Zelamir

A Roman Holiday

Chapter 1

Julius Gaius Cornelius felt bored and hard done by. Bored because any civilised human being who was forced to go and live in a decrepit villa in a damp cold colony on the very furthest edge of the Roman Empire would be bored. Hard done by because all he had done was to get drunk and to remark on what everybody knew was true, but did not dare to mention, the empress's infatuation with Gutta the chariot driver. There was also the problem of his own debts but he was sure, that if it hadn't been for his difficulties with the imperial court, he would have been able to keep his creditors at bay indefinitely. However once it was known that imperial protection had turned into enmity all the greasy money lenders, who a few days before had fawned and pressed further loans on him, were demanding full and immediate satisfaction.

Then just as he was beginning to think he had better open his veins a messenger came to him from the Emperor. If he would go to that part of his old family estates that lay in Britain and stay there the Emperor would arrange a composition with his creditors and forget him. He had had no choice and the Emperor had kept his word but the composition was harsh and humiliating. It made him in all but name the steward of his creditors or, to be more accurate, the puppet of the steward of his creditors. He didn't know about managing land or mines or businesses and it is probable his creditors would not have trusted him to manage them in their interests if he had known, so they appointed a man to guide him and ensured that the various deeds and contracts that defined their relationships bound him to follow that man's advice.

It would have been almost better Julius thought if he had been required to hand all the properties over to Cinnamus, his creditors nominee, in return for a small allowance on which he, Olivia his wife and Titus their infant son, could have lived. It would have been more in accord with the reality of the situation and would have spared him the tedium of taking part in the current charade. Better still if he had been able to leave his son and wife behind in Rome. He had suggested the latter arrangement to the Emperor's messenger but the man had simply smiled coldly and said that the Emperor did not intend that Julius should enjoy his exile.

Now he had to go through this ceremony with the fair headed giant of a fellow who knelt on the floor at his feet. Something to do with granting the oaf his freedom so that he could exploit the oyster beds that formed part of the estate in return for a cash rental. Cinnamus had tried to explain it all to him, a more efficient way of exploiting the asset, an incentive to the other slaves on the estate who now could hope for freedom if they worked hard and so on. Further more they were not loosing a slave off the estate because the deed of manumission would require the man to surrender his eldest son on reaching the age of thirteen to be a slave in place of his father.

Julius had remarked that he thought the best incentive a slave could have was the fear of the lash across his naked shoulders. As for the eldest son, he wasn't even born yet, just a lump in the tummy of the slut the man lived with that could just as well be a girl or still born and if he was born why couldn't they take him at ten. In his opinion that was the best age for a boy though, looking at the father, the lad would probably be as ugly as sin. However he knew his opinions really bore no weight and he would do as he was told. He had no choice.

Cinnamus muttered urgently in his ear. Obediently he took the kneeling man's two hands within his. How hard and rough they felt. He supposed it was what happened to one's hands if one was obliged to work. He shuddered at the thought. He repeated the words Cinnamus had drilled into him that morning about now being free and without looking at the ex -slave or speaking further rose and walked out of the room.

Corax waited until he heard the door slam behind the departing man and then jumped to his feet.

"It could have been more graciously done," he remarked with an angry laugh. His voice was rough but hard and decisive.

"It's not easy for him," Cinnamus replied wondering why he bothered to defend the arrogant fool who was his purported employer. " Now you've got what you wanted anyway."

"And would have had five years earlier if his father who was worth a hundred of him hadn't died."

"You were a favourite of his father?"

"I was. You wouldn't think it now but I was a pretty boy and you Romans fall easily for the innocent blonde look. I kept him company in bed when he wasn't with his wife until I began to shave and even after that he kept me about him. Saw a lot of the world I did then. Enough to see the opportunities you Romans have created to make money and how stupid you all are not to have taken them for yourselves. I discussed it with him a lot towards the end and he saw things as I did. We would have had tried putting our ideas into practice, his capital my drive and energy. Not that he didn't have drive too."

"Well it's my capital now," Cinnamus said.

"And you are going to be paid well for it. Forty eight per cent and half the profits. Not that I am complaining there'll be money enough for us both after the first voyage…"

"If it succeeds..," Cinnamus interjected.

"There's risk but provided the galley gets through we will be in the money and it will get through. I'll see it will."

"You're sure it will pay?"

"Of course it will. That's what I meant when I said you Romans were fools… You don't see what opportunities there are for trade within the empire you have created. Each part of the empire has something in abundance that is scarce and in demand some where else. These oysters now at Colchester and all along the coast here they're cheap and plentiful. In Rome they are scarce and highly priced. What does my great master Julius Gaius Cornelius do when he arrives here; gluts himself on them for a week and then complains that he's always getting oysters to eat. He doesn't think of storing them in casks of salt water and transporting them to Rome and selling there for ten sesterces a dozen what costs a single copper coin here."

"Then in Rome there's wine, there's olive oil, there's fine china and statues which the rich provincials here will snap up if they get the chance to show how sophisticated and cosmopolitan they are."

"We'll make a good turn on each leg of the voyage. There's risk this time with one galley but if that succeeds we will have enough capital to finance six galleys. Then the risk is all but gone. Two get through we break even. Three we make a good profit. Six we have made our first fortune and that is what we are going to do."

Cinnamus looked at the man who had so recently been kneeling on the floor at the feet of a dissolute Roman aristocrat. He stood upright now his body charged with energy and determination, his face bright with enthusiasm. How frustrating that man must, with all his ambition and imagination, have found his years of slavery.

"I believe," he said slowly, "that it will succeed."

"And I must set about seeing it does," Corax said and without a further word marched from the room.

Looking out into the villa courtyard Cinnamus saw Corax walk over to where a woman sat on the paving beside a meagre bundle wrapped in sacking. The tall blonde bent and spoke to the woman. He held out a hand to her and helped her to her feet. He swung the bundle onto his shoulder and then turned once more to her. She was Cinnatus saw quite young but hard work and care had made her gaunt and lined before her time. The front of her short ragged dress bulged out over the unborn child that she carried. Corax face had softened and become gentle as he spoke to a woman who seemed to Cinnamus no more than a common drudge. The steward turned back to study his accounts. He could understand them.

"Let's get out of here," Corax said, "you will never come here again unless it as the equal of your late Mistress."

"It is enough that I can leave," the woman replied soberly. "All that distresses me now is the thought that we must be apart for so long and that the child I carry, if it is a boy, is fated from birth to be a slave of Julius."

"I go to make our fortune and that made our child will never be the slave of anyone. I will buy out Julius's right to him under the deed of manumission. I will buy out Julius and his foul hag of a wife altogether."

"If the venture succeeds," the woman said quietly.

"It will. It was some Roman's cruel joke to call you Fortunata when you were born a slave but now we will prove how well chosen that name really was."

Indeed Fortunata proved to be well named, except in one respect, for when Corax returned many months later with the beginnings of that vast fortune for which he was later to become famed, he found he had a son but no wife. Fortunata had died in childbirth.

For two days Corax stayed alone in the little hovel, where he had left her and where she had perished, seeing no one. On the third he reappeared, issued orders that the cabin should be levelled to the ground and presented himself to Cinnatus. It was he who had hearing, of the woman's death, sent a slave to collect the new-born baby who would otherwise have been left to starve by his mother's corpse.

Corax made no mention of this but presented him with an account of the voyage and paid in full all the monies owed him. He then made an offer for the wet nurse that Cinnatus could not refuse. He never thanked Cinnatus for taking the child in but Cinnatus noticed that he never lost in any of the business dealings he had with Corax from that day forward.

When Corax made his second voyage to Rome the baby, now called Marcus, and the wet nurse sailed with him. Corax's business grew and prospered. His single galley became a fleet. His ships traded through out the Mediterranean. To the East they penetrated the Bosphorus to reach the Black Sea. To the West they faced the storms of the Atlantic, coasting the Western shores of Spain and Gaul to Britain and beyond. The cargoes born were various the only rule was that Corax bought where goods were cheap and sold where they were dear. Wolf hounds from Ireland, bears from Scotland for the Roman Circus, tin and gold from Britain, corn, wine, olive oil from Gaul and Spain, spices and silks from the East, slaves from the great markets of North Africa and Asia Minor, he and his ships Captains traded in them all.

Soon his wealth was so great that he did not need to voyage himself. He bought himself a magnificent villa in Rome. He acquired another wife, Philomela the daughter of a knight, for great wealth excused in Roman eyes his servile origins. Not that he tried to hide those origins. Indeed he appeared rather to thrust them on the attention of others. Corax, a slaves name, was one that he seemed to bear with pride.

In time Philomela bore him a son Lucius and a daughter Thalia but his visits to Rome were only fleeting and duty driven. After four years the wet nurse returned to her native village a free woman and a rich one by the standards of her people. Marcus his son by the slave girl Fortunata stayed with him. The boy saw many things; some of great beauty and wonder like the strange green Northern lights and the great whales of the Western sea; some horrible like the pirates nailed on the crosses on the shore at Crete or the great entrepot of human misery Smyrna were thousands of slaves were traded daily like human cattle.

By the time Marcus was ten however Corax's affairs were so complex that he decided he could no longer afford to voyage himself. It was also time for the boy to receive some formal education. He could sail a boat and swim and ride a horse and so far as his strength allowed wrestle and throw a spear. He could read and write and do simple arithmetic but Corax felt if he was to play a part in the great Roman world he should learn rhetoric and law and perhaps manners as well.

Corax told Marcus of this at breakfast of the day he was to see Cinnatus. He had bought the debts of Julius Gaius Cornelius from his creditors, at a substantial discount, and by this transaction Cinnatus had become in effect his steward of the Cornelius estates. He trusted, so far as he trusted anyone, Cinnatus and rarely bothered him. He was however in Britain on other business and thought he might as well pay a visit to the place where the foundations of his present immense fortune had been laid before finally settling in Rome.

Giving up his wandering way of life was not some thing he relished. He did not look forward to settling permanently in Rome. It was clear to him that Marcus felt the same. What normal healthy boy would want to give up the excitement and freedom of a life of travel for the tedium of a Roman school. Not that the boy had tried to argue. He knew better than to do that. He had just gone very quiet. He had cheered up however when he had seen the pony his father had bought him as a present to sweeten the news. Now he was riding beside Corax trying to hide his eagerness to put the animal, which he had already named Pegasus, through it's paces. The pony seemed to be as eager as the boy. It needed all the lad's strength and skill to stop it leaving his father and his heavier more stately horse far behind. Even then Pegasus pranced and jigged as he went along in a way that would have irritated an older rider but which to Marcus simply promised excitement and fun if he could only escape from his fathers company.

They came to the bridge over the River Stour. Corax reigned in his horse and looked about him. Behind him on the hill above Colchester Hadrian's vast temple with it's brilliant white columns dominated the countryside, a symbol of Roman power. Ahead the paved road ran almost due North to Norwich. While beneath the bridge the dark brown waters of the Stour helped by a falling tide and backed by recent heavy rain flowed strongly. He saw the old track along the North bank of the Stour running down towards the sea was still open.

"Marcus," he said, "I have business to do ahead. You take the track by the river there. Go along it for five miles [8km] till you see a track running inland, follow it till you come to a villa. Ask for the steward Cinnatus I will be with him and my business will be done."

The boy did not need telling twice. In a second he and the pony were picking their way down the slope of the embankment along which the main road ran to the track beside the river. Once there Pegasus with just a touch from Marcus's heels was off at a canter. Corax sat still on his horse for a minute or so watching as the boy drew away from him his short white tunic lifted almost to his waist by the wind, strong brown legs gripping the black flanks of the pony, his fair hair glinting in the morning sun. For a moment but only a moment the habitual sterness of his face relaxed.

Marcus soon forgot his worries about Rome and school as he cantered along the riverside green fields to his left the brown waters of the river flowing fast to his right. It was a wonderful early summers day. Larks rose trilling into a blue sky flecked with the smallest of white clouds. The heat of the sun tempered by a cool breeze from the West. Pegasus was all and more than he had hoped for. Glancing over his shoulder he checked his father was no longer in sight. He urged the pony, it did not need much urging ,into a full gallop. Thoughts of studying at a Roman school and living in the same house as his step mother, a bitch in his and many other peoples opinions, were driven from his mind.

He turned a bend in the river bank and saw ahead of him a small boat clearly out of control in the centre of the stream. He drew level with the skiff and slowed the pony to a canter. The only occupant of the boat was a dark haired boy, perhaps a couple of years younger than himself, dressed in a short ragged tunic. A slave boy Marcus thought, a favourite of his master though, he decided, noticing his long hair. The boat caught in the current whirled uncontrollably, the boy dug desperately at the water with his single oar.

It seemed to Marcus that disaster was not far away. At that moment a side current caught the skiff and hurled it hard against the river bank. The boat was swept sideways onto a half submerged tree stump. The boy, panicking, half rose from his seat and tried to push the little craft free. The boat seemed to lift and then rolled over. For a moment Marcus though the boy was trapped underneath the boat. Then he saw the lad's dark head a few yards down stream. The boy was being swept along the river bank. He had clearly lost his grip on the oar. A tree grew out of the bank its branches touching the surface of the swollen river. The boy caught one of the branches and held on desperately. He was a good five yards out from the bank and the current tore at him viciously.

Marcus sat on Pegasus watching. It was really just as exciting as the wild beasts in the circus. More fun really because the boy was prettier, Marcus was just beginning to appreciate such things, to look at than the criminals who suffered there. He had no intention of risking his own life in an attempt to safe that of a slave. What was the point? The boy if he was saved, could only look forward to a life of drudgery once his looks had gone, if indeed he survived the beating he would undoubtedly and deservedly receive for loosing a boat that would cost more than he himself would fetch to replace.

A log swept along by the river was bearing down on the boy. He saw it and looked about wild eyed.

"Help me. Please help me," he shouted to Marcus. The log struck him and he lost his hold on the branch and disappeared beneath the turbulent water..

Those five words were enough to tell Marcus that this was no slave boy, despite his meagre clothing and desperate plight, for he spoke with the most patrician of Roman accents

Marcus removed his silver buckled belt and fine white tunic. He hurriedly pulled off his gold armlet, he knew it was valuable and there was no point in risking it being lost, and shedding his sandals dived into the river.

He was a strong swimmer but once he felt the force of the current he knew he was in for a struggle. Coming to the surface he saw the boy for a moment thirty yards or so down stream of him. He struck out hard towards him. The current had swept the boy beneath the surface and he almost swam over him. It was only his foot brushing against the lad's tunic that alerted him. He turned dived and got a grip of an arm. He got the boy's head above water. He had lost consciousness. Marcus wondered if he was dead. If he didn't manage to get ashore they would both be dead. Looking about he saw below him a shingle bank sticking out into the stream. The current ripped round it but if he set about working his way across the river towards it he thought there was a chance that he could get a foothold and drag himself and the other boy out of the water.

Chapter 2

"Tell me," said Cinnamus, "how is young Marcus now?"

Corax was not an easy man to talk to but their business such as it was completed the steward did not intend to sit in silence and he anyway felt he had an interest in the boy since Marcus had spent the first few months of his life in his own house. Apart from that Cinnamus had a favour to ask.

"Doing well I suppose although he's not too happy about having to live in Rome." Corax replied .

"You have taken no action about that clause in your deed of manumission. There is I think only three years before it becomes effective?"

"I have taken all the action I need to. Julius Cornelius's debts to me far exceed the value of his assets. If he is foolish enough to try to enforce that provision, and sometimes I think he is stupid enough to do so, I will foreclose on him and I will obtain possession of all his assets including my own son and he and his family will be destitute."

"Julius is a foolish bitter man and drinks too much as well," Cinnamus replied emolliantly. "I am afraid that, apart from the drinking too much, applies to his wife and eldest son as well."

"There is another boy?" Corax enquired carelessly.

"Yes, Gaius, born a year or so after Julius was exiled here, he is just nine years old. I wished to talk to you about him."

Corax said nothing so Cinnamus, after a pause, continued. "He's not a bad boy, as boys go, but the atmosphere here is poison. If he stays he will turn out as bad as the rest of them. He has family in Rome and I know they will take him in and care for him and give him a chance in the big world."

"I thought Julius and his family were under sentence of perpetual exile from Rome?"

"So they are but no one will care too much about a nine year old boy once he's in Rome. They'd try to stop him getting there no doubt but once he's there they'll just put up with it I'm sure. There's even a different Emperor now from the one who banished him. The biggest resistance will come from here in Britain. Julius has of course managed to upset both the legate and the procurator."

"There are," Corax said coldly, "two things I do not understand. Why should I involve myself in this matter. How, supposing I do so, are we to get the boy out of Britain without the authorities stopping us."

"You have a chance to help the lad make something of his life and it will cost you nothing to give him that chance."

"And the means?"

"He will travel disguised as a slave. You have a reputation and nothing would be more in character that you should return from a visit to one of your business ventures with a pretty young slave boy who has caught your fancy."

"As you say I have a reputation and I am not ashamed of it. Boys for pleasure wives for duty as the saying goes. But I do not force free boy's flesh however presented. I cannot see what there is in this for me."

Cinnamus sighed he had hoped to avoid this argument..

"There is," he said carefully, "a debt between you and I."

"True. Marcus would have died were it not for you. I will take this boy to Rome but I do it Cinnamus for you, not for any other reason, certainly not to help a son of Julius Cornelius."

"Does the boy know he is to travel as a slave and does he agree to it?"

"He does not know but he will have no choice."

"He must be told before we start and he must agree. It will not be easy for him. If the disguise is to succeed he must be a slave all the time we journey together not just play at it when he thinks people are looking. He will be exempt only service in my bed. Now where is that boy of mine?"

***

Marcus felt the shingle under his heels. The current tore at his legs as he scrabbled backwards up the bank hauling himself and the other boy out of the water. Once clear he dropped exhausted to his knees. Recovering slightly he glance across to where the other boy lay motionless on his back on the pebbles. He wondered if he was dead. He crawled over to him and pulled his tunic up about his shoulders. The force of the current had pulled the boy's loincloth, a skimpy garment at the best of times, so that it hung loose about his crutch leaving him all but naked.

Marcus put his ear against the side of the lads ribcage. He thought he could hear very faintly the beat of the boy's heart. He rolled him over onto his front and kneeling beside him began to press down on either side of his chest trying to pump the air in and out of his lungs as he had seen sailors do once or twice in the past with men who had been taken from the sea.

As he worked Marcus looked the boy over. He had noticed there were cuts on the lad's shins and knees but no more than an active boy picks up in the coarse of a days adventures. There were bruises too on his side and back but these were no doubt caused by the buffeting he had received in the river. His thin shoulders and the smooth tight curves of his bottom were free of the long livid welts that a cane or lash left. He felt certain that this was no slave but a free boy, poor perhaps to judge from his clothes, but free born. Water flowed from the boy's mouth and nostrils, he began to cough, rolled over and struggled to sit up. Marcus put an arm round his narrow shoulders to help him and the boy vomited down his chest.

"Sorry," the boy said weakly and began to shiver.

"That's all right," Marcus replied. "Now if you can manage alone for a moment I'll just clean this stuff off. We ought to get your clothes off you. They're soaking and perhaps the sun will warm you up."

The boy held up his arms and Marcus pulled the tunic over his head. It was he noticed a scruffy coarse garment which had once been dark blue but now had faded. He clambered down the bank on the down stream side where the current was less strong and mopped the sick from his chest and thighs with his own wet loin cloth. He rinsed it out and climbed back up the bank. The boy had shed his loin cloth and was sitting naked, his head resting on his knees.

"I'm going to fetch my things," Marcus said. "You stay here I'll be back in a minute."

"I'll come with you," the boy said. He got unsteadily to his feet and then sat hard down again on his bare bottom. "You stay where you are," Marcus said with a laugh.

Pegasus had not strayed far. Marcus bent over to pick up his clothes and the pony trotted over from where he had been cropping the grass at the edge of the path. Slipping on his gold armlet he collected the reigns from where he had knotted them behind the animals head and carrying his tunic lead him along the river bank to where he had left the other boy.

"Stand up," he said, "and I'll dry you off with my tunic."

"What's your name," he asked as he dried the boy's back. Mine is Marcus."

"Gaius. What's happened to the boat?"

"Last I saw it was heading out to sea."

"I'll catch it for that when I get home. It was my brother's and he told me not to take out."

"Well," Marcus replied judiciously transferring his efforts to Gauis's bottom, "if you were told not to take it out you deserve a beating. But not today. He should give you a chance to get over being almost drowned."

"You don't know my brother. He's just waiting for a chance to get at me. Usually my mother sees he doesn't but she won't be able to stop him this time."

"Well, we'll see about that," Marcus said. He felt very protective towards the younger boy. "We better get you home anyway. Hold the clothes they're much too wet to wear, while I get up on the pony and then you can ride in front of me."

"This your pony?" Gaius asked when he was settled in front of Marcus on Pegasus's back. "You must be rich. We used to be once but now we've lost all our money. Everything we had belongs to an ex-slave of ours called Corax. He's got lots and lots of money.""My father," Marcus said with a laugh.

"Oh I'm sorry"

"What for?"

"For calling him an ex-slave."

"Well he was and it's not what he was that matters. It's what he is." Marcus tightened his grip round Gaius's waste and gave him a hug to show he was not angry with him. "I'm glad you saved my life," Gaius said wriggling his little bare bottom more tightly into Marcus crutch.

"Well I'm glad you didn't drown," Marcus replied lightly. He realised that he was beginning to harden, something that was happening to him more and more often, and hoped that the smaller boy would not notice, although with his bum pressed up close against him he though it unlikely that he would not.

"No, I mean I'm glad it was you and not anyone else that saved me," Gaius insisted. If he was aware of Marcus's increasing excitement he did not show it.

"Look there's our villa over there. I bet you anything that my brother does take the whip to me he likes hurting things. He's always beating the slave boys."

"Slave boys are different," Marcus said seriously. "They expect to be beaten. It's different with free born boys like you and me."

With that comforting though he rode into the central courtyard of the villa. A heavily built black haired youth was sitting on the low brick wall built about the central well.

"My brother, Titus," Gaius said nervously as the young man stood up and walked towards them a whip coiled in his right hand.

"What have you done with my boat?" Titus's voice was thick with rage.

"I…it's…"

"Get down off there you thieving little tyke… I'll teach you to go stealing things from me."

Titus grabbed one of his brothers ankles and pulled, tumbling the boy onto the ground. Gaius rolled onto his front and began to get up. Titus stepped back and brought the whip hissing down across the boy's shoulders knocking him back to his knees. Gaius screamed and the whip cut down a second time catching him across his bottom. Marcus shouted and began to dismount but the pony, fortunately, for neither of the two boys would have stood a chance against the much bigger youth, alarmed by the whip whistling about near him, turned and lashed out with it's hind legs. Both hoofs caught Titus in the chest knocking him backwards. Marcus fought to control the pony, turning it to face scene of action. As Titus scrambled back to his feet Pegasus reared and lashed out with his forelegs. Marcus seeing the terror on the youth's face urged the pony forward tightening the reigns and encouraging it to rear again. Titus's nerve broke. He turned and ran.

"'Arma virumque cano [of arms and the man I sing]'", a man's voice said. "Marcus, I am Cinnamus, the last time I saw you was more than nine years ago. Give your pony to the slave. Your father wants to speak to you and you too Gaius. Come with me." "Can we get some clothes first?" Gaius asked.

"No, come on. It was a famous victory but a wise general knows when to retreat as well as when to attack. Your brother will recover his courage such as it is pretty soon and it would be best if you were out of his way before he came after you again."

Cinnamus lead the two boys two his study.

"This," he said seating himself behind his desk in his study, "is the boy I spoke to you about Corax. Gaius the younger son of our mutual acquaintance Lucius Cornelius."

Corax looked up from the chair in which he sat and fixed the boy with a cold stare. He said nothing and Gaius, conscious of his nakedness, stirred uneasily under his unwavering inspection.

"Gaius you know I think you would be better off away from here. Corax has agreed to take you to Rome."

"To Rome," Gaius explained and in his excitement did a little jig on his bare feet. "But.. but how father always saying we're banished here and cannot leave. He goes on and on about it. It's boring…"

"Don't let me hear you criticising your father again boy," Corax said sternly wiping the smile off Gaius's face. "If you come with me you will come as a slave. It won't be play acting. From the time we set out to the time I hand you over to your relatives in Rome you will be a slave. You will look like a slave, act like a slave, talk like a slave and think like a slave and," he said dropping his voice for emphasis, "you will be treated like a slave. That is the only way it will work. If you play at it we will be caught out. Do you still want to came."

"Yes. Yes please, "Gaius said without hesitating and then added, "please could I be Marcus's slave?"

The two men laughed.

"That is not a bad idea but don't think that will make your life easier. If you are to be Marcus's slave he will have the right to name you. We can hardly call a little slave brat by a good Roman name like Gaius. What will you call him Marcus ?"

Marcus hesitated a moment thinking and then said. "Pisclus Father because he's tiny and I got him out of the river". [Pisclus is short for Pisciculus which means a little fish from pisces with the addition ulus - but the addition ulus also bears a derogatory implication it implies the fish is not only small but skinny, unimportant and so on. Furthermore Pisciculus was the word employed to describe Tiberius's catamites at Capri who were taught to swim between his legs and kiss his private parts when he was bathing. The adults if not the boys would have known this.]

"Very good Pisclus is what you will answer to Gaius . Now tell me what happens to a slave who is lazy or slow or stupid?"

"He gets beaten," Gaius's said very quietly.

"Yes. Have you been beaten Gaius?"

Only sometimes. Just once or twice."

"It looks to me as though you've felt the whip recently?"

"Yes Titus caught me with it a couple of times."

"Good, a few whip marks on your body to start with will make you look more like a slave. I have no doubt quite a few more will be added before we reach Rome. Do you still want to come with me?"

"Yes. Yes I do please.

"Cinnamus, how do you plan to arrange our leaving here?"

"I've got a slave sorting out clothes for the boys now and another saddling up a mule. Once that's done Gaius will set out on the mule ostensibly to look for Titus's boat. Marcus will go with him apparently planning to accompany him to the river and then to go back up to the bridge to meet you, Corax, who will set off along the road. You all three will meet up by the bridge"

"Gaius, before you leave you will write a note saying that you have decided to run away because you are frightened of being beaten by Titus. I will find that note in your room much later on tonight. By then Gaius you will have long ago been transformed into a little slave."

"That sounds all right," Corax said. "I will need a small cheap tunic for Gaius or perhaps I should say Pisciculus, a slave collar and a pair of sheers to crop his hair."

"You had better," Corax said quietly after the two boys had left the room, "add a leather strap to that list of mine."

Chapter 3

The boys spoke little as they made there way along the river bank. They were both too busy with their own thoughts.

Marcus was trying to make sense of his own emotions. The thought that Gaius was, for however short a period, to be his slave excited him. That meant surely he could do what ever he wanted with him. He remembered the excitement of the little boy's firm rump pressed into his crutch, the smooth silkiness of his skin, the feel of the boy's flesh cool to his touch.

His had not been a sheltered upbringing. In the cramped quarters of a small trading vessel there is little privacy. He knew men got great pleasure from boys. He had seen boys, members of the crew or part of a cargo of slaves, brought, often unwillingly, to his father's cabin. Precisely what then happened he did not know for he would be banished to the deck but often he would hear through the planking a boy's voice pleading, shrill screaming and the sound of sobbing. He had seen boys after they had left the cabin walking gingerly, or carried out by members of the crew, the inside of their thighs bloody and messed. After such incidents his father would be for a time quieter, more relaxed.

He knew that he himself could be attractive to men. He had felt men's eyes on himself but no member of the crew dared touch Corax's son. Once at Lepcis Magna on the North African coast a Berber trader had offered his father in his hearing "500 sesterces for the boy or 50 if you will lend him to me for the night." His father, to Marcus's relief, had laughed and said that even for him certain things were not for sale.

More and more often recently he had felt a tightening in his chest and a strange excitement on catching a glimpse of another boy in the street or on the deck of neighbouring ship. Then later, lying on the cabin floor in the dark, he would imagine the boy was there beside him and his cock would harden and he would experience a new intense pleasure.

Indeed, now as he thought about Gaius, he felt his prick stir and begin to swell. He was puzzled by his feelings for the boy. On the one hand he wanted to dominate. He imagined the boy stripped and cowering at his feet waiting in terror for the bight of the lash. But at the same time he wanted to protect the child, to hold him in his arms to wipe away the tears and to very gently reassure him.

Gaius's feelings were less complicated. Marcus had saved him from drowning and then preserved his hide from Titus's rage. He worshipped the older boy. He was glad to be with his hero. The thought of being Marcus's slave excited and frightened him. He wanted to be his boy but knew that there would be suffering as well as pleasure in that. A year younger than Marcus and having spent his whole life on his father's estate he had had a much more sheltered upbringing. He had seen however how his elder brother treated slave boys. The youth seemed to enjoy using the whip on them and some times he had hurt them in other ways, though what precisely he had done Gaius did not know. He hoped Marcus would be kind to him. He was sure he told himself, that even if Marcus proved to be as cruel as his brother he would still bear it and be brave and earn the other boy's respect.

Corax when he reached the bridge over the Stour saw below him the two boys sitting side by side in the shade of an ash tree staring out silently over the rivers swirling brown waters. They had taken their sandals off and were splashing their feet in the stream. He smiled grimly. That he thought will have to stop.

"Boy," he shouted. "You there boy." Both boys looked up startled. "Pisciculus you lazy little brat up here at the double. Quick boy. I'll teach you to laze around when your betters call you."

Gaius forgetting for a moment his slave name and not expecting to be spoken to in such terms looked about him for the slave at whom Corax was shouting. Then he remembered and jumping to his to his feet scrambled bare foot up the bank to the man.

Corax slid from the saddle and threw the reigns at the boy.

"Don't just stand there with your mouth open you stupid little oaf," he snapped. "Bring the horse down after me," and he set about the descent to the river .

"You all right Marcus," he said more mildly greeting his son.

"Yes thank you father."

"You ought to keep that boy of yours in better order. Letting him sit on the ground beside you like that. He'll get above himself if you're not careful. He needs a lesson and we'll give it to him now."

"Tether that horse somewhere boy and get your idle little carcass over here. Quick now and bring the bundle on it's back to me."

Gaius hurriedly looped the reigns around the trunk of a bush and trotted over to Corax. He held out the bundle to the man who took it from him.

"Strip," the man ordered.

The boy hesitated. Suddenly a leather strap was in the man's hand. He lashed the boy hard across the front of his thighs catching him just below the hem of his tunic. Gaius squealed and jumped back.

"Come back here," Corax said pointing at the ground in front of him. Reluctantly Gaius obeyed.

"Strip," Corax repeated and hit the boy again.

Gaius was near to tears. It wasn't fair. He hadn't been told it would be like this. He should have been warned before they started treating him as a slave. It just wasn't fair to begin suddenly like that and the two stripes on the front of his thighs burnt terribly. He didn't want another one. He pulled his tunic over his head and dropped it on the ground. He fumbled at the knot in the front of his loincloth and it fell to the ground about his ankles. He stood naked and shivering in front of Corax.

He fought back the tears. He wasn't going to cry. Not in front of Marcus. He would show Marcus he could take what ever was thrown at him.

"That's better," the man said coldly. "that's how I like to see a slave boy. Pretty miserable specimen you are though. It's hard to tell even whether you are a boy."

"What are those things there," he flicked the strap at Gaius's testicles, "not balls, more like little peas. Not worth having at all might as well cut 'em off they're no good to you. What do you think Marcus a have you seen anything smaller ."

"They're not very big Father," Marcus said uneasily. He actually thought that the boy's hairless crutch and balls and tiny cock were rather touching, at least he found he wanted to touch them.

"Not very big! They're tiny. More like a mouse's balls than a boy's," Corax jeered.

He bent over picked up Gaius's clothes and sandals. He bundled them together and before the boy's horrified eyes threw them into the river.

"No…." surprise and shock wrenched the protest from the boy's lips.

"What did you say?" Corax thundered, "you insolent little tyke. I'll teach you to say no to me boy. Get over to that tree." He grabbed Gaius by the back of the neck and threw him against the tree trunk. The boy's face thudded into the tree, his head jerked back and blood trickled from his nose and mouth.

I will not cry Gaius thought desperately. I won't disgrace myself by crying.

"Hands above your head boy," Corax ordered. "Take hold of that branch and keep hold of it. If you let it go while you're being beaten your punishment will start all over again."

"All right Marcus," he continued, " he's your boy you flog him. Six strokes. It would be more but I want him capable of walking afterwards."

He handed the strap to his son. Marcus looked at the other boy and hesitated. Gaius looked so helpless and vulnerable his arms stretched high above his head, his naked body taught and waiting for the lash.

"Come on," his father snapped impatiently. "We haven't all day."

Marcus brought the strap back over his shoulder and began the downward swing. Gaius, hearing the hiss of the lash as it descended, tensed, the muscles in his bottom and shoulders tightening in anticipation of the pain to come. Marcus instinctively checked his blow. The strap thudded down across Gaius's bare rump.

Gaius drew his breath in sharply. To him it sounded like the full blooded crack of leather striking unprotected flesh . It hurt too. It hurt a lot but he thought he would be able to take six strikes, with luck, without crying.

Corax however who had flogged and been flogged recognised what had happened.

"You're meant to be trying to beating the boy Marcus," he said impatiently. "You're supposed to hurt him not to tickle him so that he giggles. Give me that strap."

"Now look. Stand back and to the left, your left foot slightly advanced. Now pivoting from the waste bring the strap back over your left shoulder and then with all your weight behind it bring it forward as hard as you can with plenty of follow through. If you're flogging the brat's bum aim at something about two feet [60cm] beyond it. Like this."

He swung the strap back over his shoulder and then brought it singing down across Gaius's defenceless rump. Leather cracked sharply against bare flesh. Gaius's body jerked convulsively as the pain coursed through it. The boy gasped and an odd strangled noise, half scream, half moan, was wrenched from him.

"Now you can tell when a blow hurts," Corax said. "You can tell from the noise the boy makes, you can tell from the way his body moves and above all you can tell from the sound of the blow and the mark it leaves on the lad's flesh. Look at where that last stroke land, white deepening to red and now in places turning a dark purple. I want to see a stripe like that left by every cut you land on him. Now you try."

Reluctantly Marcus took the strap from his father. He followed Corax's instructions and gritting his teeth struck with all his weight behind the blow.

Gaius heard the whistle of the lash above his head and tensed again. The strap cut down across his bottom. It curled round the side of his hip and it's tip caught him across his testicles. The agony was intense driving him to his knees. He rolled onto his side his hands clasping his crutch. For a moment he couldn't breath then he began to whimper helplessly.

"Well that's a useful lesson for you Marcus," Corax said calmly. "Always measure your distance carefully before delivering a blow. If you don't that's what can happen. Of course sometimes you'll want to deliver a blow like that but you shouldn't do it accidentally."

"Come on boy, "he said turning his attention to Gaius and prodding him viciously in the rump with his toe, "that's enough of that. Get back in position. You still have six strokes coming to you. That last one doesn't count. You let go of the branch."

Gaius pulled himself painfully to his feet. He was crying now all thought of retaining his pride gone.

"Please Sir. Please," he pleaded hopelessly as he stretched up to grasp the branch again.

"Stop making such a fuss boy," Corax snapped impatiently.

" You can learn a lesson from this as well." He placed his hand on the small of the boy's back pushing him forward so that his chest and the front of his thighs were pressed against the rough bark of the tree. "That's right. Now the tree will protect the front of your body. And get your head down between your arms to protect your face. I've blinded slaves in my time but never accidentally."

"Now Marcus let's see you do the job properly. Six strokes. Three across the bum and three across the shoulders."

Marcus hefted the strap again. Somehow the breakdown of Gaius's resolution and his reduction to a whimpering terrified child had hardened his heart. Pity had been replaced with contempt. Marcus looked at the boy's trembling body and saw not Gauis the boy he had rescued from drowning but Pisclus the little slave brat who had to be taught a lesson and that he was resolved to do.

Six times he brought the lash crashing down across the boy's naked body as the lad leapt and capered screaming under the impact of the strap.

"Well done," Corax said as the last blow slashed down and Pisclus, his suffering for the moment over, sank sobbing to his knees.

Corax stepped forward holding a pair of shears in his hands. He ran them over Pisclus's head the locks of long dark hair tumbling to the ground about the kneeling boy.

Marcus stood panting from his efforts. To his surprise he found he had an erection.

"Get up and put this on," Corax commanded. He produced a short blue tunic and threw it at Pisclus.

The boy clambered painfully to his feet. He wiped the snot and tears from his face with the back of his hand and sobbing quietly pulled the tunic on over his head. It was so short that it just covered his crutch when he was standing upright. If he lent forward or stretched upwards it would lift to bare his bottom.

"Now go and fetch my horse. I don't want to waste any more time."

Pisculus hesitated a moment hoping that perhaps Corax would produce a loincloth for him. Then remembering how the slave boys of his age were set to work naked on the fields about his home he scuttled off . He supposed he was lucky to be allowed such clothing as he had.

Corax watched the boy and smiled.

"I think he is learning", he said.

Corax and Marcus set their mounts at the bank leading up to the bridge leaving Pisciculus to follow with the mule. They rode side by side chatting for some time till Corax looked back over his shoulder. He laughed.

"Marcus," he said chuckling, "you must have picked the cheekiest little slave brat in Britain. Go back and knock him off the back of the mule and tell him he has legs of his own to carry him. The mule is to carry those possessions of mine that do not have legs."

Seconds later Pisclus was picking himself off the hard surface of the road his head ringing from the clout Marcus had given him. Wearily he gathered the mules reigns in his hands and set off plodding after his master. Blinking back his tears he tried to ignore the crude joking of a carter going in the opposite direction.

It was a sore and tired nine year old who limped into Colchester as dusk approached. Hot and thirsty, his bare legs and arms caked with dust, it was only fear of the lash that kept him moving. The people in the streets paid little attention to him as he padded along behind his master's pony. Exhausted and bruised slave boys were a common enough sight. Nobody very much spared a glance for the crop haired bare footed brat that led Corax's mule.

Corax and Marcus turned off the main street into a tavern yard.

The inn keeper came out to greet them.

"Your rooms are ready for you Sir," he said to Corax. "I will have your dinner sent up to you directly."

Dismounting Corax handed his horse's reigns to Pisclus together with a silver coin.

"Take the animals to the stables and hand the groom there that coin. Then clean yourself up and go to the kitchens. You can help carry our dinner up to our rooms."

"You've brought a boy back with you," the inn keeper said glancing appreciatively at Pisclus. He reached forward and lifted the front of the boy's tunic exposing the lads hairless crutch.

"How old are you boy?" He gently fingered the child's tiny balls and prick.

Pisclus embarrassed by being exposed in this way, in a yard with people of all sorts passing by, flushed and shifted uneasily. Holding the three animals he could do nothing to evade the man's fumblings.

"Come on boy answer the question," Corax snapped.

"Please Sir, Nine Sir," the boy mumbled.

The man pushed his hand between the boy's legs. One of his fingers began to probe the cleft of his bottom.

"Tight little arse," the man remarked to Corax, "still young flesh and young bones, pliable and quick to mend." He withdrew his hand and landed an open handed slap on the side of Pisciculus's leg.

"All right. Go on boy. Do as your master says. A man can dream I suppose."

Corax and the man both laughed. Pisclus could feel their eyes on him as he led the animals across the yard to the stables.

The stables were dark and smelt of horses and hay. Pisclus stood just inside the double doors, blinking, trying to accustom his eyes to the dim half light. He held the reigns of Pegasus and the mule in one hand and the reigns of Corax's horse together with the silver coin in the other.

"Well here's a pretty little boy, just what I need," a rough voice said from the shadows. "What do you want my lovely?"

A large dark man dressed in a shabby tunic his bare legs covered with black wiry hair lumbered forward into the light.

"My Master says to give you these animals to look after and there's some money for you too," Pisclus said nervously.

"And he sent me you as well." The man reached out for the boy

"Come on quick," a woman's voice spoke from the doorway. "Where's that boy. The dinner's ready and it'll be ruined if it isn't served soon and then we'll all suffer."

A fat brawny woman, sleeves rolled up above her elbows, a large wooden ladle stuck in the belt around her waste, sweat shining on her face waddled into sight.

"Take those animals from him this instant you lazy dirty minded pig and boy come along with me."

Thankfully Pisclus surrendered the reigns to the groom who leered at him and muttered that they would have another longer chat when he collected the beasts in the morning.

Chapter 4

Pisclus followed the fat woman out of the stables.

"The meals are not ready yet," she said, "but I'm not having my good food spoilt by being served by a grubby little brat in a filthy tunic."

She strode across the yard with Pisclus trotting beside her. She halted outside an open door through which the sound of pots and pans banging together came along with the most delicious smell of cooking food. Pisclus realised that he was very hungry.

"When did you eat last?" the woman asked him.

"This morning Miss."

"Very well. Give me that tunic and wait there."

Pisclus hesitated. Some residue of modesty remained to him and the thought of being naked in front of a woman and in an inn yard where people were constantly passing horrified him. The woman snorted and hit him hard across the knee with the wooden spoon. Pisclus howled, modesty forgotten, he pulled the tunic over his head.

"I should hope so," the woman snorted taking it from him. "The idea, a little slave brat thinking he's got anything to hide."

She turned and walked into the inn. Pisclus peered in the doorway after her. He found himself looking into a large kitchen. He could feel the heat from where he stood. Young slaves moved quickly about sweat glistening on their near naked bodies. At the far end of the room a great fire blazed. Ovens stood on either side of it and in front of it rows of spits, burdened with large junks of meat including a whole sheep, turned slowly . The spits were powered by two small boys who trudged endlessly round the inside of an open wheel. As Pisclus watched one of the boys, hardly he thought eight years old, stumbled and fell. His body bumped about for a brief moment in the wheel as the remaining boy laboured on. Then it was dragged clear and another boy was pushed forward to take his place.

A youth picked the unconscious boy up in his arms and carried him to the door. He dropped him unceremoniously to the ground at Pisclus feet and went back to his work in the kitchen.

A teenage girl appeared at the door, her only clothing a narrow strip of cloth between her legs. Beads of sweat ran down her face and over her half formed breasts. She carried in one hand an earthenware jug and in the other a bowl containing a hunk of black bread. Pisclus automatically moved his hands to cover his crutch .

"Here take this," she said holding out the bowl, "and take the bread out of it."

She tipped the jug up filling the bowl with butter milk.

"You're a funny one," she continued laughing, "getting all shy. That usually gets knocked out of us slaves pretty quick. Anyway get that inside you and I'll be out again in a minute with some water for you wash yourself down with. Get a move on now. You're Master's food will be ready soon."

Pisclus squatted down and taking a swig of the butter milk The sour milk eased his thirst and he began to munch on the hard bread. The small boy who had fainted labouring to turn the spit stirred and moaned. After a moment he painfully levered himself into a sitting position. He looked about vaguely and then his head fell down between his knees. Pisclus took another swig at the bowl of butter milk. He looked about. People hurried by busy about their own business taking no notice of the two naked boys huddled at their feet. He moved across beside the boy and putting an arm round his narrow shoulders tipped his head back. He held the bowl to the boy's lips.

"Do you want some?" he asked gently, "come on it's good."

The boy gulped the liquid down thirstily

There was a clump of metal on stone. Pisclus looked up. The girl had returned with a bucket of steaming water.

"That was meant for you and you haven't finished the bread either," she chided but he noticed she didn't seem very annoyed. "Well finish the milk off between the two of you, quick now, and push as much of the bread into your mouth as you can. You can chew on it as you wash yourself down."

Pisclus took a gulp from the bowl and passing it to the other boy to finish, scrambled to his feet, cramming the remains of the bread into his mouth. He chewed on it as he rubbed himself down with a piece of rag provided by the girl.

"Do your bottom thoroughly now," the girl ordered him. "Nice little bum like that - you want to make the most of your chances. Come on I'll do it for you."

Without waiting for Pisclus's agreement the girl snatched the wet rag from him. She pushed his head down bending him forward.

"Now legs apart," she commanded. "Open it up for me. Now come on."

She began to sponge vigorously between his legs. Embarrassment at having the most intimate parts of his body handled by a stranger and a girl in full view of passers-by conflicted with unfamiliar feelings of rising excitement.

"Caught it a bit from your Master have you today," the girl said running a finger along one of the welts that the strap had left on the boy's rump. "Still a couple of nice stripes across a boy's bottom turns some men on and your a pretty little thing."

"It'll be the first time though for you by the look of it. Ah well remember it'll hurt less next time and there's pleasure in it as well. Anyway it's worth a little pain to please your Master. Not that you have any choice in the matter anyway. Poor little tyke."

"And look," she giggled, "that tiny prick of yours is standing to attention now. That's a good luck sign." She touched it with her finger tips patted his bottom and went back into the kitchen laughing.

A minute or two later the fat woman came out of the kitchen. She was accompanied by another girl, this one was wearing a short skirt split up one side to her waste and nothing else. The girl was carrying a heavy tray covered with a white napkin.

The fat woman looked at Pisclus and then saw the boy sitting on the ground beside him.

"What are you doing there," she demanded. "It's bad enough you can't do a full spell in the wheel you lazy little ape. You're not to spend the whole evening sitting on your arse taking things easy. Get back in the kitchen now."

She clouted the boy on the side of the head with the ladle. He howled and clapping a hand to his injured ear scuttled back inside.

"Put this on." She handed Pisclus a length of white cloth with a hole for his head. Obediently he slipped it on. She produced a length of white cord which she tied round his waste drawing the edges of the cloth together. She spent a second or two bunching the cloth above the cord so that the two ends hung just a fraction below the junction of his legs.

She stood back to admire the effect.

"That's not too bad," she aid. "at least you won't disgrace the meal I'm sending up. Now you carry this bottle of wine. It's the best Valerian and you tell your Master so."

"You know how to serve wine?"

"Yes Miss." He had seen his father drink enough bottles.

"Good. Off you go. And if Corax wants another bottle and knowing him it is likely he will just run down here and get it."

Corax and Marcus ate well. Prawns, boiled turbot in a white wine sauce, roast partridge stuffed with larks, great hunks of beef swimming in blood, honey and hot meal cakes all served with white wheaten bread contrasted with the butter milk and black bread that had served as Pisclus's meagre supper. The famished boy, for he was still very hungry, watched his betters gorge themselves as he ensured that Corax's wine mug at least was never empty. The meal drew to an end and Pisclus was sent running down to the kitchen to fetch a second bottle of wine.

Marcus had had two small measures of wine mixed with water and after that had been allowed only the latter by his father. Even so he was feeling slightly tipsy, rather sick and if the truth be known a little bored. Corax on the other hand felt as if the springs of energy within him were tightened to the full. It was a common believe among those who dealt with him that drink in great quantities did not make him drunk in the way that normal men became either morose or maudlin. It made him even harder, more audacious, and tougher than he usually was.

It was said that his best and most imaginative coups were conceived after the consumption of wine in such quantities that would have left a lesser man insensible. It was after a three day drinking bout that he had begun his operation to buy up great holdings in silver bullion and in the silver mines of Spain and Pannonia. An operation which had led to his already considerable fortune being multiplied in worth many times when he engineered a silver famine by the simple expedient of closing the mines. It was even said that when he first embarked on this venture he saw far enough into the future to recognise that further profits would accrue to him from supplying the legions that had to be deployed to surpress the rebellions of the starving slaves who had previously worked the mines.

Now though it was no deep commercial speculation that occupied his mind but thoughts of a more intimate and personal nature.

Thirty five years ago he had been a little slave boy with cropped hair waiting at his master's table watching his masters wine cup to see that it was never empty. Hungry and tired, knowing that a moments lack of concentration, a failure to keep the cup filled, a drop of wine spilt would lead to him lying on the flogging bench naked and screaming as the cane raised deep scarlet welts across his bottom and shoulders. Waiting and wondering, a slave boy he reflected spent a lot of his life waiting and wondering, if his master would require more from him that night than attendance at his table.

His Master then was Pisclus's grandfather. The little slave who as hungry and tired and, he suspected, as frightened as he had been then now stood quietly in the shadows watching his wine cup. Corax liked boys. He liked their clear skins, slim bodies, firm little rumps, small hairless balls, tiny innocent pricks, and smooth elegant legs. He liked their clear young voices and their natural high spirits and optimism that survived the most stringent discipline and the deepest humiliation. Pisculus he recognised was a beauty, black hair, peaches and cream complexion, ruby lips and pearl white teeth, a delicate ribcage with every bone clearly defined, a tight little bottom with a most attractive jut, slim but nicely rounded legs. He was a real temptation.

It would be easy enough to simply keep him. His family would never dare to reclaim him. It would mean admitting they had deliberately conspired to break the imperial sentence of banishment under which they languished. There was nothing then to stop Corax possessing the lad in exactly the same way the boys grandfather had possessed him. Corax even now remembered the searing pain as the man had driven his swollen prick deep into his body. The pain and, he had to admit, the pleasure too. For a moment he though of making Pisculus whimper and plead and suffer as he had done. But he had given an undertaking to Cinnamus and that undertaking he would not break.

His son Marcus was another matter. No undertaking had been given by or for him and there was a pleasing symmetry in having his son possess the grandson of the Roman Patrician who, so long ago had, raped him. Nor did he feel that Marcus was unwilling. He had noticed with amusement the boy's excitement when he had thrashed Pisculus. Thrashing and fucking with boys were never far apart. Marcus he suspected was ignorant in such matters. He was sure however that once the potentialities for pleasurable exploitation of the younger boy's body was explained to him he would eagerly make use of them.

As for Pisclus his feelings one way or another were really of no relevance. He was for the moment a slave and it was a slave's fate to suffer; not to choose. Corax, though, made a practice of observing those about him, even the humblest and least important. It didn't matter but he suspected Pisclus would wish to please Marcus. The younger boy's eyes were rarely long off him. Even after Marcus had thrashed him and reduced him to tears the boy's gaze had followed him. It was natural really. Marcus had saved his life and stood up to his brother of whom he was terrified on his behalf. To the smaller boy Marcus was strong and brave and confident. A figure to be worshipped if also to be feared. Corax remembered Pisclus, when he was still Gaius, asking that he might be Marcus's slave. The boy was in love with his son.

It was time to set about educating Marcus. Corax tapped his finger on the edge of his wine cup. Pisclus recognising the signal from many tedious hours spent in the company of his father stepped forward out of the shadows and bent forward to fill the cup. As he poured Corax ran his hand up the back of his thighs. He felt the boy tense but he continued to pore. Corax let his hand rest on the curve of the boy's buttocks. His index finger began to press into the dividing valley. The wine cup was full. The boy ceased pouring but remained where he was, waiting. Corax looked into the lad's face. He saw the boy pass the tip of his tongue along his lips.

" Marcus you've chosen well," he remarked quietly, "a pretty boy and a willing one I suspect."

"Yes look," he said, lifting the front of Pisclus's tunic with his free hand. "His prick shows he is ready."

"Please Sir," the serving girl spoke from out of the shadows in which she stood. "He got hard too when I washed his bum this evening." She giggled softly at the memory.

"Yes a nice ripe boy. Tell me boy does your prick make man's milk yet?"

Pisclus frightened by the man's attentions and embarrassed to have his hard little cock exhibited to the serving girl and Marcus mumbled awkwardly.

"Speak up boy. Answer when you're spoken to now."

Corax took the child's tiny balls, not much bigger than a couple of olives, between his finger and thumb and squeezed them sharply. Pisclus squealed.

"Please Sir..No sir I don't think so Sir," he stammered quickly.

"Ah I wonder if we can change that. Come here girl…"

There was a commotion outside the room. The door burst open and a poorly dressed woman appeared dragging behind her a young boy.

"Corax," the woman cried, "Corax help a poor woman."

"What do you want?" Corax demanded impatiently. He kept his hand on Pisclus's bottom but the slave girl stepped back into the shadows.

"Help me please," the woman's voice had dropped to a whine. "We must pay our capitation tax or the whole family, four children younger than this one here, my husband and me will loose all. We'll be turned off our farm and left to starve."

"What's that to do with me? Why should I safe you and your miserable brood from starving?"

"Corax please Corax. You are known for your taste for boys and how you pay well for a pretty one. This boy is our eldest. Twelve years old….A lovely child….Look at him… Look at his hair like flax and his lips, hold up your head so the gentleman can see boy, soft and full made for love, and his tight little bottom ….I don't ask a price Corax… you give me what you think he's worth……I'm sure it'll be more than we owe in tax."

The boy stood beside his mother, his head bowed, a dull flush of resentment and anger suffused his face.

"Haven't you any thing else to sell woman apart from your own son?" Corax sounded amused.

"Only our cow Sir and she gives us milk."

"Why's your husband not hear to do the business for you?"

" He loved the boy too much Sir to be able to come…He was crying when I took the boy from the house…"

"If he loved him that well may be the boy's damaged goods."

No Sir. No. I wouldn't let him nor the boy's uncle either. Both asked Sir. But I wouldn't let either of them. I said he's a beautiful boy if we keep him safe then if the need arises he'll be as good as money in the bank for us."

"Well he is a pretty lad let's have a proper look at him."

Corax dismissed Pisclus with a little pat on the rump and beckoned the new boy to him.

"Strip," he ordered.

The boy hesitated. His mother clouted him hard on the back of the head.

"Do as the gentleman tells you you ungrateful child. I bear and feed you and look after you for twelve years and when you can help me you try to refuse."

The boy pulled the short shirt which was his only clothing over his head. He dropped it to the ground at his feet and stood in front of Corax his head bowed his hands folded in front of him. Marcus saw that his shoulders were shaking. He realised the boy was crying.

Corax swore impatiently and leaning forward knocked the boy's hands apart.

"You don't hide any thing from your Master boy," he snapped impatiently.

"You'll have him Sir?" the woman asked eagerly. "I knew you would Sir. You'll find him a good boy Sir … A strong boy… He'll learn fast Sir. I promise you."

"I don't know yet woman," Corax said impatiently. "Let me have a look at him will you. Marcus come here… It's time you began to learn a bit about how to handle slaves."

Marcus stood beside his father as Corax began to methodically examine the sobbing boy's body.

"Sullen looking little animal," the man remarked tipping the boy's face to the light. "We'll soon cure him of that though … a few cuts with the whip and he'll be all eager to please. … Open your mouth boy… always check the teeth Marcus.. a slaves no good if his mouths full of rotten stumps…he's fine…Check also for skin infections under the arms, behind the elbows and knees and between the toes and at the juncture of the legs….Then check him for broken bones, unlikely to have a broken arm or leg, but I've known slaves to be sold with cracked ribs often enough…"

All the time he spoke Corax's hands moved over the boy's his fingers probing and exploring his body.

"You've beaten him today," Corax remarked to the woman as he turned the boy round to examine his back.

"Yes Sir. He didn't want to come with me Sir. He said he didn't want to be a slave. He begged me not to sell him and he started on his father too. That's when the silly man began to cry."

"It's of no account," Corax remarked to Marcus, "the bruises will fade soon enough. "Lean forward boy…Now always check a slave carefully here Marcus. Open him right up and look first for worms…No sign of those…Then for bagging or scarring round the hole…If there is any it means he's used meat…..Finally," Corax licked his index finger and pushed it firmly into the boy, "get right inside the lad…Stand still boy…First feel for any obstructions and then…Well do you notice any thing Marcus?"

"His cocks gone hard."

"That's right. It gives you some idea of how hot the boy is. There's a spot down there that if you touch excites him. Now spit on your finger and you try. See…If you keep on touching that he'll go…That is he has an orgasm…white stuff comes out of his prick." Corax said impatiently seeing the puzzled look on his sons face.

"I see Father."

"Does that happen at all to you Marcus?"

"Sometimes Father. Just recently."

"Good perfectly natural….Part of growing up…Now your finger'll be a bit mucky from being up his bum just wipe it clean on his leg and that's over"

"All right woman I'll have the boy." Corax pulled his purse out and selecting a gold coin gave it to the boy's mother.

"Thank you Sir… Thank you… You won't regret it I'm sure Sir.. You be a good boy now and try hard to please your Master like a slave should… Thank you Sir.."

The woman backed out of the room bowing and mouthing her thanks.

"Let's see," Corax said, "we'll have to give the boy a name. Bestia I think [Latin for little beast and what is even more humiliating for the boy to whom the name is given it is in the feminine gender] I am taking him into the inner room for the night. Marcus you sleep on the couch in here. Pisclus can sleep on the floor. You girl clear the table and get out."

Corax took hold of the naked boy by the arm just above the elbow and pushing him in front of him walked into the inner room. He felt the bones in the lad's arm shift under his grasp. Releasing him he stripped off his own clothes. He saw the boys eyes widen as they focused on his rampant prick. He smiled coldly as he noticed the boys look of sullen resentment change to panic.

"You think you can take it boy?" he asked with a hard laugh.

Bestia's lips moved but no words came out.

"It doesn't matter anyway….You're going to have it….Young bones and young tissue …maybe you'll be all right….Now on your knees lick it …get it good and wet for your own sake…..It's the only lubricant we have…..Quick now."

The boy hesitated and Corax hit him hard in the ribs. Corax noticed with grim amusement that the boy's erection had completely disappeared. Miserably the boy hunkered down on his knees in front of Corax. Looking down on the lad's fair head pressed against his crutch the man felt his soft tongue run the length of his cock. The tip of the boy's tongue explored the slit at the end of his cock. Either the boy had a natural talent for this sort of thing or he had previous experience. Corax suspected the latter . He also thought that the boy was probably hoping to save his bottom by inducing an early orgasm. He had no intention of letting the boy off as easily as that.

"Take it right into your mouth," he ordered. He grabbed the boy by his ears and pulled his head forward so that he could feel his cock's head pressing down into the his throat. The boy began to choke. Corax held him there for a moment and then taking hold of him by the shoulders lifted him bodily onto the bed. He gripped the boy's ankles and pushed them back over his head. The lad's bottom was open in front of him, his terrified face stared up between his legs.

Corax took aim and thrust. The boy howled. Corax thrust again. His shaft began to penetrate the boy. With each thrust he drove it deeper into the lad. The boy's sphincter resisted for a moment. Using his full weight Corax rammed his cock into the lad. The boy's shrill screams filled the room. The barrier yielded to the man's battering. Corax could feel the boy tight and hot about his prick. Now the boy seemed almost to be drawing his cock deeper into himself. Corax hammered the full length of his shaft into the boy. He paused and then began to move his prick within the boy gently at first and then with increasing urgency. He could feel sweat running down his chest and legs. The boy screams had fallen to a low whimpering. He began to respond to the man's thrusts. Corax felt his blood surge and the he came deep inside the sobbing boy.

There were two blankets on the couch in the front room. Marcus undressed and wrapping himself in these lay on the couch and was soon asleep. Pisclus curled up on a rug on the floor. Exhausted he too slept.

Marcus was woken by the sounds of the boy screaming as he was raped by his father. He could hear Pisclus stirring near by and then the sound of him crying quietly. He realised that the boy was terrified. He felt deeply protective he also had an erection.

"Boy," he whispered.

"Yes Sir?"

"Come here."

Obediently Pisclus crept into the bed beside him. Sitting up Marcus arranged the blankets so that they covered the younger boy as well as himself. He lay down and put his arms round Pisclus who wriggled up close against him.

"You all right Pisclus?" Marcus asked.

"Yes Sir."

"Then why were you crying?"

"I was frightened Sir."

"There's no need to be frightened. You be a good boy. Do as your told and try to please my father and me and you'll be fine."

Marcus slipped his hand down Pisclus's back till it rested on the curve of his rump. He was sure the boy must have felt his hard prick. He wasn't embarrassed by this. After all he was only a slave.

"Yes Sir. I…I want to please you Sir"

"Are you still sore from the beating I gave you?"

"A little Sir."

"Yes I think I can feel the welts on your bum. Well let that beating be a lesson to you. You're my slave now. You remember that and maybe I won't have to beat you again."

"I'll try Sir…What did your father showing you with the other boy's bottom Sir."

The temptation was too much for Marcus. Indeed he didn't see it as a temptation. Pisclus's body was his to do as he pleased with. He put his index finger in his mouth and then pressed it into the crack of Pisclus's bottom.

"This," he said.

The other boy tensed and then deliberately pushed his bottom back opening it to his prying finger. Marcus slowly worked his finger deeper into the other boy. Suddenly Pisclus jerked forward clamping his bottom tight around it. Marcus could feel Pisclus's tiny prick hard against his own tummy. Pisclus moaned and wriggled impaled on Marcus's finger his lips damp against Marcus's chest. Marcus felt his own prick convulse and at almost the same moment Pisclus came.

"Good boy," Marcus said and kissed Pisclus on the lips. The room was quiet except for the sound of Bestia's whimpering that came faintly from the next room..

Chapter 5

Bestia woke. He was lying face down on the bed He hurt. He hurt with a searing, tearing pain. His bottom hurt and he hurt inside as well. He thought he had never hurt so much before. Corax lay half on top of him one heavy leg resting across his naked bum.

Apart from the pain Bestia felt utterly alone for the first time in his life. His home had not been a comfortable one. They were too poor for that. However there had always been company; his younger brothers and sisters, his father and uncle, even, if all else failed, his mother; people he could turn to for sympathy and even love. Now they were all gone. He would never see them again. He belonged to the man who in pursuit of his own pleasures had ripped and torn his body. He could expect no help or love from him.

The man was asleep for the moment but the room was getting lighter. Soon he would be awake again. Bestia became aware of a hardness pressing against his bottom. The man had an erection and when he woke he would no doubt expect to sate his lust, as he had done before, within Bestia's tortured body. He shuddered at the thought of the man's swollen prick being hammered into him again. Yet there was nothing he could do but lie there and wait for the torture to begin once more.

Well perhaps there was one thing he could do. He could tell from the feel of the man's prick that he was near coming. If he could just bring him to orgasm before he was fully awake perhaps he would be able to preserve his bottom from further assault at least for the time being. Very gently he began to press his bum up against the man's shaft. He could feel it's hardness increase and the pulse of the man's blood quicken.

Corax stirred and half rolled onto his back. Bestia's mother had protected his bottom from his father and uncle but that was all. The two men knew that any assault on that would leave traces that as he would spot and they were too frightened of her to risk that. The boy's lips and tongue was another matter. On many occasions they had taken the child behind the cow byre when the women was busy in the hovel they all called home and had taken it in turns to enjoy his mouth and to keep watch.

Very quietly Bestia manoeuvred himself down the bed until his face was level with the man's crotch. His nostrils were full of the man's stale smell, a mixture of sweat and semen. The man's prick stood erect, slightly curved, cruel and demanding. He could see it was stained with mans seed, and a mixture of his own blood and shit. Still any thing was better than the agony of having it rammed inside him again. The boy ran his tongue along it's full length from it's root in the coarse forest of the man's pubic hair to the slit at it's tip. Then he parted his lips and took it into his mouth. He put his head back as his father and uncle had trained him so that he could take it down into his throat. His nose and lips were pressed against the man's crotch.

Corax could feel the boy's lips about his cock, the boys tongue teasing it. He knew he was near coming and he was angry. It was all right the boy playing with his cock, exciting him, getting him going. It was quite another for the boy to take him to the point of orgasm while he slept. From a slave that was insolence. Decisions were made by the master not the slave. The boy would have to be taught a lesson. But perhaps not immediately.

Corax pushed the boy away and placing two fingers behind his own ball sack pressed firmly upwards until the immediate danger of an orgasm had past.

"Over on your belly boy and spread your legs," he commanded harshly.

"Sir please Sir…can't I suck you Sir.. Please Sir…. I'm good at that Sir…Please let me show you Sir….and I'm so sore Sir….Please let me suck you Sir…Please…."

Corax clenched his hand and punched Bestia full in the mouth cutting off the boy's frantic pleadings. It was a nicely calculated blow, hard enough to split the boy's lips and to send blood trickling down his chin, not so hard as to dislodge a tooth.

"Over on your belly," Corax repeated . "I am going to fuck your arse again. Do you think it matters to me or anyone else how sore a worthless little slave's bottom is. Get over now or I'll hit you again."

Bestia sobbing hopelessly rolled over onto his stomach. Corax knelt between the boy's legs using his knees to force them further apart.

"Lift your bottom boy," he ordered.

Bestia's sobs redoubled as he obeyed. Looking down at the boy's upturned bottom Corax saw dried blood down the inside of the child's legs and caked around his hole. There was no doubt that he had indeed torn the boy. That was no reason why he should not fuck the boy again. The boy belonged to him to do with as he liked. If he chose to hurt him that was his business and nobody else's. He was perfectly within his rights.

On the other hand Corax though a hard man was a fare one within at least his own harsh lights. The boy had obeyed him, submitted to his will. He would punish him in due course for his earlier impertinence but there was no need to make his enjoyment of the boy's bottom more painful for him than was necessary.

Corax spat on his fingers and began to gently lubricate the edges of the boy's hole with his saliva. His face even softened slightly as the boy responded by pushing his bottom upwards opening himself even more to his master.

"That's right boy," Corax said almost gently. "The more you relax the less it will hurt you."

He parted the lips of the boy's hole with the fingers of one hand. He took aim with his prick and plunged it hard into Bestia's bottom. The boy screamed. Corax thrust again and the full length of his cock was sheathed in the boy. Corax noticed that although the boy was clearly suffering he had been easier to penetrate than before.

Corax lay still for a moment feeling the boy hot and tight about his shaft. The very slowly and gently he began to fuck the lad. The boy groaned and whimpered but then began to respond. Corax increased the speed and force of his thrusting. Soon he was pumping his prick up and down in the boy as fast and as hard as he could. He was not as young as he was and it took him longer to reach a climax than in the past. The boy howled and his body went slack. Still Corax drove into him, panting for breath, sweat streaming down his naked body. Then his buttocks clenched tight and he exploded deep within the boy. He slumped down upon the lad fighting for air.

After a moments rest he rolled to one side pulling himself clear of the boy. He pushed Bestia away from him, tumbling him off the bed.

"Get the pot boy," he said roughly, "I need a pee."

Bestia dragged himself to his feet and scuttled painfully off across the room. Corax saw that fresh blood was running down the inside of his thighs.

"Hurry boy," he said impatiently getting to his feet.

"Well kneel down and hold it up for me."

Corax peed into the pot. He noticed that his cock had fresh blood on it. He looked down on Bestia as the boy knelt at his feet his head level with his prick. He shook the drops of urine off his cock and wiped his fingers dry on the boy's fair hair. Then he tipped back the boy's head and looked down into his face. It was wet with tears and mucus. His eyes were empty. Corax knew what had happened. He had seen it happen many times in the past. Long ago it had even happened to him. The boy had gone. What knelt in front of him was just an animal the boy's spirit had chosen to go elsewhere. He remembered at times of great humiliation or suffering as a boy feeling as if he was not in his body but outside it watching like a spectator as it was abused and tortured. He knew that was the state Bestia was now in. Spirit and body would reunite fast enough once the immediate crisis was over.

"Get that pot out of here. Clean yourself up and find me some breakfast and don't bleed on the carpet" Corax threw himself down on the bed and rolling to face the wall almost immediately fell asleep.

Bestia carrying the potty with it's pungent contents hobbled from the room. He cupped his free hand beneath the cleft of his bottom. He felt warm dampness dripping on to it.

The blankets on the couch in the next room had tumbled to the floor. The two boys lay close together Pisclus's tight little butt pressing hard against the older boy's crotch. The younger boy's eyes were open. Bestia beckoned to him and Pisclus got to his feet his little prick with it's tiny pink head standing erect.

Pisclus followed Bestia down the stairs into the inn courtyard. He could see the blood dribbling from the cleft of the other boy's bottom. He felt sick with fear as he remembered the screams and whimpering that had come from Corax's room the previous night.

It was still early morning and the inn yard was deserted apart from a group of naked boys squatting round a couple of buckets set on the paving stones outside the kitchen door. One of the boy's looked up and waived. Pisclus recognised the child with whom he had shared his buttermilk the previous evening.

"Come over here," the boy called. "Have some porridge. There's plenty."

Pisclus followed more slowly by Bestia trotted across the yard.

"Won't she mind us taking your food?" Pisclus asked nervously. He was hungry but he remembered vividly the pain when the fat lady had hit him with the ladle.

"No, she's not too bad really. She feeds us pretty well and only gets nasty when she's cooking….She expects us to work and she hits us when we don't. but she won't let anyone else beat us …. "

"And if one of the guests takes a fancy to one of us she gives us something extra," another boy said.

"A bit of meat.."

"Or some white bread and honey.."

A chorus of young voices began to list the treats they could hope to earn by entertaining customers of the Inn.

Pisclus and Bestia hunkered down among the boys. Bestia whimpered slightly as he did so. Pisclus's friend looked at him.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"I'm sore."

"You're Corax's boy aren't you. Diana," Pisclus assumed this must be the name of a maid, "told us about him. She said he had a prick as big as a bull's."

"She said if we weren't quiet she'd give us to him…."

"And he'd split our bottoms open with his cock just like they were ripe melons…"

Again the boys chattered over each other in excitement.

"You're bottoms not split open…."

"You're still walking…."

"You took it all right…"

"Do you think we could take it…"

"You must be tough…"

"I'm sore," Bestia said but it was clear he was pleased by the attention he was receiving.

"Miss," the fat woman had come out of the kitchen door her ladle in her hand, a chorus of youthful voices greeted her. "Miss, this boys been fucked by Corax… He's still walking Miss…. He's torn though Miss…. It hurts him…..Diana said Miss…"

"Shut up the lot of you. Alba take the buckets in and bring two buckets of warm water out. Tibur get some clean rags and that jar of powder I use. You know the one. Ceres take that pot empty and clean it. Fancy having it there when you are eating filthy little animals. The rest of you get inside and get on with your work. There's all the breakfasts to do. Come on now."

These orders were accompanied by hefty swipes with the ladle across young bare bottoms and shrill squeals from the slave boys.

"Now then," the woman said having imposed some sort of order. "Let's see what the damage is. Up on your feet boy legs apart and bend over. Um .. not too good." She probed Bestia's bottom with her finger and the boy gasped. "You'll survive though I think."

"You boy," she said turning to Pisclus, "clean his bum up gently as you can and when you have I'll do something to stop the bleeding. And what about you? Any damage from last night."

"No Miss."

"Well give it time. It will come. Now where's that Massa I lent him to Cassius for the night. He may need patching up too after that one's been up his bottom."

Pisclus and Bestia returned scrubbed clean to their masters' rooms carrying bowls of hot water and towels. Bestia was moving easier. The bleeding from the torn lips of his anus had been staunched with powder while a small square of cloth pressed between his buttocks prevented the escape of blood from any internal bleeding that he might be experiencing. A maid servant was to bring the breakfasts for Corax and Marcus once these were ready.

Bestia went straight through to the inner room. Corax was stretched out on his back on the bed his flaccid cock lying inert in a forest of dark coarse hair.

Corax made a slight gesture and Bestia moved to sponge clean the shaft that had plumbed his bottom. Corax watched the boy as he worked, his head bowed over his crotch, his face absorbed and almost worshipping. He reached out and gently patted the boy's bare rump. Bestia continued to work on Corax's prick as the man's hand stroked his bottom. Corax felt sated and experienced only the mildest of stirring in his loins. He was amused to see that the boy on the other hand was already once again fully erect his pink cock's head pepping out above his foreskin.

Corax dressed and walked through to the next room followed by Bestia who had still been permitted no clothes. A maid wearing only a minuscule skirt was busy putting out the breakfast assisted by Pisclus who was also nude. Marcus, fully dressed, lounged in a chair by the table clearly eager for his meal.

Bestia seeing the girl moved his hands to hide his swollen prick. Corax saw this and turning knocked his hands apart.

"Don't go covering yourself up boy. Not that you've got anything much to hide anyway. That slut of a maid will have seen much bigger ones than you've got"

Bestia blushed and dropped his hands to his side.

"Slept well Marcus?" Corax continued cheerfully, "or did you have a bit of fun with your little boy tart. eh?"

"Well father…."

"I thought so though I bet the brat only managed a dry orgasm."

"No father. He had a real one." Marcus protested.

"Really where here's an interesting experiment to keep us amused while we eat."

Corax grabbed hold of Pisclus beneath the arms and lifted the boy so that he was seated on the end of the table. He pushed the startled boys knees apart.

"Now Bestia, you say you're good with your tongue and lips don't you?"

"Yes Sir." Bestia did not sound too happy.

"An expert sucker of penis's?"

Bestia hesitated.

"Come on boy yes or no, speak up."

"Yes Sir."

"Good let's see you service little Pisclus then. Come on boy get your head down and get busy."

Obediently Bestia bent forward in front of Pisclus and, with his bum pushed up in the air, began to tongue the child's hairless balls and tiny prick. The little soon shaft hardened and rose under his caresses.

Corax seated himself at the table and began to eat. The maid silently served the food. The first dish was a bowl of porridge but of a very different quality to the dark coarse grained watery salty mess which the slave boys had been given. This was made with fresh milk and the finest wheat. No salt had been added to it but a large bowl of honey stood on the table with which to sweeten it.

Pisclus was embarrassed and humiliated by being turned into a spectacle for the amusement of Corax and his master but he had had his first full orgasm some 7 hours before. He was young and eager. Despite himself his cock responded quickly to the touch of Pisclus's agile tongue. His eyes glazed, his head went back. Spine arched, hands tightly gripping the edge of the table, his breath came in ever shorter and harsher gasps.

"Hold on boy," Corax said starting to his feet and landing a sharp slap on Bestia's bare upturned rump. "Get away now or the show will be over before I've finished my meal."

He pushed Bestia away and putting one hand under Pisclus's thighs lifted his legs. He slipped his free hand under Pisclus's crotch and pressed firmly upwards just behind the boys tiny balls. He maintained the pressure until the boy's cock began to soften. He tipped the boy backwards so that his shoulders rested on the table and his knees were pushed back on either side of his head.

Corax dipped the tip of his index finger in the jar of honey. He ran it along the lips of the little boys anus. He pressed gently into the boy. Pisclus caught his breath and tensed. Corax increased the pressure and slowly Pisclus relaxed. The man inserted only the very tip of his index finger. The boy gasped and pushed upwards offering his bum to the man.. It was the first time that anyone had penetrated even the shortest distance into his bottom. Corax took a large dollop of honey and spread it thickly the length of the cleft of the boy's bum. He stood back.

"Come on," he said to Bestia, "there's a breakfast treat for you whore. Clean it up with your tongue."

"No reason why you should be left out either," he continued speaking to Pisclus. "Lick these clean."

He held out his honey coated fingers to the smaller boy. Pisclus pushed his head upwards his tongue flicking eagerly around the man's fingers.

"Suck them," Corax commanded Pisclus. He pushed his hand closer to the boy who eagerly obeyed.

"This bitch of yours is on heat Marcus," he remarked as Pisclus sucked vigorously on his fingers. "He'll be a lively fuck when you've got time to open him up. Not now though. Not enough time to do him justice. I have to flog Bestia and then we'll go to the baths."

Bestia's head jerked up at this mention of his name and he turned his face towards Corax honey smearing his nose and chin. Corax picked up the leather strap from where it lay beside his plate on the table. He brought it cracking down across the boy's bottom.

"Get your head back down boy. Did I tell you to stop?"

Bestia squealed and went back to tonguing Pisclus's crack.

"Yes," Corax continued speaking to Marcus. "The stupid little brat put the preservation of his bottom before my wishes. He's got to be taught that what matters in this world is the Masters pleasure not the slaves pain."

"Come on boy you should have finished by now. Stand up straight. Now let's have a look. Yes that's fine."

"Pisclus go and get your tunic from the kitchen and then sort out towels oil and scrapers for the baths."

"Bestia come over here."

Corax took the older boy by the scruff of the neck and pushed him over to the wall. He turned him to face into the room and ordered him to hold out his hands above his head. He bound his thin wrists together with a length of cord and then lifting him bodily from the ground by his arms slipped the cord over a hook fastened in the wall. The eleven year old hung suspended by his wrists his feet 6 inches [15cm] or so from the floor. The cord cut into his skin as his arms took full the weight of his body. He began to whimper with fear.

"Usually," Corax said addressing Marcus, "you flog a boy on his arse or shoulders or the back of his thighs. Sometimes though, if you are in a hurry and want to hurt the boy a lot, as I want to hurt this little tart of mine, you thrash him on his chest."

As he spoke Corax ran his hands over Bestia feeling the boys ribcage through his tightly stretched flesh.

"The bone is so near the surface there that every blow hurts four or five times more than one delivered to the more usual areas of his body. And this is a very tender part of his body. Listen."

He grasped of one of Bestia's nipples between his finger and thumb and squeezed hard. The boy's sobbing changed to a high pitched scream. Corax laughed harshly

"Now boy 12 strokes and keep your eyes open do you hear me. If you close your eyes the stroke will not count."

.He took a step back and measuring his distance carefully, lashed the boy across his naked chest with the strap. Leather cracked against bare skin. Bestia screamed again. Corax paused until the white stripe across the boys golden brown skin changed to angry red. He brought the strap whistling down once again. The room was filled with the agonised screams of the boy punctuated by the sound of leather striking bare flesh. He began to tease the boy. He flicked the strap at the child so that it just missed. The next blow went home and the next but then another harmless flick. The boy's screams took on a hysterical note as the man tormented him. The screams got shriller and wilder. Froth appeared at the corners of the boy's mouth. Then he peed himself.

"I think he won't forget that lesson," Corax said. He smiled. He was satisfied with his work.

He turned and walked from the room leaving Bestia hanging by his wrists. The sound of the boy's cries followed him as he went down the stairs to the inn yard. Marcus, signalling to Pisclus to follow him, hurried after his father.

"Will he be all right Father?" he asked when he caught him up.

Who? Oh Bestia. He'll survive I expect. Any way it doesn't matter if he doesn't. There are plenty more where he comes from."

Chapter 6

Corax glanced back over his shoulder.

"That boy of yours," he remarked to Marcus, "is a disgrace. People pay a lot of attention to the appearance and conduct of a master's slaves. The boy himself is not bad looking but the rag that he is wearing makes it look as though he's a field slave rather than an attendant on a wealthy man's son. And then his behaviour. He's walking about with his head up in the air like a free boy on a sight seeing trip."

"I'm sorry Father," Marcus replied. "I'll speak to him."

"Speak to him." Corax laughed. "Anyway here's a place where we can at least do something about his clothes."

They had stopped beside a stall selling cheap garments. The proprietor came hurrying up to them rubbing his hands, sensing a profitable sale.

"I want something a bit more appropriate for my son's slave than the bit of sacking he is wearing," Corax announced.

"Yes Sir. Certainly Sir. I am sure we will find something suitable Sir. Such a pretty little fellow," the man said eyeing Pisclus up and down, "a pity to spoil his appearance with a shabby old tunic like that. How about this Sir. Fine cloth, worn over one shoulder and gathered at the waist with a broach, fancy embroidery of phalluses and rose buds round the borders, ideal for a pretty, lively young slave boy like the one you've got there Sir."

"Well we'll try it on him," Corax said. "Come on boy strip now. Quick. What do you think you're doing there standing as if this had nothing to do with you."

Obediently Pisclus pulled off his old tunic and stood there naked on the edge of the street as people bustled past. The man summoned a youth from out of the recesses of the stall who looped the length of cloth over the boy's left shoulder, took it down to his right hip and then round his waist before fastening the ends together with a large circular broach on his right side. The man spoke as he fussed about adjusting the cloth.

"It will fall just right Sir. You will see. Just long enough to cover that tight little bum when he's standing upright. There you are Sir. What do you think Sir."

He stood back so that Corax could inspect the child and continued talking.

"The boy's a new acquisition I take it Sir. Our country boys are pretty enough but a bit wild. Well it's not so long ago that this place was outside the Empire. Just marsh and forest so its' natural I suppose they're that way. Nothing that a sound whipping or two will not set right mind you. A couple of good floggings and that boy will be as attentive and willing little fellow as you could wish for. He just needs curbing like all boys of his sort that's all. We've got a selection of whips if you want Sir, very reasonably priced, which I would be glad to show you."

Corax smiled bleakly at the man but spoke to Pisclus.

"Now boy your dressed more appropriately let's see you behave better too. Keep your eyes on your Master boy. Don't wander about flat footed gawking at everything. Try to remember you're here to serve your betters or Marcus'll have to give you another taste of the strap."

"It is difficult Sir to train these boys I know," the stall holder said sympathetically. "Why the time I had with Janus here before he was any real use to me. My arm would ache with tiredness after flogging him sometimes. Day after day, the boy screaming, wife complaining of the noise and apparently getting no where. Then one day after I'd thrown a bucket of water over him to bring him round he opened his eyes and I knew from the look in then that he was broken and he's been as good as gold since. It takes time but it will come. It's just a question of perseverance. Though I have a way to get him up on the balls of his feet if you want me to use it."

" I'd be glad if you would provided it doesn't mark him permanently."

"No, no, I just singe his heels with a hot iron so they're tender. The marks go in a day or two and if he hasn't learnt his lesson by then you just repeat the process. Mind you, in general, once is enough."

"Excellent idea," Corax said.

"Very well Sir. I'll just take the boy into the blacksmiths next door. Janus come along with me. I'll need you to hold the child's legs. Come along boy."

The man took hold of Pisclus by the arm and lead him towards a shed next to his stall. The boy not knowing exactly what was going to be done to him but certain that it would be nasty glanced over his shoulder appealingly at Marcus but the youth returned his gaze blankly.

The blacksmiths shop was a noisy dark building. The only light came from the open door onto the street and the glow of the hot coals in the fire at the it's opposite end. The blacksmith himself, a huge man, stripped to the waste was hammering a red hot bar into shape on an anvil next to the fire. An assistant, also half naked and well muscled, held the iron bar in place with a long handled pare of pincers while a naked boy, not much older than Pisclus himself, toiled at the bellows.

The smith sensing the presence of stranger stopped his hammering and turned to the door.

"Just come to burn this brats heels for his master," the man explained.

Ah. All right then there are hot irons in the fire. Help yourself," the Smith replied indifferently and returned to his work.

The man marched Pisclus over to a work bench that ran the length of one wall. He told the boy to stand facing the wall and to take a firm grip of the top of the bench. Looking back Pisclus saw him walk over to the fire and draw from it an iron bar whose end glowed dull red with heat. Janus knelt on the floor behind Pisclus. At a word from the man he took a firm grip of the boy's right leg just above the ankle and lifted his foot from the ground.

"Hold him firmly now," the man commanded and ran the glow bar briefly across the boy's heel. Pisclus screamed shrilly at the searing pain. Janus released his leg.

"Now the other foot," the stall keeper said returning to the fire for a freshly heated bar.

Pisclus turned and darted for the open door. The black smith, with surprising speed for so large a man, moved to block his way.

"Please….. No please ……Please Sir…..," Pisclus blubbed.

"Go back to the bench boy or do you want me to tell your master you've been disobedient?" The smith spoke evenly and quietly.

"Please Sir…Please…," Pisclus pleaded and then seeing no sign of pity in the man's face turned and hobbled whimpering back to the bench.

A couple of seconds later he shrieked again as the hot iron was applied to his other heel.

When they returned to the stall Corax was examining a tray of cheap trinkets. He held one up. It was an anklet in the form of a thin silver chain with a three or four small bells attached to it.

"I'll have this one," he said. "Have your boy lock it round the brat's right ankle."

After Corax had paid the stall owner they continued on their way to the baths. Pisclus no longer gazed around. He walked with his head bowed his eyes fixed on his masters back happy to avoid the eyes of passers by. Walking on the balls of his feet forced him to exaggerate the jut of his bottom and to slightly swing his hips. The tinkle of the bells on his anklet, the feel of the brief tunic with it's obscene border brushing against the side of his bare thighs filled him with shame. It wasn't that he begrudged Marcus anything that he could give or yield to him but he still had enough spirit left in him to wish that his availability was not made so publicly obvious.

Corax on the other hand was pleased. No imperial spy would ever recognise in the little boy tart with his mincing walk and minimal clothing the son of an ancient patrician family. It amused him too to see the misery of the boy as he experienced in his turn the humiliations that Corax himself had known in his early years as his grandfather's pet.

Bestia screams subsided into a low whimpering. The livid stripes which scored his chest and stomach burnt fiercely. The pain from where the rope had torn the skin of his wrists was hardly less intense. His arms which supported the whole weight of his body and his shoulders ached horribly. He felt as every second passed that he could no longer bear the agony of his suffering and yet that suffering continued and grew.

There were foot steps on the stairs. A sturdily built young slave woman came into the room. She said nothing but crossed to the wall where Bestia a hung suspended from a hook by the cord about his wrists his wrists. With a grunt of effort she lifted him down.

Bestia staggered as his feet touched the floor. The room whirled round him and he sank to his knees on the floor. The woman prodded him impatiently in the bottom with her bare foot.

"Don't make such a fuss," she said brusquely. "You'll have to stay on your feet working after much worse beatings than the little tickling you've just received I'm sure. Anyway if you think I've got time or energy to spare to carry idle little slave brats about you're mistaken. You get down to the yard now while I clean this room up…… I see you've peed on the floor too you filthy little animal. Get out of here now before I make you lick your own filth up."

Painfully Bestia dragged himself to his feet and made his way unsteadily down the staircase. The fat woman was sitting on a straight backed chair in the sun by her kitchen door. She beckoned Bestia to her. The naked boy, his rib cage scored with welts from his beating , stumbled across the yard towards her. Vaguely Bestia noticed the tray that lay on top of the low table that stood beside her. On it stood various jars, a steaming bowl of warm water, a bundle of rags, a small knife and an open ended metal cone together with various other objects whose purposes he did not know.

"You poor child," the woman crooned patting her plump apron covered knees, " come to Auntie Vacca. (Latin for cow – clearly with such a name the woman was an ex-slave.) Lets see what that master of yours has done to you my darling."

Vacca reached out to Bestia drawing the boy down onto her lap. It was the first time that anyone had shown any affection or concern for Bestia since he had been sold to Corax. Gratefully he settled on the woman's lap nestling tight up against her large soft breasts.

"Such nasty bruises," the woman continued softly touching the stripes that disfigured the boys chest. "Auntie Vacca has something here to take the pain away and make the bruises fade so that you will look all nice and fresh for your master when he comes home."

As she spoke the woman gently massaged a soothing cream into the boys tortured flesh. Bestia did not really listen to what the woman was saying but lulled by the tone of her voice he relaxed against her letting his head rest on her shoulder. He was carried back a long time, to when, before poverty and the labour of raising a large family had soured her, his mother had shown him affection and had take him on her knee and cuddled him. A thumb strayed into his mouth.

He was brought back to the present by Vacca gently pulling the lobe of his ear.

"Wake up lovely," she murmured. "If I know my Corax and I've known him a very long time. That's not the only place he hurt you last night.. Is it my little love?"

"No Miss…He hurt me in my bottom Miss. He put his cock right into me. It hurt a lot Miss." Somehow Bestia felt no embarrassment in telling the woman what had been done to him.

"The same old Corax and it would hurt. He's a big is our Corax. I know that well."

"Now let's see what we can do to make that sweet little bottom of yours hurt a little less. You just get off my lap for a moment and lie down over my knees so that I can see how bad it is."

Obediently Bestia stretched himself across the woman's lap. His feet resting on the ground on one side of her, his head almost level with her ankles on the other. The woman guided him down so that his bottom lay squarely across her lap elevated ready for inspection. Two guests at the inn who happened to be passing by paused to watch, a couple of boys crept out from the kitchen. A small crowd began to form around the woman with the beautiful naked boy upturned across her knees.

For a moment Vacca gently stroked the cheeks of the boy's rump enjoying their rounded firmness. Bestia wriggled appreciatively. The feel of the woman's hand on his bottom was so reassuring and calming although at the same time he felt a pleasant stirring in his crutch.

"The first thing I've got to do is to see how bad the hurt is. So push your bum up as high as you can and spread your legs for me my love."

Obediently Bestia opened his bottom to the woman.

"Now you lot stand back. I can't see what I'm doing if you crowd me too much," the woman adjured the group of spectators who had pressed close about her chair to enjoy the sight of the lad's deliciously exposed rump.

"Not too bad," she said turning her attention back to Bestia. "Now try to relax my lovely."

The boy tensed involuntarily as he felt the light touch of the woman's fingers spreading something along the lips of his anus. The sensation was pleasant and he quickly relaxed. Then the pressure of the woman's fingers increased as she began to work them into him. He tensed again and then his bottom opened of itself to let the fingers in before clamping tight about them not to resist their probing but to draw them deeper into himself. Bestia felt himself harden, He knew that he was about to come over the woman's lap. He tried to stammer out a warning but could not manage to speak as panting he rode the woman's fingers.

"That's all right sweet heart," the woman said seeing his distress. "Why you are a lively one. You'll give Corax value for money I'm sure. Just let it come my joy. Why do you think Auntie's wearing an apron?"

The woman sat watching the boys bottom writhing in excitement on her lap a soft smile on her lips as the audience of men and boys laughed and made ribald comments. Then Bestia's rump gave one final heave before subsiding into a tensed quivering stillness. At last the boy's muscles relaxed their hold on Vacca's fingers and she gently withdrew them from his bottom. Bestia moaned quietly.

"It could be much worse," the woman remarked gently patting the panting boy's bare rump. "I won't have to try any stitching. Just a little of Auntie's ointment to take the soreness away but first we've got to clean you up."

A second later Bestia felt a cool hard object being pushed into his bottom. Then his rectum was flooded with warm water. It was quite pleasant at first but as more and more water was forced into him the pressure increased.

"There," the woman said at last, "up you get and try to keep that in you until Auntie's counted to five hundred."

Bestia scrambled to his feet. He clamped his bottom as tight as he could to try to contain the pressure within him. He looked wide eyed at the seated woman who was just placing on the tray beside her a long empty canvas tube with a small brass nozzle at one end.

"….eighteen, nineteen, twenty…," the woman counted.

Cramps were beginning in Bestia's tummy. He clapped his hands tight against the cleft of his bottom. He didn't think he could possibly keep the liquid in himself much longer.

"…..fifty one, fifty two, fifty three…," the audience of men and boys were counting with the woman now.

Vacca looked into the boy's face and judged he could hold it no longer.

"All right," she said, "get over to the gutter and empty yourself now."

Thankfully Bestia turned and made a rush towards the centre of the yard through which the gutter ran. One of the inn guests laughing deliberately blocked his way. The distressed boy tried to dodge past him but it was to late. Bestia began to cry as the crowd laughed at his humiliation.

"Now my darling, that's not your fault," the woman called to him. "You come back here and Auntie'll clean you up and put some ointment on that poor sore bottom of yours."

"One of you idle little slave brats go and get a couple of buckets of hot water from the kitchen and sluice the mess away," she continued.

"As for you," she said addressing the laughing man, "you can do what you like to your own slaves that's your right but this boy is not yours but Corax's. Do you want me to mention your joke to him?"

The man stopped laughing abruptly.

Bestia returned to his position face down over Vacca's lap. She wiped his bottom clean and then spread ointment around his anus. Suddenly he howled as with out any warning a long hard object was thrust into him stretching his sphincter to the limit.

"That's to stay in all day," the woman said firmly. "I know it hurts but it will make things easier for you in the future. If you want it out for any reason you ask me. Is that understood sweet."

"Yes Miss. All right Miss," Bestia mumbled. In fact after the first shock following the plugs insertion it did not feel so very painful.

"Good boy. Now sit back on my knees.

"One of you men like to hold his hands behind his back for me? Not you" she said sharply to the man who had blocked Bestia's rush to the gutter. "Yes you'll do."

The chosen man stepped forward with a grin on his face and taking a firm hold of the boy's wrists pulled them behind his back.

"Legs wide apart now," Vacca ordered.

She put one arm round Bestia's waste and began to finger his tiny penis. Following his orgasm it's pink head had disappeared within his foreskin.

She reached her free hand towards the table that stood beside her. Before Bestia's horrified gaze she touched a small wooden handled knife whose blade obviously honed to a fine edge glittered in the sun light.

"Miss…..No … Miss …Please… No…. Miss….MISS" Bestia screamed in terror fighting in vain against the man's grip on his wrists as the crowd of men and boys laughed and hooted.

"It's not as bad as that," Vacca said reassuringly. "It will hurt but your master wants it done so done it must be."

She put the knife between her teeth. Picking up the bronze cone she slipped it over Bestia's penis and drew his foreskin down over it. Holding the foreskin in place with her left hand she took the knife in her right and quickly drew it round the cone. Bestia howled as the blade sliced through his foreskin. She picked up a rag from the table and held it against the boy's crotch to stem the flow of blood.

"You can let his hands go now," she said.

"Now my brave boy you hold that rag in place while I get some powder to help the bleeding stop."

Afterwards she held the boy on her knee for fifteen minutes or so cuddling him and talking gently to him, stroking his hair, kissing his cheek, telling him how good he was, how brave and how pretty until his sobbing ceased and he was calm. Then she seated him on the ground just outside the kitchen door. She fastened a leg iron round his ankle securing him there and left him holding a blood soaked rag to his crotch.

After a little time a boy from the kitchen brought Bestia a bowl of warm milk sweetened with honey.

Chapter 7

The public baths at Colchester had recently been rebuilt on a lavish scale as befitted a town that was the centre of the Imperial cult in Britain. Constructed entirely of white marble, broad steps rose from the street to a massive portico giving access to the inner complex of hot and cold baths and ancillary halls. Even Pisclus in his misery and humiliation, standing just inside the entrance and looking across the open air pool with it's columned arcades towards the interior of the baths, was aware of the grandeur of his surroundings. The glare of the sun on the white marble, the shimmering blue of the pool, the deeply shadowed arcades and the sight of the lofty basilica beyond filled him with wonder. It was the largest and most magnificent building he had ever entered.

A sharp order from Corax reminded the boy that he was there not to marvel but to serve. The next ten minutes were painful and confusing ones for Pisclus. Corax held the very reasonable view that the quickest and surest way to teach a boy was to clout him before you spoke to him to ensure he paid attention and to clout him afterwards to make sure he remembered what had been said. It was therefore a rather bruised and tearful slave boy who followed Marcus and his father, now stripped to their loin cloths across the outer courtyard of the baths.

Corax challenged his son to a game of pilata. (Some sort of ball game or games were almost certainly played at courts attached to most Roman Baths. What form exactly these games took is far from clear although they were certainly highly competitive and professional players could make, if successful, large fortunes. They could have been something like racquets, squash or the Basque game pelota whose name derives from the Latin pila a ball.) Marcus was agile and had good co-ordination for a boy of his age. Corax however played to win and the boy was eventually overwhelmed by the power of his father's strokes. Still it was a hard fast game while it lasted and a group of men assembled to watch it. Pisclus as he scampered about the court acting as ball boy attracted a considerable amount of comment his brief tunic failing to provide any adequate covering of his nakedness. No doubt the men also enjoyed the opportunity to inspect Marcus's lithe young body but they had too much sense to risk Corax's wrath by making their admiration of his son's boyish charms audible. Audience and players joined together in laughing at Pisclus's occasional squeals of pain when in his hurry he put his weight on one or both of his scorched heels or when some failure on his part earned him a blow with the edge of Corax's racquet.

The game over father and son stripped and began to enjoy the baths proper. Pisclus followed them from room to room carrying towels, oil and scrapers with Corax's well filled purse hanging from a string round his neck. It was the first time that he had seen the man naked and he was fascinated by his powerful shoulders, deep chest, thick arms and thighs with their covering of coarse red hair. Most intriguing and frightening of all to him was the man's heavy balls and massive rod. Where ever he looked he found his eyes being drawn back to the man's crotch and his gigantic manhood. He wondered how Bestia with his slim boy's body had managed to accommodate so monstrous a cock.

After spending time in the hot room and being massaged by the attendants there Corax and Marcus took a cold plunge before calling to Pisclus for their towels. .Having dried himself off Corax threw his towel over his shoulder and strolled towards the end of the open air pool where a gaggle of naked slave boys had congregated chattering and splashing in the water. As he approached the boys fell silent and began to cast apprehensive glances at him and each other.

Apparently unaware of the impression he was making Corax walked through the crowd of boy's that parted to let him, together with Marcus and the attendant Pisclus, by. Beyond the boys stood a gigantic Nubian slave, a heavy whip in one hand, guarding double bronze doors. Seeing Corax he bowed low crossing his arms on his naked black chest and threw the doors open revealing the lofty hall that lay beyond them. Corax walked through the doors followed by Marcus and Pisclus. Corax thrust his towel at Pisclus and took his purse from about his neck. He gestured and obediently the boy hunkered down his back to the wall just inside the door. There was nothing he could do but wait. He was to learn how much of a slave boy's life was spent doing just that.

A man sat on a bench inside the door a naked boy face down across his knees. Slapping the boy on the bottom he stood up to greet Corax tipping the lad onto the floor.

"Well old friend," he said cheerfully, "always a pleasure to see you. Have a glass of wine with me and then take your pick of my boys there will be no charge."

"A glass of wine and a talk by all means," Corax replied, " but as for a boy perhaps my son could sample the wares you have on offer for me. It is time I think he learnt the pleasures a lively compliant young slave boy can give."

"This is your son?" the man remarked studying Marcus. "A sturdy well grown lad. You are right. It is time that aspect of his education was attended to. He could not do better than to start with the boy I was working on when you came in. I've just been preparing his bottom for it's first cock."

"I thought," Corax said doubtfully, "that perhaps as Marcus has no experience it would be as well that we chose a boy for him who could guide him a bit."

Marcus visibly bridled at this comment by his father. It was true that he lacked experience but he had a very good idea he felt, especially after seeing the state of Bestias bottom that morning, of what to do.

"That little tart knows all the tricks there are," the man said nodding at the boy who was crouched at his feet. "He's home bred from my farm. I had him brought here as soon as he began to grow into a pretty little animal and he's seen it all since then. Anyway I'll pair him with his older brother for your son. Between them they'll give him an introduction to boy sex he'll remember for the rest of his life."

"Where's the brother?" Corax asked.

"The boy standing just behind my bench. I always have him near me when I'm working on his little brother. It seems to reassure the smaller boy. Like as two peas in a pod as you can see which is odd because I doubt if they had the same fathers. You know what these slave woman are like, the bitches are constantly in heat and rut with whatever is nearest to hand. The boys are much the same"

"All right," Corax said.

The man clicked his fingers and the two boys, both fair haired, one naked, the other wearing a thin loin cloth, stepped forward. He nodded at Marcus.

"Now listen to me you idle lumps of pig shit," the man said. "This is the son of my oldest friend. You give him a good time or you'll both be flogged till your backs and bums are bloody and then I'll send you down to the barracks to hawk your arses to the legionaries and you know how that lot treat dirty little slave brats like you.."

Fear showed in the boys' faces. They started forward and taking Marcus by a hand each lead him further into the hall. Men lounged on marble benches or strolled slowly about the hall attended by crowds of pretty eager boys, the heavy limbs and hairy bodies of the men contrasting with the slim smooth bodies of their servitors. As he walked along Marcus admired the tight round bottoms of the two delicious lads that had been placed at his disposal. The thought that they were his to do what ever he wished with excited him and he realised that he was hardening. That this was so did not pass unnoticed by others. A man with a young boy kneeling before him his face pressed into his crutch laughed and pointed. The two lads looked back at him and smiled nervously.

They came to a cubicle at the far end of the hall. . As the door swung closed Marcus noticed that a thin vicious cane hung from a hook on it's inside. The boys pulled Marcus gently down so that he was seated between them on the low couch that was the room's only furniture. The youngest boy threw his arms about Marcus's neck and kissed him on the lips. Marcus ran his hand down the lad's body enjoying the feel of his smooth young flesh. It came to rest on the curve of the boy's buttocks. He pushed his finger into the cleft of the boy's bottom. The child moaned and Marcus took the opportunity to thrust his tongue into his mouth. He felt the elder boy nuzzling the side of his neck, then his tongue caressed his chest and played momentarily with one of his nipples. The younger boy began also to work his way down Marcus's body his lips and quick tongue kissing and teasing him into an ever greater state of arousement. Marcus lent back on the couch. It was impossible now to distinguish between the two boy's eager caresses. A tongue (which one?) probed his belly button another licked the inside of his thighs. Marcus bent his legs and lifted his bottom to make the boys' task easier. A wet warm tongue explored the cleft of his bottom and began to gently play around his balls. Lips touched the side of his penis. He knew shortly he would come. Two tongues now were teasing his pulsing rod. Blood drummed in his head. He was at the point of ejaculation. Ecstasy and then disaster. "It's not fare." It was the youngest boy furious and near tears. "It's not fare. I was to have his cock. Sir said I was and you're trying to take it off me. You always do it. Just because you're the oldest. It's not fare."

He gave his big brother a push and the two boys tumbled off the low couch onto the marble floor a writhing flailing bundle of naked boy's flesh. Marcus swore, angry at having his pleasure being disrupted by a slave boys' quarrel. He reached down and grabbed the two struggling boys by their collars and banged their heads viciously together. Blood spurted from the older boy's nose.

The two boys stopped fighting on the instant and realising that they were in serious trouble began to cry.

"It isn't fair Sir. Really Sir," the youngest faltered. "I was promised your cock Sir and he always grabs everything Sir."

"You want my cock," Marcus said furiously, "all right you'll get it and in a way you won't forget."

"Get on the couch now."

He aimed a vicious kick at the boy as he crouched on the marble floor at his feet.

"Quickly boy," he commanded. "On your belly and legs apart and get your bum in the air."

The boy obeyed moving the two pillows at the head of the couch so that they were under his hips pushing his bottom upwards.

Marcus stepped back and took a moment to admire the boy's slim body with it's tight little bottom presented ready for his enjoyment.

"I wonder, " he thought idly, "how old the brat is. No point in asking him he probably only has a slight idea himself. Eight or nine perhaps. But then he's a slave boy and they eat less well and have harder lives than free boys like me. So maybe a year or two older.

"I'll deal with you later," he said to the older boy. "You seem to think that what matters is that you should have a good time. I'll show you how wrong that is. It's not cock you'll be getting from me boy. It'll be the cane and that's only a starter because I'll see your whipped as well. You'll get all the cock you can manage though and more when your sent down to the barracks."

The older boy said nothing but stared at Marcus with big hopeless eyes dabbing ineffectually at his bleeding nose as he crouched naked on the floor.

Marcus got on the couch and knelt between the younger boys legs. The boy's hole was clearly visible and partly open.

"Aren't you going to use any ointment Sir," the boy whimpered.

Marcus made no reply but delivered a hard open handed smack on one of the lad's buttocks. The boy squealed.

Marcus took aim. As the tip of his penus touched the child's hole his bottom clenched shut. Marcus thrust downwards hard trying to hammer his prick into the boy's arse. The boy yelled and began to thrash about underneath him.. Marcus grabbed his wrists and shouted at the other lad to get a grip of younger boy's ankles. With his arms pinioned by Marcus and his legs held in place by his older brother the boy had no chance.

"That's the whip for you too," Marcus grunted as he rammed his ungreased cock into the boy. "Struggling like that."

For a moment the boy's sphincter held firm but then it began to yield to Marcus's persistent assault. The boy's moans rose to a shrill scream as his last defence gave way. Marcus thrust down again and again burying his cock in the boy's body. Now his crutch was tight up against the lad's bottom. He could feel the boy's heat tight around his penis. It was strange. It seemed now as though the boy was trying to draw him further into his body as he began to respond to Marcus increasingly rapid thrusts. The boy's screams subsided to a soft moaning. Marcus almost withdrew his prick from the boy's rump and then drove it's full length once more into him. He did it again and again and again and then finally he came deep down inside the child.

Marcus lay for a moment panting on top of the boy. The he pushed himself back to his knees. He could see a little blood and semen oozing from the between the boy's legs and his own penis was similarly soiled.

He eased himself from the couch.

"Now it's your turn," He said clouting his victim's older brother on the ear . He was pleased to see the boy made no attempt to raise his hands to defend himself as he aimed a second blow at his face. The boy had been well schooled. His fist struck the boy on his mouth splitting his lip. A trickle of fresh blood dribbled down the lad's chin. Marcus lifted the cane from it's hook and hefted it in his hand. It was not over heavy but it had a stiff spring to it that made it jump and hiss in the air like a living thing.

"Well turn round," he said to the boy slashing him across the front of the thighs to reinforce his order, "and take hold of the edge of the couch."

The boy yelped and turning bent down to offer his rump to the rod.

"Head right down boy and get your bum in the air."

Marcus reinforced his command by putting his left hand on the back of the boy's head and pushing it downwards at the same time inserting the cane between the boy's legs and flicking it's tip sharply upwards into the boy's crutch. The boy squealed and pushed his bottom up into the air as high as it would go. His head was pressed against the couch only a few inches away from where his brothers sobbing body lay.

Marcus touched the boys bottom with the tip of the cane measuring his distance and smiling to himself as he saw the boy tense in anticipation of the pain to come.

Now stay still," he ordered the cowering boy. "You know you deserve this don't you". He spoke quietly almost kindly to the trembling lad.

"Yes Sir," the boy whimpered.

Marcus lifted the cane back over his shoulder and then brought it hissing down through the air slicing across the boy's bare defenceless rump. The boy's body jerked convulsively. Marcus heard the lad gasp as the pain ripped the breath from his body. Marcus waited patiently as the boy struggled to calm himself. He had all the time in the world at his disposal. He watched as the single the weal across the boy's smooth rump deepened from white to scarlet and purple bruises appeared along it's edges. He realised that his cock, which had begun to subside when the two boys had started to fight, was now once again standing stiffly to attention.

He waited until he was sure the boy was calm again.

"Are you ready?" he asked gently. "I am enjoying this," he thought. He had not told the boy how many cuts he was to receive. Why should he set a limit to his own pleasure or to the boy's suffering?

The boy muttered something and Marcus interpreting the sound as assent brought the cane slashing down once more across the lad's tender bottom.

Slowly and steadily Marcus plied the cane making sure the boy felt each individual cut to the full. By the third stroke the boy was screaming. He collapsed to his knees on the sixth and again on the ninth cut. On each occasion Marcus said nothing. He just waited patiently until the boy dragged himself back on to his feet and resumed position lifting, his now well striped bottom, once again for the cane.

The boy went down again on the twelfth. He crouched on the floor at Marcus's feet his head resting on edge of the couch as sobs wracked his naked body. Looking down at his thin shoulders and bruised bottom whose flesh once white and smooth was now ribbed with welts and whose colour varied from that of raw meat on a butcher's slab to deep purple, Marcus felt he had rarely seen so arousing a sight. Inflamed by the boy's suffering he grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up so that his chest and upper body were resting on the couch, his feet touching the floor.

He increased the tempo of his blows. There was no reason now to interrupt the flogging as the boy lay across the couch, writhing under the cuts of the cane, his shrill screams mingled with the hiss of the rod through the air, the crack of wood against bare flesh, and the constant drumming of the boy's bare feet on the marble floor as the pain convulsed his tortured body.

Marcus felt his excitement increase as he laid stripe after stripe across the boy's rump and thighs.

He managed a further thirteen strokes before he felt he could delay the crisis no longer. He ceased the boy by the hair and pulled him from the couch. The lad huddled at his feet moaning quietly. He forced the boy's head back so that he was looking down into his face glistening with blood tears and mucus.

He pulled the boy's face into his crutch so that his distended cock still stained from his penetration of the lad's younger brother touched his lips. The boy opened his mouth, his lips closed about Marcus's prick, his tongue touched and massaged it. Marcus cried out as he came, shooting spunk into the back of boy's throat.

He thrust the boy away from him. As he left the room he glanced back over his shoulder. The two brothers stared back at him with blank pain filled eyes. He pushed the door closed cutting off the sound of their sobbing. He realised he was still carrying the cane. Then he thought with a start of surprise "I don't even know their names - but why should I - what does that matter?"

Corax was enjoying a drink of wine with his friend. He looked up as Marcus approached.

"It would appear you have enjoyed yourself," he said looking pointedly at Marcus's crotch.

Marcus glanced down and realised that the boy's sucking had been so brief that his prick still bore evidence of his probing of the youngest boy's bum. He blushed.

"Don't worry," Marcus said with a smile. "sit here for a moment and Pisclus can give it a wash while I finish my wine."

Pisclus hearing his name hurried forward and dropped to his knees before his young master. A boy appeared from the side of the room carrying a silver bowl full of steaming water together with a flannel and towel. Marcus spread his knees.

"Nice looking boy," Corax's fiend remarked eyeing Pisclus tight round bottom exposed as he lent forward to wash his Marcus's cock. "I'd give you a good price for him if you ever thought of selling."

"No? Oh well I thought not. How did those too boys of mine perform. I see your carrying a cane. I hope you used it because you like hurting other boys not because they gave you cause."

"They started to fight each other," Marcus explained.

"Did they?" The man's voice went cold and he turned and said a few words quietly to a couple of sturdy youths who stood close behind him. They headed bask towards the far end of the hall.

"Well they'll both pay for that," the man remarked. He did not sound too displeased at the prospect.

"I have punished them already," Marcus said a little hesitantly.

"And now I shall punish them. I told them what would happen if they misbehaved and now it is going to take place. I am a man of my word and these brats must not be allowed to forget that. Take some advice from an older man my boy ,the only thing that a slave boy respects is the whip applied often and hard to his bare carcass. Kindness is wasted on them and they get none from me."

Besides," he continued with a smile, "a lot of my customers only come here because they like to see young boys whipped till the blood flows and I am not going to disappoint them."

The youths reappeared dragging the two lads that Marcus had abused by the arms. They hurled them to the floor at the man's feet. They crouched there naked and sobbing.

"Well," he said contemptuously, "making that noise will do you no good you idle ungrateful little tykes. I feed you and house you filthy little beasts and you can't even give the son of my best friend a good time. All you had to do was stick your arses in the air to be fucked and you're too stupid to be able to manage that. I should have thought the way that bitch of a mother of yours rutted with everything in sight including the sheep dog you'd have known how to take a fucking by instinct. Well I'm going to teach you what happens to disobedient little slave brats here."

"String them up," he ordered. "The oldest first."

The two youths grabbed the bigger of the two brothers and hauled him over to a pillar nearby. They tied his hands together with a length of cord, passed the loose end of the cord through a ring set high up on the pillar and pulled the rope tight so that the boy's toes were only just touching the floor.

"You did that?" The man asked looking at the boys's taught naked body and pointing to where the cane had savaged his bottom.

"Yes," Marcus replied a little nervously. He wondered if he had overdone things. Certainly the boy's rump was a mass of livid bruises.

"A chip off the old block," the man said slapping his shoulder. "You keep that cane my boy. You certainly know how to use it."

"Alwah," the man shouted.

The Nubian stepped forward the heavy whip curled in his right hand like a snake ready to strike. The man held up his right hand twice with the fingers spread. White teeth flashed in the Nubians face as he nodded and grinned his acknowledgement. Marcus looked at the black man's broad chest and massive muscles oiled and glistening in the light. He contrasted them with the slim body of the boy half hanging from his wrists, trussed and ready for punishment. Men and boys had begun to crowd round to watch, the men's eyes glinting in anticipation of the excitement to come, many of them Marcus noted showing obvious signs of sexual arousement, the boy's fearful but unable to take their eyes from the unfolding drama.

Marcus felt his own cock stir reacting both to Pisclus's gentle sponging and the sight of the boy's approaching agony. Pisclus bent his head and Marcus felt his lips touch his swelling prick. Marcus looked down at the back of the boy's head where it nestled between his legs. He gently ruffled the lad's dark hair. He knew he would hurt Pisclus, it was his way, but at the same time he felt a softness and sympathy for the child which was quite unlike the cruel impulses to humble and dominate that had ruled him just a short time ago.

The Nubian swung the whip back. The boy began to scream even before the lash cracked viciously down across his bare shoulders. The force of the blow knocked him off his feet and for a moment he swung suspended from his wrists. For a split second after the crack of leather against bare boy's flesh there was silence and then the lad's screams rang out even louder and shriller. A broad crimson stripe appeared across the flesh his thin shoulders.

Marcus's prick sprang to attention and Pisclus took it into his mouth.

The Nubian waited a moment till the boy had recovered his footing and again brought the whip hurtling down across the pinioned boy's naked body. The two stripes crossed and where they crossed the lash split the boy's skin. A tiny stream of scarlet blood began to trickle down the boys bare back.

Marcus excited beyond words exploded in Pisclus's mouth. He caught hold of the boy by his ears and pulled him up so that he could kiss him thrusting his tongue between the lad's semen stained lips, tasting his own spunk.

"Well," said Corax with a laugh. "I've finished my wine and my son appears to have finished enjoying his slave for the time being at least. We will leave you now to your pleasures."

Marcus noticed the younger of the two brothers kneeling to one side of the pillar, waiting his turn to be flogged. The boy's eye stared unseeingly in front of him blank with terror. His body was wracked with sobs. For a second he felt a touch of pity for the child, an impulse to plead that the punishment should stop and the boys be spared. Then he pushed the thought away. They were only slaves and slaves had to be taught to obey.

As they left the hall Marcus heard the unmistakable sound again of plaited leather striking bare flesh and the scream of a boy under severe correction.

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