by Ann Lawrence
The climb up the other side stole her breath. Her hands grew wet with sweat as they passed sentries in white and red and black who stiffened to attention as Kered and Vad passed. At the top of the stair stood a tall temple-like building, this time in a soft cream color with a stone roof. A dolphin arched in the frieze and the sun dominated the peak. Tall round columns, ponderous and weighty, held the temple’s roof aloft. Long narrow steps led to the portico. “The bathhouse,” Vad said.
Kered grasped Maggie’s hand and walked with her up the narrow stairs, nodding to men and women as he went. These folk were less circumspect than those of the outer city, for they turned and openly stared at the new arrivals, and Maggie hoped it was just because of their extremely dirty appearance. All looked prosperous, their tunics of bright colors, some in jerkins, were decorated with gold and embroidery. The women wore long-sleeved gowns with elaborate belts and brightly embroidered flat shoes. The weather was cool, so their sleeves were long, and Maggie could not see many arm rings. Those whose arms were exposed to view had an assortment of one, two, or three bands. She saw no fours and no fives.
Vad clapped Kered on the shoulder, then picked up Maggie’s hand and kissed the grimy palm. “I bid you farewell for now,” he said, then turned and stumbled, catching himself and taking the steps two at a time in a great hurry.
Maggie smiled at his haste. “I suppose poor Vad hasn’t been this disheveled in his whole life.” She gripped Kered’s hand tighter as they followed Vad. “What’s going on there?” Maggie asked as they passed between the central pillars of the bathhouse. Men were lined up in twos and threes on the low steps. Simple stall shelters of striped material had been erected between the pillars, and they had a drawstring curtain for privacy.
“Fornitrix,” Kered said, yanking her forward. “If you have not the coin for a pleasure house, these free women will serve you for a few pennies or a chicken.”
“You mean—’’ Maggie flushed hot and scurried after Kered. She hissed in his ear. “You mean men and women are…those men are waiting to—
“Copulate? Aye.” He pulled her into the chilly shadows of the bathhouse portico. “When we enter, the proprietor will ask our needs. I will answer for us. Slaves do not boldly meet a free man’s eyes. Look down and do not speak. If addressed directly, look to me before replying. There is a slave chamber set aside where you may bathe. After my bath, I will meet you in a robing chamber.”
“I’m very hungry.” Maggie’s head reeled from the myriad scents of the city, and the aroma of roasting meat made her mouth water. She had a sudden craving for a platter of steak.
“I will hurry and see that you dine well tonight. If anyone questions you, just stare blankly as if you are simple and invoke my name. I am well known and few will trespass on what is mine.” He leaned down and stroked a finger along her cheek. “If you wish protection, you will do as I say. Choose another course and I cannot help you.”
“Ker. Don’t go! Let’s skip the bath.” Maggie felt a sudden rise of fear. They’d not been parted for so many weeks. She clung to him.
“Do not slur your words.” He drew her inside. It was dark and cool in a lobby the size of the Capitol. Beneath their feet stretched a beautiful mosaic floor of cavorting sea monsters curled about colorful fish and amethyst waves. As they crossed the expanse of artwork, a man of great weight hurried to them. His belly, draped in a long black robe, led the way. Maggie gaped as she saw that his bare toenails were painted a bright orange to match the nails on his fingers. She thought of a great, stuffed puffin.
“Kered.” The man bowed as best one could with a sixty-inch waist. “A long time, a long time. How may I serve you?”
Kered bowed back. “A bath for me and my slave.”
The man did not look at her, but snapped his fingers. A young girl, tall and garbed in a lavender robe, glided forward soundlessly on bare feet.
“Take our esteemed guest to the changing rooms,” the proprietor ordered. The girl bent in a low bow to Kered and then walked off to an arch that opened off to the right. Kered gave Maggie an encouraging smile and left. Maggie felt deserted.
“This way,” the puffin-man directed, motioning for Maggie to follow. Maggie trailed his waddling figure. They passed through a small, wooden door. The room she entered was whitewashed, humid, and smelled like every other health club she’d ever been in. At least this part was familiar. A tall blonde of Junoesque proportions looked Maggie up and down, her eyes widening and then becoming blank. A jerk of her chin was all the hint she gave for Maggie to follow.
At the end of a corridor, they entered a room with small cubicles, hung with brightly striped curtains. The woman handed Maggie a soft linen towel and held back a curtain.
“Disrobe.”
Maggie took off Kered’s shirt. She edged her tattered panties down and hung both on a hook, then wrapped the scanty towel about her as a cover-up and opened the curtain. The woman led her to a terra-cotta-lined chamber in which steamed a pit of dark water that bubbled and gave off vapors of sulfurous, lavender steam. Sweat instantly broke out on her skin. There were no other people for her to imitate or observe, so she waited.
The woman snatched away her towel and proceeded to scrub her down and rinse her off like an old wreck at a self-serve car wash.
“Who is your master?” the attendant asked, lathering vigorously.
Sense prevented the truth from tripping off her tongue. “Kered,” Maggie said, gritting her teeth and hoping she’d still have skin when the torture was over.
“The warrior, Kered?” The attendant paused in her hearty scrubbing.
“Aye.” Maggie was speaking as he did now, just as he was picking up her slang. She smiled, but the woman did not respond.
“He is much esteemed. ‘Tis an honor to serve him.” Maggie suspected the woman was not speaking of Maggie’s honor but that of the women of the baths.
“Will I see Kered? Can men and women bathe together?”
The woman looked at her as if she’d grown two heads. When she spoke, her words were dripping with ice. “You think to bathe with the free men and women?”
Maggie decided on silence. Her questions had aroused more than suspicion. The woman plucked at her hair and turned her about like some oddity. A scathing remark about the service entered her mind, but Maggie held her tongue. The woman’s curiosity seemed well-piqued and her hands had grown bold, touching and lingering with familiarity.
“Put this on,” the attendant directed after toweling Maggie dry. Despite the rough scrubbing, Maggie felt wonderful and clean. Her skin glowed and a renewed vigor swept through her. She took the proffered shift and slipped it over her head. It came to mid-thigh and was of the sheerest lawn.
“Follow me.”
Maggie attempted to act subservient as she traipsed down a hot, dank corridor. In the distance she heard laughter and voices murmuring. Somewhere water rushed like a trapped waterfall.
At the end of the corridor, the woman turned a key and opened an arched wooden door. She shoved Maggie in and slammed the portal.
Maggie whirled around and grabbed the latch, shaking it frantically. Locked. She could only go forward. This corridor was cool and the tiles beneath her bare feet, cold. She curled her toes and headed down the length of the hall. As she neared the end, the sounds condensed into male voices, arguing, chatting, and laughing. A prickling of apprehension came over her. One end was locked and the other must go to a crowded chamber. She was not ready to face a multitude of people alone. “Damn you, Ker!” she muttered.
She had little choice but to move forward. Within moments, she stood at the entrance to a torch-lit bathing chamber, her eyes searching for Kered in the dim interior. The room was so thick with steam it caught at her throat and clogged her nostrils. She watched a young girl of no more than fifteen or sixteen pour an earthen jar full of water on heated bricks, sending a cloud of steam aloft to wreathe a delicate mosaic on the circular room’s ceiling. The tiles depicted strange birds a
nd flowers, a poignant reminder that she was far from home.
All the patrons were male—and naked. Some sat, some reclined on cloth-draped stone benches. Each had a young and lovely naked girl attending him.
Except Kered.
Kered had two.
He sat on a stone bench and smiled broadly at the two girls who were fussing over him, rubbing his broad chest, shoulders, and back. As they worked, they giggled and played, caressing him with oil, and bending and stroking his arms and neck.
He was aroused. Maggie, who’d imagined him in many nightly dreams, who’d felt every contour of his hard body pressed intimately to hers, had never seen him fully naked. He had always been circumspect in his personal habits. Here, he sat boldly before a roomful of strangers, aroused by the play of the slaves.
Maggie hung her head and clasped her hands to the sheer, and damply clinging, shift. It occurred to her that she’d been sent here deliberately and inappropriately. She was the only person who was clothed. A small commotion made her look up. The girls were pouring jugs of heated water over Kered to soak his hair. She realized the slave girls were twins. One stepped between his thighs and began to soap the dark hair of his chest.
She couldn’t stand it.
Jealously flared and ignited. She wanted to charge the girls and fling them aside and take their place, or crack a jug over Kered’s head. The jug idea sounded best. How could he do this? After their tender times together? For a moment she thought of Tony. Tony, whom she’d not thought of for many weeks. Tony bent over his secretary. This was not the same feeling. This was a deep pain, a full agony. This pain had sharper edges, honed by Kered’s warm smile.
Maggie snatched up a jug and edged along the wall, her hand nearly seared by the heat radiating from the bricks. She had to escape—but not until she’d cracked his skull with the jug and not until she’d given the twins matching black eyes.
Between the gusts of steam and the resulting turmoil, no one would notice her departure. Maggie stifled a moan. One of the twins tipped oil into her hands and stood rubbing them together, staring at Kered’s lap. Maggie didn’t need to guess what came next. Anger roared through her. She raised the jug and charged.
A tall, fair man, handsome and commanding, blocked her way, yanking her close. “What are you doing?’’ he barked.
“L-l-leaving,” Maggie stuttered, clutching the jar against her body.
“Attend me.” The man dropped his robe. He wore only his five arm rings. Three silver on one arm, two gold on the other. Maggie knew what that signified. A councilor.
“No.” Maggie gasped.
“You dare disobey me? You wish a flogging? Discard that shift and put down that jug.”
Maggie spun toward Kered, begging him to see her and help her, but the twins blocked her view. And his.
“Please, sir. I’m not one of the…attendants. I’ve come to the wrong place.” That, at least, was not a lie. She was hopelessly in the wrong place.
The man wrenched her about and thrust her across the chamber to an empty bench. Her feet skidded on the oil-slicked tiles and she fell to her knees, striking them hard as the jug shattered on the tile floor. The councilor lifted his foot and planted a kick on her buttocks. She slid forward, striking her temple on the edge of the bench, narrowly missing the broken chunks of pottery strewn about.
For a moment, Maggie lay by the bench, dazed from the man’s attack. Then she shook her head to clear it. Stand up and defend yourself, she cried inside. She pressed her hands to the floor to gather her strength, but Kered’s strong hands lifted her and wiped the blood that dripped into her eyes. He sheltered her in his arms and faced the councilor. “This slave is mine. Your abuse ill befits your station.”
“You dare to question my punishment of this impertinent bitch?” the councilor snarled.
“Aye,” Kered said, putting Maggie aside. “She is mine.”
“You know the conventions about bringing a personal slave here.”
“I know that you ill-treated her.”
A hush fell in the chamber. Slaves and patrons alike waited breathlessly. Only the hiss of steam broke the silence. Maggie bit her knuckles. The councilor’s face suddenly became neutral. Then he reached out, quick as a viper, and snatched her by the hair, dragging her against his side.
“Look at this hair. Exotic and erotic. You are occupied with the best of attendants…I will take her.”
Kered leapt across the space, slamming into the councilor. They went down in a pile of arms and legs. Maggie scrambled from beneath them. Her scalp burned.
The two men got to their knees and then their feet. They circled each other like naked Greco-Roman wrestlers.
Maggie hid her face. She couldn’t watch wrestling when the combatants were clothed, let alone naked. The sheer embarrassment unsettled her stomach. It wasn’t just their nakedness, it was the blood, her blood, smearing Kered’s hands. And the look on his face—a cold, hard, merciless look. One she’d never seen before.
The councilor kicked out at Kered’s knee, connected and sent him smashing to the slick tiles. Kered hooked the councilor’s leg, laying him flat. They grappled there on the floor, Kered’s oil-slick body making a grip impossible. The air was filled with grunts of pain and the smacking of flesh against flesh.
The councilor, though lighter and slimmer, was quick, his fist merciless. Kered’s movements were slow and ponderous and defensive.
Kered was exhausted. Maggie screamed as they locked their hands on each other’s throats. Kered, his hands like a giant vise, squeezed relentlessly. The councilor’s eyes bulged. He dug his fingernails into Kered’s jaw and throat, scrabbling for purchase, tearing a row of furrows down his cheek.
Maggie grabbed the councilor’s arm and pulled, screaming at the other patrons to stop them. Two men hauled her off.
Blood dripped from Kered’s cheek to the councilor’s. It scented the room. Wagers floated from man to man. The councilor jabbed at Kered’s eyes, breaking Kered’s hold. They slid apart, rose, and faced off again. The councilor snatched an excited twin and threw her into Kered’s arms.
Kered tossed the girl away as if she were a rag doll. The councilor leapt over the steaming hearth stones, beckoning Kered to follow. Kered stalked across the stones, oblivious to their heat. They tangled again, rolling in a soapy pool of water that was dangerously close to the steaming hearth. More wagers flew and Maggie found herself man-handled to the edge of the crowd. A balding man panted against her neck as he held her still—for the winner.
Her stomach lurched. This was not a fight to the death. This was two dogs marking their territory. Winner take all. The fear she’d put aside for Kered’s life resurfaced for her own fate. She stifled a scream and tried to wrench herself from her captor’s arms; she was caught, like a fish on a line, reeled in and ready to be landed by the victor.
Kered pinned the councilor, his powerful arms locking the smaller man like an ugly crucifixion on the floor.
“What is this?” shrieked the puffin-man. He minced through the crowd and clucked like a mother hen when he saw the disaster of soap and oil.
“My dear friends, you must stop.” The proprietor’s words were not gently spoken.
Kered ignored him.
The councilor spat in Kered’s face. The twins wailed. Two huge men, as fat as their master, strutted forward and dragged Kered to his feet.
Kered threw them off. His chest heaved in gulps of air. Abruptly, he turned away from the man still sprawled in the muck on the floor. The councilor did not rise. He lay there bleeding from temple and nose. Daintily, the puffin-man lifted his gown, placed his orange painted toes on the councilor’s ankle, and stepped down with his ponderous weight. “I need no trouble. Concede a draw.”
Slowly, the councilor rolled to his feet. He stalked to where Maggie stood against Kered’s side, then wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Since you have no need of the twins, I will take your place.” He grabbed a twin and took Ke
red’s bench.
The slaves turned disappointed eyes in Kered’s direction, then bowed their heads and began the same play they’d accorded Kered.
“Come,” Kered ordered Maggie, taking her arm and leading her to the far side of the chamber. “What are you doing here?”
“I… A woman on the other side, she sent me.” Maggie turned around to indicate the door through which she’d come. She became acutely aware of Kered’s nakedness, pressed against her. And the eyes of those in the chamber, still expectant, still hoping for more bloodshed.
Kered’s all-too-evident state of arousal brought a sting of perspiration—or tears—to her eyes. “I can’t stay here,” she whispered. She tried to yank herself from his hold, but his hands clamped like iron bands on her arms.
“What about the woman?’’ A muscle twitched in his jaw. She wanted to wipe a bloody smear from his face, but his expression stayed her hand.
“The attendant…she sent me here. Said to follow her, then she locked me in.”
“She made a fool of you. Personal slaves are rare here. These slaves are specially selected to please. One does not come here to have what one may have every day in one’s own home.”
Maggie strained back against his hands, angry again. “Yes, I can see quite well that I’m superfluous.” Just as suddenly as it had flared, her anger died. He had fought for her and defended her. This time, real tears mixed with the sweat on her cheeks. “Please, Ker, take me away. I can’t stay here.”
“Where do you plan to go? I am afraid your path is chosen. Our clothing, now being cleaned, awaits us at the end of the baths. It would appear most strange to go back. Would you wear only this shift and nothing else upon the streets?”
Maggie began to cry. Silently. Kered’s expression softened. He pulled her forward and held her tightly. A murmur of voices rose about them.
