Et tú, Clarissa?

Chapter seven

Ca 100 BC (Londinium, Britannia)

The splashing sound from the broom smashing down in the puddle filled the silence that my words would not occupy as I let it sweep over the floor. I heard through the thin walls how the master of the inn got yelled at by one of the guests, before he stumbled out in the bar where he looked at me standing there like he wanted to beat me down at the same time as he wanted to run screaming away from me. He locked all the doors into the room before he went over to the man in the expensive clothes who had sit motionless in the same spot the whole time he waited on the man of the inn.

"Augusto, I am here regarding your rent," the man said in Latin, then he paused, looked at me and then back at master Augusto. "This is a sensitive matter, Ago. Are you sure the slave should listen to this kind of information?"

The man of the inn looked back at me as I just continued mopping the floor of vomit like I have not heard the concern of my presents.

"My dear friend, we found that lassie perhaps six years ago in the forest and I have never heard her say a word. Either she's a mute or dumb. Regardless, she will not be a problem."

Not especially surprising, the man started complaining about how master Augusto had not paid the rent for a long time and how they started getting impatient.

I pretended to not understand what words that came over their lips even when they started to drink. After they had spoken of importance and started to talk about more... ungenteel subjects. They started getting loud and I felt my discomfort regarding the situation. Any minute now, they will wake master Augusto's daughter and I would not want for the world that she would find her father like this. I moved silently over the floor towards the back door that led to the little house in the back yard where the family of the inn usually slept. Suddenly I froze as I heard male voices and crying from the other side of the door. Before I had time to react, the door went up and I felt a strong hand grabbing my hair. I did not say a word, but in his other hand he held the master's terrified six years old daughter in an iron grip. As the three men stormed into the inn, master Augusto and the man sobered up and stood up.

"Whatz do you wanth?" he asked with fear and liquor making his English weak.

The man that held me laughed so it rumbled through the room.

"I think you can figure it out for yourself," he said and nodded against the desk.

Master Augusto nodded fast and ran over to the desk to collect the money and food.

Suddenly I felt how one of them spanked my downside from behind, but I just bit my lip and pretended it did not happen. As the same time I did not react, they started giving me all the more attention and I felt how their hands caressed over my body, touching me, making tears appearing in the corner of my eyes as I felt their big hands over my chest. My breath got irregular as I tried to keep myself together, but as I saw how the other started doing the same on the little lassie beside me, I flipped. I locked his hand and spun around, making him loosen his grip. After that, it all went rather fast. As they tried to get their hands on me once again, I blocked them and punched back. It did not take long before I had freed master's daughter and started fighting them for real. My surrounding sort of disappeared and the only thing my senses picked up were their groan of pain, skin under my knuckles, sound of them falling to the floor and their pain appearing through my body with each hit and kick. The last one was the biggest one of them, but I just got a hold of my broom and hit him with it so hard that he fell unconscious to the floor. First afterwards, I came back to reality and understood that I just beat up three men in front of my master, his daughter and a man in service of the Romans. The last one struck my mind again. The Romans.