This is a story that I started a while back and felt like I should finish. Now I feel like I could start on a new project if I wanted to.
Enjoy!
Loyalties
by
Kid Indy
As agreed upon in an exchange of secret letters, the caravan met with ben-Giora's men in the valley of Rephaim at sunset, and the Judean insurgents led their Parthian sponsors along the road to Jerusalem. Sarah could not help but notice that the men who joined her own soldiers, including the head escort who rode beside her, spoke in heavy Galilean accents. "What news of the resistance?"
"Not good, my princess. Vespasian of the Kittim is marching from town to town in Galilee, and none has been able to resist his armies. My own band had to flee to Jerusalem to escape them."
"So the resistance is consolidated at Zion?"
"What resistance is left. When tidings of the battles gone badly began to come to the city, many began to talk of surrender."
"But Giora and the other Galileans rallied them, did you not?"
The man paused for a second, and Sarah could not see his face in the darkness. "In a manner of speaking."
"Speak directly, Galilean. I represent my father, and he is not to be trifled with." She could see the man's surprise even in the darkness.
"Watch your tone, princess. You are the daughter of King Monobaz, but you are still a woman, and--"
"A woman with the funds to pay your fighters. Even if you northern rats looted the temple you could not do so!"
"Watch your tone!"
"Answer my question!"
"Ben-Giora had all traitors and cowards killed! We Sicarii cleansed Jerusalem of all who would fear the Kittim pigs in the holy city!"
Now was Sarah's turn to be silent. Gathering herself, she managed, "My father will not think well of these developments."
"Your father is of the diaspora. We Pharisees will take your Parthian gold, but never once believe that Babylon is Israel!"
Sarah let her horse's pace drop off, and she and her bodyguards rode alone along the way to Jerusalem.
* * * * * * * * *
Centurion Decimus Scaevola waited at the top of the cliff, overlooking the road below. The informant had been right, and the caravan, guarded by at most fifteen men, was passing underneath on the narrow road. His men had dispatched the sentries guarding this pass easily, and here, fewer than eight miles from the walls of Jerusalem, he was sure that he was going to ambush successfully a supply caravan intended for the insurgents and might positive proof that the Parthian kingdom of Adiabene was financing the Jewish revolution. He gave a hand signal to one of his men, and within seconds, the moonlit silent command filtered down to his armored squadrons of twenty legionnaires each, who set up shield walls ahead of and behind the caravan. Screams started to rise up from the ill-prepared vanguard and rear guard, and Roman archers began to file in behind the shield walls. Flare arrows went into the sky, and Scaevola called out in Greek to them below:
"Surrender and give loyalty to Caesar! If you surrender, we will treat you as prisoners of war. You will have food and water, and if you are of the province of Judea we will not harm you. If you raise a weapon, we will cut all of you down!"
A woman's voice called back up to him. "I am Sarah, princess of Adiabene, on a diplomatic mission to give succor to King Agrippa of Judea in his time of trouble!"
Scaveola grinned in the darkness. "Then approach the shield wall behind you." One of the horses slowly moved behind the ox-carts. "Allow her passage past the shield-wall, and convey her south to our base." The men parted, and two horsemen flanked her and began to lead her away. Scaveola watched them ride away and out of earshot, then turned to his lieutenant. He whispered to him, "Take the Parthians prisoner and release the Judeans. Any Galileans you find, crucify them."
* * * * * * * * *
Sarah awoke in a large house. The day was full, and she realized that, after falling asleep not long after her long ride, she had slept for several hours. Soldiers guarded the door to her room and its single window, and although she was fearful of the Romans in general and of their soldiers especially, she did note that her body was unharmed. She addressed them in the trade-Greek that she had learned back home: "When is your commander coming back? King Agrippa will be awaiting my visit." The soldiers did not respond. "As princess of the kingdom of Adiabene, I demand to speak with your commander!" Still nothing. About an hour passed, and Sarah was consigned to look out her door to see soldiers, detachments of about ten at a time, marching past the door every few minutes. Then the soldiers snapped to attention and saluted as someone entered the room adjacent to hers. She quickly stood up from her bed and prepared to act royally.
Through the door came a Roman (she could tell he was Roman) in officer's armor. With him were two soldiers, the ones who had ridden with her. He had the look of a man who knew battle but retained a youth in his eyes that told Sarah that he was still a young centurion. Standing tall over her, his large hands moved with the grace of an orator's when he spoke. "Welcome, Princess Sarah, to our little home away from home."
"You are detaining a friendship envoy from the king of--"
"I detained nothing friendly last night, princess. The friends of strife are no friends at all."
"I will not stand here and let you accuse me!"
"And yet I do. And what of it?" He smiled hungrily at her. "Let me introduce myself. I am Decimus Scaevola the Milidigiti, and I am a centurion in Vespasian's army. Our mission here is to intercept a caravan with gold to pay the rebels in Jerusalem. Your caravan was headed to Jerusalem, your carts filled with gold coins, and your origin a Parthian kingdom. We know that you are supporting their little revolution."
"I come on a mission of friendship to--"
"You come for no such reason! No ambassador carries that kind of gold, and no sane friend of Agrippa would travel through Jerusalem, the city that hated him and expelled him." Sarah fell silent. "I do not come to accuse you; your guilt is already evident. I come to find out the whereabouts of Simon Bar Giora."
"I do not know that name. And I had not yet received news that--"
One of Scaevola's men chimed in. "The Galileans with her were of Giora's party. She knows where he is." Sarah was silent. "Sir, we should take her to be tortured with the others."
Scaevola turned and put his hand on his soldier's shoulder. "With the others? Friend Gaius, this is a Princess of Parthia! She may be siding with insurgent vermin, but she will always be a princess. We mustn't harm her royal body." He turned and ran his eyes over her with all the slavering menace of a wolf. "And such a body would be a horrendous sacrifice to the whips." Sarah stepped back, bumping into the bed's frame. "No, I really must insist upon questioning her myself. This house's former master was prudent enough to provide a chamber underground for cool repose in the summers. Have some men carry a servant's bed down there and prepare the chamber. Then bring her down to me so that we can talk. Both of you fought well for me when we took this little manor; I'll let you remain with us." Sarah could not help but shudder as the men looked at each other and Scaevola exited the room.
* * * * * * * * *
Scaevola, out of his armor and in the sort of comfortable tunic that one might wear to Nero's entertainments, reclined on a couch next to the thin servant's bed. His men had tied ropes, softened by wrapping them round with spare bedclothes, to two legs. The room, large by Judean standards but not overly large, was lit by torchlight. Beside him on the floor was the satchel that his closest officers had come to call his Milidigiti bag. He used one finger to open it slightly, looked inside briefly, then closed it again. The door at the top of the stairs opened to the ground level above him, and his two officers led Sarah down to the room, one of their hands on each of her arms. The centurion beheld a young woman, marriageable age but not much older than eighteen summers, and knew that her royal circumstance had thrust her into a war that life had not prepared her for. She was tall, with the slender build of a young woman accustomed to horse-riding and book-reading rather than childbirth and housewifery. Her smooth hands were crossed in front of her, and her riding boots still covered her feet. Long, curly black hair, now let down, fell over her shoulders and framed a deliciously delicate, olive-skinned neck, itself a pedestal for a fine-featured face, the beautiful dark eyes of a Persian Jewess and a pair of lips that themselves would invite fantasies of luxury.
"I only wish, princess, that there were more room on that bed. But alas, I'm a centurion, and you're an enemy of Rome, and there's no time for us to enjoy the things that beautiful women like you are meant to enjoy."
Sarah could see perfectly well that there were ropes tied to the bed. "Then you are going to torture me."
"I would never cause such a delicious young body pain. We are going to have to talk about your friends in Jerusalem, though. Gaius, Marcus, secure her hands and unbuckle but do not remove her boots." The men dragged her to the bed, pushed her onto her back on it, and with some struggle, looped the bedsheet-covered ropes around her wrists. The ropes crossed above her head, so her right hand was tied to the post behind and to the left of her and vice versa. After they had tightened those bonds, they moved to her feet, and each, following orders, grabbed hold of one riding boot and unbuckled the leather straps before holding it. Trying out the bonds above her head, she realized that she could just barely cross her wrists if she moved her hands inward and could only bring her elbows down level with her shoulders if she moved them outward.
"Would you have your men hold my legs as you whip me?"
"Whip? I do not whip such lovely young women, princess." He reached down into his Milidigiti bag and pulled out a surgeon's knife, which gleamed in the torchlight. Sarah began to scream, and the two centurions squeezed her lower legs tightly and pulled them apart to keep her from kicking. "I don't cut such beautiful flesh either, but I do want to have a look at it." At this he took hold of her light riding tunic (it was summer) and began to cut it down the middle, exposing her torso. As he had hoped, open air delivered the slender, curving figure and small but pronounced breasts that her clothes promised. He cut away her garment from her waist up and from her collar out, laying it out to the sides and exposing everything down to her riding belt. Sarah's light Persian skin blushed heavily as the Roman beheld her nakedness.
"May the God of Israel strike down the one who would defile a woman!"
"If he doesn't pretty soon, you're out of luck, because my century has control over this little village. Now tell me. Where is Bar Giora?"
"I've never heard the name, Kittim pig!"
"Kittim! I've never gotten the Kittim thing. The empire is Rome, love, not Cyprus. But I figured you'd come hard. Men, be sure to hold on to those boots when I start. Now Sarah, I'm neither going to rape you nor cut you." (He was, in fact, putting the knife back into his bag.) "Do you know any Latin, Sarah?"
"I do not speak the language of the Kittim!"
Scaevola sat down next to her on the bed, his thigh running parallel to hers. Gaius moved to the center of the bed's foot, still holding on to her boot. "The language of the world, really. The important parts, anyway. So you have no idea what Milidigiti means, do you?" Sarah merely glared. "It means a thousand fingers. When I was fighting your countrymen in Armenia, I met a slave trader. A whoremonger, really, but that's what's so helpful in moments like these. You see, Sarah, this whoremonger told me that in order to make a strong-willed woman do what she's supposed to do, a man has to have a thousand fingers. Do you know what that means?"
A puzzled glare, but still just a glare.
"I'd rather show you than tell you. But let me tell you this: if you lose your boots, I'm going to do to your feet next what I do to your body now." Sarah was now horrified and confused.
In a second the confusion left his companion, and Sarah knew exactly what was going on. The Roman's fingers (he had only had ten just a moment before, but Sarah was starting to understand his name) began to pinch her gently below her ribs on the sides, and she jumped. The other soldiers shifted their grips on her boots. Sarah squirmed and clenched her eyes and lips shut as the kneading pinches became more rapid. Her hips began to rock back and forth. "Be careful, Sarah. If I get a look at those feet of yours, you never know what I might decide to do. Now be a good girl for Milidigiti and tell me what this feels like!" Her eyes still shut, she squirmed as little as she could, but his fingers, pinching her gently and wandering from her sides out onto her belly, were making it impossible to stay still. Or silent. "You can't keep yourself from laughing, Sarah. You might as well start now and enjoy it!"
"I'll enjoy seeing you die!" Sarah tried to shout, but once her voice started out of her mouth, the Roman caught it with his tickling hooks and would not let it go. And when she started to giggle, the full-body laugh that followed jerked her so hard that her left foot slid out of her boot. In vain she tried to kick out at one soldier, who deflected her kick easily as he dropped the boot to the floor, and as she struggled to free herself, her right foot soon tore itself out of its boot. Scaevola did not even move his hips, much less stop tickling Sarah's midsection, as she kicked both legs wildly. She bucked and twisted away from him, laughing as she went, and he simply moved his hands to where her body went. The two soldiers pulled back a step, watching her flail her feet at them and scream and laugh, and Scaevola only interrupted his fingers' ticklish ministrations to grab her belt when she almost fell off the bed away from him and to pull her back onto the bed. When he did so, the two soldiers pounced on her calves, one of them wrapping a thick arm around her knees and the other a blanket around her ankles. Sarah's bucking took on a smaller arc as her behind bounced again and again off of the bed. The centurion had now started to wriggle the fingers of his right hand under her arm, drawing fresh screams and making Sarah fight harder, though no less in vain. His left hand continued to squeeze at her side and to poke a certain spot under her ribs that made Sarah jump every time he did it. Sarah could feel the ends of the blanket being secured to the legs of the bed's foot, and within seconds she could neither separate them nor lift them more than a few inches off the bed. Still the Roman tickled her.
When he finally stopped, the feeling of bedclothes on her back made her realize that, even as he touched every ticklish spot above her waist, he had pulled her shredded riding tunic out from under her. Perhaps he did have a thousand fingers. Her bare back lying on the bed, feet bound, bare chest heaving, Sarah raised her head and spat at Scaevola. "You will suffer for this disgrace!"
"You've lost your boots, your highness."
"The whole land of Parthia will hear of this!"
Scaevola rose and began to walk towards the foot of the bed. "Those are some lovely feet. Are they ticklish?"
"Don't touch me, you Kittim monster!"
"Don't pretend you aren't enjoying this." He stood up calmly and walked slowly to the foot of the bed. "But I warned you that bare feet always fall victims to a man with a thousand fingers, and you've bared your soles!" He knelt down in front of her feet, and her toes began to curl. He reached out and pulled his satchel closer to himself. "No, princess, you can't enjoy this as much if you bend your toes like that!" He pulled from the bag a pair of leather loops, looking rather like two miniature stone-slings. With nimble fingers he pulled back one, then the other of Sarah's big toes and looped the ends around them, then pulled the long leather straps back to the bedsheet that tied her ankles and looped them again and again around it, finishing with a knot. With the slightest pull at the end of his knot-making Sarah could feel her feet, against her will, arch backwards, smoothing and exposing her soles. "Now, your highness, where is Simon ben Giora?"
"You could kill me, and I'd never tell! How much less will I tell because of your perverted fingers?"
"After a few days of this, perhaps we'll be able to tell."
"Days?"
"Of course, your highness. That's the beauty of our situation. The rebels in Jerusalem all have their eyes turned northwards looking for legions, so you and I can have our fun here south of Jerusalem for days and days if we want to. I can take all the time I want to learn all of your most sensitive spots, and then we can play them again and again until you will want to do anything for me just for some relief."
"I'll never betray the cause of Israel! Jerusalem forever!"
"Let's see what happens when I tickle your feet before we start talking about forever, shall we?" He reached up with both hands, and as soon as he touched that soft flesh, the young woman started to scream. Scaevola laughed out loud. "Forever is going to be fun, I think!" He began to scrabble his fingertips over Sarah's soles, and the screaming turned into a ticklish shriek, then quickly into tortured laughter. The flexibility of the sheet wrapped around her ankles let her feet flex for a moment, only to pull the toes back again, exposing anew the ticklish surfaces of her soles. He swept his fingertips from the toe end of her soles to the heel end, zigzagged them up and down, drew circles in the ticklish hollow of her arch, put his long finger at the base of a heel and twisted like a drill. With every change of movement Sarah bucked and squealed, and when she opened her eyes for just a moment she could see that the landscape of her chest was becoming sharper. The Roman tickled and tickled, thrilling Sarah with light strokes across her sole and arching her back when his short fingernails scratched from heel to instep. She tried furiously to recite the prophets in her mind, to envision the royal palace in Adiabene, to think of anything but the ticklish touches that were building into a delicious but uninvited pleasure that was filling her body, from her navel outward. She laughed and squealed, and she could feel something else, something her virgin body had not yet experienced, beginning to vie for her lungs.
Still Scaevola tickled her feet, probing between the ball of each foot and its toes, running routes from crescent down to heel, up to the center of the sole. As his fingers stroked a line from the spot between her first two toes on each foot down to the center of each heel, Sarah inhaled sharply and let out a moan, a sound she had never made before. Scaevola pulled his hands away. "Oh, Sarah. Now tell me you're not enjoying this, my beauty!"
Sarah panted as she raised her head. "Please..."
"No need to beg, Princess. Just tell me where Giora has fled."
She shook her head feebly. "I... I can't..."
"To Jerusalem?"
"No... please..."
"I know now that the center line of your sole drives you to distraction, Sarah, and I can tickle it any time I want to and as long as I want to. If you refuse my request one more time, I won't stop for a very long time, whether you tell me where Giora is or not. Now where is he?"
A bit of fire returned to Sarah's dark eyes. "Burn in Gehenna, Kittim!"
Scaevola smiled.
His index fingers returned to those fatal lines, moving up her soles, then down, then up, then down, and Sarah's resolve quickly dissolved. Her face twisted into a mask of ecstatic pleasure, and although she shaped her moans into the word "no," her hips' twisting and her lips' parting and her tormented laughter all cried out not for more of the same but for a climax. Running from her knees to her sternum were invisible wires, and they pulled inward with a ferocious, energetic spasm of pleasure every time his fingers ran across her soles. Moaning, screaming, laughing, her vision began to swim as her whole body became a nerve ending. And he kept tickling that awful, wonderful, wild spot on each foot. Soon her breath began to catch as she inhaled, and as if drowning in her own pleasure and torture, she fainted on the bed.
* * * * * * * * *
Sarah awoke abruptly, clutching the blanket that covered her to the neck. As she acquired her bearings, she realized that her riding clothes were completely gone and that, under the cover, she was entirely naked. She peeked towards the window and noted that it was still the height of the day--she must not have been unconscious long. Two Roman soldiers, backs to her, guarded her doorway. She glanced quickly around her room and discovered that some kind of garment was hanging on a hook on the wall. Holding the blanket between her and the doorway, she scooted over to the hook and took it down. She had never seen a Roman woman before; they tended to stay away from the Parthian frontier. But she had heard about their clothes, and she guessed that the dress was an import. No matter; at least it would cover her up. With all the speed she could muster, she pulled the dress on.
"Your highness can retire to the hills to take an evening meal provided that a guard accompanies you."
"Ah, so now you boys can speak Greek, can you?" She weighed her options and decided to take them up on the offer. After all, she was doing no good cooped up in the Judean villa--at least outside she could gather information on the surrounding terrain. She slipped on the Roman-style dress-sandals--too flimsy to run away in--and followed one of the soldiers as he led her out into the day's light.
Sarah could not see the walls of Jerusalem from the place the guard led her, but by the movement of the sun she could tell which direction it should be. She walked around as much as he would let her and as much as she could stand in the sandals, and after a while she rested in the shade. She watched as periodically centuries, no doubt encamped at all the small estates along the road, would march up and down the road, and she knew that this band controlled an important supply road into Jerusalem. Having observed what she could, she resigned herself to looking at some Greek scrolls that the soldier had brought for her, compliments of Scaevola. They were the stuff that a good Jewish girl was not supposed to read--Theocritus and Sappho, poems of longing and desire. She sat in the cool grass beneath a tree, unable to flee and thus resigned--she assured herself it was resignation--to read the filthy Gentile poetry. As she drank it in, she could not help remembering just how she had felt earlier, tied down, completely at the power of that powerful man. She had been terrified, and yet he had made her laugh. She blushed as she remembered laughing, then screaming, then wishing that he would just untie her, just let her...
She put down the poetry and stood up to walk around again, her face flushed. She heard hoof beats in the distance, and a man in centurion's armor rode up over the hill's crest.
"Your highness! I trust our hospitality has been to your satisfaction!"
"I never asked your hospitality, only safe passage to see King Agrippa."
Scaevola dismounted and took off his helmet. "Still on that charade, are we? You Parthians have never been friends to Agrippa, and we know it. You were on your way to give money to Ben-Giora." He stood very close to her and raised a hand slowly, stroking her hair. "It's a pity we have to play this little game, princess. Warfare is such a waste of time when a beauty like yourself is in my care."
Sarah swatted his hand away. "I'll have none of that, Kittim. You'll release me at once!"
"Princess, let us not waste opportunities! You will know my hands tonight. Will they be a lover's hands or a torturer's?"
"I'll have no lover among the Kittim!"
"Ah, your Highness. You still don't like me very much! We'll just have to get to know each other tonight!" He mouthed a kiss at her, put his helmet on, and began to ascend to his saddle. "You won't last much longer, I assure you. I already know one of your spots, and I'll find more tonight!" He rode off towards his century.
* * * * * * * *
That evening Sarah sat at a table, reading the Greek poetry again, when Scaevola entered the house wearing a toga rather than armor. She did not look up as he walked towards her, but she shrugged his hand off when he put it on her shoulder. "Still not warming up to me, dear? Very well." He turned to address her guards. "Tie her to a rafter for tonight. I'll get what I need." He walked out of the room, and Sarah found herself standing up before the guards could even get to her, insisting on the dignity of walking on her own to face her fate. At a mere gesture she followed one out of the house and to the villa, down the stairs to the cool basement chamber.
Scaevola stood waiting, arms crossed over his toga-clad chest. "Remove that dress, your highness." Sarah quietly obeyed, knowing full well that a knife awaited her garment if she did not. She stood before him, barefoot and naked, and he smiled slightly. Nodding to his soldiers, he gestured to a bed sheet slung over a hook which was in turn driven into a rafter, and they led her to the spot, held her arms up, and with swift motions bound her hands above her head. She pulled down slightly to test the strength of the binding, and as she expected, she could not pull her wrists even down to the top of her head. Scaevola flicked his wrist, and the soldiers departed to the corner of the room to sit. He walked up to Sarah and looked her in the eyes, then stepped slowly around her until he stood directly behind her. She could feel the warmth of his body in the cold room, and he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Are you ready to tell me about ben Giora?"
"Before I tell you, your Kittim legions will have fled back over the sea and to your filthy homes!"
"And if that takes years?"
"Then I will die before I tell you anything!"
"But you're so stunning alive, princess! I almost hope word arrives that Jerusalem has fallen. Then we can dispense with all this silliness and enjoy one another!"
"I'd never give you that pleasure."
"You already have. And you will tonight." With that he stooped slightly and began to trail one finger upwards, starting in the back of her right knee, tracing a line slowly up the middle of her thigh, tracing slightly inward as he ascended. Her feet attempted to move forward, but her hands only allowed so much forward motion before she rocked backwards, and he dropped to her knee again and started a second ascent. "Where do you think the finger will go, your highness? Why do you fear it?"
"I hate every part of your body, Kittim!"
"And I love every part of yours." This time his finger slowly drifted outward, moving from thigh around the edge of her buttock and up to her hip before she jumped away, his finger having swept over the ticklish line between hip bone and flank. "Ah, now there's a good jump. Shall we try it again?" He descended once more and began to rise once more. "You see, princess, I can make you laugh with my fingers..." He began to inch his finger upward, inward, forward. "Or I can make you moan. I don't imagine any of the Persian lads have put a digit there before, have they?"
"Don't touch me..."
"I'm going to be touching you quite a bit, your highness. You just have to tell me where." He dropped the finger down to the back of her knee again. "Do you want to laugh or to moan?"
"You can go to hell!"
"Laugh or moan, princess?" Sarah bit her lip. "Very well. I'm going to make you moan. I'm going inside you right now!" He moved swiftly up her leg, towards the center--
"No!"
"Is that a choice to laugh, then?"
"No. Leave me alone!"
"Not one of your choices. Last chance before I pick! Laugh or moan?"
"Then make me laugh!"
"Is that your choice?"
"Yes! It's my choice!"
"Then beg me to."
"What?"
"Beg me to make you laugh, or I'm going to start putting my finger where all men are forbidden!"
"Please, no..."
Scaevola leaned in towards her neck and once again whispered in her ear. "That's close, your highness. Just one word wrong. Please yes, Scaevola. Please tickle me, Scaevola."
"Please... tickle me."
"Beg me!"
"Why are you doing this?"
"My finger is about to move. Are you going to beg me?"
Sarah clenched her eyes shut. "Please! Please tickle me!"
"Ah, to hear you beg. It's music, my beauty. By the time we're done tonight you'll be begging me to do what you most fear now. But I should give you what you want first, no?" He reached both large hands around and placed his fingers just inside the ridges of her hip bones, his thumbs resting on the soft tops of her buttocks. "Remember, princess, you begged me to do this." A quick but firm squeeze made the princess rise onto the balls of her feet, and before she could get flatfooted again Scaevola set into her with eight fingers, pressing spots on her hips, each finger seeking and finding its own ticklish spot, and Sarah was whimpering, trying not to laugh, in a matter of seconds. "Princess! There's no reason to fight at this point. You might as well start laughing and at least enjoy as much as you can!" He continued wiggling; she continued begging. She threw her head back in one last surge of defiance, then it fell forward, and her laughter filled the cellar. His left hand still working on her hip, his right moved up to the very bottom rib. Her head thrashed back and forth, throwing her long, perfect, black hair across his face, letting him smell the perfect woman now under his power. Now his left hand crept forward, pressed and squeezed on the flesh between her side and belly button, clawed at her with strong, round fingertips. Sarah's initial roar of laughter became a steady bubbling song, every shift of his hands making the pitch go up, every gasp that she had to avail herself making her body heave. Scaevola pressed his toga-clad body up against her naked back, tickled with both hands her wickedly ticklish belly, moved down towards her lower abdomen, scraped and swpied and squeezed all the lovely flesh between her pubic hair and her ribs. He could feel her midsection start to tire even as her nerves tried to muster energy to jump away from every torturous touch. When she gasped now her voice came forth in desperate cries, some forming the word "stop," others only expelling with force the air that her body wanted to breathe slowly. He tickled and tickled; she tired and tired. When he stopped, her dancing feet gave way, barely helping the bedsheets to support her weight.
Scaevola stepped around in front of her. "Do you want to tell me now?" She shook her head side to side, slowly. The centurion let out a laugh. "I do have to admire your spirit, princess. A slave girl by now would be begging for any way out of this. I offer you one as easy as the name of a city, and you refuse. But a man with a thousand fingers does not give up at the point where a slave girl would break." He looked over his shoulder at his soldiers. "Give her a drink of water. She'll need it for what's coming next."
One of the soldiers walked over and offered her a cup of water, and she drank greedily. Looking up at him, she spoke quietly but with as much dignity as she could muster. "I hope you're enjoying this, Roman. When my people rescue me, I'll be sure to have you killed cruelly."
"Ah, princess. You call me Roman now. How endearing. But you're mistaken. Your kingdom won't hear about your disappearance for at least a month. And by the time they're able to muster and send an army, the Jerusalem revolt will already be over. And during the weeks when they're negotiating your ransom, I'll still have you in my power. So when you refuse my simple request, you're sending yourself into months of the same."
"I hate you."
"Hatred for a woman such as yourself is a step away from disdain and towards surrender, your highness. I'll have you telling me everything tonight. And if I don't, if your spirit is greater than any woman's I have ever seen, I'll still have you at my disposal tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. You can't win this game, princess."
With a renewed vigor she spat, "Jerusalem is no game, Kittim!"
"No, it's not. It's a troublesome city for the Roman cause. You do understand, don't you, that we Romans have nothing but the best in mind for you. We want to civilize you, bring you the joys of peace and philosophy. When your people stage these infantile revolts, you only do yourselves harm."
"As long as our cities stand in Adiabene, you'll never conquer the free people of Judah!"
"We'll see about that." He began to walk behind her again.
"Wait!"
"For what am I waiting, princess? Are you going to tell me where ben-Giora is hiding out?"
"No!"
"I didn't think so." Scaevola reached up and gave Sarah's skin a quick stroke under each arm, and once again she jumped. "Let's get back to what we were doing, shall we?" He began to walk his fingers from the bottom rib, up her sides, into her underarms, and she began to scream and twist furiously. "Ah, we've found a happy spot, have we?" He wrapped his strong left arm around her waist, pulling her close, and began to tickle mercilessly under her arm with his right hand. Sarah's head thrashed, her slender body filled with a terrified strength as his fingers played with her too-sensitive skin. Scaevola, a trained wrestler, simply moved his own chin outside her arm to avoid being butted by her skull, then continued to tickle her underarm. This time she did not tire for some time, her laughter keeping its panicked quality as he scratched and pawed at her, systematically moving from underarm to upper ribs, never letting his fingers dwell on any ticklish spot but repeatedly striking at them from above and below, each new assault drawing ticklish screams from her. With one smooth motion he released her and jumped backwards, and her head slumped. "Well, princess, I do believe we've found some fertile new territory! I can't wait to try the other side!"
"Please... I'll do what you want..."
"Princess, princess! I know very well you'll do what I want! But I am a man who loves balance! Since we've had fun under your right arm, now I'm going to have the same kind of fun under your left. I have a feeling that I can break your will entirely if I just tickle you under the other arm for a while. Do you think that's the case?"
"Please don't..."
"Ah, but not long ago you were begging me to tickle. Where would we be if I ignored what you so earnestly asked of me?"
"Please..."
"Yes, princess. Beg. I love it when you beg!" He wrapped his right arm around her waist.
"Please!"
"You'll soon be mine, Sarah." He wrapped his right arm around her waist, pulling her close to his warm body, and used his powerful neck muscles to impose her left arm between her head and his. Sarah could only let out a whimper as he began another relentless tickling assault, moving in and retreating, tickling that deadly spot under her arm and backing off, making her scream between laughs. Sarah's sensations of helplessness and the awful tickling overwhelmed her, and mere minutes into the awful tickling she was trying to yell, "Jerusalem!" But the monster with a thousand fingers would not leave alone the tender flesh between her arms and her ribs, and her body surged as the numbness of exhaustion and the urgency of being tickled in that terribly ticklish spot swept back and forth over her like the ocean's waves.
When he jumped back again, this time only the sheet binding her hands above her head kept her from slumping onto the floor. She mumbled, humiliated, "I told you what you wanted."
Scaevola lifted her chin with his finger from behind, whispering in her ear. "I didn't hear you."
"Jerusalem."
"Where?"
"Jerusalem."
"I don't believe you."
"Please! You have to believe me!" Sarah heard Scaevola's footsteps behind her and knew that he was going for his Milidigiti bag. "Please! I've told you what you wanted! Don't do this any more!"
"You've told me what I wanted to hear, that's for sure. But did you tell me the truth? That I don't know." He walked out in front of her, a long feather in each hand. "The Greeks held that the owl was Minerva's bird, the carrier of wisdom. Shall we see whether your confession was wise?"
"Stop! You promised!"
"I never promised. You just wanted me to." Scaevola drew one feather backhand across her erect nipple, and Sarah moaned. "I've found one of your most ticklish spots, and now I've set your body on edge. Now you're going to feel your body go over that edge. Beg if you want, but now what I want is right in front of me." With quickness of hand that any soldier would envy, the centurion began to whip the feathers' blades across her breasts, and Sarah never stopped laughing, moaning, giggling, begging. Time stopped having meaning for her young body, and the world now did not even extend to the walls of the cellar but only existed on whatever line each feather traced. She could feel the energy build up that had driven her unconscious the night before, but this time she could not even imagine passing out as the feather strokes lit on fire every inch of her breasts. Her tired abdomen pulsated, overworked with trying to breathe and now focusing lines of pleasure that led down to her womanhood. The feathers began to slow, and Sarah could feel every feather's pass, now focused on her nipples almost exclusively. The quick passes slowed to deliberate, electric, torturous strokes. She could feel each blade's pass, each filament, on her skin, and her laughter had disappeared, and her moans had become silent.
She managed to breathe out, "Truth!" The feather just kept stroking. Now, agonizingly slowly, each feather dragging for seconds at a time over each nipple, the passes and strokes were dragging her entire being inward; she could feel herself moisten, and her hips and belly and shoulders were all radiating desire. With one last stroke, Scaevola dropped both feathers on the ground. Sarah was one beautiful ticklish nerve. He stepped forward, touching his lips to hers. Her mouth, as Sarah seemed only to watch, began greedily to kiss his. Scaevola stepped back and smiled.
"Soldiers. Leave." They did as they were ordered. Scaevola reached into his cloak, pulled out a knife, and cut Sarah's bonds loose above her. "Sleep well tonight, princess. We'll be doing more of this tomorrow."
* * * * * * * * *
Sarah awoke to see beams of sunlight coming into her basement room. She had been sleeping on the small bed from her first night of captivity, and all the muscles of her torso were sore from laughing long the night before. She had slept naked, her clothes having been confiscated by the soldiers the night before, but this morning, folded neatly on a small table next to her bed, was another Roman dress sitting next to a pair of sandals. Her back to the door, Sarah dressed quickly. When she had finished (she knew they were watching), the guard at the top of the stairs called down, "Breakfast is ready, your highness."
She ascended the stairs and followed the guard to the villa's main house. She sat and ate a breakfast of some fruit and light bread, and a servant boy carried off her dishes. Another servant brought her the scrolls that she had been reading the day before, and once again a soldier led her out to the meadow to spend the day in repose. The view was the same, so this time after she had brushed her hair, she started earlier reading the Greek love poetry. This time, reading of the pulsing power of Eros, her body began to remember the sensations of the night before, not the humiliation of being made to laugh or the horror of surrendering information but those spasms of liquid pleasure that filled her as Scaevola, that powerful and merciless man, flicked feathers across and over her breasts. As she reached the end of a stanza her left hand, without much of a conscious thought, drifted down between her legs as she held the book with her right, and she leaned her head back and rested her longing body on the soft grass.
The sound of a horse's hooves startled her from her reverie, and she sat up and put the book down and her hands at her sides, then behind her, then at her sides again. Scaevola, a cat's smile on his face, rode over the ridge and towards her, and she stood to confront him. "Surely by now an army is being raised to rescue me, Kittim."
"Good morning to you as well, your highness. I trust that last night was pleasant for you?"
"Do you ask that of the men you crucify?"
"I've never had a crucified man kiss me like you did!" Sarah could feel her face turn red, and she tried to stammer a response as the centurion laughed. "Princess! Why do you keep fighting me? Why not join me tonight for dinner, as the lady you are? Why not let me treat you like a princess instead of a prisoner for one night?"
"I'll never get into bed with you!"
"Ah, that word 'never' again. But I assure you, Princess, as long as you're in my custody, I swear to you that the only man who will ever enter a marriage bed with you will be your husband."
"I'm not married."
"Then what do you have to worry about? Join me for a fine meal and some fine wine, and let's recline instead of keeping up the torture."
"I take it you've dispatched men to report what I told you, then."
"Not yet; one can hardly be sure that the first confession under duress is the truth."
"So why allow me reprieve tonight?"
"Because the fighting goes well in the north, Highness. We have plenty of time to get what we want. And besides, I've become quite taken with you, Princess. Titus can wait for information on Bar Giora; I'm certain that he's not much of a danger now."
"Have your armies taken Jerusalem yet?"
"They haven't reached its walls, Princess. But from what I hear, there won't be much of a Jerusalem left when they do. The rebels are tearing themselves apart."
Sarah sat, saddened by the news even as she doubted whether the Centurion would tell her the truth about such things. All the same, she knew that another night like the last would have her surrendering secrets again, so she nodded assent. "I'll join you for dinner and wine tonight."
"You have made my day, Princess."
* * * * * * * *
When Sarah came back to the villa that afternoon some servant girls had already been dispatched to assemble a full dressing room, fit for royalty, in the villa's main house. Despite herself, Sarah thrilled for a moment at the prospect of making herself up for the evening. Although the gowns he had sent were, like the others, of a Roman style, nonetheless, she could tell, they were the sorts of things that aristocratic women of Rome might wear for an evening of wine and reclining, and she enjoyed them for that despite their strangeness. When evening arrived, Sarah was adorned as a princess again, and even being led by Roman soldiers to dinner, she felt magnificent. She took a couch in the dining room and began to sip the wine that a servant brought her.
When Scaevola arrived, Sarah did not hide a giggle at the toga he was wearing. She knew that important Roman men still dressed as Republicans, but having seen her father and men of the court in their fantastic imperial finery, she could not help but be amused at the pretense.
"Do you find my apparel inappropriate?"
"No, Roman. I find your country's customs funny."
"At least you're calling me Roman now. I was beginning to think myself a Cyprian!"
"When you pick up a sword in behalf of Caesar, what does that matter?"
"Ah, princess. Why politics on such a lovely evening?" He took another couch, and servants began to bring food. They chatted and drank and ate, never for long talking about the war that divided them, spending more time talking of the landscape around them that was home to neither but beloved of both, the poetry of the Greeks that both of them read and enjoyed, stories from families in distant homelands. As they went Sarah drank more than a little wine, and the defiant diplomat that had ridden into the Rephaim was soon a chatty girl of the court. After they had eaten, Scaevola took her hand, and they climbed steps to the roof of the house and its balcony. As they looked at stars together, Scaevola put his arm around her waist. She did not pull away.
"Why must we be enemies, Sarah?"
"You know why, Kittim. Jerusalem is David's city, not Caesar's."
He drew around and faced her. "David was no more Persian than he was Roman, my lovely."
"No, but we Persians at least know how to leave people to their temples without putting golden eagles everywhere in sight!" Scaevola squeezed her hip, and Sarah giggled and twisted away. "I thought you weren't going to do any of that tonight!"
"I said I wouldn't torture. What's the harm in a little play?"
"What if every tickling touch is torture to me?"
Scaevola reached a hand out, and Sarah swatted it away. "Then I'd say that I'd like to torture you every night of the rest of my life if I had the choice!"
She giggled at him. "The rest of your life? Surely you don't think you'll be here too much longer!"
"Not in this little town, no. I'm certain I'll have things to do elsewhere."
"Then you should get all this 'forever' nonsense out of your head. It's a long time, isn't that what you told me?"
"I did indeed. Now stand close to me again. My hands will keep their peace." She stepped in, and they stood, his arms around her, and looked at the stars again. "So you must indulge me, Sarah. What kind of tickling was the worst for you?"
Sarah giggled again and stepped away to avoid his question's becoming another kind of search. "So you can have the advantage next time you have me tied up? I think not!"
"Alright then, my little fighter. What kind was the best?"
"Why do you tickle me anyway?"
"To torture information out of you, of course!"
"No, you don't. If you wanted that, you wouldn't have stopped and kissed me. Why do you really do it?"
"Because you're a woman, and I'm a man, and you're beautiful." He stepped in closer and put both hands around her. "Kiss me." Sarah hesitated but did just that. "I think I know what kind of tickling you like best, Sarah."
"It wasn't on my breasts!"
"Nobody said it was! But now I know what you fear most." Sarah laughed out loud now, and Scaevola laughed with her. "I think you liked it best when I tickled your feet."
Sarah giggled without knowing why she couldn't stop. "No! I hated that! Why do you say I liked that best?"
"No reason. But now I know two of your worst spots! You'd better tell me where you like it best before I find out all of your secrets!"
"And without even tickling me for them. That's a change, isn't it?"
"Oh, the night is still young, Sarah. So what gives you the most joy? When I tickle your legs?"
"What if I said I hated all of it?"
"I'd know you were lying. You wouldn't have kissed me if you hated me. I think you might just love me."
"Do you think that?"
"I do. Now where do you like it most?" His sneaky left hand stole a pinch from her side, and she giggled.
"Are you trying to find the spot I like now?"
"I would love to do that! But I don't think you'd tell me because you want me to tickle you some more!"
"Do you think that now?"
"I think it makes you feel irresistible, which you are. In fact, I think that if the times were different, you would run off with me and be my own princess!"
"Because you tickle me?"
"Because I make you happy in ways that you're not supposed to admit."
Sarah, still smiling, still tried to sound serious. "You know that we cannot be lovers, Scaevola. Jerusalem won't let us."
"What if we asked Jerusalem for her blessing?"
"What?"
"Marry me, Sarah. With the revolution almost gone, we can rule the city, a Roman war hero and a Persian princess. We can stop the war that has torn her apart for so long."
This time Sarah pulled away without the playful giggle. "No, Kittim. Jerusalem will never be your city. She is the city of David, and she belongs to the Jews!"
"It can be a city of peace for both Jew and Roman, Sarah! We can make it so!"
She turned her back on him. "No. I might die here, but I will never be a Roman's wife."
"You know, Sarah, I was afraid you'd say that. But I was almost hoping that you would." He turned back to the stairs. "Guards! Bring Mattathias up here!"
"Mattathias?"
"That's right, your highness. The rightful high priest of Jerusalem. Didn't you expect to see him when you came to visit Agrippa?"
"You know by now that Adiabene is no friend of Agrippa!"
"Of course I do, my lovely. But he's not here for diplomacy either, at least not the kind you're pretending. He's going to perform our wedding ceremony."
Sarah started towards the steps but saw an armored guard in the way. She turned back angrily towards Scaevola, the wine that before made her giddy steeling her defiance. "I'll never consent to this! I'll send word to my father, and he'll come for you!"
"Never. You do like that word, don't you?" He turned to the guards that had come up. "On second thought, men, bring Mattathias to the basement. He can enjoy the show, and he'll be there when the princess's spirit breaks and she consents."
* * * * * * * *
More than on either of the previous nights, Sarah struggled as hard as she could as the soldiers dragged her into the basement room. Their arms, though, hardened from many battles, gave no ground, and soon she was on her back, slippers off, arms and legs tied to bedposts, waiting to be at the mercy of the man who knew her body and her mind so intimately and who was now committed to bending her will. Sarah corrected herself; he had always tried to bend her will, but this time he wanted to make her his own and Jerusalem with her.
Sarah watched in horror as Scaevola's sandaled feet descended the stairs. "Please, Scaevola, don't do this!"
"Begging already, princess? You're going to make this far too easy for me!" He had his bag of tricks with him, and behind him, in full regalia, was Mattathias, the puppet of the Herods, who had not been able to act as high priest ever since the rebels chased him out of Jerusalem. She pulled on the cuffs that held her to the bed, but they had not grown any weaker since the night before, even if she had.
"Please! I'll tell you where Bar Giora is hiding!"
"You already told me that."
"But I'll tell you where in Jerusalem! I'll tell you anything! Just please don't do this!"
"Do you really think I was ever after Bar Giora?"
Sarah's panic suddenly turned to a chill as she realized what Scaevola was saying. "What do you mean?"
"We had his location down to the street the night we captured your caravan--a Galilean rebel told us everything to save his skin. I've been testing you the last couple nights to see where your best spots were. I don't need your information. I want you."
"No..."
"Yes, princess. You can consent to marry me right now and spare yourself a long evening, but I have to admit that, now that I've got you here, I almost hope you decide to resist as long as you can." Sarah's eyes told the story better than any poet could attempt: her contempt for the puppet-priest, her desire for and fear of her tormentor, and her own conflict between anticipated pleasure and humiliation all blended together, and her soft lips formed a mask of protest, her mind unable to match words to the moment. "One last chance, princess. Jerusalem or the feather?"
"Send that traitor away!"
Scaevola's face registered genuine surprise for a moment, and he looked over his shoulder. "Oh, the priest? He's waiting for your consent. As it turns out, his scholars have found precedent for a very short wedding ceremony. So when you give your consent, he'll pronounce us married, and Gaius here will be our witness. That way we can have done with the ritual and have a proper Queen of Jerusalem before we leave this room."
Sarah knew that she could not give up without a fight, even as she realized that she could not win. "Do your worst, Roman." Scaevola's grin was hungry, and as he reached advanced towards the bed, she knew that he was going to do just that.
"I'm going to tickle you as long as I want, and then I'll ask you to marry me again. Each time you deny me, the torture will last longer, and I will not stop until your will is broken and you consent. So I say again, will you consent to marry me and become Queen of Jerusalem?"
Sarah flashed him a flirtatious grin. "You could never tickle me well enough to make me agree to that!" Sarah could not understand her own sudden shift, her playful mood in such a serious moment. For a brief moment, all that Scaevola gave her, she wondered whether he had already won the fight.
"I'm going to show you just how little you knew before about tickling, my princess!"
Sarah's heart jumped, and she could not discern now whether it feared or wanted just that. "Do what you will."
"A fine sentiment coming from anyone's wife! Now let's start, shall we?" Milidigiti reached down as if plucking a berry and caught Sarah's right big toe between his thumb and index finger. Sarah was already giggling, suddenly finding his silly approach funny. Joining her in laughter, he pulled the toe back, hardly meeting any resistance, and began to run his fingertips up from the ball of her foot to the heel, each fingertip swerving at his whim as it descended. The beautiful young woman, already delighted with wine and amused at the man who was her lover and tormentor, simply let herself go this time, laughing with abandon as his fingers worked their magic. When she screamed now, she did so with the voice of a thrilled girl, letting the feeling take her so that her heart would take joy rather than fear. Letting the sensation of being ticklish and laughing take over her mind, she thought that she could forget all about getting married.
Scaevola looked on the beautiful girl and knew she had figured out the secret to ordinary tickle torture: she had dropped her pride. "Poor child," he thought, "You probably think you've found the secret that will end my power. But now that you think you're away from your body, you've only given it up to me!" He kept tickling that foot for some time, enjoying her laughter and her movement, her toes and her sole. Sarah thrashed with abandon, her laughter music to her lover. He let go of her foot after a while and let her catch her breath. "Are you ready to consent, Sarah?"
When her head rose, she wore a sly grin. "What, if this is all that's coming?"
Scaevola could not help but smile broadly at her. "You're going to make a contest of this. I like that!" He reached down into his bag and pulled out a vial. "When I uncork this, though, you're going to realize that it never was a contest."
"That won't work either, Roman. I'll not drink your potion!"
"Potion? Drink? Oh, Princess. If I can't get you to marry me, how should I ever convince you to drink a potion? This goes on those feet of yours, and you needn't do anything with your mouth but laugh." He grabbed her left foot and began to pour the oil onto it. The slightly cool and slow-flowing liquid hit her foot and stuck, and Scaevola began lovingly to rub it onto her skin. Sarah moaned just a bit as he gently spread the oil onto her left, then her right sole. "As you can see, Princess, there is some pleasure to the oil. There's another side to it as well. What fingers can do to your beautiful feet, they can do three times as well to your feet with this oil. Would you like to see what I mean, or would you like to consent?"
Sarah was now grinning openly. "If all you're going to do is tickle, why should I care?" Scaevola was now the one grinning. He grasped the girl's ankle with a strong hand and began fanning her sole with his fingers, each one slipping and sweeping down the sole in succession. Sarah's head rocked back as she roared with laughter. His fingers continued to work furiously as his wrist slowly rotated, his fingers whipping across her soles at a diagonal, now towards her instep, now going from her pink heel up towards the ball of her foot. He could hear the subtle changes as he continued, her ticklish inward breaths occasionally slipping into the delighted gasps of pleasure. This time the young woman never showed the signs of horror as she had in previous evenings; she thought she had nothing to lose, so she was enjoying herself, the pleasure and the laughter.
Pride gone.
Shame gone. This was going faster than he expected.
Scaevola wasn't going to waste the moment, though; he promptly switched hands, grabbing an ankle, fingertips sliding from the oil as they gripped. His other hand, though slightly slower, still held up his name, each finger moving as a hundred as Sarah began to come up short of breath. Her ecstasy showed on her face as his slippery fingers, always making her laugh, also brought her closer and closer to the release that she had experienced the first night. Her body writhed and thrashed as the ticklish touches built towards the explosion of pleasure. He could see her diving towards that grand triumph, but at the last second he released the foot, and her head rocked forward as the moment fled her.
"What?"
"I want you to stay there for a moment, Princess." She squirmed in vain against her bonds, rubbing her behind against the bed, hoping foolishly to reach her destination. "I want you to think about the possibility of becoming my queen, and I want to adjust my toga." Sarah looked and could see that a new bulge had made the garment awkward on him, and when he pulled the hems apart to put them back together, she could see a column of flesh just for a moment before he put the fold back in place. Her eyes went wide. "That's right, Princess. You did see what you think you saw."
"But that's impossible!"
Scaevola's face leered in triumph. "Not impossible, dear. But it is making you reconsider. You see, if you knew some Latin, you'd know not only that my nickname is thousand-fingers--you know why that's my name now--but also that Scaevola means left hand. My family Latinized our tribe's name so that we could get along in Rome. When I became an officer in Caesar's army, I did so with the name "left hand," the name of our ancestor Benjamin." He pulled his hands from behind his back, and Sarah beheld one of them, the left hand, was now wearing a black glove. In the torchlight she saw something thin extending from each fingertip. "And now, my love, you're going to consent to put the House of Saul on the throne in Jerusalem, to take it back from the Goyim just as you dreamed. And you're going to do it fast because you know your soles are next." With that he grabbed the toes on her right foot and set upon her ankle with the glove. Instantly she could tell that each fingertip on the glove ended in a small, stiff finger, and the tiny, intense sensations on her ankle instantly sent her into desperate laughter.
"NO! Wait!"
He kept tickling her ankle. "That's not consent, and the next move I make is going to be to your foot, Sarah."
"Wait! Let me think!"
"Wrong answer." Scaevola's right hand bent back the toes, and his left hand began a hellish skittering assault on Sarah's sole. Between the sudden revelation, the wine, and the awful precision of the feathers' tips, Sarah was screaming sounds that were neither words nor refusals. All the fantasies that she'd entertained for the last few days danced in front of her mind's eye as her moaning and laughing and squealing became a mosaic of pleasured sound. "Nod your head whenever you want to speak your consent, my princess." Sara's head flopped forwards and back as the sounds continued, and Scaevola stopped.
Casting a glance over his shoulder, he could see the high priest's flushed face but not his right hand. "Come now, Mattathias. A bit of patience. I promise my men will get you a ticklish servant girl for those purposes. For now, give me a queen!"
Mere minutes later the old goat of a priest shuffled out of the room, the promise of ticklish flesh compelling him out of the room. Sara looked longingly at her new husband, the future king of Jerusalem.
Scaevola picked up a length of silk rope and gestured towards the bed.
Enjoy!
Loyalties
by
Kid Indy
As agreed upon in an exchange of secret letters, the caravan met with ben-Giora's men in the valley of Rephaim at sunset, and the Judean insurgents led their Parthian sponsors along the road to Jerusalem. Sarah could not help but notice that the men who joined her own soldiers, including the head escort who rode beside her, spoke in heavy Galilean accents. "What news of the resistance?"
"Not good, my princess. Vespasian of the Kittim is marching from town to town in Galilee, and none has been able to resist his armies. My own band had to flee to Jerusalem to escape them."
"So the resistance is consolidated at Zion?"
"What resistance is left. When tidings of the battles gone badly began to come to the city, many began to talk of surrender."
"But Giora and the other Galileans rallied them, did you not?"
The man paused for a second, and Sarah could not see his face in the darkness. "In a manner of speaking."
"Speak directly, Galilean. I represent my father, and he is not to be trifled with." She could see the man's surprise even in the darkness.
"Watch your tone, princess. You are the daughter of King Monobaz, but you are still a woman, and--"
"A woman with the funds to pay your fighters. Even if you northern rats looted the temple you could not do so!"
"Watch your tone!"
"Answer my question!"
"Ben-Giora had all traitors and cowards killed! We Sicarii cleansed Jerusalem of all who would fear the Kittim pigs in the holy city!"
Now was Sarah's turn to be silent. Gathering herself, she managed, "My father will not think well of these developments."
"Your father is of the diaspora. We Pharisees will take your Parthian gold, but never once believe that Babylon is Israel!"
Sarah let her horse's pace drop off, and she and her bodyguards rode alone along the way to Jerusalem.
* * * * * * * * *
Centurion Decimus Scaevola waited at the top of the cliff, overlooking the road below. The informant had been right, and the caravan, guarded by at most fifteen men, was passing underneath on the narrow road. His men had dispatched the sentries guarding this pass easily, and here, fewer than eight miles from the walls of Jerusalem, he was sure that he was going to ambush successfully a supply caravan intended for the insurgents and might positive proof that the Parthian kingdom of Adiabene was financing the Jewish revolution. He gave a hand signal to one of his men, and within seconds, the moonlit silent command filtered down to his armored squadrons of twenty legionnaires each, who set up shield walls ahead of and behind the caravan. Screams started to rise up from the ill-prepared vanguard and rear guard, and Roman archers began to file in behind the shield walls. Flare arrows went into the sky, and Scaevola called out in Greek to them below:
"Surrender and give loyalty to Caesar! If you surrender, we will treat you as prisoners of war. You will have food and water, and if you are of the province of Judea we will not harm you. If you raise a weapon, we will cut all of you down!"
A woman's voice called back up to him. "I am Sarah, princess of Adiabene, on a diplomatic mission to give succor to King Agrippa of Judea in his time of trouble!"
Scaveola grinned in the darkness. "Then approach the shield wall behind you." One of the horses slowly moved behind the ox-carts. "Allow her passage past the shield-wall, and convey her south to our base." The men parted, and two horsemen flanked her and began to lead her away. Scaveola watched them ride away and out of earshot, then turned to his lieutenant. He whispered to him, "Take the Parthians prisoner and release the Judeans. Any Galileans you find, crucify them."
* * * * * * * * *
Sarah awoke in a large house. The day was full, and she realized that, after falling asleep not long after her long ride, she had slept for several hours. Soldiers guarded the door to her room and its single window, and although she was fearful of the Romans in general and of their soldiers especially, she did note that her body was unharmed. She addressed them in the trade-Greek that she had learned back home: "When is your commander coming back? King Agrippa will be awaiting my visit." The soldiers did not respond. "As princess of the kingdom of Adiabene, I demand to speak with your commander!" Still nothing. About an hour passed, and Sarah was consigned to look out her door to see soldiers, detachments of about ten at a time, marching past the door every few minutes. Then the soldiers snapped to attention and saluted as someone entered the room adjacent to hers. She quickly stood up from her bed and prepared to act royally.
Through the door came a Roman (she could tell he was Roman) in officer's armor. With him were two soldiers, the ones who had ridden with her. He had the look of a man who knew battle but retained a youth in his eyes that told Sarah that he was still a young centurion. Standing tall over her, his large hands moved with the grace of an orator's when he spoke. "Welcome, Princess Sarah, to our little home away from home."
"You are detaining a friendship envoy from the king of--"
"I detained nothing friendly last night, princess. The friends of strife are no friends at all."
"I will not stand here and let you accuse me!"
"And yet I do. And what of it?" He smiled hungrily at her. "Let me introduce myself. I am Decimus Scaevola the Milidigiti, and I am a centurion in Vespasian's army. Our mission here is to intercept a caravan with gold to pay the rebels in Jerusalem. Your caravan was headed to Jerusalem, your carts filled with gold coins, and your origin a Parthian kingdom. We know that you are supporting their little revolution."
"I come on a mission of friendship to--"
"You come for no such reason! No ambassador carries that kind of gold, and no sane friend of Agrippa would travel through Jerusalem, the city that hated him and expelled him." Sarah fell silent. "I do not come to accuse you; your guilt is already evident. I come to find out the whereabouts of Simon Bar Giora."
"I do not know that name. And I had not yet received news that--"
One of Scaevola's men chimed in. "The Galileans with her were of Giora's party. She knows where he is." Sarah was silent. "Sir, we should take her to be tortured with the others."
Scaevola turned and put his hand on his soldier's shoulder. "With the others? Friend Gaius, this is a Princess of Parthia! She may be siding with insurgent vermin, but she will always be a princess. We mustn't harm her royal body." He turned and ran his eyes over her with all the slavering menace of a wolf. "And such a body would be a horrendous sacrifice to the whips." Sarah stepped back, bumping into the bed's frame. "No, I really must insist upon questioning her myself. This house's former master was prudent enough to provide a chamber underground for cool repose in the summers. Have some men carry a servant's bed down there and prepare the chamber. Then bring her down to me so that we can talk. Both of you fought well for me when we took this little manor; I'll let you remain with us." Sarah could not help but shudder as the men looked at each other and Scaevola exited the room.
* * * * * * * * *
Scaevola, out of his armor and in the sort of comfortable tunic that one might wear to Nero's entertainments, reclined on a couch next to the thin servant's bed. His men had tied ropes, softened by wrapping them round with spare bedclothes, to two legs. The room, large by Judean standards but not overly large, was lit by torchlight. Beside him on the floor was the satchel that his closest officers had come to call his Milidigiti bag. He used one finger to open it slightly, looked inside briefly, then closed it again. The door at the top of the stairs opened to the ground level above him, and his two officers led Sarah down to the room, one of their hands on each of her arms. The centurion beheld a young woman, marriageable age but not much older than eighteen summers, and knew that her royal circumstance had thrust her into a war that life had not prepared her for. She was tall, with the slender build of a young woman accustomed to horse-riding and book-reading rather than childbirth and housewifery. Her smooth hands were crossed in front of her, and her riding boots still covered her feet. Long, curly black hair, now let down, fell over her shoulders and framed a deliciously delicate, olive-skinned neck, itself a pedestal for a fine-featured face, the beautiful dark eyes of a Persian Jewess and a pair of lips that themselves would invite fantasies of luxury.
"I only wish, princess, that there were more room on that bed. But alas, I'm a centurion, and you're an enemy of Rome, and there's no time for us to enjoy the things that beautiful women like you are meant to enjoy."
Sarah could see perfectly well that there were ropes tied to the bed. "Then you are going to torture me."
"I would never cause such a delicious young body pain. We are going to have to talk about your friends in Jerusalem, though. Gaius, Marcus, secure her hands and unbuckle but do not remove her boots." The men dragged her to the bed, pushed her onto her back on it, and with some struggle, looped the bedsheet-covered ropes around her wrists. The ropes crossed above her head, so her right hand was tied to the post behind and to the left of her and vice versa. After they had tightened those bonds, they moved to her feet, and each, following orders, grabbed hold of one riding boot and unbuckled the leather straps before holding it. Trying out the bonds above her head, she realized that she could just barely cross her wrists if she moved her hands inward and could only bring her elbows down level with her shoulders if she moved them outward.
"Would you have your men hold my legs as you whip me?"
"Whip? I do not whip such lovely young women, princess." He reached down into his Milidigiti bag and pulled out a surgeon's knife, which gleamed in the torchlight. Sarah began to scream, and the two centurions squeezed her lower legs tightly and pulled them apart to keep her from kicking. "I don't cut such beautiful flesh either, but I do want to have a look at it." At this he took hold of her light riding tunic (it was summer) and began to cut it down the middle, exposing her torso. As he had hoped, open air delivered the slender, curving figure and small but pronounced breasts that her clothes promised. He cut away her garment from her waist up and from her collar out, laying it out to the sides and exposing everything down to her riding belt. Sarah's light Persian skin blushed heavily as the Roman beheld her nakedness.
"May the God of Israel strike down the one who would defile a woman!"
"If he doesn't pretty soon, you're out of luck, because my century has control over this little village. Now tell me. Where is Bar Giora?"
"I've never heard the name, Kittim pig!"
"Kittim! I've never gotten the Kittim thing. The empire is Rome, love, not Cyprus. But I figured you'd come hard. Men, be sure to hold on to those boots when I start. Now Sarah, I'm neither going to rape you nor cut you." (He was, in fact, putting the knife back into his bag.) "Do you know any Latin, Sarah?"
"I do not speak the language of the Kittim!"
Scaevola sat down next to her on the bed, his thigh running parallel to hers. Gaius moved to the center of the bed's foot, still holding on to her boot. "The language of the world, really. The important parts, anyway. So you have no idea what Milidigiti means, do you?" Sarah merely glared. "It means a thousand fingers. When I was fighting your countrymen in Armenia, I met a slave trader. A whoremonger, really, but that's what's so helpful in moments like these. You see, Sarah, this whoremonger told me that in order to make a strong-willed woman do what she's supposed to do, a man has to have a thousand fingers. Do you know what that means?"
A puzzled glare, but still just a glare.
"I'd rather show you than tell you. But let me tell you this: if you lose your boots, I'm going to do to your feet next what I do to your body now." Sarah was now horrified and confused.
In a second the confusion left his companion, and Sarah knew exactly what was going on. The Roman's fingers (he had only had ten just a moment before, but Sarah was starting to understand his name) began to pinch her gently below her ribs on the sides, and she jumped. The other soldiers shifted their grips on her boots. Sarah squirmed and clenched her eyes and lips shut as the kneading pinches became more rapid. Her hips began to rock back and forth. "Be careful, Sarah. If I get a look at those feet of yours, you never know what I might decide to do. Now be a good girl for Milidigiti and tell me what this feels like!" Her eyes still shut, she squirmed as little as she could, but his fingers, pinching her gently and wandering from her sides out onto her belly, were making it impossible to stay still. Or silent. "You can't keep yourself from laughing, Sarah. You might as well start now and enjoy it!"
"I'll enjoy seeing you die!" Sarah tried to shout, but once her voice started out of her mouth, the Roman caught it with his tickling hooks and would not let it go. And when she started to giggle, the full-body laugh that followed jerked her so hard that her left foot slid out of her boot. In vain she tried to kick out at one soldier, who deflected her kick easily as he dropped the boot to the floor, and as she struggled to free herself, her right foot soon tore itself out of its boot. Scaevola did not even move his hips, much less stop tickling Sarah's midsection, as she kicked both legs wildly. She bucked and twisted away from him, laughing as she went, and he simply moved his hands to where her body went. The two soldiers pulled back a step, watching her flail her feet at them and scream and laugh, and Scaevola only interrupted his fingers' ticklish ministrations to grab her belt when she almost fell off the bed away from him and to pull her back onto the bed. When he did so, the two soldiers pounced on her calves, one of them wrapping a thick arm around her knees and the other a blanket around her ankles. Sarah's bucking took on a smaller arc as her behind bounced again and again off of the bed. The centurion had now started to wriggle the fingers of his right hand under her arm, drawing fresh screams and making Sarah fight harder, though no less in vain. His left hand continued to squeeze at her side and to poke a certain spot under her ribs that made Sarah jump every time he did it. Sarah could feel the ends of the blanket being secured to the legs of the bed's foot, and within seconds she could neither separate them nor lift them more than a few inches off the bed. Still the Roman tickled her.
When he finally stopped, the feeling of bedclothes on her back made her realize that, even as he touched every ticklish spot above her waist, he had pulled her shredded riding tunic out from under her. Perhaps he did have a thousand fingers. Her bare back lying on the bed, feet bound, bare chest heaving, Sarah raised her head and spat at Scaevola. "You will suffer for this disgrace!"
"You've lost your boots, your highness."
"The whole land of Parthia will hear of this!"
Scaevola rose and began to walk towards the foot of the bed. "Those are some lovely feet. Are they ticklish?"
"Don't touch me, you Kittim monster!"
"Don't pretend you aren't enjoying this." He stood up calmly and walked slowly to the foot of the bed. "But I warned you that bare feet always fall victims to a man with a thousand fingers, and you've bared your soles!" He knelt down in front of her feet, and her toes began to curl. He reached out and pulled his satchel closer to himself. "No, princess, you can't enjoy this as much if you bend your toes like that!" He pulled from the bag a pair of leather loops, looking rather like two miniature stone-slings. With nimble fingers he pulled back one, then the other of Sarah's big toes and looped the ends around them, then pulled the long leather straps back to the bedsheet that tied her ankles and looped them again and again around it, finishing with a knot. With the slightest pull at the end of his knot-making Sarah could feel her feet, against her will, arch backwards, smoothing and exposing her soles. "Now, your highness, where is Simon ben Giora?"
"You could kill me, and I'd never tell! How much less will I tell because of your perverted fingers?"
"After a few days of this, perhaps we'll be able to tell."
"Days?"
"Of course, your highness. That's the beauty of our situation. The rebels in Jerusalem all have their eyes turned northwards looking for legions, so you and I can have our fun here south of Jerusalem for days and days if we want to. I can take all the time I want to learn all of your most sensitive spots, and then we can play them again and again until you will want to do anything for me just for some relief."
"I'll never betray the cause of Israel! Jerusalem forever!"
"Let's see what happens when I tickle your feet before we start talking about forever, shall we?" He reached up with both hands, and as soon as he touched that soft flesh, the young woman started to scream. Scaevola laughed out loud. "Forever is going to be fun, I think!" He began to scrabble his fingertips over Sarah's soles, and the screaming turned into a ticklish shriek, then quickly into tortured laughter. The flexibility of the sheet wrapped around her ankles let her feet flex for a moment, only to pull the toes back again, exposing anew the ticklish surfaces of her soles. He swept his fingertips from the toe end of her soles to the heel end, zigzagged them up and down, drew circles in the ticklish hollow of her arch, put his long finger at the base of a heel and twisted like a drill. With every change of movement Sarah bucked and squealed, and when she opened her eyes for just a moment she could see that the landscape of her chest was becoming sharper. The Roman tickled and tickled, thrilling Sarah with light strokes across her sole and arching her back when his short fingernails scratched from heel to instep. She tried furiously to recite the prophets in her mind, to envision the royal palace in Adiabene, to think of anything but the ticklish touches that were building into a delicious but uninvited pleasure that was filling her body, from her navel outward. She laughed and squealed, and she could feel something else, something her virgin body had not yet experienced, beginning to vie for her lungs.
Still Scaevola tickled her feet, probing between the ball of each foot and its toes, running routes from crescent down to heel, up to the center of the sole. As his fingers stroked a line from the spot between her first two toes on each foot down to the center of each heel, Sarah inhaled sharply and let out a moan, a sound she had never made before. Scaevola pulled his hands away. "Oh, Sarah. Now tell me you're not enjoying this, my beauty!"
Sarah panted as she raised her head. "Please..."
"No need to beg, Princess. Just tell me where Giora has fled."
She shook her head feebly. "I... I can't..."
"To Jerusalem?"
"No... please..."
"I know now that the center line of your sole drives you to distraction, Sarah, and I can tickle it any time I want to and as long as I want to. If you refuse my request one more time, I won't stop for a very long time, whether you tell me where Giora is or not. Now where is he?"
A bit of fire returned to Sarah's dark eyes. "Burn in Gehenna, Kittim!"
Scaevola smiled.
His index fingers returned to those fatal lines, moving up her soles, then down, then up, then down, and Sarah's resolve quickly dissolved. Her face twisted into a mask of ecstatic pleasure, and although she shaped her moans into the word "no," her hips' twisting and her lips' parting and her tormented laughter all cried out not for more of the same but for a climax. Running from her knees to her sternum were invisible wires, and they pulled inward with a ferocious, energetic spasm of pleasure every time his fingers ran across her soles. Moaning, screaming, laughing, her vision began to swim as her whole body became a nerve ending. And he kept tickling that awful, wonderful, wild spot on each foot. Soon her breath began to catch as she inhaled, and as if drowning in her own pleasure and torture, she fainted on the bed.
* * * * * * * * *
Sarah awoke abruptly, clutching the blanket that covered her to the neck. As she acquired her bearings, she realized that her riding clothes were completely gone and that, under the cover, she was entirely naked. She peeked towards the window and noted that it was still the height of the day--she must not have been unconscious long. Two Roman soldiers, backs to her, guarded her doorway. She glanced quickly around her room and discovered that some kind of garment was hanging on a hook on the wall. Holding the blanket between her and the doorway, she scooted over to the hook and took it down. She had never seen a Roman woman before; they tended to stay away from the Parthian frontier. But she had heard about their clothes, and she guessed that the dress was an import. No matter; at least it would cover her up. With all the speed she could muster, she pulled the dress on.
"Your highness can retire to the hills to take an evening meal provided that a guard accompanies you."
"Ah, so now you boys can speak Greek, can you?" She weighed her options and decided to take them up on the offer. After all, she was doing no good cooped up in the Judean villa--at least outside she could gather information on the surrounding terrain. She slipped on the Roman-style dress-sandals--too flimsy to run away in--and followed one of the soldiers as he led her out into the day's light.
Sarah could not see the walls of Jerusalem from the place the guard led her, but by the movement of the sun she could tell which direction it should be. She walked around as much as he would let her and as much as she could stand in the sandals, and after a while she rested in the shade. She watched as periodically centuries, no doubt encamped at all the small estates along the road, would march up and down the road, and she knew that this band controlled an important supply road into Jerusalem. Having observed what she could, she resigned herself to looking at some Greek scrolls that the soldier had brought for her, compliments of Scaevola. They were the stuff that a good Jewish girl was not supposed to read--Theocritus and Sappho, poems of longing and desire. She sat in the cool grass beneath a tree, unable to flee and thus resigned--she assured herself it was resignation--to read the filthy Gentile poetry. As she drank it in, she could not help remembering just how she had felt earlier, tied down, completely at the power of that powerful man. She had been terrified, and yet he had made her laugh. She blushed as she remembered laughing, then screaming, then wishing that he would just untie her, just let her...
She put down the poetry and stood up to walk around again, her face flushed. She heard hoof beats in the distance, and a man in centurion's armor rode up over the hill's crest.
"Your highness! I trust our hospitality has been to your satisfaction!"
"I never asked your hospitality, only safe passage to see King Agrippa."
Scaevola dismounted and took off his helmet. "Still on that charade, are we? You Parthians have never been friends to Agrippa, and we know it. You were on your way to give money to Ben-Giora." He stood very close to her and raised a hand slowly, stroking her hair. "It's a pity we have to play this little game, princess. Warfare is such a waste of time when a beauty like yourself is in my care."
Sarah swatted his hand away. "I'll have none of that, Kittim. You'll release me at once!"
"Princess, let us not waste opportunities! You will know my hands tonight. Will they be a lover's hands or a torturer's?"
"I'll have no lover among the Kittim!"
"Ah, your Highness. You still don't like me very much! We'll just have to get to know each other tonight!" He mouthed a kiss at her, put his helmet on, and began to ascend to his saddle. "You won't last much longer, I assure you. I already know one of your spots, and I'll find more tonight!" He rode off towards his century.
* * * * * * * *
That evening Sarah sat at a table, reading the Greek poetry again, when Scaevola entered the house wearing a toga rather than armor. She did not look up as he walked towards her, but she shrugged his hand off when he put it on her shoulder. "Still not warming up to me, dear? Very well." He turned to address her guards. "Tie her to a rafter for tonight. I'll get what I need." He walked out of the room, and Sarah found herself standing up before the guards could even get to her, insisting on the dignity of walking on her own to face her fate. At a mere gesture she followed one out of the house and to the villa, down the stairs to the cool basement chamber.
Scaevola stood waiting, arms crossed over his toga-clad chest. "Remove that dress, your highness." Sarah quietly obeyed, knowing full well that a knife awaited her garment if she did not. She stood before him, barefoot and naked, and he smiled slightly. Nodding to his soldiers, he gestured to a bed sheet slung over a hook which was in turn driven into a rafter, and they led her to the spot, held her arms up, and with swift motions bound her hands above her head. She pulled down slightly to test the strength of the binding, and as she expected, she could not pull her wrists even down to the top of her head. Scaevola flicked his wrist, and the soldiers departed to the corner of the room to sit. He walked up to Sarah and looked her in the eyes, then stepped slowly around her until he stood directly behind her. She could feel the warmth of his body in the cold room, and he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Are you ready to tell me about ben Giora?"
"Before I tell you, your Kittim legions will have fled back over the sea and to your filthy homes!"
"And if that takes years?"
"Then I will die before I tell you anything!"
"But you're so stunning alive, princess! I almost hope word arrives that Jerusalem has fallen. Then we can dispense with all this silliness and enjoy one another!"
"I'd never give you that pleasure."
"You already have. And you will tonight." With that he stooped slightly and began to trail one finger upwards, starting in the back of her right knee, tracing a line slowly up the middle of her thigh, tracing slightly inward as he ascended. Her feet attempted to move forward, but her hands only allowed so much forward motion before she rocked backwards, and he dropped to her knee again and started a second ascent. "Where do you think the finger will go, your highness? Why do you fear it?"
"I hate every part of your body, Kittim!"
"And I love every part of yours." This time his finger slowly drifted outward, moving from thigh around the edge of her buttock and up to her hip before she jumped away, his finger having swept over the ticklish line between hip bone and flank. "Ah, now there's a good jump. Shall we try it again?" He descended once more and began to rise once more. "You see, princess, I can make you laugh with my fingers..." He began to inch his finger upward, inward, forward. "Or I can make you moan. I don't imagine any of the Persian lads have put a digit there before, have they?"
"Don't touch me..."
"I'm going to be touching you quite a bit, your highness. You just have to tell me where." He dropped the finger down to the back of her knee again. "Do you want to laugh or to moan?"
"You can go to hell!"
"Laugh or moan, princess?" Sarah bit her lip. "Very well. I'm going to make you moan. I'm going inside you right now!" He moved swiftly up her leg, towards the center--
"No!"
"Is that a choice to laugh, then?"
"No. Leave me alone!"
"Not one of your choices. Last chance before I pick! Laugh or moan?"
"Then make me laugh!"
"Is that your choice?"
"Yes! It's my choice!"
"Then beg me to."
"What?"
"Beg me to make you laugh, or I'm going to start putting my finger where all men are forbidden!"
"Please, no..."
Scaevola leaned in towards her neck and once again whispered in her ear. "That's close, your highness. Just one word wrong. Please yes, Scaevola. Please tickle me, Scaevola."
"Please... tickle me."
"Beg me!"
"Why are you doing this?"
"My finger is about to move. Are you going to beg me?"
Sarah clenched her eyes shut. "Please! Please tickle me!"
"Ah, to hear you beg. It's music, my beauty. By the time we're done tonight you'll be begging me to do what you most fear now. But I should give you what you want first, no?" He reached both large hands around and placed his fingers just inside the ridges of her hip bones, his thumbs resting on the soft tops of her buttocks. "Remember, princess, you begged me to do this." A quick but firm squeeze made the princess rise onto the balls of her feet, and before she could get flatfooted again Scaevola set into her with eight fingers, pressing spots on her hips, each finger seeking and finding its own ticklish spot, and Sarah was whimpering, trying not to laugh, in a matter of seconds. "Princess! There's no reason to fight at this point. You might as well start laughing and at least enjoy as much as you can!" He continued wiggling; she continued begging. She threw her head back in one last surge of defiance, then it fell forward, and her laughter filled the cellar. His left hand still working on her hip, his right moved up to the very bottom rib. Her head thrashed back and forth, throwing her long, perfect, black hair across his face, letting him smell the perfect woman now under his power. Now his left hand crept forward, pressed and squeezed on the flesh between her side and belly button, clawed at her with strong, round fingertips. Sarah's initial roar of laughter became a steady bubbling song, every shift of his hands making the pitch go up, every gasp that she had to avail herself making her body heave. Scaevola pressed his toga-clad body up against her naked back, tickled with both hands her wickedly ticklish belly, moved down towards her lower abdomen, scraped and swpied and squeezed all the lovely flesh between her pubic hair and her ribs. He could feel her midsection start to tire even as her nerves tried to muster energy to jump away from every torturous touch. When she gasped now her voice came forth in desperate cries, some forming the word "stop," others only expelling with force the air that her body wanted to breathe slowly. He tickled and tickled; she tired and tired. When he stopped, her dancing feet gave way, barely helping the bedsheets to support her weight.
Scaevola stepped around in front of her. "Do you want to tell me now?" She shook her head side to side, slowly. The centurion let out a laugh. "I do have to admire your spirit, princess. A slave girl by now would be begging for any way out of this. I offer you one as easy as the name of a city, and you refuse. But a man with a thousand fingers does not give up at the point where a slave girl would break." He looked over his shoulder at his soldiers. "Give her a drink of water. She'll need it for what's coming next."
One of the soldiers walked over and offered her a cup of water, and she drank greedily. Looking up at him, she spoke quietly but with as much dignity as she could muster. "I hope you're enjoying this, Roman. When my people rescue me, I'll be sure to have you killed cruelly."
"Ah, princess. You call me Roman now. How endearing. But you're mistaken. Your kingdom won't hear about your disappearance for at least a month. And by the time they're able to muster and send an army, the Jerusalem revolt will already be over. And during the weeks when they're negotiating your ransom, I'll still have you in my power. So when you refuse my simple request, you're sending yourself into months of the same."
"I hate you."
"Hatred for a woman such as yourself is a step away from disdain and towards surrender, your highness. I'll have you telling me everything tonight. And if I don't, if your spirit is greater than any woman's I have ever seen, I'll still have you at my disposal tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. You can't win this game, princess."
With a renewed vigor she spat, "Jerusalem is no game, Kittim!"
"No, it's not. It's a troublesome city for the Roman cause. You do understand, don't you, that we Romans have nothing but the best in mind for you. We want to civilize you, bring you the joys of peace and philosophy. When your people stage these infantile revolts, you only do yourselves harm."
"As long as our cities stand in Adiabene, you'll never conquer the free people of Judah!"
"We'll see about that." He began to walk behind her again.
"Wait!"
"For what am I waiting, princess? Are you going to tell me where ben-Giora is hiding out?"
"No!"
"I didn't think so." Scaevola reached up and gave Sarah's skin a quick stroke under each arm, and once again she jumped. "Let's get back to what we were doing, shall we?" He began to walk his fingers from the bottom rib, up her sides, into her underarms, and she began to scream and twist furiously. "Ah, we've found a happy spot, have we?" He wrapped his strong left arm around her waist, pulling her close, and began to tickle mercilessly under her arm with his right hand. Sarah's head thrashed, her slender body filled with a terrified strength as his fingers played with her too-sensitive skin. Scaevola, a trained wrestler, simply moved his own chin outside her arm to avoid being butted by her skull, then continued to tickle her underarm. This time she did not tire for some time, her laughter keeping its panicked quality as he scratched and pawed at her, systematically moving from underarm to upper ribs, never letting his fingers dwell on any ticklish spot but repeatedly striking at them from above and below, each new assault drawing ticklish screams from her. With one smooth motion he released her and jumped backwards, and her head slumped. "Well, princess, I do believe we've found some fertile new territory! I can't wait to try the other side!"
"Please... I'll do what you want..."
"Princess, princess! I know very well you'll do what I want! But I am a man who loves balance! Since we've had fun under your right arm, now I'm going to have the same kind of fun under your left. I have a feeling that I can break your will entirely if I just tickle you under the other arm for a while. Do you think that's the case?"
"Please don't..."
"Ah, but not long ago you were begging me to tickle. Where would we be if I ignored what you so earnestly asked of me?"
"Please..."
"Yes, princess. Beg. I love it when you beg!" He wrapped his right arm around her waist.
"Please!"
"You'll soon be mine, Sarah." He wrapped his right arm around her waist, pulling her close to his warm body, and used his powerful neck muscles to impose her left arm between her head and his. Sarah could only let out a whimper as he began another relentless tickling assault, moving in and retreating, tickling that deadly spot under her arm and backing off, making her scream between laughs. Sarah's sensations of helplessness and the awful tickling overwhelmed her, and mere minutes into the awful tickling she was trying to yell, "Jerusalem!" But the monster with a thousand fingers would not leave alone the tender flesh between her arms and her ribs, and her body surged as the numbness of exhaustion and the urgency of being tickled in that terribly ticklish spot swept back and forth over her like the ocean's waves.
When he jumped back again, this time only the sheet binding her hands above her head kept her from slumping onto the floor. She mumbled, humiliated, "I told you what you wanted."
Scaevola lifted her chin with his finger from behind, whispering in her ear. "I didn't hear you."
"Jerusalem."
"Where?"
"Jerusalem."
"I don't believe you."
"Please! You have to believe me!" Sarah heard Scaevola's footsteps behind her and knew that he was going for his Milidigiti bag. "Please! I've told you what you wanted! Don't do this any more!"
"You've told me what I wanted to hear, that's for sure. But did you tell me the truth? That I don't know." He walked out in front of her, a long feather in each hand. "The Greeks held that the owl was Minerva's bird, the carrier of wisdom. Shall we see whether your confession was wise?"
"Stop! You promised!"
"I never promised. You just wanted me to." Scaevola drew one feather backhand across her erect nipple, and Sarah moaned. "I've found one of your most ticklish spots, and now I've set your body on edge. Now you're going to feel your body go over that edge. Beg if you want, but now what I want is right in front of me." With quickness of hand that any soldier would envy, the centurion began to whip the feathers' blades across her breasts, and Sarah never stopped laughing, moaning, giggling, begging. Time stopped having meaning for her young body, and the world now did not even extend to the walls of the cellar but only existed on whatever line each feather traced. She could feel the energy build up that had driven her unconscious the night before, but this time she could not even imagine passing out as the feather strokes lit on fire every inch of her breasts. Her tired abdomen pulsated, overworked with trying to breathe and now focusing lines of pleasure that led down to her womanhood. The feathers began to slow, and Sarah could feel every feather's pass, now focused on her nipples almost exclusively. The quick passes slowed to deliberate, electric, torturous strokes. She could feel each blade's pass, each filament, on her skin, and her laughter had disappeared, and her moans had become silent.
She managed to breathe out, "Truth!" The feather just kept stroking. Now, agonizingly slowly, each feather dragging for seconds at a time over each nipple, the passes and strokes were dragging her entire being inward; she could feel herself moisten, and her hips and belly and shoulders were all radiating desire. With one last stroke, Scaevola dropped both feathers on the ground. Sarah was one beautiful ticklish nerve. He stepped forward, touching his lips to hers. Her mouth, as Sarah seemed only to watch, began greedily to kiss his. Scaevola stepped back and smiled.
"Soldiers. Leave." They did as they were ordered. Scaevola reached into his cloak, pulled out a knife, and cut Sarah's bonds loose above her. "Sleep well tonight, princess. We'll be doing more of this tomorrow."
* * * * * * * * *
Sarah awoke to see beams of sunlight coming into her basement room. She had been sleeping on the small bed from her first night of captivity, and all the muscles of her torso were sore from laughing long the night before. She had slept naked, her clothes having been confiscated by the soldiers the night before, but this morning, folded neatly on a small table next to her bed, was another Roman dress sitting next to a pair of sandals. Her back to the door, Sarah dressed quickly. When she had finished (she knew they were watching), the guard at the top of the stairs called down, "Breakfast is ready, your highness."
She ascended the stairs and followed the guard to the villa's main house. She sat and ate a breakfast of some fruit and light bread, and a servant boy carried off her dishes. Another servant brought her the scrolls that she had been reading the day before, and once again a soldier led her out to the meadow to spend the day in repose. The view was the same, so this time after she had brushed her hair, she started earlier reading the Greek love poetry. This time, reading of the pulsing power of Eros, her body began to remember the sensations of the night before, not the humiliation of being made to laugh or the horror of surrendering information but those spasms of liquid pleasure that filled her as Scaevola, that powerful and merciless man, flicked feathers across and over her breasts. As she reached the end of a stanza her left hand, without much of a conscious thought, drifted down between her legs as she held the book with her right, and she leaned her head back and rested her longing body on the soft grass.
The sound of a horse's hooves startled her from her reverie, and she sat up and put the book down and her hands at her sides, then behind her, then at her sides again. Scaevola, a cat's smile on his face, rode over the ridge and towards her, and she stood to confront him. "Surely by now an army is being raised to rescue me, Kittim."
"Good morning to you as well, your highness. I trust that last night was pleasant for you?"
"Do you ask that of the men you crucify?"
"I've never had a crucified man kiss me like you did!" Sarah could feel her face turn red, and she tried to stammer a response as the centurion laughed. "Princess! Why do you keep fighting me? Why not join me tonight for dinner, as the lady you are? Why not let me treat you like a princess instead of a prisoner for one night?"
"I'll never get into bed with you!"
"Ah, that word 'never' again. But I assure you, Princess, as long as you're in my custody, I swear to you that the only man who will ever enter a marriage bed with you will be your husband."
"I'm not married."
"Then what do you have to worry about? Join me for a fine meal and some fine wine, and let's recline instead of keeping up the torture."
"I take it you've dispatched men to report what I told you, then."
"Not yet; one can hardly be sure that the first confession under duress is the truth."
"So why allow me reprieve tonight?"
"Because the fighting goes well in the north, Highness. We have plenty of time to get what we want. And besides, I've become quite taken with you, Princess. Titus can wait for information on Bar Giora; I'm certain that he's not much of a danger now."
"Have your armies taken Jerusalem yet?"
"They haven't reached its walls, Princess. But from what I hear, there won't be much of a Jerusalem left when they do. The rebels are tearing themselves apart."
Sarah sat, saddened by the news even as she doubted whether the Centurion would tell her the truth about such things. All the same, she knew that another night like the last would have her surrendering secrets again, so she nodded assent. "I'll join you for dinner and wine tonight."
"You have made my day, Princess."
* * * * * * * *
When Sarah came back to the villa that afternoon some servant girls had already been dispatched to assemble a full dressing room, fit for royalty, in the villa's main house. Despite herself, Sarah thrilled for a moment at the prospect of making herself up for the evening. Although the gowns he had sent were, like the others, of a Roman style, nonetheless, she could tell, they were the sorts of things that aristocratic women of Rome might wear for an evening of wine and reclining, and she enjoyed them for that despite their strangeness. When evening arrived, Sarah was adorned as a princess again, and even being led by Roman soldiers to dinner, she felt magnificent. She took a couch in the dining room and began to sip the wine that a servant brought her.
When Scaevola arrived, Sarah did not hide a giggle at the toga he was wearing. She knew that important Roman men still dressed as Republicans, but having seen her father and men of the court in their fantastic imperial finery, she could not help but be amused at the pretense.
"Do you find my apparel inappropriate?"
"No, Roman. I find your country's customs funny."
"At least you're calling me Roman now. I was beginning to think myself a Cyprian!"
"When you pick up a sword in behalf of Caesar, what does that matter?"
"Ah, princess. Why politics on such a lovely evening?" He took another couch, and servants began to bring food. They chatted and drank and ate, never for long talking about the war that divided them, spending more time talking of the landscape around them that was home to neither but beloved of both, the poetry of the Greeks that both of them read and enjoyed, stories from families in distant homelands. As they went Sarah drank more than a little wine, and the defiant diplomat that had ridden into the Rephaim was soon a chatty girl of the court. After they had eaten, Scaevola took her hand, and they climbed steps to the roof of the house and its balcony. As they looked at stars together, Scaevola put his arm around her waist. She did not pull away.
"Why must we be enemies, Sarah?"
"You know why, Kittim. Jerusalem is David's city, not Caesar's."
He drew around and faced her. "David was no more Persian than he was Roman, my lovely."
"No, but we Persians at least know how to leave people to their temples without putting golden eagles everywhere in sight!" Scaevola squeezed her hip, and Sarah giggled and twisted away. "I thought you weren't going to do any of that tonight!"
"I said I wouldn't torture. What's the harm in a little play?"
"What if every tickling touch is torture to me?"
Scaevola reached a hand out, and Sarah swatted it away. "Then I'd say that I'd like to torture you every night of the rest of my life if I had the choice!"
She giggled at him. "The rest of your life? Surely you don't think you'll be here too much longer!"
"Not in this little town, no. I'm certain I'll have things to do elsewhere."
"Then you should get all this 'forever' nonsense out of your head. It's a long time, isn't that what you told me?"
"I did indeed. Now stand close to me again. My hands will keep their peace." She stepped in, and they stood, his arms around her, and looked at the stars again. "So you must indulge me, Sarah. What kind of tickling was the worst for you?"
Sarah giggled again and stepped away to avoid his question's becoming another kind of search. "So you can have the advantage next time you have me tied up? I think not!"
"Alright then, my little fighter. What kind was the best?"
"Why do you tickle me anyway?"
"To torture information out of you, of course!"
"No, you don't. If you wanted that, you wouldn't have stopped and kissed me. Why do you really do it?"
"Because you're a woman, and I'm a man, and you're beautiful." He stepped in closer and put both hands around her. "Kiss me." Sarah hesitated but did just that. "I think I know what kind of tickling you like best, Sarah."
"It wasn't on my breasts!"
"Nobody said it was! But now I know what you fear most." Sarah laughed out loud now, and Scaevola laughed with her. "I think you liked it best when I tickled your feet."
Sarah giggled without knowing why she couldn't stop. "No! I hated that! Why do you say I liked that best?"
"No reason. But now I know two of your worst spots! You'd better tell me where you like it best before I find out all of your secrets!"
"And without even tickling me for them. That's a change, isn't it?"
"Oh, the night is still young, Sarah. So what gives you the most joy? When I tickle your legs?"
"What if I said I hated all of it?"
"I'd know you were lying. You wouldn't have kissed me if you hated me. I think you might just love me."
"Do you think that?"
"I do. Now where do you like it most?" His sneaky left hand stole a pinch from her side, and she giggled.
"Are you trying to find the spot I like now?"
"I would love to do that! But I don't think you'd tell me because you want me to tickle you some more!"
"Do you think that now?"
"I think it makes you feel irresistible, which you are. In fact, I think that if the times were different, you would run off with me and be my own princess!"
"Because you tickle me?"
"Because I make you happy in ways that you're not supposed to admit."
Sarah, still smiling, still tried to sound serious. "You know that we cannot be lovers, Scaevola. Jerusalem won't let us."
"What if we asked Jerusalem for her blessing?"
"What?"
"Marry me, Sarah. With the revolution almost gone, we can rule the city, a Roman war hero and a Persian princess. We can stop the war that has torn her apart for so long."
This time Sarah pulled away without the playful giggle. "No, Kittim. Jerusalem will never be your city. She is the city of David, and she belongs to the Jews!"
"It can be a city of peace for both Jew and Roman, Sarah! We can make it so!"
She turned her back on him. "No. I might die here, but I will never be a Roman's wife."
"You know, Sarah, I was afraid you'd say that. But I was almost hoping that you would." He turned back to the stairs. "Guards! Bring Mattathias up here!"
"Mattathias?"
"That's right, your highness. The rightful high priest of Jerusalem. Didn't you expect to see him when you came to visit Agrippa?"
"You know by now that Adiabene is no friend of Agrippa!"
"Of course I do, my lovely. But he's not here for diplomacy either, at least not the kind you're pretending. He's going to perform our wedding ceremony."
Sarah started towards the steps but saw an armored guard in the way. She turned back angrily towards Scaevola, the wine that before made her giddy steeling her defiance. "I'll never consent to this! I'll send word to my father, and he'll come for you!"
"Never. You do like that word, don't you?" He turned to the guards that had come up. "On second thought, men, bring Mattathias to the basement. He can enjoy the show, and he'll be there when the princess's spirit breaks and she consents."
* * * * * * * *
More than on either of the previous nights, Sarah struggled as hard as she could as the soldiers dragged her into the basement room. Their arms, though, hardened from many battles, gave no ground, and soon she was on her back, slippers off, arms and legs tied to bedposts, waiting to be at the mercy of the man who knew her body and her mind so intimately and who was now committed to bending her will. Sarah corrected herself; he had always tried to bend her will, but this time he wanted to make her his own and Jerusalem with her.
Sarah watched in horror as Scaevola's sandaled feet descended the stairs. "Please, Scaevola, don't do this!"
"Begging already, princess? You're going to make this far too easy for me!" He had his bag of tricks with him, and behind him, in full regalia, was Mattathias, the puppet of the Herods, who had not been able to act as high priest ever since the rebels chased him out of Jerusalem. She pulled on the cuffs that held her to the bed, but they had not grown any weaker since the night before, even if she had.
"Please! I'll tell you where Bar Giora is hiding!"
"You already told me that."
"But I'll tell you where in Jerusalem! I'll tell you anything! Just please don't do this!"
"Do you really think I was ever after Bar Giora?"
Sarah's panic suddenly turned to a chill as she realized what Scaevola was saying. "What do you mean?"
"We had his location down to the street the night we captured your caravan--a Galilean rebel told us everything to save his skin. I've been testing you the last couple nights to see where your best spots were. I don't need your information. I want you."
"No..."
"Yes, princess. You can consent to marry me right now and spare yourself a long evening, but I have to admit that, now that I've got you here, I almost hope you decide to resist as long as you can." Sarah's eyes told the story better than any poet could attempt: her contempt for the puppet-priest, her desire for and fear of her tormentor, and her own conflict between anticipated pleasure and humiliation all blended together, and her soft lips formed a mask of protest, her mind unable to match words to the moment. "One last chance, princess. Jerusalem or the feather?"
"Send that traitor away!"
Scaevola's face registered genuine surprise for a moment, and he looked over his shoulder. "Oh, the priest? He's waiting for your consent. As it turns out, his scholars have found precedent for a very short wedding ceremony. So when you give your consent, he'll pronounce us married, and Gaius here will be our witness. That way we can have done with the ritual and have a proper Queen of Jerusalem before we leave this room."
Sarah knew that she could not give up without a fight, even as she realized that she could not win. "Do your worst, Roman." Scaevola's grin was hungry, and as he reached advanced towards the bed, she knew that he was going to do just that.
"I'm going to tickle you as long as I want, and then I'll ask you to marry me again. Each time you deny me, the torture will last longer, and I will not stop until your will is broken and you consent. So I say again, will you consent to marry me and become Queen of Jerusalem?"
Sarah flashed him a flirtatious grin. "You could never tickle me well enough to make me agree to that!" Sarah could not understand her own sudden shift, her playful mood in such a serious moment. For a brief moment, all that Scaevola gave her, she wondered whether he had already won the fight.
"I'm going to show you just how little you knew before about tickling, my princess!"
Sarah's heart jumped, and she could not discern now whether it feared or wanted just that. "Do what you will."
"A fine sentiment coming from anyone's wife! Now let's start, shall we?" Milidigiti reached down as if plucking a berry and caught Sarah's right big toe between his thumb and index finger. Sarah was already giggling, suddenly finding his silly approach funny. Joining her in laughter, he pulled the toe back, hardly meeting any resistance, and began to run his fingertips up from the ball of her foot to the heel, each fingertip swerving at his whim as it descended. The beautiful young woman, already delighted with wine and amused at the man who was her lover and tormentor, simply let herself go this time, laughing with abandon as his fingers worked their magic. When she screamed now, she did so with the voice of a thrilled girl, letting the feeling take her so that her heart would take joy rather than fear. Letting the sensation of being ticklish and laughing take over her mind, she thought that she could forget all about getting married.
Scaevola looked on the beautiful girl and knew she had figured out the secret to ordinary tickle torture: she had dropped her pride. "Poor child," he thought, "You probably think you've found the secret that will end my power. But now that you think you're away from your body, you've only given it up to me!" He kept tickling that foot for some time, enjoying her laughter and her movement, her toes and her sole. Sarah thrashed with abandon, her laughter music to her lover. He let go of her foot after a while and let her catch her breath. "Are you ready to consent, Sarah?"
When her head rose, she wore a sly grin. "What, if this is all that's coming?"
Scaevola could not help but smile broadly at her. "You're going to make a contest of this. I like that!" He reached down into his bag and pulled out a vial. "When I uncork this, though, you're going to realize that it never was a contest."
"That won't work either, Roman. I'll not drink your potion!"
"Potion? Drink? Oh, Princess. If I can't get you to marry me, how should I ever convince you to drink a potion? This goes on those feet of yours, and you needn't do anything with your mouth but laugh." He grabbed her left foot and began to pour the oil onto it. The slightly cool and slow-flowing liquid hit her foot and stuck, and Scaevola began lovingly to rub it onto her skin. Sarah moaned just a bit as he gently spread the oil onto her left, then her right sole. "As you can see, Princess, there is some pleasure to the oil. There's another side to it as well. What fingers can do to your beautiful feet, they can do three times as well to your feet with this oil. Would you like to see what I mean, or would you like to consent?"
Sarah was now grinning openly. "If all you're going to do is tickle, why should I care?" Scaevola was now the one grinning. He grasped the girl's ankle with a strong hand and began fanning her sole with his fingers, each one slipping and sweeping down the sole in succession. Sarah's head rocked back as she roared with laughter. His fingers continued to work furiously as his wrist slowly rotated, his fingers whipping across her soles at a diagonal, now towards her instep, now going from her pink heel up towards the ball of her foot. He could hear the subtle changes as he continued, her ticklish inward breaths occasionally slipping into the delighted gasps of pleasure. This time the young woman never showed the signs of horror as she had in previous evenings; she thought she had nothing to lose, so she was enjoying herself, the pleasure and the laughter.
Pride gone.
Shame gone. This was going faster than he expected.
Scaevola wasn't going to waste the moment, though; he promptly switched hands, grabbing an ankle, fingertips sliding from the oil as they gripped. His other hand, though slightly slower, still held up his name, each finger moving as a hundred as Sarah began to come up short of breath. Her ecstasy showed on her face as his slippery fingers, always making her laugh, also brought her closer and closer to the release that she had experienced the first night. Her body writhed and thrashed as the ticklish touches built towards the explosion of pleasure. He could see her diving towards that grand triumph, but at the last second he released the foot, and her head rocked forward as the moment fled her.
"What?"
"I want you to stay there for a moment, Princess." She squirmed in vain against her bonds, rubbing her behind against the bed, hoping foolishly to reach her destination. "I want you to think about the possibility of becoming my queen, and I want to adjust my toga." Sarah looked and could see that a new bulge had made the garment awkward on him, and when he pulled the hems apart to put them back together, she could see a column of flesh just for a moment before he put the fold back in place. Her eyes went wide. "That's right, Princess. You did see what you think you saw."
"But that's impossible!"
Scaevola's face leered in triumph. "Not impossible, dear. But it is making you reconsider. You see, if you knew some Latin, you'd know not only that my nickname is thousand-fingers--you know why that's my name now--but also that Scaevola means left hand. My family Latinized our tribe's name so that we could get along in Rome. When I became an officer in Caesar's army, I did so with the name "left hand," the name of our ancestor Benjamin." He pulled his hands from behind his back, and Sarah beheld one of them, the left hand, was now wearing a black glove. In the torchlight she saw something thin extending from each fingertip. "And now, my love, you're going to consent to put the House of Saul on the throne in Jerusalem, to take it back from the Goyim just as you dreamed. And you're going to do it fast because you know your soles are next." With that he grabbed the toes on her right foot and set upon her ankle with the glove. Instantly she could tell that each fingertip on the glove ended in a small, stiff finger, and the tiny, intense sensations on her ankle instantly sent her into desperate laughter.
"NO! Wait!"
He kept tickling her ankle. "That's not consent, and the next move I make is going to be to your foot, Sarah."
"Wait! Let me think!"
"Wrong answer." Scaevola's right hand bent back the toes, and his left hand began a hellish skittering assault on Sarah's sole. Between the sudden revelation, the wine, and the awful precision of the feathers' tips, Sarah was screaming sounds that were neither words nor refusals. All the fantasies that she'd entertained for the last few days danced in front of her mind's eye as her moaning and laughing and squealing became a mosaic of pleasured sound. "Nod your head whenever you want to speak your consent, my princess." Sara's head flopped forwards and back as the sounds continued, and Scaevola stopped.
Casting a glance over his shoulder, he could see the high priest's flushed face but not his right hand. "Come now, Mattathias. A bit of patience. I promise my men will get you a ticklish servant girl for those purposes. For now, give me a queen!"
Mere minutes later the old goat of a priest shuffled out of the room, the promise of ticklish flesh compelling him out of the room. Sara looked longingly at her new husband, the future king of Jerusalem.
Scaevola picked up a length of silk rope and gestured towards the bed.
