Slave of Rome, The Emperor's Obsession. Book Two (3 page)

Commodus saw her face, already ashen grow deathly pale but her long eyelashes remained downcast like feathers upon her eyes.

"You are so small, so thin..." He said quietly.

Myra shivered as he looked her over, his eyes devouring her like a pair of starving wolves. She felt like a trapped lamb, just waiting for him to strike. Why was she petrified like that? Why didn't she bow and curtsy like she knew he expected? Why didn't she speak when he talked to her? She knew why. She was truly afraid, scared like she had never been. Even that one time, in the winter, when as a child she had seen a hungry lone wolf staring at her on a path in the forest, it hadn't caused such an immobilizing sense of utter helplessness.

She felt him reach out and brush a jet curl that had fallen across her face. Myra hiccuped. She hated herself. He quickly withdrew his hand, as if singed. When she was nervous she tended to do one of two things — she would either play with one of her springy curls, or her breath would catch in her throat causing her to make a sound that most people thought was a hiccup.
 
It had always been that way and she couldn't help it.
 

His dangerous menacing appearance almost made her gasp. He was so big. Enormous shoulders filled her sight as he looked down on her. He wasn't handsome in the same way like her husband. It was more like he was a god of war, to Silvanus' god of love. Commodus had the brutal features of a street fighter, his face too sharp, his complexion marred by a large scar that ran from his right ear, to his chin. She could feel his heat even a foot away and it made her body tense and her nipples tighten.

"You are afraid," she saw his beautiful lips curve down in concentration, "Don't fear, little one, I'm your friend, not your enemy." She realized her entire being had suddenly filled with irrepressible emotion.

"Does my presence trouble you, Myra?" She permitted herself the slightest nod and felt him motion something to the men surrounding her. They retreated and she felt her lungs relax and she could breathe easier. Myra steeled herself and fought back the tears that threatened to burst upon her eyes. She finally looked up and gazed into his dark eyes, getting her first good look at him. She felt mesmerized, intrigued even as her body relaxed a tiny bit. There was a sadness about him that made her instinctively want to care for him; inexplicably he seemed strong yet fragile, like a beautiful clay figurine of an ancient god of war. He took a step forward and her body tensed again. For a moment, she noticed a fleeting smile cross his dark eyes.

"I know you are here because of a promise that was made," she saw repugnance wash over his features. "The Majordomo offered to help out your family, in return for one year of service." He looked at her, his sadness returning. "You are worried about your little brother... About the cough, that keeps him up at night; you don’t think he’ll make it through the winter..."

His gaze bore into her. She felt him searching, probing. She was stunned by his words, he knew so much, he knew everything...

As if reading her mind, he said: "One day, soon, you shall have no secrets from me."

He circled her and she felt her own hand search out to a string of springy curls by her ear.

"He will be fine, your brother. I can promise you that. He will not die, not now, not like your father..." he sighed. She couldn't explain it but his sadness made her heart heavy as well. It was as if his proximity caused her soul to meld with his and her empathy for him grew.

"There is something else I sense, however," he said. "I can see that there is a hesitation in you. Your heart has not accepted what your mind commands your body to do."

He stood in front of her for a long time as he allowed the silence to build. The drumming in her chest subsided, her vision opened up, the perfumes of the orchard filled her. She could see his temples move as his mind was clearly deliberating something.
 

"The promise that was made to you, you have until tonight to decide whether you stay or you go. You shall join me for dinner tonight. At the end, after we have dined, you will tell me of your decision. Not before. You came here to be my slave, this will not change. However, if you choose to stay, you will only be a slave in the privacy of my chambers. Otherwise you will be who you truly are — a free woman of Rome. For one full year you will live with me here in the palace. You will wine, dine and enjoy your heart's desires. However, when I call, you shall come."

He made to leave but stopped and turned. "One last thing — other than the Majordomo and myself, no one is to know. I forbid you from telling anyone of our arrangement. If you do," his features
 
clouded over, "you will deeply regret it.
 
To everyone you know or meet, you will simply be a visiting friend of the Majordomo. You will fast learn that I accept no excuses."

Chapter Four

 All this time until now, growing up, Myra had always been focussed only on herself, her own pleasures, her own wants and cravings. She had never even stopped to consider how with every passing day of extravagant lifestyle and spending, her father had brought them closer and closer to the beggars' lot. With him dead, the bill was now due and it was her that would be paying it.
 

Her brief afternoon siesta ended when she was awoken by a nondescript house-servant or slave, she wasn’t exactly sure which, who mutely offered her a beautiful toga embroidered with a shimmering sequence of red and black silken threads followed by a pair of exquisite black leather sandals with a slightly raised heel. She had never seen anything like them before. The sandals fit her small feet perfectly allowing a tantalizing peek of her toes but strapping her ankles in place with a small silver buckle that attached to a beautiful gilded clasp fashioned in the form of a lion's jaw at the back.

The servant raised five fingers which Myra assumed to mean she had five minutes to get ready and quietly left to allow her to don the items he had brought. The dress felt as if it had been tailored specifically for her, its satin belt cinching her waist so that she couldn't help but observe the perfect hourglass of her shadow in the late afternoon sun. But when she donned the strappy sandals, she couldn't help but gasp. The odd heels had added almost two inches to her height and even though she found walking in them a tad difficult, the unbelievable softness of the insole made her feet want to sing with joy and more than made up for the initial clumsiness of her gate. Now that her vantage point had been elevated she found herself squaring her shoulders and standing erect.
 

Normally Myra didn't seek out mirrors, afraid of what she might see in them but this time she walked over to one massive floor to ceiling mirror and looked at her reflection. Even though tighter around the waist than her natural modesty would have initially allowed, she found the garment a thing of unparalleled beauty. The shape and design of the toga added significantly to what she suspected most men already found charming in her appearance. The black and red of the shimmering embroidery worked miracles in bringing out her naturally olive complexion. The hourglass cut
 
accentuated her body's natural appeal which coupled to her new height almost made Myra wonder if she was still that same girl who just a couple of days ago had left her farm estate and come to the capital of the world.

Someone at the door cleared his throat and for a petrifying moment Myra teetered precariously on her high heels until her long legs took into consideration the odd height of her footwear.

"You are ravishing, milady."
The Emperor!
 

For a moment her heart almost missed a beat. He was smiling, the most beautiful, carefree smile she had ever seen upon an adult man. And what a man! His attire was simple for a man supposed to be a the ruler of the known world. But it was the quality of the purple silk, the classy design of the epaulettes, the perfect length of his toga ending as it did just above his muscled knees thus allowing an exquisite glimpse of his sculpted shins that screamed his status to anyone that cared to look. The way his body filled the clothes, the way he stood with the relaxed, almost dismissive confidence of a born ruler of men — all that conspired on Myra and for a moment she found it necessary to remind her body to breathe.

"Don't be late, milady" the emperor smiled, "we don't want to give the senators any unnecessary excuses to gossip behind our backs." He stretched out his hand and she almost swooned.
Why, oh why do you have to make everything so deliciously complicated, oh why? Tell me, oh Fate?
He kept saying "us" and "we" when he refereed to Myra and himself. She needed wine, the more — the better, and fast. Or she might just grab him by his weighty shoulders and kiss those expressive lips of his.

Myra entered the dining hall with the certainty of someone who had already made up her mind. In point of fact her decision had been an easy one. She felt that to a large extent, it had been made for her. Whether by the fates, or the emperor himself, she couldn’t tell, but she knew what she had to do. If she didn't accept the emperor's offer, she would be sent back to her farm where, unable to pay back her father's debts, she would be forced out to live on the streets together with Silvanus and her sick brother Marius. They would be dead in a fortnight at most. She was determined not to let that happen.

The first thing that struck Myra was the ease with which the gaggle of six senators acted and behaved around Commodus. Not a hint of tension, the deference and hesitation she would have expected from subjects toward their ruler were completely absent. These were powerful men, she decided.

Dinner was pleasant enough. Except for two things, that really threatened Myra's composure. And after they both occurred, in close succession, for the first time in her life Myra discovered she possessed emotions that until that instant, she only suspected to be the province of men.

"I don't understand these people, the equestrians," one of the senators was saying. "No one forbids them to go and amass riches. After all most of us were equestrians before we led legions and earned our riches that we then multiplied and used to buy our influence in Rome…"
 

"Oh, shut up Gracchus," another senator said from across the table, he laughed merrily as he poured himself a generous serving of red wine. "You, my friend, have never led any legions and we all know that. Don't try and exaggerate your accomplishments for the benefit of the beautiful lady at the table," he winked at Myra and she willed herself not to blush.

"It doesn't take away from the point I'm trying to make — the equestrian idea of a middle class of free Romans is a thing of the past. Beautiful and romantic, I’ll grant you that, but, useless in our new Republic. The choices are: either be rich or be a slave, and whatever you choose, don't go around blaming others for your own decision. After all free men are free to be successful," a burp interrupted the senatorial diatribe and soon they had all laughingly moved on to other topics.

It was just as good. For it was perhaps the effects of the wine that had just almost brought Myra to the verge of breaking her own resolution. She had been perilously close to jumping on the fat senator’s topic and declaring it for what it truly was — complete and utter nonsense. It was one thing to be free and extravagantly-rich like perhaps the senators were, but something else entirely to be a simple equestrian dogged by debts and endless work trying to scrape by like she was now and her father had been before. She was completely and utterly not free. At least not in the care-free sense the senator had meant. If she was truly free, she would never be here, penniless, groveling for imperial mercy to save her estate, her husband from military service, her brother from hunger.
 

She would have blurted it all out if it wasn't for Commodus. Myra almost jumped when she had suddenly felt him take her hand in his and smile. His eyes were so sad again. It was as if he knew her exact thoughts and felt for her in the deepest possible way. The emperor was powerful but only that much. He couldn't change the political order of Rome. He couldn't even change the minds of a couple glutenous senators.
 

Now Myra felt sad for him — the most powerful man in the world and yet, he was hiding a profound disappointment of his own. He was free to wage war, to wallow in debauchery but in the end, when all was said and done and he was gone, nothing would be truly different. And then she felt a sorrow for herself. What was she but a glorified concubine — a formerly rich free woman, acting the part of an imperial slave for one year while simultaneously pretending to still be rich and affluent.

An elderly servant came over and as Myra looked at her as she went about collecting the empty plates, in some strange way Myra realized that she envied the woman. She might be a servant or even a slave but at least she had the consolation of knowing that she had never had any real choice in her life. She averted her eyes when the woman looked up at her. Myra had chosen to be a slave out of her own free will, no one had forced her to be where she was now.

Dinner with the old senators had actually turned out fine. The wine, the music, and the lively conversation about horses, races and senatorial politics had served well to take Myra's mind off her immediate predicament. On the way out they came across yet another wonder that Myra never knew even existed — the emperor's caged lion.
 

"Poor thing," escaped her lips before she could think to stop herself.

"Why?" Commodus asked.
 

"It wants to be free," Myra said quietly.
Like me.
 

Commodus looked at the cage and the lion sleeping there.

"A few years back my father, he was emperor then, took me on campaign to Africa. That was when we were fighting against Carthage. Anyway, while there, one night there was a lot of noise just outside our camp. Our scouts had reported the enemy to be far away so no one was particularly worried of an ambush. The noise was not unlike what you'd hear in the worst thunderstorm. So curious, we all went out to see what it was all about. It turned out to be a group of lions. They were in the process of slowly killing one of their own pride. It looked like an older female lion. She was badly injured, probably in a hunt, and doing her best to stand her ground but they just kept coming at her, one nip, one bite at a time. It went on for hours. We finally went to bed…" She saw one lonely tear trickle down the crevice of the scar as it cascaded down his cheek.