NationStates Jolt Archive

The massive grounds of the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator looked like an island of green and blue in a sea of grey from the sky above the city of New Rome, the capital of Pantocratoria. That's what Theodora had been told, in any case. It was rare that she had the chance to leave the palace compound, and when she did, it was always with an entourage, and usually with the entire court, to move on to some other palace compound equally cut off from the real world. The only place Theodora could ever feel even close to being free was in the palace's enormous gardens, and even there, she was always aware that the whole area, gardens and all, was enclosed, fenced in, and cut off from outsiders.

Of course, she felt a lot more free right now, having given her minders the slip in a garden maze, and escaped into the small wood below. For the moment she was free to stroll about the gardens unobserved, unimpeded by her entourage. The chance to be alone was a rare one for anybody at the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator, especially for one of the Emperor's daughters. Unless she had deftly given the people around her the slip, as she had now, there was nothing the Princess could do which went unobserved. She fell asleep under the watchful gaze of bedchamber attendants, she even bathed in the presence and with the help of assistants. To get a chance to escape other people's eyes even for a few minutes was rare, and when it presented itself, it had to be taken. Theodora relished the freedom of being alone for a little while.

Of course, she wasn't as alone as she thought...

OOC: This thread is just for me and Vegana for the time being. It might open up a bit later.

They watched their target with the patience of predators. This was the first time they had observed her alone. Normally she was accompanied with several guardians who at its best would make an operation messy; at worst would mean certain death for them. There were two of them, slender men with ordinary faces and dressed in Ghillie suits. They were practically invisible in the shrubbery were they lay, without moving and with completely controlled breathing, their faces painted black.

There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the vicinity of their target but just in case they kept still for another minute, watching the young girl. They knew they had to be swift if they were going to succeed with this; her entourage couldn’t be too far away. One of the men slowly moved towards her position, inch by inch, a small injector in his hand. He saw her move towards the spot they were hiding and waited until she was really close before he sprang upon her.

Theodora opened her mouth to scream as the figure grabbed her, seemingly coming out of nowhere, but his hand covered her mouth before any sound came out. She had no idea who the men were, where they came from, how they got into the palace compound, or why one of them had grabbed her. She struggled ineffectually against his grip, wriggling and twisting, until she felt a sharp prick.

Unfortunately for the Princess, her minders were convinced she was still in the garden maze, quite a way away from where she was now. None of them had the slightest idea that she had made her way all the way into the wood, let alone that she was being set upon by men in Ghillie suits. She'd been too elusive for her own damn good.

John kept his hand over her mouth until he felt her relax and loose consciousness in his arms. He and John slowly lowered her to the ground as they looked around. John pushed a red button on a small radio link and they grabbed the limp body and started to move towards the wall with an astonishing speed. It was not the first time John and John had done this and this time the weight was not extreme. From a distance it looked like two bushes moving with a body hanging over one of them. The alarm system was out of function for thirty seconds by the time they would reach the wall. They knew that it would be noticed if something happened for longer than that and they didn’t want people to notice or react until they were safely out of there.

They were helped over the wall by the people with the waiting van, within five minutes from the initial assault the vehicle was moving and the people was packaging the unconscious girl in the van. They would leave this car burning within an hour together with hair that had been taken from a barber shop. Any DNA samples from the burnt-out wreck would show that at least 50 different people had been involved. John and John were good at their craft and wanted to be able to stay longer in the country.

The van was almost out of the New Rome city limits by the time Theodora's minders in the palace gardens thought it would be prudent to sound the alarm since they still hadn't found her. The Varangians manning the security systems hadn't noticed the alarm for the wall of the compound going down for just thirty seconds - the alarm system along the stretch of wall near the wood had been having troubles for a few weeks now (which wasn't regarded as critical since the woods were so far away from the main gardens and the palace itself, all of which were monitored by still more security equipment), and nobody gave it a second thought.

When the alarm was finally sounded, nobody knew that Theodora was well and truly out of the palace grounds. The Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator compound was enormous, and Theodora had intentionally escaped her minders after all. She could just be hiding from them. While the Varangian Guard and the rest of the palace security kicked into alert when the alarm was eventually sounded, nobody yet saw fit (or had the courage) to inform the Emperor that his daughter was missing.

In the van, Theodora lay unconscious. Her beautiful (if uncomfortable and restrictive looking) formal gown was marked with dirt and mud from the ground of the wood all over its delicate and ornate embroidery. In her brief but violent struggles, most of the pins which held her dark hair up in its carefully coiffured court hair style had been shaken out, and her hair had fallen over her shoulders and about the floor of the van in disarray. But despite all that, she looked strangely peaceful lying unconscious there under the influence of whatever drug the Johns had used on her, the oblivious look on her sleeping face belying the seriousness of her situation.

They arrived at the coast around midnight. The change of cars had taken some time and the timed firebomb in the van would have blown just an hour after they left it. Not a single word had been uttered since the kidnapping, everyone knew their role, everyone followed the plan. John had lifted Theodora into a box that fitted her perfectly, at her side one of the Johns employers, obviously with some kind of Anaestetics skill, was sitting adjusting some kind of Syringe. It was going to be a long sleep for the princess.

They stepped out of the van and clicked their radio twice. The sound of waves coming in was overwhelming and a fresh breeze gently caressed the uncouncious princess hair. Four men in wet suits emerged from the darkness. They looked at the princess:

-"Is that her?" One of the Johns nodded.

-"A pretty lass isn't she..." One of the men put the lid on the box, carefully checking so there were enough holes to allow comfortable breathing. Not that the ptincess would notice anyway. The drugs she had been given would keep her in the land of dreams for another 24 hours.

The Johns walked back to the car and the men carried the box down to the shore into the waiting boat.

Back in the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator, Theodora had been missing long enough to make the security personnel feel obliged to finally inform the Emperor. It wasn't a decision which was taken lightly, but it was getting dark, and the Varangian Guard had checked all the hundreds of rooms in the palace, combed the gardens and the wood, and were now convinced that the Princess wasn't anywhere in the compound. The officers had drawn straws to see who would be assigned the unpleasant responsibility of informing the Emperor that his daughter had evaded her entourage hours ago, and was no nowhere to be found. Lieutenant Stig Andersson had drawn the shortest straw, and now stood outside the gilded door to the Emperor's box in the palace's opera house, building up his courage with a few sips from a flask of brandy he carried with him everywhere.

The Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator had two indoor opera houses and one outdoor ampitheatre in which operas were performed on a regular basis. This evening the Emperor had forgone the usual public banquet for a quiet dinner with his brother and his sister-in-law, and then the trio had attended the smaller of the two indoor opera houses to see the New Rome Imperial Opera's production of La Malade imaginaire. It was a lavish production, and the Emperor was enjoying it to the point of almost smiling (although the large amount of wine he and his companions had consumed already was also a contributing factor). The show was up to the first interlude when Lt Andersson was admitted into the imperial box by the Varangians guarding the door from the inside. He pulled off his polished helmet and stowed it under his arm, stepped into the box, gently pulled back the purple curtain, and saluted the Emperor.

"Your Majesty, Your Highnesses." he whispered in a Scandinavian accent, acknowledging the Emperor, Prince Basil, and Princess Jacqueline. "Please pardon me for the intrusion."

The Emperor set his half-empty glass of red wine down on the table in front of him, rolled his eyes to his brother, and then turned to face the officer.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" he demanded, glancing back at the singer on the stage.

"Your Majesty, I must inform you that several hours ago, Her Imperial Highness Princess Theodora was separated from her entourage in one of the garden mazes. She has not been seen since. We have searched the entire palace grounds, but to no avail, Your Majesty." the Varangian officer said in a low-voice.

"What?" the Emperor barked, the sound of his voice drawing attention from the courtiers in the audience below, although the singer on the stage kept on singing.

"Her Highness is missing, Your Majesty." Lt Andersson restated.

"What do you mean she's missing? She's not yet a girl of seventeen, are you so incompetent that you can't find her?" the Emperor growled loudly. The singer on the stage finished his song quickly and scampered off behind the curtain.

"We're still looking, Your Majesty." Lt Andersson offered weakly.

"You're still looking?" the Emperor spat. "Is that supposed to comfort me? If a teenager can slip away from you in the first place, what faith can I have in your abilities to find her again? Where have you looked?"

"We have searched the entire grounds, Your Majesty." Andersson replied.

"Are you saying she's slipped out of the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator completely?" the Emperor demanded.

"We can't know that for certain, Your Majesty, but if she were here, it is the opinion of my commanding officer that we would have found Her Highness by now." the lieutenant answered.

"We have alarms, cameras, all sorts of monitoring equipment at all the gates and on the walls, how could she have left the grounds?" the Emperor insisted.

"I'm quite sure I don't know, Your Majesty."

"Lieutenant, have the city authorities been notified?" Prince Basil interjected.

"The city authorities?" Andersson replied with disdain for the thought. "No, Your Highness."

"Then inform them!" shouted the Emperor. "They couldn't possibly be more incompetent then you Varangians! Get moving you barbarian dolt! Find Princess Theodora and bring her to me!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Andersson replied, snapping another salute, before rushing out of the box.

"That girl will be the death of me!" the Emperor cursed to his brother.

"She's probably snuck out to a club or something." Princess Jacqueline offered in a helpful, but slurred voice. The Emperor looked mortified at the idea, recalling the scandal in the tabloids some time ago when she had last snuck out to a club. He had no idea how serious the situation really was.

"That's a good thought." replied Basil. "Shall I send some of my people out to nightclubs and things looking for her, Monsieur?"

The Emperor ran his hand through his beard, his brow furrowed in anger. He couldn't believe Theodora would have the nerve to pull another stunt like this after what happened last time!

"Yes, thankyou Basil." he said, forcing himself to sound calm. "That's a very good idea."

The Emperor looked out of the box again, realising the courtiers were all keenly watching and listening the conversation. He stood, lent over the railing and shouted down to the orchestra and to the performers.

"Play on!" he commanded, and the opera resumed. The Emperor didn't enjoy it as much anymore though. A dark expression formed on his face as he wondered what to do with his disobedient daughter when she came back.

A growing sea made it hard to keep the raft steady. They watched the box and wondered how cushioned it was, the girl was probably lucky she was sedated with waves like this. They peered into the darkness for the light from the Subcraft. It took a while until they saw it, floating in the surface like a giant manta ray, a single light shining from one of the light staffs put on one of the wings of the craft, its sleek shape barely noticable over the surface.

They landed the raft on one of the wings, stepping into knee deep water as the sloping wings on the Manta was mostly under water. They gently lowered the box into the crew cabin and crawled in after it. The Subcraft was made for a crew of only ten people so it would be crowded for a while, but their destination was not that far away.

The hatch was closed as the craft descended under water, leaving a punctured raft slowly sinking in the heavy sea. It picked up speed and submerged beneath the waves, beneath the heavy sea into the silence of the depth. It started to gain momentum in the smooth darkness and when they deemed they distanced themselves far enough from the coast it increased its speed, moving towards the surface, its wingspan carrying it from the depth into breaking the surface of a giant leap that continued into the air. Moving with great speed towards the Reich.

The New Rome Police Department had found the burnt out wreckage of a van shortly after the alarm. Ordinarily they might have assumed that it had been left there by joyriders, but given the secret communiqué from the palace about Princess Theodora's disappearance, it received careful attention. The scene had been taped off and crime scene examiners were crawling all about the place, taking samples for later testing. In the meantime, detectives had traced the van's voyage out of combination of eye witness reports and security camera footage. New Rome's police were well-funded, highly trained, and extremely motivated when it came to tracking down imperial princesses! Before long they realised that the van had originated in the Old Quarter of New Rome, and it didn't take much longer to find out that a van matching its description had been parked by the far wall of the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator (the wall nearest the wood), until shortly after Theodora escaped her minders. It seeming unlikely that Theodora could've climbed the wall herself, especially without disposing of her restricting formal gown, the police were already toying with the idea that the Princess had been abducted.

The wrecked van was only one such lead amongst half a dozen, however, and the palace staff assured the police that the circumstances suggested the Theodora had snuck off herself rather than been kidnapped. It was almost expected that she'd return by herself after she had tired of clubbing. When the clock struck three in the morning, the police were still getting such mixed messages from all their various leads and from the palace itself that beyond tracing the van back to the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator, they hadn't further pursued the kidnapping theory, despite the crime scene crews being convinced that whoever dumped the van moved into another vehicle and headed off.

At 3:30am, the Emperor had given up on waiting for Theodora to return, and decided to go to bed. He was still apparently convinced that his daughter was off at a nightclub up to no good, however, because he gave instructions that when Theodora returned, she was to be confined to the antechamber of his apartments until he woke up and spoke with her. Remembering that last time Theodora had used the excuse that she had confessed whatever she had done the night before to avoid telling him the whole story, the Emperor made sure to order that she not be permitted access to priest under any circumstances.

John returned the rental car in early morning, just has had been agreed. They had chosen the most common colour of the most common brand in the nation and rearranged the registration plates. They payed in full in cash and returned the keys over the desk. So far they hadn't heard anything of any abduction on the radio.

-"Thank you mr. smith"

John smiled at the girl and nodded. He knew that she would forget his face in a matter of minutes. It had taken long training and lots of operations to create the perfect face for his trade. He walked out to John and together they took the 5 minute stroll to their parked car. It was a beautiful morning.

The Emperor awoke at 8:30am admist the usual ceremonial which accompanied the imperial awakening (which involved dozens of courtiers and a small chamber orchestra), as had been his habit almost every day for the past thirty one years. He was dressed and ate breakfast almost without a word to his attendants. The routine went unbroken, as if all was well. At 9:30am the Emperor entered his antechamber, expecting to find Theodora waiting for him to come shout at her. She wasn't there.

"Has Her Highness not returned?" the Emperor demanded to know from the courtiers around him.

"No, Your Majesty, she has not."

"Blast that girl! Why can't she be more like her elder sister?" he started, when his closest friend and head guard, Sir Constantine the Hardy entered the antechamber from the other side. He was dressed in warm outdoors clothes, and his boots were muddy. Nobody ever presented themselves to the Emperor like that. Something was wrong.

"Your Majesty..." Sir Constantine began. "I spent last night going over the woods with the men. I found these."

He reached into his jacket pocket and produced some hair pins.

"Hair pins?" the Emperor asked, not seeing the big deal.

"Sire, I think you should consider the possibility that Her Highness was kidnapped." Sir Constantine said severely. He was like a second father to the Emperor's children - he had always been there for them to do the things an emperor couldn't, and was more forgiving of their deficiencies, especially Theodora's, than the Emperor. Something in his gut told him Theodora hadn't just slipped away for a night on the town.

"On the basis of hair pins?" the Emperor asked, shaking his head at the possibility. He wasn't so easily convinced.

"Sire, do you really think Theodora would sneak away to go to some party or some nightclub after what happened last time?" Sir Constantine asked.

"Yes, yes as a matter of fact, I do." the Emperor replied, waving off the other courtiers. "That girl doesn't learn, Con. Everytime she does something wrong, she is told how to do it right, and what does it benefit her? She still does it the wrong way next time. She's determined for me to pull my beard out worrying about where she is, what she's doing, who she's doing it with... I swear none of my other children are such trouble!"

"I just have this awful feeling that something is terribly wrong!" Sir Constantine said, the look on his face one of genuine worry. "Sire, just give me permission to ask the police to treat this as a potential kidnapping. If she had left of her own accord she'd be back by now, almost certainly. Last night you thought she'd be back by the time you awoke. She might still come back, but it can do no harm for the police to consider the possibility that she disappeared not of her own volition."

"Very well, if you think it is a good idea. Go get yourself cleaned up Con." the Emperor said. "You might take some comfort to know that I have an awful feeling too, only that it isn't concern that she is being held against her will, quite the opposite."

Sir Constantine nodded to the Emperor, and left the antechamber to get some rest. The Emperor walked around his muddy footprints and went off on his way to hear Mass in the Chapel of Saint Constantine the Martyr.

OOC: This post is actually from Vegana - he telegrammed it to me for me to insert Theodora's reactions.

IC:

She woke up in a big room with white chalked walls. Her head was aching and a strange noise, like an engine starting, was coming from her right. She turned her head towards the sound that had awakened her and found herself looking at an old man slouching in a big bean bag shaped couch a few yards away, his chest rising and falling. His head dropped a little as another almost deafening snore soundly exited the mans throat. She slowly tried to rise from the bed and the formerly rhythmical snore was abruptly interrupted by a "Hrmpff" The man straightened his posture and watched her with warm brown eyes.

"Good morning princess. Sorry, I must have dozed off." He slowly rose from the couch and moved over to an open fire where he added another log of wood, rubbing his hands together as he did it. Theodora rubbed her eyes and looked about the room again. Then she pinched herself. If she was asleep she didn't wake up. Her eyes darted about the room and an expression of panic formed on her face. The last thing she remembered was struggling in the woods on the grounds of the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator - and now she was here.

"This will make this room a little more comfortable, they seem to have forgot that people are supposed to live in this cold!" He peered at her underneath bushy white eyebrows; "You’ve been asleep for more than 16 hours. You must be starving child!?"

"What?" she blurted, the panic obvious in her voice. "Who are you? Where am I?"

-"I think they told me I'm supposed to be your host during your prolonged stay" He said as he stirred the logs in the open fire and muttered. "Damn ignorant people, leaving an old man and a girl to freeze to death" He finally rose as the warmth from the fireplace began to spread in the room. He walked over to the couch again and sat down, his hand on his back. "Who invented things like this, its a tool of torture." A loud crack was heard as he moved the final inches down to the couch. "I guess you could say that You're a prisoner here child, just like me. But the food is excellent, so get dressed so we can get something to eat. There's clean clothes for you behind that screen"

"What.... prolonged stay? Prolonged stay here? Where is here?" Theodora insisted, nervous to the point of open panic. "Who are they? Please, monsieur, tell me!"

Then he said she was a prisoner here, just like him. The fear was now too much. Her eyes welled up with anxious tears.

"Prisoner?" she repeated quietly. "Why am I a prisoner? Whose prison is this?"

She looked around for exits, and checked behind the screen where the old man told her there were some clothes waiting for her, which she stopped to have a look at.

-"Now, now child, as prisons comes, this is first rate!" He smiled a warm smile and gently patted her shoulder. "Go and get dressed now and we can talk some more over breakfast. I'm starving"

Behind the screen were some comfortable and well tailored clothes. The tailor seemed to have the right measures but didn't know what to choose so there were several different sets of clothes.

The old man continued to mumble about the cold that went through his bones and started to walk towards the door

Electing to remain in her (now somewhat dirty and ripped at) court gown for the time being, Theodora put aside the new clothes and followed the old man to the door, hoping to find a way out.

They stepped out in a big lit hallway, going several meters in both directions. The roof, several meters up, was covered by large panorama windows letting in bright sunshine into the room. Every now and then people dressed all in white scurried past them without seeming to notice them. After a short walk they approached an entrance guarded by two huge men dressed in purple armour, they looked strangely alike, like twins but even more so. The old man strolled in between the two hulking men and walked towards a large table in the middle of the room.

Pantocratoria

The grey anonymous parcel arrived to the palace via the postal service, sender unknown. It was quite small and neatly wrapped by someone using surgical gloves and closed with a really common type of glue. It contained a necklace and a small vial of royal blood.

Theodora gathered up her courage, and walked up to one of the enormous men in purple armour.

"Monsieur," she said, trying to project authority with her voice but failing due to her anxious wavering tone. "I demand to speak with somebody in authority here! I must know what is going on!"

***

The Emperor sat in his office in the Sun King room, attending to the business of the day, quietly signing despatches and warrants. Every so often he paused and stared outside through the window, his thoughts turning to the whereabouts of his wayward daughter.

There was a knock on the door. The Emperor set his pen aside and looked up, and Sir Constantine entered the room. He had a panicked look on his face. In his hand he held a necklace, plain looking by the standards of the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator, but very precious to those who knew what it was. The knight walked across the room to the Emperor's desk, and gently placed the necklace on top of the warrant the Emperor had been reading. The Emperor looked at it, and an instant look of recognition appeared on his face, quickly followed by shocked concern.

"She gave her this before she died." he said in a weak voice, taking the necklace up in his hands.

"Theodora would never part with it willingly." Sir Constantine said. "It arrived in an unmarked package this morning, along with a vial of blood."

The Emperor's eyes went wide and he looked up at his old friend, his mouth forming words, but no sound coming out. He was speechless.

"The police are investigating the vial. They say that the blood type is Theodora's. They're conducting a DNA test as we speak." Contantine said, his face hardening.

"So she's..." the Emperor finally managed to say. "...she's been... kidnapped?"

"That is the opinion of the police, sire." Sir Constantine nodded.

The Emperor didn't say a word. He held the necklace his late wife gave to Theodora before her death up to his cheek and put his hand over his mouth.

"Before you ask, there have been no demands made yet." Sir Constantine said. "I've instructed the police not to make any statements to the press... but we should be prepared for them to leak out... and when they do, we'll probably receive all sorts of nonsense demands. We can only hope that they contact us before that happens..."

"My God..." the Emperor gasped. He got to his feet and walked away from his desk.

"Thankfully, sire, whoever sent this package, they must want to negotiate. They'll contact us, the police are sure of it. If they didn't want to negotiate they wouldn't have sent us these things as proof that they have Theodora." Sir Constantine said. "We'll find her, we'll get her back!"

The Emperor was utterly lost for words. He looked more upset than Constantine had seen him since his wife died in 2001. There was nothing Sir Constantine could do to comfort him, but to help him to his chambers.

"Fetch Zoë and Constantine, Con. I want them to hear it from me." the Emperor said to his friend on their way.

The hulking man looked down on the girl with an indifferent stare. He didn't say a word. The old man cam back and took Theodoras arm:

-"Come child, they're not very conversational. Quite bores actually. The food is getting cold." He gently pulled her arm and walked toward a big table loaded with food.

"NO!" Theodora screamed, yanking her arm free. "This has gone on long enough! I need to know what's going on! I need to talk to somebody in charge! I shouldn't be here, I need to know why I'm here! Please?"

He looked at her with sad eyes.

-"I Think it has to do with politics child. They told me that you will be a guest here until some matters with your father is resolved. Until then you can only accept your fate."

He turned back and walked over to the table and started to break bread.

It was clear to her that she wasn't going to get any answers. In a way she was used to feeling powerless, but this was much worse. She was confined without explanation, had no clue what lay in store for her, and none of her attempts to find out what was going had been successful. The not knowing made everything so much harder to accept.

She looked about thoughtfully. She wasn't hungry, and she wanted to find out as much as she could about this place. She decided she'd go exploring, that she'd wander about, looking and taking in as much as possible about the building she was in, until somebody stopped her. She wandered away from the room where the old man was eating his bread, down the other end of the hall they had just come from, hoping to get a better idea of the place.

She walked down the hall passing her room on the way. Every now and then a man or woman in white dress scurried past her, their eyes looking down at the ground. She moved down a curved hallway and saw the same guards that had been standing outside the dining room. They were standing outside another room here, dressed in purple armour with insignias of a black wolf on them. Had she been walking in a circle? There was no way they could have moved past her.

Theodora groaned slightly as she passed by the guards again. She kept walking, and started noticing that the people wearing white scurrying back and forth all looked very much alike. When she passed by another set of purple clad inquisitors, both of whom looked identical to the last two, she gasped audibly in fright. They all looked the same! They all were the same! Theodora ran her hand along her forehead and through her hair, as if searching for a lump to explain hallucinations. She couldn't find any, and started quietly wondering to herself if she was going mad. She stopped walking forward, trying to explore this place was even more disorienting than not knowing anything about it at all. She went over to one of the inquisitors.

"Please monsieur..." she said feebly. "I need to talk to the warden, or whoever runs this place... please, I won't be any trouble, I just need to ask some questions..."

The man in Purple just looked at her with a blank cold stare not uttering a sound. His colleague looked for a second and then continued his watch down the corridor. In the distance some music could be heard, accompanied by a roaring sound. The men and women in white continued to move past them, hurrying to their different tasks. After just a minute she noticed the silence as no servant moved in the corridors anymore. They were completely empty except for the presence of the Inquisitors in their Purple Armour.

"Please!" she begged one final time, and not eliciting a response, headed in frustration down the corridor, towards where she thought she had heard the music come from.

She could hear the music vaguely from one of the corridors to the right. It sounded like a violin playing a beautiful song, still with a constant roar in the background. She came into a huge warm humid cavern with light streaming in through an opening in the ceiling at least twenty meters up. A small waterfall plunged into a pond at the far side of the cavern. Hundreds of butterflies were circling the waterfall and a figure sitting by the pond playing a violin.

Theodora approached the figure playing the violin, quite amazed at having come across this little place after all the sterile, blank halls she had just been wandering through. She stood by quietly, just watching the figure, waiting to see if the player would look up at her.

The man was leaning over his instrument, forcing beautiful tunes out of it as if battling and wrestling with the tunes. His long fingers danced over the strings as the bow flashed and hit every single tune perfectly. His long hair flew wildly over his face as he suddenly looked up and Theodora could see his completely white eyes. This man was apparently blind. A butterfly landed on the tailpiece as chord after chord exploded into the huge room.

Even though he was blind, Theodora thought that the violinist must have known she was there, since he had looked up. He stood out like a sore thumb in this strange place, making beautiful music like he did. Music lessons were always Theodora's favourite ones.

"Pardon me, monsieur." she said to the man softly. "You play beautifully, I had to come and see the source of the music I could hear. My name is Theodora."

She desperately hoped that unlike the Inquisitors, he would at least answer her.

He stopped playing and lowered his instrument, staring out in emptyness a drop of sweat made its way down his brow.

-"Why thank you Theodora!" He said in perfect french, smiling. "So you decided to take a little stroll in paradise? Have you met Jacques?"

"Jacques!" He shouted as he turned his head around as if to listen to something.

A bird lifted from one of the trees and something fell from the branches, landing on the ground with a bump followed by popping and chirping sounds from the undergrowth as something made its way towards Theodora and the man.

"Jacques?" Theodora asked. "Is that... the bird?"

She looked about up at the branches, trying to see what the violinist was talking about.

"I was so glad to hear your music, monsieur, it has been the only thing welcoming about this... prison..." Theodora said. "You're the first person I've come across who has even responded to me, asides from the old man... Oh monsieur, I don't know where I am, or why I'm here, or anything, nobody will talk to me at all... and everybody... looks... the same..."

She kept on nervously mumbling until "Jacques" appeared.

-"The bird? heavens no!" The man said with a laughter -"But he like birds. Jacques is more like the snake in paradise. Uncle J is devastated over his mischief."

The man bent down and produced a small raisin that he held in his had. A small masked face peeked out from the bushes and a ferret tumbled out, snatching the raisin from the mans hand and looking up at the man demanding more.

"Yeah, people aren't very talkative here and about them looking the same..." The man smiled a sad smile and shrugged "Well, I wouldn't know. But I'm being rude, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Plutus, and this.." He reached down with a hand and the ferret grabbed it with two paws and allowed itself to be lifted up. "is Jacques"

"Pleased to meet you, Plutus, and you too, Jacques." Theodora said, smiling a little at the sight of the ferret. If anything she was frightened of rodents, but the idea that the blind violinist had a pet animal, even if it was the sort of thing which might send court ladies into fits of panic, was a comforting one.

Theodora walked over to the pond and sat by Plutus.

"Are you a prisoner here too Plutus?" she asked softly, although the fear was obvious in her voice. She was clearly very anxious about whatever was happening to her.

Jacques watched Theodora with curiosity for a few seconds with small peppercorn eyes and then staged a raisin raid on Plutus breast pocket. Plutus carefully lifted down the ferret on the ground, much to Jacques frustration.

-"Prisoner? I really don't know. In some ways you could say I am, in others not. I haven't really tried to get out, and I cant remember life somewhere else."

Jacques stopped looking defiant on the ground and decided there would be no more raisins for him. With some popping sounds he waddled over into the bushes again to find some entertainment.

Plutus plucked a few tunes from the strings of his violin. -" when did you get here?"

"I'm not sure... I woke up here not long ago... but I don't know how long I was asleep. The last thing I remember was that I was taking a stroll in the woods back home... and then... somebody grabbed me... and now I'm here. Nobody will tell me why I'm here, nobody will tell me how long I'm here for... nobody will tell me anything!" Theodora replied, although she thought Plutus' reply to her own question had been fairly cryptic. "I just... I wish I had never gone for a walk in the woods... I wish I knew what was going on... I just want to know what's happening to me!"

She started sobbing softly, the sensation of not knowing being the worst thing she could possibly imagine at that particular point in time.

The Emperor's secretaries, getting nervous at the amount of unread correspondence building up, scurried towards the Emperor's apartments in the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator. They were met at the door by Sir Constantine.

"What is it?" the knight asked.

"Sir Constantine, we've very important business for His Majesty..." replied one of the senior secretaries.

"The kidnappers?" Constantine asked.

"No, Sir Constantine, but Queen Eleanor of Wintermore has written to His Majesty, the imperial accounts need to be authorised, the Imperial Assent must be given to the act of..." started the secretary.

"His Majesty is otherwise occupied. Don't disturb him again unless you've news from the kidnappers." Sir Constantine replied.

"But, the Queen, the Chancellor, the accounts..." the secretary protested, but Sir Constantine didn't care. He closed the door in the secretary's face. Clearly, business was not as usual in the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator.

Plutus lightly put his hand on her shoulder in a try to comfort her. The silence was broken by the sound of jack boots coming into the cavern, the tail of Jacques disappeared with lightning speed into the undergrowth.

-“Seems we have company” Plutus muttered, making a grimace.

Two men in black uniforms came into sight looking completely out of place in this lush place with their stern faces. They stopped in front of Theodora, looking her up and down.

-“Princess…” one of them said and nodded to her. The other stepped up beside her and looked down with a cold smile while fingering a signet ring that looked like a sharp angled triangle with an eye in the middle of it.

-“Good morning princess, if you would be so kind and follow us”


Pantocratoria

The message was sent to the palace along with a picture of Theodora lying in a box, the same message was also sent to the two biggest newspapers. Extreme measures had been taken to guarantee that the messages could not be traced.

Too many of our kin has died by the hand of the oppressing warring foreign forces. We neither want nor asked for your help. Maybe this can teach you some of the agony that comes and pain that comes with loss of people you love. If not Pantocratorian forces are removed from Syskeyian territory within this week, your beloved princess will be sent to you in ten different envelopes from within your own nation. God Bless Syskeyia! Death to all foreigners!

~Syskeyian Peoples Liberation Front

Theodora got to her feet obediently.

"Certainly, monsieur." she replied quietly. She turned to Plutus. "Thankyou for the company, Plutus."

She then looked forward and followed the men in black uniforms, hoping she would finally find out why she had been brought here. At the same time she started to tremble slightly, not liking the look of the men who were fetching her, and afraid about WHAT she could find out about why she had been brought here.

She heard Plutus say good bye behind her as they started to walk out of the cavern. Soon she could hear a sad tune being played on the violin and she felt it embrace her on her way out.

She was led into a small dirty room and was pushed into an empty chair by a small table. A daily Pantocratorian newspaper was placed in front of her; she noticed it was dated two days after her stroll in the palace garden. In front of her a video camera was placed on a tripod.

As one of the men in black uniform walked over to the camera and lighted a cigarette the other man leaned over and handed her a paper.

-"I want you to read what it says here. Read it through two times first and then start. Look towards the camera as you do it."

Theodora read over the note she had been given, nervously. It was a note decrying Pantocratoria's involvement in the Syskeyian war. She looked up at the men.

"But I can't read this!" she protested timidly. "Please, messieurs, won't you tell me what's going on here?"

The man leaned down and looked into her eyes. Suddenly he grabbed her chin and pressed the sharp edge of the signet ring to her cheek, she could feel a drop of blood coming out.

-“Listen up you worthless little shit! I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire! Since when do you think you have a say in this? We can do this two ways, either you calmly do as we tell you or I cut up those lovely looks of yours and drag you screaming to a damp cell to let the rats eat your tender flesh! I wouldn't mind the second option, what would you prefer?”

Theodora's eyes went wide in terror as she looked up at the man holding her chin like he was squeezing it in a vice. She emitted a frightened squeal and tears instantly returned to her eyes. Nobody had ever shouted at her like that, nobody had ever threatened her with physical violence, she was totally unprepared for the ferocity of the man's threats.

"First option!" she tried to say, but her voice had abandoned her. It took several attempts to get it out. When he let go of her chin, she could move her mouth better, and started crying and blubbering instantly.

"I'll read the note, monsieur!" she sobbed. "I'll do anything you like! Please don't hurt me! Please don't feed me to rats!"

She picked up the note with trembling hands.

"Pppeople of... Pantocratoria..." she started reading, looking up at the camera through her tears as often as she could, but looking down at the paper frequently. "We have made... a huge mistake... in our... *sob* communications with the international community. I am, of course, talking about the Syskeyian War. *sniff* We intervened... in a cause... which wasn't ours to meddle with. We came to help an ungrateful nation... and caused the death of thousands of innocents while doing it. This error of ours did not only cost the lives of thousands of innocent Syskeyians, but but... *sniff* but also thousands of brave Pantocratorians. We must withdraw all our support and take care of our own business. My.... *sob* host has shown me pictures of the atrocities that have been executed in this bloody war. I see no reason to prolong the deaths of Pantocratorians on foreign soil."

She looked up at the man.

"Was... was that alright, monsieur?" she asked, her expression demonstrating how afraid she was.

He looked at her with disgust and sighed.

-"No, it was not alright..." He poured a glass of water and put it in front of her. "Now, drink this and read it through again, take your time. This time look into the red dot on the camera..."

He fingered his signet ring and saw that it got a drop of blood on it gleaming like a small ruby. He turned away from the girl and licked it off, the taste was salty and fresh. He hoped she would make some more trouble, he could see that sweet white neck nad those small ears, like buns peeking out from under her hair.

"I'm sorry!" she gasped. "I'll do better this time, I swear I will! I'm so sorry... I just... I just need to... I just need to calm down."

She wiped her eyes, images of rats feasting on her face flashing through her mind. She desperately wanted to do a good job, to avoid making the man angry. She drank the water, although the thought entered her head that it might be poisoned. She re-read the note, and then looked up at the red dot above the camera.

"People of Pantocratoria!" she began in an uneven voice, but at least she wasn't sobbing this time. "We have made a huge mistake in our communications with the international community. I am of course talking about the Syskeyian war. We intervened in a cause that wasn’t ours to meddle with. We came to help an ungrateful nation and caused the death of thousands of innocents while doing it. This error of ours did not only cost the lives of thousands of innocent Syskeyians but also thousands of brave Pantocratorians. We must withdraw all our support and take care of our own business. My host has shown me pictures of the atrocities that have been executed in this bloody war. I see no reason to prolong the deaths of Pantocratorians on foreign soil."

She waited a few moments, before looking up at the man with pleading eyes.

"I can do it again if you like, monsieur! Please, let me do it again, don't hurt me!" she blubbered. "I can do it better if you like!"

-"No, that'll do." He said playing a little with her hair as he signalled to his colleague to remove the tape and put it in a brown envelope. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back so she looked up on him.

-"Next time you do exactly as I say without asking any questions, understood?!" He let go of her hair and they walked out of the room, leaving her alone by the table with the door still open.

"Yes monsieur I understand!" she half-sobbed, half-screamed back. She sat at the table sobbing for a few minutes, and tried to compose herself.

Next time he had said. The thought wasn't a pleasant one. After she had stopped crying, she slowly rose to her feet, and tried to make her way back towards the room she woke up in, shaking all the way. When she got there, she rested for a few minutes, before going behind the screen and getting changed into something which didn't constrict her breathing as much as her, now somewhat shabby-looking, court dress did. Having changed, she slumped against the wall behind the screen and started crying softly again, hoping that the men wouldn't come for her again.

***

"Your Majesty!" Sir Constantine burst into the Emperor's chambers holding a newspaper.

Princess Zoë had fallen asleep and was lying, in her court gown, in the Emperor's bed, her father having pulled the blankets up over her when she fell asleep. Her eyes were red from crying. Prince Constantine was nervously pacing the room, trying to stay awake after staying up all night with his father and his sister. The Emperor was seated in a recliner, sunken back into it, an empty glass in his hand which had once contained brandy, a framed photograph of Theodora at her sixteenth birthday sitting in his lap. He had been trying to remember the day it had been taken for hours now, but couldn't; the realisation had occured to him that he hadn't attended her birthday party, although he couldn't remember why. Perhaps the fact that her father didn't show up explained the somewhat sad look Theodora had in the photograph.

"Your Majesty!" said Sir Constantine again, rushing over to the chair. "Look what was in the newspaper!"

He handed over the paper, on the frontpage of which was a large photo of Theodora lying in a coffin-like box. The headline read KIDNAPPED, and in smaller text beneath it were the words By Syskeyian Terrorists!. The Emperor dropped his empty glass in shock - it shattered on the floor. He snatched the paper and read it quickly.

"If Pantocratorian forces are not removed from Syskeyian territory within this week, your beloved princess will be sent to you in ten different envelopes from within your own nation." he read.

"What?" Prince Constantine practically shrieked. "They want us out of Syskeyia? And... from within our own nation? That must mean they're here!"

"Find them!" the Emperor yelled to Sir Constantine. "Have the police trace back the letters! We must find out where they are, and I must speak to this... Syskeyian People's Liberation Front!"

"Yes, Sire." Sir Constantine said, and rushed back out of the chambers.

"And Con!" the Emperor shouted after him. "Prepare the court, the Imperial Family is going to New Jerusalem! If they can come and kidnap Theodora right out of the midst of the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator, we are none of us safe!"

The video appeared in all the big networks at the same time, mailed as a link on a pirate server in a public domain. It started with the same message sent to the newspapers and ended with a quick close up of a pinky finger being chopped off followed by Theodoras head being pulled up by her hair. It was followed by a sign saying, This is not negotiable

"I want them all dead!" the Emperor raged, having seen the video. "Every last one of them! The animals! Animals!"

He staggered back to his chair, grabbing the photograph of Theodora which lay there. He hand his hand over the image of his daughter's face, and traced it down her body to her hands, neatly folded in her lap.

"My God, do you think they really cut off her finger?" the Emperor gasped, the anger mixed with grief in his voice.

"I... I don't know, Sire. But they're certainly threatening to hurt her, and they look serious." Sir Constantine said.

"I know they look serious!" the Emperor snapped. He looked over to Prince Constantine, who was sobbing, and looked like he was about to throw up. "Quit blubbering, boy!"

Prince Constantine looked up at his father and tried to control his breathing, but seeing his little sister treated like that, have her finger cut off, was just too much for him.

"I don't want Zoë to see that video, and I don't want anyone to tell her about it either." the Emperor continued, calming himself. "Are the preparations to leave the capital complete yet, Con?"

"Yes, Sire." said Sir Constantine. "We can leave within the hour."

"Good. I'll call the Imperial High Command..." the Emperor started, turning to leave his chambers to head back to the French Suite, where his offices were located.

Theodora could hear soft foot steps in the corridor, entering her chamber and pausing for a few seconds. Then they turned around and left. Someone mumbled:

-"Wonder where the lass went?"

Theodora sat behind the screen, trembling. She held a hand over her mouth to stop herself from giving her location up with a sob or a whimper, desperately praying, begging in silence for whoever that was to go away and not find her.

***

The Emperor sat in his suite on-board his private 747 flying between New Rome and New Jerusalem, rubbing his hand through his beard as he stared blankly out the window. Just before he left the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator, he had called the Imperial High Command, but he was left with a sense of dread for his daughter's safety. For the first time in his reign, he felt that things were entirely out of his control - in order to save his daughter, he had to withdraw from Syskeyia, and even that might not see Theodora delivered safe back to him. He felt like his hand had been forced, and didn't feel that Theodora was likely to be any safer as a result of his actions.

***

Field Marshal Kantenouzous, commanding Pantocratorian forces in Syskeyia, rushed over to the ringing phone in his temporary command centre, to answer a phonecall which only he could answer.

"Kantenouzous." he said. As he spoke, his fingerprints were being analysed by the secure telephone itself. If anybody but he had picked up the call, the phone would've destroyed itself.

"Hello Field Marshal." started a cold, female voice. "You have been issued new orders by the Imperial High Command. These orders are classified, and you should inform nobody of them without my express authorisation, do you understand?"

"Yes, Mater." replied the Field Marshal.

"Good." the computer replied. "You are to commence preparations to leave Syskeyia within the week. Under no circumstances are you to inform anybody of this change in orders."

"I... I understand." the Field Marshal said, shocked.

"The nearest port to your present location is Portus Navalis. You will immediately move as if to reinforce the city's defences. Your transport fleet will await you there." continued the computer. "You must embark and depart Syskeyia within the week."

"That isn't much time. What if we can't complete the evacuation within that time?" the Field Marshal asked.

"Then those elements of your expeditionary force on-board the transport fleet will leave Syskeyia. The remainder of your troops will surrender to Veganan forces." the computer stated, matter of factly.

"But Mater!" the Field Marshal protested. "The Vega..."

"Do you understand your orders, Field Marshal?" she asked.

"...Yes, Mater." Kantenouzous finally replied.

"God Save the Emperor!" Mater concluded.

"God Save the Emperor..." Kantenouzous muttered and hung up the phone. He turned to his ADC.

"Prepare to reinforce Portus Navalis."

OOC: sorry for the delay, shitload to do.

She felt a cold nose against her leg and when she looked down she could see two peppercorn eyes looking up at her, as Jacques demanded to be picked up.

-"There you are girl! At least that little devil is good for something."
The old man picked up Jacques and tickled him under his chin, gave him a raisin and dropped him down on the floor again. Jacques immediately ran over to Theodora again and started to climb up into her lap. Nobody likes a human climbing toy as much as a ferret.

Theodora whimpered, but didn't find the idea of a rodent climbing all over her as distressing as she normally would - she had bigger things on her mind. And then she remembered the interrogator's threat, about feeding her to rats. Her eyes fixed on Jacques and she began screaming in terror.

"Ppppplease!" she pleaded. "Get him off me! Get him off me!"

Jacques leapt from her lap unto the floor with lightning like speed. He looked up at her with distaste and waddled away over the floor.

The old man looked at her with raised eye brows.

-"There, there child. I can understand that Jacques is not to everyones liking. But he just tried to be nice, and believe me, that is not the most common thing." He kneeled down by her and inspected her closely, seeing the panick in her eyes. "Dear god child, what happened to you?"

"They..." she started, then stopped herself. She was determined to pull herself back together, and she took a few seconds to control her breathing again. "The men, they... said they'd cut me... and feed me to rats if I didn't read what they wanted me to read... they hit me and pulled my hair... they're going to kill me... I know they are!"

She held it together more or less until the end, when she started to sob again.

He leaned down to her and embraced her, she could smell the fresh smell of soap and flowers combined with some kind of incense.

-"Child, wipe those tears away. I'll make sure nothing will happen to you"

After a few seconds, Theodora returned the old man's embrace, the need for anything even remotely like a friend overwhelming her. After another minute or so, she even stopped sobbing, although she still couldn't stop the stream of tears.

"I want to go home..." she whimpered like a small child on her first day of school. "I want to go home!"

Slowly she stood up and made her way with the old man over to the couch he had been sitting in earlier. Her mind raced through all the possibilities as she feared for what would happen to her, almost all of them pessimistic in nature. Her mind kept on returning to her face being cut up and then being fed to rats, and she couldn't imagine anything more awful.

"What did I do?" she asked softly. "Why me?"

Theodora woke up lying in a bed, it was actually relatively comfortable in and of itself, perhaps even befitting her rank. There were just a couple problems. One was that she was entirely naked, without even a sheet to cover her. The other was that she was bound hand and foot and gagged uncomfortably. The third was that she was in total, pitch darkness.

She struggled to remember what had happened. She had done everything she had been asked to do by her captors, why wouldn't they just let her go? Were they feeding her to the rats now? She whimpered, frightened, her whimpers becoming progressively more and more insistent and urgent. It wasn't that she thought they'd let her go - she just desperately needed to know what was happening to her.

Heavy boot steps approached and then a bright light came on in the room. Theodora shut her eyes tight, before slowly opening them to give them a chance to get used to the light after the darkness. As things took shape around her, she looked up to see the source of the boot steps.

A young man in his mid-twenties stood there, wearing an unfamiliar black uniform with an insignia marking two great bursts of fire which seemed to engulf two ancient cities. "Do you always greet strange men lying naked on your back, Your Highness?"

Being gagged, Theodora couldn't answer, not that it was the sort of question she thought she was supposed to answer anyway. She did blush slightly but that was virtually her only reaction. She just lay there, watching the man, wanting to know what would happen next.

The man slapped her in the face with a glare. "Answer me when I talk to you, whore!"

Theodora yelped into her gag in pain and protest. She whined into the gag again, hoping that it would count as enough of an answer to spare her from being hit again. She wondered who this man was - he was wearing a different uniform from all the people she had seen before.

The man finally ungagged her. "What is your name?"

"Theodora." she replied quietly, her voice wavering in fear.

"Theodora? Theodora the whore? Theodora the myscegenist? Theodora the idolator? That Theodora?"

"No!" Theodora yelped in distress and shook her head vigourously, tears beginning to well up in her eyes again.

The man patted her lightly on the head as one might a dog. "Now, now, dear. 'Fess up."

"Please, monsieur," she forced herself to say. "I made that tape, I've done everything you've asked me to do! Please, just let me go!"

"Why were your people helping the Syskeyians against the EXPRESS commandment of God?"

"I don't know." she sobbed. "I don't know, please, just let me go!"

"Why does your cursed, iniquitous race allow themselves to mix freely and equally with the children of Ham, declared natural slaves by God Himself? Why do you let fags and dykes and pagans and witches walk freely among you when God ordains death for all such abominations? Why do you consort with metahuman demons and Christ-killing Jews? Why do you pledge allegiance to the Great Whore that is Rome and bow down and worship idols of Mary and the Saints?"

Her eyes widened with terror as he spoke. She knew there was no satisfactory answer she could give to someone so twisted by hate. He was going to kill her. She thought that her captors were going to let her go, but she had obviously been wrong. She offered no answer other than terrified sobs.

The man spat in her face. "You can answer or I can put your gag back in."

"Please monsieur, I don't know the answer." she replied, her lips trembling.

"Why do you deny the God given authority of lay elders to participate in decisions regarding excommunication? Why do you eat foods which are abomination unto God? Why do you wear immodest and sinful garb? Why do you allow women to speak in matters of religion?"

She bit her lower lip and emitted a brief whine as she tried to think of something to say.

"But monsieur, I was wearing modest clothes... somebody took them away from me." she replied weakly. "And, if you don't want women to speak about these things... why are you asking me? Please, I just want to go home!"

"You do know God hates you, don't you? He hates and loathes and abhores you. It sickens Him to look down upon you. He must stay removed from worldy affairs for He could not refrain from smiting you where you stand were He to come near to your disgusting, sinful flesh."

Theodora sniffled and sobbed. "I just want to go home!"

"Your home is Hell. It's where your mother is!"

Theodora gasped and burst into fresh tears. She would've given anything to be in her mother's arms at that moment.

"Are you going to kill me?" she finally managed to whimper.

"No. I'm going to save you."

"You're going to take me back to Pantocratoria?" Theodora asked.

"No. I'm going to save you from yourself by making you the wife of a Christian man."

"Wha?" Theodora gurgled. She shook her head.

"I am going to give you to one of my officers. He will keep you disciplined and obedient and do with you after the way of all flesh."

"What... what does that mean?" Theodora asked with tearful trepidation.

"You will have sexual congress as is a wife's duty. He will not allow you to resist."

"He's... going... to rape me?" Theodora asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

"No. He's going to take you as his wife. There's a difference." He smiled at her. "It isn't as though you're a woman of virtue, anyway, is it?" He checked. He wasn't molesting her. It almost might have been better if he was. He touched the most intimate areas of her body as though he were a veterinarian checking a dog, with total indifference and technical precision.

"Don't touch me!" she started insisting, squirming and trying to escape him as best as she could. "Please, stop!"

"If you keep back-talking, I'll have to cut out your insolent tongue."

Theodora instantly believed him, and stopped talking. She suffered through his intolerable probing more or less in silence, excepting the occasional sob.

The man finally withdrew his hands. "A whore, as expected."

Theodora thought of protesting. There were any number of things she might have offered as an explanation other than the truth, but she honestly believed that if she said anything, he'd cut out her tongue.

"If you promise to be good, I'll let you ask any questions you wish, and even have some food and water. Do you promise to be good?"

"Mmm... bu...." Theodora began, despairing. She sobbed, knowing she had no choice. "Yes monsieur."

"Ask away."

"What did you make me say those things for the tape?" she started.

"I'm not with those people. They're hell-bound Papists like you."

Theodora blubbered, bit her lower lip in confusion, and tried to work out what had happened.

"But... if... you're not with them... how..." she started.

"They sold you to me."

She gasped and let out a distraught moan. Theodora had hoped against hope that her captors would just let him go. Instead, they had sold her to another set of psychopaths. It was too much.

"Any other questions?"

Theodora nodded and sobbed.

"Why?" she asked.

"To save your immortal soul. You'd probably wind up being a dyke otherwise, or at least a friend of dykes."

"But why me? Why not someone else? Why me?" Theodora sobbed.

"Your profile. You're a symbol of sin to all the world. The daughter of a whore mother. A slut. An idolator. Have you committed sodomy yet?"

"My mother wasn't a whore!" Theodora practically growled through her tears, surprisingly insistent.

"God hates your mother. He hates her with a hatred you cannot even begin to understand. God takes deep satisfaction in the torments she now undergoes in the lake of fire."

"She wasn't a whore!" Theodora said through gritted teeth.

"By preaching the doctrine of devils and by seducing billions of souls to bow down to idols, she has done the work of her father the devil!"

"How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh of God only?

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness."

"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil corncupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience."

"She wasn't a preacher!" Theodora balled. "She was my mother!"

"Are you really so unattached to your tongue?"

Theodora groaned and sunk back into her tears of despair. She took a few moments, and then dared to ask another question.

"Can I still ask questions?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Will you ever let me go?" Theodora sobbed, her voice so timid that she sounded like a mouse. "When you're done with me?"

"Marriage is a life-long bond."

"It's not marriage, it's..." she protested almost inaudibly, her voice trailing off as she feared for her tongue.

The man sat down and began to stroke her hair gently. Perhaps there was some tiny trace of compassion in him. Perhaps it was just an act. "It won't be so bad. You won't be kept restrained all the time. It'll be like an ordinary, commoner, Christian marriage. You just didn't choose it."

She couldn't let this man do this to her, she knew she couldn't. She tried desperately hard to control her breathing and build up her courage, summoning up every drop of her father's blood which ran in her veins. He, she told herself, would never be afraid of this wretched tormentor.

"Any more questions?"

"I'm not an ordinary commoner." she said in something vaguely resembling a firm voice, although it was strained from all the crying. "And you're talking about rape, not marriage, and you have no right to make me do anything!"

Her breathing gave away how utterly terrified she was despite her defiant words. The man smirked briefly, just watching her a long moment before he darted his hand forward and captured her wriggling tongue between two fingers. He didn't cut it off, not yet, but he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tight rubber band which he wrapped around her tongue itself until all circulation was cut off, an immensely painful condition that constricted the organ to roughly the width of a finger. Theodora gurgled and groaned in a desperate, pathetic display.

"See how merciful I am? You deserved to have it just cut off."

Theodora was incapable of anything more than a guttural cry and agonised sobs to serve as a reply.

"You're so inconsiderate. You didn't even ask my name when you were allowed to ask questions. Do you really have that little regard for other people's feelings?"

Theodora replied by screaming her throat dry and wriggling in her bounds desperately.

"So selfish. So cruel. Don't you care about my feelings? What an insensitive little brat you are!"

She was incapable of summoning up any sort of reply now, so she just continued to thrash about desperately.

The man finally removed the rubber band. "Now do you see what disobedience earns you?"

The sensation of the blood rushing back into her tortured little tongue brought with it new agonies which elicited fresh tears. She finally made a submissive croak in response to his question.

"Any more questions?"

Theodora shook her head. She was too emotionally exhausted to continue, and her voice was gone, besides.

"What can I do to make you more comfortable?" He leaned down and kissed her paternally on the forehead.

"...wrists..." she whispered quietly, not all of her words discernible. "Untie... clothes please?"

"Now that's asking a little much."

Theodora moaned in disappointed reply. She promised herself that she'd resist more later, when she had the strength. For now, she just quietly sobbed.

"Seriously, Theo, ask for something more moderate and you might get it."

"Water..." she managed to whisper.

He walked out of the room for a few minutes. Theodora looked about, looking for anything which she thought might help her escape. The room had a vanity mirror, a make up counter, and a wardrobe. He returned a few minutes later with a bottle of water and some food. He first held the water up to her lips. She sniffed cautiously at the bottle, as if suddenly afraid of poison - as if she could detect poison by sniffing. She took a reluctant sip.

"If I wanted you dead, dear, I really wouldn't need to trick you."

Indignant tears started rolling down her face again, conceding that her tormentor was right. She put her lips to the bottle again and drank more eagerly, she was so thirsty.

"Feeling better?"

She looked up into his eyes, her delicate features wracked with pain, humiliation and anger, and shook her head.

He started to hand feed her. "You still haven't asked my name."

She closed her mouth and turned away from the food, not wanting to eat.

"You're not hungry?"

Still looking away from the food and the man, she shook her head again.

"Do you have to use the bathroom?"

This elicited a sob of degradation. She didn't have to use it yet, but she knew she would soon enough after drinking all that water. The thought of needing this awful man to take her to the bathroom was too much to bare. She shook her head, simultaneously whimpering.

"One last chance." He said, not saying what she had a last chance to do.

"For what?" she whispered. He didn't answer.

"Yes, I need to use it." Theodora sobbed and tried to whisper.

"That's not what I meant. You can use the bathroom at need."

"What did..." Theodora started, but trailed off, being reduced to mouthing the last words silently. "you mean?"

"Last chance to be polite."

She tried to look disdainful through the tears, and turned her face away from him again.

"Alright then. For the next little bit, you may say anything you can say without any fear of punishment."

If she still had her voice, she might have taken him up on his offer, but she couldn't say anything now, it hurt to even whisper after all of that desperate screaming. So instead she continued to look away from him, offering no words whatsoever. The man looked a little disappointed for a moment. Then he simply left her, pausing only to tighten the coarse ropes that bound her.

Theodora closed her eyes and promised herself that she'd be strong, that she would fight the man, that she wouldn't allow herself to become the wife of one of his men... and then she began to weep.

OOC: I've had to move this away from Vegana since it has been neglected too long. Until you hear otherwise, assume that after Pantocratoria upheld its side of the deal, Vegana sold Theodora to some other nasty group of people, whose identity is to be revealed later.

Theodora was left alone for several hours. After drinking all that water, before long, she needed to use the bathroom, but had no real means of summoning the man or getting there herself. So instead she just held it in, waiting for him to come back. The man walked back in eventually, moving to untie her ankles without speaking. She let him untie her ankles, deciding not to try kick him and make a run for it, wanting to give him a chance to untie her wrists first anyway. Her hope of having her wrists untied went unfulfilled. He grabbed her by her still restrained arm and pulled her to her feet, placing her on the ground.

"I need to go to the bathroom." she said quietly, having got her voice mostly back.

"Kiss my boot."

"What?" Theodora asked, blinking in surprise.

"That or you can spend the next few weeks soaking in your own urine. Your call, Theo."

"Your Highness." she said simply.

"You don't have to call me that. I'm just a commodore, actually."

"I don't care what you are. You will call me Your Highness." she insisted in a quiet voice, suppressing her fear. "Or would you rather continue to commit blasphemy by calling me God?"

"I will call you a contemptible, disgusting, sniveling whore of a pathetic, overused, foul-smelling c***. That is certainly more accurate?"

Theodora didn't deign to respond to his remark.

"Kiss my boot."

She acted as if she didn't hear him. He hadn't called her "Highness" after all. He grabbed her by her ear, frogmarching her over to the foot of the bed where he abruptly kicked her legs out from under her. She yelped in pain and surprise, and struggled ineffectually to get away from him. He bent down and grabbed her soft, white ankles, pulling them up and tying them tightly to the bed post, high enough that it forced her whole body to be a downward incline starting at her feet and ending at her forehead.

"Let me go!" she shouted, her voice now betraying her fear. While she opened her mouth to shout, he crouched down and forced a ring gag into her mouth, holding it open. She fell silent and trembled, waiting to see what he was going to do next. The man walked out of the room, giving her a few minutes in her new position. She waited in silent terror for his return.

When he walked back in, he was carrying a horse whip. With her tied in place, he proceeded to lay into her belly in a manner that would be inhumane even on a horse, leaving not just welts but actually bleeding cuts in her flesh, though none likely to scar. He kept it up unremmittingly for five or six minutes. Theodora screamed and screamed, forgetting about trying to conserve her voice. It was impossible not to. With her positioned like an inclined plane as she was sloping towards her mouth, her mouth held open, and open cuts all over her belly and chest, filled with water, he left her and let nature take its course.

She held out for a very long time, over half an hour, although it seemed to her to be nearly a whole day. Finally she had to let go, sobbing as she did so. He didn't come back for another six hours. When he did, he casually cleaned her off with a high pressure hose, as though he were washing a car. Her eyes watched him with a mixture of burning hatred and absolute terror.

The man leaned down right in her face, eye to eye, close enough that he was breathing into her forced open mouth. "Listen very carefully. You are under my power, absolutely and unequivocally. I can prevent you from doing anything I do not wish you to do. I can kill you at will and, if I let you live, I can make you suffer pain and humiliation beyond anything you've dreamed of before. Whatever your title might be, my absolute rule over you through force is what defines our relations. You will call me sir and I will call you whatever the hell I want. Or do you need another lesson like the last one?"

She didn't reply, instead closing her eyes, not being able to look at him as he spoke to her.

"Are we clear?"

She had had a ring gag in her mouth for the past six and a half hours, and she desperately wanted it out. Her mouth had been totally dry until he had sprayed her with the hose. She remained silent, hoping that it would be removed, if only for a second. He did, indeed, take it out. She closed her mouth and swallowed, moving her tongue and aching jaw about in relief.

"Are we clear?" He repeated firmly.

"Are we clear... what?" she asked defiantly, her voice trembling.

"Are we clear, BITCH?"

She squeezed her eyes and mouth shut, and turned away from him as best as she could. Desperate tears were welling up in her eyes, but she had promised herself that she would fight him.

"Kitten, let me make something clear to you. We are NEVER letting you go. We are nowhere where your father can find you. You will spend the REST OF YOUR LIFE under our rule. If you submit, you'll live like a Protestant, commoner housewife. It's not so unbearable. Billions of people do it. If you continue to resist, I have no problem continuing to keep you under this kind of punishment for the rest of your natural life."

She failed to suppress a sob, but she still couldn't give in, no matter how much easier it sounded. She still refused to answer. The man walked out of the room. He returned a few minutes later and knelt by Theodora, proceeding to rub salt into the wounds on her belly and chest. She whined in pain and gritted her teeth, but failed to suppress a pathetic whimper.

"What do we say?"

"Please...." she started, but knew it was hopeless to beg him to stop.

"Please, what? Say please stop sir and I'll clean the salt out and let you lie down."

"Stop." she said.

"You need to deal with the fact that your title as a princess means less to me than a rat's turd. What do we say?"

She didn't reply, shutting her mouth and closing her eyes tight again. She desperately wished she could just pass out, but all the blood rushing to her head from being suspended upside down prevented that. He placed a hand over her mouth and nose, holding it down and not letting her get any air. Her eyes shot open wide and she started screaming desperately into his hand. Before long she was on the verge of passing out, convinced that he was going to kill her, and her body was thrashing involuntarily. He pulled his hand away just long enough for her to utter those three little words, giving the impression that he would not let her live if she didn't. Unfortunately for her, the lack of oxygen had rendered her absolutely hysterical, and she was only dimly aware of anything at all. She just started breathing in deeply and babbling incoherently. He put his hand back over her mouth and nose. He didn't actually kill her but he did hold it until she was unconscious. She passed out, convinced that she was dying.

Theodora next regained consciousness totally immersed in freezing water. It took her a moment to become aware of her surroundings, at which time she panicked and started thrashing about, trying to get up, to get out of the water, to breathe. As soon as her head pulled above the surface, rough hands pushed her under again. She kept on trying to surface, desperate to breathe, her hands trying desperately to grasp at the hands which kept pushing her underneath the surface, trying to pull them away, move them if only for a second. It was as if she was pleading with her hands to be allowed to breathe.

After about a minute, she was allowed to surface. The same man from yesterday was smiling down at her. "You know what you have to say."

She gasped and emitted a breathless scream as she was finally allowed to surface, hysterical from the lack of oxygen again. At first she took panicked, shallow, desperate breaths and occasionally babbled something in a near delirious state. Within a minute she began to calm down and regain control of herself, at which point she started breathing deeply.

As soon as she didn't say the three magic words and had had a chance to breath, she went back under. This time it was four minutes. She thrashed about desperately whilst trying to hold her breath, but before long the man could see bubbles coming out of Theodora's mouth and nostrils as she couldn't hold her breath any longer. Out of air, her energy quickly faded, she couldn't sustain the struggle for the whole four minutes.

He let her up, allowing her to regain her breath again. "Just say it."

She took a while to regain her wits about her, and looked into his eyes. He could read it on her face - she was exhausted, desperate, and terrified.

"Please... you'll kill me..." she murmured in a low voice.

"Please what?" He placed a hand to shove her back, leaving no doubt that he'd do it.

"Please monsieur don't!" she shrieked and moved as far away from the hand as she could manage.

"Monsieur is how you address superiors in Frog talk, right?"

"I called you monsieur when we first talked... and you called me Your Highness." she sobbed.

"Say please stop sir or you go back under again and again until you say it. And, if you don't come up, well, Johnny doesn't need a wife that bad..."

"Please stop, sir!" she pleaded. "Please, I don't want to die, I can't breathe down there, I need air, please..."

"Good girl." He petted her lightly on the head. She now had a chance to see that she was in a bathtub, complete with soap and shampoo. "Wash up. There's clothes in the wardrobe for you to put on. There's make-up on the counter. It's up to you if you want to put it on or not. I expect you dressed and ready in twenty." And he left the room at that.

She shivered in the freezing water, and she washed up as quickly as she could, cleaning her wounds in particular very carefully, intermittently sobbing. When she was done, she got out of the bath, dried herself and wrapped herself in the towel as tightly as possible to warm up. Then she shuffled over towards the wardrobe, and had a look at the clothes inside.

They were clothes for commoners. Some were skirts, some were dresses, some were pants. There were some shorts but none that were particularly short. Every skirt and pair of shorts ended below where her middle finger would reach if she stood with her arm flat against her side. There were also t-shirts, blouses, and a wide variety of tops, as well as underwear and shoes. None of it was especially skanty or especially insulting. It was all the kind of clothing that an ordinary, work-a-day woman would likely wear in the modern world.

Theodora grabbed the first dress she saw and hugged it like it was something precious with a sob of relief. Clothes! She was going to wear clothes, it seemed like months since she had last done so although it had only really been a day. She checked that the dress was her size, and grabbed appropriate sized underwear and shoes as well, before getting dressed, both profoundly happy that she had clothes to wear, and desperately miserable about her situation at the same time.

She made her way back over to the bench and examined the make-up, but didn't put any on. She had never had to put on her own make-up before anyway, and would only make a mess of it. Not that she wanted to put any on. She picked up a brush and brushed at her hair a little, to get some knots out, but as she looked at herself doing it in the mirror, she bit her lip and furrowed her brow in distressed anger. She dropped the brush immediately, and then turned to the door, waiting for the man's return with a mixture of terror and rage on her face.

The man walked back in. "Care to be polite now, petite?"

"Do you care to be polite, monsieur?" she replied, reaching one hand out to the bench as if for emotional support.

"I don't have to be. I'm not the one trying to get someone else not to kill me."

Theodora stifled a frightened gasp, although she couldn't disguise he expression as she looked away from him, unable to meet his gaze.

"Do you care to be polite now, Miss Capet?"

"That's not my name!" Theodora exclaimed tearfully. "I'm not going to be some heretic housewife for one of your thugs! I'm not! I'm not!"

"Heretic? At least I don't put the weight of my Church behind pagan fags."

"If..." she sniffled. "If you're polite to me, I'll be polite to you, sir."

"Very well, Miss Capet. Don't you want an introduction?"

"That isn't my name, please stop calling me that." she said, once again unable to meet his gaze.

"What is your family name?"

"I don't have one." she said. She intended to sound defiant, but really she just sounded scared rather than proud. "My house is Bourbon, or Bourbon-Comnenus-Palaeologus to differentiate my branch. Capet is just an appellation with no real meaning, and I'm not Miss Capet!"

"I have a question, Theodora."

"Commoners don't call me Theodora, either." she insisted.

"Normally, I don't suppose they throttle you naked in freezing water either. So I have a question, Theodora."

Theodora gasped and struggled to hold back tears. Her head hung low, she waited to hear his question, her eyes on the bathroom floor.

"Would you rather be called Miss Capet or tortured more?"

At this she dropped to her knees, collapsing in a heap, and sobbed miserably. She looked up at him again, her pretty face tear streaked and her eyes red.

"I'm not going through with it, I can't!" she sputtered. "I'm not marrying your thug! I won't!"

He helped her to her feet, rather gently. "Right now, we're just going to breakfast and you don't have to go through anything worse than being called a name you don't like."

"No! I can see where it leads!" she screeched. "I'm not letting you turn me into what you want me to be! I want to go home to my family! Please, I didn't do anything, I just want to go home!"

"Those aren't your choices. The choices are breakfast or torture."

Theodora was by now, very hungry, and had regretted not accepting food the day before. She sobbed and nodded her acquiescence.

He offered her his arm. "Miss Capet, I am Commodore Calvin Chapman. I would be honored to walk you to breakfast." He smiled charmingly.

She looked at him through the tears with an expression of terrified contempt.

"Commodore, you must have me mistaken with someone else. I am Princess Theodora..." she began in a desperate, insistent and yet frightened voice. "Princess Theodora Porphyrogenita, daughter of the Emperor of Pantocratoria."

"Just for that, no hands."

"No hands?" she asked, terrified for a moment that he was going to do something to her hands.

"You can't use them to eat, Theodora."

Fresh tears of humiliation ran down her face and she looked away from his gaze again, holding out her trembling arm. He took her arm, smiling charmingly and walking just as any proper gentlemen escorting a well-bred young lady would do. Theodora walked sullenly, but was so hungry that she didn't cause him any trouble. She just wanted to be allowed to eat something. They arrived at a small table for two. Calvin pulled out Theodora's chair before sitting down. Theodora sat down and waited to be served. After a few silent moments, she looked across the table at him.

"Please sir, may I use my hands to eat?" she asked.

"Yes." he smiled.

She closed her eyes for a moment, relieved that she would be spared at least that embarrassment. When she opened them again she kept them pointed at the table, waiting.

A Turkish woman walked into the room. She was very pretty and dressed like a rather wealthy society woman, in a black sequine gown, matching opera gloves. The gown had an open back and, when Theodora caught a glimpse, she could see that the woman's back was streaked with whip lashes. The woman left a trail of blood as she walked though Theodora could not see where she was bleeding. She wore a locked, iron collar around her neck.

"May I take your order, sir, ma'am?" she asked.

Calvin shook his head. "Not until you say it right, Fatimah."

The woman looked down, a tear rolling over her beautiful, dark cheek. "Master, mistress?"

Theodora's eyes went wide with alarm at the sight of the woman's collar, injuries, and the trail of blood.

"She's bleeding!" she said.

Calvin grinned. "You like? I didn't want to make your stay here totally uncomfortable, especially seeing as I know it's a big adjustment."

"What are you talking about?" Theodora turned to him.

"I thought Pantocratorians hated Turks. Fatimah was a present for you."

Calvin looked honestly confused.

"I hate you a thousand times more than any Pantocratorian hates the Turks!" she spat.

"Oh! I get it!" He smiled. "You can beat her yourself if you like." He gestured to Fatimah.

"Sir, if you give me a stick, or a whip..." Theodora sobbed angrily. "...then you'll have to punish me again shortly thereafter, because God help me, I would thrash you as best as I could."

"But I'm an Israelite. Thrashings are for Turks and Frenchwomen."

"I don't care what you are." Theodora sulked, collapsing into her chair. "May I order yet, sir?"

Calvin smiled again. "Fatimah, where are you from?"

"Istanbul, master."

Calvin sat back in his chair. "And it doesn't piss you off to hear that, Miss Capet?"

Theodora leapt to her feet, knocking her chair over behind her as she did so. She slammed her palms onto the tabletop and screamed an outburst of pent up hatred for the man who had cruelly tortured her.

"My name is Theodora Irene Marie Antoinette Porphyrogenita! My father is the Emperor of Pantocratoria, and I am a princess! I am not Miss Capet!" she bawled.

Calvin shrugged. "Why are you yelling at me, Miss Capet? I didn't sack Constantinople. She did." He gestured to Fatimah again.

"You promised me breakfast." she said to him.

"Aren't you going to correct Fatimah about the name of the city? She's your present."

"If you had a brain in your head, or any sense to you at all, you'd know that the word Istanbul is derived from a Greek term for Constantinople." she scowled at him. In a second her resolve started to melt and she started sobbing again. "Please... I just want to eat..."

Fatimah leaned over the table, between Theodora and Calvin. "What would you like, master, mistress?"

"Anything!" Theodora sobbed, struggling to pull her chair back up from the floor and sitting down again.

Calvin belted Fatimah in the face, knocking her flat on her back. "Don't interfere in the affairs of your betters!"

"She's a scared child, for God's sake!" Fatimah protested.

"Oh God..." Theodora moaned, terrified.

Calvin jumped to his feet and kicked the Turkish woman hard in the ribs. Theodora could hear bone breaking. "You have no right to talk like that to white people! Christian people!"

"She has more ri..." Theodora started, but stopped herself, scared of what might happen if the vicious man returned his attention to her.

Fatimah crawled out of the room, moaning in pain as she went. Calvin sat back down with a light shrug. "I'm sorry, Miss Capet. It might take it longer to make breakfast now."

"That isn't my name." she protested again quietly, leaning her head on the table. She was so exhausted.

"You're not even a good Catholic."

Theodora just sobbed quietly and waited for her food. She wasn't going to argue with him, and there was no sense in replying anyway. After about twenty minutes, Fatimah limped in with the food, sobbing uncontrollably. She could barely walk, though it was clear she was making herself walk with a shattered ribcage out of fear. She set a breakfast of biscuits with gravy and orange juice before both of them. Theodora looked longingly at the food, although it didn't look very appetising. She glanced up at her torturer as if waiting for some sign of permission.

"Eat." He began to eat his eagerly. Almost casually, he knocked Fatimah to the ground and rested his feet on her like a footstool.

Theodora served herself eagerly, and began eating her food with her knife and fork in as dignified a fashion as she could manage, being so very hungry. After a little while, she slowed down, and started to feel guilty about Fatimah, even though she didn't do anything to her.

Calvin ate contentedly, occassionally kicking Fatimah in her shattered ribs. "Do you like the cooking?"

"Why are you doing this?" Theodora asked so quietly it was almost a whisper.

"Doing what. I'm letting you use your hands, aren't I?"

"Torturing me. Torturing her. How many others do you have here?" Theodora asked.

"Two whores. Two natural slaves. A couple of creatures. Why?"

Theodora shook her head as her only reply.

"You do know why she's being tortured, don't you?"

"I don't know why I'm being tortured, how would I know your reasons for tormenting your other victims?" she replied

"It's for that little outburst she made about how I was treating you."

"Nobody talks for me but His Majesty and me." Theodora replied. "She wasn't really talking for me, there's no reason for you to hurt her."

"I didn't say she represented you. I just said she was trying to get me to stop disciplining you."

Theodora sat silent for a moment, before finishing the last of her breakfast. Calvin gave Fatimah another savage kick before standing and offering Theodora a hand up. "Do you want to meet the others?"

"No." she replied, not taking his hand.

"Why not?"

"I don't need to give you a reason."

"They've all asked to meet you."

"I don't care!" Theodora shrieked. "I'm not going through with it! I'm not!"

"I meant the other prisoners, not your fiance."

"Oh God!" Theodora sobbed. "I don't want to meet them, I don't want to do anything here, I want to go home! I just want to go home!"

"It's up to you. But they've been asking for you. Even Fatimah here."

"I don't want to watch you beat them you... sick..." Theodora trailed off into sobs.

"No, no. I'd leave you alone with them. No beatings."

"I don't want to meet them, I don't want to meet your henchmen, and I didn't want to meet you! I... want... to... go... HOME!"

"Well, you can't. You can meet your fellow prisoners, get locked up alone, spend time with me, or meet the henchmen as you call them. Your choice."

Theodora contemplated her options as she cried quietly for a moment. She had to show him that she wouldn't let him do what he planned to do with her, that she would resist. Finally she opened her mouth to speak.

"I command you to release me." she said in what was supposed to sound like an authoritative tone but which came out as a terrified squeak.

"Four choices."

"Who are you to give me choices?" she started, but ended in a frightened whisper.

"A man who could kill you on a whim and have put it behind him as a minor detail of life by tomorrow."

She sobbed and shook her head, but stubbornly refused to make a choice. Calvin hit her right in the eye, hard enough to knock her down. Theodora collapsed in a sobbing, screaming pile, and curled into a little ball on the floor. Calvin reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun, and levelled it at Theodora, cocking the trigger. "Oh, well..."

Theodora screamed, wrapping her trembling arms around her head, and closed her eyes tight, expecting him to shoot her at any moment. Suddenly, she heard him scream in pain and then a gunshot. She was still there and unharmed. It took her nearly a minute to open her eyes and look around to see what had happened. Calvin was limping away, blood leaking down his pants' leg. Fatimah lay in a pool of blood, a bullet in her upper back. She barely seemed to be breathing. Theodora sat up trembling, her eyes darting in terror between Fatimah and her tormentor, her mouth forming silent, nonsensical words. Calvin walked out the door, slamming it behind him.

"Can you hear me?" Theodora asked as she quickly scampered across the floor to Fatimah's side. Fatimah emitted a low, whimpering moan.

"Oh God..." Theodora sobbed. She reached a trembling hand around Fatimah's so that she knew she was there.

Fatimah squeezed Theodora's hand tightly, managing finally to say something. "I...I can't feel below where the wound is."

"It's my fault..." she murmured, realising what must have happened. "It's my fault he shot you."

"Are you alright, Your Highness?"

Theodora sobbed and nodded her head, squeezing Fatimah's hand tightly. Fatimah closed her eyes, falling silent. Theodora watched her in silent horror, and kept squeezing her hand. The hand didn't go cold.

"Please don't die..." Theodora begged quietly.

After some time had passed, a man Theodora had never met before came in. He spit on Fatimah's prone body. "Animal food."

Theodora look up at the man in horrow. "She's not dead!" she protested.

"I know. When she dies in an hour or so, we'll feed her to the animals." He grabbed Theodora by her hair and started to drag her from the room.

"Oh God..." Theodora screamed as he dragged her out of the room. "She didn't do anything! You have to help her..."

"What would your daddy say if he knew you were a Turk-lover?"

"I'm not a Turk lover!" Theodora protested. "Please, she's dying! You have to help her! You can't feed her to animals..."

"If you're not a Turk lover, why do you care if she dies?"

"Because it's my fault!" Theodora sobbed as he pulled her through the doorway by her hair.

He dragged her down the hallway. "So. It's barely a person. It's a Turk."

"You're mad, just like the other one." Theodora blubbered. "Where are you taking me?"

"I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife. I will discipline and love you as your lord and master in good times and ill until death do us part. You shall render onto me your utter subjection and obedience."

Theodora eyes went wide - this was the man then. It was about to happen. Or had it already happened? She stopped allowing him to drag her along the floor by her hair, scampering up to her feet. She pulled away from his as hard as she could, swinging her arms and legs into his torso to try make him let go of her hair to defend himself.

"No!" she shouted at him. "I won't let you!"

He quite simply resisted her attempt to squirm free with greater muscular strength, dragging her along by her hair in spite of all resistance. She punched and kicked at his torso desperately to make him let go. When that didn't work, she scratched and clawed at his arm, and kicked him as hard as she could in the groin. When she kept flailing, he pushed her to the ground and fell on top of her, grappling her arms. He pulled back, striking her and knocking her hard across the face. She would've fallen over if he wasn't still holding onto her hair.

"This isn't a marriage!" she screamed.

He slammed her head into the wall, dragging her through the door to their bedroom. She tripped over herself and staggered as he pulled her after him, groggy from the blow to her head.

"I thought you people were religious!" she sobbed. "Marriages happen in a church, with a priest or a minister or whatever you call them here!"

He began to pull at her dress.

"No!" Theodora shrieked, summoning the last of her strength to swing her arms wildly into his face. "I'm not your wife! I'm a princess, and you can't do this! We're not married! This is rape!"

***

The man rolled over and dozed right off. When she heard him snore, Theodora stifled her sobs, and cautiously got off the bed. She reached for her clothes, but they were in useless tatters, which elicited fresh sobs from her. She put her hands over her mouth to silence herself, and glanced back to the man to see if he had woken up. He dozed contentedly, seemingly untroubled in spirit. Theodora stepped lightly over towards the door, stopping at the slightest noise, afraid that she had woken the man up again. When she got to the door, she reached to the knob and turned it as quietly as she could. He didn't wake up.

She left the room, closing the door as quietly as possible behind her, then she looked around and tried to work out where to go.

"How was your first night of married bliss, Mrs. Bentham?"

She turned in terror to the source of the voice. Calvin was standing there.

"He raped me!" Theodora sobbed, her face twisted in grief and anger.

Calvin took her by the arm, walking her down a hall.

"He's not my husband, I am not that name you called me!" she insisted. "We were never married!"

He walked her into a room where Fatimah was lying on a bed. An overweight blond woman was lying next to her and a young woman of African extraction sat in the corner, loosely shackled. An Elf and a Boggan were kept in tiny cages.

"We're not married, do you hear me you son of a bitch?" Theodora screamed to Calvin, who shut the door, leaving her in there. Theodora dropped to her knees in frustration, facing the door. Then she folded her arms self-consciously over her breasts and turned to the women by the bed.

"Is Fatimah still alive?" she asked.

The blond woman nodded. "She is. They're going to try and force Amy and Tinle to eat her if she passes away."

"Amy and Tinle?" Theodora asked.

The blond gestured to the Elf and the Boggan.

"Oh God!" Theodora cried. She turned back to the door and desperately turned and shook the knob. "Let me out!"

The others just watched her sympathetically. She kept beating on the door desperately for a few minutes, until she finally gave up on being let out, when she turned back to the others, tears in her eyes.

"Are there any clothes in here?" she asked.

The women each managed to spare a few articles from their own persons, with the end result that everyone was decent but no one is exactly nicely dressed. Theodora apologetically but gratefully accepted every article, getting dressed again.

Tinle sighed, leaning on her bars. "Now comes the waiting."

Theodora paced the room nervously, thoughts and emotions rushing through her head. She couldn't bear the thought of what was going to happen, and was desperate to get out of the room. Then again, she knew what awaited her on the other side of the door was probably just as awful. Either option was a no-win situation - and it wasn't like she had a say in the matter anyway. The others watched her quietly, staying still and waiting as though for her to speak. Theodora looked sullenly at Fatimah every so often, a mixture of guilt and fear overwhelming her. She couldn't bear the thought of having to watch her die and then be fed to the women in the cages, it was like something out of the very worst horror films.

Amy peeked at her through the bars. "Are you really a princess?"

"Yes, really." Theodora said as she turned to Amy. While she was a princess she was still Theodora, still part of her own family, still somebody with a home outside of this place. She knew she had to hold onto every link to her life she could.

Amy smiled hopefully. "That means they'll send someone to rescue you, right, Your Highness?"

"If they know where I am..." Theodora started. She managed a weak smile - there was that glimmer of hope, however distant.

"You're Pantocratorian, right?" Amy asked.

"Yes." Theodora said. "My father is the Emperor of Pantocratoria."

"Is it alright for us to talk to you like this, then? I heard that there were rules about nobles talking with commoners."

"There are no rules in this place." Theodora said, fresh tears running down her cheeks.

Amy frowned a little. "I'm just trying not to disrespect you." She watched the girl with deep concern.

"You're not!" Theodora said, reassuringly. "God, you're not... you don't know how much I appreciate..."

She was cut off by tears. Amy couldn't know how much Theodora needed to hear other people in this awful place affirm that she wasn't what Calvin wanted her to be. The Boggan smiled weakly and gestured the young royal over. Theodora made her way over towards Amy's cage, glancing back at Fatimah on the way. Amy reached through the bars and tried to hug her. Theodora initially pulled away a little as if frightened, but then gratefully hugged Amy back as best as she could. She was so strained, so stressed that she was beginning to react nervously to everything.

"It'll be alright."

"No..." Theodora sobbed. "It won't...."

Amy sighed a little and just hugged her closer. After a few moments, Theodora turned over to the woman next to Fatimah.

"Is she..." she asked.

The overweight blond woman looked up, shaking her head. "Not yet."

"Is there any chance that..."

"That what, Your Highness?"

"That... she won't?" Theodora asked.

The blond replied, a little snappishly but she could be forgiven in the circumstances "I'm not a doctor."

"He shot her..." Theodora whimpered. "He shot her because she was trying to stop him from shooting me..."

Amy scowled. "They can't make me do what...they said they would if she passes."

Theodora blubbered for a little longer, then calmed down a little again. The waiting, expecting something horrible to happen, was awful.

Time passed in silence. After a few hours, the blond asked "Which one of the bastards did they give you to?"

The question elicited an instant cry of agony and restarted Theodora's sobbing.

"They didn't... give me..." Theodora stammered through the tears. "They... he just... took me... I don't know his name...."

She struggled to remember what she had been called when she snuck out of the room, but in truth she didn't remember. She didn't even remember Calvin's name, just that he was a commodore.

"The Commodore took me."

"I hate him..." Theodora hissed. "I hate them both... it isn't... a marriage... it isn't!"

The young black woman shook her head. "No one here thinks it is, Your Highness. We'd all like to kill these people."

"I want to go home..." Theodora sobbed.

Amy strained through the bars, trying unsucessfully to comfort Theodora as the distance was too great. As her sobs petered out, Theodora lay down on the floor and drifted into a fitful sleep. She was exhausted both physically and emotionally, and had lost all track of time.

Theodora woke up back in her "husband"'s bed, bound hand and foot. She was still in the pieced together outfit she had been wearing in the room with the others. As soon as she was aware that she was out of the room, she was alarmed. She looked about the place desperately, and recognised it as the room she had been raped it. She turned with dread to see if anybody was in the bed next to her.

John lay there comfortably, reading a magazine. After a second, he put it away and turned on the television. "Anything you'd like to watch, honey dumpling?"

Theodora's only reply was a terrified, blood curdling scream, and she tried to squirm away from him as best as she could manage in her bounds. He laughed a little, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead before beginning to flip the channels.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed at him.

"Dear, I'm trying to listen to the TV."

"Don't call me dear!" she sobbed, squirming off the bed altogether.

"Are you alright, sweetheart?" he called, as he reached down to drag her back into bed. "You seem upset about something."

"Don't touch me!" she howled again. "Don't call me sweetheart! We're not married! Let me go!"

"Does this have something to do with that sand n***** getting shot?"

"It has to do with you raping me and going on with this... sick charade!" Theodora said, her face covered with tears of anger. "We're not married! We were never married!"

"I thought it'd be nice to let you make other women friends but I see they've put ideas in your head."

"I hate you!" she scowled. "I'm not your wife! Let me go!"

He gagged her casually, continuing to flip channels. Theodora raged a little longer behind her gag, before giving in to the urge to sob uncontrollably. She wept piteously into the thing as she kept on trying to squirm away from him and off the bed to the door. He turned the television on to stock car racing and watched contentedly. Once again Theodora pulled herself off the bed and fell to the floor, and continued trying to wriggle her way over to the door.

"Honey, while you're up, could you get me a beer?"

The request elicited an indignant whine into her gag, and fresh sobs. He sat back, still watching the game. She reached the door, and gazed up at the knob, a forlorn expression on her face. She took a deep breath through her nose, and then struggled to get up to her feet, a process which was extremely difficult, tied up as she was. She got up to her knees and reached her hands, still tied together, to the knob, which she turned urgently. The door opened easily enough. Theodora knew that he wouldn't let her go, but nevertheless she sighed with relief when the door opened. She then dropped back down onto her hands and knees, and made her way along the floor, out of the door into the hall beyond.

As she moved through the hall, she grew exhausted and uncomfortable from travel by squirming, a difficult proposition in the best of times. Many men in uniform walked past her, seeming to ignore her. She moaned into her gag. It was so hard to keep going, knowing that ultimately it wouldn't lead to freedom. She decided that she'd take a few moments to rest, just a few moments, and lay down against the wall in the hallway to catch her breath. The men continued to ignore her.

After a few minutes, the adrenaline had passed, and Theodora couldn't force her exhausted, tortured body to move any further forward. She sobbed again as she realised that her body had betrayed her, and that her bonds had defeated her. A passing man casually hoisted her up and tossed her over his shoulder. She whined pathetically into her gag, but knew there was no point in resisting - besides, she wouldn't be able to anyway.

He carried her back to John's room and tossed her on the bed. "Lose someone, Johnny?"

"She was supposed to be getting a beer."

The man shrugged and walked out. Exhausted, Theodora decided that she'd have to settle for just getting off the bed, so she started to wriggle toward the edge of the bed again.

He tugged her back on to the bed. "You're in trouble, sweetie."

She groaned into her gag, more at the thought of this brute calling her sweetie than in the promise that she was in trouble, which she had taken for granted.

"I asked for a beer." He ungagged her.

Theodora didn't say anything, she just waited to see what he planned to do next. He punched her hard in the gut. Her eyes went wide and the air was expelled from her lungs. It took her a few painful, silent seconds before she was able to draw breath again, following which she emitted a frightened sob. He simply fell on her brutally, beating and clawing and kicking in crude, simple brutality, leaving her body bruised and sore all over. She begged and pleaded with him desperately to stop throughout the beating, between shrieks of pain and pitiful sobs.

"What will you do next time I ask for a beer?"

"I'll get you a beer! I swear!" Theodora wept.

"Good. Now what would you like to watch?" he smiled happily.

"Nothing." Theodora sobbed quietly.

He turned the television off. "Alright. We can make love instead. I wouldn't want to keep my wife unsatisfied, even though I did use one of the beasts while you were asleep."

"No!" Theodora screamed, coming out of barely aware daze she had fallen into during the beating. "No! I'm not your wife!"

"So what do you want to watch?"

"Anything!" she pleaded.

"Theo..."

"Don't call me Theo!" she whimpered quietly.

He ran a finger over her soft, delicate mouth, rising up over her with a smile as one hand grasped her dark hair firmly.

"Don't touch me like that!" she begged. "It's worse than hitting me!"

He smiled, tightening his grip. About ten minutes later, he left satisfied, heading for the mess. Sobbing uncontrollably, her face twisted in a look of disgust, Theodora forced her aching body to move, and rolled off the bed onto the floor. She dragged herself across the floor to the bathroom and tried to pull herself up high enough to use the sink. Grunting in determination between sobs, she pulled herself up to the sink, turned on the tap, and washed her face and mouth over and over again, until she had breathed in so much water by accident that she was coughing it up and spluttering everywhere.

***

He returned to the room after some time. "Honey, I'm home."

"Don't call me honey!" she sobbed. She had made it out of the bathroom, back onto the floor, but had stopped there. "We're not married!"

"If we're not married, that sure makes you a whore."

"It makes you a rapist!" Theodora cried.

"According to the Bible, that makes me your husband. Unless you hate God. Do you hate God, Theo?"

"Don't call me Theo! Theo means God in Greek!" she hissed. "I'm a princess! Call me Your Highness!"

"Do you hate God?" he asked as he slugged her in the face again.

"I hate you!" she screamed, raising her arms up around her head as a feeble defence against further blows. "I hate you! I hate you! And if you were so religious, you'd know that we aren't married because we never had a wedding in a church!"

"Pfft. Papist non-sense. Nothing in the Bible about shit like that."

"Wha?" Theodora sobbed in alarm. "But, but protestants have churches and ministers and things too! My sister said..."

"Your sister is a stupid whore."

"No she isn't!" Theodora protested defensively. "I'm the whore, Anna's..."

Theodora stopped and wondered what she had just said. Was she a whore? No, but it was better than being his wife.

"You're both whores."

"And you're a rapist!" she screamed. "Rapist! And I'm not your wife!"

"Get ready for dinner."

"You have me tied up and held prisoner in your bedroom, I can't even get to my feet, how the fuck am I supposed to get ready for dinner?" Theodora shouted in a rage, before fainting.

When she woke up, she was back in the room with the other girl's. The blond was no longer there and she was now manacled like the black girl.

"Wha.. what happened?" Theodora began. "I was in the room with my h..."

She stopped in horror at what she was about to say. He wasn't her husband!

Amy shook her head. "You're being punished. Come here."

Theodora crawled over to Amy, able to reach her despite her manacles. Amy offered a plump hand. Theodora reached out one of her manacled, trembling hands, and took it.

The Boggan squeezed tight, not letting go. "You can talk about it if you want."

"He raped me again!" Theodora sobbed. "Beat me up... made me... I can't!"

She couldn't describe what had happened to her, it was too humiliating and painful to recall.

"You can make it through this. You're strong. You're a princess. The blood of emperors runs through your veins, of warriors."

"I'm weak..." Theodora blubbered. "I should be strong, I try to be... but I'm weak... it would be so... easy... to just..."

"But you haven't, have you?"

She shook her head. "No... not yet... but... I almost..."

Amy just squeezed tighter.

"You said... I'm being punished?"

"You're being shown how good they think you have it by being treated like Clair." Amy looked to the other manacled girl.

Theodora looked over at Clair, and then back to Amy.

"What's so bad about being treated like Clair, asides from the manacles?"

Amy just sighed, looking down.

"Tell me!" Theodora pleaded. "Please, I can't take not knowing!"

"You'll be made to do hard labour soon."

"That's better than being... raped by that pig." Theodora said.

"And...you'll be available to all of them at will."

"Wh.. what?" Theodora asked, trembling afresh. "What does that mean?"

"It means all the soldiers will do what he did to you."

Theodora started shaking her head and pulling away from Amy, before emitting a long, agonised whine.

"No!" she said. "No, they can't!"

Amy shed a tear. "You wanted to know."

"I can't do it!" Theodora gasped, beginning to hyperventilate. "I can't do it! I can't! I can't!"

"Your Highness...Theodora...please...calm down."

Theodora dropped to her knees in a blubbering heap. Amy reached out to her again but Theodora didn't move towards her this time, she just sat there in her rags and manacles, sobbing fitfully and repeating the words "I can't!" over and over again. There was silence in the room.

Soon thereafter, a couple men came, grabbing Clair and Theodora by the arms. "Let's go."

"Please let me go! I can't do it! Please, let me go!" Theodora wailed all the way. The man slammed her face into a wall and the wailing stopped, to be replaced by desperate, frantic sobbing.

The men walked them both to a bathroom floor. "Scrub it." They put brushes in the girls' hands but gave them no gloves or other sanitary equipment. Theodora took the brush in her manacled hands and nodded obediently, still blubbering nearly hysterically. The man slapped her and stepped back, watching them work. Theodora watched Clair carefully through her tear-filled eyes, having no real idea what to do now. She copied what Clair did, lowering herself to the floor as gently as she could, and starting to scrub. Clair worked diligently. Throughout the course of the day, Theodora was made to peel potatoes, pull weeds, pick cigarette butts off the ground, plunge the toilets, and similar tasks. It was the first day of real work Theodora had done in her life and within just a few minutes of starting work, Theodora's pummeled body began to ache from the strain. It wasn't the tasks themselves - it was the fact that she had been beaten up so much that even the simplest tasks became an ordeal in and of themselves. But she forced herself to do it, as if by working as hard as she could, and following every instruction, she could avoid what she feared would happen next. And so Princess Theodora, daughter of Emperor Andreus of Pantocratoria, great great great great great great great great great granddaughter of the Sun King, peeled potatoes, picked up rubbish, and unblocked toilets, with a desperate, almost manic enthusiasm.

As she was cleaning the toilet, a man came up behind her, placing a hand on her posterior. Theodora emitted a whimper of despair, and hung her head low.

"Please... I've.. I have to finish this..." she pleaded. "I've worked so hard... please, I've learned my lesson."

"How clean is the toilet, girl?"

Theodora squinted at the toilet through tears. She was almost done cleaning it.

"Almost done sir." she replied.

The man bent down and dropped an apple in the toilet. "Eat it."

"But..." she blubbered.

He grabbed her by her hair and shoved her head in, making her bob for the apple. Although at first she kept her mouth and eyes closed in revulsion, Theodora knew from experience that these people didn't seem to have any problems with the thought of drowning her, and so she soon stopped resisting and instead try to grab the apple as quickly as possible.

The man let her up when she had the apple in her mouth. "Eat it, n*****."

Theodora was taken aback by what the man called her, but followed his order straight away. She was as disgusted by her own eagerness to follow it as she was by the fact that she had just fished the apple out of the toilet - but she desperately wanted to avoid punishment, and besides, she hadn't eaten since Fatimah had cooked breakfast for her and Calvin, which seemed to Theodora to be a week ago. The man smiled, kneeling down next to Theodora, leaning into her. She trembled as she felt the man behind her, but finished her apple.

"Thank you for the apple, sir." she whimpered quietly.

He pressed his body against hers from behind, kissing her neck. It wasn't so much that she knew better than to resist, but that her body was so tired and so sore, that she couldn't possibly resist, that even thinking about resisting made her ache. So instead, she went almost limp, leaning back into him, moving her head slightly to the side so that her neck was more open for his attentions. Her quiet sobs were the closest thing to resistance she had left in her.

***

After that, there was still much more work for her. She had to clean the gutters and wash the dishes. Theodora forced herself to do the work, although her body desperately needed to rest. Even while she was only washing the dishes, beads of sweat formed on her brow just from the effort she needed to maintain. When she cleaned the gutters, her body started giving out on her altogether, and she started collapsing, fainting briefly here and there. She trembled with fear at the thought of what might happen to her if her work was unsatisfactory.

Calvin walked up to Theodora with a smile while she cleaned. "Ready for dinner?"

She turned towards his voice, not recognising it at first she was so tired, but Calvin could see she recognise his appearance, because her eyes went wide with terror and she almost fell over backwards. She nodded cautiously to him.

"I'm just going to feed you and Clair." He beckoned the two girls to him.

Theodora shuffled over to him in her manacles, which by now felt to her like they were attached to concrete blocks. Calvin escorted her and Clair to a small room where they were allowed to sit at a dirty table and eat a rather unappetizing mash, though they were allowed silver wear and glasses of clean water. Theodora was too tired and hungry to care what her food looked like. She ate it all as quickly as she could make her aching arms move. Then she sat in silence, hoping that the day was over.

Calvin returned after the meal. "Hey, honeycakes?"

Theodora looked up at him, her eyes tired and dry. She had cried herself out by now. She made a noise of acknowledgment which might have been intended as a word, but it was hard to tell.

"The Master wants to see you."

"But I thought you..." Theodora started, confused. She had thought Calvin was in control. She tried to stand to go with him, but obviously had a great deal of difficulty doing so. She collapsed back into her seat and let loose a sob, although there were no tears since she had cried herself dry. "Please sir, I can't get up."

He picked her up, tossing him over her shoulder.

"Thank you sir." she managed to mumble quietly as he carried her.

He dropped her on the inside of a dark room, through double doors. The only light was the shining of Sebben, smirking at her. Her eyes took a little while to focus on him. She wondered why he glowed like that, until she realised that she had met somebody not so long ago who glowed the same way. Eleanor of Wintermore. The Master, as Calvin had called him, was a sidhe.

He had lost the ridiculous angel disguise. "Hello, slut."

"You're the Master?" Theodora asked.

"I am."

She got on her badly bruised, aching knees, put her hands together in a pleading position, and begged.

"Please! Let me go home!"

"Why should I?"

"Because..." Theodora started, distraught. "I want to go home so much, please!"

"And I care, why?"

"Please..." Theodora continued. "I just want to be with my family, I'm sure the Emperor would give you anything you wanted... I just want to go home!"

"Anything?"

"Yes! He'd have to! He'd have to!" Theodora cried desperately, although no tears could roll down her cheeks. "Just let me go home, I want to go home!"

"I wonder how he would...from beyond the grave..."

"What do you mean?" Theodora asked.

"I mean your father died earlier this morning."

"What?" Theodora despaired. "No, he can't have, he's healthy, he's only in his fifties!"

"A proper explosion will kill a healthy man."

Some agonised sobs escaped her lips, and finally tears started to flow again.

"My brother then..." she whispered through the tears.

"I already asked him for a ransom."

"So you'll let me go then?" Theodora asked hopefully, the tears for her father still rolling down her cheeks.

"No. I asked him for a ransom. He said no."

"What?" Theodora shrieked. "No, André would pay! He wouldn't leave me here! He wouldn't! Did you tell him what happens to me here? If you told him he'd pay, he wouldn't leave me here, he couldn't!"

"I think you know André better than to expect him to be the dutiful, self-sacrificing brother."

"No, you're wrong about him!" Theodora protested. "He just likes a good time. Deep down he's really not a bad person, he loves me, I'm his sister. Please, tell him what you've done to me, tell him what happens here, he'll pay anything!"

"I did. He said no."

"No..." Theodora repeated as she sank down onto her heels. She thought about it for a while as she sobbed. She couldn't believe her brother would refuse to pay. There was only one possible explanation. "You're lying."

"You can believe that if it makes you feel better. Your brother still isn't paying. Consequently, you're still not leaving."

"My father's alive, isn't he?" Theodora asked now. Sebben had over-stretched his deception - Theodora knew her brother and for all his faults he would never leave her in this hell. "That was a lie too, wasn't it?"

"None of it was a lie. You just don't know what I asked for." He exerted a rather overpowering aura, far more than what Marian had possessed.

"You didn't ask for anything did you? They didn't pay because you didn't ask for a ransom." Theodora said. Then it dawned on her that her situation was even worse - he wasn't interested in ransoms, she was still here because he wanted her to be here, and she'd remain here until he was done with her. She started sobbing uncontrollably again.

"I asked for his mistress, his mistress for his sister. He said no."

"His mistress..." Theodora repeated to herself. Maybe he was telling the truth after all? She sat trying to distill fact from fiction, but failed. She groaned in confusion and fell forward onto her hands, so that she was on her hands and knees. As she fell to her hands and knees, gunfire was heard in the distance. She snapped back upright.

"What was that?" she asked.

"That wasn't one of your men shooting another girl was it?" Theodora asked.

"No. I keep it to one murder a day now. I'm trying to cut back."

"Has it only been one day?" Theodora asked, more to herself than to Sebben.

"Two."

"But you..." Theodora mumbled. Then she gasped, before continuing, her voice full of fear. "Are you going to murder me today?"

Sebben casually flicked his wrist, causing Theodora's stomach to twist painfully inside her body. Theodora gurgled in agony and collapsed to the floor on her side. She thought that they must have poisoned the mush she ate for dinner.

"I SHOULD murder you, certainly."

"Please..." Theodora gurgled, her voice dripping with fear although the twisting had already stopped. "Please, if you have an antidote... please give it me..."

"An antidote to what?"

"The poison... didn't you poison me?" Theodora asked. "My insides felt like they were being ripped apart... please, I don't want to die!"

"Oh. I can do that." He casually made her heart jerk around a little.

Theodora let loose a blood curdling scream which was cut short by the muscles in her neck distorting. The pain was incredible. When Sebben stopped, she collapsed, a sobbing, trembling, bruised, battered and entirely pathetic figure.

Sebben laughed a little, walking over to scritch her behind the ears.

"Please..." she pleaded. "Please give me the antidote!"

"You weren't poisoned."

"Then..." Theodora blubbered. She tried to remember Eleanor's visit to New Rome. It seemed like a lifetime ago. "Magic?"

"Magic."

"Please don't hurt me anymore." Theodora begged. "I hurt all over already."

Sebben just scritched her a little. "You deserve to die, you know?"

"Why?" Theodora asked in anguish. "Why do I deserve any of this?"

"Because you're a disgusting, monstrous little slut of a girl."

"No!" Theodora protested through tears. "I'm not, I'm really not. It was just one time, one time and I told my confessor the next day, and did penance for a whole year. Wasn't that enough? I don't deserve this! Nobody deserves this!"

"You liked it though, didn't you? You really liked that one time?"

"No, I didn't." Theodora shook her head. "I swear!"

"You didn't?"

"No!" Theodora said. "Please, I didn't, I know I'm not a good person, but I don't deserve this!"

"But you're lying to me now."

"No, I'm not! I swear I'm not! I wouldn't dare!" she whimpered desperately.

"So you don't like sex?"

"The only time I've had sex of my own free will I was fifteen years old and it was in the back seat of a car and lasted a few minutes." Theodora blubbered, blushing as she bared her soul to her captor. "And then the other times..."

"You were treated like the filthy little c*** you are!" Sebben laughed out loud.

Theodora sobbed. After the past few days, she felt like a whore, and to be laughed at for being one only affirmed the feeling and degraded her further. Deep down, she knew that it wasn't her fault, that Sebben was to blame for it, but she was in too much pain and too afraid for those thoughts to be allowed to surface. Sebben shrugged and walked back over to his desk, beginning to do paper work.

"What are you going to do with me?" Theodora finally managed to ask.

He ignored her, filling out forms instead. It was more important, it seemed.

"Please, tell me!" she pleaded. "You're not going to give me back to my hu..."

She stopped herself from finished the word once again, a horrified look of disgust on her face.

"Yes, your husband, as YOU call him."

"No!" Theodora said desperately. "He's not my husband, we're not married, it's not a marriage!"

"You said it."

"No, I didn't!" Theodora insisted.

"You were going to."

Theodora's lip trembled and she burst into fresh tears. She nodded, a look of agony on her face. She knew how close she was to breaking, to giving into these people.

"Would you rather stay with Clair instead then?"

It was an awful decision to have to make. Go back to a man who beat and raped her, and who would continue to do so until she gave into him, and possibly still continue even then. Or, work as a slave everyday, and be beaten and raped by anybody who cared to abuse her.

"Up to you."

"No..." she finally said. "No, I don't want to stay with Clair."

"Who do you want to stay with instead?"

"John." she said, remembering his name by now.

"John, your...?"

"Please don't..." Theodora begged.

"Clair it is then."

"No!" Theodora yelled.

"Who would you rather stay with?"

Theodora looked up at him with pleading, desperate eyes. "I can't say it. But I want to stay with him. Please."

"Then you have to say it."

"Please, sir, I want to stay with the man you call my husband." Theodora begged.

Sebben shook his head, turning back to his papers.

"Will you let me stay with him?" Theodora asked urgently through her tears.

"Say it."

"Please, I'll do anything, anything else, but don't make me say it!" Theodora shrieked.

"Say it."

Theodora sank back down to the floor and sobbed. Finally, she pleaded in a quiet voice. "Please sir, let me stay with my husband."

"Very well."

"Thank you." she said, incredulous that she had begged and pleaded and given in completely for the privilege of being handed back to a man who had beaten her viciously and raped her twice.

Sebben resumed totally ignoring her. Theodora sat in silence, contemplating a lifetime with John, a thought which elicited a continuous stream of tears. But if her father was dead and her brother unwilling to pay her ransom, or if the sidhe just wasn't interested in a ransom, what other choice did she have? Sebben didn't pay her the slightest mind, doing paperwork for hours as though she were a puppy he was having sit in the corner.

As Sebben worked away on his paperwork for hours, Theodora sat in the corner. She was so tired after the day's constant labour and abuse. It wasn't long before her efforts to remain awake failed, and she slumped against the floor and fell asleep, her bruised legs still tucked underneath her in a kneeling position.

Theodora awoke to a boot kicking lightly into her ribs. "Wake up, little slut."

She started awake and snapped up into an upright position. Her legs were cramping up but she didn't yet get out of the kneeling position to stretch them out. Instead she just looked up at the voice.

Sebben snorted a little. "My goodness, you're hideous. You really do have a face only a mother could love, Theo. Of course, your mother loved anything you stuck in her face. I used to visit her every now and again."

They were both flat-out lies, but each so singularly cruel that they stung Theodora sharply.

"You didn't!" she protested. "My mother would never have..."

"She begged for it. I made her beg on her knees."

"You didn't know her! You never even met her!" Theodora yelled.

Sebben sniffed a little. "You stink too."

"Nobody has let me wash since before Fatimah was shot..." Theodora replied, looking away self-consciously.

"Oh, right, Fatimah. That was your fault, you know?"

"No!" Theodora protested quickly. "I didn't shoot her! He did!"

"You provoked him. He was about to kill you. She died saving you. Then her body was cannibalised."

"No!" she shrieked. "It wasn't, no... you didn't... they didn't eat her.... did they?"

"Just an hour ago."

Theodora's face twisted with revulsion and she fell forward on her hands. She wretched and vomited the meagre dinner she had eaten a few hours ago back up all over the floor.

Sebben laughed a little. "Get on my desk."

She pulled herself up to her feet and wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, before gingerly stepping over her vomit, fresh tears in her eyes. After a few steps her legs cramped up and she fell over again, thankfully not into the vomit, but it was still painful and embarrassing. Sebben crossed his arms, just waiting.

"I'm sorry..." she said pathetically, stretching her legs a little before forcing herself back up. She walked over to the table in some discomfort, but she made it. She sat on the desk and looked at Sebben with trepidation.

"Stand on the desk."

Although she was afraid of what he had in mind, she was more afraid of what he might to do her if she didn't, and so she pulled herself up onto the desk, and then stood up on top of it.

"Stand on one leg."

Theodora lifted her left leg up in the air and extended her arms to help herself balance, and wondered why he was making her do this.

"Put your hands in your armpits."

She groaned and folded her arms across her chest, putting her right hand in her left armpit and vice versa. Why was he making her do this?

"No, no. Right hand in right pit. Left hand in left."

"I'm sorry." she apologised and did as she asked, so that her arms were folded up into wings. She was starting to find it difficult to stand on her right leg, and wobbled noticeably.

"Now, hop up and down, flap your arms, and cluck."

Theodora groaned loudly, fresh tears running down her cheeks. She hopped a few times and flapped her arms.

"Cluck. Cluck." she whimpered.

"Don't say cluck. Cluck!"

Theodora whined and then started to cluck, hopping carefully and flapping her arms. A couple of times she needed to put down her left leg to stop herself from falling over, before getting back on the right leg to do it again. While she hopped, he swung his arm and knocked her leg out from under her, sending her sprawling over the desk and onto the floor. She shrieked as she fell, hitting the desk and then the floor hard. She lay on the floor in a sobbing heap. Sebben spat on her casually.

"Why?" she eventually asked simply.

"Because you're worthless, disgusting, filthy, beneath the lowliest rat..."

She slid up against the desk into a sitting position, and hung her head low. She sniffled and cried softly, waiting for the next order.

"Now, open wide. We're going to see if you take after mommy..."

"My mother never did that!" Theodora insisted, bracing herself for what she was about to be forced to do. "Never!"

"Your mouth is a lot like hers." he said, as he knelt down and ran a finger over Theodora's lips, even as he forced her jaw open with his other hand. "Small, soft."

Theodora tried to reiterate that her mother had never done what she was about to do, but with Sebben holding her jaw open, only nonsensical noises came out of her mouth.

Sebben looked down at Theodora thoughtfully. Theodora looked back up at him through tear-filled eyes, hoping that he was done with her.

"Hmmm...What's missing?" Sebben asked.

Theodora groaned slightly, taking the remark as an indication that Sebben wasn't finished with her. She pulled her legs up to her and leaned her head on her knees as she waited to find out what he planned to do to her next. Sebben walked over to his desk, digging around. She couldn't believe it, but she was actually looking forward to being given back to John. At least then this so-called "punishment" would end, and she'd have a chance to prove that she shouldn't be any trouble, that she didn't need to be punished like she had been today ever again. Sebben pulled out a leather dog collar, fashioning it around her neck. Theodora whimpered and sobbed, but offered no resistance. She let him put it on. He attached a leash to it and started walking her to the door. She struggled to make her legs to work; they were aching, sore and cramped from today's abuse. She followed after him though.

"Wait..." she pleaded. "Are you taking me back to him?"

Sebben paused. "Yes."

"Can you take me to that bathroom I was in the other day first?" she asked. "Can I clean up and get some proper clothes before he sees me, please?"

Sebben paused. "What will you do to earn that privilege?"

Theodora groaned and humiliated tears ran down her face.

"I'd..." she started.

"Well? Go on."

"I just want to look good for him, sir." she said, burning with shame.

"What will you do to earn the privilege?"

"I'll..." Theodora sniffled. "What do you want me to do, sir?"

"Make me an offer, bitch."

"I'd..." she mumbled, and indicated back to the desk where Sebben had forced himself on her just before. "I'd... do that again."

"No. Find something better."

Theodora's face twisted in disgust at the thought of what she'd have to do if that wasn't enough.

"Anything! I'd do anything!" she told him.

"I want you to tell me how disgusting you are."

"I'm disgusting..." Theodora murmured at a near whisper.

"How disgusting?"

"I... stink of sweat... and of your thug who raped me before dinner. I'm dressed in filthy rags... and I just offered to give myself to you for the privilege of making myself look nice for a man who has raped me and beat me up and...." she blubbered. "...and I'm unworthy to be called a princess."

"You're unworthy to be called a woman."

She sobbed and nodded.

"And how disgusting is your mother?"

She looked up at him with pleading eyes.

"Please don't!" she squealed in desperation.

"Do you want to use the bathroom or not?"

"Yes!" Theodora said. She drew a deep breath and blubbered. "When she was alive, my mother... my mother was..."

She lifted a hand up to her neck, feeling for the necklace her mother had given her before she died, the necklace which had come off during her initial abduction. She felt only the dog collar.

"...a whore." she mouthed silently.

"Good girl." He walked her to the bathroom. He left her there, returning a few minutes later to toss in a clean set of clothes.

She cried in relief when she was taken to the bathroom. She attended to her bodily functions first, and then ran herself a bath and scrubbed herself clean fanatically, continuing to scrub every inch of her body long after the dirt and grime and sweat was gone. The dirty feeling didn't go away, of course, and she eventually gave up. When she got out of the bath, she dried herself thoroughly. Then she looked for the make-up she had set aside and refused to use the last time she was there.

She found it and breathed a sigh of relief. She started applying it as she stood there, naked, trying to cover up the bruises and marks of abuse on her flesh as best as she could with it. After a little while it occurred to her that most of the make-up would come off on the inside of her dress, but she still wanted to do it.

She put the dress on, and started to cry, so happy to wearing a fresh set of clean clothes. She finished applying the make-up to her arms and legs, and started applying it extra carefully to her face, being sure to cover up the bruises.

John knocked on the bathroom door. "Are you about done in there, sweetie pie?"

His voice. She trembled.

"Honey?"

"Almost..." she said back faintly. "I'm almost done, sir, I promise!"

"Oh, lovie pie! You don't have to call me sir in our own chambers!"

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, John!" she added quickly, her voice shaking. "I won't be long, I swear!"

"Alright." He could be heard walking away from the door. The TV came on.

She picked up a tube of lipstick and applied it as carefully as she could with her hands shaking. She had never had to apply her own eye-liner or eye-shadow before, and was afraid to try - if she messed up and looked like a whore, she couldn't imagine what might happen to her. So instead she looked at herself in the mirror. Asides from the profound misery evident in her eyes, she almost looked normal.

The TV could be heard flipping through the channels before finally settling on the Pantocratorian news.

She had no idea how to do her hair up like they did at court, so instead she just brushed it, as quickly as she could, so that it was more or less straight and fairly neat and tidy. Then she set down the brush, reached a trembling hand to the door knob, and opened it up. She stepped out of the bathroom, her eyes fixed on the floor in front of her.

"Hey, sweetie. Come watch TV with me."

She nodded timidly, and made her way over to his side, finding it almost impossible to lift her gaze above the floor out of fear and disgust.

John put his arm around Theodora, cuddling her lightly as she watched the news.

"John..." she whimpered. "I'm so sorry... so very sorry... I was a bad wife, I want you to be happy with me, I just want to be a good wife..."

"So you learned your lesson, darling?"

"Yes!" she said urgent and nodded frantically. "Yes I have, I swear I have, I learnt my lesson!"

"Give us a kiss then."

She forced herself to look up, and to look at his face. She kissed him on the cheek obediently.

"On the lips."

"I'm sorry!" she whispered frantically, before kissing him on the lips softly. She maintained the kiss until he pulled back or forced her away.

John ran his hands through her hair before finally pulling away. "How are wives disciplined in Pantocratoria?"

Terrified that she had displeased him again, she started blubbering almost uncontrollably.

"I'm so sorry!" she sobbed. "Please, I'll do better next time, let me try again, please!"

"No, no, honey! I was just curious."

"Oh! Thank God! Thank you!" Theodora gasped in relief. She took a few moments to get herself back under control. "I don't really know..."

"I'm sure our way is more effective."

"I'm so sorry!" she pleaded. "Please, I'll try harder, I'll try so hard!"

John laughed and kissed her lightly again. Theodora calmed down slightly. She controlled her breathing, and forced herself to relax a little. Then she turned to John, timidly.

"Is there anything I could do for you?" she asked him.

"I love you, snookums." John could see that the comment almost made Theodora cry again.

"What's wrong?"

"Anything I could get you? Anything I could do?" she asked.

"Not now, honey. You've had a hard day. We can rest."

Theodora nodded obediently, and let her gaze fall back down to the floor.

"You can talk."

"What would you like me to talk about?" she asked him, as if afraid of picking a topic herself.

"Tell me about your old boyfriend, the one you slept with and got in trouble for."

"I'm sorry!" she started, as if afraid he'd punish her for it. "He... he was in the military... a lieutenant, in the navy..."

"How old was he?"

"Erm..." Theodora mumbled. "I don't... erm... in his twenties... twenty five maybe? Twenty six? I'm sorry, I don't remember the exact age."

"And you were how old?"

"Fifteen." Theodora said, ashamed. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"Because it was wrong..." Theodora ventured.

"True. But it's over now. You're married now. We can have wedded bliss for the rest of our lives!" he grinned brightly.

Theodora started crying again, but nodded. John wiped her tears, kissing her fiercely, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. She let him probe her mouth, and kissed him back. The tears of self-loathing and disgust kept on rolling down her cheeks relentlessly. John turned off the TV.

"Why don't you get undressed for bed, love?"

Theodora sighed piteously, but nodded her assent.

"Do I have a nightgown?" she asked hopefully.

"You have your skin."

Theodora nodded. It was the answer she expected. She rose to her feet and started walking to the bathroom to get undressed in private. John smiled contentedly, watching her go. She closed the door behind her and sobbed for a few seconds, before taking off her clothes again. She hung them up carefully - they were the most precious things she had. The only things she had. Then she checked herself in the mirror again, and touched up the make-up which she had applied to hide the bruises on her body. After a few minutes, she opened the door again. John patted the bed beside him. Theodora took a deep breath, and then made her way across the bedroom floor and scrambled up onto the bed. John smiled, leaning in to kiss her as he rolled over atop her form.

"John..." she started before he begun. "If I'm good... if I behave myself... if I try really hard to be a good wife..."

"I love you."

She sniffled and nodded, wondering if that meant he wouldn't hit her if she was a good wife like he wanted her to be. Deep down she knew though that he would do whatever he liked to her. And deep down she knew that she couldn't stop him.

Despite the fact that she was lying next to John, despite the fact that she felt like her skin was crawling with cockroaches and vermin, that lying there in the same bed with him was like lying in the filthiest gutters, Theodora was exhausted, and drifted off into sleep. The next morning, she awoke to find that John had an arm draped around her. "Wake up, snugglepuss." Before it all came back to her, she screamed and struggled desperately, but after a second she stopped and settled down, although there was still an involuntary shudder at his touch. "Go make breakfast for me, dear."

"Good morning John." Theodora said timidly.

"Morning." He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips, before slipping out of bed. In the distance, gunfire could be heard again. She nodded obediently, eager to prove that she didn't need further punishment. She slipped out of the bed and darted back to the bathroom to put her clothes back on. John walked in, smacking her lightly on the buttocks as he moved to get into the shower. Theodora gasped and shuddered at his touch again, but quickly pulled her dress back on. She turned around to the mirror, quickly brushed her hair again, and checked her make-up. John showered. Satisfied with her appearance, all things considered, Theodora left the bathroom and started to look for the kitchen. She found it, full of women cooking. She felt a sudden pang of dread. She had never cooked breakfast before. This would be her first attempt. What would he do if he was unhappy with her efforts? She let out a frightened gasp at the thought. She was going to try though. Theodora grabbed a fry pan, and carefully took a few eggs from the fridge. She broken the egg shells on the side of the fry pan, not really sure as to the
technique, but working it out by the third egg, so that only the first two eggs had bits of shell in them as they cooked away.

Calvin walked through the door, smiling brightly. "Morning, Mrs. Bentham." Theodora had her back turned to him, but she couldn't mistake that voice. She trembled with fear and hatred. She had given up hope of being any other than Theodora Bentham, obedient little Protestant housewife... but she hated Calvin for turning her into John's wife. She spun around to find him right behind her, her tired eyes burning with rage, a furious look on her face. Then, without thinking about it, she hit him. With all her strength she punched him in the right eye as hard as she could. A sudden look of horror appeared on her face. In fear for Calvin's reaction, she backed away in a panic and desperately looked about the kitchen for any hope of salvation or protection. Calvin blinked, starting to move towards her when the gunfire increased in volume and proximity. Alarms started to wail and Calvin ran from the room. What was going on? What did the alarms mean? Theodora didn't think about it for the time being, instead falling to her knees and crying in relief that whatever they meant, the sirens had called Calvin away before he retaliated. The other women began to flee the kitchen. Gunfire could be heard throughout the halls. The sound of the gunfire so close by made Theodora start. She got back up to her feet. What was going on out there? Were the other women being shot now? Would she be next? She couldn't just stand around to find out. She turned back to the fry pan and took
it off the flame - she didn't want to burn John's eggs, even now she was afraid of what might happen to her if she did. She set the fry pan aside and raced out of the kitchen and into the hall. Men ran by her in the hall, shoving her casually out of the way as they readied guns. Turning a corner, they exchanged fire with someone down the corner. Theodora started running away from the direction of the fire. She had no clue where she was going otherwise - the only familiarity she had with the layout of the base was from when she had been punished with hard labour the day before. Or was it two days before? She ran, more or less in a blind panic, away from the sound of gunfire.

Men and women in unfamiliar uniforms ran towards Theodora as she turned down one hallway. A young man with dark hair called out to her "Ma'am, are you alright?"

"Don't shoot me!" she shrieked in reply, stumbling over. She scrambled backwards on her hands up against the wall. "Please!"

"Ma'am, it's alright. You're free now."

"I'll be good I swear..." she sobbed, not processing it.

"Ma'am. You. Are. Free. Commodore Calvin Chapman is dead. We're taking you out of here. Do you know where the other prisoners are?"

"Free... dead..." Theodora echoed. "Wait.... is this a test? I swear, I'll behave, I'll be good!"

"Ma'am, I'm serious." She looked up at him, her eyes pleading, desperate, and confused. She pulled herself up to her feet, and then staggered forward, almost about to faint. He offered her a hand, not condescendingly or cruelly but helpfully. "What's your name, miss?"

She caught his hand, and steadied herself. She looked at him uncertainly. "Theodora... Mrs. Theodora Bentham."

"Come with..." he started to speak when a bullet burst his skull. The other men in his group fell back, many wounded, as Theodora felt a strong hand grab her hair. Theodora shrieked as the man was killed right in front of her, and turned to the person grabbing her hair.

Sebben pressed a blade to her throat. "Shut up, you little whore. You're my hostage." He began dragging her quickly through the halls.

"I was good!" she whispered quietly to him. "I told him my name was Theodora Bentham!"

"Then maybe you'll live to see tomorrow." he said as another group of soldiers ran towards him. "Stop right there or I slit her bitch throat!" Theodora didn't doubt that he would, but it was starting to dawn on her that this rescue attempt was for real. She gathered her wits about her, trying to shake-off the past few days. She needed to be alert if she was going to stay alive.

A rather handsome young officer began to move slowly towards Sebben. He threw his gun down, reaching for his ceremonial sword. "Perhaps you still have enough honor left to accept a challenge to single combat."

Sebben snorted. "Like I could lose to a human."

"Then you have nothing to fear, do you?" the man answered. Sebben tossed Theodora aside, drawing his blade, as the men lowered their guns. Theodora scrambled out of the way, towards the safety of the men with guns. The men moved between Theodora and Sebben as the sword fight began. It was almost too quick, blades whirling and clashing over and over again like the constant clang of a chainsaw. The men dodged and leaped and dived, moving their blades in a complex dance. Theodora got to her feet and watched on, not quite sure what to make of the bizarre display.

"Is he going to kill him?" she asked nobody in particular. Sebben's blade dug into the other man's flesh, as the young officer spun, falling to his knees and clutching his side. Theodora watched on in horror as her would be champion was wounded. Sebben raised his sword up, preparing to strike off the young man's head. The officer rolled hard, knocking Sebben's feet from under him even as blood covered the floor. Sebben began to leap to his feet but a sudden, desperate fist to his throat caused him to gasp, falling still. "Is... is it over?" Theodora asked.

The men ran to the other officer, helping him stand slowly. One of them turned to Theodora. "We got who we came to get. Let's go."

"Wait..." she said, looking at Sebben, still afraid of him even now, unsure whether he was dead or just unconscious. "...there are others..."

"Where?"

"I... I'll show you." she said, moving over to the officer's side. They followed her to the other girls while the young swordsman was taken away. Theodora made her way through the halls carefully, guiding them back to the room in which the others had been kept in cages and shackles. "In there." she said. "They're in there."

The men ran in, while one of them escorted Theodora back to a ship. "So what's your name, miss?"

"Theodora..." she told him, the confusion of the past few days still evident in her voice. "Thedora Bentham... I think..."

"Alright, Miss Bentham." He showed her to a small room below deck.

"That man... the one who fought the Master, with a sword... where is he?" Theodora asked. "Is he OK?"

"He's in his quarters. Do you want to speak with him?"

Theodora nodded. "I need to know something." The man walked her to an officer's chambers, letting her inside. The man was lying on his bed, bandaged and looking weary. Theodora made her way over to his side, and sat beside him. “Are you, are you OK?" she asked him

"Are you?" he said with a small smile.

Tears rolled down her face as she nodded. "Thank you... thank you... thank you... thank you thank you thank you..." Her words of thanks gave way to sobs of joy and relief.

"It is the born duty of a nobleman to defend the defenseless."

"My name is Theodora..." she began. She continued, as if suddenly remembering. "Theodora Porphyrogenita... my father is the Emperor of Pantocratoria... I'm a princess... I'm a princess, they didn't... they tried to... but... but I am. What's your name?"

"Duke Brendan, Knight of Steel, at your service, Your Most Lovely Highness." He took her smooth, white hand and kissed it ever so lightly, like one would a ranking lady. Which she was, despite what insane terrorists said. Theodora sobbed, overcome with joy. She wasn't fussy about titles, but to be treated with genuine courtesy after the way she had been treated was overwhelming. She beamed back at him through tears. "Are you alright, lady?"

"Yes. I am now. Thanks to you, Your Grace." Theodora replied, smiling. Despite the tears and the look of distress, and despite the concealed bruises on her face, her smile was prettier than ever, more sincere and genuine and appreciative than any smile Brendan had ever seen. "Are you going to take me home?"

"Of course I am. Should I bring your friends as well?"

"I don't know where they're from. They need to go home too." Theodora nodded. She paused for a moment. "Is... is the Master dead?"

"He is." Brendan nodded.

Theodora nodded, and a little sob escaped her lips. "And John?"

"Dead." A strange feeling came over her, and some more sobs escaped her lips.

"I thought you'd be glad."

"They made me do things..." Theodora started, but it was too difficult to go on, so she shook her head. "How did you find us?"

"The people in intelligence found this place. I'm not privy to the details."

"Thank you..." Theodora started repeating herself over and over again.

"Your Highness..."

Theodora looked up into his eyes again, tears falling down her face freely. "Yes?"

"Whatever they did to you, it doesn't have any effect on who you are. You know that, right?" She nodded but a look of anguish appeared on her face just from thinking about what they did to her. "Thank you for coming to see me."

"Thank you for coming to rescue me." Theodora shook her head and corrected him.

"It was my duty." Theodora leaned in and kissed him on the forehead, and then rose to her feet and left the room. Free!

It had been three days since the Emperor had been told that Theodora had been rescued. The news had echoed around the Julian Palace in New Jerusalem, where the Imperial Family had been in residence for the past fortnight. The court often retreated there when the Emperor felt that New Rome was too dangerous, and Theodora's abduction had made him fear for the security the rest of his family. The Julian Palace usually had an air of dread about it, and things had been even worse while Theodora was gone. There had been hope that when Pantocratorian forces withdrew from Syskeyia, she would be returned. She wasn't. The hope disappeared, and the Emperor plunged into the depths of despair, dragging the court down with him. And then the news had come - soldiers from the Resurgent Dream had rescued Theodora, and killed her captors. It was as if she had died and come back to life. Prince Constantine and Princess Zoë had been beaming with relief since the news was first heard. Sir Constantine still appeared anxious, but was relieved. Over the phone, Princess Anna and Prince Andreus had both been overjoyed, and had each cried tears of relief (although the latter wouldn't admit it). The Emperor, however, was as always, hard to read.

The family sat together in a lounge room in the Emperor's private apartments in the palace. Princess Zoë looked positively overjoyed, eager with anticipation to see Theodora again. Prince Constantine looked happy, but still nervous. He was old enough to understand the sort of effect being kidnapped and tortured could have on somebody's psyche, and he was worried that Theodora wouldn't be able to recover from her ordeal. He didn't have the smallest idea what she had been really put through - all he had seen were the video releases of her denouncing Pantocratorian involvement in the Syskeyian War, and then a rather alarming montage which seemed to show her finger being cut off. The brother and sister sat together on a couch, talking every so often about how wonderful it would be to have her back.

Sir Constantine nervously paced the room. Theodora was like a daughter to him. The Imperial Family was his only family. He burned with anger about Theodora's kidnapping, and had reproved himself constantly for lax security at the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator. In his mind, whatever Theodora had endured, he was responsible for it, and he was beside himself with worry and guilt.

Seated alone on the couch opposite his children was the Emperor, with his usual granite expression. If not for his eyes he might almost have looked normal, as if nothing was wrong, but his eyes told a different story. They were filled with a father's fear, guilt, concern, grief and anguish. They had a hollow quality about them - like he wasn't really there.

The door opened. The two Constantines and Zoë both spun around at the first sound. Standing in the door way was a familiar form, dressed in simple, comfortable clothes, her brown hair pulled back into a neat pony tail. Fading bruises were evident on her face, and she had an air of both relief and fatigue about her, and a hint of disbelief. Her brother and sister raced forward, and Sir Constantine crossed the room after them. Theodora was home.

"Theodora!" Zoë said, happy tears coming to her eyes as she hugged her big sister. Theodora let loose a little gasp - evidently she was still very tender because even Zoë's squeeze was a little painful, but she smiled and kissed Zoë on the forehead.

"Oh thank God!" Prince Constantine exclaimed, whilst counting her fingers to be sure that they were all still there. He put a gentle arm around her and kissed the top of her head over and over again.

"I never thought I'd see you two again!" Theodora said, tears beginning to well up in her eyes again. Sir Constantine took one of her hands in his and squeezed it affectionately, looking in her eyes. The tough old knight was crying too.

There was a creak from the couch as the Emperor got up to his feet. Slowly. He turned to face Theodora, his face still like a statue, his eyes still hollow and grief-stricken. Theodora's eyes fixed on his through the embrace of her siblings, and there was suddenly a hush over the homecoming. Sir Constantine was the first to react, letting go of Theodora's hand.

"Let's give Theodora and His Majesty some privacy." Sir Constantine whispered to Prince Constantine and Princess Zoë. They reluctantly let go of Theodora, smiling at her through their relieved tears, and let Sir Constantine guide them out of the room. The door closed behind the three.

Theodora took a few quiet steps towards the Emperor and stopped. The Emperor, looking deep into her eyes, took a step forward himself. Before he could take another she ran across the room into his arms. He threw his arms around her and held her tightly.

"Papa!" Theodora exclaimed. She couldn't remember the last time she had called her father anything but Majesty, even in private.

"Theodora!" the Emperor exclaimed, bursting into tears himself for what must have been the first time since her mother's death. "Oh my darling Theodora... I thought... I thought that you were dead. I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry that I couldn't rescue you, I was powerless to protect you... I failed you, I failed you just like I failed her, just like I failed your mother..."

"Papa, no!" Theodora protested. "It was my fault, I ran off into the woods..."

"Hush, petite!" the Emperor cried back. "It wasn't your fault, none of this was your fault."

Then he remembered something. He took a step back from her, and his hand fumbled into his pocket, from which he produced a fairly plain necklace. It was the necklace Theodora's mother gave her before she died, from which she had never been parted until her kidnapping. Theodora recognised it instantly.

"My necklace!" she smiled through her tears. She let the Emperor put it on her, and then fell into his arms again.

"I love you Theodora!" the Emperor said for what seemed like the first time in his life. "I love you more than anything in the world! I swear, I swear it will all be different from this point on. Never again, I'll never fail you again, from now on, it will all be different!"

"Papa, I love you!" Theodora wept into the Emperor's arms in joy, over and over again.