Asterius Read online

  “Because now I will have to measure my husband’s kisses against that one! Typhon’s sticky raspberry kiss was bad enough. But that! Not fair, Asterius. Not kind!”

  “I don’t feel very kind right now. Go on, get out of here. Before I spoil you for your husband in other ways!”

  And I did. Finding my direction, I ran off into the darkened woods, hating and loving the boy I left behind.

  For the next few days I stayed close to home, trying to determine how Camellia’s rule would impact my day-to-day life. I tried not to think about my pack and the insights into them Asterius had given me. But the words ‘fight and fuck’ kept going through my mind like a mad loop, interspersed with memories of that kiss.

  Gods, that kiss! How could the mere meeting of lips and tongues cause that eruption of feeling? If that was what it was like for my Wolf Pack all the time, I did not know how they stood it. The need was overpowering.

  By the third day, I was fairly satisfied that nothing major was going to change. Camellia had her routine and so did her daughters. Oddly enough, all were hard workers when it came to spinning and weaving, and their days were occupied with those pursuits. Except when they were engaged in their extended preening or breaking for long meals when they would gobble down more food than my gladiators could pack in. I had to wonder where they put it all. Maybe they too had a pack of wolves they fed one night a week.

  I laughed silently to myself when I imagined this. From everything I knew of them, the last thing they would consider doing was scrambling about in the woods with a sack of stolen food for slaves.

  I returned to my work with Ariaratus and impatiently waited for the time when we would go to the barracks again. Though I did not believe it right to share gossip with my master, I found I had to talk to someone about my problems. My pack was no use. All they had wanted to do was talk about Talos’ big ‘cock’. And had that not proved to be the most embarrassing conversation I ever took part in?

  Why had they turned our first meeting after six months into something so rife with sex? Had they changed so much in six months? But if Asterius was right, they had been taking whores to their beds for a couple of years, so the change would have happened back then. So why did they suddenly want to talk about such matters with me now?

  Had I been the one to change over the last six months? My first blood had occurred years ago, but I had only recently started to feel like a real woman. Those urges spoken of had only started to make themselves known over winter. Maybe my pack had sensed something different about me, and that had led them to discuss such inappropriate topics with me. Had I worn my sexual need like a brand for all to see?

  Mortification consumed me. It could not be that, surely. No one else had seemed affected by my changes. And the lads in the barracks seemed as oblivious to my femininity as they ever had, thanks to my short hair and tightly bound breasts.

  “Ariaratus, may I ask you a question?” I said to him on the first day after the fireside gathering. We were walking down to the breeders’ compound to check on the health of the new mothers. Several had given birth over the winter and it was my master’s job to make sure both the mothers and children thrived.

  “You may, of course,” he answered a little formally. It would take a while for us to relax back into our old easy camaraderie. I was still the Little Mistress in his mind.

  “Pater’s new wife and her daughters make my life difficult. I keep to my rooms as much as possible, to stay out of their way. But I am worried that now Pater is gone Camellia will marry me off to someone Pater would not approve of. Someone I would not approve of. My pack believes I should write to Pater and tell him every detail of my complaints. What do you think?”

  The aging man frowned deeply. In some ways, the years I had worked with him had improved his lot. My repeated healings on his swollen hands had resulted in the permanent disappearance of the problem that had plagued him as he aged. He could now move around with few aches and pains, performing the most detailed work with ease, just as he had done in his prime. This was fortuitous, with me going away some time soon.

  “I think that you should do just that, but without making it sound like you are complaining. From a man’s perspective, there is nothing worse than a woman’s complaints.”

  I looked at my bearded companion. That beard was completely grey now, and his leathered skin was so wrinkled it was difficult to see his eyes. What had he been like in his youth? From the sound of it, he had much experience with women. Or their complaints, at least.

  “Do not look at me like that, Little Mistress. In my homeland I grew up in the secluded world of women. I used to have to listen to those women complaining and being spiteful to each other every day. I was glad when I grew old enough to leave that world behind and begin my training as a physician.”

  This interested me. Ariaratus rarely spoke of his life, except for his time as a physician with the Roman army. That he talked incessantly about. They seemed to be the best years of his life for some reason. Personally, I could not think of anything worse than following an army into the wilds and living in a tent. Not to mention working in a tent. It was only the comfort of my bed at the villa that kept my work as a physician balanced. On some level, I was still very much the Little Mistress.

  “How did you come to live in such a world? In the Parthian Empire, I assume? I thought those secluded places were all women.”

  “Boys are allowed. But as soon as they get close to manhood they must leave or be made into eunuchs. Luckily for me such was not my fate.” He grimaced at the thought.

  “Rome is very advanced in its treatment of women. We can go about freely without covering our faces,” I said, trying to show I had some knowledge of the world he had once belonged to.

  “If you are a free woman that may be the case. A slave woman... that is a different story.” His face closed down and he busied himself with his herbs. “But at least the Romans do not take their women to war with them, and then slaughter them when they lose. To make sure they do not fall into the hands of their enemies.”

  That shocked me greatly, and I had to look closely at Ariaratus’ face to make sure he was not teasing me with such outrageous information. But no, his face seemed quite serious. So, I moved on, not wanting to explore such a horrible thought. Instead, I decided to explore an equally horrible thought. One that had been troubling me since my pack raised it.

  “Masters make use of their slave women, do they not? That is what I have heard,” I prodded gently. The idea that Pater might be one of them made my stomach churn. And I denied the possibility vehemently in my head. But if it was a wide-spread and acceptable activity, then maybe he would also have done it.

  “Yes, a slave woman must meet any of her master’s desires. It is expected. As I said, in that way Rome is no different to any other civilization.”

  “The stoics believe slaves are men just like any other. And women too, of course. I believe that to be true,” I said thoughtfully.

  “A physician knows well enough what makes a man or woman. And it is not breeding or who has the power.”

  “Do all masters use their slaves in that way?”

  He shot me a calculated glance before answering. “Why do you ask me? How would I know?”

  “What if my husband is one of them? I could not stand it if he went from a slave girl to me and back again,” I answered, avoiding the quicksand that was my pater.

  Ariaratus breathed a sigh of relief, and it worried me. Why would he be relieved by me questioning how such a practise would affect my life? It was a very personal question, and yet it seemed to give him less concern than whatever he thought I was asking about. What I was really asking about: Pater.

  “You may prefer it if he leaves you alone. Most marriages among the patrician class are not love matches like your parents had. A man has... urges and if he satisfies them elsewhere most patrician wives are happy enough to look the other way. Their role is simply to manage the home and bear legitimate chi
ldren, after all.”

  I shuddered. That was exactly what I had been taught my role would be. And that love was a luxury most were not allowed. My heart sank all the way to my sandals. I did not want to be married to a man who took his pleasure with slaves who could not say no to him.

  He might expect me never to refuse him either. Some patricians saw their women as little more than chattel. Like high-born slaves. Or that was what I had picked up from snatches of conversation I had overheard when Pater took me visiting with him. The marriage bed terrified me for that reason.

  “Pater was alone a long time after Mater died,” I probed a little more, not wanting to think about my own future any longer. And thinking about Pater’s sexual urges was like testing a sore tooth with your tongue over and over. It hurt, but you could not seem to stop yourself doing it.

  “There are women who chose to meet his needs. For their own reasons. Slave women,” he said stiffly, his cheeks reddening.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “So, he did not make anyone share his bed then?”

  Ariaratus shrugged. “Power is a strange thing, Little Mistress. You do not have to consciously wield it for it to have an effect. Your pater forced no one, as far as I know. That is all I’m prepared to say on the matter.”

  I nodded, swallowing audibly and stoppering the tincture bottle I held with more strength than was necessary. My master scowled at me and I grimaced an apology. He was the one who would have to try to remove the cork. And if I stuck it in too tightly it might break off in his hand. Nothing was worse than bits of cork floating in a tincture.

  Chapter Four

  ASTERIUS

  I suffered more than my share of injuries when I fought against my pack in the next week. It was their way of making me pay for driving Accalia from the fire. I was happy enough to let them, first because I felt I deserved it—and not just for what they knew about—and second, because there was always a chance Accalia would be the one to stitch me up.

  Unfortunately, the last never happened. She was oddly absent from the barracks. When the physician sewed up a small cut just under my eye, I asked after her.

  “Cassius is otherwise occupied with family commitments,” he said brusquely, never taking his gaze from the needle he was preparing. A stitch so close to the eye would have been better stitched by the steady hands of Accalia, but it was not my place to complain.

  “His family’s making things difficult,” I answered instead, ever conscious of listening ears.

  “So I’m led to believe. It may settle down. New wives need to establish their territory.”

  I nodded. Accalia was used to having her own way, having been the sole mistress of the villa for seven years. It made sense that she would have difficulty adjusting to a change in the structure of her life. Maybe her new mother was not nearly as bad as she made her out to be.

  When the week was up, we all waited on tenterhooks to find out if Accalia would join us again. If she didn’t, I knew I would be directly to blame. Not just for baiting her at the fireside, but for the kiss.

  Gods, that kiss! Even though she was an innocent and lacking expertise, that kiss had figured prominently in my waking and sleeping dreams all week. It was hard to work out why it should have affected me so greatly. When your eyes were closed, one woman’s lips were surely the same as another’s.

  But hers were different. Accalia’s mouth was hers. It was as simple as that. Those lips conveyed her essence as much as her voice or smile did. No one sounded like our she-wolf. No one smiled like her or smelled like her or laughed like her. She was unique on so many levels.

  So, kissing her was unlike any other kiss I’d known. Because I didn’t have to imagine I was kissing Accalia, I really had been doing it. And it broke me into little pieces and ground my heart into mince. Gods, I loved that girl!

  Sometimes I wasted valuable sleeping time trying to fathom what it was that made her so lovable. I had so little experience with women. Mine was an all-male environment, after all. The sum total of my experience with women was my mother and the whores. And those were limited.

  Once we entered the barracks we got an afternoon visit with our mothers once a month. The time Typhon and I spent with ours had become less and less over the years, more from choice than necessity. There were far more interesting ways to occupy our free time than with a woman occupied solely with the care of our younger siblings. And her interest in us, Typhon and me, was also growing less and less. It was as if, by becoming men, we became strangers to her. Our visits were now short and largely dutiful. When we left for our initiation and then for Rome we would likely never see her again.

  There were pretty young breeders living in the compound, and I wouldn’t be male if I didn’t notice them. But they were off-limits, and we couldn’t so much as talk to them. I personally had no desire to be crucified with my cock in my mouth like Typhon’s father had been.

  Then there were the whores, the only other women I had any experience with. They rarely had much to say. The only time we got them to talk was when we asked about how they met their own urges. They were interchangeable in my mind, and I only preferred the little dark-haired one because she looked like Accalia. They had nothing in common beyond their looks.

  Maybe I loved Accalia because I knew her well, and she was not like the other women. Her interest in medicine set her apart from others. And her courage was equal to or better than most men I knew. When we were thirteen and she was twelve she’d travelled several nights and days to reach us out in the woods because a madman was after us. Or he was after Typhon. Which meant us. And if she hadn’t reached him when she did he would have been dead, either by the time we got to him, or as we tried to get him home.

  It had taken someone very special to do what she did. And over the years I’d seen her do other things that separated her from other people. Brave things. Foolhardy things. All of which left me in awe of the person she was.

  So, in the end, instead of wondering why I loved her, I asked myself how it might be possible not to love her.

  “Asterius?” Ariaratus said loudly, as if he had spoken to me already, and I hadn’t heard him.

  “Hmmm? Yes?”

  “I said you’re done. Stop worrying about Cassius and start worrying about yourself. Whatever you’re doing in training isn’t working. This is the third time this week I’ve had to sew you up. Anything more serious and it might interfere with your final initiation.”

  I nodded and shuddered. There was no way I was going to get the kind of injury that would interfere with me undertaking the final initiation. The last five years had all been about reaching this peak experience.

  There were six of us in our year undergoing the trial. We’d lost one lad from our group a few years back when he hadn’t been able to handle the increased rigors of the training. So the six of us that remained would be taken to the very edges of the empire and left there to fend for ourselves. None of us would be dropped close to each other, so this time we really were on our own. And we wouldn’t get any forewarning about where we’d be released.

  Alone, with only the clothes on our backs, we’d have to find a way to get home by the end of autumn. We wouldn’t even have permits to travel, which would save us being declared runaways. Of those who undertook this challenge every year, at least one didn’t make it back in time, if at all. It really was a challenge designed to separate the sheep from the goats.

  I couldn’t wait!

  Occasionally, I daydreamed about meeting Accalia during this challenge and taking off with her beyond the reaches of the empire. It was a foolish dream. Not only would she never leave her father, but I’d turn us both into fugitives. That was no life for a girl like her. And though I’d gladly forgo my dream of glory in the arena for her, I couldn’t ask her to forgo the wealth, status and luxury she was accustomed to. I literally had nothing to offer her but a life on the run.

  “Get out of here and try not to come back,” Ariaratus told me, bringing me back yet ag
ain from my revelries.

  And for the rest of the day I did try.

  We hadn’t bothered to set snares last week. After Accalia left we’d put out the fire, divided up the spoils and headed home. We left the two uncooked rabbits for predators. It was wasteful and disrespectful of life, a cardinal rule our Celtic doctores Brennus had taught us. But that night we didn’t much care about rules. Fury and fear drove us home to lick our wounds.

  Now we were faced with the possibility that there would be no food and no Accalia. If that happened, our nights of freedom would end. None of us would have the heart to keep them up.

  So we escaped from the barracks and made our way to our campsite with heavy hearts. Even our fire was dimmed to almost nothing.

  When Accalia arrived, we all jumped to our feet to greet her. Typhon was the first to grab her up and hug her, telling her over and over again how sorry he was for what we’d done. Then the rest of us took our turns until it was mine. I was last.

  Accalia looked at me nervously, not sure what to expect. I hated to see that expression on her face. I wasn’t the unpredictable one. That was Typhon’s role.

  I smiled, as shy as the night I lost my virginity. Accalia seemed equally shy and uncomfortable. The others just stared at us, expecting me to make it better. I’d do what I could. But I doubt there was anything that could truly make things better between us.

  The others knew I’d gone after her to bring her back last week, and failed, but they didn’t know about the kiss or the truths I’d shared with her about our lives. They’d have beaten me even bloodier had they known.

  “I’m sorry for last week. All of it,” I mumbled out.

  I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. I saw her nod and accept my apology. In the next instant, she was rushing into my arms and hugging me tightly. I wrapped my arms around her small form and savoured the feel of it for the few seconds it lasted.

  After that things were back to normal. We ate what Accalia had brought with her and talked up a storm. It was as if we were trying to outdo each other with the funniest story, all designed to entertain our girl. All so she wouldn’t run away again and leave us alone.