“It is possible that it is your husband who cannot breed, madam. Not you.” Seeming relieved to have the words out of his mouth, he sat back and took a long, messy, relieved chug of wine from a goblet clutched in tense fingers.
I turned to my husband and was met with a face that I had never seen. Seemingly devoid of emotion, it was as if someone I did not know had slipped into Lucius’ body in the moment I had turned away. I did not know the man who was left at all.
I suspected that it was a mask he had donned to hide his shame over his barren state, but its blankness still startled me.
“This patronage is necessary for the survival of our ludus, Alba.” His words were clipped, his fingers in mine tight, and I understood that he was not enjoying what he had to say. “Without it, we cannot afford to continue. We will have to sell the gladiators, and I will have to find some other means of income.” This was yet another unforeseen piece of information. I had been under the impression that we were just as well-off as we had been for the entirety of our marriage.
“But . . .” I stared at the unyielding planes that made up my husband’s face. I did not understand. We needed the patronage but could not have it unless I became with child. And I could not become with child if my husband was unable to provide me with one.
“You are to be mated,” Justinus spoke, and Lucius again turned angry eyes on him. I stood without realizing that my limbs had moved.
“I am to be what?” So many feelings flocked through my being that I felt dizzy, and stumbled, but refused the doctor’s help back into my seat. “With whom?” Anger branded each word with a crispness that threatened to crack.
My marriage vows had deemed that I could have relations with whomever my pater familias—Lucius—deemed permissible, but none had been mandatory except himself, my husband. And never had I ever imagined something like this.
“You will be mated with a slave of my choosing, and you will mate with him at every time that you are ripe, until you conceive a child.” This man could not have been my husband. It simply could not have been. He may have grown distant in recent times, but never before had he sounded so calculating and cruelly certain.
As I stared at him with disbelief radiating from my very skin, I saw a crack form in the calculation.
I did not believe that he wanted to force such a situation upon me. But I also had no doubts that he would do so, if it was what was needed to provide for this family.
“With a slave? But . . . we have only one . . .” I cast my eyes to Justinus, who sat in the corner, looking pleased with himself. “With Justinus? I will not!” I had never liked the man, found him to be unscrupulous and conniving. But we had no other male slaves in the house.
“No!” The response from Lucius’ lips was more forceful than I had expected. “Not Justinus.” There was an unreadable glance exchanged between them again, and I did not like it, though I did not know what it meant.
“Who, then?” And as I said it, I knew. “One . . . one of the gladiators?” The thought both frightened and excited me. Repulsed and delighted.
I knew better than to expect that I would be able to select the one who appealed to me, and many of the others were wild, untamed, and would be fearsome in bed.
The odds were against it being Marcus, and even if it was, I resented not being given a choice.
“I will not!” The fingers that had held mine so sweetly only a quarter of an hour earlier suddenly seemed to belong to an animal, for they clasped my wrist so hard that I knew I would have bruises.
“You will.” I tried to rise, to back away from the stranger that inhabited my husband’s body. “You will do it for this family, or you will be divorced. And if I divorce you, where will you go? You will have nothing. You will be nothing. You will be no better than those that you are turning your nose up at.” The fear wafting off of me like a perfume then seemed to penetrate his façade, at least a bit, and he softened, if only a smidgen.
“You have always wanted a child, Alba. Now you will have one. And he will be mine in all but conception.”
I studied my husband’s face. In his eyes I saw desperation. He did not want to force this indignity upon me, but he did not have a choice, not if we were to keep the ludus. Still, nausea churned in the depths of my belly, and my womb felt heavy. For all I knew, I might already be carrying the child of a gladiator, something I had not considered, for I had assumed that I was unable. And now I was expected to let anyone that my husband chose spill his seed between my thighs, to fuck me until I was pregnant, no matter how repugnant I found the process.
And unless it was Marcus, I would indeed find the entire situation vile.
“I . . .” Lucius was right. I had no choice. I had no money of my own, and was no longer considered a part of my birth family, not since I had taken vows with Lucius. They had no obligation to care for me should I be turned out of this house. I would have to become a slave, and not all slaves were treated as well as the ones under our roof.
Crushed, and yet with a tiny bird of a thrill rioting around my belly, a thrill at the thought of a child in my womb, I sank back, all fight draining out of the soles of my feet. I had no choice, not unless I ran away. And if I ran, I would be forced into slavery. There were no other options.
Taking my posture for the acquiescence that it was—reluctant acquiescence, Lucius released my arm, leaned back, and took his cup in hand. “You will be pleased in the end, Alba. To our new patronage with Baldurus!” His arm raised in the air with such exuberance that his fresh cup of wine slopped over the side, and Justinus and the doctor followed suit, and I found that I could not blame them, no matter how I felt.
If the ludus could grow, could thrive, it would be best for us all.
I did not raise my cup. I would not, could not, rejoice my free will being extinguished with a few choice words. Stunned, I pulled inward, wrapped myself into a tight inner ball of emotion as the men began to discuss who would be the most likely candidate, who amongst the gladiators would have a strong seed. There was mention of a champion. One sentence penetrated my consciousness when it was asked of me, however, and I blinked, bird-like, up into the face of the doctor, who now stood over me.
“When were your last courses, lady?” I had to think before I answered.
He calculated, counting days on his fingers, before speaking words that sealed my fate.
“One night every cycle, until pregnancy occurs. It would be best to begin tonight.”
CHAPTER THREE
The mask quite literally took my breath away.
Shiny and white, a depiction of Juno, the Roman goddess of fertility, it covered most of my face, including my nose, making it difficult to draw breath. But Lucius had insisted upon it.
He had not wanted the man whom he chose to have the privilege of looking upon his wife while he fucked her.
He had given me the choice of masking my mate or leaving him barefaced. I chose the mask. I myself did not want to dwell on the identity of the brute who would force himself between my thighs.
I had no hope that it would be Marcus. There were nearly fifty men who lived and trained in our ludus. The odds were far too low to allow myself any hope.
I drank cup after cup of savory wine as Drusilla attended to my body, my hair, my skin. Though she pressed the occasional sip of water through my lips to counteract the effects of the wine, she otherwise let me be, knowing how I yearned for the blurring of the senses that the wine would bring. Every touch of her hands against me made me shudder, not because it was her touch but because I knew that my husband had ordered it. Lucius had insisted that I be rubbed with oil, scented with perfume, removed of all bodily hair but one slim, perfectly groomed stripe. He would not have one of his slaves see his wife in any state other than perfect. So I had spent my long afternoon being groomed, something that I normally would have enjoyed.
Knowing what it was fo
r, the only way to endure the preparations was to lose myself in the oblivion of wine. I had indulged far more than I ever had before, and when I was led to the room where the event was to occur, Drusilla had to clutch my arm and guide me, to save me from bobbing and weaving my way through our home.
Normally a bit too much wine left me giddy and full of fun. I had slunk over that edge now and was feeling a full sea wave of emotion. The emotion spilled over when I saw my husband, leaning against the doorframe to the most opulent room in our house.
“You are not intending to watch, are you?” I was horrified, and the combination of my incredulity with the overindulgence of wine caused me to speak more freely than I ever had in our marriage. “No. No! I will do as you wish with the brute, but I will not submit to you watching.” I glared, lethally sharp knives arcing out of my eyes to pierce the cool demeanor of my husband.
It worked. Though he looked like he was about to argue, he also donned a cloak of discomfiture, and it made me feel slightly, very slightly, better.
“Alba, I know of your reluctance to do this deed. And though I beg your pardon, we must make sure that it is done.” I wanted to believe that he begged my pardon for form’s sake only, that he did as he wished, and would continue to do so. That he was arrogant enough, sure enough of his authority over me, that he was certain I could carry the argument no further.
But I knew that he did care. I was still angry, still furious that his duties to the ludus took priority over his duties to me, his wife, but I knew that he did not force this upon me lightly.
In my anger, I did what I had never done and carried the argument on. He needed me for something now, for the first time in our marriage, a fact that had occurred to me sometime between my third and fourth cup of wine.
I had leverage.
“Spare me my dignity, at least, husband. If you will spare me nothing else.” The words hit him in his pride, exactly where I had aimed them. Lucius was proud of his ability to take care of his wife and family, had always been—another reason that securing this patronage was so important to him. That I was so upset by his decision surely kept him unsettled, though I knew it would never be enough to make him change his mind.
He closed his mouth, which had fallen open a bit with my outburst. Then it closed again, and determination settled over his features. I could not understand why he was so insistent. While it was common enough for a husband to sleep with other women, the wives of Rome were not always permitted other men. Not fair, to be sure, but it was how it was—I had always suspected, though I would never have voiced the thought, that perhaps the ego of men was simply more fragile than that of women. So why would Lucius want to watch? Would it not make him feel somewhat impotent? Should he not be relieved that I would not permit it?
Surely he would not get some kind of perverse pleasure from it.
At his elbow, Justinus schooled his lips into the smirk so characteristic of him, the one that I detested. I wondered why he had to be everywhere that Lucius was. It drove me near to insanity.
“I’m sorry, Alba. It has to be witnessed.” The tone of his voice warned me that he had made up his mind, and I racked the sloshy recesses of my brain, trying to come up with an alternative that would be acceptable to us both. I did not have much hope. Lucius looked determined, even anticipatory.
“If I might speak?” I jerked as Justinus spoke, his words oozing into the hallway. The combination of my start and my spinning head nearly made me stumble, and Drusilla had to help me stay upright.
I was surprised that the man had bothered asking, since for reasons unbeknownst to me, Lucius allowed him to say far too much, and whenever he wanted.
Lucius inclined his head a fraction. “Speak.”
“Perhaps Domina would be more comfortable if, in your stead, someone else that you trusted was present?” Though his lips remained in a straight line when he looked at me, the gleam in Justinus’ eyes was unmistakable. The gleam, and a determination of his own.
He looked like he would stop at nothing to make certain that Lucius was not in that room, observing the sordid scene. Though oftentimes I thought that his devotion to his master went too far, ran too deep, this one time I found us in agreement.
“No.” Never in the space of one conversation had I said this word so many times to my husband. “Absolutely not. I will not have that cretin witness something so private.”
Lucius eyed me reprovingly, and it infuriated me. I was all for treating slaves well, but for him to support one in his wife’s stead was, in my opinion, inexcusable.
“Justinus is a valued member of this family, Alba.” I would have laughed if that much movement would not have made me sick. I knew some families that considered their slaves to be trusted members of the household, but it was much in the way of a dog. They were not, and could not be, equals, not with Roman society the way that it was.
I had once watched Justinus claw his way from mere household slave to become my husband’s right-hand man. At the time I had approved, for I saw that the man had been trying to better his position in life through any means that he could.
Now, though, he took it too far. He spied, he pried. He used information as a commodity, and as such no one in the house trusted him—no one save my husband, who was for some reason blinded when it came to the man.
“He is a slave, Lucius.” At my side I could feel Drusilla flinch; I would have to speak with her later. Though she knew very well that she meant so much more to me than a slave to her domina, my words would sound cruel to her ears. I wished that I could communicate that immediately, but I could not, not with Lucius and Justinus standing so close.
Justinus remained silent, remained still, but I felt a trickle of unease all the same at the manner in which he received my comment. Or maybe it was how he received Lucius’ response to my comment, for my husband seemed to be considering my thoughts.
“Well then, Alba. What do you suggest, if not Justinus? Do not say Drusilla, for I know she would lie if you told her to.” I bit my lip, and a trickle of sobriety entered my consciousness as I tried to find an outcome that would work. I had hoped that Drusilla would indeed be acceptable, and for the very reason that my husband would not allow her presence.
Lucius would fully trust no one but himself and Justinus. I refused to have either in the room, and did not even want my husband anywhere near the proceedings. It just felt wrong.
“Justinus may stay.” My announcement was clipped, and met with a smug smile by the man. “Outside the room. And I would have a heavier curtain placed over the doorway.”
Incredulous, Justinus turned to Lucius, as if to ask if he would possibly allow this madness. But my husband seemed to understand that if he wanted me to do this thing without being forcibly held down, then he had to give, at least a bit.
I silently thanked him for it.
“Very well.” He turned to his man. “Fetch the curtain from the balcony overlooking the ludus. Replace it here.” To me he nodded, and I thought that possibly—maybe—there was a tinge of regret in his eyes. “Alba, go in and make yourself ready.”
This was it. Nausea churned like a storm on the charcoal-gray sea, and my feet were so unwilling to move forward that Drusilla had to tug, hard, to get me into the room. There she seated me on the chaise that had been centered on the hard floor and fetched a cup of water.
“No more wine for you.” She ran a hand through my inky hair, which I had asked her to comb through and leave down, all the better to hide in.
Her touch was comforting, and brought on thought. Drusilla was a slave, something I often had to remind myself of. She was my confidante, had been my lover, was the one who cared for me. Not all slaves would welcome the opportunity for some measure of revenge in this encounter, a danger that Lucius had not seemed to have considered.
If only I could have been assured of a decent partner, one who I would not fear. On
e who was not likely to beat me, or to perform perfunctorily.
If the man went about it properly, I might even enjoy it, as I had enjoyed Marcus. It was so rarely that I was touched like that.
No, I had to correct myself. No matter the kind of lover that my faceless gladiator was, he would be nothing like Marcus. What had sparked between us when our skin slid on skin was something I had never before felt, and though the battle-roughened man confused me greatly, I had an inkling that he was not any more immune to it than I was.
Oh, I was confused.
“How would you be most comfortable, Alba?” Drusilla pulled lightly at my tunic, and I realized that it would be easiest if I was in some state of undress when the man arrived. But Justinus had just come back to hang the heavy curtain, and I would not disrobe in front of him, not in this situation.
Though he had seen me in my skin numerous times before, it had not been by my choice, and it would not happen while I had a say in the matter. It would relinquish some power to him, now, and I was not willing to give it up.
After the curtain was hung by Justinus, I allowed Drusilla to strip me down to my lace sleep tunic, which I wore under the heavier tunic that I had changed into earlier. It would provide the access necessary, but I would not feel completely exposed.
And then she left, left me alone, though she cast me a sympathetic, heartfelt backward glance—and though I was not by myself for long.
The heavy fall of men’s steps sounded from the other side of the curtain. “Alba?” It was the voice of Lucius, but he was not alone.
I raised a hand to my mask, then lowered my head. I did not want to look, did not want to hope that I would recognize the body that would soon cover mine.
I ran fingers gone cold and wet with nerves through the inky, scented ribbons of my hair, then twisted them so tightly in my lace that it nearly ripped. I tucked my legs beneath myself on the chaise, attempting to hide the shadowy area between my legs, though it was ridiculous, I knew.
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