by Glover, Nhys
Vali was rubbing down the horses as the evening shadows deepened around them. She needed to move now, or it would soon be too dark to see the wood. Limping on stiff, sore legs, Lara began to scour the undergrowth between the trees, gathering twigs and branches that seemed dry, moving further and further away from the campsite with each load.
When she heard Vali’s frantic call, she turned back. The dark copse, with its night noises and spirits, had tempted her to go too far. Vali’s voice seemed a long distance away.
Tripping and scrambling with her armload of wood, she headed back the way she’d come. When he called again, she knew she’d almost reached him.
When he saw her, he ran to her side, dragged the branches from her arms and flung them away. Then he pulled her into his arms, and held her so tightly against him she could hardly breathe.
‘I thought you’d been taken. In the name of the gods what made you go so far from the campsite?’ His demand was harsh, but his touch was gentle. She drew strength from the latter and tried to ignore the first.
‘I’m sorry. I was gathering firewood.’
‘You’ve gathered enough to feed the fires of an army. Come on, let’s get back.’
He held her to his side, half carrying her so that she could keep up with his long strides. It reminded her of their escape the night before. It felt like a month ago.
In no time, they were back at the edge of the copse where the horses were tethered not far from the carrus. Vali looked down at her in the gloom; taking in the scratches on her arms from the branches she’d carried. ‘Silly girl, look what you’ve done to yourself. We need to get the dirt out of those cuts or they’ll putrefy. And we can’t use that swamp water the horses are drinking. We’ll need to wash them with our drinking water.’
By the time she’d washed her cuts, Vali had a fire blazing, and was busy skewering the bird with one of the straighter branches she’d discovered. Using two thick ‘y’ shaped branches as supports, he rested the goose across the fire as the flames began to die down.
‘Show me those scratches,’ he said without looking up from the goose. It was a small example of its breed, not much larger than a good size chicken, and its white, naked skin looked obscene in the firelight.
Lara/Anniana moved closer and extended her arms out to him obediently. He took each one in turn, studying the angry scratches she’d worked hard to clean. From the pile of possessions on the far side of the blanket, Vali produced a small jar, tightly stoppered. With a scrap of material soaked in the liquid from the jar, he began to daub at the scratches. It stung and she had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to stop from crying out.
‘What is that?’
‘Spirits. Fermented barley, I think. You learn in the Ludus to care for injuries, however slight, because it’s them that will kill you just as surely as any sword to the gut.’
‘You were a gladiator?’ That explained the hardness in him; the look of a killer in his eyes.
‘For half a year, courtesy of your father. I thought my last mistress had sold me into the arena, but it seems your father wanted me trained to defend you. I only found out yesterday.’
She didn’t know what to say to that. Was being trained as a gladiator better than being the plaything of a rich matron? The life had scarred him; his face was a clear indication of that. But they were outward scars. She thought the wounds inside him from his treatment at the hands of women like her mother might be far worse. If he felt as bad as thirteen year old Ninia had, after what Publius forced on her, then any life would have been better than that.
For months after Publius’ demonstration, Ninia had been a shadow of her old self. The vibrant, cheery girl had been replaced by a silent, distant ghost with dead eyes. Eventually, life returned to those eyes, but the sunny disposition never did come back. And Anniana cowered every time Ninia jumped at any sudden, unexpected movement.
They had stayed friends. Ninia never blamed her for what Publius did to her. But Ninia’s mother, Elaeni, did. From that time on, the cook wouldn’t look at her. She was no longer welcome in the kitchens. And she and her husband Herakles kept their young mistress at a coldly polite distance. Anniana had understood only too well why they had changed toward her.
It was her fault. Publius would never have targeted Ninia if she hadn’t been so important to his sister. They may have even blamed her for standing by and watching it happen. But how could they know that, had she tried to stop it, he would have been even crueller, made Ninia suffer even more. Anniana had learned early that there was nothing she could do to stop her brother. Survival was the only game plan possible. Survival and acquiescence.
‘You don’t talk much,’ Vali said, after turning the goose on the makeshift spit, and batting absently at a mosquito that had landed on his bare arm.
‘I’m not used to talking.’
‘You were always chattering like a magpie with that little slave girl of yours.’
‘Ninia and I didn’t talk much after… after Publius.’
‘It wasn’t your fault. That boy’s pure evil. He would have got around to Ninia, sooner or later. She was weak and in his power. That was all he cared about. How long after I left did it happen?’
‘Not long. A month? I don’t know.’
‘It’s the lot of a slave. At least she had her parents to care for her.’
‘They hated me after. They blamed me.’
‘No they didn’t. All the slaves in that household loved you. But it would have been hard not to see you as one of ‘them’, rather than one of ‘us’, after what happened. There are lines you can’t cross, little…little mistress, they’ll always be there, no matter how you try to forget them. Elaeni and Herakles just got reminded of that. Not your fault.’
Tears stung her dry and scratchy eyes. She fought them back. ‘I didn’t ask to be born into my family.’
‘And we didn’t ask to be enslaved. It is what it is. It will take more than you or I to make the world different. Eat the last of those berries and some bread soaked in olive oil. It will tide you over while we wait for the goose. Are you thirsty? There’s wine or water.’
‘Wine please, if we need to conserve the water.’
She broke off a section of one of the big loaves and handed it to him. Then she took a smaller section for herself, dipping it in the shallow bowl Vali had poured oil into. Finally, she took a swallow from the watered down wine Vali had poured for them both.
‘Tell me about this husband of yours.’ Vali dunked his bread into the oil and took a hungry bite. His stomach rumbled.
‘Not my husband yet. Severus is a young man who came to visit us last year. He had just inherited his paterfamilias after his father died. His father was an old man when he finally married. He’d been in the army most of his life, and only took a wife and started a family after he retired. He bought a villa in Campania and was very wealthy. So Severus is very wealthy, although he has no political connections.
‘Normally, he would not have been considered a suitable husband for me. Father would have wanted a suitor from one of the senatorial families. That’s what happened with Annia Major. But things were not going well for father in the years after you left. I don’t think many influential families wanted to align with him anymore. And when mother dropped her choice for a husband on him, father must have looked around and saw a rich young man in distant Pompeii as the only option.
‘He knew I liked Severus. Father would never have married me to someone I didn’t like.’ She slapped at a mosquito on her neck. There seemed to be more of them, now the sun had set. But the fire smoke kept most of them at bay. She remembered these annoying and painful insects from her holidays in Ostia.
‘But you haven’t answered my question. Tell me about Severus?’
‘Oh, he’s nice. I think he’s about your age. Short. A little shorter than me. He has a nice, smiley face. Kind eyes. Sometimes he stutters a little when he’s nervous, but he soon got over that with me. He’s very intereste
d in his villa and its holdings. He knows exactly how many sheep he owns, what the last yield was of grapes, how that compares to other years. A good, practical, hardworking man.’
‘Sounds a bit dull to me.’ Vali scratched at his arm where a red welt had appeared.
‘Dull? Well, he might not be interested in learned things. He may not have interesting tales to tell of the battles he’s fought or the places he’s visited. But that doesn’t worry me. He’s kind. I need kind. I’m hoping that when I’m settled father might gift Ninia to me. I would like her safely out of that house. I worry for her.’
‘Publius will be in the army for some years to come. Ninia is safe until then. And as long as Gaius is alive, the paterfamilias will go to him on your father’s death.’
‘I know. But I still worry. If Publius got something in his head, he’d be hard to stop. I wouldn’t put it past him to get mother to send her out to him. Soldiers have women.’
‘Camp followers. Romans aren’t like northerners, who keep their families close when they go to war.’
‘Do your people take their families to war?’
‘We don’t wage war that often. We’re a seafaring people. If we go aviking, we fight to take what we want from others. But we don’t invade other’s territory. And no one invades ours. We’re too strong, and our land is too harsh for anyone else to covet.’
‘Aviking?’
‘To go travelling for trade or pillage. When a season has been hard and we can’t feed our people, we go to milder climates and take what we need.’
‘That’s theft!’
‘It’s survival. Rome does far worse. It takes the very land from others. We leave them their land, and take only what we need. Slaves, goods, food.’
‘Slaves? You kept slaves?’
‘Yes. My father had many slaves. Just like Rome.’ Vali seemed embarrassed by this.
‘Do you believe that slavery is wrong now?’
‘I didn’t. I never thought about it at all when I was young. It was what it was. Slaves were like livestock. You cared for them like you’d care for a goat or a sheep, and they would then serve you well. My first woman was a slave my father gifted me. I took her without considering her feelings in the matter. Knowing what that’s like… Now, I don’t know.
‘There are always people with power and those without. It’s the way of man, the way of nature. When those pirates attacked us, killed my father and uncles, I didn’t think of it as wrong. It was what it was. It angered me that we were bested. But I didn’t blame them. When they sold me into slavery, and I was traded from one Roman bitch to another, I hated those women and their men, I hated what I was forced to do. But I didn’t think of it as wrong. I’m not sure I do now. Would I take a slave without her consent now? No. And if I owned slaves, I would only keep slaves who were willing to work for me…’ His voice tapered off, as if his own thoughts were becoming too complex to explain.
‘Did she… did she seem to like what you did to her?’
‘Who, that first girl I took?’
She nodded, unable to say more. Vali studied her for a moment and then shrugged. ‘I think so. When I try to remember that first time, I see her giggling behind her hand, fluttering her eyelids. She was no virgin, and she didn’t seem reluctant. But I had no experience, no skills back then. I doubt she gained much pleasure from the act, the first time. Maybe the more practice I got the better she liked it. I don’t know. I was concerned only with my own pleasure back then.’
‘There doesn’t seem to be much pleasure in it for the woman.’
Vali laughed his quiet laugh, but it was not happy. There was an edge to it she didn’t like. ‘If watching Publius rape Ninia is your only experience with the act, then no, it would not seem as if there was much pleasure in it for the woman.’
‘I have seen animals mate. The female never seems to enjoy it.’
‘Mating to an outside observer can look … painful, when it’s not. And sometimes pain can enhance pleasure. Sometimes it is pleasure.’
‘No. I can’t believe that. Ninia felt no pleasure.’
‘No. But for some… Let’s talk of other things. Eat more berries. They won’t last until tomorrow.’ He drew himself up from the relaxed pose he’d dropped into and began to study the goose with more attention. Lara couldn’t tell whether he was embarrassed by their conversation or angry.
‘Tell me of your gods. I have heard that the people of Germania have very fierce and warlike gods.’
‘Like Mars and Jupiter? Or Poseidon perhaps, who wreaks vengeance through storms on those who offend him?’
‘I do not worship the male deities. I prefer the ancient numena. The nature spirits. The Mother.’
‘I would expect nothing else from someone like you.’ He said it neutrally, giving no indication whether he meant it as a compliment or insult.
‘When I was in the forest, before you called to me, I felt numena around me. They seemed to be whispering to me.’
He turned from the goose and studied her again. ‘What did they say?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But they meant me no harm. I felt no fear out there.’
‘And here?’
Lara tipped her head to the side and tried to focus on what existed beyond the glow of the fire. ‘They’re watching us. But they mean us no harm.’
‘Good. I don’t want to upset otherworldly beings. They might warn us of more worldly threats. This close to civilisation, I don’t expect to find wolves or bandits, but it doesn’t hurt to be wary.’
Lara lay down and rested her head on her arm as she stared into the fire. It was becoming harder and harder to stay awake.
‘Don’t fall asleep yet. The goose is just about ready.’
She nodded and tried to keep her eyes open. But the task was too difficult. ‘I’m glad father found you. I can’t imagine what this trip would have been like with anyone but you. I feel safe…’
Chapter Six
Vali studied her sleeping face in the firelight as he finished off the last of one side of the goose. It was the best thing he’d tasted in an age. The crunchy skin had made him lick his lips with pleasure. He tried to remember the last time he ate meat. Back before the gladiator school, certainly. There they never ate meat. Now, for the first time in however long, he felt full, replete and satisfied.
He would have to get his little mistress to eat some of the cold meat in the morning. What she had eaten since last night wouldn’t keep a mouse alive. But he hadn’t had the heart to wake her when the goose was ready. Sleep was more important to her at this moment than food.
After tossing dirt into the fire to douse it, he wrapped the left over goose meat in a waterproof skin to keep the scent of it from attracting scavengers. When everything was stowed away he considered his sleeping arrangements. It wasn’t cold, but as the night went on the temperature would drop. And there would be dew in the early hours of the morning. The mosquitoes would also begin to attack bare skin in earnest now the smoke was gone. Anni… Lara would need to be covered, and made as comfortable as possible. At the moment she slept on her side, legs drawn up to her chest, using her arm as a pillow. That would get uncomfortable over time, especially as her body was already aching from the day’s journey.
If he were to rest her in the crook of his arm, his cloak covering them both, his sword beneath his hand on his right side, ready for the first noise, she might sleep more comfortably. But what of him? Having her that close would be like pleasurable torture. And what would she think when she awoke in the morning and found them so entwined? Would she be offended? Unlikely. Her response was more likely to be embarrassment or mortification. Either would hurt him.
But he needed sleep, and he was more likely to get it if she was close. Safe. He had been a light sleeper since the first days of hunting as a child. Hyper-alert to all sounds, he could be awake and ready to fight in seconds. It had served him well on the slave ship. It had served him well in many of the houses he had lived, in Rom
e. Male slaves would attack when you slept. But they learned fast to never underestimate him, even when asleep.
Decision made, he eased himself down beside his charge; placed her soft satchel with the bag of gold concealed within it, under his head; threw the cloak across them both, his sword at his side; and then drew the girl’s sleeping form over, positioning her head on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her. To his intense pleasure, she snuggled into him, moaning softly.
His body was instantly hard. What else had he expected?
But being aroused was not unpleasant, and it wouldn’t keep him from sleep. He was so tired. The last time he had slept felt like days ago. In fact, except for the hour he’d had in the heat of the day, he hadn’t slept for 36 hours. His body craved sleep. More than sex. Dropping off slowly, his body relaxed. Feeling a woman’s soft form curled against his, her sweet scent in his nose, was as close to the Roman Elysium as he was ever going to get. That it was his young mistress that he held was irrelevant. Any woman’s sleeping form would have produced the same sense of contentment. But that lie was too bald, even for him to accept.
The buzz of the mosquitoes, the croak of frogs, and the hum of crickets lulled him closer to sleep. The air was very still, not a breath of a breeze stirred around them. He could smell the vestiges of wood smoke and goose over the fragrant musk of woman.
Woman. A deeply desirable woman. Had he thought of her sexually when he’d known her before? No, to him she had always been a child. Not until he had seen her transformed into this beautiful young woman had his feeling changed. And yet this didn’t feel a totally new experience, holding this particular woman to his side. It felt as familiar as his old home, and as dear. But it did no good to concern himself with the meaning of that familiarity. All he had to do was complete his task … one step after another…
22 August 79 CE Pontine Marshes, LATIUM
She woke from a pleasant dream feeling warm and safe. Her nose told her there was a man nearby, a familiar, safe man. Her hands rested against a warm, hard body and she could hear the steady beat of a heart beneath her ear. That was so strange. So intimate. His slow, deep breaths soothed her. But how did she come to be curled up in a masculine cocoon? And were they birds she could hear in the nearby trees? Where was she?