I – The Lion

His name is Lucius Skipio Servius, or Skipio to those who call him a friend. He stands taller than most with a robust physique, chiseled face, and a captivating mouth no man can resist. His shorn head gleams like ripe wheat, unlike his dark, verdant eyes that run deep like river moss.

Vitus Servius is bald like his son. The stocky patrician owns a vast orchard in the northern mountainous frontier. It boasts a thriving walnut grove alongside its primary crop of apples and pears. Still, his only son eagerly trades farm life for the sword, and Vitus abides since he, too, serves under the command of his oldest friend, Gaius Julius Caesar.

Skipio joins his father and the legions to face his first real battle. With him are boyhood friends Titus Flavius and Planus Caesar. Like young Skipio, these wealthy sons of the Lario cross the Alps after four years at Mediolanum’s sleepy garrison; a shared anticipation of battle strengthens their boyhood bond.

To their dismay, the invading Gallic hordes are no more than meek Veragrii. Tribes of swordless men and women migrating with their children. Expecting a formidable enemy, the trio is profoundly disillusioned when their superior, Labenius, calls for the advance.

Weeks become a month. United by melancholy, the trio redeem themselves under the masterful command of Publius Crassus.

Crassus, a man of their years and temperament, fosters pride within Skipio, Titus, and Planus, who each play a part in the Sotiatian siege and the masterful peace that follows.

Crassus reunites with Caesar in northern Belgica, where bloody fights claim the lives of many. Skipio keeps his head while taking those of Rome’s enemies. Planus and Titus join him in Caesar’s new Legio X Equestris, but this elevation to decurio cannot keep Skipio from action. Never one to watch from the flanks, he rides in when holes emerge amidst the front lines, swinging his gladius the way he swings his cock at the brothel for painted boys.

Today, no battles rage, and no formations begin.

Vitus has not seen his son in many weeks and finds Skipio kneeling alongside the field where their engagement with the enemy looms. Restless, his infantry brothers loiter nearby.

Crassus sits upon his horse, his wavy russet hair damp from the midday rain.

Vitus asks, “Why are we not in formation drills?”

“Decurion Servius says something’s not right,” the young leader tells him.

Bald under his leather cap, Titus Labenius comes alongside, his steed giving an anxious snort. “Our enemy comes at dawn,” he tersely reminds. “We must assign formations before nightfall.”

“I’ve learned to trust Servius the Younger’s instincts,” says Crassus, his voice firm. “We’ll begin troop placement after my decurion clears this field of whatever ails it.”

Vitus winks at the frustrated Labenius before strolling toward his son. The meadow stretches toward a coastal hillock, where stiff grass grows tall from sea-soaked bedrock. He steps behind his son and, with a draftsman’s eye and a farmer’s soul, sees what troubles him.

“Watching the weeds grow, Skipio?”

“Look at it,” his son says, uneasy. “The lighter grass grows in linear patches,”

“An abandoned farm?”

Skipio’s shorn head shakes. “There would be uniform lines from years of plowing.” Like his father, he also sees things from the inside out. “It’s as if the moles lived here and then left.”

“What does that tell you?” Vitus asks.

“Moles never leave.” Skipio blinks before facing him. “The moles are Gauls.”

Crassus, an astute strategist, assigns Skipio the task of mapping the enemy tunnels, should they exist.

The Servian heir, however, offers a different approach. Instead of creating a map, Skipio enlists Planus and his engineers to uncover the first hollow corridor with their shovels. The tunnel proves unfit for a grown man’s body, but Skipio remains sure of its unnatural shape.

A brave slave boy, enticed by the promise of roast duck, crawls within the muddy trough and surfaces at its end several yards behind their battle camp. A new plan forms, born from Skipio’s savagery. Legionary craftsmen shape clay pipes, which Planus and his men feed into the passage. Stoking fires fills the pipes with smoke until white wisps rise from the meadow like gray sea worms dancing free of benthic sand.

Titus and his archers hastily assemble, knowing the trees contain watchers. They fake a drill and, with each parading halt, covertly fill the smoking air holes with wet mud.

The men sleep knowing that the morning will bring violence. Those on watch must keep the fires burning to ensure the enemy stays out of their well-hidden tunnel.

Morning comes, but no battle horn sounds but for mournful shrilling. The legions wake to find unarmed men in skins and war paint, digging up the meadow as a pair of women sob to the sky while pulling at their hair and beating their bellies.

Gallic men pull little bodies from the ground, too many to count through the smoke, and their obscene harvest stabs at Skipio’s heart.

“You didn’t put those babes on the battlefield,” says Vitus.

“Minerva warned me.” Skipio’s lips turn down. “When none of us could fit in that tunnel, she sent me a child.”

“What does that tell you?” asks Vitus.

“That we could’ve collapsed it. We could’ve placed men at the exit to protect our supplies.” Water pools within Skipio’s eyes, the whites blushing pink around his emerald irises. “There was no need to choke the enemy out.”

“If their goal were only to set fire to our munitions,” Vitus suggests. “There would not have been so many air holes.”

Skipio gives over to his guilt, and one young man among the lancers stares longer than acceptable.

Castor Junius, with a maiden’s beauty and the physique of a teenage boy, no longer endures the Servian heir’s forceful affections, but his heart weeps at his former lover’s pain.

“You didn’t put those boys on the battlefield.” Vitus grabs his son’s shoulder. “Now, dry your tears before the others see you.”

*

Twilight falls when Rome enters the battlefield. Tonight, they fight for the launch-worthy beachfront just over the hillock. A suffocating fog blankets the grass, bringing with it the stink of salted earth and burning wood.

Horse-drawn chariots, their druid pilots with heads aflame, race from the cloud in frightening masks. Piercing battle cries emanate from these snarling, demonic predators, whose eye holes display human orbs. One hand controls the horse while the other hurls gourds of poisonous mist.

The lancer’s commander falls, and novice Castor Junius takes control. Voice quaking with fear, he yells for his men to hold the line, and this makes them an easier target for druids.

Keen to protect his former lover, Skipio pulls down his metal mask and thunders in on his battle-mare, Luna.

Vitus follows to protect his son, reaching the front line before him. As he calls on the spearmen to form a wall, his son dismounts and joins them, standing alongside Castor with a spear in hand and a knee in the mud.

“Hold the line, and do not falter,” Vitus shouts.

Skipio senses their reluctance. “Give their steeds a path to escape,” he cries. “Or grant them a noble death!”

A collective shout rises along the line.

The first chariot comes on the heels of Mercury, and its painted driver fails to change course in time, sending his carriage careening toward them. His horse stumbles over the grass, and Skipio breaks formation to deftly slice the beast’s tethers. She gets clear as her chariot slides into the wall of spears, their iron flints shredding its wooden coup.

A masked druid flies over them, his head of flames spitting embers into the night. His body hits the earth, and he rolls like a discarded doll, his owl mask coming free and landing upon Vitus’s boot. He steps over it to the fallen and, with two swings, his sword liberates the dead man’s head from his shoulders.

A cry rings out behind him. Another druid stands there, sobbing behind his painted mask. Without warning, he hurls his axe at Vitus, but Skipio flies past his father with shield up and takes the blow. Swift as a mountain cat, Skipio jumps to his feet, shield down and both swords drawn. The wailing druid vanishes, taking the comrade’s head with him.

Rome is victorious, but morning finds the ground a ruddy soup of severed limbs and foul entrails. Weary horsemen gather on the ridge and admire the vast, restless surf that their brothers died for. This isn’t their Mare Nostrum—it is an untamable sea on the edge of the known world, where an angry island awaits.

**

Skipio Servius commands a thirty-man unit of teenage Gauls. These orphans, here by Caesar’s conquest, find Skipio a suitable leader as he funds their training and provides them with new horses and better rations.

His second in command is a fellow provincial named Actus Ursius. The son of a Comum merchant known for his travels east of Zagros, the decurion’s strangely narrow eyes go unmentioned, much like his mother’s Sinaean ancestry, if one wishes to keep their jaw intact.

Today, the camp surgeon tends to Actus’s decaying tooth, leaving Skipio to oversee inspections. The teens and their horses assemble with precision, their fat daggers gleaming in the sunlight along with their clean-shaven heads and faces. Round shields appear clean enough to eat off—and it often comes to that when out scouting.

After a meticulous review, Skipio seeks out his oldest friend, Planus Caesar, and finds the legion’s master engineer grumbling about the state of their catapults.

Vitus Servius listens before lending his son a mirthful eye.

“Did we ever find that druid’s head?” asks Skipio.

“I believe,” Vitus chuckles, “our hatchet-wielding holy man took it with him.”

“Castor and his lancers got a look at it,” Planus winks at the older man. “They wager that with his bald head and strong brow, he might’ve been a Servii.”

Skipio feigns outrage while his father laughs.

“Not our line,” says Vitus. “What little Gallic blood swims in us comes from the Lepontine,”

A couple of young Gauls from Skipio’s unit overhear. Whispers begin about Skipio’s diluted blood, giving the youths more to admire. Skipio leaves them behind, following Planus to the shoreline, where his friend begins heaping praise upon the older engineers who seemingly make do with spit and whatever they find lying around.

Not long into their stroll, they happen upon three infantrymen shoving a Gallic woman among them. The matron fights with every ounce of her strength, her resolve weakening as her clothes tear. When it’s clear she’s lost the fight, Skipio intervenes.

“We rape no women here,” he declares, pulling the sobbing matron to her feet. She grabs her clothes and flees across the field as Skipio confronts the trio. “If your decurion thinks otherwise, he can discuss it with me.”

All but one heeds quietly.

“That’s rich coming from you,” says the third.

Skipio steps into him. “Heard of me, have you?”

The man’s as tall as Skipio, with a family just as wealthy.

“Everyone knows about you, Servius,” he smirks.

Skipio chuckles with him as if in on the tease before driving a fist into his solar plexus. The man folds to heap upon the ground.

“It’s a good thing you’re not to my liking,” says Skipio.

The two collect their fallen leader and walk him over the field as Skipio rejoins his friend.

“Such righteousness,” Planus laughs, “from a man who also enjoys forcing his lovers,”

“I make no apologies for my vigorous desires,” Skipio tells him, “but women and girls shouldn’t be part of such roughness. They cannot match a man’s strength, therefore, it’s not a fair match.”

“Sex isn’t a combat sport,” Planus says.

Skipio grins, “We shall agree to disagree.”

“Tell me, friend, how did carnal bliss become such a violent enterprise for you?” Planus asks without judgment. “We grew up together, our shared desire for men, bone-deep. Yet, I’ve no desire to beat my lover senseless,”

Skipio asks, “Do you recall our first trip to Rome?”

“I’ll never forget it,” Planus says. “Our balls were bald, and our heroes infallible,”

“Remember that bestiary, where the trainers were breeding a lioness?”

Planus conjures the scene. “She didn’t want the male they shoved into her yard.”

“She wouldn’t let him mount her,” Skipio recalls. “Out of nowhere, her young son appears and jumps the older male,”

“That I remember clearly.” Planus walks ahead of him. “It was the first time I’d seen a male animal attempt to breed another male. It was rather exciting given my immature proclivities.”

Skipio’s green eyes glow.

“That young lion wanted a violent rutting all along.”

Planus stops walking.

“My friend, you and I saw a very different show. The older lion nearly chewed off the younger’s leg. The poor thing had no means to run when that old cat mounted him.”

“Wait up!” Castor’s airy voice arrives before they hash matters further.  The petite lancer jogs toward them, his blue tunic flapping in the wind. “Those druid-drawn chariots hail from that island across the channel.”

“Caesar made landfall there last year,” says Skipio.

“While we were in Veneti,” Planus nods.

“It’s called Britannia,” Castor whispers, “though most of the older men call it Defeat.”

Skipio grins. “My father claims it was a reconnaissance mission,”

“Recon, indeed,” Planus cracks. “The sort where the enemy tribes meet you onshore to confront your fleet before you can land.”

Skipio and Planus laugh heartily while an anxious Castor surveys the area for listeners.

“What says Caesar of this newfound information?” Planus asks.

“We’re setting sail after the last snow,” Castor tells him, eyes bright.

Planus grumbles, “He truly hates us, doesn’t he?”

“Wintering us this close to the coast,” Skipio says, nodding.

“Our enemies conspire on that island,” Castor scolds them.

“More glory before the common man,” Planus mocks, then regards Castor. “There’s no reason for a campaign across the water but to feed Rome slaves and make his legend greater than it is.”

Skipio drapes an arm over Planus’s shoulders.

“Do you doubt the intentions of your mother’s cousin?”

“His intentions were borne when he tasked us to murder unarmed civilians at Octodurus,” Planus notes Castor’s concern. “Never fear, little brother. I follow orders and only question them among my closest friends.”

Castor pouts, “Your bitterness is unsightly.”

“It’s not his fault,” Skipio teases. “Our Planus still pines for that Veragros,”

“Quiet, you,” his friend snaps, walking ahead.

Castor follows, “Did someone catch your heart?”

Planus answers with silence.

“He fell in love with a reedy Gaul,” Skipio rhymes, “whose long hair looked the color of straw,”

“Does it matter?” Planus turns. “He’s dead,”

Castor’s smile fades, but Skipio remains cheerful.

“If he’s dead,” says Skipio. “Then whose serving my mother her midday wine?”

Planus gives a start. “Welletrix lives?”

“Wait, the one called Welle?” Castor asks, then nods. “I took him to the Servian plantation myself,”

Planus turns to his friend, eyes wide like the moon.

“I saw how you looked at him,” Skipio confesses. “So, I purchased him.”

Boyish laughter infects Planus.

“You’ve never been so thoughtful!”

“He’s not yours,” Skipio clarifies, arms folded. “He belongs to my house, and since you’re not the sort to ravish a man, you best behave when visiting.”

“Praise the Fates,” Planus beams. “I’m going to write him this very day,”

Castor laughs while watching the bearded man sprint for their tent city. Sun filters through Castor’s fine brown hair, vexing Skipio with a strange need. Before he can negotiate why he wants what he wants, his hand finds the young lancer’s throat.

Skipio hungrily devours Castor’s soft lips, which press tightly against his tongue. Once they part, teeth defend with a soldier’s strength, forcing Skipio back before he’s bitten.

“I told you,” Castor coughs, holding his neck. “No more!”

Skipio comes for him again. “You said you loved me.”

“We said many things to each other these past years,” Castor whispers, hands up and his back against the rocks. “Your brutal love felt exciting at first, but then it just hurt.”

Skipio reaches for him, but the young lancer pulls his dagger.

“Touch me again,” he warns. “And I report you to Crassus,”

Skipio huffs, “Does he know of your lust for men?”

“I told him last month in the baths when he saw your teeth marks on my backside.” Castor’s fearful eyes seek witnesses. “I revealed my habits because I knew you’d use them against me.”

“I would never force a man into anything. You know that better than anyone.” Anger dulls Skipio’s desire. “Did he tell my father?”

“Lord Vitus was told of my wounds without being told my name.” Castor lowers the knife. “Do you know what he said? He told Crassus that no self-respecting Roman would allow himself to be used in such a way,”

“You think my affections lack respect?” asks Skipio.

Castor hardens, “Love shouldn’t make a man bleed.”

Disappointment fills Skipio’s heart. “If nothing binds our bodies, then steer clear of me.”

Castor reaches for him, “Don’t be like this, please.”

“Leave me be!” Skipio slaps the young man’s hand away and feels his eyes on him as he marches for the trees.

Under the forest’s mottled shade, he searches the shallowest set, those with roots crawling above the soil. A thick oak calls to him, its crusty bark peeling to reveal its smooth cambium. He drops to his knees within the root bed and finds a creche that fits him perfectly.

Skipio peels off his armor and tunic, and he’s already tumescent when his buttocks meet the cool soil. Eyes shut tight, he works his arousal with one hand, while the other gropes a skinny lateral root.

The limb is smooth and hard, like a young man’s muscular leg. He tightens his grasp, digging in his nails enough to leave marks. Leaves rustle overhead, but the tree doesn’t resist or fight, and this acquiescence takes its toll.

Skipio growls in frustration when handling his diminishing flesh feels like pushing a rope.