Amazon - Slave of Rome

Chapter 2 - You Killed My Horse

Whistles and catcalls rang in Marcus’ ears as he made his way back to the barracks. The barely repressed laughter had started as he stabled his horse. The auxiliaries nudging each other and whispering behind his back sent him repeatedly spinning around to confront them only to find the rough men of his turma feigning keen interest in their bridles and other tack. That had been bad enough. Infuriated he sought the relative privacy of the barrack block. But as Marcus reached the lane between the soldiers’ quarters the men’s hilarity had broken out into full-scale merriment. Forgetful of their own mistakes and misdemeanours they were glad of some light relief from the tensions of the cavalry games and the haughty newcomer was a deserving target. At last that up-himself little prick had come in useful.

Marcus’ neck pulsed, his teeth clenched. Anger now superseding embarrassment with each gravel crunching step Marcus was just about ready to kill the next moron that whistled or whooped at him. Hearing someone at his shoulder Marcus turned sharply, prepared to floor whoever had the temerity to get this close. The sight that met him stopped him in his tracks.

Instead of an ugly battle-scarred cavalry-man Marcus was confronted by a lithe and beautiful girl her long tangled fair hair a mist framing a perfectly formed face. It was only on focusing on her flashing blue eyes that he had the shock of recognising the young cataphract he had unseated during the Hippika. The source of his humiliation.

            Tulla’s woollen kurta was wrapped tightly across her breasts, the lightly padded jacket was held together by a tooled leather belt that nipped her in at the waist. Together with her skin-tight kid trousers the kurta, traditional dress of the Sarmatians, served to emphasise Tulla’s long legs and slim waist. Marcus’ felt like he had been punched in the chest and, momentarily distracted, he struggled to remember why he was angry with this wonderful apparition. Immediately Tulla reminded him,

            “Irrumator! Cocksucker. You killed my horse and now you owe me another.” Tulla yelled in Marcus’ face before launching into a long tirade in a language that Marcus could not understand although the meaning was all too clear. As Tulla screamed at him Marcus was painfully aware of the audience of old sweats who sensing further entertainment was gathering.

            Reluctant to strike a woman – tempted though he was – Marcus tried to catch Tulla’s waving arms in an effort to calm her down. But one touch from him just sent her into further paroxysms of rage and Marcus had to fight the urge to either shut her up with a swift upper cut or by walking away. The former he felt would just prove to his comrades that he was only good for fighting women and the latter would probably result in this deranged female hounding him from pillar to post haranguing him in her accursed foreign tongue. Despite her lack of Latin she had obviously amassed quite a vocabulary of the juicer swear words with which she liberally peppered her own language in order to leave him quite certain as to what she thought of him.

            Behind her Marcus could see his compatriots doubled up with laughter. He tried unconvincingly to smile at them with a look that he hoped said, “This woman is clearly delusional I am only humouring her for Juno’s sake”. No one was fooled. Marcus’ wan smile merely aroused his cohorts to further bouts of guffawing.

            Enough was enough. Marcus drew back his hand. He’d silence this demented Harpie or die of shame. Suddenly Marcus was grabbed by his raised elbow and spun around. He was greeted by a knee crunching into his groin and a hammer-like blow to the bridge of his nose. Contorted with pain Marcus collapsed to the floor.

            Mhea her Kurta hanging open, dark hair loosely twisted in a long plait, stood over him.  As his vision cleared, one hand cupping his bruised genitals the other his bloodied nose, Marcus could just about focus on the dragon mouth that gaped wide on the tattoo that ended on the she-devil’s right hand. Impotent all he could do was roll back onto the dusty path draw up his knees and groan.