Chapter 36 - Brothers Separated; Brothers Reunited

 “It was Will, the blond junior page boy,” Raymond reported to his royal master. “He helped Courcey escape. But he says he has no idea where the traitor went.”

Prince Felix, his composure restored, nodded petulantly. “I shall dispatch Odin at once to track him down. After all, it’s down to his carelessness that Courcey got away in the first place. He can stay out there until he finds him again. As for the boy, I take it you will have him put to death?”

Raymond nodded smartly. “I know exactly how to deal with him, your Highness. I’ve wanted that particular brat out of my hair for a long time now. It will give me great pleasure to put an end to his time in service at the castle once and for all.”

The sun began to sink slowly in the west. Raymond had wasted no time. A sleek grey charger had been saddled from the castle’s stables and he sat atop it, a fine black riding cloak round his shoulders, long leather boots enclosing his silver-hosed thighs which in turn clasped the stallion’s flanks. The drawbridge was lowered and he trotted across it, over the moat and out of the castle grounds.

He glanced behind him. There, tight blue arse bobbing up and down in time to the rhythm of the horse, was Will: ankles and wrists tied together under the animal’s belly, fair head dangling, the cruel butt plug still lodged within him, the soapy residue of the suppositories lathering his arse crack and bubbling through the material of his tights, making them slick and moist. Every muscle in Will’s body ached from the stretching he had experienced on the rack, every jolt of the animal was painful, and his guts had never undergone such wrenching torture.

Had it really been nearly a year since he’d first entered the castle gates, Will wondered, ironically in exactly the same fashion that he was now leaving them – bound and slung over the backside of a horse? What things he had experienced and seen! And now it was all over, he knew that well enough. Raymond had won and was finally free to exact his revenge. Will could only hope that the end, when it came, would be swift, and that when Raymond did decide to slit his throat and dump him in the nearest ditch, his death would not be a lingering one.

On they rode. Raymond did not speak, merely glancing behind him occasionally to appreciate the sight of Will’s bouncing blue buttocks, the base of the plug obvious between them. Suddenly, Will experienced a jolt of recognition as they passed a familiar hedgerow. Sure enough, Raymond steered his steed down a curve in the path, and before long, they had reached a smattering of wooden huts with straw roofs. Will swallowed hard as he raised his head to look around him. For the first sixteen years of his life, this had been his entire world. He was home.

The little village seemed deserted. No children played in the late afternoon sun. There was no happy chatter among the neighbouring farm workers. This was hardly surprising. Finely dressed visitors rarely brought good tidings with them. Indeed, the most recent had been the Viking giants who had terrorised them all and chopped off the hand of Honest Eric the thatcher.

A door opened and out stepped a young man, maybe twenty-seven years old and presumably the bravest of the villagers. He had light yellow hair on his head and across his upper lip: although the attempt to grow a moustache was not altogether successful, given its fine wispiness. He was of medium height and was good-looking in an unremarkable way. His body was clearly trained with physical labour and his face tanned from the sun. He was clad in the traditional hessian smock and woollen trousers of the peasantry. Peering out from behind him, and clutching his arm, was a woman. She was in fact no older than her husband, though her sour, down-turned mouth and long, greying hair made her appear so.

“Who is it, Jack?” she hissed.

“I told you to stay inside!” came the reply.

The woman displayed no intention of obeying her husband’s command, so Jack cleared his throat and addressed the finely-dressed youth on the impressive stallion. “What can we do for you, my Lord?”

“I am called Raymond StClare and I am the Chief Steward at Castle de Montford,” announced the proud young man. “I have a question for you, peasant. Is this creature known to you?”

Raymond turned his steed so that the villager could see the spectacle of Will, bound in that most undignified fashion.

The peasant called Jack screwed up his eyes to peer at the strange sight: a blond-haired young man dressed in a beautifully embroidered blue doublet and the tightest-fitting hose he had ever seen. The hose encased the short but well-muscled legs with a shimmering blue sheen. The youth was fixed firmly in place, so his head dangled upside-down and his firm arse cheeks were pointing skyward. The blond lad raised his head and Jack gasped in recognition and surprise as he looked into those big brown eyes. “Will? Is that really you?!”

Will, desperately ashamed at being viewed in this predicament, nodded sadly. “Yes, Jack, it’s me.”

The sour-faced woman squeezed Jack’s arm. “Will?” she whispered. “Your brother?!”

Raymond raised one perfectly-curved eyebrow. “Then I am in the right place. Good. Know this, peasants. This miserable urchin was given a chance beyond his wildest hopes and dreams. He had an opportunity to rise far above his station. An opportunity he did not deserve. But his lack of moral fibre has revealed itself all too easily. He has disgraced himself and betrayed his King and his country. He merits death for what he has done. However, I have determined to grant him a fate worse than death. He has had his taste of luxury, and now he is to be flung back into the gutter. You may blame him that you are taxed so heavily and suffer so in these harsh times. His apostasy resulted in the mutilation of your neighbours. I am done with him. He is yours to punish as you see fit.”

Raymond brandished his bejewelled knife, and in two sharp, slashing motions, cut the ropes that tied Will to the stallion. With a thump, Will’s fatigued and aching body fell to the ground.

“After all this time, I am finally free of you. Goodbye and good riddance, goat-shit!”

And laughing with pure abandon, Raymond wheeled his horse around and galloped back to the castle, secure in the knowledge that he would never see Will the junior page boy ever again.

Once the coast was clear, other villagers began to emerge from their homes to view the curious spectacle. Jack stood over the prone form of his younger brother, a stern and slightly sickened expression on his face. His wife knelt down and touched the fabric of Will’s tunic. Her eyes glistened avariciously.

The neighbours jostled round, gawping silently. Jack busied himself untying the cords that bound Will’s wrists together, then did the same for his ankles. As he did so, his hand brushed against the silken lustre of Will’s tights.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he demanded through gritted teeth. “This garment would not look out of place on some high-class prostitute! Everything is on show. Your legs – your arse! It leaves nothing to the imagination. It’s positively indecent!”

“What’s that at his crotch?!” jeered one of the onlookers. “I told you those folk up at the castle were filthy perverts, didn’t I?”

Will instinctively rolled over onto his front to conceal the humiliating steel cage that even now kept his dick locked in permanent softness.

However, lying on his front served only to draw everyone’s attention to his hosed bottom instead. “And what, in God’s name, is this?” demanded Jack, prodding at the wide base of the plug lodged in Will’s sore and aching hole. “Answer me, damn you!”

“It’s – it’s a butt plug,” mumbled Will, and in that unfortunate moment, his body convulsed in a last desperate attempt to free itself of the tortuous soap suppositories nestling within him. With a desperate grunt emitting from one end of him and a squelching fart from the other, the plug was propelled from between his buttocks, rapidly followed by the gunky white residue of the bars of soap.

His elder brother grimaced in disgust as the plug, coated in a slick layer of soapy lubricant, and the gloopy white mush of what remained of the soap lay trapped and confined within the constricting bright blue fabric of Will’s tights, sitting obscenely between the crack of his buttocks; the thick, white ooze pooling there and now slowly beginning to dribble between the young man’s thighs.

Will looked away in shame, unable to meet the gaze of the very folk he had known longest in the world, realising that they would be looking at him with varying degrees of amusement, pity and revulsion.

“You’re a disgrace to our family,” muttered Jack. “Now pick yourself up and get inside!”

He rose to his feet and addressed his neighbours. “All right, everyone. The show’s over for today. Get back to your own affairs!”

Jack hurried his wife and his youngest brother inside the hovel, and with relief, slammed the wicker door shut behind the three of them.

“Well, I never thought to lay eyes on you again,” he said tersely. “We have a lot of catching up to do, it seems.”

Will nodded in dumb agreement.

“This is Lizzie. She’s the daughter of a Dunchester mercenary. We married in the Spring. She has a sharp tongue, an eye for a bargain and she rarely smiles. But then we’ve had precious little to smile about this past year.”

His wife’s expression became, if it were possible, even dourer.

“A copper piece a month we were supposed to get,” Jack continued. “That was the price Mother settled on for selling you to that nobleman! Whatever happened to that?”

“You didn’t get it?” mumbled Will.

“For a while, yes. Then it all stopped. Nothing.”

Of course, thought Will, that must have been at the time of Alexander’s disgrace and imprisonment. It was no surprise that no payments had been sent since then. “Where are Mother and Father?” he asked, looking around and taking in the familiar sights and smells of the mean little hovel.

“Dead,” replied Jack unsentimentally. “Father worked himself into the ground not long after you abandoned us. Couldn’t cope with the extra workload you left him with. Mother followed him to the grave soon after.”

Will nodded numbly. “And Daniel?”

With equal brevity, Jack informed him that their middle brother had signed up to join the King’s futile foreign adventure, and for all he knew, was very likely dead as well. “I hope to God the three of them are together and in a happier place now. They had precious little joy in this world.”

Will looked sadly at the only remaining member of his family. He and Jack had never been close: the ten year gap between them an insurmountable obstacle.

“And what news do you have, brother?” asked Jack.

Will shrugged. How could he begin to explain? To hope to make Jack understand the bizarre perversities of his time at Castle de Montford? “You don’t want to know,” he mumbled.

Jack let out a long sigh. “You’re probably right. You look as if all you’re good for nowadays is to be a rich man’s slut. Well that’s all in your past now. The question now, is what do we do with you? I suggest you start by cleaning yourself up and getting rid of that thing sitting between your arse cheeks.”

Jack was too ashamed to allow Will out of the door, so it was decided that he would assist his new sister-in-law around the home, in feminine tasks that would better fit his whorish experiences at the castle. Lizzie wordlessly acquired his fine embroidered tunic and would have done the same with his tights, had not Will objected so strenuously.

“Elizabeth, do you really want to wear them, given where they’ve been and what acts we can only imagine have been committed in them?” asked her husband.

“I can’t afford to be proud,” spat the wife. “They’ll come clean in the wash. And they’re finer than any stockings you’ve ever given me. I’ll be the envy of all the women in these parts with those to grace my pins!” She hitched her skirt up to show her pale, thin calf in what she intended to be a flirtatious manner.

“She can’t have them,” said Will implacably, outraged that the gorgeous garment could possibly be wasted on her stick-thin legs. Besides, they were his last reminder of his time at the castle. Under no circumstances was he prepared to relinquish their glossy lustre and return to the miserable, rough hessian trousers of his childhood.

“You have the tunic,” sighed Jack. “Let him wander around in his slutty hose if it makes him happy.”

Will smiled at his brother, a small victory in their new household arrangement. Meanwhile Lizzie glared at him with enmity in her dull, grey eyes.

Night fell. Odin the Viking had been on the road since mid-afternoon, dispatched with alacrity to seek out and return Alexander Courcey to face the wrath of his royal master. There had been no sightings in the immediate vicinity of the castle. Odin strongly suspected that his quarry had wisely, and with considerable caution, avoided any populated areas. A week or more had passed since Courcey’s escape, and the trail had most definitely gone cold. The one ray of hope was, that as far as he could tell, Courcey was still on foot. Odin - travelling on horseback – would have the distinct advantage.

He was just thinking about the necessity of setting up camp for the night when a sound reached his sensitive ears. There it was again. It was a voice: a hoarse cry for help. At first, he ignored it and made to turn his steed in the opposite direction. After all, he had no time for distractions now. Every second he spent away from the castle allowed that slimy little whore Raymond to worm his way ever deeper into the affections of the Prince. Nevertheless, something instinctively told him this was a curiosity he should investigate.

He rode closer to the sound and came across a small stone cottage shrouded in darkness. He tethered his horse outside, drew his sword and tentatively pushed the door open. He struck his flint and held it up high to illuminate the room. A bizarre sight met his eyes.

There, hanging from the rafters, were two well-built young men, arms tied above their heads, two pairs of muscular legs encased in the same large pair of brown tights. Presumably they had been abandoned there for some time, as the room smelt of piss, and tell-tale wet stains ran down the legs of the hosiery.

“Praise the Lord!” sobbed one of the men, his auburn curls flopping into his exhausted face. “Please, Sir – we have been swindled and misled. Will you do us the great favour of freeing us?”

Odin considered the request for a moment, and then pulled up a chair and sat down, a dark grin on his brutish face. He spread his leather-clad legs wide and rubbed casually at his codpiece. “You seem to have ended up in quite an unusual predicament,” he observed. “Whoever tricked you certainly had a wicked sense of humour.” With a gravelly chuckle, he added, “You look fucking ridiculous.”

Arthur and Stanley went as red as beetroots as the stranger continued to laugh freely at the sight of the two of them, bare-chested and joined at the butt.

“You’ve clearly been hanging here some time if you’ve both had to piss your tights. Maybe I should leave you there for a while longer to entertain me. I could make you dance for me. You think you could manage that?”

“Please, good Sir,” begged Arthur. “As you are a good Christian man, untie this rope for us. We’ll do anything.”

Odin rose from the chair. “You’re lucky I’m in a hurry. I’m tempted to ransack your home and leave you here for the amusement of your next visitor,” he remarked.

Odin’s head almost touched the ceiling in the humble little cottage, so it was no effort for the Viking to reach up and unthread the knots that Alexander had tied so assiduously to the iron hook. Both brothers sighed with immense relief as their tortured arms – stretched taut for so many hours – were finally allowed to sink to their sides.

“There,” smirked Odin. “Now you will be able to pull off that giant pair of tights that you’ve been forced into!”

However, the brothers’ faces only blushed a deeper shade of crimson.

“What is it? Why don’t you step out of those humiliatingly sissy tights of yours?” And with that, Odin yanked at the waistband of the hose and pulled it down to the brothers’ knees. Two pairs of cocks and balls were exposed, but still the brothers remained jammed together, back to back. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked.

“Our… our…” stammered Arthur. “Our bums have been glued together. We can’t get free.”

Odin immediately erupted in guffaws of laughter. “You mean you’re stuck arse to arse!” he exclaimed. “Come along now, surely two such strapping brutes can wriggle yourselves free?”

The giant continued to laugh uproariously as the brothers attempted to do just that. Arthur reached down to pull his feet free from the brown hose, but as he did so, the weight of his brother fell against him, and he toppled onto his front. Stanley – like some bizarrely conjoined Siamese twin, landed heavily on top of his elder brother.

Eventually the two of them somehow managed to roll onto their sides, but like an upended tortoise, could not succeed in getting back on their feet. Panting and gasping, they were too ashamed to look Odin in the eyes. With a contemptuous snort, Odin drew his sword, and, the unhappy smiths cowering before him, slit their piss-moist hose along the seam, leaving the brothers prone and naked on the floor. They could move their legs freely now, but still they had to scrabble around for several minutes before they could co-ordinate their connected bodies and crawl to their feet.

Odin encircled the two naked men. “The glue will come loose eventually I suppose, but I imagine it will be painful – you’ll probably lose some skin, and your asses will be red raw for a few weeks.”

“I don’t care!” blurted out Stanley miserably. “I’ll do anything to get that ginger bulb out of my backside!”

Odin raised an inquiring eyebrow. “So he stuffed your butts too – and with ginger? What a bastard. That must be stinging your bumholes really badly, boys, I guess. All that ginger juice coating your cunts? Your visitor has certainly left you something to remember him by. I wonder why he went to so much trouble.”

Suddenly a pained expression crossed Stanley’s face. “Of course!” he exclaimed.

“What is it?” asked his brother.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? He wanted to buy Fallow, didn’t he?”

Stanley waddled over to the window, his older brother with no choice but to follow him. “Look! That thieving bastard has stolen our horse!”

“He was on foot?” asked Odin, his heartbeat quickening. “Tell me – what exactly did this visitor of yours look like?”

Chapter 35 - A Soapy Confession

          “He has been lodged in the castle all this time, your Highness?” asked Raymond incredulously.

“Oh yes,” came Prince Felix’s smug reply. “He’s been mouldering beneath our feet for the past several weeks. Immured in his very own dungeon. There’s a certain aptness to his demise, don’t you think? The impudent Alexander Courcey spends his last miserable days, shivering and alone in the darkness, as hunger and thirst gradually overcome him.”

The two young men – one blond, one dark – stood at the door to the dungeon, Odin and Ulfgar two paces behind them.

“Now, let us take a final look at his stinking corpse!”

The Prince stood to one side and indicated that Odin should unlock the heavy, studded door. The Viking stepped forward and began to fumble through the numerous keys dangling from his belt.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Felix impatiently.

“I – I can’t seem to find the key,” mumbled the shaven-headed villain.

“What did you say?” hissed the Prince. “Are you telling me you’ve lost the damned thing?!”

Odin spread his hands helplessly. “I’m sure it must be somewhere, your Highness.”

“I want to view Courcey’s corpse,” stated the Prince grimly. “Go and fetch an axe and break this door down. At once!”

It was exhausting work, and even with Odin’s considerable strength, he was grunting and sweating by the time he had hacked a hole in the door large enough for a man to step through.

“That will do,” snapped Felix, as he elbowed the Viking out of the way and lifted first one, then the other crimson-hosed leg through the splintered oak. Raymond followed his royal master, sneering in Odin’s face as he did so. After the bright sunlight of the morning, he took a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He clambered down the steps into the stinking cell, eager to see for himself the pitiful sight of the final resting place of the arrogant Alexander Courcey.

But what a surprise! Save for the smattering of straw on the ground, and the sinister, looming shapes of the instruments of torture, the dungeon seemed to be bafflingly empty. Prince Felix was holding an iron manacle in his hand, but the chain attached to it had been neatly sliced through. Even in the darkness, Raymond could see the pale fury writ large on those beautiful royal features. A fearful screech issued forth from Felix’s full, pouting lips:

“What is this meaning of this?!”

Ensconced in the royal bedchamber, Raymond tried, to no avail, to calm the livid Prince. Felix paced the floor, raging and espousing one paranoid theory after another: Odin had betrayed him and decided to free Courcey in an act of defiance – after all it had been Odin’s idea to leave Courcey rather than killing him on the spot; now Ulfgar was the traitor who had been in league with the assassin in the forest; then both his bodyguards were in it together, and far from terrorising the peasants in the surrounding villages, they had been encouraging them in their murderous intentions! His father’s Arabian enemies had freed the treasonous Courcey; the jealous barons were the culprits; Courcey was a wizard in league with the devil himself and had availed himself of some diabolical magic to file through his manacle and flee to safety!

“I entreat your Highness to calm yourself!” pleaded Raymond. “Leave this to me. I will discover how Courcey affected his escape. He must have had some accomplice here in the castle. You may put your faith in me that I will find the loathsome miscreant.”

Prince Felix passed a bejewelled hand across his fevered brow.

“One thing I can assure you, Sire,” Raymond concluded, “Alexander Courcey is no wizard.”

“A wizard indeed! How could we have been so stupid!”

“Stanley! The spell!”

Aching and sore, their arms sagging with fatigue, their leg muscles cramping, and their arseholes blistering from the stinging ginger, the auburn-headed brothers fell to bickering.

“There is no spell, you fucking idiot! How long have we been dangling here now? Six? Seven hours? It must be three in the afternoon. You’ve let us be fooled by some wandering con artist!”

“You mustn’t doubt him! He said it wouldn’t work if we doubted him!”

“So how long do you suggest we hang here from our own rafters, arses glued together, ginger bulbs rammed up our butts, with our legs stuffed in the same pair of oversize tights? Besides, I’ve been desperate to pee for the past hour!”

Arthur sighed heavily, the awful truth finally sinking in, and tainting forever his pure and trusting soul. “What can we do, Stanley?”

“Try bracing yourself, and I’ll see if I can get myself off this fucking plug!”

Arthur planted his legs as firmly as he could, and Stanley tried to pull away from his brother. It was hopeless. Arthur’s stockinged feet could not grip the floorboards, and merely slid helplessly along the floor behind his brother.

“Damn it!” cursed Stanley.

“Maybe we can wriggle free? Maybe the glue will wear off?”

Stanley sighed. “Anything’s worth a try, I suppose.”

And so the two brothers set to writhing and gyrating their muscular asses, gasping with the pain of the stinging ginger root plunged deep within them. The bouncing and jiggling made them feel ridiculous, their cocks bobbing in that massive pair of over-sized tights. Eventually, after ten minutes of fruitless struggling, red-face and panting, they admitted defeat.

“It’s no good,” gasped Arthur. “Our butts are stuck fast.”

“And I need to piss more than ever now.” moaned Stanley.

“Well there’s only one thing we can do,” sighed his older brother. He inhaled a lungful of air. “Help! Help!!!”

“It is not possible to over-state the severity of this situation. We have a Judas in our midst!”

Raymond stood, proud and imperious at the top of the courtyard steps. A soft summer breeze ruffled his dark curls, and his shapely legs, encased in their shimmering silver hose, were planted wide apart; his fists balled at his hips.

He’s loving every minute of this, Will thought to himself.

Raymond continued to address the assembled inhabitants of the castle. “One of you knows something. One of you has given assistance in the schemes of the crown’s most contemptible enemy. If you come forward now, admit your wrong-doing and confess what you know, it will go easier for you. I am determined to discover the truth in this matter, and if you do not confess freely, then I swear to you all, no power on this earth will shield you from the Prince’s wrath!”

They were dismissed with the warning that the miscreant had exactly one hour to identify himself. If this did not occur, Raymond promised more direct ways of winkling out the traitor amongst them. Naturally they all congregated in the kitchen, fevered speculation breaking out in every corner of the room.

Will lingered to one side, dressed once more in his freshly laundered blue tunic and hose. Mistress Olwen, indignant and furious with Raymond due to his impertinent missive, had, in an impulsive moment, stripped Will of his treacle-stained tights and the disgustingly soiled nappy and burned them all. She could do nothing about the cruel steel cage encircling his cock, but, at least, and for the first time in many days, he was not swaddled in a humiliating diaper!

However, that fact was his sole consolation. He’d always known it would only be a matter of time before Alexander’s escape was discovered, and he realised grimly that he alone among his peers knew what on earth Raymond was referring to. Equally, he knew he could not reveal to anyone that he was the guilty party. Whatever mercy Raymond might promise in return for the truth about Alexander’s flight, he knew his words would mean nothing once Raymond learned that his most hated enemy was to blame. Will decided that he must be braver than he had ever been in his life. He resolved to keep his lips firmly shut.

The Prince, feverish and distraught, had retired to bed with a raging headache, so it had been left to Raymond to try and discover the facts behind the former Steward’s mysterious elopement.

The allotted hour passed, and Raymond was honest enough with himself to admit that, frankly, he would have been rather disappointed had the cat among the pigeons come forward and denied him the opportunity of torturing the truth out of the unfortunate servants.

The stunned expressions on the faces of Ulfgar and Odin, combined with Raymond’s certainty that those two buffoons could no more have dissembled sufficiently to conspire against the Prince than they could compose a love sonnet or embroider hosiery, led him to conclude that the Scandinavian ogres were as innocent as they claimed. So it was their brute force that he employed to arrange the castle courtyard to his satisfaction.

Once everything was in place, he summoned the first three of the servants to stand before him. It was, he assured himself, pure coincidence that they happened to be his three former fellow pages: Humphrey, Mortimer and Will.

The young men stared in awed silence as they surveyed the scene in the castle courtyard. Every terrifying instrument of torture that the castle contained had been hefted up the dungeon steps and arranged around the dusty yard. There stood the rack, the thumbscrews, the Iron Maiden, the stocks, alongside numerous other evil apparatus wrought from ironwork at whose purpose the lads could only hazard the wildest of guesses.

“You see,” declared Raymond. “Because of the vile deeds of one single miscreant, everybody suffers!”

It was Mortimer who spoke up. “Raymond, can’t you at least tell us what has been done against the Prince? Maybe then we could work out what it is you need to know?”

“You’ll address me as ‘Sir’” said Raymond, in a voice as icy as the North wind. “And the consequences of the villain’s actions must rest upon his own conscience. Now, with whom should we begin?”

Will sighed deeply. They all knew who it would be.

With a barely perceptible nod to his lackeys, Raymond indicated that Odin and Ulfgar should indeed seize the young man. They lifted him up, one hulking henchman under each armpit and carried him as if he weighed nothing at all. Will’s blue hosed legs hung impotently in the air. In spite of the afternoon sun, Will found himself shivering with fear as he was deposited alongside the rack. Odin roughly stripped Will of his blue tunic, leaving him bare-chested - his iridescent tights his sole concession to modesty. Will took some small consolation in the fact that Raymond’s new task had apparently caused him to overlook that he was no longer diapered as per the Steward’s instructions, but back wearing his customary blue uniform.

“This is your last chance, boy,” purred Raymond. “Do you still maintain you have no guilty knowledge staining your conscience?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Will lied.

“Fix him to the rack,” ordered the older youth.

Will was hefted into the air and then dumped face down on the wooden carcass of the torture device. His arms were stretched above his head and firmly secured to the wooden roller. Meanwhile, his tights-clad ankles were spread as wide as they could stretch and were similarly fastened to the cylinder at the end. The metal chastity device bit into his groin as the weight of his body pushed down on the hard wood of the rack.

Will winced in preparation of the anguish to come as Odin hovered by the wooden handle which, when turned, would initiate the agonising process of stretching his vulnerable body and ultimately yank his tortured bones until they broke.

“Wait a moment!” Raymond declared. “I think the worm needs a little extra incentive, just to concentrate his mind on anything he may wish to tell us!”

Will tried to lift his head to see what new and terrible outrage would next be perpetrated on his vulnerable young body. He watched Raymond lift one of the large wooden buckets, commonly used to scrub the castle floors. Warm water swilled inside the pail and Will looked on in fearful anticipation as Raymond plunged his hand into the receptacle and withdrew a large, slippery bar of white soap.

“These innocent lumps of soap have been marinating in warm water till they’re nice and soft and melting. Let’s see just how many of them it will take for you to tell me the truth.”

Will, pinioned to the rack and unable to struggle free, felt Odin’s thick fingers fumbling with the waistband of his blue hose until it was unceremoniously yanked down level with the tops of his thighs. Meanwhile, Raymond took the first soap suppository and began to push it firmly into Will’s much-abused asshole.

All of the penetrations and invasions he had suffered over his months at the castle, none of them prepared him for the tingling, stinging sensation at his orifice as the bar of soap forced its way into his anal passage. On Raymond pushed, until Will’s poor asslips closed around the curved end of the soapy tablet. Immediately, Will felt it worming its way deeper into his bowels as a second bar began to push his reluctant boycunt wide again.

“How many will it take to clean your filthy conscience?” mused Raymond.

Each bar of soap measured a good four or five inches long and felt almost as broad, thought Will, as the second invader lodged successfully within him. It did not take long for the suppositories to begin their heartless tormenting of his guts.

“Your arse lining will be really irritated by all that soap!” said Raymond. “Your body will be desperate to expel it. And we can’t have that happening now, can we?”

Will felt the inevitable pressure of a leather butt plug penetrating his throbbing hole, boring its unwelcome pathway into him, and forcing both bars of soap even deeper into his protesting body: a body that had all too recently been assailed by the equally aggressive milk and molasses enemas.

“Ugh, ugh, no!” he wailed as his nubile young muscles strained and tensed in their bonds, his thighs bunching in their blue hose. Then he emitted a scream of pain as the plug passed its widest point, his smarting sphincter snapped shut around its stem, and the thick flared base protruded between his cheeks for all to see. Raymond prodded the base of the plug deeper, pushing the tallowy bars up, up, inside him to further torment Will’s vulnerable arse lining.

Finally, Raymond pulled the waistband of Will’s tights back up to cover his ass. Will knew that the tight, constricting fabric would keep that hateful plug pushed deep inside him and render it well-nigh impossible for him to expel it.

He panted as once more his guts churned for Raymond’s entertainment. Then, into his line of vision, appeared Ulfgar, running a long leather whip through the palm of his vast hand with pointed deliberation. The tail of the whip began to caress Will’s naked back, delicately at first, and then with firmer strokes.

“Turn the handle,” Raymond told Odin.

The henchman obeyed, and Will started to feel an uncomfortable tugging sensation at his wrists. He was suddenly acutely aware of his body: the tightness in his limbs, the painful cramping in his stomach, the cold steel pressing against his cock, the bubbling lather beginning to seep from his stinging arse, the reassuring sheerness of his tights clinging to his thighs and calves and bum. Then, he screamed in pain as the first stroke of the whip lashed across his upper back.

“Confess, bitch,” murmured Raymond persuasively. “It was you, wasn’t it? His favourite pet. You were the one who smuggled Alexander Courcey out of the castle!”

Will gritted his teeth as Raymond indicated that a further turn on the rack was required. Sharp pain seared through his arm sockets, and the ropes at his ankles started to cut through the delicate fabric of his hose and burn his legs. The whip cracked down again, this time on the meaty flesh of his thighs. Will howled in agony.

“Tell me what happened and this will all be over,” Raymond promised him. “I’ll order the whipping and the racking to cease, I’ll pull that nasty plug out of your hole and let you evacuate those bars of soap as well. Maybe I’ll even take off your chastity cage and let you come…”

Will thought of Alexander, his master, out there somewhere and fleeing for his life, and remained firm. His reward was a further twist on the rack and another lash of the whip – this time on his round buttocks. He imagined the reddening flesh of his bubble-shaped bum through the thin covering of the hose. His arms and legs were stretched to their maximum capacity now: surely one more ratchet of the wheel would dislocate something?!

“Aaaaaagh!” he yelled as the soap suppositories shifted within him. Seemingly with a mind of their own, they were determined to escape the velvety confines of his guts. But the cruel leather dong rammed up his bum thwarted their most assiduous efforts.

“You can’t keep this up much longer,” cooed Raymond. “You stole the key to the dungeon, didn’t you? Tell me the truth, you little fucker. Tell me where the key is that proves you betrayed your prince! So help me, if you don’t, every last person in this castle will be tortured on this rack! And they’ll curse your hateful little arse that you put them through it just to save a piece of shit like Alexander Courcey!”

“Stop! Raymond, stop!”

The dark-haired young Steward did as he was bidden, incredulity written across his handsome face. He turned to where the voice had come from, only to see Humphrey, the fat page boy, cringing in the corner of the courtyard.

“Don’t be angry with me,” whimpered Humphrey, “but did you say something about a key?”

Raymond narrowed his eyes. “I may have done.”

“Well if you did, then I might have seen something you might want to know about. I may be able to help.”

“That’s an awful lot of mights and maybes,” said Raymond, a dark threat in his voice.

“It was only yesterday afternoon,” Humphrey informed him. “I thought it was a bit odd at the time.”

“Humphrey! Please! Hold your tongue!” Will pleaded desperately.

“I’m sorry, Will,” mumbled the fat boy, wringing his hands in distress. “But if it means I won’t get tortured like you, I’ll squeal and tell Raymond whatever he wants to know.”

“Clearly your wisdom is as considerable as your belly,” remarked Raymond sardonically. “Now, I’m becoming impatient. Quickly – tell me what you saw.”

“It was a large iron key. Will had it hidden in his bedding. He took it out and dropped it in there.” Humphrey gestured to the centre of the courtyard. “Right in the middle of the well!”

Chapter 34 - Ginger Magic

            “What in God’s name has happened here?!”

            Mistress Olwen’s jaw dropped open as she surveyed her devastated kitchen. Rumpled towels lay strewn across the long breakfast table, her larder had been raided and the door left to swing open, and the entire room was splattered with suspicious black stains.

            She spotted a wooden bucket containing some water and a coarse scrubbing brush. A scrap of parchment was attached to the handle. It read:

            “Mistress Olwen –

            Make sure this room is clean and presentable by breakfast time. I shall be inspecting it thoroughly. I expect you to scrub it personally.”

            It was signed “The Chief Steward.”

            Her scream of frustration echoed around the kitchen’s stone walls.

            Meanwhile, in an altogether less grandiose kitchen, a hearty breakfast of eggs and bacon was being finished off.

            “That was absolutely delicious,” declared Alexander. “My compliments to the chef!”

            Arthur the smith beamed his appreciation. “Father always said I could have been a cook had I not followed the family business.”

            His taciturn brother, silent all morning, chose this moment to speak. “What exactly is your trade, Master Olivier?”

            Arthur shot him a warning glance. “Stanley” –

            “My business is somewhat – out of the ordinary,” Alexander said blandly, “but whilst you raise the subject. I would like to make you a proposition.”

            “Oh yes?” inquired Stanley with a sceptical raise of his eyebrow.

            “I took a moment this morning to examine your mare. She’s a fine specimen indeed. How much would entice you to part with her?” He jangled the bag of coins at his belt meaningfully.

            The elder brother answered him. “No matter how much you offered, we’d turn you down, Sir. Fallow has a sentimental attachment for us both.”

            “Now, let’s not be hasty,” interrupted Stanley.

            “She’s not for sale,” said Arthur firmly.

            “Then I’ll respect your resolution and not badger you any further,” conceded Alexander amiably. “And as I’m sure you both have work to do, I’ll gather my belongings and be on my way.”

            Arthur smiled genially and began to clear away the breakfast plates.

            “Only, I find myself feeling guilty,” Alexander went on. “To have intruded on your hospitality and leave nothing in the way of recompense.”

            “I told you, Sir’ –

            “Hush, now, I beg of you, and let me speak. I have evaded your inquiries as regards my business in these parts, and I feel it is only fair that I give you an honest reply to the question of who and what I am.”

            He had their attention now. Both brothers looked at him expectantly.

            “My name is Olivier the Great. And I am a wizard.”

           

            The usual motley assembly of castle staff gathered in the kitchen for their morning meal. If anyone noticed that Mistress Olwen looked more out of breath and harassed than usual, none of them commented on the fact.

            Will appeared last of all. The others gawped at the spectacle of him standing there: his colossal white loincloth stained a sticky, inky black. His too-small tights bore witness to how the dam of the nappy had burst and the overflow had spread down his muscular thighs, ruining the pure whiteness of his hose. Will cringed with each step he took, the horrible stickiness like tar, ensuring the silky nylon of his tights clung uncomfortably to his skin.

            “I have instructions,” said Mistress Olwen through gritted teeth, “to clean everything in sight. I assume that means you too…”

            “A wizard?” repeated Stanley suspiciously.

            “We’ll have no truck with black magic,” muttered Arthur. “We’re God-fearing folk.”

            “No, no, no,” cooed Alexander in his most persuasive manner. “I practice only white wizardry. My potions and spells call upon the benign denizens of Heaven.”

            Mollified somewhat, Arthur asked ‘Master Olivier’ to elaborate.

            Alexander reached into his leather satchel and produced a small glass bottle. “Take this for instance,” he said. “Come, stand and face one another. No, closer, closer, my friends. So that your bodies almost touch.”

            The two muscular brothers, their doubts not entirely allayed, shuffled nearer so that they stood chest to chest.

            “Now, breathe deeply of the potion and see what effect it has.”

            Alexander uncorked the bottle and allowed the siblings to inhale its heady aroma. In moments, it was having an effect. Alexander watched as the two men’s faces grew rosy-cheeked, their eyes dilated and their pulses slowed. Their breathing began to become deeper and their bodies to undulate as their sexual desires were triggered and enhanced.

            Arthur began to droop and sway, falling against the body of his younger brother. And, as if in response to the physical proximity of the other man, Stanley opened his wide mouth and began to kiss him. Head swimming, Arthur responded, his tongue pressing urgently between Stanley’s lips. Both hearts pounding, the brothers’ hands started to roam over each other’s bodies: groping, pinching, stroking, pulsating. One leather-clad groin ground against the other, the one over-riding obsession of sexual gratification driving all fraternal thoughts from their minds.

            The effects of the potion began to wear off. Stanley recovered himself first, and with a cry of disgust, pushed himself away from his brother’s erotic embrace. A moment later, Arthur did the same, and the two of them stared in shock at one another and then at Alexander, unable to understand or to eradicate the incestuous moment of intimacy they had just shared.

            “What?” gasped Arthur. “What did we do?”

            “Calm yourself, my friend,” said Alexander soothingly. “’Tis a love potion for infatuated girls to snare the man of their dreams. And as you can see, the effects are temporary. Mere minutes after inhaling the potion, the ardour passes and you are as you were before.”

            The red-haired smiths were red-faced and discombobulated. Good, thought Alexander. That’s just how I want them.

            “But I’m sure good-looking lads like you are inundated with amorous young wenches and have no need of trifles like love potions. I’ve been pondering to myself and I reckon I may have a spell that will prove far more valuable to the two of you.”

            Alexander hefted his satchel onto the table. “What would you say if I told you I could give you the strength and power of a hundred men? So that you’d never need fear Prince Felix’s henchmen again! In combat you would be invincible! You would be renowned as twin Hercules. All men would tremble at your physical prowess!”

            “How, how?” – mumbled Stanley, but the trusting Arthur was already well and truly hooked. “What? What do we need to do?”

            Alexander issued his instructions and, in a whirl of excited activity, the requested items materialised before him: two lengths of thick, stout rope; a hammer and some nails; a large iron horseshoe; a wooden paintbrush; a carving knife; a pot of glue. To add to this incongruous collection of items, Alexander himself produced the large bulb of ginger from his leather satchel, along with a small glass jar of what appeared to be some kind of dried herb.

            “Just one more thing,” he told the credulous pair. “Do you, by any remote chance, have in your house, a large pair of tights?”

            Stanley had wavered at first: the naturally more sceptical of the two of them but Alexander’s convincing patter had won him round. They were both convinced now, and no matter how bizarre the request, would now willingly scurry away to do their visitor’s bidding.

            “Father had a pair!” declared Arthur triumphantly. “He kept them for best, remember? And he was bigger than either of us. I’m sure they are in the attic somewhere.”

            “Then what are you waiting for, my friend? Fetch them now and I can begin my magic forthwith!”

            The red-haired hunk bounded up the stairs, and soon he had returned, bearing a neatly folded pair of light brown hose. They were not, observed Alexander, of the best quality, but they would suffice for his purpose. And they were certainly large enough. The boys’ late lamented father must have been quite a titan!

            “Now, for the magic to work,” explained Alexander with assured patience, “certain tasks must be completed by the participants. To begin with, this horseshoe must be nailed into the ceiling just here, so that it forms a loop which will support the weight of a man.”

            “I can do that,” offered Stanley.

            “And, most importantly, this humble ginger root must be carved into a very specific shape. Each of you must shape one end of the bulb. I shall sketch the design for you, and oversee your work to ensure it is fit for the purpose.”

            Arthur snatched up the knife and the ginger and turned his big innocent eyes on Alexander as he waited further instruction. In his naivety, he saw only the smile of friendship and amity flickering around his new acquaintance’s lips.

            It did not take long for everything to be prepared to Alexander’s satisfaction. The horseshoe was fixed to the ceiling, the glue stirred, and the ginger root peeled and then carved into the desired shape: two peculiarly conical bulges at either end. The blacksmith brothers awaited further instructions on their route to superhuman strength: hope and faith glowing in their broad faces.

            “What I ask of you next,” began Alexander, “may seem a little unusual. But you must place complete and utter trust in me if the spell is to work. If you question me, if your confidence in me slips for even a moment, I promise you now, the magic will fail. Do you understand me?”

            Arthur and Stanley nodded solemnly to undertake whatever Alexander asked of them and swore they would do so unquestioningly.

            “You will be reborn, my friends, as you are imbued with your new physical potency, so it follows that during the casting of the spell, you must both be naked as the day you were born. Please remove your clothing.”

            The brothers exchanged a questioning look, but they did as they were told, unfastening leather waistcoats, and pulling off their trousers. Alexander’s cock twitched in his purple hose. The lads’ bodies were as impressive as he’d hoped. Both displayed bulging biceps and pectoral muscles, rock-hard, rippling abdominals, large sinewy thighs and big, meaty buttocks. Twin fuzzes of ginger hair nestled above heavy dicks and bollocks, that swang freely in the cosy cottage. They clearly felt self-conscious standing nude before the stranger and neither brother met his eye.

            “Don’t worry, my friends,” Alexander reassured them warmly, “you really have nothing to feel shy about.” He could scarcely believe that they had acquiesced so readily thus far, but he knew he would require all his powers of persuasion in order to carry out his scheme to a successful conclusion. He leaned over to the table and held the small glass jar up to the light. The brothers had no need to know that it merely contained a mixture of herbs that Mistress Olwen used to garnish meat and fish.

            “A powerful concoction of a most ancient and secret nature,” he announced mysteriously, as he sprinkled the herbs over the pot of glue. Taking the paint brush, he dipped it in the translucent gloop and stirred. “This concoction must be applied to your naked skin for the magic to do its work.” He neglected to inform them why it specifically needed to be their plump, white bum cheeks that had to be coated with the glue, and, conscientiously obeying his command not to question him, neither Stanley nor Arthur asked. They blushed a deep crimson as they stuck their bare arses out for Alexander to paint, and Alexander diligently swirled the brush over each of the four cheeks in turn, daubing them with the cool glue.

            Once he was satisfied that each pair of bottoms was sufficiently slathered with the glistening goo, Alexander spoke to the naked smiths, his quick mind racing ahead of his glib tongue as he rapidly invented explanations for his actions. “We will be drawing on three sources to give you the power you desire. First from the ancient stones of this very cottage: your home. Therefore we must forge a link between you and this house.”

            Swiftly, Alexander looped the first length of coarse rope around Arthur’s wrists, tying them together. Then he took the second piece and bound Stanley’s equally as tightly. Stanley threw a brief and mute appeal of consternation towards his elder brother: the sudden vulnerability of their situation, naked, bound and covered in glue, sinking in. However, Arthur hushed him with a warning glance.

            With both brothers now tied and helpless, Alexander threaded the two ropes through the curve of the horse-shoe that had been nailed to the ceiling and, for the moment, let the cord hang there loosely.

            “Now, I warn you, my friends, that the next stage of the spell will involve some mild discomfort for you. However, as I’m sure you must appreciate, nothing of any value is won without some hardship. And I feel confident that two fine specimens such as yourselves will bear the aggravation manfully.”

            The brothers looked apprehensive, but remained so firmly in Alexander’s thrall that they did not utter a word. Alexander picked up the curiously carved ginger bulb from the table. “This part of the process will forge a connection between the two of you, and permit your existing strength to be multiplied and shared between you.”

            He hefted the moist yellow root in his hand, and calmly came to stand behind Arthur. “You must bend over for me, my friend,” he informed the curly-haired peasant.

“What are you going to do?” Arthur’s eyes widened.

“You will be joined with your brother via your most intimate openings,” Alexander explained.

“You don’t mean – you’re going to push that ginger bulb into my ass?!”

“Ah, remember my warning! The slightest doubt may weaken the potency of the spell!”

Arthur nodded solemnly and, after only a moment’s hesitation, he braced his strong thighs and pushed his well-lubricated butt cheeks out towards the wizard. He screwed his eyes tightly shut as he prepared for the invasion of the ginger root. He felt the pressure of the peeled bulb’s pointed end against the nub of his arse, and his mouth dropped open in an astonished oval, as his virgin hole was penetrated for the first time in the thirty years of his existence.

            “Ginger is self-lubricating, which is helpful for us,” commented Alexander matter-of-factly, as he continued to push the home-made plug into his victim’s hole. Wider and wider it grew, and Arthur’s breathing grew deeper as he tried to accustom himself to this new and frightening sensation. Eventually, the flared base of the end of the ginger plug slipped inside him, and Arthur tentatively shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he attempted to get used to this bizarre intrusion.

            “Now comes your turn, Stanley.”

            This part of the procedure was trickier to accomplish. With one end of the ginger root lodged firmly inside the arse of the brother, Raymond instead had to manoeuvre Stanley onto the other end of the plug. He held the pointed cone steady and clasping his arm around the blacksmith’s naked waist he slowly pulled the scared and quivering hunk onto the double-ended dong.

            “It – it tingles!” gasped Stanley as the yellow flesh of the root made contact with his pink man hole.

            “All the better to transfer the magic,” Alexander improvised. “Now, step backwards gradually and push your body onto the plug.”

            He was able to gaze into Stanley’s gawping face as the naked young man obeyed his command and slowly impaled himself. Stanley flushed with embarrassment as he glanced down to see his cock beginning to harden from the unexpected sensation.

            Alexander smirked. “There’s no rule to say you can’t enjoy it, my friend.”

            A strangled cry from Stanley informed Alexander that the plug was now imbedded as deeply within him as within his brother. He noted with some satisfaction that the juice of the ginger plant was beginning to take effect.

            “Master Olivier,” stuttered Arthur. “My – I mean to say, I feel a burning sensation – back there.”

            “That’s quite usual,” replied Alexander. “The sap of the ginger root is strong and spicy. You will experience a feeling of intense heat as its moisture irritates the tender flesh of your anus. But relax and try to enjoy the feeling. It is proof that the process is working!”

            Arthur nodded as he accepted the wizard’s explanation, although he could not help but wince as his ring began to burn. Indeed, both brothers began to moan with the discomfort they were feeling from the cruel invasion of the ingenious double-headed plug. Surreptitiously, Alexander gave his purple-hosed crotch a rub. The morning was proving to be a delightful diversion from his flight from the castle.

            Next, he took the slack ropes that were hanging from the ceiling, and began to pull both of them taut, raising the brothers’ bound wrists above their heads so that their bodies were stretched tight: armpits exposed and ripe for tickling - had Alexander the inclination, and the time, for such entertainment. The other effect of this new bondage position was that the brothers’ bodies were pulled inexorably closer together, and with a resounding “squelch”, their glue-smeared bums made contact with each other. Their large, meaty arses were now stuck together, and Alexander thought to himself that it would be no easy matter to separate them!

            The red-haired siblings were truly helpless now. Tied fast, arms strung up above their heads, both speared by the double-ended butt plug, and their bottoms glued together. Did they truly believe that he was a genuine magician who would shortly grant their wish? Alexander wondered if they were now clinging desperately to that hope, because the alternative was too devastating to contemplate.

            He must get on, he said to himself sternly. As tempting as it was to ponder the prospect of remaining all day in the quaint little cottage to use and abuse the gullible young men, he needed to be on his way. Just one final touch…

            “Last of all, we will draw on the power and strength of your dear departed father.” Reverentially, Alexander picked up the neatly folded hose from the table. “His life essence. His power and his strength still clings to this garment. And it will imbue you with his force and vigour.”

            It was a good job their father was a big man, thought Alexander, as he expertly rolled the right leg of the pair of tights over Arthur’s foot. Once the elder brother had been encased up to his ankle, Alexander lifted the sole of the younger and inserted it into the same leg. He moved round to the other side of the bound and helpless duo and did the same with the left leg of the garment. It was no easy task to pull the hosiery up over the mammoth thighs of the auburn-haired siblings. For once, Alexander was grateful for that most abominable of clothing offences: baggy hose! These tights must have hung off the legs of their father. Perhaps, mused Alexander, he was one of those foolish individuals who felt embarrassment at having his intimate parts framed and exposed in the deliciously tight-fitting lustre of hosiery. However, with the garment now required to stretch over and encase two pairs of legs rather than one, the material strained under its task. But it fitted – just. Alexander pulled the gusset of the hose over the groins of both men: Arthur anxiously flaccid, Stanley still erect in spite of himself; and then took a step back to admire his handiwork. What a bizarre and ridiculous sight the two of them were! Arms aloft and tied to the ceiling, their upper bodies glistening with sweat and their faces masks of discomfort as the ginger juice continued to aggravate and inflame their tender arseholes. Their glued buttocks gyrated against each other’s and their legs shuffled and writhed, encased in the constricting bondage of their beige tights. They looked like some weird, two-headed mythical creature that threatened to burst free at any moment.

            Alexander took a smattering of the dried herbs from his little glass jar, and sprinkled them over the brothers’ heads, incanting as he did so: “Alacazar, alecazizi, mangana, mangini!”

            “It is done!” he declared. “And now, my friends, I must be on my way.”

            “What?” gasped Stanley, as he tried to turn his head towards their departing guest.

            “I beg of you, do not thank me. It has been my pleasure to be able repay you for your kindness and hospitality in this small way.”

            “But how do we get free?” Stanley demanded, with no little desperation in his voice.

            “Why, do you not understand? After a matter of mere hours, the spell will fortify your bodies to the point where you will positively explode with the energy and vigour of your new powers! You will be able to wrench your arms free, you will slip apart, and the ginger within you will disintegrate at that moment, leaving you virile and potent!”

            “A few hours?” repeated Arthur in bewilderment.

            “Well, yes. Although the longer you remain in this posture, the more your strength will ultimately increase. But remember, if either one of you harbours any doubt that the process will work, even for a moment, it will surely fail, and all my efforts and hard work on your behalf will have been for nothing.”

            Both brothers, still doing their little dance of discomfort, nodded their mute understanding of the procedure.

            Alexander drew his travelling cloak around him and turned to take a final look at his handiwork. The temptation was too much for him; he took a step towards the muscle-bound brothers and squeezed Stanley’s erect dick through the tights. “There’s a good lad,” he winked conspiratorially. “Farewell, my friends!” And then, he was gone.