Aurelia || SERIES ROMANA I

Chapter 34 ~ The art of deception

Aurelia screamed so loudly that in any other, less well-insulated house she would certainly have been heard all the way down the street. In every language she could think of, she uttered wild imprecations. Roughly, Magnus pushed her into the small cell, and she fell silent. Defiantly she glared at him, but he only laughed in her face and taunted her as he locked the barred door of her cell. His echoing footsteps were accompanied by his laughter. As soon as the dungeon door closed behind him, the sounds of the villa disappeared, and Aurelia slumped powerlessly. She was really here. Tired, she leaned her head against the cool bars.
Over time, her eyes became accustomed to the darkness and the shadows took on more and more contours. In the neighbouring cell, a petite woman crouched and eyed her curiously. Three cells away, a hunched figure lay motionless on the floor. An all-suffocating silence reigned in the dungeon. Time lost its meaning. At some point Aurelia slipped away from the bars and curled up on the hard stone floor. There was nothing to cushion her. How exceedingly thoughtful.
"They put you in the Livilla cell," the croaking voice of the figure suddenly rang out. Sluggishly, Aurelia turned her head in their direction. "On my arrival in Rome they whispered this story to me. The lady of the house has imprisoned her treacherous daughter and let her starve. But because the mother had failed in her role, she placed upon herself the punishment of witnessing every single second of her own child's dying. At night, the emaciated daughter still creeps through that cell, vowing revenge."
The story of Antonia's daughter had been told to her by Vespasian an eternity ago on his estate. With her lover Sejanus, the praetorian prefect before Macro, Livilla had tried to eliminate Tiberius and procure the throne for her lover. The plan had been foiled and Antonia could not bring herself to hand her daughter over to justice.
With a trembling voice, Aurelia asked the other woman why she was telling her this. But she only laughed hysterically until Aurelia suddenly noticed that the woman on the other side had started to cry. Cautiously, she approached the bars and enclosed the metal with her hands. Again and again, Aurelia had tried to imagine this other woman. But she had not reckoned with this pitiful girl. At some point she wiped away the tears and asked in her rough voice where Aurelia was coming from. Again, she was eyed curiously by her cellmate.
"Germania," Aurelia replied quietly and the girl's eyes grew wide. "Why do you want to know?"
"Did they carry you off and drag you into their intrigues just as they did me?" she wanted to know in a childish voice and Aurelia nodded.
"Then you are just as lost as I am," the girl said bitterly and curled up on the hard floor. In a whisper she asked the other prisoner why she was here. She received only a snort in reply.
"They don't need any more confession from me," she spoke without any emotion in her voice. "I stole the famous sword of the lady's father for my lover"
Aurelia pointed at the motionless figure behind the girl. Then she continued "At the exit they discovered him with the weapon and tortured him until he gave my name. After just one look at his battered and tortured body, I told them the truth. For this, we will be thrown to the lions tomorrow as the climax of the games. No one will come to free us. Please share your story with me. It will be the last I will ever hear and whatever you have done, who would believe me? In me they see only a treacherous thief who wants to save her own skin. I have made my peace with my certain death. Please do not be afraid of me. I am no danger to you."

For a long time, Aurelia clutched the iron bars, which slowly grew warm, but the girl remained motionless on the floor. Sighing heavily, Aurelia released her cramped fingers and turned away. How could she have been so naïve as to believe that she, of all people, would make the girl talk.
Feverishly, she thought about what to say or do next, but she went round in circles. The rustling of cloth startled her out of her thoughts. The girl grasped the iron bars and looked at them from dark eyes, seeking help. She began to speak haltingly about her early childhood in Persia. At that time, she was still called Mina. But one day she was too reckless and wandered off alone too far from her parents' village to pick her mother's favourite fruit. On the way back, sinister men ambushed her, overpowered her and took her away to Rome. There she was sold by the men who hired her to a rich brothel owner. He was rich, fat and boasted of regularly mounting all his whores himself to convince himself of their quality and worth. Frightened, she stayed in her small chamber, fearing with every downward movement of the door handle that he would seek her out.
After a week, one of the most experienced whores came, dragged her out of the chamber, bathed her, put her in fresh clothes and did her hair. Mina did not even resist when the woman impatiently led her into her owner's study. Thirty men were already waiting there. Each of them eyed her hungrily, then a heated discussion broke out. At that time, she spoke only a few scraps of Latin, which is why she could only watch the frantic activity and shouting of the men with fear.
Suddenly a young man appeared with a heavy purse, threw it casually on the table and nodded to its owner, who was already busily counting the gold coins. After a brief exchange of words, however, their owner shook his head and pointed his fat finger at a particularly hulking man. Grinning maliciously, he grabbed her hand and pulled her with him into a particularly splendidly appointed room. He left the door open and some of the men stopped with great interest. He casually poured himself some wine and she stopped uncertainly at the edge of the bed. He said something to her that she did not understand. Smiling, he put down his goblet and slowly approached her like a tiger on the prowl. Hungry and rough, he pushed her onto the huge bed, tore her clothes and Mina screamed in pain. His gasps reached her ear, and she closed her eyes in disgust. Enraged, he hit her and horrified, she stared at him. In bad Greek he ordered her to watch everything. Her own pain-distorted face was reflected in his cruel eyes. But the more pain she felt, the more the men laughed. No sooner had he finished with her than the next one appeared and so it went on for quite a while until she lay on the bed, paralysed with pain and fear, and they had finally had enough of her. Powerless, she lost consciousness.
Mina woke up alone in her small chamber. But her pain still held her captive and, crying, she gave in to her self-pity. Eventually the pain subsided and the older whore sat on the edge of her bed.
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start taking advantage of the situation," she told Mina harshly. It was good to hear her own language in this strange and terrible place. It gave her a bit of home back. The girl nodded and her training began. She absorbed every word, learned Latin, dance, singing and how to accept the will of men. Two years later she was Persia, the most sought-after courtesan in Rome.
A few months ago, the young man from the night of her auction appeared next to her during a raucous orgy, and seeing the envious looks of the other prostitutes, she seduced him without thinking. The next morning, she was summoned to her owner's study and informed that from now on she was not allowed to receive any other suitors. From then on, the young man was her exclusive client who came to her every evening. His name was Gemellus and after a few weeks he began to speak of love. Soon after, he promised her the world if she would do a favour for him. Of course, she agreed without hesitation. The next night they sneaked out of the brothel and into a secluded temple of a god she did not know. There he told her of his devious kinsman who denied him his rightful place as ruler of Rome. She was to seduce this relative, the Princeps, and poison him in his sleep with a potion whose effects would not take effect until twelve hours later. In addition to enough money to buy her freedom and secure her a nice life in a villa by the sea, he promised her vengeance on all the participants in her auction. How could she have refused? Around midnight they met with a stranger who kept his face hidden in the shadow of a fold in his coat. From him she received the poison. She spent the remaining hours until the beginning of the feast in Gemellus' chambers in the palace. When she saw the princeps, she only knew that she had to fulfil her mission, then she would always have something in her hand against the most powerful man in the state. No one would ever humiliate her then again. Never again would she be weak. But she had failed. For the first time since completing her training, she had failed to seduce a man. As soon as the princeps had disappeared, she hastily grabbed her things and planned to go into hiding. But before she could leave the palace, a pretty, rich and rather drunk woman got in her way and engaged her in one of those hopeless and eternal conversations that only drunks can have. At some point, heavily armed men appeared behind the drunk, grabbed Persia, drugged her and quietly brought her to this cell.
"Now I sit here with you and I'm just as damned as you are," the girl concluded, quietly moving away from the bars and falling asleep on the cold floor. The hitherto huddled figure sat up gracefully and silently like a cat and nodded at her in plain sight. He had understood every word. Thoughtfully, Aurelia closed her eyes. So far, she had only evidence against this fool Gemellus. But would he really be able to commit the murder of his own relative alone, or had Macro whispered the plan to him after all? Who was the second man in the shadows? Had Aurelia missed some missing piece of the puzzle?