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 t whimper and t 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 _f_u_c_k_ing 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 _c_o_c_k_ 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. Hi s 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 _c_o_c_k_s 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 _c_o_c_k_. The tip of the boy's tongue explored the slit at the end of his _c_o_c_k_. 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 _c_o_c_k_'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 _c_o_c_k_ 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 _c_o_c_k_ 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 show 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..