Gill Lover of Soldiers

1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5439-9582-4
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 355 Seiten

In the generation following the death of Alexander the Great, young Cineas of Athens says farewell to his homeland forever. He follows the fortunes of the Alexander's bloodthirsty successors as they battle for domination of the ancient world. Cineas' comrade and chosen champion is the fearsome warrior King Pyrrhus of Epirus. Cineas follows the conquering monarch from battle to intrigue to the beds of the beautiful women also grasping for power in that liberated age. The tale is that--not only of warlike Pyrrhus--but of resourceful and lusty Cineas himself, who was quite a remarkable adventurer in his own right....

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gill, Tom

Leseproben

IPSUS
It’s fortunate for me that I’ve never been called “the Rhodian” or “the Cilician” or some other sea-farer’s nickname. I proved a bad sailor and we were hardly underway from the Piraeus before this was brought out, along with everything I had eaten for some days previously. The sea voyage that started my career as a mercenary seemed to last forever. After signing on with the back-slapping Actaeon in the dockside tavern, I treated myself to a youthful last fling with the elegant prostitutes and drink-masters in the street of Sardis. I then set out, with a wobbling belly and swollen head but still clutching my bonus chit, to report to Demetrius garrison at Acrocorinth, a journey of some four hundred stadia. I went all afoot, round the Saronic Gulf on the coast road, by way of the sacred city of Eleusis (where they tried to sell me some religious trinkets to ward off the evil eye) and so to the little town of Nisaea. It seemed a long march then, and I was proud of myself. It took me three long days to make the journey. The advance money which I received from Actaeon as an earnest of my enlistment was too meager to be worth stealing, so I was eager to report and had an empty stomach when I finally arrived. I spent my last copper for cheese and Hymettus honey in a deserted shop at the village of Crommyon. Beyond that sleepy spot I was completely on my own, feeling my past life was over. I couldn’t feel too much of a loss, however, for I didn’t spend my every last coin for mere food. I still had a few coppers in my wallet when I finished the last of that strong, aromatic goat cheese. “Is that all of your money, stranger?” the cheese-seller’s shop-girl asked me, wide-eyed, as I wiped my hands on the wet cloth she offered submissively. Satisfied with myself, I boasted that I was on the way to join the Savior Gods’ army at Acrocorinth, that the few obols I had left would see me that far, and that I carried a chit for a soldier’s bonus promised me when I reached the fortress. “You were cheated, stranger,” the girl replied confidently. “They will have no bonus for you at Acrocorinth. But,” she continued coyly, folding up her cloth, “for one of your obols, I will let you see my breasts, since you are off to the wars, and may never see their like again.” She was a stocky country wench, with straight black hair and a merry face, quite dark from the sun. She was very self-possessed, though even younger than I. Her shapeless brown smock was gathered at her waist with a cord, and from what I could tell she carried proudly beneath it a pair of farm-bred udders well worth traveling some distance to view. I asked her what I might have for two coins. She showed her white teeth in the flash of a captivating smile. “You must not tempt me,” she said winsomely. “But you are such a masterful man, and I know you will make a brave pikeman. In a little while my grandfather will take his afternoon nap and leave me alone to mind the shop. Rest by the well until you see him leave, then come back here to me. I will shut up shop for a little while, and you may tell me how beautiful your think these are.” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Her bosom rose and subsided like jelly-fish bobbing at high tide. So, I waited as she had bidden me, leaning on my staff and dozing by the village fountain, until I saw the old man go tottering off. I strolled back and bolted the shop door myself. She was waiting quietly for me in a curtained-off corner of the cramped little den, seated cross-legged on a rough pallet. “Give me my obol, soldier,” she teased. “Show me your teats, first, wench,” I responded. She giggled delightfully, wrinkling her pert nose. Her eyes and teeth were very white in her face as she slipped her arms out of her tunic and held it against her. “No!” she chirped. “I won’t. You must make me.” I knelt down in front of her and pulled her arms away. She resisted just enough to excite me and then watched my eyes widen with a teasing smile. Her breasts were pointed and milk-white against the brown of her shoulders, with very large, very pink nipples. She was a thorough, healthy Attic peasant. “You may squeeze them if you like,” she sighed, and then I plunged my hands into that mass of warm flesh. She leaned back on her elbows, with her eyes closed, and caught her breath with a gasp. Her smell was clean and sun-bleached. She swayed her shoulders, moving her bosom against my hands, as if she had been waiting too long for someone to caress her. After a moment, I drew her toward me by those plump, protruding nipples of hers. She gave a precious little sob and her open mouth sought mine unerringly. Our hands were busy for a moment, mine at her breasts and hers brushing back my kilt to slide along the shaft of my erection. We were both or us fairly hissing with lust. “You must take off my robe and tie my hands,” she breathed hotly, through lips parted over her clenched white teeth. “Then, if Grandfather discovers us, I can tell him you raped me—he will try to kill you, but will have pity on me.” She held out her wrists, artfully pushing her breasts together with her forearms to emphasize the deep crease between them as she did so. She closed her eyes as I uncoiled the cord which snugged her smock around her waist and drew the cloth over her head. She was chubby with puppy fat, really only a girl, but she caught her breath again as I yanked the cord tight around her wrists. I looped it around a peg low in the wall behind her, straining her arms up over her head so that her big breasts rose and separated. She cocked her knees up and squirmed under me. Once again I felt that delicious sensation of being swallowed up by a woman. Her tiny heels curled over my back, then drummed on the dirt floor. I bent to take mouthful after mouthful of her warm teats as we abandoned ourselves to that frenzy which the followers of Dionysus are so right to worship. “You will wield the longest, heaviest pike in the phalanx,” she cooed when we had finished and lay gasping together. She held out her wrists and I unbound them reluctantly. “Now you must kiss me and hurry on before Grandfather returns. Someday I know you will be a great soldier, and I will be the most famous courtesan in Hellas. Remember me, if we meet again. I love you. Goodbye.” She was shaking dust from her tunic as demurely as if nothing had occurred when I left her at the cheese-shop. I marched on much refreshed. I never did learn her name, but she was a capable girl and I was hoped she would achieve the goal she prophesied for herself. Perhaps she helped me achieve mine. I reported the next day as a mercenary for Demetrius and asked the officer who swore me in for my promised bonus. “Your what?!?” he snarled. Acrocorinth was an important stronghold, guarding the Isthmus of Corinth between Attica and the Peloponnesus, with the Saronic Gulf on the east, and the Alcyonian on the west. The fortress was one of Demetrius’ permanent garrisons and a big training camp for his mercenaries. There I received an introduction to real service, along with a draft of Arcadian shepherd boys and ne’er-do-wells from forsaken little valleys all over Hellas. My service in the recent fighting against Cassander earned me a rating as temporary file-leader, with a squad of eight peasant lads to boss around. It also helped that I could read, write, and speak good, pure Attic, which was the army’s language. Many of my file-mates grunted and gargled in backwoods accents you could barely understand. Most of the time we merely drilled in the shoddy, gray issue tunics provided by the quartermasters, learning the basic trumpet calls and marching commands. Moving troops in step by the tootle of the flute is a tricky trade. If a thousand hoplites were lined up in the agora here in Syracuse, say, it’s not every general who could get them out again. At any rate, our drilling was cut short. The conflict in Asia, to which Demetrius had been called, was approaching its climax. The Besieger and old One-Eye were calling up every man they could to fill their ranks, novice soldiers or not, and at least my bunch could keep more or less in step and hold their pikes up straight—wobbling pikes, I had learned, were a sure sign of wavering troops. Some soldiers never learn that much. So, one gusty day we drew weapons and equipment and made ready to depart. I felt quite confident, arrayed in a stiff linen cuirass, greaves, a handy little concave bronze shield eight palms across, a helmet, and a pike with a staff three times as tall as I was. At last I was on my way to a glorious and profitable military career. My only complaint concerned my boots. They were good Iphicrataean-style issue, but had apparently been made for a pair of those Blemmye barbarians you read about in traveler’s tales, with but one leg and a single big foot apiece. I walked on more water from blisters on our march back to the Piraeus than if I had waded the whole distance from Acrocorinth along the sea-shore. Our syntagma, about 250 strong, under a blustering fellow named Polites—a queer name, from Homer, which has just come back to me; I wonder what became of him?—formed up in drizzling pre-dawn darkness with a couple of other...