You would not recognise me. The boy and the man have grown far apart. There is no possible line from there to here other than the specific and very narrow one I walked. I write at the age of fifty. This is the story of my time with the Princes. Qatan and Qalin. Chahin and Cheruh. I am worse than the kitchen boy, filthier than the coal scuttle, on the first day of the tale I will tell you.

I will not tell you all their names, out of respect, as many were to die in the wars. I walk past their carved memorials, the ones that found themselves on the right side when at last the fighting ceased for long enough to make an hour for a decent burial. Even now I remember their faces. Their heraldic devices. The hang and the swing of their cocks as my tongue reaches out towards them, the wet tip curling to guide them into my mouth.

His hands on my back? Slow. His fingers as they smooth my hair back from my eyes? Gentle. The strength, confidently applied, as he lifts me high until my legs straddle his head and my head knocks against the ceiling, so that he can take my cock between his lips? Everything gentle, everything calm, everything beautiful.

He bends me and slides inside. On the chapel roof, in his chambers, in the stable, behind the throne. He fucks me in the chapel itself, in the shadow of a tomb while monks chant prayers and the choir sings of gods and demons.

The peal of bells and choir song. Angelic voices rising to the sky. And the sun greets us. Greets a new dawn. And they say the gods anoint the new king as the clouds part and Chahin stands at the great golden gate overlooking the city, glistening in a shaft of purest light; and his people cheer and the crowds part to let his fine white horse proudly make its way among the throng.

We are the same height, but he has extra years on me. Extra years on horseback. Extra years in the practice yard, with mace, and bow, and sword. I grew up expecting to garden. He grew up expecting to fight. His shield arm, under my fingers, is like rock. The shoulders are made to set fly arrows to three hundred yards. He kills at a distance with those arrows. He kills at a distance with his words.