Lupercalia

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Deep in the heart of wild Germania one would think to find nothing but unwashed, blood thirsty, naked barbarians. However Cornelia found that there was something of beauty to the savage dark forests and animal-like people. She looked upon the brawny rough warriors with their long braids, scratchy beards and painted muscular bodies and found them something to appreciate. Rome was still trying to pursue a peace with most of the territory which was why Cornelia and her husband Lucien were meeting with the king of one of the Northern tribes known as the Saxons.

Rome was still unpopular among the Germanic tribes. Unlike most of the civilized world, the Saxons and the Celts were stubborn, proud people. Normally the Legions had no problem with bringing down an iron fist to crush them, however, the Germanic tribes had proven that their will matched the children of the wolf. Still fresh in Rome's mind was the horrific massacre of three Roman Legions by Germanic warriors in the dark Teutoburg Forest. Soldiers, disciplined capable fighters, wiped out by a few tribes in the malicious, mysterious shadows of the forest. It was enough to send a chill down every Roman's spine. Since then, Rome has tried a more diplomatic approach. Words proved mightier than the Roman gladius.

Cornelia sat in her golden chair that she brought all the way from Rome along with other comforts to lessen the home sickness. Her female slaves attended to her hair which was the envy of all Patrician females. Long, silken locks so black it had a blue sheen. She was considered a natural beauty with her perfect olive skin, lush lips, long black lashes that fanned round cheeks, a dainty yet proud royal nose and eyes like indigo stones.

After putting her hair in the latest curling style bun, modest yet adorned with golden pins studded with blood red rubies, the slave girl took one of the loose strands around her round face and wrapped it around the long hot metal piece to curl it. Cornelia had just that morning plucked and burned off most of her offensive body hair. A long painful beauty process that wealthy Romans (male and female) endured for the sake of fashion. Though Lucien preferred to keep most of his hair. Being hairless was for effeminate boys and lazy youths, he would often say. That was fine. Cornelia preferred hair on a man.

"Ow!" Cornelia rounded on her slave girl to reprimand her. "Careful, you clumsy cow! If one hair is pulled from my scalp I shall have your hair burned off!" The slave girl made her humble apologies demurely, eyes respectfully cast down.

Cornelia "humphed" then turned back to the bronze mirror another slave girl was holding. The Matrona will admit, this slave girl doing her hair had more courage than the last one. The last one was a clumsy mouse who was far too pretty. This girl, Andromeda, was plain with pretty hair of gold. She withstood her mistress's temperament well and knew when to keep her mouth shut.

"That's enough, Andromeda," Cornelia felt satisfied with her appearance. Another slave girl added wood to the braziers aligning her room. Germania was so cold during winter. This frost was not good for her complexion. She had Lucien buy her extra furs to help keep her warm. She was wearing a saffron synthesis lined inside with rabbit skin. The sun was setting and the feast of Lupercalia would begin shortly followed by ceremony at the temple.

"Are you finished yet, my love?" Lucien walked into his wife's room barely announcing his presence. "I do not want us to make the chieftain wait."

"How like a man to rush," Cornelia teased in her smoky voice as she attached dangling gold earrings studded with rubies to her ear lobes. "War is far more easily won than the battle to obtain Beauty."

"As always you are a natural Venus, dear wife," Lucien smiled. Despite his 40 years he was still a handsome man. Cornelia could still be aroused by him unlike most Roman wives who's husbands were often much older grew fat and complacent once they retired from military life and joined the Senate. She was 21 years old and even though they had three children in the great city, two sons and a daughter, they still found themselves sharing a night once a week together.

"Often I wonder if your tongue is made of pure silver," her lush lips spread over into a winning smile, accentuating the sensuality etched in her face.

"These Saxons prefer gold coins to my silver tongue," Lucien chuckled, taking his wife's hand in his and brushing a kiss along it's back.

"The chieftain will give you an auxiliary force of Saxon warriors before winter has melted into spring," Cornelia glowed with pride in her husband. Lucien kissed his wife's temple with husbandly affection, his gaze drawing to the fruitful mounds of her breasts, a ruby and pearl pendant cradled in the silken valley.

"Only if my wife keeps flashing her stunning breasts at him," Lucien fingered the pendant, letting his fingers rest on the soft swell. "Last time his tongue almost fell out of his mouth." As the air sparked with their sexual tension, her husband allowed his eyes to stray. He cast a quick glance at the slave girl attending the braziers around her chamber, a hungry gleam in his eyes before he turned them back to her. He felt his wife shiver and he brimmed with masculine pride that he could arouse her still.

"Is that why you drag me to every banquet?" Cornelia didn't miss the glance he shot towards one of her slaves. She mentally shrugged. Not as if she hadn't sampled a few of his handsome male slaves. They were a typical Roman couple where love and sexual pleasure were never mutually exclusive. So as a present sometimes Cornelia bought a beautiful slave girl for her husband's erotic appetites. Not too beautiful as she still had her vanity.

"No, my love," he kissed her lips lightly with a soft brush. "You also light up these dismal mud halls with your cajoling smiles."

"Argentum Lingua, Lucien."

Tonight when the banquet was over she would send the brazier girl and the girl holding her bronze mirror to her husband's chambers. Tomorrow he would thank her generously with another gold necklace and that special talent he had with his tongue.

"If you are ready," Lucien offered her his arm not sparing the other slave girls another glance. "We shall be on our way."

The shadows of dusk danced about the Saxon chieftain's hall. The air was thick with incense, roasted meats, and laughing voices. So many Roman delicacies that tantalized and amazed the locals' eyes and tastebuds, the exotic aroma alone made the mouth water. Whatever their thoughts of Romans they knew the people from the south loved a good presentation.

Image was everything. The table was weighed down with roasted hare, doves, snails marinated in honey, pheasants glazed in fish sauce on a plate of baked apples and small thrushes for every guest. Exotic fruits such as pears, pomegranates, dates, oranges and lemons, many of which Germans had never seen before because of their unforgiving climate languished in fine glass bowls. It was a shame they didn't have any door mice, an expensive delicacy, but they did have goose eggs to compensate; also a luxury food.

Cornelia only wished they had served roasted peacock, her favorite luxury that she often had crown her table at banquets she hosted for the Emperor the rare occasions he visited. She reclined on the couch as her husband and the chieftain were deep in discussion. With the delicate sophistication of a Matrona she sipped at her watered wine watching the guests enjoy the decadent foreign delights her people had brought.

Meanwhile she lounged on a couch like some divine goddess gracing the Saxon hall with her presence. Wearing her synthesis of the deepest saffron edged with gold she dripped with rubies and pearls, golden earrings depicting Nike goddess of Victory dangled delicately from her earlobes, swaying at each gentle movement of her head. She had noticed the many admiring male gazes upon her as she lounged on the couch. Her breasts drawing the eye to a her lovely bounty. The women were envious of course but Cornelia ignored them.

The Saxon women had yellow hair, braids as long as their mens' wearing long green, blue and yellow tunics. Cornelia found their fashions crude. They all sneered at the Roman beauty.

"She looks more like a high priced whore than a wife."

"Look at my husband drooling into his cup at her."

"These Romans are nothing but hypocrites. Pretending virtue when they are no more chaste than us!"

Cornelia smiled secretly into her cup when Lucien tapped her shoulder. "Excuse us, my love," Lucien whispered. "Chieftain Adalwolf would like to introduce me to a few other tribesman. We will not be long."

"Of course, dear husband," Cornelia gave him a winning smile. They left her to finish her roasted thrush but it wasn't too long before two giants sat on either side of her. She had noticed them around. She curled her leg a bit higher, relaxing deeper into her luxurious couch as if to have the dress accentuate her womanly curves.

They were always with the Chieftain. Were they his sons? Body guards? Whoever they were their eyes devoured her as if she were the main course. She was used to such looks but these men were primitive in their bold stares as if they had claimed her before they even exchanged words. She shivered with expectation.

"We do not like the Romans here," the one on her right said but just as Cornelia stiffened the one on her left said, "But with breasts as delicious-looking as yours maybe they are not all bad."

Her lips twitched with the effort to try and not to laugh as her body relaxed again. Instead she adopted a disapproving frown and said, "What an impertinent thing to say to a lady." With their intense stares she couldn't hold back her laughter any longer. "Rome is right to fear you Saxons if only for your rough, uncouth tongues."

The two men grinned back at her. They were certainly everything young Patrician children were warned about. Big, muscular beastly looking men with scruffy beards, tattooed and wrapped in animal skins. Both emitted a primal vitality so potent it made Cornelia's womb clench. Even their natural musk was arousing; a dark, musky spice that weaved through her senses like a heady incense. The one on her right introduced them.

"I am Reimunde," said the man on the right. "And he is Elger, my brother."

Reimunde had long blond hair, savage with several braids. His beard was more trim than Elger's. His beard and mustache accentuated his lips which were fuller but masculine. Whenever he smiled those lips curled turning his mouth sensuous, knowing.

His eyes were a dark brown like the tannest leather. They caressed her with a devilish knowledge that combined with his smile made her squeeze her thighs together against a sudden ache. She wondered what his beard would feel like scraping against her fine olive skin. His tunic and bear fur covered most of his large body but his forearms were plain for her to see and they were covered in fine blond hair. His hands were as coarse and rough as he was. A man's hands. A warrior's hands. Lucien's hands were calloused but after years of domesticity had become finer.

Elger looked as wild as his brother. But his hair was dark brown like the bear fur he wore. His arms were covered in dark hair, skin tanned from the sun like Reimunde's. Elger's eyes were a light blue like a spring sky with flecks of green. His long nose looked as if it had been broken more than once. However, that added to his rugged look. His lips were thinner than Reimunde's but no less erotic. His neck worked at his swallow and Cornelia found herself wanting to place her mouth there. Both men were large and imposing and Cornelia felt the womanly ache in her core grow.

They were alike in some facial features. Long noses, high cheek bones and similar square faces. Both incredibly masculine and virile. "Are you sons of Adalwolf?"

"He is our uncle," explained Elger. Cornelia's eyelashes lowered seductively as she dipped a piece of her bread into her wine goblet. Her movements were slow and erotic, enticing the brothers with glimpses of her ripe cleavage. Reimunde growled like an animal when he saw a drop of wine drip slowly down her chin, along the column of her neck. Just before it could reach the soft swells the Matrona took a delicate finger and caught the wayward drop then with no shame placed the wine-tipped finger between her wanton lips.

"Tell me," she said, her voice suddenly throaty, casting a look of sensual awareness that made both men's guts sizzle. "Are your wives as charmed by such bluntness?"

"Reimunde is married," Elger answered with a taunting grin at his brother. "I am not."

"How unfortunate for you," Cornelia's lips curved in sexual invitation at Elger. "All men should know the joys of marriage."

"My wife can be as joyful as a viper bite," Reimunde sniffed bitterly with a slight frown.

Cornelia gave an elegant shrug of her shoulders. "We are not all so lucky to be matched with a good companion."

"And is your husband such a companion?" Elger asked eagerly.

"Impertinent," Cornelia's lovely eyebrows drew together in a disapproving frown yet the humor remained in her voice. But the brothers were not deterred. This Roman Matrona was a brazen vixen. In fact he was treated to a lazy smirk that gave her cheeks more defined dimples. Those lips were so luscious in their teasing smile it made both men pulse with the erotic tension forming around them.

"We only ask because your husband seems more interested in politics than keeping his wife at his side," Reimunde answered matter-of-factly.

With delicate fingers Cornelia took apart a strip of meat from her roasted dove then placed it in her mouth. She fixed Reimunde with a penetrating, vixen-like gaze. The corners of her mouth pulled upward in a promising smile, "My husband and I have an understanding."

"Romans are quite strange," Elger chuckled and took encouragement from this information.

"I suppose," Cornelia nodded. "But we do not necessarily equate physical pleasure with love. We prefer something more practical."

"Such as?" Reimunde prompted curiously. His skin buzzed with anticipation. He could not stop the lurid thoughts flitting across his primitive male mind.

"Contentment," she took a sip of wine to wash down the salty meat that parched her throat. "One may not have everything, the gods grow envious and seek to humble us. Yet we take what pleasure we can."

Elger had been focused on the woman's mouth, the way the lips parted to tenderly sip from the goblet, how her elegant throat undulated at each small swallow. His cock jerked beneath his breeches. That little pink tongue had flicked out at her lips to taste the remaining wine and foul left there and he imagined his cock plunging deep into her wanton mouth. Reimunde was of the same mind.

Reimunde fidgeted in his seat, his hand fixing his crotch. Cornelia's eyes had dipped down at the action, the lashes fluttering like butterfly wings. They bat at him in a playful wink full of suggestion. He growled. Definitely a vixen. He would enjoy riding her. She had a lush form with wide hips and full breasts. Very much like their German women. Most Romans he had met were mean, lean and small so he naturally assumed their women would be the same. Yet this one with her refined manners had a body made for pleasure.

Cornelia reached over to skim her fingers over his tattoo on his forearm. It was a picture of a tree being struck by lightning. "What is this?" she asked curiously, her fingers dancing lightly over the crude lines.

"It is a symbol of our family," he said, his voice taking on a more husky tone. "An Oak tree sacred to Woden, our sky god. My family claims descent from him." His skin electrified at her light touch.

"Really?" Cornelia turned her widened eyes to Elger. "Do you have such tattoos, Elger?"

Elger's face split into a feral grin. "Many in places that would make the most skilled whore blush." Cornelia boldly reached out, her fingertips stroking along his leather necklace to only brush suggestively along his protruding collar bone. Her eyelids half lowered, moving slowly in an inviting blink.

"Am I blushing, my lord?" Her voice was throaty, lusty. Elger and Reimunde were throbbing in their breeches.

"Cornelia."

The three of them turned to see the Matrona's husband with the Chieftain. Lucien's eyes bounced from both warriors to his wife in a familiar calculating gaze of a skilled politician. Her shoulders rose up in another elegant shrug, her lush mouth once more flashing her secretive, womanly smirk at her husband that made him want to laugh.

"Chief Adalwolf has requested you and I join him during the sacrifice," Lucien held out his hand to her which she readily took. She didn't spare the warriors a second glance except to bid them farewell and to thank them for entertaining her while her husband was gone. The warriors only fumed with their frustration, their cocks pushing hard against their breeches.

"Call upon us any time your husband leaves you so that we may entertain you again," Elger silkily replied, his eyes devouring her.

"Be assured that I shall, Lord Elger, Lord Reimunde," Cornelia gave a short bow.

As Lucien led her away with the Chieftain to the temple he asked her how she found the two warriors. His wife's eyes glimmered like decadent indigo pools, "Stimulating."

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Cornelia stood beside Lucien as they watched the Chieftain take part in sacrificing the two goat tributes. A small temple that Rome had built while occupation it wasn't as grand as the ones that mounted the 7 hills. The night was dark, shadows dancing in the glow of the torch lights. The atmosphere inside the temple was saturated with incense and deep throaty chanting. The sights and smells were so heady it created another world in which the gods could walk among them in disguise and mingle seamlessly.

Chief Adalwolf took the bowl of blood from the cloaked priests after they had painted streaks of blood down their faces. Marking himself he proceeded towards Lucien and Cornelia. He anointed Lucien with light strokes but with Cornelia, eyes dark with animal hunger, his thick calloused fingers lingered on her face. Blood coated her small yet proud chin, her round cheeks and taut forehead. His blood covered thumb even brushed intimately along her mouth.

She returned his suggestive glance, her tongue flicking out tasting copper and salt. Lucien saw some of the Saxon priestesses and their followers swaying and chanting while baptizing each other and civilians in blood. The Roman's lust was rising, his cock was surely tenting his robe. Senses heightened as the atmosphere thickened with incense and blood. Young men, half-naked and wearing wolf pelts and holding leather thongs dipped them into the bowls of blood then with a joyous howl imitating the animals they honored, they ran off into the crowd whipping girls' backsides who squealed in delight.

The young men could barely feel the cold wrapped in animal skins while heated by their own lusts and the dark energy taking over the whole tribe. They followed the Chieftain and priests on a procession outside. Lucien dragged his wife out of line into a dark corner between huts in the village. He didn't give her a chance to speak as he crushed his mouth to hers. Cornelia only answered with a moan and twined her willowy arms around his neck. He explored the voluptuous texture of her mouth in hungry groans.

His tongue tangled with hers as he pressed her harder into the crude hut. They tasted each other deeply, intoxicated by the night's wine and spicy meats and succulent fruits with the slight copper taste from the animal blood.

There was no elegance in this coupling, they were two animals in the heat of mating. Lucien roughly turned his willing wife around. She helped to lift her skirt as her husband panted heavily trying to find his cock to plunge deep inside her. She reached between her aching thighs to get herself wet, preparing. Her breasts swelled, her nipples pearling against the cold stone that penetrated even through her wolf skinned robe. Her lower belly tightened exquisitely as she felt the tip of her husband's maleness pressing into her soft petals. She arched her backside in a needy groan to help him.