by Jack Whyte
"Bad," she said. "That was bad. Does that happen often?" I shook my head, mute, my thoughts fastened on what my foot was feeling, wondering how this had happened. She kept her eyes on mine, her face full of concern.
"Does it feel better now? Still hurt?"
I shook my head again and swallowed, clearing my throat. "No, " I whispered. "Thank you."
"I'm glad I could help. I had to do something. I thought for a while there you were going to die."
"Was I that bad? I don't remember."
"Be grateful, then. You were out of your head with pain. Look, where you gripped me." She showed me her right arm, ringed with the inflamed marks of my fingers. "You're a strong man, even for a smith."
"Did I do that? Really?" My throat was parched and sore. "I'm sorry. I don't remember."
"I know. I told you, you were out of your head for a while. I had to hit you over the head. Does it hurt?"
"No. Where?"
"There. " She touched the side of my head and suddenly, where she touched, there was pain. It hurt, but nowhere near as badly as the cramps in my leg had hurt. This pain was no more than a mild annoyance. I touched the spot, cautiously, and felt a huge lump.
"What did you hit me with?"
"A piece of wood."
She dropped her head and I felt her fingers begin to knead again. She leaned forward to get more purchase, tightening her knee grip on my leg and lifting her body clear of my foot, so that I felt relatively cold air on my toes. Her thumbs dug deep and I flinched.
"Ow! Where did you learn to do that?"
She looked up at me again, her fingers and thumbs still busy. "I'm a masseuse, or used to be before I got married. I worked in the women's bath house, by the main barracks. Officers' wives, mainly."
"You speak very well." I realized what I had said, the arrogance of it. "I mean..."
"I know what you mean, but thank you. Yes, I speak well. I had a tutor. Paid for him myself, out of my earnings at the bath house. I decided there was no use remaining illiterate."
"Illiterate?"
"Yes. I can read and write, too. Why not? It hasn't done me any harm. Any good either, for that matter."
"I see." I was longing to bend my leg, to bring my foot against the heat of her again. She dropped her head back to her work, and I realized that her face, which I had always thought plain and uninteresting, was anything but. I searched for a question to make her look up again.
"Does Cuno read and write, too?"
That did the trick. "My husband? Cunobelin? The descendant of kings? Hah! He can hardly even talk. Prefers to drink, and beat me."
"Then why do you stay with him? Leave him."
"Leave him?" Her voice had scorn in it. "That's easy to say." She dropped her head again, her fingers working swiftly, with agitation, moving up my thigh, so that she had to move forward on her knees, gripping my thigh tightly between her own knees to hold it steady. "Run from the brute. Where would I run? And to do what? Where?"
I gasped again as she found a knot. "Do what you're trained to do. Anywhere. There are other towns. Go to Londinium. You're a masseuse. You'll find a use for your skills there. He wouldn't follow you. You have no children, have you?"
Her fingers stopped kneading. "No. I have no children." She settled back again, bringing the fire of her centre onto my leg once more, but differently this time, so that my bent knee fitted wholly into the softness she had there. I saw the startled widening of her eyes as she realized the immodesty of the physical contact. Her withdrawal was instinctive and would have been total had I not stopped her with an involuntary "Don't!"
She froze. "Don't what?"
"Don't stop. Not yet. There's still some soreness there."
"Where?"
"There, in my thigh. A tightness. Lower down, just above the knee." Even in the dimness of the single lamp's light, I saw a flush steal up over her neck. She had been in the act of jumping up, and one of her legs was no longer touching mine. Slowly, kneeling still, she moved backwards, the sides of her knees sliding down my leg, and I felt her skirts tugging at my toes and then the gathering of her front hem as she pulled it down along my leg. Her fingertips clasped me lightly, probing above my knee.
"Where is this tightness?"
There was a different quality to her voice, now. A huskiness — almost a whisper. I raised myself up on my elbows and saw that my legs were bare, my tunic pulled down decently to cover my sex. Her skirts were rucked, baring her white, round knees on either side of mine.
"There, " I said. "Where your thumbs are."
She dug deep, and I gasped.
"Lie back. Here." She reached for my discarded breeches and wadded them into a ball. "Put this below your head."
I did as she told me, my thoughts in confusion. I wanted this to go on, far more than I wanted it to stop, and yet I was afraid. I should have been aroused, rampant, with what was going through my head and the tension in my guts, but my manhood lay still and flaccid. Her fingers probed again, deep into the muscles above my knee. There was no tightness there, but the sensation was pleasurable and I was, after all the pain, still a little drunk.
She spoke again in that same husky whisper. "Relax your leg. Let it relax completely." I tried. "Can you straighten it at all?" I shook my head. "No. The hamstring was damaged. It shrank. I can't extend it fully."
"Can you flex it? Bend it? Try."
I bent it slowly, further than I had intended to, until I felt the back of her skirts fall from my toes, leaving my foot free within the tent of her clothing. I could feel a pulse beating in my neck.
"That's good. Now straighten it again."
I did, feeling the sole of my foot against the rough material of the inside of her skirts. Was she aware? If she was, she gave no sign. She was breathing deeply, causing her breasts to show against her bodice.
"Now, " she said, and went to work in earnest, gouging and digging, kneading and squeezing, at one point moving slightly backwards again so that again I felt the heat of her, but not direct contact, and the sensitive skin of my foot felt a hint of tickling, wiry hair.
I lay and luxuriated in the sensations she produced in me until she stopped suddenly.
"That's enough! I'm getting tired. I have to get up."
"No. Please don't."
She sighed. "What do you want of me, Master Varrus? It isn't lust. You show me no desire."
"I'd like to, Phoebe, but I can't. Yet I enjoy your warmth. Your touch."
"Can't?" She paused for what seemed to me a long time, then, "Is it your wound? These scars? Did they unman you?" There was only tenderness in her voice.
"Aye. It seems they did, in some ways at least." She sighed again. "Poor man." Her hands resumed their movement on my thigh, but now it was her palms that caressed me, and after a few minutes she sank down again onto her haunches, this time open and quite deliberate in laying her vulva, scalding hot and bare, against my foot. I felt no shame, only contentment and acceptance as her hands moved up my thigh and into the join of my belly. Her ringers moved to brush my flaccid sex, but then I stirred my foot against her nakedness, feeling its yielding softness, and she bore down against it, moving herself against the boniness of my arch. She leaned forward slowly and laid her face in the junction of my thigh and belly; the warmth of her breath tickled me as she continued to rub herself slowly against my foot, one hand cupping my buttock and the other my sex. I laid my hand on the smooth nape of her neck and my foot felt the moisture of her readiness. Then, suddenly, there came a stirring of desire in my own loins. I held my breath, not daring to move, and felt myself stirring to life in her gentle grasp. And as I grew and grew, she stopped her movements and stared in silence at the sight before her eyes, and then she said, "Oh, you beautiful liar, " and moved quickly to straddle me and slowly to impale herself on the new-born miracle she had achieved.
That was a grand and passionate coupling, the like of which I have never again experienced. I felt as the blind man cured by the Lord Jesus
must have felt, and the ecstasy of my release was indescribable, enhanced as it was by the regaining of what had been lost to me. Useless to try to describe the thoughts and sensations that transported me. It was as though a dam had broken somewhere inside me, and the juices that swirled through the breach were almost inexhaustible. I was insatiable, rising time and again with almost no recovery time required. When Phoebe, hours later, whispered, "No more, no more. I hurt. I can't take any more, " I believed her implicitly. We had moved back to her blankets by the forge, and it was almost dawn. I rolled away from her and got to my feet.
"Where are you going?"
I stooped and kissed her. "Home. Equus may come here any minute. But I'm coming back, don't worry."
I crossed to the quenching trough and splashed icy water over my face and head, drying myself with a rough towel that lay on the bench, and then began to struggle into my tunic. I didn't see her approach me until she spoke close by my ear, in a small voice.
"Master Varrus? Are you angry?"
I looked at her in amazement. "Angry? With you?" And then I saw the look in her eyes, the apprehension and the uncertainty, and I smiled at her and drew her into my arms, hugging her close and whispering into her ear. "My beautiful, beautiful Phoebe, how could I possibly be angry with you, ever? You have given me back my manhood. I had believed that I would never lie with a woman again. Never plough another furrow." I kissed her, feeling the cushioned softness of her love-swollen lips. "No, I'm not angry with you. Don't ever think I could be. But your brother will be here soon, and he might bring your husband with him. It would do you no good to be found here with me, so obviously sated. Would it?" She was looking at me with narrowed eyes, gauging my truthfulness, and now she smiled, a wicked smile. "Sated? That's a word for people who know what it means. My husband would see nothing. He's never made me feel this way, so he wouldn't recognize my pleasure." Her hand fell to my crotch again, and she squeezed, gently. "I'm glad I helped him back to life. You be good to him, now that he's well again."
I grinned at her. "I will, Phoebe. I will." I squeezed her breast. "But you just finished telling me that you couldn't take any more, and now you're teasing him."
"Oh, I wouldn't want to tease him, he's too good for that." She moved her belly against me, rising on tiptoe, and I pulled her against me, slipping easily up into the lubricated heat of her just as Equus came to the door of the smithy. We froze, not daring to move or make a sound, and I almost giggled, thinking how ludicrous we would look to Equus, standing there like a statue of fornicators. I heard him fumbling for the key, but I had brought it inside with me. Phoebe tried to pull away from me, but I gripped her buttocks tighter, holding her impaled, shaking my head. I leaned to her and whispered in her ear, "It's locked. I have the key. He can't get in." Her eyes grew round and we listened to Equus grumbling to himself. Then came his voice. "Phoebe? Phoebe, let me in. It's Equus!" I shook my head at her, warning her to make no sound. He called again a few times, and then cursed in disgust, and we heard his retreating footsteps as he went home to look for the key. When he had gone, Phoebe giggled. "Poor Equus. He'll be so angry."
"Aye, and he'll soon be back. I have to go. But listen to me, now. I am going to bring you back a bag of money. Gold. Don't say anything!" She had been about to protest. "Just listen! It's a gift, from me to you. I have no need of it. You do. You have given me back a life I thought I had lost forever. I want to do the same for you. You understand? A life for a life. Use it to get out of here and away from that husband of yours. You deserve better. Equus will be here when I get back. When he comes, don't lie to him. Tell him I came looking for him last night and found you here, and that you told me what had happened. Then say no more. He would never think that I stayed. I'll hand you the money when he isn't looking. Don't argue. Take it." I cocked my head, looking at her intently. "You will, won't you?"
She was staring at me with round eyes filled with tears. She nodded slowly, and then emphatically. "Yes. I will. And God bless you."
"He might, but I doubt it. You have. Let me know where you go to, will you? Perhaps we may see each other again."
She nodded, tears spilling from her eyes. "Good, " I said. "Now, where were we? I was enjoying that. I've never known a better cure for a thick head."
She smiled at me then, slowly and lazily, leaning back into my palms, and her hand reached down between us as she raised herself on her toes.
"I think, " she whispered, grasping me gently, firmly, guiding, "if I remember it all correctly, " a pause, intense with concentration; delightful, tactile movement, probing and positioning, "... that you were just... " minor, maddening adjustments, "... about... " a long, slow, scalding slide,
"... there!"
I returned within the hour with the money for her flight, as I had promised, and managed to transfer it to her without Equus being any the wiser. The man was distracted, having spent the main part of the night searching fruitlessly for Cuno, the delinquent husband. But Cuno, apparently, had not been too drunk to remember what Equus had sworn to do to him if he ever maltreated Phoebe again. He had vanished for good, and he never did return to Colchester. We presumed that he had fled to escape Equus, but were unable to prove anything, and no one was inclined to dedicate valuable time to searching for the fellow. Phoebe departed, too, within the week, leaving a letter for her brother explaining why she had gone, but making no mention of her destination other than that she would send him a message to let him know that she was well once she had settled in her new life. She spent the night before her departure with me, and wrote me thereafter several times from Verulamium, where she had settled. Equus was upset by her departure, at first, but he settled down once he had heard from her and knew that she was well. He never suspected my complicity in her flight.
IX
It was a blazing hot day in midsummer and I was unhappy, cooped up in the darkness of the smithy doing last-minute work on a neglected order of pike-heads for the German mercenaries of the local garrison. It was a consignment that had given place to other priorities and now required emergency attention. The inside of the smithy seemed as black as the pit, although the truth was that I was simply feeling lazy, having no stomach for work that day. I finished hammering a cooling pike-head and plunged it into the quenching trough, looking through the cloud of steam towards the doorway as I did so, and there sat Britannicus, high on a magnificent white horse, his full-dress uniform a glory of scarlet, white and gold. I dropped tongs and hammer and ran as fast as my bad leg would allow me to the doorway, where I stopped, suddenly overcome with shyness. He looked at me sardonically, his eyes taking in my beard, my sooty face and arms, and my leather apron.
"By the divine Augustus! Vulcan in person! Tell me, fellow. I'm looking for a friend of mine, probably your owner. Varrus the Roman. Where will I find him?"
"Vulcan was lame from birth, " I said. "I got my limp just recently, wasting my time in trying to help out an ungrateful colleague."
His face broke into a great grin. Then he swung his leg over his horse's back and slid to the ground, his arms open, with the apparent intent of throwing them around me. I jumped away in horror. One touch of me and my soot would ruin that dress tunic forever. I held up my hand to keep him off.
"For the love of God, General, don't touch me! You'll never get clean!" He stopped just in time and stood, looking me up and down, still smiling widely. "You may be right, old friend, you may be right. You do look rather... sooty. But at least I can take your hand!" We shook, as Romans do. arm to arm, looking each other over in delight. It had been almost two years since we had parted company. He looked in top fighting condition, even though he must now have been forty-one years old. He was lean and bronzed and strong-looking. His scarlet cape and plume and his gold helmet and armour made the rich white wool of his military tunic look like damask.
"What brings you to Colchester, General? And why so formally dressed?
You are a sight for sore eyes. You look marvellous!"
&
nbsp; "Thank you, Varrus, so do you. But Colchester? I thought I was in Camulodunum."
I grinned at him, having forgotten the archaic compunction that made him insist on calling every place in Britain by its original Roman name, rather than by the Celticized names used by the people.
"How are you, Varrus? Is life dealing well with you? Are you happy?"
"What's happiness, General? I have a good life and a place to live and a place to work. I'm content. What more could a man want?"
"How's the leg?"
"It's fine." I glanced down at it. "It'll never be straight again, and it aches in the winter, but I can walk on it, as you can see."
"Excellent!" He glanced around the yard. "Do you have a jug of wine to offer a thirsty man?"
"No, but I have something better." I looked back into the darkness of the smithy. "Equus! Come out here. I want you to meet someone."
Equus came out into the sunlight, wiping his hands against his tunic. I introduced him to Britannicus as my partner and asked him to pour us some of his homebrewed ale. There was a bench in the yard; as we made ourselves comfortable on it, Equus went to get us a drink.
"You didn't answer my question, Commander. What's the occasion for the finery?" I nodded at his uniform and he shrugged disparagingly.
"It seems that all of Britain is fully at peace. I am on my way to Verulamium with Theodosius. Tonight we dine with Antonius Cicero and the garrison here. We arrived this morning and held a full-dress review of the troops at noon. I came directly here after the ceremonies."
"Ah, so that's what all the commotion was about! I heard the trumpets, but I was busy and didn't pay much attention. I knew if it was important Plautus would tell me about it soon enough. Will you be staying in town tonight?"