The Low Road

by James Lear

  ‘We’d better let them in,’ said the other soldier, looking around in terror for the brigands he believed were on our tail.

  ‘Please, for the love of mercy,’ begged Robert, and the gate was unbarred. The temptation to charge was overwhelming, but instead we limped into the courtyard.

  ‘Can you give these poor young virgins warmth and shelter? Do you have men who can help to tend them? They’re very frightened, gentlemen, and they need comfort. The poor young maidens. Look at them. So soft, so helpless.’

  The soldiers were whispering to each other, and at length beckoned the ‘girls’ through to the kitchens. Our plan, to my astonishment, was working.

  The ‘girls’ displayed themselves in various attitudes of grief and terror as, one by one, more soldiers filtered into the room, roused from their slumbers by the rumour that there were women in the castle. Robert and I, feigning exhaustion in the corner, counted heads. When there were twenty in the gloomy room, and they were occupied in tending to the poor, fragile young ladies, we slipped back into the courtyard.

  None of the other doors was unlocked, so, like a couple of monkeys, we scaled a drainpipe and clambered across the slate roof of what I assumed were the sleeping quarters. Robert, weaker than I with his injured arm, slipped and dislodged a tile, which broke with a crash on the cobbles below. Nobody came out to investigate; I could only assume that the soldiers were busy getting their cocks sucked.

  We reached the highest roof within the castle walls just as the sun came over the battlements and gleamed back off the chapel spire. There were windows in the side of the chapel, unprotected by bars. That would be our point of entry.

  We were just scrambling over the last furlong when, from a small courtyard far below us, came a sound that froze my blood. A long, low roll on the drum. Silence, then again, the long roll. Robert was poised like a cat. We hauled ourselves up to the top of the roof and looked down.

  There, in the gloom below us, was a group of perhaps six soldiers. Six soldiers! Our information was wrong! We had not tricked them all into abandoning their posts. Where had these new forces come from? I glared at Robert, who signalled silence, and pointed.

  A crude timber construction stood in the yard: a platform, perhaps three feet high and three feet wide, from which sprouted a long upright beam and a crossbar. A gallows. The hangman was adjusting the rope round the neck of a pale, gaunt figure.

  Lebecque.

  The drums rolled again. A priest stepped on to the platform, thumbed through a greasy black book, muttered something and clambered down. Standing at the foot of the gallows, the soldiers held two more captives bound and ready for the noose.

  The light was increasing rapidly now; a sunbeam caught the chapel window and reflected on to Lebecque’s face. I saw his lips moving in prayer, his eyes wincing in the light as he looked up to heaven and straight into my face, thirty feet above him.

  He blinked, bowed his head, then looked up again. I suppose he must have thought he was seeing things.

  The drum beat again, no longer the slow roll but now a steady, remorseless march as the hangman tightened the noose around Lebecque’s throat. I looked up at Robert, who had the whistle poised at his mouth. But if he blew - and the soldiers attacked - we would still surely be too late. The hand that would push Lebecque to his death was already on his shoulder.

  And so this was their justice: murdered in secret, under a cloak of sham religion, without the benefit of a trial and with no friends to speak for him.

  I don’t remember hatching any particular plan, but before Robert could hold me back I hoisted my legs over the apex of the roof and slid down the slates into thin air, just as Lebecque was pushed off the platform. God’s hand must have been upon me, for I landed with a crash against the beam of the gallows and knocked the whole shoddy assembly flying. Somehow I avoided dashing my brains on the cobbles, and landed instead on top of a mêlée of soldiers. The wind was knocked out of my body, and I had just the time to see Lebecque struggling with the cord around his neck, and to hear two loud blasts of the whistle above me, before I lost consciousness.

  When I came to, what I thought was only a couple of seconds later, pandemonium had broken loose around me. There was blood on the cobbles in front of me; blood from my own nose, I soon discovered. I raised my head and looked straight into the open staring eyes of a dead soldier. A flurry of petticoats passed across my head as a woman - ah! one of our girls! - jumped over me in pursuit of a man in uniform. Captain Robert stood on the scaffold belabouring all and sundry with his sword; two or three lay dead at his feet. Everywhere I looked, there were mad Bacchantes brandishing daggers, swords and planks of wood, wreaking deadly havoc among the terrified men of the castle. The fat priest sat under the gallows clutching his prayer book. I could not see Lebecque.

  Yes: there he was, kneeling over the bleeding form of a young man with long, curly dark hair. I dragged myself to his side and grasped his arm. He turned and saw me at last.

  ‘God in heaven. Charlie. It is you.’

  I descended into darkness again as the chaos surged around me.

  I came to my senses in the back of a covered cart, lying on my back and conscious of a terrible pain in my leg. A cool hand was on my forehead; my head was resting on something firm and warm which, I discovered, was somebody’s lap. I opened my eyes, but found it hard to focus.

  ‘Lebecque?’

  The hand smoothed my brow again, and a voice I knew well came from somewhere above me.

  ‘Yes, Charlie, I’m here.’

  Again I fell into sleep, or unconsciousness, and awoke once more with the gentle hand stroking my hair, the warmth of another body next to mine. I felt better; my leg still hurt like hell, but I knew I would survive. I tried to raise myself.

  ‘No, Charlie, you mustn’t move.’

  ‘I must see you, Lebecque.’

  Strong arms raised me a little, and I looked up into those dark, hooded eyes, saw again the dark hair falling over the pale forehead. I buried my face in his chest.

  ‘Thank God. Thank God.’

  He bent down and kissed me gently on the mouth.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Bound for the north, Charlie.’

  ‘Captain Robert?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘With his army?’

  I heard the smile in Lebecque’s voice. ‘Yes. God help Scotland.’

  ‘Who’s driving?’

  ‘Sam. A friend.’ He pointed to another body lying on a few sacks beside us. ‘Steven is badly hurt. We’re going to find help.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then home, Charlie. Home.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The rest of my story is swiftly told.

  Lebecque and I left our friends at Stirling and took horse for the Highlands. We were shy together for the first few days; I was ashamed of myself, to tell the truth, ashamed of the heinous amounts of time I had wasted on my journey, a delay which very nearly cost Lebecque his life. I agonised over each foolish adventure, each needless dalliance. I rebuked myself for a shameful lack of purpose and manly resolve. God, if we had lingered just one more day, one more hour, one more minute, Lebecque would be dead.

  Lebecque, for his part, was full of praise for my bravery in leading the attack on the castle and rhapsodised over his feelings when he first looked up and saw my face peering over the rooftops. Then he checked himself and became strangely silent, more like the Lebecque I had known at Gordon Hall long, long ago. I began to wonder, as we rode together over the rough country around Strathyre, whether all my efforts had been worthwhile. What was the relationship between us now? Would we return to Gordon Hall only to say farewell? Or would Lebecque return to his sullen, secretive ways, resuming his profession of spy and false priest? I could hardly bare to think about it.

  One night, however, as we were camping under the trees and stars after a two days’ ride, we started to talk. Lebecque asked me if I had received any of his lette
rs. Only one, I replied, which had sent me out on my quest. None since? None. He was silent for a while.

  ‘I wrote to you many times, Charlie.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I found... means.’

  ‘What happened to the letters?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps they were never delivered.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re waiting for me at Gordon Hall.’

  ‘Yes. Maybe.’ He drifted off, scowling at the tiny fire we’d built.

  ‘Charlie.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I said many things in those letters. Things which, perhaps, I should not have said.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I committed many shameful acts.’

  ‘Oh, well...’ I was hardly in a position to take the moral high ground. ‘I forgive you.’

  ‘But it was not so much my actions that those letters described, as my thoughts. And my feelings.’

  There was something about the tone of this voice that persuaded me to keep quiet. I nodded and shifted a little closer to the fire; closer to him.

  Lebecque seemed to be struggling to find words.

  ‘Charlie, would you describe me as an honest man?’

  ‘A good man, certainly.’

  ‘But honest? Open and forthright?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. I knew you under strange circumstances, remember.’

  ‘Yes. I could use that as an excuse. I had to dissemble my true feelings, my true self, for the good of the cause that I served. That is behind me now.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Yes. I am no longer in the service of any government, or any cause. I am a free agent. And as such, I have no loyalty except to myself... and to those I love.’

  I was no longer an innocent. I knew that his words preceded some kind of declaration.

  ‘I realised this during my last days...’

  ‘What, Lebecque?’

  ‘That love is all that matters.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Charlie, do you remember when we were at Gordon Hall, when I first arrived? When you were so angry with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I had sent away your friend Alexander, hadn’t I?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did you... love him, Charlie?’

  ‘Love him? A little. I was fond of him. I enjoyed his... company.’

  ‘I see. But love?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Because I was too young to know what it meant.’

  ‘I see.’ Lebecque pondered a while. ‘Not because... he was a man?’

  At last I saw what the conversation was driving at. Poor Lebecque; for all he knew I could be betrothed to some local girl by now, having put behind me the follies of my youth.

  ‘Not because he was a man, no. Au contraire.’ I smiled, desperate to introduce a note of levity into this serious conversation.

  ‘Could you, do you think, Charlie, ever...’

  I was beginning to lose patience. ‘Love a man, Lebecque? Is that what you’re driving at?’

  He scrutinised my face for any sign of disgust. ‘Yes.’

  Words! I had had enough of them. Instead I leaned over, slipped a hand round the back of his neck and kissed him on the mouth.

  ‘Does that answer your question, Monsieur Lebecque?’

  He stared at me in disbelief.

  ‘Don’t look so solemn, Lebecque!’

  ‘I cannot believe it.’

  ‘Why do you think I chased across Scotland to find you? Why do you think I’m sitting here with my arm around you? I love you, Lebecque. I think I always have.’ Perhaps that was not quite true, but in the heat of the moment it made sense. I had always desired him, certainly, and I had come to admire him. Now, after all my experiences, it seemed to me that there was no man that I wanted other than Benoit Lebecque.

  This time he initiated the kiss, and I have never known one like it. Not just the kiss of two men who are about to fuck (although it was that as well). This one came from the soul.

  Gradually we entwined ourselves until we were lying on the ground. It was hard and lumpy, and not a little damp, but to me it felt like the most luxurious feather bed. The conviction was growing that this was the moment towards which all my adventures had tended - that it was in the arms of this man that I belonged.

  I could tell that Lebecque was aroused; his cock was pressing into my thigh. But he seemed diffident about making the next move. I could see his point; I suppose he was still worried, somehow, that he was abusing his position as tutor. Poor man! He had been shut up in a prison cell while I had been fucking my way round the British Isles. Oh well: as usual, I would have to play the slut.

  I broke from the kiss and started unfastening his shirt. Lebecque lay back and closed his eyes, perhaps from shame. His chest was hard and dark, with a light covering of hair that was thicker in the centre, where the mounds of muscles curved in towards his breastbone. His stomach was ridged and rock hard, and heaving more than usual. I kissed Lebecque on the throat, then on the chest, I ran my tongue round each of his nipples and buried my face in his armpits. When I looked up he had his eyes open and was looking straight at me with a smile on my face; at last he had realised that I was not some virginal little soul who would be scared off by the merest whiff of sex. God, if only he knew... I was more concerned about alarming him with my evident experience. I don’t imagine many young men of twenty, at least from my sheltered background, had racked up as many sexual conquests as I had.

  Now Lebecque took an active part in our lovemaking. He practically tore the shirt off my back, and his eyes shone with delight when he saw my body.

  ‘God, Charlie,’ he said, ‘you’ve grown into a fine, strong young man.’ He placed a hand on my stomach, feeling every contour. It felt good, but I was becoming impatient, and so undid my trousers to expose my red pubic hair. Lebecque needed no prompting; his hand dived in and started rummaging around in my groin. Soon his fingers made contact with my cock which, as the reader must have assumed by now, was as solid as a rock. The look of surprise and delight on his face as he wrapped his hand round it will stay with me for a long time.

  For a minute he was content to play with it inside my clothes, but gradually lust was getting the better of him, and he hauled it out into the open air. Of course, Lebecque had only ever seen this part of my anatomy when it was shrivelled by the cold waters of Loch Linnhe during our summer dips; he was clearly astonished by how much it had grown. He gripped it and wanked me gently, accustoming himself to the feel of a hard cock in his hand. I could see him licking his lips, and it didn’t take a mindreader to know what he was thinking. I gave him permission.

  ‘Suck me.’

  As far as I knew he had never actually done the deed before, but he must have had a natural talent. He swallowed me whole, and I felt my head breaching his throat. He neither gagged nor choked, but carried on caressing me in great long strokes, while his hands explored my balls and my bum. Then he let me go and continued licking every inch of my shaft.

  Now, however, I wanted to get my hands on what I had only ever seen through a window before. While Lebecque busied himself with my cock, I shifted round and undid his trousers, pulling them down to his knees so that he was naked from the neck down. His cock was stiff and dark, throbbing in its nest of black hair. I repositioned myself and took the head between my lips. I could not see his face, of course, but I assumed from the grunts and the increased vigour with which he played with my cock that he was happy with the arrangement. We carried on with this game until, to the astonishment of both, we came simultaneously in each other’s mouths. I scarcely knew where Lebecque ended and I began. I had never known such a sensation of bonding with another.

  Neither of us had had enough. Lebecque seemed possessed by a devil of desire, and pinned me to the ground, calling out my name again and again, kissing me wildly on the mouth as if he was afraid that I would disappear.

&nbs
p; ‘It’s all right, Lebecque. I’m here. I will never leave you again.’

  He was hard once more, and I knew exactly where I wanted him to put it. I whispered in his ear.

  ‘Would you... fuck me?’

  He looked down at me with such tenderness and concern; perhaps he believed that he was really going to take my virginity. I didn’t care to disabuse him; it pleased me to play the role, and besides, I really felt that this was the first time again. To my astonishment, I felt slightly shy - me, who had spread my legs for anyone with a handsome mug and a ready prick, who had enjoyed entire garrisons up my arse, sometimes two at a time.

  ‘Yes, Charlie.’

  Gently, he picked my knees up from the hard ground and surveyed my arse by the firelight. The stubble was still growing back, and it looked unusually gold, I suppose. He was lost in admiration - which soon had me stiff again.

  We did not speak again that night; finally, we had gone beyond the fumbling of words, and let our bodies express our feelings. Lebecque spat into his hand and wet his prick, then guided himself slowly into me. It took the best part of five minutes before he was fully inside, and then he stayed still, allowing me to get used to the feeling. For once, I reined in my appetites and enjoyed the moment, rather than hastening on to the next.

  Then he began a slow rocking movement within me, which soon developed into a cruder in-out, in-out. Before long he was pistoning into me, supporting himself on his toes and elbows and using his cock as a fulcrum. When he came, he stared straight into my eyes.

  For the rest of the journey we enjoyed ourselves. Occasionally we spoke of our feelings, but mostly we revelled in the novel sensation of not having a care in the world. Nobody knew where we were, we had no responsibilities, and we were in no hurry to assume any. We sat outdoors during the long June evenings and watched the sun set over the first of the lochs. We dined at taverns and inns, and occasionally raided the last of my gold to pay for a room. By the time we had neared Fort William, my name alone was enough to ensure credit and welcome in any of the houses along the road.