This story does contain scenes involving the _s_e_x_ual activity between young boys. I f you do not like such stories do not read this.
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. That is what this story does contain. You have been warned.
Marcus felt the hardness pressing into the crack of his bum. Schooled by Menas he pushed his bottom backwards and began to rub himself against demanding flesh. He knew what he would get if he failed to satisfy the man, whoever he was, Menas had sent to enjoy him.
He blinked his eyes open and realised something was wrong. He was not lying on the filthy sacks in the back of the wagon but on coarse fern in some sort of shelter and it was not a man who was pressing against him but a boy like himself.
"Please go on," Musca's voice panted in his ear.
Marcus rolled fully onto his face and tried to part his legs.
"This place is too narrow," he said as his feet brushed against the rocks on either side. "Come on outside we'll do it there."
He crawled out of the shelter and turned to see Musca following close behind him the front of his tunic hooked over his stiff little boys prick. Musca grinned at him, white teeth flashing in his dark face.
"Are you going to let me _f_u_c_k_ you?" He asked eagerly. It's the first time I'll have _f_u_c_k_ed ...."
The sentence finished in a sharp gasp as Marcus dropping to his knees took the other boy's prick in his mouth. A few seconds later certain that Musca's _c_o_c_k_ was well lubricated with saliva he turned and still kneeling bent forward so that his head was resting on the ground flipping his tunic forward over his head. He felt Musca's _c_o_c_k_ pressing against his anus as the boy positioned himself behind him. He pushed his bum back and up eager to allow Musca to enter him. Marcus had taken much larger weapons than Musca's 4 inches of boy hood and it's full length was soon buried in his body. He straightened tightening his bum's grip on the other lad's rod. Musca slipped his hands about him and began to stroke Marcus's own hard little _c_o_c_k_. Marcus felt the muscles in his bum begin to pulse as Musca probed it with his prick. The both boys came together in a series of sharp orgasms that filled Marcus's bum and sent his own sperm jetting up over his tummy and dribbling over Musca's fingers.
The two boys collapsed together on the grass. Panting Marcus became aware of the shrill song of the sky larks as they rose and fell in the blue morning sky, the distant chatter of running water mingling with the steady bleating of the goats.
He sat up and saw a large and extremely fierce looking billy goat with massive curved horns and a long beard standing a few feet away regarding him through small amber coloured eyes.
"Musca," he said sharply.
"Oh that's all right," Musca said sitting up in his turn, "that's only Taurus he's very friendly."
"He doesn't want to join in does he?" Marcus had heard whispers of special acts involving boys and girls and animals from some of his less respectable acquaintances in Rome and was not at all sure he wanted to be involved in anything like that.
"He couldn't if he wanted to," said Musca with a giggle but dropping his voice as if out of consideration for the goat's feelings who might not want such a matter to be too openly discusssed. "He's been castrated."
"That's all right then he won't be jealous when I get my _c_o_c_k_ up your bum," Marcus said giggling in his turn.
Both boys stood up and spontaneously pulling their tunics off threw them into the shelter.
"I hope I won't hurt you," Marcus said doubtfully.
"Why should you. I didn't hurt you and my prick three time as big as yours. If you can take mine I can take yours."
"It is not bigger than mine."
"It is."
"Well," Marcus said reasonably we can soon find out. "We'll both get stiff again and see which is the bigger."
The two lads sat down side by side and set to work on their pricks which were still wrinkled and shrunken after their last orgasm.
"Mine's all mucky," Musca announced, "from where it's been up your bum."
"All right I'll clean it up for you and get you hard at the same time," Marcus replied eagerly.
He scrambled to his knees and bending down took Musca's flaccid tool in his mouth tasting _s_h_i_t_ and boy's cum. Musca leant forward and placed his hand on the back of Marcus's rump. Marcus without removing his lips from the other boy's _c_o_c_k_ moved round on his hands and knees until he straddled Musca's head. Musca reached up and locking his hands round Marcus's waste pulled himself up so that he could take his prick into his own mouth. It was not long before the two boys _c_o_c_k_s were hard again. They jumped to their feet and compared tools.
For a little time Musca tried to contend that although they were very much the same length his was quite considerably wider but after a certain amount of measuring with their fingers and some further argument he had to concede there was really nothing in it.
"Have you been _f_u_c_k_ed before," asked Marcus, the dispute having been resolved on this basis, moving round behind his friend.
"Yes," replied Musca bending forward and pulling his bum open with his hands. " In the winter us boys are all put together in a barn down at the farm when we're not working. We have fun them. Crastinus doesn't like it and he beats us occasionally when he catches us at it but there's nothing else much to do."
Marcus's _c_o_c_k_ was already wet with the other boy's saliva so he put his hands on Musca's hips to steady him and prepared to enter his friend.
There was a thundering sound behind him and he received a sudden savage blow on his bottom sending him stumbling forward onto Musca who lost his balance so that they both crashed to the ground. Marcus looked round for the source of the attack and saw Taurus his head bowed, his front hooves pawing the ground preparing for another charge.
"Musca," he shouted in alarm.
"He must have thought you were attacking me," Musca said laughing. "It's all right Taurus we're friends. Look."
He pulled Marcus to his feet and throwing his arms around his neck kissed him hard on the lips. Marcus responded enthusiastically. Musca's tongue entered his mouth and began to explore it. Marcus slid his hand down the curve of Musca's bum. His index finger found the boy's anus. He pushed gently, after a moments resistance the lips parted and he felt the heat of the boy's body close about it. Musca tightened his grip of his arms about his neck and his tongue shot down into his mouth like a snake striking.
Musca broke away and turning his back bent forward reaching behind him to part the cheeks of his bum, offering an unmistakable invitation to the other boy. Marcus glanced nervously at Taurus but the goat was browsing quietly. He seemed to have accepted that all was in order.
An hour or so later the two boys rather red eyed and feeling weak about the knees made their way together to the mountain stream. They cooled off in a small but deep pool and after cleaning themselves off settled side by side on the grassy bank.
"You're brown all over," Marcus remarked examining his new friend's naked body.
"Yes, I only wear the tunic when Crastinus is about, I think he might be upset if I didn't, and at night when it's cold. Other wise what's the point I'd only tear it or something and I doubt if he'd give me another one. It'll be different when it starts getting really cold."
"You've taken a real pounding," Musca continued running his finger along one of the purple welts that still disfigured Marcus's ribcage. "Who did that to you."
"The man who brought me up here," Marcus replied shuddering slightly at the memory of Menas's belt.
"I though it wasn't Crastinus he wouldn't hit you there. He beats us on the back, mostly on the bum."
"I've had a few from him too."
"I noticed that when I was _f_u_c_k_ing you." Musca said with a grin. "Why did he do that."
"Well when the carter had gone I told him I was Corax' son and he beat me for being cheeky."
"You're mad," Musca said admiringly, "you'd never get away with that. How did you really come to be sent here."
"I was caught stealing food and my master sent me up here to teach me a lesson," Marcus replied slowly. Nobody would belief the truth and anyway it wasn't too bad being a goat herd so far as he could see. Certainly he thought, as he looked at Musca's lithe young body stretched out beside him, there were advantages.
"He couldn't have cared for you much," Musca remarked with a boy's unthinking cruelty.
"I...I don't think," Marcus replied slowly picking his words carefully so as not to betray himself, "that masters do care much about us. We're just things to them." Pisclus's reproach "to you we're just good _f_u_c_k_s that's all" rang in his head shaming him with it's truth.
"Where did your master live."
"Rome."
"Rome," Musca cried excitedly. "Is it true that there are thousands of people there. That there are shops with all the goods in the world for sale. That the emperor lives in a golden palace and eats a whole ox every day. That there are games and public shows every day with gladiators and wild animals? That's there's food for everybody and not even boys like us go hungry?"
The questions came tumbling out from the excited boy. It was obvious that his imagination was obsessed with the city, so unlike anything he had ever seen in his own short life, and that it had been fuelled by stories told him by the men on the farm, who probably knew little more than he did, but amused themselves inventing what they did not know. Marcus did his best to reply to the boy's excited questioning. This became concentrated more and more on the banquets he had seen while serving his master and in particular the food served there. It was clear that the chief wonder of the city to the hungry little boy was the variety and quantity of food available.
Marcus disabused him of the believe that there were no starveling slave boys in Rome while trying to describe the more lavish of his fathers banquets as it would have been seen by a slave. This was not difficult for him as such occasions were not regarded as places for freeborn boys so he had only heard descriptions of then from the chatter of household slaves. He had just finished describing a dish consisting of a roast pea_c_o_c_k_ cooked inside a roast swan cooked inside an ostrich all stuffed with dates and larks tongues and served with honey cakes and blood sausages when Musca burst out.
"Oh how I wish I could see that."
"I don't know," Marcus said rolling onto his side and running his hand up the inside of Musca's thigh until it rested on his balls, "I like it here well enough."
"Better than Rome."
"Yes...but I do wish we had more to eat."
"You must have been hungry in Rome. You stole food."
"I was greedy not hungry the way I am here," Marcus replied suddenly serious.
"Perhaps we could catch a hare," Musca suggested. "Now there are two of us we'll have a better chance. We mustn't let Crastinus know though. They are meant to be kept for the lords when they come hunting."
It was a little time before they set off in pursuit of the hare.
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The weeks passed. The days got shorter. The weather grew steadily colder. And then the first frosts came. Marcus got used to moving around on numb feet. The noses of both boys ran constantly. Crastinus on one of his weekly visits brought an old blanket along with their rations. One night they heard in addition to the barking of foxes a low howling in the mountains above them.
"Wolves," Musca said sitting up from where he lay beside Marcus disturbing the cloak and blanket that covered them and exposing both boys to a blast of freezing air. "We'll have to take it in turn to stay awake and watch the herd. We can't expect Taurus to see off a wolf by himself. I'll go first." Taking the cloak he slipped off into the darkness.
Marcus was woken by the feel of Musca's cold body pressed against his.
"Your turn," now Musca whispered. "You take the cloak, come back here at dawn and we'll warm each other up."
"What do I do if a wolf comes?" Marcus asked uneasily.
"Shout and wave your stave at it. Don't worry they're not hungry enough now to try attacking us. It'll turn tail and I'll hear your shout anyway and come and help you."
Marcus felt very small as, huddled in his cloak, he sat listening to the night sounds. Every rustle of the wind passing through the thorn trees or sound of small animals moving in the low scrub alarmed him.. At any moment he expected to see the grey lean shape of a wolf moving in towards him. Shivering inside the thread bare cloak he felt lonely and frightened. Yet he waited until it was fully light before he returned to their shelter and the warmth and comfort of Musca's slim young body.
Musca, despite his confident words about the docile nature of wolves, spent the next morning painstakingly sharpening the ends of their two staves with a fragment of glass. This was his most prized possession ranking above his ragged tunic and cloak, which were the only other things he owned. It served both as a knife and as a means to kindle fire when there was sunshine. He told Marcus more than once the story of how he had obtained it, scavenging it from out of the midden behind the farm when Crastinus had thrown the fragments of a glass he had dropped during one of his rare drinking fits. Marcus gained the impression that a good deal of the value of the glass to Musca derived from the fact that it had once formed part of an object owned and used by Crastinus. The work took a long time as Musca did not wish to risk breaking further the precious fragment. At last however it was completed and he set about hardening the two points in the fire.
Marcus squatted on his haunches by the fire watching the other boy.
"I don't think a sharpened wooden stick would be much use if a wolf did decide to have a goat from the flock," he said doubtfully.
"Better than nothing," Musca replied a little huffily. "Any way they won't really try yet. I'm just being on the safe side. It's later on when they get desperate and by then we will be down at the farm and Crastinus and the other men will be there."
"It's not like they're mountain lions," he continued.
"What are mountain lions?" Marcus asked nervously.
"They're like great big cats and they come down from the North when the winter is really hard. They're bad they are. As ready to take a boy as a goat and they can't be frightened off either."
"Are there many?"
"Never seen one myself. But the men on the farm told me about them. There was one killed two boys the year Crastinus came here and he went out after it with his sword and killed it and the next day he went out again and killed it's mate. Where there's one there's always a second. Crastinus is brave. He's not afraid of anything and he the strongest man on the farm too."
Over the next few nights Marcus saw wolves, grey skinny long legged shadows moving silently in the undergrowth seeking an opportunity to raid the herd. It seemed to him they were increasing in number and growing bolder.
With the colder weather the small animals which the boys used to eat to supplement their meagre rations got scarcer. The boys tummies were always achingly empty. Crastinus paid another of his visits sniffed the air and looked round at the desolate plain, now flecked with white from the first snows of winter.
"One more week boys," he said, "then we'll have you down."
When he had gone Marcus cried he was so hungry and so cold.
Two days late it snowed hard.. The plain was all white. The goats picked their way over it scratching in the snow with their hooves for some fragment of vegetation to eat.
Then it happened. Marcus was asleep in the shelter when he was woken by the sound of Musca's shouting shrilly. Rapping the blanket round himself he crept reluctantly out into the bitter cold. There was a clear sky and the moon was bright. Musca's shouts were becoming increasingly urgent. Picking up his stave he ran towards the sound and then checked.
Musca was standing a few yards away from him facing a dark bulky form crouched close to the ground. Off to one side a clearly nervous Taurus pawed the ground in a half hearted manner. The creature was about the same length as a wolf but shorter ledgged and much heavier. Marcus had not seen one before but he knew in the instant that it was a mountain lion. Even as he watched the animal snarled and hurled itself at Musca. The boy levelled his stave but the sheer weight of the creature, a mass of muscle and heavy bone, snapped it short, bowling the lad over onto his back. Musca stabbed desperately upwards with the remnant of the broken stave as the lion, it's mouth open, went for his throat.
Marcus shouted in rage. He did not have time to feel fear or to calculate his chances. Musca was the only friend he had in the world and he had to come to his aid. His only weapon was the miserable wooden stick and he had already seen Musca's shattered by the lion's charge. So far as he could see he had only one chance. He levelled the stave and taking careful aim at the creatures eye hurled himself forward. Marcus was agile and fast. The animal screamed as the wood point penetrated it's eye. It was wounded but not fatally. It turned to face it's new attacker while Marcus wrestled to keep his stave point boring into it's eye hoping to penetrate into the skull beyond or at least to keep the animal away from Musca and himself. His bare feet scrabbled desperately on the frozen ground as he fought the beast. He knew he was loosing the fight. The creature was simply stronger and heavier then he was. Then there was a sound of hooves cracking down on hard earth, a figure rushed by him and slammed into the big cat just behind it's shoulder. Taurus had found his courage. The lion caught off balance went down on one side. Marcus went after it thrusting, with the whole strength and weight of his body, at the stave still embedded in the beats eye. Twice more it tried to raise it itself and twice more Taurus charged it down. Then suddenly the stave seemed to slip forward in Marcus's hand. For a moment he thought the creature had shaken it's head free but then he realised it was lying quite still. The point of the stave had at last penetrated into it's skull and the lion was dead.
Marcus ran over to where Musca lay. The boy was conscious but the left hand side of his chest had been ripped by the animal's claws. Marcus pulled off the torn remnants of Musca's tunic and folded itinto a wad that he laid gently on the torn and bleeding flesh. He ripped his own tunic in half and used the strips to bind it in place. Musca gritted his teeth and grinned in pain.
"Help me back to the shelter," he whispered, "Then you can set off for the farm and tell Crastinus what has happened and I'll stay up here wi and guard the flock."
"And when it's mate comes round. What happens to you then?" Asked Marcus sharply. "You said where there was one of these things there were always two. We'll all go now you, me, Taurus and the herd."
"We'll never do it. It's fifteen miles. It's snowed. The days are short and anyway I can't walk that distance."
Marcus went over to the dead mountain lion. Placing his bare foot on the creature head he jerked the stave clear. H e whistled for Taurus and then hauled Musca to his feet. He wrapped the cloak as well as he could about the boy's narrow shoulders.
"Now put your right arm over my shoulders and we'll get moving," he said.
It was a slow and painful journey. The grey light of a bitterly cold dawn was breaking before they had even started the descent from the corrie. A thin layer of ice had formed over the snow and Marcus saw that each step he took left flecks of blood on the snow from where the ice had cut his feet. Musca struggled on as best he could although it was clear that he was in great pain and his strength was ebbing. Behind then trailed the herd of goats headed by Taurus whose head Marcus felt every now and again brush against his bare bottom as he plodded steadily forward. The only sound in the thin mountain air now was the bleating of the goats and the clang of Taurus's bell. The sky larks, whose song had filled the sky when Marcus had last walked that path, had all been silenced by the arrival of the winter snow.
The two boys trudged slowly on. Musca was finding it more and more difficult to drag himself forward and Marcus's shoulders ached from effort of supporting his friend. Finally Musca stumbling lost his balance and fell forward into the snow taking Marcus with him. Wearily Marcus pulled himself to his knees and shivering looked about him. The track now ran along the side of the mountain the slopes of which were almost featureless sheets of whiteness under their covering of snow. Marcus could not tell where in the long track back to the farm they had reached but he was sure they had only covered a fraction of the journey. Awkwardly he manoeuvred the cloak under Musca's body and then huddled up close to the other boy trying to gain some relief from the penetrating cold.
"I can't go on," Musca said weakly. "Take the cloak and leave me here. We'll both die if you don't."
Marcus hugged his friend.
"We rest here a bit and then we go on," he said. "You want to see Rome don't you.... Well I am going to show it you when all this is over."
Musca smiled weakly but shook his head.
"Leave me," he repeated but Marcus would not.
Neither boy could remember much about their trek later. How often they stopped and how often they argued with Musca demanding he should be left behind were all buried in a haze created by exhaustion and cold. It was quite dark when at last they saw far below them the glint of lamp light that marked Crastinus's farm.
Musca had said nothing for a long time. Now finally his legs gave way under him. Marcus knelt beside him in the snow. The other boy was still conscious but only just. It was obvious he had reached the end of his strength.
"I wish I could have come to Rome with you," he whispered smiling faintly.
Marcus said nothing. He dragged Musca to the side of the path and pulled him up so he was sitting on a boulder getting. The boy cried out weekly as the pain from his mangled chest tore through him. Marcus hauled the boy up onto his back and began the long descent to the farm staggering under the weight of his load.
Crastinus was sitting by the fire sipping a glass of red wine and worrying on about whether he had left the flocks on the high land too long. Olivia sat opposite him listening patiently.
"I don't like leaving them up there once the hard weather comes but if I get them down too soon then the fodder here is short at the end of the winter," he agonised yet again.
"Yes I know dear," Olivia said peering down at her sewing.
Then suddenly she lifted her head listening.
"What's that dear? Out in the yard, I am sure I heard something it sounded like a goat's bell."
Crastinus jumped to his feet threw open the outside door. In the dim light the yard seemed to be packed with goats. He heard a movement at the far end of the yard and in the darkness made out the figure of a boy struggling to close the yard gate. Pushing his way through the milling herd of goats he hurried forward.
"What's going on?" he shouted as he approached the lad. "What have you brought these goats in here for? "
"Oh it's you is it," he snapped recognising Marcus. "What are you doing here? Where's Musca? Where are your clothes and stave and everything else. You've left them up on the mountain have you, you useless lazy little runt. I'll teach you to sneak off down here. I'll tan your hide. I'll bloody that tight little bum of yours....."
"Sir....I'm sorry Sir.....Musca's here on the ground Sir....I had to put him down when I closed the gate Sir....and I'm sorry about the clothes and things Sir...I'll go and back and look for them tomorrow Sir if you want..."
Marcus fell silent as Crastinus pushed past him and bent over Musca whom he had laid propped against the gate post.
"Put those goats in the field below the yard boy and then come to the back of the house. You better have a good explanation for what you've been up to if you want to avoid the thrashing of your life."
He picked Musca up and carried him into the house. Marcus heard him shout for his wife and then the door slammed shut behind him.
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Marcus hesitated at the bottom of the steps leading up to the kitchen door. He had been told to go to the house but was he meant to wait outside? Then he heard Musca scream shrilly. He crept up the steps and eased the door open. Timidly he hesitated on the threshold. He could see Musca spread eagled on the kitchen table held down by his ankles and shoulders by two men. Bending over the naked boy pulling at the blood soaked bandages that covered the left side of his chest was Crastinus's wife with beside her a slave women holding a bowl of steaming water. Alerted by the draught of cold air from the suddenly open door they all turned to stare at Marcus.
"What are you doing here?" the maid was the first one to speak. "Be off with you boy. This is no place for a filthy little brat like you. Get back to the barn where you belong."
"No, no," Olivia spoke reassuringly, her calm voice contrasting with the shrill stridency of the slave woman. "Come over here boy, you can help us. Now stand opposite me and tell your friend that we have got take these bandages off his wound to see how bad it is. It will hurt him but we are doing it to help him. Now take hold of his hand and tell him. He will trust you."
The slave woman sniffed and said she wouldn't have let a smelly little slave brat into the kitchen if she had her way; goodness knew what diseases they would all catch as a consequence of letting such filth in and look he was leaving blood stains on the floor behind him. Olivia hushed the women impatiently and Marcus did as he was told.
"Now hold on to Musca's hand hard," the Olivia said when he had finished.
She began to slowly ease the bandages away from Musca's chest dabbing at them with a rag soaked in warm water to dissolve the congealed blood. Marcus's eyes widened and his mouth opened
"Musca," Marcus spoke urgently, "did I tell you about the dinner I had to attend my master to at the home of the Petronius Niger. The main course was sows wombs with crackling, spare ribs and trotters but it wasn't the food only. It was the boys that served it. They were all young and very pretty, younger and prettier than me, and they were wearing golden belts round their wastes with short tassels of gold material hanging down and that's all and their nipples had been gilded and as they served the food they sang all the time. I'd been given a new tunic silk very short and almost transparent and a silver chain round my waist. But they were....."
"What did that then?"
Olivia had been working steadily at peeling the bandages away while Marcus talked. Now Crastinus stepped out from the shadows at the side of the room where he had been standing and looked down at the gory mess that disfigured the left side of Musca's chest. His voice cut across Marcus's urgent chatter.
"I've only seen wounds like that twice before," his wife replied gravely. "On those two boys that were killed by mountain lions the first winter we were here."
"Please Sir. It was a mountain lion Sir. It was going for the goats and Musca tried to stop it."
"Where did this happen boy?"
"Up by our shelter Sir. It knocked Musca over so I went to help.. I and Taurus that is." Marcus did not want to deny anyone their proper share in what had taken place.
"Olivia, I'll leave you to deal with this. I'm no use here and I've got eight herds of goats and sixteen boys up there with two mountain lions on the loose. I must get them down before the brutes do more damage. I'll be off."
"And I with you Sir," one of the field slaves, a burly grizzled haired man, said.
A minute or two later Crastinus and the field slave left the house; Crastinus with his sword hanging in it's scabbard from his belt and the slave carrying a spear. There was a clatter of horses hooves in the yard and then silence.
"Men," Olivia said with a shrug, "they won't come back till they've killed the lions if I know them. Still we're better without them."
"Please Miss I think they'll only need to kill one lion. We got the other."
"He got it Miss he means," Musca whispered weakly. "He got his stave in it's eye and wouldn't let go."
"Well," Olivia said after a second's pause, "we must get on. Musca, I have to wash that wound clean before I put fresh bandages on. It'll hurt I'm afraid but there's nothing for it. Marcus you go on telling him about that party your master went to."
"Yes Miss. Musca, after they'd served the food a troop of boy acrobats came in all just wearing tiny loin cloths and Petronius said to my master if he fancied any one of them, or two, he just had to say....."
Musca screamed loudly.
"And what about you boy?" Olivia said after Musca's wounds had been dressed and he had been lifted from the kitchen table and placed on a bed made from a bundle of blankets by the kitchen fire. "Come over here where I can get a look at you."
Marcus moved over to stand beside her. Quickly she ran her hands over his body.
"Your legs and feet have been cut about badly. But otherwise you're all right."
"Come on I'll deal with those now." Without any further warning she caught hold of him beneath the arms and lifted him so that he was sitting on the table his feet dangling in the air.
"You carried Musca all the way back here?" She asked as she bent forward start cleaning his cuts.
"He walked a lot of the way Miss...Oh Miss...That hurts..."
"I'm sure it does but it has to be done." Olivia had lifted his bare foot in the air and was cleaning dirt from the cuts in it's sole.
"Good boy," Olivia said some half an hour later as she wound a bandage round Marcus's left foot. "You get down now and you can sleep in here with Musca tonight. I'll crop your hair and worm you tomorrow."
"We'll all have nits and worms then," the slave woman muttered under her breath.
"I expect your hungry. Would you like something to eat?"
"Oh yes please Miss."
All right sit down by Musca then and I'll give you a bowl of stew. See if you can get some in him as well. Do you know how to use a spoon?"
"Yes Miss."
Marcus thought he had never tasted any thing as good as that stew. It had oats and beans and even some goats meat in it. Olivia watched until he fell asleep a laden spoon halfway to his mouth. She gently took the spoon from his hand and spreading a blanket over the two naked boys, crept away to bed.
Later that night she heard a noise in the kitchen. She found Marcus still asleep but sitting upright, the fire light gleaming on his bare chest. He was muttering incoherently and then suddenly he chanted in the clearest of young voices "Through teeth, and skull and helmet" "So fierce a thrust he sped" "The good sword stood a hand breath out" "Behind the Tuscan's head"
She stopped amazed. She had heard her father teach her brothers and in turn Crastinus teach their son those words. They came from that ancient cycle of poems that described the founding of Rome and the city's early struggles against her neighbours. They were drummed into the minds of every free borne Roman boy but not often, if ever, taught to slave brats.
"I wonder," she said to herself as she sat to calm the still sleeping boy. "Could he really be? But then if he is he would be safest, as things are at the moment, with the slave boys here and if he isn't then that would be the right place for him any way."
What ever the truth of the matter, she told herself, it needed delicate handling. She resolved not to tell Crastinus and to bring forward her annual visit to her sister in Rome. While there she would no doubt be able to get a clear description of Marcus the son of Corax.