Ionia IV, Empress of Orastine raced through the palace, calling for her guards. Beyond the high marble walls, the sounds of battle echoed over the city, closer now. The walls of the city had fallen with barely a fight and those few troops still loyal to their Empress now fought and died at the gates of the palace itself. It wouldn’t be long now before General Arralis’ troops were inside.

The halls of the palace were eerily empty, aside from the voice of the Empress and the quiet slapping of her gilded sandals on the polished marble floors. Even as the enemy marched on the city, the palace servants had begun to desert, throwing off their livery and pilfering the palace treasures as they left. Most of the courtiers had also fled to their own villas in the city, hoping they would not fall along with the Empress they had flattered and pledged eternal loyalty to for so many years.

“Betrayal!” She cursed. “All around me: Betrayal!” General Arralis…well that had not been surprising. He was more than half-barbarian himself, the child of an Imperial General and some barbarian concubine taken when the Empire’s borders expanded past her insignificant village. But Ionia had thought General Comnenus and Remius would crush the upstart when Arrali’s XIX Legion had hailed him as Imperator. Instead, they had joined their forces with his in open rebellion and before Ionia knew it, the would-be Emperor was marching on the Eternal City itself.

With all the loyal, veteran legions deployed on other, distant frontiers, the meager forces of raw recruits, backwater garrison soldiers and old pensioners taken out of retirement, proved too few and too ill-trained to stand in open battle. But even the city militia should have been able to hold the walls long enough for those loyal generals she had recalled to arrive with their troops and break the siege. But she was betrayed once again. In the early hours of the morning, a treacherous guard captain had opened a postern door and let a small force of rebel troops into the city. Before the alarm could be raised, they had seized one of the secondary gates and enemy soldiers were flooding into the city. Now it was all over.

Ionia came to a corner in the hall. It was there she ran into the first other people she had seen in some time. Sejanus, Captain of the Palace Guard, stood there with half a dozen of his men behind him. By the grim looks on their faces though, the Empress knew they had not come to defend their mistress.

“One final betrayal!” She said in a grim voice. Steeling herself, she spread her arms. “Very well. Do the deed and tell all you see how an Empress dies!”

Sejanus shook his head. “Nay! Arralis had given explicit instructions. It is not by your death we purchase our lives but in your person, handed to him alive and unharmed.” He gestured to his men who stepped forward. Where the day before it would have been unthinkable for such baseborn guards to lay hands upon the person of the Empress, now they roughly seized her. Ionia struggled to maintain her dignity as she was manhandled up the corridor by her treacherous bodyguards.

Near the doors of the palace, they stopped and for the first time Ionia truly despaired. Waiting for them was another group of unfaithful Palace Guard. With them were Ionia’s three daughters, Drusila, Julia and Hestia, each clutched in the grasp of one of the men. The Imperial Princesses wailed and sobbed, seeing their mother dragged before them. She called out to them as well.

Ionia had sent her daughters away that morning, when first brought news the enemy was in the city. She thought they would be safe in the Temple of the Virgin Goddess. Even a half-barbarian like Arralis would not violate so sacred a space. Clearly they had never made it there. One more betrayal on top of all the others.

Callous to the women’s sorrows, Sejanus gave the order for his men to prepare their prisoners. The Princesses shrieked as their clothes were torn away by the rough hands of the men. Ionia cursed in outraged fury as all the Imperial regalia was stripped from her and her purple ropes ripped off. In moments, the four women stood completely naked, though not for long.

A heavy wooden chest was brought up and dropped with a clatter and a rattle from the contents. Inside were collars, shackles and chains, all of plain iron, the marks of common slaves, not captive royalty. The women cursed and pleaded until leather slave muzzles were strapped over their mouths, reducing them to barbarous grunts and moans. Crude iron collars were locked around slender necks, rough shackles on delicate wrists and ankles, all joined by heavy chains, linking the royal women together.

“Let us go.” Sejanus said, ordering his men to throw open the palace doors. Outside was a scene of pandemonium. Broken weapons and the bodies of men in armor were scattered around amid pools of blood and viscera, those of the loyal soldiers and rebels alike intermingled in the chaos of the final battle. All through the palace grounds, large mobs of soldiers in the colors of the rebel legions spread out, intent on plunder, but the largest group stood near the gates which connected palace to city.

There were more bodies of men here, many dressed in fine robes and tunics and golden ornaments the soldiers were busy plundering. These were those Imperial servants and court nobles who had been deemed a little too loyal to the deposed Empress to be left alive or had simply had wealth and lands the rebels wished to confiscate. The plundered bodies were being beheaded, the grisly trophies carried up to the walls to be displayed, so all would know what rewards loyalty to the Empress had earned them.

A short distance away, watching these proceedings with wails of horror, was a crowd of women and girls. Some were serving women who had been tardy fleeing the palace. Others were the wives and daughters of the executed noblemen. Like the royal family, the female captives had been stripped naked and laden down with slaves' collars and chains, joining them in numerous coffles. Leather muzzles muffled their weeping.

As Ionia and her daughters were led down the palace steps, a cheer went up from the victorious rebels. Their ranks parted and a chariot rolled through, pulled by four magnificent stallions. Standing in it, in fine armor stained with signs of battle, was the victorious rebel general Arralis. Sejanus and his men dragged their prisoners up to him and knelt in supplication. Ionia and her daughters stood, briefly, in defiance, but sharp pulls on their chain leads forced the women to prostrate themselves before the man who had conquered them.

For a long moment, the general’s gaze swept over the palace and its former occupants, now kneeling before him, naked and chained. He looked to Sejanus and gave a brusque order. The former Palace Guard captain took Ionia’s lead and led her and her daughters around behind the chariot. The end of Ionia’s lead was fastened to a hook at the rear of the chariot. As Arralis slowly drove the chariot back around towards the gate, the royal women were forced to follow as best they could or be dragged along behind.

Meanwhile, the rebel soldiers had gathered back at the gates and formed up into neat, disciplined columns. Some of them were assigned to the coffles of chained noblewomen and girls. The sobbing prisoners were herded into place, directly behind their Empress and her daughters. At an order from the General, the whole procession set out through the gates, into the city proper.

Fighting had stopped in the city. The streets outside were packed on either side, more soldiers from the victorious army and the common folk of the city, herded out to see the triumph of their new ruler and bear witness to the fall of the old, graphically demonstrated: the old royal family, naked but for slaves’ chains, were led stumbling behind the chariot of the general who had bested them and now ruled.

The set up, with its marching soldiers and lines of weeping captives reminded Ionia of the countless triumphs performed before her, when her victorious generals returned from some conquered frontiers, parading their armies alongside the spoils of victory, usually in the form of the defeated peoples womenfolk, dragged along in coffles and destined for the slave markets at the end of it.

But this was a triumph in reverse. Instead of starting at the Gate of the Maers and ending at the palace and the congratulations of their grateful Empress, this began at the palace and moved out through the city, passing through district after district so all the citizens could bear witness.

Instead of golden haired barbarian maidens from the north or exotic, dark-eyed beauties from the East, most of the captives were women of the city itself, wives and daughters of its leading men, whose heads now decorated the palace walls while their women were paraded like slaves before the common folk they had so often looked down upon, with the Empress and Imperial Princesses at the forefront.

Few seeing the display could doubt that the old dynasty was no more and a new one had taken its place…