[<---CONT]
Apples may be the Severus family trade, but their Alpine-grown walnuts are renowned despite the long harvest gap. The first of his great-grandfather’s yields came the day Vitus was born—and the next harvest comes this year.
Skipio cares little for agriculture, crushing apples or banging long sticks at branches to dislodge nuts. Distraction came first with swimming and then with horses, but eventually, his father made him work the land.
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“You hear that?” Vitus asks as the sound of rushing water filters through the trees. He smiles over his shoulder. “Always trust a thirsty horse.”
Free of their burdens, the beasts veer down a gully, where massive boulders edge curling water. They leave deep prints along the muddy riverbank before entering the water up to their cannons.
Vitus sheds his boots and armor, his nakedness a frightening herald.
Once strapping like Skipio, the mapmaker grows thick in places unfortunate. To his son, he leaves angular cheeks and a strong jaw, yet Skipio possesses his mother’s green eyes and bee-stung lips. A kinky wenge neither man holds dear is an undeniable ancestral trait, and those tightly wound curls are why their heads remain shorn.
Skipio clears the forest floor of sticks, depositing them into a hole for their fire. While his father washes in the river, he pitches their tents and digs another hole behind a tree for their toilet.
“Go wash up,” Vitus says upon his arrival. “And scrub those feet. There’s nothing these blasted mosquitos love more than-”
“-than a foul foot,” says Skipio, leaving.
His father dusts their tents with oregano and cumin, the only thing capable of repelling this island’s ravenous breed of blood-sucking insect. He prefers this herbal method over slathering his skin with vinegar and lemongrass oil.
The creek moves steadily here, meaning a waterfall lies somewhere ahead, and where there are falls, there’s a plunge pool. He crosses over a downed tree and follows the familiar rumble of falling water to find a plunge pool wide enough to lap.
Skipio drives his sword into the soil, hangs his helmet on the grip, and sheds his armor and tunic. Birdsong makes it difficult to listen for lurkers, and the waters here aren’t as clear as those back home, but after another survey of the trees, he unties the hip knot on his loin cloth.
The water’s chill seizes his thighs, hardening his nipples and tightening his balls. Before his resolve fails, he plunges in—where the fall’s roar comes as muted thunder.
Unlike the glacial streams back home, the dark fluid warms as he moves. He strokes to the other side, the fall’s spray tickling his ears. He flips under the water near the opposite shallows and then swims back. He crosses and returns five times, then five more, until his heart drums in his ears.
He rolls over and straightens his back. His arms fan out beneath the water, a rowing backstroke that propels him across the surface. Air nips at his cresting toes while blue skies bordered by trees entertain his eyes. After eight rows across and back, he floats upright to recapture his breath.
Sunlight warms his scalp, the first tangible rays he feels since arriving, and they create a colorful patch over the churning foam at the foot of the falls. His breathing steadies when he realizes the birds have gone quiet. He whips around to find an unpainted Gaul watching him from the knickpoint.
Two dark nipples dot his boyish chest, and from his underarms come hints of dark hair. Black curls drape over thick brows, yet they cannot hide his large ears. This lean observer bears no weapon other than an unpleasant face—but handsomeness isn’t needed if a man’s ass is narrow and tight.
Skipio stands to display his corded body.
The Gaul seems unimpressed, yet his cold eyes hold him in curious measure. Then, he shucks his blue tartan pants down his bony hips, revealing a nest of fine black upon shapeless obliques, and nestled within is a thick cock root.
Skipio’s mouth waters, and fear vanishes when the Gaul takes out his girthy shaft. Are all the lanky men on this island so well endowed, and if so, why must Rome make war? Giddy at the notion of sucking that thing, Skipio falls back into the water, teasing his sizable manhood as courtesy dictates.
The Gaul’s stony visage remains, even as his hand twists and pulls. Skipio lets slip a soft laugh before opening his mouth and extending his tongue. A mischievous gleam clouds his watcher’s eyes as that works his erection. Soon, his body tenses, and his breath shallows.
Bars of sunlight invade like heavenly censors, obscuring what his cock spits.
Lips turn down as britches return to their place, and when he draws forth a thin knife, Skipio toughens. The Gaul dares with a wave of his blade, and Skipio steps onto a shale, bringing the water to thighs; if this bastard wants a fight, he’ll happily oblige.
The horse grunts, drawing attention to the riverbank where a sword, helmet, and clothes reveal him as Roman. He turns to explain, but the Gaul is gone. He curses his misfortune—he’ll never know if the cock-heavy bastard can take a punch or if his ass splits without oil.
Rape isn’t allowed in ranks nor permissible outside the heat of battle. On the march to Hispania, his brutal machinations with Castor got him a stern dressing down after a legate came upon them in the trees.
Skipio slaps the water, obscuring his reflection. This island, like the rest of the world, offers no one to placate his sadistic heart.
*
Gnats crowd his face on the walk back.
Near camp, a woman’s shout forces him into the ground cover, where he spots his father hiding in a ravine.
Vitus raises a hand for him to stay put while above his position, a robed woman and four brutes tear apart their tiny camp. The men scarf down their dried fish rations, and the woman barks orders as she ties their small barley pouches around her neck.
After looting their saddlebags, she unties Cletus and slaps his backside. The horse flees into the trees, and Skipio’s idiot beast races after, taking his sword and armor.
“Where do you think they went to?”
Skipio struggles to comprehend the Brittonic tongue.
“Down by the water, most like,” comes her reply, then she yells, “Where you been?”
A low-tempered voice responds, “Washing in the falls,”
Skipio peers up and discovers the raunchy Gaul in his blue tartan pants. He and the woman share an obtuse jawline, but her eyes are light, and her long hair is straight and stringy.
“Washing?” she smirks. “Or rubbing at yourself?”
The Gaul stares at her with contempt, as any son might a mother so crass.
“Get your poisons out, boy,” she tells him. “None of this lot’s going to smack you around as you like,”
The men laugh, but her son remains stoic; Skipio processes her words as best he can and imagines slapping around the slender Gaul before taking his ass. Such thoughts stir his flesh, forcing his mind to conjure images of his sister and mother—anything to keep his cock from rising.
She orders them to burn the tents.
Skipio glances at his father and finds the man clutching his maps to his chest, with their fire-starting kit tied to his tunic.
She gives her son’s big ear a gentle tug.
“Did you see any Romans by the water?”
He answers her loudly in Greek.
“I saw no one by the water,”
She grouses, “You know I can’t speak that gibberish,”
The gang departs, leaving nothing but smoking tents.
Vitus calls, “They’ll be on the water searching for us,”
“What about the horses?” asks Skipio, joining him.
“They’ll locate us faster than our enemy will,” his father assures.
*
The horses find them on the other side of the forest.
After sundown, their stomachs growl in the morning light as they speak of Rome. Vitus worries for his brother as each new session brings greater hostility for Caesar, with wealthy senators heaping their resentment upon those representing his provincial cities.
Skipio loathes politics.
“Fear not,” says Vitus, reading his face. “I’d never ask you to serve in Rome.”
“I’m not incapable,” says Skipio. “It’s just that Planus is more suited—”
“Planus is of the Caesares and thus represents Mediolanum,” says Vitus. “Our clan represents Comum,”
“Why?” asks Skipio.
“Before Julius Caesar,” Vitus says. “The Servii quarried the stone, and the Flavii cleared the trees. We filled the marshes together, and then Caesar came and built a city. ”
“They’re a colony now,” Skipio reminds. “More people, more wealthy families,”
“Despite our simple life, we are one of the wealthiest families.” Vitus sits up in agitation. “Did you just refer to those in Comum as ‘they?’”
Skipio mumbles, “Great-grandfather left Comum,”
“He was one of eight sons,” Vitus admonishes. “And could afford to build a plantation near the farm in the mountains,”
Skipio thinks of his nana, who was anything
but a farm girl.
“Why did Nana move to town?”
“Like you, she preferred breaking a sweat doing anything else but touching dirt,” Vitus laughs. “That apartment cost my father a fortune to build, and now it costs me a fortune to maintain,”
“We collect rents,” he says. “Doesn’t that cover its upkeep?”
“We lease the ground floor shops and the apartments over it, but the top floor was your Nana’s showroom.” Vitus eyes his son. “You know, in Rome, the poor live on the top floors,”
“Planus told me,” says Skipio, pondering the building’s future. “Perhaps when Vita marries, she can move-”
“—your sister will never marry,” Vitus snaps.
“What happened to that boy from—”
“-There it is,” Vitus rides ahead.
Like a brown serpent’s corpse, the Tamesa
winds over the landscape.
Vitus snores atop Cletus, and soon Skipio dozes, comforted by the crickets. Under the half-moon’s light, they traverse the coastal plain, endless flats with the occasional cluster of rocks.
A wooden trap provides four rabbits near the coast, but Vitus helps himself to only two.
At the coast, they watch the sunrise.
Vitus hammers a spike into the ground and tethers the horses to it. “You remember those white cliffs we saw sailing in?”
“They were massive,” says Skipio, digging a hole for their fire.
“We’re standing on them,” says Vitus.
Skipio cracks flint stones until a spark strikes the kindling-covered wool in the hole. Smoke wisps from the gnarls, and he blows upon them softly until a flame appears.
“Why are they so white?” he asks his father. “The Belgic’s say they’re made of bone,”
“It’s chalk.” Vitus skins the first rabbit
and points his head at sea. “See that merchant bireme out there with two of our
cruisers? She’s filled with slaves who’ve been picking away at it since we got
here,”
Skipio squints at the dark patch on the horizon.
“These cliffs are larger than those at the end of the world,” Skipio catches his father’s stare. “I know the Pillars of Heracles aren’t the world’s end anymore,”
“They were never the end of the world.” Vitus hands him the skinned carcass, its red flesh streaked with white. “This sea is larger than the sky. Mark my words, there’s more land beyond this island.”
Skipio lays the raw meat on his armor’s shin plate, now a frypan, and relishes its sizzle. After several moments, his father uses cloth-covered fingers to tip the plate, dripping what little fat the rabbit provides on the fire—fat-laden smoke makes for flavorful meat when there’s no salt.
“What happened after I left for Mediolanum?” he asks.
Vitus keeps his eyes on their dinner. “You’ll have to narrow that down,”
“With Vita?”
“We’re not talking about your sister,”
“You never talk about her anymore or even say her name,” he accuses.
“If you’re that concerned,” Vitus snaps. “Go home and see to her,”
Skipio stares at the back of his father’s
head.
“Did Vita shame us in some way?”
“Your sister would never disgrace this family,” Vitus says cooly. “And that’s the last we’ll speak on this, do you understand?”
“I don’t,” Skipio says. “Can you at least tell me if mother has gotten better?”
“She’s taking of herself.” Vitus closes his eyes. “As she’s always done.”
The silence breeds resentment, but he swallows it, trusting his father’s silence is more a coping strategy than misdirection.
They make short work of the rabbits, sharing a water bladder between them.
He gnaws the cooked flesh from its bone and doesn’t wipe his lips. He imagines the bland, gamey meat to be the flavorful hares their cook, Nikonidas, prepares. A Greek boy raised alongside Skipio, the teen took over as house cook after his predecessor-father passed away.
“Is Niko still fat?” he asks.
“Oh yes.” Vitus wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Your sister says he’s grown quite tall, though,”
“Niko never spoke much, did he?”
“He was learning his words when his mother died of pox.” Vitus turns thoughtful. “He’s not mute. He just never learned to express himself like the rest of us.”
“Back in the woods,” Skipio tells him. “That Gaul who joined the others, he saw me swimming,”
Vitus goes wide-eyed.
“We saw each other,” he adds. “But he said he saw no one,”
“It was careless, washing on your own,” Vitus scolds.
“He answered her first in Greek,” he says. “He knew we were hiding nearby,”
“You should’ve washed with me.” Vitus walks to Cletus and then aims a humored glance at his son. “You saw each other, did you?”
“Something like that,” Skipio grins.
Vitus sighs. “Tell me you didn’t interfere with him?”
“If I had,” Skipio brags. “He wouldn’t have been able to return to his mother.”
“You never grew out of your attraction to boys,” Vitus chuckles. “But this rough love of yours I will never understand,”
“You have things you don’t want to discuss,” Skipio declares. “I have mine,”
“Planus never grew out of his attraction to men, either.” Vitus turns thoughtful. “Have you two thoughts of making a match?”
Skipio curls his lip. “Me and Planus?”
“He’s your sort, isn’t he?” asks Vitus.
“We’re the same sort but not sorted for each other,” Skipio balks.
“In that case, you’ll find a wife when we get home,” Vitus decrees. “And you’ll ensure she knows nothing of whatever catamite you install in your Nana’s city apartment.”
“Is that fair to her?” Skipio asks, then mumbles, “Is that fair to me?”
“Life isn’t fair. We make the best of unfairness with private diversions.” Vitus stretches until his back cracks. “My mother was a notorious lady-lover until her last day.”
Shock finds Skipio’s face.
“It’s true.” Vitus climbs onto his horse. “She had more women than my father,”
Skipio grins, gathering their things, but as he kicks dirt over the fire, a rush to his head brings him to his knees.
Vitus slides off the saddle and hits the ground with a thud.
“Father,” his words come like a molasses drip before his face collides with the ground. His arms and legs disappear, and his eyes grow heavy. Feet appear, and with them come distant voices.
“I told you they would ride to the coast,”
“Yes, you did, my clever boy, yes you did…”
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