‘You really do have a poet’s soul,’ she purred.
‘And you’ve a face that’s aglow with all the glory ay the heavens themselves.’
Aurora’s face took on a cast of immense gravity, of solid sincerity.
‘William … I need you to do something for me, right now.’
‘Anything you ask ay me.’
‘Kiss me.’
William had kissed girls before. The first had been a plain, frumpy farmer’s daughter he’d met at the village market, and they had taken a liking to one another, on more than one occasion meeting in the fields where they had ended up kissing and engaging in fondling and casual petting. The farmer had put a swift end to it when he had found out, and William was still under threat of castration by hedge-clippers should he ever again set foot on Farmer MacGladdery’s fields.
As he slipped his arms around Aurora and pulled her in for the kiss, he was at least not a complete neophyte to the act. He ran his fingers through her thick, wavy hair and an invigorating thrill coursed through his body as his lips parted hers. Then, as the glorious heat of her wet mouth and warm tongue met his, it was as if a gunpowder keg had been detonated in his mind. His past kisses with the farmer’s daughter had been both exciting and enthralling, in the usual manner of new experiences, but that was where the similarities between those kisses and this kiss ended. Never before had he felt such exquisite, soul-shaking, intoxicating pleasure. A volcanic heat spread from his sucking, licking, devouring mouth all throughout his body, igniting all of his nerve endings with the intensity of magma gushing from a fissure in the earth’s crust. William’s fingers danced across Aurora’s velvet skin, and it was as if she was a fire drake, plunging everything into a ruinous but glorious inferno.
They kissed and kissed, again and again, and turned in the water, running their eager, eager fingers over one another’s bodies, digging them into taut muscles and soft, yielding tissue alike, exploring one another’s contours with delectable curiosity for what seemed like an eternity, until they were both gasping for breath and aching at the jaw.
‘William … that was…’
‘The most beautiful thing I’ve e’er done, m’lady,’ William replied, his chest heaving up and down and his pulse thundering.
‘I’ve never kissed a man before,’ Aurora said, still gasping for breath. ‘Is it always like this?’
‘No, I dunnae believe it is. This was … special. But, you’ve really ne’er kissed a man? I mean, I’m no’ surprised, as you’re a high-born lady, but you told me about the nude paintings, the posing at the art school, all ay that?’
‘Yes, all of that is true, but it does not mean that I’ve ever had romantic liaisons. I have never met anyone with whom I wanted to do that, you see.’
William smiled and caressed her cheek and jaw with ever-so-gentle fingertips, gazing into her eyes all the while.
‘Until now,’ he whispered.
She smiled and draped her arms around his shoulders.
‘Yes … because you’re the first man I’ve ever met who … who could truly comprehend freedom. And this has been the most wondrous thing I’ve ever done. It is freedom, given form.’
‘Let’s dae it again, angel, let’s dae it again.’
They embraced again, kissing with a furious and desperate passion until the sun began to sink low in the sky and the biting chill of the water became unbearable. They reluctantly disengaged and got out of the pool, and William was unable to take his eyes off her exquisite figure as she dried herself off and got into her clothes. A sense of dreamlike surreality was tumbling about his mind with even more zest and energy than the cascading water behind him.
‘Before we set off,’ William began, ‘there’s something I must tell you.’
‘What is that, dear William?’
He looked into her eyes, and spoke with a sincerity that came from the very depths of his core, from the essence of his immortal soul.
‘I love you m’lady. With all my soul, with all my mind, with all my body, with every ounce ay my blood an’ the heart that pumps it, I love you. And I will continue tae love you until the end ay time an’ all things.’
PART THREE
12
OCTAVIAN
January, 80BC. Rome
The grunts, cries, moans and groans of multiple couples engaged in acts of sexual congress reverberated around the clay-walled corridors of the brothel and rang in Claudius’s ears, the sound waves boring into his brain with the unwanted persistence of burrowing parasites. He glanced over his shoulder at his companion, who was shuffling along behind him, and saw the same expression of distaste mirrored in Lepidus’s small, wrinkle-creased eyes, two embers glowing wrathfully in the shadows of the heavy hood he wore to hide his face. Flames from the smoking torch-brands flung eerie shadows across the gloomy passage, illuminating in swirls of amber, ochre and crimson the pornographic mosaics that decorated the walls, bringing the nude two-dimensional figures to the brink of life.
‘Why on earth has Octavian summoned us to meet in such a vile, uncouth hovel?’ Claudius grumbled. ‘It is unbefitting of our standing as senators of the Republic to step inside such a low, revolting den of sensuality as this!’
‘Be silent and follow the guard!’ Lepidus hissed. ‘Only Jupiter knows what kind of cutthroats and lowlifes are frolicking behind these curtains! They’d slit our throats for two denarii, no doubt. Quickly, quickly, he’s rounded that corner!’
The two elderly men hastened their pace and scurried after the guard, who led them down a flight of stairs and past a gaggle of naked, giggling prostitutes of all shapes, sizes and ethnic backgrounds, until finally they arrived at a stout oaken door, reinforced with bands of steel. The guard rapped on it six times in a peculiar rhythmic pattern, and a muffled voice from behind the door demanded that a password be spoken.
‘Gold begets power, power begets gold,’ Claudius muttered through the keyhole.
The door swung open,
