Virginia Henley (9 page)

“Two of my better qualities. What nationality are you?”

“I am English—British.”

“Another lie, by Jupiter! The tribes of Britannia are primitive headhunters, so wild and uncivilized they still paint their bodies with woad to frighten their enemies.”

Diana was speechless for a moment. She could not deny that ancient Britons were indeed
as
he described.

“Where did you come from?” he demanded.

“I came from London. I live in London.”

“You mean Londinium? Even your speech is strange. And that’s another damned lie—Londinium was destroyed by fire a few months ago. What are you doing in Aquae Sulis?”

“Aquae Sulis, of course! That’s the Roman name for Bath,” Diana murmured to herself.

“You were spying! You are a filthy Druid spy. Is Aquae Sulis the next city to be burned by the wild Britons whom you Druids have under your control?”

Diana’s thoughts spun wildly. She had pored over enough history books to know that around
A.D
. 60–61 Queen Boadicea of Britain had led an uprising of the native tribes against the Romans and had burned London. “I am no Druid,” she said truthfully.

“Then what are you, apart from a filthy bundle of rags?”

The uncivilized brute had the ability to maul her pride. She had no answer that would appease him.

“In those mummers’ rags I can neither determine its sex nor its age. Disrobe it!” he ordered the women.

The females who had brought the food tried to remove her gown. When she struggled, the tall woman set down her towels and came to their assistance. Diana fled across the tile floor to the far wall.

Kell took the whip from his belt and advanced toward her with clear intent.

Diana’s eyes blazed and her lips drew back from her teeth like a wildcat spitting fury. “You cowardly Romans! Is whipping the only way you know how to deal with a Briton?”

Her words amused Marcus Magnus. He smiled a wolf’s smile. “Kell isn’t a Roman, he’s a Briton. In my experience there is no better slave master in the world than another slave.”

Diana was aghast. They had her cornered now and began disrobing her. She was left with only her corset and her filthy wig. Everyone in the room stared in disbelief at the sausage-like garment that encased her. Humiliation stained her cheeks.

Magnus looked at Kell and shrugged. “It must be some misbegotten contraption a Druid priestess wears. Get it off.”

After much struggling, pushing, and pulling of strings, as well as cursing and scratching by Diana, the corset came off. In the struggle, so did her dusty powdered wig.

Magnus saw a transformation take place that was as
startling as it was pleasing. When the false white hair came off her head, a silken mass of pale gold curls tumbled down her back; a back that was a delicious curve of ivory alabaster. Freed from the distorting garment that encased her, she was indeed a female—all delicate curves and mounds. Her sweet round breasts thrust upward and were tipped by what looked for all the world like pink rosebuds. Her waist was so narrow he could nearly span it with one powerful hand. Her bottom swelled gently before tapering to long silken thighs and slim legs.

Her fair skin was unblemished, her body more beautiful than any goddess. She cowered upon a slatted wooden bench with excessive misplaced modesty. His body quickened in response to the loveliness before him. Beside the other women, the comparison was so marked he could hardly believe his eyes. She was like fine Italian glass set among thick stone jars.

“By the gods!” he murmured huskily. “Have her bathed and sent to my couch.” Then he strode from the villa to his own private bathing pool at the end of the garden.

Diana stared at Kell with loathing.

“You are indeed fortunate. The master liked what was hidden beneath your rags. Your body has saved your life— at least for the present.” Kell was greatly surprised that Marcus showed such a marked interest in a woman. The general did not normally waste his time with the opposite sex. He was a stern military man with little time for women. He visited a prostitute or used a slave a couple of times a week, but had never shown a preference for any female slave in particular, though everyone in the household was eager for his attention.

“Please give me something to cover myself.”

“Romans find no shame in the naked body. In fact they display it every chance they get,” Kell said somewhat dryly.

“I am not a Roman,” Diana said, using her hair to cover her bared breasts.

Kell said to one of the women, “Summon a bath slave, better send two; the female is capricious.”

Two girls entered the room almost as soon as the serving woman had departed. They were young and muscular, their hair shorn close to their heads. They wore short white tunics and sandals.

“Bathe the new slave, then return her to me. I will select a stola for her.”

Diana’s head went up proudly. “I am no slave!” she said defiantly.

Kell sighed. He approached the wooden bench and spoke quietly, summoning infinite patience. “You need a good flogging. My instincts tell me that if I give you one now, at the outset, I will save myself much trouble. The master, however, will enjoy your body more if it is un-marred by my flagellum.”

Diana gasped. “You must be mad!”

Kell continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Life will be infinitely simpler for both of us if you and I reach an understanding. Your speech and your manner tell me you are a highly intelligent female. My position in this household is secure because my word is law. My word is law because I mete out discipline to everyone beneath me. This household runs as smoothly as warm honey, therefore it is a happy household. That is exactly the way the general wants it, and what the general wants, I want. Ergo, what I want, you should want. Am I making myself clear to you?”

Diana answered him in the same tone he used. “Perfectly clear. I find no fault with your logic, but I abhor your gutlessness and your lack of moral fiber!”

His eyes glittered dangerously. “Proceed.” His tone clearly told her that if she proceeded, she did so at her own risk.

“I am naked. I refuse to bandy further words with you.”

Kell knew exactly what she meant. He was the slave driver of his own people at the bidding of a Roman. Her ideals were most lofty and noble only because she had never experienced slavery. He was interested to see how long her principles would stand up after she’d had a taste of it. He wouldn’t have to wait long.

“I hoped we could reach an understanding, but all we have reached is an impasse. So be it.” He motioned for the bath slaves to take her.

They did not go in the same direction the general had taken, so she assumed there was more than one bathing area. They took her through a door covered by a heavy canvas curtain. Diana felt a great relief that there were no longer male eyes upon her.

The room, not overly large, was tiled in spotless white; the square sunken bathing pools in turquoise. Steam rose in vaporous clouds from the larger pool. The steaming water looked most inviting to Diana.

“I shall bathe myself,” she said imperiously, going down the steps into the water.

The bath slaves exchanged a look but made no protest. One of them poured something into the water from a beautifully shaped flacon. Clouds of scented steam rose up to fill Diana’s senses. “What is that?” she asked.

“It is frankincense, an aromatic,” came the reply.

The warm water felt heavenly. Diana closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the turquoise tiles. She breathed deeply and it seemed to Diana that the worries and fears that had threatened to overwhelm her began to melt away along with her tension. Suddenly she heard people in the water with her.

Her eyes flew open and she was gripped by fear as she saw a bath slave on either side of her, each holding a dangerous-looking weapon in her hand.

When she cried out, the girls tried to still her fears. “It is only a strigil,” one said, holding it on the palm of her hand.

“A strigil?”

When the girl saw she was puzzled, she explained, “It is a scraping tool to cleanse the skin. It won’t hurt. Come.”

Diana felt too tired to protest. She left the water and lay down on a marble surface as they indicated she should. It sounded like an unpleasant experience to have your skin scraped, but Diana realized she would encounter a myriad of strange customs in this villa and in Aquae Sulis. The quicker she could adapt to new and untried things, the easier it would be for her.

Having to adapt to another time and another culture would be an upheaval of all she had ever known. It would be upsetting physically as well as mentally and emotionally. She told herself that she was more intelligent and more highly educated than any of the people who lived in this household, and coming from the modern world made her more civilized than any of the primitive people who lived in this first century.

She must try to go with the flow of life here. She must accept the smaller differences, which were really of little consequence. She would reserve her energy and her strength to protest the larger issues, which she could never accept. Like slavery! Surely it must be abhorrent to all civilized people?

Diana was pleasantly surprised at the feel of the strigil as it smoothed over her body. The bath slaves massaged her with almond oil, then slicked off the excess with the cleansing tool. Then they urged her back into the hot water, where they washed her hair with handfuls of soft soap.

Finally they urged her to leave the bath and submerge herself in the smaller one. The cold plunge took her breath away and the bath slaves laughed with her as gooseflesh arose on her arms and legs. They wrapped her in a large, thirsty bath cloth and rubbed the wetness from her hair until it was a mass of damp curls.

The pair then stripped off their wet tunics and replaced them with identical short dry ones. They ushered her to yet
another room of the villa. The floor was rich mosaic tile, the walls painted cream in contrast. Torches in wall brackets made the room bright. They invited her to sit upon a cushioned stool shaped like a throne. It had exquisitely curved cabriole legs and looked as if it had been created by the famous Georgian designer Robert Adam. Then Diana realized that Adam must have borrowed the design from the Romans.

The mirror before her was highly polished pure silver, which would have been almost priceless in modern times. One girl set to work on her hair with combs, brushes, and hot tongs. The other opened a carved box and set out jars of creams, lotions, perfumes, and face paint.

Diana was woman enough to take pleasure in the adornment of her person. She watched fascinated as her face became framed with tiny tendrils made from the paler silver-gilt hair that grew at her brow and temples. The rest fell about her shoulders and back like a cloud of gold. The other slave dusted Diana’s cheeks with color, touched her lips with carmine, and even her eyelids with silver.

Diana gazed at her reflection with bemused pleasure. The bath slaves had worked magic—they had made her beautiful!

Kell entered the room carrying the robe he had selected for her. Amethyst eyes met gray and held for a long moment. The garment he had chosen was such a vibrant color, Diana lusted for it. He handed it to one of the girls and stood with arms across his chest waiting to see her adorned.

Diana fought down her distaste at having a man watch her dress. She knew no amount of protests would rid her of his presence. She would simply have to think of him as a slave rather than a man. The thought covered her with guilt. Was she already becoming tainted?

The floss silk robe was magenta. Diana had never dared to even hope to own anything in this magnificent shade. It enhanced her coloring a hundredfold, turning her hair to moonlight and her skin to pearl. She wore no undergarments and the irony was not lost upon her. How many times had she wished her body free of restrictive underclothes?

One of the bath slaves bent to her feet and slipped on sandals with high elevated cork soles. When Diana stood up from the stool to see if she could walk in them, she saw the skirt of the magenta silk was slit to the waist on one side to display her leg with each step she took. And an extremely long leg it appeared, atop the high cork soles.

Kell watched with hooded eyes. “The Egyptian
musk,” he decided. That particular perfume was so costly the girl brought the alabaster flacon to Kell rather than apply it herself. As he reached out to anoint Diana between her breasts, their eyes locked. His touch was so detached and impersonal that Diana knew they were taking the first tentative steps along the road to understanding.

Diana had managed to keep the words of the general who owned this magnificent villa at bay. Now, however, they came stealing back to her.
Have her bathed and sent to my couch.
Well, the first order had been carried out. She had been bathed and beautified. No longer would he be able to call her a filthy bundle of rags. She thanked God for it. A woman had much more confidence and power when she knew she looked her loveliest.

Now she would be sent to his couch, wherever that was. Well, she was ready for him! All of a sudden the meaning of couch became clarified. His couch meant his bed! My God, how ignorant she was. That is what all this bathing and anointing had been about. They had turned her into an object of pleasure for his enjoyment!

The pupils of her eyes turned dark purple as she looked furiously at Kell. “You are sadly mistaken if you think I will go docilely to the general’s sleeping chamber! He may order this household of slaves to his black heart’s content, but I am not his slave; I will not obey his orders.” She watched Kell’s hand fall to his whip and deliberately raised her chin. “Not without one hell of a fight, I won’t. I will ruin the tranquillity of this household, I will run riot and cause such pandemonium I will awaken the dead!” She stood defiantly with hands upon hips berating the slave master with her fiery temper. “I will pull this villa down, stone by bloody stone, before I will submit to him.”

Kell had his choice of weapons to make her obey. He chose a subtle one. “What transpires between Marcus Magnus and yourself is your own private business. I recognize your high principles and feel sure you will not drag others to their downfall over this affair. If the bath slaves
fail to deliver you to his couch, they will be flogged for their disobedience. As slave master of this household, I will be the one ordered to administer the flogging to these young girls. All the while your own precious skin will go unscathed. You possess an eloquent tongue. I suggest you await the Primus Pilus in his sleeping chamber and tell him yourself that you will pull his villa down, stone by bloody stone.”

Diana swallowed hard. What Kell suggested would take a great deal of courage. Yet the alternative was unthinkable. No one must be flogged because of her, if she could prevent it. She knew full well Kell had used his wits to persuade her to do his bidding, yet she could not help but feel a measure of admiration for his clever tactics.

Diana inclined her head. “Lead on.”

He took her up to the second story of the villa and led her into a large chamber. “After the master dined, he and his brother went to the amphitheatre. It could be hours before he returns. I suggest you rest while you may.”

His advice did nothing for her morale, but she bit back a retort and allowed him to leave.

Marcus Magnus had been looking forward to spending the evening with his younger brother. They had not seen each other for five years. Now his brother’s legion had come here to Britannia and would undergo vigorous training in Aquae Sulis before it ventured into the wilds of Western Britannia, which still lay unconquered.

Marcus waited in the atrium ready to welcome Petrius when he entered the villa. Instead of enfolding him in his arms, he smote him on the shoulder. “By Jupiter, you look fit. You have filled out considerably from the seventeen-year-old I left in Rome.”

Petrius had followed in his brother’s footsteps. Marcus had signed up for twenty-six years of military service at only fourteen years old, becoming a professional soldier for
life. Petrius had had to wait until his seventeenth birthday because he did not have the brawn and muscle of Marcus. What he lacked in physique, however, he made up for in ferocity, rising all the way to cohort centurion, commanding over five hundred soldiers.

He ruled his men through fear and would have exchanged his handsome face with Marcus any day of the week. His brother’s visage was both dark and stark. The bridge of his nose and the planes of his cheeks made him look hard, severe, invincible. The scar from temple to cheekbone added a touch of savage violence that Petrius coveted.

As he looked about his brother’s villa, Marcus’ face was not the only thing he coveted. It was almost as grand as their father’s outside Rome. The atrium had a glass roof through which he could gaze at the stars. It also had a marble fountain where gold and silver fishes darted about between the fronds of water plants.

They walked between marble pillars to enter the triclinium, where Marcus could dine alone or entertain his dinner guests. The entire chamber was decorated in gold and white. Marble pillars encircled its walls, white marble tables stood between reclining couches, piled with gold and white pillows and elbow cushions.

“Very grand. How many chambers?” Petrius inquired, determined to keep the envy he felt from his voice.

Magnus shrugged. “A score perhaps.”

“How many slaves?”

“Thirty household slaves,” Magnus replied, eliminating the gardeners and outside slaves who tended his walled peristyle, making it a beautiful sanctuary. He did not wish to sound ostentatious to Petrius.

“You own others?”

Since Petrius would not leave it alone, Marcus gave him the whole truth. “I own hundreds. All taken in battle as prizes of war. I fought a decade in Africa and Gaul before I
came to Britannia. I fought here four years before I became Primus Pilus. That adds up to a lot of prisoners.”

“I do not take prisoners. The thrill of battle is bloodying my sword in the slaughter of Rome’s enemies.”

“With the right guidance enemies can become allies. My slaves are all willing workers. They build the roads, aqueducts, and the baths here. Some of them are engineers. They are learning skills they can use once they earn their freedom.”

“Freedom? You are a fool, Marcus. When you are done with them, you should send them to the galleys or to Rome to fight in the arena games. Either would soon finish them off instead of letting them live to stab you in the back some dark night.”

Marcus changed the subject. Petrius enjoyed bloodlust as did many Romans. Because of it he would rise in the ranks. He might need it where he was going. Marcus had been there. The various wild tribes of the Celtae were head-hunters. The mountains to the west and the Island of Mona were like marching into Hades. “So, has Rome changed much in five years?”

“Surely you jest? Since your last leave to recuperate from your wounds, so much building has gone on, you wouldn’t recognize the place. Since Nero became emperor, the entertainments have become spectacular! They are the envy of the entire world. We have beast hunts not only in the circus, but in every part of the city. I admire Nero enormously.”

Marcus said bluntly, “He fucked his mother, then poisoned her.”

Petrius laughed. “A fate most women deserve!”

Marcus’ thoughts flew to the beautiful slave girl he had just acquired. Already he was impatient to possess her. He forced his mind back to the conversation. “I should love to see the chariot races at Circus Maximus. I’d even like to try my hand at racing there.”

“I don’t frequent the races. I prefer the gladiators and the bestiari, and of course the executions.”

Since Magnus could see no entertainment in executions, he thought perhaps Petrius was trying to goad him, but then his brother surprised him with a compliment.

“If you did race there, you would surely win, as you did today.”

“I’m not so sure, Petrius. The Britons are the greatest charioteers in the world. ’Tis from them I learned the skill.”

“Nero imports all he can get. Why are they better than Romans?”

“Because they still use the chariot for warfare. We gave it up years ago; a mistake, in my opinion. Our foot soldiers are too slow to fight them. They are in and out like lightning. Wait until you encounter them in battle, you won’t believe the things they can do.”

“The Roman legion is the greatest military machine the world has ever known,” Petrius scoffed.

All the time they talked, they reclined upon couches while impeccably trained slaves brought in the many courses of deliciously prepared food. Between each course, other slaves brought in scented water and towels. Petrius almost choked from envy for his plate was made of solid gold.

“Nevertheless our losses are colossal. But don’t worry, I’ll teach you all the tricks. That’s why you were sent to Aquae Sulis.”

“Acceptable losses are just part of the price we pay for conquering the world.”

“Indeed they are,” Marcus said grimly.

“How have you endured it here, all these years away from Rome?” Petrius asked curiously.

Marcus’ mind swept back to when he was twelve years old. Emperor Claudius had just invaded Britannia and it had fired his ambition to become a Roman general and conquer new lands. Because of his size and strength, the army had
taken him at fourteen. “I like Britannia, especially Aquae Sulis. Under Claudius, people flocked here from all over the empire. They intermarried with Britons and became extremely civilized. They speak Latin as well as you or I; they have adopted Roman dress. Merchants from the far corners of the world have set up their shops so that any commodity or luxury can be purchased. Here we have the best of all cultures, theatres, amphitheatres, temples. We are close to the sea, and we are not overcrowded as is Rome. We are far away from the corruption of politics, and best of all are our hot springs that bubble from the earth at a constant temperature of one hundred and sixteen degrees!”

When the food was cleared away, the wine was served.

“Well, I may not admire the place as you do, but I find no fault with its oysters or its wine,” Petrius said affably.

“Let’s be off. How would you like to spend the evening?”

“How about the theatre? But none of your dreary poetry by Sophocles, thanks. A bawdy play might suffice. Then a visit to a luxuria might be stimulating. You do have fornices here?”

“They are known here as brothels. We have prostitutes from as far away as Asia and Arabia.”

“Do you suppose they have Nubians? Can I purchase the services of a male
and
a female?”

“A good thing I served oysters tonight,” Marcus said dryly. He had looked forward to spending the evening with his brother, but now that it was here, he would have rather stayed home a thousandfold. He thought fleetingly of the lovely creature he had ordered to his couch. His taste for a coarse and lewd prostitute diminished by the minute.

Petrius chose a mime theatre. It was a roaring farce where a lover was surprised by the return of a jealous husband and forced to hide beneath the bed. Then it showed his great suffering as the husband performed numerous sex acts with his wife upon the very couch the lover hid beneath.

The language was exceedingly gross. The posturing of
the actors and actresses was indescribably vulgar. All was accompanied by loud music and florid dancing. The theatre was packed with men, most of them Roman soldiers, but also merchants and a vast number of the youth of Aquae Sulis.

Marcus was bored to death, but was thankful that Petrius laughed throughout. His brother’s only discontent was that at the interval they did not enliven the audience with a bear or bull baiting.

The play seemed to go on interminably, with the grossest parts receiving the loudest applause. Finally, it was over, and as they filed out of the theatre, Marcus searched his mind for an excuse not to visit a brothel tonight.

“You should see the fornices that have sprung up outside Circus Maximus. Bawds solicit from morning ’til night.”

“That’s because the sadistic pleasures of the games raise sexual excitement to a high pitch,” Marcus explained, hiding the distaste he felt.