Roman victory kills more than those on the battlefield.
Like locusts, the legions consume everything within miles. Hungry soldiers ravage crops and slaughter livestock, leaving the defeated unfit for enslavement, to starve without a forest or animals. Rebuilding is not an option when Roman blacksmiths melt every bit of metal, from anvils to plows, for new arrows and spearheads—or, in this instance, plank spikes and anchors with chains for Caesar’s new fleet.
Snow blankets the ridge between their camp and the ship-building yard. Long-house barracks replace the oak forest, each butchered tree a beam in one of Caesar’s flat-bottom boats; every branch burns in a camp stove.
Skipio shares quarters with Titus and Planus while their three horses inhabit the attached stables. He kicks snow from his fur boots before entering and finds Titus huddling over their concrete fire bowl, his nappy beard and hands close to its glow.
“How fares your father?”
Skipio drapes his cloak over the wooden shoulders that hold his armor.
“Vitus is out of camp looking for another forest,”
Titus questions, “How many more ships do we need?”
“Five legions and two thousand cavalry.” Skipio joins his heated space after shedding his boots. “We can’t get there on a few biremes, friend.”
“His preferred mode of travel,” teases the voice beneath the furs.
Titus pouts. “I don’t like penning my horse below a deck,”
“She’s a better swimmer than you,” the voice counters.
“You can keep her company this trip,” Skipio tells him. “We’ll all be below decks.”
Fur blankets fall as Planus sits up, revealing a jawline riddled with hair.
“At least these ships have flattened bellies,”
“Let’s pray Fortuna provides us a beach upon which to land,” Titus says, then shifts his eyes to Skipio. “How much snow fell in the night?”
“No more than yesterday,” he replies. “The shipbuilders brushed most of it from their planks this morning.”
“You think Labenius will let the builders stay?” Titus asks.
Planus tuts. “The same man who goaded us to slaughter migrating innocents. Hardly. He’ll work the craftsmen to near death and then put them on the first boats.”
Titus and Skipio trade glances; no man is more suitable for senatorial service than Gaius Planus Caesar, whose prowess on the battlefield pales to his social conscience.
Flames flicker and wood cracks, challenging Skipio. He touches the fire bowl’s rim and recoils with a smirk.
“You know it’s hot enough to burn,” Titus scolds.
“Yes,” says Planus. “That’s why he touches it,”
“What of that well-dressed Gaul from Britannia?” asks Titus.
“My father says the tribal prince gave him the river layout,” Skipio answers, again testing his mettle against the bowl’s heat.
“A traitor to his people?” Titus wonders.
“His people serve a new king.” Planus watches as Skipio gingerly taps his fingers against the scalding trim. “His royal rudeness is why we’re working through winter,”
Titus and Skipio regard Planus with a silent need for further clarity.
Bulky and bearded, the gravelly-voiced Mandubracius arrived onshore before the first snow. After bathing and some wine, he relayed his situation to Caesar and most trusted. The man hoped to reacquire his position and promised aid for Rome in their quest to take his island.
Planus sat in on this dinner as optio and found the Gaul surprisingly uncouth, considering his alleged proclamation as ‘King of the Trinovantes.’
“He was appalled when the goose arrived at the table,”
“You dined on goose?” Titus sulks.
Skipio fills his cup with lavender tea. “We ate rabbit, again,”
“Oh, imagine the Prince’s horror if we served him a rabbit,” Planus chuckles. “His tier of islander does not eat rabbit, goose, or chicken,”
Titus knits his brow.
“How does one regard such a tasty bird as unappetizing?”
“To them, all fowl are sacred,” Planus explains. “Yet they’ve no issue raising them to kill each other for sport,”
“You’re telling me chick and hare populations run unchecked in Britannia?” Titus asks, then grins. “It’ll be a paradise for the camp trappers.”
“No, I suspect only royalty and the religious abstain,” Planus clarifies. “Common people get hungry, and hungry people eat what’s common.”
“Speaking of hunger,” Titus hugs himself against the chill and watches Skipio. “How goes our Castor?”
“Castor’s got a new lover.” Skipio spits a mouthful of tea onto the coals and holds his face over the steam. “I’m happy for him.”
Titus and Planus join their stares before sharing a hearty laugh.
“I am happy for him,” he reiterates, staring them down.
Planus goads, “You don’t miss catching him unawares?”
“I’ve no use for a man that fears my desires,” he says.
Titus leans in, “Perhaps women are more inclined to your brutal lusts,”
Skipio’s grimace makes them howl.
“When did you start hating women?” Titus demands with a smile.
“He doesn’t hate women.” Planus scratches his bedhead into something manageable. “He just doesn’t like their splits and breasts,”
“Big tits are wonderful.” Titus elbows him. “I’d think you like punching them.”
“Teats are tasty,” admits Skipio. “So long as they’re not attached flabby bags,”
“How now,” Planus wags a finger. “That’s no way to speak of the esteemed Pompey’s ample chest,”
Titus and Skipio crow at this truth.
“I warned that boy,” Titus confesses. “Young for his years, Castor was smart enough to have sat with us before our instructors, yet stupid enough to ignore my words about our Skipio.”
“You spoke ill of me?” he asks, raising his arms to stretch.
“We’ve all spoken ill of your violent pursuits,” Planus reveals. “Still, little Castor followed you around like a love-struck puppy,”
Titus smirks, “I bet he thought he could change our Skipio,”
“Change him, indeed,” Planus giggles like a child. “As if Skipio’s shat his pants,”
Even Skipio finds humor in such a notion.
“The first time Castor showed up at muster with bruises,” Titus recalls. “I knew his time with you wouldn’t last,”
“I’m an acquired taste,” he quips.
“Indeed.” Planus nods. “A rare few develop a taste for a punch in the face,”
Titus yawns. “Does your father know?”
“I do not discuss my carnal habits with Lord Vitus,” he says.
“My father took me to my first brothel,” Titus says. “I laid with his favorite,”
“Yes,” he pinches the bridge of his nose. “We’ve heard this story many times.”
Planus sighs, “My father passed before my virginity,”
“Yes, I’ve heard that fact just as many times,”
“My taste for women must bore you two.” Titus’s eyes volley between them. “Forgive me for not regaling you with tales of being balls-deep in a clean-shaven boy half my years,”
“How now.” Planus scoots to the cot’s edge. “You should seek forgiveness for regaling us with tales of being balls-deep in a clean-shaven woman double your years,”
Skipio chuckles. “Her husband wanted your wooly head on a stick,”
“He chased him an entire eight blocks,” Planus laughs.
“She claimed he worked nights.” Titus loses himself in the memory. “I didn’t know he worked those nights on the street watch next door,”
“I’m shocked an arrest warrant wasn’t issued,” Skipio teases.
“Speaking of warrants,” Titus pulls the blanket tight around his face. “How is it you’ve never been arrested?”
“Not his father’s station, that I can tell you,” says Planus. “Old Vitus would let you rot in the cells for what he doesn’t know,”
“He knows well enough my tastes.” Skipio boasts. “As for whores, I’m very clear about my intent before any hands are thrown,”
“Do you draw up a contract?” Planus teases, but Skipio’s cat-that-ate-the-songbird expression kills his smile. “Do you draw up a contract?”
“Written on a scroll?” Titus goes wide-eyed. “And signed?”
“Verbal.” Skipio strips naked before pulling back the furs on his bed and revealing a chubby girl no more than twelve. “I tell them what I give, and they tell me what they’ll take,”
A jerking thumb orders her out, and she emerges clad in a heavy tunica.
“How long has she been here?” demands Titus.
“You?” Planus says to Skipio. “Honoring a catamite’s boundaries?”
“I negotiate,” he says, giving her a strip of dried meat and a pair of wool leggings.
“Negotiate?” Planus watches as the long-haired girl, jerky hanging from her mouth, pulls on the socks.
“Since muster,” Skipio tells Titus. “She warms my toilet seat and then my bed,”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Titus says as the girl hastily exits into the night.
“Because it’s wrong,” Planus admonishes. “It’s bad enough we’re working her brothers in the shipyard.” He turns his attention back to Skipio. “Negotiate? You mean, wear them down until you get what you want?”
“Male whores cannot be worn down.” Skipio slips under his furs and relishes their warmth. “Novices like Castor, though, let you get away with enough to keep it exciting.”
Titus looks to Planus. “Why is he like this?”
“Most men hear the story of Pluto and Proserpina and learn what not to do.” Planus lays back and pulls the furs up to his chin. “Skipio hears the same story and uses it as a guide,”
“Novices are fun at first,” Skipio confesses. “But soon become tiring.”
Planus winks at Titus. “You mean, they soon tire of you?”
“No one tires of me,” Skipio says, closing his eyes.
Titus says, “How do you not tire of yourself?”
“How now,” Planus teases. “Kicking the shit out of a man before you fuck him takes work,”
“The hunt takes work.” Skipio’s eyes grow heavy. “I’ve yet to find a man with enough fight in him to satisfy me,”
Spring brings warm days, with chilly nights to keep the ground hard.
Prisoners and workhorses drag completed ships to shore while legionnaires and cavalry horses participate in bloodless drills. Cooks prepare rations while craftsmen bang away at armor plates and sharpen projectiles.
After many teenage Gauls choose service over labor, the Roman cavalry numbers two thousand by mid-summer. As the days grow longer, Skipio and Planus drive their five-hundred-plus horses to greener pastures, sometimes with Titus when their leader, Labenius, allows it.
Titus’s second-in-command loses his legs after a snake frightens his horse, tripping the beast into rolling onto him. Terentius Drusus Valerian replaces the man and soon becomes Castor’s new lover.
The son of a wealthy Genua horse breeder, the duplicario earns Skipio’s respect with his equine knowledge. Before long, Castor’s constant company and Skipio’s complete disinterest become camp gossip. Still, no taunt posing as casual observation moves him, not even when cast by Planus, a master of verbal nets.
Summer’s waning month finds them leaving for Britannia.
Caesar’s flotilla contains eight hundred vessels, including those captained by profiteers and slavers. Titus sails seven days out with the food and another flotilla of merchants and traders, leaving Drusus to lead his archers on the crossing.
Skipio oversees thirty men and their horses, as does Planus and Castor, their ninety-man squad joining five hundred others on one ship. He comes upon his former lover and Drusus, fingers threaded and foreheads together.
Castor’s bedded the man—of this, he’s sure. Such tenderness turns his stomach. It’s not jealousy but self-hatred that nags; he cannot give and accept affection like most men, no matter how hard he tries. Skipio denies his shame—there’s nothing wrong with him, and not everyone lusts delicately. Someday, he’ll find a man capable of desiring his brutality.
They depart Portus Itius among the first ships, and Skipio, an attentive decurio, gets no sleep on the six-hour journey. A cavalryman since arriving in Hispania, he’s nose blind to horseshit yet praises the engineers for designing opened troughs along the hold’s middle seam. Below decks, the lowest ranks push flat iron brooms from berth to the forward, pushing horse droppings out openings in the aft.
He walks the berth to examine his swordsmen and their horses. Veterans of the first Britannia landing say little, with disastrous memories creasing their brows. The young Gauls under his yoke quell their nervous energy by shining shields, sharpening blades, or brushing the tension from their horses.
Planus performs the same rounds on his footmen and Drusus, his archers, before convening where they started alongside their horses with Skipio.
“You think they’ll be waiting for us?” asks Drusus.
“The tribes greeted Caesar on his last landing,” Skipio speaks mischievously. “Hundreds of thousands, all ready to chop our horse’s legs for stew and take a Roman head to decorate their chariots.”
The young man puts on a strong face, though his eyes expose anxiety.
“Don’t tell the boy such things,” Planus scolds, scuffing him about the neck. “The beheadings are true, dear Drusus, but a Gaul, no matter where his birth, would sooner eat a man than a horse,”
Some young Gauls nearby laugh softly.
“Repelling a legion is hungry work,” Skipio adds. “And we Romans are rather tasty,”
Drusus shakes his head. “Castor warned me about you two,”
They crow like a pair of happy women at a sales booth.
“They’re not monsters, Drusus, they’re men,” reminds Planus.
“If the druids we faced so far are any indication,” Drusus muses. “They’re master strategists,”
“Not every islander is a druid,” Skipio tells him.
“I imagine Britannia has a surplus since the Nervii imported their share.” Planus elbows the man. “And not every islander on the battlefield is a man.”
“I saw women among the Nervii,” Drusus recalls. “How frightful for them.”
Skipio notes agitation among the Gallic horsemen.
“Women are formidable, with or without a weapon in their hands,” he tells him. “They’re survivors, just like their sons.”
Drusus fingers his horse’s braided mane.
“I want a chariot from Britannia,”
“Minus the painted warrior driving it?” asks Planus.
Drusus leans onto his horse.
“Will their women fight us as they did here?”
“Here?” Skipio climbs the ladder. “We’ve left the continent behind.”
Drusus follows him to a port-side piss hole, and through it, a landmass looms on the horizon, veiling in a hot sea mist. He lets loose a strange laugh, excited at the prospect of their arrival and dreading it all the same.
Planus calls up to them. “How does it look?”
“Fuckable,” says Skipio.
Laughter ripples through the hold, but young Drusus doesn’t smile.
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