21. Youll Learn

You'll Learn

Luella

The fountain of Bacchus overflows with crimson. It pours out of his decanter and his phallus. It grows thicker and thicker until it can’t be mistaken for anything but blood. The women at his feet recoil in fear. No longer statues, they are the women I’ve seen brutalized these last days. They scramble back, the blood splattering against their skin, erupting into burns and blisters. One of them looks at me across the room, her wheat hair soaked in blood and her cerulean blue eyes so familiar I feel as if they belong to me. I reach out to help her up but she flinches away from me, too. Caught between the brutal fountain and me, equally afraid of both.

Then she screams.

I jolt upright, the thin blanket slipping down as I survey the room. I usually sleep well. Not deeply, but well, until this clipse. I take a deep breath, then another. I’ve been to sapa with Ledo each day for ‘training.’ His imagination is, unfortunately, well-developed, and each day is more violent and humiliating than the last. The first few days I could argue that it was consensual, I could argue that perhaps some of the floras enjoyed playing the submissive role, as some prefer. But yesterday…

Some things cannot be argued. Some things are obvious to those with eyes, and I’ve never wished myself as blind as I did yesterday.

Yet even if I was willing to forsake my plans for the Emperor and end Ledo now, I am never alone with him.

The day passes in a blur of monotony. To take my mind off impending sapa and my failure thus far, I read. I wring my hands. I pace. I’ve asked about the Emperor each day, but have been ignored. I’m not much closer than I was a clipse ago.

And just when the twins touch in the late afternoon sky, overlapping more than the last few days as we grow closer to the end of the clipse shadowing, I’m summoned to sapa .

The room is the same. The fountain trickles and gurgles, mocking my dreams. There is a small cart with whatever Ledo plans to use today. And there is the chaise I am expected to sit in. I inhale as I move to it, willing my limbs into a semblance of attentive respect.

There are three floras today, each naked and kneeling before Ledo.

“Skylar, good day,” Ledo greets, as if this is an ordinary day. I suppose it is for him.

“Good day, Praetor,” I return, dipping my head in respect.

“Today you’ll learn about punishment, my betrothed.” Ledo draws a whip from the cart. That’s all that is atop it today, but it’s not just any whip.

It’s the flagrum.

Meant to scourge. Meant to flay. Not a riding crop or single line whip that I could believe would be used for those who find pleasure on the border of pain.

It almost looks delicate, just two leather strings jutting from the handle. An immeasurable amount of pain awaits the Praetor’s victims, though, due to the shiny bits of metal between knots at each end. I swallow hard and sweat breaks out along my spine.

“Have these floras disobeyed?” I ask, my voice quieter than I wanted. I shouldn’t ask, but Ledo doesn’t correct me, doesn’t remind me of my place.

Instead he ties a leather strap tightly around each of their mouths. As he ties the last one, so tight it cuts across her cheekbones in white harsh lines, he speaks. “Each has spoken out of turn, or without being spoken to, for starters.” He looks at me and I know my questions about the Emperor, about the floras, have not gone unmarked.

This is a lesson.

One I brought to them.

He motions for them all to come closer to me, then turn their backs.

Then he begins.

Crack.

I gasp as he strikes the first flora, the skin of her back splitting beneath the flagrum, red bursting beneath the strike like wine from a shattered glass.

Crack.

Another strike, another gasp, but I’m not sure if it’s from her or me.

Crack.

My stomach turns and tears prick the corners of my eyes.

Crack.

The back swing of his whip whistles close enough to me that I flinch, realizing I’ve taken a step forward.

Crack.

This time the flagrum is so soaked that specks of blood accompany the back swing. I close my gaping mouth as copper floods my tongue.

Crack.

A sob finally breaks its way free. The flagrum is too much. The woman from Mia’s backroom swims in front of my teary vision.

Crack.

She was my fault.

Crack.

This is my fault.

Crack.

My knees finally buckle, but he doesn’t stop. He just keeps swinging. And I do nothing. Like a coward. I should kill him. I should stop this, plan be damned.

Crack.

I flinch back. Memories churning beneath the surface. I tell myself they would have been punished anyways. That this isn’t just for me, this is who Ledo is, with or without an audience. The lies are bitter on my tongue, and the guilt and nausea in my gut makes me dizzy.

Ledo kneels before me and I realize the cracks have stopped. Each flora is curled onto themselves on the floor. Will they live? None had scarred backs so he must allow them to be healed. Will they visit Mia?

“Skylar,” Ledo says, drawing my gaze. He brushes a thumb across my tear-stained cheek and I feel the blood smear into my salt. “Do you understand how punishments will work?”

“Yes, Praetor,” I say, my voice thick.

“I don’t tolerate disobedience,” he says. We are owned all our lives in some form or another. Our paters force obedience into us, mold our maters into the image of matronly servitude, and pay new men to take over the rod. Some men use their words, some fists, and some like Ledo, the whip.

Regardless of the weapons they choose, the result is always the same.

We obey. And Skylar hasn’t broken this pattern. Hasn’t seen the wrongness in it, or perhaps has but knows that one woman cannot change it. Skylar needs a marriage because unmarried women have no voice in this republic. They cannot move unmolested in a city that only respects the male claim to women, never a woman’s claim to herself.

My chin dips of its own accord. I swallow my terror and my rage. I can do this. I can masquerade as someone who would bow to this man who thinks the pathetic flesh between his legs makes him better than us. Than me.

There is strength in patience.

“You’ll learn,” Ledo says, accepting my deference. Believing it.

I’m shaking, each tremor wracking my body as I try to master myself. To calm my limbs. To push down the memories.

To gain control.

When he’s finally gone I wait until the floras have been removed by the other women of the harem, carried off to be mended. They murmur to each other, soothing nothings to help them contain their cries until they can be healed. They endure.

When I’m completely alone, I whisper into the empty room, with only the disgusting fountain as witness.

“No, Praetor. You’ll learn.”