Pretender's Fate

It was obviously meant as the ultimate form of degradation, the stripping away of any standing in the kingship sweepstakes. Over the previous several decades there had been so many claimants to the Scottish throne, with varied and unquantifiable bits of chits that this and that faction put into the balance to decide who should be given the crown. Thus, for James Young and a few others in his army who knew that William was the bastard son of Robert the Bruce, the execution of William Howard on the meadow below the smoldering Roxburgh Castle was more of a ceremony of derision and denial than a Scottish retaliation for the many massacres the English kings, Edwards I and II, meted out to the Scottish strongholds he took.

William was forced to trudge out of the castle gate in heavy chains and otherwise in the state in which he had been apprehended—naked. He had started the journey down from the castle keep tower with the severed cock of Hugh Stanton still inside him. But that mercifully had fallen away before he reached the castle gate.

James Young, astride his horse, brandishing his sword and an unsheathed knife, and clothed only in his kilt and boots, awaited the tortured progress of the young Howard beside a crude, horse-drawn wooden wagon.

William was dragged the last few yards, weary beyond caring from the weight of the chains.

"Take off the chains," Young barked, and the soldiers escorting William did as commanded. "There better not be a mark on him," the Scottish lieutenant added.

Shuddering, the escorts backed into the surrounding crowd.

Young deftly lifted a leg over the back of his horse and landed on the ground with a loud thud. He walked a circle around the slumped-over William, checking and assessing. At length, he gave a nod of approval, and issued another command in a loud voice, this one directed at William. "Kneel and do homage to this," he commanded.

As William lifted his head at Young's command, the Scottish commander raised the front of his kilt to reveal an already-half-hard staff of horse proportions. Young took William's head between his hands and positioned it to where he could force his cock between William's lips.

The crowd roared with laughter at this visual subjugation of the foe who some of them only knew as the hated English commander of the castle they had just returned to Scottish control but that a few also knew, by the inevitable rumor, was a possible claimant to be Robert the Bruce's successor as the Scottish king, and at least one too many.

When he was hard enough to hear the gasp go through the surrounding crowd of Scottish soldiers and some few English captives, Young handed his unsheathed sword off to an aide and, dagger still in hand, but turned away, lifted the naked body of William effortlessly and slammed the young captive down on his back in the bed of the wagon that had been standing by.

He grabbed one of William's legs at the ankle and jerked it up and out as William cried out in pain. Using the hand with the turned dagger in it, he lifted his kilt and grasped his staff. William groaned as Young pushed the head of his hard cock into William's entrance. He then grabbed William's other leg, held the legs tightly together straight up toward the sky to restrict the young man's channel and began to plow William's channel roughly with his oversized club, taking time to get it all buried in his thrusts, short withdrawals, and then deeper thrusts.

William cried out in the taking in such a tone that those near the wagon couldn't have told that he was responding in ecstasy, his fantasies of what he dreamed James Young could do to him being lived out. William had been under an ever-present death threat for so long that he was resigned to giving up his life here and now. But he could appreciate that he would be fucked into the next world by such as James Young.

Young took his time, but he eventually gave up his seed—not before William had done so, however, and then had just laid back, limp, savoring his last taking by a master.

With a roar upon his ejaculation, Young dropped one of William's legs, turned the blade of the knife he had held in that hand, raised the knife high over his head for all of those surrounding the wagon to see. And then, with a cry of fealty to the Scottish future and Scotland's King Robert the Bruce, he slashed down with the knife, again and again, the answering spurts of blood spattering him and the sideboards of the wagon, causing the surrounding crowd to involuntarily shrink away from the spatter and to both gasp in surprise and exclaim in satisfaction.

The legendary warrior stood tall in the torchlight, knife raised high over his head, blood streaming in rivulets down his massive, bare chest. He reared his head back and yelled out his triumph to the skies in a voice that must have carried to the encampment outside Stirling Castle and made Robert the Bruce freeze, ale cup barely to mouth, and his own blood run cold.

All assembled cheered and turned to each other to share the dizzying spectacle that would be remembered down through the ages.

* * * *

James Young dipped down low over the body of William Howard, whose eyes were open wide in astonishment.

"Pretend ye be dead, little pup," Young growled in a rough whisper. "Your life depends on it."

William couldn't help but give him a confused, questioning look. All the slashes had gone to one side or the other of him, and it was only then that he realized that he had been laying on blood-filled pigs' bladders.

"I say take on a dead stare and don't move a muscle," Young muttered.

His head went up and he looked around him, but few had taken notice of him in their excitement to relive the event in conversations among themselves. To cover what he had to say to William, he grabbed the young "dead" man's hips and entered him again with his cock with William's legs propped up on his chest. William moaned quietly and involuntarily moved his pelvis to go with the rhythm of the deep fuck, but Young admonished him again to remain dormant, which William did with considerable effort. The cock inside him was magnificent.

No man remarked on Young fucking a corpse; they just saw it as the legendary brutality in a man driving home his disrespect of the dead.

"'Twas sheep's blood," Young muttered. "I struck a deal with Guy deClerq when he came to us and told us how we could take the castle. You are to live, and that was your sire's desire also, although he may not hear of it until and unless it suits me. You are to be mine henceforth, to live in my dungeon, and writhe in my bed, and serve as a chit of a possible future king I can rule through. But if you don't convince these soldiers you're dead as the wagon carries you to where I will stash you, they will surely tear you limb from limb."

Young stiffened, jerked, and ejaculated deep inside William. "Sweet ass," he murmured. "Thee and me are going to have some fine times. I will teach you to take it rough."

William moaned and whimpered quietly, which Young may have taken as the desired expression of fear and apprehension when William knew it was arousal. If this was not rough, what would rough be from Young, William wondered. Then Young rose off William's blood-smeared body and raised his arms a second time and declared his victory to the heavens so that all of the assembled soldiers would focus on his magnificent body and the shock of the memorable occasion as the wagon lumbered through the crowds toward the tents of the siege army and then onto a woodland road beyond the tents.

William didn't have to play dead very hard. Between the shock of not being dead and the exhaustion of the thorough and completely satisfying taking by the Scottish commander, he just lay there, staring at the heavens, legs askew, dangling from the tail of the wagon, his mouth slack, and barely breathing.

His surprise was not over, however. Deep in the woods, going William knew not where, the wagon was surrounded by a swirl of mounted knights, all outfitted in black. The wagon driver and escort soldier were quickly dispatched by swords, and William found himself being lifted and settled on the back of a horse behind the French knight, Guy deClerq.

William was too far gone in shock and confusion to ask what was happening and why, but he was struggling a bit, not knowing who was friend and who was foe. Guy apparently knew he had to reestablish control as quickly as possible.

They hadn't ridden too far into the trees before the small troupe broke into a glen. Guy reigned in his horse and gestured to his comrades, who turned, and pulled back.

Pulling William down from the horse, Guy laid the young man on his back on the moss and ferns of the glen, pushed his knees between William's thighs, unlaced his breeches, and fucked William hard until the young man was purring and sighing and had stopped trembling.

"I don't understand," William at last murmured to his French lover.

"It was the best way for me to save you from the siege," Guy answered, letting his hands run over William's body, keeping the young man under his control. "Young has the same ambitions all of the Scottish lairds have. I made a deal for you that he couldn't refuse, telling him I would reveal how the castle could be taken and that you were a worthy conquest for his cock—that he could have you and also keep you in reserve for when an heir was needed for Robert the Bruce. His ambition is as unbridled as that of any man who grabs attention as he does. But he will not have you. It was just a ruse on my part to save you. These men are my Normandy liegemen. You will be safe in France within the month."

Guy lowered his face and William raised his lips to meet Guy's. Guy closed his eyes, not wanting William to see any of his real intent in his face. Guy deClerq also had a dungeon in his Normandy castle and enough expertise to control the young, sex-starved man in bed. Guy too—unknown to most as yet—was a cousin of the man Robert deBruce had murdered to clear his way to the throne, John Comyn, and thus also was a claimant to the Scottish throne. As circumstances arose, he was prepared to back a claim by William Howard. But he was equally prepared to press his own claims and to see that William Howard never saw the light of day again once they had reached Normandy.

Coming back out onto the road through the forest of Roxburgh, William saw that a closed carriage awaited them with the troupe of mounted soldiers accompanying deClerq.

"A coach," William said. "What is that—?"

"The coach is for you."

"I can ride a horse."

"Not shackled, as you will be. You are much too valuable to take chances with. The bindings will be for your own protection, you must understand."

Weak and confused as he was, William struggled as he was pulled off deClerq's horse, still naked. Three of the Frenchmen's men manhandled him to the door to the coach and slapped him down on the floor of the vehicle.

"Oh, one more thing," deClerq said. "As part of their agreement to rescue you, I gave any of the men who wanted to have you permission to do so. I told them what a luscious lay you are, and they eagerly signed up for the adventure. I told them you would enjoy it, and I do not think I told them wrongly."

Four of the men took advantage of the offer. Even as deClerq spoke, William felt his legs being split and raised with a man on each side outside the coach door—and he saw a third man, grinning evilly, bearing down on him between his spread legs, his breeches already unlaced and drooping low on his hips and his already-erect cock in his hand. William barely had time to arch his back and wedge his hands against the edges of the benches on each side of the carriage before the cock thrust deep into his already well-lubricated channel.

Later, as the entourage moved south, toward the English border, William sprawled there on the bench in the carriage, panting and trussed up by his wrists bound to the ceiling of the carriage, his legs still spread because he could not yet close them—but also thinking. He had already died once this night. He had no fear of dying again. He was not blind to Guy's treachery, but for the moment Guy was William's best opportunity to live. And, he was thinking, if all of these men were so interested in being king of Scotland, why shouldn't he be as well? And perhaps one day, if he was clever, he would be.

The carriage door opened even though they were still moving, and one of the Frenchmen entered, grinning, his breeches already unlaced. It was some thirty miles to the English border and untold miles beyond that to the English Channel. William had little doubt he was to be the entertainment on the long journey.

As long as they cocked well, he didn't care.

The man crouched on the balls of his feet on the floor of the carriage and put his arms around William and clutched and spread William's buttocks with the palms of his hands. He raised William's pelvis to his and William, his arms over his head and his wrists bound to the ceiling of the carriage, wedged his feet into the frames of the carriage doors on either side as the rider pushed his cock into William's well-lathered hole and began to pump.