Rome's End

I walked into the room with two guards beside me to secure my capture. To reassure the ruler of Rome that I wouldn’t be going anywhere, they tied my hands with rope to the back of me. Rugburns creating scratches on my wrists from the tightness. They had gone so far as to even tie some around my mouth so if I tried to talk, the rope would dig into my skin. My blood was boiling as tears of anger fell from my face. As I looked around the room, I noticed everyone looked like they had seen the devil itself. What ruler could be so horrifying that even some of the highest men like the council could run like a coward?

The Doctor, the man who pledged my safety wasn’t there to save me, at least not this time. He left the TARDIS without even a note to tell me where he was, when he’d be back, nor what he was even doing. I didn’t know if he was ok, although knowing him, he can pull through anything and so there was no doubt in my mind that he was in trouble. I was in Rome in a time that no human from my time frame had ever been, a time of Gladiators and power to Rome. The whole thing was his fault. It was his fault that I was in the castle of perhaps one of the most dangerous Roman emperors of all time.

The men on the side of me pushed me to carry on and get closer to the emperor. Their muscles on their arms were so powerful that even with the smallest tap I fell to the marble ground. Pain entered my chest and knees.

I looked up in front of me and there he was, Emperor Caecilius. A prideful grin was plastered against his face. His eyes the colour of stone to match his curly hair. “State your name.”

The guards untied the knot and let me speak freely with the king. There was something about him that I knew. Knew from where and when was the real question.

“Are you ill of hearing? I for one know you’re not a mute. I’ve heard the way you talk to the guards and the disgraceful things you will regret saying about me.” His smile faded and repeated his question very slowly.

After taking in a deep breathe, I raised my head and stood up. My brown doll like curls bounced all around my head. “Victoria. I do believe you owe me an explanation for all this.”

“I don’t owe you anything. You are a whore from the brothel. I am your ruler, your emperor, your master. Is that clear?” He stood up from his chair of power and walked towards me. He came close. All the way up to my ear and put his hands around my head. “Victoria, my sweet prostitute, whatever I tell you to do, you do it.”

I tried to tell him that I was not a prostitute and also that I wasn’t in a brothel when he found me but before I could get more than three words in, he hushed me and stroked my cheek up and down softly although I was special to him. There was no reason for me to mean so much. He had just met me. This was our first conversation or battle of man and woman as I would call it.

Caecilius intensified his look at me. “You remind me of someone who I know. Particularly, you bring my mother to mind.” He continued to tell me about how she tried to be of higher rule than his father. How his mother ended up being slaughtered by his father in front of him when he was just a teen to prove that no woman could take a country into her own hands.

His mother believed to get through to the people was to be loving and caring. Treat the people right and give them a right. She was murdered for helping a few poor people regain some strength and make a living. That’s it, that’s all it took.

“Your mother was a wise woman. Your father was a fool and for a little while, before you stepped up to power, Rome was happy. Rome was secured. Rome was a home. You turned it back into a mad house!”

He grabbed my waist tightly so I could barely breathe. “Say it to me one more time. Tell me how my father, the greatest man in the world, Brutus was a fool.”

With all my power I released myself from Caecilius’ grip. “Or what? You’ll have your guards kill me? Say, why do you have the court here, your family and friends? You want people to fear you when they have nothing to fear about.”

The man in the robe in front of me pulled out his knife. “Nothing to fear? How so?”

As he stepped away from me I had a few choice words for him. “Do you know of only one God? I do and he’ll find me and save me. He’ll heal my pain. I warn you of him. He knows everything and he never stops.”

His almost grey eyes squinted as he started to talk very sarcastically. “Knows everything and never stops? He’s never tried to stop me so I guess he’s never heard of me. My own creator doesn’t know me. Doesn’t that sound strange?” His sarcasm was a little bit overbearing but I’ve heard worse.

“He’s absolutely not your creator. He’s a mentor, a helper, a doctor.”

Caecilius burst out laughing angrily in other words saying how outrageous I sound and that he was the most powerful man in the world. He was God and he could almost prove himself to be one by the way he made all the people laugh along with him. But they didn’t laugh because they found any of it funny, they knew that anything he said could turn into a fire that would consume themselves or their loved ones including the land that they had been taking care of for thousands of years.

He abruptly stopped his laughing and gave me a death glare. “It’s true then. You don’t have anything to fear.” He pointed at the crowd with his stick that looked like an ancient version of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. “You see those people? They do. They have everything to fear for. If they don’t, they know I’ll destroy their lives.”

“I think you’ve done enough damage to change all of space and time. In the future, you will be the most hated man in the world. People won’t fear you.”
After a long silence of him staring at me in anger, he walked back to his throne and started tapping his Screwdriver-like stick against the arm of the chair repeatatively. One-two-three-four. “Put her in the room and do not take off the ropes. She needs to be punished badly. No need to fear, I will straighten her out.” Looking back at me, his eyes were empty. “That is unless you would like to be killed right now.” His hand motioned towards a soldier with a large sword in his hand.

The guards turned me around and we started walking across the room. Caecilius ceased the soldiers and commanded them to turn around.

“Oh Veronika.”

“Victoria!” I screamed at him before I calmed down a little. “What is it that you want?”

He put his elbow on his knee and ruffled his freshly shaven beard. “Where are my manners? Say, are you hungry? You look famished.”

Gathering spit in my mouth I spat at him. “Go to hell Caecilius!”

“I know of no hell. I asked you a question. You answer yes master or no master.”

A tear fell from my face. I wanted to be by the doctor. He was the only one in the entire galaxy and beyond who could save me. Without him in site, there was a possibility I would be stuck forever. My jaw tightened and I closed my eyes. “Please save me.” I whispered as quietly as I could.

“What is that I heard? Did you ask to be saved? For all the sins you’ve committed you could never be saved. The same is true for me and that’s why I chose you.”

In a proper manner way, he snapped his fingers and immediately a cart of food rolled into the room. My mouth began to salivate. It had fruits, veal, sausage. All of Rome’s finest foods.

“Please help yourself. I wouldn’t want you to starve to death.” When he saw I really would not eat any of the food, he frowned in a way a child does when he needs something. “Fine. Off with you.”

He waved his hand, shooing us out of the hall. The guards walked me into one of the most beautiful rooms I had ever seen three levels above ground. “Is this mine?”

They just looked at me, huffing and threw me into the room and closed it, locked it, and left. I walked over and sat on the bed facing the window where the sun was still brightly shining for about half an hour left.

A soft knock hit the door a few times. My heart started pounding to know that Caecilius was standing on the other side of the door but I still didn’t move an inch from where I was.

The door opened and closed. A young woman, about the same age as me came over to me quickly with a hoard of grapes on a plate with half of it being taken over by beef. “Hello. I’m Luciana. Daughter of Caecilius’ uncle.” Her golden curls and brown eyes showed no resemblance. She looked like an angel with her white as snow smile.

I tried to smile back at her, but too many things were running through my mind. “I’m Victoria.”
“I know. I brought this food for you. Caecilius wasn’t joking. You look like you’re running a fever. You need to eat and sleep. Look at all this food I brought for you. Made by only the finest chef in this forsaken place.”

My eyes immediately closed. “No, no. I don’t want to eat.”

“Eat, if not for my cousin than for yourself. Might as well eat. Caecilius wouldn’t care whether you ate or not. He really would just let you die. Please, eat.”

“Even if I wanted to eat, I kind of have my hands tied up.” I showed her the ropes. She nodded her head back in forth in confusion. She untied me and I looked down at my wrists as I brought them in front of my face. They were red, bloody, itchy.

Before I could think about eating, I wrapped my arms around her neck in a tight hug. “Thank you Luciana. How could one so cruel be related to one so sweet as you?”

She took my hands in hers. “Victoria, Caecilius and I might share the same blood, the same flesh but we will never share beliefs. We grew up in different worlds. I grew up on the streets and he had his life planned out. The only reason why I’m here is that my father came to his brother and begged to allow the family to stay. My father had to pay a large price to do so.”
“What did he have to do?”

“Personal servant for the rest of eternity. Work harder than any man has ever been able to. He saved me.” She smiled weakly. “Now eat.”

I was happy to fulfill her request. Like a barbarian, I picked up the beef with my bare two hands at stuffed it into my mouth. It was some of the best I’ve ever eaten. In just a mere minute I had finished eating the grapes.

Luciana grabbed the plate when I had finished and stood up. “I’ll go get you some more food for later.”

As she walked out of the room, I caught her at a last glance. “Luciana, thanks for doing this for me.”

“It’s only what a sane human would do.” A second later, she was gone but a new face appeared.

“I see you have eaten. You have offended me to such high guilts.” Caecilius sat right next to me on the bed. He stroked a piece of hair out of my face.

As an automatic response, I stood up and almost slapped him but thought better of it. “Release me at this moment. I am not your whore and you are not my ruler. You’re just a fraud, a joke. Something for people to laugh at for years to come. Don’t you see? You aren’t wanted. If you suddenly disappeared, the world would be happy and think nothing of trying to find you.”

“How dare you, I create a room for you in your image of beauty and you speak back to my kindness.”

I put my hands on my waist. “Yeah? How many women have you tortured and held prisoner in here?”

Caecilius stood up. “You’re my ward now and you shall treat me with respect or else I will have to punish you with only the worst treason.” He looked proud, like many kings do. He looked powerful, but behind those eyes, there was something deeper.

“If you burn me at the stake or put me in a cage with a monster, you’ll have to explain to the Doctor what happened to me and trust me, he won’t rule you out. You’ll have to suffer the consequence.”

A deep sharpening laugh floated out from his lips. “The doctor won’t care. I’ll kill him and he knows that.”

“Hey dumbass, I’m not talking about your physician. I speak of someone more important. Remember God?”

He grabbed my wrist and twisted it. “Do not speak of God. I am God.” Keeping his harsh expression on, he looked at my hands. “The ropes. Where are the ropes?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me!” The veins were starting to pop out of his face and he began to look like a red balloon.

I looked into his eyes. “Why ask me? Look around the room.”

He still kept a firm grip on me and called to his guards to look around the room for them.

After searching the room for a good five minutes they stopped. “I’m sorry my lord, the ropes are nowhere to be found.”

Caecilius began to look right through me and tightened his grip. “Luciana,” he whispered as he let go of me throwing me onto the bed. He began screaming at the guards to keep me in the room and not take their sights off me. He then scurried out of the room in anger.