At the End of Empire

The screams meant the siege had ended, and the sacking had begun. Like a storm that had been waiting weeks to break, it fell upon us. 

When we heard the screams in the distance — whether of people or horses, I couldn’t tell — we rushed to tell the mistress. All of us, women and children, crowded into the cellar. It was mostly empty. There were no more cured meats, and only one sack of grain left. 

My boy was small and thin. He made noises, so I held my hand over his mouth until he was quiet. The master had grimly taken his sword out and led the men of the house to fight. I recalled Ivan's words from the day before. “Die for our masters or die at the hands of barbarians, there’s no escape.” His words had shocked me, we normally did not dare speak ill of our masters. But these were no longer normal times. 

Hours passed. The darkness became hot and oppressive. The mistress wept quietly, on and off. No slaves wept. We would die or we would live on, with new masters. The siege had ground us down to skin and bones. If the barbarians were driven back we might still die of starvation. 

The noises outside continued through what must have been night. Screams, the beat of horse hooves, crashes and clangs, and men shouting. We chewed on the grain and ate raw turnips and onions. I was thankful for my foresight in placing water here in advance, in case the city was breached. 

“If only we had gone to the Temple,” my mistress repeated at intervals. We could have had sanctuary there, as long as the barbarians respected the wrath of the gods. They surely did not even worship the same gods, I thought.

Footsteps and voices approached from outside the cellar. Suddenly, the door crashed open. Firelight silhouetted the shapes of large men. Barbarian soldiers. Our mistress cried out and threw herself upon the ground. The battle was lost, then. We were dragged out one by one, swords at our throats. 

Although it was night, the sky was lit by fire. I pleaded with the man holding my boy by the arm like he was a rag doll. “Please, spare my daughter, she’s only four.” He glanced at the child and shoved him back into my arms. They yelled commands at us, and pointed with their arms and then with their swords. We moved in the direction they indicated. They did not bother to bind us. We were thin, and carried no weapons.

The statues in the garden were missing their heads. Our master and his men were likely missing theirs. We passed the body of the gardener, and others I did not recognize. As we passed the entrance to the house, we could see barbarians carrying things out. At the front gate was the bloodied form of our master’s oldest son. Our mistress screamed and rushed towards him, but one of the barbarians knocked her to the ground. She leapt up and beat at the man with her fists. “Savages! Barbarians! May the Gods rain fire on you!”, she shouted.

I watched in astonishment as the men rained blows on her. She had lost her mind. I could not imagine what possessed her to defy so many armed men. I had no will to fight, only to survive.

The streets were filled with bodies, debris, and soldiers. Some buildings were burned out husks, others still burning. Barbarians were moving from house to house, looting their contents. We passed a house where pots were being thrown from the second story window to the street below. The sound of laughter rang out over their shattering.

We were herded together at the plaza, under the obelisk. Many other women and children were already crowded there. Some looked battered. The men must have satisfied themselves for the night before they found us. A ring of soldiers and debris fenced us in. A heap of looted objects was piled up next to us. We were also looted objects. 

My mistress sank to her heels and rocked back and forth, holding herself and moaning. Her head was still bleeding from the beating she’d received. She had learned the power of the rod tonight. When she looked up at me, I turned away. I felt no duty towards her any longer. All of us, the high-born and the low, would be slaves now. A small part of me found satisfaction in this. I wondered how she would feel when her new master gave her a child, as ours had given me mine, against my will. I sat on the paving stones, holding my boy. His wide eyes stared out at the burning city, and the fires were reflected in them. 

“If you survive, you should have your own name,” I told him. “Your name is Felix, because you’re lucky to be alive.” His wide eyes met mine. “Can you say your name?” I asked him. “Felix, lucky one.” 

“Felix,” he said. 

“This is your secret name that you can’t tell anyone. If you don’t tell anyone, nobody can take it away from you.”

He nodded, and I held him close. He had simply been called Marcipor, Marcus’s boy, after Marcus, our master. It was easier that way. But our master was gone. And our city was gone. The city which had taken the whole world was taken. What was left? 

I leaned my back against Claudi, who had worked in the kitchen with me, and slept. 

---

I awoke at dawn, when the sky was barely lightening. The city was quieter. Fewer fires burned. 

As the sun came up, the plaza remained quiet. The barbarians who had spent all night looting and burning the city must be resting now, I thought.

Women who awoke around me continued sitting in a stupor. Some resumed crying. When the sun was halfway to noon, the soldiers passed us flagons of water. A crowd of barbarians had gathered in the plaza. In the morning light, I could see many had fair hair and skin like myself. They truly were larger than any men I had ever seen.

Soon after we drank, they began rousing us to our feet. We were herded into a line with shouts and jabs from the butts of spears. 

A tall man examined us one by one. Children, the old, and plain looking women were pushed to one side, and the young and pretty to another. 

I whispered to my boy, “Remember your name, Felix.” He nodded, and clutched me tighter. 

When we got to the front of the line, a barbarian pulled him from my arms. He was put with the children, and I was pushed towards the other side. I did not struggle or weep, as some women did. I had prepared for him to be taken from me all his life. 

When everyone had been sorted, the other group was marched away. Only we remained in the plaza, surrounded by barbarian soldiers. There was a discussion among them. Some of the more ornately dressed men began coming up and examining us. A girl was dragged away, and then another.  

A hand landed on my head. A man grabbed me by my hair and turned me around to face him. He was so large I stood entirely in his shadow. He felt my body and examined my face. He turned to his comrades and said something, holding up my long hair, which had come undone and was hanging loose. His hair was fair, like mine. 

He grabbed my arm and with a sudden turn, began dragging me away from the plaza. I stumbled, and followed him. 

---

I tried my best to please him. After cleaning myself up, I began cleaning the inside of his tent. He nodded and left me to it, evidently trusting me not to try and run or fight. I understood the futility of defiance. My life would be easier if he liked me.

While dusting his things, I found a brooch. An eagle looking upward with its wings pointed downwards. My mother had drawn an eagle for me in the dirt as a child. “Our people come from the north,” she’d said. 

I turned the brooch over in my hand. Were my people related to the barbarians?

My mother had come from a northern tribe that had fought back when the empire conquered them. All the men and boys were killed, and the women enslaved. She had once been taken as I was today. It must have been harder for her, since she had known freedom.

I tried to recall the stories my mother told me as a child. It had been years since I had seen her, and I had long since shut those memories out of my mind, as they only caused me pain. She had taught me some words in her native tongue. I tried to remember. “Aithei,” I said aloud in the tent, my mouth forming the foreign word. Mother.

Most of all, I remembered my name. Everyone called me Lenore, because that’s what the mistress called me, but I also had a secret name that my mother had given me. It was a treasure tucked away in the depths of my heart that I had never told anyone. Heva. It meant ‘life’. Because I had survived.

That night, when the man came back to the tent, I knelt at his feet. I forced myself to meet his eyes. “Heva,” I said, pointing at myself. And I said the one word I remembered that might inspire his sympathy, and communicate all the things I did not know how to say.

“Fadrein,” I said, with my hands clasped in front of me. Family.

He laughed. “Geberic,” he said, putting his hand to his chest. 

He spoke more words I did not understand. But then he stroked my hair and repeated, “Fadrein. Sijum Fadrein, Heva” 

He was not gentle, but he was not unkind. And I was his only woman there.

After a few days, the barbarians, who called themselves the Visigothi, began dismantling the camp. I packed Geberic’s things, polished his blood-stained sword, and fastened the eagle brooch to his cape. We left in a long convoy of horses, men, looted goods, and stolen women.

On the hill, I turned to look back at the city I was born in. Smoke still rose from a few buildings. 

I did not miss it then, and I do not miss it now. In a city so great, I was one of its paving stones. 

The only power a slave has is the power to remember, and to forget.

Rome means nothing to me.