Strong fingers tighten around his spindly arm, dragging him until his feet remember their function. Such rough handling sweetens the pot, as does every grope, grasp, and growl.

A new timber jetty stretches to the Krokodilo, who wears a reptilian eye on each side of her keel. Weather-worn triangular teeth line her narrow battering ram, and two banks of oars dangle from her sides, the long overhanging the short. Aedan counts twenty-five, meaning a total rowing complement of fifty.

All make way for the towering Skipio, his bronze coils and golden beard heavier from another week without a blade. Nothing abates his fierce beauty, yet the scruff marks Aedan’s chest as much as his wiry bush does Aedan’s nose.

The druid’s hair also lacks proper taming; black twists long enough now to mask his big ears. His face conjures no more than a mere shadow, though. It is a minor inconvenience, given the chilly coastal wind.

Roman wolves in fur capes stride the surface deck, where the Krokodilo’s stout helmsman surveys their orderly chaos. The ship’s lookout is a hairy youth in light furs; he lunges amidst the furled sails with nothing to do until they reach open water.

Skipio pulls him toward an open hatch until a clean-shaven Greek in a tunic lighter than his silver hair steps into their path.

“Tribune, you’re to see me every morning and every evening,” he proclaims, hand raised. “I must salve those burns twice daily, or the scars will never lighten.”

Aedan’s grasp of Latin remains weak, but he understands the word scar. A patch of reddish pink hangs above Skipio’s left tit and stretches across the muscular prominence of his upper arm. It is Aedan’s handiwork, his brand.

Skipio nods. “I will present myself as ordered,”

“I’m no camp physician, young Severus,” says the doctor. “I’ll come find you,”

Skipio grins and speaks Greek. “I shan’t make you come look for me, sir.”

The lines around the man’s eyes tighten.

“I’m sorry about Vitus,” he says softly. “I knew him in my youth,”

Fingers dig into Aedan’s arm.

“He died bravely,” says Skipio. “Minerva saw to that,”

Suddenly, the ship’s fully armored captain, fat like his helmsmen, bellows a command Aedan cannot decipher. Shipmen move like ants, each group grabbing up their portion of the thick ropes. Two square doors centering the deck rise, and from the giant hole that their parting creates comes the stink of hay and horseshit.

Another shout from the captain parts the men, making way for a single-file line of horses. The beasts trot over the deck, each led by a young cavalry attendant, and with them is Skipio’s reedy-eyed underling.

“Actus,” his Roman bride calls, tugging Aedan along. “How many are we taking?”

“Krokodilo’s emptied her grain,” Reed Eyes grins. “We’ve got room for all eight hundred,”

“Looir,” Aedan whispers, twisting free.

She feels warm, and her long nose is rough on his lips.

“Step away, druid,” barks Reed Eyes. “You’re holding up the line,”

Skipio’s rough fingers thread into his hair as Greek finds his ears.
“Get out of the way, A-Dawn,”

He wrenches free and walks with Looir into the belly of the ship. They move between the oarsmen, one sitting high and another sitting low, the visible stains in the armholes of their tunics.

Another deck down, stale sweat gives way to pungent grass. Oil lamps in blown glass hang by thin ropes, each tiny flame toiling to illuminate the darkness.

Looir moves into a narrow berth and loudly sniffs the bundled trimmings as Aedan finds a wooden water pail and brings it to her mouth.

“You must be thirsty,” he whispers as she sloppily drinks.

“Set that down.” Skipio’s bark makes the other beasts snort nervously. “Luna doesn’t need you to drink,”

“Looir,” Aedan mumbles.

“Her name is Luna.” Magnificent eyes dare him to cross an imaginary line that promises pain without ecstasy. “You best remember that, or I’ll sew those whore lips of yours shut,”

Sensing the danger, Looir pushes her long nose between them.

“We’re going home, girl,” his Roman bride speaks sweetly as if the horse is a child. “You’ll get to dine on Alpine greens and munch apples,”

Looir whinnies and rocks her head with delight.

Aedan lifts the pail’s slimy tar-pitched rim to his lips, spilling some of its coolness down his chest as he gulps his fill. He places it at Looir’s feet, belches loudly, and dries his mouth with the back of his hand.

Skipio regards him with an endearing glance as if he’s the only man in the world. A scowl comes, however, when he digs into the leather pouch around his waist. “Those rags you’re wearing stink.” He shakes the folds from a pale blue cloth and tosses it at him. “Put this on,”

Its softness tickles Aedan’s feet, so he kicks it away.

“You get dressed, A-dawn, or I will dress you.” Skipio invades his space, smelling of rosemary. “And I guarantee, if I dress you, you won’t like it.”

Aedan burns at the prospect of being taken among the horses. He plucks the tunic up and finds it beltless; giving an Ancalite any form of rope is deadly business. His eyes set on the hopeful Roman, he pitches it over his shoulder.

Green eyes blink in amusement, and they’re so mesmerizing that Aedan fails to see the fist coming for his head.

Light brings voices.

Salty air cools the cleave in his ass as he cranes his neck to find sandaled feet treading, each step bouncing his face against soft yellow cloth. Under that cloth is the firm swell of the Roman’s buttocks.

A strong hand grips the back of his thigh and squeezes when Aedan raises his upper body to face the midday sun. Pressing his hip into the Roman’s right tit, his fingers find purchase in the man’s shoulders.

“You woke just in time,” Skipio says, dropping him.

The planks yield nothing but pain that worsens upon finding the absurd blue frocks covering him from neck to knees.

“This,” he drones. “Is the color of oceanic farts,”

“Water doesn’t fart, A-Dawn,” says his Roman bride.

“If it did, Skippy-O,” he counters. “It would look like this,”

The Roman regards him again with affection, and he looks away as the notion of it terrifies him. Wolves without armor inhabit the surface deck, their colorful shirts billowing to expose loin wraps and hairy legs.

None feel the chill, for they, like Skipio, come from mountains where winds blow cool even in the hottest months. Conversations litter the air as they sit upon thickly knotted rugs, filling their faces with food brought by lesser ranks.

A shadow reeking of meadowsweet crosses Aedan’s legs.

“Is that a bruise on your cheek?” Avalin’s toothy smile opposes her false concern. “My, how you’ve fallen, Owl King,”

“Take no pleasure in his pain,” Kelr yells from the far side of the deck. “For he takes too much pleasure in it.”

She tightens the squirrel fur around her neck and sashays toward her son. A brazen smirk on his childish face, the muscular redhead makes room for her but gently swats her hand when she begins fussing with his hair.

Kombius, their minder, observes with a laugh.

Skipio’s hand curls tightly around Aedan’s arm.

“Behave yourself, A-dawn,” he warns. “Or I’ll beat you senseless,”

When shoved, he lands on a woven rug, and his Roman bride sits beside him. Inching away, he discovers his ankle tethered by his mother’s betrothal rope. Its presence isn’t unnoticed by Avalin, who calls from her position across the deck.

“I was there when Ostin tied that around Fintan and your mother’s hands,” she yells, but then her humor fades. “And to think, you used it to choke the life out of her,”

“That’s not what happened.” Planus, the milky man with a clever tongue, struts between them, speaking the Brittonic tongue. “The Owl cut her throat, yet she provided the blade,”

Laughter comes from those also capable of speaking it.

Aedan thinks little of Ciniod other than their final embrace. He fights this sentimental invasion with memories of their bickering and how Fintan gave his life after her hounding him away to the continent.

Moments later, mud-skinned Titus arrives, passing gas before sitting beside Milky, who scolds him bitterly for the foul smell.

Bitch Face, a reed basket in his hand, plunks his prissy ass down between Aedan and his Roman bride. He sets out a bowl of dark fluid that smells of vinegar and adds water from their drinking bladder. Done mixing, he spoons some out with a cup and hands it to Mud Face.

“No one prepares wine quite like our Castor,” says Milky.

His Roman bride shuns a cup, and that’s when Bitch Face notices the druid.

“Must this mutt dine with us?” he demands.

“Stop your grousing,” teases Milky, “and go get our cattabia,”

“Yes,” Mud Face begs with hands together. “I’m starving,”

Bitch Face returns with a dish of yellowish porridge riddled with deep green flecks. The concoction smells of goat cheese, fish, and herbs, and around its creamy dome are hard, flat rolls with center holes too small for even a finger. Smiling brightly, the pretty Roman pulls out a hand-sized slab of ice.

“It’s not peak snow from back home, but it’ll do,” he says, using his dagger to shave up a fluffy pile of white that he pushes onto the porridge.

“Ah yes,” Milky beams. “A proper sala cattabia,”

Each of them grabs a roll and uses it to dig deep rivets into the porridge.

Skipio devours his, grabs another roll, and mines it into the mess before offering it to Aedan. Mud Face and Milky chuckle when he turns from his Roman bride’s offering.

Bitch Face balks. “You’re not feeding that thing our food.”

“That thing is my wife,” says Skipio.

Bitch Face departs in a huff and joins Kombius, where Kelr greets him with pathetic joviality.

After their moment of drama, tempers settle while everyone dines. The ship’s deck gently rises and falls as Aedan struggles to comprehend their language. Talk consists of ranches, farms, plantations, and orchards—all near a place named Comum. The large lake there holds meaning, along with the state of their republic.

It isn’t long before the manlet’s glower at Aedan from afar becomes loud insults. Bitch Face giggles like a boy while Kelr ruminates on Aedan’s rangy body, large ears, and vile face. No other Roman finds humor in his rant because their Tribune isn’t smiling.

Aedan pays little mins, as Kelr’s daggers are nowhere near as sharp as Ciniods.

“Let’s keep our voices to us,” Kombius warns. “It’s best not to court trouble,”

Kelr scoffs, “You think I fear that Ancalite?”

Avalin agrees. “You’ve nothing to fear from him, my boy,”

“No one does,” adds Bitch Face in their tongue.

“What sort of depraved animal finds pleasure in being raped,” Kelr wonders.

Suddenly, a painted woman in fine red silk, some centurion’s Belgic war prize, kneels beside Skipio and whispers a translation.

“He expected me to force him on the regular,” Kelr adds. “As if any man in his right mind would indulge that sort of thing,”

Bitch Face loses his grin and glances anxiously in their direction.

“You could do so much better, my boy.” Avalin wipes wine from her son’s lips. “And you will when we reach our destination,”

Skipio motions, bringing over a uniformed man.
“Take that fire-crotch Gaul below decks.”

The man salutes, “Yes, Tribune.”

Another man joins him, each taking one of Kelr’s arms.

“What’s this now?” Avalin cries as they haul away her griping son. “We’re not prisoners,”

“No, you’re our guests,” Skipio says calmly in Greek. “As such, you’ll carry yourselves with dignity.”

Kombius follows Avalin when she pursues her son.

“Remind him that vomiting ill sentiments is unwise,” he warns her softly. “If the very sight of the druid triggers him, he should remain below,”

Avalin stops to stare at Skipio.

“Those stories about you raping our priests are true,” she says in her language, of which the Lion knows little. She then addresses Aedan, “You’ve found your true mate, haven’t you, boy?”

He hugs his knees and rests his head between his Roman bride’s shoulders.

“Curse the Gods for rewarding you,” she utters before seeing to her son.

Bitch Face returns. “Must you insult those under Caesar’s protection?”

“Your fox-haired toy inadvertently insulted Scipio,” Titus scolds.

“Indeed,” adds Milky. “Remind him and his mother that the Lion outranks Kombius on this trip, and Mark Antony will never side with her against a Tribune,”

Aedan waves to Bitch Face as he descends into the galley.

“Owl King, your people have an expression,” Milky says in his language. “Never prod an eel from its crag.”

 “I’ve been bitten by plenty of eels,” says Aedan. “None has yet to kill me,”

A massive tin tub sits on the lowest deck, and the man tasked with keeping it clean removes what the wolves leave behind. He dips his two-prong rod into the water and drags it until the cheesecloth between its dual tendrils collects hair and all forms of spittle.

However, the arrival of Servius Tribune and his druid sends the lithe Egyptian behind a freshwater drum like a rat evading a clowder. He peeks out when the stringy man’s palms strike the floorboards.

“Pleasure me,” Servius orders in Greek, pulling up the hem of his tunic.

The druid turns from the man’s bulge as if disgusted, but a hand finds his head and bounces it against the tub steps. He shakes off the blow before the Roman takes his neck. “Pleasure me,” he growls again.

On his knees with a sour countenance, the druid frees his captor from the loincloth and is struck in the face by the man’s loose erection. Almost smiling, he takes it in hand, hocks a thick wad of spit upon it, and tugs masterfully, his thumb rubbing the piss-hole.

“That’s right, look at me,” Servius leers. “Injure me with those black eyes,”

His captive obeys, watching lustily as the Roman’s head tips back. A virile knot in the man’s neck trembles with each shallow gasp, and desperate for a taste, the druid opens his mouth. Without warning, a bolt of seed cuts across his slack lips, and hands box his ears, holding his head as more seed paints his face.

Servius Tribune howls in relief. “I needed that, A-dawn,” he declares, and with a handful of the druid’s hair, drags him to the tub and pushes his head into the water. A cruel hand stirs him about before allowing his captive up for air.

The druid makes a fist as his captor tucks his cock back into his loincloth; one punch to the balls—oh yes, just one—but the handsome brute’s golden curls tickle his nose when he unties the cord binding their ankles.

“I’m going to take a shit,” says Servius, standing over him. “There’s fifty-oarsmen between here and the surface deck, along with a dozen armed men. If you manage to get past them and jump overboard, I’ll fish you out of the sea myself and break your legs.”

Servius kisses the angry druid’s forehead hard before walking to the ramp. His captive takes the cord in his hands and pulls both ends to test its strength—oh yes, he’ll die choking this fucker out, but it’ll be a glorious death.

His captor stops on his way up the ramp. “Fire-crotch is likely on the rowing deck with Castor by now,” he speaks without facing the druid. “You stay put until I get back, understand?”

Malice churns behind those lifeless eyes.