To Discover His Truth

Of Discipline and Love

Brynnan did not want to follow Rafe further without knowing the fight’s outcome at the ford, where Geraint and Nijal battled to defend them. The last thing he had seen was Geraint’s wounding by a sword slash from the Lady Sarain of Redstone Holding. But Geraint had still managed to strike back, toppling the Lady. Was she dead? And there had remained two more guards left to confront.

But reluctantly, he turned his horse towards Rafe and collected Andri, whose rescue was the sole reason they risked their lives.

At the top of the ridge, the two packhorses, fully loaded, awaited them, “Andri, go collect them and bring them with us. Geraint and Nijal will need to be unburdened when they come,” Brynnan ordered the youth.

The man leading them said, “I am called Rafe. The place where I agreed to wait for your friends is off the road, just up ahead. Come!”

They rode on, and the Bard recalled with sadness that his heart’s lover, the Warlord Samir, once had an infant son named Rafe, but that story was too painful to dwell upon just now.

They pulled into the trees and waited. It seemed a very long time, and Brynnan felt the first pangs of despair before they heard hoofbeats. The Bard signalled Andri with a touch to remain quiet and still. Were the approaching riders their looked-for friends, or were they more enemy soldiers?

The sounds drew parallel to their position and faltered. Rafe dismounted and slipped to the edge of the trees. Relief flooded Brynnan as he heard the welcome and familiar voice of Nijal. But where was Geraint? Had the old Warrior survived?

He jumped off Rhiannon’s back, warning Andri to stay put. Coming out to the road, to his immense relief, he saw both Nijal and Geraint with Rafe, but Geraint seemed hunched over his horse. Brynnan ran up to him.

“How badly are you hurt?” he asked in a low tone.

Geraint replied, “I hurt enough, but I don’t think the wound is too severe: I was able to overcome that lady fighter. She had a mean stroke.”

“Is she dead? Will she and her guards be following us?”

“They will not be following us. Be sure of that.”

Nijal interrupted, “Time for talking when we are safe. The sooner we move, the sooner I can look to the old Warrior’s wound.” They moved off back into the forest.

Brynnan felt conflicting feelings about Lady Sarain. On the one hand, he felt relieved she was no longer a threat, and a small part of him even rejoiced, but his Ruithin Priest and Bardic self felt regret at a life wasted. Having known her briefly but (unfortunately) intimately, he was confronted by the precariousness of life - one moment a vibrant, if vicious, woman: the next moment a cold body. He prayed for her soul, speaking the words inside himself that he would have said had he still been with her.

Their trail became a track, which led to a clearing where a wagon was situated, and three horses grazed. A low fire burned - hot coals instead of flame, and two figures sat at the fire. A man got to his feet and came to embrace Rafe.

It would be some time before they could seek rest: Nijal’s priority was to treat Geraint, but while he did so, they debriefed as concisely as possible, sharing their news with the two people at the fire, who introduced themselves to Brynnan as Kyan and his youngest son, Col.

Brynnan laid out the bare bones of his and Andri’s tale without going into detail about the power of his music, and he heard how his friends had fared. Geraint wasn’t his usual talkative self, but his opinion of the Redstone Holders was pithy and succinct. He cursed them for the suffering they had brought upon his lovers.

Nijal did not have a chance to speak to Grandmother Elina; she had long since retired to bed. But he collected Brynnan and Andri, and the three of them set up their shelter in the trees a little way from the clearing.

Finally, they took to the tent. Inside, Nijal warned Andri, “I know you and Geraint are eager to get your hands on each other, but I want you to have a care and let him rest now. We will see what morning brings, and then you may reunite with each other.”

But Andri sounded disconsolate, and he began to weep quietly, “I know I have been both disobedient and wrong and have endangered you and your mission. It’s all my fault, and I feel so polluted. They forced me to do disgusting things. I don’t know if I still am worthy of your love . . .”

Geraint roused himself to say, “You were the victim. Don’t you go and blame yourself for the actions of that depraved lot. I won’t hear such language from you! Yes, you made mistakes, and we will discipline you for them. An orderly camp runs on discipline. But never think that we don’t love you.”

Nijal joined in, “As for feeling polluted, there are efficient remedies for that. Tomorrow you bathe fully, and I will give both you and Brynnan a medicine to cleanse yourself with and protective drugs to ward away any infections you might have. For your mind’s healing, though, there is just time and love.” He paused reflectively and added, “Time will happen, as is the way of the universe, and love will happen, too, when you are ready to give and to receive again.”

The next day was for rest and reparation. Brynnan and Andri cleansed themselves near the camp’s mountain stream and took Nijal’s medicines. After the procedure, Brynnan approached Geraint, who lay in the hammock, stretched between two pine trees. Nijal had stitched and bound the old Warrior’s arm.

“Being lazy, are you?” Brynnan smiled at Geraint.

“It’s false pride not to accept that when you are wounded, you need to rest. If you don’t rest, you decrease your effectiveness and become a burden on your fellow soldiers,” Geraint preached, but there was a glint in his eye as if he laughed at himself.

“I have come to wish you good morning and to thank you for rescuing us.”

“Thanks, is it?” Geraint said, grinning openly now, “I thought you had forgotten your duty.”

“I would never forget my duty to you, old Warrior, but Andri isn’t the only one who felt polluted last night. I feel better for Nijal’s remedies.”

Geraint regarded the Bard shrewdly, “Yet you never felt that way when m’Lord Samir used you, sometimes very cruelly, before he admitted that he loved you deep inside.”

“Precisely: it was because of the present but unacknowledged love between us. Then we opened ourselves to it.  As an ancient bard once said, ‘Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’”

Brynnan leaned over Geraint and kissed his mouth. The old Warrior received his tongue willingly and returned the kiss. They spent some time kissing before the Bard straightened up and opened the old Warrior’s clothing, exposing his furry chest and the large, thick cock.

He kissed and sucked Geraint’s nipples while cupping and squeezing his heavy balls in his left hand. Finally, he moved down to his cock. He licked the glans where drops of pre-cum oozed, then the shaft, slowly working his way to the man’s hairy testicles.

Taking the balls into his mouth one at a time, he then sucked and licked them with long, sensual strokes of his tongue. Then, working his way to the head again, he finally took it in his mouth and swallowed the cock down to the root. The old Warrior grunted and moaned like a bear.

Geraint seized the Bard’s hair in a firm grip to control him and moved his hips up and down in time with Brynnan’s sucking until he could not hold back anymore. Brynnan could feel the old Warrior’s excitement mounting, and he could feel it reflected in himself. Finally, Geraint exploded into an intense orgasm. The hand gripping the Bard’s long, dark hair tightened and pushed Brynnan’s head down hard on his cock, as his body jerked helplessly.

Brynnan, kneeling beside the low-slung hammock, rested his head on Geraint’s exposed loins while the Warrior stroked his hair with his good left hand, murmuring endearments.

“I thank you, my protector, and I love you,” Brynnan said, expressing his love directly for the first time.

“You’ve become dear to my heart, too, m’lad. I love you too, even when you are a pain in the behind.”

“It’s you who gives me that pain, and I welcome it.”

After resting a while in silence, Brynnan kissed Geraint’s cock and said, “Let me go summon Nijal. He can bring Andri here.”

He arrived at the Wanderers’ clearing and looked around in case Andri was there. He could not see him, but the horses all grazed peacefully. He saw Kyan and Rafe with them, where Rafe helped his father file the hoofs of the buckskin horse. The two men waved at him. The mares belonging to Brynnan and his friends seemed to be integrating well with the Wanderers’ horses and the great long-haired stallion, named Buino, who was paying particular attention to Shade.

He turned and approached the fire, where Nijal sat with Grandmother Elina. He held her thin, papery-skinned hand in his, and they seemed deep in an intimate conversation. The skin of her face had a yellowish cast and dark shadows, like bruises, showed under her eyes. Brynnan felt concerned but waited until Elina turned her attention to him.

“So, the man who went into the belly of the beast. You have spent this morning with your handsome friend?” A knowing smile curved her thin lips.

It took Brynnan a moment to realize that she referred to Geraint and not Andri. She was astute, and he decided not to underestimate her.

“Elina and I have been renewing our friendship,” Nijal said, smiling, but his eyes were grave.

“She is a little under the weather today. I plan to attempt a healing tonight, and I would like your attendance.”

There were layers of meaning in Nijal’s words. He guessed the healing would involve some risk - for both Elina and the Guardian. Brynnan understood that he might have to serve as priest and spirit guide. So, of course, he agreed and bowed to the lady and Nijal.

The old woman sighed and said, “I seldom wish for the trials of being young again - it’s generally over-rated, but Nijal makes me feel young inside. It felt like our feet seldom touched the grass when we once danced.”

Elina’s revelation astonished Brynnan. He felt as if the ground was changing under him again as she revealed yet another face.

He replied to her, “I can see the graceful young woman in this graceful old body you now wear. Your time with my dear friend Nijal must have been precious.”

“It was,” she smiled and leaned her snow-white head against Nijal’s shoulder.

Brynnan smiled back at her. Then minding his business, he said to Nijal, “When Andri and Col return will you bring Andri with you and come to Geraint and me? In your own time, of course.”

“And give him three strokes from me for worrying you all so much,” Elina said sternly.

“But I did not tell you -,” the Brennan recalled the old woman’s reputation as a Seer. “Oh, yes, I will do that, or maybe Nijal may carry out your wishes, as he did once before.” 

Nijal laughed and said to Elina, “He catches up to you, my dear one, and gets his revenge most gently.”

“I like you,” Elina addressed the Bard directly, “You are a gentle man.”

*   *   *

Back at the hammock, Geraint and Brynnan talked together, with Brynnan filling him in on the captivity he and Andri endured and how he used Shadow-songs and ghost notes to lull the people into a trance. Then he told Geraint how they made their escape. 

Brynnan finished, “My only regret is for the little lad, Arton, and his friends in the stable. I hope Lord Artagan does not deal harshly with them.”

“He can hardly accuse your Arton of deceiving him when you did such a good job of deceiving him yourself. He would then have to admit he was twice a fool,” said Geraint.

“Perhaps with his Lady gone, he will prove less of a menace,” said Brynnan.

“If we get the chance, I will still send a messenger to m’Lord Samir to clean out that foul nest,” muttered Geraint, “But hold, here is Nijal with Andri.”

Geraint beckoned Andri to him. The young singer stood before him with his head bowed, but the old Warrior stood up from the hammock and embraced him. Andri melted into his arms.

“You know why we called you,” Geraint said.

Andri nodded, then coughed and said out loud, “Yes.”

“We intend to administer camp discipline. You made some bad decisions. When we told you not to follow, it was for a reason, and now you understand why. You have a choice, lad. You accept our physical and mental discipline, or we send you home with the first available group of travellers heading that way. What say you?”

“I... I accept discipline, and I will commit myself to it. Please don’t send me away from you!”

“Good, because I’d hate to be without you. But now, you will get a thrashing. Brynnan, who is experienced in these things, even though it’s from the receiving end, will cut some willow shoots, and each of us will have a go at you. There’ll be no ceremony - you don’t have to kiss the sticks or count the strokes or whatever it is they do - just a beating. After it, the slate will be clean between us all, and there will be no moping around or bashing yourself on the head. Understand?”

“Yes, Geraint.”

“Eloquently put, and to the point, as always old Warrior,” commented Brynnan.

“Nijal, will you please tie him?” Geraint asked.

Brynnan unwrapped the coil of red silk rope from around his waist, where he kept it safe, and tossed it to Nijal before he left to cut some willow wands from the stream bank.

Nijal removed Andri’s upper clothing then tied his wrists with a well-wrapped binding. He threw the rope end over a branch, hoisting Andri’s arms up over his head, with just enough tension to keep the boy in position.

Andri swallowed nervously but stood still and accepting of his fate. Meanwhile, Brynnan returned with a bundle of willow wands tied together at the base with a thinner strip. He handed them to Geraint, who swished them experimentally with his good left hand. Then he tested the bundle against his thigh.

“Stings good,” he said.

Geraint began, giving Andri many strokes across his naked back until the skin reddened. Then Brynnan took his turn, watching Andri for pain cues. The boy shuddered but stayed very still – no doubt a reminder from wearing a claw collar. Finally, Nijal stepped in and thrashed Andri more vigorously than Brynnan would have thought with the wands. His strokes took Andri over the edge, for he began to weep softly. His back was very red: there were raised welts, but the skin remained unbroken. A few more strokes, and he would have bled, but Nijal had judged it nicely.

Nijal untied Andri and passed the rope back to Brynnan before hugging the youth, then kissing him. He led him to Brynnan, who did the same. Brynnan noted that Andri no longer cried aloud, but tears trickled down his face. He wiped them away with his thumbs. Brynnan then took him to Geraint, who sat in the hammock looking pale after his exertions. He held out his arms to the young man and enfolded him in an embrace.

Nijal signalled Brynnan with his eyes, and they were about to leave the two alone when Rafe turned up. He held two cups of a steaming drink and took them to Geraint and Andri.

“Red-bark Chao, with honey and a shot of my father’s special distilling,” Rafe said to Geraint, “It eases pain and fever. Grandmother Elina says you and Andri especially need it, but that Brynnan and Nijal are invited to the fire to have a cup there.”

“Come, my friend,” said Nijal to the Bard, “Let us leave Geraint and Andri to comfort each other.”

“Nijal, How did Elina know we would need this, and how did she time it so well?”

“As you suspect, she is a Seer,” said Nijal. There was a hidden message in his eyes that Brynnan couldn’t decipher.

* * *

Geraint and Andri retired to the privacy of the tent. They spent a long time making love. The old Warrior did not fuck Andri in the ass - penetration would come later for Andri - but lay on top of him, rubbing their cocks together after mutually sucking each other until they came together. The lad shot his cum with a glad cry. Geraint remembered Brynnan’s words of the ancient bard: “Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Andri’s healing had begun.