Servius’s Game

Suburra’s night mist slipped through narrow rock crevices, condensing into freezing droplets along the damp, black moss of the walls. Beneath the floor of the Tullo estate, the air knew no sunlight; it reeked solely of half-burned beast-fat torch smoke, sour wine crusted upon the togas of the aristocracy, and the malignant stench of dried blood that was never truly washed away.

In the deepest corner of the dungeon, the linen strip binding the wounds across Jabari’s broad shoulders retained its ivory white, spotted with a few streaks of recently dried, dark blood.

The southern general’s question still hung suspended within the suffocating space:

"You risk your life, sneaking medicine and food down to this foul-smelling hole... Is it out of harmless pity for a dying man, or are you searching for a blade you can wield?"

Claudia knelt on one knee beside the stone ledge, her dark grey servant’s cloak draping down to conceal her slender form. Her long fingers had just completed the final knot on his shoulder. She did not flinch. Her deep brown eyes lifted, directly meeting Jabari’s pitch-black, Kavanu-night gaze.

There was no soft, submissive smile. No trace of her usual fragile weakness.

"Pity is the most expensive luxury in this Rome, Jabari," Claudia murmured, her voice a soft yet razor-sharp whisper slicing straight through the dark. "I did not come down here to play some saint dispensing charity. I saw how you snapped the hyenas' necks tonight. I saw how you looked at Servius."

She tilted her head slightly, the distance between them closing until she could feel the scorching heat radiating from his rugged chest and his steady breathing.

"You want to rip out every tooth in that senator's mouth, and I want to tear this iron cage apart," Claudia tightened her hand, stained with healing python fat. "So, as you said... I am not looking for a slave to pity. I am looking for a blade. A blade ruthless enough to pierce the throat of my enemy. And you, Jabari, are the only surviving blade left in this cell."

A brutal, arrogant half-smile flickered across the general’s rough, chapped lips. His eyes flashed with the light of recognition—not the submission between master and slave, but a pact forged between two predators lurking in the dark.

"A sharp blade always cuts the hand that holds it, matron," Jabari lowered his voice, his crisp Latin rumbling like distant thunder. "Do you have the grit to grasp this blade without letting yourself bleed to death?"

"I have been bleeding for three years already," Claudia replied, her brown eyes hardening into ice. "A little more of my own blood to buy Servius’s death... is a cheap price."

Yet as that verbal pact grazed the quiet air, heavy, hurried footsteps accompanied by silver-tipped staff strikes clacked sharply against the stone dungeon floor from the corridor outside!

"Where are those useless jailers? Open the iron gate for me!"

Servius Tullo’s boisterous, wine-hoarse voice slammed straight into the space!

Claudia’s spine instantly turned to ice. The unexpected appearance of her elderly husband sent her heart hammering, but the sharp intellect forged through years of survival forbade panic. Swiftly retrieving her jar of healing ointment, she pulled the hood of her coarse grey cloak over her dark hair, retreating deep into the shadow of the stone wall.

Crack! Clack!

The solid cast-iron gate was kicked wide open.

Servius stepped inside, his bloated frame swaying with drunken sluggishness. His large, jade-ringed hand gripped a smoking, oil-soaked torch, while the other dragged a trembling jailer by the collar. The crimson torchlight instantly tore through the darkness, illuminating the entire vault.

And that light fell directly upon the figure in the coarse grey cloak huddled by the wall.

"Who’s there?" Servius bellowed, raising the torch high, his squinting, wine-reddened eyes narrowing. "Who’s skulking about down here?"

Claudia knew she could not escape this narrow passage. Slowly lowering her hood, she stepped out from the shadows, tucking her ointment-stained hands into her rough sleeves.

"It is only me, Servius..."

The senator paused. Blinking his dazed eyes, he stared hard at the wretched servant’s cloak upon his wife’s frame, then dropped his gaze to the small ceramic jar and linen strips resting on the ledge beside Jabari.

A terrifying silence fell.

Servius advanced step by step. His foul breath reeking of fermented wine and aged sweat washed straight over her face. He did not draw his sword, nor did he rage as he did when punishing slaves. Instead, a cunning, depraved smile slowly stretched across his bloated, distorted face.

Within Servius’s narrow, arrogant mind, he had never viewed Claudia as a threat. He never imagined an obedient, fragile doll like him possessing the nerve to conspire against him. Seeing the wretched cloak and the jar of salve, he instantly twisted her actions through his own perverted logic.

"Ah..." Servius threw his head back, bursting into booming, delighted laughter that echoed through the vault. "I see! Stealthy concern! The soft, charitable heart of an idle Roman woman!"

He lunged forward, his rough hand grabbing Claudia’s chin, squeezing hard to force her face up:

"You secretly dressed as a servant, bringing down ointment... because you pity the rippling muscle-bound carcass of this southern beast? You’re afraid he’ll die before treating me to another bloody slaughter, my little doll?"

Claudia blinked, a feigned tear instantly spilling down her cheek as she leaned into his assumption: "Servius... please calm down. I... I was merely afraid he would collapse from his wounds and rot away in this corner, ruining your amusement tomorrow night."

"You are so adorable when you pretend to be merciful, Claudia!" Servius roared with savage glee, his eyes flashing with extreme perversion. "You want to keep this beast alive, do you? Very well. I won't gut him tonight. I will grant your wish. But tomorrow night’s game changes."

He waved a hand, signaling the jailer to drag forward a wooden rack from the corner. Servius skimmed past the rusted instruments of torture, hoisting a heavy three-thonged oxhide whip.

The tip of each blackened leather thong was embedded with tiny, razor-sharp iron links—a weapon born to shred flesh and inflict gangrenous wounds that dragged a victim toward a lingering death.

He turned back, stepping close to Claudia, pressing the ice-cold wooden handle of the whip into her slender palm, forcing her fingers to close around the leather-wrapped grip.

"Every night, before the arena matches begin," Servius whispered into her ear with sickening excitement, "you will personally take this whip and lay exactly ten lashes across his back. You must beat him with your own hands."

Claudia’s lips trembled beneath her coarse cloak.

"If you refuse to strike, or if I see you holding back..." Servius lowered his voice, his perverted smile widening, "...I will immediately have the jailers use iron hooks to flay his belly right here. I will rip out all his organs and throw them to the hyenas right before your eyes!"

Servius chuckled, releasing his grip to leave the heavy whip resting in her hands: "Take it, my little doll. I want to see how merciless my merciful lady can be when forced to tear human flesh with her own hands."

With that, Servius did not wait for Claudia to speak or react. His chubby face warped with a surge of perverted bloodlust. The rattling chuckle in his throat abruptly ceased, yielding to a dark, savage glare.

"But before you learn how to swing that whip..." Servius whispered, his voice trembling with morbid excitement, "...I must remind you whose body and whose soul this truly belongs to."

Without warning, he lashed out, delivering a vicious, ringing slap across Claudia’s face!

Smack!

The brutal force staggered Claudia, sending her stumbling forward and shattering the dungeon's quiet. The oxhide whip slipped from her fingers, striking the stone floor with a dry crack. Before she could recover, Servius grabbed the collar of her coarse grey cloak and ripped it violently away. The rough fabric tore apart, dragging her thin undergarments down with it to expose every inch of her alabaster skin beneath the flickering torchlight.

"Servius! No—!" Claudia gasped, her slender hands flying up in a panic to cover her body, but her fragile resistance only drove her elderly husband deeper into madness.

Servius shoved her down flat against the damp, freezing stone ledge—directly before the ledge where Jabari was chained. Using both rough hands, he pinned her wrists hard against the stone, then ruthlessly tore away the remaining shreds of fabric from her body. The naked, delicate frame of a Roman noblewoman lay completely exposed amid the foul dungeon, beneath her husband's dazed gaze and the southern captive's eyes.

"Look! Look closely, southern beast!" Servius roared, thrusting his silver staff directly at Jabari’s face before looking down at Claudia with dazed, lust-crazed eyes. "Let me see what the captive you wished to save can do to protect your 'mercy'!"

Without an ounce of restraint, Servius drove his heavy body downward, unleashing the most brutal and humiliating torture upon Claudia!

"Ngh—!"

A stifled cry of agony was swallowed in Claudia’s throat. The tearing sensation drove straight through her flesh, making her spine contract in shock. The ice-cold stone ledge stabbed into her back while Servius’s crude, sordid weight crushed her chest. The frenzied, savage thrusts of her elderly husband battered the silence of the hollow vault.

Claudia bit her lip until blood welled, tasting salty upon her tongue. She did not cry. She did not beg. Fixing her wide eyes upon the dark stone ceiling, she endured the ultimate humiliation trampling her body.

And right in the shadows, Jabari witnessed it all.

The Kavanu general’s muscular frame strained to its absolute limit. The iron chains wrapped around his shoulders and wrists pulled taut, crashing against the stone walls with a deafening rattle. Veins bulged along his neck like ancient roots, and his dark eyes ignited with a brutal, raging bloodlust akin to a southern sandstorm. He locked that blood-soaked gaze onto Servius—a lethal aura so intense the nearby jailer trembled and retreated a step.

Yet amid Jabari’s fury, Claudia slowly turned her head.

Naked and violated beneath Servius’s bloated form, her brown eyes pierced through the darkness, locking straight into Jabari’s gaze. Within those eyes, there was no pleading for lost virtue, no collapse of a broken victim. There lay only cold blood, ruthless endurance, and a grinding reminder hammered into his mind:

Look closely, Jabari. Witness this hatred... so you may become my sharpest blade.

Servius roared in savage satisfaction, collapsing atop Claudia’s body, utterly oblivious to the fact that amid this depraved, drunken night, he had just personally ignited the most ruthless volcano lurking beneath his own roof.