Darian blew upon his pipes, and I could sense, even from my hiding spot in the dark colonnade behind a curtain, that the notes of the music I’d written were casting their spell over the gathering. The melody was both calming and subtly strung through with anticipation; the peaceful beauty of the musical phrases ended, more often than not, one note short of where a listener knew they should.

Kina began to pluck a lyre, which was my cue to go in.

Gods above and gods below, I did not want to do this. It had been fun and bawdy, and I’d laughed so hard that I nearly wet myself when Terix and I had acted out the tale of Lotus—but that had been in private, with friendly eyes upon us. Eyes I had no need to impress, and whose owners would not judge me.

I didn’t understand how that which had delighted me so in one circumstance, threatened so much shame in this.

And yet Kina plucked on, and I had no choice but to perform.

Rebellion welled up inside me like a bubble, choking in my throat, and for one dangerous moment I thought I would flee. I’d run across the dark garden, through rooms, up stairs, ending in the quarters I shared with the other female slaves. I’d spend every moment in terror of my punishment for disobeying, and then either tonight or tomorrow, I’d be summoned before Lady Lydia, or Hermina, or perhaps the house steward, and berated, scolded, perhaps beaten. There would be no acceptable excuses I could give. Sygarius would understand the quaking of my pride at performing in front of strangers, but he would not understand how I could believe my pride to be more important than following his command.

Flee, and salve my pride; or perform, and declare myself no better than a prostitute in front of Clovis.

“Make your choice,” I heard my mother’s voice saying.

Dreams, or reality.

I knew where my body lived, and who held the chain.

“Fuck them all,” I whispered, and with the harsh words I shoved aside my shame and the curtain and stepped into the room.

A space had been cleared for the performance, for which the only prop was a small couch. I wore a voluminous, transparent green gown, my heavy black hair loose down to my hips, and a large, fake lotus flower tucked behind one ear. I knew the men’s gazes would be searching through the filmy gown, looking for nipples and cunny; they probably thought they weren’t seeing either. The spiral tattoos over my breasts and loins confused the eye, and in uncertain light made it look as if I wore an ornate breast band and breeches beneath the diaphanous green silk. Neither the Franks nor the Roman nobles had probably ever seen the like, as they were a tradition of my vanished people, the Phanne. It gave me a perverse satisfaction to think that I flaunted my near-naked body in front of them and they did not know.

Truth be told, it sent a wicked thrill through me, and made my cunny swell.

I imagined I could feel Clovis’s gaze upon me. Did he know what he was looking at? I told myself he did; that he, of them all, knew that it was not a costume he was seeing, but my own skin.

It didn’t matter, though, for as Kina plucked the lyre, I became the nymph, Lotus, and the audience faded away. Music, dance, and song always transported me to a place beyond the present—or perhaps it was a place deep inside myself. All I knew was that the world around me disappeared, replaced by one of my imagination.

The lyre was my voice, expressing my emotions as I wandered through a meadow, picked a flower, and savored the warmth of the sun on my skin. An imaginary butterfly landed on my fingertip, and as it flew away I grasped two thin reeds that had been hidden in my full skirts, one on each side. Their bottom ends were attached to my hem, and when I lifted one reed in each hand, the flowing yards of fabric lifted into the air like butterfly wings. A sigh of delight went through the room, the soft echo of it barely piercing my trance.

I danced and spun to the music of the lyre and flute, flicking my wrists and looping my arms to make my fabric wings ripple and flow. As my body followed the choreographed moves that I’d practiced so many times before, my soul began to float free.

Yes. This is what I sought, this transcendence, this freeing from the bonds of the earth, my body, my thoughts. Though I still saw the meadow in my imagination, new visions began to flicker at its edges: a face I did not know; a stormy sea; a haze of shimmering gold.

The shimmering gold . . . there was something important about it. I strained toward it, trying to see it more clearly, but the dance was almost at its end. There was one more chance, one more moment when I might see it all.

I drew a gasp from the audience when I took a great leap into the air, wings outspread, seeming to hover there as if truly I could fly—while in my mind I sought that shimmer of gold only to have it fade away, a mystery still. I landed in a small crouch upon the floor, my wings together above my back, resting with the slightest of trembles like a newborn butterfly drying its wings in the sun.

One tense note played upon the lyre, plucked again and again.

The moment stretched, tension rising, and then a burst of music from the pipes—and of laughter from the audience—heralded the arrival of Donkey, played by a servant named Marcelius, in a plaster donkey’s head with laughably large ears and teeth. He lumbered into Lotus’s meadow and tried to eat her wings, his movable jaw champing loudly. Lotus laughed and shooed him away, and then nymph and donkey capered together, playing at chasing one another.

Then, oh, Lotus grew so sleepy and in need of a nap. And look, here was a lovely couch upon which to lie. I patted Donkey and then gracefully lay down on my back, twisting my lower body slightly onto my side to better show the dip of my waist and the swell of my hip. I lay my arms partially folded above my head, leaving my body open, vulnerable. A feast for the taking.

The trance had vanished with the dance, and I was myself again. Panting with exertion, dewed with sweat, and aware of my body on display, I shut my eyes, leaving just enough space that I could spy upon the audience through the thicket of my lashes.

Clovis was staring at me with an intensity that said he knew it was my nearly naked body he looked upon; and he knew that my eyes were not shut. His gaze locked with mine.

My breath caught in my throat, and I felt a flush burn on my cheeks. Excitement and embarrassment washed over me in alternating waves, my body not knowing which it wanted. I could not move to cover myself; I had to keep the shameless pose. His eyes seemed to say he knew it was an offering meant for him.

Then Clovis’s gaze slipped down to my breasts, lingering there, and his eyes narrowed. His brows drew down, expressing an interest—a contemplation, almost—that went beyond the sexual.

I didn’t know what it meant.

Then that smile crooked his mouth, full of flirtatious knowing, and he met my eyes again and winked.

The casual, careless, cocky flirt! Here I was, arrayed like a luscious haunch of roast pork on a platter, and a meager wink was my reward.

A wink that was altogether too knowing, too playful, hinting of previous acquaintance (though gods knew we had none beyond a single glance). To show such in front of jealous Sygarius . . . I tried to spot my master, but could not do so without moving my head. He was a watchful man; would he have noted Clovis’s knowing wink?

On the other hand, hadn’t Sygarius put me on display exactly to make men salivate over my flesh, and reach for it? It pleased him to possess that which other men desired, be it gold, fine horses, land, power, or even a female slave. I’d once heard him say that if you wished to control a man, you need only discover what he desired and offer it to him. Once he had it, you need only threaten to take it away.

“The dangerous man is the one with nothing to lose and nothing to gain,” Sygarius had said. “He’s also the only honest man you’ll ever meet. So be wary of men who tell you the truth: you can’t control them.” He’d been speaking to one of his captains but I’d stored away the piece of wisdom, taking it out in private moments when I puzzled over why I obeyed orders; why I did not try to escape my slavery, or fight harder against Sygarius’s plans for me.

There was too much that I feared losing: comfort, safety, my position as a favorite. And for many months now, Sygarius had been carefully building in me a desire for him. I wanted his touch. I wanted the fulfillment of the promise of years of waiting, and these months of training. I wanted to experience for myself the pleasures of a woman’s body. And I wanted that experience at the hands of the man who ruled this province—the entirety of my world for these past nine years—and was second to none in his power.

No wonder I did not rebel.

I’d need more than a wink from a handsome Frankish prince to tempt me to it, too, premonitions or no.

Suddenly frustrated—couldn’t Clovis feel that there was something special about me? That I was more than I seemed?—I shut my eyes fully and listened to the music. The pipes began a jaunty tune, and I knew that Priapus had arrived in the meadow.

Terix played him, of course; there was no one in the villa better suited to playing a demigod with a prick the size of his thigh who was cursed with the inability to consummate his desires. A guardian of gardens and boundaries, the comic figure of Priapus was a great favorite with the Romans. Terix’s costume had him concealing his enormous member under a hooded cloak, until—

The audience burst into laughter.

Yes, until Priapus laid eyes on sleeping Lotus, and the great red cock sprang free of his cloak. The laughter went on in waves as Terix clowned about, stroking his beastly mentula—as the Romans called it—thrusting his hips, and pantomiming the naughty, naughty things he planned to do with sleeping, unsuspecting Lotus. I felt the shadow of the fake cock over my face, accompanied by another roar of laughter.

Some jokes needed no translation. The Frankish and Roman men were one in their appreciation of a giant penis and a helpless nymph.

I smothered a smile, knowing how funny Terix could be, his face contorting into exaggerated imitations of lust, scheming, and surprise. He had no shame and thrived on attention; coupled with his quick, raunchy wit and a certain air of vulnerability, his charms were impossible to resist—as many a girl had discovered. Laughter had a way of leading to thighs spread and Terix between them.

Never my thighs, though. Terix valued his balls too highly to risk having them snipped off by an angry Sygarius.

Nor could I think of him as other than a friend; a brother. The boy I’d grown up with, in slavery. I assumed he felt the same way about me, for all that there were moments when his eyes spoke of less innocent desires.

But that was just Terix. He’d hump a goat if it were handy.

I felt his weight on the end of the couch.

We’d come to my favorite part of the pantomime, as it aroused me to a strange degree. I’d never admit that to Terix, of course.

Priapus was hoping to take full advantage of Lotus before she woke and his hands carefully lifted the hem of my gown, dragging the sheer fabric slowly up my calves. Inch by inch, my legs were bared. I could feel the held breath of the audience, hoping along with Priapus that he would reach his goal—even though they’d heard this story before, and knew how it ended. But maybe this time . . .

Terix tugged on the fabric and I feigned a sigh in my sleep, turning so that my hips were flat on the couch and my legs slightly spread. I felt the give of the couch as he placed his knee carefully between mine, not touching. One hand pulled my skirts farther upward, to my thighs. I could feel the change in air temperature as the cloth neared my loins and cooler air rushed in. A few more inches, and my cunny would be exposed for all to see.

My inner passage clenched in arousal. I felt swollen, eager, and I slit my eyes open again to gaze upon Clovis. His eyes were locked to my loins, his posture tense and tilted forward, as if halfway to pushing Priapus aside and taking his place. His face was flushed, his lips parted, and though his tunic covered his groin, I thought I detected a sword at the ready.

Terix’s hand hovered over my waiting sex. Clovis watched; Sygarius, I knew, watched; every soul in the room, male and female, watched; all hoping against hope that Priapus would make it to his goal. As did I. My cunny throbbed with unspent desire, and at that moment I ached for Terix’s hand to complete its journey. Let him touch me; let me know what it was to be petted and stroked and made love to; let me feel the warmth of another body against my own. At that moment, I felt that I’d need no more than the faintest touch against my sex to feel rapture.

It wasn’t to be.

“EEE-aa! EEE-aa!” Donkey brayed, and punctuated it with farts, as donkeys are wont to do. “EEE-aa!” fraap frapp. “EEE-aa!” fraap fraap.

The noise woke Lotus. I opened my eyes. Gasped at the horrific sight of Priapus’s giant red staff looming above me, ready to spear me.

The audience howled with laughter.

A mad scramble and then Lotus was free, dashing from the couch and the meadow, running off scene through the curtains.

“EEE-aa!” Donkey said, with satisfaction. Fraap fraap.

I hid in the shadows of the curtain, smiling at the laughter of the audience, watching as Priapus turned on Donkey in a rage. Grasping the base of his cock as if it were a club, Priapus whacked Donkey over the head with it. Donkey ran, braying, pursued by furious Priapus, penis-club beating the beast until Donkey fell down, rolled onto his back, and expired with a final, lonesome fraap fraap.

Sygarius led the applause. Donkey leapt up and removed his mask, and I dashed back out to bow with my fellow actors and musicians. I peeked up from under my brows at Clovis . . .

Only to find he was gone.