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Enslaved
Injured crusader Falk du Plessis survives the Battle of Hattin only to be sold at the slave market in Acre. He's bought by Sinan, a mysterious Saracen who takes care to hide his true identity. Falk has the feeling they’ve met before. Their attraction is instant and mutual and their destinies are inextricably entwined, but duty and loyalty to their respective masters threaten to drive them apart.
16 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2009
1 person is currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Kate Cotoner
20 books20 followersKate Cotoner lives in the north of England with her OH and a demanding bonsai named Mr M. She has a fondness for Asian men tempered with a love of hunky Germanic and Mediterranean types, and manages to combine love for all three types whilst watching Formula One motorsport. She loves history, needlepoint, reading, watching brainless blockbusters and meaningful foreign films, staring at US crime shows, and baking French-style bread. She likes strong, plot-driven stories and charismatic characters set against a sweeping, romantic backdrop of history, suspense, international locations and whatever else happens to take her fancy at the time.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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October 7, 2013This review has a bit of a backstory. First of all, to get the legal issues out of the way, I was planning to buy this and asked one of my writer friends who is associated with Torquere to buy me one, since Torquere doesn’t accept PayPal. Instead of charging me, he gave it to me as a gift.
Here’s the backstory. A few month ago, Torquere Press put out a call for submissions for a historical anthology titled “Chain Male”, which then, sadly, didn’t happen, with Torquere citing that they didn’t get enough quality stories to do this. Be that as it may, Kate Cotoner’s story “Enslaved” is what is left of the anthology project, and was published in Torquere’s “Sip” line of stand-alone short stories.
Looking at the generic cover and reading nothing but the blurb, I admit a little trepidation. Would this be one of those famous “slave fics” that have a large and loyal following? Would this feature BDSM, humiliation and power games and a crusader reduced to a whimpering sex slave? The crusades are probably my favourite subject in the vastness of the Middle Ages, and I admit to feeling even more protective of them than of the rest of history.
So I braced myself a lot before opening the file.
And relaxed. Relaxed some more. Slowly, a smile started to spread, and in the end, I was so pleasantly surprised that I read the story two more times. For the review, I’ve read it twice more. I’m happy to report this is not your typical slave story. I’m even more happy to report it has actual research (!) in it.
But first things first. Falk du Plessis, the squire of his brother, a Templar Knight, survives the battle of Hattin, the medieval equivalent of Gallipolli, in short, a disastrous, all-out battle that decimated the already thin-stretched military resources of the crusader kingdoms to breaking point. At the time when it happened, our historical witnesses tell us that they didn’t think the knightly orders would recover from the loss of men and materiel. It was a turning point in the rich history of the Crusades, an iconic battle with a bloody aftermath, when the prisoners were put to the sword rather than ransomed, and the rest sold on the slave market.
Falk is lucky, he gets sold as a slave. But instead of the all too typical “woe is me” scene in the slave market, we get a Falk who’s actually optimistic. He’s a strong character, calm, and just damn glad he lived. I really enjoyed that inner strength that is so far removed from all the melodrama a lesser writer would have put in there to make an impact in such a short story (16 pages, a total of 6-7thousand words). But Kate Cotoner is not a lesser writer, in fact she’s a pretty damn good writer who has clearly made an effort to make this real, human, authentic and true.
(...) It’s a more quiet, more real story than you usually get, with a character who’s gay, has some experience, and even that rang true—little drama about forbidden homosexuality here, mostly because Falk is usually careful (he has reason to) and because he is not of high enough status to make this political for him. When he gets bought by a Syrian, Sinan, their relationship is not typical of a “slave fic”, either.
It’s a sweet, gentle romance between two men who share more than divides them, and it’s also not soppy at all. Cotoner trusts her characters to let them tell the story, and the actual love/sex scene is delightfully free from men shouting each others’ names in the throes of climax, or confessing undying love five minutes after meeting.
I have to have one little niggle – there’s a paragraph in the text that goes on about how "everybody knows bathing is unhealthy."
Uhm, no.
Bathing culture in the middle ages (the battle of Hattin places this story firmly into the late 1180ies) was actually doing alright. The “unhealthy” reputation of bathing came when the Plague and likely syphilis spread via the beloved and often-used bathing houses. We still have a few Roman baths, sometimes surviving as parts of monasteries, but in general, our European ancestors did like being clean. It’s in the 14th century and later that that goes slowly down the drain. Not bathing, however, was part of the ascetic ideal, so very holy people wouldn’t bathe to mortify the flesh (yeah, I’d be mortified, too), but those are extreme cases.
So, a short, sweet read that went completely against my expectations, well-told, with an ending that promises more between the two characters. In fact, these two should be a match made in heaven, and I’d really like to read more about their adventures during the decline of the crusader states, or wherever Cotoner takes them.
(read a longer version of the review here:
http://speakitsname.wordpress.com/200...)
Here’s the backstory. A few month ago, Torquere Press put out a call for submissions for a historical anthology titled “Chain Male”, which then, sadly, didn’t happen, with Torquere citing that they didn’t get enough quality stories to do this. Be that as it may, Kate Cotoner’s story “Enslaved” is what is left of the anthology project, and was published in Torquere’s “Sip” line of stand-alone short stories.
Looking at the generic cover and reading nothing but the blurb, I admit a little trepidation. Would this be one of those famous “slave fics” that have a large and loyal following? Would this feature BDSM, humiliation and power games and a crusader reduced to a whimpering sex slave? The crusades are probably my favourite subject in the vastness of the Middle Ages, and I admit to feeling even more protective of them than of the rest of history.
So I braced myself a lot before opening the file.
And relaxed. Relaxed some more. Slowly, a smile started to spread, and in the end, I was so pleasantly surprised that I read the story two more times. For the review, I’ve read it twice more. I’m happy to report this is not your typical slave story. I’m even more happy to report it has actual research (!) in it.
But first things first. Falk du Plessis, the squire of his brother, a Templar Knight, survives the battle of Hattin, the medieval equivalent of Gallipolli, in short, a disastrous, all-out battle that decimated the already thin-stretched military resources of the crusader kingdoms to breaking point. At the time when it happened, our historical witnesses tell us that they didn’t think the knightly orders would recover from the loss of men and materiel. It was a turning point in the rich history of the Crusades, an iconic battle with a bloody aftermath, when the prisoners were put to the sword rather than ransomed, and the rest sold on the slave market.
Falk is lucky, he gets sold as a slave. But instead of the all too typical “woe is me” scene in the slave market, we get a Falk who’s actually optimistic. He’s a strong character, calm, and just damn glad he lived. I really enjoyed that inner strength that is so far removed from all the melodrama a lesser writer would have put in there to make an impact in such a short story (16 pages, a total of 6-7thousand words). But Kate Cotoner is not a lesser writer, in fact she’s a pretty damn good writer who has clearly made an effort to make this real, human, authentic and true.
(...) It’s a more quiet, more real story than you usually get, with a character who’s gay, has some experience, and even that rang true—little drama about forbidden homosexuality here, mostly because Falk is usually careful (he has reason to) and because he is not of high enough status to make this political for him. When he gets bought by a Syrian, Sinan, their relationship is not typical of a “slave fic”, either.
It’s a sweet, gentle romance between two men who share more than divides them, and it’s also not soppy at all. Cotoner trusts her characters to let them tell the story, and the actual love/sex scene is delightfully free from men shouting each others’ names in the throes of climax, or confessing undying love five minutes after meeting.
I have to have one little niggle – there’s a paragraph in the text that goes on about how "everybody knows bathing is unhealthy."
Uhm, no.
Bathing culture in the middle ages (the battle of Hattin places this story firmly into the late 1180ies) was actually doing alright. The “unhealthy” reputation of bathing came when the Plague and likely syphilis spread via the beloved and often-used bathing houses. We still have a few Roman baths, sometimes surviving as parts of monasteries, but in general, our European ancestors did like being clean. It’s in the 14th century and later that that goes slowly down the drain. Not bathing, however, was part of the ascetic ideal, so very holy people wouldn’t bathe to mortify the flesh (yeah, I’d be mortified, too), but those are extreme cases.
So, a short, sweet read that went completely against my expectations, well-told, with an ending that promises more between the two characters. In fact, these two should be a match made in heaven, and I’d really like to read more about their adventures during the decline of the crusader states, or wherever Cotoner takes them.
(read a longer version of the review here:
http://speakitsname.wordpress.com/200...)
March 22, 2020
Esclavos, Las Cruzadas, Lealtad y honor y una breve historia de pretensión y sexo! Se pierde todo el morbo inicial en un sinnúmero de narraciones que sobran como la sal en el mar.
Es muy corta, quizás con un poco más de contexto la cosa hubiese funcionado. Incluso si se hubiese apostado por contar más de las Cruzadas y contextualizar sobre el mercado de esclavos y sobre el momento histórico, la fórmula fuera un éxito asegurado ante el público LGBT, pero esa fantasía de 16 hojas, ni es lo que parece, ni es lo que se desea. Es posible que termine ahogándose. Se ahoga.
Es muy corta, quizás con un poco más de contexto la cosa hubiese funcionado. Incluso si se hubiese apostado por contar más de las Cruzadas y contextualizar sobre el mercado de esclavos y sobre el momento histórico, la fórmula fuera un éxito asegurado ante el público LGBT, pero esa fantasía de 16 hojas, ni es lo que parece, ni es lo que se desea. Es posible que termine ahogándose. Se ahoga.
April 22, 2022
Me encanto mucho la historia, disfrute muchisimo leerla.
Ame la pareja de Falk y Sinan.
Un hombre bestido de Azul lo compro de una subasta de esclavos y lo llevo a donde estaba Sinan, aunque antes hico que se bañara y comiera.
Sinan en un principio lo miro con deseo y Falk se dio cuenta.
Despues de que le hiciera masajes y tubieran sexo, por primera vez, Sinan le fue contando porque lo habia comprado (lo habia comprado porque Falk lo habia salvado), le conto que el en realidad era un hashashin osea que era un asecino que mataban por sus propias crensias, y que lo querian matar porque lo habian descubierto.
Y mas cosas de su vida.
Pero llego el dia en el que Falk habia desidio que se tenia que ir que no podia escapar de la guerra para sienpre, pero Sinan no queria, porque el se habia enamorado de Falk, entonses Sinan le confeso sus sentimientos y Falk al prinsipio comenzo a irse, pero cuando escucho a su corazon desidio quedarse, ya que su corazon queria amarlo tambien.
Aunque es una historia un poco corta, es una historia que en realidad te logra enganchar y eso fue lo que me paso, fue una de las mejores historias que e leido.
Ame la pareja de Falk y Sinan.
Un hombre bestido de Azul lo compro de una subasta de esclavos y lo llevo a donde estaba Sinan, aunque antes hico que se bañara y comiera.
Sinan en un principio lo miro con deseo y Falk se dio cuenta.
Despues de que le hiciera masajes y tubieran sexo, por primera vez, Sinan le fue contando porque lo habia comprado (lo habia comprado porque Falk lo habia salvado), le conto que el en realidad era un hashashin osea que era un asecino que mataban por sus propias crensias, y que lo querian matar porque lo habian descubierto.
Y mas cosas de su vida.
Pero llego el dia en el que Falk habia desidio que se tenia que ir que no podia escapar de la guerra para sienpre, pero Sinan no queria, porque el se habia enamorado de Falk, entonses Sinan le confeso sus sentimientos y Falk al prinsipio comenzo a irse, pero cuando escucho a su corazon desidio quedarse, ya que su corazon queria amarlo tambien.
Aunque es una historia un poco corta, es una historia que en realidad te logra enganchar y eso fue lo que me paso, fue una de las mejores historias que e leido.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 12, 2010
I like historicals, although I admit that here I don't know the background well enough to say how accurate Kate Cotoner's gotten it. And then I decided, it doesn't matter, because it rings true, and she does have a reputation for getting it right. And here, she paints the opposing sides, and the sides within sides, so well that the scholarship doesn't have to be on the reader's end to be fully immersed in the world of the Crusades.
The Saracens have the better end of the deal here, that's for sure, and Falk was wise enough to understand that.
Sinan does seem to talk a little more freely about secret matters than seems wise, but the information had to get out there, and this was one way.
A good read, and I'd read more from this author in a flat minute.
The Saracens have the better end of the deal here, that's for sure, and Falk was wise enough to understand that.
Sinan does seem to talk a little more freely about secret matters than seems wise, but the information had to get out there, and this was one way.
A good read, and I'd read more from this author in a flat minute.
Want to read
October 7, 2013Damn it, doesn't look like this book is for sale anymore. Shame.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews