The Adventures of a Roman Slave

by Lisa Cach

  The man was an ass. A bully. Volatile and proud. His warriors followed his lead, swaggering and boasting as they drank themselves into spittle-smeared broken dolls, propped against walls and benches, and relieved their lust on women who had no defense against them.

  Were all men in Britannia like this? I’d seen similar among soldiers both Roman and Frankish, of course, but their leaders had had cooler heads. The more controlled the man, the more respect he commanded. Drunkenness and outbursts were for the lower ranks and for boys who hadn’t yet learned to be men.

  I finished the piece of music, set my cithara aside, and put my hands to my hips, arching my back to stretch out the tight muscles. Someone said, “Another”—I’d learned that word quickly enough—but Mordred stirred himself enough to speak, his deep voice giving a denial and, I guessed, a joke about how time could be better spent with a woman. Then he looked at me and beckoned with the tips of his fingers, a lazy movement, barely perceptible, and all the more alarming for that. He must be accustomed to quick obedience of his slightest whim.

  A glance at Terix showed him still wallowing in mead-soaked snores; there would be no protection from that direction . . . if I needed protection. I reminded myself that I’d dealt with men more powerful than Mordred and lived to tell the tale.

  Barely.

  I picked my way past men crouched on the floor throwing bones and hooting; a pair of tired-looking women sitting with their heads bent together, a baby nursing at one’s breast; a trestle table bearing the bones and crusts of the feast; a trio of white-haired men arguing halfheartedly among themselves. The energy in the house was dying down, the occasional yawn being hidden behind a hand, yet no one left. Those still awake had the look of children who could barely keep their eyes open but were afraid they’d miss something if they slept.

  When I got to Mordred, I was surprised to see that his eyes were blue, a soft, mid-tone blue that seemed deceptively gentle in his heavy-featured face. While I examined him, he looked me over in return, taking his time. I was wearing a russet woolen gown with yellow and cream embroidery at the open neck and wide sleeve hems, a copper chain girdle around my waist and hips, and underneath a close-fitting white linen underdress with long sleeves. I’d put my front hair in several small braids and tied them together at the back of my head, the rest of my straight black hair hanging loose to my hips.

  “You dress like a Saxon,” Mordred said in his rough Latin.

  “The gown is Frankish.”

  He gestured me closer, and when I did as bidden and came to stand so close that my knees were nearly touching his chair—he still sat sideways, one leg over the arm of it—he reached out and rubbed the loose cloth above my waist between his fingers. It pulled the fabric against my breast, and my nipple tingled in involuntary response. I wondered if that was his intention. Was he testing me, seeing whether I would shy away or show myself willing to cuckold my sleeping “husband”? Or maybe neither; maybe it was arrogance, and he assumed he could touch whomever he wished.

  “Our wool is finer,” he said, lifting his chin. “Touch.” He gestured at the dark green and blue plaid tunic he wore.

  A dozen conflicting thoughts rolled through me, making me hesitate. I feared angering him, I didn’t like him, I wanted him to let us go on our way on the morrow, and, alas, despite it all, he had a rough animal appeal to which I was not immune.

  Maybe it was a good thing Terix was asleep; he’d never let me live it down. To feel even a spark of lust for one such as this . . .

  “Touch,” Mordred said again. There was a challenge in his blue eyes. A challenge devoted solely to the fineness of woolens? I didn’t know him well enough to say.

  I knew something of men, though, and I knew that, whatever his intentions toward us, he’d be happiest if he thought I was attracted to him. All men wanted to think that women secretly lusted after them.

  As keeping Mordred happy seemed like a wise idea, I lightly brushed my fingertips down the fabric covering his chest and felt the warmth of his body seeping through the fineness of the wool. His chest was as hard as oak, and I let my fingertips trail down over his firm belly to his wide leather belt. A hum in my blood and a loosening in my loins said how well I appreciated his masculinity. I snatched my hand back.

  Gods above and below, why did I respond so quickly to men? Surely no other woman would find herself getting wet every time a stranger offered to spread her thighs. I suddenly missed the gray blanket of despondency that had covered me until Jax and his kraken had dragged me back into the light of the living. At least then I had a hope of thinking clearly, rather than finding my mind filled with curiosity about what Mordred’s chest looked like under the plaid.

  “It’s . . . lovely wool,” I said. I moistened my lips, unable to help myself.

  Mordred’s eyes crinkled in pleasure, looking at my lips, and then his gaze flicked behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw it was sleeping Terix he was looking at.

  I got a bad feeling about where his thoughts were going.

  Or a very good feeling.

  Mordred took hold of my hips and pulled me down, making me sit across his lap. I squeaked in surprise as my rump fell into the space between his legs, my own legs over his thigh and my feet dangling in the air. His other leg formed a backrest for me, where it was slung over the arm of the chair. “Best wool in Britannia,” he said. He laid his wide palm over my lower belly and gently massaged me.

  That big hand circling so close to my sex sent tingling warmth spreading through my folds; it was weirdly erotic, and I couldn’t help closing my eyes for a moment to enjoy it. Even as I savored the sensation, though, sadness crept into my heart.

  Was it Sygarius who had broken me, who had made me such easy prey for a man’s lust? I didn’t like that I was so easily swayed by the slightest touch; it was as if I had no control over my body or my mind. It made me feel vulnerable, with my own desire my biggest weakness, easily pierced by any man—even a thick-browed brute who would fondle a married woman while her husband dozed in the same room.

  I don’t want to get involved with this man; I don’t even like him, I told myself. I came to Britannia to find the Phanne, not to be distracted by every pair of hard thighs I see. I forced my eyes open and grasped Mordred’s hand with both of mine to make him stop. “Please. My husband,” I said. A lie, of course, but the safest deterrent to give.

  Mordred’s hand stilled, but his thumb stroked the soft flesh of my belly. “We talk.”

  “Yes, talk,” I said, my voice too high. That thumb kept me from being fully relieved. How could one’s mind and one’s body want such different things?

  “How is Maerlin kin?”

  “How?” It was hard to think, nested as I was in his legs, his hand still on me. He smelled of leather and wool, sweat and woodsmoke, and something deeper under that which belonged only to him.

  “Mother’s family? Father’s? How do you know you are kin?” His Latin was getting better with use, I noticed.

  I’d shown Marri and Daella my tattoos; it would be foolish, then, to try to hide them from Mordred. I lifted my hem, squirming in his lap to get the cloth free enough to show him my thigh. “Someone in Gaul told me they had met Maerlin and that he had marks like mine and had said he was of my tribe, the Phanne. I would guess that his mother and my mother might be related; these are marks that the women make upon their children.” I had thought they were marks only for the females, but perhaps I had been too young when separated from my mother to know otherwise.

  Mordred’s jaw clenched as he looked at my tattoos. “Druid marks!”

  I shook my head. “My mother was no druid.” Not that I knew of, anyway.

  He narrowed his eyes, the blue not looking so soft now. “Spells? Magic? You can do these?”

  “I know nothing of spells.” True enough.

  “You see the future?”

 
So Maerlin was known for that, too! I felt a rising excitement, thinking of all that I could ask Maerlin once I found him. If his experiences were like mine, there was so much I could learn. I’d never had anyone who understood my visions.

  But the last thing I wanted was for Mordred to know of my abilities. Clovis had shown me how tightly a king would hold a sorceress who could see his future and that of his enemies.

  I laughed. “Future? I see that tonight I will sleep, and tomorrow I will wake. Can Maerlin see more?”

  “They say yes. And no. He speaks . . . in puzzles. Does he speak the future?” Mordred shrugged. “Ambrosius Aurelianus thinks so.”

  “Who is Ambrosius Aurelianus?” I’d heard the name a few times now.

  “Maerlin’s father’s father’s brother. He is an old man who wants to create a new Rome and call himself emperor of Britannia.”

  “Emperor!”

  “He wants free men like me to bow to him. He wants my warriors to fight for him. He wants my ports for his trade. He wants to tax me. And he wants me, Mordred of Dumnonia, to call him master!”

  “Maerlin wants this, too?”

  “Maerlin uses his druid power for Ambrosius.” Mordred snorted. “I am a Briton.” He thumped his chest with his fist, his eyes glowing with anger. “I am my master.”

  “I didn’t know any of this,” I said, troubled. I’d had enough of men plotting to gain power, and I had a deep sympathy for those who treasured their independence.

  My distress must have been clear, for his expression softened. “You have no druid power?” he asked, sounding almost sad.

  “I know nothing of druids and their ways.” There was a part of me that wanted to volunteer my help, a part of me that would jump forward to do what I could so that Mordred could thwart Ambrosius Aurelianus. But caution held me back—and the words of Sidonius Apollinaris, who had taught me that each side had its story, and one was rarely more right and good than the other.

  Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe evil of Maerlin, this unknown man with whom I might share so much.

  “What else do they say of Maerlin?” I asked.

  Mordred lowered his hand to my bare thigh and traced the edge of a spiral. “He takes any woman he finds; his hunger is never satisfied. The women . . . tell terrible stories of what he does.”

  “What stories? What does he do?”

  “I don’t know. The women will not tell the men.”

  He was as unforthcoming as Marri. Did anyone truly know what Maerlin did to these women, or was it all stories told to frighten one another and all the more scary when left with empty spaces for the imagination to fill?

  Mordred went on, “Are you the same?”

  “The same, how?”

  His hand slid down inside my thigh and then up toward my sex. I tried to clamp my thighs on his hand to stop him, but he was far too strong. His fingertips dragged over my petals, sending a shiver of sensation through them. I felt my inner gates contract. “Hungry.”

  I grasped his wrist with both my hands and tried to pull it away. “I have a husband,” I said, squirming toward the edge of the chair.

  He didn’t like me trying to get away. One arm came around my upper body, pinning my arms to my sides, and he dragged me up against his chest, his mouth behind my ear. I could feel his breath, moist and warm, through my hair. And then his teeth, biting the edge of my ear just hard enough that I couldn’t jerk my head away. My skirts had fallen back over my thighs, his hand still under them, and he nudged apart my legs; when I resisted, he bit harder on my ear.

  I let my thighs part, though I was in plain sight of everyone in the house. One woman glanced at me, then looked away, her head bowed; I already knew this was a familiar sight. A warrior a couple of feet away saw what was happening and nudged his companion. They grinned and drank, their backs against a nearby pillar as they settled in to watch.

  Was Mordred doing this to humiliate me? Was it to show his power? Or maybe it was for no other reason than that he wanted to and knew he could.

  Mordred fondled my folds, pinching and pulling and rubbing, and clumsy as he was, I still felt my body responding, my sex swelling and moistening. His teeth let go of my ear long enough for him to whisper in wonder, “You have no hair down there.”

  He pulled up my hem to look. I closed my eyes and turned my face against his chest, embarrassed, knowing he was displaying me to those watching warriors, their faces so close I could stretch out my leg and touch them. He murmured in his language as he pushed apart my thighs and examined me, separating my folds to better see how the tattoos covered every part of my sex.

  And then, with my thighs splayed open in front of everyone, he found my gates and swirled one blunt fingertip in the slick moisture. He growled, and his arm around my torso tightened, his mouth pressed to the crown of my head, and I felt that finger press through my gates and slide slowly, relentlessly inside.

  A whimper of denial escaped my throat, even as my hips rocked forward to encourage him deeper. As his finger seating itself fully, I felt his palm come up against my folds and pressed myself against it, unable to stop myself. In my ears, I heard my golden swarm forming, their thousand wings vibrating.

  Mordred’s laughter rumbled under my ear. “Hungry!” he said, and squeezed his hand against me, his palm grinding into my sex. He thrust harder with his finger. Faster. His other hand found one of my nipples and pinched it. Beneath my hip, I felt the solid ridge of his arousal.

  My swarm gathered, and as it did, I felt a rising anger that he would treat me in such a way, laughing at my body’s desires. He thought to humiliate me in front of his men, and it pleased his men to see it done. I could feel them watching, their own mentulas stiff as swords. I could hear their laughter.

  In a fit of fury, I gathered my swarm to me and then flung it outward, sending with it a vision of their rods spewing within their breeches, their seed soaking their clothing like the greenest boys. Mordred’s grasp on me tightened, his hand between my legs stilling, his breath held. I felt the pulse of his release beneath my hip, and I used the fading power of my swarm to press against his balls and milk him like a goat, pulling every last drop from his body and then yet more. His body jerked, and jerked again; his arm dropped from me, and his back arched, his eyelids fluttering. I pulled his other hand out from between my legs; my greedy passage pulsed as I took his finger from me.

  I shoved myself off his lap, and he let me go, his body twitching helplessly, his eyes rolled back in his head. Do you think that’s funny, Mordred?

  As I brushed down my skirts, I saw that the warriors who had been watching me were now instead looking at their own damp crotches in disbelief, their faces coloring. I picked my way through them, gathered up my cithara, and, with a rude kick on his buttocks, woke Terix.

  “Wh-what?” he said, flailing as he lost his balance and tumbled to the floor.

  “Time to go,” I said. “I’ve given them as much entertainment as either they or I can stand.”

  He sat up, scratching at his curly head and yawning. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Nothing worth seeing.”

  He looked across to where Mordred was beginning to recover his senses, a bewildered, slack look on his face as he gingerly touched his groin, frowned at his fingertips, and then sniffed them.

  “You’re right,” Terix said.

  We found our way to the door and stepped out into the cold, fresh air. The sky had cleared, and the near-full moon cast its crisp silver light on the buildings. It was like stepping into another world after the smoky, overheated, firelit confines of Mordred’s house.

  “All I want to know,” Terix said, “is whether we have to run for it tonight or whether the fleeing can wait until morning.”

  “The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted. “But I have a terrible feeling
Mordred’s not going to let us go so easily as that.”

  Terix sighed. “They never do, do they?”

  Try not to look nervous,” Terix said, leading a donkey by its reins.

  “Me? I’m as calm as a forest pond on a still summer day.”

  “You’re tracing your spirals. You only do that when you’re nervous.”

  I flattened my hand against my thigh. “They don’t know that.”

  “And you’re sweating.”

  “I’m naturally warm.”

  “They won’t know that.”

  “They won’t be close enough to notice.” I hoped. I called Bone to my side and patted him, taking comfort from his solid, doggy warmth.

  The night had brought cold air, and this morning the grass was edged with frost. We had packed up our donkeys while Marri looked on, a plaid wrapped around her shoulders, an odd expression on her face as if she wanted to ask us something but couldn’t decide. In the end, she’d only wished us safe travels.

  Our breath hung in the air, our noses ran, and the chill seeped up under my skirts, making me wish I had a pair of baggy breeches like the Briton men wore, with leather bands crisscrossed around their ankles and calves. My fingers were already stiffening with cold, despite my damp underarms.

  Movement would warm me. Running, especially, if it came to that.

  But if it came to that, the last thing I’d be worried about would be chilled legs.

  A shepherd had already led a flock of sheep through the compound and out through the gate; we followed the wide, dark path their hooves had made in the frost. The moisture clinging to the grass darkened the hem of my green travel gown and weighed it down, the fabric slapping against my ankles. Yes, baggy Briton breeches would be an improvement.

  We approached the sloping ramp through the gate. Two men kept guard on the rampart above, and one young warrior leaned against the open gateway, smothering a yawn and gazing blankly out at the countryside below; he was one of the men I’d pushed to his release last night. I pulled the hood of my cloak up over my hair, as if that would in any way disguise me. I kept my face lowered, hoping that if I didn’t look at the guard, he wouldn’t look at me.