Slave To Rome

CHAPTER THREE - SECRETS OF THE PALACE SLAVES

We arrived at the Roman Palace not more than a day later. Livia needed to spend a couple days there to go over her battle plans, and have her men buy supplies for the planned invasion. As Livia rode into the gates of Rome, me a on foot a few paces behind her with her army behind me, they were welcomed back with cheers from the Roman public.

The Roman Emperor, Augustus Caeaer, greeted Livia warmly when we got into the palace, welcoming her back and congratulating her on her capture of the Amazons... my tribe. He looked at me, standing a few paces behind her, and asked, “Who is the girl?”

“My new personal slave,” Livia answered, and grabbed my hand to pull me forward to no doubt grovel at the Emperor.

I bowed my head and tried to hold back my sarcasm as I said, “My Lord.”

He looked me over and gave a slight nod of his approval before turning back to Livia, “Do you plan to keep her in the palace, or have her travel with you?”

Livia looked at me and gave me a little smirk, “Oh no,” she said as she turned back to him. “She will spend every waking moment serving only me.”

My eyes flashed in fury but I stayed silent.

Livia snapped her fingers to another slave of the palace and when she dutifully rushed over, Livia said, “Bring my new slave to my bed chamber, and have her draw me a bath.”

The girl nodded and said, “Yes, my Lady”

I flashed my eyes at Livia again before turning away from her and following the other girl down the hallway.

We reached a bed chamber that was behind large mahogany double doors, carved with Roman crests. The girl opened it, and inside was the largest room I had ever seen in my life. The ceilings were four times my height, and white stone pillars lined the walls. A large bed was in the center of the room against the back wall, covered in all kinds of different animal skins, with no doubt silk sheets beneath them.

When the girl closed the door behind me, she turned and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Varia,” I answered.

“Gina,” the girl replied. “How long have you been a servant?”

“Two days,” I answered, and a look crossed my face that was clear that I was unhappy with the situation.

“It’s been years for me. Lady Livia picked me up in a village she conquered long ago, decided to let me live and serve the palace.”

“Oh yes, she’s very giving,” I said in dry sarcasm.

“She’s not all that bad, you know,”Gina said as she motioned to me to follow her to Livia’s private bath.

“She enslaved my entire tribe and sold them to get money for her invasion of Greece!” I said, shocked that she would even defend this monster.

“You were an Amazon?” She asked, with awe in her voice as she turned to look at me.

“I AM an Amazon,” I corrected.

“Whatever you were, you best forget it. You belong to Rome now.”

“I don’t understand why you defend her,” I said, changing the subject. “You said she conquered your village?”

“She killed my entire family,” Gina answered casually, and my eyes went wide.

Gina started to run the bath water, and for a minute I forgot what she mentioned about her family. I had never seen a bath be drawn this way before, I had always had to heat the water and pour it into the tub. I guess this is what an Emperor’s fortune would buy.

Remembering what she I said, “Again I ask, why do you defend her?”

“I don’t defend her, I just said she’s not all that bad. The thing about Lady Livia is that she’s so set on being strong and warrior like in front of everyone important. When she’s just around us, slaves that are less than dirt to her, she starts to show who she really is,” Lydia replied as she poured in some scented oil into the bath.

“I doubt she will do the same around me,” I replied.

“You’d be surprised. You don’t understand what an honor it is to be her personal slave, do you?” She asked me with a hint of amusement in my voice that I didn’t know anything about the slave world.

“Some honor,” I replied, dryly.

“You don’t know how many slaves she has taken back to work at the palace, out of the many, through the years, she had never once chosen a girl to be her own.”

“And I’m supposed to feel special, then?”

“Yes,” she replied simply. “If I may ask, what happened to the rest of your tribe?”

“They were sold to Borgus the Brutal,” I answered, as I watched Gina light some candles around the bath.

“And why weren’t you?”

“Gurkhan wanted me, and she said that she wasn’t about to let me have that fate because I tried to kill her when she raided my tribe.”

“So she kept you?” She asked.

“Obviously.”

“Don’t you think,”Gina started, “That if she wanted you to have the worst possible fate, that she would have given you to Borgus? I’ve heard the stories, I know what he does to his girls. You aren’t the first and you aren’t the last to try to kill her, but yet do you see any other personal slaves of hers around?”

I didn’t say anything, I really didn’t know what to make of it or what exactly her point was.

“She likes you,” Gina continued. “Something about you stuck with her, which is why she’s keeping you around.”

“Bull,” I replied. “I don’t even think that woman is capable of liking anyone in the world, all she cares about is power.”

“Ha, see that’s what she wants you to think. But you’ll learn. All new girls do eventually.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, confused.

Gina didn’t answer for a minute as she laid out the sea sponge, so I prodded on, “If I need to be prepared for something, I would appreciate a heads up.”

Gina sat on the edge of the tub and looked at me, “Being an Amazon, I doubt you would have any problem of this concept, but...”

“But?”

“Livia has this thing... for women. No one besides the slaves she has ordered to lay with her know this, and it is forbidden to speak of it.”

I looked at Gina, completely dumbfounded. The concept of two women together didn’t surprise me, I had seen it many times within my tribe. Though the fact that Livia liked that did, however, shock me.

“So you think she’s going to want to lay with me?”

“You’re her personal slave, what do you think?” She answered, and looked at me pointedly.

Just then the door opened, and Livia strode into the room and looked at Gina. “Leave us,” she ordered.

Gina nodded and hurriedly left the room, closing the door behind her. I looked at Livia and waited for what I was supposed to do.

“Disrobe me,” she said to me, and my heart leapt in my throat. Was this going to be it, was this going to be what Gina had spoken of? All I could do was pray to Artemis that this monster woman was not going to be the one who would take my chastity from me, and hope that all Livia wanted was a bath.

TBC....