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Literature Rape of the Sabine Women

KD Rebel, 4


Just short of Cohen’s driveway, Eric flagged him down. “Yeah, the Gods are with us,” he enthused. “It’s a huge ranch-style house with an attached 4-car garage. The freak started to leave about five minutes ago, but he had a fatal accident.” Eric tapped his knife and grinned, while Trebor chuckled. Eric continued, “The upstairs is dark but I can hear music at the windows. There is a little bit of light, apparently from a basement stairwell. I think they are in the basement. No dogs. There is a burglar alarm system. The back yard is surrounded by a privacy fence. Let’s do it!”
Moments later the two silent avatars of vengeance crept silently around the exterior of the immense garage. Trebor carried a canvas kit filled with tools and meters. Both were armed with 9mm handguns and razor-sharp knives.
Eric kept watch through the windows and around the perimeter of the yard while Trebor did his magic with the alarm system. Being a former electronics instructor at Red Rocks College, bypassing alarms was no problem for the elder raider, requiring only time and patience.
Twenty minutes later, the Aryan duo was inside the house, standing in the biggest kitchen Eric had ever seen other than in a commercial establishment. The music, if that’s what one could call the primitive noise, was not as loud as they had earlier estimated, but still sufficient to mask any slight sounds of their movements.
As Eric had surmised, the little available light emanated from a stairway to the basement. They inched down the stairs. At the bottom, a partially open door revealed opulent decadence beyond anything they had imagined. Except for one corner of the large room which contained an open communal shower and hot tubs, the entire floor was covered in snow-white, deep-plush carpet.
Pictures, too obscene to be called art, interspersed with floor-length mirrors, decorated the otherwise maroon-colored walls. The centerpiece was a bed that must have been custom-made for orgies. It was close to ten-feet-by-ten-feet-square, with video cameras mounted on posts at the corners. Hooks for restraints were strategically placed above and around, a shelf on the head-board held whips and sex toys, while the ceiling above was another mirror.
The KD raiders did not of course know about Sid’s vow to debauch the girls with the ultimate in submission. Nor did they know how desperately the girls were hooked on nose-candy. Evidently though, their addiction was sufficient that they had decided to cooperate, for they were both naked, one of them in restraints, the other in action. Turning the spectacle from raunchy to ridiculous was the sight of the depraved Sidney, himself naked, except for gold necklaces, bracelets and rings, with a pot belly hanging over withered legs. He was orchestrating the action with a whip of several short thongs.
The girls were too stoned to notice Trebor and Eric as they approached the scene. Sidney, whose back was to the door, was too engrossed. The first inkling the Porn Palace owner had of impending disaster was sudden and total. With a running thrust kick to the right kidney area, Trebor propelled the absurd looking degenerate onto the bed, where he landed across Candy’s back. For a moment there was astonished silence except for the music and an anguished moan from Sidney. Heather’s eyes were the first to focus on the KD raiders, and she let out a panicky scream, which she quickly choked off as Eric’s 9mm turned her way.
“Nobody makes a sound unless you’re asked a question, understand?” Eric’s voice left no doubt in anyone’s mind that obedience was advisable. Both girls nodded, but the moaning Sidney failed to acknowledge the order. Trebor reached over the bed and butt-stroked the creep in the nose with his gun. A howl of anguish was followed with assurances that the command was indeed understood.
Trebor grabbed a handful of the gold chain around Sid’s neck and yanked him from the bed, holding him erect at arm’s length.
“Okay, first things first,” he began. “You,” his gaze fell on Candy, “untie her,” he gestured toward Heather with his gun hand. “And you”—each time he spoke there was emphasis on the word you—“how do we turn off that damn racket you call music?” He yanked on the chains. Sniveling Sidney pointed to a control panel on the nearest wall. Heather was now released, and Trebor pointed at her with the gun, “You turn off that noise.”
Terrified despite her stoned condition, Heather scurried to obey. The resulting silence magnified the effect of Trebor’s menacing voice. “Now you two sit there,” he gestured to the nearest edge of the bed. Making no effort to cover their nudity, whether because of shock or the effects of cocaine, they quickly obeyed.
“Alright now, Mr. Cohen, where is the money you brought home?” Cohen started to deny that he carried money home, but was interrupted when Trebor drove a knee into his naked groin, nearly smashing his testicles. For long moments the disgusting creature lay on the floor holding his crotch and whimpering.
“My patience is running out Sidney,” Trebor warned.
“In there,” the oily degenerate gasped, pointing to a door at the far end of his playroom. Without a word, Eric strode to the door and disappeared from sight. A moment later, he returned with a briefcase which he flipped open on the bed. Inside were perhaps two or three thousand dollars in cash, along with some documents.
“Sidney, Sidney, Sidney,” Trebor intoned. “I am disappointed in you. I meant all the money you have brought home.”
“That is all,” Cohen gasped in a last effort to keep his ill-gotten wealth.
“Okay, if that’s how you want to play it,” the implacable raider warned. Several broken fingers, a lot of pain and two minutes induced total co-operation. Sidney revealed the location of a hidden wall safe in the same room from which Eric had retrieved the briefcase. And, of course, its combination. Under Trebor’s watchful eye and his gun, the three captives remained absolutely silent while Eric went to check the veracity of Sid’s confession. Minutes later, he returned, saying, “Yep, a real haul.”
Without further ado, Trebor holstered his gun, pulled his knife and in one swift move cut Cohen’s throat from ear to ear. Blood spurted from his severed jugular vein, splattering in gruesome abundance over the naked legs and torsos of the stunned girls. Reflexively, they jerked away from their seated positions, gagging at the sight of blood, which to their civilized eyes was a new experience.
Never even glancing at Sidney’s still-quivering body, the KD raiders proceeded methodically about their business, each doing what was necessary with a minimum of discussion. Eric stripped a pillow of its case, dumped the cash from the briefcase into it and left for the other room to fill it with the contents of the safe.
Trebor turned to the girls, “Go wash all that blood off.” He pointed to the communal shower. As is known to all who experience life-threatening situations, action eases fear. Paralyzed by what they had seen, Candy and Heather regained their co-ordination as they engaged in the familiar routine of showering.
Under the sound of running water, Candy whispered, “You think they’re gonna kill us?”
“No, why would he tell us to shower just to kill us?” was Heather’s logical response. “Maybe they intend to rape us?”
“Could be, that’s the least of our worries. It’s not like we are virgins or something.” “Sometimes rapists torture and kill women.”
“Will you shut up with the kill stuff, it scares me,” Heather scolded.
“Well, just what do you suggest we do?”
With the practicality of an experienced, worldly woman, Heather declared, “I suggest we fuck their brains out, or whatever they want, however they want, as long as they want, until we get a chance to escape.” They agreed on strategy. Finished showering, they attempted to be as sexy and alluring as two nude women can be, as they approached Trebor. However, if they thought their charms would control the situation, such hopes were rudely dashed as he brusquely ordered them to get dressed. The bewildered women exchanged confused glances as they struggled into their clothes. So far there appeared to be one man who could not be manipulated by sexual offers.
Eric had retuned with a pillowcase full of cash. “Think we should look the house over for valuables?”
Trebor looked at his watch, then mused out loud, “It will be daylight in an hour and a half. Figure a little over an hour to the turnoff, what the hell, give it a ten minute look-over. I’ll have to keep an eye on these two.” Eric bounded up the steps, while the girls heaved sighs of relief. It seemed they weren’t about to be killed anyhow.
So far neither man had spoken to the girls outside of brief commands, one of which was to keep silent. So both of them were afraid to initiate a conversation with their ruthless captor. They sat silently on the bed, hoping that the quiet man would say something to reveal their fate, and at the same time dreading what those words might make known. Seemingly endless minutes of fearful suspense dragged on in absolute silence. Finally Candy could not take it anymore.
“Can I ask something?” she ventured timorously.
“May I ask something,” Trebor corrected her grammar.
“May I?” Candy repeated, feeling like a chastised school girl.
“Okay, but first hand me one of those sheets off that bed.” As Candy and Heather removed an oversized sheet from the huge bed, Trebor reflected that sometimes a woman looked as good dressed as undressed. These two looked good any which way.
Candy handed him a sheet and he sat down on a chair opposite the bed. He pulled the knife from the sheath and began to cut the sheet into strips.
“What’s that for?” Candy asked.
“To tie you up with.”
“I guess that means you won’t let us go?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t kill us, will you?”
“No.” Trebor’s short replies weren’t very reassuring.
Candy tried a new approach. “Are you gonna make love to us?” “Can’t make love unless you’re in love,” was all Trebor replied.
“While Candy and Heather were digesting that in their minds, Eric returned. “Not much we can use, but he did have a .45 caliber handgun and four boxes of ammo in his bedroom.”
“Okay then,” Trebor said, “here’s what we do. I’ll drive, one girl sits in the front seat with me. The other sits in the back with you. With these strips we tie the girls together so neither one can jump out if we catch a red light.” Trebor addressed the girls, “You saw what happened to Sid. Can I assume that you won’t do anything stupid and get the same?” Shuddering, they both vowed co-operation.
Eric had Heather carry the pillowcase filled with money and held her slender wrist firmly in one hand as they exited the house. Trebor similarly kept a tight hold on the blonde. They re-arranged the gear from the back seat, tied the women together and proceeded toward home.

____________________

KD Rebel is now available from Daybreak Press: here.

Categories
Julian (novel) Literature Porphyry of Tyre

Julian, 12

Julian presiding at a conference of Sectarians
(Edward Armitage, 1875)

 
But at that time I was hardly a philosopher. I studied what I was told to study. The deacon who gave me instruction was most complimentary. “You have an extraordinary gift for analysis,” he said one day when I was exploring with him John 14:25, the text on which the Arians base their case against the Athanasians. “You will have a distinguished future, I am sure.”
“As a bishop?”
“Of course you will be a bishop since you are imperial. But there is something even more splendid than a bishop.”
“A martyr?”
“Martyr and saint. You have the look of one.”
I must say my boyish vanity was piqued. Largely because of this flattery, for several months I was confident that I had been especially chosen to save the world from error. Which, in a way, turned out to be true, to the horror of my early teachers.
Bishop George was an arrogant and difficult man but I got on with him, largely because he was interested in me. He was a devoted controversialist. Finding me passably intelligent, he saw his opportunity. If I could be turned into a bishop, I would be a powerful ally for the Arians, who were already outnumbered by the Athanasians, despite the considerable help given them by Constantius.
Today, of course, the “pernicious” doctrine of the three-in-one God has almost entirely prevailed, due to the efforts of Bishop Athanasius. Constantius alone kept the two parties in any sort of balance. Now that he is dead the victory of the Athanasians is only a matter of time. But today none of this matters since the Galileans are now but one of a number of religious sects, and by no means the largest. Their days of domination are over. Not only have I forbidden them to persecute us Hellenists; I have forbidden them to persecute one another. They find me intolerably cruel!
Was I a true Galilean in those years at Macellum? There has been much speculation about this. I often wonder myself. The answer is not clear even to me. For a long time I believed what I was taught. I accepted the Arian thesis that the One God (whose existence we all accept) mysteriously produced a sort of son who was born a Jew, became a teacher, and was finally executed by the state for reasons which were never entirely clear to me, despite the best efforts of Bishop George to instruct me.
But while I was studying the life of the Galilean I was also reading Plato, who was far more to my taste. After all, I was something of a literary snob. I had been taught the best Greek by Mardonius. I could not help but compare the barbarous backcountry language of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to the clear prose of Plato. Yet I accepted the Galilean legend as truth. After all, it was the religion of my family, and though I did not find it attractive I was unaware of any alternative until one afternoon when I was about fourteen.
I had been sitting for two hours listening to the deacon sing me the songs of Bishop Arius… yes, that great religious thinker wrote popular songs in order to influence the illiterate. To this day I can recall the words of half a dozen of his inane ballads which “proved” that the son was the son and the father was the father. Finally, the deacon finished; I praised his singing.
“It is the spirit which matters, not the voice,” said the deacon, pleased with my compliment. Then—I don’t know how it happened—Plotinus was mentioned. He was only a name to me. He was anathema to the deacon. “A would-be philosopher of the last century. A follower of Plato, or so he claimed. An enemy of the church, though there are some Christians who are foolish enough to regard him highly. He lived at Rome. He was a favourite of the Emperor Gordian. He wrote six quite unintelligible books which his disciple Porphyry edited.”
“Porphyry?”
As though it were yesterday, I can remember hearing that name for the first time, seated opposite the angular deacon in one of the gardens at Macellum, high summer flowering all about us and the day hazy with heat.
“Even worse than Plotinus! Porphyry came from Tyre. He studied at Athens. He called himself a philosopher but of course he was merely an atheist. He attacked the church in fifteen volumes.”
“On what grounds?”
“How should I know? I have never read his books. No Christian ought.” The deacon was firm.
“But surely this Porphyry must have had some cause…”
“The devil entered him. That is cause enough.”
By then I knew that I must read Plotinus and Porphyry. I wrote Bishop George a most politic letter, asking him to lend me the books of these “incorrigible” men. I wished to see, I said, the face of the enemy plain, and naturally I turned to the Bishop for guidance, not only because he was my religious mentor but because he had the best library in Cappadocia. I rather laid it on.
To my astonishment Bishop George immediately sent me the complete works of Plotinus as well as Porphyry’s attack on Christianity. “Young as you are, I am sure that you will appreciate the folly of Porphyry. He was an intelligent man misled by a bad character. My predecessor, as bishop of Caesarea, wrote a splendid refutation of Porphyry, answering for all time the so-called ‘inconsistencies’ Porphyry claimed to have detected in scriptures. I am sending you the Bishop’s works, too. I cannot tell you how pleased I am at the interest you are showing in sacred matters.”
What the good Bishop did not know was that the arguments of Porphyry were to form the basis for my own rejection of the Nazarene.

Categories
Literature

KD Rebel, 3


Eric and Trebor blended in with the crowd, then ambled casually to their car. A little over two hours earlier, they had maneuvered the innocuous dark-colored 4-door sedan they were using into a spot at the back of the parking lot belonging to Sid’s Porno Palace. They had picked a place affording unrestricted sight of both the side and front entrances to the building.
As always when KD operated inside System territory, they drove a stolen car and kept a supply of purloined license plates in the trunk. With the advent of computerized identification capabilities in almost all police vehicles, no member of the resistance dared to submit even to routine stops by the authorities. They stole the kind of vehicles least likely to draw attention, made certain that headlights, tail lights, brake lights and signal lights were in working order, and obeyed all traffic laws.
On those rare occasions when a KD soldier was nonetheless signaled to pull over, whether by sirens, lights or bullhorns, they had no option but to fight. The standard procedure was to immediately stop, jump out with an assault rifle, and totally neutralize the enemy, then either change license plates or abandon the vehicle. There was no sense trying to outrun radios or helicopters.
In the back seat under a blanket were two backpacks containing emergency rations, water and first-aid kits, in case it did become necessary to abandon a vehicle. Also hidden under the blanket were two .308 caliber rifles and ballistic vests. The vest had custom-made pockets for extra ammunition clips, both for the rifles and for the 9mm handguns concealed on the KD raiders’ bodies.
Trebor unlocked the driver’s door while Eric used his own key to enter the passenger side. All members on a mission carried keys to all vehicles in case of separation or the death of the driver. As always, the dome light was disconnected to allow surreptitious entry and exit at night. After donning the vests beneath outer clothing, they relaxed, affecting that curious air of apparent unconcern so common to combat veterans, but their watchful eyes were ever alert for police, for anything unusual, and especially for the emergence of Sid Cohen from his gaudy night club. Eric, despite his youthful appearance, had participated in numerous raids over the last six years. His companion’s looks were equally deceiving. Dressed in grey slacks and a blue pullover sweater, he could easily pass for a doctor or college professor. In reality, he was one of the most feared and respected KD in all of Kinsland. Proficient in the most functional of several martial arts disciplines and absolutely ruthless with enemies, his exploits were legendary.
Eric was still curious about Trebor’s intentions regarding Candy and Heather. Passing time while they waited for Cohen, who undoubtedly was counting the night’s proceeds, he broached the subject in an oblique manner. “If we are going to stop those girls from performing again, how do we get their addresses?” he queried.
“Mr. Cohen will tell us.” The menace in Trebor’s voice had not diminished one iota when the subject was the porno king. A few years earlier, Eric might have shuddered when considering what awaited Sid Cohen in the near future, but now he was inured to the enemies’ fate.
“And after we get the girls’ addresses?” Eric persisted. “Then we make sure they never again display their charms to Skraelings.”
“Okay, damn it how?” Eric knew that Trebor was being obtuse on purpose, his way of teasing a younger comrade. The question was, would the girls be captured or executed?
Trebor pretended to ponder for interminable moments, then opined, “I reckon those two could make some fine babies for me.”
“Alright!” Eric enthused. “It’s about time you did your reproductive duty.” Eric had no interest in the pair for himself, as his heart was set on a high school girl that Trebor had agreed to help him capture. KD informants had picked her as a likely candidate. She was a pretty girl, unfortunately bewitched by universalist poison. Her teachers, parents, the media and every influence in her life had taught her that it was okay, even preferable for White girls to date and mate with Skraelings. She would have to be saved from her own folly before it was too late.
By quarter after two, 15 minutes past the closing time set by Colorado law for establishments serving alcoholic beverages, the parking lot was empty except for the KD raiders’ car and an ostentatious limousine parked directly outside the side entrance to the Palace. Soon the door opened and a hulking brute of a man of indiscernible racial origin emerged, followed by Sidney and, to the raiders’ surprise, by Candy and Heather. The huge man, whom Eric promptly dubbed “the freak”, was apparently a chauffeur and bodyguard. Deferentially he opened the rear doors for the other three, then took his place in the driver’s seat.
To the KD men, Sidney looked ridiculous, like a vain peacock, with tight pants, an open shirt and abundant gaudy jewelry adorning his pudgy body. From a distance the girls looked like teenagers, dressed in designer jeans and silky blouses.
The limousine pulled out onto Federal Boulevard and headed south, past sleazy bars, seedy motels and all the ugly effluvium of early 21st century American cities. The raiders followed a half block behind. It would be tricky keeping their quarry in sight without being spotted, but since their contacts in the Denver area had not been able to locate a private residence deeded to Sidney Cohen in the Denver County records office, this surveillance was necessary.
The limousine turned west on 6th Avenue, then south on Wadsworth. “Ah,” Trebor murmured, “Jefferson County, the Gods are with us.” Jefferson County sprawled many miles west of Denver, all the way into the mountains. Their route home would be relatively uncomplicated.
Eric figured that after Trebor’s comment, it would be a long night. Despite Trebor’s meticulous planning for guerrilla raids, he also seemed to believe in omens. If he said the Gods were with them, they probably were, or perhaps fortune just favored the bold.
Meanwhile, in the limo, all was not bliss. Even though this was payday for the girls, meaning they would get a week’s supply of cocaine and several hundred dollars in cash, their workday was not over. There was still the private performance that Sidney demanded on payday, once a week.
Sidney was not happy either, even though he looked forward to debauching the two White girls. The club had not been fully packed, and receipts were down. He blamed it on the two girls who were holding out for higher pay before they would agree to duplicate the most raunchy acts he required of them in private performances, including oral sex and copulation with simulated male sex organs. Well, tonight—he vowed to himself—they would pay for their obstinacy or no pretty white powder. Whipping naked women while they were tied up in fully exposed and helpless positions was his favorite sport.
The freak turned into the exclusive Green Gables subdivision. Now, late in April, immaculate lawns were just turning green as spring came late in the mile-high city. Palatial homes on huge lots stood up to one hundred yards apart, separated by trees, shrubs and privacy fences, making each residence resemble a secluded estate. The limo turned onto a long driveway, lined by bushes. The quartet, preoccupied with their own thoughts, never thought to look behind them where an unobtrusive sedan eased sedately past the driveway entrance. Nor did they know that the car stopped just yards from the driveway, out of sight behind shrubbery.
“This cheap car stands out like a sore thumb,” was Trebor’s first comment.
“Why don’t I get out and reconnoiter on foot. You can go somewhere and come back in fifteen minutes,” Eric suggested. There was agreement. Eric disappeared behind bushes as Trebor headed for more innocuous surroundings. It gave him time to reflect.
It was the knowledge that the beauty of the White Aryan woman might soon disappear from the earth forever that drove him to fight. Yet, despite all he had done to preserve their images, he had not enjoyed the favors of a woman for over fourteen years. He had no illusions about Candy and Heather. Because they were so remarkably beautiful they would be good breeding stock, but little else, at least until after a long period of re-education and discipline.
The last remaining young White women in System territory lived in hedonistic luxury undreamed of by the British monarch two centuries earlier. Drugs, cars, television roles, money and adulation were dumped in their laps while the inventions of White men, from washing machines to microwave ovens eliminated labor. Women do not voluntarily give up such pleasure and luxury no matter how earnestly White men might plead. That’s why abducting them was the only recourse. Undoubtedly this pair was even more spoiled and selfish than most. He would have to be harsh and ruthless with re-education and discipline, which wasn’t his nature with women. Yet he could not bear the thought of their genetic beauty not being passed on. He sighed deeply and headed back to meet Eric.

____________________

KD Rebel is now available from Daybreak Press: here.

Categories
Julian (novel) Literature

Julian, 11

Julian presiding at a conference of Sectarians
(Edward Armitage, 1875)

 
We were nominally in the charge of Bishop George of Cappadocia who lived at Caesarea. He visited us at least once a month, and it was he who insisted that our education be essentially Galilean. “Because there is no reason why you should not be a priest.” He pointed a long finger at me. He was a small thin man whose lean face always looked in need of shaving.
While I was respectfully trying to think of a number of reasons why I should not become a priest, Gallus with an engaging smile said, “Julian dreams of the priesthood, Bishop. It’s his whole life. He does nothing but read.”
“I was that way myself at your age.” Bishop George looked pleased at finding this likeness.
“But I read philosophy…” I began.
“So do we all, of course. But then we come to the story of Jesus which is the beginning and the end of knowledge. But I am sure you have had a good training already from your late cousin, my old friend, the Bishop Eusebius. Those of us who are true Christians miss him greatly.” Bishop George began to pace up and down the room, snapping his fingers, a characteristic habit. Gallus grinned at me, very pleased with what he had done.
Bishop George suddenly spun round; the long finger was again pointed at me.
“Homoiousios. What does that mean?”
I knew. I rattled my answer like a crow taught to speak. “It means that Jesus the son is of similar substance to God the father.”
“Homoousios. What does that mean?”
“That Jesus the son is of one substance with God the father.”
“The difference?”
“In the first case, Jesus was created by the father before this world began. He is God’s son by grace but not by nature.”
“Why?”
“Because God is one. By definition singular. God cannot be many, as the late Bishop Arius maintained at the council of Nicaea.”
“Excellent.” I received a series of finger-snappings as applause. “Now in the second case?”
“Homoousios in that pernicious doctrine”—I had been well drilled by old Eusebius—“which maintains that the father and the son and the holy spirit are one and the same.”
“Which cannot be!”
“Which cannot be,” I chirruped obediently.
“Despite what happened at Nicaea.”
“Where in the year 325 Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria…”
“A mere deacon at the time…”
“Opposed my cousin Bishop Eusebius as well as Bishop Axius, and forced the council to accept the Athanasian doctrine that the father, son and holy spirit are one.”
“But the battle is far from over. We are gaining ground every year. Our wise Augustus believes as we believe, as the late Bishop Arius believed. Two years ago at Antioch we Eastern bishops met to support the true doctrine. This year we shall meet again at Sardica and, with the Emperor’s aid, the true believers shall once and for all destroy the doctrine of Athanasius. My son, you are to be a priest. I can tell. You have the mark. You will be a great force in the church. Tomorrow I shall send you one of my deacons. He will give you religious instruction, both of you.”
“But I’m to be a soldier,” said Gallus, alarmed.
“A God-fearing soldier has the strength of twenty,” said Bishop George automatically. “Besides, religious training will do you no harm.” And curiously enough, it was Gallus who became the devout Galilean while I, as the world knows, returned to the old ways.

Categories
Literature

KD Rebel, 2


 
Chapter 1: The First Day
Lights dimmed in the garish nightclub except for those illuminating the stage. A disembodied voice proclaimed, “And now the Palace is proud to present the featured act of the evening, the most erotic spectacle ever seen by mortal man!”
Two stunningly beautiful young women entered the stage, a statuesque blonde, identified by the announcer as Candy, and a willowy brunette named Heather. Their costumes were a welcome change from the tawdry lingerie worn by the dreary strippers, most of them Skraelings, who had humped and bumped their way through previous acts.
Tennis skirts extended just inches below the juncture of their elegant legs. Halter tops color co-coordinated to their skirts revealed taut, trim midriffs, while bobby sox and athletic shoes enhanced their fresh, youthful appearance. The impression was of two wholesome girls, just past their teens, prepared for a sports outing. Others might have found their charms reminiscent of high school cheerleaders, flashing glimpses of lithe limbs and blossoming female mysteries. The dichotomy of modesty and temptation was overwhelmingly provocative.
The audience erupted in boisterous, vulgar and deafening applause, dwarfing anything heard earlier. However, the reaction of two men seated near the back of the smoke-filled club was dutiful at best, just sufficient to avoid undue attention. They were not risking their lives inside System territory just to watch a striptease show. The younger of the two was stocky, clean shaven, dressed in jeans and a sport shirt. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties. In response to the thunderous applause he leaned closer to his companion and commented, “Seems like White women are still the most desired creatures on Midgard, huh, Trebor?”
Trebor, a whip-lean man fifteen years older, sporting a short, neatly trimmed beard, replied, “Yeah, what few of them there still are.”
As the raucous noise subsided, the sound of sensuous music could be heard. The two girls on stage faced each other within touching distance, and began to undulate in a provocative sexual dance, synchronized to the music. Their incomparable charms were blatant and undeniable. Equal in beauty, yet with complementary differences, they formed the ideal blend for visual erotica. The voluptuous Candy was the epitome of classic Nordic beauty. Her long shimmering tresses, the color of ripe, yellow wheat, swung freely around her shoulders. A trim waistline accentuated the matchless symmetry of her hips and breasts. Golden skin and flawless geometric curves of calves and inner thighs projected that effect which causes a man to literally ache with need and desire.
She was Aphrodite, goddess of love, sex and wanton lust, reincarnated in the flesh, reborn to command, perform and orchestrate primordial pagan fertility rites.
If Candy was the essence of Aphrodite, then Heather was a Vestal Virgin. Short brown hair framed a delicate face. A cute nose and expressive eyes proclaimed demure modesty. Her slender figure mirrored the nubile form of a nymph, just past puberty. Each exquisite inch declared the passion of first sexual awakening. She was girlish innocence, fearful yet eager, an irresistible invitation to be ravished and deflowered.
Looking deep in each other’s eyes, the curvaceous pair began to flirt. With hands resting intimately on each other’s hips, they performed in suggestive oscillation the primeval siren song of invitation and consummate carnal lust. To music they parodied the timeless amatory game of domination and submission, or seducer and quarry, of hunter and prey, that generates and underlies intense sexual arousal. Enhancing the fantasy with the allure of the illicit, the blonde goddess revealed herself as a sexual predator. Her hands roamed the velvet-smooth contours of Heather’s bare sides and back, then strayed elsewhere, as if by chance or accident, brushing lightly over breasts and flanks.
Impertinent fingers undermining inhibitions while retaining deniability.
The lissom Heather played her role flawlessly, appearing unsure whether to welcome, or resist, the tantalizing and pleasurable caresses once forbidden to another of her own sex. She trembled in eager but apprehensive anticipation of increasingly intimate intrusions on sacrosanct female anatomy. Like a delicate exotic bird, hypnotized by a swaying cobra, the lovely image of innocence submitted to the immodest familiarity and impudent violation of maidenly decorum.
The young man sitting with Trebor asked, “Do you think they really are lesbians?” “No, Eric, it’s highly doubtful,” Trebor declared.
“I agree,” said Eric, “but why are you so certain?”
Trebor pondered a moment, then expounded, “Men are programmed by nature to be voyeurs. A beautiful woman’s body, performing the primal choreography of sexual temptation and arousal is the ultimate aphrodisiac. But men are also programmed to be jealous of other males. So two women performing together doubles the erotic effect with no threat from another male. These girls are paid to please a male audience. In this age, it’s doubtful they had many inhibitions to start with, but if so, drugs probably overcame them. I’d bet my life savings that what we see is just an act.”
“That’s exactly my guess,” Eric agreed, and then kidded, “What life savings?” Trebor only grunted in reply. Eric’s question was reasonable, though. It was common knowledge that Trebor donated most of the plunder from his raids into System territory to needy Kinsland families. So it was doubtful he had any substantial savings. To date, unlike other KD veterans who had already captured a wife or more wives plural, Trebor had never taken time off from guerrilla warfare for the pleasure of female company. Instead, even as they spoke, Trebor’s eyes roamed the room, and the younger man followed his example.
Pretending interest in the show, they circumspectly surveyed the crowd, hoping to spot the owner, one Sidney (Sid) Cohen. KD sympathizers in the Denver area had fingered Sid Cohen as a likely target for retribution and plunder. In addition to the Porno Palace, Cohen owned a chain of pornographic bookstores and theatres. Reliable sources reported that Sid was also a major cocaine distributor who used that drug to procure and control his stable of striptease dancers. Because the stars of Sid’s stable were White women, he was a logical target for retribution. Past experience had shown that men like Cohen usually kept substantial sums of cash in their homes, hidden from tax collectors. Invariably the pervert could be “persuaded” to reveal the location of his money, and when necessary the combination to a safe.
Cohen didn’t appear to be in the club at the moment, so the avenging duo settled back to wait for closing time.
“What percent of the guys in here would you say are White?” Eric asked his comrade.
Trebor considered for a moment, then replied, “Maybe twenty percent.”
“That’s what I estimated,” the younger man agreed, adding, “This audience sure mirrors 21st century America: eighty percent Negro, Mexican, Oriental and mixtures.”
“Yeah, and still the media calls them minorities,” Trebor snorted.
While they had been talking, the action on stage increased in intensity. In the ancient, time-tested manner of all of her sex, Heather presented token resistance to Candy’s amorous intrusions, knowing instinctively that female favors too easily obtained are seldom deeply treasured.
These subtleties were beyond the comprehension of the boorish spectators, who nonetheless responded with wild approbation to the unfolding drama.
Candy was always the aggressor, initiating each new step in the unveiling of feminine privacies. The coquettish squirming of Heather’s supple body betrayed a growing urge to taste the honeyed fruits of verboten pleasures. The disrobing each of the other proceeded with artful elegance. Heather’s saucy breasts, although less prominent than Candy’s buxom mounds, were ideally proportioned to her slender figure, and equally stunning. Pert nipples projected in arousal from tempting aureolae, begging silently to be touched, savored and tasted.
The effect of such incredible beauty, enhanced by duality, now revealed in natural splendid glory, was so arousing of fundamental, primal lust that the crowd moaned collectively in awe and desire. Eric seized the moment of relative quiet to comment, “Damndest thing I ever saw.”
“And hopefully their last such performance here,” Trebor growled. “But you said it’s all an act,” Eric protested, assuming Trebor’s comment to mean the two girls’ life expectancy had just been shortened to hours at best.
“It is an act. I was speaking of those White girls exposing their goodies to Skraelings.”
The conversation still left Eric unsure of Trebor’s intentions. In the past, his comrade had been absolutely ruthless in exterminating White male race traitors, but he had been forgiving of wayward White women unless their treason was exceptionally blatant. Trebor often said that defense of the race was men’s responsibility. Wayward women should be captured, taken to Kinsland, re-educated and impregnated. Indeed, such was now standard procedure for KD.
On stage, the girls’ repertoire changed from subtle and suggestive seduction to shameless crudity, much to the delight of the vulgar spectators. Heather abandoned the last iota of modesty, the last pretense of inhibitions. In the throes of passion she sealed her own debauchment, inciting the blonde femme fatale to molest her writhing body, teasing with thrusting pelvis and coquettish wiggles of her shapely derriere.
Candy explored every inch of the captured brunette’s charms with hands now devoid of tenderness. It was closer to rape than love. Her hungry hands violated the once-demure girl’s charms with the most intrusive of indecent liberties. Soon the brunette’s exquisite body was writhing in apparent rapture, punctuated with moans of ecstasy, concluding with the involuntary convulsions of intense orgasm.
The show was over. The girls separated and waved to the crowd, responding to thunderous applause. A cascade of wadded-up cash was thrown at the stage. As the girls retrieved the money and their clothes, a short, frizzy-haired, middle-aged man bounded onto the stage.
“That’s Cohen,” Trebor said. The menace in his voice was palpable. With a hand-held microphone, Cohen exhorted additional applause for the girls. Finally he and the strippers exited the stage, into what appeared to be a dressing room. The lights brightened and bouncers began hurrying customers out of the club.

____________________

KD Rebel is now available from Daybreak Press: here.

Categories
Julian (novel) Literature

Julian, 10


 

III

When I was eleven years old, my life again changed abruptly. One morning in May I was doing lessons with Mardonius. I was reciting Hesiod and making a good many mistakes, when Gallus came into the room.
“He’s dead. The Bishop’s dead. In the church. He died. Just like that!”
Mardonius drew a cross on his chest; so did I. A moment later we were joined by clergy, officials, servants. Everyone was stunned, and alarmed, for it is a great event when the bishop of Constantinople dies, and who succeeds him is a matter of national importance. The emperor—if he is Galilean—always has a hand in the choosing of a successor. But Constantius was a thousand miles away, on the borders of Persia. So for several weeks no bishop was appointed, and no one knew what to do with Gallus and me. Luckily, my uncle Count Julian was in the city, and the day after the funeral he came to see us.
“He’s going to kill us, isn’t he?” Under stress, Gallus could be reckless.
Count Julian’s smile was not very convincing. “Certainly not. After all, you are the heirs of Constantine the Great.”
“So was our father,” said Gallus grimly. “And all the others.”
“But the divine Augustus is your friend.”
“Then why are we under arrest?” Gallus indicated the secret police who had arrived only that day; when Gallus and I had tried to go out, we were told politely to stay where we were “until further orders”.
“They are for your protection.”
“The only protection we need is from Constantius,” said Gallus; but he lowered his voice. Though hot-tempered, he was not suicidal. Count Julian looked very nervous.
“That is not true, Gallus. Now listen to me carefully. Someone close to the Emperor, very close, has told me that Constantius believes that the reason he cannot have children is because he—because so many members of his own family were—because they, ah, died!”
“Yes, but since he’s already committed enough murders to get him into hell, why stop at us? He has nothing to lose.”
“Nothing to gain, either. After all, you are only children.”
Gallus snorted. At sixteen he was physically a man, though in character he was still a child, a fierce destructive child.
“Believe me, you are safe.” Count Julian was soothing. He was in an excellent mood, for he had just been appointed governor of Egypt, and I am afraid that was more on his mind than the fate of his nephews. But he did his best to comfort us, for which I at least was grateful. He left us with the hollow words, “You have nothing to fear.”
When he was gone, Gallus deliberately smashed the cup he had used. Breaking things always gave Gallus physical relief; shattering this particular cup took on ritual significance. “He’s like all the rest!” Gallus’s voice cracked with anger as he stood there in the bright sun of a green May day, his long pale hair tangled across his brow, his startling blue eyes magnified with sudden tears. “There’s no way out of this!”
I tried to say something hopeful but he rounded on me. “You’re no loss, you little ape! But why do I have to die?”
Why indeed? Everyone asks himself that question sooner or later. No one can ever love us quite so much as we love ourselves. Gallus saw no justice in a world where a beauty and vitality such as his could be pinched out as casually as a lamp wick. Of course fate is cruel. But children cannot accept this, nor men like Gallus who see all things as incidental to themselves. I loved Gallus. I hated him. During the first years of my life I was so entirely absorbed by him that I was hardly aware of myself at all except as I was reflected in those vivid blue eyes, which saw nothing of me nor much of anything else.
But Count Julian was right. Constantius did suffer remorse for his crimes. We were safe, for the time being. In due course a message arrived from the Chamberlain Eusebius. Gallus and I were to be sent to Macellum in Cappadocia “to continue your education”.
“Education for what?” asked Gallus when this message had been read us. But Mardonius silenced him. “The Augustus is merciful. Never forget that he is now your father as well as your lord.”
We departed for Macellum that same day. I was most upset, for Mardonius was not to accompany us. I don’t know the motive behind this act of petty cruelty except that as the Chamberlain Eusebius was also a eunuch he might have thought that a fellow eunuch would prove to be too subtle an ally for us. Sniffling wretchedly, I was bundled into a wagon with Gallus.
Mardonius was also grief-stricken but he controlled himself. “We shall meet again,” he said. “And when we do, I shall expect Gallus to know as much Hesiod as Julian.” Mardonius stood stiffly in front of the bishop’s palace as we drove off, escorted by a cohort of cavalry, just as if we were important princes, which we were, or important prisoners, which we also were. I sobbed. Gallus swore fierce oaths under his breath. In the street a crowd of people were gathered, eager for a glimpse of us. To get a close view one bold burgher thrust his head over the side of the wagon. Gallus promptly spat in the man’s astonished face. Then Gallus covered his head with his cloak and would not take it off until we were outside the city gate. No one expected to see us alive again.
All travellers agree that Macellum is one of the beautiful places of the world. I hate it to this day. Macellum is not a town but an imperial residence originally used by the ancient Cappadocian kings as a hunting lodge. Constantine enlarged it so that it is now a complex of many buildings set in lonely woods at the foot of Mount Argaeus, some four hundred miles south-east of Constantinople. When Constantius inherited the principate, he acquired the lodge, along with a number of other properties in the neighbourhood; in fact, our family’s private income derives almost entirely from the Cappadocian crown lands.
Tonight when I was telling Priscus about my childhood, he said that it sounded enviable. “After all, you lived in a palace, with gardens, baths, fountains, a private chapel,” he enjoys teasing me, “in the very best hunting country with nothing to do but read. You had the perfect life.” Well, it was not perfect. Gallus and I might just as well have been hostages in a Persian prison. We had no one to talk to, except for a series of schoolmasters from nearby Caesarea.
None stayed with us very long because of Gallus. He could not resist tormenting them. He got on better with our jailers, particularly the young officers. Gallus could be very winning when he wanted to be, and he soon had them training him in the use of sword and spear, shield and axe. Gallus was a natural athlete, with a gift for weaponry. I would have liked to practise with him but he preferred to keep his military companions to himself. “You read your books,” he said sharply. “I’m the one who’s to be a soldier.” So I read my books.

Categories
David Lane Daybreak Publishing Literature Women

KD Rebel, 1


 

When the laws of men decree the death of one’s race, then the laws of nature demand rebellion.

—The 10th Rejoinder

The life of a race is in the wombs of its women. A race whose males will not fight to keep its women will perish.

—The Precepts

From time immemorial, those out of power have raised armies with promises of plunder, revenge, and the seizing of women.

—David Lane

 
INTRODUCTION
The time is early in the 21st century, within the borders of the former United States. Generations of “dark is handsome” propaganda, unceasing promotion of inter-racial mating, open borders, anti-White programs, combined with unending demonization of the “evil White male”, has accomplished its intended effect. Less than one percent of earth’s population were White women of child-bearing age or younger, and not mated with non-Whites.
For many decades, America had denied the White race its own nations, schools, organizations, and everything necessary for racial survival, while at the same time race-mixing was promoted and enforced with fanatic fervor.
Passage of the “Harmony Laws”, giving large cash grants to all inter-racial couples involving a White woman were the last straw for many disenfranchised White males. Several thousand of them, mostly young, migrated to the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
At the time of the events chronicled here, these rebels had established tenuous control over portions of Western Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. They call this Kinsland, and they use the initials KD as a short appellation for a guerrilla army of Kinsland Defenders.
Futilely they had pleaded with the dwindling number of young White women to join them, but with only a few exceptions their anguished pleas were scornfully rejected with the System’s mindless buzzwords, like racist, sexist and bigot. So, since the first two prerequisites for the survival of a race are territory and breeding stock, history repeated itself.
Over twelve hundred years earlier, some Aryan folk migrated to Scandinavia to escape the race-denying, universalist, alien tyrannical religion from Rome and Judea. Only thus could they keep their race alive. From Scandinavia they went “a-viking”, raiding occupied Europe for mates and for the necessities of life. Kinslanders of the 21st century followed the example of heroic ancestors.
Most Kinslanders are Wotanists (Odinists), whose speech reflect the indigenous religion of the White race. With words like Midgard (earth), Valhalla (hall of heroes), Norns (goddesses of fate), Sons of Muspell (the racial-religious tribe that rules the world and sentenced the White race to death), and Skraelings (non-Whites).
This account relates a period in the life of some Kinsland folk.

____________________

KD Rebel is now available from Daybreak Press: here.

Categories
Julian (novel) Liberalism Literature

Historical novel vs. liberal fantasy

Most of the content of this site is non-fictional. Rarely I recommend novels—although not the liberal novels by George R.R. Martin upon which Game of Thrones is based (see “Beware of Game of Thrones”).

Last Sundays I added passages from Gore Vidal’s most fascinating novel, a recreation of the life of my favourite Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate. Unlike the utterly fantastic Game of Thrones, Julian is an accurate historical novel. But I doubt that serious fictionalised accounts, even of huge events in western history, are of interest to most visitors. Perhaps I should continue to add passages from Julian but only once in a while…

Categories
Julian (novel) Literature

Julian, 8

Julian presiding at a conference of Sectarians
(Edward Armitage, 1875)

 
I have but one clear memory of Bishop Eusebius. It was the afternoon he decided to drill me himself in the life of the Nazarene. For hours we sat in a side chapel of the cathedral at Nicomedia while he questioned me. I was bored. The Bishop had a talent for explaining only those things one already knew, leaving mysterious those things one would like to have known. He was a heavy, pale old man, slow of speech and much too easy to follow. Simply for diversion, I stared at the ceiling, which was vaulted and divided into four sections, each dedicated to one of the seasons. In the most brilliant mosaic, flowers and vines, birds and fishes were all intertwined.

I knew that ceiling by heart for Gallus and I prayed three times a day in this particular chapel, and during those tedious prayers I used to imagine that I had the power to rise straight up in the air and enter that world of peacocks and palm trees and grape arbours, a gleaming world of gold where there was no sound but that of running water and birds singing —certainly no sermons, no prayers! A few years ago when Nicomedia was shattered by earthquake, my first question concerned the cathedral: did it still stand? Yes, I was told, but the roof had fallen in. And so my childhood’s magic retreat is now rubble.

I must have been staring too obviously at the ceiling, for the Bishop suddenly asked me, “What is the most important of our Lord’s teachings?”

Without thinking, I said, “Thou shalt not kill.” I then rapidly quoted every relevant text from the new testament (much of which I knew by heart) and all that I could remember from the old. The Bishop had not expected this response. But he nodded appreciatively. “You have quoted well. But why do you think this commandment the most important?”

“Because had it been obeyed my father would be alive.” I startled myself with the quickness of my own retort.

The Bishop’s pale face was even ashier than usual. “Why do you say this?”

“Because it’s true. The Emperor killed my father. Everybody knows that. And I suppose he shall kill Gallus and me, too, when he gets around to it.” Boldness, once begun, is hard to check.

“The Emperor is a holy man,” said the Bishop severely. “All the world admires his piety, his war against heresy, his support of the true faith.”

This made me even more reckless. “Then if he is such a good Christian how could he kill so many members of his own family? After all, isn’t it written in Matthew and again in Luke that…”

“You little fool!” The Bishop was furious. “Who has been telling you these things? Mardonius?”

I had sense enough to protect my tutor. “No, Bishop. But people talk about everything in front of us. I suppose they think we don’t understand. Anyway it’s all true, isn’t it?”

The Bishop had regained his composure. His answer was slow and grim. “All that you need to know is that your cousin, the Emperor, is a devout and good man, and never forget that you are at his mercy.” The Bishop then made me recite for four hours, as punishment for impudence. But the lesson I learned was not the one intended. All that I understood was that Constantius was a devout Christian.

Yet he had killed his own flesh and blood. Therefore, if he could be both a good Christian and a murderer, then there was something wrong with his religion. Needless to say, I no longer blame Constantius’s faith for his misdeeds, any more than Hellenism should be held responsible for my shortcomings! Yet for a child this sort of harsh contradiction is disturbing, and not easily forgotten.

In the year 340 Eusebius was made bishop of Constantinople. As a result, Gallus and I divided our time between Nicomedia and the capital. Of the two, I preferred Constantinople.

Founded the year before I was born, Constantinople has no past; only a noisy present and a splendid future, if the auguries are to be believed. Constantine deliberately chose ancient Byzantium to be the capital of the Roman Empire, and then he created a new city in place of the old, and named the result—with characteristic modesty—after himself.

Like most children of the city I delight in its vitality and raw newness. The air is always full of dust and the smell of mortar. The streets are loud with hammering. This confusion should be unpleasant, but it is invigorating. From day to day the city changes. Nearly all the familiar sights of my youth have been replaced by new buildings, new streets, new vistas, and I find it a marvellous thing to be—if only in this—at the beginning of something great rather than at the end.

In good weather, Mardonius used to take Gallus and me on walks around the city. “Statue hunts” we called them, because Mardonius was passionately interested in works of art and he would drag us from one end of the city to the other to look for them. I think we must have seen all ten thousand of the bronze and marble statues Constantine had stolen from every part of the world to decorate his city. Though one cannot approve his thefts (particularly those from Hellenic temples), the result has been that in and around the various arcades along Middle Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, there are more important works of art than anywhere on earth, excepting Rome.

One of our expeditions took us to a Galilean charnel house, close by the Hippodrome. While Mardonius fussed with a map of the city, trying to get his bearings, Gallus and I threw bits of marble at a half-finished house across the street. There are always a satisfying number of things for a child to throw in the streets of Constantinople, chips of marble, splinters of wood, broken tile. The builders never clean up.

“Now here,” said Mardonius, peering closely at the map, “should be the famous Nemesis of Pheidias acquired some years ago by the divine Constantine, and thought to be the original, though there are those who maintain it is a copy, but a copy made in the same century, in Parian marble, hence not Roman, hence not corrupt.”

Suddenly the door to the charnel house was flung open and two old men ran out into the street, closely pursued by a dozen monks, armed with sticks. The old men got as far as the arcade where we were standing. Then the monks caught them, threw them to the ground and beat them, shouting all the while, “Heretic! Heretic!”

I turned with amazement to Mardonius. “Why are they hurting those men?”

Mardonius sighed. “Because they are heretics.”

“Dirty Athanasians?” Gallus, older than I, was already acquainted with most of our new world’s superstitions.

“I’m afraid so. We’d better go.”

But I was curious. I wanted to know what an Athanasian was.

“Misguided fools who believe that Jesus and God are exactly the same…

“When everybody knows they are only similar,” said Gallus.

“Exactly. As Bishop Arius—who was so much admired by your cousin the divine Emperor—taught us.”

“They poisoned Bishop Arius,” said Gallus, already fiercely partisan. He picked up a rock. “Murdering heretics!” he yelled and hurled the stone with unfortunate accuracy at one of the old men. The monks paused in their congenial work to praise Gallus’s marksmanship. Mardonius was furious, but only on grounds of rectitude.

“Gallus!” He gave my brother a good shake. “You are a prince, not a street brawler!” Grabbing us each firmly by an arm, Mardonius hurried us away. Needless to say, I was fascinated by all this.

“But surely those old men are harmless.”

“Harmless? They murdered Bishop Arius.” Gallus’s eyes shone with righteousness.

“Those two? They actually murdered him?”

“No,” said Mardonius. “But they are followers of Bishop Athanasius…”

“The worst heretic that ever lived!” Gallus was always ecstatic when his own need for violence coincided with what others believed to be right action.

“And it is thought that Athanasius ordered Arius poisoned at a church council, some seven years ago. As a result, Athanasius was sent into exile by your divine uncle. And now, Julian, I must remind you for what is the hundredth—or is it the thousandth? time, not to bite your nails.”

I stopped biting my nails, a habit which I have not entirely broken myself of even today. “But aren’t they all Christians?” I asked. “Don’t they believe in Jesus and the gospels?”

“No!” said Gallus.

“Yes,” said Mardonius. “They are Christians, too. But they are in error.”

Even as a child I had a reasonably logical mind. “But if they are Christians, like us, then we must not fight them but turn the other cheek, and certainly nobody must kill anybody, because Jesus tells us that…”

“I’m afraid it is not as simple as all that,” said Mardonius. But of course it was. Even a child could see the division between what the Galileans say they believe and what, in fact, they do believe, as demonstrated by their actions. A religion of brotherhood and mildness which daily murders those who disagree with its doctrines can only be thought hypocrite, or worse.

Now for the purposes of my memoir it would be convenient to say that at this moment I ceased to be a Galilean. But unfortunately that would not be true. Though I was puzzled by what I had seen, I still believed, and my liberation from the Nazarene was a long time coming. But looking back, I suspect that the first chain was struck from my mind that day in the street when I saw two harmless old men set upon by monks.

Categories
Julian (novel) Literature

Julian, 7

Julian presiding at a conference of Sectarians
(Edward Armitage, 1875)

 
It is remarkable how many odd details come back to me as I write. For instance, the tribune’s smile, which I had forgotten for twenty years. I find myself suddenly wondering: what ever became of him? Where is he today? Do I know him? Is he one of my generals? Could it have been Victor? Jovian? Each is the right age. No, better to let the past go, to preserve it only here upon the page. Vengeance must end somewhere, and what better place to stop than at the prince?

I soon discovered what my father had meant during that cryptic conversation with the estate manager. We were to be sent to our cousin Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia. He was to be our guardian. The day after the arrest of our father, Mardonius hustled Gallus and me into a wagon with only our personal clothing. Except to change horses, we drove the fifty miles to Nicomedia without rest. Once we were stopped by mounted troops.

With quavering voice, Mardonius told them that we were under the personal protection of the Emperor Constantius. They let us pass. We drove all day and all night. That night! Gallus was suffering from the fever which nearly killed him. In his delirium, tortured by fever demons, he writhed on the pallet set for him on the wagon’s floor. Mardonius put linen soaked in vinegar on his face—acrid odour of vinegar-yes, vinegar still recalls that terrible night to me. At one point I touched his face and found it hot as a damp cloth left in the sun to dry. His golden hair was dark with sweat; his arms railed air; he shouted dream-words and wept.

Wide awake, I sat on the bench beside Mardonius as we jolted over country roads, the warm night as bright as day from a huge yellow moon that shone before us, like a beacon fire set for ships. I spoke not at all that night. And though I was only six years old, I kept saying to myself: you are going to die; and I wondered what it was like to be dead. I think I became a philosopher that night, for in my youth and ignorance I was more curious than frightened. I suspect that I was even a bit thrilled by this desperate journey across unfamiliar country, with a gold moon blazing and Gallus writhing at my feet, begging me to give him a stick to fight the demons with.

* * *

We survived, to our surprise. For five years Gallus and I lived with Bishop Eusebius at Nicomedia and, later, at Constantinople. Eusebius was a grave old man, and though he did not like children he treated us kindly. More to the point, he forbade Constantius to come near us and Constantius obeyed him, for Eusebius was a great power in the Galilean hierarchy. Two years after he became our guardian he was made bishop of Constantinople, where in effect he governed the Eastern church until his death.

Children get used to anything. For a time we missed our father; then we forgot him. Mardonius was always with us, maintaining a link with the old life, and of course my mother’s brother Count Julian often visited us. A charming bureaucrat with a taste for intrigue, he kept us informed of what was happening in the world. It was he who explained to us how Constantius was making himself sole master of the state. In the year 340 Constans and Constantine II disagreed.

They went to war. Constantine II was ambushed at Aquileia and executed. Constans became sole ruler in the West. Then a general named Magnentius declared himself Augustus and drove Constans from Autun to the Pyrenees, where he was murdered in the winter of 350. The West was in chaos. While Magnentius was desperately trying to hold together his stolen empire, a general on the Danube named Vetranio declared himself emperor.

To give Constantius his due, he had a genius for civil war. He knew when to strike and, more important, whom to strike. He always won. I have often thought that had he lived he might have destroyed me in the same way that he had dealt with all the others. Faced with two usurpers, Constantius took the field in 350. Vetranio collapsed immediately and, unique in our history, was spared. Magnentius of course was defeated in the battle of Mursa, 28 September 352. This was one of the crucial moments in our history. To this day our army has not recovered from the loss of fifty-four thousand of our best troops.

Needless to say, I knew none of these emperors and usurpers. In fact, I don’t recall ever meeting my cousins Constans and Constantine II. For that matter, I did not meet Constantius himself until I was sixteen years old; a meeting I shall presently describe in detail.

While princes schemed and fought, I was educated by Mardonius. He was a strict but inspiring teacher. I liked him. Gallus hated him, but then Gallus hated nearly everyone sooner or later. I recall once when I wanted to watch some chariot races, Mardonius said, “If you want games, read Homer. Nothing in life can equal what he wrote of games, or of anything else.” Maddening injunction to a child, but wise. As it turned out, I was a grown man before I attended either the theatre or the arena, and then only because I did not want to give offence to others. Yes, I was something of a prig, and still am!