Faustina and the Barbarians (7 page)

Caeli moaned and squealed most delightfully as it filled and refilled her with increasing energy, swivelling her lovely hips and bending and twisting to enjoy every thrusting sinew, without her misted-over eyes ever leaving me. It was as if, in being fucked, she was fucking me. I became aroused again, and as she writhed upon the Greek, under her Medusa-gaze my clitoris turned to stone. I played with it, my thighs drawn wide, returning her gaze, and the two of us came exquisitely together, the Greek adding his own grunts of ejaculation to our private party.

Two days later, completely rested and reinvigorated by the fleshpots and wineshops of Swinging Londinium I stood before what the city’s senators dubbed ‘a select committee.’ They were an elderly, officious-looking bunch of old duffers, but they quickly perked up their ears—and other dessicated bits of their anatomies—as I paraded before them, my boobs reverberating with the force of my empurpled rhetoric.
 

For once I was fairly brief, though after fifteen minutes I had them in the palm of my hand, or rather, the warm crevice of my cleavage, and I could’ve waxed lyrical for much longer. But, the girls were keen on another night out and it would be wise to make the most of Old Dinium while we could, so I bounded on to my peroration:

“Whatever you think of these Picts or ‘Painted People’ as they’re somewhat disparagingly known, they cannot be kept out of the civilised Roman lands of Britain for ever. Noble elders, do I need to remind you that Rome was built on inclusiveness? She conquered the world but did not crush it beneath her heel. She gathered all to her bosom.” Here I leaned forward on the lectern and illustrated my points. “She absorbed, she learned, she accepted, she grew in might and sinew. Rome was strong enough to open her arms to all the world, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Portals of the Orient, and she must do so now, or have her light snuffed out eternally.

“Let us try at least to forge an alliance with these Painted tribesmen, after all, are they not as native to these islands as you yourselves? We can benefit by their warlike spirit while they can only benefit by being brought in from their barbaric isolation closer to the bosom of Roman Civilization,”—I leaned low on the lectern again, my bazooms a breath away from spilling out of my mamillare—“Noble Fathers, let me be your ambassador to the Picts, let me convey your desire for an alliance with them against the common Saxon enemy. Fill my mouth with your wise instruction, animate me with the decisive rigour of your purpose, let me be the glorious instrument of your will. Let me convince these Picts!”

There was silence for several moments. I stood, hands on hips, breathing hard, legs akimbo. The last thing on the collective mind of the Noble Fathers, flushed of gill, and athrob of temple, was diplomacy or the fate of Britain. And then a gush of applause splashed over me.
 

It was a hard but enjoyable ride northward. I had assembled our embassy to the Picts swiftly. All four girls insisted on accompanying me. Botilda was essential as she could act as our translator, but the others were now addicted to adventure and swore they were never going back to servitude with their husbands, or any others who might come along.
 

We had a military escort of cavalry, each of whom I interviewed personally, ensuring that his martial prowess was up to scratch, and I was not disappointed in a single one of them. They were all young and as keen for adventure as the girls. Yes, the sap was running high, and making sure it didn’t burst its banks and get us all killed en route was no easy task. For the further north we rode, the more dangerous things became. As you know Honorius had withdrawn the last of the legions two years earlier, and though there were plenty of bold British troops stationed in various towns—Eboracum had a particularly feisty contingent—they could hardly equal the discipline of legionaries, and they certainly couldn’t inspire the same dread among the newly restless Chavi, or the Picts, who had never been conquered.
 

We did what we could to ensure our safe passage, and were flying an ambassadorial pennant prominently. One thing in our favour, something I had to keep repeating to myself as we passed through the sparsely manned and somewhat ramshackle gatehouse at the Wall of Hadrian into what used to be the Roman province of Valentia, was that all, or all the British tribes anyone had heard of, were obliged to provide shelter and succour to any strangers traversing their lands. Is this not a more hospitable tradition than anything Italia has to offer? Imagine back-packing through Etruria and knocking on doors for food and drink! I think this noble custom has much to do with the harshness of the British landscape and climate, particularly in the rugged, mountainous north. Though I hasten to add, such succour does not extend to aggressive soldiery, which was why, though we were a tough enough band, I made sure we disposed ourselves in as casual and unaggressive a manner as possible, without losing all sense of discipline.

Word of the nature of our mission spread as we penetrated north. The Pictish leaders were proudly surprised to find themselves the object of appeal by the once mighty Romans, and doubly so as the embassy was headed by a descendent of the mighty Emperor Maximian, co-Emperor to Diocletian, the ‘saviour of Rome.’

But which of the Pictish nations were we aiming at? There was already some squabbling among the different kings, Botilda ascertained, and, apparently, each had sent his own representative to await us at Trinomontium, a former Roman fort, and now the nearest thing the Picts had to a settled town.

The fort is set on a beautiful hill overlooking woodland, which, once cleared by the legionaries, has now rapidly repopulated the slopes. It was dusk when we arrived and the torches and campfires of the assembled Picts wreathed the hill in waving pricks of smoky flaring light. Our cavalrymen were far more apprehensive than we girls were, and I had to constantly reassure them that no harm could come to us as we were now the official guests of the Picts. I must say though, some of the painted warriors certainly played on the fears of our boys, leaping out at them, pulling wild faces, stamping their war-spears fringed with feathers and pointing them at their throats.
 

We were housed in the officers’ dormitory of the old fort which the Picts had kindly done their best to make comfortable. There we found bedding and cooking materials and, in a spirit of jest, they’d even left a bowl of woad with which we could paint ourselves blue. Botilda, appreciating the joke, immediately fell on this and, stripping off, started painting her big breasts with the thickheaded brush. It had a stiffening effect, which made her papillis stand out like spear-heads. Botilda already sported a number of tattoos, and when we headed down to meet the Pictish leaders at their camp, our Botilda was transformed into a Pictish amazon. And it was appreciated by our hosts. Hundreds of warriors and their women applauded, the men knocking their spears on their shields, the women striking cooking pots, the younger ones banging their thickly braceleted wrists together.
 

The night was dedicated to feasting, parlaying reserved for the following afternoon. Though I’d have preferred it the other way around, for the next day we were all suffering from varying degrees of hangover after the rivers of mead and metheglin which were poured over us, and, needless to say, other substances too.

This mead, the national drink of the Picts, is a liquor made from fermented honey and water; while metheglin is a kind of medicinal variety, enhanced by various spices, and far stronger. So fiery strong in fact, that it accounts for the fearsome battle-craziness that possesses the Pictish warriors. Enough of this down the throats of the effete Romano-British and we could’ve swept the Saxons into the sea, I thought, until I was told the Saxons drink something like it too.
 

It also lights a fire in the libido that is not easily assuaged.

After the barbecue of roast deer and hare there were various games of physical and martial prowess, chief among them a spear-throwing contest. Our cavalry boys fared fairly miserably in this, and in a fit of pique I grabbed the spear off the grinning Pict next to me and strode out before the target. Liberal though they are, it doesn’t do for anyone, least of all a woman, to grab a man’s weapon—spear or sword, I mean. A gasp went up from the crowd at my gesture and there was fierce muttering which Cinioch and the other representatives of the kings smilingly waved down.
 

I took aim at the bright blue bull’s eye on the target, shaking off the fumes of drink wavering across my vision and sent it clear through that blue eye, blowing the whole target into splinters. A roar of applause went up, and from that moment, I thought, the success of our mission was assured.

 
What was assured was the devotion of a group of young warriors who surrounded me when I sat back down and plied me with questions—which Botilda had to translate—and more mead and metheglin.

As I sat amongst their collective eagerness and curiosity, it was as if the nearby fire had got up and transplanted itself within my belly. Their eyes devoured me, their blue-black light like oil coating my face and neck and breasts; whenever one of their folded knees touched me, it had the shock of penetration. And what one felt they all felt, as if they were one young man with eight arms and legs, and four young sprightly cocks.

I complained of the heat and was immediately offered a trip down to the stream that curled through the nearby wood. Caeli jumped up, concerned to see me walking off into the dark with four tattooed warriors, but I urged her to stay and enjoy her own admirers, a young girl and a young man.

It was pitch dark in the dense wood, there was no Moon, but suddenly, as we came into a clearing within sound of the thickly murmuring stream, there was light. Four great glowworms ringed me, great thick amorous slugs of purplish-blue light with thick dark snouts snuffling against my thighs and rear. No, this wasn’t entirely a metheglin-induced hallucination. The Picts have a phosphorescent paint, in part derived from the pulp of the glowworm, with which they paint parts of their body for certain nocturnal rituals. These playful youngsters had brought some along and painted their members with it. I had to laugh, and then, through sign-language and a couple of Pictish words I’d acquired, got them to hand me the tube containing the fluorescent stuff. Stripping off my tunica I dabbed some on my nipples which suddenly sprang into life like tumescent fireflies, and, pulling down my thong, I smeared my cunnus’ lips with it too. It gave me a tingling enlivening sensation, though it also dripped a little, as my cunnus was already well and truly oiled with the delicious unguent of anticipation.
 

I stood, watching each of the glowworms thicken and stand upward, like four ghostly silent roosters aggressively straining their necks at each other. And suddenly a rustling of dry leaves, and into this charmed circle came Caeli, too concerned to stay by the fire.

“Here darling.” I handed her the phosphorescent woad. “Join the party.” Caeli looked at the brightly glowing lips of my cunnus, my blue star-like nipples and laughed disbelievingly. But the boys were impatient to start, and I allowed myself to be eased down to the grass, while a great pulsing ballista of light moved between my legs.
 

How strange and thrilling it was to look down at my own body, one with the pitch darkness, its one visible opening a purse of light into which the big glowworm began burrowing and disappearing as if it were some strange nocturnal beast sliding into its den. A few feet away the same homecoming was in process. The gates of Caeli’s glowing slit—she must’ve been on all fours at an angle to me—were being spread wider and wider as another long glowing cock pushed into its burrow and disappeared. And then it reappeared slowly, ring by glowing ring, only to nose in again at a quickening pace.
 

Have you fucked blindfold yet Flavia? This was far better, as all was blackness, thick, slick, clinging blackness broken only by radiant cocks and light-dripping cunnies.
 

The darkness, blanketing all other distraction, allowed me to concentrate on sensation. So much so that my body felt as though it were the whole darkness, the whole of the black earth being penetrated to the core by the burning light of some ancient sky god. I dug my nails into the split muscled rondure of my lover’s black arse, pulling his infinite ram of hard, hot meat deeper and deeper within, squirming upon it like a roll of licking flame until his juice erupted, spitting and bubbling, like the juices sizzling out of the arteries of a spit-roasted hare.

I could hear Caeli coming too, and, on the cusp myself, grabbed the next stiffly glowing member and stuffed it greedily within the bright maw of my cunnus. The fourth was doing nothing, apart from disappearing within its owner's fist, so I reached up and pulled it toward my mouth. The blue paint tasted rather bitter, but I sucked and swallowed it down rapidly until the familiar taste of sweet young cock flesh broke through, its owner’s groans twining with the breathless cries of Caeli in the dark. It was enough—almost—to bring me off. The painted snake inside me had prematurely shot its sweet venom; I pushed him out and withdrawing my oral guest, relocated him in a cunnus now sopping with glowing moisture. He was very grateful after being kept waiting so long and was so vigorous in his appreciation it was a struggle to hold off my own coming long enough to meet his with my full force.
 

Afterwards we all bathed in the cold waters of the black stream, the blue light from our painted bodies washing away into the darkness.

The following afternoon I put my case for a Roman-Pict anti-Saxon alliance to the six representatives of the Pictish Kings with all the physical and psychological skill at my disposal.

They acknowledged that the Saxons were a growing threat but weren’t convinced—or said that their masters weren’t convinced, though it was obvious that one or two of them really held the reins of power—that it was a long term threat. One of them, an oily, disrespectful creature, silkily implied that the Romans should clean up their own mess as it was the government in Londinium that had first invited the Saxons in as hired thugs to settle their own internicene disputes. There was truth in this, but I silenced him with another truth: that in these chaotic times most governments hired mercenaries, the Picts themselves were not averse to recruiting feckless British soldiery, and besides, it was pointless now levelling the finger of blame: the scale of the Saxon problem required immediate, concerted action.