To the Death by Peter R. Hall Page A

himself to the hilt. The familiar musk of his body found her nostrils. She sighed with pleasure.
    Agrippa’s face congested with passion. He buried his head against her shoulder. She could hear his muffled panting like a stallion blowing dust with its nostrils. The power of his thrusts increased. He lifted her almost bodily from the bed. She shivered under the delicious impact of his driving hips. Ripples of pleasure ran over her skin, like water skirling across stone.
    She gripped the hard brown body firmly between her legs and cried out, ululating at the delicious sensation that started in her belly and ran down her legs. Swept away on a rising tide of passion, she seized his head, fingers hooking in the coarse black curls. Agrippa’s eyes were unfocused, blurred by the violence of his own emotions. Berenice cried out as he lifted her buttocks to penetrate deeper, touching the very bottom of her womb. As she began to slide out of control, he felt the muscles in her legs start to tremble. With her heels drumming against his buttocks he thrust hard against her urgency. As she came she felt him stiffen. Her eyelids fluttered. She cried out, half sob, half scream of pleasure.
    As she regained her senses, she felt Agrippa place a kiss in the crook of her neck. Tenderly and without passion he stroked her hair. Berenice floated, eyes closed – drifting, weightless -her breathing slowing, steadying. She burrowed against him “I missed you Lord. Without you my life is incomplete”.
    â€œAnd I you my love, but it would have been dangerous to take you to Rome. The Romans, surprisingly, can be prudish at times, yet they are the most depraved of people”.
    She nibbled his ear. “During the last few weeks Jerusalem hasn’t been particularly safe. The procurator has been killing Jews by the thousand”.
    At this news Agrippa struggled to sit up. Berenice rolled onto her back, her hazel eyes half closed with the languor of their love making. Agrippa’s hands cupped her breasts, rolling her nipples under his thumbs, saying “The whole country is in ferment, the nationalists are everywhere stirring up trouble. The Romans are bottled up in their garrison towns. Neither the Legate nor the procurator will have an easy time of it crossing the country”.
    â€œBut”, asked Berenice who was beginning to feel a stirring in her loins under the absent minded fondling of her breasts, “they will be safe once they re-join their main forces?”
    Agrippa rolled her unresistingly on to her face. Grasping the cheeks of her firmly rounded buttocks, he squeezed hard. She wriggled among the cushions to get comfortable. Agrippa bit both cheeks gently, before kissing where he had bitten.
    â€œMutiny is contagious; it has already infected Caesarea. When Gallus gets back there, he won’t find a single Jew left in the city. The Greeks have carried out a systematic slaughter of its entire Jewish population. Under the pretext of ethnic cleansing, twenty thousand Jews were murdered within the space of a single day”.
    Berenice rolled her head to one side to reply. As she did so he pushed a cushion under her hips to lift her enticing rump. “That’s on the Syrian border. The Legate will surely punish the Greeks”.
    â€œHe will side with the Greeks. It’s the Jews who are causing him problems, and dead Jews are peaceful Jews. In reprisal, the Jewish nationalists have sacked Syrian villages and attacked the neighbouring cities of Philadelphia, Heshbon, Gerasa, Pella and Scythopolis. The whole of Syria is filled with fear and confusion. If,” he quickly corrected himself “ when the Legate gets back to his main forces, he might survive”.
    A probing hand slipped between her thighs, bringing Berenice’s interest in the Legate’s problems to a halt. She gave herself up to the deliciously exploring fingers. Berenice smiled contentedly, settling into the yielding