Scrimshaw & Zelamir

Tribute Boys II:
The Boy Hunting Party

Chapter 7
The Hunt in the Picos

Chapter 7a

Karl speaks

I had ridden down to his father's small holding to collect him before the Germans arrived at the Hunting Lodge the previous afternoon. I had ordered Jonathan to run beside my horse. He needed hardening after his injuries if he was to not to disgrace the Hacienda at the great Carnival. Julio must have been watching for me for as I reigned in my horse outside the house he darted out to welcome me. I saw him hesitate when he caught sight of Jonathan, who stood panting from his run ready to take the reigns from me as I dismounted, but then ran forward once more. He pushed the brat out of the way and took my reigns himself. Jonathan stood meekly to one side his head bowed. He knew better than to tangle with a free boy.

"Your father in, Julio?" I asked.

"Yes Sir," he replied, "he's been about the place all afternoon." He glanced at Jonathan again and added, "I thought you might have brought Jacinto with you, Sir. Is he all right."

"Your brother is well Julio and Don Carlos has agreed to take him into his service."

"I am glad of that Sir but… I wish Jacinto could have stayed with us here."

"Julio," I said as kindly as I could, "that is a wicked thought. It question's both the will of god and the basic law. I am sure Father Pio has explained that to you. It is Jacinto's fate to serve and by doing he earns the privilege of helping to see your parents have a prosperous and happy old age. We should all be thankful to god and the wisdom of our rulers that have made this possible."

"I know Sir… But I do miss him, Sir."

I laughed and pulled the boys ear fondly. It is impossible to convince a young boy if he has something fixed in his mind however self evident the truth involved.

"Take the pony round to the yard and get the brat to water it," I said. "I've just got to have a word with your father and then I'll take you up to the lodge. Our day will start very early tomorrow."

I watched him lead the horse away his bare feet scuffing the dust of the track, his only clothing the same pair of scrupulously clean but thread bare shorts that he had worn when I had seen him last. I suspected that they were the only clothes that he possessed. I had brought with me that which would allow his parents to replenish his wardrobe. I felt as I followed him with my eyes that it would be a pity if they did so his current shorts small and tight as they were showed off the contours his firm boy's rump so admirably.

I turned to see his father standing at the door of the cottage.

"Bartolomé," I said striding up to him and grasping his hand, "how are you, old friend?"

"Well Señor," he replied returning my hand shake and standing to one side to allow me by, "as I hope you are."

I entered the cottage and a moment later I was seated as Maria, Bartolomé's wife brought bread and ham and a jug of cider to the table. Only when these had been served and Bartolomé and I had discussed the weather, farming and the prospects for the coming hunt did Maria venture to speak and raise the matter foremost in all our minds but which neither Bartolomé had I had found a means of bringing forward which did not contravene the bounds that courtesy imposed on guest and host.

"Pardon me, Señor?" She asked nervously, "but do you have news of our youngest son."

"Hush women," Bartolomé said imperiously, "how dare you trouble our guest with such a trivial matter after so long a journey," and then, honour satisfied, turned to me eager to hear my answer to his wife's question.

"The boy is well, Señora," I replied. "I have presented him to Don Carlos and he has expressed himself honoured to be offered the services of so intelligent and beautiful child an offer he gratefully accepts. The formalities of Tribute have to await the arrival of the Tribute Officer at the Hacienda (I saw no reason to distress these two good people with an account of the outrageous suggestions of the Germans that had actual caused the postponement of this) but meanwhile the boy is safe and under the protection of Don Carlos himself."

"My employer has entrusted to me the Tribute money due and begs you to do him the honour of accepting it now as to delay payment until the actual moment of Tribute although customary would not appear to be necessary between gentlemen."

I reached in my pocket and drew out my purse, uncharacteristically heavy and counted out the traditional ten gold coins onto the table.

"He asks that you should further accept as his inadequate recognition of the quality of the boy this further sum."

I counted five more gold coins into a separate pile. There was dead silence. Then Maria rose from her chair with a clatter and pressing her apron to her eyes ran from the room. I listened to her muffled sobbing through the kitchen door as Bartolomé sat silent staring blindly forward.

"So," he said eventually, tapping the bigger of the two piles of coins with his forefinger, "this is the price of our Jacinto. His spirit, his laughter and his beauty."

He bowed his head and covered his eyes with one hand for a moment.

"It is the law," Bartolomé I said gently.

"The law, Señor. Do you have a son, Señor. No I know you do not. To be told it is the law is poor consolation to a father."

I knew then how deeply Bartolomé felt the loss for loss it was of his son. He would never otherwise have twitted me with my own childless and unmarried state.

"Forgive me, Señor," he said after a further moments silence, "I should not have spoken thus."

"There is nothing for me to forgive my old friend," I replied. "My own remark was foolish and crass."

"The law. It is the law," Bartolomé repeated tapping the coins again. "Well so it is and we must live within it."

Another long silence and then Bartolomé spoke again.

"There is another matter, Señor, that I have to raise with you, a somewhat embarrassing one. Julio is hardly adequately supplied for work in the mountains. He was so keen to serve you that I did not want to gainsay him and I know he misses Jacinto and it would be as well if he were kept busy and occupied away from here. Now I have the means to correct that deficiency but the hunt I suppose begins tomorrow. If Señor I was to give you one of these," he picked up one of the gold coins and offered it to me, "perhaps it would be possible for you to arrange for someone to purchase him a good coat and boots and whatever else you feel he needs."

"Bartolomé," I said waving away the coin, "it is not necessary," for some reason I felt myself profoundly grateful to be spared having to take the money, " the boy's equipment is all looked after."

I saw the look of anger on my friends face and hurried on.

"Listen, Bartolomé. It is the wish of my master Don Carlos that those that serve him in the hunting field are correctly equipped and dressed and therefore he provides such servants of his with clothes for the chase. It is, I assure you, usual. My contract with him entitles me to two serviceable sets of outdoor clothing a year, the under keepers and grooms have similar terms in their contracts for somewhat inferior quality clothes. It is Don Carlos's duty similarly to provide Julio while he is acting as my assistant on the hill clothing appropriate to his duties. It would be a great discourtesy to prevent him from fulfilling that duty and the matter is already taken care of."

"Now if Julio is ready…"

The boy appeared at that moment with such promptitude as to make me suspect that he had been listening at the kitchen door.

"I am ready Sir," he said eagerly. "Your horse and brat are in the yard. Shall I get them round to the front for you?"

"No Julio, thank you. I must just speak to your mother and thank her for the food and drink before we go."

"She went out in the yard, Sir."

"Very well, I will come through and find her."

I got up and turned to say good bye to Bartolomé.

"Look after Julio, Señor, please" he said shaking me by the hand. "He is the only one we have left now."

Julio followed me out into the yard. I looked about for Maria but could not see her. I spotted Jonathan squatting by the tethered pony chewing on a piece of bread.

"You thieving lump of dog's shit," I shouted at him. "How dare you steal scraps from these good people. I'll have the skin of your bum for this."

I slipped the leather strap from my pocket and advanced on him my arm raised ready to strike. The slut cowered away from me forcing the whole of a considerable chunk of bread and what made it worse a large slice of cheese into his mouth so that his cheeks swelled. It was clear that he was trying to get as much food into himself before I snatched it away from him.

"Oh Señor," Maria had appeared at the door way of the barn, "please don't beat the boy. I gave him the bread and cheese. I saw him there looking so lonely and defenceless with nobody to care for him and with that scar on the inside of his. I thought perhaps if I showed him kindness then perhaps someone sometime might do the same for our poor Jacinto."

I dropped my hand and replaced the strap in my pocket. I felt it was extremely unlikely that anyone other than a silly soft hearted woman like my old friend's wife would show any kindness to a Tribute Brat but I kept this opinion to myself.

"I won't beat him this time, Señora," I said reassuringly.

"Get up, you lazy little brute," I snapped at the slut and as is the custom drew back my foot to reinforce my command with a kick. Then I felt Maria's eyes on me and I stopped.

At a word from me Julio sprang easily onto the back of my pony and settled himself on it's crupper firm brown thighs clamped tight to it's flanks. Turning away I swung myself into the saddle. With Jonathan running beside us I trotted the pony out of the yard. As I passed Maria I called out "thank you Señora" and was amazed to hear a "thank you mistress" from Jonathan running at my knee. My first reaction was of fury that a brat should have the temerity to ignore the universal law that Tribute stock did not speak unless spoken to and the insolence to imagine that a free citizen would care for a mere sluts gratitude. Later I was to wonder that he had been able to swallow the mass of food crammed into his mouth in time to speak at all.

I had no hesitation. What ever Maria's sentimental concern for her youngest son, I could not tolerate such impertinence. I raised my riding crop over my head and brought it slashing down across the boy's narrow shoulders scoring a crimson line across the smooth bare flesh. Jonathan howled and staggered under the impact of the blow. I kicked my horse into a sharp canter. I wanted to get back quickly to the lodge to give the slut a much needed lesson in the respect due from Tribute to free.

When we reached the lodge I spotted Guy lurking by the gate. I was not surprised to see him there. He seemed never to be far away when Jonathan was in trouble. I shouted at him to take my horse's reigns. I stood tapping my leggings impatiently with my crop waiting for Jonathan to catch up. It is almost impossible for even the fittest and fastest of boys to keep up with a cantering horse over anything but a very short distance and to be fair to the brat he did not keep me waiting long. I however was in no mood to be fair indeed fairness and brats do not in my opinion go together. Fairness after all implies rights and Tribute stock have none.

"What do you mean, you useless piece of filth, keeping me waiting." I raged

"Master I'm sorry Master…" he gasped as he struggled to recover his breath.

"Do you think I care," I shouted slapping him hard across the head, "or anyone cares if you're sorry. What you are is of no importance to anyone."

"And what do you mean by daring to speak to a free lady without being spoken to first. I suppose you had the insolence to beg that bread and cheese off her too."

Jonathan made no effort to defend himself which was just as well for him but just stood there with his head bowed as I shouted at him. At these words though he muttered incoherently.

"What did you say boy… What … Speak up brat."

"Master, I said Master I didn't beg from her, Master. Please Master, she was a kind lady."

"A kind lady," I said imitating his whine and so you repaid her kindness by inflicting your thanks on her. Do you think a free lady like her cares anything for the thanks of a miserable little Tribute slut like you?"

I was amazed when the boy lifted his head and looked up into my face.

"Master," he whispered desperately, "she was kind lady."

"Turn round," I commanded. "Bend forward, spread your legs, get your bum up in the air and take hold of the railings in front of you."

I once more pulled my strap from my pocket.

"Julio," I said handing him the strap, "let me see you good you are at beating a slut. Six strokes and I want you to make him scream. Keep off that scar inside his leg though. I want him to run tomorrow so I don't want that ripped open again."

Julio took the strap from me and weighed it in his hand he seemed somewhat hesitant and uncertain of himself. I guessed that this was probably the first time he had been called upon to actually discipline Tribute stock. I watched him closely. It is not given to everyone to be a natural flogger of boy's flesh. It is a skill some have to learn. If Julio was to be a real help to me it was important that if the skill did not come to him naturally he learnt it quickly.

"Get it right back over your head and lay it on with plenty of follow through," I said quietly.

He swung the strap back and then brought it ripping down across the tightly drawn skin of Jonathan's bare bottom. I need not have worried after the first stroke Julio flogged with enthusiasm and confidence. The quiet of the evening was broken by the unmistakable sounds of a brat being flogged, the howls and sobs of the slut being disciplined punctuated by the sharp crack of leather striking unprotected boy's flesh.

With the sixth stroke Julio showed not only that he could flog with the best of us but if he had not actually wielded the strap before he had watched and watched intelligently others doing so.

He shortened the strap and taking careful aim slashed it down so that it's two metal tipped ends curled into the boy's crack seeking out the tenderest recesses of his body. The blow was accurately and shrewdly struck. The tips snapped down across the lips of the brat's anus. Jonathan screamed shrilly and collapsed to his knees. Strictly he should have been beaten again for loosing position but his hands still grasped the railings and I decided to be merciful. I turned away and walked into the lodge accompanied by Julio. Guy was left to look after my horse and to comfort his friend whose beating had been obliged to watch.

"I think, Sir," Julio remarked, "my Mother would have been quite pleased with the brats thanks."

I did not of course say so to the boy but his comment confirmed me in the view that Maria despite many sterling qualities was a very foolish woman. I decided when opportunity arose to have a quiet word with Bartolomé. The authorities are always rightly on the watch for anyone whose views or actions might undermine the achievements so hardly won by the church and army during the last great patriotic war.

Chapter 7b

"Filthy black bastard," Juan's little champion screeched as I passed him, "I'll split your balls open with my spurs."

"White shit," Torres' boy yelled back, "I'll hack your heart out of your carcass and eat it raw."

Farmer Torres was standing just inside the front door.

"I think we will have a good fight," he remarked jovially once we had exchanged greetings.

"They seem well matched," I replied, "and have plenty of spirit."

"Spirit," Torres agreed, "that's the secret when training fighting brats. Making them want to fight, making them eager for their opponents blood and willing to go on even if their own flesh has been cut to ribbons."

Catching sight of Julio standing behind me he stopped.

"Hello, young man," he said, "your Bartolomé's oldest boy, aren't you? I suppose Karl your boss has taken young Jacinto? I thought he would. A pity if I could have laid my hands on him I'd have made him into a champion fighting boy. He had the configuration, a strong little animal and wiry with it. And he had spirit. He looked a good fuck to."

Then he roared with laughter.

"Same spirit that our young friend here has got. Look at him red in the face and clenching his fists because I said his little brother'll be a good fuck."

"Listen lad," he continued, " he's a Tribute Slut now on Don Carlos's Hacienda, or soon will be, and you'd best hope for his own sake that he makes a good whore because that's what the good Don wants him for."

Fortunately perhaps at this point the shrill flood of invective from the two fighting boys rose to a crescendo drowning out for the moment all other sounds.

"Listen to them," cried Torres delightedly when the noise had abated a bit, "they're really thirsting for each others blood. It'll be a good fight that's certain. I wonder Karl if you'd act as referee, both Juan and I would be glad if you would."

It was a great compliment to be asked. Cock fighting is like horse racing and dealing. For some reason men of honour, men who would scorn to tell a lie, who would not steal money or cheat at cards or rape a friend's favourite slut, will, without a qualm, try to twist the laws or attempt to ignore them altogether if by that means they might obtain an advantage. To be asked to see fair play in such a match shows not only that you have expertise in the field but that you are also trusted by both sides. I could not refuse but having accepted I put my arm round Julio's shoulders and hustled him off into the house before Torres could say anything more to upset him. I could feel boy's whole body tense with rage.

"Can't wait to get the boy's shorts off and his cock up his bum, eh Karl?" Torres shouted after us and hooted with coarse laughter.

"I wish I were bigger," Julio's voice was choked with anger.

"Why Julio?" I asked trying to calm the lad.

"So that I could knock that fat bastard's teeth down his throat. Talking of Jacinto like that."

I smiled to myself to see Torres's judgement of the boy's spirit so thoroughly vindicated but I took care to keep my amusement to myself. If Torres's judgement of Jacinto was as soundly based I was afraid the brat would have a hard time of it initially but, as they say, the higher the spirit, the harder the schooling, the better the brat.

"Torres is a man of honour," I said gently, "but he is also a boor and a lout. There are many such. But Julio, though he should not have spoken like that to you, you must not think of Jacinto as being the same as he used to be, or imagine that he feels or thinks in the same way as you do. He will be well schooled and he will be just like any other of the bare bottomed little sluts who exist to serve us. Brats are not like us, they have no pride and no shame. They live only for the moment. They are sensual creatures ruled by lust and fear and incapable of higher emotions. Their service which would be a humiliation to you, comes naturally to them. Once Jacinto was like you but he is not so any longer. Think of him as he is not as he used to be."

I paused, surprised at myself for I am not often as eloquent as this. Julio sniffed and shuffled his feet. I felt the tenseness flow from his body.

"I know you are right, Sir, and I will do as you say but it is not easy. Poor little Jacinto …"

Just at this moment Vass appeared trotting along the passageway the sun gleaming on his golden hair, a broad smile on his face and his little prick as ever standing erect it's pink tip bouncing in front of him.

"Look at this slut here, Julio," I said holding out a hand to stop the child. "Do you think he has the same thoughts or feelings as you do," as I spoke I gently fingered Vass's tiny cock with one hand while working the index finger of the other hand into his crack. I found his anus and gently touched it's lips. The little tart pushed his bottom backwards impaling himself on my finger. After a brief initial resistance it slipped easily into what was clearly a well oiled and used hole.

"Well whore," I said to the brat, "are you a good fuck then?"

"Oh yes Master, yes," the brat panted arching his body in excitement, "please fuck me Master, please. I'll give you a good time and the young Master too." The brat's voice was thick with lust and I felt his bottom muscles working as he tried to draw my finger further into himself. I looked down into his face. His eyes were glazed his lips parted and a dribble of saliva trickled down his chin. It was clear the whore was beside himself with lust.

I pulled my finger from his bottom. Ignoring his plaintive moan of disappointment I glanced at it. Apart from a smear of grease it was, except at it's very tip, which was stained brown with shit, quite clean. I nodded in approval. Don Carlos I knew attached great importance to the Hacienda brats always presenting themselves to his clients in a clean and sweet smelling condition. Brats being brats it is not always easy to achieve this especially on the mountains but as my father used to say of discipline, "if you take care of minor things greater things will take care of themselves" and I did not intend to allow standards to slip.

I held out my finger to the brat and he took it into his mouth to clean it.

"You see, Julio," I said as Vass sucked his shit from my finger, "They're not the same as us."

"Off with you now slut," I said when he had finished, "find the German gentlemen they'll give you as much cock as you can manage I'm sure. You're a favourite with them I've noticed."

I was pleased with Julio's conduct at dinner. He sat close to me quietly eating his food. The presence of Don Carlos effectively put a reign on Torres's tongue. There is something about the quiet dignity of my Master which checks all but the most ignorant. In this latter category must fall our German guests of that night. They were noisy and arrogant and ill mannered. Julio, I was proud to see, simply ignored their salacious comments and suggestive grins while Don Carlos treated them with an icy courtesy which would have frozen more sensitive natures. Julio simply pressed closer to me and I spoke to Grenadier and Guardsman who moved from where they lay under the table to sit alert on each side of the boy's feet. If Herr Peiper or any of his friends tried to turn from words to action they would find their hands painfully mauled. Even so it was a relief when dinner drew to a close and Don Carlos suggested we should step outside the lodge to watch the cock fight.

While the cocks were dressed and paraded I checked that Julio was safely seated away from the Germans and with the two lurchers on guard on either side of him. At that moment Grenadier stirred and lifted his head and murmured under his breath a movement mirrored a second or so later by Guardsman. Something, some one, outside the circle of light seemed to have disturbed them. What I could not see. Then I drew on the heavy leather chaps boots that would protect my legs and ankle from cuts from the flying spurs when the brats fought, for fighting boys are trained to a degree of unreasoning aggression that once they begin to fight nothing but death or main force will separate them.

I watched them perform their ritual dance. This is always to me a special moment. The sight of two young cocks dressed in all their cruel finery, miming what in a moment they will be performing in bloody earnest, light glistening on smooth young limbs and glinting on the razor sharp spurs that will soon be slicing living flesh, is an exciting and indeed arousing one.

One of the great advantages of the Tribute Boy system is that it has allowed us to resurrect these old sports deep routed in human nature which modern sensibilities had caused to be banned on the grounds of cruelty to animals. No such considerations apply to Tribute Boys. Indeed if cruelty was an issue then the cruellest thing you could do to a fighting boy would be to ban him from fighting. Trained as he has been there is nothing else he can do. He lives for the excitement of the fight, the thrill of seeing dark blood welling form the wounds he has inflicted on his opponent, the glory of fighting on even when he himself is deeply cut, these will drive him on till death takes him. These things and these things only give meaning to his life and without them he has nothing.

The dance completed the cocks returned to their masters who performed their last minute preparations. I tucked the thick leather gauntlets that I would wear to protect my hands when I dragged the brats apart at the end of each round into the waist band of my trousers and went to each corner in turn. I ran my hand over the smooth unmarked boy's flesh so soon to be ripped and bloodied by the razor sharp spurs checking that neither owner had tried to give his cock an unfair advantage by protecting his skin from the steel. I rested my hand in turn on each child's chest feeling their hearts beating hard in excitement and rage.

Satisfied I moved to the centre of the ring. I glanced at Juan and Torres in turn. Both were standing legs wide apart to avoid the flailing heels of their respective cocks holding them clear of the floor with hands on each side of their rumps. I raised my right hand and there was a hush of silence and then I slapped it down against my thigh. At that moment the two men released their cocks and the boys screeching fiercely hurled themselves at each other.

A referee in a cock fight has four main duties. To see that the cocks are truly fighting and trying to injure each other and not simply indulging in pantomime violence; to keep an eye on the owners of the cocks to see that they did not do anything forbidden by the rules or spirit of the cock fighting code; to part the cocks at the end of each round and, unless the contest is one to the death, to draw the contest to a conclusion if a cock is clearly truly defeated before the end of a contest, for a triumphant cock will continue to slice his opponent up with his spurs until he has been dragged away from him even if the defeated boy is lying unconscious on the floor.

It was clear from the very beginning that I would not have to take any action to ensure the cocks really fought each other. The two brats were doing all they could to wound or do worse to each other. Neither boy showed any sign of lack of commitment. Having said that though, the first two glasses passed without any serious injury being suffered by either boy. There was blood though in satisfying quantities as the spurs raked their bare shins and thighs. Satisfying at least to the Germans who cheered and beat on the tables with their glasses each time steel sliced skin and, I noticed, to Julio who was watching the contest with eagerly parted lips a very noticeable bulge in the front of his shorts. Later I heard Don Carlos order Ibu to him and the next time I looked across at him he was sitting with his knees spread and the black boy's shaven head buried in his crutch.

This absence of serious injury in the first few rounds of a fight fought with short spurs is common. Until the brats tire they will fight on equal terms slashing each others legs occasionally but using their wings and agility to avoid really serious injury. As time passes though they tire and then sooner or later one or the other will make an error and then the true drama will begin.

This is not necessarily so with fights fought with the long spurs. These cut so deep that a slash can and often does lay a leg open to the bone and cripple a fighter in the even the first or second round of a contest. Then the fight is quickly over, too quickly to my mind, the boy with the advantage will slice his opponent to pieces in a few hectic minutes of screaming and stamping. For this reason I prefer the new revised rules that provide that, even in a fight to the death, the first four rounds of a contest should be fought with short spurs, the last two only with long. This ensures that there is both a spectacle for the audience beyond a mere few short minutes of blood letting and at least one and often two deaths.

But I digress. The third round showed signs of being decisive. Torres's boy got two good slashes in one after the other first across the lighter brat's chest and then across his thighs. You could see the boy was hurt and there was a great deal of blood. For a moment it seemed that he was finished but he fought back bravely doing some good work while pinned to the ground, raking the back of his opponents thighs and bum with his spurs.

At the end of that round however Juan in particular had a good deal of work to do on his little fighter. I would trust Juan with my purse, my life and my brat. I would not trust him to play fair in a cock fight. I would not trust any of the fancy to do that. It is somehow not in the nature of the sport. I went over to Juan's corner to see what he was up to.

Juan had removed his trousers to avoid bloodying them and he had his little cockerel perched on his bare knee. The brat was bleeding badly and Juan when I reached him was apparently trying to stem the flow of blood with antiseptic powder the only legitimate means of achieving this under the published rules of the sport.

"I shouldn't have put him up so soon," Juan muttered to me as I stood beside him watching, "another couple of months and he would have made mincemeat of the other brat but now … "

"You could always," I said as I leant forward and pulled away the strip of plastic skin that Juan had used to quite illegally to try to patch the rip across the boy's chest, "withdraw him from the fight."

Blood began to stream down the child's chest from the reopened cut.

"Withdraw me, no Master, please Master, I'll still get the better of that dark fucker. You see if I won't. I'll rip his guts open. I'll slice his stupid excuse for a prick from his body…"

The boy gobbled in rage and frustration, wriggling his blood smeared little rump on Juan's knee in his eagerness to get down and back in the fray. I could see that Juan like nearly every other man watching had an erection.

Juan looked up at me and shook his head rejecting the suggestion as I knew he would. Apart from anything else the brat, if it was to have a future as a fighter and it would have no other future for it was trained for that alone, had to be allowed to fight till it could fight no longer. To withdraw it would destroy it's spirit and determination. It would regard a fight from then on as something that could be begun and ended at will not as a struggle had to be fought till it either he or his opponent was reduced to bloody impotence.

There were three rounds more to be fought and both brats though tiring fast fought them bravely. Still for all his courage Juan's cock was clearly getting the worst of it and it seemed to me that it was really only a question of whether he would survive till the end of the sixth round or not. The answer to that question seemed to come in the final round when Torres's boy in a desperate attempt to finish his opponent off drove at him with both feet. Then somehow Juan's plucky little cock managed to evade his opponents spurs. The darker boy fell badly. Taking his time the lighter boy strutted over to his stricken opponent and then raked first his scrotum and then his stomach. Torres's brat howled in agony as the razor sharp steel sliced his flesh and his opponent crowed his triumph.

It was clear that the dark brat could fight no more and I ran in to drag them apart. Before I could do so Juan's boy showed his contempt of his opponent by peeing over him. Being Tribute stock he was incapable of feeling sympathy or respect for his fallen foe. Such emotions requiring imagination and generosity of spirit are beyond their capacity.

Juan lifted his little champion all bloody as he was onto his knees.

"I did it Master. I did it. I said I'd destroy the black lump of shit," the boy crowed oblivious of his wounds in his triumph.

"You did, my little fighting cock," Juan said fondly with his right hand alternately feeding him strips of bloody raw meat and giving him sips out of a glass filled with neat brandy while he used his left to unbuckle the belt about the boys waist and crutch. He pulled out the butt plug and dropped the harness on the floor. The slut wriggled his small bottom into his master's bare lap still crowing over his victory while Juan petted and praised him.

As I pulled off my referees protective gear I saw that the night was developing into a full scale sexual orgy. The Germans were all far gone indulging in multiple couplings among themselves and with any of the Tribute stock who took their fancy. Don Carlos was amusing himself with his two dancing boys of which he was so fond, the dark chocolate slut and the golden blond. I felt it was time to get Julio away and to bed. He was no innocent but there is a difference between the discrete satisfaction of your sexual needs in reasonable privacy and the indulgence of yours and others unbridled lusts in an open orgy.

I was confirmed in my decision when I heard Don Carlos propose finding a Tribute Brat for Julio to fuck. I had nothing against the idea itself. Indeed the boy was well up to it but not in that place at that time in that company. I moved in, slipped an arm round Julio's shoulders and announced that he and I were off to bed as we both had work to do early the next morning.

Glancing down as I led Julio back into the lodge I see clearly that he was aroused. I was pleased with the boy. He had behaved well and I decided I would reward him by giving him his first brat to fuck. As luck would have it we came across Jonathan lurking just outside the front door of the lodge. I had no intention of using that brat. He was almost a full year older then Julio and badly scarred. I wanted a piece of younger and prettier boy's flesh for him. I knew from experience if Jonathan was about Guy would not be far away and the latter slut was a pretty young thing well suited for the purpose I had in mind.

"Jonathan," I snapped, "find that little whore Guy and bring him to my room."

"Quick now," I continued as the slut for some unknown reason hesitated, "the young Master wants to fuck him and I'll have you both flogged if he's kept waiting."

As Jonathan scuttled off on his errand a series of loud piercing screams rang out from the back of the lodge. In the Tribute world screams are not in themselves likely to excite interest. Brats are always being beaten for one reason or another and they do tend to howl under correction but with Don Carlos and his guests all out in the grounds at the front of the lodge you would have expected any screaming to be coming from there.

I walked into the house to investigate followed by Julio. The source of the screams was in the kitchen. The first thing I noticed was the strong smell of boy dip. Then I saw young Torres and two final year Tribute Brats standing by a steaming metal tank. Torres was bending over the tank his hands holding something down in the water. I strolled over and looked down. I could make out in the water clouded with disinfectant and blood the submerged form of the defeated fighting cock. As I watched Torres pulled the brats head out of the water and after a second spent gulping fresh air into his lungs the boy screamed shrilly. Torres pushed his head back under water silencing his howls.

"Just disinfecting his cuts," Torres said grinning up at me. "He's got off quite lightly really just two that'll need stitching. One across the scrotum and the other across his stomach. I'll be doing them now do you want to watch."

He pulled the boy from the tank and dragged him over to the kitchen table. The two brats pinned the brat down on it while young Torres prepared his needle and sutures. He seemed totally unconcerned by the boy's yelling. It was really surprising how so small a boy could make so much noise but I suppose the disinfectant, which is very strong, must have burnt horribly in his wounds.

Just then Juan walked in holding his fighting boy by the hand. I saw blood was still seeping from certain of the deeper cuts that brat had suffered.

As Torres bent forward to begin his work the boy peed himself.

"They always do that," he remarked calmly.

"Look at the black bastard," Juan's brat crowed. "Look at him. Well beaten isn't he. I said I'd cut his balls off…."

"Let me get at that white cunt," screamed the boy on the table forgetting in his rage for the moment his agony and struggling to get up and at his enemy. "I had him beaten. I would have finished him but … "

His shouts turned into a scream of pain as Torres began to work on the slash across his pubes. Juan's brat slipped from his grasp and began to prance round the table on which his erstwhile opponent lay suffering laughing at him and mocking him in his agony.

Torres worked fast and it was not more than five or ten minutes later that Julio and I were making our way from the kitchen to our bedroom.

"That brat of Juan's is mad," Julio remarked in a puzzled voice. "Making fun of the other slut like that. He must realise that he'll suffer in the same way when Juan patches up his cuts."

"By the time Juan gets to work on him he'll be so dosed up on brandy and so exhausted from being made a fuss of that he'll feel little." I explained. "Bring him up to watch the other brat suffering was part of motivating him for the next fight. He knows that if he looses that and survives he'll be the one lying on the table screaming as the disinfectant works in his cuts and his master stitches the deeper wounds."

Chapter 7c

There was a slight rustle of movement when I pushed open the bedroom door but I could detect nothing in the attitude of the two boys that suggested that anything was amiss. Nothing at all that gave any hint of the scandalous events that were to unfold at the great Carnival at San Diego de Campos which had it not been for Don Carlos' consummate diplomacy and political skill would have brought lasting disgrace on us all. The two brats were both, as their posture allowed us clearly to see, in a state of high arousal. I would have been suspicious in the circumstances if they were not.

I seated myself on the double bed, single beds are a rarity nowadays, and gestured to Julio to join me.

"I thought you might fancy the younger one." I said to him. Guy did not shift position or lift his head when I spoke. I would have beaten him if he had done either his hard little prick quivered in anticipation.

"He looks nice," Julio said excitement making his voice hoarse.

I nodded approvingly. Guy was indeed a striking little animal with his raven black hair, lithe young body and slim firm legs. I was glad Julio had an eye for a pretty brat. I always feel we should take full advantage of the gifts and pleasures that the good lord has lavished on us.

"Guy," I rapped, "Come here and pay your respects to the young master."

The brat scrambled hastily to his feet. He took Julio's left hand in both of his and bowing low kissed it and then still holding it he pressed his forehead to the spot his lips had touched.

"Good health and long life, Young Master," he said before dropping to his knees and kissing the floor at a Julio's feet. I could tell both by the way the slut moved and talked that he was frightened, as was only natural and right.

I let the child rest there a moment his face pressed to the ground his bare little bottom raised in the air. I always think it is well to allow the brats time occasionally so that they can appreciate their own weakness and vulnerability. It makes them easier to handle.

"Well, you can do what you like with him," I said to Julio lightly. "Fuck him if you want to. That's what the slut's for after all."

"I think I'd like that," Julio replied his voice husky with nervous tension.

"Then you'll have it," I rejoined cheerfully..

"Stand up, boy," I ordered, "and let the young Master look at you."

Guy stood head bowed, hands at his side, cock erect and quivering. The very picture of a hot young Tribute slut. To make sure I had his full attention I lent forward and took his tiny hairless balls between m finger and thumb and squeezed hard. The brat whimpered but remained in position.

"Now listen to me carefully slut," I said softly, "the young Master, you lucky little whore, has chosen you to be the first brat he fucks." There was a strange noise, part sob, part moan, from where Jonathan knelt. I assumed that he was feeling the cramps but the discomforts of a Tribute Brat are of no consequence so I continued.

"You make sure you're a good fuck. Just think. You show you're a really clever hot little whore and he'll remember you long after you're dead. He'll say 'I remember the first brat I fucked a dark haired little tart up at the hunting lodge in the Picos. He was as hot as hell. You don't seem to get sluts as good as that nowadays.' That'll be something, won't it whore."

I squeezed his balls harder to emphasis my words.

"Master, Yes Master, I'll try to be a good fuck for the young Master."

I could see his eyes were fixed on the considerable bulge in the front of Julio's brief shorts.

"I can see you're a hot little bitch," I continued, releasing my grip of his testicles and running my thumb along his tiny rigid cock. "If you cum before the Young Master I'll see you never cum again. But I don't want to do that so I'm going to help you like the kind considerate Master that I am."

I reached out to the bed side table on which, as is usual in more affluent establishments, rested a variety of, objects designed for use with Tribute stock and selected an adjustable cock ring. I slipped it over his balls and prick and then tightened it's root until deprived of blood it began to droop.

"There we are. Now get down over my knee boy and I'll grease your hole up."

Guy obediently lay down over my knees positioning himself and spreading himself so that his bottom was pushed up in the air and open to my touch. I looked down at it appreciatively. It was a nice little bottom firm and well muscled.

"Would you really do that to him if he cums before me?" Julio asked as I worked jelly round the lips of the brat's anus.

I looked across at Julio over the boy's raised bottom and confident that neither of the brats could see winked at him.

"Brats exist to please us not the other way about. One who forgets that is not much use for anything," I replied.

I worked my finger down into the boy. He had, as I expected, been used before but he was still pleasantly tight. I reflected that Don Carlos's policy of not using a boy's bottom until the beginning of his third year of service was certainly a sensible one. So many Tribute Master's fuck their boys in the first year of service and by ten or twelve the sluts are so slack that there's little pleasure to be got from them. By exercising restraint Don Carlos sees that the his brats remain enjoyable fucks up to the moment of Release.

"You've kept you hole nice and clean," I remarked to Guy as I withdrew my finger from him and got a further dollop of grease from the bowl on the bed side table.

A muffled "Thank you Master" came from the boy bent over my knee.

"There's something you can do to help me, Julio. Whenever you get a chance just check that a brat's bottom is clean inside and if you find one that isn't thrash him and I mean thrash him, not tickle him with your strap. The sluts tend to get slack when they're out on the mountains and you just have to keep on at them. If you don't they'll regard the cold and the wet and the hard work as excuses to let standards slip. They're such lazy little brutes and naturally dirty as well."

"Good that's done," I said giving Guy a sharp open handed slap on his bare rump. "Up you get boy."

Julio began to stand up his hands moving to the buckle of his belt.

"No, no," I said laughing at the lad's eagerness, "sit down let the slut do the work."

Guy dropped to his knees in front of Julio. His hands reached for the top of the free boy's shorts. Julio lifted himself up so that the brat could pull his shorts down over his hips. His cock released from it's imprisonment leapt to attention. Guy lent forward and kissed it's pink helmet. I saw him run the tip of his tongue along the narrow crack at it's end. Then reaching for the jar of ointment he began to lubricate Julio's cock. There was something very satisfying and right about the sight of the brat, his dark head reverently bowed over his young master's crutch, preparing the free boy's rampant cock for it's entry into his own body.

"How should I do it," Julio asked panting with excitement.

"Well what ever way you feel like. Bent over the bed or doggie fashion kneeling or sitting on your prick or what I would suggest on his back with his knees on either side of his head. That way you can see the shock and pain on the brat's face when you enter him."

"That's what I would like."

"Very well. Slut" I snapped, " you heard what the Master said get in position. Quickly now don't keep your betters waiting boy."

Guy clambered onto the bed and lying on his back drew his legs over his head offering an excellent and inviting target for Julio's cock.

I watched as my young friend rested the tip of his prick against the lips of the brat's anus. He thrust forward and Guy moaned as Julio forced his way past the slut's sphincter. Guy's moans of pain and sexual ecstasy increased in volume and frequency as Julio hammered his rod further and further into the smaller boy.

"More, Master, more. Deeper, Master, deeper" he gasped over and over again.

When I was satisfied that Julio's cock was fully sheathed in the his little whore's quivering bottom I turned my attention to satisfying my own needs. I snapped my fingers and Jonathan scuttled across to kneel in front of me. He must have been suffering badly from the cramps for his cheeks were wet with tears.

A few minutes later he too was lying on his back on the bed his bottom up in the air. As I drove into him I saw him reach a hand out towards where his fellow brat lay. He touched Guy and strangely the younger boy's hand moved towards his. I realised that the two whores were holding hands as Julio and I fucked them.

Then I was conscious only of Jonathan's heat as he clamped his body about my cock and then not even of that as the dark surging of my own blood closed about me.

A minute or two later Julio and I were siting side by side on the bed as our two sluts knelt, their heads buried in our crutches as they greedily licked the filth and cum from our cocks.

"How did you enjoy that?" I asked Julio.

"It was great," he replied and bending across to me kissed me greedily on my lips.

I put my arm around his shoulders and slipped my tongue into his mouth. Eventually he pulled away from me.

"I'm hard again," he breathed, "and I want you inside me."

I knocked Jonathan away from me with clout on the side of the head. I lifted Julio onto my lap He kicked Guy away and drawing his legs up he lowered himself onto my erect cock impaling himself on it's hardness. I felt his bottom muscles work as he drew me ever deep into himself and then I came deep inside him.

We rolled over onto our sides. There was silence in the room except for the lapping sound of the two brats cleaning out each others bottoms with their tongues. The brats no doubt were distressed by being denied their second moment of sexual release but that would only make each of them hotter wilder fucks the next time a free citizen choose one of them to enjoy.

I woke to the grey light that precedes dawn proper. Julio was sleeping soundly, curled into a ball, his round bum pressed into my crutch. From across the room from where the two brats lay curled up together on the floor came the sound of Guy calling in his sleep for his mother.

"Hush Guy hush," Jonathan whispered softly, "your Mummy's not here. Now hush before you disturb our Masters and get us both beaten."

I lay there for a moment thinking. Bartolomé had raised an old worry with his mention of my childlessness although I knew it had been innocently done. Yet it was true I had no child and that was a regret to me. I would like to have had a son whom I could train up to follow me, to teach him the lore and skills of the huntsman, to share with him the excitement of the chase and the wild beauty of the mountains. A boy who in time could take over from me as head keeper to my master Don Carlos. I had no children. It was not that I could not find women with the same interest as myself. There were many who loved the chase as dearly as I did. That was the problem. They were not prepared to stay at home and look after the house and raise children as I did the man's work in the hunting field. They wanted to be out there with me. As for a woman who would be prepared to stay at home and act as a house wife, there were plenty of those too, but they would not tolerate a husband who spent long days away on the hill. Julio might have provided an answer. He was keen enough and fit enough but his father would want him to take over his farm in time, small though it was. I knew I must not disturb that arrangement. It looked I thought regretfully as though when the time came Don Carlos would have to find a stranger to take my place.

At that moment the alarm clock clattered into explosive life. The first day of the hunt on the Picos had begun.

Chapter 7d

We spend one day camped out under, so far as the free members of our party are concerned, canvas. So to the excitements and pleasures outlined above is added, for those who appreciate such things, the camaraderie and good fellowship of the camp fire.

Most of our guests thoroughly enjoy the experience although most find occasion to mention the cold. Indeed I have to admit that even with tents and sleeping bags and additional blankets it can appear rather chilly.

There was a great deal to do before we actually started out to begin our work on the hill. The brats had to be roused and fed and their loads allocated. This latter task was made more difficult by Don Carlos's insistence that no brat should be required to carry a burden exceeding his own body weight and that Hacienda sluts who had tasks to perform after the porterage had been completed should carry only half loads. These rules are no doubt well meant, ensuring that brats in general complete their march and our guests and ourselves are adequately served thereafter, but they do create organisational problems. However Don Carlos is my employer and I obey his orders.

The restrictions on the size of the brats loads had another consequence. Priority naturally had to be given to the comfort of our guests; tents, bedding, food, drink and so on, all had to be provided for their use. After them we had, of course, to see that the young men of the area who acted as beaters were warmly housed and adequately fed. All the equipment needed to achieve this had to be carried up into the mountains on the backs of the Tribute Boys. The limited number of brats available and the limits placed on the size of the loads they might carry meant that there was little carrying capacity to spare for anything else. As a consequence Tribute stock were put on half rations for these first two days. That is to say that in the thirty six hours that they spent away from the base lodge they got only one meal at first light on the second day. Otherwise they had to exist on what they could forage which was little enough on the upper slopes where even snails, slugs and the other supplements to their basic diet used by all brats when the opportunity presented itself, were in short supply. I would say in passing here there is nothing I think that illustrates the degraded condition of Tribute stock than this filthy habit of gleaning. No member of the privileged classes would debase themselves by eating such things. There are people who argue the brats are driven to it by necessity I simply reply that it is a dirty custom which would only be used by animals.

Before I could begin getting the sluts fed I had to deal with a problem involving young Julio. He took against the clothes, warm and serviceable, that Don Carlos in his generosity had provided for his use. He pleaded briefly, for I quickly silenced him in the traditional manner, that he should be allowed to continue to wear his shorts; that he was quite tough enough to survive on the hill wearing only these, that anyway it would not be too cold up there and he certainly wasn't going to wear the oil skin jacket and hard hat which he described as gross. I suspect there was a degree of vanity in all this. His shorts brief as they were admirably showed off his slim brown legs and he knew this.

The Tribute stock exist in a sexually highly charged atmosphere and this has affected the superior classes also. Even free boys are very aware of their own bodies. I did not argue with the child. He was conveniently naked and a couple of hard cuts with my strap across his bottom persuaded him to be sensible. In the way of boys, once the matter was settled he blinked back his tears and got on with helping me with a good grace. He was I think very largely reconciled to his new clothes when I showed him that in one pocket of the wax jacket, to which he initially so much objected I had placed a leather strap, an exact replica of my own, for his personal use. It was not long before he found occasion to use it across slut's a bare slut's bum for the first time.

There was none of the joking and fooling around which accompanied the first meal of the day on the Hacienda. The brats both our own and those hired from local farms ate in nervous silence. Some had been on hunts before and no doubt they had warned the others of what lay before them.

Young Torres arrived in his Toyota 4x4 just as the meal was ending. He brought with him his terriers, essential if any of the quarry should go to ground, and the first of the beaters, stalwart young fellows armed with heavy staves, noisy and excited at the thought of the four days of sport that lay ahead of them. They helped me to get the boys loaded up. Soon the yard was full of the sound of blows landing on bare flesh and the squeals of the brats as they were driven into line. The loads were carried on simple rope harnesses, cheap and efficient, although many of the boys would have badly chaffed shoulders by the end of the day.

The only Hacienda boy not allocated a half load was Jonathan. I wished to keep him as far as possible away from Herr Peiper. The brat already bore on his body marks showing what that gentleman was capable of if he managed to lay hands on him. I also wanted to continue the toughening up process, after all I and many others had money wagered on him at the festival, although I still continued to think that was very long shot.

Once the boys had been loaded I sent them on their way with Julio and one of the grooms on ponies to keep them in line and moving. Brats are wretched little brutes that need constant driving, the debts of duty and gratitude they owe to their masters mean nothing to them and if it was not for the lash they would quickly give way to the exhaustion, hunger and cold that they were going to suffer in the mountains. In my opinion Julio had shaped up well and I had every confidence in his abilities as a motivator of brats.

The column of Tribute Boys would be an easy target for the ferals that I knew inhabited the higher slopes but we would catch them up long before they reached the danger area. Then it was just a question of driving them on so that they did not get left behind. I was sure that the terror of the ferals, deeply ingrained in all Tribute stock, combined with the vigorous and frequent application of the lash would ensure that they did keep up.

The day proved to be as I expected. Of intense interest to anyone truly interested in the sport of boy hunting but boring and uncomfortable for those whose only interest in it was the sating of their blood lust. Indeed in one way the day was more uncomfortable than I expected for long before we began our first sweep of the day freezing rain mixed with sleet and snow driven by a strong cold wind swept the mountainside.

There is no colder place than on the top of a pony in the such conditions, that is for a free citizen, no doubt the naked Tribute Boys staggering under their burdens behind us suffered also. Indeed as the day wore on a low whimpering rose from the column of wretched brats but Julio did sterling work riding tirelessly to and fro using the strap to good effect on bare rumps and shoulders. The beaters on the other hand under the direction of young Torres dressed in waterproofs and proceeding on foot remained cheerful shouting encouragement to each other and hallooing whenever they spotted or thought they spotted a sign of the quarry.

Three or four times during the afternoon I did see bunches of Berber boys moving ahead of us and on each occasion I pointed them out to our German guests but despite offers of my field glasses to get a better view Herr Peiper and his friends seemed strangely unenthusiastic. In view of this I called the draw off earlier than I normally would and ordered the brats to prepare our camp where a low cliff give some shelter from the wind and rain. As soon as his tent had been pitched Herr Peiper disappeared into it demanding that Vass should be immediately sent to him, "so that I can get warm again fucking the bitch."

I had a tarpaulin rigged so that we could eat under it. It was quite pleasant there after a day out in the wind and rain. The brats ran to and fro from the camp fire where the food was being prepared bringing us steaks and baked potatoes, the rain drops glistening on their bare bodies in the torch light. Julio sat next to me half asleep after his exertions. I told him how pleased I was with his efforts and he smiled with pleasure.

"I wonder Sir, since I've done all right would you let me have something?" He asked in an undertone glancing round to see that no one could overhear him.

"Well as always, it depends on what it is Julio," I replied half laughing.

"Could I have Guy again, to fuck, Sir?"

"Oh that's all," I exclaimed, this time laughing out right. "I thought it was something really important and difficult the fuss you were making. Of course you can."

The Germans were however far from happy. They complained about the cold, the lack of sport, the clumsiness of the shivering serving boys whose hands were numb with cold, the accommodation, although each of the men had a tent to themselves and the three boys shared one, and everything else they could think of. Juan and I did our best to calm them assuring them that they would kill a lot of boys over the next three days and explaining that hunts always began slowly.

"Do you mean," Doctor Eberl demanded crossly, "that tomorrow will be another day like today, hour after hour in the saddle, in the driving rain, frozen to the bone and no boys to kill."

"With a bit of luck," I said, "you might get a boy or two tomorrow but if you do they'll be pretty low quality beasts. Ones that are injured or lacking in spirit and have just given up."

"The real killing always takes place on the last two days of the hunt," Juan explained backing me up and trying to calm the Germans down.

"Then why didn't you let us down stay at the lodge today and tomorrow while you drive the boys down to us?" demanded the Doctor crossly.

The question was so crass and lacking in all understanding of true sportsmanship that I could only stare at the man. Herr Peiper withdrew shortly to his tent after this taking Vass with him The other Germans followed his example shortly afterwards each taking a brat with him.

I sent Julio off with Guy to the tent I shared with him while Juan and I spent some time chatting with the young beaters. Eventually telling them to help themselves to any of the brats they fancied I set off to bed. I can no longer stay up into the small hours, rise four or five hours later and then spend a full day in the saddle.

Just outside my tent I almost stumbled over a brat. He was hunched shivering on the ground. I kicked him angrily and he stumbled to his feet. I saw it was Jonathan.

"What the hell are you doing here," I demanded roughly.

"Master, I … I … I thought perhaps you might want me Master" the boy stammered fearfully.

"Want you? What the hell would I want a slut like you for," I grumbled, "scarred and bruised. Still," I continued, "since your here you may as well come in the tent."

It was weak of me I know but I was a little touched by the thought of the child waiting in the dark and cold for me, subject to all sorts of imagined terrors from the presence of the ferals, when he could so easily have been huddled among the other sluts finding safety and a degree of warmth in the company of his own kind.

My tent as head keeper was quite a large one, not as big as those allocated to the paying customers, but a good deal larger than the bivouacs in which the beaters were crammed three at a time. It was big enough for me to stand almost upright in, although it has to be said I am not a tall men, and there was room for two camp beds.

When I entered it I found Julio sitting on one of the beds fast asleep, between his legs his face buried in his crutch knelt Guy, also asleep. The two boys master and slut, were so exhausted that they had fallen asleep in the act of sucking and being sucked. I think that this was the first time I had seen such a thing..

Ignoring Jonathan I slipped out of my clothes and knelt behind Guy. I checked that the brat did not have his young master's cock still in his mouth, for I did not wish to be the cause of Bartolomé's eldest son having a nasty accident. I slipped a hand between the slut's legs and lifted his rump upwards. The well trained little whore, only half awake as he was, lifted his bottom automatically. I could see from the cum dribbling from his hole that Julio had been there before me. Spitting on the palm of my hand I lubricated my cock with saliva. He woke fully as I penetrated him. As he moved his bottom in response to my ever more urgent thrusting he used his mouth and tongue to rouse Julio. We lent forward and kissed our tongues exploring each other's mouths as we fucked either end of the slut's small body. We came to a climax simultaneously as our lips locked together we kissed deeply and fiercely.

Some time later in the night I had to leave the tent for a moment. It was still raining hard and it was bitterly cold. The two brats were lying rolled into a ball in a corner of the tent a jumble of naked brown limbs. On an impulse I took my jacket and spread it over their sleeping bodies.

In the morning it was still raining, gusts of wind driving squalls of mixed rain and sleet along the side of the hill in whose shelter we had camped. Breakfast was served by shivering Tribute Brats. The Germans seemed to be still in a discontented and gloomy mood. To try to cheer the lads up I suggested that they should accompany me to watch the brats being fed.

Down at the Hacienda with the Tribute stock, all being issued with their own individual bowls and adequate if not generous rations, the brats' meal times are decorous and to my mind somewhat tame events although many guests make a practice of attending the evening meal when it is Don Carlos's custom to administer formal floggings and other punishments. On the mountain things are of necessity more rough and ready. At the lodge there are at least troughs but at camp with everything having to be carried on the back of the brats even this is not possible.

Once we had all breakfasted I told the Hacienda brats who had been engaged in serving us to get over among their fellows if they wanted to have anything at all in their bellies before the evening I took the three German youths and Julio along with me as their fathers enjoyed their coffee in the shelter of the mess tent. Juan, the grooms and under keepers, knowing what was in hand, joined us. The grooms had already mixed the maize porridge with water and I had prevailed on young Torres to bring a couple of sacks of tripes to the lodge. We lugged these over to near where the brats huddled together in the shelter of the cliff. A stir ran through them when they saw us. They had not been fed since dawn the previous day and no doubt their hunger had been increase by seeing and smelling the food served to their betters both the previous evening and that morning. Asking Juan to see that the brats were kept back I, with Julio's help, set about tipping the porridge and tripes on the ground in a long line.

"Are they going to eat that?" Adolf asked as he watched us?

"They'll eat it," I said with a laugh.

"Off the floor," he exclaimed in amazement.

"If you were as hungry as those little brutes are young Sir," I said, "you'd eat it. You watch now they won't leave a scrap. By the time they've finished you won't be able to tell the food was here at all."

"I'm glad I'm not a Tribute Brat," said Ludwig.

"Don't be stupid," Heinz jeered, "You couldn't be like them. Look at them, just filth. They're not the same as us."

Indeed the contrast between Heinz, Ludwig and Adolf, well fed to the point all most of plumpness, dressed in expensive water proofs, and the naked half starved brats was very striking.

"You must thank your lucky stars young man," I said drily, " that you slept in a nice warm dry tent last night and have had a good breakfast as well."

The sluts driven half mad with hunger and excited by the sight of the porridge and tripes lain out on the grass only a few metres away from them were becoming restive. Juan and his assistants were cursing and cracking their whips to keep them back from the food. Every now and again there would be a squeal of pain as a more than usually persistent brat was driven scuttling back into the crowd of his fellows with a flick of the whip.

"All right Juan, I shouted, "ready to draw now. Ten smallest."

"You, you, you and you," Juan shouted at the brats and ten hungry small naked boys threw themselves at the food grovelling on the ground bums in the air as they desperately gorged themselves on the mixture of tripes and porridge.

"Next ten," I called out and ten more slightly larger boys hurled themselves at the food among them I noticed Guy and Vass.

"That's the little whore my Dad keeps fucking," Heinz exclaimed prodding Vass in the ribs with the toe of his boots. "I don't know how many times he's put his cock up this hole of his."

Heinz bent down and pushed his finger tip into the crack of Vass's bottom. The brat did not stop eating but he lifted his bum to allow the finger easier entry.

"All right now the rest of them."

The remainder of the brats threw themselves on the food. I looked down on a melee of brown naked bodies as they all struggled for a share of the food. This was the moment that fights would begin. I gripped my strap in readiness. I saw Ritchie hurl himself at Guy and snatch a tripe which the smaller boy had been forcing into his mouth. Jonathan although, a good deal smaller than Ritchie, went for him screaming in rage. Behind me I heard the German boys laughing and whooping. I waded in with my strap. At moments like this it does not matter very much which brat you hit and I laid about myself indiscriminately leather cracked against bare boy's flesh, brats howled and screamed as I broke up the fight. I saw Guy still clutching his precious piece of flesh scuttle off to one side. A moment later Guy joined him and I prepared for another scrap but they seemed content to share the tripe quietly.

In a few minutes the ground was completely clear of food although the boys continued to forage hopefully in the short grass..

"All right," I shouted, "break it up now."

Buckets of freezing cold water were hurled over the naked brats driving them away from the area where their food had been spread. Then they were kicked and slapped into line ready for loading. The previous morning they had endured this process in resigned silence. Now the boys whimpered and moaned as ropes bit into shoulders already raw from the previous days porterage. Blood I reckoned would be dribbling down many of their backs by the end of the day. The great thing was to guard against infection and this would be done. Don Carlos was too good a master to allow otherwise.

There was one formality to complete before we rode off that day. I called the German boys to me and held out the three brats finger bones obscuring the numbers engraved on each of them in the palm of my hand.

"These are numbered one to three," I explained, "and will decide the order in which you will ride if we are fortunate enough to get close enough to a brat to hunt it."

To Heinz's immense disgust he drew number three. He tried to argue that, as he was the oldest, he rather than Ludwig who had drawn one should ride first. I ordered him to be quiet and then we were off. The Germans and myself mounted in the centre of the line of beaters the column of brats driven on by Julio and a groom stumbling behind us. We were drawing lower down the mountain than the previous day. The going improved, there was less scree and more grass although there were occasional outcrops of bare rock. The weather improved as well. The clouds broke and the rain died away although there was still a brisk sharp wind.

More and more often I caught glimpses of our quarry ahead of us. We were beginning to force them to herd together and to manoeuvre them towards the killing grounds below. It even looked as though we might very well, with a bit of luck, bag a couple or so that day. The real blood letting did not normally start until the third day of a hunt with the main tally being achieved on the day following that, but sometimes if conditions were right you could pick up a boy or two on the second day. And conditions looked as if they were going to be right. The quarry would have suffered more than us from the rough weather the previous night and this would slow them down, no one who has not spent a night out on the hill without shelter can know how cold and misery will sap energy and spirit. In addition the weather had lifted improving visibility and we were getting on to better ground for the ponies. If we could just get within a couple of hundred metres of a boy in a patch of open country we would be in the money.

It would certainly be very useful if we could get a kill that day. The adult Germans had begun the day in a foul mood and their tempers had not got any better as the morning wore on. Their sons' tempers, although their spirits had been momentarily raised by the sight of the brats fighting among themselves for their meagre rations, had soured again and they were now as gloomy and unpleasant as the adults. A bit of blood would certainly cheer them all up. On top of this the formalities surrounding a free boy's first kill inevitably slowed the action and it would speed things up over all if we could get a least one of the lads blooded before the end of the day.

I was just weighing these various considerations up in my mind when an excellent chance presented itself to achieve our first kill of the hunt. We were drawing a valley and were just approaching a point where it's floor momentarily broadened into an area of comparatively open and level land when there was a loud whoop of excitement from the beaters who were working through an area of scrub on the valley side to our left. A second later a boy broke cover about a hundred metres ahead of us. He must have been lying close hoping that the beaters would draw over him. Hunted boys whose strength had been sapped will often squat in this way until the beaters are all but on top of him. He was stumbling as he ran and it was clear that he was already half cooked. He had two choices to run up the opposite valley side and to try to escape in the tumbled rocks and screes of it's upper slopes some two hundred metres above him or to run the valley floor where more scrub and broken land offered him sanctuary some four hundred metres distant. There was no escape to the left because of an outcrop of rock. He started up the right hand side of the valley but he had not the heart to tackle the steep slope and he turned and began to run the valley floor.

"He's yours," I shouted to Ludwig and loosed Guardsman and Grenadier to try to turn the boy before he reached the end of the open land. The two hounds bounded forward their long powerful strides bringing them ever nearer to the fleeing naked brat. After them thundered Ludwig bent low over his pony's neck the steel tip of his lance glittering in the sunlight. The boy glanced behind him and terror gave new strength to his legs. But however fast he ran the two hounds and the youth with the spear, it's barbed point lowered to strike, gained inexorably on him. In my opinion there is no more exciting sight than a fit young brat running for his very life before hounds and hunter. The boy's arms and legs pumped as he fought to force the last ounce of energy and speed from his body but still the distance between him and his pursuers shortened. Then just as the hounds were drawing level he dodged hard to the left and finding a deep crack in the rock outcrop pulled himself into it.

Swearing I dug my heels into the flanks of my horse and cantered forward. Leaping to the ground I peered into the cleft. It was narrow and a good two metres long. At the far end I could see the Berber brat pressed tight into the furthest corner of the gully his eyes glittering wildly in the dim light. Catching sight of me he gibbered shrilly at me in terror. The noises he uttered may have had some meaning in whatever obscure North African dialect he spoke but they meant nothing to me. He could equally well have been screaming his defiance or pleading for mercy. Anyway it made no difference. His fate now was decided. The only question was whether he would meet his death in a doomed but gallant dash for freedom or be dragged from his hole like a cornered rat.

Torres ran up with his two terriers, fierce little tri-coloured dogs with long snouts.

"Get well back," I ordered Ludwig. "We'll try to bolt him and he'll never shift if he sees you waiting for him. Be ready to ride him down when he runs. You'll do it easily. He's dead meat."

"He's too far in for the hook to reach him," young Torres remarked, joining me and bending down to peer into the rock cleft.

"I'd prefer not to pull him out anyway," I rejoined. "Let's see if we can get him to give us a bit of sport."

"All right I'll put Serena and Serenus in." Torres unleashed the two terriers and scenting the boy they darted eagerly into the gully.

Peering into the gloom I could see the dogs launch themselves at the brat. There was a whirl of movement as the terriers darted forward with bared teeth biting and snarling trying to get a firm hold with their teeth and the boy screaming tried to fight them off with a flurry of blows and kicks.

"Serena's got behind him. He'll be out in a minute," Torres announced excitedly.

I could see the brat had turned, his back was now towards us and he was fighting while all the time being driven into the open. Then the boy turned again to face me. His eyes wide with panic rested on me for a moment and then flicked past me to focus on something over my left shoulder. He threw himself backwards ignoring Serena's snapping teeth and squashed himself back into the corner of the crevice.

I glanced behind me and saw Heinz sitting on his pony right at the entrance to the cleft.

Torres swore at him viciously.

"You stupid boy," I shouted at him, "why couldn't you have kept back. Now he's seen you he won't bolt now for an hour or more if at all."

"I don't see why Ludwig should have all the fun," Heinz said sulkily. "I was just making sure I was going to have a turn."

"Well now you've made sure that none of you will have a turn for the rest of the day. Now go away."

"Why do we have to wait here," Herr Peiper demanded, "Why not leave the terriers and ride on."

I stared at the man in amazement. To suggest abandoning the terriers and leaving a wounded brat behind us was so utterly contrary to the rules of the chase.

"I am afraid we cannot do that Sir," I said turning my back on him when I had mastered my surprise and disgust.

I love all aspects of the chase but if I love one aspect less than all the others it is terrier work. Thus is of course a matter of opinion. For young Torres his terriers worrying the brat was probably the most exciting and interesting part of the whole hunt. For me sitting on the ground at the foot of the cliff listening to him urging Serena and Serenus on, in the obscure jargon used by terrier men to communicate with their animals, it was simply frustrating. I believe that much time was spent in fox hunting, before the sport was abolished in our more humane and kinder age, in digging foxes out using terriers. I am sure that that too was tedious work for all but the terrier men. From the depths of the crevice there came the sounds of the savage and obscure struggle being fought out there, the yaps and growls of the terriers blending with the screams of the brat as their teeth ripped his flesh.

"I don't think he's ever going to bolt," Torres said after about an hour of this. "You'd better have a look."

Taking his place at the entry to the gully I peered in. The rocks at the end of the cleft were wet and stained with blood. The boy had been badly torn by the terriers. One side of his face was a bloody mess where teeth had ripped his cheek away, his arms and legs were coated with blood. The dogs themselves had not escaped unscathed. Serenus appeared to have lost an ear and one leg was clearly broken. This however did not seem to have lessened the animals determination. He had sunk his teeth in the boy's thigh and would not relinquish his grip although the brat was hammering at the side of his head with a piece of rock in the intervals of trying to ward off Serena who kept on darting forward with bared teeth.

"He's past running," I said, "but how do we get him out. He's still too far back for the hook to reach him."

"Only just," young Torres replied, "I'll get the terriers to drop him and then you'll be able to reach him."

"Can you do that?" I asked.

"Serena is a vicious little bitch," he said fondly, "she's been waiting for the word all along."

I signalled to Juan and he stepped up close to the mouth of the gully holding the long handled hook. Torres spoke softly to Serena and she launched herself like a bullet at the brat's crutch. Screaming the wretched boy tried to fend her off but with no success. She buried her head the slut's crutch. Blood gushed down the front of his thighs and he fell forwards to the ground. Juan swiftly drove the hook into his back below the left shoulder blade and dragged the shrieking boy out into the open, the two terriers still attached to him.. I ran forward and pulling back his head, slit his throat.

"Why did you kill him so quickly?" Asked Herr Peiper querulously. "It would have been fun watching the terriers worry him in the open."

"We've lost enough time already Sir," I said briefly and remounted my horse. I glanced over my shoulder as we moved away. A kite had already begun to wheel in the sky, it's wings spread wide, above the spot where the brat's body lay, a few hours ago alive and vital, now mere carrion.

We did not have another chance to get a kill that day. The delay had given the hunted boys enough time to move well ahead of us. The rest of the day was spent in conducting a frustrating sweep across increasingly open country with occasional glimpses of brown brats running ahead of us in the distance.

It was just after eight o'clock in the evening that our column breasted the slope above the hunting lodge. We were an hour or so later than planned. Torres, walking beside my horse carrying the wounded Serenus, was the only moderately cheerful free citizen in our group. Even he complained at intervals at Heinz's stupidity, protesting that if the youth had kept back his would have terriers would have bolted the brat. The Germans grumbled constantly among themselves. Even Julio was showing sign of flagging as he rode up and down the stumbling exhausted gang of Tribute Boys driving them on with the lash.

"Look," Torres remarked to me, pointing at a grey horse grazing in one of the paddocks by the lodge, "Dad has brought up Pegasus. I heard Don Carlos say that he wanted to use him on one of his mares."

Chapter 7e

I would like to have had an opportunity to rest and change but before I could do so I had to see the stock that we had used so hard on the hill had been properly cared for. As my father used to say 'during a hunt horses dogs and brats should be used as if they are worth nothing, after a hunt even the brats should be cared for.' Of course I saw to the hounds and horses first.

The brats when we got round to them were herded into the yard behind the lodge and unloaded. They were weak from hunger and exhaustion. The momentary access of energy produced by the sight of the lodge and the prospect of the end of their march had waned. They whimpered as we lifted the burdens from them. Most begged for food and drink whining out their pleas although what they thought they would gain by doing so I do not know. I can truthfully say that never in the course of my life have I ever been deflected from doing my duty by the pleas of some naked brat and I shall not be in the future. They would be fed when the time was right but not before then and there was one more thing that had to be done.

The Hacienda sluts with their half loads, with the exception of Jonathan who had been fully burdened, had not suffered too badly. But there were open sores on the shoulders on most if not all the shoulders of the hired brats where the rope harnesses had cut into them and many of them had blood trickling down their backs. Young flesh heals fast and this was not too serious in itself. What would be serious is if the cuts became infected. Don Carlos was too conscientious and considerate a man to return these hirelings to their masters without ensuring they were fit for work. Anyway, Hacienda or hired, the brats would have to be dipped before they were fed.

The brat dip, a long deep trench with one end sloping, the other perpendicular, had already been filled and the air was heavy with the smell of disinfectant. Juan and I donned waterproof aprons and took station on either side of the trench holding long forked wooden stakes. The brats were herded towards it and into the high walled enclosure at the perpendicular end of the dipping trench by the under keepers and grooms. I suggested to the German youths that they should stand on the walls of the enclosure to get a good view of the fun but they asked my permission to help with the brats and I have to say in fairness to them that they proved very effective, using their boots and fists to excellent effect.

Soon a boy was forced by the pressure of the brats behind him to jump into the trench then another and another. As their heads bobbed above the surface of the milky coloured liquid Juan and I would thrust downwards with our sticks, catching their necks in the fork and forcing them once again below it's surface. We would hold each brat there for a count of twenty, let him up for a brief moment to allow him to fill his lungs with air and then repeat the process twice more before allowing him to swim the length of the trench and to crawl up it's sloping end. The disinfectant was strong and the German youths were greatly entertained by it's effects on the sluts. Some, when they had managed to reach dry land, stumbled about, exhausted as they were, whimpering in distress, others simply curled themselves into small balls of boys flesh and lay there sobbing as the disinfectant burnt in their open cuts.

The job completed the under keepers dragged out the feeding troughs. It was amusing to observe how the brats forgot the agonies they were suffering when they heard the sound of that. Don Carlos insists on double rations for the boys when they come off the mountain so there was no need to draw the sluts, there was plenty for once for all, though that did not stop them jostling and pushing each other as they struggled to get their heads into the troughs.

After the last fragments of food had been licked up I went among the hired brats handing out ten obol coins, for tomorrow morning we had no further need of them and after a nights sleep (another point insisted on by my kind but perhaps sometimes I felt over indulgent employer) they would be returned to their Masters and to their accustomed labours.

"Thank you Master. Long life Master," each of the brats said as I handed him the trifling coin dropping to his knees and taking my hand in both of his to kiss it and press it to his forehead in the time honoured gesture of respect and submission owed by the Tribute stock to the free world. It just showed, I reflected, that however hard you drive brats they will respect you and accept their servitude if you treat them fairly.

Our own sluts had other duties to perform that night and I left them grooming each other so as to be ready to serve us.

The first dinner after a hunting party has returned from driving the upper slopes is usually a cheery affair. Clients are happy to be back enjoying the comparative luxuries of the lodge after a night under canvass and two days riding the hill. They are tired but they are also excited at the prospect of the final days of their hunt which they know will be far the most productive. An element of noisy good fellowship is always added, if added it needs to be, by the presence the young beaters who eat at tables near by and sing and shout and fool around. On this occasion though, while young Torres and his colleagues were as always cheerful in the extreme, at the top table there was nothing but gloom and bitterness. The German men sat drinking hard and either muttering among themselves or complaining to Juan and myself about the lack of sport and the expense that they had incurred. The youths taking their tone from their elders were increasingly ill mannered and insolent.

Juan and I did our best to cheer them up, forecasting, as we knew there would be, excellent sport and many kills over the next two days. Even that little whore Vass did his best clambering on Herr Peiper's knee and pushing his bare rump into the man's crutch in an attempt to divert his mind from his grievances.

I really think we were beginning to make headway. The Germans generally were beginning to talk more hopefully of the chances of sport the next day. In addition Herr Peiper had with the Vass's help removed his trousers and was clearly in a state of high sexual arousal, when Christopher appeared with his trophies. That threw them back into a black rage which was unintentionally stoked to explosion point by an innocent remark made by Julio. He had, up to Christopher's dramatic appearance, been admirably silent, effected no doubt by the general gloom of the atmosphere at our table. His face had lit up when he had seen Christopher and he had exclaimed in wonder at his trophies. It was an immediate and obvious case of hero worship on his part. There would have been no harm in this if he had only kept silent but he did not.

"It was a really big one," he suddenly said in his clear young voice after we had hustled Christopher and his party away.

I tried to hush him but he went on.

"A good eight inches [20cm] would you think Sir. I haven't seen one as long as that before not even on that feral that you took two years ago and showed Dad and you said had been six years on the mountain. What is the record for one of those do you know Sir. I wonder if Christopher had broken the record it'd be wicked if he had … "

And so he ran on oblivious of the envy and anger building up around him till in the end Herr Peiper exploded.

"Ach I'm tired about all this talk of a feral's miserable little cock," he shouted,

"Master you've got a much bigger one, haven't you Master," Vass ventured paying the man the biggest complement a slut can conceive.

"Ach you know that, don't you, my little whore," the man said his mood lightening momentarily.

"Yes Master but I can manage it, I've had you right in me, Master, haven't I. I can take any cock in me," Vass bragged happily.

"I'm not too sure about that slut," Herr Peiper said softly and I should then have sensed things were getting out of hand.

It seemed though at that moment that they were improving. Herr Peiper spoke in German to Herr Kreipe and Doctor Eberl and they all three laughed heartily. There was a good deal of Germanic arm punching and back slapping. Doctor Eberl then spoke to Ludwig who grinned and then began to giggle. Ludwig whispered something to Karl and Adolf and there was further giggling and laughter.

Then Herr Kriepe stood up.

"Ah Karl you must excuse me," he said bowing and chuckling, "I have to leave you a moment. Your excellent cider has filled my bladder to bursting point."

"I too," said Doctor Eberl standing up in his turn and also chuckling happily, "I too my dear Karl must relieve myself of this cider so much of which I have been drinking."

"We all need to have urinate I am afraid Karl," said Adolph with a silly little giggle and he and the other two boys clambered to their feet.

They all disappeared into the darkness and I pleased by the apparent improvement in the atmosphere signalled to Guy to refill my glass. For a moment there was silence apart from some rather ragged singing from the beaters table. That, I reflected, would improve as the night wore on. Suddenly from the direction of the sheds where the hired brats were housed came a series of loud shrill screams. Then Adolf burst out of the shadows shouting.

"Ferals," he screamed, "ferals attacking the brats. Dozens of them. I saw them when I was peeing. They've got Ludwig and Adolf too."

This was serious. It would be bad enough if we lost a couple of brats but nothing that would not be covered by forking out a few hundred Euros in compensation. If two free boys were taken though the consequences financial and otherwise would be catastrophic. I sprang to my feet and followed by Juan and the beaters, who weren't going to miss out on a bit of excitement, raced off towards the sound of the screams.

We reached the shed where the brats slept. There were no signs of Adolf or Ludwig or of any ferals. I could get no sense out of the brats in the shed who thoroughly alarmed by all the noise were in a state of near hysterical terror. The screaming had stopped now.

"The ferals must be taking them into the mountains to eat." I shouted, "Quickly follow me. Let's hope to god they've only killed brats when we catch up with them."

Then from behind us there was a scream so shrill, so urgent that it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was followed by a large whinnying neigh.

"That's Pegasus," Young Torres shouted. "That's the noise he makes when he's … "

I remembered Vass's silly vain little boast. I remembered Herr Peiper's strange reaction to it and the odd jollity that had suddenly descended on the party of German's there after. I swore and ran back the way I came.

The first thing I saw in the centre of the lamp lit area about which the dinner tables had been placed was Pegasus mounted on some unseen object his powerful haunches pounding away. He was not a large beast not much bigger than a pony but he was, like a good cob, built for strength and all that strength was clearly concentrated at that moment in ramming his cock into the screaming creature beneath him.

"My god what will my father say," I heard young Torres say and I began to run forward once more.

He grabbed me by the arm

"Señor," he said urgently, "you can do nothing. Pegasus will not stop until he has finished. If you try to stop him it will only make matters worse. Imagine Señor how you would feel if … "

I stared round. Herr Kriepe was standing to one side holding the horses bridle rope a broad grin on his face. Doctor Eberl and the three youths was standing beside him laughing and shouting obscene comments. There was no sign of Herr Peiper although I had a very good idea where he was. I saw the Tribute Brats had crowded together some way from the action and I also saw, what alarmed me more than anything else, that they were more angry than frightened. They had done nothing yet but some of them had already picked up stones and I could tell it would not be long before they began throwing them. It takes a great deal to break the bonds of discipline which keep the Tribute stock properly obedient and subservient but once they are fractured the brutes are totally uncontrollable until their rage has been spent.

"Juan," I said urgently, "please take all the men and Julio and get the brats up to the stables and shackle them. What with the beaters and the under keepers and so on there are almost as many of you as them so you should have no problems if you move quickly."

Juan had seen the danger as soon as I had and he was moving and calling the men to his aid before I had finished speaking.

"Torres," I said checking the young man, "you stay here with me. You can handle Pegasus as well as anyone I take it."

"Yes Señor," he said confidently, "once he has had his way he will be as gentle as a lamb."

Pegasus was clearly reaching a climax. His heavily muscled haunches were thrusting deeper and more violently. He threw his head back and neighed loudly, rearing up and pawing the air, as he gave one great final thrust. His whole body twitched and heaved and then he was still.

Torres stepped forward. I did not see what happened next for my attention was focused on Pegasus but when I looked next Herr Kreippe was sitting on the ground holding his jaw in one hand and Torres was holding the bridle rope in his left hand and blowing on his right fist as if he had barked it on something. He pulled gently on the bridle and Pegasus moved quietly after him.

My first though was that Vass's legs had somehow grown much longer. They seemed now to start at his waist and reach downwards. Then I realised that the boy had been literally split open by the horses giant cock. The cleft of his bottom had been vastly enlarged his hips wrenched apart, blood and other dark substances were welling from his fractured rump. Above his waist he was as usual, a smooth golden brown back and shoulders topped with flaxen hair, below he was like a broken rag doll whose stuffing was escaping.

I had been right about Herr Peiper. Naked he had horsed the boy on his shoulders and had held him there for Pegasus to rape. Now he let the child slip down his back and gathering his broken body in one arm he looked down at him with a gloating smile on his face.

"Ah my poor chicken," he crooned, "you were wrong. There was one cock here that you could not take up your bottom," and giggling he kissed the dying boy on his lips.

I spoke to Guardsman and without a sound he leapt and buried his teeth in one of the man's fat hairy thighs. Herr Peiper screamed. I jumped forward and caught poor Vass's broken body before it hit the floor. I gagged on the stench coming from the boy's ruptured stomach familiar enough to anyone whose knife has slipped while paunching a rabbit. His was the second boy's throat I cut that day.

Chapter 7f

"Karl," Herr Peiper asked plaintively, "why did you have your dog do that to me and why did you take my little whore away from me. I had not finished playing with him. Please Karl, don't be a spoil sport. Please bring my lovely boy whore back to me." He seemed to be on the point of tears. He had passed through the cheerful and aggressive stages of drunkenness to arrive at the lachrymose. The other Germans appeared to be now no more threatening. They just stood, or in the case of Herr Kreipper sat on the ground, with blank puzzled faces unable apparently to understand why the world had suddenly turned so hostile to them.

I whistled softly to my two dogs and turning on my heel walked quickly off carrying Vass's light corpse.

I met Juan and Julio hurrying towards me with Trespass, Traitor, Grinner, and Grinder on couples and leads.

"Thought you might need some help," Juan remarked.

"Thanks," I replied, "No need. They're too drunk to be any bother now. Did the brats give you any problem?"

"Muttered a bit at first but came to heel sharp enough when we knocked them around a bit. They're in one of the sheds now, manacled and very frightened."

"They've got reason to be," I remarked grimly and we stood a moment or two thinking what the consequences would have been if even a single stone had been throne. The law was quite clear they, any brats in the area and any other brats under the same Tribute Master would have been skewered and that would have meant financial disaster for the Hacienda.

"I'll have to report this to Don Carlos," I continued gloomily. "Before I get him on my mobile I didn't see which of the brats had picked up stones not to be certain. I don't suppose you did Juan. It was dark and they were all huddled together and milling about. Very difficult to be certain in those circumstances."

"Very difficult," Juan agreed soberly, "very difficult indeed and I've asked the lads and they say the same. Quite unable to be sure."

"I saw," Julio interrupted eagerly, "it was…" He realised that we were both staring at him very hard and paused.

"You are quite sure?" I said. "Before you name anyone."

"It's a serious matter," Juan remarked, "very serious. Hand lopping, isn't it, Karl?"

"Both hands," I agreed and then improvising, "The lopping traditionally to be done by the youngest free citizen. Have you seen a hand lopping, Julio? It's not nice. What those Germans did to Vass wasn't nice too."

"It was dark as you say," Julio agreed hastily. "Now I think about it I'm not sure."

"Good," I said smiling, "then I'll make my call to Don Carlos."

Julio was not a stupid boy.

After I had explained what had happened to Don Carlos there was a moments silence.

"Well Karl," he said eventually, "I am sorry that you had to cope with that. The Germans were obviously trouble from the beginning and it was unfair of me to leave you to deal with them but you have managed well in difficult circumstances."

"And the brats," he continued, "are restive."

"They were showing signs of breaking out Sir. Some had picked up stones but Juan got them away before they got out of control and he's got them in irons in one of the big sties here."

"What sort of state are they in now?"

"Well Sir, Juan says they're quiet and very frightened. I haven't seen them. I thought I ought to speak to you before I did anything further."

"Quite right, Karl. I suppose neither you nor Juan could identify the sluts who had actually picked up stones."

"No I'm afraid not, Sir. It was dark.."

"And they were milling about no doubt. I didn't in the circumstances expect anything different. Though what your father who served in the last patriotic war would say about it…"

"He would have said, Sir, there are things a man just doesn't see."

"No doubt he would have, Karl, but they mustn't be allowed just to get away with it. This sort of thing can so easily get out of control."

"I could flog them all Sir."

"No doubt but the sort of thrashing they deserve would leave them unable to do much tomorrow or the day after. The hired brats are still there?"

"Yes Sir."

"And they weren't involved in this at all?"

"No they were up in the second barn sleeping ready to be returned to their masters tomorrow."

"Very well let me think. We must bring our brats to heel. We must honour our contract with the German hunting party. I think it would be wise to keep our brats away from the Germans. All right this is what you do, Karl. Sort out however many brats from Farmer Torres's contingent you would need to service the lodge and the hunt over the next two days picking the best looking ones. Tell our brats that they have so disgraced themselves that I want nothing more to do with them on the Hacienda or anywhere else. I am handing them over to Torres in exchange for his sluts. Explain all this to Torres and ask him to work them hard and treat them hard. Stone picking suggests itself as a suitably laborious and unpleasant task in the summer heat."

"You're not really going to get rid of all of them like that?" I asked shocked. Expulsion from the Hacienda was a very severe and rare penalty only slightly less so than skewering or lopping. "Some of them are in their final year of service and have been granted their Release. It's probably illegal"

"On the basis of what you tell me, Karl, I could probably legally have the lot of them skewered," Don Carlos rejoined coolly.

"Money," I said remembering what appeared to be my increasingly ill judged punt on Jonathan, " has been staked on some of them."

"Got a bet on yourself have you, Karl?" Don Carlos chuckled, rather heartlessly I thought in the circumstances, "well don't give up. Don't tell the brats but if I get a good report on their behaviour from Torres I just might relent. It's not likely mind you but I could do so."

The call over I walked over to the barn in which our brats were confined. I kicked the door open and strode in. The barn was lit by a single lantern that cast a fitful and gloomy light over it's interior. Frightened young faces stared up at me from the floor. One or two brats began to sob. I saw Jonathan put his arm protectively round Guy's shoulders. Each brat was secured to a single long chain by an iron ring clamped tight about his left ankle. There was a constant clinking of metal as the sluts stirred uneasily.

"Filth, dirt," I spat at them, "you dare to object at the way a free citizen chooses to treat one of your number. You have the insolence to imagine that you have some sort of rights. You dare to think we cannot do to you whatever we wish. You revolt against your natural superiors. Do you know what happens to brats who do that. Do you want to feel the steel skewer being driven into your guts, to be left for days pinned to the Cathedral door in San Diego de Campos while your life drains slowly away, knowing that by your ungrateful and wicked behaviour you have condemned your own parents to disgrace and starvation. Do you?"

I paused. All the boys were whimpering now.

"Or perhaps you think you'll get off lightly with just a hand lopping or two. I know who had stones in their hands. Don't think I don't." I looked hard at Ritchie and Ivan. "Shall I get the meat cleaver and start?"

I waited but no one spoke.

"Well shall I? Can't one of you miserable little turds speak?"

"Master," Jonathan said uncertainly, "please we are all very sorry Master. Please we won't do it again…"

"You're sorry are you pig shit," I roared at him. "You think being sorry will be enough when you've all behaved so abominably? Well it won't. I've spoken to your Master Don Carlos and he says it's not going to be skewering and it's not going to be lopping…"

"We're going to all be whipped," a brat whom I could not identify said relief in his voice.

"No you're not going to be whipped. Don Carlos is too angry with you to waste time whipping your useless ungrateful hides…"

I paused to let the tension mount.

"Any way do you think a great man like Don Carlos will waste his time flogging little turds like you. No you've had your chance. You have betrayed the him and he knows now he can't trust you. He's giving you to Farmer Torres and taking a few of his brats in your place. They're not as pretty as you. They're not as well trained as you but at least they are brats who can be trusted."

There was a shocked silence.

"But Master," Jonathan blurted out on the edge of tears, "some of us have requested our Release."

"What's that got to do with it?" I snarled at him. "Do you think he's going to risk having any of you representing the Hacienda after your behaviour tonight. You think you can decide what your Masters can or cannot do to you. What's to stop you when the time comes saying 'sorry Master I don't think I'll run the sands today because I'm a little tired' or something? Eh? Do you think he'll risk being disgraced by useless turds like you?"

"Or perhaps you're wondering about how your Release will come now you're away from the Hacienda? That'll be up to your new Master – Farmer Torres. A bit of a change from Don Carlos boys," I sneered. "But the traditional way of releasing farm brats and that's all you are now, round here is to throw them into the gorges of the Cares River and see what comes out the other end. Generally mangled lumps of boy's flesh, I believe."

"There'll be none of the fine lades and gentlemen watching, throwing flowers and kisses as you pass, screaming in excitement and cheering you on when you compete, none of the money for your fathers and mothers, just a bunch of drunken farmers and their sons laughing and throwing rocks at you. Think about that while you're picking stones in the fields."

I walked out slamming the barn door behind me.

Before dawn the next morning I had the brats released from the leg irons and had them brought before me in turn. I believe in treating brats hard. Treat them in any other way and they get uppity. Yet I found this a miserable occasion. Boys whom I had watched from their first arrival at the Hacienda develop from small frightened children into beautiful boy sluts being turned out to finish their service labouring in the fields.

I knew there was no excuse for their behaviour. Brats ought to endure without complaint whatever fate and their betters ordain. I knew that but yet I also knew the Germans had behaved badly. To do what they had done to a domestic slut was simply wrong. It was not as if it was part of a Release ritual. It had no such sanction. It was obscenely cruel and it had upset brats. That in itself made it wrong. The Hacienda brats were well schooled, trained to accept their servitude without question. If an act caused them to forget that training the fault was in the act not in the training. I resolved to have a word with Don Carlos to see if I could do something to persuade him to accept the boys back into his service

One by one I had the sluts bring me their few personal possessions. Often no more than a handful of obols sometimes items of quite valuable jewellery, bracelets and anklets and such like, given to them by past admirers. I took these from them and bagged them ready for them to be forwarded to their parents.

Jonathan was the last to come before me. I suspect he had hung back deliberately to achieve this. Kneeling he handed me his lifetime savings a meagre handful of obols a rather nice solid gold anklet and the paint box and drawing paper that I had bought him.

"Health and long life Master," he said and kissing the ground at my feet.

I stood looking down at him silently. It would have been hypocritical to wish a brat who was going to work for Torres well and anyway I found that I had for some reason difficulty in speaking. He remained there his face pressed to the ground his rump up in the air for a few moments, perhaps waiting for a word from me. Then he scrambled quickly to his feet and ran off to join his fellows.

Torres arrived soon after to collect his boys. He was not the sort of man who would allow himself to loose even an hours labour from his brats. He made no objection to the exchange of our sluts for his. He knew that even if this was only temporary it was considerably to his advantage. Our brats being better fed were much better grown than his and had more work in them.

The only people who did raise an objection were the Germans who grumbled at being served by untrained farm brats with bodies scarred by the lash rather than the beautiful and skilled Hacienda whores. I told them somewhat abruptly that you did not put out the best porcelain dinner service when you had clumsy guests. They did not like it but I did not care.

In fact the Germans were rather subdued that morning. I think partly it was that they all had hangovers, including the boys, and partly because the adults were worried about the financial consequences of their behaviour the previous night. I had made clear to Herr Peiper during the practice hunt that Hacienda boys did not come cheap. I did not however see the slightest sing of remorse for what they had inflicted on Vass.

The only other problem I had with them before we started hunting was an effort by Heinz to alter the order in which they were to ride. He argued that since Ludwig had already coursed a brat the previous day he should be regarded as having had his turn and that he and Adolf should now draw to decide which of them should ride first. I had some pleasure in telling him that the tradition was that the draw decided not the order of riding but of killing and that therefore the order already decided should hold and that he would have to wait until both Ludwig and Adolf had killed their brats before he could have his chance. I didn't like any of the Germans but Heinz I liked least.

I have often been asked what sort of day is the best for hunting. I have always replied a fine one. On this basis the day was an excellent one for hunting. The wild unsettled weather of the previous two days had gone. Now a light warm wind was blowing from the West hurrying small clouds across an otherwise clear sky. The air was loud with the piping song of skylarks. I reflected as I made my dispositions that it was a great day to be out on the hill and a great day for hunting.

This was the day that the killing would really begin and the day when with luck all three of the German youths would be blooded. All the business of hunting excites me but I have to say there is an extra edge of anticipation when I start a day knowing that it is one when days of labour culminate in the stark drama of a fleet footed brown skinned brat running for it's very life before the steel tipped lance and thundering hooves of the pursuing horseman.

The land we were now drawing was less precipitous than before. Long open slopes swept down towards the lower ground. To take advantage of this and to counter their inexperience I placed the German youths towards the upper extremity of the line of beaters and inclined that line forward as it ran down hill. I told Julio to ride at the bottom end of the line with strict instructions not to be tempted to join in the coursing of any brats that might be flushed. The advantage of this arrangement was that a Berber boy, if flushed by the beaters, would be faced with a line of men and a mounted horsemen advanced below him. He would either have to run straight along the slope or more likely up the slope. The latter would appear to offer him the best and quickest chance of putting distance between himself and the line of advancing men. Running up hill would tire the brat and slow him down making him an easier target for the youths' spears. Furthermore by holding the lads back until the boy had passed them on his uphill run they would themselves pursue him uphill. Thus sparing them, and more importantly to my mind their ponies the dangers of a downhill pursuit in which an inexperienced huntsman can too easily loose control of his mount.

Satisfied that this was all arranged as I wished I glanced behind me to see that our own brats were loaded up and ready to move forward. They were nowhere near as heavily burdened as before. They simply carried the provisions and equipment for the hunters' and beaters' midday meal and I expected that some of that our three huntsmen would provide for us. I checked that the three boys carrying the long spits were there and that the second ponies for the huntsmen should they be needed were in place, led though not by Mishear and Jan, the dark chocolate and golden blonde boy whores, but by two wretched half starved brats borrowed from Torres. All seemed to be in place and I gave the signal to begin the draw.

All most at once there was a halloo from below us and a Berber brat broke cover. All developed as I expected. He turned to run down hill. Saw the line of men stretched out ahead of him. Swung back and began to run uphill. He was moving fast and well but by the time he drew level to where we sat on our mounts the effort was beginning to tell. I put my glasses on him and could see his face contorted with effort, his eyes rolling wildly in terror his lips flecked with white froth. It was clear that the red haze had descended on his mind as his heart and lungs strained to cope with the demands made on them by his panic stricken flight.

I let him get well above us.

"Ludwig," I said quietly slipping Guardsman and Grenadier, "he's yours. Get him."

Ludwig dug his heels into the flanks of his mount and cantered off. The brat sensed him behind him and in one last desperate effort to escape his fate managed to wring an extra turn of speed from his aching legs and bursting lungs. Now it was a straight chase between the naked running boy and the youth on his pony. The two hounds their powerful hindquarters driving them forward tore up the slope to the left of the boy and began to turn him to the right into Ludwig's path. The youth showed his inexperience, for the boy was his now whatever he did, by kicking his pony into a full gallop. The lance point went down. For a split second the spear head seemed to be frozen a few centimetres clear of the boys back and then a dark red flower seemed to blossom on the smooth brown skin. The force of the impact lifted the brat from the ground and carried him forward for a full metre. Ludwig released his grip on the spear. The boy crashed face down onto the grass his body twitching like a beetle impaled on a needle.

I cantered forward.

Ludwig reined in his pony and trotted it back to where the brat lay. He leapt from the saddle and placing a foot on the small of the brat's back pulled with both hands on the spears shaft. As always the boy's flesh had closed about the blade and Ludwig had to strain with all his strength to pull it clear of the brat's carcass. It came away just as I rode up with a loud sucking sound as the vacuum was broken.

Ludwig rolled his victim onto his back. There was still I saw some life in the brat's body. Drawing his hunting knife he slashed down across the boy's crutch removing his trophy. Only when he had done that did he cut the brat's throat.

"Well done Ludwig," I said, "a good clean kill."

He looked up at me and grinned. But he knew he had only performed part of his task. Straining he hauled the brat's now lifeless carcass across the crupper of his pony. I walked my horse beside him as he made his way back to where the line of Tribute Brats had been halted. Even before he arrived there the cooking pit was being dug out.

Soon the carcass was spitted. But, before the spit boy began to turn it I sliced off the dead brat's nose and used it to draw a bloody cross on Ludwig's beaming face.

Chapter 7g

Once back in my place I signalled to the beaters to move forward once again. It seemed to me that the day had started so well that it was quite possible that I might get Adolf blooded, if not Heinz, before lunch. Indeed hardly had we begun moving again that another brat was flushed into the open. He had seen what had happened to the first slut and clearly the terror this had engendered gave him extra strength and cunning. Instead of trying to out run us up the hill he took a line running diagonally down hill. This was well chosen by him. It was the one line that provided a brat with a real chance of escape. I loosed Grinner and Grinder but, although they far outpaced the boy, he started his run well down hill of them and seemed well placed to run round the end of the line of beaters.

I shouted at Julio to ride forward to head the brat off and at the same time told Adolf to move slowly across the hill till he was on the same level as the quarry. Julio realising the urgency of the moment kicked his pony into a canter and yelling loudly raced forward to intercept the boy as he hared down the hill. The boy saw Julio coming aware of what awaited him is he turned he tried to dodge past his pony.

I saw Julio turn his pony on a coin his arm raised lashing out at the brat's naked body with his metal tipped lash. The boy ducked and weaved but still Julio kept close behind him his right arm raising and falling as he plied the strap. The contest went on for a good five minutes the boy desperately attempting to get past Julio by any means possible. Julio just as determined to block the boy's escape. Slowly and inexorably the speed and strength of boy and pony gave Julio the upper hand. He succeeded in turning the brat and was working him steadily up hill. Then the brat goaded beyond endurance by the lash that raked his body confused no doubt by the wheeling pony and the yelling boy seemed to loose his sense of direction and began to run blindly back towards the line of beaters.

Adolf saw his chance. He lowered his lance and trotted steadily forward. Julio chivvied the brat towards him. I could see that the metal studs in the strap had torn and broken the sluts hide and that blood was streaming down his flanks and shoulders. The tormented boy was not aware of his impending fate until Adolf lifted his pony into a canter and bore straight down on him. By then it was too late. Sandwiched between Julio and Adolf the boy had nowhere to go. He gave up falling to his knees and waiting for his end. Perhaps he was begging for mercy if so he found none. Adolf's lance head struck him in the stomach. The boy grasped his hands together in what appeared to be a vain attempt to prevent the steel entering his body. With a loud scream he doubled over as the beaters laughed and shouted in their excitement.

Adolf leaping from his pony grabbed the kneeling boy by his hair and pulled his body back. Reaching down he hacked off his scrotum before slashing has throat. Soon a second small brown body was spitted and roasting for our lunch.

Whether Heinz was frustrated by being made to wait while the two other boys had their first kills and this made him clumsy or whether it was sheer bad luck he was the only one of the youths not to register a clean kill. I decided to try one more further draw before lunch. We were soon onto a fresh young Berber who ran just as I wanted straight up the hill. I kept Heinz back much against his will until the boy had got slightly above us. He only needed then to ride him down. Ludwig's experience had shown that the ponies had the legs of the quarry if they took that line. Heinz had to make it difficult for himself.

Although Trespass and Traitor turned the boy neatly enough Heinz overran the boy in his eagerness at his first attempt. He swung the pony round quickly but he was now uphill of the brat and trying to ride down on him quickly he managed to get entangled with the two hounds. This gave the brat time to put some further distance between himself and the youth. The boy had almost reached the bottom of the slope before Heinz caught up with him again. Desperate that he might escape Heinz instead of holding his lance steady and allowing the combined weight of his pony and himself to drive it's point home thrust with it like a sword. He missed any vital part of the slut simply wounding him in his thigh and worse loosing his grip of the spear was again carried past the boy by his own speed. The wounded brat although dragging his leg got to the lance before Heinz and taking it up levelled it at him. Julio seeing the danger galloped forward and slashed at the brats face with his strap. A lucky stroke took out one of the little brute's eyes but he still remained standing on his feet screaming in rage blood streaming down one side of his face thrusting wildly at Julio and Heinz, who had now managed to turn his pony, with the lance.

Julio shouted something at Heinz and the two boys jumped from their ponies and drew their knifes. I signalled to the field to stand still and settled down to watch the slut's end for wounded and up against odds of two against one the contest could only end in one way. Rather disappointingly it didn't in fact take long. Julio kept the brat occupied darting forward and then jumping back when he jabbed the spear at him while Heinz circled round behind him. When Heinz was in place Julio ran in at the boy with his knife drawn slashing at his face. The boy thrust desperately at him trying to make him keep his distance and Heinz slipped in behind and slashed him across the hamstrings with his razor sharp knife. That was the end. The brat went down. Julio very properly stood back to allow Heinz to take his trophies and to give the boy the coup de grace. Heinz however chose not to do this but swung the still living brat, blood now streaming also from the terrible wound in his crutch over the back of his pony obviously intending to prepare him for the spit while he still lived.

As the beaters grasped what he boy intended they began to hiss and boo. Like myself and all true sportsmen they were against cruelty that was not rendered necessary by the demands of our sport. The brat had given good sport but his life had run it's course and it was time to give him his quietus. Clearly that was also Julio's opinion for he ran forward knocking Heinz away from the brat although the German youth was both bigger and older than he was. Before Heinz realised what was happening Julio's knife had severed the brat's wind pipe.

I rode forward to stop a fight developing. At that moment I wished I had some of the diplomatic skill and natural authority that my Master Don Carlos possessed in such abundance. I knew I did not and that being so I could only follow and enforce the rules of the chase. To question these rules developed by generations of hunters, plain honest simple people on the whole like myself, would be arrogant and impertinent. Yet on this occasion I had an uneasy feeling that somehow the rules had failed me.

Julio and Heinz were facing one another their faces like thunder, their knifes drawn and levelled. I rode between them.

"Well young men," I said, "what is the trouble." I still hoped that Heinz would hesitate to complain. It was after all his own unsporting behaviour that had precipitated the quarrel and shame would surely still his tongue.

"Your little boy friend stole my kill," he hissed. It was only too clear that I had overestimated the youth.

"The brat was dead meat Sir," Julio protested, "I only cut his throat to put him out of his agony."

"The sporting thing to do," I said to Heinz still trying to calm him down, "is not to prolong a brat's agony once he's beaten."

"The brat was mine and I had the killing of him. He's not even of our party," Heinz said contemptuously pointing at Julio. "He's a servant. He has no right to kill anything. Poacher."

"The brat was yours," I admitted unhappily.

"Well then aren't you going to punish him," Heinz demanded triumphantly. "He's a poacher. Poachers have to be punished. The game laws say so."

I had forgotten that the Germans still maintained their old practice of requiring aspiring huntsmen to take a course in hunting law and practice including the learning of hunting songs. Too often, as in Heinz's case, the law is learnt the practice ignored.

I hesitated. Julio looked at me and then biting his lip to stop it quivering brought my indecision to an end by beginning to undo the waste band of his shorts. A moment later without an order from myself he was standing before me his shorts and underpants about his ankles.

"I know Sir," he said, "I broke the rules and I have to be punished."

I led him some way away from the ponies and told him to bend over and grip his ankles. I lifted his shirt tails clear of his bottom. The welts from the beating I had given him two days were still clearly visible. I saw the goose pimples standing out on his rump and the back of his thighs. I raised the strap over my head and he clenched his bottom tight in anticipation of the blow to come the dimples on it's side deepening as he did so. I know only one way to beat a boy free or Tribute and that is as hard as I can. Six times I raised the strap over my shoulders six times I brought it cracking down across his bare bum scoring bright crimson welts across it. Beyond an initial gasp when the first blow struck home and a grunt when every subsequent one fell Julio suffered his beating in silence. Free boys do tend to cry out less under correction than Tribute stock who being without pride or self control generally make scream from beginning to end of a flogging. To remain silent though through six heavy cuts from my strap was an achievement for even a free boy.

"All right Julio," I said after the sixth cut, "you can stand up now. It's over."

He straightened. His face was crimson and tears glittered in his eyes.

"Look at him," Heinz jeered, "seeing him like that with his bum bare do you know he reminds me of the little slut that Karl had with him when we first arrived at the Hacienda. Was he your little brother, Julio? Do you have a little brother that your Dad sent for Tribute. When we come here again we'll have to see if he can take a horse's cock up his bum. I'm glad my Dad's rich so I don't have to do Tribute. Perhaps your Dad'll send you for Tribute soon too as he's so poor."

Julio said nothing but stared hard at his tormentor the tears running down his face.

"I expect those clothes your wearing have been bought from your little brother's Tribute money. Fancy selling your little brother to buy you clothes. What does that feel like?… " on and on Heinz taunted him until young Torres stepped forward and putting his arm around Julio's shoulders led him away.

Lunch following a young huntsman's first kill and subsequent blooding is normally a cheerful affair. It was very different on this occasion. The Germans as ever were noisy and brash and I had in my capacity of head keeper join them for the meal. The beaters and the rest of the field sat pointedly apart. They ate the meat offered them, for it is hungry work out on the hill, but they took it in sullen silence. The Germans seemed oblivious to this atmosphere of hostility. I suppose they were so certain of their superiority that they simply did not care what a bunch of Spanish farmers' sons thought of them.

I did my best to keep some spirit of joviality alive as I felt was my duty as my employers representative. I quoted the old lines

"The lowland brats were fatter
But the mountain brats were sweeter
So we left the former and took the latter."

I gave clear instructions to the brats to make sure the fires were put out, the cooking pits filed in and the top soil replaced. As I pointed out to the German youths, one of the first rules of hunting is to respect and take care of the environment. They received this lecture with the total disinterest that they accorded it seemed to me to anything that didn't involve the causing of pain and the spilling of blood.

Before I began the next draw I trotted down the line of beaters to where Julio sat somewhat gingerly on his pony.

"If you want Julio," I said, "when we start just slide on back to the lodge. The Germans won't notice and none of us will think any the worse of you for going."

"Thanks, but I'll stay to help you Sir," he replied with a grateful smile.

"That's the only reason that any of us are staying," said young Torres who was standing close by. "If you weren't here, we'd all be off like a shot, Karl. Those clients of your boss are oafs."

In terms of kills the afternoons hunt was a success and by the time we turned for home we had twelve small brown bodies slung across the backs of our ponies.

Julio again ate with the beaters leaving me to dine alone with the Germans. Herr Kreipe and Doctor Eberl spent their evening lamenting the absence of their little favourites Ivan and Sam while Herr Peiper grew maudlin over the charms of poor Vass.

"I am sure, Karl, he would lived quite a time longer and given me much pleasure," he lamented, "if you hadn't so unkindly killed him."

The three boys after torturing one of Torres's brats lost interest in him and began to fuck each other. I collected the sluts and having made sure that they were safely out of harms way until morning locked up in one of the sheds I escaped to my own room.

Julio was already there lying face down in the double bed reading a comic a single sheet his only covering. He looked up at me and smiled.

"How's your bottom," I asked him.

"Sore sir," he replied with a grin. "You've got a wicked touch with the strap."

"It's meant to hurt," I said, "and you deserved it. You shouldn't have killed that brat. Still I'd have preferred to have used the strap on Heinz's fat bottom than yours. If ever a boy needs a good hiding he does."

"I know you had no choice but to thrash me. I shouldn't have done what I did."

"But I'll do it again, if I have to," Julio added defiantly after a seconds silence. I decided I would pretend that I had not heard this last remark of his

I drew the sheet back and found as I expected the boy was naked under it. His body was a deep rich brown except where on his bottom the greenish yellow of the deep bruising from his earlier flogging was ribbed with dark crimson welts deepening at their edges to deep purple and blue as the bruising spread. I touched one of the marks with the tip of my ginger and he squealed.

"You didn't make a noise when I was beating you earlier," I said surprised.

"I don't mind letting you know you hurt me, Sir, but I wasn't going to let that Heinz hear me cry," he said stoutly.

"I hate him. My Dad couldn't help having to Tribute Jacinto and I didn't want him to go. You don't think Don Carlos would let them do that to Jacinto, Sir. Like they had the horse do to Vass."

"I'm quite sure Don Carlos will never have any of this lot back here again, Julio," I said reassuringly, "and I know neither you nor your Dad wanted to send your brother away for Tribute."

"Please fuck me, Sir," he said choking back a sob.

"But Julio with that bottom of yours all cut up from the beating it'll hurt a lot."

"I know Sir, but they'll do it and worse to poor little Jacinto. I want to know what my brother's going to feel. I don't want to profit from his suffering, Sir. I just want him back."

"Fuck me like I'm a Tribute slut and don't take any notice if I cry… Please Sir."

He spread his legs and raised his poor sore bottom for me.

I was hard very hard. I didn't know what to do for the best. To treat a free boy as if he was Tribute stock was to act against nature but perhaps it would ease some obscure hurt or guilt in young Julio's mind to do so on this occasion. I dropped my breaches and spitting on my cock to lubricate it I drove it hard into the boy. He made no attempt on this occasion to stifle his cries of pain. Eventually though his sobs subsided to a low moaning as his body responded to my increasingly urgent plunging. When it was over and we were both sated I held him in my arms and kissed him hard on his lips.

"Poor Jacinto," he said and then he was asleep.

Chapter 7h

I suggested again to Julio that he might choose to make himself scarce. In part this was to spare him any further taunts from Heinz and also to avoid any repetition of his own misbehaviour the previous day. I was very aware that he had said that he would do the same again if similar circumstances arose. He smiled his thanks at the offer as he gingerly slipped his shorts over his bruised rump, it's soreness no doubt increased from being fucked by me, but politely refused it. I said that if he changed his mind in the coarse of the day he should just quietly slip away. It seemed to me that with a bum as sore as his undoubtedly was he might very well change his mind after an hour or two in the saddle.

This was the final day of the German's hunt and I had planned it from the beginning so that it would be one that they would long remember.

The ground we were drawing was ever lower and more open and the Berber brats were increasingly thick on the ground. Soon we were having four or five brats breaking cover and running simultaneously. Heinz, Ludwig and Adolf were so busy that they had little time but to chase and kill and chase again. I had brought half a dozen stubby little mountain ponies out with us because I knew the kill rate would be high and soon the first of these was being led back to the lodge by one of Torres's brats, the danger from ferals at these low levels and with the hunting activity being minimal, with three dead Berber boys slung across it's.

"Capital sport," Herr Peiper exclaimed to me red faced with enthusiasm a large bulge in the front of his riding breeches. He was not exception in being effected in this way I had often observed that as the killing rate stepped up so did the sexual arousal of the hunters and hunt staff. As a consequence lunch on the last day of a hunt was often a very lively occasion being as the free citizens present used the Tribute stock to give themselves relief. It occurred to me that with only inferior brats available for their use the Germans might find lunch a time of frustration rather than release. That thought made me feel uneasy. Nevertheless I myself was not exempt from this feeling of excitement and I decided that at lunch time if opportunity arose I would spend sometime alone with Julio.

Two more brats were started and speared before I held my arm up in the air to halt the advance of the beaters.

"Why are you stopping, Karl," Herr Peiper demanded, "when things are going so well and we are killing so many boys. It seems to me that you take a pleasure in stopping us enjoying ourselves."

"No Sir," I replied as civilly as I could, "on the contrary we are about to undertake a manoeuvre that if successful will provide you with the best sport yet if what you enjoy is killing brats. But I need all your help."

"If it will bring the boys more brats to kill we will all help you, my dear Karl."

"Very well," I said, "I want you and all the rest of the mounted field to come with me to the top of the line of beaters. The you will move forward under my instructions."

The manoeuvre we were about to execute was a simple one to envisage. It was one that I had devised myself and it was designed to satisfy the bloodlust of those of the less experienced parties of clients, I would hesitate to call such people sportsmen, who chief purpose was to kill as many brats as possible. It was simple to envisage but not so simple to carry out. Fortunately the beaters had performed it many times so I had really only to worry about ensuring the mounted followers played their part efficiently.

I set the line in motion once again. This time however I advanced the upper end of the line beaters until the whole line was strung in a great convex arch across the slope of the hill. Then I put the whole line into motion while advancing the upper end at a steadily increasing pace and drawing it simultaneously down hill. This had the effect of spinning the arc downwards while at the same time drawing it's two ends more and more towards one another. As we drew forward in this way I could see more and more brats being flushed from cover and running in panic in an attempt to find a way of escape before the two points of the line converged and held them corralled. The slope of the land prevented them from understanding exactly what was happening or from identifying where the gap in our line was.

Then I saw below us the great almost circular cwm in which I intended that the final act of the of our hunt was to be performed about five hundred metres across at it's broadest with a slightly oval shape it was a large grassy depression set in the mountainside. I hustled the line forward forcing the confused mob of brats down into the depression.

"Come with me I shouted at the Germans and set off at a sharp canter towards the other point of the line only now about 50 metres away from us. I instructed a rider to halt and stand roughly every ten metres so that the by the time the manoeuvre was completed the brats were encircled confined within the grassy bowl.

I stood on it's rim looking down into it and made a quick count of the quarry. They were still milling around in panic so it was difficult to be sure of the number but so far as I could tell there were thirty four brats in total. One less than I calculated there should be. Well one might have slipped through the net or more likely have fallen prey to the ferals. In either case one more or less would make no difference. I would count again in half an our or so when the brats had accepted that there was no escape and that they had no choice but to await their fate.

As I did my count the beaters began to spread out round the edge of the cwm so that soon they had it completely encircled relieving the riders that I had posted to seal the cordon.

Some of my colleagues, other keepers on other boy hunting grounds consider it odd that at this point on the final day of the hunt I should call a halt for lunch. I would say two things. First, if we did not eat then we would not have time or inclination to do so until the late afternoon when the final slaughter was completed for once it has begun it is the in the nature of man to continue until it is completed. Second, this final lunch is normally a cheerful occasion where good fellowship and good humour abounds. It is a much less elaborate meal than that on the preceding day which is rendered somewhat ponderous and lengthy by the rituals surrounding the blooding of the new huntsmen. It is more of a working occasion.

The beaters have their meal brought to them by our brats and they eat it at their stations ringing the top of the cwm. The huntsmen eat as a group at one side of the basin looking down on the brats that after their meal has been completed they will hunt down and kill. It is a rather noisy occasion. There is normally a lot of shouting and joking between both beaters and huntsmen over the background noise of the hunted brats constant wailing's as they realise that their time is close upon them. There would be noisy discussion as men tried to identify those boys which would provide the most impressive trophies and good humoured arguments would rage between individual huntsmen as each tried to claim such brats for themselves. These pleasantries would be interrupted from time to time by the attempts of the quarry to break through the cordon surrounding them. The beaters would break off their eating and laugher to combine together to beat with their heavy staves the boys back down to the bottom of the cwm.

Although it has something of a character of a working meal it is not a hurried occasion. Why should it be we have all the rest of the day to complete our business and the hunted brats are not going anywhere. We are generally by this stage huntsmen and beaters alike excited both by the kills we have already witnessed or achieved and by the expectation of further blood letting to come. The appetite for food is not the only one satisfied during this lunch. The beaters at least cannot leave their posts so the brats are traditionally fucked in full view of the field and indeed of the quarry huddled terrified below us.

The atmosphere was very different on this occasion. The Germans were noisy and excited but that was all there was little shouting and bandinage elsewhere. The beaters stood or sat in sullen silence at their posts. The sluts were left, much to their disappointment, unmolested.

It is at this point in a hunt that I allow myself to relax somewhat. The greater part of my work has been done. I have delivered the quarry to the hunters it is their task to finish the job. Don Carlos appears if he has not been present throughout at the lunch or shortly afterwards and he will deal with any business matters that need to be sorted out. I am responsible for the general the tidying up when all is finished but that is largely routine work and can be largely left to the under keepers and grooms. On this occasion the strain of organising the hunt was unusually intense.

The Germans had not been easy or pleasant people to deal with and at the back of my mind the fate of the Hacienda boys – or perhaps ex-Hacienda – would be the more proper description worried me. I did feel that Don Carlos on this occasion had been not unjust, he is never that, but perhaps rather harsh. He had not been there to witness the provocation to which the brats had been subjected although I accepted that what ever the provocation they should under the law to have submitted without protest or resistance. More importantly he had not been there in the barn where the sluts were chained to see the effect of his sentence on them. I could not clear from my mind the picture of that dark dimly lit shed and those pale stricken faces looking up at me. Strangely, for I could not for the life of me see what it had to do with the matter the picture of Jonathan at the practice hunt taking Vass's place to run for his life before the unspeakable Heinz with the real lance also kept recurring in my mind.

On top of this I desperately wanted Julio but I could not get away from the Germans and he very sensible and properly was keeping well clear of them.

I used to carry a flask in the saddle bag, a large flask of Jameson's a drink I found specially suited to the mountain and much favoured by my late father. I moved behind my horse on the pretence of checking it's girths. I slipped the flask from the bag and drank. Whether it the sun and the afternoon heat made the drink more potent or whether the various frustrations and worries that I have described tempted me to take more than usual I do not know. I do know however that the ground when I returned to the Germans seemed to be more uneven than before and that I seemed to have difficulty in speaking.

It was my custom to start the afternoon by inviting the huntsmen to each select a boy and then to send the hounds in to cut out the selected brats for them to kill. I beckoned Heinz, Ludwig and Adolf to me. I saw them look oddly at me when I spoke and then to glance at each other with sly smiles. They made their selections, three well grown bulls and I loosed the hounds. All went well to start with except that a smaller brat clung close to the boy selected by Heinz and would not be separated from him running beside him as the hounds coursed him. Then I noticed something else. The German youths were not trying to ride their quarry down. They were simply amusing themselves, letting the hounds run the brutes trotting their ponies after them and goading them occasionally with thrusts from their spears. As exhaustion and wounds weakened and slowed the quarry the youths slackened the pace of their ponies. It was clear they were going to take as long as possible to kill the boys.

This was a negation of all the principles of hunting but I did not know what I could do about it. As I hesitated the boy selected by Heinz together with his calf staggered at a half run up the hill towards where I stood. It was clear that they were going to make a last desperate and doomed effort to break clear. Heinz had cut both their bodies many times with the razor sharp blade of his lance and both were bleeding heavily from deep but gashes on their legs and backs. I stepped forward to turn them back down into the cwm expecting no trouble from two animals clearly near to the point of exhaustion. Instead of turning they came on at me and then when they were almost level the bigger one drew back his hand and hurled a stone at me. He must have carried the stone with him into the cwm for I have had our brats sweep it for rocks many times since I had become Don Carlos's head keeper and identified it as the ideal killing ground. You cannot risk having free citizens – often very rich free citizens – being injured by some half starved brat in some last desperate act of rebellion.

The stone struck me on the head cutting my scalp. Blood flowed down my face and into my eyes partly blinding me. The bigger brute leapt at me. Normally I am a match for any brat but I had not bothered to draw my hunting knife and for some reason or another I was slower than usual and unsteady on my feet. I went down in a flurry of brown naked limbs. His face was inches from mine as he went with his teeth for my throat. Bit by bit though my superior strength and weight began to tell. I forced him back and getting my knee under him managed to throw him off, tumbling him down the slope towards Heinz. The brat landed on his back beneath the hooves of Heinz's mount. The youth jabbed his lance at the brat spearing him to the ground through his guts. The boy lay there screaming horribly his arms and legs thrashing about convulsively in his agony.

I drew my knife and started forward. At that moment all that was in my mind was to put the brat out of his misery as the code required. Then the smaller boy seeing me about to kill his protector whom I had forgotten ran at me and buried his teeth in the back of my hand. I threw him off and he in his turn stumbled and fell. The pain was intense and my temper snapped. I stamped down onto the child's chest feeling the ribs crack under my heel. He screamed and I smashed my heel into his open mouth braking his teeth. I stamped and kicked until his brown body was broken with the ends of fractured bones protruding from his bleeding flesh. Julio appeared from somewhere pulling at my arm and shouting at me. I pushed him away.

I remember Ludwig thrusting a wounded brat at me and shouting "you're one of us after all, Karl. Here's another brat for you to kill." But otherwise thankfully my memory of that afternoon is limited. It was a time of steel ripping into brown flesh, of blood and screams and great rage.

A hand gripped my shoulder and turning I saw through a red haze the face of Don Carlos. The I was sitting on the ground with Julio kneeling beside me. My jaw was painful but the red mist had gone. Don Carlos was standing over me, not looking at me but signalling urgently with his arms to the beaters above us. I saw the beaters respond moving together to allow a great gap to develop in the cordon about the rim of the cwm and allowing four panic stricken naked boys to escape, all that were left unhurt of the thirty four that had originally had been trapped there. Over the bottom of the cwm was scattered the bloody bodies of the rest some still alive, some long dead, but all horribly mangled.

"We'll leave four for the mountain, Karl," Don Carlos said as he watched the four Berber boys run clear.

"Why are you letting them go? We have paid good money for our sport. Our sons are entitled to kill them as well," Herr Peiper protested loudly at my employer's elbow.

"Your sons have run of time, not bodies," Don Carlos replied coldly. "They spend too long about killing anything for my taste."

"Karl was doing the same."

I bowed my head in shame. It was true.

"That makes your conduct all the worse. It seems to come naturally to them. I know my friend Karl and it does not to him," Don Carlos replied coolly.

"Well are you going to hit me like you hit Karl?" screamed Herr Peiper in a rage.

"I only hit my friends and you and your abominable sons do not fall within that category."

Don Carlos reached inside his jacket and withdrawing his wallet extracted from it a sheet of paper that he handed to the German.

"That is a copy of my account of the damages due from your party. I have satisfied out of your platinum card so there is nothing to delay your departure."

As Don Carlos was talking Herr Peiper was examining the account that had been handed to him. His mouth dropped open and his face paled and then turned scarlet.

"What is this," he screamed in rage, "Five thousand Euros for that measly farm brat who didn't get out of my car's way fast enough. Ten thousand for Heinz running his spear into that Hacienda brat and marking him permanently. Twenty thousand Euros for killing that little whore Vass… And this … This one thousand Euros stud fee to farmer Torres."

"I would have thought it was all self explanatory. The stud fee is Señor Torres usually charge for the services of his stallion Pegasus. You chose to use it although in a somewhat unorthodox manner and the charge naturally follows."

"I will not pay this. It is outrageous. We are free citizens. You cannot do this to us."

"I have Herr Peiper already charged that sum against your platinum account. You are free of course to sue me in the courts. If you do I will ensure that the full story of your sons' and your own activities during your stay here will become common knowledge and you will be black listed from every reasonable boy hunting moor. Perhaps some out of the way unlicensed place in Azerbaijan will take you and your brood but nowhere of repute. And you won't get your money back either."

I began to get to my feet and Don Carlos held out his hand to help me up. Herr Peiper was shouting again. I could have told him he was wasting his time. My master having made up his mind does not quickly change it and shouting at him only makes him more determined. I walked off followed by Julio to join young Torres who was working methodically through the tumbled carcasses of the Berber brats cutting the throats of all in which a flicker of life lingered.

Nobody has ever spoken to me about my loss of control that day neither Don Carlos nor Julio, nor young Torres, nor anyone else. I have not since then drunk whisky except when I was off the hill and off duty.

I spent the evening feeling ashamed of myself. That made it difficult for me to broach the subject of the expelled Hacienda boys. There is a natural dignity about Don Carlos that makes questioning one of his decisions difficult at the best of times and my behaviour had made my task doubly awkward.

The Germans had long since departed in their three monstrous Mercedes four by fours. The beaters with the exception of young Torres had said their farewells and returned to their fathers' farms. Don Carlos, young Torres and I were sitting outside the lodge in the evening sun while Jan and Mishear served us coffee. Julio was lounging in a chair beside me half asleep.

"I wonder, Sir," I said to Don Carlos, "if you would care to check my inventory of the property taken from the Hacienda boys you expelled? You'll need to take charge of the property and send it on to their parents and so on if you mean to make that expulsion permanent."

I thought it best to approach the subject obliquely and had hoped to receive some indication from my employer that he was now prepared to relent. I was disappointed in that latter hope.

"Good idea, Karl," was all he said, "if we get the job done now it'll save time in the morning."

I fetched the wooden box from my room in which I had stored their few possessions all separately bagged. Don Carlos worked through them methodically ticking off each item against my list.

"What's this," he said eventually, "a paint box and drawing pad belonging to that little slut Jonathan. An unusual gift to a Tribute Brat. I wondered who gave it to him."

Julio stirred and came awake at these words and I saw a smile flicker across Torres's face. I tried to ignore the question but Don Carlos would not let the matter go.

"Small coins, cheap jewellery, sometimes very expensive jewellery like my dusky lad here sports," he said ruffling Mishear's jet black hair as he knelt at his feet, "but a paint box and an expensive one. Some one must have taken a real int…"

"I bought it for him Sir," I said rather abruptly trying to cut his speculations short. Young Torres was openly grinning now and Julio was biting his lip. Why either of them should find the whole thing at all funny I did not know.

"You did, Karl?" There was a hint of laughter in Don Carlos's voice, "I thought you were against spoiling brats."

"I bought it, Sir, after he was injured by that nasty little bit of work Heinz at the practice hunt. I told you all about it at the time."

"Yes you did. How he saw the German youth was using a real not a practice lance and how he tripped Vass and ran in his place and was gashed on the inside of his thigh for his pains. He caused the German boy to fall from his pony and be injured so you very properly thrashed him. I remember you telling me all about that but not about buying him a far from cheap paint box. Flogging a boy and then giving him a paint box that's an unusual course of action surely?

"I gave him the box because I thought… He deserved to be beaten for disobedience and causing a free boy to be injured and so on but… I felt what he had done was… Well I was uneasy beating him for that. I didn't want to do it but I knew I had to so that was to in a way make it up to him."

I could feel my face hot with embarrassment. Fortunately I am deeply tanned from days spent in the open so nothing betrayed my embarrassment

"And Sir," I rushed on, "I do feel the same about the boys now. They behaved badly and had to be punished – of course they did – but I was there then and all through the hunt and the Germans were very bad. They 're good boys all of them… Well there's Ritchie of course… But to expel them. They love you, Sir, and the Hacienda's their life. I'm sure they'll never behave like that again. You said you might reconsider their expulsion and I think you should."

"Karl you have become positively eloquent in the defence of your sluts."

"They're not my sluts, Sir. They're yours but I saw what happened.."

Don Carlos while I was talking opened the lid of the paint box and a piece of paper fell out and floated to the floor. He held out his hand and Jan who watched his master constantly instantly picked it up and handed it to him. He sat looking at it for a moment without speaking. Then he passed it to me. It was a simple drawing of a country woman standing holding out a plate of food. She was smiling gently and so sweetly that it was impossible not to want to smile in return.

"That's my Mother," said Julio who had bent across me to look at the picture. "She gave Jonathan some food when he was at my place and Mr Karl beat him for being cheeky and saying thank you."

"Well," said Don Carlos, "I think he's saying thank you again in that picture but I hope Karl won't beat him this time. You give it to your Mother and tell her to keep it safe and perhaps out of sight as well. These are funny times and the priests mightn't like it."

Indeed there was a somewhat religious feel to the drawing. With a shock I saw it had blasphemous connotations at least when you knew that it was drawn by a Tribute Brat who lacked an immortal soul and was therefore denied the benefits of faith and the protection of the church. The thought made me uneasy but I felt I had a duty and I had to go forward.

"I can't beat him anyway," I said stubbornly returning to the subject that concerned me, "because he's not here and unless you take him back I won't be able to either," but try as I might I could not get my Master that evening to say that he would change his mind.

Chapter 7i

Soon we were trotting down the track from the hunting lodge. Don Carlos on his black stallion, his two favourite brats the honey coloured Jan and the dark chocolate Mishear running at his heels. It was a fine sight man and horse moving as one, the sluts in peak condition, their skins glistening with health, easily keeping up with their Master as he trotted forward.

The sun was shining brightly but on the higher ground a gentle breeze prevented the heat from becoming oppressive. Don Carlos and high rode side by side chatting together on various matters. Julio as is the way with boys sometimes rode with us and sometimes would drop back or trot off to one side to investigate some object that attracted his attention. I tried to turn the conversation once or twice to the question of the expelled Hacienda boys but Don Carlos who seemed today to be strangely obtuse for an intelligent man failed to understand my hints.

As we lost height the breeze died away and it became steadily hotter. We fell silent and Julio his curiosity dulled by the heat fell in beside us. We were bow riding between dry stone walls with fields on either side of the track. To the right I saw a line of Tribute Brats in the distance strung out across one of the fields bent double as they cleared the ground of stones the sun beating down on their naked bodies. They were being supervised by a man carrying a short heavy whip that he used freely on their bare bottoms and shoulders.

As we got closer the brats looked more and more familiar. Then I was certain. They were the boys that Don Carlos had expelled. Among them I could recognise Jonathan and dark little Guy and the blond headed Sam. It seemed such a waste seeing them, there beautiful sluts selected and trained to delight and please their betters, reduced to toiling in the fields. I knew it was pointless to talk to of fairness and justice when discussing Tribute Stock. As the church teaches us, lacking the power of decision, they lack souls so it is as senseless to talk of being just or fair to a brat or of a brat being virtuous as it is to apply such terms to the treatment of a dog. But waste is a sin and surely it was wrong to leave these sluts trained to be skilful little whores, the highest use for that Tribute stock could be put to, to pick stones under the overseers lash. If I could only get Don Carlos to see that I was sure he would change his mind.

"Look Sir," I said, "to your right."

Don Carlos glanced to the right but not at the brats but in the air.

"A kite, Karl," he remarked looking at a bird wheeling above us, "a not unusual sight."

"No in the field to your right Sir."

"The barley," he said looking in the wrong field. He was really being so unobservant that it almost seemed deliberate. "A good crop and ripening well. You wouldn't have seen such crops this high a generation or so ago but with genetic modification…"

He was still talking of grain crops and the changes in their cultivation when we came to the gate leading into the field where our brats, for I still thought of them as such, toiled. I did not see the signal he gave but Mishear darted forward to swing it open and Don Carlos trotted into the field. Julio and I followed him.

The brats were at first unconscious of his approach and then one sensing someone behind him glanced over his shoulder. He rewarded by an immediate cut with the whip from the overseer and an order reinforced with a curse to get on with his work and not to gaze idly about. A murmur ran down the line of brats. The overseer swore and lifted his whip.

"Leave them be now for the moment."

"Turn and face me boys."

Both commands were given quietly. Both were instantly obeyed.

The brats knelt in the dirt in the way prescribed for Tribute Stock, knees spread wide, bottoms pressed down so that their balls touched the ground, hands by their sides. They were a pitiful sight, dirty and exhausted, bodies ribbed with welts from the whip, their skin had quickly lost the healthy gloss typical of Hacienda brats. The only outward sign of their background was that everyone of their tiny pricks was standing erect and quivering. This I had noticed often before was the common reaction of any third year or older Hacienda brat when in the presence of Don Carlos. No doubt an indication of the love they all bore him and a result of his taking the trouble to personally depucillate all his brats at the beginning of the third year of service.

"Well you look a pretty miserable lot," he remarked.

"Master," Jonathan spoke nervously. I suppose he was prompted to do so by the knowledge that he and Ritchie were the oldest brats present and therefore if anyone was to speak it should be one of them. No doubt he knew that he would have to wait a very long time before Ritchie would willingly risk his hide for anyone or anything. "Master please take us back. Please Master."

"Why should I do so after your behaviour. Near mutiny. You are lucky to be picking stones for Señor Torres not skewered to a church door somewhere."

"Master we know we behaved badly. We won't ever do it again. Please Master give us another chance to prove the love that we all bare you Master."

"It's a funny sort of love that allows you to pick up stones to throw at your betters."

"Master we are sorry. Take us back Master please. We will not bring dishonour to you and the Hacienda ever again Master will we sluts."

A murmur of agreement ran down the line of naked kneeling brats.

"If you are to return you will have to show me that you are truly sorry for your behaviour and that I can trust you in future," Don Carlos said swinging himself down from the saddle and handing his reins to Jan.

He stood facing the boys allowing the tension to rise. Watched by the brats he drew out of his breeches pocket a cigarette lighter. Adjusted it and a flame shot from it and then hovered about 5 centimetres above it. It was apparent that it was a gas lighter.

"Guy," he said, "you are the youngest. Come here."

The child scrambled quickly to his feet and came to stand head bowed in front of his master. I could see the boy was trembling.

Don Carlos held out the burning lighter towards him.

"Hold your left hand so that the flame is touching it's palm."

The boy obeyed a shudder ran through his body as the pain hit him.

"Now look up Guy. Look me in the face."

The boy raised his eyes and Don Carlos held him in his gaze.

"Keep your hand in the flame child," he commanded.

"Are you truly sorry for what you have done?"

"Yes Master," the boy's voice was no more than the faintest of whispers.

"Do you promise never again to do anything to bring dishonour on me or the Hacienda."

"Yes Master."

"Say it then boy."

"Master I promise never again to do anything to bring dishonour on you or the Hacienda." The words were gasped out each one seeming to be an enormous effort to say.

"Good little slut," Don Carlos said clicking the lighter shut, "I accept you back into my service."

Guy reached out and took Don Carlos's left hand in both of his. He pressed his lips to the back of it and then held it to his forehead.

"Thank you Master. Health and long life Master," he said dropping to his knees.

Then getting quickly back to his feet he trotted off to stand beside my horse holding his left hand in his right and whimpering quietly. I reached down and tapped him on his shoulder. He looked up at me and I pointed to his left hand. He reached it up so that I could look at it. I turned it over so that he palm was uppermost. In the centre of it was a small patch of charred flesh around this was an area of blisters and rawness. It must have been extremely painful.

One by one Don Carlos called the brats before him and one by one they endured their ordeal and were reinstated. Not one, not even Ritchie, failed. When it was all over he remounted.

"Well sluts, I probably shouldn't but I've forgiven you so it's back to the Hacienda with the lot of you."

"Thank you Master," the sluts chorused hugging each other and laughing with joy.

He held up his hand for silence.

"Now we've got quite a march in front of us. So let's hear a song from you as we go."

He turned his horse and walked it from the field, Mishear and Jan once more running at his side. Behind us one of the reprieved brats broke into the 'Happy slut song' which was taken up enthusiastically by the rest.

"Happy little slut. Happy little slut.
Master's cock up his bum
In his bottom Master's cum
Happy little slut. Happy little slut"

The singing continued despite the exhausted state of the brats till we were within half a kilometre of Bartolomé's house when he signalled for silence.

I had wondered how we would manage feeding the brats that night for I knew Bartolomé was not rich and it was unlikely that he would have enough maize porridge to feed a sudden influx of Tribute Stock. Strangely though he was very well supplied and hardly had we arrived than buckets of porridge mixed with boiled cabbage and warm milk were being brought out into the yard for them. It was almost as though their arrival was expected. Even stranger was that one of his barns had been cleared out and clean straw laid on the floor so that there was somewhere comfortable ready for them to sleep.

By the way the brats wolfed their food down it would have been obvious, if I had not known already, that Farmer Torres did not believe in over feeding his stock. Having filled their bellies the brats hardly had the energy to clean themselves up under the pump in the yard before falling asleep.

Having seen the brats settled I went into the house. The table was laid for supper and I would only say it was pleasant, indeed more than pleasant to eat once again in friendly congenial company.

"Mum," Julio said when the meal was over, "I have a present for you," running upstairs to his room.

He returned in a few seconds and handed his mother the drawing that Don Carlos had found in Jonathan's paint box. The good woman took it and her face lit up with pleasure.

"That's wonderful," she said, "but I don't really look as good as that."

"I think you do and so does the slut who drew it," Julio replied stoutly.

"Who drew it?" She asked still looking at the sheet of paper a soft smile on her face.

"A brat called Jonathan. Do you remember Mr Karl brought him when he came to collect me for the hunt and you gave him some scraps in the yard?"

"Yes I do and he said "Thank you and…"

She looked at me and I felt a bit guilty. I don't know why though. He thoroughly deserved to be hit for speaking out of turn like that. He couldn't be allowed to think that a his thanks were of any value or indeed wanted.

"Is he here now?" She asked after a pause.

"Yes Mum he's in the barn with the other sluts."

"I would like to tell him how much I like his drawing."

I began to protest. It does no good at all to encourage brats to get inflated ideas of their importance but Don Carlos spoke before I could say anything.

"Certainly," he said. "Julio would you go out and get him and check what Jan and Mishear are up to they should have looked after your pony and our two horses by now."

In a few seconds Julio was back dragging a sleepy eyed Jonathan behind him with a hand through his collar.

"Here's Jonathan," he said releasing his grip on his collar, "and Jan and Mishear have almost finished."

"The pair of them take hours longer than necessary grooming any horses that come their way," Don Carlos remarked smiling indulgently. "They just enjoy being with them."

I was watching Jonathan and hoping that he wouldn't pee himself on Maria's spotless flagstones. Being a Hacienda brat he was more used to most Tribute Stock to being about free citizens but to be a room alone with five adult free citizens and one free boy would be an overwhelming and frightening experience.

"Jonathan," said Maria and beckoned.

He went to her and kneeling saluted her in the manner required of a well trained Tribute Boy.

"Health and long life, Mistress." He said pressing his forehead to the floor at her feet.

"Jonathan, look up at me" she said.

"That was a beautiful picture of me you drew." As she spoke she stroked her hair back from his forehead.

"Thank you Mistress," the slut replied gazing up at her, "you are a beautiful lady."

Bartolomé laughed beside me.

"I see I'll have to be careful," he chortled.

"You've got even more marks on you than you had when you were here last." Maria said to the brat, ignoring her husbands ribald remark. "What have they been doing to you."

"I've been working in the fields, Mistress."

"And what's happened to your left hand. Let me have a look. Oh you poor child come up here," and she drew him onto her lap. She examined his hand. He winced and murmured when she pressed her finger gently into it's palm near to the burn.

"Julio," she ordered, "go into the kitchen and get the first aid box."

"Does any body here know how he's got that," she demanded of the room in general. Don Carlos, not a man easily embarrassed, look ill at ease and shuffled his feet. The rest of us remained silent avoiding her eyes.

"Well I see I'm not going to get a reply," she said rather sharply.

Working quickly and deftly she applied a dry dressing to the burn speaking softly to the brat as she did so. When that was done she kissed him on the forehead. It occurred to me that this was probably the first time since he was Tributed almost seven years ago that he had been kissed by a woman and certainly the first time in that period that he had been kissed in other than a sexual manner. The boy murmured something. He turned his face into her shoulder wriggling close into her lap and fell asleep.

He remained there for the next hour while we sat round the table chatting. Then, rather reluctantly it seemed to me, Maria roused herself.

"Well," She said lifting Jonathan off her lap, "I know what you men are like. I'm going to bed now. Bartolomé I'm not telling you what to do or what not to do but what ever you do, do it down here. Don't bring any of your nonsense into my bedroom."

Bartolomé grinned rather guiltily as she went up stairs. We heard the bedroom door close behind her.

Jonathan was standing unsteadily only half awake where Maria had deposited him on the floor. Don Carlos reached out and taking the naked boy by the arm drew him to him. He ran his hand up the brat's legs and idly fondled his small hairless balls. Looking back I realise now that my master with his instinct for dealing with brats had somehow grasped that there was something about the child not perhaps exactly amiss but that needed clarifying.

"That was a very good picture and the Mistress was pleased with it," he said, "do you enjoy drawing, Jonathan."

"Yes Master."

"You must have been pleased with Master Karl's paint box?"

"Oh yes Master. Master Karl was very good to me."

"Do you love Master Karl, Jonathan?"

The boy did not reply. As we watched Don Carlos moved his hand from the slut's crutch to his bottom. We could tell by the way the boy's lips parted and his breath came in pants that he was working his finger right into his crack.

"Do you love Master Karl?" Don Carlos asked once more.

The boy moaned and his body shuddered. It was clear that he had his fingers deep inside the brat. Still Jonathan resisted the question.

"Who do you love, Jonathan." Don Carlos still spoke quietly but there was something in his voice that indicated that the brat had best answer and answer truly.

"Guy, Master," the boy breathed.

"Another slut?"

"Yes Master"

"You know the penalty if you do anything with another slut without the permission of your Master don't you Jonathan?"

"Yes Master."

"What is it?"

"We'll both have our balls torn off, Master."

"Yes that's right Jonathan, both of you, you and Guy. But I could give you permission if I wished and then you could do it together without danger of loosing your balls. Would you like me to give you permission."

"Oh please Master. Yes Master. Please."

"Very well child. You've had a hard time recently so this will be a treat for you. Julio, go and fetch Guy please."

The smaller boy was led into the room a few moments later rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Guy," Don Carlos said and the child turned and stared at him, "Jonathan says he loves you. Do you love him."

Guy glanced quickly at his friend who stood beside Don Carlos his small prick erect and throbbing.

"Yes Master," he said looking at the ground and shifting his feet. We all laughed at the little slut's embarrassment.

"Good," Don Carlos said, I am going to give you a very big treat. I'm giving Jonathan permission to fuck you. Come and kiss him now."

The little fellow tripped quickly over to where Jonathan stood and putting his arms round his neck kissed him hard on the lips. Julio whistled and Bartolomé and I stamped our feet and shouted encouragement.

Eventually Don Carlos pulled the two sluts apart. He ordered Guy to lie face down across his knees so that he could lubricate his hole while passing Jonathan to me to grease up his hole. Jonathan at least was beside himself with lust and I had to press hard into his perineum to stop him orgasming early. From the noises coming from poor little Guy as Don Carlos worked on his bottom he sounded to be in a similar state.

"Is your table pretty strong Bartolomé?" asked Don Carlos when the two brats had been prepared to his satisfaction. Without waiting for an answer he tested it with his hand.

"Yes," he announced, "that seems strong enough. All right Guy up you get face down and spread your legs. Push your bum up in the air. And now you Jonathan. There's your lover waiting for you to fuck him. Get up there and get busy."

We stood round the table watching as the two sluts fucked each other. It is a measure of Don Carlos's skill with brats that he could make use of something as trivial and unimportant as the love of two Tribute Boys for each other to create an entertainment for his friends. The two sluts certainly were certainly hot little animals and it was only after Jonathan's fourth orgasm that the tempo of their fucking began to slacken.

"I reckon that table will bear the weight of three people," Bartolomé suddenly announced pulling down his trousers with the obvious tension of mounting Jonathan while he was struggling to achieve his fifth ejaculation.

I took Julio and steered him upstairs to his bedroom. He was after all a free boy.

Chapter 8
Good bye to Vass

Maurice speaks

I had tried asking Karl but could get nothing out of him except a gloomy shake of the head and an "it was bad Maurice, very bad" which was hardly informative.

The brats were no better. Jonathan when I asked him about the numerous bruises and welts on his body looked at the floor rubbed a bare foot along one calf and became completely tongue tied. Guy showed some signs of being more communicative but suddenly became equally incoherent when Jonathan dropped a glass on the floor just as the younger boy was beginning to try to answer my questions. Not that either boy refused openly to reply to my queries. If they had done that they would have been in very serious trouble. Rather they mumbled, became incoherent, answered a question other than the one I had asked and generally indulged in one or other of the dozens of different tactics that brats seem to learn by instinct to avoid answering questions they wish to evade. I suppose I could have beaten an answer out of them if I had wished but I thought I would probably find out what I wanted to know in time if I just waited and listened without going to the bother of doing that.

Meanwhile though it was all very puzzling. Jonathan's body when I ran my hand over it was as hard and as fine tuned as could be. He didn't have much spare weight on him when he set off for the Picos. Hacienda boys are adequately but not generously fed but now he was not carrying a spare gramme on him. Then there were the mysterious dressings on the brats' left hands. Every brat who had been on the hunt arrived back at the Hacienda with a clean white dressing neatly attached to their centre of their left palms. Well they had clearly been clean when they had set out on their return journey that morning otherwise they would have been a great deal grubbier now. The dressings were quite unlike the rough, but I must admit generally effective, bandages which Karl slapped on any open wound that he thought required it. I had looked under Jonathan's dressing and found that it covered a painful burn but the child seemed incapable of explaining the circumstances that gave rise to it. On top of this was the demeanour of the brats. They usually came back from their outings to the Picos excited and full of beans bursting to tell you about the rich huntsmen who'd fucked them and the ferals they had seen and so on. This time all the brats were very subdued and all seemed to suffer from Jonathan's inability to communicate.

I saw a good number of the guests had decided to put in an appearance. They lounged in the chairs provided in the covered arcades on either side of the open area in which the boys tables were ranged. Perhaps like me they had go wind of some mystery and wished to hear what Don Carlos would say.

The boys all ate in silence as the brat whose turn it was to read stood to one side of the top table reading out loud from one of Swinbyrne's lesser known works. I listened to his clear young voice hardly hearing the familiar words

"Oh tell me did the mind divine
The boy for the rod
Or the rod for the boy
First design."

I realised that he had come to the end of his reading and at the same time a stir of movement among the boys told me that Don Carlos had entered the compound through the gateway behind where I was sitting on the high table.

"Thank you Timmy," Don Carlos said he took care to know the name of every brat on the Hacienda, "that was well read."

Timmy blushed with pleasure at the praise and kneeling asked permission to return to his place. Don Carlos waived his hand and the boy pressed his face to the floor. I heard a murmur of appreciation at the beauty of the boy so clearly displayed to their view run from the guests. As the slut scuttled back to his place on one of the boys' tables. Monsieur Durcet gave a slight almost imperceptible upward movement with the index finger of his left hand indicating his intention to fuck the brat. The boy quickly ducked his head acknowledging he had seen the gesture and submitting himself man's demand.

Don Carlos, as is usual on these occasions, was accompanied by his secretary holding the rather dog eared exercise book in which the latter recorded the faults of the boys reported to him or noticed by himself during the course of the previous day. I sometimes thought that considering the painful consequences flowing from the inclusion of a brat's name on it's pages it would have been more appropriate if it had been more substantial and dignified in form; a leather covered ledger perhaps rather than a scruffy note book. But really the thing was simply a management tool and we were only dealing with brats and their disciplining. It was no secret that the secretary, having chosen, not Release but emasculation, deeply resented the brats flagrant sexuality and took a spiteful pleasure in being instrumental in their public floggings.

Christopher was also with his father. This was not in itself unusual. Don Carlos eager to instruct the boy in the management of the Hacienda had often in the past brought him to witness the brat's evening assembly. What was new was that on this occasion Christopher and not his father was carrying the cane. It was clear that Don Carlos was intent in involving his son in more and more aspects of the management of the Hacienda and it's stock.

Indeed it seemed the boy was ready for it. He seemed to have gained in self confidence during his brief visit to the mountains. There was an air of authority and gravity about him now that he had previously lacked. He appeared to have matured greatly in those few short days.

Don Carlos nodded to me and walked to the front of the low platform on which the high table was placed. He stood there for a moment allowing the tension to mount as a couple of hundred adoring but apprehensive young faces gazed up at him. One or two of the boys already knew that their names were written in the book and that very shortly they would be called out and required to present their taught young bums to the cane. Not a single boy there could be sure that he had not been observed transgressing in one way or another during the curse of the day and his name noted without him being told. Every brat knew that if his name was written there no appeal was possible. As Don Carlos remarked to me once when I had plucked up courage to suggest he had flogged a brat for something he had not done, "If he didn't do what I have just beaten him for I have no doubt he has done something much worse that I don't know about," although I noticed that having said that he very shortly afterwards found occasion to tip the slut a couple of obols.

"Any brats for correction?" He eventually asked.

"Only four, Sir," the secretary replied the regret in being able to offer so meagre a harvest of boy's bottoms to his Master. I suppose one should feel pleasure in finding someone so dedicated and happy in his work. I am afraid I found the fellow simply unpleasant.

"Very well call them up one by one."

"The first offence is a double one, Sir. Reported by Mr and Mrs Davies. While having a picnic on the beach two brats ran so close by them that they scattered sand on their sandwiches. Paul 3.2 and Peter 3.1, Sir."

The Secretary in naming the brats in this way followed the practice of identifying individual boys by their year of Tribute and seniority in that year a system made necessary on such occasions as evening assemblies when large number of boys were present by the great number of Paulo's, Michael's, Pierre's, Angelo's, Ahmed's and all among the Hacienda stock. For instance from their names you could tell in this instance that both boys were in their third year of Tribute and that Paul was the second boy of that name to be recruited in his year and Peter the first.

"Paul and Peter, step forward."

Two dark little curly haired boys stood up. Somewhat reluctantly they made they mounted the raised dais and stood facing Don Carlos. They were twins and were generally lively little lads distinguished by their ready smiles. They were looking now though far from happy.

"Well Paul, Peter, what's all this about?" Don Carlos enquired sternly.

"Please Master, Paul was chasing me and I just didn't see Mr and Mrs Davies and we ran too close to them. We're very sorry, Master."

"And why, Peter, were you chasing your brother?"

"Please Master, he said you enjoyed fucking him more than me and I didn't believe him. It's not true, is it Master?"

"You were both excellent fucks," Don Carlos assured the boy seriously. "But you must both learn that you are here to serve your betters not to run riot. To ensure you do remember that in future you will get three strokes each. Paul you first. Christopher."

Paul obediently adopted the required position, legs slightly apart bent forward gripping his ankles. Christopher stepped forward. He wielded the cane with skill and confidence. I noticed how he ensured that the tip of the cane to curled about the boy's rump and nipped at his flanks and how the last cut of the three was laid across the crease of the boy's bum where it would hurt the most and the soreness would linger the longest.

First Paul and then Peter gasped out their "Thank you Master for my flogging," and made their ways back to their places among the other boys. I noticed that although their faces were both wet with tears as they returned both their little cocks were erect.

The next boy was another third year slut reported by the secretary himself for pushing in the queue for at the brat's shop that midday. He too was sent sobbing back to his place with three livid wheals across his smooth young bottom.

"The last offence, Sir, is reported by Sir John Chalmers. He had to call Hans 5.1 twice before he came to him."

"Well Hans?" Don Carlos said to the blonde young lad who stood uneasily before him.

"Please Master I am very sorry," the brat muttered gazing at the ground and shifting uneasily. "I was playing in the surf with the other boys at the edge of the sea and didn't hear Sir John call me."

"That's simply not good enough." Don Carlos said. "I bought you, and trained you so that you should give pleasure to my guests. There's no point my keeping you, Hans, if you do not do that."

At this implicit and most awful of threats the boy began to cry harder.

"And Hans," Don Carlos said speaking very quietly and very seriously, "look up at me."

Reluctantly the boy raised his head and looked into his Master's eyes.

"Did you really not hear Sir Chalmers the first time or did you decide that you were having such fun in the surf with your friends that he could just wait."

The boy said nothing but his redoubled crying was a confession in itself. My employer amazed me yet again by his ability to see into the minds of his young charges.

"I thought so," Don Carlos said grimly. "Nine strokes I think. That's not as much as you deserve you wicked ungrateful brat but it should be sufficient to persuade you to give priority to serving me in future and not your own worthless pleasures."

If three strokes and nine strokes do not seem very considerable punishments to any reader I can only say I think you would feel very differently if you had experienced as young boy the cane across your bare bottom laid on with all his strength by a sturdy well grown fourteen year old. The sturdy confident figure of Christopher standing the cane ready in his hand and bent before him the slight naked body of the slut, slighter even than any free boy of his age because of the more restricted diet and harder life endured by even comparatively privileged stock on the Hacienda, seemed an allegory and justification for the whole Tribute system. Who contrasting the strength and authority of the free boy with the cringing humility of the brat could doubt that one was destined to rule and the other to serve.

Christopher plied the cane like a veteran. He did not waste time but yet he saw that he made every stroke tell. Hans like every Tribute Boy made no effort to disguise his sufferings under correction. His howls punctuated by the sharp hiss of the cane as it descended and the crack as wood cut across tightly drawn bare flesh rang out in the evening stillness. Then it was over. Christopher stood flushed and breathless from his efforts. The brat still whimpering was back in his place.

"I have," Don Carlos said, "one announcement to make. The Tribute Boy Vass was released while serving on the Picos."

I noticed as did every other person the form of words he used. 'Was released' not 'was granted his Release.' It was an indication that something irregular had happened that the brat was killed or died without the formalities of the Tribute system being observed.

"You brats will all know him and many of our guests will do so as well. I will miss him for not only was he a beautiful slut with fair haired and golden skinned but he was also a skilful and energetic little whore. He was as any of our guests who enjoyed him will vouch an excellent fuck."

"He was all that I could ask for in a Tribute Boy. He accepted his fate and strove to serve his betters with uncomplaining devotion. His end was a painful one but even when he was being torn by the horses penis he did not rebel. Not for him the clenched fist or the hurled stone of wicked ungrateful rebellion, a rebellion that is anyway doomed to failure and that will bring only ruin and death to the brat and it's parents and disgrace to the Tribute master that has nurtured it. No he died as he lived like the faithful devoted Tribute Boy that was."

"I have written to his father informing him of his sons death and have had a reply which I will read to you now."

"Honoured and Noble Sir,

I write to thank you for the most generous settlement that you have made me and my wife. I am grateful that my son had the opportunity of serving so munificent a Master and that both in his life and his death he has given you pleasure. Every letter he wrote to us during his time with you honoured Sir declared, what I know to be true, his deep love for you and his good fortune in being allowed to serve in the Hacienda de los Niños Tributos del Ezzaro with the opportunity to give pleasure to the many rich and noble ladies and gentlemen that you entertain there.

His death must as you describe it have been painful but all brats are doomed to die and I am sure that the knowledge he was suffering it in your service gave him consolation even in his death agonies.

I have Sir another son approaching Tribute age I think quite as beautiful as the one that has been fortunate enough to be allowed to die in your service. I very humbly offer this boy to you in his place."

Don Carlos paused impressively and then turning nodded once more to me and followed by his son and his secretary walked out of the compound.