The Adventures of a Roman Slave

by Lisa Cach

  Not wanted. Needed.

  Dimly, in a far-off part of myself, I knew I was losing control. I couldn’t stop building that wall, my body thrumming along with it, pulsating with an unsated desire that needed just a little more to reach the top. Only, the more pleasure I took in from others, the more distant any release of my own retreated, and the more inaccessible my visions felt. My swarm was locked in that wall along with my pleasure, and I didn’t know how to set them free.

  Or didn’t want to set them free, not before the last brick was in place, and my hive complete.

  I felt Druce’s lust, his staff aching.

  Give it to me, I urged him.

  He pushed up from his knees, shoving me backward into the chest of the warrior; the warrior was too lost in his body’s need to do other than lock his arms to support us both, and keep thrusting his hips. It did him no good, my feet now off the floor, my weight pinning me on his rod. My thighs were still spread wide over the warrior’s, an invitation that Druce couldn’t resist—though his eyes were unseeing, lost in an internal world of pleasure-seeking. I felt his overwhelming need to be inside me, and fed it a stream of the erotic power burning through me.

  He thrust himself at me. Delirious with need, he either didn’t know or didn’t care that there was already a cock in place. The head of his rod jammed against my flesh and he put the strength of his powerful body behind it, nosing in, seeking to shove his way in the gates before the other could leave.

  There’s no way, I thought. It isn’t possible.

  Do it, I urged him, aching to be filled beyond all endurance.

  I felt the edge of his hand, guiding; pressing aside the obstacle of his soldier’s embedded sword. I was as slick as oil with my own arousal and the spent desire of his son, and as he put all his brawn into it I felt my gates stretching and the thickness of him fighting through to the passage beyond.

  The warrior moaned, and I dug into his mind to feel along with him the pressure of Druce’s cock sliding against his own inside the tight grip of my body. He didn’t know what it was he felt, only that it was more than he could take. The blackness rose in him, and in a jolt of fear for him—and greed for what he had not yet given me—I pushed him over the edge into release. He spurted inside me, his rod pulsating beside Druce’s, his seed slicking the way yet further.

  Druce dropped down on top of me, stealing my breath with his weight. His calloused hands gripped my hips so hard it hurt, and he started to thrust. He moved with the rabbit-swiftness I’d been warned of, but it was what I wanted. Each jab of his staff sent pressure blooming through my sex, filling me as I’d never been filled, touching spaces inside me no single cock could reach all at once.

  The gold dome—for dome it was becoming—grew higher, the aperture of light blue sky showing through at the top becoming smaller.

  And still I wanted more.

  I flung out an arm and hit Pyrs, startling him awake. I speared desire into him and he groaned, his body coming to life with the quickness of male youth. I reached an arm the other way and touched the two drowsing acolytes who had spent themselves on each other. I fed them both, and sent them down into the hall. Bring me more.

  As Druce continued his gallop, the warrior’s cock softened and pulled free. Druce gave a cry of either loss or triumph, his speed doubling, his movements so frantically quick I lost all bodily sensation of them and drew only on his panicked arousal. I felt his fear that he wouldn’t be able to come; his desperation to spend himself as if it were as great an achievement as slaying an enemy.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist and forced him, through body and mind, to hold motionless with his thick, short length lodged inside me. Just feel, I whispered inside his mind. And then I made him move at my pace, languidly grinding against me, giving me the best benefit of that broad stump of his. I fed him back a slow stream of arousal, soothing him into submission though he wanted to bolt like a horse. I made him feel my enjoyment, and as he did his fear faded, replaced by wonder.

  The acolytes returned with others; how many others, I did not know, but I felt them as they climbed onto the couch and a thigh pressed against my arm, a hand touched my brow. Pyrs bent to kiss me, his tongue thrusting inside my mouth, and I felt through him that an acolyte had taken hold of his rod, sliding her hand up and down it and then closing her lips over its end. Druce and I slid off the warrior under me, and he stirred back to life, craving new sensation.

  Hand to thigh to arm to foot to buttocks to balls to breasts; wandering fingers and seeking lips, stroking tongues and rubbing thumbs. One person connected to the next, and the next, and all through the growing tangle of naked bodies on and beside the couch. I felt them all, the current of insatiable lust running through them and back to me, all their pleasure becoming mine, all their yearning for satisfaction made louder, fiercer, as it ran through me.

  Druce’s grinding was not enough. The golden hive was almost complete, and yet I felt as if I were starving inside its walls. My sex was swollen and throbbing, sensitive past the point of pleasure, my body hyperaroused without hope of release. I had locked the door against my own escape, built my own prison. I’d been trying to build my power as Tanwen said, only I didn’t know now how to free it.

  Tanwen, where are you? I need help . . .

  My control over the lusts swirling through and around me began to break down. I felt the secret desires, the fantasies, the hidden memories of the men and women around me. The insatiable hunger tangled around me, and all I could think was, Do it. Do it all. Do what you’ve dreamt of, do what you’ve feared, spend yourselves as you’ve always wanted.

  The warrior was hard again, his hands roaming my thighs, still wrapped around Druce’s waist. I sensed when he stood behind Druce and parted his buttocks. I felt Druce’s shock when the head of his warrior’s rod pressed against that back entry.

  Druce’s shock and the warrior’s lust-blinded excitement put another layer to my hive wall. I urged the warrior on, and shared his sensations with Druce, even as I eased my hold on Druce’s release. The warrior thrust home, and Druce cried out and came, his essence surging inside me. I linked the sense of it to the feel of his mind, the new skill already instinctive to me now.

  I unwrapped my legs and pushed out from under Druce, the warrior holding more tightly to his leader now as he continued to work him from behind. Pyrs protested as I moved away, breaking his kiss, but everyone still had contact, no one was alone, and the burning desire only flared hotter, even as the dark flickerings of erotic exhaustion cut breaks in the molten flow of lust.

  I crawled through the writhing bodies, pausing when a mouth found my nipple, my folds; when a roving hand slid two fingers into my passage, thrusting roughly; when a cock appeared before my lips and I took it into my mouth, tongue savoring the salty taste of it and the hard-soft smoothness of aroused flesh.

  Tanwen, what do I do?

  Maerlin, help me. Maerlin, I’m trapped, I can’t stop, I don’t know how. Where are you? Where ARE you?

  I could feel everyone’s fading strength. Hearts beating too fast, breath coming too shallow, muscles flagging. Could they die of this? Drained of all energy, would their hearts stop?

  There was only a single space left open at the top of my inner dome. One last breath of air and life. Through it I heard Tanwen cursing. Shouting.

  I felt a cold mental blade strike at the hive and bounce off, shuddering. Tanwen again, her voice a panicked shriek. The blade came again, and I wanted it to break through, but the hive had a mind of its own and repelled her. It wanted to finish itself.

  Then hands on my face, my mouth; fingers opening my mouth and pouring something foul into it. I gagged and spit, and the hands were back, forcing more of the bitter syrup onto my tongue.

  My mouth went numb. My throat. The numbness turned to a warm, peaceful drowsiness and seeped down into my chest, up into my head.

>   I looked upward at the last pinprick of blue above me and felt my eyelids drifting downward, peaceful as falling snow. The blue disappeared, and the gold wall, and I sank, free at last, into the protective arms of darkness.

  I woke to my cold chamber and the gray light of morning. My head felt like a band of iron spikes were being slowly tightened around it, my mouth was so dry I could barely unstick my tongue from the bottom, and my muscles felt as heavy as mud. I groaned and rolled out of the narrow bed, desperate for the pitcher of water on a stand in the corner.

  I drank with as much grace as a thirsty dog, then washed myself as well as I could; I was still naked, except for my necklace, and had no memory of being brought to my bed. I shivered, goose bumps rising as I ran a wet cloth over my skin and then gently tended to my loins. They had an overripe, tender feel to them; they had been calmed by the drug I dimly remembered Tanwen pouring down my throat, but they were by no means asleep.

  Scenes from the night came back to me in pieces and as they did I groaned anew, this time in shamed horror at what had happened. Such loss of control . . . surely it had not been what Tanwen intended. I remembered her screeching when she’d returned and found the mound of writhing, straining bodies, with me at its center.

  Why had she left me?

  And where had Maerlin been? Could he not have stopped me, before it went that far? Maybe he hadn’t realized what was happening, and by the time he did it was too late.

  I dressed in my own clothes as quickly as my sluggish limbs and throbbing head would allow, and went looking for Maerlin.

  He wasn’t in his room. None of his belongings were, either. I might not have noticed—he traveled lightly—except that the room had been swept and the bedding stripped away. I stepped back into the corridor to double-check that I had the right room, and was certain I did.

  Brow furrowed in confusion, I headed down the corridor, looking for someone to tell me where he was. The college felt strangely quiet; empty, even. For a frightened moment I thought it was: that I had been asleep for days, and everyone had packed up and left. I was still frozen at the thought when a voice hissed to me out of the shadows, “Nimia!”

  “Una? Oh, thank the goddess,” I said, shoulders sinking in relief as she stepped into the light. She looked paler than usual, if that was possible. “Where is everyone?”

  “In the great hall with my grandmother. I have to talk to you.”

  “Is she well enough to be out of bed, then?” I asked, surprised, and the surprise quickly turned to suspicion. Had she been feigning her illness?

  “She’s well enough for a dead person.”

  My breath caught. “Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry, Una.”

  “Don’t be. Mother isn’t.” Her face, even in the gray light, took on the mottled pink of anger or tears; maybe both.

  “Still, she was your grandmother. I saw you helping her; she must have been important to you.”

  Una shook her head, her jaw set in denial.

  She didn’t look ready for sympathy, so I changed the topic. “Have you seen Maerlin?”

  “That’s why I need to talk to you. He’s gone, he—”

  “Nimia, you’re awake at last!” Tanwen said, seeing me as she emerged from the doorway that led into the great hall. She switched to Phannic. “I was beginning to worry I’d given you too much poppy juice. I owe you an apology, for leaving you on your own at the banquet. My mother chose the most inconvenient moment to die. The acolytes would never have understood, if I hadn’t gone to her.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear about Akantha. Una—” I looked to Una, but she was gone.

  “Una?”

  “Oh, er . . .” I didn’t want to give away Una’s near presence, if she was still close by and wished to stay out of sight of her mother. “Una will miss her very much, won’t she?”

  Tanwen shrugged one lusciously rounded shoulder. “I doubt it. Akantha was a vicious old woman. A viper, as I told you. I confess to feeling a tremendous relief that she’s gone.”

  “That’s . . . honest of you.” I was appalled. Not so much at the relief—that was normal enough, with Akantha ill for so long and their relationship poor—but at the lack of any sadness whatsoever. Not a hint of red to her eyes, or a quaver to her voice. No weak smile, slow step, or staring silences. She looked instead as if she’d just gotten up from a refreshing bath and was looking forward to a hearty meal. To feel no sense of loss for the mother with whom one has lived and schemed for one’s entire life . . .

  The only surprise left to me was that Akantha had lived as many years as she had. I would have thought Tanwen would have killed her long since, given that her care for her was so little and the relief of being rid of her was so great. It should be some comfort, I supposed, that her deviousness didn’t stretch to murder.

  As far as I knew.

  Maybe Una had learned at her mother’s knee how to deal with people she didn’t like.

  “I have no reason not to tell the truth, especially to you,” Tanwen said, hooking her arm through mine and leading me back to her room. “Everything is different now, and there’s much we need to discuss.”

  There was nothing to make one more wary of being lied to than hearing someone say they were telling the truth. “Have you seen Maerlin? His things aren’t in his room.”

  She sighed, heavily and with an excess of drama. “He’s showing his true self to you. I’m sorry you had to find out; I’d hoped he’d changed. It has always been Maerlin’s way to run off when life gets too painful. He would rather leave his friends and family to fend for themselves, than stay and help. He’s probably halfway to Egypt by now, with no intention of coming back before we’re both old and gray, and too tired to give him the scolding he deserves.”

  I felt a burst of panic. “He wouldn’t have left me,” I said, the words tumbling out before I could think better of them. I didn’t want Tanwen to know how much trust we had built between us.

  “The fact speaks for itself, my dear.”

  “But he promised to escort me.” And he needs me for calling the storm. He wouldn’t have abandoned that plan, would he? He’d worked too long and too hard in his quest to forge the perfect sword for Arthur. “How will I get back to Corinium? I can’t go alone, it’s too dangerous.”

  We’d reached Tanwen’s room, and she gave orders to the waiting acolyte for food and drink. She settled onto the couch, invited me to do the same, and pulled a fur up over her legs as she nestled into the cushions. “There,” she said with a sigh. “I am so very tired of being cold. A few more weeks, and I’ll be done with it forever.”

  Given that winter had barely begun and would come back every year, she could mean only one thing. “Where are you going?”

  “Constantinople: the last civilized place in the world, and the best place to make my fortune. Yours, too, if you wish it.”

  I gestured at the wall of jewels and clothing. “I thought you already had.”

  “Pah. Trinkets to make life here bearable, for as long as it had to be endured. I’ve saved enough gold for travel, and then to set up a household in respectable style. Now that Mother is gone, there’s nothing to stop me, and no reason to stay.”

  “But the acolytes,” I said in bewilderment. Two dozen women who’d been whores under the guise of mystic worship: would she abandon them to their fates in this unkind world?

  “I’ll take a couple of the smarter, prettier ones. The rest can continue with the college. They’ll be fine; better than fine. They’ll make more money than they have with me here, demanding my share.”

  Without Akantha and Tanwen, the college would be no more than a common brothel. Even worse, it would be one without leadership or the respect born of fear. She had to know that.

  “I’m not their mother, Nimia,” she said, reading my face. “Most of them chose this path long before they came here.”

 
And yet, she had made them feel safe, and as if they had purpose. It was all about to be revealed to them as an enormous lie. What meaning does a worship have, if your goddess abandons you?

  “You could stay and take care of them,” Tanwen said, “if that’s what would make you feel better. No? You don’t want to be stuck in a pile of damp stones for the rest of your life, either?”

  The acolyte returned with two others, bearing trays of food and a flagon of wine. As we waited for them to arrange the meal and leave, I thought carefully. Maerlin had disappeared, and I could not believe he had gone on his own. He would not, could not, have abandoned me to his sister. He had insisted for so long that I must trust him, and proven so often that in his own strange way he could be trusted, that I knew he had not left of his own free will. Tanwen must have planned something with Druce, and at this very moment Maerlin might be in desperate need of my help.

  What I dared not do now was give Tanwen reason to think me eager to flee. She would hold me here, and I would not be able to escape her grasp. If she could get rid of someone as powerful Maerlin, she could do what she wished with a novice like me.

  As soon as the acolytes were gone I took a sip of wine, set my cup on my knee, and said, “I have never, for one moment, had any intention of remaining in Britannia. Such a gray, muddy, dismal place I have never experienced.” I could hear truth ringing through my words, and knew that Tanwen could, too. “I do not believe the Phanne were made for such a setting. I came here only to find out about my mother. I’ve done that. There’s no reason to stay, though I do wish to return to Corinium for my dog and my friend Terix. He’s even more eager than I to leave.”

  Tanwen turned her face half-away and looked at me slantwise. “If you go back, Ambrosius and Arthur will want to know where Maerlin is.”

  I puffed up with false outrage and thunked my goblet on the table. “I’ll tell them the truth: he abandoned me. It won’t surprise them. They’ve known he was crazed by the mere mention of Mona, though they never knew why, and I have no intention of telling them. Akantha’s dead. Let her evil be buried with her.”