by Thom Lane
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself abruptly to his feet, using me as a convenient thing to push against, and then hold on to once he was upright.
“Master? Where are we going?” It takes a bold slave to question his master, but I really didn’t like the way he was swaying where he stood, nor the way he was frowning to focus. I would have put him back to bed, I would have leaned on him as hard as I had to, only I wanted to get out of there, to see him out of there, as urgently as he did.
“To the baths. Help me, will you? Find me something to wear, anything, I don’t care; and then…”
A gesture finished his sentence for him: Be my strength, my staff. I’ll lean on you, as much as I have to. That may mean a lot.
* * * *
I went naked, because he’d forgotten to tell me to get dressed. I didn’t care. For once I didn’t have to trot subserviently at his heel in the public street. I had license to tuck my shoulder under his arm, my own arm around his waist, my whole body tight against his side. If my cheek settled against his shoulder as we went along, well: he didn’t seem to mind. If I caught the fabric of his shirt between my teeth, I didn’t think he’d notice.
He smelled sour, my poor master, and shuffled like an old man at my side. Sweat washes away, though, and the baking heat of the baths will restore a young man’s soul swifter and better than any potion from an apothecary. I soaked and soaped and rinsed him, rubbed him dry and laid him flat on a broad bench to sweat more cleanly in the steam; knelt at his side and held his hand until I felt his grip go slack as he drifted into a healing sleep.
An hour later I was still kneeling there, still holding his hand between both of mine when I felt it twitch, when a frown touched his face, when he spoke in a murmur without bothering to open his eyes: “Is that you, Jay?”
“Of course, Master.”
“Of course. Who else?” He seemed to mean who else would take the liberty?—but I didn’t think he really minded, much. At any rate he squeezed my fingers before pulling free, and then reached up to play with my sweat-soaked hair, and let me nuzzle briefly at his palm.
He still hadn’t opened his eyes. He really didn’t need to. His fingers hooked through my collar, and he tugged my head towards his groin, all the instruction that I needed.
For once he wasn’t stiff already. Even his cock apparently needed time to recover, wanting to doze slackly in the heat. It woke soon enough, though, beneath my tongue and my nipping teeth. That was a risk, but he didn’t cuff me for it: not right then, at least. Not with his cock held in my mouth. I heard him gasp a little, and stifled my grin against the sweet soft skin that sheathed that rod. Iron-hot it felt now against my lips, and iron-hard. If he’d rammed it into me right then, I think I would have melted utterly.
But he only wanted to lie there, my idle master, and have me service him. I only wanted to make him happy, see him restored and safe. So I licked and nuzzled and sucked, as he desired; I took his balls lightly in my sweaty fingers and played teasingly with them while my lips engulfed his tip, while I yearned to take all the fat length of him into my throat and couldn’t manage it.
Slow to rise, for once he was equally slow to come. It wasn’t my place to urge him to hurry, but slaves know a hundred tricks to nudge a master along more speedily. I knew them all—and I didn’t use any of them, despite that morning’s events and my dread of something more. He needed this time of relaxed recovery. That mage had shaken him deeply: in his soul, I thought, as much as in his body. So I swallowed down my anxiety and let him take all the time he wanted, until at last his body spasmed beneath me, and I could swallow down his hot spurt of musky cum.
Then for once I got to lead him—by the hand, not collar and leash; he laughed, and followed me good-naturedly—to a cool room where I washed him one more time, wrapped him in towels and fetched him a glass of fruit juice and shaved ice and nestled by his feet where I belonged. Leaning into his leg with my chin on his thigh, I peeped up and caught him smiling down at me. So I smiled back, took a breath, and chanced it.
“Master?”
“Well?” His hand stroked my cheek. “What now, sweet thing?”
“Master, you shouldn’t stay here. In the city, I mean, not the bathhouse. You mustn’t.”
His fingers lay suddenly quite still on my skin. “Mustn’t I?”
His voice was neutral, but there was a sudden lump of fear in my throat that I had to gulp down before I could carry on. “No, Master. Truly, you mustn’t.”
“Why’s that, then? Slave boy?”
A wise slave doesn’t tell his master what to do, but it was far too late for me to be wise now. I said, “Because Master Leonin won’t stop now. He never stops until he’s satisfied. You humiliated him, and he won’t be satisfied until you’re dead.” You know how he treated me, and I’m just a slave, of no account. You’re free. “Next time he won’t bring a mage, he’ll just send muscle.”
“I can look after myself,” he said slowly.
“Against one man, of course, Master.” Maybe. If the other man fought fair. My master was lean but strong, I knew that; but I knew Master Leonin too. “Against half a dozen, though? If they come with knives? They’ll kill you, Master. They will.” Life is cheap in Amaranth, and Master Leonin was rich. He wouldn’t hesitate.
“So what, you think I should just run away?”
Yes! I weighed the word in my mind, then shrugged and said it anyway. “Yes, Master. Please. You’ll never be safe else.” Let him run you out of town, let him think he’s won; perhaps then he’ll be satisfied after all, just with your absence.
I bit my tongue to stop myself saying any of that aloud, and leaned on him as hard as I dared. After a minute, I felt the pride ebb out of him like a physical thing, and thought maybe I should be grateful to that mage. Yesterday, he’d have resisted harder. Today he was so unsure of himself, he was easy to persuade.
Besides, I was right and he knew it. He sighed and said, “All right, lad. We’ll run, then, you and I. Where shall we go, have you thought about that too?”
I laughed softly, and kissed his knee. “That’s for you to say, Master. I’ll follow you anywhere.”
Of course I would. With his chain at my throat, I’d have no choice.
* * * *
Once he’d decided, he was swift and definite. We went back to his room one last time, mostly to collect all his ill-gotten gains; I packed a bag with the few things else that he wanted to keep, pulled on the tunic that he tossed me and padded out of there at his heel with never a regretful backward glance. If he looked back himself, it was only once, and probably only to make sure that I was where I ought to be. Or that his money was where it ought to be, more likely: on my back, two neat paces behind his.
He didn’t stop to bid good-bye to anyone. Not his landlady, not any of his supposed friends. In his head I think he was already gone: debts paid, ties cut, eyes on the road ahead.
If he’d made up his mind where to go now, he didn’t tell me. Why would he? I’d find out when we got there. In honesty, though, I don’t think he had any more idea than I did. He was just moving, that was all. I’d planted the need for it in his head, and he was making it happen.
It’s not such a bad life, being on the road. If you’re young, if you’re fit, if you’ve money enough and someone to carry your pack for you. One day followed another, and I watched him relax into it, letting the tensions and anxieties of the city slip little by little from his shoulders.
Sometimes we walked; sometimes he begged a ride on a cart or a wagon while I walked beside the wheel, under his eye. Once a carriage drew up, a woman’s voice called him inside, and I spent the rest of that day trotting along horse-fast and sweating hard. At least Master Jensen let me pass his bag up to the driver that time, to stow on the roof with the other luggage. He never let me ride, even on the bare boards of an empty wagon; walking would be good for me, he said. I needed exercise to keep me limber, to stop me getting fat and lazy.
/> Perhaps I pulled a rude face at him, when he said that. He cuffed me for it, so I guess I must have done. Then he kissed me afterwards, with my head still ringing like a bell. Sometimes I thought he cuffed me only for the sake of the kiss that followed; like sometimes I thought he beat me only because he wanted to fuck me and occasionally he just liked his meat more tender.
Soon enough the first touch of his switch would have me hot. When he thrashed me, sometimes I thought that I’d just melt. I didn’t think that mortal flesh could take it.
We were settling down together; traveling will do that, quicker than anything. Every day I was learning more how to please him, and he learned how keen I was to do that, and how able.
There was no sign of trouble coming after us. I’d almost stopped checking back over my shoulder to be sure of it.
I should have been looking ahead, over his shoulder, where trouble sat waiting for us.
Trouble sat with his long legs stretched out across the hearth, though there was no fire in it at this season.
Master Jensen had bought himself a badge from the Wayfarers’ Guild, our first day out of Amaranth. That badge entitled him to stay at any guildhouse we came to on the road: him and his belongings, of course, his pack and me. Also, worn prominently on his jacket, it offered some defense against bandits and thieves. The Guild looks after its own, and its justice can be savage.
That first night he bunked down in the common dormitory, which meant I slept on straw in the stables, chained with half a dozen other bucks from a merchant caravan. My poor master was heavy-eyed and rueful in the morning, though, when he came to claim me after breakfast.
“I had snorers both sides,” he grumbled. “You probably had the better night of it, out here.”
I wasn’t so sure of that. Straw is scratchy, and slaves snore too when they dare to, when they’re allowed, when they’re not sharing their masters’ quarters.
“Still,” he went on, adjusting the straps on his pack so that it hung higher on my back, “at least the food was good. Did someone remember to feed you too?”
“Yes, Master.” Though not until I’d scrubbed floors for an hour to earn it. Every guildhouse keeps its own slaves, but they can always find work for another.
“Good.” His hands lingered on my body, and I dared to think that perhaps snoring companions weren’t the only reason he’d had a sleepless night. Perhaps his narrow bed had seemed too wide for one.
For a moment, his lips nuzzled at my cheek, and I smelled bacon and kaff on his breath. I was full of good grain porridge, but even so I envied him his breakfast.
Then he bit my ear.
When I yelped he laughed, slapped my rump, said, “Chin up, pretty.”
I lifted my chin, he clipped his leash to my collar, and away we went.
* * * *
After that, Master Jensen paid a little extra every night for a private room. Just so that he didn’t have to put up with other free folk’s snoring, he gave me to understand, quite firmly. Oh, and if I dared to snore myself, his switch would swiftly train me otherwise.
“Yes, Master,” I said meekly, unpacking his clothes and hanging them up to let the air at them and the creases drop away. “Should I sleep in the stables again? We followed that mule train all day, but I’m sure there’ll be a corner somewhere… Ow!”
He stung me again, trying hopelessly to look stern with a grin cracking the corners of his mouth. “You’ll sleep where I tell you, slave boy.”
“Of course, Master.”
His hand was on the back of my neck, rubbing lightly just above the collar. It felt wonderful. “No point paying for all this space and not using it,” he murmured. “Maybe I’ll sleep you at the foot of the bed here. Look, there’s even a rug, you could snuggle up on that. Pampered brat.”
“Yes, Master.” He wasn’t really putting any pressure on my neck, but I seemed to be stepping closer anyway, leaning in, as if he had some kind of irresistible draw. His smile was too close to focus on, my eyes hurt if I tried to go cross-eyed, so I just went up on tiptoe and kissed it instead.
I slept that night in the heat of him, the way I liked it best, my arms loose around his leg and my head just there at his hip, where it was most convenient.
Those days were almost dreamlike, for both of us, I think: all tension ripped away, anxiety left far behind. Always something new around the corner, new country and new faces. Even when my master was being hardest on me, making me run behind a cartwheel or yelp beneath his switch: even then I could be happy, knowing myself under his eye, at the heart of his attention. Knowing that it made him happy to be safe, to be free, with a boy to train to his pleasure and all the world to explore.
This close to Amaranth, guildhouses were an easy day’s journey apart. Every evening we’d stop at the next, he’d show his badge and pay for a private room. I’d wash the day’s sweat and grime away—under his eye again, because it amused him to stand over me as I splashed in the horse trough, pointing out what I’d missed or skimped, rubbing me dry after with whatever rough fabric came to hand—and then I’d help him wash and change, see that he ate, see that the house slaves took his clothes to launder and left his boots alone. His boots were mine to care for. I was quite stubborn about that.
Most evenings, after supper, he would go off in search of a game. The Guild allowed no gambling in its houses, but at night the road is like a long and slender city: camps and fires all up and down, and always cards and dice and money somewhere to be found.
If my master took me with him, he would win. Not spectacularly, not dangerously—not anymore!—but enough to cover the costs of the day and a little extra besides. If he left me behind, then he’d lose. It was a lesson quickly learned. I was his luck; he did better, always, to keep me at his heel, to kneel me by his side, to have me under his hand.
What more could a boy ask, than to be his master’s luck? I didn’t know how to make either of us happier, though I’d have done it in a moment if I only could.
* * * *
One more night, one more guildhouse. Sometimes sluicing the day’s dust from my master’s skin led to both of us getting sweaty again, needing to wash again after he had fucked me, but not this night. This night he was impatient, barely holding still beneath the washcloth and cool water, cuffing me away when I wanted to linger on my knees, kissing at his cock.
“Quick now,” he said, “dress me shabby.”
That meant he wanted to look down-at-heel, which meant that as soon as he’d eaten we’d be off prowling the roadway for a game. I knew it, I’d anticipated it, but even so my face must have shown how I felt; his fingers were suddenly tight on my chin, drawing my eyes up to meet his, not letting them shy away.
“What,” he said softly, dangerously, “you don’t approve of your master’s habits?” As I hesitated, he added, “Tell me true, now.”
I took a breath to tell him true, to say, No, Master, I don’t. I hate to see you waste yourself in gambling, night after night. You’re worth more than that, and I only wish I knew a way to prove it to you…
That would be a swift way to a beating, though, and no pleasure in it for either one of us. Masters never want to hear that kind of truth, whatever they say. So instead I told him a truth of a different kind.
“I worry about you, Master. Every night, I worry. There are worse men out there than Master Leonin, who like losing even less than he did.”
“Oh, is that it? Silly boy,” he said, slipping his fingers under my collar and tugging me to my feet, holding me close. “You don’t need to worry, I can look after myself. And you too, I’ll look after you.”
I wanted to argue with him. In honesty, I wanted to call him a fool, to remind him that he’d already had to flee one city, to ask if that was his idea of looking after either of us. If I did that, though, it wouldn’t be a simple beating that I faced. He’d have me on the post down in the stable yard and take a whip to my back. And I’d deserve it too, for being such an utter fool myself.
Still, I had to save him somehow. I frowned up at him. “Master, you can’t keep on winning forever. Your luck has to change sometime.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “You’re my luck, and I’m keeping you just as you are. Mine, my boy, my own…”
Just for that little moment, I let all my worries slip away. I leaned into him the literal way, my head on his shoulder and my smile hidden against his skin, and felt contentment open like a flower in my chest.
Then he chuckled, kissed my ear, slapped my butt, and said, “Look sharp, lazy boy. There’s money to be chased, somewhere up and down this road; and my supper to be chased down in the kitchen first. I’m hungry.”
Of course he was; he ate three meals a day, three at least, and he was always hungry for the next, my greedy master. I was always hungry too, the way a slave is, kept that way on purpose. He fed me once a day if I was good, if he didn’t want to discipline me, if he didn’t think I was getting fat. If he wasn’t in too much of a temper or too much of a hurry. Most days, I was fed first thing. The other days kept me sharp.
As soon as he was ready, my master went to the common room in search of company and gossip. I went to the kitchen, damp but decent, still tugging my tunic straight and knotting the waist cord tight. Master Jensen kept me naked on the road because it was a waste of time—he said—putting a pack boy in clothes, only to watch him get them filthy in the mud and dust of the road; but these days he always dressed me once I was clean again.