Slave Girl: Chapter 78 (Patreon)

The moment we are out of the building Rosa and I come together.  Under the fluttering banner of the Empire we hug each other tight.  All the hurdles had been cleared.  All the legalities done.  We had made it.  We were here.  For good or for ill this valley was our place in the world now.

I look to the sky.  Sol was much lower in the West than when we’d walked in but we still had some time left.  We had already done a full day’s march but being this close to the end things as trifling as tired legs and sore feet weren’t about to stop me now.  Our eagerness and our zeal to see our final destination gives us focus as we walk back through the city.  We make a few quick targeted stops just to grab a couple of immediate necessities, among them is a used wooden handcart that was hardly more than a flat slab with squeaky wheels.  We pile our belongings onto it.  I lift the handle to level the bed then reach a hand out to help Rosa up onto it.

“I can walk.”  She says.

“My Lady ought to ride in style.”  I say with a smile as I patiently wait for her to decide.  If my legs were tired hers would be worse.

She hesitates a moment then nods with a little grin.  She gets up onto the cart and sits at the front lip, her feet dangling off the front just behind where I would be pulling.  “A grand chariot it is.” She says as she wiggles into place.  “Fit for an Empress.”

“Let us go see your empire your Majesty.”

I grip the cross beam and push.  I make my way back through dusty bustling streets to the South gate.  We give a friendly wave to Amadeus but continue straight on through.  Back down the hill, back across the bridge, and continuing further along the road we had taken here that ran roughly parallel to the river.  Traveling generally East the road splits further from the Aciris with a mixture of agricultural and wooded areas now bordering the road on both sides.  The clunking clattering wheels and the incessant squeak of the axle bring to mind our short time with Drusilla.  Along the way we greet any of our new neighbors with a jovial smile and a few kind words, but never once stop to chat.  There would be time for that later.

Whether it was the wagon, my weary legs, or an assumption on the young civil servants part that we owned a horse or chariot it was well over an hour, pushing towards two, and we still hadn’t come to our plot.  We pass one boundary stone after another but none had the information I was on the look out for.  It would have been so much easier if they just numbered them somehow so I at least knew how close were getting instead of detailing the Emperor, local Consul, and date of when the plot was established.  The shadows were getting longer and my excitement now bordered on impatience.  We hadn’t hit the tributary though so I push on with an ever growing need to see my land while it was still light enough to see it.

We are coming down from a wooded rise when I see another marker stone ahead just to the right of the road.  I carefully control the cart down the slope and get close enough to read the etchings.  I nearly stumble as I see the words I had been waiting for come into view.

“This is it!”  I exclaim and bring the cart off of the road to set it down.  “We’re here!”

Rosa hops off and rushes to the stone.  “Oh Quin!”

I hurry up to stand beside her and put my arm around her shoulders as we peer out over our little piece of the Empire.  The sight was beyond even my wildest dreams.  From this rise we look down over a vast waving field of healthy amber wheat.  In the distance, halfway between the road and the river, sat a white red-roofed villa with out buildings gleaming in the evening sun like a pieces of fine ceramic art.  I could not have imagined a more perfect plot.

“By the gods!”  I gasp, my spirit soaring.

At my side Rosa was far more restrained in her joy.  I don’t think she appreciated just what it was we were looking at here.  She looks down to the marker and then up over the field again.  “Master…this can’t be right.”

“Of course it is right.”  I laugh.  “Fortuna has rewarded us for all of our hardships.  Gods be praised!  We are ho…”

“Master, there are men working in that field.”

“Neighbors no doubt, or their slaves.  In the country sometimes when one of us cannot keep up with things everyone around pitches in to keep things going.  Uncle Paullus must have been a good friend to them.  A proper Ceres man no doubt.”

“Master…there’s smoke coming from the chimneys.  People are living down there.”

“Yes.”  I say as I too notice it, my confidence starting to waver.  “Perhaps an arrangement to keep the place in good order.”

“Master…”

“Or perhaps they’ve let the field workers use the villa.  It would only be fair for keeping up the crop.  We’ll have to give them most of the profits this year in thanks, it’s only right.  What wonderful people must live here to do this for us.”

“Master.”  Rosa tugs on my tunic.  “Look.”  

She points ahead of us.  There, about ten strides away, was another border stone partially hidden by a patch of tall grass delineating the next plot.

“But…”  I scratch my head.  “But…how…”

“We must have missed the first stone.  This is far edge of the property.”

As one our heads turn back to the land we had just been traveling along.

“No.  No, this isn’t right.”

It was easy to see where the neighbors land ended and mine began.  As if cut with a knife the perfectly straight edge of the square field of wheat comes up against a dense wall of trees and bushes.  At the river the wood shifts to a flat stony meander.  I look back up the road.  I had not given this area much attention on the way by as I believed it to be a wild space.

“This can’t be it.”

“There was a lane back there.”  Rosa says.  “Just over the crest of the hill.”

“That’s right.”  I say, hopes shaken but still high.  “That’s right, there was.”  I stride to the cart and lift the handle.  Rosa forgoes riding to walk along beside me.  “These trees must just be a border.”  I say as I try to peer the greenery to what might lay beyond, to no avail as all I could see is more forest.  “My mother and her family are farmers.  Paullus came from farmer stock.  He’s a farmer.”

“Yet he moved away?”

“Yeah, to find his own…”  I my voice fades we come over the crest to see the lane ahead.  “There it is.”

Walking at a pace just short of a jog we hurry up to the side road.  There was no gate or sign post of any kind, simply a road leading into the bushes.  We turn onto it.  Peering down overgrown lane my heart was sinking fast.  I remind myself that no matter what it was still land and it was still an unexpected boon, but my expectations were being shattered to pieces here.  With much less spring in my step we progress along the path and into the forest.  Looking left and right I see the woods may have once been maintained but it had been left to go wild many years ago.  This couldn’t be the right place, yet it must be.

It is not long before we see a large building through the foliage.  With the squeaking of the cart’s wheels and the song of birds around us we follow the trail around a lefthand curve and come up onto a wide area paved with stone.  I stare in disbelief.  Before us rises a graying and terribly dilapidated two story villa.  The paint was flaking, cracked russet roof tiles lay on the ground here and there around the edge, the wide wooden front door hung crooked off of a hinge, and most of the windows were shuttered and nailed shut.  My uncle had deceased two months ago yet the place looked like it hadn’t been lived in in a decade.  Not only was it in bad shape, it was huge!  Far too large for just Rosa and I.  While no palace neither was it a simple farm house.  This was the type of villa that required servants and slaves to properly maintain even when in good working order.  In its day it must have been a sight to behold but as it was…it looked ready to cave in on itself.  Between us and it there was a long rectangular shallow pool half full of stagnant green water, in the center stood a partially moss covered eight foot statue of Mercury looking down on us, as if to greet us.  I swear the old trickster god was smirking.  I let go of the cart, letting it clatter down to rest.

“This is…this is…”  Words fail me.

“Beautiful!”  A brightly smiling Rosa says in a hushed tone, her wide eyes peering around at the crumbling architecture and the tangled forest.  “We’re home!”

I shake my head.  Rosa hadn’t a clue of the magnitude of this revelation.  The amount of time and backbreaking labor it would take to clear, break, and terrace the land we’d seen thus far into something productive…I couldn’t even guess.  And that is to say nothing of the crumbling villa itself.  Gods, what did the inside look like?  But I hadn’t seen the remainder of the property yet.  I needed to see the rest to truly assess our situation.  The villa sat on a large outcrop, the rest of the land dropping sharply off beyond it.  Leaving the awestruck Rosa behind I hurry forward and around the roofed and tiled porch that surrounded the villa on all sides.  I see birds nesting in the eaves, I see rotted wooden beams, I see graffiti, and I see a whole hell of a lot of broken amphora and other pottery.  By the smell and dark stains on the insides it seemed they had been wine containers, the fact I could smell them at all told me they weren’t as old as the rest of this place.  I ignore it all and continue on.  Coming around to the back the paved area continues out into what was once a magnificent columned terrace that overlooked the land.  I storm right past the stone benches and columns toward the knee high balustrade, trying my best to cling to some small bit of hope.  Perhaps this was an orchard or a vineyard or a…

“Shit.”

The forest did give way to a more open expanse but not the kind I had hoped for.  To the right and left stone stairs lead down the steep slope to a low lying area that had once been an expansive garden.  Though it was overgrown, from above I could see the layout.  A fountain in the center, a winding cobble path through the lawn around it, shrines and statuary about the edges, and even a gazebo near the far end.  If there were other features they had been swallowed by the thick foliage of the forest that encroached in from all around.  Beyond the gazebo I saw the almost circular curve of the river, confirming my earlier thought that the far edge of the property was a meander bordered on three sides by the snaking waterway.  Right away I could see why this estate, as grand as it once was, had eventually been abandoned.  The lawn was strewn all over with roots and branches and random detritus, parts of it were choked out by earth that had once been mud washed in during a flood.  It appeared that whenever the Aciris spilled its banks the whole garden area would be under water.  There was the remnants of a flood wall that bordered the garden where the green met the stony bank but clearly it hadn’t been enough.  Across the river was the scrubby fallow land of some other local.  The shadow of the hill and the trees darkens the land beyond telling me this back terrace faced roughly Eastward, making it ideal to host visitors during hot summer evenings but not so great for growing anything needing a lot of sun.

This was no farm.  Not by a long shot.  It was a failed luxury estate.  No doubt the country home of some patrician from years gone by who likely also once held all of the rich farmland that surrounded this plot.  What in Ceres name was I supposed to do with this?  What have you gotten me into here dear uncle?

From behind me I hear the clink of broken pottery being kicked followed by Rosa’s cheerful voice.  “Well, it could certainly use a coat of paint.”

“A coat of paint!?”  I sigh and bury my face in my hands.  “Gods Rosa.”

She glides up beside me and takes my arm and rests her head against my shoulder.  “Not what you expected?”

“No.  Not even a little!”  I let out a huff.  “We came all this way…for this!?”

“I like it.”  Rosa states unequivocally as she looks out over our land.  “I think it is the most wonderful place in all the world.”

“Sure it looks pretty but how do I make living off of it?  How do I support us?”  My shoulders slump.  “Even if I get some work with one of our neighbors…most of my income would go toward the taxes on this place.  Maybe I can sell it but…who would want it?  This is more burden than blessing.  Rosa, this land needed to be able to support itself and as well as us.  Gods damn it!  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Mmm.”  She squeezes in tight, holding me close for a long quiet moment, before saying.  “A wise man once said that regret and anger won’t help a damn thing.  All we can do is get on with living.”

“Hey.”  I look down at her.  “My Dad used to say that.”  

“I know.”  She smiles back up at me and scrunches her nose.  “Pretty good advice I’d say.”

The tension, the anger, the disappointment all ease as Rosa does that thing that only she can do.  I put my arms around her and pull her in tight, more in love with her than ever.  Looking again at our property I let the veil of my expectations fall away and see it all again with fresh eyes.

It really was a pretty site.  Quite stunning actually, it was probably originally placed here just for this view.  The hills and mountains in the distance were spectacular.  The forest was lush and healthy indicating good earth beneath it.  Though on a hill there was at least some relatively usable land up here if I could somehow clear it.  Being right on the river meant easy fishing and, more crucially, that we’d never have to worry about fresh water.  We were within a couple hours walk along a well built road of a thriving city.  Cleaned up some of these statues and stone might be worth something, it might just help us along in the short term.  All around us our neighbors did Ceres’ good work upon the soil, that gave me comfort.  And, given our nontraditional lifestyle, perhaps a little wooded privacy wouldn’t be so bad in the end.  Also, maybe most importantly, Rosa liked it.  This place had a lot going for it.  How many of my fellow plebeians would give everything they had for such a chance as this?  This inheritance may be the instrument of my eventual ruin but all I could do right now is follow my father’s guidance to do my best and get on with living.

I take in a long breath and smell the fresh forest air.  Our forest.  I shift my weight just to feel the paved terrace beneath my feet.  Our terrace.  I gaze down on the verdant garden, bright flowers still speckled the wild green here and there.  Our garden.  I glance back over my shoulder at the ramshackle villa in all of its long faded glory.  Our villa.  From the road right on down to the river, from the grain field on one side to the one that bordered the other, this was all ours.  Our very own place to build a life together.

“Home!”  I say at last, allowing that powerful word to truly and fully sink in for the first time.  “We’re home Rosa.”

“Home.”  Rosa echoes as she leans into me.  “You got us here Quin, safe and sound, just like I knew you would.”  She sighs happily.  “We made it baby.”

“We made it.”  I cup my hands in behind her pointed ears and kiss her, hard, and she kisses me back.  I scoop her up off of the ground and cradle her in my arms.  “Allow me to carry you across the threshold my Lady?”

She hugs me around the neck with one arm and thrusts her other hand forward.  “Take me to our palace my prince!”

Chapter 79