The Conqueror

by Bryan Litfin

  Snap!

  The branch broke, and Rex plummeted to the roof. He hit the tiles hard and began to roll down the incline. A few of them shattered, cutting his side, but he had no time to think about that as he tumbled toward the eaves. A fall over the edge into the marble courtyard of the rear garden would surely break a bone, or worse. He swiped frantically at any protuberance he could find but couldn’t arrest his fall. The pitch was too steep. Aghast, Rex reached the edge and went over.

  And caught the gutter as he fell.

  Truly scared now, he dangled from the trough that channeled rainwater into the garden’s central cistern. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see that a second-story gallery ran around the interior perimeter, forming a balcony that overlooked the garden. Fortunately, its balustrade wasn’t far away. Rex swiveled his body and stretched his foot but missed the railing. On his fourth attempt, however, he made contact.

  Stabilized now, Rex was able to get his other foot onto the railing as well. With a push from his hands and a swing of his body, he dropped safely onto the gallery that circled the garden. Gods in heaven, thank you!

  If that was you, Jesus, I hail you!

  Rex put his hand to his side and felt warm blood where the broken roof tiles had sliced a gash. The wound was deep enough that a surgeon would have sewn it closed, but that kind of care couldn’t be had now. Rex’s right hand was also bleeding where he had grasped the tree branch. Yet at least he was inside the house and on solid footing again.

  This part of the mansion, with its secluded and pleasant view into the garden, housed the bedrooms of the master’s family and his most esteemed guests. Rex didn’t want to be noticed by anyone, so he ducked into one of the rooms with a curtain over its entrance. Shouts and commotion still rang from the streets, though the noise was dampened by the thick walls. A flurry of activity also seemed to be happening in the front of the residence, leaving the rear garden relatively quiet. If any of Maxentius’s pimps were still in the house, they would probably be gathered in the atrium.

  Rex was about to make his way to the front of the mansion when his eye fell on a ladder that a servant had been using to prune a cherry tree in the garden. Reaching over the gallery’s railing, he snagged the ladder and pulled it up, then took it into the empty bedroom and laid it on the floor. If the pimps were guarding the front door, that would leave no other option for escape. Standard battle tactics called for never conceding such an advantage to the enemy. With the ladder, Rex knew he could escape the house at the time and place of his own choosing. It was just the kind of strategic foresight that often tipped the battlefield conditions in a speculator’s favor.

  He exited the guest bedroom and was at the top of the stairs when he caught the sound of female crying. Flavia? Cautiously, Rex approached the bedroom from which the muffled sobs were coming. Instead of being partitioned by a curtain, this elegant room was closed by a hardwood door. Yet its bronze pivot wasn’t precisely flush with the jamb, leaving a small gap. Rex leaned forward and peered into the slim opening.

  Lady Sabina Sophronia sat on the edge of her bed with a book in her lap and a kerchief in her hand. She read aloud as she traced the words with her finger, but the book was in Greek, and Rex knew only a little of that language. He thought he caught something about commending one’s spirit into the hands of the father, but otherwise he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  Should I knock? he wondered. Call out to her? What if someone hears? Is she safer in there than anywhere else? Rex blew out a breath of air. Nothing in cadet school had prepared him for a situation like this.

  Sophronia put down her book and dabbed her eyes with the kerchief. Turning toward the rumpled blankets at her side, she found an object and gripped it in both hands.

  What is that? What is she holding?

  The noble lady raised the object above her head. It glinted in the light from the window. Rex’s heart lurched as he realized what it was.

  A dagger! She’s killing herself!

  “No!” he screamed, smashing his fist on the door.

  But it was too late. The deadly deed was already done. Lady Sabina Sophronia’s hands swept down to her breast, and she let out an agonized cry as the knife pierced her flesh.

  The greasy man with the eye patch led four of his pimps from the atrium toward the upstairs bedrooms that overlooked the rear garden. “You don’t have jurisdiction!” Flavia cried, echoing her father’s earlier words, but the thugs ignored her and hurried toward the back of the house.

  A sour stalemate now settled on the atrium. The lone guard left behind scowled at Neratius, Geta, and Flavia, and they stared back at him with the same level of disdain. The man was stocky and foul, as if a wild boar had risen up to walk on two legs. He loosened his sword in its sheath. “Don’t get any ideas,” he growled. “I’m handy with this thing. You just sit still—all of you.”

  Geta turned to Neratius. “Sir, these men are getting out of hand. And things are turning strange outside. There’s yelling in the streets. I think we’ve reached a dangerous point here.”

  Flavia let out a frustrated tch! but suppressed any further response. Dangerous? Didn’t you think it was dangerous when you let in a horde of pimps?

  A cry of “Open up!” resounded from upstairs, followed by the sound of someone trying to kick in a door. Though it was sturdy, it wasn’t designed to take that kind of abuse. The men would break into Sophronia’s bedroom eventually. Only God knew what would happen next.

  That’s it, Flavia decided. I’m going. Christ, help me!

  She leapt from the couch and sped from the atrium. “Hey!” the guard yelled, lunging for her. But this time Flavia had caught her enemy by surprise and was able to evade capture.

  Geta finally sprang into action, too, though not with the devastating impact he could have had as a speculator. He merely spun the guard around and immobilized him with a chokehold. “With your permission, I can easily take him out,” he said to Neratius.

  Flavia didn’t wait to see if her future “husband” received permission from Neratius to defend his family. These men had wasted too much time already. She turned a corner and bounded up the stairs toward her mother’s bedroom.

  The four thugs led by Eye-Patch were just about to knock the door off its hinge when Flavia arrived. The thing was nearly ruined already. By now the lintel was cracked and the hinge pivots were bent from repeated blows. A final kick from the beefiest of the pimps was enough to finish the job. The door banged onto the floor as the men stared into the room.

  “Run, Mother!” Flavia screamed. “Jump out!”

  Eye-Patch whirled to face her. Though he seemed surprised to see her, a lusty gleam quickly came to his eye, the universal look that only men can display. “I’m taking you for myself,” he announced with a bestial grunt, “right after I take your mother!”

  He swiped at Flavia, but he was still tipsy and she was much more agile. Dodging his lunge, she dashed into her mother’s room—and into a nightmare.

  Sophronia lay on the floor. Eyes closed. Covered in blood.

  The handle of a dagger protruded from her left breast.

  “What have you done?” Flavia shrieked. Rooted in place by sudden horror, she could only stare at her mother’s corpse.

  “We didn’t do it, canicula!” growled one of the pimps. “We just now found her like that.”

  “No, you did it! You killed her!”

  “She killed herself,” the man replied. “Look! Her own hand is on the hilt.”

  Flavia began to rush to her mother’s side, but Eye-Patch grabbed her arm. Wrenching it behind her back, he twisted it so hard that Flavia had to cry out in pain. “Hold still!” he ordered, then addressed his men. “What’s this all about? The lady’s dead?”

  “Yeah, boss. Watch this.” The man hauled back his foot and kicked Sophronia’s thigh. His boot toe made a dull thud against the soft flesh, yet she did not flinch. He knelt and lifted the matron’s arm. It flopped to the ground when
he released it—lifeless and unmoving.

  “A noble suicide,” Eye-Patch declared. “Christian ladies are famous for it. They’d rather die than have sex with pagans, I hear.”

  “Maxentius won’t want a corpse, boss.”

  Eye-Patch shrugged. “Looks like our job here is done, then.”

  One of the pimps had moved to an exterior window and was gazing out. He beckoned his leader to come close. “Look at this! There’s a mob in the streets. They’re all saying Constantine killed Maxentius today.”

  Eye-Patch shoved Flavia into another guard’s hands and rushed to the window. He watched for a moment, then turned toward the man who had alerted him. “It’s ugly out there. Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “Just noticed it, boss!”

  “This isn’t good,” the leader muttered. He stroked his greasy beard, formulating a plan. “We’ve got to scatter,” he said at last. “We aren’t uniformed like the Praetorians. People won’t recognize us if we’re not together. They won’t know we worked for Maxentius. We can disappear in the streets.”

  “So we don’t bring the old lady with us?”

  Eye-Patch cuffed his stupid henchman. “She’s dead, and so is the emperor, you idiot! Our mission is over! It’s time to survive now.”

  The man nodded slowly, comprehending at last. “But . . . can we take the girl with us?”

  Eye-Patch glanced at Flavia, and the sick look of carnal desire returned to his face. “I think we could get away with that in all this chaos.” His grin widened. “Why not, eh, boys?”

  A cheer went up from the pimps. Eye-Patch swaggered toward Flavia, and her captor gave her a shove in the boss’s direction. He reached out to caress Flavia’s face. “Come here, my lovely,” he said, his breath like rotten eggs.

  “Here I am,” Flavia whispered—then kneed him hard in the groin. He howled and doubled over. Flavia sidestepped him, dodged another lunging hand, and darted out to the gallery that encircled the garden.

  “Get her!” Eye-Patch cried through his pain.

  But the men were distracted by their own predicament and responded too slowly. Flavia reached her bedroom and slammed the door before they could catch up. A hook-and-eye latch served as a lock—strong enough to guarantee privacy from accidental intrusion, but not strong enough to keep out a determined assailant.

  “Open it!” the ruffians clamored as they banged on the door.

  “Listen to the streets!” Flavia yelled back. “Maxentius is dead! The people want revenge! On you!”

  Mercifully, the banging soon stopped. Flavia couldn’t quite hear the conversation on the other side of her door, though she could tell the men’s debate was vigorous. She grabbed a water pitcher to defend herself, then backed to the window and glanced out, trying to decide if jumping from so high would cause injury. By the time she decided it almost certainly would, silence had returned to the walkway outside her bedroom. She snuck to the door and peeked through the space between the hinge and jamb.

  The men were gone.

  Flavia set down the pitcher and collapsed onto her bed, exhausted by all that had happened. Tears burst from her now, the sudden release of burdens too great to contain any longer. It was all too much—the rejection and betrayal by her father, the bloody death of her mother, the threat of rape and abuse that she had so narrowly escaped.

  O Jesus! I cry out to you. Help me!

  A gentle knock sounded on the door. “Flavia? Are you in there?”

  “Y-yes,” she said, breathless from her crying. She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me—Rex.”

  Rex!

  At last, you’re here!

  Flavia exploded from her bed and dashed across the room, desperate for the safe refuge and comforting strength of the man she loved. She lifted the latch and flung aside the heavy wooden door as if it were made of parchment.

  But it was only Geta who stood there, tall and imposing. “Sorry for that,” he said, “but I knew it was the only way to get you to open.”

  The deception, the trickery, the sheer disappointment at not seeing Rex—these hurts brought new levels of pain to Flavia’s already wounded soul. She staggered back from Geta, a man she now considered as bestial as the pimps who had just fled the house. Tears wouldn’t come, for they were all spent, so Flavia was left only with the numbness of utter abandonment. She was bereft, unsure that even God regarded her anymore. Silence filled the room, the silence of the derelict and the forlorn.

  Geta did not take long to break the silence. His words—his very presence—invaded the secret places where Flavia’s crumbled walls had left her vulnerable. He took her by the hand and led her back to the bed. Unable to resist any longer, Flavia let it happen. The pair sat together on the soft mattress, side by side in body, though not in spirit. The German warrior draped a thick arm around her shoulders. The weight of it was oppressive: a yoke too severe to bear yet too heavy to shrug off.

  “My sweetest Flavia,” he cooed. “Take rest beside me. Those evil men are gone.” Though the news was welcome, Flavia was too exhausted to respond, so Geta just kept talking. “We can get on with our lives now,” he continued. “We can build a new life together. Think of it!” He gestured expansively with his free hand, as if imagining a glorious future. “The glorious Licinius is the emperor who will ultimately prevail. And I am”—Geta paused while choosing his words—“I am one of his favorites! When he comes into his kingdom, I will be at his right hand—and you too, my pet! You are an important part of our future. I’m likely to be regarded as lowly without a noble wife. Your good family name will provide the bloodline our children will need. With my skills and your heritage, our future is guaranteed to be bright.”

  Flavia’s shoulders drooped. “Nothing is guaranteed,” she whispered at last. “The will of God is strange and mysterious.”

  Geta turned his head to gaze at her. Strangely, he did not look away. When Flavia finally glanced at him from the corner of her eye, she was horrified to see the same possessive gleam she had witnessed earlier in the dirty pimp. The look was really no different. Both men wanted Flavia’s body. They had not earned it. They did not deserve it.

  But they would take it if they could.

  Though Flavia pulled away, Geta’s arm was like an iron chain. Instead of granting freedom, it enclosed her, tightened down on her, drew her inexorably to his side.

  “Y-you are not my husband yet,” she stammered. “I w-want to leave.” Fear had finally awakened Flavia from her stupor. With dawning horror, she realized this Germanic warrior might try to force his attentions on her prematurely. Geta might be brash enough to take a noble daughter’s virginity in her father’s own house. The thought was repugnant—and utterly terrifying.

  “I wish to leave,” she repeated more forcefully.

  “Why, my bride?”

  “We . . . we must wait, of course. It is the only right way.”

  Geta yanked Flavia close, nuzzling her hair, gushing hot breath into her ear. “No one has to know. I will close the door.”

  “God will know.”

  “Your God doesn’t even exist, Flavia. He was made up by the filthy Jews.”

  The blasphemy gave Flavia the final strength she needed. She wrenched herself from Geta’s grip, tearing her gown in the process. Backing away, she pointed her finger and glared at her assailant. “My God is the only true God,” she declared with resolution in her voice and spiritual fire in her veins. “He is Lord of heaven and earth.”

  Geta chuckled and swatted his hand. “Fine! Believe your silly myths. Keep your old-fashioned morals for now. But when you are my lawful wife, I can promise you I won’t be so patient.”

  Flavia subtly edged toward the door. “And I can promise you something too, Geta,” she said sternly. “I will never be your wife!”

  She was out the door and on the gallery walkway before Geta could grab her. Though she wanted to go left, Neratius was there, eavesdropping.
Sickened and disgusted by everything in the house, Flavia spun right to take the longer way around to the stairs. If she could gain access to the city streets, perhaps she could blend into the craziness outside.

  Find Bishop Miltiades, she told herself. He’ll shelter you!

  “Stop, daughter! I command it!” Neratius shouted.

  Geta merely laughed as he stood in the bedroom doorway, his arms folded across his chest. “She can’t get away, sir. I locked the front door after the pimps left. Let her run around the house a bit.”

  Apparently, Neratius didn’t want even that much resistance from Flavia. “Slave!” he barked to the gardener. “Hold my daughter when she reaches the bottom of the stairs.”

  Flavia halted midway between the staircase and her two tormentors. Her mind was spinning as she tried to form a plan. Play nice with my father and escape later? Dash down the stairs and try to shove past the gardener? Or jump from a window and take my chances on the pavement?

  The door to a guest bedroom lay only a few steps away. Flavia knew its window looked toward the street. The shopkeeper’s awning below it might arrest her fall.

  Yes. That could work.

  Or at least, it offered the best chance of success amid terrible options. She ran to the bedroom and flung open the door. Too late, Geta and Neratius realized their mistake and bolted into action.

  “Someone grab my daughter!” Neratius yelled. “Seize her! Anyone!”

  But almost all the servants had fled this part of the house. After latching the door behind her, Flavia crossed to the window yet was hesitant to look down. She stared instead at the sky, focusing her attention on God. Determination mingled with fear as Flavia tried to summon her resolve.

  There’s nothing else to do. Just go! It’s your only chance!

  She put one leg out the window and sucked in a deep breath. The shouting and the fists banging on the door were angry now. Flavia swung her other leg out so she was sitting on the sill. For several long moments she sat motionless, eyes closed, gathering her courage for the jump.