Black Arrow Lord Ch. 04

"Please keep your hands away, mother," the girl said with a little grin to the old bathwoman and being sure to show respect in her tone, "I say it respectfully, but when will I ever get a chance like this again? You have held every one of these in the village for years on end."

His sense of awkwardness grew only worse for him the closer that she got to his tackle. As his involuntary erection began, the sounds of her appreciation for it, as well as the nods and small smiles of the others – no matter how much they tried to hold them back only caused him to blush even more. The careful and almost reverent way that she worked at her task made him have to hold back the groan which he felt.

"There is nothing for you to feel shame over," Kōichi's mother smiled, "We are women, after all. None of us want for you to feel uncomfortable in the least. But this is a moment when we can enjoy seeing a man who is a little different to the ones which we see all of the rest of the time. We wish to thank you for this opportunity."

She looked at the way that Aiki held onto what she found growing in her hand for a moment, "Aiki-san says that she can help you if you think that you would like it."

Valdemar shook his head, though he was careful to say that it was just too uncomfortable like this for him to accept what to him was a very kind offer. The girl looked a little disappointed for a moment, but she covered it the next second, though she leaned a bit in a way that would allow her to give him a few gentle strokes in a hidden way.

When their eyes met for an instant, she gave him a pleased-looking little smile and a gentle squeeze, but that was about all that she had the time for, since the bathwoman resumed watching her a little intently.

Kōichi was trying not to stare himself. He tried to busy himself with details, neatening up the way that Valdemar's clothing was hung or folded and both he and Aiki stood behind him at one point, both of them staring at the long scars visible on his back, Aiki much more than Kōichi. She gasped a little and tried to hold it in.

"He was whipped by men from another land once," the boy said quietly in Japanese, "For a lord to have to endure this shame, ..."

Aiki stopped her washing of him then to step around beside him, placing her hand on his shoulder. When he looked up, she began to speak to him very quickly and apologetically, bowing twice in an abbreviated manner. He'd heard it said of her that she understood English, but he'd forgotten the detail since and her voice and it's tone surprised him, coming to him in a very soft and respectful tone, though it was a little heavily-accented.

"Please accept my apology, Dane-san," the girl said in almost a whisper as she bowed a little, "I understand everything now. Please forgive me. I did not know and even so, I did not say anything of you in a jesting way."

Valdemar nodded, "There is nothing to forgive. I thank you for your kind and hopeful thoughts earlier, but I find that I have become a little, ... shy after having had to show my marks to Maeda-san and everyone in the room. Until then, it was something which I could forget about easily, since it is behind me. Now, ..."

The girl's hand remained on his shoulder very tentatively, as though she was trying to show him her care, and yet was very afraid that she might insult him more than she felt that she'd already done.

"I believe that what was done to you was a crime," she said earnestly. "Please get into the tub now."

He tried to smile a little as he stood up, "The man who caused my marks suffered something more lasting from me, though it took less time." He heard her ask Kōichi and he guessed that he was explaining what had been done when Valdemar found himself with the chance to take his revenge.

The bath was very hot and he had to ease himself in very slowly. "Try not to move," Kōichi said as he did his best to help, telling Aiki to lift his hair so that it hung outside of the tub.

He found himself looking at the two of them once he was in and when he found a moment to open his eyes.

The girl looked as though whatever she wished to know would cause her to explode shortly and he thought that he knew Kōichi enough from his concerned expression already, so he sighed then and tried to explain what had happened to him and how it had ended. The difficult part was trying to have it make sense to them all from the English side of it, because no matter what, it had been unnecessary and cruel.

"But, ... they had no right," the boy said.

"Well, they had many men so that gave them the right in their eyes," he said tiredly. He looked up at the sound of the boy's mother sending the bath woman away.

"It doesn't matter anymore," he said, "I will never go near to an English ship again without wanting to kill someone and while what was done was a crime, I guess, it is permanent, and my reply to it was even more so."

He watched as the boy's mother's eyes looked past him a little when Lady Hoshino stepped out of the place where she'd stood hidden to leave the room, having listened to everything and seen what she'd wanted to see. As was desired, Valdemar knew nothing of her presence there the entire time.

"Try to go back to forgetting again," Kōichi's mother said softly, "What is much more important is that you are known to everyone now and you have earned their respect for what you did the day that you taught Maeda-san and killed the other man."

"Forgive me," he said, "but what I did then was only, ..."

"You have shown that you are a daimyo to another lord even if you are a lonely traveler in a far off land and what is spoken of far more is the strength of your arm and the way that you placed your arrows exactly as was asked. Perhaps you did not see them, but there were many others watching from the forest. Aiki-san was one of them.

She would never find enough courage to say it to you, but my cousin and I wish to say that you may think of them both – my son and Aiki-san as a pair who are coming to care for you very much – though she tends to hide herself away where Kōichi-san feels honor and pride to walk by your side in the village.

I must leave you for a time now. After your bath –"

She smiled, "if you do not fall asleep, my son will bring you to my quarters so that we may enjoy a meal together – if you think that you would like that."

"I would," he nodded with a tired smile as he felt Kōichi's hands massaging his shoulder while Aiki did the same to his other one, "and I thank you very much for your hospitality."

He closed his eyes then and didn't see the look which went from her to the girl. Aiki slowly stopped the work of her fingers on him with a regretful look and the two women left the room.

Valdemar almost drifted off several times then, his eyes closed while Kōichi's hands worked on slowly on both shoulders now from where he stood behind Valdemar.

He went on, wanting to make the experience a good one for their guest, but also, Kōichi found that he wanted to do this because, though it was something of a surprise to him, he found himself drawn to the stranger – who now seemed far less strange to him.

He couldn't really understand all of his feelings, but he knew that at the heart of him, he just liked Valdemar very much.

It was the rest of that which confounded and confused him.

He was beginning to feel a want inside of him to be near to the barbarian as much and as long as was possible. The whole thing caused him to feel a little embarrassed, but he knew that he liked the feeling overall and he resolved to hide it whenever possible and just enjoy it.

He leaned a little and looked at the man's face as he went on, gently kneading the muscles under that skin which to him had only one group of flaws and even those – something which he could not imagine anyone having to endure for having done nothing wrong – they spoke to him of this man's vast internal strength. He couldn't imagine killing a man with only one's fists. He knew for certain that he could never have done it.

Kōichi just accepted it then. He liked doing this as he looked at that face, seeing the stubble of the beard which would grow if it were given the chance for it. He wondered what that would look like and then he was a little shocked to find himself wondering how that might feel to his fingers.

He considered for a few moments that he thought that he might like that. His next thought almost caused him to stop what he was doing altogether when it crossed his mind that he thought that he'd enjoy it if this man ever had a want in him to kiss his servant.

That thought had barely fully registered in him, and he struggled over the surprise of it coming to him when he suddenly realized that he had his own erection then and he gave in to leaning forward just a little to press the bulge under his clothing against the outside of the large wooden tub a few times very slowly in a covert way.

His hands worked on as he did it, but then he opened his eyes to see the Dane looking up at him over his shoulder.

It was a huge shock and Kōichi didn't know what to do or even see a way to recover from it.

"Have – have I done anything wrong?" he asked a little nervously.

Valdemar shook his head a little, "Not at all, really. I only wondered why you did that so, ... well, a little forcefully."

"I did not mean to," Kōichi said, "I must have been thinking of something else. Hold still a moment, Dane-san. There is a droplet of sweat just waiting for its chance to slip into your eye."

Valdemar felt it and had been just about to either shake it off or raise his hand out of the water, but he closed his eyes as he saw Kōichi's fingers approaching.

Kōichi held his breath a little as he rested his fingertips against the Dane's unshaven cheek very lightly before he brushed the droplet away with his thumb.

"Thank you, my young friend," Valdemar said looking up again before he eased his head back against the edge of the tub and closed his eyes once more.

Kōichi nodded with a slight smile in that same second as he slowly mashed his groin against the tub, wondering just how he would get the Gaijin out of the water and dressed without his own arousal being noticed. He couldn't believe what was happening for a couple of reasons.

That it was happening at all was one thing – and a big one. He knew that he liked the foreigner very much now, but like this?

What was the matter with him? He'd had these little thoughts and notions come to him before, but they were only what he might have thought of as stray thoughts and nothing more.

Now he kept having the recurring thought run through his mind that he almost couldn't wait for the chance to be alone in his bed that night. He had no idea how he'd manage to last even that long. The rest of the thoughts which came to him, ...

The other issue was at least a little self-explanatory. Why he felt this way toward the Gaijin? He supposed that it was because there was some sameness there and because the Gaijin was the only man who treated him better than someone lower than they were. No matter how low a person stood in the pecking order around this place, every one of them felt that they were at least a little better than Kōichi, the half-barbarian boy.

He could almost hear some of the taunts which he'd had to stand from the other boys in the village at one time, not long after they'd come there with the Lady Hoshino. He looked just like the rest of them, but it didn't matter.

"Poor little animal," he'd heard.

"He'll be a hairy pig one day," another had said often.

He looked at the closed eyes on Dane-san's face for a moment.

Who wouldn't want to grow up like that? He asked himself.

Well, any number of them, he guessed, but for once, Kōichi thought that he could see a less-visible form of beauty on another person. He didn't think it very likely that he'd ever look like the blond man very much, but he knew that he liked what he was looking at.

He thought about it for a moment and then he tried to rehearse silently a few times.

"Vald, ... Valdemar-san?"

He watched the blue eyes open and turn to look up at him again, "Yes?"

"Thank you very much for saying that I am your friend. Am I on your list now?"

Valdemar nodded and reached out of the water to place his hand over Kōichi's there on the edge of the tub. "I know that you were told to help me and also to report on my words and my doings here. I understand that. But at every turn, you have gone beyond what I am sure that you were told to do and three times at least, you have warned me to keep me from saying or doing the wrong thing.

In doing that, you have likely already saved my life at least once.

He patted the boy's hand with his fingers once, "Don't worry, Kōichi-san. You are on my list.

Now," he smiled, "if we are finished with our womanly declarations of love for the moment, please help me out so that I can get dressed and we can be off for some of your fine mother's hospitality."

As the Dane stood up to get out of the tub, Kōichi couldn't help but look.

He willed himself not to, but he lost and found his eyes locked on what hung down and dripped with a lot of the running bathwater there before him. He managed to tear his eyes away, but he knew that it was far too late and that the Gaijin had seen it. He resolved to pretend that it hadn't even happened.

But in spite of his intent, he found himself a little rattled and sought the last topic of conversation as a place to start at in order to move away from the last moment. Unfortunately, it was also something which led back to ...

He did manage to look away as Valdemar got out of the tub – well, after the briefest instant as he'd watched the groups of the man's muscles slide under his skin. It only rattled Kōichi a little more.

"What did you mean when you said what you did about declarations?" he asked and then wanted to groan as he realized where those blue eyes were looking at that moment.

"Well what I wanted to do was to make a joke, Kōichi-san. That is what friends often do with each other where I am from and I guessed that it must be the same way here. But that was before I saw this," he said as he nudged the bulge in Kōichi's pants with the towel in his hand very gently.

"Before you try to crawl into a gap between the floorboards, I want you to know that I understand, so don't feel badly over the way that your body betrays you."

"You ..." Kōichi couldn't believe it, "you do?"

The Dane was drying himself with a towel then, not looking anywhere even close to the boy. He nodded, "You saw what happened to me when Aiki-san washed me? Did you think that I wanted for it to choose that moment to stand up and wave at her in a friendly fashion?"

Kōichi laughed then, "But you are a man. I do not think that mine ought to be waving at a man, should it?"

"Well, when you get a chance in a private moment," Valdemar smiled as he continued to dry himself, "maybe you ought to have a bit of a close look at yours. I do not know how the ones around here are made, but I can say that where I come from, not one of them has eyes to see with, so one never knows who they might be trying to get attention from.

Though if you do find that yours has eyes, you might want to see about getting it a pair of those spectacles like some old men wear."

He pulled on his pants and tied them up while his companion laughed before he turned and placed his hand on Kōichi's shoulder.

"What I mean to say is that you shouldn't worry about it. I don't mind. I think that what is in your pants there is at least being a little reasonable. Mine was trying to get the attention of three women as well as you.

If nothing else, I think that it was being ridiculously hopeful, don't you?"

Kōichi felt better then and he stepped up onto the bench to hold out Valdemar's shirt for him and Valdemar allowed Kōichi to pull it over his head while the Dane looked up at him a little bit. As his head emerged and Kōichi told him to hold still for just a moment so that he could get all of the long blonde hair out of the collar, Kōichi lost his balance a little and found himself against Valdemar with his arms around the other one's thick neck.

He'd have fallen off the bench in his shock then, but Valdemar caught him and the two of them looked at each other for a moment.

Kōichi felt the Dane's arms slip around him and he groaned a little, not wanting to make any sound at all. He tried to look down then but he found that Valdemar was trying to get him to look up again, so he did, very slowly.

The Dane watched those brown eyes rise up until he could see into them and then he leaned forward to kiss Kōichi very softly for a moment.

Kōichi looked as he watched the blonde man's face pull away from his own and all that he knew was that he didn't want that. Not now.

So he leaned in himself with a very quiet sigh to kiss Valdemar, who groaned quietly before the kiss ended and they looked at each other again.

"Is something such as this allowed here?" he asked.

"I – I do not know," Kōichi said quietly, "I think that it is. I know that some of the Samurai have taken young commoner men as lovers, though no one speaks of it. But I am not really one like that."

"I think that it could be a good thing, because I'm not a Samurai," Vakdemar said with a soft smile, "But this is real? I wish to know if I am holding you because – "

"Because I want to be held by you," Kōichi nodded, before he kissed Valdemar again, "I have never felt like this."

"Neither have I," the Dane admitted, "but I have been having thoughts of you all day."

They spent the next quarter of an hour like that, saying things to each other sometimes, but mostly spending the time just kissing until Kōichi tore himself away a little and regretfully said that they'd better get moving. Valdemar agreed and it was a bit of good timing. Just as they'd gotten their coats on and were opening the door, they found Aiki there coming to get them.

She looked at them for a moment and then, as if she saw something there in them, she smiled with a pleased look for a moment.

As they walked, he looked up for a moment at the moon – which happened to be full that night – and he groaned quietly. Aiki noticed it and asked him what was wrong.

Valdemar had no way of knowing what caused the phenomena that he was looking at. No one would know the exact nature of it for well over a hundred years.

But he knew what it presaged quite well.

"Aiki-san, can you see the pale ring there around the moon?"

When she nodded, he said, "I do not know if it is the same here as it is where I come from, but to us, that means that there will be a storm. Not tonight, and maybe not even tomorrow, but by tomorrow night or maybe sooner, there will be a winter storm – if this is the same as what happens in Europe."

As they reached the large hall, Valdemar saw Oda standing outside with Maeda. He walked over as he was greeted. Both of the men mentioned that they were pleased with the results of the first teachings of the men. It surprised him to hear a little of that from the headman as well.

Valdemar said that he was happy to have been of service and looked forward to teaching the rest. He remembered the cigars that he'd brought then on the chance that he'd see the lord that night, and before long, the two men were puffing contentedly – along with a little coughing from Oda-san.

Maeda-san seemed to have it down already, but Valdemar did mention that they both ought to have their clothes washed – or devote their current clothes to smoking, since the cloth would carry the smell. The remark brought raised eyebrows from the pair, but Valdemar nodded.

"Dane-san says this is true," Koichi translated, "He also asks if he may go into the forest to seek a fallen tree. He says that he wishes to cut it up for use as heat during the coming storm."