Eventually Love
Chapter Four
Aware that she was disobeying one of her orders, but unable to bear the suspense of not knowing, Tasa tried her door. It wasn't bolted as she had expected. She opened it a crack and peeped out.
She had been so absorbed in her own sexy little world when she and Quintus had arrived that she hadn't noticed that her little room gave off from a courtyard, open to the starry sky but apparently empty of life at present. There was a pool underneath the opening, presumably for collecting rainwater. It wasn't very full but then the weather had been dry recently. She knew this because her pen at the slave dealer's had been open to the elements. She could hear the sounds of the city on the other side of the door they'd entered by but didn't dare to go outside yet, so she crept around the courtyard instead, peeking into all the other rooms that opened off it. They were all furnished like her room with the strange raised, tightly-folded bed. All, that is, except the room opposite the entrance. This one reminded her of her father's official audience space except that it was double-ended, with the far side illuminated by moonlight from another walled courtyard beyond.
A dog howled nearby and Tasa shivered. All of a sudden, she felt very alone and vulnerable in the big, dark building.
Suddenly nervous, and unwilling to be caught disobeying Quintus, she abandoned the exploration and went back to her room. There was an empty bucket beneath the raised bed. Fright, and her baby industriously kicking her bladder, impelled her to use it. She was exhausted, anxiety having prevented her sleeping much during her captivity, so she pulled the bed off its table, curled up awkwardly on her side and tried to sleep.
Quintus Sertorius strode down the street in a bit of a mood. He was disappointed. More than that, he was annoyed. No, he was actually angry. Quintus was very angry indeed. The scuttlebutt among his fellow gladiators was that a princess was for sale. Quartz had sneered and said she was only a petty chief's daughter but still, Quintus thought, such status, such an upbringing should have given the girl more self-esteem. Should have made her less accepting of her situation.
Quintus abhorred slavery in any form. He hated slave keepers, slave dealers and slave hunters. And he despised slaves themselves. If humans weren't so ready to submit to bondage, he thought, then slavery could not persist, for it would soon be considered more trouble than it was worth.
Humans should all fight for their freedom. Preferably en masse, rising together to overthrow their oppressors, but individually if necessary - even if they died in the attempt. It was better to die in pursuit of freedom than to live in servitude. Certainly, it was more worthy of Quintus' respect. As for those born into slavery, that was unfortunate. No one could choose their parents but the injustice of their birth did not absolve them from the duty to fight or die for their liberty as soon as they were old enough to recognise the difference between their station and that of their owners.
The only possible defence for submission, rather than killing oneself or fighting so hard for freedom that one's captors were forced to kill you, was that of carrying an unborn child.
That was why he'd chosen and freed the pregnant Tasa. Not that he felt pity for her, not that he was attracted to her and not, as that revolting dealer had insinuated, that he wanted a son and heir.
None of this answered for Quintus' foul mood though, as he shouldered his way irritably through a group of early drinkers outside a tavern. The girl had shown enough spirit to speak back to him in the market but it hadn't pleased him as it ought. She had touched on a tender spot. She had implied that he was inferior or even wicked for eating humans.
Tasa tried for hours to fall asleep, but found herself listening out for her master's return. She wanted to be ready for him. Ready for… whatever he wanted with her. She also wanted to put the bed back as he'd left it for her before he returned - she didn't want to give him any excuse to unleash that temper she'd already seen flashes of.
Eventually, she was jerked out of fitful dozing by a noise beneath her. Strange, she had thought she was on the ground floor. She lay still, listening breathlessly and, just as she was beginning to think it had been a dream, there it was again, a rustling sound. Something big under her floor. She hadn't heard Quintus return and he certainly hadn't come into her room to find her like he said he would. She wondered what time it was, whether dawn was close. Surely, it couldn't hurt to see what the sky above the rainwater reservoir was doing.
She replaced the bed on its raised platform and tucked it all in as best she could work out how to, then she peered outside her door again. The sky was still dark but it was hard to gauge the exact time because of the diffuse glow from the unsleeping city.
She was startled by a sudden growl from right beneath her thumping heart. But it was only her hungry stomach. Her baby must have taken all the sustenance out of the chickpea stew. She didn't begrudge him one little bit. She smiled and stroked her belly fondly. There was no food in her room - only water, so she resumed her explorations with the particular goal of finding the cooking area.
If the space beneath the hole in the roof wasn't a hearth then where was the cooking fire? The only part of the property left to explore was the space beyond the audience room. She peeked out into the columned courtyard. There were some unkempt plants, another rainwater pool, similarly uncared-for, a few more unfurnished rooms and a very fancy-looking ladder leading up to another corridor. She didn't dare explore up there yet and it seemed very unlikely that a cooking room would be situated up in the air.
She looked around the courtyard. She felt that the walls weren't protecting her, they were penning her in. She shivered again and backed away towards the relative security of the building. She bumped into another door and fumbled behind her, trying to open it while avoiding exposing her back to whatever imaginary threat was hiding in the dark courtyard. The door was locked. She wasn't surprised and hurriedly made for the next room.
At last, she had stumbled on a room with a large hearth but it was cold, dead and empty. The kitchen did have a hole in the roof but it looked as though it had been crudely covered over with rough wooden planks and then violently opened up again by a blow of inhuman force. There were jagged stumps of planks still attached to the edges of the opening and some broken slats teetering precariously over the rim. But why ever would it have been blocked off in the first place? Tasa thought that would be a major design flaw. The smoke would have to pour out through the door and into the courtyard. But for now, where was all the food?
The cooking area was very obviously unlived in. This disappointed the hungry girl but it also puzzled her. How was her m…Quintus to feed himself day after day? She shrugged. Perhaps he ate only from the street vendors. After all, he didn't seem to have any other slaves to care for him or his home. It was all very odd. He was very odd.
She resolved to ignore her grumbly tummy and wait patiently for dawn and her master. She turned to leave but a noise beneath her feet startled her. She crept back into the cooking area and listened closely. There it was again. A rustling at the edge of hearing, something large underground. She'd heard of the sewers in this strange alien city but if this was a sewer rat it must be man-sized. And that was impossible. She stopped and thought. As impossible as Quintus? There was silence now. The monster rat must have moved on. Tasa looked deeper into the cooking room and there on the floor, poorly hidden beneath a rush mat and some fragments of wooden plank, was the corner of a large trapdoor. Cellars! Tasa laughed at her nervous foolishness. Perhaps a sack of grain had been dislodged. Monster rats indeed!
Tasa lifted the mat and, to her surprise, found the hatch covered with a loose mesh grid of a shiny metal. It couldn't be weighing it down, it was far too light and it would be unnecessary with the heavy bolt on the outside. Before she could wonder why the wine cellar was secured like a dungeon, Tasa heard a key twisting in the entrance door's lock. She dropped the mat and, holding her bump with both hands, she half waddled, half lurched back towards her room.
She knew she would never make it in time.