Arena: Chapter 20: Homecoming, Part III
Title/Chapter: Homecoming, Part III
Author: muck-a-luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: SB/VM (other pairings in later chapters)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Viggo is somewhere else, where everyone and no one is the same
Content/warnings: AU. Violence.
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: Slash is fiction. So while we may all be demented, slash is basically the author's own porno script, populated by the individuals she feels would be ideal to fill the various roles if she ruled the universe if she were ever fortunate enough have the opportunity to bring her vision to the screen. *snortle*
Archive rights: www.rugbytackling.com, Green Opals, if they're interested, and my journals muck_a_luck and brainofck
Further Disclaimer: Any resemblance to Ancient Rome mostly incidental. I have never seen any gladiator flick. Ever. Honest. Not even Gladiator, which I have been informed did not steal FOTR's Oscar, as it won the Oscar the year prior. I still blame Russell Crowe, though. *glares*
Blame: uisgich, for encouraging me
The Arena Homepage
Chapter 19: Homecoming, Part II
Sean felt oddly exposed, moving through the streets. He hadn't been outside the walls of the Laurel - had hardly been beyond the doors of his own room - for months. It was exhilarating and frightening, simply to be walking through the market again. To be able to exchange a piece of copper for a piece of fruit.
He had taken a sword and a knife from Laurel's barracks. One couldn't walk through the streets with this much gold unarmed. And there was, of course, the question of how easy it would be to get Sennet to bargain with him.
Sennet sat in his work room, eating a light dinner before bed.
It had been a strange and difficult few days in town. Sean's unbinding had been widely announced, and Sennet had been amused at first to see how many of his colleagues suddenly uprooted their households and left for their most distant landholdings.
The fashionable were leaving town this summer, he had snickered to himself.
But the more people left, the more Sennet began to worry. What exactly had they been doing to Sean all this time, that his patrons would be this afraid of him?
And more to the point, was Sean going to blame Sennet for it?
Sennet pushed his plate away and drained the dregs of the spiced wine from his cup. It was time for bed. Maybe he should make changes in his bodyguard's routine. Wouldn't do to be murdered by his former slave in his sleep.
He turned to the door and there was Sean, sitting on the bench along the wall.
Well. Perhaps he wouldn't have to wait to die in his sleep. Maybe he was going to die right here. Sean had a very long knife in his hand.
But interestingly enough, also a very full purse on the bench next to him.
"I've come for Viggo," Sean announced quietly. "I know what he's worth and I've brought a fair purchase price. I'll cover what you owe him for his winnings. Just give him to me, and you'll never see either of us again."
"I can't sell him to you," Sennet replied. He watched Sean warily. The man was in much better condition than he had any right to be. He was a whore now, not a fighting slave. No, Sennet corrected himself. A free man. Apparently a very wealthy free man.
"Of course, you can. And you will," Sean snarled, not even bothering with the most basic pretensions to civility.
Sennet tried not to let his growing fear show on his face.
"Sean," he said, adopting a tone of condolence, the voice of one about to deliver what he knew to be bad news. "I can't sell him to you. Viggo is dead."
That caught Sean off his footing. The man actually visibly stopped breathing for a moment. Then Sean growled. Growled like a wolf facing the dogs.
"Viggo is not dead. I saw Viggo alive and well two days ago. Viggo is here and you are playing games with me, Sennet. Don't play games with me. I want Viggo, or his body, here in this room, now. Come on. If he's dead, give him to me. I'll mourn him and bury him properly."
Sennet must have flinched.
Sean was up and across the room, his knife to Sennet's throat.
"Sean," he squeaked, "Let's be reasonable…"
"Where is he?" Sean demanded. "I want him. Here. Now."
"Didn't he tell you what he's been doing since he returned from the caravan?" Sennet asked, trying not to panic. "He went out last night and never came back. It's never happened before, but I assume he's dead, or as good as dead. Caught."
The knife pressed deeper into his skin. Sennet felt a little drip of blood trickle down his neck into his shirt. He was suddenly panting, full-fledged panic only a twitch away.
"You're lying," said Sean with certainty. "You forget how well I used to know you, master," he said scornfully. "Viggo's not dead. He's here somewhere, and I want him."
Then suddenly the confidence in Sean's face faltered to something else. Sennet staggered as Sean shoved Sennet hard away from him.
"Or he is dead…" Sean's voice was a sibilant hiss. His eyes were wild with anger and hatred. Sean threw aside the knife and drew the long, wicked sword sheathed across his back.
"You killed him." Sean barely breathed the accusation. "You couldn't control him anymore. You couldn't trust him. So you killed him."
Sennet opened his mouth to scream for his guards, but it was too late. Sean's stroke was quick.
Sean stopped in the moonlit garden and considered his position.
What had happened to Viggo? Was he really dead? Was he alive somewhere in the house? Had he been killed or captured during a botched assassination? Sean took a deep breath. What was he going to do now?
Why had he killed Sennet? He felt the blood pounding in his temples and an odd tingling heat through his body. He had felt the killing rage before, but in the arena he had controlled it. He had always thought of it as the secret to his success, that he could control the berserker that was the early demise of so many arena fighters.
But he was sure it was the berserker in him that had killed Sennet with hardly any provocation and no second thought.
There was an unexpected consequence of two years at The Laurel.
He took another long deep breath.
He couldn't figure it all out right now. Right now he needed to be sure that this revenge didn't get him thrown to the beasts, or even crucified.
Then the thought occurred...
Sennet's steward was having a very bad morning. The household was in an uproar. Sennet was gone, with only very large quantities of blood on the floor to show that he had been murdered. Not a piece of gold or a precious stone remained anywhere in his private quarters.
The city guard had been called in and the whispers among the slaves and freemen of the household were that it was the work of the assassin that had been moving through the ranks of the city's powerful for all these months.
For his own reasons, the steward doubted the mysterious assassin was guilty of this attack. For one thing, Sennet was a bit low on the rungs of power to have caught his attention. For another...
But the evidence was there for anyone to see.
However, of more interest to the steward was the fact that Sennet died without a son, or even a widow. That meant the whole household enterprise was going to be handed over to the Emperor himself, and the Steward was in a frenzy, checking stores, setting the scullery girls cleaning the dustiest corners, trying to bring the household into some semblance of respectability for the Emperor's Assessor.
He was not in the least surprised when the Assessor arrived only hours after the discovery of Sennet's murder. Nor was he surprised when the Assessor's first demand was to see the Sword Master. Sennet kept one of the most impressive private barracks of arena slaves in the city, after all.
The Sword Master gave his usual Master's nod to his master, a slight stooping of his shoulders his only acknowledgement that the Assessor was a representative of the Emperor, and the Sword Master was only his slave.
The Assessor did not acknowledge this gesture of respect. He fixed the Sword Master with a hard stare.
"The Emperor commands that you deliver his new possession, Viggo Mortensen, immediately."
There was something the steward hadn't expected.
Chapter 21: Homecoming, Part IV
Author: muck-a-luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: SB/VM (other pairings in later chapters)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Viggo is somewhere else, where everyone and no one is the same
Content/warnings: AU. Violence.
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: Slash is fiction. So while we may all be demented, slash is basically the author's own porno script, populated by the individuals she feels would be ideal to fill the various roles if she ruled the universe if she were ever fortunate enough have the opportunity to bring her vision to the screen. *snortle*
Archive rights: www.rugbytackling.com, Green Opals, if they're interested, and my journals muck_a_luck and brainofck
Further Disclaimer: Any resemblance to Ancient Rome mostly incidental. I have never seen any gladiator flick. Ever. Honest. Not even Gladiator, which I have been informed did not steal FOTR's Oscar, as it won the Oscar the year prior. I still blame Russell Crowe, though. *glares*
Blame: uisgich, for encouraging me
The Arena Homepage
Chapter 19: Homecoming, Part II
Sean felt oddly exposed, moving through the streets. He hadn't been outside the walls of the Laurel - had hardly been beyond the doors of his own room - for months. It was exhilarating and frightening, simply to be walking through the market again. To be able to exchange a piece of copper for a piece of fruit.
He had taken a sword and a knife from Laurel's barracks. One couldn't walk through the streets with this much gold unarmed. And there was, of course, the question of how easy it would be to get Sennet to bargain with him.
Sennet sat in his work room, eating a light dinner before bed.
It had been a strange and difficult few days in town. Sean's unbinding had been widely announced, and Sennet had been amused at first to see how many of his colleagues suddenly uprooted their households and left for their most distant landholdings.
The fashionable were leaving town this summer, he had snickered to himself.
But the more people left, the more Sennet began to worry. What exactly had they been doing to Sean all this time, that his patrons would be this afraid of him?
And more to the point, was Sean going to blame Sennet for it?
Sennet pushed his plate away and drained the dregs of the spiced wine from his cup. It was time for bed. Maybe he should make changes in his bodyguard's routine. Wouldn't do to be murdered by his former slave in his sleep.
He turned to the door and there was Sean, sitting on the bench along the wall.
Well. Perhaps he wouldn't have to wait to die in his sleep. Maybe he was going to die right here. Sean had a very long knife in his hand.
But interestingly enough, also a very full purse on the bench next to him.
"I've come for Viggo," Sean announced quietly. "I know what he's worth and I've brought a fair purchase price. I'll cover what you owe him for his winnings. Just give him to me, and you'll never see either of us again."
"I can't sell him to you," Sennet replied. He watched Sean warily. The man was in much better condition than he had any right to be. He was a whore now, not a fighting slave. No, Sennet corrected himself. A free man. Apparently a very wealthy free man.
"Of course, you can. And you will," Sean snarled, not even bothering with the most basic pretensions to civility.
Sennet tried not to let his growing fear show on his face.
"Sean," he said, adopting a tone of condolence, the voice of one about to deliver what he knew to be bad news. "I can't sell him to you. Viggo is dead."
That caught Sean off his footing. The man actually visibly stopped breathing for a moment. Then Sean growled. Growled like a wolf facing the dogs.
"Viggo is not dead. I saw Viggo alive and well two days ago. Viggo is here and you are playing games with me, Sennet. Don't play games with me. I want Viggo, or his body, here in this room, now. Come on. If he's dead, give him to me. I'll mourn him and bury him properly."
Sennet must have flinched.
Sean was up and across the room, his knife to Sennet's throat.
"Sean," he squeaked, "Let's be reasonable…"
"Where is he?" Sean demanded. "I want him. Here. Now."
"Didn't he tell you what he's been doing since he returned from the caravan?" Sennet asked, trying not to panic. "He went out last night and never came back. It's never happened before, but I assume he's dead, or as good as dead. Caught."
The knife pressed deeper into his skin. Sennet felt a little drip of blood trickle down his neck into his shirt. He was suddenly panting, full-fledged panic only a twitch away.
"You're lying," said Sean with certainty. "You forget how well I used to know you, master," he said scornfully. "Viggo's not dead. He's here somewhere, and I want him."
Then suddenly the confidence in Sean's face faltered to something else. Sennet staggered as Sean shoved Sennet hard away from him.
"Or he is dead…" Sean's voice was a sibilant hiss. His eyes were wild with anger and hatred. Sean threw aside the knife and drew the long, wicked sword sheathed across his back.
"You killed him." Sean barely breathed the accusation. "You couldn't control him anymore. You couldn't trust him. So you killed him."
Sennet opened his mouth to scream for his guards, but it was too late. Sean's stroke was quick.
Sean stopped in the moonlit garden and considered his position.
What had happened to Viggo? Was he really dead? Was he alive somewhere in the house? Had he been killed or captured during a botched assassination? Sean took a deep breath. What was he going to do now?
Why had he killed Sennet? He felt the blood pounding in his temples and an odd tingling heat through his body. He had felt the killing rage before, but in the arena he had controlled it. He had always thought of it as the secret to his success, that he could control the berserker that was the early demise of so many arena fighters.
But he was sure it was the berserker in him that had killed Sennet with hardly any provocation and no second thought.
There was an unexpected consequence of two years at The Laurel.
He took another long deep breath.
He couldn't figure it all out right now. Right now he needed to be sure that this revenge didn't get him thrown to the beasts, or even crucified.
Then the thought occurred...
Sennet's steward was having a very bad morning. The household was in an uproar. Sennet was gone, with only very large quantities of blood on the floor to show that he had been murdered. Not a piece of gold or a precious stone remained anywhere in his private quarters.
The city guard had been called in and the whispers among the slaves and freemen of the household were that it was the work of the assassin that had been moving through the ranks of the city's powerful for all these months.
For his own reasons, the steward doubted the mysterious assassin was guilty of this attack. For one thing, Sennet was a bit low on the rungs of power to have caught his attention. For another...
But the evidence was there for anyone to see.
However, of more interest to the steward was the fact that Sennet died without a son, or even a widow. That meant the whole household enterprise was going to be handed over to the Emperor himself, and the Steward was in a frenzy, checking stores, setting the scullery girls cleaning the dustiest corners, trying to bring the household into some semblance of respectability for the Emperor's Assessor.
He was not in the least surprised when the Assessor arrived only hours after the discovery of Sennet's murder. Nor was he surprised when the Assessor's first demand was to see the Sword Master. Sennet kept one of the most impressive private barracks of arena slaves in the city, after all.
The Sword Master gave his usual Master's nod to his master, a slight stooping of his shoulders his only acknowledgement that the Assessor was a representative of the Emperor, and the Sword Master was only his slave.
The Assessor did not acknowledge this gesture of respect. He fixed the Sword Master with a hard stare.
"The Emperor commands that you deliver his new possession, Viggo Mortensen, immediately."
There was something the steward hadn't expected.
Chapter 21: Homecoming, Part IV