Calgaich the Swordsman (42 page)

She nodded. “A great deal."

“There is no water.”

“I like it undiluted. The stronger the better."

Calgaich handed her a cup and she clasped her hands about his and the cup and drank greedily from it so that the red wine ran down her chin and across her fine full breasts.

She lay back on the bed and drew him down to her. She pressed her wine-wet mouth loosely against his and thrust her pointed tongue into his mouth. Suddenly she grasped his privates in a hard and painful grip. She was a passionate and hungry bitch. He slapped her lightly across the face and she relaxed her grip.

The pins fell from her elaborate hairdo as she twisted back and forth with the passion aroused by his kisses and his fondling of her. Her breasts rose and fell spasmodically. Calgaich placed a hand between her thighs. She opened her long legs like an unfolding flower.

She guided him into her and then wrapped her legs about his hips and her arms about his neck.

The passionate struggle went on between them, each of them trying to inflict the most pain upon the other, as though they were contending wrestlers rather than lovers, each one seeking victory over the other, but the consummation was exactly mutual. She shuddered and then went limp in his arms.

Calgaich stood up and reached for the wine jug. He drank deeply from it as he looked down upon her. He could hear her erratic breathing and soft moaning as she slowly relaxed.

Calgaich reached for the window hanging. “This damned room is stifling.”

“No!” she cried.

But she was too late. Calgaich ripped aside the window hanging. The full light of the moon seemed to pour onto the bed. Her body was glistening with sweat and seemed to be of the smoothest of ivory. Her fine breasts were brown nippled and tipped with gold paint. Her disheveled hair was dark and very long. Her dark eyes were rimmed with antimony.

“You know me now?” Lady Antonia asked lazily.

She was at least in her middle forties, but her firm body was remarkably well preserved for its age. Calgaich could see the enameling on her oval-shaped face, which was now smudged and cut through with tiny channels of sweat. The hair was too dark to be natural and was obviously dyed.

“Are you surprised?”

Calgaich nodded.

“Pleasantly, I hope.”

He grinned crookedly. “You'd make a fine whore.” He wasn't lying.

She beckoned to him. “Come close.”

He bent down toward her. She rubbed her sweat-damp hands across the blue warrior patterns so that the moonlight glistened on them as though they were of fresh wet paint. She seemed to be fascinated by the tattooing.

“You risked much in coming here, Lady Antonia.”

“Call me Tonia,” she pouted.

Calgaich could hardly suppress a smile at the aging woman's coquettishness. “Tonia then. You must remember that I'm a prisoner of war. A student in the Ludus Maximus.” His voice was correctly humble, but he knew he was not deluding her.

“I might be able to change that, my warrior.” She stretched her shapely arms up over her head and arched her back so that her breasts were outthrust. She looked sideways at him and smiled lazily.

“How would you like to be one of my body servants?” “What of your husband?”

She laughed. “He hasn't been between my thighs in years.”

“And your son?”

“Ulpius? He's quite busy in with own affairs.”

“We have nothing but hate for each other.”

“He doesn't live in my house, Calgaich.”

He handed her a cup of wine. “Do you still want me to come and live with you?”

“You could have the best of everything, Calgaich. Pure white togas of the finest Milesian wool. Sandals of gilded leather. Jewels. Money. Anything you want, including
me"
“This would be acceptable to your family? Your friends? Your society?” he asked.

She smiled. “It's a way of life in Rome. No one thinks anything about it, Calgaich. It's considered fashionable!” The moonlight was full on her face. Calgaich could see the tiny crow's-feet at the comers of her eyes and the thin parallel lines on her forehead that had been concealed by the paint she had worn until her sweat and contact with him had destroyed the masterful make-up job it had been. She smiled a little loosely. A trickle of wine ran from one comer of her mouth and dribbled down a breast to her flat belly.

“It might be the difference between your life and death within the next month,” Antonia warned. There was a sharper edge in her tone of voice. “Aemilius Valens wants to make sure you do not survive the arena.”

Calgaich laughed softly. “I might do something about that.”

Antonia shrugged. “You have such arrogance. Even if you survive the Games next month, what will become of you after that? Valens has great power in Rome. He is the emperor's favorite. Valens usually gets what he wants.” “Including the throne?”

Antonia narrowed her eyes. The soft and subtle beauty that was still hers in the shadows and subdued lighting was gone now. In the full light of the moon her features were revealed to be those of a middle-aged woman, unprotected by skillful make-up. There was sharpness and avidity about them now.

"You can die very easily by saying something like that in public, Calgaich," Antonia warned.

"I'm not in public now. I'm with you, a woman who wants me to become a tame stud in her own house. You want great power. You who hate Aemilius Valens because he stands in your way in the political arena.”

Her tapered hands closed into fists.

"Do you deny it?" Calgaich asked.

"Just who are you?"

Calgaich grinned crookedly. "A simple barbarian."

"And grandson to Rufus Arrius Niger.”

Calgaich nodded. “That too."

"Are you considering my offer?" she asked.

He lay down beside her, passing his hands across her breasts to arouse her again. Teasingly his hands moved down toward the dark triangular mat of hair at her crotch.

"Tell me," she insisted. "Will you consider my offer?"

"Do I have any choice at all?"

She drew him down to her and kissed him passionately. He wasn't quite as ready as she was for another performance. He rolled over onto his belly and reached down to the floor for the wine jug. She got up on one elbow and looked at the raised crisscross cicatrices on his back.

Antonia traced one of the lash scars with a fingertip. "What are these?” she asked quietly.

"From the lead-tipped kiss of the Roman cat," he replied coldly.

She narrowed her eyes. "But why? They are old. They can't be since you've come here."

He shook his head. "Long ago I deserted the Roman Eagles—twice."

"And that is why Rufus Arrius Niger will not save you from the arena.” '

"You know about that?"

"The story has gone the rounds of Rome." She smiled thinly. "So, you see, that works to our mutual advantage, warrior. If Niger won't save you from the arena and almost certain death, perhaps I can."

"Which would be a double victory for you, eh, Tonia? You would save me from the hands of your one enemy,

Valens, and show up your other principal enemy, Niger, in the Senate.”

She eyed him. “It hasn't taken you long to understand the political situation here in Rome.” She sneered. “Why, you ignorant barbarian! I've given you a choice between life and death and you stand there playing games!”

He laughed at her. “But you still want me to come with you tonight.”

Her moods were like quicksilver.
“Will
you come with me tonight?”

Calgaich was tempted. Her house would provide a measure of safety, at least for the time being. Thus protected—and away from his comrades—he would be free to think only of himself and his determination to escape. Perhaps he could protect Bronwyn.

We have need of you
,
Calgaich
, Guidd One-Eye had said to Calgaich.
If we’re to survive to reach Rome and live through the Games
,
we must have a leader.
They all depended upon Calgaich to lead them in an attempt to escape. It was almost hopeless, he was sure, but they depended upon him for leadership—Guidd, Fomoire, Lutorius, Niall, Chilo, Lexus, Cunori and all the others he had grown to know and like on the long journey to Rome and while in the Ludus Maximus.

“Answer me, damn you!” Antonia shouted. “If you don't come with me tonight, I'll see that you'll be severely punished, you stupid, stinking barbarian!”

She didn't expect the hard slap that caught her alongside the head. She fell sideways and was driven back by another slap on the other side of her head.

Furious, Calgaich forced his knees in between her thighs. She spread her legs to meet him, despite her anger. He drove into her like a breeding stud, until she began to cry out in pain. She tried to push him away from her. There was no escape. The cruel moonlight showed her for what she really was—a middle-aged nymphomaniac who could not hold her liquor.

She bit her lower lip so hard the blood ran down her chin to mingle with the wine stains on her white skin. At last Calgaich withdrew himself from her. He stood up beside the bed with his anger still aflame. She turned her head sideways, moaned a little, and then passed out.

Calgaich dressed himself. He wiped most of the ruined make-up from her face and the hair dye from her shoulders and neck and then dressed her. Once she opened her eyes and looked at him, but there seemed to be no sign of recognition in her eyes. She was dead drunk.

Someone tapped on the door. “Who is it?” Calgaich called out as he reached for his knife.

“Fomoire.”

Calgaich opened the door. He jerked his head toward the bed. “There lies your lovely mistress.”

“Dead?”

“Dead drunk.”

Fomoire looked sideways at Calgaich. “This is our chance. We could take her away in the wagon, then drive to Ostia. Perhaps we could take ship from there.”

Calgaich shook his head. “No. We'd be caught. Besides, there are the others, or have you forgotten them?”

“They’ll all die in the arena anyway, Calgaich.”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Did she ask you to go with her tonight?”

Calgaich studied the Druid. “You knew about that?”

“I was never sure. But I suspected as much. There have been many other men in her household. A great many of them. She seems to tire of them quickly.”

“And what happens to them?”

“Some of them she accused of rape and then had them sent to the arena. Others just vanished. She is said to be a master of the great Roman art of poisoning.”

“Here is one she didn't send to the arena or poison,” said the quiet voice from behind them.

It was Quintus Gaius.

“You too?” Calgaich asked.

Quintus nodded. “She needs a boar or a ram to satisfy her.” He eyed the unconscious woman. “What was it this time, barbarian? The screwing or the drinking?”

Calgaich shrugged. “Both,” he replied. He grinned a little. “She wanted to quit during the second bout.”

“And you kept on?”

"I
wasn’t satisfied, Oak Tree. After all, I was entitled to a whore this night.”

“And you got the most notorious one in Rome.”

“How is it that you survived her, Oak Tree?”

"I was still fighting in the arena in those days, so she couldn't have me committed there to get rid of me. She didn't dare poison me or have me assassinated. I was too well known and more popular in Rome at that time than she was. The mob would have tom her to pieces if they found out she had been responsible for my death. I may be one of the few, if not the only stud that ever got away from her."

“What can she do to me, now that I have refused to go with her?" Calgaich asked.

Quintus shrugged. “Very little, outside of maybe bribing someone to slip a knife into you, or a drop of poison in your wine. No, barbarian, your reputation has already spread all over Rome, and Valens wants you to live long enough to die in the arena to put a shine on his shield.”

“What about
me?”
Fomoire asked.

“Don't talk. Watch your back at all times. Be careful of your food and wine," Quintus replied. “Besides, aren't you in the favor of the Perfumed Pig?"

“Not exactly. And besides, it is she who rules’ Sextillius. He is afraid of her. So I'll be walking on the edge of death from now on." Fomoire looked at Calgaich. “There seems to be no escape."

“You are not alone in that, Fomoire," Calgaich said. “The only difference between you and the rest of us prisoners is that we will
know
when our times comes for death in the arena."

They carried the unconscious woman from the villa and placed her in the light wagon Fomoire had driven from the city. Quintus and Calgaich watched Fomoire drive the wagon down the road.

Quintus looked sideways at Calgaich. “How was she?"

“Good. At least the first time."

“I found her good too. Even with her age, barbarian, she's still one hell of a whore."

They walked together into the lamplit garden. Quintus looked toward the city, ghostly and white on her fabled seven hills.

“Will you miss it, Oak Tree?" Calgaich asked.

Quintus whirled. “What do you mean?"

Calgaich sat down on a couch and reached for a wine jug. “You are not risking your career and your life just to play a rough joke on Valens and his condemned legionnaires. It's far too dangerous a game. If Valens gains the throne, that will be the end of you and of the black girl Paetina. But from what I've heard of Valentinian, he'll fight back, and he will need you with him. He can't afford to have anything happen to his hostage, Paetina."

Quintus sat down heavily. “Just how drunk are you, barbarian?”

“Not as drunk as I intend to get this night."

“Go on, then.”

“You can't escape Rome under the present conditions," Calgaich continued. “But, during the forthcoming Games, all Rome will have her attention centered on the combat between my barbarians and the champions of Valens. A perfect chance for you to escape from the city and to join the emperor in Cyrenaica. If you do so, then perhaps your beloved emperor will understand what Valens is doing here in his absence.”

Quintus studied Calgaich. “By the gods,” he murmured. “There is witchcraft in all you damned Celts!”