Esca Asleep
Marcus liked to watch Esca sleep.
He remembered clearly, from their months of searching for the Ninth Legion's lost eagle in the northern wilds of Valentia and Caledonia—nearly a year ago—how soundly his Briton shield-bearer and companion could sleep. Esca had slumbered peacefully through the wildest of weather. Neither howling winds nor thunder and lightning appeared to disturb him, whereas Marcus, a light sleeper when the occasion called for it, had woken at the slightest sound, his senses at the alert and his heart thudding frantically with apprehension.
There was no reason for apprehension now, but Marcus, coming to consciousness in the small hours of the morning, with rain drumming loudly on the tiled roof of Uncle Aquila's villa, realized that the clatter of the storm must have jolted him awake. The horrible crack and boom of thunder, almost directly overhead, was more than enough to ensure that he would not be going back to sleep, and with nothing else to occupy him, Marcus propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at the young man lying beside him beneath the fur coverings and loosely-woven linen sheet. It was still dark, but the smoldering remains of a fire in the brazier cast enough light to see by.
His former slave had always been interesting to look at, with that lean, wiry dancer's build, his deceptive slenderness, his secretive, narrow-lipped mouth in a boyish face that more often than not wore the look of a sullen mask. Eyes that changed from grey to a limpid blue, depending on the color of the sky. Russet-brown hair, shot through with blond and bronze. His proud warrior's stance. Brown in summer, creamy pale in the depths of winter, and beneath his tunic and bracco, silky to the touch. Not a languidly pretty man, like that wretched tribune, Servius Placidus, and certainly not the solidly robust, Herculean Roman ideal. But Marcus had found an element of edgy charm in Esca's appearance from the day they first faced each other as master and slave, or perhaps from the moment he had first seen him in the arena, stripped to the waist, blue tattoos, bruises, and blood standing out against the pallor of his skin, chin raised defiantly and eyes brilliant with pride and hostility. Even before their return to Calleva, the eagle of the Ninth tucked snugly into Marcus's travel pack, he had begun to see him-without admitting it to himself-as beautiful in his own peculiar way. Below that intense, uncompromising face of hollows and angles that was so uniquely Esca, his body reminded Marcus of the trim, compact, and athletic youths immortalized in marble by Greek sculptors, examples of which—looted from Greek cities by men of the legions long ago—now graced the peristyle garden of many a Roman villa.
In the daylight, even under Britain's frequently cloudy skies, Esca's movements had a linear, angular quality, a sharp kind of grace, that caught the eye. During the hunt, his every gesture was stealthy and fluid. In the first few weeks he spent as Marcus' slave, whenever he accompanied his master to the forum or the marketplace crowded with Romans and thoroughly Romanized Britons, his expression had hardened, skin tightening over the angular planes of his face, lips pressed together in a thin line, eyes lowered. He had stayed that way until they were once again on Uncle Aquila's land, but even this brittle tenseness had appealed to Marcus' sense of aesthetics; he made Marcus think of a sinewy young cat, poised to spring. Those days were in the past, and Esca, a slave no longer, now moved through the teeming throngs on market day with a confident briskness, exchanging words with acquaintances, food vendors, and merchants, cordial but never servile, his chin lifted a little with a trace of his old defiance.
Marcus himself, dark-haired, green-eyed, tall, fit and handsome after the Roman fashion, had never taken much notice when he himself drew the eyes of the townspeople of Calleva. His scarred and damaged leg, and the slight limp that sometimes appeared when it rained or was particularly cold and damp, seemed to him a physical disfigurement that outweighed anything else (although virtually anybody could have told him differently). In addition, it ensured his permanent disbarment from the legions; he would never be permitted to follow the Eagles again. But he kept himself in good condition, ran in all weathers, practiced with the pilum, sparred and wrestled with Esca, and was dimly aware that his body—broad at the shoulder and chest, narrow at the hips, muscular and solid without being excessively bulky—was nearly as strong and flexible as it had ever been. That he had the kind of face and proportions beloved of Roman sculptors and painters entirely escaped him, and he gave it very little thought when people glanced at him in the marketplace or the forum. If, however, their gaze lingered on his former slave, Marcus' eyes narrowed just a little, and without his knowing it, took on the icy stare of possessiveness.
Once, Esca caught him glaring in this way at a passing red-cloaked legionary, whose beady, curious eyes had just looked Esca up and down. He had said nothing, but his lips had quirked upwards in a smile, and his grey-blue eyes had met Marcus' hazel-green ones before he quickly turned his head and glanced elsewhere.
"Something amuses you, Esca," Marcus had said wryly, but his friend had not risen to the bait.
"I see nothing amusing," he had replied simply, lifting his chin—his signature gesture—and looking down his high-bridged nose, his expression a deliberate blank, but Marcus could sense that he was laughing to himself.
Marcus never asked Esca about his previous masters. He did not think there had been many. He wondered, of course, but doubted that Esca had any desire to tell him whether or not he had been ill-treated, beaten, or used for sex. He had been captured in war; Marcus knew that much because Esca had told him, and although the Brigantes constituted the most widespread of the British tribes, the little sub-tribe to which Esca belonged had been all but obliterated, with the few survivors sold into slavery days later. And while it was plain that nobody had been able to break Esca's spirit, and it was rather unlikely that he had been any Roman's pleasure boy (soft, sweet-faced lads of fifteen or so being more highly regarded than hardened young warriors for such a purpose—and anyway, keeping a youth solely for that sort of activity was not something any well-bred Roman would brag about openly), Marcus found the thought that another person mighthave taken the clothing from him, touched that smooth, fine-grained skin, forced that stubborn mouth to open, or bent that slender, sleekly muscled body, like a bow, into a posture of submission, made him feel physically ill.
At night, in the privacy of Marcus' small sleeping chamber off the atrium, in the dim, red-gold light from the brazier and in the narrow confines of the simple cot, Esca's lashes brushed against Marcus' throat, and he tipped his head back to allow Marcus to mouth along the sharp, pristine line of his jaw. In spite of his wiry strength, his physical and mental tenacity, his fire, he felt so slight in Marcus' arms, seemed so light and slim when pressed against the large, solid bulwark of his own body, that everything in the former centurion's soul that urged him to protect, to defend, sprang to the fore. Now, whether they took one another gently (and Esca assumed the dominant role almost as frequently as Marcus did), or grappled roughly and ferociously like competing soldiers in bed, the aftermath was always the same: Marcus—once he was sated—was tender with the young Briton, kissing his brow and his cheeks and his eyelids, caressing him until he drifted into slumber.
When they first became sleeping companions, Marcus had very much hoped that Esca—who was a warrior, after all—would not be affronted by this kind of tenderness, this gentle handling. But it seemed that he was not; he permitted it, and, in Marcus' arms, Esca—his fierce, beautiful Esca—allowed himself to become gentle in return.
And now Marcus watched him as he slept, arms relaxed at his sides, head turned to the side against the pillow, lashes flush against his cheeks. Smooth, gracefully modeled chest rising and falling. In a little while, he shifted in his sleep, one hand spreading lightly over his groin, as though to protect himself.
"In Judea," Marcus had told him, once. "Men's foreskins are cut open, so that the head…"
Esca had made a muffled sound, his eyes has widened as his hands went involuntarily to the front of his bracco.
"It is done when they are very young," Marcus had gone on, reassuringly, in an effort to be informative. "It is a custom. It does no harm, and does not appear to impede…that is, to hamper their ability to…"
Esca had given him a look of such horror that Marcus had to pause, and then laugh.
"Where did you hear such a thing?" Esca had asked, eyes still widened with disbelief.
"My uncle served in Judea for a time," Marcus replied, patiently. "Although many of his years in the legions were spent here, in Britain. He swears to me that this cutting does no damage to the men; it does not alter their masculinity or…Name of Light, Esca, there is no need to look so appalled. I doubt that you and I will ever go to Judea."
Not long after that, an old friend of Uncle Aquila's, who had marched with him under the Eagles in Judea, and remained there for some time after, came to pay his old fellow legionary a visit. He was a bluff, affable fellow named Caius Licinius Varus, and he recounted many an entertaining story, over dinner, about his adventures in various foreign lands, including Greece, Gaul, and Spain. But Esca had watched him curiously from the corner of his eye, and had appeared in the bathhouse with a bucket of hot water just as Varus and Marcus were stripping off and preparing themselves for the caldarium.
That night, in his sleeping chamber, Marcus had doubled over with laughter as Esca stood and watched him, his lips pressed together and hands on his hips.
"Now it is Marcus who finds something amusing," he snapped, after Marcus's roars of mirth subsided into gulps and hiccups.
"Oh, Mithras! Esca! You can't deny that you came to the bathhouse to see whether I was telling you the truth about the men of Judea," Marcus replied, wiping his eyes.
"I saw no removal of skin on Caius Varus' member," retorted Esca, lips still compressed into a narrow line.
"Caius Varus is not a Judean, Esca, he's Roman born and bred."
Esca was still eyeing Marcus suspiciously. "You really aren't making it up? That custom?"
"I never lie to you, Esca."
Esca looked vaguely skeptical.
"If you'd traveled as much as Uncle Aquila, you would have witnessed many customs that seem alien to us. Your blue warrior markings, for example, were a surprise to many men of…of the legions when they first came here."
"Hmm."
"It does seem strange," Marcus continued, musingly, "the desire to remove a part of a man's body. Of course, we Romans never—" and then he stopped dead in his tracks, so to speak, flushing slightly as his eyes went to Esca's ear—part of which had been clipped, the unmistakable, identifying mark of a slave.
Esca had given him a sardonic look, eyebrows raised, but had relented moments later when he saw that Marcus was both embarrassed and distressed.
"You did not do this, Marcus," he said quietly, raised a hand to his ear and then lowering it, his own cheeks faintly pink. "And it was you who released me from the shame of it…when you gave me my freedom."
"As I should have, long before I actually did," Marcus had replied gruffly. "And it was the Senate that granted you Roman citizenship."
Esca shrugged. "What do I care about Roman citizenship?" he said, very low. "Save that it will make things easier for you—and for me—when we negotiate a land purchase."
"Speaking of which," Marcus interjected hastily, "there is land in the Downs Country, quite close, that is going for a good price."
"Ah," said Esca, in a ruminative voice, smiling a little. "Good country for raising horses, that, as well as farming." As he spoke, he slid his loose tunic over his head and let it fall.
"Good for…yes, and for farming…uh," Marcus had muttered hoarsely, losing his train of thought entirely as he reached out for the young man whose tanned limbs and face, and autumn-leaf hair, contrasted with the milky skin of his chest and stomach and loins. Esca had laughed and then they wrestled each other into bed, where Marcus had all but squashed Esca beneath him in his ardor and apologetic enthusiasm.
It was good to remember those times, those moments of shared pleasure in the quiet of Uncle Aquila's house, where the only sounds at night were the shrilling of insects and the soughing of the wind in the trees beyond the garden. Soon enough, they would be living in a far more modest dwelling place on the Downs, without the little luxuries offered by life in a residence with a proper hypocaust, an atrium, a sunny courtyard with potted rose trees, a housekeeper-cook (it was difficult, sometimes, to think of the formidable Sassticca as a slave, as she had a habit of tyrannizing the other slaves herself), and a bath house. In their new home, they would have none of these things—at least, not in the beginning, and they would never—Marcus had promised—own slaves. Hired help would do, once they could afford to pay for it.
Uncle Aquila would miss them; he had said as much to Marcus. But they would be close enough to visit at least once a year, Marcus reminded himself as he watched Esca shift and turn a little in his sleep, linen sheet falling away to his waist. A man who has known loneliness does not want his nearest kin to feel lonely, and Marcus knew he would never abandon the old man who had stood by him during the darkest days of his life. Now that he was happy, that he had been granted enough in the way of a pension to put a little money by, in case of a poor harvest or bad weather, now that he had Esca to care about and to care for him, he often had to remind himself of Uncle Aquila's generosity and kindness.
The sudden flash of lightning that illuminated the sleeping chamber was accompanied by a deafening drumroll of thunder that could, in Marcus's opinion, have woken the dead. He gave an involuntary start, sweat beading on his brow, whispered "Mithras, Lord of Light," and, for the first time since he had come awake, felt Esca stirring at his side, saw his eyes open and then focus. Marcus looked at him a little shamefacedly, and Esca responded with his slow, serious smile, and a hand on Marcus's forearm.
"It will pass quickly," Esca said calmly. "This time of year, the storms are brief but fierce. Did it wake you?"
"I—no," Marcus said valiantly, half sitting up. "Certainly not. We have rainstorms in Etruria too, as bad as this, you know."
There was another rumble of thunder, softer this time, and Marcus felt the muscles of his shoulders and back relax.
Esca raised both eyebrows, and the playfulness that occasionally emerged from behind his quiet inscrutability made itself evident, in the quiver at the corner of his mouth.
"You see, it is moving away now," he said, in such a reassuring voice that Marcus felt compelled to make up for his little display of weakness by reasserting his manhood and proving his desire for Esca for the third time since the sun had set. And besides, to be able to watch that mobile, narrow-lipped mouth open in an O of ecstasy, see those grey-blue eyes roll upward, half veiled by silky lashes, as a flush suffused that pale, angular face, was infinitely better than the simple, childlike pleasure (however blissful) of watching Esca sleep.