5
Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and hope you enjoy this. It will get better I promise
Calliliana massaged her temples with a sigh as she sat at her small dressing-table that night. "What a day it has been," she said quietly to herself, as she unbound the intricate coils of her golden tresses, "and how weary I am of all of this!"
"You should talk to a friend, Domina, and not to yourself. It is not becoming." Calliliana gasped in surprise as she caught sight of a black-clad figure reflected in her mirror, and she felt the heat rush to her face.
"Who is…oh, it is only you, Mara. How you startled me!" The slave woman approached the maiden with a forced smile, and the startled girl could not help but think that in her black stola, and with the fierce cat-gleam in her golden eyes, the slave looked very like a specter of doom.
"Let me do that for you." With much swiftness and very little tenderness, Mara pulled the remaining pins from the girl's hair and tossed it over her back. She picked up an ivory-handled brush and roughly worked it through the densely flowing waterfall of gold, causing the maiden to squirm away in discomfort.
"Thank you, Mara, but I believe I am quite capable of doing this myself." Calliliana wrested the comb from the servant woman's skeletal fingers, gently finished brushing out her hair, and wound it into a thick rope for bed. As she undressed with her back carefully turned, she cast furtive and uncomfortable glances at Mara, who stood watching with brazenly un-averted eyes and a nasty sneer upon her face.
"Perhaps you should eat more, Domina. The slenderness of your body puts to shame the wealth of the house of Milord Antonius—you look like more like a beggar woman than a friend! Calliliana blushed hotly at this. Even though she was several months with child now, only a small bulge appeared in her abdomen. The rest of her body remained slender and white as a lily-flower—that Mara should notice this and comment upon it made the girl uneasy. She did not deign to respond to the slave's comment, and made sure to wriggle all the more quickly into her sleeping garment and into her bed.
"Is that all you require for the night, Domina?" Calliliana stifled a yawn and nodded.
"Yes, thank you. Goodnight Mara." The slave girl started to leave, then slapped her forehead in mock surprise.
"Oh, but how could I fail to remember? My mistress sent you this, and her best wishes for a comfortable sleep this night." Mara produced a small wine goblet—which Calliliana failed to see why she had not noticed when she had first entered the room—and a rolled piece of parchment.
"Why?" The slave girl made her best effort to conjure a friendly smile.
"Of course she would not explain her reasoning to me, a lowly servant girl! The answers you seek are all here," she tapped the scroll, "in this letter." Calliliana took the goblet, noticed curiously that it contained a small quantity of rich, red wine, and quizzically took the dispatch.
"Thank you, Mara. You may go." Perhaps the maiden would have been unnerved had she observed the ferocious gleam in the feline eyes of the slave upon being addressed casually as a servant—but so intent was Calliliana on reading the letter that Mara slipped from the room unheeded.
"My Dear Girl,
As you should know from past interactions with me, I am quite skillful with medicinal herbs and drafts. I know the pain that you are fighting at this time, and it is my sincerest hope that the contents of this goblet will help ease it in some way. Rest assured, my friend, it is not some vile potion to destroy that which grows within you—it is a simple sleeping draft that should relax you and prevent your fears from assailing you as you sleep. I trust that I shall find you in better spirits on the morrow, and I hope that this helps you in some small measure.
Your friend,
Sylvia"
"Oh how wonderful!" Calliliana murmured to herself drowsily, as she imbibed the contents of the goblet in three large sips. "Perhaps now my thoughts and evil dreams will not torment me this night." She settled down upon her bed, and closed her eyes slowly, thinking kindly of her dear, kind friends as she did so. Her last cognizant thought was one of surprise as her half-lidded eyes rested upon the black figure of Mara re-entering her chamber. "I wonder what it is she 'failed to recall' this time?" she chuckled inwardly—before falling into a deep and dreamless slumber.
"Oh Lord, have mercy upon this woman! Have mercy upon her child—and have mercy upon me!" Calliliana stirred restlessly, her mind wondering where she had smelt the distinctive scent of the perfumed linens resting against her cheek before. She tried to open her eyes, but she was still far too weary for a complete awakening. She lay back against the pillows with a languid smile—she was so warm and felt so wonderful, she did not know if she would ever wish to awake again…
But why was that woman—that keening voice in the background of her consciousness— praying…for her? And why was that woman wailing—it could not be for her, could it? The young beauty furrowed her brow in thought—now that her faculties were beginning to be restored, her mind kicked at her to remember the scent of the fabric swathing her. "Linen," she thought, as her fingers twitched over the material, "fine linen by the feel of it." She rubbed her face against it and pouted her lips in confusion. "Scented, I believe. Leander told me once that he knew a linen merchant from Egypt who would scent his linens before sell…"
Linen. Egyptian linen. Linens like those used by Marcus Agrippa upon his bed…the blood in the young woman's veins turned to ice, and her thought process simply ceased. "I cannot be there again—oh no, I cannot! Antonius would never allow it…" The girl breathed deeply, forcing herself to remain calm. "Of course I am simply being ridiculous. Antonius would never allow such a man to take me once more—he is quite especially fond of me, I do believe." She fingered the linens once more. "These must simply be a gift from Sylvia—yes, that is it!" Calliliana sighed audibly. "That must have been the reason I saw Mara slipping back into my room—she must have been ordered to surprise me while I slept!" With that cheerful thought in her head, and a renewed assurance in her heart, the girl fearlessly opened her eyes…And beheld the tormented face of Lavina staring back at her. Calliliana cried out and flattened herself against the wall behind the bed. "No, oh no, no, no…this is a dream is it not?" She stared into the slave woman's fear-filled orbs, as the tears sprang to her own. "Please…I beg of you, tell me this is a dream!" Lavina shook her head slowly, wetting the expensive bedclothes with her grief.
"No, Domina. It is not a dream—you have been returned to the household of Marcus Agrippa, there to await the birth of his child." Calliliana felt the blood drain from her face.
"But how…how did he find me? What of those who protected me?" Lavina shuddered and moaned wretchedly.
"That beast has ways of forcing all to bend to his will—no matter what the cost." A look of murderous rage filled the sea-eyes of the Greek woman.
"Did he hurt them? If he did…" Lavina shook her head.
"They have been told that you believed yourself to be a burden to them and in this time of your travail, you quietly quitted their house to find other lodgings." Calliliana was not prepared for this answer. Any other falsehood her benefactors would have seen through…but she had often told Sylvia what a burden she believed herself to be—and her kind friends might just believe this.
"Surely the master of the house will search for me?" she questioned brokenly. Again, Lavina made a motion of negation.
"Agrippa has sent him elsewhere in the region—he will not return until well after the birth of your child. There will be no one to find you, no one to think of where you truly might be." Calliliana finally abandoned herself to a flood of hopeless tears, and felt the waves of desolation cast their shivering waters over her bruised and bloodied heart.
"But…but how could he know of my whereabouts?" The slave girl looked about fearfully, as if afraid that her master would materialize at any moment, then leaned close.
"A woman came to see him just yesterday, Domina—a woman all garbed in black." Instantly, Calliliana's suspicions were aroused.
"Did you see her face?" Lavina shuddered once more.
"Horrible it was—a dead face it looked to me, with eyes like those of a tiger…" Calliliana buried her face in her arms and sobbed.
"Oh Mara, Mara, why do you hate me so? What did I ever do to deserve such torment at your hands?"
"You tried to hide from me, my lovely little whore—and you attempted to keep the knowledge of our child from me. Those two actions alone require the most severe consequences." The two girls stifled screams and looked up to behold their tormentor standing in the doorway. He strode towards the sobbing Calliliana, gripped her by the hair, and forced her to look in his eyes. "However," he said, as he leaned his face closer, ever closer, to her trembling mouth, "I am prepared to forgive you if you bear me a son." In the midst of her fear, the girl was surprised to be able to find her voice and query,
"And if I do not?" Wordlessly, Agrippa painfully crushed his mouth against hers. The maiden pushed against him with her hands, but he caught them both in a grip so strong she feared she would faint from the pain. She writhed and struggled as she felt the sweet breath of life being stolen from her—if he did not move soon, she would faint from the lack of air! Agrippa continued to kiss her roughly, and the maiden's struggles became weaker and weaker until finally, the world swam darkly before her eyes. The soldier relinquished his tight hold on her with a laugh, and tossed her limp body back upon the bed.
"Let her lie!" he shouted, as he observed Lavina creeping towards the unconscious girl. "She is being punished for her misdeeds—punishment you should well recognize by now."
"But Milord," the girl ventured tremulously, "the babe within her needs air as well…" Agrippa brutally backhanded her across the face.
"Do not tell me what is best for my own child!" he shouted, his voice causing the rafters to ring with his ire. "I shall do as I please, with her and with any other woman."
"Y-yes, Milord," the girl sobbed, as she covered her bruising face with one hand. She tensed as she felt her master prepare to propel her from the room and scurried away before he could lay a hand on her once more. After gazing upon the senseless beauty, her face as white as new-fallen snow, the general chuckled mirthlessly and left the room—leaving Calliliana to dream of a sojourn to hell as she slept in the bed of the devil.