A Tale of Romans and Slaves | PJO/HOO

Chapter 5: Piper

I could instantly tell that Prince Jason was horrible.

Back in Argos, I had been Prince Leo's personal slave. But Leo was always more like a friend to me than a master. He bathed and dressed himself, and even helped me with chores sometimes. We'd play games together, joke around together, and talked a lot.

But Prince Jason... well, he was the kind of guy who saw me as an object. A thing that he owned.

After around an hour of listening to Jason talk about all the things he wanted me to do, a red-haired girl showed up to show me around the castle.

It was much bigger than the one in Argos, which made sense. Back in Greece, each city had its own king, its own castle, and its own army. But here in Rome, there was only one kingdom, and King Zeus was the king of everyone.

The red-head, Nancy, was absolutely horrible. She used to be Jason's personal slave, and I could tell that she was jealous of me. Don't ask me why.

She also told me about the royal family. There was the king, Jason, and Princess Thalia. The Queen had died a couple years ago giving birth to a son that only survived for three hours.

After Nancy had finished the tour, I had forgotten where almost everything was. Luckily, I managed to find my way back to Prince Jason's room.

He was talking to some black-haired girl who had the same lighting-blue eyes as him. I assumed that it was the princess.

I stood awkwardly at the door until she noticed me.

"Oh, is this her?" She asked. Jason nodded. "Well, she's pretty, I'll give you that."

After saying goodbye to Jason, she left, leaving us alone.

We stared at each other awkwardly, neither of us having anything to say or do. Eventually, he told me to go get him an apple from the kitchen.

It was one of the places I actually remembered how to get to.

Once I got there, I asked a dark-haired girl with green eyes for an apple.

"I've never seen you before," She said after she came back from the pantry. "Are you new?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I'm the Prince's new slave."

"Oh!" She said. "Nice to meet you. I'm Lou Ellen."

"Piper," I replied, and we shook hands.

After giving Jason his apple, he dismissed me. I had no idea where I was supposed to go, and I had to ask some slave-girl named Zoë. She led me to the basement of the castle.

"Seeing as your the Prince's personal slave, you get your own room," She said when we got there. She led me to a room down a hall. Inside, there was a bed, a basket, and a bell.

"There's a privy down the hall," She told me. "If the bell rings, then you go to the Prince's room immediately. Breakfast is at sunrise."

Then she left.

I plopped down on my bed. It was early, just after sunset. But I was so exhausted from my day of being enslaved (again) and sold that I fell asleep instantly.

I awoke to Lou Ellen shaking me.

"Girl, you're going to miss breakfast!" She said.

I followed her down the hall and into a huge room. It looked like every female slave was there, and there was a lot of us.

After getting breakfast, which was bread, from a guard, Lou Ellen led me over to a table at the back of the room.

Sitting at it was Zoë, a girl with red hair, and a girl with green eyes.

"Hi everyone," Lou Ellen said. "This is Piper!"

"We've met," Zoe said.

"I'm Miranda," The green-eyed girl said.

"And I'm Rachel," the girl with red hair said. "You were Prince Leo's slave, right?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I'm surprised you recognize me. I don't get out much."

"You're hard to miss," She said. "You know, with all your... beauty."

I laughed. "I get that a lot."

"That's probably why the King bought you," Zoe said. "We all know how much the Prince likes a beautiful woman."

I had a couple ideas of what she meant by that, and I didn't like any of them.

"I'm pretty sure every man likes a beautiful woman, Zoë," Miranda said.

A couple minutes later, a guard told us to get to our jobs. I didn't know if Jason wanted me, so I just returned to my room and stared at the bell, waiting for it to ring.

Eventually, it did, and I sprinted up towards the Princes room. God, this place has a lot of staircases.

Suddenly, I was on the floor. I looked up and saw Nancy, a crazed look in her eyes. I could smell alcohol on her breath.

"You want to take my job, huh?" She laughed. "Well, let's see how much the Prince will want you when you're not pretty anymore."

She pressed a knife against my cheek, and the I felt the cold metal kiss my skin. I opened my mouth to scream, but she covered it.

"Now, where should we start?" She said breathlessly. "Oh, I know! I wonder how pretty you'll look without your lips."

My heart was beating a mile a minute. She lifted her hand and brought her knife down to my lips, and just as the blade cut my skin and the metallic taste of my own blood filled my mouth, she stopped.

Jason pulled his sword out of her gut, and she slunched over and fell off me, tumbling down the nearby flight of stairs in the process.

"Are you okay?" He asked me, and I could see a flash of worry in his eyes.

"Yeah," I replied, wiping my lip. "Thank you. You saved me."

"Of course I did," He said. "Good slaves are hard to come by these days."

But as I gazed into his eyes, I felt like that wasn't the reason at all.

(A privy is a bathroom)