I have written so far six parts of this story. Nothing (in the _s_e_x_ual sense very much happens till part three. However to follow the plot you do need to read parts 1 and 2. I do not expext you to put all six parts in your new stories section. If you decide to put a part in that section at all I would sugget part3 with a note saying that anyone wishing to read earlier or later sections should go to my personal archive. I have included a note to this effect at the beginning of part 3.
This story will eventually contain scenes involving the _s_e_x_ual and physical abuse of young boys by adults. I f you do not like such stories do not read this.
I do not have a detailed knowledge of Roman history. This story is a fantasy set in a fantasy Roman Empire. I do not pretend to historical accuracy. I would say however that deeds of manumission did, in the later empire particularly, sometimes have a provision by which the freed slave was obliged to hand over his eldest child to his old master as a slave on the child attaining a specified age - usually some what younger than that specified in the deed in this story.
One problem in writing a quasi-historical story is language. Do you use colloquial English in reporting speech and have a son referring to his father as Dad or do you go to the other extreme and pepper the story with paters and magisters and dominus's? I have tried for a middle course aiming for a slightly formal old fashioned style except when masters are addressing slaves when the language is as brutal and coarse as possible.
You may find the first two to three parts heavy going. They set the scene for the story that follows.
I would be glad to receive any comments or suggestions. Please send these to me zelamir@hotmail. com. The only comments I will ignore are those that tell me they do not like the story because it contains descriptions of _s_e_x_ual and physical abuse of boys by adults. That is what this story does contain. You have been warned.
Julius Gaius Cornelius felt bored and hard done by. Bored because any civilised human being who was forced to go and live in a decrepit villa in a damp cold colony on the very furthest edge of the Roman Empire would be bored. Hard done by because all he had done was to get drunk and to remark on what everybody knew was true, but did not dare to mention, the empress's infatuation with Gutta the chariot driver. There was also the problem of his own debts but he was sure, that if it hadn't been for his difficulties with the imperial court, he would have been able to keep his creditors at bay indefinitely. However once it was known that imperial protection had turned into enmity all the greasy money lenders, who a few days before had fawned and pressed further loans on him, were demanding full and immediate satisfaction.
Then just as he was beginning to think he had better open his veins a messenger came to him from the Emperor. If he would go to that part of his old family estates that lay in Britain and stay there the Emperor would arrange a composition with his creditors and forget him. He had had no choice and the Emperor had kept his word but the composition was harsh and humiliating. It made him in all but name the steward of his creditors or, to be more accurate, the puppet of the steward of his creditors. He didn't know about managing land or mines or businesses and it is probable his creditors would not have trusted him to manage them in their interests if he had known, so they appointed a man to guide him and ensured that the various deeds and contracts that defined their relationships bound him to follow that man's advice.
It would have been almost better Julius thought if he had been required to hand all the properties over to Cinnamus, his creditors nominee, in return for a small allowance on which he, Olivia his wife and Titus their infant son, could have lived. It would have been more in accord with the reality of the situation and would have spared him the tedium of taking part in the current charade. Better still if he had been able to leave his son and wife behind in Rome. He had suggested the latter arrangement to the Emperor's messenger but the man had simply smiled coldly and said that the Emperor did not intend that Julius should enjoy his exile.
Now he had to go through this ceremony with the fair headed giant of a fellow who knelt on the floor at his feet. Something to do with granting the oaf his freedom so that he could exploit the oyster beds that formed part of the estate in return for a cash rental. Cinnamus had tried to explain it all to him, a more efficient way of exploiting the asset, an incentive to the other slaves on the estate who now could hope for freedom if they worked hard and so on. Further more they were not loosing a slave off the estate because the deed of manumission would require the man to surrender his eldest son on reaching the age of thirteen to be a slave in place of his father.
Julius had remarked that he thought the best incentive a slave could have was the fear of the lash across his naked shoulders. As for the eldest son, he wasn't even born yet, just a lump in the tummy of the slut the man lived with that could just as well be a girl or still born and if he was born why couldn't they take him at ten. In his opinion that was the best age for a boy though, looking at the father, the lad would probably be as ugly as sin. However he knew his opinions really bore no weight and he would do as he was told. He had no choice.
Cinnamus muttered urgently in his ear. Obediently he took the kneeling man's two hands within his. How hard and rough they felt. He supposed it was what happened to one's hands if one was obliged to work. He shuddered at the thought. He repeated the words Cinnamus had drilled into him that morning about now being free and without looking at the ex -slave or speaking further rose and walked out of the room.
Corax waited until he heard the door slam behind the departing man and then jumped to his feet.
"It could have been more graciously done," he remarked with an angry laugh. His voice was rough but hard and decisive.
"It's not easy for him," Cinnamus replied wondering why he bothered to defend the arrogant fool who was his purported employer. " Now you've got what you wanted anyway."
"And would have had five years earlier if his father who was worth a hundred of him hadn't died."
"You were a favourite of his father?"
"I was. You wouldn't think it now but I was a pretty boy and you Romans fall easily for the innocent blonde look. I kept him company in bed when he wasn't with his wife until I began to shave and even after that he kept me about him. Saw a lot of the world I did then. Enough to see the opportunities you Romans have created to make money and how stupid you all are not to have taken them for yourselves. I discussed it with him a lot towards the end and he saw things as I did. We would have had tried putting our ideas into practice, his capital my drive and energy. Not that he didn't have drive too."
"Well it's my capital now," Cinnamus said.
"And you are going to be paid well for it. Forty eight per cent and half the profits. Not that I am complaining there'll be money enough for us both after the first voyage..."
"If it succeeds..," Cinnamus interjected.
"There's risk but provided the galley gets through we will be in the money and it will get through. I'll see it will."
"You're sure it will pay?"
"Of course it will. That's what I meant when I said you Romans were fools... You don't see what opportunities there are for trade within the empire you have created. Each part of the empire has something in abundance that is scarce and in demand some where else. These oysters now at Colchester and all along the coast here they're cheap and plentiful. In Rome they are scarce and highly priced. What does my great master Julius Gaius Cornelius do when he arrives here; gluts himself on them for a week and then complains that he's always getting oysters to eat. He doesn't think of storing them in casks of salt water and transporting them to Rome and selling there for ten sesterces a dozen what costs a single copper coin here."
"Then in Rome there's wine, there's olive oil, there's fine china and statues which the rich provincials here will snap up if they get the chance to show how sophisticated and cosmopolitan they are."
"We'll make a good turn on each leg of the voyage. There's risk this time with one galley but if that succeeds we will have enough capital to finance six galleys. Then the risk is all but gone. Two get through we break even. Three we make a good profit. Six we have made our first fortune and that is what we are going to do."
Cinnamus looked at the man who had so recently been kneeling on the floor at the feet of a dissolute Roman aristocrat. He stood upright now his body charged with energy and determination, his face bright with enthusiasm. How frustrating that man must, with all his ambition and imagination, have found his years of slavery.
"I believe," he said slowly, "that it will succeed."
"And I must set about seeing it does," Corax said and without a further word marched from the room.
Looking out into the villa courtyard Cinnamus saw Corax walk over to where a woman sat on the paving beside a meagre bundle wrapped in sacking. The tall blonde bent and spoke to the woman. He held out a hand to her and helped her to her feet. He swung the bundle onto his shoulder and then turned once more to her. She was Cinnatus saw quite young but hard work and care had made her gaunt and lined before her time. The front of her short ragged dress bulged out over the unborn child that she carried. Corax face had softened and become gentle as he spoke to a woman who seemed to Cinnamus no more than a common drudge. The steward turned back to study his accounts. He could understand them.
"Let's get out of here," Corax said, "you will never come here again unless it as the equal of your late Mistress."
"It is enough that I can leave," the woman replied soberly. "All that distresses me now is the thought that we must be apart for so long and that the child I carry, if it is a boy, is fated from birth to be a slave of Julius."
"I go to make our fortune and that made our child will never be the slave of anyone. I will buy out Julius's right to him under the deed of manumission. I will buy out Julius and his foul hag of a wife altogether."
"If the venture succeeds," the woman said quietly.
"It will. It was some Roman's cruel joke to call you Fortunata when you were born a slave but now we will prove how well chosen that name really was."
Indeed Fortunata proved to be well named, except in one respect, for when Corax returned many months later with the beginnings of that vast fortune for which he was later to become famed, he found he had a son but no wife. Fortunata had died in childbirth.
For two days Corax stayed alone in the little hovel, where he had left her and where she had perished, seeing no one. On the third he reappeared, issued orders that the cabin should be levelled to the ground and presented himself to Cinnatus. It was he who had hearing, of the woman's death, sent a slave to collect the new-born baby who would otherwise have been left to starve by his mother's corpse.
Corax made no mention of this but presented him with an account of the voyage and paid in full all the monies owed him. He then made an offer for the wet nurse that Cinnatus could not refuse. He never thanked Cinnatus for taking the child in but Cinnatus noticed that he never lost in any of the business dealings he had with Corax from that day forward.
When Corax made his second voyage to Rome the baby, now called Marcus, and the wet nurse sailed with him. Corax's business grew and prospered. His single galley became a fleet. His ships traded through out the Mediterranean. To the East they penetrated the Bosphorus to reach the Black Sea. To the West they faced the storms of the Atlantic, coasting the Western shores of Spain and Gaul to Britain and beyond. The cargoes born were various the only rule was that Corax bought where goods were cheap and sold where they were dear. Wolf hounds from Ireland, bears from Scotland for the Roman Circus, tin and gold from Britain, corn, wine, olive oil from Gaul and Spain, spices and silks from the East, slaves from the great markets of North Africa and Asia Minor, he and his ships Captains traded in them all.
Soon his wealth was so great that he did not need to voyage himself. He bought himself a magnificent villa in Rome. He acquired another wife, Philomela the daughter of a knight, for great wealth excused in Roman eyes his servile origins. Not that he tried to hide those origins. Indeed he appeared rather to thrust them on the attention of others. Corax, a slaves name, was one that he seemed to bear with pride.
In time Philomela bore him a son Lucius and a daughter Thalia but his visits to Rome were only fleeting and duty driven. After four years the wet nurse returned to her native village a free woman and a rich one by the standards of her people. Marcus his son by the slave girl Fortunata stayed with him. The boy saw many things; some of great beauty and wonder like the strange green Northern lights and the great whales of the Western sea; some horrible like the pirates nailed on the crosses on the shore at Crete or the great entrepot of human misery Smyrna were thousands of slaves were traded daily like human cattle.
By the time Marcus was ten however Corax's affairs were so complex that he decided he could no longer afford to voyage himself. It was also time for the boy to receive some formal education. He could sail a boat and swim and ride a horse and so far as his strength allowed wrestle and throw a spear. He could read and write and do simple arithmetic but Corax felt if he was to play a part in the great Roman world he should learn rhetoric and law and perhaps manners as well.
Corax told Marcus of this at breakfast of the day he was to see Cinnatus. He had bought the debts of Julius Gaius Cornelius from his creditors, at a substantial discount, and by this transaction Cinnatus had become in effect his steward of the Cornelius estates. He trusted, so far as he trusted anyone, Cinnatus and rarely bothered him. He was however in Britain on other business and thought he might as well pay a visit to the place where the foundations of his present immense fortune had been laid before finally settling in Rome.
Giving up his wandering way of life was not some thing he relished. He did not look forward to settling permanently in Rome. It was clear to him that Marcus felt the same. What normal healthy boy would want to give up the excitement and freedom of a life of travel for the tedium of a Roman school. Not that the boy had tried to argue. He knew better than to do that. He had just gone very quiet. He had cheered up however when he had seen the pony his father had bought him as a present to sweeten the news. Now he was riding beside Corax trying to hide his eagerness to put the animal, which he had already named Pegasus, through it's paces. The pony seemed to be as eager as the boy. It needed all the lad's strength and skill to stop it leaving his father and his heavier more stately horse far behind. Even then Pegasus pranced and jigged as he went along in a way that would have irritated an older rider but which to Marcus simply promised excitement and fun if he could only escape from his fathers company.
They came to the bridge over the River Stour. Corax reigned in his horse and looked about him. Behind him on the hill above Colchester Hadrian's vast temple with it's brilliant white columns dominated the countryside, a symbol of Roman power. Ahead the paved road ran almost due North to Norwich. While beneath the bridge the dark brown waters of the Stour helped by a falling tide and backed by recent heavy rain flowed strongly. He saw the old track along the North bank of the Stour running down towards the sea was still open.
"Marcus," he said, "I have business to do ahead. You take the track by the river there. Go along it for five miles till you see a track running inland, follow it till you come to a villa. Ask for the steward Cinnatus I will be with him and my business will be done."
The boy did not need telling twice. In a second he and the pony were picking their way down the slope of the embankment along which the main road ran to the track beside the river. Once there Pegasus with just a touch from Marcus's heels was off at a canter. Corax sat still on his horse for a minute or so watching as the boy drew away from him his short white tunic lifted almost to his waist by the wind, strong brown legs gripping the black flanks of the pony, his fair hair glinting in the morning sun. For a moment but only a moment the habitual sterness of his face relaxed.
---------
Marcus soon forgot his worries about Rome and school as he cantered along the riverside green fields to his left the brown waters of the river flowing fast to his right. It was a wonderful early summers day. Larks rose trilling into a blue sky flecked with the smallest of white clouds. The heat of the sun tempered by a cool breeze from the West. Pegasus was all and more than he had hoped for. Glancing over his shoulder he checked his father was no longer in sight. He urged the pony, it did not need much urging ,into a full gallop. Thoughts of studying at a Roman school and living in the same house as his step mother, a bitch in his and many other peoples opinions, were driven from his mind.
He turned a bend in the river bank and saw ahead of him a small boat clearly out of control in the centre of the stream. He drew level with the skiff and slowed the pony to a canter. The only occupant of the boat was a dark haired boy, perhaps a couple of years younger than himself, dressed in a short ragged tunic. A slave boy Marcus thought, a favourite of his master though, he decided, noticing his long hair. The boat caught in the current whirled uncontrollably, the boy dug desperately at the water with his single oar.
It seemed to Marcus that disaster was not far away. At that moment a side current caught the skiff and hurled it hard against the river bank. The boat was swept sideways onto a half submerged tree stump. The boy, panicking, half rose from his seat and tried to push the little craft free. The boat seemed to lift and then rolled over. For a moment Marcus though the boy was trapped underneath the boat. Then he saw the lad's dark head a few yards down stream. The boy was being swept along the river bank. He had clearly lost his grip on the oar. A tree grew out of the bank its branches touching the surface of the swollen river. The boy caught one of the branches and held on desperately. He was a good five yards out from the bank and the current tore at him viciously.
Marcus sat on Pegasus watching. It was really just as exciting as the wild beasts in the circus. More fun really because the boy was prettier, Marcus was just beginning to appreciate such things, to look at than the criminals who suffered there. He had no intention of risking his own life in an attempt to safe that of a slave. What was the point? The boy if he was saved, could only look forward to a life of drudgery once his looks had gone, if indeed he survived the beating he would undoubtedly and deservedly receive for loosing a boat that would cost more than he himself would fetch to replace.
A log swept along by the river was bearing down on the boy. He saw it and looked about wild eyed.
"Help me. Please help me," he shouted to Marcus. The log struck him and he lost his hold on the branch and disappeared beneath the turbulent water..
Those five words were enough to tell Marcus that this was no slave boy, despite his meagre clothing and desperate plight, for he spoke with the most patrician of Roman accents
Marcus removed his silver buckled belt and fine white tunic. He hurriedly pulled off his gold armlet, he knew it was valuable and there was no point in risking it being lost, and shedding his sandals dived into the river.
He was a strong swimmer but once he felt the force of the current he knew he was in for a struggle. Coming to the surface he saw the boy for a moment thirty yards or so down stream of him. He struck out hard towards him. The current had swept the boy beneath the surface and he almost swam over him. It was only his foot brushing against the lad's tunic that alerted him. He turned dived and got a grip of an arm. He got the boy's head above water. He had lost consciousness. Marcus wondered if he was dead. If he didn't manage to get ashore they would both be dead. Looking about he saw below him a shingle bank sticking out into the stream. The current ripped round it but if he set about working his way across the river towards it he thought there was a chance that he could get a foothold and drag himself and the other boy out of the water.