============================================================ Lupercalian Promises A Valentine's Day Story of Sorts by Nancy Kaminski (c) February 14, 2004 ============================================================ The usual disclaimers apply. Permission is granted to archive this at the FTP site. All others, please ask permission first. ============================================================ "Lucius! Hurry boy, we'll be late!" His father's voice sounded annoyed, as usual. Lucius hurriedly finished arranging his toga, fumbling with the folds over his left arm so make it hang gracefully. The slave who normally helped him dress was on an errand, and the lanky sixteen-year-old was unpracticed at arranging the complex folds himself. "Damn," he swore. The length in front was all wrong. "Here, Master, allow me." Lucius jumped at the quiet voice that came from behind him, then blushed. Slender hands deftly rearranged the heavy wool, and the unwieldy garment seemed to magically settle into place. The young slave stepped back and regarded her handiwork. "Just right. I'm sure whoever you draw in the lottery will be very pleased." It was fifteen days before the kalends of March---the Lupercalia. Today was the day that two youths, chosen for their worthiness (and, no doubt, the amount of silver their fathers donated to the temple) would sacrifice a young dog and a goat, and then run through the city, dressed only in loincloths of goatskin, lightly striking young women with lashes of the same goatskin for good luck, purification, and fertility. No one knew exactly which god this pleased, but Romans had done this since the dawn of the city, and would continue doing it until the city died. Gods aside, everyone enjoyed the festivities, except perhaps the goat and the dog. As a part of the celebration, a youth would draw the name of a maiden from a box at the temple, and for the duration of Lupercalia, would treat her as his love. This could be a good thing or a bad thing---Lucius desperately hoped he would draw a lively and beautiful girl willing to explore the fuller possibilities of the festival, because this was his first Lupercalia. He had a sneaking suspicion, though, that his father had arranged with the priests for him to draw the odious Lavinia. She was the pale and boring daughter of Gaius Salonius Glaucia, a wealthy man Lucius' father hoped to entice into a business venture. If Lucius married Lavinia, the prospects of future profits grew much brighter. Lucius glanced at the slave girl. She was still examining him as if to find more adjustments to make to his appearance. She was a tall Greek girl, slender, with dark auburn hair and cool gray eyes, and one year older than himself. His father had just purchased her, ostensibly to serve as his wife Tertia's maid, but Lucius knew better. He had seen her summoned into his father's private rooms and not come out until the next morning. "I wish you were in the lottery," Lucius blurted out, unable to resist voicing his thoughts. The girl raised an eyebrow. "Slaves aren't allowed, Master. That's only for free Romans." Lucius blushed again at his foolish outburst. "Perhaps I should simply order you to my bed, then," he said harshly, the way a master should address a slave. In fact, though, he had been infatuated with the girl from the moment he laid his eyes on her. There was something about her very unslavelike, self-assured air that made her seem more a patrician than any of the women in his own family. She was everything that the odious Lavinia was not---and everything his teenage imagination envisioned as the perfect bedmate, or---dare he even think it---wife. Not that he thought that was in the remotest way possible. Bedmate, yes, but wife, never. Not a slave. She laughed lightly. "Alas, Master Lucius, I fear your father would not approve of that. He---likes me. And I don't believe he would enjoy sharing." She made him feel like a naïve schoolboy, which, truth be told, was not far wrong. Lucius' father ran a strict household, long on duty and short on pleasure, at least for the members of his family. He himself took advantage of his status as paterfamilias and did as he pleased to whomever and with whomever he wished. His son, on the other hand, led days full of lessons, physical training, and duty, even as his friends were learning the finer arts of wine, women, and song. Lucius did his best to fulfill expectations. Someday, he hoped his father would acknowledge his worthiness and praise him for his efforts. In the meantime he was filled with resentments and unexpressed desires that he could only harbor in his innermost thoughts. "He doesn't have to know," he said sullenly. He could hear his father moving about the atrium, barking orders at the head house slave about preparations for the evening's banquet. "How could I, a mere slave girl, keep a secret from him? Besides, your father and I are working out an arrangement. I don't dare ruin it by going behind his back, however tempting it might be." "An arrangement?" Lucius queried warily. She smiled slightly and looked demurely at the floor. "Yes, a business arrangement of sorts. He is interested in sponsoring a pleasure house in Pompeii, and, if I am lucky, *I* will be in charge. I have convinced him that I have some small expertise in that area." She raised her eyes and the demure look was gone, replaced by ambition. "He has promised to free me in five years if the profits are great enough." "Oh." "Why, your family has a villa there, does it not?" she asked innocently. "Yes, we go there to escape the summer heat," Lucius answered automatically, his thoughts swirling. She was willing, no, eager, to put on the toga, and become a prostitute? Then her meaning became clear. "Oh." "Well, then, perhaps, when your esteemed father's new business begins to prosper, you can visit me." "Uh, er..." Lucius stammered. He was both appalled and excited at the thought of dallying with her, even if it were in a house of prostitution and in his father's shadow. "Lucius! Come along!" his father's strident voice cut through the buzzing in his head. "Seline! Go tend to your mistress, you worthless chit!" "Yes, Master, I was just helping with Master Lucius' toga," she called. Lucius looked at Seline, who made a show of giving the folds of his toga one last minute adjustment. He lowered his voice. "I will see you," he said intensely. She looked him straight in the eye. "Yes, you shall, Lucius. You shall." Her hand lingered ever so briefly on his arm, and then fell away. She stepped back, lowered her eyes again in perfect submission, turned, and walked away, putting just the slightest extra sway into the movement of her hips. She glanced back at him briefly with the barest of smiles as she turned the corner, and then disappeared into the shadows. Lucius sighed in desire and frustration. "Coming, father," he called, and made a promise to himself. No matter who his father forced him to marry, Seline would be his eventually. Forever. FINIS =============================================================== Praise, complaints, and Roman teenagers may be directed to Nancy Kaminski nancykam@comcast.net ===============================================================