ATHENE NOCTUA

Rhidian Brenig Jones

Dark. The smell of smoke. The light of a lamp falling on his face, hurting his eyes. A flinch, and the pain biting like an axe buried, rocking into bone. A wail breaking from his chest.

An arm supporting his shoulders. “Drink, Roman.” The clink of a cup against his teeth and a bitter mouthful, spraying as he coughed.

“Do you need to make water?” Something cold pushing between his thighs and the helpless gush of voiding.

The glimmer of a hearth, and the redder agony in his head receding as the kindly dark reclaimed him.

“Ah, you return to us.”

Lucius came to his senses in a round room, its curving walls whitewashed and painted with flowing patterns, spirals and coils in blue and green. A table. Stools. A column of smoke wafted into a thatched ceiling, bending now and again in a draft from the door.

A stout man, blunt-featured, his sparse white hair braided, unfolded his hands from a comfortable belly. “How does your head feel—ah, quiet now, quiet now! Pointless to pull against the ropes.” The world spun and Lucius sank back, a spurt of vomit sour in his throat. Under a brightly colored blanket he was naked and spread-eagled, tied by his wrists and ankles to the cot. Knowing fingers searched and probed the cropped curls at the back of his head. “Legionaries are renowned as doughty fighters, but, by the gods, they’re hardheaded, too. You have a lump like a duck’s egg, but no break, I think. My name is Aneirin. What’s yours?”

Lucius stared rigidly, his teeth clenched against the sickness that threatened to unman him.

“Yes, well…come, a sip of this will settle a queasy stomach.” The cot creaked, sagging dangerously under the old man’s bulk. He swirled the liquid in the cup. “Poison is not our way, decanus. This is only willow bark and ginger, with a drop of honey, no poppy this time. No? You’re sure? As you wish. It’ll keep for my poor knees. Ah, Nesta, there you are.”

A woman with a face like a frog hobbled toward them, a small pot in her hand. She muttered something in their hateful language and elbowed Aneirin out of her way.

“Nesta brings the pot for you to make water again.” Seeing Lucius’s expression, Aneirin said blandly, “She has swaddled five sons and their sons, too. I doubt a Roman cock will hold much terror for her. Or you can piss yourself and lie in it. It makes no odds.”

The woman lifted away the cloth from Lucius’s hips. She took his cock between finger and gnarled thumb and hung it over the rim of the pot. Once she was satisfied with its placing, she stared into the fire until Lucius had finished. She shook him perfunctorily, then peered into the pot and held it out for Anei-rin’s inspection. He nodded, dismissing her.

“There is no blood in your water,” he remarked.

Lucius’s face burned. He was beyond humiliation.

Aneirin drew up a stool. “I learned your language in Rome, as a young man. Your countrymen are not renowned for their manners, but I found her citizens courteous enough. That’s the privilege of the conqueror, of course. Nonetheless, I’ve given you my name; won’t you give me yours?” He paused, but Lucius lay as dumb as a stone. Perhaps his stubborn silence stung Aneirin, because he declared flatly, “Your comrades, the seven, are dead.”

The accursed rain had finally stopped and the scouting party, tired after a grueling day in the hills, lay wrapped in sodden cloaks. Scudding clouds revealed the moon, its light silvering Dulius’s spear point as he kept the watch. The silence was only broken by drips from the trees and the eerie shrieks of a distant vixen. Lucius tucked his chin into his chest and wished that he had the discipline of his tent mates, who had instantly fallen asleep. Thoughts of home drifted through his mind. Thoughts of the sun, diamond bright on blue seas. Of Marcellus. Marcellus…his iron-gray hair and iron-hard prick. He sighed and pushed away from the rock. If sleep wouldn’t come, he might as well share the watch. He reached for his sword. In that instant, a figure rose smoothly behind Dulius. Gorgon headed and terrible, it opened the man’s throat with one slash of a blade.

Lucius surged to his feet, roaring the battle cry, but it was lost in the screams of the demons who erupted from the trees, spears jabbing, murderous knives plunging. Without armor, with no shield and his head bare, he whirled into the melee, but before he could strike, a stunning blow to the back of his skull dropped him to his knees. He swayed, his sword falling from his fist as he pitched forward into the mud.

“Did you think you could pass through our lands without us knowing? That we were blind to the rats in the grain pits? We’d been watching you for days.” He patted Lucius’s thigh, making him jerk against his bindings. “You showed courage. No shame to you that we fought better.”

But shame crushed him. The heads of his comrades would now be rotting under the leaden skies of Cambria, nailed to trees or jouncing from triumphant saddles. Gap-toothed Marcus. Handsome, cool-eyed Antoninus. Lucullus, grabbing his balls and boasting that he’d leave the most leathery old whore in Isca bowlegged and whimpering after one night on his cock. No brothels for Lucullus now, none of the delights of Corinium. No whores, pox ridden or otherwise. And none for him, either. The men from the southlands of Germania were expensive, but he believed the talk he’d heard, that they were worth every last piece of silver they charged. They understood the hunger that gnawed and they fed it—ah, with their thick, oiled cocks they fed it, even if the appetite grew with the feeding.

“Aren’t you wondering why you’re still alive and the others dead, decanus? Your lumpy head is still on your shoulders, slingshot or no.” Aneirin reached out and touched the amulet that lay on Lucius’s breast, the baby charm that he still liked to wear, despite his comrades’ jeers. Marcellus had sucked the little golden owl that night in Tibur.

He had wondered, and wondered with dread. The taverns of Isca had been rife with tales of the inventiveness of the Silures in designing death for soldiers unlucky enough to survive the field of battle. Flaying. White-hot rods thrust into the openings of the body. Boiling in cauldrons. Sweat blistered his hairline and his mouth dried. But he met the old man’s eyes steadily enough.

“There in the valley, when you lay senseless and the warriors were about to slit your throat, they saw this.” Aneirin touched the charm again, with reverence. “Arianrhod’s owl. You know her as Minerva, of course, but the goddess has many names. It’s a sign that you’re under her protection—for now. But her silver wheel is turning. Pray that when it stops you’re not broken beneath it.” He sighed. “Are you hungry? I have some good bread and new cheese—” He cocked an ear. The clopping of hooves cantering to a halt outside the house brought him to his feet. “A moment.”

With every ounce of strength in his back, Lucius strained against the ropes. Veins stood out on his temples and red spots danced before his eyes, but the bindings only tightened and cut into his skin. His head spinning, almost howling with frustrated fury, he fell back and listened to the excited hubbub outside. Arianrhod? Some ugly bitch goddess of these savages.

“You still wear a bulla.” Amused, Marcellus drew the chain from Lucius’s tunic and let the warmed charm dangle.

“Laugh if you like, everyone does, but I like it.”

Marcellus touched a knuckle to Lucius’s jaw, where the down of a boy was coarsening into the beard of a man. “Ah, little owl, you’re fledging.” Gray eyes gazed into marigold, into the bright eyes that had given Lucius his nickname, but the older man dropped his hand and turned abruptly away. This high in the hills, the late evening air was cool, freshened by the cascades of sweet water that made the summer villas of Tibur so popular, far as they were from the festering stinks of Rome. He looked up at the stars. “The gods order men’s lives with great cruelty.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they’d truly favored us, we’d have been born Greek.”

“Why would you want us to be born Greek?”

“You know very well why. Don’t tease, Lucius, I’m not in the mood for it.”

Lucius got up from the couch and joined Marcellus at the window. They had had this conversation many times, and always to no avail—his luck to be in love with a principled man! He touched the broad shoulder, the tough curve of muscle of a seasoned tribune, and heat leaped through the linen. “Marcellus, nobody need know.”

“I would know and so would you. We’d know that we’d dishonored each other.”

“Dishonored each other? By loving? How can you say that?” He took Marcellus’s hand and pulled him around to face him. “Kiss me, then. Only a kiss, if it’s all you can give.”

“Kiss you?” Marcellus swallowed hard. “I want to do more than kiss you. All shame to me.”

“No shame. You’re a good man, an honorable man, and I love you for it.”

He smiled tightly. “I don’t feel very good and honorable at the moment.”

Lucius pressed his hand to the center of Marcellus’s chest and felt the thumping beat of that great heart. “Tell Felix and the other slaves to leave us alone. Please?”

With a troubled look, Marcellus walked to the door and opened it, calling out as he did so and pulling it shut behind him. Lucius could just make out Felix’s anxious squeak and his master’s gruff response. No doubt the fussy soul would be wanting to clear away the remains of the supper and bring oil for the lamps. Night was falling fast. It had been a fine supper— pork cheeks and fat dormice, mullet, pears and honey cakes— although Marcellus had eaten sparingly, as he always did. The door opened and he came back into the room. Lucius kicked away the soft woolen folds that had pooled at his feet and stood naked, his strong young cock rearing erect from a cloud of black hair. Carefully, Marcellus closed the door and leaned against it, his head bowed and his hands behind his back. He looked up and, for an instant, Lucius saw the face that his battle captains saw when they waited, steady in serried ranks, for his command. He walked to Lucius and gently, so gently, kissed his brow.

“So be it, then, little owl. So be it.”

Lucius smiled and spread his thighs and opened his mouth for the kiss.

Two men swept in, Aneirin behind them.

“So this is our guest.”

The same abysmal dress as Aneirin—breeches colored with faint stripes, tunics gathered at the waist with broad belts—but the nearer wore a heavy torc of twisted gold strands and a fine gold circlet on his dark hair. Multiple braids pulled back from his lean, sculpted face and hung down past his shoulders. The other was fairer and more heavily built, and he studied Lucius with expressionless blue eyes.

The dark-haired man picked a hazelnut out of a bowl and threw it into his mouth. He cracked it with back teeth and spat the shell onto the floor. “What’s your name, Roman?” His accent was more pronounced than Aneirin’s, but the question was clear enough.

Stonily, Lucius held his gaze.

“Doesn’t he speak? Perhaps he’s deaf. What’s your name, Roman?” His lip curled. “Perhaps he’s sulking, like a woman all peevish in her moon blood. Are you a woman, Julia Drusilla?”

Lucius paled. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Untie me, barbarian, and I’ll give you my name. I’ll carve it in your guts.”

“Oh ho, a barbarian he calls me! If he really is a he. They’re tricky these Romans, not to be trusted.” He took a step and yanked the blanket from Lucius’s hips. Two pairs of eyes lingered on his body, then flicked to his face. The fair man muttered something and they both laughed, but it seemed to Lucius, as he lay, bound in helpless fury, that their laughter was forced and rang with a false note.

“Llyr,” Aneirin said, quietly reproachful.

“Aneirin.” But he dropped the blanket and spun around and feigned a punch at the fair man. Barking with laughter, they wrestled, each trying to hook the other’s feet from under him, but neither managing to do it. Grasping each other’s shoulders, they struggled and heaved, staggering around the fire until they knocked into a table and sent a dish crashing to the floor.

“Llyr!”

They broke apart and grinned at each other, naughty boys chastised. But their grins faded suddenly, like lights blown out, and, to Lucius’s astonishment, they kissed, mouths wide and hungrily seeking. Llyr, for it appeared that this was the barbarian’s name, draped his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “I’ll have it, Roman. Your name or your head. In one hour.” They sauntered out, still jostling, still shoving, still kissing.

Aneirin lowered himself painfully to gather up the shards of pottery. “I’d treat Llyr with respect if I were you. He’s the king’s son and he’s proud. Also, he means what he says.” He hauled himself to his feet with a groan. “I liked that dish,” he said ruefully. “Ah, well. Now then, you must be hungry, but how do you intend to eat your food? Shall I feed it to you? Wouldn’t you rather have your hands free? Think you’ll need to shit before nightfall? Do you really want Nesta visiting with her pot? Come, tell me your name and I’ll release you.” He raised a whiskery white eyebrow. “I’ll heat water so you can wash…”

Lucius told himself that Llyr’s threats would never have broken him, but the offer of a wash, to be clean again…his skin was marbled with mud and dried blood, and although the old woman had been careful, drips of piss had wet his balls. He probably stank. “Lucius Matius Dexion,” he said.

Aneirin took a knife from the table and began to saw at the cords. “Listen to me, Lucius Matius. Are you listening? You’re free under my parole to walk in the hillfort. If you try to escape, you’ll be killed, owl or no owl, and your death will be hard.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

The last strands of rope separated and Lucius bit back a groan as he sat up, stiff muscles complaining.

“Hywel the king has a shaking palsy that I can’t cure. His son decides such things now. Look, let me rub your joints with some salve. My rosemary salve, this, very good for easing and loosening.”

“Who are you? What are you?”

“I? An old man with some small skill as a healer. I listen for Arianrhod’s voice and sometimes she is gracious enough to speak to me.”

“Llyr and the other one?”

“ Llyr,” Aneirin said, correcting his pronunciation.

“Llyr.” The acrid smell of the herb filled his nostrils as Aneirin rubbed a palmful of the ointment into the tendons behind his knees, digging in, then stroking the long thighs. He paused and threw Lucius a glance. “You liked what you saw, didn’t you? The two of them?”

Lucius managed a scornful grunt. “The pathicus and his concubine? They disgusted me.”

“Oh, come now—you couldn’t take your eyes off them! I know a man who desires men when I see one.” More gently, he said, “Our ways are different from the ways of Rome. We take joy in men loving, free men, equal in age, equal in strength. Llyr and Hafod are loving companions of the heart.” He slapped a firm calf muscle and gave Lucius a knowing wink. “And loving companions of the bed, eh?”

Lucius returned a wan smile and gave some thought to this.

It had been four days but the clothes still felt wrong on his skin. His own had been quickly claimed by the women, the good linens and wools cut up to make clothes for children. About his weapons Lucius knew nothing, and he mourned the loss of his grandfather’s sword. He walked between the roundhouses, their swooping thatched roofs like upturned baskets, no doubt made to keep out the rain of this northern hellhole. Frowning faces stared down at him from a watchtower. A small girl goggled and ducked behind her mother’s skirts, but a knot of boys puffed out their skinny chests and glared in manly challenge. Beyond the palings of the outer ramparts lay cultivated fields and gardens, and farther still, pastureland dotted with small black cattle. He wrapped his hands around the splintery points of the fence and wondered about his fate. There was no one in the place who could speak his language, other than Aneirin and Llyr, and he had no wish to bandy words with him. He was fearful, and although he was reluctant to admit it even to himself, he was lonely. He rested his chin on the back of his hands and gazed out at the hills.

“Lucius!”

He turned to see Aneirin plodding toward him, a swarm of children tugging at his sleeves.

“Off you go, now, off you go! Eirlys!”

A woman rose from her quern-stone and swatted them away from the old man, delivering a smart clout to one boy’s head when he aimed a resentful kick at her legs. She held long hair away from her face and looked at Lucius with dark almond eyes before she turned and herded the whining children away.

Aneirin said. “Pretty girl, don’t you think?”

Indeed she was, full breasted and plump assed, with a pleasing sway to her walk.

“Pretty enough.”

“Oh yes, many a cock raises its head when Eirlys walks by. But…” Aneirin studied the clean lines of the young Roman’s profile, the clear amber eyes, the curve of full lips and the stubborn chin.

“What?”

“But it would take a good, hard body and a handsome face to stiffen yours, wouldn’t it?”

Lucius’s knuckles whitened on the palings.

“Ah, well, that’s as may be. I’ve come to tell you something.” He raised an arm and pointed. “Do you see there, at the bottom of the hill? The pastureland?”

“Yes.”

“Valuable land that, but as you see, no herds grazing. That’s because our neighbors to the west have claimed it for years and so have we. When you saw Llyr, he had just returned from a parley. He’s managed to secure agreement to settle the dispute once and for all, their champion against ours, in single combat.”

Lucius guessed what was coming. “And I suppose he is to be your champion.”

“Yes, he is. No one better to fight for land that is rightfully ours.”

No one better to get his head lopped off.

“You don’t seem very interested.”

“I’m not. Your squabbles are nothing to me.”

“But they should be. They should be.”

“Why should they be?”

“Because you, Lucius Matius, are part of the prize.”

In the late afternoon the sun hung low in the sky, blood red and baleful. Low murmurs of anticipation rippled through the crowd of Silures, gathered in a circle on the disputed land. Lucius stood next to Aneirin, for once not the center of attention.

A swelling murmur from the crowd drew his attention away from Hafod, who was waiting in silence, staring at his feet.

Llyr walked into the ring. His hair was stiff with some whitish paste and stood out from his head in spiked hackles of aggression. From the torc at his throat to his ankles, his naked body was painted blue, the cursive lines and elaborate knots following the curvature of muscle. A single stripe swept across his nose, from cheekbone to cheekbone, and his eyelids were darkened. His cock hung defenseless from a tight groin as he waited, grim-faced, testing the edge of his blade with his thumb. In his grave absorption, he had the stillness of every warrior who contemplates death, and in his stillness, he was beautiful.

“We keep to the old ways,” Aneirin remarked. “Sword, shield and a man’s own strength.”

“Will they fight to the death?”

“If the loser fights well, he’ll be given the honor of a quick death. If not, he’ll be allowed to live out his life in shame. Pray to your gods that Llyr wins. Your balls depend on it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t I mention it? We keep our slaves entire.” He nodded at a section of the crowd. “ They castrate.”

Lucius stared at the old man, his bowels turning to water.

“Look, there’s Amren. A good fighter, but Llyr should best him.”

The two combatants raised their swords in a brief salute and the crowd fell silent. Slowly they circled, testing the ground, finding their balance, each trying to maneuver the other into the sun. Amren made the first vicious lunge—thrown off by Llyr’s nonchalant shield. They withdrew, and the patient padding resumed, feet seeking purchase on the treacherous grass. Llyr leaped into the attack, steel clanging furiously on steel, blade slicing the air in the deadly dance, driving his opponent back. Amren recovered, and Llyr met him in a bone-jarring clash as they strained, face to grimacing face, blade to guard. They sprang apart, chests heaving and fists tightening on slippery grips. Amren lashed out his foot and caught Llyr on the thigh, following with a volley of kicks. The air between them grew thick with the snarls of fighting dogs, hungry for flesh. Shields up, sweat flying, they swung and slashed and stabbed in a ringing clamor of steel, neither giving, neither gaining until, exhausted, Llyr lowered his shield and his trembling sword arm dropped. Amren instantly sprang, but too wildly and off balance. Llyr whipped back, spun and crashed his shield into the man’s face, almost knocking him off his feet. He came forward then, and with each step he punched the pommel of his sword into the man’s skull in a terrible rain of blows. Amren went down like a felled oak. Llyr walked up to him and placed the point of his sword against his throat. In the open-mouthed, eye-bulging hush that had fallen on the crowd, he spoke quietly over him. His shoulders bunched, and with all his strength behind it, he drove the blade home.

Night had fallen. In the lamplight, the intricate designs on the walls of Llyr’s house seemed to writhe and coil, serpents devouring their own tails. The guard at the door shoved Lucius hard and he took a stumbling step forward.

Llyr was sitting on a high-backed chair, idly turning a knife over and over between his fingers as a woman rebraided his hair. He was bare to the waist, the blue woad and spatters of blood cleaned away. A mesh of tattoos covered his chest and upper arms down to the gold armlets above his elbows. Hafod was lounging on a bed of wolf skins, teasing a hound by offering a bone, then jerking it away from the slavering chops.

“Sit,” said Llyr, indicating a bench. The woman murmured something under her breath that made him smile, and then continued her work, deftly weaving gold beads into the ends of the plaits. “Roman, you called me a barbarian. Is that truly what you think we are?”

Lucius followed the knife as the prince shaved it over the hair on his forearm. “Yes.”

Hafod uncurled. “Honest, but no less an insult.”

“Hafod speaks the lingua Latina, but as you hear, his accent is worse than mine.” Llyr ducked, grinning, as the bone flew through the air and the hound skittered after it. “Tell me,” he continued, “how long have you been captive here?”

His eyes still on the knife, and the hairs trickling from the blade, Lucius said, “Five days.”

“And in that time, have you seen slaves scourged until the bone breaks through the skin of their backs? Or a man pitted against a wild beast? Have you seen a line of crosses hung with suffocating bodies? No, I thought not.” He laid the knife down. “A legionary has no wife, I know, but do you have a mother? Sisters?”

“Both.”

“Are they full citizens of Rome?”

Despite his fear, Lucius smiled. “Citizens? Women?”

“See how we differ? Our women are free under our laws, equal to any man.” He gestured to the woman, who came to stand at his side. “This is Rhiannedd. She orders her own life, does what she wants, chooses who she wants.” He widened dark eyes. “And who she chooses now, legionary, is you.”

The woman looked Lucius up and down, a faint smile on her face. When, shifting uneasily on the bench, he said nothing, she reached a hand to the enameled brooch at her shoulder and pulled out the pin. The cloth fell away, revealing heavy breasts, tipped with generous nipples.

Llyr stroked her thigh. “Beautiful, aren’t they? Those tips… like sweet, dark berries. Rhiannedd is a delightful bedmate, or so I’m told. You’d like to lie with her, wouldn’t you?”

A week after Lucius took on the toga of a man, his cousin had bought him a prostitute from the arches under the circus, a soft-bodied, honey-skinned Syrian with lips like ripe figs. He had taken her eagerly enough, curious about the mysterious crevices and folds between her legs, but, curiosity and cock satisfied, he’d had no wish to see them again. Or touch any more wet pinkness with his fingers, let alone sink his cock into it. He dropped his eyes from the creamy breasts.

“No,” Llyr murmured, “it’s a different kind of tip you want to feel growing hard on your tongue, isn’t it?” He gave her rump a friendly slap to help her on her way, and she pouted and sauntered past Lucius, knocking knuckles on his head as she went, the hound with her.

From behind, Hafod slid his hands around Llyr’s neck and Llyr took one and brought it to his mouth to nuzzle the palm. “I intend to free you, Lucius Matius Dexion. Are you surprised— ah, Hafod…” He broke off to lift his face to his lover, and Lucius again watched them kiss, a deep, languorous kiss behind the concealing fall of Hafod’s braids. Llyr bent his arm up to cup Hafod’s cheek, the armlet tight around the pale bulge of muscle. Two men, Lucius thought—yes, this is how it should be. Male with male, cock responding to cock, each growing hard, so hard from the kiss. His own jolted, hot squirms thrilled through the shaft, and he felt his mouth grow dry with lust.

Llyr caught Hafod’s wrists and held them crossed on his chest. “You’re free to go, Lucius. Return to your garrison and tell the men of Isca the truth of what you found here. Tell them how the barbarian prince treated his captive. Tell them that you weren’t treated like a slave or a pack animal.” He tilted his head. “What’s this? I don’t see you leaping to your feet and racing for the door. Is there something that’s keeping your cold Roman heart here?”

“Or your hard Roman cock,” Hafod added, mouthing Llyr’s ear.

“We fight for our land and we slaughter our enemies, just as you do. But we don’t rape, Lucius. If a man wants the taste of a barbarian mouth or the pleasure of a barbarian prick, he only has to ask. It’s a courtesy we show our guests, do you see?” He smiled lazily and spread his legs and fingered the stag’s head buckle on his belt. “You can leave now, empty, or go at dawn, full of barbarian seed.”

The offer rang in the shadows. He was free. Free to return to his comrades, to yell the password to the drawn swords at the garrison gate. He looked at the door and then back to the men. Their hands were on each other, but their eyes were on him.

“Dawn,” he said.

“Do you have a lover?” Llyr asked, blowing on his chest.

Lucius shifted on the rough wolf skin, wanting those warm lips to kiss his nipples the way they’d kissed his mouth. “There is a man I love.”

“Mmm, not the same thing at all. And what do you do together, you and this man? Does he give you what you want? Does he satisfy you?”

“No…not in the way I want him to. But that way…it’s shameful for a man to play the woman’s part.”

Llyr leaned his head on his hand, watching intently as Hafod at last lowered his head to suckle the desperate nipple, sending sharp surges of pleasure pulsing to Lucius’s cock. “How strange you Romans are! How can there be a woman’s part when two men love? When fine warriors unite, they glorify their manhood and each other. This man of yours, he withheld himself from you? He refused you?”

“Did he refuse you this?” Hafod asked. He kissed the snaking ridge of muscle above Lucius’s hip, then opened his mouth and swallowed his shaft to the root.

The guards outside heard it. The revelers reeling drunkenly from Llyr’s victory feast heard it. The night watch in Isca might have heard the cry of agonized joy that tore from his throat. Nothing, nothing had felt as wonderful to him as Hafod’s mouth. Unless it was Llyr’s hand caressing his balls.

“Hafod’s good at that, isn’t he? Open your legs…bring them up. Let him…yes, that’s it. He loves to do that.”

“And he loves to watch.” Hafod held Lucius’s buttocks apart, strong fingers at the rim of his hole, waiting until Llyr had moved farther down the bed, and could see what he was doing. His tongue swept in languid laps, around and around the cramping flesh, darting and probing inward as he sucked. Lucius moaned in a daze of pleasure as Hafod wet his finger and slid it into him. In and out, stretching the thick ring, in and out, working it loose. Each thrust, each curl of the finger against the soft walls of his gut lifted his cock and forced another bead of clear seed to drip to his belly. But when he began to pant and rock his hips, Hafod eased his finger out.

The bitter scent of rosemary rose from the jar that Llyr held and grew stronger when the prince scooped out a little and rubbed it between finger and thumb. Very good for easing and loosening.

“Give or take?” he asked Lucius.

“Give or take?” Hafod repeated. “At least, to begin with.”

“Please, Marcellus.”

“No. Never. Be content with this.” Marcellus tightened his arms around Lucius’s chest and kissed the back of his neck. His cock slid, thrusting steadily between Lucius’s thighs.

“I want you to. Please—” He lowered his ass, trying to get the shaft to his hole, but Marcellus pressed his heavy weight onto Lucius’s back, pinning him.

“Make you less of a man? Ruin my darling? No, Lucius, this is enough, this is good—”

And though he wanted to weep at the dreary waste of it, he lay and let Marcellus plunge through his legs and handle his cock until their seed spurted, wetting the sheet.

“Take.”

“Good,” Llyr said, lying on his side. “I want to take this time, too.” He raised his thigh and held his knee in the crook of his elbow.

Hafod smiled at Lucius’s puzzled frown. “You in him, Lucius, and I in you. I’m better shaped for a virgin.” It was true. Hafod’s cock was arrow-headed, narrowing at the crown, whereas Llyr swelled. He took the rosemary jar and painted Lucius’s prick with a thick coat of the oily salve. “And him, now. Prepare him.”

The cleft between Llyr’s buttocks was dense with hair, and Lucius wondered whether he would ever find the hole. But there it was, the little dip. It opened easily and seemed to suck his fingers in. So strange, so wonderful, the smooth inside of a man. The prince tossed his handsome head and moaned and stroked himself.

“Good,” Hafod growled, and settled behind him. “Now.”

Lucius fitted his hips to the waiting ass. Unpracticed as he was, he knew enough to enter with care, but the little mouth had yawned widely and swallowed his shaft in one long glide. A river of fire raced through his veins, the pleasure so intense that he hardly felt Hafod’s wet cock nudging his own hole or heard his hoarse commands.

“Don’t fight me, Roman. Let me in. Ssh, ssh…yes, that’s it, that’s it. Gently now, gently now, feel me…yes…aah!”

Back to chest, back to sweating chest, the three locked. Llyr reached his hand to Lucius’s trembling flank and Hafod covered it, linking their fingers.

“Am I hurting you?” he murmured, kissing Lucius’s neck.

He felt as if his entrails had been opened with a blade, but the pain was sweet, as welcome as the pleasure. “No.”

“Move then. Hold him and move in him.”

Lucius took hold of Llyr’s prick and felt the rigid flesh quiver. He pressed into him until their balls met and felt Hafod’s echoing thrust. They moved, and the scents of rosemary and sweat rose from their heated bodies, and the darker perfume, too, that came from their joining. Llyr gave a trailing groan when Lucius’s cock slid over a swollen place inside him, and Hafod thrust savagely in response, as if answering a cry that he had heard many times before. Hearing it, Lucius’s seed began to rise and seethe, and the men who held him sensed it. Hafod gripped his hip and drove into him, again and again, jolting his body and forcing him in turn deep into Llyr. The cock in his fist tightened and thick seed spurted, hot and abundant, just as his own flooded Llyr. Hafod howled and jerked and Lucius finally took what he had wanted for so long. It wasn’t Marcellus who filled him, but a man’s seed was a man’s seed, and as he lay, and his heart slowed, and his lovers peeled their sticky skin away from his, it seeped into his scalded flesh, and he smiled.

“Decanus.”

Lucius turned on the threshold.

Llyr folded his arms behind his head and Hafod’s sleepy hand crept over his belly to draw him close. “Enemies took pleasure together and, yes, it was good. But enemies we remain. If we meet again, if I ever encounter you on my land again, I’ll kill you.”

Lucius stared and bowed his head in acknowledgment of the somber words. He pushed through the door and lifted his face to the soft dawn of Cambria.