by Robert Nye
Hanson and Nanton, heavenly twins, I ask myself the question which your own eyes formulate: Is it a something cruel and vengeful in my nature that spurs me to such pleasure in this?
Perhaps. I am large. I have room for some cruelty amidst what I take to be an over-abundant supply of the milk (and fat) of human kindness.
But I prefer to see it all as a desire for the round. Circles and spheres are my idea of geometry. Breasts are spherical, and bums – and the rounder parts of females are altogether the best, not forgetting the womb and its sweet oval entrance.
Square pegs in round holes. That’s one way to get at the truth.
King Arthur had a Round Table. And Lancelot had a lance, and King Arthur’s wife.
God damn it all, and Democritus lived to be exactly one hundred years old. I know Diodorus Siculus said it was only ninety. But Diodorus Siculus was a liar.
Since I’m feeling especially truthful today, what with that pointed lily yesterday afternoon and the rain pissing down right now as it has since sunrise, I put it on record as well that I’m telling my life to my secretaries because it is easier than labouring away to scribble it all down myself.
But I’m telling it also in this particular dictatorial way – to shock and to educate these thin fellows.
NB: When I began, some Robin Goodfellow of false modesty made me confine my secret adventures – I mean, of the bedchamber and environs, and of Miranda, and Ophelia, and the whip, and suchlike – to the mute witness of my own hand, on days when my secretaries were away on business or otherwise engaged. Not any more. Hanson takes this down, while I kick Nanton round about the room to help the twin cause of inspiration and digestion. Each of this pretty pair lusts after my Miranda. Did you think I didn’t know it? Did you imagine that I didn’t see your eyes undress her as she passed you in the gallery that day? And who has a scarf of hers concealed in a chest beneath his bed?
Reader, the rogues are red. Truth makes men change colours. Hanson’s had to drop the pen. Never mind, Hanson. Come here and I will kick you, for a change, while friend Nanton takes over the scribbling.
Now, my blue baboon face, go, go, and take down this:
Last night Sir John Fastolf, K.G., and his sweet niece, made the beast with two backs seven times. Which is fourteen backs. Like the Cichivache, that French monster, the sorry cow that lives only on the flesh of good women, and is consequently all skin and bone, because its food is so extremely scarce these days. Or like the Bicorn, our English bull, as fat as the other is lean, but again with fourteen backs, feeding on good and enduring husbands, under petticoat rule, and with two horns – always plenty of that sort of diet.
To the particular meat of our fourteen-backed beast.
First, Sir John Fastolf’s niece Miranda disposed her limbs below. She put one of her legs between his legs and wrapped the other round his back. Her cunny gobbled up his cock. Then Sir John Fastolf and his young mistress performed the same act again, this time with her thighs bent back until her knees were touching her tits. The storm had aroused the rare Miranda. She was hot. After a few deep thrusts from Sir John’s weapon in this position, the weight of the knight’s belly and the length and strength of the same weapon became too much for his niece to bear. Knight and lady then changed roles. Sir John Fastolf observed the supine part, with the Lady Miranda on top. She brought up her legs carefully, until she was in a sitting position with his penis right up inside her. Sir John Fastolf then held his sweet Miranda by the hips and bounced her up and down on the carnal maypole.
These basic themes, with a few variations, being played – the tender Miranda lay upon Sir John Fastolf’s chest, with one hand in his beard, and the other in his bush. She took her usual pleasure in arousing the might of his member even when that loyal warrior looked spent. It was her joy to tie ribbons about it, taking them from her hair, and then to dance her fingers round and round his towering pillar of flesh like maids about the maypole. It was with the ribbons still attached to his organ that he futtered her thoroughly upon the windowseat in the upper chamber.
Set down also that the dowager Margaret Paston, together with her husband John Paston, Sir John Fastolf’s friend and neighbour, of the manor of Gresham, visited Sir John Fastolf this evening, and that these boring Pastons were still making their elaborate departure when the master retired with his love to the same room upstairs. Miranda had been touching her uncle’s foot with hers beneath the table, nibbling at his ankles with her toes, and making all manner of big eyes and little kisses as she took her supper, by these tokens reminding him of yesterday’s enjoyments. Once inside the upper room, another event took place such as Mr Nanton has described – with such wobbly fingers! – above. It was then, pressed hard into Miranda upon the windowseat, that the said Sir John Fastolf, K.G., observed his guests departing in the courtyard below. He took thought to draw his niece’s attention to the departure of the Pastons, and at the same moment the dowager Margaret chanced herself to look up.
Being ever the perfect host, and considerate lest his guest should think he was slighting her by looking down from the window with his head in such an odd position, Sir John Fastolf took care to draw his niece Miranda to her feet, holding her body in front of his own naked body, she being naked only from the waist down, and then to bend her forwards out of the window so that she might wave goodbye to Mrs Paston and her husband. Sir John Fastolf called out cheerfully over Miranda’s shoulder to his departing guests, remarking on the sweetness of the night air now that the storm of yesterday night had cleared it, and the day’s rain momentarily had ceased. And all the while he futtered Miranda’s anal canal from behind, and frigged her clitoris.
‘How lovely the moon is too!’ he whispered in his dear companion’s ear. And, indeed, one of the advantages of the position for erotic intercourse just described is that it affords each partner an opportunity of observing sunrise or sunset, or the moon, or stars, or a circus, or any other entertainment which requires them both to be looking in the same direction.
‘Bid goodnight to Margaret Paston too, my darling,’ he told Miranda.
However, the busy Miranda was finding herself somewhat overwhelmed at that moment, and the effort of speaking proved beyond her. She managed, however, a squeak.
Sir John Fastolf has determined to practise this farewell on other guests to his Caister Castle.
The Lady Miranda found it so agreeable and amusing that she is writing some invitations right now.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sir John Fastolf’s permission for his translation
9th May
Hum, ha! Hang you, you mechanical salt-butter rogues. Faust me and foin me and fig me and firk me, but the Devil can have one of you, and his dam the other. I see that Luke Nanton, that little humorist, in setting down the last morsel of yesterday’s pages, grew so excited or distempered with what I had to say that by the end of the session he had me translated into the Third Person Singular.
Sir John Fastolf, he says … He, he says …
I, I, I, myself sometimes. Myselves very often. The most First Person Plural Man in the world. We, figging Fastolf. Us, fausty Jack.
But I’m not surprised. We are not surprised. He is not surprised. That windowseat. That windowsill. O, and when we turned round again and into the room, my Miranda so coursed over my exteriors – with such a greedy intention! And at dinner with Margaret and John Paston: the appetite of Miranda’s eye scorching me up like a burning-glass! O powerful love! It makes a beast a man. And a man a beast. By cock we are to blame!
But this Third Person very Singular. Looking it over this morning I am not altogether displeased with the effect. Indeed, the Third Person Singular has a certain roundness to it that fits me. On occasion, therefore, speaking to my twins, I shall let them employ it. It seems to me that a person as rich and omnipotent and multifarious as myself(selves) may only be understood by approaches from different directions.
Let these annals contain Fastolf in the First Person
Singular therefore – and as Singular as is true!
Let them also embrace Fastolf in the First Person Plural – the royal Fastolf. Us, Jove. When we are a bull for our niece Europa. And so forth.
Each First Person, that is, being Fastolf talking, in propria persona, himself, ourselves, my words set down faithfully every one by my scribbling scribes and scratching secretaries here at Caister Castle.
But let these Acta contain also some little geography couched in the Third Person Singular – in which the doings and sayings of the same Sir John, me, the fattest stag in the forest, are chronicled with what will therefore appear to be a greater historicity.
That’s a good word. I like that word. Historicity. It has a smell like a princess’s garters.
In any case, dictating to Hanson and Nanton on the subject of my rut-times with my saucy niece Miranda obviously wrings the poor wet rags so tight with distress and desire and distraction that they have to cross their legs as they write the words that enflame them. Yesterday afternoon Hanson in particular got so worked up it was a wonder he didn’t swallow his pen and disappear up his own arse in pursuit of his prick.
Follow me into the pit.
Luke Nanton takes today’s instalment down. It’s no especial day. No saints looming. Fr Brackley mutters about St Hermas and St Gregory Nazianzen – but I’m leaving them. All that theology and the lily’s tongue with Miranda the other day. I think I’ll just leave the fear of God on my left hand for a little.
Scrope would be ideal for amorous chapters. Nothing excites my stepson. Except, perhaps, a rise in his allowance?
Ah, by God, the fishy eye looked up. A tear gleamed in it, Reader. That moist hand, yellow from years of envy, trembled.
I’ll have that Stephen Scrope to author yet.
Pathetic buggers. Every one of them. All the same, lads, I shall see to it that you are suitably rewarded when the heroic tale of Sir John Fastolf is done, and his Hundred Days War has been won.
Where are those Spani-ards
That make so great a boast O –
They shall eat the Grey Goose Feather
And we will eat the Roast O!
I will give you battles and sieges and arblasters.
I will provide you with swords and sabres. Comfort you with scimitars. Stay you with rapiers.
O times, O manners, O armaments.
Set down the trumpets and the fighting and the marching and the spoils. The pages mounting in that corner are the bounty. A King’s ransom of paper. My lovely whazerys. Yet there will be better bounty and richer reward for you all. A whazery of immortality. Wait and see.
In pursuit of this rotund Third Person, this mountain that I am – ah, ah, hey diddle diddle, the very tag brings back to me the swigh-sigh-swish of my tutor Ravenstone, with his Latin verbs and nouns and all those dark declensions – with regard to writing Sir J.F., I say, rather than ‘I’ at every turn – when we come to my time in France I intend to give you all a holiday from hanging on my every word as I pace up and down my library here in Caister. Soldiers are not the best of authors, and I admit it. Here is none of your literature, but a plain man’s life. Still, a holiday, my spaniels! A dogs’ holiday indeed. There already exists, do you see, a full record and complement of my adventures in France, in Normandy and Anjou, in Pacy and Coursay, up at Basle and down at Arras. The jolly story of my principal manoeuvres in the One Hundred Years War, no less, and of my extensive and still imperfectly renumerated service to the Crown. This was compiled at my direction many years ago by my man in France, Peter Basset. Now my man Basset was a soldier and he wrote a good hand, and his record is terse and complete. I see no point in concocting new versions when the truth has already been established.
However, little geese – here’s the bad news.
Basset wrote in Latin.
I am going to require Basset’s version of my Acta in France to be translated into good round, sloping English by you, Nanton, and by friend Hanson, and by the Friar (if he can get his finger out of that freckled boatboy), and by Stephen Scrope my ignoble stepson. You will find the matter peculiar enough to warm your organs in the pursuit, I promise. Fastolf’s war was not exactly a crusade.
This won’t be for some Days yet. Weeks of our Days, in fact. First, there is all my experience in Ireland to be gone into. And then my adventures in London and everywhere with Prince Hal.
Enough of historicity for today. O History, History, your face is your arse in profile.
I feel suddenly fartuous. I’m dying for a shit. Fry me some cow-parsley fritters.
Chapter Forty
About Sir John Fastolf’s prick
10th May, Dotterel’s Day
I have reached my fortieth Day without having once described my mainspring. This sin of omission must be immediately repaired.
It is fourteen and a half inches long, my tool, with a girth of six inches, and in appearance rather like a well-baked Norfolk loaf. It achieved these dimensions quite naturally. Not like Hal’s efforts – always pulling at his princely cock to make it longer. Not like Pistol’s pistol either. When Pistol was a boy he worked on his thing with a suction cup, and then with a stone with a hole through it. He hung the stone on a string which he tied round his member. Result: he had a long thin pizzle like a runner bean. But no girth, no thickness, no staying power at all.
Ophelia liked to call my prick by different names.
Swinging with her in the swing all the afternoon, rubbing our bacon together –
‘Get out your pillicock, Jack!’ or
‘Let’s have a game with your pike!’ or
‘I can feel your poperin pear in your pocket!’ or
‘Come on! Where’s that potato-finger of yours?’
Miranda has a whole set of different nicknames, as well as these ones.
My bugle.
My lance.
My sword.
My standard.
My hook.
My horn.
My instrument.
My stump.
My root.
My dart of love.
My poll-axe.
My potent regiment.
My carrot.
My tail.
My holy thistle.
My thorn.
My bauble.
My lag end.
My distaff.
My needle.
My pin.
My pipe.
My organ.
My pen.
My yard.
My roger.
And so on. But mostly she likes to call a prick a prick, and my prick especially.
Paradisi … Temporie …
My mother Mary Fastolf never favoured the cruel habit of the ancient Jews, which was to cut away the foreskin from this most sensitive and ticklish and alarmed and alarming of wild beasts. My man comes therefore in his natural hood. He looks like a Franciscan. The foreskin is indeed wonderfully pliable, stretchy, and agreeable, and moves backwards and forwards upon the head of my fellow with a hot gulping rapidity and smoothness which ladies without number have told me is much to their pleasuring.
I have the usual amount of baggage.
When I was a young man this prick of mine was somewhat of an upstart. He was forever discharging himself. He existed in a near-permanent state of standing to attention, like something in the company of a Queen. The merest glimpse of a girl, the slightest rustling wisp of an underskirt as a lady brushed past his master in the street, and up he would pop, my fool, like a genie in one of the tales of the Arabian desert. Once up, also, nothing could persuade the cocky villain to lower his head again but to have himself dipped and immersed in one or another of the more satisfactory grottoes of the feminine anatomy.
He was not religious about the central one. O, he hymned hymens when in the mood, and he sifted and stroked the velvet leaves, and he certainly got stuck into that dearest bodily part a woman has. But he loved any den, any lap, any hole, any scut, any nest of spicery. He would come off in Venus’ gl
ove as soon as in her mound. He would beggar himself of my marrow as quickly in a warm mouth, a tight little brown bum-hole, a chaste arm-pit, a fleshy elbow, or even an intricate ear.
There was a time, in my early days in London, in company with the same riggish Mrs Nightwork whom I have already spoken of, when my young cock favoured the ear quite acutely. I cannot say why. Jane Nightwork had a most delectable and definitive and musical ear. It was like a little filigree, a whirlpool, a veritable shell. It was her delight to run her tongue up and down my chap until he began to drool at the tip. I would lie on my back with my thighs apart and my legs drawn up to afford her utter access to what she wanted. She used to hold my damsons gently in her hand and tug with her nibbly lips at my long foreskin. She liked to kiss me up and down the cock as he swelled to her fondling. She’d dally with her fingers, and tease me with her nostrils, and cherish and tickle until she sensed the sperm begin to stir. Then Jane would pop her hot red lips about my prick, and suck me six or seven times most rigorously, until I waved my hands about, unable to speak with the sharp surfeit of it.
But that was not the end. Not by a long shot. Jane Nightwork was incredible for dalliance. ‘The longer the stronger, the more the merrier,’ she’d whisper as she played and stopped, dallied and teased, brought me deliberately to the boil and then as deliberately made me throb and suffer as she smacked down my near-to-bursting soldier.
