, requiring us to dismount and walk our horses. Compared to our earlier travel, our progress was extremely slow, travelling at the most a hundred and fifty furlongs in a day, many times half that distance. Our mounts were nervous along the narrowest and steepest trails, some clinging to the sides of the mountains which rose perpendicular to our right and dropped just as steeply to our left with at times the trail no wider than two cubits.

Our horses were not the only creatures who were nervous. I once made the mistake of looking down to my left and the drop left my head spinning so that had it not been for a retainer, a husky young man only a few years older than myself by the name of Bazir, walking behind me I would have topped over the edge. After that whenever the trail narrowed I froze and was able to continue only because of the patience and understanding of Bazir, who I learned, had made this trip eleven times, the earliest when he was twelve.

Villages were few and far apart so we spent most nights camping on the trail. We had with us local pack horses, small, sturdy animals, who walked the trails as if strolling along a grassy meadow, despite carrying huge packs sometimes half their size, and long, awkward poles. These poles were used to construct a structure I had noticed becoming more and more popular as I travelled from Meshed, a structure they called a yurt. It consisted of a circular wooden piece fitted at the top to which the poles were attached, and folded, wooden frames which were attached to the poles to form the sides. To these frames, called kanats, were attached large mats of grey, white, or brown felt made from sheep or camel wool. The yurt Prince Abbas and I had was consisted of five kanats, the same size that an average family would use, or in our case, four to six retainers or guards. Syed and the commander of the guard had yurts of three kanats, which formed a triangle. Occasionally we camped on the outskirts of a town or village and their leader would invite us to join him in his yurt, which could be up to a dozen kanats, the same as the yurts of the wealthiest, with felt hung inside to partition the structure into rooms. Typically the seat of honour where the leader sat, the tor, was opposite the entrance. To the right was where the men sat in descending order of importance and age and to the left was for women and included the kitchen. Smoke from the fire in the middle of the yurt exited through the circular structure at the top.

We ate a lot of boiled mutton, qurut (a type of strong tasting cheese), mach (a soup of flour and milk with sometimes bits of vegetable or meat), and yogurt. If invited to dine with a village chief or a rich elder we usually had a rice or noodle dish served in a pot which we dipped into with pieces of flat bread. Occasionally we were served something they called manti, a steamed dumpling containing either beef or lamb. To my surprise, I found myself having become accustomed to their strange food, and even enjoying it.

One evening shortly after having left Andijan, I observed that Abbas's uncle, Omar, seemed very content with his station in life. Abbas replied that had come as little surprise, the Farghana Valley not only being fertile and rich, but being on the north route of the old silk road connecting the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an with the towns and cities to the north around the Aral and Caspian Seas and the ports on the Black Sea, India to the south east, and Samarkand and the lands beyond to the west. Abbas also shared with me his conclusion that his cousin Zahir was most astute for one so young, already having a grasp of the politics of the land and being an accurate judge of people, and was also ambitious and would make an excellent negotiator when he became ruler of his father's land, and he asked for my perception. I agreed and observed that his mother and grandmother seemed to have great influence, and ambition also, to which Abbas readily agreed, though he was quick to add that being women they would never match a man.

We once again began having sex daily. Why Abbas had stopped while visiting his uncle he did not say and I did not ask. I saw no indication that his uncle engaged in nor that his uncle was opposed to sex with those of the same gender, and in fact, unlike most men of wealth and power that I had encountered, he did not seem interested in sex with those of the opposite gender either. His son Zahir had, as I mentioned, expressed his disgust with the sexual habits of his uncle in Balkh, an attitude that I suspect came from his father though his father was too discrete and too politically astute to express such an opinion of his brother and a fellow ruler in front of a nephew. Of course at the age of eight and a half if I had known what was involved in sex I would have likely thought it disgusting with either gender regardless of my father's opinions or habits.

The resumption of our nightly routine did give me cause to wonder again why some men seemed to have congress with only women and others only with men and why still others seemed to engage either gender with equal relish. After having spent the last eight days with Zahir and his father, I also wondered why when men did have sex with those of their gender that they usually chose one younger than themselves. My curiosity finally getting the better of me, a fault Father said I had to have gotten from Uncle as he had the same affliction, I finally asked Syed about it one night as we curried our horses.

"Such is the way of the world, Kapalak. Women for breeding, boys for pleasure, but," he added with a twinkle in his eyes, "melons for sheer delight." Having finished with his horse, he put down his brush and turned and walked away, leaving me to wonder if he had been serious, and suspecting that he was. (6)

At the few larger towns along our route to Kashgar Prince Abbas took advantage of their houses of prostitution, both female and male. Syed tried to convince him not to visit such houses, not because he had any moral objections but because he was concerned about the Prince's safety, both health wise and because of the increased chances of attack, but Abbas ignored all pleas. At first I was hurt that he would avail himself of the services of another boy when he could have been engaging in sex with me, particularly a common boy who charged for his services, but after the first few times I realized that he had an insatiable desire, and diverse needs, one of which I could not satisfy.

To appease Syed, he allowed the man to thoroughly check out the owners and their workers regarding matters of hygiene and politics, and he agreed to have a guard discretely accompany him to such houses and to have me accompany him inside. The first thing to strike me was how dark and shadowy the interiors of those houses, how uniformly narrow the hallways, and how small the rooms where the employees entertained their guests. They also tended to have an unpleasant odour, of stale wine, or stale urine, sometimes it being difficult to distinguish between the two. The girls were of course all beautiful, all big bosomed, and all highly painted, but their looks were not exceptional and they all seemed bored. Similarly, the boys were all young, beardless and good-looking, but again, not exceptional, and some also painted their eyelids and cheeks in an attempt to appear more attractive. Like the girls, you could see the boredom in their eyes also though they tried to appear otherwise.

At first Abbas tried to get me to join him in the room, saying I could have my pick of the girls, after him of course, and that he would handle the payment, but I declined. My experience with the bathing girls Pasha and Ayisha had been pleasant enough, but not that great that I was willing to risk my health even if Syed had checked them out for lover's disease. Mistaking my reluctance for preference, he soon stopped his encouragement but continued to enjoin me to join him with the young boys on those occasions when that was his preference or when that was the only opportunity available, as a threesome or with a boy of my own. Again, I declined. Even though I had not found my experiences with him and Jama'ah unpleasant, and even though I had engaged in threesomes and as a member of a couple in the presence of other couples as I have elsewhere said, I found no attraction to any of the boys in such establishments.

So it was that I was stationed outside the door to guard against any attack of my Prince while he was particularly vulnerable. It was in that position that I discovered the diversity of his needs and a side of him that had previously gone unnoticed. Most times Prince Abbas was most vocal, and most times the doors and walls of the rooms of entertainment were thin. That he saw women as subservient and of little value was not atypical of his people, nor, I have to admit, the people of those European countries I have visited, including my own homeland. That he would see those who charged for their services of even lesser value, lower than even that of a serf or a slave, was understandable and not a surprise to me either. What I did find surprising was the way he ordered them around, and the coarseness of his language. It was as if purposefully demeaning them and causing them humiliation, and often even pain, brought him pleasure. He was not the mild-mannered and respectful man who greeted the wives and daughters of his hosts and other nobility with courtly cordiality and, if they were particularly young and beautiful, with charm and sweetness. It was like two different men.

It was the same, I discovered, with the boys who charged for their services. At all times with me, right from the first day, and with Jama'ah, he was loving and gentle, passionate and rough perhaps when the lust got the better of him, but that was no different from me or most men I have had congress with. With these boys for hire, on the other hand, he ordered them about like slaves, and with the greatest vulgarity, again as if humiliating and degrading them brought him pleasure. Just as his cruelty and blood-lust came out in the heat of battle, so did his arrogance and domination come out in the heat of arousal with such boys.

On our ninth night of travel, Abbas was particularly ravenous and after spending most of the night at one such house, he returned to his tent in the early morning and mounted me with as much need as if he had not, from my estimation having heard the cries from the other side of the door, already shot his seed four times. I discovered the next evening why he had been in such need. That evening was Laylat al-Quadr, the Night of Destiny, the Night of Power, the night the first verses of the Qu'ran were revealed to Muhammad. To Moslems it was the holiest night of the year and we marked it with long and passionate prayers to Allah and to the Prophet. That night also marked the beginning of Ramadan, a month of fasting and abstinence in commemoration of the revelation of those verses.

The faithful were not to eat nor drink from dawn to sunset. Upon sunset we ate three dates, as Muhammad had, prayed extra prayers, and then had our main meal. Although travellers were exempted from this fasting and expected to make up for days missed at the end of their travel, Prince Abbas and Syed followed the prescription rigidly and expected all those travelling with them to do likewise. Similarly men were expected to abstain from sex for that month, although exceptions were made allowing men to have intercourse with their spouses after fasting. That of course was not a temptation as there were no females travelling with us, and, to my knowledge, none of our companions, retainers or guards, were married. For the next nine days Prince Abbas slept alone and I slept beside the entrance where I would have normally been expected to be as the Prince's personal guard.

After eighteen days of travel, we at last arrived at the city of Kashgar, also known as Kashi by the local people, or by the name of Shu-fu in the strange language of the Chinese. The city had been built at a fertile oasis on the Kaxgar River at the foot of range of tall peaks called the Pamir Mountains. Syed said it was the main commercial centre at the west end of the arid basin called the Tarim Pendi which extended to the south, and was a major centre on the trade route connecting China with India and the land of the Turkmans and the Tamurids. The land grew cotton, grains, fruit and beans, using water from the river and from wells, and wool and hides were obtained from animals from the surrounding semiarid grazing land. In addition to woven cotton, there was a brisk trade in silk textiles, rugs, and jewellery. Syed said that long ago the city had been ruled by what he called the Tang Dynasty but since 750 it has been conquered and ruled by various different central Asian empires. He said that the Taklimakan desert, which extended between the towering K'un-lun mountains to the south and the Tien Shan Mountains (which in Chinese meant Heavenly Mountains) to the north, occupied most of the Tarim Pendi, which he said was a vast area of drifting sand dunes where only fools and bandits ventured.

While at Kashgar we stayed as guests at the palace of Aba Bakr Kashgari Dughlat, who ruled Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan, though we saw little of him while we were there, his oldest son, Prince Jahangir Mirza, who was a year older than Abbas, having been given the responsibility of seeing to our needs. The significance of that escaped me until Syed explained that our stay at the palace was in recognition of Prince Abbas's position, but that the Sultan's absence other than the official greeting was a subtle hint that though he might be a prince, it was of a land the Sultan found no interest in. He also found our visit a good training experience for his son, just as Abbas's father had seen it as an experience for his. Prince Jahangir's indifference and Prince Abbas's thinly veiled tolerance reflected the forced and strained relationship between the two. I had much yet to learn of the way of politicians and leaders.

Abbas spent most of his time the six days we stayed at Kashgar trying to convince Prince Jahangir, and the Kashgar Merchants Guild, why merchants in Kashgar and those arriving in Kashgar from the east should deal with Samarkand rather than with Akhsi, Balkh or Kabul. From accompanying Father and Uncle when they held such meetings back home, I knew a little about such negotiations and was able to advise Prince Abbas on how to stress the advantages Samarkand had over the others, and point out the disadvantages of dealing with the others, to which he was most appreciative.

To my surprise, Prince Abbas availed himself of the houses of pleasure while we were there although we were in the middle of Ramadan. Although I did not question him, it not being my place to do so, he explained to me that he had abstained for nine days since Laylat al-Qadr, and for the eight days we had spent at Andijan prior to the beginning of Ramadan, and that we would be making another long trip after leaving Kashgar during which he would resume his abstinence, and that the trip we had just completed had been particularly onerous so he deserved being able to indulge in pleasures of the flesh. In that he had not needed to explain to me, I suspect what he was really doing was trying to convince himself that he had a right to such enjoyment. The purpose of Ramadan I had been told was to teach the individual patience and spirituality, humility and submissiveness to Allah. That teaching seemed to have been lost on Abbas, but as Syed had said on many occasions, Abbas was a Prince and Princes did not have to follow the rules that others did.

It was in one such house that I met my first Chinaman, a boy of my age. I was standing in the shadows in the hallway guarding the door and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, the patrons of such places nervous when seeing an armed warrior standing in the hallway. It was our third visit to this particular establishment, the Prince choosing a different boy each time. The boy not accompanying a man, I was immediately suspicious as to his intentions as he headed down the hallway toward me.

"Your master is a loud lover," he observed with a grin, and I knew from the look in his eyes he was referring to more than the volume with which he engaged in sex. It being true when he had congress with boys for pay, I could not deny it.

I shrugged. "He is not my master."

"He appears to like The Fig Orchard," he observed, referring to the name of the establishment. Again I shrugged.

"I hear tonight he has chosen Kaan. Is it the intent of your master to continue coming until he has terrorized each of us?"

"Terrorize?"

"He is a most rough lover, your master."

"He can be," I admitted. "And I said he is not my master."

The boy smiled. He did not say I spoke bullshit, but his smile did. "It does not cause you to rise up, hearing such passionate lovemaking." It was an observation, not a question, and again I said nothing. "You do not find sex with boys arousing?" Again I did not reply. "I know you can speak. I have heard you," he said with a grin. He stepped up and cupped my crotch. "I think I can awaken your rooster," he observed. "I think I can make him crow," he added with a twinkle in his eyes when I did nothing to stop him.

"My duty is here at the Pr – at the door."

"For you we can do it here," he said, massaging my crotch. Needless to say my weak flesh began to respond.

"I cannot be distracted from my duty," I replied, finally stepping back.

"That is too bad. For one as pretty as you I would only charge half price. Perhaps you come back some time without your master. I could teach you how we make boy-boy fun in China. Ask for China Boy Zhang." Giving me a smile and a wink, he turned and headed back down the hall.

I found myself thinking about him the rest of the evening, and the following morning. He was a good-looking boy, for a Chinaman. Short and slim, about a hand shorter than me and two stone lighter, he had coarse, black hair cut short along the sides and back but long and thick on top. He had a smooth complexion and his face, arms and legs were hairless, but his slanty eyes and sallow complexion and his flat nose and thick lips spoiled what would be an attractive face. As I have said, I found no attraction to the boys of such places, and my need for sexual gratification was not that high that I needed to pay a boy to bring me pleasure.

There was, however, something about his smile and his attitude that I could not get him out of my mind, and the more I thought of him, the more attractive the idea of having sex with him became. In a way he reminded me of the Berber cutpurse Ahmar who had befriended me what seemed now so long ago. The following afternoon Prince Abbas was occupied with Prince Jahangir and the head of the Merchant Guild and I was dismissed until evening. Although I had resolved not to fall into temptation and went to the market to find more information about the merchants from the Orient and the spice road to the east, I found myself making my way to The Fig Orchard. Telling myself that it was curiosity and nothing else, and that I would engage him just to talk, I headed up the narrow alley to the entrance of the house. I found my heart racing, and my palms hot and sweaty, and, with each step, my legs becoming weaker.

It was mid afternoon, the hottest part of the day when men sought the shade, and The Fig Orchard was, to my surprise, as busy as it was at night when I had accompanied Prince Abbas. Seeing the men sitting in the waiting room drinking coffee or wine or some drug-imbued drink and seeing the looks of lust and filthy thoughts in their eyes as they looked up at me, I almost turned and fled, and I likely would have had not the owner of the establishment appeared. He immediately appraised me, as if I were a piece of merchandise for sale. I know the look. It is the same as I have seen in greedy men's eyes as they examine a particularly fine piece of merchandise Father has for sale. He reached out and was about to grab my chin and turn my face for a better look, or perhaps to pull open my mouth to check my teeth, when he paused.

"You are Butterfly, the boy who accompanies … one of our honoured guests," he said. I nodded. "Then you have not come here seeking employment."

"No," I replied, and I could see the look of disappointment in the man's eyes. I could imagine sacks of coins with wings flying off to the horizon in his forlorn look. "I have come to see China Boy Zhang."

"If your master seeks his services, I regret, but he must come here. It is the rule."

"For myself."

"Ah," he said with a smile, which quickly faded. "You do not have the same, ah, enjoyment in causing pain as your master, do you?"

"No."

His smile quickly returned. "You are fortunate. China Boy Zhang is not at the moment occupied." I followed him down a hallway in the back, a private hallway, and he stuck his head in the door, beyond which appeared to be a kitchen. I could see several boys sitting at the table drinking from tiny cups. "Zhang!"

One of the boys stood and stepped forward. China Boy Zhang's eyes brightened and his lips turned into a smile. The owner turned and looked at me, blocking the way. At first I was uncertain what he wanted, and then I realized. I took out my purse, having no idea how much he charged. "Six crowns," he said, seeing my hesitation, referring to the coins they used with a crown engraved on it. Zhang, standing behind the owner, scrunched up his face and gave his head a quick shake.

"Three," I replied.

"Four. For half a candle mark."

"Four. For a candle mark."

He reluctantly agreed and I followed China Boy Zhang back up the hallway and then up the stairs to one of the rooms.

"He still overcharged you," he said.

"Over charged you. You said you would pay half."

Zhang looked at me and then laughed. "So, for one candle mark, we had better get on with it," he said, quickly drawing the blue-grey sleeveless shirt over his head and pushing down his trousers of the same colour. He was wearing nothing else. His member and stones were of average size, perhaps a bit smaller than my own, and of the same yellowish tint as the rest of his body except his stones which appeared a bit darker, and the bulb of his member still had its hood of skin. A coarse patch of hair spread up over the lower quarter of his stomach. Although I had certainly thought a lot about it, until that moment I had not decided I would actually do anything with him, but seeing him standing there naked I figured why not? I quickly discarded my clothes, not in eagerness, but because one candle mark is not much time for pleasure.

"So, shall it be my fingers, or my mouth, or do you wish me to spread my legs for your pleasure?" he asked.

"You said you would teach me how you make boy-boy fun in China."

He smiled. "That would take much more than one candle mark, and we would have hardly begun, Butterfly."

"I have the rest of the afternoon." I wondered how it was that he knew my name, and realized the owner of the establishment had known it also. Abbas had to have used it during one of his visits though I could not recall him doing so.

He smiled again. "Then let us begin with 'humming bird draws nectar'," he said.

Dropping to his knees and grasping my hips, he began to arouse me with his tongue. Darting it in and out of his mouth, he struck the sensitive skin on the inside of my thighs, my stones, and the bulb of my member. He brushed his thick, soft lips against my thigh and against my testicles and he nibbled on my cock. As it began to rise he slipped his lips over it and down to the base and sucked on it. As it grew firm, he slipped his lips off and resumed teasing it with his tongue, running it along the rim of my bulb, along the cleft that divided the underside of my bulb, and striking the tip of my member with it. He continued in such a manner until the first of my sweet nectar oozed out of the tip. He struck at it with the tip of his tongue, and as he drew his tongue into his mouth a thin strand connected the tip of my cock with his tongue. He stuck his tongue out again and gently licked the split in my bulb, coaxing out more nectar. I inhaled deeply with the pleasure, and with the anticipation. He continued to tease out my nectar until my cock was jerking up and down impatiently and I wanted to scream I was so desperate for him to go down on me or to bend over and offer his backside.

Getting up, he walked over to a small chest on a shelf, and returned with a pair of rings made of leather and what he said was bamboo. Slipping one over my stiff, projecting member, he positioned it at the base just above my stones and tightened it by twisting the bamboo stick. He resumed teasing my knob with his tongue, causing my member to swell even further and to go numb. He slipped the second ring just over my bulb and tightened the leather strap so that the ring was clamped there below my bulb.

He continued to lick and tease my bulb, now flushed a deep reddish-purple and aching to shoot my seed. I inhaled and exhaled deeply in anticipation, but I could not squirt. My member felt swollen twice its normal size, and my stones ached like they had been drained of seed though I had not released a drop. The lower ring, he explained, allowed my blood to enter my member and cause it to swell, but prevented the blood from leaving, and so also prevented my member from losing its erection. The second ring, below my bulb, he explained, pinched shut my pipe and sent a message rippling along my nerves to my brain preventing me from shooting. Being no doctor, I did not understand fully what he was explaining, but I did understand that I was not able to shoot and I threw my head back and grimaced and clenched my teeth with the sweet pain of stimulation and the agony of being unable to reach that ultimate point of ecstasy.

It seemed like forever and I am sure it was at least a candle mark. He finally got up and went to the chest once again, this time returning with a jar and a tube. Opening up the jar, he scooped out a clear grease with his first and second fingers and spreading open my anus with his thumb and fingers of his other hand, he thoroughly lubricated my anus and slipped his fingers, first one, then both up my rectum and lubricated it and loosed up my anal muscle. The tube, three fingers wide, contained seven wooden balls of increasing diameters connected to each other by a silken cord. This device he said was called 'the seven beads of delight' or 'the seven heavens'. The tube was, he explained as he greased the bottom half, inserted up a woman's cunt and then the beads pulled out one by one, either by her lover, which could be a man or another woman, or, if she was alone, by herself.

"They bring much delight as they stretch open the hole and then pop out, and the delight doubles with each increase in size," he said with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes as he slipped his hand behind me, and I knew he was not talking about a woman and her cunt hole. With a sudden and expert thrust, he inserted the tube and then withdrew it, leaving the seven balls up my rectum.

"Now then," he continued as he undid the two rings clasping my stiff, aching member, "the trick is to bring you pleasure and to the brink of shooting your juice with the removal of each ball, but allowing you to do so only as the last stretches open your ass." He knelt again and brushed his lips over the tip of my member, coating his lips with my sweet nectar. "Am I bringing you pleasure, Butterfly?" he asked, looking up at me impishly as he pulled on the silk cord and I felt the first and smallest ball, the size of a pea, stretch open my anus and pop out.

"Yes," I sighed, throwing my head back, and my cock wagged its head vigorously in agreement.

He ran the tip of his tongue along the rim of my knob and pulled the cord so that I felt the second ball, the size of a man's thumb from tip to the first joint, begin to stretch open my anus. I again tensed and arched my back, causing my anus to pop out the second bead as my member throbbed and ached and more sweet nectar oozed out the tip. After the third ball, he slipped his lips over my knob and clamped his lips down tightly and held them there for the longest time, using a technique to cut off my desire to shoot that I myself had been taught and had used. Seven balls. My need and anticipation grew with the popping out of each ball. The fourth, the size of a walnut, caused my anus to burn with pleasure, the same burning pleasure as was encircling my knob. At last the seventh, and as I felt it poised there half in and half out my anus, I desperately opened and close the opening to my member as if priming my pump for the release of my seed, at the same time opening and closing my anus and clamping it down on the wooden bulb jammed in my anus.

And then at last the twitch deep in my groin, the burning rush up the core of my cock, the raw, burning of my peehole as my seed gushed out, and the pleasure of the last ball stretching open my anus and popping out. I blasted out my seed with such force my seed shot out of the tip and at least two hand breadths to Zhang's awaiting mouth. Spurt after delightful spurt blasted out of my cock and my head spun and my legs went weak and I wobbled and almost fainted with the delight of my climax as Zhang eagerly and hungrily knelt there and swallowed my seed. Squirt after squirt erupted out of my body, more than I have ever shot at one time. He expertly caught each squirt in his mouth, though at times there was a thread dangling from his lower lip or from his chin. Never in my life have I felt such pleasure and such relief with the release of my seed. So great was my pleasure I almost fainted.

The owner of the establishment blocked my way out, glaring at me as he informed me I had taken double the amount of time I had paid for and owed him another four crowns. Zhang, accompanying me, replied that I had promised to bring my master around again that evening as payment for the extra time. The Prince, of course, paid very well for his type of pleasure, and the owner's pig-like eyes brightened as he thought of the coin he would be making, far more than what I would pay for the extra hour. I had, of course, nothing to do with Prince Abbas's decision to visit The Fig Orchard again that night. I saw China Boy Zhang in passing and he gave me a knowing smile and a wink. Whether it was for the trick we had played on the owner, or in memory of the two candle marks of pleasure I do not know, though I suspect it was both. To my regret, this was our fifth day in Kashgar and I would not have an opportunity to see him again before we left.

I did not much like Kashgar myself. It was much too noisy and much too crowded. The markets were filled with the smells of strange and unfamiliar food and the stench of too many unwashed people speaking strange languages. There were, of course, a lot of Chinamen there, easily recognized by their slanted eyes, sallow skin, and their high-pitched voices and singsong gibberish that they called language. Most were old men who wore their hair combed back and braided in a single braid that extended down their back and that they called a pigtail. I spent much time in the market those six days, as a spy for Abbas as he tried to determine who the leaders among the traders were that he might bribe or coerce to support his bid for preference by the Merchant Guild, as a spy for King João in an attempt to learn as much first hand as I could about the spice road, and as my father's son in the hopes of finding out a route for ourselves for the lucrative trade in spice, silk, gems and artifacts from China.

There were a number of young boys, boys my age or slightly younger or older, sons of the merchants who were assisting their fathers and learning the business, just as I had done accompanying Father and Uncle. Having a common interest and being of the same age, we struck up friendships easily. I was surprised to learn that they had come only from a short distance to the east, one or two weeks travel by caravan, and were trading with us goods that they had traded for back at their homes, and that they would be retuning to their homes with goods obtained here at Kashgar to use to trade for more goods from the east, keeping of course some for themselves and charging more than they were paying to make a profit.

I had in my naivety thought that the merchants in the bazaar travelled with their goods from the Chinese capital to Kashgar and back again, and was surprised to learn that there were a dozen or even two dozen exchanges as I just described. Much to my dismay, I learned that the road from Kashgar to the Chinese capital of Beijing was between nine and ten hundred leagues and traversed vast deserts even greater than the ones I had seen so far, and was not a road but a trail such as I had travelled on to get to Kashgar. It would take three to four cycles of the moon to get there travelling each day and only stopping each night to sleep. More realistically, for me to travel that distance and back to Kashgar could easily take a year! My dreams of travelling the distance of the spice road and back and reporting on my findings were shattered. To add to my dismay and sorrow, associating with the merchants and their sons and seeing their way of life brought back fond memories and again I fell into the pits of despair and depression as I thought about Father and Uncle and home and wondered how my family faired and if I would ever see them again.

One thing I could not help but notice at the markets and in the streets were men and boys, usually in pairs or small groups, who looked a lot like Chinamen except they all wore bright orange robes which they wrapped about themselves so their arms were bare. Instead of pigtails they all had shaved the hair from their heads, even the youngest among them, though the elderly sometimes had long, white wisps of moustaches or beards. I finally asked a trader's son I had befriended, a thirteen-year-old by the name of Wang Tsung Yuan, about them.

"They are Buddhist monks."

"Buddhist?"

"They believe in Buddhism. In Mahayana." I looked at him blankly. "They follow the teachings of Buddha, the Enlightened One." It still meant nothing to me. "You are Moslem," he said after thinking a moment. "You worship your god Allah, and follow the teachings of your prophet, Mohammed. I am a Buddhist. I follow the teachings of the prophet Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, who has said not to worship any god."

"He said not to worship any god?" I asked in surprise. What sort of prophet was that?

"That is right. The gods have a long and pleasurable life, too pleasurable for they become so involved in their pleasure they forget the need for salvation, and so like all other creatures they die and are reborn, but because they have not strived for salvation, they are born in lower states of existence. Buddha says they do not control human destiny so there is no value in praying or making sacrifices to them."

I had never heard of such a thing. Gods who are not prayed to? "If you do not pray to your gods, then what do Buddhist monks do?"

"They seek nirvana, the enlightened state in which one is released from the cycle of rebirths."

"What do you mean by the cycle of rebirths?" I asked, getting even more confused.

"Buddha has said that the individual is made up of five skandhas in a different combination for each individual, but all living things have in common that they suffer, have no soul, and are constantly changing. All of one's actions in his lifetime, one's karma, determine what the combination of the five skandhas is, so if one leads a good life he is rewarded by being reborn in a better state, and if he leads a bad life he is punished by being reborn in a lower state. You are human, very beautiful, smart, of a high position, and I think of some wealth. Your karma in your last life must have been very good for you to have such a good life in this life. Buddha has said that one's karma can determine if he is reborn as a human, an animal, a hungry ghost, a demon, or even a god. It is the goal of all Buddhists to escape from this cycle of rebirths and suffering, to reach the enlightened state of nirvana."

"All Buddhists, not just monks?"

"That is right. Monks are different in that they spend all their time in study and exercise to prepare their mind and their body for nirvana. They seek meditation and enlightenment so have no material possessions and they shun all desires and physical pleasures of this world, even sex. Sexual enjoyment and desire and sexual pleasure are hindrances to enlightenment and are inferior forms of pleasure. Monks seek nirvana by following the Vinaya Pitaka, a set of two hundred and something rules, which are very strict. The Vinaya prohibits all sexual activity, sex with women, sex with men, with ubhatavyanjanaka and pandakas–."

"Ubhata what and what?"

"Ubhatavyanjanaka, those who have both," he said, holding his hands between his legs and forming a circle with his thumb and first finger of one hand and wagging the middle finger of his other hand which he cupped below the first. "And pandakas, those who are men on the outside but women on the inside." (7)

People who have both male and female genitalia? I was tempted to ask if they also had huge white tusks and tails for noses. Wang Tsung Yuan struck me as an intelligent individual so his comment came as a surprise. The things that some people seriously believe astounds me! As for the pandakas, Rifki immediately came to mind and I felt a pang of sorrow at the remembrance. He would have been greatly saddened to hear of such prohibitions against his kind.

"But these rules and prohibitions are only for monks?" I asked.

"Oh yes. The average person finds it difficult enough to follow the Noble Eightfold Path and Five Precepts and to have the Four Virtuous Attitudes. The goals for most Buddhists are to have a pleasant life and after death a pleasant rebirth. For them enjoying sensual pleasures, including sex, is no problem as long as it is in a non-harmful way, to themselves, and to others."

"So for most Buddhists it is all right for a man to have sex with a woman, or with someone of the same sex, a man or a boy?"

"One will never reach enlightenment and escape suffering and the cycle of rebirths, but it is all right. Most men prefer to have sex with females, women or girls. It is necessary or there would be no children and mankind would disappear," he observed with a shrug. "As for sex with other men or with boys, if they are willing it harms nobody, so it is of no importance."

Of no importance! I could not believe it. "As is sex with melons, as long as it does not hurt the melon," I observed, and he laughed.

"Have you had sex with a melon?" he asked.

"No."

"You have choked your chicken?"

I looked at him quizzically. Reaching down between his legs, he formed a circle with his thumb and fingers and jerked his fist up and down. "Oh yes. That I have done."

*"Have you tried it with another boy? Tried doing his lok chat, you know?" he asked, gesturing to his crotch, and there was no mistaking the hopeful tone in his voice.

"Oh yes, and he mine. Have you?"

"With other boys from my homeland. Not with an Arab boy."

"Well, we can change that if you wish."

"I wish," he said with a smile. He glanced about and stepped closer to me. "I know a place," he whispered.

Following him through the bazaar and down one of the many streets that lead to it like the spokes on a wheel and then down a narrow side street, I wondered if his lok chat was the same colour as the rest of his skin as was China Boy Zhang's, and if like Zhang's, it had a hood. My one regret about the previous night was that I had not had the time nor opportunity to further examine his verga, and I was not going to let the opportunity to do so now pass by. Arriving at a tall wall, I followed him up over it, the wall being old and rough and having plenty of hand and foot holds for someone young and agile such as us. Dropping down on the other side, I found we were in a small enclosure with half a dozen ovens and the faint fragrance of freshly baked bread.

"The baker works at night when it is cool and so his baking is ready for market first thing in the morning. That is where his apprentice is now, selling his wares, while his master is sound asleep. We will not be disturbed here."

"How did you ever find this place, and that it would be unused during the day?"

"My father does business here when we come to Shu-fu," he explained, and then added with a grin, "and the baker's apprentice likes to choke the chicken too."

As he pushed down his trousers and his thong, I hiked up my robe and pushed down my pantaloons and linen underpants and we sat down in the shade of the wall. I found he was as curious about my verga as I was about his lok chat.

"I see your chicken has a hood."

"Yes. We do not cut if off as you Moslems do. Your skin is much lighter than where it is exposed to the sun, much lighter than any Arab I have ever seen," he observed. "Though I have not seen many Arabs unclothed," he said bashfully.

He was honest and trusting and I was sorely tempted to tell him I was neither Arab nor Moslem, but I thought better of it. I looked at him hesitantly and he looked at me, the two of us uncertain how to proceed.

"This is my favourite method," he said as he shuffled around to face me. Making a circle with his thumb and forefinger of his right hand, he held my limp cock at the base just above my balls, which he called dou, and slid his fingers up to my bulb. As he approached the tip, he grasped my cock at the base again but this time forming a circle with his left hand. As he reached the tip of my verga with his left hand, he began again with his right. "It is called milking the bull," he said with a grin.

"One of my favourites is to massage the bulb. I do not know if it has a name. But I have never done it with someone who still has a skin covering it."

"It can be pulled back," he observed, pulling down on his cock with his other hand and thus pulling the skin down to reveal his bulb.

Reaching over, I held his limp member by the bulb with the thumb and first finger of my right hand and then slowly began to massage the front and back with a circular motion, careful not to brush along the sensitive edge. "When you do it to yourself, your thumb is on the top of the head instead of underneath like when you do someone else, and you can use the first two fingers underneath instead of just one," I explained.

"I have never had my lok chat done this way,"

"And I have never had mine done your way," I observed.

"There are many different ways to do it."

"Yes, many."

As we sat there fondling each other's member, I wondered how he had learned his ways. As a tellak boy and as a köçek, I had learned how to please customers with my hand by the other bath boys and other dancers. I decided it best not to ask him and not to tell him how I had learned. When by myself, I normally held my verga with my thumb and first two fingers and slid them up and down the shaft and occasionally for added stimulation over the head, and when I was about to spurt, I grasped my cock with my fist and pounded it rapidly, greatly increasing the stimulation in my desperation to squirt. With Prince Abbas and with Jama'ah I had used a variety of ways of fondling their cocks, but usually once he was stiff Prince Abbas had enough and wanted to fuck, and I also switched to fucking Jama'ah.

Being "milked" was a very different experience. Having Tsung Yuan slowly sliding his encircling fingers constantly in an upward direction was most enjoyable and I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pleasure of the throbbing of my swollen member and the piercing stimulation penetrating my bulb whenever his fingers brushed against the rim of my bulb. When we had first met, I had called him Wang until I learned that in his country they say their family name first, one of the many strangenesses I found about his kind. I knew from my experiences that many men preferred that I use two or even three different methods when I fondle their privates. I of course had another reason for changing what I was doing – I was curious about his hood of skin, having had little opportunity to play with a verga that had one. Grasping his penis by the base with my thumb and first two fingers once he was erect, I slowly pulled up, pushing his loose skin up over his bulb. I then released my grip and watched as his skin slowly slid down off his bulb on its own. I pushed it back up and it slid back down again. He seemed to enjoy that variation and so I continued repeating it, fascinated how the skin crept along the slope of his cockhead and then slipped under it to form a collar.

As I began to approach my orgasm, Tsung Yuan knew and he stopped milking my stiff cock. It twitched and the pee hole opened and closed angrily and I wanted to reach down and bring myself off but I resisted the temptation and instead stopped fiddling with his cock also and just sat there delighting in my own sweet pain and examining his lok chat and dou. His was perhaps two fingers shorter than mine, which was not surprising considering he was only thirteen, and of the same yellowish tinge as the rest of his body, as were his stones. Unlike my own case, there was little difference in darkness between the flesh exposed to the sun and that which was covered. His curly hairs were black as black and thick, as thick as my own, and his sac was loose and creased just like mine.

Our passions having subsided, we resumed masturbating each other, Tsung Yuan milking me and me returning to caressing and massaging his spongy bulb with my thumb and first finger, the two of us enjoying the pulsating pleasure of our swollen flesh, and the pleasure that comes from intimate play with another male's member. I never cease to be amazed at the pleasure that part of the body brings, and I never cease to be thankful I was born a boy. Slowly the pressure began to develop in my groin again and I knew from the look in his eyes and the stiffness of his cock that he was approaching that peak of pleasure again also. I inhaled and exhaled deeply, filling my lungs with the delightful fragrance of baked bread as ripples of pleasure pulsated out from my swollen cock. I was about to squirt and I knew he was also. Keeping the pressure on the back of his bulb with my first two fingers, I slipped my thumb down to the beginning of the funnel on the underside of his bulb and gently applied pressure there as I continued to caress the top of his blood-engorged bulb. Heartbeats later I felt the rapid constrictions below his bulb and his seed began to ooze out of the tip, the pressure I had applied not being enough to stop him but being enough to prevent him from squirting. As it began to ooze down the funnel on the underside of his cock and over my thumb, I inhaled deeply, the delightful and unique fragrance of fresh seed replacing that lingering from the early morning baking, and my own constrictions started and my seed spurted out of my numb, swollen cock and up into the air.

The two of us closed our eyes in ecstasy, our lips parted as we inhaled and exhaled deeply, our hearts pounding in our chests as our hot, slimy seed was pumped out of our swollen balls. His seed flowed down over my thumb, hot and sticky and as the pressure of my spurts decreased my own seed began to flow out of my cock and down and over his thumb still encircling my member at the base. We sat there in silence as we relished that unique pleasure of the release of our seed, and of sharing that sweet pleasure with another boy. Slowly raising our eyelids, we looked into each other's eyes, into the windows to each other's soul, and our lips slowly curled into a smile.

Author's notes:

1. Sultan Abu Sa'id Mirza ruled the Tamurid Empire from 1451 to1469 and on his death the sultanate was divided among his four sons as was the custom (though certainly not the rule) of the time. Again by custom, the nominal ruler of the empire (called Mawarannahr) was his eldest son, Sultan Ahmad Mirza, a great-great grandson of the founder of the Tamurid Dynasty (Amir Timur Beg, known as Tamerlane [Timur the Lame] because his left side was partially paralysed), but who in actuality controlled the centres of Samarkand, Bukhara and Hisar (Hisor) and the surrounding countryside and smaller villages. His chief wife was Habiba Sultan Begim by whom he had one child, the daughter Msuma Sultan Begim. His second wife was Qataq Begim by whom he had one child, the daughter Ayisha Sultan Begim. His third wife was Mihr Nigar Khanim, the daughter of Yunus Ali (who became Yunus Khan and who lived from 1416 to 1487), for whom no progeny are listed. It was reported that he also had two sons, both of whom died in infancy, and two or three other daughters by concubines. As he was not a major ruler, historians of the time wrote little about him. His family, appearance and habits described here come from the memoirs of his nephew, Babur. As mentioned in Chapter 14, Prince Abbas Mirza is a fictional character for the purposes of this story, as is his mother, Ayisha Begi Khan, who in Chapter 14 was said to be his father's most cherished concubine.

2. Ma'jun refers both to a drug-laced drink and to a sweetmeat (candy, candied fruit, or sugar-coated nuts) containing hemp. As a drink the hemp is pounded and added to milk or water. It is also called bhang in India and southeast Asia where today it is either eaten or smoked as an intoxicant and narcotic. It results in euphoria, a sense of well-being, intense concentration, perceptual distortions, and visual and auditory hallucinations for one to three hours depending on the dosage taken.

3. The Farghana Valley was governed by Sultan Abu Sa'id Mirza's youngest son Umar (Omar) Shaikh (Shaykh) Mirza from his father's death in 1469 until his untimely death in1494 at the age of 39, the result of his dovecote collapsing and toppling over the side of his fortress wall at Akhgsi and falling into a ravine. He was born in 1455 and was 14 when his father died and he became ruler of the Farghana Valley, a minor but fertile and rich appanage of Mawarannahr. He married Kutluk (Qutlugh) Nigar Khanim, the second daughter of Yunus Ali (Khan), in 1475 at the age of 20. Her oldest sister, Mihr Nigar Khanim, married Umar's oldest brother, Sultan Ahmad Mirza. Umar and Kutluk had a daughter (Khanzada Begim) and a son (Zahir ud-Din Muhammad, who was born Feb 14, 1483 and died Dec 26 1530). Zahir had two half-brothers, Ja'han-gir and Nasir Mirza, who were 9 and 7 upon their father's death in 1494 (6 and 4 at the time of this story.)

4. Zahir would later take on the name Zahir ud-Din Babur, and today is more commonly known just as Babur (Mongolian for "tiger), the founder of the Mughal dynasty of India. As a leader he was noted as a man of compassion who would not let troops plunder nor harm the innocent. Like his father, he was an avid drinker of the drug-laced ma'jun. In his memoirs, which is the source of much of the information in this chapter and the next, he talks about his marriage, and at the same time, his infatuation with a boy in the Andijan bazaar. He married his first cousin, Sultan Ahmad Mirza's daughter, in March 1500, a month after his seventeenth birthday. Almost simultaneously he fell in love with a boy by the name of Baburi in the Andijan bazar. In his memoir he says that out of bashfulness he only saw his new wife every 15 to 20 days, and then every 30 to 40 days and had to be cajoled by his mother and grandmother to see her more often. Of the boy Baburi, he says, "I conceived an uncommon feeling for him. Still worse, I made myself madly infatuated with him." He says in his memoir that until then he had not felt affection for anyone and that he knew nothing of love or affection. He composed a poem about his feelings:

   "May no person be as ravaged, lovesick and humiliated,
   as I,
   May no lover be as pitiless and unconcerned,
   as thou."

   He says bashfulness and modesty prevented him from looking at Baburi when he saw him in the bazaar, and again wrote a poem about it:

   "Neither have I the power to go nor have I the strength to stay,
   You have enslaved me in this condition, O heart."
   

   Whether or not he ever followed up on this attraction was not recorded in his memoir nor is there mention of it by historians of the time.

5. Babur observed in his memoirs that his grandmother was an exceptional advisor, though in other chapters he expresses the typical attitude of the time throughout Asia and Europe that women, including his mother and grandmother, were inferior when it came to matters of politics. When his father died abruptly and he inherited his appanage at the age of eleven and a half, his authority was challenged. It was his grandmother who defended his position and rallied the troops to support him. It was also his grandmother who supported him when his uncle, Sultan Ahmad Mirza, invaded the Farghana Valley upon his father's death despite Babur offering to rule in his name and was betrothed to his daughter, and it was his grandmother who supported Babur's retaliation and invasion of Samarkand upon his uncle's death while retreating from the Farghana Valley a month later.

6. This proverb has been credited to many groups across Asia but most frequently to the Pathan and to the Pashtun, an ethnic group and warrior race between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan where despite western and European influences this role of women and boys is still believed and practised by many.
7. The ubhatavyanjanaka were hermaphrodites. The pandakas were passive, promiscuous, possibly transvestite, homosexuals who were also possibly prostitutes.

It was with mixed feelings that I wearily left Kashgar the next morning after spending a long night in the hallway at The Fig Orchard listening to Prince Abbas terrorizing still another boy and wishing I could be spending the night with China Boy Zhang or with Wang Tsung Yuan instead. As I have said, I did not particularly like the city of Kashgar, nor my evenings listening to Prince Abbas abusing the boy whores at The Fig Orchard. Besides, it was at Kashgar that I had discovered that my idea of travelling to the fabled Chinese capital was futile. On the other hand each day I was learning more about trading with the East and I had just begun to discover the wonders of sex play as practised by the Chinese, and their strange perception of life as preached by their prophet Buddha, and I did want to learn more.

That we were headed south and west and that each step took me closer to returning to my homeland was of little comfort. Home was still thousands of leagues away, and the trail we followed was even worse than the one we had taken from Andijan to Kashgar. Never have I see a land so rugged, nor mountain passes so high and narrow. Nor have I ever seen such extremes in temperatures. The higher we climbed the colder it got and the wind whipping down from the snow-clad peaks and ice glaciers pierced through the thickest woollen cloaks and chilled us to the bone. At night I was grateful for the yurts that we had brought with us as they protected us from the winds and kept in the heat from our cooking fires. Then we descended into the next valley and the temperatures climbed and the sun beat down relentlessly, scorching the land. By midday our clothing was drenched in sweat and our throats were parched.

To make matters worse, Prince Abbas was in a foul mood, negotiations not having gone well with Mirza Abu Bakr Dughlat and his son Prince Jahangir Mirza nor with the Merchant Guild, the few agreements he had made with the Guild being costly, and he no longer had the boys at The Fig Orchard available to work off his frustrations and see to his more perverse needs. To my surprise, I learned from Syed that Kashgar had exchanged hands between the Tamurid and the Dughlat nobility several times over the past sixty years and the two dynasties viewed each other with suspicion and jealousy. (1)

Abbas's mission had not been to bring friendly greetings from one empire to another, and it had not been just an attempt to lure the lucrative spice trade to Samarkand. The main purpose had been to spy out the defences of the Dughlats. Sending Abbas into Kashgar had been a dangerous move on the part of his father considering the feelings between the two dynasties and he could easily have been assassinated. That of course would have resulted in war between the two kingdoms, something neither leader was ready for yet, a gamble Sultan Ahmad Mirza had been willing to take. That such a gamble could have resulted in the death of his son, and that Abbas was fully aware of that, astounded me. The callousness and greed of these people I could not understand and never will. That both had put my life at risk besides, being the Prince's personal guard and comrade at arms, and had not even thought to mention to me the potential dangers of such a mission was just as astounding, both in light of having been able to forewarn me in that I was expected to defend Prince Abbas, and in light that I was his comrade at arms and supposedly a dear friend of the family, dear enough to grant me a beylik but evidently not dear enough to warn me of the danger to my own life.

As for his sexual needs, Abbas did have me, but we were in the middle of Ramadan, and being deeply devout, which I found to be incongruous considering his many vices, excessive drinking, debauchery, and cold-hearted killing to mention only a few, he continued to fast from sunup to sundown and expected the rest of us to do so also despite the fact that travellers were exempt from fasting, and he abstained from sex with me at night. Eid al-Fitr, which marked the end of Ramadan, fell on the sixteenth day of our travels. We celebrated that day praying extra prayers in the morning and setting up our yurts early that evening and closed the day with feasting, drinking and dancing. Abbas still refrained from calling me to his bed, making up for those days in Kashgar during which he had not abstained, and I suspect in a perverse way punishing himself for his weakness at that time.

Having no other recourse, he took out his frustrations on the retainers and guards. Having not endeared himself to them to begin with, their attitudes worsened and it was only their fear of the Prince and the uncertainty who was one of his supporters and who was not that prevented them from rebelling. Though he did not treat me in a similar manner, he was curt and surly and many were the times I was almost the target of his whip. As a result of the weather and terrain, we made pour time besides, and with the Prince's mood it seemed even longer. We had a hundred and twenty leagues to travel, which took us twenty-four days.

We were welcomed by the governor of Hisar, who was ruling in the name of Sultan Ahmad Mirza, Abbas's father. Located on the Khan River and surrounded by high mountains, it was not a major holding, but was in a strategic position. We remained there for four days, resting up and refreshing ourselves after our arduous journey. Much of the time Abbas spent in meetings and after our close contact from sunup to sunset the past three weeks I found myself welcoming the solitude during the day. The evenings he spent alone with me outside his door, I suspect in large part for appearances though I also sensed a cooling in his passion for me. Besides stopping at Hisar to refresh before meeting with Abbas's next uncle, from my observations I suspect our stop was to impress upon the governor and the ranking citizens that Sultan Ahmad Mirza was in charge and his son had the authority to represent him, and was an opportunity for Abbas to assess the loyalty of Hisar, and its defences should that loyalty be in question. How people could govern, and want to govern, amidst such distrust bewildered me, but then I am only a merchant sailor's son.

From Hisar it was a short and easy journey of four days along a well-travelled trail to Balkh, which was ruled by the second oldest of the sons of Abu Sa'id, Mahmud Mirza, Abbas's oldest uncle. Balkh was a major centre with trade routes connecting India and China to the east and south with the lands to the west and north. The number of large homes and their lavish grounds showed the prosperity of the city, but many buildings also showed the ravages of war, the city having been sacked by Genghis Khan over two hundred and seventy years ago and by Tamerlane a hundred years ago according to Syed. Entering the city, I was surprised at the number of Buddhist monks in the streets and the markets. Syed informed me that there were a large number of Chinamen in Balkh and a large number of Buddhists dating back over nine hundred years ago when two merchant monks had first travelled to the area along much the same route as we had taken. That merchants and conquerors had travelled these very same trails with the same purposes as we for centuries astounded me and I suddenly felt very small and insignificant.

Mahmud Mirza was exactly as described by Abbas's young cousin Babur, squat and fat with a sparse beard, and while it might be an exaggeration to call him ugly, he was far from even plain-looking. Our arrival had been expected of course, messages having been sent upon our arrival at Hisar, and we were greeted with much pomp and ceremony and treated to a lavish banquet attended by the nobility of the city. We were entertained by poets, musicians, and jugglers, all highly skilled, and Mahmud himself recited a poem he had written with thunderous applause and much praise, though it was, in my opinion, feeble and insipid, as Abbas's cousin Babur had warned. The celebrations extended long into the night with much drinking, Mahmud Mirza being as fond of wine and ma'jun as Abbas and Abbas's father Sultan Ahmad Mirza, evidently something that ran in the family. (2)

Nor had Babur exaggerated regarding the debauchery of his uncle and cousins, nor the shamelessness of those his uncle had chosen to surround himself with. As the evening progressed, the more boisterous and crude our host and his sons and their guests became, both men and women exchanging bawdy jokes and tales and openly revealing their lustful desires. We were served by most attractive young boys, all scantily dressed, whom Mahmud Mirza openly groped and caressed in the presence of his wives and his sons, his behaviour leaving no doubt in my mind that they were all catamites as Babur had claimed. If that was not enough proof that the ruler of Balkh liked young boys as his nephew from Farghana had hinted, the moment we met he undressed me with his eyes and many times throughout the evening I found him staring at me hungrily.

As the festivities began to wind down, Mahmud Mirza retired to his private apartments and invited Prince Abbas and myself to join him. Reclining on a wide, plush divan, he motioned for us to sit on those to either side of him. We were served sweet wine and plates of grapes and sliced melons by boys even younger and more scantily clad than earlier in the evening, and even more beautiful, all having smooth, unblemished skin, the darkest of eyes, and long, luxuriant hair that curled over their shoulders. As our host bit into the slices of melon, he commented on their sweetness and their firmness of flesh and their delight to the palate, and it was obvious though he was talking about the fruit he was implying the young boys serving us. Abbas quickly agreed and added his own comments about their delectability and perfection, his eyes growing bright with lust as he bit into a fresh melon slice and the juice flowed from the corners of his mouth and around his chin. Syed's quote about women, boys and melons came to mind and I could not suppress a smile. Obviously expecting a comment from me, I managed a vague comment about the indescribable pleasure and satisfaction their consumption brought, equally referring to the wine, the fruit, and the boys as I sampled the first two and imagined the last.

"So tell me, what age do you prefer?" Mahmud asked, looking at his nephew.

"It depends, my Lord, on what I desire at the time. Sometimes I am in the mood for the sweet innocence of a prepubescent child of six, full of awe and wonder at the mysteries of sex. Other times I need the awareness of a boy who knows the pleasure of shooting his seed so that he has knowledge and skill to draw mine out, and sometimes I find pleasure in a boy no longer a child but not yet having past the cusp of manhood." He glanced over at me and smiled. "Of course sometimes a boy of six can be experienced far beyond his years, and a boy of fifteen can be as pure and innocent and as delightful as a boy of six."

"And what of you, Bey Kapalak?" he asked, turning and smiling at me. "Do you have a preferred age, or do your tastes vary with your mood too?"

I gave the question careful thought before responding. "There is a certain arousal created by the fumbling and naivety of a boy child that no other can duplicate, and a much different delight, though neither more grand nor less, that can be enjoyed from an experienced boy skilled in the art of bringing pleasure and who has come of age," I replied, adding, "and still a much different delight again in engaging in such pleasure with a man."

"Spoken as a true connoisseur of the male pleasure," he said with a smile, delighted and encouraged by my latter statement.

"He is most skilled in the art," observed Abbas with a smile, which came as a surprise considering his coolness of late and caused me to blush, something which did not go unnoticed by our host and pleased him also.

He pulled on a sash beside his divan and a man immediately appeared at the door. Motioning him forward, Mahmud spoke to him in hushed tones and the man bowed deeply and immediately disappeared along with the boys who had been serving us. He returned in less than half a candle mark with six boys whom he lined up before us and had each step forward as he called his name. I guessed the youngest to be about six and the oldest about sixteen.

"You may choose one or several," Mahmud said to Abbas, gesturing at the boys.

"I would be presumptuous to choose before you, Uncle," he replied with a deferential nod of his head.

"You are presumptuous to assume I have not already chosen," his uncle replied with a smile. "My two choices are awaiting my summons," he added with a gesture.

"Well, then, I choose Ali," he said, indicating a boy in the middle of the row whom I learned later was nine.

I did not want the two older boys who appeared to be my age or older, nor the two younger boys, whom I learned later were five and six. So I chose the one remaining, Ishaq, whom I learned was seven. The remaining boys were dismissed and our host's two choices were sent in, a boy of eight by the name of Abu and one of fifteen by the name of Najm. Based on appearances alone I could not say any one was more or less attractive than the others.

With a gesture from our host, the four boys approached and began to disrobe us, deftly caressing and kissing our bodies at the same time. I had learned, as a köçek, that disrobing, oneself or one's partner, is an art itself and can be as arousing as kissing or touching. Ishaq was a beautiful boy, slim and dark skinned, with large brown eyes and long, fine hair extending half way down his back. Slowly and seductively disrobing me, he squatted still fully clothed on the floor beside the divan and nibbled and sucked on my lower nut, and then on the other, and finally on my limp but swelling sausage. Considering his age, I was surprised at his skill and his obvious eagerness, showing no hesitation nor shame in nibbling and sucking on my privates. Sitting on the floor opposite me, Ali was similarly nibbling and sucking on Prince Abbas's privates. As I watched, he slipped his lips over the knob of the eighteen-year-old prince's member and down his shaft to his balls, an admirable accomplishment even though the prince was still limp considering the size of his member, and his cheeks sunk in as he began to suck. Stretching out on his back on the divan between us, Mahmud was being attended to my his two catamites, the eight year old and the fifteen both kneeling on the floor and licking and sucking on his eggs and his rising snake.

Ishaq's skill, his beauty, and my shameful desire, besides the eroticism of watching Abbas and his uncle having their members and stones sucked and licked by eager, beautiful boys soon had me fully erect. That did not stop Ishaq who expertly went down on my stiff cock, taking it all in his mouth and eagerly sucking on it while caressing my hips and thighs. Abbas was soon erect also and Ali took his monster cock all in, having to have taken the thick tube down his throat, a skill I had learned and whose difficulty I appreciated. Mahmud, whom I learned later was forty-three, had a short, fat member and a hairy crotch and balls. The two boys knelt there and licked his swollen, stiff cock from his balls to the tip, coating it with their spittle. The youngest, Abu, slipped his lips over the blood-engorged knob and slipped them down his cock to his hairy nuts and then tightening the grip of his lips drew them back up and off, sucking up his and the other boy's spittle. The fifteen-year-old, Najm, then slipped his lips over his lord's cock to his balls, and then clamped his lips about the fleshy tube at the base and drew them up, sucking up his spittle and the eight-year-old's.

I found it all most erotic and far too quickly I felt myself approaching my climax. Ishaq seemed to know and paused and clamped his lips just below the bulb to cut off my desire, a technique that seemed to be universally known. Sitting back, he slowly and seductively removed his flimsy clothes, looking at me with those dark eyes and fluttering lashes all the time, and he then turned and offered his compact backside to me. I readily slid off the divan and kneeling on the floor behind him, I grasped his slender hips and positioned my spit-slick member against his asshole. As I pushed forward he instantly opened up to me, and as I continued to push forward he shuffled into position, aligning his asshole with my stiff pole. I penetrated him effortlessly, in part because of his spittle and expertise, and in part because of my lust and own skill. My bulb slowly stretched open his anal muscle until at last my knob popped inside his rectum. I paused to catch my breath and enjoy the pleasure of having penetrated him and of having his ass flesh surrounding my knob, and then I grasped his naked hips and slowly pushed forward, easing my cock up his rectum until my hairs were pressed against his backside and my hairy, seed-filled balls were striking his much smaller and hairless ones.

Abbas had assumed the same position behind Ali, and Mahmud had assumed the position behind fifteen-year-old Najm with Abu squatting beside him. Abbas and Mahmud penetrated their two partners with as much ease as I had penetrated Ishaq and the three of us began to fuck the eager and willing youngsters. Feeling seven-year-old Ishaq's hot, moist rectum enveloping my stiff, aching cock and throbbing with pleasure in unison with it, I reached around and began to stoke his stiff little cocklet, adding to the boy's pleasure and adding to mine, there being something erotic about stroking a little boy's tender tube of flesh. The pleasure of satisfying that itch around one's bulb was compounded by knowing the boy I was fucking was feeling the same pleasure as I stroked his little cocklet, and that in addition he was experiencing the unique pleasure of having one's rectum stuffed with another's cock. Beside me Prince Abbas was pumping his hips to and fro, easing his massive cock in and out of Ali's compact little ass as he also stroked the nine-year-old's stiff member, no longer and fatter than a man's thumb but feeling just as itchy and just as pleasurable as the teenager's larger cock up his ass. And, on the other side of me, was our forty-three-year-old host and Abbas's uncle, Mahmud, grasping Najm's hips as he pounded the fifteen-year-old's ass while Abu sat beside him and stroked the teenage boy's swollen cock with one hand and his own eight-year-old little cocklet with his other hand.

The seven of us inhaled and exhaled deeply with that pleasure that only a male can know, the pleasure of a stiff, aching cock being brought satisfaction either by hand or by asshole, and at least five of us, not being sure of Abbas or his uncle, knowing also the pleasure of having one's ass stuffed with a thick, stiff cock. As I inhaled deeply, I realized that the air had become perfumed with cock, seven hot, stiff cocks. And, as my balls began to swell and perspire, I knew there were six other pair in the same condition. Soon we would be experiencing that greatest pleasure of all, the reaching of our orgasms, and I arched my back and threw back my head in the pleasure of anticipation. I do not know which of us reached that point first, or if several did at the same time. They were all too close together. I grasped Ishaq's hips tightly as I felt the twitch deep in my groin that announced the release of my seed and I inhaled deeply and thrust my hips forward as I felt my seed rush up the core of my swollen cock and spurt up my seven-year-old partner's asshole. At almost the same time I felt his little cocklet throb hotly between my thumb and first two fingers and I rapidly pumped my fingers up and down his little, stiff boner. The boy arched his back and whimpered with pleasure, with the pleasure of his orgasm and the pleasure of having his rectum filled with hot, thick seed.

I had witnessed Prince Abbas's release of seed enough times to know that he was filling the asshole of his nine-year-old partner, and from the expression on his face and the jerking of his body it was evident that Ali was experiencing an orgasm also. And on the other side of me, Mahmud was filling Najm's ass while the fifteen-year-old's seed spurted out of his swollen cock and Abu pounded his little eight-year-old cock in a fury and quivered with his orgasm. The musky scent of cock was joined by the scent of freshly spilled seed and the seven of us gasped in the perfumed air, delighting in our orgasms, in the orgasms of our partners, and in the eroticism of knowing that four of us had split their seed.

We collapsed on the floor, flushed and exhausted, our chests heaving with our exertion, our faces flushed with pleasure, our cocks, Abbas's, Mahmud's and mine, stiff and glistening with our seed and the ass slime of our partners, all three plus Najm's topped with a creamy globule clinging to the tip. The cocks of the other boys were stiff also, and stood up proud above tightly constricted ball sacks.

The four catamites knew their duty, and it was not long before the four of them were kissing and caressing and fondling now limp cocks once again, and once again we all responded to the lust in our loins and the desire in our hearts. I again mounted the beautiful, tender child I had selected for my pleasure and again fondled his obscenely stiff little member, a condition some would find incongruous considering his young age, and Abbas again mounted Ali and began to stroke his member also. This time our host mounted the younger of his two play things, and as he fucked the eight-year-old's ass fifteen-year-old Najm stroked the youngster's little cocklet and his own just as the youngster had done earlier while Najm was being fucked. Again the room was filled with the panting and grunts of seven males in heat, and again the air was filled with the smell of cock and sweating balls and eventually once more with fresh seed. It was a most joyous and satisfying welcome to Sultan Mahmud Mirza's domain, one, I decided, worth the arduous journey to get there.

When my presence was not required as Prince Abbas's personal body guard, I was given free reign of the palace and grounds and explored the city. As the personal body guard of Prince Abbas and as his comrade at arms, I was treated with respect and deference by everyone, guards, servants, catamites and even members of the royal family and other nobility, which, I must shamefully admit, brought me much pleasure. I also was treated with admiration and even envy by almost all of the younger inhabitants of the palace, which to my shame pleased me even more. The catamites in particular were most subservient and most curious about my life with the prince, and I got along with them all on the most friendly of terms, perhaps because I was young like them, and more likely because from my past experiences as a bath boy and as a dancer I had a deeper understanding of what their lives were like and empathy toward them.

"Is it true you and Prince Abbas have travelled to Kashgar?" asked Najm, to whom I had taken a particular liking to because of the experience we had shared in the Sultan's apartments, and because we were of the same age.

"Yes, we did."

"What was Kashgar like?"

"Large, noisy, crowded, and filled with strange smells, some not that pleasant."

"It is the strange food they eat that gives their sweat such a strange smell," volunteered one small boy. "Or so I have been told," he added, looking down and squirming self-consciously as the others glanced at him.

"They say the mountains are twice as tall as here, and the peaks nobody has seen because they are constantly in the clouds."

"And the trails so narrow one must walk with one foot placed in front of the other, like an acrobat walking on a rope, with bottomless chasms on either side."

"Well, perhaps not that narrow," I replied, "but sometimes too narrow for a man to traverse mounted on a horse. And the chasms are usually on only one side, and though not bottomless, so many leagues deep one cannot hear a rock hit the bottom."

They looked at me with wonder, which to my shame I must admit I enjoyed.

"Have you really accompanied Prince Abbas in battle? And is he as fierce and as skilled as they say?" asked Ishaq.

"Yes, to both."

"Have you ever killed a man?"

"Yes. Many." To my great shame I revelled in the gasps and looks of worship on the faces of Ishaq and many of the younger boys.

"And have you caused some men to experience the little death? Prince Abbas perhaps?" asked Najm with a leer and to the amusement of the younger boys.

"Yes," I admitted, being familiar with that apt description of a man's orgasm.

"I thought so," he said, glancing triumphantly at several of the older boys. Evidently I had been a topic of conversation, and my role with the prince a matter of debate. "You are much too good looking to share the battlefield with him but not his bed."

"There are some you are best not to confess to that," warned one of the older boys.

"Yes. There are some who foolishly feel quite strongly against such a thing."

"But not our host." I observed.

"Oh no," Ishaq laughed. "He most certainly likes boys."

"As does his second oldest son, Baysinghar."

"But not his oldest, Mas'ud."

"Mas'ud will have nothing to do with boys. But he is in love with half the girls in Balkh," observed Najm, to which most nodded in agreement.

"If the cook's daughter were to bring him a peach pie, he would rather eat her kos than the pie."

"And find it even more delicious," observed one of the younger boys, much to the laugher of the rest.

"Right now he especially hungers for the pie of the daughter of Shaikh Abdu'l-lah Barlds and she is just as eager for him to sample it."

"With the encouragement of her father," said one of the oldest boys in a conspiratorial whisper. "The Bey knows who is the oldest son."

"There are some best not named for whom the same can be said about their eagerness to lick Baysinghar's ass crack," said another and they all nodded agreement.

"You had best be careful to whom you make comments such as that," warned one of the oldest boys. "If one of the Zoroastrians heard such talk, they have ways to make you name names, and that could cause serious trouble."

"Zoroastrians?" I asked.

"Those who are followers of the prophet Zoroaster. Gabars"

I looked at them blankly. From the way the older boy had said "Gabars" it was evidently a derogatory term.

"Before the people of Balkh were enlightened and embraced the faith of Islam, they followed the preachings of Zoroaster," explained one of the oldest boys. "There are still a few who follow his beliefs." (3)

"They foolishly worship a false god, a god they call Ahura Mazda, Lord Wisdom. They are evidently not so wise," a younger boy added with a giggle, pleased with his joke.

"I hear some worship many gods, even rain clouds," offered another, and several indicated hearing the same.

"And do not forget the fire god," added another. "For them fire is purifying and sacred."

"They leave their dead on platforms for the vultures to feed on," offered another, wrinkling up his nose, and several of the young boys made gagging and other noises of disgust.

"So why must one be careful about making a comment about some taking delight in licking Baysinghar's ass crack?" I asked bringing the conversation back, not just out of natural curiosity but always alert to anything that might remotely affect me.

"The Gabars do not look kindly upon those who have congress with their own gender."

"Though even on that they do not always agree amongst themselves," interjected another.

"True. Some say since there is no mention of sex in their sacred text, nothing is prohibited, something our Lord Mahmud would certainly support," the boy added, to the amusement and agreement of all around. "Others claim later writing says men who lay with men are Daeva, demons, and worship the devil and can be killed without needing permission of a priest."

"They say that when Ahriman, the Spirit of Aridity and Death and Lord of Lies, sought to destroy the world, he engaged in self sodomy which caused an explosion of evil power and resulted in the birth of a host of evil minions."

"Now that was one hell of a fart," exclaimed one to the amusement of the others, especially the younger.

"Now, self sodomy, would not that be something. If I could do that I would not need fat Mahmud's stubby cock or that of any man to please me."

"To do that a boy would need a zubr as long and flexible as a snake!"

"That would be something though, would it not? To be able to fuck one's own asshole!" Everyone murmured that it would, and fell silent as they considered what it would be like to have such a cock, and what it would be like to be able to do it to yourself. To my shame, I must admit that included even myself.

Several days later I saw first hand the truth of what the boys had said. Prince Abbas and I were at the market where Abbas was trying to convince a trader of silks that coming to Samarkand would be more profitable when there arose a commotion at one of the stalls selling perfume. From what we gathered from the bystanders, a man had purchased a vial of some exotic fragrance and another, a follower of Zoroaster, accused him of being a sodomite and purchasing the vial for his beloved. Another claimed to have witnessed the man buggering this supposed beloved. Emotions quickly arose and suddenly there was a crowd of Zoroastrians surrounding the man. To the protests of a nearby fruit peddler, they began grabbing fruit from his cart and throwing them at the man. Others found rocks, and finally one found a brick and struck the man in the side of head, causing him to fall to his knees.

Someone newly arrived on the scene asked what the man had done, and one of the mob attacking him replied that the man was a sodomite. "The Vendidad," he proclaimed, "says that the man who lies with mankind as a man likes with womankind, or as a woman lies with mankind, is a male paramour of the Daevas."

I glanced at Prince Abbas, waiting for a signal from him to intervene. The two of us in our mail and armed with swords could easily fend off the mob and save the man who was now curled up like a baby on the stones of the street and being repeatedly struck with rocks and clubbed with sticks. To my surprise, and disgust, he turned and walked away. As we headed back to the palace, we passed a file of Buddhist monks on their way to the market and he roughly pushed them aside, referring to them as stinking Chinamen and godless infidels. I followed in silence.

It is a confusing world we live in. A man, highly religious, who makes pilgrimages of hundreds of leagues to sacred sites of his faith, who prays faithfully five times a day and observes his faith's religious holidays, kills men ruthlessly and takes delight in seeing his enemy beheaded from the lowest soldier to the highest ranking commander and walks away when he can save a man who is being stoned to death for having sex with another of his gender while he himself engages in sex with young boys regularly and whose religion, according to many of its own priests, says the faithful will be served in all ways, including sex, by beautiful young boys upon death. Another group of priests, who pray to no god, condemn killing of all kind and practice abstinence as a way to reach their idea of heaven, is highly revered by the common people who are content with their lives and say the goal in this life is to lead a pleasant life so upon death one can be reborn to lead another pleasant life, which can include sex with the same gender if one so chooses. The first treats the second with disrespect and scorn, the latter treat the first with courtesy and regret that they are unenlightened. The first has the same god as Christians do and many of the same commandments and biblical personages, yet each considers the other infidels and while the latter condemns sex with the same gender and sex between men and boys, many of their most faithful and powerful leaders practice what others consider a sin. Still another group, the Zoroastrians, disagree if sex is even worthy of concern and yet one group sees sex between males as such a sin as to warrant killing one who practices such. Uncle has oft said that travel broadens one's knowledge and gives one greater insight into the meaning of life. I have found travel confuses one to the point where he wonders if there is any meaning at all.

That night, as every night, we feasted and were entertained with music and poetry, but I could not get out of my mind the sight of that man laying on the street, his blood soaking into the parched ground and his eyes begging for help. As the young serving boy approached with the jug of ma'jun, which I normally declined, I held forth my cup. I downed it quickly, and accepted a second and a third and a feeling of bliss passed over me. It was as if I had become detached from this world and was sitting there as an invisible observer. Sultan Mahmud's voice became even more irritating than usual, and his son Baysinghar's glances at me were even more blatantly lustful. It was a strange feeling and as I glanced around I was surprised by my powers of concentration as if every sound and every image had somehow become sharper. The drink did not improve our host's poetry though, and I found myself unable to suppress a giggle. Fortunately, it was a humorous poem, unlike most which he considered epic or romantic, and my giggling endeared me even more to the lustful heathen, a thought which caused me to giggle all the more. At some point I retired to my bed, though I do not recall how I got there, and only remember laying on my back as the most amazing kaleidoscope of colours revolved on the ceiling accompanied by Ghilman harpists.

Of Abbas's five cousins, I got to know Baysinghar the best. His older brother, Mas'ud, was a quieter sort and a romantic, girls appearing to be his one and only interest in life as I had heard from Mahmud's catamites, and his younger brother, Ali, was too haughty and too ambitious to speak to the lowly personal guard of his older cousin. The two youngest sons of Mahmud, Hussain and Wais, the first about the same age as Babur and the other a couple years younger, I saw little of. Baysinghar was the closest to my age, being only a year younger, and more gregarious and aggressive than his older brother. He reminded me very much of Abbas and I suspect Abbas would have been very much like him when he was fourteen.

Like Abbas, he was a complex combination of the good and the bad. He appeared to be fair and good-natured, and he was certainly learned, writing well, including what I considered quite good poetry, and he was not a bad painter, in my view anyway and I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable on the matter having accompanied Father and Uncle on many bartering sessions to add fine art to our merchandise. On the other hand, he showed signs of being cruel, heartless, and untrustworthy, traits he shared with his father and his brothers. He was also arrogant, proud, ambitious, and conniving, traits he shared with his younger brother, and from what I could tell his youngest brother who had at his young age a remarkably strong sense of family loyalty and honour. He also had an insatiable lust for boys. It was the latter that I suspect was the reason why of the five brothers he spent the most time in my presence. Put bluntly, he lusted after me. (4)

In my naivety and lack of worldliness, I did not realize that at first, and had assumed he had struck a more familiar relationship with me than his brothers because of our closeness in age and because we had several interests in common, including an appreciation of fine sculpture and paintings, music, horsemanship, and skill in use of the sword. It was one afternoon, about midway through our visit at Balkh, when he was giving me a tour of part of the palace and showing me some of his father's finest collection of paintings that we found ourselves in the hallway leading to his father's private chambers when two of his father's favourite catamites, the eight-year-old Abu who had joined Prince Abbas and myself that first night at Balkh, and another eight-year-old by the name of Hafiz, emerged from his father's apartments. I had at the time thought the encounter sheer coincidence, but realized later that Baysinghar had purposefully lead me to that hallway at that specific time when he knew from past routines of his father the two catamites would be dismissed.

"And here are two more fine examples of my father's taste in good pieces," he said, intercepting the two boys. "I believe you have already witnessed the skill of this beautiful boy in bringing pleasure," he said, indicating Abu. How he had known I did not know at the time, but I could not very well deny it. "But I do not suppose my father shared this fine piece with you," he continued, and again I had to admit he was right. "Well," he said, "how fortunate our timing. Let me make up for my father's lack of hospitality."

So surprised was I by this conversation, I did not know what to say, and before I could come to my senses he had turned the two boys and myself around and ushered us into his own private chambers which were close by. "You are still hot and flushed from pleasuring my father," he observed, turning and taking the boy Hafiz in his arms.

"Yes, my Prince," the boy replied, looking up at Baysinghar with eager anticipation.

"How nice of my father to warm you up for me," Baysinghar replied, bending over and kissing the boy on the lips. "How sweet. Father has rewarded you with honey cake and figs."

"Yes, he has."

"Well, I have something you can have just as tasty," he said with a leer, spreading his legs and grasping his crotch. The boy looked at his crotch and then up at him. "Well, come," he invited, gesturing at his crotch. The boy immediately stepped forward and dropping to his knees, parted Baysinghar's robes and drew down his silk thong. "Well, go on," he said, turning to Abu and myself. "I am sure after seeing Bey Kapalak's sausage you have been eager to sample it yourself, and I am sure after seeing Abu's capabilities you have been having wet dreams about experiencing his services."

They had not been wet, but I had on more than one occasion drifted off to sleep thinking about it. Abu immediately dropped to his knees before me, and like Hafiz, he quickly parted my robes and pulling down my pantaloons and thong, exposed my member. Taking it in his hot, little hand, he leaned forward and slipped his lips over it. Easing his lips down so he had my entire member in his mouth, he began to gently suck on it. Having the beautiful boy kneeling there sucking on my limp cock, his long, black lashes fluttering with pleasure and his saliva filling his mouth and basting my member, I immediately began to swell. This boy had just finished pleasuring our host, likely sucking his cock, and was now on his knees sucking mine. Hafiz had likely sucked Mahmud's cock also, and was now on his knees sucking the cock of the man's fourteen-year-old son. As witness to my own depravity, the perverse thought of that caused a surge of desire to pass up the core of my cock.

Baysinghar was soon erect, as were the two boys, having become erect without being touched evidence of their own pleasure. The two then turned and bent over and Baysinghar and I mounted the two boys, easily plunging our stiff cocks up their eager holes. As I began to draw my hips back, I felt Abu's anus tightly grip my member as it began to withdraw, and when I stopped and pushed forward again, his muscle relaxed. The boy knew what to do and was eagerly acting in concert, adding much to my own pleasure. It was most erotic knowing I was sliding my member in and out of the channel that only a candle mark earlier had been accommodating my host, and that I was actually sliding my member in and out of his slime and would soon be adding my seed to his. The fact that the same was true for Baysinghar was even more erotic. He was fucking the boy that his father had just fucked, sliding his cock in and out of the same hole now slimed with his father's seed, and soon his seed would be mixing with his father's. If a man's seed truly made a man out of a boy, I wondered what would be the effect of both the man's seed and that of his fourteen-year-old son's in the same boy.

So great was our lust that we came much too quickly, and so great was our lust that shooting our seed once was not enough. Soon we were erect once more, and switching partners, I plunged my cock up Hafiz's ass and Baysinghar plunged his up Abu's. He smiled over at me with a leer as the two of us began to ride our eight-year-old boy mounts once again, this time my stiff cock slipping in and out of Hafiz's hole lined with the seed of both my host and my host's son, and Baysinghar's cock easing in and out of Abu's ass slimed with his father's seed and mine. It took us longer the second time, much to our delight, and that of the two boys, who gave every indication that they delighted in their role, constricting and relaxing their assholes and at the end quivering and gasping with their own little boy orgasms.

The following day I joined Baysinghar in sword practice along with two brothers close to our age, Raif and Abdul, the sons of one of his father's begs, Shaikh Abdu'l-lah Barlds, the same man whom I had been told earlier encouraged a relationship between Baysinghar's older brother and his daughter. I had met the man but once, and that briefly, and though a pleasant man if there ever was a sycophant and a conniver, it was he. As was their custom, we practised with real weapons, the idea being, I was told, that it made a warrior sharper and more aggressive because if he did not do his best to defend himself he could be seriously wounded, even killed, which to them was just as well in that it was better a weak warrior be killed in practice instead of in battle where his death could contribute to the defeat of his army. Baysinghar and I paired off with the two brothers, first I and Raif, who was the younger of the two brothers and closer in age to Baysinghar but closer to my own build, and after a break, I and Abdul, who was closer to my age but closer to Baysinghar in bulk, the four of us pairing up not by similar ages but rather by perceived strengths.

The two brothers were earnest and skilled swordsmen and evidently spent much time in training from their muscular chests and thick and solid arms and legs. That they were battling with the son of their king did not lessen the fury of their attack either, evidently having less fear of being punished for injuring the prince than they had of being injured by the prince himself. Although obviously close friends, Baysinghar did not hold back on his attack either. By the end of our practice we were all gasping for breath and drenched in sweat. Two servants, the sons of peasants in their early twenties I guessed and whom I was told were working off debts their father's owed, were standing nearby and watching as the young Princes never seemed to be alone. Upon a signal from the Prince, we were served chilled flagons of ale, which we eagerly consumed to quench our thirsts.

"You are a skilled swordsman," observed Raif as he glanced at me admiringly. "No matter what I tried, I could not break your guard."

"Nor I," observed his brother. "You are almost as good as Baysinghar."

I could not miss the glance of admiration both brothers flashed at Baysinghar, nor the obvious obsequiousness of their flattery. One of Uncle's favourite quotes, 'Like father like sons,' came to my mind.

"And he is as an accomplished swordsman in the pillows as well," observed Baysinghar, much to my surprise and embarrassment.

"Really?" asked the two brothers with obvious interest.

"The first to pin the other's shoulders to the ground to the count of three mounts him," declared Baysinghar, leaping up and facing the two brothers.

They glanced at each other and then at Baysinghar and myself, and leaping to their feet, faced us, Baysinghar and Abdul, me and Raif, again pairing up not by age but by perceived strength. I quickly found that in wrestling I was outmatched. Raif was heavier than I by at least a stone, and stronger though the weaker of the two brothers, and he knew more about wrestling moves than I did. Three times in a row I found myself tossed on my back and him flinging himself upon me, and it was only because I was more slender and agile though older that I managed to squirm out of his grasp. Baysinghar and Abdul were more evenly matched in strength and both evidently trained in wrestling so to my three flips they had not yet tossed each other. My attempts to twist Raif to the ground were futile. Finally Abdul managed to topple Baysinghar and immediately straddled him and pushed down on his shoulders. Momentarily distracted, Raif did not see my approach and found himself on his back. I immediately flung myself on him, desperate and knowing I would not have another chance. This was much like our swordplay, fighting to win and knowing your opponent would show you no mercy. Caught by surprise, Raif was a moment too slow and I pinned his shoulders to the ground to the required count. Abdul at the same time was distracted by his brother's defeat, and found himself pinned down to a count of three also.

Whooping with delight, Baysinghar dropped his pantaloons and thong right there on the battle field and Abdul chucked his and got on his hands and knees and awaited his assault. To my surprise, his brother did likewise. I glanced around and found the courtyard empty except for the two servants standing in the shadows. With far less enthusiasm, I lowered my pantaloons and thong and stepped out of them.

"Come on, Bey Kapalak," Baysinghar called out in delight, using my title and the pet name Prince Abbas had chosen for me and introduced me as, the only name anybody knew me by, "let us show these two what it is like to be fucked by real men!" Grasping his member in his right hand, he began stroking it.

If someone had wagered with me a year and a half ago that I would not only willingly but eagerly arouse myself and mount another boy in the open where I could be seen and where at least two pairs of eyes were already trained on me, I would have eagerly taken his money and considered him a fool, but it is I who would have been the fool. To me, mounting the hot, sweating boy now expectantly kneeling before me on his hands and knees was a natural result and continuation of our wrestling match, and doing it there in the open for all to see was erotic, not shameful. All I can conclude in my defence now that the lust madness had passed, was that I have spent too many months in the company of these barbaric, crude warriors and am beginning to think and behave like them.

Baysinghar was erect first and spitting great gobs of spittle on his stiff cock to lubricate it, he mounted Abdul. The sight of the two healthy, muscular, sweating boys in the prime of their life lustfully copulating there in the dirt of the palace training grounds added to my own desire and my own member stiffened. Eager to unite with Raif before my member softened and embarrassed me, I knelt behind him and quickly spat on my cock to lubricate it as I had seen Baysinghar do. Placing the tip of my stiff cock against Raif's hole, I pushed forward, expecting resistance and pain. To my surprise he readily opened his anus and my stiff member penetrated him with relative ease considering there had been no foreplay and all we had for lubricant was spit. As I sank my cock up his ass until my coarse hairs were pressing against his naked buttocks, and as he tightened the grasp of his anus on my member as I drew my hips back and gradually drew my cock back out, I realized that Raif was as experienced at this as he was at swordplay, and that he had welcomed my penetration.

The four of us fucked there with the broiling afternoon sun baking the practice field until the ground cracked and turning our already dark skin darker. My back beaded with sweat and I felt it trickle down around my sides and along my ribs and from the hollow of my armpits, the fine hairs so damp they were plastered to my flesh. Raif was just as hot and sweaty, and the sour scent of his masculinity magnified my lust. I thrust my cock in and out of his hot, moist rectum, delighting in the pleasure it brought my knob and desiring the spending of my seed with greater desperation than I have ever recalled. Just as I had dominated him in wresting, now I was dominating him sexually. That feeling of dominance and power was new for me, being more accustomed to engaging in sex to bring my partner pleasure rather than myself and enjoying the incidental physical pleasure as a supplement to the pleasure found in pleasing another. I knew this feeling of dominance and power was a pleasure that Abbas experienced with the boys at the brothels and my first taste of it was intoxicating. The blood pulsated through my cock making it as stiff and hard as the blade of a sword and I thrust it in and out of Raif's body with mad desire. Harder and harder I fucked, and he met every thrust with equal enthusiasm. I closed my eyes as my head spun dizzily and I felt the pressure developing in my loins.

Spending my seed up Raif's ass, I clutched his body close to me and my head spun with the delight of my release. Spurt after spurt erupted from my cock and I closed my eyes in bliss as I filled his rectum. Finally the spurts subsided and I withdrew and collapsed on the ground in exhaustion and he collapsed beside me and we watched his older brother and Baysinghar tense and explode with Baysinghar's orgasm. As the prince drew his member out of Abdul's ass, a thick globule of seed bubbled at the tip, evidence that he had indeed shot his seed up Abdul's rectum, not that any of us had any doubt. They too collapsed on their backs in the sun and soaked in the heat and the pleasure that comes following sex.

I do not know how long we lay there, but after a bit Baysinghar reached over to Raif who was lying beside him, and running his fingers down over the boy's flat, muscular stomach and through the thick patch of dark, curly hairs, he wrapped them about the boy's limp member and began to stroke it. Raising up on his right arm and glancing over the two boys at me, Abdul raised his right eyebrow ever so slightly and I smiled and nodded. Quickly scrambling around the two boys, he lay on his back beside me and I reached over and picking up his fat, limp sausage I began to stroke it.

The two brothers were soon erect. Sitting up, they bowed their heads and spat on their cocks, the gobs of spit striking their circumcised bulbs and oozing down in a bubbly flood of slime over the sloping heads and down their shafts. The two brothers had similar builds, short and stocky, and their cocks were also the same, short and fat with two hairy, round testicles. Following Baysinghar's lead, I got to my knees and elbows and as Raif knelt behind Baysinghar Abdul knelt behind me. As he placed the hot, firm tip of his cock against my hole, I inhaled deeply and relaxed as I opened my anal muscle to him. Ever so slowly his spit-slick knob stretched open my eager hole, and although his cock was wider than most, his spittle and our desires combined with our experience resulted in the two of us uniting with a minimum of grunting and exertion and a minimum of pain. Raif and Baysinghar similarly united and again the four of us began to fuck, the two brothers working their cocks in and out of our bodies and Baysinghar and myself constricting and relaxing our anal muscles in time to their thrusts and withdrawals. Sweat began to trickle down my sides again, and Abdul's hot, sweaty hands grasped my hips and his hot, sweat-streaked thighs wedged in between mine. As I glanced over at Raif fucking Baysinghar I imagining Baysinghar's older brother Mas'ud fucking Raif's sister as openly and as lustfully and I wondered if Raif's sister would enjoy being fucked by a Mirza as much as Baysinghar was enjoying being fucked by a Barld.

We had not said anything about switching positions in our wrestling challenge and the ease with which they had made the switch was evidence that they had done this before, either as a threesome or with some fourth party, very likely one of Baysinghar's father's catamites. As Abdul thrust his cock in and out of my rectum, I wondered if the two brothers engaged in sex with the prince to gain his favour, or if they did it because they were boys who enjoyed other boys. That their father had encouraged their relationship with the prince had been evident to my eyes as was his own supplicant behaviour to Baysinghar's father. I wondered if in encouraging that relationship he knew they would be engaging in sex. That raised another possibility, that his two sons engaged in sex with the prince because they were obeying their father, and that including me was purely because I was there. What sort of boys would engage in sex with other boys because their father expected them to? What sort of father would encourage his sons to enter into a relationship that he knew would involve them having sex with other boys? It was while thinking such thoughts that I felt Abdul grasp my hips and heard him grunt with the release of his seed and I too arched my back and sighed with the pleasure of having my rectum flooded with another boy's hot, thick seed. (5)

Another fawning noble I met at the Balkh court was the Wazir Khosru Shah, an old, fat, little man whose lack of nobility and culture made him stand out. I had a very different feeling about him compared to Shaikh Barlds and I instinctively did not trust the man. I mentioned my feelings to Abbas, who laughed and said that none of the nobles at Balkh, or Samarkand for that matter, were trustworthy, and were as likely to murder or blind you in your bed as he was to roll over and present his backside for your pleasure.

Abbas could easily be included in such company. Baysinghar's attraction to me had not gone unnoticed, and Abbas encouraged me to indulge in his younger cousin's erotic desires, in part, as a gift from one cousin to another, and in part to seek out any information regarding his father's loyalties and defences that would be useful to know. I was most uncomfortable doing so. I was not some common whore slave to be lent to another for his pleasure as if I were a prize bull, and I resented Abbas's attitude as such toward me. More and more he had begun treating me like some pretty bauble to flaunt before others to raise their envy but clearly to me a bauble that was of no more value than a dozen others in his treasure chest. That, combined with his arrogance, cruelty and disrespect toward others was beginning grate on me. I was also most uncomfortable using Baysinghar that way, using him to spy on his father although I had already seen evidence of the way he himself used other people for his own gain. Of course that he was attractive and eager and from what I had seen obviously skilled in the bedchamber and my flesh was weak compounded the problem.

After days of being pressured from both sides, I finally gave in, telling myself that my decision was not out of obedience to Abbas, nor due to seduction by Baysinghar, but for myself. As I have said, he was attractive, and a cultured and learned individual, one with whom it would not be unpleasant having congress, and after all I have had to suffer and all the disappointments upon having arrived in this heathen land, I deserved to pleasure myself.

It was not difficult to find an occasion for it to happen. Baysinghar, it seemed, was always finding ways for the two of us to be alone. On the day it happened, we had gone out for an afternoon of falconry, a pastime enjoyed by both Baysinghar and his father. There were just the two of us and we were rewarded early in the afternoon with four fat game birds. Having no desire to return to the palace so early, we hooded the bird and lounged in the cool shade beside a small creek. Unable to resist, Baysinghar began to flirt once more, but this time I encouraged him and responded in like, much to his surprise, and to his pleasure from the swelling in his pantaloons. As he leaned forward to kiss me, I tilted my head and closed my eyes and received the kiss on my lips. As I half raised my eyelids and looked into his hot, smoldering eyes, my member throbbed in response, a reaction he could not help noticing with his hand grasping my member through my pantaloons.

We kissed and caressed as we disrobed each other, not quickly and filled with passion as one might have expected after avoiding this for so long, but slowly and deliberately, wanting so much to please the other and for that pleasure to be special. By the time we were both naked our blood was coursing through our veins, but we were not yet erect. My skin was considerably lighter than his and I was afraid for a moment he might question my lack of colouration, but instead he commented on my caramel tone and how attractive he found it. He said he had heard those from the West were of such tones, and that he imagined the Ghilman in Paradise to be of such colour. I told him that they were, those from the West I mean, but I did not tell him just how far to the West I came from I returned the complement, sincere in my praise, remarking on his firm muscles and their sharp definition and the bronze tone of his skin which I in turn found attractive.

"If we could have a child, it would be the perfect colour," he observed as he fondled my rapidly swelling member and delicate stones.

"If it were possible, it would be an honour to bear your child," I responded, gently stroking his now erect, yellow-brown member, the knob blending into a slightly darker brown. All I can say now in my defence is that he was attractive and poetic and compared to many others I have had congress with most desirable.

We pressed our naked bodies against each other, pinning our erect members between our flat stomachs, and we kissed and caressed each other's back and backsides. As he rolled me over on my back, I willingly spread my legs and allowed him to fall between them. We were both experienced at this sport, and both eager, and we easily shuffled into position, him kneeling between my now outspread legs and balancing himself on his knees and elbows, me raising my hips and wrapping my legs about his waist. As I felt his knob probe between my legs, I opened my anus and drew him to me, and he slipped his slender, stiff member into me with skill and a minimum of pain despite the lack of lubricant. We embraced and kissed with him embedded deep inside me, him enjoying the sheer delight of having his member surrounded by my hot, moist flesh, and me enjoying having my body penetrated by his long, firm muscle.

We fucked slowly, and together, each enjoying the other, neither of us in a hurry to end our pleasure, the luxury of being fourteen and fifteen years of age. I could feel his member throbbing hotly inside me and I clasped it with my anus and closed my eyes with the pleasure of being stuffed, and of having my anus stretched. It burned and tingled with the same pleasure as the rim of my knob, the same pleasure as I knew was ringing his knob. Slowly we built to that ultimate pleasure, the release of seed, the cool fall breeze blowing gently through the trees, the air fresh and clean with the scents of fall here in the mountain country. When he came, he grasped my shoulders and shuddered with pleasure, and I too shuddered as I felt his hot, thick seed flood my rectum.

"There is no greater pleasure than that of a boy," he said later, curled up in my arms on the bank of the river.

"Except perhaps a melon," I replied, and he laughed.

"Prince Abbas is a lucky man." I looked down at him. "You are more than his body guard and comrade at arms." It was an observation, not a question.

"At times, though not lately." I had no reason to lie.

"He has many distractions," he said with a shrug. "My father's catamites, his attempts to lure the merchants from Balkh to Samarkand, his attempts to discover my father's political ambitions and military strategies."

"You know of all that?" I asked in surprise.

"I am my father's son," he replied with a smile. "My uncle Ahmad does not send the son of his concubine, his only son, to his brother's demesne out of family friendship and brotherly loyalty. He is as untrustworthy of my father as my father is of him."

"And should your uncle be distrustful?" I found myself asking.

"Of course. And should my father be distrustful of his brother and his brother's concubine's son?"

"Of course," I replied, and he laughed. "And is that why you have sought congress with me, to confirm my Prince's intentions and perhaps find out more?"

"I have sought congress with you because you are more beautiful than any of my father's concubines or any boy I have ever met, and merely being in your presence causes my cock to become inflamed with fire." As I said, he had a flair for the poetic.

"Then we have the same reason," I responded, caressing his naked backside and leaning forward to kiss his forehead.

He responded by wriggling up so that my middle finger was wedged between his buttocks and our lips met. I knew that sex was not the only reason he had wanted to unite with me, and he knew the same to be true for me, but it was the primary reason for both of us, and we both knew that as well. His tongue wormed into my mouth and duelled with my tongue, and he reached down and grasped my growing member as I reached over and wrapped my fingers about his bronze dagger and all other thoughts fled from our minds and lust took over once again. I ran my fingers lightly over his firm, muscular chest, still devoid of hair as was mine, and I ran them down his thick, broad thighs, firm as oaks but quivering like aspen leaves as my fingers skipped over the sensitive skin. Our lips met repeatedly and we shared tongue, his in my mouth and then mine in his. My heart speeded up and my blood raced through my veins and my head spun with the heady delight of arousal. He rolled over onto his back, drawing me with him, and as he spread his legs, mine fell between them. I quickly positioned myself on elbows and knees and drove my hips forward and he eagerly opened up to me. We were of like minds, he and I, at least at that moment, two hale young boys full of lust and needful, and capable of fulfilling that need in each other.

Sinking my member up his rectum, I paused to relish the delight of having my member surrounded by his flesh, and then I slowly began to work my hips to and fro, driving my cock in and out of his hot, moist rectum as he alternately squeezed it with his anus and then relaxed. Having just stuffed my rectum with his member, he knew exactly how I was feeling, and having been on my back being fucked by him I knew how he was feeling. It was different from the other sex that I had here at Balkh. His father's catamites bent over for his father and for him because such was expected of them. Their pleasure came from providing others pleasure and that was enough. The sons of Shaikh Abdu'l-lah Barlds may have bent over for Baysinghar because they enjoyed it, but they also knew by catering to him they were ensuring their future, and that of their father. There was no such expectation between the two of us, and for me, and I suspect for him, that made all the difference. He had fucked me and I was fucking him for pure pleasure, his and mine.

So I knelt there in the shade that hot fall afternoon in the mountain country of Badakhshan and fucked the ass of Prince Abbas's fourteen year old cousin, a Tamurid warrior prince himself, and I filled his ass with my seed as he had filled mine, the two of us clutching each other in that moment of ultimate bliss, that moment of sharing my orgasm, as it should be. My stiff cock still spurting out my seed deep inside him, we closed our eyes and kissed and his lips were salty and his breath sweet and for a while I just enjoyed being a boy.

After ten days of such dalliance, we at last packed our belongings and continued on our way, a short, easy ride of five days along a well-used trail to Kabul high in the Sefid Koh Mountains, a major trading centre with a connection to the southeast by a winding, narrow pass of about ten leagues walled by precipitous cliffs. It had been ruled by Sultan Abu Sa'id Mirza as part of the Timur Empire until his death in 1469 and was now ruled by his youngest son, Sultan Ulugh Beg Mirza, Abbas's youngest uncle. Although an easy trip, it was an unpleasant one, Abbas being in a foul mood, in part because I suspect he missed the sexual pleasures he had enjoyed, both from his uncle's chosen catamites and from the female whores from the abundant houses of pleasure in Balkh, and in an even greater part because he had to have sensed his uncle's covetousness for his father's land, and for the greatest part of all, because he had been unsuccessful in luring the merchant trade north to Samarkand and had been unable to find any chink in his uncle's defences.

The merchant trade was unfortunately for me a topic that easily roused his anger yet one that I dared to broach with greater frequency and insistence. For one, his increased surliness and my increased awareness of the darker side of his personality had become a wedge between us and I was eager to part company with him. That was acerbated by the fact that Kabul was the furthest south we would be travelling, his plan being to return to Samarkand some one hundred and seventy leagues back to the north. I, on the other hand, was eager to continue south and west with the hopes of some day returning home, particularly now that my hope of completing the Silk trail to its end and reporting back my findings to Father and to my King had been proven futile. That desire to part company grew even stronger upon our arrival at Kabul and my discovery of the number of merchant caravans that travelled to centres to the west and south, particularly now as winter approached the highlands. If I did not make my move soon, we would be snowbound in the mountains until spring.

Although our relationship had changed, Abbas stubbornly refused to allow me to go, even when I pointed out that I was his personal guard, not a serf or a slave, one who was under his pay and a free man, as I had been the day we had met. Greater pay, greater respect and greater prestige he had promised, and for me, there had been the unspoken lure of exploring the Silk Road. He curtly replied that I had received all that he had promised, pay, respect, and prestige, and I would leave only when and if he granted me such leave. So strained had become our relationship, that I seriously considered slipping away in the night with some caravan and taking my chances even though I knew to do so would be taken as an affront by him and he would lead the charge west and search every caravan he encountered until he found me.

I was imagining just such a move on his part our third evening in Kabul and picturing our subsequent sword fight and my inevitable demise, which, I must admit to my discredit, I was beginning to think was preferable to the life I was leading. We were dining with his uncle and a select number of nobles from his uncle's court. I was relegated to a table of lesser dignitaries three tables from the important dinner guests, there being no need for my role as Prince Abbas's guard in the dining room of the palace of his uncle, and my position as his comrade at arms now downplayed. I was so immersed in my misery and contemplation of my death that I largely ignored the conversation about me, of which I had no interest anyway, and I did not notice the sudden commotion at the head table until I heard Syed call my name. Abbas was sprawled back on the cushions, grasping his throat and frothing at the mouth, Syed at his side, the goblets and dinner plates before them overturned.

My first thought was that he had been attacked, and cursing myself for my distraction and self-pity, I drew my sword and pushed my way through the now milling, confused nobles and guests to my prince's side. From the choking sounds he was making, my second thought was that he was choking on a bone or some such, no surprise considering the gluttonous way he often ate, especially once he had been drinking. By the time I reached his side, the froth at his mouth and his bulging eyes revealed the truth-poison.

"Find the serving boy and bring him to me, alive," Syed ordered.

"Serving boy?"

"The boy who served the Prince coffee. Do not let him escape!"

I questioned those who had been sitting beside the Prince, including his uncle, which way the boy had gone, and fingers pointed in all directions, north, south, east and west. I asked what he looked like or what he had worn and got blank looks. Who pays attention to a serving boy unless he is particularly attractive and the observer finds pleasure in attractive boys? Knowing I would get no answers there, I pushed my way through the now half-panicked crowd to the kitchens where I cornered the head server, who identified the name of the boy who had been assigned to serve coffee to the guests at the head table and gave me a description. I and Sultan Ulugh Beg Mirza's own guards began an immediate search of the palace, and then the surrounding environs, myself not trusting the guards and conducting my own search of areas they had covered. Our search turned up nothing.

Returning to Prince Abbas's room, I found that he had died almost instantly, the result of poisoned coffee as Syed had concluded. Syed's coffee apparently had also been poisoned, but realizing what had happened to him, Abbas had knocked the mug out of his hand. None of the other mugs were tainted, which Ulugh Beg Mirza proved by forcing one of his serving boys to drink from each of the mugs on the head table, proving that Abbas and Syed had been specifically targeted. I suddenly realized with a sinking feeling that had I been granted a place of honour beside the prince as I had at the beginning of this journey, my cup would likely have been poisoned too, and I could have just as easily been killed along with Prince Abbas, or perhaps before he had a chance to sip his own fatal drink. My earlier musing about being better dead I now viewed much differently.

The household staff was interrogated, by Ulugh Beg Mirza and separately by Syed and myself. The boy had never expressed any political inclinations one way or another, nor any dissatisfaction with the ruling family, and did not even appear to know anything about Prince Abbas and his father. He did not associate with anyone of suspect, nor had he been seen talking to anyone suspicious. He had said nothing to his closest friends that would give suspect as to his reason, and all his most frequent haunts came up empty. Finally, in the early hours of the next morning, his body was found, in the well in a market square some distance from the palace, in an area known to be frequented by the less desirable citizens. The gash on the back of his head could have been caused when he bent over too far and toppled into the well and accidentally drowned, or he could have been hit on the head and knocked unconscious and then tossed into the well by whichever thief had come across him and robbed him of whatever little coin he had. Considering his age and that he was a serving boy, both seemed unlikely. More likely it was no chance meeting and he had come to that well to be paid by whomever had hired him to poison the prince, the promise of wealthy always a temptation to those who have little likelihood of ever having any, and instead had been dumped into the well to silence him. It mattered not. The truth would never be known.

"Who could be responsible for this? Sultan Ulugh Beg Mirza?" I asked softly, Syed and I having assured first that there was nobody within hearing.

"Unlikely. He may have wished his nephew's death, but he would not be so foolish as to have him poisoned at his very own table in his very own palace under his very own guards. He would have waited until he was on the road again, or perhaps at one of the houses of pleasure the Prince liked to frequent," replied Syed.

"Then who?"

"Any number of people," Syed whispered. "Prince Abbas was the only son of Sultan Ahmad Mirza. If the Sultan were to die now, there would be no male heir."

"So who would inherit his land and title?"

"Next in line would be his oldest brother, Sultan Mahmud Mirza of Balkh."

"He has the most to gain. It must be him."

"It could just as well be his younger brother, Omar Shaikh Mirza."

"But he seemed so content at Farghana. He did not seem at all interested in his brother's kingdom or going to war."

"They are all interested. It is the nature of princes," Syed replied. "It could just as well be Mirza Abu Bakr. He was certainly far from welcoming to the Prince, and could not have been pleased the Prince had come there to lure merchant trade to Samarkand. On the other hand, it could just as easily not be any of the royal family. There are many nobles who would benefit from the death of Prince Abbas and the lack of a son as heir to Samarkand."

"Wazir Khosru Shah?"

"Chief among them. That is an ambitious man, and a cruel one. And then again it might have nothing to do with governing and heirs at all. Prince Abbas's pleasures are well known, and not everyone is supportive of such interests. You are aware of how he treats boys for hire." It was a statement, not a question, and I nodded. "Could be that the owner of one of the establishments did not appreciate the way his employee was abused and sought retribution, or decided to see that other owners did not have to suffer the same as he." My thoughts turned to my own abuse as a bath boy in Istanbul at the hands of an abusive client, a member of royalty also. Sulayman would never have dared to go so far, but then this was not Istanbul and these men were far crueler and more cold-hearted than Sulayman could ever be. Syed could very well be right. "And there are those who do not hold favour with sex between men, not even that between men and boys." I immediately thought of the man being stoned by the Gabars.

"So, there is no way to know for sure." Syed shook his head. "So now what?"

"I have already sent a message to Sultan Ahmad Mirza. I will prepare the Prince's body and see it is transported to Samarkand." He paused and looked down at the table for a moment before looking up at me. "As for you, it is time for you to begin your journey home as you have wanted." I looked at him in surprise, not just that he would support such a thing, but that he even knew of my wishes. He was a travelling companion and guide in this strange land, but we were never close. "One would have to be blind and deaf not to have noticed your arguments with the Prince, especially one as close to the Prince as I." It had been foolish of me to have thought otherwise. He leaned closer and spoke more softly. "Truth be told, if one looks closely, one can tell you are not of this breed of man. You are not even of this land."

"How long have you known?"

"Since the day I laid eyes on you, the day when you returned with the Prince from the dance troupe in Tabriz. I knew then you were no Arab."

"And you have said nothing."

"What was there for me to say? You did save the Prince's life, of that I am sure. And you did please the Prince and make him happy, for a much longer time than any other boy has. That I have seen also, and that was all that was important and all I needed to know. Now things have changed. Now is your chance. You have wanted to travel home. Join one of the caravans this day and leave."

"But would that not look suspicious? If you were aware of our disagreement, others must also. I could have had him poisoned because he would not release me."

"I have considered that," Syed said frankly to my surprise. "You have reason, and you have the wealth that you could use to tempt a poor, illiterate serving boy. But you are not of that nature. You saved his life once. You lived to serve him, with your sword, and with your body, despite his cold heart and arrogant ways. There are many who know that, including his father. Besides, if we lined up everyone the Prince had a disagreement with, that line would stretch from here to Samarkand. Now he is gone. There is nobody for you to be a personal guard to any longer. And you have done all that could be done to find his killer. I will attest to that to Sultan Ahmad Mirza. That you would choose to seek your fortunes elsewhere at this time would not be unexpected. I do not see you as the type to return to Samarkand to settle down and raise horses on your beylik," he concluded with a smile.

That was true. Thanking him and wishing him well, I quickly gathered up my few belongings and headed to the marketplace for whatever awaited me before Syed, or I, had a change of mind. (6)

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