Free Silk and Steel (Siren Publishing Classic) by Lindsay Townsend

SILK AND STEEL
     

    LINDSAY TOWNSEND
    Copyright © 2009
     
     
     
     
     
Chapter One
     
    Rome, AD 80
     
    'I intend to sell you tomorrow,' remarked her seated master, as he perused a letter.
    Standing before him in the library, bathed in the blood-red rays of the setting sun, Corinna trembled from head to foot. Why was he selling her? What had she done wrong?
    'Your service has been adequate,' Silvinus Cato continued, without raising his suave, patrician face. 'Indeed, for a female I bought only last month from a public bath-house, you have proved surprisingly adept. Remind me, how long were you in that establishment?'
    'I do not know, Master,' Corinna whispered. 'Many years.' For as long as she could remember, she had lived in the bath-house on the Street of Armorers in Rome, slaving first as a cleaner and later as a girl trained to bathe and to please men. Silvinus Cato had bought her, put her to work in his kitchen and never mated with her. It had been a blessed relief. Now that fragile peace was about to be ripped away.
    'Master!' Desperate, she dropped to her knees. 'Who is the buyer? Who wants me?'
    'The gladiator, Decimus.'
    A killer? He is selling me to a killer?
    'He spotted you at the baths last month, but I bought you first. He likes red-heads and he wants to make me a substantial offer for you. See that you acquit yourself well.'
    Silvinus Cato raised his head. 'Decimus does not know that we are Christians, Mary,' he warned, using Corinna’s secret, baptismal name. 'When he allows you out alone, then and only then will you attend our services. We shall still see each other there. Until that time, I shall tell our priest why you are absent.'
    Why? If you care for me at all, why sell me? If you are a true Christian, how can you sell me to a gladiator? How can you speak so casually of my missing holy services? Our priest has given me hope, yet I am to be kept away, denied his teaching and comfort. How can you do this? I thought you bought me for the sake of mercy and charity!
    She dare not speak. In the time since she had been in his household, and despite her 'adequate' service, Silvinus Cato had beaten her for walking too quickly, for smiling at a chestnut seller, and for coughing whilst he was reading. Her master was a cold, proud man, outwardly correct and honorable, seemingly charming when it suited him to be so, but filled inside with a freezing anger. To him, Christianity was an interesting concept, but not a way of life, or a true faith.
    The priest believes in him, though. Joseph, the holy man, believes Silvinus Cato will be saved through Christ. And he did rescue me from whoring in the public baths.
    'Master, please.' She put all the pleading she could into those two simple words. Silvinus Cato regarded her without pity. 'Go,' he said. 'Prepare yourself for tomorrow. You must be as you were in the baths: appealing and available. Go.'
     
    * * * *
     
    Dazed, Corinna stumbled back to the kitchen, too shocked to speak to the other slaves. Later, unable to sleep, she wandered out into the garden and knelt by the old well, dropping pebbles into the water, trying to pray but failing. As the long hours of the night dragged on, she felt abandoned and ill, her stomach burning, her mouth dry. She had felt safe in the house of Silvinus Cato, but he was going to sell her—and to a gladiator!
    Decimus . The name meant 'Tenth'. Had he killed ten men? Ten women? Ten children? Decimus, the hired killer. Only bath slaves were more reviled than gladiators. And she would have to touch him, submit to him. She wanted to love and be loved. She had always longed for love, but not with a murderer. I can't , she thought wildly, her head throbbing as she squinted into the darkness, mentally clawing for an impossible escape.
    And then she heard a soft snapping of twigs, and then the gentle thud as a strong, toned body dropped into the garden after scaling the surrounding high wall.
    It's him . She knew at once and was