The Treasure *Phantom of the Opera* (sequel to The Quest)

Chapter XVIII

There doesn't seem to be any real interest in this story, but I'm a finisher so I'll go ahead and post more until it's all up. :)  I likely won't continue on this site after this is up.  A huge thanks to those who have voted and commented on my stories - it is much appreciated. :)  And now...

**Chapter XVIII **

Music is the key to the female heart.
~Johann G. Seume

xXx

Celeste looked over her shoulder at the sound of a step on the stones. Again, no one was there. It seemed she'd spent her entire life looking over her shoulder, and she both cursed and thanked the inborn sense she possessed always to be alert. Still, it would be a relief to let her guard down and relax, just once.

The soldiers still paroled the portico, but none watched her. She wondered why there were so many, and why the villa should be so heavily guarded. After the night of her capture and the moonbeam's peculiar soothing light, with no moon as its source, she'd been brought to this remote area. The men paid her little heed, the commander under whose charge she'd been placed uncertain what to do with her, never once realizing she was a girl. They kept her captive, but had not touched her or otherwise harmed her, and assigned her the duties of an errand boy. Often she raced across the grounds from one side of the villa to the next, to deliver messages between commanding officers or fetch them wine and food. She slept in a corner of the barracks, away from the soldiers. They treated her like a piece of furniture, something acknowledged but easily ignored, or an old hound - there to do the masters' bidding if needed, but otherwise left to its own amusement. And she desired things no other way.

With one hand she clutched the missive she'd been ordered to deliver, with the other she crunched into a pear - the remainder of her lunch - and resumed her trek to the three-tiered fountain that stood in the center of a shallow pool in a closed-in courtyard. All things considered, hers was not a bad lot. She had a roof over her head to keep out the rain, food to fill her belly, beautiful grounds over which to walk, with the sparkling sea beyond that, and though she'd been warned she must never leave the villa, the area was vast enough she didn't feel a prisoner there.

Often she wondered about its true prisoners - the brown-skinned children in their bright clothing, many of them her age or older, who toiled in the vineyards or otherwise worked on the grounds and inside the villa's many rooms, always with guards present. She looked out over the fields now, where the sun beat down on the people toiling the soil. There were few men slaves, more women, but the majority of them were children like her. When she asked about them of the commander who'd captured her, he had uttered one word, "Roma" and spat on the ground in contempt.

Celeste had never seen a gypsy until coming to the villa, though she'd heard about them. They didn't seem so terrible, rather sad and pitiful really. The children's dark eyes looked haunted, and she felt a connection with them as if she, too, experienced their pain. The feared Spanish lord of the soldiers, Don Carlos, she had never seen and hoped she never would. He had kept to his rooms all week, in commemoration of his mother, she was told, but from the soldiers' reactions when speaking of him, they greatly feared their master. She didn't understand a good deal of Spanish, only enough to carry out her duties, but no language barrier could hide the look of apprehensive fear that came over the men's faces when Don Carlos was mentioned.

Celeste stopped to scan the area, and again heard the sudden scuff of steps halting. She spun around and caught a glimpse of a blue skirt, as bright as the ocean at midday, and a child's bare foot disappearing behind a pillar.

"Who are you?" she demanded. She still had her dagger concealed in her boot, but didn't think it wise to announce that as a threat in case any guards might lurk nearby and overhear. She didn't want to lose her only weapon.