Power
The Next Morning
"Sure, I don't see why not. Actually, hang on… Centurion Galio?" said the Interfector of Phoenix as Aleron still sat silently across from the man.
"Yes Primus?" said the tall armored Centurion leaning on his thermic lance beside the desk.
The Interfector asked plainly, "Is it normal for members of your staff to have their own personal servants?"
The Prime Legionary named Dalton adjusted his shoulder plate idly as Centurion Galio responded, "It isn't unheard of, just unusual. Although it is somewhat extraordinary considering the fact they're all captures out there."
The Killer paused for a long moment and looked at Aleron briefly before turning back to the Centurion and asking, "What's the going rate for captures?"
"That depends…" said Galio before continuing, "Back up north, the rate was around 2 aureus, but I received word from our forces in this region that places like Two Sun don't even have a price. The markets near Two Sun won't even buy captures from us, and are only interested in conditioned slaves which are currently selling at approximately 4 aureus, additional denarii vary per slave. Captures don't even have a price out here according to my runners."
"I see…" said the Interfector before shifting his eyes back to Aleron, "Why is it you want to purchase an Ajoan capture?"
Aleron replied militarily as usual to the inquiry, "My new position has me as your side most hours of the day, Primus. I wish to purchase a servant to take care of encampment duties on the march so my time can be better utilized by your authority."
The Murderer sat silently for a moment before saying, "Sure you don't want to wait until we reach our next outpost on the southeast front? Makes more sense to get a slave rather than a capture for such a task."
"I am no stranger to conditioning those who belong to Caesar, even on the march, Lord Interfector." said Aleron.
It was then that a smile crept across the face of the Elite Centurion before he said to Aleron, "Oh, I understand… A pretty little thing in those pens caught your eye and you wish to purchase that beauty, am I right?"
The Prime beside the Interfector seemed to be holding back something of a smile. Aleron couldn't understand the expression since he was more focused on the question, "I intend to use the capture for exactly as I described, My Primus."
The Interfector's smile grew only a little wider, "It's alright, Aleron, I gotta say I've heard more romantic love stories before. What's her name?" said the Elite in a cutesy manner that was only puzzling to everyone in the room except the Interfector and the young prime.
Aleron replied flatly, "Her name is irrelevant, Lord Interfector. I will assign the capture a new name."
The Elite was about to say something else when Centurion Theracos entered the Interfector's command tent. Upon entry, the commander of the 6th century was about to say something when The Killer caught Theracos first, "There you are, Centurion Theracos. I must ask you something… Does anyone in your staff have a personal servant?"
Centurion Theracos paused in his tracks and responded, "Just Decanus Montano, he has that little pet of his, 'Cara' or 'Clara' I believe he calls her…"
"Since he was only recently put under your staff, do you have any misgivings about his servant... Due to his placement in your guard?" asked the Interfector.
"No, Primus, I see no issue. Provided Montano keeps her in her place."
Turning to Aleron, the Murderer said with that "joyful" expression, "I think that about settles it then, Mr. Aleron…" Turning back to Theracos, he asked, "Now, what were you coming to report, Centurion Theracos?"
Theracos of the 6th said, "My scouts reported back just minutes ago. Our relief force is only a couple hours out. They should be here before noon."
"Excellent!" exclaimed the Interfector before turning back to Aleron. "I have a moment to spare, so Theracos, you wait here and take your counts with Centurion Galio. Aleron, you and I are going to take a little walk. Show me this little number that caught your eye."
Aleron stood from the table, leaving the commanders in the Elite's tent and walked out accompanied by the Interfector and Dalton the Prime. Reaching the main pens, the three looked over the masses still packed to the wire and silent in their agony. The sun was barely glimmering over the mountains and the sky was blue. That captive pen on the far end still had a smoking pile of ashes where the bodies of the warriors were piled. The hundreds upon hundreds of captured Ajoans were still sitting and waiting for that inevitable moment when the sun was high enough to do its miserable work on the people of this desert. Only a few more hours before the Legion backup would arrive and mark their lives' turn from sitting in agony to working in pain. Standing outside the largest pen, the one full of healthy female captures didn't look too healthy, considering the week of waiting in the elements.
The young Veteran Decanus walked along the pen like he did the previous night, looking over the faces of the ones who didn't hide. Aleron came to the spot he was last night, and there she was, the woman was in the same place as before, the only difference being how she was sitting when Aleron walked up. Aleron lorded over the young woman who sat there with the head of an apparently sick woman of her age lying in her lap. When the woman from the night before felt his presence right outside the wire, her face turned for the briefest moment to see it was him. When she saw Aleron's face, she started lightly brushing the head of the woman in her lap and asked the decanus, "It's you... Come to beat me?"
"This is the one" said Aleron to The Interfector. The Murderer and his prime bodyguard approached Aleron and began looking down at the nameless Ajoan prisoner. The woman turned her face and tried her best to hide her face with her dirty black hair as the three sets of eyes studied her like a slab of meat.
"You got quite an eye, Aleron. She really is pretty… despite all that dirt and… filth…." Said the Interfector before turning to Dalton the Prime and asking, "What say you, Dalton? Looking for a wife, or?..." in a joking sort of manner.
Aleron interjected, "I intend to use her for encampment work, Lord Interfector."
The woman still sat there, hearing everything, and saying nothing.
Neither man hearing Aleron, Dalton responded to his commander and "friend", "I think I'm good on that front for now, Primus… I'll let you know if I change my mind."
The Killer chuckled to himself, still studying the woman as he said to Aleron, "I don't believe we landed on a price…" He paused before adding "I'd say the captive rate up north sounds about right, wouldn't you? 2 aureus and say… maybe 10 denarii, for the expenses of a campaign march?"
"My Primus is most generous" said Aleron as he withdrew his coin sack from his satchel.
Drawing out two coins of solid gold and ten smaller silver ones, Aleron would have called the deal generous and fair if it had been 20 talents that'd been asked. The Elite pocketed the money and called for a group of four legionaries on patrol around the pens. With the four, the Interfector ordered the woman out, and a few extra guns came over to keep an eye on the pen being entered. The legionaries stepped over the downtrodden masses in the pen, over the dead who hadn't been removed, and towards the specific woman. Not one person in the pen tried to stop or obstruct them in any way, and the woman still sat there brushing the hair of the one in her lap. Even though she heard the whole talk, and watched the legionaries approach, the strong arms pulling to her feet and slap of shackles on her wrist gave her a shock anyway.
The woman's head in her lap fell to the sand as she was pulled up; the face was white and with eyes still closed as the new slave sobbed all the way to the entrance to the pens. She protested what was happening, but her struggle didn't amount to much when two men had her in arms and with two more spears pointed at her back. Aleron couldn't stop staring at the woman his new servant was caressing, and noticed she hadn't moved while her face remained pure white. Flies began landing on the still woman's head and face as Aleron's new servant was escorted out the gate. The flies continued to land on the frozen woman's face and one crawled its way between her lips; Aleron was brought back to the moment when The Killer said, "Here she is, all yours Aleron."
Aleron turned to the Interfector, beside him was the woman from last night, standing between two legionaries with her wrists bound in chains. Aleron looked to the Interfector and said, "Thank you, My Primus…"
Turning to the group of legionaries, Aleron said, "Take her to my private tent, beside the Command residence of our Elite, confines all."
The gaggle of legionaries escorted the woman away as she began quietly sobbing again without making eye contact with anyone. When Aleron turned back to the Interfector, he had his usual emotionless expression on his face when he spoke to Aleron in that cool manner, "Get her cleaned up, and await your checkup from the healer. After that, report back to me immediately, there are a few things I need you to do before our relief gets here. So, I'll expect to see you again in say, 1 hour?"
"Yes, Lord Interfector. I will see your orders done without hesitation."
The Interfector nodded, walked back to the command tent with the Prime, and Aleron had one last look at the face of the still woman behind the wire. More flies were on her face, and nobody was there to keep them off anymore. Aleron turned back towards the Legion tents, and started walking to his quarters.
When Aleron entered his private tent, the woman was sitting chained to one of his little wooden chairs. He walked right past her, barely even noticing her existence before taking a seat on the other chair next to his cot and beside a small table he'd saved from the Ajoans' wreckage. Studying the woman, she had stopped sobbing, and was instead just staring at the ground with her dirty black hair hanging over her face. Silent and unmoving, the woman sat there in ragged and dirt covered garb made of what looked like leather, and what appeared to be burlap. A heavy piece of clothing resembling a sort of dress, given how the young tribal wasn't wearing pants. The thing might've looked very pretty if it wasn't covered in sand and dirt, or frayed from the elements and captivity after the fall of her people. Aleron remained quietly looking at the display before him, and she remained almost perfectly still when Aleron broke the silence;
"Tell me, woman. Tell me what you think your name is…"
Aleron waited for longer than he was used to before the woman slowly craned her head upward and responded, "You're one of the ones they punished-"
For the first time in at least a couple days, Aleron felt aware of the fact he still didn't resemble any of the other legionaries. He was one of two men still walking around the camp with only a wrapping around his chest and back. Though he covered it with his tunic most of the time, he had almost forgotten about the audience that got to see his punishment. It was also then that he felt his face again. His face had done a lot of healing in the week since the Ajoans' fall, and he'd regained most of his sight from his still slightly purple eyes. Still, Aleron didn't enjoy being reminded of his injuries in any way, and more importantly, the slave didn't answer his question.
The back of Aleron's hand landed on her face the second the last syllable left her mouth. Not enough to truly harm her, the action was just to show her how powerless she really was as her limbs were all chained to the chair beneath her. The shock of the blow was still enough to break a few tears loose from her eyes. Over the next few seconds, Aleron remained quiet and the woman's tears got subtly louder until Aleron's voice penetrated the atmosphere;
"I asked your name, slave!"
The woman winced at Aleron's loud voice, something that wasn't a shout or even loud in Aleron's eyes. The woman recovered herself just as Aleron was about to deliver another blow, "Gabriella! Gabriella is my name. Don't hit me!" said the woman as she fell into more tears.
"I will only tell you one more time to stop crying, slave." Said Aleron cooly.
The serious intent wasn't lost on the woman named "Gabriella" as she tried harder to get better control over herself. Choking on the sobs, she was hyperventilating but becoming quieter as she tried harder and harder to gain more power over her feelings. She managed to maintain that control even when she saw the man across from her growing an increasingly more terrible look the longer she made noise. She'd finally done it and mastered her emotions despite the newness of her situation, and that only turned itself into rage; a rage that Aleron could see.
"Alright, not a bad name. I may even let you keep it…" Aleron paused, awaiting some kind of response. The woman continued to tame her crying, barely hearing Aleron's words.
When she'd collected herself enough, she was no longer hyperventilating, and the conquering of her feelings gave her a sense of power she didn't know Aleron could see… and was expecting. This confidence even gave her the ability to look into the eyes of the man who "Purchased her." Locking eyes with Aleron, Gabriella's face was still a mess, but she felt that making him look at it would be its own act of defiance. When Aleron had finally found her calm enough, he looked into her formerly sad but now flaming eyes and said, "What did you mean last night when you said, 'I did this'?..."
Gabriella was emanating a form of confidence she never knew she had, and felt an importance in her being that was equally foreign. She answered Aleron "Why did you buy me?-"
A question whose answer was another but slightly harder backhand across her face. That surge of confidence was diminished almost immediately again when she felt the need to rub the sting, but couldn't since her hands were still chained to the legs of the chair. This powerlessness almost made her begin crying again, but that resolve was still glowing somewhere deep down. One more tear and Aleron would strike again, Gabriella knew this. She saw the blurry figure through her clouded wet eyes and the fear of another blow mixed itself perfectly with the powerless but defiant spirit still in her when she shouted through hysteria;
"I said YOU did this! All of you Legion are the same! I can't believe you… You killed… You killed him!" She was sobbing completely, not caring anymore about what Aleron would do, but still trying to gain control over the feelings; not out of adherence to master's orders, but to better channel her sorrow into that anger.
Aleron leaned back in his chair, watching the woman collect herself from that outburst when he said, "I understand… The man my former senior killed, was he your husband?"
"No, he was my sister's husband… But you didn't have- You didn't have to…" She broke apart as each word left her mouth, and Aleron didn't mind being directly accused of the actions Decanus Gula committed. Aleron had never eaten human flesh, and wasn't keen on accepting any glory from someone else's triumphs. Still, the decanus let her collect herself uninterrupted, somewhat admiring her tenacity to do so on her own.
He asked her, "And your sister? Was she the one you were holding in the pens?"
Not expecting these kinds of questions, it was still clear to Gabriella that these questions were not stemming from "care" of any kind, but she still answered. Each word giving rise to more tears that she noticeably attempted to wrangle as she nodded, "Yes. You killed her last night too. Her heart broke when she saw what you did to her… Oh god…"
She was completely inside the head of her dead sister, seeing the exact things she saw when she watched her husband get his head smashed and his brain eaten. All of that taking shape when she looked at the man across from her, bandaged and broken by his own leaders, yet eagerly participating in the terror. Aleron heard her last words, and saw the chaotic mess of despair, anger, and powerlessness in her mind. He knew what to say.
"Your sister died of a broken heart?..." The question coming off more as a statement than anything, Aleron watched the tears streaming down her face and saw that light of defiant confidence about to die again when he'd implemented the last action he'd learned when breaking a capture. He said, to her, "Your sister was weak to die in such a manner. Good riddance."
There it was, the flames blazed behind her eyes again as she looked upon the man belonging to an organization that'd taken everything from her. Just as expected, the woman let loose a flurry of shouting and crying, intermixed with the question from before "Why did you buy me?" and a new declaration stemming from the deepest parts of her soul, "Punch me, kick me, beat me all you want, you should just kill me! The second you let your guard down, I'll slit your throat in your sleep!..."
Aleron sat there for a long while after her outburst, watching her completely expressionless. Gabriella might've even believed Aleron was scared of the threat, and the longer he was silent, the more she was able to feel like she had control of some kind. Her sobbing almost turned into a laugh before Aleron said to her face, "I suppose I have little use of you then."
Feeling empowered despite her restraints, she sunk her head back towards the ground as she said, "You wasted a lot of money on someone who'll never bow to you."
"Money has no value to me" said Aleron casually as he stood up.
Still staring at the ground, Gabriella watched the legs of Aleron walk over to a corner of the tent and come back. When the man was standing in front of her again, she saw something leaning next to him. Upon seeing the dull grey steel of a sledgehammer, her heart began racing as he lifted the heavy block of steel. Her eyes followed the hammerhead all the way up as Aleron raised it until she was staring at the coldest and deadest expression she'd ever seen.
She finally learned what her sister's husband saw before his death, a man in all black and red, ready to completely obliterate her without any kind of thought or remorse. She saw the image of Aleron sifting through her remains, playing, and bathing in the mess until it's time for some other Legion task. She watched her corpse being burned in a pile of the dead, erased from existence, and possibly even partially consumed. Pictures of herself as a little girl and her entire upbringing flashed through her mind. She remembered the warm hugs from her mother, growing up with her sister, loving her friends and family in the tribe. She recalled her tribe's good times and bad times, times they'd prospered, times they had to run from hostile neighbors, all the things her people had overcome, and the trials she herself endured alongside her family. Then she saw the fires, and the nights of assessment where her mother and friends were deemed "sick" and eradicated. She felt her sister hugging her for support after her separation from her husband, and then felt that cold head in her lap, dead from a broken heart after watching her husband get destroyed and eaten by the demons of "Kaisar." Her whole life of good times and overcoming bad times ultimately led her to where she sat. Chained to a small chair, Aleron had raised the hammer above his head when it finally sunk in that Aleron was ready to kill her and go about his day. The image of that hammer landing on her head instinctively made her erupt into the worst outburst of crying Aleron had ever heard. The dam had burst and Gabriella was completely powerless and sobbing, unsure if she was even alive anymore. She hadn't even noticed when Aleron lowered the hammer and sat himself back down.
Aleron picked up the folder of unit reports of the little table, not even reprimanding the woman for her piercing wails. He sat there going about his business, giving the servant time to realize she was still alive. Over the course of several minutes, the woman had come to the reality that she was intact, but still not knowing where she was. As she got more control over herself, her crying became softer, and there she saw Aleron, who'd almost forgotten she was there despite that sobbing noise he found more irritating than anything. When she finally came to terms with the fact her head was still intact, Aleron lifted his eyes from his papers and said to her,
"My assassin-to-be certainly seems pretty scared of death…"
He watched her, and she found herself slowly looking up to face him, still defeated, and still plagued by images of her narrowly avoided demise. She said nothing to the Decanus's remark, and another moment passed before he stated, "You wanted to know why I purchased you, here's my answer…"
Capturing the woman's eyes in a way she couldn't look away from, Aleron resumed, "I intend to break you..."
The woman watched Aleron and shrunk into herself as he stood to his feet again, leaving the sledgehammer. She tried to look away as Aleron knelt in front of her chair, but his face was somehow dead center of everywhere her eyes landed. Aleron said calmly to the woman;
"You are no longer a human. You are to be formed into any shape I want. All I truly want is to serve the Legion, so paying you any attention and dealing with you will always be secondary. I said I intend to break you, which means that from this point forward, you are to do everything I demand down to the letter and without any question or hesitation. How painful your breaking is, how much fire I use, or how many of your fragile little bones I break is entirely dependent on how flexible you are… Is that understood?"
The shackles around her feet were unlocked as she looked into Aleron's eyes. His face remained the same even as he unlocked her hand restraints. Sitting free in the chair, and with Aleron still kneeling directly in front of her, she felt the urge to attack him. She wanted to slap the bandages on his injured back and spit on him before picking up that hammer and shattering His head. As the fantasy played out in her mind, her eyes landed on that hammer behind him, and a few more tears came to the surface when seeing his face that hadn't changed from that of a calculating murderer. Her eyes drifted from the hammer to him once more, and a few tears fell as she nodded in acknowledgment of his question.
Aleron stood himself up, carrying her eyes with him until he said, "Now, stand up, and fill that washtub in the corner with water from my bucket."
Her eyes followed his pointing finger until she saw the tub and bucket of water almost directly behind her chair. She watched Aleron take his seat back in his chair and pull up his reports when she slowly stood herself up. More focused on the papers, Aleron's eyes still caught the woman stand up and shuffle over to the tiny washing tub. She poured the water from the bucket into the tub slowly, keeping an eye on Aleron the whole time, not even sure why she was doing that until she was done pouring. Standing there with an empty bucket in her arms, she looked into the tiny washing tub and the few solid inches of water rippling at the bottom. When her eyes returned to Aleron, she saw him looking up from the papers as he tossed her a crumpled box of old-world washing soap;
"Strip down and clean yourself off."
His eyes fell back down to the papers and he began writing on them when she felt her hands drifting down to cover her "vulnerable" areas. This vague but dreadful feeling she felt made her ask shakily, "Why do you want me to clean off?"
The question made Aleron look up once more and his emotionless face again twisted into that of a killer. Aleron said calmly, "I will only say this one more time: I do not owe you answers to anything. If I tell you to do something, you do it, if you don't or if you question me, I'll hurt you… bad."
Aleron's face reverted back to its' normal state, but his eyes lingered on her for a moment, still dripping with murderous intensity. The woman just started to move her hand to the button on her garb when Aleron looked back at her and added;
"I'll entertain your question just this once since I feel it may clarify the matter. You are to strip down and bathe in that tub because you look absolutely disgusting. You've been in those pens, sitting in the sun, and bathing in you and your people's own excrement for a whole week. You look and smell utterly terrible. Fix that. Strip yourself all the way down, sit in that tub, and clean yourself. Now."
Gabriella slowly began undressing, trying her best to cover the areas she exposed with her hands, a task made more and more impossible as more of her body was exposed. Her attempts at covering were noticed, but ignored by Aleron who seemed completely uninterested in the naked woman before him. The woman sat herself in the water and began cleaning herself with the washing powder and a nearby brush.
A few minutes passed, and the woman watched Aleron as she cleaned herself and tried to keep as much of her naked self hidden from Aleron who still wasn't interested. Sometime when she was almost done, she attempted to get around the question rule by saying aloud for the other tent occupant to hear, "He's just having me clean up so he can rape me later…"
Thinking Aleron would acknowledge the announcement, her speculation was also completely ignored and barely even heard by the man who continued adding the inventory list for the Interfector's unit food stores.
When Gabriella was finally done, the woman stepped out of the now filthy tub, completely clean, and cautiously trying not to draw the gaze of Aleron. As she reached for the dirty garb, Aleron said, "No. Not that."
She paused in her tracks and Aleron pulled a clean grey cloth tunic marked by a red "X" out of a crate beneath his cot. He tossed the garment to Gabriella without breaking his gaze from the paper and the woman caught it. Still standing there dripping wet, she felt the fine cloth, wondering how long it would take for the thing to decay into the ugly grey tattered rags she'd seen on other Legion slaves.
Just as Aleron was about to lose his patience at the fact she hadn't begun immediately redressing, both of their attentions were turned to the tent opening where someone was entering. Gabriella had no idea who the person was, but Aleron did. His frustrated demeanor turned to an ugly grin when he saw the new arrival. The person who entered Aleron's tent studied the naked woman before turning to Aleron and asking, "Who's the tight-twat?"
Aleron fell into that unfamiliar joy when he exclaimed, "Welcome Grama, I've been waiting for you."
The elderly slave healer shuffled her way through the rest of the tent opening and scanned the naked tribal again. As she approached Aleron in his chair, she kept looking at Gabriella as the Grama asked, "You bought one of the Ajoan captures? Why'd you do that? Such a young thing too…"
Turning to Aleron, the 6th's Grama asked directly, "If you wanted a gal for respite, I may not have the looks, but I got the experience, certainly more than… That thing. Telling me I ain't your type, or what?"
Aleron nearly couldn't handle it, and began turning blue to keep his demeanor and refrain from that terrible "Laughing" condition that dissolutes so enjoy. Aleron knew this, still seeing Gabriella standing there, and he knew she was hearing the whole thing. Aleron could hear it now, he saw the words on Gabriella's lips, "Why can She ask questions?"
When the Grama had taken her place behind Aleron and began removing his bloody bandages, he saw the face of Gabriella ready to ask that question. Grama knew this as well, and Aleron told her what to do in that strange telepathic way Legion slaves, soldiers and otherwise knew how to do. Just before the question escaped Gabriella's lips, Grama shouted at her;
"You gonna get dressed or what!?..."
Gabriella attempted some sort of response to the confusing words from someone she saw as a fellow slave or comrade. However, anything Gabriella thought of saying was killed by the Grama who added, "Don't talk to me, trash! My baby boy here won't hurt you in half the ways I will if you speak!"
Immediately, Gabriella threw on the tunic and stood there while Aleron and "Grama" almost forgot her presence. As Grama began cleaning the wounds on Aleron's back, he stopped her for a moment and approached Gabriella. He picked up the water bucket and a clay jar, then handed it to her before saying, "Go to the well, fill up this bucket for washing, and fill up the jar for drinking."
Gabriella took the containers in her hands and nodded, letting a few more left over tears fall. Just before turning to go about the simple duty, Aleron stopped her and said in a hushed voice oozing with murder, "She's earned it, slave. Don't go thinking I won't splatter your brain or hers in an instant if the mood strikes me. Remember that."
Another tear fell from Gabriella's eyes, she nodded once more, and left the tent while Aleron returned to the chair for his checkup with Grama.