"Where is she?"
Sylvia looked up from her embroidery in surprise at the sound of the loud voice, echoing through the halls of her villa. She was just about to call Albina in to check the vociferous intruder when she beheld the black-robed Vitus striding purposefully into the atrium. He bowed his head respectfully to her, but continued to cast his gaze about him. "Where is the slave Mara, Domina? There is that which I must discuss with her…"Sylvia narrowed her eyes at him curiously.
"She is in the gardens, Milord. May I offer you…?" Before she could complete her request, the visitor had descended the marbeline steps to the gardens in a single bound and was approaching the tall slave woman.
Mara was using a small, sharp knife to scrape weeds out of a bed when she felt strong hands grip her shoulders and lift her into the air. She writhed wildly and was about to angrily slap at her attacker, when her tigress orbs beheld the furious visage of the avenger.
Her heart sank.
"Where is she, Slave?" Vitus' voice was quiet, deadly. For the first time since that wretched day when she stood naked upon the slave-block of Rome, Mara trembled in fear.
"She has…has returned to Greece Milord…"
"You lie!" It was with difficulty that the strong man restrained his hands from dashing the shameful woman to the ground. "You indeed were involved in the disappearance of Calliliana Maximinus, were you not?"
"Oh!" Vitus and his prisoner turned at the sudden gasp to see Sylvia, standing white-faced upon the garden steps. "Mara, how could you? When I trusted you even as my friend…" Mara laughed then, a sound so horrible, so full of malice, and so hideously foreign to the onlookers as to smite their ears painfully.
"What do you wish me to say? That I had love for the wretched little whore?" Vitus did strike her then, but the ugly slave continued her mirthless howl. "Yes, I had ought to do with her disappearance from your house, Domina…and I am proud to tell of it!"
"WHERE IS SHE?" Vitus screamed, as the ice-fires of his azure eyes darted flame-bursts into the calm cat-eyes of the woman before him. Mara smiled at him then, a smile of such nether-worldly horror it seemed to freeze the very marrow in his bone—for she knew that she alone had the power to cease his questioning. Her work was finished, and in her twisted and evil way, she was at peace. Wordlessly, the slave woman tightened her grasp upon the sharp weeding-knife she held and drove it home to her breast.
Sylvia cried out and darted forward as Mara fell, pierced by her own hand and as a ruby jet of blood streamed from her heart. She looked up at the mysterious avenger and her mistress, standing together over her with looks of dismay etched upon their countenances, and a last, bloody guffaw gurgled in her throat.
"You wish to know where the whore resides, do you?" she asked, as her red blood escaped from her lips and began to travel down her chin and over her white teeth. "I say only this—look for the slave in the house of her master."
"What do you mean?" cried Vitus…but it was too late. With a last spasm of her tight muscles and a shuddering groan that froze the blood of her mistress, the wicked Mara breathed her last. Vitus looked at the trembling Sylvia with shock in his frozen eyes. "I will bury this wretch," he said, as he took her arm and gently led her from the dismal scene before them. "But I must then go to finally find she whom I have sought for so long. This last bit of information from your slave may be what I need to avenge the poor wife of Maximinus at the last." Sylvia nodded numbly, and allowed the man to lead her back to her villa.
She lay there in the midst of the gardens she had tended, watering the green earth with her own life-blood. Her muscular arms and legs were at odd angles to each other, and her brown hands had curved into sharp-taloned claws. Her black hair had come loose, and was spread mane-like about her lifeless face—her hideous, lifeless face that would have made even the bravest tremble in fear. Her lips were peeled away from her mouth in a death-snarl, revealing her sharp and blood-stained teeth. Her tawny skin was blue-white with the pallor of death—but even as it was for her in life, her eyes were the most fearsome part of her visage.
As wide-open, as sightless, and as golden-brown as those of a beast were they. They stared sightlessly up at the setting sun, which lit them with an unearthly, sepulchral glow…the glow of death. The tigress eyes of the slave girl matched her taloned, mane-encircled countenance in death perhaps better than they did in life—for in death at least, all are one.
Not a woman, but a deadly lioness lay dead upon the ground.
She had fixed upon that night.
Calliliana knew that if she did not flee the house of Agrippa in the dead of that very night, she would never find the courage to do what she must. She had taken pains to preserve what shards of the mushroom vial as she could as proof—that and a faithful replica of the sketch of the palace that she had drawn from memory. If there was a God in heaven, she decided, the emperor would believe that which she told him.
She had bidden Lavina a good night, retired early, and spent the better part of four hours waiting and watching the darkening sky. As she waited, the woman had garbed herself in a thick black cloak, surreptitiously borrowed from Appius, to better conceal the beauties of her face and form and the glory of her golden hair. She had bound her small feet with strips of cloth so that they might be noiseless upon the tiled floors, and had carefully concealed her verification in the folds of the cloak.
When at last the night was dark enough, when no sounds save the humming of night-insects sang upon the wind and the silver moon was buried within the ebony shrouds of the clouded sky (for which she thanked God), Calliliana stole forth. Past the room of Lavina she crept, swearing silently to her friend that she would send help for her as soon as ever she could. She cautiously slipped down the few steps towards the door to the front courtyard, testing each one with her foot for creaks before she leant her full weight upon it. When at last she reached the tiled floor, she breathed a sigh of infinite relief.
She was victorious.
She had but a few steps until she was free at last from the tyranny of her wretched oppressor—until she was free to live as a human, not as a slave, and to believe in the mercy of God once more.
A strong arm encircled her waist as tightly as a vice and turned her harshly. Calliliana cried out then in terror, for she was gazing into the demonic visage of he whom she feared more to see even than a spectral corpse imbued with new life.
She was looking into the red-rimmed eyes of Marcus Agrippa.
He was holding a torch aloft in one hand, while he grasped her struggling body firmly with the other. The heart of the poor girl seemed to melt within her as she gazed upon his eyes—coal-eyes lit with a vengeful fire that seemed to burn her doom upon her as she stared into their depths. His lips were white with rage, white as his sharp teeth which were bared at her in anger. A hissing noise, unlike any that she had ever heard from man, issued forth from his mouth as he glared at her in fury—a noise like to that of a poisonous serpent. With one glance at his livid face, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her master knew what she had done.
And that he would make her pay dearly for it.
"He will strike at me with his venom," Calliliana thought numbly, as he wrenched the cloak from her body, and revealed her shivered, thinly-clad form quivering in fear before him, "He will strike his poison into me, and I shall die."
"Did you honestly believe that I would not discover your plot to ruin me, whore?" he hissed, his voice low; deadly.
"He is getting ready to strike," thought Calliliana, as she covered herself with her arms.
"You are more foolish—more stupid—than I ever thought you to be. When I am finished with you, you will BEG ME FOR DEATH!" Agrippa was screaming so loudly now that minute specks of spittle flew out and landed on the girl's trembling face.
And then he struck. Marcus threw the burning torch to the ground with one hand and grasped the wealth of Calliliana's golden hair with the other. He threw her clear across the room by her locks, feeling pleasure at the sound of her cries of pain as she struck the wall and fell to the ground. The general strode to where she lay, gasping and panting for breath against her agony, and kicked her full in the stomach. She curled into a tight ball, crying aloud in anguish, as he kicked her again and yet again, cognizant of the same gratification he felt when he had done the same to the woman's husband. Calliliana vomited a ruby jet of blood at his feet, and Agrippa laughed mockingly.
"Have you had enough?" he asked harshly, as the girl attempted to pull herself to her feet. She nodded furiously, chafing the crystal tears from her marbeline face, leaving uneven streaks of ruby blood from her hands upon it. Agrippa growled low in his throat, reached out and secured his massive hand about her neck, and lifted her into the air by that sensitive appendage.
Calliliana gasped for breath and grasped at his strong hand, unable to speak and beg him to release her. Agrippa continued to lift her until she was on a level with his eyes…then he spit full in her face. The woman choked and squirmed spasmodically is his grasp as the hot saliva burned its putridity into her open, glassy emerald eyes.
"If you have already had enough, I would pity you for what you shall endure next…I would, at least, if I could feel pity in my heart for a wretch such as you." So saying, the wicked man threw the pathetic girl to the ground again, forced her legs apart, and knelt between them.
"Please," she gasped, as she tried to cover herself with her bloody hands, "please…spare me!" Agrippa laughed once more, his body aroused by the sight of her pain and distress. He loosened the belt about his waist, and removed it. Calliliana shut her eyes, begging God to make that which was to come rapid to endure, rapid and relatively painless…although she new that was asking for a miracle, a great, unheard-of miracle…
She felt his weight being lifted from her.
She heard him crying out; heard the sound of his skin, his body, being struck.
She opened her eyes.
Appius, gentle, strong Appius, had her master by his hair. He was striking him in the face with all of the force of his strong young body. Agrippa tried to fight back, but he was too old to match the strength of the younger man. He slumped to the ground in shocked agony when Appius deemed him finished, and Calliliana stifled a cry as she glimpsed the bloody flesh that had once been the stern face of her oppressor. His eyes were swollen shut, yet trickles of blood still fell from them onto his bruised cheeks. His lips, both of them, were swollen to twice their normal size—and when he opened his mouth to vomit forth the blood filling it, the maiden saw several teeth, white and winking against the dim light of the lantern, clatter softly to the floor.
Appius was breathing heavily, but his eyes had kindled with a strange glow most fearsome to behold. "Like a beast, ridden and worked nearly to death, is this man," Calliliana thought, as she torturously pulled herself into a sitting position. "Yet his eyes—his eyes are that of the animal when he turns on his master at the last—when he slays the oppressor even as he himself is dying of his oppression."
"Give me your cloak." It took Calliliana several seconds to gather her tormented wits and realizing that Appius was addressing her.
"But…" Without waiting for her compliance, the young man snatched it and began tearing the fabric into strips. He twisted them firmly, then savagely bound the wrists and ankles of his master. Agrippa cried out in pain as the tightly wound cloth sank into his flesh, but Appius would not slack from his work until it was finished. He stood then, covered in the blood of the soldier, and looked down into his now unrecognizable face.
"Touch one hair on this woman's head, or the head of the slave girl Lavina but once more, and I will not be so merciful as to spare your life. I swear to you that on that day, on the day that you make either of these women shed a single tear for your brutality and heartlessness, I shall slay you as slowly as the torment you have made them both endure." So saying, the young man wrapped his arm about Calliliana's waist and helped her to stand. A sharp cry of pain burst unheeded from her lips as she stood, her wounds shooting their dagger-like claws throughout her body. "Can you walk?" her friend asked her gently. She nodded.
"I—I have to. We have to go…we have to leave this place…" The woman slowly made her way towards the door, the last perilous few steps of her journey which had been so tragically interrupted but moments before. Appius, tried sorely by her tortured progress, finally gathered her in his arms and fled the villa with her, his sandaled feet slapping loudly against the courtyard bricks.
Neither of them looked back.
Neither of them heard Agrippa's cries for help.
Neither of them saw four other slave men rushing to free their master from his hastily-made bonds.
Neither of them saw the slaves rush to the stables to ready five horses—one for each of them, and the largest of them all for their master.
Neither of them saw, or would have known even if they could, that these horses were bred specifically for their speed and agility in pursuing prey during a hunt
And neither of them knew that those hunting steeds were now being readied to hunt a unique kind of prey.
A prey known as a fugitive slave.