by Nhys Glover
Accalia looked at me and shook her head. “I keep expecting to get used to how you do that. But it affects me every time. Watching you enjoy what I normally take for granted makes me hungry. If you were around all the time I would get fat with overeating.”
“You don’t enjoy this? How could you not enjoy food like this?”
She shrugged and finished up, putting her tools away and bundling up the discarded bandages.
“I do not delight in the taste of food most of the time. Eating is something I must do, not something I want to do. When I am working with Ariaratus he has to remind me to eat or I would go all day without food. But when I watch you... I always get hungry.”
A crazy idea crossed my mind. I wiped some of the conserve on my lower lip.
“Taste it,” I ordered.
Her eyes grew huge. “On... On your... I could not!”
I grinned my challenge. Her spine straightened just as I expected it to. This girl didn’t back down.
She leaned in quickly and licked the tip of her tongue over the conserve. Drawing away, she savoured the flavour on her tongue.
“So?” I asked.
“So, what? It tastes like raspberries. Should it taste better because it has your spit on it?”
I laughed. This girl was impossible.
“Try again. Slower this time. You can’t enjoy something you gulp down.” I smoothed on more of the red and sticky goo. It was torture eating it this way for more reasons than one.
Accalia moved in more slowly this time, her eyes narrowed, as if expecting me to play a trick on her. When her tongue licked out to steal the conserve from my lips, I moved in so our mouths touched.
For a moment, I thought she’d pull away. Instead, she stayed still, and I had the pure delight of sharing a sticky, sweet kiss with her. When we drew reluctantly apart, we both licked the remaining conserve off our lips.
“You kissed me,” she accused.
I grinned, popping the last of the pastry into my mouth.
“That was very improper,” she said, sticking her freckled nose in the air.
“Gladiators are never proper, she-wolf. Surely you know that?”
“You are not a gladiator yet.”
I leaned in and dropped another kiss on her open mouth, just because I liked it. Just because I could. I felt giddy with the thrill of what I’d done.
“I’m in training to be one. So see this is me training to be improper,” I answered after I drew away. My smirk made my cheeks hurt.
She tried to scowl at me but ended up grinning when I remained unrepentant. “You are an awful boy!”
I shrugged and grinned back. “I am. Now when you eat these sweetmeats up at the villa you’ll enjoy them, because they’ll remind you of how good they taste on a kiss. My kiss.”
I clarified the last, thinking she might try to repeat what we had done with someone else. The idea infuriated me. Accalia was mine!
“Your kiss. Do you know how much trouble you would be in if someone found out you kissed me?” she demanded, her tone a mix of amusement, censure and... fear?
She didn’t fear me, did she? Surely she knew I’d never hurt her. Kissing her was not meant to cause her pain. Or make her fear me.
But that was absurd. Accalia feared nothing or no one. She was every bit as brave as the she-wolf she was named after. In fact, she was more fearless than I was.
Just to make sure, I said, “You never have to fear me. I would never hurt you.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. Then she laughed, all the oddness and discomfort in the moment gone. “As if you could! I was the one digging around in your open flesh while you screamed in agony. If anyone should promise never to hurt the other it should be me.”
I relaxed and played along. “Lucullus isn’t the only one who was mad with power. Give you a needle and you think you rule the world!”
She laughed loudly then, rolling around on my pallet, holding her stomach. I laughed with her, loving every wonderful moment of it.
Chapter Twelve
ACCALIA
If I had loved my time with Pater, it was nothing to how I felt spending time with Typhon. Even when he was in so much pain, his face lined with it, he could joke and make me laugh. I loved how he experienced everything with such intensity. Pain, pleasure, anger, happiness, and fear. Nothing about him was muted. And when I was in his company I felt fully alive.
Not that I did not feel equally alive with my other pack-mates, I did. But I saw them more as a whole. Only with Typhon had I developed an individual closeness, which had come through many stolen moments spent alone in each other’s company as he healed.
But the pleasure I gained from being with him was tempered with pain. I knew that soon our time together would end and he would go back to his pack and his training. After that I would rarely see him and his focus would turn from me back to where it belonged. I knew also that the closeness we had developed was dangerous. A slave and a patrician could not be friends, and they certainly could not be more than friends, which was how I was starting to feel about Typhon.
I was a just a young girl, I tried to remind myself. My feelings would change as I grew older. This intense longing would not last. And yet, I could not imagine a time when I would not love Typhon. When I would not feel alive just being in his company.
When he kissed me I had known what he was about from the moment he swiped the raspberry conserve on his full bottom lip. And I had wanted his kisses more than he wanted to give them. But I could not let him know that. I could not let him know that I was both afraid and excited by the idea of his lips stroking mine.
Kissing was something I knew little about. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my memory I recalled Pater kissing Mater on the mouth. I remembered that they both usually smiled and exchanged looks meant only for each other when they did so. It was something that showed affection and something more. Something I was not sure I understood.
I had also seen the kitchen slaves kissing young men. Those kisses were not always affectionate. One time I saw one of the guards forcing a kiss on a girl from the kitchens. She had looked frightened and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand when it was over.
When I told Pater what I had seen the guard was sent away. Pater said that a real man did not use his strength against those weaker than himself. It was a message he was determined to get across to all under his power. Men did not force their will on women or children, or even weaker males.
“What about in the arena, Pater? Surely sometimes there a man will have to fight someone weaker than himself?” I had asked.
“My gladiators are only ever pitted against those of equal ability. A good fight is what the crowds want. My men cannot display their skill and valour against a weaker, less skilled opponent. And I do not allow my gladiators to be used as executioners, as others often are.”
“Executioners?”
“Criminals meet their justice in the arena. Often in entertaining displays with wild animals or re-enacting famous battles. In those instances, the criminal is often weaker and ill-equipped to fight. There is no glory in it. I do not want the reputation of my gladiators sullied by involvement in such displays.”
I had tried to understand Pater’s thinking in this. It was not out of kindness that he insisted the weak be protected from the strong. Rather, it was a matter of pride that a code of conduct be maintained. If the women and children on the estate felt safer because of it, that was a bonus. It was not the real purpose. Displaying the glorious honour Roman citizens aspire to was the real goal.
So a guard would be sold off if he forced his kisses on an unwilling woman. And other male slaves would know they must remain true to the code that made the empire strong.
What would happen to Typhon if Pater saw him kissing me? He did not force the kiss on me. Just coaxed and teased me into it. But Pater would not care. He had crucified Typhon’s father for hurting one of his slaves. What would he do to Typhon for kissing his daughter?
/> That was why it could never happen again. Even though it had felt so... lovely. It could not happen again. And so, even though I was sad that I would no longer be able to spend time alone with him, it was for the best. The thought of something terrible happening to Typhon because of me was... too much to bear.
And so the days went on and Typhon went back to the dormitory and began his slow recovery. There was talk that he would not be joining in the initiation into the senior barracks. The boys talked heatedly and at length about it around the fire at our weekly gatherings. But in the end it was up to Xenus whether Typhon took part or not.
Pater’s training program was based on the Spartan model. Those long ago warriors-in-training would leave their mothers at seven and live a primitive and harsh existence, to better prepare them to become the most feared warriors of Greece.
The ten year program Pater, and his father before him, had created was divided into two. For the first five years the boys were trained in fighting and survival skills, but also in basic reading, writing, numbers, as well as some history, religion and Roman Law. The latter included moral values which the law stood for.
At the end of those five years, the boys would undergo a gruelling challenge which, if passed, would allow them entry into the senior barracks. Boys would be blindfolded and taken away from home and dumped into the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They had to make it back to their barracks within the week.
If they passed, they entered the senior barracks where their real training began. Here there were no classes on reading. They were expected to have mastered the rudiments of such learning enough to survive. And history, religion and Roman Law became battle strategies, hunting skills and geography, all designed to make them much more than just gladiators. They became true warriors, who could survive in any situation.
To prove this, when they reached their eighteenth summer they would be taken away and left to fend for themselves on the very edges of the civilized world. They were given all autumn to return. If they did not, they were declared runaways. In this way, Pater was able to test the moral, as well as physical and intellectual training, he had instilled in the young men.
A man who returned was truly a man Pater could be proud of. And because patricians knew the lengths to which Pater had gone to have these slaves prove their loyalty, their value as bodyguards was unmatched. A man with the skills to remain free, but who chose to return to his master, was a slave who could be trusted above all others.
It was why Pater had no concerns about leaving me on his estate with only slaves to protect me. Because they were his slaves. And though the field and house slaves had never undergone the same kind of training as the gladiators, the moral precepts were everywhere. They absorbed them as a sponge absorbs the water that surrounds it.
I had known all this from a very early age. But I had not understood what it meant until my Wolf Pack faced its first major challenge. And Typhon was determined to be part of it. He would not remain and wait another year. He would move on with his pack-mates. No matter what.
I knew his injury was mostly healed, but his physical stamina and strength was not what it had been. Where a week without food and little water, while running long distances and dealing with wild animals, was no significant hardship for the others, for Typhon it would be a taxing feat.
But I had no say in it. Who was I, after all, but a slave girl who had wriggled her way into a position more suited to a boy? I was still only a child and supposedly slave child, at that.
The night before they were to leave, the Wolf Pack made a special night of it. We gathered in our clearing and talked until late, all of us—including me—stuffing our faces with every delicacy I could convince cook to make for me.
These days the kitchen slaves were used to the huge amount of food I supposedly consumed and, though none would admit it, most knew I snuck out at odd hours to do who-knew-what. Most had begun to call me ‘Poor Little Missy’, because I was clearly losing my mind in grief at losing first my mater and then my pater.
So they were kind to me, and I made the most of it.
As we sat by the fire, we devoured the fruit first, while the rabbits cooked over the fire, and then the pastries—some filled with spiced meat, others with honey and nuts. All the while we talked and talked some more. They told me what they had heard about the ‘trial’, as it was called amongst the lads.
I knew a lot more about it than my pack did. I had dragged out all Pater’s scrolls that outlined the entire training program, paying particular attention to the ones on the initiations. I had also made Ariaratus quiz Xenus about the rigors of the event, making it seem like he was determining if Typhon was up to it. I needed to know just how close Xenus was sticking to Pater’s plan. It was to the letter, it seemed.
In the study I had also found a detailed map of the mountains to the east of us, with a road clearly marked on it. Half way along the road a series of Xs marked the spots where the boys would be released. They ran in a rough line north to south half on one side of the road and half on the other, eight Xs in total. None were close enough to the road to hear passing traffic. The boys knew enough about surviving in the wilds to know how to make their way west, which would mean they’d travel home walking parallel to the road without ever seeing it.
The initiates could and would interact with people, especially the closer they came to home. They could say what they liked to get assistance and food, but they could not harm anyone unless threatened with harm themselves.
This was where Pater’s program and the Spartan’s diverged. Spartan lads were encouraged to steal and kill to live off the land. They were considered the scourge of the area.
Pater could not afford to develop that kind of reputation for his boys or deal with the legal issues that would arise if a slave of his killed a slave of another man.
I knew from Ariaratus that Typhon would be positioned closest to the road while the rest of his pack would be distributed as far apart as possible. The initiation would be much easier to undergo as a pack, but that was not going to be encouraged. For once, they would have to go it alone.
It would take them at least three days to walk out, if nothing happened to get in their way. There was a stream that would cut their path, so each would have access to water from it as they went. They knew enough to find flints and start fires, for warmth and to keep the beasts away.
“We will be there to help you if you need it,” Orion was telling Typhon as we lounged on the ground around the fire. I had taken to sitting on the ground rather than on a rock because of the comfort, even if I did get dirtier that way. Comfort was better than cleanliness for me these days. Except when it came to healing.
Typhon nodded, though I knew him well enough to know he was not enjoying being treated as the weak one in need of help. In his mind he was still their equal, even if his body told him differently.
“I do not think any of you will be able to help him. You will be left a significant distance apart,” I said softly, not looking at any of them.
I should have known I could not get away with making such a statement.
“What do you know?” Typhon demanded suspiciously.
“Just that you will have a slight advantage over the others in your positioning, but that in the long run it will not help much. And you will not be close enough to each other to be able to come together, not if you head west as you will be told to do,” I explained reluctantly, gritting my teeth in annoyance for giving myself away.
“How do you know?” Orion demanded.
I shrugged. “I might have asked Ariaratus to ask Xenus. And...”
“And what?” This time it was Talos asking, his brow creased in suspicion.
“Well, I might have looked at the maps in the Master’s study. I saw where you... any of you boys undergoing the initiation... would be dropped.”
“Accalia!” Typhon exclaimed. “Do you want to get beaten? You can’t go snooping around the Master’s p
rivate documents and expect not to get caught!”
I shrugged. “I am careful and the Little Mistress went with me. She was the one who told me what was kept in her pater’s study and helped me find what I was looking for. I tell her about you all... You know that.”
I petered out and looked away guiltily. It was true, after a fashion. The Little Mistress did know all about them.
“If you want to come together then I can show you how to do it,” I said hopefully.
They exchanged looks. “If they’re intentionally separating us, then it’d be cheating,” Orion pointed out reluctantly.
“Not really,” I assured them hurriedly. “No one says you cannot work together, they are just not going to make it easy for you to do so. But boys have found each other in the past and come home that way. No one has condemned them for it.”
They looked unconvinced.
“Look, let me show you on this map.” I sat up, claimed a stick, and quickly smoothed out the dust close to the fire. There was almost a full moon overhead but it would not be enough to see scratchings in the dirt. I needed the light the fire would give me as well.
Four sets of eyes looked on uncertainly as I drew the road, the eight Xs and finally the stream, which ran roughly northeast to southwest. I even added in the town and our estate, which was north of town.
“Now what Ariaratus said was that Typhon will be here,” I marked the first X on the south, “so he has the most likelihood of finding the road and following it home. You others will be here.” I marked the first and third Xs on the north side and the third position on the south. “In the second positions on both sides and the fourth position on the north the others of your year will be placed. Just the seven of you.”
“But if we’re all heading west how will we meet?” Talos asked.
I drew horizontal lines from either side across to the road.
“But I can see how Typhon can now easily find the road. He just has to travel north or north west. But unless we know which X is ours we could wander completely off track,” Orion pointed out.