The Lion and the Crow (3rd Edition 2019 Reissue) Read online

  He’d heard the troubadours sing of love. His tutor had made him read The Song of Roland and much questionable romantic poetry. He understood the notion of courtly love, had seen some of his friends pine for their beloveds. He’d pretended amusement, teased them mercilessly, but he’d been envious. He’d always hoped that, someday, he would have a wife whom he would love thus, as if she hung the moon and the stars. He’d never met a woman who made him lose his head like that. But he could lose his head over Christian. Perhaps he already had. He recognized that the dewy perfection he saw when he looked at Christian was unrealistic, a sign of a heart struck by Cupid’s arrow. But the feeling was so sweet he didn’t care.

  And you are my perfection, Christian had said. That infant bud of sorrow grew just a little more.

  It was dark when they finished dinner, and with no plate or cup to hold in his hands, they felt irreverently empty when Christian was only a breath away. William slipped an arm round Christian’s waist, relishing the slender solidity of him. When Christian did not object, William pulled him close. They had not talked about what had happened, and his sense of duty pushed him to rectify that.

  He cleared his throat. “If you were a woman, I would already be before your father on bended knee.”

  Christian was silent for a moment. “Have you ever touched a man before?”

  “No, never.”

  “But you’ve wanted to.”

  “’Tis wrong in the eyes of God and men,” William said firmly, to explain himself. “I cannot regret you, Christian. I will never regret what happened today. But we cannot take this further.”

  Christian tensed in his arms as if wanting to argue, but he didn’t. William stroked his thumb along Christian’s side in a soothing gesture.

  When Christian did speak, it was slowly and with an oddly calm voice. “When I was thirteen and in the sanctity of the confessional, I told our priest that I felt desire for men.”

  William’s hand stilled. A worm of fear crawled in his stomach.

  “He told me I was possessed by a succubus, a female demon that hungered for men. He told me he would pray for guidance to free me from this creature.

  “For a week, I was terrified. I tried to feel this insidious being inside me. I prayed to all the saints, to Jesus, and the Holy Virgin to free me from it, to cast it out. I wondered what I had done to be vulnerable to such an attack. I wondered if I were truly as weak and worthless as my brothers had always claimed, deserving of their hatred and my father’s coldness. Why else would the succubus have chosen me?”

  “’Tis not so,” William breathed into Christian’s hair, feeling a murderous anger for the sake of the young boy.

  “The following week, when I returned to confession, eager to hear the priest explain how he would free me from the succubus, he told me that God had shown him the way. He made me follow him to his chambers. There, he made me undress, and he forced me to kneel. He tried to put his hard cock in my mouth.”

  William growled.

  “He told me that in order to get the succubus to leave, we had to give her what she wanted—a man’s essence. We would be forced to feed her until she fled. It might take months, he said.”

  “I shall kill him,” William said darkly.

  Christian huffed a bitter laugh. “You’re too late, Lion. The man is already dead, gone in an epidemic of fever that struck my father’s castle while I was on the road with Sir Robert.”

  “Christian….”

  “Fear not. I was no fool, not even at thirteen. I’d had plenty of practice at being tricked by then. I knew the feel of it. I let the priest taste my dagger, and I told him what he could do with his cock and his succubus. He threatened to tell my father I lusted after men. I threatened to carve off his staff and eggs in his sleep. You could say it was a stalemate.”

  William could not stop a smile at the thought of young Christian acting so boldly. “I wished I’d seen that. You must have scared the piss out of the man. But I hope you are content to leave my staff and eggs where they are.”

  Christian’s hand stole onto William’s thigh. “As long as they serve me well.”

  William chuckled, but a tingle went down his spine. After witnessing Christian’s attack on the outlaws, he had no doubt that the young warrior could be deadly.

  Christian sighed. “The lesson is thus: man makes God’s law and shapes it to suit his purpose. I believe there is a God, but what he thinks of my desires, or those of any man, no one can tell. I’m done listening to priests on the matter.”

  “’Tis still a sin,” William said with soft conviction. “One corrupt priest does not change that fact.”

  Christian pulled away, his words angry and passionate. “No! I told you, William. I do not break faith with those who do not break faith with me. God broke faith with me. He took my mother, leaving me in a house of enemies. He ignored my prayers for help, night after night when I was only a boy. And his priest wanted to sate his own lust, not save my soul. I care not for God’s law! Or man’s either. There should have been laws of decency, laws of conduct, laws of family that protected me when I was young, but there were none. No law saved your sister from a husband who is a monster, nor helps her now. So what allegiance should I have to man’s laws? Should I believe it more of a crime for us to love each other than the harm my brothers did to me without any fear of retribution from my father or the king? Never!”

  William felt his pulse thud sickeningly for what Christian had endured, but he knew it changed nothing. “You mayn’t believe that you and I lying together is wrong, Christian. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is contemptible in the eyes of everyone else.”

  Christian’s jaw only set more stubbornly. “Then we must not be caught.”

  “Do you imagine it would not be obvious? Were we to be lovers in a lord’s castle or in a company of knights?”

  Christian got a calculating gleam in his eye. “Not if well done. One or both of us could wed—”

  William groaned and covered his face with his hands. “By the saints, he’s thought this through.”

  “What? The right kind of wife, one only interested in hearth and babes, maybe a little dim of mind, separate chambers…. It needs somewhere remote. My father was granted a smallholding. Four hundred acres in Scotland, by King Edward. I’ve been trying to talk him into letting me take it over. He says I have not the experience, nor will he send me without a wife, but perhaps in time he will allow it. In a place like that—”

  William pulled Christian tight, a stab of foreboding going through his heart. “Hush. Hush, I pray you. You chill me to the marrow with fear for you when you talk like this. You will bring yourself to ruin.”

  Christian stilled and pushed deeper into William’s arms.

  “We have another six, seven days’ ride ahead. Let me have you, hold you, for this long, Christian, and let us be content with our fate. I won’t waste time fighting about what mayn’t be. Can you do that?”

  “Aye,” Christian answered. He sighed bitterly, but raised his lips to meet William’s.

  The desperate need with which he pushed against William’s chest, as if they might never have this again, acknowledged every word he had said, even if Christian himself would not admit it.

  They lay their blankets next to each other by the fire that night and made love again, stroking each other to sweet release, indulging in endless kisses. It would have to be enough, William told himself. Enough to last a lifetime.

  For the next week, their journey was a sweet one. Christian had lost the last of his tension and reserve, and he was boyishly playful. He’d challenge William to a race to the top of a hill or a certain tree, using nothing more than a quirk of his eyebrow before releasing the tie to Sir Swiftfoot and taking off on Livermore. William, unable to ignore any challenge, would race after him on Tristan with poor Sir Swiftfoot plodding along behind them anxiously.

  Christian and Livermore usually won, but only because Christian was a lighter load for his ho
rse and had a head start. Or so William insisted.

  William sometimes caught Christian looking at him in a melancholy way, but Christian would immediately hide it, and he said no more about their conversation by the fire. As for William, he refused to think about the future. For all he knew, he wouldn’t survive his confrontation with Somerfield. He treasured each moment of their day as if it might be his last.

  One evening he offered Christian a lesson in swordplay. Christian’s blade was fast at blocking, and he saw openings well, but he didn’t have William’s power. He was driven back several times under William’s onslaught. On the third time William was about to force him out of the invisible ring they’d established, Christian suddenly got a mischievous look. He held up a hand for a pause, pretended breathlessness. When William lowered his sword, Christian gave him a swift swat on the behind with the flat of his blade. Before William could reciprocate, Christian dropped his sword and ran off into the woods, laughing.

  “You heathen! You’re not supposed to leave the circle!” William shouted. “Have you no respect whatsoever for codes of conduct?”

  Christian ignored him.

  Well, there was no way William could allow an opponent to get the last swat, especially not one so demeaning. William took off after Christian, following his less than subtle trail until it abruptly ended. William circled around looking for traces of disturbance, his sword still in his hand. Something bonked him on the head.

  “Hullo!” Christian called out.

  William looked up to see Christian in a tree. He was squatting on the branch in his crow pose. He held a handful of acorns, a second of which he lobbed at William’s head.

  William swatted it away and waved his sword with a knowing smirk. “You’ll have to come down eventually, Crow.”

  “Nay,” Christian said loftily. “I plan to make my home in this tree. I shall build a shelter from its twigs and branches, and I’ll dine on acorns and morning dew.”

  William scratched his chin. “Sounds boring.”

  “Well, I may come down once in a fortnight or so. After all, you can’t stand there forever. That’s even more boring than being in this tree.”

  “Come down and take your defeat like a man and I won’t have to.”

  Christian gave a tired sigh in response. He stretched out on his back on the branch, put his arms under his head, and propped his legs up on the trunk of the tree, looking for all the world as if he were about to take a nap. It looked too precarious by far for William’s tastes.

  “I’m not climbing that bedamned tree to get you!” William insisted.

  Christian snorted. “As if you could.”

  William dropped his sword and climbed the damned tree.

  A stupidly dangerous, branch-laden chase ensued. When William finally caught hold of Christian’s ankle, he pulled him close and swatted him on the behind with his hand. “There! That’s for running like a coward. I won.”

  “You won. You are by far the greater swordsman, and I’ll tell anyone you like. It is God’s truth.” Christian’s tone was solemn, but it held a trace of amusement. William was about to protest, but then they were kissing and… well, he had won, after all.

  A few nights later, Christian returned the favor. In the clearing where they camped, he found a likely tree. He pinned a round of cloth up on it as a target. While their dinner cooked, he offered William his bow.

  “How good are you, Lion?” Archery was a part of every knight’s training, though some excelled at it more than others.

  “Very good,” William said.

  He stood from where he’d been sitting by the fire and took the bow. Without another word he strode over to line himself up with the tree. He tested Christian’s bow for balance and tautness, then raised it to his shoulder. He pulled the arrow back as if it were weightless and shot it true. It landed with a clean thwunk at the center of the piece of cloth.

  William smirked and handed the bow back to Christian. “Best that, if you can.”

  Christian would certainly try. He’d not let William beat him at his own weapon if he could help it. He remembered a flashy trick Sir Robert had shown him. It had impressed the hell out of him the first time he’d seen it. He looked around the clearing, then pointed at a sapling no more than an inch in diameter.

  “There.”

  Christian made sure his quiver had exactly five arrows and placed it on his back, then took up the bow. He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and then pulled the first arrow. He shot the arrows rapid-fire in a straight vertical line up that small sapling.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  With the force of each arrow, the sapling cracked a bit more at the base, until, as the last arrow struck it, it fell over.

  Christian smiled and looked at William, who was frowning, but his eyes—his eyes were impressed.

  William cuffed Christian on the side of his head for showing him up.

  Christian dropped the bow and shoved him back.

  William wrestled Christian to the ground, laughing. Christian tried to squirm away, but William was not slow like some of Christian’s brothers, not for all his bulk. He pulled Christian back in by his waist and lay on top of him, pinning his arms at his side.

  “What will you do now, Crow?” William taunted.

  There was more than one way to win a match, and with William’s solid bulk on top of him, Christian was more than happy to explore his options. He relaxed and let his eyes grow heavy-lidded with desire. When the look drew William’s head down, unconsciously it seemed, Christian rose up and gave a long lick along William’s jaw.

  “Good strategy,” William murmured. And kissed him.

  So far they had touched each other, rutted together, and drunk their fill of heady kisses. And to Christian, who had never had the privilege of a lover, it was all new. He found it more satisfying and arousing than he’d even imagined in his most secret thoughts, the feel of William against him, the heady wonder of William’s hard cock in his hand. But he was aware there could be more. He’d heard stories from the men around the campfires and from his brothers and his father’s men, boasts about what pleasure they’d taken with whores or girls who had been eager and willing along the way.

  It was as if William were a magical potion that, the more you drank of it, the thirstier you became. Christian wanted all of him, and the threat of this being a limited blessing only made him more determined to take what he could get. So that night, when the setting of the sun gave them a cloak of privacy and they retired to their blankets, he pushed away William’s hands.

  “I want to learn you,” Christian said. “Memorize you in every way.”

  William said nothing as Christian pushed his shirt up to his shoulders and nuzzled the hair on his chest. He felt the softness of it and the crinkly texture on his cheek. He blindly sought out a teat like a newborn kitten and pulled on it with lips and teeth. The sharp gasp that escaped William and the unconscious raising of his hips were all the encouragement Christian needed.

  He tasted the space over William’s beating heart and kissed the place in the center of his chest from which he drew breath. He licked William’s muscled sides, feeling their rigid strength, and sucked lightly at his belly button.

  William groaned, his hips arching up again, his hands confused and helpless on Christian’s shoulders.

  “Christian,” he breathed, to no defined purpose.

  There was a fuzzy golden trail from William’s naval to his manhood. Christian had seen it before, that day in the river, and glimpses of it when William had changed in camp. It had always caused a low throb of arousal in Christian, and now he explored the trail with his nose and tongue, worshipped it as William’s insistent erection pulsed under Christian’s chin.

  William squirmed, his hips unable to stop their begging. He groaned. “You will unman me.”

  “I’ll make a noble effort of it,” Christian whispered, smili
ng against the skin of William’s belly.

  Then he finally turned his attention to the best part of all.

  The way he’d heard men speak of this act, it was a degrading thing for the giver. But Christian cleared his mind of such thoughts. This was William, and Christian wanted to please him, and he wanted to experience William’s beautiful cock in every way he possibly could, while he could. He would hold these memories forever.

  So he took the thick base in his fingers, holding it steady, while he cautiously licked the shiny head that protruded from the sheath.

  “Christian!”

  In William’s voice was surprise and a warning, but also an anguish of the very best kind. His body had its own ideas. William’s cock pulsed and strained in Christian’s hand, asking for more, and his hips rose up with perfect aim at Christian’s lips.

  Christian smiled and took the whole head into his mouth and suckled lightly, rubbing the underside with his tongue. The response was a cry of pleasure and a further straining of the hard member in his hand. More, more.

  Christian pulled off. “Does that feel good?” he asked William curiously, though he was fairly certain he knew the answer.

  William let loose a string of curses that called on every saint and deity known to man and ended with “Again.” He put his hand gently on Christian’s head and urged him back down for good measure.

  Christian was happy to oblige. The feel of the hot and living organ on his tongue was satisfying in a primitive way, like the taste of milk or the feeling of running at full tilt. He could imagine the sensations William must be feeling as if they were happening to his own cock. He ground into William’s leg to get relief. William was past the patience for any more leisurely exploration. He felt painfully hard in Christian’s mouth, and he couldn’t help thrusting with his hips. Soon they found a rhythm that drove them both to a swiftly approaching end.