Legacy of Judas - Book One

by Aragon, Christian

  Finally, after several hours of listening to the partying and molestations of the new captives, all had gone silent. Little more was to be heard than the noises of our gaseous keepers and the painful moans and muffled sobbing of the children who had been brought to this hell just for being completely innocent.

  I crept back into the tent and found my secret little girl still wide awake and trembling in fright and shock from all the horrible sounds her tiny ears were witnesses to. I pried my former keeper’s cold arm from atop the child and handed her some tatters to cover herself with. I motioned for her to stay close behind me as we cautiously made our way from the tent, and then from the camp. I took with me only her, the scimitar I had murdered my keeper with, and some water. Eventually I dropped the scimitar, but I would not relinquish the little girl’s hand or the water. Soon she was exhausted, so I carried her on my back. The extra weight on my bare feet didn't matter to me except that I couldn't tell in the dark if I was leaving bloody footprints to be followed the next day by our captors.

  Shortly before dawn fate smiled on the child and myself in a matter of degrees. A band of riders happened upon us as we rested against some large rocks under the cool desert morning. At first I believed them to be from the pit we just escaped from, but as they got closer the little girl was recognized. I would learn later the people she was taken from were part of a large migration of pilgrims traveling to their holy land. Their caravan had become fragmented because of a massive dust storm only a few days before, which we had also experienced, but we're already adept at keeping together under those conditions. These pilgrims were obviously new to such situations and the riders had been out all night trying to regroup those who had become separated.

  Since the child was still in shock and unable to utter any sound, and I didn't speak their language, I was left with the task of having to lead these men back to the place we had fled from only hours prior. Though there were a large number of them and they all carried weapons I was fearful of what was to become of them, of the little girl I risked so much to spare, but of myself. The way the leader of this group was casting eyes upon me left me very uncertain of his thoughts about me as well. I had to show them what actually happened to their people. His language was not mine, but I was placed on an extra horse and I took them to the camp of my keepers. As it turned out, my feet had been bleeding while carrying the child. Little blood as it was, it was enough to lead us back the way we came.

  We stopped at a small dune where we could easily see into the camp with early morning sun overhead. The camp was still reeling from the previous night’s activities. The leader of this group of horsemen was now staring at me completely puzzled as to why I brought him here. Then his answer began to cry out as the little girl I had saved saw where we were and began screaming as loudly as her small lungs would allow her to. I looked to the camp and saw we had been noticed. Then other children who had been abducted the night before also began to cry out. One young girl was suddenly seen fleeing the tent she was being held in; she was completely naked, bruised, and bleeding from being restrained at her wrists and ankles. The insides of her legs were drenched in her own blood from her groin to her heels; her tormentor made her stand in her own pool of blood all night after finishing with her. One of the horsemen I was with obviously recognized the child though it was too late as her keeper ran naked from her own tent wielding a great blade and quickly cut the child down.

  It only took an instant and I was left with the girl I pulled from this place in a dusty cloud from the horses’ powerful charge toward the camp. As it turned out my previous keepers were still too inebriated to properly defend themselves or those things and people which they so violently made their own. In swift swashes of their iron the horsemen had cut down the keepers with no more regard than they would put into killing a pack of rabid dogs. Once again I was the last one standing from a group I had belonged to.

  The horsemen had collected the children and young adults and gave them blankets and clothing from their own backs for cover. They set them two, three, and four each upon horses to take them back to their people. I was made to walk with them, though I was almost happy to do so since now I was relieved of the burden of being someone’s lap dog after so long. I was not shown great consideration during our travel, though this was understandable since in their eyes I came from that horrible place, and until my words could be translated I was for all intent and purposes one of the abductors of that little girl and all the others.

  After two days and some hours of traveling by foot behind my liberators we finally arrived at the colony they had set up just outside a great city, the name of which I did not know; it could've been my home from years prior and I'd have had no idea with so many changes after such a long time. Though doubtful as this place seemed to be new built atop old everywhere I looked.

  The girl was taken in by whom I surmised to be relatives, perhaps grandparents by their age. I was allowed to wash myself, thoroughly, and with clean water! I was given cloth and ointment to ease the blisters and raw flesh on my feet from all the walking. I was even given a modest few pieces of clothing and a small private place to rest, and I squandered it on pondering the years of my life wasted due to my former keepers. I sobbed both from anguish and happiness. For the life of me I could barely remember what it was like to act, play, and think like a child due to having my childhood ripped from me in the manner it was. I cried and cried and when I thought I could not possibly cry another tear I did. I was comforted for some moments by one of the women of the colony, though our language barrier prevented us from discussing the troubles I endured, she was obviously a kind heart. Eventually I did fall to sleep, and I slept like I could not remember ever sleeping. I remember thinking to myself, just before my eyes closed, though I did as I said I would never do in killing another, I also made my peace with myself in saving the girl and getting her not only to safety, but also to her own people. I was free, though I had no idea what to do with this new freedom. I had no family to go to and even if I did I was taken at such a young age I would not be capable of recalling the way back. This was my new beginning. This for me was like being born again.

  The very next day I was awoken by this place coming to life and starting its daily routines. I was unaware that before sunrise riders had gone into the great city in search of one who could translate my story. They returned shortly after I awoke and one of the women came to me and motioned for me to follow her. I did so and soon found myself in a large Bedouin tent, much greater in size than the tent the leader of those beasts I escaped from possessed. It was adorned with many pillows, silken draperies, and was nothing less than a confirmation of opulence and authority. Several of the horsemen I followed here were present. Before me stood a large gentleman with a great belly; thick and bushy eyebrows, a beard which spanned the spectrum of black to white, and topped with a thick black mustache covering his upper lip. Were it not for his protruding lower lip he would’ve looked as though some fuzzy animal had curled up around his neck, the bottom half of his face, and under his iridescent red turban and fallen asleep there. His eyes were piercing and fixed on me, though it was almost as if he were looking through me rather than at me. Unfortunately in these times women are typically little more than property anyway, so such a gaze is far from unusual.

  Just after my entrance the leader of the horsemen entered with the translator in tow. I was worried beforehand they would find someone who would butcher my words and make me out to be no better than those I had escaped from. I can only say he was a very good translator ... so far as I could tell. He was a merchant of sorts within the great city. I later found, as this man escorted me into that city, he was put in a position by the leader of the colony of having to explain repeatedly how I was not a willing participant in my keepers’ escapades, but rather a victim of theirs kept in servitude for seven very long and brutal years. The leader of the pilgrims believed I was one of them because I was able to leave the migrant village with the girl a
nd not be harmed. I understood why he would think such a thing and I had not in the least any ill feeling toward him for suspecting me as such; I knew I had done right and that would bear out.

  The translator then explained to me they had given me the benefit of the doubt and showed considerable leniency with me. The leader of the pilgrims did not quite trust my story and was leery to simply let me go. I was released only on the condition that I become a servant of the local head magistrate. Who better, of course, to keep a watchful eye over me?

  That was the very first time I tasted contempt for these people, though it was slight. After all I had done, and the years I spent being nothing more than an animal who ate scraps, or a plaything that was sometimes passed up for a sheep or goat, I was now put into servitude under a magistrate because I could not be trusted? How could this happen? Nonetheless I had no choice in the matter, and no matter how I looked at my new direction in life, this was certainly better than where I was coming from.

  It was only after several months of being in my new station in life that I began to really pick up on the language of my housemaster and his family. The magistrate had been teaching me what he could when he could, otherwise I was left to rely on hand gestures and commands which were often shouted at me repeatedly as if I would understand more clearly just because they raised their voices.

  Though I did have a warm and comfortable place to lay my head, and my food was consistently fresh and of good quality, my time in this situation was turned bittersweet.

  I learned later that my olive-complected skin, which stood out easily as so many of the peoples here were darker complected; my brown hair — which, by the way, had to be shaved and allowed to grow back due to so many years of being unkempt — my strong yet small stature, and my dark eyes were all part of a list of qualities the magistrate and head of this home wanted from the translator-merchant as his mistress. The merchant was a purveyor of very specific wants, needs, and desires expressed by the upper echelon of this city. Even my humble breasts were a point of interest. It wasn’t until I had learned of this I realized my physical contrasts to the magistrate’s wife who was of dark complexion with very black hair and pale blue eyes, ample breasts and curvaceous; a definite beauty in her own right, but one the magistrate apparently sought a break from.

  The epiphany practically struck me across my face when realized the translator did not help with my innocence so much as he was filling an order for goods and saw me as the fulfillment of a menu item! What a stroke of luck it was for him that I came along! Fucker!!! How was I to know, since he knew full well I was only able to understand the words of my own tongue, but not those he spoke to the pilgrim leader? A slave again I was, though this time to a man who did not beat me or torture me, and he made sure to keep me dressed, warm and fed, and for what? To be his escape from whom he had become bored with?! For the second time I tasted contempt for these people despite my heightened position from where I used to be.

  I confronted the merchant after some months of more concentrated learning of their language. His argument was simple: Were I to attempt to escape or cause him, or any of the family members, whom I now served, any harm, I would be thrown into the darkest recesses of the jail my current master oversaw with an iron fist. He added this in saying I have too long been accepting the living conditions provided by the magistrate to begin complaining now. He was very concise with his words.

  “You are now, and always will be, property unless the magistrate becomes bored with you too.”

  I was now growing more bitter by the day. It wasn’t like the magistrate’s wife was ignorant to his goings on behind her back. I was quite sure she wasn’t, and I was also sure she was partaking in some extra activities of her own with some younger men and several women as well.

  Eventually I caught her in the act and in doing so I ended up declining an invitation to join her and a young man she was having over while her husband was attending to the affairs of the local prison. After she dismissed the young man she came to me all too anxious to present her reasoning for what I saw. She had found out about her husband and the previous live-in help they had. Instead of turning on her husband, which could've turned grave for her considering his position here, she decided to enjoy the fruits of the city just as he had been doing, and soon found herself with quite the lineup of callers of both genders. Her main fear was her husband finding out about the women since he imprisons those with so-called deviant tendencies. Never mind sex with men would garner her a stoning as well. But that would mean moments till death versus the tortures at the hands of the magistrate’s guards in the prison indefinitely. Men and women face severe punishment for such deviations. Only adultery comes with the more rigid penalty, but only for the woman. Now I knew just how poor of a situation I had come into. Still, it was not nearly as miserable in any sense of the word as what I had come from. She was obviously addicted to the thrill of risking the laws under her husband’s nose, and no one would dare call her husband’s indiscretions into question simply because of who he is.

  I could not escape this easily if at all. Were I to escape, where would I go? It's not as if the people here would hide me and I have no family or friends. I had exactly one choice to make this situation better for myself …

  I slept with each of them.

  Journal entry XXIX

  Over the years I had become very well accepted into the family. I was no longer just a servant, but rather an integral part of everything from a care-giver for the young ones of the families, friends, and neighbors of the magistrate’s wife, to tending to the shopping and numerous other tasks of the day to day business of the house. I found myself in a position of having a pseudo freedom in that I was eventually able to come and go, for the most part, as I pleased. I knew the secrets of one of the most powerful and well-respected families in the city, and both the husband and wife knew I held these secrets. Just as soon as I learned how to scribe (I was primarily taught by the children I watched over daily) I started a journal in the form of a growing number of papyrus scrolls I was given in trade for occasional carnal services with a local papyrus paper maker. Nothing terribly intimate as I had grown somewhat committed to my providers, but I would take his lingam, as he preferred to call it, into my hands as he would sit or lay back comfortably. I would drizzle compliments and praise upon his veiny mister, which he enjoyed hearing and encouraged his apex. As he approached his peak he would hand me a page of papyrus with an obscene but beautiful illustration on it. Each one was different from the previous time, and upon these pages I would capture his seed and milk him for several moments longer so as not to waste a drop. To be honest I found these little encounters innocent and playful. He was not an attractive man, but he was intelligent and charming even when we discussed and agreed upon our arrangement. He had a simple innocence and didn't seem to see our acts as bad or evil in anyway. Hence I did not see them as such either. He was generous with his rewards to me and very kind with his words about me; never crude or ungrateful in the slightest. Afterward he'd give me the papyrus I needed along with ink and one or two of the best scribing instruments he had on hand. I would leave as we both smiled contently.

  I wrote down every experience, good or bad, that I had during the decades I lived in that home. I did this for two reasons: The first being that I had informed both husband and wife that I had no intention of falling to some ill fate because one or the other decided I was no longer of service to the household. The same man who provided me with the papyrus to write on was also kind enough to keep the scrolls in secret for me. He knew I was making them as protection against anything ever happening to me; those scrolls could make him a very well-favored man in the eyes of the local government because he could tear apart the head magistrate with the details contained therein. I knew this man would not betray me and use the scrolls without my permission because then he would be as ill fated as I since his own wife would then find out about his infidelities with me. I had the angles covered quite well,
and in doing so I had achieved a position of power I could never have dreamt of while I was in captivity. Granted, my power resided in the shadows of the house I served, but it was power nonetheless and I was enjoying myself.

  The other reason was simply for the enjoyment of being able to scribe. Since I was taken from my family at a time of such youth, and the expansion and abilities of my mind never fell within the priorities of my former keepers, I was never able to become educated in any real way until coming to this city. Though I do have to admit the constant ping of contempt for my situation, and those who brought me into it, were also partly to blame for my accumulating so many scrolls over the decades as I wrote about everything in all the detail I could. It was my only real release, even more so than the illicit rendezvous which had become physically satisfying regularly, scribing brought me a comfort and eased my yearning a bit for a real freedom.

  Eventually, after nearly forty years had passed, I was not so much the desire of the husband and wife’s playtimes. They had grown fairly elderly and I was showing my years very rapidly because of the life I had lived. Though I was healthy and much stronger than my appearance gave hint to, I was losing the beauty which had carried me so far; through times which may have yielded much more dire offerings had I been homely. Again my contempt was pinging within me though I had no one to lay those ill feelings upon.

  Throughout my fifties I worked for the magistrate, or rather the son of the magistrate, who now held this position after his father grew too weak with age. Though the young magistrate had explicit instructions from his parents to be kind to me he offered little effort in that regard. The station of my life had now been reduced to assisting in the dispensing of the food and water to the prisoners he and his men watched over.