I
The cart bounced, and rippling pain traveled swiftly up my side. It radiated from the point where a sword had entered my left side and then up to where my arm met the rest of my body. I felt need to vomit, but swallowed back bile rather than soil the back end of the rickety, horse-drawn cart.
I tightened my hands into fists and stared up at the wooden roof above me. A young man wearing his battle-scarred armor stepped into view and knelt beside me. His dark hair creased his forehead as he looked down upon me with concern in his eyes.
“Antonius, where the fuck are we?” I snarled at the young man. I looked down at myself, sans armor, wearing nothing but the tunic normally beneath it and a subligarium wrapped around my lower region. There was a long tear up the side of the tunic, and blood seeped into the woven fabric despite the bandages wrapped around me.
“Nearly there, Faustus,” Antonius replied.
“Nearly where, you cocksucker?” I clenched my teeth as the cart hit a rut in the road. Another pain seared through me.
“Mediolanum,” he replied. He gripped the inside wall of the cart to steady himself. “There is a hospital there with a good medicus named Sergius. He has skills as a surgeon. He can sew your wound.”
“Fucking Gauls,” I growled under my breath. Flashes of the battle and of the young Gaul who stabbed me took over my thoughts. I tightened my hand around the edge of the bench where I lay and remembered the feeling of my own sword cleaving his body in two—punishment for his grievance against me. “They know they can’t win, but still they fight like dogs for a bitch.”
“They do at that.” He smiled half a smile and raised an eyebrow at me. “There are far fewer of them fighting today, thanks to you.”
I huffed a breath out my nose, which caused further pain up my side. I closed my eyes tightly and willed the pain to pass, but it remained. I let my mind return to the battlefield where I commanded a Legion of Rome against the insufferable Gauls who still attempted to defy the emperor’s rule. I lost a few good men on the field today, but the blood of the Gauls was far more prevalent.
The cart jarred as it hit another deep rut in the road. I gritted my teeth and bit into my tongue to keep the scream from passing my lips.
“Not much longer,” Antonius assured me. He placed his hand on my forearm, but I shook it away.
“If the gods let me live so long,” I muttered before the cart again bounced wildly, and a scream passed my lips right before all went dark.
When I finally managed to open my eyes again, the first thing I saw was her.
She had flax-colored hair, as brilliant as the sun on a summer morning and eyes of dark blue nearly as dark as midnight with long lashes to frame them. Her skin was creamy, smooth and flawless. As she leaned over my body, the thin folds of her dress billowed to show the curve of her breasts beneath the fabric. The cold bronze collar coiled around her slender neck marked her as a slave.
It had been long since I had laid eyes upon a woman, slave or otherwise. Though there was a camp near the battlefield tents filled with whores for the taking, I did not deem it necessary to frequent the place. My thoughts were always of blood and battle, not the baser needs I prescribed for my men. I felt myself beyond such things.
However, the slave woman above me turned my thoughts from both battle and wound.
Even in my injured state, my first thoughts were of having her on her back in my bed, her thighs spread wide and her knees bent before me. I wanted to feel her skin in my hands, taste her sweat on my tongue, and feel her body give way to my cock. I wanted to hear her screaming underneath me as I plowed into her over and over again. I wanted to feel her insides clench around me as I filled her with my seed.
“Hold his arms.”
I blinked slowly and turned my head as much as I could to see a man crouching beside me, bent over my side. He was grey-haired, wrinkled, and ancient-looking. My tunic had been cut up from the side and removed completely. As the old man pushed my arm out and away from my wound, I felt slender fingers wrap around both my wrists as they were brought over my head and held tightly.
“Can you hear me, Tribunus Faustus?” the old doctor-surgeon asked. I looked to him and tried to focus on his face, which was framed by the dark wooden beams on the ceiling above him.
I swallowed once, closed my eyes, and nodded.
“Drink this.” I felt a cup being held to my lips, and I opened my mouth to take in the foul-tasting drink. I could feel it numbing my tongue before I swallowed, and I had to hold my breath to keep it down.
“You must stay still,” the man said sternly. “The more you move, the more pain there will be. If you are to heal properly, you must do everything I say.”
My head swam as I nodded again. I had been injured before; I knew what was to come. My best hope was to pass out from the pain, but the gods offered me no such solace.
With clenched teeth, I strained to keep myself from screaming aloud as the medicus removed the bandages around me, but there was no stopping the sounds from my throat. I could not lie still, and he stood to tighten straps around my shoulders and hips to hold me in place. The slave woman held my hands above my head as best she could and leaned her body over my shoulders to keep me pinned to the bed.
I felt a sharp sting as a needle pierced my side, and my body reacted against the invasion. I wrenched my wrists from the slave girl’s hands, but to her credit, she pressed her body tighter against my shoulders and kept me in place. I couldn’t move my arms down past her body, and instead, I found them wrapping around her as I entwined my fingers in her hair and held tightly.
With muscles too tense to do otherwise, I held her head to my shoulder and squeezed my eyes shut. I could feel her head turn toward me, and her warm breath crept over my skin. I held her head against me as she continued to press my shoulders to the cot below.
To his credit, the surgeon worked quickly to stitch my wound, and the woman did her best to speak in calm tones near my ear while he did so. I didn’t know what she was saying—the pain was too great to make sense of the words. I only knew her voice was reassuring.
With short, panting breaths and my arms around the slave, I endured.
“The worst is done,” the surgeon finally stated. From the corner of my vision, I could see him moving to gather something from a table full of bowls and potent smells. “The poultice will sting a bit.”
Sting it did though I managed to keep my cries to a minimum. Sweat dripped from my brow, and my body began to shake uncontrollably.
“Hand me the dressings.”
The slave pulled back and released my shoulders. Reluctantly, I unwrapped my arms from her and allowed her to move again. The slave woman reached to a table behind her and handed strips of cloth to the doctor. My head dropped back against the bed in exhaustion, and I closed my eyes, but still my consciousness remained as the doctor complete
d his task and bound my injury.
“It’s the best I can do,” he announced. “The rest is up to you and the gods.”
Forcing my eyes open again, I looked into the soothing face of the young woman above me. She turned her lips into a slight smile as she met my eyes.
“You did well,” she informed me.
I realized from her features that she must be from the western lands—perhaps even near the area where I had battled against the Gauls last year—though she had no accent I could detect. I looked into her dark blue eyes. They held intelligence and compassion, which was rare for a slave. The gaze of a slave was more likely not to meet a Roman’s eyes at all, for some would consider the act reprehensible.
I shuddered with a spasm of pain up my side and gasped for breath. My muscles stiffened as I held in a cry. The slave woman’s voice was smooth and soft, and she ran her fingers over my arm as she spoke words of encouragement.
As my eyes continued to stare into hers, I knew part of me became lost inside of them. Perhaps it was the pain of the injury I had suffered in war and my gratitude for the young woman who offered me relief, but I didn’t think so. It was the way she moved around me as she handed me a vial or cup full of whatever poultice the doctor deemed necessary to stop the deep cut in my side from becoming further infected. It was her reassuring voice and the curve of her lovely breasts as she leaned over to smooth the bandages.
She was beautiful.
“Tribunus,” the doctor addressed me, “are you comfortable?”
“As comfortable as I can be,” I said without taking my eyes from the woman.