She reached out for a goblet of wine on the table and drank a little, then she turned to him and held the goblet to his mouth and made him drink from it, too. She forced it back between his lips, and laughed when it ran out over his chin. She set the goblet down, turned back to him and licked the wine from his chin.
‘Juno’s tits, I think she likes you, boy,’ drawled Genseric.
Lollia’s hands were stroking and circling his bare knees now, sliding by slow degrees up the inside of his thighs. He pulled away abruptly and leant forward.
‘Aw, lickle boy shy,’ said Genseric again, watching them through red-rimmed, half-closed eyes.
‘Aw,’ said Lollia, even more softly. She caressed his hair and trailed her fingertips down the side of his neck. He felt a scintillating thrill run up his spine and his skin broke out in goosebumps. He imagined cool mountain streams that caught the sunlight in He pushed her away again. Lollia sniffed crossly.
‘Maybe you’d prefer something more like what the Huns are supposed to,’ slurred Beric, grinning stupidly at him.
Attila glared at him furiously.
‘And what’s that?’ asked Lollia.
‘A horse!’ cried Beric.
The three of them, Lollia and the two brothers, found this hysterically funny. The blonde girl had fallen asleep now, pinkish saliva dribbling from the corner of her mouth and onto the fine silk covering of the couch.
Beric prodded her harshly. ‘Oi, wake up you stupid tart, we’re not paying you to sleep.’
But the girl slept on.
‘You know nothing about the Huns!’ hissed Attila. He could feel his blood pumping furiously. But no one was listening to him.
‘And they tie up the horse’s back legs first, so it won’t kick!’ shouted Beric.
‘Oh, that’s how you do it, is it?’ laughed Lollia. ‘I must remember next time. I got awfully bruised in the stables only last week.’
‘Then they roll it on its back,’ said Genseric, ‘and they’re away – these funny little yellow men, pumping away between the huge thighs of their favourite mare, like Cupid giving one to his mummy, Venus.’
‘It’s true – I’ve seen pictures of it,’ declared Beric.
They almost choked with laughter.
When the hilarity finally subsided, Beric collapsed into the couch. Lollia turned back to the angry boy by her side and began to whisper sweet nothings in his ear. His fists were bunched but he managed not to strike her. And after a few moments, even against his iron will, he began to relax again. Her warm fingers began to sidle up his thighs and under the hem of his tunic. And this time, although he hated her, hated them all with a fury – he couldn’t stir, but only close his eyes. The wine was beginning to make his heart beat faster and faster, as if he were running. He felt unable to move. Then he felt where her soft hand had reached to, and he gasped.
‘Ganymede’s arsehole,’ added Beric, ‘I think she really likes you.’
The boy closed his eyes.
‘Talking of Ganymede and his delectable… you know what,’ said Genseric.
Attila opened his eyes and saw the two brothers exchanging leery looks, and Genseric nodding towards the darkened chamber at the far end of the room.
‘Right you are,’ guffawed Beric, staggering to his feet and draining his goblet of wine. ‘Hold on to your ears, boys. I’m a-coming in!’
A few moments later, Lollia took Attila’s hand a little more firmly and pulled him to his feet.
‘Let’s go back there too,’ she murmured.
Bewildered and thrilled and terrified, he allowed himself to be pulled over towards the darkened chamber. ‘But, but… Aren’t… I mean, isn’t Beric already…?’
But the girl just glanced back at him, and smiled wickedly at him from under her long black eyelashes. ‘The more the merrier,’ she said.
They were at the doorway of the chamber. At first he could see nothing in the gloom. He felt Lollia’s arm round his waist, and she turned to him and he felt her warm breath against his ear. ‘Can you see what I can see?’ she purred. ‘Can you see what wicked things are going on in there? I bet you like to watch. I know I do.’
But he was more agitated now. For inside the chamber he could see that there was nothing but one huge bed, and on the bed he could dimly discern shapes moving about. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he saw that there were two more girls upon the bed, both of them naked, and making soft noises to each other, and taking it in turns to kiss Beric, who had disrobed as well. But although Beric was taking it in turns to kiss each of the naked girls, Attila could see that there was another figure underneath him as well. And then he realised to his horror that the fourth figure was also a boy, his face pressed down into the bed, and wearing nothing but a gold chain round his waist, and pearl bracelets around his ankles. Like a girl. Like a helpless slavegirl, dressed by her leering master. The boy on the bed raised his head and glanced up from under his horrible, cheap wig of flaxen curls, which they had made him wear so that he would look like Ganymede, and Attila saw how young he was…
‘No!’ he cried, pulling violently away from Lollia.
‘Honey,’ she said, losing her sensuous purr, ‘what-’
‘Get off me!’
He started to run back towards the door, but Genseric had lurched to his feet, laughing hysterically, and was standing in front of the door, blocking his exit.
‘Aw, lickle boy don’t like it? Lickle boy too young!’
Attila stopped in front of him, his eyes flashing furiously. ‘Let me out.’
Genseric shook his head sadly. ‘Not allowed. By order of the Princess Galla herself.’
‘Princess Galla didn’t order that,’ spat the boy, gesturing towards the darkened chamber.
The Vandal prince raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Is that a fact?’ And he began to laugh out loud again. ‘Is that a fucking fact?’
Behind him, he could hear the laughter of Lollia as well.
‘I have always thought,’ said Genseric, resuming his languid tone, ‘that the princess’s greatest strength is that she understands human nature so very well. Don’t you think, my darling?’
Lollia had reappeared by Genseric’s side, and he put his arm round her. They began to kiss again, in full view of Attila, each of them watching him out of the corners of their eyes, and smiling through their kisses.
‘You’re disgusting,’ said Attila quietly. ‘You’re just slaves of the Romans. You’re just monkeys in a cage.’
Genseric pulled back from Lollia and grinned. ‘Yeah, whatever – but look what they’ve given us in return. What a cage! What playmates! And this one, in particular – my beloved Livia-’
‘Lollia,’ said Lollia.
‘Lollia, sorry,’ drawled Genseric, pulling her towards him again, his hand sliding up under the back of her tunic and caressing her bare buttocks. ‘This one really is the most delectably filthy-minded little whore you could ever wish to meet. I tell you, she could really teach you some things – things you’d never dream of.’
Slowly and languidly they began to kiss again.
But they stopped abruptly when Attila put his head down and ran full tilt into Genseric’s stomach. The air whooshed audibly from his lungs, and he fell to one side, gasping. Lollia gave a little scream. Then she reached out and tried to grab the boy by his hair, but he was too quick and too sober for her. He ducked under her snatching fist, hauled open the heavy oak doors of the apartment and ran out into the courtyard. The last things he heard as he fled, towards his small, silent, oil-lit chamber, were Lollia swearing foully and Genseric vomiting onto the marble floor.
He stopped by a water-fountain where a slave was rinsing out a jug. The long summer day was now almost dusk. It was about the sixteenth hour since dawn.
‘Cup,’ gasped Attila.
The slave shook his head.
So he grabbed the jug from him and drank deeply. It was no cool mountain stream, but at least it was water, and it calmed him. He thrust the jug back into the slave’s hands and wiped his mouth.