Chapter 11

The Romans had gone, we were alone. We could organise ourselves as we chose; and each tribe chose to manage themselves. That was as expected, the tribe organisation had mostly been left to themselves, unless they rebelled. So they had plenty of administration in place already. There had been little mixing of tribes, the main tribes I mean, since the Romans had arrived, so they were happy to return to that way.

Nominally the local Romans were under the authority of the tribe; most of the time they (we) were let to continue as we saw fit. There were trading disputes, and land grabs occasionally, but it mostly worked. Our local tribe opted to outlaw slavery, so I freed the women. They all stayed. Where could they go and have a warm place to sleep, and food to eat without having to become whores? They all agreed to stay as house servants, with some bedroom responsibilities thrown in. It was never said, but it was understood that they could now refuse my desires if they became too animal. But they never did. I restricted my desires for their little shitholes, and when I wanted one, occasionally, it was freely given. Some clearly enjoyed playing with each other, and clearly enjoyed me watching. It all worked well, most of the time. Wenneuereia still disapproved of so much: sex with more than one woman, sex with more than woman at the same time, women have sex with each other, men having sex with each other (not my preference, but if they liked it, why not?), sex with children (I had a rule in the villa that fourteen was the youngest, others had it at twelve or ten. But everybody seemed to agree that there were limits – sex between children, that was a different matter), sex with animals (again, if the sheep was willing, why not?), sex on your own. She had such a long list, but would often find herself beside me whilst I watched a couple (or more) of women enjoying each other. She would tut and then be as wet as the local mere when I entered her. I never called her a hypocrite, I knew it would upset her, but she was.

Wenneuereia was still wanting to convert the people, on the special day, she would hold meetings and explain the beliefs. I attended sometimes, but not often, I’d had enough of Roman and Celtic religion to now take up a new one.

But she was good for me. There were times when I would have reverted – to what? To the cruelty of the Romans or of the Celts? I don’t know. When Aspersia was dragged to me with a tale of how she had tried to poison her husband, I would have killed her. Wenneuereia advised making her take the poison. As she surmised, it did not kill her, it had little effect in fact. Aspersia had threatened to poison her husband because he beat her, this was her way of holding something over him to stay safe. I gave her refuge and repeated the ordinance that women were free, as free as the men.

On another occasion a Roman was found beating a poor girl to death. She owed him money and he took it out of her with blows. I would have killed him slowly, simply for being a bastard – okay, I admit I did not like him anyway. But Wenneuereia said that her book said ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. I didn’t understand at first, then I saw. We watched as the neighbours of the girl beat the man until he stopped breathing. Later she told me that this had been the old rule, but her god had said that should change, she admitted that she thought, on this occasion, perhaps the old way was just.

It was becoming clear that Wenneuereia was my helpmate, people came to her for help. Priapa, too, helped in this, but she was more partial to her class and people. Wenneuereia would treat the oldest, smelliest, ugliest beggar the same as the well-dressed nobleman. It was, I admit, something I wondered about; perhaps her religion had something. But then some of the followers cheated in the market, some lied, some fucked their own daughters; they weren’t all saints. Perhaps she was just a good person. Wenneuereia told me that that Christ-followers were as varied as anybody, but they understood where they should be trying to get to.