Zelamir

A Roman Holiday

Chapters 15-20

Chapter 15

Marcus lent against the gunwale of the ship feeling the sun warm on his back. The scent of the pine trees from the surrounding forest was heavy in the hot Southern air. The bustle of the little harbour of Port Contre was hushed as it's population took their midday siesta. As soon as the town woke up again and they finished replenishing their supplies of water and food for the long haul across the bay of Biscay they would sail.

They had made London just in time to catch the ship before she slipped out of the port on the falling tide. The mud splashed slave boys with their legs and feet cut and bleeding from the road, their last reserves of energy being wrung from their exhausted bodies with the lash, had staggered onto the quay side as the mooring ropes were cast off. There was only time to tumble the boys and their burdens onto the deck of the ship and to hand the animals over to the care of Corax's London manager before the ship sailed.

After that the journey had been a leisurely one. The ship was a large cargo vessel. Deep hulled and primarily sail powered, although there were sweeps to manoeuvre her in port or coastal waters, her speed was determined by the direction and force of the winds. These since their departure from London had been favourable and light so they had had an easy journey of it. Now the ships crew, like the town, slept.

Marcus glanced behind him to where his father lay dozing on a mattress on the poop deck under an awning erected to shade him from the sun. Corax had accepted with equanimity, almost in fact with gladness, the slowing down of pace that the sea voyage had imposed on them. His father, he thought, was always more relaxed and at peace with himself at sea than when on land.

His eyes moved away from Corax to the place where Pisclus and Bestia squatted together in the shadow of the deck house. The week that the journey had so far consumed had made a great difference to their appearance. Rest and adequate food had filled out their bodies once again and given a healthy gloss to their skins. Their young flesh had soon healed and the marks of the whip faded. Denied all clothing the sun and wind had tanned their bodies Pisclus was now a deep nut brown while Bestia with his blonde hair was a lighter golden colour. Marcus was surprised at how quickly the two boys had recovered. He noticed that they were, even now, not sleeping but playing a simple game together, that appeared to hinge round guessing whether your opponent would put his hand out clenched or unclenched.

Indeed he had suggested to his father that the boys were having too easy a time. Corax had replied that there were at the moment, he would have thought, no more obedient little slaves in the whole Empire and that they had the means to bring them quickly to heel when the necessity arose. Indeed Marcus had to admit that once Pisclus had been cleaned up and given a chance to recover from the ordeal of the march to London he had been as attentive and as lively a boy as could be desired. That is not to say that he had not on occasion given the lad a cut or two with the cane across his tight little rump but that was more because he enjoyed making the boy squeal than any real need to correct him.

The thought of the rod cracking down across Pisclus's sweet bum excited him and he was just about to beckon the boy over when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement on the otherwise deserted quay side. He turned and saw a man approaching followed by a naked slave boy carrying a load on his back. Apart from this being the hour of the siesta there was nothing strange in this. Such sights were common enough and were usually only worth a second glance if the boy was an unusually attractive one. What was unusual was the colour, or more accurately the colours, of the boy's skin, for he was not white or brown or black but multi-coloured. Red, green, blue, yellow. orange, the lad's body seemed to be splashed with all the colours of the rainbow. Marcus had never seen anything like it before. He leaned forward to try to get a closer look but the two, the man and the brightly coloured boy, were now hidden from his view under the side of the ship. He heard the sound of a strange man's voice raised in enquiry and the skipper's rough voice replying.

A minute or two late there were sounds of footsteps on the companion way and the skipper himself appeared. Corax blinked his eyes open, raised his head and stared enquiringly at him.

"Excuse me Sir," the skipper spoke respectfully for Corax owned the ship. "There's a man here seeking a passage to Rome for himself and his boy. Would you have any objection if we gave them space? They'll sleep on deck so that they'll only disturb you during the day. The man appears to be a respectable sort of craftsman."

"I would prefer to describe myself, Sir, as an artist rather than a craftsman," a fresh voice spoke smooth and slightly oleaginous. Then the speaker appeared , standing beside the Captain, smiling and bowing deeply to Corax. "An artist whose canvass is human flesh. If I may have the honour of showing you and your delightful son," the man made a quick duck in Marcus's direction, "a sample of my humble skill Sir."

"Come up here boy." His voice suddenly lost all it's oily sweetness. "Quick now you useless little runt. Don't keep the Gentlemen waiting. Put your load down now so they can see the full glory of my work."

Marcus saw that the child's body was covered from head to toe in vividly coloured pictures, serpents, bulls, swans, fawns, centaurs and gods interspersed with naked women and boys writhed in garish profusion over his chest down his thighs and shins and even spread up to his cheeks and forehead.

"Allow me to introduce myself ,Sir," the man continued resuming his humble weedling tone. "Eumolpus, Sir, a tattooist of I think I may say some skill. A lowly art perhaps but an honourable one I belief and one that has the advantage of allowing me to exhibit a walking sample of my skills."

"Turn round boy," he reached his hand out towards the boy to turn him and Marcus noted how the lad cringed away from his touch. "There is a, particularly fine Ganymede being fucked by Zeus on his left buttock that I would like you to see. Observe how when he moves his bottom it appears as thought the two are actuallyin congress together."

"Remarkable," Corax said dryly. "there appears to me not to be a single part of his body that you have not decorated."

"True Sir, little remains for me now on which to exercise my skills. Between the toes and under the arches of his feet alone I think. Perhaps if you are kind enough to grant the good Captain permission to give me a passage to Rome I will fill some part of my idle hours in, as you so aptly put it, "decorating" these few remaining areas. Then when that work is completed the question will arise as to whether I should retain the boy as a sample or sell him as a work of art and obtain another to act as a canvass for my genius."

"The process must be a painful one for your canvases I should imagine," Corax said mildly.

"If one is to judge by his screams that must be so Sir. If the lad's cries while I am at work on him should disturb you you need only say so and I will desist immediately. On the other hand I see you have two handsome little slave boys over there and if you wish I would be glad to exercise my art on them."

"Father could I have a Ganymede and Zeus on Pisclus's bottom?" Marcus asked eagerly. "It would be great fun to watch the God fucking the boy every time he moves around."

"No you may not," Corax said firmly. "It may seem an attractive idea now but you would soon grow bored of it and you're going to school when you get to Rome and the teachers will not think much of a student whose personal slave has an invitation to sexual licence etched on his bum."

"I would be prepared to have some discrete work done on Bestia but I think before I accept your offer I would like to see you actually at work."

"Certainly Sir., certainly that is no problem," the man exclaimed. "Fetch my instrument case here straight away boy."

Marcus noticed that the lad's hands were trembling as he fumbled with the fastenings of the bundle that he had carried on his back and that tears were running down his face when he turned back towards his master, a small wooden case in his hand.

"Well get down on the floor on your back," the man ordered impatiently, taking the case from the boy.

Eumolpus kicked the boy's feet apart and sat down between his legs. He clamped the boy's right leg tight against his side with his arm and took a took a firm grip of his foot with his left hand.

The boy had begun to sob uncontrollably although the man had not even started his work.

"I will," Eumolpus continued addressing Corax, "tattoo a picture of a lizard's head peeping out between his big toe and his second toe. It will be green with a red tongue, a red crest and yellow eyes."

"I first mark out the pattern with chalk and then actually perform the tattooing colour by colour."

He sat for a moment drawing, his head bent over the boy's foot. Then he replaced the chalks in the box and took out a large wooden handled needle. The boy wailed in terror.

Spreading the boy's toes Eumolpus jabbed the needle sharply into the tender flesh exposed between them. The boy's wail rose into full bodied screams. His head rolled frantically to and froe and he drummed his hands on the deck. Oblivious to the noise and his victims agony the man continued methodically about his work.

"I believe in driving the needle well in to get depth and permanency of colour," he remarked raising his voice to make himself heard over the din.

Marcus excited by the noise stepped closer to the man and his writhing victim. He looked down at the boy's contorted face and heaving chest as he fought for breath to scream out his agony. Intrigued by the boy's suffering he dropped to his knees beside him and placing the palm of his hand on his chest felt the lad's heart's fevered pounding.

He became aware of laughter and voices about him. He looked around and saw a forest of strong dark legs and realised the ships crew had gathered to enjoy the fun. He stepped back. He caught Pisclus's eye. The boy seemed to know instinctively what was required of him. Perhaps he could see the bulge in the front of Marcus's tunic. In a single lithe movement of his naked body he got to his feet and moved quickly over to his master.

Marcus rested his hand on the boy's bare shoulder and swung him round so that he faced the stern of the ship. One of the crew made a lewd comment and the others laughed loudly. With a series of sharp open handed slaps on Pisclus's naked bum he sent the lad scuttling before him to the area behind the deck house where they were hidden from the crowd about the tattooist and his young victim.

A sharp slap on the back of Pisclus's head bent the boy forward. Catching hold of the taffrail to steady himself, Pisclus arched his back forcing his bottom upwards. Marcus ran his hands over the child's taught rump so invitingly presented to him. Pisclus wriggled appreciatively and Marcus marvelled at the way the lips of the lads anus parted and closed in response to his movements. He noticed that the rawness had completely gone although some fragments of scar tissue still remained.

Marcus sucked his thumb and then gently ran it's nail along the lips of the boy's anus. The sensation excited Pisclus still further who pushed his lovely bottom higher into the air. Seizing his opportunity Marcus jabbed the full length of his thumb into the boy in one sharp brutal movement. Pisclus cried out shrilly and then began to moan as Marcus worked his thumb inside him. Marcus reached round the younger boy with his left hand and fingered the child's tiny but stiff prick. Pisclus began to pump his rump up and down on Marcus's probing thumb driving himself nearer to orgasm.

Judging his moment Marcus stepped back. Pisclus whimpered rotating his hips in a desperate effort to persuade his master to resume his probing of his bum.

"Stay where you are tart," Marcus commanded.

Pisclus whimpered. Marcus smiled as he relished the sight of the boy, his bottom raised, wordlessly pleading to be used, a mere animal gripped by animal emotions.

Marcus stripped off, dropping his clothes on the deck. Shudders wracked Pisclus's body. He knew what Marcus was doing and what was to come. He was frightened but desperate for his young master's cock. Marcus knew this and took pleasure in making him wait for it.

He rested his hand on the boy's bottom feeling the taught flesh quivering in excited anticipation. Taking hold of his own swollen prick he pressed it's tip against the lips of Pisclus's hole. The boy gasped and strained backwards trying to impale himself on Marcus's iron hard shaft. Marcus let the child wait a second or two longer and then in one single powerful thrust buried his cock to it's roots in the boy's bum. Pisclus's bare feet scrabbled on the wooden deck as he fought to keep his footing before the older boy's attack. So fierce was Marcus's assault that for an instant he was lifted bodily from the ground. Then Marcus drew back. Pisclus redoubled his grip on the ship's rail and braced himself in readiness for his master's renewed onslaught. Marcus began to methodically fuck the boy driving his cock into his tight little bum with long hard regular thrusts. Pisclus already wild with passion responded enthusiastically panting and sweating as he rode the older boy's cock. It hurt but the hurt itself was the most piercing ecstasy. Marcus increased the tempo of his thrusting. Pisclus screamed. He had been bought to the point where pain and pleasure merged into one. The Marcus shot his load deep inside the smaller boy's bottom.

Pisclus collapsed to his knees. For a moment he knelt, panting, supporting himself by hanging onto the ship's rail. Then he turned, pressed his face into Marcus's crutch and with quick eager flicks of his tongue set about cleaning the filth from that boy's now flaccid cock.

Once he was satisfied that Pisclus had cleaned his cock properly Marcus put his clothes back on. As he walked back round the deck house he noticed that a dribble of semen was running down the inside of Pisclus's thigh. Well, what he had been doing to the boy was no secret.

Eumolpus was still busy exercising his art on his hapless slave. The miserable boy had long since screamed himself hoarse. Now only a low harsh whimper escaped from the lad's contorted foam flecked lips as the man, heedless of his victim's suffering, continued to ply the tattooing needle pausing every now and again to rub vivid green dye into the freshly punctured flesh. It was clear the boy had been exhausted by his suffering. His feet and hands no longer beat the deck in paroxysms of pain. He was by no means still but his movements were confined to convulsive twitches of his body and limbs and a strange, persistent rolling of his head.

Marcus could see his father standing among the crowd of grinning sailors, his face impassive. One of his hands rested on the back of Bestia's neck.

Marcus pushed his way over to them. When he got nearer he could see that the boy was terrified, he was trembling and crying softly to himself.

"Doesn't seem as though Bestia is looking forward to having Eumolpus decorating him," Marcus said amused at the sight of the wretched lad's misery.

"No," Corax replied squeezing his slave's slim neck painfully. "The brat doesn't know the meaning of gratitude."

"You will get Eumolpus to tattoo something on him Father?"

"Yes I think so. It would be an opportunity lost if I failed to so and he seems a competent enough work man. It will be a way of filling in some of our spare time during the voyage."

"Have you any idea what sort of thing you want done? Perhaps a Ganymede and Zeus?"

"No. I don't think so. Something more discrete but provocative. We may as well see what Eumolpus has to suggest."

"I've seen enough now thank you," Corax continued raising his voice. "I have made my mind up. I would like you to do some work on my boy here but would be glad of your advice."

"Excellent Sir, excellent. I am at your service of course Sir," Eumolpus said scrambling to his feet and wiping the blood from the tattooing needle with a piece of rag.

"This little tart here," Corax said indicating Bestia, "but I don't want anything too elaborate just some thing to give a talking point or a little zest to his appearance."

"I know exactly what you mean Sir. Let me see a nice honey blonde, so something dark and strong to contrast with that and a talking point …" Eumolpus paused in though.

"I know Sir just the thing. A dark red rose centred on his hole with a dark green stalk running down his cock, round the base of his balls and up his perineum and then along the cleft of his buttocks with a single leave peeping out at the top of his bottom. Very artistic and provocative Sir. When the boy is standing straight all that will be seen is the stalk at the front of the body and disappearing behind his balls and at the back the green leave appearing form the top of his bottom. It'll make everybody who sees it wonder what lies within that intriguing crack. When he bends forward the rose with the centre of the bud his delightful little hole will be fully visible, an entertaining conceit I would suggest. We could give added colour and interest to the stalk by giving it sharp thorns with drops of deep red blood falling from them."

"Well that sounds excellent. You are I can see a true artist. How long will that take and when will you start."

"I would prefer Sir to start tomorrow if I may. I will need first of all to draw the design on the boy. That is the truly creative part of the process and I would like to start it with a fresh mind. Once I begin, well, I have no doubt the brat will scream and throw himself about. I will after all be working on some of the most tender parts of his carcass. That takes it out of me. Say four, five days."

"So it will be completed before we make our landfall in Lisbon," suggested Corax.

"If that is what you want Sir, that is what will be done."

Chapter 16

It was late evening and the ship had been underway for sometime when Bestia finally cracked under their constant taunting. It was a still evening. Lamps had been lit and the flames burnt steadily with hardly a breeze to flicker them. A full moon hung in a cloudless sky and seemed to light a silver road across the dark sea. The water lapped gently at the hull of the ship as it lay almost motionless in the water.

The peace and beauty of nature contrasted with the cruelty of the humans. The boy's had been serving their masters with their supper. This task had now been completed. Marcus had required Bestia, not for the first time that evening, to bend over and part his buttocks so that he could see where the rose blossom was to be tattooed.

"Do you think Father, he asked idly prodding the boy's hole with his unlubricated finger, "that Eumolpus will actually puncture the lips of his anus when he draws the rose?"

"I suppose if we ask him to he will." Corax sounded amused by the suggestion. "Certainly it would make the whole design more exciting if it was carried right up to the very edge of his hole."

Bestia howled in misery and dropped to his knees. Shuffling round he turned to face his master.

"Sir… Please Sir," he sobbed, "… must… do I have to… Oh Sir… Please Sir…" He was incoherent with terror.

"What you useless lump of dog shit, you think you can discuss with me what I will have done to you. I suppose you think just because I am going to have a pretty picture drawn on your bottom your exempt the lash." Corax's good humour had deserted him. His voice was cold with anger.

"No Sir… please Sir," the boy pleaded hopelessly.

"Well your bottom not the only part of your anatomy that's open to flogging. We will have a little test of discipline. Over to the deck house. Turn and face me. Put your hands up as high as you can above your head.

"Now one of you lift the little tyke up so he can get a grip of it's top."

A burly sailor stepped forward grinning and ceasing the sobbing boy under his arms lifted him up.

"Excellent," Corax said rising to his feet a thin cane grasped in his right hand. He stood for a moment grimly regarding the taught body of the naked child. "Now boy cunt you hold on like that till I tell you you may let go or I'll have you put back up there and I'll start to flog you all over again."

He lifted the rod over his head and brought it slashing down across Bestia's bare chest just below the nipples. The supple cane scored a thin crimson welt across the boy's golden skin and licking round the side of his ribcage split the tight skin drawing a single bead of red blood. Bestia screamed loudly. His heels drummed against the plank wall of the deck house.

Corax paused waiting for the boy to be still. Then he brought the cane cracking down again. This time the blow fell a mere quarter of an inch [6mm] below the first one. Again the boy screamed. Again Corax waited till he was still. He meant to ensure that Bestia would feel the full agony of his punishment. Twice more he lashed the cane down across the boy's tightly drawn flesh working his way down the screaming child's chest. Then he paused and took careful aim.

"Hold tight pig shit," he grated and laid the final cut of the beating diagonally across the boy's chest, cutting across the stripes already inflicted and the child's right nipple. Once more a shrill scream of agony split the still night air.

"You may let go now," Corax said almost gently.

Bestia landed on the deck and crumpled to his knees, his arms wrapped about his tortured chest. Corax bent down and catching hold of him by the neck dragged him into the deck house. Through the open door came the sounds of a boy being violently and thoroughly fucked.

By next morning a light warm breeze was blowing from the East carrying the vessel steadily along the Northern coast of Spain. The peaks of the Spanish mountains were just visible from the ship's deck. A few clouds now drifted slowly across an otherwise blue sky.

Eumolpus had spread out his tools on the deck towards the waste of the ship. The crew, with the mild following wind only the one man was needed to steer the vessel, had gathered round him expectantly and were joking and talking among themselves. Every now and again they would glance with growing impatience towards the stern where Corax and his son were finishing a leisurely breakfast.

At last the meal was over. Corax snapped an order at Bestia who began to make his way unsteadily towards the waiting crowd. He as shivering and he appeared to be having difficulty in keeping control of his legs. A sharp word from Corax sent Pisclus scuttling after him. The younger boy took Bestia's hand and lead him forward. As they got nearer the assembled crowd he could see tears were streaming down the older boy's face. The lad's misery elicited an outburst of heartless jeering from the sailors.

"Well come on boy," Eumolpus snapped impatiently, "get down on the deck. I've been waiting long enough for you already."

Bestia crying softly obeyed. Eumolpus stripped off and knelt beside him. He began to stroke the boy's cock.

The man glanced up at Corax who had strolled over to watch.

"The first thing I have to do is to mark out the design," he explained. I'll do the front and back of his body as to separate processes but before I can mark out the design I need to get his cock hard. But the little tart won't get an erection on."

He pushed his free hand under the boy's bottom feeling for his hole.

"No it's no good. He just won't come and he's clamped his bum shut."

"Panic I suppose," Corax remarked contemptuously. "Well no doubt we could force him but it would take time. Pisclus get down and suck the tart's prick. Come on boy you like cock I know."

Obediently Pisculus dropped to his knees and bending forward began to tongue first Bestia's tiny hairless balls and then his small limp prick. He was very conscious that his position, bent forward over the others boy's crutch, exposed and opened his own bum. The sailors made lewd comments on it and he felt a damp finger tip pressing into his hole. Bestia's cock began to harden and Eumolpus cuffed him sharply on the side of the head.

"That's enough," the man said pushing him to one side. "I want the boy hard not having an orgasm."

Kneeling beside Bestia Eumolpus began to chalk in green the outline of the roses stalk.

"Why have you stripped off?" Marcus asked.

"You'll see soon enough young Sir," the man replied. "There that is done now I can begin. Since I've got such an audience four of you men take an arm or a leg each."

He waited until four burly sailors had Bestia pinned in place. Then he picked up the wooden handled needle. With an evil smile he held it up so that his victim could see it. The boy's sobbing rose to a shrill wailing scream. Eumolpus laughed loudly and jabbed the point of the needle into the lads erect prick. A flood of amber coloured fluid spilled out of Bestia as the boy peed himself.

"That is why," Eumolpus said loudly wiping the moisture from his body with his hands, "I stripped off young Sir."

He bent again to his task. In time Bestia's screams grew hoarse and his struggles became weaker. Pisclus crept round to his head and tried to comfort him in his agony cradling his head in his arms. Bestia's eyes cheeks were wet with tears his eyes stared unseeingly into the distance, a thin white froth had formed about his lips. Eumolpus glanced up and reaching out clouted Pisclus hard on the side of the head ordering him to clear off. Pisclus scuttled off but after a minute or two hunkered at the rear of the group of men, seeing Eumolpus fully absorbed in his task, crept back. This time nobody took any notice of the naked slave boy.

Eventually Eumolpus finished his work for the day. The men wandered off and Pisclus and Bestia were left alone. Bestia lay on the deck his head resting on Pisclus's bare thighs his body racked with sobs. After a time he crawled away to a corner of the deck where he huddled himself into a little ball of naked boy misery whimpering quietly.

In time the two boys were summoned to wait on their masters. Bestia's hands were trembling so much that he was soon ordered to take himself off.

"I'm not going to have a brat shaking like that sharing my bed," Corax remarked grumpily, "That leaves me without a bum to enjoy tonight."

"You could have me Father," Marcus offered.

"A truly loving son with a Roman sense of duty," Eumolpus, who had been invited to share their meal, remarked ingratiatingly.

After the meal was over father and son became engrossed in each other and Pisclus was able to slip away unnoticed. He found Bestia sitting on the deck his knees drawn up to his chin his back resting against the gunwale. Pisclus settled down beside him.

"I got this for you," he said offering him a lump of wheaten bread and a bowl containing some fish stew that he had stolen from the dinner table.

"I don't want it thanks," Bestia replied sniffing. "there's more to be done to me tomorrow you know. He's going to take the stem round my balls and between my legs. It hurts. It hurts so much." He began to cry quietly.

Pisclus dipped the bread in the stew and after taking a bite of it himself held it up to Bestia's mouth. He didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say.

"And then there's the rose itself and that will be worst of all." Bestia turned his face away, refusing the food.

Pisclus put the bowl of food down and slipping his arm around his friends bare shoulders held him tight.

Bestia was again in no fit state to help serve the next morning. After Corax and Marcus had enjoyed a leisurely breakfast they sent Pisclus to fetch him. He found Bestia in a pitiable state, knees drawn up to his chin, his hands clasping his head, his thin shoulders shaking as he sobbed. Pisclus touched his hand and he lifted a tear stained face to the other boy.

"You must come now," Pisclus said gently. "It will be worse for you if you don't."

Bestia heaved himself wearily to his feet and meekly allowed himself to be lead forward by the younger boy. Eumolpus came on deck carrying his case of instruments. Bestia caught sight of him and checked.

"Come on please Bestia," Pisclus said pulling at his hand.

Bestia jerked away, darted to the side of the ship and scrambling over the rail, threw himself into the sea. Pisclus ran to the side. It was obviouse that Bestia could not swim. The boy's arms threshed desperately in the water and then his head disappeared beneath the waves. All the time the ship drew inexorably away from the drowning boy.

"The little sod," Marcus exclaimed. "He did that on purpose. He's not going to be allowed to get away so easily."

He shed his tunic and climbing over the rail dived into the sea. With strong practised strokes he swam back to where Bestia had again surfaced thrashing in the water. He grabbed the boy. There was a brief struggle but it was soon over. Marcus was a year older than the other boy, better fed, and stronger. The ship hove to. A sailor who could swim joined Marcus in the water. Together they tied a rope round Bestia's shoulders and he was hauled aboard. A rope ladder was lowered and Marcus and the sailor clambered up it.

"Where is that little runt," Marcus demanded as soon as he was back on deck.

He strode across to where Bestia lay coughing sea water from his lungs.

"You filthy piece of dog's turd," he shouted kicking him as hard as he could with his bare feet. "I'll teach you to try to that on."

"Get the brat somewhere where I can flog the tyke," he ordered panting. He found kicking Bestia hurt his feet.

Two sailors grabbed the still choking boy and stretched him face down over a hatch cover. Another man passed Marcus a short length of rope. Marcus whirled it back over his shoulders.

"Not across his bottom, please young Sir," Eumolpus cried in distress. "I have work to do there and it will be difficult enough without having them bloodied."

Marcus looked at him and nodded. He slightly changed his position and brought the rope end thudding down across Bestia's shoulders leaving a broad crimson stripe across his bare flesh. The boy howled and his body jerked convulsively under the impact. Again and again Marcus arm rose and fell and the thick rope cracked down on the writhing boy as he screamed out his agony. Eventually Marcus tired. He threw the rope end down.

"He's yours now," he said to Eumolpus, "and make sure you hurt him."

"I will young Sir. I will," Eumolpus promised and he did.

Bestia was twisted onto his back and dragged from the hatch cover, his raw shoulders banging against the deck. Eumolpus stripped and seated himself across the boy's stomache facing his feet. Two sailors gripped his victim's ankles, holding his legs apart. The man began to mark out his pattern around the base of the boy's scrotum with sharp jabs of his tattooing needle. At a word from him the sailor holding Bestia's right ankle released it and Eumolpus hooking his right arm under the boy's thigh drew his leg back so that he could continue his work around and behind the boy's balls. Once again Bestia's frenzied screams faded in time to a hoarse keening.

When Eumolpus finished his stint for the day Bestia was shackled by an ankle to the mast. For the next three days the boy was kept secured in this way except for the periods when Eumolpus was working on him. Bestia did not scream very much during this period. Just when he saw Eumolpus approaching carrying the tools and for the first fifteen minutes or so of each session with that artist. Pisclus spent all the time he could get away from serving his master with his fellow slave. There was little he could to lighten Bestia's sufferings and they spoke little. He just tried to let the other boy know that he was not utterly alone in his misery.

On the fifth morning after the beginning of Bestia's ordeal the two boys were sitting close together on the deck when there was the sound of a man's foot steps approaching from the other side of the deck house. It was about the time when Eumolpus was in the habit of starting work and Bestia's body began to shudder in anticipation of the pain to come. Pisclus put his hand on his thigh to try to comfort him.

"Well boys," a reassuring voice said, "I've been sent with something for you two."

Pisclus jumped up happily. He recognised the voice as that of the ships cook. A basically kindly man from whom he had begged many scraps for Bestia and himself.

The man came into sight carrying a large steaming earthen ware bowl and a loaf of black bread. Bestia ran forward to him. The man lowered the bowl so the boy could see it's contents, great chunks of tuna floated in a thick fish broth.

"Here take it," he said. "It's for you and your friend."

Pisclus took the bowl in both hands a great smile of happiness splitting his face in a broad flash of white teeth. It was by far the greatest amount of food that had been given him since he had lost his freedom. The man laughed good naturedly as he saw the excitement on the little naked boy's face. He ruffled the child's hair.

"You take that over to your friend," he said I'll bring the bread.

"Look," Pisclus said excitedly, putting the bowl down beside Bestia, "this is all for us. All of it."

Bestia picked out a piece of fish with hi finger and out it into his mouth. He began to eat but every now and again he would stop and look round. He was hungry bur he was also very frightened.

"When is he coming?" he whispered nervously. "It will be soon now…I'm sure it will be."

"I reckon that fellow has finished with you," the cook said squatting comfortably down on his haunches facing the two boys. "You enjoy that food now. Come on I'll break the bread in half for you."

"He won't be round now," he continued. "He's always up and about long before this getting those tools of his ready and there's no sign of the bastard this morning."

Reassured both boys began to eat hungrily. The man watched them with a benevolent smile on his face. After a time both boys paused for breath.

"Tell you what," the cook said, "I'd like to have a look at that work of art."

Obligingly Bestia moved his hands away from his crutch. The man lent forward to inspect the boys small cock.

"That's clever," he said. "That's really clever. The man is a bastard but he's a good craftsman. The way he's done that."

He put his hand out and taking the lad's prick in between his work roughened fingers rolled it about so as to examine it's underside. Eumolpus had not drawn the rose's stem running straight down Pisclus's penis but spiralling around it. The dark green stem was set about with vicious yellow thorns from several of which deep red tears of blood fell.

"And it goes round the front and up between your legs does it," the man continued pushing Bestia's pea sized balls to one side to look. "What's he done then?"

"I'll show you," Bestia said willingly.

He quite liked showing himself off. He got to his knees and turned round bending forward and pulling the cheeks of his bottom apart so the cook could see the dark red rose tattooed there centred about his hole. The tip of it's outer petals just peeping out of the crack of his bum when he was standing upright hinting there was more to be seen and inviting the curious to explore further.

"Very good," the man said patting his bottom, "and I like the way that single green leave runs across your back from the very top of your crack. It looks good."

He stood up and walked off.

"Do you think it looks all right?" Bestia asked after a little silence.

"It looks very nice," Pisclus said reassuring him.

There was another pause. Then Bestia spoke again. "Could you get a mirror from somewhere so I could have a look?" he asked hopefully. He did want it to look good. He was a pretty boy and he knew it. Corax was quite right the boy was a tart.

Chapter 17

Marcus paused half way up the flight of marble steps outside his father's Roman mansion. The great bulk of the building behind him casting a welcome shadow shielding him from the heat and glare of the sun. Grooms had run out as soon as he and his father had arrived to take from them their mounts which had been waiting for them at the quay side at Ostia.

They were watching the cart that had brought their luggage up from the port. Bestia and Pisclus who had ridden on it's back were helping unload it. For the first time since they had sailed from Britain the two boys were not naked. Not that they had taken kindly to the news that they would have to wear clothes again. They knew better than to express their views openly but it had been clear from the expressions of dismay on their faces when the tunics had been handed to them. Marcus was fairly certain he had heard Pisclus muttering to himself that he didn't see that there was anything wrong with his body that he needed to hide it. Not Marcus thought, as he watched the boy reach up to take a small chest from the slave unloading the cart and his brief white tunic rose clear of his otherwise bare bum, that the clothes hid very much anyway.

Glancing back down the street Marcus could see a light four wheel carriage approaching drawn by a pair of high spirited geldings their black coats glistening in the sunlight. A smart looking groom checked the horses at the foot of the steps and a handsome slave boy jumped from the seat beside him to hold the reigns. A tall hawk faced man wearing a white toga with a broad purple stripe stepped out of the carriage and began to climb the steps. The man approached Marcus's father and bowed stiffly.

"You are I think the merchant Corax?" he said. There was no suggestion of mockery or deference or indeed arrogance. He spoke just as one very powerful man would speak to another. He described Corax as "the merchant" simply because that was what the man was, just as he himself was one of the most powerful members of the most powerful institution under the Emperor in Rome, or the lands controlled by Rome.

Corax bowed his acknowledgement.

"I am Cassius Longinus Cornelius. I believe you were kind enough to give a young kinsman of mine a passage from. Britain. I have come to thank you and to collect him."

Horrified Marcus saw that Pisclus was coming up the steps towards them the casket balanced on one shoulder, a broad grin on his face and his tunic rooked high so that his prick and balls , squeezed into provocative prominence by his cock ring, were visible to all.

"Yes indeed," Corax replied easily further alarming his son, "but you will know there were certain political difficulties in Britain that seemed to make it necessary to keep his journey secret. He is coming up from Ostia separately and should be here within the half hour. If you would care to wait in my study. I will bring him to you as soon as he arrives. I am afraid I cannot attend on you until then but, as you can imagine, I have certain pressing matters of business to attend to."

"Of course. Of course, and the fact of those political difficulties make our famillies indebtedness to you all the greater. Though now the boy is here I do not think there will be a lasting problem. The complications arose more between that poor foolish man my brother and the authorities in Britain than anywhere else."

By now Pisclus had reached the same level on the steps as the two men. Cassius glanced towards the boy.

"A pretty child," he remarked idly.

"Yes indeed," Corax replied easily. "I bought him in Britain as a present for my son."

"Come here boy," he suddenly shouted and Pisclus trotted over to him.

"Marcus my son had a great deal of fun with him on the voyage ," he took Pisclus's chin in his hand and tipped his face up so that the Senator could see it clearly. " As he did indeed with your nephew. Still these long sea voyages are boring and the young people must amuse themselves some how I suppose."

"And older ones as well I would imagine," Cassius remarked dryly.

"No doubt Senator. Now I must get on with things. I will send my secretary to you to show you to the library. Tell him I said that you are to see the document I bought the other day - an old poem on the early history of Rome - an account of the struggle between Lars Porsena and the ancient republic."

"Marcus come on now. We have plenty to do." He strode up the stairs into the house.

"Pisclus," he shouted as soon as they were inside the portico and safely away from Cassius Cornelius. "Put that case down and come with me we have to prepare you for your new home."

The boy who was standing just inside the doorway waiting for instructions turned to face him. Then dropping the casket on the floor he darted forward. For a moment Marcus thought he was running to him but he dodged past and threw his arms around Bestia's waste, hugging him tightly, his head pressed against the bigger boy's chest. Then he stepped back and suddenly produced three small copper coins that he thrust at his friend. Marcus was never able to work out how the boy had managed to either obtain these or to carry them about with him but they clearly represented the sum total of his possessions in this world.

"You," Corax shouted at Bestia, "Get back to Ostia now and get the rest of our luggage up here."

Bestia took the copper coins in his hand and ran back down the steps. As he went tears flowed down his face. Pisclus was his only friend and now they were to be parted.

"We're to go back to Ostia for the rest of the luggage," Bestia told the carter.

"But we've got everything here," the man said.

"Well that's what I was told to do," replied Bestia.

The carter grinned and giving a hand to Bestia hauled him up beside him. He shouted to the horse and they moved slowly off. He had no objection to spending a few hours on a pointless journey with a pretty young boy. He ran his hand up the inside of Bestia's thigh and the lad moved closer to him. They didn't even need to go to Ostia the carter thought. Just park the cart somewhere and spend a few hours having fun.

Corax having successfully got rid of Bestia hustled Pisclus through his study into an even more private cabinet beyond it.

"You're going to let him go?" Marcus asked his unhappiness showing in his voice.

"Yes. I gave my word."

"But why did you say I could keep him if you intended to let him go all along?" Marcus was only partly mollified.

"Because that was the only way the pair of you would put on a convincing performance. Other wise you were sure to give yourself away. Especially with Falco on the trail. Now come on we've only got about half an hour . You go down to the porters lodge and get a file and wire cutters. I'll go and get shoes and clothes from Lucius's room. They should be about the right size. Gaius you stay here out of sight."

Marcus noted that his father had already stopped using Gaius's slave name.

The slave collar was loose and it was easy to slip a blade of the wire cutters between it and the boys neck. It came away leaving a white mark on the boy's otherwise tanned skin.

"You'll have to give Gaius one of your old silver chains to explain that," Corax remarked.

"But won't his uncle recognise him anyway Father?" Marcus asked. "He had a good look at him out side on the steps. You even held his face up for him to look at."

"It's just the same as with Falco. He'll think there's a sort of resemblance but then he'll dismiss the thought because he'll be sure I wouldn't have invited him to have a good look at the boy if it had really been his nephew."

Corax spoke indistinctly because he was on his knees trying to remove the cock ring. This presented problems. He had begun by trying to force one of the boy's balls back through the ring but it seemed to have swollen somewhat and he stopped after one shrill scream from the child. It wouldn't, as he remarked, have mattered if he had been just a slave boy but he did not want to be responsible for castrating the nephew of a senator. Now he was working on the ring with the file but it was not easy. Eventually he was able to break the ring and bend the metal back. An angry red mark ran round the boy's scrotum and the base of his cock.

"That must have been sore," Marcus said wondering how the boy had borne the pain.

"It was a bit Sir." the child replied.

"You mustn't call Marcus "Sir" now," Corax said firmly. "You're not his slave any longer you're the nephew of Cassius Longinus Cornelius one of the most powerful men in Rome after the Emperor. And you must not forget it."

"I don't want to be Gaius," the boy burst out. "I don't want to be the nephew of anybody. You made me Marcus's boy and then you say I'm not any longer. Nobody thinks what it's like for me. I want to stay with Marcus…please…I want to be Pisclus and be his boy."

"But I was cruel to you and beat you and made you cry often," Marcus protested. It was beyond him how anybody could choose to be a slave.

"I know," wailed Gaius, " but I want to stay with you…." and he added hopefully, "perhaps if you let me you'd be a kinder Master?"

"You are Gaius," Corax said firmly, "that's quite enough of that nonsense. I don't want to hear any more about it. Perhaps Marcus can come over and visit you in your new home and then when you are alone together you can play at being master and slave boy again."

"It won't be a game," Gaius said rebelliously. "It'll be real."

"Have it your own way," Corax said placidly. "Now I'm just going to put some ointment on that sore place and then we'll get you dressed. And don't you let that new Uncle of yours start playing around with you for a week or so until the soreness goes either."

A moment or so later Gaius was ready to meet his uncle a broad silver chain glinted round his neck, an almost new cotton tunic dyed a rich blue hanging to his knees.

"His walk will give him away Father," Marcus protested. "Look he's up on the balls of his feet all the time."

"Sandals will cure him of that." Corax said producing a pair. "Now put these on Gauis. There you are, a typical young boy of the patrician class. How does it feel?"

"Funny," Gaius said uncertainly. "It's the first time since I've had anything on my feet since you took me from home or round my bottom either. It feels strange." He pulled up his tunic to look at the loin cloth that covered his crutch wonderingly.

"Come on," Corax said laughing good humouredly. "You'll get used to it. It's time I introduced you to your uncle."

"Marcus you will come and see me soon won't you?" Gaius asked anxiously.

"Of course I will."

"And… and you won't be too cruel to me will you?"

"Well that depends on how good a little slave you are," Marcus replied with a grin and clipped the other boy none too gently on the back of the head.

Marcus came into the dining room and placed the model boat carefully on a table. The only other people present were his father and his Greek secretary. Corax was eating breakfast while the secretary read correspondence to him.

A slave brought Marcus a bowl of porridge and he settled down to eat. Every now and again he would glance up at the boat. It was a model of a trireme, exact in every detail, almost two foot long with a fierce bronze covered beak, the oars- men bending to the oars, a drummer beating out the rhythm of the strokes, archers ranked on the deck ready to unleash their arrows. It had been exact in every detail but a degree of wear and tare had left a couple of oars broken and three or four of the archers with out heads. It had been a present from his father and Marcus was still very fond of it but he felt that now he was approaching his thirteenth birthday it was really rather too childish for him to play with. It was his intention to give it to Gaius. He had seen a great deal of the boy since he had gone to live with his uncle.

Scarcely two days went past without the two boys meeting. When other people were around the two were rather shy and uneasy with each other but once they were safely alone their inhibitions would vanish. Gauis would quickly kick off his sandals, shed his clothes, and become again the little slave boy Pisclus, and Marcus would enjoy his services and his body as in the past. There were limits now as to how harshly he could treat the boy. He could not mark his face or his legs below the point where his tunic fell but he had whipped the child's bottom hard and often for faults real or pretended, scoring fierce scarlet weals across it's smooth surface and ringing real tears of pain from the boy's eyes.

Marcus regarded Gaius with a sort of contemptuous affection. However cruelly he beat the boy, however brutally he raped him, the lad would accept it and return for more. The boy seemed when they were alone to be without pride or modesty and yet Marcus felt a fondness for the boy. He wanted to keep him, to tell him somehow that despite his harshness to him he cared for him. That was why he was going to give him his model trireme.

Suddenly Corax's voice was raised in anger.

"Read that again," he demanded of his secretary.

"It is part of a report from your London agent Sir," the man said nervously. "He requests instructions with regard to a complaint made by an inn keeper in Colchester, a woman called Vacca. Apparently she is seeking compensation for a groom who she claims was murdered by a slave or slaves of yours and for some hay that was spoilt as a consequence of it being used to hide the corpse. Your agent says that he doubts if this latter claim could be sustained to any large extent. However rotten the corpse he believes only the hay directly in contact with it would be irretrievably spoilt. He has made enquiries about the groom, he was a slave but unfortunately, although he was dirty and bad tempered, he was very good with horses and mules and had a good reputation for that, but only that, locally. The woman is claiming compensation of 500 denarius. Your agent considers this excessive and thinks he can easily effect a settlement for half this sum. He would not have involved you with this trivial matter but the woman is insisting she receives your personal assurance that the culprits will be identified and punished."

"Tell him to pay the bitch all that she demands and to give her the assurance she asks for. Now go and send the slave boy Bestia to me," Corax snapped.

"But Sir you are about to pay out 500 denarii when you could easily settle for half that sum."

"Just do as I say. Go."

The man scuttled out and Corax sat breathing deeply. Marcus who had seen him, although not often, in this sort of mood before sat very still.

There was the quick pad of bare feet running. Bestia burst into the room and threw himself at Corax's feet. He bent forward to kiss his feet, his tiny tunic riding clear of his bum. He didn't know what was wrong but the secretary had made clear that he was in desperate trouble. Corax deliberately allowed the silence to drag out. Bestai hunkered back on his heels and, trembling, looked up into the man's hard face.

"Why cunt did you kill the groom at Colchester ," Corax eventually demanded in an ice cold voice, giving the boy little hope that denial, if he had a mind to try it, would safe him.

"He wanted to rape me Sir," Bestia mumbled nervously.

"And do you know how much that little escapade of yours is going to cost me?"

"N..n..no Sir."

"500 denarii, 500 denarii. Do you think you're arse is worth 500 denarii?"

Bestia said nothing but knelt there sobbing quietly. Corax paused for a moment waiting for a reply but when none came continued.

"No it's not worth it. You're whole carcass is not worth it let alone your bum. I could buy 10 of you for that you useless lump of shit. I'll show you what you're worth and that's precisely nothing."

Bending down Corax grabbed hold of the hapless boy by his slave collar and dragged him choking from the room.

"Come with me Marcus," he called over his shoulder. "You can help me with this. You will enjoy it….And get your boot up this brat's arse I haven't got all day."

They made their way to the back of the villa. The corridors became progressively narrower and darker as they left the state and family rooms and penetrated into the slave quarters. Eventually they came out into a small courtyard. Here there were no colonnades, fountains of clear tinkling water, green lawns and massive vases filled with flowers, just blank walls and a sandy floor baking in the hot sun. In the centre stood two poles about seven feet [2m] high with a cross bar running between them.

Bestia saw these and began to scream. He tried to resist, digging his heels into the soft sand, but Corax hauled him bodily forward and then hurled him to the ground under the cross beam.

Marcus felt his chest tighten with excitement. He had been brought him here once or twice in the past as a treat when a slave was being flogged and he knew what was to come.

Corax gave a shout and a large brutal looking man hurried into the yard carrying a length of rope. Working quickly he secured Bestia's arms in front of him. He threw the loose end of the rope over the cross bar and hauled the child up so that he swung suspended by his wrists, his toes just clear of the ground. He reached up and with one sharp jerk ripped Bestia's flimsy tunic from his back. Three small copper coins fell from it and landed on the loose sand. Marcus felt excitement rise within him as he waited for the moment when the lash would begin to flay the skin from the boys taught young body. He knew that one well delivered cut of the heavy whip would split the lad's skin and make the blood flow down his slim shoulders.

Meanwhile preparations for the flogging proceeded with all due deliberation, for this was not something that could or should be hurried. The man went back into the villa and returned with two leather buckets filled with water. Then he brought out two whips which he offered to Corax.

Marcus watched as his father made his choice, weighing the whips in his hand, the plaited leather lashes, dark and sinuous like venomous snakes, curled in the sand ready to strike and rend. All the time Bestia hung naked from his wrists waiting for the moment when the whip would rip into his tender flesh.

Marcus was a little disappointed to see Corax choose the lighter of the two whips. Still, he consoled himself this could mean the punishment would be longer rather than less severe. He was not to be disappointed.

Chapter 18

Corax stood a moment measuring the distance between himself and the whimpering boy who hung, suspended by his wrists, stripped ready for the lash. He lifted the whip over his shoulder and brought the whip singing down through the air to thud across the boys slim shoulders. The tip of the whip curled about the child's body catching him just below the left nipple. A single bead of blood formed and began to trickle down his delicately etched rib cage. After the crack of plated leather against bare flesh there was a split seconds silence as Bestia fought for breath, then he screamed shrilly. Even as he howled the lash mark across his golden brown shoulders deepened from white at the very moment of impact to deepest red. Corax raised the whip again, once more it sang through the air, again it ripped down across Bestia's bare shoulders and curled about his body.

Glancing round Marcus could see the boy's anguished howls were beginning to attract an audience of slaves and freemen. Some he could tell from the eager expressions on their faces were, like himself, excited by the spectacle of the heavily built man's merciless flogging of his frail victim. Others watched with horrified fascination as the lash rose and fell and the boy's slim body jerked and twisted under it's impact in a grotesque dance of pain. Bestia grew hoarse with screaming, his cries diminished first to a low pitiful moaning and then to a simple gasp each time the lash struck home until finally he fell silent.

At last Corax stopped. He shouted an order and one of the bystanders threw a bucket of water over Bestia's inert body. Corax stepped forward and turning the boy to face him tipped his head back from where it hung forward over his blood streaked chest. Bestia stared at him sightlessly through pain blinded eyes.

"He can still feel," he grated and thrusting the whip at Marcus continued. "Here you take this and give him a dose across his bum. I can see you're enjoying the show."

Marcus took the whip from his father. It's handle felt sticky and he realised that some of Bestia's blood had got on it. He hefted the whip in his hand feeling it move and jump as though it was a live thing. Then he lashed it hard across the boys bare bottom.

"Stand a bit further back," Corax shouted at him. "I don't want you to rip his balls off with it."

"That's enough," Corax finally said.

Men hastened forward to release Bestia's wrists. The boy tumbled unconscious to the ground.

"What are you going to do with him now Father?" Marcus asked.

"If he lives he can go down with the next draft of field slaves to Sicily. He won't last long there. None of them ever do. Now get along with you. Your young friend Gauis will be wondering where you are."

As Marcus left the yard he looked back. Bestia was still lying on the ground and a man was just about to throw a further bucket of water over him.

Gauis took the model trireme from Marcus eagerly. He was clearly very excited by the gift. Marcus looking at the boy's flushed face was glad that he had thought of giving it to him. He was a very pretty boy and although he knew that he was really just a tart it was pleasant to see him happy and grateful. On the other hand Marcus wished that the boy would now moderate his enthusiasm. They were alone in Gaius's bedroom and in normal circumstances the boy would by now have been stripped and at his service. Marcus was still in a sate of arousement following Bestia's flogging and was eager to enjoy the other boy's bottom.

"I'm glad you like it Gauis," he said, "but.."

Gauis grinned at him.

"I'm sorry Sir," Gauis grinned at him, at that moment, shedding together with his clothes his identity as a young patrician and becoming once again the slave boy Pisclus.

Marcus reached out to take hold of the naked boy who stood so invitingly before him.

"What's that Sir," Pisclus asked catching sight of the dark stain on the palm of his master's right hand.

"Oh that," Marcus glanced down and laughed lightly. "Oh blood….Your friend Bestia's as a matter of fact. The little tyke killed a groom over in Britain. Father and I have been flogging him."

"Flogging him?" Pisclus exclaimed. Marcus, who was enjoying the memory of Bestia's bleeding body, did not catch the tone of outrage in the other boy's voice.

"cocky little whore killed the man to safe his bum from the fellow's cock as if a slave boy's bottom is worth anything anyway. Well it's well bloodied now and his shoulders as well. He's going to be shipped down to one of our Sicilian farms and the overseers there will rape him first and work him to death second. Mind you Father will miss him a bit. He said he was a really good lively fuck."

To his amazement Pisclus suddenly twisted away from him.

"That's Bestia's blood," he gasped.

"Yes," Marcus said still not realising that something was seriously wrong. "Now come here boy unless you want your bum warmed with my belt. I want to get my cock into you."

"That's all you and your father think about," Pisclus screamed in sudden rage. "That's all we are to you, Bestia and me, just good fucks, nothing else."

"What ever's the matter with you," Marcus shouted back at the near hysterical boy. "What a fuss to get in about a slave brat like Bestia. He's nothing. We can buy a dozen just like him for a few denarii. What's got into you?"

"Bestia isn't nothing to me," Pisclus yelled back. "He was my friend when I had nobody else. He tried to help me and protect me when you and your father were cruel to me. When we were branded he took blows on his body that were meant for me."

"Well he killed the groom," Marcus somehow found him arguing with the boy although he felt he should really have silenced him with a blow and then beaten him for his impertinence.

"He didn't kill the groom. I did." Pisclus shrieked.

"Then why didn't he say so."

"To protect me. He still thinks I'm a slave like him. He wasn't going to tell on me and get me flogged, so he took it himself."

Pisclus flung himself down on his couch and burying his head in his hands sobbed wildly.

Marcus moved towards him once more and touched him on the shoulder. Pisclus leapt back to his feet and grabbing the model trireme hurled it to the floor, shattering it.

"Go away," he screeched his face red with rage.

Marcus took a step towards him. Pisclus bent down, grabbed the bronze sheathed beak of the model boat and jumped at Marcus slashing at his face with this make shift knife.

Marcus threw up his arms to defend himself. Somewhere within the house he heard the sound of voices and running footsteps. He realised that the sound of their quarrelling had been heard and people were coming to investigate. He darted to the door and ran quickly from the house.

At first all he felt was anger. Anger at Gaius/Pisclus for attacking him, for being so stupid as to attach any importance to the well being of a common slave brat like Bestia, anger against Bestia for being the cause of this mutiny by what he regarded as his boy. Then he remembered the way the lash had torn Bestia's body. At the time he had felt no pity for the boy, he was simply getting what he deserved. If anything he had felt a little contemptuous of the lad for screaming and howling so much under correction. He was sure that if he had been whipped he would have put up a better show. But now he knew that the boy was taking the whipping to shield another he felt differently.

Marcus was a cruel boy and lived in a cruel age. Slavery was based on cruelty and the society in which he lived was based on slavery. He was used to seeing slaves beaten and abused. He had seen men with broken arms and legs nailed to crosses and left to die slow agonising deaths. He had been to the circus and seen criminals fed to the wild beats and gladiators fight each other to a bloody death for the entertainment of the crowd. He was cruel but he was also brave and able to recognise bravery in others. Bestia was just a slave brat, and as such little better than any other item of livestock. He had shown little courage in bearing the beating, screaming and yelling without any sense of pride or shame. But in taking the whipping, in hanging there as the lash flayed his shoulders and bottom, and keeping silent to protect another boy he had, Marcus recognised, been very brave.

For probably the very first time in his life Marcus was thinking of a slave as an individual and not just as an object put into the world to serve and entertain him.

At this point in his thoughts his mind turned to Pisclus or Gauis which ever he should be called. He had regarded the boy as being very much his property. He had had the opportunity of complete freedom but had chosen slavery. It was clear from the eager way the boy offered him his bum that he was a born tart. Yet although the boy clearly needed him and wanted him he had rejected him. This was not bravery but it was loyalty. The boy had put his debts to Bestia a mere slave before his need for his master and lover.

Now at the very moment when he had lost the boy Marcus began to realise how much he needed him. He was his boy and with all his weaknesses he had become part of his life. There were other boys, many of them, but they were not Pisclus.

As he was thinking he continued walking quickly through the streets oblivious of the jostling crowds. With a start he saw that he had reached his home. He ran up the steps into the villa and made his way to his bedroom.

Throwing himself down on his couch he lay gazing at the ceiling, his hands clasped behind his head, thinking. After a time he smiled. There were risks involved but he had a plan. It might not work. Perhaps Bestia would not survive his flogging, perhaps he would not be able to carry the plan through and even if he did succeed in that maybe Pisclus would not listen to him. Even if it did work there would be, he was sure, a price to pay.

He got off his bed and made his way to the yard where Bestia had been flogged. He crossed it and pushed open a door leading into a low dark stone flagged room. The man who had strung Bestia up for the lash was lolling on a bed of sacks a wine flask raised to his lips. He lowered it when he saw Marcus and started to scramble to his feet.

"Where's the boy we've just flogged," demanded Marcus brusquely.

"You needn't worry about him young Sir," the man's weedling voice belying his brutal appearance. "He won't be going anywhere Sir, not now, not ever."

Is he dead?" asked Marcus surprised. He knew Bestia had been hurt badly but hardly so badly that he should be dead already.

"I shouldn't think so yet Sir. I haven't looked at him for an hour or so but he was still alive when I put him down below Sir." The man nodded at a stout door at the far end of the room secured with two heavy bolts.

"I want to look at him," Marcus started across the room.

"Don't go down there Sir," the man said hastily, "It's no place for a young man like you Sir. He's safe enough there Sir you can be sure of that. No need for you to go looking."

Ignoring the man's remonstrances Marcus shot the bolts on the door and pushed it open. A flight of steps led steeply downwards into darkness. Damp cold air heavy with a stench of rotting matter rose up them. Stealing himself Marcus put a hand on the wall to steady himself, feeling the stones cold and damp to his touch, and descended into the darkness. At first when he reached the bottom of the steps he could see nothing. Then slowly his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He was standing in a low windowless cell with a beaten earth floor that glistened with moisture. The only light came from the staircase. He could hear the sound of whimpering from a corner of the mean room. Straining his eyes he could just make out Bestia lying on his side on the bare floor his knees drawn up to his chin. The boy was clearly only semi-conscouse. Drawing closer to the lad he could see his shoulders and bottom were ribbed with weals and caked with blood. It was clear the man had simply dragged Bestia from the yard and dumped him in the cell with out making any effort to tend his injuries.

Marcus climbed back up the stairs.

"That boy," he said coldly, "was a favourite of my father's. He was very angry with him and rightly so, but I would not wish to be in your shoes if he was to die."

"Take the boy to the porter's lodge. Say that my father has ordered that he should be put in one of the cells there and his back cleaned and dressed. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Sir… Certainly Sir. I'll do it straight away Sir."

Marcus was just leaving the yard to return to the main portion of the villa when he checked himself. He walked back to the centre of the yard and began to search in the sand. He found three small copper coins and holding them in his hand went on his way.

Shortly afterwards he was knocking on the door of the room next to the library where his father's secretary worked.

"Hello young man enjoyed your trip to Britain," the secretary asked him as he walked into the room.

"It was interesting," Marcus replied with a smile.

The secretary was a slave but he had taught Marcus how to read and write. It is impossible on the one hand to regard a man who has held you over his knee and leathered your bare bottom for not paying attention with contempt or a boy who you have disciplined in that way with awe.

"It's a long time since you've been here to visit me," the man continued. "Have you come to practice your writing?"

The way he asked the question made it clear it was a joke.

"No but I would like you to help me with something please," Marcus said preparing to lie as fluently as he could. "I promised a friend I made in Britain to send him a silver clasp like the one I have for my belt once I was back in Rome and could get one like it."

"Well, I know no more about buying silver buckles than you do. Indeed probably a good deal less," the secretary said amiably.

"No it's not that," Marcus said hastily. He didn't want the man to think he was suggesting that he should run errands for him. "No what I'd like to know is when our next ship bound for Britain sails and how I can send the thing on it."

"That's easy," the man consulted some papers on his desk. "A ship sails from Ostia the day after tomorrow. If you want to send anything on it you just have to put it in the porter's lodge with a docket supported by your father's seal and it'll be put aboard and delivered at the other end as well, provided your friend doesn't live at the back of beyond."

"No London, that's all."

"Well that's no problem at all. Here's the docket, the seal's on it already, all you've got to do is complete it. Or I'll do that for you if you care to give me the details."

"No thank you very much," Marcus said hastily, that would not have suited him at all. "I haven't got the buckle yet. I'll do it once I've bought it."

"It sounds very simple," he said innocently. "Is it the same system with bigger things, say an animal or something like that."

"Exactly the same. Except if it's an animal like a lion you'd have to identify it on the docket and say where it is being kept before dispatch. You could hardly keep say a lion in the lodge could you."

The secretary laughed at the picture he had conjured up and Marcus made his escape.

Back in his bedroom he spread the docket out on a table and painstakingly wrote, "The slave boy Bestia at present in the porter's cell to be sent to London." He paused in thought. It occurred to him that that was not enough, you couldn't just send a slave boy or anything else just out into the void. That would raise suspicions and lead to questions being asked. There must be a final destination for the boy. After a moment pondering he wrote, "to be employed in the London Office". Then a grin split his face as a further thought came to him and he added "note this boy is to be taught to read and write." He was doing Bestia a favour. Once he had been taught to read and write he would become much too valuable a property to spend his time labouring in the fields under the overseers lash. He would be assured of a cosy billet in some office keeping records and writing letters. He doubted however if Bestia would be all that grateful while he was being taught. His own journey to literacy had been a painful one and he was the master's son. He had no doubt Bestia's schooling would be a rough one.

The porter's lodge was to one side of the main door into the villa. Marcus handed the chief porter the docket and demanded to see Bestia. He was taken into a cell behind the lodge. It was small but light and clean. Lying face down on a truckle bad was Bestia. He was naked and his whole back was ribbed with livid weals. He had been washed however and dried blood no longer caked his skin. He heard Marcus enter the room and turned his face to look at him. Fear flared in his eyes and he threw up an arm to defend himself.

Marcus knelt beside the bed.

"It's all right Bestia," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you. I know you didn't kill the groom."

"Look," he produced the three copper coins and pressed them into the boy's hand. "I found these. I thought you would like them back. Don't worry about Pisclus he's all right too."

He stood up and then suddenly found himself saying something he had never thought he would say to a slave.

"I am sorry."

He turned on his heel and hurried from the room. He told himself he had only one thing to worry about. How his father would react when he discovered that he had countermanded his orders. It was only one thing but it was a very big one.

Chapter 19

The days, indeed weeks, passed without Corax having any apparent suspicion that his orders had been countermanded by his son. Marcus however was not happy.

Gaius resolutely refused to have to have anything to do with him. He had called at his house only to be turned away at the door with the message that the boy was ill. Now he had been sent a message that he was not to call again because the lad was going to live on an estate of his uncle's in Southern Gaul.

The knowledge that he had deceived his father also made him miserable. He feared Corax, nearly everyone who had any dealings with the man did so, he also loved and respected him. He was a stern father but a caring one, a constant presence encouraging, comforting and when appropriate correcting. Marcus feared his father but he was confident of his love and he knew that he had, by deceiving him, betrayed that love. What made that knowledge more burdensome was that, since arriving at Rome he had some how seen much less of his father than in the past. It was as though they were drifting apart, perhaps it was his own feeling of guilt or perhaps it was simply that Corax had business to attend to, but he seemed to see much less of him and when they did meet they had little to say to each other.

Added to these two sources of misery, the hostility of his one time friend and the coldness of his father, was Marcus's disgust at the school he had to attend. Rhetoric he found boring and sterile. So far as he was concerned if you wanted to say something you said it. The only reason for dressing things up with high sounding phrases and complex grammatical structures was to hide the truth. If you spoke the truth then the more simply you spoke the more convincing you were. On top of this his fellow students, sons of the best famillies in Rome, were, to his mind, conceited ignorant prigs. Some might in time climb the greasy pole to power and influence but their world was a narrow one stretching little beyond the boundaries of the patrician famillies from which they came. Not one of them could understand his wonder at the immensity of the world and his fascination with it's unexplored margins.

In short Marcus was miserable because he was lonely and guilt ridden.

Finally he could bear it no longer. He could do nothing about Gauis's absence or the general, awfulness of his school and fellow pupils. He could still the nagging of his conscience with regard to his deception of his father.

The walk from his bedroom to his Father's study had never seemed longer. He knocked on the door and went in. Realising his hands were shaking he hid them behind his back. He could do nothing about the weakness of his knees and the sick feeling in his stomach. Corax and his secretary were sitting in the room.

"I have something to tell you Father," he said trying to sound confident but failing miserably to do so.

"Perhaps I had better leave?" the secretary suggested.

"No please don't. It concerns you as well or at least I involved you in it."

His father said nothing. He simply looked up at him coldly and enquiringly.

"It's…it's about Bestia." Marcus closed his eyes and blurted the whole story out. How he had discovered that the killer of the groom was Gauis not Bestia. How Bestia had kept silent to defend his friend. How he, Marcus, thought Bestia had behaved very bravely although he was only a slave. How he had arranged, in direct contradiction to Corax's orders, for Bestia to be sent to Britain to be trained as a clerk rather than to Sicily to be worked to death in the fields. It was not an easy tail to tell, especially to that audience, but he stuck stubbornly to his task.

Corax heard him to the end and then spoke.

"I was wondering when you would tell me," he said quietly.

"You knew Father?"

"A merchant from London wrote to me on business and at the end of his letter he referred to the new clerk in my office said how helpful he had been to him and remarked in the pleasantest of ways on my ability to spot talent and to attend to even the smallest of details."

"You won't send Bestia to Sicily now will you?" Marcus asked aghast.

"No. I haven't the time to be bothered with the brat any further. Anyway, by all accounts, he's proofing to be quite useful in London. That's not what concerns me."

"No Father."

"Why Marcus did you not tell me what you had found out about the killing of the groom and leave me to decide what to do about Bestia?"

Marcus forced himself to look straight into his father's face. He might be very angry with him but he would not have him think he was a coward.

"Because I thought you might still send him to Sicily."

"So you deliberately choose to deceive me."

"Yes Father."

"You know I will have to beat you," it was a statement not a question.

"Yes Father."

"Go to your room."

"It was a generous act and he owned up," the secretary ventured after Marcus had gone.

"I am not sure that generosity is a trait that should be encouraged," Corax replied dryly.

"At least do not keep him waiting too long. Waiting is often the worst part."

"We have much business to do and it must be completed. I doubt whether in this case the waiting will be worse than the beating," Corax added with a cold smile.

The secretary knew better then to interfere further in the matter and fell silent.

For a short time after he reached his room Marcus felt if not happy at least relieved that he had made a clean breast of things to his father. It was not long however before fear replaced all other emotions. He remembered with terror Bestia's flogging, the way the lash had ripped the boy's back, the screams of pain, the crack of leather against bare flesh, the way the lad's body had leapt and twisted beneath the impact of the whip. As time passed his misery increased. Sitting hunched on the edge of his bed, shivering and sick with fear, he waited, dreading the moment he would hear his father's approaching footsteps.

He feared the lash and he dreaded disgracing himself under the lash. Time passed very slowly. The time for the mid day meal came and went but he did not dare leave his room in case, at the very moment he did so, his father appeared. At last, in the late afternoon, he heard Corax's firm tread in the corridor outside his room. He pushed himself up from the bed to meet him. The door opened slowly and his father walked in. He caught his breath as he saw the heavy whip curled in his father's right hand. Corax followed his gaze and nodded grimly.

Without waiting to be told Marcus pulled his tunic off over his head and stood naked before his father ready for the whip. Corax looked at his son's tense young body. He understood both the boy's pride and fear.

"You know I would not be doing this if I did not love you Marcus?" he said.

"Yes Father." The boys reply was a half audible whisper.

Corax took his son by one bare arm and lead him to the side of the room where a hook was set high up in the wall to secure the cord of the hanging lamp. He took a length of cord from his belt. He turned the boy to face the wall and passing the cord over the hook bound his wrists together. He desperately wanted to help the boy retain his pride. He ran his hand down his sons taught back and then letting it rest on the curve of his bottom.

"You thought Bestia was brave?" he asked.

"Yes Father."

"Well now is the chance for you to show me how brave you are."

He stepped back and measuring his distance carefully swung the whip back and then down with all his strength across his son's narrow shoulders. Marcus heard the lash's vicious hiss as it descended and braced himself for the blow. The pain, when it came, was far worse than anything he had expected. It was as though a red hot iron had been laid across his bare flesh. For a moment his breath was driven from his body.

"I must not scream," he told himself desperately. "I must not scream."

A second cut rung a low moan from him. A third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth followed but still he did not scream though his breath came in hoarse gasps and his body jerked convulsively each time the lash struck home.

Corax paused and stepped up to the boy. He could see that already the lash had broken his skin and blood was beginning to dribble down his back.

He reached round the boy and took hold of his chin turning his tear and snot stained face so that he could look down into it.

"You have shown me that you are a brave boy Marcus," Corax said gently. "You may scream now if you think it will help."

He kissed his son on the mouth, tasting the blood from where the boy had bitten through his lower lip, stifling his cries. He stepped back and resumed the flogging. Very soon Marcus was taking full advantage of his permission to scream. Marcus lost count of the strokes. Indeed he ceased eventually to feel the individual cuts of the whip. All he felt, all he was conscious of, was a searing all consuming pain. At last through the red haze that was closing about his mind he heard his father's voice.

"That's over Marcus. I hope it won't mark you permanently."

Marcus tried to say "Thank you Father," but he was not sure if he managed to speak the words.

Corax freed the boy from his bonds. He carried him across to the bed and laid him face down on the mattress.

"I'll send some one to dress your back," he said ruffling the boy's fair hair.

Marcus woke with a start. It was still dark but there was some one in his room with a lamp. He turned to sit up and moaned as the pain from his raw shoulders and bottom tore through him.

"Marcus, Marcus." It was his father's secretary whispering urgently fear clearly written on his face. "Wake up, quick boy, quick."

"What is it?" Marcus demanded.

"I'm sorry to rouse you. I know you must be in pain," the man whispered urgently , " but you've got to get away. Some one's denounced your father to the emperor as a traitor and the Praetorian Guard are here. Your father left the house after he beat ….. that is to say earlier, so they've missed him but they'll kill the sons of traitors just as readily as the traitor himself."

"My father's no traitor," Marcus asserted loyally.

"Of course he isn't boy and I am sure we will be able to make the Emperor see that as well in time but for the moment he thinks he is and you must getaway before the soldiers find you or you are dead."

"What about my stepmother and half brother?"

"You needn't worry about them. It's their family who denounced him I think. I suppose they thought they would prefer the fortune without the man. They'll find soon enough that without Corax there is no fortune."

"But we haven't got time to talk. Get up please… You are able to walk aren't you?"

"Yes, just about," Marcus said getting painfully to his feet. "But I've got no clothes and where are we going."

"I'm sending you to a farm we have in the high Apennines. There's a cart that brought produce from there going back this morning as luck would have it. You're a slave boy in disgrace being sent up there to be a goat herd. I am sorry Marcus it's the best I can do. It's essential no one knows who you are. The overseer on the farm is a ex-veteran and loyal, so when you get there you can tell him who you are and he'll hide you until your father has sorted things out. I should have got a message to him explaining things by then."

"But…"

"There's no time for 'buts'. The state of your back will support the disgrace story. You've been caught thieving food and you'll have to wear this." The man suddenly produced a slave collar and before Marcus could protest snapped it in place about his neck. "Now come on."

The secretary hurried Marcus from the room and hustled him along a series of dark passageways towards the back of the villa. Far off they could hear screams and crashes as the Praetorian Guardsmen went about their work. Marcus's back was still raw from his beating and it was all he could do to keep up with the man as he dragged him along one hand clamped around his arm above the elbow.

They came around a corner and suddenly in front of them were two guardsmen, one with a drawn sword in his hand, the other carrying a flaming torch.

"Where are you going old man and who is that boy you've got there?" demanded the swordsman.

"He's just a slave boy Sir," the secretary said ingratiatingly. "I'm taking him down to the yard."

"A slave boy..He looks more like that traitor's whelp we're searching for, Marcus son of Corax. He's the right age and the right colouring and a bit too well fed for a slave brat." The man lifted the point of his sword so that it was level with Marcus's throat.

"No Sir, no, truly a slave boy. He's been caught stealing food Sir. Perhaps that's why he's a bit better fed than some of his sort. He's been whipped for it too. Look at his back. Is that the back of the master's son Sir?" The secretary swung Marcus round so that he was facing away from the Guardsman.

"Well he's been well flayed I'll say that. And a nice juicy little animal he is too for all the welts on his hide. That bottom's crying out for a fuck, bruised as it is. Come on boy brace yourself against that wall and push your bum out. Mine wont be the first cock you've had inside you, although it maybe the biggest."

Before the Secretary's horrified eyes the soldier dropped his loincloth and pulling back the front of his tunic revealing a massive prick.

"Sir don't. The lad's being sent to a mountain farm where there'll be little enough food for him to steal. The cart going there leaves at dawn. I must get him to the yard now."

"There's half an hour to dawn yet old man." The guardsman spat on his hand and rubbed saliva over his erect cock. "There's time enough for me and my mate to fuck the boy before then."

"You can have sole use of the whore," the second guardsman said. "I prefer them without balls and cocks. Here give me your sword and get on with it. We don't want the Centurion catching you having fun."

"Well there's no accounting for tastes, though I think your fussy, this ones got so little between his legs that you can hardly tell what he is. Now get your bum out boy and brace yourself I've told you once already."

The man reinforced this order with an open handed clout across Marcus's raw rump causing the boy to squeal with pain. Marcus knew there was no escape. He had to submit if he was to survive. Obediently he bent forward resting his hands palm down against the corridor wall and pushing his bottom up, offering it to the soldier. The man licked his index finger, ran it down the cleft of the boy's bottom and then jabbed it hard into him. Marcus gasped as the pain hit him.

The finger was withdrawn and he felt the head of the man's prick pressing against his anus lips. The man dug his thumbs into the raw flesh of the boy's bum prizing the lad open. The man drove his cock into the boy forcing a passage past his sphincter. Still the man was not satisfied. He grasped the boy by his hips pulling Marcus back as he thrust forward burying his throbbing cock to it's hilt in the lad's bum. Marcus's shrill screams echoed in the corridor. He had been fucked before but gently and with love by men who actually cared for him. There was no love and no care this time, just lust and cruelty. This Marcus thought, as the pain tore through him, is how a slave is fucked. The man drove forward again. Marcus could feel the man's coarse pubic hair rubbing against his bum. Impaled on the soldiers pulsating cock it seemed to Marcus as though his whole body was being split open from his arse upwards. Again the man thrust forward with such force that he lifted Marcus's feet from the floor ramming him head first against the corridor wall. Marcus felt the man come deep inside him. The man held him in place as he completed his orgasm and then released him. Marcus tumbled to the floor at his feet.

He was left in peace for a moment but only a moment. Kicks thudded into his ribcage.

"Get up whore," the soldier shouted. "Your jobs only half done. Come on lick your filth off me you lump of dog's shit."

He seized the boy by his slave collar and hauled him up onto his knees. Marcus could see the man's prick hanging limply just inches from his face covered with shit and blood and cum. Automatically he pulled backwards. He had never had to do anything like this before.

"Oh too nice to do your duty by the men of the Praetorian Guard are you boy? Just let the little gentleman feel the point of my sword would you."

The secretary noticed that despite his rough treatment Marcus had an erection. The lad's enjoyed some of what has been done to him, he thought, trying to find at least some comfort in that reflection.

Marcus felt cold metal pressing into the back of his neck. Hurriedly he bent forward licking and sucking the filth from the man's limp member.

After a minute or two the soldier caught hold of him by the hair and pulled his head back.

"That's clean enough," he said and he drove his knee into the boy's face. Marcus tumbled backwards covering his face with his open hands. Blood squirted out between his fingers .

"What did you do that for," the secretary demanded dropping to his knees beside the whimpering boy.

"You should thank me old man for disciplining the little tyke." The soldier laughed harshly. "You seem over fond of the tart maybe I should finish the pair of you off anyway. Give me back my sword would you now."

"Come on, you've had your fun," his companion said. "Here's your sword but let's leave this. I want to find some nice young virgin cunt."

"By all I've heard of Corax you're more likely to find virgin girls here than virgin boys," his friend replied as they moved off together.

"Marcus, Marcus, I'm sorry," the secretary moaned crouching over the whimpering boy.

Marcus groaned and got slowly to his knees holding his hands over his bleeding nose.

"At least we survived," he muttered indistinctly. He put his free hand on the wall and pushed himself painfully to his feet. "We better get going before any more turn up."

They found the carter in the yard at the rear of the villa harnessing his horses in the cold grey light of early dawn.

"This is the boy you are to take back to the farm with you," the secretary said, half carrying, half dragging Marcus over to him.

"It looks as the poor little sod's been through it a bit," the carter observed staring at the boy's bruised face. Marcus's nose had stopped bleeding but blood still trickled down his chin from where the soldiers knee had split his lips.

"All right up into the cart with you."

Marcus painfully lifted one leg onto the base of the cart and tried to heave himself upwards. The carter swore as he saw the state of his back and the dark stain running down the inside of his legs. Without a word he lifted Marcus onto the cart and then vaulted up beside him. He carried him to the front and spreading some sacks on the boards, to make a bed, laid him down on them.

"Boys don't usually get sacks to lie on," he remarked, " but you've had a hard time by the look of it so I'll make an exception for you. But don't go making a mess on them. You hear me."

Marcus nodded humbly.

"Right, now, just to make sure you don't go wandering off." The man pulled a metal shackle, attached by a length of chain to the cart floor, across to Marcus and clamped it round his ankle.

The carter walked back to the rear of the cart and jumped to the ground.

"Here," the secretary said holding out to him a dozen copper coins, "that's to feed the boy and to give him any medical attention he may need."

"Thank you Sir," the man replied pocketing the coins. "The lad'll be all right don't you worry. Tough as nails boys are. The more you hit em the harder they get."

He walked round to the front of the cart and climbed up onto his seat. He cracked his whip and the two horses strained forward. The cart rolled ponderously out of the yard. The carter was grinning happily. He reckoned he could feed Marcus for less than a sixth of what he had been given. The journey would take three days. He would make a nice profit out of the boy one way or another.

Chapter 20

Marcus lay on his bed of sacks, his wholly body ached and there was a great soreness between his legs. But worse than the pain for him was the humiliation.. It was bad enough to have been taken by force and raped but what was far more shaming was that his own body had betrayed him. Painful though it was, the soldiers cock up his bum had excited him and he had shown it. He, Marcus, son of Corax, heir to the greatest fortune in the whole Roman Empire, had reacted as if he was a common little slave boy, an animal without dignity or modesty. That thought troubled him more than the rawness of his shoulders and bottom. All that would pass with time, the pain would fade away as would the bruises and welts that disfigured his lithe young body. It troubled him more than his fears for his immediate future, shackled naked in the cart, a slave collar round his neck. His current sufferings would end once he was delivered to the farm and revealed his true identity to his father's agent there. Nothing would ever banish his knowledge that he had reacted like a common tart to the thrill of the soldiers rod probing his bottom. Maybe nobody else noticed his erection, although he strongly suspected his father's secretary had, but he knew and that was enough.

Sunk in misery and filled with self disgust he stared unseeingly into space. In time exhaustion took effect. His thumb stole up to his mouth and he fell into an uneasy slumber.

The carter lolled on the seat behind the two heavy horses as they plodded their way forward along the Via Latina. Every now and again their pace would slacken until they were almost stationery. Then the man would rouse himself and with a flick of his whip across their black haunches, goad them back into a steady walk. They had crossed the flood plain of the Tiber and had begun to climb the low hills that would in time rise to form the Apennines. The sun was almost directly over head. The heat of the sun and the reflected heat from the ground had begun to bother both the carter and the horses. He pulled the wagon off the road into a grove of pine trees where a pipe jutting out from an outcrop of rocks jetted crystal clear water into a horse trough. The hot still air was heavy with the scent of pine needles. Another cart stood there already, it's driver seated on a boulder eating a lunch of bread and goat's cheese washed down by gulps of wine from an earthen ware flask.

The carter drew his wagon to a halt some distance from the other man. He raised his hand in salute and then standing up began to rummage through the box on which he sat to drive the cart. Selecting a short heavy leather trace he jumped to the ground, the buckle end of the strap swinging loose from his hand.

He walked slowly round to the back of the cart. Placing a hand on it's floor he vaulted up into the cargo space. Marcus woken by the man's approach blinked his eyes open. For a moment he was unable to remember where he was or how he had come there. Then it all came flooding back, the savage flogging by his father, the sudden waking in the early hours of the morning, the panic stricken flight through the dark corridors of the villa, his brutal rape by the soldiers and finally his escape, if escape it was.

The carter stood looking for a moment down at the naked boy curled on the sacking bed at his feet. He noticed the livid welts and bruises that disfigured his shoulders and buttocks and the dark stain running down the inside of his thighs. The lad he thought had clearly suffered and that would make his task easier.

He bent down and undid the shackle securing the boy's ankle. Then he stood back and lashed him viciously across his shins with the buckle end of the belt. Marcus howled as the metal clasp cracked down across his legs. There was little flesh between his skin and his shin bone to cushion the blow. The pain was intense.

"Get up. Up," the man shouted lashing, out again. Marcus screamed once more and scrambled to his feet. Blood welled from where the buckle had broken his skin and trickled down the front of his shins. The carter grabbed the boy by his hair and hurled him towards the back of the cart. Marcus staggered down the wagon his bare feet scrabbling at the wooden boards as he desperately fought to maintain his balance. For a moment he teetered on the edge of the wagon's floor and then tumbled in a heap onto the bare earth below.

"Up," the man shouted, lashing him again and again across the legs with the buckle end of the strap. Marcus howled and stumbled unsteadily to his feet. The man lashed out again this time catching him across the chest. The boy yelled and jumped backwards desperate to escape another agonising blow from the flying buckle. Strong rough hands grabbed him from behind.

"You want some help Menas?" a man's voice grated in his ears.

"Yes hold the little tyke still for me would you Gavros while I thrash him."

The man holding him slipped his hands under Marcus's arms and grasped them together behind his neck pushing his head forward. The boy's bare feet scrabbled in the dirt as he struggled to wriggle free. Marcus felt himself lifted clear from the floor. Helpless he was held suspended in the air. He kicked backwards but the man holding him disregarded the blows. Horrified he watched as Menas swung the strap back for another blow. He was screaming even before the buckle cracked down across his ribs. Slowly, deliberately, Menas plied the strap with it's biting metal clasp. The peace of the pine grove was shattered by the sounds of Marcus's flogging, the sickening thud of the buckle against the boy's taught rib cage, the howls of agony and broken pleas for mercy of the tortured lad, the heavy panting of the two men as they went about their grim business.

At last Menas stopped. He stood back and examined his handiwork. Marcus hung whimpering in the hold of the other carter blood trickling down his rib cage from his torn skin. Menas nodded to his friend who released Marcus. The boy staggered but Menas caught him by his arm.

"Oh Sir. Please Sir. No more Sir…," Marcus whined.

"You'll get more brat and plenty of it if you misbehave. Do you understand me boy?" Menas grated menacingly

"Yes Sir….I'll behave Sir….Really Sir." Marcus's eyes were fixed on the strap that still hung loose from the man's free hand. The last vestiges of his pride had gone, destroyed by the savage beating he had endured.

Menas walked the boy a little further from the cart and then released his arm.

"Squat and empty yourself brat," he ordered.

"Sir I don't….." Marcus began. Menas hefted the strap and Marcus quickly hunkered down at his feet.

"Not a bad looking little whore under all that mess," Gavros remarked twisting his hand in the boy's fair hare and pulling his head back to get a better look at him.

"No, not bad at all," Menas replied in a satisfied tone of voice. "I've got the use of him for four days more or less while I take him up to the farm and I aim to make a bit of money out of the whore."

"How did you come by him?"

"Well according to the people back at the villa he's a bit of a thieve and he's being shipped out in disgrace to learn just how nasty life can be for filth like him. I reckon with those looks maybe there's a bit more to it than that. Some body's favourite little bum boy whose been caught with the wrong cock up his backside and is being kicked out as a consequence perhaps."

"Yes likely enough with that blonde hair and all. I wonder where that came from?"

"A byblow of the bosses I wouldn't be surprised. I don't suppose the brat's own mother knows though. Too many cocks up her cunt to know who fathered the whelp on her for sure."

Menas prodded the boy squatting straining at his feet in the bum with his toe.

"Do you know who your father was pig's turd," he asked roughly. Marcus shook his head miserably blinking back his tears simultaneously denying his father and shaming his mother.

"There you are," he continued, "male or female they're just dirt, animals. Left to themselves they eat and fuck and sleep. Slaves have to be well whipped to get any work out of them."

"Now I think the brats finished. We'll clean him up and have a bit more fun with him."

Marcus was pulled to his feet and led over to the cattle trough. The tears and snot were washed from his face and his body roughly sponged down.

"Not at all bad," Gavros commented looking the boy over appreciatively. "He's pretty badly marked but I guess his skin will heal fast enough. Young flesh generally does."

"Well old friend since you fancy him you can enjoy him now," Menas replied.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I've got four full days with the slut and I can have him any time I want. Go on take your chance and if you get something tasty in the future remember me."

"Get back in the cart boy," Menas continued reinforcing his order with an open handed slap on Marcus's bare rump. Obediently Marcus scrambled in over the tail gate, Gavros and Menas crowding after him and forcing him to the front of the cart where the sacking which had served as his bed lay.

Menas kicked his ankles away from underneath him knocking him to his knees. Grinning broadly Gavros pulled his tunic up over his head and unfastened his loincloth. His whole body was covered in a thick matt of dark coarse hair. Marcus gazed fearfully at his cock which stood erect, hard and cruelly demanding, only a few feet in front of his face.

Gavros spat on his hand lubricating his prick with his own saliva. Dropping to his knees behind Marcus he grabbed the boy by his slave collar forcing his head down to the floor. He slipped his free hand between Marcus's legs pushing his bottom upwards. Marcus shuddered as he felt the man run his thumb nail along his perineum. He felt his own cock harden. Gavros's thumb came to rest on his anus. The man pressed firmly downwards and despite himself it's lips parted. The man maintained the pressure probing deeper into the boy . Marcus's bum muscles began to pump as he tried to draw the thumb deeper into his bottom.

Gavros withdrew his thumb ringing a low moan from the thoroughly aroused boy.

"The little whore's really hot for it," the man laughed contemptuously.

Marcus felt the head of the man's prick pressing into him. He, strained backwaards, forcing his bottom even further into the air, silently begging the man to bury the full length of his throbbing cock in his body. Gavros needed no second invitation. With three sharp thrusts he drove his rod deep into the boy. Marcus felt the man's coarse pubic hair against his bum. Gavros paused a moment savouring the feel of the boy's body clamped hot and tight around his cock, then, with increasing urgency he began to pump the boys bottom. Marcus groaned and panted as he responded to the man's penetration of his bum.

He felt a hand in his hair. His head was jerked back and through his lust glazed eyes he saw immediately in front of his face Menas's swollen cock. Unbidden he opened his mouth. The man's shaft filled his mouth stretching his jaws until they ached, reaching far down into his throat. Desperately he gagged and fought for air. Menas withdrew his prick just sufficiently to let him draw breath and then thrust forward once again. His nostrils were filled with the sour smell of urine and sweat. The man's pubic hairs pressed against his face. Then he felt both men surge inside him and his throat and mouth were filled with warm oddly metallic tasting fluid.

Marcus lay on his side semen trickling down his chin form the corner of his mouth. His bottom was sore there was a feeling of warm sticky dampness between his legs. He could hear the men chatting together outside the van and the splash of water as they washed themselves.

"Come on out boy and clean yourself up," Menas called.

Painfully Marcus crawled to the end of the cart and lowered himself to the ground. The two men were sitting side by side on a rock eating and sharing a flask of wine. Menas gestured to a bucket of water and some wet rags that stood on the ground by the side of the wagon. Obediently Marcus began to swab himself down while the men watched him with cold expressionless stares. He was too frightened and miserable to be embarrassed or to resent their presence as, spreading his legs and pushing out his bum, he gingerly washed the soreness in his bottom. That task finished he hesitated waiting to be told what to do next.

Menas crooked a finger at him and pointed to the ground. Fearfully Marcus scuttled over to him and squatted at his feet. Menas took the boy's chin in his hand and tipped back his head. Nervously Marcus tried to look away but the man held his chin firm as his eyes bored into him. The man could see nothing in the boy's eyes except hopelessness and terror. Satisfied he released the lad's chin. He held the flask to Marcus's lips. The boy almost choked as he swallowed a mouthful of the harsh red wine. Menas broke a chunk off the loaf that he was eating and handed it to Marcus. The boy took it from him and holding it in his two hands gnawed eagerly at the coarse black bread as he crouched at Menas's feet.

Marcus felt the man's hand stroking his hair. Despite himself and despite all the abuse he had suffered from Menas he could not help responding. After all he was only twelve. He needed some one to turn to and there was no one else. Menas had been cruel, very cruel, but now he was treating him better. Perhaps if he showed he accepted the man's mastery this would continue. He turned his face towards Menas and nuzzled the palm of his hand. Menas let him do so for a few seconds and then gently pulling his hand away tousled the boy's hair.

"Come on back in the cart with you," he commanded. "We've got a long journey in front of us."

"Try to get some rest now boy," Menas said as he clamped the iron chain fast once more about Marcus's ankle. "You have work to do tonight."

Menas climbed up onto the driving seat of the wagon and with a crack of the whip set his horses into motion. As they rolled out of the clearing and back onto the Via Latina he waved to Gavros.

"Remember," he shouted cheerfully, "you owe me." He was in a good mood. Boys like horses need to be broken he thought and he was good at both jobs.

Marcus lay on his bed of sacking in the back of the cart. He was frightened and full of self loathing. In one respect though Menas's reading of him was wrong. Marcus still hoped. If he could survive the next four days and get to the farm he would be able to identify himself to his father's bailiff and become once more a free boy. He knew though that he would never be able to be free of his memory of his shame …and there were those four long days to get through.

It was dusk when Menas again pulled the cart to a halt. Marcus woken by the sudden cessation of movement sat up. The interior of the cart was only dimly illuminated by the failing light. Menas appeared at the tail gate and climbed up into the wagon. Marcus saw he held the strap with it's ferocious buckle swinging loose. The boy scrambled to get away from him until brought up short by the chain around his ankle.

"Now no need to be frightened boy," Menas said bending to undo the shackle, "provided you're a good lad and do as you are told. You will be a good boy won't you.?"

"Oh yes Sir, yes," Marcus promised eagerly.

"Good out you come then and I'll tell what you have to do to avoid getting another taste of the belt and to earn your supper. Come along whore," the man's voice hardened as Marcus appeared to hesitate.

Quickly Marcus scrambled from the cart. He saw that the cart was parked at the side of the road along with many other vehicles. Small fires glowed in the gathering darkness around which groups of men were huddled. Some way ahead of them were the outskirts of a small town, a few isolated lights glimmering dimly from shutterless windows. Along the road a motley crowd of men and women moved enjoying the cool evening air. The only sounds was the hum of human voices and somewhere in the middle distance the murmur of running water.

Menas held him firmly by the arm and spoke, bending spoke close to his ear to give his words added emphasis. Marcus pulled away as he caught the stench of the man's foul breath but Menas jerked him roughly back.

"You're going to earn me money with that pretty little bum of yours," the man grated. "That won't be any hardship for you filthy little whore so don't go trying to be difficult about it. All that will get you is another taste of the buckle end of my strap. Do you want that filth?"

"No Sir," Marcus whimpered disgusted by what was being demanded of him but too fearful of the man and his brutal strength to dare to refuse…. "I'll do my best Sir…. I really will."

"Of course you will dog dirt. You'll enjoy it," the man snarled contemptuously. "And to make it easier for you I'll hustle the first couple of tricks for you. All you'll have to do is wriggle that tight little arse of yours and smile at the men. I'll do the talking. Now come on tart."

Menas holding him firmly by the arm began to march him towards the nearest camp fire. There were three men sitting round it talking quietly while a pot warmed on the embers.

"Well friends," Menas said cheerfully, "a pleasant night but cool. I have something hot for you to enjoy if you want Come on boy, give the gentlemen a smile, now turn round so they can see what you're offering. That's right wiggle it about for them. There you are Sirs a pretty boy eager to have a man's cock up his bottom and you can enjoy him for less than a flask of wine."

"How much?" one of the men asked laughing.

"A quarter of a secterce gentlemen. Less than a flask of wine." (The excavation of a brothel at Rome recently yielded a price list that shows that this was indeed true the charge for the services of a boy or girl was lees than the cost of a jug of wine - there is a problem with Roman money there were 16 asses to a secterce which was a small silver coin. To describe Menas as asking for 4 asses for the use of Marcus's bum would however sound faintly ridiculous.)

"I'd prefer a flask of wine myself," the man said and laughed.

"A flask of wine would leave you with a head ache in the morning but you could enjoy this little beauty and rise fresh as a lark. I'll tell you what Gents I'll accommodate all three of you for half a sesterce. Now I can't say fairer than that. How does that strike you."

"Not interested…Now get off with you and take that little whore with you," the man said loosing patience.

"Very well gentlemen. I think you've made a mistake though. I you change your minds. You can find me at the wagon over there by the road," and Menas walked off dragging Marcus with him

At the next camp fire Menas was more fortunate. The eight men sitting round turned to face look at him as they heard him approaching. Catching sight of Marcus they let out a chorus of whistles and cat calls.

"This is one for you Glaucus," one of the men shouted provoking a gale of laughter from his companions even before Menas began his sales pitch.

"Come here boy. Let me have a look at you," said a fat balding man rising to his feet while his companions hooted and giggled.

"Go across and sell your arse boy. If you don't land this one I'll skin you when I get you back at the wagon," Menas hissed releasing his grip on Marcus's arm.

The boy stepped shyly into the circle of light thrown by the camp fire.

"Turn round boy let's have a look at you bum that's what I'm after," Glaucus commanded sparking off another roar of laughter among his companions. Marcus twisted round and mindful of Menas's threats gave his hips what he hoped was an inviting twitch as he did so.

"Well," Glaucus said patting his bum, "that's very nice and how much will you cost me my pretty."

"A quarter of a sesterce Sir, and please Sir," Marcus blurted desperately turning to face him. "Please take me or I'll be thrashed again Sir and I can't stand that. I promise I'll give you a good time Sir. Really Sir I'm good at it Sir. I promise Sir. I…I.. am a good fuck Sir."

Dimly he heard in his mind Pisculus's voice saying " a good fuck, that's all we are." Marcus felt ashamed but he forced a smile to his lips as he stared up into the face of his first customer as a whore. All he wanted was to sell his bum and avoid another dose of Menas's strap.

Glaucus hesitated and then nodded. Marcus reached out and took him by the hand. He led him over to the wagon followed by the obscene shouts and raucous laughter of the man's companions.

There was a clink of coins in the darkness at the back of the cart as Glaucus paid his money to Menas.

Glaucus was the first of many men that Marcus serviced over the next three nights. Menas knew he had the use of the boy for only a short period and he made the most of it.

"Come on you lazy little tart," Menas commanded as soon as Glaucus had gone. "Get yourself cleaned up and find another customer."

Marcus crawled out of the wagon to where Menas stood beside a small wood fire. There was a bucket of water and some rags. Marcus swabbed his bottom clean feeling the man's gaze on him and uneasily aware of the menace of the strap that he held in his right hand.

Marcus could never remember afterwards exactly how many men he serviced. He went from camp fire to camp fire hawking his bum. Sometimes he was driven off with blows, sometimes the men just laughed at him and very occasionally he would find a customer for what he was selling. After he had made his round of the wagon park he returned to where Menas sat to watch the crowds strolling, every now and again darting out to pull on a man's sleeve.

"Give you a good time Sir, Only a quarter of sesterce Sir. I'll take it up the bum Sir. I'm good Sir. Better than you've ever had before Sir. Clean lively boy Sir. Just a quarter of a sesterce Sir."

Menas kept him at it until the last of the parading citizens had returned to their homes. Only then was he given his supper a bowl of bread soaked in warm goats milk. He was asleep on his bed of sacks, sticky now with sweat and semen, before the iron ring was clamped around his ankle.

Each of the two succeeding nights were much the same only on each occasion the crowds became progressively smaller and the evening air cooler as they travelled further away from Rome and higher up the foothills of the Apennines.

Marcus tried not to think about what he was doing. He wriggled his hips and showed his bottom in a sort of self induced trance. Every now and again though a rough joke by one of his clients or a sharp spasm of pain caused by some man's brutal fucking forced him to face reality. Then he would fight back the overwhelming shame and console himself,yet again, with the thought that soon he would be at the farm and he would again be free.

At last the fourth day came. Marcus lying on the floor of the cart could feel the road rising and the horses labouring as they trudged upwards.

The wagon halted. The canvas flaps at the rear were parted and Menas climbed up.

"We're almost at your new master's place now boy," he said bending to release Marcus's manacled ankle. "You can walk now and lighten the load for the horses."

"Please Sir…Could I have a bit of bread Sir," Marcus begged for he had had nothing all day.

"No you can't you spoilt little whore. I'm not going to waste money feeding you now. You're no more use to me. Let your new master feed you if he feels like it."

Holding Marcus by the wrist he hauled him out of the cart. He bound the boy's wrist together with a length of cord and tied one end to the wagon.

"Well one last time for luck I suppose," he said and forcing Marcus down over the back of the cart brutally fucked his bottom. Then he set the cart in motion leaving Marcus, tethered by his wrists, to trudge along in it's dust, cum and other filth trickling down the inside of his thighs.

Two hours later the cart rolled into the yard of small white washed farm behind which rose the broken rock and scrubby pastures of the high Apennines. There was a moment of hectic activity as the corn and wine was unloaded and replaced with goats cheeses . During that time no one took any notice of Marcus who was left tied to the cart.

Then the farmer, a short broad shouldered man with a deep scar on one side of his face, noticed him.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Oh that. A new goat herd for you sent up from the boss's Villa Rome. In disgrace for thieving food. A hot little bit of arse. I made a bit out of him on the way up I can tell you."

"Well boy's arses don't interest me." the man said untying Marcus from the cart. "But I could certainly do with a new goat herd. We lost two last winter on the mountain before we brought the herds down."

"Well it's a waste that's all I can say. Anyway I better get this fresh load on the road."

Marcus waited until the carter was safely out of the yard and then spoke to the farmer.

"I am, my good fellow," he said, "Marcus son of your proprietor Corax. I have to stay here for a time. Would you please arrange food a bath and some clothes for me straight away."

The farmer turned and looked at him in amazement. Then a great smile broke across his face.

"Indeed My Lord," he said bowing very low. "Let me welcome you My Lord to our humble home. If your Lordship would do me the honour just to step this way."

He bowed once more and stood to one side to let Marcus past. Marcus feeling his problems were over and pleased by the deference shown by the simple fellow. Moved forward. Suddenly he was grabbed by his slave collar and bent double.

"You filthy"

CRACK. The farmers belt slammed down across his bare bum.

"little whore"

CRACK

"You come here"

CRACK

"With your arse glued up with man's cum"

CRACK

"Your bottom and shoulders."

CRACK

"Striped with the lash"

CRACK

"And you expect me to swallow that load of dogs shit"

CRACK

Marcus howled and capered as the man's belt tanned his bottom .

Suddenly a woman's voice rang out shrilly.

"What's all that noise Crastinus? What ever are you doing."

"I'm flogging a little boy whore whose been sent up from Rome to be a goat herd and who has had the insolence to claim to be the son of our lord Corax."

"Well don't kill him. We short of herd boys."

"I don't know if we want clever little tykes like this. Well you can spend the night tethered in the yard the cold'll teach you respect even if my belt hasn't."

Crastinus dragged Marcus to the centre of the yard where a post was set in the ground. He secured a length of chain about his ankle and walked off leaving Marcus lying in the filth of the farm yard. As the sun dropped the temperature fell. Sobs wracked Marcus's body. He was hungry, cold and alone. The one hope that had sustained him until now had gone. Something had prevented the bailiff being told of his coming and as a consequence he was condemned to lifelong servitude.

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