something soft, warm and round in his left hand and a thunderstorm building inside his skull as he realized that the thing squirming against his groin was a pair of firm female buttocks that were only just covered by the short tunic their owner wore. He tried to release Domitia’s left breast, but her hand clamped over his, and when he attempted to move away the buttocks squirmed all the harder, making the sensations he was experiencing close to unbearable.
‘Do not move, Valerius, I beg you,’ she whispered.
She wriggled round beneath the cloak to face him and her mouth came to his, her breath still sweet despite the days without water. He knew that the two slave girls were sleeping less than twenty paces away, but it was the most natural thing in the world to kiss her and to feel her body moulded against his. More natural still that when the tunic rode up above her hips his hardness should find her softness and with a wriggle of her hips it was as if he had been engulfed in oiled silk and the heat of it made him groan. Domitia crushed her lips against his so fiercely that he could feel the individual small white teeth behind them as she fought to suppress a moan of pure pleasure. Valerius wrapped both arms around the slight figure and held her to him, the passion flowing between them, the frustration of being unable to give it full rein making it all the more intense. Suddenly she stiffened, her eyes opened wide and she shuddered against him and he could not prevent himself from following her. Slowly she relaxed and he felt her lips nuzzling his cheek.
‘I have prayed for this day, ever since the morning I watched you exercising with your soldiers.’
Valerius smiled. ‘I thought you were looking at Tiberius.’
‘Tiberius is nothing but a boy,’ she said dismissively. ‘And I think that Tiberius is only capable of loving himself. You were different. I looked at you and saw a man.’
‘But not a whole man.’ It was part of the burden he carried that if the hand was not mentioned he must point it out.
She wriggled closer. ‘Your wooden hand is as much a trophy of war as the phalerae you wear or the Gold Crown of Valour you hold. Even with a missing hand you are twice the man of any other I have met.’
He shook his head. ‘It should never have happened. I should not have let it happen.’
A soft finger touched his lips. ‘Do not say that, my love. It was meant to be. It is possible that by tomorrow or the next day we will be dead. Why should I allow the gods to deny me any longer?’
He had no answer, but he still knew it was wrong and he had a feeling that her gods would demand a reckoning in their own time.
‘It must not happen again, Domitia. Your father…’
‘Is hundreds of miles away. You are such a fool, Valerius. For us, there is no future. Only now.’
She slipped away and woke the two girls and together they went to wash away the smoke and the ashes of the previous night in the surf. Serpentius was already up and checking the bodies from the battle for signs of life. The skin on his shaved head was blistered and his face still black from his rescue of the slaves during the night. Valerius wondered just how much he had heard of what had happened earlier, and received a cool look that confirmed his fears.
‘So we fight our way out of one trap to fall straight into another?’ the Spaniard grumbled as he hauled Susco’s headless corpse towards the sea where he’d already sunk three of the dead mutineers. ‘By Mars’ sacred arse, he’s beginning to stink already.’
‘A slave should mind his own business,’ Valerius pointed out. ‘I believe it was you who told me that.’
‘How could I mind my own business when you made enough noise to wake Susco here?’ the Spaniard complained, letting the body drop to the ground as he straightened to face the Roman. ‘And even a slave knows that when an old tom cat plays with a leopard kitten he’d better watch out for the leopard.’
Valerius noticed that Serpentius didn’t mention Corbulo by name, but the surge of guilt he felt was like a spear in his guts. How could he have let it happen? He was a man full grown, he knew the boundary between sex and love. And he had never allowed himself to cross it since his time with the British girl Maeve at Colonia. There had been slave girls aplenty in the proconsul’s palace at Carthage where he had spent eighteen months as military aide to Aulus Vitellius. Yes, Domitia had come to him in the night, but a sane man would have sent her away again. Instead, he had allowed himself to be hypnotized by the heady brew of her youth and beauty and sensuality, and betrayed himself and her father.
He saw Domitia watching him from the shadow and he wondered what was going through her mind. Their coupling had been urgent and as unstoppable as the waves that had battered the Golden Cygnet to pieces. While it was happening she had whispered words like ‘love’ and ‘for ever’, but how much of it had been driven by the intensity of the events of a few hours earlier? He had experienced before how a combination of fear and the unlikelihood of survival could swamp the senses and warp the mind. Would she end up despising him for his weakness as much as she had praised him for his masculinity? He looked up and found the Spaniard still staring at him. ‘The leopard is far away and I’m more likely to die of thirst than on another man’s sword.’
Serpentius nodded thoughtfully and changed the subject. ‘Maybe Susco had a point.’
‘You think we should try to walk to Judaea?’
‘Not Judaea. But I have been thinking there must be some kind of trade between Egypt and the Judaeans and the most likely route for that trade is surely along the coast. Perhaps if we strike inland we can find the road?’
‘And if we can’t?’ Valerius said. ‘What then?’
‘Will we be any worse off?’
The Roman nodded to where the three women now lay beneath the sailors’ awning. The sun had barely risen, but already they could feel the threat of its fierce glare. By midday it would be unbearable even beneath the shelter of the canopy, every drop of moisture leached from their bodies by a furnace heat reflected from the burning sand. Domitia’s slave girls had been affected more than any of them by the dehydration and their condition had not been helped by the terror of the previous night. They moved with an almost pitiful lethargy and no longer responded readily to their mistress’s commands.
‘How long do you think they would last out there?’ He pointed inland where the red dunes marched away in relentless tight-packed ranks beneath the blistering sun. ‘At least here we have shade and we’re conserving our energy. There may be a few things on the ship we’ve missed. No, we stay here and wait it out.’
‘Then we’re dead if Tiberius hasn’t got through.’
‘Tiberius is not the man to give up.’
‘If he was coming back he should have been here by now.’
Valerius looked the other man in the eye. ‘If you want to try it alone, I won’t stop you.’
Serpentius shook his head. ‘You were right. We have to stay together. These poor fools didn’t understand that and look where it got them.’ He picked up Susco by the arms and resumed dragging him away. ‘When we’re finished here, I’ll go out and give the ship another search. I’m certain there’s no more water, but I should be able to find some grease for the general’s daughter in the galley or where they stored the horse harness.’
Valerius nodded absently and stared westwards across the desert as if he could conjure a rescue party by the force of his will.
‘He’s out there, I’m certain of it. If we can only last another two or three days we will survive.’
The dribble of water Valerius poured into his mouth did nothing to relieve his thirst; if anything it made the need sharper. Domitia saw that he was more generous to the others than he had been to himself and insisted he take more.
‘We all drink or none drink. We all live or none,’ she said.
They lay beneath the awning, but the sun’s rays were so strong that the shelter of the thin canvas was largely illusory. Valerius did what he could to shade Domitia and her women from the worst as they lay panting in the sand, their flesh desiccated by the relentless heat, but soon he could only collapse beside them.
Suki, the elder of the girls, went mad as the noonday sun reached its highest point, her mind consumed by the knowledge that the next drink, or perhaps the one after, would be their last. She ran into the sea and no one had the strength to follow her. The last Valerius saw of her she was flailing her way towards the Golden Cygnet, but the next time he looked up all he could see was the glare of the ocean. Her fellow slave did not even raise her head.
Someone, it must have been Serpentius, found the fortitude to dole out the last of the water just as darkness fell, and none of them knew whether it would be sufficient to see them through to the next dawn. Valerius was beyond torment now, and beyond guilt. His last thought before he lapsed into unconsciousness was to cover Domitia’s body with his own to fend off the chill of the night.
