The Adventures of a Roman Slave Page 2

  As I came closer, the deep notes of male laughter made raucous by drink, and voices slipping from Latin into a Germanic tongue that I felt I could almost understand, stirred up dark memories of a time before Sygarius; a time when my mother and I were prisoners of a band of Visigoths.

  Prisoners, or family members? It depended on your point of view. My mother hadn’t wanted to call herself wife to Groudan; hadn’t wanted to share his bed. But as she’d taught me, you made your choices. Wife to Groudan, or slave to every woman in the band and a pair of open thighs to every man. Choices.

  “Take full advantage of every choice you’re given, Nimia,” she’d told me. “Women get precious few of them in this life. You make your choice and then squeeze everything you can from it.”

  I didn’t know if she had lived through that day when Sygarius’s army had defeated Groudan and several allied Visigoth bands. I liked to believe she had escaped, and had found a hidden enclave of our original people, the Phanne. When I was younger I had pretended to myself that I, too, would escape the Romans and find the Phanne, and that she would be waiting for me among them.

  Those fantasies now felt so very long ago, and my mother almost like a vision from a dream, half remembered. But the guttural, Germanic voices of Childeric’s men brought her back to me. I could see her face half-lit by the fire, her hair a long, smooth fall of onyx like mine, but her eyes darker. She had been one of a hundred stray seeds planted in Burgundy by the prick of Attila the Hun, while my father had been a tall, pale Celt. I had her golden skin and small stature, but my body was riper, more lush; my mouth more full, and my eyes were a strange honey color rimmed in reddish brown. I’d been told that when my passions ran high they turned an unsettling, fiery copper.

  Sygarius had told me it was my eyes that made him pluck me from amid the captured.

  Another burst of laughter came from the garden room and I stopped, my bare feet holding me in place. I knew how drunken men, barbarian warriors especially, could treat a woman they found alone.

  I should not be out here. I should be telling bedtime stories to the little girls, or practicing my dance, or writing a new piece of music. Gods, even helping Hermina with mending. Anything safe and tucked away.

  A stream of servants carrying flagons of wine and platters of food marched like ants from the kitchens to the garden room, their figures appearing and disappearing behind the columns. They reminded me where I was: the country estate of a great dux, and under his full protection. I was not in a clay-floored farmhouse, watching from the smoky shadows as large men grew wild and thoughtless, and any woman who valued her cunny tried to disappear into the walls.

  And these “barbarians” were a king, a prince, and their men, and were given at least the appearance of respect from Sygarius.

  Still, better not to be found alone in a dark garden.

  The servants with their platters and pitchers gave me an idea. I hurried to the kitchens, where Cook put a heavy flagon in my hands and sent me off to the banquet. I sometimes helped serve at table, so no one questioned my pitching in to do so now.

  My heart sped up as I approached the garden room, a flush warming my cheeks in anticipation of seeing Clovis. Would he notice me?

  If he did notice me, what would he think? Would he feel any of what I did? Would he find me beautiful?

  It was only as I set foot over the threshold of the room, my slave-bare feet feeling the warmth of the marble floor that was heated from below, that I remembered that what he would see was a slave.

  He was a prince. I was a world beneath him.

  I ducked my chin to hide my face, and tipped the flagon to fill the first goblet I saw, held in the hand of one of the older Franks. The man reclined awkwardly on a couch, his napkin forgotten on the floor and a dribble of sauce on his tunic; he looked unfamiliar with the Roman way of dining, and painfully self-conscious.

  The wine would help with that. I filled his goblet to the brim and earned a brief flash of grateful eyes.

  Three wide couches, each large enough to hold three people half reclining, formed a U around several small tables loaded with foodstuffs. The open end of the U allowed servants to come and go, replacing dishes and filling cups. There were three such triads of couches set up in the garden room tonight, although a quick glance showed that half the Frankish men either stood or sat on the couch edges, wide-eyed and uneasy amid the mosaic-covered walls and Roman nobles.

  Not Clovis.

  His back was to me, but there was no mistaking that hair and form. He lounged with loose limbs at the next triad over, propped on his left elbow as was correct, and I heard the low, melodious tones of his voice as he said something I could not make out to Lady Lydia, lounging opposite. She laughed, too much, and her eyes were shining. She shifted, allowing a view down into her ample cleavage.

  So much for her hatred of barbarians. Or of men, for that matter.

  A spike of jealousy stabbed through me.

  “Little bird,” I heard a familiar voice say in soft surprise, calling me by his pet name.

  I turned and looked into the deep, dark eyes of Sygarius. He leaned half upright against cushions, at a right angle to the man on the neighboring couch, who must be King Childeric. Although they could not be far apart in age, the contrast between the two men was striking enough to make me wonder how they could ever be allies. Childeric was all that was wild and unrestrained, from his checkered tunic to his florid face and thick belly; from his straggly, uncombed hair to his chest-length beard. Sygarius was all that was controlled and crisply civilized, with his bare face and short black hair, his thickly muscled body, which showed no hint of fat, and the pristine folds of his long tunic and toga, devoid of ornament.

  Sygarius made a slight gesture with his goblet, and I rushed to fill it. As I righted the flagon, I dared to look again into his eyes, and saw the faint question there. Why are you here? he seemed to be asking.

  In a panic that he would guess my reason, I did the only thing I could think of. I softened my gaze on him and then made a subtle kissing motion with my mouth. For you. I’m here for you, my love.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. Ah, he liked that.

  I felt as much as saw his warm gaze sweep over my body, and as I looked at his muscled body in return and thought of what would soon happen between us, I fretted that there was something wrong with me, that I should look twice at the young Frankish prince. It was insane to risk the regard of a powerful man like Sygarius, especially when the object of my obsession was little more than an unproven boy.

  It was worse than insane. It was stupid.

  As I moved on with my flagon, I heard Childeric blow out a breath and say, “Where did you find that one?”

  Sygarius chuckled. “Her? A gift from the gods.”

  “I’ve never seen a fig so ripe for the plucking.”

  My master’s reply was gentle, but the more deadly for that. “A harvest that is mine alone. I will tolerate no thieves in my garden.”

  Childeric was silent a moment, but then he, too, chuckled. “Nor would I, my friend. Some fruit is too fine for sharing. But you won’t begrudge me the joy of gazing upon it.”

  “Not at all.”

  A flame of anger kindled to life inside me. So Childeric would gaze upon me as if I were a pretty flower, unthinking and unfeeling, and Sygarius did not mind. I, his favorite, was to be dangled like a honeyed date in front of a hungry man; leered at, salivated over. Why? Did it amuse Sygarius?

  I flashed a look at him, and he beckoned me back with a tilt of his head.

  “Lotus,” he said. It was a one-word command to enact a short play that Terix, I, and a few other slaves had been practicing. My lips parted, my gaze skimming over the two dozen people in the room, and then landing on Clovis.

  The only thing worse than to be a slave was to be an actress or a prostitute, though the two were assumed
to go hand in hand, so what difference did it make?

  “Is there a problem?” Sygarius asked softly.

  I shook my head in quick denial and smiled, large and false. “I shall hunt down Terix, my lord.”

  I fled from the hall.

  Ah, gods. I had thought myself so clever, sneaking into the banquet with my flagon of wine, hoping to catch the eye of Clovis. Hoping he would share a glance with me, and feel an echo of that certainty that had stolen my breath and woken my body.

  But he had not so much as looked my way.

  And I had gained nothing but the promise of humiliation.

  Darian blew upon his pipes, and I could sense, even from my hiding spot in the dark colonnade behind a curtain, that the notes of the music I’d written were casting their spell over the gathering. The melody was both calming and subtly strung through with anticipation; the peaceful beauty of the musical phrases ended, more often than not, one note short of where a listener knew they should.

  Kina began to pluck a lyre, which was my cue to go in.

  Gods above and gods below, I did not want to do this. It had been fun and bawdy, and I’d laughed so hard that I nearly wet myself when Terix and I had acted out the tale of Lotus—but that had been in private, with friendly eyes upon us. Eyes I had no need to impress, and whose owners would not judge me.

  I didn’t understand how that which had delighted me so in one circumstance, threatened so much shame in this.

  And yet Kina plucked on, and I had no choice but to perform.

  Rebellion welled up inside me like a bubble, choking in my throat, and for one dangerous moment I thought I would flee. I’d run across the dark garden, through rooms, up stairs, ending in the quarters I shared with the other female slaves. I’d spend every moment in terror of my punishment for disobeying, and then either tonight or tomorrow, I’d be summoned before Lady Lydia, or Hermina, or perhaps the house steward, and berated, scolded, perhaps beaten. There would be no acceptable excuses I could give. Sygarius would understand the quaking of my pride at performing in front of strangers, but he would not understand how I could believe my pride to be more important than following his command.

  Flee, and salve my pride; or perform, and declare myself no better than a prostitute in front of Clovis.

  “Make your choice,” I heard my mother’s voice saying.

  Dreams, or reality.

  I knew where my body lived, and who held the chain.

  “Fuck them all,” I whispered, and with the harsh words I shoved aside my shame and the curtain and stepped into the room.

  A space had been cleared for the performance, for which the only prop was a small couch. I wore a voluminous, transparent green gown, my heavy black hair loose down to my hips, and a large, fake lotus flower tucked behind one ear. I knew the men’s gazes would be searching through the filmy gown, looking for nipples and cunny; they probably thought they weren’t seeing either. The spiral tattoos over my breasts and loins confused the eye, and in uncertain light made it look as if I wore an ornate breast band and breeches beneath the diaphanous green silk. Neither the Franks nor the Roman nobles had probably ever seen the like, as they were a tradition of my vanished people, the Phanne. It gave me a perverse satisfaction to think that I flaunted my near-naked body in front of them and they did not know.

  Truth be told, it sent a wicked thrill through me, and made my cunny swell.

  I imagined I could feel Clovis’s gaze upon me. Did he know what he was looking at? I told myself he did; that he, of them all, knew that it was not a costume he was seeing, but my own skin.

  It didn’t matter, though, for as Kina plucked the lyre, I became the nymph, Lotus, and the audience faded away. Music, dance, and song always transported me to a place beyond the present—or perhaps it was a place deep inside myself. All I knew was that the world around me disappeared, replaced by one of my imagination.

  The lyre was my voice, expressing my emotions as I wandered through a meadow, picked a flower, and savored the warmth of the sun on my skin. An imaginary butterfly landed on my fingertip, and as it flew away I grasped two thin reeds that had been hidden in my full skirts, one on each side. Their bottom ends were attached to my hem, and when I lifted one reed in each hand, the flowing yards of fabric lifted into the air like butterfly wings. A sigh of delight went through the room, the soft echo of it barely piercing my trance.

  I danced and spun to the music of the lyre and flute, flicking my wrists and looping my arms to make my fabric wings ripple and flow. As my body followed the choreographed moves that I’d practiced so many times before, my soul began to float free.

  Yes. This is what I sought, this transcendence, this freeing from the bonds of the earth, my body, my thoughts. Though I still saw the meadow in my imagination, new visions began to flicker at its edges: a face I did not know; a stormy sea; a haze of shimmering gold.

  The shimmering gold . . . there was something important about it. I strained toward it, trying to see it more clearly, but the dance was almost at its end. There was one more chance, one more moment when I might see it all.

  I drew a gasp from the audience when I took a great leap into the air, wings outspread, seeming to hover there as if truly I could fly—while in my mind I sought that shimmer of gold only to have it fade away, a mystery still. I landed in a small crouch upon the floor, my wings together above my back, resting with the slightest of trembles like a newborn butterfly drying its wings in the sun.

  One tense note played upon the lyre, plucked again and again.

  The moment stretched, tension rising, and then a burst of music from the pipes—and of laughter from the audience—heralded the arrival of Donkey, played by a servant named Marcelius, in a plaster donkey’s head with laughably large ears and teeth. He lumbered into Lotus’s meadow and tried to eat her wings, his movable jaw champing loudly. Lotus laughed and shooed him away, and then nymph and donkey capered together, playing at chasing one another.

  Then, oh, Lotus grew so sleepy and in need of a nap. And look, here was a lovely couch upon which to lie. I patted Donkey and then gracefully lay down on my back, twisting my lower body slightly onto my side to better show the dip of my waist and the swell of my hip. I lay my arms partially folded above my head, leaving my body open, vulnerable. A feast for the taking.

  The trance had vanished with the dance, and I was myself again. Panting with exertion, dewed with sweat, and aware of my body on display, I shut my eyes, leaving just enough space that I could spy upon the audience through the thicket of my lashes.

  Clovis was staring at me with an intensity that said he knew it was my nearly naked body he looked upon; and he knew that my eyes were not shut. His gaze locked with mine.

  My breath caught in my throat, and I felt a flush burn on my cheeks. Excitement and embarrassment washed over me in alternating waves, my body not knowing which it wanted. I could not move to cover myself; I had to keep the shameless pose. His eyes seemed to say he knew it was an offering meant for him.

  Then Clovis’s gaze slipped down to my breasts, lingering there, and his eyes narrowed. His brows drew down, expressing an interest—a contemplation, almost—that went beyond the sexual.

  I didn’t know what it meant.

  Then that smile crooked his mouth, full of flirtatious knowing, and he met my eyes again and winked.

  The casual, careless, cocky flirt! Here I was, arrayed like a luscious haunch of roast pork on a platter, and a meager wink was my reward.

  A wink that was altogether too knowing, too playful, hinting of previous acquaintance (though gods knew we had none beyond a single glance). To show such in front of jealous Sygarius . . . I tried to spot my master, but could not do so without moving my head. He was a watchful man; would he have noted Clovis’s knowing wink?

  On the other hand, hadn’t Sygarius put me on display exactly to make men salivate over my flesh, and
reach for it? It pleased him to possess that which other men desired, be it gold, fine horses, land, power, or even a female slave. I’d once heard him say that if you wished to control a man, you need only discover what he desired and offer it to him. Once he had it, you need only threaten to take it away.

  “The dangerous man is the one with nothing to lose and nothing to gain,” Sygarius had said. “He’s also the only honest man you’ll ever meet. So be wary of men who tell you the truth: you can’t control them.” He’d been speaking to one of his captains but I’d stored away the piece of wisdom, taking it out in private moments when I puzzled over why I obeyed orders; why I did not try to escape my slavery, or fight harder against Sygarius’s plans for me.

  There was too much that I feared losing: comfort, safety, my position as a favorite. And for many months now, Sygarius had been carefully building in me a desire for him. I wanted his touch. I wanted the fulfillment of the promise of years of waiting, and these months of training. I wanted to experience for myself the pleasures of a woman’s body. And I wanted that experience at the hands of the man who ruled this province—the entirety of my world for these past nine years—and was second to none in his power.

  No wonder I did not rebel.

  I’d need more than a wink from a handsome Frankish prince to tempt me to it, too, premonitions or no.

  Suddenly frustrated—couldn’t Clovis feel that there was something special about me? That I was more than I seemed?—I shut my eyes fully and listened to the music. The pipes began a jaunty tune, and I knew that Priapus had arrived in the meadow.

  Terix played him, of course; there was no one in the villa better suited to playing a demigod with a prick the size of his thigh who was cursed with the inability to consummate his desires. A guardian of gardens and boundaries, the comic figure of Priapus was a great favorite with the Romans. Terix’s costume had him concealing his enormous member under a hooded cloak, until—