A/N Sorry for the multiple and very late uploads
Betas have been hard to come by and I'm still figuring out Upload Manager and all the various layout nuances
I ran. Not stopping for longer than a few days; and yet it still took me more than two weeks to reach the closest port to my hometown of Novae, Salona. I spent my nights in back alleys and cheap Insulae, constantly moving so as not to leave a trace that my 'dear' Junius could follow.
It was at this port that I first encountered trouble.
A Roman slave-trader, seemingly packing up his stall and as I walked past him, I heard him call back to one of the dock-workers, "I am leaving within the hour for Gesoriacum", (a large trading port closest to Britain and a month journey by horse from Salona).
"Pack my wears into the barge and tell them that I will personally deal with any trouble-makers" he demanded with an evil smirk in his tone.
Seeing, the perfect opportunity to get as far away from my pursuers, I began to sneak around the back of his stall and had joined the line of men and women slowly trudging towards the cage-like carriage that I assumed was their master's way of transporting them from one city to another.
It was then that I felt a cold hand grip onto my shoulder and spin me around, my quickly tied up hair coming free of its bun and covering my eyes. "Well, well, well- what do we have here an escaped slave I assume?"
I felt the rancid breathe of one of the dockworkers assault my senses. "Let's see what the sir has to say about you" and with that, he grabbed my arm and began dragging me towards the slave-trader.
My terrified screams and kicking protests ignored in the bustling port centre.
This was wrong, so wrong! I was to go to Aurres in Albania first, and from there a boat to the furthest port from my captive-town of Novae, away from my father and all his portentous 'students'. I was supposed to be escaping from a live of slavery, not be pulled into a new one.
My thoughts did not portray the confident woman I would need to be to escape this situation. And so, like all Sarmatians living in a society that outcasts them, I acted.
I was dragged along by my un-troubled captor, my abduction being ignored by the tide of people surrounding me. Slowly being pulled closer and closer towards the slave-barge, filled with horrid straw mattresses and days stuck in tiny cages aboard a rickety boat.
After 5 minutes of struggling the dock-worker pulled me up next to his master. Having only heard his rough bellowing tone before-hand had not prepared me for his startlingly handsome looks, his chiselled legs showing through his tunic and sweaty but well-groomed dirt blond hair sweeping in front of his eyes.
It was as if he was a long bright butterfly in a sea of dull moths, all the drab peasants surrounding him seemed to fade as his flashing grey eyes looked directly at me.
The look he gave me brought reality crashing back down. It was a look befitting an ancient leering man, staring at the scantily clad prostitutes at a bar, admiring but looking down upon. I shivered in my thin stolen servants clothes and my situation suddenly seemed more precarious than a simple case of a caught 'stowaway'.
He once again looked up and down my body, smirked and turned to my captor.
"Marcus, who is this delicious piece of meat I see before me", and as he turned around I finally saw the single imperfection on this evil man's unfairly good-looking façade. A white-purple scar cutting through from above his hairline, next to his eye and curving around to above his ear, its end lost in his tarnished-gold locks.
"This, Sir, is a peasant found trying to sneak onto your ship" the worker muttered in contempt.
"And why would such a statuesque woman be hiding aboard a slave-boat?" he queried to his servant.
He turned to me and with a once again un-seemingly perverse tone he questioned, "Looking for work deary? Or just a night's accommodation?" He laughed at his own, inept humour, and turned back to my captor.
After a short exchange of words, mumbled so fast in colloquial Latin that I could barely make out syllables let alone follow the conversation, he turned to me.
Looking me directly in the eye, he stated, "Well it seems your wish has come true, we've been in need of a new maid, and you're the only one I've seen so far that had actually been a pleasure to view, rather than a hideous and useless wall-flower. How well can you mop floors?" And with that, as if by some unspoken order, I was once again unwillingly picked up and dragged to the barge.
My terrified kicks and screams went un-noticed as the worker chucked me over the 2 metre high unscaleable-banister and onto a pile of filthy rages that covered half of the ship's deck.
"If these are not all clean by the time the sir's returned, I think you'll find yourself missing a lot more than just dry land". He laughed dementedly and continued down the boardwalk, passing many others workers and questioning their progress.
I took my first moment of peace that I had had this morning, to look around my new prison barge.
It was new, in good structural condition, but it was as if a layer of grime had permanently stuck itself onto every available surface. Its black coating looking for all the world like a thick layer of ash that had descended from the remains of a giant smouldering bonfire.
Once I had come to the conclusion that escaping into the putrid polluted river, I began to walk around. I noticed a gleaming oak door, gilded golden pattern-work and bolts holding a thick iron knocker in place.
Turning the handle, I was astonished to find that it was not flocked, or even bolted in place and swung open at my touch.
The lavishness of the room seemed ill-fitting and out of place on the obviously uncared for ship. Heavy wooden chairs with thick upholstered pillows in maroon and bronze stood next to a thick oak table, a single candle puttering on it.
The high windows that were covered by thick belts of red and gold fabric hung down from bronze bars, letting in a bare minimum of sunlight. The room's masculine influence was obvious by both its subtle hints of tobacco smoke and the worn leather boots sprawled across the soft leather chaise in the corner.
I walked further in, the door, no longer held open by my foot, swung shut behind me. It rich fabrics and permanently imbedded smell of tobacco did not reconcile with my image of the slave-trading barge, nor its captain.
I walked around the table, the plush carpet beneath my bare feet so soft that my toes curled into it. The bright wooden panelled walls and lustrous wooden floors made me remember happier and better times. Of my flights through the Sarmatian wilderness in search for the knights and Woad's I had heard so much about in my nanny's stories. The sparse forests of Sarmatia were more of a home to me than the cold Roman building I lived in had ever been.
I sat down on the chaise lounge and pulled a thick quilt over me body, cuddling into the warm cushioning. The stresses of running away and the feeling of sleeps left wanting when it is a rare commodity. All of my failures and triumphs that I had experienced to get here built up, the weight pressing down on my mind.
My eyes began to droop and my knees tucked under my arms, my toes scrunching up into the blanket as I began to let Sleep's peaceful call draw me into his world of dreams. Just as my consciousness left the plush room I was in and flew over raging rivers and ever-reaching mountain ranges into my favourite dream place - I was awoken with the slamming open of the heavy oak door and a shout that chilled me to my bones.
