The days of Our Lord being sixteen hundred and one very odd generation by the reckoning of years, it fell upon the Lord Falcon's Court to hold audience with the Trickster Mathias. Many who held liege loyalty to My Lord Falcon, and many more who were only curious to see the infamous Mathias, came into the High Hall this day to witness the task set at the feet of this Devil's Own Son.If they expected curled horns and grizzled beard, they were sorely disappointed. If they expected hooves, then they did not see them beneath the soft leather of his high boots, if wings, there were none such beneath the dark velvet of his rich mantle. Verily, he seemed the idle princeling, strolling in the gardens. Mathias seemed younger than the century, as enlightened as the age, thin as a sapling, and passing fair of face and manner. There were rumors he was older than the century before, that he dallied with draiads, that he danced in the moonlight. There where whispered intimations, susurrations that rounded the High Hall, which charged Mathias with any number of unspeakable perversities.
All the lords and ladies stood gathered, with the pillars, like a forest of alabaster and faces, before the great gilt throne. They awaited the Crown's pleasure. This day that pleasure would be to put the Bastard Mathias--his bastardy being his single certain attribute --in his lowly place, for once and for all time.
"We have waited upon your arrival now a goodly time past the arranged hour, Mathias," My Lord Falcon chided the cur who refused to bend his long limbs to any semblance of deference. "Are you ever late and never early?"
"So it would seem, My Lord," the deep tones set the Ladies' hearts aflutter and drew their pale hands to their throats. The Lords wondered if other things they'd heard about the Bastard's seductive powers were only myth or partly truth. It was also rumoured that the Trickster was the Lover of Lovers, the Son of Eros, Himself, an Incubus of the First Order, in the beds of both men and women.
Those who might have known this fact were never wont to reveal its proof, no matter that they were much prevailed upon to do so.
"We have called you before us to task you, Knave," the Crown intoned his lordly right to claim a boon from any of his bondsmen.
"Say your task, Majesty," the Trickster answered, "and while you are at it, say the penalty also."
The cad did not lack for a certain brazen bravery, even if he did forego the simple graces and amenities appropriate to Court.
"The task is this, Bastard Mathias," so did My Lord Falcon burden the shameless Trickster, "You will go to the northernmost point of my kingdom, a fortnight's hard ride to the bleak northern shores. There to receive in safe-keeping a gift of unsurpassed worth, sent by my cousin from the territories of the Wild Gauls. Bring me this gift, unopened and untouched, and your task will be complete in my eyes.
"Should you fail in this," My Lord spoke the contingent arrangements, each word becoming Holy Law as it was spoken, "Then I shall have that fine gold sword which e'en now rests so high upon your narrow back and seeks its proper sheath lower, 'neath that stiff spine of yours."
And no one in that entire hall dared to laugh at the King's joke, except for the Trickster Mathias, who laughed loud and long, at the Crown, at the Court--at himself, most of all.
So it came to be Mathias' lot to travel the drear mountain trails northward in the worst weather of the year. Not quite winter, the days were rainy, the nights colder than the hour after death. His mount succumbed to some malady of the damp which threatened to full blow into a fatal distemper of glanders, forcing the Trickster to dismount and lead the poor palfrey the entire first week of the journey. Then the sun broke in the second week, the horse recovered, and the thirteenth day out found Mathias' huddled by a meager fire. His elegant length of back bowed forward and his quick wit raced ever ahead of him, weighing all the delicious possibilities of the Royal Task set before him.
And almost the least of these was the possibility he might actually just obtain this fabulous gift and return it to the King, unopened and untouched, as he had been commanded to do.
The next day was nearly done when Mathias sighted the golden beach and the breakers beyond, the North Point of Land in His Lord's vast holdings, the place he was bound to meet with the envoy from the Gauls. He saw the man, far down the beach. His small boat was upturned near a fire and the smell of roasting fish filled Mathias' palate with sea salt and salivation.
Dismounting, Mathias made his way down the beach, sensing beneath the smoke and the fish, another sensation, more electric than aromatic. The envoy was an Immortal. Like Mathias himself, he was a bastard warrior destined to fight others of his kind down the centuries of their long lives, to kill by beheading, to gather and gather, and gather again, the souls of the slain, until they all resided in one Immortal--that One to be the Ruler of Man and his dominions. While they were each of them bastards, they were all likewise Princes.
And, if he were not mistaken, here lay another challenge. "I am the Royal Envoy of Lord Falcon, who is ruler of all these lands," Mathias announced as he approached, his much-admired gild sword in his hand, and his mantle thrown back from his shoulder.
The young man rose, also armed, a dark Gaul, draped at his waist in a deep blue tartan, a loose white swordsman's shirt riding down the hard, square lines of his broad, brave chest. "I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, and I have no fight with thee, Envoy."
Mathias stopped short at this odd challenge which had every dimension of surrender, but no trace of fear. He was as much stunned and halted by the man's handsome visage, the stormy eyes that flashed with a controlled battle rage, the strong lines of his legs beneath the kilt's ragged hem, the long dark waves of sea-tossed mane that broke over his wide shoulders in a tide of shadows and arcs. This lusty Gaul was simply and completely beautiful. Mathias found it more than a little difficult to keep his mind on the task at hand.
The Trickster's nature was one to appreciate all things exquisite. People especially intrigued and delighted him. He made none of the petty distinctions of his youth, which was now distant as the stars in the firmament. Gender, age, shape--he really required nothing specific, except a fullness of life's expressions, an excess of presence and essence and courage. Mathias also favored wit, but that was never a hard or fast requirement for something to arouse him, mind or flesh.
"Then I have no fight with thee, MacLeod," he answered the challenge refusal and lowered his blade to the sparkling sand, now lit with the sun's dying glow. "I have come to take back the gift which you have brought from My Lord's noble cousin."
The Gaul did not lower the large claymore, but he did reach behind him for a small oaken box with a silver serpent set upon its lid, twining back upon itself in complex knots and nows, with its tail finally ending, resolving, in its own dread fangs. A smaller serpent formed a lock upon the front panel of the box and Mathias could just see the key to that lock hanging from a slender thong around the Highlander's muscled neck.
Mathias neared the impressive Gaul and was pleased to find, unlike most of the Trickster's acquaintances, he was as tall, though of greater substance, muscle and bone than the slender commissioner of Falcon's Court. The kilted man's hands were broad and rough, while Mathias' were smooth and pale, with a length of finger which a spider might envy. He crooked a slender finger beneath the thong and the Gaul raised his sword.
"But your master cannot expect me to return with the gift and no means to open it," Mathias reasoned aloud.
"That is, in truth, the key, Envoy," MacLeod agreed, "but I am commanded to accompany you and the box to the Throne Itself, and there to open the gift before the King. And if it be elsewise, then I am commanded to end your life, Envoy. So am I sworn."
Mathias wisely let go the key and strolled round the mountainous Gaul, assessing the strong, straight back, the ebon locks, the noble head. "Should I know of any other vows you make upon this mission, Clan Lord MacLeod?"
"I do not take your meaning, Envoy," MacLeod replied, "To what vows do you refer?"
"You have not vowed to kill me outright, or in my sleep, for example?" Mathias queried.
"And why would I so vow, Lord."
"You have not sworn to any special condition of the journey then?" Mathias asked.
"What conditions would those be, Lord?" MacLeod asked in the teasing roll of the north country "r's" where "Lord" became "Laird" and every statement seemed a congenial question.
"Fasting, for one," Mathias reached to touch the flat stomach, hard as the steel of a well-tempered sword.
"And why would I be starving, then? How could that possibly serve my master?" the Gaul replied, standing unmoving beneath Mathias' light touch.
"Praying, for another," Mathias suggested running his long fingers across the knuckles of MacLeod's left hand, all the while standing behind the tall barbarian, teasing first one ear and then the other with his sonorous questionings.
"And why would I be such a bother to the Heavens on so simple a task as this?" MacLeod answered, but the brogue was softening into a slur and the hand which upheld the great sword was, while not unsteady, the least bit tremulous.
"Continence?" Mathias asked lastly, running the muscular line of the Highlander's right shoulder causing the Gaul to shiver noticeably, though the night was hardly chill. The Trickster's fingers insinuated themselves beneath the left collar of the loose white shirt and slipped it smoothly off the bronzed and sculpted left shoulder.
"And why," the Gaul's intake of breath was the equal of the tidal waves breaking like molten gold at their backs. "Why, when I have heard such tales about thy winsome maids, would I agree to such a vow as that?"
"I do not speak of maids," Mathias bent his lush lips to the warrior's neck, grazing the join between neck and shoulder, tasting the salt and the musk and the heat of the man.
"And have I not heard yours is a nation of sodomites?" MacLeod asked directly.
"As I have heard your people use tartans as tents in inclement weather," Mathias countered, moving to the Highlander's groin, "But I had not been apprised of the exact nature and dimensions of the Gallic tent poles." His graceful, maddening hand moved lightly down the length of MacLeod's impressive erectness. "As I had heard the Gauls fight naked, but I do not see that is the case in this instance." Mathias' left hand moved beneath the man's left shoulder and around to tease and fondle the nipple already hard as stone, set like a gem in the carved muscles of the vast chest.
The young warrior's head lolled back against Mathias' shoulder as the barest moan escaped the full rose lips, and the dark eyes closed. The great claymore tipped over slowly as the Gaul lowered it and buried the point in the crystalline beach at their feet. The Trickster slipped the swordsman's shirt from the other bronze shoulder, 'prisoning the strong arms against the young man's sides. The Trickster turned him round to submit to the ministrations of tender, hungry lips along his neck and chest. Mathias suckled and nipped and tongued first one nipple and then the other until the Gaul was become liquid as the briny tide, pounding as the sunset surf.
Nor could the young man find the breath, nor will, to complain about the quick, sure unfastening of his belt and plaid to reveal the mystery beneath the kilt as Mathias' practiced attentions moved down from the young warrior's thudding chest to the sensitive belly and down further still to the aching center of his manhood, the heat and pulse and drive of his erect cock, where he was treated to the cool lips, the talented tongue, over the weeping tip and down to the impossibly sensitive spot beneath and behind the throbbing head.
MacLeod would have staggered then, had the slim, long fingers not grasped him firmly by the waist and steadied him. "There," he finally managed to gasp when the pleasure passed over the boundaries of ecstatic delight and into the provinces of the baser necessities and imperatives, "There," he repeated and indicated the upturned boat.
Mathias released him and proceeded where the Gaul led him, unfastening his own breeches and slipping them slowly, teasingly, down the length of his thigh, bending forward to brace his hands against the sodden, stinking hull. He felt the strong hands push his buttocks apart roughly, almost frantically, driven by the barbarian's incredible passion. There was a momentary positioning, an awkward fumbling, then he felt MacLeod's blunt, thick rod pushed against the rose of his ass, pressing insistently and tearing through to stretch the sensitive flesh, to bury deep within the Trickster on each subsequent thrust. The wild, almost whimpering, wail filled the empty beach and fed Mathias' lust as he bit back his own scream beneath the Gaul's unpracticed assault.
Then the two men fell into a mutual rhythm of pleasure that rode them above the pain of the elder Immortal and the inexperience of the younger, brought them together in their own primal tide, lust- bourne and irrefusable. It raised them up and dashed them down again, spent, upon the craggy, sun-fired shore, wrapped in their sleepy arms like the knotted coils of the box's snake, warming together in afterglow like the sunset-burnished beach around them.
They had hidden the Gaul's boat up high on the beach the next morning. Then the two Immortals played like children in the sunny surf, learning a tactile communication as old as the ocean before them. They practiced the unspoken language of brothers and lovers, fathers and sons, mothers and babes, creating between them an understanding of wants and ways, desires and delights.
If they were longer than a fortnight returning to the King, then they might be forgiven the delay for the time it took to procure a second mount and because of being waylaid upon the road or an assault by journeymen. And, in truth, their delays were all about mounting and waylaying and assaults, but not exactly in the manner they reported upon their return.
Mathias was truly grateful that the Scottish stepson was a willing and apt pupil, for he could never have tolerated the roughness of that first coupling for the whole of the next three weeks. But MacLeod was quick to gain an art and grace and tenderness in their unions which touched the deepest sensibilities of the Trickster and melted his old heart even as winter began to cover the Lord Falcon's lands in soft white blankets and dry, dead leaves.
When they finally rode up to the toothed portico of Falcon's Keep and begged entrance, the two men were brothers and more, two ragged savages, set in lusty splendor upon their mangy mounts, tall, impressive warriors of a bygone feral age.
They were finally granted entrance and made their way to the Trickster's temporary apartments in the west wing of the Keep, where a battle ensued that scattered the servants and sent a great gale of gossip down the corridors of Falcon's lair.
"And is bathing not the bane of strength and health and--" the Gaul roared as Mathias wrestled him into the tub, ignoring his kicks and howls and general ill temper.
"You will neither melt nor succumb, Beloved," Mathias cajoled and crooned and dodged the odd bludgeoning and Gaelic curse.
When MacLeod had quieted in the warm tub, Mathias began to work on the impossible dark mane, tangled and knotted its entire forearm's length. As he worked the oil through his lover's matted hair, he reviewed the expected manners that the northern envoy should employ in his audience with the King. "You must not look directly into the Monarch's eyes, unless commanded to do so. You must not turn your back to the King, nor speak unless it is to the Throne directly and then only if you are given leave.
"We will bring the box into Court, approach the Throne, and you will remove the key from your neck and present the box and the key to the King. Are you listening, Beloved?" Adam finished with the knots and began to work an aromatic soap through the long, dark locks.
"No," Duncan MacLeod replied, pulling the Trickster on top of him and into the tub, smothering the wise counsel beneath the demanding warmth of his luscious mouth.
Nearly half a season since the Court had tasked the Trickster, Mathias, and once again the Lords and Ladies assembled with great interest to see the fulfillment of that Royal Command. They expected there would be trouble. There was always trouble where Mathias was involved. They were curious to see the savage who had returned with the Trickster from the wild North. They were even more curious to see the gift of greatest worth which had been sent from the mysterious lands of the Gauls.
Lord Falcon dispensed handily with the court preliminaries and then called for the Trickster to appear. The great doors were flung open and in strode the two men, giants in that throng, bemantled in swirling velvet cloaks with bright orange fox collars. The Hall hushed and parted, beholding the two men in silent awe, measuring their impressive bearing: the Trickster in his soft breeches and boots, the Gaul in his bright blue tartan, doeskin shoes, and woolen braces.
Mathias held the silver serpent box in his elegant hands, the handsome Gaul with the long black curls standing the Trickster's shield side. They approached the Throne and bowed together.
Not a few of the demur Ladies glanced circumspectly at the length of leg exposed as the savage bowed. Not a few hearts sped, though it was more at their own imaginings than any image displayed before them. The Gaul envoy was just so wrenchingly handsome there was not an uninterested soul in the entire Hall, the King not excluded.
Rising in unison, Mathias placed the box into the Scot's broad hands and walked behind him to gently lift the long hair and untie the thong that held the key. MacLeod closed his eyes as the slender fingers grazed his neck. Then the key was laid upon the box and both presented to the King.
The two men backed away from the Throne and stood at easy attention, though the heat between them was nearly a visual aura, lighting the center of that dark stone room, perceptible to the most jaded of the gathered minions.
The Lord Falcon remained oddly silent when it should have been the form for him to accept and proclaim that the task was fulfilled. Instead, he motioned for the Trickster to reapproach and spoke with him in muted tones for a small space. Then the King ordered Mathias back.
"What is this?" MacLeod whispered when Mathias returned.
"I will explain in time," Mathias whispered back, "for now, I need you to take my cloak."
MacLeod unfastened Mathias' rich mantle and draped it over his brawny arm. Mathias' scabbard was strapped to his back. "I thought you said we were not permitted to come to Court armed?" MacLeod asked.
"This is different," was Mathias answer, "I suspected this would be the outcome, Beloved. Remain here. I shall return shortly."
Again Mathias stepped up to the Lord Falcon, this time to draw his sword and lay it across his arms. He knelt deeply before the Throne and offered the precious gild weapon up to the King. "I give it you gladly, Lord."
Around the Hall a breezy round of whisperings and murmurings flew then as the throng questioned how the Trickster should have completed the task and still be made to pay the penalty for failure.
The while, Mathias apologized silently to his faithful blade wondering where he would find a substitute in the following two decades it would take for the Lord Falcon to grow old and die and for him to retrieve the sword.
Lord Falcon took the gold sword and dismissed Mathias.
MacLeod handed him back his cape and the two men bowed and turned on their heels to leave the audience.
They were not halfway down the path to the doors when the Lord Falcon's rage exploded behind them. "Thief," the King cried out, "Miserable thief!" He threw the oaken box after them. It landed on the tessellated floor where it broke apart and revealed itself, empty.
There were those in the royal assembly who merely thought that Mathias had emptied the box and relocked it, and that was why he had forfeited his sword.
But there were wiser heads which divined the truth that day, that Lord Falcon could not have known the box was empty unless he had known it from the beginning of the task. These were the clever minds who kenned that even now the Trickster was walking from their midst, hand-in-hand, with the precious gift of unsurpassing worth which the Royal Cousin had sent My Lord Falcon from the Wild North.
Who was neither untouched, nor unopened.
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