it, and poured him another, undiluted.
‘What is it, my dear?’ I asked, smoothing my hand down the sweet curve of his cheek. ‘Tell me, something is eating you up inside.’
‘I can’t tell you,’ he said, on a sobbing breath.
‘You can, and whatever it is, I’ll forgive you in advance.’
He looked into my eyes.
‘I know how to get home,’ he faltered. ‘And I know how to get you home. And I never told you, because I wanted you to stay with me.’
‘Oh,’ I was taken aback. But I saw his point. He would have to go back to a world which was extensively ruined. I had only empty Bath to return to, and a broken heart.
‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘I would have stayed with you if you had told me.’
His eyes widened. ‘Really?’
‘Indeed. Now drink your wine, I paid a fortune for it. That Augustus is an old bandit.’
‘But it is good wine,’ he said, and sipped some more, then kissed me with wine wet lips. He relaxed, but not enough. There was something else. I had a strong feeling that he was leaving something out; something important.
‘What do they think about homosexual relationships, back in your time?’ I had never asked this before.
‘I will be castrated and hanged if they find out,’ he said quietly.
‘Well, we can’t have any of that, can we? We’ll stay here. Nice place. I can live without soap. It’s only fat and ashes - we can concoct some. Perhaps we can set up a little still. They make glassware. I think I remember how it works. Plenty of wine - we can make brandy. Cognac d’ Emperor. Just a different emperor.’
‘My sweet heart,’ he said, and slumped against me. Those were all of his secrets. And rather than lose my Marcus, I would happily spend my life in Roman Bath, scribing letters for farmers and clerks, and sleeping every night in his beloved arms.
However, a still might be a good idea. For those fraught days. Everyone has them. And if we changed the future - considering what I now knew about the future - it would have to be for the better.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS PUZZLED ... BATH
The Times, October 2014. From our History Section.
Archaeologists are puzzled about a grave which they have discovered at the edge of the borders of Roman Bath. The grave contains the remains of two men, Lucius Octavius Aquila and Marcus Flavius Aquila. It is thought that they might have been fellow slaves or brothers. They seem to have died together at about seventy years of age. Uniquely, in this grave is a bottle which contains what seems to have been a distilled spirit. This had previously been believed to have been discovered in Persia much later. The County Archaeologist is investigating.
AELFWINE AND THE SUCCUBUS
Spring, 793, Lindisfarne Monastery, off the coast of Northumberland
‘But why did the Devil send you?’ asked Brother Aelfwine. ‘I’m a man. I should have got an incubus, a fallen angel in the shape of a woman. Why did they send me a succubus?’
‘I’m not a succubus,’ replied the tall, cloaked figure.
‘Of course you are,’ asserted Brother Aelfwine. ‘You appeared out of nowhere in my locked cell. You’re naked under that cloak, I can see a glimpse of your thigh, it’s bare. And...’ he consulted a sheet of vellum on which a condemnation was written for the brothers to meditate upon before falling asleep. A Warning Against Night Demons. ‘Let me see,’ said Brother Aelfwine, referring to the Warning. “Their skin is as white as dead men’s bones”. Your skin is as pale as a pearl. “Their hair is as black as sin”. You have dark curly hair. “Their mouths are as red and as hot as a coal in the fires of Hell,” and you have a mouth that begs for a kiss, and eyes like the Abbot’s gem that he set in the cover of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Emerald eyes. What else could you be?’
‘You are leaping to conclusions,’ said the succubus, in a dark, velvety voice, with a lilting accent which was music to Brother Aelfwine’s ears. He shed the cloak and was indeed naked under it. He was the most beautiful man Aelfwine had ever seen.
‘Look at you,’ he mumbled. ‘You are made of perfection, as all fallen angels must be. No wonder the daughters of men fell in love with you.’
‘You are doing lovely work,’ said the succubus, moving closer to look at the vellum laid out on Brother Aelfwine’s desk. The picture of Saint Aidan, seated at his own desk, his white cat on his lap, was drawn in outline. The white cat sitting on Brother Aelfwine’s bed was clearly acting as a model. It sniffed at the succubus’ extended fingers and allowed a caress. But it was well known that cats were creatures of night.
‘That is Pangur Ban, the Abbot’s cat,’ explained Brother Aelfwine. ‘I borrowed him. He’ll only stay as long as my supply of dried fish lasts. He doesn’t really like anyone except Father Eadward. There, thank you, God bless you, Pangur, that’s the lot, I’ll just let you out,’ said Brother Aelfwine, handing over the last of the tiny dried fish. The cat, crunching, was standing at the door a moment later. Brother Aelfwine let him out and re-locked the door.
He expected the succubus to have vanished but he was still present, looking over the other leaves on the desk.
‘Your lettering is excellent,’ he commented.
‘Aren’t you supposed to try to seduce me?’ asked Brother Aelfwine. Hope was colouring his voice.
‘Oh, very well,’ sighed the succubus. ‘But afterwards, I want to talk to you.’
‘Are you so sure that you can seduce me?’ asked Brother Aelfwine.
‘We succubi like a challenge,’ purred the succubus, seized Brother Aelfwine by his scapular and drew him into a kiss so hot, so sweet and so long that the brother gasped for breath. The succubus’ skin was so smooth, so delicate and his limbs so long and fine that the brother shed his clothes and drew his seducer into his arms, laid them down on his narrow, chaste bed, and gave himself completely over to pleasure. The only reason that the whole abbey was not aware of his forbidden liaison was that the succubus, at his moment of climax, locked mouths with Aelfwine and swallowed his scream.
Oddly enough, thought Brother Aelfwine when he could think again, the succubus had also spilled semen, which was not like the Warning at all. Possibly the Warning had been wrong. The overheated tone of the warnings about these night demons had always obscurely worried him. He said so. The succubus laughed.
‘I always thought that someone should have told them to stop drooling into their ink,’ he chuckled, hauling Brother Aelfwine up to lie on his chest, so that they were face to face. He smelt of sea water and musk: very earthy smells for a demonic creature.
‘Oh, thou art lovely, Aelfwine! So sweet is thy love, my bones are melted with thee.’
‘Thou art fair, my love, thou art fair,’ sighed Brother Aelfwine. ‘Thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks, and thy lips are a thread of scarlet.’
The succubus tasted some of the seed spilled between them.
‘My hands drip with myrrh,’ he said. ‘I feed among the lilies.’
‘Now that you have seduced me, succubus, and ruined my vocation and damned me to eternal torment, what is there left to talk about?’ asked Brother Aelfwine, comfortably.
‘You joined this monastery because they would let you spend all your time drawing and illuminating,’ chided the succubus. ‘You have a reputation for chastity because you do not desire women. If you were truly holy you would not have assumed that I was a succubus. If you come with me, I can take us to a prince who will employ you as an artist, and me as a singer, and we can lie together every night.’
‘Vade