Raptor (130 page)

“I rejoice to hear it,” I said, trying to keep the irony out of my voice. Then I sighed and pouted again. “With all his frets and worries, Dux Tufa may not have time for insignificant little me.”

Diorio snorted a laugh. “If I know Tufa—”

“And you do, you do! So
will
you recommend me to him? Promise! Swear you will!”

“I will, I will! No doubt
all
of your friends will recommend you to him. Now, please, allow me just a little refreshment of sleep.”

When I returned to my hospitium, I found Hruth again waiting for me, in some excitement and bearing quite a thick bundle of bark. Before he could speak, I said:

“Let me guess. For the first time, the signals came from the south.”

He blinked. “How could you have known that, my lady?”

“The message reached here before you did. Other interested parties must be riding relays too. But let me see the tablets, to make sure I heard it right.”

“There were several signalings, not just the one,” Hruth said as he laid them out in order. “And only the first message came from the south. After that, the torches over in Ravenna made an unusually long signal. Then the same signal, as far as I could determine, was repeated by those customary torches off to the northwest.”

“Ja, passing the word farther and farther on,” I said, and began to decipher the markings. They confirmed what Diorio had told me. The message from the south gave notice of Tufa’s imminent arrival in this region. The message from Ravenna was intended for the northern Roman forces that, like Theodoric’s army, had spent the winter there in quarters. Ravenna instructed those troops to stand fast, that General Tufa would soon be on his way with reinforcements.

“Not if I can prevent him,” I said to myself, and then to Hruth, “There will be no further need for you to haunt the marshes. From now on, I want you nearby. You are to loiter outside this hospitium. The moment you see Tufa’s palace servants or guards escorting me out of here, you are to go to the stable I earlier showed you. Bring from there Thorn’s horse, saddled and packed—and have your own horse ready too, and wait out yonder again. Your work and mine—and the marshal Thorn’s—will soon be done.”

Tufa’s invitation, when it came, was not a courteous request for my favors; it was a peremptory summons. Two of his Rugian guardsmen came for me, wearing full armor and armament, and the bigger of them said gruffly, “Dux Tufa will have the pleasure of your company, Lady Veleda. Now.”

I was given only time enough to don my working clothes. That is to say, I put on my finest raiment, some powder and paint and perfume, a good necklace and fibula—and I grabbed up my little case of cosmetics as we left. Then I was all but frog-marched through the streets. At the palace, one heavy door after another was unbarred before us and barred again behind us. The guards took me to a windowless room deep in the building’s interior. It contained nothing but a commodious bed and a Rugian woman of about my own age, well dressed but very plain-faced, and almost as huge as the bed. The guards handed me over, saluted her, then took up stations outside the room’s only door, the one we had entered. The woman closed that, to give us privacy, and snapped:

“Give me that box!”

I protested mildly, “It holds nothing but feminine sundries—to make me more comely.”

“Slaváith! You would not be here if you were not already comely enough. And no one carries into the presence of the clarissimus Tufa anything that might be injurious to him. Give it here!” She rummaged inside the case and uttered a snort of discovery. “Only feminine sundries, eh? Vái, this is a whetstone!”

“For my fingernails, woman, what else?”

“Even a small stone can be a weapon. And let me see those fingernails.” When I showed them, she sniffed as if disappointed, to find them as short and blunt as a man’s. “Very well. But the guards will hold the case until time for you to leave. They will also hold that jewelry. A necklace can strangle, a fibula pin can stab. Take them off.”

I did. I had protested only for the sake of appearances, and I had brought the case and jewelry only to make sure that Tufa’s protectors would have
something
to confiscate. I wanted to afford them the false security of believing that they had adequately disarmed me.

“Now,” said the big woman, “take off your clothes.”

I had of course expected that, but again I made token protest. “Only at a man’s command do I do that.”

“Then do so. It is Dux Tufa’s command.”

“And who are you, woman, to command in his name?”

“I am his wife. Undress!”

I raised my eyebrows and murmured, “Singular employment for a wife.” But I complied. I started at the top and, as I doffed each article, Tufa’s wife eyed it or felt it for any foreign objects it might conceal. When I was bare to the waist, she curled her fat lip and growled disdainfully:

“You are punily breasted for any real man’s taste. No wonder you must resort to augmenting them with disguise. Here, you can put these things back on. Now take off the lower garments.”

When I was peeled down to the ultimate article, I protested again. “Not even for men do I unloose my modesty band.”

She gave a coarse laugh. “Modest, are you? Modest in the classic Roman manner? You are nothing but a whore, and you are no more Roman than I am. Do you think I
enjoy
the necessity of searching your whorish clothes and inspecting your even nastier bodily orifices? Give me that hipband and bend over!”

I said spitefully, “I console myself that a whore is morally superior to a procuress. Not to mention a wife who—”

“Slaváith!” she barked, her big face turning red. “I said take that off! And bend over!”

I did both those things in one movement, so that she got no look at my lower front. Then I resignedly endured being twice probed, deeply and roughly, by one of her thick fingers. When she was done, she did not just return my hipband; she slapped it stingingly across my buttocks. As I refastened it and turned around, I said:

“I do not know about procuresses, but we whores are accustomed to being handsomely paid for—”

“Slaváith! The guards will have a generous purse waiting with your other possessions.”

“But, clarissima,” I said sweetly, “I should so much rather receive it from your own tender little hand, and—”

“Slaváith!
I want never to lay eyes on you again!” And she stormed out of the room.

I sighed with glad relief. The pretend-weapons and my taunting behavior had sufficiently distracted the woman’s attention. She had failed to descry the real weapon.

Dressed again, I disposed myself in a fetching attitude upon the bed, and no sooner had I done so than the door banged open and Tufa strode in. We had seen one another on that occasion in Verona, and I readily recognized him, but I had no fear of his seeing me as anyone other than Veleda. He was wearing a fine Roman toga, and he was briskly undoing that as he entered, and he was wearing nothing under it. I already knew him to be a well-built specimen of mature manhood, and now I could see that he was
very
well built indeed, because he approached me with his fascinum ostentatiously preceding him. I smiled, supposing that he was not just eager but urgent for a long and lascivious enjoyment of the talented Veleda. But he stopped short of the bed and rudely demanded:

“Why are you dressed? Why are you not stripped naked? Do you think I have time for foolery? I am a busy man. Let us get on with this.”

I bridled, as any woman would, and said coolly, “Excuse me, clarissimus. There seems to be a misunderstanding. I am not here to solicit the favor of being serviced at stud. I thought I was here at your behest.”

“Ja, ja,” he said impatiently. “But I have many other demands on my time.” He tossed his toga onto the bed and stood with arms akimbo, tapping a sandaled foot. “Strip and spread yourself.”

“Hold, clarissimus,” I said through my teeth. “Reflect that this is costing you a substantial price. Surely you would wish to get your money’s worth.”

“Vái, wench, you can see that I am
ready
to! But how can I, until you disrobe? Hurry and let me put it in!”

“That is all you want?” My womanly resentment was not feigned. “Go and find a knothole somewhere in the wall!”

“Slaváith! Every man of my acquaintance boasts of having had you. So, of course, I must too.”

“And
that
is all you want?” I said, in genuinely high dudgeon. “I freely give you leave to say you had me, and you will have wasted none of your precious time, and I promise never to contradict—”

“Slaváith!”
He shook an immense fist at me and roared, “I said shut your impudent mouth, you ipsitilla wench! Take off those clothes and wires! Open your legs instead of your mouth!”

I did not want him to kill me before I could kill him (and I think
any
woman by now would happily have killed him), so I obeyed. But I undressed only slowly, tantalizingly—one piece at a time, beginning with the coiled breast guard he had called “wires”—and saying seductively as I did so:

“Whether you wish it or not, clarissimus, I
like
to give my money’s worth. Or even more than that.”

“Stop your dawdling or you will get no money at all. I agreed to your exorbitant price only so there would not
be
any delay—of courting, negotiating, haggling, whatever. Duty calls me elsewhere, and I can ill spare even this little while.”

I paused, nude to the waist again, and said unbelievingly, “From the most accomplished and loudly lauded ipsitilla ever to honor this city, you want nothing more than
in
and
out
and
away?”

“Akh, save your auction-mart cajolery. I have already said I would pay your price. And except for your reputation, you are no different from the ugliest kitchen slattern. There is nothing more common than a kunte. Upended, all women are alike.”

I said, in utter astonishment, “Why, that is flatly untrue. Women all have the same
things
there, ja, but to a discerning man not any
two
women have nether parts exactly alike. And since every woman has other parts besides the nether, there is an infinite variety of enjoyments to be—”

“Will
you cease prattling and rip off those last garments?”

Peevishly, I tossed aside everything except my hipband.

“Good. Now splay yourself.” He loomed over me, his massive fascinum almost glowing with heat.

I stared up at him, thinking. Granted, his wife might have looked her best with her legs over her head. But what of other women? Had none ever suggested to him that he could do more than
upend
her? I needed some time before I let him do the “in and out and away.” I had to keep him occupied and unaware while I readied my killing weapon. So I put up my arms to ward off his flopping full-length upon me—he looked surprised at realizing my strength—and instead drew him down beside me on the bed, saying plaintively:

“Allow me just a bit of time, please, clarissimus, before I splay myself. Your good wife’s scrupulous inspection somewhat bruised me down there. However, as I told you, a woman has other useful parts besides the nether. If you will allow a brief recuperation of those, I shall meanwhile show you what I can do with others.”

Before he could remonstrate, I commenced doing that. And that must never have been done to him by any woman before, because he exclaimed, scandalized, “That is indecent!” He recoiled only slightly, though, and did not wrench himself loose from me, so I raised my head just long enough to laugh and say, “Ne, this is prelude. Indecency comes later, clarissimus, never fear.” Then I bent to my ministrations again, and in a moment he was twitching and whimpering with pleasure. Guilty pleasure, perhaps, but pleasure.

Truth to tell, my paying those intimate attentions to a fascinum already so ripe and palpitant—especially the fascinum of a man like Tufa, accustomed to hasty gratification—risked making it spurt and spend itself untimely soon. But Tufa’s amazement at my “indecent” doings apparently had damped his sensitivity to some degree. Also I was very careful not to be too stimulating. I simply pretended that the fascinum was my own, signaling its excited feelings to my own consciousness. In such more-than-intimate communion with the organ, I could repeatedly urge it close to the brink of spilling over, and just as repeatedly ease off on my caresses to prevent its doing so. To be further truthful, this activity inevitably wakened excitements in me as well. But I resolutely kept those tamped down, not to chance their interfering with my concentration or their causing my busy hands to fumble at
their
work.

Those hands were working behind Tufa’s back—or, rather, behind his legs. I suppose no ordinary woman’s hands would have had the strength to do it, but mine were unbending one end of my discarded bronze breast guard from its stiff spiral shape. Without my having to watch what I was doing there, doing it by feel alone, I was able to uncoil and straighten about a forearm’s length of the rod—not arrow-straight, but straight enough for my purpose—and it
was
arrow-sharp, because I had months ago whetstoned the metal’s blunt end to a point.

When I was satisfied that the weapon was ready, I gave Tufa one final juicy laving of caresses. His fascinum seemed to grow even more in length and girth and rigidity—and the man was involuntarily crying loud cries of “Now! Ja! Liufs Guth! Now!” But I withdrew, just short of now, and rolled a little away from him, onto my back, and tugged so that he rolled atop me. Although nearly gone in delirium, he took command and rammed his great fascinum into me. As Tufa began his fervent, rapid pumping, driving deeper and deeper inside me, I clasped my arms about his broad back and my legs about his bouncing hips. I was also doing energetic pumping of my own pelvis and, as if in a real frenzy of passion, I raked the fingernails of my free hand up and down Tufa’s back. To be honest again, my passionate involvement was fast
becoming
real, but the sober intent of my nail-clawing was to avert Tufa’s noticing when he was touched by the sharp bronze rod waiting in my other hand.