Laurent no longer feared the hell that the priests used to keep the masses in line.
For six weeks, he had experienced hell on a daily basis. The lowest of the crew aboard the ship got the task of tending the donkeys stuffed into the stinking hold of the ship. Although waste was collected on a daily basis and tossed overboard, Laurent and the other donkeys quickly replaced it.
They were fed, somewhat. Gritty bran, some legumes, a sparse amount of poor hay. He soon realized that none of the trapped donkeys were likely to put on weight during the voyage. He stayed hungry, but the thirst was worse. The crew strictly limited the rations of water for each animal as the supply had to last both the humans and animals the entire voyage.
There had been two storms. He had honestly feared that the ship might sink with him strapped into the infernal sling. It didn't, and the sling at least kept him from breaking limbs. The violent tossing by waves and wind had left his stomach queasy until he didn't even want to entertain the thought of food. Some of the men tending him didn't look much better.
The sling chafed and rubbed sores into his hide. He had a dream about Claudia one night that had resulted in the hardening of his obscenely long, dark cock. But he could do nothing about it except wait impatiently for the arousal to subside. How would he ever make his way back to her? He would have to endure and, some day... It was on that thought of "some day" that his thoughts and hopes grew more abstract.
And then some of the other donkeys began to sicken. He heard dry, raspy coughs and weak braying. One died during the night and, cursing and grunting, the men who tended them had to recruit help in order to hoist the corpse of the animal onto the deck. Laurent couldn't witness the scene, but his large ears picked up the heavy splash in the calm waters surrounding the ship.
As the men grew tired of the salted supplies of meat and fish, they began to laugh and make jokes, pointing at some of the less emaciated donkeys, and suggested making a meal of one of them. Laurent didn't know what circumstances might make their jokes change to reality.
One night he started coughing, rousing him from sleep, the only time when he managed to forget the horrors of his existence.
He coughed the entire night.
When food and water arrived the next day, he was uninterested. His irritated lungs heaved and coughed.
He realized that he had sickened like so many of the other donkeys packed into the unhealthy, reeking hold of the ship.
The second morning after he began coughing, a man of rank arrived with the men who tended the donkeys. They began scrutinizing each donkey, and the man, a small pot of pine pitch in one hand, frowned and made assessments.
Some of the donkeys he surveyed quickly and continued. Others he spent time examining, moving his head close and listening to the wheezing of infected lungs. He smeared a streak of pitch on two of them. Laurent knew that the two with the streak of pitch in their hides had sickened earlier than the rest.
"Those two will never make it," the man said of the animals bearing the sticky pitch in their hides.
He moved to the animal next to Laurent.
Laurent, realizing what was afoot, struggled not to cough.
The healthy animal that occupied the sling next to Laurent never seemed bothered by the conditions and had remained healthy.
Laurent suddenly lost the struggle not to cough, and his restraint only caused him to be racked with a spasm of dry coughs.
The man's fingers dipped into the pitch. "Has this one been sick long?"
"Only a couple of days," replied one of the men who tended the donkeys.
The man frowned, but he didn't smear Laurent with the foul-smelling pitch. He did find two other sicker animals, which did get smeared.
"Take those I've marked onto the deck and heave them overboard," the man said. "They will never make it, and we can't waste any more supplies on them."
Laurent's body forced out more coughs, and got a cold stare from the man with the container of pitch.
"How long 'til we reach land, sir?" One of the men asked, distracting the man from his second thoughts regarding the sick animal.
"A fortnight," the man said with authority.
Laurent coughed harder. Two more weeks!
He watched the men use the slings of the condemned donkeys to hoist them onto the deck. The poor beasts looked like walking dead already. Did he look any better? Without the sling, he doubted he would have the strength to stand.
Each time a donkey got removed from the hold, Laurent heard a subsequent splash.
The splashes didn't bother any of the other donkeys. Only the donkey that entrapped the consciousness of a man was bothered.
"Try to pull the rest of these beasts through," the man ordered and looked with frank disapproval on the men. "I don't want to lose half the cargo!"
When water arrived, he forced himself to drink. He would never improve if he didn't take food and water. Drinking the water proved almost too challenging as it brought on even more violent coughing.
He heard another splash, which made him ignore the painful coughs in order to drink the last drop held in the bucket.
He was determined to endure.