The voice was answered by a delighted twittering from Rufus's tormentors. The girls took a step back and surveyed their handiwork. They must have been satisfied by what they saw, for the sister with the red cord took him and led him towards the bed.
Rufus stood before the purple curtain knowing what was required of him, but without the nerve to take the next step. A small hand pushed him in the back and he pitched through the thick cloth and landed in an ungainly heap on a soft coverlet.
At first he was dazzled. The area within the curtains was a gilded sanctuary, lit by four scented lamps suspended from the poles which held the drapes aloft. It was dominated by a huge bed scattered with soft pillows, and the poles were carved with graphic sexual scenes featuring combinations of male and female figures involved in various erotic acts, many of which seemed unlikely, if not impossible. But it was the slim figure on the bed which held his attention. Drusilla was lying on her back, completely naked, with the tawny mane of her hair draped around her head and her arms thrown above it. Her pale flesh glowed like molten gold in the lamplight. Not a single hair blemished the smooth lines of her body and Rufus's eyes devoured every curve and hollow of that beautiful form. She had faultless, rose-tipped breasts that rose and fell as she breathed; a smooth, flat stomach and generous, wide hips. She smiled at him from under hooded lids, and for the first time he was aware of the scent of her arousal and noticed the liquid sheen on the fingers of her right hand.
'Am I not beautiful, puppy dog?' she asked, in a voice husky with desire. 'Am I not the treasure you have dreamed of, but could never have?'
He tried to reply, but his throat was so dry he couldn't speak. He was kneeling near the foot of the bed, just close enough for her to reach him. She put out her hand, but the enormity of what he was doing had eaten into Rufus's brain and it in turn sent a panic-stricken message to his body. That which had been so impressive only moments before faded away from her.
To his astonishment she laughed lightly and sat up, her breasts rippling with the movement.
'Better still, puppy dog. I relish a contest, none more. First we must both relax.' She reached to the side of the bed and picked up a vial filled with a red liquid. 'A massage, I think.'
She gave him the bottle, which was warm in his hand, before lying back with her hands behind her head, exposing the full length of that sensuous body to him.
'Now, shoulders first. Come, place yourself over me, with one knee to either side,' she instructed him. 'Now!' The sharpness in her voice as he hesitated startled Rufus and he almost spilled the precious liquid. He did as he was ordered, aware of the closeness of her belly beneath him.
'Pour a little of the oil at the base of my throat, just there. That's right. Now place a drop on your hands and put them round my neck.'
Again, Rufus obeyed, as gently as he was able, conscious that his hands felt huge and rough against the slender vulnerability of her throat.
'Rub the oil in with your fingers. Mmmhhh. No need to be quite so delicate – I am not a toy. Yes, that is much better. Just think, you could choke the life out of me before anyone had time to stop you.' She laughed as he flinched. 'Now move out to my shoulders. Use your fingers. You have such strong fingers.'
Rufus felt her body shift beneath his hands as he smoothed the slippery liquid into her flesh and the sensation moved something in him, because he felt himself grow again, this time even more than before. She noticed it too.
'That's better, puppy dog. Now, some oil here.' She pointed to a spot between her breasts.
This time he responded immediately, and he did not need her instructions to smooth the viscous liquid right and left, his hands moving over the firm orbs and feeling her tiny nipples grow hard under his fingers. She shuddered below him.
'Yes, like that, puppy dog. You are a fast learner.'
He moved his hands over her, quickening the rhythm until she gave a little gasp: 'Lower.'
Lower, across the polished ivory of her abdomen and further, where he found he had been wrong: between her navel and that other place was a thin line of fine down. He tried to keep his eyes from her sex, but now he was drawn to it like a moth to a nightlight. Instinctively, he reached to touch it.
'Not yet.' Her hand grasped his wrist. He looked up at her and saw that her eyes were no longer hooded, but wide open and aflame with a naked hunger. 'Start again at my feet, puppy dog, and move upwards.'
'Like this?'
He did as she ordered. He was becoming familiar with the game now, and he made his way over ankle, calf and the long silky curve of inner thigh with agonizing slowness, and when he eventually reached that place she shuddered again.
All the time his hands had been on Drusilla's compliant young body, Rufus's own desire had grown, and the molten feeling in his guts had moved inexorably into his groin. He was so hard now it was painful. He knew something had to happen and was just about to drop on top of her when she shook her body like a dog emerging from a river pool.
'Now you.'
She pushed him on to his back and took the oil from him. Now it was he who experienced the sensations which had so pleased her. The feel of the fingers first hard, then soft, forcing the oil into the very fabric of his body. And there was something else. With the oil came a slight burning sensation, intense and erotic, so that his whole body seemed to pulsate with energy.
When she reached the object of her desire, it throbbed and twitched in her hands.
'Now, puppy dog, now you are ready.'
She raised one knee and with an easy movement slipped on top of him.
Rufus immediately felt as if he had been enveloped in warm honey and he groaned with the pleasure of it. By now each was so aroused that the heat of her body on his could have only one outcome, and as she began to rock back and forth and her muscles contracted around him he exploded inside her with an agonized cry.
Undeterred, Drusilla maintained her grip on him and slowly increased the tempo of her movements until, grinding herself into his lower body, she too climaxed with a series of stifled gasps that ended in a long, drawn-out moan.
Rufus opened his eyes a few minutes later and realized he had been dozing. The warmth of the room, the softness of the bed and the power of their lovemaking had combined to rob him of his instinct for self-preservation. Now a thrill of fear shot through him as he absorbed the full extent of what he had done. He moved to raise himself, but a slim arm across his chest forced him back and he turned his head to find Drusilla staring at him with open curiosity.
'My brother would kill you if he knew you were here,' she said, as if she was discussing the next day's weather. 'He is terribly jealous.'
There seemed nothing to say, but to stay silent was to let her believe she frightened him, and he sensed a challenge in her words.
'And will he?'
'Only if he finds out, but he will only find out if I choose it. The only people who know you are here are my little doves and Lucius, the soldier who brought you here. My little doves will not tell, because they cannot – they have been dumb from birth. Lucius will not tell, because he has more to lose than you.'
Her hand stroked the length of his thigh. 'You really are terribly beautiful, puppy dog, almost as beautiful as my immortal. What a pity your beauty will not last as long as his. Life is so cruel, don't you think?'
She said the words wistfully, but they seemed to trigger a change in her because her eyes clouded and the pitch of her voice changed.
'My brother is cruel. He knows I love him, yet he sifts through my love seeking out imperfections which might displease him. Only yesterday he wondered aloud if he should have me tortured so he could measure exactly the extent of my devotion. When he places his hands round my throat, just as you did, he wonders at its slimness, and compares it to a swan's, then informs me it would take only a single word from him to have it severed by an axe.'
Rufus stayed silent. He understood that he had no need to speak. She was talking to him in the way Claudius talk
ed to Bersheba. Using him as a reflector for her thoughts, so that she could consider them from a different perspective. To her, he was little more than a beast to be used for any purpose she thought fit.
'It can be a great burden to be an Emperor's favourite. Would it be an honour to die at the hands of a living god? Would it mean I, Drusilla, would be divine, a goddess in my own right? Or is death just death? An end.'
She looked puzzled for a moment, and he knew this was a subject which perplexed her. But then it was as if a lamp lit behind her eyes.
'My brother's fame will be immortal, and Drusilla's name will be coupled with his. His greatness already outshines the combined light of Divine Julius, Augustus and Tiberius. His reign will last for fifty years and his deeds will be remembered for a thousand. Already people talk of him as a god, and soon he will take his place with the greatest of the gods. Should Gaius, saviour of Rome, bow before Jupiter? No!' Her eyes narrowed, and now an unsettling new persona revealed itself. 'But first he must destroy his enemies. Even now, when his people believe he leads his army to take Rome's bounty to the barbarians of Britannia, he marches to the Rhine to deal with the traitor Gaetulicus and his legions. This creature wishes to supplant him with my own husband, whose throat I will cut with this very hand. Gaius has so many enemies, even among those he would call his friends.
'They don't think I know,' she confided. 'But I see them sneering behind his back and plotting in their whispering nests. Cassius Chaerea, with his little girl's voice – a man, so-called, who will lie with woman, man or beast. Calpurnius, who still blames him for stealing away his wife, as if such a thing mattered. He cannot even trust his own blood. Uncle Claudius, who is a better actor than any on the stage, and that Greek who is never far from his shoulder spread their poison among the Senate and the guard. I have told him to kill them all, but he is too weak. Oh, Chaerea and Calpurnius will have their reckoning, but not Claudius, who is the greatest danger of all. Gaius will spare him because he is family.
'My brother is weak, but I would be strong. I would wipe them from the face of the earth in a single day that Rome would remember for a lifetime. Their screams for mercy would be heard the length of the Empire and none would dare follow them in their betrayal.
'My sisters plot too, and my brother's wife, but against me, not him. They know I have his favour and as long as I do they will never rise. Livilla is harmless enough; she can be married off to a husband who will beat her regularly and painfully. And Milonia is but an annoyance. But Agrippina is different. We must watch Agrippina. Agrippina is a witch, and witches are dangerous. She can do more harm with her potions and poultices even than Uncle Claudius. Gaius has not been the same since she cured him of the head sickness. Cured? Poisoned, I say, or drugged to bend him to her will. We will deal with Agrippina in good time.'
As she talked, Drusilla's hand absently stroked Rufus's upper thigh. Now it stroked something else and she purred.
'Yes, puppy dog. We don't have much time and there is a service you can do your mistress before she sends you back to your kennel.'
She lay back and motioned him to her. Drusilla was hungry and practised, but Rufus was young and he was strong; more confident now, with wiles of his own. He had the arrogance of youth and he would not be bested. Their sweating contest of wills seemed to last an age, with each having periods of domination, but eventually it was she who cried out in defeat. A single scream that sent a spear of molten iron through his heart.
'Gaiiuuus!'
XX
It did not take long to discover that her confidence in their secret was misplaced.
Narcissus appeared at the doors of the barn a few days after the night-time excursion as Rufus trimmed Bersheba's feet, a process the huge animal seemed to find thoroughly satisfying.
Rufus had his back to Bersheba, with her left hind leg bent upwards between both of his so that he could work at the horny growth on the sole of her foot with a sharp knife. As he pared away, she shuffled slightly and gave quiet snorts of pleasure.
'I find it amazing that one can get quite that close to something so large, and so obviously dangerous,' Narcissus said after watching the operation for a few moments.
Rufus grunted and wrestled to slice off a particularly tough piece of hardened skin before replying. 'Bersheba may be big, but she is not dangerous – are you, girl?' he said, reaching behind him to pat a wrinkled hindquarter.
'Not at the moment, perhaps. But I have seen the beasts in battle and they can be very fearsome, even if they are facing the other way. You must remember, Rufus,' he added with exaggerated significance, 'you have a powerful weapon in your control.'
Rufus was surprised to hear Narcissus claim he had been in a fight. The Greek gave the impression of being . . . not soft, but unworldly.
'No.' Narcissus laughed, reading his mind. 'I was not a military man. I was accompanying my former master – not Senator Claudius – on a diplomatic mission when the natives objected particularly violently to something. Taxes, probably. They didn't bargain for the squadron of war elephants the local potentate used against them.'
Rufus had cared for Bersheba for so long that he never thought of her as dangerous, not in a warlike sort of way. Clumsy, perhaps. An animal of her size could crush a man accidentally and barely notice it. And when she was in one of her moods . . .
'What were they like? Were they different from Bersheba? Bigger?'
'No, just the same sort of lumbering beast. Although I think they may have had smaller ears, and more of a humped back. They were armoured here,' he said, indicating the front of her head, 'and on their flanks. They were controlled by little brown men who sat on their shoulders, and they carried a . . . a sort of basket, with a bowman in it.'
'I could see why they might be good against cavalry,' Rufus said, considering the matter. 'Any horse that comes anywhere near Bersheba gets nervous as soon as it smells her. I suppose it would take a lot to stop her?'
'Yes it does. I saw one elephant stuck so full of arrows it looked very like a large hedgehog.' Rufus grimaced at the description, but Narcissus affected not to notice. 'It was very angry and very effective for a time, and then it seemed to lose its mind.'
'What happened to it?'
'It turned on its own people and charged directly towards the potentate and my diplomat. The little man on its shoulders took a large spike and hammered it straight into the back of its neck with a mallet. It went down like a fallen tree. Stone dead.'
They looked at Bersheba in silence for a moment, considering the unlikelihood of such an animal being brought down with a single blow.
'I know, it doesn't seem possible. But I saw it with my own eyes. Now, have you anything for me? A little gossip perhaps? I understand you have been keeping interesting company.'
Rufus froze.
Narcissus smiled reassuringly. 'Oh, don't worry, your secret is safe with me. But the Palatine is a dangerous place, and nowhere is more dangerous than the quarter you entered three nights ago. The person who inhabits that room is beautiful in the way a sea snake is beautiful. It dances sinuously in the current and its colours enchant, but treat it with disrespect and you will be dead before you can blink an eye. Now, what do you have for me?'
Rufus hesitated. 'Gaetulicus.'
'Ah, our poetic governor of Upper Germany. What does she say of him?'
Rufus told how the British invasion was to be a deception, while the true target was the popular governor and the legions that followed him.
Narcissus greeted the news with a bray of laughter. 'How could she be so utterly wrong and so out of date? Gaetulicus is already dead at his master's hand, but Caligula lost his nerve when it came to taking his revenge on the legions. Instead, he added the First and the Twentieth to his army for this so-called invasion of Britain. Only a fool would believe he could lead a force across the sea at this season. He hadn't even arranged for ships to transport the army. It is all over the Senate. Just two days ago I heard one former consul declare
that Caligula was more likely to collect seashells than ships. Of course, Rome being Rome, the story spread and now the mob believes their Emperor took four legions to the very ends of Gaul to gather clams. When he returns, he will find himself a laughing stock. Surely your meeting was more productive than this?'
'She said no one would know,' Rufus said miserably.
'Drusilla has her brother's power to protect her, but in the darker ways of the Palatine she is an untutored child.'
Narcissus raised his hands so Rufus could see them, and his fingers flickered through an intricate series of designs, tapping against the fingers or palm of his other hand.
Rufus stared. Was the Greek mad?
'It is a method of communication I discovered quite by accident,' Narcissus explained. 'How does she think those poor mute sisters transmit information? By fluttering their eyelashes? But how I know is of little consequence. It is sufficient that I do know, and if I know you can be sure others will know.' Narcissus looked grave. 'You are in great peril, Rufus, if you do not find someone you can trust.'
'I would trust Cupido with my life.'
The Greek shook his head sadly. 'That might not be wise. I fear the honourable gladiator is not the man he was. The palace can destroy a person, but it also has the power to seduce one. Take the Emperor: vain, arrogant, unpredictable and cruel.' Rufus looked around instinctively to see if anyone was in earshot. Even to listen to this was treason. But Narcissus was not finished. 'But he can also be loyal, sympathetic, generous and brilliant. He is a little like the sun; those who stray into his orbit may burn like a moth in a flame or merely bask in the warmth of his presence. Your friend has seen an aspect of our Emperor few others are privileged to see. It may cloud his judgement.'
Rufus frowned. One part of him wanted to deny what Narcissus was saying, but another knew the Greek was right, or at least partially right. Cupido had changed, but Rufus sensed the change was not as deep-seated as Narcissus believed, and that there were other reasons for it.
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