by James Lear
‘Yes.’
‘Stand aside.’ The sergeant squared up to Lebecque; in a fight, they would be evenly matched. The soldier was shorter but looked strong and pugnacious, clearly used to fighting; on the side of his face, from one curly brown sideburn down to his jaw, there was a fresh scar. His eyes betrayed the bully beneath the uniform. Lebecque, however, was no puny cleric. I knew well enough the strength in the limbs beneath his robes. But instead of pushing the sergeant back and clearing the insolent soldiers out of the house, he meekly stepped aside.
‘What are you doing, Lebecque?’ I hissed. ‘Let’s throw them out!’
‘For God’s sake, Charles, keep a cool head.’
The sergeant seemed to notice me for the first time, and looked me up and down with a wolfish grin. ‘This is the child of the house, I presume?’
He knew exactly how to anger me; he was not many years my senior, and only a little taller than me, but his uniform gave him authority.
‘Be careful who you are addressing, sir,’ I said, trying to look haughty. ‘This is the home of a Scottish family. You are not welcome.’
‘Charles, please go upstairs,’ said Lebecque. The soldiers were laughing openly. ‘Let me deal with this.’
‘You? Why you? I am the man of the house!’ The sergeant guffawed.
‘Charles, I beg you—’
‘Go on, boy,‘ said the sergeant, ‘let Mummy tuck you up in bed. There’s nothing for you to play with here.’
‘I will not be told—’
‘Charlie...’ It was my mother this time, white-faced, wringing her hands. I stood my ground.
The sergeant relished my discomfiture. ‘Snot-nosed kids should obey their mothers. Even the child of a Jacobite whore.’
Silence fell with a thud. Lebecque clenched his fists. The sergeant stood there, insolently chewing. His soldiers sniggered and wiped their noses. All eyes were on me.
‘Nobody insults my mother in front of me, sir!’
‘Go to the playroom, Scottish brat.’
‘Charles...’
‘Nobody! Get out of my house!’ I jumped down the stairs and launched myself on the sergeant, grabbing for his throat. He was too quick for me, stepped backwards and left me sprawling at his feet. He stuck the muddy boot of his toe in my face and rubbed it around my mouth.
‘You don’t want us to take you as well, do you, pretty boy? You know what happens to babes like you in the army, don’t you?’
‘Don’t touch him.’ Lebecque’s voice sounded commanding. The sergeant stiffened, as if in the presence of a commanding officer.
‘Take what you want and leave.’
‘Well, that’s very kind of you,’ drawled the sergeant, relaxing again. ‘Gibson. Bright. Arrest him.’
Two of the brutish soldiers stepped forward. My mother screamed in fright, but they didn’t touch me; they went straight for Lebecque and held him by the arms. A third soldier bound his hands with a rope. Lebecque offered no resistance.
‘There,’ said the sergeant with mock kindness, ‘we needn’t go through the motions of searching the house now. Prisoner gave himself up, didn’t he? We’ll trouble you no further, sir.’ This last with grating sarcasm to me. ‘Good day. Men! Fall in! About turn! Quick march!’
The soldiers ambled out of the house, talking and laughing. Lebecque, bound at a rope’s end, was pulled after them. My mother and I were rooted to the spot.
The last thing I saw was Lebecque’s head turned to face us one last time, an imploring look in his eyes.
The soldiers pulled him through the door and were gone.
Chapter Five
Three weeks passed and we heard nothing. We lived in daily dread of a return visit from the redcoats, but Gordon Hall remained silent. I begged my mother to tell me all she knew about Monsieur Lebecque, but she dismissed me, took to her bed and refused to see anyone except Ethel. I sought Girolle in the village but he, said the landlord at the inn, had disappeared, leaving a purse of silver to cover his lodging. Lebecque had passed out of our lives as suddenly, as mysteriously, as he had arrived.
Well, I had achieved my ends. The threat to our family was gone. Lebecque’s humiliation was complete. I could not have planned it better myself. So why was I nagged by a sense of guilty and misery? For all that I tried to gloat, I felt that I had betrayed a man, that my arrogance and stupidity had endangered a life. Lebecque may have been a bad priest, a hypocrite - but I could not forget the look in his eyes as he was dragged out of Gordon Hall to face God only knew what tortures at the hands of his captors. And just before, he had tried to tell me something. He had paved the way to an understanding between us and I, in my pride and ignorance, had rebuffed him.
Finally one day the mail coach brought an envelope addressed to my mother in an unknown hand. Within was a brief, scrawled note from Lebecque.
Most honoured Madame Gordon
Fate has been kind to me, and I am comfortable enough in captivity Do not attempt to find me. Further communication is impossible. I beg you to forgive the imposition on your family and the danger and discomfort in which I placed you. I would wish Master Charles to keep up his studies, and enclose directions to that end.
Your servant
Benoit Lebecque
Wrapped in the note was a thick, sealed package bearing the inscription ‘CEG’ — my initials in Greek characters. Poor, honest Lebecque had found the time to worry about my education. I had misjudged him.
How far I had misjudged him I was about to find out. Dawdling up to the library, I anticipated nothing more than a series of dry grammatical exercises, a translation from Aristotle, perhaps. I sat down, carefully broke the seal and unwrapped the package. Inside were four sheets of thin, dirty paper, closely hatched with Greek script. I sighed and prepared to start work. Within two minutes my eyes were starting out of my head.
φɩλoσ Xαρoλoσ
This salutation, in perfect Attic Greek, was followed by Lebecque’s confession. Sweating and impatient with my own imperfect powers of translation, I worked my way through the letter. By the end I was in tears. ‘Dearest Charles,’ it began.
I pray that this letter, written at great danger to myself, finds you and your mother safe and well. I know you will wish, both of you, never to see me again, and if God is just you never will. I must ask you to perform one final task for me, and then forget me. But first, to understand the importance of this favour that I ask you, you must know who and what I am. Charles, you always wished to understand. I tried to protect you, but now you have your wish.
I am not a priest but an ordinary sinner; an extraordinary sinner, perhaps I should say. You will judge for yourself, I am sure. Remember, though, that all I did was in service of my King and to protect you, your family and many, many others like you.
My name is truly Benoit Lebecque, and I am by vocation a scholar and theologian. I might have made a good priest, but God chose a different course for me. Perhaps, as you told me, my carnal appetites would have made a hypocrite of me had I worn the habits of a man of God while polluting myself within. But that is a charge of which I exonerate myself.
I was forced from my studies by the demands of the Stuart cause. My family has ancient links with yours; our fathers were sworn supporters of Prince Charles, who now lives in exile near my home in Argiers. In the aftermath of our defeat at Culloden, and the shameful murder of your father, I swore to serve those few powerful and prominent Jacobites still living in Scotland, who wished to escape the dangers of General Wade’s avenging army and join their Lord in France. To that end I was despatched north to live with you in the guise of a humble priest and tutor. In fact I directed a small army of spies through Girolle and others, who made contact with our targets and, when the time was right, put them to ship from the west coast, to temporary havens in Ireland and finally on the long voyage to safety in France.
All went well, and we rescued perhaps a dozen from certain death. Then, alas, we were betrayed. By whom? I am not sure. I
only know that information given to the soldiers led them directly to Gordon Hall, where they were under orders to force me into open resistance and then arrest me on whatever pretext they could. To spare you and your mother the pain of further violence I allowed them to take me, suspecting rightly that I was their only target.
Your mother resisted my presence in the house from the start, but was loyal to the memory of her husband and sacrificed her own peace of mind for the good of our glorious cause. Please, Charles, comfort her now and reassure her. I wish I could give better news, but I fear her trials are not over. Your family will never be free from suspicion. I will say nothing to incriminate you, even on pain of death. But while you remain at Gordon Hall, you are in danger.
Now, Charles, to my final commission. In my trunk, among my few humble possessions, there is an encrypted list of all the families to whom I was to bring assistance. It is concealed under a false panel at the bottom of the chest. You must find it and destroy it immediately. Girolle held all the day-to-day papers, and has returned with them to France. Only this document remains and must be destroyed. Please, Charles, obey me in this. As long as the list survives, the danger to you and your family is acute.
Finally, to me. I am held in solitary confinement in a castle near Fort William. My journey here was arduous but I avoided any real brutality. The soldiers, as all redcoats, were a degenerate rabble and taunted me endlessly with their vileness, but laid not a finger on me, perhaps out of respect for the cloth. They know nothing of the truth, only that I am a spy. They believe me to be a priest.
Although Fort William is not far from Gordon Hall, it took us three days to reach it. We stopped at every inn and every house along the way. The drunken soldiers, when they could not find a woman willing to entertain them, had their own amusements which I was forced to witness. I shall not describe them to you, Charles. You know I have no grounds for moralising. I know much of the world, and have experienced much. I know about the love that exists between men. What I have witnessed among this rabble is a grotesque travesty of that love.
Finally we reached Fort William, and none too soon; the soldiers were tiring of my silent presence, and preparing to amuse themselves with me. I was delivered to the captain of the garrison and put straight into a tiny cell which has now been my home for three weeks. I was provided with bread and water through a tiny hatch in the door. Nobody spoke to me. I had one blanket, filthy and lousy, to protect myself against the cold nights. A bucket in the corner of the cell serves all my other needs.
The silence was the worst thing; after a few days I started talking to myself just for the company of a human voice. I feared madness, Charles, in that terrible time. But God was merciful and sent a kind young soldier to tend me. The rope burns on my wrists were still open and dirty; my head was scabbed and scarred from the vicious attention of the prison barber who shaved it when I arrived.
This soldier, a pale, blond English boy only a little older than you, came to my cell at dawn, not daring to speak above a whisper for fear of detection. All the guards were under strict instructions to leave me entirely alone until General Wade himself should arrive at the castle to question me; perhaps they hoped I would die in the meantime. My soldier, however, took pity on me.
First of all he brought me meat and drink from his own rations, took away the stinking slop bucket and returned with clean cloths and a bowl of hot water. He sat patiently beside me while I wolfed the food, watching me through dark, troubled eyes, nervously wringing his hands. When I had eaten he took the plate from me and whispered in my ear.
‘Don’t make a noise. Let me help you.’
Carefully, gently he tore away the bandages I had improvised from a few torn strips of my shirt and dabbed at my wounds with clean water. Then he slid the ruined garment over my head and attended to the weals on my back where the soldiers had beaten me with sticks. He cleaned my neck, my ears, my scalp. The water, and the touch of kindness, felt so good that I revived and, for the first time in weeks, seemed to breathe freely.
The soldier lifted me carefully to my feet and pulled away the foul rags that were all that remained of my undergarments. After all this time in solitary confinement I was disgracefully dirty, and thoroughly ashamed of myself; the soldier did not seem to mind, and pushed my hand away when I tried to stop him. He wrung out his cloth and dabbed away at my hindquarters, rubbing gently until I was once more presentable. Then he transferred his attentions to the front. I must have smelled terrible. He didn’t seem to mind.
Soon I was clean once more, and I felt the strength and self-respect returning. My guardian angel, still kneeling before me with the cloth in his hand, seemed in no hurry to finish his job; perhaps he was as lonely as me, and relished this sympathetic human contact. He was drying me now with a clean towel, slowly, carefully. I noticed that his hands were shaking.
God forgive me, I realised at once that I had him in my power. I am not a cruel man, Charles, but I know that a man in desperate straits must clutch at every opportunity that presents itself. When I saw him lick his lips, I seized the advantage. I grasped him by the wrist - his arms were thick, white and hairless - and held on to his hand, staring straight down into his imploring eyes. He was terrified, I could see. What punishments, I wondered, would await him? He had compromised himself quite enough by helping me... but now?
The tenderness with which he had ministered to me had awakened my lower self, and I was half erect. I will spare you descriptions, Charles; I know that you have seen it all for yourself, that night through my chamber window. My soldier, however, had never seen it before and was transfixed. I let go his hand and swayed my hips slowly before him. It was all a ruse, I suppose, but I was not immune to the charm of the situation. When he took hold of my fully hard cock, I was as pleased as he was.
At first he was too scared to do much, and needed reassurance, so I knelt down beside him (his hand never left me), took him gently by the chin and kissed him. Oh Charles! After denying myself the pleasure of human contact for so long in my guise as a priest, I cannot tell you how sweet it was to kiss another - even in these degraded circumstances! The soldier’s breath was fresh; unlike his confrères, he did not drink beer or smoke tobacco. He returned my kiss with ardour, and we sank to the cell floor in a passionate embrace. I tore myself away and barked out an order: ‘Strip!’ My soldier recognised the voice of command, jumped to his feet and divested himself quickly and efficiently of his uniform.
What I saw astonished me. The whiteness of his skin, and the athletic development of his body, resembled exactly the marble statues of ancient Greek athletes that we see in the great collections of Paris. There was only one difference: where the Greek ideal is minutely endowed, this living statue was blessed with a huge, hard rod curving up between his legs. It was my turn to stare. The soldier blushed and tried to cover himself with his hands, as if he was ashamed of his arousal. I stood beside him, put an arm round his shoulders and took it in my hand. I thought he would faint.
Nobody has ever touched it before, sir.’
‘Not even your wife?’
‘I have no wife. Oh please, sir...’
His knees were buckling; I had only handled him for a few seconds and great white bullets were arcing out across the cell floor.
I thought now that he would dress and hurry away, but far from it. With the last drop hanging from his still-hard cock, he fell to his knees and took me in his mouth. God, it was good! I was ready to come in his mouth, but he had other plans. Kneeling on all fours, he presented his hard, white arse to me. I needed no further bidding. Hawking into my hand, I smeared spit over the end of my cock and placed it against his hole. One rude shove and I was inside him. He wanted to cry out in pain, I know, but could not. The bestiality of the situation inflamed me, and I was merciless. Reaching round to feel him, I found that he was still as hard as wood. When I pumped myself dry inside his tight arse, I held him in a fierce embrace and watched as he coaxed another load to splatter again
st the damp stone.
We held each other for a while until my soldier, awakening at last to the dangers of our situation, dressed and left me - not, however, before I had extracted from him a promise to visit me again with pen and paper.
So now, Charles, you know all. You know what sort of man I am, and you will perhaps guess how hard it was for me to play the tutor-priest in Gordon Hall. You will understand the sorrow with which I destroyed your friendship with Alexander. You will also understand the lengths to which I will go to furnish myself with the means to write you this warning. I hope, Charles, that to understand all is to forgive... not all, perhaps, but some.
It is only the thought of your safety that has kept me hopeful during this terrible time. I may never be able to communicate with you again. Forgive me for imposing my experiences on you. Now I wish I could erase it all and start again, but my soldier is waiting at the door to take this message away and smuggle it out of the prison. I enclose it in a letter to your mother.
Charles, your image is with me always.
Enough. I must close now.
Do my bidding and then find safety.
Pray for me
In haste
BL
What had I done? God, what had I done? In an agony of soul-searching I fled from the library and ran along the corridor, half blinded by tears. I found the door to Lebecque’s old room, mercifully unlocked. Nobody had been inside since his arrest; my mother must have believed that he would one day return.
He had left it tidy. The trunk was neatly packed, the bed made, the few books and papers in perfect order on his desk. I dived into the trunk and started flinging the contents about the room: his riding boots, a Bible, a small framed portrait of a woman, a few garments, his shaving kit. It was all here, and poor Lebecque was in prison facing certain death.