The Alpha Emperor's Courtesan

Suki

I awoke to the sound of a young woman’s piercing wail, and it filled me with dread.

She sounded like someone had beaten her, and I was afraid that I was about to suffer the same fate when Rin appeared in my doorway with a look of complete rage spread across her face.

“You,” she thrust her finger towards me in an accusatory jab and I scrambled to my feet and tried to make myself seem like I was less of a target. She pointed at the ground beside her in a sharp stabbing motion, “here.”

There was no point trying to argue with her - she clearly wouldn’t understand me, and I wouldn’t understand her either.

I approached her slowly, but confidently, and she was almost shaking with rage by the time I arrived at the spot she had pointed at.

I wanted to ask her what she wanted, but I didn’t have the words for that.

I didn’t need to ask, anyway. As soon as I was close enough, she grabbed the fabric at the shoulder of the dress I was wearing and tugged it so forcefully that I was amazed the material didn’t tear before it fell to the ground around me.

I could see the young woman who was wailing in the background now, and I recognized her from the small group I had seen seated around the table the previous evening. She was incredibly beautiful, with dark skin and long black hair that looked exquisite next to all of the elaborate golden jewelry she was wearing.

As soon as the dress I had taken the previous evening landed in a crumpled heap at my feet, the crying stopped, and she turned and walked back into the room I had taken the dress from.

That was it - the hysterical screaming and crying were because I had taken this dress to try and keep myself warm, and now it had been taken from me, she hadn’t rushed to pick it up so she could wear it herself.

Rin shoved me hard in the chest, so I stepped back into the room, and I wanted to shove her back, but I saw the huge scary man from last night hovering in the background, and it was clear he was her bodyguard. It would have been stupid of me to fight her, anyway - she probably had a knife somewhere in the folds of her own dress, and I was now naked and defenseless.

She pushed me again and then motioned for me to sit down.

I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to make things any harder for myself, so I complied.

As soon as I was sitting down, she nodded, sternly, and left me alone.

I stayed there without moving, certain that this was some sort of test, until another woman entered the room with a jug and a cup, which she set on the floor beside me.

This was another of the young women I had seen at the table the previous evening, and she smiled and sat down opposite me as I looked at the jug to try and figure out what it contained.

“It’s just water.”

I was surprised to hear my own language from this woman’s lips - she looked nothing like any of the people I had known back home. She was just one of the countless people I had seen since I arrived in this city who clearly wasn’t from here and who had probably been taken even further from their homeland than I had to live in this sprawling mass of buildings filled with people that I did not understand.

“How do you…?”

“I had a liaison with a General for a while, and he eventually took me with him when he went to Gaul on a tour. It served me well to learn how to talk to the people the army captured, and it meant I was seen as more than a pretty face.”

“A liaison?”

The young woman furrowed her brow and chewed her lip for a moment.

“I think that’s the correct word… he was infatuated with me from the moment he saw me, and I saw a chance to improve my situation; we were involved romantically for a while. It was an … entanglement? A dalliance?”

“You used the correct word, I am just not used to this idea. Is everything here so transactional all the time?”

The young woman shrugged and poured out some of the water in the jug for herself to drink.

“You would rather not benefit from your relationships with the men here? You have been chosen to study with Rin; you will be highly desirable when you have completed your training.”

“I don’t understand any of this. You’re talking as if all of this is obvious, but it isn’t. What is this place? Why was I introduced to the Emperor last night? Will I be given clothing or am I expected to walk around like this until somebody takes pity on me?”

The woman smiled and set down her empty cup.

“Perhaps we should start again from the top? I’m Suki - you are?”

“Talia.”

“You weren’t told anything when Rin brought you here?”

“All I know is that I am a courtesan, and that doesn’t mean anything to me. I thought I had been sold to a whorehouse, and then I was dragged in front of the Emperor, and he spoke to me as if this is some sort of noble position that I should be proud of.”

Suki looked at me carefully, and I started to feel rather self-conscious about the fact that I had been left with no clothes. She wasn’t judging me, and she did not look at me in a s****l way, but I still felt extremely uncomfortable and I was relieved when she looked away.

“It won’t have been the Emperor you saw; there must have been some sort of miscommunication. He doesn’t bother with the new girls.”

“I was blindfolded and taken clear across the city to speak to him. He told me he is looking for someone new, and that he is looking for someone who can entertain his guests with more than just their body - whatever the hell that means. He spoke about accompanying him to events.”

Suki shook her head.

“That can’t be right… the Emperor always takes Xena to events, and she has been the one he asks for every time he wants someone to attend functions with him for over a year now. He has shown no sign that he is unhappy with her.”

I shrugged casually and poured my own cup of water to drink as Suki remained completely puzzled by the news I had just given her.

“Perhaps he is bored with her, or maybe they do not want the same things from their relationship. I can only tell you what he told me, and I do not even know who Xena is, so…”

“…that dress you took belongs to her. She is the one you have pissed off - she rules this place and she has more men pining after her than the rest of us combined. She gets whatever she wants, and whoever she wants, and if the Emperor has decided that he wants you to replace her, then you should know now that she will not give him up without a fight.”