His name is Lucius Scipio Servius, or Skipio to those who call him a friend.
He stands a foot taller than most, with a densely muscular body and a shorn head that glows like ripened wheat. Alpine blood shapes his angular face, and his eyes gleam like deep saturated moss on a river stone.
Lucius Vitus Servius is the Roman that made him, so he will someday control a vast apple orchard and walnut grove many miles north of Novum Comum. Still, he trades alpine plantation life for horses and swords, something old Vitus allows since he, too, serves Rome as an occasional equite.
Those closest to Skipio after the months became years are Gaius Planus Caesar, Crassus Titus Flavius, and young Marcus Castor Junius.
These boys learned their letters together before serving the garrison at Mediolanum. Last year, Vitus collected them to purge violent interlopers in Cisalpine Gaul under order from their great Governor Caesar.
What they encountered, however, were migrating women and children, their men lost to fighting northern enemy tribes. What boys remained among them wielded no sword with intent, leaving Skipio and his trio of brothers greatly disillusioned.
Skipio’s melancholy fades on the march to Hispania, where fiercer Gallic tribes offer a suitable fight. Bloody battles take the best sons, robbing them of meeting their leader, the noble Caesar, yet Skipio keeps his head and takes those of Rome’s enemies.
Before long, Caesar handpicks Skipio and his friends for his reimagined Legio X Equestris. Elevation to the rank of decurio doesn’t keep him from the action. Never the sort to watch from the flanks, Skipio rides in when holes emerge at the front lines, swinging his spatha the way he swings his cock at the brothel for painted boys.
Still, no amount of bloodshed prepares his brothers-in-arms for the fight against the Belgae. Skipio, however, lives for such violence and comes into his own while fighting the Nervii, a tribe of tunnel diggers who pop from the ground like murderous moles.
An apprenticed mapmaker like his father, Skipio often sees the world behind its skin. He finds that the Gallic tunnels have a weakness—their breathing holes. His commander, Titus Labenius, orders bonfires set within stony mounds and makes craftsmen shape thin clay pipes. These pipes feed smoke into the holes, suffocating the enemy inside.
The entrenched Nervii retreats overnight, but sundown brings them back.
Smoke rolls in from the trees, blinding the Roman front lines. Painted charioteers cut a swath through the infantry, their wooden headpieces blazing with fire as they hurl gourds filled with poisonous smoke at the footmen.
Skipio charges in to protect his men, and Vitus follows to protect his son.
In the thick of it, the older Servius rallies the beleaguered, gathering the front line now led by Castor to plant themselves close with spears tilted up and out. Skipio sees his plan and dismounts, shoulder to shoulder with Castor, knees in the mud, alongside the mustering lancers.
“Hold the line, and do not waver,” he roars but senses men among them unwilling to hurt a horse. “Give their beasts a path to flee, or give them a noble death,”
A collective shout rises before the first chariot appears. On the heels of Mercury, its painted driver fails to change course in time.
Skipio breaks formation as the beast kneels to protect itself. He speedily cuts its harness so it can escape, sending the sidelined carriage into the spearmen. The masked driver flies over them, his flaming head spitting embers into the night sky.
The druid warrior’s body strikes the earth and rolls like a discarded doll.
With two swings of his sword, Vitus liberates the man’s head from his shoulders, but a mighty howl grabs his attention before he can collect it.
Another painted man stands outside the smoke, his head aflame as he sobs like a child. He hurls his axe at the Roman, but Skipio appears with a shield and takes the blow. He drops the shield and raises his sword, only to find the crying man gone—along with the druid’s head.
Rome is victorious, and morning reveals the ground as a ruddy soup of severed limbs and foul-smelling entrails. Skipio gathers with his horsemen on the ridge, where they discover a vast and restless surf; this isn’t their Mare Nostrum but an untamable sea at the edge of the known world.
Days become weeks, and these weeks become a month.
Skipio commands a thirty-man unit and relies on a duplicario to maintain the order of it. He chooses Strolo Actus Ursius, a younger man from back home.
Actus is the only son of Actus Strolo Ursius, a merchant renowned for his travels beyond Parthia, and his angular face and line-thin eyes go undiscussed, like his mother’s ancestry if one wishes to keep his jaw intact.
The camp surgeon yanks Actus’s tooth today, leaving Skipio to inspect the unit. After dispersing his men, he strolls with Planus along the shore and comes upon a few men from another man’s unit, making short work of a woman.
“We rape no women here,” he declares. “If your decurion thinks otherwise, he can discuss it with me.”
The threat is clear, and all but one heeds quietly.
“That’s rich coming from you,” says the upstart.
Skipio walks to the loudmouth, a rare sort as tall as himself.
“Heard of me, have you?”
The upstart, with a father every bit as wealthy, looks him in the eyes.
“Everyone knows about you, Servius.”
Skipio drives a fist into the man’s solar plexus, cutting him to the ground.
“It’s good a thing you’re not to my liking,” he says loud enough for all to hear before stepping over the hacking man and rejoining his friend.
“Such righteousness from a man who forces his lovers,” teases Planus.
Skipio shrugs. “I make no apologies for my vigorous desires,”
“Tell me, friend, how did carnal bliss become a violent enterprise for you?” Planus asks without judgment. “We grew up together, our shared taste in men bone-deep, yet I do not need to force a lover,”
Skipio regards him with grinning eyes.
“Do you recall our first and only trip to Rome?”
“I’ll never forget it,” Planus replies. “Our balls were bald, and our heroes infallible,”
“Remember the bestiary?” Skipio asks. “The trainers were breeding a lioness.”
Planus conjures the scene.
“She didn’t want the male they shoved into her yard.”
“No, she didn’t, and she wouldn’t let him mount her,” Skipio says. “But her young son jumped the older male, picking a fight…”
“I remember,” says Planus, nodding. “It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a male animal attempt to breed another of his sex.”
“That young lion wanted it all along,” says Skipio. “He craved a violent breeding,”
“My friend, you and I saw a very different show,” Planus argues with a smile. “The older lion nearly chewed off the younger’s leg. The poor thing had no means to run when the male mounted him.”
Before he and Skipio hash matters further, Castor appears. Shorter than most at twenty-four, the cattleman’s son from Belagio possesses a woman’s demur beauty and the physique of a teenage boy.
“Those druid-drawn chariots hail from an island across the channel.” Castor’s airy voice masks his deadliness. “Caesar made landfall there nearly a year ago,”
“Britannia?” asks Planus.
“No one will say its name,” Castor nods. “Other than defeat,”
“Father claims it was a reconnaissance mission,” Skipio smirks.
Planus wonders, “What says Caesar of this development?”
“We’re setting sail within the month,” Castor tells him.
Planus tuts under his breath.
“More glory before the common man,” he grouses softly. “There’s no reason for this campaign but to feed Rome slaves and make him a legend among the populace.”
“Gaius Planus Caesar.” Skipio hooks an arm around his friend’s neck. “You doubt your mother’s cousin’s intentions?”
Castor smiles brightly.
“His intentions became bare when he tasked us to murder unarmed Veragros,” Planus speaks plainly but sees their concern. “Never fear, brothers. I follow orders and question them only among my closest friends.”
Skipio aims a suspicious glance. “You’re pining for that Veragros?”
“Quiet, you.” Planus walks ahead, but Skipio follows.
“Did someone catch your heart?” asks Castor, coming alongside him.
Planus answers with silence.
“Planus fell in love outside Octodurus,” reveals Skipio.
“None of that matters now,” Planus speaks flatly. “He’s dead.”
“Not that tall, light-haired thing with blue eyes,” Skipio declares.
Planus grabs Skipio by the shoulders. “Welletrix lives?”
“Him?” Castor gives a start. “I took him to the Servius plantation myself,”
Planus looks back at Skipio, eyes like the moon.
“I saw how you looked at him,” Skipio confesses. “So, I purchased him.”
Planus laughs. “You’ve never been so thoughtful!”
“He’s not yours,” Skipio clarifies, arms folded. “He belongs to my house, and since you’re not the sort to ravish a man, you best behave when visiting.”
“Praise the Fates,” Planus howls. “I’m going to write your sister this very day,”
Castor watches him sprint for the barracks city on the horizon.
“I never imagined our Planus the sort to fall in love,”
Sun filters through his fine brown hair, waking the soft curves of his profile. The desire to strike him drives Skipio to take him by the throat. He devours soft lips pressed tight against him, and when his tongue forces past, a frightening wail repels him.
“I told you, no more,” Castor retreats, holding his neck. “No more,”
Skipio is hurt. “You said you loved me,”
“We said many things to each other these past two years,” Castor cries. “Your brutal love felt exciting at first, but now it just hurts.”
Skipio grabs again, but Castor pulls his dagger.
“I say no, and I mean it,” the words slip through his teeth. “Touch me again, and I shall report you to the Praetor,”
Skipio frowns. “Does he know of your lust for men?”
“I told him last month when he saw your teeth marks on my backside.” Castor steps away, seeking witnesses. “I revealed my carnal habits because I knew you’d use them against me,”
Skipio glowers. “Why not just tell my father?”
“Lord Vitus saw my bruises first.” Castor lowers the knife. “He said no self-respecting Roman would allow himself used in such a way,”
“You think my affections lack respect?” asks Skipio.
“Love shouldn’t make a man bleed,” Castor says.
Disappointment floods Skipio’s heart.
“If nothing binds our bodies,” he says, stalking away. “Then steer clear of me.”
“Don’t be like this, please,” Castor yells.
A tempest churning in his heart, Skipio marches toward the trees.
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