Silk and Steel (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  ‘And whom did you threaten to extract that information?’

  This time he laughed outright. ‘No one, Corinna, truly. I asked around at the barracks. For money or favors there is always someone eager to talk, even about supposedly secret meetings.’

  Faced with the casual discovery of her own congregation, Corinna’s head swam. She started for the door, muttering an excuse about needing fresh water from the fountain.

  Decimus barred her way at the door threshold. ‘You do not need to come,’ he said, his voice gentler than it had been. ‘I thought you might wish to, but in truth I would prefer you stay at the barracks, in greater comfort and safety. I can easily warn the others.’

  ‘Warn?’ Corinna gave him a quick look and then understood. ‘Silvinus Cato! You think he means to turn us in to the guards tonight!’

  ‘Seems more than likely to me,’ came back the grim answer. ‘So your people need to be told.’

  Corinna raised her chin. ‘Then I must come.’

  He glanced at her through narrowed eyes, making Corinna abruptly reconsider her tone. ‘Letting that pass, for the moment,’ he said—and she breathed again—‘I think we should leave now. If Silvinus Cato is plotting to betray your group to the Imperial guard, he may begin with you.’ Decimus’ grim face darkened further. ‘At the very least, he may wish to check which of us is still alive this morning.’

  Everything he said made sense, but Corinna found herself overwhelmed by hopelessness. Knowing her fellow Christians, remembering the times they had worshipped together, broken bread together, made a betrayal by one of their own truly terrible.

  ‘Judas!’ she muttered, making the sign with her fingers against the evil eye.

  ‘We should hurry.’ Decimus caught her hand and stalked across the threshold, striding so quickly that Corinna was forced to jog to keep pace.

  Out in the narrow Roman streets and, rather to Corinna’s surprise, they were able to move swiftly. She had heard of gladiators being so popular that they were mobbed by crowds wherever they went. To her chagrin, her master Decimus seemed to be unrecognized. He was a head taller than most. He could barge through the tightest knot of street sellers like a battering ram through rotten timber. He looked like a painting of a hero come to life—yet no one tried to shake his hands, or clap him on the shoulder, or bawl out his name.

  As they stopped to allow a laden wine cart to lurch down-hill past an awkward series of mid-street stepping stones, Decimus caught her look and released his bark of a laugh.

  ‘We live on the street of the wheel-wrights. They follow chariot racing here with a passion, the teams of reds or whites. Gladiators are rarely considered worth watching.’

  It was how he wanted it, she realized, as he ducked closer to her and, under cover of the rattling wine amphorae, added, ‘I fight in a helmet. Few see my face.’ He drew back. ‘They call me “Thracian Ghost” on the graffiti around the city. Watch yourself!’

  He picked her up as easily as she might do a pail and carried her for several paces, plucking her from the path of a falling roof-tile that shattered on the cobbles where she had been standing.

  ‘Wait!’ Corinna seized his hair in warning before he set her down and jerked her head at the approaching body of guards clumping up the steep street. Decimus drew back with her still in his arms and they melted into the strong day-time shadows of the surrounding high-rise apartments. From the window of one, Corinna caught the acrid stench of scorching chickpeas.

  ‘You pulled my hair, wretch,’ Decimus breathed by her ear.

  ‘You prefer that the guards spot you?’ Corinna hissed back, too anxious to be deferential. She felt laughter rumbling in her master’s massive chest but he swung her down behind him and studied the approaching armed figures.

  Corinna did the same. Their commander, a Praetorian by his fancy plumes and armor, rode behind the marching guards, and behind him, also on horseback—

  Corinna squatted, covering her head and especially her distinctive hair with her arms, rocking on the spot as if she were a simple-minded beggar. Decimus remained perfectly still, one with the shadows, alert and ready to strike. His wary brown eyes tracked the one man she dare not look at directly—her former master and fellow Christian, Silvinus Cato.

  She heard and sensed the column of men pass close by and when Decimus tapped her shoulder she rose. ‘You were right that we moved out when we did, Master.’

  ‘Threat is my trade,’ he replied, turning to her and taking her hand in his. ‘We must get further away than this. That bastard knows us both.’

  ‘They were coming for us, weren’t they?’ Corinna whispered.

  ‘For you, girl,’ came the harsh answer. ‘And to finish me off, if they could.’

  They were walking again, slipping into a narrow street where a lounging, acne-scarred youth glanced at Decimus and took off. Corinna trembled, caught between amusement and alarm, although she felt she could have taken on the thief herself—she had learned some tricks as to how to deal with men in the bath-house. What clung to her more, as she and Decimus wove into darker, refuse-filled, rat-infested alleys, was the cold horror of Silvinus Cato’s final act.

  He would have those guards murder Decimus! Then he would have me blamed and doubtless crucified. How could he do that to anyone, and he a Christian? He is not. He is not.

  ‘He has done all this for what?’ she said aloud.

  ‘Money and power,’ Decimus replied, stepping round a rotting pile of refuse. ‘Money the more urgent need, I guess. The emperor has put a bounty on any Christians found and captured for the games.’

  ‘Money?’ The thought sickened her. She ran forward, dragging on Decimus’ hand, rushing ahead of him. ‘The others!’

  ‘I know. Do you know where any of them live?’ He was jogging beside her in the slightly wider alleyway, not even out of breath.

  Corinna shook her head. The whereabouts and even the circumstances of her fellow Christians were unknown to her. At least that was true also for Silvinus Cato—there would be no more early raids on innocent houses, as was about to happen at her master’s small house.

  ‘Your home,’ she gasped, imagining the wrecking that the guards would cause.

  ‘Things can be replaced,’ Decimus observed, with a shrug. ‘So, the catacombs at sunset it must be.’

  ‘We often arrive earlier,’ Corinna pointed out.

  He grinned at her. ‘That was exactly what I was hoping.’

  By now they had reached a part of the city Corinna did not know. As they both slowed to a walk, she ignored the now-persistent stitch in her side, and said, ‘A pity we cannot stop Silvinus Cato, instead.’

  Decimus stopped and she almost collided into him.

  ‘Master?’

  ‘Why did I not see that before?’ he smacked his palms together. ‘I’ve not been thinking! You’re right, that is the way. Come on!’

  An hour later, Corinna felt as if she had been walked around the entire seven hills of Rome. She and her master were on the Palatine hill, overlooking the city. At one of these high-walled villas the handsome Nubian doorman was inclined to look through her, but Decimus’ height and sheer animal charisma were more difficult to ignore. And when her master mentioned his name, the Nubian widened his dark eyes and decisively opened the gate.

  They stepped through into a courtyard with many fountains. As the Nubian whispered to a handsome Germanic house-slave, Decimus drew her aside into the shade of an ancient olive tree.

  ‘The senator who lives here is my patron, so we must go carefully,’ he warned. ‘Be on your guard. And watch what you say inside, servants hover everywhere.’

  Corinna raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

  ‘I saw that,’ Decimus said, as a shaven-headed, stocky dwarf in a white mantle stepped out of the long portico and beckoned to them. ‘You think my admonishment unnecessary, don’t you? But then every hour today your cheek is rising.’

  Uncaring if the Nubian and German were watching, he
cupped her still sore-bottom with one of his large, hard hands and gave it a squeeze. ‘Just wait, little tease.’

  Leaving her thoroughly disconcerted he strolled ahead of her, calling out to the dwarf, ‘How are you, Socrates? Still besting all comers at knucklebones?’

  Within the villa the tiled floors were comfortingly cool. Corinna was instantly escorted by another white-mantled servant to a small inner room opening onto a courtyard. There she was encouraged to recline upon a large dining couch while jugs of cut roses and lavender, and a table with cooling tisanes and morsels of food. Snails in garlic, small sausages, dates with almond and honey, lettuce and mint salad, were spread before her. While she ate a musician played, clear and silvery, and afterwards a servant brought rose-water to wash her hands and face. Several silken pillows were placed close to her head and feet and a light, filmy cloth hung across the doors and windows, so she could sleep.

  Corinna lay on her side, eyes pricking, ears straining to hear any sound of her master. Now that she was still, her bottom ached and not only from her master’s spanking. The space between her legs ached, and as she thought of Decimus the ache sharpened. Had it not been for the warbling musician she might have been tempted to pleasure herself and bring some relief, but she could not do so with an audience: that was too much like memories of serving in the bath-house.

  Eventually she drifted into an uneasy slumber. She stirred to hear voices nearby: her master and another man, walking into the room, deep in conversation.

  ‘Being a spy and an informer is exactly the kind of filthy behavior I’d expect from Silvinus Cato, ever since he became a friend of that appalling freedman,’ the stranger was saying. ‘And to do it for cash! Typical! But he is being found and brought here as we speak.’

  ‘Thank you, patron. Do I fight him, or his proxy, here and now?’

  ‘My dear boy, you are charmingly direct, a real man of action, but no. Leave this to me. It will be in another part of the villa, anyway, but be assured I want Silvinus Cato to talk to me for a long time.’

  Pray, Jesus, not about us, Corinna thought, forcing herself to remain still and quiet. She would not believe that Decimus had told his patron of her fellow Christians, but the man sounded lethally intelligent. He could have guessed much from her master’s account.

  ‘And I have your promise, patron?’ Decimus asked, as unruffled as she was terror-struck.

  ‘To ignore anything Silvinus Cato blabs that does not directly relate to Cato himself? Of course! I am no Nero or Caligula, Decimus, you should know that. Now, let me look at your girl…. Enchanting! Will you marry her? You know I believe in marriage.’

  Corinna stiffened, as tight now as a bow-string close to snapping.

  ‘I have the iron wedding ring in my tunic-pouch,’ Decimus answered calmly. ‘But I wish to win my own freedom first.’

  ‘Dear boy! You should have said! Have it! We shall complete both ceremonies tonight, under the stars. I will give her a dowry of an olive farm—No argument! The Emperor will be pleased if you do not fight in his new amphitheatre, it gives his gladiators a chance. That will win me favor with Titus. And you have earned me a great deal of honor and respect through the years. It is time you had your reward. Do get up—’

  There was the percussive sound of a sharp blow across a hard shoulder. ‘You don’t want this delicious creature to wake and find you kneeling. It’s very bad for a man to do that anywhere near a woman: it gives them ideas above their natural position. In fact, why don’t I withdraw now and leave you to tell her the news? Come, Apollo! Let the love-birds have their privacy.’

  There was a general scuffling, a swirl of air, and then silence. After a few moments, Decimus brushed his thumb down the side of her face and on across her breast.

  ‘How much of that did you hear, “delicious creature”? All of it?’

  Knowing it was futile for her to attempt a lie when he could read her every expression, Corinna nodded and opened her eyes. ‘Did your master guess?’ She stopped when Decimus raised his eyebrows and asked again, ‘Did your patron guess, too?’

  ‘Naturally. It amused him immensely, watching you listening while you pretended to sleep. It was his suggestion, in fact. He loves to tease girls, especially pretty ones.’

  A frisson of alarm prickled over her. Had their talk of freedom and marriage been nothing but a game? ‘Thank you for saving my people,’ she said, relieved by that at least. ‘The Christians,’ she mouthed, aware of his earlier warning of passing servants.

  ‘My patron is not interested in that cult, but he detests Silvinus Cato and has been after him for some time. Now Cato’s blatant move against me has given him the excuse to do so. Today my patron is a very happy man.’

  ‘Your patron,’ Corinna repeated. ‘Patron and master?’

  ‘He was my master through my training and became my patron as I succeeded. When I become his freedman he will still be my patron. Decimus rubbed at his faintly-stubbled chin. ‘Pity I could not save them all.’

  Corinna knew he meant the holy man, Joseph. She shook her head. ‘He is already in heaven,’ she said quietly. ‘Looking down from the fields of paradise and forgiving us.’

  ‘Is that right? And what, I wonder, would he say about my forgiving you, eh?’ Decimus leaned against the couch and counted off on his fingers. ‘You pull my hair. You question my decisions. You are insolent and quarrelsome.’

  ‘I am not!’

  He smiled, his brown eyes warm. ‘What was that answer just now, then?’

  ‘A suggestion,’ Corinna said, and she smiled at him in return. ‘A different interpretation,’ she offered. She was so close to Decimus she longed to touch him, but desire warred with hope and anxiety. Had he meant what he said? Would he change his mind?

  ‘What?’ Decimus asked, watching her face. ‘Do you want to see the ring? You will, when I decide.’ He folded his arms. ‘Right now, you need a reminder.’

  Corinna sat up, one fist clutching a pillow. There was a glint in her master’s eyes she knew well. Staring at his handsome, strong face, his remarkable gray hair, the sheen of daylight on his muscled arms and legs, she thought of him naked. Her sex twitched and ached more.

  ‘Here?’ was all she could manage.

  ‘Now that the patron has said we are to have privacy, we will.’ He allowed his arms to drop to his sides. ‘Unless you prefer—’

  ‘No!’ Corinna wanted no part of being any show—she had been exhibited for too long and too often at the baths. ‘Not even—’

  ‘If I say so?’ Decimus growled.

  He was already moving and Corinna tried to explain.

  ‘I meant, not for all the gold in Titus’s treasury—Oh!’

  He flipped her over, flung up her tunic, tore off his loin cloth and entered her. Legs dangling in mid-air, her hips jammed against the side of the couch, she was utterly pinned down, unable to escape even she’d wanted to. Impaled upon his rigid cock, she whimpered, needing more but thinking of the inevitable sounds. Everyone here will know.

  His teeth lightly nipped her neck as he began to move inside her.

  ‘Now,’ he said, hoisting her further over the couch, over a pillow. ‘Tonight we shall marry and we shall both learn how to farm and you—’ He drove himself deeply into her, his balls slapping against her bottom—‘You will find your duties as a wife the same as they are now. For the man is master in his own home, is he not?’

  He was pumping into her, faster and faster and Corinna, even as she thought it impossible to speak with her body was threatening to burst with such pleasure, found her tongue sobbing, ‘Yes! Yes!’

  The heat in her loins exploded in a huge tingling wave, sweeping out from the center of her sex to her head and feet. Her breasts jiggled helplessly, her still-red bottom pumping and jerking, as she cried out her final yielding.

  Abruptly, her master pulled himself out of her and then they were sprawled together side by side on the couch, kissing. Moments later, Decimus put her beneath him and
had her face-to-face, taking his weight on his arms so as not to crush her or scratch her with his tunic. A few rapid thrusts and he too was finished, flushed and shouting his triumph.

  They slept a moment, limbs intertwined. When she stirred, Corinna moaned, arching her back. She was naked, her tunic a glossy puddle on the tiled floor. Naked as she was, his heap of carelessly-discarded clothes about to slide off the end of the couch, Decimus was tonguing and caressing her breasts. Sucking her nipples, lightly patting between her thighs, he smiled.

  ‘No,’ he warned, as she reached for him. ‘Another time you can fondle and ride me, today I am the trainer.’

  Hooking her leg with one of his, he encouraged her to open her legs more widely.

  He skimmed the tips of his fingers over her bush and lower.

  Do you know how helpless I am with you? Corinna thought, her green-blue eyes holding his. Do you know how much I love being helpless with you?

  He smiled, surely aware of exactly what she was feeling, kissed her mouth, and then shifted lower. ‘Honey,’ he crooned, his lips vibrating against her taut belly. ‘I’ll enjoy farming with you, especially the plowing.’ His fingers dabbled in her juices, sliding into her.

  Dizzy with pleasure, Corinna still fought to make a response. If she were to be married to this large brute, surely she couldn’t let him have everything his own way? There were women deacons in her congregation who she had seen debating with men and surely she could do the same?

  ‘No plowing,’ she gasped, striving to keep still when her hips wanted to move with his questing fingers. ‘Olive farm.’

  ‘True enough.’ He tasted her breasts again, his tongue sucking each nipple. ‘So pink,’ he growled. ‘I love it that you are so pink. So, you think you can contradict me? Out of bed, maybe, but here? I think not.’

  He drew her upwards off the couch, his fingers still working within her, his other hand cradling her bottom. ‘I think that here, you are my secret slave for spanking and for many other carnal delights.’ He squeezed one reddened cheek, then the other. ‘What do you say?’