Scipio Metellus and the Fall of Aetna

(Illustration of Scipio Metellus by TroyDM, used by permission)

Scipio Metellus was assembling his caravan outside the imposing Main Gate of Aetna, a city near the Northern Forests, close to the mountain range that contained the Sardar, the home of the Priest-Kings. Aetna was twenty days travel North of the Sardar and the location of the Fair of En’Kara, the spring fair. Not at all co-incidentally, it was twenty-one days until the opening of the Fair. Scipio had twenty days to arrive at the Fair with his merchandise of two-thousand- five hundred slaves.

For Aetna had fallen; fallen completely. Sometimes when a Gorean city fell, it had to pay a tribute in goods, coins, and slaves to the conqueror, but survived to continue to exist. Ar had paid tribute to Cos and Tyros when it surrendered under the traitoress Talena, Corcyrus had paid tribute to Argentum, but had survived; even proud Turia had continued to exist after its fall to the Tuchaks because of its utility to the conquerors.

But Aetna had no utility for its conqueror Vesuvium. They were rivals, similar cities close to the Northern Forests, and the destruction of one meant the rise of the other.

And Aetna had fallen. Warriors and citizens of Vesuvium had poured through the Gates of Aetna just before dawn, five days ago. Aetna had not even known that there was a war. The troops of Vesuvium had travelled by seldom used tracks through the open woods, hidden from patrolling tarnsmen and casual travelers.  

It is a saying on Gor that more strong places fall to gold than to steel, that gold opens more doors than does a key. Scipio Metellus had provided the gold keys, paid in advance to the Twenty Traitors of Aetna. Now Scipio Metellus was collecting his reward, his gold repaid from the captured treasury of Aetna and his pick of one tenth of the women of that city.

Over the past five days, Scipio and his men had sorted through the masses of captured women, those already slave, and the new captives and had selected two thousand five hundred of the best. These captives, naked and chained, now stood waiting for the order to march to the Sardar Fair of En’Kara where they would be sold. Some where formerly High Caste, some from the artisans, or the families of Warriors, all now equally stripped of veils and clothing, chained and destined for sale.

The Main Gate of Aetna was still standing, but it was a mockery. All the other gates had been cast down, their rubble filling the deep defensive ditch that had surrounded Aetna.  The walls, high and proud, likewise thrown down into the ditch. The work was done by the surviving men of Aetna, chained into work gangs, bound for sale to the mines and fields. All the Cylinders of the city had been thrown down as well, except the Main Cylinder, and that is the ceremony that must be completed before Scipio Metellus can begin his march.

Aetna had been well looted by the conquerors. The goods, and the other nine tenths of the women of the city were being prepared to march. The Main Cylinder had been undermined on one side, like a tree being prepared for felling. The beams propping up the cylinder had been soaked in oils, cooking oils, oils from tanning, anything that would burn. The records of Aetna, back to its founding were stacked around the beams, and then other combustibles. The roof of the cylinder had been removed. When the fire was set, the cylinder would act as a chimney, drawing air up through it, consuming all mention of the city as the beam supporting the cylinder where the stones had been were turned to ash. When the cylinder fell, fires would spread as it crashed to the ground. Aetna would be consumed. Ash would cover the ruins, then dirt and dust would blow in.  In ten years it would be hard to say a city had stood there, in a hundred only a mound would remain.

The Home Stone of Aetna was already loaded on a wagon. The wagon was to be trailed by four hundred captives, stripped and chained in the same manner as the captives of Scipio Metellus. Scipio had not been allowed to make his choices from among those women. They were the Companions and daughters of the ruling council of Aetna, the companions and daughters of some of the highest families of the fallen city. Half of these captives would be given by Sergius, the young commander of Vesuvium’s forces to the members of the Council of Vesuvium for their private use.  The other half would be placed in rape racks around the central plaza of the conquering city for the use of the citizens.  To gain the right of usage of these high ladies of the fallen enemy, a citizen would need to take a file, and of the five pieces of the Home Stone of Aetna, select one and file off some stone. Each day, the stone dust would be collected and scattered throughout the plaza, so that for all time the citizens of Vesuvium would tread on the dust of the Home Stone of their enemy. Only after all the pieces of the Home Stone of Aetna had been reduced to dust would the women of the High Castes and Council of Aetna be sold to the Paga Taverns of Vesuvium.

Stony faced, the Twenty Traitors of Aetna watched the wagon bearing the Home Stone roll away setting out for Vesuvium. They and their goods were exempt from the looting of the city, their daughters and companions, their sons and their families exempt from the rape and killing that was the fate of the rest of the city.

They had been the minority on the Council, the minority in the councils of the High Castes. They had decided it was better to rule a small village or town than be ruled in a renowned city. One of the Twenty had opened each of the six gates of Aetna; while others had opened the barred doors of the fourteen tall cylinders that were the boast of the city.

They would take their goods, their women, slave and free, and their followers and find a small village or town, conquer it or join with its ruling families and build a new city, extending an invitation to broken men to join them. It would be a larl of a city, cruel and rapacious, reflecting the sort of men who built it.

Being untrusting men, as untrustworthy men often are, they had already smuggled out of Aetna and buried the gold that was the price of their treachery. They had also hidden much of what they had embezzled from the treasury of the Aetna and their guilds. Still their wagons contained much treasure, and they were eager to be gone.

The story that they would tell in future years in their new abode would be different of course. It would be one of heroic flight from a burning city, how they had cut their way out through countless foes.

 

Incidentally, Sergius of Vesuvium would tell a tale of the seizing Aetna which laid stress on his bravery and that of the men and warriors of Vesuvium with little mention of the Traitors who opened the gates and the barred doors of the cylinders. There would be mention of the cleverness of the stratagem that opened the gates, and none of the amount of gold

Scipio Metellus had never heard of the city of Troy on the slave world, he had never heard of the story of the wooden horse. He would not be surprised that the Greeks laid much emphasis on the cleverness of Odysseus, and none on the gold that persuaded some Trojans to urge that the Horse be brought into their city. After all, why spoil such a good story with grubby facts.

The traitors of Troy, led by Aeneus, fled with their ill-gotten loot and families, first to Carthage, where Aeneus seduced and tricked the Tatrix, Dido, and then to Italy, where they later founded Rome, telling many tales of their own bravery and probity. Rome, a city of thieves, betrayed their allies and became great. But the people of Carthage knew the truth, and Carthage had to be destroyed. Carthago delenda est. And so Rome destroyed Carthage to cover for the treason at Troy a thousand years previously.

Scipio knew nothing of this, being a Man of Gor, but his cynical soul would not have been surprised. He stood by his five wagons as the fires burned in the Main Cylinder.  As the cylinder fell and fires spread in the city of Aetna, he raised a fine goblet in the direction of the leader of the Twenty Traitors. The man’s face empurpled as Scipio Metellus smiled at him. The fires of burning Aetna caused the sky to turn red as the clouds reflected the glare of the burning. Some of the traitors turned their heads so they could not see. The chief of the Twenty, just glared at Scipio, as the slaver sipped his fine wine. Scipio was a collector of fine things. In his wagon, which was more a house built on wheels, he had many fine things, including the red-headed daughter of a potter, a humble man who had died in the attack on Aetna. He was sure that the slim fire-crotch secured in his wagon would warm him well after her fires were lit.

The heat from the fires had become uncomfortable as the four hundred captives destined for the rape racks of Vesuvium trudged between the caravans of Scipio Metellus and the Twenty Traitors.

Suddenly the Companion of the Chief of the Traitors stood up on the driver’s seat and began to wail.

She tore at her robes, disarranging them, then beginning to remove them. Her Companian turned around to seize her, but she eluded him, running into the road, now shedding her under-robes. Troops from Vesuvium restrained the Traitor as he tried to pull her back into his wagon.

She shouted, “better a slave than the Companion of a Traitor, better the bed of a Master than that of betrayer of his Home Stone.”

Troops of Vesuvium appeared ready to collar the woman, but Sergius, their leader, restrained them.

“I swore I would not enslave any belonging to the Twenty Traitors”, he proclaimed, while clearly trying to think of a loophole in his oath.

“I see only a naked woman begging for enslavement.” As a slaver, Scipio Metellus had fewer scruples. Besides the woman was one of surpassing beauty. He snapped a collar on her, and threw her in his personal wagon, there to share a cage with the low born, slim red-headed potter’s daughter High Caste and Low Caste together, now just slaves in the collection of Scipio Metellus.

Scipio Metellus started his caravan towards the Fair of En’Kara. He wanted to get there before word of the completeness of the Fall of Aetna spread. Twenty-five Thousand new slaves flooding the market would lower prices, so he wanted to sell his prime stock before the market fell.

He was after all a seller of slaves; even if his major enjoyment came from his collections and bringing off coups like the Fall of an entire City.