The Low Road (6 page)

I was in no mood to discuss the charms of the climate, delightful though the day was. ‘Who are you, Monsieur?' I asked, aping his sarcastic politeness.

‘Excuse me. I am Benoit Lebecque, theologian, from Paris, born in Rouen. I come with the highest recommendation of the Bishop of Paris, who has been gracious enough to find me a place in the household of one of the noblest of all Scottish families.'

‘Why are you here?'

‘Of course, to teach you. A tutor was required, was it not?'

‘Yes...'

‘And a tutor has been found. Perhaps we can discuss our
academic future when you have been kind enough to show me Gordon Hall.'

In the face of such stone-faced resistance, there was little I could do but oblige, although with bad grace. Conducting the tour at an uncomfortably fast pace, I whisked Lebecque through the ornamental garden, around the coppice and down to the shore of Loch Linnhe, where I had a good mind to push him in. I walked quicker and quicker; Lebecque was never behindhand, never out of breath. In a race, I felt sure, he could beat me. He met each of my offhand observations with an intelligent, sympathetic question to which I was obliged to reply. Within twenty minutes my hostile first impressions had crystallised into a most cordial hatred.

Finally we reached the west end of the estate and came into view of the stables. All of my misery returned; Alexander gone, our friendship betrayed. With the self-regarding logic of youth I blamed Lebecque for everything. I stopped in my tracks.

‘Monsieur, I do not wish to be rude to a guest in my mother's house, but I am afraid that I must ask you a question.'

‘Of course. You must always ask questions about that which you don't understand, my boy. And I, as tutor, will endeavour to answer them.'

‘Very well. Where is Alexander?'

‘Ah. Alexander...'

‘Yes. You know where he is, I take it?'

‘Alexander, I believe, has been obliged to leave the service of the Gordon family.'

‘I saw him only this morning. He said nothing of it.' My bravery was being seriously undermined by the danger of crying.

‘No. Sudden circumstances, I believe.'

‘What have you done? Who are you?' I felt hot; I knew that my face had gone bright red.

‘For myself, I have done nothing. I am here only as your tutor.
I advised your mother, perhaps, this morning over an issue that she found both painful and alarming.'

‘You mean, you and she engaged spies.'

‘Nothing so sinister, Charles, as espionage. Simply the discovery, easy to effect, that a member of the household had become... no longer dependable.'

‘Alexander had done nothing wrong.'

‘It is not his deeds that were dangerous, but his words. You will find from our study of history that it is always words that we fear more than actions. Now, please, show me to the library.'

Words! Then that was it. We had been overheard discussing my father. Perhaps ‘they' - my mother, whoever else — had known about Alexander and me all along, and didn't care as long as it kept me quiet. But now that he had spoken for the first time of my father...

‘I must beg you, sir, to tell me more.' Lebecque was striding ahead of me; I caught on to his gown and nearly tore it. He swung round on me in a fury.

‘Enough questions! Stupid, foolish boy! You little know the danger to which you expose yourself and those you love! Silence in these times is the only defence! Your friend is safe and well. That is all you need to know.' His face, animated for the first time in my presence, now resumed its impassivity. ‘Now please, the library. It is, I believe, a famous collection.'

The following weeks did little to improve my opinion of Lebecque. He was a fine tutor, certainly, a thoroughly learned man with the rare gift of communication. He breathed life into dead authors. He illuminated the dry polemics of history. He even indulged me with a few basic lessons in fencing. But the moment our conversation strayed beyond the appointed subject, his face closed like a trap
and his eyes told me that I must ask no more. In his presence my mother was cowed and nervous, deferential in a way that did not become her, at least not towards a servant in the household. Ethel hated him openly, referred to him as ‘that black crow' and swore he was in league with Satan. Lebecque glided through the household with infallible courtesy to us all. Outside lesson and meal times, he closeted himself in his room or took long rides on his black stallion, sometimes staying away for days at a time. His man-servant, Girolle, lay low somewhere in the village, attending Lebecque only on rare occasions.

My education was certainly improving, but in all other respects my life was miserable to me. I had become accustomed to Alexander's friendship, to his company both in and out of bed, and I missed him sorely. Every day I hoped that a letter would arrive, that an assignation could be made and that we could escape together to begin a new life somewhere in the Highlands, away from prying eyes. Every day brought nothing but disappointment. While my mind gradually resigned itself to his absence, my body was not so easily assuaged. My appetites, sharp enough before I had learned how to satisfy them, raged day and night with nothing but my hands to relieve them. A few relics of Alexander - the old saddle from the stable, a shirt he had left in my room, the pot of dubbin-I rescued and secreted for my lonely reveries, but even they could not satisfy me. I walked around the house and grounds in a daze of lust. Even Lebecque became attractive to me, much as I hated him. The man was, after all... a man. Sometimes, to my utter disgust, his face replaced that of Alexander in my dreams.

I took to swimming more frequently in the loch, hoping that the icy waters would give me some relief from the tormenting devils. The stretch of beach that skirted the estate was a favourite spot since childhood: fine, white sand, little dunes of coarse grass, bands of coarsely broken shells washed up by the tide. Jellyfish could be found on the wet sand after a storm; seals occasionally
swam close to land and watched me through huge round eyes. Other than that, the only company on the beach were the seabirds that wheeled overhead, catching the last few flying ants of summer.

Lebecque had swum with me once or twice shortly after his arrival, more to ascertain that I was not making secret assignations than for any great pleasure in the exercise, I suspect. To my amusement he left his long cotton shirt on in the water; as a priest, I suppose, he felt the need to suppress the body at all times. I delighted in stripping off all my clothes and running stark naked into the shallows. Lebecque said nothing, ploughed through the water with amazing strength, ran out, stood for a moment with his wet shirt dripping around his knees, then jogged back to the house to dry and change.

But throughout August and September I had the loch to myself, and spent all my available time out there once the summer's midges had finally dropped from the skies. I swam and sunned myself, I studied my books, I studied nature and the beauty of my homeland. It was a sad time, melancholy rather, but the sharp misery of Alexander's departure had passed. Time had even dulled the edge of my curiosity. He had gone, I was alone, that was all that really mattered to me. Lebecque had told me Alexander was safe; there was nothing for me to worry about but that insistent devil in my loins.

So demented was I by the end of September that I was beginning to find erotic significance in Thucydides, Caesar and Cicero. It was impossible to study for long without some mention of a soldier or a slave tripping my mind into long, lurid reveries. I tried to cool myself in the loch, to diminish the number of times I made myself come, but too often I surrendered to the moment.

One warm afternoon in the dying days of the summer I was lying on my back in the sand, my head propped on a pillow of grass, allowing the sun to dry my naked body from a recent dip,
trying to concentrate on the book in my hand but dreaming instead. My cock was half hard; these days, it was seldom any less. I stretched my legs, ground my arse into the sand and felt my cock twitch a little. I felt agreeably aroused, relaxed, happy.

A crunch of foot on gravel alerted me to the fact that there was somebody behind me. The sun was in my eyes, and so no shadows fell across me to betray another's presence, but the sound was unmistakable. Surely, I thought, it must be Lebecque. I pretended I had heard nothing, turned a page of my book and carried on reading. Silence for a minute or two, then, closer this time, another faint sound. The heat of the sun, and the interesting experience of being watched, worked together to bring my cock up to full stiffness. Well, if Lebecque would spy on me... knowing that I was a healthy nineteen-year-old boy... he would have to take his chances. I turned down the page in my book and lay it beside me, stretched my arms high above my head, ran my hands down my chest and stomach, and then gripped my cock and started to stroke it. I knew how to put on a show: Alexander had loved to watch me. I put those lessons to good use now, hoping to send a shamed Lebecque racing back to the house with a mess inside his black gown.

I was getting nicely into my stride, bucking my hips up and down, imagining Lebecque's face contorted with lust, wondering what was going on underneath his clothes, when a groan and a sudden shuffling movement made me turn round, as if to ‘discover' and denounce my voyeur. But instead of Lebecque standing there I came eye to eye with none other than MacFarlane, staggering towards me holding his trousers up with one hand and gripping a big stiff erection with the other. I leapt to my feet in horror; MacFarlane, losing grip of his trousers, fell face first at my feet, his hairy backside wriggling as he tried to right himself. The initial shock wore off, and the absurdity of the situation took hold of me.

‘Dear oh dear, MacFarlane, it seems that you make quite a habit
of spying on me. What is it that you want?'

The old man groaned again and looked up at me, his face a burlesque of tragedy. ‘Please, Master Charles, don't be angry. I didn't mean it. I didn't know you were here. I couldn't help what I saw.'

‘You're a dirty wee bastard, aren't you, MacFarlane? Watching people's private moments.' I was standing right over him now. Despite the fact that I found him generally repulsive, my cock had not softened one iota. Its shadow stretched far out from my hips. I suppose I was enjoying my power over him - but, if I must be honest, I was also enjoying the opportunity to show myself off to another man - any man, however unattractive. It was a long time since my body had been appreciated. MacFarlane was an audience, if nothing else.

‘Well, old man, take a good look.'

He peered up again, uncertain of what to do.

‘Go on, I said look at me. I'm not going to hit you.'

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

He struggled into a kneeling position; in the sand where he had fallen there was a perfect impression of his cock and balls. The white sand clung still to him, as it did to my arse and back.

‘Tell me, MacFarlane, what you were doing?'

‘Watching you, sir.'

‘Watching me what?'

‘Watching you... playing with yourself, sir.'

He cleared his throat and licked his lips. Now that he knew there was no present danger, he relaxed a little. His cock, which had shrivelled before, lengthened and stiffened with an energy I found surprising in a man of his years. Years of outdoor work punctuated by too many hours at the bar had done their worst to his complexion, and he was certainly no beauty, but he was no monster either. His body, from what I could see, was sturdy enough. Not that it mattered; he could have been fat and scaly and covered in sores and I, blinded as I was by lust, would have
persuaded myself to find him attractive.

‘Do you like what you see, MacFarlane?'

‘Oh yes, sir, very much.'

‘Do you want to... touch it?'

He couldn't find words to reply, but instead shuffled forward on his knees and reached out a hand. Allowing him just to brush the tip (which left a sticky pearl on his fingers) I stepped back again.

‘Not so quickly, MacFarlane. First of all I want you to tell me something.' I was devious.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘You must tell me the truth, you know, or...' I made my cock twitch.

‘Yes, the truth, sir, anything.'

‘Tell me, MacFarlane, what you saw in my room that morning.'

He gasped and bit his lip, hung his head in shame for a moment. Had I overplayed my hand? I thought not; his dick was harder than ever, like a steel rod against his belly.

‘Look at me, MacFarlane. Look at me!' I spat on my fingers and rubbed them over the head of my cock, then put them back into my mouth, savouring the taste. ‘You want to taste that, don't you? Want my hard young cock in your mouth?'