by Jules Watson
Around Samana, the soldiers fell into a deathly hush, those by the gate drawing away to let their commander pass onto the open road. He moved slowly, as if dazed, and seemed to see no one. Yet when he spoke, his voice rang out over the throng with as much authority as it had ever held. The rage was gone from it now, and yet Samana was more afraid of this calm than any blows from his hand.
‘Command my legates and tribunes to attend me,’ Agricola directed his secretary, hovering by his elbow. Summon also the primus pilus of each legion. I want them in my quarters in one hour.’
‘Do you not wish to bathe first, sir?’ the secretary suggested, trying not to eye his commander’s filth-encrusted robe.
Agricola turned slowly to stare at him and, although Samana could not see the look, the officious secretary froze. ‘Call them to me,’ Agricola said again, his voice like winter. ‘They will all attend me by nightfall.’
Samana shrank back against the temple wall as Agricola passed, shivering uncontrollably, though the sunlit days had warmed the mud brick. She did not understand what had happened, but her belly roiled with a sick fear. As the other soldiers drifted away, she stood and pondered what to do. She did not wish to be near Agricola, and the only other men with whom she had enjoyed discreet liaisons were being called to attend their commander. Biting her lip, at last she came to a decision, and moved off down the path. One of the tribunes was very young and greedy, and cared enough about his position to remain silent on the subject of her occasional visits, when she sought the company of a firmer body.
She would hide there in his room until he returned, at which time she would draw from him, with her lips and hands, what had transpired in the command meeting.
Deep into the night, Agricola’s quarters were still a hive of activity, bustling with men arriving and leaving, their orders in hand, noisy with calls for wine and food, and the raised voices of his officers as they pored over the maps, debating and weighing plans.
The edge of the sun was just rising over the eastern ground between the camp and the flat waters of the estuary when Agricola was at last done, and at last alone. He stood in his outer doorway, watching the feeble rays creep over the camp palisade, outlining the tile roofs of the new barracks, gilding the apex of each of the thousands of tents, gleaming wet with dew, and the pale dome of the bath-house. Far away, the mist rising from the Forth obscured any glimpse of the northern shore. As the sun warmed Agricola’s clothes, the blood stench reawakened and, although it turned his belly, he forced himself to breathe in.
It would be a reminder, this day, of how close he had come to losing himself completely, and how deep his penance must run for the deaths of all his soldiers, and the loss of his son. It would remind him of his child’s heart, beating no longer, of the outrages committed against Roman citizens by these savages, of the vengeance that Agricola was now bound to extract from this land, with its whore of a Goddess and her lying promises.
For Agricola had been bound to this new course not only by the will of his own gods, but by the illumination that had come to him in the temple. As he slashed the artery of one great ox, and tasted hot blood running down his chin, as he drew the incense smoke deep into his lungs, searing them, all the lascivious desires that had consumed him for months had been utterly burned away. And so too, he realized then, this land Alba must burn.
A shuffle came from behind him, and he turned to see his body-slave clearing up the platters of half-eaten fowl and drained cups of wine. ‘I wish you to find the Votadini whore, and bring her to me tonight,’ Agricola said quietly.
The slave’s eyes darted to one side.
‘I do not care who she is with,’ Agricola added wearily. ‘It matters no more. Find her and tell the prefect Marcus to hold her in the bath-house until dusk. Then someone is to bring her here. And heat me water; I will wash now.’
Biting his lip, the slave bowed and scuttled away towards the tribunes’ quarters, and Agricola turned back to the sunlit east, where Rome lay.
He had been kind and just, but like a primitive beast, Alba continued to bite the hand of friendship and peace that his empire extended. Finally, it was time for it to pay, in blood and burning, razed crops, dead women and children.
All the children of Alba, in payment for his own.
At first, Samana had raged at her confinement in the bath-house, stamping up and down, and working herself into a state of fury.
Yet after some hours, she realized she could not afford to give vent to such emotion. The only hold she had on Agricola was sexual, and it had proven a strong one so far. All this overwrought storming was making her red-cheeked and dishevelled. When she came before him, this was not what he would want to see. He valued her self-possession, her calm intelligence and her startling beauty, and these she must give him. She needed to dredge up an air of complete assurance that she was by his side, bonded to him for ever. She had to find those parts of herself despite her thudding, erratic pulse, which gave her no peace and made her feel sick.
So in the time left to her, Samana bathed her face and body in the cold pool, straightened her clothing, combed her hair, and racked her brains for any scrap of useful tactical information that she had left to offer. There was nothing. She bit her lip, wondering what lie she could fashion that would hold him. And then she remembered the burning eyes of the blood-drenched man, and she put aside thought altogether.
Eventually, two soldiers came inside for her, and Samana emerged from the bath-house into deepening dusk. As they walked with her up the path she had trod so many times before, she turned at the highest point and looked out over the basin of the Forth. The breeze was growing colder off the sea, and it lifted Samana’s unbound hair, drying the dampness at the nape of her neck. She filled her lungs with it, attuning herself only to surface things.
The camp sat as a dark, rectangular scar amid the wilds of Alba, with its creeping tangles of encroaching woods and looming hills. Samana ignored what her land was telling her, and focused instead on the straight lines of tents and barracks and walls within the rigid confines of what was Roman: the smell of campfires; the whinnies of horses; the shouts of men gaming with dice.
She did not venture deeper into herself, for there her priestess senses were alert to other things, dangers and threats she did not wish to face. These prescient glimpses stirred within her, but she would not give in and examine them closely. They would make her weak and fearful, and she could not afford to be weak before him.
The room Samana entered in Agricola’s quarters was more familiar than her own home. She had shivered through one winter here, on a hill exposed to the north winds, and endured the stench of men and horses through more than one summer. She could barely remember now the noises of her own dun, for the myriad sounds of Roman life had formed the background of each day for two years now.
Agricola sat at ease in one of his chairs beside the lit brazier, a bronze goblet held loosely in one hand. Lamps filled the room with warm, soft light, and beside him was a three-legged table set with a dish of oysters and a silver spoon. Samana glanced at him cautiously, and saw that he was now bathed and dressed in a simple white tunic belted with gilded leather. All trace of the bloodied madman was gone. In fact, he looked much more as she had first seen him: alert but relaxed, his hooded glance revealing nothing.
Relief trickled into Samana’s heart, and her shoulders lowered. ‘You sent for me, my lord?’ She pitched her voice the way he liked it, rich and throaty, and was pleased to see Agricola’s mouth lift at one edge.
‘Come,’ he said, indicating the chair next to him. ‘Enjoy a cup of our finest wine; the civilized nectar you covet so much.’
Gingerly, Samana sat in the chair, a little discomfited at the formality of Agricola’s manner. Then, as she drank the proffered wine, Agricola reached out and took her other hand, turning it over to stare at the glittering rings that adorned it, all gifts from him. She could read nothing in his lowered eyes as he traced fingers over the soft skin of
her wrist. There, the blood beat swift and shallow; a sign of fear she could not hide.
‘What do you want with me tonight?’ she murmured, taking back her hand. ‘How can I please you?’
Agricola smiled, eyes still lowered. ‘Yes, I do want something from you. Something that will please me very much.’
Samana saw her chance. Resting the cup on a table by her side, she slid to her knees on the rug before him. Her hands spread themselves over his chest, and then she realized she did not recognize the tunic he wore. It was of fine linen, so fine that she could glimpse the grey hairs of his chest through its folds.
‘I will do anything to please you, lord.’ Samana took Agricola’s hand and cupped it around her breast. ‘Anything.’
Agricola’s eyes met hers then, and there was a fire there, though unlike any she had seen in his gaze before. ‘You are a woman of rare appetites, are you not?’ he murmured now, drawing his hand back to his lap. ‘I have discovered there is little in the bed furs that you will not do.’
Despite his throaty tone, Samana’s skin pebbled with a sudden chill. ‘Everything I do is to please you, my lord.’ She tried to smile, though her lips stung from his earlier blows.
Yet Agricola only clicked his fingers, his eyes sliding away. ‘Ay-met, come.’ It was only then that Samana sensed another person in the room; someone who had been waiting in Agricola’s bedchamber all along.
The huge figure blocking the doorway walked forward into the lamplight: a strange man, foreign. He was tall and almost obscenely broad, his torso naked, his loins clad only in a short, pleated linen skirt. His face was dark-skinned, his eyes black but impassive, and he kept his gaze on the wall over Agricola’s head. His hulking muscles were oiled, and his arms were clasped by gold bands of a serpent design. His skirt was held with a belt of chased leather, buckled in gold, and from it hung an unsheathed dagger with a jewelled hilt.
‘He is an Egyptian,’ Agricola offered, dangling his cup in his fingers. ‘Tacitus sent him on a ship two days ago, as a gift for me. He thought he would make an amusing bodyguard.’
As Samana continued to stare at the man, mouth agape, Agricola let out a dry chuckle that did nothing to reassure her. ‘Of course, I do not think these people really go around dressed like that any more; perhaps it is a jest on my son-in-law’s part.’
Samana’s tongue had gone dry, and there was a warning buzz in her ears. She groped for her wine cup on the table and drank deeply. ‘Perhaps,’ she responded woodenly, her eyes fixed on her feet.
Abruptly, Agricola leaned forward in his chair, one hand clenched in the folds of his tunic. Now she knew it was Egyptian linen – she had heard of its fineness. ‘Ah, but perhaps there is something else you do not know, lady. These Egyptian soldiers are bred for height and strength, and with that comes a … shall we say … corresponding length and breadth of the sexual organs.’
Samana started, her cheeks flushing. ‘Indeed.’
‘Unless one is a eunuch; they have those, you know. Are you a eunuch, Ay-met?’
The subject in question must have shaken his head, though he was no longer within Samana’s field of vision.
‘Wonderful!’ Agricola sat back, taking up an oyster with the silver spoon. Samana’s eyes darted cautiously to his face, watching his throat as he gulped the meat. ‘Then I wish to watch while this man takes his pleasure with you, Samana. That is what will light the fire in me.’
Samana’s cup jerked, spilling red wine down her hand. She stared at Agricola as she quickly licked it, trying to force the sudden fear away from her face.
‘You have been such an entertaining bed partner, that I find myself growing tired of our usual diversions.’ Agricola shrugged one shoulder. ‘I need something different.’
Samana clasped the cup firmly between her shaking fingers. He wishes to reassert his power over me, that is all, she thought fiercely. He wishes to put me in my place.
She glanced from under her lashes at the burly, silent Egyptian, his strong, corded thigh muscles gleaming with scented oil, his smooth chest rising slowly up and down with each breath. And Samana realized, with the slightest stir of perversion, that in other circumstances she would find it no burden to lie with this man, while being watched by a hundred Roman officers. But not now, for Agricola’s manner was unnerving her, with its whiff of scorn underlying every word.
Trapped, Samana struggled to breathe calmly through her nose, staring hard at the rings that glittered with such mockery on her fingers. One of them was the head of Mercury, the trickster god. The other was Bacchus. Agricola had shown some private amusement when he gave her that one, though it had taken some time to wheedle the reason from the slave; that Bacchus was a god of hedonism, wine and debauchery. This was the Roman world which called to her, then, the world for which she lusted. She could hardly quail now, at its first test.
‘Very well, my lord.’ Abruptly, Samana stood up before she could change her mind, resting the cup back on the table. If it will please you.’ She was a fine actress, after all.
She stood before the Egyptian, waiting until his eyes at last travelled down from the wall to rest on her. Then, holding his dark gaze, she unclasped the two brooches that held her dress, letting the soft folds of wool fall to the ground around her feet. The man’s eyes roved over her nakedness almost hungrily, pausing at each breast and dropping to the cleft between her legs. He only broke this scrutiny to glance once at Agricola’s face, over her shoulder.
Whatever he saw there must have encouraged him, for at last the linen of his skirt stirred as he grew hard. Samana thought about going on her knees to take him in her mouth, but knew, with a sinking feeling, that she could not. Somewhere, deep and buried in her now, she was still a queen. He must worship her – yes, that was it. He must worship her beauty.
Tossing her hair back boldly, Samana began to caress herself, her hands cupping her breasts, rubbing the nipples until they rose against her fingertips. Then she slid her palms over the curve of her hips, moving her feet slightly apart.
The Egyptian’s eyes followed her hands, until she saw that his skirt was standing out from his thighs like a tent. Beneath their feet a thick rug lay, muddy from the passage of many boots, but nevertheless the only soft thing on that hard floor. To this Samana now drew the dark man, folding down to lie on her back, trying to keep her breath even as he lowered himself over her. For a moment the Egyptian paused, his weight held on his thick forearms, the sinews standing out with effort. Yet it was not her face from which he sought permission, but Agricola’s. So Samana did the same, and it was Agricola’s eyes she met as the first thrust came, a painful, dry entry because of the man’s size, and her own fear.
At the second and third thrusts, Agricola’s face remained immobile, his gaze inscrutable. He looked neither excited nor affronted, and when Samana gasped – a gasp of pain she disguised as pleasure – a mere flicker passed over his eyes.
The Egyptian was grinding faster, arching himself over so that he could reach her nipples with his mouth. He sucked on them painfully, but it only merged with the pain between her thighs, and Samana gritted her teeth against both, desperate not to cry out. The man’s grunting grew deeper, and he grasped the leg of the chair for purchase, so he could drive into her harder.
Then suddenly Samana came to herself, realizing that she must excite Agricola, please him, or he would be angry. So she forced herself to moan, and clasp her legs about the thighs of the Egyptian, arching herself up to him so that his thrusts battered painfully at the gate to her womb. Gasping, she closed her eyes, seeking for some shred of desire that would ease the passage …
One face came to her then, a man who had stoked in her the hottest of flames. A man she hated, but whose memory could still melt her body. So Samana clung to it then, the memory of Eremon of Erin, his dark hair falling about her face, his broad back tensing beneath her hands. And mercifully she felt her cheeks flush, and the softening begin inside. Her breath, which was being pushed out of h
er by each thrust of the Egyptian’s body, now quickened of its own accord, fluttering high in her throat.
Eremon, she repeated to herself. Cariad …
A hiss broke through Samana’s trance, and her eyes flew open to see Agricola standing right above her head, his eyes glowing in the light of the lamps. ‘So the whore of Alba is laid open once more, as she will always be.’
Ice suddenly flooded Samana’s veins, the cold of premonition, and she clawed at the shoulders of the man impaling her. Yet he pressed down harder, his face a dark mask of determination, and when she felt the hot spurting begin within, she could only wrench her head back and glare at Agricola with fury, her throat long and exposed. ‘Bastard!’
Agricola only smiled. ‘Fitting isn’t it, my whore?’
Then his eyes flickered over her head to gaze into the face of her attacker, and Samana gasped and pushed upwards with all her strength, as the man’s oily mouth came down upon her split lip and bruised cheek. From far away, it seemed, she heard Agricola speak once more.
‘Did it never occur to you, queen of traitors, that in the end you would be one risk too many?’
Samana tried to scream, choked by the writhing tongue in her throat, but it was too late. With the last of her priestess senses, long scorned, she clearly felt the dagger enter her throat, before the eternal darkness took her.
CHAPTER 63
The trills of the thrushes and robins rippled through the sunlit woods, along with the trickling of water into Linnet’s pool. Rhiann was completely still, the cacophony of bird calls and wind in the leaves and creaking branches the only external senses penetrating her trance.
For inside, her blood was running to another tide, as the circle formed by Caitlin, Fola, Linnet and herself pulsed with warmth. The heat flowed from Caitlin’s hand on her left, and out through her right hand to Fola. In between, Rhiann’s whole body vibrated like one of Aedan’s harp strings.
