For the Sake of an Empire Ch. 01

The following is a complete work of fiction inspired by Roman history, with a strong fantasy aspect for the use of artistic license. The original story which was previously posted on Literotica has been revamped. The idea of intrigue, betrayal and a power struggle is the still the same. However, changing from a Roman setting to a FANTASY setting allowed me to play more with the idea of pagan magic and other aspects that I found were limited in a historically accurate Roman setting. If you enjoyed the original, I am sure you will still enjoy this one. For those who wrote to me about this series regarding its lack of overly explicit sexual content, I will state for your peace of mind that it is NOT a stroke story. If that interests you, you'd be better off reading something else.

As always, the names, places and events are fictitious and this is meant merely to be a source of entertainment, not an accurate depiction of history.

Disclaimer:

The following story may contain erotic situations between consenting adults. If it is illegal for you to read this please leave now.

Any resemblance between the characters and any real life person is completely coincidental. Please do not copy or distribute the story without the author's permission.

Important -

Please feel free to send any feedback or comments through the writing journal or you can send it directly. Please just remember to add something in the subject line so I know it's not Spam. This is a new style for me so constructive commentary and suggestions are always welcome. Enjoy!

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The moon was full. It sat in the stormy sky like a bloated and watchful sentry, overlooking a city which would never be the same after this night. Life as all of Celaenia knew it would change. So had it been written in the stars, so would it be done.

Portia, only daughter of Emperor Traianvis Hadrianvs Avgustus, looked out from the balcony over the crashing waves of the sea and rolling mountains in the distance. This year the spring storms had been unusually violent; night and day the crash of the sea had echoed throughout the city until no man or woman within could sleep, and even the hounds whimpered mournfully. As she stared into night, Portia wondered if the Fates could see through the mists. They were the weavers of humanity's destiny, but tonight she would make her own.

She inhaled slowly as she stood at the balcony. Slender hands were as pale as the white silk that draped over her slender form and whispered in the wind. Luminous gray eyes watched the waves break along the shore in the far distance. Built on craggy cliffs and secured by the rolling mountains that bordered the country, Celeania was a city that had been built by blood and tears. Generations before her had died for these lands. Men had killed for it because the Empire was everything.

She turned slightly to look over her shoulder, her gaze distant as she looked at the bed and the man she had once respected so much. When she was a child, he had been her world. For twenty three years, she had struggled for his approval and done everything in her power to make him see that she would be able to follow in his footsteps. She was her father's only child and his disappointment had burned in her heart all of her life. She fanned that flame tonight, forcing herself to recall only the pain of inadequacy and the lack of a parent's love.

"For too long did I sit idly by and watched our people suffer for the mistakes that a mind feeble with age has made. For five years have I have ruled this empire under your heavy hand. I created a world that is both feared and respected. One day, Celaenia will be known as the most powerful civilization in the world and people will hail its great achievements. I did all this in your name instead of my own even as your mind and body weakened, and I never asked for anything in return and how is it that you choose to repay such loyalty and accomplishment?"

The frail body on the bed offered no answer to the softly spoken words. Her father lay on the bed looking up silently at the ceiling. For months his condition had been deteriorating and he had lost all ability to speak only a few days before. He could feel pain when he was injured, but he could not cry out. All he could do to communicate with his daughter was to blink.

It was pathetic.

Portia looked away from him for a moment. All of the lands as far as her gaze could trace, belonged to her people. They had been won through bitter wars and there was too much at stake to allow sentimentality and guilt to play a part in her plans. She had waited twenty three years for this moment.

All those years she had watched as her father mourned the fact that her mother had never given him a son. His daughter's beauty and intelligence were renowned, and yet never good enough for the one man whose approval she desired. It was an approval which had been elusive all of these years and yet she had tried to make him proud of her in every way that she could. She had kept trying even after the forgetful illness came upon him and his decisions which had once been respected for their fairness and foresight, began to reveal his level of intellectual deterioration. Portia had stepped in, to protect and guide the Empire in his stead.

She had allowed no one to know how quickly her father's condition had worsened. Only she and his faithful servant, Cauis, were allowed to see him during those times when he could not remember even his own name.

For the past five years, Portia had been the voice of the Emperor when he was silent, meeting with his counselors in order to decide the plans of action that would continue to build up Celaenia, and fulfill her fantasies of conquering the world. She had done all of this, to gain her father's favor. Instead he had done the unforgivable.

"Were I a man, you would surely have given me lands and titles. Yet the gods have cursed me by confining me to this female form. You, in your feebleness, do not feel I am worthy of ruling our country without a strong male hand to guide my every step and smother the greatness that I alone am responsible for."

She paused, moving slowly away from the balcony and over to the bed. The mattress sunk gently as it accepted her weight. Her father blinked up at her as she leaned over him, her touch almost gentle as she brushed his thinning hair back from his forehead. His skin was as cool and dry as a piece of papyrus, but his pulse sped up when her lips moved lightly across his forehead and drifted down to his ear. One hand rested on his chest, feeling his heart race.

Her hair was the same raven black her father's had once been, and their gazes were identical shades of a clear luminous gray. She was lovely and feminine, but she was her father's child. Beneath that elegantly coiffed hair, she was a woman who knew what she wanted, and who was willing to do anything to achieve her desires.

Anything.

"You forced a husband on me, father. In less than a months time you would have watched me become shackled to a man I do not even know. How could you? I can rule Celaenia alone. You know that I am strong enough. I am intelligent enough. You educated me for years and yet now you would deny me what is mine."

Her breath eased across his face and he blinked rapidly. "I do not know this man that you have chosen for me," she murmured. "He is nothing more than a name that I have grown to loathe more with every day that passes, and yet you expect me to trust him implicitly. You wish me to lay myself at his feet like a lovely rug to be admired and discarded when it suits him... No. I am sorry, Father. For the sake of Celaenia and its people, and for the protection of all that I consider sacred, I will not let you hand Celaenia over to an impostor. I will die first."

She closed her eyes as her lips traced the curve of his ear. He smelled like sage and sickness. No one else could see it, because she had not allowed it, but her father was closer to his next life than he now was to this one. Time would have taken care of him eventually, but both she and Celaenia had run out of patience.

"The Fates will forgive me for what I am about to do. You have suffered long enough, and so have we as your people. The gods will not free us from the path of destruction that you have put us on, so I must. Goodbye, Father."

Her lips brushed chastely over his before she straightened. Her gaze moved to the door as it opened and her father's manservant, Caius, entered. He bowed low to her after he entered the room. Portia nodded and then stepped away from the bed and back out onto the balcony. She stared into the emptiness of the sea as her will was carried out behind her. She had defied the Fates but even she could not watch the death of a man who had been loved as much as he had been hated. Plush lips tightened into a line, and she felt a single tear slide down a cheek as fair as polished ivory.

"No one will ever know of this," she murmured. "But I do it now for my country and will do it again and again if I must."

Her knuckles ached from how tightly she clutched the balcony ledge, but pains of the body would heal with the simple passage of time. Other wounds went deeper and hurt far worse, but as long as Celaenia required her service, she would drive the knife deeper into her own heart.

Portia tensed as strong hands came down on her shoulders. The hands that had smothered the life from her father touched her with gentleness and she smiled softly with the grief all falls from innocence brought. Those same hands had so often caressed her, making her body come to life.

Caius had been her father's loyal servant for fifteen years, but now he was hers. He had taught her about the art of passion between a man and a woman. When she closed her eyes, she saw his face in her mind's eye, contorted with passion as he moved over her. She felt the heat of his breath over her skin as it flushed and strained beneath him, desiring more, rasping her name with a groan of pleasure, making her body sing as his strokes claimed her as his. Slowly, she turned in his arms. It was late. The storms had driven all to their beds earlier in the evening and no one would dare to come into the Emperor's private rooms. There would be no witnesses or prying eyes to see the obscenity that had been committed while the moon watched.

Portia looked up at Caius, refusing to allow her gaze to drift past his body to the bed. "Is it done?"

She made it a question, though she knew in her heart that the man on the bed would never again be a hindrance in her great plans for the future of Celaenia. She asked the question for reassurance - to hear the words from the lips of another so that the horror would become real, and her nightmare would give way to new dreams.

He nodded as he drew her closer. She allowed her body to go pliant, leaning into his support. He enjoyed it when she was willing and submissive. In moments like these, she was only softness and femininity.

"It is done, my lady."

And the gods have turned their backs on me. I feel the shadows.

"I am fearful, Caius," she murmured. "I feel as if the world is hovering at the edges and waiting to collapse in on me when I close my eyes. It is waiting for me to show weakness and to fall."

"You shall never fall, Portia. I will always be there to catch you."

His eyes met hers, his tone urgent. He was a handsome man with the fair features of the people of her country. If they had lived in a world different from this one, he would have made her his wife. She knew his heart was hers for the taking if she wished it, but to rule a country meant to live only for the country and never for one's self.

Portia pressed into him, her breasts brushing against the front of his robes through the thin silk of her chemise. Those soft, full mounds flattened momentarily as she yielded to him. She could feel his desire rising even now, and she asked the gods for forgiveness as she let her eyes close and her head be tipped back by the hand he tangled in her thick hair.

Caius's breath was a warm breeze across her trembling cheeks before his mouth covered hers. His lips were hot and demanding and laced with a faint note of the hysteria that resided deep within both of them. Portia allowed one hand to slide up his hard frame to rest on his shoulder as she clung. She could feel the enormity of her actions bearing down on her as if she was a slender blade of grass alone in a hurricane. Cauis was the storm and she let herself be swept away by his ardor as he walked her back into her father's room, and backed her up against the velvet wall coverings.

Portia kept her eyes closed, willing herself to see nothing.

She was a vessel of the Fates and of the gods.

She had done it for Celaenia.

She had done it for her people.

It would be her hell and an empire's salvation.

A soft moan escaped from between lips as she let her head tilt back when his lips traveled to her throat. He pressed her to the wall, lifting her body so that those long, slender limbs were wrapped around his hips as his mouth moved gently along her cheeks and down the long column of her throat. Portia shuddered within his arms, tilting her head back to guide his lips lower along bare shoulders that were the fantasy of many a man in Celaenia. Tonight it was his reality.

Cauis loved her.

He had killed the man he had loved like a father. To murder the Emperor had been to kill a part of himself. Yet he had done it for the sake of this woman who pledged her love to him Her happiness was his, and in her smile he found his reason for such treason. Between those silky thighs that pulled him closer, was where he found his vindication. Caius's hand was a scorching heat against her breast as he feathered the stiffening nipple between his fingers. Her hand moved over his, encouraging him to squeeze harder. His groan of pleasure was muffled in the side of her throat as he obeyed and his other hand momentarily left her hip to move his robes aside.

Portia felt the heat of velvet skin as his hand brushed against that secret channel, fanning her desire. His fingers moved up and down her slit, encouraging her moans as he circled the little nub that was the seat of her passion.

Portia's head knocked gently against the wall as he pierced her with his fingers. Two stroked deep into that wet passage and her inner muscles bore down on him to welcome him in. She could feel the sensations increasing in intensity threatening an explosion from within as the Fates watched and waited for a moment to crash her world around her ears for her acts of sedition.

She bit down on her tongue when his fingers stroked higher, curving to find a spot that forced her body over the shining edge of pleasure where, for one blessed moment, there was no pain and no guilt. His mouth closed over hers when she would have called out, and he tasted of wine and of treason.

He drank in her cries and before the sweet spasms of her body ended, he thrust into her. There was a momentary feeling of almost overwhelming pressure and then he began to move. Her hand dug into his shoulders, nails threatening to break his skin when their pelvic bones ground together. Cauis offered a muffled groan and pushed deeper, refusing to allow her to free herself.

They were both lost in a spiraling world of violent pleasure and desperate forgetfulness that swept through their veins like burning oil as his lips found her throat. All rational thought disappeared beneath a torrent of passion.

They had committed an act that was unforgivable, and the evidence of their treachery still lay on the bed only a few feet from them. The old King's blank eyes stared upward, as if he could not bear to watch the last of his line, fall from grace.

Portia gasped as Cauis's thrusts began to increase in tempo. Portia's face was flushed, her lashes dark on her cheeks like twin crescents. She could feel her desire pulsing deep, and it grew stronger with every beat of her heart. Cauis caught her mouth again, sucking her tongue into his mouth until Portia felt the pleasure expand like a balloon and explode within her. She milked his release from him only a moment later.

His breathing was harsh in the silence of the room. Only the faint scent of sandalwood and jasmine and the whisper of the breeze coming in from the balcony reminded them of where they were. Portia looked up at him with those beautiful eyes, one hand curling gently behind his neck. She smiled as she leaned in to brush her mouth lightly over his before he released her.

When her feet touched the floor, she inhaled deeply. When Cauis touched her arm, she forced a gentle smile as she returned the touch. "I am all right. The night has been long and it is not yet over. You must put the pillows back the way they were, and erase all suggestions of struggle, Caius."

"Yes, my lady."

He brushed a kiss over her knuckles and then moved away to hide the evidence of this night, though she still carried some of it in a sticky heat between her thighs. Silently, Portia walked towards the door. She opened it and then looked back at him once as he tried to right an urn that had been kicked over in the struggle.

He had murdered her father for her sake.

He had risked all for her.

He lived for her.

Now he would die for her. She screamed. She saw his expression falter in confusion when she stumbled backwards as if horrified by the sight of her father's limp form. One hand dangled bonelessly over the side of the bed as his once faithful servant stood over him with a pillow in his hands.

"Guards!"

Forgive me...

Portia saw the understanding sweep over his face as he met her eyes. There was no judgment, only sadness before he dropped the pillow. She stumbled back a few more feet, and into the arms of the guards who ran into the room. Caius was captured and beat into whimpering submission at her feet, but he never spoke.

Portia closed her eyes as he was dragged from the room. What had been done could not be undone. Her father had been a well-loved ruler, and his death would be grieved by the whole Empire. The flags would fly, and the city would mourn the passing of one great man.

The one held responsible, would put to death for their satisfaction. There would be no trial and there would be no ruling by the High Council. The sentence would be immediate. Death.

All for the sake of the Empire.

- - - - - -

Celaenia was mourning. Houses, both public and private, were draped with black linens. The marketplace was quiet, save for whispered chatter from the people who had so rarely been within more than a 100 feet of their king, and yet still felt his passing with the same resonance that those closest to him did. He had been a great man and the citizens waited with bated breath for what the Fates would bring them next.

The alliances of Celaenia had been contacted and were coming to pay their respects. The funeral rights would go on for days, and the display that had been set up by the priests was surrounded with mounds of flowers and offerings of food and coin for Harob.

Portia had had enough. She needed just a moment away from it all and so she sought solace at the Temple of Visandra, the goddess of wisdom.

Sandaled feet padded softly against the marbled floor to the altar where she dropped to her knees. The black silk veil covering her face was removed silently to reveal eyes that were neither red nor swollen. Portia let the silk flutter to the floor as she pressed her palms together and lowered her head respectfully.

The irony of the situation was not lost on her. This was a place of prayer and petition and yet what could she hope to gain from the gods that she had defied? Forgiveness for doing what was necessary? Assured passage into the afterlife? Hope that Celeania would rise stronger as a result of her sacrifice?