Calvin C

Cai

The Slave Boy from Britannia

Cai tripped over a root and sprawled head first into damp leaf litter. He cried out in pain as he hit the ground, his cheek grinding into loose stones. The boy lay still for a few seconds, panting hard, his breath a visible cloud in the cold grey dawn light. His lungs burned and he was so bone tired, that the effort of pulling himself to his knees seemed almost too much for him. But then he heard the dogs, and knew that he had no choice.

He stood up and yelped in pain as he put weight on his ankle. He had twisted it as he fell. He crouched down again, and looked at the ankle. It was covered in dirt and blood from a web of scratches that ran from his bare feet to his bloodied knees, but it didn't look broken.

The dogs howled, excited and too close. Cai gingerly got to his feet again, and started to lope along, every step shooting agony through his ankle, but he dared not stop. He had to get to a river – that was his best chance of evading the dogs.

The boy crashed through a small thicket, not noticing the undergrowth lacerating his legs. His already tattered tunic caught on hawthorn and tore, leaving behind fabric – more evidence for the dogs and the men chasing him. He did not stop to think about it. He could hear the river, and he ran along a forester's track now, tears spattering down his face at the pain of each step. He skidded and fell down a bank, and landed with a loud crack on the shingle river shore, his shin colliding with a rock.

Cai shouted out in pain, the noise escaping him involuntarily. He swore every curse he knew in his Brythonic tongue and then dragged himself to the water's edge. All he had to do was throw himself in and swim downstream. He was a strong swimmer. He had swum the sea of his native Mona many a time, and this river might be swift but he knew he could make it.

But it was not to be.

Cai was in the water, staggering forward, ready to leap into the deeper waters when the first dog leapt down the bank. The boy squealed as the animal snarled and jumped for him, and he lost control of his bladder. As hot pee ran down his legs, the animal knocked him down with its huge paws and sank its teeth into his arm.

He tries to shake it off, and to stagger the last few steps into the safety of the running water, but two more dogs were already on him. By the time the first of the men arrived on the scene, they found the boy huddled in the river shallows in foetal position, screaming for mercy.

Cai had never been so afraid.

***

"Strip."

The boy looked up as his master's chief steward entered the small dark cell he had been in since his capture. How long ago that was he did not know, as no light came in from outside, but his stomach told him it had been at least a day. The boy pulled off the tattered remains of his slave tunic, and stood naked. He felt less ashamed of his nakedness these days, but he well remembered the first time he had been stripped of his clothing, his feet dusted with chalk as he was pushed onto a makeshift podium in the forum to be sold.

He remembered how he had told the slavers that they had made a mistake. How his father was an important copper merchant, and his ship had been taken by pirates. He had watched his father die at the hands of the pirates. When the pirates had landed – the gods knew where – and sold him to the slavers he had tried to make them understand that he could pay them handsomely if they took him home to Britannia. He was heir now of his father's wealth. They had just laughed at him and told him if he ever repeated the tale, they would cut out his tongue.

Cai had said little after that. But he knew that if he could just somehow get word home that he was alive, then someone could buy his freedom. He had bided his time, suffered the indignity of standing naked in the forum, with gawping children, sympathetic looking women and over interested men. He had let them touch him, and inspect his teeth and ask him questions and he had not repeated his tale. Not while the slavers were nearby.

And then he had been bought, and taken home, and allowed to wash. He was given his tunic and a slave mentor who spoke his language.

He had soon discovered that no one wanted to put any past wrongs to rights. If he had been born a Roman Citizen, apparently there was something that could be done, but his mentor had explained that there was no chance that his new master would even attempt to contact the barbarians beyond the bounds of the empire itself.

And so the boy had waited, and learned some Latin, and attempted to do his duties well. But as the weeks rolled on, he knew that he would run away. He had not been born to servitude. His family had employed slaves of their own – more slaves than his new master had. He was richer than his owner by rights.

They had warned him strongly. Runaway slaves earned a whipping at best, but crucifixion was possible. He had shrugged that off at the time. Surely they would not crucify a boy not yet in his 12th summer. Now that the prospect of punishment was more real, he was not so sure.

Cai blinked away tears and looked at the steward. The man was also a slave. He was a stern task master but not without sympathy. His voice was softer when he told the boy to follow him.

***

"You stole from me boy". Gaius Valerius crossed the room and lifted Cai's chin, so that their eyes locked. "When you ran away, you were stealing my property. I bought you. Do you understand this?"

Cai nodded. The man was talking slowly in Latin. Slow enough that the boy understood well enough.

"I should have you flogged."

Cai shuddered. His master was studying his reaction, and did not speak for some fifty heartbeats. Cai tried to look penitent, although all he felt was dread.

"I should have you flogged. Or crucified. Or branded."

Cai's mouth was dry, and he trembled.

"But you are a handsome boy. Very handsome for a barbarian. I don't choose to harm your good looks. Nevertheless, I will not abide theft. I am told that you believe that you have an inheritance in Britannia, is that correct?"

Cai nodded. His master knew of that? His mentor had passed on the information? Hope sprang inside him like a new shoot following the spring rains.

"Tell me boy, is it not the case that in Britannia, your custom is that only men inherit?"

"Yes master." Cai confirmed. "Athough with my father dead, and my twelfth summer coming up, I will be …" He forgot the Latin word for eligible, and after casting around settled on "permitted".

Gaius Valerius snorted. He crossed the room and spoke in hushed tones to his steward. The man nodded and left the room for a time. All this time, man and boy stood in silence, before eventually the steward returned and nodded to his master.

"I am sorry boy, but there is no question of you being permitted to return home. Rather we must put that possibility beyond question."

Cai felt anger bubble inside him. He was rightful heir to his estate. Why would his master not allow him to return home. He was about to speak, but Gaius Valerius raised a hand.

"Don't interrupt me boy. You will not speak unless permitted.

"Now custom amongst you barbarians is that only men may inherit. The solution to your desire to steal your service from your rightful owner is simple. When you are not a man, nor a boy any longer, there will be no question of you inheriting anything."

Cai felt his mouth go dry. He opened it to speak, but no words came out. Not a man? not a boy?

"You really are a very handsome slave. I do so hope the gods favour you with life." And then he waved to the steward. "Take him away"

***

Cai squirmed and pulled at the ropes that held him strapped to the table. Tears rolled down his cheeks as the house barber entered the room, and started to sharpen his knife. The boy could not speak, as his mouth was filled with a rag, bound in place with a strip of leather running around his head. He moaned, and struggled, but his restraints were unyielding.

Fingers of dread seemed to expand and spread in his stomach and the boy voided his bladder, the pee splashing onto the wooden table and warming his legs. The barber sighed and signalled another of the house slaves to pour cold water from a bucket to wash the table clean again.

Cai made a choked sob into his gag. He felt like he was not really here. This could not be happening, and the pain that he knew was coming surely could not be meant for him. He closed his eyes.

Hands probed his hairless genitals. He felt the barber stroke his cock and moaned as it stiffened at the touch. He had not long learned about the good feeling you could get by rubbing yourself down there. Before his captivity he had never felt it, but in the last month he had been secretly stroking himself at nights, and it felt good.

The barber saw the cock stiffen and smiled.

"Before we set to work, I can give you one last gift." He said, and continued to stroke. Cai moaned, but despite his fear his young and awakening body took over. As the stroking became firmer and more insistent, the most amazing feeling he had ever felt suddenly erupted through his cock. Rubbing felt good but he had never felt anything like this as he experienced his first and last orgasm. The boy thrust his pelvis forward, tightening his butt cheeks, his mind almost exploding with pleasure. All other thoughts were gone. For a few fleeting seconds, all Cai felt was the perfect pleasure of his cock throbbing and pulsing through its first and only full dry orgasm. For a few seconds Cai forgot his terror, and anguish and outrage.

And then it was gone, and in its place there was shame, and all the terror rushing back.

The barber looked like he had enjoyed the boy's orgasm himself. Now he was running fingers over his small tight ball sac, and tutting to himself.

"Such a pity. But master's orders." He said, and gritting his teeth, he cut away the boy's scrotum with a deft flick of his hand. He had lifted it up and dropped it to the floor before Cai knew it had gone. Remarkably he did not seem to feel much pain.

His relief was short lived though, because when the barber clutched the small grey orb of his testicle, pulled and sliced the tube, pain erupted deep inside him. The testicle dropped to the floor with a tiny splattering sound, and one of the dogs swallowed it at once. Cai did not see the other testicle cut, as he closed his eyes, body rigid and his voice erupted into a muffled scream into his gag.

Hot burning pain between his legs, worse than anything he could imagine, mixed with a nauseating intense ache in his gut. The boy howled as best he could with a mouth full of cloth, and pulled with all his strength at the straps that held him firmly to the table, galling his wrists and ankles.

But the barber was not done yet. Now he took the boy's now flaccid cock, and with a swift motion he severed it close to the base, and gouged out the root.

The pain was everything now. All the world was agony for now and evermore. He had descended into the underworld where the weak and faithless were tormented for their cowardice. It was as though he could never know anything but this terrible biting, burning pain ever again.

Cai mercifully passed out.

***>

When he came round the pain was still terrible, although now the intense cutting agony was lessened and replaced with a dull ache and the smarting of a recent burn. The boy moaned and for some time did not open his eyes. When he did so, he was still strapped to the table, and there was a dark burn between his legs where the wounds had been cauterised.

Cai sobbed.

Everything had been stolen from him now. His ability to feel that pleasure of orgasm was gone forever. His masculinity was robbed from him. Everyone knew that eunuchs counted as less than women. His inheritance was gone too. Even if he ever escaped this place, he would be despised and cast out and ineligible to inherit. He would also never reproduce his father's line. The bold and great house that he had been born into would end with him.

There was nothing left but this terrible pain.

If he had not been bound to this table, he would have found a knife and ended his life.

But he was bound. And the boy drifted back into a delirious, grief stricken and fevered sleep.

Gaius Valerius checked on the sleeping boy and smiled.

He really was very very good looking.

For a barbarian.

The End