We did it before. We can do it again,” desperation edged her voice as she pleaded with him.
Quintus’s fingers dug into the softness of her skin, and Justina winched in pain, as she was forced to look back at him.
“How noble. How brave,” Quintus mocked, “But I’m afraid your father has got in too deep this time. He owes me a lot of money – money that has to be repaid now!”
“But I don’t understand-”
Quintus slammed his other fist down on a table that stood next to him, the action causing both Justina and her father to jump in fright. “I won’t tell you again, girl. You talk too much. As my mistress you will learn your place. You will learn to be seen and not heard!”
Justina took a deep shuddering breath at his words, unable for a moment to take in what he said. “Mistress?” She finally whispered, “I … I don’t understand?”
Quintus sighed dramatically, a bored look on his face. “Do I have to spell it out for you girl? I thought it would be obvious. Your father has bartered you - given you to me - to pay off his debts.”
“No! No it is impossible, I love Marsallas-”
“Marsallas!” Quintus spat, shaking her like one of the straw dolls she used to play with as a child. “I don’t think so my dear. You will be mine, not Marsallas's. And if you tell him anything of this, I will crush you and your father, and I will crush Marsallas. I will make Marsallas’s life a living death, so much so, that he will wish he is in Hades if you say one word to him of this. Do you understand me?”
Justina said nothing, her face deathly pale. She knew in that instant - that moment - as she glanced over to where her father sat, crushed and defeated, his head bent with the weight of his sorrow, that her life was about to change forever.
Looking away from her father, she saw Quintus’s lip’s curl in disgust at her father's weakness, and she shivered in trepidation as she recalled everything that Marsallas had told her about his uncle. His cruelty. His anger. His brutality. The callous way he treated everybody.
Even his only wife hadn’t escaped his tyranny. She had died a broken woman, a mere shadow of the vibrant woman she had once been according to Marsallas. And now it seemed that neither she, nor her father, would escape either.
It was, as if by some cruel twist of fate, that she had just become the main prize in some obscure contest, between uncle and nephew, and now between Quintus and her father.
And then, as if things couldn’t have gotten any worse, the door to the tablinum had flown open, and Marsallas had barged in, a furious look on his face as he took in the scene before him. It was obvious he had managed to escape from the slave, because the slave ran into the room moments later and grabbed him by his arms restraining him once more, when Marsallas had come to an abrupt halt inside the room.
“What in Jupiter’s name is going on?” he shouted, trying to wrestle out of the slave’s clutches, but his fight was futile as the slave's size and strength was so very much greater than his, and after a few moments he stopped in his attempts to free himself.
Quintus, confident now that his nephew was no threat to him, smiled over to him, “Ahh, Marsallas, I am glad you are here. You are just in time to congratulate me,” his tone was sarcastic. Then he raised his hand - the same hand that held Justina's - up in the air.
Marsallas stiffened, and his eyes narrowed when he saw their clasped hands, but refusing to be baited he remained mute.
“Nothing to say, boy? Well I’ll tell you then shall I? Justina has just agreed to be my mistress. She has been a bit remiss in not telling you what’s been going on, so I thought it was about time that you found out.”
A stunned silence fell in the room once Quintus had stopped speaking.
For what seemed like aeons, but in actuality was only seconds, Marsallas glared at his uncle before he finally broke eye contact and looked at Justina.
“Tell me it is not true, Justina?” He whispered, his eyes pleading, begging her to deny what his uncle spoke.
Justina bit back the tears that threatened to fall, when she saw the pained expression on his face, physically swallowing the lump of emotion that threatened to choke the very life out of her. Breaking eye contact with him, she turned slightly to look at Quintus, seeing in that instant the evil radiating out of him, the madness in his eyes, as he seemed to relish the misery he was inflicting on the three people in the room with him.
She knew with a certainty, that Quintus was capable of destroying them all if she didn’t acquiesce to his demands. He would crush each, and every one of them without a moment’s hesitation, if she denied anything he’d said.
So she turned, her face as pale as death, and her heart breaking into a thousand pieces, and said, “I’m sorry Marsallas. I-”
“You said you loved me Justina, only me,” he interjected, his face draining of colour as the enormity of what she was telling him sank in. And when she said nothing in her defence she saw him stiffen.
“All this time you were planning to be my uncle’s mistress?” Disgust replaced shock, and she saw his fists clench and unclench in rage, before he spat, “May you rot in Hades, Justina. I hope you remember me every night, whilst you lie on your back with your legs spread for him!”
And with that, he wrestled out of the slave’s grip, and the slave realising he was no longer a threat, had let him go
* * *
The light touch on her arm jolted her back to the present. Eyes focussing, she looked up at Diogenes, the same slave that had restrained Marsallas all those years ago on that fateful night.
“What?” Then she looked around her, surprised to see that the crowds were rapidly dispersing, the games finally over for the day. She shook her head slightly, “I'm sorry, Diogenes. I was far away.”
Then without another word, she stood up and followed the crowds out of the arena, leaving behind her past once more, her heart heavy and sad.
“I’m sorry, Justina. There is nothing more I can do. I've made him as comfortable as possible.” Lydia said, as Justina entered the darkened bed chamber.
Justina nodded, as she walked over to where Lydia, her friend and a well respected healer, stood. “I understand, Lydia. Thank you for all your help.”
She spoke the words softly, and Lydia smiled at her, placing a hand on the younger woman’s arm in a gesture of comfort, as Justina looked down at Quintus who lay as still as death on his large bed.
“It is the least I could do. Do you need anything? A sleeping draught or something?”
Justina shook her head, “No, I will be fine. Thank you.”
Lydia said nothing more, but squeezed the younger woman’s arm in understanding before she left the room, closing the door with a soft click behind her. The finality of it caused Justina to shiver, her eyes automatically glancing over to a table along the back wall, seeing the wax death mask displayed so prominently. It had arrived that afternoon, rather appropriately she thought, as it now acted as a constant reminder of Quintus’s imminent death.
Looking away from the mask, she stared down at Quintus. He looked so still, as if he were already dead. The sunken hollows under his razor sharp cheekbones were so pronounced that no flesh remained on his face - or the rest of his body for that matter - and the blue veins on his hands stood out in stark contrast to the whiteness of his parchment thin skin. But she saw his chest move in small shaky movement’s, testament that he still clung to life, refusing to die, refusing to succumb to the disease that had been eating away at him for months now.
Justina sighed,