The City War

by Sam Starbuck

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  About The City War

  The City War

  Glossary

  Also by Sam Starbuck

  About the Author

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  http://www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The City War

  Copyright © 2012 by Sam Starbuck

  Cover Art by Petite-Madame VonApple, http://bit.ly/v6FsKa

  Editors: Tiffany Maxwell and Rachel Haimowitz

  Layout: L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at marketing@riptidepublishing.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-937551-56-8

  First edition

  November, 2012

  Also available in paperback as part of Warriors of Rome (Vol. 1):

  ISBN: 978-1-937551-55-1

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  Senator Marcus Brutus has spent his life serving Rome, but it’s difficult to be a patriot when the Republic, barely recovered from a civil war, is under threat by its own leader. Brutus’s one retreat is his country home, where he steals a few precious days now and then with Cassius, his brother-in-law and fellow soldier—and the one he loves above all others. But the sickness at the heart of Rome is spreading, and even Brutus’s nights with Cassius can’t erase the knowledge that Gaius Julius Caesar is slowly becoming a tyrant.

  Cassius fears both Caesar’s intentions and Brutus’s interest in Tiresias, the villa’s newest servant. Tiresias claims to be the orphaned son of a minor noble, but his secrets run deeper, and only Brutus knows them all. Cassius, intent on protecting the Republic and his claim to Brutus, proposes a dangerous conspiracy to assassinate Caesar. After all, if Brutus—loved and respected by all—supports it, it’s not murder, just politics.

  Now Brutus must return to Rome and choose: not only between Cassius and Tiresias, but between preserving the fragile status quo of Rome and killing a man who would be emperor.

  Marcus Brutus the Younger had taken the road out of Rome to his country house many times since he’d had it built. Early in the day, the entourage would leave his house in the city, silent and sullen in the hot summer morning, the horses coughing in the dusty streets until they’d left Rome’s gates behind them. It was a little less than two days’ ride, and the servants and guards he brought with him knew the journey well enough by now; they began to cheer up around mid-day, knowing they’d be stopping soon at the isolated well that marked the halfway point of the first day’s ride.

  Aristus, riding at the head of the train with Brutus, laughed when the sad little well appeared. “I see now why they were restless.”

  “Lazy bastards. Don’t even want to sit on a horse for half a day,” Brutus grumbled, dismounting.

  “You’ll feel better once you eat,” Aristus replied, well-used to Brutus’s tempers, less frequent now than when he’d been a student under Aristus in Greece. Brutus waved him off, searching out the anonymous weatherworn god of the place, clearing dead leaves from it and making a quick offering while the guards spat in the dust and joked with each other, and the servants settled in the shade of the lone tree to fan themselves.

  Aristus dunked his head in a bucket of water from the well and came up dripping, laughing, his pale white teeth gleaming in his tanned face, the darkness of it proof that he was no Rome-born patrician. Brutus took a moment to admire him: hair plastered to his head, moisture running down the thick column of his neck, his white tunic clinging to his shoulders. His dark hair was beginning to show silver in it, and in deference to Roman custom, he’d cropped it short in the patrician style, the fashion set by Caesar. Caesar himself wore it with a few long locks in front to remind them all that Gaius Julius was the new Alexander, the man who would see Rome made queen of the world. Brutus couldn’t help but admire the arrogance of it, though he knew Caesar too well to hold him in awe. At least he thought he did. Lately he wasn’t sure if he knew the man at all.

  And this wasn’t Caesar, at any rate. This was Aristus, once his stern teacher, now his friend. Brutus had long since learned more than Aristus could ever have taught him, but he still respected him—and he was still a fine man to look at.

  Aristus caught him looking and flicked water at his face.

  “Porcia would have made this a proper party,” he said as they settled in to eat. “A litter for her, some maids, a few slaves . . .”

  “We have enough,” Brutus grunted. “Besides, she likes the city.”

  “Your honorable wife could do to like her husband a little more and the city a little less.”

  Brutus laughed. “My honorable wife has the same lover I do.”

  Aristus glanced at him, raising a dark eyebrow. Brutus raised one back.

  “Rome, Aristus. The city is our love; the people of Rome are our concern.”

  “So why are we leaving?”

  Brutus angled his head from side to side, listening to the bones pop in his neck and shoulders. They still had far to go, and he hadn’t slept well the night before. Rome unsettled him these days. There was a smell in the air he didn’t like, though Porcia teased that it was just the way Rome smelled in the heat of summer.

  “It’s cooler at the villa,” he said with a shrug.

  “Hardly much of a reason, Brutus. I don’t mind a jaunt in the country, but surely it’s not leisure. It never is with you, and you’ve been moody for days. It’s not Caesar, is it?”

  “No,” Brutus answered flatly.

  “He’s given you plenty to thank him for.”

  “I’m a patrician. Much of it was mine by right to start with.”

  “I thought you and he got along. Despite the . . . unpleasantness of the last war.”

  “We do, to a point. I’ve known him since I was a child. But you can’t let family interfere with politics. No, it’s just . . . I love the city, but sometimes to see it properly you have to look at it from the outside. I learned that when I came to study with you. Rome is the beginning and end of the world, but there are other worlds.”

  “Is that what you think you’ll get at the villa rustica? Perspective?”

  “Well,” Brutus said, thinking over conversations he’d had recently—hints fellow senators had dropped, seditious sentiments a few loose-tongued men had expressed.
Caesar was a threat, but there were also threats against him. “That’s part of it.”

  Aristus smiled at him, clearly aware he was treading close to danger, and changed the subject. “Now, the important question is this: is there anywhere to swim?”

  Brutus laughed. “There’s a river on the estate. You’ll be able to do more of that than I will; I have some local politics to see to.”

  “Dealing with the country bumpkins?”

  “Shouldn’t be unpleasant; most of them are old soldiers. Foreigners who earned their citizenship and land grants from service.”

  “Well, that won’t be so bad.”

  “It’ll be easy, after the city. All right, on we go,” he called, and the servants began to pick themselves up from the ground, dusting down their clothes. The house guard remounted efficiently. Aristus shook himself like a dog and wiped his face with the collar of his tunic before mounting.

  They had three servants and four guards when they left the well, Brutus knew that. People passed on the road sometimes, both mounted and walking, but he paid them little mind until he called a halt for the night, wheeling his horse, and counted eight in the party, not including Aristus and himself. The servants were fussing angrily at an interloper near the back of the train, and Brutus rode back through the guards to investigate.

  “Get on your way,” one of the servants said, swinging an arm wide. “Go on, we don’t need beggars or horse-boys.”

  “Senator, the boy won’t go,” another one implored, and the boy they were trying to shoo away ducked another well-aimed punch. His horse danced aside daintily, a nimble beast but big—too big for the slight figure riding him.

  “Senator Marcus Brutus,” the boy called, holding the creature steady. “You should teach your servants some manners.”

  “I’ll teach you some manners,” one of them replied, and Brutus grabbed the servant’s horse’s bridle to keep him from chasing after the boy, now pacing the large, powerful charger back and forth at a safe distance. He handled the big animal well, but Brutus saw the muscles in his arms knotting with the effort. One of the guards wheeled his horse and rode back to investigate, giving Brutus a questioning look. Troublesome boys were generally beneath their notice.

  “Go tend the horses and make a camp,” Brutus ordered. “Go on, I don’t need you defending me.”

  “But Senator—” one of the servants began.

  “I said go, or I’ll have you flogged on your ass and make you walk tomorrow.”

  He waited until they turned off the road and began to make camp, watching the guards build a fire and the servants unpack their bedrolls. When he was certain everyone was preoccupied with other matters, he addressed the boy again.

  “Fine horse you have there,” he said, taking in the boy’s threadbare clothing and the old, worn leather of the saddle.

  “It was my father’s,” the boy said, and then after a pause he added, “He was a cavalryman in the war.”

  “Caesar’s side?” Brutus guessed from the way the boy hesitated.

  “Yes, Senator.” A defiant look; even in the country they knew Brutus had fought for Pompey, though few still remembered Caesar’s edict that Brutus should not be killed in battle.

  “A freedman?”

  “A citizen,” the boy said firmly. “He taught me Marcus Brutus was a friend of Roman citizens.”

  “Those who earn it,” Brutus agreed, eyeing him. He couldn’t be more than sixteen, snub-nosed, pretty enough in the way of young men. “What business do you have with my servants?”

  “None,” the boy replied. “My business is with you.”

  It was sheer insolence, but this bold child on a war horse interested him. “And what would that be?”

  “I have no family, and my father’s farm was sold off to pay his funeral debts. I heard you were coming through on the way to your great villa,” the boy said.

  “Are you charging a toll on the road?” Brutus asked with a grin.

  “No sir, but a man like you with so many fine animals needs a horse-boy. Your servants are lazy and your guards are tired.”

  “I’m not interested in hiring a strange boy to look after my horses.”

  “See for yourself,” the boy said, trotting his horse in a circle around him. Brutus watched him warily. The horse was brushed to gleaming, even with the dust on the road; his eyes were bright, legs stepping high, and he seemed well-fed. If he was the boy’s, and if the boy could control him, then that was certainly proof of skill.

  Brutus considered him. “Do you know what happens to children who are insolent to senators?”

  “Whip me if you can catch me,” the boy replied.

  “Why aren’t you in the army?”

  “Why won’t you hire me as your horse-boy?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I’m the best there is.”

  The boy gave him a small smile and the barest flicker of a wink, and Brutus wondered if he was promising him favors as well as good service. Either way, he was amusing at least.

  He reached into the pack slung on his saddle and dug into his purse for an assarius, tossing the small coin across to the boy.

  “Ride ahead tonight,” he said. “I’ll expect the stables prepared when I arrive.”

  The boy nodded, tucking the coin into the belt of his tunic, and wheeled his horse around.

  “What’s your name?” Brutus inquired.

  “Tiresias,” the boy replied.

  “Greek?”

  “Not me, only my name.” Tiresias tossed him a salute before Brutus could react to the eccentricity of a Roman boy with a foreign name. “I’ll see you tomorrow at your villa, Senator!”

  Brutus watched in amusement as the boy went. Then he returned to the camp, leaving his horse for the servants to feed and curry with a stern admonition to make sure it was done well. If a farmer’s son from the countryside had noticed his servants neglecting his horses, perhaps it was so.

  Aristus was waiting for him by the fire, chewing on a lump of bread. “What did the beggar want?” he asked, offering Brutus half.

  “A job, of all things,” Brutus replied, accepting it. “Son of a veteran. Had a good horse. Wants to be a groom in the stables of a senator. Gave me a lot of cheek, too.”

  “And you hired him,” Aristus surmised. Brutus shot him a grin. “You always were a sucker for someone who isn’t afraid of you, Marcus Brutus.”

  “I find courage and plain talk well near irresistible,” Brutus replied. “Pass me that jug of wine, and let’s enjoy the evening, shall we?”

  The guards stood watch or slept back to back that night, and the servants curled up together for warmth as the heat of the day ebbed. Brutus lay by the fire, his head resting on his saddlebag. Aristus lay nearby, his head near Brutus’s, face turned up to study the stars.

  “Do you remember your astronomy lessons, back in Athens?” Aristus asked, voice soft enough that the guards wouldn’t hear.

  “Are you going to give me a test?” Brutus asked sleepily.

  “Just curious.”

  Did he remember nights spent on the cold plains outside the city, learning the movements of the stars and the shapes of the constellations? Did he remember the stories Aristus had told him, obscure old myths about heroes who were only remembered because the gods had placed them in the sky?

  Did he remember Aristus taking him at the age of fifteen, the way Greek teachers took their students—out in the empty countryside, lying on blankets in the dust, Aristus’s hands on his face, his arms, his hips? He remembered kisses and bites along his shoulders, the slick slide of a cock tight between his thighs, his own pressed against Aristus’s belly. It was better than the whores in Rome or the slave girls other men told him to enjoy: his fingers curling against the firm muscle of Aristus’s chest, his pure joy at being taken by another man.

  That first time, overwhelmed at being accepted into his teacher’s embrace and with all the virility of early manhood, he’d come messily and too soon.
He’d spilled over at the first touch of Aristus’s hand, shame and climax mingling as he pressed his face into the older man’s throat. Aristus had just laughed softly and shifted, climbing over him to take him from behind, Brutus drowsy and easy, willing to let his teacher do as he wished. Always willing to let Aristus guide him, at least until he was recalled from his studies to Rome to become a soldier.

  Aristus had never touched him since. If his old teacher wanted a claim on him now it would be too late, but Brutus felt an ache for the simplicity of what he’d had then. When he’d been a student, it was permitted.

  “I remember,” he said.

  Aristus exhaled softly.

  “Do you miss it?”

  “It wouldn’t be appropriate now,” Aristus replied.

  Brutus felt his body stir a little at his tone, regardless. He shifted, but the rough rub of his clothing and the weight of the blanket didn’t help.

  “You were such a lithe young man,” Aristus continued, and Brutus huffed. “All legs and slim arms, like a colt. Now you’re a soldier—too broad and solid to my mind.”

  “I’m a senator.”

  “Once a soldier, always a soldier. Besides, you have your decorum to think of. The great and powerful Brutus.”

  Brutus gave up, turning a little more, one hand sliding down his hip under the blanket, hitching up his tunic.

  “A senator doesn’t lie still to please his old teacher,” Aristus continued, and Brutus muffled a groan as he grasped his own cock, already half-hard and willing. “Besides, it’s indecent, a strong man like yourself, taking it between the thighs. People would talk. But you were so sweet, Marcus, so eager to learn.”

  Brutus didn’t quite manage to muffle the moan this time, his hand jerking along his cock, fingers skittering up the soft, hot skin and thick veins. He remembered lying passively, forcing himself to be still until he broke and had to move, thrusting against Aristus’s hard stomach while his teacher had sweated and moaned over him. He remembered lessons discarded in the little alcove of a schoolroom while Aristus pulled him into his lap and touched him, white teeth flashing, low voice urging him on like . . .