“Off he goes,” Planus observes Scipio as he stalks into the forest. “Off to sew the ground with his seed,”

“We must speak to Caesar,” whispers Titus.

Planus shakes his head. “You know that he’s allowed Scipio his leave because it’s kept the nuisance raids in check.”

“I’m aware,” says Titus. “His method is effective, the locals are terrified,”

“Wouldn’t you be if some marauding monster roamed your land, raping every mouth and hole with a man attached?” Planus asks. “I brought this before my Tribune, and do you know what he said?”

“He’s only buggering the druids,” Titus replies.

Planus gives a start. “You spoke to my Tribune?”

“No, I spoke to mine,” Titus clarifies. “It seems that they’ve all conspired to formulate the same response,”

Chapter X – THE PRICE OF PAIN

Planus and Titus express concern for Scipio's depraved tactics after his father's death, while Castor realizes keeping him away from The Owl is in everyone's best interests.

• BEAR HOUSE
• TAPAS WEB NOVELS
• ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
• PIXIV NOVELS

Last of the three main characters in ‘The List’ – a limited series about a young Polish man in 1960 Poland whose been killing former Germans and Poles that abused him in the Lebensraum system during the war. He forges a relationship with a younger man, but his homicidal need for revenge doesn’t wane and this puts him in the crosshairs of a young detective who understands his crimes and why they’re bing committed—as he to was in the Lebensraum system for a time.

TW – child death; domestic abuse, antisemitism, ww2, physical and emotional trauma.

Character Notes: “Natan/Natek”

The Germans invade Danzig, where 7-year-old NATAN BYTNER lives with his German-Polish father, Joachim, and his Polish mother, Erzbet. Life improves for his father, an antisemitic administrator who has helped the elected conservative government persecute Jewish locals for years. At the same time, his young, blue-eyed blond wife covertly smuggles Jewish children out of the city with her brother, Viktor.

Throughout 1940, he notices his Polish classmates disappear, along with Polish flags, signs, and merchants. His school closes, and German is the only language allowed at the new school downtown, where his father enrolls him. Things become strained at home after police torch local fishing boats, including his uncle Viktor’s, forcing the man into moving in with them.

Father tosses Viktor out one day after he interferes with him ‘disciplining’ Natek. Not long after this, a Racial Hygiene Court determines that Viktor is a danger to racial purity; while in custody, officials declare him homosexual and ‘cure’ him with complete castration. He later dies, convalescing on the streets.

Joachim, now an intake officer at a nearby labor camp, begins drinking and physically abusing Erzbet. She flees in 1941, taking Natek with her. Her mastery of the language enables them to pose as Germans migrating south, yet her constant fear of being found leads them to move so often that Natek cannot make friends. Erzbet and ‘Natan’ settle into a shared apartment in Dresden with two young widows and their children. On his 11th birthday in 1942, his father barges into the apartment with five German police. Erzbet is dragged into the bedroom and ‘Germanized’ by Joachim and the men. Natan witnesses her rape and flees the apartment.

He wanders the Dresden streets for weeks until a Lebensraum initiative scout collects him. He mentions nothing of his parents, and despite a prominent nose and brown eyes, his platinum blond hair and fluent German get him labeled ‘Aryan.’

Officials place 12-year-old Natan with the Giller family outside Liegnitz (f. Legnica). Ernst Giller is a kind-hearted grocer, and his wife, Edith, is a teacher. Natan fits in easily at school, where other boys look up to him. One day in 1944, he walks in on his classmate, Reinhardt, hastily dressing in the gym locker room after football practice. The boy is circumcised and frightened, yet when the other boys enter, Natan blocks their view, allowing Reinhardt to dress unnoticed.

Natan befriends Reinhardt, ensuring none of the others rough house with him or ‘pants’ him in the game yard. During an overnight sports outing, they take adjacent sleeping cots and stay up late whispering about their missing parents. When the boy takes Natan’s hand, he asks to be called ‘Natek;’ after that night, they secretly speak Polish, and Reinhardt teaches him some Yiddish.

One day, Natan overhears their gym teacher discussing an upcoming swim meet with Mister Giller. He warns Reinhardt that a visiting Inspector, some man named Haas, expects them to swim naked with the rest of the boys. Reinhardt doesn’t appear at the swim meet; the instructor cancels the meet so everyone can search the nearby woods when the boy goes missing.

That night, Werner Haas dines with the Gillers before questioning Natan about Reinhardt. Mrs. Giller answers many questions, prompting Werner to speak with Natan alone. The Gillers reluctantly acquiesce. Once alone, Haas asks after Reinhardt’s real family, and Natan claims ignorance. Haas shows him a picture of his mother, Erzbet, bruised in a hospital bed. Haas informs him that his father still looks for him. Natan starts sobbing and begs Haas not to return him to Danzig. The next day, Haas takes Natan on a car trip. While driving through the countryside, Natan implores the man to let him stay with the Gillers. Haas takes him to a remote forest outside Liegnitz and parks. He takes a photo of Natan with a flower in his mouth before exposing himself. The man demands Natan perform oral sex. Before he does, Haas angrily drags him from the car, shoves cash into his hand, and orders him to flee.

The money takes Natan as far as Dresden, where the 13-year-old sleeps with other homeless boys at the railyard. Foraging the woods for food, he encounters a group of Russian and Polish soldiers, and though he speaks Polish, they note his German accent and beat him until Reinhardt appears. Reunited with his friend, Natan sleeps in Reinhardt’s tent, encamped with a hidden Jewish faction in the woods. Natan and Reinhardt wash each other in the river and spend the night kissing and touching until morning.

Old enough to carry guns, the boys follow the resistance group into Dresden for a Valentine’s Day massacre. After midnight, allied bombs fall, and Natan loses Reinhardt in the chaos. In the morning, Natan comes across a mountain of bombed debris and sees curly hairs sticking out from the rubble. He buries his face in the corpse’s hair and smells Reinhardt’s soap.

A liberated Polish laborer, Piotr Mikulski, happens upon a sobbing Natan and drags him away before the bombing begins again.

Natek spends his later teens with Piotr, who takes him back to Danzig, now Gdansk. The man enrolls him in school and enlists him in the ‘Armia Krajowa,’ a group of former national soldiers fighting the Soviet takeover of Poland. In 1948, a month after Natek completed school, Piotr’s faction plans to bomb the State Security Office, but officials have the building tightly controlled. Natak sees a familiar face on the docket of planned executions—his father, Joachim. The man will face a firing squad as a collaborator, and Natek can access the building after acquiring a pass to watch the execution. Piotr dismisses this, declaring that Natek will attend university in Warsaw and not involve himself in this plan.

Frustrated, Natek and some other younger members carry out the bombing. On the day of the execution, however, Erzbet finds her son in the crowd. Natek is shocked to see his mother, thought dead; Erzbet tells him she turned over his father and has missed ‘her Natek’ terribly. Overcome, he embraces her before realizing he must stop his comrades from planting the bomb. He approaches a nearby policeman named Kawa and points out the bomb carrier by asking why a young man would wear such a long coat on a hot summer day. While the policeman ponders the observation, Erzbet appears and declares she’s unwilling to sully their reunion by witnessing his father’s hanging. Aware that Kawa watches them, Natak expresses anger and tells her he wants to see ‘that filthy collaborator hang.’ Kawa scolds him and tells him to take his mother home. Natak gets his mother out of the courtyard, and at her flat blocks away, he listens anxiously for an explosion that never comes.

Later that night, he returns to Piotr’s and finds the police raiding his home. The old man shakes his head at Natak, warning him not to approach; gunfire erupts inside before all Natak’s young accomplices emerge. Investigators shoot each man as he tries to flee. Piotr has a heart attack while in custody downtown.

Mortified by his actions, Natak moves in with his mother and attends university in Warsaw as Piotr wanted. Natak finishes university with a degree in sociology, and at his ceremony in 1951, Bazyli Kawa, now an Inspector, recruits him. Guilt prompts Natak to accept with a covert goal to aid local Armia Krajowa factions as their man on the inside.

Natak completes his law-enforcement exams and training in 1953 and, at age 22, is assigned as a beat cop in southern Gdansk. He makes good on his plans and quickly becomes an asset to the anti-communist underground, warning them of impending raids and freeing those apprehended during round-ups.

During this time, Natek explores his homosexuality at private parties, underground clubs, and daytime movie theaters outside Gdansk. His search for Reinhardt’s remains takes him to a Jewish mortuary center in Warsaw, where he meets Pabian Kletzki, an Orthodox Jewish records keeper. Realizing that Natek is a member of the state police, Pabian and his boss are unwilling to help; sensing their sudden coldness, Natek writes down the name of a local anti-communist leader and asks Pabian to give it to his boss. When he does, the man orders Pabian to help him. Pabian is unmoved by Natek’s alliances; he thinks the state police and the anti-communist gangs are two sides of the same shitty coin.

Pabian changes his opinion of Natek after seeing him barge into a clandestine gay party outside Warsaw. The plain-clothes policeman warns the lesbian organizer of an impending raid, allowing everyone time to get out. Pabian locates Reinhardt Weisz’s remains in Dresden (a skull and an arm) and joins Natek in collecting them.

Natek arranges a burial for Reinhardt in a Jewish cemetery outside Gdansk. Afterward, he invites Pabian to his apartment, promising wine and the new Miles Davis record he got on the black market. Drinks lead to dancing and sex, where Natak asks about Pabian’s missing toes. Pabian speaks of being a child at Sztutowo and how he and many other boys marched in icy cold conditions for almost two weeks and suffered frostbite. Natek talks, for the first time, about his parents, his life with the Gillers, and his time in Dresden.

A week later, his neighbor, a young woman named Mariette, accosts him. She attends the officer training school nearby, and without a preamble, she informs Natek that they’re getting married. Natek refuses until she pulls out photos of him kissing Pabian goodbye that morning. She explains over dinner that a single woman will never make inspector, and if Natek marries her, they can purchase a home, and her American girlfriend can move in as ‘their maid.’

At their wedding reception, Erzbet happily dances with her son and then, overnight, dies in her sleep.

After the funeral, Natek accepts an inspector position in Lodz with Bazyli Kawa in the city’s criminal investigation unit. Mari strikes for an inspector position in Lodz in 1956, but sexist superiors deny her advancement. She eventually earns an inspector rank in nearby Kutno, but it’s in the traffic division. She takes it because Rebecca passes her nursing exams and begins working for a local pediatrician.

Natek purchases a home in Kutno with Mari, ‘renting rooms’ to Rebecca and Pabian in 1960 after Pabian begins work at a Jewish mortuary outside of Kutno.

Natek, like Berek, carries a cadre of demons from his childhood, and although his wartime past doesn’t mirror Berek’s, it’s relatively close in terms of stolen youth.

Natek loses Pabian to cancer while investigating Berek’s murder, forcing him to hyper-fixate on Arik. He knows Berek is sociopathic and suspects Ari loves the man too much to stop him. He is careful to avoid exposing the pair’s sexuality, given his own, so it’s a tightrope situation.

[Some rehash] Character notes for me is a complete bio – everything that happens to a character up to their first scene. These details reveal themselves as motivators or reasons why, and can be shown in flashbacks or through dialogue; so it’s never a waste of time to completely flesh out your character’s life.

CHARACTER NOTES:

Character History: “Ari/Arik”

6-year-old ARIK TARSKI and sister Anya live with their parents above their bakery in the Polish town of Sanok in 1939 Poland. The Tarski bakery thrives on a corner that borders Jewish and Catholic neighborhoods; his mother, Anusha, is Jewish, and his father, Viktor, is Catholic.

After his maternal grandfather leaves for Palestine, his mother takes over the bakery. After the German invasion, new laws forbid Jewish people from having bank accounts and owning businesses, so Anusha signs the bakery to Viktor. 

One day, Arik’s parents show him the hidden room under the basement. It contains a stove, a working, bunk beds, and all of Ari and Anya’s books and games. Anusha tells her children it’s where they must spend their summer vacation—since the Germans closed the lake. Anusha and her children spend many nights there, and it feels like a vacation for Arik and Anya until that day in October when their mother leaves the room and never returns.

The first Einsatzgruppe enters Sanok; they kill Anusha and Viktor.

Arik and 10-year-old Anya are out of food in December. They venture out of the basement and find their family bakery closed and its windows boarded. In the Tarski home above it, there’s no furniture or clothes, just appliances. The family paintings are gone, as are their mother’s jewelry and silver menorah. They return to the room with what food they find, and weeks pass before they hear movement upstairs.

Mister Aldo Kreider, a cake shop owner two blocks down, moves into the Tarski home with his teenage wife that January. The children emerge in a month later, shocking the Kreiders. Aldo claims their parents went to Palestine, and everyone thinks they took Arik and Anya. He also claims their parents asked him to run the bakery until their return. His wife, a girl of 16 named Charlotte, brings Ari and Anya upstairs after sunset to prepare bread dough for morning baking; she also tasks them with making pre-dawn bagels and donuts. She lets them sleep in their bedrooms unless they have visitors.

Two years later, Charlotte announces her pregnancy, leading Aldo to join the children for their overnight bakery work. Some nights, Aldo sends Arik upstairs without 13-year-old Anya until one day, Charlotte angrily sends them back to the room without reason. That night, Charlotte attacks Anya, and her water breaks when 9-year-old Arik comes between them. Aldo appears and takes his wife upstairs, and many days pass before he returns with news that his wife and newborn have died.

Aldo lets them back upstairs, and not long after, Anya fakes her affection for him, which confuses Arik. One day, she declares that she’s started to bleed, so she and Ari must leave before Aldo hands her over to the Lemkos (Ukrainians working for the Germans.) Confused, Arik refuses and talks with Aldo about Anya’s plans. He wakes later that night for his baking time to find Anya missing and finds Aldo burning her clothes in the fireplace; he claims Anya fell in love with some Lemkos and fled.

Six months pass, with Aldo and Arik running the bakery. One night, Aldo brings a teenage girl home, and she sees Arik. Aldo feigns shock and pretends to have no idea who Arik is or how he got there. Later, some German soldiers storm into the house, taking the 10-year-old away.

Arik joins hundreds of women and children on a crowded train heading north. He catches the attention of a young German guard named Rance Eibner, who stares at Arik as Aldo did Anya. On the journey’s second day, Arik talks sweetly to Rance, as Anya did with Aldo. Lonely and afraid, Arik follows the young man outside and finds him pissing over the couplers; he boldly offers to hold his penis. After glaring at him for several moments, Rance uses Ari’s hand to pleasure himself and, shamed by his actions, threatens to shoot Arik before sending him back inside. 

At the next stop, soldiers separate the women and corral the children toward another train car. Rance pulls Arik aside and shoves him into the trunk of a parked vehicle. Hours later, the car begins moving, and Arik falls asleep. Rance opens the trunk after sunset, releasing Arik into a countryside he doesn’t recognize. He’s pissed himself, so Rance takes him to a river and washes him. They sleep naked together in the car, and Arik isn’t afraid when Rance touches him because he’s not physically hurt.

Arik considers running away when they stop in Breslau for a new vehicle, but he feels safe playing Rance’s brother. The young man purchases a better car, new clothes, and plenty of food and drives them to Germany. While overnight on the trip, Rance continues molesting Arik, but nothing goes beyond masturbation. 

Crossing the border into Germany, they move into a boarding house in Dębno (renamed Neudamm,) where Arik befriends Misses Ida Ritzer, the matronly widow running the place. Arik bakes with Ida in her kitchen and plays cards with her in the evenings until ‘his brother’ returns from work at the petrol station. One day, Ida questions Arik about his and Rance’s parents and notices that his German isn’t perfect. She also notes that when Arik lets his guard down, he speaks German with a Polish accent.

After the boy repeats Rance’s story about their parents traveling east without them, she questions the young man, and he confesses that Arik is his sister’s son; she married a Pole and chose to die with him. Ida promises to keep the boy’s secret until one night, entering their room without knocking, she discovers Rance performing oral sex on Arik; before they can flee, the police arrive. 

German soldiers take custody of Rance for desertion, and after speaking with Ida about what she witnessed, they shoot the young man. The Commander questions 11-year-old Arik, still wrapped in a sheet, and he repeats the lie about them being brothers. Ida encourages Arik to be truthful, but when the boy remains silent, she tells the Commander what Rance told her about Arik’s parents. The Commander informs Ida that Rance Eibner has no sister. She asks that Arik remain with her, but when she brings the boy a change of clothes and attempts to remove his sheet, he crouches, saying he’s not allowed to show anyone’ his private.’ The Commander pulls the sheet away and exposes his circumcised penis. He drags Arik out to Eibner’s body and demands to know where he came from; frightened beyond words, Arik confesses everything about being from Sanok and meeting Eibner on the train. Disgusted that Arik ‘came on to’ Eibner, the Commander orders him on a bus bound for Sachsenhausen. Horrified, Ida pleads for Arik; the boy was emulating his sister; he didn’t understand what he was doing. The Commander tells her the boy is a pervert and a Jew; she cries as they drag him away.

Arik prays in Yiddish on the bus, and the Commander strikes him. He then snidely asks if Arik wants to hold his cock for him when he pisses, spitting and slapping him when Arik pleads to know what he’s done wrong. 

At the camp, the Intake Officer hears the Commander’s story and is enraged that a Jewish pervert has bewitched a good German like Eibner. He assigns Arik a pink triangle and drags the boy before the camp Commandant. The intake officer tells the Commandant a sordid story about how Arik seduced the formerly decorated Eibner; revolted, the Commandant orders a complete castration. Disturbed by Arik’s age, the camp Doctor disobeys protocol, putting the 12-year-old to sleep for the procedure. Moments after completion, authorities evacuate the camp as the Soviets cross the border. Soldiers whisk the Doctor away, leaving Arik asleep on the operating table.

Arik wakes in a Polish Red Cross Hospital and finds a golden-haired teen leaning over him [Berek Kozak.] The young man’s curly hair reminds him of a lion, so Arik thinks he’s in Palestine with King David. Thunder booms outside, and the teen flees. Arik touches his crotch and feels pain; he lifts the bandage and finds only a catheter plugged into sutured skin. Before he can cry, thunder booms again outside, and lightning brings the room into view; it isn’t Palestine with King David. Drawn to the gusty wind, Arik sees his family out at the lake; his mother held him during storms like this. Arik pulls the catheter out and walks toward his family–he steps off a collapsed landing and hits the pool’s dirty water.

Arik wakes to Nurse Ruta Koblencja praying in Polish at his bedside. She prays at his bedside daily; she changes his bandages, feeds him soup and solids, and eventually shows him how to pee without the catheter. Ruta tells him he’s still a boy, just a different kind of boy, and explains that some men lose an arm or a leg without dying, so his situation is the same. Comforted by her Polish, Arik listens when she talks of losing all three of her teenage sons in the war. Ruta remains with Arik after they move to a better hospital in Warsaw. Later, Ruta adopts the 14-year-old and drives him back to her home in Kalisz.

Arik matures physically, and though pubic hair covers his scars, he cannot stand seeing his crotch in the mirror. At school, he urinates while sitting down and endures stigma for being excused from showering with others after gym class. After he begins having nocturnal emissions, Ruta surmises some testicular tissue might remain. Arik verifies this when his testosterone levels grow enough that a portion of his scar tissue swells while watching older boys rowing in the river. He feels ashamed using the ball of his hand to masturbate, but Ruta assures him that all men masturbate—and Arik is just like all men. 

At age 16, he confides his attraction to other men, and Ruta tells him to avoid gay prostitutes; those men are in the blackmail business, not the sex business. 

In 1951, his first year of college, 18-year-old Arik develops a crush on a fellow student named Andrej. When the young man’s mother catches them kissing, she calls the police. Reminded of Eibner’s arrest, Arik flees the house, traumatized. Andrej commits suicide in his bathroom after the police capture Arik and take him to a mental hospital. Ruta learns what happened and curses his parents for their ignorance; she tells them they killed their son and will not kill hers. She uses her influence with a judge to have Arik released, but she must wait three days; in that time, Arik endures electric shock therapy to cure his ‘unnatural perversions.’

Ruta sells her home and moves east to Skierniewice, where she purchases a two-story row house in the town center. Arik finishes university a year later than his peers. Ruta laments his introverted state but keeps it to herself when he chooses to remain at home instead of living alone.

Poland National Rail recruits 23-year-old Arik in ’56, and soon, he makes enough money that Ruta can retire from nursing. Arik eventually becomes a rail-pass account supervisor. He hides his sexuality from everyone except his best friend and fellow manager, Gata. After Ruta accidentally finds some anal pornography Arik bought in Warsaw, he bashfully tells her it’s not something he wants to discuss. A former nurse, Ruta uses her medical identification number and purchases an anal dilatation set for him from Germany. The kit mortifies Arik, yet he uses it and becomes more comfortable with his body. Arik visits movie theaters in Lodz and Warsaw and engages in anonymous with other men. He performs oral sex while masturbating clothed but never lets anyone see or touch his crotch.

Doctors diagnose Ruta with cancer, so Arik takes time off from work in the spring of 1960 to care for her. She passes in November, and he arranges for her burial and viewing.

Arik Tarski is a wildcard whose life gets turned upside down after meeting Berek. Will he end up on the Kill List or heal Berek with his love? Since the couple’s problematic dynamic cannot exist in a vacuum ( there must be consequences or stakes to drive the plot,) I’m adding a third character, one more like Berek – one changed by the Lebensraum—only his horrid experiences don't make him a murderer.

[Some rehash] I write my notes longhand and then dictate them to the computer. Since Microsoft acquired Nuance, the maker of Dragon Naturally Speaking, I’ve found the Word ‘dictate’ tool much improved. Also, I must disable Grammarly and Word-editor to use it because if I don’t, it freezes up, noting errors as I speak.

Character notes for me is a complete bio – everything that happens to a character up to their first scene. These details reveal themselves as motivators or reasons why, and can be shown in flashbacks or through dialogue; so it’s never a waste of time to completely flesh out your character’s life.

CHARACTER NOTES:

Berek Kozak was taken from his Polish mother at age 11 by German officials because he fit their ‘Aryan ideal.’ (Not fiction, this happened to children throughout the occupied territories.) They renamed him Boris, but couldn’t tame him, and the abuse he endured made him into a twisted person.

Around 1954 he makes a ‘Kill List’ of those responsible for his past traumas and begins hunting and then murdering those on that list. In 1960, he reunites with a younger man (Arik Tarski) he met during the war and forges a romantic relationship–unfortunately, he’s homicidal need for revenge doesn’t wane and this puts him in the crosshairs of a young detective (Natan Bytner) who knows he’s responsible not just for this death, but many others since the mid-50s.

BEREK KOZAK (32)

In 1939, Lebensraum initiative scouts posing as wealthy women dolling out candy to children in the occupied territories, approach BEREK KOZAK, a green-eyed blond boy living in Drawkso (renamed, Dramburg during occupation.)

11-year-old Berek runs home to his mother, but soldiers follow him. They enter and seize Berek before his mother can hide him. The men bring him to a hospital where he undergoes a physical examination by Doctor Kleindienst, who deems him ‘Aryan.’

Taken to a Volksdeutsche School outside of Rybarzowice (renamed Reibersdorf), Berek meets Headmaster Wagner, who informs him that he will speak German by next month. Nurse Beck takes him and a few newcomers to their room, and when one boy begins crying, she calls Headmaster Wagner, who beats the boy in front of the others. Renamed ‘Boris,’ Berek excels at German yet endures harsh discipline from his instructor, Miss Muller, for privately speaking Polish to his classmates. Headmaster Wagner also beats him for using his real name. Berek lashes out at Nurse Beck one day, earning him a brutal beating from their physical education instructor, Mister Scheldt.

A year later finds ‘Boris’ favored by Mister Scheldt yet feared by the other boys. His grasp of German is exemplary, as is his behavior. Headmaster Wagner places Boris with the Vogel family, wealthy German transplants living in Lezno (renamed Lissa. Mister Vogel lives with his wife and the elder Misses Vogel. They present ‘Boris’ alongside three blonde daughters as their natural son. When the old woman asks if he’s from Sweden or Denmark, he tells her he is Polish; from then on, she treats him with disdain. ‘Boris’ accompanies Mr. Vogel to his candy shop in town and realizes that German men like Vogel now run many businesses that once belonged to Jewish people. Disheartened, Berek empties the cash register and flees the village by train.

Scharführer Horn apprehends Berek at Poznan station and out of the city, pulls over, and beats him senseless. ‘Boris’ recovers from his injuries back at the school, and in 1941, Nurse Beck declares him fit for a new placement. The 13-year-old moves into the townhouse of a less-affluent family outside of Opole (renamed Oppeln). Mister and Misses Lang have one daughter, another Lebensraum girl who acquiesces when Berek speaks to her in Polish. Both attend public school in 1941, where ‘Boris beats down the class bully and aggressively pursues the big brother of a friend when he spies the older teen kissing a boy. When Mister Lang discovers him shaking down other children for money, he immediately notifies Headmaster Wagner.

Scharführer Horn appears again, but Berek flees into metro Oppeln with the Lang’s daughter Eleanor (Eliana.) Horn apprehends the 14-year-old and murders the girl in front of his eyes. Frightened into compliance, Berek is put on a bus with twelve other problematic boys bound for a National Political Institute of Education in Sztum (renamed Stuhm). Upon arrival at the camp, their brutal commander, Richter, orders the newcomers to attack one another. When none of them move, he shoots one—telling the boys he will keep shooting down the line until they comply. Berek attacks the boy beside him, compelling others to do the same. Richter watches until ‘Boris’ is the last one standing. Considered ‘the best,’ Boris is given a room with other ‘bests’, a uniform, and a rifle.

Upon turning 15, Richter delivers ‘Boris’ and his battalion to a hotel where dozens of German girls serve drinks and make their intentions clear. Disinterested in women, Berek avoids going upstairs with any of them—but at night’s end, fellow cadets Krause and Hummel push him into a room with one of the girls. Unable to perform, they tell Richter, who then suspects ‘their Boris’ may be homosexual.

The next day, Gestapo officer Haas visits to assess ‘Boris.’ A hidden homosexual, Haas empathizes, and instead of sending ‘Boris’ to a death camp, he orders him to a labor camp. During transport, however, Berek escapes his handlers. He travels the rail lines and makes it as far as Elblag before his recapture. Berek languishes in solitary confinement after Lebensraum officials parse his identification number. No longer a ‘citizen of the Reich,’ they sentence Berek to a farm in the Borderlands. Haas personally escorts him for the drive, but just outside their destination in Kolno, Haas parks and rapes Berek.

Defeated and demoralized, Berek joins eight other Lebensraum failures at the farm of a cruel antisemitic farmer named August Jarosz. Several weeks under Jarosz’s abusive yoke finds him and the others planning a revolt. After beating the 16-year-old for refusing to service his wife, Jarosz ties Berek up in the barn like an animal; the others revolt, but the farmer sets traps, killing most of them. When Jarosz begins murdering the remaining mutineers, his wife calls Haas, who arrives with two infantry officers to round up the three remaining boys: Berek (Boris), Viktor (Van), and Pavel (Paol). After a lengthy stand-off, Horn and the men acquire the boys – killing Van and Paol.

Unwilling to give up on the tall, handsome blonde, Horn keeps the boy awake for days at an installation in Pultusk and reconditions Berek to accept his ‘Boris’ identity. News of the Soviet invasion in 1944 leads Horn’s superiors to take possession of ‘Boris,’ placing him with a Volkssturm unit headed by a sadistic man named Engel. The unit’s job is to protect hiding Germans unable to flee. One day, Berek intervenes when Engel beats a younger Czech boy, and ends up killing the man. When the others turn on him, he kills them as well.

Berek crosses paths in war-torn Warsaw with a group of Soviet soldiers. He earns their trust by telling them where German civilians are bunkering throughout the city. He recounts being taken from his mother and forced to ‘be German.’ Horrified, the soldiers allow Berek, now 17, to raid homes and bunkers. Vasiliev, their leader, assigns Berek to a Polish officer named Wozniak. His bloodthirsty behavior impresses Vasiliev, but a concerned Wozniak tries mentoring the young man. One night, after drinking, Berek kisses Wozniak, who tells the boy never to do anything like that in front of the others.

Frightened that the other might kill Berek, Wozniak feeds the teen false information about Poles from Poznan imprisoned at Oranienburg. Berek leaves at night for Oranienburg and discovers the camp abandoned but for the sick. He goes through the German records and discovers his mother was never there. He returns to the Soviets to confront Wozniak but finds the man lynched outside Morwitz with a placard around his neck, signifying him as a ‘homosexual deviant.’

Berek breaks down emotionally for the first time; he cries and sleeps and remains under the tree several days until hunger forces him south. He arrives at the Polish Red Cross Hospital located in a partially bombed-out castle outside Bötzow. He smothers a young man on a stretcher, takes his place, and gets brought inside. He sweet-talks the nurses into letting him stay after he’s deemed healthy enough to leave; one of them, the matronly Miss Koblencja, puts him to work cleaning sheets and scrubbing bedpans.

One day, a group of survivors from Sachsenhausen camp arrive; one is a pink triangle prisoner. Berek curiously checks in on the patient and is shocked to find it’s a boy, not a man. The nurses wonder how anyone would consider a young boy to be homosexual. One of the nurses faints while stripping the boy. Miss Koblencja rushes Berek outside and closes the door. He learns from a younger nurse that Soviet soldiers found the boy in the camp medical ward, fully castrated.

The idea of a complete castration excites Berek, who has developed a fetish for scars. Driven to see what a complete castration looks like, Berek sneaks into the triage room and peeks under the boy’s bandages and finds he has no penis and testicles, only new sutures. Compelled by feelings he doesn’t understand, Berek attempts to lick the stitching, but the boy wakes. A storm begins outside, prompting Berek to help the orderlies hang wood panels over the glassless windows. He climbs to the triage ward on the third floor to attach panels over the wind-beaten plastic and spots the 12-year-old out of bed. The boy smiles at the lighting and thunder, mesmerizing Berek. Without warning, the boy walks off the precipice of a broken wall. Berek rushes to the ledge when he hears the screams. He looks down to find the boy floating in the flooded swimming pool. A doctor carries him out of the water and hands him to Misses Koblencja.

Soviet soldiers arrive the following day, and among them is Vasiliev. The men celebrate seeing Berek again, and when Vasiliev gets him alone, he asks if Wozniak ever touched him. He tells Berek that they caught Wozniak with a civilian man and strung him up for being a pervert. Berek masks his rage (for the first time) and assures him that Wozniak never touched him. That night, however, when Vasiliev goes to piss from too much drinking, Berek stabs him with an empty syringe, killing him. Invigorated by enacting his vengeance, Berek crawls back to his bed, and the next day, leaves with the Soviet soldiers.

On his nineteenth birthday in 1946, Berek applies to the job corps in Leba. When the port comes under Soviet control, his grasp of Russian earns him an apprenticeship with national rail. It takes five years for Berek to become a train operator, and in that time he discovers the names of the officials responsible for his collection and the murder of his mother; after one of them stands trial, he visits the mass grave, its location given in testimony, where he collects her ID, dress, shoes, and hair ribbon.

Now a young man, Berek’s route takes him into eastern Germany. While in Potsdam, he spots the former Miss Muller (now Mrs. Constance Steinmetz). Berek stalks the woman before breaking into her town home. He ties her up and forces her to eat until she vomits—he then forces her to eat the vomit. He kills her, leaving a written note about her involvement in Lebensraum and the Germanization school. Next, he visits the passenger rail center and flirts with the girl on duty. After a few sexless dates, he gets her drunk and takes her office key; he then goes through the rail pass records in her office, looking for the people on his ‘List’ like Edgar Kleindienst, Lena Beck, Byron Scheldt, as well as Johan Krause and Klaus Himmel…

Berek kills many on his list before getting a permanent assignment with Polish National Rail’s freight line in 1960. The new route takes him from Berlin to Poznan to Warsaw, and while passing through Skierniewice, he sees Ruta Koblencja’s obituary notice…

I’ve jotted down notes for Arik Tarski’s history – he’s the secondary protagonist caught up in Berek’s quest for vengeance; he becomes Berek’s silent and reserved lover, and beleives that once Berek kills everyone on his list, the pair will settle down and live a decent closeted life.

Yes, abandoning the ‘4 Kings’ novel nags at me, but the outline is complete—as is the dialogue and the first five chapters—I can return to it anytime.

 Technically, The Lion & The Owl is a gay comedic serial, so it qualifies under the accomplishments umbrella for what I set out to do this summer. Sometimes, a new project keeps my momentum from stalling, and TL&TO did when the motivation to continue 4 Kings began fading.

My writer’s group meets at the end of September, and I got ZERO done on The Kill List. Other than that initial first-person chapter, NOTHING. We’ll see where my muse takes me next month.

August started the revisions period for We’re Not Brothers, my actual ‘first screenplay.’ After years of cobbling together writer’s room ideas and forming stories around someone else’s characters, working on your original story just hits different. I’m resisting the urge to storyboard. I’ll never direct on my own, and handing over a boarded story to an interested director is like telling them, I don’t trust your vision.

I completed chapter outlines for the final three episodes of TL&TO’s invasion arc. It’s a sombre arc filled with fight scenes, murder, and grit. The second arc has way too much unintentional comedy, most of it physical, and I hope that doesn’t alter the expectations of those reading for battle scenes or sexual tension.

Today, I return to jogging the rails to trails, as the indoor lap pool and gym at my Y won’t re-open until September 3rd. I’ve been feeling the drag on my metabolism these past two weeks, and it’s unpleasant.

For example:

EXT. BASECAMP/INNER YARD – CONTINUOUS

KOSTEK, 26, tall, narrow, and baby-faced, strides atop a large cinder block wall with a bow in hand and a gimme cap pulled tight over his head.

Tomko and the Colonel enter through the large metal door and into a MURDER TRAP, an enclosure big enough to pull their kayaks in and close the outer door.

The interior contains survivalist essentials: A METAL WHEEL-LOCK DOOR to an underground bunker centres the base camp’s interior layout. TWO SOLAR PANEL TOWERS stand like trees near the front wall, with AN OUTDOOR SHOWER, TWO MEAT AND FISH SMOKERS, and a TILED BUTCHERING AREA with a floor drain.

There is a cooking area containing a KILN/OVEN and buried FIRE PIT, along with TWO HAY BALE TARGETS with plenty of room for archery practice. The rest of the yard contains a CHICKEN COUP, BEEHIVE TOWER, a CANNING SHED, a GLASS HOT HOUSE, and RAISED GARDEN BEDS.

Kostek drops down and opens the second door, allowing the Colonel and Tomko to drag in their kayaks.

This massive block of information is what we call front-loading – DON’T DO IT.

For real, just – spread that shit out with dialogue or reveal in other scenes – don’t load it all in their at once. I did it in first-drafts because my mind constantly writes with story boarding in mind and even taking that into consideration—no director will pan through the whole yard to see everything in it as the Colonel and Tomko enter.

Not when this story relies heavily on the tension and body language of the characters.

0__0

Fifteen years, wow. I scripted the story, set in 1870s Five Points but couldn't sell it to comic publishers, so I handed it over to writer c.b. Potts. Together, we novelized it. It's definitely more on the paranormal side than the gay romance side, but I'm proud of it nonetheless.

[Horror/Novella] Gadarene: In the notorious Five Points slum of 1870s Manhattan, Galen ‘the Mongoose’ Driscol steps out of jail and back into the arms of his lover, Wira Boruta. When Galen tells Wira that he’s tracked down the man who tried to kill them as children, Wira pleads with Galen to forget the past. Only Galen doesn’t forget, nor does he forgive.

• Script: Tina Anderson Novelization: c.b. Potts Edition Editor: Jo Rainor Publisher: Bear House ISBN: 978-0974419527 Re-Issue Horror (GLBT/Historical) | English | 05/2023

Where to Buy:

[Print]: TBD [Digital] Kindle | BN.com | iBooks | Kobo

IX – The Slaughter Arena

This violent summer is the hottest in memory. A dead farmer and her children bake in the sun until a decurion with a womanly visage covers their corpses with a blanket.

Aedan the Ancalite grins upon seeing Bitch-Face, whose rage over a slaughtered lover still burns. He squats low on a high branch, his bare foot rising to scratch an ear with his toe. His warriors sit among the trees, awaiting his next move as he watches the invaders hack barleycorn.

The harvesting legion’s commander, known on the wind as Gaius Trebonius, grows impatient and commits more to the reaping, an anticipated mistake Aedan’s been waiting for.

Aedan drops from his perch, the feather cape on his shoulders flapping around his head. His warriors rise as his long feet strike dirt. An army of countless blue hues moves out of the trees, and the horse-drawn chariots flanking them roll softly over the grass.

Fierce charges and hearty battle cries do not affect these invaders.

The first to die are those eight Romans on watch; their isolated positions ensure such violence goes unseen.

The first to die are those eight Romans on watch; their isolated positions ensure such violence goes unseen. Stealthily, they touch their torches to the whale oil spilled days ago around this field, birthing a line of fire that encircles the barley before the harvesting legionaries can drop their swords and flee.

Trebonius cannot quell their panic any more than he can control the uncompromised outside the ring of fire. Without a command, the horsemen charge away from their trapped comrades and toward the Gallic advance.

Aedan’s arms give wordless direction from the basket of his fastest chariot, leading the horse-drawn carts to fall back and distance themselves from the advancing foot force.

Roman cavalrymen ride fast into the painted infantry but soon find themselves at the mercy of Gallic chariots and their lethal archers. Aedan leads the remaining chariots around the burning field, striking down any Roman brave enough to escape the flames.

Trebonius slides from his horse, his legions divided and the body count rising. He dispatches three young men to seek reinforcements, but the Owl King gives chase, taking out two horsemen with his sling and stone. Suddenly, the masterful Castor with a gang of horsemen comes between the druid’s chariot and the third messenger. His wooden crown burning bright, the Owl King orders his charioteer to rush the northern ridge at full speed, and the driver knows her horse will be ready.

Bitch-Face gains ground, close enough that Aedan hears his threat to drive a sword through his skeletal heart. He presses the driver to remain on the path, and she does so, knowing her horse will be ready.

The charioteer yanks her reins, turning the horse to an impossible angle that takes her left wheel over the rocky precipice. The pretty Roman turns with them, ignoring the fading cries of his men and their horses as they tumble over the cliff.

The Owl King climbs his charioteer like a tree, digging his talons into her muscular shoulders before loading a stone into his sling. Castor readies his lance for a toss, his eyes on the blurry wheel spinning over the Owl King’s head. The stone flies with a gull’s speed, forcing him to toss his spear lower than his original aim.

Aedan hops from the charioteer’s shoulders as the spear enters her back. He hits the grass, shedding his fiery crown and rolling until he regains his feet. He sprints after the guideless chariot, grasping the woman’s corpse and climbing it back into the basket.

Taking the reins, he cuts her lifeless body free, and it tumbles out, forcing the Roman horse to jump it. Bitch-Face appears alongside, groping at his feathers until he lashes out with a nimble leg, punching the pretty Roman’s faceplate with the ball of his heel.

The horse slows to a gallop as its rider slumps onto its mane, and grinning, the Owl King turns the chariot and brings out his little sickle. Suddenly, a swift horse cuts off his path, ushering in cavalrymen bearing new colors.

They surround Castor, and one of them gives chase. The painted druid lashes out with his curved blade, cutting through the man’s wrist when he grasps his beast’s collar band.

Across the field, legions form a line across the entire hillside, and their battle king, Caeser, stands before them.

The first of his regiment charges from the far woods, half of them archers that target the Gallic charioteers picking off burn survivors. The remaining horses don two riders, one armed with a metal pole that sends baskets skyward when jabbed into chariot wheels.

Another Roman force arrives like a cresting wave over dry sand. Their leader’s muscular chest bears only a medallion vest, and on his helmet is the snout and mane of a lion. He dismounts at the fire line, sliding off his horse and into the carnage as if set down by the gods.

Aedan scrambles out of the basket and onto his horse. Unhooking her tether, he rides her back into the fight. At the fire line, he screams at the carnyx-holders to sound a withdrawal. Four of his hornblowers heed the call, rallying their fighters to retreat. His fifth lies dead at the Lion’s feet, a red sword withdrawn from his chest.

The ferocious Roman slaughters without passion or rage, his gleaming chest barely moving from his violent labors. A snout and fleece obscure his face, but the angry red scars along his left tit and bicep tickle the druid’s memory.

Retreat doesn’t always mean loss, and Aedan receives a victor’s welcome for completing what his new master sent him to do—the damage he and his druids inflicted will occupy the Romans for many days.

Cassibelanus greets him with a bearhug, lifting him from the ground amidst raucous cries of admiration. He cares little for this man and less for his followers, mainly young Kelr, whose once lustful eyes carry envious scorn.

“Be nicer to him,” his mother advises. “He might be your next father,”

Aedan thrusts his fingers down his throat until vomit erupts.

“One day,” she says, backing away from it. “You’ll bring your stomach up through that gullet,”

Cassibelanus joins them. “How many legions?”

“We attacked two before five arrived.” Aedan wipes his mouth. “They took my bitches away in chains,”

“I’m not sure how you got so many women to fight for you.” Cassibelanus seems amused. “I have it on good authority that cunts aren’t to your liking.”

The men around them laugh, but Aedan remains steely.

“He’s kept plenty of girls from motherhood,” Ciniod praises. “That warrants a certain loyalty,”

“When you explain it that way,” Cassibelanus grins. “It makes perfect sense.”

More laughter, none of it Aedan’s. “I need to free them,”

“We can’t spare any men or horses for a rescue mission.” Kelr passes him, arms folded. “Your campaign today costs us over thirty chariots.”

“His mission succeeded,” Ciniod reminds. “Chariots can be rebuilt. Women cannot.”

“Well, not at the same speed,” Cassibelanus smirks.

Aedan whispers to his mother. “We must talk,”

Ciniod sours as she picks bits of flesh from his black curls. Her only child’s obtuse cheeks, thick brows, and pouty lips whisper of sins with her brother best forgotten.

“The son of the old Roman,” he says, slapping her hand away. “He lives.”

She tuts, “No man could’ve survived that fall.”

Aedan thrusts out his lower jaw and gazes at the trees.

“Excite you, did he?” she accuses. “You have few weaknesses, boy, but your strange lusts equal a thousand faults.”

Aedan’s dark eyes burn through her.

“How big is his manhood?” she asks with a sly smile.

He speaks through his teeth. “He’ll kill you before he leaves this life.”

Five days out, the Romans march again, and their location ten miles east is too close for comfort.

The warlord fortified their position along the Tamesas but needed another two days to realize his defenses fully. With the druid lacking a full fighting force, he placed him in the next war party led by Kelr. Mere moments following his decree, Kelr asked that the Owl be removed as leader of his chariot forces.

The skeletal druid thinks like his father but acts like his mother, and for this, Cassibelanus has kept him away from the visiting tribal Kings, who seek control after the Romans depart. Still, he reminded his young tough that the fiercest charioteers are all druids who follow Aedan the Ancalite without question.

Young Kelr discards the warlord’s words while in the field.

He devises a center-line attack as the legions cross a grassy stretch near Cattle-Shit Pass. All agree, except Aedan, who points out that the invaders march two men across in a single column.

“They always march in a line. You said so yourself,” Kelr reminds. “Their narrow formation is a gift from the gods,”

“This is no gift,” says Aedan. “This is a tempting lure,”

“Do you fight with us or them?” Kelr demands.

“That’s an imbecilic question,” Aedan counters. “None of those marching down there is Roman.”

Kelr mounts his horse, ignoring snickers from the younger druids behind Aedan.

“Romans always march four men across open terrain.” The skinny Ancalite walks alongside. “Expendable troops are mere bait,”

“They’ll join you when the time comes,” says Kelr.

Aedan stares at him.

“You and your fifty will lead the charge into the center line,” Kelr explains. “You cut it in half, then we roll in and fight the severed faction,”

“I’ll not die for you,” Aedan declares.

Kelr points his sword. “You get your boney ass onto a chariot.”

Laughter rings out among the warriors as Aedan does as he’s told, but when his hand signals the chariots away from the formation, Kelr rides around and confronts him.

The druid’s face sits as lifeless as the skull painted upon it, and Kelr wonders what ever led his loins to desire such a gangly monster.

“You have no faith in my victory, then you leave on foot.” Kelr’s skin burns red through the blue woad. “These chariots belong to my tribe,” he yells past the druid, “Any wishing to follow me shall remain.”

Aedan steps off the chariot’s basket and leaves the war party. He’s unsure if anyone follows until he reaches the overlook and finds thirty painted heads behind him.

From the ridge, they watch Kelr’s chariots charge the narrow line, and before the first horse makes contact, the armored Gauls part.

“It’s as if they were waiting,” someone mulls, inciting laughter.

Roman horsemen emerge from the trees and advance within a cloud’s shadow across the green grass. They encircle Kelr’s forces within moments, trapping them in a pell-mell with the continental Gauls.

The Catuvellauni war party’s failure is assured, for even if they win against the infantry, their exhaustion will aid the cavalry waiting outside the slaughter arena.

Suddenly, another group swoops into the conflict, led by the lion-headed horseman. He dismounts on the skirmish line, naked but for his boots and loincloth, and wielding a sword in each hand, butchers Kelr’s men with abandon.

A second wave arrives, with lancers adept at thrusting their spears into chariot wheels. The Lion reserves his benevolence for the horses, and for every attacked chariot, he untethers them before they’re struck by debris.

Then, the Lion notices the druids on the hill.

Aedan rises from his squat, standing with arms akimbo when the Lion raises his head and reveals his face. He is the phantom from his vision, the beauty from the falls, the son of the man who killed his father.

“He’s coming for us,” a druidess whispers.

“No,” a different druid says, “He watches the Owl King.”

The Lion points his sword at them before reaching under his loincloth. His lips twist into a sinister smile as he grabs himself.

Heat burns Aedan’s rump. “Come and get me, fuckface,”

The first horse gallops into them without warning, ushering in eight beasts whose armored riders swing their steel with deadly accuracy.

Five druids surround Aedan as if he’s more vital than those losing life and limbs. He whispers to his stalwarts: “Pick a rider, drag him down, take his horse, and flee.”

Each disburses on command, and Aedan delights in choosing Bitch-Face, who catches his feathery cloak with a spear. He somersaults over the dismounted Roman, the sun warming his painted back. He drops onto his hands and sweeps the pretty man with a determined leg behind the knees.

Bitch-Face hits the grass, the tumble robbing him of wind and his lance. 

Aedan collects the spear and touches its deadly tip to the pretty man’s neck. “Thank whatever gods you pray to, Roman, that I’m allowing you to live another day.”

“I’m going to cut your throat, you filthy druid,” he growls in Aedan’s language.

The wind shifts at his lower back, compelling Aedan around in time to block a sword with the spear’s wooden staff. He parries, though unable to ignore the alluring bloodlust in the Lion’s green eyes. The man smells deliciously of sweat and death, yet Aedan keeps his head long enough to begin twirling the spear.

Suddenly, the virile Roman thrusts his hand into the pinwheel illusion, deftly catching the rod’s middle and liberating it from the druid’s hands. He leans away when the painted man flips backward, saving his jaw from the powerful foot that shoots up and splits the lance.

Metatarsals throbbing, Aedan backflips from the scene, landing in the grass many yards away. He grins at the Lion stalking slowly toward him and raises his arm in time for a druid on horseback to hook him in and hoist him onto the beast’s rump.

As the distance between them grows, the Owl forms a circle with his hand and brings it to his open mouth. His tongue out, he goads the delectable Lion into baring his bone-white teeth.

VIII – The Sacrifice

Every man burns hot when he sleeps, the Roman is no exception. His skin carries the scent of a cooking fire, and his nipples taste of roasted rabbit.

Aedan studies the sleeping man’s rugged face and finds the beauty from the falls is the lion from his vision; what games Gods play. The elixir given to the rabbits keeps the man unawares, no matter how indelicate a druid’s touch.

Sitting bare-assed on the slumbering man’s stomach, he relishes the hardness against his crack. His thumb forces open an eyelid, revealing a deep mossy green. A hungry hand slips under the prisoner’s loincloth and discovers flesh thicker and longer than his.

Aedan drags the moist tip of his cock over the sleeping man’s swollen lips. “You’re mine.” He draws a glistening line across the man’s cheek, his forehead, and down that gorgeous nose. “Every inch of you belongs to me.”

“What are you doing?” Anger reddens Kelr’s face.

Aedan lazily tips his head back. “Marking what’s mine.”

The brutes around the fire laugh at what they think is the Roman’s humiliation, but their mistress, Ciniod, knows well enough.

“Stuff that thing back in your pants,” she slaps the back of her son’s head. “That one must remain pure,”

Aedan stands, cock in hand. “He belongs to me,”

“Nothing belongs to you.” His mother snatches his britches from the dirt; they strike the back of his neck and tickle his ass when they fall. “Their blood will answer for the incursion.”

She pulls the sack down over the Roman prisoner’s head and orders two of her lackeys to secure him to the oak with his superior.

Earlier that day, her warriors fashioned a hut of wicker in stones under the baleful eye of Taran, whose passion for life has waned since losing everything.

Hoping to curb her lanky son’s desire for the strapping Roman, she tasked him to fashion reed masks for her, himself, and his newfound beast, settled with these prisoners in their midst..

After eating their fill of porridge loaded with auk, the strongest drags the older Roman before Ciniod.

Kelr yanks his ropes, forcing him to his knees before Ciniod who hurls questions like spears.

The older Roman’s stony visage never wavers, his hawk nose high and his fierce eyes set upon something beyond his captors. Unable to decipher her language, the man sits unmoved by her insult-laden interrogation.

Aedan unfolds his arms and sits cross-legged before the Roman.

to decipher a word of her language, he remains unmoved by her insult-laden interrogation.

Finding a bit of the lion in this man’s face, Aedan unfolds his arms and sits cross-legged before him.

“Do you speak Greek?” he asks in that language.

The older man blinks. “Holding us hostage will bring you nothing.”

Ciniod kneels beside her son. “What does he say?”

“He thinks we’re holding him for ransom,” he tells her, then addresses the man. “We’ve no use for Roman coin or Roman negotiation.” 

The man’s nostrils flare.

“Why have they come back?” Ciniod asks.

Aedan speaks to him. “Why have you returned?”

When silence becomes the man, Aedan answers for him.

“The senators hate your Battle King for his ambitions. His power comes from common men and warriors, and he needs them to love him more than they love the senators. To impress them, your Battle King destroys those, not Roman.”

The Roman regards him thoughtfully. “You’re rather astute for a boy that’s never left this island,”

“The sea brings boats,” says Aedan. “Boats bring mouths that talk of Rome.”

“Caesar wages war for glory,” the man confers with a slow blink. “And yes, his position within the senate comes from common men. Hate, however, is a strong word.”

“What’s he saying?” Kelr whispers to Ciniod.

“He speaks the gibberish his father taught him,” she replies.

“All words are strong.” Aedan looks into the Roman’s eyes. “We, too, are common,”

“You and your ilk are anything but common,”

“If the tribal kings declare him victorious,” Aedan wonders. “Will he leave our island and take Rome with him?”

“Your kings make no decision without your ilk whispering in their ears,”

“My ilk?” Aedan’s eyes widen. “It is we druids he seeks to destroy?”

“You hold the power, not the tribal kings,”

Kelr paces behind the prisoner and stares at Aedan. “This is the most I’ve ever heard you speak,”

Ciniod nags, “What does he say?”

“If you leave by the next moon,” Aedan ignores them. “The tribes will allow you a port and ignore any future uprisings in Belgica,”

“Are uprisings afoot?” the Roman stares at him.

Aedan’s smile fades.

“We’ve come to restore a king to his throne,” the man talks as if speaking a fresh truth. “A reasonable king, the true king of this island.”

“If you’re victorious in his name, he becomes the King that sets the terms for all tribes.” Aedan then scoffs. “Mandubracius won’t guarantee you a foothold,”

Ciniod gently knees her son’s spindly arm. “What are you saying to him?”

“He’ll turn on us the first moment he can,” the Roman’s shoulders drop. “but until then, he’s our proverbial port in the storm.”

“His port is rotted wood,”  says Aedan. “I will speak to the other kings,”

“We tried this,” the man counters. “Our emissaries never returned.”

Aedan smirks. “The tribal kings will not consider you a threat until you defeat Cassivellaunus,”

Before the Roman displays understanding, Taran’s scream cuts through him.

“You!” The sobbing druid falls upon him. “You killed Fintan!”

Aedan stands, knife out and his stomach in knots. The notion of trading words with his father’s killer leaves a foul taste upon his tongue.

Ciniod orders her thugs to remove Taran.

“The druid charioteer, the owl,” the older man’s eyes shift from Aedan to his knife. “He tried to kill my son. In war, men kill each other, men die,”

“There would be no war,” roars Aedan. “If you hadn’t invaded lands, not yours,”

“What’s he saying,” Kelr begs.

Aedan scowls. “He says that killing my father was the fault of war,”

“War they started!” Kelr spits in the man’s face and then kicks him in the stomach. “Let Taran kill him. We’ll give his underling to the Gods for their incursion.”

“No,” barks Aedan. “The Gods shall drink the blood of my father’s killer and then devour his flesh in the ritual fire,”

“That’s right, my boy,” Ciniod returns. “A proper sacrifice.”

Kelr points at the sleeping man tied to the tree. “The Gods must have his underling,”

“His son is mine,” Aedan snaps.

Ciniod’s eyes narrow. “His son?”

“We cannot let him live,” Kelr says in her ear.

Ciniod nods, “His blood will bring clear visions,”

“I see clearly enough,” Aedan snaps. “His son belongs to me,”

Ciniod steps into him. “His blood belongs to the Gods,”

“I am a god,” Aedan counters.

Her open hand stings less than his backside hitting the dirt.

“You’re no god.” She glares down at him as quiet consumes the camp. “Now, get some red-capped tea in you.”

“The shack is built.” Kelr stares at Aedan while whispering to Ciniod. “Perhaps we should call upon Ostin,”

“He’ll have no part in my vengeance,” she murmurs. “That murderer will die for his crime, and his son’s life will show us a path to victory.”

Aedan moodily strides toward the shack, where coastal winds billow his britches and whip the curls upon his crown.

It’s wicker walls rattle, and the stones around its foundation sit flush against the cliff’s edge. Inside the shade of its small room, he grasps the overhead beam, an unpolished tree-trunk. Both arms prove strong enough to pull him up to his chin; the trunk will hold the two Roman lambs long enough for his fire to consume it.

The world is a shit-colored cloth that blinds him.

A tree fills the space between his shoulder blades, and rope chafes his wrists and neck. Tension pains his arms, stretched tight behind him. Flexing his fingers reveals the small of his father’s back.

“Can you see anything?”

Vitus answers, “I see our imminent deaths,”

“My throat is trussed to this blasted tree,”

“Go back to sleep, my son,” Vitus whispers. “Worse pain awaits.”

“How many are there?”

“Seven in all,” says Vitus. “It’s not their numbers that defeat us,”

“I don’t understand,”

“The owl charioteer from Belgica,” his father sounds hollow. “His son and kin are our captors.”

“Are you sure?”

“The druid that hurled the axe that splintered your shield,” Vitus reveals. “He’s among them. The owl’s son and wife demand blood for blood, which they do in the name of their Gods.”

“They speak Latin?”

“The young owl speaks Greek.” Vitus’s voice breaks. “Minerva punishes me. She allows the Fates to cut my line in this horrid place.”

“Father,” He drags his head against the tree but cannot shed the cloth over it. “Minerva punishes no man for his actions in war,”

“No, she punishes my misdeeds at home.” Vitus starts sobbing. “When you left, you took my goodness with you, Scipio.”

Suddenly, a rancid odor invades his space. Flesh strikes flesh, and before Scipio protests the abuse against his father, a painful blow rattles his skull, ushering in blackness.

*

When the world returns, it brings pain and a heavy stink of tar.

“Scipio?” his father’s voice labors.

“Father,” he whispers, his head numb.

They hang upside down from a timber beam, their ankles tied by thick Roman ropes and their arms bound closely to their sides with sinew cord. Bodies move outside this dark prison and through wicker tendrils comes torchlight and melodic chants.

A cool wind kisses Scipio’s back, so he twists enough to turn his shoulders. Through a spacious sliver, the distant sun sets like a Parthian orange floating upon the placid waters of home.

“We’re on the edge of the white cliffs,” he says, examining their makeshift prison. “We must swing our bodies, tip this thing over the precipice.”

Vitus resigns. “Our captors intend to butcher us like swine,”

“Listen to me,” he presses. “We can tip this thing over the edge. Once we’re at sea, we’ll swim for the merchant ships. We saw them off the coast, remember?”

“If we survive that long drop, if,” Vitus says, “The rocks below will cut us to pieces,”

“I’d rather die in the rocks than be butchered like a hog,”

The door swings open to reveal a druid whose painted nakedness peeks from a wind-swept smock. His thickly braided straw mask resembles a monstrous owl, and in the red twilight sky behind him, it is the dreaded sort born of nightmares.

“I want you to know, Scipio, that you are my son, and we’ll meet again on the River Styx.” Vitus closes his eyes. “Perhaps we’ll be reborn through Jove’s good graces.”

“Stop saying goodbye,” he growls. “We’ll not die this day,”

Another masked figure, naked without her robe, touches her torch to the druids, forming a blinding light. Her gusty laugh shakes her bony shoulders and modest tits.

The knife-wielding druid sheds his smock and enters their cage, his heat-bearing torch revealing a familiar nakedness. It’s long beauty makes Scipio’s mouth water, even now as the body owning it brings certain death.

“It’s you,” he says, staring at the emotionless mask. “It’s me from the water. Do you remember me? I remember you, please!”

The druid moves as if without ears, his long slender blade shimmering in the firelight.

“No,” Scipio’s body twists in protest as the druid nears his father. “Show mercy, do not take him, take me,”

Vitus rumbles, “Stop groveling, boy, you’re a Roman!”

“I’m yours,” Scipio cries in Greek as the blade touches Vitus’s neck.

The druid’s head slowly turns.

“I’m yours,” Scipio pants.

Glassy eyes regard him through the mask holes.

“Do what you will with me,” Scipio pleads. “Slaughter me, eat my flesh, fuck me into dust, I don’t care. Just don’t hurt him.”

The druid stands as if beholden to Medusa, until the masked woman appears. Her tit flat against his shoulder, she whispers in a language Scipio does not understand. Her words compel the druid’s blade back to Vitus’s neck.

“Please,” Scipio whispers. “Take me.”

The druid gawks again at Scipio.

“My life is yours.” Tears drip hot over his brow. “I’m yours…”

The druid’s eyes never leave him as the blade slides under Vitus’ chin.

Blood veils the man’s choking face before pink flesh and white bone spill from the thick gash in his neck. Scipio howls in a rage, twisting his torso violently, striking his dying father until they’re both swinging like wind swept bats.

The druid presses an eager hand to Scipio’s sweaty chest, his mind oblivious to the wicker walls torn free of their rocky foundation.

“You Ganymede bitch,” Scipio snarls in Greek. “I’m going to cut your heart out and then fuck the hole in your chest.”

The druid nods, his eyes narrowing in the holes from a hidden smile. His cock bounces as he grabs Scipio’s fear-driven erection.

“Aedan,” the masked woman shrills.

Woken from his daze, the druid recoils and, with a cold countenance, brings his blade into Scipio’s space.

“Kill me, A-dawn,” Scipio growls. “Kill me, or I will find you,”

The druid hesitates as if struck.

“Kill me,” Scipio warns through his teeth. “Or the next time we meet, my cock will rearrange your guts,”

The knife retreats, but the druid does not. Without a moment passing, he touches the torch to the wall. Fire crawls up its length and races over the wooden beam, devouring his father’s feet.

Scipio screams for Minerva, begging her for the strength to free himself as the druid closes the door behind him.

His father’s hanging corpse immolates, bringing heat that roasts the senses.

He curls upward and unfurls, stretching his back to build enough momentum to topple the hut. Thick smoke binds his lungs as the roof over his father collapses, bringing the flaming man’s corpse to rest against Scipio’s upper arm and pectoral.

Agony swallows him while flames sear the sinew binds. He howls in pain, his body bent and fingers digging at the thick ropes around his ankles. Fire catches the ropes and soon licks his feet. He lets loose a shriek unknown to even him.

Suddenly, something crashes through the hut, tearing it asunder.

The full moon above grows distant in the new darkness until his body strikes the sea as if colliding with the earth. His breath flees before the water’s embrace baptizes him in salt and foam. Saline stings his eyes yet numbs his burns.

A long-faced mask floats past him, its knots ash and black.

Luna gallops through the current, her four spindly legs working by Neptune’s design.

VII (II) The Lost and Found

The storm takes many ships, and Caesar’s legions rebuild them.

Infantryman labor under gray skies and humid, heavy air. They butcher forests, coppicing so the timber will serve future colonists. Trees in this land stand narrow but full-headed, ensuring no one loses themselves when walking alone.

 Scipio aches for the alpine forests of home, their massive ground roots a throne for his one-handed pleasures.  

Though decurion, he and Planus join the lessor ranks in rolling long-cut trunks over an assembly of smaller logs. The ribbed path leads to a roping station, where the horses drag coupled bundles to the building yards near shore.

In line at the water station, neither man drinks before anyone else; they all work equally hard and thus rest in the same.

Other decurions view the work from afar, under canopies or on horseback.

“Most of those bastards learned to piss in the pot just a few years before us,” Scipio complains. “Yet they sit up there, afraid of sweating,”

Planus nods. “Given our enemy’s habit of targeting the upper ranks on the sidelines, I doubt any of them will be with us much longer.”

“Why do they do that?” Actus wipes his face with the hem of his shirt, revealing a chiseled stomach and protruding navel.

Scipio’s duplicarius, Actus, is a son of Actus Strolo Ursius, a merchant renowned for his travels beyond Parthia, and his angular face and line-thin eyes go undiscussed, like his mother’s ancestry if one wishes to keep his jaw intact.

“Trophy count?” he ponders.

“Gauls haven’t advanced much since the Gods made us,” Planus speaks with scholarly skill. “Back when we fought over caves, if an army’s leader fell, his men left the battlefield.”

“They’re cavemen?” Scipio asks, leading them to the water barrels.

Planus shrugs. “These island Gauls seem to believe that removing a decorated superior on the sidelines will lead battalions to depart.”

At one barrel, Scipio grabs the wooden bowl floating inside.

“I think they’re watching us,” he says, bringing it to his lips. “Counting every tree we cut with plans to add our heads for each.” He tips another bowl over his shorn head and appreciates the coolness sluicing behind his ears.

Planus fills his bowl, gulps its contents, then belches before handing it off to Actus. “They must be watching from far, far off,” he says. “The still birds linger undaunted, shitting on us and singing about it.”

Laughter erupts from the men in line.

“Titus set sail yesterday,” Scipio reveals as Planus and Actus walk alongside.

“He and the Prefect get to return to the continent,” Actus gripes. “While we’re here busting our asses,”

“Given our esteemed Titus’s love of sail,” Planus reminds. “I imagine him signing his life over to Pluto for a chance to trade places with us,”

Scipio grins. “Indeed,”

“Crassus Titus Flavius is the only man I’ve ever met that cannot float,” Planus jests. “We all grew up in Comum. Our fathers tossed us into the lake when boys at one point least expected. How has he never acclimated?”

“He doesn’t like his wool getting wet,” Scipio reminds.

Actus says nothing more; though also friends with Titus, as a mere second in command, he must maintain respect. “You think we’ll leave when he returns with more ships?”

“Oh no,” Planus speaks quietly enough that only they hear him. “My cousin will not leave until he defeats the most powerful man here. It’s not about acquiring resources—”

“—For which this shitty island has none,” Scipio interjects.

“Truly,” Planus continues. “It’s about recovering his lost face.”

Drusus approaches shirtless, his skin slick and his hair dripping with sweat. Actus offers to bring him water, but the young man claims that too much liquid sours his stomach; he will replenish his blood’s salt with the day’s fish.

“A ship returned with dispatches and some food.” Drusus stands alongside them, speaking loudly over the rhythmic hacking of tree cutters. “Planus, your curds in honey have arrived.”

Planus animates. “We shall have libum tonight,”

Scipio scowls at the notion of ricotta.

“Back home, our cooks always made libum for the altars,” says Drusus. “If we got caught sneaking a cake, our hands were whipped.”

“I’ll never understand any adult that strikes a child,” Actus says.

One of the soldiers pauses as they pass, axe in his hand.

“Spoken like a man that’s never had a child,” he quips.

“Go get your water, old man,” Planus orders in good nature. “And don’t spank any tiro’s on the way.”

Everyone laughs at this, even the soldier.

“What’s that?” Actus asks, hand over his eyes.

All turn to the horizon, where a horseman comes into view.

“Castor,” whispers Drusus, sprinting out to meet him.

Scipio, Planus, and Actus dash out after Drusus when they see Castor without a helmet but carrying a sword.

A horn sings his arrival, and all work stops.

Castor’s horse, wounded on her shoulder, rears when Actus takes her reigns. Scipio takes her by the bit to calm her and sees the burns on her hindquarters.

“We’re under attack,” Castor cries, his temple dripping blood. “Foraging north, they came out of the woods,”

“Grab him a fresh horse,” Planus tells Actus, then shouts at a stable hand. “Take her to water, and tend her injury,”

Castor dismounts into Drusus’s arms but grabs Scipio.

“Your father is surrounded,” he says winded. “His legion is all that remains,”

“They took out two legions?” Planus asks.

“Vitus sent me off when more emerged from the trees,” Castor reveals. “It was sudden. I think the farm we found was a trap.”

Scipio and Planus rush back to camp, and pulling on their uniforms, they grab their weapons and muster their turmae and horses.

Caesar appears with Falax Antonius Fabius, his choice as Praefectus Cohortis for this mission; it is a good choice, for the elder is a shrewd tactician unafraid of a melee.

Scipio salutes Antonius and joins the other commanders in a huddle, with Drusus standing in for Titus. Only equites auxilia will ride this mission; the centurions and legionaries will remain.

Planus and his lancers will ride from the south, while Scipio and his swordsmen will enter from the east. Antonius will lead his horseman and Titus’s men under Drusus head-on into the Gauls war party, scattering their formations.

“Antonius,” Caesar grabs the man’s shoulder. “Bring back my friend,”

“He is my friend as well,” says Antonius. “He will live this day,”

Miles of grass without a shrub plague them until a steep weed-covered hill brings the noises of war and floating smoke.

Mutilated corpses form a gruesome fence around the skirmish as Vitus and his legion fight, their numbers thick with survivors of the two fallen.

The enemy is a tightly-woven mass of painted fury, pushing the Roman line as foraging carts burn and loose horses stampede for a place that won’t get them killed. Beyond the chaos, a barn house smolders, and behind it, thick woodlands loom.

Antonius orders the mounted archers to await Planus and Scipio’s advance, and when the troops collide with the enemy, they are to dismount, form a line, and aim at the trees—the Gauls’ only escape point.

Scipio orders his standard to follow without blowing a horn. Red and silver race down the hill in a V-formation and collide with the fray. His horse knocks aside a thick-bellied Gaul and stomps him to death when he falters beneath the hoof.

The beast finds his space and aggressively paddles his front legs, then kicks out his back, rotating Scipio, whose metal cuts through any Gaul unlucky enough to enter orbit.

Drusus leads Titus’ men into the thick of it, further diluting the enemy in a fight that lasts an eternity.

Fatigue captures one of the horses; when one horse falls, the others are never far behind. When the beast under him slows his spin, a spear finds its neck. Scipio quickly dismounts as it tumbles, swinging his sword to protect his space.

After the horse’s convulsions cease, he jumps upon its corpse to defend his position.

He hacks at the woad-covered swarm, separating arms from bodies and piercing chests and stomachs without earning a scratch.

Suddenly, a shadow flies past, but it’s no tossed javelin.

The owl-masked man, stained blue and painted with skeletal bones, hops from one armored Roman shoulder to the next, cutting chin straps and yanking free helmets. His wiry body and intense agility terrify all but Scipio, who sees only the bitch that stole his Luna.

Scipio slashes a path to the vulnerable, protecting them from enemy swords eager to slice a face. Once a man gets his helmet back on, Scipio moves on to the next, keeping time with the nimble bitch.

Then, the skeletal bastard lands upon Terentius Drusus Valerian. He cuts the young man’s chin strap before vaulting away. Scipio stands amidst the carnage, watching as time slows around him.

The druid floats in the air, his feet over his head before twisting his torso to reclaim Drusus’s shoulders. A long boney arm dips when he drags a narrow blade across the young man’s neck before hopping away.

Castor’s howl cuts through Scipio like a spear. The petite man falls upon his lover, his mud-slick hand unable to stop the blood gushing from the man’s neck. Castor wails into the void, embracing Drusus and rocking him back and forth.

The owl-masked druid hovers from one Roman to the next, a murderous bee pollinating a ghastly bouquet. Castor springs to his feet in time to confront the insect, sword drawn and eyes wet with rage.

His bare feet in the mud for the first time that day, the painted druid regards Castor with a cocked head before the pair circle one another.

Castor lashes out first, and the skinny druid jumps high, his foot bouncing off the sword’s shaft. He twists over Castor and manages to pluck free his helmet.

Head exposed, Castor lunges repeatedly.

The gangly druid leaps over low strikes and ducks high lunges until bored with the dance. He drops to his hands and foot and swings his panted leg, catching Castor behind the knees.

Scipio strides in their direction when Castor falls.

The druid speedily climbs a nearby soldier’s frame and arches backward, the blade in his hand destined for Castor’s throat until Scipio catches the flying druid’s ankle and hammers him into the ground with a mighty swing.

The agile bitch quickly rolls onto his back before Scipio can cut him down. He spins on his tailbone over the slick mud so fast that Scipio cannot make heads or feet of him until a foot heel punches Scipio’s sword-bearing arm.

Scipio reclaims his weapon before it hits the ground, but the diversion enables the lanky druid to swing his legs over his head and roll to standing.

Dark eyes find him through owl-mask holes as if intrigued at the warped reflection in Scipio’s facial armor. A flat chest rises and falls, and through the paint upon it, two nipples harden. A hand dips and long fingers pull at the tartan skirt.

Scipio fights to keep his eyes on the mask, but Venus whispers in his ear. He cannot stop himself from looking and glances down in time to see painted toe knuckles come for his chin. His teeth come together with a crack, and the wily druid seems shocked that Scipio still stands.

“Take him,” Castor screams.

The druid turns to find a centurion behind him.

When the man swings, he jumps higher than humanly possible by Scipio’s estimation, turning head over heels again before landing atop the centurion’s shoulders. His chin strap is cut, his helmet yanked free, the centurion stabs upward—but he’s too slow.

The druid drops and traps the man’s head between his spindly thighs. He twists his lower body sharply, snapping the centurion’s neck. Without haste, the druid dismounts and runs from the battlefield.

“Get him!” Castor yells.

Scipio snatches a fallen spear and follows the fleeing druid’s path through the melee. When clear of the fight, he plants his feet and hurls the spear, not aiming for the druid but for his flapping tartan.

It lands precisely where intended, pinning the fabric to the ground, and yanking the narrow-assed man off his feet.

The masked druid yanks viciously at the tartan as Scipio trudges forward, sword ready and sore teeth together tight. Unable to free himself, the druid raises his head and whistles.

Moments later, a familiar horse gallops past Scipio.

“Luna,” he shouts.

The beast stops mid-trot and slowly turns her neck; it is indeed Luna, her mane corded with thick braids, her back naked, and her coat filthy.

Scipio opens his arms. “Come, Luna.”

“Looir,” yells the druid, now standing naked, his thick cock flaccid between his hips.

The mare runs toward him.

“Luna,” Scipio cries.

She slows again, her head pivoting.

“Looir,” the druid calls to her in his language. “Time to drink!”

The mare charges at him then. She speeds past, and the druid’s long arm catches her around the neck, and in one smooth motion, his belly is on her back, his mask staring at the battlefield.

With arms and legs pumping, Scipio closes the distance. Through the slits in his face armor, he sees Luna’s braided mane wedged within the painted cretin’s crack.

The druid rises on his arms and lets out a taunting bellow.

Scipio grins, waiting for the inevitable as the mare approaches the tree line.

Luna stops, jarring the druid, who turns to find a low-hanging branch an inch from his face. Humble, the skinny man lays flat and kisses her hind before she trots into the forest.

Scipio stops running, unable to process such betrayal.

“Luna?” he says, pouting like a sullen child.

They’re nowhere near a river, but the wind stinks of fish and mud.

Vitus, a master sketcher on horseback, rides with a leather strap around his neck that is attached to a flat board propped against his belly. His stallion, Cletus, swats the occasional fly with his tail.

Scipio sleeps on his horse as a reward for standing the overnight watch. He doesn’t learn the beast’s name; he thinks only of Luna.

“The wood ahead,” Vitus calls over his shoulder, waking him. “Thicker trunks mean deep water.”

Trees line the horizon like a wall, and haze pollutes the distance. He longs for the towering gray peaks of home, where morning mist shrouds the mountain’s neck and blankets the highland lake.

They follow the forest’s shady border before goading the horses to enter.

The temperature drops within the trees, and leafy branches provide respite from the sun. Horses clop over gnarled roots, following the narrowest of paths only they can see. Hazelnuts crack beneath their hooves, their aromatic end quelling the mossy stench.

Vitus seeks a wild walnut tree but finds none.

Apples are the Severus family’s income, but their walnuts are renowned. The grove started by his great-grandfather produced its first harvest on the day of Vitus’s birth, and its next harvest comes this year.

Though his father wants him there, Scipio cares little for the orchard or the plantation. He’s never taken to agriculture, winemaking, or banging long sticks at branches to dislodge nuts. Distraction came first with horses and then with swimming.

After Scipio’s tenth year, Vitus insisted on him working the land.

Minerva heard his prayers at the Liberia festival when fifteen-year-old Scipio traded his boyish clothes for a manly tunic. She sent his father’s friend, Remus Plinius Castor, to their home and changed Scipio’s life.

A former military equestrian turned scholar, Master Plinius sought the wealthiest sons outside Mediolanum for his new school. His father wasn’t convinced until Scipio chose mapmaking, playing upon the man’s vanity.

Five years after leaving, however, Julius Caesar took control of the region and mandated that every young man in and around Scipio’s age serve two years in the legion. The poorest embraced such service, while Scipio’s class sought occupational training for a life outside the ranks.

“You hear that?” Vitus whispers.

The horses grunt softly as rushing water filters through the trees. Vitus lets his horse lead. ‘Always trust a thirsty horse to find the safest way to water,’ he often says.

Before long, Cletus veers off the path and, within moments, leads them to a steep eroded path. They dismount and carefully guide the horses to where massive boulders edge curling water. A few steps off is a stretch of muddy riverbank, and the horses leave deep prints in the muck before entering the water to their cannons.

Vitus sheds his boots and armor and joins them for a wash.

Scipio monitors the trees and avoids his father’s nakedness, a harbinger of things to come. Once strapping like his son, old Vitus is thick in places unfortunate, spurring his return to calvary life. By no means doughy like most men his age, his torso is solid, and his head shorn bare to hide the retreating gray.

Scipio inherited his angular cheeks and a strong jaw, but he and his sister possess their mother’s large bright eyes and bee-stung lips. Some portions passed cannot be denied—like the regal baldness without blemishes replacing a head of kinky wenge neither man holds dear.

While his father washes, Scipio clears the forest floor of sticks, depositing them into a hole for their fire. He pitches their tent and digs another hole behind a tree for their toilet. His father returns and orders him to the river for a wash.

At the water’s edge, he’s struck with an urge to swim.

The river moves steadily here, meaning a waterfall is somewhere along its path. Where there are falls, there’s a plunge pool. He walks the bank around a curve, climbing over a downed tree along the way, and hears the falls before he sees them.

Scipio smiles when he finds the deep basin is wide enough for a lap. He drives his sword in the soil, rests his helmet on top of it, sheds his armor and tunic, and unties the hip knot on his loin cloth.

He enters gingerly, and when the water chills his balls, he goes under, where the roar of the falls becomes a muted rumble. Unlike the glacial streams back home, the water here allows him to acclimate. It isn’t clear like Comum, but it’s close.

Scipio determines where the shallows begin before stroking his way across the pond. Mist tickles his back as his arms propel him, and near the opposite shallows, he curls into a flip and strokes back the way he came.

Five times, then five more, until his heart thumps in his ears.

He breaks the surface mid-lap, twisting over, he straightens his back and strokes under him as if rowing a boat. His toes crest, and cool air finds them. Above him are blue skies bordered by still trees.

After eight laps, he floats upright. Three strides to his left, he finds something to stand upon. Sunlight warms his head, the first rays he’s seen since arriving. Behind him, a prismatic patch hovers around the churning froth where falling water meets the pond.

Scipio’s breathing steadies when he realizes the birds have gone quiet. Sensing someone nearby, he whirls about to find an unpainted Gaul watching him from the waterfall’s knickpoint.

Two dark nipples dot his smooth chest, curtained by hints of hair peeking from the cleave between his arms. Black curls hang over thick brows but do little to hide his large ears. Thank Fortuna, the emaciated man isn’t armed with more than an unpleasant face—but for Scipio, a handsome face isn’t needed if a man’s ass is narrow and tight inside.

Cold eyes hold him in curious measure when Scipio stands waist-deep to display his muscled chest. Long-fingered hand pulls at the rope around his waist, shucking his blue tartan pants over his gaunt hips. A nest of fine black hair appears over shapeless obliques, and at its center is a thick cockroot.

Fear abandons Scipio when the Gaul takes out his arousal. The shaft’s length and girth make him giddy, but he remains guarded not to appear a novice.

The man’s stony visage never wavers as his hand twists and pulls. A large cock on such a skinny man entices Scipio, who falls playfully back into the water. The man’s parted lips almost spread in a smile, but he, too, is guarded.  

Scipio laughs without a sound, and opening his mouth, he extends his tongue. A mischievous gleam clouds his watcher’s eyes, and given a target, he works his arousal faster. Under the water, Scipio’s manhood grows.

The man’s body tenses, and he lets out a breath. Bars of unexpected sunlight stretches like heavenly censors, obscuring whatever his cock spits into the falls. Sated, the Gaul’s puffy lips turn down. He pulls a long knife from his back pocket and points it at him.

Scipio hardens, stepping onto another shale until water crests his thighs. Seeing his erection, the Gaul dares him with a wave of his knife and a closed hand.

If it’s a fight he wants, Scipio will happily oblige.

The horse grunts, drawing the Gaul’s attention to the riverbank, where the sword, helmet, and clothes reveal him, Roman.

Scipio turns to explain but finds the man gone.

He slaps the water and curses his dying arousal; now he’ll never know if the Gaul can take a punch, or if his ass splits when poked without spit. It’s just as well; rape isn’t allowed in ranks nor permissible outside the heat of battle.

On the march to Hispania, his brutal machinations with Castor got him a stern dressing down after his father spotted bruises on the young man’s wrists.

Gnats crowd his face on the walk back.

Through the trees, a woman’s shout forces him to crouch.

Through the ground cover, he spots Vitus hiding in a ravine. His father raises a hand, a signal for Scipio to stay put; right above his position, a druidess and four brutes tear apart the camp.

The men chomp into their dried fish rations while the woman ties their small barley sacks around her neck. After looting their saddlebags, she unties Cletus and slaps his backside, making him flee for the trees.

Scipio’s idiot horse takes off after Cletus without giving away his hiding spot—but the beast takes his sword and armor.

“Where do you think they went to?” one of the men asks.

“Down by the water, most like,” she says, then barks out: “Where you been?”

A low yet tempered voice answers, “Washing in the falls,”

Scipio raises his chin and discovers the raunchy Gaul from the falls. The lanky woman shares his obtuse jawline, but her eyes are light, and her long hair thread-straight.

“Washing?” she smirks. “Or rubbing at yourself?”

He stares at her with contempt, as any son might a mother so crass.

“Get your poisons out, boy,” she advises. “None of this lot’s going to smack you around as you like,”

The men laugh, but her son remains stoic; Scipio processes her words and imagines the slender Gaul putting up a fight.

She orders one of them to burn the tent, and this compels Scipio to glance at his father. Luckily, the man lies with his maps on his chest. Tied to his tunic is their fire-starting kit, and under his ass are their water pouches.

She gives her son’s big ear a gentle tug.

“Did you see any Romans by the water?”

He shakes his curly-topped head. “I saw no one.”

Scipio rolls over and stares at the trees.

Several moments later, the gang leaves a smoking tent.

Vitus rises, “They’ll be on the water searching for us,”

“What about the horses?” asks Scipio, joining him.

“They’ll find us,” his father assures.

The horses locate them on the other side of the forest.

They ride past sundown, their stomachs growling under a starless night. They speak of Rome and his father’s brother in the Senate. Each session brings new hostility for Caesar, and wealthy senators direct their resentment to those representing Caeser’s provincial cities.

Scipio hates politics.

“Fear not,” says Vitus, reading his face. “I’d never ask you to Rome.”

“It’s not that I’m incapable,” he says. “Surely there are other families,”

“The Severus represent Comum,” Vitus grins. “We helped build the colony, and since it became a city, we are one of the wealthiest families, despite our simple life.”

Scipio thinks of his nana, who was anything but simple.

“Grandmother lived in town,” he says.

Vitus laughs. “That city apartment cost a fortune to build,”

“We still collect rent,” he says. “Doesn’t that cover the upkeep?”

“We lease the ground floor shops and apartments over it, but the top floors belong to us,” says Vitus. “And they still sit empty,”

“Perhaps when Vita marries, she can move into them,” he says.

“Vita will remain home,” Vitus snaps. “Where she belongs.”

Scipio stares at him. “She should be married by now,”

“She’ll marry no one,” Vitus says, his smile gone.

“What happened to that boy from—”

“-There it is,” Vitus declares, riding ahead.

They come upon the Tamesas, a brown stretch that divides the marsh like a serpent’s corpse. They cross the narrowest point and dismount on some reeded flats so Vitus can sketch their arrival path.

“Farther west, there’s a settlement,” says Vitus. “An hour east is another,”

“Should we scout them?”

“Oh, they know us all too well.” Vitus finishes a crude version of a map. “The woodland locals know we’re here, and that’s mean we’re riding through the night.”

“You think they’ll find us?”

“They’re looking as we speak.” Vitus rolls up his illustration. “We’ll ride south to the coast and follow that back to the beachhead.”

“That keeps us out another day,”

Vitus promises, “We’ll live to see that day by avoiding how we came.”

After letting the horses drink their fill, they ride through the night. Vitus snores atop Cletus, and soon Scipio dozes, comforted by the crickets. Flatlands dominate the coastal plain, and an occasional cluster of rocks breaks up the landscape.

They find a wooden trap near a pond with four rabbits inside, and Vitus decides to help himself to two of them.

At the coast, they watch the sunrise.

“Those white cliffs we saw sailing in,” Vitus says, tying the horses to a boulder. “We’re standing on them.”

Scipio’s fire smokes in the hole he dug.

“We’re on top of them?” he asks. “Why are they white?”

“It’s chalk.” Vitus skins the first rabbit and points his head at sea. “That bireme out there with two of our cruisers, it’s filled with merchants picking away at it for the flint,”

 Scipio squints and sees only a dark patch on the horizon.

 “These cliffs are as large as those we passed at the end of the world,” Scipio notes his father’s stare. “I know the Pillars of Heracles aren’t the world’s end anymore,”

“The sea is larger than the sky.” Vitus hands him the skinned carcass, its red flesh streaked with white. “There’s more land beyond this island. I know it.”

Scipio lays the raw meat on his armor’s shin plate, now a frypan for the fire, and relishes the sizzle. After several moments, his father uses cloth-covered fingers to tip the metal plate, dripping what little fat the rabbit provides on the fire.

Fat-tinged smoke makes for flavorful meat when there’s no salt.

Scipio gnaws the cooked flesh from its bone.

“Locals won’t be happy to find their traps empty.”

Vitus cleans his lips with the back of his sleeve.

“That’s why we need to keep moving.”

Scipio doesn’t wipe his lips. He imagines the bland gamey meat to be the flavorful hares their cook, Nikonidas, prepares on worship days. A Greek boy raised alongside Scipio, he took over as house cook for his father after the man passed away some years ago.

“What’s swimming behind those eyes?” Vitus asks.

“Is Niko still fat?”

“Oh yes,” says Vitus. “Your sister says he’s grown quite tall, though,”

“Niko never spoke much, did he?”

“He was learning his words when his mother died of the pox.” Vitus turns thoughtful. “He’s not mute. He just never learned to express himself like the rest of us.”

Scipio stares at him.

“That Gaul that joined the others, he saw me swimming,”

Vitus goes wide-eyed.

“We saw each other,” says Scipio. “But he said he saw no one,”

“It’s careless, washing on your own,” Vitus scolds. “You should’ve washed with me,”

He gets up and walks to Cletus. “You saw each other, did you?”

“Something like that,” Scipio says, grinning.

Vitus sighs. “Tell me you didn’t interfere with him?”

“If I had,” Scipio replies. “He wouldn’t have been able to return to his mother.”

Vitus chuckles. “You never grew out of your attraction to boys,”

“No, I didn’t,” he brags.

“Neither did Planus, I’m told,” Vitus says. “Have you two thoughts of making a match?”

Scipio curls his lip. “Me and Planus?”

“He’s your sort, isn’t he?” asks Vitus.

“We’re the same sort,” Scipio declares, “but not sorted for each other,”

“You’ll find a wife when we get home,” Vitus decrees. “And you’ll ensure she knows nothing of whatever Catamitus you install in the city apartment.”

“Is that fair to her?” Scipio asks, then mumbles. “Is that fair to me?”

“Life isn’t fair, so we make the best of unfairness with private diversions.” Vitus stretches until his back cracks. “My mother was a notorious lady-lover until her last day.”

Scipio gawps in shock.

“It’s true,” Vitus adds, mounting his horse. “More women than my father,”

Scipio gathers their things and kicks dirt over the fire. He stands too quickly, then, and the headrush knocks him back. He turns and sees his father slide off the saddle and hit the ground with a thud.

“Father,” his words come slow like a molasses drip.

His face collides with the ground. His arms and legs disappear, and his eyes grow too heavy to stay open. Through wisps of smoke, covered feet appear, and with them come distant voices.

“I told you they would ride to the coast,”

“Yes, you did, my clever boy, yes you did…”