One With the Darkness (7 page)

He waded into the center where the steaming water was almost up to his nipples and submerged, then came up streaming water. She motioned him to duck himself twice more before she waved him out. “Into the next room.”

She followed him into the
frigidarium.
A mosaic of Neptune rising curled around the dark circle of water. He turned and looked his question at her. Even in the dim light she could see his nipples had tightened with the cool air. “It is the cold plunge.” She motioned to the pool. He clenched his jaw. Was that resistance? “Just jump in. It’s deep enough to take even a big brute like you.”

He stalked forward into the pool and sank immediately over his head. He came up sputtering. “Belatucadros’s horn,” he swore. “That’s like to freeze a man’s bollocks.”

“Out.” As he climbed out, she saw that the cold water had indeed tightened his genitals and brought gooseflesh out across his body. Her own body still burned.

She pointed to a bench. He sat, dripping. She knelt in front of him with her basket and chose several vials. She dribbled liquid from the first over his right ankle. He sucked in air. “I know,” she apologized. “It stings. But this, too, will prevent festering.” She repeated the action on the other ankle. This time the pain did not surprise him and he made no sound. She cupped her hands and took the same astringent and rubbed it over his feet.
When she was done, she busied herself with opening the unguent.

She could feel his eyes on her and glanced up. “You have a question?”

“Why do you abase yourself before me? I am your slave.”

She chuffed a laugh. “With ownership comes responsibility. I am responsible for the health of your body.”

“You could send others to do this.”

“I could. But I want you to know you belong to me. It is I who feed you and see to your wounds. I clothe you as protection against the elements, and give you boots that your feet may not be bruised by stones in the streets.” She rubbed his feet and ankles with the healing unguent as she talked. “Because I forbid you to engage in sexual activity, you will achieve release by your own hand weekly under my eye. It is unhealthy for a male to be pent up.”

She looked up again as he blinked in surprise, then glowered at her.
That
would make it clear just what belonging to another really meant. He was not his own person anymore, not a single part of him, and he must realize and submit to that idea.

“Now rise. I wish to apply these medicines to your welts.” She climbed up on the bench to do it. She pulled his wet hair off his back and laid it over his shoulder. The feel of his damp skin under her fingers was probably as much torture for her as it was for him. She worked down his back toward his buttocks.

“You have a gentle touch.” This was said in almost a puzzled tone.

“Thank you, slave.” This couldn’t go on. “What is your name?”

“Roman slaves have no names of their own.” His voice
was harsh. “My name is whatever you call me.” He glanced back in suspicion, as though he thought she was trying to trap him into saying the wrong thing.

“It is too much effort to think of a name for you. What is the name you bear now?”

There was a long pause. He knew that by saying his name he was giving up something of himself. “Jergan. My name is Jergan.”

“Jergan?” Surprising. “That is not the name of one from a Celtic tribe.”

“My father traded in far lands in his youth. My name is from the Goths.” His mouth had drawn into a hard line. His name had caused him trouble.

“Jergan will do.” She liked it. It seemed … familiar. She couldn’t have guessed what he would say before he said it, but now that he had, it seemed she had always known it. “And when you are asked, you will say you are the slave of Livia Quintus Lucellus.”

A tiny, wizened man poked his head in at the doorway. “My lady called for a barber?”

“I did,” she said, stepping off the bench. “Put this slave on your regular list. He should be shaved every three or four days.”

The little barber nodded, his bright eyes surveying the barbarian terrain as he opened his bundle of blades and scissors. “His face, of course, but his body should be shaved as well.”

Julius Caesar was to thank for the fashion that led Roman men to have much or all of their bodily hair plucked or shaven. “No, just his face. I rather like him natural.”

“Sit, slave,” the barber said, as he took out a gleaming blade. “And be still.”

“You would shave me like a woman?” Jergan growled. His look was so menacing the barber flinched away.

“You are in Rome, Jergan, not some backwater of the empire. Romans shave. Even their slaves shave. It is not effeminate. In fact, Romans would think your long hair womanly.”

Oh, dear. That made him glare even more fiercely.

“Do you want it cut off, Lady Lucellus?” The barber enjoyed Jergan’s discomfiture.

Jergan mastered himself and relaxed his shoulders. Had he realized that it was not up to him anymore whether he was shaved or had his precious hair cut short? That deserved a reward.

“No. The contrast between his masculinity and his long hair is exotic, don’t you think?”

“That is one way to name it, my lady.” The barber made his face blank.

Livia tilted Jergan’s head back, baring his throat to the barber’s razor. That would demonstrate just who was in charge here. She watched the barber ply his trade until Jergan was pink-cheeked and smooth, then sent the barber in to Lucius for payment. As she turned back, she stopped and stared. Her slave had a cleft chin under that beard. And his lips were full. She hadn’t noticed that before. He was really a fine figure of a man. And she was not the only one who had noticed it. Caesar’s sisters had noticed him. She’d have to be careful of those two vipers.

He rubbed his chin, looking so thoroughly disgusted with himself she had to smile. “You’ll get used to it. And to being clean. Romans bathe every day, even slaves, though most must use the public baths. You will bathe here.”

He shot her a speculating look.

“Yes, with me. I require protection even in my bath. The emperor frequently sends his guard to take his enemies prisoner at their bath. Now let me see that wound of yours. Javelin?”

“Short sword.”

She poured astringent in it. He couldn’t help but flinch. The wound had been deep, but it was healing well in spite of the fact that it had probably had no treatment at all. The flesh had drawn together into a jagged, shallow trough, though it still seeped a little clear fluid. Too bad it had not been stitched. The scar would be more pronounced as a consequence. She poured again.

“Why does a woman have enemies?” His voice was tight. He was trying to take his mind off the pain.

“My enemies realize I am working behind the scenes to depose those in power. They would rather I stop, and they mean to see that I do, even if it means killing me.” Did Gaius Caesar really know who was behind the Senate’s plot against him? He had tortured several senators’ slaves to find out. But not, she thought, anyone who actually knew. Had one of her fellow conspirators leaked her name? But then why hadn’t Caesar just sent the Praetorian Guard to arrest her? Or them?

“A woman depose a man in power?” Jergan snorted, drawing her attention back to him. “Not possible.”

She took the poultice from the basket. “Then you do not know any women with spines.”

“What can a woman do? She is weaker than a man.”

She looked up at him as she bound the poultice in place. She was vampire, and he would never believe how strong she was. But she couldn’t tell him that. “You are stronger than I am. Why are you my slave?”

He clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“A woman can work through men to see her will imposed. She can create circumstances where men choose to do her will. We have been doing it since the beginning of time.”

She stood back. The only thing left was his hair. She
took a large ivory comb from a niche in the wall and walked around behind him. She began pulling the comb through his hair, starting at the bottom. The oil had made it slick. If she couldn’t comb it out, she might have no choice but to cut it off or leave it in the tangled ropes that lay against his back. He said nothing and she worked in silence. The pulsing between her legs seemed to have gotten into her ears. She was throbbing all over now. When she was done, she worked astringent into his hair to cut the oil, and then bade him bend over so she could ladle water over his head. When he sat up she came round to the front and saw that he was more than half-erect and rising still. He had found his bath as erotic as she had.

She ignored both the erection and the heat in his eyes, though it caused her almost physical pain to do so, and tossed him the flaxen cloth and the belt. “Cover yourself.” He stood, his impressive cock swollen, and belted the cloth around his hips. Gods, was she going to have a man around who left her constantly aroused?

She could order him to her bed. It didn’t look like it would be a trial to him. And yet … She had never had a male body slave precisely because it felt wrong to order a slave to service you. Sexual pleasure should be mutual and carried out between consenting parties. That was what was wrong with pedophiles and rapists. And a slave could not really consent because he could not refuse.

“Keep the wooden sandals. They will protect your feet.” She wanted a bodyguard only, she reminded herself. Not to defend her, but to avoid the discovery of what she was if she defended herself.

Which meant she had to give him a weapon.

4

J
ERGAN LIMPED ACROSS
the garden after the petite woman who owned him body and soul, glowering. His flesh was still warm from the bath. The damp wee hours of the night in the month the Romans called January were a shock against his skin. He smelled of oils and herbs. Were they mad to clean their bodies thus? Apparently they did it every day. Still, he had to admit he felt clean. And it was good to have the stink of the horrible journey removed. The astringent still stung in his wounds and the unguents she had applied had a strange tingle to them, but she had been efficient at her treatments and he would be willing to wager that he would heal faster now. He rubbed his chin. He missed his beard.

This night had brought more twists of fate than his mind could quite compass. First there was the clamor of the slave market, the shame of being evaluated by these effete Romans, men of short stature who somehow had produced a war machine that decimated the Gauls and would probably decimate Britannia if they ever crossed the channel. Worse, there had been the prospect of prostitution in a brothel for men, to be raped and beaten at their sick whim. It was everything he had imagined of Rome on the long journey over the mountains. He had been deeply ashamed that those vile beasts had been able to
rouse his cock. The trip from the slave market to this amazing house had been pure torture. And then there was this enigmatic woman who owned him….

Hateful. She was beautiful and she knew it. He watched her walk ahead of him. Her winter clothes only hinted at the curves beneath them, but his imagination supplied the rest. Her bare shoulders over the bath cloth she had wound about her body had been delicate and smooth. He pressed down the feelings that thought evoked. She lorded it over him as no woman should be allowed to do. Still, she was unlike any of the simpering Roman women who had come to goggle at him in the market. She had the courage to buy him. Her scent was exotic. Did she bathe in cinnamon? That spice brought fifteen times the price of silver for an equal weight. She must be very rich. She had an energy about her that was nothing less than exciting. She knew he’d been excited by her tonight, in spite of his revulsion at being her slave. He’d be glad to plunge his cock inside her, if only to hear her screams of helpless passion. That would teach her who was truly master here.

His mind skittered over her incongruities. Her touch had been gentle. She had knelt before him, yet had never given over her mastery of him. Puzzling.

She seemed to have no man. And this woman needed a man to teach her a woman’s place. Was her husband dead? In his country such a woman would be claimed by another man before the corpse of her husband was in the ground. Yet she talked of power and needed a bodyguard, not because she was afraid of ravishment but because she thought her political enemies would assassinate her. What kind of woman was that?

He followed her into the house, if one could call such a clean and spacious place a house. More like a fortress, only built of stone, not wooden palisades, and open to the
elements at the rear. Heat emanated from the floors. The engineering wonders he had seen tonight … whole pools of hot water, for instance, when there was no volcanic spring …

But back to the woman. He vowed to be the worst purchase she had ever made. She was crafty; he had to admit that. She had baited him to make him remember he was a commander of men who owed a debt that could only be fulfilled by his slavery. She had made the terms of owning him quite clear, and the alternatives.

So he would serve her. Not willingly but because he must, at least for now. And best she keep her promise of freedom. When he was free, he would have his revenge for the submission she had required, if it was achieved with the last breath in his body. And then he would go home to Centii in the southeast corner of Britannia, back to the land and his place as first son.

However, freedom was not to be a gift. She had said he could buy it. But in what coin? Who knew what the price might be and whether he could bring himself to pay it?

T
HE NIGHT WAS
paling. Livia could feel the sun pushing up toward the horizon. It would be dawn in a little more than an hour. Her vampire nature required protection from the sun.

“Lucius,” she called. The man raised his head from where he was setting out bowls on a table. She didn’t have to give the command.

He looked conscious. “I had not realized it was so late.” He bustled about closing the great wooden doors against the coming light. He paid no attention to the huge barbarian slave just now hesitating in the middle of the room. “Your repast is laid out in your chambers, my lady. I shall send in Catia to serve you.”