Close to Home

Staying huddled close to each other we stride into the village where the intersection that would lead us off toward my familial lands sat. Despite our ‘disguises’ we still draw eyes our way. It was inevitable. Due to my size I was accustomed to getting glances just walking alone and given the odd make up of our party that only drew more. The tanned and weathered face of the common folk, my people, turn our way and make note of the strangers passing through their village. We get some smiles and some scowl, but at the very least we didn’t have people calling us heroes. Until…

“Quintus?”

I turn to the nasally male voice to see a tall, scrawny, bare-chested man, my cousin Tiro! His family had a little farm along the road we’d be traveling soon. It struck me then that we were close enough to home for me to begin to see familiar faces.

“Tiro?” I say, breaking from the others to offer him my arm. We shake vigorously. “I haven’t seen you in…what, two years?”

“Closer to three.” He says, his dark eyes flitting about my traveling companions. “Heard you went away to claim a fortune.”

“I’m not sure I’d call what that old scoundrel Paullus left me a fortune.” I laugh, trying to stay breezy and casual to avoid deeper questions. “I spent the coin he left me before I even left Rome and the villa was so dilapidated and overgrown we ended up abandoning it. I didn’t have the resources to clean a place like that up properly.” All of that was technically true, if you considered removing a curse ‘cleaning up’. “And what of you? Married yet?”

“Nah, not yet.” As he says that his eyes settle on Cassie. “You seem to be doing okay in that department. Very okay! And slaves! Female slaves. That veiled one doesn’t look like she’s suited for the fields.”

“She was gotten through the inheritance.” Again, technically true. “Rosa, Cassie, Colly…this is my cousin Tiro Quintilianus.”

“Hello, Tiro.” Cassie nods.

“Hello, Couthin Tiro! Can I call ya, Cuz?”

“Colly.” I warn.

“It’s okay.” He chuckles. “I’m used to uppity slaves. We’ve got a crotchety old bastard at the farm that…” My cousin’s smile go brittle as Rosa turns to reveal her magenta eyes. “A demon?” He whispers. “Oh!”

“Is there a problem?”

“No. No, of course not. They’re just…rare.”

He glances to me as if, for a moment, I was a stranger. By the way his protruding Adam’s apple bobbed and the dilation his eyes I recognized that it wasn’t her heritage that had him flustered but her appearance. Looking at my Lady anew I see that with her vein across her face to conceal everything below the eyes she was the very picture of an exotic pleasure ****. Her slim figure, her delicate soft hands, and those wide, captivating eyes promised experiences that might break the mind of a common man. I had gotten similar looks during my journey south from Rome but back then we were scruffy looking enough that the attention was more out of curiosity than awe. And unlike those strangers on the road Tiro knew me, or the old me at least. The big, hard-working ox of a man who used to blush if a woman even showed an ankle. For me, simple Quin, to be showing my face in these parts with a treasure such as Rosa on my arm was akin to a farmyard chicken bringing one of the Emperor’s peacocks back to the coop to meet the flock. Rosa, as always, was a diamond trying to blend in among the coal.

“A pleasure to meet you, Tiro.” Rosa says in a sing-song tone, her slight Egyptian accent only adding her glamorous allure, with a ****’s proper bow to a citizen. I grit my teeth to see the mother of my child have to show deference to another but I contain my feelings.

“Uh…p-pleasure’s all mine!” Tiro’s eyes snap back to mine. “You headin home then?”

“Mm.” I nod, choosing to spare the details.

“Well great!” He says. “I was just heading home after selling at the market. I’m along the way.” He nods to a nearby handcart loaded with the produce he hadn’t sold that day. “We can catch up.”

Patting his shoulder I say. “Sounds good.”

“You’re not pushing through for home tonight, are ya? You’ll be traveling through the night.”

“Truth be told…we could use a roof for the night.” I say. “Stable with clean hay. Anything really.”

“Done! You will be our guests.” He hurries over and lifts the handle of his cart. “Come. If we hurry we’ll be home by supper.”

I look around at the others to see similar smiles as the one on my face. A dry place to sleep and a hot meal sure beat the heck out of harpies and ground sheets. Tiro, speaking with us cordially, and his handcart also gave us another facet of disguise among those looking for ‘heroes’. They’d be looking for a group of four, not five, and certainly not with a vegetable seller in their midst.

With Tiro at our side we pass through the village stopping only long enough to refill our water at the well then carry on West out of the community along a well traveled cart trail.

Once out of the village and into the fully agrarian countryside we were truly among the hills and fields of home now. I could think of a dozen times just in the past few years that I’d come this way to visit Tiro and his family or press on toward that nameless village behind us for a special market day or festival. I begin to point out sights and places to the others. Like the local that I was I tell them about the rumors of **** among the aristocrats of a nearby villa, I tell them about the ruined grain storage shed said to be haunted within a copse of trees we pass by, I tell them about a fig tree just ahead and a few minutes later we were walking along chewing sweet treats.

For a short way Rosa treats us with one of her seemingly infinite array of songs that she had stored away in that adorable horned head of hers. As usual it fits the mood, today that meant a wistful yet joyful sense of returning to a place of beginnings and endings. Again she weaves patterns and rhythms never heard in these parts. While her lilting, perfect, beyond-human notes and tones dance around us I watch my cousin become entranced as all who heard her voice did. Though he was still intimidated by her beauty, more so than ever, the fear of the outsider had quelled within him. In that song Rosa had gifted him something more rare and more exotic than anything found in the local nobles’ vaults.

As we walk I hear Tiro’s familiar voice in a familiar accent telling me familiar stories about this familiar land and it’s people. I knew this wasn’t home anymore, I knew it in my heart, yet as the nostalgia washes over me I find myself so grateful for this final visit to the place that shaped me before we pressed on lands foreign and strange. Tomorrow was full of uncertainty as I truly returned to my old home among the women of my new home, but tonight I could enjoy the moment and old-fashioned familial hospitality.

Before long we are taking the turn off the trail toward the shallow valley where I knew Tiro’s family lived. Warmth, safety, fellowship. These fine things again would likely be rarer than bandits and monsters in the journey to come. Tonight I would savor them with my whole spirit.