Tamerlane's Boys 21

By Pueros

Chapter 21 – Proverbs

(Spadonis Monastery, western Armenia, August 1393)

The appalled Arman could actually feel the abbot’s razor-sharp blade touch the delicate spermatic cord that attached the first endangered testicle to his body, and waited to become a half-man before undoubtedly soon afterwards being turned into a eunuch. Despite the very handsome young Armenian's intent to try to be brave during the whole dreadful ritual, he could not prevent copious tears from now flowing down his sublime face, as he awaited his unwanted fate. He therefore closed his eyes to try to stop the shameful abundant lachrymose stream, which belied his normal courage.

Arman’s mind now focused on nothing but the imminent snipping of his first spermatic cord, and his gorgeous bound body tensed whilst he awaited the further pain that should herald the fact that this initial evil deed had been done. However, the little snip never materialised. The young Georgian instead heard a loud crash, followed by a thud and vociferous scream from very close by and the simultaneous termination of the previously all-pervading chanting, with the latter replaced by very noisy commotion. These auditory sensations caused the 16 years old to open his lovely brown eyes.

Arman’s first realisation was that the abbot was no longer either performing his genital operation or even standing next to the table on which the naked young Armenian lay spreadeagled. In fact, the man was not currently in sight at all.

Arman’s second realisation was that the sturdy wooden double-doors at the far end of the gloomy chapel had burst open, to enable the ominous place to be invaded by a host of Tamerlane’s warriors, led at the front by Vissarion, bow but no arrow in hand. The young Armenian then heard nearby groaning, apparently from below the side of the table on which his delicious nude 16 years old form had been splayed.

Arman, bravely enduring the anguish in his groin, caused by his sliced open ball sac, stopped crying and managed instead to turn his head to see who else was in distress. The young Armenian then noticed the abbot on the stone floor besides him, arrow piercing the wrist of the hand that had formerly held the emasculating knife. Much blood spurted from the resultant wound. However, the 16 years old did not have time to contemplate the vision much longer because Vissarion rushed up to block the view.

“Hello, my friend,” Vissarion, grinning broadly, greeted Arman, “I seem to remember seeing you in this type of precarious situation before!” The young Georgian, by his always disarming sweet smile and hopefully amusing remark, was actually trying to hide his worry at the young Armenian’s perilous circumstance and boost his oldest and best friend’s moral with such commentary. However, the 16 years old eunuch’s prevailing underlying deep concern, for the naked spreadeagled youth’s welfare, was given away when sparkling blue eyes then carefully inspected the genital damage perpetrated by the abbot.

Vissarion, knowing that he was before a Christian altar, prayed that Arman had not yet been converted by the abbot into a eunuch like himself. The young Georgian therefore breathed a deep sigh of relief when, by delicately manoeuvering the young Armenian’s substantial shaved scrotum, trying not to cause his friend too much anguish as he gingerly did so, he espied two testes, spermatic cords still intact, within the damaged sac.

After thanking God for answering his prayer and gratefully assuring Arman that his Armenian manhood was still intact, Vissarion then advised his fellow 16 years old that he intended not to release his friend from his ties until the genital damage had been repaired. The young Georgian then commanded the field medic, whom he had previously ordered to accompany him to the nude youth’s side, to embark on his remedial work.

Both Vissarion and Arman were now grateful that Tamerlane had insisted that such a medically qualified person always formed one of his boys’ bodyguards. The conqueror’s cautious attitude stemmed not only from wishing to insure his beloveds against harm but also from his recently acquired firm belief that unwanted trouble seemed to follow his lovely catamites wherever they went.

Vissarion now held one of Arman’s splayed bound hands tightly as the medic extracted a needle and gut, from the tool bag he always carried, and began the agonising genital stitching. Excruciation was clearly evident on the young Armenian’s resplendent face, as the delicate urgent work proceeded on the cum-covered scrotum. However, the 16 years old was now determined not to repeat, in front of his dearest friend, his earlier tearful display, which had been caused more by the mental anguish of becoming a eunuch than actual physical pain.

Accordingly, Arman’s face remained dry, apart from a few residual tears created earlier and some freshly forming beads of sweat on his brow, as the medic proceeded with his painful task. Meanwhile, desperate pleas of help, from the still prone and bloody abbot nearby, went unheeded until the proficient remedial work on the young Armenian’s genitalia had been completed and the scene expertly cleaned, covered in efficient herbal salve and bandaged. Only then did Vissarion allow the medical craftsman to see whether he could save the monastic leader from bleeding to death.

In the event, the abbot survived to become, along with some other senior recalcitrant monks, the new permanent operator of the wheel in the monastery’s cellar. The replacement monastic leader was remarkably young, for he was only fourteen years of age.

The original abbot, not expecting visitors, let alone the return of Vissarion and his bodyguard, had made the mistake of leaving the newest recruit and youngest member of his order alone on watch on the monastery’s fortress-like battlements. Naturally, the boy eunuch had been delighted to lower the drawbridge and open the gates for the unexpected arrivals, despite the fact that he was not supposed to speak to or receive guests, let alone admit ones who were armed and posed an obvious threat to his order’s hierarchy.

The new boy abbot, guided at first by a wise council of the best monks, most of whom had, like the 14 years old, been forced into the order when mere lads, actually administered the monastery very well. The establishment, under a new name, adopted the practices of the mainstream Armenian Church, into which it was formerly absorbed.

Consequently, castration no longer formed a required qualification for entry into the order, which did not seem to affect the devotion and the workmanship of the monks during the centuries ahead, for the first 84 years of which the new abbot sagely presided. Alas, however, the establishment no longer exists, and its ruined site is even no longer in Armenia for it is located in eastern Turkey.

The monastery was destroyed during the 20th century’s first terrible but little-known holocaust, the Armenian massacres perpetrated by the Turks during World War 1.

When he was eventually on his deathbed, the 98 year-old abbot, in situ for 84 years and health robust until almost the end, sadly reflected that all of Tamerlane’s boys, some of whom had so kindly transformed his own life, were already part of history, if not myth.

(Western Armenia, August 1393)

A covered wagon had been borrowed from the monastery to return the recovering Arman to his homeland’s capital. Vissarion sat with the young Armenian in the cushion-filled back of the vehicle to watch over his friend’s recovery and to attend to his fellow 16 years old’s every need. As the journey progressed with deliberate slowness, to avoid too much painful shaking of their transport, which was escorted by their mounted bodyguards with Teimuraz riding proudly at their head, the still-whole youth and the young eunuch chatted.

Vissarion and Arman never seemed to be short of conversation when they were together, although sometimes this might be muted by undeniable carnal desires. However, on this occasion, whilst the young Armenian’s scrotum was under successful repair, such an interruption to their discourse could not arise for obvious reasons, although the two intimate friends would make up for lost opportunities later, once the genital healing was complete. The initial main topic of debate was, of course, the latest perilous escapade.

“I must be getting stupid in my old age,” Vissarion, who looked no older than 14 years of age, announced, “as it took me over a day to realise why I couldn’t recall the Georgian proverb you quoted. Then, recognition eventually reached my thick mind.”

“I presume,” Vissarion asked, “that you invented a false Georgian saying because the Armenian abbot, who was otherwise carefully monitoring your every word, wouldn’t appreciate that it was a counterfeit phrase?” Arman nodded confirmation whilst displaying a broad smile, indicating pride in not only his own ingenuity but also his friend’s eventual highly important perceptiveness.

“Once I’d established that the proverb was false,” Vissarion confirmed, “it was fortunately then an easy step, even for a simpleton like me, to establish what you were attempting to convey. You were, of course, trying to guide me towards the acronym comprising the first letters of each word in the phrase. Using this formula, ‘Heaven Expects Loyal Prayers’ naturally translates to ‘HELP’!”

“I then finally discovered,” Vissarion advised, “from local villagers, what ‘Spadonis’ meant. It’s apparently one of the ancient Latin words for 'eunuchs'!”

“And so,” Arman interrupted, with clear admiration, as well as deep love, evident in his sensuous brown eyes, “realisation having dawned, a young knight in shining armour came to the rescue, once more, of one of Tamerlane’s boys!” Vissarion blushed in response.

“I never knew that you could shoot an arrow like that so accurately,” Arman now declared in obvious proud awe. However, this attitude was tempered somewhat when Vissarion teasingly replied “Neither did I!”

Later, as Vissarion was trying to give Arman’s carelessly shorn hair some semblance of tidiness, the young Armenian on whom he was performing this task suddenly grabbed the young Georgian round his slim waist and began to cry.

“Is your wound playing up?” Vissarion sympathetically asked.

“No,” Arman anwered, “It’s just that I love you so much!”

Soon, both young friends were lachrymose, whilst they held each other tightly in a platonic embrace.

Meanwhile, the wagon of Vissarion and Arman had begun to skirt Mount Ararat, which guarded the westerly approach to Erivan, the direction from which the young friends and their escort were travelling. Teimuraz, still riding his horse outside the vehicle and immensely proud to be helping to protect his master and another of Tamerlane’s boys, looked at the great mountain and began to think of Noah and his ark.

(Erivan, Armenia, four days later, August 1393)

Tamerlane returned to his main encampment at Erivan to meet up once more with Vissarion and Arman, and the latter’s delightful young squire, Teimuraz.

After the usual emotional reunion, Tamerlane invited Vissarion and Arman to inspect some of the hunting trophies he, Rezan, Nicolai and Yaroslav had brought back. The young Georgian eunuch and his Armenian friend were directed, in particular, towards a large bearskin.

“Your bearskin,” Tamerlane declared to Vissarion and Arman, “will always have pride of place in my heart and on my bed. However, I hope you will agree that this meritorious trophy also demands a proud position because the huge fierce beast from which it was acquired was trapped and killed by Nicolai, helped only by Rezan and Yaroslav.”

In genuine happiness at their mutual reunion, Vissarion and Arman had already hugged their friends, now including Yaroslav, for whom a journey back to his family, through Mongol-occupied Rus, was too dangerous even to contemplate. However, the embraces were soon rejoined, this time with real, fresh pride towards the younger duo of Tamerlane’s boys and their even younger guest.

Meanwhile, Teimuraz stood shyly to one side, causing the conqueror to approach the 10 years old, kneel so that their faces met and say, “I don’t think that we’ve been properly introduced, young man, my name is Tamerlane. What’s yours?”

Teimuraz looked at the visage of the most feared man in the world and somehow managed to squeak out his name. Tamerlane, conscious of the boy’s unease, stood again and gently held the 10 years old round the shoulders. “Come,” the dreaded conqueror gently commanded, “come with me and my boys to my tent and feast with us to celebrate our return and our hunting successes.”

As Teimuraz enjoyed the magnificent fare and very pleasant amicable company subsequently served up within Tamerlane’s tent, the 10 years old, remembering his own recent desperate existence, had to pinch himself to check that he was not dreaming.

Meanwhile, Vissarion knew that Arman’s healing genital wound would still be giving the young Armenian discomfort. However, the young Georgian was impressed with the way that his friend had successfully disguised his anguish. The 16 years old eunuch also knew that another mix of carrot and stick, namely some more gold and another diplomatic warning, would prevent Tamerlane’s ears from hearing from his boys’ bodyguards about the youth’s recent endangerment.

This time it was therefore just Vissarion and Arman who furtively smiled at each other when their master incorrectly presumed “I suppose, whilst Rezan, Nicolai, Yaroslav and I were fighting ferocious beasts, you two were having a quiet, safe time on your travels to that monastery!”

A few days later, Tamerlane’s vast army decamped to return to still-troubled Persia, where the conqueror proposed to winter.

Vissarion, on his own splendid steed, proudly accompanied the mounted Tamerlane, and the man’s other boys, at the head of the conqueror’s forces. Whilst the young Georgian did do, he quietly hoped that God could truly grant them all a quiet time ahead. However, the beautiful blonde blue-eyed young eunuch somehow instinctively knew that his wish would not be granted.

Vissarion instead recalled a genuine Georgian proverb, which suggested ‘Beware of what you desire, for you will often be granted the opposite!”

(To be continued in chapter 22 – ‘Squires’)