Witch 2b. The Cretan dance. Fauna appears

Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriele Rossetti (1828-1882). Wikipedia. Attribution
Venus was also called Verticordia by the Romans since she was capable of 'changing human hearts'. Worshipped during the Veneralia festival (April 1) Verticordia had a temple on the Via Salaria

[Read the Italian original. An Englishman living in Milan, Andy, is helping me with some editing.]

Taken aback by the inexorable trajectory - I was always good with the javelin do you recall Quintus? - the lass however succeeded in propelling herself forward with such impetus that the deadly lance missed her abdomen and tore her tunic at the level of her hindquarters without scratching her flesh I believe.

The force that had driven her forward was so lethal I was thunderstruck.

I therefore took my bow.

Arrows whistled in quick succession though wavered on purpose (unpredictability is deadly, remember?). She nevertheless avoided my darts by performing this odd dance on the rump of her horse (of undoubted Cretan origin, Quintus).

Bull leaping. Minoan fresco from palace of Knossos, Crete, currently in the Herakleion museum

She circled with elegance, an inhuman melody emitting from her throat - a terrible buzz, deep and acute - her fair legs now concealed now flashing through the cracks of her tunic.

And I, closer and closer, our steeds' flanks dangerously scraping against each other, my arrows all gone, what happened Quintus was that I became so enchanted and progressively unwarlike due to that mysterious creature.

Although the worst was yet to come, Di Manes!

After the Cretan dance the girl had assumed a crouched-on-all-fours, feline position on the rump of her stallion, launched at breakneck speed on the forest damp obscure recesses. The siren of the woods had lowered her shoulders, arched her back and pointed her rear upwards whose perfect roundness was thus offered to my view.

A sculpture from the Norman Lindsay House (see last image below for infos). Attribution

The sun bursting through the clouds heralding a spectacular sunset, the noise of animals becoming deafening, I was there, those half & symmetrical moons in front of me, so close that I could almost touch them, a pale-skinned double globe with designs of a delicate blue.

Her garment lacerated by my pilum on her hindquarters did not keep much from sight Quintus! Geometries made sensuality, ideas of beauty made flesh were exposed and stirring deliria of sumptuous pleasures and everlasting feelings of lust & love.

Well, such unchaste commotion, dear friend of better days, ended up with being fatal to me.

The flaming haired maiden took advantage of my confusion and making use of the arm hidden from my sight grasped, from her bag, strings to whose ends small brass spheres were attached.

She then hurled the strange weapon with such vehemence in the direction of Hælend's legs that both horse and rider - that is, us – couldn't but fall to the ground with a loud crash due to the speed of the race.

The tattooed female's craftiness, however, cost her dearly as well since her stallion (was he confounded also?) stumbled in turn over superficial roots and hurtled down over the mossy weeds & soil with an even louder crash due the beast's bulk.

Another Lindsay's sculpture. Attribution

I hit my head on the turf and got scratched all over.

My initial stunned condition prevented me from realizing at first that the picta had vanished but her horse was lying down on the ground nearby and was letting out neighs of pain.

Hælend, up already instead, was calmly approaching the Italian thoroughbred which she coldly executed with three violent (and accurate) kicks in the head.

Hælend looked at me, a look of revenge in her eyes. The victory of valour over nobility? Well, how could I blame her. Moreover the white stallion was wounded and had to be dispatched. The wolves that haunt the forest would have caused him a horrible death.

Hælend then walked towards me. The expression of her eyes revealed kindness, concern. She licked my wounds and as if by miracle I immediately felt better. I got up and stretched. Hector, my gladius, was still on me and my helmet I found behind a bush.
Hælend, satisfied, was already in a nearby meadow grazing Albion's emerald grass.

Well, Quintus, we know too well she isn't as classy as an Italian horse (I can well believe it!) but what a fantastic gift from the Angles and the Genii protecting our Rome!
Therefore I couldn't but chant:

Non ergo essem
dei Romae mei
Orientisque Aegyptorumque,
non omnino essem,
nisi essetis in me...

[I wouldn't exist then
Ye gods of Rome,
Of Egypt & the Orient,
I wouldn't exist
If ye weren't in me ...]

Isis mothering. Credits

This song, performed with Egyptian tones (I'm a decent singer, I'll admit) was followed by a profound growling that left me disconcerted, since the forest animals had fallen silent, frozen.

I became afraid. Had my psalm been inappropriate? Had the British gods gotten angry at how I had dealt with that red-headed Albion's daughter?
The thing is, lost as I was in my doubts I hadn't noticed the Creature. Who with quiet footsteps was heading toward me.

She,
Feral Being, goat goddess
By shepherds & peasants loved
And horribly feared,
Emerged before me.

This is how we imagine Fauna. Sculpture from the Norman Lindsay gardens. Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler & boxer (1879-1969). Attribution

The Creature, daughter of Hermes and Dryope, let out a cry and the wood resounded.

Then she seized me, her body steaming with humours. One cannot escape from a goddess ...

My surrender to such a beastly pleasure let go from my memory the rumour that those dei inferi were supposed to have died with the advent of Christ ...

Not that it mattered. A sudden tune played on marsh reeds made ​​the air vibrate together with my senses.

Too late I realized my foolhardiness. The last beam of sunlight, violent and unexpected, pierced the scene and Pan's cry was heard again, terrifying.

Uncontrollable panic shook my whole person.

And Fauna, Bacchus' lascivious companion, - arms hands legs and bodies giving and receiving pleasure - gripped with extreme violence what makes me a man.

My scream, though not panic as hers, ripped through the night that was about to lazily fall upon the wood.

All then was nothing. Darkness closed in.

Witch 2a. Striking to kill

[I recognized her immediately Quintus. It was that savage now badly disguised as a lady. Disguised as a lady? Ah she really needed a lesson from a civilized Roman!]

I advanced in her direction.

She had less blue paint on her face now although her beautifully moon-white skin was of course still adorned with blue tattoos all over.

Her tunic had long ornamental cuts showing glimpses of a muscled and perfectly shaped leg, which confounded me for an instant – you know this weakness I have for long and well-shaped legs (not to mention curves) on the body of a woman.

She appeared concentrated on three strange trees rich with berries of three different colours - white, red, black - one for each tree.

From the bag across her horse’s back I caught sight of more berries plus herbs, mushrooms, roots – all of amazing colours.
"F@%& her suave beauty!" I cursed and gotten off my horse I began to run towards her.

She was quicker. A phosphorescent glare amidst a halo of red hair and away they vanished - the woman and the stallion - into the deep of the wood.

I felt Hælend’s snout behind me so I swiftly turned around, jumped unto horseback and the chase began.

I soon got closer but at the last moment the picta dashed away with her stallion. Got closer again and to my surprise once more they dashed like a shooting star.

I realized that the speed of the race was wildly increasing and at every instant both the picta and I had to avoid the low branches that risked hitting us right on the head.

What sorceries were those? The weird race left me so full of wonder my friend. But right when I was starting to ask myself fanciful questions about the woman she mercurially let me reach her.

“Now I gotcha picta meretrix!” I bellowed. So I took a long thong of leather from my bag with a running noose Wulf had taught me to use in hunting and tossed it in her direction. But with amazing speed - her blue-green eyes flashing, pulling out a gladius similar to mine though slightly longer - she cut off the thong with abrupt force.

So here we engaged into this 'attack and defence' fight with quick blows from both sides since she possessed fencing capabilities different from mine but no less effective.

Talented Hælend had in the meanwhile placed herself very close to the white stallion and had bumped him so violently that the majestic steed had staggered and the picta had almost fallen but rebounding miraculously from the branches she had clung unto she was now landed (an incredible aerial pirouette!) on the horse’s immaculate back.

And there she was, standing ferociously, her lovely sandalled feet perfectly parallel!

Then, gotten dangerously close to us again, her horse not being stupid Quintus (I can well believe it, it was a Roman steed!), she clutched as fast as lightning what was left of the cord in my hand and unhorsed me with utmost violence.

Spirits of the Underworld! How could I ever imagine a woman could be so terribly brutal, fast and agile, all at the same time!

She reminded me of some naked-breasted women in the island of Crete where my father took me as a child. They vaulted elegantly (and fiercely) over bulls' backs thus refreshing a tradition today corrupt though still amazing - a performance carried out to stun travellers (and to collect coins or food from them).

Thus violently drawn to the white & huge stallion's body, my head fell with a thud right between her beautiful legs that smelled of fragrant musk.

Now a slight confusion arose (which softened me towards her, what a moron I am) but didn't blur though my decision to raise the level of Force up to number Five.

Do you remember the relationship between numbers and life which our Magister taught us in Rome with his inspired words? In every normal condition we since then usually place ourselves under the protection of Number Three, the Number of All.

The Tetractys, a mathematical & mystical symbol devised by the the Pythagoreans

But, such levels, here in Britain, while being trained by Wulf and his friends, I have aptly extended to field fight during these long months. I've in fact grown into a better soldier thanks to an innate instinct we true Romans possess, but also I'll admit thanks to Wulf's and his two friends' military drilling.
So, after taking that decision – switching to number 5 Force – I proceeded, and bit her calf with my teeth which made her cry out loud.

So, after taking that decision – of switching to number 5 Force – I proceeded and bit her calf with my teeth which made her cry out loud.

She reacted and threw me in the air with a tremendous kick and if it weren't for sweet Hælend's promptness, Quintus meus, my soul would now be fluttering along the flaming Phlegethon where bad sinners - I am one no doubt - are sent.

In fact I landed in slow motion on Hælend like a sack of German potatoes. The clash with the picta had become almost aquatic, as if a spell from her had been cast on the scene and we were fighting in the crystal waters of a sacred river.

At this point a decision had to be taken.

The woman was indeed a formidable warrior and a dangerous black magic sorceress the Roman custom didn't tolerate. It grieved me having to kill her but I realized I had to do it for the sake of survival: she lived too close to my tower and could attack me at any time of day or night.

I was swallowing - the perfume of her body had slightly cracked the impassible will of the warrior - when the level of confrontation was by me brought to the great power of the Seven Number.

As we school buddies know, Quintus, the notions expressed by the heptad are ALL that is right according to circumstances - there implying fortune, control and what leads things to an end among the rest.

One of the heptad's deities was also Mars, the Roman god of war.

I found my spear on the ground. I took it.

With speed, strength and utmost precision (I know in advance whether a pilum, my favourite weapon, will hit the target or not) I shot the long sharp-pointed lance against the sorceress' abdomen.

The sun was about to set over a marvellous landscape when the iron point began its deadly flight.

Witch 1. Introducing Hælend and Wulf. A magic wood and lo, a picta damesel

A Celtic witch? One never knows. Ophelia by the Victorian pre-Raphaelite
painter John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). Credits

Manius Quinto sal.

[…] I can finally tell you my tower is close to the sea, **** miles from Londinium, **** miles from Venta Icenorum, reachable from the Antonini Itinerarium. Now you know where I am. Please send me the area maps. […]

It's not the only reason I am writing. Horrible (and marvellous) things have happened and I do not know where to start.

I went into the woods with Hælend, my medium sized but powerful steed that Wulf my German friend gave me as a gift to celebrate our friendship - an amazing Angle, Wulf, he's teaching me the Ænglisc ways and his absolute truthfulness of heart has given me animus to rebel against cruel Fortune: being trapped in an alien land, bereft of properties, of slaves (only two I have bought at the Ænglisc market), of real defence and, most of all, of Clelia's deep love and warm presence.

'O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis ..'
O Fortune, like the moon, you always change ..
Depiction of Fortune at a much later age

But as Lucius Annaeus Seneca teaches us:

Fortuna opes auferre, non animum, potest

[Fortune can rob our wealth but not our courage]

Boldness, yes. But how can I describe Hælend? Well, at first was I disappointed: our horses look so much better and she appeared even worse than most German steeds (such horrible yellowish colour!) but I was so surprised when I saw how she could endure any strain with ease and could compete with, and often win over, even the nobler Roman breeds (this big German clan I've been kinda absorbed into possesses a dozen beautiful Roman horses btw) and yet she's also so amazingly mild (and weird; should I hide that?)

I'll tell you. Having received a bad blow by a towering German during a few sword fight exercises - a deep bleeding cut was showing on my left arm -, Hælend came close to me and (Aesculapius!) much to the surprise of the onlookers (Wulf was absent) she started to lick my wound with her long (and rough) tongue: sweet Queen of heaven I cried when I saw the wound healed in just two days!!

I digressed.

Roman soldier in colder climates

So while getting deep into the forest in search of game but armoured in the Roman way like I always do when I explore territory or hunt (one never knows), with Hælend scrutinizing the terrain with her non human senses – were she a woman she'd certainly be a Sibyl but I prefer her as my horse frankly, I had too many domineering sisters.

I was wearing a Roman helmet with a wolf's skin on top, German bow and arrows, my favourite gladius Hector, a pilum (or javelin) in my left hand plus two strange dogs Marius and Caesar (though adorable and surely Diana's favourites) which I bought from a very old & rich German woman being carried on her lectica, or litter, by 4 young and good-looking slaves of dubious race.

By the way - another digression - I was hit by her face, that was so wrinkled I couldn't see her eyes, and by a pair of showy gilded brooches she wore that fastened her embroidered wool tunic, with strings of beads hanging between them - an ornament oh you'll agree Quintus an Italian, Gallic or Romano British woman would never wear but that gave her this, hard to say, 'new look' I found attractive after all, kind of 'new British' you know.

It's as if this emerald island were perhaps timidly finding her own ...

Enough. I do hate this place.

Alglo-Saxon gilded saucer brooches "worn in pairs
at the shoulder to fasten a dress, often with
strings of beads hanging between them."
British museum (credits & explanation)

As I was saying, it's hard to tell how we got into a very incomprehensible place.

I mean while advancing forward in such beautiful wetlands rich with birds, eagles and wolves I began to realize the landscape was slowly changing and getting perceptibly moisture-less. It had basically turned into a weird wood which much to my surprise couldn't be too far from where my tower is located.

Moreover I vaguely felt the place familiar but also odd: shrieks were all around from crazy night birds - but it was day time Quintus!
 
And then I felt it.

["What the hell did you feel" - I'm sure you'll ask.]

Deep forest. Click for attribution

OK. I felt the magic of a new world that was familiar and strange as I said since unordered and yet almost invisibly arranged by some crazy intelligence - a bit like what is more evidently displayed in our Italian gardens, that reflect the arrangement of mathematical reason.

Trees plants flowers of many sorts with their colours and exhilarant perfumes (voluptuous spring was radiating her magic ...) and butterflies, insects, animals flying and jumping about, both night and day creatures all awake as if nature had confused her laws Virgo mea!

But this is not the point, friend.

["What on earth is the point now", you'll again ask you having always been the stereotyped practical Roman]

Well, the point being that this area showed, more distinctly than any landscape, to possess a soul. I clearly felt such place's divinity, id est plants, huge trees and living things all formed like a savage, and yet not unordered, world exuding a primeval anima or vital force that awesome Greek minds identified with the eternal and intoxicating goat-horned, goat-legged numen Πάν (now dead as they said) and old days' rustic Romans with Faunus (dead too).

Pan and Daphnis. Goat-horned, goat-legged deities were
many (male, female and unfortunately children).
Very unconventional they were, not far from Satyrs

I then couldn't but kneel down and whisper our Celtic bard Virgil's sacred verses:

Tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra

formosam resonare doces
Amaryllida silvas

[You sit careless in the shade, o Tityrus,
and 'Amaryllis!'
(woods-wandering enchantress
& flute player),
you bid the woods resound]

Ah but I had to wake up from my dream since Hælend started to get very nervous. What was the matter?

We turned around and … the dogs were gone! Such gifted animals, can you believe that?

Vanished.

Why these premonitions? Which envious god desired to whack me?

My life was, is miserable. I live like a savage while I had properties & thousands of slaves. Now I dwell in a lousy tower and possess just two young women I bought from the Germani - not at all bad, right - but the one with exotic almond eyes is so small and half dead I have in truth only one and a half.

Along the left, longer side of such space - an almost perfect rectangle - there she appeared in my sight:

A beautiful woman standing on the green grass with glowing red hair, her skin white and so amazingly pale as a moon creature - something so exotic for a Roman.

Her flesh colour even paler than the German women's, she was wearing an equally pale wool tunica with a majestic white horse behind her (of Roman breed no doubt), calmly grazing the beautifully green grass, the princely animal's coat having the same incomprehensible pale snow colour.

I recognized her immediately.

This woman Manius had first met.
Why now she looks like a damsel?

It was that picta who had scared the hell out of me near my tower and was now disguised (very poorly I thought) as a lady.

Disguised as a lady? The idea railed me and I thought such savage needed a good lesson from a civilized son of Rome.

Yes, it was time for some revenge and fun why not?

You know Quintus this ancient grudge that Celtic - how can you know damn, you're 100% Roman - or half Celtic (especially from the West Alps) Romans such as I am - have, vis-à-vis Picts and Caledonii so darn allergic to Romanization.

A Roman slave auction as imagined by Jean Léon Gérome (c.1884). Enlarge

I recall this Caledonian slave locked in a cage at a slave auction in Augusta Taurinorum: a nice open air square surrounded by our white and monumental peaks all around. Her cage had been placed on a wooden platform, her attractive body all bluish from paint and tattoos.

Out of curiosity I got closer in order to touch her strange hair but she bit my hand fiercely.

Her master wanted to flog her publicly to set an example but although I gave him a few coins (to stop that, she was just a savage after all) I seldom forget when people hurt me.

Did she hurt me deeply? Well, OK, whatever my reasons in any case I definitely felt the beautifully pale lady needed punishment, Quintus, I don't know why.

Light punishment perhaps, I am not a bad man, all I needed, I now imagine, was just some relief from all the sorrows that plagued my heart.

ψ

I therefore advanced in her direction.