The Roman burns hot when he sleeps, no matter how indelicate a druid’s touch. Beneath his loincloth, the flesh is thick and long. His skin stinks of cooking fire, and his nipples taste of roasted rabbit.
Aedan presses his thumb to an eyelid and gently pushes it, exposing a deep, mossy green; the beauty from the falls is the lion from his vision—oh, what games Gods play.
He grinds his bare crack against the Roman’s muscular gut as silky underarm hair tickles his knees. Cock in hand, he taps the slumbering man’s swollen lip.
“You’re mine.” He draws a glistening line across the man’s cheek before anointing his forehead and nose. “Every inch of you belongs to me.”
“What are you doing?” Anger colors Kelr’s face.
Aedan lazily tips his head back. “Marking what’s mine.”
The brutes around the fire chuckle at the Roman prisoner’s humiliation, but their mistress, Ciniod, knows her son’s perverse fixations.
“Stuff that thing back in your pants.” She slaps the back of his head. “This one must remain pure,”
Aedan stands, his semi-arousal still in hand. “He belongs to me,”
Kelr regards the Roman with disdain.
“Nothing belongs to you.” Ciniod snatches his britches from the dirt, and they strike the back of his neck, tickling his ass on their way back to the ground.
“His blood will answer for their incursion,” she adds, pulling the sack back over the Roman prisoner’s head. “Get this one back over there with his superior,”
Her lackeys jump to it as if the Gods themselves have spoken. Desperate to keep her lustful son away from strapping Roman, she asks him to fashion reed masks for her, himself, and his newfound horse, a beast eerily calm since the prisoner’s arrival.
Earlier that day, under the baleful eye of Taran, the men on loan from Cassibelanus fashioned a hut of wicker and placed it upon stones.
After eating their fill of porridge loaded with auk, the strongest drags the older Roman before Ciniod, whose hateful countenance wounds like the sharpest blade.
Kelr forces the bound man to his knees before she hurls questions like stones. Unable to decipher her language, the barrel-chested Roman sits unmoved by her insult-laden interrogation. He stares coldly at something they couldn’t guess, his stony demeanor unwavering.
Aedan sees a bit of the lion in this older man’s face and suspects they share blood. Unfolding his arms, he jumps from the tree branch and takes a knee before him.
“Do you speak Greek?” he asks in that language.
The hawkish Roman blinks. “Holding us hostage will bring you nothing.”
Ciniod paces behind him. “What does he say?”
“He thinks we’re holding him for ransom,” he tells her, then speaks again to the man. “We’ve no use for Roman coin, or Roman negotiation.”
The man’s nostrils flare.
“Why have they come back?” Ciniod demands.
Aedan speaks to him. “Why have you returned?”
When silence becomes him, Aedan does the talking.
“The white-robes hate your Battle King for his ambition. His power comes from the love of common men and warriors, and your Battle King needs that love because it is something the white-robes will never have.”
The man regards him thoughtfully.
“You’re here,” Aedan adds. “Because common men love having slaves, and warriors love having victories.”
You’re rather astute,” the man says. “For a boy that’s never left this island,”
“The sea brings boats,” Aedan tells him. “Boats bring mouths that talk of Rome.”
“Caesar wages war for glory,” the man confers with a slow blink. “And yes, his position within the senate comes from common men. Hate, however, is a strong word.”
“All words are strong.” Aedan looks into the man’s eyes. “Wealthy men administer your republic, yet commoners hate the wealthy as much as the wealthy hate warriors who forget their place.”
“What’s he saying to him?” Kelr whispers to Ciniod.
“He speaks the gibberish his father taught him,” she replies.
Aedan brings an open hand to his chest.
“We, the Ancalite, are common,”
The old Roman softens.
“You and your ilk are anything but common,”
“If the tribal leaders declare your Battle King victorious,” Aedan wonders. “Will he leave our island?”
Kelr strides behind the prisoner, glaring at Aedan.
“This is the most I’ve ever heard you speak,”
“Your leaders decide nothing,” says the old Roman. “Without your ilk whispering in their ears,”
“My ilk?” Aedan’s eyes widen.
“How many of you came to the continent?” asks the man. “Your masks, poisons, and strategies,”
Aedan understands. “It is druids you seek to destroy?”
“You hold the power,” says the man. “Not these tribal leaders,”
Ciniod nags, “What does he say?”
“If you leave by the next moon,” Aedan says, ignoring her. “The tribes will allow you a port, and the druids will ignore any future uprisings in Belgica,”
“There are uprisings afoot in Belgica?” the man asks, feigning shock.
Aedan almost grins, though nothing spoken amuses.
“You will return to your Battle King and then return to Belgica,”
“I cannot leave my son,” says the man, whose eyes suddenly narrow. “Though that is what you want, isn’t it?”
Aedan swallows, but his tight lips reveal this truth.
“My son is disturbed,” the man speaks, swallowing hard. “His love is violent, too violent for most men,”
“You say I cannot have him,” Aedan smirks. “Then entice me with words that water my mouth,”
The man wordlessly shares his understanding.
“My violent desires need not concern you,” Aedan tells him. “You’ve more reason to return to Belgica than you do to remain here,”
“We’ve come to restore a king to his throne,” the man talks as if speaking a fresh truth. “A reasonable king, the true king of this island.”
Aedan scoffs. “Mandubracius won’t guarantee you a foothold,”
Ciniod gently knees her son’s spindly arm.
“What are you saying to him about Mandubracius?”
“Indeed. He’ll turn on us the first moment he can,” the man’s shoulders drop. “But until then, he’s our proverbial port in the storm.”
“His port is rotted wood.” Aedan purses his lips. “You’ve no reason to war with the druids. Those bent on fighting, you are all dead. I will speak to the other leaders,”
“Why all this talk about the druids?” his mother whispers.
“We tried this,” the man counters. “Our emissaries never returned,”
“The others will not consider you a threat until you defeat Cassivellaunus,”
“Why are you saying his name like that?” Kelr demands.
“Hush now,” Cinoid scolds the manlet.
Taran’s scream startles them all.
“You,” the sobbing druid falls upon the Roman, and Ciniod orders her thugs to remove him. “You killed Fintan,”
Aedan jumps to his, knife out and stomach in knots. He’s trading terms with his father’s killer, and this fouls his mouth.
“The druid charioteer, the owl.” Mournful eyes shift from Aedan to his knife. “He tried to kill my son. In war, men kill each other, men die,”
“There would be no war,” roars Aedan. “If you hadn’t invaded lands, not yours,”
“What’s he saying?” Cinoid shrills.
“He says that killing my father was the fault of war,”
“War they started!” Kelr spits in the man’s face and then kicks him in the stomach. “Let Taran kill him. We’ll give his underling to the Gods for their incursion,”
“Taran gets nothing,” shouts Aedan, startling the men around them.
“Aedan,” she whispers, familiar with her son’s rage.
“I shall provide the Gods with Fintan’s killer’s blood,” he declares. “And they shall devour his flesh in the ritual fire,”
“That’s right, my boy,” Ciniod nods. “A proper sacrifice.”
Kelr points at the sleeping beauty.
“The Gods must have his underling,”
“His son is mine,” Aedan snaps.
Ciniod’s eyes narrow. “His son?”
Kelr growls in her ear.
“We cannot let him live,”
Ciniod whispers, “His blood will bring clear visions,”
“I see clearly enough,” Aedan disputes. “His life belongs to me,”
Ciniod steps into him. “His blood belongs to the Gods,”
“I am a god,” Aedan spits, and her open hand stings.
“You’re no god.” She glares at her fallen son as quiet consumes the camp. “Now, get some red-capped tea in you.”
“The shack is built,” Kelr murmurs to Ciniod. “Perhaps we should call upon Ostin,”
“He’ll have no part in my vengeance,” she tells him. “Aedan has conferred with the gods before, and he’s more than capable,”
Kelr hesitates and then nods. “I trust your judgment.”
“That murderer will die for his crime,” Ciniod says as Aedan storms away. “And his son’s life will show us a path to victory.”
Minutes from camp, coastal winds billow his britches and whip his curls.
Aedan kicks the shack’s wicker walls, rattling its foundation now flush against the cliff’s edge. He latches onto the tree trunk beam within its chamber and hangs from it like a bat—this keeps the tears from his lips.
A shit-colored cloth blinds and a tree fills the space between his shoulder blades.
The rope under Skipio’s burns as tension racks his arms, stretched behind him with wrists bound. His fingers scratch at the small of his father’s back.
“Can you see anything?”
“I see our imminent deaths,” Vitus whispers. “Go back to sleep, boy. Worse pain awaits.”
“How many are there?”
“Seven in all, but it’s not their numbers that defeat us,” says Vitus. “The owl charioteer from Belgica. His son and kin are our captors,”
“Are you sure?”
“The druid that hurled the axe at your shield is among them,” his father reveals. “The owl’s son and wife demand blood for blood and do so in the name of their gods,”
“They speak Latin?”
“The young owl speaks Greek.” Vitus’s voice breaks. “Minerva punishes me.”
“What?”
“She orders the Fates to cut my line in this horrid place,” Vitus sobs. “For what I’ve done to her,”
“Father,” Skipio drags his head against the tree but cannot shed the cloth over his eyes. “Minerva punishes no man for his actions in war,”
“My misdeeds at home,” Vitus weeps. “When you left, boy, you took my goodness with you.”
Suddenly, a rancid odor invades his space. Flesh strikes flesh with a grunt from his father. Before he protests, a skull-rattling blow ushers in blackness.
*
The world returns, bringing pain and the stink of tar.
“Skipio?” his father’s voice labors.
They hang by their feet from a timber beam, their ankles tied by thick ropes, and their arms bound to their sides with sinew. Torchlight filters through wicker tendrils, where dark figures move to melodic chants.
A cold draft kisses Skipio’s back.
Twisting around reveals a spacious sliver in the tendril wall, where the setting sun glows like a Parthian orange floating upon the water.
“We’re on the edge of the white cliffs.” He examines their hastily built prison. “We must swing our bodies and tip this thing over the precipice,”
“Our captors intend to butcher us like swine,” says Vitus.
“Listen to me,” he pleads. “We can tip this thing over the edge. Once we’re at sea, we’ll swim for the merchant ship. We saw it off the coast, remember?”
“If we survive that long drop, if,” says Vitus. “The rocks below will cut us to pieces,”
“I’d rather die on the rocks than be butchered like a hog,” he cries.
The door swings open to reveal a druid whose painted nakedness peeks from his wind-swept smock. His thickly braided straw mask resembles a monstrous owl, and with the red twilight sky behind him, he is a walking nightmare.
“I want you to know, my son, that we’ll meet again on the River Styx.” Vitus closes his eyes. “Perhaps we’ll be reborn through Jove’s good graces,”
“Stop saying goodbye,” Skipio scolds. “We’ll not die this day,”
Another masked figure, naked without her robe, touches her torch to the druids, forming a blinding hot light. Her bony shoulders shiver when she laughs, shaking her small tits.
The knife-wielding druid sheds his smock and enters their cage, and his torch gives light to a familiar cock that stirs Skipio, even as his life hangs by a thread.
“Do you remember me?” He speaks at the lifeless mask. “It’s me from the water. I remember you. Please, please remember me.”
The druid’s long, slender blade shimmers in the firelight.
“No, leave him,” Skipio twists as the druid nears his father. “Show mercy, do not take him, take me,”
Vitus rumbles, “Stop groveling, boy, you’re a Roman!”
“I’m yours,” Skipio cries in Greek as the blade touches Vitus’s neck.
The druid’s head slowly turns.
“I’m yours,” he declares. “Do what you will with me,”
Cold, glassy eyes regard him through the mask holes.
“Slaughter me, eat my flesh, fuck me into dust, I don’t care.” Skipio tames his breath and pleads. “Just don’t hurt him, please. I’m yours.”
The druid stands as if beholden to Medusa until the woman appears. Her tit goes flat against his shoulder as she whispers something in a language Skipio cannot understand. Her words move the druid’s blade back to Vitus’s neck.
“Please,” Skipio begs. “Take me.”
The mask finds him again.
“My life is yours.” Tears drip hot over his brow. “I’m yours…”
Icy orbs set within their dark holes fix upon him. The blade slides under his father’s chin. Blood veils his father’s face as white bone crests from the gash.
Skipio howls in a rage, twisting violently against his binds and striking his choking father until they both swing like wind-swept cocoons.
“You Ganymede bitch,” he snarls in Greek. “I’m going to cut your heart out and then fuck the hole in your chest!”
The druid’s hand finds Skipio’s sweaty thigh as wicker walls hop upon their rocky foundation. His eyes narrow in the holes from a hidden smile, and when he reaches for Skipio’s fear-driven erection, the woman shrills.
“Aedan!”
The druid recoils and then, with an evil countenance, inches his blade closer.
“Yes, kill me, Ay-dawn,” Skipio seethes. “Kill me, or I will find you,”
The druid hesitates as if struck.
“Kill me,” Skipio growls through his teeth. “Or the next time we meet, my cock will rearrange your guts,”
The knife retreats and the druid touches his torch to the wall.
Fire climbs its length like water rushing over sand. A bluish-white wave reaches the overhead beam and races to devour his father’s feet. The druid closes the door behind him as the old Roman’s hanging corpse immolates.
Skipio screams for Minerva, begging her for the strength to free himself. He curls upward and unfurls through the searing heat, his back straining with each curl, desperate to build enough momentum to topple the hut.
Thick smoke binds his lungs, and the roof over his father collapses. Agony swallows him as his flaming father’s corpse collides with his chest. He shrieks as flames sear away his sinew binds. Liberated arms rise, and fingers dig at the thick ropes around his ankles.
His father’s corpse finds him again, setting off a pain in his arm like he’s never known.
Suddenly, something crashes through the hut, tearing it asunder. The full moon grows distant in this new darkness as the air swallows his breath.
Skipio strikes the sea, a final breath stolen by the ocean’s embrace. The depths baptize him in salt and froth that stings his eyes yet numbs his burns. A long-faced mask floats past him, its knots ash and black as Luna gallops through the current, her spindly legs working by Neptune’s design.
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