Free Clash of Iron by Angus Watson

slave, this time a male one who was alternately tensing each pectoral muscle of his shaved chest.
    He would never be able to persuade anyone to do anything with magic. He was magically barren. On the voyage from Britain he’d failed again and again to light a fire with his mind until eventually Drustan had confessed that he’d cheated that first time, and lit the fire that Ragnall had thought he’d lit. His tutor had done it to encourage him, he’d said, since he’d thought he might be the powerful saviour druid that had been foretold. Instead, Spring was the druidical messiah and Ragnall had no magic at all.
    He didn’t blame Drustan and he couldn’t miss something he’d never had. In fact, it was something of a relief, since it meant that he hadn’t used magic to make Lowa have sex with him, so he could in no way be accused of having raped her. She’d dropped Dug and shagged him purely because she was selfish and unkind.
    A while later, it had come up in conversation that Drustan had told Lowa about Ragnall having no magical ability, well before he’d confronted her in her hut. So she’d known it wasn’t rape! But she’d persuaded him that he had raped her, and used that to make him forgive her for killing his family, and to go to Rome. She was more than unkind, he thought. She was evil. He wasn’t sure yet what he was going to do with all these revelations. He had lots of ideas. Returning to Britain and reporting to Lowa as if nothing had happened was not one of them.
     
    He shook his head as he walked out into Caesar’s garden and the noise of a hundred conversations. To cheer himself up and clear Lowa from his mind, he reminded himself how he’d amazed Drustan by learning to speak Latin in the couple of weeks it had taken their ship to reach Ostia, Rome’s port. Apparently people spent years studying to be as good as he was. Indeed, a week after their arrival he was already more fluent than Drustan, who’d been speaking Latin since he was a boy. So he may not be some weirdo magic maker, but he was a great deal cleverer than most.
    And better looking, he added to himself, as a glamorous older woman peeled away from the throng of partygoers, grabbed his arm and spoke very close to his ear.
    “Wotcha,” she said “I’m Clodia. Clodia Metelli. What’s your ’andle?”
    Her rough accent was a surprise. She wore precisely applied make-up, a blue tunic that shimmered expensively in the breeze, a golden necklace of knuckle-sized precious stones and a heady perfume that wafted an aroma of young flowers and wealth, but she spoke like the street-wretches and rag traders from the Aventine Hill, the poorest quarter of Rome where he and Drustan had found the cheapest lodging.
    “My…?”
    “’Andle. Handle. Name.”
    “Oh sorry, I’m Ragnall Sheeplord.”
    “What a name. From Britain?”
    “Yes! How did you—”
    “Got some British slaves. You sound the same. Come with us then, Ragnall, I wanna hear why you’re talking to me and not carrying a tray of drinks. Talking of drinks—”
    Clodia whipped two golden glasses from a passing slave’s tray, beckoned with a tilt of her head for Ragnall to follow and walked away through the crowd. Her flowing tunic clung to her rear, which swung mesmerisingly below a narrow waist. Ragnall had a quick look about for Drustan and didn’t spot him. He shrugged and hurried after Clodia.
    They passed a group of older, sensible-haired, clean-shaven men in red leather shoes and finely made togas with broad purple stripes. They were looking with undisguised distaste at a gang of young men dressed in transparent, loosely belted tunics. The more youthful fellows all had similar goatee beards. They were looking back at the older men, talking under their breath to each other, all scratching their heads with one finger as if it was a secret sign, then giggling. One of them pointed out Clodia and Ragnall and they giggled all the more.
    The women, mostly standing in small