Lost To Rome

            Verenia struggled to still the shaky flame as it betrayed her nerves with a callous indifference. After fighting to keep control for so long, even after witnessing so many horrid things, she wanted to smother the oil lamp’s flame, held in her trembling hands, for drawing unwanted eyes with its lascivious dance. The night around her had been cold and unforgiving as she had been led from the soldier’s tent to this stately, tented room. She was naked and dirty, but she had been with the soldier since their arrival at camp eight days ago, and was long since used to rough men eyeing her body. Verenia strove to master her extremities; unable to bear the cold any longer, she withdrew into herself; something she had become rather adept at since the soldiers sacked her town, ripping her life, her home, and her family from her.

            The town had heard whispering about the great conqueror, Octavius, heading back to Rome with his massive and triumphant army. Everyone worried, knowing Roman soldiers’ preferred methods of celebration, but the odds were so slight - given the vastness of the world "that each town felt secure in its safety.

            The moment Verenia knew something was amiss was when she saw a throbbing glow from where her home lay behind some trees. She had been out gathering flowers for a coming wedding, something her entire town celebrated, when she saw the glow. Verenia dropped her loads of flowers and ran back, hoping she hadn’t missed out on anything.

            When she pushed through the last of the brush and her town came into view before her, Verenia stopped. At first her eyes couldn’t make sense of what she saw: her neighbors, swinging from rough, unforgiving nooses; leaders crucified, wailing to their Gods for mercy; children’s bodies strewn about, emptied of their magic and wonder of life. As the images swam into focus, so did the insufferable soundtrack to the nightmare before her.

            It was the smell that snapped her out of her stupor; the wretched stench of death and the disconcerting familiarity of the fried-pig smell of burning human flesh. She took off at a panicked run towards her home and her family, to whom she had bid a peaceful eve to only hours before.

            Her lungs burned and her calves came to a roiling boil by the time she reached her home. The first thing she saw was her mother, or what had been her mother; clothes torn, mouth open in a silent scream. Verenia dropped to her knees when she saw slight movement by her mother’s breast, illogically thinking her mother still breathed. Trying to hold the corpse in her arms, a cry rang out from her mother’s clothes. Marcellius, her baby brother - hidden in her mother’s layered silks - had somehow survived the attack. Verenia thanked the Gods and carefully untangled him, giving him her finger to suckle for comfort. She hushed him, crooning to him her secret lullaby only they knew. 

            As if hearing her prayer and wishing to crush the small hope born from it, the largest soldier she had ever seen dwarfed her home’s doorway and pulled her outside by her hunting shift, ripping it. When at last he reached his horse, he noticed she clung to a baby.

            “We’ll not be needing this, then.”

He pulled Marcellius from her arms and tossed the baby behind them into a pile of burning debris as Verenia succumbed to terror-filled darkness without making a sound.          

A flap the color of dried-out dung was thrown open, releasing Verenia from her tortured memories. She was pleased to see the flame she was holding no longer flickered; her memories stoking the rage that held her hands steady. She had seen how the Roman soldiers inflicted fear and pain for sport, and she refused to allow them any further enjoyment from her torture. She was standing behind the soldier who had taken her, the one whose secret she knew; his lips were loose around her, believing she was mute. He boasted nightly that he was the man chosen to assassinate Octavius, the fearless, mighty general who had conquered Egypt (and the world) just months before. He had baited the general by killing his convoy, assuring Octavius himself would follow and that he would have a chance to kill the mighty warrior before they reached Rome.

            Verenia couldn’t see who came into the tent, but he must have been important; there was a moment of discomforting silence that greeted his arrival before her soldier recovered and held his right arm in invitation.

            “I welcome you to our camp,” the soldier spat, “Your presence is an honor, and a surprise.”

            The voice that answered him was so out of place that Verenia had to stifle a maddened laugh. Melodic and slightly high-pitched, the voice dripped with honey.

            “I thank you for your hospitality, though I would have preferred you to have shown the same to my earlier convoy, therefore negating this wearisome assembly.”

            Verenia noticed a definite tension forming in her soldier’s shoulders and neck, and she decided she already liked him - whoever the vessel of that soothing voice may be.

            “I assure you, had I known they were yours, I would have sent them back in one piece, your "” the soldier stumbled " for the first time in her presence " unsure of what to call the visitor.

            While means of retribution still seemed slight, the thought of the soldier’s discomfort was enough to gift her something akin to hope.  Verenia wanted to be the one to drive the nails into the soldier’s flesh, fixing him to his cross of wood; the one to marry a flaming match to the soldier’s body; and the one to watch him burn.

            “I don’t doubt it for a minute, Callius” the voice dripped, refusing to ease the discomfort by filling in his proper title. He had given her the soldier’s name, something she not yet known. Far from bringing a bit of humanity to him, it gave her a name to spit on his grave once she had exacted revenge.

            “Will you be joining us in our merriments, then?” The soldier’s casual words were discordant with his tense body.

            “I find myself above such…festivities…and prefer to take my women willingly.”

            “Too bad,” the soldier jeered, turning towards Verenia and gesturing to her naked, ample body, “I relished breaking this one in.”

            Verenia did not react to the statement, as the soldier’s movement had finally revealed the owner of the sultry, measured voice. She was surprised to see it belonged to a slight, thin-framed young man who could barely be twenty, only a handful of years older than herself. As his eyes followed the soldier’s gesture, the shock of their blue-ness (later she would learn they were the same shade as the Aegean Sea) caused her to momentarily forget her place, and to brazenly hold the young man’s gaze.

            Verenia was at a loss for who this young man could be. Was he the son of the glorious war general? Why did her soldier seem so tense around this boy? Just then, the young man smiled, showing small, yellowed teeth, and she suddenly feared that he had some further torment planned for her behind those sparkling eyes.

            After what seemed like an endless battle of wits, the young man turned to gather his purple-tinted wrapper and say his goodbyes.

            “I am sure to be seeing much more of you while I am here. I hope this does not spoil your plans for celebration.” Knowing it did exactly that, the young boy turned to leave.

            “May the Gods smile upon you and give you everything that you deserve, Gaius Octavius.” Her soldier leered; content in the knowledge that soon, he would be the one standing above the other, smiling.

            Verenia nearly fell over. Her voice, rough after weeks of non-use, erupted from her throat like a vindicated prisoner,

            “You’re Octavius!” She croaked, “this soldier, Callius, he plans to murder you tonight as you sleep in your tent!”

            The young man with the golden curls simply smiled at her and waved his hand towards his guards. They surrounded and then dragged a screaming Callius away with them, presumably to face the usual punishment for such a crime: to be crucified and burned. Octavius hadn’t even asked for proof.

After cleaning and clothing her, Octavius bent in front of her, placing himself at the same level as she.

            “It seems you have saved my life. What could I give you in return for such a favor?”

            His face, as radiant as the sun itself, and surely the face of a God, was only a whisper away from hers - his lips in line with her own. To her surprise, he pressed a kiss to her forehead in a fatherly gesture.

            “You will come back home to Rome with me to be a servant and companion to my daughter, Julia. You will have a whole new life - a good life. Is there anything else you require?” he asked.

            Verenia closed her eyes and thanked the Gods for her reprieve from hell. While she could never have what she truly wished for: for her family to be alive and well, there was only one other thing she wanted even more than a new life and now was her chance to have it.

            “I would be forever grateful, Gaius Octavius, for a single match.”

 

END

Author's Note

Writing class exercise