Growing Up “Livia”
Written by: Caina Q. Fuller
Cainaq@Yahoo.Com

Chapter Six

The sisters surrounding them in battle began to cheer. Brigid looked away from Livia to find that the Roman’s were either dead or fleeing. One warrior, seeing her chance to kill the commander that had started the raid on their people, moved in to kill Livia.

“No!” Brigid barely managed to halt the warriors sword with her own blade before Livia was run through. The sisters began to look at her in confusion. Why was she sparing the commander? Is it because she was female? To them it shouldn’t have mattered. This girl was the enemy, female or not.

“Chain her and bring her with us.”

Several sisters looked at Brigid as if she’d suddenly lost her mind, but they followed the order. Perhaps Hanai wished to use this woman, as a bargaining chip should more legions arrive to destroy them. Who could know? They did as their queen ordered, and pulled Livia along with them, deeper into the forest.

**********

Livia was used to the heat of the valleys and plains where there was very little shade in which to escape the sun. But here in these trees the world was constantly dark and cool. So cool that Livia found herself uncomfortable. She squirmed in the wagon she’d been chained to, all the while conscious of the stares of the Amazon women who were looking at her with hatred burning in their eyes. It was an uneasy feeling to know that each and every person around you wanted to kill you.

Their acting Queen, known to them as Hanai, was also one of the many sets of eyes staring at her from the horse that followed the wagon. They did not speak, for Hanai didn’t want her sisters to know of her association with Livia. At least not until they’d had a chance to calm from the days battle. Emotions were running high, and they weren’t especially warm, positive emotions toward Roman’s at the moment.

Livia continued to stare back at her former sister. She’d believed Brigid to be dead or enslaved in some far off country all these years. It was the loss of this one woman that had pushed her into Ares arms to begin with, and now Livia wondered how much Ares had had to do with Brigid’s disappearance. Perhaps he’d planned it all along.

That’s silly, Livia told herself. Why would the god of War separate two little girls? The answer to that question came almost as quickly as the question itself. Because he saw something in me he knew he could use to turn me into what I am now. A darkness that attracted him to me like a rotting corpse attracts buzzards. And that’s what I am. A rotting soul satisfying the dark hungers of a god who is no better than a buzzard.

Livia knew she was a cold-hearted, merciless killer, and that’s what Ares loved most about her. Her willingness to shed blood turned the god of War on like nothing else did, and that in itself should have disgusted her enough to turn away from him, but it didn’t. She had yet to kill someone outside of a fair fight, but she knew it was a question of when, not if, she would commit the sin of murder against innocent. That is, if she escaped this situation alive.

Something in her gut told her she would. The soldiers that had escaped battle would return to Rome and tell Augustus what had happened to her. She’d be horribly embarrassed, both publicly and privately of course, but she would live to make it up, even if it took her years of non-stop battle and conquering for Rome. She could feel it in her gut.

And what of her feelings? They were mixed as she thought about Brigid. The two of them were young adults now. Livia was almost nineteen and Brigid was well over twenty. Livia believed herself to the future Empress of Rome, and Brigid was already the acting Queen of the Amazon’s. The paths in life they were on now had inadvertently made them enemies, but would it stay that way?

Brigid brought her horse alongside Livia and pulled her sword. For a brief moment Livia was sure her “sister” was going to cut her down right there, but instead she broke Livia’s leg irons. Her wrists remained cuffed however. Brigid grabbed onto Livia’s elbow and hauled her from the wagon and onto the saddle in front of her.

“Hanai?” The warrior driving the wagon looked at Brigid in confusion. What was she doing?”

“I’ll meet you in the village. Continue on without me.” Brigid kicked the horse into a run and carried Livia deeper into the forest.

**********

The clearing was small but blessedly warm, and Livia was glad for the feel of the sun on her uncomfortably cool skin. It felt like winter in this dark place.

“What are we doing here?”

Brigid unceremoniously dumped Livia to the ground then circled around her on the horse. Her beautiful face was a mask of conflicting emotions as she circled Livia. “This is where Cyane brought me when I first arrived in these forests. It’s sunny here, and I could be warm. It’s a good place for a newcomer to adjust to the cool of the forest.”

So Brigid knew exactly what Livia was going through as she’d squirmed in the wagon. “Thanks. How you people go around in these trees nearly naked without freezing to death is beyond me.”

“It’s hardly cold enough here to freeze to death. It just feels that way. Don’t worry. You’ll adjust,” Brigid answered.

“So are you telling me in a round about way that you aren’t going to kill me?”

Brigid looked genuinely shocked. “Kill you? Why on earth would I do that?”

Silly question, Livia thought. “I’m the enemy. I raided your land. I was going to kill you all.”

“You’re my sister Livie. I would never kill one of my sisters.”

A pang of pent up emotion Livia didn’t know was there suddenly stole her breath and she remembered how she’d cried herself to sleep in Augustus’ arms before she’d left Rome. She felt like weeping now and she hated herself for it. She was a Roman warrior and she wasn’t supposed to cry.

She was also a tortured young woman who’d rediscovered the only family she’d ever known, and doing so had awakened something deep within her soul. A soul she’d believed had died the day she’d lost the very same person who stood before her now. The nickname her adopted sister had given her years before had flowed from Brigid’s lips as easily as it had the first time she had said it. It was almost like they’d never been apart, and Livia feared the knot in her throat would choke the life from her.

“Livie…I haven’t heard that name since you spoke it last.”

Livia turned away from Brigid to hide the pain on her face until she could swallow past the lump of emotion in her throat. She didn’t want to appear weak in front of the enemy…No. She didn’t want to appear weak in front of her big sister.

After a few silent moments, Brigid rode around to face her. “I think you’re warm enough Livie. It’s time to go home.”

“My home is in Rome.”

“Your home is here now, as my slave. It’s the only way I’ll be able to keep you safe from execution until my sisters adjust to your presence.”

Livia almost laughed. “I believe the roles were reversed when we were little.”

Brigid grabbed Livia’s arm and pulled her back into the saddle, in front of her, and rode for the camp, whispering in her ear as they went. “We’re not little anymore.”

**********

The sisters of the tribe stared at their new queen as she entered with Livia on the saddle before her. Brigid ignored their hateful glares and led Livia to the Queens hut, where she would reside until Brigid was either killed in battle from outside opponents, or other Amazon royalty for the right of caste. Until that happened however, she was Queen, and she would do all in her power to save her sister, even if it meant giving up her own life.

“How long do you think you will be able to keep them from overpowering your authority to kill me?”

Brigid’s response was somewhat offensive, even for someone of Livia’s thick skinned ilk. “Amazons aren’t like Romans. We don’t make it a habit of stabbing one another in the back while we smile in their faces.”

Once they had dismounted Linara, now Princess Linara since Brigid had no blood sisters in the tribe, came to her and saluted. Brigid knew the woman well enough to know Linara was angry with her for allowing the commander of the army that attacked them to live.

“My Queen. I would like to speak with you please.”

“Of course. But first I have an announcement to make. Gather all of our sisters for me, will you?”

Linara bowed, but her eyes remained glued to Livia in a hateful stare. It was clear she would rip the Roman warrior’s throat out if she knew she could get away with it.

Once Linara was gone, Brigid took Livia up the stairs of the Queens hut. Unlike the other huts in the village, the Queens hut was raised above all others to signify her importance among the people, but Brigid was prepared to give it all up to save her sister, who’d so obviously lost her way since they’d been separated as children.

It didn’t take long for the sisters to gather together once Linara had sounded the ram’s horn. The warriors congregated amongst the huts, talking to themselves so that their voices began to sound like a low, deadly rumble, and it reminded Livia of the arena she had fought in not long before she’d begun this disastrous campaign. She just hoped they were as loyal to their Queen as Brigid believed them to be, or she was all but dead.

Once enough of the women had gathered together, Brigid motioned for the ram’s horn to be blown twice, signaling the women to silence. The quiet that followed was more dreadful and deafening to Livia than the sound of their voices had been, partly because every pair of eyes was glued to her in looks of pure hatred. Brigid squeezed her shoulder, hoping to comfort Livia, then stood forward and made what Livia was afraid would turn out to be the biggest she’d ever seen a leader make: she told her people the absolute truth.

“Sisters. In the last few weeks the Amazon’s have gathered here, in the First Tribe, to defend ourselves against outside forces. We came to protect what has been ours for thousands of years: The Sacred Forest. It was here Artemis gave the first downtrodden women of male society the strength they needed to stand up to their male oppressors and say ‘No more!’ It was here we told the men of the world that we would no longer allow them to abuse us for their sick pleasures. We will be a strong and mighty nation, fierce and independent of unjust domination and exploitation. We are women, and we can think and fight for ourselves.”

As Brigid spoke, the sister’s attention shifted from Livia to her and her message. Amazon pride lifted the chins of each woman in the crowd as Brigid’s voice carried loud and clear on the cool, still air. Now that she had their attention, Brigid began the story of her life, hoping with every word it would be enough to make them understand her decision to keep Livia alive.

“I have a story to tell you, and when I am finished you will each understand exactly why I have spared this Roman warrior who had the audacity to attack us. I was born in a far off land called Ireland, to a wonderful couple named Ann and Aiden. When I was three, my father was killed in a boating accident, which left my mother alone to raise me as best she could. When one of her friends decided to follow her love to Greece, Ma set off with them. We ended up in Alexandria, working at an Academy for the daughters of wealthy Roman men.

“We were hired help, but you might as well have called us slaves. We were treated like garbage. My mother worked under the oppressive hand of the Head Mistress, an evil, hard hearted woman named Odessa. She hated us for the simple fact that we were not slave and she could only go so far in her abuse. I wasn’t allowed an education and I was constantly teased and used by the girls that lived there.

“I hated my life. I was a child with no friends and no life to speak of. There was only work and sleep, work and sleep. Then one night, in the fiercest rainstorm I’d ever seen, Rome’s wealthiest soldier, a warrior known then as Octavius, brought his favored charge to the Academy. She was unlike any other rich girl I had ever met. Instead of being snobby and cruel she was humble and kind. She embraced me not as a slave but as a friend. She loved me and I loved her.

“From the very first night we bonded, and soon my mother came to love her every bit as much as she loved me. For four years we were happy. My new sister made certain I received an education by having me attend classes with her. She took care of us and because of her status as the most wealthy child in the Academy, no one would dare mistreat us.

“Then one fateful day Ares’ army came looking for my sister. They were losing ground in their struggle against Octavius, and they believed that by sacrificing Livia to their god of war they would somehow be favored in his eyes. Odessa betrayed us, and my mother gave her life to save my life, and the life of my sister.

“That wasn’t enough for Odessa however. She found us when we tried to run and my sister, only ten years old, killed Odessa to save us. She not only saved us, but she avenged our mother’s death. The sister who sacrificed so much for me is Livia.”

The crowd exploded around them in a mass of confusion and anger. This Roman, who’d done her best to destroy them and their way of life was their Queen’s sister?

“I’m not finished yet. That night, while Livia was asleep, the Roman soldiers who’d come to stop Ares’ men, came and took me. I was an orphan and Academy policy stated I was to be sold. That’s when Cyane, my adopted mother found me and brought me here. That is how I came to become your sister, and now your Queen.

“I owe my life to this woman. She saved me so many times. Not just from loneliness but from death itself. She may not be related to me by blood, but she is my sister. I will not sentence her to death.”

The sisters weren’t the only ones affected by Brigid’s story. All of the years of pain and anger brought on during her time with Ares, trying to become the ultimate killing machine, had erased the tender moments she’d shared with Brigid in the early years of her life. She’d been happy then. What had happened?

Ares happened, Livia told herself. A lifetime of lessons on how to cause suffering (in an effort to ease the pain of losing the only mother she’d ever known) instead of learning how to ease it had happened. A lifetime of lessons learning how to end life instead of nurture it had happened. Now she was listening to a voice that she had come to believe she would never hear again. Sure it was heavier and older, but it was still Spider’s voice. The face was wider and stronger, but it was still her sister’s face.

The love in Livia’s heart had faded to the point of being almost forgotten, but in her soul’s eye Livia could still see it, like a painting on an old stone the elements had almost erased. It was almost gone, but there was just enough of it left that given time and patients, she knew Brigid’s gentle love and giving heart could paint it back in and make their old love new again. Brigid was the panacea that could heal Livia’s heart and make it feel again.

As Livia looked into the dark green eyes of her sister, she knew she had found the key to resurrecting her dead soul. All she had to do was reach out and take hold of it. All she had to do was accept it. Livia wanted to so badly she could taste the sweet flavor of forgiveness and acceptance, but she was so afraid.

What if she was wrong? What if Ares came back? What if she was tempted to be selfish just once and she did something to jeopardize the friendship Brigid was still willing to give her? If she found that kind of peace and lost it again, she knew she would die inside, and no amount of love would ever be able to heal her again. Was it worth the risk? Was love really worth it?

Livia was struggling with these thoughts so hard she didn’t realize tears were spilling down her face until Brigid reached up and gently wiped one away. “Livie? What is it? Why are you crying?”

Livia took in a deep breath, but she was too tired to think up a reasonable lie. “Nothing.”

Thankfully, Brigid didn’t argue the point. “It’s getting dark. We should rest. But first…”

Brigid turned to her sisters one last time. “Livia will remain here as my captive. She will be my slave, and therefore she will have no rights within the community. However, she is not to be abused by any of you. She is my property now, and she will be treated as a human being. Am I clear on this?”

The sister’s spoke their understanding en mass. “Yes my Queen.”

“Another thing. I have decided to take back my birth name. I loved Cyane, but I have always felt it wrong to take away the name my mother gave me. From now on I will no longer be known as Hanai. You will call me Brigid, the name my birth mother gave me. Dismissed.”

With that out of the way, Brigid led Livia into her home and shut the door behind her. The world was a place ironically full of pain as well as happiness this day, and she wanted to escape it all for just a little while. Brigid had found her sister, a woman who had not fared as well as she had over the years. There was a lot of healing that needed to be done in Livia’s soul, and Brigid was going to do it. Even if it killed her.

**********

The first night was the longest of Livia’s life. She so expected a visit from an assassin that she wasn’t able to close her eyes for more than a moment. Finally after waking Brigid up with her tossing and turning for the fifth time, the new Amazon Queen pulled her blankets off and stoked up the fire.

“Ok Livia. It’s obvious you’re not going to sleep tonight.”

“I’m sorry Brigid,” Livia said, and she meant it. With every moment she’d spent awake in the hut she’d watched Brigid’s face. The sight of her sleeping peacefully had brought back an image of the young girl she’d known in childhood.

Brigid’s face also brought back the face of another she’d dearly loved. Ann. She’d spent almost an hour lost in memories of her private times with Ann, when Brigid had been off doing some chore and it was just the two of them. A mother and her child.

“Dinar for your thoughts Livie,” Brigid said, grinning from ear to ear. In the light of the fire Livia was stunned by Brigid’s exotic beauty.

“I was thinking about my life, and about our mother. I didn’t realize how much I missed her until…until I saw your face while you were sleeping. You have no idea how much you look like her.”

“And you have no idea how wonderful it is to meet someone who knew Ma. I miss her so much at times. I believe I will never get over losing her.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to Spider. I think maybe that’s what love is supposed to be all about. Never forgetting the ones you love, and how much they meant to you.”

Livia’s words brought a smile to her Brigid’s face. “I’m relieved to hear you say that.”

“Why?”

“After seeing how cold you’ve grown over the years, I had thought you’d forgotten what love is.”

Livia let go a short burst of laughter. “So had I.”

Brigid reached out and took Livia by the hand, and she was surprised by the level of comfort the touch inspired in her. “You can rest Livia. I promise you’re safe with me. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I believe you.”

The women lay back down, and this time Livia sank comfortably down into the first restful sleep she’d had since she’d left Rome.

The End of Chapter Six