Diana & Amazonia

Chapter One : Blood, Ashes, Garlic and the Hand of Dear Grandfather Death

Diana & Amazonia

By I.H. Reiss

Chapter One

Blood, Ashes, Garlic and the Hand of Dear Grandfather Death

I remember the day I died, and was born a slave. Among my people one is considered dead if one becomes so poor that they must beg bread; or if one is publicly humiliated, embarrassed, degraded in some way or you are mentally or physically hurt, severely... left crippled. I suppose watching the destruction of your town, seeing the blood on the swords of the enemy, hearing the screams and then the eerie silence and being drawn away as a prize slave, would make me in the eyes of my people, if not yet dead, then on the verge of death.

I remember that day, I had snuck out, and climbed up to the roof, and looked out over the wall of the city (though compared to Rome we might as well call it a town.) I had found a trick to see at great distances. and there was the only prophet worth anything, going out through the passage that was then barred after him. I knew then that our city and people were doomed...that my own dream (that he had told me was true) and by which I myself was now dressed in sack cloth and ashes as were all the members (the woman and girls in our household had followed suit, in that they had shaved their heads smeared ash on their faces, some had drawn spots...and all had eaten garlic) all except Josephia, she had been kidnapped as a girl and her father had gone to find her and had brought her back from Rome, she had loved her master, who had treated her like a daughter, and had raised her as such, for he and his wife had been childless, by the time her father, my grand uncle had found her, she was no longer the toddler, but a girl of six, happy in her Roman family, she hated her father, and her Roman father as well, for he was a good person and returned her to my grand uncle.

Years later she married into our family by marrying her cousin and my uncle...it brought her only one child my second cousin, as he was sickly even then, as a boy, it was not thought that he should inherit our dead grand uncle's estate... My father as the surviving eldest son was chosen to inherit it...and she, the widow came to live with us and became our housekeeper...though truly father would have had her live as a widow should, she insisted on,

"Doing something for the household, being the keeper of this household will keep the money in the house, for when my son becomes your daughters husband..." she let her voice trail of.

None would say a word against it, because none thought he would live till I reached the age of maturity, even he, who was so kind, so unlike his mother, said quietly to me one day,

"I would not force you into something that even I find repugnant, you and I know the truth, it isn't just the fact that I am often ill, it is I am more a woman my self, in my feelings and desires, if only such things were not forbidden, you and I share the bond of sisters and I will always love you that way."

It was why I felt she, his mother, resented me so, she had often told him that in Rome nobles such as the emperors, often married their sisters, but he told her back, he would rather die then do something so ugly in his own eyes, no one knew all this but I; this was why I knew and tried to warn my family, but none would hear a word against her ....

She, the old hag of a housekeeper, whom neither my father, nor brothers would get rid of (though I had said that she was a secret viper in our house waiting for her time to strike) she would be responsible for our failure to escape and for our ruse being found out. Her son, and my elder brother, would be unprepared for the news I brought they would be unprepared for the soldiers who came through the door my other brothers where not there they had gone to see if the secret passage in the house, my house, for it was to be mine upon marriage, was ready as my cousin and I had planned it, it was why my brother and he were not dressed as we were, nor with my other brothers (we share the same mother, and father, though my other brothers share the same father though not the same mother.) they told me it was ready all we needed now was to go... I was getting the little ones, and the other women of our household down to the secret passage when they attacked.