The Erythraean Sea
The Fourth Tale of the Daphne Boy
by GGDC
Author's Note: This is a tale of a unusual young man and those he encounters in the early seventh Century AD sailing the Erythraean Sea, the western Indian Ocean. It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body and of consensual and non-consenual sexual activity between adult males.
If any of this would offend a reader, read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever jurisdiction applies.
It is offered for entertainment. It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only minor poetic license. This story, after all, is fiction. It is not a historical monograph.
If it manages to both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its aim. The characters are not intended to resemble any person living or dead.
This is another in a series of tales about an undying youth named Alexander, called Iskandar in this story. The other stories in this series so far are 'Antebellum', 'Daphne Boy' and 'Ed Dorado'.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Jungle Boy' series of tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the archive. Comments and feedback welcome.
Chapter 1. Pearls and Predators
The shark circled overhead as I hugged the sea floor nearly twenty meters below, trying to look inconspicuous. It wasn't hunting me specifically, but all the activity among us pearl divers had attracted its attention to the area we were working. I felt more vulnerable than I ever have, sixty feet underwater, naked, armed only with a knife, tied by a cord to my right wrist so I would not lose it. The shark was a good four meters long, about fourteen feet, with a wicked looking set of teeth in its jaws.
Now I can hold my breath for a long time, easily over three minutes, and longer when I am motivated, and I was motivated. After what seemed like a very long while, there was a loud thunk from some boat farther along the shore that attracted the attention of the predator. It swam off to see if whatever had made the noise was good to eat. I pulled myself up the rope tied to the collecting basket and broke the surface gasping for air.
The waters of the Persian Gulf are shallow and warm with rich oyster beds reachable by free divers. There was no diving gear available in the early seventh Century A.D., just primitive tools: a weight on the end of a rope to take you to the bottom fast, a collecting basket on another rope, and a knife to free oysters from the sea bottom. My knife had a good blade on it. Our masters did not scrimp on tools for their slaves, but it wasn't much of a weapon against a great white or mako shark. No re-breathers of course. You just held your breath.
"Iskandar", my boat boy called, his relief in seeing me safe obvious on his youthful features. "That was a big one. I hope the archers put an arrow into its back. Right by that awful fin."
Our escort boat had an archer in the crow's nest for just that purpose. Yusuf cordially hated sharks after seeing one take his big brother Kassim only last year. We heard a commotion two boats down. It seems one of the divers had passed out on his ascent just a meter or two from the surface, sinking back and drowning. Pearl diving is a hazardous business. You may find your death from deep water blackout, running out of breath and inhaling water, poisonous jellyfish, currents, or sharks.
It was not a calling I had chosen freely. Once again I had been enslaved, thanks to the vicissitudes of war. This was not my first experience as a slave in my seven hundred years of life (up to that point), nor would it be the last. Rome and Persia were going at it again in what turned out later to be the last of a fratricidal series of wars that fatally weakened both empires, Byzantine and Sassanian. In the end they would not be able to resist the armies of Islam in the fourth decade of the century during the first great breakout of Muslim armies from the Arabian Peninsula.
Even though the shark had moved off, the light was failing so the escort returned to port with the six small pearling boats in tow. We had surrendered our blades to the guards before being allowed aboard.
"I am glad to see a tender morsel like you is still with us." the head guard Narseh remarked as I helped pull the boats onto shore. "It would be a pity to lose a beauty like you. How you wound up on this forsaken coast instead of in a boy brothel is beyond me."
Me too. I think I angered the Sassanian commander as one of the leaders of the militia defending our town of Berenice against the invader. Otherwise I would have been a prime candidate for service in a brothel: a small comely youth, apparently of no more than seventeen or eighteen summers and pretty as a girl, only five and one half feet tall (165 cm) with a wiry frame that carried only 122 pounds (56 kg). I was quite slender and boyish -- almost skinny, with narrow shoulders and a flat but corrugated chest and belly sporting well-defined abdominals. The tracery of veins on my forearms, calves, and belly showed how very little body fat I carried. I had delicate, almost elfin features topped by a blond thatch, skin bronzed from the sun, plus a straight nose, large green eyes, and high cheekbones.
Yet I wound up a pearl diver. Slaves who dive for pearls tend to have short careers and lives. Only those sent to the mines or the galleys die sooner.
Service in a brothel would have been much more comfortable and safer. I knew that from experience, most memorably in the early part of the first century AD when I spent a few years as a Daphne Boy, enslaved as a temple prostitute. The cult of the nymph Daphne is allied to that of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Male acolytes, for that is what they called us, had the Greek letter delta tattooed on left shoulder and right rump to identify us as sacred prostitutes, offering ourselves to boy lovers. We were very popular because we were scrupulous about personal hygiene, trim and fit, and picked for our beauty of face and form. In some ways I still have fond memories of my time as a Daphne Boy, slave though I then was. Fortunately the tattoos had long ago faded away as had the cult itself, abolished by the Christians.
"Report to the guard house Iskandar after the evening meal." Narseh told me. "It is your turn to entertain us."
Once every eight or nine days, I entertained the guards. It wasn't just rough sex, though it had started out that way. Over the past two years and more I had gradually encouraged them to emulate their betters, to turn the evening into a social gathering rather than just a crude fuck session. We started off pleasantly enough, with conversation and light refreshments. I recited sections of epic poems, told stirring tales of war and bravery, or improvised comic verses. I sang sentimental ballads and drinking songs in my light tenor voice. Sometimes I performed acrobatics or danced lasciviously as part of the entertainment, drawing on my old skills as a joy boy.
The mood then turned more overtly sexual, as I was passed from one couch to another, their hands touching me familiarly and intimately. Nude as I was and a slave, it was only natural for the guards to take considerable liberties: stroking my rump, slipping the blade of a hand into my cleavage, running their hands over my ribs, tweaking my tiny red nipples, fondling my manhood and stealing sweet kisses as foreplay. After my years in boy brothels, there was nothing new in such attentions. Some of the guards were attractive in their own rough way.
As the evening wore on, the guards laid me on a couch and used me for their pleasure, often two at a time, one at each orifice. They were lusty men and insistent and not particularly gentle though not intentionally cruel, at least not in bed with me. They were enthusiastic, relishing their turn in the saddle, often slapping my buttocks as they rode me, the sounds of lusty sexual congress carrying across the pearling camp. My body was tanned, taut, and toned from all that swimming and diving. Smooth and hairless and with a tight ass, I was prettier and much more fun than the tired girls available to them at their home port. Squelching and thrusting and probing, they drove their cocks into me late into the evening, spitting their seed, flooding me with a wet warmth that later dripped down the inside of my thighs.
Narseh liked a boy's mouth best, so he put me on my knees while he stood over me, clubbing my face with his engorged member, making me stretch me neck out to reach it, to kiss and smooch the purple helmet and lick around the glans. His was one of the larger cocks I had seen up to that time. I nearly choked on it, hardly able to breathe around it through my nose. He saw my distress and smiled at the thought of how much power he held over me. He told me how exciting it was for him to have a boy of such delicate beauty to play with.
"How pretty you look down there, Iskandar, so small and submissive, with those pouty lips of yours around my cock, sucking and slurping. Yes, look into my eyes, little one, see the man who turns your mouth and throat into a quim. You belong like this, on your knees, naked and hairless as a girl, serving real men."
He said he was glad I kept my golden locks long enough for a good grab so he could control the pace of the face fuck. Then came the inevitable climax when he spewed his seed down my gullet or pulled out just far enough to rest the head on my tongue, to fill my mouth, afterwards making me show the others how much gism he had deposited, a sign of his potency as I slurped my tongue, spreading the white fluid on lips, teeth, and gums, finally swallowing on command. Sometimes he would shoot all over my face, marking my delicate features with his gism, proof that I was his boy.
All my life I have been both blessed and cursed by a lovely form and face that inspire admiration and lust in the heart of any male who appreciates a beautiful boy. I am small and pretty and frequently naked, looking entirely too obviously like a catamite or pleasure boy. With an almost fawn-like physique and a total lack of body hair, even at the fork of my legs, I often wasn't taken seriously as a male. Centuries earlier in Alexandria I had taken up the Roman habit of having all my body hair, little as there was, plucked with tweezers. After several decades of plucking it stopped sprouting. Now I was completely hairless forever.
In truth I have never wished to look otherwise than I do, not taller or more muscular and certainly not less pretty. I am comfortable being what the modern age calls a twink or a pretty boy. I am comfortable being a bottom boy too. I long ago realized that I was a sexual submissive, born to be fucked. It is in my nature. I'd just like the choice of partners to be mine rather more often. Though though my situation could have been worse, it was not one to inspire envy.
For my first two years there I played a waiting game rather than try for an early escape. For one thing, it disarmed the suspicions of the guards. Another was the sheer difficulty of getting away. Along this remote coast, with few sources of fresh water and only scattered fishing and pearling settlements I had small hope of escape on my own. The pearling boats were small with only paddles, not sails.
Also, I will admit that for a long time after my latest reverse, I was profoundly depressed. Once again through no fault of my own, I had lost everything. All the wealth I had accumulated, save small hoards buried in inaccessible bolt holes around the Mediterranean, was gone. From a man of wealth I was reduced to the most abject poverty. As a slave in the pearl diving trade I had nothing, owned nothing, not even a scrap of cloth to cover my loins. I was reduced to the lowest of the low, a slave who not only did not own anything but was himself owned like a man owns a house or a head of livestock. There I was, kept perpetually nude, set to dangerous work, taken sexually by guards and divers regardless of my wishes. No wonder it took me a while to get my feet under me once again.
My one slim chance was to discover an extra-large pearl to purchase my freedom. Of course the pearls all belonged to the masters, but they were canny enough to know that incentives as well as the lash will motivate a man, even a slave. Better a slave turn in a precious pearl than swallow it for the chance to keep it for himself. The wealth I had accrued as a merchant at Roman Berenice on the Red Sea was long gone, confiscated by the victorious Sassanians as they swept away Roman rule of Egypt.
My centuries have made me patient, so I bided my time. I was born in the late second century BC in Germany. For reasons I have never understood, I had stopped growing and aging before reaching eightenn. Now, more than a seven hundred years later, I still looked like a boy in his late teens. No, there had been no encounter with a sorcerer nor a pact signed in blood with eldritch powers. It just happened that way for reasons unknown. I suppose it is something genetic but what? And why are we so very few, no more than two dozen like me in the whole world, though that is a very rough guess. We are not in contact and few have met more than one other immortal.
Back at the slave quarters I was used by all of the men and boys as their sex toy. Our masters were strict about segregation from females. It was 'common knowledge' at the time that sexual activity increased buoyancy, so slave divers were prohibited any contact with women. Slave owners kept slaves in male-only quarters, with the inevitable result that same sex relations were nearly universal among slave pearl divers. Yes they paired off with each other too, but I was everyone's favorite. This was no social gathering, not with the pearl divers. I was always there locked in with nowhere to go, outnumbered, small, and naked ready to be grabbed and spread.
Our masters punished us for fighting and would have punished me even worse if all I was fighting about was protecting my non-existent virtue. Slaves of course had no privacy or modesty, perpetually naked as we were. So I was taken nightly a dozen or more times. At least my fellow divers were clean, young, and nearly all clean shaven. Some were rather good looking and were taken by the others as second and third choices, when I was otherwise engaged.
I would have shared myself with some of them regardless, for I am strongly attracted to youthful males. Only a few were interested in sweet talk and foreplay or staying coupled in the afterglow and enjoying each other's closeness. The rest just used a boy because he was handy and there was no alternative. Yussuf was my only real friend. He and the other boatmen were free men unlike the pearl divers, but we worked closely together so many of us divers were on good terms with our counterparts.
Chapter 2. Sailing the Erythraean Sea
"So, Balash, this is the boy Narseh spoke of.
"Yes, Peroz."
"Tried to escape did he?"
"Yes, and made rather a good fist of it too. A complete surprise, and I've never seen greater determination. He got quite far, almost to his goal at the Al-Qatif oasis. In the end though, the desert was too much for him. Once his stolen horse foundered, we caught up with him."
The two men, one my master Balash and the other a rich merchant by the look of him, were talking about me. They spoke as if I were not right there. Slaves get used to that, being talked about, rather like farmers talk about their livestock.
I was staked out in the sun as punishment for my nearly successful attempt to escape. I was on my knees with wrists tied to ankles, my manhood tied by a tough cord to a stake in the ground. I was hot, thirsty, and plagued by flies, my ass and back sore from the whip.
"I see you did not cut his back with the whip. Why such leniency?"
"Because he didn't kill either of the night guards getting away. Instead, he gagged them, tied them up, and dragged them into the shadows. That's how we caught up with him sooner than he counted on, when they loosened their bonds and gave the alarm. Narseh spoke up for the boy because he had spared his men, when he might easily have slain them.
"Also, I kept him unmarked because I thought I could get more for him as a pleasure boy in the slave market. But then I thought of you, my friend, and your impending visit, and I decided to give you a chance to make me an offer for him.
"Yes, I can see why. He's not bad looking, I'll give you that, Balash."
"Come, come, Peroz, even suffering the way he is there in the sun, he is the loveliest boy you have ever laid eyes on. You know you want him. So what is your offer?"
They haggled back and forth, obviously two good friends who enjoyed matching wits, using rhetorical flourishes to press their case, finally coming to a price satisfactory to both of them, each convinced he had got the better of the deal, but moaning and groaning theatrically at the supposedly ruinous outcome.
"So, boy," Peroz inquired. "You were trying to get to the oasis. How did you know where to find it?"
"Travelers tales, sir," I managed to croak around parched lips. "Tales that I heard when I was a merchant..., that is a merchant's assistant in Berenice on the Red Sea."
"Hmmmn, beauty and business acumen both. This would be your lucky day, Iskandar. You will be my cabin boy and body servant aboard my ship. Perhaps in time, I will set you to mercantile tasks as well. It may not be quite what you planned, but you have managed to escape the pearl fisheries after all. I can be a good master, Iskandar. Serve me well, and I will treat you fairly."
In this way I came to work for my master Peroz, one of the most thoroughly decent men I have ever known. I did serve him well, and he treated me more than fairly. For my part I was grateful for the chance he had given me and was rather attracted to his strong body and distinctive if not exactly handsome visage. He was a tall man and lean with olive skin and black hair, a close cropped beard along his jaw line, and the nose of a hawk. He was about thirty-five when he bought me. He fully appreciated what a lively boy can offer in bed, not just a quick coupling but all the ways a talented joy boy like me could pleasure a man.
He was a vigorous man with strong sexual appetites. He liked to take me on my back, face to face so he could 'drink in my beauty' as he put it. He threw my legs thrown over his shoulders and pulled my hips into his groin as his alarmingly large virile member addressed my cleavage. Its head tracked the length of my perineum, poking at my ball sac then at the inside of my thighs, next prodding and playing with the anal ring. His fingers had pushed a lubricating oil into my hole for he was always careful of my comfort, stretching me with his fingers, preparing me for the fuck. With our passions aroused, nothing could stop our joining. I felt his fleshy rod stretch my anal ring like a gasket as the head penetrated the first sphincter then the next. The shaft slid inside, pushing, prodding and probing.
Then came the longed for moment when his cock touched my joy spot. As the invading shaft stimulated my prostate, my whole body shuddered helplessly, guts clutching in an internal orgasm. My lithe torso rippled in a wave that started at the ass and traveled up past the hips and back and shoulders to my head. He watched my green eyes blink and roll sightlessly, a sure sign of utter arousal as they lost focus and I surrendered himself to the good feelings he had induced in me. As the shaft fell into a rhythm of penetration and withdrawal, the sensation became overwhelming. I was lost to rational thought for the moment, my body tempest tossed on a sea of sensation, the blood pounding at my temples, my own boy cock at maximum rigidity.
We liked to synchronize our orgasms with his cock setting my small boyish body to shuddering again and again till I came, shooting all over my chest. The clutching of his large member by my spasming muscles set off his own climax in turn, as he shot his masculine juices deep into my body. Can I give a good fuck or what.
I always respond well to powerfully built men who know how to dominate a boy in bed without unnecessary roughness. I like sex with boys who look like me too. The difference is that when I have sex with another pretty boy, I am having fun with an equal, often engaging in sixty nine as we pleasure each other. We usually trade off taking the more active role. Sex with another boy is a delight. Sex with a man like Peroz is a craving, a need. With a boy, I feel energized as we jump into bed. With a man I go all weak in the knees and submissive, ready to drop to my knees and worship even to submit to light bondage if that increases his pleasure. So it was with Peroz.
We got on well as servant and master. He was thoughtful and well read, using the time on his voyages to advantage to read and write. He maintained a wide correspondence around the shores we traveled. I also succeeded in the mercantile tasks he set me. He was pleased that I was already familiar with the Hindu numerals, later mistakenly called Arabic numerals in Europe. The shape of the early version we used would seem strange to modern eyes, but the system already had all the features of the modern system: ten distinct numerals, the zero, and decimal positional notation. He was pleased at how well I figured and kept accounts. Over the next three years we grew to genuinely like and respect one another.
I even cooked for him, us really, on special occasions, drawing glares from the regular cook when I usurped his kitchen. No one could argue with the results. I am rather handy with pot and pan, even if I do say so myself. Even when we were at his home port in Basra he showed me every consideration, assigning me comfortable quarters separate from the other slaves. He insisted that his wife and young sons be polite with me, almost as if I were a free person. He never flaunted our physical relationship at home, out of respect for his wife, a good woman who always had his best interests at heart. We gradually formed a friendship, sometimes exchanging recipes, each contributing as we could to the well-being of this fine man.
Together Peroz and I sailed the Erythraean Sea, the ancient name for the Western Indian Ocean, particularly the seas surrounding the Arabian Peninsula. We sailed a U-shaped course from his home port of Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, to the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, to Suez, a voyage of 6,000 kilometers, farther than a crossing of the Atlantic, trading along the way and changing cargos.
Every coast we touched, save the middle stretches of the Red Sea, was part of the vast Sassanian Empire. The empire straddled three continents stretching 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) East to West from the Libyan frontier with Egypt to beyond the Indus to Gujarat in India. North to South it stretched 4,000 kilometers, from Yemen in the south deep into Central Asia, a straight line distance equivalent to that from San Francisco to New York. Sometimes we sailed on the monsoon winds to the coast of India then back across the Arabian Sea to Yemen.
The Sassanids took possession of Yemen just before the turn of the century twenty years earlier. Yemen occupies the southwest corner of the peninsula, the only place where rain fed agriculture is feasible. The fertile soils of Yemen encouraged farming from sea level to 10,000 feet. In the mountains, crops grew on elaborate terraces much like those in the Far East or the Andes.
This was the land the Romans called Arabia Felix, Happy Arabia, a center of ancient kingdoms, and a link between the seaports of the Mediterranean and the frankincense-growing region of the Hadhramaut and Oman. Six hundred years earlier Augustus had sent an army to seize it, just a few years after defeating Marc Antony and Kleopatra at the Battle of Actium0, but the effort came to nought. Now the Persians controlled it for the same reason, to fatten off the trade routes.
As our ship pulled into the port of Aden, we saw a good deal of commotion in and around a Sassanid naval vessel. Peroz called out asking what was going on. The captain was preoccupied and did not bother to answer, but the sailing master spoke with us readily enough.
"Peroz is that you," he called. "You old sea turtle. What are you doing here at this season. You should be fathering another son on that ugly wife of yours."
"Kavadh, you rascal. I am only surprised the gods of the sea haven't taken you to their bosom yet, the way you sail so close to the wind."
"This is a proud warship, not a fat merchant tub like your vessel!"
And so it went. The kind of banter that friends of long standing indulge in to camouflage their genuine delight in seeing one another. Merchant seamen and naval sailors are natural rivals for the affections of their mistress, the sea. Both voyage upon the seas, but one views the waters as a highway, the other as a battlefield. Kavadh soon explained that their ship had lost its brass astrolabe, fallen overboard through carelessness.
"They will never find it that way," I told Peroz. "Look at them, dragging grapnels along the bottom. All they are doing is stirring up silt to cover the instrument."
Peroz signaled that we wanted to come aboard to explain what I had in mind. Captain Hormizd was skeptical that I could contribute anything at all, seeming nothing more than a callow youth, small and pretty and naked. At sea I was always nude, and my slight build only added to the impression I gave him of a cabin boy cum bum boy getting above his station.
"Pah, what can a naked boy do that we cannot? Keep him in your bed Peroz and out of my hair."
"This boy was a pearl diver and one of their best." Peroz countered smoothly. "If anyone can find your astrolabe he can. And he is not just a cabin boy, he is my apprentice. Now as to the matter at hand: What is the depth of the water here, about five fathoms?"
"Four" Kavadh said helpfully.
So I got to work, once the silt settled, letting one of the small boats tow me as I searched along the bottom. It did not take long to locate the shiny brass object in the shallow water.
Captain Hormizd graciously acknowledged my feat, saying he was in our debt. Then wishing us a safe voyage he took his ship out of harbor bound for the Red Sea.
"What was that you said sir about being your apprentice" I asked Peroz.
"Well, it was going to be surprise when we got back to Basra, but yes. I intend to free you and take you on as my apprentice and eventual partner, if you wish to stay on, that is."
"With all my heart!"
We embraced warmly though in this instance chastely. This was a man who for all his sharpness in business dealings had a great heart. I knew his kindness personally but also that he quietly supported a small orphanage for the children of men lost at sea. Thanks to him I had risen from the depths to which I had sunk due to the misfortunes of war. I now had a chance at a good life, doing what I do best. I am a merchant at heart though I have been many other things in my long life: a soldier, a scribe, an amanuensis, and of course pleasure boy, dancer, and minstrel. I was even a pirate very briefly and against my will, but it was either join them or die.
Chapter 3. Red Sea
We were soon on the Red Sea ourselves having safely passed the Gate of Tears, the Bab el-Mandeb, so-called because of the dangers in navigating it. We stopped at several ports to trade. The Sassanids did not rule much of the west coast beyond the strategic corner of the peninsula and outlet to the ocean beyond, As for the vast interior of the Arabian Peninsula, that remained a land divided among squabbling tribes and towns and oases linked by camel caravans. Much of the trade was by caravan because the Red Sea is treacherous with many reefs and shoals.
Arabia is called the Jaz+rat al-»Arab or 'Island of the Arabs' in their tongue. A land of deserts, scrub, and oasis, the Arabian Peninsula is more a subcontinent than a mere peninsula, a block of land a million square miles (2.6 million square kilometers), one third the size of the contiguous 48 states. The entire block of Arabia is tilted to the east so the mountains along its western edge catch the prevailing winds blowing east from the Sahara, forcing them to drop the moisture they pick up crossing the Red Sea.
The interior is mostly desert, especially the stony Nafud desert in the north and the sandy Rub al Khali or Empty Quarter in the south. Until a couple of centuries ago, caravans in the frankincense trade took a short cut across the Empty Quarter but hotter and drier conditions now prevailed. Even the Bedouin only skirted the Empty Quarter. I had once crossed Arabia by camel but farther north, between the two main deserts, passing from one oasis to another. Still voyagers were welcome in ports like Jiddah.
My blond looks attracted considerable attention as I attended Peroz as he negotiated deals and oversaw the loading and unloading of cargo. I wore a simple sarong slung low on my hips, rather disliking the long robes the locals wore. Their garments were designed to conceal the body whereas the sarong is a celebration of the youthful male physique, displaying the rump to advantage and sheathing the legs. I was bare from the hips upward and with my elfin features looked more like a houri boy than a merchant's apprentice.
Peroz preferred me that way too. For one thing he liked to show me off. For another, my looks distracted those he bargained with. This worked even for men who disapproved of physical relationships between males. Their scowls and censorious imaginations got in the way of their business sense.
We chuckled about it afterwards. Were our tactics unfair? Perhaps, but we saw it as a clever strategm. You work with what you have. After all, business is business. Actually we carried this approach to new lengths when we tag-teamed our quarry during negotiations. I played the naive merchant apprentice, innocent and chatty, while Peroz played the wise and reserved master merchant using the negotiations as a teaching tool. This stratagem threw our opponents completely off their game, unable to resort to the usual histrionics as Peroz patiently explained to his youthful apprentice why he could not accept any of the early offers during the negotiations.
I would stand next to Peroz in my sarong, wrapped tight to show my attributes both fore and aft, and speak is a mild falsetto putting a little quaver in my voice to make it sound very young and shaky, and uncertain as I asked:
"Is that a good offer Peroz? It seems awfully low for our cargo -- even to someone with so little experience as myself."
"Indeed, young Iskandar, it is. My friend Faruz was merely jesting with his first offer. He certainly knows his bid is ruinously low."
After further haggling, when Faruz raised his offer, I would ask something like. "That is much better isn't it, Peroz? It is more than we paid back in India."
"Indeed it is my young friend, but we have to clear expenses too, the victuals and wages of the crew, port fees and customs duties. No, we couldn't possibly let the cargo go for less than twice that amount."
When Faruz again raised his offer, I might say "That will certainly cover our expenses, Peroz, won't it?."
"Indeed, but just barely and what of recompense for our own efforts. We have to earn a living and we are owed something for the risks we take: hidden reefs, storms at sea, and pirates and such."
And so the game went. Each time I spoke up, Peroz countered, pointing out patiently and reasonably why only a naive boy like myself could possibly take the offer seriously. With each go round, we ratcheted up the offer by citing uncertainties in the market prices for our next cargo, costs for annual maintenance and repairs on our vessel, how Peroz had a large family to support, and how he had to pay back his lenders and investors. (Both nonexistent. Peroz owned his ship outright and risked his own capital.) We never cheated anyone, and Peroz had the good sense never to push things too far. He always dealt fairly, making deals both sides could live with. We wanted to leave the way open for repeat business the next time we were in port.
During one such set of negotiations we were watched by a local man who sat at the next table in the tavern drinking coffee. He smiled as he caught on to our play acting, even throwing me a wink.
After a successful negotiation we celebrated with wine and fine food then repaired to our room for a more intimate form of celebration. Peroz sometimes let me set the pace during lovemaking when he would lie full length as I straddled his hips and sank onto his rigid member, taking him inside me and riding his cock like a boy trotting on a pony. His long arms could reach my small red nipples and tweak them as I rode him or he would just stroke my smooth belly, maybe collect some of my sweat on his fingers and offer them to me to suck on, bobbing my head like I was sucking his cock.
Sometimes he let me play with my cock though he might just as easily slap my hand away and take command of me there, bending my erection, pinching the helmet, stroking the shaft and rubbing his thumb on my sweet spot. Maybe I was on top, but he was the one in command. Eventually just as he was ready to spurt his seed deep within me, he brought me off too, letting my ass muscles clutch and spasm around his cock as I shuddered and spit my white gism onto his chest to mix with the abundant hair on his pectorals or the treasure trail below his navel.
Jiddah is about halfway between the northernmost Persian territory on the east coast of the Red Sea to the empires newly acquired territories in Egypt on the west coast. We avoided the dry African coast which is much more thinly settled and infested with pirates. Even so they caught us unawares as we lay at anchor one night.
The pirates had approached our ship just before dawn in two dhows filled with fighting men. Our was a merchant ship, with just enough crew to work the ship, so we were badly outnumbered. It looked very bad for us. We did have the advantage that our men were better armed than usual for seamen. I had counseled Peroz to provide his men with decent swords and to let me drill them in the kind of rough swordplay you need at sea. He was surprised at how good I was with a blade. A practice bout convinced his men that I would make a good instructor. For their part, they were willing pupils. It was their necks on the line. Peroz himself might hope for ransom as a wealthy merchant but not an ordinary seaman.
I dashed out on deck and ducked as a scimitar in the grip of a pirate slashed the air almost taking my head off. Frantically I stabbed upward with my dagger under the ribs and into the man's heart. Then I whirled to face my next foe, sword in my right hand, parrying dagger in the left. I cut a man down from behind as he pressed Peroz against the helm, then we turned together to engage a trio of foes who rushed at us yelling fiercely. Peroz swept his long sword up blocking the blades just enough time for me to dart in and disembowel two of them. We cut the third down together, Peroz went high; I went low. We made a good team.
Some men fight better making a lot of noise. It bucks up their courage and hopefully intimidates their foes. I have always fought silently, letting my blades do my talking for me. Peroz reserved his breath for orders and shouted warnings to his crew.
The pirates had spotted me as I darted about the deck. We seamen were all without armor but I was also naked, and my blond locks made me stand out from our crew. Peroz had paused to put on a robe as I bounced out of our bed when the sailor on watch rang the alarm.
"Capture that one alive." their captain said pointing to me. "What sweet cheeks on him and that pretty face! Ha ha ha."
That is how confident they were, already dividing the spoils. Obviously I was to be their captain's special prize to warm his bed.
I have always disliked battles at sea. Fighting is bad enough on land where you might take an arrow or get your arm lopped off or your guts strewn on the ground. At sea you run all those risks and more. If you fall into the water, your armor can drag you to the bottom. The enemy can set your ship on fire. You either burn to death or drown unless you surrender and likely wind up a galley slave. Sometimes pirates force you to join them. I did so once, then got away as soon as I could, though not before spilling innocent blood in the service of the pirates. Even betraying them to the local naval authorities and watching them hang could not wash out my shame. I have hated pirates ever since because of what I had had to do to stay alive.
Soon our ship was adrift as the pirates cut the cable to the anchor. It looked really bad for us. Suddenly Peroz called out to me, pointing out a great ball of fire thrown by a catapault that intentionally overshot our ship and landed on one of the pirate dhows, setting it afire. The flaming bitumen in the fireball set the whole ship ablaze. Next we felt our own ship shudder as a heavy mass slammed into the pirate dhow on the other side.
"Hold on old friend," Kavadh called out over the clamor. "We are coming for you."
It was the Persian naval vessel with Captain Hormizd and Kavadh ramming the pirate ship. The captain led his marines into the fight, attacking the pirates from behind. Kavadh had served with the marines in his youth and joined in their attack. He fought his way to Peroz and me on the bridge, and we took up a defensive position while Captain Hormizd led his men against the pirates. My blood was up and I wanted to slay more of them, but Peroz held me back.
"No, Iskandar. Let the Navy do their job."
The corsairs soon threw down their weapons crying for quarter, ending the fighting and the bloodshed. Captain Hormizd joined us on the bridge.
"Captain Hormizd, thank you for the rescue." Peroz began. "We would have been swamped in moments. I thank you for the lives of my entire crew, especially my Iskandar.
"Of course, that is the job of the Navy."
"Yes, but I cannot help wonder how you arrived so promptly. You weren't using my ship as bait, were you?" Peroz asked shrewedly.
Captain Hormizd flushed, and the embarrassment on his honest face gave us the answer. Kavadh too shifted his weight from foot to foot till Peroz clapped him on the shoulder and smiled at him. In truth it was a good tactic. Most patrols are fruitless as the pirates lie low. Here was a chance for the Navy to spring a surprise attack for a change.
Epilogue
After we finally got back to Basra, it was just as Peroz had said. He granted me my freedom, and I went to work as his apprentice and later junior partner. Over the next five years we expanded his enterprise, investing in three new ships sailing under trusted captains. I stayed on Peroz's own vessel.
The wars with the Romans resumed, the Byzantines finally retaking their eastern provinces in Egypt and greater Syria. The kingdom of Axum in modern Ethiopia was a quasi ally of the Romans so our ships had to watch for them too. Central Arabia was convulsed by religious warfare as conquering armies spread the faith of a new prophet. Still the firm prospered mightily.
One day as I awoke in Peroz's bed I found him looking at me appraisingly. I cocked an eyebrow at him questioningly.
"You know Iskandar, I was just now looking at you as you lay asleep, lying there so small and pretty, and vulnerable -- looking quite angelic really, and so very young. Too young actually. Oh I know you seem older when you are awake and aware that people are watching. I realize now that it is an impression you create deliberately, due to your choice in clothing, your manner of speech, the way you wear your hair, different habits. These days you even assume a more active role in sex, as with that cabin boy. But it is all a pretense, isn't it. Something that drops away when you are asleep and guileless. You are not really any older than when I found you, seemingly a lad of no more than seventeen or eighteen summers yet that was eight years ago."
Peroz was not only just about the most decent man I have ever known, he was one of the shrewdest. I couldn't fool him any longer, and I did not want to lie to him. So I told him something of my story.
"So, you took no magical elixir to prolong youth. Nor could you have bargained with the gods, certainly not with Ahriman, the fount of all that is evil in this world. I have seen into your heart, Iskandar, and know you for a good and decent man. So I must accept that what you say is true. How can we proceed? Soon others will guess that you do not age like other men. Men of power would torture you for your secret, never believing you do not have one."
I did not want to lose Peroz, but we did have to put some distance between us, his family, and crew to protect my secret. I became his factor in Yemen, stationed there permanently, sometimes sailing to India but not up to Basra. He visited two or three times a year, and we spent welcome days together in my comfortable residence. He got on well with the casual lovers I took from among the young men of the region. Even into his middle years he was energetic and potent. I wrote letters to his family, but always found an excuse not to visit. Eventually, nearly twenty years after we first met, he and his family were killed in the sack of Basra during the Muslim invasion and destruction of the Persian Empire, but those are events I do not like to dwell on.
The saddest thing about never growing older is that you must eventually lose everyone you ever loved or befriended. Gods know many of them were more worthy of my gift than I, as was Peroz, one of the kindest and wisest men I have ever known.
Only recently could I write of these things, choosing, from caution, to cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of modern science will believe it. In this tale, all of the names are real so I could honor the good men I encountered in those days: Peroz, Kavadh, and Captain Hormizd. The events described really did happen just as I have written.