IN A GREAT SEA of green I stood, an expanse extending as far as the eye could see. Gently, I brushed my palms against the growing wheat comprising this sea, the slight pressure setting the blades to bend. Not too far in the distance I heard the sound of childish laughter, and then the louder complaints of a boy berating his sister for causing his fall. Another burst of laughter, and at this sound a small smile played over my lips. Our children, the ones Marcus and I had created, laughed and played in this sea of green and they were strong and proud, just as Marcus had promised—even if they did delight in tormenting each other.
If I turned, I would see a small farmhouse breaking the sea and it was here we lived, over a decade of years now. We had settled here when I was heavy with our first child, and Marcus had found comfort in a life dedicated to growing rather than killing. I, too, enjoyed a simpler life, one where our only society were other farmers and their wives and children, and the glory of the arena was a journey two days and a whole world away.
The wheat tickled my flesh as I remembered the days of a decade past. Our flight from the town of my birth had been strangely uneventful. None looked twice as we hurried through the streets, as we left the town walls. My former husband did not expect Aurelia to his door until the day following and this knowledge gave us more than enough time to disappear. As uninvolved as he was in her life, he would have expected his slaves to take custody of her and thus it could have been as late as the evening meal before he suspected aught amiss.
Even then, he would have gone to my mother's domus first and no doubt she would have been contrary just for sport. My mother liked my former husband's wealth only, and would have no compunction about misleading and baiting him. For all his machinations, he held little power in our town and would never reach Rome, as he so desired. As such, my mother would never cow to him and thus, she would afford us a little time. After going to her, it would take him at least another day to raise concern in some who would care. By then, we were lost in the empire.
In all this time, none had come for us. Marcus and I took every care to ensure we would not be found in those first few years, moving every few weeks in the dead of night and covering most of the empire. At first, Aurelia thought it an adventure but soon she tired of the constant travel and had set to complain. She wanted her horse and Pullo and the cook's sweet pastries, and when we could give her none of these things, she had undertaken tantrums the memory of which even now caused me to wince. Marcus, though, had taken her in hand, and eventually she had settled. I still had no notion as to how he had calmed her. I teased him by claiming it the promise of a newer, better horse and sweeter, more succulent pastries. He never had confessed as to how he settled her, though the laughter in his eyes had been confirmation enough.
I could understand her tantrums. I would not like to endure that time again.
We lived our lives as many did, quiet and unnoticed. Often, I wondered about my son and wished I could know him now. We had looked for him these ten years past and still we could find no word of him. He would be reaching manhood now and may soon return to the domus of his father. Marcus said we would return to the town of my birth, to find him if only to satisfy the burning need inside me. I loved Marcus the more for his words, for the comfort he always gave, though I knew it only to be a nice fantasy. We would never return to Astana. One day, though, when I had word, I would somehow find a way to my son.
Of his family I asked Marcus often, certain of his desire to someday return to Thrace. He always smiled, said that part of his life was long over and nothing remained for him in the land of his birth. Wanting only his happiness, I could not bring myself to cease speaking of it and insisted he must want knowledge of his brothers, his sisters, their offspring. To this, Marcus would always silence me with a kiss.
One time, though, he did not. One time, he confessed he had reports of their movements and in his words I heard a sharp longing. One day, it may be we would see for ourselves. I hoped this was not only a nice fantasy.
More laughter reached me, greater curses. My smile widened.
In the spring, Aurelia would marry a man of her choosing, a man she loved. She was excited and nervous, and she insisted often her father change this small detail and that. It still warmed me that she thought of Marcus as her father. Our daughter, our Aurelia, was demanding and she was arrogant and she was certain in our love. To her new domus she would take the lessons she had learned in our home and the horse Marcus had bought her soon after we had settled here.
I had always known he had bribed her with a horse.
As for Marcus, the passing of the years had made him freer with his emotion, quicker to smile, quicker to laugh. Never did we see the impassive mask of a slave, and with our children, he was patient, joyous, sometimes irritated. When they angered him, as the little monsters often did, he was fair and if he could not be, he deferred to me, just as I deferred to him when they made me so angry I could not speak. Only one expression did he not give them, or anyone. For me alone, he reserved his almost-smile, and when he gave me that slight twist of his lips, warmth would fill me as I read of his love and his desire.
Strong arms slid around me, and I smiled as they pulled me into a chest made lean by the labours of a merchant farmer. Lips brushed my temple and I leant back with a contented sigh, my hands light on his forearms, and my fingers traced the scars of his former occupation.
Together, we watched the sea of green roll and dip in the breeze, the sound of our children's laughter carried on the wind, and then I felt his kiss again, this time beneath my ear.
“Marcus,” I breathed, and he answered me with the tightening of his arms and another kiss in the curve where my neck met my shoulder, his tongue soothing the feel of his kiss.
I arched my neck for him, as I always did. “Marcus. Do you think, later, you might catch me in the wheat fields?”
Again he remained silent but his arms tightened around me and against my skin I felt his answer in the shape of his almost-smile.
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