Nobody Loves a Centurion(58)

“Are you Germans beer drinkers then?” I asked. I had tried the stuff in Egypt and found it to be perfectly horrible.

“Sometimes. But true warrior people don’t render themselves senseless.”

For some reason I was stung by this. “Drunk or sober, Romans are better than anyone else.” As if to prove this, I took a deep swallow from the cup Hermes had filled for me.

“You have never fought any real men,” she said. “Just Greeks and Spaniards and Gauls, worthless trash, the lot of them. When you meet German warriors in battle, it will be different.”

“For a slave woman you’ve gotten belligerent all of a sudden,” I protested. “Why this devotion to people who gave you to a Roman as a present?” I held out my cup for Hermes to refill.

“That was not my tribe,” she said, as if that made a difference.

“Better eat something before you soak up too much of this,” Hermes muttered as he poured.

“What is this, Saturnalia? That’s the only time slaves get to lecture the master and if I have my dates straight it is still some months away!” Actually, I couldn’t even be sure of this. As pontifex maximus, Caesar had allowed our calendar to get so bolloxed up that any festival might drop in just about any time. “You two both shut up and let me eat in peace.” They kept a smug silence, for which I was only half grateful. It was getting so that they were about the only people in the camp willing to talk to me. I probably did drink too much.

Eventually, as some late trumpet calls sounded through the camp, I rose and Hermes helped me off with my gear. As I lurched into the tent, I called back over my shoulder. “Freda, come here. I want to talk with you.”

This time she was smiling as she came in. “Are you sure you are up to this?”

I sat and tugged off my boots. “I said talk, nothing else.”

“Naturally,” she said mockingly.

“I need information,” I began, determined to show her what a monument of self-control and rectitude I was. I fell back on the cot, my head landing with greater force than I had anticipated.

“Information. I see.”

“Yes. Information. To begin: What is your tribe?”

“The Batavi. We live far to the north, on the cold sea. You would think it cold, anyway. Romans are oversensitive to cold.”

“You are determined to provoke me. What brought you here, to become the property of Titus Vinius? I have heard Molon’s account but I want to hear your version.”

She sat on the cot beside me, unbidden. I let the minor insolence pass. She smelled unbelievably enticing.

“My tribe fought a great battle with the Suebi and I was captured. Cimberius, coking of the Suebi, chose me from among the spoils. He had first pick and I was by far the most desirable item there.” She certainly did not lack for self-regard. Casually, she rested a hand on my knee.

“Yet Molon says that it was his brother, Nasua, who gave you to Vinius.” I felt heat radiating from the place where her hand rested.

“Nasua won me in a game.”

“What sort of game?” I thought I could detect a tiny stroking motion from her hand.

“Wrestling.”

“Kings wrestle among the Germans? That’s undignified behavior, even for barbarians.”

“My people prize manly things,” she said, definitely stroking now. “The brothers knew they would never stop contending over me, so they agreed to give me away to someone important.”

“Then why to Vinius? Why not to the Proconsul?”

“They know who really runs your legions.”

“Oh.” So much for the lofty office of Proconsul.

She stood and began to tug down her furry tunic. “You didn’t call me here to talk, did you? Romans don’t care about the lives of slaves.” Her magnificent breasts sprang free, looking more like globes of solid muscle than the usual soft, wobbly milk-providers commonly adorning the female torso. Next, she bared a ridged belly that looked as if it could absorb a boxer’s punch without winding her. The next push cleared her full but sinewy hips and she stood there like a statue of Venus, only far more accessible, warmer and more fragrant.

She leaned over me and began to pull at my tunic. “Are all Romans as lazy as you?” I fumbled at my clothes but my fingers had grown clumsy. She went at her task with great deliberation, though, and in moments she mounted me like a cavalry horse, sinking down with a guttural growl.

“Now,” she said, “let’s see what Romans are made of.”





10


IN WHAT HAD BECOME A MONOTONOUSLY regular custom, somebody was trying to wake me in the middle of the night. At first I thought it was Freda, wanting me for another session. The woman reminded me of the arms masters who had been drilling me so mercilessly.