by Barry Sadler
"Woman, you will wash! I am not acastrato that will tolerate your foul manners."
Anobia rushed at him, fingers like claws going for his eyes, only to find her wrist locked in a steel grip, her body twisted around and Casca's fist wrapped in her hair. He threw her quickly to the floor and dragged her by the greasy locks of her filthy head to where the tub was waiting. Since his slaves were afraid to touch her, he dismissed them as he stripped the few tattered pieces of clothing from her body.
He felt his breath catch as he saw her fully for the first time. She was like a panther, all female, rippling flesh with no trace of fat. Only her breasts bounced when she moved. She came only to his shoulder but all of her was ready to fight. By the hair, Casca raised her clear of the floor, her feet dangling. Now, unable to do anything to resist his efforts, he swung her almost absentmindedly over the side of the tub and into the water.
She immediately started to fight, struggling against his force. He quickly stopped this new effort by forcing her head under the water, holdingher until he saw bubbles, then raising her for breath and repeating the action over and over until she was finally too weak for further resistance.
He washed her then, with his own hands, as he would have a baby, taking no liberties with her. He was sure and methodical as he first scrubbed her hair, rinsing out the grease, then beginning to work on her skin. After he'd removed the grime he rubbed it into a healthy glow.
In spite of herself, she began to relax. She was tired. It had been a long struggle since she'd been captured and she gave in to the unrelenting hands that were now becoming more gentle as she resisted less and let them do their job. Casca's hands kneaded and stroked, gently, with a sense of familiarity. She felt like a babe in these hands and he was treating her as such. Even when he washed her breasts, his heavily scarred hands displayed no feeling that he was enjoying her helplessness and, in a distant corner of her mind, this bothered her.
The bath was done. Casca raised her from the water and called for fresh jars to rinse her off. When this was done, a robe was brought to wrap around her nakedness and Casca showed her to a small side room where a pallet was laid out. He motioned for her to lie down. Again she tensed. This was to be it! He was going to take her now!
Once again, though, the scarred foreign warrior surprised her when he suddenly left the room, leaving her to lie alone on the pallet. From where she lay, she could see that he'd returned to his room and had now closed the curtain behind him.
Anobia was confused. Why had he bought her if he did not desire her? Why would he pay such a great price, then ignore her? Still confused, she wasunaware of the moment when sleep came to her. Her eyes closed; she was tired, very tired. In spite of it all, the bath had taken some of the tension of her past ordeal from her body, and she slept.
Casca called for wine, then for lamps to be lit in the corners and on the table, before which he sat on cushions, trying to answer the same questions to himself that Anobia had previously pondered.
He sat alone all that night thinking and cursing himself. What was there about the woman? He knew she could be more trouble than she was worth. For the amount of money he'd spent on her he could have bought twenty beautiful good-tempered wenches that would have been delighted to serve him. But there was something! Was it the pride? She had continued to fight even though he'd known she was terrified. She'd fought in the only way she knew.
Dammit! I've no business getting emotionally involved with a woman. The only thing it ever brings me in the long run is pain. But still, there is something to her that cries out to me!
He peeked in on her a couple of times that night, fighting the temptation to enter and lie beside her. He knew he could take her if he wished, but he also knew that there would be scant pleasure in the taking, that she would give him nothing. He might enter her body, but that would be all. He could not touch her mind or her body in that fashion. He cursed himself again for wondering why that should make any difference to him. But it did.
Once, while she was sleeping, he'd seen her shivering from the night air and he had brought a coverlet, laying it gently over her, careful not towake her as he watched her face in sleep. She was beautiful and probably had no more than twenty years of life to her. By the gods, he felt old, and he knew he was old, in ways that normal men could never understand. Old in the way that only trees or stones could know, and he had no business with feelings.
He knew she would be dust and he would still be the same. Time is a heavy burden when the sands run slow.
The night wore on. Casca dozed, still sitting by the table while the oil lamp threw shadows against the walls. He was there when dawn came.
Anobia awoke with a jerk, her eyes at first panicked. She removed the coverlet from her, wondering where it had come from. Rising, she unconsciously touched her hair and moved the curtain aside, walking to the room she'd seen Casca enter. She watched him for a moment before the rustling of the curtain aroused him. His eyes jerked wide open at the sound and immediately locked on hers. He nodded his head then. A decision had been made.
He motioned for her to come to him. She obeyed, walking slowly, stiff-legged, as a frightened fawn might. For there was power in this man. He motioned for her to kneel and she obeyed, wondering why she was not resisting his orders.
His rough hands reached ever so slowly around her neck and, with a twisting motion, his fingers tore apart the slave collar. Lying on the table was the deed the auctioneer had given him. He unrolled the document, took a stylus, and after making some marks on the scroll, signed his name and rank. Anobia watched, wondering. Wearily, hehanded the document to her.
"Here, take it, woman. You're free. I will not have that which is not freely given and I feel that it is best if you leave this house and return to your own people. Surely you will give me nothing but pain if you stay."
In contrast to his rough handling of her the night before, these words were spoken gently. She knew that he'd wanted her and could have taken her. But he hadn't. Anobia put the document of her manumission inside her robe, saying nothing. She was confused in her mind.
Casca spoke again. "You're free to go woman."
She looked deeply into his eyes and she saw a difference. There was something inside them that she'd never seen in a man's eyes before. A terrible sadness, a loneliness that was a bottomless well of grief. These eyes, she knew, had seen more suffering than she would ever know. She saw something else in those eyes now, when he looked at her-the beginning of love was there. That was why he was setting her free. He was afraid of falling in love with her.
Casca waved his hand. "Go from me now!" He tossed her a sack of silver coins. "This will see you back to your people. Go! Leave me now!" He placed his head between his hands, elbows on the table, and would not look at her again.
Anobia rose silently, holding the bag of silver in her hands, and walked out of the door and into the streets of Nev-Shapur.
Casca sighed, letting the breath out slowly. His eyes were heavy. He laid his head on the table and slept again. She was gone.
A tinkling sound awoke him, his eyes heavy with unfinished sleep. The tinkling continued while his eyes struggled to focus on the table. He saw one small sparkle, then another and another as the coins fell in a pile before him.
Anobia was kneeling beside him. When the last coin fell from the pouch to join the others on the table, she dropped the bag atop them and touched his hand with her own, resting her small fingers on top of his. She spoke softly. "You are tired, my master. Come and lie down."
She had tried to leave, but something had drawn her back. Four times she had walked away only to find herself standing again and again in front of his doorway. So she'd returned, ignoring the questioning looks of those of his household. There was something she had to find out.
She took his hand; this time she did the leading as she guided him to her pallet. Heavily, he lay down and she put herself beside him, her heart beating wildly, her mind still confused at what she was doing. She waited fo
r him to take her. She'd never had a man before. Though many had tried, she'd fought them all so savagely that they'd left her in search of easier pickings.
But now, she waited. She almost panicked and ran as his muscled arm went around her shoulder and drew her to him, but this arm was gentle and it was pulling her close into him and she wasn't running. Her head against his chest, her face against his skin, she waited for the hands to take her robe from her. But the hands never came. Casca slept, holding her to him as he would a child, and she finally relaxed, moving her face so that her hair was out of the way and her face and mouth werenext to his chest. Then, she, too, slept. Slept in the arms of the man who'd bought her, then had sent her away. And with that sleep, she, too, fell in love with him. In some strange manner, his not taking her then, the possessive embrace, the closeness, had drawn her to him more than any other act ever could have.
They slept long and deeply, each next to the other. It was nightfall before they awakened and looked at each other, both surprised at what they saw in the other's eyes and face.
Casca kissed her. A long, deep gentle kiss that pulled her breath from her and then gave it back to her, along with his own. They joined and she opened up to him. The first pain was as nothing and it passed quickly. They loved each other. There was no rushing, no heavy thrusting or tearing. It was gentle, almost reluctant in the taking, and the tenderness this rough warrior had shown she never knew existed in men.
Shapur received word that his general had taken a slave girl and he was pleased. A woman served to slow a man down, and it would give him something else to use as leverage if the Roman should ever become troublesome for him and force a change in their relationship. He hoped the Roman would put the wench with child soon. That would tie him even stronger.
Anobia shared the King's wish to bear a child, but though she'd tried as hard as she could to have the seed of her man take place and grow, her womb remained empty. Nothing worked, not even the potions from the wise women. But still, the effort of trying was pleasing and not at all a wasted one.
Casca, for his part, enjoyed the attentions of hiswoman. It was good to have a proper house to come home to. After months of campaigning in the deserts and mountains it gave him a feeling of permanence. He pushed from his mind the well-known fact that he would someday have to leave, content to enjoy the moments of peace and comfort that she could give him now.
He began to entertain a bit, not only the officers of his command, but also Imhept when he was available for good food and conversation. He enjoyed the old man's company more than any other. There was a timelessness to him as solid as the pyramids. Nothing ever seemed to rattle him. Imhept took all things calmly, as though he always had more important things to consider other than such mundane things as living, or work.
A few months after his arrival back in Nev-Shapur, Masuul, his housemaster, came to him to complain about Anobia. With quiet amusement, Casca listened to his tale of Anobia's extravagance. She had gone to the baths, then the hairdresser, then to the most expensive of dressmakers, and had even visited a house of the Hedria for a period of time. It was not to be tolerated for his master's woman to consort with known courtesans and people of ill-repute.
Casca listened to his servant's list of Anobia's transgressions patiently, telling him he would look into the matter. He was actually curious as to why Anobia would be spending time at the house of courtesans, but then he'd never been able to figure out why women did half of the things they did anyway, so why worry? He was content that she gave him pleasure and ease of mind and, if she was alittle kinky, who the hell wasn't nowadays?
The answer to his question, as to why she'd been doing whatever the hell it was that she'd been doing, came to him the following evening.
When he'd returned from the training fields and entered the house, the servants informed him that she refused to come out to see him. She had remained in her room all day, not even coming out to eat, having her meals sent in. He tried to figure out what he'd done to upset her, giving it up as one of the mysteries of the female species. He wondered if women were truly of the same origin as men; they sure as hell didn't act like it at times.
He was relaxing on the divan, sipping white wine from Parnessius, letting his mind go.
The day had been a real bitch and he was worn out. For the past three weeks he had been trying to instill some semblance of discipline into a batch of raw recruits from the provinces and tribute states. About the only thing that the recruits had in common was a mutual hatred of one another and of their instructors. It had been necessary to have two of them given twenty strokes of thebastinado to make them see reason and obey. He winced at the remembrance of his own experiences of the thin whipping rods striking the soles of his feet while imprisoned in Jerusalem. Merely having the feet whipped didn't sound too bad, but the pain was unbelievable. More than fifty strokes and a man would probably never be able to walk again without limping. Unpleasant thoughts; he pushed them from his mind and took another sip of the clear white squeezings of the grape. Masuul's words of Anobia came again to his mind.
"Ahhhhhh shit!" It was bad enough to come home after a hard day and try to relax, let alone having to worry about what your damned woman might be up to. There was never any way of pleasing a woman. But, by the gods, when they wanted to be sweet there was nothing in the world like them to ease the pain in a man's mind and bring satisfaction to his soul. As far as he was concerned, women were both the blessing and the curse of man's existence.
A slight rustling sound interrupted his thought process.
Anobia had entered the room quietly. The reason for her strange behavior in the past weeks was now suddenly clear to him. She evidently had been preparing herself for this moment.
Casca had just taken a mouthful of wine when he'd turned to look and it had damned near went down the wrong pipe at the sight of her. Anobia had been spending her time not in a fit of temper, but preparing herself to please him.
Her hair was dressed in dark, oily, shimmering curls that dangled almost to her waist. Her eyes were accented with Kohl. The soles of her feet and the palms of her hands were reddened with henna. Gold and silver bracelets hung from her neck, wrists, and ankles; most of them set with tiny bells that tinkled softly as she walked.
She was wearing a costume that seemed vaguely familiar to Casca-scarves of fine colored gauze and silk draped in layers over her figure; a veil covering her face to the nose so that her eyes seemed too large for the face.
She moved her hands above her head; on the fingers were tiny brass cymbals. Gracefully, shestruck them once, letting their chimes die away, then struck them again. Casca was spellbound. A thin piping came to him from outside, then was quickly joined by the sound of flutes and the tambour, accompanied by a sambar that twanged strange, almost melancholy, trills. The cymbals on her fingers had acted as a signal for the musicians on the patio to begin.
Anobia moved, her body twisting slowly, beginning now to dance. Casca gulped down half a mug of wine. This looked as if it was going to be one helluva show.
One of her veils came off, then another. She whirled by the incense brazier and dropped a dark, doughy ball of matter into the brass bowl. It immediately began to smoke.
He couldn't speak, his throat had suddenly contracted to the point of closure. He'd always considered her beautiful, but he'd never dreamed of her looking like this. He poured more wine in his mug.
The scarves, one by one, were removed. Emerald green, translucent and glowing, followed next by one of sky blue; each revealing a little more of her body as she danced to the Oriental strains of the music from the patio. She danced, slowly at first, then gaining in tempo until musky sweat glistened on her now half-bared breasts.
The smoke from the brazier, not unpleasant at all, was seeking its way into Casca's lungs, causing him to lose all perspective. Anobia was the only thing that was real now and she was dancing for him, giving herself to him in the only way she knew how. His mind moved with the m
usic and the rhythm of her body. Another scarf dropped to thefloor, to be kicked away by the tinkling bells at her ankle.
She dropped to her knees before him, swaying her upper torso back and forth, the sweat beginning to run freely down the valley of her breasts. Eyes closed, she made love to him. He reached to touch her but she was gone. The time was not now.
The fumes from the incense brazier filled his mind, distorting his surroundings, giving everything a surrealistic flavor. It was all unreal, but evidently… Casca was stoned out of his gourd!
As the last scarf fell to the floor, the chiming of the bells and the cymbal movement of her fingers ceased. Anobia was naked. Her body sweating, her breasts heaving from the effort of dance, she stood before her man for a moment, thighs quivering nervously.
The music stopped, the silence broken only by the beating of their hearts and the pounding of pulses in their temples.
Anobia came to him and they joined, a joining that took Casca to what he believed to be the paradise that the eastern mystics called Nirvana.
It was later on that night, as she lay next to him in sleep, that the memory came back to him. Salome! Anobia had performed the dance of the veils.
There were some months of leisure for him after the Battle of the Five Thousand, and he made the most of it, spending every hour he could steal with Anobia. But Shapur hadn't let him stay idle for long periods. There were always men to be trained and tactics and politics to be discussed.
Shapur had a healthy respect for Casca's mind and used him as a counterpoint to many of his advisors who only told him what they thought he'd want to hear.
Casca, it seemed to Shapur, had more balls than the rest and would tell it like it was, regardless of the outcome.
There were months of campaigning for the King. The borders of Persia were surrounded by hostile elements and Shapur made good use of Casca's experience, subduing one tribe after another.
Shapur had accompanied him once on a campaign all the way to the Indus River, where they'd faced elephants in battle for the first time. He had seen some of the monsters previously in the arenas of Rome, trained to execute prisoners condemned to die, either by picking them up in their trunks and bashing their victim's brains out, or by kneeling on them. The most popular method with the crowds was when the huge animals would impale their victims on their tusks and toss them high in the air.
