by Tanya Allan
There were no literal translations of the English words - homosexual or heterosexual, just givers and receivers.
Sexual relations between women were generally not a matter of great concern, as women were very low on the Roman list of important factors. Most women were little more than chattels within the patriarchal society. Certainly, graphic artistic representations of sexual activity showed men and women in a multitude of poses, undertaking normal coitus and same sex activity. Some threesomes were common with one male penetrating a female while being taken from behind by another man.
The legion was full of men who were givers, with a few who, in the absence of female companionship, were content to have fun with each other. Most men did not care where they stuck their dicks, but tended not to allow anyone to do it to them.
My relationship with Iona was seen as something akin to a turn-on by most men, but as it became obvious that neither of us were willing to allow any of them have their way with us, some became quite rude and insulting.
It was an education to me to understand that women, even high-born ones, were expected to simply exist for the benefit of the men in their lives: their father, brothers, husband and sons. For women to have any form of independence or financial control of their own life was virtually unheard of.
Thus when two attractive women repeatedly snubbed the Roman ideal of what women should be, we became something of a challenge and a turn-on. This would have been a problem if the discipline of the army was not as tight and absolute as it was. In other units, things might have been different.
To be entirely honest, I was not in any way reluctant to form a sexual liaison with any man who tickled my fancy. However, with Iona we formed a bond of companionship that meant we neither needed nor wanted men to interfere in our lives for the moment. We needed each other. I think she needed me more that the other way around. For her, having been severely hurt by men in her life, I was part protector and part healer. As for me, I was living out a fantasy that Ed Ryan had enjoyed for many years.
It was strange, for having a sexual relationship with a woman as a woman was a fantasy I had often enjoyed as Ed. I found the reality was not the perfect solution for a male transsexual that I once believed it would be. It might sound trite and odd, but there was something missing.
At the root of much of my disquiet, was my relationship with Roger, my husband in my previous life in the nineteenth century. As Jane, I had born him children, and in those moments of reflection my memory would naturally return to those days that were in my past, but were now far in the future. That past was dead to me now, and I grieved for it.
I suppose, if I had to be honest, regardless of what gender I actually was, or what I used to be, I actually firmly believed that a man should be with a woman, and vice versa. It wasn’t that I felt any antagonism or negative feelings towards those who were attracted to members of their own gender, but there was something basic, and I suppose in the natural order that a male and a female belonged together for the procreation of the species; regardless of the species.
Whether this is due to my education and programming in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, I have no idea, but even in many of those men who lived in an era of more liberal ideals towards sex, I found this a common attitude.
Gaius was one such man.
As time progressed, we often would find ourselves together. It became obvious that as military minds, we tended to seek each other out in those quieter moments, as we both felt some form of draw towards each other. We had a lot in common, and, as Iona pointed out to me one evening in a bitchy spat, I was obviously attracted to him.
I also found out that it is a mistake to sleep with your subordinates, for if you should fall out, then discipline goes to pot!
Iona was a fiery wench, but she held me in such awe and esteem that she was never willing to assert herself over me and my actions, which, although innocent, could have given her cause for concern.
It was on this march that our relationship changed. One evening, the weather was warm and humid, so I was reluctant to go into the stuffy tent. I sat outside by the fire and was lost in my thoughts of the past, no, the future. I missed Roger and the children. It had been a wonderful life, and although I had no regrets at all, I often wished that perhaps at the end, I should have refused to retain any memories of that life. It would have been possible, but they were such precious memories that I was reluctant to let them go. They were all I had of that wonderful time.
Too often, I’d think of those times. Too often, I’d shed a tear for what once was. My God, how I missed them.
Someone sat beside me. At first, I thought it was Iona, as she often would come out if I failed to join her in bed.
It was Gaius.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Not tired and too hot,” I replied. “You?”
“Too hot, beside the others snore too much. Damn tent walls don’t stifle the damn noise.”
I nodded, slightly put out with his intrusion into my mental journey into my past.
“Mind you, you’re the envy of many men, and she’s the envy of the rest,” he said with an earthy chuckle to detract from a suggestion that it was an insult.
I simply grunted, which made him chuckle even more.
“Had a domestic, then?”
“Gaius, sod off. It’s none of your business. No we haven’t, but we just need a little space every now and again.”
“I know what you mean.”
“How about you; no wife?”
“Came close on several occasions, but the Legion is not good for lasting relationships. It doesn’t do anyone good to have them traipsing around in the van, just waiting to see you hacked to bits or come home missing some limb or other.”
“Don’t you want children?”
“I used to, but what kind of a world is it to bring children into?”
“There is that,” I agreed. “But, if everyone said that, there wouldn’t be anyone to inhabit the world.”
“No, if I could, I’d buy my own bit of land, find a good woman and settle down and raise kids and horses. My problem is I’m not a young man and so my years are numbered. I’ll settle for a good woman. How about you; never want children?”
My hesitation said too much.
“Ah, so you had them and.... What happened?”
I shook my head.
“Too raw. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I understand. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”
I nodded, staring into the fire and thinking of Roger; my soldier husband who fought at Waterloo.
“It wasn’t us, by chance, was it?” he said.
I wasn’t with it.
“Huh?”
“The legion; were we responsible for their death?”
“Oh, no.”
I lapsed into silence. I didn’t actually know how my children died. Perhaps they were still alive when Ed was born. I shook my head, as this was doing me no good.
“It’s the not knowing if they’re going to come home to you,” I said, almost talking to myself.
He nodded and although I wasn’t looking at him, I sensed him looking at me.
“So you had a....?”
“Yes, in another life. He was a soldier.”
“What happened?
I looked at him now, shaking my head.
“No, not yet. It’s still painful.”
He nodded again and took a stick with which to poke into the fire.
“How did you become a warrior?” he asked.
I grinned.
“I joined up, like so many do. How did you?”
Grinning he nodded again.
“The same; although I don’t know any army that signs up women.”
“Nah, well, you soon will.”
We sat, both of us immersed in our own thoughts.
“So, what are you really up to?” he asked after a long silence.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve thou
ght about this a lot. You didn’t have to get captured, and you could have walked out any time you wanted to since you did. What are you really planning?”
He was even more astute than I had bargained for.
“You obviously spend too much time thinking about me,” I said.
He grinned, blushing slightly. Ah, I thought, he does find me attractive.
“Why do I have to be up to anything?”
“Because everyone is to one degree or another.”
“So, what are you up to?”
“I aim to retire, buy some land and find a good woman.”
“How are you doing with that?”
“I’ve found a woman, now I have to live long enough, save enough sesterces and find the land.”
I was surprised.
“Is she nice?”
“I think so.”
“Where is she; Rome?”
He chuckled, shaking his head again.
“Nope.”
“Gaul?”
“No, she’s sitting right beside me.”
I punched him on the shoulder a bit harder than I intended. He fell off the bench onto the ground, moaning.
“That hurt!”
“Good.”
He sat back down rubbing the shoulder and chuckling again.
“See, I’d only let a special woman do that to me.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Yes, it is. Okay, so I’ve got some work to do to win you over, but you did ask. Now, tell me, what the hell are you up to?”
He wasn’t going to give up.
“Would you believe that I’m on a quest?” I said.
“What kind of a quest?”
“To uphold truth and goodness; the usual type.”
“So?”
“Can’t tell you, as it’s also a secret quest.”
He laughed and poked the fire, throwing on another log.
“You are full of crap. Answer me one thing; am I to fear you?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you stay on my side or not.”
“Which is your side?”
“The one with me on it.”
He laughed again.
“I’d have no difficulty staying on your side. I’d like to stay by your side, for always.”
“Always is a very long time.”
“Yeah, so let’s just settle until death parts us.”
I stared at him. Was he trying to send me a hidden message that he was from the future too? I guess he wasn’t; it was just he used an unfortunate turn of phrase.
“You are a very strange woman. I wish I’d met you years ago.”
“I wouldn’t have been here,” I said, truthfully.
“Where do you come from?”
“Ah, the million dollar question,” I said.
“What’s a dollar?”
“A unit of currency in another land. The land in which I was born.”
“Is it far away?”
“Oh yes, you would not believe how far away it is.”
“Will you go back?”
“Hopefully, eventually I will. Who knows?”
“Would I like it there?”
“Possibly, but you wouldn’t like me.”
“Why not?” he asked, frowning.
“Enough questions. It does me no good to talk about that place. I’m here and now, so I have to do what I have to do.”
“You are the strangest woman I have ever come across.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
“Do you mind if I wait around to see what does actually happen?”
“If you must, but don’t get any ideas. I’m not planning on any relationships.”
He glanced at the tent containing Iona.
“You know what I mean,” I said.
He nodded.
“Things change and people change,” he said.
We eventually parted and I went to the tent. Iona had been awake and listening to our exchange. Her Latin was improving, so she caught the gist of our conversation, if not every word.
She accused me of flirting and encouraging him. She then accused me of wanting to be with him more than her. We had a very quiet but rather bitter argument, in which I was rather short and lacked the tolerance I should have displayed. I accused her of being too possessive and that we were both free women.
We both said things that we shouldn’t. Mine probably hurt her more than hers hurt me, and she started to weep. I took her in my arms and we held each other for a long time – until sleep eventually came upon us. The damage was done.
In the end, we started to sleep apart. Our friendship was as strong, but we never slept together again. I felt relief tinged with sadness. Because I had no idea of the future, it was one less complication from which I would have to extricate myself later.
Three days later we changed into full kit marching order, as we were now within striking distance of the besieged fort, as deep in tribal territory. The recon unit was despatched to obtain whatever intelligence on the enemy that we could.
Chapter Seven
The fort was four miles to our north, on the other side of a river and beyond the forest that lay before us on the far side of the meadow.
The camp in the meadow was one of several of the local tribesmen. Supposedly, the Brigantes were currently in allegiance with Rome, but I guess nobody had told these guys. They were at the farthest north of their usual area, so these were probably a sub-tribe, who were not necessarily dancing to the same tune as their bigger tribe to the south. We’d crept in close to observe them.
Many of the girls were of the Brigante’s tribes, and they informed me that this lot were not of the main tribe, if at all. Even their language was different, so that was a good piece of intelligence to take back.
There were around five hundred warriors in this camp, along with women and other hangers on. They had built no defences neither did they post sentries or look-outs. This group was so confident of their own situation that they could be taken by our unit without recourse to the disciplined might that lay beyond the trees to the south.
That wasn’t our job.
I sent out my teams with their tasks clear and succinct. They were not to initiate any form of action. I did not want them seen.
The teams came and returned, each with specific details: numbers of warriors, numbers of horses, types of arms, amount of archers, apparent weariness or not of warriors, how many camp followers, apparent morale, and much more.
One of the factors was the obvious relaxed state of the warriors, for one team observed that many were drunk or on the way.
I wanted to find out how many other camps there were like this one, and how many other groups of warriors were involved in this siege.
I made a decision.
“We need a prisoner to question!” I declared.
“Won’t that give the game away?” stated the male Decurion (NCO) who was one of the instructors.
“It depends on how we do this,” I said. “Iona, pick three of the most attractive girls and meet me by the brook. Tell them to strip down to the bare essentials; no weapons. Preferably at least one of the girls must speak their language.”
I knew that in my uploaded memory, I would have such a skill, but there was a chance they might have missed one of the lesser known tribes, or the dialect might be so outlandish as to be gobbledegook to me.
The warrior we picked was a young man, quite a big lad, but also quite drunk. He was less drunk than some, as at least he was still vertical.
It was beginning to get dark, so was probably after nine in the evening. It is so strange not using a wristwatch. I had got used to that as Jane, but here, there were no time pieces at all. At least as Jane I had a wind-up pocket watch.
The camp had settled down. There was raucous laughter and the pleasurable squeals of women being pleasured, guffaws of drunken men doing what drunken men doing and a lot of men passing out and sleeping where the
y fell.
Blue boy, so nick-named because of the blue-tinted woad liberally plastered all over his face, staggered out of the camp and dropped his pants to relieve himself in the way that only men can.
It was then that his drunken state must have been a disadvantage to him. The advantage was all ours, for we five naked women emerged from the long grass and advanced on him with smiles on our faces. By his expression he must have believed that his lottery number had just come up, for he grinned broadly, stopped peeing as his dick started to become erect and opened his arms to welcome the first of us in.
We pinned him to the ground, and as the girls ran their hands over him, I was pleased to be able to understand his slurred speech.
“Wow, come to me, my beauties! Where the heck did you all come from?”
“We come from the woods. Have you never had a wood nymph before?” I said.
“Wood nymph? They don’t exist.”
“Well, are we here?”
“Yesh.”
“Then, are we not real?”
“I shuppose.”
“How many of your friends are there who would like to avail themselves of a wood nymph, as there are thousands of us?”
“Four hundred and eighty here, six hundred up the valley and another one thousand by the Roman fort. How many do you need?”
“Is that all?”
“Yesh. Which one can I have first?” he said, looking at me.
He then lay snoring on the ground as I bonked him on the head with a hefty branch.
The girls looked at me with open eyes.
“Okay, we now know there are roughly two thousand and eighty warriors. If they’re all as pissed as this lot, we should wrap this up quite quickly. Come on, let’s get dressed and back to the others.”
“Won’t he alert the rest?” one girl asked.
“Him? I very much doubt it. What will he say?”
The girl shrugged.
“He got drunk, had a sexy dream and passed out. He’ll wake up with a headache and think no more about it. He daren’t share what he thought happened as he’ll be laughed at by the rest. Come, let’s go.”
We skirted around the meadow, keeping in the trees and sought the other groups. It was as the warrior had said. The besieged fort was on a slight hill, so far intact. A large group of warriors had encamped all around the fort, and did not appear too bothered about getting close enough for those inside to lob something nasty at them. They were just playing the waiting game. The besieged were short of water and food, so those outside knew it would not be long now.
