Calvinvs

Lvdvs

Liber III: FVGITIVUS

Britannicus sat on the river bank, his feet dipped in the clear cool running water. There was bird song and the sound of animals rustling in nearby bushes, insects buzzing in the late summer air, the sun warm on his naked skin. He had sated his thirst and washed off much of the cloying grime from the ash cloud he had walked and stumbled through over the previous afternoon and evening. It had become so thick with nightfall that he had curled up in a ditch off the road he had been walking, leading south through the hills south of Pompeii. He had heard other people on the road – weeping, crying, talking in hushed voices or crying for mercy to the gods. They passed him by, not knowing he was there, being unable to call out and attract their attention.

In any case what was the point of attracting their attention? Just one more naked slave boy fleeing the wrath of the mountain god. No one cared about slaves like him. No one would offer him mercy.

Britannicus thought ruefully about the Senator's parting words to him. He had though Gaius Aurelius was different – a man who really cared about him, really loved him. The man who had asked him his true name, and all about his homeland, and who had sought him out and spent many happy days with him. All that gone in the instant he had left him – told him to return to Pompeii and into the maw of the god of fire and brimstone himself. Stupid slave – that was what the senator had called him. Just a stupid slave to be traded, used, discarded. Just a whore, like the Romans had made his mother. He had not noticed the shame of his new life when he was with the senator, but now he had been cast away, left alone to die, he could see it clearly. Just a voiceless whore. His father would have cut his throat to avoid this shame.

After a sleepless night, he had trudged on southwards as best he could. The air had still been ash laden, and his lungs burned as he breathed it in, coughing up a nasty sludge. Even walking had made him breathless now, and as the murky dawn light strengthened and the cloud seemed to ease a little, he had passed bodies lying on the road. One man was still breathing in fast ragged breaths, but he had no strength to go on. Britannicus watched aghast as he raised a hand, half buried in ash, only to let it fall again. He said something, but the boy could not make out any sound. He had hurried on past, feeling as though his own body was close to giving up and going the same way. He should not have stopped in the night. He should have pressed on. And yet he realised that the air in the hollow he had found had not been quite as thick as it was on the road. Maybe the shelter had helped.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the visibility had improved though, until he found himself able to see. First mountains and trees, and the discoloured disk of the sun, and then he could make out the road arcing down towards a river in a valley below. How long since he had drunk water? A whole day? Britanniucs had run for the river with the last of his energy, avoiding the bridge where people had congregated, cutting across an olove grove to make his way to a more deserted part of the bank, where he had leaped in, drank his fill and scrubbed at the ash that made him and everyone else look like ghouls returned from the dead to haunt the living.

So now here he was on the river bank. In one direction the sky was clear, a perfect late summer's day. Behind him though, he could still see the angry cloud being spat from the mountain to the north. The wind was taking it to the west, and he had managed to walk beyond its reach.

Britannicus had not slept much in the night, and although he was hungry, the danger seemed to be staying behind, and he was no longer thirsty. He curled up and lay on the grass, closing his eyes, dreaming of summers back home in Britannia, before he had thought it possible that a Roman could deprive him of his liberty, and take him from his homeland. He remembered his sister laughing as she splashed in another river far away, and how he had fought on that river bank with wooden swords against his friend, Math. He soon drifted off to sleep, imagining he was still there and the gods had never noticed him and punished him.

***

A foot nudging him. Britannicus pushed it away. Go away, Math, I am sleeping, he said in his head, but no sound beyond a grunt crossed his toungeless mouth. Still the foot nudging him awake.

Britannicus relectantly opened his eyes, and blinked. The day was bright, but eclipsing the sun was a boy – bigger than Math had been, but still definitely a boy. At once Britannicus remembered where he was and he sat up. He was not expecting what happened next though.

"It is Britannicus, isn't it?"

The question was surprising because Britannicus felt sure that everyone he knew was dead in Pompeii, but that was not what really surprised him. It was the fact that the question was not asked in Latin, but in his own Brythonic language. He opeend his mouth as if to reply, but then shut it again and simply nodded.

Now the boy squatted down and Britannicus could see who it was. He had seen this boy before – he remembered that now. This was Calgacus, one of the boys from the Ludus. When he had run errands for Valerius Maximus he had seen the boy training, although he had never had occasion to speak to him. Calgacus had also been there the day his old master had cut his tongue out. That was a day he would never forget, not least because of the very public rape he had then endured as blood had poured from his mouth onto the stone slabbed floor.

What was Calgacus doing here?

"I watched you come down to the water's edge," Calgacus told him, still speaking Brythonic. "I was in that line of trees over there, watching the road, looking to see if Nathan made it. He would have come here if he left Pompeii by the same gate as me. I thought I recognised you at once – there cannot be that many red haired slave boys in Pompeii, so I came down to see."

Britannicus nodded, biting his lip. He wished he could speak, to ask questions of Calgacus.

"What tribe are you from?" Calgacus asked, but Britannicus just pointed to his mouth. Had Calgacus forgotten he could not speak? The boy had the decency to look sheepish as Britannicus indicated he was mute, and shrugged, before listing off some of the tribes from Brittannia. When he mentioned the Ordovices, Britannicus nodded enthusiastically.

"Well well! The Ordovices! That defeat was a bitter blow. The loss of the druids too. That is why our tribes in the North formed the Caledonian confederacy. The Romans will not conquer us!"

Britannicus looked at the boy quizically. He was still dressed in the subligaculum that he had worn in the Ludus, and it covered the brand on his bum, but Britannicus knew it was there. He pointed to it and then shrugged. Calgacus looked confused for a moment before obviously realising the message being conveyed.

"Well yes, they captured me, but not without a fight. Calgacus sent us to spy on the Romans, and we were good at it. We also stole their supplies right out of their camp. They were mad about that. Too mad, maybe, because then they tracked us down into the forest and caught me and my brothers in the forest. We fought them, and even killed one of them, but they killed my brothers."

Calgacus looked far away for a moment, but something was puzzling Britannicus. Calgacus had sent this Calgacus to spy. Was that his father then?

"Calgacus is fighting them still, I bet." the boy said, but as he said the word, Calgacus, again Britannicus poked him in the chest and held his gaze. The boy look confused for a moment. "Oh! No! no, I am not Calgacus. That is not my real name. I was named Aeron. The Romans just gave me Calgacus as a joke, because I was from the Caledonian confederacy."

Britannicus nodded. How would he ever tell this boy his real name? What did it matter now anyway? Calgacus told him more about how he had been captured, enslaved and sold to the Ludus earlier this very year. It had been over 2 years since Britannicus had been brought to Rome, but Calgacus had been in Britannia as recently as spring. It was also obvious he planned to go back there now.

"The way I see it, everyone will think we are dead, right? Even if our owners survive whatever is happening back there, they think I… we are in Pompeii. This is our chance. We can make our way to the sea and get a boat for Britannia. We can work our passage and then make our way north. You would be welcome with my people."

Britannicus looked sceptically at this boy. Often he had dreamed of exactly what Calgacus… no, Aeron, was now suggesting. Since he had been enslaved he had dremed of returning to Britannia to fight for and reclaim all he had lost. He dreamed of finding his sister, and being reuinted with her – maybe with his mother too, although that thought filled him with trepidation. She had seen the way her thoughts for him had changed after that first time he had been raped by a Roman. He knew she would never see him as a warrior again.

Britannicus had dreamed of this, and the boy was right. There was no-one who would be looking for them. The senator had sent him back to Pompeii, so even if he was still alive, he would think Britannicus was dead. But faced with the actual moment of decision, there seemed to be some big obstacles. How would they find a ship to Britannia? How would they persuade the sailors to give passage to a them? How far would they have to walk through Roman occupied lands to get to the Caledonian Confederacy? What would they eat? Or drink? Or, he thought ruefully, looking at his still naked body, what would he wear?

No, it was all too difficult. Better to just find the nearest town and look for a magistrate to hand themselves in for resale.

"So are you coming with me?" Calgacus asked?

Britannicus nodded vehemently and grinned.

The boys had been travelling south, skirting the angry poisonous cloud that continued to rest over the land north and west of them, and keeping to the hills of southern Campania to avoid the roads, which were packed with refugees from the wrath of the gods that had consumed Vesuvius and everything else in the vicinity. They had come close to the main road, the Via Popilia, just long enough to steal food, where they had come across a dead slave girl lying in a ditch. She had no possessions, and a small brand on her arm marked her as the property of another man, but Britannicus took the small amount of clothing left to her and donned it. He had felt bad about taking the clothing from a dead body, leaving her naked, her lips blue and eyes staring unseeing. She looked cold, and helpless and the boy felt the urge to cover her with something warm. He was reminded of his sister, and again wondered where she was now. Was she safe and well? Had she herself found her way to the Caledonian Confederecy, where she and their people continued to resist the Roman invaders? Would he soon see her again? Or had she too been left to die, unloved and uncared for, naked in a roadside drainage ditch?

Britannicus shivered despite the clothing he had just donned. It was little more than a cloth wrap and a rope belt, but at least he was not naked now. Calgacus had quickly stopped searching the girl's body, and beckoned for Britannicus to come away from the road. There were more people coming, and it was better if they were not seen. The boys walked back up into a small wooded copse, and Calgacus threw himself down by the stump of a tree, and began to unwrap a bundle they had both pulled from a passing cart.

It was evening of the second day since the eruption and neither boy had eaten, so food had driven them to the road. They had watched people moving south. Some were heavily armed, others clearly destitute, but what the boys had wanted was a wagon with not too many people watching, and after almost two hours of patient waiting, they had seen their mark. A wagon stacked so full of belongings that the driver would not be able to turn and see if some item was removed from the back, and no one behind for almost a quarter of a mile. No doubt the followers on the road had watched and seen two boys creep out of the drainage ditch as the wagon passed, and seen them remove a wrapped bundle from the cart. They might also have seen the apples the boys had stuffed in their mouths, although the distance was probably too great for that detail. What they could not do was stop it from happening, and with the cart driver oblivious, the boys had slipped back down into the drainage ditch, and made their way along it towards the copse to look at their stolen wares.

That was when they had found the girl, but there was nothing they could do for her now. Maybe the people following on the road would look for the boys and find and bury the girl. Maybe instead she would lie there until wolves and other scavengers took the body for food. Britannicus thanked the gods for her gift of clothing though.

Calgacus whistled as he unbound the package they had stolen. Inside the cloth was a knife – a long iron one with a wooden handle polished and dark with use. The knife was nicked and rutted from use but still was a serviceable blade, nicely balanced and the iron slick with oil to keep it free from rust. He let Britannicus feel it before he tucked it carefully away, concealing it as best he could inside the back of the belt of his subligaculum.

Beside the knife there was a bone comb, some strips of leather and a small bottle of olive oil. This was then a hastily put together bundle of toiletries perhaps, although the blade was a little long one for shaving. Not overly long though. It might serve for that purpose, but as Calgacus tucked it away, Britannicus knew that it was not for shaving that the boy wanted it. It was a well balanced weapon for a boy of 11 or 12 – Calgacus' age.

There was not much food though. They had an apple each and beside that, Calgacus had found a hunk of cheese, which he had thrust into his subligaculum. Britannicus watched in some distaste as the other boy took it out now, giggling as it reduced the size of the bulge in the front of his only garment. He offered the cheese to Britannicus, and the boy looked again, mouthing his disgust. Calgacus laughed. All the same, hunger won over the thought of eating food that had just been resting against the boy's penis, and Britannicus took the cheese and bit a hunk of it off as Calgacus' laughter became a roar.

Later, their stomachs not full but less empty after their meal of cheese, apples and spring water, Calgacus pointed back towards the road.

"People are going to a port on this road. If we follow the road we will be there soon, and then we have to take a ship to Britannia.

"If we cannot find a ship, it is too far to walk. I was told when they captured me that there are great mountains to the North and no easy way to cross them, and in any case, if we stay near roads then someone will find us sooner or later and send us back to the slave market."

Britannicus nodded as Calgacus spoke. A boat was definitely the best way, even if it only took them as far as Hibernia. When he had been captured he had been taken by a boat to Gaul, and travelled overland to Hibernia before taking another boat to Rome. The overland journey had taken a long time, and a sea journey would be better, but there was a problem – how were they to gain passage on a boat back to Britannia? Calgacus had obviously wondered the same thing.

"When we get to the port, we will look for boats from Britannia or from Gaul. If we can convince them that we are brothers…" Britannicus looked at him and shook his head, his expression turning doubtful and Calgacus grinned. "Okay, if we can convince them that we are cousins then… then we can say we were with my father in Pompeii and he is a tin merchant, and although he died there will be a great reward to anyone who takes us home."

Britannicus looked doubtful. A sea passage would involve them using space, eating food and drinking fresh water. He doubted that anyone would give them passage just because of a promise of future reward. Maybe if they could work their passage though, Britannicus tried to mime working, standing up and pretending to carry items from one place to another, but Calgacus just looked at him like he was crazy.

"I have no clue what that means." He said after a while, giggling again, and Britannicus giggled too. "Well ok, maybe we could also offer to work our passage back home. We could sign up as crew."

Britannicus smiled and clapped, his action slow with sarcasm, and Calgacus laughed again.

***

And so the boys found themselves walking into the port city of Salernum, mingling with people for the first time since their escape, glad to find that no one seemed to pay much heed to two boys walking towards the docks. Their hair colour marked them out as northerners, but in all the uproar amidst the eruption still taking place to the north, no one bothered ask who they were or where they were from.

They found the docks quickly, and were confronted by a scene of turmoil. Hundreds of people displaced from the cities to the North were here bartering for passage, and everywhere there were hawkers selling food and other items at vastly inflated prices. There were raised voices and angry shouts, people crying and elsewhere sometimes a cry of recognition and people hugging and kissing as they were re-united with loved ones. Already Britannicus doubted the wisdom of coming here looking for passage. What did they have to offer that had not been offered many times before?

Well there was one thing Britannicus knew how to offer now, but as he looked at the quayside he saw even on that score he would not be unchallenged. There were three boys and two girls waiting as a ship drifted slowly to a birth. Each of them in a short tunic that hid very little, and as he watched, one of the boys was scratching his bum – the sign of infection that he had learned to look for in his time in the Pompeii whorehouse. The people on the ship coming in had spotted the boys too, and even at this distance Britannicus could see and recognise the look on the face of one of the men who was watching the oldest of the boys. That boy would be a little richer and a little more sore in an hour or two. If he did not wind up dead of course.

"Over there!" Calgacus pointed and Britannicus pulled his gaze from the whores on the quayside to a ship at the far end of the dock. The sail was plain, but the design was not like these Roman ships. Britannicus had seen a ship like this before, years ago when his father had taken him on a trading trip, and they had found Armoricans looking for supplies of metals. The Armorican ships were sleaker than Roman craft, without the heavy reliance on rowers. They looked less sturdy, but they carried themsleves in the water more steadily, which they needed to when they crossed the waters of the ocean.

Armorica was almost all the way to Britannia. If that was an Armorican ship, it would be perfect, and Britannicus felt his spirits lift. Maybe Calgacus' crazy plan was going to work. The boys set off at a run for where the ship sat at berth.

***

"Stop right there!" A voice called out in accented Latin. Britannicus skidded to a halt in front of the ship as a thick set man with his hair long in the celtic style and dressed in seviceable leather clothing, strode towards them.

"You Armorican?" Asked Calgacus in Latin, and then tried again in Brythonic "Are you from Armorica?"

The man frowned and then answered, also in Brythonic.

"I am from Armorica, and you, I think, are from Britannia. I trade with Britannia often."

Calgacus smiled and then blurted out the whole of the arranged story, about losing their father in Pompeii, and about a reward waiting if they could be taken to Britannia and how they would work their passage. The man frowned, narrowing his eyes and rubbing his chin.

"We sail for Armorica, but I have no plans to go to Britannia, even to return two escaped slaves." He said, leaving Calgacus protesting, but the man simply held up his hand. "You want me to believe you are not slaves? You want me to risk being accused of stealing some Roman's property? Tell me then, why does your friend… I mean your cousin… not speak. Is it perhaps that he is not a Briton at all but some German or something else?"

"No sir." Calgacus protested, touching his face nervously. "He does not speak because he was born mute."

"Born mute, is it?" The Armorican asked, crossing to where Britannicus stood, and before the boy could back away he grasped his chin with his right hand and with his left, inserted two dirty fingers pulling the mouth open. "Born mute? I would say a Roman made him that way."

Calgacus opened his mouth to protest again, but the Armorican cuffed him quickly, and the boy shrank back, glowering.

"You are slaves, are you not? Do I have to search you for an owners mark?"

The issue was lost. Calgacus still bore the brand of Valerius Maximus on his buttock – mercifully out of sight, but not beyond discovery. Was it so transparent that they were runaways? Britannicus frowned and reddened. To be so close to a ship heading towards his home, and yet so far. He blinked away a tear.

"Please sir! Please help us. Take us home and my father will reward you, I am certain of it. We can work our passage." Calgacus spoke quickly, but earnestly. The Armorican shook his head, tutting.

"Your father is probably dead, or else you are dead to him. Once a slave, never a warrior, so we say, and so do your people. In any case if he is alive or not it makes little difference. If I am caught transporting escaped slaves the Romans wills seize my cargo and my ship and try me as a common thief. It is not worth the risk. Go back to your master – it is better than being hunted and hungry, and if you go back now you may escape a flogging and a branding. They may even decide not to put a collar on you.

"Go on boys. Go. Get out of here, before I go find the magistrate and hand you over myself."

Reluctantly the boys turned and walked quickly away. Britannicus felt the pain of dejection, and looking at Calgacus he could see the same feelings written on the other boy's face. They walked back along the dockside, and Britannicus looked around nervously, wondering who else had overheard the exchange – although it had taken place in Brythonic, so who else would have understood the words?

Someone did though,

Britannicus looked up to see a man walking beside them. This one was dressed like a Roman but when he spoke he spoke in broken Brythonic.

"I can get you boys home. Come with me, my ship is bound for Hibernia and from there we can see you gain passage to Britannia"

Calgacus looked up at the man – his face friendly enough. He had used the Latin word for "passage" as though he did not know the Brythonic word, and his speech had been halting but it was clearly Brythonic.

"You speak our language?"

The man nodded. "I have traded for tin often enough to have picked up the language. It was useful to understand what your countrymen said behind my back". He replied. "It stopped them from robbing me blind!"

"You will let us work passage to Hibernia?"

The man nodded and offered his hand. Calgacus took it and they shook.

"My ship is that one. We sail tomorrow, but you can wait on the ship." And with that he took the boys to a roman trading vessel and helped them on board.

Calgacus thanked the man, smiling and Britannicus smiled to, his spirits lifting. After the encounter with the Armorican, this man was a life saver. Someone who would actually help them get home.

They walked along a jetty and onto a ship.

"You can sleep here below decks, and you will find some of yesterday's bread. You can have all that the rats have left you."

Even rat chewed bread sounded like a feast to the hungry boys and they nodded their thanks as the man stepped off the ship again and crossed the quay to talk to some men about his cargo. Britannicus crossed to the side of the boat and looked out at all the people scurrying too and fro about their business, arguing, talking, laughing, weeping. He watched them and felt a sense of relief, and elation settle on himself, and looking at Calgacus, he thought the other boy was feeling it too.

They were going home. For the first time in over two years, Britannicus could imagine a life when he was not the slave boy whore of a rich Roman, but might once again be Gwion ap Caradoc of the Ordovices, fighting for freedom alongside his own people. He might find and free his mother. He might find his sister too. The old druid that had named him for the stories he would weave might yet be proven right.

Maybe the gods did not hate him after all.

The sun was setting by the time the merchant captain of the ship returned to check on his new passengers. By this time the boys had eaten their way through the hard crusts of bread and Calgacus had tried his best to catch the rat that had been at it before them. Whether either boy could have brought themselves to eat uncooked rat turned out to be a moot point, because even armed with the knife they had found, the animal evaded capture, scurrying away between amphorae in the cargo, just out of the boy's reach.

Below deck was not much cooler than above, but it was sheltered from the sun and prying eyes, and the boys had been well occupied with the rat, their eyes used to the gloomy half light of the ship's hold. Calgacus spoke a little of their good fortune, and Britannicus nodded. What were the chances of finding a ship that would take them to Hibernia so easily? But here they were, sailing in the morning for the first leg home. Once at Hibernia, even if they travelled overland, they would not be so obviously marked out as escapees, and there would surely be trade ships or wagons heading for Britannia. Tin, in particular, was much valued from there, and as a constituent of bronze, it ensure that there had always been a lovely trade heading to the north, even before the Romans had invaded the island.

The loading of the ship had been taking place on and off for the whole afternoon, and occasionally people had come down into the hold. The boys had secreted themselves quietly in a corner whenever anyone came down the ladder, but they need not have bothered. Amphorae and wooden boxes were brought down by men grunting with the exertion, and when one of them did spot Britannicus hiding in a corner, he simply waved him over.

"Give me a hand with this!" He had barked, and Britannicus had jumped to comply, only to have Calgacus laugh at him when the man had returned above deck.

"Jumped to like a proper little slave boy." He goaded, but Britannicus just shrugged. It seemed to him that they had offered to work their passage, so what did it matter if he worked like the slave boy he had been for the last two years. Soon enough they would be free of all that, and at least now he was getting something in reward for his service.

Now though the captain was coming down the steps. He stumbled on the last one, then stood up, blinking into the gloom.

"Where are you, boys?" He called in Latin, and then repeated the question in Brythonic. Britannicus stepped out of the shadows and crossed to the man, aware that Calgacus was hanging back, although he too had stood up. As he came closer to the captain he could smell stale wine on the man's breath.

"Ah, there you are." the captain replied, and reached out a hand, putting it on the boy's shoulder, squeezing in a manner that might have been meant to be friendly, but it was hard enough to make the boy wince. "Now then, let's get down to business and have you pay for your passage."

Britannicus felt his blood chill. It might be half dark down here, and the man's face was almost lost in the shadows, but he recognised something in the man's tone. He hoped he was wrong, but as he watched the man, waiting to hear more, he soon realised that he had been right.

"Take that rag off, boy, and bend over this box." He said, pointing at a box stowed close enough to the hatch to let in enough light to see. Britannicus felt his heart quicken, and his face colour with shame. Would there be no end to the Romans debasing his body? Shaming him before his gods, making him less than a man each time they did this?

But then did it matter any more? From the first time he had been raped in front of his mother he knew that his shame could never be expunged, and after the senator whom he thought had actually loved him, he had almost come to like the attentions. He had reveled in the fact that one of the most powerful men in the world had found pleasure in him, and lavished attention on him. Didn't that make him effeminate and weak? He had almost ceased caring – at least until he had been abandoned to the flames and ash of the exploding mountain.

There would be no love, no enjoyment, no pleasure with this man, but he knew what to do and how to do it, and if it meant passage home, he would play his part.

Britannicus slowly pulled off the wrap he had taken from the dead girl and laid it upon the floor. Naked now, he stepped over to the box, and took up the position they had taught him in the whorehouse, legs apart, bent forwards. There was a rustle of fabric and then the man's arms were around him, exploring his smoothe skin, feeling his genitals, which traitorously responded to the man's touch. He could smell wine and sweat as the man held him, hugged him, kissed him, and then lined himself up.

What foreplay there had been was brief and the captain made no attempt at lubrication before thrusting and the boy felt him entering him. With a toungeless animal cry he groaned his only protest as the man began to thrust hard and fast. White knuckled, Britannicus held the box, groaning again and again, tears running down his cheeks, willing the man to finish quickly.

"Get off him!" Calgacus' voice was quiet, not panicked, but soft with anger. "You are hurting him. Get off him."

"Quiet, slave boy! Learn your place. My crew are going to make sure your hole is bigger than his empty mouth before we are done with you."

"I said get out of him. Let us go. We will find another ship."

"Oh no you fucking well won't" The captain said with a laugh. "The only way you are getting off this ship now is with your throat cut when we are done with you. Stupid runaway barbarian scum. You are ours now!" And with that the captain thrusted angrily and so violently that Britannicus felt like something inside him was about to tear. Again he sounded his agony with an animal whine.

"Your whore friend here sounds like a dog. Maybe I should take your tongue out too, slave boy, and we can lock you both up as dogs in the hold, for every…" the man thrusted hard on the word, punctuating the rest of his sentence with violent movements that had Britannicus writhing in pain. "Every… bloody… crewman… to use… whenever… he damned well… likes."

With the last word, the man threw back his head in pleasure as he ejaculated. Britannicus tensed up, his bum aflame as he was filled with the man's seed, and as it washed into him, he felt a terrible sinking sense of desperation as once again the gods showed once more that they had abandoned him on the day he had been unmanned and defeated by a Roman soldier.

He had heard every word of the exchange, and even now there was talking and laughter from up above, and a shadow falling across the hold, as another crew member looked inside. They were prisoners on this ship now, as surely as if they had been locked into a cage. The captain's threat rang in his ears "the only way you are getting off this ship now is with your throat cut when we are done with you". That was what he had said. Who would miss two runaway slaves in the commotion to the north? That had been what they had been banking on – unmissed, they had the chance to escape to Britannia, but equally they could be taken by a ships crew, raped and tossed out of the boat at sea when their usefulness was past. They had escaped one life of slavery for a worse one.

Britannicus slumped forward in defeat. The captain laughed with pleasure as his orgasm took its course, and he held the boy to his unwashed sweaty body.

And then he stopped laughing, and slumped over the boy. Had he fallen asleep. His breathing was raspy, like a snore… or…

Britannicus felt something hot and wet running down his back. He tried to turn but the man was slumped on him, pinning him down. And then Calgacus was at his side, pushing, and the man rolled away and fell to the floor with a loud cracking sound as his head hit the wooden surface. The sound was sickening, but in the half light Britannicus could see that was not all. There was a growing dark area, running from his neck, darkening the floor. He could smell it now, and feel it all over his body. Blood. The man was coverd in blood.

"Quick! We must go!" Calgacus whispered, making for the ladder. Calgacus had not seen the man at the top though, and as Britannicus pointed, the man shouted down.

"You little runt! What have you done?" There was a sound of iron on leather as the man pulled his knife free and dropped into the hold, facing the boys. One look convinced him the captain was already beyond help. "You will pay for that you scum!"

The man lunged forward, and Britannicus ducked away, only quick reflexes preventing him from being skewered on the vicious blade the man held. The man had been expecting two slave boys though, and had not counted on Calgacus' training. Calgacus stepped inside the man's lunge, his move covered by the half darkness and using Britannicus's leap as distraction. At once he slashed with his blade, but as the man was taller and stronger, he did not aim for the upper body but cut into his abdomen and slashed downwards, across the man's groin. The knife ripped through fabric and flesh and he let out a howl, dropping his blade, staggering back and clutching his private parts, blood seeping out between his fingers.

"What have you done?" He wailed between hissing groans of pain, but Calgacus was not looking nor stopping to answer. He leaped for the ladder and started climbing.

"Come! Quick!" He shouted to Britannicus and climbed up the steps to the deck. Britannicus had no wish to face the wrath of this man alone, and with one backward glance at the terrible sight, climbed quickly up the ladder.

As they emerged, they saw in a glance that two more crewmen were at the gangplank, and a third was already approaching with a gladius in his hand, intent on finding out what the commotion below was. There was no disguising it as the man below wailed in agony and screamed for help. They were trapped – there was no way they could fight their way past three grown men, and there was nowhere to run or hide. There was only one place to go, and Calgacus did not hesitate. He dropped the knife and leaped over the side of the boat into the sea.

Britannicus looked ashen faced at the oncoming men. With Calgacus' retreat, there was no threat from this naked blood covered boy, and the one with a gladius broke into a run.

Britannicus turned and leaped over the side of the boat too, banging his shins painfully in his desperation to drop into the sea below. He fell and landed with a splash, floundered and then kicked, swimming away from the vessel, only to aware of the shouts of anger behind, and the agitation on the dockside from a growing crowd of onlookers. Britannicus swam after Calgacus, knowing his life depended on this. He swam out to sea, wondering how far they had to go – how far they could go – to escape pursuit.

Britannicus lay on the beach, shivering with cold, too exhausted to move. The boys had swum further than they had ever done so before, spurred on by the terror of capture. The murder of the sea captain had been howled by angry sailors and the crowded docks had become a dangerous swarm of angry people, eagre to be the ones to capture the perpetrators. Thus the boys had to swim out deep and head west to where the hills jutted into the sea and fewer roads ran. The distance they swam must have been well over a millarium, and neither boy had done much swimming since being enslaved, so the distance was punishing to the point of exhaustion.

They had come ashore in a small cove. Had they attempted their escape earlier in the day, they would have certainly been spotted and a reception party of vigiles would be waiting on the beach, but they had abandoned the boat at sunset, and their long swim had seen the sky turn to the dark of night. Their pursuers had lost sight of them in the darkness, and as far as Britannicus could tell, they were alone on this beach.

The boy rolled onto his back, waves still lapping around his body. Calgacus was nearby and on his knees, coughing. Britannicus looked at him and his eyes narrowed. Why in the name of Arianrhod had he killed the man? What was he thinking? They could have been en route to Hibernia by now, but instead they were stuck on some blasted beach with the whole of Salernum looking for them, and with no food and once again he did not even have any clothes!

Britannicus glared at the other boy, unable to give vent to his frustrations, but wanting to shout at him for his stupidity. He knew, deep down, that he was being unfair – that the captain had already said they would be used and then killed. Deep down he knew the captain had only let them on the ship because he knew no one would miss two slave boys for a very long time, and perhaps forever. They were just disposable assets to be consumed and discarded. And yet maybe that was just drunken talk. Maybe they could have made it to Hibernia, if Calgacus had not acted so stupidly.

Now they had given up a possible short and brutal life on board the ship in order to be hunted down, and when they were caught, then what? Slaves were not even permitted to carry weapons, so to use one to murder a free man would certainly carry the death penalty. The short and brutal life on board ship might still be better than the long and agonising death afforded to slaves who did such things.

Britannicus growled and sat up. Calgacus looked up and spoke quietly.

"We lost them. If we head west maybe we can find another port."

Britannicus shook his head, the movement only just visible to Calgacus in the moonlight. He had seen the coastline to the west and it had looked rocky, uninhabited, inhospitable. Worse, it was heading back towards Pompeii. The alternative was to head south and east, but that way took them back to Salernum.

"Well what would you do, whoreboy?" Calgacus asked angrily, and Britannicus felt blood rush to his face. Mercifully the other boy could not see him blush, but when Calgacus used the Brythonic word for a whore, he felt the word more forcefully than ever. With that word he could hear this disdain that his own people had for men who were used by men. The word was richer than the latin word, conveying all the shame and dishonour that a boy whore could feel. The Ordovices, like all the Britons, put great store in prestige earned in conquest and battle. A man who had fought and overcome his enemies was a hero whose spirit would live forever in the glorious afterlife, respected and honoured by all. A man – or a boy – who was defeated, and whose body was not even his own would likewise be forever shamed and dishonoured in the afterlife.

The Romans saw men as far greater than women. His own people did that too, of course, but among the Britons a woman would fight alongside a man and could earn honour in just such a way, and even if she never fought in battle, she would still be more than a whore boy could ever be. Whores were despised, weak, defenceless, useless creatures for whom there was only eternal sorrow and regret. And that is what Calgacus had just called him.

Well maybe that was what he had become. His bum ached from his latest rape, and the fact that he had accepted that fate rather than fight the captain like Calgacus perhaps spoke to the truth of the other boy's words. He was no warrior now, nor ever would be. No one among his people would welcome him home. Oh they would take him in, and call him one of the people, but they would never really think that. He would always be the boy who opened his legs for anyone who wanted it. He would always be the boy who had willingly given himself to the senator, Gaius Aurelius. He had thought he loved the man. He had thought the man loved him.

The Romans had no love for his people, nor ever would they. They had subdued him and silenced him, and made him their pet, just an animal to be befriended and then kicked away.

Britannicus felt tears run down his face as he thought how he had nowhere to go. His mother's last look at him had told him all he needed to know about how she felt for him once he had been raped and enslaved. Calgacus' words told him that this boy did not hold any better opinion of him, and he was a slave too!

He realised Calgacus was waiting for a response. What was the question? What should they do?

Britannicus shrugged and pointed to some bushes on the edge of the beach. He put his hands together and lay his head on them, then pointed at the bushes to indicate that he was going to go to sleep.

"We have to get out of here!" Calgacus objected, but Britannicus was done running. He crossed to the bushes and curled up under them, getting what little shelter from the cold that he could by pulling some dead leaves over himself.

Calgacus set off to the east, leaving Britannicus behind. Let him go, Britannicus thought. It would have been better if he had never been found by Calgacus. Better if he had just gone to some authority or other and tried to make them understand that he was a slave and his master, the owner of the Pompeii whorehouse, was now no doubt dead.

How he would have explained that, he did not know. Valerius Maximus had certainly made his life so much harder when he had cut his tongue out.

Britannicus sobbed quietly, sleep remaining elusive for a long time before he heard a rustling sound and Calgacus returned, laying down beside him, holding his body to share their warmth.

"There is no way through that way. The cliffs come too close to the sea, and I could not climb them in the dark. Tomorrow we can try again or make our way east."

Britannicus nodded, and now with the other boy holding him, sharing warmth and some comfort, sleep finally found him.

***

Britannicus awoke with a cry of pain. He opened his eyes, clutching his stomach where he had just been kicked. It was still dark, but there were lights – lanterns, and men. Three men, laughing at his pain as he writhed and held his stomach. Calgacus was shouting but a man had him, struck him hard across the face, and then there were ropes, and the boy's hands were being tied as they were both forced to their knees.

"Filthy barbarian slave scum. Hours we have been searching for you. I was meant to dine tonight with a beautiful woman, and you two have to go and kill the nephew of the town magistrate! What a waste of a fine fucking evening."

Britannicus struggled, wide eyed, but only earned a kick to the balls for his efforts. He gasped, groaning his pain, as Calgacus recited every curse he knew in Brythonic and every crude term he had learned as a gladiator, before the men used some spare rope to gag him.

"Enough of that filth, murderer. You had better learn the words for mercy if you want your execution to be quick and painless. I would not count on it though, as I hear the magistrate was fond of his nephew and has not taken his death lightly."

The crowd in the marketplace were hushed to silence as Britannicus and Calgacus were walked before the magistrate. They had spent the rest of the night under guard in a filthy and smelly jail, and neither of them had slept much. A thousand times Britannicus had cursed Calgacus in his head for his rashness. Come the morning they had been given water and bread, which both boys had been too hungry to refuse, despite their lack of appetite. After that they had waited anxiously until the magistrate was ready to sit in judgement. Britannicus was still naked and no one had bothered find him any clothes, and this just made the shame and terror worse as the boys were instructed to stand before the magistrate, heads bowed, as the crime was detailed in exquisite detail.

"We were watching this slave being fucked, when that one slipped a knife through Flaccus' … er, I mean Sextus Artorius' throat." One of the sailors said – this was the one who had nearly caught Britannicus on board the ship. "And after that another of our number, Aristo, tried to apprehend the boy, and for his trouble, that little barbarian cut him so bad he may never be able to father another child."

There was a groan from the crowd, and hearing it the sailor warmed to his theme, describing Aristo's groin and genital injury in great detail. "Hanging by a thread, it was. If the fever does not kill him, it may still just drop off."

Britannicus shuddered. The injury sounded terrible and the crowd were muttering darkly. He looked up briefly and saw the magistrate's penetrating gaze meet his own, and meekly dropped his eyes at once. He suspected that the dawn he had just seen had been his last, and then wondered if maybe it would be a good thing if it was. Roman executions could take days, he had heard. Now his best chance was for the mercy of a quick death.

"What I don't understand," said the magistrate, "is, whose slaves are these? Sextus did not own them did he?"

"Well, no sir." The sailor spoke a little hesitantly, and Britannicus felt the vaguest hope. Could they persuade the man that the captain had been stealing them from their true master? Well there was nothing he could say, he thought ruefully. Nor would it matter much, as a slave's testimony could only be used in court if extracted under torture. The assumption was that no slave could be trusted to speak honestly otherwise.

"Then to whom did they belong?" The magistrate pressed.

"Their overseer was killed in Pompeii, and we were transporting them back to Rome to rejoin his master." The sailor replied. Britannicus shook his head, but Calgacus did more.

"He lies. He stealing us."

"Slaves will not speak in this court unless asked a direct question." The magistrate said, fixing Calgacus with an angry stare that the boy returned in kind. Britannicus shivered and looked at his feet, wondering how much worse Calgacus could make things.

"We were not stealing them," the sailor said, shaking his head to deny the boy's accusation. "He carries the brand of Valerius Maximus, the owner of a Ludus in Rome. No doubt the other belongs to the same man, although he has no tongue to tell us."

"Valerius Maximus is dead, so your trip would have been a wasted one." The magistrate said. "His estate was sold to cover his debts after quite a scandal, so I heard. Did you actually ask the boy who his owner was?"

Of course they had not. They had not even found the brand until they had been captured last night, Britannicus thought darkly. The men were lying, but did that really matter any more? The magistrate was a meticulous man though, so now he asked a question directly of Calgacus.

"Who is your master, boy?"

"I belong to Capua Ludus. Senator Gaius Aurelius own me, but not him." Calgacus replied. "He Britannicus. He Pompeii whore boy."

The magistrate rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking at the two boys. Britannicus felt his face redden with shame, being called a whore boy in front of all the assembled people in the market, ever more aware of his naked body, and some people staring at him with more than a casual interest. He felt shame, but also thankfulness. Calgacus had not named him a slave at all, just saying he was a whore. He carried no brand or mark, other than his lost tongue. Could the magistrate conclude he was not a slave at all? Would it make any difference at this stage?

"So let me be quite clear. This boy," he pointed at Calgacus, "was the one who killed Sextus Artorius and seriously injured his crewman Aristo?"

The sailor nodded.

"And this boy here was simply a whore getting fucked at the time and offering no resistance?"

The sailor's eyes narrowed, but he nodded.

"They fled together though. They were in it together."

The magistrate nodded, but when Britannicus dared meet his eyes again, the expression had softened. The boy dropped his eyes again, but now for the first time he felt some real hope.

The magistrate paused, considering, and the people in the marketplace also fell quiet, knowing that the judgement was about to be given. The trial of slaves never took long, and justice was especially swift after the disaster to the north and the influx of refugees. A lictor pushed the boys to their knees, to accept the judgment.

"The death of Sextus Artorius demands a penalty of death, and this slave," He gestured at Calgacus. "This miserable vulgar barbarian slave will pay the price in full. He will be taken from this place and crucified, lest anyone be in any doubt that young or old, the full force of Roman law will avenge the deaths of good Roman citizens."

Britannicus looked at Calgacus. The boy must have been expecting this, but still he had turned white, and the crowd roared with laughter as his subligaculum stained a darker colour as he peed himself, yellow pee seeping out of the fabric and down his leg. Calgacus had always seemed so strong, so grown up, so vicious, but in that moment he looked like a frightened little boy, as hands siezed him, ready to lead him away to his fate.

Britannicus did not need to pee, but he suspected if he did, he would have wet himself too at that moment, but the magistrate had not finished.

"I find that this whore boy did not commit the murder for which his friend will pay with his life. However we do not know whether his old master still lives, nor whether he held legal title of the boy. No one will claim him, he has no owner mark and no tongue to name his owner, so I make him property of the state, and he will be sold tomorrow, his price will compensate the family of Sextus Artorius. He is not to be considered blameless though and I strongly urge that his new master have him branded or collared to ensure there is no future confusion as to his ownership."

Britannicus wept. His heart was hammering so loudly in his chest he could hear the rush of blood in his ears, and he found he could hardly stand up. He could not tell if what he felt was relief that he would not be crucified alongside Calgacus, or despair that once again he would be sold to a new master, with no one in any doubt that he was sold as a whore.

Britannicus looked at Calgacus as he was led away, shouting his rage and terror, struggling against his laughing and cheering captors and wondered if maybe Calgacus had the better deal. At least he would go to the afterlife proud, the killer of Romans, and never raped by them.

Sadly for Calgacus, that last boast was about to be undone.

"Aeron? Aeron! Where is that boy! Aeron, if you don't get back here with the water your father is going to flail your hide!"

Aeron ran through the entrance of the hill fort, grinning sheepishly as his speed slopped water from the earthenware container he had been carrying it in. His mother cuffed him soundly across the head.

"And where do you think you have been? How long does it take to walk down to the river and fetch water? Your little brothers brought back twice as much as this in half the time."

"Sorry mam!" Aeron replied, pouring the water from the container into the tank.

"Sorry? sorry? what were you doing all this time?"

"Nothing mam!"

"Nothing is it?" His mother asked sarcastically, and grabbed his chin, looking into his face. "Let's take a look on your tongue for lies. Stick it out!"

Aeron stuck out his tongue and was immediately rewarded with another cuff on the head.

"You are a miserable liar. I see the lie right here on your tongue!"

"You can't see a lie mam."

"Yes I can. You were not doing nothing. You have been at the blackberries again."

Aeron giggled and his mother scowled and kicked him in the backside. "Now go and get me more water. At the rate you are going we will have nothing to drink before you get back."

Aeron set off down the hill, laughing. There were still plenty of blackberries down there, and if he was quicker this time, he could manage to eat some and still get back before mam got really cross. Not that she ever did get really cross – she just talked that way all the time, and he didn't mind.

There was a sound in the trees behind and to his left, and Aeron stopped. The sound stopped too, and he paused to listen for a while, but it did not start again. After a while he walked on again. He did not want to stop too long or there would be no time to get more blackberries. But as he set off there was a rustling – that could be an animal, but then a twig snapped, and that definitely was not.

"Come on out Caradoc, I know its you!"

A boy a couple of years younger than Aeron, but otherwise almost his spitting image, came out from behind a bush, a pout set firmly on his face.

"How did you know it was me?"

"It's always you! The only thing that makes as much noise as you in the woods is a charging boar."

"Not true!"

"Yes it is!" Aeron put his hands on his hips and then gestured over with his head. "Coming? I will show you where the blackberries are."

Caradoc nodded and crashed his way through the undergrowth to join his older brother, who giggled at the noise.

"See, like a little boar."

"Not so."

"Is too! eww… a farting boar at that."

"Not!"

"Is!"

"I didn't fart."

"Did too."

"Didn't"

The boys laughed and went off to find blackberries and water, enjoying being alive in the way only two boys can, skimming stones on the water of the river, jumping in, splashing each other and eventually returning late with water to face the wrath of their mother, knowing the scolding was worth it.

***

That had been last summer, but Calgacus, Aeron, found himself thinking back to it. There was plenty of talk of war back then of course. The Romans had sent a new governor to the territories they had conquered in the south, and then the Ordovices had fallen when Calgacus was nine. It was not until this year that they had pushed their way so far far north as to be a real threat though, and Aeron had been taken captive when he was spying on the Roman camp for his father. There had been some other battle further south and he was just stripped of his belongings and added to the captives who were transported back to Rome, where he had the misfortune of being picked out by Valerius Maximus for his gladiator school, and branded too.

This year had been a hard one, and he often wondered how the fight back home fared now. Had the Romans reached their hill fort? Had the Caledonian confederacy turned them back? Did his father know the real Calgacus? Did Caradoc still go down to the river to pick blackberries? They would be in season again now.

He missed blackberries. He missed Caradoc too, and his other brothers, and mam and dad and the hill fort and the horses and even the rain and winter snow. What he wouldn't give for one last chance to go home and sleep in the roundhouse with the rest of the family again, mam and dad giggling away in the dark when they thought the boys were asleep.

That was not going to happen though. The Romans had taken him straight to the place where they crucified slaves, and he had taken his first look, and smell, at the place he would die. It stank of shit and pee, and the boy quickly saw why. One of the crosses still held the body of the last slave to be nailed up here, and the man had soiled himself all down his legs.

Slaves were crucified right in the middle of a street. It was not the main street, or one with any shops or vendors on, but it was deliberately visible from the gate into the port town. Public enough that anyone who glanced this way could see what fate beheld criminal slaves, but far enough away that the stench did not carry too easily.

The lictor stripped him of his wet subligaculum, and then forced him over a wooden bar, part of the framework holding the crosses up. Calgacus' feet did not quite reach the ground as his hands were bound and tied in place, after which he was left there to think about the terrible fate that awaited him. The boy felt tears in his eyes and tried not to think about that. He tried to think of good things, like blackberries and stewed apples, or going on his first hunt with his father, or holding his first sword, or telling jokes to Caradoc, or pretending there was a ghost living in the weir, or painting dad's horse blue with woad.

He smiled. Dad might have beaten him for that one but instead he ruffled his hair and just said "boys will be boys".

And all that thinking of good times almost worked, although it made him homesick. It almost worked and made him forget what was about to happen, but when the sailors returned with another man, that they said was Aristo's brother, he felt a sick dread deep inside him. The brother pulled off his tunic, and Aeron prayed to the god of violence for whom he was named. Aeron repay this man violence for violence he prayed, as the man roughly pushed his hard cock against his virgin bum.

Aeron had only been a slave for a matter of months, and had been protected by the lanista of the Ludus from what was about to happen to him. He had seen it done to others, most recently Britannicus, but he had always vowed no man would ever do that to him. That was why he had killed the sea captain, Sextus Artorius. That man was going to rape him, and he had died for it and he deserved to die. Any man who tried to do this to him deserved to die.

But now, this man was about to do the same to him, and he was the one who would die later.

Aeron, god of violence, strike this man down now! He prayed. Strike this man down, or I vow on my soul I will return and haunt him and do it myself.

There was a terrible pain and Calgacus howled. He had not meant to cry out but the sound just escaped him as the man ripped his way into the boy's tight virgin bum. Aeron screamed and writhed as the sphincter in his bum tore, and blood provided the only lubrication to the invading shaft he felt driving its way inside him. He pulled at the restraints but he was bound and the man was big, holding him tight as he thrust again and again, quickly emptying his seed into the boy, ripping away his honour with his virginity. When he was done, the man spat on the sobbing boy and turned to his companions.

"Next!" he said.

***

None of the men were gentle, and when they were done, Calgacus had shouted and screamed his voice raw, and now his head lolled forward. Had he not been tied up he would have fallen to the ground when the last man withdrew, his penis soaked red with blood. The searing insistent pain in his anus seemed to have seeped deep into his abdomen and was joined by the pain of slaps, bites and blows the men had delivered as they roughly violated his body, laughing, telling him how he was not a man now nor ever would be – just a bum boy, and soon to be a dead one.

With this done, two lictors unfastened him and dragged his unresisting body to the front of the cross. Calgacus thought he was past tears now, already his insides so terribly violated that blood seemed to pour from where he had been raped – mortally injured already, he was sure that death would find him even if they released him now. Yet when he saw the miserable wooden structure where he was to be nailed up, he sobbed again, consumed by new terror. This could not be happening to him! How could the gods have led him to this of all fates.

The lictor lifted him and unceremoniously dumped him on the spiked saddle of the cross. For a second he felt nothing as the man lined him up, but as they dropped his body he felt the cruel barbed spike on the saddle drive its way into his newly raped bum, and he heard laughter and cheers from the assembled mob who had come to watch as he screamed, howled his agonised terror, and kicked his legs, trying to reduce the sudden excruciating pain. The spike just slid in deeper as he struggled and the boy felt it inside him, like a man's cock, but deep – so deep his stomach was distending as his guts made space for the raping penetrating saddle and the spike impaled him.

As he struggled and writhed he was only half aware as the lictor took his hands, lifting them to the cross piece. So consumed was he in the agony of the spike inside him, he did not see them line up the nails, but when the hammering started he screamed again. With each blow of the hammer, cruel large ships nails crunched and cracked their way through bone, and blood ran freely from the wounds as a terrible aching agony drilled its way through him.

Calgacus screamed, howling for mercy, crying to his gods for help, for vengeance, even for death. Just let this stop!

But it did not stop. Dangling now by his hands, impaled on the spiked saddle, the lictors now turned to his feet and started to hammer nails through those too. The boy heard his bones crack as his ankle was destroyed in a new wave of torment that had him screaming until his voice gave out, and the roiling terrible agony ran through his legs, infecting every part of him, causing him to struggle in his distress, only to pull at the nails, grinding against cracked bone, making him scream louder and longer again.

"In some towns they put a piece of wood above a criminals head to tell what his crime was. We don't waste wood here though." The lictor said, and he stopped by a brazier that had been carried over by two slaves. "We had this made up for a previous murderer. It would be a shame not to use it again."

And with that he pulled a branding iron from the flames and as the other lictor held Calgacus, he pressed it against the boy's stomach. Calgacus had been branded before, and the pain had been agonising then too, but that had been on the less sensitive flesh of his buttock. As the brand bit into his already aching stomach, the boy yelped frantic sobs, hearing flesh crackle and smelling it burn.

The lictor put the brand down and inspected his work as Calgacus groaned, sobbing, no longer caring that his flesh was permanently marked with the name of his crime, but sobbing because it just hurt so much. The pain throughout his body was unbelievable and for a few merciful minutes, Calgacus passed out.

***

There was a groan of agony, and as Calgacus opened his eyes he realised the moan was his own. He blinked – the world was blurry and seemed far away, but as he tried to see and focus, he felt the terrible agony in his hands and ruined ankles, and the raping spike buried deep inside him. He retched and a thin stream of bile flew from his mouth but splattered back onto his naked body. Someone said something in disgust, someone else laughed.

As Calgacus could take the scene in below he saw a small crowd of onlookers. People would stop and watch for a while and then move on, but always there were some watchers. Britannicus was being brought over to see him and the boy tried not to look, but two men – one of the lictors and another who looked like a slave dealer – forced his head into the direction of the cross, making sure Britannicus took it all in. They spoke to him, no doubt telling him that this could be his fate too, if he ever did anything like this himself.

Calgacus was glad Britannicus had been spared this death. He had thought the boy weak – content to be a whore. There seemed to be no warrior in him, but that was before his own rape. Maybe Britannicus had some strength in him. In any case, the boy was a Briton too. He tried to look at him, and opened his mouth to speak, although his voice cracked. He muttered in Brythonic.

"Kill every one of the bastards. For me."

Britannicus looked at him, his face not changing, his horror evident in his eyes. Had he understood the words? He tried again.

"Kill them all."

"He is talking!" The slaver said, angrily. "Listen, he is talking in that barbarian tongue."

The lictor nodded.

"We can't have that, can we? Get me a hammer. We haven't broken his legs yet in any case."

Calgacus, his body wracked with agony, had not thought the agony could get any worse, but moments later the lictor smashed the hammer into his kneecaps, and he felt them shatter under the blow.

"He won't be saying much for a while now," The lictor laughed. "And when he does, I bet it will be 'Shit that hurts.'"

The lictor was right. All Calgacus could do was squeal and groan in horror. With his kneecaps destroyed, he could no longer push against the nails in his feet. Before that moment he had a cruel choice of pushing against the nails, feeling the aching pain in his shattered ankles, but taking the pressure of the barbed spike penetrating his gut. Now with the choice taken away, all he could do was feel his body slowly sink deeper and deeper onto the spike, as it ripped its way through his gut, piercing his intestines, a deep terrible gut destroying ache washing through him.

"Most slaves we smash the legs completely, but it looks like that will do for him." The lictor said to another man, watching Calgacus squirm. "He will probably be dead in the morning."

After that they took Britannicus away.

Calgacus hung from the cross the rest of that day, seeing people come past, laughing and jesting, or looking at him and telling him that he deserved all he got. Some women watched quietly, looking sad. Others cheered when he pissed himself, which he did only once. Shortly after that the spike perforated his bladder as he slipped deeper onto it.

Night came and along with the pain he felt cold, shivering uncontrollably. Almost no one was out at night, so at least he had some relief from the constant jeering of the crowds. When it had been dark some time though, and the boy was almost delirious with exhaustion and pain, one of the men who had raped him returned.

"This is for Aristo." He said, and stabbed a knife through the boy's balls, gashing open his scrotum, severing one testicle that dropped to the floor and destroying the other one. Then he thrust the knife into the slit in his glans, splitting his penis in two as Calgacus's body shook with uncontrollable tremors.

Calgacus screamed again as the man walked away laughing, but no one else came.

They had said it could take three days to die on a cross. For Calgacus though, the end came sooner. His breathing turned ragged in the early hours of the morning, and then he saw something.

A light opened up in front of him, and out of it stepped his father, glowing in the moonlight.

"Father!" Calgacus croaked, not sure if his voice made any noise at all now, but moving his lips to form the words in what might be the hoarsest of whispers. "Are you dead too?"

His father nodded. "The Romans invaded our village and I was killed in the fighting. I live now in the hall of the heros. You are not quite dead yet though, my son, but the moment will come very soon now."

"Take me with you father!"

Calgacus' father moved to the foot of the cross, and looked at his son, a tear glistening on his cheek.

"Take me to the hall of heros." The boy looked at his father, weeping. Soon, very soon he would be with his father in the paradise that all warriors of his people aspired to.

Very slowly, very deliberately, his father shook his head.

"The hall of heros is for warriors who die in battle. Those who are hung on wood are cursed. Slaves of men doubly cursed. Those who have been fucked by the men they serve, and made unable to fuck anyone triply so. You are under a curse, Aeron. Your are no longer a son of mine."

And with that his father turned his back on him.

The figure of his father paused, and then turned again to face him, but now instead of seeing the back of his father, he saw the face of Hafgan the god of the dark realm in Annuin, the place where traitors, slaves and all those who are cursed would go to spend eternity. The god of misery, slaves and the dead.

Hafgan reached out a long bony hand, and Calgacus watched in horror as it sank slowly into his chest.

"Your soul is mine now, whore boy, slave boy." The god spoke, his voice a high pitched cackle, and he looked at the boy's ruined genitals. "Gelding."

Calgacus shook his head and croaked his objections. "No! I killed a Roman! I am a warrior. Send me to the hall of warriors."

Hafgan shook his head. "You murdered a man, stabbing him from behind and then you let men rape you and make you less than a man. Your place is not there. That is a place for true heros, not slaves, whores and geldings. Come serve me. Give me your soul, boy. Serve me forever."

Calgacus felt the icy grip of the hand squeezing around his heart. His chest was filled with excruciating pain and the boy gasped. The god squeezed harder, the flesh of the boy's beating heart enclosed in his grip.

And then with no one watching, no one weeping or crying at his feet, all alone in the dark of the night, Calgacus, the boy otherwise known as Aeron, breathed his last breath and his tortured heart stopped beating.

"Lot number three. A whore boy, escaped from Pompeii. Sold as damaged, owing to his lack of a tongue."

Britannicus shivered as he stood on the makeshift podium of another slave market. This was his third time for sale, but he doubted he would ever get used to the blatant leering of many of the onlookers, and the bored indifference of many others. Free children darted around the forum, playing chasing games or being scolded for causing a nuisance. Elsewhere there was chattering and all the signs of life going on as normal in a Roman city, oblivious to the misery in one corner of the forum where human life was being bartered and sold.

The boy watched lot number two being taken away in tears, a girl of six or seven who had been orphaned by the fires of Vesuvius. Salernum continued to receive an influx of orphans or those who were separated from families. For those with known rich relatives or an adult to attest for them, there were people willing to look after them in the hope of some reward, or just out of human kindness, but a plebeian girl like lot number two, who had no one left in the world, would find herself processed into the world of slavery as quickly as some slaver could say the words "business opportunity".

And business opportunities there were aplenty. Today's sale of slaves attested to that, with plenty of people, mostly children, awaiting their sale into a new life of drudgery and misery. Britannicus looked at lot two, being dragged away screaming by a man, and found himself hoping that it was just drudgery that awaited her.

It was not just slavers who were doing good business though. There were hawkers selling amulets of protection, or cures for the lung sickness that afflicted many of the survivors straggling in from the north. There were armourers doing a steady trade in lawless times, and even staples like bread were being sold at heavily inflated prices. All around the forum people were trying to make fast money from the misery of the displaced population.

For all the good business in slaves, though, Britannicus was aware that bidding was proceeding poorly on his own sale. A slave boy could sell for 200 denarii, but his price was not yet up to a tenth of that, and the auctioneer was looking exasperated.

"As you know, this boy is a runaway from his Pompeii whorehouse, but may the buyer know that this only makes him more valuable, for look how he valued his master's property more than his master did himself! And a slave boy scared of the lash will surely yield to his master's nod. It would be criminal to sell him for less than 150 denarii, and if you take him for less, I daresay my own children will need to be sold on the morrow to cover my loss."

That earned a chuckle. No one truly thought this slaver was so close to poverty that he was about to sell his own children – if he even had any. It spurred a question though.

"How do we know the master is dead and not ready to claim him as soon as we have paid you."

"An excellent question, sir." The slaver said, smiling and turning to a tall and strong looking man with ebony skin, dressed in the Roman style despite his dark appearance and accented speech. "The answer to that is quite simple. The magistrate registered his manumission with the quaestor yesterday on grounds of the emergency situation, and then immediately ordered his re-enslavement as compensation for his friend's terrible crime. Whether he was a free boy in Pompeii or not, his full legal title is for sale today, you need have no fear."

Britannicus heard the words but did not really follow the conversation. Nevertheless the man who had asked the question appeared content with the answer and came and walked around him, inspecting his hair for lice, and then pulling his mouth open and peering in to it.

"A whore without a tongue cannot serve as well as one who is whole." He observed, and Britannicus knew what he meant, so he blushed furiously.

"Still he can serve well enough and never answer you back."

The black man nodded and then pulled out some coins from a purse he had tied inside his tunic.

"I will give you 100 denarii for him. Take it or leave it."

The slaver looked out at the crowd, his face clouding.

"But sir, this is an auction. You may bid 100 denarii, and see who will outbid you." As he spoke, his potential buyer was shaking his head.

"I will give you 100 for this one and will bid on the next one. Or I can buy no slaves today. The choice is yours."

The slaver frowned, his distress at the low price showing, but as he assessed the crowd, he could see that no one appeared ready to beat the bid in any case. This boy was a waste of time – who wanted a boy in their house who had almost been crucified for murder alongside his friend? He was damaged, a barbarian by the look of him, and there were plenty of others for sale today. Maybe the offer was the best he would get. In any case he had wasted enough time on lot three.

"Sold to Turpio Africanus." He said. "You will be well advised to either collar him or brand him. If his old master had marked him properly he would not have lost any rights to him so easily. Oh and he was named Britannicus at his trial."

"Noted." The man said, counting out 100 denarii, before turning to his new property. "Which do you prefer boy? a brand or a collar?"

Britannicus swallowed, looking wide eyed at his new master. He had seen collared slaves – miserable in the huge iron rings that encircled their necks, heavy and chaffing their skin, and inscribed with the names of their masters, and often other warnings about the dangers of running away. Few slaves were collared – they tended to be reserved only for runaways, but a collar could be removed, at least. A collar would be shameful and uncomfortable, but so would be a brand. Britannicus feared the agony of the branding iron, and the permanent mark of ownership it would place on his flesh. There was only one obvious choice, he thought as his fingers pointed to his neck.

His master nodded with a smile.

"Well it is not your decision, it is mine." The Salernum slaver laughed and slapped the man's back, as he handed over another coin.

"See that he receives my mark, just here." He said, touching Britannicus' left nipple. "After that perhaps you can find him a loincloth."

And with that the slave trader walked back to the crowd and Britannicus was taken away for processing as lot 4 was brought onto the podium – a greek looking boy with feet dusted white to show he was being sold for the first time. No doubt he would fetch more than 100 denarii, Britannicus thought ruefully.

***

Any hope that Britannicus had that his new master would be gentle and kindly were seered away by the branding iron that bit into his flesh. The Salernum slaver laughed as he hovered with the brand so close that already it burned, lining it up carefully.

"A brand should never be applied to casually." He remarked as he held the boy still with his left arm, holding him by his ear, and thrust the iron deep into the boy's flesh. For Britannicus the world seemed to jump into extra clear focus, and all that focus was on a single burning point of agony as he let out an animal howl of pain, such as he had not made since they had cauterised his tongue. He smelled the burning flesh, and heard it crackle as the man held the brand pressed tight to the skin of his nipple, burning its way through the extra sensitive flesh there.

"A brand lifted too quickly burns the top of the skin and makes an ugly raised scar, but if you hold it longer it seems to burn its way deeper, and leaves a rutted scar, which is much more recognisable and distinctive. You will wear your master's mark for life, so we must make sure it is a thing of beauty." Only when the slaver had finished this explanation did he lift the brand from Britannicus' skin and the boy dropped his head, vaguely aware he was kneeling in a hot pool of piss.

"That should ensure you do not stray again. You know that even if they set you free now, if you are found with a brand, you can be re-enslaved at any time. You could run away and even if your master never found you, which is unlikely as his brand is distinctive, you would still end up the slave of another man."

Britannicus kneeled in his own pee, head bowed, moaning softly. The pain was terrible and insistent, but it had become a bone deep throb now. The actual site of the brand itself hurt less, as though the feeling in that area had been destroyed by the heat. It was the edges of the branding that burned hot and painfully sore, making him wince and moan and sob.

The slaver bound the brand in a fresh linen dressing as the boy knelt.

"We don't want it getting dirty before it is healed now. I have seen brands turn to puss and their beauty destroyed. You leave this alone, now. No touching it with dirty fingers. Mark my words, if you let this brand get messed up, I will come and put another one on your forehead."

And after that he took the boy to a waiting cart, in which there was a cage, and told him to get in.

"Your master is transferring his wares today, and I don't blame him. Move right up to the end, as he has several more purchases to fit in here."

Britannicus climbed into the cage, and watched the door fastened shut before the man returned to the small room where he had just been branded. A few minutes later there was a cry – a boy begging for mercy, and then a howl of pain, and Britannicus knew he was not the only slave to be branded today.

***

In the last years Britannicus had seen his home invaded by Romans, his people defeated in battle He had been taken from his friends and family forever, made a slave to a brat he had hated, and then he had come to discover that that phase of his life had actually been better than what would follow.

Since then he had been sold as a whore, and served a man faithfully whom he thought, wrongly, loved him. Britannicus wept, and he was no longer sure if the tears were from the pain of his brand – the final humiliation that killed his dreams forever that he might ever be free – or whether it was the lost love he had thought he had shared with Gaius Aurelius.

It was not just Gaiu Aurelius who forsook him either. The gods had tried to kill him in fire for allowing himself to willingly be a man's whore, and then when he thought that he had escaped their wrath, he had been caught up in this latest terror.

"Your friend died in the night." His master informed him as he inspected his human cargo, ready to take to the road. Britannicus looked at the floor, blinking away more tears. He had not known Calgacus well, but he had got to know him better these last days. Now the boy was gone, and it was his fault. He was the one the gods hated, and they were stripping away from him every friend he ever had, and every person who ever looked at him kindly. It was best not to get close to Gwion ap Caradoc, he thought to himself. That was an easy way to end up dead… or worse.

At least, Britannicus thought, Calgacus would be gone to a better place. Calgacus would be in the hall of heros for sure – not cursed like him. Britannicus dreaded his own death when the gods would ask him to account for his life of dishonour and shame. He dreaded the day he would stand at the hall of heros and he would be turned away, never to be reunited with his father. Left to an eternity of shame for being the willing whore boy of a Roman man.

Never again would he let that happen. They could rape him until he bled, but they could never make him love them.

"Come! It is time to leave."

And with that the wagon load of slaves lurched forwards, people falling against each other in the cramped space, groaning, stinking, cursing and weeping as they set off to their new life with their new master, Turpio Africanus.

***

The journey had been a slow one until they reached Aeclanum. The wagon bouncing slowly over rutted roads, giving way to traffic heading south and away from the devastation in Campania. At Aeclanum Turpio had instructed his drivers to join the Via Appia and head for Rome.

The human cargo in the wagon had been subdued for some time. A woman was sobbing quietly, and Britannicus saw a girl yonger than himself, with her head in her hands, looking at no one. There was a man and a teenage boy, looking like a Greek. Greek slaves always fetched higher prices, as the assumption was that that they were better educated. They could not be educated worse than Britannicus, in any case. It was the Greek boy who started the trouble.

"What are you looking at, shrimp?" He asked pointedly of Britannicus. Britannicus realised he had been staring at the boy, and looked away quickly. "I asked you a question." He repeated.

Britannicus opened his mouth to show the boy his lack of tongue and then put his hand over his mouth, the sign of a mute.

"Shhee…it!" The boy said, leaning over for a better look. "Cut right out. Was that for lying? You are lucky you were not branded on your head with the letters K A L then."

Britannicus shrugged. He did not know what the letters K A L denoted or how they were written, but he thought a brand on his head might still be preferable to having no tongue. Having no tongue was a danger every time he swallowed. This boy did not realise how close to choking he often came, and how he had to throw his head back like a dog just to swallow food. They did not know what it was like to be unable to communicate with people, unable even to tell people his name. He scowled at the boy, thinking dark thoughts.

"Don't scowl at me, barbarian!" The boy said. The man in the wagon looked up and then looked away, clearly with no appetite to interfere in any brewing squabble. The Greek boy was not going to let it go though.

"Red haired too. You know what they say about red heads. Evil they are. Bastard sons of vampires and whores."

Britannicus flipped the boy a rude sign he had learned from another Greek slave he used to see at the fountain in Rome, back when he was Calvinus' slave. He raised his middle finger in the shape of a penis, and and his other fingers he kept down to represent balls, and moved the finger upwards. The gesture was obscene, and its implication not lost on the Greek boy, who lunged forwards and punched Britannicus in the stomach.

Britannicus fought back but the boy was older and stronger, and was landing blows freely, so much so that neither of them noticed the wagon had stopped, and then suddenly the Greek boy was not on front of Britannicus. As he shielded himself from the onslaught, he saw the boy literally fly out of the cage, as Turpio had reached in, grabbed him by the hair and yanked so hard and violently that the boy went skidding onto the hard paved road, his head hitting it with a crack.

"What in the name of Hades is going on here?" He roared. "Fighting? I will not have my property fighting. What the fuck do you think you were doing boy?"

Britannicus watched, open mouthed with fear, but most of Turpio's anger seemed to be directed at the Greek boy.

"If you are too spirited, boy, I will have your balls cut off and sell you on as a eunuch in women's clothes! Gods above, I will not have slaves fighting each other." As he spoke he pulled his whip from where it was stowed on his horse and then pointed to the wagon driver. "Linus, have this boy fastened to that tree. Quickly man."

As the horrified slaves watched, the Greek boy was tied to a tree, and Turpio spoke again.

"Let me explain something, and make very sure you understand this. I have been training and trading in slaves for more years than many of you have lived. I know how slaves think. I know what you want, and what you care about, and what you would do to get it. You cannot surprise me, except by working hard and honestly. Everything else I expect and will punish accordingly.

"This slave here is about to feel my whip. The rest of you will probably feel it too in time. Let this be a lesson to you all, I will not tolerate misbehaviour from my slaves."

And with that he laid into the hapless boy, bringing the whip down with a crack so loud that it echoed from nearby rocks. The effect was instantaneous as a huge ugly red welt appeared right across the boy's back and he let out an anguished shriek that became a scream for mercy, as a second blow followed the first, and then a third and a fourth. Turpio whipped rhythmically, his arms a blur of motion as crack followed crack, and the boy's whole back turned red with blood, which spattered away from his back along with flecks of skin as the cruel whip tore the boy's flesh open.

After some minutes of this, Turpio stopped. He was panting and his face sheened with sweat. The boy, for his part was letting out a distressed keening moan, writhing in pain as his torn up back glowed red with blood and burning welted skin. Turpio was not done yet though. He walked to the boy and pulled off his loin cloth, and then stepped back and without another word, began whipping his buttocks too, and then worked his way down the boy's legs.

At last Turpio lined up one last brutal blow, flicking the whip between the boys legs so that it buried itself inside his butt crack. The boy's scream to that were the loudest, and he was howling pitifully the whole time they spent unstrapping him and roughly throwing him back into the wagon.

"And you, Britannicus. You are walking behind this wagon the rest of the way to Rome."

Britannicus sighed and climbed out of the wagon. Turpio cuffed his head as he climbed down.

"Don't mistake me for a fool boy. I saw that gesture, and if I see it again, I will cut off the finger, or the penis it represents. You don't wind him up, and you stay out of his way and you may yet avoid my whip. Then again," Turpio said, thoughtfully. "Probably not! For now, think yourself lucky that your only punishment is having to walk to Rome."

***

The walk was a long one taking several days, and in that time Turpio did not mellow. When he rode on ahead to deal with some business in the towns along the route, the slaves felt some relief from the threatening glare of their new master, and when he rejoined them any chatter would fall to silence. The Greek boy had been delirious for much of the day after his whipping, and in great pain ever since. The crusted over and blistered skin was a constant reminder to them all that Turpio was not a man to suffer misbehaviour.

Some of the man's business appeared to be acquiring more slaves, and twice there were new additions to the cage. A small girl and her mother, and another Greek boy crammed into the space so tightly that Britannicus began to wonder whether walking was not a preferable option. The cage stank too, of sweat and pee. At night he was thrown in with the others and they all slept together – as much as anyone could in the confined space.

Traffic picked up as they neared the city. The Via Appia was supposed to be the most important road in Rome. There were buildings lining its way – a few houses but mostly mausoleums, and elsewhere there were a row of crosses, with criminals dying in agony that made Britannicus cringe as he remembered the boy he left behind in Salernum.

When they finally reached Rome, Britannicus was exhausted. His whole body ached, and his feet were blistered and sore. They arrived at the city in the early evening and kept walking onto roads that were almost familiar to Britannicus. This was a different part of the city to where he had lived with Valerius Maximus and Calvinus, but it was still definitely Rome.

The boy inexplicably felt a sense of peace, like he was coming home, although Rome would never be his home. He would never let the Romans make him think of this place in that way. All the same there was a sense of familiarity about the place.

They approached the gate of a large villa in the Subura, and a slave at the gate hurriedly opened it, greeting his master and welcoming him home. As the wagon wobbled its way over the threshold into the courtyard in front of the villa, Britannicus following close behind, the boy saw even more clearly what kind of a master Turpio was.

In the courtyard there were punishment poles, and at the foot of one of these poles was a boy, his hands tied behind his back. He could have stood, but he was clearly fastened to the pole, unable to wander away from it, and he looked terrible.

Britannicus found his eyes drawn to the boy, unable to tear them away. He was not the only one. The other slaves were staring too. The boy had no fat on him at all, and barely any flesh. He was so thin you could make out all his bones. His cheeks were sunken and he had a dead hopeless look in his eyes, languidly looking at the new arrivals as though nothing mattered any more.

"This boy tried to steal food. I will not have any of my property trying to steal from me, so I have made an example of him. He has not been allowed food for many weeks now. We feed him water, and some people have been known to feed him pee or cum, but he is not allowed food at all, nor will he be allowed any unless I decide to let him live. At this time I have not decided. I would have crucified him like your friend, Britannicus, except that he cost nearly 200 denarii. I may decide to let him live to recoup some of my investment. On the other hand, 200 denarii or not, if a slave crosses me, he or she will be severely punished, and his life is in my hands.

"Remember this, all of you. If you do not obey me in everything I command, there are two more posts where we can chain you up without food, or where I will whip you raw like this foolish wretch." He kicked the cage close to where the Greek boy watched, his eyes wide with fear. "You are my property now, and unless and until I sell you to someone else, you will obey me absolutely, as though your life depended on it. Which it does. It very much does."

And with that Turpio walked away and left his new slaves in the hands of other slaves to unload and quarter, feeling scared like never before, as they were left in front of the emaciated food thief.

"It is not right, Philip. You should send him back."

Nathan pushed a knife into the body of a fish, filleting it quickly, cutting off its head and tail, and sorting the remains into a bucket. He worked on the Ostia quayside in the late summer sun, clad only in a loin cloth. He had a tunica now, given to him by Philip, but he never wore it when gutting the fish or working on the nets, as it was messy work. He pretended not to notice the argument between the three fishermen at their boat, but the boat was pulled up by the quay and they must have known he was within earshot.

"If we send him back, then what? They make him fight and kill people, endangering his immortal soul for what? the chance to entertain Roman heathen?"

"It is foolish and dangerous to keep him. We have all seen his brand, and no quaestor will have any document of manumission. We know he is an escaped slave and others will know too. People will think we have stolen him. People will say we are no more than common thieves ourselves."

"But we are not thieves. He is not our slave. He is just a boy who needs… who deserves our help. Do you think the Lord would have sent him away? Didn't he say that we should suffer the children to come to him?"

"The boy can come to the Lord and remain a slave. You know he also said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. And what good does it do if we all are accused of theft? Don't you remember what it was like a few years ago under Nero? Do you think the Romans will go any easier on us if they think we are stealing slaves?"

Philip went quiet, rolling up netting on the boat, and the man who had been speaking, Bartimeus, looked over at Nathan, and then turned away when he saw the boy looking back at him. Just for a moment their gazes met, and Nathan saw something in his look – was that guilt? Was that why he turned away?

"I am sorry Philip. I should not have said that. It was foolish of me and crass."

Nathan noticed that Philip was rubbing at his eye with his fist now. Was he crying? When the man spoke again, there was no doubt about the tremor in his voice.

"Martha would not have turned the boy away. Not even if she knew what the Romans would do to her. She would never have sent him back to such a life."

The third man spoke for the first time, his voice deep and gravelly.

"You are right, Philip. We must do what is right, and although theft is wrong, we do not steal this boy. He is free to stay or leave, to make his own choice when he is ready to do so. We will simply do what the Lord told us to do, and not pass by on the other side, ignoring his need. He is a Jew, and he may yet become a follower of The Way.

"If it is wrong by Roman laws to do what is good and right then I would rather we follow God's law. Better that our mortal bodies perish than we ruin our immortal ones. I say the boy must stay as long as he wishes."

Bartimeus looked at the other two and then nodded. "As you wish. But can't we encourage him to cover that brand of his? We do not want any awkward questions."

All three men were looking at him now, and Nathan gave up any pretence of working and not listening in. He looked up at the men and smiled, and Philip laughed.

"Come on boy! Let's go see what Lydia has made for supper."

"Fried fish?" Nathan hazarded and the men laughed again.

"More than likely, boy. More than likely."

***

Nathan lay down later in the pallet in the single shared room of the cramped little house that Philip and Bartimeus shared with Bartimeus' family. Lydia was his wife, and besides her there were three small children crammed into the space, and each night involved some jostling for position with the oldest, a six year old boy called Paulus, after some preacher or other.

As he lay there he thought back to the last weeks, from the moment Calgacus had left him with the choice to fetch help for the gladiators stuck in Pompeii, or to escape the oncoming death from Vesuvius.

That choice had been a terrible one, and he remembered how it felt – the paralysing fear of the oncoming torrent being spewed from the exploding mountain. Every instinct inside him had impelled him to run after Calgacus' fleeing form, but he could not leave the gladiators trapped. He had perhaps never been really close to anyone in the Ludus, but Marcus had been a friend, and the older men saw themselves as a brotherhood, that admitted the younger boys only slowly, but still was the closest thing he had to family.

These men were not Jews, they were Romans. He owed them nothing, but still he knew if he fled they would die. He knew that if he failed to act, their death would be his responsibility.

Nathan had run towards the main entrance of the Ludus, the doors barred from the outside. Everywhere people had been running, screaming with panic as they faced the unknown, hearing the distant roar from the mountain, and already rock was beginning to fall like giant smouldering hail stones.

"Vigiles!" He called. "Someone help me!"

But no one had come. Nathan pulled at the heavy beam that fastened the doors of the Pompeii Ludus. Most doors were barred from within, and this one could be too, but mostly the Ludus was barred from the outside by the owner of the Ludus, trapping the slaves within. It was not exactly and impenetrable passage, as the boys had already shown by climbing into the stands and finding the arena's public entrance. This door was barred simply to avoid the casual mixing of gladiators and the population beyond. The lanistas and owners wanted to maintain an air of mystery and difference about the gladiators, so they discouraged too much free coming and going.

But now with the collapse, there was no other way out for the gladiators. This door had to be freed or they would all die. He could hear people on the other side of the door – desperate shouts for help, and the door moving as they threw their weight against the unyielding wood. Nathan cursed as he tugged at the heavy bar, but at that moment another earth tremor hit the stricken town, and masonry fell around him. Nathan cowered and inside the Ludus he heard a scream of pain. God above, was that Marcus' voice? That screaming! He would never forget that scream.

Crying with frustration, Nathan heaved at the beam but it would not move. The latest earthquake had buckled the door, popping it at one of the hinges, and the weight of the door now pulled against the beam, locking it in place.

"God, help me!" Nathan prayed desperately, dropping to his knees. "God, show me what to do!"

And then, at the instant he had prayed the prayer, a man stopped, and looked at the boy and the door. He was a big man, and he came over, taking in the buckled door, and the wooden bar. He drove his shoulder hard against the door, pushing it back against the stonework, creating a cloud of dust.

"Bartimeus, get over here!" He roared, and another man came over, saw what was going on, and wrenched the bar free as the first man pushed the door back. With the bar removed, he stepped away and the door fell forward with a rending crash. Behind it were three gladiators that Nathan recognised, and they quickly pulled themselves out.

"Where are the others?" Nathan yelled, looking desperately past the three men. "They need help. There was a collapse… they are still in there."

The men that had helped looked past the gate at fallen masonry and rubble, but even as they were ready to go inside and help, one of the gladiators shook his head.

"No one else is coming out of there lad. I am sorry. Best that you don't look see."

"No… Marcus is in there. We have to fetch him." Nathan said and started to climb over the debris, but even as he did so, the man who had come to help, Philip, he would introduce himself later, grabbed him around the waist and lifted him. Nathan kicked and struggled to be free, but Philip was a big man and he simply slung the boy over his shoulder and set off down the main Pompeii street, heading west for the port.

"We have to go back. We have to save them." Nathan yelled uselessly, still struggling all the way, but all around was turmoil, and no one much cared about the noise from one boy being carried out of town. All around people were packing up belongings, or running and screaming, searching for missing children or parents.

Rock was raining from the sky, and some of it struck Nathan, hot but light, it was still enough to bruise as the pumice bounced off his body. Nathan saw people holding pillows on their head. A few soldiers were running down the slope of the road, protected by their helmets, but they were not stopping to help anyone. At one point Nathan saw a man sink a blade into the gut of another with whom he had been arguing, and then he grabbed a pack and ran off, his blatant crime ignored by the turbulent crowd that ebbed and flowed around the spot where the other man now lay, clutching his stomach, and bleeding out.

Nathan saw all this and other scenes of desperation, but he also noticed that some people were not leaving – they were going inside to hide. Maybe they had it right. Maybe the danger was all outside, and those inside could sit out the danger. Then he saw the smoke from the timber structure of one house on fire, and suspected that was not such a good idea either.

Pompeii was not on the coast, but not far from it by the shortest route, which Philip took now, coming off the main Oplontis road as he left the city and running down a fisherman's track, Bartimeus following close behind. It was not long before they reached the beach, and found their boat, their third crew member, Andreas, in a state of some desperation, and all too ready to sail as the men bundled Nathan aboard. Nathan had stopped struggling after they left the city, knowing it was futile now. In a town where the panic was such that no one blinked at a murder in full view on the streets, there was no-one who would help dig out a slave boy from the Ludus. Marcus was probably dead already, as the gladiators had said. Whether he lived or not, Nathan knew now there was nothing more he could do.

The fishermen pushed the boat into the deep water and climbed aboard, two of them taking to the oars while the third took the tiller, and they slowly heaved themselves clear of the shore.

Only when they were far from the shore, and the pumice had stopped falling around them did they raise their sail, and only after that did anyone speak to Nathan.

"You did well boy. You saved three people."

Had he saved them? Nathan was not so sure. The gladiators had fled in the other direction, out of the East gate of Pompeii. Would they find safety that way? And in any case, what of all those he had not saved. He sat in a corner, his chin on his knees, and his hands holding his legs, thinking morosely of all those who had died or were dying now. He looked at the huge angry plume of smoke and ash and the glow of fires spewing from Vesuvius, as the day turned to night. What had God done? Was this the end of the world?

Nathan asked that very question, and Philip looked back towards Vesuvius, and nodded.

"It may well be. It may well be that the Lord will return this very day and take his faithful home."

Nathan was a little disturbed by Philip's look, as though that was actually a moment of triumph – something to be embraced. Worse was the murmur of approval from the others, and a single word that he understood. "Maranatha." They said. "Come Lord quickly."

The boy looked at the men who had taken him with them. They had probably just saved his life, but that did not prevent his heart from sinking. Just his luck to be saved by a bunch of heretics. Just his luck to be saved by Christians.

Calvinus picked up the tunic he had been given in disgust. He did not say anything, but his expression must surely be conveying his thoughts. He was not going to wear this. This tunica made him look like a girl! He would rather wear just a loincloth than girl's clothes. The overseer of the slaves, a slave himself, shook his head and his mouth was curved into a wry smile.

"Don't even think of saying no. Eunuch's in this household wear those when they wear anything at all. You are not a man now, so you had better get used to it."

Calvinus scowled, but picked up the tunic, turning it in his hands. The cloth was well woven, an expensive garment such as he had not worn since he had been sold to Gaius Aurelius. The garment had been bleached white and dyed a saffron yellow, which itself spoke to the cost. The slaves were clothed to make a statement here. Had it not been cut so obviously for a girl, he would have been grateful. As it was, he pulled it onto his recently washed body sullenly. More than the brand on his arm, this garment marked him out for what he was – a eunuch slave.

"How many eunuchs are there here exactly?" He asked. If there was clothing that all eunuchs wore, then there must surely be more than just one.

"You are our fourth. Do you dance?" The overseer asked, and Calvinus shook his head. "Then you will learn. You start instruction tomorrow at dawn."

Calvinus bit his lip, as he nodded, showing he understood. He understood all too well. Eunuchs were not uncommon, but they had one primary use. They were part of the extravagant entertainment at orgies or the night time hospitality for guests. Calvinus had been largely ignorant of just how depraved orgies could be, and how often slave boys were used to pleasure men, but he had still heard of such things. Among his friends at the Schola in the forum, there had often been ribald talk of such things when their teacher was absent.

Calvinus recalled one occasion when they had actually seen two eunuchs in attendance with their master, and all the boys had cat called and laughed at them, dressed up like women, complete with beads and adornments. The eunuchs had been older than the boys, probably in their late teens, tall and lanky but unmuscled, weak and powerless. They had ignored the jibes, although their master had shooed the boys away with choice words about taunting his slaves. Calvinus had run away laughing with all the others.

That was his future though – to grow up tall and weak and forever jeered at and looked down on. Not a man; dressed as a woman. Women too held eunuchs only in scorn, knowing they were little more than sexless whores.

Calvinus stood straight, in his new tunic, and the overseer nodded, satisfied as he ignored the boy's colouring cheeks.

"Good. Now you begin to look the part. We must grow your hair longer though. Some people like the shaved look on whores, but you, I think, will look prettier with more hair."

***

"Well don't you look beautiful!"

Calvinus glared at Enoch and then made a rude sign at him with his fingers. Enoch looked at the raised middle finger and laughed again.

"If you still had a cock, I might be scared. Do you even know where it is? Did someone keep it in a jar somewhere?"

"Well look who's talking, chastity boy!" Calvinus flung back, pointing at Enoch's crotch. The boy was wearing a loincloth, but there was no mistaking the stiff downward bending bulge of the cage that was still firmly attached to his penis. Enoch scowled, and Calvinus moved closer, so the boy's were squaring up one to another. Then, without warning he reached is hand down to the boy's loincloth, slipping it under the fabric and started to massage the encased flesh as best he could.

Enoch moaned and backed away.

"Stop it… owww!" He complained as his preteen penis reacted to the touch and tried to get hard, only to be viciously prevented from doing so by the cage. "That hurts! Stop it you little fuck."

Calvinus laughed and took his hand out and Enoch punched him hard on the arm. Calvinus rubbed the arm but was still smirking.

"Oh come here, you little shit!" Enoch growled and put his arms around Calvinus, pressing his lips to the eunuch boy's lips, and holding it there, enjoying the moment until the pain between his legs grew too much again and he winced and broke the kiss.

Calvinus looked at Enoch's crotch again and winked.

That was not the first time Enoch had kissed Calvinus. Since the day he had been given to Enoch to be used after his arena victory, it seemed that Enoch had grown very attached to the castrated boy. After that night had come the whipping, of course, and then they had been sent away from Pompeii.

That punishment had turned out to be their salvation though, as the boys had already been on board a ship heading north to Cumae, and indeed with the eruption of the mountain and the choking gas clouds that had slowly turned northwards, engulfing Misenum and the near shore, the sailors had chosen to sail all the way on to Ostia instead.

Enoch had not been well following his whipping, but Calvinus had attended to him, bringing him water and sitting with him. He supposed the boy had mistaken that for kindness, and in truth Calvinus did feel sympathy for the boy, but there was also the problem that he was essentially locked below decks for the journey, so he would have tended Enoch anyway, just to pass the time and not to see the only company he had die from dehydration.

At Ostia they had been taken to the estate of Gaius Aurelius in Rome, as his slaves. That had been hard on Calvinus, as he entered the villa on the Palatine Hill. He had last entered that place as a free boy, asking for Julia's help to save his father. Much had happened in the time since then, but it was not so long ago that he did not still feel pain when he touched the scars where his manhood had been cut away at her and her father's behest.

He could never forgive Julia, and his one hope was that she and her father had died in the eruption of Vesuvius, consumed by the gods to repay their evil against him and his father.

The boys had been lodged in the slave quarters as they awaited news, and Calvinus had been put to work picking fruit from the gardens or working in the kitchens whilst Enoch healed from his whipping, but the boys slept in a tight cell together, and the first night Calvinus had woken up in Enoch's arms. As he tried to wriggle free, Enoch had awoken too and did not seem disturbed to find himself holding the eunuch boy.

It quickly became apparent that Enoch had feelings for him though, and as he regained his strength, he would help Calvinus with the various chores he was being given without being asked. It was on the third night in the villa that Enoch had first kissed him.

It was strange. When Enoch had raped him, there was no kissing, just a quick desperate animal thrusting, hands clutching him and a sudden ecstatic shout of culmination that Calvinus could suffer but not enjoy. Now Enoch was locked back in his cock cage, unable to even help himself to orgasm, but with the lack of sexual contact came a new tenderness. Enoch's lips pressed to his, his hands slipping over his shoulders, holding him close. Calvinus had not responded, just endured it on that occasion, feeling ashamed, until Enoch had winced and pulled apart. The cock cage doing its job in preventing Enoch from getting hard.

This was what his life had become. The only sex he would know was what men offered him, but even though he had never really thought much about sex, and been mildly disgusted by it too, he had always thought that he would have sex with girls, not boys. Now there was a boy who wanted to kiss him? A boy who already had raped him? A boy who he had once looked down on as the slave boy son of a Jewish traitor.

He had felt ashamed and revolted by that first kiss, but he had not resisted it. Enoch was the closest thing he had to a friend now, and in truth he also had learned respect for him. Enoch's achievement in the arena was no less stunning for his mistakes there, for which he had been soundly punished. Calvinus knew that by rights he should have died on the end of a murmillo's blade, or with a spear stuck up his bum, but somehow Enoch had battled on, long enough for Nathan to recover and make his move. He had been fast, strong and at the final vital moment, dangerously aggressive, and not for the first time either. Again and again he thought of the boy's fast and bold parries and thrusts, knowing just one such parry must have caused him sickening pain against the strength of a man full grown. There was no doubt that Enoch was a rare talent in the arena – something his own father had spotted when he had bought him.

Calvinus had also seen him fight at Julia's birthday. That day had ended badly, but the fight Enoch had won had again showed that this was a boy with hidden strengths. Calvinus knew that Enoch was what he had hoped he would be one day – a natural fighter – someone to be feared.

And this dangerous boy was kissing him like a woman kisses a man. No, he corrected himself, Enoch was kissing him like a man kisses a woman. Again he felt the familiar feeling of pain at his lost future. He would never be an officer in the army now. Enoch too would never be allowed in the army, but he was the closest thing a slave could be – a warrior in the arena, someone whose name would be on the lips of hundreds or thousands of watchers. Calvinus thought ruefully that if he could trade places with Enoch now he would do so in a heartbeat.

When Enoch kissed him again the next night, Calvinus was ready, and responded to the kiss, before putting his arms around the other boy and falling asleep with his head buried in his chest. He still had not liked the kissing, and being treated like the girl in their relationship, but he did find that he liked being close to the stronger boy. When people saw them together and whispered or joked about Enoch's prowess in the arena, Calvinus felt an unexpected glow of pride alongside Enoch. This was Enoch, his friend, the boy in whose arms he slept.

That had gone on for a few more nights, and Calvinus had learned how to frustrate Enoch, by adding just the right amount of passion to his kissing and touching that the other boy's body would fight with his chastity cage. Enoch seemed to have a love/hate relationship with that pain, unable to resist holding his friend, but so often finding those moments ending in pain as his traitorous body fought its confinement.

Now here they both were, Enoch clearly with strong feelings for him, and for his part, Calvinus did not quite know what he felt. Each touch of Enoch's lips shamed him, but also stirred something else in him. Calvinus had not named it, but he knew what it was. He was proud that a boy like Enoch wanted him. He would not admit it. He would not admit that he actually liked being held close to the boy, that he might like that enough not to care that it was boy on boy. He would not admit it, but that would not make it untrue.

As the two boys had been discovering each other, however, their world had been changing. News was slowly emerging from the south, and the most important piece of news was that Gaius Aurelius was dead, his body found on the road near Stabia. Officially he had died from a fall from his horse, although there was little doubt that the eruption of Vesuvius was ultimately to blame. His younger daughters had arrived in Ostia and brought on to Rome, although not to the Aurelius villa. Instead they were in the care of their legal guardians, and yesterday the news had come that the slaves were to be taken to the household of the legal guardian, where they would be given new duties.

That was why they had left the Aurelius villa yesterday, expecting a long journey, but in fact taking a much shorter walk up the Palatine Hill, to arrive at the household of the legal guardian of Gaius Aurelius' surviving family. That was why Calvinus had been washed and attired in the terrible effeminate tunic, that was what eunuchs wore in the household of the legal guardian.

That was what was worn by the eunuchs of the emperor's brother.

Domitian.

Britannicus scrubbed hard at a dark brown stain on the flagstones of the floor in the villa's atrium. He could tell it was blood – just another dark reminder of the kind of man his new master was. If the journey to Rome had not been enough, the tour they had been given on arrival here had certainly sealed his opinion. Turpio was a harsh master, intlerant of laziness and fond of harsh discipline.

They had been shown where they would sleep – a cramped and stinking cell with nothing but straw on the floor to reduce the discomfort of sleeping on hard stone. A few slaves were already there, resting between chores or recuperating from illness or punishments. Many bore the marks of Turpio's whip, and all looked miserable and subdued. The slaves that were there almost filled the room, so when Britannicus learned that all the other slaves would sleep in there together, he had wondered how they would all fit – and whether sleeping standing up my be an option!

After the sleeping quarters there was a tour of a punishment room. Their guide, the slave overseer who was himself Turpio's slave, explained in gruesome detail punishments their master had recently meted out on unfortunate slaves who either slackened in their efforts, or were insolent or disobedient or in any other way displeased their master. After seeing all the ways their master might punish them, Britannicus had felt quite ill.

Turpio was a trader in slaves, and a good one, so the overseer said. He bought slaves cheaply who had potential but that needed an expert to break them. Runaways, barbarians, thieves and other spirited slaves were brought here, trained and then sold on at a considerable profit to new owners who respected Turpio's wares and his reputation for well broken slaves.

After the punishment room, the slaves were taken to the atrium and assigned work details, and then, after making a start on some chores and then a very meagre meal of bread and water, they had been allowed to go to the cell to sleep.

It had been even worse than Britannicus had expected to sleep in that cell. Amidst the constant groaning and coughing, the occasional angry remark, pushing and shoving, he had wondered if he could sleep at all. He had found a corner with half a space, but was sleeping next to another boy, with a man behind – a man who had felt his penis as he lay down, and seemed happy to wrap his body over Britannicus as he blatantly wanked himself before falling asleep, and starting to snore.

It was cramped but worse was how hot it felt. Sandwiched between warm bodies, there was almost no air movement, and despite his triedness, Britannicus took a long time to get to sleep.

The late night did not prevent the overseer waking them all up just before dawn's first light in the morning. Britannicus had got to his feet, bone tired still and wishing he was still asleep, but had been assigned the cleaning detail almost at once. The atrium stones had to be spotless before the master came for his breakfast, or else he would feel the sting of the whip, he was told.

So it was that Britannicus had fetched water and now was scrubbing furiously at the blood stain in the stone in front of him, not knowing how long there was before breakfast, but desperate to get this and all the other stains cleaned before then.

"So you have stone duty?" A weak voice rasped from nearby. Britannicus raised his eyes and looked at the emaciated boy who was fastened to the wooden pole. He had seen him last night, of course, and he had seen him again this morning when he started work, but this was the first time the boy had tried to speak.

Britannicus looked at him, taking in the sinewy muscles poking through waxy skin that seemed too big for his body which lacked any fat at all. His face looked older for being so gaunt, but he realised with a start that they were probably about the same age.

That thought gave him pause for thought. Here was a boy, with the blond hair of a northern barbarian, his own age, perhaps with a story not dissimilar from his own, wasting away, possibly just days away from death because of Turpio's refusal to allow him to eat.

"Please! could I have some water?" The boy's eyes were wide, pleading with his gaze as well as his words. Britannicus knew that time was short, and the stain was still on the floor, but all the same he was moved by the sight of the boy. He ran off quickly to fetch water and returned with a wooden jug filled, holding it to the boy's lips. The boy drank greedily, swallowing the water down, much of it dribbling down his front.

"I am Anglius", the boy said, panting a little after he had downed most of the jug of water. "I come from the north of Germania but I have been a slave for three years now. What is your name?"

Britannicus frowned. He hated being asked questions, for the simple reason that he had no good way to respond. He opened his mouth to show the stub of his tongue – a small lump of scar tissue that was all that Valerius Maximus had left him. The boy blinked, looked hard and then looked away.

"I am sorry," Anglius said. "I didn't realise."

Britannicus shrugged and got back on his knees and started scrubbing at the stones again. The blood was so hard to get out – it seemed to have seeped into the stone itself, and Britannicus' shoulders and arms were aching from the exertion of trying to scrub it free.

"Thank you for the water." The boy said, and Britannicus lifted his head and flashed a quick smile, trying to convey a sense of 'you are welcome' with his look, before bending back to his work.

"Our people hardly knew the Romans existed, but I was taken a slave by Langobardi in a raid on our village, and then taken south and traded into the empire. Are you from Germania? you look like you could be."

Britannicus shook his head.

"A Gaul then?"

Britannicus shook his head again.

"From Britannia then?"

Britannicus nodded and gave another small smile before deciding that the stain he had been working on was clean enough and moving on to another. Anglius nodded and looked at the floor for a while. Britannicus could hear him breathing, his breath coming raggedly. They had all been told that the boy was being punished for stealing food. They had been told that he may be allowed simply to die, but even if he lived, the punishment was a harsh one. Britannicus considered his own punishment for theft that had left him mute. He remembered the day he had been discovered, and how stupid he felt at not taking better care to cover his traces. He remembered his terror and anger as his tongue was cut out and he was raped by his master in front of the assembled boys from the Ludus. He remembered how he had felt like he wanted to die in the days after that assault, and how sick he had become.

They were not so different, this Anglius and himself. How close he had come to a fate as bad as this boy's these last months. First his tongue, and then resold into slavery and prostitution, and then the eruption of Vesuvius, surely a punishment of the gods, and then his close call with crucifixion – not to mention being spared the same whipping the Greek boy had been given on the road here. He could so easily be the one starving to death in the atrium. Would anyone care if he was?

That is when Britannicus made a resolution. He looked at Anglius and mimed eating, and then he beat his own chest to indicate himself, and mimed walking, and then picking up something, and then bringing it back to Anglius.

"You will fetch me food?" Anglius whispered the words, barely audible, but there was a questioning, hopeful tone to his words. Britannicus nodded emphatically, and Anglius gave him a wan smile. "But how will you find food?"

Britannicus raised an arm up towards his head like someone drawing a cloak over himself and with his other hand, mimed picking something up and stowing it under his arm.

"Don't steal it. That is how I ended up here. They are very careful with the food and know exactly what they have here. Don't steal it or you will get caught."

Britannicus frowned, looking thoughtfully towards the kitchen, and then shrugged, and tapped his nose. Anglius was frowning too, a mixture of hope and concern warring to control his face. After a few moments, Britannicus went back to scrubbing the floor.

***

The new slaves were all assembled in the atrium, following Turpio's leisurely breakfast. He had spent time with the lararium and now was inspecting the new slaves before he went to the tablinum to receive his clients. Britannicus shivered as he looked at the man, tall, well muscled, and dangerous looking. Everything in this place was a constant reminder of how dangerous he was.

The floor was spotless. Britannicus was proud of how clean he had made it, but Turpio seemed not to notice at all. He inspected the slaves, muttering, snorting in contempt.

"Not a single Nubian among you. Just uneducated barbarians and fiesty Greeks. Hopeless, and probably useless, the lot of you." The overseer had already explained that Turpio held the white northern races in disdain, and these words simply confirmed what they had been told. As their new master vented, again running through all the ways the slaves would have to work harder and smarter, Britannicus looked around at the others. The Greek boy scowled back at him, and the others looked in various states of discomfiture.

"Now this food thief over here was acting as my personal attendant," Turpio said and Britannicus noticed a wry smile on the Greek boy's face. "I now find myself without a personal attendant, and I need a volunteer."

Britannicus was still watching the Greek boy. He would be the obvious choice. A Greek boy would no doubt be able to read and write and everyone knew they were more intelligent – well perhaps everyone but Turpio, who probably thought you needed dark skin to be intelligent. The Greek boy did not look ready to volunteer though and Britannicus realised why, and also what the smile had been about. This Greek boy thought Turpio wanted an attendant for certain other duties too, and perhaps he had not yet been made to serve men in that way.

Britannicus raised his hand before he even realised he had made the decision. Maybe the Greek boy was right, but Britannicus was already a whore, and maybe, just maybe, if he served this man in bed, he would go easier on him. That was not why he volunteered though. He had offered to help Anglius, and he was not going to be able to help him by scrubbing floors – but the personal attendant to Turpio might yet find ways to help. He was scared stiff of his master, but here was an opportunity not to be missed.

The Greek boy snorted, shook his head, and whispered "whore" but Britannicus pretended not to notice, determined not to lose his resolve. Turpio, for his part, was looking at the boy appraisingly, as though seeing something new in him he had not noticed before. Had he finally managed to surprise Turpio Africanus? He certainly hoped so.

"Stand still and say nothing unless you are spoken to," Crispus ordered as the slaves from the Aurelius estate lined up in the formal garden of Domitian's villa urbana. The Villa was huge, the garden itself large enough to have accommodated Valerius Maximus' villa with room to spare, and that was surrounded by colonnades, creating a walled garden that opened into the villa itself. Slaves were quartered well away from Domitian and his familia, but still they had space that was more generous than anything Calvinus had seen since he had been sold off with his father's possessions.

The garden itself was a neatly kept affair, with several slaves working in it even now. There were neat little peach trees, rows of shrubs and grass that seemed to be kept as short despite the lack of any animals roaming over it to nibble away at the stems. Everywhere there were small marble statues and little fountains. The slaves were lined up with their backs to this, standing on a stone path that ran through the middle and along the edges of the garden, and faced the colonnade and steps beyond up to the villa.

Crispus was Domitian's estate manager, in charge of all the slaves in this villa. He was, of course, a slave himself, but despite that he was happy enough giving out orders and left no one in any doubt that the consequences of failure to obey absolutely would be painful and immediate. Despite his name, he did not have curly hair. Perhaps, Calvinus mused, he had curly hair once, but now he did not really have very much hair at all. He clearly had been in service for a long time, and looked old, into his fifties.

Having been shown their quarters, washed and dressed, this was the moment when they were to be introduced to their new master. Technically the property of the Aurelius household, they were held in trust for the two surviving daughters by Domitian, brother of the emperor of Rome. Domitian kept them waiting though, and they could hear laughter and loud voices coming from the villa as they all stood in the sun, still hot despite being well into autumn now.

At last Domitian did stroll out in front of them, dressed in a long flowing white toga, attended by two slaves and chatting and laughing with another man. He walked past the line of slaves giving a cursory glance to them all. For a moment Calvinus' eyes locked with one of the most powerful men in Rome, before he dropped his gaze to study the gravel and Domitian walked on without pausing. He knew his clothing marked him out as a eunuch, and hoped that brief glance had not been more than idle curiosity.

"My friend Fulvius brings good news with him," Domitian said to Crispus. He spoke loud enough for all to hear but he clearly was not going to bother addressing the slaves individually. "Gaia Aurelia and her daughter Julia are restored to us. It seems they were marooned in Stabiae after the eruption of Vesuvius, but fortuitously, Gaius Plinius Secundus, admiral of the fleet, put in there and rescued them and some other patricians too. Sadly Pliny died in this noble rescue, but we all praise the gods that his actions have tempered the grief of the family of my friend Gaius Aurelius."

The slaves did not know whether to cheer or stay quiet, and most opted to assume happy expressions. Calvinus, however, felt the blood rush to his head. Julia was alive? He had prayed to the gods that she would be dead, vengeance for her treachery, but no - she was alive? There was worse to come.

"Although Gaia Aurelia has been taken ill, her daughter is in most excellent health, and so here she is to greet her father's slaves who will be held in trust for her now as dictated by his will."

And with those words, Julia stepped out from the shadows of the colonnade, and this time when her eyes locked with Calvinus' there could be no doubt that it was more than idle curiosity. Her smile turned false, and there was animosity in her eyes. Calvinus for his part forced his eyes down again. No good would come of openly defying her. His heart beat fast in his chest, as he felt her gaze still resting on him. This was not good. Not good at all.

***

The villa was large and Crispus quickly had the boys detailed to a range of duties, mostly in the kitchen and the garden that kept them away from Julia. The boys shared a small cell with several other slaves, but this did not stop Enoch's attentions, and within days the slaves all knew well enough that Calvinus was Enoch's boy. Calvinus hoped that Julia did not know it too though. She had seen him raped by her own father, so he was under no illusions about what she thought about him now, but that rape had been different. Enoch had raped him too once, but now his attentions were more consensual and, of course, less penetrative. Now if Julia knew the boys were kissing and cuddling she would see him not just as a Pathicus, a male forced to take the female role in sex, but worse, as a Cinaedus, who actually liked it.

Was he a Cinaedus though? the thought troubled him often. When he let Enoch kiss him, was he betraying his masculinity? did he have any masculinity left to betray? was he even a boy any more or was he maybe more like a girl?

He did not think like a girl. Julia had always had her head full of stupid notions about what people wore or what spices you could buy in the forum, or where you could get the best jewels or colours for dyes. Even now Calvinus did not care about such things. He still longed to be in the army, although he knew that could never happen now. He still cared about fighting, riding, climbing trees, but again he could do none of those things, unless you counted shinning his way up the peach tree for an illicit snack when no one was looking.

No, he did not think he was a girl. They could cut off his balls and penis, leaving nothing but a useless little vestigial stump, but they could not cut the boy out of him. He would not let them! And for that reason he thought that no, he was no Cinaedus. Enoch liked him, and for his part he was content to make Enoch happy. Enoch may be a slave, but he could still fight. Maybe he could teach Calvinus to fight too, and that thought let him put away his sense of shame at allowing himself to be another slave's special boy.

A week after they had arrived at the villa, however, Calvinus came face to face with Julia. He was working in the garden, removing weeds at a border as he had been instructed by Crispus, when Julia strolled out from the colonnade and down the steps by the border, talking with a boy. With a jolt Calvinus realised that he knew the boy. That was Sabinus, an equestrian he had known from the schola. Sabinus was three years older than Calvinus, which had always given him an advantage both in schoolwork, when they had been in the same class in the forum, as well as at other times, when Calvinus had learned to stay clear of him. Sabinus had always been inclined to pick on the weaker boys, but Calvinus had mostly avoided that by ensuring that some other boy in the class was the butt of everyone's attentions instead.

There had been one wonderful moment when Calvinus had got one over Sabinus though. They had been in class learning Greek grammar, which was one of the most boring subjects imaginable, and Sabinus had not been listening. The teacher had then asked the class a question – what was the correct word to use to describe destruction, and Calvinus had spotted Sabinus' inattention and also knew of his propensity to take credit for other people's work. So it was that he had whispered a word to Quintus, sitting next to Sabinus, knowing full well the word was wrong, and that it was loud enough for Sabinus to hear. In fact the word was not one Calvinus knew the meaning of – he had just heard someone shout it angrily at a woman in the forum, near where the prostitutes hung out.

True to form, Sabinus stuck up his hand, even as Quintus frowned. Quintus knew that was the wrong answer, but before he could warn Sabinus, the teacher had asked the older boy, who proceeded to repeat the word.

The effect was spectacular. Two boys in the class clearly knew what the word meant and exploded with laughter, which Calvinus joined in with. The teacher, who also understood well enough, and thought Sabinus had said the word deliberately, turned red with anger as he reached for his stick, and demanded Sabinus come forward for punishment.

Sabinus had never really forgiven Calvinus for that humiliation, although he had never managed to catch him alone to take his revenge. Now Sabinus was here. A fellow equestrian, talking amiably to Julia. Was that coincidence? what was he doing here?

Any thought of coincidence was driven away when Julia turned her gaze on Calvinus. Her mouth had a wry smile that suggested more was going on in her head, and Calvinus remembered with a jolt that he had told Julia that story the day she had come to dinner.

"You knew Calvinus before he was a slave, didn't you, Sabinus?" she said to the older boy. Sabinus nodded, following Julia's gaze, his face showing a moment of surprise before his lips curled with pleasure. Calvinus felt his face colouring. Having Sabinus see him like this, dressed in a girl's tunic, a slave and a eunuch immediately caused all the old shame to cascade over him. He turned his eyes down, looking at Julia's feet, hoping that the two of them would move on quickly and leave him be.

"I heard all about his family disgrace. I was not surprised though, Calvinus was always a spoiled little brat, and his father barely more than a criminal."

"Like father, like son they say. Did you know Calvinus threatened to rape me like his scum of a father did?"

Calvinus bit his lip, as Sabinus walked around behind him, and then without warning put a hand under his tunic, groping his crotch, scarred and empty as it was. Calvinus had a problem with his bladder since the castration, and right now there was a little dribble of pee there that he had not been able to stop leaking out. Sabinus looked at his damp finger in disgust, and wiped his finger on the eunuch's tunic.

"He will not rape anyone now," he said, and Julia turned her back on them both to look out at the garden.

"No, he won't. I made him an oath breaker.

"Did you know his father wanted me to marry him one day? My father would never have allowed it of course. I was to have married a senator before… well you know. But Calvinus had these stupid notions that he would marry me. He was so boring I think I would have murdered him in his bed had he tried.

"All he ever talked about was wars and conquest and stupid barbarian tribes and legions and cohorts and siege towers and things like that. I had to spend a whole evening once listening to his incessant droning about military strategy, as though he had the first clue about any of it."

Sabinus snorted, and Calvinus glared. He wanted to walk away, to leave this place, but he had not been dismissed, and for a slave to walk away from people of high station would have earned him a beating. For a moment he thought the beating might be worth it though.

"It was just the same in the school. He was stuck up and boring. No one liked him much, and he was always bringing his stupid barbarian slave along," Sabinus said with a smirk.

"Do you think he is safe though? I don't like having him here." After Julia spoke, Sabinus rubbed is chin thoughtfully, appraising Calvinus.

"Calvinus was never as hard as he thought he was, and without balls he is less than a girl now," he said, not noticing Julia's face darken slightly, or the way she folded her arms at his assumption of feminine inferiority. "He is under supervision too, so there is little he could do, but I am sure I can find a way to keep him… occupied."

Julia put her arms around Sabinus' waist and lay her head against his chest, looking up at him with puppy dog eyes, making Calvinus shiver. Sabinus may not have known it but he could see clearly what she was doing, manipulating him. This was what she wanted. This was why she had brought the boy out into the garden. Calvinus knew how her mind worked, even if she did think he was stupid and boring. He knew what a scheming little bitch she could be.

"Would you do that?" she asked, and Sabinus looked down at her, his chest swelling proudly. The poor fool had no idea he was being played and used by her.

"For you, I would do anything," he said and Calvinus felt like he wanted to throw up.

"Then it is settled. Take him and keep him as occupied as you like… try to make sure he is still able to serve in the orgies though. No permanent damage. Not yet."

And with that Julia turned and began to walk away, and Sabinus gave Calvinus an evil looking smile.

"You will be at the guest room in one hour," Sabinus commanded and then strode after Julia.

The first hint of dawn was lighting the sky when Britannicus stole his way through the atrium to find Anglius. The boy was already awake, slumped against the pillar he was chained to. He was expecting the mute boy, and pulled himself to a kneeling position as Britannicus crouched beside him and started pushing cheese into his mouth.

Anglius swallowed the food gratefully, his eyes expressing the thanks he dared not voice, even if he should be able to do so between mouthfuls. Because his hands were tied, Britannicus had to push the food in, and because both boys were in a hurry lest they be caught, he tended to do so a little too quickly, forcing Anglius to swallow the food almost unchewed. When he was done, Britannicus mopped cheese from Anglius' lips, squidging it in.

This routine had been going on for several days now, and Anglius was looking healthier. He was still gaunt, dangerously thin, his skin sallow, seeming to hang on his bones with no fat and hardly any muscle to show beneath, but the dead look had gone from the boy's eyes, and yesterday Britannicus had even had to clean up some tell-tale poop that would have shown the boy was receiving food from somewhere.

That somewhere was the kitchen. Despite the warning from Anglius, Britannicus was sure he had been careful, taking the cheese from the back of the store room, closest to the floor. He had carefully dug out holes in the cheese to make it look like the work of mice or rats. Each morning he got up just a little early for his chores, stole some food, and fed Anglius. When he had stone duty the boy would talk to him about anything and everything, only shutting up if anyone else entered the atrium.

That had happened yesterday. The Greek slave, Aristocles, had entered carrying a pitcher of water just as Britannicus had snorted with laughter at a joke Anglius had been telling him. The joke had been about a Greek, a Roman and a Jew,and the punchline had involved the Greek bending over philosophically for the Roman to fuck him, so when Britannicus had seen who entered, he had caught Anglius' eye and snorted with laughter again. Aristocles had looked at them suspiciously but gone on his way shortly after that, so no harm done.

Britannicus finished feeding Anglius, stood up, and turned to go.

"Well, what do we have here then?"

The boy froze, and he heard Anglius gasp with shock, the sound turning to a groan.

"What is it about barbarian slave boys that makes them all thieves?" Turpio Africanus stood in front of them. Dressed only in a dark subligaculum, he blended with the morning darkness, so that neither boy had seen him standing still in the shadows until the moment he spoke.

"I would ask you what you are doing, boy, but your lack of tongue and lack of intelligence has left you unable to communicate, so let me tell you what I see.

"I see in front of me two thieves. One of them stole from greed and was left here to starve at my pleasure. The other stole from compassion, is that correct?"

Britannicus swallowed and nodded slowly, uncertainly. He could try to deny the theft, but that would be hard without the power of speech, and in any case, if his master had recognised he acted out of compassion,maybe things would not go so badly.

"Sadly for you, Britannicus, your compassion has cost me my pleasure.You see how that works? This boy was punished at my pleasure, not yours. You have also cost me in stolen food, have you not?"

Britannicus nodded again, slowly. His heart was racing. He had been caught stealing once before, and he was acutely aware of the stump of his tongue in his mouth, all that remained after he had been punished for that offence. He shivered and looked at the floor.

"Britannicus, you are a disobedient thief. You offered to serve me but just like this boy, you disappoint me. And now you will be punished."

Britannicus let out a whimper, and heard it echoed by Anglius.

"Please don't punish him," Anglius gasped. "He was only trying to help me."

"Silence boy!" Turpio roared, and then beckoned to the darkness. "Untie Anglius and tie Britannicus up in his place. Face him forwards though, facing the post, arms in front of him."

Out of the darkness stepped Aristocles, his face twisted in a triumphant smile, knowing he was about to get his vengeance for the whipping on the road to Rome. Britannicus shuddered, and looked to the colonnade, preparing to run but Turpio saw his glance and stepped forward, grasping his ear. Britannicus yelped in pain and was forced to the post where Aristocles was untying Anglius as quickly as he could.

"Britannicus, think yourself lucky. You have saved Anglius. I have decided that he will live, rather than let that food you gave him go to waste. He will take over your duties for now, and forever if you should die here.

"I also give you a chance boy. You too may go free, but only when you have learned how to write your request to me. You will receive instruction in writing from Aristocles here, and if you are attentive and studious, and if you are not as brainless as most barbarians, then you will learn to do so. If you can learn to write before you starve, you will live. If not, then you were probably not worth keeping anyway."

Was he mad? couldn't he see the look that Aristocles was giving? There was no way he would learn anything from the Greek boy. Seconds later, though, it turned out that Turpio was not mad nor stupid.

"Aristocles, you will teach this boy his letters and how to read. If he dies before he has written me a letter that begs my forgiveness and begs for his life, then I will whip you again. Perhaps I will have you gelded too. You will do well not to cross me on this boy! Do you understand?"

Aristocles looked like someone had just cancelled Saturnalia. His smile died on his face and now he looked daggers at Britannicus, as he was fastened to the post. It was clear that he did not relish the thought of teaching a mute barbarian boy to read and write.

Britannicus felt the ropes tighten around his wrists as Aristocles began to tie him in place.

"Not like that boy! He needs enough movement in his hands to scratch marks on slate, doesn't he? Look, tie him at the elbows. Oh and take his loincloth off – he will only soil it."

When the rest of the household awoke with the sunrise soon after that, they came out to the sight of Britannicus kneeling and bound to the post, naked and sobbing quietly. Britannicus was aware of the whispered questions and the furtive glances as slaves hurried about their business. No one seemed much surprised to find another slave being punished in the household of Turpio Africanus.

***

The first days were the worst for Britannicus. He saw Anglius at a distance sometimes, but the boy was being kept away from him, and kept busy with the dominus' work. No one else spoke to him except for Aristocles who grudgingly came twice a day to teach the boy his letters.

Writing letters was frustrating work. He had to scratch unfamiliar shapes onto a piece of slate, but the post was in front of him and he had to crane his head just to see the slate. His hands had some freedom, but it was limited, and his left hand kept getting in the way of his right one. All the letter shapes seemed to jumble up in his head too, so that he had a hard time recalling which one was which.

Aristocles was not a patient teacher, and would swat Britannicus across the head when he made a mistake, or else would kick his leg or slap his face. Britannicus had suffered such treatment before, of course, but he still grew angry whenever he was scolded and beaten, and his anger just seemed to cloud his mind more, until he was sure that Aristocles was right – reading and writing really was beyond the power of barbarians.

There were other indignities too, like the need to pee. Britannicus knew Anglius had peed where he was tied up – he had cleaned up the mess himself, but still the indignity of it was bad enough. Worse was when he could no longer stop himself pooping on the second day. That had stank, and it seemed like a long time before another slave – a girl of about nine years – came and cleaned it up. She cleaned him too, and that made him want to cry with shame. Shame and something else. His sister would be about the same age as this girl now. Where was she? did she live? was she free? Would he ever know the answer to those questions? And what would she think if she saw him now? Not Britannicus the warrior, but Britannicus the slave, the thief, the whore. This girl saw him that way too, and so he cried more.

Then there was the hunger. He was given water, but no food. Britannicus never felt he had enough food, and a nagging hunger had always been with him for the last couple of years, but that was nothing to what he felt now. Now he could smell baking bread from the kitchen and his mouth watered, his stomach groaned and heaved, but there would be no relief.

He had never felt so hungry, and on the third day, Aristocles was explaining to him again about combining the letter sounds into words, when Britannicus noticed he was looking across the atrium at one of the girl slaves and at the same time playing with himself, pulling his penis from his loin cloth and massaging it. As Britannicus recognised the boy reaching his climax, Aristocles pushed Britannicus' slate away and thrust the hard penis into the boy's mouth. It only took seconds for the boy to cum, and any sense of shame or anger Britannicus felt was washed away by the boy's seed slipping down his throat, making him cough and gag, as he had no tongue to control his swallowing. The amount was tiny, but to the hungry boy it was still something, and he only wished Aristocles could have fed him some more.

Aristocles covered himself up and went back to instructing Britannicus a few minutes later, making no reference to what he had just done. Britannicus looked at the Greek boy and felt a mixture of angry shame warring with a hope that the boy would do that to him again. It did not help him concentrate though.

Aristocles didn't do it again to him. He supposed his lack of tongue made him not very good at irrumatus. Turpio Africanus, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy it, and the next penis in Britannicus' mouth was his master's. The man was not gentle, and with no tongue, Britannicus had swallowed the huge penis, choking on it until with a cry of pleasure his master had unloaded a much larger load of cum into his throat.

After that Turpio would come to him each day. If he was lucky, his master would fuck Britannicus' mouth, feeding him cum, which was not much but was still something for the starving boy. If he was unlucky though his master would lift him and rape him in his bum, again not gently. Turpio's penis was larger that the senator's had been and the pain was as bad as it had ever been, and the humiliation worse as day after day his master forced his way in.

"You are a whore. Nothing more boy. The least of all slaves. You will never be anything but a whore and a slut." Turpio whispered into his ear moments before his body was consumed with an orgasm that had him gasping his pleasure in times with the boy's moans. Then Britannicus would be left alone, and each evening the only sound in the atrium was the quiet sobbing of a starving 11 year old boy.

Nathan giggled as he dodged out of the way of Jonathan.

"Missed me!" He yelled as Jonathan skidded to a halt and ran after the boy who was darting away across the floor now, but just as he ran for the door, Sarah came in with an armful of clothing fresh from the fullonica and the boy hurtled into her, sending tunics and underwear flying across the floor.

"Get out of here you brats!" Sarah said, cuffing Nathan across the ear. Jonathan collapsed to his knees giggling as Nathan took one look at Sarah's angry face and ran out of the door and down the steps.

"Not just him! Both of you!" her angry voice carried from the house, as Jonathan came out rubbing his bum where he had just been swatted by his mother. He looked back, but his face had a playful smile despite his mother's anger. The house was small and such accidents seemed to happen a lot, but both boys knew she would not be angry for long. "Too many children" was her usual cry, whilst holding up her arms in despair. Too many children under foot, but none of them had any doubts but that she would have it no other way.

"You made mum angry!" Jonathan tutted, waving his finger at Nathan. For his part, Nathan stuck out his tongue and walked down to the dock, sitting himself down on the wooden edge, feet dangling over the water. Jonathan came and sat beside him, and the two boys sat watching the water, fishing and cargo boats gliding over the sea, rocked in the slight swell that made an incessant lapping sound against the boards beneath them.

"You should come to the meeting tonight," Jonathan said, changing the subject suddenly from a discussion of the best way to catch crabs. Nathan looked away. It was not the first time someone had invited him along to one of the meetings.

Neither boy spoke for a while. For his part, Nathan was thinking about what happened in those meetings. He had seen the handful of people that crammed themselves into Simon's house, and he had even heard some of the sounds coming out. Sometimes they sang, sometimes there was a murmur of prayer or speaking. It was all familiar enough to Nathan, brought up as a Jew, but the house was no synagogue, and these people were part of one of the cults that came and went, and he wanted nothing to do with that.

On the other hand, there was no denying that Nathan liked these people. Nathan got to sleep in an ordinary household in Ostia, crammed in a room filled with four other children and their parents too. There was as little space to sleep as when he had been in the Ludus, but there was a difference. This household that had taken him in was full of people who actually seemed happy.

It was not something he had really noticed he was missing at the time. The Ludus had been filled with men and boys who laughed and joked around like men and boys anywhere, and the days had been so packed with exercise and training that there had been precious little time to dwell on his own feelings, so Nathan had not thought of himself as unhappy in the Ludus. Scared, exhausted, angry… all those things, yes. But unhappy? there had been no time for that. Now, though, he knew the difference. He still worked hard here, doing all the chores that were asked of him, complaining much less than Jonathan and the others. Nathan was used to hard work, and that had not changed much, but the hard work was coloured by the laughter around him, that seemed more free and open than he had ever known before, like the people here actually liked being with each other. Like they actually liked having him here with them.

For the first time in his life, Nathan was experiencing the joy of family life. Of course, there had been his mother in the Golden House, and all the other Jewish slaves had felt like an extended family, but they were all slaves there, and often he was kept away from his mother, and even when he saw her, she had always seemed to hold so much in reserve. As for his father – he had never known him, and he was probably dead anyway.

"You know there is free food at the meetings?" Jonathan asked after a while.

Nathan's stomach growled. It was not that this family did not feed him a share of all they had, but they never seemed to have enough food, and he was a growing boy. Free food sounded good, but then it was not really free. He still had to spend time in the meeting of these Christians to earn it, and they were a bunch of blasphemers and cultists. It still felt like a step too far. Nathan shook his head. "I am not coming," he said.

Jonathan frowned. "Is it because your mother wouldn't approve? She just doesn't know us."

"My mother has nothing to do with this!" Nathan snarled, his face darkening. He did not want to think about his mother. He never liked thinking about her, but Jonathan did not know that and waded in to murky waters with both feet.

"Don't you ever think of going to find her? She is you mum after all."

Nathan shrugged and spat into the water.

"She is still at the Golden House in Rome, right?"

"I suppose so," Nathan murmured, not looking at his friend, but with his gaze fixed out over the water at a fishing boat bobbing in the swell.

"I would hate to be so close to my mum and never able to see her."

"I don't want to talk about it," Nathan said, scowling.

"Fair enough. So why not come to the meeting today?"

Nathan swore, loudly, using a curse word that had Jonathan blushing and looking around to see who else had heard it. Evidently some fishermen on the dock had because they were laughing at the boy's discomfort.

"I am not going to some fucking meeting filled with blasphemers and cultists," Nathan spat and was on his feet, ready to go.

"Blasphemers? you can talk!" Jonathan shot back.

"Me?" Nathan turned on the other boy, his face twisted with fury that Jonathan had never seen in him before, and made him step back in shock. "Me? a blasphemer? it is not me who fucking well believes in a messiah who got himself crucified like… like a…"

"Like a what?" Jonathan asked, his voice quiet, perhaps dreading the answer, perhaps anticipating it. He must surely know, Nathan thought. No one could be so stupid to believe the messiah would die like that, and these Christians even called him adonai, Lord, the word that the scriptures used for God. God crucified like a criminal? That was madness. Stupid. Grotesque.

"Did you ever see anyone crucified?" Nathan asked. "Well did you?"

Jonathan shook his head. "Not up close."

"Well I have! If you had, you wouldn't think so highly of your messiah. Fuck it Jonathan, you just wouldn't."

"Don't say fuck."

"Why not? You think your messiah didn't get fucked? You think they didn't stick something up his bum so he was fucked to death on that cross?"

"You don't know that…"

"I do know. I have seen it… you don't know and you want to worship a messiah who died like that? Well fuck it all, because I never fucking will." And with that the boy stormed off, leaving Jonathan standing stunned on the dockside alone.

***

A man sat down beside Nathan, grunting a little as he lowered himself to the sand of the beach. The boy looked up at him and then away. He thought about getting up and leaving, but the man, Simon, put a hand on his shoulder, as though anticipating the move.

"Jonathan told me about what happened."

Nathan shrugged and looked out at the sea. He hoped that the man could not tell he had been crying, but he knew his eyes must look puffy and red.Stupid Jonathan shouting his mouth off, the thought. And now they would not want him to stay any more because they all knew he hated their stupid beliefs.

"You are right you know. Jonathan has no idea what a crucifixion is like."

Nathan chewed over the words, said nothing, just shrugging his shoulders after a few moments. Simon sat there quietly with him for a while, perhaps waiting for Nathan to break the silence, but Nathan had nothing to say.

"You saw a crucifixion Nathan?" Nathan shrugged again, but then dipped his head in a tiny nod.

"And was this someone you knew?" Another nod. Simon sucked air through his teeth. "Someone from the Ludus?" Now Nathan shook his head.

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it matters. It is a terrible way to die. I have seen it, and I wish to God that I hadn't"

Nathan wanted to agree with that sentiment, but more than anything he wanted to change the subject, and there was one question he needed answering badly.

"Will you make me leave now?"

"Oh you silly boy! Why would we make you leave?"

Nathan bit his lip. He could think of a number of good reasons. Because he thought they were a bunch of heretics. Because he had said as much. Because he had helped kill a man in the arena. Because he was an escaped slave, and a danger to them all. Because he had done other things… worse things… things he did not want to think about. Fuck, why did it always come back to that?

"Nathan, when we took you out of Pompeii, that was like God giving you into our care. We like you. We want you with us. We care about you… we… I… " Simon's voice tailed off and then he finished, almost lamely, "You should stay."

"You wouldn't ask that if you knew," Nathan retorted.

"Knew what Nathan? What don't I know?"

Silence again.

"Nathan, come home, have something to eat. You will feel better for it."

Nathan shrugged, didn't say anything for a while but then retorted: "It's not my home."

"I know. I know. It is a cruel thing to take a boy from his mother, but you cannot return to the Golden House. Or is that what you want? You want to go back to being the Emperor's slave with your mother?"

"No," was all that Nathan replied.

"But it is natural, Nathan. Natural that you would want to see your mother again. Perhaps there is some way…"

"She's dead!" Nathan shouted, angrily turning on Simon, his eyes flashing with emotion, but was it anger? sadness? despair? His eyes glistened with unshed tears as he raged on. "She is dead okay? and I killed her. I killed her and they sent me away and they did not even kill me too. I killed her. I had to watch her die. I was there the whole time, and then they branded me and told me I would die in the games but not soon."

Nathan buried his head in his hands and sobbed. Simon was taken aback by the outburst and what the boy had said, but instinctively he reached out to hug the boy. Nathan was having none of it and shrugged him off. His voice shook as he continued to speak.

"So now you know and you have to send me away. I killed my mother. I helped kill another man in the arena, and I wanted to kill someone else. You don't want me."

"Nathan, if I could tell you all the people I wanted to kill…"

"But you didn't, did you? You didn't do it. I killed my mother. She is dead because of me."

Simon tried again to hold the boy and this time Nathan let him, burying his face in the man's breast, sobbing pitifully like he had not cried in a very long time.

Nathan stood still in the antechamber of the temple of Mars, his right hand clenched over the tiny scroll case he was carrying as he waited nervously. He had never been inside this temple before, and it was truly an imposing sight, even here in the outer vestibule where he stood beside a line of marble statues. The colonnade was fashioned from huge white blocks of stone, so perfectly wrought that he could not see where one block joined another, giving the impression of solid pillars reaching up to the ceiling, itself made from the same stone, set across the columns.

Nathan had been brought up on the tales of the Jewish temple, destroyed by the son of his master, the butcher of Jerusalem. He had heard that its splendour had put even this temple to shame, but he could not see how that would be. The temple of Mars Ultor, Mars the Avenger, was magnificent, even to a boy who had been raised a slave in Nero's Golden House.

Despite his surroundings, though, Nathan wished he could be almost any place but here.

That morning his mother had found him at work in the atrium and called him over, explaining what she wanted him to do. He saw his mother every day in the Golden House, but she rarely interacted with him quite like this. She was a slave too, and not an overseer. It was not her place to order around the other slaves, even if one of them was her son.

This day was different though, and she had quickly explained how he must wash thoroughly at once and then return to have his hair cut and combed through for lice before he was to dress in the tunic reserved for official functions. Today, she told him, he was to attend the festival of Quinqatrus, along with a retinue of slaves from the household who would accompany the Emperor himself. She had personally seen to it that he would be on the retinue as the festival often made use of boy slaves dressed in white in the procession.

His mother was entrusting him to deliver a message to a soldier who would be there, a general no less, of the name Caecina Alienus. This was one of the few times slaves from the Golden House could get close to him, and it was important that he received the information his mother had for him before Quinqatrus came to a close with the Tubilustrium festival. His mother left him in no doubt about the importance of delivering the message to Caecina Alienus.

Nathan understood the gravity of the situation. It was not like this was really anything new to him. For as long as he could remember, he had been asked to undertake duties such as these, usually at the behest of Berenice, the consort of Titus, son of the Emperor. Berenice was a queen of the Jewish people, and Titus had promised to marry her many years ago. For as long as he could remember, Berenice has been at the Golden House, ruling things as though she were already married to the emperor, and yet there had always been more to it than that.

Slaves of the household saw things no one else saw, and in particular some of the Jewish slaves were treated to a level of confidence from Berenice that no one else was afforded.

Berenice may have been the consort of the Butcher of Jerusalem, but to the Jews of the Golden House, and probably elsewhere too, she was seen through the lens of the story of Queen Esther, who had been married to Xerxes in Persia during that exile, and who was God's instrument to save the Jews from Haman's treachery. So too did the Jews of the Golden House think that Berenice was God's chosen instrument to save the Jews in this new Roman exile, and who would eventually see the restoration of the temple and all the sacred items the Romans had carried off. Thus the Jews served Berenice perhaps more closely than their own master, the Emperor.

That could only happen if Berenice did indeed marry Titus, and that was where things had gone awry. Romans had protested against Berenice's influence over Titus, and some Cynics had even satirised their relationship in mocking plays, that had seen one satirist flogged and another beheaded. The damage was done though, and under pressure from the senate and his own father, Titus had sent Berenice back to Judaea. All the hopes that Berenice would be the new Esther who would end their slavery and suffering had run aground.

"It was not Titus' wish to banish Berenice," Nathan's mother explained. "It was his father who forced the issue. If Titus were to be Emperor then he could recall her, and he surely would. He loves her."

Nathan was ten years old, a slave who had lived his life enclosed in the Golden House, rarely going out, lacking experience of the world, but in some ways he was wise beyond his years. As a slave boy he could be ignored in a room full of people laughing and talking openly. He could be serving at a meal unnoticed but listening in, and had often reported back conversations for Berenice, and sometimes he had seen her act on those conversations. On one occasion he had been the one to serve a certain cup of wine to a certain person who had died two dates later from a disease of the gut. In another case he had completely undermined someone's defence in court by overhearing his plans and reporting it to Berenice ahead of the case, allowing her lawyer to prepare a defence. Nathan understood the important role the unseen class could play in the politics of Rome, and he understood that when he was told to deliver a message to a general in the Roman army - a message that must be delivered so that the General had a chance to act during the festival of Mars, the avenger - he knew what the message must suggest.

What did they know in the Golden House that the general did not know? The movements of the Emperor himself no doubt. Indeed his mother often knew a great deal about the plans of men who enjoyed the hospitality of the house. Again he was under no illusion as to how she obtained the information. His mother was a Jew, but she was also a slave, and like so many of the comely slaves, she served men in their beds when she must. Somehow she had spared that fate from her son to date, but Nathan knew that his body was not his own, and one day he too would probably called to give such service.

So his mother was sending word on the movements of the Emperor. The same Emperor who had forced Titus to send away his Jewish consort. The Emperor who had ordered the sack of Jerusalem, even if he had left his son to carry it out. The Emperor who had enslaved hundreds of thousands of Jews, and used the spoils of the war to build his giant amphitheatre that was still under construction, built on the backs of yet more Jewish slaves.

Nathan knew just how important his message was. More important than any message he had ever carried in his life.

Where was Caecina Alienus though?

At last the Generals returned from the sacrifice to the god. Nathan scanned their faces, and quickly identified the man his mother had described. Now was the moment. Nathan swallowed, and waited until the man was a few paces away. The plan was extremely simple - he had to hurry towards his master as though he had just realised he was standing in the wrong place, but would stumble in front of Alienus. The man would reach out a hand to steady him, and into that hand he would slip the scroll. No doubt he would be beaten for making a scene later, when they were back at the Golden House, but his mission would have been a success.

Just as he was about to move, however, another slave griped his shoulder. Nathan looked up into the eyes of the man who was holding him still, and two deep brown eyes stared back at him. The slave shook his head.

Caecina walked past, Nathan tried to shake off the hand, and the General seemed to pause at the temple steps, as if unsure how he had got there so quickly. He glanced back, his eye settling on Nathan for a second and then he walked down the steps without another backward glance.

"Let me go," Nathan hissed.

"Give me what you have in your hand," the slave replied. Nathan looked at him - a man full grown, with the powerful upper body of a slave used to carrying a lectica, a litter, or undertaking other manual work, but there was a sharpness about his expression. Nathan had not recognised him, but there were so many slaves in the service of the Emperor that this had not surprised him until this moment. Now he suspected this was more than an ordinary slave. Certainly not a Jewish sympathiser.

Nathan looked around alarmed. There were still other people around, mostly high ranking soldiers from the ceremony or priests of Mars, as well as other slaves, but he saw no friendly face. Nathan panicked and ran.

"Stop him!" the slave commanded, and the way he raised his voice was enough to almost shock Nathan to a halt. Such a note of command from a slave in front of so many noble born soldiers seemed completely out of place. Nathan did not stop though, he ran for the steps. He did not get far though, as a soldier at the entrance, waiting for his commander no doubt, responded to the note of command and leaped at Nathan. The boy was caught and wrestled to the ground, kicking and screaming.

Moments later the slave wrenched his hand open, took the scroll case and then spoke to the soldier.

"Take him to Titus' dungeon."

The soldier looked at the slave giving orders and then over at the Emperor himself who was looking on darkly, as though to verify the order.

"Do it." Ordered Emperor Vespasian of Rome.

***

Nathan did not know how long he waited in the tiny cage before someone came to question him. It felt like it must have been many hours, and in that time he had gone from terror to despair and back again countless times. He had cried, shouted out, tried to break his bars and eventually sat down as best he could to wait, shaking with fear.

When the door to the dungeon was opened three men entered. Two were members of the praetorian guard, and the third was their commander, the praetorian prefect, Titus Vespasian himself. Nathan shuddered, and yet he felt just a glimmer of hope too. Berenice was his consort after all, and everyone knew the affection he held for her. He had only ever obeyed the will of Berenice.

"Slave, do you know what it was that you were carrying?" Titus asked.

"No dominus." Nathan lied. His mother had not told him what it was, but she did not need to tell him, he had worked it out for himself. There was a long silence.

"Who gave it to you? Who asked you to deliver it?"

Nathan said nothing.

"You know, do you not, that a slave's confession cannot be used in court unless extracted by torture?"

Nathan let out a sob. He had known that - of course he had known that, and for hours he had been dreading that very thing. He had heard of the various tortures, and of all the stories, it was telling that flogging was by far the mildest. He had tried to tell himself they would not torture a boy, but he was just a slave - no one would care if they did.

"You have heard of some of the tortures no doubt," Titus continued. "Men can have their penis hole laced shut and we force feed them wine until their bladder bursts. Such men might have rocks placed on their bladder to emphasise their discomfort. We can extract your teeth one by one, or cut out an eye. We can rip your finger nails from your hand, and then do the same to your toe nails. We can flog you until your skin falls from your body, or slowly burn your cock and balls off with brands. We can saw off your fingers and then your hands, and after that your feet. We can keep going until you beg for death. Do you want that boy?"

Nathan shook his head, his mouth too dry to speak.

"Then tell me, who gave you that message? Tell me that, and confirm who it was meant for, and I promise you, boy, there need be no torture. Neither will you be crucified. I will see to that personally. You have my word."

Titus spoke very softly, almost kindly, and again Nathan dared hope he might yet understand what was done in the name of his consort. He would not deal so harshly with a conspiracy designed to further his own claim on the empire. Yet he could not betray his mother. Nathan bit his lip and shook his head, tears running down his face.

Titus must have made some movement to indicate his next order but Nathan did not see it. All he saw was one of the praetorian guard opening the cage, the other reaching in and dragging him out. What happened next was so fast, Nathan did not see it coming. As one of the guards held his hand the other forced his knife under the boy's thumb nail, sliding in deep and ripping it off.

Nathan howled in agony, and begged for mercy, but they methodically removed all the nails of his right hand.

"Now boy, we can do the other hand, and after that we will cut off your balls. Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Nathan was howling with the agony in his hand. He pissed on the floor now, as the praetorian guard took his left hand, readying the knife.

"It was my mother!" he screamed.

***

True to his word, Titus did not have Nathan crucified. No such promise was extended to his mother though, and he was forced to watch as they nailed her to the wood. He heard the shattering of bone as the long iron nails drove through her flesh. He heard her screams of agony.

When they had her hanging on the cross, a soldier took a spear shaft and drove it into her, laughing as the shaft filled her, driving in so deep into her uterus that blood ran down its side.

"The last shaft to fuck you is old pilus here," the soldier laughed as she tried to pull herself up by her arms to reduce the pain from the spear, redoubling the agony on the nails, and likewise pushing with her legs that were nailed to the shaft of the cross to relieve the agony.

Soldiers laughed at her agony, and Nathan was kept there, watching her, unable to look her in the eye, knowing that it was his fault that she hung there. She might have said something to him, some word of comfort that it was not his fault, but before they had nailed her up, they had pushed a branding iron into her tongue, so that now she could say nothing at all.

They broker her legs at sundown, and she had sunk slowly deeper onto the shaft that raped her. As it slid deeper into her gut, Nathan's mother died the agonising death of a traitor and a slave.

After that Nathan was hurriedly sold as a damnatus to Valerius Maximus who had him branded and thrown with the other gladiators. Titus had promised him he would not be crucified, but the death sentence was never rescinded. The Ludus was simply a slower way for the boy to die.

"No you dolt! that is wrong. So wrong! You are stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid." Aristocles raged. Britannicus dropped his head and his body shook with silent sobs. The boy was right – what could he know? he was a Briton and Britons were not meant for reading and writing. The gods had made them warriors, or else they had made them nothing. It had been weeks now since he had been chained up against this pillar. Weeks in which he felt that he had made no progress at all. When Aristocles came at all he would stay only a while before erupting in anger at Britannicus' stupidity and failure to grasp the fundamentals of reading. After that he might beat him with a stick, try again, grow more angry that the boy had not suddenly acquired new intelligence from the beating, and would stalk off.

Britannicus for his part was growing increasingly desperate. He knew that if Aristocles failed to teach him the boy would be whipped, maybe even gelded, but despite his hatred of his teacher, Britannicus derived no pleasure from that thought, because if the boy failed, he would already be dead.

Hunger had never been far away ever since Britannicus had been captured and taken as a slave. He was no stranger to hunger, but the deep gnawing life draining hunger he experienced now was like nothing he had ever known. He had never been fat but now he was gaunt, his cheeks sunken, his skin seeming to sag around him, his bones showing through at every point. He had less energy now and found it harder to concentrate. The only food he got was the semen form when his master came to him, swaggering in the evening, smelling of alcohol. In those moments Britannicus had his mouth fucked and he would swallow down the small amount of semen gratefully. It was not sustaining, but it was something.

Sometimes though Turpio Africanus would just bend him over and rape him in the butt, muttering something about tongueless boys being poor cock suckers. On one occasion he caught a glimpse of Aristocles watching from the far portico as his body was rocked under the thrusting of his master, and he was told again and again that he was just a useless barbarian whore. He knew it was true. Without a tongue he did not even make a good whore, and he knew that the gods hated him now. They had turned their back on him, as he was no warrior. He was less than a man. Less than a girl even. Just a whore, property of this man who raped him almost daily and would let him die because he was too stupid to learn to read.

Britannicus wondered what awaited him in death. No hall of the warriors, that was for sure, but now he wondered what he even believed anymore. Before he was Britannicus he had been Gwion, the little weaver. The druid had named him that because of the story he would weave. His father had been so proud, sure that he would grow to be a great warrior who would one day defeat the Romans, driving them from the Isle of the Mighty forever. He had believed that himself, and that was why he had gone to fight the Romans that fateful day when he had been captured and then raped in front of his mother.

The druid was wrong. He would never be anything. He would die here, forgotten by his people, unloved, unwanted, too stupid to even live as a slave. If the druid was wrong, what of the gods? had they just turned their back on him? Was he too weak to be worthy of his name?

That future could never be now. He had hoped of escaping his slavery and returning home, but that had all come to naught. Instead he now wore Turpio's brand on his nipple, and soon would die in Turpio's villa. Even if he lived, he was a stupid mute whore boy, nothing more than a catamite to be used and discarded by whichever rich Roman chose to fuck him next. He had no illusions any longer. Gwion was already dead, and Britannicus the whore was all that was left.

As he sobbed, Aristocles had walked off again. No surprise there, as the boy clearly hated every moment spent with him. Perhaps he hoped he would not be gelded for his failure, or maybe he simply despaired that any barbarian whore could ever learn to read. Either way he had been left alone.

Except he was not alone he realised. Someone else was here, he could hear the light touch of bare feet walking across the stone floor.

Britannicus looked up, and saw a boy. Not just any boy, but a boy that he recognised. Britannicus' mouth dropped open in surprise, and then such a mix of emotions ran through him that he began to sob again. There in front of him, holding a finger to his lips, looking just the same as the day he had last seen him – the day they had beheaded Valerius Maximus, and he had been taken away with Calvinus in a cage on a wagon – there stood the only boy he had really called a friend.

"I brought my books and a slate," Quintus whispered as he crouched down beside him. "We don't have long, but I am going to make sure you can read and write."

Quintus put an arm around Britannicus and at once he burst into tears again. Floods of tears that felt like they would never stop. Quintus! Quintus was here now.

Britannicus held the stylus unsteadily as he scratched marks onto a papyrus sheet. Quintus watched, nodding with approval. He had never used actual papyrus before, and it was hard not to make a mess with the ink which seemed to spray easily, unlike the wax tablet he had been using until now into which he just made impressions.

"That is right, keep going," Quintus encouraged. Two more weeks had passed, but Quintus had been coming every day to visit and spending time teaching Britannicus, and he had discovered something that no one would have suspected – it was like pushing at an open door. Far from being stupid, Britannicus already understood the concepts of writing, if only someone had taken the time to sit down and help him with the details.

He should not have been so surprised by this, after all, Calvinus used to make Britannicus wait for him in the schola at the forum, Quintus had seen him there, squatting down in a corner, just beyond where the class met, playing in the dust, looking bored as he waited for his master's son to finish his studies. He may not have joined the class but he must have been within earshot the whole time. Quintus remembered envying him being there, doing nothing, and avoiding all the beatings the schoolmaster gave any boy who messed up in his lessons. He was not there the whole time, often performing errands while Calvinus studied, but he would always be there waiting at the end of lessons, ready for Calvinus, and in those times he must have heard many of the lessons.

Maybe, also, Aristocles had taught him something, despite his impatience, or maybe, and Quintus hoped this was true, maybe it was that he was just an incredible teacher. Maybe it was that Britannicus had been his friend, trusted him, and understood him.

Whatever it was, it seemed like Britannicus lapped up the exercises, and he clearly longed for his friend's visits, a smile returning to his gaunt face whenever Quintus arrived.

Quintus praised the good fortune that had brought him here, although he cursed the gods for not allowing him to find Britannicus earlier. He was so weak now, starved to the point that no fat remained on his body, and he looked ready to fall over and die. He was not the bubbly mischievous boy who splashed water at the public fountain, or happily climbed into a vat of pee to help in the fullonica now. Britannicus had become lethargic, and clearly found concentration hard now. Quintus hated seeing him like this.

Apprenticed to a physician, Quintus had been sent here a couple of weeks ago to attend a slave with fever. Slaves got fevers all the time, and expensive physicians were rarely called, but Turpio Africanus was not a fool, and wished to prevent spread to all of his stock, and an apprentice was good enough for the slaves, so he had been sent here, and that was when he had seen Britannicus tied to the post and starved near to death. He had quickly asked what had led him to be there, and at once knew what he had to do. He had gone to Turpio and suggested he make daily follow up visits to ensure that the fever was not spreading, at no extra cost of course, and Turpio had allowed it. He then spent time each day with Britannicus, trying to avoid being seen by Turpio. In fact he suspected that the master of the house saw exactly what he was doing, but as he had ordered Britannicus learn to read, and as Quintus was not a slave, he seemed to allow it, even if he did not specifically come out and say as much.

Thus Britannicus had learned to read and write to a point now he was ready to write his letter. There was only one problem – Turpio Africanus had gone away on business the day before and had not said when he would be back. Britannicus was writing the letter that would see his release but it could not yet be delivered. Well that hurdle had to be jumped later. For now, Quintus concentrated on coaching and encouraging his friend to write the letter. He dared not tell him what to write, as Turpio was no fool, and would clearly test the boy. If he found the letter was not his own work, who knew what consequences would follow, so Britannicus had to do it himself. He was doing it too. Word after word seemed to flow onto the wax, and although the penmanship was shaky, and maybe he spelled some words wrong, still the letter was good. Quintus looked at it as Britannicus finally dropped the stylus and set the tablet down, and then he reached over and hugged his friend. Britannicus, not for the first time at the closeness of his friend, burst into tears.

***

The letter was done, and it was as if all the fight went out of Britannicus after that. That same day he became so listless that he would just lie against the post, unable to move. The next day Quintus came to see him and he barely seemed conscious. Gods, he hoped Turpio would return from his business soon and accept the letter, but he was not there now. Quintus tried speaking to the overseer, to request the boy be given food anyway, as he had surely completed the task he had been set, but the overseer just growled angrily and told him to stay out of the master's business.

"But what is the point of letting him die now?" he reasoned, only to receive a cuff on the ear and to be shown the door.

"Get out! If the whore boy doesn't survive, it is the master's loss, not yours."

Quintus spent much of the rest of the day around the forum trying to find word of where Turpio may be, but he heard nothing. The next day he came to the villa again, and was gratified that he was not turned away at once, but Britannicus was now in such a state he was afraid he might not last the day.

"I'll feed him," Aristocles announced, with a half smile, and in full view of Quintus, he thrust his cock into the semi-conscious boy's mouth and quickly masturbated himself. "Not much good as an irrumatulus. That stump of a tongue just does not feel right. Maybe if they took his teeth away, it would feel better."

Quintus narrowed his eyes at the boy's complaints, but as he orgasmed in the barbarian boy's mouth, he did at least see a faint movement as Britannicus swallowed down the cum. Quintus gave him some water too, and prayed for Turpio's return.

Turpio did not return that day, and in tears now, Quintus told the physician he was apprenticed to of the boy's plight. The physician was a kind man, and did not berate the boy for the time he had spent on the slave boy, but instead sent word to some contacts of his to tell Turpio of a risk to his property.

The following day Quintus returned to the villa as usual, as soon as he had finished his other morning errands, and what he saw made him sick with worry. Two slaves were gathered around Britannicus' inert form.

"No!" he whispered, running over to see, desperately afraid his friend had died. "Please Janus, don't let him be dead!"

Quintus skidded to a halt in front of the boy, as the slaves looked up, and then he heard a chuckle from behind.

"Aristocles has you to thank that he still has his balls, boy."

Quintus looked around and saw Turpio, and then looked again at Britannicus. He was to weak to move, but one of the slaves was spooning broth into his mouth.

"And I have you to thank that I did not totally waste my investment in this little thief."

Quintus bowed his head and whispered a prayer of thanks to Janus. Britannicus was going to live. It was all going to be alright. He blinked his eyes several times quickly, and then fisted them, before giving up all pretence that he was not crying. Britannicus was going to live, and he had saved him.

When he finally looked up again, Turpio had left him alone with the slaves.

Britannicus sat down at a table with Anglius and smiled as he tucked into the food in front of him. Across the table was Quintus, invited especially to celebrate the Saturnalia with the household of Turpio Africanus. Other than Quintus everyone at the table was a slave of the household, but even so the food was of a kind that was usually only reserved for the master and his guests. For one day a year all custom was turned on its head, and slaves could eat as though they were freeborn. True enough the slaves had prepared the meal – this was not one of those households so taken with the festival that Turpio would wait on his own slaves, but he still did them the favour of staying out of their way as for one day they got to eat as the freeborn ate.

To Britannicus the meal, although welcome, was bitter sweet. He was still painfully thin, and Anglius was not much better. Two weeks earlier he had been so close to death that he had not even been able to hold down food when it was given him, and even when he was able to eat properly, he received no extra portion to build himself up again. He was always hungry, and today he hoped he might at last make some dent in that perpetual hunger.

It was also bitter sweet because this was his first Saturnalia festival in which he had no tongue. It was six months now since the day Valerius Maximus had cut his tongue out, but although he was now used to its absence, he still found food difficult. With no tongue it was all but impossible to chew his food, so he had to tear it into tiny morsels which he would put in his mouth, tilt his head back and swallow like a dog – a sight that often caused cruel jests.

Without a tongue food did not taste so good either. He found he could taste the aromas, but he had almost no sensation of what was sweet, or the saltiness of a fish sauce, and the manner in which he ate meant the food spent precious little time in his mouth in any case, unless he choked it up again.

Choking was another risk. Britannicus was not the only slave ever to lose a tongue and he had heard the stories about tongueless slaves who choked to death. Eating a meal such as this was a dangerous undertaking for a boy such as himself.

The last reason it was bittersweet was because last year he had spent the festival with Calvinus, and although he had never much liked the boy, he realised that Calvinus had liked him, in his own way. A year ago he had been allowed to play dice for nuts with his former master's son, and Calvinus had not even stormed off when he had won all the nuts and a couple of dates too.

Britannicus wondered where Calvinus was now. He found that he hoped life was not too hard for the boy, as he tucked into the meal in front of him as Anglius told him some long and complicated joke.

Enoch put down the heavy sack of flour he had been carrying with a grunt and rested against the wall for a moment to catch his breath. As he did so, he saw Sabinus call for Calvinus, asking him to follow up to the room where he humiliated and raped him day after day. This had been going on for weeks now. Calvinus rarely ever spent the night in the slave quarters anymore. When Sabinus was not keeping him over night as his catamite, he was instead sent to serve in one of the many orgies that Domitian loved to hold.

Enoch knew that his status as a slave in the household conferred no special privileges, but still he had started to think of Calvinus as his boy. He could not help it - he had come to have feelings for the eunuch, just as he had always had feelings for Britannicus. He hated Sabinus for taking Calvinus away from him. He hated the way his penis fought against its prison whenever he thought about the touch of Calvinus' lips too, or his hands caressing his thigh. More than once he had tried to pull the cage off his penis, but there was a loop around his balls that was simply too small and tight to get off, leaving him frustrated and humiliated, knowing that each day Sabinus did things with Calvinus that he wished that only he could do.

It was not that Enoch never saw Calvinus now. He was working right now in the kitchen for instance, but what he almost never had anymore was any time alone with the boy. It was as though between Sabinus's attentions, the regular orgies in which he danced and bedded men, and the constant demands of Crispus, there was a deliberate attempt to give Calvinus no time of his own ever again.

If he did sleep in the slave quarters he arrived so late that Enoch was already sleeping, and on waking he would be quickly called away to some duty or other. On those occasions, in the half light of dawn, Enoch would see a face that seemed too tired for emotion, although on some occasions he would shout out in terror in the night.

He had tried speaking to Calvinus during the day too, although Crispus discouraged this. Some estates forbade talking at all by slaves, for fear that they would foment rebellion, but Crispus did not run the household that way. Here slaves could talk, and even laugh and joke together if they did so where there were only other slaves to see, but Enoch quickly discovered that if he attempted banter with Calvinus, either he or the eunuch would be called away to other duties quickly. There was no doubt about it, Calvinus was being singled out, and had been since the day Julia had returned.

Now Calvinus came out of the kitchen, his face flushed red from being near the ovens, and traces of flour on his hands. Sabinus gestured that he should follow and Enoch could see the look of despair that crossed his friend's face. As chance would have it, Sabinus was coming directly towards Enoch, and Enoch unwisely stared at the equestrian lad, several years his senior. Sabinus's eyes locked with Enoch's and he stopped in front of him.

"What are you looking at, slave?" he asked, the aggression clear in his tone of voice.

Unwisely Enoch did not drop his eyes but instead he looked at Calvinus. He at least had the good sense not to tell Sabinus what he was thinking. Sabinus followed the glance and nodded.

"Ah, so you are that slave then?" he asked, "the one who wanted Calvinus for his own?"

Enoch looked at Calvinus, whose own eyes were downcast. How long had it been since he had seen any spark of true emotion from him? Why were they doing this to him? Enoch felt anger well up inside him, but he did not say anything. If he spoke now it would only bring trouble on them both.

"You are property of Julia Aurelia, boy. What, did you think that you would actually be allowed to fuck your domina's property?" Sabinus asked, the sneer on his face matched by a tone in his voice that left Enoch in no doubt of the contempt in which he was held. To make his point further, Sabinus pushed his hand under Enoch's tunic and grabbed his caged penis. "Everyone knows about this too!" he said, tugging on the cage painfully, a pain made worse by a response in Enoch's body as his encased penis tried to stiffen, leading to the familiar agony as the cage inflicted enough pain that his body eventually gave up trying.

"Impotent! That is what you are. Boys who spend too long in those cages never get stiff again. They might as well be eunuchs too. You think you could make Calvinus happy? He can feel nothing from sex and you cannot give it him anyway. Pah, you are just another useless Jewish slave, as bad as all the others. You wanted Calvinus for your own, but you are not worthy even of having an insignificant pathetic whore like him. You are weak, impotent, helpless, useless."

Enoch's body was taut, and he was hovering on the edge of self control as Sabinus had pulled on the cage, but with that tirade, something inside him snapped, and all at once he leaped at Sabinus, punching him hard in the face, again in the belly and then sinking his teeth in the boy's neck as he fell back, flailing and taken off guard by the show of Enoch's temper.

A red mist descended over Enoch and he bit, punched, kicked at close quarters. The older boy began to recover from his shock, but despite his larger size, he could not match the ferocity of Enoch's attack and took instead to shouting for help.

Enoch released his bite, spitting out blood where he had torn the flesh of the boy's neck, before bellowing into his frightened face.

"You are the weak one, you miserable fucker. Leave Calvinus alone, he is twice the man you will ever be. You think raping him makes you a man? You think working him until he drops makes you better than him?" Enoch struck the boy in the mouth as he spoke, punctuating his point, and gratified when a tooth came loose. "If you ever touch Calvinus again, you will have me to answer too!" and with that he headbutted Sabinus. He might have done more but at that point Crispus and two other slaves dragged him off his victim.

Enoch screamed in fury, lashed out, kicking and struggling to be free, as Sabinus lay on the ground in a pool of mud and groaned.

"Have him flogged," Crispus commanded. "Flog him until his skin hangs from his back in shreds."

"Belay that!" a voice commanded and Crispus spun around before dropping his head deferentially.

"Dominus?" Crispus asked uncertainly, "this boy just attacked a noble guest in this house."

Domitian nodded and looked at Enoch.

"I know what he did, Crispus, I saw the whole thing. Isn't this the boy you were telling me about? the Wolf Boy from the Ludi Vulcanalia in Pompeii? The one who defeated a Murmillo in the arena on the eve of the disaster?"

"It is, dominus," Crispus agreed. "Surely, though, he deserves punishment."

"They say he was named Lupus," Domitian looked at Sabinus, getting to his feet, his face a mask of anger. "It seems our wild wolf still needs some training."

"Sir, he attacked me without provocation. He bit me!" Sabinus said, his voice rising, almost to a whine. Domitian looked at Sabinus, sniffed, then looked back at Enoch.

"Sabinus, any attack on you by anyone who has spoken to you for more than a minute can hardly be said to be without provocation."

Enoch, who had been struggling all this time, stopped struggling at that, and his mouth turned upwards with amusement, which only grew as Sabinus turned bright red, and looked even more thunderous.

"Crispus, it seems that we have kept this boy in the household too long. I want him sent to the Imperial Ludus at once. Have that cage taken off his cock too. Send word that he is to be trained up to fight as Lupus the wild boy in the games when the new arena opens. The time is short, but I will have this boy fight animals as an animal. If he can do that, he may get to live, and if not, then I am sure Sabinus will agree his death is well deserved."

"As you decree, dominus," Crispus replied, bowing his head. Enoch took one last look at Calvinus as he was led away. Fuck, he thought. Fuck it, now he would never see the boy again. That thought, more than anything, hurt Enoch.

Calvinus

Calvinus never held much hope that Enoch's assault on Sabinus would stop the daily rapes he endured at the boy's hands. In fact it made the situation worse. Humiliated both by his defeat at the hands of the wild slave boy, and also by Domitian's words, Sabinus took his anger out on Calvinus that very day, forcing him to take the woman's part as he was fucked in his bum, violently. As Sabinus thrust furiously into the boy, rocking his body with the force of the movement, he told Calvinus exactly what he thought of him.

"Cinaedus, thats all you are. A fucking Cinaedus eunuch catamite who likes it rough from your beast-boy friend. You dream about being fucked by animals don't you, whore boy. You like it rough like this. Tell me you like it. Go on… scream for me."

Calvinus did scream.

As the weather turned colder and months marched on, Calvinus was still used incessantly by Sabinus, and increasingly he was called on to dance in orgies too. Darker nights and the end of the campaign season had brought more visitors to Domitian. Calvinus was at last around the officers and generals of the army, but not as one of his peers as he had dreamed. Instead he was made to dance, clad only in a loincloth, or outfits from myths and legends or else precious silks imported from some far distant land, the garments worth ten times what he himself was worth. He danced until some officer took a liking to him, and stripped him of his garments, and then he served the man like the whore he had become.

All around him men laughed, joked, or spoke of great military accomplishments, but Calvin's only accomplishments were carnal ones, kissing the whiskery faces of men, exploring their bodies with his finger tips, massaging their muscled shoulders, or straddling them and lowering himself onto the stiff cocks, feeling them slide inside him, and then rocking his body until they came inside him in a frenzy of pleasure that he could not feel.

To be sure, he did feel something from these encounters. The feeling of the penis inside him could excite a place inside him in a way that seemed to bring a shadow of past feeling back to life. If one of these men so much as noticed him, he felt some relief to his aching eternal humiliation.

Nevertheless Calvinus knew what he was now. Never could he be the peer of one of these men – his greatest hope now was simply to be liked by one of them.

The day came, after he had been serving so long he had lost track of time, but his hair had grown back to its former length, when it was Domitian himself that he served in this way, and as Calvinus lay with the man, and caressed and licked his body, exploring it with fingers that had become expert in the art of exciting a man, gently bringing him to orgasm, as he spread his legs over the brother of the emperor, something special happened.

Domitian stroked his cheek, looked into his eyes and spoke.

"Calvinus, I never realised how pretty you were."

For Calvinus the words set his heart fluttering, his face reddening and a tear formed in his eye.

After that Sabinus stopped coming for Calvinus, and it was to Domitian's chamber he was sent each night instead.

Enoch

For Enoch any hope that the Imperial Ludus was anything like the Ludus of Valerius Maximus or the Capua Ludus was quickly disabused.

"What do we have here then?" One gladiator asked as he was frogmarched into the area in which the gladiators met to eat.

"I am a gladiator," Enoch asserted, not waiting for anyone to respond on his behalf. This brought only laughter and derision though.

"Fuck, no boy! You are too small for a gladiator. Come back in six or seven years and we can make you a gladiator but your are not one."

"I killed a murmillo in Pompeii." More laughter and Enoch glowered.

"So you got lucky? You are a novelty act, nothing more. Morning entertainment only," another gladiator roared over the laughter, and then he turned to the man whop had brought Enoch here. "What is he here for?"

"This is Lupus the wolf boy. Train him up to fight animals, minimal weapons, no armour. He needs to look like Romulus or Remus."

"Lupus? Lupulus more like," the gladiator replied.

"Careful Brixus, he bites."

"Sounds like he needs some obedience training!" Brixus replied.

"Aye, that he does."

***

Enoch was relieved to finally have the cage off his penis, even though he was somewhat worried by the use of a chisel so close to his boyhood. The Ludus smith struck it through in one blow though, and although there was a sharp sting as the loop around his testicles was cut, the metal fell away, releasing his penis for the first time since he had raped Calvinus. There were discoloured ring marks on it from where the metal had tarnished and rubbed against him, making his small penis look somehow exotic.

Before he had a chance to check if everything was in working order, though, Brixus came for Enoch.

"Time for your obedience training," he roared, and dragged him out onto the sand. "You can leave when you have defeated me, wolf boy."

Enoch needed no second request, and flew at Brixus, and that was when he discovered that Brixus was both very fast and very strong. Where Enoch's sudden attacks caught many opponents off guard, Brixus merely seemed to turn the attack away and then grabbed Enoch and forced him to the ground, grabbing him by his hair and dragging him like a slab of meat.

After that the struggle was short and one sided, as the man sat astride the boy, starting to strangle him. Enoch struggled, but for all his ferocity, he was no match for this man. He was simply bigger, stringer, faster and more experienced and the boy struggled to breathe.

What happened next had Enoch howling in outrage and pain. Forced to the floor, choking for breath, he was suddenly flipped onto his front and Brixus pulled his penis from his subligaculum as he straddled Enoch. As Enoch struggled to get free, he was struck again across the face, and then his head forced into the sand dusted rock.

Moments later Enoch felt the man's penis press against his crack, and he was aware also of other gladiators standing near the edge of the Ludus, watching on.

"Lupulus, you're no gladiator and never will be. You're just an animal, a wolf boy, a novelty here to die for the entertainment of the people. This is the way it is: every man who fucks you is your master from now on. You do what you're told like a good bitch. Get it?"

"Never!" Enoch spat, only to suddenly feel the terrible pain of entry into his virgin bum. Enoch screamed with the pain as the man forced his way in past his collapsing sphincter, pushing hard and furious to underscore his point. Enoch screamed in agony, and in that moment of agony realised that this is what he had done to Calvinus.

For Enoch this moment was the worse because in all his hardships this past year, he had always avoided this moment. Where Britannicus and Calvinus had both suffered this way, he never had. He had thought he was better than that. He was not the boy who got raped, but the boy who raped others. He was Enoch, the gladiator boy who had killed a Murmillo, whose name had been shouted by the people of Pompeii. He was not some man's bitch.

"Wrong answer bitch. If you don't want to be fucked over and over, you do what you are told. If you ever don't do what you are told, you get fucked. Get it bitch?"

Enoch grunted, his bum burning with pain now, his body pushing against the sand. He felt the gaze of the gladiators watching him, felt his own penis pushed into the sand. The pain reached deep into his gut, and he closed his eyes, trying to ignore the shame as his virginity was taken from him by this man. It seemed to take a long time before with a shout of pleasure, Brixus unloaded inside him, and his body was filled with the seed of the gladiator.

Nathan

"Nathan I baptise you in the name of Jesus the anointed one," Simon said, dropping the boy under the water of a secluded cove a little south of Ostia. As Nathan vanished beneath the water and emerged, his face lit up in a smile and he hugged the man. Jonathan rushed over and hugged him too.

The day he had told Simon about his mother had seemed to break a dam for Nathan. Before that his past had been something he tried not to think about and never spoke about, but that had changed that day when he had discovered something that he had never suspected. Simon and his family could still love him even when they knew how he had betrayed his mother.

As for The Way, and its weird beliefs, well he had been unsure for a long time, but over the weeks he had come to see that these were still Jews in their way, even if they accepted gentile converts too. They still believed in the one God, and Jesus his son. He did not see how that really worked, but apparently there was someone called Theophilus who had explained it all, having just received a letter from a friend of his. According to Theophilus… well actually it did not matter what Theophilus had said. Nathan didn't really understand it all, but what he did know is that baptism could wash away all the past sin, giving him a new start. He understood that Simon wanted him to do this, and he knew it would make him a blasphemer too, but he had grown to love this family, enjoying a level of intimacy and friendship he had never experienced. It did not matter to them if he was free or a slave, or a Jew or not. To them he was just Nathan, and in time he had made his choice. He would be a follower of The Way too.

Now he hugged his friend and sobbed. He sobbed for his mother who he had watched die, and he sobbed for all he had lost. He had sobbed for Marcus who had died in Pompeii, and for all the others who may or may not be dead. He sobbed because he really did feel free of guilt for the first time ever, and he sobbed because he wanted this moment to last, and knew it could not.

The brand on his flesh told Nathan he was still a runaway slave, but in his heart he knew he was free.

Britannicus

"Come here slave!" Turpio ordered and Britannicus came over. He had already taken his clothes off and he knew what was required of him. He climbed onto the couch next to his master and the man held him tight, caressing his body, exploring his flesh with powerful fingers, kissing him and stroking his hair. The tenderness did not last long though before he was commanded to service his master. Britannicus knew what to do now, he had become quite experienced at this, so he played with his master�s penis, teasing it with his lips before spreading his legs, and guiding it into him. His master grunted with pleasure as Britannicus lowered himself onto his erect member and began to ride him.

Gods, you are a good little whore, Britannicus. I suppose it is as well I did not let you die.

Britannicus gave his master a smile. He did not feel happy that he was a whore – he felt guilty about that, small and weak. However he was pleasing his master and that, at least did not feel so bad to him. In any case the smile was expected so he pretended to enjoy it as he rode his master and allowed him to empty his seed inside him in a powerful orgasm.

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